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a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff1991c --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,683 @@ + + +# Understanding Containerisation and GraalVM Native Image + +## Introduction + +This workshop takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise +[GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) applications. + +GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. Only the code that is +required at run time by the application is included in the executable file. + +An executable file produced by Native Image has several important advantages, in that it: + +- Uses a fraction of the resources required by the JVM, so is cheaper to run +- Starts in milliseconds +- Delivers peak performance immediately, with no warmup +- Can be packaged into a lightweight container image for faster and more efficient deployment +- Presents a reduced attack surface (more on this in future labs) + +Many of the leading microservice frameworks support ahead-of-time compilation with GraalVM Native Image, including +Micronaut, Spring, Helidon, and Quarkus. + +In addition, there are Maven and Gradle plugins for Native Image so you can easily build, +test, and run Java applications as executable files. + +>Note: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides GraalVM Enterprise at no additional cost. + +Estimated workshop time: 60 minutes + +### Lab Objectives + +In this lab you will: + +- Add a basic Spring Boot application to a Docker Image and run it +- Build a native executable from this application, using GraalVM Native Image +- Add the native executable to a Docker Image +- Shrink your application docker image size with GraalVM Native Image and Distroless containers + +>Note: If you see the laptop icon in the lab, this means you need to do something such as enter a command. Keep an eye out for it. + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +``` +# This is where you will need to do something +``` + +## Workshop Prerequisites + +Before starting this workshop, you must have installed: + +* [GraalVM Installation 22 or later, JDK17 +](https://github.com/graalvm/get.graalvm.org/) - We recommend the Enterprise Edition +* The `native-image` tool (see [Native Images](https://www.graalvm.org/latest/docs/getting-started/#native-image)) +* Set your `JAVA_HOME` environment variable to point to your GraalVM installation +* Maven 3.0 or above +* [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/) or [Podman](https://podman.io/getting-started/installation) + +## **STEP 1**: Meet Our Sample Java Application + +In this workshop you are going to build a simple application with a very minimal REST-based API. You are then going to +containerise the application, using Docker. First, take a quick look at your simple application. + +We have provided the source code and build scripts for this application in _native-image/containerisation/lab/src_. + +The application is built on top of the [Spring Boot](https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot) framework and makes use +of the [Spring Native Project](https://docs.spring.io/spring-native/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/) (a Spring incubator +to generate native executables using GraalVM Native Image). + +The application has two classes: + +* `com.example.demo.DemoApplication`: The main Spring Boot class that also defines the HTTP endpoint `/jibber` +* `com.example.demo.Jabberwocky`: A utility class that implements the logic of the application + +So, what does the application do? If you call the endpoint `/jibber`, it will return some nonsense verse generated +in the style of the [Jabberwocky poem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky) by Lewis Carroll. The program achieves this +by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a model of the original poem (this is essentially a statistical model). +This model is then used to generate new text. + +In the example application, you provide it with the text of the poem, then generate a model of the text which the application then uses to +generate a new text that is similar to the original text. We are using the [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library to do the heavy lifting for us--it supports building and using Markov Chains. + +Below are two snippets from the utility class `com.example.demo.Jabberwocky` that builds the model. The `text` variable +contains the text of the original poem. This snippet shows how we create the model and then populate it with `text`. +This is called from the class constructor +and we define the class to be a [Singleton](https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/3.0.0.M3/reference/html/ch04s04.html#beans-factory-scopes-singleton) +(so only one instance of the class ever gets created). + +```java +this.r = new RiMarkov(3); +this.r.addText(text); +``` + +Here you can see the method to generate new lines of verse from the model based on the +original text. + +```java +public String generate() { + String[] lines = this.r.generate(10); + StringBuffer b = new StringBuffer(); + for (int i=0; i< lines.length; i++) { + b.append(lines[i]); + b.append("
\n"); + } + return b.toString(); +} +``` + +Take a little while to view the code and to get acquainted with it. + +To build the application, you are going to use Maven. The _pom.xml_ file was generated using [Spring Initializr](https://start.spring.io) +and contains support to use the Spring Native tooling. This is a dependency that you must add to your Spring Boot projects +if you plan to target GraalVM Native Image. If you are using Maven, adding support for Spring Native will insert the following +plugin to your default build configuration. + +```xml + + org.springframework.experimental + spring-aot-maven-plugin + ${spring-native.version} + + + test-generate + + test-generate + + + + generate + + generate + + + + +``` + +Build your application: from the root directory of the repository, run the following commands in your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +cd native-image/containerisation/lab +./mvnw clean package +``` + +This will generate an "executable" JAR file, one that contains all of the application's dependencies as well as a correctly configured `MANIFEST` +file. You can run this JAR file and then use `curl` to call the application's endpoint to see what you get in return. + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Run the application in the background +java -jar ./target/jibber-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-exec.jar & +``` + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Call the endpoint +curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +``` + +Did you get the some nonsense verse back? OK, so now that you have a built a working application, terminate +it and move on to containerising it. + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Bring the application back to the foreground +fg +# Terminate it with : + +``` + +## **STEP 2**: Containerising Your Java Application with Docker + +Containerising your Java application as a Docker container is straightforward. You can build +a new Docker image based on one that contains a JDK distribution. So, for this tutorial you will use a container +that already contains a JDK, `ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22`--this is an Oracle Linux 8 +image with the GraalVM CE JDK 17 already installed. + +The following is a breakdown of the Dockerfile, which describes how to build the Docker Image. The comments explain the contents. + +```dockerfile +# Base Image +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 + +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +ARG JAR_FILE + +# This image will need to expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the JAR file from the `target` directory into the root of the image +COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar + +# Run Java when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["java"] + +# Pass in the parameters to the Java command that make it load and run your executable JAR file +CMD ["-jar","app.jar"] +``` + +The Dockerfile to containerise your Java application can be found in the directory _native-image/containerisation/lab/00-containerise_. + +To build a Docker image containing your application, run the following commands from your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Build a Docker Image +docker build -f ./00-containerise/Dockerfile \ + --build-arg JAR_FILE=./target/jibber-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-exec.jar \ + -t jibber:jdk.01 . +``` + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# List the newly built image +docker images | head -n2 +``` + +You should see your newly built image listed. Run this image as follows: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-jdk" -p 8080:8080 jibber:jdk.01 +``` + +Then call the endpoint as you did before--you may need to wait for a few seconds before doing to allow the +application to startup. If you get the following error, `curl: (52) Empty reply from server`, this is because the +application is still starting. Wait a few seconds and try again: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Call the endpoint +curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +``` + +Did you see the nonsense verse? Look at how long it took your application to startup. You can extract this from the logs, +as Spring Boot applications write the time to startup to the logs: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker logs jibber-jdk +``` + +For example, in our experiments the Java application started up in 3.896s -- here is the extract from our logs (Note: the time taken to startup +will vary from machine to machine): + +``` +2022-03-09 19:48:09.511 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 3.896 seconds (JVM running for 4.583) +``` + +Before going any further in the lab, terminate your container: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker kill jibber-jdk +``` + +You can also query Docker to get the size of the container image. Run the following commands in your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:jdk.01` +echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) +``` + +This prints the size of the image in MBs. In our experiments, the size was 569MB. + +## **STEP 3**: Building a Native Executable + +So far you have: + +1. Built a Spring Boot application with a HTTP endpoint, `/jibber` +2. Successfully containerised it + +Now you can create a native executable from your application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable +is going to two interesting characteristics, namely: + +1. It is going to start really fast +2. It will use fewer resources than its corresponding Java application + +You can use the native image tooling installed with GraalVM to build a native executable of an +application from the command line, but as you are using Maven already, you are going to use the +[GraalVM Native Build Tools for Maven](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html) which will +conveniently allow you to carry on using maven. + +One way of adding support for building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), +which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. + +The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. +Take a closer look: + +The profile is declared and given a name. + +```xml + + + native + + + +``` + +Next, within the profile, the GraalVM Native Image build tools plugin is included and attached to the `package` phase in Maven. +This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. Notice that you can pass configuration options and parameters to the underlying Native Image +build tool using the `` section. In individual `buildArg` tags you can pass in parameters in exactly the same way +as you do to the `native-image` tool, so you can use all of the parameters that the `native-image` tool accepts: + +```xml + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + ${native-buildtools.version} + true + + + build-native + package + + build + + + + + jibber + + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + + + + + + +``` + +Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` flag): + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +./mvnw package -Pnative +``` + + +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _jibber_. Take a +look at the size of the file: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +ls -lh target/jibber +``` + +Run this native executable and test it, using the following commands from your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +./target/jibber & +curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +``` + +Now you have a native executable of your application that starts really fast! + +Terminate the application before you move on. + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Bring the application to the foreground +fg +# Terminate it with + +``` + +## **STEP 4**: Containerising your Native Executable + +So you have a native executable version of your application, and you have seen it working. Now to containerise it. + +A simple Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory +_native-image/containerisation/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with comments to +explain the contents. This is a two-step docker build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the +second step copies the native executable into a smaller container for use. + +> ### Note: Why Are We Using a Two-Step Docker Build? +> +> When you build a native executable with GraalVM Native Image the executable it builds will be for the platform that +> you are running on. +> +> So, if you are running on OSX on a Mac, then it will generate a mach64 executable. If you are running on Linux, it will +> generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). If you want to containerise your +> application in a Docker Image and you are running on OSX, then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will +> be an OSX compatible executable) and package it within your Docker Image which expects the executable to be a linux +> compatible executable. +> +> Therefore, if you are developing on an OS other than Linux, you need to build within a Docker container that contains a +> Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can be packaged into a Docker container. +> That is what the multi-stage Docker build here achieves. The first step in the build process builds a Linux +> compatible executable and the second one packages that into a Docker Image for deployment. + + +```dockerfile +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder + +# Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries +RUN microdnf update \ + && microdnf install --nodocs \ + tar \ + gzip \ + && microdnf clean all \ + && rm -rf /var/cache/yum + +# Install Maven +# Source: +# 1) https://github.com/carlossg/docker-maven/blob/925e49a1d0986070208e3c06a11c41f8f2cada82/openjdk-17/Dockerfile +# 2) https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi +ARG USER_HOME_DIR="/root" +ARG SHA=89ab8ece99292476447ef6a6800d9842bbb60787b9b8a45c103aa61d2f205a971d8c3ddfb8b03e514455b4173602bd015e82958c0b3ddc1728a57126f773c743 +ARG MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL=https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/3.8.5/binaries/apache-maven-3.8.5-bin.tar.gz + +RUN mkdir -p /usr/share/maven /usr/share/maven/ref \ + && curl -fsSL -o /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz ${MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL} \ + && echo "${SHA} /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz" | sha512sum -c - \ + && tar -xzf /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz -C /usr/share/maven --strip-components=1 \ + && rm -f /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz \ + && ln -s /usr/share/maven/bin/mvn /usr/bin/mvn + +ENV MAVEN_HOME /usr/share/maven +ENV MAVEN_CONFIG "$USER_HOME_DIR/.m2" + +# Set the working directory to /home/app +WORKDIR /build + +# Copy the source code into the image for building +COPY . /build + +# Build +RUN mvn clean package -Pnative + +# The deployment Image +FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim + +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the native executable into the containers +COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber . +ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber"] +``` + + +> ### Note: Building on Linux +> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage docker build and your build times will be faster. +> You can just build the native executable locally and package it in the deployment container _01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux_ +> as follows: +> ```bash +> ./mvnw clean package -Pnative +> docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/jibber -t jibber:native.01 . +> ``` + +To build, run the following from your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Build a Docker Image +docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile \ + -t jibber:native.01 . +# List the newly built image +docker images | head -n2 +``` + +And that is it. You can run this and test it as follows from your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-native" -p 8080:8080 jibber:native.01 +curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +``` + +Again, you should see more nonsense verse in the style of the poem Jabberwocky. You can see how long the +application took to startup by inspecting the logs produced by the application as you did earlier. From your terminal, +run the following command and look for the startup time: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker logs jibber-native +``` +In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.074s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! + +``` +2022-03-09 19:44:12.642 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 0.074 seconds (JVM running for 0.081) +``` + +Terminate your container before moving onto the next step. +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker kill jibber-native +``` + +But before you go to the next step, take a look at the size of the container produced: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:native.01` +echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) +``` + +The container image size we saw in our experiments was 171MB. Quite a lot smaller than the original Java container (589MB). + +## **STEP 5**: Building a Mostly Static Executable and Packaging it in a Distroless Image + +Let's recap, again, what you have done: + +1. You have built a Spring Boot application with a HTTP endpoint, `/jibber` +2. You have successfully containerised it +3. You have built a native executable of your application using the Native Image build Tools for Maven +4. You have containerised your native executable + +In this step, you will shrink your container size even further--smaller containers are quicker to download and start. +With GraalVM Native Image you have the ability to statically link system libraries into the native executable. +If you build a statically linked native executable, you can package the native executable directly into an empty +Docker image, also known as a "scratch" container. + +Another option is to produce what is known as a mostly-statically linked native executable. With this, you statically link +in all system libraries except for the standard C library, `glibc`. With such a native executable you can use a small container, +such as Google's Distroless which contains the `glibc` library, some standard files, and SSL security certificates. The +standard Distroless container is around 20MB in size. + +You will build a mostly-statically linked executable and then package it into a Distroless container. + +The _pom.xml_ tile contains a Maven profile (named `distroless`) to build this mostly-statically linked native executable. +The only difference between this profile and the one you used before, `native`, is that it includes the option `-H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC`. +This instructs `native-image` to build a mostly-statically linked native executable. The following is +a snippet from the `distroless` profile in the _pom.xml_ file that includes this option: + +```xml + + + -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + +``` + +You can build your mostly-statically linked native executable as follows--be aware this will only work on Linux. We will +build our native executable in a docker container in the next step, so if you are using OSX, don't worry. + + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +./mvnw package -Pdistroless +``` + +The generated native executable is in the target directory _jibber-distroless_. + +Now to package it into a Distroless container. The Dockerfile to do this can be found in the directory +_native-image/containerisation/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. Again you are going to use a multi-stage build +in order to build a linux executable on all OSes. Take a look at the contents of the Dockerfile, +which has comments to explain the contents: + +```dockerfile +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder + +# Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries +RUN microdnf update \ + && microdnf install --nodocs \ + tar \ + gzip \ + && microdnf clean all \ + && rm -rf /var/cache/yum + +# Install Maven +# Source: +# 1) https://github.com/carlossg/docker-maven/blob/925e49a1d0986070208e3c06a11c41f8f2cada82/openjdk-17/Dockerfile +# 2) https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi +ARG USER_HOME_DIR="/root" +ARG SHA=89ab8ece99292476447ef6a6800d9842bbb60787b9b8a45c103aa61d2f205a971d8c3ddfb8b03e514455b4173602bd015e82958c0b3ddc1728a57126f773c743 +ARG MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL=https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/3.8.5/binaries/apache-maven-3.8.5-bin.tar.gz + +RUN mkdir -p /usr/share/maven /usr/share/maven/ref \ + && curl -fsSL -o /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz ${MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL} \ + && echo "${SHA} /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz" | sha512sum -c - \ + && tar -xzf /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz -C /usr/share/maven --strip-components=1 \ + && rm -f /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz \ + && ln -s /usr/share/maven/bin/mvn /usr/bin/mvn + +ENV MAVEN_HOME /usr/share/maven +ENV MAVEN_CONFIG "$USER_HOME_DIR/.m2" + +# Set the working directory to /home/app +WORKDIR /build + +# Copy the source code into the image for building +COPY . /build + +# Build +RUN mvn clean package -Pdistroless + +# Deployment Containers +# This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. +FROM gcr.io/distroless/base + +ARG APP_FILE +EXPOSE 8080 + +COPY ${APP_FILE} app +ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] +``` + +> ### Building on Linux +> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage docker build and your build times will be faster. +> You can just build the native executable locally and package it in our deployment container _02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux_ +> as follows: +> ```bash +> ./mvnw clean package -Pdistroless +> docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/jibber-distroless -t jibber:distroless.01 . +> ``` + +To build, run the following command from your terminal: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +# Build a Docker Image +docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile \ + -t jibber:distroless.01 . +``` + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```shell +# List the newly built image +docker images | head -n2 +``` +You can run this and test it as follows: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```shell +docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-distroless" -p 8080:8080 jibber:distroless.01 +curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +``` + + +Again, you should see more nonsense verse in the style of the poem Jabberwocky. You can see how long the +application took to startup by inspecting the logs produced by the application as you did earlier. From your terminal, +run the following command and look for the startup time: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +docker logs jibber-native +``` +In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.074s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! + +``` +2022-03-09 19:44:12.642 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 0.667 seconds (JVM running for 0.779) +``` + +Clean up by terminating the running container. + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```shell +docker kill jibber-distroless +``` + +Great! It worked. But how small, or large, is your container? Use the following commands to check the image size: + +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```shell +size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:distroless.01` +echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) +``` + +In our experiments, we saw a size of around 82MB, compared to 171MB for an Oracle Linux 8 +image. So we have shrunk the container by a lot. A long way down from our starting size, for +the Java container, of almost 600MB. + +## Summary + +We hope you have enjoyed this lab and learnt a few things along the way. We've looked at how you can containerise +a Java application. Then we've seen how to convert that Java application into a native executable, which starts significantly +faster than the Java application. You then containerised the native executable and have seen how the size of the +Docker image, with your native executable in it, is much smaller than the Java Docker Image. + +Finally, we looked at how we can build a mostly-statically linked native executable with Native Image. These can be +packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the Docker Image even further. + +### Learn More + +- Watch a presentation by the Native Image architect Christian Wimmer [GraalVM Native Image: Large-scale static analysis for Java](https://www.youtube.com/embed/rLP-8q3Cb8M) +- [GraalVM Native Image reference documentation](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/21/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB.svg b/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB.svg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4ece0e --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB.svg @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +RMIL_Technology \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB_.png b/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB_.png new 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http://www.java.com/en/download/help/error_hotspot.xml +hs_err_pid* + +# Exclude data files +*_99.txt +*_95.txt diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.properties b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.properties new file mode 100644 index 0000000..57bb584 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.properties @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one +# or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file +# distributed with this work for additional information +# regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file +# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the +# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance +# with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, +# software distributed under the License is distributed on an +# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY +# KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the +# specific language governing permissions and limitations +# under the License. +distributionUrl=https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/apache-maven/3.8.6/apache-maven-3.8.6-bin.zip +wrapperUrl=https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/wrapper/maven-wrapper/3.1.0/maven-wrapper-3.1.0.jar diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c73c47e --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +# Base Image +FROM container-registry.oracle.com/java/openjdk:17-oraclelinux8 + +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +ARG JAR_FILE + +# This image will need to expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the JAR file from the `target` directory into the root of the image +COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar + +# Run Java when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["java"] + +# Pass in the parameters to the Java command that make it load and run your executable JAR file +CMD ["-jar","app.jar"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0037fe7 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder + +# Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries +RUN microdnf update \ + && microdnf install --nodocs \ + tar \ + gzip \ + && microdnf clean all \ + && rm -rf /var/cache/yum + +# Set the working directory to /home/app +WORKDIR /build + +# Copy the source code into the image for building +COPY . /build + +# Build +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative + +# The deployment Image +FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim + +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the native executable into the containers +COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber . +ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fed1ff1 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +# The deployment Image +FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim + +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +ARG APP_FILE + +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the native executable into the containers +COPY ${APP_FILE} /app +ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07478cc --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder + +# Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries +RUN microdnf update \ + && microdnf install --nodocs \ + tar \ + gzip \ + && microdnf clean all \ + && rm -rf /var/cache/yum + +# Set the working directory to /home/app +WORKDIR /build + +# Copy the source code into the image for building +COPY . /build + +# Build +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless + +# Deployment Containers +FROM gcr.io/distroless/base + +EXPOSE 8080 + +COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber-distroless . +ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber-distroless"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4561ba --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +# The deployment Image +FROM gcr.io/distroless/base + +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +ARG APP_FILE + +EXPOSE 8080 + +# Copy the native executable into the containers +COPY ${APP_FILE} /app +ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw new file mode 100755 index 0000000..5643201 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw @@ -0,0 +1,316 @@ +#!/bin/sh +# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one +# or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file +# distributed with this work for additional information +# regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file +# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the +# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance +# with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at +# +# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +# +# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, +# software distributed under the License is distributed on an +# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY +# KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the +# specific language governing permissions and limitations +# under the License. +# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +# Maven Start Up Batch script +# +# Required ENV vars: +# ------------------ +# JAVA_HOME - location of a JDK home dir +# +# Optional ENV vars +# ----------------- +# M2_HOME - location of maven2's installed home dir +# MAVEN_OPTS - parameters passed to the Java VM when running Maven +# e.g. to debug Maven itself, use +# set MAVEN_OPTS=-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000 +# MAVEN_SKIP_RC - flag to disable loading of mavenrc files +# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +if [ -z "$MAVEN_SKIP_RC" ] ; then + + if [ -f /usr/local/etc/mavenrc ] ; then + . /usr/local/etc/mavenrc + fi + + if [ -f /etc/mavenrc ] ; then + . /etc/mavenrc + fi + + if [ -f "$HOME/.mavenrc" ] ; then + . "$HOME/.mavenrc" + fi + +fi + +# OS specific support. $var _must_ be set to either true or false. +cygwin=false; +darwin=false; +mingw=false +case "`uname`" in + CYGWIN*) cygwin=true ;; + MINGW*) mingw=true;; + Darwin*) darwin=true + # Use /usr/libexec/java_home if available, otherwise fall back to /Library/Java/Home + # See https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/qa/qa1170/_index.html + if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ]; then + if [ -x "/usr/libexec/java_home" ]; then + export JAVA_HOME="`/usr/libexec/java_home`" + else + export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/Home" + fi + fi + ;; +esac + +if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ] ; then + if [ -r /etc/gentoo-release ] ; then + JAVA_HOME=`java-config --jre-home` + fi +fi + +if [ -z "$M2_HOME" ] ; then + ## resolve links - $0 may be a link to maven's home + PRG="$0" + + # need this for relative symlinks + while [ -h "$PRG" ] ; do + ls=`ls -ld "$PRG"` + link=`expr "$ls" : '.*-> \(.*\)$'` + if expr "$link" : '/.*' > /dev/null; then + PRG="$link" + else + PRG="`dirname "$PRG"`/$link" + fi + done + + saveddir=`pwd` + + M2_HOME=`dirname "$PRG"`/.. + + # make it fully qualified + M2_HOME=`cd "$M2_HOME" && pwd` + + cd "$saveddir" + # echo Using m2 at $M2_HOME +fi + +# For Cygwin, ensure paths are in UNIX format before anything is touched +if $cygwin ; then + [ -n "$M2_HOME" ] && + M2_HOME=`cygpath --unix "$M2_HOME"` + [ -n "$JAVA_HOME" ] && + JAVA_HOME=`cygpath --unix "$JAVA_HOME"` + [ -n "$CLASSPATH" ] && + CLASSPATH=`cygpath --path --unix "$CLASSPATH"` +fi + +# For Mingw, ensure paths are in UNIX format before anything is touched +if $mingw ; then + [ -n "$M2_HOME" ] && + M2_HOME="`(cd "$M2_HOME"; pwd)`" + [ -n "$JAVA_HOME" ] && + JAVA_HOME="`(cd "$JAVA_HOME"; pwd)`" +fi + +if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ]; then + javaExecutable="`which javac`" + if [ -n "$javaExecutable" ] && ! [ "`expr \"$javaExecutable\" : '\([^ ]*\)'`" = "no" ]; then + # readlink(1) is not available as standard on Solaris 10. + readLink=`which readlink` + if [ ! `expr "$readLink" : '\([^ ]*\)'` = "no" ]; then + if $darwin ; then + javaHome="`dirname \"$javaExecutable\"`" + javaExecutable="`cd \"$javaHome\" && pwd -P`/javac" + else + javaExecutable="`readlink -f \"$javaExecutable\"`" + fi + javaHome="`dirname \"$javaExecutable\"`" + javaHome=`expr "$javaHome" : '\(.*\)/bin'` + JAVA_HOME="$javaHome" + export JAVA_HOME + fi + fi +fi + +if [ -z "$JAVACMD" ] ; then + if [ -n "$JAVA_HOME" ] ; then + if [ -x "$JAVA_HOME/jre/sh/java" ] ; then + # IBM's JDK on AIX uses strange locations for the executables + JAVACMD="$JAVA_HOME/jre/sh/java" + else + JAVACMD="$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" + fi + else + JAVACMD="`\\unset -f command; \\command -v java`" + fi +fi + +if [ ! -x "$JAVACMD" ] ; then + echo "Error: JAVA_HOME is not defined correctly." >&2 + echo " We cannot execute $JAVACMD" >&2 + exit 1 +fi + +if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ] ; then + echo "Warning: JAVA_HOME environment variable is not set." +fi + +CLASSWORLDS_LAUNCHER=org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher + +# traverses directory structure from process work directory to filesystem root +# first directory with .mvn subdirectory is considered project base directory +find_maven_basedir() { + + if [ -z "$1" ] + then + echo "Path not specified to find_maven_basedir" + return 1 + fi + + basedir="$1" + wdir="$1" + while [ "$wdir" != '/' ] ; do + if [ -d "$wdir"/.mvn ] ; then + basedir=$wdir + break + fi + # workaround for JBEAP-8937 (on Solaris 10/Sparc) + if [ -d "${wdir}" ]; then + wdir=`cd "$wdir/.."; pwd` + fi + # end of workaround + done + echo "${basedir}" +} + +# concatenates all lines of a file +concat_lines() { + if [ -f "$1" ]; then + echo "$(tr -s '\n' ' ' < "$1")" + fi +} + +BASE_DIR=`find_maven_basedir "$(pwd)"` +if [ -z "$BASE_DIR" ]; then + exit 1; +fi + +########################################################################################## +# Extension to allow automatically downloading the maven-wrapper.jar from Maven-central +# This allows using the maven wrapper in projects that prohibit checking in binary data. +########################################################################################## +if [ -r "$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.jar" ]; then + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Found .mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.jar" + fi +else + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Couldn't find .mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.jar, downloading it ..." + fi + if [ -n "$MVNW_REPOURL" ]; then + jarUrl="$MVNW_REPOURL/org/apache/maven/wrapper/maven-wrapper/3.1.0/maven-wrapper-3.1.0.jar" + else + jarUrl="https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/wrapper/maven-wrapper/3.1.0/maven-wrapper-3.1.0.jar" + fi + while IFS="=" read key value; do + case "$key" in (wrapperUrl) jarUrl="$value"; break ;; + esac + done < "$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.properties" + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Downloading from: $jarUrl" + fi + wrapperJarPath="$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.jar" + if $cygwin; then + wrapperJarPath=`cygpath --path --windows "$wrapperJarPath"` + fi + + if command -v wget > /dev/null; then + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Found wget ... using wget" + fi + if [ -z "$MVNW_USERNAME" ] || [ -z "$MVNW_PASSWORD" ]; then + wget "$jarUrl" -O "$wrapperJarPath" || rm -f "$wrapperJarPath" + else + wget --http-user=$MVNW_USERNAME --http-password=$MVNW_PASSWORD "$jarUrl" -O "$wrapperJarPath" || rm -f "$wrapperJarPath" + fi + elif command -v curl > /dev/null; then + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Found curl ... using curl" + fi + if [ -z "$MVNW_USERNAME" ] || [ -z "$MVNW_PASSWORD" ]; then + curl -o "$wrapperJarPath" "$jarUrl" -f + else + curl --user $MVNW_USERNAME:$MVNW_PASSWORD -o "$wrapperJarPath" "$jarUrl" -f + fi + + else + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo "Falling back to using Java to download" + fi + javaClass="$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/MavenWrapperDownloader.java" + # For Cygwin, switch paths to Windows format before running javac + if $cygwin; then + javaClass=`cygpath --path --windows "$javaClass"` + fi + if [ -e "$javaClass" ]; then + if [ ! -e "$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/MavenWrapperDownloader.class" ]; then + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo " - Compiling MavenWrapperDownloader.java ..." + fi + # Compiling the Java class + ("$JAVA_HOME/bin/javac" "$javaClass") + fi + if [ -e "$BASE_DIR/.mvn/wrapper/MavenWrapperDownloader.class" ]; then + # Running the downloader + if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo " - Running MavenWrapperDownloader.java ..." + fi + ("$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" -cp .mvn/wrapper MavenWrapperDownloader "$MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR") + fi + fi + fi +fi +########################################################################################## +# End of extension +########################################################################################## + +export MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR=${MAVEN_BASEDIR:-"$BASE_DIR"} +if [ "$MVNW_VERBOSE" = true ]; then + echo $MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR +fi +MAVEN_OPTS="$(concat_lines "$MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR/.mvn/jvm.config") $MAVEN_OPTS" + +# For Cygwin, switch paths to Windows format before running java +if $cygwin; then + [ -n "$M2_HOME" ] && + M2_HOME=`cygpath --path --windows "$M2_HOME"` + [ -n "$JAVA_HOME" ] && + JAVA_HOME=`cygpath --path --windows "$JAVA_HOME"` + [ -n "$CLASSPATH" ] && + CLASSPATH=`cygpath --path --windows "$CLASSPATH"` + [ -n "$MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR" ] && + MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR=`cygpath --path --windows "$MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR"` +fi + +# Provide a "standardized" way to retrieve the CLI args that will +# work with both Windows and non-Windows executions. +MAVEN_CMD_LINE_ARGS="$MAVEN_CONFIG $@" +export MAVEN_CMD_LINE_ARGS + +WRAPPER_LAUNCHER=org.apache.maven.wrapper.MavenWrapperMain + +exec "$JAVACMD" \ + $MAVEN_OPTS \ + $MAVEN_DEBUG_OPTS \ + -classpath "$MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR/.mvn/wrapper/maven-wrapper.jar" \ + "-Dmaven.home=${M2_HOME}" \ + "-Dmaven.multiModuleProjectDirectory=${MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR}" \ + ${WRAPPER_LAUNCHER} $MAVEN_CONFIG "$@" diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw.cmd b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw.cmd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a15b7f --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/mvnw.cmd @@ -0,0 +1,188 @@ +@REM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +@REM Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one +@REM or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file +@REM distributed with this work for additional information +@REM regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file +@REM to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the +@REM "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance +@REM with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at +@REM +@REM http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 +@REM +@REM Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, +@REM software distributed under the License is distributed on an +@REM "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY +@REM KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the +@REM specific language governing permissions and limitations +@REM under the License. +@REM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +@REM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +@REM Maven Start Up Batch script +@REM +@REM Required ENV vars: +@REM JAVA_HOME - location of a JDK home dir +@REM +@REM Optional ENV vars +@REM M2_HOME - location of maven2's installed home dir +@REM MAVEN_BATCH_ECHO - set to 'on' to enable the echoing of the batch commands +@REM MAVEN_BATCH_PAUSE - set to 'on' to wait for a keystroke before ending +@REM MAVEN_OPTS - parameters passed to the Java VM when running Maven +@REM e.g. to debug Maven itself, use +@REM set MAVEN_OPTS=-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000 +@REM MAVEN_SKIP_RC - flag to disable loading of mavenrc files +@REM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +@REM Begin all REM lines with '@' in case MAVEN_BATCH_ECHO is 'on' +@echo off +@REM set title of command window +title %0 +@REM enable echoing by setting MAVEN_BATCH_ECHO to 'on' +@if "%MAVEN_BATCH_ECHO%" == "on" echo %MAVEN_BATCH_ECHO% + +@REM set %HOME% to equivalent of $HOME +if "%HOME%" == "" (set "HOME=%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%") + +@REM Execute a user defined script before this one +if not "%MAVEN_SKIP_RC%" == "" goto skipRcPre +@REM check for pre script, once with legacy .bat ending and once with .cmd ending +if exist "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_pre.bat" call "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_pre.bat" %* +if exist "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_pre.cmd" call "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_pre.cmd" %* +:skipRcPre + +@setlocal + +set ERROR_CODE=0 + +@REM To isolate internal variables from possible post scripts, we use another setlocal +@setlocal + +@REM ==== START VALIDATION ==== +if not "%JAVA_HOME%" == "" goto OkJHome + +echo. +echo Error: JAVA_HOME not found in your environment. >&2 +echo Please set the JAVA_HOME variable in your environment to match the >&2 +echo location of your Java installation. >&2 +echo. +goto error + +:OkJHome +if exist "%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe" goto init + +echo. +echo Error: JAVA_HOME is set to an invalid directory. >&2 +echo JAVA_HOME = "%JAVA_HOME%" >&2 +echo Please set the JAVA_HOME variable in your environment to match the >&2 +echo location of your Java installation. >&2 +echo. +goto error + +@REM ==== END VALIDATION ==== + +:init + +@REM Find the project base dir, i.e. the directory that contains the folder ".mvn". +@REM Fallback to current working directory if not found. + +set MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR=%MAVEN_BASEDIR% +IF NOT "%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%"=="" goto endDetectBaseDir + +set EXEC_DIR=%CD% +set WDIR=%EXEC_DIR% +:findBaseDir +IF EXIST "%WDIR%"\.mvn goto baseDirFound +cd .. +IF "%WDIR%"=="%CD%" goto baseDirNotFound +set WDIR=%CD% +goto findBaseDir + +:baseDirFound +set MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR=%WDIR% +cd "%EXEC_DIR%" +goto endDetectBaseDir + +:baseDirNotFound +set MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR=%EXEC_DIR% +cd "%EXEC_DIR%" + +:endDetectBaseDir + +IF NOT EXIST "%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%\.mvn\jvm.config" goto endReadAdditionalConfig + +@setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion +for /F "usebackq delims=" %%a in ("%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%\.mvn\jvm.config") do set JVM_CONFIG_MAVEN_PROPS=!JVM_CONFIG_MAVEN_PROPS! %%a +@endlocal & set JVM_CONFIG_MAVEN_PROPS=%JVM_CONFIG_MAVEN_PROPS% + +:endReadAdditionalConfig + +SET MAVEN_JAVA_EXE="%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe" +set WRAPPER_JAR="%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%\.mvn\wrapper\maven-wrapper.jar" +set WRAPPER_LAUNCHER=org.apache.maven.wrapper.MavenWrapperMain + +set DOWNLOAD_URL="https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/wrapper/maven-wrapper/3.1.0/maven-wrapper-3.1.0.jar" + +FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims==" %%A IN ("%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%\.mvn\wrapper\maven-wrapper.properties") DO ( + IF "%%A"=="wrapperUrl" SET DOWNLOAD_URL=%%B +) + +@REM Extension to allow automatically downloading the maven-wrapper.jar from Maven-central +@REM This allows using the maven wrapper in projects that prohibit checking in binary data. +if exist %WRAPPER_JAR% ( + if "%MVNW_VERBOSE%" == "true" ( + echo Found %WRAPPER_JAR% + ) +) else ( + if not "%MVNW_REPOURL%" == "" ( + SET DOWNLOAD_URL="%MVNW_REPOURL%/org/apache/maven/wrapper/maven-wrapper/3.1.0/maven-wrapper-3.1.0.jar" + ) + if "%MVNW_VERBOSE%" == "true" ( + echo Couldn't find %WRAPPER_JAR%, downloading it ... + echo Downloading from: %DOWNLOAD_URL% + ) + + powershell -Command "&{"^ + "$webclient = new-object System.Net.WebClient;"^ + "if (-not ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty('%MVNW_USERNAME%') -and [string]::IsNullOrEmpty('%MVNW_PASSWORD%'))) {"^ + "$webclient.Credentials = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential('%MVNW_USERNAME%', '%MVNW_PASSWORD%');"^ + "}"^ + "[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12; $webclient.DownloadFile('%DOWNLOAD_URL%', '%WRAPPER_JAR%')"^ + "}" + if "%MVNW_VERBOSE%" == "true" ( + echo Finished downloading %WRAPPER_JAR% + ) +) +@REM End of extension + +@REM Provide a "standardized" way to retrieve the CLI args that will +@REM work with both Windows and non-Windows executions. +set MAVEN_CMD_LINE_ARGS=%* + +%MAVEN_JAVA_EXE% ^ + %JVM_CONFIG_MAVEN_PROPS% ^ + %MAVEN_OPTS% ^ + %MAVEN_DEBUG_OPTS% ^ + -classpath %WRAPPER_JAR% ^ + "-Dmaven.multiModuleProjectDirectory=%MAVEN_PROJECTBASEDIR%" ^ + %WRAPPER_LAUNCHER% %MAVEN_CONFIG% %* +if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto error +goto end + +:error +set ERROR_CODE=1 + +:end +@endlocal & set ERROR_CODE=%ERROR_CODE% + +if not "%MAVEN_SKIP_RC%"=="" goto skipRcPost +@REM check for post script, once with legacy .bat ending and once with .cmd ending +if exist "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_post.bat" call "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_post.bat" +if exist "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_post.cmd" call "%USERPROFILE%\mavenrc_post.cmd" +:skipRcPost + +@REM pause the script if MAVEN_BATCH_PAUSE is set to 'on' +if "%MAVEN_BATCH_PAUSE%"=="on" pause + +if "%MAVEN_TERMINATE_CMD%"=="on" exit %ERROR_CODE% + +cmd /C exit /B %ERROR_CODE% diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1816666 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -0,0 +1,245 @@ + + + 4.0.0 + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-parent + 2.7.4 + + + com.oracle.graalvm + What_the_Dickens + 0.0.3-SNAPSHOT + what_the_dickens + Generates random Dickens prose + + + + 17 + + + 0.12.1 + + jibber + + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-web + + + org.springframework.experimental + spring-native + ${spring-native.version} + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-actuator + + + + io.micrometer + micrometer-registry-prometheus + runtime + + + + org.rednoise + rita + 2.4.501 + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-test + test + + + + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-maven-plugin + + ${repackage.classifier} + + paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny + + true + + + + + + + org.springframework.experimental + spring-aot-maven-plugin + ${spring-native.version} + + + test-generate + + test-generate + + + + generate + + generate + + + + + + + + + + + spring-releases + Spring Releases + https://repo.spring.io/release + + false + + + + + + spring-releases + Spring Releases + https://repo.spring.io/release + + false + + + + + + + + native + + exec + + 0.9.13 + + + + org.junit.platform + junit-platform-launcher + test + + + + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + ${native-buildtools.version} + true + + + + test-native + test + + test + + + + + build-native + package + + build + + + + + + ${binary-name} + + + -Ob + + --install-exit-handlers + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + + -H:+AllowVMInspection + + + + + + + + + static + + exec + + 0.9.13 + + + + org.junit.platform + junit-platform-launcher + test + + + + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + ${native-buildtools.version} + true + + + + test-native + test + + test + + + + + build-native + package + + build + + + + + + ${binary-name} + + + -Ob + + --install-exit-handlers + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + + -H:+AllowVMInspection + + --static --libc=musl + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/scripts/startup.sh b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/scripts/startup.sh new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1c2330 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/scripts/startup.sh @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env bash + +# Grab from the docker logs of the container the startup time. Spring Boot apps output the time to startup into +# the logs. We look sfor this, extract it and clean it up using a Regular Expression +docker logs --tail 10 $(docker ps -q -f name=$1) | grep -Eo 'Started .+ in [0-9]+.[0-9]+ sec' | sed 's/[[:space:]]sec$//' | sed 's/Started[[:space:]][a-zA-Z]\+[[:space:]]in[[:space:]]//' diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13ee30d --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +/* + * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. + * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. + * + * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 + * + * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any + * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or + * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all + * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or + * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the + * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) + * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both + * + * (a) the Software, and + * + * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if + * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software + * is contributed by such licensors), + * + * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create + * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, + * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the + * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on + * either these or other terms. + * + * This license is subject to the following condition: + * + * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a + * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial + * portions of the Software. + * + * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR + * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, + * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE + * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER + * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, + * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE + * SOFTWARE. + */ +package com.example; + +import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; +import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; +import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; +import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping; +import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod; +import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController; +import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; + + +@SpringBootApplication +@RestController +public class DemoApplication { + + @Autowired + WhatTheDickens wtd; + + public static void main(String[] args) { + SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args); + } + + @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, path = "/whatTheDickens") + ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { + return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); + } +} diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77262bd --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +/* + * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. + * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. + * + * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 + * + * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any + * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or + * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all + * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or + * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the + * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) + * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both + * + * (a) the Software, and + * + * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if + * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software + * is contributed by such licensors), + * + * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create + * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, + * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the + * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on + * either these or other terms. + * + * This license is subject to the following condition: + * + * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a + * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial + * portions of the Software. + * + * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR + * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, + * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE + * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER + * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, + * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE + * SOFTWARE. + */ +package com.example; + +import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; +import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; +import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*; +import io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed; + + +import jdk.jfr.Event; +import jdk.jfr.Description; +import jdk.jfr.Label; + +/** + * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens nonsense prose. + * + */ +@RestController +@RequestMapping("/whatTheDickens") +@Timed +public class DickensController { + + /** + * Custom JFR Event + */ + @Label("DickensEvent") + @Description("Used for recording events in our DickensController") + static class DickensEvent extends Event { + // Message. + @Label("Message") + String message; + } + + @Autowired + WhatTheDickens wtd; + + @RequestMapping + ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { + DickensEvent event = new DickensEvent(); + event.message = "Prose being generated"; + event.commit(); + return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); + } + + @RequestMapping(value = "/{number}") + ResponseEntity whatTheDickensN(@PathVariable int number) { + return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate(number)); + } +} + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2421963 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java @@ -0,0 +1,61 @@ +/* + * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. + * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. + * + * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 + * + * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any + * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or + * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all + * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or + * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the + * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) + * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both + * + * (a) the Software, and + * + * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if + * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software + * is contributed by such licensors), + * + * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create + * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, + * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the + * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on + * either these or other terms. + * + * This license is subject to the following condition: + * + * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a + * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial + * portions of the Software. + * + * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR + * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, + * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE + * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER + * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, + * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE + * SOFTWARE. + */ +package com.example; + +import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; +import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*; +import io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed; + +/** + * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens nonsense prose. + * + */ +@RestController +@RequestMapping("/info") +@Timed +public class InfoController { + + @RequestMapping + ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { + return ResponseEntity.ok("Version : 1.1"); + } +} + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8684e41 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java @@ -0,0 +1,137 @@ +/* + * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. + * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. + * + * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 + * + * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any + * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or + * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all + * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or + * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the + * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) + * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both + * + * (a) the Software, and + * + * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if + * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software + * is contributed by such licensors), + * + * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create + * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, + * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the + * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on + * either these or other terms. + * + * This license is subject to the following condition: + * + * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a + * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial + * portions of the Software. + * + * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR + * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, + * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE + * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER + * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, + * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE + * SOFTWARE. + */ +package com.example; + +import java.io.BufferedReader; +import java.io.IOException; +import java.io.InputStreamReader; +import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets; +import java.util.HashSet; +import java.util.Map; +import java.util.Set; +import java.util.logging.Level; +import java.util.logging.Logger; + +import rita.RiMarkov; + +public class WhatTheDickens { + + private final static String COMMENT = "***"; + private final static String START_MARKER = "START"; + private final static String END_MARKER = "END"; + private final static Set BOOKS = new HashSet<>(); + private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); + private final static Map GEN_MAP; + + static { + GEN_MAP = Map.of( + "minLength", 15, + "temperature", 100f, + "allowDuplicates", false + ); + BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); + BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); + BOOKS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); + BOOKS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); + BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); + long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); + for (String book : BOOKS) { + try { + readBook(book); + System.out.println("Read book: " + book); + } catch (IOException ex) { + Logger.getLogger(WhatTheDickens.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); + } + } + System.out.println("Time taken: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + "ms"); + } + + public static void main(String[] args) { + System.out.println(new WhatTheDickens().generate(15)); + } + + private static final void readBook(String book) throws IOException { + StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder(); + String readLine; + boolean inStory = false; + try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { + while (true) { + readLine = in.readLine(); + if (readLine.startsWith(COMMENT)) { + //System.out.println(readLine); + if (readLine.contains(START_MARKER)) { + //System.out.println("Starting Story"); + inStory = true; + } else { + if (readLine.contains(END_MARKER)) { + //System.out.println("Reached end of story"); + break; + } + } + } else { + if (inStory) { + out.append(readLine); + out.append(" "); + } + } + } + } + String sentences = out.toString(); + //System.out.println(sentences); + MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); + } + + public String generate() { + return generate(10); + } + + public String generate(final int numLines) { + String[] lines = MARKOV_MODEL.generate(numLines, GEN_MAP); + return String.join("
\n", lines); + } +} diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c8bce3 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16281 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: A Tale of Two Cities + A Story of the French Revolution + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: January, 1994 [eBook #98] +[Most recently updated: December 20, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Judith Boss and David Widger + + +A TALE OF TWO CITIES + +A STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION + +By Charles Dickens + + +CONTENTS + + + Book the First--Recalled to Life + + CHAPTER I The Period + CHAPTER II The Mail + CHAPTER III The Night Shadows + CHAPTER IV The Preparation + CHAPTER V The Wine-shop + CHAPTER VI The Shoemaker + + + Book the Second--the Golden Thread + + CHAPTER I Five Years Later + CHAPTER II A Sight + CHAPTER III A Disappointment + CHAPTER IV Congratulatory + CHAPTER V The Jackal + CHAPTER VI Hundreds of People + CHAPTER VII Monseigneur in Town + CHAPTER VIII Monseigneur in the Country + CHAPTER IX The Gorgon’s Head + CHAPTER X Two Promises + CHAPTER XI A Companion Picture + CHAPTER XII The Fellow of Delicacy + CHAPTER XIII The Fellow of no Delicacy + CHAPTER XIV The Honest Tradesman + CHAPTER XV Knitting + CHAPTER XVI Still Knitting + CHAPTER XVII One Night + CHAPTER XVIII Nine Days + CHAPTER XIX An Opinion + CHAPTER XX A Plea + CHAPTER XXI Echoing Footsteps + CHAPTER XXII The Sea Still Rises + CHAPTER XXIII Fire Rises + CHAPTER XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock + + + Book the Third--the Track of a Storm + + CHAPTER I In Secret + CHAPTER II The Grindstone + CHAPTER III The Shadow + CHAPTER IV Calm in Storm + CHAPTER V The Wood-sawyer + CHAPTER VI Triumph + CHAPTER VII A Knock at the Door + CHAPTER VIII A Hand at Cards + CHAPTER IX The Game Made + CHAPTER X The Substance of the Shadow + CHAPTER XI Dusk + CHAPTER XII Darkness + CHAPTER XIII Fifty-two + CHAPTER XIV The Knitting Done + CHAPTER XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** + +Book the First--Recalled to Life + + + + +CHAPTER I. +The Period + + +It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of +wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it +was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the +season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of +despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were +all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in +short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its +noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for +evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. + +There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the +throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with +a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer +than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, +that things in general were settled for ever. + +It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. +Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, +as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth +blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had +heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were +made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane +ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its +messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally +deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the +earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, +from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange +to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any +communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane +brood. + +France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her +sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down +hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her +Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane +achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue +torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not +kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks +which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty +yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and +Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, +already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into +boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in +it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses +of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were +sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with +rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which +the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of +the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work +unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about +with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion +that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. + +In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to +justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and +highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; +families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing +their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman +in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and +challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of +“the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the +mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and +then got shot dead himself by the other four, “in consequence of the +failure of his ammunition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; +that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand +and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the +illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London +gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law +fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; +thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at +Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search +for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the +musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences +much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy +and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing +up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on +Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the +hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of +Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, +and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of +sixpence. + +All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close +upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. +Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, +those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the +fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights +with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred +and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small +creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along the +roads that lay before them. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +The Mail + + +It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, +before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. +The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up +Shooter’s Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, +as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish +for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, +and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the +horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the +coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back +to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in +combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose +otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals +are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to +their duty. + +With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through +the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were +falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested +them and brought them to a stand, with a wary “Wo-ho! so-ho-then!” the +near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it--like an +unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the +hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a +nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. + +There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its +forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding +none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the +air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the +waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out +everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, +and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed +into it, as if they had made it all. + +Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the +side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the +ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from +anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was +hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from +the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers +were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on +the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, +when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in +“the Captain’s” pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable +non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard +of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one +thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter’s Hill, as +he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, +and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a +loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, +deposited on a substratum of cutlass. + +The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected +the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they +all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but +the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have +taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the +journey. + +“Wo-ho!” said the coachman. “So, then! One more pull and you’re at the +top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to +it!--Joe!” + +“Halloa!” the guard replied. + +“What o’clock do you make it, Joe?” + +“Ten minutes, good, past eleven.” + +“My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not atop of Shooter’s +yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!” + +The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, +made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed +suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its +passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach +stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three +had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead +into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of +getting shot instantly as a highwayman. + +The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses +stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for +the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in. + +“Tst! Joe!” cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his +box. + +“What do you say, Tom?” + +They both listened. + +“I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.” + +“_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leaving his hold +of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. “Gentlemen! In the king’s +name, all of you!” + +With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on +the offensive. + +The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; +the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He +remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained +in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, +and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked +back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up +his ears and looked back, without contradicting. + +The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring +of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet +indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to +the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the +passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the +quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding +the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. + +The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. + +“So-ho!” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. “Yo there! Stand! +I shall fire!” + +The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, +a man’s voice called from the mist, “Is that the Dover mail?” + +“Never you mind what it is!” the guard retorted. “What are you?” + +“_Is_ that the Dover mail?” + +“Why do you want to know?” + +“I want a passenger, if it is.” + +“What passenger?” + +“Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” + +Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, +the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully. + +“Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the mist, +“because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in +your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.” + +“What is the matter?” asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering +speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?” + +(“I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the guard to +himself. “He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”) + +“Yes, Mr. Lorry.” + +“What is the matter?” + +“A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.” + +“I know this messenger, guard,” said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the +road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two +passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and +pulled up the window. “He may come close; there’s nothing wrong.” + +“I hope there ain’t, but I can’t make so ‘Nation sure of that,” said the +guard, in gruff soliloquy. “Hallo you!” + +“Well! And hallo you!” said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. + +“Come on at a footpace! d’ye mind me? And if you’ve got holsters to that +saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand go nigh ’em. For I’m a devil +at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So +now let’s look at you.” + +The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, +and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider +stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger +a small folded paper. The rider’s horse was blown, and both horse and +rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of +the man. + +“Guard!” said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. + +The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised +blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, +answered curtly, “Sir.” + +“There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s Bank. You must +know Tellson’s Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown +to drink. I may read this?” + +“If so be as you’re quick, sir.” + +He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and +read--first to himself and then aloud: “‘Wait at Dover for Mam’selle.’ +It’s not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED +TO LIFE.” + +Jerry started in his saddle. “That’s a Blazing strange answer, too,” + said he, at his hoarsest. + +“Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as +well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night.” + +With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not at +all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted +their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general +pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape +the hazard of originating any other kind of action. + +The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round +it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss +in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and +having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, +looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a +few smith’s tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was +furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown +and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut +himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, +and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in +five minutes. + +“Tom!” softly over the coach roof. + +“Hallo, Joe.” + +“Did you hear the message?” + +“I did, Joe.” + +“What did you make of it, Tom?” + +“Nothing at all, Joe.” + +“That’s a coincidence, too,” the guard mused, “for I made the same of it +myself.” + +Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not +only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and +shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of +holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his +heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within +hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the +hill. + +“After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t trust your +fore-legs till I get you on the level,” said this hoarse messenger, +glancing at his mare. “‘Recalled to life.’ That’s a Blazing strange +message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You’d +be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, +Jerry!” + + + + +CHAPTER III. +The Night Shadows + + +A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is +constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A +solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every +one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every +room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating +heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of +its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the +awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I +turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time +to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable +water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses +of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the +book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read +but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an +eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood +in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, +my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable +consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that +individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In +any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there +a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their +innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? + +As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the +messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the +first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the +three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail +coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had +been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the +breadth of a county between him and the next. + +The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at +ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his +own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that +assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with +no depth in the colour or form, and much too near together--as if they +were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too +far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like +a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and +throat, which descended nearly to the wearer’s knees. When he stopped +for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he +poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he +muffled again. + +“No, Jerry, no!” said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. +“It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn’t +suit _your_ line of business! Recalled--! Bust me if I don’t think he’d +been a drinking!” + +His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several +times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, +which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all +over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was +so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked +wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might +have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over. + +While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night +watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who +was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the +night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such +shapes to the mare as arose out of _her_ private topics of uneasiness. +They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. + +What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon +its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, +likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms +their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested. + +Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank +passenger--with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what +lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, +and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special +jolt--nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little +coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the +bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great +stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, +and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with +all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then +the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of their valuable +stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a +little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among +them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them +safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them. + +But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach +(in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was +always with him, there was another current of impression that never +ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one +out of a grave. + +Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him +was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did +not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by +years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, +and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, +defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; +so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands +and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was +prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this +spectre: + +“Buried how long?” + +The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.” + +“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” + +“Long ago.” + +“You know that you are recalled to life?” + +“They tell me so.” + +“I hope you care to live?” + +“I can’t say.” + +“Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?” + +The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes +the broken reply was, “Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” + Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, +“Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it +was, “I don’t know her. I don’t understand.” + +After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, +and dig, dig--now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his +hands--to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth +hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The +passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the +reality of mist and rain on his cheek. + +Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving +patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating +by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train +of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the +real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express +sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out +of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost +it again. + +“Buried how long?” + +“Almost eighteen years.” + +“I hope you care to live?” + +“I can’t say.” + +Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two +passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm +securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two +slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again +slid away into the bank and the grave. + +“Buried how long?” + +“Almost eighteen years.” + +“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” + +“Long ago.” + +The words were still in his hearing as just spoken--distinctly in +his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life--when the weary +passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the +shadows of the night were gone. + +He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a +ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left +last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, +in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained +upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, +and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. + +“Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun. “Gracious +Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +The Preparation + + +When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, +the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach-door as his +custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey +from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous +traveller upon. + +By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be +congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective +roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp +and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather +like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out +of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and +muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. + +“There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?” + +“Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The +tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, +sir?” + +“I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber.” + +“And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. +Show Concord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off +gentleman’s boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) +Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord!” + +The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the +mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from +head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the +Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, +all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another +drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all +loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord +and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a +brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large +square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to +his breakfast. + +The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman +in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, +with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, +that he might have been sitting for his portrait. + +Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a +loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, +as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and +evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain +of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a +fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He +wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his +head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which +looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. +His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, +was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring +beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A +face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the +quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost +their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and +reserved expression of Tellson’s Bank. He had a healthy colour in his +cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. +But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were +principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps +second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on. + +Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, +Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, +and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it: + +“I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any +time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a +gentleman from Tellson’s Bank. Please to let me know.” + +“Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir?” + +“Yes.” + +“Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in +their travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A +vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company’s House.” + +“Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.” + +“Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, +sir?” + +“Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we--since I--came last +from France.” + +“Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people’s +time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir.” + +“I believe so.” + +“But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and +Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen +years ago?” + +“You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from +the truth.” + +“Indeed, sir!” + +Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the +table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, +dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while +he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the +immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. + +When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on +the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away +from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine +ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling +wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was +destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and +brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong +a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be +dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little +fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by +night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide +made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, +sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable +that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter. + +As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been +at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became +again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry’s thoughts seemed to cloud +too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting +his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, +digging, digging, in the live red coals. + +A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no +harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. +Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last +glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is +ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has +got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow +street, and rumbled into the inn-yard. + +He set down his glass untouched. “This is Mam’selle!” said he. + +In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette +had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman from +Tellson’s. + +“So soon?” + +Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none +then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson’s +immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. + +The gentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to empty his +glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen +wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette’s apartment. +It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black +horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and +oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room +were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if _they_ were buried, in deep +graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected +from them until they were dug out. + +The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his +way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for +the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall +candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and +the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, +and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As +his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden +hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and +a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth +it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was +not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright +fixed attention, though it included all the four expressions--as his +eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, +of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very +Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran +high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of +the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital +procession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were +offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the +feminine gender--and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette. + +“Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a +little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. + +“I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier +date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat. + +“I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that +some intelligence--or discovery--” + +“The word is not material, miss; either word will do.” + +“--respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never saw--so +long dead--” + +Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the +hospital procession of negro cupids. As if _they_ had any help for +anybody in their absurd baskets! + +“--rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate +with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for +the purpose.” + +“Myself.” + +“As I was prepared to hear, sir.” + +She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a +pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he +was than she. He made her another bow. + +“I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by +those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to +France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with +me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, +during the journey, under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The +gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to +beg the favour of his waiting for me here.” + +“I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “to be entrusted with the charge. I shall +be more happy to execute it.” + +“Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me +by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the +business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising +nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a +strong and eager interest to know what they are.” + +“Naturally,” said Mr. Lorry. “Yes--I--” + +After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the +ears, “It is very difficult to begin.” + +He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young +forehead lifted itself into that singular expression--but it was pretty +and characteristic, besides being singular--and she raised her hand, +as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed some passing +shadow. + +“Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?” + +“Am I not?” Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with +an argumentative smile. + +Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of +which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression +deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which +she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the +moment she raised her eyes again, went on: + +“In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you +as a young English lady, Miss Manette?” + +“If you please, sir.” + +“Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to +acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than +if I was a speaking machine--truly, I am not much else. I will, with +your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers.” + +“Story!” + +He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, +in a hurry, “Yes, customers; in the banking business we usually call +our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientific +gentleman; a man of great acquirements--a Doctor.” + +“Not of Beauvais?” + +“Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the +gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the +gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. +Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that +time in our French House, and had been--oh! twenty years.” + +“At that time--I may ask, at what time, sir?” + +“I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married--an English lady--and +I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other +French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson’s hands. +In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for +scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss; +there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like +sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my +business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in +the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere +machine. To go on--” + +“But this is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think”--the +curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him--“that when I was +left an orphan through my mother’s surviving my father only two years, +it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure it was you.” + +Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced +to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then +conducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holding +the chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub +his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking +down into her face while she sat looking up into his. + +“Miss Manette, it _was_ I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself +just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold +with my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflect +that I have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of +Tellson’s House since, and I have been busy with the other business of +Tellson’s House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance +of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary +Mangle.” + +After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry +flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was most +unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was +before), and resumed his former attitude. + +“So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your +regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not died +when he did--Don’t be frightened! How you start!” + +She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands. + +“Pray,” said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from +the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that clasped +him in so violent a tremble: “pray control your agitation--a matter of +business. As I was saying--” + +Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began anew: + +“As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenly +and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had not +been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could +trace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a +privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid +to speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the +privilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one +to the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had +implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of +him, and all quite in vain;--then the history of your father would have +been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.” + +“I entreat you to tell me more, sir.” + +“I will. I am going to. You can bear it?” + +“I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this +moment.” + +“You speak collectedly, and you--_are_ collected. That’s good!” (Though +his manner was less satisfied than his words.) “A matter of business. +Regard it as a matter of business--business that must be done. Now +if this doctor’s wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, +had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was +born--” + +“The little child was a daughter, sir.” + +“A daughter. A-a-matter of business--don’t be distressed. Miss, if the +poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born, +that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the +inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by +rearing her in the belief that her father was dead--No, don’t kneel! In +Heaven’s name why should you kneel to me!” + +“For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!” + +“A--a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact +business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly +mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many +shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so +much more at my ease about your state of mind.” + +Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had +very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp +his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she +communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. + +“That’s right, that’s right. Courage! Business! You have business before +you; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course with +you. And when she died--I believe broken-hearted--having never slackened +her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old, +to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud +upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his +heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years.” + +As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the +flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might have +been already tinged with grey. + +“You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what +they had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no new +discovery, of money, or of any other property; but--” + +He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the +forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which was +now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror. + +“But he has been--been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too +probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; though we will hope the best. +Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant +in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to +restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” + +A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a +low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, + +“I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost--not him!” + +Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. “There, there, +there! See now, see now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. +You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair +sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon at his dear side.” + +She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, “I have been free, I +have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me!” + +“Only one thing more,” said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a +wholesome means of enforcing her attention: “he has been found under +another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be +worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to +know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly +held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, +because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, +anywhere or in any way, and to remove him--for a while at all +events--out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even +Tellson’s, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of +the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring +to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, +and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, ‘Recalled to Life;’ +which may mean anything. But what is the matter! She doesn’t notice a +word! Miss Manette!” + +Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she +sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixed +upon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or +branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he +feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called +out loudly for assistance without moving. + +A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to +be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in some +extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head a most +wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, +or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the +inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the +poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him +flying back against the nearest wall. + +(“I really think this must be a man!” was Mr. Lorry’s breathless +reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.) + +“Why, look at you all!” bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. +“Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of standing there staring +at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don’t you go and fetch +things? I’ll let you know, if you don’t bring smelling-salts, cold +water, and vinegar, quick, I will.” + +There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she +softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and +gentleness: calling her “my precious!” and “my bird!” and spreading her +golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care. + +“And you in brown!” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; +“couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening her +to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Do +you call _that_ being a Banker?” + +Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to +answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feebler +sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the inn +servants under the mysterious penalty of “letting them know” something +not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a +regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head +upon her shoulder. + +“I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry. + +“No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!” + +“I hope,” said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and +humility, “that you accompany Miss Manette to France?” + +“A likely thing, too!” replied the strong woman. “If it was ever +intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence +would have cast my lot in an island?” + +This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to +consider it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +The Wine-shop + + +A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The +accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled +out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just +outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. + +All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their +idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular +stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have +thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, +had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own +jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, +made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help +women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all +run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in +the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with +handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ +mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; +others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and +there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new +directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed +pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted +fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the +wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up +along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, +if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous +presence. + +A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices--voices of men, women, +and children--resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There +was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a +special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part +of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the +luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, +shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen +together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been +most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these +demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who +had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in +motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of +hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own +starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men +with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into +the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom +gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. + +The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street +in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had +stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many +wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks +on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was +stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. +Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a +tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his +head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled +upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees--BLOOD. + +The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the +street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. + +And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary +gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was +heavy--cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in +waiting on the saintly presence--nobles of great power all of them; +but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a +terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the +fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, +passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered +in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which +had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the +children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the +grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, +was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out +of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and +lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and +paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of +firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless +chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, +among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the +baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of +bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that +was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting +chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every +farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant +drops of oil. + +Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding +street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets +diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags +and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them +that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some +wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and +slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor +compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted +into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or +inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) +were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman +painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of +meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, +croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were +gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a +flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’s knives +and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the +gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, +with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but +broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down +the middle of the street--when it ran at all: which was only after heavy +rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across +the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and +pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, +and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly +manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and +the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. + +For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region +should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so +long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling +up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their +condition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew over +France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of +song and feather, took no warning. + +The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its +appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside +it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle +for the lost wine. “It’s not my affair,” said he, with a final shrug +of the shoulders. “The people from the market did it. Let them bring +another.” + +There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, +he called to him across the way: + +“Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?” + +The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often +the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is +often the way with his tribe too. + +“What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the wine-shop +keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of +mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “Why do you write +in the public streets? Is there--tell me thou--is there no other place +to write such words in?” + +In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, +perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with his +own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing +attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his +hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly +practical character, he looked, under those circumstances. + +“Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “Call wine, wine; and finish +there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’s +dress, such as it was--quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on +his account; and then recrossed the road and entered the wine-shop. + +This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, +and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a +bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. +His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to +the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own +crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good +eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on +the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strong +resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing +down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn +the man. + +Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he +came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with +a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand +heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of +manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might +have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself +in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being +sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright +shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large +earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick +her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported +by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but +coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting +of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a +line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the +shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while +he stepped over the way. + +The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they +rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in +a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing +dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply +of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the +elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “This is our man.” + +“What the devil do _you_ do in that galley there?” said Monsieur Defarge +to himself; “I don’t know you.” + +But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse +with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter. + +“How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. “Is +all the spilt wine swallowed?” + +“Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge. + +When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, +picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, +and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. + +“It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur +Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or +of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?” + +“It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. + +At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still +using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of +cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. + +The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty +drinking vessel and smacked his lips. + +“Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle +always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I +right, Jacques?” + +“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur Defarge. + +This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment +when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and +slightly rustled in her seat. + +“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen--my wife!” + +The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three +flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and +giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the +wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose +of spirit, and became absorbed in it. + +“Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly +upon her, “good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you +wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the +fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard +close to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “near to the window of +my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been +there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!” + +They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur +Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly +gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word. + +“Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to +the door. + +Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first +word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had +not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then +beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge +knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing. + +Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, +joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own +company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, +and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited +by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the +gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee +to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was +a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable +transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour +in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, +angry, dangerous man. + +“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.” + Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began +ascending the stairs. + +“Is he alone?” the latter whispered. + +“Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other, in the +same low voice. + +“Is he always alone, then?” + +“Yes.” + +“Of his own desire?” + +“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they +found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be +discreet--as he was then, so he is now.” + +“He is greatly changed?” + +“Changed!” + +The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, +and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so +forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his +two companions ascended higher and higher. + +Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded +parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile +indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation +within the great foul nest of one high building--that is to say, +the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general +staircase--left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides +flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and +hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted +the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their +intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost +insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt +and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to +his young companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. +Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made +at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left +uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed +to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were +caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer +or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any +promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. + +At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the +third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination +and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story +was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in +advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he +dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about +here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over +his shoulder, took out a key. + +“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised. + +“Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. + +“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?” + +“I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge whispered it +closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. + +“Why?” + +“Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be +frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die--come to I know not what +harm--if his door was left open.” + +“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. + +“Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And a beautiful +world we live in, when it _is_ possible, and when many other such things +are possible, and not only possible, but done--done, see you!--under +that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on.” + +This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word +of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time she trembled +under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, +and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent +on him to speak a word or two of reassurance. + +“Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a +moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, +all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you +bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. +That’s well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!” + +They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were +soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at +once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at +the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which +the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing +footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed +themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the +wine-shop. + +“I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained Monsieur +Defarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business here.” + +The three glided by, and went silently down. + +There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of +the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. +Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger: + +“Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?” + +“I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.” + +“Is that well?” + +“_I_ think it is well.” + +“Who are the few? How do you choose them?” + +“I choose them as real men, of my name--Jacques is my name--to whom the +sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that is another +thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.” + +With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in +through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck +twice or thrice upon the door--evidently with no other object than to +make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, +three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned +it as heavily as he could. + +The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the +room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more +than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side. + +He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry +got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; for he +felt that she was sinking. + +“A-a-a-business, business!” he urged, with a moisture that was not of +business shining on his cheek. “Come in, come in!” + +“I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering. + +“Of it? What?” + +“I mean of him. Of my father.” + +Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of +their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his +shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her +down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him. + +Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, +took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, +methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he +could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to +where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round. + +The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim +and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the +roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from +the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any +other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this +door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. +Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it +was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit +alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work +requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being +done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face +towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at +him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very +busy, making shoes. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +The Shoemaker + + +“Good day!” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that +bent low over the shoemaking. + +It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the +salutation, as if it were at a distance: + +“Good day!” + +“You are still hard at work, I see?” + +After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the +voice replied, “Yes--I am working.” This time, a pair of haggard eyes +had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again. + +The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the +faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no +doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was +the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo +of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and +resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once +beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and +suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground. So expressive +it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, +wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered +home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die. + +Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked +up again: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanical +perception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were +aware of had stood, was not yet empty. + +“I want,” said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, +“to let in a little more light here. You can bear a little more?” + +The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, +at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on the +other side of him; then, upward at the speaker. + +“What did you say?” + +“You can bear a little more light?” + +“I must bear it, if you let it in.” (Laying the palest shadow of a +stress upon the second word.) + +The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at that +angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and +showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his +labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his +feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very +long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and +thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet +dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really +otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. +His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body +to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his loose +stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion +from direct light and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of +parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard to say which was which. + +He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones +of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, +pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without +first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had +lost the habit of associating place with sound; he never spoke, without +first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. + +“Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” asked Defarge, +motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. + +“What did you say?” + +“Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” + +“I can’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.” + +But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again. + +Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When +he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker +looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the +unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at +it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then +the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The +look and the action had occupied but an instant. + +“You have a visitor, you see,” said Monsieur Defarge. + +“What did you say?” + +“Here is a visitor.” + +The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from his +work. + +“Come!” said Defarge. “Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when +he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur.” + +Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. + +“Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s name.” + +There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied: + +“I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?” + +“I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s +information?” + +“It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It is in the +present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand.” He +glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride. + +“And the maker’s name?” said Defarge. + +Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand +in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the +hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and +so on in regular changes, without a moment’s intermission. The task of +recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he +had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or +endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a +fast-dying man. + +“Did you ask me for my name?” + +“Assuredly I did.” + +“One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” + +“Is that all?” + +“One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” + +With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work +again, until the silence was again broken. + +“You are not a shoemaker by trade?” said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastly +at him. + +His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the +question to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back +on the questioner when they had sought the ground. + +“I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I-I +learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to--” + +He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on his +hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face +from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and +resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a +subject of last night. + +“I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after +a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.” + +As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. +Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face: + +“Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?” + +The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the +questioner. + +“Monsieur Manette”; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s arm; “do you +remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old +banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your +mind, Monsieur Manette?” + +As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. +Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intent +intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves +through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded +again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And +so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who +had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where +she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only +raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and +shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, +trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young +breast, and love it back to life and hope--so exactly was the expression +repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, that it +looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her. + +Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and +less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground +and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he +took the shoe up, and resumed his work. + +“Have you recognised him, monsieur?” asked Defarge in a whisper. + +“Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have +unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so +well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!” + +She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on +which he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the +figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped +over his labour. + +Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, +beside him, and he bent over his work. + +It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument +in his hand, for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on that side of him +which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was +stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He +raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators started forward, +but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his +striking at her with the knife, though they had. + +He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began +to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in +the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say: + +“What is this?” + +With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her +lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as if she +laid his ruined head there. + +“You are not the gaoler’s daughter?” + +She sighed “No.” + +“Who are you?” + +Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench +beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strange +thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he +laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her. + +Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushed +aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little and +little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action +he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his +shoemaking. + +But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his +shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to +be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand +to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag +attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained +a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or two long golden +hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. + +He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. “It is +the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!” + +As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed to +become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the +light, and looked at her. + +“She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned +out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was +brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. ‘You will +leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they +may in the spirit.’ Those were the words I said. I remember them very +well.” + +He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. +But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him coherently, +though slowly. + +“How was this?--_Was it you_?” + +Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with a +frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and only +said, in a low voice, “I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near +us, do not speak, do not move!” + +“Hark!” he exclaimed. “Whose voice was that?” + +His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his white +hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but his +shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and +tried to secure it in his breast; but he still looked at her, and +gloomily shook his head. + +“No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can’t be. See what the +prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the face +she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She was--and He +was--before the slow years of the North Tower--ages ago. What is your +name, my gentle angel?” + +Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees +before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast. + +“O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, +and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. But I +cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I may +tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless +me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear!” + +His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and +lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him. + +“If you hear in my voice--I don’t know that it is so, but I hope it +is--if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was +sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in +touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your +breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when +I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you +with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the +remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, +weep for it, weep for it!” + +She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like a +child. + +“If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I +have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at +peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, +and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And +if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, +and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my +honoured father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake +striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of +my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep +for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred +tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank +God for us, thank God!” + +He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight so +touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which +had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces. + +When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving +breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all +storms--emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm +called Life must hush at last--they came forward to raise the father and +daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay +there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his +head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained +him from the light. + +“If, without disturbing him,” she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as +he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, “all could be +arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the very door, he +could be taken away--” + +“But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?” asked Mr. Lorry. + +“More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful to +him.” + +“It is true,” said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. “More +than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France. +Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?” + +“That’s business,” said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice his +methodical manners; “and if business is to be done, I had better do it.” + +“Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “as to leave us here. You see how +composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me +now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from +interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, +as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him until +you return, and then we will remove him straight.” + +Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and +in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriage +and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, +for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily +dividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away +to do it. + +Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on the +hard ground close at the father’s side, and watched him. The darkness +deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed +through the chinks in the wall. + +Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and +had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and +meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the +lamp he carried, on the shoemaker’s bench (there was nothing else in the +garret but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and +assisted him to his feet. + +No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in +the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, +whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew that +he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They +tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and so very slow to +answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for +the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of +occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seen +in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his +daughter’s voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke. + +In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he +ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the cloak +and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded to +his daughter’s drawing her arm through his, and took--and kept--her hand +in both his own. + +They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. +Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many steps +of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and +round at the walls. + +“You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up here?” + +“What did you say?” + +But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if +she had repeated it. + +“Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long ago.” + +That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his +prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter, +“One Hundred and Five, North Tower;” and when he looked about him, it +evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed +him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his +tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was +no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, he +dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head again. + +No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the +many windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnatural +silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen, and +that was Madame Defarge--who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and +saw nothing. + +The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed +him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step by his asking, +miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame +Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and +went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. She quickly +brought them down and handed them in;--and immediately afterwards leaned +against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. + +Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “To the Barrier!” The +postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the feeble +over-swinging lamps. + +Under the over-swinging lamps--swinging ever brighter in the better +streets, and ever dimmer in the worse--and by lighted shops, gay crowds, +illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of the city +gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. “Your papers, +travellers!” “See here then, Monsieur the Officer,” said Defarge, +getting down, and taking him gravely apart, “these are the papers of +monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with +him, at the--” He dropped his voice, there was a flutter among the +military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm +in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day +or an every night look, at monsieur with the white head. “It is well. +Forward!” from the uniform. “Adieu!” from Defarge. And so, under a short +grove of feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the great +grove of stars. + +Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from +this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their +rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything +is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and black. +All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they once more +whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry--sitting opposite the buried +man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever +lost to him, and what were capable of restoration--the old inquiry: + +“I hope you care to be recalled to life?” + +And the old answer: + +“I can’t say.” + + +The end of the first book. + + + + +Book the Second--the Golden Thread + + + + +CHAPTER I. +Five Years Later + + +Tellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the +year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very +dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, +moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were +proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, +proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence +in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if +it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was +no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more +convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted +no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no +embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might; but +Tellson’s, thank Heaven--! + +Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the +question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much +on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for +suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly +objectionable, but were only the more respectable. + +Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection +of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with +a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down two steps, +and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little +counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the +wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of +windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, +and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the +heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing +“the House,” you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, +where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its +hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal +twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden +drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when +they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they +were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among +the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good +polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms +made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their +parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family +papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great +dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year +one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you +by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released +from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads +exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of +Abyssinia or Ashantee. + +But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue +with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. +Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? +Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note +was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the +purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder +of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to +Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of +three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to +Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it +might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the +reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each +particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked +after. Thus, Tellson’s, in its day, like greater places of business, +its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid +low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately +disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the +ground floor had, in a rather significant manner. + +Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the +oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young +man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was +old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full +Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to +be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches +and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. + +Outside Tellson’s--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an +odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live +sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless +upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin +of twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson’s, +in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always +tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted +this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful +occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the +easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the added +appellation of Jerry. + +The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley, +Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March +morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself +always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under +the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a +popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) + +Mr. Cruncher’s apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were +but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it +might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as +it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was +already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged +for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth +was spread. + +Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin +at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll +and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair +looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he +exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation: + +“Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin!” + +A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a +corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the +person referred to. + +“What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. “You’re at it +agin, are you?” + +After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at +the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the +odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’s domestic economy, that, +whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he +often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay. + +“What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his +mark--“what are you up to, Aggerawayter?” + +“I was only saying my prayers.” + +“Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping +yourself down and praying agin me?” + +“I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.” + +“You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty with. Here! +your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your +father’s prosperity. You’ve got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. +You’ve got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping +herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out +of the mouth of her only child.” + +Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning +to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal +board. + +“And what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said Mr. Cruncher, with +unconscious inconsistency, “that the worth of _your_ prayers may be? +Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!” + +“They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than +that.” + +“Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. “They ain’t worth +much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tell you. I can’t +afford it. I’m not a going to be made unlucky by _your_ sneaking. If +you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and +child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but a unnat’ral +wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, I might +have made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed and +countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck. +B-u-u-ust me!” said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting +on his clothes, “if I ain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and +another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor +devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my +boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and +then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I +tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, “I won’t be gone agin, +in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I’m as sleepy as +laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn’t know, if +it wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me and which somebody else, yet +I’m none the better for it in pocket; and it’s my suspicion that you’ve +been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for +it in pocket, and I won’t put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you +say now!” + +Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’re religious, too. +You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband +and child, would you? Not you!” and throwing off other sarcastic sparks +from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook +himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business. +In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes, +and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father’s did, +kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor +woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made +his toilet, with a suppressed cry of “You are going to flop, mother. +--Halloa, father!” and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in +again with an undutiful grin. + +Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he came to his +breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying grace with particular +animosity. + +“Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?” + +His wife explained that she had merely “asked a blessing.” + +“Don’t do it!” said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected +to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife’s petitions. “I +ain’t a going to be blest out of house and home. I won’t have my wittles +blest off my table. Keep still!” + +Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party +which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried +his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footed +inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o’clock he smoothed his ruffled +aspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior as +he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation +of the day. + +It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite +description of himself as “a honest tradesman.” His stock consisted of +a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool, +young Jerry, walking at his father’s side, carried every morning to +beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, +with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned +from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man’s +feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. +Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar +itself,--and was almost as in-looking. + +Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his +three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson’s, +Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry +standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to +inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing +boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, +extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic +in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two +eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. +The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that +the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the +youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else +in Fleet-street. + +The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson’s +establishment was put through the door, and the word was given: + +“Porter wanted!” + +“Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with!” + +Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on +the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father +had been chewing, and cogitated. + +“Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!” muttered young Jerry. +“Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don’t get no iron +rust here!” + + + + +CHAPTER II. +A Sight + + +“You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?” said one of the oldest of +clerks to Jerry the messenger. + +“Ye-es, sir,” returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. “I _do_ +know the Bailey.” + +“Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry.” + +“I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much +better,” said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment +in question, “than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.” + +“Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the +door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.” + +“Into the court, sir?” + +“Into the court.” + +Mr. Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to +interchange the inquiry, “What do you think of this?” + +“Am I to wait in the court, sir?” he asked, as the result of that +conference. + +“I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. +Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry’s +attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, +to remain there until he wants you.” + +“Is that all, sir?” + +“That’s all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him +you are there.” + +As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, +Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the +blotting-paper stage, remarked: + +“I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?” + +“Treason!” + +“That’s quartering,” said Jerry. “Barbarous!” + +“It is the law,” remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised +spectacles upon him. “It is the law.” + +“It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard enough to kill +him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.” + +“Not at all,” retained the ancient clerk. “Speak well of the law. Take +care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take +care of itself. I give you that advice.” + +“It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” said Jerry. “I +leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.” + +“Well, well,” said the old clerk; “we all have our various ways of +gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry +ways. Here is the letter. Go along.” + +Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal +deference than he made an outward show of, “You are a lean old one, +too,” made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, +and went his way. + +They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had +not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. +But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and +villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came +into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the +dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It +had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced +his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and even died before him. +For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, +from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on +a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a +half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. +So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It +was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted +a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for +the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and +softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in +blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically +leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed +under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice +illustration of the precept, that “Whatever is is right;” an aphorism +that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome +consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. + +Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this +hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his +way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in +his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play +at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the +former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey +doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the +criminals got there, and those were always left wide open. + +After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a +very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into +court. + +“What’s on?” he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next +to. + +“Nothing yet.” + +“What’s coming on?” + +“The Treason case.” + +“The quartering one, eh?” + +“Ah!” returned the man, with a relish; “he’ll be drawn on a hurdle to +be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and sliced before his own +face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, +and then his head will be chopped off, and he’ll be cut into quarters. +That’s the sentence.” + +“If he’s found Guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by way of proviso. + +“Oh! they’ll find him guilty,” said the other. “Don’t you be afraid of +that.” + +Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he +saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry +sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged +gentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, who had a great bundle of papers +before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands +in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him +then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the +court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing +with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up +to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again. + +“What’s _he_ got to do with the case?” asked the man he had spoken with. + +“Blest if I know,” said Jerry. + +“What have _you_ got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?” + +“Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry. + +The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling +down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the +central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, +went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. + +Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the +ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled +at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round +pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows +stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, +laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help +themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got +upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. +Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall +of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a +whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with +the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, +that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him +in an impure mist and rain. + +The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about +five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and +a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly +dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and +dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out +of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express +itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his +situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the +soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed, +bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. + +The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, +was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less +horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage +details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his +fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, +was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered +and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various +spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and +powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. + +Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to +an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that +he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so +forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers +occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French +King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and +so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of +our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the +said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise +evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our +said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation +to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head +becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with +huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that +the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood +there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and +that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak. + +The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, +beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from +the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and +attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; +and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so +composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which +it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with +vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever. + +Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the light down +upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in +it, and had passed from its surface and this earth’s together. Haunted +in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the +glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one +day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace +for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner’s mind. Be +that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar +of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his +face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away. + +It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court +which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, +in that corner of the Judge’s bench, two persons upon whom his look +immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his +aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them. + +The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than +twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very +remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair, +and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind, +but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he +looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as +it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a +handsome man, not past the prime of life. + +His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by +him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her +dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had +been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion +that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very +noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who +had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper went about, +“Who are they?” + +Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own +manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his +absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about +him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and +from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got +to Jerry: + +“Witnesses.” + +“For which side?” + +“Against.” + +“Against what side?” + +“The prisoner’s.” + +The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, +leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was +in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the +axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +A Disappointment + + +Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before +them, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practices which +claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the +public enemy was not a correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or +even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain the +prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and +repassing between France and England, on secret business of which +he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of +traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real +wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undiscovered. +That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who +was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the +prisoner’s schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his +Majesty’s Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. +That, this patriot would be produced before them. That, his position and +attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been the prisoner’s +friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his +infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish +in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues +were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public +benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as +they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, +as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well +knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues; +whereat the jury’s countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that +they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; more +especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country. +That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness +for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had +communicated itself to the prisoner’s servant, and had engendered in him +a holy determination to examine his master’s table-drawers and pockets, +and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to +hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable servant; but that, +in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) +brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. +Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, he called with confidence +on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two +witnesses, coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be +produced, would show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of +his Majesty’s forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by +sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed +such information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be +proved to be in the prisoner’s handwriting; but that it was all the +same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as +showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof +would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged +in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the +very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans. +That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they +were), and being a responsible jury (as _they_ knew they were), must +positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether +they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their +pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying +their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the notion +of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that +there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon +pillows at all, unless the prisoner’s head was taken off. That head +Mr. Attorney-General concluded by demanding of them, in the name of +everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith +of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as +good as dead and gone. + +When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if +a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in +anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the +unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box. + +Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, examined the +patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul was +exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be--perhaps, if +it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom +of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the +wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. +Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting +opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. + +Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. +What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn’t +precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody’s. +Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very +distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors’ +prison? Didn’t see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors’ +prison?--Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three +times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever +been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? +Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell +downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at +dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who +committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? +Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not +more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. +Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a +very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets? +No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more +about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. +Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government +pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear +no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer +patriotism? None whatever. + +The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a +great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and +simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais +packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. +He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of +charity--never thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of +the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging +his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists to these in the +prisoner’s pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from +the drawer of the prisoner’s desk. He had not put them there first. He +had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French gentlemen +at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and +Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn’t bear it, and had given +information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot; +he had been maligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be +only a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years; +that was merely a coincidence. He didn’t call it a particularly curious +coincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a +curious coincidence that true patriotism was _his_ only motive too. He +was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him. + +The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. Jarvis +Lorry. + +“Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank?” + +“I am.” + +“On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and +seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London and +Dover by the mail?” + +“It did.” + +“Were there any other passengers in the mail?” + +“Two.” + +“Did they alight on the road in the course of the night?” + +“They did.” + +“Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?” + +“I cannot undertake to say that he was.” + +“Does he resemble either of these two passengers?” + +“Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so +reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.” + +“Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as +those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to +render it unlikely that he was one of them?” + +“No.” + +“You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?” + +“No.” + +“So at least you say he may have been one of them?” + +“Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been--like +myself--timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous +air.” + +“Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?” + +“I certainly have seen that.” + +“Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your +certain knowledge, before?” + +“I have.” + +“When?” + +“I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the +prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and made the +voyage with me.” + +“At what hour did he come on board?” + +“At a little after midnight.” + +“In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board +at that untimely hour?” + +“He happened to be the only one.” + +“Never mind about ‘happening,’ Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who +came on board in the dead of the night?” + +“He was.” + +“Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion?” + +“With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here.” + +“They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?” + +“Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and +I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.” + +“Miss Manette!” + +The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now +turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and +kept her hand drawn through his arm. + +“Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.” + +To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was +far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. +Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all +the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him +to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs +before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts +to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour +rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. + +“Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Where?” + +“On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the same +occasion.” + +“You are the young lady just now referred to?” + +“O! most unhappily, I am!” + +The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice +of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: “Answer the questions put +to you, and make no remark upon them.” + +“Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that +passage across the Channel?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Recall it.” + +In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: “When the +gentleman came on board--” + +“Do you mean the prisoner?” inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. + +“Yes, my Lord.” + +“Then say the prisoner.” + +“When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father,” turning +her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, “was much fatigued +and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was +afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the +deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take +care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. +The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could +shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I +had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would +set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed +great gentleness and kindness for my father’s state, and I am sure he +felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together.” + +“Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?” + +“No.” + +“How many were with him?” + +“Two French gentlemen.” + +“Had they conferred together?” + +“They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was +necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat.” + +“Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?” + +“Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don’t know what +papers.” + +“Like these in shape and size?” + +“Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood whispering very +near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the +light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they +spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that +they looked at papers.” + +“Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette.” + +“The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me--which arose out +of my helpless situation--as he was kind, and good, and useful to my +father. I hope,” bursting into tears, “I may not repay him by doing him +harm to-day.” + +Buzzing from the blue-flies. + +“Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that +you give the evidence which it is your duty to give--which you must +give--and which you cannot escape from giving--with great unwillingness, +he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on.” + +“He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and +difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was +therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business +had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, +take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long +time to come.” + +“Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular.” + +“He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said +that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on +England’s part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George +Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the +Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said +laughingly, and to beguile the time.” + +Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in +a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be +unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully +anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when +she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon +the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same +expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority +of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, +when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous +heresy about George Washington. + +Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it +necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady’s +father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly. + +“Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?” + +“Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or +three years and a half ago.” + +“Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, or +speak to his conversation with your daughter?” + +“Sir, I can do neither.” + +“Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do +either?” + +He answered, in a low voice, “There is.” + +“Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without +trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?” + +He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, “A long imprisonment.” + +“Were you newly released on the occasion in question?” + +“They tell me so.” + +“Have you no remembrance of the occasion?” + +“None. My mind is a blank, from some time--I cannot even say what +time--when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the +time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter +here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored +my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become +familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.” + +Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down +together. + +A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being +to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter untracked, +in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and +got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did +not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, +to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness +was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, +in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town, +waiting for another person. The prisoner’s counsel was cross-examining +this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner +on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time +been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a +little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening +this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great +attention and curiosity at the prisoner. + +“You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?” + +The witness was quite sure. + +“Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?” + +Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. + +“Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,” pointing +to him who had tossed the paper over, “and then look well upon the +prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?” + +Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless and slovenly +if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, +not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought +into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside +his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became +much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner’s +counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned +friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he +would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might +happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen +this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so +confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash +this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to +useless lumber. + +Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his +fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. +Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suit +of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and +traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest +scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas--which he certainly did look +rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, +and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false +swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family +affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making +those passages across the Channel--though what those affairs were, a +consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him, +even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped +and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they +had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent +gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman +and young lady so thrown together;--with the exception of that +reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and +impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. +How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this +attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies +and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made the most of it; +how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous +character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the +State Trials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed +(with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could +not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions. + +Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to +attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. +Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and +Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the +prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning +the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole +decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner. + +And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again. + +Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, +changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. +While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, +whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced +anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and +grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, +and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion +in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man +sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put +on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal, his +hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all +day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him +a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he +undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, +when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the +lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would +hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the +observation to his next neighbour, and added, “I’d hold half a guinea +that _he_ don’t get no law-work to do. Don’t look like the sort of one +to get any, do he?” + +Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he +appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s head dropped upon +her father’s breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly: +“Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. +Don’t you see she will fall!” + +There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much +sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to +him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown +strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or +brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud, +ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a +moment, spoke, through their foreman. + +They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George +Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were not agreed, +but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward, +and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in +the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the +jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get +refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock, and sat +down. + +Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, +now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackened interest, +could easily get near him. + +“Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the +way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don’t be a moment +behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You +are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long +before I can.” + +Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in +acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up +at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm. + +“How is the young lady?” + +“She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she +feels the better for being out of court.” + +“I’ll tell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable bank gentleman +like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know.” + +Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point +in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. +The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all +eyes, ears, and spikes. + +“Mr. Darnay!” + +The prisoner came forward directly. + +“You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She +will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation.” + +“I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so +for me, with my fervent acknowledgments?” + +“Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it.” + +Mr. Carton’s manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, +half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar. + +“I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.” + +“What,” said Carton, still only half turned towards him, “do you expect, +Mr. Darnay?” + +“The worst.” + +“It’s the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their +withdrawing is in your favour.” + +Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no +more: but left them--so like each other in feature, so unlike each other +in manner--standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above +them. + +An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal crowded +passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale. +The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that +refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide +of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along +with them. + +“Jerry! Jerry!” Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got +there. + +“Here, sir! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir!” + +Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. “Quick! Have you got +it?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Hastily written on the paper was the word “ACQUITTED.” + +“If you had sent the message, ‘Recalled to Life,’ again,” muttered +Jerry, as he turned, “I should have known what you meant, this time.” + +He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, +until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring out +with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz +swept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in +search of other carrion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +Congratulatory + + +From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the +human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when +Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor +for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. +Charles Darnay--just released--congratulating him on his escape from +death. + +It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise +in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the +shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him +twice, without looking again: even though the opportunity of observation +had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and +to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent +reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long +lingering agony, would always--as on the trial--evoke this condition +from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of +itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those +unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual +Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three +hundred miles away. + +Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from +his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his +misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, +the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial +influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could +recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few +and slight, and she believed them over. + +Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned +to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little +more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, +loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing +way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and +conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. + +He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his +late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean +out of the group: “I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. +Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the +less likely to succeed on that account.” + +“You have laid me under an obligation to you for life--in two senses,” + said his late client, taking his hand. + +“I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as +another man’s, I believe.” + +It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, “Much better,” Mr. Lorry +said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested +object of squeezing himself back again. + +“You think so?” said Mr. Stryver. “Well! you have been present all day, +and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too.” + +“And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had +now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered +him out of it--“as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up +this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. +Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out.” + +“Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “I have a night’s work to +do yet. Speak for yourself.” + +“I speak for myself,” answered Mr. Lorry, “and for Mr. Darnay, and for +Miss Lucie, and--Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all?” + He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father. + +His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at +Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, +not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his +thoughts had wandered away. + +“My father,” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. + +He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. + +“Shall we go home, my father?” + +With a long breath, he answered “Yes.” + +The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the +impression--which he himself had originated--that he would not be +released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the +passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, +and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning’s interest of +gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it. +Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into +the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter +departed in it. + +Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back +to the robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, or +interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning +against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled +out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now +stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement. + +“So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?” + +Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the day’s +proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none the +better for it in appearance. + +“If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the +business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business +appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay.” + +Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, “You have mentioned that before, +sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We +have to think of the House more than ourselves.” + +“_I_ know, _I_ know,” rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. “Don’t be +nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt: better, +I dare say.” + +“And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, “I really don’t +know what you have to do with the matter. If you’ll excuse me, as very +much your elder, for saying so, I really don’t know that it is your +business.” + +“Business! Bless you, _I_ have no business,” said Mr. Carton. + +“It is a pity you have not, sir.” + +“I think so, too.” + +“If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “perhaps you would attend to it.” + +“Lord love you, no!--I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Carton. + +“Well, sir!” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, +“business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, +if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. +Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance +for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir! +I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy +life.--Chair there!” + +Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. +Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson’s. Carton, +who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed +then, and turned to Darnay: + +“This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must +be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on +these street stones?” + +“I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong to this world +again.” + +“I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty far +advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly.” + +“I begin to think I _am_ faint.” + +“Then why the devil don’t you dine? I dined, myself, while those +numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or +some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at.” + +Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to +Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were +shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting +his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat +opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port +before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. + +“Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. +Darnay?” + +“I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far +mended as to feel that.” + +“It must be an immense satisfaction!” + +He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a large +one. + +“As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it. +It has no good in it for me--except wine like this--nor I for it. So we +are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are +not much alike in any particular, you and I.” + +Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with +this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was +at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. + +“Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “why don’t you call a +health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your toast?” + +“What health? What toast?” + +“Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I’ll +swear it’s there.” + +“Miss Manette, then!” + +“Miss Manette, then!” + +Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton +flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to +pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another. + +“That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!” + he said, filling his new goblet. + +A slight frown and a laconic “Yes,” were the answer. + +“That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it +feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of such +sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?” + +Again Darnay answered not a word. + +“She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not +that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was.” + +The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this +disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the +strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him +for it. + +“I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the careless rejoinder. +“It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don’t know why I did +it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question.” + +“Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.” + +“Do you think I particularly like you?” + +“Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, “I have +not asked myself the question.” + +“But ask yourself the question now.” + +“You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.” + +“_I_ don’t think I do,” said Carton. “I begin to have a very good +opinion of your understanding.” + +“Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, “there is +nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our +parting without ill-blood on either side.” + +Carton rejoining, “Nothing in life!” Darnay rang. “Do you call the whole +reckoning?” said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative, “Then +bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at +ten.” + +The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. +Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat +of defiance in his manner, and said, “A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think +I am drunk?” + +“I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.” + +“Think? You know I have been drinking.” + +“Since I must say so, I know it.” + +“Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I +care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” + +“Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better.” + +“May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your sober face elate you, +however; you don’t know what it may come to. Good night!” + +When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a +glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it. + +“Do you particularly like the man?” he muttered, at his own image; “why +should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing +in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have +made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you +what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change +places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as +he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and +have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.” + +He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few +minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the +table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +The Jackal + + +Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is +the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate +statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow +in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a +perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. +The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other +learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. +Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative +practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the +drier parts of the legal race. + +A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had +begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which +he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite, +specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards the +visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the +florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of +the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from +among a rank garden-full of flaring companions. + +It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib +man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that +faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is +among the most striking and necessary of the advocate’s accomplishments. +But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more +business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its +pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney +Carton, he always had his points at his fingers’ ends in the morning. + +Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver’s great +ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, +might have floated a king’s ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, +anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring +at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even there +they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was +rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily +to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about, +among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton +would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he +rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. + +“Ten o’clock, sir,” said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to +wake him--“ten o’clock, sir.” + +“_What’s_ the matter?” + +“Ten o’clock, sir.” + +“What do you mean? Ten o’clock at night?” + +“Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you.” + +“Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.” + +After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man +dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, +he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, +and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’s +Bench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. + +The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone +home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on, +and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He +had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which +may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of +Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of +Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. + +“You are a little late, Memory,” said Stryver. + +“About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later.” + +They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, +where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in +the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon +it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons. + +“You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.” + +“Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day’s client; or +seeing him dine--it’s all one!” + +“That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the +identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?” + +“I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have +been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck.” + +Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch. + +“You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.” + +Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining +room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel +or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them +out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down +at the table, and said, “Now I am ready!” + +“Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory,” said Mr. Stryver, +gaily, as he looked among his papers. + +“How much?” + +“Only two sets of them.” + +“Give me the worst first.” + +“There they are, Sydney. Fire away!” + +The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the +drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table +proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to +his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each in +a different way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in +his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some +lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, +so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he +stretched out for his glass--which often groped about, for a minute or +more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the +matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on +him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the +jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp headgear as +no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his anxious +gravity. + +At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and +proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, +made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal +assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his +hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then +invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh application +to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; +this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not +disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning. + +“And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” said Mr. +Stryver. + +The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming +again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. + +“You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses +to-day. Every question told.” + +“I always am sound; am I not?” + +“I don’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to +it and smooth it again.” + +With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. + +“The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said Stryver, nodding +his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, “the +old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and +now in despondency!” + +“Ah!” returned the other, sighing: “yes! The same Sydney, with the same +luck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.” + +“And why not?” + +“God knows. It was my way, I suppose.” + +He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before +him, looking at the fire. + +“Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, +as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour +was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney +Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, “your way +is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look +at me.” + +“Oh, botheration!” returned Sydney, with a lighter and more +good-humoured laugh, “don’t _you_ be moral!” + +“How have I done what I have done?” said Stryver; “how do I do what I +do?” + +“Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s not worth +your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to +do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind.” + +“I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?” + +“I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,” said +Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed. + +“Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,” + pursued Carton, “you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into +mine. Even when we were fellow-students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, +picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we +didn’t get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always +nowhere.” + +“And whose fault was that?” + +“Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always +driving and riving and shouldering and passing, to that restless degree +that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It’s a gloomy +thing, however, to talk about one’s own past, with the day breaking. +Turn me in some other direction before I go.” + +“Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stryver, holding up +his glass. “Are you turned in a pleasant direction?” + +Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. + +“Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. “I have had +enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who’s your pretty witness?” + +“The picturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette.” + +“_She_ pretty?” + +“Is she not?” + +“No.” + +“Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court!” + +“Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge +of beauty? She was a golden-haired doll!” + +“Do you know, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes, +and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: “do you know, I rather +thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the golden-haired doll, +and were quick to see what happened to the golden-haired doll?” + +“Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a +yard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it without a perspective-glass. +I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I’ll have no more drink; +I’ll get to bed.” + +When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light +him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy +windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the +dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a +lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round +before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and +the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. + +Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still +on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the +wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and +perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries +from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the +fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. +A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of +houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its +pillow was wet with wasted tears. + +Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of +good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, +incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight +on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Hundreds of People + + +The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not +far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the +waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, and carried +it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis +Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, +on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into +business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s friend, and the +quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life. + +On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in +the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine +Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; +secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with +them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, and +generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have +his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the +Doctor’s household pointed to that time as a likely time for solving +them. + +A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be +found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of +the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that +had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, +north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers +grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a +consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, +instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a +settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which +the peaches ripened in their season. + +The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part +of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, +though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into a +glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful +place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets. + +There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and +there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, where +several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little was +audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. In +a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane-tree +rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silver +to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant +who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall--as if +he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all +visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured +to live up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have +a counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray +workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered +about there, or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard, or a +thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions +required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind +the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way +from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. + +Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and +its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. +His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting +ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and +he earned as much as he wanted. + +These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, thoughts, and +notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner, +on the fine Sunday afternoon. + +“Doctor Manette at home?” + +Expected home. + +“Miss Lucie at home?” + +Expected home. + +“Miss Pross at home?” + +Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to +anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the +fact. + +“As I am at home myself,” said Mr. Lorry, “I’ll go upstairs.” + +Although the Doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the country of her +birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability to +make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most +agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off +by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, +that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the +rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, +the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by +delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in +themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry +stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, +with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this +time, whether he approved? + +There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they +communicated being put open that the air might pass freely through them +all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which +he detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was +the best room, and in it were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and books, +and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was +the Doctor’s consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, +changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the +Doctor’s bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker’s +bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the +dismal house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris. + +“I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, “that he keeps +that reminder of his sufferings about him!” + +“And why wonder at that?” was the abrupt inquiry that made him start. + +It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose +acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and +had since improved. + +“I should have thought--” Mr. Lorry began. + +“Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off. + +“How do you do?” inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if to +express that she bore him no malice. + +“I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; “how +are you?” + +“Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross. + +“Indeed?” + +“Ah! indeed!” said Miss Pross. “I am very much put out about my +Ladybird.” + +“Indeed?” + +“For gracious sake say something else besides ‘indeed,’ or you’ll +fidget me to death,” said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated from +stature) was shortness. + +“Really, then?” said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment. + +“Really, is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “but better. Yes, I am +very much put out.” + +“May I ask the cause?” + +“I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to +come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross. + +“_Do_ dozens come for that purpose?” + +“Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. + +It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her +time and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned, +she exaggerated it. + +“Dear me!” said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of. + +“I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, and +paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you may take +your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or her +for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it’s really very hard,” + said Miss Pross. + +Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; +using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would +fit anything. + +“All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, +are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “When you began it--” + +“_I_ began it, Miss Pross?” + +“Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life?” + +“Oh! If _that_ was beginning it--” said Mr. Lorry. + +“It wasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard +enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except +that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on +him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any +circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds +and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven +him), to take Ladybird’s affections away from me.” + +Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by +this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those +unselfish creatures--found only among women--who will, for pure love and +admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost +it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were +never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon +their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there +is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so +rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted +respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own +mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss +Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably +better got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson’s. + +“There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,” said +Miss Pross; “and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn’t made a +mistake in life.” + +Here again: Mr. Lorry’s inquiries into Miss Pross’s personal history had +established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel +who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to +speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with +no touch of compunction. Miss Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solomon +(deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious +matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. + +“As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of +business,” he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room and had +sat down there in friendly relations, “let me ask you--does the Doctor, +in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet?” + +“Never.” + +“And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?” + +“Ah!” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “But I don’t say he don’t +refer to it within himself.” + +“Do you believe that he thinks of it much?” + +“I do,” said Miss Pross. + +“Do you imagine--” Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up +short with: + +“Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.” + +“I stand corrected; do you suppose--you go so far as to suppose, +sometimes?” + +“Now and then,” said Miss Pross. + +“Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his +bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that Doctor Manette has any +theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to +the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of his +oppressor?” + +“I don’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.” + +“And that is--?” + +“That she thinks he has.” + +“Now don’t be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a +mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business.” + +“Dull?” Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. + +Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, “No, no, +no. Surely not. To return to business:--Is it not remarkable that Doctor +Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured +he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, +though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now +intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly +attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss +Pross, I don’t approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of +zealous interest.” + +“Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad’s the best, you’ll tell +me,” said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, “he is afraid +of the whole subject.” + +“Afraid?” + +“It’s plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It’s a dreadful +remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not +knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never +feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn’t make the +subject pleasant, I should think.” + +It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. “True,” said +he, “and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, Miss +Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression +always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness +it sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence.” + +“Can’t be helped,” said Miss Pross, shaking her head. “Touch that +string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. +In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up in +the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walking +up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to +know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in +his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up +and down, walking up and down, until he is composed. But he never says +a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it +best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down +together, walking up and down together, till her love and company have +brought him to himself.” + +Notwithstanding Miss Pross’s denial of her own imagination, there was a +perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, +in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to +her possessing such a thing. + +The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it +had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it +seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had +set it going. + +“Here they are!” said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; +“and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon!” + +It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a +peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, +looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied +they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though +the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be +heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close +at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross +was ready at the street door to receive them. + +Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking +off her darling’s bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up +with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and +folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with +as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she +had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant +sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against +her taking so much trouble for her--which last she only dared to do +playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own +chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at +them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with +eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would +have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, +beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor +stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no +Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain +for the fulfilment of Miss Pross’s prediction. + +Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of +the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and +always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modest +quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their +contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be +better. Miss Pross’s friendship being of the thoroughly practical +kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of +impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would +impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters +of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl +who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, +or Cinderella’s Godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, +a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she +pleased. + +On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but on other days +persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower +regions, or in her own room on the second floor--a blue chamber, to +which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, +Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird’s pleasant face and pleasant efforts +to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too. + +It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the +wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit +there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her, +they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for +the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some +time before, as Mr. Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they sat under the +plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs +and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-tree +whispered to them in its own way above their heads. + +Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay +presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but he +was only One. + +Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross +suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, and +retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this +disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, “a fit of the +jerks.” + +The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The +resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as +they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he resting +his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the +likeness. + +He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual +vivacity. “Pray, Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under the +plane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, +which happened to be the old buildings of London--“have you seen much of +the Tower?” + +“Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of +it, to know that it teems with interest; little more.” + +“_I_ have been there, as you remember,” said Darnay, with a smile, +though reddening a little angrily, “in another character, and not in a +character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a +curious thing when I was there.” + +“What was that?” Lucie asked. + +“In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which +had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of +its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by +prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone +in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to +execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with +some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. +At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully +examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or +legend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses +were made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested +that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The +floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in the +earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found +the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case +or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he +had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler.” + +“My father,” exclaimed Lucie, “you are ill!” + +He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and +his look quite terrified them all. + +“No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they +made me start. We had better go in.” + +He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large +drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, he +said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told +of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry +either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned +towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it +when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House. + +He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of +his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more +steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he +was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), and +that the rain had startled him. + +Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon +her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he +made only Two. + +The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and +windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was +done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the +heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton +leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of +the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the +ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. + +“The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,” said Doctor +Manette. “It comes slowly.” + +“It comes surely,” said Carton. + +They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a +dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do. + +There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to +get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes +resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a +footstep was there. + +“A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!” said Darnay, when they had +listened for a while. + +“Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. “Sometimes, I have +sat here of an evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade of +a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and +solemn--” + +“Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.” + +“It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we +originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I have +sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made +the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming +by-and-bye into our lives.” + +“There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so,” + Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. + +The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more +rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, +as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some +coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in +the distant streets, and not one within sight. + +“Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or +are we to divide them among us?” + +“I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you +asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and +then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come +into my life, and my father’s.” + +“I take them into mine!” said Carton. “_I_ ask no questions and make no +stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, +and I see them--by the Lightning.” He added the last words, after there +had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. + +“And I hear them!” he added again, after a peal of thunder. “Here they +come, fast, fierce, and furious!” + +It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, +for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and +lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment’s +interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at +midnight. + +The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking one in the cleared air, when +Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, set +forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches +of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful +of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was +usually performed a good two hours earlier. + +“What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry, “to +bring the dead out of their graves.” + +“I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don’t expect to--what +would do that,” answered Jerry. + +“Good night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. “Good night, Mr. +Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!” + +Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, +bearing down upon them, too. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +Monseigneur in Town + + +Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his +fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in +his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to +the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur +was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many +things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather +rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s chocolate could not so +much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four +strong men besides the Cook. + +Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the +Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his +pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to +conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried +the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed +the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; +a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold +watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to +dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high +place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon +his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three +men; he must have died of two. + +Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy +and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at +a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so +impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far +more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and +state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance +for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly +favoured!--always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted +days of the merry Stuart who sold it. + +Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which +was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public +business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go +his way--tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and +particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world +was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original +by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “The earth and the fulness +thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.” + +Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into +his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of +affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to finances +public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and +must consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to finances +private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after +generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence +Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet +time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could +wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, +poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane with +a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer +rooms, much prostrated before by mankind--always excepting superior +mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked +down upon him with the loftiest contempt. + +A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his +stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-women +waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and +forage where he could, the Farmer-General--howsoever his matrimonial +relations conduced to social morality--was at least the greatest reality +among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day. + +For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with +every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could +achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any +reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not +so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost +equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would +have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business--if that could have +been anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers +destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; +civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the +worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; +all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in +pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of +Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which +anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the +score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, +yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives +passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were +no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies +for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly +patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had +discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the +State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to +root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears +they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving +Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making +card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving +Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this +wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of +the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time--and has been +since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural +subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of +exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various +notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies +among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur--forming a goodly half +of the polite company--would have found it hard to discover among +the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and +appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of +bringing a troublesome creature into this world--which does not go far +towards the realisation of the name of mother--there was no such thing +known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, +and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and +supped as at twenty. + +The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance +upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional +people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that +things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting +them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantastic +sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves +whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the +spot--thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger-post to the +Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other +three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a +jargon about “the Centre of Truth:” holding that Man had got out of the +Centre of Truth--which did not need much demonstration--but had not got +out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of +the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, +by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much +discoursing with spirits went on--and it did a world of good which never +became manifest. + +But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of +Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been +ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally +correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such +delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant +swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would +surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen +of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they +languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; +and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and +fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and +his devouring hunger far away. + +Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all +things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that +was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through +Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals +of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball +descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was +required to officiate “frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, +and white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheel--the axe was a +rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother +Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call +him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at +Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year +of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled +hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would +see the very stars out! + +Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his +chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown +open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and +fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in +body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven--which may have +been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never +troubled it. + +Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one +happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably +passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of +Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due +course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate +sprites, and was seen no more. + +The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, +and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon +but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm +and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his +way out. + +“I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, +and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “to the Devil!” + +With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the +dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. + +He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and +with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every +feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, +beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top +of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little +change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing +colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted +by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of +treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with +attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the +line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much +too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a +handsome face, and a remarkable one. + +Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and +drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; he had +stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer +in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable +to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and +often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were +charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no +check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had +sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, +that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician +custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a +barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second +time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were +left to get out of their difficulties as they could. + +With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of +consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage +dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming +before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of +its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its +wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a +number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. + +But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have +stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded +behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, +and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles. + +“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. + +A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of +the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was +down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. + +“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is +a child.” + +“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?” + +“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis--it is a pity--yes.” + +The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, +into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly +got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the +Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. + +“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at +their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!” + +The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was +nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness +and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the +people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they +remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat +and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes +over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. + +He took out his purse. + +“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care +of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in +the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give +him that.” + +He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads +craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The +tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!” + +He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest +made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, +sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were +stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They +were as silent, however, as the men. + +“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave man, my +Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to +live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour +as happily?” + +“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling. “How do +they call you?” + +“They call me Defarge.” + +“Of what trade?” + +“Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.” + +“Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the Marquis, +throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you will. The horses +there; are they right?” + +Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the +Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the +air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had +paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly +disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. + +“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! Who threw that?” + +He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a +moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on +the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the +figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. + +“You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, +except as to the spots on his nose: “I would ride over any of you very +willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal +threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he +should be crushed under the wheels.” + +So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of +what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not +a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. +But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the +Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his +contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he +leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word “Go on!” + +He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick +succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the +Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the +whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats +had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking +on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the +spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through +which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and +bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle +while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running +of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball--when the one woman who +had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness +of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran +into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, +time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together +in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all +things ran their course. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +Monseigneur in the Country + + +A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. +Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas +and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On +inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent +tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--a dejected +disposition to give up, and wither away. + +Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been +lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up +a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was +no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was +occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control--the setting +sun. + +The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it +gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. “It will +die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, “directly.” + +In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the +heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down +hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed +quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow +left when the drag was taken off. + +But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village +at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a +church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a +fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects +as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was +coming near home. + +The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor +tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor +fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All +its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, +shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the +fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of +the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, +were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax +for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be +paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until +the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. + +Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, +their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on the lowest +terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; +or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. + +Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions’ +whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as +if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in +his travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the +fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. +He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow +sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the +meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the +truth through the best part of a hundred years. + +Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that +drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before +Monseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, that these faces +drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled mender +of the roads joined the group. + +“Bring me hither that fellow!” said the Marquis to the courier. + +The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round +to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. + +“I passed you on the road?” + +“Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road.” + +“Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?” + +“Monseigneur, it is true.” + +“What did you look at, so fixedly?” + +“Monseigneur, I looked at the man.” + +He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the +carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. + +“What man, pig? And why look there?” + +“Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe--the drag.” + +“Who?” demanded the traveller. + +“Monseigneur, the man.” + +“May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You +know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?” + +“Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of +all the days of my life, I never saw him.” + +“Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?” + +“With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. +His head hanging over--like this!” + +He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his +face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered +himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. + +“What was he like?” + +“Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, +white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!” + +The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but all +eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur +the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his +conscience. + +“Truly, you did well,” said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such +vermin were not to ruffle him, “to see a thief accompanying my carriage, +and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur +Gabelle!” + +Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary +united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this +examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an +official manner. + +“Bah! Go aside!” said Monsieur Gabelle. + +“Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village +to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle.” + +“Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders.” + +“Did he run away, fellow?--where is that Accursed?” + +The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen +particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some +half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and +presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. + +“Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?” + +“Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as +a person plunges into the river.” + +“See to it, Gabelle. Go on!” + +The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the +wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky +to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, or +they might not have been so fortunate. + +The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the +rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually, +it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many +sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer +gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the +points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the +courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. + +At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, +with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor +figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had +studied the figure from the life--his own life, maybe--for it was +dreadfully spare and thin. + +To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been +growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She +turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and +presented herself at the carriage-door. + +“It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition.” + +With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, +Monseigneur looked out. + +“How, then! What is it? Always petitions!” + +“Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester.” + +“What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He +cannot pay something?” + +“He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.” + +“Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?” + +“Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poor +grass.” + +“Well?” + +“Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?” + +“Again, well?” + +She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate +grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands together +with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door--tenderly, +caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to +feel the appealing touch. + +“Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of +want; so many die of want; so many more will die of want.” + +“Again, well? Can I feed them?” + +“Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. My petition is, +that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s name, may be placed +over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly +forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I +shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they +are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! +Monseigneur!” + +The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into +a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left far +behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly +diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and +his chateau. + +The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as +the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group +at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid +of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his +man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they +could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled +in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more +stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having +been extinguished. + +The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees, +was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchanged +for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door +of his chateau was opened to him. + +“Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?” + +“Monseigneur, not yet.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +The Gorgon’s Head + + +It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, +with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of +staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony +business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and +stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in +all directions. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was +finished, two centuries ago. + +Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau +preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness +to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile +of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the +flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at the great +door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being +in the open night-air. Other sound than the owl’s voice there was none, +save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of +those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then +heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again. + +The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a +hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of the chase; +grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, of which many a +peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord +was angry. + +Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, +Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, went up +the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admitted him +to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bed-chamber and two +others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon +the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries +befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. +The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to +break--the fourteenth Louis--was conspicuous in their rich furniture; +but, it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old +pages in the history of France. + +A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a round +room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped towers. A small +lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds +closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of +black, alternating with their broad lines of stone colour. + +“My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation; “they +said he was not arrived.” + +Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. + +“Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless, leave the +table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour.” + +In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to his +sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the window, and +he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his +lips, when he put it down. + +“What is that?” he calmly asked, looking with attention at the +horizontal lines of black and stone colour. + +“Monseigneur? That?” + +“Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” + +It was done. + +“Well?” + +“Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are +here.” + +The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into +the vacant darkness, and stood with that blank behind him, looking round +for instructions. + +“Good,” said the imperturbable master. “Close them again.” + +That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was +half way through it, when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, +hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to the +front of the chateau. + +“Ask who is arrived.” + +It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behind +Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distance +rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on the road. +He had heard of Monseigneur, at the posting-houses, as being before him. + +He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then and +there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he came. +He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. + +Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake +hands. + +“You left Paris yesterday, sir?” he said to Monseigneur, as he took his +seat at table. + +“Yesterday. And you?” + +“I come direct.” + +“From London?” + +“Yes.” + +“You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, with a smile. + +“On the contrary; I come direct.” + +“Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time +intending the journey.” + +“I have been detained by”--the nephew stopped a moment in his +answer--“various business.” + +“Without doubt,” said the polished uncle. + +So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. +When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew, +looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a +fine mask, opened a conversation. + +“I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that +took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril; but it is +a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have +sustained me.” + +“Not to death,” said the uncle; “it is not necessary to say, to death.” + +“I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “whether, if it had carried me to +the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there.” + +The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight +lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle made a +graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good +breeding that it was not reassuring. + +“Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “for anything I know, you may have +expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the suspicious +circumstances that surrounded me.” + +“No, no, no,” said the uncle, pleasantly. + +“But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, glancing at him with +deep distrust, “I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, +and would know no scruple as to means.” + +“My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the +two marks. “Do me the favour to recall that I told you so, long ago.” + +“I recall it.” + +“Thank you,” said the Marquis--very sweetly indeed. + +His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical +instrument. + +“In effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, “I believe it to be at once your +bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of a prison in +France here.” + +“I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. +“Dare I ask you to explain?” + +“I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not +been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet would +have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.” + +“It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. “For the honour +of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. +Pray excuse me!” + +“I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before +yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the nephew. + +“I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, with refined +politeness; “I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for +consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence +your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for +yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, +at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle +aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that +might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest +and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted +(comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such +things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right +of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such +dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), +one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing +some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter--_his_ daughter? We have +lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the +assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as +to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very +bad!” + +The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; +as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still +containing himself, that great means of regeneration. + +“We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern +time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “that I believe our name to be +more detested than any name in France.” + +“Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “Detestation of the high is the +involuntary homage of the low.” + +“There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “a face I can +look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any +deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery.” + +“A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur of the family, +merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. +Hah!” And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly +crossed his legs. + +But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes +thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked at +him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, +and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’s assumption of +indifference. + +“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear +and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “will keep the dogs +obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up to it, “shuts +out the sky.” + +That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of the +chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like it as +they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown to +him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from +the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked rains. As for the roof +he vaunted, he might have found _that_ shutting out the sky in a new +way--to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead +was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. + +“Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “I will preserve the honour and repose +of the family, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we +terminate our conference for the night?” + +“A moment more.” + +“An hour, if you please.” + +“Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits +of wrong.” + +“_We_ have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, +and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself. + +“Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account +to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my father’s time, we did +a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between us and +our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father’s time, +when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father’s twin-brother, joint +inheritor, and next successor, from himself?” + +“Death has done that!” said the Marquis. + +“And has left me,” answered the nephew, “bound to a system that is +frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking to +execute the last request of my dear mother’s lips, and obey the last +look of my dear mother’s eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to +redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain.” + +“Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis, touching him on the +breast with his forefinger--they were now standing by the hearth--“you +will for ever seek them in vain, be assured.” + +Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was +cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking +quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again he +touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of +a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the +body, and said, + +“My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have +lived.” + +When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his +box in his pocket. + +“Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ringing a small +bell on the table, “and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, +Monsieur Charles, I see.” + +“This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew, sadly; “I +renounce them.” + +“Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It +is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?” + +“I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed +to me from you, to-morrow--” + +“Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.” + +“--or twenty years hence--” + +“You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis; “still, I prefer that +supposition.” + +“--I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to +relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!” + +“Hah!” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. + +“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, +under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, +mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, +and suffering.” + +“Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. + +“If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better +qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the +weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave +it and who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in +another generation, suffer less; but it is not for me. There is a curse +on it, and on all this land.” + +“And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do you, under your new +philosophy, graciously intend to live?” + +“I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at +their backs, may have to do some day--work.” + +“In England, for example?” + +“Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The +family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other.” + +The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber to be +lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication. The +Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his +valet. + +“England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have +prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew +with a smile. + +“I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may +be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge.” + +“They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You +know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?” + +“Yes.” + +“With a daughter?” + +“Yes.” + +“Yes,” said the Marquis. “You are fatigued. Good night!” + +As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy +in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, +which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same +time, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin +straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that +looked handsomely diabolic. + +“Yes,” repeated the Marquis. “A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So +commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good night!” + +It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face +outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew +looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. + +“Good night!” said the uncle. “I look to the pleasure of seeing you +again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew to his +chamber there!--And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you will,” he +added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his +valet to his own bedroom. + +The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his +loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still +night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no +noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:--looked like some +enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose +periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just +coming on. + +He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the +scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into his mind; the slow +toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the +prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at +the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the +chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, +the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the +tall man with his arms up, crying, “Dead!” + +“I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “and may go to bed.” + +So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin +gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silence +with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. + +The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night +for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses in the stables +rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with +very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to +the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures +hardly ever to say what is set down for them. + +For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, +stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, +dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. +The burial-place had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass +were undistinguishable from one another; the figure on the Cross might +have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, +taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as +the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and +the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and +freed. + +The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain +at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard--both melting away, like the +minutes that were falling from the spring of Time--through three dark +hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, +and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. + +Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still +trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water +of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces +crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the +weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed-chamber of Monsieur +the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. +At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open +mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken. + +Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casement +windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth +shivering--chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely +lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the +fountain; some, to the fields; men and women here, to dig and delve; men +and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows +out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church +and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter +prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its +foot. + +The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and +surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had been +reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine; +now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked +round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at +doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs +pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed. + +All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the +return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the +chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried +figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and +everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away? + +What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already +at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day’s dinner (not +much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow’s while to +peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it +to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or +no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, +down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the +fountain. + +All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about +in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other +emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought +in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly +on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their +trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of +the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and +all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded +on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was +highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated +into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting +himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, +and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind +a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle +(double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of +the German ballad of Leonora? + +It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau. + +The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added +the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited +through about two hundred years. + +It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine +mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the +heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt +was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: + +“Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +Two Promises + + +More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles +Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French +language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he +would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with +young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a +living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for +its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in +sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters were not +at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were +to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had +dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a +tutor, whose attainments made the student’s way unusually pleasant and +profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his +work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became +known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, more-over, with the +circumstances of his country, and those were of ever-growing interest. +So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered. + +In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor +to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he +would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and +did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. + +A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he +read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a +contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek +and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in +London. + +Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days +when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has +invariably gone one way--Charles Darnay’s way--the way of the love of a +woman. + +He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never +heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; +he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was +confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for +him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination +at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long, +long, dusty roads--the solid stone chateau which had itself become the +mere mist of a dream--had been done a year, and he had never yet, by so +much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. + +That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a +summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, +he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity +of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer +day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. + +He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energy +which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated +their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a +very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength +of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was +sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the +exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been +frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare. + +He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with +ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at +sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. + +“Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your +return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were +both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due.” + +“I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he answered, +a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. “Miss +Manette--” + +“Is well,” said the Doctor, as he stopped short, “and your return will +delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will +soon be home.” + +“Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her +being from home, to beg to speak to you.” + +There was a blank silence. + +“Yes?” said the Doctor, with evident constraint. “Bring your chair here, +and speak on.” + +He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less +easy. + +“I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,” + so he at length began, “for some year and a half, that I hope the topic +on which I am about to touch may not--” + +He was stayed by the Doctor’s putting out his hand to stop him. When he +had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back: + +“Is Lucie the topic?” + +“She is.” + +“It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me +to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.” + +“It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor +Manette!” he said deferentially. + +There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: + +“I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” + +His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it +originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles +Darnay hesitated. + +“Shall I go on, sir?” + +Another blank. + +“Yes, go on.” + +“You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly +I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and +the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been +laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, +disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love +her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!” + +The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the +ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, +and cried: + +“Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!” + +His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles +Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had +extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter +so received it, and remained silent. + +“I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some +moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it.” + +He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or +raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair +overshadowed his face: + +“Have you spoken to Lucie?” + +“No.” + +“Nor written?” + +“Never.” + +“It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is +to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks +you.” + +He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. + +“I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “how can I fail to know, Doctor +Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between +you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so +belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it +can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and +child. I know, Doctor Manette--how can I fail to know--that, mingled +with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there +is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy +itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is +now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present +years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the +early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if +you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could +hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that +in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to +you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your +neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her +own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, +loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I +have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home.” + +Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a +little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation. + +“Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you +with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as +long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even +now feel, that to bring my love--even mine--between you, is to touch +your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. +Heaven is my witness that I love her!” + +“I believe it,” answered her father, mournfully. “I have thought so +before now. I believe it.” + +“But, do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice +struck with a reproachful sound, “that if my fortune were so cast as +that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time +put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a +word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I +should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at +a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my +heart--if it ever had been there--if it ever could be there--I could not +now touch this honoured hand.” + +He laid his own upon it as he spoke. + +“No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like +you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like +you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting +in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your +life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide +with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to +come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be.” + +His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering the touch for a +moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of +his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the +conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle with that +occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. + +“You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank +you with all my heart, and will open all my heart--or nearly so. Have +you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?” + +“None. As yet, none.” + +“Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once +ascertain that, with my knowledge?” + +“Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I +might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow.” + +“Do you seek any guidance from me?” + +“I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it +in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some.” + +“Do you seek any promise from me?” + +“I do seek that.” + +“What is it?” + +“I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well +understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her +innocent heart--do not think I have the presumption to assume so much--I +could retain no place in it against her love for her father.” + +“If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?” + +“I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor’s +favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, +Doctor Manette,” said Darnay, modestly but firmly, “I would not ask that +word, to save my life.” + +“I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as +well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and +delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one +respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her +heart.” + +“May I ask, sir, if you think she is--” As he hesitated, her father +supplied the rest. + +“Is sought by any other suitor?” + +“It is what I meant to say.” + +Her father considered a little before he answered: + +“You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, +occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.” + +“Or both,” said Darnay. + +“I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You want +a promise from me. Tell me what it is.” + +“It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own +part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will +bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you +may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against +me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. The +condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to +require, I will observe immediately.” + +“I give the promise,” said the Doctor, “without any condition. I believe +your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I +believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties +between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me +that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. +If there were--Charles Darnay, if there were--” + +The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as +the Doctor spoke: + +“--any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, +new or old, against the man she really loved--the direct responsibility +thereof not lying on his head--they should all be obliterated for her +sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me +than wrong, more to me--Well! This is idle talk.” + +So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange +his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own +hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it. + +“You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. +“What was it you said to me?” + +He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a +condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered: + +“Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my +part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother’s, is +not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and +why I am in England.” + +“Stop!” said the Doctor of Beauvais. + +“I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no +secret from you.” + +“Stop!” + +For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for +another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay’s lips. + +“Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie +should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you +promise?” + +“Willingly. + +“Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she +should not see us together to-night. Go! God bless you!” + +It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and +darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone--for +Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs--and was surprised to find his +reading-chair empty. + +“My father!” she called to him. “Father dear!” + +Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his +bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at +his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her +blood all chilled, “What shall I do! What shall I do!” + +Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at +his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of +her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down +together for a long time. + +She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He +slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished +work, were all as usual. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +A Companion Picture + + +“Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, to his +jackal; “mix another bowl of punch; I have something to say to you.” + +Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, +and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making +a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s papers before the setting in +of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver +arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until +November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and +bring grist to the mill again. + +Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much +application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him +through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded +the towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled +his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at +intervals for the last six hours. + +“Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?” said Stryver the portly, with +his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on +his back. + +“I am.” + +“Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather +surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as +shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry.” + +“_Do_ you?” + +“Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?” + +“I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she?” + +“Guess.” + +“Do I know her?” + +“Guess.” + +“I am not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with my brains +frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must ask +me to dinner.” + +“Well then, I’ll tell you,” said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting +posture. “Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, +because you are such an insensible dog.” + +“And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, “are such a +sensitive and poetical spirit--” + +“Come!” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “though I don’t prefer +any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), still +I am a tenderer sort of fellow than _you_.” + +“You are a luckier, if you mean that.” + +“I don’t mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more--” + +“Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton. + +“Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,” said Stryver, +inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, “who cares more to +be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better how +to be agreeable, in a woman’s society, than you do.” + +“Go on,” said Sydney Carton. + +“No; but before I go on,” said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying +way, “I’ll have this out with you. You’ve been at Doctor Manette’s house +as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your +moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and +hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you, +Sydney!” + +“It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to +be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney; “you ought to be much obliged +to me.” + +“You shall not get off in that way,” rejoined Stryver, shouldering the +rejoinder at him; “no, Sydney, it’s my duty to tell you--and I tell you +to your face to do you good--that you are a devilish ill-conditioned +fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow.” + +Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed. + +“Look at me!” said Stryver, squaring himself; “I have less need to make +myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances. +Why do I do it?” + +“I never saw you do it yet,” muttered Carton. + +“I do it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! I +get on.” + +“You don’t get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,” + answered Carton, with a careless air; “I wish you would keep to that. As +to me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?” + +He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. + +“You have no business to be incorrigible,” was his friend’s answer, +delivered in no very soothing tone. + +“I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,” said Sydney Carton. +“Who is the lady?” + +“Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, +Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness +for the disclosure he was about to make, “because I know you don’t mean +half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I +make this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to +me in slighting terms.” + +“I did?” + +“Certainly; and in these chambers.” + +Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; +drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend. + +“You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The young +lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or +delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a +little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not. +You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when I +think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’s opinion of +a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of music +of mine, who had no ear for music.” + +Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, +looking at his friend. + +“Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “I don’t care about +fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to +please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She +will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, +and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, +but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?” + +Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should I be +astonished?” + +“You approve?” + +Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should I not approve?” + +“Well!” said his friend Stryver, “you take it more easily than I fancied +you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would +be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your +ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had +enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; I +feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels +inclined to go to it (when he doesn’t, he can stay away), and I feel +that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do me +credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to +say a word to _you_ about _your_ prospects. You are in a bad way, you +know; you really are in a bad way. You don’t know the value of money, +you live hard, you’ll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; +you really ought to think about a nurse.” + +The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as +big as he was, and four times as offensive. + +“Now, let me recommend you,” pursued Stryver, “to look it in the face. +I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face, +you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of +you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women’s society, nor +understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some +respectable woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way, +or lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day. That’s the +kind of thing for _you_. Now think of it, Sydney.” + +“I’ll think of it,” said Sydney. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +The Fellow of Delicacy + + +Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good +fortune on the Doctor’s daughter, resolved to make her happiness known +to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental +debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as +well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange +at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two +before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it +and Hilary. + +As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly +saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly +grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was a +plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the +plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for +the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to +consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer +case could be. + +Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal +proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to +Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present +himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. + +Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, +while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s infancy was still upon it. +Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yet +on Saint Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way +along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have +seen how safe and strong he was. + +His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at Tellson’s and +knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. +Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness +of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle +in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient +cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. +Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron +bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything +under the clouds were a sum. + +“Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver. “How do you do? I hope you are well!” + +It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any +place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that old clerks +in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he +squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading +the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if +the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. + +The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would +recommend under the circumstances, “How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do +you do, sir?” and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner +of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’s who shook +hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a +self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. + +“Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. Lorry, in his +business character. + +“Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I +have come for a private word.” + +“Oh indeed!” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed +to the House afar off. + +“I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the +desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to +be not half desk enough for him: “I am going to make an offer of myself +in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.” + +“Oh dear me!” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his +visitor dubiously. + +“Oh dear me, sir?” repeated Stryver, drawing back. “Oh dear you, sir? +What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?” + +“My meaning,” answered the man of business, “is, of course, friendly and +appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short, +my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr. +Stryver--” Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest +manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, +“you know there really is so much too much of you!” + +“Well!” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, +opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, “if I understand you, +Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged!” + +Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that +end, and bit the feather of a pen. + +“D--n it all, sir!” said Stryver, staring at him, “am I not eligible?” + +“Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you’re eligible!” said Mr. Lorry. “If you say +eligible, you are eligible.” + +“Am I not prosperous?” asked Stryver. + +“Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,” said Mr. Lorry. + +“And advancing?” + +“If you come to advancing you know,” said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be +able to make another admission, “nobody can doubt that.” + +“Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” demanded Stryver, +perceptibly crestfallen. + +“Well! I--Were you going there now?” asked Mr. Lorry. + +“Straight!” said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. + +“Then I think I wouldn’t, if I was you.” + +“Why?” said Stryver. “Now, I’ll put you in a corner,” forensically +shaking a forefinger at him. “You are a man of business and bound to +have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn’t you go?” + +“Because,” said Mr. Lorry, “I wouldn’t go on such an object without +having some cause to believe that I should succeed.” + +“D--n _me_!” cried Stryver, “but this beats everything.” + +Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry +Stryver. + +“Here’s a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_ +a Bank,” said Stryver; “and having summed up three leading reasons for +complete success, he says there’s no reason at all! Says it with his +head on!” Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have +been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. + +“When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and +when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of +causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young +lady, my good sir,” said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, “the +young lady. The young lady goes before all.” + +“Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, squaring his +elbows, “that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at +present in question is a mincing Fool?” + +“Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,” said Mr. Lorry, +reddening, “that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady +from any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whose +taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could +not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at +this desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent my giving him a piece of my +mind.” + +The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver’s +blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry; +Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in +no better state now it was his turn. + +“That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. “Pray let there +be no mistake about it.” + +Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood +hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the +toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying: + +“This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not +to go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King’s Bench +bar?” + +“Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?” + +“Yes, I do.” + +“Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.” + +“And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, “that +this--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come.” + +“Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. “As a man of business, I am +not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of +business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried +Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and +of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have +spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I +may not be right?” + +“Not I!” said Stryver, whistling. “I can’t undertake to find third +parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense +in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It’s +new to me, but you are right, I dare say.” + +“What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--And +understand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, “I +will not--not even at Tellson’s--have it characterised for me by any +gentleman breathing.” + +“There! I beg your pardon!” said Stryver. + +“Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might be +painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor +Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very +painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You +know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with +the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you +in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a +little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon +it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its +soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied +with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is +best spared. What do you say?” + +“How long would you keep me in town?” + +“Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the +evening, and come to your chambers afterwards.” + +“Then I say yes,” said Stryver: “I won’t go up there now, I am not so +hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look +in to-night. Good morning.” + +Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a +concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it +bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength +of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were +always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly +believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in +the empty office until they bowed another customer in. + +The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have +gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than +moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to +swallow, he got it down. “And now,” said Mr. Stryver, shaking his +forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, “my way +out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong.” + +It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found +great relief. “You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady,” said Mr. +Stryver; “I’ll do that for you.” + +Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o’clock, +Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the +purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of +the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was +altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. + +“Well!” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of +bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. “I have been to +Soho.” + +“To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. “Oh, to be sure! What am I +thinking of!” + +“And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was right in the +conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my +advice.” + +“I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, “that I +am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father’s +account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let +us say no more about it.” + +“I don’t understand you,” said Mr. Lorry. + +“I dare say not,” rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and +final way; “no matter, no matter.” + +“But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged. + +“No it doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed that there was +sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is +not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is +done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have +repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish +aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been +a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am +glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing +for me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I could +have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not +proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means +certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to +that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and +giddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you +will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, +I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. +And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, +and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; +you were right, it never would have done.” + +Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. +Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of +showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. +“Make the best of it, my dear sir,” said Stryver; “say no more about it; +thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!” + +Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver +was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +The Fellow of No Delicacy + + +If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the +house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year, +and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he +cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, +which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely +pierced by the light within him. + +And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, +and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night +he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no +transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary +figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams +of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture +in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time +brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, +into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known +him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon +it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that +neighbourhood. + +On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal +that “he had thought better of that marrying matter”) had carried his +delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the +City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health +for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney’s feet still trod +those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became +animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, +they took him to the Doctor’s door. + +He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had +never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little +embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at +his face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observed +a change in it. + +“I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!” + +“No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What +is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?” + +“Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity to +live no better life?” + +“God knows it is a shame!” + +“Then why not change it?” + +Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that +there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he +answered: + +“It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall +sink lower, and be worse.” + +He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The +table trembled in the silence that followed. + +She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to +be so, without looking at her, and said: + +“Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of +what I want to say to you. Will you hear me?” + +“If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, +it would make me very glad!” + +“God bless you for your sweet compassion!” + +He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. + +“Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. I am like +one who died young. All my life might have been.” + +“No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am +sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.” + +“Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in the +mystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forget +it!” + +She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair +of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have +been holden. + +“If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the +love of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken, +poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have been +conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would +bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, +disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have +no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannot +be.” + +“Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall +you--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay your +confidence? I know this is a confidence,” she modestly said, after a +little hesitation, and in earnest tears, “I know you would say this to +no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?” + +He shook his head. + +“To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very +little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that +you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not +been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this +home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had +died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that +I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from +old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I +have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off +sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all +a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, +but I wish you to know that you inspired it.” + +“Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!” + +“No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite +undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the +weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, +heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in +its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no +service, idly burning away.” + +“Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy +than you were before you knew me--” + +“Don’t say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if +anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.” + +“Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, +attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I can +make it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for +good, with you, at all?” + +“The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come +here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, +the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; +and that there was something left in me at this time which you could +deplore and pity.” + +“Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with +all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!” + +“Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, +and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let +me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life +was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there +alone, and will be shared by no one?” + +“If that will be a consolation to you, yes.” + +“Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?” + +“Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, “the secret is +yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.” + +“Thank you. And again, God bless you.” + +He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. + +“Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this +conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it +again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In +the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance--and +shall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was made +to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried +in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!” + +He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so +sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept +down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he +stood looking back at her. + +“Be comforted!” he said, “I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An +hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn +but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any +wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I +shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be +what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make +to you, is, that you will believe this of me.” + +“I will, Mr. Carton.” + +“My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve +you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and +between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say +it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to +you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that +there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would +embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold +me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one +thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new +ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly +and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever +grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a +happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright +beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is +a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” + +He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +The Honest Tradesman + + +To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in +Fleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and +variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit +upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and +not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending +westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, +both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where +the sun goes down! + +With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, +like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty +watching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever +running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, +since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid +women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from +Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such +companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed +to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to +have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from +the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent +purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed. + +Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in +the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, +but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. + +It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were +few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so +unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. +Cruncher must have been “flopping” in some pointed manner, when an +unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted his +attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of +funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this +funeral, which engendered uproar. + +“Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, “it’s a +buryin’.” + +“Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry. + +The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious +significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched +his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. + +“What d’ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey +to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for +_me_!” said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. “Him and his hooroars! Don’t +let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D’ye +hear?” + +“I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. + +“Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; “I won’t have none of _your_ no +harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd.” + +His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing +round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach +there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were +considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position +appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble +surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and +incessantly groaning and calling out: “Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!” + with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. + +Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he +always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed +Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendance +excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him: + +“What is it, brother? What’s it about?” + +“_I_ don’t know,” said the man. “Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!” + +He asked another man. “Who is it?” + +“_I_ don’t know,” returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth +nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the +greatest ardour, “Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!” + +At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled +against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the +funeral of one Roger Cly. + +“Was he a spy?” asked Mr. Cruncher. + +“Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey +Spi--i--ies!” + +“Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had +assisted. “I’ve seen him. Dead, is he?” + +“Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “and can’t be too dead. Have ’em +out, there! Spies! Pull ’em out, there! Spies!” + +The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, +that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the +suggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out, mobbed the two vehicles +so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd’s opening the coach +doors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself and was in their hands +for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, +that in another moment he was scouring away up a bye-street, after +shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and +other symbolical tears. + +These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great +enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a +crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. +They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin +out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to +its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being +much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and +the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out, +while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any +exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers +was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from +the observation of Tellson’s, in the further corner of the mourning +coach. + +The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in +the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices +remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory +members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. +The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the +hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under +close inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attended +by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a +popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional +ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his +bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to +that part of the procession in which he walked. + +Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite +caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting +at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination +was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there +in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, +accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and +highly to its own satisfaction. + +The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of +providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter +genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual +passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase +was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near +the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and +they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of +window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy +and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had +been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm +the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were +coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps +the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual +progress of a mob. + +Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained +behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. +The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a +neighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and +maturely considering the spot. + +“Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, +“you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he +was a young ’un and a straight made ’un.” + +Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned +himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his +station at Tellson’s. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched +his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all +amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent +man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon +his medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back. + +Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No +job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the +usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. + +“Now, I tell you where it is!” said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on +entering. “If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I +shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, and I shall work you +for it just the same as if I seen you do it.” + +The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. + +“Why, you’re at it afore my face!” said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of +angry apprehension. + +“I am saying nothing.” + +“Well, then; don’t meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. +You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether.” + +“Yes, Jerry.” + +“Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. “Ah! It _is_ +yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, Jerry.” + +Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, +but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general +ironical dissatisfaction. + +“You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his +bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible +oyster out of his saucer. “Ah! I think so. I believe you.” + +“You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when he took +another bite. + +“Yes, I am.” + +“May I go with you, father?” asked his son, briskly. + +“No, you mayn’t. I’m a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That’s +where I’m going to. Going a fishing.” + +“Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?” + +“Never you mind.” + +“Shall you bring any fish home, father?” + +“If I don’t, you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,” returned that +gentleman, shaking his head; “that’s questions enough for you; I ain’t a +going out, till you’ve been long abed.” + +He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a +most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her in +conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions +to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in +conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling +on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than +he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest +person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an +honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a +professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. + +“And mind you!” said Mr. Cruncher. “No games to-morrow! If I, as a +honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none +of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest +tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring +on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly +customer to you, if you don’t. _I_’m your Rome, you know.” + +Then he began grumbling again: + +“With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don’t +know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by your +flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he _is_ +your’n, ain’t he? He’s as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, +and not know that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy out?” + +This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to +perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above +all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal +function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. + +Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry +was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, +obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with +solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one +o’clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, +took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought +forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other +fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him +in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, +extinguished the light, and went out. + +Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to +bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he +followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the +court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning +his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the +door stood ajar all night. + +Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his +father’s honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, +walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his +honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not +gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and +the two trudged on together. + +Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the +winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a +lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently, +that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the +second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split +himself into two. + +The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped +under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low +brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and +wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which +the wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side. +Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that +Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well +defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. +He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the +third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay +there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands +and knees. + +It was now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which he did, +holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking +in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! +and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyard +that they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the church +tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not +creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to +fish. + +They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent +appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. +Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful +striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, +with his hair as stiff as his father’s. + +But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not +only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They +were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for +the second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a +screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were +strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the +earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what +it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to +wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he +made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. + +He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, +it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable +to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen +was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt +upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him +and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to +shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it +was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the +roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them +like a dropsical boy’s kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways +too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up +to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, +and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was +incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy +got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then +it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every +stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on +his breast when he fell asleep. + +From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after +daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the +family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry +inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the +ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the +bed. + +“I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “and I did.” + +“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored. + +“You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry, “and me +and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don’t +you?” + +“I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with tears. + +“Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is it +honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your +husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?” + +“You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.” + +“It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “to be the wife of a +honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations +when he took to his trade or when he didn’t. A honouring and obeying +wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious +woman? If you’re a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have +no more nat’ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has +of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.” + +The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in +the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down +at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on +his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay +down too, and fell asleep again. + +There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. +Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lid +by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case +he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed +and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his +ostensible calling. + +Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father’s side +along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerry +from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and +solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, +and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is not +improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London, +that fine morning. + +“Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep +at arm’s length and to have the stool well between them: “what’s a +Resurrection-Man?” + +Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, “How +should I know?” + +“I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy. + +“Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his +hat to give his spikes free play, “he’s a tradesman.” + +“What’s his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry. + +“His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, “is a +branch of Scientific goods.” + +“Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy. + +“I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher. + +“Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’m quite +growed up!” + +Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. +“It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop +your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and +there’s no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit +for.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, +to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to +himself: “Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’s hopes wot that boy will +yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +Knitting + + +There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of Monsieur +Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping +through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over +measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best +of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that +he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its +influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No +vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur +Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in +the dregs of it. + +This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been +early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had begun +on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early +brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and +slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who could +not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These +were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could +have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they glided from seat to seat, +and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy +looks. + +Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop +was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the +threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see +only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of +wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced +and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of +humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come. + +A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps +observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in +at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to the criminal’s +gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built +towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops +of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve +with her toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible +a long way off. + +Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was +high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and under +his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a +mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered +the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast +of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and +flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had +followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wine-shop, though +the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. + +“Good day, gentlemen!” said Monsieur Defarge. + +It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited +an answering chorus of “Good day!” + +“It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking his head. + +Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast down +their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out. + +“My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: “I have +travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called +Jacques. I met him--by accident--a day and half’s journey out of Paris. +He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to +drink, my wife!” + +A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the +mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company, +and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark +bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near +Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and went out. + +Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine--but, he took less +than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no +rarity--and stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. +He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even +Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work. + +“Have you finished your repast, friend?” he asked, in due season. + +“Yes, thank you.” + +“Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could +occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.” + +Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a +courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the +staircase into a garret--formerly the garret where a white-haired man +sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. + +No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had +gone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and the white-haired +man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once looked in at +him through the chinks in the wall. + +Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice: + +“Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness +encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. +Speak, Jacques Five!” + +The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with +it, and said, “Where shall I commence, monsieur?” + +“Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable reply, “at the +commencement.” + +“I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, “a year ago this +running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the +chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun +going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he +hanging by the chain--like this.” + +Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which +he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been +the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village +during a whole year. + +Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before? + +“Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular. + +Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then? + +“By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and with his +finger at his nose. “When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, +‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, ‘Tall as a spectre.’” + +“You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques Two. + +“But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did he +confide in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do not +offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, +standing near our little fountain, and says, ‘To me! Bring that rascal!’ +My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.” + +“He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him who had +interrupted. “Go on!” + +“Good!” said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. “The tall man +is lost, and he is sought--how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?” + +“No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hidden, but at last +he is unluckily found. Go on!” + +“I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about to +go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the +village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see +coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man +with his arms bound--tied to his sides--like this!” + +With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his +elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behind him. + +“I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers +and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where any +spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I +see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and +that they are almost black to my sight--except on the side of the sun +going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that +their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the +road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. +Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves +with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near +to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would +be well content to precipitate himself over the hill-side once again, as +on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!” + +He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it +vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. + +“I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does not +show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with +our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief of that company, pointing to the +village, ‘bring him fast to his tomb!’ and they bring him faster. I +follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden +shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and +consequently slow, they drive him with their guns--like this!” + +He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by the +butt-ends of muskets. + +“As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They +laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, +but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into +the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill, +and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the +darkness of the night, and swallow him--like this!” + +He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding +snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effect by +opening it again, Defarge said, “Go on, Jacques.” + +“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low +voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the +village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the +locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, +except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating +my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on +my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty +iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no +hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards me like a +dead man.” + +Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all +of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the +countryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was +authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One +and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on +his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally +intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding +over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge +standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the +light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to +him. + +“Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge. + +“He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks +at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from a +distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the work +of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all +faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards +the posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. They +whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be +executed; they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing +that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say +that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? +It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” + +“Listen then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly interposed. +“Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, +yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, +sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the +hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in +his hand.” + +“And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling Number Three: +his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a +strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something--that was neither +food nor drink; “the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, +and struck him blows. You hear?” + +“I hear, messieurs.” + +“Go on then,” said Defarge. + +“Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” resumed the +countryman, “that he is brought down into our country to be executed on +the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper +that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the +father of his tenants--serfs--what you will--he will be executed as a +parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed +with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds +which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be +poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, +that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man +says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on +the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? +I am not a scholar.” + +“Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with the restless hand +and the craving air. “The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was +all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; and +nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than +the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager +attention to the last--to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, +when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was +done--why, how old are you?” + +“Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. + +“It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen +it.” + +“Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience. “Long live the Devil! Go +on.” + +“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; +even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday +night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from +the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. +Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by +the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the +water.” + +The mender of roads looked _through_ rather than _at_ the low ceiling, +and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. + +“All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, +the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers +have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst +of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is +a gag--tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he +laughed.” He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, +from the corners of his mouth to his ears. “On the top of the gallows is +fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged +there forty feet high--and is left hanging, poisoning the water.” + +They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, +on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the +spectacle. + +“It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw +water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have +I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to +bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, +across the mill, across the prison--seemed to strike across the earth, +messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!” + +The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other +three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him. + +“That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), +and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was +warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and now +walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here +you see me!” + +After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, “Good! You have acted +and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside the +door?” + +“Very willingly,” said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to the +top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned. + +The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to +the garret. + +“How say you, Jacques?” demanded Number One. “To be registered?” + +“To be registered, as doomed to destruction,” returned Defarge. + +“Magnificent!” croaked the man with the craving. + +“The chateau, and all the race?” inquired the first. + +“The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge. “Extermination.” + +The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, “Magnificent!” and began +gnawing another finger. + +“Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no embarrassment +can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is +safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always +be able to decipher it--or, I ought to say, will she?” + +“Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if madame my wife +undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose +a word of it--not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her +own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in +Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, +to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or +crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.” + +There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man who +hungered, asked: “Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is +very simple; is he not a little dangerous?” + +“He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “at least nothing more than would +easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge myself +with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and set him +on his road. He wishes to see the fine world--the King, the Queen, and +Court; let him see them on Sunday.” + +“What?” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “Is it a good sign, that he +wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?” + +“Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her +to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish +him to bring it down one day.” + +Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already +dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the +pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon +asleep. + +Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop, could easily have been found +in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a mysterious +dread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very +new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly +unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that +his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that +he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he +contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady +might pretend next; and he felt assured that if she should take it +into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a +murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through +with it until the play was played out. + +Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted +(though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur +and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have +madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was +additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the +afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to +see the carriage of the King and Queen. + +“You work hard, madame,” said a man near her. + +“Yes,” answered Madame Defarge; “I have a good deal to do.” + +“What do you make, madame?” + +“Many things.” + +“For instance--” + +“For instance,” returned Madame Defarge, composedly, “shrouds.” + +The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender +of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: feeling it mightily close +and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was +fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced King +and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the +shining Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing +ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour +and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both +sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary +intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, +Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of +ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, +terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull’s Eye, +more lords and ladies, more Long live they all! until he absolutely wept +with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three +hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, +and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him +from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to +pieces. + +“Bravo!” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a +patron; “you are a good boy!” + +The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of +having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no. + +“You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge, in his ear; “you make +these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more +insolent, and it is the nearer ended.” + +“Hey!” cried the mender of roads, reflectively; “that’s true.” + +“These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would +stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than +in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath +tells them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot +deceive them too much.” + +Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in +confirmation. + +“As to you,” said she, “you would shout and shed tears for anything, if +it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?” + +“Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.” + +“If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to +pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would +pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?” + +“Truly yes, madame.” + +“Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were +set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, +you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?” + +“It is true, madame.” + +“You have seen both dolls and birds to-day,” said Madame Defarge, with +a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; +“now, go home!” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +Still Knitting + + +Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the +bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the +darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by +the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where +the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to +the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, +for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village +scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead +stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and +terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that +the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the +village--had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had--that +when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to +faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled +up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel +look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the +stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder +was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which +everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the +scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the +crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a +skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all +started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares +who could find a living there. + +Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the +stone floor, and the pure water in the village well--thousands of acres +of land--a whole province of France--all France itself--lay under the +night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole +world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling +star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse +the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in +the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every +vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. + +The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, +in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their +journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier +guardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual +examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or two +of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate +with, and affectionately embraced. + +When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, +and they, having finally alighted near the Saint’s boundaries, were +picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his +streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband: + +“Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?” + +“Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy +commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he +can say, but he knows of one.” + +“Eh well!” said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool +business air. “It is necessary to register him. How do they call that +man?” + +“He is English.” + +“So much the better. His name?” + +“Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had +been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfect +correctness. + +“Barsad,” repeated madame. “Good. Christian name?” + +“John.” + +“John Barsad,” repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. +“Good. His appearance; is it known?” + +“Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; +complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face +thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a +peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, +sinister.” + +“Eh my faith. It is a portrait!” said madame, laughing. “He shall be +registered to-morrow.” + +They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight), +and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted +the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the +stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of +her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally +dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl +of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her +handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through the +night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked +up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which +condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he +walked up and down through life. + +The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a +neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge’s olfactory sense was +by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than +it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He +whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his smoked-out pipe. + +“You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the +money. “There are only the usual odours.” + +“I am a little tired,” her husband acknowledged. + +“You are a little depressed, too,” said madame, whose quick eyes had +never been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two for +him. “Oh, the men, the men!” + +“But my dear!” began Defarge. + +“But my dear!” repeated madame, nodding firmly; “but my dear! You are +faint of heart to-night, my dear!” + +“Well, then,” said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his +breast, “it _is_ a long time.” + +“It is a long time,” repeated his wife; “and when is it not a long time? +Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.” + +“It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning,” said +Defarge. + +“How long,” demanded madame, composedly, “does it take to make and store +the lightning? Tell me.” + +Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that +too. + +“It does not take a long time,” said madame, “for an earthquake to +swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the +earthquake?” + +“A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge. + +“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything +before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not +seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.” + +She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. + +“I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, +“that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and +coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it +is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world +that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider +the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with +more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock +you.” + +“My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her with his head +a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and +attentive pupil before his catechist, “I do not question all this. But +it has lasted a long time, and it is possible--you know well, my wife, +it is possible--that it may not come, during our lives.” + +“Eh well! How then?” demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there +were another enemy strangled. + +“Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. +“We shall not see the triumph.” + +“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended hand in +strong action. “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all +my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew +certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I +would--” + +Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. + +“Hold!” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with +cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.” + +“Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim +and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. +When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the +time with the tiger and the devil chained--not shown--yet always ready.” + +Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her +little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains +out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene +manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. + +Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the +wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she +now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her +usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not +drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, +and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous +perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell +dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies +out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they +themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met +the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps they +thought as much at Court that sunny summer day. + +A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she +felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her +rose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure. + +It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the +customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the +wine-shop. + +“Good day, madame,” said the new-comer. + +“Good day, monsieur.” + +She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: +“Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black +hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, +thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a +peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister +expression! Good day, one and all!” + +“Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a +mouthful of cool fresh water, madame.” + +Madame complied with a polite air. + +“Marvellous cognac this, madame!” + +It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame +Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, +however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The +visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity +of observing the place in general. + +“You knit with great skill, madame.” + +“I am accustomed to it.” + +“A pretty pattern too!” + +“_You_ think so?” said madame, looking at him with a smile. + +“Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?” + +“Pastime,” said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her +fingers moved nimbly. + +“Not for use?” + +“That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do--Well,” said +madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of +coquetry, “I’ll use it!” + +It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be +decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Two +men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, +catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of +looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. +Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there +one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, +but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a +poverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and +unimpeachable. + +“_John_,” thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, +and her eyes looked at the stranger. “Stay long enough, and I shall knit +‘BARSAD’ before you go.” + +“You have a husband, madame?” + +“I have.” + +“Children?” + +“No children.” + +“Business seems bad?” + +“Business is very bad; the people are so poor.” + +“Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too--as you say.” + +“As _you_ say,” madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an +extra something into his name that boded him no good. + +“Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. +Of course.” + +“_I_ think?” returned madame, in a high voice. “I and my husband have +enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All we +think, here, is how to live. That is the subject _we_ think of, and +it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without +embarrassing our heads concerning others. _I_ think for others? No, no.” + +The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did +not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but, +stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame +Defarge’s little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. + +“A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard’s execution. Ah! the poor +Gaspard!” With a sigh of great compassion. + +“My faith!” returned madame, coolly and lightly, “if people use knives +for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the +price of his luxury was; he has paid the price.” + +“I believe,” said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone +that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary +susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: “I believe there +is much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poor +fellow? Between ourselves.” + +“Is there?” asked madame, vacantly. + +“Is there not?” + +“--Here is my husband!” said Madame Defarge. + +As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy saluted +him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, “Good day, +Jacques!” Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. + +“Good day, Jacques!” the spy repeated; with not quite so much +confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. + +“You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper of the wine-shop. +“You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge.” + +“It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited too: “good +day!” + +“Good day!” answered Defarge, drily. + +“I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when +you entered, that they tell me there is--and no wonder!--much sympathy +and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard.” + +“No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. “I know nothing +of it.” + +Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his +hand on the back of his wife’s chair, looking over that barrier at the +person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would +have shot with the greatest satisfaction. + +The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious +attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh +water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it +out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over +it. + +“You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?” + observed Defarge. + +“Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested +in its miserable inhabitants.” + +“Hah!” muttered Defarge. + +“The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me,” + pursued the spy, “that I have the honour of cherishing some interesting +associations with your name.” + +“Indeed!” said Defarge, with much indifference. + +“Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, +had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I am +informed of the circumstances?” + +“Such is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had had it conveyed +to him, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as she knitted and +warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. + +“It was to you,” said the spy, “that his daughter came; and it was +from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown +monsieur; how is he called?--in a little wig--Lorry--of the bank of +Tellson and Company--over to England.” + +“Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge. + +“Very interesting remembrances!” said the spy. “I have known Doctor +Manette and his daughter, in England.” + +“Yes?” said Defarge. + +“You don’t hear much about them now?” said the spy. + +“No,” said Defarge. + +“In effect,” madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little +song, “we never hear about them. We received the news of their safe +arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, +they have gradually taken their road in life--we, ours--and we have held +no correspondence.” + +“Perfectly so, madame,” replied the spy. “She is going to be married.” + +“Going?” echoed madame. “She was pretty enough to have been married long +ago. You English are cold, it seems to me.” + +“Oh! You know I am English.” + +“I perceive your tongue is,” returned madame; “and what the tongue is, I +suppose the man is.” + +He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the best +of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to the +end, he added: + +“Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to +one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, +poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is +going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard +was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present +Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is +Mr. Charles Darnay. D’Aulnais is the name of his mother’s family.” + +Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable +effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, +as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was +troubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no +spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. + +Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be +worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad +paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, +in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the +pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes +after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the +husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should +come back. + +“Can it be true,” said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife +as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair: “what he has +said of Ma’amselle Manette?” + +“As he has said it,” returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, “it +is probably false. But it may be true.” + +“If it is--” Defarge began, and stopped. + +“If it is?” repeated his wife. + +“--And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph--I hope, for her +sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France.” + +“Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, +“will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that is +to end him. That is all I know.” + +“But it is very strange--now, at least, is it not very strange”--said +Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, +“that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her +husband’s name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, by +the side of that infernal dog’s who has just left us?” + +“Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,” answered +madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both here +for their merits; that is enough.” + +She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently +took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. +Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable +decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its +disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very +shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. + +In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned +himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and came +to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame +Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place +to place and from group to group: a Missionary--there were many like +her--such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women +knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was a +mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the +jaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, +the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. + +But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame +Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer +among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left +behind. + +Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. “A +great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully +grand woman!” + +Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and +the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as +the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another +darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing +pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into +thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a +wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, +Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat +knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around +a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, +counting dropping heads. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +One Night + + +Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in +Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat +under the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder +radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still +seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. + +Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last evening +for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree. + +“You are happy, my dear father?” + +“Quite, my child.” + +They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it +was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herself +in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in +both ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this +time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. + +“And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in the +love that Heaven has so blessed--my love for Charles, and Charles’s love +for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or +if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by +the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy and +self-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is--” + +Even as it was, she could not command her voice. + +In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face +upon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of +the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and +its going. + +“Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, +quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will +ever interpose between us? _I_ know it well, but do you know it? In your +own heart, do you feel quite certain?” + +Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could +scarcely have assumed, “Quite sure, my darling! More than that,” he +added, as he tenderly kissed her: “my future is far brighter, Lucie, +seen through your marriage, than it could have been--nay, than it ever +was--without it.” + +“If I could hope _that_, my father!--” + +“Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain +it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannot +fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be +wasted--” + +She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated +the word. + +“--wasted, my child--should not be wasted, struck aside from the +natural order of things--for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely +comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, +how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?” + +“If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happy +with you.” + +He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappy +without Charles, having seen him; and replied: + +“My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been +Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, I +should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would have +cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you.” + +It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him +refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and new +sensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it long +afterwards. + +“See!” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. +“I have looked at her from my prison-window, when I could not bear her +light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to think +of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against +my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and lethargic, +that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines I +could draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lines +with which I could intersect them.” He added in his inward and pondering +manner, as he looked at the moon, “It was twenty either way, I remember, +and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in.” + +The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, +deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her in +the manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present +cheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over. + +“I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unborn +child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it had +been born alive, or the poor mother’s shock had killed it. Whether it +was a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in my +imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it +was a son who would never know his father’s story; who might even live +to weigh the possibility of his father’s having disappeared of his own +will and act. Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman.” + +She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. + +“I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of +me--rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I have +cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her married +to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished from +the remembrance of the living, and in the next generation my place was a +blank.” + +“My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter who +never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child.” + +“You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have +brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us and +the moon on this last night.--What did I say just now?” + +“She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.” + +“So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence +have touched me in a different way--have affected me with something as +like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for its +foundations could--I have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and +leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her +image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never held +her in my arms; it stood between the little grated window and the door. +But, you understand that that was not the child I am speaking of?” + +“The figure was not; the--the--image; the fancy?” + +“No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of +sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was another +and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than +that she was like her mother. The other had that likeness too--as you +have--but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think? +I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these +perplexed distinctions.” + +His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running +cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition. + +“In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, +coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her married +life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picture +was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active, +cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all.” + +“I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my love +that was I.” + +“And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of Beauvais, “and +they had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When they passed +a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked +up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; I +imagined that she always brought me back after showing me such things. +But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and +blessed her.” + +“I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you bless +me as fervently to-morrow?” + +“Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-night +for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my great +happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the +happiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us.” + +He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thanked +Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By-and-bye, they went into the +house. + +There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even to +be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make no +change in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it, +by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the +apocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. + +Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only +three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charles +was not there; was more than half disposed to object to the loving +little plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately. + +So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. +But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came +downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, +beforehand. + +All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he lay +asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his +hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the +shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; +then, leaned over him, and looked at him. + +Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, he +covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held the +mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet, +resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be +beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night. + +She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that +she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his +sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips once +more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves +of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had moved +in praying for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +Nine Days + + +The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the +closed door of the Doctor’s room, where he was speaking with Charles +Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. +Lorry, and Miss Pross--to whom the event, through a gradual process of +reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, +but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should +have been the bridegroom. + +“And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, +and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, +pretty dress; “and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought +you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought +what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring +on my friend Mr. Charles!” + +“You didn’t mean it,” remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, “and +therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!” + +“Really? Well; but don’t cry,” said the gentle Mr. Lorry. + +“I am not crying,” said Miss Pross; “_you_ are.” + +“I, my Pross?” (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, +on occasion.) + +“You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder at it. Such +a present of plate as you have made ’em, is enough to bring tears into +anybody’s eyes. There’s not a fork or a spoon in the collection,” said +Miss Pross, “that I didn’t cry over, last night after the box came, till +I couldn’t see it.” + +“I am highly gratified,” said Mr. Lorry, “though, upon my honour, I +had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance +invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man +speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there +might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!” + +“Not at all!” From Miss Pross. + +“You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?” asked the +gentleman of that name. + +“Pooh!” rejoined Miss Pross; “you were a bachelor in your cradle.” + +“Well!” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, “that +seems probable, too.” + +“And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss Pross, “before you +were put in your cradle.” + +“Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was very unhandsomely dealt +with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my +pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie,” drawing his arm soothingly round +her waist, “I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and +I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final +opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave +your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your +own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during the next +fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson’s +shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at +the fortnight’s end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on +your other fortnight’s trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent +him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear +Somebody’s step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an +old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his +own.” + +For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the +well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright +golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and +delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam. + +The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out with Charles +Darnay. He was so deadly pale--which had not been the case when they +went in together--that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. +But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the +shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the +old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold +wind. + +He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs to the chariot +which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in +another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange +eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. + +Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little +group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, +glanced on the bride’s hand, which were newly released from the +dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry’s pockets. They returned home to +breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had +mingled with the poor shoemaker’s white locks in the Paris garret, were +mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the +door at parting. + +It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father +cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her +enfolding arms, “Take her, Charles! She is yours!” + +And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was +gone. + +The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the +preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, +and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into +the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great +change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted +there, had struck him a poisoned blow. + +He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been +expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was +the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent +manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own +room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the +wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. + +“I think,” he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, “I +think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. +I must look in at Tellson’s; so I will go there at once and come back +presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine +there, and all will be well.” + +It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson’s, than to look out of +Tellson’s. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the +old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; going thus +into the Doctor’s rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. + +“Good God!” he said, with a start. “What’s that?” + +Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “O me, O me! All is +lost!” cried she, wringing her hands. “What is to be told to Ladybird? +He doesn’t know me, and is making shoes!” + +Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the +Doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been +when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent +down, and he was very busy. + +“Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!” + +The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he +were angry at being spoken to--and bent over his work again. + +He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the +throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old +haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked +hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted. + +Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a +shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by +him, and asked what it was. + +“A young lady’s walking shoe,” he muttered, without looking up. “It +ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be.” + +“But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!” + +He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in +his work. + +“You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper +occupation. Think, dear friend!” + +Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at +a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract +a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and +words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on +the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that +he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there +seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were +trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. + +Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above +all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; +the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In +conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter +precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a +few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised +on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been +called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of +two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been +addressed to her by the same post. + +These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in +the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept +another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that he +thought the best, on the Doctor’s case. + +In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course +being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him +attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He +therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson’s for the +first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same +room. + +He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak +to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that +attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always +before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had +fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the +window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and +natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. + +Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, +that first day, until it was too dark to see--worked on, half an hour +after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. +When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose +and said to him: + +“Will you go out?” + +He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, +looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice: + +“Out?” + +“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” + +He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. +Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, +with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in +some misty way asking himself, “Why not?” The sagacity of the man of +business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. + +Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him +at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long +time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself down, he +fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his +bench and to work. + +On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, +and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He +returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and +that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry +to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day; +at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then +present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing +amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long +enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry’s +friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he +appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding +him. + +When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: + +“Dear Doctor, will you go out?” + +As before, he repeated, “Out?” + +“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” + +This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer +from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the +meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had +sat there looking down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry’s return, he +slipped away to his bench. + +The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope darkened, and his +heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. +The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, +seven days, eight days, nine days. + +With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and +heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret was +well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not fail to +observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, +was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on +his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in +the dusk of the ninth evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +An Opinion + + +Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the +tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun +into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark +night. + +He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had +done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the +Doctor’s room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker’s bench +and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading +at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which +Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly +studious and attentive. + +Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt +giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might +not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his +friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed +as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the change of +which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? + +It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the +answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real +corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? +How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor +Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the +Doctor’s bedroom door in the early morning? + +Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he +had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have +resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. +He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular +breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual +had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. +Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from +the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. + +Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked +out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical +toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual +white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the +usual way, and came to breakfast. + +So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those +delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe +advance, he at first supposed that his daughter’s marriage had taken +place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to +the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and +counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, +he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid +he sought. And that aid was his own. + +Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the +Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly: + +“My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a +very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is +very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less +so.” + +Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the +Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced +at his hands more than once. + +“Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the +arm, “the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray +give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake--and above all, +for his daughter’s--his daughter’s, my dear Manette.” + +“If I understand,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, “some mental +shock--?” + +“Yes!” + +“Be explicit,” said the Doctor. “Spare no detail.” + +Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. + +“My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, +of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, +the--the--as you express it--the mind. The mind. It is the case of a +shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how +long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there +are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from +which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace +himself--as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is +the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to +be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and +great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his +stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, +there has been,” he paused and took a deep breath--“a slight relapse.” + +The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, “Of how long duration?” + +“Nine days and nights.” + +“How did it show itself? I infer,” glancing at his hands again, “in the +resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?” + +“That is the fact.” + +“Now, did you ever see him,” asked the Doctor, distinctly and +collectedly, though in the same low voice, “engaged in that pursuit +originally?” + +“Once.” + +“And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects--or in all +respects--as he was then?” + +“I think in all respects.” + +“You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse?” + +“No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. +It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted.” + +The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “That was very kind. That was +very thoughtful!” Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of +the two spoke for a little while. + +“Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most +considerate and most affectionate way, “I am a mere man of business, +and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not +possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of +intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom +I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this +relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it +be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come +about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been +more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, +if I knew how. + +“But I don’t know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, +knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be +able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. +Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, +and teach me how to be a little more useful.” + +Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and +Mr. Lorry did not press him. + +“I think it probable,” said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, +“that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite +unforeseen by its subject.” + +“Was it dreaded by him?” Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. + +“Very much.” He said it with an involuntary shudder. + +“You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer’s +mind, and how difficult--how almost impossible--it is, for him to force +himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him.” + +“Would he,” asked Mr. Lorry, “be sensibly relieved if he could prevail +upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one, when it is on +him?” + +“I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even +believe it--in some cases--to be quite impossible.” + +“Now,” said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor’s arm again, +after a short silence on both sides, “to what would you refer this +attack?” + +“I believe,” returned Doctor Manette, “that there had been a strong and +extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that +was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most +distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that +there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations +would be recalled--say, under certain circumstances--say, on a +particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps the +effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it.” + +“Would he remember what took place in the relapse?” asked Mr. Lorry, +with natural hesitation. + +The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and +answered, in a low voice, “Not at all.” + +“Now, as to the future,” hinted Mr. Lorry. + +“As to the future,” said the Doctor, recovering firmness, “I should have +great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so soon, I +should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated +something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, +and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that +the worst was over.” + +“Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful!” said Mr. Lorry. + +“I am thankful!” repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence. + +“There are two other points,” said Mr. Lorry, “on which I am anxious to +be instructed. I may go on?” + +“You cannot do your friend a better service.” The Doctor gave him his +hand. + +“To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; +he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional +knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does +he do too much?” + +“I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in +singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in +part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy +things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy +direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery.” + +“You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?” + +“I think I am quite sure of it.” + +“My dear Manette, if he were overworked now--” + +“My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a +violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight.” + +“Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, +that he _was_ overworked; it would show itself in some renewal of this +disorder?” + +“I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette with the +firmness of self-conviction, “that anything but the one train of +association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some +extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has +happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any +such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost +believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.” + +He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing +would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the +confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal +endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that +confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he +really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to +be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning +conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the +last nine days, he knew that he must face it. + +“The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction +so happily recovered from,” said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, “we +will call--Blacksmith’s work, Blacksmith’s work. We will say, to put a +case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad +time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly +found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by +him?” + +The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot +nervously on the ground. + +“He has always kept it by him,” said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at +his friend. “Now, would it not be better that he should let it go?” + +Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the +ground. + +“You do not find it easy to advise me?” said Mr. Lorry. “I quite +understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think--” And there he +shook his head, and stopped. + +“You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, +“it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings +of this poor man’s mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that +occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved +his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for +the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more +practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental +torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it +quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of +himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind +of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not +find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may +fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child.” + +He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry’s +face. + +“But may not--mind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business +who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shillings, and +bank-notes--may not the retention of the thing involve the retention of +the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go +with it? In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the +forge?” + +There was another silence. + +“You see, too,” said the Doctor, tremulously, “it is such an old +companion.” + +“I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained +in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. “I would recommend him to +sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good. +Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter’s +sake, my dear Manette!” + +Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! + +“In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take +it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; +let him miss his old companion after an absence.” + +Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They +passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. On the +three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth +day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that +had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously +explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and +she had no suspicions. + +On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into +his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross +carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and +guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench to pieces, while +Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder--for +which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The +burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the +purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, +shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction +and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, +while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its +traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible +crime. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. +A Plea + + +When the newly-married pair came home, the first person who appeared, to +offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been at home +many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in habits, or +in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity +about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. + +He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of +speaking to him when no one overheard. + +“Mr. Darnay,” said Carton, “I wish we might be friends.” + +“We are already friends, I hope.” + +“You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don’t +mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be +friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either.” + +Charles Darnay--as was natural--asked him, in all good-humour and +good-fellowship, what he did mean? + +“Upon my life,” said Carton, smiling, “I find that easier to comprehend +in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You +remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than--than +usual?” + +“I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that +you had been drinking.” + +“I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I +always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, +when all days are at an end for me! Don’t be alarmed; I am not going to +preach.” + +“I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarming +to me.” + +“Ah!” said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that +away. “On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as +you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I +wish you would forget it.” + +“I forgot it long ago.” + +“Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to +me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, +and a light answer does not help me to forget it.” + +“If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “I beg your forgiveness +for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my +surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the +faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good +Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to +remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?” + +“As to the great service,” said Carton, “I am bound to avow to you, when +you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap, I +don’t know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.--Mind! I +say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past.” + +“You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “but I will not +quarrel with _your_ light answer.” + +“Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; +I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am +incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, +ask Stryver, and he’ll tell you so.” + +“I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.” + +“Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done +any good, and never will.” + +“I don’t know that you ‘never will.’” + +“But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure +to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent +reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be +permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might +be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the +resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of +furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I +doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I +should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I +dare say, to know that I had it.” + +“Will you try?” + +“That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have +indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?” + +“I think so, Carton, by this time.” + +They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute +afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever. + +When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss +Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of +this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a +problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not +bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw +him as he showed himself. + +He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young +wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found +her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly +marked. + +“We are thoughtful to-night!” said Darnay, drawing his arm about her. + +“Yes, dearest Charles,” with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring +and attentive expression fixed upon him; “we are rather thoughtful +to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night.” + +“What is it, my Lucie?” + +“Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to +ask it?” + +“Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?” + +What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the +cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! + +“I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and +respect than you expressed for him to-night.” + +“Indeed, my own? Why so?” + +“That is what you are not to ask me. But I think--I know--he does.” + +“If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?” + +“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very +lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that +he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep +wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.” + +“It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Darnay, quite +astounded, “that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this +of him.” + +“My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is +scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable +now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, +even magnanimous things.” + +She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, +that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. + +“And, O my dearest Love!” she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her +head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, “remember how strong +we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!” + +The supplication touched him home. “I will always remember it, dear +Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.” + +He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded +her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, +could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops +of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of +that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the words would not +have parted from his lips for the first time-- + +“God bless her for her sweet compassion!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. +Echoing Footsteps + + +A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where +the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound +her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and +companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in +the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of +years. + +At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, +when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be +dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, +afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. +Fluttering hopes and doubts--hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her: +doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight--divided +her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of +footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would +be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her +eyes, and broke like waves. + +That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the +advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of +her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young +mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and +the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of +children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take +her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred +joy to her. + +Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, +weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all +their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the +echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s +step was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. +Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an +unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the +plane-tree in the garden! + +Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not +harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a +pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant +smile, “Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to +leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!” those were not +tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as the spirit +departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and +forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father, blessed words! + +Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other +echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath +of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were +mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed +murmur--like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore--as +the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or +dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the tongues of +the Two Cities that were blended in her life. + +The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some +half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in +uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once +done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing +regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by +all true echoes for ages and ages. + +No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a +blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, +but her children had a strange sympathy with him--an instinctive +delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in +such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton +was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, +and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of +him, almost at the last. “Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!” + +Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine +forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in +his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually +in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped +life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and +stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made +it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his +state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of +rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with +property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them +but the straight hair of their dumpling heads. + +These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most +offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three +sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to +Lucie’s husband: delicately saying “Halloa! here are three lumps of +bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!” The polite +rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. +Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the +training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the +pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of +declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts +Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to “catch” him, and on the +diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him “not +to be caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally +parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the +latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed +it himself--which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an +originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being carried +off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way. + +These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes +amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little +daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her +child’s tread came, and those of her own dear father’s, always active +and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. +Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself +with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any +waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet +in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her +more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the +many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed +to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her “What is +the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, +as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to +have too much to do?” + +But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly +in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about +little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, +as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising. + +On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. +Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat himself down by Lucie and +her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were +all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the +lightning from the same place. + +“I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, “that +I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We have been so full of +business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way +to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a +run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able +to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania +among some of them for sending it to England.” + +“That has a bad look,” said Darnay-- + +“A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t know what reason +there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson’s are +getting old, and we really can’t be troubled out of the ordinary course +without due occasion.” + +“Still,” said Darnay, “you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is.” + +“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade +himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, “but I +am determined to be peevish after my long day’s botheration. Where is +Manette?” + +“Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment. + +“I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by +which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without +reason. You are not going out, I hope?” + +“No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said the +Doctor. + +“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be +pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can’t +see.” + +“Of course, it has been kept for you.” + +“Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?” + +“And sleeping soundly.” + +“That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why anything should be +otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out +all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, +come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear +the echoes about which you have your theory.” + +“Not a theory; it was a fancy.” + +“A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. “They +are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them!” + +Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s +life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the +footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in +the dark London window. + +Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows +heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy +heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous +roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms +struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: +all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a +weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off. + +Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what +agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the +heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could +have told; but, muskets were being distributed--so were cartridges, +powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every +weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who +could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to +force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and +heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. +Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented +with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. + +As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging +circled round Defarge’s wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron +had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, +already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, +thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm +another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar. + +“Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “and do you, Jacques +One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these +patriots as you can. Where is my wife?” + +“Eh, well! Here you see me!” said madame, composed as ever, but not +knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, +in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol +and a cruel knife. + +“Where do you go, my wife?” + +“I go,” said madame, “with you at present. You shall see me at the head +of women, by-and-bye.” + +“Come, then!” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “Patriots and +friends, we are ready! The Bastille!” + +With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped +into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on +depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums +beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack +began. + +Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great +towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through +the smoke--in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against +a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier--Defarge of the +wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours. + +Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, +cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! “Work, comrades +all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques +Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all +the Angels or the Devils--which you prefer--work!” Thus Defarge of the +wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot. + +“To me, women!” cried madame his wife. “What! We can kill as well as +the men when the place is taken!” And to her, with a shrill thirsty +cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and +revenge. + +Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single +drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight +displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing +weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work +at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, +execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the +furious sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the +single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great +towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot +by the service of Four fierce hours. + +A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley--this dimly +perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it--suddenly +the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the +wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer +walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered! + +So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to +draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been +struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the +outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he +made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; +Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the +inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, +exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet +furious dumb-show. + +“The Prisoners!” + +“The Records!” + +“The secret cells!” + +“The instruments of torture!” + +“The Prisoners!” + +Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, “The Prisoners!” was +the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an +eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost +billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and +threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained +undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of +these men--a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his +hand--separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the +wall. + +“Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!” + +“I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with me. But +there is no one there.” + +“What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?” asked +Defarge. “Quick!” + +“The meaning, monsieur?” + +“Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I +shall strike you dead?” + +“Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. + +“Monsieur, it is a cell.” + +“Show it me!” + +“Pass this way, then.” + +Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed +by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, +held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the turnkey’s. Their three heads had +been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much +as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the +noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and +its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around +outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, +occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the +air like spray. + +Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past +hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, +and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry +waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, +linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and +there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; +but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a +tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls +and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible +to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had +come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. + +The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung +the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed +in: + +“One hundred and five, North Tower!” + +There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, +with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by +stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred +across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes +on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were +the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. + +“Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,” said +Defarge to the turnkey. + +The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes. + +“Stop!--Look here, Jacques!” + +“A. M.!” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. + +“Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the letters +with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. “And here he +wrote ‘a poor physician.’ And it was he, without doubt, who scratched +a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it +me!” + +He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden +exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and +table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. + +“Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. “Look +among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife,” + throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the +light higher, you!” + +With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, +peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, +and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar +and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and +in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney +into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a +cautious touch. + +“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light +them, you!” + +The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping +again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and +retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense +of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once +more. + +They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint +Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in the guard +upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. +Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for +judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people’s +blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be +unavenged. + +In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to +encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red +decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a +woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” she cried, pointing him out. +“See Defarge!” She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and +remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through +the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable +close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to +be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the +long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him +when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot +upon his neck, and with her cruel knife--long ready--hewed off his head. + +The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea +of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint +Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the +iron hand was down--down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the +governor’s body lay--down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge +where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. “Lower +the lamp yonder!” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new +means of death; “here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard!” The +swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on. + +The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving +of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces +were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, +voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering +until the touch of pity could make no mark on them. + +But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was +in vivid life, there were two groups of faces--each seven in number--so +fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore +more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly +released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high +overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last +Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. +Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose +drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive +faces, yet with a suspended--not an abolished--expression on them; +faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped +lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “THOU DIDST +IT!” + +Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the +accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters +and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken +hearts,--such, and such--like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint +Antoine escort through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven +hundred and eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, +and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, +and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask +at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once +stained red. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +The Sea Still Rises + + +Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which to soften +his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such extent as he could, with +the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame +Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. +Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of +Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting +themselves to the saint’s mercies. The lamps across his streets had a +portentously elastic swing with them. + +Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, +contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In both, there were several +knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense +of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest nightcap, awry on +the wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it: “I know how +hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself; +but do you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to +destroy life in you?” Every lean bare arm, that had been without work +before, had this work always ready for it now, that it could strike. +The fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the experience that +they could tear. There was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; +the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the +last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. + +Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was +to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine women. One of her +sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a starved +grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had +already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. + +“Hark!” said The Vengeance. “Listen, then! Who comes?” + +As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of Saint Antoine +Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenly fired, a fast-spreading +murmur came rushing along. + +“It is Defarge,” said madame. “Silence, patriots!” + +Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked +around him! “Listen, everywhere!” said madame again. “Listen to him!” + Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and open +mouths, formed outside the door; all those within the wine-shop had +sprung to their feet. + +“Say then, my husband. What is it?” + +“News from the other world!” + +“How, then?” cried madame, contemptuously. “The other world?” + +“Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people +that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell?” + +“Everybody!” from all throats. + +“The news is of him. He is among us!” + +“Among us!” from the universal throat again. “And dead?” + +“Not dead! He feared us so much--and with reason--that he caused himself +to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral. But they have +found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I have +seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have +said that he had reason to fear us. Say all! _Had_ he reason?” + +Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had +never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he +could have heard the answering cry. + +A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife looked +steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and the jar of a drum +was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter. + +“Patriots!” said Defarge, in a determined voice, “are we ready?” + +Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating +in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and +The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about +her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to +house, rousing the women. + +The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which they looked +from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring down into +the streets; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From +such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their +children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground +famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one +another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. +Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant +Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of +these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon +alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon +who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread +to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these +breasts were dry with want! O mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven our +suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my +knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, +and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, +Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend +Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from +him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, +whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they +dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men +belonging to them from being trampled under foot. + +Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This Foulon was at +the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if Saint Antoine knew +his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! Armed men and women flocked out +of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with +such a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there was not +a human creature in Saint Antoine’s bosom but a few old crones and the +wailing children. + +No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where +this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the adjacent +open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, +and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance +from him in the Hall. + +“See!” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “See the old villain bound +with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his back. +Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now!” Madame put her knife +under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. + +The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of +her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explaining to +others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the +clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, +and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge’s frequent +expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at +a distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some +wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture +to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a +telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. + +At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or +protection, directly down upon the old prisoner’s head. The favour was +too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had +stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got +him! + +It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge +had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable +wretch in a deadly embrace--Madame Defarge had but followed and turned +her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied--The Vengeance and +Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at the windows +had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high +perches--when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, “Bring him +out! Bring him to the lamp!” + +Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on +his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, +and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his +face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always +entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of +action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one +another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through +a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one +of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go--as a cat +might have done to a mouse--and silently and composedly looked at him +while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately +screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have +him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope +broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope +broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful, and +held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the +mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. + +Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted +and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing when +the day closed in that the son-in-law of the despatched, another of the +people’s enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard +five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes +on flaring sheets of paper, seized him--would have torn him out of the +breast of an army to bear Foulon company--set his head and heart on +pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession +through the streets. + +Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, +wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers’ shops were beset by +long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while +they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by +embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them +again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and +frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and +slender fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in +common, afterwards supping at their doors. + +Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of +most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused +some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of +cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full +share in the worst of the day, played gently with their meagre children; +and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and +hoped. + +It was almost morning, when Defarge’s wine-shop parted with its last +knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in +husky tones, while fastening the door: + +“At last it is come, my dear!” + +“Eh well!” returned madame. “Almost.” + +Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with +her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum’s was the +only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The +Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had +the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon +was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint +Antoine’s bosom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +Fire Rises + + +There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where +the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the +highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his +poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the +crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, +but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of +them knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it would probably not +be what he was ordered. + +Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. +Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as +shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, +dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated +animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them--all worn +out. + +Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national +blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of +luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; +nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought +things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for +Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must +be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it +was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the +flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that +its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing +to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and +unaccountable. + +But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like +it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung +it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures +of the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting +the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces +of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in +the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the +disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified and +beautifying features of Monseigneur. + +For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the +dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and +to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in +thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if +he had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, +and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on +foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now +a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern +without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian +aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a +mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many +highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled +with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods. + +Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, +as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he +could get from a shower of hail. + +The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, +and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects +in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just +intelligible: + +“How goes it, Jacques?” + +“All well, Jacques.” + +“Touch then!” + +They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones. + +“No dinner?” + +“Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry face. + +“It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinner anywhere.” + +He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and +steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held +it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and +thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke. + +“Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this +time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands. + +“To-night?” said the mender of roads. + +“To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. + +“Where?” + +“Here.” + +He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at +one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge +of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village. + +“Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill. + +“See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. “You go down +here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain--” + +“To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling his eye +over the landscape. “_I_ go through no streets and past no fountains. +Well?” + +“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the +village.” + +“Good. When do you cease to work?” + +“At sunset.” + +“Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without +resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you +wake me?” + +“Surely.” + +The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his +great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He +was fast asleep directly. + +As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rolling +away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to +by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red cap +now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the +heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used +his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. +The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen +red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairy skins of +beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen +and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender +of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet were +footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed +with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long +leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into +sores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at +secret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept +with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. +Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, and +drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against +this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and +looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no +obstacle, tending to centres all over France. + +The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of +brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumps +of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed +them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, +the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things ready +to go down into the village, roused him. + +“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues beyond the +summit of the hill?” + +“About.” + +“About. Good!” + +The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him +according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, +squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and +appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. +When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, +as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A +curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered +together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of +looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, +chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top +alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind his +chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to +the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need +to ring the tocsin by-and-bye. + +The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its +solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatened +the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace +flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a +swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through +the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the +stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis +had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four +heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the +branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four +lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and all +was black again. + +But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely +visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous. +Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front, +picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, +and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. +Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the +stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. + +A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left +there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There was +spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the +space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur +Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!” The tocsin rang +impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The +mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood +with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the +sky. “It must be forty feet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved. + +The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away +through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on +the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; +removed from them, a group of soldiers. “Help, gentlemen--officers! The +chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by +timely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers who +looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting +of lips, “It must burn.” + +As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the +village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred and +fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of +lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in +every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, +occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of +Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on +that functionary’s part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to +authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, +and that post-horses would roast. + +The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and +raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the +infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising +and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in +torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the +two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke +again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake +and contending with the fire. + +The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, +scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce +figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten +lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran +dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the +heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and +splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied +birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures +trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded +roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next +destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, +abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy. + +Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and +bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with +the collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a small instalment +of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter +days--became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his +house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, +Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel +with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again +withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this time +resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man +of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the +parapet, and crush a man or two below. + +Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the +distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, +combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an +ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, +which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. +A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of +the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur +Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the +rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, +and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that +while. + +Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were +other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom +the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they +had been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople +less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the +functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up +in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, +North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. +The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, +no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate +successfully. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. +Drawn to the Loadstone Rock + + +In such risings of fire and risings of sea--the firm earth shaken by +the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the +flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on +the shore--three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays +of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful +tissue of the life of her home. + +Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in +the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging +feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of +a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in +danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted +in. + +Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of +his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as +to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and +this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with +infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could +ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after +boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years, +and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no +sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. + +The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the +mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good +eye to see with--had long had the mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, +Sardanapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blindness--but it had dropped +out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its +outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was +all gone together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and +“suspended,” when the last tidings came over. + +The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was +come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. + +As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of +Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson’s Bank. Spirits are supposed to +haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur +without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. +Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most +to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson’s was a munificent +house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen +from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming +storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made +provident remittances to Tellson’s, were always to be heard of there +by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every new-comer +from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson’s, almost as +a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson’s was at that +time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this +was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in +consequence so numerous, that Tellson’s sometimes wrote the latest news +out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran +through Temple Bar to read. + +On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles +Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The +penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now +the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an +hour or so of the time of closing. + +“But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” said Charles +Darnay, rather hesitating, “I must still suggest to you--” + +“I understand. That I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry. + +“Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a +disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you.” + +“My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, “you touch +some of the reasons for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe +enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard +upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth +interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a +disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our +House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of +old, and is in Tellson’s confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the +long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit +myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson’s, after all +these years, who ought to be?” + +“I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, +and like one thinking aloud. + +“Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!” exclaimed Mr. +Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You +are a wise counsellor.” + +“My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the +thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through +my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for +the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them,” he spoke +here in his former thoughtful manner, “that one might be listened to, +and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, +after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie--” + +“When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. “Yes. I wonder you +are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to +France at this time of day!” + +“However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a smile. “It is +more to the purpose that you say you are.” + +“And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,” Mr. Lorry +glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, “you can have no +conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and +of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The +Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers +of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they +might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set +afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these +with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise +getting of them out of harm’s way, is within the power (without loss of +precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall +I hang back, when Tellson’s knows this and says this--Tellson’s, whose +bread I have eaten these sixty years--because I am a little stiff about +the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here!” + +“How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.” + +“Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, glancing at +the House again, “you are to remember, that getting things out of +Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an +impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought +to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to +whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, +every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed +the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily +as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped.” + +“And do you really go to-night?” + +“I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of +delay.” + +“And do you take no one with you?” + +“All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing +to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my +bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. +Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or +of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his +master.” + +“I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and +youthfulness.” + +“I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little +commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson’s proposal to retire and +live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old.” + +This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, with +Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he +would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too +much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it +was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this +terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under +the skies that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or +omitted to be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretched +millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that +should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, +years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such +vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the +restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, +and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured +without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was +such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood +in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had +already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. + +Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, far on his +way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching +to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating +them from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for +accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition +of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard +with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between +going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his +word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out. + +The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter +before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to +whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay +that he saw the direction--the more quickly because it was his own right +name. The address, turned into English, ran: + +“Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémonde, of +France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, +London, England.” + +On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and +express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should +be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation--kept inviolate +between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no +suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none. + +“No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have referred it, +I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this +gentleman is to be found.” + +The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there +was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry’s desk. He +held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the +person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at +it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, +and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in +English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. + +“Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the +polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. “Happy to say, I never +knew him.” + +“A craven who abandoned his post,” said another--this Monseigneur had +been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of +hay--“some years ago.” + +“Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the direction +through his glass in passing; “set himself in opposition to the last +Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to +the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves.” + +“Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is that the sort of +fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!” + +Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on +the shoulder, and said: + +“I know the fellow.” + +“Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.” + +“Why?” + +“Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask, why, in these +times.” + +“But I do ask why?” + +“Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to +hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, +who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that +ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth +that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a +man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll answer you. I am sorry +because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That’s +why.” + +Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and +said: “You may not understand the gentleman.” + +“I understand how to put _you_ in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” said Bully +Stryver, “and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I _don’t_ +understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also +tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position +to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, +gentlemen,” said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, +“I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you’ll never +find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such +precious _protégés_. No, gentlemen; he’ll always show ’em a clean pair +of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away.” + +With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver +shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of +his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, +in the general departure from the Bank. + +“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. “You know where to +deliver it?” + +“I do.” + +“Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been +addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and +that it has been here some time?” + +“I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?” + +“From here, at eight.” + +“I will come back, to see you off.” + +Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, +Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the +letter, and read it. These were its contents: + + +“Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. + +“June 21, 1792. “MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS. + +“After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the +village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and +brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a +great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razed to the +ground. + +“The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, +and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my +life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against +the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an +emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not +against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, +before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the +imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent; that I had +had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for +an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? + +“Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that +emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he +not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, +I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your +ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! + +“For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of +your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to +succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh +Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! + +“From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and +nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the +assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. + +“Your afflicted, + +“Gabelle.” + + +The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigourous life +by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose +only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so +reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple +considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby. + +He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated +the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his +resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his +conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, +he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, +his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own +mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have +systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to +do it, and that it had never been done. + +The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being +always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time +which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week +annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week +following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of +these circumstances he had yielded:--not without disquiet, but still +without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched +the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled +until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from +France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of +confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, +was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in +France that might impeach him for it. + +But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so +far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had +relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no +favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own +bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate +on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little +there was to give--such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have +in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in +the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his +own safety, so that it could not but appear now. + +This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, +that he would go to Paris. + +Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven +him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him +to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted +him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible +attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being +worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who +could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, +trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy +and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching +him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the +brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison +(injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, +which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were +coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle’s +letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his +justice, honour, and good name. + +His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. + +Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he +struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention +with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left +it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be +gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert +it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the +sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even +saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging +Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. + +As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that +neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. +Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always +reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, +should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in +the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his +situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety +to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not +discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence +in his course. + +He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to +return to Tellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived +in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say +nothing of his intention now. + +A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was +booted and equipped. + +“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. “I +would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but +perhaps you will take a verbal one?” + +“That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not dangerous.” + +“Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.” + +“What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his +hand. + +“Gabelle.” + +“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?” + +“Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come.’” + +“Any time mentioned?” + +“He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.” + +“Any person mentioned?” + +“No.” + +He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, +and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the +misty air of Fleet-street. “My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie,” said +Mr. Lorry at parting, “and take precious care of them till I come back.” + Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage +rolled away. + +That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, and wrote +two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation +he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons +that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no +personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and +their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the +strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters +in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. + +It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first +reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to +preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. +But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him +resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, +so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and +the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her +scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-and-bye +(an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise +of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy +streets, with a heavier heart. + +The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides +and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his +two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before +midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. +“For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of +your noble name!” was the poor prisoner’s cry with which he strengthened +his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and +floated away for the Loadstone Rock. + + +The end of the second book. + + + + +Book the Third--the Track of a Storm + + + + +CHAPTER I. +In Secret + + +The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from +England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and +ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad +horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and +unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; +but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than +these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of +citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state +of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, +inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, +turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in +hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning +Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or +Death. + +A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles +Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there +was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen +at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey’s end. +Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across +the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in +the series that was barred between him and England. The universal +watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, +or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have +felt his freedom more completely gone. + +This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty +times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by +riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him +by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been +days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in +a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. + +Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle’s letter from his +prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the +guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey +to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as +a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he +had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. + +Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough +red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. + +“Emigrant,” said the functionary, “I am going to send you on to Paris, +under an escort.” + +“Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could +dispense with the escort.” + +“Silence!” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end +of his musket. “Peace, aristocrat!” + +“It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid functionary. “You +are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it.” + +“I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay. + +“Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red-cap. “As if it was +not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!” + +“It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the functionary. “Rise +and dress yourself, emigrant.” + +Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other +patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by +a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he +started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o’clock in the morning. + +The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured +cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either +side of him. + +The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to +his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his +wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their +faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, +and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without +change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay +between them and the capital. + +They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and +lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, +that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged +shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of +being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger +as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying +his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint +that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, +he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits +of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, +confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. + +But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, +when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal from +himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd +gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices called +out loudly, “Down with the emigrant!” + +He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, +resuming it as his safest place, said: + +“Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own +will?” + +“You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him in a +furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; “and you are a cursed +aristocrat!” + +The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider’s +bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, “Let him +be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris.” + +“Judged!” repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. “Ay! and condemned +as a traitor.” At this the crowd roared approval. + +Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse’s head to the +yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with +the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his +voice heard: + +“Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a +traitor.” + +“He lies!” cried the smith. “He is a traitor since the decree. His life +is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!” + +At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which +another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his +horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse’s flanks, +and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier +struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no +more was done. + +“What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay asked the +postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. + +“Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” + +“When passed?” + +“On the fourteenth.” + +“The day I left England!” + +“Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be +others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and +condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said +your life was not your own.” + +“But there are no such decrees yet?” + +“What do I know!” said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; “there +may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?” + +They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and +then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many +wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride +unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and +lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor +cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and +would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, +circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn +up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in +Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more +into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and +wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth +that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by +the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their +way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. + +Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was +closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. + +“Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a resolute-looking man +in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. + +Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the +speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, +in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had +imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. + +“Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him +whatever, “are the papers of this prisoner?” + +The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his +eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same personage in authority showed some +disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. + +He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went +into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the +gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles +Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and +patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress +into the city for peasants’ carts bringing in supplies, and for similar +traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest +people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not +to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue +forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they +filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew +their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the +ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered +about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among men +and women. + +When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these +things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, +who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the +escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him +to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, +turned and rode away without entering the city. + +He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wine +and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, +drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and +waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The +light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of +the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly +uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an +officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. + +“Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he took a slip of +paper to write on. “Is this the emigrant Evrémonde?” + +“This is the man.” + +“Your age, Evrémonde?” + +“Thirty-seven.” + +“Married, Evrémonde?” + +“Yes.” + +“Where married?” + +“In England.” + +“Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evrémonde?” + +“In England.” + +“Without doubt. You are consigned, Evrémonde, to the prison of La +Force.” + +“Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under what law, and for what offence?” + +The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. + +“We have new laws, Evrémonde, and new offences, since you were here.” He +said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. + +“I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response +to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. I +demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that +my right?” + +“Emigrants have no rights, Evrémonde,” was the stolid reply. The officer +wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, +sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words “In secret.” + +Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany +him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended +them. + +“Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the +guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, “who married the daughter of +Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?” + +“Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. + +“My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint +Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me.” + +“My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!” + +The word “wife” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say +with sudden impatience, “In the name of that sharp female newly-born, +and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?” + +“You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the +truth?” + +“A bad truth for you,” said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and +looking straight before him. + +“Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so +sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a +little help?” + +“None.” Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. + +“Will you answer me a single question?” + +“Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is.” + +“In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free +communication with the world outside?” + +“You will see.” + +“I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of +presenting my case?” + +“You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried +in worse prisons, before now.” + +“But never by me, Citizen Defarge.” + +Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady +and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope +there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree. +He, therefore, made haste to say: + +“It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better +than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to +Mr. Lorry of Tellson’s Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, +the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the +prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?” + +“I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, “nothing for you. My duty is to +my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. +I will do nothing for you.” + +Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride +was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see +how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the +streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned +their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; +otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no +more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be +going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they +passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited +audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal +family. The few words that he caught from this man’s lips, first made +it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the +foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at +Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal +watchfulness had completely isolated him. + +That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had +developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That +perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster +yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he +might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events +of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by +the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future +was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant +hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few +rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed +garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had +been a hundred thousand years away. The “sharp female newly-born, and +called La Guillotine,” was hardly known to him, or to the generality +of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were +probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could +they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? + +Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation +from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the +certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on +his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he +arrived at the prison of La Force. + +A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge +presented “The Emigrant Evrémonde.” + +“What the Devil! How many more of them!” exclaimed the man with the +bloated face. + +Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, +with his two fellow-patriots. + +“What the Devil, I say again!” exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. +“How many more!” + +The gaoler’s wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely +replied, “One must have patience, my dear!” Three turnkeys who entered +responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, “For +the love of Liberty;” which sounded in that place like an inappropriate +conclusion. + +The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a +horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome +flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that +are ill cared for! + +“In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. “As +if I was not already full to bursting!” + +He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnay +awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and +fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in +either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his +subordinates. + +“Come!” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, “come with me, +emigrant.” + +Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by +corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, +until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with +prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading +and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the +most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the +room. + +In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and +disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning +unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to +receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with +all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. + +So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and +gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and +misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand +in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost +of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of +frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all +waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes +that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. + +It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other +gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance +in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly +coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were +there--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the +mature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience and +likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its +utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress +of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! + +“In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” said a +gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, “I have the +honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you +on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate +happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, +to ask your name and condition?” + +Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in +words as suitable as he could find. + +“But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his +eyes, who moved across the room, “that you are not in secret?” + +“I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say +so.” + +“Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several +members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted +but a short time.” Then he added, raising his voice, “I grieve to inform +the society--in secret.” + +There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room +to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--among +which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gave +him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to +render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler’s hand; and +the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. + +The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had +ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted +them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a +solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. + +“Yours,” said the gaoler. + +“Why am I confined alone?” + +“How do I know!” + +“I can buy pen, ink, and paper?” + +“Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At +present, you may buy your food, and nothing more.” + +There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As +the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four +walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of +the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler +was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like +a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was +gone, he thought in the same wandering way, “Now am I left, as if I were +dead.” Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it +with a sick feeling, and thought, “And here in these crawling creatures +is the first condition of the body after death.” + +“Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five +paces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, +counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled +drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. “He made shoes, he made +shoes, he made shoes.” The prisoner counted the measurement again, and +paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. +“The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among +them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the +embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden +hair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God’s sake, +through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * He +made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and +a half.” With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of +his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting +and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it +still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he +knew, in the swell that rose above them. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +The Grindstone + + +Tellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, was +in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off from +the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged to +a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from the +troubles, in his own cook’s dress, and got across the borders. A +mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his +metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the preparation +of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong men +besides the cook in question. + +Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the +sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready and +willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one and +indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur’s +house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all +things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce +precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month +of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of +Monseigneur’s house, and had marked it with the tri-colour, and were +drinking brandy in its state apartments. + +A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of business in Paris, +would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette. +For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have +said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid +over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson’s had whitewashed the +Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest +linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning to +night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in +Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of +the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, and +also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest +provocation. Yet, a French Tellson’s could get on with these things +exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had +taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. + +What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, and what would +lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish in +Tellson’s hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, +and when they should have violently perished; how many accounts with +Tellson’s never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into +the next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis +Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by +a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was +prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a +deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the +room distortedly reflect--a shade of horror. + +He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which +he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It chanced that they +derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main +building, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated about +that. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did +his duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, +was extensive standing--for carriages--where, indeed, some carriages +of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two +great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the +open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared +to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, +or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmless +objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had +opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and +he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame. + +From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there came +the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ring +in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible +nature were going up to Heaven. + +“Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “that no one near and +dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have mercy on all +who are in danger!” + +Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, +“They have come back!” and sat listening. But, there was no loud +irruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate +clash again, and all was quiet. + +The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague +uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturally +awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up to +go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenly +opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in +amazement. + +Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with +that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that it +seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give +force and power to it in this one passage of her life. + +“What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. “What is the +matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? +What is it?” + +With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted +out in his arms, imploringly, “O my dear friend! My husband!” + +“Your husband, Lucie?” + +“Charles.” + +“What of Charles?” + +“Here. + +“Here, in Paris?” + +“Has been here some days--three or four--I don’t know how many--I can’t +collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown to +us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison.” + +The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the +bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voices +came pouring into the courtyard. + +“What is that noise?” said the Doctor, turning towards the window. + +“Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry. “Don’t look out! Manette, for your life, +don’t touch the blind!” + +The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and +said, with a cool, bold smile: + +“My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been +a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? In +France--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would +touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. +My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through the +barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I +knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I +told Lucie so.--What is that noise?” His hand was again upon the window. + +“Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. “No, Lucie, my +dear, nor you!” He got his arm round her, and held her. “Don’t be so +terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm +having happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being in +this fatal place. What prison is he in?” + +“La Force!” + +“La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in +your life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now, to +do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, or +I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part to-night; +you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you +to do for Charles’s sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must +instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a +room at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone for +two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not +delay.” + +“I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do +nothing else than this. I know you are true.” + +The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the +key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window and +partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor’s arm, and +looked out with him into the courtyard. + +Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or near +enough, to fill the courtyard: not more than forty or fifty in all. The +people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they +had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up +there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. + +But, such awful workers, and such awful work! + +The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two +men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings of +the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than +the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. +False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and their +hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with +howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of +sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks now flung +forward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some women +held wine to their mouths that they might drink; and what with dropping +blood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks +struck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and +fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from +the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at the +sharpening-stone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all +over their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain +upon those rags; men devilishly set off with spoils of women’s lace +and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles through +and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be +sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to +the wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments +of dress: ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And +as the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream +of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in +their frenzied eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have +given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun. + +All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or of +any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if it +were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked for +explanation in his friend’s ashy face. + +“They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at +the locked room, “murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what you +say; if you really have the power you think you have--as I believe you +have--make yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It +may be too late, I don’t know, but let it not be a minute later!” + +Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room, +and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind. + +His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous +confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water, +carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. +For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and +the unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, +surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all +linked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with +cries of--“Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner’s +kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save +the prisoner Evrémonde at La Force!” and a thousand answering shouts. + +He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the window +and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father was +assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found +her child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to be +surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he sat +watching them in such quiet as the night knew. + +Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet, +clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own +bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty +charge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O +the long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings! + +Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the +irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered. +“What is it?” cried Lucie, affrighted. “Hush! The soldiers’ swords are +sharpened there,” said Mr. Lorry. “The place is national property now, +and used as a kind of armoury, my love.” + +Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. +Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himself +from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so +besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back +to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by +the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air. +Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of +the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, +climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its +dainty cushions. + +The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, +and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood +alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had +never given, and would never take away. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +The Shadow + + +One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. +Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had no right to +imperil Tellson’s by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner under +the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded +for Lucie and her child, without a moment’s demur; but the great trust +he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strict +man of business. + +At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out +the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to +the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, the +same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the +most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in +its dangerous workings. + +Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute’s delay +tending to compromise Tellson’s, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She said +that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that +Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no business objection to +this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and +he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry +went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up +in a removed by-street where the closed blinds in all the other windows +of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes. + +To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: +giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. +He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear +considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. +A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly +and heavily the day lagged on with him. + +It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He +was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to +do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a +man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, +addressed him by his name. + +“Your servant,” said Mr. Lorry. “Do you know me?” + +He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five +to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of +emphasis, the words: + +“Do you know me?” + +“I have seen you somewhere.” + +“Perhaps at my wine-shop?” + +Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: “You come from Doctor +Manette?” + +“Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.” + +“And what says he? What does he send me?” + +Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the +words in the Doctor’s writing: + + “Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. + I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note + from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.” + +It was dated from La Force, within an hour. + +“Will you accompany me,” said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading +this note aloud, “to where his wife resides?” + +“Yes,” returned Defarge. + +Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical +way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the +courtyard. There, they found two women; one, knitting. + +“Madame Defarge, surely!” said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly +the same attitude some seventeen years ago. + +“It is she,” observed her husband. + +“Does Madame go with us?” inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as +they moved. + +“Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. +It is for their safety.” + +Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously +at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman being +The Vengeance. + +They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, +ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, +and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the +tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that +delivered his note--little thinking what it had been doing near him in +the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. + + “DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has + influence around me. You cannot answer this. + Kiss our child for me.” + +That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received +it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the +hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly +action, but the hand made no response--dropped cold and heavy, and took +to its knitting again. + +There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in +the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her +neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted +eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare. + +“My dear,” said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; “there are frequent +risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely they will ever +trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power +to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them--that she +may identify them. I believe,” said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his +reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself +upon him more and more, “I state the case, Citizen Defarge?” + +Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a +gruff sound of acquiescence. + +“You had better, Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to +propitiate, by tone and manner, “have the dear child here, and our +good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no +French.” + +The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a +match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and, danger, +appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance, +whom her eyes first encountered, “Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope +_you_ are pretty well!” She also bestowed a British cough on Madame +Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her. + +“Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the +first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if it +were the finger of Fate. + +“Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry; “this is our poor prisoner’s darling +daughter, and only child.” + +The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so +threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctively +kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The +shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, +threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child. + +“It is enough, my husband,” said Madame Defarge. “I have seen them. We +may go.” + +But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visible and +presented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie into saying, as +she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge’s dress: + +“You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will +help me to see him if you can?” + +“Your husband is not my business here,” returned Madame Defarge, looking +down at her with perfect composure. “It is the daughter of your father +who is my business here.” + +“For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child’s sake! She +will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more +afraid of you than of these others.” + +Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. +Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her, +collected his face into a sterner expression. + +“What is it that your husband says in that little letter?” asked Madame +Defarge, with a lowering smile. “Influence; he says something touching +influence?” + +“That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her +breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, “has +much influence around him.” + +“Surely it will release him!” said Madame Defarge. “Let it do so.” + +“As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, “I implore you to +have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against +my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think +of me. As a wife and mother!” + +Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, +turning to her friend The Vengeance: + +“The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little +as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have +known _their_ husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, +often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in +themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, +sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?” + +“We have seen nothing else,” returned The Vengeance. + +“We have borne this a long time,” said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes +again upon Lucie. “Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife +and mother would be much to us now?” + +She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge +went last, and closed the door. + +“Courage, my dear Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. “Courage, +courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much better than it has of +late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart.” + +“I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a +shadow on me and on all my hopes.” + +“Tut, tut!” said Mr. Lorry; “what is this despondency in the brave +little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie.” + +But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, +for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +Calm in Storm + + +Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his +absence. So much of what had happened in that dreadful time as could be +kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that +not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she +know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all +ages had been killed by the populace; that four days and nights had been +darkened by this deed of horror; and that the air around her had been +tainted by the slain. She only knew that there had been an attack upon +the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that +some had been dragged out by the crowd and murdered. + +To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on +which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken him through a +scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had +found a self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were +brought singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth +to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back +to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he +had announced himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen +years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the +body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this +man was Defarge. + +That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table, +that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had pleaded hard +to the Tribunal--of whom some members were asleep and some awake, some +dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some not--for his life +and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as +a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been accorded +to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and +examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at once released, when +the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible +to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, +the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor Manette that +the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held +inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the prisoner +was removed to the interior of the prison again; but, that he, the +Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and +assure himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or mischance, +delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate had +often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and +had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. + +The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by +intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisoners who were +saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against +those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had +been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had +thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress +the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him +in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies +of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this +awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man +with the gentlest solicitude--had made a litter for him and escorted him +carefully from the spot--had then caught up their weapons and plunged +anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes +with his hands, and swooned away in the midst of it. + +As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of +his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose within him that +such dread experiences would revive the old danger. + +But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect: he had never +at all known him in his present character. For the first time the Doctor +felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time +he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which +could break the prison door of his daughter’s husband, and deliver him. +“It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and ruin. +As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be +helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by the aid +of Heaven I will do it!” Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw +the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm strong look and bearing +of the man whose life always seemed to him to have been stopped, like a +clock, for so many years, and then set going again with an energy which +had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he believed. + +Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would +have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept himself +in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees +of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his +personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician +of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie +that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the +general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet +messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her husband himself +sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor’s hand), but she was +not permitted to write to him: for, among the many wild suspicions of +plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were +known to have made friends or permanent connections abroad. + +This new life of the Doctor’s was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the +sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it. +Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one; +but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that +time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter +and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. +Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through +that old trial with forces to which they both looked for Charles’s +ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, +that he took the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to +trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions of himself +and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and +affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride but in +rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. “All +curious to see,” thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, “but all +natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it; it +couldn’t be in better hands.” + +But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get +Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, +the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The new +era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of +Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death +against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the +great towers of Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise +against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying soils +of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and +had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and +alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of +the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds +and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the +fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore. +What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year +One of Liberty--the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, +and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! + +There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no +measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when +time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other +count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever +of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the +unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the +head of the king--and now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the +head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned +widowhood and misery, to turn it grey. + +And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in +all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A +revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand +revolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, +which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over +any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged +with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; +these things became the established order and nature of appointed +things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. +Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before +the general gaze from the foundations of the world--the figure of the +sharp female called La Guillotine. + +It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, +it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a +peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which +shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window +and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the +human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts +from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and +believed in where the Cross was denied. + +It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, +were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy-puzzle for a young +Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed +the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and +good. Twenty-two friends of high public mark, twenty-one living and one +dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. +The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief +functionary who worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger than his +namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own Temple every +day. + +Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked +with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiously persistent in his +end, never doubting that he would save Lucie’s husband at last. Yet the +current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time +away so fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and three +months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more +wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, +that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the +violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares +under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the +terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at +that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable +in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and +victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the +appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all +other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if +he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were +a Spirit moving among mortals. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +The Wood-Sawyer + + +One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never +sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her +husband’s head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the +tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright +women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and +old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all +daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, +and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. +Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--the last, much the easiest to +bestow, O Guillotine! + +If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, +had stunned the Doctor’s daughter into awaiting the result in idle +despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. But, from +the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in +the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was +truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good +will always be. + +As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father +had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the little +household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Everything had +its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, +as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English home. The +slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief +that they would soon be reunited--the little preparations for his speedy +return, the setting aside of his chair and his books--these, and the +solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many +unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death--were almost the only +outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. + +She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to +mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well +attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, +and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, +thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at +night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had +repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, +was on him. He always resolutely answered: “Nothing can happen to him +without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie.” + +They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her +father said to her, on coming home one evening: + +“My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can +sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can get to +it--which depends on many uncertainties and incidents--he might see you +in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can +show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even +if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition.” + +“O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day.” + +From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the +clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. +When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they +went together; at other times she was alone; but, she never missed a +single day. + +It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel +of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the only house at that +end; all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he noticed +her. + +“Good day, citizeness.” + +“Good day, citizen.” + +This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been +established voluntarily some time ago, among the more thorough patriots; +but, was now law for everybody. + +“Walking here again, citizeness?” + +“You see me, citizen!” + +The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he +had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, pointed +at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to represent +bars, peeped through them jocosely. + +“But it’s not my business,” said he. And went on sawing his wood. + +Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment she +appeared. + +“What? Walking here again, citizeness?” + +“Yes, citizen.” + +“Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness?” + +“Do I say yes, mamma?” whispered little Lucie, drawing close to her. + +“Yes, dearest.” + +“Yes, citizen.” + +“Ah! But it’s not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I +call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And off his head +comes!” + +The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. + +“I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! +Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off _her_ head comes! Now, a child. +Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off _its_ head comes. All the +family!” + +Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was +impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and not be in +his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she always spoke to him +first, and often gave him drink-money, which he readily received. + +He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten +him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in lifting her heart +up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him looking at her, +with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its work. “But it’s +not my business!” he would generally say at those times, and would +briskly fall to his sawing again. + +In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of +spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again +in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at +this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. +Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in +five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might be, not +for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did +see her when the chances served, and on that possibility she would have +waited out the day, seven days a week. + +These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her +father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On a lightly-snowing +afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of some wild +rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, +decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them; +also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription +(tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. +Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! + +The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its whole +surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had got +somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death in +with most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed pike +and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his +saw inscribed as his “Little Sainte Guillotine”--for the great sharp +female was by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he +was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite alone. + +But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement +and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A moment +afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the +prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with +The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and +they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music +than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, +keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison. +Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced +together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a +mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags; but, as they +filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly +apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among them. They +advanced, retreated, struck at one another’s hands, clutched at one +another’s heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round +in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest +linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then the ring broke, +and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they +all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then +reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped +again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width +of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high +up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible +as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sport--a something, once +innocent, delivered over to all devilry--a healthy pastime changed into +a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the +heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how +warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly +bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child’s head thus distracted, the +delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of +the disjointed time. + +This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and +bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer’s house, the feathery snow +fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been. + +“O my father!” for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she +had momentarily darkened with her hand; “such a cruel, bad sight.” + +“I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don’t be +frightened! Not one of them would harm you.” + +“I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my +husband, and the mercies of these people--” + +“We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to +the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may +kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof.” + +“I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!” + +“You cannot see him, my poor dear?” + +“No, father,” said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand, +“no.” + +A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. “I salute you, citizeness,” + from the Doctor. “I salute you, citizen.” This in passing. Nothing more. +Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road. + +“Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness +and courage, for his sake. That was well done;” they had left the spot; +“it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for to-morrow.” + +“For to-morrow!” + +“There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions +to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actually summoned +before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but I know +that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, and removed to the +Conciergerie; I have timely information. You are not afraid?” + +She could scarcely answer, “I trust in you.” + +“Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall +be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed him with every +protection. I must see Lorry.” + +He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They +both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring +away with their dread loads over the hushing snow. + +“I must see Lorry,” the Doctor repeated, turning her another way. + +The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. He +and his books were in frequent requisition as to property confiscated +and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. No +better man living to hold fast by what Tellson’s had in keeping, and to +hold his peace. + +A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted +the approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived at the +Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and +deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: +National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, +Fraternity, or Death! + +Who could that be with Mr. Lorry--the owner of the riding-coat upon the +chair--who must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he come out, +agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? To whom did +he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice and +turning his head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, +he said: “Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for to-morrow?” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Triumph + + +The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined +Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were +read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The +standard gaoler-joke was, “Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you +inside there!” + +“Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay!” + +So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. + +When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved +for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles +Evrémonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen +hundreds pass away so. + +His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them +to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the +list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twenty-three +names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so +summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had already been +guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber +where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his +arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre; every human +creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the +scaffold. + +There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was +soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La Force +were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little +concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears +there; but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had to be +refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the +common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs +who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far from +insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of the +time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour +or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to +brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere +boastfulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In +seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the +disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have +like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke +them. + +The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in its +vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners were +put to the bar before Charles Darnay’s name was called. All the fifteen +were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half. + +“Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay,” was at length arraigned. + +His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red cap +and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing. Looking +at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the +usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the +honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never +without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing +spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, +anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, +the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore +knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many +knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under +her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom +he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly +remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered in +his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed +in the two figures was, that although they were posted as close to +himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They seemed to +be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at +the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, +in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. +Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who +wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the +Carmagnole. + +Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor +as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the decree +which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that the +decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was +the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. + +“Take off his head!” cried the audience. “An enemy to the Republic!” + +The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the +prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in +England? + +Undoubtedly it was. + +Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? + +Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. + +Why not? the President desired to know. + +Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful +to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left +his country--he submitted before the word emigrant in the present +acceptation by the Tribunal was in use--to live by his own industry in +England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. + +What proof had he of this? + +He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and +Alexandre Manette. + +But he had married in England? the President reminded him. + +True, but not an English woman. + +A citizeness of France? + +Yes. By birth. + +Her name and family? + +“Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who +sits there.” + +This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation +of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So capriciously were +the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious +countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as +if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. + +On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot +according to Doctor Manette’s reiterated instructions. The same cautious +counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every +inch of his road. + +The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not +sooner? + +He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means +of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in England, +he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. +He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of +a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his +absence. He had come back, to save a citizen’s life, and to bear his +testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal +in the eyes of the Republic? + +The populace cried enthusiastically, “No!” and the President rang his +bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry “No!” + until they left off, of their own will. + +The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained +that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with confidence +to the citizen’s letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, +but which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before +the President. + +The Doctor had taken care that it should be there--had assured him that +it would be there--and at this stage of the proceedings it was produced +and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen +Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the +pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of +enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly +overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye--in fact, had rather passed out +of the Tribunal’s patriotic remembrance--until three days ago; when he +had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury’s +declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was +answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evrémonde, +called Darnay. + +Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, +and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he +proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his +release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in +England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in +their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat +government there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as +the foe of England and friend of the United States--as he brought these +circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the +straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the +populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur +Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, +had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his +account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that +they were ready with their votes if the President were content to +receive them. + +At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace +set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner’s +favour, and the President declared him free. + +Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace +sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards +generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against +their swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of +these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, +to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner +was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood +at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the +prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after +his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from +exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same +people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with +the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the +streets. + +His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, +rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to be tried +together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not +assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate +itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to +him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four +hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign +of Death--a raised finger--and they all added in words, “Long live the +Republic!” + +The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, +for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was a great +crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen in +Court--except two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the +concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by +turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of +which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the people on the +shore. + +They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had +taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or passages. +Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they +had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not +even the Doctor’s entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home +on men’s shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, +and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that +he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he +was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. + +In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing +him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the +prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them, as +they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried +him thus into the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father +had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his +feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. + +As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his +face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come +together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the +rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. +Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the +crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and +overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river’s bank, +and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled +them away. + +After grasping the Doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious and proud +before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in +breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; +after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round +his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who +lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their +rooms. + +“Lucie! My own! I am safe.” + +“O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have +prayed to Him.” + +They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in +his arms, he said to her: + +“And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France +could have done what he has done for me.” + +She laid her head upon her father’s breast, as she had laid his poor +head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the return he +had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was proud of his +strength. “You must not be weak, my darling,” he remonstrated; “don’t +tremble so. I have saved him.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +A Knock at the Door + + +“I have saved him.” It was not another of the dreams in which he had +often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife trembled, and a +vague but heavy fear was upon her. + +All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so passionately +revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death on +vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that +many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to +her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched, that her +heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. +The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now +the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind pursued +them, looking for him among the Condemned; and then she clung closer to +his real presence and trembled more. + +Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this +woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, +no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had accomplished the task +he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let +them all lean upon him. + +Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only because that was +the safest way of life, involving the least offence to the people, but +because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, +had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards +the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and +partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and +citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard gate, rendered them +occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to them by +Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every +night. + +It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, +Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or doorpost of every +house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters +of a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. +Jerry Cruncher’s name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down +below; and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name +himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had +employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evrémonde, called +Darnay. + +In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual +harmless ways of life were changed. In the Doctor’s little household, as +in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were wanted +were purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various small +shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as +possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. + +For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged the +office of purveyors; the former carrying the money; the latter, the +basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were +lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home +such purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long +association with a French family, might have known as much of their +language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that +direction; consequently she knew no more of that “nonsense” (as she was +pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing +was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any +introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be +the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay hold +of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was concluded. She always +made a bargain for it, by holding up, as a statement of its just price, +one finger less than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be. + +“Now, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with felicity; +“if you are ready, I am.” + +Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service. He had worn +all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his spiky head down. + +“There’s all manner of things wanted,” said Miss Pross, “and we shall +have a precious time of it. We want wine, among the rest. Nice toasts +these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it.” + +“It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think,” + retorted Jerry, “whether they drink your health or the Old Un’s.” + +“Who’s he?” said Miss Pross. + +Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as meaning “Old +Nick’s.” + +“Ha!” said Miss Pross, “it doesn’t need an interpreter to explain the +meaning of these creatures. They have but one, and it’s Midnight Murder, +and Mischief.” + +“Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!” cried Lucie. + +“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be cautious,” said Miss Pross; “but I may say +among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no oniony and tobaccoey +smotherings in the form of embracings all round, going on in the +streets. Now, Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back! +Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and don’t move your +pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! +May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?” + +“I think you may take that liberty,” the Doctor answered, smiling. + +“For gracious sake, don’t talk about Liberty; we have quite enough of +that,” said Miss Pross. + +“Hush, dear! Again?” Lucie remonstrated. + +“Well, my sweet,” said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, “the +short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious +Majesty King George the Third;” Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; “and +as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish +tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King!” + +Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words +after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. + +“I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I wish you +had never taken that cold in your voice,” said Miss Pross, approvingly. +“But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there”--it was the good creature’s +way to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety +with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner--“is there any +prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?” + +“I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” + +“Heigh-ho-hum!” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she +glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light of the fire, “then we +must have patience and wait: that’s all. We must hold up our heads and +fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!--Don’t +you move, Ladybird!” + +They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the +child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back presently from the +Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in +a corner, that they might enjoy the fire-light undisturbed. Little Lucie +sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm: and he, +in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story of +a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison-wall and let out +a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. All was subdued and +quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been. + +“What is that?” she cried, all at once. + +“My dear!” said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand +on hers, “command yourself. What a disordered state you are in! The +least thing--nothing--startles you! _You_, your father’s daughter!” + +“I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face +and in a faltering voice, “that I heard strange feet upon the stairs.” + +“My love, the staircase is as still as Death.” + +As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. + +“Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!” + +“My child,” said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her +shoulder, “I _have_ saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let me go +to the door.” + +He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, +and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and four rough +men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room. + +“The Citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay,” said the first. + +“Who seeks him?” answered Darnay. + +“I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrémonde; I saw you before the +Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic.” + +The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging +to him. + +“Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?” + +“It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will +know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow.” + +Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he +stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold it, +moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting +the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red +woollen shirt, said: + +“You know him, you have said. Do you know me?” + +“Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor.” + +“We all know you, Citizen Doctor,” said the other three. + +He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, +after a pause: + +“Will you answer his question to me then? How does this happen?” + +“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, reluctantly, “he has been denounced to +the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” pointing out the second who +had entered, “is from Saint Antoine.” + +The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added: + +“He is accused by Saint Antoine.” + +“Of what?” asked the Doctor. + +“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, “ask no +more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt you as +a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. +The People is supreme. Evrémonde, we are pressed.” + +“One word,” the Doctor entreated. “Will you tell me who denounced him?” + +“It is against rule,” answered the first; “but you can ask Him of Saint +Antoine here.” + +The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily on his +feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said: + +“Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced--and gravely--by +the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other.” + +“What other?” + +“Do _you_ ask, Citizen Doctor?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “you will be +answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +A Hand at Cards + + +Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her +way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the +Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable purchases +she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They +both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they +passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and +turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It +was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to the eye with blazing +lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were +stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the +Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with _that_ Army, or got +undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never +grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. + +Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil +for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. +After peeping into several wine-shops, she stopped at the sign of the +Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, +once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather +took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same +description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was +not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her +opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, +attended by her cavalier. + +Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, +playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the one bare-breasted, +bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of +the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be +resumed; of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the +popular high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, +like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers approached +the counter, and showed what they wanted. + +As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a +corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. No +sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped +her hands. + +In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was +assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion was the +likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only +saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man with all +the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the woman, +evidently English. + +What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of the +Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very +voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss +Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no +ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that +not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, +Mr. Cruncher--though it seemed on his own separate and individual +account--was in a state of the greatest wonder. + +“What is the matter?” said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream; +speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), and in +English. + +“Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!” cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. +“After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, +do I find you here!” + +“Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me?” asked the +man, in a furtive, frightened way. + +“Brother, brother!” cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. “Have I ever +been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question?” + +“Then hold your meddlesome tongue,” said Solomon, “and come out, if you +want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. Who’s this man?” + +Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means +affectionate brother, said through her tears, “Mr. Cruncher.” + +“Let him come out too,” said Solomon. “Does he think me a ghost?” + +Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a +word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule +through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did +so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus +of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the French +language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and +pursuits. + +“Now,” said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, “what do you +want?” + +“How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away +from!” cried Miss Pross, “to give me such a greeting, and show me no +affection.” + +“There. Confound it! There,” said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross’s +lips with his own. “Now are you content?” + +Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. + +“If you expect me to be surprised,” said her brother Solomon, “I am not +surprised; I knew you were here; I know of most people who are here. If +you really don’t want to endanger my existence--which I half believe you +do--go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I +am an official.” + +“My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, casting up her +tear-fraught eyes, “that had the makings in him of one of the best and +greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and +such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in +his--” + +“I said so!” cried her brother, interrupting. “I knew it. You want to be +the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just +as I am getting on!” + +“The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!” cried Miss Pross. “Far +rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever +loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, +and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will +detain you no longer.” + +Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any +culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a fact, years +ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent +her money and left her! + +He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging +condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their relative +merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, +all the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, +hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular +question: + +“I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, +or Solomon John?” + +The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not +previously uttered a word. + +“Come!” said Mr. Cruncher. “Speak out, you know.” (Which, by the way, +was more than he could do himself.) “John Solomon, or Solomon John? She +calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. And _I_ know +you’re John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that +name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t your name over the water.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind what your name +was, over the water.” + +“No?” + +“No. But I’ll swear it was a name of two syllables.” + +“Indeed?” + +“Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You was a spy--witness +at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to +yourself, was you called at that time?” + +“Barsad,” said another voice, striking in. + +“That’s the name for a thousand pound!” cried Jerry. + +The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind +him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher’s +elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself. + +“Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry’s, to his +surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself +elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present +myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a +better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad +was not a Sheep of the Prisons.” + +Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, +who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared-- + +“I’ll tell you,” said Sydney. “I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out +of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, +an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember +faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having +a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with +the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your +direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you, and +sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved +conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the +nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed +to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad.” + +“What purpose?” the spy asked. + +“It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the +street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your +company--at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for instance?” + +“Under a threat?” + +“Oh! Did I say that?” + +“Then, why should I go there?” + +“Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.” + +“Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?” the spy irresolutely asked. + +“You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.” + +Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his +quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, +and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and +made the most of it. + +“Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his +sister; “if any trouble comes of this, it’s your doing.” + +“Come, come, Mr. Barsad!” exclaimed Sydney. “Don’t be ungrateful. +But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so +pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual +satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?” + +“I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with you.” + +“I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her +own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, +at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort +knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we +ready? Come then!” + +Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life +remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s arm and looked up +in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced +purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only +contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was +too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved +her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassurances, adequately to +heed what she observed. + +They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. +Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ walk. John Barsad, or Solomon +Pross, walked at his side. + +Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery +little log or two of fire--perhaps looking into their blaze for the +picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson’s, who had looked +into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years +ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with +which he saw a stranger. + +“Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “Mr. Barsad.” + +“Barsad?” repeated the old gentleman, “Barsad? I have an association +with the name--and with the face.” + +“I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,” observed Carton, +coolly. “Pray sit down.” + +As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, +by saying to him with a frown, “Witness at that trial.” Mr. Lorry +immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised +look of abhorrence. + +“Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate +brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “and has acknowledged the +relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again.” + +Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, “What do you +tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about +to return to him!” + +“Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?” + +“Just now, if at all.” + +“Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Sydney, “and I +have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication to a friend and brother Sheep +over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the +messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no +earthly doubt that he is retaken.” + +Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it was loss +of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something +might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was +silently attentive. + +“Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “that the name and influence of +Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow--you said he +would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?--” + +“Yes; I believe so.” + +“--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own +to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette’s not having had the +power to prevent this arrest.” + +“He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. Lorry. + +“But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how +identified he is with his son-in-law.” + +“That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his +chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. + +“In short,” said Sydney, “this is a desperate time, when desperate games +are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I +will play the losing one. No man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one +carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the +stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend +in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. +Barsad.” + +“You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy. + +“I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold,--Mr. Lorry, you know what a +brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little brandy.” + +It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful--drank off another +glassful--pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. + +“Mr. Barsad,” he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking +over a hand at cards: “Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican +committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, +so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman +is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a +Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. +That’s a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican +French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic +English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That’s an excellent +card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. +Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the +spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, +the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so +difficult to find. That’s a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my +hand, Mr. Barsad?” + +“Not to understand your play,” returned the spy, somewhat uneasily. + +“I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section +Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don’t +hurry.” + +He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and +drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself +into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he +poured out and drank another glassful. + +“Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.” + +It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards +in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable +employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing +there--not because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for +vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern +date--he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in +France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen +there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He +knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint +Antoine and Defarge’s wine-shop; had received from the watchful police +such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette’s imprisonment, +release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to +familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame +Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. He always remembered +with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he +talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. +He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over +again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the +guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as +he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that +he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of +his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning +terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such +grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw +that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many +proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would quash +his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon +terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify +the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. + +“You scarcely seem to like your hand,” said Sydney, with the greatest +composure. “Do you play?” + +“I think, sir,” said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. +Lorry, “I may appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence, to +put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can +under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace +of which he has spoken. I admit that _I_ am a spy, and that it is +considered a discreditable station--though it must be filled by +somebody; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean +himself as to make himself one?” + +“I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad,” said Carton, taking the answer on himself, +and looking at his watch, “without any scruple, in a very few minutes.” + +“I should have hoped, gentlemen both,” said the spy, always striving to +hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, “that your respect for my sister--” + +“I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally +relieving her of her brother,” said Sydney Carton. + +“You think not, sir?” + +“I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.” + +The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his +ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanour, +received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,--who was a +mystery to wiser and honester men than he,--that it faltered here and +failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air +of contemplating cards: + +“And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I +have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and +fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; +who was he?” + +“French. You don’t know him,” said the spy, quickly. + +“French, eh?” repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him +at all, though he echoed his word. “Well; he may be.” + +“Is, I assure you,” said the spy; “though it’s not important.” + +“Though it’s not important,” repeated Carton, in the same mechanical +way--“though it’s not important--No, it’s not important. No. Yet I know +the face.” + +“I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,” said the spy. + +“It-can’t-be,” muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his +glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. “Can’t-be. Spoke good +French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought?” + +“Provincial,” said the spy. + +“No. Foreign!” cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a +light broke clearly on his mind. “Cly! Disguised, but the same man. We +had that man before us at the Old Bailey.” + +“Now, there you are hasty, sir,” said Barsad, with a smile that gave his +aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; “there you really give +me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this +distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I +attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church +of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the blackguard +multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped +to lay him in his coffin.” + +Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable +goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it +to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the +risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher’s head. + +“Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “and let us be fair. To show you +how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, I will +lay before you a certificate of Cly’s burial, which I happened to have +carried in my pocket-book,” with a hurried hand he produced and opened +it, “ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take +it in your hand; it’s no forgery.” + +Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and +Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more +violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the +crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. + +Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on +the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. + +“That there Roger Cly, master,” said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and +iron-bound visage. “So _you_ put him in his coffin?” + +“I did.” + +“Who took him out of it?” + +Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, “What do you mean?” + +“I mean,” said Mr. Cruncher, “that he warn’t never in it. No! Not he! +I’ll have my head took off, if he was ever in it.” + +The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in +unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. + +“I tell you,” said Jerry, “that you buried paving-stones and earth in +that there coffin. Don’t go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a +take in. Me and two more knows it.” + +“How do you know it?” + +“What’s that to you? Ecod!” growled Mr. Cruncher, “it’s you I have got a +old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon tradesmen! +I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea.” + +Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at +this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate and +explain himself. + +“At another time, sir,” he returned, evasively, “the present time is +ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand to, is, that he knows well +wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, +in so much as a word of one syllable, and I’ll either catch hold of his +throat and choke him for half a guinea;” Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as +quite a liberal offer; “or I’ll out and announce him.” + +“Humph! I see one thing,” said Carton. “I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. +Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling the air, for +you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another +aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has +the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to life again! +A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong +card--a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?” + +“No!” returned the spy. “I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular +with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk +of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that +he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this +man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me.” + +“Never you trouble your head about this man,” retorted the contentious +Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough with giving your attention to +that gentleman. And look here! Once more!”--Mr. Cruncher could not +be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his +liberality--“I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a +guinea.” + +The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, +with more decision, “It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, and +can’t overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what is it? +Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my +office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my +life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, +I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate +here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my +way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with +me?” + +“Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?” + +“I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible,” + said the spy, firmly. + +“Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the +Conciergerie?” + +“I am sometimes.” + +“You can be when you choose?” + +“I can pass in and out when I choose.” + +Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out +upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he +said, rising: + +“So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that +the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. Come +into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +The Game Made + + +While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining +dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked +at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman’s +manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the +leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, +and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very +questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry’s eye caught +his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the +hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an +infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character. + +“Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry. “Come here.” + +Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance +of him. + +“What have you been, besides a messenger?” + +After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, +Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, “Agicultooral +character.” + +“My mind misgives me much,” said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger +at him, “that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson’s +as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous +description. If you have, don’t expect me to befriend you when you +get back to England. If you have, don’t expect me to keep your secret. +Tellson’s shall not be imposed upon.” + +“I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “that a gentleman like +yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd jobbing till I’m grey at it, +would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so--I don’t say it +is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if +it wos, it wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one side. There’d be two sides +to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking +up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his +fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens--half fardens! no, nor +yet his quarter--a banking away like smoke at Tellson’s, and a cocking +their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going +out to their own carriages--ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. +Well, that ’ud be imposing, too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot sarse the +goose and not the gander. And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos +in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, +a floppin’ again the business to that degree as is ruinating--stark +ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors’ wives don’t flop--catch ’em at +it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of more patients, +and how can you rightly have one without t’other? Then, wot with +undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot +with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn’t get +much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would never +prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never have no good of it; he’d want +all along to be out of the line, if he, could see his way out, being +once in--even if it wos so.” + +“Ugh!” cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, “I am shocked at +the sight of you.” + +“Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,” pursued Mr. Cruncher, +“even if it wos so, which I don’t say it is--” + +“Don’t prevaricate,” said Mr. Lorry. + +“No, I will _not_, sir,” returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were +further from his thoughts or practice--“which I don’t say it is--wot I +would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at +that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to +be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general-light-job you, till +your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it +wos so, which I still don’t say it is (for I will not prewaricate to +you, sir), let that there boy keep his father’s place, and take care of +his mother; don’t blow upon that boy’s father--do not do it, sir--and +let that father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, and make amends +for what he would have undug--if it wos so--by diggin’ of ’em in with +a will, and with conwictions respectin’ the futur’ keepin’ of ’em safe. +That, Mr. Lorry,” said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his +arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his +discourse, “is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don’t +see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects +without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring the price down +to porterage and hardly that, without havin’ his serious thoughts of +things. And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin’ of you +fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good +cause when I might have kep’ it back.” + +“That at least is true,” said Mr. Lorry. “Say no more now. It may be +that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in +action--not in words. I want no more words.” + +Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy +returned from the dark room. “Adieu, Mr. Barsad,” said the former; “our +arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me.” + +He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they +were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? + +“Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access +to him, once.” + +Mr. Lorry’s countenance fell. + +“It is all I could do,” said Carton. “To propose too much, would be +to put this man’s head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing +worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the +weakness of the position. There is no help for it.” + +“But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it should go ill before the +Tribunal, will not save him.” + +“I never said it would.” + +Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his +darling, and the heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually +weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, +and his tears fell. + +“You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in an altered +voice. “Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my +father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your +sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, +however.” + +Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there +was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, +that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly +unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. + +“To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “Don’t tell Her of this +interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see +him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey +to him the means of anticipating the sentence.” + +Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to +see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and +evidently understood it. + +“She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “and any of them would +only add to her trouble. Don’t speak of me to her. As I said to you when +I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any +little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. +You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate to-night.” + +“I am going now, directly.” + +“I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance +on you. How does she look?” + +“Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.” + +“Ah!” + +It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob. It +attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which was turned to the +fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), +passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hill-side on a +wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little +flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat +and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their +light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, +all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was +sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; +his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had +broken under the weight of his foot. + +“I forgot it,” he said. + +Mr. Lorry’s eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the +wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome features, and having +the expression of prisoners’ faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly +reminded of that expression. + +“And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?” said Carton, turning +to him. + +“Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so +unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to +have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have +my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go.” + +They were both silent. + +“Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?” said Carton, wistfully. + +“I am in my seventy-eighth year.” + +“You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; +trusted, respected, and looked up to?” + +“I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. Indeed, I +may say that I was a man of business when a boy.” + +“See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many people will miss +you when you leave it empty!” + +“A solitary old bachelor,” answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. “There +is nobody to weep for me.” + +“How can you say that? Wouldn’t She weep for you? Wouldn’t her child?” + +“Yes, yes, thank God. I didn’t quite mean what I said.” + +“It _is_ a thing to thank God for; is it not?” + +“Surely, surely.” + +“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, +‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or +respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no +regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ +your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they +not?” + +“You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.” + +Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a +few moments, said: + +“I should like to ask you:--Does your childhood seem far off? Do the +days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very long ago?” + +Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: + +“Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw +closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and +nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and +preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances +that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), +and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not +so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me.” + +“I understand the feeling!” exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. “And +you are the better for it?” + +“I hope so.” + +Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with +his outer coat; “But you,” said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, “you +are young.” + +“Yes,” said Carton. “I am not old, but my young way was never the way to +age. Enough of me.” + +“And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “Are you going out?” + +“I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless +habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don’t be +uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court to-morrow?” + +“Yes, unhappily.” + +“I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a +place for me. Take my arm, sir.” + +Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the streets. A +few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destination. Carton left him +there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate +again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to +the prison every day. “She came out here,” he said, looking about him, +“turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in +her steps.” + +It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, +where she had stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, having +closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-door. + +“Good night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for, the +man eyed him inquisitively. + +“Good night, citizen.” + +“How goes the Republic?” + +“You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall mount +to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being +exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!” + +“Do you often go to see him--” + +“Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen him at work?” + +“Never.” + +“Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, +citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes! Less +than two pipes. Word of honour!” + +As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain +how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire +to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. + +“But you are not English,” said the wood-sawyer, “though you wear +English dress?” + +“Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. + +“You speak like a Frenchman.” + +“I am an old student here.” + +“Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman.” + +“Good night, citizen.” + +“But go and see that droll dog,” the little man persisted, calling after +him. “And take a pipe with you!” + +Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle of +the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a scrap +of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered +the way well, several dark and dirty streets--much dirtier than usual, +for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of +terror--he stopped at a chemist’s shop, which the owner was closing with +his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, up-hill +thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. + +Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his +counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. “Whew!” the chemist +whistled softly, as he read it. “Hi! hi! hi!” + +Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: + +“For you, citizen?” + +“For me.” + +“You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the +consequences of mixing them?” + +“Perfectly.” + +Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, one by +one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for them, +and deliberately left the shop. “There is nothing more to do,” said he, +glancing upward at the moon, “until to-morrow. I can’t sleep.” + +It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words +aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of +negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who +had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into +his road and saw its end. + +Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a +youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His +mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been +read at his father’s grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark +streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing +on high above him. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: +he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and +whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” + +In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow +rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that day put to death, +and for to-morrow’s victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, +and still of to-morrow’s and to-morrow’s, the chain of association that +brought the words home, like a rusty old ship’s anchor from the deep, +might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and +went on. + +With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people were +going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the horrors +surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where no prayers +were said, for the popular revulsion had even travelled that length +of self-destruction from years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and +profligates; in the distant burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon +the gates, for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets +along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and +material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among +the people out of all the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn +interest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to its +short nightly pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for +the lighter streets. + +Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be +suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and put on heavy +shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were all well filled, and the +people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. At +one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking +for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, +and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. + +“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth +in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and +believeth in me, shall never die.” + +Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words +were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm +and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he +heard them always. + +The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the +water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the +picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light +of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the +sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, +and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to +Death’s dominion. + +But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden +of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. +And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light +appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river +sparkled under it. + +The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial +friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from the +houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the +bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little +longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the +stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.--“Like me.” + +A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then +glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track +in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart +for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, +ended in the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” + +Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to surmise +where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton drank nothing but a +little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh +himself, went out to the place of trial. + +The court was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep--whom many fell +away from in dread--pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. +Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, +sitting beside her father. + +When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so +sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying +tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy +blood into his face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If +there had been any eyes to notice the influence of her look, on Sydney +Carton, it would have been seen to be the same influence exactly. + +Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, +ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hearing. There could have +been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not +first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the +Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds. + +Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots and good +republicans as yesterday and the day before, and to-morrow and the day +after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a craving face, and +his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance +gave great satisfaction to the spectators. A life-thirsting, +cannibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. +Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the deer. + +Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. +No favourable leaning in that quarter to-day. A fell, uncompromising, +murderous business-meaning there. Every eye then sought some other eye +in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one +another, before bending forward with a strained attention. + +Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and +retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. Suspected and +Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, +one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished +privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evrémonde, +called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. + +To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor. + +The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced or secretly? + +“Openly, President.” + +“By whom?” + +“Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St. Antoine.” + +“Good.” + +“Thérèse Defarge, his wife.” + +“Good.” + +“Alexandre Manette, physician.” + +A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it, Doctor +Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing where he had been seated. + +“President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and +a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my daughter. My +daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. Who +and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband +of my child!” + +“Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the authority of +the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. As to what is dearer +to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as the +Republic.” + +Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, and +with warmth resumed. + +“If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child +herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. Listen to what is +to follow. In the meanwhile, be silent!” + +Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, with +his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; his daughter drew +closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands together, +and restored the usual hand to his mouth. + +Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough to admit of his +being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of the imprisonment, and of +his having been a mere boy in the Doctor’s service, and of the release, +and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to him. +This short examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. + +“You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen?” + +“I believe so.” + +Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: “You were one of the +best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a cannonier that day +there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when +it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth!” + +It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, +thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell; but, The +Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, “I defy that bell!” + wherein she was likewise much commended. + +“Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the Bastille, +citizen.” + +“I knew,” said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at the +bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at him; +“I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell +known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He +knew himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, +when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, +when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to +the cell, with a fellow-citizen who is one of the Jury, directed by a +gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a +stone has been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is +that written paper. I have made it my business to examine some specimens +of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writing of Doctor Manette. +I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of +the President.” + +“Let it be read.” + +In a dead silence and stillness--the prisoner under trial looking +lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with +solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the +reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge +never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there +intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of them--the paper was read, as +follows. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +The Substance of the Shadow + + +“I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and +afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful +cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, 1767. I write +it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it +in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a +place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I +and my sorrows are dust. + +“These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with +difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed +with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope +has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have +noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired, but I +solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right +mind--that my memory is exact and circumstantial--and that I write the +truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, whether they +be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat. + +“One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the +twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a retired +part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty air, +at an hour’s distance from my place of residence in the Street of the +School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very +fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it +might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a +voice called to the driver to stop. + +“The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, +and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage +was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open the +door and alight before I came up with it. + +“I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to +conceal themselves. As they stood side by side near the carriage door, +I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather +younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, +and (as far as I could see) face too. + +“‘You are Doctor Manette?’ said one. + +“I am.” + +“‘Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,’ said the other; ‘the young +physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or two +has made a rising reputation in Paris?’ + +“‘Gentlemen,’ I returned, ‘I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so +graciously.’ + +“‘We have been to your residence,’ said the first, ‘and not being +so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were +probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of +overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage?’ + +“The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words +were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the carriage door. +They were armed. I was not. + +“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me +the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case to +which I am summoned.’ + +“The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. ‘Doctor, +your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of the case, +our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for +yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. Will you please to +enter the carriage?’ + +“I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both +entered after me--the last springing in, after putting up the steps. The +carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed. + +“I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that +it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took +place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make +the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my +paper in its hiding-place. + + ***** + +“The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and +emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the +Barrier--I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards +when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and presently +stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by +a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had +overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in +answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck +the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face. + +“There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, +for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the +other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner +with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly +alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. + +“From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found +locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had +relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was +conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we +ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, +lying on a bed. + +“The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much +past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to +her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were +all portions of a gentleman’s dress. On one of them, which was a fringed +scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of a Noble, +and the letter E. + +“I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; +for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the +edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was +in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve +her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the +corner caught my sight. + +“I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her +and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and +wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the +words, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ and then counted up to +twelve, and said, ‘Hush!’ For an instant, and no more, she would pause +to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she +would repeat the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ and +would count up to twelve, and say, ‘Hush!’ There was no variation in the +order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment’s +pause, in the utterance of these sounds. + +“‘How long,’ I asked, ‘has this lasted?’ + +“To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the +younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It +was the elder who replied, ‘Since about this hour last night.’ + +“‘She has a husband, a father, and a brother?’ + +“‘A brother.’ + +“‘I do not address her brother?’ + +“He answered with great contempt, ‘No.’ + +“‘She has some recent association with the number twelve?’ + +“The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘With twelve o’clock?’ + +“‘See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, ‘how +useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming +to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There +are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.’ + +“The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, ‘There is +a case of medicines here;’ and brought it from a closet, and put it on +the table. + + ***** + +“I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my +lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that were +poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those. + +“‘Do you doubt them?’ asked the younger brother. + +“‘You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, and said no +more. + +“I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many +efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it +after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then +sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman +in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into +a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently +furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick +old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the +sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular +succession, with the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ the +counting up to twelve, and ‘Hush!’ The frenzy was so violent, that I had +not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to +them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encouragement +in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer’s breast had this much +soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the +figure. It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more +regular. + +“For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by +the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, +before the elder said: + +“‘There is another patient.’ + +“I was startled, and asked, ‘Is it a pressing case?’ + +“‘You had better see,’ he carelessly answered; and took up a light. + + ***** + +“The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which +was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling +to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and +there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of +the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to +pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial +and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in +this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my +captivity, as I saw them all that night. + +“On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a +handsome peasant boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. +He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his +breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see +where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see +that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. + +“‘I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘Let me examine it.’ + +“‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ + +“It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. +The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours +before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to +without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder +brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was +ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all +as if he were a fellow-creature. + +“‘How has this been done, monsieur?’ said I. + +“‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, +and has fallen by my brother’s sword--like a gentleman.’ + +“There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this +answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to +have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would +have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his +vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about +the boy, or about his fate. + +“The boy’s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now +slowly moved to me. + +“‘Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are +proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but +we have a little pride left, sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?’ + +“The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the +distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. + +“I said, ‘I have seen her.’ + +“‘She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these +Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but we +have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say +so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a +tenant of his. We were all tenants of his--that man’s who stands there. +The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.’ + +“It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force +to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. + +“‘We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs +are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged to +work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged +to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden +for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and +plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we +ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his +people should not see it and take it from us--I say, we were so robbed, +and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a +dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should +most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable +race die out!’ + +“I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth +like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people +somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the +dying boy. + +“‘Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, +poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort +him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not +been married many weeks, when that man’s brother saw her and admired +her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are husbands among +us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and +hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two +then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her +willing?’ + +“The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the +looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two +opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this +Bastille; the gentleman’s, all negligent indifference; the peasant’s, all +trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge. + +“‘You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to +harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and +drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their +grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep +may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at +night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was +not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he +could find food--he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the +bell, and died on her bosom.’ + +“Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to +tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as +he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his +wound. + +“‘Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, his +brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his +brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if +it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and diversion, +for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the +tidings home, our father’s heart burst; he never spoke one of the words +that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place +beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be +_his_ vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed +in--a common dog, but sword in hand.--Where is the loft window? It was +somewhere here?’ + +“The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around +him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled +over the floor, as if there had been a struggle. + +“‘She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was +dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then struck +at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at him as to +make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword +that he stained with my common blood; he drew to defend himself--thrust +at me with all his skill for his life.’ + +“My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of +a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman’s. In +another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier’s. + +“‘Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?’ + +“‘He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he +referred to the brother. + +“‘He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the +man who was here? Turn my face to him.’ + +“I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, invested for the +moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely: obliging +me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him. + +“‘Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, and +his right hand raised, ‘in the days when all these things are to be +answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to +answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that +I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, +I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them +separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do +it.’ + +“Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his +forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the +finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him +down dead. + + ***** + +“When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving +in precisely the same order of continuity. I knew that this might last +for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence of the +grave. + +“I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of +the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the piercing +quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order +of her words. They were always ‘My husband, my father, and my brother! +One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, +twelve. Hush!’ + +“This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had +come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began to +falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and +by-and-bye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead. + +“It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and +fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist me to +compose her figure and the dress she had torn. It was then that I knew +her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of being +a mother have arisen; and it was then that I lost the little hope I had +had of her. + +“‘Is she dead?’ asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the +elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse. + +“‘Not dead,’ said I; ‘but like to die.’ + +“‘What strength there is in these common bodies!’ he said, looking down +at her with some curiosity. + +“‘There is prodigious strength,’ I answered him, ‘in sorrow and +despair.’ + +“He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a +chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in a +subdued voice, + +“‘Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I +recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is high, +and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mindful +of your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, +and not spoken of.’ + +“I listened to the patient’s breathing, and avoided answering. + +“‘Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?’ + +“‘Monsieur,’ said I, ‘in my profession, the communications of patients +are always received in confidence.’ I was guarded in my answer, for I +was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen. + +“Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the +pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round as I +resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. + + ***** + +“I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so +fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and total +darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no confusion or +failure in my memory; it can recall, and could detail, every word that +was ever spoken between me and those brothers. + +“She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some few +syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her lips. She +asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It +was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her +head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done. + +“I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told the +brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day. Until +then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the +woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind +the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it came to +that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold with her; as +if--the thought passed through my mind--I were dying too. + +“I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger +brother’s (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and that +peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind +of either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading +to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger +brother’s eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, +for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to +me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance +in the mind of the elder, too. + +“My patient died, two hours before midnight--at a time, by my watch, +answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I was alone +with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one side, and +all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended. + +“The brothers were waiting in a room down-stairs, impatient to ride +away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots with +their riding-whips, and loitering up and down. + +“‘At last she is dead?’ said the elder, when I went in. + +“‘She is dead,’ said I. + +“‘I congratulate you, my brother,’ were his words as he turned round. + +“He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He now +gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid it on +the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to accept +nothing. + +“‘Pray excuse me,’ said I. ‘Under the circumstances, no.’ + +“They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to +them, and we parted without another word on either side. + + ***** + +“I am weary, weary, weary--worn down by misery. I cannot read what I +have written with this gaunt hand. + +“Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a +little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously +considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately +to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been +summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the +circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities +of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be +heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept the matter a +profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state +in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but +I was conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were +compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. + +“I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that +night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. +It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just +completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me. + + ***** + +“I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. It is +so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon me is so +dreadful. + +“The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long +life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as the +wife of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. I connected the title by which the +boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered +on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I +had seen that nobleman very lately. + +“My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our +conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was, and I +know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part suspected, and +in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story, of her husband’s +share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl +was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to show her, +in secret, a woman’s sympathy. Her hope had been to avert the wrath of +Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to the suffering many. + +“She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living, and +her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her nothing +but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew nothing. Her +inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope +that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this +wretched hour I am ignorant of both. + + ***** + +“These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a warning, +yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. + +“She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage. How +could she be! The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his influence +was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and in dread of her +husband too. When I handed her down to the door, there was a child, a +pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage. + +“‘For his sake, Doctor,’ she said, pointing to him in tears, ‘I would do +all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper in his +inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other innocent +atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of him. What +I have left to call my own--it is little beyond the worth of a few +jewels--I will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the +compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured family, if +the sister can be discovered.’ + +“She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, ‘It is for thine own dear +sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?’ The child answered her +bravely, ‘Yes!’ I kissed her hand, and she took him in her arms, and +went away caressing him. I never saw her more. + +“As she had mentioned her husband’s name in the faith that I knew it, +I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not +trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day. + +“That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o’clock, a man in +a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly followed +my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up-stairs. When my servant came +into the room where I sat with my wife--O my wife, beloved of my heart! +My fair young English wife!--we saw the man, who was supposed to be at +the gate, standing silent behind him. + +“An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not detain me, +he had a coach in waiting. + +“It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear of the +house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from behind, and +my arms were pinioned. The two brothers crossed the road from a dark +corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The Marquis took from +his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in the light +of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his foot. +Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was brought to my living +grave. + +“If it had pleased _God_ to put it in the hard heart of either of the +brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of +my dearest wife--so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or +dead--I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them. But, +now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that +they have no part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the +last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last +night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times +when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven +and to earth.” + +A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A +sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but +blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the time, +and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped before it. + +Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show +how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other captured +Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it, biding their +time. Little need to show that this detested family name had long been +anathematised by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. +The man never trod ground whose virtues and services would have +sustained him in that place that day, against such denunciation. + +And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a +well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife. One +of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations of +the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices and +self-immolations on the people’s altar. Therefore when the President +said (else had his own head quivered on his shoulders), that the good +physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by +rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless feel +a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and her child an +orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fervour, not a touch of +human sympathy. + +“Much influence around him, has that Doctor?” murmured Madame Defarge, +smiling to The Vengeance. “Save him now, my Doctor, save him!” + +At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Another and another. Roar and +roar. + +Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy +of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the +Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +Dusk + + +The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under +the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no +sound; and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was +she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment +it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. + +The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, +the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court’s +emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood +stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face +but love and consolation. + +“If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if +you would have so much compassion for us!” + +There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had +taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the +show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, “Let her embrace +him then; it is but a moment.” It was silently acquiesced in, and they +passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by +leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. + +“Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We +shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!” + +They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom. + +“I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don’t suffer +for me. A parting blessing for our child.” + +“I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by +you.” + +“My husband. No! A moment!” He was tearing himself apart from her. +“We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart +by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God +will raise up friends for her, as He did for me.” + +Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both +of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: + +“No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel +to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what +you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We +know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for +her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and +duty. Heaven be with you!” + +Her father’s only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, +and wring them with a shriek of anguish. + +“It could not be otherwise,” said the prisoner. “All things have worked +together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain endeavour to +discharge my poor mother’s trust that first brought my fatal presence +near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in +nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven +bless you!” + +As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him +with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and +with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting +smile. As he went out at the prisoners’ door, she turned, laid her head +lovingly on her father’s breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his +feet. + +Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, +Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were +with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. +Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pity--that had a +flush of pride in it. + +“Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight.” + +He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a +coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat +beside the driver. + +When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not +many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of +the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up +the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where +her child and Miss Pross wept over her. + +“Don’t recall her to herself,” he said, softly, to the latter, “she is +better so. Don’t revive her to consciousness, while she only faints.” + +“Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!” cried little Lucie, springing up and +throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. “Now that +you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to +save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who +love her, bear to see her so?” + +He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He +put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. + +“Before I go,” he said, and paused--“I may kiss her?” + +It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face +with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to +him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a +handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “A life you love.” + +When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry +and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: + +“You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at least +be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to +you, and very recognisant of your services; are they not?” + +“Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the +strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did.” He returned the +answer in great trouble, and very slowly. + +“Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon are few +and short, but try.” + +“I intend to try. I will not rest a moment.” + +“That’s well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before +now--though never,” he added, with a smile and a sigh together, “such +great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse +it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it +were not.” + +“I will go,” said Doctor Manette, “to the Prosecutor and the President +straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will +write too, and--But stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no +one will be accessible until dark.” + +“That’s true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the +forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you +speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen +these dread powers, Doctor Manette?” + +“Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from +this.” + +“It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I +go to Mr. Lorry’s at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from +our friend or from yourself?” + +“Yes.” + +“May you prosper!” + +Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the +shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. + +“I have no hope,” said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. + +“Nor have I.” + +“If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare +him--which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or any man’s +to them!--I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the +court.” + +“And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound.” + +Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face upon it. + +“Don’t despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. I encouraged +Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be +consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think ‘his life was wantonly +thrown away or wasted,’ and that might trouble her.” + +“Yes, yes, yes,” returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, “you are right. +But he will perish; there is no real hope.” + +“Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope,” echoed Carton. + +And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +Darkness + + +Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. “At +Tellson’s banking-house at nine,” he said, with a musing face. “Shall I +do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that +these people should know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound +precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! +Let me think it out!” + +Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he took a +turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the thought +in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression was +confirmed. “It is best,” he said, finally resolved, “that these people +should know there is such a man as I here.” And he turned his face +towards Saint Antoine. + +Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wine-shop in +the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the city +well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascertained +its situation, Carton came out of those closer streets again, and dined +at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the +first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he +had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had +dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry’s hearth like a man who had +done with it. + +It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out +into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he +stopped at a shop-window where there was a mirror, and slightly altered +the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and +his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in. + +There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the +restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon +the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the +Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like +a regular member of the establishment. + +As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent +French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless +glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced +to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered. + +He repeated what he had already said. + +“English?” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark +eyebrows. + +After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word were +slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong foreign +accent. “Yes, madame, yes. I am English!” + +Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he +took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its +meaning, he heard her say, “I swear to you, like Evrémonde!” + +Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening. + +“How?” + +“Good evening.” + +“Oh! Good evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “Ah! and good wine. I +drink to the Republic.” + +Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “Certainly, a little like.” + Madame sternly retorted, “I tell you a good deal like.” Jacques Three +pacifically remarked, “He is so much in your mind, see you, madame.” + The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, “Yes, my faith! And you +are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more +to-morrow!” + +Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow +forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning +their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence +of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without +disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed +their conversation. + +“It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. “Why stop? There +is great force in that. Why stop?” + +“Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “but one must stop somewhere. After all, +the question is still where?” + +“At extermination,” said madame. + +“Magnificent!” croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, highly +approved. + +“Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, rather +troubled; “in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has +suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you have observed his face when +the paper was read.” + +“I have observed his face!” repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily. +“Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face to be not the +face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care of his face!” + +“And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, +“the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him!” + +“I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame; “yes, I have observed +his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her to-day, and I +have observed her other days. I have observed her in the court, and +I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my +finger--!” She seemed to raise it (the listener’s eyes were always on +his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as +if the axe had dropped. + +“The citizeness is superb!” croaked the Juryman. + +“She is an Angel!” said The Vengeance, and embraced her. + +“As to thee,” pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, “if it +depended on thee--which, happily, it does not--thou wouldst rescue this +man even now.” + +“No!” protested Defarge. “Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I +would leave the matter there. I say, stop there.” + +“See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge, wrathfully; “and see you, +too, my little Vengeance; see you both! Listen! For other crimes as +tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my register, +doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so.” + +“It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked. + +“In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds +this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the +night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, +by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so.” + +“It is so,” assented Defarge. + +“That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp is +burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between +those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is +that so.” + +“It is so,” assented Defarge again. + +“I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these two +hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, ‘Defarge, I was brought up +among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured +by the two Evrémonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my +family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground +was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn child +was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, +those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things +descends to me!’ Ask him, is that so.” + +“It is so,” assented Defarge once more. + +“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t +tell me.” + +Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature +of her wrath--the listener could feel how white she was, without seeing +her--and both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, interposed +a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but +only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. “Tell +the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!” + +Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English customer +paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and asked, as +a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge +took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road. +The English customer was not without his reflections then, that it might +be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp and +deep. + +But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the +prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present +himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, where he found the old gentleman +walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie +until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and +keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted the +banking-house towards four o’clock. She had some faint hopes that his +mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had been +more than five hours gone: where could he be? + +Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor Manette not returning, and +he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he +should go back to her, and come to the banking-house again at midnight. +In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. + +He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor Manette +did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of him, and +brought none. Where could he be? + +They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some +weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him on +the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was +lost. + +Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all that +time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring at +them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything. + +“I cannot find it,” said he, “and I must have it. Where is it?” + +His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look +straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor. + +“Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I +can’t find it. What have they done with my work? Time presses: I must +finish those shoes.” + +They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. + +“Come, come!” said he, in a whimpering miserable way; “let me get to +work. Give me my work.” + +Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the +ground, like a distracted child. + +“Don’t torture a poor forlorn wretch,” he implored them, with a dreadful +cry; “but give me my work! What is to become of us, if those shoes are +not done to-night?” + +Lost, utterly lost! + +It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him, +that--as if by agreement--they each put a hand upon his shoulder, and +soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise that he should +have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the +embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret +time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into +the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. + +Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spectacle +of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely +daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both +too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with +one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak: + +“The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had better be taken +to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily attend to +me? Don’t ask me why I make the stipulations I am going to make, and +exact the promise I am going to exact; I have a reason--a good one.” + +“I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “Say on.” + +The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously +rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as +they would have used if they had been watching by a sick-bed in the +night. + +Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his +feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed to +carry the lists of his day’s duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton +took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. “We should look +at this!” he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and +exclaimed, “Thank _God!_” + +“What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. + +“A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he put his hand in +his coat, and took another paper from it, “that is the certificate which +enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see--Sydney Carton, +an Englishman?” + +Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face. + +“Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, you +remember, and I had better not take it into the prison.” + +“Why not?” + +“I don’t know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that Doctor +Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, enabling him +and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the barrier and the +frontier! You see?” + +“Yes!” + +“Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil, +yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; don’t stay to look; put it +up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never doubted until +within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a paper. It is +good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to +think, will be.” + +“They are not in danger?” + +“They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by Madame +Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard words of that +woman’s, to-night, which have presented their danger to me in strong +colours. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He +confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison wall, +is under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by +Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her”--he never mentioned Lucie’s +name--“making signs and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that +the pretence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will +involve her life--and perhaps her child’s--and perhaps her father’s--for +both have been seen with her at that place. Don’t look so horrified. You +will save them all.” + +“Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?” + +“I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend +on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place +until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards; +more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to +mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her +father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the +inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that +strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. You follow me?” + +“So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for +the moment I lose sight,” touching the back of the Doctor’s chair, “even +of this distress.” + +“You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to the seacoast +as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have been +completed for some days, to return to England. Early to-morrow have your +horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o’clock in the +afternoon.” + +“It shall be done!” + +His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry caught the +flame, and was as quick as youth. + +“You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better man? +Tell her, to-night, what you know of her danger as involving her child +and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own fair head +beside her husband’s cheerfully.” He faltered for an instant; then went +on as before. “For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her +the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour. Tell +her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. Tell her that more +depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think that her +father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her; do you not?” + +“I am sure of it.” + +“I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in +the courtyard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage. +The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away.” + +“I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?” + +“You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will +reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, and +then for England!” + +“Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady +hand, “it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a young +and ardent man at my side.” + +“By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will +influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one +another.” + +“Nothing, Carton.” + +“Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or delay in it--for +any reason--and no life can possibly be saved, and many lives must +inevitably be sacrificed.” + +“I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.” + +“And I hope to do mine. Now, good bye!” + +Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he even +put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. He +helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers, +as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find +where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought +to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the +courtyard of the house where the afflicted heart--so happy in +the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to +it--outwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and remained +there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of +her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a +Farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +Fifty-two + + +In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited +their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fifty-two were +to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the boundless +everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new occupants +were appointed; before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, +the blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set +apart. + +Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy, +whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose +poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered +in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; +and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, +intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally +without distinction. + +Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no +flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line +of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had +fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, +that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could +avail him nothing. + +Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh +before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life +was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts +and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and +when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, +this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, +a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against +resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and +child who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a +selfish thing. + +But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there +was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same +road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate +him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind +enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, +by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his +thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. + +Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had +travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means +of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the +prison lamps should be extinguished. + +He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing +of her father’s imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, +and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father’s and uncle’s +responsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had +already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name +he had relinquished, was the one condition--fully intelligible now--that +her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he +had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, +for her father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her father had +become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled +to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on +that old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had +preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that +he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no +mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had +discovered there, and which had been described to all the world. He +besought her--though he added that he knew it was needless--to console +her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could think +of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could justly +reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint +sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and +blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their +dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her +father. + +To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her +father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And +he told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any +despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be +tending. + +To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs. +That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm +attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so +full of the others, that he never once thought of him. + +He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When +he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world. + +But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining +forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had +nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of +heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and +he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even +suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there +was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the +sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it +flashed upon his mind, “this is the day of my death!” + +Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two heads +were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could +meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking +thoughts, which was very difficult to master. + +He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How +high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be +stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed +red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, +or might be the last: these and many similar questions, in nowise +directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless +times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no +fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what +to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the +few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like +the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own. + +The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the +numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for +ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard +contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed +him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly +repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. +He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for +himself and for them. + +Twelve gone for ever. + +He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would +be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily +and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two +before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the +interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. + +Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very +different man from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force, +he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had +measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his +recovered self-possession, he thought, “There is but another now,” and +turned to walk again. + +Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped. + +The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or +as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: “He has never seen +me here; I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose +no time!” + +The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him +face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his +features, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton. + +There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the +first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own +imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s +hand, and it was his real grasp. + +“Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me?” he said. + +“I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You +are not”--the apprehension came suddenly into his mind--“a prisoner?” + +“No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers +here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her--your +wife, dear Darnay.” + +The prisoner wrung his hand. + +“I bring you a request from her.” + +“What is it?” + +“A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you +in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well +remember.” + +The prisoner turned his face partly aside. + +“You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have +no time to tell you. You must comply with it--take off those boots you +wear, and draw on these of mine.” + +There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. +Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got +him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot. + +“Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your will to +them. Quick!” + +“Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. You +will only die with me. It is madness.” + +“It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I ask you +to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change +that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do +it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like +this of mine!” + +With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action, +that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. +The prisoner was like a young child in his hands. + +“Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never +can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you +not to add your death to the bitterness of mine.” + +“Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that, +refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand +steady enough to write?” + +“It was when you came in.” + +“Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!” + +Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. +Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him. + +“Write exactly as I speak.” + +“To whom do I address it?” + +“To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast. + +“Do I date it?” + +“No.” + +The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him with +his hand in his breast, looked down. + +“‘If you remember,’” said Carton, dictating, “‘the words that passed +between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it. +You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.’” + +He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look +up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon +something. + +“Have you written ‘forget them’?” Carton asked. + +“I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?” + +“No; I am not armed.” + +“What is it in your hand?” + +“You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more.” He +dictated again. “‘I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove +them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.’” As he said these +words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly +moved down close to the writer’s face. + +The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and he looked about +him vacantly. + +“What vapour is that?” he asked. + +“Vapour?” + +“Something that crossed me?” + +“I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen +and finish. Hurry, hurry!” + +As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the +prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton +with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his +hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him. + +“Hurry, hurry!” + +The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. + +“‘If it had been otherwise;’” Carton’s hand was again watchfully and +softly stealing down; “‘I never should have used the longer opportunity. +If it had been otherwise;’” the hand was at the prisoner’s face; “‘I +should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been +otherwise--’” Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into +unintelligible signs. + +Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up +with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his +nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For a few +seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his +life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on +the ground. + +Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton +dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back +his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he +softly called, “Enter there! Come in!” and the Spy presented himself. + +“You see?” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the +insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: “is your hazard very +great?” + +“Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, “my +hazard is not _that_, in the thick of business here, if you are true to +the whole of your bargain.” + +“Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.” + +“You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. Being +made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear.” + +“Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the +rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and +take me to the coach.” + +“You?” said the Spy nervously. + +“Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which +you brought me in?” + +“Of course.” + +“I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you +take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has +happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands. +Quick! Call assistance!” + +“You swear not to betray me?” said the trembling Spy, as he paused for a +last moment. + +“Man, man!” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “have I sworn by no +solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious +moments now? Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of, place +him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him +yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of +last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away!” + +The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his +forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men. + +“How, then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. “So +afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of +Sainte Guillotine?” + +“A good patriot,” said the other, “could hardly have been more afflicted +if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” + +They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had +brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. + +“The time is short, Evrémonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice. + +“I know it well,” answered Carton. “Be careful of my friend, I entreat +you, and leave me.” + +“Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and come away!” + +The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of +listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote +suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, +footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry +made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he +sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. + +Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then +began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and +finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely +saying, “Follow me, Evrémonde!” and he followed into a large dark room, +at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows +within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern +the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were +standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; +but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking +fixedly at the ground. + +As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two +were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, +as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of +discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young +woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was +no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from +the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. + +“Citizen Evrémonde,” she said, touching him with her cold hand. “I am a +poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.” + +He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were accused of?” + +“Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it +likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature +like me?” + +The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears +started from his eyes. + +“I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrémonde, but I have done nothing. I +am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good +to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, +Citizen Evrémonde. Such a poor weak little creature!” + +As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it +warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. + +“I heard you were released, Citizen Evrémonde. I hoped it was true?” + +“It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.” + +“If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrémonde, will you let me hold your +hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me +more courage.” + +As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in +them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young +fingers, and touched his lips. + +“Are you dying for him?” she whispered. + +“And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.” + +“O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?” + +“Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.” + + ***** + +The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that +same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about +it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined. + +“Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!” + +The papers are handed out, and read. + +“Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?” + +This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man +pointed out. + +“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The +Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?” + +Greatly too much for him. + +“Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she?” + +This is she. + +“Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrémonde; is it not?” + +It is. + +“Hah! Evrémonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. +This is she?” + +She and no other. + +“Kiss me, child of Evrémonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican; +something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. +English. Which is he?” + +He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. + +“Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?” + +It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that +he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is +under the displeasure of the Republic. + +“Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the +displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. +Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?” + +“I am he. Necessarily, being the last.” + +It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It +is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach +door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the +carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it +carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to +the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its +mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of +an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. + +“Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.” + +“One can depart, citizen?” + +“One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!” + +“I salute you, citizens.--And the first danger passed!” + +These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and +looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there +is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller. + +“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?” + asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. + +“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much; +it would rouse suspicion.” + +“Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!” + +“The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.” + +Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, +dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless +trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on +either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the +stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and +sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our +wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running--hiding--doing +anything but stopping. + +Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary +farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, +avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back +by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, +no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! +the posting-house. + +Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in +the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it +of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible +existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and +plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count +their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. +All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would +far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. + +At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left +behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and +on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with +animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their +haunches. We are pursued? + +“Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!” + +“What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. + +“How many did they say?” + +“I do not understand you.” + +“--At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?” + +“Fifty-two.” + +“I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it +forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes +handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!” + +The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and +to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, +by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help +us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued. + +The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and +the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of +us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +The Knitting Done + + +In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate +Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and +Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame +Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, +erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the +conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who +was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited. + +“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good +Republican? Eh?” + +“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill +notes, “in France.” + +“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with +a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me speak. My husband, +fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved +well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has +his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.” + +“It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, +with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; “it is not quite like a good +citizen; it is a thing to regret.” + +“See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear +his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to +me. But, the Evrémonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and +child must follow the husband and father.” + +“She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I have seen blue +eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held +them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure. + +Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. + +“The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment +of his words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child +there. It is a pretty sight!” + +“In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, +“I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since +last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects; +but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, +and then they might escape.” + +“That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one must escape. We +have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.” + +“In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has not my reason for +pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for +regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, +therefore. Come hither, little citizen.” + +The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the +submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap. + +“Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, sternly, +“that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them +this very day?” + +“Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all weathers, from +two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes +without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes.” + +He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental +imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had +never seen. + +“Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!” + +“There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame Defarge, letting her +eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. + +“Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my +fellow-Jurymen.” + +“Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet once more! +Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can +I spare him?” + +“He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. +“We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think.” + +“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame Defarge; “I +cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and +trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a +bad witness.” + +The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent +protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of +witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a +celestial witness. + +“He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I cannot spare +him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going to see the batch of +to-day executed.--You?” + +The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in +the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent +of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of +Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of +smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national +barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been +suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at +him out of Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual fears +for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. + +“I,” said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. After it is +over--say at eight to-night--come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we +will give information against these people at my Section.” + +The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the +citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded +her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and +hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. + +Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to +the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus: + +“She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will +be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the +justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies. +I will go to her.” + +“What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!” exclaimed Jacques +Three, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” cried The Vengeance; and +embraced her. + +“Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it in her +lieutenant’s hands, “and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep +me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a +greater concourse than usual, to-day.” + +“I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Vengeance with +alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “You will not be late?” + +“I shall be there before the commencement.” + +“And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul,” said +The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the +street, “before the tumbrils arrive!” + +Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and +might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the +mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the +Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative +of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. + +There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully +disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded +than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a +strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great +determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart +to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an +instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have +heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood +with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, +opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without +pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of +her. + +It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of +his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that +his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was +insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and +her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made +hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had +been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which +she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had +been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any +softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who +sent her there. + +Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly +worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her +dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her +bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened +dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such +a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually +walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown +sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. + +Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment +waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, +the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry’s +attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, +but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining +it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their +escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there. +Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross +and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at +three o’clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period. +Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, +passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in +advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours +of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. + +Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that +pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had +beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had +passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding +their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, +taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the +else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation. + +“Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose agitation +was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live: +“what do you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another +carriage having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken +suspicion.” + +“My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you’re right. Likewise +wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong.” + +“I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures,” said +Miss Pross, wildly crying, “that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are +_you_ capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?” + +“Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “I +hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this here blessed old head o’ +mine, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o’ +two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here +crisis?” + +“Oh, for gracious sake!” cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, “record +them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man.” + +“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with +an ashy and solemn visage, “them poor things well out o’ this, never no +more will I do it, never no more!” + +“I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, “that you +never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it +necessary to mention more particularly what it is.” + +“No, miss,” returned Jerry, “it shall not be named to you. Second: them +poor things well out o’ this, and never no more will I interfere with +Mrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more!” + +“Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said Miss Pross, +striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, “I have no doubt it +is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own +superintendence.--O my poor darlings!” + +“I go so far as to say, miss, moreover,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a +most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit--“and let my words +be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself--that wot my +opinions respectin’ flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only +hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present +time.” + +“There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried the distracted +Miss Pross, “and I hope she finds it answering her expectations.” + +“Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, +additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold +out, “as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my +earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn’t all +flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal +risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for-_bid_ it!” This was Mr. Cruncher’s +conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one. + +And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came +nearer and nearer. + +“If we ever get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, “you may rely +upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and +understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events +you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in +earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. +Cruncher, let us think!” + +Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer +and nearer. + +“If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “and stop the vehicle and +horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn’t +that be best?” + +Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. + +“Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross. + +Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but +Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame +Defarge was drawing very near indeed. + +“By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “Would it be much out of +the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two +towers?” + +“No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher. + +“Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “go to the posting-house +straight, and make that change.” + +“I am doubtful,” said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, +“about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know what may happen.” + +“Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross, “but have no fear for me. +Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’Clock, or as near it as you can, +and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain +of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think-not of me, but of the lives +that may depend on both of us!” + +This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonised entreaty +clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he +immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself +to follow as she had proposed. + +The having originated a precaution which was already in course of +execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing +her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the +streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty +minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. + +Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted +rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door +in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, +which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she +could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the +dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there +was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried +out, for she saw a figure standing in the room. + +The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of +Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, +those feet had come to meet that water. + +Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, “The wife of Evrémonde; +where is she?” + +It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all standing open, +and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were +four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before +the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied. + +Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, +and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful +about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, +of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different +way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch. + +“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss +Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of +me. I am an Englishwoman.” + +Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of +Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, +hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a +woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that +Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well +that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy. + +“On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of +her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they reserve my chair and my +knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I +wish to see her.” + +“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “and you may +depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.” + +Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words; +both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what +the unintelligible words meant. + +“It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this +moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots will know what that means. +Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?” + +“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross, “and I +was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No, +you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.” + +Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in +detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set +at naught. + +“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, frowning. “I take no +answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand +to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!” + This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm. + +“I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “that I should ever want to +understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, +except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any +part of it.” + +Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. Madame +Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross +first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step. + +“I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “I am desperate. I don’t care an +English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the +greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that +dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!” + +Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes +between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. +Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. + +But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the +irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame +Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. “Ha, ha!” she +laughed, “you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that +Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Citizen Doctor! Wife +of Evrémonde! Child of Evrémonde! Any person but this miserable fool, +answer the Citizeness Defarge!” + +Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the +expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from +either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. +Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in. + +“Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there +are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind +you! Let me look.” + +“Never!” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as +Madame Defarge understood the answer. + +“If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and +brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself. + +“As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, you are +uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to herself; “and you shall not +know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know +that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.” + +“I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, +I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door,” said +Madame Defarge. + +“We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are +not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, +while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to +my darling,” said Miss Pross. + +Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the +moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. +It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, +with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, +clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle +that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her +face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and +clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman. + +Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled +waist. “It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, “you +shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold +you till one or other of us faints or dies!” + +Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw +what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood +alone--blinded with smoke. + +All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful +stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman +whose body lay lifeless on the ground. + +In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the +body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for +fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of +what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to +go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to +get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, +out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking +away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe +and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. + +By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have +gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she +was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement +like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of +gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her +dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a +hundred ways. + +In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving +at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, +she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if +it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains +discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and +charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the +escort appeared, took her in, and took her away. + +“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him. + +“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the +question and by her aspect. + +“I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What do you say?” + +It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could +not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, “at +all events she’ll see that.” And she did. + +“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again, +presently. + +Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. + +“I don’t hear it.” + +“Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind +much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?” + +“I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and a crash, +and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.” + +“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher, more and +more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, to keep her courage up? +Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?” + +“I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, “nothing. O, +my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, +and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be +broken any more as long as my life lasts.” + +“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their +journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, “it’s my +opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.” + +And indeed she never did. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +The Footsteps Die Out For Ever + + +Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six +tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and +insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, +are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in +France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, +a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under +conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush +humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will +twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of +rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield +the same fruit according to its kind. + +Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what +they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be +the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the +toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father’s +house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! +No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order +of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed +into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in +the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this +form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” + Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. + +As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up +a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces +are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. +So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that +in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the +hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in +the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; +then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a +curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to +tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. + +Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all +things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with +a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with +drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so +heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as +they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, +and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and +he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made +drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole +number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. + +There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, +and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some +question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is +always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The +horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with +their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands +at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a +mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has +no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the +girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised +against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he +shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily +touch his face, his arms being bound. + +On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands +the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. +He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, “Has he +sacrificed me?” when his face clears, as he looks into the third. + +“Which is Evrémonde?” says a man behind him. + +“That. At the back there.” + +“With his hand in the girl’s?” + +“Yes.” + +The man cries, “Down, Evrémonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! +Down, Evrémonde!” + +“Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly. + +“And why not, citizen?” + +“He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. +Let him be at peace.” + +But the man continuing to exclaim, “Down, Evrémonde!” the face of +Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrémonde then sees the +Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. + +The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the +populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and +end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and +close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following +to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of +public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the +fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. + +“Thérèse!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen her? Thérèse +Defarge!” + +“She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood. + +“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “Thérèse.” + +“Louder,” the woman recommends. + +Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear +thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet +it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, +lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread +deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far +enough to find her! + +“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, “and +here are the tumbrils! And Evrémonde will be despatched in a wink, and +she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for +her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!” + +As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils +begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are +robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who +scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could +think and speak, count One. + +The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And +the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two. + +The supposed Evrémonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next +after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but +still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the +crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into +his face and thanks him. + +“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am +naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been +able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might +have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by +Heaven.” + +“Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, +and mind no other object.” + +“I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let +it go, if they are rapid.” + +“They will be rapid. Fear not!” + +The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as +if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to +heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart +and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home +together, and to rest in her bosom. + +“Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I +am very ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little.” + +“Tell me what it is.” + +“I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I +love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a +farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows +nothing of my fate--for I cannot write--and if I could, how should I +tell her! It is better as it is.” + +“Yes, yes: better as it is.” + +“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still +thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so +much support, is this:--If the Republic really does good to the poor, +and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may +live a long time: she may even live to be old.” + +“What then, my gentle sister?” + +“Do you think:” the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much +endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: +“that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land +where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?” + +“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.” + +“You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the +moment come?” + +“Yes.” + +She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. +The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than +a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before +him--is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. + +“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth +in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and +believeth in me shall never die.” + +The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing +on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells +forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. +Twenty-Three. + + ***** + +They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the +peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked +sublime and prophetic. + +One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked +at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to +write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any +utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: + +“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, +long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of +the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease +out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people +rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in +their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil +of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural +birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. + +“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, +prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see +Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, +aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his +healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their +friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing +tranquilly to his reward. + +“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of +their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping +for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their +course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know +that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, +than I was in the souls of both. + +“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man +winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him +winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the +light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, +fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, +with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place--then fair to +look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement--and I hear him +tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. + +“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a +far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** + +***** This file should be named 98-0.txt or 98-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/98/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Bleak House + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + +Release Date: August 1, 1997 [eBook #1023] +Most recently updated: February 21, 2012 + +Language: English + + + +E-text prepared by Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada, +and revised by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. + + + +BLEAK HOUSE + +by + +CHARLES DICKENS + + + + + +CONTENTS + + Preface + I. In Chancery + II. In Fashion + III. A Progress + IV. Telescopic Philanthropy + V. A Morning Adventure + VI. Quite at Home + VII. The Ghost's Walk + VIII. Covering a Multitude of Sins + IX. Signs and Tokens + X. The Law-Writer + XI. Our Dear Brother + XII. On the Watch + XIII. Esther's Narrative + XIV. Deportment + XV. Bell Yard + XVI. Tom-all-Alone's + XVII. Esther's Narrative + XVIII. Lady Dedlock + XIX. Moving On + XX. A New Lodger + XXI. The Smallweed Family + XXII. Mr. Bucket + XXIII. Esther's Narrative + XXIV. An Appeal Case + XXV. Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All + XXVI. Sharpshooters + XXVII. More Old Soldiers Than One + XXVIII. The Ironmaster + XXIX. The Young Man + XXX. Esther's Narrative + XXXI. Nurse and Patient + XXXII. The Appointed Time + XXXIII. Interlopers + XXXIV. A Turn of the Screw + XXXV. Esther's Narrative + XXXVI. Chesney Wold + XXXVII. Jarndyce and Jarndyce + XXXVIII. A Struggle + XXXIX. Attorney and Client + XL. National and Domestic + XLI. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room + XLII. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers + XLIII. Esther's Narrative + XLIV. The Letter and the Answer + XLV. In Trust + XLVI. Stop Him! + XLVII. Jo's Will + XLVIII. Closing In + XLIX. Dutiful Friendship + L. Esther's Narrative + LI. Enlightened + LII. Obstinacy + LIII. The Track + LIV. Springing a Mine + LV. Flight + LVI. Pursuit + LVII. Esther's Narrative + LVIII. A Wintry Day and Night + LIX. Esther's Narrative + LX. Perspective + LXI. A Discovery + LXII. Another Discovery + LXIII. Steel and Iron + LXIV. Esther's Narrative + LXV. Beginning the World + LXVI. Down in Lincolnshire + LXVII. The Close of Esther's Narrative + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLEAK HOUSE*** + +PREFACE + + +A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a +company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under +any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the +shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought +the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. +There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of +progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the +"parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been +until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means +enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by +Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well. + +This seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of +this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to +Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have +originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt +quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets: + + "My nature is subdued + To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: + Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!" + +But as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what +has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here +that everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of +Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of +Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, +made public by a disinterested person who was professionally +acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to +end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the +court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from +thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in +which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand +pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no +nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is +another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was +commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than +double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in +costs. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I +could rain them on these pages, to the shame of--a parsimonious +public. + +There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The +possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied +since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite +mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been +abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me +at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous +combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do +not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I +wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There +are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of +the Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated +and described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, +otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at +Verona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The +appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the +appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous +instance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in +that case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by +France. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly +convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher +court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that +she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion +is given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts, +and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at +page 30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of +distinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in +more modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not +abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable +spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences +are usually received.** + +In Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of +familiar things. + + +1853 + + +CHAPTER I + +In Chancery + + +London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting +in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in +the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of +the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, +forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn +Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black +drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown +snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of +the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; +splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one +another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing +their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other +foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke +(if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust +of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and +accumulating at compound interest. + +Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and +meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers +of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. +Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping +into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and +hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales +of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient +Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog +in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, +down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of +his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the +bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog +all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the +misty clouds. + +Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as +the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman +and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their +time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling +look. + +The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the +muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, +appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old +corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn +Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in +his High Court of Chancery. + +Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire +too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which +this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds +this day in the sight of heaven and earth. + +On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be +sitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head, +softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a +large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an +interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the +lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an +afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar +ought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten +thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on +slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running +their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and +making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On +such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or +three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a +fortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a +long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom +of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with +bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, +issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly +nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting +candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it +would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their +colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the +uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in +the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the +drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the +Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it +and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the +Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted +lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every +madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined +suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and +begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to +monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so +exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain +and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its +practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the +warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come +here!" + +Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon +besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three +counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before +mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; +and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or +whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, +for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the +cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The +short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of +the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when +Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on +a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained +sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is +always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting +some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say +she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for +certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a +reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of +paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in +custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to +purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving +executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts +of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is +not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life +are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from +Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at +the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to +understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence +after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself +in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My +Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. +A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger +on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal +weather a little. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in +course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it +means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been +observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five +minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the +premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; +innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people +have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found +themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how +or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the +suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new +rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown +up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the +other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and +grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone +out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere +bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth +perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a +coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags +its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good +that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke +in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out +of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he +was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by +blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee +after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of +fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it +neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said +that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he +observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. +Blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and +purses. + +How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched +forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide +question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty +warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many +shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has +copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that +eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In +trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under +false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never +come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched +suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, +Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments +until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into +themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause +has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a +distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, +Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising +themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter +and see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when +Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and +sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the +ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history +from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted +into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad +course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some +off-hand manner never meant to go right. + +Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the +Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. + +"Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something +restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman. + +"Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have +read anything else since he left school. + +"Have you nearly concluded your argument?" + +"Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship," is +the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle. + +"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says +the Chancellor with a slight smile. + +Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little +summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a +pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places +of obscurity. + +"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the +Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a +mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come +to a settlement one of these days. + +The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward +in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" Maces, bags, +and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from +Shropshire. + +"In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and +Jarndyce, "to the young girl--" + +"Begludship's pardon--boy," says Mr. Tangle prematurely. "In +reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the +young girl and boy, the two young people"--Mr. Tangle crushed--"whom +I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private +room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of +making the order for their residing with their uncle." + +Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon--dead." + +"With their"--Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the +papers on his desk--"grandfather." + +"Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains." + +Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, +fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will +your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several +times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in +what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin." + +Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in +the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog +knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him. + +"I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor anew, +"and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their +cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my +seat." + +The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is +presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration +but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from +Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "My lord!" but the +Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody +else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with +heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old +woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. +If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has +caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a +great funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the +parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +In Fashion + + +It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same +miry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we +may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the +world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent +and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange +games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the +knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen +shall begin to turn prodigiously! + +It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which +has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made +the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a +very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and +true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is +that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine +wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot +see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and +its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. + +My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days +previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to +stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The +fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, +and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to +be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in +familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The waters are +out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been +sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile +in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in +it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. +My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for +many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, +and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no +crash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave +quagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in +the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards +the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the +falling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is +alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases +on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and +the heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged +pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On +Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit +breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste +as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is +childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a +keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed +panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a +woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a +wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of +temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death." + +Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in +Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the +rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures +of the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp +walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along +the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come +forth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, like the fiend, is +omniscient of the past and present, but not the future--cannot yet +undertake to say. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier +baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely +more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get +on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on +the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when +not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its +execution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict +conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on +the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather +than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is +an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely +prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. + +Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He +will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet +sixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a +little stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair +and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his +blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious, +stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her +personal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my +Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little +touch of romantic fancy in him. + +Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she +had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that +perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had +beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to +portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to +these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has +been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of +the fashionable tree. + +How Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody +knows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having +been rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having conquered +HER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing, +mood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of +fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the +trophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be +translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend +without any rapture. + +She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet +in its autumn. She has a fine face--originally of a character that +would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into +classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her +figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is +so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables has +frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." The same +authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in +commendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed +woman in the whole stud. + +With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up +from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable +intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her +departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, +after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, +upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned +old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of +Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the +Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name +outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's +trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across +the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the +rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of +it--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman +is conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence. + +The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made +good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic +wills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of +family confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository. +There are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of +parks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer +noble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of +Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school--a phrase +generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young--and +wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One +peculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they +silk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive +to any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses +when not professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless +but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country +houses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the +fashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and +where half the Peerage stops to say "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" +He receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with +the rest of his knowledge. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr. +Tulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is +always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of +tribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute +in that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general +way, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the steward of the +legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the Dedlocks. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may +not, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in +everything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class--as one +of the leaders and representatives of her little world. She supposes +herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of +ordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks +so. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to +the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, +follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a +calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her +dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new +custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new +dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are +deferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects +of nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage +her as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their +lives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience, +lead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook +all and bear them off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet +of the majestic Lilliput. "If you want to address our people, sir," +say Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people Lady +Dedlock and the rest--"you must remember that you are not dealing +with the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest +place, and their weakest place is such a place." "To make this +article go down, gentlemen," say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to +their friends the manufacturers, "you must come to us, because we +know where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it +fashionable." "If you want to get this print upon the tables of my +high connexion, sir," says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, "or if you +want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, +sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of +my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for +I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, +sir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my +finger"--in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not +exaggerate at all. + +Therefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the +Dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. + +"My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. +Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. + +"Yes. It has been on again to-day," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, making +one of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire, +shading her face with a hand-screen. + +"It would be useless to ask," says my Lady with the dreariness of the +place in Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been +done." + +"Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day," replies +Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Nor ever will be," says my Lady. + +Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It +is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To be +sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part +in which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a +shadowy impression that for his name--the name of Dedlock--to be in a +cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous +accident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should +involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of +confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of +other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal +settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole +of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to +any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the +lower classes to rise up somewhere--like Wat Tyler. + +"As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. +Tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the +troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any +new proceedings in a cause"--cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no +more responsibility than necessary--"and further, as I see you are +going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket." + +(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of +the fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.) + +Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them +on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his +spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp. + +"'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce--'" + +My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal +horrors as he can. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower +down. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. Sir +Leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a +stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging +among the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is hot where my +Lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful, +being priceless but small. My Lady, changing her position, sees the +papers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks at them nearer +still--asks impulsively, "Who copied that?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and her +unusual tone. + +"Is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at him +in her careless way again and toying with her screen. + +"Not quite. Probably"--Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks--"the +legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was +formed. Why do you ask?" + +"Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her +face. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "Eh? What +do you say?" + +"I say I am afraid," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, +"that Lady Dedlock is ill." + +"Faint," my Lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is like +the faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my +room!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet +shuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr. +Tulkinghorn to return. + +"Better now," quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down +and read to him alone. "I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my +Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she +really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A Progress + + +I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of +these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can +remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my +doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you +know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" And so +she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful +complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, I +think, as at nothing--while I busily stitched away and told her every +one of my secrets. + +My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared +to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. +It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me +when I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and +say, "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!" +and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great +chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always +rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of +noticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to +understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. +When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But +even that may be my vanity. + +I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the +princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming--by my +godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good +woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning +prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there +were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had +ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel--but she +never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good +herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown +all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every +allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so +poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained +with her--no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very +sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and +I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I +talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved +my godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have +loved her if I had been a better girl. + +This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally +was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at +ease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing +that helped it very much. + +I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa +either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a +black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's +grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been +taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than +once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our +only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very +good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, "Esther, good +night!" and gone away and left me. + +Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I +was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther +Summerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than +I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there +seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and +besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more +than I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school +(I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my +great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me, +and I never went. I never went out at all. + +It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other +birthdays--none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other +birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one +another--there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy +day at home in the whole year. + +I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know +it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I +don't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My +disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such +a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the +quickness of that birthday. + +Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table +before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another +sound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know how +long. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the +table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me, +"It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no +birthday, that you had never been born!" + +I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, "Oh, dear godmother, tell +me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?" + +"No," she returned. "Ask me no more, child!" + +"Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear +godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? +Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, +dear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!" + +I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her +dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while, +"Let me go!" But now she stood still. + +Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the +midst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp +hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew +it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She +raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly +in a cold, low voice--I see her knitted brow and pointed +finger--"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. +The time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this +better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have +forgiven her"--but her face did not relent--"the wrong she did to me, +and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever +know--than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself, +unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil +anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon +your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave +all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that +greatest kindness. Now, go!" + +She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her--so frozen +as I was!--and added this, "Submission, self-denial, diligent work, +are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You +are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, +like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart." + +I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek +against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my +bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my +sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's +heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me. + +Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together +afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my +birthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could +to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt +guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be +industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some +one, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not +self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very +thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to +my eyes. + +There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. + +I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more +after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her +house which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult +of approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than +ever. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in +the same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards +her daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a +fortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very +diligent. + +One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books +and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was +gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the +parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found--which was +very unusual indeed--a stranger. A portly, important-looking +gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold +watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon +his little finger. + +"This," said my godmother in an undertone, "is the child." Then she +said in her naturally stern way of speaking, "This is Esther, sir." + +The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, "Come +here, my dear!" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my +bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said, +"Ah!" and afterwards "Yes!" And then, taking off his eye-glasses and +folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, +turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. +Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I +made him my curtsy and left him. + +It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen, +when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was +reading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o'clock +as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St. +John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the +dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. + +"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said +unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a +stone at her!'" + +I was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head, +and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book, +"'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And +what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'" + +In an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she +fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had +sounded through the house and been heard in the street. + +She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little +altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so +well knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and +in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers +might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, +asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me +the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was +immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained +unsoftened. + +On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in +black with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs. +Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone +away. + +"My name is Kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; Kenge +and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn." + +I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before. + +"Pray be seated--here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no +use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with the +late Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that +this young lady, now her aunt is dead--" + +"My aunt, sir!" + +"It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to +be gained by it," said Mr. Kenge smoothly, "Aunt in fact, though not +in law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! Mrs. +Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a--Jarndyce and +Jarndyce." + +"Never," said Mrs. Rachael. + +"Is it possible," pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses, +"that our young friend--I BEG you won't distress yourself!--never +heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!" + +I shook my head, wondering even what it was. + +"Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his +glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he +were petting something. "Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits +known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument of +Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every +contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known +in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause +that could not exist out of this free and great country. I should +say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs. +Rachael"--I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared +inattentive"--amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty +THOUSAND POUNDS!" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair. + +I felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely +unacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even +then. + +"And she really never heard of the cause!" said Mr. Kenge. +"Surprising!" + +"Miss Barbary, sir," returned Mrs. Rachael, "who is now among the +Seraphim--" + +"I hope so, I am sure," said Mr. Kenge politely. + +"--Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And +she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more." + +"Well!" said Mr. Kenge. "Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the +point," addressing me. "Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact +that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being +deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. +Rachael--" + +"Oh, dear no!" said Mrs. Rachael quickly. + +"Quite so," assented Mr. Kenge; "--that Mrs. Rachael should charge +herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress +yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer +which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and +which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the +lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow +that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly +humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself +by any stretch of my professional caution?" said Mr. Kenge, leaning +back in his chair again and looking calmly at us both. + +He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I +couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great +importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with +obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music +with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much +impressed by him--even then, before I knew that he formed himself on +the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was +generally called Conversation Kenge. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the--I would say, +desolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a +first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, +where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall +be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge +her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased--shall I +say Providence?--to call her." + +My heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his +affecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I +tried. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond expressing his +expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself +from the establishment in question without his knowledge and +concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the +acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she +will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of +virtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth." + +I was still less able to speak than before. + +"Now, what does our young friend say?" proceeded Mr. Kenge. "Take +time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!" + +What the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not +repeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth +the telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could +never relate. + +This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I +knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all +necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading. + +Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was +not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known +her better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough +of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one +cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone +porch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and +self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I +knew, that she could say good-bye so easily! + +"No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" + +The coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we +heard the wheels--and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She +went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the +door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the +window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the +little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old +hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first +thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost +and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her +own shawl and quietly laid her--I am half ashamed to tell it--in the +garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no +companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage. + +When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the +straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high +window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of +spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and +the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like +metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There +was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked +very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the +other window and took no notice of me. + +I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of +her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place +I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they +would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the +coach gave me a terrible start. + +It said, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" + +I was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a +whisper, "Me, sir?" For of course I knew it must have been the +gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking +out of his window. + +"Yes, you," he said, turning round. + +"I didn't know I was crying, sir," I faltered. + +"But you are!" said the gentleman. "Look here!" He came quite +opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his +large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed +me that it was wet. + +"There! Now you know you are," he said. "Don't you?" + +"Yes, sir," I said. + +"And what are you crying for?" said the gentleman, "Don't you want to +go there?" + +"Where, sir?" + +"Where? Why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. + +"I am very glad to go there, sir," I answered. + +"Well, then! Look glad!" said the gentleman. + +I thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of +him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face +was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of +his head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not +afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying +because of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not +being sorry to part with me. + +"Confound Mrs. Rachael!" said the gentleman. "Let her fly away in a +high wind on a broomstick!" + +I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the +greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes, +although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and +calling Mrs. Rachael names. + +After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to +me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into +a deep pocket in the side. + +"Now, look here!" he said. "In this paper," which was nicely folded, +"is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money--sugar on +the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here's a little +pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And +what do you suppose it's made of? Livers of fat geese. There's a pie! +Now let's see you eat 'em." + +"Thank you, sir," I replied; "thank you very much indeed, but I hope +you won't be offended--they are too rich for me." + +"Floored again!" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all +understand, and threw them both out of window. + +He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a +little way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and +to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by +his departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it +afterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and +half expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on, +he passed out of my mind. + +When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and +said, "Miss Donny." + +"No, ma'am, Esther Summerson." + +"That is quite right," said the lady, "Miss Donny." + +I now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged +Miss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her +request. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put +outside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid, +and I got inside and were driven away. + +"Everything is ready for you, Esther," said Miss Donny, "and the +scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with +the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of--did you say, ma'am?" + +"Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce," said Miss Donny. + +I was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too +severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle. + +"Do you know my--guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?" I asked after a good +deal of hesitation. + +"Not personally, Esther," said Miss Donny; "merely through his +solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior +gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods +quite majestic!" + +I felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our +speedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover +myself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the +uncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's +house) that afternoon! + +But I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of +Greenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while +and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my +godmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than +Greenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the +clock, and everything was done at its appointed moment. + +We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It +was understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my +qualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in +everything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in +helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other +respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made +in my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more, +and so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of +doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a +new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so +sure--indeed I don't know why--to make a friend of me that all +new-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I +am sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my +birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to +do some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed, +indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so +much. + +I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face +there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better +if I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so +many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful +with them from New Year's Day to Christmas. + +In those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday +time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had +taken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to +Mr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval +I had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer +acknowledging its receipt and saying, "We note the contents thereof, +which shall be duly communicated to our client." After that I +sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my +accounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a +similar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same +answer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy +in another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge's. + +It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about +myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my +little body will soon fall into the background now. + +Six quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had +passed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a +looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when, +one November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date. + + + Old Square, Lincoln's Inn + + Madam, + + Jarndyce and Jarndyce + + Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, + under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this + cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn, + directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your + serces in the afsd capacity. + + We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr + eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next, + to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of + our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as + above. + + We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts, + + Kenge and Carboy + + Miss Esther Summerson + + +Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused +in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was +so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my +orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful +natures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would +have had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, +and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble +regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking +while it was full of rapture. + +The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every +minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in +those five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took +me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and +when some cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my +bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others +asked me only to write their names, "With Esther's love," and when +they all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me +weeping and cried, "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!" +and when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had +all been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a +heart I had! + +And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the +least among them, and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever +you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had +hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to +give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the +light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had +then! + +And could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little +school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving +their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady +whose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited +(who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring +for nothing but calling out, "Good-bye, Esther. May you be very +happy!"--could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by +myself and said "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!" many times +over! + +But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I +was going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course, +I made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying +very often, "Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!" I +cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was +longer about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my +eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London. + +I was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off, +and when we really were there, that we should never get there. +However, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and +particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into +us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began +to believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey. +Very soon afterwards we stopped. + +A young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from +the pavement and said, "I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of +Lincoln's Inn." + +"If you please, sir," said I. + +He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after +superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was +a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown +smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. + +"Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." + +I had never heard of such a thing. + +"A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. + +"Oh, indeed!" said I. + +We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever +were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of +confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we +passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through +a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there +was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance +to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some +cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window. + +This was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through an +outer office into Mr. Kenge's room--there was no one in it--and +politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my +attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side +of the chimney-piece. + +"In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the +journey, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's +requisite, I am sure," said the young gentleman civilly. + +"Going before the Chancellor?" I said, startled for a moment. + +"Only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "Mr. +Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake +of some refreshment"--there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a +small table--"and look over the paper," which the young gentleman +gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me. + +Everything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the +day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and +cold--that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what +they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it +was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep +at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the +room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables, +and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most +inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for +themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the +fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on +flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until the young +gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two hours. + +At last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to +see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. "As you are going +to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's +private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought it well that you +should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord +Chancellor, I dare say?" + +"No, sir," I said, "I don't think I shall," really not seeing on +consideration why I should be. + +So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a +colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage, +into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young +gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was +interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen, +talking. + +They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with +the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich +golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, +trusting face! + +"Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson." + +She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, +but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short, +she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few +minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the +fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. + +What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could +confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging +to me! + +The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name +Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and +a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we +sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a +light-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if +quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were +both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had +never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the +first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we +talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its +red eyes at us--as Richard said--like a drowsy old Chancery lion. + +We conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag +wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a +drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel +in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that +the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a +bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had +risen and his lordship was in the next room. + +The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and +requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next +room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me now +that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and +sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship, +whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another +chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was +both courtly and kind. + +The gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's +table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the +leaves. + +"Miss Clare," said the Lord Chancellor. "Miss Ada Clare?" + +Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near +him. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see +in a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young +creature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord +High Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the +love and pride of parents. + +"The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, still turning +over leaves, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House." + +"Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"A dreary name," said the Lord Chancellor. + +"But not a dreary place at present, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"And Bleak House," said his lordship, "is in--" + +"Hertfordshire, my lord." + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship. + +"He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +A pause. + +"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor, +glancing towards him. + +Richard bowed and stepped forward. + +"Hum!" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves. + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed in a low +voice, "if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable +companion for--" + +"For Mr. Richard Carstone?" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I +heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile. + +"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson." + +His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy +very graciously. + +"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?" + +"No, my lord." + +Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His +lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or +thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again +until we were going away. + +Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the +door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help +it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a +little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had +well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she +would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why +she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and +then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated, +but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if +he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to +the candour of a boy. + +"Very well!" said his lordship aloud. "I shall make the order. Mr. +Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge," and this +was when he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young lady, +and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the +circumstances admit." + +He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to +him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost +no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some. + +When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go +back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the +Lord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out. + +"Well!" said Richard Carstone. "THAT'S over! And where do we go next, +Miss Summerson?" + +"Don't you know?" I said. + +"Not in the least," said he. + +"And don't YOU know, my love?" I asked Ada. + +"No!" said she. "Don't you?" + +"Not at all!" said I. + +We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the +children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed +bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us +with an air of great ceremony. + +"Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to +have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty +when they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to +come of it." + +"Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him. + +"Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned so quickly that he was +quite abashed. "I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," +curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "I had youth +and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of +the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court +regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the +Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in +the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray +accept my blessing." + +As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady, +that we were much obliged to her. + +"Ye-es!" she said mincingly. "I imagine so. And here is Conversation +Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?" + +"Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good +soul!" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back. + +"By no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me. +"Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both--which is +not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the +Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!" + +She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but +we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still +with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And +hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray +accept my blessing!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Telescopic Philanthropy + + +We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his +room, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it +for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was. + +"I really don't, sir," I returned. "Perhaps Mr. Carstone--or Miss +Clare--" + +But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. "In-deed! Mrs. +Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and +casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. +Jellyby's biography, "is a lady of very remarkable strength of +character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted +herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times +and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the +subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the +coffee berry--AND the natives--and the happy settlement, on the banks +of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. +Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely +to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, +has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby." + +Mr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us. + +"And Mr. Jellyby, sir?" suggested Richard. + +"Ah! Mr. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is--a--I don't know that I can +describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of +Mrs. Jellyby." + +"A nonentity, sir?" said Richard with a droll look. + +"I don't say that," returned Mr. Kenge gravely. "I can't say that, +indeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my +knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very +superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the more +shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that +as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and +tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already, +Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would +be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon +of to-morrow. + +He then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in. +Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss +Summerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been "sent round." +Mr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting +to take us round too as soon as we pleased. + +"Then it only remains," said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for +me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the +arrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss +Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the +(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr. +Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all +concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there." + +"Where IS 'there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard as we went downstairs. + +"No distance," said Mr. Guppy; "round in Thavies Inn, you know." + +"I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am +strange in London." + +"Only round the corner," said Mr. Guppy. "We just twist up Chancery +Lane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time, +as near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain't +it, miss?" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account. + +"The fog is very dense indeed!" said I. + +"Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure," said Mr. Guppy, putting +up the steps. "On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss, +judging from your appearance." + +I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at +myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the +box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and +the strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our +destination--a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to +hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people, +principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, +which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription +JELLYBY. + +"Don't be frightened!" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the +coach-window. "One of the young Jellybys been and got his head +through the area railings!" + +"Oh, poor child," said I; "let me out, if you please!" + +"Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up +to something," said Mr. Guppy. + +I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little +unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and +crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a +milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were +endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression +that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after +pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, +I thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could +follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to +push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and +beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I +had not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down +through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last +he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to +beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. + +Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in +pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I +don't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I therefore +supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised +when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and +going up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me, +announced us as, "Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!" We passed +several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid +treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence, +one of the poor little things fell downstairs--down a whole flight +(as it sounded to me), with a great noise. + +Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we +could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head +recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards +said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with +perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of +from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious +habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard +again--they could see nothing nearer than Africa! + +"I am very glad indeed," said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, "to +have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. +Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of +indifference to me." + +We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where +there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair +but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The +shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair +when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we +could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back +and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of +stay-lace--like a summer-house. + +The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great +writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only +very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that +with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we +followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the +back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. + +But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking +though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting +the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was +in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, +which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden +down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, +from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right +place. + +"You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great +office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste +strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing +in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find me, +my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African +project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in +correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals +anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am +happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have +from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating +coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank +of the Niger." + +As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very +gratifying. + +"It IS gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. "It involves the devotion of +all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it +succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, +Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts +to Africa." + +This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I +was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate-- + +"The finest climate in the world!" said Mrs. Jellyby. + +"Indeed, ma'am?" + +"Certainly. With precaution," said Mrs. Jellyby. "You may go into +Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into +Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with +Africa." + +I said, "No doubt." I meant as to Holborn. + +"If you would like," said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers +towards us, "to look over some remarks on that head, and on the +general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I +finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my +amanuensis--" + +The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to +our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. + +"--I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs. +Jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. Where are +you, Caddy?" + +"'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'" said Caddy. + +"'And begs,'" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, "'to inform him, in +reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No, +Peepy! Not on my account!" + +Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen +downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting +himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his +wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity +most--the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the +serene composure with which she said everything, "Go along, you +naughty Peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again. + +However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I +interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor +Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very +much astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast +asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he +was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in +detail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the +momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all +other places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so +little about it. + +"Six o'clock!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "And our dinner hour is nominally +(for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss +Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? +You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad +child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!" + +I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at +all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada +and I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They +were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window +was fastened up with a fork. + +"You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said Miss Jellyby, +looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain. + +"If it is not being troublesome," said we. + +"Oh, it's not the trouble," returned Miss Jellyby; "the question is, +if there IS any." + +The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell +that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half +crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss +Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water, +but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order. + +We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to +get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up +to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my +bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of +noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the +doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my +lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and +though the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest +smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. +Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be +very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red +Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as +mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of +the wolf. + +When we went downstairs we found a mug with "A Present from Tunbridge +Wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick, +and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage +blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door +with Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that +degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the +windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the +same sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so +employed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us +that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found +the kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they +made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner. + +Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs. +Jellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient +in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine +cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an +excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was +almost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and +dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never +moved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen +in pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and +skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will +between them. + +All through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such accidents +as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the +handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in +the chin--Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She +told us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and +the natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by +her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters +were proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies' +meetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people +excited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives; +others required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from +the table three or four times to write. She was full of business and +undoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause. + +I was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in +spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or +bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed +passively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively +interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might +have been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left +the table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of +his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby; +and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs +for temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who +came in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also +informed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby +with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter. + +This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about +Africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to +teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export +trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, "I believe +now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and +fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have +you not?" or, "If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you +once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one +post-office at one time?"--always repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to +us like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in +a corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low +spirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when +alone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind, +but had always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without +saying anything. + +Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee +all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She +also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to +be--if I understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and gave +utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an +auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the +other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the +drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and +told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" and I don't know what else +until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. +As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, +where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst +of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs. + +After that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in +coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at +last it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that +Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I +was sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher +pretensions. + +It was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to +bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking +coffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen. + +"What a strange house!" said Ada when we got upstairs. "How curious +of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!" + +"My love," said I, "it quite confuses me. I want to understand it, +and I can't understand it at all." + +"What?" asked Ada with her pretty smile. + +"All this, my dear," said I. "It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to +take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and +yet--Peepy and the housekeeping!" + +Ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the +fire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her +heart. "You are so thoughtful, Esther," she said, "and yet so +cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a +home out of even this house." + +My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised +herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she +made so much of me! + +"May I ask you a question?" said I when we had sat before the fire a +little while. + +"Five hundred," said Ada. + +"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind +describing him to me?" + +Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such +laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty, +partly at her surprise. + +"Esther!" she cried. + +"My dear!" + +"You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?" + +"My dear, I never saw him." + +"And I never saw him!" returned Ada. + +Well, to be sure! + +No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she +remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of +him and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said +was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her +cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago--"a plain, honest +letter," Ada said--proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on +and telling her that "in time it might heal some of the wounds made +by the miserable Chancery suit." She had replied, gratefully +accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had +made a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only +once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when +they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them, +that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy fellow." This was the +utmost description Ada could give me. + +It set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained +before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and +wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long +ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were +recalled by a tap at the door. + +I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a +broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in +the other. + +"Good night!" she said very sulkily. + +"Good night!" said I. + +"May I come in?" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same +sulky way. + +"Certainly," said I. "Don't wake Miss Clare." + +She would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle +finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over +the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very +gloomy. + +"I wish Africa was dead!" she said on a sudden. + +I was going to remonstrate. + +"I do!" she said "Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and +detest it. It's a beast!" + +I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her +head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be +cool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but +presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed +where Ada lay. + +"She is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow and in the +same uncivil manner. + +I assented with a smile. + +"An orphan. Ain't she?" + +"Yes." + +"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and +sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, +and needlework, and everything?" + +"No doubt," said I. + +"I can't," she returned. "I can't do anything hardly, except write. +I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of +yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing +else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very +fine, I dare say!" + +I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my +chair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt +towards her. + +"It's disgraceful," she said. "You know it is. The whole house is +disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's +miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks--she's always drinking. +It's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't +smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner; +you know it was!" + +"My dear, I don't know it," said I. + +"You do," she said very shortly. "You shan't say you don't. You do!" + +"Oh, my dear!" said I. "If you won't let me speak--" + +"You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss +Summerson." + +"My dear," said I, "as long as you won't hear me out--" + +"I don't want to hear you out." + +"Oh, yes, I think you do," said I, "because that would be so very +unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did +not come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, and I +am sorry to hear it." + +"You needn't make a merit of that," said she. + +"No, my dear," said I. "That would be very foolish." + +She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still +with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came +softly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving +in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it +better not to speak. + +"I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It +would be a great deal better for us." + +In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her +face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I +comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she +wanted to stay there! + +"You used to teach girls," she said, "If you could only have taught +me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like +you so much!" + +I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a +ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold +my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell +asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest +on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and +all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I +was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes +closed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they +became indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the +sleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading +friends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now +it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now +some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I +was no one. + +The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my +eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon +me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and +cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut +them all. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A Morning Adventure + + +Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed +heavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that +they would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I was sufficiently +forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and +sufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part +of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk. + +"Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's a +chance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. +As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has +what you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the +loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there +isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm afraid you +must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to +bed." + +"I am not at all tired, my dear," said I, "and would much prefer to +go out." + +"If you're sure you would," returned Miss Jellyby, "I'll get my +things on." + +Ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal to +Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that +he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed +again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at +me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never +could again be, so astonished in his life--looking very miserable +also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep +as soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such +a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely +to notice it. + +What with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting +myself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found +Miss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, +which Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick, +throwing the candle in to make it burn better. Everything was just as +we had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so. +Below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been +left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over +the house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; +the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out +of a public-house, wiping her mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us, +that she had been to see what o'clock it was. + +But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and +down Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to see +us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. So he +took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may mention +that Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that I +really should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told +me so. + +"Where would you wish to go?" she asked. + +"Anywhere, my dear," I replied. + +"Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely. + +"Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I. + +She then walked me on very fast. + +"I don't care!" she said. "Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I +say I don't care--but if he was to come to our house with his great, +shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as +Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he +and Ma make of themselves!" + +"My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the +vigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child--" + +"Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty +as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then +let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their +affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I +shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" + +She walked me on faster yet. + +"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and +I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If there's any +stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the stuff he and Ma +talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the +patience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and +contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma's management!" + +I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young +gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the +disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada +coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run +a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked +moodily on at my side while I admired the long successions and +varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and +fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy +preparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping +out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly +groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse. + +"So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me. +"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to +our place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here's the +old lady again!" + +Truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and +smiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "The wards +in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!" + +"You are out early, ma'am," said I as she curtsied to me. + +"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's +retired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," +said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires a +great deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to +follow." + +"Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my arm +tighter through her own. + +The little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered for +herself directly. + +"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend +court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing +another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said the old lady, +recovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low +curtsy. + +Richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday, +good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the +suit. + +"Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? She will +still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of +Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the +summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater +part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long +vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" + +We said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so. + +"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more +flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's +court," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth +seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see +my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and +beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a +visit from either." + +She had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, beckoned +Richard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse myself and +looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious and +all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she +continued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our +strange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling +condescension, that she lived close by. + +It was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that we +had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she +was at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady +stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some +courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said, +"This is my lodging. Pray walk up!" + +She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND +BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE +STORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill +at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In +another was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF +BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. +In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything +seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the +window were quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine +bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine +bottles, ink bottles; I am reminded by mentioning the latter that the +shop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal +neighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and +disowned relation of the law. There were a great many ink bottles. +There was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the +door, labelled "Law Books, all at 9d." Some of the inscriptions I +have enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen +in Kenge and Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received +from the firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having +nothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a +respectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to +execute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. +Krook, within. There were several second-hand bags, blue and red, +hanging up. A little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old +crackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared +law-papers. I could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which +there must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once +belonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The +litter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged +wooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might +have been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to +fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking +in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very +clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. + +As it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides +by the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a couple +of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern +that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in +the shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. He was +short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between +his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth +as if he were on fire within. His throat, chin, and eyebrows were so +frosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin +that he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of +snow. + +"Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anything to +sell?" + +We naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been +trying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her +pocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the pleasure +of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for +time. But she was not to be so easily left. She became so +fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would +walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her +harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired, +that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to +comply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when +the old man added his persuasions to hers and said, "Aye, aye! Please +her! It won't take a minute! Come in, come in! Come in through the +shop if t'other door's out of order!" we all went in, stimulated by +Richard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection. + +"My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending to him +from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "He is called +among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the +Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He is very odd. Oh, +I assure you he is very odd!" + +She shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with +her finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse +him, "For he is a little--you know--M!" said the old lady with great +stateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed. + +"It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, "that +they call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why +do you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop Chancery?" + +"I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard rather carelessly. + +"You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they--Hi! +Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but +none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!" + +"That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapproving of +his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. "You +can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty." + +The old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my +attention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably +beautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the +little old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said +she could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook +shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. + +"You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, holding up the +lantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but THEY +know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's +why they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many +old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust +and must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. And I +can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my +neighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter anything, or to +have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on +about me. That's the way I've got the ill name of Chancery. I don't +mind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day, +when he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him. +There's no great odds betwixt us. We both grub on in a muddle. Hi, +Lady Jane!" + +A large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder +and startled us all. + +"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!" said her master. + +The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish +claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear. + +"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on," said the old man. +"I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was +offered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I didn't +have it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice though, says +you!" + +He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in +the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood with his +hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him +before passing out, "That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are +tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare +myself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the +wards in Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his lodger. + +"Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and +with a wider stare than before. "Think of it!" + +He seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that +Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about +the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other +Chancellor!" + +"Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! YOUR name now will be--" + +"Richard Carstone." + +"Carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his +forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a +separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of +Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think." + +"He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!" said +Richard, quite astonished, to Ada and me. + +"Aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. "Yes! +Tom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known +about court by any other name, and was as well known there as--she is +now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "Tom Jarndyce was often in +here. He got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause +was on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling +'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's +being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow +fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by +drops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with +himself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be." + +We listened with horror. + +"He come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing an +imaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it--the whole +neighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a +certainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and +walked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and +asked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch +him a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much depressed; my +cause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment than I ever was.' +I hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I persuaded him to go to the +tavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (I mean Chancery +Lane); and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him, +comfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company +with him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go +echoing and rattling right away into the inn. I ran out--neighbours +ran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom Jarndyce!'" + +The old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern, +blew the light out, and shut the lantern up. + +"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure, +how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the +cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of +'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they +hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they +had--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of +it by any chance!" + +Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less +pale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was no +party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock +to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the +minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I had another +uneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor +half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise, +she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way +upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior +creature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was +"a little M, you know!" + +She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which +she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have been her +principal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there. +She could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the +moonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. I noticed the +scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from +books, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and +some half-dozen reticles and work-bags, "containing documents," as +she informed us. There were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and +I saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a +shelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so +forth, but all dry and empty. There was a more affecting meaning in +her pinched appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had +understood before. + +"Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess with the +greatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very +much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I +am limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of +attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my +days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights +long, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course, +unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate. +I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on +a superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards +in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult +to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have +felt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse +the introduction of such mean topics." + +She partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and +called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some +containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and +goldfinches--I should think at least twenty. + +"I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an object +that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of +restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! +They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so +short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the +whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know, +whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be +free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?" + +Although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a +reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no +one but herself was present. + +"Indeed," she pursued, "I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure +you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or +Great Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and +senseless here, as I have found so many birds!" + +Richard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took the +opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the +chimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine +the birds. + +"I can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for +(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that +they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my +mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I'll tell +you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they +shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth," a smile and +curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smile and curtsy. +"There! We'll let in the full light." + +The birds began to stir and chirp. + +"I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady--the room +was close, and would have been the better for it--"because the cat +you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She +crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have +discovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty is +sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In +consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly +and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat, +but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her +from the door." + +Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was +half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to +an end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly +took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the +table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On +our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she +opened the door to attend us downstairs. + +"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I +should be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for he +might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he +WILL mention it the first thing this morning." + +She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the +whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had +bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a +little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous +stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door +there. + +"The only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a +law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to +the devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. Hush!" + +She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, +and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the +sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said. + +Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it +on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of +waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working +hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece +of chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or +bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall. + +Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone +by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and +chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner, +beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was +a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any +clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made. + +"Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. + +"Surely," said I. "It's very plain." + +"What is it?" + +"J." + +With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out +and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and +said, "What's that?" + +I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," and +asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in +the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the +letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the +wall together. + +"What does that spell?" he asked me. + +When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same +rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters +forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also +read; and he laughed again. + +"Hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "I have a turn for +copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor +write." + +He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if +I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite +relieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "Miss +Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. +Don't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!" + +I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my +friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave +us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of +yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada +and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back +and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, +looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail +sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather. + +"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!" said Richard with a +sigh. "Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!" + +"It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returned Ada. +"I am grieved that I should be the enemy--as I suppose I am--of a +great number of relations and others, and that they should be my +enemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all be ruining one +another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and +discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right +somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to +find out through all these years where it is." + +"Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, +wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court +yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of +the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both +together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were +neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could +possibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may call you Ada?" + +"Of course you may, cousin Richard." + +"At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US. +We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, +and it can't divide us now!" + +"Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently. + +Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I +smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very +pleasantly. + +In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the +course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast +straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs. +Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she +presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly +occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy +correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her +(she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and +notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were +perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour +and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The +equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and +his restoration to the family circle surprised us all. + +She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was +fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At +one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our +luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good +friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me +in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps; +Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of +separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate +market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the +barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered +over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Quite at Home + + +The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went +westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air, +wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy +of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the +pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured +flowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to +proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a +pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country +road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers' waggons, +scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields, +and hedge-rows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before +us and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train +of beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding +bells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have +sung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around. + +"The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington," +said Richard, "and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What's +the matter?" + +We had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed as +the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except +when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a +little shower of bell-ringing. + +"Our postilion is looking after the waggoner," said Richard, "and the +waggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!" The waggoner was +at our coach-door. "Why, here's an extraordinary thing!" added +Richard, looking closely at the man. "He has got your name, Ada, in +his hat!" + +He had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three +small notes--one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. These +the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name +aloud first. In answer to Richard's inquiry from whom they came, he +briefly answered, "Master, sir, if you please"; and putting on his +hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened +his music, and went melodiously away. + +"Is that Mr. Jarndyce's waggon?" said Richard, calling to our +post-boy. + +"Yes, sir," he replied. "Going to London." + +We opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and +contained these words in a solid, plain hand. + + + I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and + without constraint on either side. I therefore have to + propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for + granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me + certainly, and so my love to you. + + John Jarndyce + + +I had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my +companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one +who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so +many years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my gratitude +lying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to consider how +I could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very +difficult indeed. + +The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they +both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their +cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he +performed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the +most singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. Ada +dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very +little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity +and that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see +her through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by +the back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse +led to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us +all day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any +chance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and +wondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there, +and whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after +a delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him. +All of which we wondered about, over and over again. + +The roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was +generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked +it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got +to the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as +they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a +long fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field before the +carriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the +short day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came +to St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew. + +By that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard +confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to +feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me, +whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and +frosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of the +town, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, who had +for a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was +looking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (Richard +holding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the +open country and the starlight night for our destination. There was a +light sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver, +pointing to it with his whip and crying, "That's Bleak House!" put +his horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill +though it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our +heads like spray from a water-mill. Presently we lost the light, +presently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned +into an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming +brightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned +house with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep +leading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the +sound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of +some dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking +and steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our +own hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion. + +"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see +you! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you!" + +The gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable +voice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round mine, +and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall +into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. Here he +kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side +on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been +at all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment. + +"Now, Rick!" said he. "I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is +as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home. +Warm yourself!" + +Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect +and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that +rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly +disappearing), "You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to +you!" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire. + +"And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my +dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada. + +While Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say +with how much interest) at his face. It was a handsome, lively, quick +face, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered +iron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was +upright, hearty, and robust. From the moment of his first speaking to +us his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that +I could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his +manner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman +in the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to +Reading. I was certain it was he. I never was so frightened in my +life as when I made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and +appearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that I +thought we had lost him. + +However, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me +what I thought of Mrs. Jellyby. + +"She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir," I said. + +"Nobly!" returned Mr. Jarndyce. "But you answer like Ada." Whom I had +not heard. "You all think something else, I see." + +"We rather thought," said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who +entreated me with their eyes to speak, "that perhaps she was a little +unmindful of her home." + +"Floored!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. + +I was rather alarmed again. + +"Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent +you there on purpose." + +"We thought that, perhaps," said I, hesitating, "it is right to begin +with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are +overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted +for them." + +"The little Jellybys," said Richard, coming to my relief, "are +really--I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir--in a devil of a +state." + +"She means well," said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. "The wind's in the +east." + +"It was in the north, sir, as we came down," observed Richard. + +"My dear Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, "I'll take an +oath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of +an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in +the east." + +"Rheumatism, sir?" said Richard. + +"I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell--I +had my doubts about 'em--are in a--oh, Lord, yes, it's easterly!" +said Mr. Jarndyce. + +He had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering +these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing +his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so +whimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with +him than we could possibly have expressed in any words. He gave an +arm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard bring a candle, was +leading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again. + +"Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you--didn't you--now, if it had +rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of +that sort!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Oh, cousin--" Ada hastily began. + +"Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is +better." + +"Then, cousin John--" Ada laughingly began again. + +"Ha, ha! Very good indeed!" said Mr. Jarndyce with great enjoyment. +"Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?" + +"It did better than that. It rained Esther." + +"Aye?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "What did Esther do?" + +"Why, cousin John," said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and +shaking her head at me across him--for I wanted her to be +quiet--"Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed +them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them +quiet, bought them keepsakes"--My dear girl! I had only gone out with +Peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!--"and, +cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and +was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't be +contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!" + +The warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed me, +and then looking up in his face, boldly said, "At all events, cousin +John, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me." I felt +as if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't. + +"Where did you say the wind was, Rick?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"In the north as we came down, sir." + +"You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come, +girls, come and see your home!" + +It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and +down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more +rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is +a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you +find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places with lattice +windows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, which we +entered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof that had +more corners in it than I ever counted afterwards and a chimney +(there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure +white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was +blazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps into a charming +little sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was +henceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three +steps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a +beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath +the stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a +spring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of +this room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best +rooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of +shallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its +length, down into the hall. But if instead of going out at Ada's door +you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had +entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an +unexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, +with mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu +chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in +every form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, +and had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From +these you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part +sitting-room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound +of many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval +of passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year +round, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture +standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath +gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that you came into +another passage, where there were back-stairs and where you could +hear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told +to "Hold up" and "Get over," as they slipped about very much on the +uneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every +room had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by +half-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back +there or had ever got out of it. + +The furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as +pleasantly irregular. Ada's sleeping-room was all flowers--in chintz +and paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff +courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool +for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room +was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of +surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real +trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with +gravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole process of +preparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. In my room +there were oval engravings of the months--ladies haymaking in short +waists and large hats tied under the chin, for June; smooth-legged +noblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for October. +Half-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but +were so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of +mine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young +bride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As +substitutes, I had four angels, of Queen Anne's reign, taking a +complacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty; +and a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an +alphabet. All the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and +tables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles +on the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They +agreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the +whitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a +drawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of +rose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows, +softened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the +starlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its +hospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with +the face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and +just wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything +we heard, were our first impressions of Bleak House. + +"I am glad you like it," said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us +round again to Ada's sitting-room. "It makes no pretensions, but it +is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such +bright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner. +There's no one here but the finest creature upon earth--a child." + +"More children, Esther!" said Ada. + +"I don't mean literally a child," pursued Mr. Jarndyce; "not a child +in years. He is grown up--he is at least as old as I am--but in +simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless +inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child." + +We felt that he must be very interesting. + +"He knows Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Jarndyce. "He is a musical man, an +amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an +amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of +attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in +his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his +family; but he don't care--he's a child!" + +"Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?" inquired +Richard. + +"Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But +he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to +look after HIM. He is a child, you know!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?" inquired +Richard. + +"Why, just as you may suppose," said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance +suddenly falling. "It is said that the children of the very poor are +not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole's children have +tumbled up somehow or other. The wind's getting round again, I am +afraid. I feel it rather!" + +Richard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night. + +"It IS exposed," said Mr. Jarndyce. "No doubt that's the cause. Bleak +House has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!" + +Our luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in a +few minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid +(not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had not +seen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it, +all labelled. + +"For you, miss, if you please," said she. + +"For me?" said I. + +"The housekeeping keys, miss." + +I showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her +own part, "I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss. +Miss Summerson, if I don't deceive myself?" + +"Yes," said I. "That is my name." + +"The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the +cellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning, +I was to show you the presses and things they belong to." + +I said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone, +stood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust. +Ada found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when I +showed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been +insensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I knew, to be +sure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but I liked to be so +pleasantly cheated. + +When we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was +standing before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in +his school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with a +rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there +was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and +spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was +fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr. +Jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked +younger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a +damaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an +easy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair +carelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I +have seen artists paint their own portraits) which I could not +separate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some +unique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like +the manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the +usual road of years, cares, and experiences. + +I gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been educated +for the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional +capacity, in the household of a German prince. He told us, however, +that as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and +measures and had never known anything about them (except that they +disgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the +requisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, he had no head for +detail. And he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to +bleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found +lying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making +fancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. The prince, at last, +objecting to this, "in which," said Mr. Skimpole, in the frankest +manner, "he was perfectly right," the engagement terminated, and Mr. +Skimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) "nothing to live +upon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with +rosy cheeks." His good friend Jarndyce and some other of his good +friends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several +openings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of +the oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of +time, the other that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which +he never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and +never knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and +here he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of +making fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond +of art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn't +much. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music, +mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of +Bristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He was a +mere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He said to +the world, "Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue +coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after +glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only--let +Harold Skimpole live!" + +All this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the +utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious +candour--speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, +as if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had +his singularities but still had his claims too, which were the +general business of the community and must not be slighted. He was +quite enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in +endeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had +thought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am far +from sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why he was +free of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; he was so +very clear about it himself. + +"I covet nothing," said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way. +"Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce's excellent +house. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and +alter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient +possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility. +My steward's name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can't cheat me. We +have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a +strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself +into objects with surprising ardour! I don't regret that I have not a +strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself +into objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I +can sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down +on the grass--in fine weather--and float along an African river, +embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and +sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I +were there. I don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but +it's all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven's sake, +having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the +world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to +let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, +like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!" + +It was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the +adjuration. Mr. Skimpole's general position there would have rendered +it so without the addition of what he presently said. + +"It's only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy," said Mr. +Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. "I +envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel +in myself. I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as +if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of +enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I +can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of +increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a +benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting +me in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for +details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant +consequences? I don't regret it therefore." + +Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what +they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce +than this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether +it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was +probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should +so desire to escape the gratitude of others. + +We were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging +qualities of Ada and Richard that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the +first time, should be so unreserved and should lay himself out to be +so exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were +naturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common +privilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. The +more we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what with +his fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his genial way +of lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, "I am +a child, you know! You are designing people compared with me" (he +really made me consider myself in that light) "but I am gay and +innocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!" the effect was +absolutely dazzling. + +He was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for +what was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that +alone. In the evening, when I was preparing to make tea and Ada was +touching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to +her cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and +sat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of Ada that I almost loved +him. + +"She is like the morning," he said. "With that golden hair, those +blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer +morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call +such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an +orphan. She is the child of the universe." + +Mr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us with his hands behind him +and an attentive smile upon his face. + +"The universe," he observed, "makes rather an indifferent parent, I +am afraid." + +"Oh! I don't know!" cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly. + +"I think I do know," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Well!" cried Mr. Skimpole. "You know the world (which in your sense +is the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your +way. But if I had mine," glancing at the cousins, "there should be no +brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be +strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no +spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change +should never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed +near it!" + +Mr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been +really a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment, +glanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a +benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again, +which has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they +were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by +the fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending +down. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by +strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady +fire, though reflecting from motionless objects. Ada touched the +notes so softly and sang so low that the wind, sighing away to the +distant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future +and the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present seemed +expressed in the whole picture. + +But it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I +recall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the contrast +in respect of meaning and intention between the silent look directed +that way and the flow of words that had preceded it. Secondly, though +Mr. Jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for but a moment on +me, I felt as if in that moment he confided to me--and knew that he +confided to me and that I received the confidence--his hope that Ada +and Richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship. + +Mr. Skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he was +a composer--had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it--and +played what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite a little +concert, in which Richard--who was enthralled by Ada's singing and +told me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were +written--and Mr. Jarndyce, and I were the audience. After a little +while I missed first Mr. Skimpole and afterwards Richard, and while I +was thinking how could Richard stay away so long and lose so much, +the maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, "If +you please, miss, could you spare a minute?" + +When I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her +hands, "Oh, if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come +upstairs to Mr. Skimpole's room. He has been took, miss!" + +"Took?" said I. + +"Took, miss. Sudden," said the maid. + +I was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, but +of course I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and +collected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to +consider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove +to be a fit. She threw open a door and I went into a chamber, where, +to my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched +upon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before +the fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great +embarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat, +with smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was +wiping smoother and making less of with a pocket-handkerchief. + +"Miss Summerson," said Richard hurriedly, "I am glad you are come. +You will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole--don't be +alarmed!--is arrested for debt." + +"And really, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mr. Skimpole with his +agreeable candour, "I never was in a situation in which that +excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which +anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter +of an hour in your society, was more needed." + +The person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave +such a very loud snort that he startled me. + +"Are you arrested for much, sir?" I inquired of Mr. Skimpole. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said he, shaking his head pleasantly, "I +don't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, were +mentioned." + +"It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny," observed +the stranger. "That's wot it is." + +"And it sounds--somehow it sounds," said Mr. Skimpole, "like a small +sum?" + +The strange man said nothing but made another snort. It was such a +powerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said Richard to me, "has a delicacy in applying to my +cousin Jarndyce because he has lately--I think, sir, I understood you +that you had lately--" + +"Oh, yes!" returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. "Though I forgot how much +it was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, but I +have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help, +that I would rather," and he looked at Richard and me, "develop +generosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower." + +"What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?" said Richard, +aside. + +I ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen +if the money were not produced. + +"Jail," said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into +his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. "Or Coavinses." + +"May I ask, sir, what is--" + +"Coavinses?" said the strange man. "A 'ouse." + +Richard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular +thing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's. +He observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may +venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had +entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours. + +"I thought," he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, "that +being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large +amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, +could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of +undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the business name +of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their +power that would settle this?" + +"Not a bit on it," said the strange man. + +"Really?" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That seems odd, now, to one who is +no judge of these things!" + +"Odd or even," said the stranger gruffly, "I tell you, not a bit on +it!" + +"Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!" Mr. Skimpole +gently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on +the fly-leaf of a book. "Don't be ruffled by your occupation. We can +separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from +the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private +life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal +of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious." + +The stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in +acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he +did not express to me. + +"Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his +drawing with his head on one side, "here you see me utterly incapable +of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. +The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold +Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!" + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said Richard in a whisper, "I have ten +pounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will do." + +I possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from my +quarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought that +some accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, without any +relation or any property, on the world and had always tried to keep +some little money by me that I might not be quite penniless. I told +Richard of my having this little store and having no present need of +it, and I asked him delicately to inform Mr. Skimpole, while I should +be gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his +debt. + +When I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite +touched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that perplexing +and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if personal +considerations were impossible with him and the contemplation of our +happiness alone affected him. Richard, begging me, for the greater +grace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as +Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and +received the necessary acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr. +Skimpole. + +His compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less +than I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white +coat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket and +shortly said, "Well, then, I'll wish you a good evening, miss. + +"My friend," said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire +after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, "I should like +to ask you something, without offence." + +I think the reply was, "Cut away, then!" + +"Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this +errand?" said Mr. Skimpole. + +"Know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time," said Coavinses. + +"It didn't affect your appetite? Didn't make you at all uneasy?" + +"Not a bit," said Coavinses. "I know'd if you wos missed to-day, you +wouldn't be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds." + +"But when you came down here," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "it was a fine +day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and +shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing." + +"Nobody said they warn't, in MY hearing," returned Coavinses. + +"No," observed Mr. Skimpole. "But what did you think upon the road?" + +"Wot do you mean?" growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong +resentment. "Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to get +for it without thinking. Thinking!" (with profound contempt). + +"Then you didn't think, at all events," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "to +this effect: 'Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to +hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows, +loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature's great +cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold +Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only +birthright!' You thought nothing to that effect?" + +"I--certainly--did--NOT," said Coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly +renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give +adequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each +word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have +dislocated his neck. + +"Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of +business!" said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. "Thank you, my friend. +Good night." + +As our absence had been long enough already to seem strange +downstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the +fireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently appeared, +and Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently engaged during the +remainder of the evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from +Mr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom I wished of +course to learn it as quickly as I could in order that I might be of +the very small use of being able to play when he had no better +adversary. But I thought, occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some +fragments of his own compositions or when, both at the piano and the +violoncello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all +effort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that +Richard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having +been arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether. + +It was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven +o'clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously that +the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours +from night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his candle and +his radiant face out of the room, and I think he might have kept us +there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were +lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs. +Jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr. +Jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned. + +"Oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!" he said, rubbing his head +and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. "What's this they +tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why +did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? The +wind's round again. I feel it all over me!" + +We neither of us quite knew what to answer. + +"Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are +you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you? +How could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it's due east--must be!" + +"Really, sir," said Richard, "I don't think it would be honourable in +me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us--" + +"Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!" said Mr. +Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short. + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Everybody! And he'll be in the same scrape again next week!" said +Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his +hand that had gone out. "He's always in the same scrape. He was born +in the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in the +newspapers when his mother was confined was 'On Tuesday last, at her +residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in +difficulties.'" + +Richard laughed heartily but added, "Still, sir, I don't want to +shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to +your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope +you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do +press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you." + +"Well!" cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent +endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. "I--here! Take it +away, my dear. I don't know what I am about with it; it's all the +wind--invariably has that effect--I won't press you, Rick; you may be +right. But really--to get hold of you and Esther--and to squeeze you +like a couple of tender young Saint Michael's oranges! It'll blow a +gale in the course of the night!" + +He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he +were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again +and vehemently rubbing them all over his head. + +I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole, +being in all such matters quite a child-- + +"Eh, my dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word. + +"Being quite a child, sir," said I, "and so different from other +people--" + +"You are right!" said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. "Your woman's wit +hits the mark. He is a child--an absolute child. I told you he was a +child, you know, when I first mentioned him." + +Certainly! Certainly! we said. + +"And he IS a child. Now, isn't he?" asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening +more and more. + +He was indeed, we said. + +"When you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in +you--I mean me--" said Mr. Jarndyce, "to regard him for a moment as a +man. You can't make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with +designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!" + +It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, +and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible +not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which +was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any +one, that I saw the tears in Ada's eyes, while she echoed his laugh, +and felt them in my own. + +"Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to +require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from +beginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of singling +YOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have +thought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds, +it would have been just the same!" said Mr. Jarndyce with his whole +face in a glow. + +We all confirmed it from our night's experience. + +"To be sure, to be sure!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "However, Rick, Esther, +and you too, Ada, for I don't know that even your little purse is +safe from his inexperience--I must have a promise all round that +nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not +even sixpences." + +We all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me +touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of +OUR transgressing. + +"As to Skimpole," said Mr. Jarndyce, "a habitable doll's house with +good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow +money of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child's sleep by +this time, I suppose; it's time I should take my craftier head to my +more worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!" + +He peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our +candles, and said, "Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I +find it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!" And +went away singing to himself. + +Ada and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs, +that this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the +pretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal, +rather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or +depreciate any one. We thought this very characteristic of his +eccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those +petulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly that +unlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different purpose) the +stalking-horses of their splenetic and gloomy humours. + +Indeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one evening +to my gratitude that I hoped I already began to understand him +through that mingled feeling. Any seeming inconsistencies in Mr. +Skimpole or in Mrs. Jellyby I could not expect to be able to +reconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge. +Neither did I try, for my thoughts were busy when I was alone, with +Ada and Richard and with the confidence I had seemed to receive +concerning them. My fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps, +would not consent to be all unselfish, either, though I would have +persuaded it to be so if I could. It wandered back to my godmother's +house and came along the intervening track, raising up shadowy +speculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark as to +what knowledge Mr. Jarndyce had of my earliest history--even as to +the possibility of his being my father, though that idle dream was +quite gone now. + +It was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from the fire. It was +not for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit +and a grateful heart. So I said to myself, "Esther, Esther, Esther! +Duty, my dear!" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such a +shake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to +bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The Ghost's Walk + + +While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather +down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip, +drip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, +the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire +that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being +fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination +on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he +were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris +with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon +Chesney Wold. + +There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney +Wold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren, +red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a +clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who +love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--THEY +may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, +and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so +famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the +grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that +glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may +have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out +the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The +grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient +rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully +when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, +steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the +man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, +stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut +in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at +the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps +corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. + +So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large +head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of +the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him +at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own +house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very +much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So +now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of +company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of +horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until +he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. +Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the +spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!" as +he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. + +So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have +their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been +very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs, +downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole +country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their +inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking +in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of +the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons +of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in +the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably +Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully +taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, +where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops +to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if +we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway +casts its shadow on the ground. + +Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at +Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a +little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads +off to ghosts and mystery. + +It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that +Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several +times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that +the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been +sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather +deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old +lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and +such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to +have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows +her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell +little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she +expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side +passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a +smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round +trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to +play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her +mind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it +is shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's +iron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep. + +It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney +Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. +Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer "fifty year, +three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live +till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of +the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took +it with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the +mouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young +widow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir +Leicester and originated in the still-room. + +The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He +supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual +characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was +born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to +make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would +never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is +an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. +He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most +respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when +he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were +very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or +placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he +would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell +here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with +anybody else. + +Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the +younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even +to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when +she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover +about her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a +fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second +son would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been +made steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to +constructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw +their own water with the least possible amount of labour, so +assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a +thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to +the wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell +great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in +the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that +general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a +tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young +rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign +of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model +of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his +backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, +"I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any +subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him +into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the +congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." Farther north +he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock +ever saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or +ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded +him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and +grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three +nights in the week for unlawful purposes. + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and +art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto +him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship, +and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to +enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture +of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day +in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. + +"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I +am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine +young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Mrs. +Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. + +"They say I am like my father, grandmother." + +"Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And +your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is +well?" + +"Thriving, grandmother, in every way." + +"I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a +plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable +soldier who had gone over to the enemy. + +"He is quite happy?" says she. + +"Quite." + +"I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and +has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows +best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't +understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity +of good company too!" + +"Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very +pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?" + +"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so +hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's +an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very +pretty. She lives with me at my table here." + +"I hope I have not driven her away?" + +"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She +is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer," +says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, +"than it formerly was!" + +The young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of +experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens. + +"Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears +of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious +sake?" + +After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark-eyed, +dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and +yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her +hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. + +"What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. + +"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes, +and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of +dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the hall-door and told them +it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was +driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card +to you." + +"Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. + +Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them +and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is +shyer than before. + +"Mr. Guppy" is all the information the card yields. + +"Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, "MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard +of him!" + +"If you please, he told ME that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and +the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the +mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this +morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard +a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do +with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are +lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is +sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary." +Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long +speech, Rosa is shyer than ever. + +Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, +and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old +lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour, +and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden +wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The +grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, +accompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly +unwilling to trouble her. + +"Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of +his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get +an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." + +The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves +her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow +Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener +goes before to open the shutters. + +As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and +his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle +about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right +things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression +of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber +that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house +itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens +with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so +attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they +pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few +brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and +reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It +appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that +there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to +consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves +for seven hundred years. + +Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's +spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly +strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece, +painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a +charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon +interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. + +"Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?" + +"The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of the +present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the +best work of the master." + +"Blest," says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, +"if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been +engraved, miss?" + +"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always +refused permission." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "I'll be shot if it ain't very +curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!" + +"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The +picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester." + +Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's +unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how +well I know that picture! I'm dashed," adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, +"if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" + +As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams, +the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by +the portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young +gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a +dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for +interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, +as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again. + +He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, +as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she +looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. +All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains +to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to +the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her +description; which is always this: "The terrace below is much +admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's +Walk." + +"No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. "What's the story, miss? Is +it anything about a picture?" + +"Pray tell us the story," says Watt in a half whisper. + +"I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. + +"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the +housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family +anecdote." + +"You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a +picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that +the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without +knowing how I know it!" + +The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can +guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and +is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided +down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard +to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the +discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace +came to have that ghostly name. + +She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and +tells them: "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the +First--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who +leagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock +was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a +ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it +very likely indeed." + +Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a +family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She +regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a +genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. + +"Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion +to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that +his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the +bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's +enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave +them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his +Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer +to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a +sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?" + +Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. + +"I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I +hear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting +step." + +The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of +this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury +and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. +They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they +had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite +brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir +Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated +the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to +ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to +have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night +and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, +her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the +stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the +wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being +frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that +hour began to pine away." + +The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a +whisper. + +"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She +never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being +crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon +the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and +down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater +difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she +had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), +standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. +He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over +her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here +where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I +will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when +calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen +for my step!'" + +Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the +ground, half frightened and half shy. + +"There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, +"the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, +it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for +a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so +sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard +then." + +"And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt. + +"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper. + +Her grandson apologizes with "True. True." + +"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," +says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what is to be +noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of +nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot +shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed +there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can +play music. You understand how those things are managed?" + +"Pretty well, grandmother, I think." + +"Set it a-going." + +Watt sets it a-going--music and all. + +"Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, towards my +Lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! +Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the +beat, and everything?" + +"I certainly can!" + +"So my Lady says." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Covering a Multitude of Sins + + +It was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of +window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like +two beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the +indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day +came on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the +scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory +over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects +that had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly +discernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still +glimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and +fill up so fast that at every new peep I could have found enough +to look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles became the only +incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all +melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, +prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower, +threw a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible +with its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have +learnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed. + +Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so +attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, +though what with trying to remember the contents of each little +store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate +about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and +china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a +methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy +that I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell +ring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been +installed into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they +were all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take +a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it +quite a delightful place--in front, the pretty avenue and drive by +which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the +gravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll +it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up +there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have +kissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a +kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, +and then a dear little farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its +three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, +some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the +south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, +welcoming look--it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with +her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold +thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. + +Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. +There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about +bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he +had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the +overweening assumptions of bees. He didn't at all see why the busy +bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked +to make honey, or he wouldn't do it--nobody asked him. It was not +necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every +confectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything +that came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take +notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the +world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was +a ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone +as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a +Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he +thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The +drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot attend +to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to +see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of +looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who +doesn't want to look about him." This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be +the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy, +always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the +bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the +consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited +about his honey! + +He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground +and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a +meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them +still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties. +They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the +passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr. +Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which I +found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part +quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes. + +"Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the +growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." + +"You must be here very seldom, sir," said I. + +"Oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "When I am deceived or +disappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The +growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of +half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!" + +I could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that +benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy +and so honoured there, and my heart so full--I kissed his hand. I +don't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted and +walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping +out, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what +he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat +down. + +"There! There!" he said. "That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish." + +"It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is +difficult--" + +"Nonsense!" he said. "It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good +little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to +be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good +opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in +all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have +before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." + +I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is +not what I expected of you!" And it had such a good effect that I +folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. +Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as +confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him +every morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had. + +"Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery +business?" + +And of course I shook my head. + +"I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it +into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case +have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will +and the trusts under a will--or it was once. It's about nothing but +costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, +and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and +sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving +about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably +waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That's the great +question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted +away." + +"But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his +head, "about a will?" + +"Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he +returned. "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, +and made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will +are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered +away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable +condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had +committed an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will +itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, +everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is +referred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out--all +through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and +over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of +cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which +is the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the +middle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs +and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the +wildest visions of a witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law, +law sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, +equity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't +do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel +appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel +appearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the +history of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and +lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and +over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit +on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to +it, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When +my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the +beginning of the end!" + +"The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?" + +He nodded gravely. "I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. +When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his +misery upon it." + +"How changed it must be now!" I said. + +"It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its +present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the +wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to +disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the +meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the +cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds +choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained +of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of +the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." + +He walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a +shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down +again with his hands in his pockets. + +"I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?" + +I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House. + +"Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some +property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then; +I say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to call it +the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will +ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but +an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses, +with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much +as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their +hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of +rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and +every door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very +crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak +House was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with +the same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all +over England--the children know them!" + +"How changed it is!" I said again. + +"Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is wisdom +in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (The idea of my +wisdom!) "These are things I never talk about or even think about, +excepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention +them to Rick and Ada," looking seriously at me, "you can. I leave it +to your discretion, Esther." + +"I hope, sir--" said I. + +"I think you had better call me guardian, my dear." + +I felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, "Esther, +now, you know you are!"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as if +it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave the +housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to +myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the +basket, looked at him quietly. + +"I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my +discretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a +disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is +the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to +confess it." + +He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me, +with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and +that I was quite clever enough for him. + +"I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it, +guardian." + +"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, +my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's +(I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme: + + + "'Little old woman, and whither so high?' + 'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.' + + +"You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your +housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon +the growlery and nail up the door." + +This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old +Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame +Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became +quite lost among them. + +"However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. Here's Rick, +a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?" + +Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! + +"Here he is, Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his +hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. "He must have a +profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a +world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done." + +"More what, guardian?" said I. + +"More wiglomeration," said he. "It's the only name I know for the +thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have +something to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of ridiculous +sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the +end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have something to say about +it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will +have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to +say about it; they will all have to be handsomely feed, all round, +about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, +unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general, +wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with +wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a +pit of it, I don't know; so it is." + +He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But +it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether +he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure +to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was +sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and +stretch out his legs. + +"Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr. Richard +what he inclines to himself." + +"Exactly so," he returned. "That's what I mean! You know, just +accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet +way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure +to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman." + +I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was +attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I +had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to +Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do +my best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this) +that he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my +guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard. + +"Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "I think we may +have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word. +Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" + +He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and +felt sure I understood him. + +"About myself, sir?" said I. + +"Yes." + +"Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly +colder than I could have wished, in his, "nothing! I am quite sure +that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know, +I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance +and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart +indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world." + +He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada. +From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite +content to know no more, quite happy. + +We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to +become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood +who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew +him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us +when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him +in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the +lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form +themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The +ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were +even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most +impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite +extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their +whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole +post-office directory--shilling cards, half-crown cards, +half-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They +wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, +they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they +wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. +Jarndyce had--or had not. Their objects were as various as their +demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to +pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a +picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) +the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a +testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their +secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law, +whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up +everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an +annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a +multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of +Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the +Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They +appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They +seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be +constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing +their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on +the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. + +Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious +benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who +seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce, +to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We +observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the +subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr. +Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked +that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who +did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people +who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore +curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the +former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five +young sons. + +She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose, +and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room. +And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her +skirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at +home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold +weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed. + +"These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility +after the first salutations, "are my five boys. You may have seen +their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in +the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest +(twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of +five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second +(ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to +the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), +one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to +the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily +enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never, +through life, to use tobacco in any form." + +We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that +they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that +too--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the +mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed +Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave +me such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his +contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive +manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the +little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and +evenly miserable. + +"You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at Mrs. +Jellyby's?" + +We said yes, we had passed one night there. + +"Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same +demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy +as if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the +opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less +engaging by her eyes being what Ada called "choking eyes," meaning +very prominent--"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves +a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African +project--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine +weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, +according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. +Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment +of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that +her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to +which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right +or wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them +everywhere." + +I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the +ill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He +turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. + +"They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six +o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the +depth of winter," said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with me +during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a +Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on +the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my +canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. But +they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire +that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable +business in general--in short, that taste for the sort of +thing--which will render them in after life a service to their +neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not +frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in +subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many +public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and +discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred +(five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the +Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested +consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours +from the chairman of the evening." + +Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the +injury of that night. + +"You may have observed, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "in +some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our +esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are +concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That +is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my +mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according +to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings +up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, +under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to +ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others." + +Suppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose Mr. +Jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, would +Mr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to Mr. +Jellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it +came into my head. + +"You are very pleasantly situated here!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. + +We were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed +out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to +me to rest with curious indifference. + +"You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor. + +We were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's +acquaintance. + +"The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle with her +commanding deportment. "He is a very fervid, impassioned +speaker--full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, +which, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public +meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for +hours and hours! By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, +moving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, +a little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket +on it, "by this time you have found me out, I dare say?" + +This was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in +perfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after +what I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour +of my cheeks. + +"Found out, I mean," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "the prominent point in my +character. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable +immediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely +admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work. +The excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard +work that I don't know what fatigue is." + +We murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or +something to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was either, +but this is what our politeness expressed. + +"I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if +you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. "The quantity of exertion (which is no +exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing), +that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young +family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I +may truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!" + +If that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had +already looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed that he +doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of +his cap, which was under his left arm. + +"This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds," said +Mrs. Pardiggle. "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to +say, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my good +friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It +answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your +assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's very +soon." + +At first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general +ground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect. +But as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more +particularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was +inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very +differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of +view. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must +be essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, myself, before +I could teach others, and that I could not confide in my good +intentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful +as I could, and to render what kind services I could to those +immediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually +and naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but +confidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older than I, and had +great experience, and was so very military in her manners. + +"You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not +equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast +difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am +now about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the +neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you +with me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour." + +Ada and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, +accepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our +bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs. +Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light +objects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I +followed with the family. + +Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud +tone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's +about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged +against another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival +candidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of +printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared +to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the +pensioners--who were not elected yet. + +I am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being +usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me +great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the +manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground +that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. On my pointing out the +great impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his +parent (for he added sulkily "By her!"), he pinched me and said, "Oh, +then! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't like it, I think? What does she +make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away +again? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?" +These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of +Oswald and Francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a +dreadfully expert way--screwing up such little pieces of my arms that +I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped +upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having +the whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to +abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage +when we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming +purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the +course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally +constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being +natural. + +I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one +of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close +to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors +growing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put +to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked +up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. At the doors +and windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took +little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say +something as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business +and not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to +look after other people's. + +Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral +determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy +habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have +been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the +farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled. +Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman +with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a +man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying +at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man +fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of +washing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in, +and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide +her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. + +"Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a +friendly sound, I thought; it was much too business-like and +systematic. "How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you, +you couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true +to my word." + +"There an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his +hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is there?" + +"No, my friend," said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool +and knocking down another. "We are all here." + +"Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the +man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us. + +The young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young +man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with +their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily. + +"You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle to these +latter. "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better +I like it." + +"Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "I wants +it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my +place. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're +a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know what +you're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no occasion to be +up to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes, +she IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks. +How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my +place dirty? Yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's +nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome +children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, +and for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I +an't read the little book wot you left. There an't nobody here as +knows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to +me. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. If you was to +leave me a doll, I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting of +myself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four +if I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I +don't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there, +if I did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get +that black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a +lie!" + +He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now +turned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who +had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible +composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his +antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff +and took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious +custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an +inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house. + +Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of +place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on +infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking +possession of people. The children sulked and stared; the family took +no notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog +bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We +both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there +was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By +whom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. +Even what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such +auditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so +much tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had +referred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce +said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had +had no other on his desolate island. + +We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle +left off. + +The man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said +morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" + +"For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come +to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle with +demonstrative cheerfulness. + +"So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his +eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" + +Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the +confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. +Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others +to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and +all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then +proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say +that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show +that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of +dealing in it to a large extent. + +She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was +left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the +baby were ill. + +She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before +that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her +hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and +violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. + +Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to +touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew +her back. The child died. + +"Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "Look here! +Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty +little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I +never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!" + +Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down +weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any +mother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in +astonishment and then burst into tears. + +Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to +make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, +and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the +mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children. +She answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much. + +When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and +was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet. +The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The +man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but +he was silent. + +An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing +at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" +The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck. + +She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had +no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she +condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no +beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" All +the rest was in the tone in which she said them. + +I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby +and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to +see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was +softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of +such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor +is little known, excepting to themselves and God. + +We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole +out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was +leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was +scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want +to hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he +did, and thanked him. He made no answer. + +Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found +at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me, +when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we +arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our +visit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to +Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. + +Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning +expedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house, +where a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and +prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. At a +short distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial +company. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other +young women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed +ashamed and turned away as we went by. + +We left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and +proceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the woman +who had brought such consolation with her standing there looking +anxiously out. + +"It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "I'm +a-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch +me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." + +"Do you mean your husband?" said I. + +"Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely +had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, +except when I've been able to take it for a minute or two." + +As she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had +brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort +had been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature almost +hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much +solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and +neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my +handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of +sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so +lightly, so tenderly! + +"May heaven reward you!" we said to her. "You are a good woman." + +"Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "Hush! Jenny, Jenny!" + +The mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the +familiar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more. + +How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the +tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the +child through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--how +little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come +to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I only +thought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all +unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a +hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave, +and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror +for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "Jenny, Jenny!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Signs and Tokens + + +I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I +mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think +about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself +coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, "Dear, dear, +you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!" but it is all of +no use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that +if these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it +must be because I have really something to do with them and can't be +kept out. + +My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found +so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like +bright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the +evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the +most restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of +our society. + +He was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say +it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before, +but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or +show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure +and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within +myself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite +deceitful. + +But there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I +was as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as +any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they +relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one +another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing +how it interested me. + +"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard +would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his +pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I can't +get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day--grinding away +at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down +dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much +good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that +here I am again!" + +"You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her head +upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, "I +don't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little +while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind +and remember the poor sailors at sea--" + +Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over +very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination +of his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation +of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in +Richard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a +gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of +the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, +which was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments +to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was +allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his +duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself. + +"So I apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I shall +have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do +that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a +clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor +and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. +He'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!" + +With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever +flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite +perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd +way, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money +in a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain than by +reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole. + +Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole +himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with +instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to +Richard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which +Richard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number +of times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount, +would form a sum in simple addition. + +"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted, +without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the +brickmaker. "I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' business." + +"How was that?" said I. + +"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of +and never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?" + +"No," said I. + +"Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds--" + +"The same ten pounds," I hinted. + +"That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. "I have got ten +pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to +spend it without being particular." + +In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice +of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he +carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. + +"Let me see!" he would say. "I saved five pounds out of the +brickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in +a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved +one. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny +saved is a penny got!" + +I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there +possibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his +wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a +few weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown +itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he +became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be +interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am +sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking +with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling +deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each +shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps +not yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was scarcely +less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the +pretty dream. + +We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr. +Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said, +"From Boythorn? Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with evident +pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about +half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. Now who +was Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too--I am +sure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all interfere with what was +going forward? + +"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. +Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than +five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the +world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest +boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the +heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest +and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." + +"In stature, sir?" asked Richard. + +"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being some +ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head +thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his +hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no simile for +his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the +house shake." + +As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we +observed the favourable omen that there was not the least indication +of any change in the wind. + +"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the +passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and +little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I +speak of," he pursued. "His language is as sounding as his voice. He +is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his +condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre +from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with +some people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must +not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has +never forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our +friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out +(he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man," to me, "will +be here this afternoon, my dear." + +I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr. +Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some +curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear. +The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was +put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light +but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall +resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and +in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most +abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right +instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the +face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate +villain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot +without the least remorse!" + +"Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. + +"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his +whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. "By +my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when +he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood +before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!" + +"Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole +house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And +that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the +countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image +of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a +field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot +in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!" + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now, will you come +upstairs?" + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to +his watch, "if you had been married, I would have turned back at the +garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya +Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this +unseasonable hour." + +"Not quite so far, I hope?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"By my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. "I wouldn't be +guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house +waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would +infinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!" + +Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his +bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" and again "Ha, ha, ha!" until the +flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and +to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him +laugh. + +We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a +sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, +and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he +spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go +off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared +to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented +him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman--upright and +stalwart as he had been described to us--with a massive grey head, a +fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become +corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it +no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but +for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to +assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so +chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much +sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing +to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard +said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those +blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever--that +really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat +at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led +by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up +his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" + +"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the +other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten +thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole +support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, +a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most +astonishing birds that ever lived!" + +The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so +tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his +forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted +on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the +most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of +a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good +illustration of his character, I thought. + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of +bread to the canary to peck at, "if I were in your place I would +seize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and +shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones +rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by +fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do +it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" (All this time the very +small canary was eating out of his hand.) + +"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at +present," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be greatly +advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole +bar." + +"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the +face of the earth!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Nothing but a mine below it +on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and +precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it +also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the +Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to +atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it +in the least!" + +It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he +recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw +up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country +seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!" It had not the least effect in +disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who +hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now +on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no +more than another bird. + +"But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of +way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "You are not free from the toils of the law +yourself!" + +"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have +brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. "By +heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible +that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer." + +"Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly +to Ada and Richard. + +"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon," resumed +our visitor, "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of +the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary +and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance." + +"Or he keeps us," suggested Richard. + +"By my soul," exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, +"that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the +most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by +some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but +a walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly +conceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no matter; he should +not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and +living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory +balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, +or somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents +his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his +attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old +parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir +Leicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of +Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up +the same.' I write to the fellow, 'Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his +compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS +attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir +Leicester Dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to +add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to +see the man who may undertake to do it.' The fellow sends a most +abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon +that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is +nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night. +I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to +come over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man +traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the +engine--resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the +existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; +I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and +battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, +ha!" + +To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have +thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same +time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly +smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought +him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of +his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the +world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a +summer joke. + +"No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though +I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that Lady +Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would +do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head +seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at +twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and +presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the +breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not +the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, +locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!" + +"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my +guardian. + +"Most assuredly not!" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder +with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he +laughed. "He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may +rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass--with apologies to Miss +Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so +dry a subject--is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and +Carboy?" + +"I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Nothing, guardian." + +"Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Had no need to ask, after even my +slight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one about +her." (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) "I +inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet +been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down +here. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning." + +I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very +pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a +satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat +at a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he +had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, +for his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat at the +backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. + +"No," said he. "No." + +"But he meant to be!" said I. + +"How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "Why, +guardian," I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding +what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his manner, +after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and--" + +Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just +described him. + +I said no more. + +"You are right, little woman," he answered. "He was all but married +once. Long ago. And once." + +"Did the lady die?" + +"No--but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his +later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of +romance yet?" + +"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say +that when you have told me so." + +"He has never since been what he might have been," said Mr. Jarndyce, +"and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant +and his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my dear!" + +I felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could not +pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to +ask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I +thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I +was awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I tried to do that +very difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested +with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded, +and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I am +not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is +at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my +life. + +With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to +Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon +him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills, +and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact +as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard +took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr. +Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and then was to go +on foot to meet them on their return. + +Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up +columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great +bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had +some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young +gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see +him, because he was associated with my present happiness. + +I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an +entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid +gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house +flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little +finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with +bear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention +that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the +servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing +his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, +and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found +him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way. + +When the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr. +Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for +him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake. +He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door, +"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?" I replied yes, I +should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look. + +I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much +embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to +wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave +him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some +time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one, +and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at +some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a +high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation. + +At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the +conference. "My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a Tartar!" + +"Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the +carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt +quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The +sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on +me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which +he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off. + +He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. + +"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of +something?" + +"No, thank you," said I. + +"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, +hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. + +"Nothing, thank you," said I. "I have only waited to see that you +have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?" + +"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I +can require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable--I'm +never that." He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after +another. + +I thought I had better go. + +"I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me +rise. "But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private +conversation?" + +Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. + +"What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously +bringing a chair towards my table. + +"I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. + +"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my +detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation +shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be +prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it's in +total confidence." + +"I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to +communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but +once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." + +"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient." All this +time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief +or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his +right. "If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I +think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that +cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." + +He did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well +behind my table. + +"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said Mr. +Guppy, apparently refreshed. + +"Not any," said I. + +"Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy. "Quarter? No! Then, to proceed. +My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two +pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it +was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened +period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of +five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve +months from the present date. My mother has a little property, which +takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an +independent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is +eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is +all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings--as who +has not?--but I never knew her do it when company was present, at +which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt +liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is +lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the +'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore +you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a +declaration--to make an offer!" + +Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not +much frightened. I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position +immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise +and ring the bell!" + +"Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands. + +"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "Unless you +get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as +you ought to do if you have any sense at all." + +He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. + +"Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his +heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the +tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils +from food at such a moment, miss." + +"I beg you to conclude," said I; "you have asked me to hear you out, +and I beg you to conclude." + +"I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and honour, so likewise I +obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the +shrine!" + +"That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the +question." + +"I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and +regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not +directed to him, with his late intent look, "I am aware that in a +worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a +poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring--I have been +brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of +general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence, +got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means +might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your +fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know +nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your +confidence, and you set me on?" + +I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my +interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and +he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go +away immediately. + +"Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word! I think you +must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I +waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I +could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps +of the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was +well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have +walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to +look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day, +quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its +pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I +speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful +wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it." + +"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand +upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the +injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably +expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good +opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank +you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I +hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, "that +you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish +and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business." + +"Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to +ring. "This has been without prejudice?" + +"I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future +occasion to do so." + +"A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any +time, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings can +never alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I not +do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or +dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs. +Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient." + +I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written +card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my +eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had +passed the door. + +I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments +and getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and +put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought +I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went +upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh +about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry +about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as +if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been +since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Law-Writer + + +On the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more +particularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby, +law-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's +Court, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in +all sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls +of parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, +whitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, +ink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and +wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, +diaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass +and leaden--pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small +office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever +since he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer. +On that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the +new inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the +time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For +smoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's +name and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite +quite overpowered the parent tree. + +Peffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there, +for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard +of St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring +past him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he +ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in +Cook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the +sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street, +whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he +knows from his personal observation next to nothing about it--if +Peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no +law-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly, +and no one is the worse or wiser. + +In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's "time" +of seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same +law-stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something +too violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like +a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The +Cook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of +this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a +solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her +up every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for +a stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited +internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held, +had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever +of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it +either never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby, +who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's +estate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's +Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the +niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, +is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. + +Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the +neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed +from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr. +Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet +tones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining +head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He +tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's +Court in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at +the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy +flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two +'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From +beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in +its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in +the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these +reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the +'prentices, "I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!" + +This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened +the wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the +name of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and +expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character. +It is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty +shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with +clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to +have been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or +contracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of +his species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been +developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has fits," which +the parish can't account for. + +Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten +years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and +is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint +that except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, +or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be +near her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. She is a +satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel +that there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the +breast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can +always find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who +thinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment +is, in Guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes +the little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with +its hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant +apartment in Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one +end (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses' +the sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a +prospect of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and +plenty of it too--of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs. +Snagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of +Raphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many +privations. + +Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the +business to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the +tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, +licenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no +responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, +insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the +neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and +even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually +call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the +wives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands') +behaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about +Cook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say +that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is +sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the +spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed that the +wives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining +example in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with +greater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more +than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of +correction. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's +being in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk +in Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the +sparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the Rolls Yard of a +Sunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were +old times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under +that chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. He solaces his +imagination, too, by thinking of the many Chancellors and Vices, and +Masters of the Rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of +the country out of telling the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say +that a brook "as clear as crystal" once ran right down the middle of +Holborn, when Turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away +into the meadows--gets such a flavour of the country out of this that +he never wants to go there. + +The day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully +effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his +shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim +westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow +flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into +Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those +shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in +nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still +remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman +helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, +flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as +would seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among +his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where +the great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day, +quiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. + +Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of +the present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from +attention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned, +mahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables +with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the +holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, +environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where +he sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks +that give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on +the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that +can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers +are about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring +to it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of +sealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of +indecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now +the red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr. +Tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again. + +Here, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory +staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and +he cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. +He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at +elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened +with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no +clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. +His clients want HIM; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be +drawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious +instructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the +stationers', expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in +the pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any +crossing-sweeper in Holborn. + +The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top, +the little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to +the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or +never. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on +his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the +middle-aged man out at elbows, "I shall be back presently." Very +rarely tells him anything more explicit. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but +nearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, +Law-Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in +all its branches, &c., &c., &c. + +It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a +balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about +Snagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one +and supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into +the subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door +just now and saw the crow who was out late. + +"Master at home?" + +Guster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the +kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two +daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two +second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two +'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely +awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't +grow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will. + +"Master at home?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad +to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and +veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture +of the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off. + +Mr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a +bit of bread and butter. Says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!" + +"I want half a word with you, Snagsby." + +"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man +round for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir." Snagsby has +brightened in a moment. + +The confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, +counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing +round, on a stool at the desk. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby." + +"Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand, +modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is +accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save +words. + +"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." + +"Yes, sir, we did." + +"There was one of them," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly +feeling--tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong +coat-pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather +like. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I +looked in to ask you--but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time +will do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this." + +"Who copied this, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat +on the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a +twist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. "We gave this out, +sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that +time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to +my book." + +Mr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of +the bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes +the affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down +a page of the book, "Jewby--Packer--Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce! Here we are, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "To be sure! I might +have remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges +just over on the opposite side of the lane." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the +law-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill. + +"WHAT do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo, sir. Here +it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight +o'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine." + +"Nemo!" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo is Latin for no one." + +"It must be English for some one, sir, I think," Mr. Snagsby submits +with his deferential cough. "It is a person's name. Here it is, you +see, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o'clock; +brought in Thursday morning, half after nine." + +The tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs. +Snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by +deserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to Mrs. +Snagsby, as who should say, "My dear, a customer!" + +"Half after nine, sir," repeats Mr. Snagsby. "Our law-writers, who +live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but +it's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a +written advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the +King's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know +the kind of document, sir--wanting employ?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of +Coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in Coavinses' +windows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of +several gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. Mr. +Snagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance +over his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions +with his mouth to this effect: "Tul-king-horn--rich--in-flu-en-tial!" + +"Have you given this man work before?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours." + +"Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he +lived?" + +"Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a--" Mr. Snagsby makes +another bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable +"--at a rag and bottle shop." + +"Can you show me the place as I go back?" + +"With the greatest pleasure, sir!" + +Mr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his +black coat, takes his hat from its peg. "Oh! Here is my little +woman!" he says aloud. "My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one +of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with +Mr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir--I shan't be two minutes, my +love!" + +Mrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps +at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, +refers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently +curious. + +"You will find that the place is rough, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, +walking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to +the lawyer; "and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in +general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never +wants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long +as ever you like." + +It is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full +effect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and +against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against +plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the +general crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has +interposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest +business of life; diving through law and equity, and through that +kindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what +and collects about us nobody knows whence or how--we only knowing in +general that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to +shovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and +bottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise, +lying and being in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, and kept, +as is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one Krook. + +"This is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. + +"This is where he lives, is it?" says the lawyer unconcernedly. +"Thank you." + +"Are you not going in, sir?" + +"No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good +evening. Thank you!" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his +little woman and his tea. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He goes +a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, and +enters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so +in the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by +a fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed +candle in his hand. + +"Pray is your lodger within?" + +"Male or female, sir?" says Mr. Krook. + +"Male. The person who does copying." + +Mr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an +indistinct impression of his aristocratic repute. + +"Did you wish to see him, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"It's what I seldom do myself," says Mr. Krook with a grin. "Shall I +call him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!" + +"I'll go up to him, then," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!" Mr. Krook, with his +cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after +Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Hi-hi!" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has nearly +disappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat +expands her wicked mouth and snarls at him. + +"Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know +what they say of my lodger?" whispers Krook, going up a step or two. + +"What do they say of him?" + +"They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know +better--he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so +black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that +bargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door +on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and +accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. + +The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if +he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, +and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as +if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner +by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness +marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau +on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger +one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The +floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of +rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the +darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn +together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine +might be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the bed. + +For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, +lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just +within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and +trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral +darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of +its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of +winding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his +whiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the +scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, +foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes +those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the +general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, +there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick +against the door. + +He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, +but his eyes are surely open. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries again. "Hallo! Hallo!" + +As he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes +out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters +staring down upon the bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Our Dear Brother + + +A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, +irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?" + +"It's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his +ear. "Can't you wake him?" + +"No." + +"What have you done with your candle?" + +"It's gone out. Here it is." + +Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and +tries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his +endeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to his +lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from +the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new reason +that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs +outside. + +The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up +with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the man +generally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. "Hi! +I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows. +"I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself +very close." + +Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, the +great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the eyes +upon the bed. + +"God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" Krook drops +the heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over +the bedside. + +They look at one another for a moment. + +"Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's +poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?" says Krook, with +his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite! Flite! +Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!" Krook follows him with his +eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old +portmanteau and steal back again. + +"Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses a +crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes +in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man +brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad +Scotch tongue. + +"Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up at +them after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has +been dead any time. + +"Any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "It's probable he wull +have been dead aboot three hours." + +"About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on the +other side of the bed. + +"Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the +first. + +The dark young man says yes. + +"Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for I'm nae +gude here!" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and +returns to finish his dinner. + +The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face +and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his +pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one. + +"I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchased +opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related +to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. + +"I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from +the surgeon's outstretched hand. "He told me once I was the nearest +relation he had." + +"He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is +no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough +here now," taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozen +people." + +"Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook. + +"Took the over-dose?" + +"Yes!" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible +interest. + +"I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit +of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?" + +"I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich," says Krook, who might +have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around. +"But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to +name his circumstances to me." + +"Did he owe you any rent?" + +"Six weeks." + +"He will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming his examination. +"It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to +judge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy +release. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare +say, good-looking." He says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on +the bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his +hand upon the region of the heart. "I recollect once thinking there +was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall +in life. Was that so?" he continues, looking round. + +Krook replies, "You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose +heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my +lodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by +law-writing, I know no more of him." + +During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old +portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all +appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the +bed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death, +noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as +an individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy +woman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his +rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this +while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention +nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As easily might +the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case, +as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case. + +He now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved, +professional way. + +"I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the +intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some +employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my +stationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything +about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!" to the +little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has +often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the +law-stationer. "Suppose you do!" + +While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation +and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and +he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but +stands, ever, near the old portmanteau. + +Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. +"Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it! Bless +my soul!" + +"Can you give the person of the house any information about this +unfortunate creature, Snagsby?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He was in +arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know." + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind +his hand, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, except +sending for the beadle." + +"I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I could +advise--" + +"No one better, sir, I am sure," says Mr. Snagsby, with his +deferential cough. + +"I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he +came from, or to anything concerning him." + +"I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with +his cough of general propitiation, "that I no more know where he came +from than I know--" + +"Where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help him +out. + +A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook, +with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next. + +"As to his connexions, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "if a person was to +say to me, 'Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you +in the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I couldn't do +it, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of my belief, at +the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle +shop--" + +"That was the time!" says Krook with a nod. + +"About a year and a half ago," says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, "he +came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my +little woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation) +in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to +understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to +put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking +with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative +frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to +strangers, particular--not to put too fine a point upon it--when they +want anything. But she was rather took by something about this +person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want +of attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, I leave you to judge; +and she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My +little woman hasn't a good ear for names," proceeds Mr. Snagsby after +consulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, "and she +considered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which, +she got into a habit of saying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you +haven't found Nimrod any work yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you +give that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or +such like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our +place; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick +hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him +out, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have +it brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--" Mr. Snagsby +concludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much +as to add, "I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he +were in a condition to do it." + +"Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether he +had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and +you will be asked the question. You can read?" + +"No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. + +"Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. He will +get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I'll wait +if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should +ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the +candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is +anything to help you." + +"In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby. + +Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have +seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though +there is very little else, heaven knows. + +The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer +conducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the +chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door. +The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches +tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his +long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied +in the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same +place and attitude. + +There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; +there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets +on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium, +on which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, such a day, so many +grains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as +if with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left +off. There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to +coroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the cupboard +and the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of an +old letter or of any other writing in either. The young surgeon +examines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence +are all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical +suggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in. + +So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out +of the room. "Don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon; "that +won't do!" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and she +goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her +lips. + +"Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and +meditation. + +By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its +inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the +army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr. +Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already +walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he +stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base +occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall +back. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms +with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in +young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "a crack," renews her +friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the +corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge +of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges +confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance +of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable +in station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and +bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's +the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. +Krook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural +disappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the +beadle arrives. + +The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a +ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the +moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The +policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the +barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that +must be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation +is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the +beadle is on the ground and has gone in. + +By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation, +which has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be +in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the +coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is +immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing +whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that +Mrs. Green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better +than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be +at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months +out, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the +Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, +examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by +exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public. +Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest and +undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with +having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that +effect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the +workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law +and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on +condition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it--a +condition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the +time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or +less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible +great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues +his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white +gloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a +street-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost +child and a murder. + +Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting +about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name +is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own +name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served +and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep +a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently +arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in +the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which +earthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one. + +And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; +and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through +five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that +any one can trace than a deserted infant. + +Next day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins, +more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation +with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor +room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice +a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional +celebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes +(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally +round him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a brisk +stroke of business all the morning. Even children so require +sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has +established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says +his brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering +between the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the +Sol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet +spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return. + +At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are +waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good +dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents +more public-houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, +tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death +in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the +landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the +piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of +several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings +in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury +as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the +spittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's +head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which +rather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be +hanged presently. + +Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress, +sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a +large shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who +modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public, +but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this +is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up +an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the +Harmonic Meeting in the evening. + +"Well, gentlemen--" the coroner begins. + +"Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. Not to the coroner, +though it might appear so. + +"Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are impanelled here to +inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given +before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will +give your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be stopped, +you know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything else. The +first thing to be done is to view the body." + +"Make way there!" cries the beadle. + +So they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a +straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back +second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and +precipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very +neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has +provided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic +Meeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the +public chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not +superior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print +what "Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district," +said and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney as familiarly +and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according +to the latest examples. + +Little Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return. +Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction +and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a +bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury +learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about +him. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says the +coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery +of the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have +already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the +law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in +attendance who knows anything more?" + +Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn. + +Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have +you got to say about this? + +Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and +without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the +court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been +well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one +before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen +months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live +such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the +plaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--was +reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in +which that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and +considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go +about some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins +may be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her +husband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and +worrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you +cannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be +Methoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and +his dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from +his pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear +and has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never +however see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far +from it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not +partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor +grown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing +down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here +would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent). + +Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is +not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of +the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr. +Tulkinghorn. + +Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen! + +Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop +a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary +paces. + +Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody +has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is +short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't find +no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No father, no +mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a +broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect +who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't +exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie +to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to +punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth. + +"This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake +of the head. + +"Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks an +attentive juryman. + +"Out of the question," says the coroner. "You have heard the boy. +'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a court +of justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy aside." + +Boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially +of Little Swills, the comic vocalist. + +Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness. + +Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in +the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, +found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to +lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come +to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, +you will find a verdict accordingly. + +Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are +discharged. Good afternoon. + +While the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give +private audience to the rejected witness in a corner. + +That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he +recognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes +hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when +he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man +turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and +found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have I. +Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. +That the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he +slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he +ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man +had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as poor as you to-day, +Jo," but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most +heartily believes) been glad to give him some. + +"He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his +wretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I +wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he +wos!" + +As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a +half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past your crossing +with my little woman--I mean a lady--" says Mr. Snagsby with his +finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" + +For some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms +colloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of +pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two stroll to +Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and +top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several hands. Being +asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his +strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy start." The +landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular, +commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a +song in character he don't know his equal and that that man's +character-wardrobe would fill a cart. + +Thus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then +flares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving, +the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced +(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and +support first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little +Swills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short +description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Is +much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes +in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes +the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, +to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol +lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee! + +The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally +round their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now +laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt +eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If this +forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the +mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised +to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon +the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would +have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within +him ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is +she, while these ashes are above the ground! + +It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court, +where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself +allows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into +twenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender +heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been +imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may, +now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's +account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time +she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch +cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came +out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of +fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically +availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not +to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals to +the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed. +Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in +Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the +subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most +patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!" + +What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he +strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men +crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what +cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that +daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. + +Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers +as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off +the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard, +pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated +to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed, +while our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official +back-stairs--would to heaven they HAD departed!--are very complacent +and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would +reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they +bring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian burial. + +With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little +tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy +of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of +death in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down +a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in +corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful +testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this +boastful island together. + +Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too +long by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the +windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at +least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so +sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its +witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to +every passerby, "Look here!" + +With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to +the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and +looks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while. + +It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and +makes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks in +again a little while, and so departs. + +Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can't +exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, +thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a +distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "He wos wery +good to me, he wos!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +On the Watch + + +It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney +Wold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, +for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The +fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad +tidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will +entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the +BEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a +giant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat +in Lincolnshire. + +For the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and +of Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in +the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper +limits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect +from the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle +woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves +and drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows +of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It +looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars +and patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Athwart +the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a +broad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the +hearth and seems to rend it. + +Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and +Sir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir +Leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a +considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging +demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs +with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they +rattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendome and +canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de +Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and +queen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the +Gate of the Star, out of Paris. + +Sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady +Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, +drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only +last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing +with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace +Garden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more +Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles +filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a +word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little +gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing +Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, +tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and +much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday, my +Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, +almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. + +She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies +before her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of it round +the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect remedy +is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. +Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless +avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let +it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck +glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain--two dark +square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it +aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream! + +Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. +When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own +greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so +inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in +his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to +society. + +"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my +Lady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read +a page in twenty miles. + +"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever." + +"I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?" + +"You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration. + +"Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!" + +"He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends," says Sir Leicester, +selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. Our +stopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of +my memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--" Sir Leicester is so +long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady looks +a little irritated. "He says 'In the matter of the right of way--' I +beg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes! Here I have it! +He says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope, +has benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as +it may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return +in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery +suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen +him.'" + +My Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window. + +"That's the message," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady, still looking out of +her window. + +"Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady with unmistakable +distinctness. "Please to stop the carriage." + +The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the +rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an +impatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and +walks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous +politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a +minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles, +looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of +a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage. + +The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three +days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more +or less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly +politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme +of general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady, +says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be +her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each +other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in +hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, +how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her +gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is +ravishing! + +The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like +the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose +countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in +whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the +Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it +after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney +Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire. + +Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and +through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare +trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched +at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to +coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their +lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of +the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing +that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with +malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the +question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, +incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting +in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the +travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly +through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an +inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the +brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that. + +Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's +customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you." + +"I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir +Leicester?" + +"In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell." + +"My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell with +another curtsy. + +My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is +as wearily well as she can hope to be. + +But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who +has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she +may have conquered, asks, "Who is that girl?" + +"A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa." + +"Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance +of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" she says, +touching her shoulder with her two forefingers. + +Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" and +glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks +all the prettier. + +"How old are you?" + +"Nineteen, my Lady." + +"Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don't spoil +you by flattery." + +"Yes, my Lady." + +My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers +and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester +pauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a +panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what +to make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the +days of Queen Elizabeth. + +That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but +murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so +beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling +touch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this, +not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of +affability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven +forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of +that excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world +admires; but if my Lady would only be "a little more free," not quite +so cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more +affable. + +"'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only "almost" because it +borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it +is, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--"that my +Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young +lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of +excellence she wants." + +"Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says +Watt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good +grandson. + +"More and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "are +words it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to +any drawback on my Lady." + +"I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?" + +"If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always +reason to be." + +"Well," says Watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their +prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and +vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!" + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for +joking." + +"Sir Leicester is no joke by any means," says Watt, "and I humbly ask +his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and +their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my +stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller +might?" + +"Surely, none in the world, child." + +"I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I have an inexpressible +desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." + +He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. +But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that +burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding +forth about her at this moment with surpassing energy. + +My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in +the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown +woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline +mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws +too eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably +keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking +out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could +be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour +and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little +adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to +go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being +accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is +almost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language; +consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for +having attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with +such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the +affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon +stage of that performance. + +Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years +and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, +caressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her +arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty you +are, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old are +you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!" +Oh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether. + +In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense +can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her +countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of +visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment +expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of +face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which +intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's +mirrors when my Lady is not among them. + +All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of +them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering +faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not +submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to +pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable +intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen +scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their +being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By +day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and +carriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the +village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in +the trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my +Lady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of +jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is +almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of +the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. + +The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no +contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and +virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of +its immense advantages. What can it be? + +Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to +set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel +neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There +are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, +swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by +other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their +noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into +his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is +troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is +there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle +notwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got +below the surface and is doing less harmless things than +jack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no +rational person need particularly object? + +Why, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this +January week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who +have set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. Who in mere +lackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk +about the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the +things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow +should unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it +out! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by +putting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few +hundred years of history. + +There are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, +but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world +and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be +languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who +are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be +disturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder +and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves +in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be +particularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress +from the moving age. + +Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his +party, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester +Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see +to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate +used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a +Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment +that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited +choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie +between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be +impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be +assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of +that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the +leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to +Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, +what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of +the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the +Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What +follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces +(as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) +because you can't provide for Noodle! + +On the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends +across the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the +country--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it +that is in question--is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with +Cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament, +and had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got +him into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight +attaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear +upon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for +three counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you would have +strengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the +business habits of Muffy. All this, instead of being as you now are, +dependent on the mere caprice of Puffy! + +As to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences +of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and +distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but +Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the +great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no +doubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be +occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as +on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and +families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are +the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can +appear upon the scene for ever and ever. + +In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the +brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the +long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as +with the circle the necromancer draws around him--very strange +appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this +difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the +greater danger of their breaking in. + +Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of +injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not +to be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of +the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and +having an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, +and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. +He is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park +from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had +never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a +servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should +be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of +the library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining +flag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any +fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen +walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook. + +Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the +library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances +down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive +him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night +my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" + +Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." + +One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in +deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in +the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her. + +"Be so good as to attend," says my Lady then, addressing the +reflection of Hortense, "to your business. You can contemplate your +beauty at another time." + +"Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty." + +"That," says my Lady, "you needn't contemplate at all." + +At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright +groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the +Ghost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady +remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards +them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never +slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a +mask--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every +crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great +or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his +personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; +he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself. + +"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his +hand. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My Lady +is quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his hands +behind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady +walks upon the other side. + +"We expected you before," says Sir Leicester. A gracious observation. +As much as to say, "Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when +you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a +fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is +much obliged. + +"I should have come down sooner," he explains, "but that I have been +much engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself +and Boythorn." + +"A man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes Sir Leicester with +severity. "An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a +very low character of mind." + +"He is obstinate," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"It is natural to such a man to be so," says Sir Leicester, looking +most profoundly obstinate himself. "I am not at all surprised to hear +it." + +"The only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give up +anything." + +"No, sir," replies Sir Leicester. "Nothing. I give up?" + +"I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you +would not abandon. I mean any minor point." + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," returns Sir Leicester, "there can be no minor +point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe +that I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor +point, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as +in reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. "I have now my +instructions," he says. "Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of +trouble--" + +"It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn," Sir Leicester +interrupts him, "TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, +levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have +been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and +severely punished--if not," adds Sir Leicester after a moment's +pause, "if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." + +Sir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in +passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory +thing to having the sentence executed. + +"But night is coming on," says he, "and my Lady will take cold. My +dear, let us go in." + +As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. +Tulkinghorn for the first time. + +"You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened +to inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had +quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't +imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely +had some." + +"You had some?" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats. + +"Oh, yes!" returns my Lady carelessly. "I think I must have had some. +And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that +actual thing--what is it!--affidavit?" + +"Yes." + +"How very odd!" + +They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted +in the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows +brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, +through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape +shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller +besides the waste of clouds. + +My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir +Leicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands +before the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face. +He looks across his arm at my Lady. + +"Yes," he says, "I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what +is very strange, I found him--" + +"Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!" Lady Dedlock +languidly anticipates. + +"I found him dead." + +"Oh, dear me!" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the +fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. + +"I was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken +place--and I found him dead." + +"You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn," observes Sir Leicester. "I +think the less said--" + +"Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my Lady +speaking). "It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! +Dead?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head. +"Whether by his own hand--" + +"Upon my honour!" cries Sir Leicester. "Really!" + +"Do let me hear the story!" says my Lady. + +"Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say--" + +"No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels +that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is +really--really-- + +"I was about to say," resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, +"that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my +power to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying +that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his +own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be +known. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison +accidentally." + +"And what kind of man," my Lady asks, "was this deplorable creature?" + +"Very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his head. "He +had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour +and his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him +the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had +once been something better, both in appearance and condition." + +"What did they call the wretched being?" + +"They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his +name." + +"Not even any one who had attended on him?" + +"No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found +him." + +"Without any clue to anything more?" + +"Without any; there was," says the lawyer meditatively, "an old +portmanteau, but--No, there were no papers." + +During the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady +Dedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their +customary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as +was natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir +Leicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the +Dedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his stately +protest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my +Lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he +was a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a +subject so far removed from my Lady's station. + +"Certainly, a collection of horrors," says my Lady, gathering up her +mantles and furs, "but they interest one for the moment! Have the +kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she +passes out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner +and insolent grace. They meet again at dinner--again, next +day--again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the +same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable +to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr. +Tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble +confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. They +appear to take as little note of one another as any two people +enclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore +watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great +reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the +other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know +how much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their +own hearts. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first +without Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him, +but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard +said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he +might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had +thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what +he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and +it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide +within himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary +boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he +really HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out. + +"How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, +"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and +procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't +pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is +responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or +confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that, +and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing +everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of +much older and steadier people may be even changed by the +circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a +boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and +escape them." + +I felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I +thought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's +education had not counteracted those influences or directed his +character. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt, +I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most +admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's +business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings +lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to +the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection +that if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he +could only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had +enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I +had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and +very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always +remembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not +have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his +studying them quite so much. + +To be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know +whether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to +the same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever +did. + +"I haven't the least idea," said Richard, musing, "what I had better +be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church, +it's a toss-up." + +"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. + +"I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating. +Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital +profession!" + +"Surgeon--" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. + +"That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard. + +I doubt if he had ever once thought of it before. + +"That's the thing, sir," repeated Richard with the greatest +enthusiasm. "We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!" + +He was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily. +He said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it, +the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was +the art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this +conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for +himself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the +discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of +the trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses +often ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case. + +Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put +it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter. +Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably +told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about +something else. + +"By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in +the subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing +weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry +devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is +in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary +task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that +illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base +and despicable," cried Mr. Boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons +aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of every +member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a +transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if +the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!" + +"Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Eight and +forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar +gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such +speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver +mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it +were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a +language spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who +meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of +knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of +their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with +pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the +necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in +Surgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order +that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in +early life, HOW thick skulls may become!" + +He wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a +most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" over and +over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite +subdued by the exertion. + +As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice +after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr. +Jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me +in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became advisable +to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to +dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his +eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did +exactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little +girl. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr. +Jarndyce, a very good profession." + +"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently +pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at Richard. + +"Oh, no doubt," said Mr. Kenge. "Diligently." + +"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are +worth much," said Mr. Jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration +which another choice would be likely to escape." + +"Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so +meritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic +shades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply +the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in +that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born, +not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he +enters." + +"You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I +shall go at it and do my best." + +"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head. +"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it +and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those +expressions, "I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into +the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with +reference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent +practitioner. Is there any one in view at present?" + +"No one, Rick, I think?" said my guardian. + +"No one, sir," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there any +particular feeling on that head?" + +"N--no," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge again. + +"I should like a little variety," said Richard; "I mean a good range +of experience." + +"Very requisite, no doubt," returned Mr. Kenge. "I think this may be +easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to +discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make +our want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our +only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number. +We have only, in the second place, to observe those little +formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our +being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be--shall I +say, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our +heart's content. It is a coincidence," said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of +melancholy in his smile, "one of those coincidences which may or may +not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that +I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed +eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I +can answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!" + +As this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr. +Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed +to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we +should make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it. + +Mr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a +cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop. +London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours +at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of +exhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres, +too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth +seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to +be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. + +I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was +in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to +look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down +upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt +all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but +constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared +expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. + +It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very +embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we +never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always +with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a +general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in, +and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little +while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his +languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be +quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening. + +I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only +have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been +bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at +me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a +constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to +cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing +naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box, +I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on +having me next them and that they could never have talked together so +happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not +knowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes +were following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this +young man was putting himself on my account. + +Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the +young man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him. +Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the +possibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes. +Sometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I +felt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write +to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a +correspondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to +the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's +perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any +theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we +were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where I am sure I +saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful +spikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The +upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and +my bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near +the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one +moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching +cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the +daytime, I really should have had no rest from him. + +While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so +extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring +us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham +Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large +public institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard +into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that +those could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and +Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger +"well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent +was obtained, and it was all settled. + +On the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr. +Badger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house. +We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said; and +we found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in +the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a +little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, +playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, +reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. +She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, +and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her +accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there +was any harm in it. + +Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking +gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised +eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He +admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the +curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands. +We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite +triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham +Badger's third!" + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the +appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former +husbands?" + +I said "Not at all!" + +"And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence. +"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first +husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of +Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European +reputation." + +Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled. + +"Yes, my dear!" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, "I was observing to +Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former +husbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people +generally do, difficult to believe." + +"I was barely twenty," said Mrs. Badger, "when I married Captain +Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am +quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I +became the wife of Professor Dingo." + +"Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger in an undertone. + +"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger, +"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached +to the day." + +"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them +highly distinguished men," said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts, +"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the +forenoon!" + +We all expressed our admiration. + +"But for Mr. Badger's modesty," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I would take +leave to correct him and say three distinguished men." + +"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!" observed Mrs. +Badger. + +"And, my dear," said Mr. Badger, "what do I always tell you? That +without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction +as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many +opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really," said Mr. +Badger to us generally, "so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on +the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and +Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce," +continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next +drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on +his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from +the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But +it's a very fine head. A very fine head!" + +We all echoed, "A very fine head!" + +"I feel when I look at it," said Mr. Badger, "'That's a man I should +like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that +Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor +Dingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking +likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over +the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger +IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy." + +Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very +genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and +the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had +the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full +benefit of them. + +"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me +the professor's goblet, James!" + +Ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass. + +"Astonishing how they keep!" said Mr. Badger. "They were presented to +Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean." + +He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret. + +"Not that claret!" he said. "Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON +an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have. +(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that +was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You +will find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of +this wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress, +James!) My love, your health!" + +After dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and +second husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a +biographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser +before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the +time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler, +given to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour. + +"The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She was +a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser +used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a +nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved +that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he +frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he +would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck +where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he +fell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire +from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes." + +Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. + +"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she +resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. Such +an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with +science--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the professor's +sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I +had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that +the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr. +Badger is not in the least like either!" + +We then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and +Professor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints. +In the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never +madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection, +never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser. +The professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and +Mrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great +difficulty, "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!" +when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb. + +Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past, +that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's +society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be +separated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we +got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent +than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my +arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden. + +"My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell +you!" + +A mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt! + +"What is it, Ada?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +"Shall I try to guess?" said I. + +"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!" cried Ada, very much startled by the +idea of my doing so. + +"Now, I wonder who it can be about?" said I, pretending to consider. + +"It's about--" said Ada in a whisper. "It's about--my cousin +Richard!" + +"Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I +could see. "And what about him?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +It was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her +face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little +glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet. + +"He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he +says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther." + +"Does he indeed?" said I. "I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet +of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" + +To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me +round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant! + +"Why, my darling," said I, "what a goose you must take me for! Your +cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't +know how long!" + +"And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me. + +"No, my love," said I. "I waited to be told." + +"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?" +returned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the +hardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no +very freely. + +"And now," said I, "I know the worst of it." + +"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada, +holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. + +"No?" said I. "Not even that?" + +"No, not even that!" said Ada, shaking her head. + +"Why, you never mean to say--" I was beginning in joke. + +But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "Yes, I do! +You know, you know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my heart I +do! With all my whole heart, Esther!" + +I told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I +had known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the +talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of +it); and Ada was soon quiet and happy. + +"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked. + +"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet," said I, "I should think my +cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know." + +"We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, "and +we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't +mind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?" + +"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I. + +"I am not quite certain," returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that +would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but I +think he's waiting at the door." + +There he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me, +and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love +with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so +trustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a +little while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself--and +then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how +there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could +come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were +real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do +their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and +perseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said +that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that +she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called +me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there, +advising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I +gave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow. + +So, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in +the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him +that I had it in trust to tell him something. + +"Well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have +accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it." + +"I hope not, guardian," said I. "I can guarantee that there is no +secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday." + +"Aye? And what is it, Esther?" + +"Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came +down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?" + +I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. +Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so. + +"Because--" said I with a little hesitation. + +"Yes, my dear!" said he. "Don't hurry." + +"Because," said I, "Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have +told each other so." + +"Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. + +"Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather +expected it." + +"The deuce you did!" said he. + +He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so +handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me +to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he +encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself +to Richard with a cheerful gravity. + +"Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. I +hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us +four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new +interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the +possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada, +don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. +I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was +afar off, Rick, afar off!" + +"We look afar off, sir," returned Richard. + +"Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears! +I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a +thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is +well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken, +or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such +wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I +will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one +another what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you +according to that assumption is, if you DO change--if you DO come to +find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and +woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me, +Rick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be +nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and +distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and +hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it." + +"I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too +when I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in +respect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day." + +"Dear cousin John," said Ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place can +never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have +rendered to him is transferred to you." + +"Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now for our assumption. Now we lift our +eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before +you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive +you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never +separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a +good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy +in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great +men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely +meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition +that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could +be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts, +leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here." + +"I will leave IT here, sir," replied Richard smiling, "if I brought +it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to +my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance." + +"Right!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "If you are not to make her happy, why +should you pursue her?" + +"I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love," retorted +Richard proudly. + +"Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "That's well said! She remains here, +in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less +than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. +Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think +you and Ada had better take a walk." + +Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him, +and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again +directly, though, to say that they would wait for me. + +The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they +passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out +at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn +through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up +in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so +beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through +the sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the +years to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed +away into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that +had been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun +was clouded over. + +"Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian when they were gone. + +He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right! + +"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core +of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. "I +have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor +always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head. + +I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all +I could to conceal it. + +"Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little +woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." + +"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the +world!" + +"I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what Esther +never will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above +all other people!" + +I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else +at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It +was a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. He was rather +reserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least, +Ada asked me if I did not, and I said yes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Deportment + + +Richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and +committed Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in +me. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more +nearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both +thought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all +their plans, for the present and the future. I was to write Richard +once a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to +him every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, of +all his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and +persevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were +married; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all the +keys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day. + +"And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther--which it may, you +know!" said Richard to crown all. + +A shade crossed Ada's face. + +"My dearest Ada," asked Richard, "why not?" + +"It had better declare us poor at once," said Ada. + +"Oh! I don't know about that," returned Richard, "but at all events, +it won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in +heaven knows how many years." + +"Too true," said Ada. + +"Yes, but," urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather +than her words, "the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it +must be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that +reasonable?" + +"You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will +make us unhappy." + +"But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried Richard gaily. +"We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD +make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The +court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we +are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is +our right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right." + +"No," said Ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." + +"Well, well," cried Richard, "then we will forget all about it! We +consign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her +approving face, and it's done!" + +"Dame Durden's approving face," said I, looking out of the box in +which I was packing his books, "was not very visible when you called +it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do +better." + +So, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no +other foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man +the Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I, +prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career. + +On our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs. +Jellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It +appeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken +Miss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some +considerable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits +of the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the +Settlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt, +sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part +in the proceedings anything but a holiday. + +It being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, we +called again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to Mile +End directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, arising +out of a society called the East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I +had not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not +to be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have +strolled away with the dustman's cart), I now inquired for him again. +The oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the +passage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that +he had "gone after the sheep." When we repeated, with some surprise, +"The sheep?" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed +them quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was! + +I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following +morning, and Ada was busy writing--of course to Richard--when Miss +Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom +she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt +into corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and +then violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear +child wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other +contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little +gloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a +ploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches +that they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of +plaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different +patterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been +supplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely +brazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of +needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been +hastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She +was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked +very pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a +failure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by +the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. + +"Oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "Due east!" + +Ada and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr. +Jarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, "Ma's compliments, and +she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the +plan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she +knows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them +with me. Ma's compliments." With which she presented it sulkily +enough. + +"Thank you," said my guardian. "I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. +Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!" + +We were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if +he remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first, +but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him +on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then +withdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a +conversation with her usual abruptness. + +"We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn," said she. "I +have no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if +I was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!" + +I tried to say something soothing. + +"Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson," exclaimed Miss Jellyby, "though +I thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am +used, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be talked over if +you were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!" + +"I shan't!" said Peepy. + +"Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!" returned Miss +Jellyby with tears in her eyes. "I'll never take pains to dress you +any more." + +"Yes, I will go, Caddy!" cried Peepy, who was really a good child and +who was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. + +"It seems a little thing to cry about," said poor Miss Jellyby +apologetically, "but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new +circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that +that alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And +look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as +he is!" + +Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on +the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of +his den at us while he ate his cake. + +"I have sent him to the other end of the room," observed Miss +Jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, "because I don't want him to +hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going +to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt +before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll he nobody +but Ma to thank for it." + +We said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as +that. + +"It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned Miss +Jellyby, shaking her head. "Pa told me only yesterday morning (and +dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I +should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our +house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with +it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't +care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather +the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away." + +"My dear!" said I, smiling. "Your papa, no doubt, considers his +family." + +"Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson," replied Miss +Jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? His family is +nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, +and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end to week's end, +is like one great washing-day--only nothing's washed!" + +Miss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes. + +"I am sure I pity Pa to that degree," she said, "and am so angry with +Ma that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going +to bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my life, and I +won't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, +to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of THAT!" said +poor Miss Jellyby. + +I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs. +Jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing +how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said. + +"If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our +house," pursued Miss Jellyby, "I should have been ashamed to come +here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as +it is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to +see you again the next time you come to town." + +She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at +one another, foreseeing something more. + +"No!" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Not at all likely! I know +I may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am engaged." + +"Without their knowledge at home?" said I. + +"Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson," she returned, justifying +herself in a fretful but not angry manner, "how can it be otherwise? +You know what Ma is--and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by +telling HIM." + +"But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his +knowledge or consent, my dear?" said I. + +"No," said Miss Jellyby, softening. "I hope not. I should try to make +him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the +others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they +should have some care taken of them then." + +There was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened more +and more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little +home-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his cave under +the piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud +lamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister, +and had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that +Caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we +could recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time +conditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our +faces all over with his hand. At last, as his spirits were not equal +to the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and Miss +Jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence. + +"It began in your coming to our house," she said. + +We naturally asked how. + +"I felt I was so awkward," she replied, "that I made up my mind to be +improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told +Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked +at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I +was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr. +Turveydrop's Academy in Newman Street." + +"And was it there, my dear--" I began. + +"Yes, it was there," said Caddy, "and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop. +There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is +the son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was +likely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him." + +"I am sorry to hear this," said I, "I must confess." + +"I don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted a little +anxiously, "but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he +is very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, because +old Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break +his heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly. +Old Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed--very +gentlemanly." + +"Does his wife know of it?" asked Ada. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?" returned Miss Jellyby, +opening her eyes. "There's no such person. He is a widower." + +We were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on +account of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope +whenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his +sufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he appealed to me for +compassion, and as I was only a listener, I undertook to hold him. +Miss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss and +assuring him that she hadn't meant to do it. + +"That's the state of the case," said Caddy. "If I ever blame myself, +I still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married whenever we can, +and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't +much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is," +said Caddy with a sob, "that I shall never hear of Africa after I am +married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr. +Turveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does." + +"It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!" said I. + +"Very gentlemanly indeed," said Caddy. "He is celebrated almost +everywhere for his deportment." + +"Does he teach?" asked Ada. + +"No, he don't teach anything in particular," replied Caddy. "But his +deportment is beautiful." + +Caddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that +there was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to +know, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had +improved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady, +and that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her +lover for a few minutes before breakfast--only for a few minutes. "I +go there at other times," said Caddy, "but Prince does not come then. +Young Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it +sounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr. +Turveydrop had him christened Prince in remembrance of the Prince +Regent. Old Mr. Turveydrop adored the Prince Regent on account of his +deportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made +these little appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with +you, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she +likes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would +think well of him--at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think +any ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask +you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, who +had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very +glad--very glad." + +It happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss +Flite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our +account had interested him; but something had always happened to +prevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have +sufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any very +rash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to +place in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go +to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss +Flite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on +condition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to +dinner. The last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to +by both, we smartened Peepy up a little with the assistance of a few +pins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending +our steps towards Newman Street, which was very near. + +I found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the +corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the +same house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates +on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly, +no room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. On the plate +which, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I +read, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up +by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in +cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the +daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, +last night, for a concert. + +We went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was +anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business +to smoke in it all day--and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room, which +was built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight. +It was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms +along the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with +painted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed +to be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed +autumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or +fourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and +I was looking among them for their instructor when Caddy, pinching my +arm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. "Miss Summerson, Mr. +Prince Turveydrop!" + +I curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with +flaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round +his head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a +kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His +little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a +little innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an +amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that I received +the impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had +not been much considered or well used. + +"I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low +to me. "I began to fear," with timid tenderness, "as it was past the +usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming." + +"I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have +detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir," said I. + +"Oh, dear!" said he. + +"And pray," I entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any more +delay." + +With that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well +used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady +of a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and +who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then +tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies +stood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr. +Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment. + +He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, +false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded +breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon +to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and +strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a +neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and +his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though +he must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his +arm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown +to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he +flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, +round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, +he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had +wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not +like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the +world but a model of deportment. + +"Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson." + +"Distinguished," said Mr. Turveydrop, "by Miss Summerson's presence." +As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases +come into the whites of his eyes. + +"My father," said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting +belief in him, "is a celebrated character. My father is greatly +admired." + +"Go on, Prince! Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back +to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. "Go on, my son!" + +At this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on. +Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played +the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little +breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always +conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step +and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His +distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire, +a model of deportment. + +"And he never does anything else," said the old lady of the +censorious countenance. "Yet would you believe that it's HIS name on +the door-plate?" + +"His son's name is the same, you know," said I. + +"He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," +returned the old lady. "Look at the son's dress!" It certainly was +plain--threadbare--almost shabby. "Yet the father must be garnished +and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd +deport him! Transport him would be better!" + +I felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, "Does he +give lessons in deportment now?" + +"Now!" returned the old lady shortly. "Never did." + +After a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had +been his accomplishment. + +"I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am," said the old lady. + +I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and +more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the +subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong +assurances that they were mildly stated. + +He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable +connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport +himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered +her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which +were indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment +to the best models and to keep the best models constantly before +himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of +fashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere +at fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best +clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little +dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and +laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the +mainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing +selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the +last, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving +terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable +claim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and +deference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the +deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, +and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a +day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary +pinnacle. + +"The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her +head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on +his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was +rendering. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is +so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might +suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the old lady, +apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could bite you!" + +I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with +feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the +father and son before me. What I might have thought of them without +the old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old +lady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of +things in the whole that carried conviction with it. + +My eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so +hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when +the latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation. + +He asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a +distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary +to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any +case, but merely told him where I did reside. + +"A lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his +right glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, +"will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to +polish--polish--polish!" + +He sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, I +thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the +sofa. And really he did look very like it. + +"To polish--polish--polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and +gently fluttering his fingers. "But we are not, if I may say so to +one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art--" with the +high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make +without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes "--we are not +what we used to be in point of deportment." + +"Are we not, sir?" said I. + +"We have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he could +do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "A levelling age is not +favourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with +some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been +called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal +Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my +removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that +fine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don't I know +him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little +matters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am--still repeated +occasionally among the upper classes." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +He replied with the high-shouldered bow. "Where what is left among us +of deportment," he added, "still lingers. England--alas, my +country!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. +She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed +us but a race of weavers." + +"One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated +here," said I. + +"You are very good." He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. "You +flatter me. But, no--no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy +with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my +dear child, but he has--no deportment." + +"He appears to be an excellent master," I observed. + +"Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that +can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can +impart. But there ARE things--" He took another pinch of snuff and +made the bow again, as if to add, "This kind of thing, for instance." + +I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover, +now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than +ever. + +"My amiable child," murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat. + +"Your son is indefatigable," said I. + +"It is my reward," said Mr. Turveydrop, "to hear you say so. In some +respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a +devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman," said Mr. Turveydrop +with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" + +I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her +bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was +a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the +unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't +know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a +dozen words. + +"My dear," said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know the +hour?" + +"No, father." The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold +one, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind. + +"My son," said he, "it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at +Kensington at three." + +"That's time enough for me, father," said Prince. "I can take a +morsel of dinner standing and be off." + +"My dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. You will +find the cold mutton on the table." + +"Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?" + +"Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and +lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that I must show +myself, as usual, about town." + +"You had better dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. + +"My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at +the French house, in the Opera Colonnade." + +"That's right. Good-bye, father!" said Prince, shaking hands. + +"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" + +Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do +his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so +dutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were +an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly +in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking +leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the +secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish +character. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put +his little kit in his pocket--and with it his desire to stay a little +while with Caddy--and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton +and his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with +his father than the censorious old lady. + +The father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner, +I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style +he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to +the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself +among the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost +in reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street that I +was quite unable to talk to Caddy or even to fix my attention on what +she said to me, especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether +there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing +profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their +deportment. This became so bewildering and suggested the possibility +of so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, "Esther, you must make up +your mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy." I +accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to +Lincoln's Inn. + +Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that +it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so +anxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he +would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short +words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. "He +does it with the best intention," observed Caddy, "but it hasn't the +effect he means, poor fellow!" Caddy then went on to reason, how +could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole +life in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag, +fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She +could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it +was far better for him to be amiable than learned. "Besides, it's not +as if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself +airs," said Caddy. "I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma! + +"There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone," +continued Caddy, "which I should not have liked to mention unless you +had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's +of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for +Prince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle +that it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever +I have tried. So I get a little practice with--who do you think? Poor +Miss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and +clean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she +taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says +it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old +Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can +make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and +tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am +not clever at my needle, yet," said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on +Peepy's frock, "but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been +engaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt +better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me +out at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat +and pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the +whole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to +Ma." + +The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched +mine. "Caddy, my love," I replied, "I begin to have a great affection +for you, and I hope we shall become friends." + +"Oh, do you?" cried Caddy. "How happy that would make me!" + +"My dear Caddy," said I, "let us be friends from this time, and let +us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right +way through them." Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in +my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would not +have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller +consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law. + +By this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood +open. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to +let on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded +upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and +that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and +window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room +with the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my +attention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it +was, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of +mournfulness and even dread. "You look pale," said Caddy when we came +out, "and cold!" I felt as if the room had chilled me. + +We had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada +were here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They were +looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to +attend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her +cheerfully by the fire. + +"I have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. +"Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is +set upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I +understand." + +Miss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a +general curtsy to us. + +"Honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in +Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my +humble roof!" with a special curtsy. "Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear"--she +had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her +by it--"a double welcome!" + +"Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we +had found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly, +though he had put the question in a whisper. + +"Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed," she said +confidentially. "Not pain, you know--trouble. Not bodily so much as +nervous, nervous! The truth is," in a subdued voice and trembling, +"we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very +susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr. +Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!" with +great stateliness. "The wards in Jarndyce--Jarndyce of Bleak +House--Fitz-Jarndyce!" + +"Miss Flite," said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he +were appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand +gently on her arm, "Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual +accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might +have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and +agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, +though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I +have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since +and being of some small use to her." + +"The kindest physician in the college," whispered Miss Flite to me. +"I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer +estates." + +"She will be as well in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at +her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. In other words, +quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?" + +"Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. "You never +heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or +Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of +shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the +paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So +well-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you +say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I +think? I think," said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very +shrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant +manner, "that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during +which the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long +time!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now +that's very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a +little slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other +day--I attend it regularly, with my documents--I taxed him with it, +and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and +HE smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it +not? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. +Oh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!" + +I congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this +fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of +it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder +whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me, +contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him. + +"And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his +pleasant voice. "Have they any names?" + +"I can answer for Miss Flite that they have," said I, "for she +promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?" + +Ada remembered very well. + +"Did I?" said Miss Flite. "Who's that at my door? What are you +listening at my door for, Krook?" + +The old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there +with his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels. + +"I warn't listening, Miss Flite," he said, "I was going to give a rap +with my knuckles, only you're so quick!" + +"Make your cat go down. Drive her away!" the old lady angrily +exclaimed. + +"Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said Mr. Krook, +looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at +all of us; "she'd never offer at the birds when I was here unless I +told her to it." + +"You will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified +air. "M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?" + +"Hi!" said the old man. "You know I am the Chancellor." + +"Well?" returned Miss Flite. "What of that?" + +"For the Chancellor," said the old man with a chuckle, "not to be +acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Mightn't I +take the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce +a'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never +to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go +there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one +day with another." + +"I never go there," said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any +consideration). "I would sooner go--somewhere else." + +"Would you though?" returned Krook, grinning. "You're bearing hard +upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though +perhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What, +you're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?" The old man had +come by little and little into the room until he now touched my +guardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his +spectacled eyes. "It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell +the names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em +all." This was in a whisper. "Shall I run 'em over, Flite?" he asked +aloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away, +affecting to sweep the grate. + +"If you like," she answered hurriedly. + +The old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went +through the list. + +"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, +Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, +Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's +the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by +my noble and learned brother." + +"This is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. + +"When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be +let go free," said Krook, winking at us again. "And then," he added, +whispering and grinning, "if that ever was to happen--which it +won't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." + +"If ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, pretending to +look out of the window for a weathercock, "I think it's there +to-day!" + +We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not +Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature +in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. +It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. +Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended +him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and +all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our +inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and +sometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had +passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon +some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. +I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive +of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he +could not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His +watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes +from his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the +slyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When +we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across +and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of +power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until +they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. + +At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house +and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was +certainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here on +the head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old +stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were +pasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands. + +"What are you doing here?" asked my guardian. + +"Trying to learn myself to read and write," said Krook. + +"And how do you get on?" + +"Slow. Bad," returned the old man impatiently. "It's hard at my time +of life." + +"It would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. + +"Aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a +wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. "I don't know what I may +have lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose +anything by being learned wrong now." + +"Wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "Who do you +suppose would teach you wrong?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!" replied the old man, +turning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. "I +don't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than +another!" + +These answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian +to inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn +together, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented +him, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason +to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually +was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, +of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, +as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him +mad as yet. + +On our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a +windmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take +off his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my +side. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we +imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back. +We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened +exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all +very happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, +with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. + +I have forgotten to mention--at least I have not mentioned--that Mr. +Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr. +Badger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or +that he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada, +"Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!" Ada +laughed and said-- + +But I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always +merry. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Bell Yard + + +While we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the +crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much +astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our +arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two +shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to +brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were +almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All +objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for +anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power +seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for +any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in +the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly +swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be +the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake +and found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole +procession of people. + +Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with +her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to +us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle +out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in +behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared +Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist +surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they +seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at +first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. +Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great +creature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale +meant in intellectual beauty--and whether we were not struck by his +massive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many +missions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing +respecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's +mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it +was the most popular mission of all. + +Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his +heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but +that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where +benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a +regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap +notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, +servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one +another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help +the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and +self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he +plainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale by +Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and +when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a +meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who +were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come +forward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, I think the wind +was in the east for three whole weeks. + +I mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed +to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness +were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and +were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly +undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to +give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole +divined this and was politic; I really never understood him well +enough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the +rest of the world. + +He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we +had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his +usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. + +Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were +often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he +was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view--in his +expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in +the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes +quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, "Now, my dear +doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you +attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money--in my +expansive intentions--if you only knew it!" And really (he said) he +meant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it. +If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind +attached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would +have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted +the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it--if his will +were genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to him that it was +the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. + +"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," +said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My +butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the +pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls +it a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I +reply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid. +You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You +are paid. I mean it.'" + +"But, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had meant the meat in +the bill, instead of providing it?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," he returned, "you surprise me. You take the +butcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very +ground. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence +a pound?' 'Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my +honest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. 'I like +spring lamb!' This was so far convincing. 'Well, sir,' says he, 'I +wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My good fellow,' +said I, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that +be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the +money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in, +whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He +had not a word. There was an end of the subject." + +"Did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. + +"Yes, he took legal proceedings," said Mr. Skimpole. "But in that he +was influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of +Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a +short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire." + +"He is a great favourite with my girls," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and I +have promised for them." + +"Nature forgot to shade him off, I think," observed Mr. Skimpole to +Ada and me. "A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too +vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every +colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!" + +I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very +highly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to +many things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides +which, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of +breaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole was referred +to. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly +pleased with him. + +"He has invited me," said Mr. Skimpole; "and if a child may trust +himself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do, +with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--I shall go. He +proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost +money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By +the by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss +Summerson?" + +He asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful, +light-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment. + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff," said Mr. +Skimpole. "He will never do violence to the sunshine any more." + +It quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with +anything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on +the sofa that night wiping his head. + +"His successor informed me of it yesterday," said Mr. Skimpole. "His +successor is in my house now--in possession, I think he calls it. He +came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him, +'This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed +daughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?' +But he stayed." + +Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched +the piano by which he was seated. + +"And he told me," he said, playing little chords where I shall put +full stops, "The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And +that Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses. +Were at a considerable disadvantage." + +Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr. +Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I +both looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing +in his mind. + +After walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his +head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and +stopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. "I don't like this, Skimpole," he +said thoughtfully. + +Mr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up +surprised. + +"The man was necessary," pursued my guardian, walking backward and +forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the +room and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high +east wind had blown it into that form. "If we make such men necessary +by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by +our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was +no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to +know more about this." + +"Oh! Coavinses?" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he +meant. "Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you +can know what you will." + +Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. +"Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as +another!" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with +us and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing, +he said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him! + +He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was +a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On +our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came +out of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket. + +"Who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his +chin. + +"There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here," said Mr. +Jarndyce, "who is dead." + +"Yes?" said the boy. "Well?" + +"I want to know his name, if you please?" + +"Name of Neckett," said the boy. + +"And his address?" + +"Bell Yard," said the boy. "Chandler's shop, left hand side, name of +Blinder." + +"Was he--I don't know how to shape the question--" murmured my +guardian, "industrious?" + +"Was Neckett?" said the boy. "Yes, wery much so. He was never tired +of watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten +hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." + +"He might have done worse," I heard my guardian soliloquize. "He +might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all +I want." + +We left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate, +fondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's Inn, +where Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer Coavinses, +awaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at a very +short distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a +good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or +perhaps both. + +"Neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "Yes, Surely, +miss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs." And +she handed me the key across the counter. + +I glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted +that I knew what to do with it. As it could only be intended for the +children's door, I came out without asking any more questions and led +the way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but four +of us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the +second story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there +looking out of his room. + +"Is it Gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an +angry stare. + +"No, sir," said I; "I am going higher up." + +He looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing +the same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and +followed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. "Good day!" he said +abruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head +on which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent +eyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which, +associated with his figure--still large and powerful, though +evidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his +hand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I saw that +it was covered with a litter of papers. + +Leaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at +the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "We are locked in. +Mrs. Blinder's got the key!" + +I applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor room +with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a +mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a +heavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather +was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets +as a substitute. Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that +their noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken +as the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its +head on his shoulder. + +"Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. + +"Charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze at us. + +"Is Charley your brother?" + +"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley." + +"Are there any more of you besides Charley?" + +"Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the limp bonnet of the child +he was nursing. "And Charley." + +"Where is Charley now?" + +"Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again +and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to +gaze at us at the same time. + +We were looking at one another and at these two children when there +came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd +and older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a womanly +sort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a +womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with +washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her +arms. But for this, she might have been a child playing at washing +and imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the +truth. + +She had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had +made all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very +light, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she +stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us. + +"Oh, here's Charley!" said the boy. + +The child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be +taken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of +manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us +over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. + +"Is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the +little creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy +keeping close to her, holding to her apron, "that this child works +for the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!" + +It was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and two +of them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet +with an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the +childish figure. + +"Charley, Charley!" said my guardian. "How old are you?" + +"Over thirteen, sir," replied the child. + +"Oh! What a great age," said my guardian. "What a great age, +Charley!" + +I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half +playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully. + +"And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?" said my +guardian. + +"Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect +confidence, "since father died." + +"And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley," said my guardian, +turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" + +"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing +to-day." + +"God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough to +reach the tub!" + +"In pattens I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as +belonged to mother." + +"And when did mother die? Poor mother!" + +"Mother died just after Emma was born," said the child, glancing at +the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to be as good a +mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and +did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began +to go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?" + +"And do you often go out?" + +"As often as I can," said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling, +"because of earning sixpences and shillings!" + +"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" + +"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder +comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and +perhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom +an't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" + +"No-o!" said Tom stoutly. + +"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and +they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't they, +Tom?" + +"Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright." + +"Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature--Oh, in such a +motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. +And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and +light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it +with me. Don't you, Tom?" + +"Oh, yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this glimpse +of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for +Charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty +folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. + +It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among +these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and +their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of +taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, +and by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried, although she +sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any +movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, +I saw two silent tears fall down her face. + +I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops, +and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the +birds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when I found that +Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken +her all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian. + +"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could +take it from them!" + +"Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time +will come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that +forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--This child," he +added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" + +"Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her +heavy breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as it's possible to +be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the +mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her +with him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. Blinder,' he +said to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there--'Mrs. +Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in +this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our +Father!'" + +"He had no other calling?" said my guardian. + +"No, sir," returned Mrs. Blinder, "he was nothing but a follerers. +When he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I +confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in +the yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a +genteel calling," said Mrs. Blinder, "and most people do object to +it. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, +though his temper has been hard tried." + +"So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. + +"So I gave him notice," said Mrs. Blinder. "But really when the time +came, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was +punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said Mrs. +Blinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, "and it's +something in this world even to do that." + +"So you kept him after all?" + +"Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could +arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its +being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent +gruff--but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been +kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is +proved." + +"Have many people been kind to the children?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder; "but certainly +not so many as would have been if their father's calling had been +different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a +little purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and +tapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little +subscription, and--in general--not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte. +Some people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some +people that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having +her to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and +perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than +others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the +full mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not +so bad, sir, but might be better." + +Mrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity +of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it +was fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his +attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the +Mr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way +up. + +"I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he +said, as if he resented our presence, "but you'll excuse my coming +in. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! +Well, little one! How is it with us all to-day?" + +He bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as +a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern +character and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My +guardian noticed it and respected it. + +"No one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said mildly. + +"May be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking Tom upon his +knee and waving him off impatiently. "I don't want to argue with +ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man +his life." + +"You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, "for +being chafed and irritated--" + +"There again!" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. "I am of +a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!" + +"Not very, I think." + +"Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if +he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of Courts of Equity?" + +"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow." + +"To your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath, "if so, I beg +your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir," with +renewed violence, "I have been dragged for five and twenty years over +burning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go +into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing +jokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell +you that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I," he +said, beating one hand on the other passionately, "am the man from +Shropshire." + +"I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing +some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian +composedly. "You may have heard my name--Jarndyce." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, "you +bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I +tell you--and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they +are friends of yours--that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I +should be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging +them in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get, +that I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that!" he said, +speaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. "You may +tell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it's in my nature to +do it, under wrong, and I must do it. There's nothing between doing +it, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman +that haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should +become imbecile." + +The passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his +face worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what +he said, were most painful to see. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. As true as there is a +heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father +(a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my +mother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me +except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my +brother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his +legacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it +already in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That +was the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one +disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had +been already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing +a bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced +there because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else. +Seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first +came on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years +while the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my +father's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal +creature. He then found out that there were not defendants +enough--remember, there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must +have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The +costs at that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the +legacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to +escape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my +father's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen +into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here I +stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands +and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine +less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was +in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?" + +Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and +that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this +monstrous system. + +"There again!" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. "The +system! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to +individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My +Lord, I beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? Have you +the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am +dismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer +the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in +Lincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by +being so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for I know they gain by +it while I lose, don't I?--I mustn't say to him, 'I will have +something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is +not responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of +them, here--I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried +beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that +system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!" + +His passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage +without seeing it. + +"I have done!" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. "Mr. +Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I +have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for +threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that +trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I +sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, +too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and +all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained +myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become +imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in +my part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have +this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits +together. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord +Chancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, and to +stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' 'My Lord, my Lord, I +know it would,' said I to him, 'and it would have been far better for +me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily +for me, I can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!' +Besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, "I'll shame them. To the +last, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I +was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to +speak with, I would die there, saying, 'You have brought me here and +sent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet +foremost!'" + +His countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its +contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was +quiet. + +"I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, +going to them again, "and let them play about. I didn't mean to say +all this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom, +are you?" + +"No!" said Tom. "You ain't angry with ME." + +"You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, +little one!" He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was +willing enough to be carried. "I shouldn't wonder if we found a +ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!" + +He made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a +certain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went +downstairs to his room. + +Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our +arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very +pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. +Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising +energy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious +blacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years +ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous +combativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the thorns--when the +Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact +thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise +he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or +he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of +parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery +had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was +much the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided +for. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father +of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. +Skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of +Coavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed +with Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan, +and his grand vizier had said one morning, "What does the Commander +of the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have +even gone so far as to reply, "The head of Coavinses!" But what +turned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving +employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to +Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up +these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these +social virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the +tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and +thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little +comforts were MY work!" + +There was something so captivating in his light way of touching these +fantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of +the graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even +as he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder. +We kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped +outside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where +she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in +her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of +the court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in +an ocean. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Tom-all-Alone's + + +My Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished +fashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day she +is at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow +she may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with +confidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble +to keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful +ally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts into the old oak +bed-chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs. + +Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a +demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male +line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of +man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved, +sir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have +taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but +the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the +levelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has +come down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the +pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. +Sir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he +has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the +discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the +aristocracy, "My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to +you another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout." + +Hence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder +as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels +that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically +twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, +but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has +for some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make +the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I +submit myself to the compromise." + +And a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in +the midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of +my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long +perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with +soft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in +the green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a +chase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode +a-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. Inside, +his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each of us was +a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and +melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks +now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness +too. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other +daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! + +My Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her +portrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of +remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of +the fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for +her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder +gapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to +another Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society, +that if that sort of thing was to last--which it couldn't, for a man +of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be +expected to bear it--there would be no resource for him, upon his +honour, but to cut his throat! + +What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the +house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the +outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him +when he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been +between many people in the innumerable histories of this world who +from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very +curiously brought together! + +Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any +link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question +by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to +keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to +live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. + +Jo lives--that is to say, Jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place +known to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a +black, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the +crazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by +some bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took +to letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements +contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined human wretch +vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd +of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; +and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips +in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more +evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, +and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to +Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly +to do it. + +Twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the +springing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has +fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and +have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain, +and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several +more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's +may be expected to be a good one. + +This desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an +insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so. +Whether "Tom" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff +or defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when +the suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers +came to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive +name for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the +pale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo don't know. + +"For I don't," says Jo, "I don't know nothink." + +It must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the +streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the +meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and +at the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To +see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen +deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that +language--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must +be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on +Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps +Jo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means +anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be +hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would +appear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there, +or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I AM +here somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the +creature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told +that I am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a +witness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the +horses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I +belong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose +delicacy I offend! Jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a +bishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only +knew it) the Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and +immaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest +thing of all. + +Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is +always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread +as he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses +not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the +Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives +it a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the +accommodation. He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what +it's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual +destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look +up the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit. + +He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The +town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and +whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been +suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower +animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is +market-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided, +run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and +foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often +sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like! + +A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog--a +drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and +evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for +some hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three +or four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the +street as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his +ears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog, +accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep, +ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls +of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been +taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen +to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal +satisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or +regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, +they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human +listener is the brute! + +Turn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years +they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not +their bite. + +The day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly. +Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the +horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for +the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas +begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, +runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is +beginning to close in. + +In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the +nearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a +disappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. We +are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow +shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened +Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points +with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively +toward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason, +look out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does +not look out of window. + +And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are +women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they are +at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of +that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a +woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all +secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. + +But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house +behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is +something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by +her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and +assumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she +treads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. Her face is veiled, +and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of +those who pass her look round sharply. + +She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her +and can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the +crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs. +Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other +side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, "Come here!" + +Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. + +"Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?" she asked behind her +veil. + +"I don't know," says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink about +no papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all." + +"Were you examined at an inquest?" + +"I don't know nothink about no--where I was took by the beadle, do +you mean?" says Jo. "Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?" + +"Yes." + +"That's me!" says Jo. + +"Come farther up." + +"You mean about the man?" says Jo, following. "Him as wos dead?" + +"Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so +very ill and poor?" + +"Oh, jist!" says Jo. + +"Did he look like--not like YOU?" says the woman with abhorrence. + +"Oh, not so bad as me," says Jo. "I'm a reg'lar one I am! You didn't +know him, did you?" + +"How dare you ask me if I knew him?" + +"No offence, my lady," says Jo with much humility, for even he has +got at the suspicion of her being a lady. + +"I am not a lady. I am a servant." + +"You are a jolly servant!" says Jo without the least idea of saying +anything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration. + +"Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from me! +Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I +read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where +you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the +place where he was buried?" + +Jo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was +mentioned. + +"Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to +each, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back. +Do what I want, and I will pay you well." + +Jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off +on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider +their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head. + +"I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" + +"What does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, +recoiling from him. + +"Stow cutting away, you know!" says Jo. + +"I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money +than you ever had in your life." + +Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, +takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with +his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire. + +Cook's Court. Jo stops. A pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull," says Jo in a +whisper without looking over his shoulder. + +"Go on to the next." + +Krook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"HE lived here," Jo answers as before. + +After a silence he is asked, "In which room?" + +"In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. +Up there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is the +public-ouse where I was took to." + +"Go on to the next!" + +It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first +suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look +round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they +come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted +now), and to the iron gate. + +"He was put there," says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. + +"Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!" + +"There!" says Jo, pointing. "Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, +and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the +top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver +it for you with my broom if the gate was open. That's why they locks +it, I s'pose," giving it a shake. "It's always locked. Look at the +rat!" cries Jo, excited. "Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the +ground!" + +The servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous +archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting +out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her, +for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands +staring and is still staring when she recovers herself. + +"Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" + +"I don't know nothink of consequential ground," says Jo, still +staring. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"Which?" says Jo, in the last degree amazed. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"I'm blest if I know," says Jo, staring more than ever; "but I +shouldn't think it warn't. Blest?" repeats Jo, something troubled in +his mind. "It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think +it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!" + +The servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take +of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some +money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her +hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling +rings. + +She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and +shuddering as their hands approach. "Now," she adds, "show me the +spot again!" + +Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and +with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, +looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds +that he is alone. + +His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light +and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. His next is +to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. +His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the +step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for +Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to +produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a +reassurance of its being genuine. + +The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady +goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is +fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; +he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous +pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the +fireside in his own snug dressing-room. + +"Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the +house, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. "His dressing-room is +on my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon +the Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Esther's Narrative + + +Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though +he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, +his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was +always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I +knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted +that he had been educated in no habits of application and +concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same +manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in +character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, +always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, +dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities +in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They +were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously +won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were +very bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they +would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, +they became his enemies. + +I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any +other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think +so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These +were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides +how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the +uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his +nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that +he was part of a great gaming system. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was +not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after +Richard. + +"Why, Mr. Carstone," said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I assure +you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say +of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn +to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough +as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of +mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may +render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I--you won't +think me premature if I mention it?" + +I said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such +an answer. + +"Nor Miss Clare?" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly. + +Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. + +"Why, you see, my dears," said Mrs. Badger, "--you'll excuse me +calling you my dears?" + +We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it. + +"Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so," +pursued Mrs. Badger, "so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that +although I am still young--or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the +compliment of saying so--" + +"No," Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public +meeting. "Not at all!" + +"Very well," smiled Mrs. Badger, "we will say still young." + +"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Badger. + +"My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of +observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old +Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser +in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and +befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. YOU never +heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would +not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, +but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to +me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo." + +"A man of European reputation," murmured Mr. Badger. + +"When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second," +said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were +parts of a charade, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing +youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large +one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man +seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to +throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific +Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed +biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there +was science to an unlimited extent." + +"Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Badger +reverentially. "There must have been great intellectual friction +going on there under the auspices of such a man!" + +"And now," pursued Mrs. Badger, "now that I am the wife of my dear +third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which +were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new +and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I +therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a +neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he +has not chosen his profession advisedly." + +Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she +founded her supposition. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," she replied, "on Mr. Carstone's character +and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he +would never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but +he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive +interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided +impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a +tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. +Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can +do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a +very little money and through years of considerable endurance and +disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the +case with Mr. Carstone." + +"Does Mr. Badger think so too?" asked Ada timidly. + +"Why," said Mr. Badger, "to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of +the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But +when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great +consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in addition to +its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by +two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men +as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The +conclusion at which I have arrived is--in short, is Mrs. Badger's +conclusion." + +"It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's," said Mrs. Badger, "speaking in +his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot +make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you +should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that +this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical +profession. + +"To all professions," observed Mr. Badger. "It was admirably said by +Captain Swosser. Beautifully said." + +"People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north +of Devon after our marriage," said Mrs. Badger, "that he disfigured +some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of +those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor +replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The +principle is the same, I think?" + +"Precisely the same," said Mr. Badger. "Finely expressed! The +professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, +when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer +under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. +The ruling passion!" + +Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and +Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was +disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to +us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We +agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; +and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious +talk with him. + +So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my +darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly +right in whatever he said. + +"And how do you get on, Richard?" said I. I always sat down on the +other side of him. He made quite a sister of me. + +"Oh! Well enough!" said Richard. + +"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?" cried my pet +triumphantly. + +I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I +couldn't. + +"Well enough?" I repeated. + +"Yes," said Richard, "well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and +humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!" + +"Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated. + +"What's the matter?" said Richard. + +"Do as well as anything else!" + +"I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, +looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as +well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." + +"Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair +from his forehead. "After all, it may be only a kind of probation +till our suit is--I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. +Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk about +something else." + +Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we +had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought +it would be useless to stop there, so I began again. + +"No, but Richard," said I, "and my dear Ada! Consider how important +it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your +cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any +reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It +will be too late very soon." + +"Oh, yes! We must talk about it!" said Ada. "But I think Richard is +right." + +What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, +and so engaging, and so fond of him! + +"Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard," said I, "and they +seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the +profession." + +"Did they though?" said Richard. "Oh! Well, that rather alters the +case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not +have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don't +care much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as well as +anything else!" + +"You hear him, Ada!" said I. + +"The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half +jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get +too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second." + +"I am sure THAT'S very natural!" cried Ada, quite delighted. "The +very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!" + +"Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like +yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day." + +"But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of +application--to life itself, except under some very uncommon +circumstances." + +"Do you think so?" returned Richard, still considering. "Perhaps! Ha! +Why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, "we +travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as well as +anything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk about something +else." + +But even Ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent and +trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much +more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting +heart--even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I +thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were +sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never +meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his +affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a +step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost +grave. + +"My dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "that's the very thing! I have +thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself +for meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly being +so. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or other to +stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling +cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to constancy +in other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!" +said Richard with an air of vexation. + +"That may be," I suggested, "because you don't like what you have +chosen." + +"Poor fellow!" said Ada. "I am sure I don't wonder at it!" + +No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried +again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I +could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while +he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him! + +"You see, my precious girl," said Richard, passing her golden curls +through and through his hand, "I was a little hasty perhaps; or I +misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie in +that direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is +whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems +like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." + +"My dear Richard," said I, "how CAN you say about nothing +particular?" + +"I don't mean absolutely that," he returned. "I mean that it MAY be +nothing particular because I may never want it." + +Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly +worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I +then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial +pursuit. + +"There, my dear Mrs. Shipton," said Richard, "you touch me home. Yes, +I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me." + +"The law!" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name. + +"If I went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were placed +under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the--hum!--the +forbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master it, and +to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly +conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own +interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and +all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour." + +I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering +after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast +a shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any +project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure +that his mind was made up now. + +"My dear Minerva," said Richard, "I am as steady as you are. I made a +mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any more, and +I'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know," +said Richard, relapsing into doubt, "if it really is worth-while, +after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!" + +This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that +we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion +afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open +with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was +naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once +(taking us with him) and made a full avowal. "Rick," said my +guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can retreat with honour, +and we will. But we must be careful--for our cousin's sake, Rick, for +our cousin's sake--that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in +the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We +will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it." + +Richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he +would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's +office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the +spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we +had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down +among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying +purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held +possession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him, +but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we +were going upstairs to bed, to say, "Cousin John, I hope you don't +think the worse of Richard?" + +"No, my love," said he. + +"Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such +a difficult case. It is not uncommon." + +"No, no, my love," said he. "Don't look unhappy." + +"Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!" said Ada, smiling cheerfully, +with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him +good night. "But I should be a little so if you thought at all the +worse of Richard." + +"My dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I should think the worse of him only +if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be +more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick, +for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has +time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not +I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!" + +"No, indeed, cousin John," said Ada, "I am sure I could not--I am +sure I would not--think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I +could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!" + +So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his +shoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the +picture of truth! + +"I think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "I think it +must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall +occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the +father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant +slumbers! Happy dreams!" + +This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with +something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well +remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard +when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while +since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was +shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and +even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once +more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally +been. + +Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised +him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her +clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed +her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy +she looked. + +For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up +working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was +wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least I don't +think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it +matters. + +At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I +would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I +naturally said, "Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!" And it really +was time to say so, for I--yes, I really did see myself in the glass, +almost crying. "As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead +of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!" said I. + +If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it +directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some +ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy +with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was +necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to +go on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to +bed. + +I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in +a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop +for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To +my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and +sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay +unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered +confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering +among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. +Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still +for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in +again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and +started. + +"Esther!" + +I told him what I had come for. + +"At work so late, my dear?" + +"I am working late to-night," said I, "because I couldn't sleep and +wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look +weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?" + +"None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand," said he. + +He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, +as if that would help me to his meaning, "That I could readily +understand!" + +"Remain a moment, Esther," said he, "You were in my thoughts." + +"I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?" + +He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change +was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much +self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, "None +that I could understand!" + +"Little woman," said my guardian, "I was thinking--that is, I have +been thinking since I have been sitting here--that you ought to know +of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing." + +"Dear guardian," I replied, "when you spoke to me before on that +subject--" + +"But since then," he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to +say, "I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my +having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It +is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know." + +"If you think so, guardian, it is right." + +"I think so," he returned very gently, and kindly, and very +distinctly. "My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can +attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a +thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not +magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." + +I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to +be, "One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: +'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time +will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and +will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'" I had covered my face +with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a +better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the +blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never, +never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that +he was never to be thanked, and said no more. + +"Nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, +"have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in +seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it +unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as +it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's +idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to +justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years +old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your +remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from +her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if +the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be +left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to +consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." + +I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. + +"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium +through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the +distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the +need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was +quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her +darkened life, and replied to the letter." + +I took his hand and kissed it. + +"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the +writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the +world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. +I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of +his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there +were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more +than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the +steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration +disclose. My dear, I have told you all." + +I held his hand for a little while in mine. + +"I saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making +light of it, "and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. +She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every +hour in every day!" + +"And oftener still," said I, "she blesses the guardian who is a +father to her!" + +At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He +subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been +there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they +had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, "That I +could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!" No, +it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day. + +"Take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the +forehead, "and so to rest. These are late hours for working and +thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little +housekeeper!" + +I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my +grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and +its care of me, and fell asleep. + +We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take +leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to +China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a +long, long time. + +I believe--at least I know--that he was not rich. All his widowed +mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his +profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very +little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at +the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness +and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was +seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly +seems to belong to anything. + +I think--I mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or +four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three +or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was +bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going +away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a +pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among +those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it +had a high opinion of him. + +When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for +the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, +but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time +ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan +ap-Kerrig--of some place that sounded like Gimlet--who was the most +illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations +were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life +in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and +a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his +praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, +Mewlinnwillinwodd. + +Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great +kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would +remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below +it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in +India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be +picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would +suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must +ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that +for a moment I half fancied, and with pain--But what an idle fancy to +suppose that she could think or care what MINE was! + +Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was +too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring +the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian +for his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he called them the +very happy hours--he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he +said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always +treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another--at least, +they did--and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand--and to +mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage! + +I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the +servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and +papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and +another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by +the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no +expectation of seeing! + +"Why, Caddy, my dear," said I, "what beautiful flowers!" + +She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. + +"Indeed, I think so, Esther," replied Caddy. "They are the loveliest +I ever saw." + +"Prince, my dear?" said I in a whisper. + +"No," answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to +smell. "Not Prince." + +"Well, to be sure, Caddy!" said I. "You must have two lovers!" + +"What? Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Caddy. + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" I repeated, pinching her +cheek. + +Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for +half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting +for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window, +every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they +looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into +my room and put them in my dress. + +"For me?" said I, surprised. + +"For you," said Caddy with a kiss. "They were left behind by +somebody." + +"Left behind?" + +"At poor Miss Flite's," said Caddy. "Somebody who has been very good +to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these +flowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little +things lie here," said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand, +"because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody +left them on purpose!" + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Ada, coming laughingly +behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. "Oh, yes, indeed +they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing. +Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Lady Dedlock + + +It was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for +Richard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was +the chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr. +Badger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave +him at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad +profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked +it as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more chance! +Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and +some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information +with great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began +to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His +vacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer +arrived before he finally separated from Mr. Badger and entered on an +experimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. For all his +waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to +be in earnest "this time." And he was so good-natured throughout, and +in such high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult +indeed to be otherwise than pleased with him. + +"As to Mr. Jarndyce," who, I may mention, found the wind much given, +during this period, to stick in the east; "As to Mr. Jarndyce," +Richard would say to me, "he is the finest fellow in the world, +Esther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his +satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up +of this business now." + +The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face +and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and +nothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us +between-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he +wondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of the +business was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about +midsummer to try how he liked it. + +All this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in +a former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully +persuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to +say to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about +the time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he needed to have +Fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in +this way, "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why +does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it +was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if +I had stayed at Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve +pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four +pounds--in a lump--by the transaction!" + +It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what +arrangements should be made for his living in London while he +experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak +House, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener +than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle +down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where +we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little +woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't +settled down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, +by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house +near Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had +in buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; +and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that +he had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and +expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out +that to spend anything less on something else was to save the +difference. + +While these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was +postponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging, +there was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with +us at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty +of his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel +the mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently we went without him, +and my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy. + +We made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and +had an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been +all cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it +on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to +think that it was gone. Chairs and table, he said, were wearisome +objects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of +expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them +out of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular +chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the +furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from +mahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took +one! + +"The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened +sense of the ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, +and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. +Now, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair +and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why +should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose +which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my +landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's +nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!" + +"Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that +whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay +for them." + +"Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's the crowning point of +unreason in the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you +are not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for +those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner. +Have you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the least." + +"And refused all proposals," said my guardian. + +"Refused all proposals," returned Mr. Skimpole. "I made him business +proposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a man of +business, I believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' said I, 'now +let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and +paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house +for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until +this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly +and business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use +of the figurative expression--which has something Eastern about +it--that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable +friend,' said I, 'I never have any money. I never know anything about +money.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if I give you time?' +'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of time; but you say you +are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a +business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am +ready to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is +foolish), but be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there +was an end of it." + +If these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood, +it assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a +very good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including +a basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for +anything. So when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly +asked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now--a liberal +one--and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it +was little enough too, all things considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce +to give it him. + +It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the +larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the +trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind +blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! +Late in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to +alight from the coach--a dull little town with a church-spire, and a +marketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and +a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men +sleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade. +After the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along +the road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as +England could produce. + +At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open +carriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was +overjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity. + +"By heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. "This a +most infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable +public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is +twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought +to be put to death!" + +"IS he after his time?" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to +address himself. "You know my infirmity." + +"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!" replied Mr. Boythorn, +referring to his watch. "With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel +has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. +Deliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his +father--and his uncle--were the most profligate coachmen that ever +sat upon a box." + +While he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us +into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles +and pleasure. + +"I am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the +carriage-door when all was ready, "that I am obliged to conduct you +nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir +Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn +never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the +present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!" +And here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his +tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little +market-town. + +"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove +along and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside. + +"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! Sir +Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels +here. My Lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if +particularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, "is +expected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she +postpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have +induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head +of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever +baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"I suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "WE may set foot in the park +while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?" + +"I can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head to +Ada and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon +him, "except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I +cannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold, +which is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day, +Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are +likely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an +eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks +in gorgeous cases that never go and never went--Ha ha ha!--but he +will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of +his friend and neighbour Boythorn!" + +"I shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "He is as +indifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the +honour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view +of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for +me." + +"Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it on the whole. It's in +better keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying +the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a +Sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect +to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the +Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is surprised +that I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the +shallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!" + +Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our +friend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his +attention from its master. + +It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among +the trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of +the little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods over +which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings +were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth +green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were +so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how +beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney, and tower, +and turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among +the balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was +one great flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity +and in the serene and peaceful hush that rested on all around it. To +Ada and to me, that above all appeared the pervading influence. On +everything, house, garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks, +fern, moss, woods again, and far away across the openings in the +prospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom +upon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose. + +When we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the +sign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr. +Boythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a +bench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside +him. + +"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name," said, +he, "and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady +Dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her +about her own fair person--an honour which my young friend himself +does not at all appreciate. However, he can't marry just yet, even if +his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. In +the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time +to--fish. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?" asked Ada. + +"Why, my dear Miss Clare," he returned, "I think they may perhaps +understand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I +must learn from you on such a point--not you from me." + +Ada blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey +horse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm +and uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived. + +He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn +in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked +orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable +wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything +about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old +lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the +cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the +gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested +on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like +profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled +about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and +winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and +marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a +vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of +wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where +the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such +stillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the +old red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the +birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that +where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still +clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the +changing seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to +the common fate. + +The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, +was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored +kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was +the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn +maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose duty was +supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large +bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog +established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal +destruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr. +Boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to +which his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn +warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. Lawrence +Boythorn." "The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. Lawrence Boythorn." +"Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and +night. Lawrence Boythorn." "Take notice. That any person or persons +audaciously presuming to trespass on this property will be punished +with the utmost severity of private chastisement and prosecuted with +the utmost rigour of the law. Lawrence Boythorn." These he showed us +from the drawing-room window, while his bird was hopping about his +head, and he laughed, "Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!" to that extent as +he pointed them out that I really thought he would have hurt himself. + +"But this is taking a good deal of trouble," said Mr. Skimpole in his +light way, "when you are not in earnest after all." + +"Not in earnest!" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. "Not +in earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a +lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the +first intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on +my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to come out and decide +this question by single combat, and I will meet him with any weapon +known to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in earnest. +Not more!" + +We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all +set forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the +park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a +pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful +trees until it brought us to the church-porch. + +The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the +exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom +were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There +were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old +coachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all +the pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. There +was a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome +old face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper +towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us +was close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her +by her beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was +of the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. +One face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed +maliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and +everything there. It was a Frenchwoman's. + +As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I +had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a +grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it +was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light +that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in +the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the +sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working +at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that direction, a +gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly +ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely +unconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great +people were come and that the service was going to begin. + +"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy +sight--'" + +Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the +look I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which +those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and +to hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine down--released +again, if I may say so--on my book; but I knew the beautiful face +quite well in that short space of time. + +And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, +associated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to +the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little +glass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen +this lady's face before in all my life--I was quite sure of +it--absolutely certain. + +It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired +gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir +Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her +face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in +which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so +fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her +eyes, I could not think. + +I felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it +by attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I seemed to +hear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well-remembered +voice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady Dedlock's face +accidentally resemble my godmother's? It might be that it did, a +little; but the expression was so different, and the stern decision +which had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks, was +so completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that +resemblance which had struck me. Neither did I know the loftiness and +haughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at all, in any one. And yet I--I, +little Esther Summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on +whose birthday there was no rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own +eyes, evoked out of the past by some power in this fashionable lady, +whom I not only entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I +perfectly well knew I had never seen until that hour. + +It made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation +that I was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of +the French maid, though I knew she had been looking watchfully here, +and there, and everywhere, from the moment of her coming into the +church. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last overcame my strange +emotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady Dedlock again. It +was while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She took no +heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it +revive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards +glanced at Ada or at me through her glass. + +The service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much +taste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by +the help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony +carriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, and so +did the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated all along +(Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were +a considerable landed proprietor in heaven. + +"He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it. So +did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!" + +"Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr. +Boythorn, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." + +"IS it!" said Mr. Boythorn. + +"Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very +well! I don't object." + +"I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour. + +"Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But +that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here +am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I +never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a +mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate, +here IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here +it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I +shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature +to give me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies +in effect, 'This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my +digestion and my bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the +necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points +outward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like +Milton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my +view of such things, speaking as a child!" + +"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said Mr. +Boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this +fellow. How then?" + +"How then?" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost +simplicity and candour. "Just the same then! I should say, 'My +esteemed Boythorn'--to make you the personification of our imaginary +friend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? +Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system +is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the social +system is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short. +Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go +to dinner!'" + +"But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and +growing very red, "I'll be--" + +"I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would." + +"--if I WILL go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and +stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "And he would probably +add, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'" + +"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his +gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "'Upon my life I +have not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that +name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find +it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. +But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and +I lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see, excellent +Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!" + +This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always +expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other +circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But +he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as +our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr. +Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long, +that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always +seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then +betook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never +finished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing +scraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and +looking at the sky--which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was +what he was meant for; it suited him so exactly. + +"Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), "are +delightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the +deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and +think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating +to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures +ask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? What good +does it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for +the purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as I +lie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on +American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say +they don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant +experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they +give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter +objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I +shouldn't wonder if it were!" + +I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs. +Skimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented +themselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand, +they rarely presented themselves at all. + +The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my +heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that +to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the +transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the +shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the +air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We +had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where +there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped +off. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by +thousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a +distant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in +which we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through +which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon +the Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard +thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle +through the leaves. + +The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm +broke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that +before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning +were frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if +every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for +standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the +moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two +broad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's +lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty +of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy +clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we +had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were +water. + +The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only +clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there +and put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all +thrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm. +It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove +the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn +thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the +tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to +consider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and +leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage +which seemed to make creation new again. + +"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" + +"Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly. + +Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken. + +The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice, +as I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange +way. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable +pictures of myself. + +Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there +and had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with +her hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I +turned my head. + +"I have frightened you?" she said. + +No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened! + +"I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure +of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, +Lady Dedlock," he returned. + +"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local +disputes of Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, I +believe--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show +you any attention here." + +"I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, +"and am sufficiently obliged." + +She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual +to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a +very pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful, +perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able +to attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her +while. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the +middle of the porch between us. + +"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester +about and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his +power to advance in any way?" she said over her shoulder to my +guardian. + +"I hope so," said he. + +She seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There +was something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more +familiar--I was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as +she spoke to him over her shoulder. + +"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?" + +He presented Ada, in form. + +"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character," +said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, "if you +only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me," and she +turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" + +"Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am +responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case." + +"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady. + +"Yes." + +"She is very fortunate in her guardian." + +Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed. +All at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of +displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again. + +"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. +Jarndyce." + +"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you +last Sunday," he returned. + +"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one +to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, +I suppose." + +"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that +you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me." + +"So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!" + +With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know +not what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than +children. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at +the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself +with her own thoughts as if she had been alone. + +"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than +you know me?" she said, looking at him again. + +"Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. + +"We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in +common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I +suppose, but it could not be helped." + +Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to +pass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, +the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to +glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there, +silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry +pace. + +"The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the +carriage." + +As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There +alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the +Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl, +the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused +and hesitating. + +"What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!" + +"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. "The +message was for the attendant." + +"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl. + +"I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that shawl +on me." + +She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl +lightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed, +looking on with her lips very tightly set. + +"I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not +likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send +the carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly." + +But as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful +leave of Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm, +and got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage +with a hood. + +"Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "I shall want you. Go +on!" + +The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she +had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had +alighted. + +I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride +itself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her +retaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She remained +perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and +then, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her +shoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same +direction through the wettest of the wet grass. + +"Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after +her. "Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece +as the best. But she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and +passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others +put above her, she don't take kindly to it." + +"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my +guardian. + +"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. + +"Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon +walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!" + +We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful +as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, +with a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing, +the birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed +by the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like +a fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very steadfastly and quietly +walking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went +Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Moving On + + +It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good +ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, +iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing +clippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of +ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their +papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The +courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. +Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might +sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, +walk. + +The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even +unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded +proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided +stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of +Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. +Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and +parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of +grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside +Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to +do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over +their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it +thoughtfully. + +There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to +sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his +circuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats, +no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved +gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the +judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays +from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he +comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer! + +The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How +England can get on through four long summer months without its +bar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only +legitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly +that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The +learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the +unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the +opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing +infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned +gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all +opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French +watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the +smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very +learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery +complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in +knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with +legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the +initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity +and dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same +great palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the +second cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled +on the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be +encountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely +member of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling +suitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety, +they frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades. + +It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young +clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, +pine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or +Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large. +All the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about +staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of +aggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their +masters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a +sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish +in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to +the adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and +keeps them simmering all night. + +There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be +cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in +dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those +retirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that +the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the +pavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his +cat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has +discontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills +is engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out +in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile +complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of +the most fastidious mind. + +Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of +rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long +vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor +Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a +sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a +law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn +and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons, +and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot +weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling +and a-bowling right round you. + +Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon +in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in +contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather +select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From +Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally +and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers +for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses +it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular +denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so +very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his +volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; +but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs. +Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, +Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she +was something flushed by the hot weather. + +"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, +"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" + +So Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the +handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of +holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little +drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the +portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, +the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision +made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin +slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows +of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be +brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is +rather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and +can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably +well. + +Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when +they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his +hand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs. +Chadband, my love?" + +"At six," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +Mr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone that." + +"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's +reproachful remark. + +Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says, +with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named the +time." + +"What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?" + +"Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. "Only when a person lays in +victuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to +time. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up +to it." + +"To come up to it!" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. "Up to it! As +if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!" + +"Not at all, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Here, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes +rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular +ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr. +and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner +door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is +admonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her +patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much +discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order) +by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to +announce "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, +whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence. + +Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general +appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. +Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves +softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk +upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were +inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a +perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting +up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is +going to edify them. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the +master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on +the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is +it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and +beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, +my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours." + +In consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby +thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received. + +"Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this +theme--" + +Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and +without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful +distinctness, "Go away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and in +my lowly path improving it--" + +Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred +and eighty-two." The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Mr. Chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit of +love--" + +Still Guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." + +Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be +persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, +says, "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!" + +"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which +he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, breathless. + +"For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "For his fare!" + +Guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on +summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are +proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the +tumult by lifting up his hand. + +"My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It +is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to +murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!" + +While Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as +who should say, "You hear this apostle!" and while Mr. Chadband glows +with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr. +Chadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions +indeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the +smallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions. + +"My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly +have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. +O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" + +With which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in +verse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, +lifts up his admonitory hand. + +"My friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being +spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my +friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because +we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of +the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We +cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?" + +Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to +observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." But is +immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby. + +"I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and +obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it +because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, +without strength? We could not. What should we do without strength, +my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double +up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. +Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive +the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it," says Chadband, +glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter +which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, +from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from +sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good +things which are set before us!" + +The persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr. +Chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after +this fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their +determination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's +experience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and +much admired. + +Mr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at +Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion +of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned +appears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this +exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be +described as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or +other large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale +scale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court, +Cursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the +warehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease. + +At this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered +her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means +of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which +may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing +military music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards +crowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the +entertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted. + +"And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the +shop," says Mr. Snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company will +excuse me for half a minute." + +Mr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently +contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm. + +"Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!" + +"This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, +won't move on--" + +"I'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy +tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever +since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do +move!" + +"He won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight +professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his +stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and +therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a +young gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on." + +"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite +desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of +Mr. Snagsby's passage. + +"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of +you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My +instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five +hundred times." + +"But where?" cries the boy. + +"Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and +coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt, +"really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?" + +"My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My +instructions are that this boy is to move on." + +Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the +great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years +in this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand +recipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the +be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on! +You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at +all agree about that. Move on! + +Mr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed, +but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any +direction. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby, +hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having +never left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled. + +"The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know +this boy. He says you do." + +Mrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "No he don't!" + +"My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. "My +love, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know +something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that +there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." To whom the +law-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing +the half-crown fact. + +"Well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for +what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you +knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was +acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if +I'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem +inclined to keep his word, but--Oh! Here IS the young man!" + +Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the +chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. + +"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row +going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was +mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into." + +"It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I am +obliged to you." And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again +suppressing the half-crown fact. + +"Now, I know where you live," says the constable, then, to Jo. "You +live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live +in, ain't it?" + +"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "They +wouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent +place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such +a reg'lar one as me!" + +"You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. + +"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I leave +you to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the +constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting my hand +upon him!" + +"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos +give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to +my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the +ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground +wot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the +inkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses 'can you +show me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me +'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I +an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says Jo, with dirty tears, +"fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd +square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved +another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence +and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it." + +"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the +sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with +ineffable disdain. + +"I don't know as I do, sir," replies Jo. "I don't expect nothink at +all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it." + +"You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "Well, +Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for +his moving on?" + +"No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs. + +"My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt +he'll move on. You know you really must do it," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo. + +"Do it, then," observes the constable. "You know what you have got to +do. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch +hold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better +for all parties." + +With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as +a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good +afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for +him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat +in his hand for a little ventilation. + +Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has +awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy, +who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has +been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, +takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular +cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by +the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs +and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of +the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy +yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into +the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a +witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape +like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him +according to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such +model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its +being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs. +Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition, +but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law. +During the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband, +being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be +floated off. + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like +cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats +anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's." + +Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say +so!" + +"For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband. + +"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby +triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's +wife--Reverend Mr. Chadband." + +"Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband. + +"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring +his cross-examination. + +"No." + +"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. + +Mrs. Chadband shakes her head. + +"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in +something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to +model his conversation on forensic principles. + +"Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke +with a hard-favoured smile. + +"Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy. "Very good. Pray, +ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions +(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and +Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take +time, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?" + +"Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before. + +"Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby +the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British +jurymen. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us +WHAT child." + +"You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another +hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time, most +likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child +named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and +Carboy." + +"Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited. + +"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. +"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. +'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." + +"My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small +apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that +young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment +to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking +you by the hand." + +Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed +signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his +pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers "Hush!" + +"My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which +was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the +comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon +the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may +it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it +proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of +anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of +spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual +profit? My young friend, stand forth!" + +Jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch +forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent +Chadband with evident doubts of his intentions. + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to +us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my +young friend?" + +"I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink." + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing +that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young +friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A +fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A +human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young +friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom, +because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now +deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a +stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. + + O running stream of sparkling joy + To be a soaring human boy! + +And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No. +Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a +state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because +you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of +bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of +love, inquire." + +At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have +been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his +face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses +her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding +itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right that +I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right +that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I +stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three +hours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor +has accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be +joyful!" + +Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My friends," says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "I will +not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my +young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to +deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty +swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the +day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?" +(This with a cow-like lightness.) + +Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, +gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs. +Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But +before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken +meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms. + +So, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he +should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable +nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave +off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life +until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo +moves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge, +where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast. + +And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great +cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a +red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might +suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion +of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his +reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the +crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some +purpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to "move on" +too. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A New Lodger + + +The long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river +very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy +saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his +penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into +his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, +but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting +nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual +energies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees +with him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool, +and stab his desk, and gape. + +Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken +out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's +two fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard +Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for +the time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes. +So exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the +confidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce +in the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good +enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, +he would have got it painted. + +Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool +in Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course, +sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants +to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he +shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these +profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains +to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of +chess without any adversary. + +It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find +the new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and +Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure +can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third +saunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office, to +wit, Young Smallweed. + +Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick +Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is +much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and +an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a +passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery +Lane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another +lady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made +article, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived +from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become +a Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman +(by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds +himself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular +confidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his +experience, on difficult points in private life. + +Mr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying +all the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after +several times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of +cooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent +drinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and +stirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr. +Smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the +thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a +state of hopeless languor. + +While thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, +surveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes +conscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below +and turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the same time, +a low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed voice cries, +"Hip! Gup-py!" + +"Why, you don't mean it!" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. "Small! Here's +Jobling!" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to Jobling. + +"Where have you sprung up from?" inquires Mr. Guppy. + +"From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any +longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon +my soul, I'm hungry." + +Jobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to +seed in the market-gardens down by Deptford. + +"I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I +want to get some dinner." + +"Will you come and dine with me?" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the +coin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly. + +"How long should I have to hold out?" says Jobling. + +"Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes, +returns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head. + +"What enemy?" + +"A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?" + +"Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says Mr. +Jobling. + +Smallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with much +earnestness that he "can't stand it." + +"You shall have the paper," says Mr. Guppy. "He shall bring it down. +But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and +read. It's a quiet place." + +Jobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious Smallweed +supplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon +him from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted +with waiting and making an untimely departure. At last the enemy +retreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up. + +"Well, and how are you?" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him. + +"So, so. How are you?" + +Mr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling +ventures on the question, "How is SHE?" This Mr. Guppy resents as a +liberty, retorting, "Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind--" +Jobling begs pardon. + +"Any subject but that!" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his +injury. "For there ARE chords, Jobling--" + +Mr. Jobling begs pardon again. + +During this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the +dinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper, +"Return immediately." This notification to all whom it may concern, +he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the +angle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron +that they may now make themselves scarce. + +Accordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of +the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang, +where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to +have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it +may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are +nothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish +wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain +there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he +drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his +collar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it, +whatever it is. In short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by +Law and Equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account +for whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices +that his father was John Doe and his mother the only female member of +the Roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a +blue bag. + +Into the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window +of artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of +peas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, Mr. +Smallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. He has +his favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald +patriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. It is of +no use trying him with anything less than a full-sized "bread" or +proposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut. +In the matter of gravy he is adamant. + +Conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience, +Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning +an appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue +of viands and saying "What do YOU take, Chick?" Chick, out of the +profundity of his artfulness, preferring "veal and ham and French +beans--and don't you forget the stuffing, Polly" (with an unearthly +cock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like +order. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the +waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of +Babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. +Mr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys +intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, +amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a +clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which +brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more +nice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost +of nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and +steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated +atmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break +out spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the +legal triumvirate appease their appetites. + +Mr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require. +His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening +nature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. The same +phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at +the seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed +circumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a +shabby air. + +His appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some +little time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and +ham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in +theirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. +Jobling, "I really don't know but what I WILL take another." + +Another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. + +Mr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half +way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at +his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his +legs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment, +Mr. Guppy says, "You are a man again, Tony!" + +"Well, not quite yet," says Mr. Jobling. "Say, just born." + +"Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?" + +"Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling. "I really don't know but what I +WILL take summer cabbage." + +Order given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of +"Without slugs, Polly!" And cabbage produced. + +"I am growing up, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork +with a relishing steadiness. + +"Glad to hear it." + +"In fact, I have just turned into my teens," says Mr. Jobling. + +He says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as +Messrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the +ground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a +veal and ham and a cabbage. + +"Now, Small," says Mr. Guppy, "what would you recommend about +pastry?" + +"Marrow puddings," says Mr. Smallweed instantly. + +"Aye, aye!" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. "You're there, are +you? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a marrow +pudding." + +Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a pleasant +humour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, by command of +Mr. Smallweed, "three Cheshires," and to those "three small rums." +This apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up +his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to +himself), leans against the wall, and says, "I am grown up now, +Guppy. I have arrived at maturity." + +"What do you think, now," says Mr. Guppy, "about--you don't mind +Smallweed?" + +"Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good +health." + +"Sir, to you!" says Mr. Smallweed. + +"I was saying, what do you think NOW," pursues Mr. Guppy, "of +enlisting?" + +"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one +thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another +thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I +to do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know," says Mr. Jobling, +pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an +English stable. "Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, and +mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so." + +Mr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion "much more so." + +"If any man had told me," pursues Jobling, "even so lately as when +you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over +to see that house at Castle Wold--" + +Mr. Smallweed corrects him--Chesney Wold. + +"Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any +man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time +as I literally find myself, I should have--well, I should have +pitched into him," says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water +with an air of desperate resignation; "I should have let fly at his +head." + +"Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then," +remonstrates Mr. Guppy. "You were talking about nothing else in the +gig." + +"Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I will not deny it. I was on the wrong +side of the post. But I trusted to things coming round." + +That very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their +being beaten round, or worked round, but in their "coming" round! As +though a lunatic should trust in the world's "coming" triangular! + +"I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all +square," says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and +perhaps of meaning too. "But I was disappointed. They never did. And +when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people +that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of +borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any +new professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference +to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what's a +fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap +down about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap +when you have got no money? You might as well live dear." + +"Better," Mr. Smallweed thinks. + +"Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have +been my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it," says Mr. Jobling. +"They are great weaknesses--Damme, sir, they are great. Well," +proceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water, +"what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?" + +Mr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in +his opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive +manner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than +as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart. + +"Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, "myself and our mutual friend Smallweed--" + +Mr. Smallweed modestly observes, "Gentlemen both!" and drinks. + +"--Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since +you--" + +"Say, got the sack!" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. "Say it, Guppy. You +mean it." + +"No-o-o! Left the Inn," Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests. + +"Since you left the Inn, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy; "and I have +mentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought +of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?" + +"I know there is such a stationer," returns Mr. Jobling. "He was not +ours, and I am not acquainted with him." + +"He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him," Mr. Guppy +retorts. "Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him +through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of +his in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer +in argument. They may--or they may not--have some reference to a +subject which may--or may not--have cast its shadow on my existence." + +As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his +particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, +to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the +human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by +remaining silent. + +"Such things may be," repeats Mr. Guppy, "or they may not be. They +are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and +Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in +busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all +Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our +mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?" + +Mr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn. + +"Now, gentlemen of the jury," says Mr. Guppy, "--I mean, now, +Jobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. +But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want +time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You +might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for +Snagsby." + +Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks +him with a dry cough and the words, "Hem! Shakspeare!" + +"There are two branches to this subject, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy. +"That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy in his +encouraging cross-examination-tone, "I think you know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane?" + +"I know him by sight," says Mr. Jobling. + +"You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?" + +"Everybody knows her," says Mr. Jobling. + +"Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of +late to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the +amount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of +instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her +presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into +a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. +You may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as +quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no questions +and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me--before the clock +strikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling," says +Mr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar +again, "he's an extraordinary old chap--always rummaging among a +litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and +write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most +extraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but what it might be worth +a fellow's while to look him up a bit." + +"You don't mean--" Mr. Jobling begins. + +"I mean," returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming +modesty, "that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend +Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't make +him out." + +Mr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, "A few!" + +"I have seen something of the profession and something of life, +Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "and it's seldom I can't make a man out, more +or less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret +(though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now, +he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him, +and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a +smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a +money-lender--all of which I have thought likely at different +times--it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I +don't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else +suits." + +Mr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on +the table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling. +After a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in +their pockets, and look at one another. + +"If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy with a +sigh. "But there are chords in the human mind--" + +Expressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water, +Mr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and +informing him that during the vacation and while things are slack, +his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound goes," will be +at his disposal. "For never shall it be said," Mr. Guppy adds with +emphasis, "that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!" + +The latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that +Mr. Jobling says with emotion, "Guppy, my trump, your fist!" Mr. +Guppy presents it, saying, "Jobling, my boy, there it is!" Mr. +Jobling returns, "Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!" Mr. +Guppy replies, "Jobling, we have." + +They then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, +"Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass +for old acquaintance sake." + +"Krook's last lodger died there," observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental +way. + +"Did he though!" says Mr. Jobling. + +"There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?" + +"No," says Mr. Jobling, "I don't mind it; but he might as well have +died somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at MY +place!" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times +returning to it with such remarks as, "There are places enough to die +in, I should think!" or, "He wouldn't have liked my dying at HIS +place, I dare say!" + +However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to +dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, +as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. +Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and +conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon +returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he +has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises, +sleeping "like one o'clock." + +"Then I'll pay," says Mr. Guppy, "and we'll go and see him. Small, +what will it be?" + +Mr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one +hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: "Four veals and +hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer +cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six +breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four +half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is +eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in +half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!" + +Not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed +dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a +little admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to +read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to +himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run his +eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to +have disappeared under the bedclothes. + +Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where +they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say, +breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite +insensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On the +table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle +and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that +even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut +and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk. + +"Hold up here!" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old +man another shake. "Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!" + +But it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a +spirituous heat smouldering in it. "Did you ever see such a stupor as +he falls into, between drink and sleep?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"If this is his regular sleep," returns Jobling, rather alarmed, +"it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking." + +"It's always more like a fit than a nap," says Mr. Guppy, shaking him +again. "Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times +over! Open your eyes!" + +After much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his +visitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another, +and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched +lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before. + +"He is alive, at any rate," says Mr. Guppy. "How are you, my Lord +Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter +of business." + +The old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least +consciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They +help him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them. + +"How do you do, Mr. Krook?" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. "How +do you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are +pretty well?" + +The old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at +nothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against +the wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it, +and then staggers down the shop to the front door. The air, the +movement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these +things recovers him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur +cap on his head and looking keenly at them. + +"Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, +odd times." + +"Rather so, indeed, sir," responds Mr. Guppy. + +"What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?" says the suspicious +Krook. + +"Only a little," Mr. Guppy explains. + +The old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up, +examines it, and slowly tilts it upside down. + +"I say!" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. "Somebody's been +making free here!" + +"I assure you we found it so," says Mr. Guppy. "Would you allow me to +get it filled for you?" + +"Yes, certainly I would!" cries Krook in high glee. "Certainly I +would! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door--Sol's Arms--the +Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!" + +He so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman, +with a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and +hurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it in +his arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. + +"But, I say," he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting +it, "this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is +eighteenpenny!" + +"I thought you might like that better," says Mr. Guppy. + +"You're a nobleman, sir," returns Krook with another taste, and his +hot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. "You're a baron +of the land." + +Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his +friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object +of their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets +beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time +to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. "You'd +like to see the room, young man?" he says. "Ah! It's a good room! +Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's +worth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and +such a cat to keep the mice away." + +Commending the room after this manner, the old man takes them +upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and +also containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up +from his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded--for +the Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as he is +with Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other famous claims +on his professional consideration--and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle +shall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then +repair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where the personal +introduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected and (more +important) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They +then report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office +in his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, Mr. Guppy explaining +that he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at +the play but that there are chords in the human mind which would +render it a hollow mockery. + +On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at +Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself +in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him +in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day +Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, +borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his +landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and +knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, +milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like +a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. + +But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next +after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only +whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of +copper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities +of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies +of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined +with capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent +portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion +among the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the +Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, +plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of +dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every +variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing. + +But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To +borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read +about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting +across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable +consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and +distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished +feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant +and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of +joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is +about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the +tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become +acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle +reverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated, +and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. + +For the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices +as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to +carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of +evening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not +visited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in +a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has inherited the +deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink--and talks to +Krook or is "very free," as they call it in the court, commendingly, +with any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who +leads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to Mrs. Perkins: +firstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em +to be identically like that young man's; and secondly, "Mark my +words, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, Lord bless +you, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Smallweed Family + + +In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one +of its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin +Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as +Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and +its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street, +always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like +a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree +whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of +youth. + +There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several +generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child, +until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her +intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With +such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, +understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall +asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has +undoubtedly brightened the family. + +Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a +helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, +limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, +the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of +the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and +other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used +to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in +his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life +he has never bred a single butterfly. + +The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of +Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting +species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired +into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's +god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it. +Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all +the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke +something--something necessary to his existence, therefore it +couldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As his +character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a +complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient +people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an +example of the failure of education. + +His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of +"going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp +scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman +improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and +developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the +discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as +his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and +anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and +marrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, +twins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this +family tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late +to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has +discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, +fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities +whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born +to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced +have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something +depressing on their minds. + +At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below +the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only +ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest +of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no +bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's +mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side +of the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while +away the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the +pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation +to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a +sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when +it is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded +by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain +property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with +which he is always provided in order that he may have something to +throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she +makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly +sensitive. + +"And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's +twin sister. + +"He an't come in yet," says Judy. + +"It's his tea-time, isn't it?" + +"No." + +"How much do you mean to say it wants then?" + +"Ten minutes." + +"Hey?" + +"Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.) + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." + +Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at +the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and +screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten +ten-pound notes!" + +Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. + +"Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. + +The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles +up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and +causes her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly +unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr. +Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a +broken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a +mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not +present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two +operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like +a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some +indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and +the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their +two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on +their post by the Black Serjeant, Death. + +Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so +indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded +into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions, +while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness +to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might +walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without +exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing +circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of +brown stuff. + +Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at +any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was +about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and +Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another +species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is +very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen +the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of +anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. +If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, +modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled +all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is +Judy. + +And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no +more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows +of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at +cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much +the better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an +opening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of +Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining +enchanter. + +Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron +tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she +puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a +small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as +it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is. + +"Charley, do you mean?" says Judy. + +"Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Charley, do you mean?" + +This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as +usual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over the water, +Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the +water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quite energetic about +it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently +recovered his late exertion. + +"Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. She eats a +deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep." + +Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her +mouth into no without saying it. + +"No?" returns the old man. "Why not?" + +"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy. + +"Sure?" + +Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes +the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts +it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidly obedient to +the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with +her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of +them, appears, and curtsys. + +"What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap at +her like a very sharp old beldame. + +"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley. + +"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for +me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground. +"You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half." + +On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the +butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, +looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens +the street-door. + +"Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?" + +"Here I am," says Bart. + +"Been along with your friend again, Bart?" + +Small nods. + +"Dining at his expense, Bart?" + +Small nods again. + +"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take +warning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The +only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage. + +His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he +might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight +wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces +then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs. +Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the +trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a +large black draught. + +"Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of +wisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you, +Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true +son." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly +pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear. + +"He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread +and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years +ago." + +Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with +"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen +hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!" Her +worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately +discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her +chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after +visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is +particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because +the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and +gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters +violent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the +contrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure +is suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if +he could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family +circle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely +shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is +restored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps +with her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, +ready to be bowled down like a ninepin. + +Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is +sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it +up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious +partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth +but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he +might have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but +just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been +making the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a +magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and +died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of +business care--I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a +cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of +yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, +just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born--you +are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!" + +Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect +in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups +and saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little +charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the +iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of +loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. + +"But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman, +"and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare +for you both that you went out early in life--Judy to the flower +business, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get +your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will +go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law." + +One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay +with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been +apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A +close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her +brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone, +some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some +resentful opinion that it is time he went. + +"Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing her preparations, +"I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she +took it by herself in the kitchen." + +Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, +sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In +the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed +appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the +remotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing +on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful, +evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached +by the oldest practitioners. + +"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shaking +her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance +which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your +victuals and get back to your work." + +"Yes, miss," says Charley. + +"Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls +are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you." + +Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so +disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to +gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting. +Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the +general subject of girls but for a knock at the door. + +"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy. + +The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss +Smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the +bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups +into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers +the eating and drinking terminated. + +"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy. + +It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or +ceremony, Mr. George walks in. + +"Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well! +Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makes the latter +remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?" + +"Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your granddaughter I +have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss." + +"This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n't seen +him before. He is in the law and not much at home." + +"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his +sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a +great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective. + +"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed +inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. + +"Pretty much as usual. Like a football." + +He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with +crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and +powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to +a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits +forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space +for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. +His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty +clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is +set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great +moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his +broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might +guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. + +A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper +was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a +broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted +forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little +narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones, +are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the +middle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands +upon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he +remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family +and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all. + +"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather +Smallweed after looking round the room. + +"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the +circulation," he replies. + +"The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I +should think." + +"Truly I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I can +carry my years. I'm older than HER," nodding at his wife, "and see +what she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of +his late hostility. + +"Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George, turning his head in that +direction. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor +cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up, +ma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr. +Smallweed," says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting +her, "if your wife an't enough." + +"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man hints +with a leer. + +The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why +no. I wasn't." + +"I am astonished at it." + +"So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to +have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the +long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody." + +"Surprising!" cries the old man. + +"However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better +now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two +months' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to +order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months' +interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it +together in my business.)" + +Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the +parlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black +leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the +document he has just received, and from the other takes another +similar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a +pipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every +up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them +from their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times +over and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice, +and is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to +be, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite +concluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and +fingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying, +"Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir. +Judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water +for Mr. George." + +The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all +this time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern +cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but +leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller +to the parental bear. + +"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. George +with folded arms. + +"Just so, just so," the old man nods. + +"And don't you occupy yourself at all?" + +"I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--" + +"When there is any," says Mr. George with great expression. + +"Just so. When there is any." + +"Don't you read or get read to?" + +The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have +never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness. +Folly. No, no!" + +"There's not much to choose between your two states," says the +visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks +from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder voice. + +"I hear you." + +"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear." + +"My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both +hands to embrace him. "Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in +the city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!" + +"Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, finishing the +inquiry in his lower key with the words "You lying old rascal!" + +"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him. +He will have his bond, my dear friend." + +"Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a +tray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the +brandy-and-water, he asks her, "How do you come here! You haven't got +the family face." + +"I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley. + +The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, +with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. +"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth +as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, lights his +pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one +solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination. + +"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" + +"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," +says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." + +Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing +over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty +thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty +guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is then cut +short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular +experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it +crushes her in the usual manner. + +"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion! +You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick +witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his +chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?" + +Mr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the +other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by +the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his +chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or +no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him +into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently +enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly +down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub +that the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards. + +"O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "That'll do. Thank you, my dear +friend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!" And Mr. +Smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear +friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. + +The alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and +falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the +philosophical reflection, "The name of your friend in the city begins +with a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond." + +"Did you speak, Mr. George?" inquires the old man. + +The trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow +on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his +other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a +martial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr. +Smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of +smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly. + +"I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his +position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a +round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead either) +that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?" + +"Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, Mr. +George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in +your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--" + +"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a +fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money." + +"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, +rubbing his legs. + +"Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence that I +ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I +am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I +rose in life that way." + +"Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet." + +Mr. George laughs and drinks. + +"Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a +twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or who +would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in +the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be +sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations, +Mr. George?" + +Mr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, "If I had, I shouldn't +trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day. +It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted +the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he +never was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The +best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my +opinion." + +"But natural affection, Mr. George," hints Grandfather Smallweed. + +"For two good names, hey?" says Mr. George, shaking his head and +still composedly smoking. "No. That's not my sort either." + +Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair +since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice +in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the +usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. +For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating +his late attentions. + +"Ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "If you could have traced +out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If +when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the +newspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of +my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital +in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give +me a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have +helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you." + +"I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says Mr. George, +smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of +Judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of +the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by +her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now." + +"Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?" says +Grandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation. +(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed +in her slumber.) + +"For two reasons, comrade." + +"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--" + +"Of our friend in the city?" suggests Mr. George, composedly +drinking. + +"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?" + +"In the first place," returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy +as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent +which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me in. You +advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying +'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his +advantage." + +"Well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply. + +"Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much to +his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and +judgment trade of London." + +"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his +debts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us +immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no +return. If I sit here thinking of him," snarls the old man, holding +up his impotent ten fingers, "I want to strangle him now." And in a +sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs. +Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair. + +"I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe from +his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the +progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, "that +he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand +many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him +when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him +after he had run through everything and broken down everything +beneath him--when he held a pistol to his head." + +"I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown +his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" + +"That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly; +"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone +by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to +a result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one." + +"I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. + +"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must +have gone to the other world to look. He was there." + +"How do you know he was there?" + +"He wasn't here." + +"How do you know he wasn't here?" + +"Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George, +calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long +before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether +intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in +the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?" he adds +after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the +empty pipe. + +"Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here." + +"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, +so it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty +granddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this +pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good +evening, Mr. Smallweed!" + +"My dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands. + +"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall +in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. + +"My dear friend, I am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking +up at him like a pygmy. + +Mr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting +salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing +imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes. + +"You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous +grimace at the door as he shuts it. "But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll +lime you!" + +After this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting +regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to +it, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two +unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant. + +While the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides +through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough +face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He +stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to +Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and +the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; +disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful +swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last +scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and +condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the +Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion. + +The theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes +his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and +Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent +foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts, +fighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses, +exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of +sight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court +and a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of +bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of +which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S +SHOOTING GALLERY, &c. + +Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are +gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for +rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances, +and all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these +sports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery +to-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man +with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the +floor. + +The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize +apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and +begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a +glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is +the strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he +has been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed +together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance +that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of +business, at some odd time or times. + +"Phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice. + +"All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet. + +"Anything been doing?" + +"Flat as ever so much swipes," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a +dozen pistol. As to aim!" Phil gives a howl at the recollection. + +"Shut up shop, Phil!" + +As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is +lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his +face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black +one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather +sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands +that could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all +the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over. +He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he +had no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round +the gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at +objects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them, +which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally +called "Phil's mark." + +This custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his +proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all +the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from +a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being +drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed +and Phil makes his. + +"Phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and +waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. "You +were found in a doorway, weren't you?" + +"Gutter," says Phil. "Watchman tumbled over me." + +"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning." + +"As nat'ral as possible," says Phil. + +"Good night!" + +"Good night, guv'ner." + +Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to +shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his +mattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the +rifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the +skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to +bed too. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Mr. Bucket + + +Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the +evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and +the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable +characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January +with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long +vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like +peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for +calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool +to-night. + +Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more +has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick +everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way +takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as +much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law--or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one +of its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the +eyes of the laity. + +In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which +his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, +animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of +the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained +man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He +has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, +which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as +he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken +brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the +echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote +reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an +earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant +nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to +find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of +southern grapes. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys +his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and +seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever, +he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at +that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with +darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in +town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his +family history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every +one--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and +a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was +seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is +supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold +watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely +home to the Temple and hanged himself. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual +length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and +uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining +man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him +fill his glass. + +"Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story +again." + +"If you please, sir." + +"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last +night--" + +"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but +I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, +and I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to +admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr. +Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask +you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure." + +"Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you +put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to +your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of +such importance that it requires to be mentioned." + +"Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is--not +to put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor +little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have +her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I should +say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it +concerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very +active mind, sir." + +Mr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his +hand, "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!" + +"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says Mr. +Tulkinghorn. "And to-night too?" + +"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in--not +to put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she +considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name +they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a +great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not +quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there. +My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to +step round in a quiet manner." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby." + +"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of +deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" + +"It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years +old." + +"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It +might be--any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to +the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his +hand for drinking anything so precious. + +"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr. +Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty +smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair. + +"With pleasure, sir." + +Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer +repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On +coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks +off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman +present!" + +Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face +between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a +person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he +himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of +the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not +creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third +person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in +his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. +He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of +about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he +were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about +him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing. + +"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way. +"This is only Mr. Bucket." + +"Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that +he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be. + +"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have +half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very +intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?" + +"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and +he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to +go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him +here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr. +Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." + +"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in +explanation. + +"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his +clump of hair to stand on end. + +"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the +place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to you +if you will do so." + +In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down +to the bottom of his mind. + +"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do +that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only +bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and +he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good +job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent +away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to +do that." + +"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And +reassured, "Since that's the case--" + +"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him aside +by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a +confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of +business, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are." + +"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns +the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--" + +"That's what YOU are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't necessary +to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a +business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his +senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in +your business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that +it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. +Don't you see? Quiet!" + +"Certainly, certainly," returns the other. + +"I don't mind telling YOU," says Bucket with an engaging appearance +of frankness, "that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be +a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little +property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games +respecting that property, don't you see?" + +"Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly. + +"Now, what YOU want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on +the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every +person should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU +want." + +"To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod. + +"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call +it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used +to call it." + +"Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr. Snagsby. + +"You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite +affectionately. "--On account of which, and at the same time to +oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in +confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever +afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your +intentions, if I understand you?" + +"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate +with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am." + +They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his +unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the +streets. + +"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of +Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend +the stairs. + +"No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of that +name. Why?" + +"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper to +get a little the better of him and having been threatening some +respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have +got against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do." + +As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however +quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some +undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is +going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed +purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, +at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a +police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the +constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come +towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and +to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind +some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair +twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without +glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, +looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket +notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great +mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not +much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. + +When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a +moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the +constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own +particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr. +Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, +unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads +are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he, +who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. +Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets +and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and +feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal +gulf. + +"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby +palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's +the fever coming up the street!" + +As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of +attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible +faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and +with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth +flits about them until they leave the place. + +"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he +turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins. + +Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for +months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have +been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket +observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little +poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe +the dreadful air. + +There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few +people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is +much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the +Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or +the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are +conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some +think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is +produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and +his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its +squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever +they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits +about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as +before. + +At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, +lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may +be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress +of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring +out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her +private apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion. +Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick +woman but will be here anon. + +"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another +door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And +two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm +from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?" + +"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands." + +"Brickmakers, eh?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London." + +"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire." + +"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?" + +"Saint Albans." + +"Come up on the tramp?" + +"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but +we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect." + +"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his +head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground. + +"It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows +it full well." + +The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low +that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the +blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every +sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted +air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of +table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit +by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a +very young child. + +"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It +looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it; +and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is +strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he +has seen in pictures. + +"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. + +"Is he your child?" + +"Mine." + +The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops +down again and kisses it as it lies asleep. + +"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr. +Bucket. + +"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." + +"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much +better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!" + +"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket +sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" + +"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd stand +between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any +pretty lady." + +"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified +again. "Why do you do it?" + +"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes +filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it +was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I +know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't I, +Jenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this +place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "Look +at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. +Think of the children that your business lays with often and often, +and that YOU see grow up!" + +"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll +be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know." + +"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been +a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of +all the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be +against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his +home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and +ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned +bad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should +sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I +should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as +Jenny's child died!" + +"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take +him." + +In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts +it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying. + +"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, +"that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that +makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken +away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would +I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we +knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!" + +As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a +step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway +and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE +do?" + +"That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a +magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the +law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving +him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be paid for, +Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a +little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though +out of breath. + +"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and +it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you." + +First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over +the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic +verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, Mr. +Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for +an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo +by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him, +without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other +Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields. +These arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come +out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's. + +By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they +gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and +skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration +of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse +of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more. +Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to +Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr. +Tulkinghorn's gate. + +As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on +the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the +outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man +so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the +door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of +preparation. + +Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, +and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his +old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned +candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light. + +Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to +Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little +way into this room, when Jo starts and stops. + +"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper. + +"There she is!" cries Jo. + +"Who!" + +"The lady!" + +A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, +where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The +front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their +entrance and remains like a statue. + +"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the +lady." + +"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the +gownd." + +"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly +observant of him. "Look again." + +"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting +eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." + +"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket. + +"A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left +hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the +figure. + +The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. + +"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket. + +Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like +that." + +"What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and +well pleased too. + +"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," +returns Jo. + +"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do +you recollect the lady's voice?" + +"I think I does," says Jo. + +The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as +you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this +voice?" + +Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!" + +"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you +say it was the lady for?" + +"Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken +in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the +gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her +rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and +the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's +her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it." + +"Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of +YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you +spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket stealthily +tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is +a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of +skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and +takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means +comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the +veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the +veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is +revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest. + +"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his +usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this +little wager." + +"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at +present placed?" says mademoiselle. + +"Certainly, certainly!" + +"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished +recommendation?" + +"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful." + +"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle." + +"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir." + +"Good night." + +Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. +Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the +ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not +without gallantry. + +"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return. + +"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a +doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was +exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you +as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't +done!" + +"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can +be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman +will be getting anxious--" + +"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am +quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already." + +"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night." + +"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door +and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like in you +is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are. +When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's +done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do." + +"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby. + +"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to +do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the +tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man +in your way of business." + +Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused +by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake +and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he +goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He +is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable +reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect +beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to +the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being +made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through +every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little +woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were +often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where +we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's +wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on +Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several +beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence +on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was +painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me +shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and I +know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they +had done at first, to that old time of my life. + +I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady +so curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed her +thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But +when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and +unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt +the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and +unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I +could. + +One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I +had better mention in this place. + +I was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one +wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was +waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes +and walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and +lightened. + +"Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager +eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and +speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great +liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so +amiable, mademoiselle." + +"No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me." + +"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the +permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?" she said in a +quick, natural way. + +"Certainly," said I. + +"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have +left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high. +Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!" Her quickness anticipated what +I might have said presently but as yet had only thought. "It is not +for me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high, +so very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that." + +"Go on, if you please," said I. + +"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. +Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a +young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good, +accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour +of being your domestic!" + +"I am sorry--" I began. + +"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an +involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a +moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than +that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service +would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I +wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I +am content." + +"I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having +such an attendant, "that I keep no maid--" + +"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so +devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so +true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish +with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. +Take me as I am. For nothing!" + +She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her. +Without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed +herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always +with a certain grace and propriety. + +"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and +where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I +was too high for her. It is done--past--finished! Receive me as your +domestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for you than you +figure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will--no matter, I will +do my utmost possible in all things. If you accept my service, you +will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will +serve you well. You don't know how well!" + +There was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me +while I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without +thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), +which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets +of Paris in the reign of terror. + +She heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty +accent and in her mildest voice, "Hey, mademoiselle, I have received +my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and seek what I +have not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?" + +She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take +note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I +surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said with +a parting curtsy. + +I confessed that she had surprised us all. + +"I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to +stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will! +Adieu, mademoiselle!" + +So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I +supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and +nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until +six weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now by +saying. + +At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was +constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and +remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on +horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back +again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was +very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It +appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not +find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in +connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much +sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told +us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he +and Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must +be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the +Court of Chancery--but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my +ears--and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer +delayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that +side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the +infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he +saw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did +her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied +her from his heart. But he never thought--never, my poor, dear, +sanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such +better things before him--what a fatal link was riveting between his +fresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged +birds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. + +Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or +did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east +wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict +silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to +meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in +waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk +together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in +arm. + +"Well, Richard," said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with +him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" + +"Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough." + +"But settled?" said I. + +"How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh. + +"Settled in the law," said I. + +"Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough." + +"You said that before, my dear Richard." + +"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not. +Settled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" + +"Yes." + +"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, strongly +emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because one +can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled +state. When I say this business, of course I mean the--forbidden +subject." + +"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I. + +"Not the least doubt of it," answered Richard. + +We walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard +addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "My dear +Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant +sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her +dearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself. +(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll +make it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have +held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like grim death, and +should have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and +shouldn't be in debt, and--" + +"ARE you in debt, Richard?" + +"Yes," said Richard, "I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have taken +rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's +out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?" + +"You know I don't," said I. + +"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. "My +dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but +how CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you +couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything +you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to +anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this +unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began +to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at +law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever +since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a +worthless fellow to love my confiding cousin Ada." + +We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and +sobbed as he said the words. + +"Oh, Richard!" said I. "Do not be so moved. You have a noble nature, +and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." + +"I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that. You +mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon +my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and +have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what +the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too +unsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her +wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last +for ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in +our favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!" + +It had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out +between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me +than the hopeful animation with which he said these words. + +"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them +for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, +"and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to +years of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! And +there is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a +speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It will be all right at +last, and then you shall see!" + +Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the +same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be +articled in Lincoln's Inn. + +"There again! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an +effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce +and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law +and satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. Besides, I find it +unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of +action. So what," continued Richard, confident again by this time, +"do I naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +"I can't imagine," said I. + +"Don't look so serious," returned Richard, "because it's the best +thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted +a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination, +and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is +in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my +temporary condition--I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I +naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +I looked at him and shook my head. + +"What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the +army!" + +"The army?" said I. + +"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission; +and--there I am, you know!" said Richard. + +And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his +pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred +pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted +no debt at all within a corresponding period in the army--as to which +he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of +four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years, +which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and +sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time +from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired--as in thought +he always did, I know full well--to repay her love, and to ensure her +happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire +the very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. +For, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon +and so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal +blight that ruined everything it rested on! + +I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope +I could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake not to +put any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily assented, +riding over the court and everything else in his easy way and drawing +the brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into--alas, +when the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! We had a long +talk, but it always came back to that, in substance. + +At last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed to +wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman Street. +Caddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as soon as I +appeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together. + +"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, "and got the +key for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we can +lock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted to see +your dear good face about." + +"Very well, my dear," said I. "Nothing could be better." So Caddy, +after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it, +locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the +garden very cosily. + +"You see, Esther," said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little +confidence, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry +without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark +respecting our engagement--though I don't believe Ma cares much for +me, I must say--I thought it right to mention your opinions to +Prince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything you +tell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from +Prince." + +"I hope he approved, Caddy?" + +"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could +say. You have no idea what an opinion he has of you!" + +"Indeed!" + +"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy, +laughing and shaking her head; "but it only makes me joyful, for you +are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have, +and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me." + +"Upon my word, Caddy," said I, "you are in the general conspiracy to +keep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?" + +"Well! I am going to tell you," replied Caddy, crossing her hands +confidentially upon my arm. "So we talked a good deal about it, and +so I said to Prince, 'Prince, as Miss Summerson--'" + +"I hope you didn't say 'Miss Summerson'?" + +"No. I didn't!" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the brightest +of faces. "I said, 'Esther.' I said to Prince, 'As Esther is +decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and +always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so +fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth +to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, Prince,' said I, 'that +Esther thinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more +honourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa.'" + +"Yes, my dear," said I. "Esther certainly does think so." + +"So I was right, you see!" exclaimed Caddy. "Well! This troubled +Prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but +because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop; +and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his +heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting +manner or other if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr. +Turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a +shock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is very beautiful, you +know, Esther," said Caddy, "and his feelings are extremely +sensitive." + +"Are they, my dear?" + +"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my +darling child--I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther," +Caddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, "but I generally +call Prince my darling child." + +I laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on. + +"This has caused him, Esther--" + +"Caused whom, my dear?" + +"Oh, you tiresome thing!" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty face +on fire. "My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has caused +him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a +very anxious manner. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if Miss +Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be +prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I +could do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my mind, +besides," said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, "that if +you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. This +is what I meant when I said in my note that I had a great favour and +a great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant +it, Esther, we should both be very grateful." + +"Let me see, Caddy," said I, pretending to consider. "Really, I think +I could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. I am +at your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like." + +Caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I believe, +as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender +heart that ever beat in this world; and after another turn or two +round the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of +gloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do +no avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we went to Newman +Street direct. + +Prince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not very +hopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep +voice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was certainly +not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her +preceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as +discordantly as possible; and when the little girl had changed her +shoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was +taken away. After a few words of preparation, we then went in search +of Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as +a model of deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment--the only +comfortable room in the house. He appeared to have dressed at his +leisure in the intervals of a light collation, and his dressing-case, +brushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about. + +"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby." + +"Charmed! Enchanted!" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his +high-shouldered bow. "Permit me!" Handing chairs. "Be seated!" +Kissing the tips of his left fingers. "Overjoyed!" Shutting his eyes +and rolling. "My little retreat is made a paradise." Recomposing +himself on the sofa like the second gentleman in Europe. + +"Again you find us, Miss Summerson," said he, "using our little arts +to polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the +condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and +we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of +his Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron, if I may presume to +say so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under +foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my +dear madam." + +I said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a pinch +of snuff. + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this +afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich." + +"Thank you, father," returned Prince, "I will be sure to be punctual. +My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am +going to say?" + +"Good heaven!" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and +Caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. "What is this? Is this +lunacy! Or what is this?" + +"Father," returned Prince with great submission, "I love this young +lady, and we are engaged." + +"Engaged!" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting +out the sight with his hand. "An arrow launched at my brain by my own +child!" + +"We have been engaged for some time, father," faltered Prince, "and +Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the +fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present +occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, +father." + +Mr. Turveydrop uttered a groan. + +"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father," urged his son. "Miss Jellyby is +a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to +consider your comfort." + +Mr. Turveydrop sobbed. + +"No, pray don't, father!" cried his son. + +"Boy," said Mr. Turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is +spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir, +strike home!" + +"Pray don't say so, father," implored Prince, in tears. "It goes to +my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention +is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our +duty--what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often said +together--and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote +ourselves to making your life agreeable." + +"Strike home," murmured Mr. Turveydrop. "Strike home!" But he seemed +to listen, I thought, too. + +"My dear father," returned Prince, "we well know what little comforts +you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our +study and our pride to provide those before anything. If you will +bless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think +of being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we ARE +married, we shall always make you--of course--our first +consideration. You must ever be the head and master here, father; and +we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it +or if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please +you." + +Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright +on the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat, a +perfect model of parental deportment. + +"My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your +prayer. Be happy!" + +His benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched +out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and +gratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw. + +"My children," said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy with +his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand +gracefully on his hip. "My son and daughter, your happiness shall be +my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with +me"--meaning, of course, I will always live with you--"this house is +henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long +live to share it with me!" + +The power of his deportment was such that they really were as much +overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon +them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent +sacrifice in their favour. + +"For myself, my children," said Mr. Turveydrop, "I am falling into +the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the +last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this +weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society +and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and +simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet, +my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I charge +your dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I +charge myself with all the rest." + +They were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity. + +"My son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "for those little points in which you +are deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man, which +may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated--you may +still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since the days of +his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not desert it now. +No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father's poor position +with a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing +to tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we +cannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be +industrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as +possible." + +"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart," +replied Prince. + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Turveydrop. "Your qualities are not +shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both +of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a +sainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I +believe, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care +of my simple wants, and bless you both!" + +Old Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the +occasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at once +if we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure after a +very loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and during our +walk she was so happy and so full of old Mr. Turveydrop's praises +that I would not have said a word in his disparagement for any +consideration. + +The house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it +was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than +ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of +bankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the +dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags, +account-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to +understand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his +comprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake +and we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into +a corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed +to have given up the whole thing and to be speechless and insensible. + +Going upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all +screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we +found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening, +reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn +covers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she did not +know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed, +far-off look of hers. + +"Ah! Miss Summerson!" she said at last. "I was thinking of something +so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr. +Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?" + +I hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well. + +"Why, not quite, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner. +"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of +spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to +think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and +seventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each, +either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger." + +I thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor +going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so +placid. + +"You have brought Caddy back, I see," observed Mrs. Jellyby with a +glance at her daughter. "It has become quite a novelty to see her +here. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges +me to employ a boy." + +"I am sure, Ma--" began Caddy. + +"Now you know, Caddy," her mother mildly interposed, "that I DO +employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your +contradicting?" + +"I was not going to contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only +going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my +life." + +"I believe, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters, +casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she +spoke, "that you have a business example before you in your mother. +Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of +the human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you +have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy." + +"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not." + +"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged, +Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a +moment on me and considering where to put the particular letter she +had just opened, "this would distress and disappoint me. But I have +so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha and it is so +necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you +see." + +As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was +looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I +thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit and +to attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention. + +"Perhaps," I began, "you will wonder what has brought me here to +interrupt you." + +"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, +pursuing her employment with a placid smile. "Though I wish," and she +shook her head, "she was more interested in the Borrioboolan +project." + +"I have come with Caddy," said I, "because Caddy justly thinks she +ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall +encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in +imparting one." + +"Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation +and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, "you are going +to tell me some nonsense." + +Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and +letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily, +said, "Ma, I am engaged." + +"Oh, you ridiculous child!" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an abstracted +air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; "what a goose you +are!" + +"I am engaged, Ma," sobbed Caddy, "to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the +academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man +indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us +yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never +could!" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings and +of everything but her natural affection. + +"You see again, Miss Summerson," observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely, +"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have +this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy +engaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no +more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has +herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first philanthropists +of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be +interested in her!" + +"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!" sobbed Caddy. + +"Caddy, Caddy!" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with +the greatest complacency. "I have no doubt you did. How could you do +otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he +overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me, +if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these +petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I +permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom +I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great African +continent? No. No," repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm clear voice, and +with an agreeable smile, as she opened more letters and sorted them. +"No, indeed." + +I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception, +though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say. +Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and +sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of +voice and with a smile of perfect composure, "No, indeed." + +"I hope, Ma," sobbed poor Caddy at last, "you are not angry?" + +"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl," returned Mrs. Jellyby, +"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation of +my mind." + +"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?" said +Caddy. + +"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind," +said Mrs. Jellyby; "and a degenerate child, when you might have +devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken, +and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray, +Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her, "don't delay me +in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before +the afternoon post comes in!" + +I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained +for a moment by Caddy's saying, "You won't object to my bringing him +to see you, Ma?" + +"Oh, dear me, Caddy," cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into that +distant contemplation, "have you begun again? Bring whom?" + +"Him, Ma." + +"Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little +matters. "Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent +Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must +accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss +Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this +silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new +letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details +of the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, I need +not apologize for having very little leisure." + +I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went +downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she +would far rather have been scolded than treated with such +indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in +clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't +know. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things she +would do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had a home +of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp dark +kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were +grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play +with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I +was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I heard +loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a violent +tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am afraid was +caused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table and +making rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself +into the area whenever he made any new attempt to understand his +affairs. + +As I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a +good deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in +spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier and +better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her +and her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really +was, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be +wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser and indeed was half +ashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at +the stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the +stars THEY saw, and hoped I might always be so blest and happy as to +be useful to some one in my small way. + +They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were, +that I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a +method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from +the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome, +and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that I +suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the +world. + +We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my +guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went on +prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to my +own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and then I +heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, "Come in!" and there came in +a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a +curtsy. + +"If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am +Charley." + +"Why, so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving +her a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!" + +"If you please, miss," pursued Charley in the same soft voice, "I'm +your maid." + +"Charley?" + +"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's +love." + +I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley. + +"And oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears +starting down her dimpled cheeks, "Tom's at school, if you please, +and learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss, +a-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at school--and +Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and me, I should +have been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought +that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little used to parting +first, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, miss!" + +"I can't help it, Charley." + +"No, miss, nor I can't help it," says Charley. "And if you please, +miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now +and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other +once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried Charley +with a heaving heart, "and I'll try to be such a good maid!" + +"Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!" + +"No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you, +miss." + +"I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley." + +"Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you +might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with +his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to +be sure to remember it." + +Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her +matronly little way about and about the room and folding up +everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came +creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, if you please, +miss." + +And I said again, "I can't help it, Charley." + +And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, +after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +An Appeal Case + + +As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have +given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. +Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise +when he received the representation, though it caused him much +uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted +together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole +days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and +laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were +thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable +inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so +constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right +place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but +maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost +endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances +that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all +right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. + +We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was +made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a +ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of +talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as +a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned +and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about +until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered +the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty +years of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord +Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor +very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing +his mind--"a pretty good joke, I think," said Richard, "from that +quarter!"--and at last it was settled that his application should be +granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for +an ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an +agent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a +violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every +morning to practise the broadsword exercise. + +Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We +sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out +of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken +to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a +professor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently +than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so +time passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received +directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland. + +He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a +long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before +my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting +and said, "Come in, my dears!" We went in and found Richard, whom we +had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking +mortified and angry. + +"Rick and I, Ada," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. +Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "The harder because +you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have +done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have +been set right without you, sir." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I want to set you more right yet. I +want to set you more right with yourself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard in a fiery +way, but yet respectfully, "that I think I am the best judge about +myself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr. +Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that it's +quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my +duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope +you will always care for me, cool and hot." + +Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair +and sat beside her. + +"It's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing. Rick and I have only +had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are +the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming." + +"I am not indeed, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is +to come from you." + +"Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention, +without looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear +girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the +easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little +woman told me of a little love affair?" + +"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your +kindness that day, cousin John." + +"I can never forget it," said Richard. + +"And I can never forget it," said Ada. + +"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us +to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the +gentleness and honour of his heart. "Ada, my bird, you should know +that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that +he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He +has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he +has planted." + +"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am +quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir," said +Richard, "is not all I have." + +"Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, +and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have +stopped his ears. "For the love of God, don't found a hope or +expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the +grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom +that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, +better to die!" + +We were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his +lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew +that I felt too, how much he needed it. + +"Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, +"these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have +seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in +the race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his +sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the +understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must +go further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely +in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to +relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship." + +"Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce +all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." + +"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." + +"You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. "I HAVE, I +know." + +"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke +of these things last," said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging +manner. "You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time +for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now +fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, +my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may +come must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner." + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "Harder than I could +have supposed you would be." + +"My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I do +anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. +Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there +should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for +her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what +is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves." + +"Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard hastily. "It was not when we +opened our hearts to you. You did not say so then." + +"I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had +experience since." + +"You mean of me, sir." + +"Well! Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. "The time is +not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right, +and I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin +afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to +write your lives in." + +Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. + +"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther," said +Mr. Jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as the day, +and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most +earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else +to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do +wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you +together." + +A long silence succeeded. + +"Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to +his face, "after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is +left us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave +me here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to +wish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. I--I don't +doubt, cousin Richard," said Ada, a little confused, "that you are +very fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall in love with +anybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it too, as +I should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in +me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not +unreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry +to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know +it's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately, +and often talk of you with Esther, and--and perhaps you will +sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now," said Ada, +going up to him and giving him her trembling hand, "we are only +cousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps--and I pray for a +blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" + +It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my +guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he +himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But it +was certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this +hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been +before. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and +solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them. + +In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, +and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire +while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a week. He +remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at +such times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But in a +few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by +which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would +become as gay as possible. + +It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying +a variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the things he would +have bought if he had been left to his own ways I say nothing. He was +perfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and +feelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so +much upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that +I could never have been tired if I had tried. + +There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging +to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry +soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, +with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much +about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I +was purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast +when he came. + +"Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian, who happened to be +alone with me. "Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss +Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down." + +He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and +without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across +his upper lip. + +"You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Military time, sir," he replied. "Force of habit. A mere habit in +me, sir. I am not at all business-like." + +"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?" said Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a +one." + +"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of +Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. + +"Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest +and looking very large. "If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to +it, he would come out very good." + +"But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. + +"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps +he has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps." His bright +dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. + +"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I, +laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." + +He reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow. +"No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs." + +"Not at all," said I. "I take it as a compliment." + +If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or +four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to +my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the +honour to mention the young lady's name--" + +"Miss Summerson." + +"Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. + +"Do you know the name?" I asked. + +"No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you +somewhere." + +"I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at +him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that +I was glad of the opportunity. "I remember faces very well." + +"So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of +his dark eyes and broad forehead. "Humph! What set me off, now, upon +that!" + +His once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by +his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his +relief. + +"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" + +"They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to +live by." + +"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?" + +"All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to +'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show +themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of +course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open." + +"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their +practice with live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. + +"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come +for skill--or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I +beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and +squaring an elbow on each knee, "but I believe you're a Chancery +suitor, if I have heard correct?" + +"I am sorry to say I am." + +"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir." + +"A Chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. "How was that?" + +"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being +knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said Mr. +George, "that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of +taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and +violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away +till he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by +and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, 'If this +practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't +altogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of +mind; I'd rather you took to something else.' I was on my guard for a +blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part +and left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of +friendship." + +"What was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. + +"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a +baited bull of him," said Mr. George. + +"Was his name Gridley?" + +"It was, sir." + +Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me +as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the +coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. +He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he +called my condescension. + +"I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets me +off again--but--bosh! What's my head running against!" He passed one +of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken +thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm +akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at +the ground. + +"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley +into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my guardian. + +"So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on +the ground. "So I am told." + +"You don't know where?" + +"No, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out +of his reverie. "I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out +soon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good +many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." + +Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me +another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and +strode heavily out of the room. + +This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We +had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing +early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when +he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being +again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we +should go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last +day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my +consent and we walked down to Westminster, where the court was then +sitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters +that Richard was to write to me and the letters that I was to write +to him and with a great many hopeful projects. My guardian knew where +we were going and therefore was not with us. + +When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same +whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in +great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a +red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little +garden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a +long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at +their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and +gowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying +much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in +his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his +forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; +some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups: +all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very +unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. + +To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness +of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and +ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it +represented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was +raging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to +day, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold +the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him +looking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever +heard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was +a bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and +indignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little +short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one--this +was so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of +it, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I +sat where Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; +but there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor +little Miss Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at +it. + +Miss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a +gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification +and pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to +us and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the +bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a +visit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it +was imposing, it was imposing. + +When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if I +may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die out +of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to +come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of +papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and +a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great +heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers. + +I think it came on "for further directions"--about some bill of +costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. +But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in +it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. +They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and +explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way, +and some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely +proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more +buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle +entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an +hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut +short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and +the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished +bringing them in. + +I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings +and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It +can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!" was all he +said. + +I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr. +Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered +me desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm and +was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss +Summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who +knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." As he +spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from +my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. + +"How do you do, Esther?" said she. "Do you recollect me?" + +I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little +altered. + +"I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her +old asperity. "They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and +glad you are not too proud to know me." But indeed she seemed +disappointed that I was not. + +"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. + +"I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am +Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well." + +Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a +sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the +confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we +were in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought +together. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was yet +in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when I saw, +coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than Mr. +George. He made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on, +staring over their heads into the body of the court. + +"George!" said Richard as I called his attention to him. + +"You are well met, sir," he returned. "And you, miss. Could you point +a person out for me, I want? I don't understand these places." + +Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we +were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. + +"There's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that--" + +I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept +beside me all the time and having called the attention of several of +her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my confusion) by +whispering in their ears, "Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my left!" + +"Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we passed some +conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low +whisper behind his hand. + +"Yes," said I. + +"He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his +authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. +He says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as +good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I +sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the +muffled drums." + +"Shall I tell her?" said I. + +"Would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like +apprehension at Miss Flite. "It's a providence I met you, miss; I +doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." And he +put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as +I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind +errand. + +"My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!" +she exclaimed. "Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the +greatest pleasure." + +"He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. "Hush! This is Mr. +George." + +"In--deed!" returned Miss Flite. "Very proud to have the honour! A +military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!" she whispered to +me. + +Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a +mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it +was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last +done, and addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave him her arm, +to the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was +so discomposed and begged me so respectfully "not to desert him" that +I could not make up my mind to do it, especially as Miss Flite was +always tractable with me and as she too said, "Fitz Jarndyce, my +dear, you will accompany us, of course." As Richard seemed quite +willing, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their +destination, we agreed to do so. And as Mr. George informed us that +Gridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after +hearing of their interview in the morning, I wrote a hasty note in +pencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George +sealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and +we sent it off by a ticket-porter. + +We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of +Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which Mr. +George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of +which was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to +the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair, +wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a +broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed +him. + +"I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's +Shooting Gallery?" + +"It is, sir," returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters +in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. + +"Oh! To be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. "Thank +you. Have you rung the bell?" + +"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Your name is George? Then I am +here as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?" + +"No, sir. You have the advantage of me." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Then it was your young man who +came for me. I am a physician and was requested--five minutes ago--to +come and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery." + +"The muffled drums," said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and +gravely shaking his head. "It's quite correct, sir. Will you please +to walk in." + +The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking +little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and +dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into +a large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and +guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When we had all +arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared +to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in +his place. + +"Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon +him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "You know +me, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the +world. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a +peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a +long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." + +Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. + +"Now, George," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a +sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond a +doubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character, +because you have served your country and you know that when duty +calls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give +trouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what YOU'D +do. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like +that"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder +against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that +looked threatening--"because I know you and won't have it." + +"Phil!" said Mr. George. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"Be quiet." + +The little man, with a low growl, stood still. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "you'll excuse anything that +may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector Bucket +of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where +my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through +the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know," +pointing; "that's where HE is--on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and +I must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me, +and you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You +give me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier, +mind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and I'll +accommodate you to the utmost of my power." + +"I give it," was the reply. "But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr. +Bucket." + +"Gammon, George! Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on his +broad breast again and shaking hands with him. "I don't say it wasn't +handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally +good-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life +Guardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself, +ladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure +of a man!" + +The affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little +consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called +him), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away +to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by +a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of +entering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid +of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a +good shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those +rifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return +that it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was +naturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and +making himself generally agreeable. + +After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and +Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us. +He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take +a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips +when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he +slightly observed, "of being able to do any little thing for a poor +fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself." We all four went +back together and went into the place where Gridley was. + +It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted +wood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and +only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery +roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had +looked down. The sun was low--near setting--and its light came redly +in above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain +canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we +had seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no +likeness in his colourless face to what I recollected. + +He had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on +his grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were +covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of +such tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little +mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat on a +chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them. + +His voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his +strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had +at last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of form +and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from +Shropshire whom we had spoken with before. + +He inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian. + +"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not +long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You +are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you." + +They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of +comfort to him. + +"It may seem strange to you, sir," returned Gridley; "I should not +have liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting. +But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my +single hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the +last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so +I don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." + +"You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned +my guardian. + +"Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. "I told you what would come +of it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us--look at us!" +He drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and brought her +something nearer to him. + +"This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and +hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone +comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many +suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on +earth that Chancery has not broken." + +"Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. "Accept my +blessing!" + +"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. +Jarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I +could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until +I died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have +been wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I +hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will +lead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and +perseveringly, as I did through so many years." + +Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, +good-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. + +"Come, come!" he said from his corner. "Don't go on in that way, Mr. +Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low +sometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper with the +whole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score +of warrants yet, if I have luck." + +He only shook his head. + +"Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. "Nod it; that's what I want +to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had +together! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for +contempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other +purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don't you +remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace +was sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old +lady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold +up, sir!" + +"What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. + +"I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming his +encouragement, he pursued aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After +dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here +like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't like +being worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You +want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what YOU want. +You're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself. +Very well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of +Lincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since. +What do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and +having a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you +good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn +at the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your +energy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. You're half the fun of +the fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a +hand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down." + +"He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. + +"Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. "I only want to rouse him. I +don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would +cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy +with me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I +shall never take advantage of it." + +The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my +ears. + +"Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from +before her. "Not without my blessing. After so many years!" + +The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and +the shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one +living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the +darkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I +heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits +and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul +alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many +suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on +earth that Chancery has not broken!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All + + +There is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black +suspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's Courtiers +are in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but Mr. +Snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. + +For Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing +themselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr. +Snagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are +Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the +law-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. Even in +the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles +away at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. Snagsby pauses +in carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes +and stares at the kitchen wall. + +Mr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with. +Something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of +it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter +is the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and +coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the +surface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the +mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, +whom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal +neighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective Mr. +Bucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to +be evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some +dangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it is the fearful +peculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at +any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any +entrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may +take air and fire, explode, and blow up--Mr. Bucket only knows whom. + +For which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many +men unknown do) and says, "Is Mr. Snagsby in?" or words to that +innocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty +breast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are +made by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the +counter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they +can't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys persist in +walking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with +unaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little +dairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the +morning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his +little woman shaking him and saying "What's the matter with the man!" + +The little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. To +know that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under +all circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth, +which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives Mr. +Snagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who +has a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than +meet his eye. + +These various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not +lost upon her. They impel her to say, "Snagsby has something on his +mind!" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. +From suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as natural +and short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus jealousy +gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and it was +always lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in Mrs. +Snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr. +Snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to +private researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and +iron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a +general putting of this and that together by the wrong end. + +Mrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes +ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices +think somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. Guster +holds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, where +they were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried +money underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white +beard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said +the Lord's Prayer backwards. + +"Who was Nimrod?" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. "Who +was that lady--that creature? And who is that boy?" Now, Nimrod being +as dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby has +appropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental +eye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. "And who," +quoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, "is that boy? Who +is that--!" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with an inspiration. + +He has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he wouldn't +have, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious +circumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. Chadband--why, +Mrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to come back, and +be told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. Chadband; and he +never came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come. +Who told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all. + +But happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly +smiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets; +and that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to +improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was +seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to +the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and +unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in +Cook's Court to-morrow night, "to--mor--row--night," Mrs. Snagsby +repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight +shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and +to-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some +one else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says +Mrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind ME! + +Mrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her +purpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the savoury +preparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. Comes Mr. +Snagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when the gorging +vessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at +last, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his +shuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the +left, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if +it were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating +raw, Jo, the very, very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve. + +Mrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the +little drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he +comes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at +him. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby sees it all? Why +else should that look pass between them, why else should Mr. Snagsby +be confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? It is as clear +as crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father. + +"Peace, my friends," says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily +exudations from his reverend visage. "Peace be with us! My friends, +why with us? Because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be against us, +because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is +softening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home +unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My +human boy, come forward!" + +Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's +arm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his +reverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something +practical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, "You let +me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone." + +"No, my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let you +alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a +toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are +become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so +employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your +profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young +friend, sit upon this stool." + +Jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman +wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got +into the required position with great difficulty and every possible +manifestation of reluctance. + +When he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring +behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "My friends!" +This is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The +'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into +a staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr. +Chadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches +her nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs. +Chadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees, +finding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence. + +It happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member +of his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with +that particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved +to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of +inward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by +some elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of +forfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present, +serves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's +steam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband in saying "My +friends!" has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that +ill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate +recipient of his discourse. + +"We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a +heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on +upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," +and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, +bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw +him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, +"a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid +of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious +stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these +possessions? Why? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the question as if +he were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and +merit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give it up. + +Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received +just now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. Chadband +mentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, "I +don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption Mrs. Chadband +glares and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!" + +"I hear a voice," says Chadband; "is it a still small voice, my +friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--" + +"Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this +brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of +relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and +of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in +upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is +that light?" + +Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not +to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning +forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly +into Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned. + +"It is," says Chadband, "the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon +of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth." + +Mr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr. +Snagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. + +"Of Terewth," says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. "Say not to me +that it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a +million of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will +proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less +you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a +speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, +you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you +shall be flawed, you shall be smashed." + +The present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its +general power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make Mr. +Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby +in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of +brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet +more disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and +false position when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him. + +"My friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some +time--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his +pocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--"to +pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to +improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to +which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the +'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "if I am told by the +doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask +what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of +that before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young +friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), +what is the common sort of Terewth--the working clothes--the +every-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?" + +"Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it suppression?" + +A shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it reservation?" + +A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight. + +"No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names +belongs to it. When this young heathen now among us--who is now, my +friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set +upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should +have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for +his sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock, +and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the +Terewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my +friends, no!" + +If Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters +at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole +tenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops. + +"Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level of +their comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his +greasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose, +"if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there +see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the +mistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for +I have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby in tears. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and +returning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' +would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends," said Chadband, stimulated by the +sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for +parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting +him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the +young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and +had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their +dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and +poultry, would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an +unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's +Court re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she +has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After +unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is +pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though +much exhausted, in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and +crushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble, +ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room. + +All this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever +picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them +out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to +be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep +awake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that +there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near +the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common +men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the +light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it +unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without +their modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from +it yet! + +Jo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend +Chadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend +Chadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him +talk for five minutes. "It an't no good my waiting here no longer," +thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night." +And downstairs he shuffles. + +But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of +the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same +having been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own +supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she ventures to +interchange a word or so for the first time. + +"Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster. + +"Thank'ee, mum," says Jo. + +"Are you hungry?" + +"Jist!" says Jo. + +"What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" + +Jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this orphan +charge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting has patted +him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any +decent hand has been so laid upon him. + +"I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo. + +"No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms +favourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and +vanishes down the stairs. + +"Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the +step. + +"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!" + +"I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It was +quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when +we were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet, +Jo." + +"I am fly, master!" + +And so, good night. + +A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer +to the room he came from and glides higher up. And henceforth he +begins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his +own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his +own. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may +pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs. +Snagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of +his shadow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Sharpshooters + + +Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the +neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to +get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of +times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are +wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy +blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less +under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and +false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. +Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal +experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong +governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, +broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, +and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath +their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, +and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be +in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a +more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin +in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or +colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about +bills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in +such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading +the tributary channels of Leicester Square. + +But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. +George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up +and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself +before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, +bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon +comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and +exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, +blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling +tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so +that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive +instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs, +and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more +conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well +bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his +knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for +him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to +take in the superfluous health his master throws off. + +When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two +hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, +shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, +winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. +George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and +marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a +powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes +gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is +devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave. + +"And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several +turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" + +Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled +out of bed. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"What was it like?" + +"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering. + +"How did you know it was the country?" + +"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil +after further consideration. + +"What were the swans doing on the grass?" + +"They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil. + +The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of +breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being +limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for +two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty +grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the +gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at +once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast +is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his +pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and +sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, +sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his +plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened +hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating. + +"The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I +suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" + +"I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his +breakfast. + +"What marshes?" + +"THE marshes, commander," returns Phil. + +"Where are they?" + +"I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. +They was flat. And miste." + +Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, +expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody +but Mr. George. + +"I was born in the country, Phil." + +"Was you indeed, commander?" + +"Yes. And bred there." + +Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his +master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still +staring at him. + +"There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not +many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree +that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country +boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." + +"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. + +"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. +George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright +as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." + +"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. + +"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the +trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and +good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes +upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?" + +Phil shakes his head. + +"Do you want to see it?" + +"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. + +"The town's enough for you, eh?" + +"Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with +anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to +novelties." + +"How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his +smoking saucer to his lips. + +"I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. +Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." + +Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its +contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil--" when +he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers. + +"I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, +when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him +a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery +comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my +man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to +Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up +to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, +'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after +that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In +course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight +in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is +how I always know there's a eight in it." + +"Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the +tinker?" + +"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in +a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously. + +"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?" + +"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much +of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, +and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till +they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and +lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. +But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a +good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot +you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing +with a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me. +Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me." + +"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, +Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. + +"No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I +was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to +boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I +was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and +swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in +the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich +means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, +almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost +always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to +since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was +given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a +gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at +the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!" + +Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied +manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking +it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see +you, commander. You remember?" + +"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." + +"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--" + +"True, Phil--shouldering your way on--" + +"In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. + +"In a night-cap--" + +"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more +excited. + +"With a couple of sticks. When--" + +"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and +saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to +me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to +you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so +strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a +limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, +delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was +like a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You +have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us +about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, +you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and +here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has +started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a +mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers +take aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on! +If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me +well about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be +throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em +throw me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of +styles, all my life!" + +With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied +by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil +Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and +abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his +head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to +clear away the breakfast. + +Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the +shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery +into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells, +and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too +fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice. +Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws +and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small +apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and +undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. + +Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, +where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual +company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, +bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any +day in the year but the fifth of November. + +It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two +bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched +mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses +commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England +up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as +the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, "O +Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my dear friend, +how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the +venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his +granddaughter Judy as body-guard. + +"Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing +his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly +throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my +dear friend." + +"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in +the city," returns Mr. George. + +"I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out for +many months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed +so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" + +"I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." + +"You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by +both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep +her away. She longed so much to see you." + +"Hum! She bears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George. + +"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the +corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried +me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment! +This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has +been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his +windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by +agreement included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we +engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence. +Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of +your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this +person." + +Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable +terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his +apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for +Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap +before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air +of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old +bird of the crow species. + +"Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his +twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done." + +The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human +fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London, +ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding +horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but +transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and +retires. + +"My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so +kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and +I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" + +His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by +the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, +chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. + +"O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My +dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he +is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in +the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by +the smell of his worsted stockings. + +The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the +fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his +overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed +again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and meeting Mr. +George's glance, again stretches out both hands. + +"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your +establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never +find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear +friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease. + +"No, no. No fear of that." + +"And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off +without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" + +"He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. + +"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal, +and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "He +mightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to +leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" + +Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to +the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to +rubbing his legs. + +"And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely +standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand. +"You are prospering, please the Powers?" + +Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come +to say that, I know." + +"You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable +grandfather. "You are such good company." + +"Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George. + +"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It +might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. +Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the +trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money, +and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I +wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head +off." + +Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old +man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly, +"Now for it!" + +"Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. +"Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?" + +"For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his +chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it +and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. + +This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so +difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes +exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent +vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the +visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long +and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and +watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to +slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he +becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of +Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than +the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him +in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the +science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous +distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer. + +When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a +white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out +her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The +trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed +grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at +the fire. + +"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed, +swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing). + +"I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with me, +you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and +about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't +suit me. When you go winding round and round me," says the trooper, +putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if I don't feel as +if I was being smothered!" + +And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure +himself that he is not smothered yet. + +"If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. George, +"I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether +there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are +welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!" + +The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her +grandfather one ghostly poke. + +"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman +won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his eyes +musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend." + +"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some +attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot" +(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need +attention, my dear friend." + +"Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man. +"Now then?" + +"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a +pupil of yours." + +"Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." + +"Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine young +soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came +forward and paid it all up, honourable." + +"Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city +would like a piece of advice?" + +"I think he would, my dear friend. From you." + +"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's +no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is +brought to a dead halt." + +"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir," +remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs. +"Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good +for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, +and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his +chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend +would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says +Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his +ear like a monkey. + +Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his +chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he +were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has +taken. + +"But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. +"'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. +George, from the ensign to the captain." + +"What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in +stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?" + +"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon." + +"Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees +both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You are +there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more. +Speak!" + +"My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied--Judy, shake me +up a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my +opinion still is that the captain is not dead." + +"Bosh!" observes Mr. George. + +"What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his +hand to his ear. + +"Bosh!" + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you can +judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the +reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer +making the inquiries wants?" + +"A job," says Mr. George. + +"Nothing of the kind!" + +"Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with an +air of confirmed resolution. + +"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see +some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it. +He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his +possession." + +"Well?" + +"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning +Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting +him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend. +WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed +forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" + +"Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through the +ceremony with some stiffness. + +"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague +pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says +the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a +prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "I +have half a million of his signatures, I think! But you," +breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the +cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. George, are +likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. +Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." + +"Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, I +have." + +"My dearest friend!" + +"May be, I have not." + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen. + +"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a +cartridge without knowing why." + +"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why." + +"Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more, +and approve it." + +"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and +see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean +old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I told him +it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this +forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the +gentleman, Mr. George?" + +"Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should +concern you so much, I don't know." + +"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything +to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us +immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him +concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says Grandfather +Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to betray anything. +Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?" + +"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know." + +"No, my dear Mr. George; no." + +"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, +wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, +getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. + +This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and +low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his +paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he +unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the +gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately +takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it +in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed +pokes Judy once. + +"I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry +this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." + +"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so +very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?" + +Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away, +tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along +the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old +gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however, +terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy +takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and +Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box. + +Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time +to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where +the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his +cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and +looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression +of being jolted in the back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +More Old Soldiers Than One + + +Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for +their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his +horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, +"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" + +"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?" + +"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know +him, and he don't know me." + +There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to +perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr. +Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the +fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be +back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus +much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves. + +Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at +the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates +the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the +boxes. + +"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. +"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking at +these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to +the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of +Chesney Wold, hey?" + +"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed, +rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!" + +"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" + +"This gentleman, this gentleman." + +"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not +bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See the +strong-box yonder!" + +This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no +change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his +hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry. +In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually +not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have +warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn, +after all, if everything were known. + +"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in. +"You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant." + +As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he +looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper +stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!" + +"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is +set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw +this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars, +alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from +behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a +little semicircle before him. + +"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses), +"Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear +his part in the conversation. "You have brought our good friend the +sergeant, I see." + +"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's +wealth and influence. + +"And what does the sergeant say about this business?" + +"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his +shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." + +Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and +profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full +complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is +George?" + +"It is so, Sir." + +"What do you say, George?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to +know what YOU say?" + +"Do you mean in point of reward?" + +"I mean in point of everything, sir." + +This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly +breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks +pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the +tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my +dear." + +"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one +side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might +have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest +compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and +were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services, +and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?" + +"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity. + +"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession +something--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, +a letter, anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare +his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the +opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, +five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say." + +"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his +eyes. + +"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can +demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against +your inclination--though I should prefer to have it." + +Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the +painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed +scratches the air. + +"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued, +uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's +writing?" + +"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," repeats +Mr. George. + +"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" + +"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, +sir," repeats Mr. George. + +"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," +says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written +paper tied together. + +"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. George. + +All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner, +looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at +the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him +for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but +continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. + +"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?" + +"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, "I +would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" + +"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I am +not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in +Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand +any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr. +Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of +this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my +sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at the +present moment." + +With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on +the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former +station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground +and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to +prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever. + +Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of +disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my +dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the +possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in +his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear +friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so +eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, +confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr. +Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are the +best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do no harm +by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you know what you +mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an appearance of +perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and +prepares to write a letter. + +Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the +ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. +Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, +often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. + +"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it offensively, +that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered +fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you +gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's +hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of +business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are +confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such +wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of +doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest +about that." + +"Aye! He is dead, sir." + +"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. + +"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another +disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more +satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I +should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing +to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for +business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to +consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at +present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his +brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me." + +Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so +strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel +with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of +five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr. +Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. + +"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper, +"and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer +in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried +downstairs--" + +"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me +speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" + +"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper +retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious +inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. + +"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather +Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his +coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry +eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in +his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak +up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say +you saw him put it there!" + +This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a +thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and +he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him, +until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. + +"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then +remarks coolly. + +"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and +galling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a +grandmother," to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, +"to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to +give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the +most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him +periodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If +he won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, +sir! Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at +the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind +assistance, my excellent friend!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting +itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his +back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and +acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod. + +It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George +finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is +replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the +guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having, +in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that +some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a +separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in +quest of his adviser. + +By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a +glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in +his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George +sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that +ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the +bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost +his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron +monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares. +To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's +shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a +tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, +Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from +it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts +tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub +commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, +Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never +saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing +greens!" + +The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in +washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. +George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when +she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing +near her. Her reception of him is not flattering. + +"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" + +The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the +musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon +the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon +it. + +"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute +when you're near him. You are that restless and that roving--" + +"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am." + +"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? WHY +are you?" + +"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper +good-humouredly. + +"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction +will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have +tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or +Australey?" + +Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a +little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which +have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and +bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from +forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed +(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she +stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her +finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will +never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust. + +"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat +will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far." + +"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs. +Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and +married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have +combed your hair for you." + +"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half +laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a +respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--there +was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't make up my +mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat +found!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve +with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow +herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. +George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the +little room behind the shop. + +"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, into +that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!" + +These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by +the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from +the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on +three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in +learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine +perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail +Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing +and romping plant their stools beside him. + +"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. + +"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans +(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would +you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, +to play the fife in a military piece." + +"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. + +"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what +Woolwich is. A Briton!" + +"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians +one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children growing up. +Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, +corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! To be sure, +I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I +have not much to do with all this!" + +Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the +whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and +contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or +dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots +and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming +thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet +and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an +ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers +like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid +complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all +unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed +there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding, +brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human +orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer. + +Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due +season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet +hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after +dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without +first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to +this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic +preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street, +which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it +were a rampart. + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that +advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. +Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. +Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!" + +"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her +opinion than that of a college." + +"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "What +college could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with +nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to +Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!" + +"You are right," says Mr. George. + +"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two +penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of +sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's +what the old girl started on. In the present business." + +"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a stocking +somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it. +Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up." + +"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. + +"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be +maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical +abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old +girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old +girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility; +try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster +of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got +another, get a living by it!" + +George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an +apple. + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine +woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as +she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it +before her. Discipline must be maintained!" + +Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down +the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec +and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs. +Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the +distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, +Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before +her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of +pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out +complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus +supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to +satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the +mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly +composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several +parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is +of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong +shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that +young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the +complete round of foreign service. + +The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who +polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the +dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, +first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor +may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household +cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard +and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to +assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl +reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her +needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be +considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper +to state his case. + +This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address +himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all +the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies +herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet +resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. + +"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. + +"That's the whole of it." + +"You act according to my opinion?" + +"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell +him what it is." + +It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too +deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters +he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the +dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never +to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is +Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so +relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and +banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe +on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with +the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of +experience. + +Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again +rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on +when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the +theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his +domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and +insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with +felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George +again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it +is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that +evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a +vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold +to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I +didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber +nobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!" + +So he whistles it off and marches on. + +Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair, +he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper +not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark +besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a +bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn +comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "Who is +that? What are you doing there?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant." + +"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" + +"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the trooper, +rather nettled. + +"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. +Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance. + +"In the same mind, sir." + +"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man," +says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose +hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" + +"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs +down. "What then, sir?" + +"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen +the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being +that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." + +With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the +lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering +noise. + +Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because +a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and +evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to bear," the +trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. "A +threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And looking up, he sees +the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp. +This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill +humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home +to the shooting gallery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The Ironmaster + + +Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the +family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a +figurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in +Lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds, +and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended, +and eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of faggot and +coal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze upon the +broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods, +sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. The +hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the +cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to +supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester's need. +Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the +listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to +town for a few weeks. + +It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor +relations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share of +poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality, +like inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and WILL be +heard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many +murders in the respect that they "will out." Among whom there are +cousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would +have been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon +the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at +first and done base service. + +Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not +profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they +visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live +but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and +the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts +that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The +rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the +something over that nobody knows what to do with. + +Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his +way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my +Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir +Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of +relationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the +Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified +way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in +despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins +at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr. + +Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young +lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be +a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss +Volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting +ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar +in the Spanish tongue, and propounding French conundrums in country +houses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and +forty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date +and being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the +Spanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on +an annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional +resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an +extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with +thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that +dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of +an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an +obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. + +In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case +for the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and +when William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would +be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow +discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the +times when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication +Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going +to pieces. + +There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm +mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot +than most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly +desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, +unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated +body politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young +gentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but +somehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times +in which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the +second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the +country was going to pieces. + +The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and +capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have +done well enough in life if they could have overcome their +cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and +lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as +much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be +how to dispose of them. + +In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. +Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world +(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to +pole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and +indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The +cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir +Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob +Stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and +lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed +woman in the whole stud. + +Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal +night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however) +might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is +near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, +raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom +candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins +yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water +tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the +fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are +two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my +Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, +in a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with +magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace. + +"I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whose +thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long +evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, I think, +that I ever saw in my life." + +"A PROTEGEE of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked +that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty +perhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its +way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!" + +Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the +rouge, appears to say so too. + +"Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in +the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her +discovery." + +"Your maid, I suppose?" + +"No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what." + +"You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, +or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, though--or +anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia, sympathizing. +"Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. +Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as +active and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!" + +Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper +of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he +has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised. +So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia is extremely +glad to hear. + +"She has no daughter of her own, has she?" + +"Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two." + +My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by +Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and +heaves a noiseless sigh. + +"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the +present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening +of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says Sir Leicester +with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn +that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament." + +Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream. + +"Yes, indeed," repeats Sir Leicester. "Into Parliament." + +"I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?" +exclaims Volumnia. + +"He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster." Sir Leicester says it +slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is +called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word +expressive of some other relationship to some other metal. + +Volumnia utters another little scream. + +"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn +be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always +correct and exact; still that does not," says Sir Leicester, "that +does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange +considerations--startling considerations, as it appears to me." + +Miss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester +politely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and +lights it at my Lady's shaded lamp. + +"I must beg you, my Lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a few +moments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening +shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"--Sir +Leicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--"I am +bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour +of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this +young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I +replied that we would see him before retiring." + +Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her +hosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster! + +The other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir +Leicester rings the bell, "Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in +the housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now." + +My Lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly, +looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over +fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear +voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a +shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman +dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a +perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by +the great presence into which he comes. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for +intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you, +Sir Leicester." + +The head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself +and my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there. + +"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in +progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places +that we are always on the flight." + +Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that +there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that +quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and +the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the +fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the +terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much +the property of every Dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and +lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose +and that of Chesney Wold to the restless flights of ironmasters. + +"Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a +respectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a young +beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa +and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to +their becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose she +will. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence +in my son's good sense--even in love. I find her what he represents +her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with +great commendation." + +"She in all respects deserves it," says my Lady. + +"I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on +the value to me of your kind opinion of her." + +"That," observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he +thinks the ironmaster a little too glib, "must be quite unnecessary." + +"Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man, +and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make +his; and his being married at present is out of the question. But +supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty +girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a +piece of candour to say at once--I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock, you will understand and excuse me--I should make it a +condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before +communicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that +if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I +will hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave +it precisely where it is." + +Not remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's +old misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in the iron +districts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower +upon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his +whiskers, actually stirs with indignation. + +"Am I to understand, sir," says Sir Leicester, "and is my Lady to +understand"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of +gallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on +her sense--"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to +understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for +Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" + +"Certainly not, Sir Leicester," + +"I am glad to hear it." Sir Leicester very lofty indeed. + +"Pray, Mr. Rouncewell," says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with +the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, +"explain to me what you mean." + +"Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more." + +Addressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too +quick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness, +however habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a picture +of resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with attention, +occasionally slightly bending her head. + +"I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my +childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a +century and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those +examples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and attachment, +and fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of, +but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole +merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides--on +the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly." + +Sir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way, +but in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently, +admits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition. + +"Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it +hastily supposed," with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir +Leicester, "that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or +wanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family. +I certainly may have desired--I certainly have desired, Lady +Dedlock--that my mother should retire after so many years and end +her days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond +would be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea." + +Sir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell +being spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an +ironmaster. + +"I have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an +apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years and +years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife +was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three +daughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being +fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had +ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of +our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station." + +A little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in +his heart, "even of the Chesney Wold station." Not a little more +magnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester. + +"All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the +class to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal +marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son +will sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in +love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once +worked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first +very possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son. +However, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to +be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'I must be quite +sure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of +you. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it +may be, 'I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters +for such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour +to see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she +has so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair +equality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make +you happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and +I think they indicate to me my own course now." + +Sir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly. + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the +breast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted +in the gallery, "do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a--" +Here he resists a disposition to choke, "a factory?" + +"I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very +different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may +be justly drawn between them." + +Sir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long +drawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake. + +"Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady--my Lady--has +placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside +the gates?" + +"Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and +handsomely supported by this family." + +"Then, Mr. Rouncewell," returns Sir Leicester, "the application of +what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible." + +"Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say," the +ironmaster is reddening a little, "that I do not regard the village +school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's +wife?" + +From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute, +to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of +society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in +consequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not) +not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto +which they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to Sir +Leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to +find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out +of THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the +floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the +Dedlock mind. + +"My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!" She has +given a faint indication of intending to speak. "Mr. Rouncewell, our +views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education, +and our views of--in short, ALL our views--are so diametrically +opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your +feelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with +my Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from +that notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the +influence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions--you will allow +me to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he +is not accountable for them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions, +withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at +liberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which +you have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, +on the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no +terms; and here we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the +subject." + +The visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she +says nothing. He then rises and replies, "Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe +that I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present +inclinations. Good night!" + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a +gentleman shining in him, "it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope +your time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and +myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at +least." + +"I hope so," adds my Lady. + +"I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to +reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time +in the morning." + +Therewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing +the bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room. + +When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the +fire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in +an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her. + +"Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?" + +"Oh! My Lady!" + +My Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, +"Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?" + +"Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with +him--yet." + +"Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?" + +"I think he likes me a little, my Lady." And Rosa bursts into tears. + +Is this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing +her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so +full of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is! + +"Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are +attached to me." + +"Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I +wouldn't do to show how much." + +"And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even +for a lover?" + +"No, my Lady! Oh, no!" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite +frightened at the thought. + +"Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, and +will make you so--if I can make anybody happy on this earth." + +Rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My +Lady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with +her eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own +two hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, Rosa +softly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire. + +In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that +never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? +Or does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it +most resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's +feet, ever coming on--on--on? Some melancholy influence is upon her, +or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the +hearth so desolate? + +Volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before +dinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir +Leicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and +opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, +manifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch +but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of +William Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a +stake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud and +wrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir +Leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general +rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl +necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one +appurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find +it to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets--the cousins +disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that +blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, +as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The Young Man + + +Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in +corners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown +holland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock +ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the +house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling +down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener +sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full +barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the +shrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows +rattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the +points of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds. +On all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a +little church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and +buried Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour +of their graves behind them. + +But the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney +Wold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning +when it mourns, excepting when a Dedlock dies--the house in town +shines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state may be, as +delicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter +as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking +of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the +stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of Sir +Leicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to +repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, +condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine +arts with a glance of approbation. For he has his pictures, ancient +and modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally +condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like +the miscellaneous articles in a sale. As "Three high-backed chairs, a +table and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one +Spanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg +the model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote." Or "One +stone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian +senator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with +profile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly +mounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very +rare), and Othello." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate +business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady +pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as +indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it +may be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it. +It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of +compunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the +state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest +for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it. +Whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made +his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined +to have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed +among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the +splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always +treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous +clients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my +Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon +her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer +with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with +ribbons at the knees. + +Sir Leicester sits in my Lady's room--that room in which Mr. +Tulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce--particularly +complacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her +screen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because +he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly +on the floodgates and the framework of society. They apply so happily +to the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my +Lady's room expressly to read them aloud. "The man who wrote this +article," he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he +were nodding down at the man from a mount, "has a well-balanced +mind." + +The man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, +who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid +resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and +falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at +Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite +unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally +stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "Very true +indeed," "Very properly put," "I have frequently made the same remark +myself," invariably losing his place after each observation, and +going up and down the column to find it again. + +Sir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the +door opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange +announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy." + +Sir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "The young +man of the name of Guppy?" + +Looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much +discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of +introduction in his manner and appearance. + +"Pray," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, "what do you mean by +announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?" + +"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the +young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir +Leicester." + +With this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at +the young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, "What do you +come calling here for and getting ME into a row?" + +"It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady. "Let +the young man wait." + +"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not +interrupt you." Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather +declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and +majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive +appearance. + +Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has +left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She +suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants. + +"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a +little conversation," returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed. + +"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?" + +"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended to +favour me with an answer." + +"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation +unnecessary? Can you not still?" + +Mr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent "No!" and shakes his head. + +"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all, +that what you have to say does not concern me--and I don't know how +it can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me to cut you +short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you +please." + +My Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards +the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the +name of Guppy. + +"With your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "I will +now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my +first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit +of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention +to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and +in which my standing--and I may add income--is tolerably good. I may +now state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm +is Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn, which may not be altogether +unknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in Chancery of +Jarndyce and Jarndyce." + +My Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She has +ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening. + +"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once," says Mr. Guppy, a little +emboldened, "it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce +that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I +have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact, almost +blackguardly." + +After waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the contrary, +and not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, "If it had been Jarndyce +and Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your ladyship's +solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the pleasure of +being acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn--at least we move when we meet +one another--and if it had been any business of that sort, I should +have gone to him." + +My Lady turns a little round and says, "You had better sit down." + +"Thank your ladyship." Mr. Guppy does so. "Now, your ladyship"--Mr. +Guppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made small +notes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him in the +densest obscurity whenever he looks at it--"I--Oh, yes!--I place +myself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship was to +make any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn of the +present visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation. +That, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship's +honour." + +My Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the screen, +assures him of his being worth no complaint from her. + +"Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "quite satisfactory. +Now--I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of +the order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're +written short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your +ladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--" + +Mr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, to +whom he says in his confusion, "I beg your pardon, I am sure." This +does not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He murmurs, +growing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now close to his +eyes, now a long way off, "C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh! C.S.! Oh, I +know! Yes, to be sure!" And comes back enlightened. + +"I am not aware," says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady and +his chair, "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to +see, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson." + +My Lady's eyes look at him full. "I saw a young lady of that name not +long ago. This past autumn." + +"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks +Mr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and +scratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda. + +My Lady removes her eyes from him no more. + +"No." + +"Not like your ladyship's family?" + +"No." + +"I think your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "can hardly remember Miss +Summerson's face?" + +"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with me?" + +"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image +imprinted on my 'eart--which I mention in confidence--I found, when I +had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney Wold +while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend, +such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship's +own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I +didn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked me over. And +now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often, +since that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your +carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I +never saw your ladyship so near), it's really more surprising than I +thought it." + +Young man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies +lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, +when that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's +purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at +this moment. + +My Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again +what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her. + +"Your ladyship," replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, "I +am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.' Yes." Mr. +Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. My +Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of +graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady +gaze. "A--stop a minute, though!" Mr. Guppy refers again. "E.S. +twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on." + +Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech +with, Mr. Guppy proceeds. + +"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's +birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because--which I +mention in confidence--I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge +and Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss +Summerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I could clear this +mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having +the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she had a +right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make +a sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more +dedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In +fact, as yet she hasn't favoured them at all." + +A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face. + +"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship," says Mr. +Guppy, "though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of +us professional men--which I may call myself, for though not +admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge +and Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of her little +income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that I have +encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought +Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady +was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship." + +Is the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen which +has a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised hand as if +she had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on +her? + +"Did your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "ever happen to hear of Miss +Barbary?" + +"I don't know. I think so. Yes." + +"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?" + +My Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head. + +"NOT connected?" says Mr. Guppy. "Oh! Not to your ladyship's +knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes." After each of these +interrogatories, she has inclined her head. "Very good! Now, this +Miss Barbary was extremely close--seems to have been extraordinarily +close for a female, females being generally (in common life at least) +rather given to conversation--and my witness never had an idea +whether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only +one, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single +point, and she then told her that the little girl's real name was not +Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon." + +"My God!" + +Mr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him through, +with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to +the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a +little contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness +return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, +sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees +her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what +he has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead +condition seem to have passed away like the features of those +long-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which, +struck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath. + +"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?" + +"I have heard it before." + +"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's family?" + +"No." + +"Now, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "I come to the last point of +the case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall +gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must +know--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know +already--that there was found dead at the house of a person named +Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great +distress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which +law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But, +your ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-writer's +name was Hawdon." + +"And what is THAT to me?" + +"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer +thing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a disguised +lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went +to look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it +her. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in +corroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any +time." + +The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to have +him produced. + +"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed," says Mr. +Guppy. "If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on +her fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it quite +romantic." + +There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My +Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with +that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to +the young man of the name of Guppy. + +"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind +him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a +bundle of old letters." + +The screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never once +release him. + +"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship, +they will come into my possession." + +"Still I ask you, what is this to me?" + +"Your ladyship, I conclude with that." Mr. Guppy rises. "If you think +there's enough in this chain of circumstances put together--in the +undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which +is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by Miss +Barbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson's real name to be +Hawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both these names VERY WELL; and in +Hawdon's dying as he did--to give your ladyship a family interest in +going further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don't +know what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never +had them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here as soon +as I get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship. +I have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I +should be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint +was made, and all is in strict confidence." + +Is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or +has he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth, +of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they +hide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at him, but he +can look at the table and keep that witness-box face of his from +telling anything. + +"You may bring the letters," says my Lady, "if you choose." + +"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour," +says Mr. Guppy, a little injured. + +"You may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if +you--please." + +"It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day." + +On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped +like an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes it to her +and unlocks it. + +"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that +sort," says Mr. Guppy, "and I couldn't accept anything of the kind. I +wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the +same." + +So the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the +supercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave +his Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out. + +As Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper, +is there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to make +the very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, the very +portraits frown, the very armour stir? + +No. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and +shut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered +trumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint +vibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house, +going upward from a wild figure on its knees. + +"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my +cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had +renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +Esther's Narrative + + +Richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a +few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who, +having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having +written to my guardian, "by her son Allan's desire," to report that +she had heard from him and that he was well "and sent his kind +remembrances to all of us," had been invited by my guardian to make a +visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took +very kindly to me and was extremely confidential, so much so that +sometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew +very well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt +it was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite +help it. + +She was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands +folded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to me +that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being +so upright and trim, though I don't think it was that, because I +thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general +expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an +old lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do now, I +thought I did not then. Or at least--but it don't matter. + +Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me +into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; +and, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I +was quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from +Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right +names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery +with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they +were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic +of the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig. + +"So, Miss Summerson," she would say to me with stately triumph, +"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son +goes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have money, but +he always has what is much better--family, my dear." + +I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig in +India and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used to say +it was a great thing to be so highly connected. + +"It IS, my dear, a great thing," Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. "It has +its disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is +limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is +limited in much the same manner." + +Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to +assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us +notwithstanding. + +"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear," she would say, and always with some +emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate +heart, "was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of +MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal +Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last +representatives of two old families. With the blessing of heaven he +will set them up again and unite them with another old family." + +It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try, +only for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but I need not be so +particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it. + +"My dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense and you look +at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that +it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of +mine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of +him, I dare say, to recollect him?" + +"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him." + +"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, +and I should like to have your opinion of him." + +"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt," said I, "that is so difficult!" + +"Why is it so difficult, my dear?" she returned. "I don't see it +myself." + +"To give an opinion--" + +"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true." + +I didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a +good deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my guardian. +I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his +profession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss +Flite were above all praise. + +"You do him justice!" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. "You +define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession +faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he +is not without faults, love." + +"None of us are," said I. + +"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to +correct," returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. "I +am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a +third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself." + +I said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have +been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the +pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned. + +"You are right again, my dear," the old lady retorted, "but I don't +refer to his profession, look you." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"No," said she. "I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is +always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has +been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really +cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any +harm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still, +it's not right, you know; is it?" + +"No," said I, as she seemed to wait for me. + +"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear." + +I supposed it might. + +"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be more +careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he +has always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better than +anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm--in short, mean +nothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no +justification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an +indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and +introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear," +said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, "regarding your +dear self, my love?" + +"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?" + +"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek +his fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek YOUR fortune +and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!" + +I don't think I did blush--at all events, it was not important if I +did--and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had +no wish to change it. + +"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to +come for you, my love?" said Mrs. Woodcourt. + +"If you believe you are a good prophet," said I. + +"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very +worthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself. +And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy." + +"That is a good fortune," said I. "But why is it to be mine?" + +"My dear," she returned, "there's suitability in it--you are so busy, +and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there's +suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love, +will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I +shall." + +It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it +did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night +uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to +confess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. I +would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old +lady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me +the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was +a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. +Now I suspected that she was very cunning, next moment I believed her +honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after +all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could +not I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by +her fire and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least +as well as to anybody else, and not trouble myself about the harmless +things she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for +I was very anxious that she should like me and was very glad indeed +that she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and +pain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in +twenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house, +and confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was +better and safer somehow that she should be there than anywhere else? +These were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account +for. At least, if I could--but I shall come to all that by and by, +and it is mere idleness to go on about it now. + +So when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was +relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought +such a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation. + +First Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I +was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no +news at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy +told us that she was going to be married in a month and that if Ada +and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the +world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never +should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy, +and Caddy had so much to say to us. + +It seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his +bankruptcy--"gone through the Gazette," was the expression Caddy +used, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and +commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in +some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had +given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should +think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied +every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had +been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the world again. +What he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a +"custom-house and general agent," and the only thing I ever +understood about that business was that when he wanted money more +than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found +it. + +As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn +lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden +(where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting +the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves +with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr. +Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had +deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had +become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus +familiarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his +parental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being +near at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple +commencing housekeeping at the academy in Newman Street when they +would. + +"And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?" + +"Oh! Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might get +on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before Prince, +he only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you have not been +very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you +mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder +him than marry him--if you really love him.'" + +"And how did you reassure him, Caddy?" + +"Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and +hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself. +But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped +our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in +of an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better +daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming +to stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children +were Indians." + +"Indians, Caddy?" + +"Yes," said Caddy, "wild Indians. And Pa said"--here she began to +sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world--"that +he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their +being all tomahawked together." + +Ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did +not mean these destructive sentiments. + +"No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in +their blood," said Caddy, "but he means that they are very +unfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in +being Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems +unnatural to say so." + +I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. + +"Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther," she returned. "It's impossible to +say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough; +and when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was +I don't know what--a steeple in the distance," said Caddy with a +sudden idea; "and then she shakes her head and says 'Oh, Caddy, +Caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola +letters." + +"And about your wardrobe, Caddy?" said I. For she was under no +restraint with us. + +"Well, my dear Esther," she returned, drying her eyes, "I must do the +best I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind +remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question +concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and +would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor +cares." + +Caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, +but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am +afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much +to admire in the good disposition which had survived under such +discouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a +little scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was her staying +with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all +three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and +saving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of +her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was, +we took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out +again in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be +squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the +docks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my +guardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would +be difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more +than her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and +if Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat +down to work. + +She was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her +fingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not help +reddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly +with vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over +that and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my +darling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of the town, +and I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible. + +Over and above this, Caddy was very anxious "to learn housekeeping," +as she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning +housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I +laughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she +proposed it. However, I said, "Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome +to learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear," and I showed +her all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. You would have +supposed that I was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her +study of them; and if you had seen her, whenever I jingled my +housekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have +thought that there never was a greater imposter than I with a blinder +follower than Caddy Jellyby. + +So what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and +backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the +three weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see +what could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to take +care of my guardian. + +When I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in +Hatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where +preparations were in progress too--a good many, I observed, for +enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting +the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house--but +our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the +wedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some +faint sense of the occasion. + +The latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs. +Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the +back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with +waste-paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be +littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong +coffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by +appointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a +decline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home, +he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got +something to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then, +feeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton +Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down +the house as they had always been accustomed to do. + +The production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable +condition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I +proposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on +her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should +confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a +clean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of +attention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably +since I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a +dustman's horse. + +Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means +of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look +at it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome +boy was gone. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her +usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous preparations, +though your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is +something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being +married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!" + +She came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes +in her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea to +her, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, "My +good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have +been equipped for Africa!" + +On our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this +troublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And on +my replying yes, she said, "Will my room be required, my dear Miss +Summerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away." + +I took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted +and that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. "Well, my +dear Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, "you know best, I dare say. +But by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that +extent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don't know +which way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday +afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious." + +"It is not likely to occur again," said I, smiling. "Caddy will be +married but once, probably." + +"That's true," Mrs. Jellyby replied; "that's true, my dear. I suppose +we must make the best of it!" + +The next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the +occasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely +from her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally +shaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior +spirit who could just bear with our trifling. + +The state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion +in which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at +length we devised something not very unlike what a common-place +mother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which +Mrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on +by the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then +observe to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to +Africa, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour. + +The lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if +Mrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or +Saint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size +of the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to +be dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it +had been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those +preparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been +possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic +object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee +to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate +upon it. + +Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he +was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he +saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among +all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such +wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were +opened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps, +letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, +wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, +footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books +with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out +by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, +heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, +umbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came +regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head +against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known +how. + +"Poor Pa!" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when +we really had got things a little to rights. "It seems unkind to +leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first +knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's +useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We +never have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to everything." + +Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low +indeed and shed tears, I thought. + +"My heart aches for him; that it does!" sobbed Caddy. "I can't help +thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, +and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a +disappointed life!" + +"My dear Caddy!" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the +wail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three +words together. + +"Yes, Pa!" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him +affectionately. + +"My dear Caddy," said Mr. Jellyby. "Never have--" + +"Not Prince, Pa?" faltered Caddy. "Not have Prince?" + +"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Jellyby. "Have him, certainly. But, never +have--" + +I mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that +Richard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after +dinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened his +mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy +manner. + +"What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?" asked +Caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck. + +"Never have a mission, my dear child." + +Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and +this was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to +expressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose he +had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been +completely exhausted long before I knew him. + +I thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking +over her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock +before we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it +required then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired +out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon +cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed. + +In the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity +of soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. The plain +breakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But +when my darling came, I thought--and I think now--that I never had +seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. + +We made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy at +the head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress, +and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried to think +that she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again +until we brought Prince up to fetch her away--when, I am sorry to +say, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs, in +a state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing Caddy +and giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his +own parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to +ensure it. "My dear sir," said Mr. Turveydrop, "these young people +will live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation, +and they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have +wished--you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you +remember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent--I could have +wished that my son had married into a family where there was more +deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" + +Mr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party--Mr. Pardiggle, an +obstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who +was always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs. +Pardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his hair +brushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was +also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the +accepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a Miss Wisk, who +was also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show +the world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only +genuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving +declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. +The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, +all devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned, +there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the +ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected +home, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church +was like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was +his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms +of coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party. + +A party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly +have been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the +domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them; +indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat +down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in +the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of +her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a +mission--except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly +said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission--cared at all +for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only +one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and +applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk +was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation +of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the +while, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but +Borrioboola-Gha. + +But I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride +home instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr. +Jellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with +his hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman +like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig, +stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the +ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do +it justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in +appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings, +as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with +her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all +the company. + +We duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of +the table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen +upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was +Turveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an +agreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports +of kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent for but accede +to the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. So +he came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. Jellyby, after saying, in +reference to the state of his pinafore, "Oh, you naughty Peepy, what +a shocking little pig you are!" was not at all discomposed. He was +very good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I +had given him before we went to church) and WOULD dip him head first +into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth. + +My guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his +amiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial +company. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or +her, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even +that as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my +guardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and the +honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly. +What we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, for all +the company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr. +Turveydrop--and old Mr. Thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment, +considering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a very +unpromising case. + +At last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her +property was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her +and her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy clinging, +then, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with +the greatest tenderness. + +"I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma," sobbed +Caddy. "I hope you forgive me now." + +"Oh, Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "I have told you over and over +again that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." + +"You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are +sure before I go away, Ma?" + +"You foolish Caddy," returned Mrs. Jellyby, "do I look angry, or have +I inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?" + +"Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!" + +Mrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "You romantic child," +said she, lightly patting Caddy's back. "Go along. I am excellent +friends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!" + +Then Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as +if he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in the +hall. Her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and +sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he +found some consolation in walls. I almost think he did. + +And then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and +respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was +overwhelming. + +"Thank you over and over again, father!" said Prince, kissing his +hand. "I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration +regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy." + +"Very," sobbed Caddy. "Ve-ry!" + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "and dear daughter, I have done +my duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks +down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my +recompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I +believe?" + +"Dear father, never!" cried Prince. + +"Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!" said Caddy. + +"This," returned Mr. Turveydrop, "is as it should be. My children, my +home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave +you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an +absence of a week, I think?" + +"A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week." + +"My dear child," said Mr. Turveydrop, "let me, even under the present +exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly +important to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all +neglected, are apt to take offence." + +"This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner." + +"Good!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "You will find fires, my dear Caroline, +in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes, +Prince!" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part +with a great air. "You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper +part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my +apartment. Now, bless ye!" + +They drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at +Mr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the same +condition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove away too, +I received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from Mr. +Jellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed +them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his +meaning that I said, quite flurried, "You are very welcome, sir. Pray +don't mention it!" + +"I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said I when we +three were on our road home. + +"I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see." + +"Is the wind in the east to-day?" I ventured to ask him. + +He laughed heartily and answered, "No." + +"But it must have been this morning, I think," said I. + +He answered "No" again, and this time my dear girl confidently +answered "No" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming +flowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. "Much YOU +know of east winds, my ugly darling," said I, kissing her in my +admiration--I couldn't help it. + +Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a +long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it +gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind +where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there +was sunshine and summer air. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Nurse and Patient + + +I had not been at home again many days when one evening I went +upstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and +see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying +business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen, +but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, +and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into +corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters +Charley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and +tottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert +at other things and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched. + +"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which +it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed +in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only get to make it +round, we shall be perfect, Charley." + +Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join +Charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. + +"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time." + +Charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut +her cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride +and half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy. + +"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of +the name of Jenny?" + +"A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes." + +"She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said +you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's little +maid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes, miss." + +"I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley." + +"So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to +live--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of +Liz, miss?" + +"I think I do, Charley, though not by name." + +"That's what she said!" returned Charley. "They have both come back, +miss, and have been tramping high and low." + +"Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss." If Charley could only have made the letters in her copy +as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would +have been excellent. "And this poor person came about the house three +or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all she wanted, +she said--but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me +a-going about, miss," said Charley with a short laugh of the greatest +delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your maid!" + +"Did she though, really, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss!" said Charley. "Really and truly." And Charley, with +another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round +again and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of +seeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing +before me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, +and her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the +pleasantest way. + +"And where did you see her, Charley?" said I. + +My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor's +shop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock yet. + +I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It +was some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to +Saint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy, +Charley said. No father, no mother, no any one. "Like as Tom might +have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father," said Charley, +her round eyes filling with tears. + +"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?" + +"She said, miss," returned Charley, "how that he had once done as +much for her." + +My little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so +closely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no great +difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I, "it +appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to +Jenny's and see what's the matter." + +The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and +having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and +made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her +readiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any one, went +out. + +It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The +rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission +for many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had +partly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, where a few stars +were shining. In the north and north-west, where the sun had set +three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and +awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea +stricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare +overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two +lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an +unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and +on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was +as solemn as might be. + +I had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what was soon +to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had +stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went +upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself +as being something different from what I then was. I know it was then +and there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with +that spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and +time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and +the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. + +It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place +where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than +I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were +burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare. + +We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the +patched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the +little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the +poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported +by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held under his +arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried +to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. The +place was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar +smell. + +I had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was +at the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and +stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. + +His action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident +that I stood still instead of advancing nearer. + +"I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "I +ain't a-going there, so I tell you!" + +I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low +voice, "Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head," and +said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?" + +"I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. + +"Who?" + +"The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the +berryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like the +name on it. She might go a-berryin ME." His shivering came on again, +and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel. + +"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am," said +Jenny softly. "Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo." + +"Is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm +held out above his burning eyes. "She looks to me the t'other one. It +ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the +t'other one." + +My little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and +trouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up +to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse. +Except that no such attendant could have shown him Charley's youthful +face, which seemed to engage his confidence. + +"I say!" said the boy. "YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other +lady?" + +Charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him +and made him as warm as she could. + +"Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't." + +"I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is the +matter with you?" + +"I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze +wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then +burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy, and +all a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bones isn't half so much +bones as pain. + +"When did he come here?" I asked the woman. + +"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had +known him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?" + +"Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied. + +Whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very +little while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it +heavily, and speak as if he were half awake. + +"When did he come from London?" I asked. + +"I come from London yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed and +hot. "I'm a-going somewheres." + +"Where is he going?" I asked. + +"Somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "I have been moved +on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t'other one +give me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and +a-driving of me--what have I done to her?--and they're all a-watching +and a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time +when I don't get up, to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm +a-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in +Tom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the +Stolbuns Road. It's as good as another." + +He always concluded by addressing Charley. + +"What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "He +could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew +where he was going!" + +"I know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancing +compassionately at him. "Perhaps the dead know better, if they could +only tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've +given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will +take him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but I call it +mine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home +and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him +a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!" + +The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up +with a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the +little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out +of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. There she +was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living +in Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again. + +The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from +hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too +early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last +it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent +her back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it +appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in +evading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all, +she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was +frightened too, "Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's +not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for +him!" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his +hand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he +shuffled out of the house. + +"Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "and thank +you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my +master don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by, +where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" She +hurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her +child at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her +drunken husband. + +I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should +bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave +the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did, +and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before +me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln. + +I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under +his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried +his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went +bare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we +called to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing +with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his +shivering fit. + +I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some +shelter for the night. + +"I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warm +bricks." + +"But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley. + +"They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies in their +lodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in +Tom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according +to what I see." Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, "If she ain't the +t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?" + +Charley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened at +myself when the boy glared on me so. + +But he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that +he acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. It +was not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one man. I +doubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's +steps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, however, +and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say so strange +a thing. + +Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the +window-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be +called wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into +the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole, +who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice, +and never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing +everything he wanted. + +They came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants had +gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with +Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found +in a ditch. + +"This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a +question or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "What do you +say, Harold?" + +"You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole. + +"What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. + +"My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am: I am a +child. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional +objection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical +man. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad sort of fever about +him." + +Mr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again +and said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood +by. + +"You'll say it's childish," observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at +us. "Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never +pretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only +put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you +know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or +five shillings, or five pound ten--you are arithmeticians, and I am +not--and get rid of him!" + +"And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. + +"Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his +engaging smile, "I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But +I have no doubt he'll do it." + +"Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom I +had hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "is it +not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling his +hair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his +hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken +care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon the +simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is +perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner +then?" + +My guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of +amusement and indignation in his face. + +"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should +imagine," said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. "It seems to me +that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more +respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into +prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and +consequently more of a certain sort of poetry." + +"I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that +there is not such another child on earth as yourself." + +"Do you really?" said Mr. Skimpole. "I dare say! But I confess I +don't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to +invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt +born with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of +health, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young +friend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young +friend says in effect to society, 'I am hungry; will you have the +goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has taken +upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and +professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that +spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'You really must excuse +me if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected +energy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain +amount of romance; and I don't know but what I should be more +interested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case, +than merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can be." + +"In the meantime," I ventured to observe, "he is getting worse." + +"In the meantime," said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, "as Miss Summerson, +with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. +Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still +worse." + +The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget. + +"Of course, little woman," observed my guardian, turning to me, "I +can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there +to enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his +condition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very +bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the +wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till +morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do that." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as +we moved away. "Are you going back to our young friend?" + +"Yes," said my guardian. + +"How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!" returned Mr. Skimpole +with playful admiration. "You don't mind these things; neither does +Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do +anything. Such is will! I have no will at all--and no won't--simply +can't." + +"You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?" said my +guardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half +angrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an accountable +being. + +"My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his +pocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You +can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he +sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it +is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss +Summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the +administration of detail that she knows all about it." + +We went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to +do, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with +the languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at +what was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants +compassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help, +we soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house +carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to +observe how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a +general impression among them that frequently calling him "Old Chap" +was likely to revive his spirits. Charley directed the operations and +went to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little +stimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My +guardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and +reported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on +the boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at +day-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to +sleep. They had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of +his being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any +noise without being heard. + +Ada being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all +this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic +airs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with +great expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the +drawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come +into his head "apropos of our young friend," and he sang one about a +peasant boy, + + "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, + Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." + +quite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told +us. + +He was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely +chirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a +happy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his glass +of negus, "Better health to our young friend!" and supposed and gaily +pursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington to become +Lord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the +Jarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, and a little +annual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had no doubt, he +said, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his +way was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold Skimpole was, Harold +Skimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he +first made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his +failings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the +bargain; and he hoped we would do the same. + +Charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from +my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went +to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered. + +There was more movement and more talking than usual a little before +daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my +window and asked one of our men who had been among the active +sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the +house. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window. + +"It's the boy, miss," said he. + +"Is he worse?" I inquired. + +"Gone, miss. + +"Dead!" + +"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." + +At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed +hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and +the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he +had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty +cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and +it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was +missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to +the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and +that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary +horror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of +us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in +his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend +that he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him, +and that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off. + +Every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The +brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women +were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and +nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for +some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit +of any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and +stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the +boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing +was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when +he was left in the loft-room, he vanished. + +The search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased even +then, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very +memorable to me. + +As Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as +I sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. Looking up, +I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. + +"Charley," said I, "are you so cold?" + +"I think I am, miss," she replied. "I don't know what it is. I can't +hold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss. +Don't be uneasy, I think I'm ill." + +I heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of +communication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked +it. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the +key. + +Ada called to me to let her in, but I said, "Not now, my dearest. Go +away. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently." Ah! +It was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions +again. + +Charley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her to my +room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. I +told my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was necessary that I +should seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above +all. At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and +even reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter +saying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she +loved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than +the garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than +she had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet +voice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love +it then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and +replying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it +afterwards, when the harder time came! + +They put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door +wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated +that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There +was not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they +would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night +without the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to +choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could +trust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out +to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting +Ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than +in any other respect. + +And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy +danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day +and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such +a gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her +head in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would come to +her in no other attitude--I silently prayed to our Father in heaven +that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught +me. + +I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would +change and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a child +with her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater part, +lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind +rambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little +children, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my +arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the +wanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I used to +think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby +who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their +need was dead! + +There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, +telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was +sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would +speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could +to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was +the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's +daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And +Charley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and +prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and +given back to his poor children, and that if she should never get +better and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come +into Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show +Tom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on +earth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven! + +But of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there +was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And +there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high +belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on +the part of her poor despised father. + +And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the +dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend. +The hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being +in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged; +and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish +likeness again. + +It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood +out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at +last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I +felt that I was stricken cold. + +Happily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed +again and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of her +illness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I felt at +tea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that I was +rapidly following in Charley's steps. + +I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to +return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk +with her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression that +I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside +myself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at +times--with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too +large altogether. + +In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare +Charley, with which view I said, "You're getting quite strong, +Charley, are you not?' + +"Oh, quite!" said Charley. + +"Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?" + +"Quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried Charley. But Charley's +face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in MY +face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom, +and said "Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!" and a great deal +more out of the fullness of her grateful heart. + +"Now, Charley," said I after letting her go on for a little while, +"if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And +unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for +yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley." + +"If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said Charley. "Oh, my +dear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my +dear!"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she +clung to my neck, I never can remember without tears--"I'll be good." + +So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. + +"Trust in me now, if you please, miss," said Charley quietly. "I am +listening to everything you say." + +"It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor +to-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse +me." + +For that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. "And in the +morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be +quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley, +and say I am asleep--that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep. +At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one +come." + +Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the +doctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask +relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. I +have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day, +and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first +morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. + +On the second morning I heard her dear voice--Oh, how dear +now!--outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech +being painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer +softly, "Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!" + +"How does my own Pride look, Charley?" I inquired. + +"Disappointed, miss," said Charley, peeping through the curtain. + +"But I know she is very beautiful this morning." + +"She is indeed, miss," answered Charley, peeping. "Still looking up +at the window." + +With her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when +raised like that! + +I called Charley to me and gave her her last charge. + +"Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way +into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the +last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for +one moment as I lie here, I shall die." + +"I never will! I never will!" she promised me. + +"I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a +little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, +Charley; I am blind." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +The Appointed Time + + +It is night in Lincoln's Inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the +shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and +fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down +the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at nine +o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are +shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of +sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows +clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a +fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at +the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little +patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and +conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes +of sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an +acre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their +species linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give, +for every day, some good account at last. + +In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and +bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and +supper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, engaged +with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been +lying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for some hours and +scouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of +passengers--Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now exchanged +congratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on +a door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and +the fact of Mr. Krook's being "continually in liquor," and the +testamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of +their conversation. But they have something to say, likewise, of the +Harmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where the sound of the piano +through the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and +where Little Swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar +like a very Yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a +concerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to +"Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. +Piper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of +professional celebrity who assists at the Harmonic Meetings and who +has a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window, +Mrs. Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year +and a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren, +and that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every +night to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments. +"Sooner than which, myself," says Mrs. Perkins, "I would get my +living by selling lucifers." Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the +same opinion, holding that a private station is better than public +applause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, Mrs. +Perkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms +appearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper accepts that +tankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to Mrs. +Perkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was +fetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before he was sent to +bed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court +and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen +in upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too, +the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be +suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis +that every one is either robbing or being robbed. + +It is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there +is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine steaming +night to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the +sewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the +registrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the +air--there is plenty in it--or it may be something in himself that is +in fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He +comes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty +times an hour. He has been doing so ever since it fell dark. Since +the Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night, +Mr. Weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight +velvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all +proportion), oftener than before. + +It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for +he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the +secret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he is a +partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what +seems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop in the court. +It has an irresistible attraction for him. Even now, coming round by +the Sol's Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out +at the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated +after-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back +again, Mr. Snagsby approaches. + +"What, Mr. Weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "Are YOU +there?" + +"Aye!" says Weevle, "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?" the stationer +inquires. + +"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not +very freshening," Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court. + +"Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to +sniff and taste the air a little, "don't you observe, Mr. Weevle, +that you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're rather +greasy here, sir?" + +"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in +the place to-night," Mr. Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops at the +Sol's Arms." + +"Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes +again. "Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at +the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em, sir! +And I don't think"--Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then +spits and wipes his mouth--"I don't think--not to put too fine a +point upon it--that they were quite fresh when they were shown the +gridiron." + +"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather." + +"It IS a tainting sort of weather," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I find it +sinking to the spirits." + +"By George! I find it gives me the horrors," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, +with a black circumstance hanging over it," says Mr. Snagsby, looking +in past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling +back a step to look up at the house. "I couldn't live in that room +alone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an +evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and +stand here sooner than sit there. But then it's very true that you +didn't see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference." + +"I know quite enough about it," returns Tony. + +"It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough +of mild persuasion behind his hand. "Mr. Krook ought to consider it +in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure." + +"I hope he does," says Tony. "But I doubt it." + +"You find the rent too high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. +"Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the +law seems to put things up in price. Not," adds Mr. Snagsby with his +apologetic cough, "that I mean to say a word against the profession I +get my living by." + +Mr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the +stationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a +star or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his +way out of this conversation. + +"It's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands, +"that he should have been--" + +"Who's he?" interrupts Mr. Weevle. + +"The deceased, you know," says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and +right eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on +the button. + +"Ah, to be sure!" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of +the subject. "I thought we had done with him." + +"I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should +have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that +you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which +there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation," +says Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have +unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, "because +I have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done +really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir," adds Mr. +Snagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter. + +"It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, once more +glancing up and down the court. + +"Seems a fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer. + +"There does." + +"Just so," observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. "Quite +a fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid +you good night"--Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go, +though he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since +he stopped to speak--"my little woman will be looking for me else. +Good night, sir!" + +If Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of +looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His +little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this +time and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over +her head, honouring Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching +glance as she goes past. + +"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr. Weevle to +himself; "and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you +are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER +coming!" + +This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up his +finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door. +Then they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy (for it is +he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they +speak low. + +"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here," +says Tony. + +"Why, I said about ten." + +"You said about ten," Tony repeats. "Yes, so you did say about ten. +But according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred +o'clock. I never had such a night in my life!" + +"What has been the matter?" + +"That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But here have I +been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the +horrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed-looking +candle!" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his +table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet. + +"That's easily improved," Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the snuffers +in hand. + +"IS it?" returns his friend. "Not so easily as you think. It has been +smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." + +"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr. Guppy, looking +at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the +table. + +"William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this +unbearably dull, suicidal room--and old Boguey downstairs, I +suppose." Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with +his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender, +and looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his +head and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy +attitude. + +"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?" + +"Yes, and he--yes, it was Snagsby," said Mr. Weevle, altering the +construction of his sentence. + +"On business?" + +"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose." + +"I thought it was Snagsby," says Mr. Guppy, "and thought it as well +that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone." + +"There we go again, William G.!" cried Tony, looking up for an +instant. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to +commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" + +Mr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the +conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the +room at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his survey +with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she +is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a +vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious +piece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of +fur, and a bracelet on her arm. + +"That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Guppy. "It's a speaking +likeness." + +"I wish it was," growls Tony, without changing his position. "I +should have some fashionable conversation, here, then." + +Finding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a +more sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and +remonstrates with him. + +"Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for +no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I +do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who +has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are bounds +to these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will +acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner on the +present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." + +"This is strong language, William Guppy," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Sir, it may be," retorts Mr. William Guppy, "but I feel strongly +when I use it." + +Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy +to think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the +advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured +remonstrance. + +"No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be +careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited +image imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those +chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in +yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the +taste. It is not--happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I +could say the same--it is not your character to hover around one +flower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry +you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound +even your feelings without a cause!" + +Tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying +emphatically, "William Guppy, drop it!" Mr. Guppy acquiesces, with +the reply, "I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord." + +"And now," says Tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same bundle +of letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have +appointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?" + +"Very. What did he do it for?" + +"What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his +birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll +have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day." + +"He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?" + +"Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him +to-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he had got +the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed 'em +me. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his +cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I +heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming +like the wind, the only song he knows--about Bibo, and old Charon, +and Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been +as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole." + +"And you are to go down at twelve?" + +"At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a +hundred." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs +crossed, "he can't read yet, can he?" + +"Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and +he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on +that much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to +acquire the knack of it now--and too drunk." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "how do +you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?" + +"He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has +and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye +alone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and +asked me what it meant." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again, +"should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?" + +"A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end of +the letter 'n,' long and hasty." + +Mr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue, +generally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As he +is going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. It +takes his attention. He stares at it, aghast. + +"Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is +there a chimney on fire?" + +"Chimney on fire!" + +"Ah!" returns Mr. Guppy. "See how the soot's falling. See here, on my +arm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow +off--smears like black fat!" + +They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a +little way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says +it's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to +Mr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms. + +"And it was then," resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable +aversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before +the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads +very near together, "that he told you of his having taken the bundle +of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?" + +"That was the time, sir," answers Tony, faintly adjusting his +whiskers. "Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable +William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and +advising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots." + +The light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed +by Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and +his whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears +to yield himself up a prey to the horrors again. + +"You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and +to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's +the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting +his thumb-nail. + +"You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed." + +"I tell you what, Tony--" + +"You can't speak too low," says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his +sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper. + +"I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another +packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one +while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." + +"And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with +his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely +than not," suggests Tony. + +"Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never +did. You found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal friend +of yours--for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible, +won't they?" + +"Ye-es," is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission. + +"Why, Tony," remonstrates his friend, "how you look! You don't doubt +William Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?" + +"I don't suspect anything more than I know, William," returns the +other gravely. + +"And what do you know?" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little; +but on his friend's once more warning him, "I tell you, you can't +speak too low," he repeats his question without any sound at all, +forming with his lips only the words, "What do you know?" + +"I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in +secrecy, a pair of conspirators." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "And we had better be that than a pair of +noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's +the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?" + +"Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable, +after all." + +Mr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the +mantelshelf and replies, "Tony, you are asked to leave that to the +honour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that +friend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not be +called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your friend +is no fool. What's that?" + +"It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and +you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." + +Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, +resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than +their situations. When these at length cease, all seems more +mysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of +whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, +haunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the +rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of +dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter +snow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full +of these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one +consent to see that the door is shut. + +"Yes, Tony?" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting +his unsteady thumb-nail. "You were going to say, thirdly?" + +"It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in +the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." + +"But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony." + +"May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see how +YOU like it." + +"As to dead men, Tony," proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal, +"there have been dead men in most rooms." + +"I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and +they let you alone," Tony answers. + +The two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to +the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he +hopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring +the fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had been +stirred instead. + +"Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. "Let +us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too close." + +He raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in +and half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to +admit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking +up, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of +distant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir +of men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, noiselessly tapping +on the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy +tone. + +"By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed," meaning the younger of +that name. "I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather +of his is too keen by half. It runs in the family." + +"I remember," says Tony. "I am up to all that." + +"And as to Krook," resumes Mr. Guppy. "Now, do you suppose he really +has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to +you, since you have been such allies?" + +Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. Can't Imagine. If we get through +this business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better +informed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don't +know himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking +them over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and +what that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be +the waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It's a +monomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been +going to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should +judge, from what he tells me." + +"How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question," +Mr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic +meditation. "He may have found papers in something he bought, where +papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd +head from the manner and place of their concealment that they are +worth something." + +"Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may +have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got, +and by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and +hearing of documents for ever," returns Mr. Weevle. + +Mr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing +all these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap +it, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily +draws his hand away. + +"What, in the devil's name," he says, "is this! Look at my fingers!" + +A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch +and sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil +with some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder. + +"What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of +window?" + +"I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been +here!" cries the lodger. + +And yet look here--and look here! When he brings the candle here, +from the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away +down the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool. + +"This is a horrible house," says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window. +"Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off." + +He so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he +has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood +silently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and +all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various +heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet +again, the lodger says, "It's the appointed time at last. Shall I +go?" + +Mr. Guppy nods and gives him a "lucky touch" on the back, but not +with the washed hand, though it is his right hand. + +He goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the +fire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the +stairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back. + +"Have you got them?" + +"Got them! No. The old man's not there." + +He has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his +terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, +"What's the matter?" + +"I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked +in. And the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the +oil is there--and he is not there!" Tony ends this with a groan. + +Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and +holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has +retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something +on the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in +the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room +and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and +table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as +usual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat. + +"Look!" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these +objects with a trembling finger. "I told you so. When I saw him last, +he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung +his cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there already, for he +had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up--and I left +him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that +crumbled black thing is upon the floor." + +Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. + +"See!" whispers Tony. "At the foot of the same chair there lies a +dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went +round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, +before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it +fall." + +"What's the matter with the cat?" says Mr. Guppy. "Look at her!" + +"Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place." + +They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains +where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground +before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the +light. + +Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a +little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to +be steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small +charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it +coal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away, +striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, +is all that represents him. + +Help, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty will +come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true +to his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord +chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under +all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice +is done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute +it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you +will, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, engendered +in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that +only--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that +can be died. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +Interlopers + + +Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons +who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in +the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly +fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute +perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and +write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note +down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery +Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the +most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and +horrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be +remembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the +public mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the +first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general +marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, +far advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable +coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be +recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a +well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question +on the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr. +James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible) +how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was +observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical +occurrence which forms the subject of that present account +transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr. +Swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby, +has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. +Melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise +engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called +Harmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at +the Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of +George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously +affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression +at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he +hadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is +entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in +the same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and +Mrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded +them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook, +the unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two +gentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy +catastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the +court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's +Arms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about +it. + +The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, +and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the +ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued +from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a +bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts +its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for +the Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house +has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in +brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard +what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his +shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first outcry, +young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph +at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to +that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and +torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all +chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in +company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in +charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of +sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid +form. + +Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and +are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only +stay there. "This is not a time," says Mr. Bogsby, "to haggle about +money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; +"give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever +you put a name to." + +Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names +to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to +put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to +all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of +what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile, +one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing +it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from +outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well +know what they are up to in there. + +Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of +bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, +still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little +money left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating +steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an +executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire +that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh, +whether or no. + +And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court +has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen +drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors +instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court +itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and +beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half +dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who +are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do +to keep the door. + +"Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. "What's this +I hear!" + +"Why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "That's what it is. +Now move on here, come!" + +"Why, good gracious, gentlemen," says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly +backed away, "I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven +o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here." + +"Indeed?" returns the policeman. "You will find the young man next +door then. Now move on here, some of you." + +"Not hurt, I hope?" says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!" + +Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his +troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle +languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him +of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke. + +"And Mr. Guppy likewise!" quoth Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear, dear! What +a fate there seems in all this! And my lit--" + +Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the +words "my little woman." For to see that injured female walk into the +Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the +beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, +strikes him dumb. + +"My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you +take anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of +shrub?" + +"No," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My love, you know these two gentlemen?" + +"Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their +presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye. + +The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. +Snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask. + +"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do +it." + +"I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I +wouldn't." + +Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "Wouldn't you +really, my dear?" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and +says, "This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully +disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye. + +"It IS," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful +mystery." + +"My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't for +goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me +in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good +Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any +person, my dear?" + +"I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby. + +On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't +say" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have +had something to do with it. He has had something--he don't know +what--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it +is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the +present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his +handkerchief and gasps. + +"My life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any objections +to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your +conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?" + +"Why do YOU come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has +happened to the venerable party who has been--combusted." Mr. Snagsby +has made a pause to suppress a groan. "I should then have related +them to you, my love, over your French roll." + +"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Every--my lit--" + +"I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his +increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would +come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than +anywhere else." + +"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to +go." + +Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. +Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with +which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the +Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible +for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of +the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. +Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are +so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up +to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with +the utmost rigour of the law if guilty. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into +Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as +many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may. + +"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony," says +Mr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the +square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must, +with very little delay, come to an understanding." + +"Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his +companion with a bloodshot eye. "If it's a point of conspiracy, you +needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, +and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire +next or blowing up with a bang." + +This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy +that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should have +thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson +to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." To which +Mr. Weevle returns, "William, I should have thought it would have +been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you +lived." To which Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" To which Mr. +Jobling replies, "Why, YOU are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "No, I +am not." To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, "Yes, you are!" To which +Mr. Guppy retorts, "Who says so?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "I +say so!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Oh, indeed?" To which Mr. +Jobling retorts, "Yes, indeed!" And both being now in a heated state, +they walk on silently for a while to cool down again. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead of +flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is +hasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all +that is calculated to charm the eye--" + +"Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. "Say what +you have got to say!" + +Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy +only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of +injury in which he recommences, "Tony, when I say there is a point on +which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite +apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is +professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what +facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that +we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the +death of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?" (Mr. Guppy was going to +say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better suited to the +circumstances.) + +"What facts? THE facts." + +"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are"--Mr. Guppy tells them +off on his fingers--"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him +last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and +how we made it." + +"Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are about the facts." + +"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric +way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you +were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on +account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with +you, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being only into the +circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary +to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?" + +"No!" returns Mr. Weevle. "I suppose not." + +"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy. + +"No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I +withdraw the observation." + +"Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him +slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you +have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live +at that place?" + +"What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping. + +"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your +continuing to live at that place?" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on +again. + +"At what place? THAT place?" pointing in the direction of the rag and +bottle shop. + +Mr. Guppy nods. + +"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that +you could offer me," says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring. + +"Do you mean it though, Tony?" + +"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that," +says Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder. + +"Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be +considered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those +effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no +relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find +out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at +all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?" says Mr. Guppy, +biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation. + +"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" +cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself." + +"Oh! I, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. "I have never lived +there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got +one." + +"You are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and--ugh!--you may make +yourself at home in it." + +"Then you really and truly at this point," says Mr. Guppy, "give up +the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?" + +"You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said +a truer word in all your life. I do!" + +While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, +on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to +the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the +multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach +stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. +Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy. + +An air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall +hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed +the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How +de do, sir! How de do!" + +"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, +I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar. + +"My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a +favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me +into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring +their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, +sir?" + +Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "The +public-house in the court?" And they prepare to bear the venerable +burden to the Sol's Arms. + +"There's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce +grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "Ask me for a penny more, +and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy +with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't +squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my +bones!" + +It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an +apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With +no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of +divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he +fulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman +is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms. + +"Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from +an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and +pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling +poll-parrot! Sit down!" + +This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a +propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds +herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects, +accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A +nervous affection has probably as much to do with these +demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but +on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion +with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is +seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held +her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with +great volubility, the endearing epithet of "a pig-headed jackdaw," +repeated a surprising number of times. + +"My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. +Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either +of you?" + +"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it." + +"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!" + +The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the +compliment. + +"My dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his +hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy +office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother." + +"Eh?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We were +not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on +terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very +eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I +shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look +after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I +have come down," repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air +towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the +property." + +"I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have +mentioned that the old man was your uncle." + +"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to +be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye. +"Besides, I wasn't proud of him." + +"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or +not," says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye. + +"He never saw me in his life to know me," observed Small; "I don't +know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!" + +"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the old +gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the property--to +look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make +good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, +of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as +my solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye. +Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but +Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of +your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years +of age." + +Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up, +"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of +money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of +bank-notes!" + +"Will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated +husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within +his reach. "Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody +hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, +you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the +highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her +grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin +at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping +into his chair in a heap. + +"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from +within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "I +have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the +police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the +property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the +property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch +the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and +putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and +punching, he still repeats like an echo, "The--the property! The +property! Property!" + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having +relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited +countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. +But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed +interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in +the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is +answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that +the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due +time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert +his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next +house and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks +like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. + +The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court +still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. +Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there +really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be +made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members +of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the +foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump +and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings +take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson +enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that +these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals +and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King +Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the +great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J. +G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in +consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the +bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a +late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." There is +one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is +particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin +should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the +undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that +he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," the general +solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. +Smallweed's conduct does him great honour. + +Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable +excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and +carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same +intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and +phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of +these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that +the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being +reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence +for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical +Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical +jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess +Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of +Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard +of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the +testimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who +WOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative +testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once +upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a +case occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard +the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such +by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the +court understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the +greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms. +Then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground +and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish +coast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in +Mrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws +in upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact, +considerably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being +permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts +that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high, +at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two +gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist +at the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to +everybody--and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and +writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper. + +At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that +the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and +tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that +would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined +house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't +account for!" After which the six-footer comes into action and is +much admired. + +In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when +he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual +and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the +mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of +bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings +draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the +catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady +Dedlock. + +For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense +of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms +have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at +the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests +to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; +don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage +at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too. + +Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a +fellow-gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his +instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the +young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young +man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him. + +Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering +everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or +wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, but +fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. + +"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very +downcast. "This is an inconvenient time--" + +"I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, looking +straight at him as on the last occasion. + +"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable." + +"You can sit down." There is not much affability in her tone. + +"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down +and detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I mentioned +when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship." + +"Have you come merely to say so?" + +"Merely to say so, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy besides being depressed, +disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the +splendour and beauty of her appearance. + +She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a +grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and +coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least +perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also +that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and +further from her. + +She will not speak, it is plain. So he must. + +"In short, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent +thief, "the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a +sudden end, and--" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the +sentence. + +"And the letters are destroyed with the person?" + +Mr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide. + +"I believe so, your ladyship." + +If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he +could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly +put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it. + +He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure. + +"Is this all you have to say?" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard +him out--or as nearly out as he can stumble. + +Mr. Guppy thinks that's all. + +"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this +being the last time you will have the opportunity." + +Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, +by any means. + +"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!" +And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy +out. + +But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old +man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his +quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the +handle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young +man as he is leaving the room. + +One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the +blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks +out. Another instant, close again. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. +It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the +room was empty. I beg your pardon!" + +"Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Remain here, I beg. I am +going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!" + +The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes +that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well. + +"Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent +brows, though he has no need to look again--not he. "From Kenge and +Carboy's, surely?" + +"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir." + +"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!" + +"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of +the profession." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!" + +Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his +old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her +down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and +rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A Turn of the Screw + + +"Now, what," says Mr. George, "may this be? Is it blank cartridge or +ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?" + +An open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it +seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings +it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left +hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that +side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy +himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and +thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it +every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't +do. "Is it," Mr. George still muses, "blank cartridge or ball?" + +Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the +distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time +and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to +the girl he left behind him. + +"Phil!" The trooper beckons as he calls him. + +Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were +going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a +bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon +his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the +brush. + +"Attention, Phil! Listen to this." + +"Steady, commander, steady." + +"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for +my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date +drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the +sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become +due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same +on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do you make of that, +Phil?" + +"Mischief, guv'ner." + +"Why?" + +"I think," replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle +in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious +consequences is always meant when money's asked for." + +"Lookye, Phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "First and +last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in +interest and one thing and another." + +Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very +unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the +transaction as being made more promising by this incident. + +"And lookye further, Phil," says the trooper, staying his premature +conclusions with a wave of his hand. "There has always been an +understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it +has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?" + +"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last." + +"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself." + +"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?" + +"The same." + +"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his +dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his +twistings, and a lobster in his claws." + +Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after +waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of +him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has +in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium +that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George, +having folded the letter, walks in that direction. + +"There IS a way, commander," says Phil, looking cunningly at him, "of +settling this." + +"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could." + +Phil shakes his head. "No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS +a way," says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; "what I'm +a-doing at present." + +"Whitewashing." + +Phil nods. + +"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the +Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my +old scores? YOU'RE a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing him +in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you are, +Phil!" + +Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting +earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush +and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, +that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much +as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when +steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice +is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at +his master, hobbles up, saying, "Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet! +Here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet, +appears. + +The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the +year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very +clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so +interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from +another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an +umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of +the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in +this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a +metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model +of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a +pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious +capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article +long associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of +a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays--an +appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a +series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet +bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her +well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the +instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or +bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of +tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a +sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. +Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest +sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. +Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George's Shooting +Gallery. + +"Well, George, old fellow," says she, "and how do YOU do, this +sunshiny morning?" + +Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long +breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a +faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such +positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench, +unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms, +and looks perfectly comfortable. + +Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and +with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod +and smile. + +"Now, George," said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, "here we are, Lignum and +myself"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on +account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old +regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment +to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy--"just +looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that +security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it +like a man." + +"I was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper reluctantly. + +"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out +early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and +came to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now, +and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's +the matter, George?" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk. +"You don't look yourself." + +"I am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "I have been a little +put out, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "George!" holding up +her forefinger. "Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that +security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the +children!" + +The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage. + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and +occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "If you +have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and +if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of +being sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as +print--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly. +I tell you, cruelly, George. There!" + +Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his +large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from +a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet. + +"George," says that old girl, "I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed +of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I +always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I +never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was +for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a +hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta +and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had +the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!" Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her +cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, "How could you do +it?" + +Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if +the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who +has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and +straw bonnet. + +"Mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still +looking at his wife, "I am sorry you take it so much to heart, +because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have, +this morning, received this letter"--which he reads aloud--"but I +hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you +say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody's +way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's +impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family +better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as +forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I +haven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, "will you tell +him my opinion?" + +"Oh! Why didn't he marry," Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and +half crying, "Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't +have got himself into these troubles." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "puts it correct--why didn't you?" + +"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope," returns the +trooper. "Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe +Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me. +It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every +morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum +wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you +or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish," says +the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, "that I +knew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind." + +"George," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on +full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the +means." + +"And that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his +head. "Like me, I know." + +"Silence! The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is correct--in her way of +giving my opinions--hear me out!" + +"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, +George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things +considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an +honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, +though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what +it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our +heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and +forgive all round!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her +husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds +them while he speaks. + +"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge +this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has +gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough +here, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was expected of +it, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was wrong in me to +take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step, +and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to +overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very +much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself." With these +concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he +holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a +broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession +and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours. + +"George, hear me out!" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. "Old +girl, go on!" + +Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to +observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that +it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. +Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold +harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely +assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to +the enemy's camp. + +"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George," says Mrs. Bagnet, +patting him on the shoulder. "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am +sure you'll bring him through it." + +The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring +Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak, +basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of +her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of +mollifying Mr. Smallweed. + +Whether there are two people in England less likely to come +satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr. +George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned. +Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square +shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits +two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy +affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the +streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing +his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer +to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally. + +"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk. +But touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like +gunpowder." + +"It does her credit, Mat!" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old +girl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less. I +never say so. Discipline must be maintained." + +"She's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper. + +"In gold?" says Mr. Bagnet. "I'll tell you what. The old girl's +weight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any +metal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is +far more precious--than the preciousest metal. And she's ALL metal!" + +"You are right, Mat!" + +"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me and +the children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest," says Mr. +Bagnet, "and true to her colours--that, touch us with a finger--and +she turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires +wide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, George. For +she's loyal!" + +"Why, bless her, Mat," returns the trooper, "I think the higher of +her for it!" + +"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though +without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as high of +the old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking +low--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline +must be maintained." + +These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather +Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, +having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but +indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she +consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred +to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words +on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus +privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the +drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs. +Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing. + +"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean +affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do? Who +is our friend, my dear friend?" + +"Why this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at +first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, +you know." + +"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his hand. + +"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air, +sir!" + +No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet and +one for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of +bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose. + +"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe." + +"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman +need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not +inclined to smoke it to-day." + +"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe." + +"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself in +rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your +friend in the city has been playing tricks." + +"Oh, dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!" + +"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be +HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter." + +Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the +letter. + +"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George. + +"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did +you say what does it mean, my good friend?" + +"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the trooper, +constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he +can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad +knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot of money has passed +between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are +both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am +prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to +keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you +before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning, +because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of +the money--" + +"I DON'T know it, you know," says the old man quietly. + +"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?" + +"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I +don't know it." + +"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it." + +Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah! That's quite +another thing!" And adds, "But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's +situation is all one, whether or no." + +The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair +comfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his +own terms. + +"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew +Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his +good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I'm a +harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence +come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now, +Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds +in his soldierly mode of doing business, "although you and I are good +friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I +can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely." + +"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George." +(There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed +to-day.) + +"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as +your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!" + +"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner +and with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity +is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man. + +"Come!" says the sanguine George. "I am glad to find we can be +pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend +Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you +please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend +Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just +mention to him what our understanding is." + +Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "Oh, good +gracious! Oh!" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found +to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin +has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr. +Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound. + +"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"--old Smallweed, who all this +time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--"I think you +asked me, what did the letter mean?" + +"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but I +don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant." + +Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's +head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces. + +"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble +you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!" + +The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity +has now attained its profoundest point. + +"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your +pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon, +too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before) +and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend, +there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these +blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!" + +He vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on +the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his +amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is +instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. +George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect +abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window +like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving +something in his mind. + +"Come, Mat," says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, "we must +try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?" + +Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour, +replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my +old girl had been here--I'd have told him!" Having so discharged +himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and +marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder. + +When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn +is engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them, +for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell +being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings +forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has +nothing to say to them and they had better not wait. They do wait, +however, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the +bell rings again and the client in possession comes out of Mr. +Tulkinghorn's room. + +The client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell, +housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a +fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is treated +with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to +show her through the outer office and to let her out. The old lady is +thanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in +waiting. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?" + +The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George +not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. Bagnet +takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly." + +"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the +sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you, +gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went +for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold +way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask +your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!" + +"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will. + +There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's +voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But +Mr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place +(calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look +round until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her. + +"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the +almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we +be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!" + +The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there +and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, +"Let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the +painted ceiling and find him standing before the fire. + +"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I +saw you that I don't desire your company here." + +Sergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual +manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he has +received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has +been referred there. + +"I have nothing to say to you," rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. "If you get +into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have +no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?" + +Sergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money. + +"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it +for you." + +Sergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the +money either. + +"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued +for it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it. +You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and +escape scot-free." + +The lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George +hopes he will have the goodness to--"I tell you, sergeant, I have +nothing to say to you. I don't like your associates and don't want +you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is +not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs +to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in +Clifford's Inn." + +"I must make an apology to you, sir," says Mr. George, "for pressing +myself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as +unpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let me say a +private word to you?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into +one of the window recesses. "Now! I have no time to waste." In the +midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp +look at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the +light and to have the other with his face towards it. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party +implicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and +my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. +He is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the +Royal Artillery--" + +"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal +Artillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, +guns, and ammunition." + +"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and +family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through +this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any +other consideration what you wanted of me the other day." + +"Have you got it here?" + +"I have got it here, sir." + +"Sergeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far +more hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, "make +up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have +finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it. +Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you +have brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you +choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you--I +can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far +besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet +shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded +against to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the +creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you +decided?" + +The trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long +breath, "I must do it, sir." + +So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes +the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who +has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand +on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems +exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his +sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded +paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow. +"'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from +him." + +Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, +and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn +when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his +desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death. + +Nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same +frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "You can go. Show +these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's +residence to dine. + +Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former +repast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal +in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that +rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a +hint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot +of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow +of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first +Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to +restore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their +existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome +acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to +deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth. + +But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. +During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr. +Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at +dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his +pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay +by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco. + +Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the +invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, "Old +girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter. + +"Why, George!" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. "How +low you are!" + +"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not." + +"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!" cries little Malta. + +"Because he ain't well, I think, mother," adds Quebec. + +"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!" returns the +trooper, kissing the young damsels. "But it's true," with a sigh, +"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!" + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, "if I thought you cross +enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who +could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it +almost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you +now." + +"My kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "Not a morsel of +it." + +"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was +that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it. +And you HAVE brought him through it, noble!" + +"Thankee, my dear!" says George. "I am glad of your good opinion." + +In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly +shake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is +attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she +plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in +the corner, and beckons that fifer to him. + +"See there, my boy," says George, very gently smoothing the mother's +hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for you! All +bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the +weather through following your father about and taking care of you, +but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree." + +Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, +the highest approbation and acquiescence. + +"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of +your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and +re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take +care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never +whitened a hair of her dear head--I never marked a sorrowful line in +her face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you +are a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!" + +Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside +his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, +that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +Esther's Narrative + + +I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life +became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time +so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness +and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many +days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance +where there was little or no separation between the various stages of +my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I +seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my +experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy +shore. + +My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to +think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest +of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went +home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish +shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before +how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could +put it. + +While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became +confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a +child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I +was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each +station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile +them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can +quite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this +source. + +For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my +disorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both +nights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever +striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in +a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew +perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was +in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew +her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of +these never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to the +sky', I think!" and labouring on again. + +Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in +great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry +circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my +only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such +inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? + +Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious +and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make +others unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering +them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we +might be the better able to alleviate their intensity. + +The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful +rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself +and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no +other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind--this +state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when +I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and +knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough +that I should see again. + +I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her +calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her +praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to +leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak, +"Never, my sweet girl, never!" and I had over and over again reminded +Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived +or died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with +her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast. + +But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every +day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my +dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my +lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could +see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two +rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from +the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house +and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had +always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of +my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my +strength. + +By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so +strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done +for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little, +and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to +myself, and interested, and attached to life again. + +How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed +with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with +Charley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to +minister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped +so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and +fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so +glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way, +I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I +was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face +here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into +the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I +watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and +the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its +white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and +beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the +bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley +that was not new to my thoughts. + +First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh +and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had +been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was +brighter than before. + +"Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely, +that I am accustomed to?" + +Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head +as if there were nothing absent. + +"Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her. + +"Every one of them, miss," said Charley. + +"And the furniture, Charley?" + +"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss." + +"And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it +is, Charley! It's the looking-glass." + +Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten +something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there. + +I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could +thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back, +and when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew +nearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms and said, "It +matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face +very well." + +I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great +chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on +Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too, +but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. + +My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was +now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came +one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his +embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known--who could +know better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his +heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to +fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He has seen me, and +he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of +me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!" + +He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a +little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed +it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there +never can be, a pleasanter manner. + +"My little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. Such an +inflexible little woman, too, through all!" + +"Only for the best, guardian," said I. + +"For the best?" he repeated tenderly. "Of course, for the best. But +here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has +your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has +every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has +even poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for you!" + +I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him +so. + +"Why, no, my dear," he replied. "I have thought it better not to +mention it to her." + +"And you speak of his writing to YOU," said I, repeating his +emphasis. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as +if he could write to a better friend!" + +"He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a +better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while +unable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly, +haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we +must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and +Jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes. +I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two +angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their +nature." + +"It has not changed yours, guardian." + +"Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the +south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and +suspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect +me. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his +and what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the +mountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so +long bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction +of my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power +ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do +it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature +than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart +and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the +Accountant-General--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into +a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness." + +"IS it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be +suspicious of you?" + +"Ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of such +abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects +lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault." + +"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." + +"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within +the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By +little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, +and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything +around him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with +poor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like +his have I seen in my time turned by the same means!" + +I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that +his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little. + +"We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully replied; "Ada is the +happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these +young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that +we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But +it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of +Rick's cradle." + +"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach +him what a false and wretched thing it is?" + +"We WILL hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and that it may not +teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There +are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men +too, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would +not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within +two--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so +unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking +aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it +is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his +interests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates, +disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and +patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers +after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, +well, well! Enough of this, my dear!" + +He had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness +was so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and +loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in +this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong +and try to set him right. + +"There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a +joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a +commission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk. +When shall Ada come to see you, my love?" + +I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the +absent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be +changed by no change in my looks. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long--though +indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--" + +"I know it well, Dame Durden, well." + +He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and +affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my +heart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "Yes, +yes, you are tired," said he. "Rest a little." + +"As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short while, +"I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. +It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley +and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and +if I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by +the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with +me again, I think it would be better for us." + +I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used +to my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so +ardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was +sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew +he would pass it over. + +"Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way +even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears +downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, +breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, +that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already +turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth +he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!" + +And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary +beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the +words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take +possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one +o'clock, P.M.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most +emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had +quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing +heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of +thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable +one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have +liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold. + +"Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "I +was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired +too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one +other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were +ill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a +pair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at +home, or she would have walked back again." + +The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it! + +"Now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to +admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save +Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you +would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I--though +my eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime." + +I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image +of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson +on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not +tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always +pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little +power to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so +glad before. + +We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share +my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon +my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such +blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to +undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired +to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some +one and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind +with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and +all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I +were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the +old childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old +peace had not departed from it. + +My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk +about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the +window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage +to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without +her seeing me. + +On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran +into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from +her very heart of hearts, "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon my neck +and kissed me twenty times. + +"Dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "I have +nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a +pocket handkerchief." + +Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, +for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding +tears for the next ten minutes. + +"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain. +"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at +having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder +of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court +regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--" + +Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the +place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked +unwilling to pursue the suggestion. + +"Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly +indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am +afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a +little--rambling you know," said Miss Flite, touching her forehead. +"Nothing more." + +"What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she +wanted to go on. "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must +gratify it." + +Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who +said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and therein +gratified Miss Flite beyond measure. + +"So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious +way. "Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty +anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow +us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very +ungenteel bonnet--" + +"Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley. + +"Just so!" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. "Jenny. +Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has +been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz +Jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little +keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you +know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!" + +"If you please, miss," said Charley, to whom I looked in some +astonishment, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a +handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the +baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was +yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." + +"Diminutive," whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about +her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. "But exceedingly +sagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I +ever heard!" + +"Yes, Charley," I returned. "I remember it. Well?" + +"Well, miss," said Charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady +took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away +with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and +left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please, +miss!" + +"Why, who can she be?" said I. + +"My love," Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with +her most mysterious look, "in MY opinion--don't mention this to our +diminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married, +you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his +lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the +jeweller!" + +I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an +impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted +by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who, +our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in +arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and +a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought +down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the +entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a +sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant +to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did +honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else. + +When we had finished and had our little dessert before us, +embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the +superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite +was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her +own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began +by saying "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss +Flite?" + +"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. +Shortly." + +There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if +I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no +more about it. + +"My father expected a judgment," said Miss Flite. "My brother. My +sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect." + +"They are all--" + +"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear," said she. + +As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable +to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it. + +"Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?" + +"Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" + +"And to attend the court no more?" + +"Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in +expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I +assure you, to the bone!" + +She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. + +"But, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a +dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our +diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With +good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave +it. And you MUST expect." + +I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently +and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer. + +"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry +absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To +the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, +and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table." + +What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her. + +"Draw," returned Miss Flite. "Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out +of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities +out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. +Cold and glittering devils!" + +She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly +as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to +fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful +secrets to me. + +"Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever +drew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to do? +Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at +tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business. +We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father +was drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he +was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind +look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was +drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was +drawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister +was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and +heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of +Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then +I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there." + +Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she +had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon +her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance. + +"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day. +I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new +faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal +in these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As +my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of +them say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new +here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry +good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz +Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, +when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them +begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love," +speaking low again, "I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in +Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin." + +She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually +softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, +and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely +as she sipped her glass of wine, "Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I +expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, +and confer estates." + +I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad +meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its +way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite +complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles. + +"But, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon +mine. "You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not +once, yet!" + +I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant. + +"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly +attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite +gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that +will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal." + +"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the time +for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite." + +"But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know +what has happened?" + +"No," said I. + +"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!" + +"No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here." + +"True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my memory +has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. +Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a +terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas." + +"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!" + +"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all +shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. +Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it +all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. +Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped +naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to +do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the +poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated +creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when +they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with +it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you +shall read it, you shall read it!" + +And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and +imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the +words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down +the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so +triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and +gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so +admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn +people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. +I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him +in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that +no one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than I. I did, +indeed! + +My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as +the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she +should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full +of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to +understand in all its details. + +"My dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, +"my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no +doubt he will. You are of that opinion?" + +That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. + +"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. + +I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men +distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless +occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very +large amount of money. + +"Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? Surely +you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in +knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every +sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and +consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't +know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the +land!" + +I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when +she was very mad indeed. + +And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to +keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that +if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me +before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done +so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now +that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had +had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as +mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his +bondage to one whom he had never seen! + +Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully +spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all +he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: +no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please +God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler +way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, +I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than +he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the +journey's end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +Chesney Wold + + +Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into +Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of +me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us, +and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and +every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every +passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful +to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my +illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of +delight for me. + +My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our +way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter, +of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our +arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early +summer-time. + +If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, +and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not +have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for +me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little +tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen +times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that, +however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight +calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley +had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as +tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to +be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I think you are +quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to +your host." He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own +face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his +highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him +in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were +looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the +honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how, +after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my +little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage, +but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and +sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and +arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I +should want her no more that night. + +For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my +own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be +overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh +when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone, +and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, "Esther, if you are +to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted, +you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved to keep it, +but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my +blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more. + +My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than +once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and +went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little +muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment +looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing +else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the +mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very +much changed--oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to +me that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back +but for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more +familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better +than I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I +had expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would +have surprised me. + +I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had +been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so +good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and +could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully. + +One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I +went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were +withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of. +Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right +to preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was +generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even +in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because +I could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. At last I +came to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them +only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to +be looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not +seem trivial. I was very much in earnest. + +I took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass +when Charley came in on tiptoe. + +"Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?" + +"Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very +well indeed, and very happy." + +I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight +off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not +conceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but +they always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed +by me faithfully. + +Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits +before Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with +Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out +before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again +before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea, +and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and +explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to +restoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good +housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or +drink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the +park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful +face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent +nourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby +pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could +canter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure. +In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called +him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such +a capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and +rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and +said, "Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much +I like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting +stupid and going to sleep," he would give his head a comical shake or +two and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh +with such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know +who had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as +naturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and +drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but +all at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take +it ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of +tantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his +ears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped +to think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not +to be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins +to Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy +sort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his +ear against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, "Now, Stubbs, I +feel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride +a little while," for the moment I left him, he stood stock still +again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in +this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. + +Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I +am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go +by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were +faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown +people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple +began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends +was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and +whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on +its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a +grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and +drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him +up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was +considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the +world, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in +which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way +to America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit +that ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested +with the merit of the whole system. + +Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many +children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so +many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long +letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that +little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of +it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it. +I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said, +"Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" +But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft +hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, +that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which +suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle +hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of +these particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little +church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had +to sign the register. + +The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross +for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had +known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl +in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the +school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She +came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and +admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss; +but he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I wouldn't +shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when +there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter! + +The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown, +and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my +old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so +rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole +night. + +There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold +where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had +been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the +bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at +least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the +Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the +startling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had +heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and +gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real +charms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for +violets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild +flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did. + +It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house +or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my +arrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or +uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this +place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a +footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the +lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock +had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the +house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure +were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they +repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no +reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my +story now arrives. + +I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley +was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been +looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off +and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it +when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The +perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of +the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, +that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and +little it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--Lady Dedlock's. +She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I +observed to my surprise, than was usual with her. + +I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost +within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to +continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so +much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick +advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in +her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a +something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was +a little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I +had never seen in hers before. + +A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady +Dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I +had known her. + +"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now +advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very +ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it." + +I could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could +have stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and +its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of +her features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot +say what was in my whirling thoughts. + +"You are recovering again?" she asked kindly. + +"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock." + +"Is this your young attendant?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?" + +"Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you +directly." + +Charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went +her way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside +me. + +I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw +in her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby. + +I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I +could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and +wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she +caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me, +and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and +cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy +mother! Oh, try to forgive me!"--when I saw her at my feet on the +bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult +of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was +so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of +likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her +and remotely think of any near tie between us. + +I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before +me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent +words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her +at MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that if it were for +me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive +her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my +heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which +nothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for +me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her +to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless +her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that +I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and +she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the +summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that +was not at peace. + +"To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. I +must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. +From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way +before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought +upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it." + +Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of +proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off +again. + +"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly +for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that +I am!" + +These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more +terrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her +hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I +should touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any +endearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no, +no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful +everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only +natural moments of her life. + +My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly +frantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could +not have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me +down here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could +associate, never could communicate, never probably from that time +forth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands +a letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read +it and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked +nothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must evermore consider +her as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in +which I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for +then I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she +suffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help. +Whether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be +discovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she +had taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection +could come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid. + +"But is the secret safe so far?" I asked. "Is it safe now, dearest +mother?" + +"No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was +saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to-morrow, +any day." + +"Do you dread a particular person?" + +"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of +these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one person +very much." + +"An enemy?" + +"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir +Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment, +and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being +master of the mysteries of great houses." + +"Has he any suspicions?" + +"Many." + +"Not of you?" I said alarmed. + +"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a +standstill, but I can never shake him off." + +"Has he so little pity or compunction?" + +"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his +calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding +possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent +in it." + +"Could you trust in him?" + +"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years +will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the +end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, +nothing turns me." + +"Dear mother, are you so resolved?" + +"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with +pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived +many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie +it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these +woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course +through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one." + +"Mr. Jarndyce--" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired, +"Does HE suspect?" + +"No," said I. "No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!" And I told +her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. "But he +is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew--" + +My mother, who until this time had made no change in her position, +raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me. + +"Confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "You have my +free consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured +child!--but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet." + +I explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my +agitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely +understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's +voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I +had never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep +with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired +by, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say I explained, or +tried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been +the best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and +support to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one +could help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go +alone. + +"My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses for +the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall +meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have +been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady +Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched +mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the +reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering +within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And +then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which +it never can!" + +We held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that +she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with +a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me +into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun +and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which +there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw +it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of +my mother's misery. + +Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in +my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of +discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took +such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been +crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation +that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a +little while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of +grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might +return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the +gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after +Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie +down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from +it--and that was much then--that I had not been abandoned by my +mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, +discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead, +had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I +should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my +mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I +hold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had +never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had +never been endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had +first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of +what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, +but that was all then. + +What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has +its own times and places in my story. + +My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume +even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me +that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared. +That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for +many people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of +myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and +of a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be +possessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I +should die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I +should be then alive. + +These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and +when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world +with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened +of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the +owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old +words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "Your +mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will +come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will +feel it too, as no one save a woman can." With them, those other +words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited +upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I +felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation +had come down. + +The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still +contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking +a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees +and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me, +was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not +have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it +was, I took the path that led close by it. + +I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the +terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its +well-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it +was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights +of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the +trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone +pedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the +way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers +and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque +monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening +gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path +wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the +principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables +where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of +the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, +or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of +the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering +presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I +turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there +above me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted +window that might be my mother's. + +The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps +from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping +to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing +quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted +window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind +that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk, +that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and +that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an +augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself +and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never +paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and +black behind me. + +Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again +been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and +thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the +morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation +that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my +guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden, +if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most +pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and +ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in +and about the house declared it was not the same house and was +becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me +think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought +to be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me, +as it ought to have done before, into a better condition. + +For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I +should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved +for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked +together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were +sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I +had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my +birth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should +not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had +experience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus +soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on +me. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, +pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling +that the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my +sleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone. + +My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to +help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a +long walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so +Charley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him +after the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road +and back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and +garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and +had the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment. + +There were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could +come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I +was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so +well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any +one. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined--I am +quite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, would she be +wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little +shocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she +expected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her? +Might she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again? + +I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and +it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure +beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I +considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings, +which was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself? + +Well, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to +wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such +bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet +her. + +So I said to Charley, "Charley, I will go by myself and walk along +the road until she comes." Charley highly approving of anything that +pleased me, I went and left her at home. + +But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many +palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was +not, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back +and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the +coach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would, +nor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way +to avoid being overtaken. + +Then, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice +thing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it +instead of the best. + +At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more +yet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the +garden, "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!" + +I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid +myself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my +darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love, +where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!" + +She ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel +girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection. +Nothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing! + +Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful +girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely +cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a +child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and +pressing me to her faithful heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce + + +If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to +Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did +not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless +some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my +present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my +dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though +often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my +mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield +to it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be--except, of +course, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I +have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it. + +The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening +when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, +and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock +had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great. +Greater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied +that she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting +her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her +imperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously, +by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two +nights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in +the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we +had seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage +about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and +doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month. + +We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been +there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after +we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and +just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very +important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the +room. + +"Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes +at their roundest and largest. "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms." + +"Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the +public-house?" + +"I don't know, miss," returned Charley, putting her head forward and +folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she +always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential, +"but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please +to come without saying anything about it." + +"Whose compliments, Charley?" + +"His'n, miss," returned Charley, whose grammatical education was +advancing, but not very rapidly. + +"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?" + +"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little +maid. "It was W. Grubble, miss." + +"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?" + +"Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? The +Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she were +slowly spelling out the sign. + +"Aye? The landlord, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but +she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the +sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink +himself to death entirely on beer," said Charley. + +Not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive +now, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley +be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them +on, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at +home as in Mr. Boythorn's garden. + +Mr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very +clean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both +hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an +iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded +passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in +it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline, +several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in +glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I +don't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his +ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often +standing at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man +who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own +fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat +except at church. + +He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it +looked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going +to ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour +being then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I +thought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in +which I was, and who should stand before me but Richard! + +"My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so +warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of +his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that +Ada was well. + +"Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!" said +Richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me. + +I put my veil up, but not quite. + +"Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as before. + +I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve +and looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind +welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of +the determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to +him. + +"My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I have a greater +wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me." + +"And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand +some one else." + +"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce," said Richard, "--I +suppose you mean him?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that +subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my +dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody." + +I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. + +"Well, well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I +want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my +arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty +to John Jarndyce will allow that?" + +"My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you would be heartily +welcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and +you are as heartily welcome here!" + +"Spoken like the best of little women!" cried Richard gaily. + +I asked him how he liked his profession. + +"Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It does +as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care +about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then +and--however, never mind all that botheration at present." + +So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite +of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that +passed over him, so dreadfully like her! + +"I am in town on leave just now," said Richard. + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests before +the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are +beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you." + +No wonder that I shook my head! + +"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the +same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four winds +for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?" + +"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?" + +"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a +fascinating child it is!" + +I asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He +answered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old +infant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told +him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on +coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come +too; and so he had brought him. "And he is worth--not to say his +sordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. "He is +such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and +green-hearted!" + +I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in +his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about +that. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed +to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and +sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so +happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture +of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health +the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be +in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in +looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better +satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he +evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's +inspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and +solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping +and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our +pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune +and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment +from the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned +growling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of these legal and +equitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling +friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There +is a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into +something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for +this that they exist--for I am a child among you worldly grumblers, +and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it +may be so.'" + +I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a +worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he +most required some right principle and purpose he should have this +captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy +dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I +could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in +the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and +contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr. +Skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour; +but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or +that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any +other part, and with less trouble. + +They both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the +gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I have +brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to read the +blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I +knew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins +only. + +I almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions, +but I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her +very much--any one must have done that--and I dare say would have +renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but +that he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still +I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even +here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this +as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind. +Ah me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never +shall know now! + +He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make +any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too +implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he +had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for +the present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear +old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an +appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through +the means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk +with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr. +Skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He +particularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and +told her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father +all the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers +would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he +should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way. + +"For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole, +looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am +constantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a ship's +company. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for +I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's +means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me +who somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to +somebody. God bless him!" + +Richard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for +him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy +and the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the +sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see; +the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since +yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so +massively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of +every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory +of that day. + +"This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of the +jar and discord of law-suits here!" + +But there was other trouble. + +"I tell you what, my dear girl," said Richard, "when I get affairs in +general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest." + +"Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked. + +"Oh, as to resting NOW," said Richard, "or as to doing anything very +definite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do +it at least." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house, +liable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom +pulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month, +next year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now? +There's no now for us suitors." + +I could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor +little wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened +look of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of +that unfortunate man who had died. + +"My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our +conversation." + +"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden." + +"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once +never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse." + +"There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently. +"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of +what I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can +you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and +that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the +suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well +for me?" + +"Oh, Richard," I remonstrated, "is it possible that you can ever have +seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof +and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place +where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?" + +He reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of +reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a +subdued voice, "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean +fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being +poor qualities in one of my years." + +"I know it very well," said I. "I am not more sure of anything." + +"That's a dear girl," retorted Richard, "and like you, because it +gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all +this business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion +to tell you." + +"I know perfectly," said I. "I know as well, Richard--what shall I +say? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to +your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it." + +"Come, sister, come," said Richard a little more gaily, "you will be +fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that +influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a +little twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man, +out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it +taints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him +say so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?" + +"Because," said I, "his is an uncommon character, and he has +resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard." + +"Oh, because and because!" replied Richard in his vivacious way. "I +am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to +preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties +interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die +off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things +may smoothly happen that are convenient enough." + +I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him +any more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's gentleness +towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he +had spoken of them. + +"Esther," Richard resumed, "you are not to suppose that I have come +here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only +come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we +got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same +suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look +into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce +discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend +that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I +don't mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold +John Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he +has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I +must maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a +good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to." + +Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal. +His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly. + +"So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him +about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at +issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his +protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our +roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should +take much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the one to be +established, but there it is, and it has its chance." + +"I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard," said I, "of your +letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word." + +"Indeed?" replied Richard, softening. "I am glad I said he was an +honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say +that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these +views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you +tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the +case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I +did when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of +charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, +they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison." + +"Perhaps so," said I. "But do you think that, among those many +papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?" + +"There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther--" + +"Or was once, long ago," said I. + +"Is--is--must be somewhere," pursued Richard impetuously, "and must +be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is +not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John +Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who +has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I +resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end." + +"All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no +others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier +because of so many failures?" + +"It can't last for ever," returned Richard with a fierceness kindling +in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. "I am +young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders +many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I +devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life." + +"Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!" + +"No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned affectionately. +"You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your +prepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good +Esther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so +convenient, we were not on natural terms." + +"Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?" + +"No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on +unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See +another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I +have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am +free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well. +Then I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation." + +Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in +confusion and indecision until then! + +"Now, my best of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to +understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John +Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish +to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great +esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften +the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and--and in +short," said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words, +"I--I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious, +doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada." + +I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than +in anything he had said yet. + +"Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true enough, my love. I +rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play +by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid." + +I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada. + +"Not quite," said Richard. "I am bound not to withhold from her that +John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me +as 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling +me that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of +course, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I +see her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as +my own--we two being in the same boat exactly--and that I hope she +will not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at +all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking +forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that +direction. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I +consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but +Ada being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our +engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself +once more and we shall both be in very different worldly +circumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage +of your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind +service, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on +the head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak +House." + +"Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear you +will not take advice from me?" + +"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any +other, readily." + +As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and +character were not being dyed one colour! + +"But I may ask you a question, Richard?" + +"I think so," said he, laughing. "I don't know who may not, if you +may not." + +"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life." + +"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!" + +"Are you in debt again?" + +"Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity. + +"Is it of course?" + +"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so +completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know, +that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a +question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within +the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl," said Richard, +quite amused with me, "I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my +dear!" + +I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I +tried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent +means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some +of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and +gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least +effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his +preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I determined +to try Ada's influence yet. + +So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went +home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give +her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was +losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made +her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater +reliance on his correcting his errors than I could have--which was so +natural and loving in my dear!--and she presently wrote him this +little letter: + + + My dearest cousin, + + Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I + write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that + she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that + you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern + of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, + deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so + much wrong. + + I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, + but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have + some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for + my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for + yourself--and if for yourself, for me. In case this should + be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me + in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg + you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will + make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon + the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry + with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my + sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for + that source of trouble which had its share in making us + both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it + go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that + there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing + to be got from it but sorrow. + + My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you + are quite free and that it is very likely you may find + some one whom you will love much better than your first + fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that + the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow + your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and + see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen + way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very + rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost + of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of + your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my + saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or + experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own + heart. + + Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate + + Ada + + +This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change +in him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who +was wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was animated and +glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only +hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect +upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then. + +As they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to +return by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking +to Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and +I delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging +Richard. + +"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, catching at +the word with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the world +for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I can't be." + +"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he +being so much older and more clever than I. + +"No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most +agreeable jocularity of surprise. "But every man's not obliged to be +solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson," he took +a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so +much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of +counting. Call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. They +tell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as +much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why +should I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's +responsibility, I am responsible." + +The perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and +looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been +mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me +feel as if he really had nothing to do with it. + +"Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I am disposed to +say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should +consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me +to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my +dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole +little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined +to say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often--THAT'S +responsibility!" + +It was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I +persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not +confirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then. + +"Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss +Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and +leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after +fortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must +join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense." + +It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said. + +"Do you think so!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "Don't say that, don't say +that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an +excellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for +a ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his +hand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear +Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with +poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, +'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very +beautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape +to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down +with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that +he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud, +horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful +change--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but +disagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I +have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not +at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it +is!" + +It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and +Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in +despair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and +whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were +such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone, +he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their +hands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and +put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the +chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir +Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, +flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full +action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how +little a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented +as having evidently been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"--a +large collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on +their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from +animation, and always in glass cases. + +I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I +felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, +hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly +towards us. + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!" + +We asked if that were a friend of Richard's. + +"Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss +Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and +respectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is +THE man." + +We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman +of that name. + +"When he emerged from legal infancy," returned Mr. Skimpole, "he +parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe, +with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to +Vholes." + +"Had you known him long?" asked Ada. + +"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with +him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had +done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken +proceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the +proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and +pay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the +pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it +struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody +fourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me +for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it," he +looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the +discovery, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and +called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think +it MUST have been a five-pound note!" + +His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's +coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr. +Vholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were +cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, +about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in +black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so +remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had +of looking at Richard. + +"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes, and now I +observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of +speaking. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know +when his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by +one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather +unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach +early this morning and came down to confer with him." + +"Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me, +"we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now! +Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, +and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!" + +"Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "I am quite at your +service." + +"Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down to +the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or +a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before +starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take +care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?" + +He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the +dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house. + +"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?" said I. "Can +it do any good?" + +"No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can." + +Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to +be disappointed. + +"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own +interests," said Mr. Vholes, "and when a client lays down his own +principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it +out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with +three daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to +discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This +appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." + +The remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we +walked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions. + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Vholes. "I have the privilege of supporting an +aged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire +that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so +attractive here." + +To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to +live altogether in the country. + +"There, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. My health +is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only +myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially +as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into +contact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society, +which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters, +Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I cannot afford to be +selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother +who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render +it indispensable that the mill should be always going." + +It required some attention to hear him on account of his inward +speaking and his lifeless manner. + +"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "They +are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little +independence, as well as a good name." + +We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all +prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried +shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered +something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud I +suppose as he had ever replied to anything--"You will drive me, will +you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am +quite at your service." + +We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left +until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already +paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard +and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we +politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms +and retire when the night-travellers were gone. + +Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went +out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had +ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern +standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed +to it. + +I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's +light, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his +hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking +at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have +before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer +lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high +trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving +away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter +prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this +difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging +heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; +how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think +of him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to +him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his. + +And she kept her word? + +I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens +and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the +dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, +I think I see my darling. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +A Struggle + + +When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were +punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I +was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my +housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if +I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "Once more, duty, +duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more +than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you +ought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my dear!" + +The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business, +devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to +and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so +many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new +beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when +these arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid +a visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had +destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own +mind. + +I made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I +always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a +note previously asking the favour of her company on a little business +expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London +by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the +day before me. + +Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so +affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her +husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as good; +and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any +possibility of doing anything meritorious. + +The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was +milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an +apprentice--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the +trade of dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law +was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived +most happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she +meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good +lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were +poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) + +"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. + +"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see +very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma +thinks there is something absurd in my having married a +dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her." + +It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural +duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope +in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions +against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this +to myself. + +"And your papa, Caddy?" + +"He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of +sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." + +Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's +head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found +such a resting-place for it. + +"And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" + +"Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a +grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health +is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with +schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices, +he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" + +The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked +Caddy if there were many of them. + +"Four," said Caddy. "One in-door, and three out. They are +very good children; only when they get together they WILL +play--children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the +little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, +and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." + +"That is only for their steps, of course?" said I. + +"Only for their steps," said Caddy. "In that way they practise, so +many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They +dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five +every morning." + +"Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed. + +"I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out-door +apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, +not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and +see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under +their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps." + +All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. +Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully +recounted the particulars of her own studies. + +"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the +piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently +I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of +our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had +some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn't any; +and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must +allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery--I have +to thank Ma for that, at all events--and where there's a will there's +a way, you know, Esther, the world over." Saying these words, Caddy +laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really +rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly +and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself, +said, "Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!" + +I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and +praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, +dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in +her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, +wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite +as good as a mission. + +"My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. +I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even +in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so +unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching +people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!" + +Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, +preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy +informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet, +I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away +then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I +made one in the dance. + +The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the +melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone +in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little +limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such +a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her +sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean +little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, +and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and +feet--and heels particularly. + +I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for +them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for +teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble +circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer +shop. + +We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing +wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be +some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy, +while she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon +him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, +united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She +already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young +people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the +figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The +affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, +was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock. + +When the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready +to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go +out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating +the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put +on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as I judged from +the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned +and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold +bread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The +little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and +put on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy +bonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked +dancing by replying, "Not with boys," tied it across her chin, and +went home contemptuous. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," said Caddy, "that he has not +finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you +before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther." + +I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it +necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention. + +"It takes him a long time to dress," said Caddy, "because he is very +much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to +support. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an +evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested." + +There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his +deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if +he brought her papa out much. + +"No," said Caddy, "I don't know that he does that, but he talks to +Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course +I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get +on together delightfully. You can't think what good companions they +make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one +pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to +his nose and taking it away again all the evening." + +That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of +life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha +appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. + +"As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was most +afraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an +inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to +that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets +him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of +his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he +tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short," said Caddy +cheerily, "and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to +be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?" + +"To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say to +the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on +the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I +think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house." + +"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you," +returned Caddy. + +To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's +residence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and +having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut +in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for, +immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an +old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an +unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was +prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it +which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it +insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to +let him off. + +Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too. +He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table +reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. +Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and +get out of the gangway." + +Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish +appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, +holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation, +with both hands. + +I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was +more than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit. + +"I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his +breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket +with a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her +head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. + +"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I. + +Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I think +I never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head, +and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to +Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so +unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty +she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her +bedroom adjoining. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness of +a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though highly +exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates." + +I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have +turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up +my veil. + +"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I, +"in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what +you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared +I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." + +I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw +such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension. + +"Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I--I--beg your pardon, but in +our profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. You have +referred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the honour +of making a declaration which--" + +Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly +swallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to +swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the +room, and fluttered his papers. + +"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, +"which rather knocks me over. I--er--a little subject to this sort of +thing--er--by George!" + +I gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his +hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his +chair into the corner behind him. + +"My intention was to remark, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "dear +me--something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so +good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. +You--you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses +are present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was +to put in that admission." + +"There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal +without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy." + +"Thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his troubled +hands. "So far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er--this +is certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes--er--you wouldn't +perhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that it's necessary, for +your own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that--if I +was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there +terminated?" + +"I quite understand that," said I. + +"Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a +satisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that, +miss?" said Mr. Guppy. + +"I admit it most fully and freely," said I. + +"Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. "Very honourable, I am sure. I +regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over +which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall +back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, +but it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with friendship's +bowers." Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his +measurement of the table. + +"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" I began. + +"I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "I am so persuaded +that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will--will keep you +as square as possible--that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am +sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer." + +"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--" + +"Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel out +of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied +anything." + +"You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might possibly +have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by +making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that +you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an +orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. +Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg +of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish +all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I +have thought of it most lately--since I have been ill. At length I +have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and +act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are +altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me +that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I +am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to +assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You +may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse +my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the +assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to +do this, for my peace." + +"I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express yourself, +miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you +credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and +if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to +tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as +hereby offering that apology--limiting it, as your own good sense and +right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present +proceedings." + +I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon +him improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do +something I asked, and he looked ashamed. + +"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I +may have no occasion to resume," I went on, seeing him about to +speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as +possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a +confidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I always +have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There +really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very +well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to +you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now +preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me +to accede to it." + +I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked +more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very +earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word and +honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living +man, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another step in +opposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be any +satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching +the matters now in question," continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he +were repeating a familiar form of words, "I speak the truth, the +whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--" + +"I am quite satisfied," said I, rising at this point, "and I thank +you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" + +Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient +of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr. +Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either +imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there, +staring. + +But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and +with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently, +"Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!" + +"I do," said I, "quite confidently." + +"I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and +staying with the other, "but this lady being present--your own +witness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish +to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." + +"Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be +surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any +engagement--" + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr. Guppy. + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between +this gentleman--" + +"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of +Middlesex," he murmured. + +"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, +Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself." + +"Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Very full--er--excuse me--lady's +name, Christian and surname both?" + +I gave them. + +"Married woman, I believe?" said Mr. Guppy. "Married woman. Thank +you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within +the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford +Street. Much obliged." + +He ran home and came running back again. + +"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry +that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which +I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly +terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and +despondently, "but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put +it to you." + +I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a +doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back again. + +"It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "If +an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, upon my +soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the +tender passion only!" + +The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it +occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently +conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted +cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but +when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same +troubled state of mind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +Attorney and Client + + +The name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is +inscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane--a little, +pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two +compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man +in his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which +took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and +dismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. +Quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the +legal bearings of Mr. Vholes. + +Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation +retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three +feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's +jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest +midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage +staircase against which belated civilians generally strike their +brows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk +can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who +elbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire. +A smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and +dust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of +mutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and +skins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. +The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, +and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of +soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames +have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to +be always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the +phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of +firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. + +Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, +but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater +attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most +respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a +mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another +mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another +mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly +respectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for +his three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale +of Taunton. + +The one great principle of the English law is to make business for +itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and +consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by +this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze +the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive +that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their +expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. + +But not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in a +confused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a +bad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this respectability of Mr. +Vholes is brought into powerful play against them. "Repeal this +statute, my good sir?" says Mr. Kenge to a smarting client. "Repeal +it, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this law, sir, and +what will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of +practitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by +the opposite attorney in the case, Mr. Vholes? Sir, that class of +practitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you +cannot afford--I will say, the social system cannot afford--to lose +an order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute +in business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against +the existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in +your case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a +class of men like Mr. Vholes." The respectability of Mr. Vholes has +even been cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees, +as in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's +evidence. "Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight +hundred and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice +indisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: And +great expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for +nothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: I am not +prepared to say that. They have never given ME any vexation; quite +the contrary. Question: But you think that their abolition would +damage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no doubt of it. +Question: Can you instance any type of that class? Answer: Yes. I +would unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would be ruined. +Question: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable +man? Answer:"--which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years--"Mr. +Vholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST respectable man." + +So in familiar conversation, private authorities no less +disinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is +coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is +something else gone, that these changes are death to people like +Vholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale +of Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in +this direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father? +Is he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to be +shirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his relations +being minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish +cannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: Make +man-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses! + +In a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the +Vale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, +to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a +nuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the +question is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite +an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or +advantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes. + +The Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, "up" for the long +vacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags +hastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of +serpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the +official den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much +respectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he +were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were +scalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his +hat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without looking +after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half +sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and +looks the portrait of young despair. + +"Again nothing done!" says Richard. "Nothing, nothing done!" + +"Don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid Vholes. "That is +scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!" + +"Why, what IS done?" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him. + +"That may not be the whole question," returns Vholes, "The question +may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?" + +"And what is doing?" asks the moody client. + +Vholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips +of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers, +and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at +his client, replies, "A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our +shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round." + +"Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five +accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and +walking about the room. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever +he goes, "your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your +account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be +so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more +patience. You should sustain yourself better." + +"I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, sitting +down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo +with his boot on the patternless carpet. + +"Sir," returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were +making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his +professional appetite. "Sir," returns Vholes with his inward manner +of speech and his bloodless quietude, "I should not have had the +presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any +man's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that +is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so +pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a +little of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, +and I am sure I have no objection--say insensibility--a little of my +insensibility." + +"Mr. Vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "I had no +intention to accuse you of insensibility." + +"I think you had, sir, without knowing it," returns the equable +Vholes. "Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests +with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited +feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My +daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But +they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye +of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I +complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the +contrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible +checks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry. +But your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. +Carstone; and I cannot be otherwise--no, sir, not even to please +you." + +Mr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently +watching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young +client and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if +there were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor +speak out, "What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the +vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means +of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked +me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you +more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found +here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. +C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish +to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all +times alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don't. Not that +I blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. This desk is your +rock, sir!" + +Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not +to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him. +Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is. + +"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes," says Richard, more familiarly and +good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the world +and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of +business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case, +dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into +difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually +disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in +myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you +will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do." + +"You know," says Mr. Vholes, "that I never give hopes, sir. I told +you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in +a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of +the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave +hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say +there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact, +deny that." + +"Aye?" returns Richard, brightening. "But how do you make it out?" + +"Mr. Carstone, you are represented by--" + +"You said just now--a rock." + +"Yes, sir," says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the +hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust +on dust, "a rock. That's something. You are separately represented, +and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT'S +something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk +it about. THAT'S something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as +in name. THAT'S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. +And THAT'S something, surely." + +Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his +clenched hand. + +"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John +Jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he +seemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--I could +have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not +have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! +Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment +of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John +Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; +that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new +injury from John Jarndyce's hand." + +"No, no," says Vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all +of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage." + +"Mr. Vholes," returns the angry client. "You know as well as I that +he would have strangled the suit if he could." + +"He was not active in it," Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of +reluctance. "He certainly was not active in it. But however, but +however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the +heart, Mr. C.!" + +"You can," returns Richard. + +"I, Mr. C.?" + +"Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our +interests conflicting? Tell--me--that!" says Richard, accompanying +his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his +hungry eyes, "I should be wanting in my duty as your professional +adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if +I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. +Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both +have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not +shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in +families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as +to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical +with those of Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of course they are not!" cries Richard. "You found that out long +ago." + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, "I wish to say no more of any third party +than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together +with any little property of which I may become possessed through +industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. +I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When +Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir--I will not say the very high +honour, for I never stoop to flattery--of bringing us together in +this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice +as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another +member of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to +speak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which stands high. You, sir, +thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless +and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and +I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount +in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me +mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I +shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you +want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. +During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying +your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for +moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after +Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir," says +Mr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, "when I ultimately +congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to +fortune--which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something +further about--you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance +may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client +not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend +to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active +discharge--not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much +credit I stipulate for--of my professional duty. My duty prosperously +ended, all between us is ended." + +Vholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his +principles, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment, +perhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty +pounds on account. + +"For there have been many little consultations and attendances of +late, sir," observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, +"and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of +capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to +you openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be too +much openness between solicitor and client--that I was not a man of +capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your +papers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the +advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This," Vholes gives +the desk one hollow blow again, "is your rock; it pretends to be +nothing more." + +The client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague +hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without +perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear, +implying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes, +buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the +while, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. + +Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's +sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him through" the +Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm +upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, "Always here, +sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, +with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part, and Vholes, left +alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his +diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three +daughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of +chickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to +disparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up +maidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage +situated in a damp garden at Kennington. + +Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the +sunshine of Chancery Lane--for there happens to be sunshine there +to-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and +passes under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such +loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on +the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering +step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and +consumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but +that may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is +very rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from +ten thousand? + +Yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he +saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months +together, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case +as if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with +corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for +some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit +there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. +But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being +defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat; +from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time +for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to +the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this +ruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes the truth. Is he +in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally +at that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and +that purpose could only originate in the one subject that is +resolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification +to him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor. + +Is Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich in +such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the +Recording Angel? + +Two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as, +biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed +up by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle +are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in +conversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. He passes +close by them, seeing nothing but the ground. + +"William," says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, "there's +combustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but it's +smouldering combustion it is." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I +suppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He +was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good +riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was +mentioning is what they're up to." + +Mr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet, +as resuming a conversation of interest. + +"They are still up to it, sir," says Mr. Guppy, "still taking stock, +still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of +rubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years." + +"And Small is helping?" + +"Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's +business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better +himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself +and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I +began it, and as he had me there--for we did--I put our acquaintance +on the old footing. That's how I come to know what they're up to." + +"You haven't looked in at all?" + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, "to be unreserved with +you, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and +therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little +appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by +the clock! Tony"--Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly +eloquent--"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once +more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a +melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that +unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That +image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in +connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the +court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in +oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I +put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that +capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the--spontaneous +element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts +he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that +they were not destroyed that night?" + +Mr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly thinks +not. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, "once again +understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further +explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose +to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I +owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the +circumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to +me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late +lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in +question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own +responsibility." + +Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by +having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and +in part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for conducting +anything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the +form of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his friend with dignity +to the court. + +Never since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse +of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop. +Regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed brought +down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed, +Judy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there +until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in +quantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging, +delving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. What +those treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened. +In its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots, +crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses +stuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses itself of the +sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of Mr. +Daniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. Elwes, of Suffolk, and +transfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to Mr. Krook. +Twice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old +paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries +into the baskets as they come forth. Many times the two gentlemen who +write with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen +prowling in the neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late +partnership being dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the +prevailing interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in +what are professionally known as "patter" allusions to the subject, +is received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the +regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in +the revived Caledonian melody of "We're a-Nodding," points the +sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that +refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head +towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. +Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double +encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper +and Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance +is the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to +discover everything, and more. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon +them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a +high state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's +expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are +considered to mean no good. + +The shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the +ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced into +the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the +sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but +they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair +upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous Judy +groping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. Smallweed on the level +ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print, +and manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments +that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole +party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a +fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room. +There is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier +if possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead +inhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall. + +On the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously +fold their arms and stop in their researches. + +"Aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "How de do, gentlemen, how de do! +Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well. +Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your +warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at +home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you!" + +Mr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye follows +Mr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any new +intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr. +Smallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like +some wound-up instrument running down, "How de do, sir--how +de--how--" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, +as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the +darkness opposite with his hands behind him. + +"Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, +but he is so good!" + +Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a +shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod. +Mr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and +were rather amused by the novelty. + +"A good deal of property here, sir, I should say," Mr. Guppy observes +to Mr. Smallweed. + +"Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me +and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an +inventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to +much as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!" + +Mr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended by +Mr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Weevle. "We won't intrude any longer if you'll +allow us to go upstairs." + +"Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself so, +pray!" + +As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and +looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull +and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that +memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great +disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from +it first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the +few movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a +whisper. + +"Look here," says Tony, recoiling. "Here's that horrible cat coming +in!" + +Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. "Small told me of her. She went +leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and +got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, +and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see +such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? Almost +looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!" + +Lady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and +her club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr. +Tulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and +swearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to roam +the house-tops again and return by the chimney. + +"Mr. Guppy," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "could I have a word with you?" + +Mr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British +Beauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old +ignoble band-box. "Sir," he returns, reddening, "I wish to act with +courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am +sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself--I will truly +add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, +I must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is +spoken in the presence of my friend." + +"Oh, indeed?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they +are amply sufficient for myself." + +"No doubt, no doubt." Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the +hearthstone to which he has quietly walked. "The matter is not of +that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any +conditions, Mr. Guppy." He pauses here to smile, and his smile is as +dull and rusty as his pantaloons. "You are to be congratulated, Mr. +Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir." + +"Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain." + +"Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access +to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who +would give their ears to be you." + +Mr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still +reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of +himself, replies, "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is +right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no +consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not +excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any +obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, +sir, and without offence--I repeat, without offence--" + +"Oh, certainly!" + +"--I don't intend to do it." + +"Quite so," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "Very good; I see +by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable +great, sir?" + +He addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft +impeachment. + +"A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient," observes Mr. +Tulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to +the smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his +eyes. "Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its +way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; +good day!" + +When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves +himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy +Gallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock. + +"Tony," he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be +quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this +place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between +myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now +hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and +association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it +to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have +taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over +which I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. +I charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in +the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I +may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word +of inquiry!" + +This charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic +lunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair +and even in his cultivated whiskers. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +National and Domestic + + +England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle +would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being +nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there +has been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting +between those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did +not come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and Coodle +and Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England +must have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle, +now in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous +national calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodle's making the +timely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he +scorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle, +he had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce +him to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while +it as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas +Doodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down +to posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has +been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well +observed by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the +marvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to +care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and +marrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days +before the flood. But Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the +danger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest +possible perception of the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not +only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in +with him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his +brothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet. + +Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly +in the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is +available in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself +upon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia +being much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns, +and swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself +black in the face that she does neither--plainly to the advancement +of her glory and morality--the London season comes to a sudden end, +through all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist +Britannia in those religious exercises. + +Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though +no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be +expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and +others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And +hence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up +and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and +through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that +everything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, +curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen +cleared for action--all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock +dignity. + +This present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations +are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many +appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured +forms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in +possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this +gallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of +the gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so +find it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without +them; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the +reverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die. + +Through some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at +this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of +gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish, +overflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen +Dedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the +shadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is beguiled +into a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in +his chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a +fleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred +years ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very +like her--casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two +centuries--shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. A maid of +honour of the court of Charles the Second, with large round eyes (and +other charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it +ripples as it glows. + +But the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and +shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age +and death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great +chimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it +pale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or +hood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker +rises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the +fire is out. + +All that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved +solemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful +things that look so near and will so change--into a distant phantom. +Light mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the +garden are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses +as if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to +separate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines +behind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among +high cathedral arches fantastically broken. + +Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more +than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, +stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in +the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time +for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a +pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon +the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy +staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour +has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy +movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads +inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the +long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the +last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into +threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every +breath that stirs. + +"She is not well, ma'am," says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's +audience-chamber. + +"My Lady not well! What's the matter?" + +"Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here--I +don't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of +passage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept +her room a good deal." + +"Chesney Wold, Thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud +complacency, "will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no +healthier soil in the world!" + +Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably +hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of +his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and +retires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale. + +This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening, +down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and +down come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass. +Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men +with no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the +country on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an +auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless +disposition and never do anything anywhere. + +On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A +better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at +dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the +other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and +there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard +to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; +and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her +French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time +almost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner, +or even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national +occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is +constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and +unpensioning country. + +My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and +being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all +the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other +melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir +Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be +wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be +received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he +moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. + +Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, +away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and +hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for +the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester +holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no +occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily +Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state +of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that +Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. + +"How are we getting on?" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. "ARE +we safe?" + +The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will +throw himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has +just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright +particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins. + +"Volumnia," replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we +are doing tolerably." + +"Only tolerably!" + +Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own +particular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near +it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who +should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must +not be understood as a common expression, "Volumnia, we are doing +tolerably." + +"At least there is no opposition to YOU," Volumnia asserts with +confidence. + +"No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many +respects, I grieve to say, but--" + +"It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!" + +Volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir +Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to +himself, "A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally +precipitate." + +In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's +observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always +delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale +order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to +him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending +down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, "You will have the +goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and +to send them home when done." + +"I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown +a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of +a most determined and most implacable description." + +"W-r-retches!" says Volumnia. + +"Even," proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins +on sofas and ottomans, "even in many--in fact, in most--of those +places in which the government has carried it against a faction--" + +(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the +Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position +towards the Coodleites.) + +"--Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be +constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without +being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds," says Sir Leicester, +eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation, +"hundreds of thousands of pounds!" + +If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too +innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well +with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and +pearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, "What for?" + +"Volumnia," remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity. +"Volumnia!" + +"No, no, I don't mean what for," cries Volumnia with her favourite +little scream. "How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!" + +"I am glad," returns Sir Leicester, "that you do mean what a pity." + +Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people +ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. + +"I am glad, Volumnia," repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these +mollifying sentiments, "that you do mean what a pity. It is +disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and +without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?' +let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good +sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere." + +Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect +towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary +expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be +unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some +graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the +Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High +Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of +the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight +gentlemen in a very unhealthy state. + +"I suppose," observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover +her spirits after her late castigation, "I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn +has been worked to death." + +"I don't know," says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, "why Mr. +Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr. +Tulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate." + +Volumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester could +desire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed again, +suggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. Sir Leicester +is not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been in need of +his assistance. + +Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its +cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the +park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned. + +A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now +observes from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that Tulkinghorn +had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout +something, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly +jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that Coodle man +was floored. + +Mercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon, +that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns +her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before. + +Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so +original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing +all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded +that he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge, +and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with +candlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock +delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse. + +"He has not been here once," she adds, "since I came. I really had +some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had +almost made up my mind that he was dead." + +It may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker +gloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she +thought, "I would he were!" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester, "is always welcome here and +always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and +deservedly respected." + +The debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich fler." + +"He has a stake in the country," says Sir Leicester, "I have no +doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on +a footing of equality with the highest society." + +Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by. + +"Good gracious, what's that?" cries Volumnia with her little withered +scream. + +"A rat," says my Lady. "And they have shot him." + +Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and candles. + +"No, no," says Sir Leicester, "I think not. My Lady, do you object to +the twilight?" + +On the contrary, my Lady prefers it. + +"Volumnia?" + +Oh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the +dark. + +"Then take them away," says Sir Leicester. "Tulkinghorn, I beg your +pardon. How do you do?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his +passing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides +into the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on +the opposite side of the Baronet's little newspaper-table. Sir +Leicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not being very well, will +take cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would +rather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf +about her, and returns to his seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile +takes a pinch of snuff. + +"Now," says Sir Leicester. "How has that contest gone?" + +"Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in +both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one." + +It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no +political opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says "you" are +beaten, and not "we." + +Sir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such a +thing. 'The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's +sure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--Mob. + +"It's the place, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the +fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, "where they +wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son." + +"A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had +the becoming taste and perception," observes Sir Leicester, "to +decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments +expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in +this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I +am glad to acknowledge." + +"Ha!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It did not prevent him from being very +active in this election, though." + +Sir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. "Did I +understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active +in this election?" + +"Uncommonly active." + +"Against--" + +"Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and +emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the +business part of the proceedings he carried all before him." + +It is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that +Sir Leicester is staring majestically. + +"And he was much assisted," says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, "by +his son." + +"By his son, sir?" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness. + +"By his son." + +"The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?" + +"That son. He has but one." + +"Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause +during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then +upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, +the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters +have--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion +by which things are held together!" + +General burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is +really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in +and do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks--country's +going--Dayvle--steeple-chase pace. + +"I beg," says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, "that we may +not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My +Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--" + +"I have no intention," observes my Lady from her window in a low but +decided tone, "of parting with her." + +"That was not my meaning," returns Sir Leicester. "I am glad to hear +you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your +patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these +dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in +such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve +her for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably +would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would +not be--" Sir Leicester adds, after a moment's consideration, +"dragged from the altars of her forefathers." + +These remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference +when he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head in +reply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little +stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. + +"It is worthy of remark," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "however, that these +people are, in their way, very proud." + +"Proud?" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing. + +"I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the +girl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing +she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances." + +"Well!" says Sir Leicester tremulously. "Well! You should know, Mr. +Tulkinghorn. You have been among them." + +"Really, Sir Leicester," returns the lawyer, "I state the fact. Why, +I could tell you a story--with Lady Dedlock's permission." + +Her head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he is +going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes? + +"No. Real flesh and blood." Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant and +repeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony, +"Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars +have only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They +exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady +Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?" + +By the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking +towards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be +seen, perfectly still. + +"A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel +circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter +who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great +lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your +condition, Sir Leicester." + +Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," implying +that then she must have appeared of very considerable moral +dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. + +"The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, +and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. +Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she +had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been +engaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army--nothing +connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but +she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." + +By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the +moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, +perfectly still. + +"The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a +train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to +discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on +her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how +difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be +always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you +may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's +grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's +townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be +patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden +underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly +took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of +the honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not +the least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been +the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock +will excuse its painful nature." + +There are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting +with Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever +was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The +majority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in +few words--"no business--Rouncewell's fernal townsman." Sir Leicester +generally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler and arranges a +sequence of events on a plan of his own. + +There is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept +at Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and +this is the first night in many on which the family have been alone. +It is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for +candles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and +then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes +forward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in +the candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for +something better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of +which contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked +after by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective +by the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of +contrast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room + + +Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the +journey up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on his +face as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were, +in his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and strictly +self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an +injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any +romantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is a +rather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of +his veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back +walks noiselessly up and down. + +There is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty +large accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his +reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to +it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or +so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he +happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents +awaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the table, the old +man's sight for print or writing being defective at night--he opens +the French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks +slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool +may have any need to subside, from the story he has related +downstairs. + +The time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk +on turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read +their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though +their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be +seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the +leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented +below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other +characters nearer to his hand. + +As he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his +thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in +passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his +room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite +the window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the +night being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These +eyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the +corridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into +his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he +recognizes Lady Dedlock. + +He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors +behind her. There is a wild disturbance--is it fear or anger?--in her +eyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs +two hours ago. + +Is it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as +pale, both as intent. + +"Lady Dedlock?" + +She does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped +into the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like two +pictures. + +"Why have you told my story to so many persons?" + +"Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it." + +"How long have you known it?" + +"I have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while." + +"Months?" + +"Days." + +He stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in +his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood +before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal +politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be +defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same +distance, which nothing has ever diminished. + +"Is this true concerning the poor girl?" + +He slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding +the question. + +"You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story +also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried +in the streets?" + +So! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power this +woman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's +thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey +eyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze. + +"No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir +Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. +But it would be a real case if they knew--what we know." + +"Then they do not know it yet?" + +"No." + +"Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a +satisfactory opinion on that point." + +And he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he +watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this +woman are astonishing!" + +"Sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the +energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "I will make it +plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, +and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. +Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power +of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by +having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my +great and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or +I should rather say--no longer belonging to this place--I had, and if +you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as +to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug +of self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more. + +"You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. +Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I +can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in +obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your +discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will +dictate. I am ready to do it." + +And she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand +with which she takes the pen! + +"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." + +"I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare +myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have +done. Do what remains now." + +"Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say +a few words when you have finished." + +Their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do +it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened +window. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and +the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! Where +are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add +the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn +existence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious +questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under +the watching stars upon a summer night. + +"Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock +presently proceeds, "I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would +be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears." + +He makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with +her disdainful hand. + +"Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels +are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. +So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had +with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own +dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be +henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with +you." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "I am +not sure that I understand you. You want--" + +"To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this +hour." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving +hand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, +shakes his head. + +"What? Not go as I have said?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. + +"Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you +forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and +who it is?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means." + +Without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in +her hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot +or raising his voice, "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and +hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the +alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before +every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." + +He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand +confusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but when +so practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment +in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. + +He promptly says again, "Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock," +and motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but +he motions again, and she sits down. + +"The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady +Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for +them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well +known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have +appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." + +"Sir," she returns without looking up from the ground on which her +eyes are now fixed, "I had better have gone. It would have been far +better not to have detained me. I have no more to say." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear." + +"I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am." + +His jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's +misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and +dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the +terrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands +in the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not +up--gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens, +reassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little +behind her. + +"Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision +satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what +to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to +keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I +keep it too." + +He pauses, but she makes no reply. + +"Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are +honouring me with your attention?" + +"I am." + +"Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your +strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I +have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. +The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." + +"Then why," she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy +look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his house?" + +"Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to +tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance +upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would +not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his +wife." + +She breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as +ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. + +"I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this +case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of +my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to +shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and +confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that +he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing +can prepare him for the blow." + +"Not my flight?" she returned. "Think of it again." + +"Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a +hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible +to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of." + +There is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no +remonstrance. + +"When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and +the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir +Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his +patrimony"--Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here--"are, I need not say to +you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable." + +"Go on!" + +"Therefore," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot +style, "I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can +be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid +upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow +morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What +could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the +wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you +are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at +all consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your +husband." + +He gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or +animated. + +"There is another point of view," he continues, "in which the case +presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to +infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even +knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be +so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common +sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into +account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult." + +She stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are +beginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her. + +"My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this +time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business +consideration of the matter like a machine. "My experience teaches +me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better +to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of +their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I +always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided +by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own +counsel, and I will keep mine." + +"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, +day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. + +"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock." + +"It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?" + +"I am sure that what I recommend is necessary." + +"I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable +deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when +you give the signal?" she said slowly. + +"Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without +forewarning you." + +She asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory +or calling them over in her sleep. + +"We are to meet as usual?" + +"Precisely as usual, if you please." + +"And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?" + +"As you have done so many years. I should not have made that +reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your +secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no +better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never +wholly trusted each other." + +She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time +before asking, "Is there anything more to be said to-night?" + +"Why," Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his +hands, "I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my +arrangements, Lady Dedlock." + +"You may be assured of it." + +"Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business +precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any +communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I +have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's +feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been +happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if +the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." + +"I can attest your fidelity, sir." + +Both before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length +moves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, +towards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he +would have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago, +and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an +ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into +the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very +slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when +he is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint +upon herself. + +He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own +rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands +clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would +think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down +for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the +faithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled +air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And +truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the +turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger +and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging. + +The same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant +country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins +entering on various public employments, principally receipt of +salary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty +thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false +teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath +and the terror of every other community. Also into rooms high in the +roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where +humbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy +matrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, drawing +everything up with it--the Wills and Sallys, the latent vapour in the +earth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and +creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold +emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great +kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome +air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious +head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are +in their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in +Lincolnshire. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers + + +From the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock +property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and +dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places +is one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it +were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he +had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his +dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of +his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he +melts into his own square. + +Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant +fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into +wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, +dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without +experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest +in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its +broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by +the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than +usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a +century old. + +The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr. +Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble +mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the +door-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on +the top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man. + +"Is that Snagsby?" + +"Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir, +and going home." + +"Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?" + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his +head in his deference towards his best customer, "I was wishful to +say a word to you, sir." + +"Can you say it here?" + +"Perfectly, sir." + +"Say it then." The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing +at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the +court-yard. + +"It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it is +relating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner, +sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "What foreigner?" + +"The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not +acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her +manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly +foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the +honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night." + +"Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his +hat. "I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in +general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that." Mr. Snagsby appears +to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating +the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself. + +"And what can you have to say, Snagsby," demands Mr. Tulkinghorn, +"about her?" + +"Well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with +his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is +very great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure--but +my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a +point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a +foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and +hovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if +I could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court--you know it +is--now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir." + +Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a +cough of general application to fill up all the blanks. + +"Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Just so, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it +yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when +coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the +foreign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a +native sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that night, being +uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at +dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and +she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at +a grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to +alarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it, +and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such +fits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in +any house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample +occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When +she DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his +employer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of +viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually +calling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has +been, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"--Mr. Snagsby +repeats the word with pathetic emphasis--"in the court. The effects +of which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder +if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even +in the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was +possible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows," says Mr. +Snagsby, shaking his head, "I never had an idea of a foreign female, +except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby, +or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I +do assure you, sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires +when the stationer has finished, "And that's all, is it, Snagsby?" + +"Why yes, sir, that's all," says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough +that plainly adds, "and it's enough too--for me." + +"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she +is mad," says the lawyer. + +"Even if she was, you know, sir," Mr. Snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't be +a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign +dagger planted in the family." + +"No," says the other. "Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry +you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here." + +Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes +his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying +to himself, "These women were created to give trouble the whole earth +over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid +now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!" + +So saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms, +lights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to see much +of the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate Roman, who is +for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work +pretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much attention, Mr. +Tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in +which there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is +another, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to +descend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with +a candle in his hand when a knock comes. + +"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a +good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?" + +He stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and +taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of +welcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her +lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly +closes the door before replying. + +"I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir." + +"HAVE you!" + +"I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he +is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for +you." + +"Quite right, and quite true." + +"Not true. Lies!" + +At times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle Hortense +so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject +involuntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's case at +present, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut up +(but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and +shaking her head. + +"Now, mistress," says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the +chimney-piece. "If you have anything to say, say it, say it." + +"Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby." + +"Mean and shabby, eh?" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the +key. + +"Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have +attrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked me +to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you +have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?" +Mademoiselle Hortense makes another spring. + +"You are a vixen, a vixen!" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he +looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, "Well, wench, well. I +paid you." + +"You paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "Two sovereign! I +have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them +from me!" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as +she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that +they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners +and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently. + +"Now!" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again. +"You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains +herself with a sarcastic laugh. + +"You must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to throw +money about in that way!" + +"I AM rich," she returns. "I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of +all my heart. You know that." + +"Know it? How should I know it?" + +"Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you +that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was +en-r-r-r-raged!" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the +letter "r" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she +assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and +setting all her teeth. + +"Oh! I knew that, did I?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards +of the key. + +"Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because +you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her." Mademoiselle Hortense folds her +arms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders. + +"Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" + +"I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you +cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to +chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, +and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?" + +"You appear to know a good deal," Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts. + +"Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that +I come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a +little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!" In this reply, down to the +word "wager" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and +tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant +scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly +shut and staringly wide open. + +"Now, let us see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the +key and looking imperturbably at her, "how this matter stands." + +"Ah! Let us see," mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight +nods of her head. + +"You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have +just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again." + +"And again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. "And +yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!" + +"And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps? +That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?" + +"And again," repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination. +"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for +ever!" + +"Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take +the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it +behind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder." + +She merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground +with folded arms. + +"You will not, eh?" + +"No, I will not!" + +"So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this +is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of +prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction +(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very +strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of +your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one +of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you +think?" + +"I think," mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear, +obliging voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." + +"Probably," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. "But I +don't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the +prison." + +"Nothing. What does it matter to me?" + +"Why, it matters this much, mistress," says the lawyer, deliberately +putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; "the law is so +despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English +citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his +desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold +of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard +discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress." Illustrating with the +cellar-key. + +"Truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "That is +droll! But--my faith!--still what does it matter to me?" + +"My fair friend," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, or +at Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn." + +"In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?" + +"Perhaps." + +It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of +agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish +expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make +her do it. + +"In a word, mistress," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "I am sorry to be +unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or +there--again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is +great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an +ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench." + +"I will prove you," whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, +"I will try if you dare to do it!" + +"And if," pursues the lawyer without minding her, "I place you in +that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time +before you find yourself at liberty again." + +"I will prove you," repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper. + +"And now," proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, "you had +better go. Think twice before you come here again." + +"Think you," she answers, "twice two hundred times!" + +"You were dismissed by your lady, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn +observes, following her out upon the staircase, "as the most +implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and +take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I +threaten, I will do, mistress." + +She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is +gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, +devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and +then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the +pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +Esther's Narrative + + +It matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had +told me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to +approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of +the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my +fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living +creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always +conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew +the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I +did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I +was present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I +tried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I +knew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did +these things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken +of, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might +lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me. + +It matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's +voice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to +do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so +new to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention +of my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house +in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the +theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide +asunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or +confidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has +been so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story +of goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and +go on. + +When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations +with my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was +deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but +she was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him +even for that. My guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his +name with a word of reproof. "Rick is mistaken, my dear," he would +say to her. "Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over +again. We must trust to you and time to set him right." + +We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to +time until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had +written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and +persuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted Richard +was deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends +when the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the dark, +he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those +clouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and +misunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the +suit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his +unvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession +of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration +before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a +new argument in favour of his doing what he did. "So that it is even +more mischievous," said my guardian once to me, "to remonstrate with +the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone." + +I took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr. +Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard. + +"Adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "My dear, who would advise +with Skimpole?" + +"Encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said I. + +"Encourager!" returned my guardian again. "Who could be encouraged by +Skimpole?" + +"Not Richard?" I asked. + +"No," he replied. "Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer +creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or +encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or +anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as +Skimpole." + +"Pray, cousin John," said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked +over my shoulder, "what made him such a child?" + +"What made him such a child?" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head, +a little at a loss. + +"Yes, cousin John." + +"Why," he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, "he is +all sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility, +and--and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, +somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth +attached too much importance to them and too little to any training +that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he +is. Hey?" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us +hopefully. "What do you think, you two?" + +Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an +expense to Richard. + +"So it is, so it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "That must not +be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do." + +And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever +introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds. + +"Did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his +face. "But there you have the man. There you have the man! There is +nothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value of +money. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr. +Vholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and +thinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?" + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "There you have the +man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in +it, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere +simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll +understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and +caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an +infant!" + +In pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and +presented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door. + +He lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there +were at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in +cloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better tenant +than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody +always paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for +business rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I don't +know; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a +state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of +the area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker +was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge +from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps +were the only signs of its being inhabited. + +A slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the +rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry +answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping +up the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and +I both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of +her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The +lock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied +herself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action +either, and said would we go upstairs? + +We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture +than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony +entered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at +all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a +large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and +plenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, +newspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass +in one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there +was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was +another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a +bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in +a dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china +cup--it was then about mid-day--and looking at a collection of +wallflowers in the balcony. + +He was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and +received us in his usual airy manner. + +"Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some +little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. "Here +I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and +mutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, +and my claret; I am content. I don't want them for themselves, but +they remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar about legs of beef +and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!" + +"This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever +prescribed), his sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. + +"Yes," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is the +bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his +feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!" + +He handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "He sings! Not +an ambitious note, but still he sings." + +"These are very fine," said my guardian. "A present?" + +"No," he answered. "No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man +wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should +wait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think not--if +your time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went +away." + +My guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "Is it +possible to be worldly with this baby?" + +"This is a day," said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a +tumbler, "that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint +Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a +blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment +daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. +They'll be enchanted." + +He was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him +to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. "My dear +Jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, "as many +moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what +o'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life, +you'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. We don't +pretend to do it." + +My guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, "You hear him?" + +"Now, Harold," he began, "the word I have to say relates to Rick." + +"The dearest friend I have!" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. "I +suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms +with you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry, +and I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I love him." + +The engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had +a disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for +the moment, Ada too. + +"You are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned Mr. +Jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, Harold." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole. "His pocket? Now you are coming to what I +don't understand." Taking a little more claret and dipping one of the +cakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with an +ingenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand. + +"If you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you +must not let him pay for both." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face irradiated +by the comicality of this idea, "what am I to do? If he takes me +anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I +had any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose I say to a +man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know +nothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue +the subject with any consideration for the man. I don't go about +asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish--which I +don't understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and +sixpence is in Money--which I don't understand?" + +"Well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless +reply, "if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must +borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that +circumstance), and leave the calculation to him." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "I will do anything to +give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition. +Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I +thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to +make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a +bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower +of money." + +"Indeed it is not so, sir," said Ada. "He is poor." + +"No, really?" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. "You +surprise me. + +"And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my +guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr. +Skimpole's dressing-gown, "be you very careful not to encourage him +in that reliance, Harold." + +"My dear good friend," returned Mr. Skimpole, "and my dear Miss +Simmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's business, +and I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges +from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before +me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire +them--as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell +him so." + +The helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us, +the light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the +fantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and +argued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease +of everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. The +more I saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was +present, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and +yet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the +less agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any +one for whom I cared. + +Hearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr. +Skimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters +(his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite +delighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish +character. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young +ladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a +delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of +disorders. + +"This," said Mr. Skimpole, "is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa--plays +and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment +daughter, Laura--plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy +daughter, Kitty--sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little +and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money." + +Mrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to +strike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought that +she rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took +every opportunity of throwing in another. + +"It is pleasant," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from +one to the other of us, "and it is whimsically interesting to trace +peculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I +am the youngest." + +The daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by +this droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter. + +"My dears, it is true," said Mr. Skimpole, "is it not? So it is, and +so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our nature +to.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity +and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very +strange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing +about chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook +anything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We +admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we +don't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live +and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and +let us live upon you!" + +He laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what +he said. + +"We have sympathy, my roses," said Mr. Skimpole, "sympathy for +everything. Have we not?" + +"Oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. + +"In fact, that is our family department," said Mr. Skimpole, "in this +hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being +interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can +we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I +dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all +wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We +had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social +ideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their +young fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or +other Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have +THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don't know how, but +somehow." + +She looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I +could not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the +three daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little +haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's +playthings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were consulted, +I observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the +Beauty daughter being in the classic manner, the Sentiment daughter +luxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style, +with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls +dotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to +correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent way. + +Ada and I conversed with these young ladies and found them +wonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had +been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in +the wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not +help hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously +volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for +the purpose. + +"My roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. She is +poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I +shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been +tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home." + +"That bad man!" said the Comedy daughter. + +"At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, +looking at the blue sky," Laura complained. + +"And when the smell of hay was in the air!" said Arethusa. + +"It showed a want of poetry in the man," Mr. Skimpole assented, but +with perfect good humour. "It was coarse. There was an absence of the +finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great +offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man--" + +"Not honest, papa. Impossible!" they all three protested. + +"At a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up," said +Mr. Skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we +borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, +and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man +who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, +and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. +He had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He +objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out +his mistake. I said, 'Can you, at your time of life, be so +headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to +put upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to +survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don't you +KNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was +unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being +as patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him. +I said, 'Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, +we are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming +summer morning here you see me' (I was on the sofa) 'with flowers +before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air +full of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common +brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, +the absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did," said Mr. Skimpole, +raising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; "he did interpose +that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore +I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend +Jarndyce." + +It seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the +daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old +a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took +leave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any +other aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in +perfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing through some +open doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a +palace to the rest of the house. + +I could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very +startling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what +ensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was +in such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but listen to +him and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada yielded to +the same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, which had +threatened to become fixed in the east when we left Somers Town, +veered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it. + +Whether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, Mr. +Skimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. In no +way wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room +before any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was yet +looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and +drinking songs, Italian and German, by the score. + +We were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the +piano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music, +and talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined +old Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and +had got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read +aloud in a surprised voice, "Sir Leicester Dedlock!" + +The visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me +and before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have +hurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness, +to retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know +where it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was +presenting me before I could move to a chair. + +"Pray be seated, Sir Leicester." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated +himself, "I do myself the honour of calling here--" + +"You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester." + +"Thank you--of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express +my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may +have against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your +host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should +have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, +from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and +refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold." + +"You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those +ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much." + +"It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the +reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion--it +is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the +honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to +believe that you would not have been received by my local +establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, +which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen +who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, +that the fact is the reverse." + +My guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any +verbal answer. + +"It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce," Sir Leicester weightily +proceeded. "I assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn from +the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your +company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a +cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some +such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that +attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them +and which some of them might possibly have repaid." Here he produced +a card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his +eye-glass, "Mr. Hirrold--Herald--Harold--Skampling--Skumpling--I beg +your pardon--Skimpole." + +"This is Mr. Harold Skimpole," said my guardian, evidently surprised. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Sir Leicester, "I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and +to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, +sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you +will be under no similar sense of restraint." + +"You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall +certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to +your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold," +said Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, "are public +benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful +objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to +reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be +ungrateful to our benefactors." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "An artist, +sir?" + +"No," returned Mr. Skimpole. "A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might +have the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next +came down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much +flattered and honoured. + +"Mr. Skimpole mentioned," pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself +again to my guardian, "mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may +have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--" + +("That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the +occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare," +Mr. Skimpole airily explained to us.) + +"--That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was +Mr. Jarndyce." Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. "And +hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed +my regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr. +Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock, +and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as +I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I +assure you, give--me--pain." + +"Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester," returned my guardian. "I +am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration. +Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it." + +I had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not even +appeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me to find +that I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it +passed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my +instinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so +distressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, through the +rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. + +"I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock," said Sir Leicester, +rising, "and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of +exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the +occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the +vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to +these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole. +Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me +any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house +with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that +gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him." + +"You know my old opinion of him," said Mr. Skimpole, lightly +appealing to us. "An amiable bull who is determined to make every +colour scarlet!" + +Sir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear +another word in reference to such an individual and took his leave +with great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all +possible speed and remained there until I had recovered my +self-command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to +find when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for +having been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet. + +By that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I +must tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being +brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house, +even of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with me, +receiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful +that I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance. + +When we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual +talk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my +guardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as +I drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his +reading-lamp. + +"May I come in, guardian?" + +"Surely, little woman. What's the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet +time of saying a word to you about myself." + +He put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his +kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it +wore that curious expression I had observed in it once before--on +that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could +readily understand. + +"What concerns you, my dear Esther," said he, "concerns us all. You +cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear." + +"I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and +support. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night." + +He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little +alarmed. + +"Or how anxious I have been to speak to you," said I, "ever since the +visitor was here to-day." + +"The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +He folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the +profoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not +know how to prepare him. + +"Why, Esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you +are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting +together!" + +"Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago." + +The smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He +crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that) +and resumed his seat before me. + +"Guardian," said I, "do you remember, when we were overtaken by the +thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" + +"Of course. Of course I do." + +"And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone +their several ways?" + +"Of course." + +"Why did they separate, guardian?" + +His face quite altered as he looked at me. "My child, what questions +are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I +believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and +proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen +her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty +as she." + +"Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!" + +"Seen her?" + +He paused a little, biting his lip. "Then, Esther, when you spoke to +me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but +married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and +that that time had had its influence on his later life--did you know +it all, and know who the lady was?" + +"No, guardian," I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke +upon me. "Nor do I know yet." + +"Lady Dedlock's sister." + +"And why," I could scarcely ask him, "why, guardian, pray tell me why +were THEY parted?" + +"It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He +afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some +injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel +with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him +that from the date of that letter she died to him--as in literal +truth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her by her +knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which +were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in +him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the +sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did +both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from +that hour. Nor did any one." + +"Oh, guardian, what have I done!" I cried, giving way to my grief; +"what sorrow have I innocently caused!" + +"You caused, Esther?" + +"Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is +my first remembrance." + +"No, no!" he cried, starting. + +"Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!" + +I would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear +it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly +before me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better +state of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude +towards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him +so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that +night. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, +and when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever +be busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way +could I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to +him, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and +honoured him. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +The Letter and the Answer + + +My guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him +what had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to +be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such +encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely +shared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from +improving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it +was not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were, +but no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she +had mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he +dreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by +reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever +happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and +kindness, I was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence. + +"Nor do I understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, my +dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion." + +"With the lawyer," I returned. "But two other persons have come into +my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr. +Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little +understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview +I expressed perfect confidence. + +"Well," said my guardian. "Then we may dismiss him for the present. +Who is the other?" + +I called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of +herself she had made to me. + +"Ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "That is a more alarming person than +the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new +service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was +natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed +herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more." + +"Her manner was strange," said I. + +"Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and +showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her +death-bed," said my guardian. "It would be useless self-distress and +torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very +few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous +meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing +better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were +before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I, +sharing the secret with you--" + +"And lightening it, guardian, so much," said I. + +"--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can +observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can +stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is +better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear +daughter's sake." + +I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank +him! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment. +Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again; +and all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and +far-off possibility that I understood it. + +"My dear Esther," said my guardian, "I have long had something in my +thoughts that I have wished to say to you." + +"Indeed?" + +"I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I +should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately +considered. Would you object to my writing it?" + +"Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to +read?" + +"Then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "am I at this +moment quite as plain and easy--do I seem as open, as honest and +old-fashioned--as I am at any time?" + +I answered in all earnestness, "Quite." With the strictest truth, for +his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and +his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored. + +"Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I +said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?" said he with his +bright clear eyes on mine. + +I answered, most assuredly he did not. + +"Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, +Esther?" + +"Most thoroughly," said I with my whole heart. + +"My dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." + +He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down +into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of +manner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my home +in a moment--said, "You have wrought changes in me, little woman, +since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done +me a world of good since that time." + +"Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" + +"But," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." + +"It never can be forgotten." + +"Yes, Esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be +forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember +now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite +assured of that, my dear?" + +"I can, and I do," I said. + +"That's much," he answered. "That's everything. But I must not take +that at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until +you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as +you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never +write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send +Charley to me this night week--'for the letter.' But if you are not +quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing +as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, +never send!" + +"Guardian," said I, "I am already certain, I can no more be changed +in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send +Charley for the letter." + +He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference +to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. +When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was +alone, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you +have come from me--'for the letter.'" Charley went up the stairs, and +down the stairs, and along the passages--the zig-zag way about the +old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that +night--and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and +up the stairs, and brought the letter. "Lay it on the table, +Charley," said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed, +and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many +things. + +I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those +timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute +face so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael +than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I +passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in +all around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw +my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was +the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of +welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant +faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived +my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and +recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so +unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central +figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. + +I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and +in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed +for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read +much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it +down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It +asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. + +It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was +written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his +face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind +protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places +were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the +feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he +past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I +was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing +all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature +deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage +and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance +the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he +was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew +since our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only +served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world +would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. +I was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of +that he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him +nothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often +thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and +fearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age) +would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, +had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. +If I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to +be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become +the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter +chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind +myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even +then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in +the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his +old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his +bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the +same, he knew. + +This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a +justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian +impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his +integrity he stated the full case. + +But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had +had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it. +That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he +could love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery +of my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my +disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in +need of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the +last. + +But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of +the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but +one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him +poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means +of thanking him? + +Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after +reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect--for +it was strange though I had expected the contents--but as if +something for which there was no name or distinct idea were +indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very +hopeful; but I cried very much. + +By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I +said, "Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!" I am afraid the face in +the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my +finger at it, and it stopped. + +"That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, +when you showed me such a change!" said I, beginning to let down my +hair. "When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as +cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us +begin for once and for all." + +I went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little +still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was +crying then. + +"And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best +friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great +deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men." + +I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how +should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been +a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form +that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid +them down in their basket again. + +Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how +often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my +illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I +should be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all +honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit +down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at +first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I +was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem +strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not. +"Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, looking at the +glass, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about +your marrying--" + +Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of +the flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had only +been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it +would be better not to keep them now. + +They were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our +sitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and +went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in my hand, +I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and +I stole in to kiss her. + +It was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; but +I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. Weaker +than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment +to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed, +the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own +room and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant. + +On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just +as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not the +least constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think there was +none) in mine. I was with him several times in the course of the +morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and I thought it +not unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did +not say a word. + +So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over +which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day, +that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never +did. + +I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I +tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not +write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought +each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days, +and he never said a word. + +At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon +going out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going down, +came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the +drawing-room window looking out. + +He turned on my coming in and said, smiling, "Aye, it's you, little +woman, is it?" and looked out again. + +I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down +on purpose. "Guardian," I said, rather hesitating and trembling, +"when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came +for?" + +"When it's ready, my dear," he replied. + +"I think it is ready," said I. + +"Is Charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. + +"No. I have brought it myself, guardian," I returned. + +I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this +the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no +difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said +nothing to my precious pet about it. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +In Trust + + +One morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys, +as my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I happened +to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in +which looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that +morning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the +Chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to +damp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's +shadow. + +Presently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping +along the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's attendants +instead of my maid, saying, "Oh, if you please, miss, would you step +and speak to Mr. Jarndyce!" + +It was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged +with a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld, +at any distance, the person for whom it was intended. Therefore I saw +Charley asking me in her usual form of words to "step and speak" to +Mr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when I did hear her, she +had said it so often that she was out of breath. + +I told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we went +in whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To which +Charley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any credit +to my educational powers, replied, "Yes, miss. Him as come down in +the country with Mr. Richard." + +A more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose +there could not be. I found them looking at one another across a +table, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and +upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what +he had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it +in in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I +never had seen two people so unmatched. + +"You know Mr. Vholes, my dear," said my guardian. Not with the +greatest urbanity, I must say. + +Mr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself +again, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the gig. Not +having Richard to look at, he looked straight before him. + +"Mr. Vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were +a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most +unfortunate Rick." Laying a marked emphasis on "most unfortunate" as +if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr. +Vholes. + +I sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that +he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with +his black glove. + +"And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to +know," said my guardian, "what you think, my dear. Would you be so +good as to--as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?" + +Doing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, "I have been saying +that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s professional +adviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an +embarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the +peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and +the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved +off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving +off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket +to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to +being repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have +a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to +realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My +apprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should +end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all +events is desirable to be made known to his connexions." + +Mr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into +the silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was +his tone, and looked before him again. + +"Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said my +guardian to me. "Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would +never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be +to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did." + +Mr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again. + +"What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the +difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say +that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here +under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything +may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that +everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything +should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. +If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be +here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his +objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he +charged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of +society and a father--AND a son," said Mr. Vholes, who had nearly +forgotten that point. + +It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the +truth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such +as it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that +I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see +him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without +consulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to +propose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed +his funeral gloves. + +The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my +guardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too +happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr. +Vholes. + +"Well, sir," said Mr. Jarndyce, "Miss Summerson will communicate with +Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet +retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, +sir." + +"I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce," said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long +black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, "not any. I thank you, +no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor +knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this +period of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be. +Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your +permission take my leave." + +"And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take +our leave, Mr. Vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause +you know of." + +Mr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had +quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, +made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and +slowly shook it. + +"We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of +respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the +wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think +well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an +obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?" + +I said I would be careful not to do it. + +"Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir." Mr. +Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in +it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his +long thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach, +passing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling +the seed in the ground as it glided along. + +Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I +was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was +too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of +excuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted girl!--she +wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. + +Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted +none and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London +that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At +our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the +Kentish letters. + +It was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to +ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me +as I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At +one while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I +thought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever +have supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in +the world that I should have come, and now one of the most +unreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say +to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with +these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune +(to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and +over again all night. + +At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they +were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little +irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and +great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and +blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and +weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea +was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but +a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their +bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they +were spinning themselves into cordage. + +But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, +comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too +late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our +little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very +much. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships +that we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many +sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these +vessels were of grand size--one was a large Indiaman just come home; +and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in +the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, +and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to +them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in +themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful. + +The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into +the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how +glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was +curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the +serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much +faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told +her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast +on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of +one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew +at home of such a case. + +I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it +seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived +in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we +went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, +we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I +asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He +sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and +knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us. + +"Now then!" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the +little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, "Can I come +in, Richard? It's only Dame Durden." + +He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin +cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the +floor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not in +uniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his +room. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I was +seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me +in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me. +Down to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never received me but +with something of his old merry boyish manner. + +"Good heaven, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come here? +Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is +well?" + +"Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!" + +"Ah!" he said, leaning back in his chair. "My poor cousin! I was +writing to you, Esther." + +So worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his +handsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely +written sheet of paper in his hand! + +"Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to +read it after all?" I asked. + +"Oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "You may read it +in the whole room. It is all over here." + +I mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had +heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult +with him what could best be done. + +"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!" said he with a +melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day--should have been gone +in another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. +Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I +only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all +the professions." + +"Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" + +"Esther," he returned, "it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as +that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) +would far rather be without me than with me. And they are right. +Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even +for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but +for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken now," he said, +tearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting +them away, by driblets, "how could I have gone abroad? I must have +been ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my +experience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his +back!" + +I suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught +the hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to +prevent me from going on. + +"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid--must forbid. The first is +John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell +you I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing; +it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was +prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be +wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I +have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very +agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will." + +He was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his +determination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I took +out Ada's letter and put it in his hand. + +"Am I to read it now?" he asked. + +As I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon +his hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his +two hands--to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if +the light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it +there, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had +folded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his +hand. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes. + +"Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?" He spoke in a +softened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me. + +"Yes, Richard." + +"Offers me," he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, "the little +inheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as much as +I have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right +with it, and remain in the service." + +"I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said I. +"And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart." + +"I am sure it is. I--I wish I was dead!" + +He went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his +head down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I +hoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. My +experience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his +rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. + +"And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not +otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from +me," said he indignantly. "And the dear girl makes me this generous +offer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with the same +John Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new +means of buying me off." + +"Richard!" I cried out, rising hastily. "I will not hear you say such +shameful words!" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time +in my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young +face looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder +and said, "If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a +tone to me. Consider!" + +He blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner +that he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand +times. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather +fluttered after being so fiery. + +"To accept this offer, my dear Esther," said he, sitting down beside +me and resuming our conversation, "--once more, pray, pray forgive +me; I am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, I +need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I +could show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have +done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in +the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing +Ada's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the +wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, +thank God!" + +His sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his +features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been +before. + +"No, no!" cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's +little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining +me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary +of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should +be used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall +now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I +shall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to +compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their +bond now--Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour +anyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter +to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of +me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear." + +I will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and +nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only +came from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw +that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless +to make any representation to him. I saw too, and had experienced in +this very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was +even more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as +he was. + +Therefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind +convincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and +that it was not his mere impression. He showed me without hesitation +a correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was +arranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. Vholes had copies +of these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout. +Beyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of Ada's letter, +and being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London, +I had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a +reluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he +joined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to +the gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach. + +There was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval +officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with +unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great +Indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look. + +The gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking +good-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing +about them as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, +Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my +little maid was surprised. + +It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time +to take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In +one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I +had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he +should see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my +courage had quite failed me. + +But I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, "My dear, +there is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why +it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were +last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This +is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up!" I was in a +great tremble--with running--and at first was quite unable to calm +myself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it. + +The party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase. +I was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew their voices +again--I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a +great relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but +I was determined not to do so. "No, my dear, no. No, no, no!" + +I untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--I think I mean half down, +but it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that I +happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to +Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be +by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw +that he was very sorry for me. + +"You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. +Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which +enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the +truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old +patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe +illness." + +"Ah! Little Miss Flite!" he said. "She lives the same life yet?" + +"Just the same." + +I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to +be able to put it aside. + +"Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most +affectionate creature, as I have reason to say." + +"You--you have found her so?" he returned. "I--I am glad of that." He +was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. + +"I assure you," said I, "that I was deeply touched by her sympathy +and pleasure at the time I have referred to." + +"I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill." + +"I was very ill." + +"But you have quite recovered?" + +"I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said I. "You +know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I +have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to +desire." + +I felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever had +for myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to +find that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring him. I +spoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and +of his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He +had not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. He +had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better. +While we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had +alleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing +me, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs who was with me, and +they met with cordial pleasure. + +I saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke +of Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all was not +going well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there +were something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked +towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the +truth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good +spirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt again, whom +he had always liked. + +Richard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr. +Woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not +join us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so +much more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to +think I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was not +relieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and Richard ran +down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him. + +I was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but I +referred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to +his being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt +listened with interest and expressed his regret. + +"I saw you observe him rather closely," said I, "Do you think him so +changed?" + +"He is changed," he returned, shaking his head. + +I felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was +only an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was +gone. + +"It is not," said Mr. Woodcourt, "his being so much younger or older, +or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his +face such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in +a young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all +weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair." + +"You do not think he is ill?" said I. + +No. He looked robust in body. + +"That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to +know," I proceeded. "Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?" + +"To-morrow or the next day." + +"There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked +you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with +your companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it +might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I--how +we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!" + +"Miss Summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the +first, "before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept +him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" + +"God bless you!" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought +they might, when it was not for myself. "Ada loves him--we all love +him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. +Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!" + +Richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and +gave me his arm to take me to the coach. + +"Woodcourt," he said, unconscious with what application, "pray let us +meet in London!" + +"Meet?" returned the other. "I have scarcely a friend there now but +you. Where shall I find you?" + +"Why, I must get a lodging of some sort," said Richard, pondering. +"Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn." + +"Good! Without loss of time." + +They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard +was yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand +on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved +mine in thanks. + +And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry +for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may +feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly +remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +Stop Him! + + +Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the +sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills +every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights +burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily, +heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks +in Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they are blotted +out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some +puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and +blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The +blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, +and Tom is fast asleep. + +Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of +Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom +shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by +constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of +figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by +low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting +trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or +whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of +which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, +that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according +to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful +meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined +spirit. + +But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they +serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's +corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It +shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists +on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and +his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. +There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any +pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation +about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his +committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of +society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the +high. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has +his revenge. + +It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by +night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more +shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination +is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. +The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the +national glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the +British dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder +as Tom. + +A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep +to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless +pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by +curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the +miserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark +eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there, +he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it +before. + +On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street +of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut +up and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except in one +direction, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a +door-step. He walks that way. Approaching, he observes that she has +journeyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She +sits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her +elbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas +bag, or bundle, she has carried. She is dozing probably, for she +gives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her. + +The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to +where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her. +Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. + +"What is the matter?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?" + +"I'm waiting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not +here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here because there +will be sun here presently to warm me." + +"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the +street." + +"Thank you, sir. It don't matter." + +A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or +condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many +people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little +spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily. + +"Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a +doctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world." + +He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he +can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection, +saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the +wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. + +"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very +sore." + +"It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear +upon her cheek. + +"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't hurt +you." + +"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!" + +He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully +examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a +small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is +thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery +in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?" + +"How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. + +"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on +your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in +different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to +their wives too." + +The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her +injury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her +forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops +them again. + +"Where is he now?" asks the surgeon. + +"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the +lodging-house." + +"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and +heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as +he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it. +You have no young child?" + +The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's +Liz's." + +"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!" + +By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "I suppose +you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks, +good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and +curtsys. + +"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint +Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, +as if you did." + +"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in +return. Have you money for your lodging?" + +"Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He tells +her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very +welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still +asleep, and nothing is astir. + +Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he +descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a +ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the +soiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and +furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth +whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so +intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger +in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face +with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and +goes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and +his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what +purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They +look, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of +swampy growth that rotted long ago. + +Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a +shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how +or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. +He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge, +still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his +remembrance. + +He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light, +thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking +round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by +the woman. + +"Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. "Stop him, +sir!" + +He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker +than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up +half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman +follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not knowing +but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and +runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time +he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To +strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable +him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly +ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed, +takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare. +Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and +tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at +him until the woman comes up. + +"Oh, you, Jo!" cries the woman. "What? I have found you at last!" + +"Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, "Jo! Stay. To be +sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the +coroner." + +"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of +that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I +unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? +I've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by +another on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich +warn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he +wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my +crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I +only wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't go and make a hole +in the water, I'm sure I don't." + +He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so +real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a +growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in +neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. +He says to the woman, "Miserable creature, what has he done?" + +To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure +more amazedly than angrily, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at +last!" + +"What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?" + +"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by +me, and that's the wonder of it." + +Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting +for one of them to unravel the riddle. + +"But he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "Oh, you Jo! He was +along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord +bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn't, +and took him home--" + +Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror. + +"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a +thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or +heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady +that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful +looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it +wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet +voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this +is all along of you and of her goodness to you?" demands the woman, +beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into +passionate tears. + +The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing +his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, +and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against +which he leans rattles. + +Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but +effectually. + +"Richard told me--" He falters. "I mean, I have heard of this--don't +mind me for a moment, I will speak presently." + +He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered +passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except +that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very +remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention. + +"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!" + +Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner +of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting +one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right +hand over his left and his left foot over his right. + +"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here +ever since?" + +"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning," +replies Jo hoarsely. + +"Why have you come here now?" + +Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no +higher than the knees, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do +nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I +thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay +down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go +and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me +somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on +me--like everybody everywheres." + +"Where have you come from?" + +Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees +again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a +sort of resignation. + +"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?" + +"Tramp then," says Jo. + +"Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his +repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an +expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you left +that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to +pity you and take you home." + +Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares, +addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that +he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he +would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his +unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos +wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his +poor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very +miserable sobs. + +Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself +to touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me." + +"No. I dustn't," says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. "I +dustn't, or I would." + +"But I must know," returns the other, "all the same. Come, Jo." + +After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, +looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll +tell you something. I was took away. There!" + +"Took away? In the night?" + +"Ah!" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and +even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through +the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking +over or hidden on the other side. + +"Who took you away?" + +"I dustn't name him," says Jo. "I dustn't do it, sir. + +"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No +one else shall hear." + +"Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as +he DON'T hear." + +"Why, he is not in this place." + +"Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all at +wanst." + +Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and +good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently +awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than +by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. + +"Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?" + +"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, +'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm +a-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up to." + +"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?" + +"Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was +discharged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you may +call half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses. +'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he ses. +'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or +you'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see +me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his +former precautions and investigations. + +Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but +keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, "He is not so ungrateful as you +supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an +insufficient one." + +"Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now! See how hard you +wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and +it's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it." + +"Now, Jo," says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and I +will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I +take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you +will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise." + +"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir." + +"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this +time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come +along. Good day again, my good woman." + +"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again." + +She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and +takes it up. Jo, repeating, "Ony you tell the young lady as I never +went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and shambles and +shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a +farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan +Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In +this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad +rays of the sunlight and the purer air. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +Jo's Will + + +As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high +church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning +light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in +his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. "It surely is a +strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world +this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of +than an unowned dog." But it is none the less a fact because of its +strangeness, and the difficulty remains. + +At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still +really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close +to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick +to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, +glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing +in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering +with a less divided attention what he shall do. + +A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be +done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and +comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his +right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading +dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo +is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw +the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions +as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. + +But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. +"I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir," says Jo, soon putting down +his food, "but I don't know nothink--not even that. I don't care for +eating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em." And Jo stands shivering +and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. + +Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. "Draw +breath, Jo!" "It draws," says Jo, "as heavy as a cart." He might add, +"And rattles like it," but he only mutters, "I'm a-moving on, sir." + +Allan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand, +but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of +wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to +revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "We may repeat that +dose, Jo," observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face. +"So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again." + +Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his +back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in +the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without +appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that +he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his +face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice +of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of +improvement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no +small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its +consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has +finished his story and his bread, they go on again. + +Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of +refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, +Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered. +But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer +lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much +obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other +than the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These +sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her +birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to +that neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she +may be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend +the Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and +with open arms. + +"My dear physician!" cries Miss Flite. "My meritorious, +distinguished, honourable officer!" She uses some odd expressions, +but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more so +than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has +no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a +doorway, and tells her how he comes there. + +"Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a +fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me." + +Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider; +but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is +entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room. +"Gridley!" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth +repetition of this remark. "Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear +physician! General George will help us out." + +It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and +would be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on +her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with +her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her +disjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George, +whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a +great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think +that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his +encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and +they repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far. + +From the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry, +and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He +also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding +towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no +stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and +dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light +shirt-sleeves. + +"Your servant, sir," says Mr. George with a military salute. +Good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp +hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and +at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He +winds it up with another "Your servant, sir!" and another salute. + +"Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?" says Mr. George. + +"I am proud to find I have the air of one," returns Allan; "but I am +only a sea-going doctor." + +"Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket +myself." + +Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on +that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe, +which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing. +"You are very good, sir," returns the trooper. "As I know by +experience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it's +equally agreeable to yourself--" and finishes the sentence by putting +it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows +about Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face. + +"And that's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires, looking along the +entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the +whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes. + +"That's he," says Allan. "And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty +about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could +procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not +stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same +objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be +evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to +get him into one, which is a system that I don't take kindly to." + +"No man does, sir," returns Mr. George. + +"I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he +is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered +him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person +to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," says Mr. George. "But you have not +mentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?" + +"The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket." + +"Bucket the detective, sir?" + +"The same man." + +"The man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper after blowing out +a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, "and the boy is so far +correct that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer." Mr. George smokes +with a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence. + +"Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that +this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it +in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. +Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor +lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent +people and Jo, Mr. George," says Allan, following the direction of +the trooper's eyes along the entry, "have not been much acquainted, +as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in +this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for +him beforehand?" + +As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man +standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted +figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more +puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, +and the little man winks up at the trooper. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "I can assure you that I would +willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all +agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege +to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in +the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the +place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the +same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We +are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are +liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. However, +sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at +your service." + +With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole +building at his visitor's disposal. + +"I take it for granted, sir," he adds, "you being one of the medical +staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate +subject?" + +Allan is quite sure of it. + +"Because, sir," says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, "we +have had enough of that." + +His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. +"Still I am bound to tell you," observes Allan after repeating his +former assurance, "that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and +that he may be--I do not say that he is--too far gone to recover." + +"Do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. + +"Yes, I fear so." + +"Then, sir," returns the trooper in a decisive manner, "it appears to +me--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner he +comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!" + +Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; +and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought +in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not +one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with +Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he +is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made +article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a +common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely +filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in +him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English +soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts +that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the +sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing +interesting about thee. + +He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled +together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know +that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he +is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He +is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in +creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor +of humanity. + +"Look here, Jo!" says Allan. "This is Mr. George." + +Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a +moment, and then down again. + +"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room +here." + +Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After +a little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot +on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." + +"You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be +obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, +whatever you do, Jo." + +"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo, reverting to his favourite +declaration. "I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get +myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir, +'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." + +"I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak +to you." + +"My intention merely was, sir," observes Mr. George, amazingly broad +and upright, "to point out to him where he can lie down and get a +thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here." As the trooper speaks, +he conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the +little cabins. "There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here +you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, +sir"--he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him--"Mr. +Woodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be +aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would +recommend, sir," says the trooper, turning to his visitor. "Phil, +come here!" + +Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. "Here is a +man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it +is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor +creature. You do, don't you, Phil?" + +"Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner," is Phil's reply. + +"Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George in a martial sort of +confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a +drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay +out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--" + +"Mr. George, my considerate friend," returns Allan, taking out his +purse, "it is the very favour I would have asked." + +Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of +improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the +best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her +friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the +judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing +"which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years, +would be too absurdly unfortunate!" Allan takes the opportunity of +going out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them +near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down +the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him. + +"I take it, sir," says Mr. George, "that you know Miss Summerson +pretty well?" + +Yes, it appears. + +"Not related to her, sir?" + +No, it appears. + +"Excuse the apparent curiosity," says Mr. George. "It seemed to me +probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor +creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest +in him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you." + +"And mine, Mr. George." + +The trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark +eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of +him. + +"Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I +unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket +took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted +with the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. That's what it +is." + +Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name. + +"Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to +have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased +person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow." + +Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is. + +"What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?" + +"I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, +what kind of man?" + +"Why, then I'll tell you, sir," returns the trooper, stopping short +and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face +fires and flushes all over; "he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He +is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood +than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man--by George!--that +has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more +dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That's +the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!" + +"I am sorry," says Allan, "to have touched so sore a place." + +"Sore?" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his +broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. "It's no +fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. +He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of +this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won't +hold off, and he won't come on. If I have a payment to make him, or +time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me, +don't hear me--passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn, +Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn passes me back again to him--he +keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same +stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, +loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. +Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He +chafes and goads me till--Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. +Woodcourt," the trooper resumes his march, "all I say is, he is an +old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs +to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that +chance, in one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!" + +Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his +forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity +away with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head +and heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an +occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar, +as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a +choking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about +the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to. + +Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his +mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of +medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and +instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He +repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without +seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery. + +With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that +there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and +showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in +substance what he said in the morning, without any material +variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a +hollower sound. + +"Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters Jo, "and +be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep, +as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving +on right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. I'd be +more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an +unfortnet to be it." + +He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the +course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr. +Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the +rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down. + +To Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his +counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of +several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense +desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place +of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the +traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells +and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for +business. + +"You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?" + +The stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old +apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to +answer, "No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered--not to +put too fine a point upon it--that I never saw you before, sir." + +"Twice before," says Allan Woodcourt. "Once at a poor bedside, and +once--" + +"It's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection +breaks upon him. "It's got to a head now and is going to burst!" But +he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the +little counting-house and to shut the door. + +"Are you a married man, sir?" + +"No, I am not." + +"Would you make the attempt, though single," says Mr. Snagsby in a +melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? For my little woman +is a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and five +hundred pound!" + +In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back +against his desk, protesting, "I never had a secret of my own, sir. I +can't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my +little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn't +have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn't +have done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I +find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a +burden to me." + +His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he +remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't +he! + +"You couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that my +little woman is more set and determined against than Jo," says Mr. +Snagsby. + +Allan asks why. + +"Why?" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump +of hair at the back of his bald head. "How should I know why? But you +are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married +person such a question!" + +With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal +resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to +communicate. + +"There again!" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his +feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the +face. "At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, +in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little +woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, +and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that +other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private +asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, +sir!" says Mr. Snagsby. + +But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of +the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen. +And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's +condition, he readily engages to "look round" as early in the evening +as he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the +evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a +manager as he. + +Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left +alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so +far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched +by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a +crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. + +"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer +with his cough of sympathy. + +"I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for +nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery +sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." + +The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what +it is that he is sorry for having done. + +"Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos +and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says +nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good +and my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me +yesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you, +Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a +word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I +turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him +a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to +giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and +night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I +see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby." + +The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. +Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve +his feelings. + +"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos +able to write wery large, p'raps?" + +"Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. + +"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says Jo with eagerness. + +"Yes, my poor boy." + +Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, +wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't +be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write +out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos +wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to +do it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. +Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I +hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could +be made to say it wery large, he might." + +"It shall say it, Jo. Very large." + +Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir, +and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore." + +The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips +down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case +requiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this +little earth, shall meet no more. No more. + +For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over +stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, +shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it +still upon its weary road. + +Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse +and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking +round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging +elevation of his one eyebrow, "Hold up, my boy! Hold up!" There, too, +is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both +thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast +in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a +frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and, +from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down +temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in +answer to his cheerful words. + +Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly +arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a +while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards +him--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest +and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little +more. + +The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped +in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr. +Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and +attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper, +signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next +used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. + +"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened." + +"I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I +thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but +you, Mr. Woodcot?" + +"Nobody." + +"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?" + +"No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery thankful." + +After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very +near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, "Jo! Did you +ever know a prayer?" + +"Never knowd nothink, sir." + +"Not so much as one short prayer?" + +"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. +Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to +hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out +nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down +Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other +'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to +theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to +us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about." + +It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and +attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a +short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong +effort to get out of bed. + +"Stay, Jo! What now?" + +"It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he +returns with a wild look. + +"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" + +"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, +he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, +sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be +berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' +he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have +come there to be laid along with him." + +"By and by, Jo. By and by." + +"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you +promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" + +"I will, indeed." + +"Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate +afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step +there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, +sir. Is there any light a-comin?" + +"It is coming fast, Jo." + +Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very +near its end. + +"Jo, my poor fellow!" + +"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me +catch hold of your hand." + +"Jo, can you say what I say?" + +"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." + +"Our Father." + +"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir." + +"Which art in heaven." + +"Art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?" + +"It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!" + +"Hallowed be--thy--" + +The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! + +Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right +reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, +born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around +us every day. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +Closing In + + +The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house +in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in +their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long +drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the +Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through +the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or +hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility, +loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The +fashionable world--tremendous orb, nearly five miles round--is in +full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed +distances. + +Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where +all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and +refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled +and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed +in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under +her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance +that what she is to those around her she will remain another day, +it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to +yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown +more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of +her that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather +larming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who WILL +getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--Shakespeare. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he +is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat +loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from +the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who +might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women +she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him. + +One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his +turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to +throw it off. + +It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little +sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing +in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like +overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of +seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has +fallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a +Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave +audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and +has been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon +embroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over +it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day. + +"Rosa." + +The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious +my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. + +"See to the door. Is it shut?" + +Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised. + +"I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust +your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I +will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say +nothing to any one of what passes between us." + +The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be +trustworthy. + +"Do you know," Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her +chair nearer, "do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from +what I am to any one?" + +"Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you +really are." + +"You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!" + +She says it with a kind of scorn--though not of Rosa--and sits +brooding, looking dreamily at her. + +"Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you +suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to +me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?" + +"I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my +heart, I wish it was so." + +"It is so, little one." + +The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark +expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an +explanation. + +"And if I were to say to-day, 'Go! Leave me!' I should say what would +give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very +solitary." + +"My Lady! Have I offended you?" + +"In nothing. Come here." + +Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with +that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand +upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. + +"I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would +make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. +There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, +rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You +must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have +written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All +this I have done for your sake." + +The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she +do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses +her on the cheek and makes no other answer. + +"Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and +happy!" + +"Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought--forgive my being so +free--that YOU are not happy." + +"I!" + +"Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think +again. Let me stay a little while!" + +"I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my +own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now--not +what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my +confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!" + +She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the +room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the +staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent +as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the +earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its +other departed monsters. + +Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her +appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to +the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him +first. + +"Sir Leicester, I am desirous--but you are engaged." + +Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him +for a moment. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" + +With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to remain +if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a +chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his +clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her +and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls +upon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her +life. + +It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long +rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that +half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared +into stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a +street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to +liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their +own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry +and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone +chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines +itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these +petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the +upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which +bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), +retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of +departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals +in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an +oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high +and dry master in the House of Lords. + +Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair, +could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands. +And yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if it were +her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way. + +Sir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say? + +"Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) +and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am +tired to death of the matter." + +"What can I do--to--assist?" demands Sir Leicester in some +considerable doubt. + +"Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to +send him up?" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request," says +Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business +term, "request the iron gentleman to walk this way." + +Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces +him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously. + +"I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr. +Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell," Sir Leicester +skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, "was desirous +to speak with you. Hem!" + +"I shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my best +attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say." + +As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon +him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant +supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is +nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness. + +"Pray, sir," says Lady Dedlock listlessly, "may I be allowed to +inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son +respecting your son's fancy?" + +It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look +upon him as she asks this question. + +"If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the +pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son +to conquer that--fancy." The ironmaster repeats her expression with a +little emphasis. + +"And did you?" + +"Oh! Of course I did." + +Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper. +The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do +it. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the +precious. Highly proper. + +"And pray has he done so?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear +not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple +an intention with our--our fancies which renders them not altogether +easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest." + +Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish +meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is +perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently +adapts his tone to his reception. + +"Because," proceeds my Lady, "I have been thinking of the subject, +which is tiresome to me." + +"I am very sorry, I am sure." + +"And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite +concur"--Sir Leicester flattered--"and if you cannot give us the +assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion +that the girl had better leave me." + +"I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind." + +"Then she had better go." + +"Excuse me, my Lady," Sir Leicester considerately interposes, "but +perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has +not merited. Here is a young woman," says Sir Leicester, +magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a +service of plate, "whose good fortune it is to have attracted the +notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the +protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages +which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very +great--I believe unquestionably very great, sir--for a young woman in +that station of life. The question then arises, should that young +woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune +simply because she has"--Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but +dignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up +his sentence--"has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now, +has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this +our previous understanding?" + +"I beg your pardon," interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. "Sir +Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray +dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so +unimportant--which is not to be expected--you would recollect that my +first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining +here." + +Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester +is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him +through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their +report of the iron gentleman's observations. + +"It is not necessary," observes my Lady in her coldest manner before +he can do anything but breathe amazedly, "to enter into these matters +on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever +to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many +advantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or supposes she +is, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them." + +Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might +have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in +support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman +had better go. + +"As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when +we were fatigued by this business," Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds, +"we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under +present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had +better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back +to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would +you prefer?" + +"Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly--" + +"By all means." + +"--I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of +the incumbrance and remove her from her present position." + +"And to speak as plainly," she returns with the same studied +carelessness, "so should I. Do I understand that you will take her +with you?" + +The iron gentleman makes an iron bow. + +"Sir Leicester, will you ring?" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from +his window and pulls the bell. "I had forgotten you. Thank you." He +makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury, +swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce, +skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs. + +Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the +ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with +her near the door ready to depart. + +"You are taken charge of, you see," says my Lady in her weary manner, +"and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a +very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." + +"She seems after all," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little +forward with his hands behind him, "as if she were crying at going +away." + +"Why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns Mr. Rouncewell with +some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer +to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows +no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no +doubt." + +"No doubt," is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply. + +Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she +was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that +she thanks my Lady over and over again. "Out, you silly little puss!" +says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily. +"Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!" My Lady merely waves her off +with indifference, saying, "There, there, child! You are a good girl. +Go away!" Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the +subject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr. +Tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted +with lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause +of a few moments, "I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having +again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome +subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so +small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of +my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly +exert my influence to take my young friend here away without +troubling you at all. But it appeared to me--I dare say magnifying +the importance of the thing--that it was respectful to explain to you +how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and +convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the +polite world." + +Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these +remarks. "Mr. Rouncewell," he returns, "do not mention it. +Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side." + +"I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last +word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with +the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out +this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate +and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done +something to awaken such feelings--though of course Lady Dedlock, by +her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much +more." + +If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points +it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of +speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim +room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting +salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another +flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house. + +Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still +standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still +sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night +as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing +it as she rises to retire, thinks, "Well she may be! The power of +this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole +time." But he can act a part too--his one unchanging character--and +as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each +fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in +him. + +Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is +whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of +the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner, +still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated +cousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn +is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What +is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library. +Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that. + +But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is +reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive +him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now. +He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission, +while she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to +dispense with such mockeries. + +"What do you want, sir?" + +"Why, Lady Dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little +distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up +and down, up and down, "I am rather surprised by the course you have +taken." + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure +from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, +Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I +don't approve of it." + +He stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his +knees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an +indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not +escape this woman's observation. + +"I do not quite understand you." + +"Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, +we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl." + +"Well, sir?" + +"And you know--and I know--that you have not sent her away for the +reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as +much as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of +business--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself." + +"Well, sir?" + +"Well, Lady Dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and +nursing the uppermost knee. "I object to that. I consider that a +dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to +awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the house. +Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly +what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it +is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what +you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!" + +"If, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret--" But he +interrupts her. + +"Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of +business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your +secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in +trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady +Dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation." + +"That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can +to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference +to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney +Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I +have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could +shake it or could move me." This she says with great deliberation and +distinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. As for +him, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were +any insensible instrument used in business. + +"Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock," he returns, "you are not to be +trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and +according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not +to be trusted." + +"Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same +point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?" + +"Yes," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the +hearth. "Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred +to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both +the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any +action on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt +about that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is +she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One +might have supposed that the course was straight on--over everything, +neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all +considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under +foot." + +She has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks at +him. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower +lip is compressed under her teeth. "This woman understands me," Mr. +Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. "SHE cannot be +spared. Why should she spare others?" + +For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no dinner, +but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk +it. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it, +shading her face. There is nothing in her manner to express weakness +or excite compassion. It is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. "This +woman," thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark +object closing up her view, "is a study." + +He studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too +studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak, +appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until +midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence. + +"Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview +remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your +sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring +it void and taking my own course." + +"I am quite prepared." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "That is all I have to trouble you +with, Lady Dedlock." + +She stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, "This is the +notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you." + +"Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because +the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. +But virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely +in a lawyer's mind." + +"You intend to give me no other notice?" + +"You are right. No." + +"Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?" + +"A home question!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and +cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. "No, not to-night." + +"To-morrow?" + +"All things considered, I had better decline answering that question, +Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, exactly, you would +not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow. +I would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no +expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you +good evening." + +She removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks +silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open +it. + +"Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were +writing in the library. Are you going to return there?" + +"Only for my hat. I am going home." + +She bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and +curious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his watch +but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. There is a +splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not +often are, for its accuracy. "And what do YOU say," Mr. Tulkinghorn +inquires, referring to it. "What do you say?" + +If it said now, "Don't go home!" What a famous clock, hereafter, if +it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this +old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it, +"Don't go home!" With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters +after seven and ticks on again. "Why, you are worse than I thought +you," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. "Two +minutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time." What a watch to +return good for evil if it ticked in answer, "Don't go home!" + +He passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind +him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries, +difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured +up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the confidence of +the very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks telegraph family +secrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to +whisper, "Don't go home!" + +Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar +and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing +shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the +crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and +nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his +dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the +Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the +Roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to +give him the late warning, "Don't come here!" + +It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only +now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining +as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as +he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. +Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. +The large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their +restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. + +Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much +surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman, +loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with +the key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his +Lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk +there some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may +be more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring +with a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of +some trees. + +A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr. +Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting +those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He +looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large +moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too. + +A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude +and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded +places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads +and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in +repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees +against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is +it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the +water-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among +pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only +does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, +where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping +make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements +through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed +ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, +rich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with +the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and +on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread +wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only +him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some +rest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more +ethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale +effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are +softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly +away. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the +shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their +sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them +exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a +distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. + +What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? + +The few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some +windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a +loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so +a man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the +neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the +road. While the dogs are yet barking and howling--there is one dog +howling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were startled +too, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to +swell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins +to strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night, +the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace +again. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet, +and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring +him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of +him. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man +out of his immovable composure? + +For many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no +particular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has +any new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always pointing--like +any Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt, +in his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long. +Moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly +pointing, and no one minds him. + +But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the +rooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not +expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up +at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that +person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one +looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. + +What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, +and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, +carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is whispering +and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing +of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of +furniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur, "If +he could only tell what he saw!" + +He is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a +glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after +being lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon +the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These +objects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might +suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the +rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but +the clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and +soul of Allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad. It happens +surely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at +these things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all +eyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness. + +So it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly +stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be +covered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the +ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him, +with far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's +time, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over +for evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted +against his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to +morning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +Dutiful Friendship + + +A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. +Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present +bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration +of a birthday in the family. + +It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that +epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with +an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after +dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is +thinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so +by his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely +revert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their +remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection +into their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. Perhaps his +exalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually +to make the noun-substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. + +It is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions +are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the +bounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last +birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and +general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on +the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, +accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two, +"What is your name?" and "Who gave you that name?" but there failing +in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number +three the question "And how do you like that name?" which he +propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and +improving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a +speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity. + +It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and +reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is +always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed +by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced +that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest +pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in +the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in +by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest +inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of +toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief +(essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. +Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. +Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. +Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment +amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the +old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown +and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not +illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of +state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her +state with all imaginable cheerfulness. + +On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual +preliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if +there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, +to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by +their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting +of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers +itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of +ceremony, an honoured guest. + +Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving, +as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To these +young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake +of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. + +"At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet. "To the minute. They'll be +done." + +Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before +the fire and beginning to burn. + +"You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Fit for a +queen." + +Mrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception +of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled +by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the +matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the +fowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to +consciousness. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of +the agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke +recalls him. The stopped fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes +her eyes in the intensity of her relief. + +"George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. "At half after four. To +the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This +afternoon?" + +"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I +begin to think. Just about that, and no less," returns Mrs. Bagnet, +laughing and shaking her head. + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind. You'd be as young as ever +you was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows." + +Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy is +sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it +will be. + +"Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the +table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at Malta with her right eye, and +shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, "I begin to think +George is in the roving way again. + +"George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert. And leave his old +comrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it." + +"No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. But if +he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be +off." + +Mr. Bagnet asks why. + +"Well," returns his wife, considering, "George seems to me to be +getting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what +he's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be +George, but he smarts and seems put out." + +"He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would put +the devil out." + +"There's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is, +Lignum." + +Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity +under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of +his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry +humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made +gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion. +With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the +process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction, +as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too, +are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming +these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last +dishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest's +place at his right hand. + +It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, +for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of +finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess +is developed in these specimens in the singular form of +guitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots into their +breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their +legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted +the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian +exercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of +these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most +severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old +girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least +of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her +digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks +without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to +understand. + +The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the +repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, +and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The +great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply +themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of +their mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, +inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the +present. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering +of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an +expenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the +young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. +Bagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last +the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec +and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, +and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl +enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this +delightful entertainment. + +When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very +near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet +announces, "George! Military time." + +It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl +(whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for +Mr. Bagnet. "Happy returns to all!" says Mr. George. + +"But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously. +"What's come to you?" + +"Come to me?" + +"Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked. Now +don't he, Lignum?" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl. What's the matter." + +"I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand +over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I +do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died +yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." + +"Poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. "Is he gone? +Dear, dear!" + +"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk, +but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should +have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making himself speak +more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"You're right. The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Is as quick. As +powder." + +"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to +her," cries Mr. George. "See here, I have brought a little brooch +along with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake. +That's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring +leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of +reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. +"Tell him my opinion of it." + +"Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the +beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" + +"Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion." + +"It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides +and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice for +me." + +"Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. "Not my opinion." + +"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says +Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched +out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to +you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in +reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for +good luck, if you will, George." + +The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young +Woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden, +yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her +airy way and saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap +you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand +shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe +this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so +out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!" + +Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a +pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the +trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be +got into action. "If that don't bring you round, George," says she, +"just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and +the two together MUST do it." + +"You ought to do it of yourself," George answers; "I know that very +well, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues +have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. 'Twas dull +work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him." + +"What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your +roof." + +"I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there +he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know +his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped +out of that." + +"Ah, poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"Then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his +heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up Gridley in a man's mind. +His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up +in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And +to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end +in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly--it +made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you." + +"My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and +tingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the +health altogether." + +"You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it." + +So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses +the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony +of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these +occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies +having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling "the +mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers +it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the +assembled company in the following terms. + +"George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's +march. And you won't find such another. Here's towards her!" + +The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns +thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model +composition is limited to the three words "And wishing yours!" which +the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a +well-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the +present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, "Here's a +man!" + +Here IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, +looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick keen +man--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, +individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a +remarkable man. + +"George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" + +"Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. + +"Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "I was going +down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the +musical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want +of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party +enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I +thought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, +at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma'am? And with +you, governor? And Lord," says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, "here's +children too! You may do anything with me if you only show me +children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR +father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!" + +Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George +and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. "You pretty dears," says Mr. +Bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy in. +Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of +these two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of about eight +and ten." + +"You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of +children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one +mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much +so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do +you call these, my darling?" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta's +cheeks. "These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do +you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a +second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket's friend, my +dear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?" + +These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet +forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr. +Bucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive +so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him +that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this +evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. + +"Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. "Why, I never heard +of such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't intend to tell +me you've been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? +You haven't got anything on your mind, you know." + +"Nothing particular," returns the trooper. + +"I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. "What could you have on +your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds, +eh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young +fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. I +ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am." + +Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own. + +"There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. "Would you believe it? No, I +haven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as +fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it +is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. +What a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?" + +There is no way out of that yard. + +"Ain't there really?" says Mr. Bucket. "I should have thought there +might have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that +took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, +I see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it +is!" + +Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his +chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately +on the shoulder. + +"How are your spirits now, George?" + +"All right now," returns the trooper. + +"That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. "Why should you ever have been +otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to +be out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it, +ma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George; +what could you have on your mind!" + +Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety +of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it +to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly +his own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief +eclipse and shines again. + +"And this is brother, is it, my dears?" says Mr. Bucket, referring to +Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young Woolwich. +"And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say. For he's too +old to be your boy, ma'am." + +"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's," returns +Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. + +"Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying. +Lord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the +brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!" Mr. Bucket compares the +faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid +satisfaction. + +This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy is +George's godson. + +"George's godson, is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme cordiality. +"I must shake hands over again with George's godson. Godfather and +godson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of +him, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?" + +Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." + +"Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the +coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in +a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you! +'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD +you give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" + +Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call +upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs +the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much +enlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the +burden, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" In short, he shows so much musical +taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to +express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives the +harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once +chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom, +and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is +asked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening, +he complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young +Charms." This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he considers to have +been his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a +maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar--Mr. Bucket's own +words are "to come up to the scratch." + +This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the +evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of pleasure +on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of +him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to +get on with, that it is something to have made him known there. Mr. +Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his +acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old +girl's next birthday. If anything can more closely cement and +consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has formed for the family, it +is the discovery of the nature of the occasion. He drinks to Mrs. +Bagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that +day twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day +in a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope +that Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, +sisters. As he says himself, what is public life without private +ties? He is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that +sphere that he finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the +confines of domestic bliss. + +It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn, +should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an +acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. Whatever the +subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. He waits +to walk home with him. He is interested in his very boots and +observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits smoking +cross-legged in the chimney-corner. + +At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket, +with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He dotes upon the +children to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken +for an absent friend. + +"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you +recommend me such a thing?" + +"Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. + +"I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. +"You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a +regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the +rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't," says +Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't commit +yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large +a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage +and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man +must live, and ought to it." + +Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they +have found a jewel of price. + +"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten +to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few +wiolincellers of a good tone?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the requisite +information ready and even hint to each other at the practicability +of having a small stock collected there for approval. + +"Thank you," says Mr. Bucket, "thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good +night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for +one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." + +They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he +has given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions +of goodwill on both sides. "Now George, old boy," says Mr. Bucket, +taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" As they go down the +little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute looking after them, +Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that Mr. Bucket "almost +clings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him." + +The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little +inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George +therefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot +make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "Wait half +a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first." Immediately +afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour, +where he confronts him and claps his own back against the door. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is +friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have +endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you +whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody, +George." + +"Custody? What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case +upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is +one thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you +that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against +you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to +have heard of a murder?" + +"Murder!" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an +impressive state of action, "bear in mind what I've said to you. I +ask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, +you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" + +"No. Where has there been a murder?" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. +I'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder +in Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was +shot last night. I want you for that." + +The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out +upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. + +"Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and +that you suspect ME?" + +"George," returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is +certainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last +night at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten +o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." + +"Last night! Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it +flashes upon him. "Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" + +"So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great +deliberation. "So I have understood. Likewise you've been very often +there. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been +heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible--I +don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that he may +have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous +fellow." + +The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. + +"Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table +with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise, +"my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. +I tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas, +offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always +been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if +that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as +any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear +to you that I must have you, and that I'm damned if I don't have you. +Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?" + +Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. +"Come," he says; "I am ready." + +"George," continues Mr. Bucket, "wait a bit!" With his upholsterer +manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes +from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "This is a serious charge, +George, and such is my duty." + +The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his +two hands, clasped together, and says, "There! Put them on!" + +Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. "How do you find them? Are they +comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as +is consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair in my pocket." +This remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to +execute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his +customer. "They'll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see, +George"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about +the trooper's neck--"I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, +and brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?" + +"Only I," returns the trooper, "but as I know it, do me one more good +turn and pull my hat over my eyes." + +"Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so." + +"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on," Mr. +George hurriedly replies. "Do, for God's sake, pull my hat forward." + +So strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and +conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as +steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket +steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +Esther's Narrative + + +It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy +Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her +health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and +that she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to +see her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on +which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in +which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now +the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a +tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely +anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, +always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all +day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to +imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved +it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole +desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had +curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks +under its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and +altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous +little sight. + +But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects +with which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education, +and little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the +grandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily +expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be +tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I +am getting on irregularly as it is. + +To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had +been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when +she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I think I +must say quite--believed that I did her good whenever I was near her. +Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that I +am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of +a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my +guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me +that there never was anything like it. + +Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It +was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in +the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters +before leaving home. + +But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my +return at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never +do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching +will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and +take possession of our old lodgings." + +"Not for me, dear guardian," said I, "for I never feel tired," which +was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request. + +"For me then," returned my guardian, "or for Ada, or for both of us. +It is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think." + +"Truly I think it is," said I, kissing my darling, who would be +twenty-one to-morrow. + +"Well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, +"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary +business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make +London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will +go. That being settled, there is another thing--how have you left +Caddy?" + +"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she +regains her health and strength." + +"What do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully. + +"Some weeks, I am afraid." + +"Ah!" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets, +showing that he had been thinking as much. "Now, what do you say +about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?" + +I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but +that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his +opinion to be confirmed by some one. + +"Well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's Woodcourt." + +I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment +all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed +to come back and confuse me. + +"You don't object to him, little woman?" + +"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!" + +"And you don't think the patient would object to him?" + +So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a +great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was +no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind +attendance on Miss Flite. + +"Very good," said my guardian. "He has been here to-day, my dear, and +I will see him about it to-morrow." + +I felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for she +was quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well +remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no +other hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token. +This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that +I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided +that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes +of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited +listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be +the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to +take her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before +myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life +that was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at +one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest +of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted +by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle +reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before. +I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that +it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better. + +Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in +half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone +away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, +and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us +that Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that +day I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I remember--very much with +Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than +any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own +illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to +amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential +manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's +rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her. + +With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their +home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying, +so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid +of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her +husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the +best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face +and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing +was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began +early every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy +waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon. + +At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, +trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more +airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every +day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small +namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It +was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about +Bleak House. + +We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in +his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit +softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very +little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed +to declare to Prince that she was all but well--which I, heaven +forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such +good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and +play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do +in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all. + +Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her +usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her +grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan +on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as +untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do +to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of +the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number +of letters she had lately received and answered or of the +coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do +with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be +disguised. + +Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and +from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the +baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him +uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was +surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy +required any little comfort that the house contained, she first +carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In +return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, +all but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a +grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered +presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known +better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life. + +"My Caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he +could to bending over her. "Tell me that you are better to-day." + +"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop," Caddy would reply. + +"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite +prostrated by fatigue?" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss +his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be +particular in his attentions since I had been so altered. + +"Not at all," I would assure him. + +"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We +must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My +dear Caroline"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite +generosity and protection--"want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish +and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, +everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not," he +would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even allow my simple +requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere +with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine." + +He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment +(his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew +both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these +affectionate self-sacrifices. + +"Nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin +arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though +not by the same process. "Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave +ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other +return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park." + +He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his +hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never +saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except +that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the +child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending +him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a +halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended +with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was +sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of +deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and +her husband, from top to toe. + +Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to +come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was, +and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt +to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling +about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as +if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got +any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the +wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite +divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another. + +I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was +now Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his +care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he +took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal +of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be +supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped +home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met, +notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still +felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry +for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional +engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects +for the future. + +It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in +my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me, +because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing +in themselves and only became something when they were pieced +together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was +not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for +me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that; +but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to +me, and in which I traced some hidden regret. + +Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the +happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me +thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this +something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my +head that she was a little grieved--for me--by what I had told her +about Bleak House. + +How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no +idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not +grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still, +that Ada might be thinking--for me, though I had abandoned all such +thoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy +to believe that I believed it. + +What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show +her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and +busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as +Caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home +duties--though I had always been there in the morning to make my +guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said +there must be two little women, for his little woman was never +missing--I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about +the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working +in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and +night. + +And still there was the same shade between me and my darling. + +"So, Dame Trot," observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night +when we were all three together, "so Woodcourt has restored Caddy +Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?" + +"Yes," I said; "and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be +made rich, guardian." + +"I wish it was," he returned, "with all my heart." + +So did I too, for that matter. I said so. + +"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we +not, little woman?" + +I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for +it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be +many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and +many others. + +"True," said my guardian. "I had forgotten that. But we would agree +to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with +tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and +his own household gods--and household goddess, too, perhaps?" + +That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that. + +"To be sure," said my guardian. "All of us. I have a great regard for +Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him +delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an +independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And +yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems +half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such +a man away." + +"It might open a new world to him," said I. + +"So it might, little woman," my guardian assented. "I doubt if he +expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he +sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune +encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?" + +I shook my head. + +"Humph," said my guardian. "I am mistaken, I dare say." As there was +a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's +satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked +which was a favourite with my guardian. + +"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?" I asked +him when I had hummed it quietly all through. + +"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was +likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country." + +"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him +wherever he goes," said I; "and though they are not riches, he will +never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least." + +"Never, little woman," he replied. + +I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's +chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was +now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she +looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears +were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and +merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at +rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself. + +So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking +what was heavy on her mind!--and I said she was not quite well, and +put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own +room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so +unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I +never thought she stood in need of it. + +"Oh, my dear good Esther," said Ada, "if I could only make up my mind +to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!" + +"Why, my love!" I remonstrated. "Ada, why should you not speak to +us!" + +Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart. + +"You surely don't forget, my beauty," said I, smiling, "what quiet, +old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the +discreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my +life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you +don't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be." + +"No, never, Esther." + +"Why then, my dear," said I, "there can be nothing amiss--and why +should you not speak to us?" + +"Nothing amiss, Esther?" returned Ada. "Oh, when I think of all these +years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old +relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!" + +I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to +answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many +little recollections of our life together and prevented her from +saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned +to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat +near her for a little while. + +She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a +little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not +decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was +changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked +different to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard arose +sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, "She has been anxious +about him," and I wondered how that love would end. + +When I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often +found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had +never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her, +which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still +rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing +for herself. + +And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under +her pillow so that it was hidden. + +How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much +less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own +cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me +to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace! + +But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next +day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my +darling. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +Enlightened + + +When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to +Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when +I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his +promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred +trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit. + +He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his +agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his +address. + +"Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred +miles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from +here. Would you take a seat, sir?" + +Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him +beyond what he had mentioned. + +"Just so, sir. I believe, sir," said Mr. Vholes, still quietly +insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have +influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have." + +"I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I +suppose you know best." + +"Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all, +"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of +my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who +confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be +wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be +wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir." + +Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address. + +"Give me leave, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment. +Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play +without--need I say what?" + +"Money, I presume?" + +"Sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my +golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I +generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. +C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly +impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; +it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, +bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner, +"nothing." + +"You seem to forget," returned Mr. Woodcourt, "that I ask you to say +nothing and have no interest in anything you say." + +"Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an injustice. +No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my office, if I know +it--do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in +everything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much +better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your +appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend." + +"Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly +interested in his address." + +"The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, "I believe I have +already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this +considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are +funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand. +But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C. +is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and +solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the +opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without +funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the +extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate, +not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging +some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable +father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or +some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly +if you please) to wrong no one." + +Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. + +"I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. +Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of +Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is +worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I +do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is +painted on the door outside, with that object." + +"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?" + +"Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "as I believe I have already mentioned, +it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s +apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I +am far from objecting, for I court inquiry." + +Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search +of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now +but too well. + +He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found +him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was +not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his +eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing +open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without +being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the +haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was +aroused from his dream. + +"Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with extended +hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." + +"A friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts +do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?" They were seated +now, near together. + +"Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "speaking at least +for my part of it." + +"What part is that?" + +"The Chancery part." + +"I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its +going well yet." + +"Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in +a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I should be +sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your +estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I +have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of +nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out +of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not, +though I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard, +a very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid +I have wanted an object; but I have an object now--or it has me--and +it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of +me." + +"A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return." + +"Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can pursue your art for its own +sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can +strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different +creatures." + +He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary +condition. + +"Well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "Everything has an end. We +shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?" + +"Aye! Indeed I will." They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in +deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of +hearts. + +"You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here +yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to +mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You +can hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that +I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?" + +Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. "Now pray," +returned Richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't +suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over +this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. +Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works +for both of us. Do think of that!" + +He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him +the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice. + +"You see," said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of +lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to an +upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I +cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see +Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to +right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to +extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!" + +Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he +was so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on +this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to +Symond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had +had before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by +Mr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be +sincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the +interview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had +recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling. + +I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It +a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so +radiantly willing as I had expected. + +"My dear," said I, "you have not had any difference with Richard +since I have been so much away?" + +"No, Esther." + +"Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada. + +Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make +my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada +thought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada +thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go +now. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her +eyes and the love in her face! + +We were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of +chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days +when everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the +dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise +about itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl +quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were +more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen +before. + +We had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a +shop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. "We are not +likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," said I. +So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it +written up. Symond's Inn. + +We had next to find out the number. "Or Mr. Vholes's office will do," +I recollected, "for Mr. Vholes's office is next door." Upon which Ada +said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And +it really was. + +Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for +the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was +right again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to +Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. + +I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the +handle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table +covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty +mirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous +words that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had come +a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt here. +There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to +look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do +would be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery, +so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that I am not, that +the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes +again." + +"God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!" + +"He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his dejected +look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are usually, but he +is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into +them, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a +labyrinth." + +As his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two +hands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes +appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all +bitten away. + +"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?" said I. + +"Why, my dear Minerva," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, "it +is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines +here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in +an open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the +offices and near Vholes." + +"Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both--" + +"Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the +sentence. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way +now--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be +ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, +the suit, my dear girl!" + +These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to +him. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not +see it. + +"We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you so. +We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. +Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them +everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that +nest of sleepers, mark my words!" + +His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his +despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in +its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so +conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched +me to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in +his handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I +say indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could +have been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in +that same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach, +and disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his +features to the hour of his death. + +"The sight of our dear little woman," said Richard, Ada still +remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her +compassionate face is so like the face of old days--" + +Ah! No, no. I smiled and shook my head. + +"--So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard in his cordial +voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing +ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a +little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes +I--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard, +relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!" + +He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he +repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!" + +He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice +and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, +kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on +his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to +me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw! + +"Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again." + +A light shone in upon me all at once. + +"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have +been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I +shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his +head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I +saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before +me. + +"Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence +presently. "Tell her how it was." + +I met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We +neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to +hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor girl!" I +pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that +I had upon me was to pity her so much. + +"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?" + +"My dear," said I, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great +wrong. And as to me!" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive! + +I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and +Richard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so +different night when they had first taken me into their confidence +and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between +them how it was. + +"All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take it, +Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!" + +"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame +Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a +time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one +morning and were married." + +"And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always +thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I +thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you +ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not +tell what to do, and I fretted very much." + +How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I +don't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of +them and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much, +and yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never +had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and +in my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not +there to darken their way; I did not do that. + +When I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her +wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I +remembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage +she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada +blushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how +I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought +why, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again, +and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to +hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out +of heart. + +Thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of +returning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then +my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me +by every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do +without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have +been the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself, +"Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!" + +"Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think she +loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness' +sake." But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over +her I don't know how long. + +"I give this dear young couple notice," said I, "that I am only going +away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming +backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of +me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use +of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!" + +I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered +for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my +heart to turn from. + +So I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some +encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that +liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through +her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it +one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. + +And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me +that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without +her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing +her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked +up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. + +I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach +home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a +short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was +then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to +inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I +cried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so +very, very ill. + +It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss +of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after +years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which +I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed +stony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some +sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only +to look up at her windows. + +It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me, +and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my +confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the +new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the +yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking +up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his +office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before +going home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air +of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I +thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in +such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place. + +It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might +safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light +foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the +way. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence +of the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young +voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss +for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these +days I would confess to the visit. + +And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew +anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the +separation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for +those moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change, +but all the better for that hovering about my darling. + +My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark +window. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but +he caught the light upon my face as I took mine. + +"Little woman," said he, "You have been crying." + +"Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada +has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." + +I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that +my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. + +"Is she married, my dear?" + +I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to +his forgiveness. + +"She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her husband!" +But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "Poor +girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!" + +Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well, +well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast." + +"But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about saying +it, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken. +"She will do all she can to make it happy," said I. + +"She will succeed, my love!" + +The letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by +his side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old +bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old +way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak +House is thinning fast, O little woman!" + +I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was +rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had +meant to be since the letter and the answer. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +Obstinacy + + +But one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we +were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the +astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which +Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us +that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the +murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation +understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the +murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my +mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. + +This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched +and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for +whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in +him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first +thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be +able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had +sometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out +of life! + +Such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always +felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could +scarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the +conversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I +came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that +they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every +favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had +known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in +his behalf that I was quite set up again. + +"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?" + +"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so +open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the +gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and +is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a +crime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I +can't!" + +"And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, whatever we believe or +know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are +against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He +has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed +himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my +knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder +within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be +as innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all +reasons for suspicion falling upon him." + +"True," said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, "It would be +doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth +in any of these respects." + +I felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to +others, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew +withal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce +us to desert him in his need. + +"Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as he +himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant Mr. +Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter. + +Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him +before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a +distracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was +that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his +messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn +assurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the +man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning +with these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to +see the prisoner himself. + +My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked +the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret +interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I +felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become +personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered +and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once +run wild, might run wilder. + +In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with +them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. + +It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one +another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new +comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary +prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, +have had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an +arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so +glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and +iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found +the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench +there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. + +When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, +and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced, +putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. + +"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," +said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath. +"And now I don't so much care how it ends." + +He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his +soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard. + +"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in," +said Mr. George, "but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of +it." As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat +down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. + +"I thank you, miss," said he. + +"Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances +on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours." + +"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not +innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to +myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the +present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I +feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply." + +He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to +us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great +amount of natural emotion by these simple means. + +"First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal +comfort, George?" + +"For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat. + +"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would +lessen the hardship of this confinement?" + +"Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am equally +obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that +there is." + +"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever +you do, George, let us know." + +"Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his +sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a +vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a +place like the present, so far as that goes." + +"Next, as to your case," observed my guardian. + +"Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity. + +"How does it stand now?" + +"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to +understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from +time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made +more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage +it somehow." + +"Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his +old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were +somebody else!" + +"No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your +kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind +to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls +unless he takes it in that point of view. + +"That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, +softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take +ordinary precautions to defend himself." + +"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the +magistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as +yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is +perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue +stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth." + +"But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. + +"Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George +good-humouredly observed. + +"You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a good +one for you." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I am +equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything +of that sort." + +"You won't have a lawyer?" + +"No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. "I +thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!" + +"Why not?" + +"I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't. +And--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought +you did yourself, sir." + +"That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's +equity, George." + +"Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. "I +am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general +way I object to the breed." + +Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one +massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a +picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever +I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured +to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well +with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our +representations that his place of confinement was. + +"Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in +reference to your case?" + +"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by +court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. +If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a +couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself +as clearly as I can." + +He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he +were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and +after a moment's reflection went on. + +"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and +brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My +shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property +as I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know +itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of +that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately +preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't +gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. +It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it." + +He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look +and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that I must +think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed. + +"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer +and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes, +but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight +hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept +clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's +not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had +discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off +that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found +there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as +soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer." + +He stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not +resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what +purpose opened, I will mention presently. + +"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often +read in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client reserves +his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the +custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to +think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He +would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What +would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was--shut my mouth up, tell +me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence +small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I +care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my +own way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a +lady?" + +He had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further +necessity to wait a bit. + +"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't +intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo +and his dark eyebrows raised, "that I am more partial to being hanged +than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or +not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I +say it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be +used,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they +can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to +do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's +worth nothing to me." + +Taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table +and finished what he had to say. + +"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, +and many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the +matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt +broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my +duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap +pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being +seized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so +much as myself so very long to recover from a crash--I worked my way +round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations +will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all +I've got to say." + +The door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less +prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned, +bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance, +had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George +had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but +without any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He +now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss Summerson and +gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this +is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a +curtsy. + +"Real good friends of mine, they are," sald Mr. George. "It was at +their house I was taken." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his +head angrily. "Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object +to." + +"Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been +saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your +approval?" + +Mr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. "Old +girl," said he. "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval." + +"Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her +basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea +and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You ought +to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be +got off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean +by such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George." + +"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet," said the +trooper lightly. + +"Oh! Bother your misfortunes," cried Mrs. Bagnet, "if they don't make +you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my +life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this +day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks +should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman +recommended them to you." + +"This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you will +persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't +know George. Now, there!" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him +out with both her bare brown hands. "There he stands! As self-willed +and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human +creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and +shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that +man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why, +don't I know him!" cried Mrs. Bagnet. "Don't I know you, George! You +don't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these +years, I hope?" + +Her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband, +who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent +recommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at +me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to +do something, though I did not comprehend what. + +"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years," +said Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork, +looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well +as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too +headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is." + +"I accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper. + +"Do you though, indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on +good-humouredly. "I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't +starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps +you'll set your mind upon THAT next." Here she again looked at me, +and I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns, +that she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside +the prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and +Mr. Woodcourt, I rose. + +"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we +shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable." + +"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me," he returned. + +"But more persuadable we can, I hope," said I. "And let me entreat +you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the +discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last +importance to others besides yourself." + +He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which +I spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he +was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure, +which seemed to catch his attention all at once. + +"'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!" + +My guardian asked him what he meant. + +"Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead +man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like +Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak +to it." + +For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since +and hope I shall never feel again. + +"It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the +moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep +fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject, +excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it +came into my head." + +I cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after +this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon +me from the first of following the investigation was, without my +distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I +was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my +being afraid. + +We three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short +distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not +waited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined +us. + +There was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was +flushed and hurried. "I didn't let George see what I thought about +it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but he's +in a bad way, poor old fellow!" + +"Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. + +"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. Bagnet, +hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, "but I am +uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he +never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as +Lignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have +happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought +forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a +boy," Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity. + +"Now, I tell you, miss," said Mrs. Bagnet; "and when I say miss, I +mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!" + +Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first +too breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, "Old girl! +Tell 'em!" + +"Why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her +bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move Dover Castle as move +George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. +And I have got it!" + +"You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!" + +"Now, I tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her +hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he +says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but +he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to +anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my +Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty +pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be +brought here straight!" + +Instantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning +up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey +cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity. + +"Lignum," said Mrs. Bagnet, "you take care of the children, old man, +and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old +lady here." + +"But, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his +pocket, "how is she going? What money has she got?" + +Mrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth +a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings +and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction. + +"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to +travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself, +three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's +mother!" + +And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another +lost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a +sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone. + +"Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that +way?" + +"Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another +quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella. +Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says, +I'LL do it. She does it." + +"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my +guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her." + +"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. Bagnet, +looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. "And there's +not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must +be maintained." + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +The Track + + +Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together +under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this +pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems +to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, +and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins +him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; +he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his +destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict +that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a +terrible avenger will be heard of before long. + +Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the +whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the +follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and +strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather +languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition +towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with +his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but +through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current +of forefinger. + +Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he +is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is +here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking +into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's +house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads +at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is +propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all +things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards, +he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers. + +It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home +enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go +home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. +Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been +improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but +which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself +aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger +(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for +companionship and conversation. + +A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the +funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; +strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that +is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin +(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable +carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled +affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the +assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's +College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a +blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, +with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and +three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of +woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and +if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in +horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified +this day. + +Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so +many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of +the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through +the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what +not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, +now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the +people's heads, nothing escapes him. + +"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, +apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of +the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And very well +indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" + +The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of +its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost +emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice +a hair's breadth open while he looks. + +And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is +still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he +murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of +you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!" + +Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive +eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought +down--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did +they fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession +moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes +himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the +carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. + +Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage +and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of +space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed +sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the +narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state +expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both; +neither is troubled about that. + +Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides +from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself +arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a +sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all +hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows +the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious +greatness. + +No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be +provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is +crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for +you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him. + +"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket. + +If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity +as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to +gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of +some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. + +"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker. + +"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket. +"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the +kind. Thankee!" + +Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from +somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable +show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the +other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right +sort and goes on, letter in hand. + +Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within +the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of +letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not +incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his +pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient +to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others +as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. +Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has +occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For +these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender +or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the +last twenty-four hours. + +"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in +the same hand, and consists of the same two words." + +What two words? + +He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book +of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly +written in each, "Lady Dedlock." + +"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without +this anonymous information." + +Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again, +he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is +brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket +frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint, +that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry +better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and +empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his +refreshment when an idea enters his mind. + +Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room +and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is +sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the +room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they +arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket +draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none +in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow." + +With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and +after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester +has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he +has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the +funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance. + +Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three +people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to +Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom +it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I +know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr. +Bucket rubs his hands. + +"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir +Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?" + +"Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal +with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law." + +Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as +though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a +pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of +life, I have indeed." + +The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing +influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes +and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that +decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia +is writing poetry. + +"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic manner, +adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious +case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of +rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a +consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur +none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall +hesitate for a moment to bear." + +Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this +liberality. + +"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as +may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical +occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full +of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to +the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent." + +Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head. +Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. + +"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is +discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as +if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a +large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last +day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table +and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck +down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he +may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first +marked because of his association with my house--which may have +suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of +greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have +indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position +bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the +assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my +fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me." + +While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, +looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr. +Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might +be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion. + +"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly +illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a +stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held by +the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have +received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my +brother who had committed it, I would not spare him." + +Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he +was the trustiest and dearest person! + +"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket +soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm +sure he was." + +Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive +mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she +lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not +the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a +cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of +her melancholy condition. + +"It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket +sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." + +Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are +going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether +he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law? +And a great deal more to the like artless purpose. + +"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into +persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had +almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at +the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on +this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket takes +into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and +night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have +had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer +your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been +traced. And I hope that he may find it"--Mr. Bucket again looks +grave--"to his satisfaction." + +The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample. +Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get +man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better +hang wrong fler than no fler. + +"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary +twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what +I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from +information I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a +lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated +station of society, miss," says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at +another narrow escape from "my dear." + +"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to his +duty, and perfectly right." + +Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up a +good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you +have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he +acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist +in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them +into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for +Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or +who vindicate their outraged majesty." + +Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea +of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in +general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for +the darling man whose loss they all deplore. + +"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be too +discreet." + +Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this +lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case +as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful +case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able +to supply in a few hours." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly +creditable to you." + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously, +"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove +satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, +miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, "I mean +from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such +cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange +things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, +what you would think to be phenomenons, quite." + +Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. + +"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great +families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside. +"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and +you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have +any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!" + +The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a +prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very +likely." + +Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here +majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" and +also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end +of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they +must take the consequences. "You will not forget, officer," he adds +with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please." + +Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would +suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir +Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes his +three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him. + +"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously +returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase." + +"I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. + +"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if +I was to ask you why?" + +"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think +it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I +wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the +determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the +same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject +see any objection--" + +Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not +be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the +door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her +remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue +Chamber. + +In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr. +Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on +the early winter night--admiring Mercury. + +"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. + +"Three," says Mercury. + +"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and +don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was +you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of +an artist into the turn of his eye and head. + +Mercury never was modelled. + +"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of +mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would +stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for +the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?" + +"Out to dinner." + +"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her, +so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on +a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the +same way of life as yourself?" + +Answer in the negative. + +"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a +footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived +universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath +that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, +and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My +Lady a good temper?" + +Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! +What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like +'em all the better for it, don't we?" + +Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom +small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a +man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a +violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket. +"Here she is!" + +The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still +very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful +bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is +particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager +eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps. + +Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the +other Mercury who has brought her home. + +"Mr. Bucket, my Lady." + +Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon +over the region of his mouth. + +"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" + +"No, my Lady, I've seen him!" + +"Have you anything to say to me?" + +"Not just at present, my Lady." + +"Have you made any new discoveries?" + +"A few, my Lady." + +This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps +upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, +watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his +grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy +weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going +by, out of view. + +"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming +back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though." + +Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from +headaches. + +Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that. +Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two +hours when she has them bad. By night, too. + +"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr. +Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?" + +Not a doubt about it. + +"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But +the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so +straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?" + +Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course! +Conversational and acquiescent on both sides. + +"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr. +Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?" + +Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise. + +"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I think +of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at +the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business." + +"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way." + +"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it." + +"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury. + +"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to +visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the +old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single +woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the +time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten." + +"Half-past nine." + +"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was +muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" + +"Of course she was." + +Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to +get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in +acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is +all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of +bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of +both parties? + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +Springing a Mine + + +Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and +prepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt +and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony, +he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of +severe study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a +foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and +marmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these +strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his +familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury "just to mention +quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready +for me, I'm ready for him." A gracious message being returned that +Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the +library within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment and +stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the +blazing coals. + +Thoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do, +but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he +might be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred +guineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high +reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a +masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket +when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes +slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in +which there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the +idea, a touch of compassion. + +"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later +than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the +indignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much +for me. I am subject to--gout"--Sir Leicester was going to say +indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket +palpably knows all about it--"and recent circumstances have brought +it on." + +As he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain, +Mr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large +hands on the library-table. + +"I am not aware, officer," Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes +to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely +as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would +be interested--" + +"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket with his +head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear +like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present. You will +presently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the +circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of +society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to +myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can't +be too private." + +"That is enough." + +"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket resumes, +"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in +the door." + +"By all means." Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that +precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of +habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in +from the outerside. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I +wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed +it and collected proof against the person who did this crime." + +"Against the soldier?" + +"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier." + +Sir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, "Is the man in custody?" + +Mr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, "It was a woman." + +Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, +"Good heaven!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket begins, standing +over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the +forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare +you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say +that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you +are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman +is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly +and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against +almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. +If there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your +family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away +to Julius Caesar--not to go beyond him at present--have borne that +blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and +you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family +credit. That's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows, +sits looking at him with a stony face. + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "thus preparing +you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to +anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many +characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less +don't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board +that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken +place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move +whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move +according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put +out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family +affairs." + +"I thank you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a +silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is not +necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so +good as to go on. Also"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow +of his figure--"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection." + +None at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow. +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come +to the point. Lady Dedlock--" + +Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely. +Mr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient. + +"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her +ladyship is; she's universally admired," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would greatly prefer, officer," Sir Leicester returns stiffly, "my +Lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion." + +"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible." + +"Impossible?" + +Mr. Bucket shakes his relentless head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What I +have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns +on." + +"Officer," retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering +lip, "you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to +overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring +my Lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility--upon +your responsibility. My Lady's name is not a name for common persons +to trifle with!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more." + +"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!" Glancing at +the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling +from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. Bucket feels his way +with his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that +the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and +suspicions of Lady Dedlock." + +"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I +would have killed him myself!" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his +hand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he +stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is +slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes +his head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and +close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I +can't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he +long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the +sight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you yourself, +Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in great poverty, +of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and +who ought to have been her husband." Mr. Bucket stops and +deliberately repeats, "Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt +about it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards +died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and +his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries +and through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in +the dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed +me to reckon up her ladyship--if you'll excuse my making use of the +term we commonly employ--and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I +confronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a +witness who had been Lady Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the +shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown +to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the +way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying +that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. +All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and +through your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr. +Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and +that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the +matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after +he had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the +intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose +black mantle with a deep fringe to it." + +Sir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is +probing the life-blood of his heart. + +"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from +me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any +difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that +Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as +you called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she +knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, why do I relate all this?" + +Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a +single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he takes +his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness, +though there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair, +that Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed +is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness, +and Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with +now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to +utter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence, +soon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend +why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr. Tulkinghorn +should have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this +distressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible +intelligence. + +"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, "put it +to her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if you +think it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll find, +or I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had the +intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered +it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to +understand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very +morning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to +say and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might +wonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?" + +True. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive +sounds, says, "True." At this juncture a considerable noise of voices +is heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to the +library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he +draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, "Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken +air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut +down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now +in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet--on the +family account--while I reckon 'em up? And would you just throw in a +nod when I seem to ask you for it?" + +Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, "Officer. The best you can, the +best you can!" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of +the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly +die away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury +and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who +bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another +man and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in +an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and +locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the +sacred precincts with an icy stare. + +"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says Mr. Bucket +in a confidential voice. "I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I +am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient little staff from +his breast-pocket, "is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it +ain't every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old +gentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your name is; I know it well." + +"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries Mr. Smallweed in a +shrill loud voice. + +"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts +Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper. + +"No!" + +"Why, they killed him," says Mr. Bucket, "on account of his having so +much cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it isn't +worthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf +person, are you?" + +"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf." + +"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain't +here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not +only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says Mr. +Bucket. "This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?" + +"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a +much lower key. + +"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr. +Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it. +Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?" + +"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces. + +"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket. +"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?" + +"Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks, a +little dashed by the suddenness of this turn. + +"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in +presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come." + +Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with +him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of +oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says +aloud, "Yes. You first!" and retires to his former place. + +"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather +Smallweed then; "I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he +was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was +own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come +into Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. +They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters +belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a +shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his cat's bed. He hid all +manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and +got 'em, but I looked 'em over first. I'm a man of business, and I +took a squint at 'em. They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart, +and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria, +is it? There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh, +no, I don't think so! Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same +hand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don't think so!" + +Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his +triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm shaken +all to pieces!" + +"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his +recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know." + +"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed. +"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his +ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come, +then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it +don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I +won't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em over to my friend +and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else." + +"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says Mr. +Bucket. + +"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell you +what we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more +painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the +interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George +the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, +and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man." + +"Now I tell you what," says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering his +manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary +fascination to the forefinger, "I am damned if I am a-going to have +my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half +a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more +painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do +you think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out and put +it on the arm that fired that shot?" + +Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is +that he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to apologize. +Mr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him. + +"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the +murder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and +I shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long, +if you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've got to say +to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know +who's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got 'em. Is that the +packet?" + +Mr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr. +Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it +as the same. + +"What have you got to say next?" asks Mr. Bucket. "Now, don't open +your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it." + +"I want five hundred pound." + +"No, you don't; you mean fifty," says Mr. Bucket humorously. + +It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred. + +"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider +(without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business," says +Mr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head--"and you ask me +to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it's an +unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than +that. Hadn't you better say two fifty?" + +Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not. + +"Then," says Mr. Bucket, "let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time +I've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he +was in all respects, as ever I come across!" + +Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek +smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, +delivers himself as follows, "My friends, we are now--Rachael, my +wife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in +the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are +invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are +bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute +with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are +we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do +we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing, +money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends." + +"You're a man of business, you are," returns Mr. Bucket, very +attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the +nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better." + +"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says Mr. Chadband +with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!" + +Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband +into the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, frowning +smile. + +"Since you want to know what we know," says she, "I'll tell you. I +helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in the +service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the +disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her +ladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she +was born. But she's alive, and I know her." With these words, and a +laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs. +Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket. + +"I suppose now," returns that officer, "YOU will be expecting a +twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?" + +Mrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can +"offer" twenty pence. + +"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says Mr. +Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. "What may YOUR +game be, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from +stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to +light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom +Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in +darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been +the sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so much +commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's Court +in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late +habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the +present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace. +There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as +open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as +midnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning +and tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived +mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was +Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo, +deceased; and they were "all in it." In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not +with particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby's +son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she followed Mr. +Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not +his son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for +some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down, +and to piece suspicious circumstances together--and every +circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this +way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false +husband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the +Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr. +Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the +circumstances in which the present company are interested, casually, +by the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is +to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial +separation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the +friend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the +mourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the +seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement +possible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no +scheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and +taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the +ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy. + +While this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket, +who has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at a +glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd +attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock +remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he +once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer +alone of all mankind. + +"Very good," says Mr. Bucket. "Now I understand you, you know, and +being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this +little matter," again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation +of the statement, "can give it my fair and full attention. Now I +won't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort, +because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to +make things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am +surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. +It was so opposed to your interests. That's what I look at." + +"We wanted to get in," pleads Mr. Smallweed. + +"Why, of course you wanted to get in," Mr. Bucket asserts with +cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I +call truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have +no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which +occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to +consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as +close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You +see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground," +says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way. + +"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to Sir +Leicester Dedlock," returns Mr. Smallweed. + +"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, you +keep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall I ring +for them to carry you down?" + +"When are we to hear more of this?" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands. + +"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful +sex is!" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. "I shall have the +pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not forgetting +Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty." + +"Five hundred!" exclaims Mr. Smallweed. + +"All right! Nominally five hundred." Mr. Bucket has his hand on the +bell-rope. "SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of +myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an insinuating +tone. + +Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, +and the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the +door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not +to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought +up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that +little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides +of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and +ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he +held all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own +way, I haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, +and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all +dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The +cat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the +water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended." + +Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and +he looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch. + +"The party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds Mr. +Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising +spirits, "and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence. +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir. +There'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in the +course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet +your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the +nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at +present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to +last." + +Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts +the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense +of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman enters. +Mademoiselle Hortense. + +The moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts +his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to +turn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in +his chair. + +"I ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly. "They tell me there was no +one here." + +Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket. +Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale. + +"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock," says Mr. Bucket, nodding +at her. "This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks +back." + +"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns +mademoiselle in a jocular strain. + +"Why, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket, "we shall see." + +Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, +which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "You are very +mysterieuse. Are you drunk?" + +"Tolerable sober, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket. + +"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. +Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs +that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What +is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle +demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her +dark cheek beating like a clock. + +Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her. + +"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a +toss of her head and a laugh. "Leave me to pass downstairs, great +pig." With a stamp of her foot and a menace. + +"Now, mademoiselle," says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, "you +go and sit down upon that sofy." + +"I will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of +nods. + +"Now, mademoiselle," repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration +except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy." + +"Why?" + +"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't +need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a +foreigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and there's rougher +ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as +a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your +head, to go and sit down upon that sofy." + +Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that +something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "You are a devil." + +"Now, you see," Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're comfortable +and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of +your sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this, +don't you talk too much. You're not expected to say anything here, +and you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the +less you PARLAY, the better, you know." Mr. Bucket is very complacent +over this French explanation. + +Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black +eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid +state, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might +suppose--muttering, "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, and from this +time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my lodger, was +her ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this +young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate +against her ladyship after being discharged--" + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I discharge myself." + +"Now, why don't you take my advice?" returns Mr. Bucket in an +impressive, almost in an imploring, tone. "I'm surprised at the +indiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used +against you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind what +I say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to you." + +"Discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship! Eh, +my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by +remaining with a ladyship so infame!" + +"Upon my soul I wonder at you!" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. "I thought +the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female +going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!" + +"He is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. "I spit upon his house, +upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the +carpet represent. "Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh, +heaven! Bah!" + +"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "this intemperate +foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established +a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion +I told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her +time and trouble." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I ref-use his money all togezzer." + +"If you WILL PARLAY, you know," says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, "you +must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this +deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house +in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers +of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and +likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an +unfortunate stationer." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "All lie!" + +"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you +know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close +with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case +was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the +papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in +the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen +hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the +murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased +on former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out. +If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I +believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he +might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make +it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!" + +As Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and +inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his +forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes +upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly +together. + +"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this +young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a +mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering +herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever--in +fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for +the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living +Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and +saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!" + +Mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and +lips the words, "You are a devil." + +"Now where," pursues Mr. Bucket, "had she been on the night of the +murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have +since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an +artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult; +and I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid yet, and such +a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was +talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house +being small and this young woman's ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet +into Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise +and told her all about it. My dear, don't you give your mind to that +again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles." Mr. Bucket, +breaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid +his heavy hand upon her shoulder. + +"What is the matter with you now?" she asks him. + +"Don't you think any more," returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory +finger, "of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the matter +with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll sit down by +you. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, you know; you're +acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm." + +Vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound +she struggles with herself and complies. + +"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case +could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a +woman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw +this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house +since, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker's +loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to +Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My dear, can +you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions +against George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can you do without +rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say, +'She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner +without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from +death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I +have got her, if she did this murder?' Mrs. Bucket says to me, as +well as she could speak on account of the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!' And +she has acted up to it glorious!" + +"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "All lies, my friend!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out +under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous +young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right? +I was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give you a turn? +To throw the murder on her ladyship." + +Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again. + +"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here, +which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards +you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words +'Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I +stopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady Dedlock, +Murderess' in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower +of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place +having seen them all 'written by this young woman? What do you say to +Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding +ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to +Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young +woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant +in his admiration of his lady's genius. + +Two things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a +conclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a +dreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very +atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if +a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around +her breathless figure. + +"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful +period," says Mr. Bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw her, I +believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and +George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's +heels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go into it. I +found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr. +Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your +house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so +thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the +rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and +finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street." + +"These are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. "You prose great +deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking +always?" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights +in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with +any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now going +to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never +doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday +without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company +with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to +convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so +rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was +altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call +retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less +experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, +when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home +looking--why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the +ocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being +charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to +want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here +proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that +they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at +a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of +entertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to +fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; +she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. +As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket, +along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water +dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the +pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen +hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and +hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!" + +In a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. "That's one," +says Mr. Bucket. "Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!" + +He rises; she rises too. "Where," she asks him, darkening her large +eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet they +stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?" + +"She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr. Bucket. +"You'll see her there, my dear." + +"I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting +tigress-like. + +"You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would!" making her eyes very large. "I would love to tear her limb +from limb." + +"Bless you, darling," says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure, +"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising +animosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind me +half so much, do you?" + +"No. Though you are a devil still." + +"Angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries Mr. Bucket. "But I am in my +regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. +I've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to +the bonnet? There's a cab at the door." + +Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes +herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice, +uncommonly genteel. + +"Listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods. "You +are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?" + +Mr. Bucket answers, "Not exactly." + +"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you +make a honourable lady of her?" + +"Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket. + +"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir +Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor +infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other," says Mr. +Bucket. "Come along!" + +"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me. +It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu, +you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!" + +With these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth +closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket +gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar +to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering +away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of +his affections. + +Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he +were still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length +he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises +unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps, +supporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of +those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at +something. + +Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold, +the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing +them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious +heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces +sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his +bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with +something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses +his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. + +It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for +years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never +had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, +honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the +core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his +life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as +nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, +almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her +cast down from the high place she has graced so well. + +And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his +suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like +distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of +mourning and compassion rather than reproach. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +Flight + + +Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow, +as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep +preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the +freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire, +making its way towards London. + +Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and +a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide +night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are +non-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected. +Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out. +Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at +one another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with +an obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up +and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows +tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where +there are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned +in full hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the +night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind. + +Mrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits +within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey +cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as +being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in +accordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell +is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The +old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately +manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it +often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," says she many +times, "and you found out my George's mother!" + +"Why, George," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "was always free with me, ma'am, +and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things +my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the +comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line +into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt +sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother +into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that +he had behaved bad to her." + +"Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. "My +blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, +was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and +went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know +about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he +didn't rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be +a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from +a baby!" + +The old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, +all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay +good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at +Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young +gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been +angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now +to see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad stomacher +heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its +load of affectionate distress. + +Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves +the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not without +passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and +presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "So I says to George when I +goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe +outside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I +have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and +out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy +penitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it's because I AM +melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.' +'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says +George, shaking his head, 'what I have done has been done this many a +long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to +heaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no +more.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried to +be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I +draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that +afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the +lawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain +before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets +himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon +years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old +lady he has seen? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell, +housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down +at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before +that he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, +'Lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'" + +All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least +within the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, with +a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the +hum of the wheels. + +"Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "Bless you, and +thank you, my worthy soul!" + +"Dear heart!" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. "No +thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so +ready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do +on finding George to be your own son is to make him--for your +sake--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear +himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won't +do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and +lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter +form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with +truth and justice for ever and a day. + +"He shall have," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "all the help that can be got +for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and +thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole +family will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; and will +make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, +and finding him in a jail at last." + +The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying +this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful +impression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers +them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet +wonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, "My +Lady, my Lady, my Lady!" over and over again. + +The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise +comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise +departed. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and +hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. +London reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great +tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected--as +she would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were +the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any +other military station. + +But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is +confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her +lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its +usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece +of old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher +is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has +ruffled it these many years. + +Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the +act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to +him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as +he shuts the door. + +So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be +alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old +housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite +enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the +mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their +relationship. + +Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word +betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all +unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her +emotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs. +Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, +of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return +since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, +and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such +touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they +run glistening down her sun-brown face. + +"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" + +The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls +down on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether +in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands +together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them +towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. + +"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite +still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a +man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he +must be, if it pleased God he was alive!" + +She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All +that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the +whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with +her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of +old girls as she is. + +"Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me +first of all, for I know my need of it." + +Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has +done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these +many years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never +believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without this +happiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very +long--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had +her senses, as her beloved son George. + +"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my +reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a +purpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--I am +afraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed, +harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not +I, and that nobody cared for me." + +The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but +there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of +expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in +which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob. + +"So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had +'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I +thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and +when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when +I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I +didn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a +service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself +why should I ever write." + +"I don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, George? Not +a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" + +This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with +a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat. + +"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small +consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, +respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance +North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and +famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like +him, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my +little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for +most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself +known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of +it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a +man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; +and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your +mind as it was." + +The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his +powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder. + +"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be +so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear +mother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was the +meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have +purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; +you would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family +together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something +for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of +you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself? +How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you +an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to +himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's +children in the face and pretend to set them an example--I, the +vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and +unhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Such were my words, +mother, when I passed this in review before me: 'You have made your +bed. Now, lie upon it.'" + +Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the +old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "I told +you so!" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her +interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke +between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards +repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never +failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to +resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again. + +"This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best +amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I +should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once +down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old +comrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank +her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and +might." + +To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes. + +And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear +recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy +close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must +be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence, +that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be +got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised +to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise +to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he +is released, or he will break her heart. + +"Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to," returns the trooper, +stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a +late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother, +I know?" + +A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. + +"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, +she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the +best advice and assistance." + +"And, George," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste for +your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in the +world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it +myself--and will be of great service." + +"Mother," returns the trooper, "is it too soon to ask a favour?" + +"Surely not, my dear." + +"Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know." + +"Not know what, my dear?" + +"Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my +mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done +so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't +brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under +this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any +pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret +from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my +secret from my brother, of all men." + +"But not always, dear George?" + +"Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though I may come to ask +that too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever broke to +him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish," says the +trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "to break it myself and be +governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems +to take it." + +As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth +of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields her +implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly. + +"In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and +obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am +ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up," he glances at +his writing on the table, "an exact account of what I knew of the +deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. +It's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in +it but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight +on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I +hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my +own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not +to have any." + +Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time +being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again +the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the +trooper holds her to his broad chest. + +"Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?" + +"I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some +business there that must be looked to directly," Mrs. Rouncewell +answers. + +"Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of +course I know you will. Why should I ask it!" + +Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella. + +"Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. +Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the +hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand +pound in gold, my dear!" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the +old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell. + +No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce +Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping +out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs. +Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off, +arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and +falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened. + +My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with +the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is +looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so +leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell. +What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly? + +"Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with +you?" + +What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble +so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why +does she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange +mistrust? + +"What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath." + +"Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son--my youngest, who went +away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison." + +"For debt?" + +"Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful." + +"For what is he in prison then?" + +"Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as--as I +am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does +she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? + +"Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must +have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I +was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But +think of my dear son wrongfully accused." + +"I do not accuse him." + +"No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. +Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say +it!" + +What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the +person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? +Her Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with +fear. + +"My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in +my old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so +solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after +night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your +rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last +night, my Lady, I got this letter." + +"What letter is it?" + +"Hush! Hush!" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened +whisper, "My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe +what's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am sure and certain +that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a +heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to +others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and +any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think +of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most +I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your +own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your +friends; and all who admire you--and all do--as a beautiful and +elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't +be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry +reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, +oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been +passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to +clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady," the old housekeeper pleads with +genuine simplicity, "I am so humble in my place and you are by nature +so high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child, +but I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg +and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or +justice at this fearful time!" + +Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter +from her hand. + +"Am I to read this?" + +"When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the +most that I consider possible." + +"I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can +affect your son. I have never accused him." + +"My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after +reading the letter." + +The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth +she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the +sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong +earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long +accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long +schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts +up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads +one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and +the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even +her wonder until now. + +She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account +of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor, +shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with +the word "murderess" attached. + +It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground +she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before +her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. The words have +probably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her +head before she begins to understand them. + +"Let him come in!" + +He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from +the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr. +Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud, +chilling state. + +"Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from +one who has never been welcome to your ladyship"--which he don't +complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any +particular reason on the face of things why he should be--"but I hope +when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault +with me," says Mr. Guppy. + +"Do so." + +"Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship," Mr. +Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at +his feet, "that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned +to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart +until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, +communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your +ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps +whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson's +wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over +which I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the +distinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again." + +And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. + +"And yet I am here now," Mr. Guppy admits. "My object being to +communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am +here." + +He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. "Nor can +I," Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, "too +particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that +it's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no +interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for +my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred--I, in point +of fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have +seen 'em further first." + +Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair +with both hands. + +"Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I +was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and +whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time +apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call +sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely +difficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to +something contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no +recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man +of business neither." + +Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately +withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. + +"Indeed, it has been made so hard," he goes on, "to have any idea +what that party was up to in combination with others that until the +loss which we all deplore I was gravelled--an expression which your +ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to +consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise--a name by which +I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not +acquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at times it +wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the +exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual +friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic +turn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room), +I have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your +ladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask +you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don't +mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss +Barbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower +extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?" + +"No!" + +"Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and +have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited +at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an +hour's turn afterwards to avoid them." + +"What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand +you. What do you mean?" + +"Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no +occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my +promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has +dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those +letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed +when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown +upon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been +here this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or +making." + +Mr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises. + +"Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I say +or whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to +Miss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I +had begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In +case I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your +guard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should +hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive +your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and +assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me +again." + +She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when +he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. + +"Where is Sir Leicester?" + +Mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone. + +"Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?" + +Several, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them, +which has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go. + +So! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband +knows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be spreading while +she thinks about it--and in addition to the thunderbolt so long +foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an +invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. + +Her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead. +Her enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes +upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she +recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may +be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before +merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the +hangman's hands were at her neck. + +She has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all +wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She +rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks +and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really +were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense. + +For as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, +however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been +closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing +her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences +would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure +was laid low--which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she +sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to +think, "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take +him from my way!" it was but wishing that all he held against her in +his hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places. +So, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was +his death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the +arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and +mangling piecemeal! + +Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from +this pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable before her +in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable +in his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she +flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, +overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance +is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. + +She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves +them on her table: + + + If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe + that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, + for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, + or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that + fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After + he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the + garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him + and make one last petition that he would not protract the + dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you + do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next + morning. + + I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his + door, but there was no reply, and I came home. + + I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May + you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the + unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous + devotion--who avoids you only with a deeper shame than + that with which she hurries from herself--and who writes + this last adieu. + + +She veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, +listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens +and shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +Pursuit + + +Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house +stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives +no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, +doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers +with skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly +bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating +creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the +eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging +carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk +into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries +bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a +spectacle for the angels. + +The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before +its exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, +being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that +disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at +length to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle +tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; +seeing no one there, takes possession. + +The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the +ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels +her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with +a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description. +Certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of +hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a +short peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at +that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass +at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of +these researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass +in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled +tree. + +Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of +reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. +Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors +are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not +found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her +letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is +doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another +world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living +languages, and all the dead, are as one to him. + +They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put +ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day +has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous +breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the +candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change +begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even +his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. + +He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat +infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies +upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of +himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been +thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word +he said that his words really had come to sound as if there were +something in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers +sounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon. + +His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is +the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. +After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes +signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first +understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants +and brings in a slate. + +After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that +is not his, "Chesney Wold?" + +No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library +this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to +London and is able to attend upon him. + +"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You +will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say +so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. + +After making a survey of the room and looking with particular +attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My +Lady." + +"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and +don't know of your illness yet." + +He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try +to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their +looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate +once more and writes "My Lady. For God's sake, where?" And makes an +imploring moan. + +It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady +Dedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. +She opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it +twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be +seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse or into a +swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his +faithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that he is +best with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof. + +The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to +write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction +at this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in +the necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he +labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. He has written the +letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his +misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket. +Thank heaven! That's his meaning. + +Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come +up? + +There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish +to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of +every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket +appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his +high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I +hope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family +credit." + +Sir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his +face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's +eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is +still glancing over the words, he indicates, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, I understand you." + +Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find--" Mr. +Bucket stops his hand. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after +her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost." + +With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's +look towards a little box upon a table. + +"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it +with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure. +Take the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty +and thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and +forty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do, and render an +account of course. Don't spare money? No I won't." + +The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all +these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds +the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he +starts up, furnished for his journey. + +"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I +believe?" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and +buttoning his coat. + +"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother." + +"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, +then, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more. +Your son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what +you've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, +and you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he's all right, I +tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same. +He's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no more +imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a +tidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He +conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a +fine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother +and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go +through with. Don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right +or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found +what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on +your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you +better, and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other +family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of +time." + +With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, +looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night +in quest of the fugitive. + +His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look +all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The +rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in +his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental +inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with +himself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES see, as he is +particular to lock himself in. + +"A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner +furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. "Must have +cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must +have been hard put to it!" + +Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and +jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, +and moralizes thereon. + +"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and +getting myself up for almac's," says Mr. Bucket. "I begin to think I +must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it." + +Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner +drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can +scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a +white handkerchief. + +"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the +light. "What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive? +Are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a +mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?" + +He finds it as he speaks, "Esther Summerson." + +"Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "Come, +I'll take YOU." + +He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has +carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, +glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the +street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir +Leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest +coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be +driven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a +scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the +principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of +the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he +knows him. + +His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering +over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his +keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the +midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where +people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he +rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the +snow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him, +anywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he +stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. + +"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back." + +He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his +pipe. + +"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my +lad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. +Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died--that was the name, I +know--all right--where does she live?" + +The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near +Oxford Street. + +"You won't repent it, George. Good night!" + +He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by +the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again, +and gets out in a cloud of steam again. + +Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed, +rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and +comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. + +"Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is confidential with +him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the +lock. "I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. +Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it +myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour +ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady +Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come +out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or +paralysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been +lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for +him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!" + +Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. + +"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more +danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred +pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr. +Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow +her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have +money and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss +Summerson." + +Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?" + +"Now, Mr. Jarndyce"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest +attention all along--"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane +heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen. +If ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you +couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the +time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound +apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am +charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest +that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of +murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to +desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, +answering to the description of a young lady that she has a +tenderness for--I ask no question, and I say no more than that--she +will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and +be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard, +and I'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come +up with her alone--a hard matter--and I'll do my best, but I don't +answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one +o'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth +a thousand pound now instead of a hundred." + +This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be +questioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to +Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual +principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping +his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the +gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr. +Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him +directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him +where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and +awaits her coming at the door. + +There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. +Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many +solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. +But the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he +perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places +down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object +drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a +drowning hold on his attention. + +Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the +handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted +power to bring before him the place where she found it and the +night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, +would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are +burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched +huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, +where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the +gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of +human torture--traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a +lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and +driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all +companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably +dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at +the great door of the Dedlock mansion. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +Esther's Narrative + + +I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the +door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to +speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or +two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester +Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door +who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of +affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find +her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my +entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this +general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of +alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could +make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to +recover my right mind until hours had passed. + +But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or +any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted +with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and +also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. +Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to +me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I +suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting +beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. + +His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me +that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without +confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, +chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom +he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with +her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I +had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to +consider--taking time to think--whether within my knowledge there was +any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to +confide under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of +no one but my guardian. But by and by I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He +came into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of +mentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me +of his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with +her unhappy story. + +My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, +that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on +again and said to me, after considering within himself for a few +moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite +willing to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough +to understand it. + +We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a +by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket +took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now +past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police +officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like +people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the +place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and +calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any +attention. + +A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he +whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised +together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was +a description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket +brought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was +very accurate indeed. + +The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it +out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an +outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done +with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet +nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its +travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing +with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the +soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire. + +"Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?" he asked me as his eyes +met mine. "It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out +in." + +I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. + +"It may be a long job," he observed; "but so that it ends well, never +mind, miss." + +"I pray to heaven it may end well!" said I. + +He nodded comfortingly. "You see, whatever you do, don't you go and +fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may +happen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the +better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet." + +He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire +warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a +confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a +quarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. "Now, +Miss Summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" + +He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, +and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and +post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the +box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then +handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a +few directions to the driver, we rattled away. + +I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great +rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all +idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the +river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, +dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and +basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. +At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which +the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my +companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several +men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the +mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I +could discern the words, "Found Drowned"; and this and an inscription +about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in +our visit to that place. + +I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence +of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or +to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but +what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still +it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long +swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat +and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some +slippery steps--as if to look at something secret that he had to +show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after +turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared! + +After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to +know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in +the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to +warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it +made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little +rush towards me. It never did so--and I thought it did so, hundreds +of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and +probably was less--but the thought shuddered through me that it would +cast my mother at the horses' feet. + +Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, +darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be +alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he +said, turning to me. "I only want to have everything in train and to +know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!" + +We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note +of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging +from the general character of the streets. We called at another +office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During +the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, +wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single +moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be +more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet, +he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted +past us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a +face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, +so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat +lines of shore--so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of +substance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it +many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free +from the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon +the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round +the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling +on, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely +in upon me--a face rising out of the dreaded water. + +Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at +length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave +the houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way to +Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we +changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country +was white with snow, though none was falling then. + +"An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson," said Mr. +Bucket cheerfully. + +"Yes," I returned. "Have you gathered any intelligence?" + +"None that can be quite depended on as yet," he answered, "but it's +early times as yet." + +He had gone into every late or early public-house where there +was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being +then much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the +turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, +and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he +took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful +steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business +tone, "Get on, my lad!" + +With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we +were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of +these houses and handed me in a cup of tea. + +"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get +more yourself now, ain't you?" + +I thanked him and said I hoped so. + +"You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and Lord, +no wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on +ahead." + +I don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but +he put up his finger and I stopped myself. + +"Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I +heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but +couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked +her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us +now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you +wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can +catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there +you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!" + +We were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I +was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the +night and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the +carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, +my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home. + +"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see," he +observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any +stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I +don't much expect it, but it might be." + +As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the +day was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one +night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and +poor Jo, whom he called Toughey. + +I wondered how he knew that. + +"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said +Mr. Bucket. + +Yes, I remembered that too, very well. + +"That was me," said Mr. Bucket. + +Seeing my surprise, he went on, "I drove down in a gig that afternoon +to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came +out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your +little maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an +inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he +was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I +observed you bringing him home here." + +"Had he committed any crime?" I asked. + +"None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off +his hat, "but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted +him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady +Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome +as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased +Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have +him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made +an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and +go farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn't +catch him coming back again." + +"Poor creature!" said I. + +"Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough, and well +enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on +my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure +you." + +I asked him why. "Why, my dear?" said Mr. Bucket. "Naturally there +was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a +yard and a half of it, and a remnant over." + +Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion +at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me +to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. +With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of +indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that +we had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the +garden-gate. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. +Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, +that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early +with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what +you've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see +'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. And +another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the +kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being +secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose." + +We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely +at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the +windows. + +"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room +when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired, glancing at +Mr. Skimpole's usual chamber. + +"You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I. + +"What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his +ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be. +Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?" + +"Harold," I told him. + +"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, eyeing +me with great expression. + +"He is a singular character," said I. + +"No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket. "He takes it, though!" + +I involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew +him. + +"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson," he replied. "Your mind will +be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and +I'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where +Toughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask +for Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first, +if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at +that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I +have had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I +smoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after +they was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that +charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I +pretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote +well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without +causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows +in the gayest way, 'It's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my +friend, because I'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of +money.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and +being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round +a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and +looks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value +of these things. What am I to DO with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I. +'But I shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the right +change, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such +a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find +Toughey, and I found him." + +I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole +towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish +innocence. + +"Bounds, my dear?" returned Mr. Bucket. "Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, +I'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful +when you are happily married and have got a family about you. +Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in +all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are +dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to +you 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person +is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have +got that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a +poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a +company, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this +rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I +never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution +to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, +and so go back to our business." + +I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than +it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household +were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the +morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by +my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be +doubted that this was the truth. + +"Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at +the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries +there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The +naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own +way." + +We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it +shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew +me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed +me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in +another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin +of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows +of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place, +which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I +pushed it open. + +There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying +asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead +child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the +men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a +morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket +followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently +knew him. + +I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I +knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool +near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that +I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I +became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to +begin, and I could not help bursting into tears. + +"Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the +snow to inquire after a lady--" + +"Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the +whole group with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the +young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know." + +"And who told YOU as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's +husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now +measured him with his eye. + +"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen +waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket +immediately answered. + +"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the +man. + +"He's out of employment, I believe," said Mr. Bucket apologetically +for Michael Jackson, "and so gets talking." + +The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her +hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have +spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this +attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump +of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck +the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an +oath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down. + +"I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am sure +she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very +anxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. Will Jenny +be here soon? Where is she?" + +The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another +oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to +Jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the +latter turned his shaggy head towards me. + +"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd +me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's +curious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if +I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so much +complain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make you a +civil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed +like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she? +She's gone up to Lunnun." + +"Did she go last night?" I asked. + +"Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night," he answered with a +sulky jerk of his head. + +"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to +her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as +to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know." + +"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--" the +woman timidly began. + +"Your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow +emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern +you." + +After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me +again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. + +"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady +come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady +said to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to +you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember +me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had +left?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young +lady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well, +then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as +we might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten +for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went--it +might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty +minutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time +by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd. +She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, +and t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He +heerd it all, and see it all. He knows." + +The other man repeated, "That's all about it." + +"Was the lady crying?" I inquired. + +"Devil a bit," returned the first man. "Her shoes was the worse, and +her clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see." + +The woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. Her +husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his +hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute +his threat if she disobeyed him. + +"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how the +lady looked." + +"Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "You hear what she says. Cut +it short and tell her." + +"Bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted. Very bad." + +"Did she speak much?" + +"Not much, but her voice was hoarse." + +She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. + +"Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?" + +"Go on!" said the husband in answer to her look. "Tell her and cut it +short." + +"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and +tea. But she hardly touched it." + +"And when she went from here," I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband +impatiently took me up. + +"When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high +road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now, +there's the end. That's all about it." + +I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and +was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took +my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he +looked full at her. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. +"They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact." + +"You saw it?" I exclaimed. + +"Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about +his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the +time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as +that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you +see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think +she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should +she give it him for?" + +He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on, +appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his +mind. + +"If time could be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which is the only thing +that can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; +but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present +circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any +fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and +scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that +ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back. +It's a pity but what we had seen the other woman." + +I regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt +sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine. + +"It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, +"that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and +it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't +come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. +Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way to the +usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is +for'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!" + +We called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my +guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage. +The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we +were on the road again in a few minutes. + +It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air +was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall +that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it +was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it +churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under +the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped +and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a +standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first +stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to +dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. + +I could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous under +those delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I had an +unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my +companion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this +time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was +engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing +people whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running +in to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and +shaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner, +wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose +time, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady +face and his business-like "Get on, my lad!" + +When we were changing horses the next time, he came from the +stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off +him--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been +doing frequently since we left Saint Albans--and spoke to me at the +carriage side. + +"Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here, +Miss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and +the dress has been seen here." + +"Still on foot?" said I. + +"Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point +she's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her own part +of the country neither." + +"I know so little," said I. "There may be some one else nearer here, +of whom I never heard." + +"That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear; +and don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my +lad!" + +The sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early, +and it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never +seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the +ploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had +been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great +duration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free +from the anxiety under which I then laboured. + +As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost +confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people, +but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his +finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of +one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of +coaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had +seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their +replies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of +his finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but +he seemed perplexed now when he said, "Get on, my lad!" + +At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track +of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing, +he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for +another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an +unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This +corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at +direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a +quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to +be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the +next stage might set us right again. + +The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. +There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable +substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before +I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the +carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the +horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to +refuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. + +It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On +one side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were +unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage, +and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was +heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees. +Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off +in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and +its bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire +glowing and gleaming in the window-pane. As I looked among the stems +of the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the +thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the +motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now +welcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die. + +I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered +that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was +some little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the +fire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no +further to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a +tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her +words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. + +A good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all +so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr. +Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when +a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was +very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast +and some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made +some recompense. + +Punctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came +rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, +comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any +more. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, +the youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the +first married, they had told me--got upon the carriage step, reached +in, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think +of her to this hour as my friend. + +The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright +and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and +again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with +toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had +been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the +box--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw +him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was +as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to +any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark +lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to +the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that +I was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head, +but I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope. + +We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not +recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I +knew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he +had heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back +in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an +excited and quite different man. + +"What is it?" said I, starting. "Is she here?" + +"No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got +it!" + +The crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in +ridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his +breath before he spoke to me. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," said he, beating his finger on the apron, +"don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me. +I'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way; +never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!" + +There was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the +stables to know if he meant up or down. + +"Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!" + +"Up?" said I, astonished. "To London! Are we going back?" + +"Miss Summerson," he answered, "back. Straight back as a die. You +know me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G----" + +"The other?" I repeated. "Who?" + +"You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those two +pair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!" + +"You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not +abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her +to be in!" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand. + +"You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look +alive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to the +next stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four +on, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!" + +These orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them +caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me +than the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted +man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to +with great speed. + +"My dear," said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again, +"--you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar--don't you fret and worry +yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present; +but you know me, my dear; now, don't you?" + +I endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of +deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? +Could I not go forward by myself in search of--I grasped his hand +again in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother. + +"My dear," he answered, "I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, +do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?" + +What could I say but yes! + +"Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me +for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. +Now, are you right there?" + +"All right, sir!" + +"Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!" + +We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing +up the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a +waterwheel. + + + + +CHAPTER LVIII + +A Wintry Day and Night + + +Still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house +carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There +are powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the +hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky; +and in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself +exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of +doors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire, +but is expected to return presently. + +Rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire. +It persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that +poor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears, +my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of +five miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something +wrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One of the +peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised +of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the +Lords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of divorce. + +At Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the +mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, +the feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments, +albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured +there as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly +understood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter. +"Our people, Mr. Jones," said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in +question on engaging him, "our people, sir, are sheep--mere sheep. +Where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those +two or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock." So, +likewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, in reference to knowing +where to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they +(Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On similar unerring +principles, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer +of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, "Why yes, sir, there +certainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed +among my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk +about something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with +one or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole. +Just what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of +any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of +themselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being +perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You'll find, +sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If +it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when +I say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my +business to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like +a clock, sir." + +Thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into +Lincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' time, +it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables, +which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long +rested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the +effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in +the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received +in turf-circles. + +At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and +among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the +prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? +How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the +genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new +manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite +indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found +to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never +came out before--positively say things! William Buffy carries one of +these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House, +where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to +keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the +Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under +the corner of his wig) cries, "Order at the bar!" three times without +making an impression. + +And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being +vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr. +Sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know +nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend +that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with +the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, +and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at +second-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to +fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among +these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters +on such majestic crutches! + +So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? + +Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with +difficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest, +and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old +enemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he +seems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be +moved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement +weather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving +snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole +wintry day. + +Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is +at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he +would write and whispers, "No, he has not come back yet, Sir +Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a +little time gone yet." + +He withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow +again until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and +fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy +whirl of white flakes and icy blots. + +He began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet +far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should +be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good +fires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself. +He writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a +heavy heart obeys. + +"For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, who waits below +to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "I dread, my dear, +that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls." + +"That's a bad presentiment, mother." + +"Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear." + +"That's worse. But why, mother?" + +"When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me--and I may +say at me too--as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked +her down." + +"Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." + +"No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year that I +have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. +But it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is +breaking up." + +"I hope not, mother." + +"I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in +this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless +to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. +But the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it +has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on." + +"Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not." + +"Ah, so do I, George," the old lady returns, shaking her head and +parting her folded hands. "But if my fears come true, and he has to +know it, who will tell him!" + +"Are these her rooms?" + +"These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them." + +"Why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a +lower voice, "I begin to understand how you come to think as you do +think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are +fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, +and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows +where." + +He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one, +so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper +what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has a +hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment, +where Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces +of her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to +reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and +vacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and +colder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely +exclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates +and set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that +let their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is +a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel. + +The old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are +complete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs. +Rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge +pots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent +comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not +being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, +has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and +consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of +the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at +her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "He +is asleep." In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has +indignantly written on the slate, "I am not." + +Yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old +housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed, +sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and +listens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his +old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old +picture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the +silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, "Who will tell him!" + +He has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made +presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He +is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual +manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a +responsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to +his hand. It is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps than +for her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much +himself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock, +is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to +prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his +present stand against distress of mind and body most courageously. + +The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long +continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon +Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of +undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by +any other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell +on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures +she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as +what's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman--the man she dotes on, +the dearest of creatures--who was killed at Waterloo. + +Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares +about him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it +necessary to explain. + +"Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my +youngest. I have found him. He has come home." + +Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. "George? Your son +George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester." + +Does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long +gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he +think, "Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after +this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in +his?" + +It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he +does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be +understood. + +"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +"It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being +well enough to be talked to of such things." + +Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that +nobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son and that +she was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth +enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir +Leicester as soon as he got better. + +"Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?" asks Sir Leicester, + +Mrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the +doctor's injunctions, replies, in London. + +"Where in London?" + +Mrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. + +"Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly." + +The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, +with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to +receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling +sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity +of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises +there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his +hearing wheels. + +He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor +surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper +son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, +squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily +ashamed of himself. + +"Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!" exclaims Sir +Leicester. "Do you remember me, George?" + +The trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that +sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a +little helped by his mother, he replies, "I must have a very bad +memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you." + +"When I look at you, George Rouncewell," Sir Leicester observes with +difficulty, "I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold--I remember +well--very well." + +He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he +looks at the sleet and snow again. + +"I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester," says the trooper, "but would you +accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir +Leicester, if you would allow me to move you." + +"If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good." + +The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, +and turns him with his face more towards the window. "Thank you. You +have your mother's gentleness," returns Sir Leicester, "and your own +strength. Thank you." + +He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains +at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. + +"Why did you wish for secrecy?" It takes Sir Leicester some time to +ask this. + +"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should +still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope you +will not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being allowed +to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very +hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very +creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of +subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir +Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." + +"You have been a soldier," observes Sir Leicester, "and a faithful +one." + +George makes his military bow. "As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I +have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do." + +"You find me," says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted +towards him, "far from well, George Rouncewell." + +"I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester." + +"I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a +sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens," making an endeavour +to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching his lips. + +George, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The +different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the +younger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold +arise before them both and soften both. + +Sir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his +own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into +silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. +George, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and +places him as he desires to be. "Thank you, George. You are another +self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, +George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very +familiar." He has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder +in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again +as he says these words. + +"I was about to add," he presently goes on, "I was about to add, +respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a +slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean +that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), +but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances +important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, +of my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey--I +trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible? +The words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing +them." + +Volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself +with far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a +minute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in the anxious +and labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his +purpose enables him to make it. + +"Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence--and in the +presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth +and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son +George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in +the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold--in case I should relapse, +in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech +and the power of writing, though I hope for better things--" + +The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest +agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with +his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. + +"Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to +witness--beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that I am +on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever +of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest +affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to +herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will +be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me." + +Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions +to the letter. + +"My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too +superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is +surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it +be known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound +mind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made +in her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am +on unaltered terms with her, and I recall--having the full power to +do it if I were so disposed, as you see--no act I have done for her +advantage and happiness." + +His formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has +often had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious +and affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant +shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own +pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing +less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the +commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born +gentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both +children of the dust shine equally. + +Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows +and closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes +his watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds. +In the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their +acceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him. +Nothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or +two backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his +mother's chair. + +The day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into +which the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze +begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The +gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the +pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their +source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like +fiery fish out of water--as they are. The world, which has been +rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, "to inquire," begins +to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with +all the last new modes, as already mentioned. + +Now does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great +pain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for +doing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it +is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will +be all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not +dark enough yet. + +His old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to +uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late. + +"Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "I +must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and +praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and +waiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and +light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The +church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and +the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just +the same." + +"I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak--and she has been so long +gone." + +"Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet." + +"But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!" + +He says it with a groan that wrings her heart. + +She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon +him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. +Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then +gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at +the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered +self-command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being +confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the +room!" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left +to him to listen. + +But they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when +a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and +being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as +it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him. + +Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the +streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there +are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the +frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this +wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is +like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in +this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, +and all is heavier than before. + +The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to +go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and +George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily +on--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and +three o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know more about +the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly +every half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his +march to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best +report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling +and even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge. + +Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase--the +second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly +room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester +banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard +planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black +tea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among +them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in +the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to Sir +Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that +the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in +the known world. + +An effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to +bed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come +forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her +fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost, +particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one +who still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being +not to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who, +impressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very +sleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances +to take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to +nothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of +countenance. + +The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the +course of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company +both to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the +small hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both +make some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other +times they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and +dialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock, +sitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into +the fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian +genius the maid. + +"How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?" inquires Volumnia, adjusting +her cowl over her head. + +"Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, +and he even wanders a little sometimes." + +"Has he asked for me?" inquires Volumnia tenderly. + +"Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to +say." + +"This is a truly sad time, Mr. George." + +"It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?" + +"You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock," quoth the maid +sharply. + +But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted +at a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself "if anything +was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on +the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and +not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly +declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a +merit of not having "closed an eye"--as if she had twenty or +thirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having +most indisputably opened two within five minutes. + +But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, +Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to +strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for +the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, +howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, +as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper +reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" and when the +maid protests, more sharply than before, "You had a deal better go to +bed, Miss Dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, "Do with me what you +think best!" + +Mr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the +door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it +best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, +these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the +house to himself. + +There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the +eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips +the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of +the great door--under it, into the corners of the windows, into every +chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is +falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the +skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's +Walk, on the stone floor below. + +The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur +of a great house--no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold--goes up the +stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's +length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, +and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so +strangely brought together across the wide intermediate space; +thinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind; +thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and +the tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the +master of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, "Who will tell +him!" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he MIGHT see +something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his +hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank, blank as the +darkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again, +blank as the oppressive silence. + +"All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?" + +"Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester." + +"No word of any kind?" + +The trooper shakes his head. + +"No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" + +But he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down +without looking for an answer. + +Very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George +Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder +of the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed +wish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first +late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless, +and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as +if it cried out, "Look what I am bringing you who watch there! Who +will tell him!" + + + + +CHAPTER LIX + +Esther's Narrative + + +It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London +did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with +streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition +than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the +thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never +slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than +the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had +stopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through +streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become +entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been +always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard +any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!" + +The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey +back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped +to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very +few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we +came, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into +Islington. + +I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected +all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther +behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be +right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following +this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing +it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and +what could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also +that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long +dwelling on such reflections when we stopped. + +We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My +companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with +splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the +carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take +it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from +the rest. + +"Why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "How wet you are!" + +I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way +into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen +horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated +my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew +him, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his +stable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it +out and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and +comfortable. + +"Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window after +I was shut up. "We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a +little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've +got a motive. Ain't you?" + +I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I +should understand it better, but I assured him that I had confidence +in him. + +"So you may have, my dear," he returned. "And I tell you what! If you +only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after +what I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no trouble at +all. I never see a young woman in any station of society--and I've +seen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like you have conducted +yourself since you was called out of your bed. You're a pattern, you +know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket warmly; "you're a +pattern." + +I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no +hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now. + +"My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's game, +and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect. +She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself." + +With these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me +under those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box, +and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then nor +have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and +worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I +was prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such +streets, and we never failed to do so. + +Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger +building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at +offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I +saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by +an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of +his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various +dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would +be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within +narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers on duty could now +tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go. +At last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one +of these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of +nodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me looking +very busy and very attentive. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever +comes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any further +caution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and +that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don't like to +ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?" + +Of course I got out directly and took his arm. + +"It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take +time." + +Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the +street, I thought I knew the place. "Are we in Holborn?" I asked him. + +"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "Do you know this turning?" + +"It looks like Chancery Lane." + +"And was christened so, my dear," said Mr. Bucket. + +We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I +heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence and +as quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming +towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and +stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an +exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. I knew his +voice very well. + +It was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether +pleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering +journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back +the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange +country. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in +such weather!" + +He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some +uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I +told him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then I +was obliged to look at my companion. + +"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt"--he had caught the name from me--"we +are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket." + +Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off +his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move, too," +said Mr. Bucket, assisting, "a very good move." + +"May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to me +or to my companion. + +"Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. "Of +course you may." + +It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped +in the cloak. + +"I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been sitting +with him since ten o'clock last night." + +"Oh, dear me, he is ill!" + +"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed +and faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and Ada +sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came +straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, +and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though +God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him +until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is +now, I hope!" + +His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected +devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had +inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate +all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it +had not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the +change in my appearance: "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall +be a sacred one!" + +We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said Mr. +Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our business +takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What, +you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant. + +"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place." + +"Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then you will be so good as to let +me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have +half a word with him?" + +The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing +silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my +saying I heard some one crying. + +"Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant." + +"Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and has +'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I +want certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to +reason somehow." + +"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr. +Bucket," said the other man. "She's been at it pretty well all night, +sir." + +"Well, that's true," he returned. "My light's burnt out. Show yours a +moment." + +All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which I +could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light +produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and knocked. +The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in, +leaving us standing in the street. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself on +your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so." + +"You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret of +my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's." + +"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as +I can fully respect it." + +"I trust implicitly to you," I said. "I know and deeply feel how +sacredly you keep your promise." + +After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr. +Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. "Please to +come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the fire. Mr. +Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a +medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be +done to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I +particularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about +her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to +handle without hurting." + +We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and +raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage +behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a +grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke +meekly. + +"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will +excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The +back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, +to a frightful extent!" + +We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the +little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs. +Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "to +wave--not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for +one single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is +Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady." + +She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and +looked particularly hard at me. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest +corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not +unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. +Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, +at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I +was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather +not be told." + +He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I +appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr. +Bucket took the matter on himself. + +"Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go +along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--" + +"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir, go on. I +shall be charged with that next." + +"And to hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting +himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're +asked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a +man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of +heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good +as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me +have it as soon as ever you can?" + +As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire +and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender, +talking all the time. + +"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look +from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether. +She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her +generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I'm a-going +to explain it to her." Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat +and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs. +Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman +possessing what you may call charms, you know--'Believe Me, if All +Those Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well acquainted with the song, +because it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are +strangers--charms--attractions, mind you, that ought to give you +confidence in yourself--is, that you've done it." + +Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered, +what did Mr. Bucket mean. + +"What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face that +all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the +letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how important it +must be; "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello +acted. That's the tragedy for you." + +Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why. + +"Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't +look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your +mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I +tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an +intellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if you +come to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you recollect +where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't +you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady." + +Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did +at the time. + +"And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same business, +and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the +same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge +of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, +deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and +the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no +other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts +her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed +head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. +Woodcourt might have got it by this time.)" + +Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens. +Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a +wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your +maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes +a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do +you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that +maid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing +will bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity +that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be +hanging upon that girl's words!" + +He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily clasped +my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr. +Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again. + +"Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket, +rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young lady +in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to +that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one +thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your +swiftest and best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the +door. "Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?" + +"Quite," said I. + +"Whose writing is that?" + +It was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of +paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed +to me at my guardian's. + +"You know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read it +to me, do! But be particular to a word." + +It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what +follows: + + + I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the + dear one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not + to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other + object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the + mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me, + she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the + dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's + consent I bought, but her help was freely given. + + +"'I came.' That was written," said my companion, "when she rested +there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right." + +The next was written at another time: + + + I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and + I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no + purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am + saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and + fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but + I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was + right that all that had sustained me should give way at + once and that I should die of terror and my conscience. + + +"Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." + +Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost +in the dark: + + + I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon + forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing + about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part + with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get + so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive. + + +Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my +chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon +as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." + +I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for +my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I +heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At +length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important +to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for +whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that +she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed. +The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what +passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where +the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these +points, I went into the next room with them. Mr. Woodcourt would have +remained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us. + +The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down. +They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might +have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a +plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I +kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my +shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into +tears. + +"My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for +indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble +you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter +than I could tell you in an hour." + +She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she +didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby! + +"We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got it." + +"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, indeed, +Mrs. Snagsby." + +"I am sure of that," said I. "And how was it?" + +"I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was +dark--quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking +person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me +coming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. +And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about +here, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I +do, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm +to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!" + +It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I +must say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got +beyond this. + +"She could not find those places," said I. + +"No!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "No! Couldn't find them. And +she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if +you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I +know!" + +"Well, Guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say. +"I hope I should." + +"And yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with +wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she said +to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her +which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I +told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to +parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far +from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate." + +As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket +received this with a look which I could not separate from one of +alarm. + +"Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her +hands. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying +ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that +you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so, +Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!" + +"You are so much better now," sald I. "Pray, pray tell me more." + +"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear +lady, because I have been so ill." + +Angry with her, poor soul! + +"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to +find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with +eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. +And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was +to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded +and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the +messenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no +harm, and she said no--no harm. And so I took it from her, and she +said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and +consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and +went." + +"And did she go--" + +"Yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "Yes! She went the +way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me +from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened." + +Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and +immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I +said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be better +with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" + +I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that +it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the +street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling +and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled +people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the +clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of +blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the +courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor +girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my +hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained +house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great +water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the +air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. + +At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one +lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly +struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground--a +dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where +I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in +by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose +walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the +gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and +splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a +woman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child. + +I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me +with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to +the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did +so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure. + +"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They +changed clothes at the cottage." + +They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my +mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no +meaning to them in any other connexion. + +"And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one +that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and +then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" + +I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what +it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead +child. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron +gate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately +spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, +senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could +give me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide +us to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to +this condition by some means connected with my mother that I could +not follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that +moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not +comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face. +I saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to +keep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a +reverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone. + +I even heard it said between them, "Shall she go?" + +"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They +have a higher right than ours." + +I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, +put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my +mother, cold and dead. + + + + +CHAPTER LX + +Perspective + + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all +about me I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved. +I have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains, +that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was +not a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it if I could +quite keep down the recollection of their sympathy. + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. + +During the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs. +Woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. +When my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him +in our old way--though I could have done that sooner if he would have +believed me--I resumed my work and my chair beside his. He had +appointed the time himself, and we were alone. + +"Dame Trot," said he, receiving me with a kiss, "welcome to the +growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I +propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer +time--as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short." + +"And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?" said I. + +"Aye, my dear? Bleak House," he returned, "must learn to take care of +itself." + +I thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his +kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. + +"Bleak House," he repeated--and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I +found--"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada, +my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you." + +"It's like you, guardian," said I, "to have been taking that into +consideration for a happy surprise to both of us." + +"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for +that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be +seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of +Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of +her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." + +"Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?" + +"I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden." + +"Does he still say the same of Richard?" + +"Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on +the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about +him; who CAN be?" + +My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in +a day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last +until I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart +was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it +had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions +upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it +a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house. +My guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to +convey to her that he thought she was right. + +"Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard," said I. "When will he awake +from his delusion!" + +"He is not in the way to do so now, my dear," replied my guardian. +"The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made +me the principal representative of the great occasion of his +suffering." + +I could not help adding, "So unreasonably!" + +"Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we find +reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the +top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason +and injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an end--how +should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He +no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older +men did in old times." + +His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him +touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon. + +"I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the +whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished +by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors," pursued my +guardian. "When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses +from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be +astonished too!" + +He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the +wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead. + +"Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave +to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada +upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance +of another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly +begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not +to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, +next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can +wait." + +But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I +thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. + +"So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made his +protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to +be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, +my dear?" + +In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked +her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be. + +"I think so too," said my guardian. "Less pedigree? Not so much of +Morgan ap--what's his name?" + +That was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very harmless +person, even when we had had more of him. + +"Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains," said +my guardian. "I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better +for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?" + +No. And yet-- + +My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say. + +I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could +say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if +we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why +even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else. + +"You see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's +way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is +agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." + +Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I could +not have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite easy in +my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think! + +"It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do +better." + +"Sure, little woman?" + +Quite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged +that duty on myself, and I was quite sure. + +"Good," said my guardian. "It shall be done. Carried unanimously." + +"Carried unanimously," I repeated, going on with my work. + +It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting. +It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never +resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I +had explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were +to come out by and by, I thought I would go back to our last theme. + +"You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada +left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another +country. Have you been advising him since?" + +"Yes, little woman, pretty often." + +"Has he decided to do so?" + +"I rather think not." + +"Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Why--yes--perhaps," returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a +very deliberate manner. "About half a year hence or so, there is a +medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in +Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams and +streets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present an +opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may +sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the +ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough +after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good +service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I +suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, +instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care +for. It is Woodcourt's kind." + +"And will he get this appointment?" I asked. + +"Why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an +oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation +stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in +the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the +best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a +very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great +amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will +gather about it, it may be fairly hoped." + +"The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it +falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian." + +"You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will." + +We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of +Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his +side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered. + +I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner +where she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I found +I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to +Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, and +used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming +in (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I had no fear of +becoming troublesome just yet. + +On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times +he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of +his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I +would come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office. +Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and +biting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near +the place where I had first seen him, oh how different, how +different! + +That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I +used to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very +well. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in +debt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was +meant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as I still heard +it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save, +but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day. + +She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned +and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had +been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when +she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that +I half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his +ruinous career. + +I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression. +As I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. +She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as +she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from +that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday +at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which +never appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule +of documents on her arm. + +"My dear!" she began. "So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see +you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be +sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see +you." + +"Then Richard is not come in yet?" said I. "I am glad of that, for I +was afraid of being a little late." + +"No, he is not come in," returned Miss Flite. "He has had a long day +in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I +hope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!" + +"I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now," said I. + +"My dearest," returned Miss Flite, "daily and hourly. You know what I +told you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My dear, next +to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to +amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?" + +It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was +no surprise. + +"In short, my valued friend," pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips +to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, "I must tell +you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted, +and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"Ye-es," repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, "my +executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.) +I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch +that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance." + +It made me sigh to think of him. + +"I did at one time mean," said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, "to +nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my +charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor +man, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. This is in +confidence." + +She carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded +piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke. + +"Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds." + +"Really, Miss Flite?" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her +confidence received with an appearance of interest. + +She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. +"Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with +all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, +Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, +Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and +Spinach!" + +The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen +in her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her +birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, +quite chilled me. + +This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have +dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived +within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. +Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some +minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we +were to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a +little conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the window +where I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn. + +"A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official +one," said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to +make it clearer for me. + +"There is not much to see here," said I. + +"Nor to hear, miss," returned Mr. Vholes. "A little music does +occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon +eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish +him?" + +I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well. + +"I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his +friends myself," said Mr. Vholes, "and I am aware that the gentlemen +of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an +unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and +evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of +prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find +Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?" + +"He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious." + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +He stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the +ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if +they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there +were not a human passion or emotion in his nature. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?" he resumed. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend," I answered. + +"But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance." + +"That can do little for an unhappy mind," said I. + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were +wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were +something of the vampire in him. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved +hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in +black kid or out of it, "this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. +C.'s." + +I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged +when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and +when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When +Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now +darkened his life. + +"Just so," assented Mr. Vholes again. "Still, with a view to +everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, +Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very +ill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s +connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, +but also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man +aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom +I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even +say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support." + +"It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better +marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes," said I, "if +Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which +you are engaged with him." + +Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his +black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even +that. + +"Miss Summerson," he said, "it may be so; and I freely admit that the +young lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised +a manner--you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out +that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s connexions--is a +highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much +with general society in any but a professional character; still I +trust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young +lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did +give much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady +is equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I +have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in +their way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his +interests--" + +"Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!" + +"Pardon me," returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward +and dispassionate manner. "Mr. C. takes certain interests under +certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference +to Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss +Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my +desire that everything should be openly carried on--I used those +words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is +producible at any time--I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down +the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client +of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to +say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE +carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over +to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. +Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional +duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, +unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very +bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I +regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir? +Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of +some agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to +thank you very much, sir!" + +He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came +into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. Vholes's +scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel +that our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress. + +We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard, +anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took off his gloves +to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for I +doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's +face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, +abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at +other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large +bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a +restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the +expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not +like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty +had all fallen away. + +He ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to +be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with +Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all +gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known +little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from +the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like +the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful. + +Yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me +there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not +appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a +gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and +said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his +office. + +"Always devoted to business, Vholes!" cried Richard. + +"Yes, Mr. C.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to be +neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional +man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his +fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the +pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly +irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C." + +Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes +out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good +fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very +good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he +had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes. + +Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put +things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who +attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and +quietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being +first removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his +eyes. + +I sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy +listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he +darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time, +rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when Mr. +Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half playfully, +half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and +where he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in +a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night; +and Richard readily consenting, they went out together. + +They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still +sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her +waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side), +but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without +striking any note. + +"Esther, my dearest," she said, breaking silence, "Richard is never +so well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan +Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that." + +I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr. +Woodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all +there, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had +always liked him, and--and so forth. + +"All true," said Ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us we +owe to you." + +I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more +about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her +trembling. + +"Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife +indeed. You shall teach me." + +I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering +over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to speak, that +it was she who had something to say to me. + +"When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him. +I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never +known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I +understood the danger he was in, dear Esther." + +"I know, I know, my darling." + +"When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to +convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new +way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my +sake--as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have +married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!" + +In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a +firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying +away with them--I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones. + +"You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you +see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I +do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely +know Richard better than my love does." + +She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed +such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear, +dear girl! + +"I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know +every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite +determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I +grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him, +when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when +he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, +and this supports me." + +I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I +now thought I began to know what it was. + +"And something else supports me, Esther." + +She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in +motion. + +"I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may +come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be +something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with +greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him +back." + +Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her +in mine. + +"If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look +forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and +think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a +beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him +and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as +he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the +sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, 'I +thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and +restored through me!'" + +Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against +me! + +"These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though +sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I +look at Richard." + +I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and +weeping, she replied, "That he may not live to see his child." + + + + +CHAPTER LXI + +A Discovery + + +The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl +brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I +never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in +my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will +shine for ever. + +Not a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I found +Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano +and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much +mistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard +poorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too +inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly +perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved, +after much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole +and try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great +consideration that made me bold. + +I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I +approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I +felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr. +Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally +defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through +with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's +door--literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a +long parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area +when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to +light the fire with. + +Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a +little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he +asked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I +have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment +daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect +nosegay? + +I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself +only if he would give me leave. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course," he said, bringing +his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, "of +course it's not business. Then it's pleasure!" + +I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not +quite a pleasant matter. + +"Then, my dear Miss Summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, +"don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a +pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature, +in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am +imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant +matter, how much less should you! So that's disposed of, and we will +talk of something else." + +Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still +wished to pursue the subject. + +"I should think it a mistake," said Mr. Skimpole with his airy laugh, +"if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don't!" + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, raising my eyes to his, "I have so often +heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of +life--" + +"Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior +partner? D?" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. "Not an idea of them!" + +"--That perhaps," I went on, "you will excuse my boldness on that +account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is +poorer than he was." + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "So am I, they tell me." + +"And in very embarrassed circumstances." + +"Parallel case, exactly!" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted +countenance. + +"This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I +think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by +visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, +it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if you +would--not--" + +I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by +both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way +anticipated it. + +"Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly +not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I +don't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain +comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at +our dear Richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates +why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so +captivating in them, begin to think, 'This is a man who wants +pounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because +tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to +think, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man who HAD pounds, who +borrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young +friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate +in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see +them, therefore? Absurd!" + +Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned +thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite +astonishing. + +"Besides," he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of +light-hearted conviction, "if I don't go anywhere for pain--which +would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous +thing to do--why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I +went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of +mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be +disagreeable. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and who +can't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be more +out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near +them--and I won't." + +He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing but +Miss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for +him. + +I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were +gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything +leading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however, +and I thought I was not to be put off in that. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I must take the liberty of saying before I +conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best +authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor +boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that +occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would +hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much +surprised." + +"No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?" he returned +inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows. + +"Greatly surprised." + +He thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and +whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his +most engaging manner, "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?" + +I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he +begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to +understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed +to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much +amused and interested when he heard this and said, "No, really?" with +ingenuous simplicity. + +"You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it. +Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below +me," said Mr. Skimpole. "I don't even know which; but as I understand +the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her +practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine +it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?" + +I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this. + +"Ah! Then you see," said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, "I am +hopeless of understanding it." + +I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my +guardian's confidence for a bribe. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," he returned with a candid hilarity that was +all his own, "I can't be bribed." + +"Not by Mr. Bucket?" said I. + +"No," said he. "Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to money. I +don't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want it, I don't +keep it--it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?" + +I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the +capacity for arguing the question. + +"On the contrary," said Mr. Skimpole, "I am exactly the man to be +placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the +rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in +such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian +baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far +above suspicion as Caesar's wife." + +Anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful +impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed +the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in +anybody else! + +"Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received +into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +The boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that Jack built. +Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house +and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a +bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received +into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man +who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in +a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well. +Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole +have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, 'What's this for? +I don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' Bucket +still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole, +not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole +perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is +a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person +of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception +and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they +run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us +comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and +intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong +faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very +useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want +it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket's weapons; shall +I positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And +again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is +blameable in Bucket to offer the note--much more blameable in Bucket, +because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of +Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the +general cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The +state expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's +all he does!" + +I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took +my leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would +not hear of my returning home attended only by "Little Coavinses," +and accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a +variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that +he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out +for him about our young friends. + +As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once +finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and +my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his +having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we +afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being +heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their +separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary +behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which +was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a +combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was +considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself +than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It +was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is +the incarnation of selfishness." + +And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly +indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance +occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in +my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as +belonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy or +my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that +subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has +recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the +last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me. + +The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the +hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the +miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court +day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew +there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became +one of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the +gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there. + +So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow +in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh +air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could +occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse +him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed +us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the +months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued +his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that +his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense +by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a +gamester. + +I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at +night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my +guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home +together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I +could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for +I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to +finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour +when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss +for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as +it was dusk. + +When we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and Mr. +Woodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not there. +We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs +of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he +had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with +me. + +It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very +short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada +the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done--my +appreciation of it had risen above all words then--but I hoped he +might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly. + +Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was +out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same +room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful +lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart, +the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them +going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and +promise. + +We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street +when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved +me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to +him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and +compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know +it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I +had. Too late. + +"When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than when +I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so +inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish +thought--" + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" I entreated him. "I do not +deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, +many!" + +"Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a +lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you +see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, +what sacred admiration and what love she wins." + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love, it is +a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and +the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and +sorrow--joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it +better; but I am not free to think of yours." + +I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when +I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, +I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. +Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could +be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, +and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was +derived from him when I thought so. + +He broke the silence. + +"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will +evermore be as dear to me as now"--and the deep earnestness with +which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep--"if, after +her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. +Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I +took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have +always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of +good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should +tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. +I distress you. I have said enough." + +Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he +thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I +wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he +showed that first commiseration for me. + +"Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part to-night, something is +left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish--I never +shall--but--" + +I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his +affliction before I could go on. + +"--I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its +remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I +know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a +noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me +could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none +that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall +make me better." + +He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could +I ever be worthy of those tears? + +"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in tending +Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life--you ever +find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it +used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and +that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. +Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my +heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been +beloved by you." + +He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt +still more encouraged. + +"I am induced by what you said just now," said I, "to hope that you +have succeeded in your endeavour." + +"I have," he answered. "With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who +know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have +succeeded." + +"Heaven bless him for it," said I, giving him my hand; "and heaven +bless you in all you do!" + +"I shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me +enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." + +"Ah! Richard!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you +are gone!" + +"I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss +Summerson, even if I were." + +One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I +knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I +reserved it. + +"Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know from my lips +before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright +before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or +desire." + +It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied. + +"From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the untiring +goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every +tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in +the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day." + +"I share those feelings," he returned. "You speak of Mr. Jarndyce." + +"You know his virtues well," said I, "but few can know the greatness +of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities +have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping +out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage +and respect had not been his already--which I know they are--they +would have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it +would have awakened in you towards him for my sake." + +He fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I gave +him my hand again. + +"Good night," I said, "Good-bye." + +"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this +theme between us for ever." + +"Yes." + +"Good night; good-bye." + +He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His +love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon +me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again +and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. + +But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me +the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to +him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the +triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died +away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be +animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy +my path, how much easier than his! + + + + +CHAPTER LXII + +Another Discovery + + +I had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even the +courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little +reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the +dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light +to read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it +from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own +clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my +pillow. + +I was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a +walk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and +arranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that I +had a good time still for Charley's lesson before breakfast; Charley +(who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of +grammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether +very notable. When my guardian appeared he said, "Why, little woman, +you look fresher than your flowers!" And Mrs. Woodcourt repeated and +translated a passage from the Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my +being like a mountain with the sun upon it. + +This was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the +mountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my +opportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in his +own room--the room of last night--by himself. Then I made an excuse +to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after me. + +"Well, Dame Durden?" said my guardian; the post had brought him +several letters, and he was writing. "You want money?" + +"No, indeed, I have plenty in hand." + +"There never was such a Dame Durden," said my guardian, "for making +money last." + +He had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at me. +I have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had never +seen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness upon it +which made me think, "He has been doing some great kindness this +morning." + +"There never was," said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, +"such a Dame Durden for making money last." + +He had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so much +that when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was +always put at his side--for sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I +talked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him--I hardly liked +to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But I found I did not +disturb it at all. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss +in anything?" + +"Remiss in anything, my dear!" + +"Have I not been what I have meant to be since--I brought the answer +to your letter, guardian?" + +"You have been everything I could desire, my love." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear that," I returned. "You know, you said +to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, yes." + +"Yes," said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm about +me as if there were something to protect me from and looked in my +face, smiling. + +"Since then," said I, "we have never spoken on the subject except +once." + +"And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my +dear." + +"And I said," I timidly reminded him, "but its mistress remained." + +He still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same +bright goodness in his face. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I know how you have felt all that has +happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has +passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again, +perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so. +I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please." + +"See," he returned gaily, "what a sympathy there must be between us! +I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted--it's a large +exception--in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall +we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?" + +"When you please." + +"Next month?" + +"Next month, dear guardian." + +"The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life--the +day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than +any other man in the world--the day on which I give Bleak House its +little mistress--shall be next month then," said my guardian. + +I put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on the +day when I brought my answer. + +A servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite +unnecessary, for Mr. Bucket was already looking in over the servant's +shoulder. "Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson," said he, rather out of +breath, "with all apologies for intruding, WILL you allow me to order +up a person that's on the stairs and that objects to being left there +in case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank +you. Be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will +you?" said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the banisters. + +This singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap, +unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and +deposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got rid +of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it. + +"Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce," he then began, putting down his hat and +opening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger, +"you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise +knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line +principally, and he's what you may call a dealer in bills. That's +about what YOU are, you know, ain't you?" said Mr. Bucket, stopping a +little to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly +suspicious of him. + +He seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was +seized with a violent fit of coughing. + +"Now, moral, you know!" said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident. +"Don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't be +took in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I've +been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I've been in and out and +about his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly +occupied by Krook, marine store dealer--a relation of this +gentleman's that you saw in his lifetime if I don't mistake?" + +My guardian replied, "Yes." + +"Well! You are to understand," said Mr. Bucket, "that this gentleman +he come into Krook's property, and a good deal of magpie property +there was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you, +of no use to nobody!" + +The cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he +contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful +auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case +according to previous agreement and could say much more of Mr. +Smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in +quite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr. +Smallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face +with the closest attention. + +"Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes +into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said +Mr. Bucket. + +"To which? Say that again," cried Mr. Smallweed in a shrill, sharp +voice. + +"To rummage," repeated Mr. Bucket. "Being a prudent man and +accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage +among the papers as you have come into; don't you?" + +"Of course I do," cried Mr. Smallweed. + +"Of course you do," said Mr. Bucket conversationally, "and much to +blame you would be if you didn't. And so you chance to find, you +know," Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful +raillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, "and so you +chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to +it. Don't you?" + +Mr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly nodded +assent. + +"And coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and +convenience--all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, and +why should you be?--what do you find it to be but a will, you see. +That's the drollery of it," said Mr. Bucket with the same lively air +of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, who still had +the same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; "what do +you find it to be but a will?" + +"I don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else," snarled +Mr. Smallweed. + +Mr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment--he had slipped and shrunk +down in his chair into a mere bundle--as if he were much disposed to +pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the +same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us. + +"Notwithstanding which," said Mr. Bucket, "you get a little doubtful +and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of +your own." + +"Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?" asked Mr. Smallweed with +his hand to his ear. + +"A very tender mind." + +"Ho! Well, go on," said Mr. Smallweed. + +"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated +Chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card +Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books, +and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and +always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think--and you +never was more correct in your born days--'Ecod, if I don't look +about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'" + +"Now, mind how you put it, Bucket," cried the old man anxiously with +his hand at his ear. "Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick +me up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken to bits!" + +Mr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as +he could be heard through Mr. Smallweed's coughing and his vicious +ejaculations of "Oh, my bones! Oh, dear! I've no breath in my body! +I'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!" +Mr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before. + +"So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, +you take me into your confidence, don't you?" + +I think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill +will and a worse grace than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he admitted +this, rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was the very +last person he would have thought of taking into his confidence if he +could by any possibility have kept him out of it. + +"And I go into the business with you--very pleasant we are over it; +and I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get +yourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that +there will," said Mr. Bucket emphatically; "and accordingly you +arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr. +Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you +trusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is, +ain't it?" + +"That's what was agreed," Mr. Smallweed assented with the same bad +grace. + +"In consequence of which," said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his agreeable +manner all at once and becoming strictly business-like, "you've got +that will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing +that remains for you to do is just to out with it!" + +Having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and +having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr. +Bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend and +his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my +guardian. It was not produced without much reluctance and many +declarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor +industrious man and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce's honour not to +let him lose by his honesty. Little by little he very slowly took +from a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much +singed upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had +long ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. Mr. +Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of +a conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. As he gave it to my +guardian, he whispered behind his fingers, "Hadn't settled how to +make their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out +twenty pound upon it. First the avaricious grandchildren split upon +him on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably +long, and then they split on one another. Lord! There ain't one of +the family that wouldn't sell the other for a pound or two, except +the old lady--and she's only out of it because she's too weak in her +mind to drive a bargain." + +"Mr Bucket," said my guardian aloud, "whatever the worth of this +paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it +be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated +accordingly." + +"Not according to your merits, you know," said Mr. Bucket in friendly +explanation to Mr. Smallweed. "Don't you be afraid of that. According +to its value." + +"That is what I mean," said my guardian. "You may observe, Mr. +Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain +truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many +years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will +immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the +cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all +other parties interested." + +"Mr. Jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand," observed +Mr. Bucket to his fellow-visitor. "And it being now made clear to you +that nobody's a-going to be wronged--which must be a great relief to +YOUR mind--we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home +again." + +He unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning, +and with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger at parting +went his way. + +We went our way too, which was to Lincoln's Inn, as quickly as +possible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table in +his dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles of +papers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge +expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight +of Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his double eye-glass as +he spoke and was more Conversation Kenge than ever. + +"I hope," said Mr. Kenge, "that the genial influence of Miss +Summerson," he bowed to me, "may have induced Mr. Jarndyce," he bowed +to him, "to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and +towards a court which are--shall I say, which take their place in the +stately vista of the pillars of our profession?" + +"I am inclined to think," returned my guardian, "that Miss Summerson +has seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert +any influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the +occasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your +desk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my +hands." + +He did so shortly and distinctly. + +"It could not, sir," said Mr. Kenge, "have been stated more plainly +and to the purpose if it had been a case at law." + +"Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the +purpose?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, fie!" said Mr. Kenge. + +At first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, +but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had +opened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became +amazed. "Mr. Jarndyce," he said, looking off it, "you have perused +this?" + +"Not I!" returned my guardian. + +"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, "it is a will of later date than +any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting. +It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be +cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks +of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!" + +"Well!" said my guardian. "What is that to me?" + +"Mr. Guppy!" cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice. "I beg your pardon, +Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Sir." + +"Mr. Vholes of Symond's Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. +Glad to speak with him." + +Mr. Guppy disappeared. + +"You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused +this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest +considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still +leaving it a very handsome one," said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand +persuasively and blandly. "You would further have seen that the +interests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs. +Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it." + +"Kenge," said my guardian, "if all the flourishing wealth that the +suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two +young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to +believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" + +"Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is +a very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a +very great system, a very great system. Really, really!" + +My guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly +impressed by Mr. Kenge's professional eminence. + +"How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair +here by me and look over this paper?" + +Mr. Vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. He +was not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. When he +had well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, and +shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. +I was not surprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to dispute what +he said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever +did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed +to get the better of Mr. Kenge too in a conversation that sounded +as if it were almost composed of the words "Receiver-General," +"Accountant-General," "report," "estate," and "costs." When they had +finished, they came back to Mr. Kenge's table and spoke aloud. + +"Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes," said Mr. +Kenge. + +Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And a very important document, Mr. Vholes," said Mr. Kenge. + +Again Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next +term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in +it," said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian. + +Mr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep +respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an +authority. + +"And when," asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr. +Kenge had rattled his money and Mr. Vholes had picked his pimples, +"when is next term?" + +"Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month," said Mr. Kenge. "Of +course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this +document and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of +course you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in +the paper." + +"To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention." + +"Still bent, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the +outer office to the door, "still bent, even with your enlarged mind, +on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr. +Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr. +Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr. +Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? +Now, really, really!" + +He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it +were a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his words on +the structure of the system and consolidate it for a thousand ages. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIII + +Steel and Iron + + +George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and +George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his +rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain +hand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so +occupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north +to look about him. + +As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green +woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and +ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching +fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the +features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, +looking about him and always looking for something he has come to +find. + +At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of +iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the +trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and +asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts. + +"Why, master," quoth the workman, "do I know my own name?" + +"'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper. + +"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right." + +"And where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance before +him. + +"The bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know. + +"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, +stroking his chin, "that I have as good as half a mind to go back +again. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell +at the factory, do you think?" + +"Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day you +might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his +contracts take him away." + +And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest +ones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those +chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll +see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall +which forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's. + +The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about +him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much +disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of +Rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of +Rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to +be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are +Rouncewell's hands--a little sooty too. + +He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great +perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety +of shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in +axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched +into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery; +mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of +it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it +showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron, +white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a +Babel of iron sounds. + +"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper, +looking about him for a counting-house. "Who comes here? This is very +like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if +likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir." + +"Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?" + +"Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him." + +The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, +for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to +be found. "Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!" +thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard +with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the +office, Mr. George turns very red. + +"What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man. + +George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "Steel," and +is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, +who sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of +paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. +It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view +below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, +purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in +various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke +is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys +to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys. + +"I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when his +visitor has taken a rusty chair. + +"Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with his left +arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting +his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations that in the +present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served +as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather +partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. I +believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran +away, and never did any good but in keeping away?" + +"Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, +"that your name is Steel?" + +The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls +him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. + +"You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears +springing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? I +never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me +as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!" + +They shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the +trooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!" with +his protestation that he never thought his brother would have been +half so glad to see him as all this! + +"So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what +has preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of making +myself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my +name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a +letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had +considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me." + +"We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George," +returns his brother. "This is a great day at home, and you could not +have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an +agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he +shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your +travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a +little polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event, +and you will be made the hero of it." + +Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he +resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne, +however, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom he renews his +protestations that he never could have thought they would have been +half so glad to see him--he is taken home to an elegant house in all +the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture +of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as +are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their +children. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and +accomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his +niece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these +young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely +taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a +woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there +is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, +and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge +to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received +with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when +he lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all +these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the +evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, +over his counterpane. + +The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room, +where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how +he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George +squeezes his hand and stops him. + +"Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly +welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than +brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as +to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How," says the +trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at +his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch me?" + +"I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the +ironmaster. + +"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must +be got to do it somehow." + +"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?" + +"Of course I do. In short," says the trooper, folding his arms more +resolutely yet, "I mean--TO--scratch me!" + +"My dear George," returns his brother, "is it so indispensable that +you should undergo that process?" + +"Quite! Absolutely! I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of coming +back without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have +not sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of +your rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to remain and +hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of +celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it's +to be brought about." + +"I can tell you, George," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "how +it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as +well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she +recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world +that would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? +Do you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against +the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it? +If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to +remain UNscratched, I think." There is an amused smile on the +ironmaster's face as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply +disappointed. "I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing +were done, though." + +"How, brother?" + +"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the +misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know." + +"That's true!" says the trooper, pondering again. Then he wistfully +asks, with his hand on his brother's, "Would you mind mentioning +that, brother, to your wife and family?" + +"Not at all." + +"Thank you. You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an +undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and +not of the mean sort?" + +The ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents. + +"Thank you. Thank you. It's a weight off my mind," says the trooper +with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on +each leg, "though I had set my heart on being scratched, too!" + +The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a +certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the +world is all on the trooper's side. + +"Well," he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, "next and last, +those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me +to fall in here and take my place among the products of your +perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It's more than +brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it," +shaking him a long time by the hand. "But the truth is, brother, I am +a--I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular +garden." + +"My dear George," returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady +brow upon him and smiling confidently, "leave that to me, and let me +try." + +George shakes his head. "You could do it, I have not a doubt, if +anybody could; but it's not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas +it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some +trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness--brought on +by family sorrows--and that he would rather have that help from our +mother's son than from anybody else." + +"Well, my dear George," returns the other with a very slight shade +upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester +Dedlock's household brigade--" + +"There it is, brother," cries the trooper, checking him, with his +hand upon his knee again; "there it is! You don't take kindly to that +idea; I don't mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am. +Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything +about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry +things with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same point. I +don't say much about my garrison manners because I found myself +pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be noticed here, +I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold, +where there's more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear +old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir +Leicester Dedlock's proposals. When I come over next year to give +away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep +the household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your +ground. I thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the +Rouncewells as they'll be founded by you." + +"You know yourself, George," says the elder brother, returning the +grip of his hand, "and perhaps you know me better than I know myself. +Take your way. So that we don't quite lose one another again, take +your way." + +"No fear of that!" returns the trooper. "Now, before I turn my +horse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you--if you'll be so +good--to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from +these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the +person it's written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence +myself, and I am particular respecting this present letter because I +want it to be both straightforward and delicate." + +Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but +in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows: + + + Miss Esther Summerson, + + A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket + of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a + certain person, I take the liberty to make known to you + that it was but a few lines of instruction from abroad, + when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a + young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in England. I + duly observed the same. + + I further take the liberty to make known to you that it + was got from me as a proof of handwriting only and that + otherwise I would not have given it up, as appearing to + be the most harmless in my possession, without being + previously shot through the heart. + + I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have + supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in + existence, I never could and never would have rested until + I had discovered his retreat and shared my last farthing + with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally + been. But he was (officially) reported drowned, and + assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night + in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival from + the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers + and men on board, and know to have been (officially) + confirmed. + + I further take the liberty to state that in my humble + quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever + continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring + servant and that I esteem the qualities you possess above + all others far beyond the limits of the present dispatch. + + I have the honour to be, + + GEORGE + + +"A little formal," observes the elder brother, refolding it with a +puzzled face. + +"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?" asks +the younger. + +"Nothing at all." + +Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron +correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty +farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His +brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to +ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will +bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a +servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old +grey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is followed +by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all +in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and +heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and +fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon +the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in +the avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of +accoutrements under the old elm-trees. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIV + +Esther's Narrative + + +Soon after I had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed +paper in my hand one morning and said, "This is for next month, my +dear." I found in it two hundred pounds. + +I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were +necessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which I +knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him and +hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly because +I was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be +rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. I had no +doubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the +most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to +Ada, "Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?" +Perhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I +might not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was +over. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best. + +The only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I was +going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some +time. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me and was +remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we +first knew her. There was no trouble she would not have taken to have +been of use to me, but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to +take as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it. + +Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course +it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of +occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was +absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with +great heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, and +spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what +there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, +were Charley's great dignities and delights. + +Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the +subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did +encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a +burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time, +but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to +retain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said +one day when we were talking about this, I understood that my +marriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been +told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how +rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were +a little more prosperous. + +The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town +and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told +me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just +come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of +all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when +a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him +in the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken +and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added +in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada. + +I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was +ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next +morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be +wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this +purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was +never, never, never near the truth. + +It was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian +waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had +begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that +he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to +be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I +said to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that +it required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his +being there at all was an act of kindness. + +Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he +said, "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have +brought you here?" + +"Well, guardian," said I, "without thinking myself a Fatima or you a +Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it." + +"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love," he returned gaily, "I +won't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to +express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor +unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his +value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it +came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some +unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I +therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place +was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him +and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day +before yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I was not +housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to +be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly +be got to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is," +said my guardian, "laughing and crying both together!" + +Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him +what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word. + +"Tut, tut!" said my guardian. "You make too much of it, little woman. +Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!" + +"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of +thanks." + +"Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I thought +you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress +of Bleak House." + +I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know now!" said I. "I have seen +this in your face a long while." + +"No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to +read a face!" + +He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and +was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to +bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was +with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I +repeated every word of the letter twice over. + +A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we +went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty +housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side +wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the +beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds +and flowers at home. + +"You see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a +delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better +plan, I borrowed yours." + +We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were +nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees +were sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a +rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil +and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around +it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung +with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest +point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where +cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was +flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And +still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic +verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded +with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the papering on +the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all +the pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods +and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, +my odd ways everywhere. + +I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, +but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh, +would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his +peace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because +although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, +and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. I +did not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not have done so, +without these aids to his memory--but my way was easier than his, and +I could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the +happier for it. + +"And now, little woman," said my guardian, whom I had never seen so +proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my +appreciation of them, "now, last of all, for the name of this house." + +"What is it called, dear guardian?" + +"My child," said he, "come and see," + +He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, +pausing before we went out, "My dear child, don't you guess the +name?" + +"No!" said I. + +We went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak +House. + +He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down +beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, "My darling +girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really +solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which +you brought the answer," smiling as he referred to it, "I had my own +too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different +circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes +dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I +need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you +brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?" + +I was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was +lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended, +softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if +the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels. + +"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When +it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really +make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no +doubt at all." + +I clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and +wept. "Lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me +gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now. Rest +confidently here." + +Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, +like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the +sunshine, he went on. + +"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented +and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with +whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame +Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could +never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been +in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until +yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not +have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my +dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her +admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for +the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!" + +He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh. +For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise. + +"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have +looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! A +few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to +throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into +a separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive--and +indeed I know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. I am further +very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to +a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, +so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though +you watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our +story--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing +this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour; +set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for +I scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when +you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour +to her old Welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, +"I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less +admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!" + +He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his +old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the +protecting manner I had thought about! + +"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he +spoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no encouragement, +not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too +miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all +that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan +Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside +your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its +little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my +life!" + +He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My +husband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years +now--stood at my side. + +"Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best +wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know +you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You +know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its +namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I +sacrifice? Nothing, nothing." + +He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he +said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is +a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you +some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old +place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take +my dear." + +He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in +the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "I +shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman, +due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to +my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run +away and never come back!" + +What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, +what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month +was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own +house was to depend on Richard and Ada. + +We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in +town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news +to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few +minutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian +first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his +side, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon. + +When we came home we found that a young man had called three times in +the course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the +occasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before +ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then. +He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy. + +As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I +always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out +that in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old +proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my +guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So instructions were +given that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they +were scarcely given when he did come again. + +He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered +himself and said, "How de do, sir?" + +"How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. + +"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you allow +me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my +particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by +the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling." + +My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. + +"Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "Will +you open the case?" + +"Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. + +"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration, +began, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by +nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most +remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by +herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But +Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has +passed between us on former occasions?" + +"Miss Summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a +communication to that effect to me." + +"That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out +of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction +to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination +that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that +he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my +certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy," returned my guardian. "I am quite willing--I +believe I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate." + +Mr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket +and proceeded without it. + +"I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which +takes the form of an annuity"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her +head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and +put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--"and a few +pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never +be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know," said +Mr. Guppy feelingly. + +"Certainly an advantage," returned my guardian. + +"I HAVE some connexion," pursued Mr. Guppy, "and it lays in the +direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse +in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow +bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), +and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith." + +Here Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling +her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her. + +"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in +the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my +friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has +known me," Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, "from +boyhood's hour." + +Mr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. + +"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of +clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said Mr. Guppy. "My mother will +likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street +Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no +want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by +taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper +circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing." + +Mr. Jobling said "Certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow of +Mr Guppy's mother. + +"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the +confidence of Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "(mother, I wish you'd +be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was +formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of +marriage." + +"That I have heard," returned my guardian. + +"Circumstances," pursued Mr. Guppy, "over which I had no control, but +quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. +At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even +add, magnanimous." + +My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. + +"Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I have got into that state of mind +myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish +to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which +perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I +did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its +influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am +willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had +any control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I +had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in +Walcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her +acceptance." + +"Very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian. + +"Well, sir," replied Mr. Guppy with candour, "my wish is to BE +magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss +Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the +opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit +may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks +of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at." + +"I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the +bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is +very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good +evening, and wishes you well." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, to +acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" + +"To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. + +Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who +suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling. + +"Indeed?" said he. "Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you +represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of +the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't +wanted." + +But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She +wouldn't hear of it. "Why, get along with you," said she to my +guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You +ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!" + +"My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask +me to get out of my own room." + +"I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If we +ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good +enough. Go along and find 'em." + +I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's +power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest +offence. + +"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated +Mrs. Guppy. "Get out!" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother +so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out. +"Why don't you get out?" said Mrs. Guppy. "What are you stopping here +for?" + +"Mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing +her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "WILL you +hold your tongue?" + +"No, William," she returned, "I won't! Not unless he gets out, I +won't!" + +However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's +mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much +against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every +time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should +immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and +above all things that we should get out. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV + +Beginning the World + + +The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr. +Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient +hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to +go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and +was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that +my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked +forward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her, +and never drooped. + +It was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on +there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest +myself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home +directly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and +walked down there through the lively streets--so happily and +strangely it seemed!--together. + +As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and +Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!" And +there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little +carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so +many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I +had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, +but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back, +and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so +overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, +and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her +hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of +precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for +her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm +her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, +standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased +as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than +that I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking +after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as +she could see us. + +This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to +Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse +than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery +that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what +was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for +occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to +be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to +get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional +gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in +wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them +told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and +quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about +the pavement of the Hall. + +We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us +Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it. +He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he +could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he +said, over for good. + +Over for good! + +When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another +quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set +things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? +It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was! + +Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd, +and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and +bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all +exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce +or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching +for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper +began to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got +into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, +which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, +anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. +Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing +Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person +who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over. +Yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing +too. + +At this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an +affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was +deferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see +us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. Woodcourt." + +"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with +polished politeness. "How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is +not here?" + +No. He never came there, I reminded him. + +"Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is NOT here +to-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his +indomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened, +perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened." + +"Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity. + +"What has been done to-day?" + +"What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not +much has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up +suddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?" + +"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. "Will +you tell us that?" + +"Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone +into that, we have not gone into that." + +"We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low +inward voice were an echo. + +"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his +silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a +great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has +been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not +inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice." + +"And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. + +"Very well indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge with a certain +condescending laugh he had. "Very well! You are further to reflect, +Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, "that on the +numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of +procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study, +ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high +intellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the flower of the bar, +and the--a--I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of +the woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the +public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of +this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth, +sir." + +"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. +"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate +is found to have been absorbed in costs?" + +"Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU +say?" + +"I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. + +"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" + +"Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" + +"Probably," said Mr. Vholes. + +"My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's +heart!" + +There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew +Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual +decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her +foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. + +"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, coming +after us, "you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself +a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson." As he gave me +that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of +his bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant +shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he +gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client, +and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low +door at the end of the Hall. + +"My dear love," said Allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the +charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's +by and by!" + +I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to +Richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished. +Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what +news I had returned. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for +himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater +blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!" + +We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was +possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to +Symond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my +darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and +threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and +said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him +sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. +On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have +spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth +being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home. + +He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There +were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as +possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan +stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be +quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing +me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he +looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. + +I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he +said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me, +my dear!" + +It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low +state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our +intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had +been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and +wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if +my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand +and hold it to his breast. + +We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times +that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his +feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "Yes, surely, +dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so +serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so +near--I knew--I knew! + +It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we +were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for +my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada +leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed +often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all, +"Where is Woodcourt?" + +Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian +standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard +asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face +that some one was there. + +I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded "Yes," bent over +Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me +in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said Richard, +"you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for +the first time. + +My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping +his hand on Richard's. + +"My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is +bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or +less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?" + +"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin +the world." + +"Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. + +"I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad +smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you +shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it." + +"Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well, +dear boy!" + +"I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing on +earth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's and +Woodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to +recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than +anywhere." + +"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick," said my guardian, "and our +little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very +day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?" + +Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind +the head of the couch. + +"I say nothing of Ada," said Richard, "but I think of her, and have +thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending +over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, +my dear love, my poor girl!" + +He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually +released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and +moved her lips. + +"When I get down to Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much to +tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't +you?" + +"Undoubtedly, dear Rick." + +"Thank you; like you, like you," said Richard. "But it's all like +you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you +remembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like +coming to the old Bleak House again." + +"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, +you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come +to me, my love!" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over +her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed +within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.) + +"It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's +hands eagerly. + +"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more." + +"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity +the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?" + +"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?" + +"I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes. + +My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly +lift up his hand to warn my guardian. + +"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the +old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been +to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and +blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn +child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?" + +"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. + +"Ada, my darling!" + +He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she +could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted. + +"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray +shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have +scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my +Ada, before I begin the world?" + +A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid +his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, +and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not +this! The world that sets this right. + +When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came +weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI + +Down in Lincolnshire + + +There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is +upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir +Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; +but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any +brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for +certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the +park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at +night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be +laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all +mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the +peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once +occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large +fans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing +all their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world +assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, +entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her +company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have +never been known to object. + +Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road +among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of +horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and +almost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man +beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain +spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse +stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is +still for a few moments before they ride away. + +War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain +intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady +fire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to +Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to +abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which +Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or +misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently +aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of +committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. +Similarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the +disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth +vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; +similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by +testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is +whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is +really most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of +being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little +does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered +in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now, +is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the +satisfaction of both. + +In one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the +house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in +Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart +man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling +hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a +little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy +little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of +stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way +of a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction. +A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some +mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to +the name of Phil. + +A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of +hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to +observe--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these +times--the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards +them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey +cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are +seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found +gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and +when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening +air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the +lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and as the +evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while +two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the +old girl. Discipline must be maintained." + +The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no +longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long +drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my +Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined +only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually +contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, +in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the +damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so +obdurate, will have opened and received him. + +Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her +face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the +long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her +yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of +the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on +the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and +Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle +and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be +one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her +reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not +appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes +broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously +repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she +finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her +bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a +memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to +her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course +of reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay. + +The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness, +but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard +in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at +the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of +cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness +of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under +penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that +such fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever. + +The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the +place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated, +when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way +of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come +out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the +exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during +three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year, +is a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables +upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her +condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as +in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of +teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she +twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes +of the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with +sandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and +unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular +kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of +another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre +stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no +drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have +both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem +Volumnias. + +For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of +overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their +hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the +window-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less +the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly +likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which +start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding +through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in +which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a +stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few +people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops +from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the +victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and +departs. + +Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and +vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry +lowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day, +no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, +no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of +life about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have +died away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull +repose. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII + +The Close of Esther's Narrative + + +Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The +few words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned; +then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not +without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope, +on his or hers. + +They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never +left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born +before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and +I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. + +The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in +the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore +his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power +was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand +and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope +within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of +God. + +They throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country +garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married +then. I was the happiest of the happy. + +It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she +would come home. + +"Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak +House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do +it, come and take possession of your home." + +Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it must +be guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and +he had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian, +and has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no +other name. I say the children; I have two little daughters. + +It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at +all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so +it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the +morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go +round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond +of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to +do and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I +might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill +did half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly +what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really +afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was +decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a +good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being +ashamed of it. + +Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer +creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with +the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. +Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and +lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works +very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do +very little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has +to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new +house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. +I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great +mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but +I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in +Borrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the +king of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the +climate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to +sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more +correspondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor +little girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I +believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in +her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to +soften the affliction of her child. + +As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of +Peepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing +extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits +his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is +still believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of +Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French +clock in his dressing-room--which is not his property. + +With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house +by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we +inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see +us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in +drawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their +way. + +I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a +good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me +he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is +my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling, +he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel +towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him +and so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never +lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is +with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side, +Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all just the same as ever; and +I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!" just the same. + +I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment +since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I +remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and +he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that +very day. + +I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that +has been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified +even its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality. +Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that +she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it is difficult to +express--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear +Esther in her prayers. + +I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am +one. + +We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we +have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the +people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear +his praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night +but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and +soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from +the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often +gone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this +to be rich? + +The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like +me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I +owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I +do everything I do in life for his sake. + +A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and +my guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was +sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch, +when Allan came home. So he said, "My precious little woman, what are +you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, +and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here +thinking." + +"What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan then. + +"How curious you are!" said I. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, but +I will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were." + +"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?" said +Allan. + +"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD +have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." + +"'Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing. + +"Such as they were, of course." + +"My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do +you ever look in the glass?" + +"You know I do; you see me do it." + +"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" + +I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know +that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is +very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my +guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was +seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even +supposing--. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLEAK HOUSE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1023-0.txt or 1023-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/1023 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Christmas_Carol.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Christmas_Carol.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..125eba9 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Christmas_Carol.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3964 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Carol + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Illustrator: Arthur Rackham + +Release Date: December 24, 2007 [EBook #24022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + A CHRISTMAS CAROL + + [Illustration: _"How now?" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. + "What do you want with me?"_] + + + A CHRISTMAS CAROL + + [Illustration] + + BY + + CHARLES DICKENS + + [Illustration] + + ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR RACKHAM + + [Illustration] + + J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK + + FIRST PUBLISHED 1915 + + REPRINTED 1923, 1927, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1958, + 1962, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973 + + ISBN: 0-397-00033-2 + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + + PREFACE + + I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an + Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with + each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house + pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. + + Their faithful Friend and Servant, + + C. D. + + _December, 1843._ + + + + + CHARACTERS + + Bob Cratchit, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge. + Peter Cratchit, a son of the preceding. + Tim Cratchit ("Tiny Tim"), a cripple, youngest son of Bob Cratchit. + Mr. Fezziwig, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant. + Fred, Scrooge's nephew. + Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom showing things past. + Ghost of Christmas Present, a spirit of a kind, generous, + and hearty nature. + Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, an apparition showing the shadows + of things which yet may happen. + Ghost of Jacob Marley, a spectre of Scrooge's former partner in business. + Joe, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen goods. + Ebenezer Scrooge, a grasping, covetous old man, the surviving partner + of the firm of Scrooge and Marley. + Mr. Topper, a bachelor. + Dick Wilkins, a fellow apprentice of Scrooge's. + + Belle, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of Scrooge's. + Caroline, wife of one of Scrooge's debtors. + Mrs. Cratchit, wife of Bob Cratchit. + Belinda and Martha Cratchit, daughters of the preceding. + + Mrs. Dilber, a laundress. + Fan, the sister of Scrooge. + Mrs. Fezziwig, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig. + + + + + CONTENTS + + STAVE ONE—MARLEY'S GHOST 3 + STAVE TWO—THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 37 + STAVE THREE—THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 69 + STAVE FOUR—THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 111 + STAVE FIVE—THE END OF IT 137 + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + _IN COLOUR_ + + + "How now?" said Scrooge, caustic + and cold as ever. "What do you + want with me?" _Frontispiece_ + + Bob Cratchit went down a slide on + Cornhill, at the end of a lane of + boys, twenty times, in honour of + its being Christmas Eve 16 + + Nobody under the bed; nobody in + the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, + which was hanging up + in a suspicious attitude against + the wall 20 + + The air was filled with phantoms, + wandering hither and thither in + restless haste and moaning as + they went 32 + + Then old Fezziwig stood out to + dance with Mrs. Fezziwig 54 + + A flushed and boisterous group 62 + + Laden with Christmas toys and + presents 64 + + The way he went after that plump + sister in the lace tucker! 100 + + "How are you?" said one. + "How are you?" returned the other. + "Well!" said the first. "Old + Scratch has got his own at last, + hey?" 114 + + "What do you call this?" said Joe. + "Bed-curtains!" "Ah!" returned + the woman, laughing.... + "Bed-curtains!" + + "You don't mean to say you took + 'em down, rings and all, with him + lying there?" said Joe. + + "Yes, I do," replied the woman. + "Why not?" 120 + + "It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have + come to dinner. Will you let + me in, Fred?" 144 + + "Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," + said Scrooge. "I am not going + to stand this sort of thing any + longer." 146 + +[Illustration] + +_IN BLACK AND WHITE_ + + + Tailpiece vi + Tailpiece to List of Coloured Illustrations x + Tailpiece to List of Black and White Illustrations xi + Heading to Stave One 3 + They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold 12 + On the wings of the wind 28-29 + Tailpiece to Stave One 34 + Heading to Stave Two 37 + He produced a decanter of curiously + light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake 50 + She left him, and they parted 60 + Tailpiece to Stave Two 65 + Heading to Stave Three 69 + There was nothing very cheerful in the climate 75 + He had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church 84-85 + With the pudding 88 + Heading to Stave Four 111 + Heading to Stave Five 137 + Tailpiece to Stave Five 147 + +[Illustration] + + +STAVE ONE + + +[Illustration] + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL *** + +MARLEY'S GHOST + + +Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. +The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the +undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name +was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old +Marley was as dead as a door-nail. + +Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is +particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, +to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the +trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my +unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You +will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as +dead as a door-nail. + +Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? +Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge +was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole +residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge +was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event but that he was an +excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised +it with an undoubted bargain. + +The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started +from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly +understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to +relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died +before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his +taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, +than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning +out after dark in a breezy spot--say St. Paul's Churchyard, for +instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind. + +Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years +afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was +known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called +Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It +was all the same to him. + +Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a +squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old +sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out +generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. +The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, +shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin +lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime +was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his +own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the +dog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. + +External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could +warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than +he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain +less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The +heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the +advantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down' +handsomely, and Scrooge never did. + +Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My +dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars +implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was +o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to +such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to +know him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into +doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they +said, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!' + +But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his +way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep +its distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to Scrooge. + +Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas +Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, +biting weather; foggy withal; and he could hear the people in the court +outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, +and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City +clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--it had +not been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the +neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The +fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense +without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses +opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, +obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, +and was brewing on a large scale. + +The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his +eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, +was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire +was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't +replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so +surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that +it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his +white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which +effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed. + +'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It was +the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this +was the first intimation he had of his approach. + +'Bah!' said Scrooge. 'Humbug!' + +He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this +nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and +handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. + +'Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't mean +that, I am sure?' + +'I do,' said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? +What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.' + +'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be +dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.' + +Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, +'Bah!' again; and followed it up with 'Humbug!' + +'Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew. + +'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world +of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's +Christmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time +for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for +balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen +of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said +Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" +on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a +stake of holly through his heart. He should!' + +'Uncle!' pleaded the nephew. + +'Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own way, +and let me keep it in mine.' + +'Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it.' + +'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do you! +Much good it has ever done you!' + +'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I +have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew; 'Christmas among +the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when +it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and +origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good +time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know +of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one +consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people +below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and +not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, +uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I +believe that it _has_ done me good and _will_ do me good; and I say, God +bless it!' + +The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately +sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the +last frail spark for ever. + +'Let me hear another sound from _you_,' said Scrooge, 'and you'll keep +your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful +speaker, sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go +into Parliament.' + +'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.' + +Scrooge said that he would see him----Yes, indeed he did. He went the +whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that +extremity first. + +'But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why?' + +'Why did you get married?' said Scrooge. + +'Because I fell in love.' + +'Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only +one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good +afternoon!' + +'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give +it as a reason for not coming now?' + +'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +'I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be +friends?' + +'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge. + +'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never +had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial +in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. +So A Merry Christmas, uncle!' + +'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. + +'And A Happy New Year!' + +'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge. + +His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He +stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the +clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned +them cordially. + +'There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge, who overheard him: 'my +clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking +about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.' + +This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people +in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with +their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their +hands, and bowed to him. + +'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, referring +to his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. +Marley?' + +'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. 'He died +seven years ago, this very night.' + +'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving +partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. + +[Illustration: THEY WERE PORTLY GENTLEMEN, PLEASANT TO BEHOLD] + +It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous +word 'liberality' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the +credentials back. + +'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman, +taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make +some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at +the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; +hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.' + +'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge. + +'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. + +'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in +operation?' + +'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they were +not.' + +'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge. + +'Both very busy, sir.' + +'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had +occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I am very +glad to hear it.' + +'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind +or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are +endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and +means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all +others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I +put you down for?' + +'Nothing!' Scrooge replied. + +'You wish to be anonymous?' + +'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, +gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, +and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the +establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough: and those who are +badly off must go there.' + +'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.' + +'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and +decrease the surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know that.' + +'But you might know it,' observed the gentleman. + +'It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to +understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. +Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!' + +Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the +gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion +of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him. + +Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with +flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in +carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, +whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a +Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and +quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its +teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became +intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers +were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, +round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their +hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug +being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned +to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and +berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy +as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: +a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that +such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord +Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his +fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household +should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on +the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, +stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and +the baby sallied out to buy the beef. + +Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good +St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such +weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he +would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, +gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, +stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; +but, at the first sound of + + 'God bless you, merry gentleman, + May nothing you dismay!' + +Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled +in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial +frost. + +At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an +ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the +fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his +candle out, and put on his hat. + +'You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge. + +'If quite convenient, sir.' + +'It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to +stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound?' + +The clerk smiled faintly. + +'And yet,' said Scrooge, 'you don't think _me_ ill used when I pay a +day's wages for no work.' + +[Illustration: _Bob Cratchit went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end +of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas +Eve_] + +The clerk observed that it was only once a year. + +'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of +December!' said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. 'But I +suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next +morning.' + +The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. +The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends +of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no +greatcoat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, +twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to +Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blind man's-buff. + +Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and +having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening +with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had +once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of +rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little +business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run +there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other +houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and +dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms +being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, +who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and +frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed +as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the +threshold. + +Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the +knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact +that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence +in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy +about him as any man in the City of London, even including--which is a +bold word--the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne +in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his +last mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that afternoon. And then +let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, +having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its +undergoing any intermediate process of change--not a knocker, but +Marley's face. + +Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects +in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in +a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as +Marley used to look; with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly +forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; +and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. +That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to +be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of +its own expression. + +As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. + +To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of +a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would +be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned +it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. + +He _did_ pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; +and he _did_ look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to +be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the +hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws +and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed +it with a bang. + +The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, +and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a +separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be +frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, +and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went. + +You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight +of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say +you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, +with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the +balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and +room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a +locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen +gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so +you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. + +Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and +Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy door, he walked through +his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of +the face to desire to do that. + +Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under +the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and +basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his +head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody +in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude +against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two +fish baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. + +[Illustration: _Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in +his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against +the wall_] + +Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double +locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against +surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, +and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. + +It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was +obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract +the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace +was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all +round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. +There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, +Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like +feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in +butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that +face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, +and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at +first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the +disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of +old Marley's head on every one. + +'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room. + +After several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the +chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that +hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with +a chamber in the highest storey of the building. It was with great +astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he +looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the +outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and +so did every bell in the house. + +This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an +hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. They were succeeded +by a clanking noise deep down below as if some person were dragging a +heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then +remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as +dragging chains. + +The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the +noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then +coming straight towards his door. + +'It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.' + +His colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through +the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming +in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him! Marley's +Ghost!' and fell again. + +The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, +tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his +pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he +drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like +a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, +keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His +body was transparent: so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking +through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. + +Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had +never believed it until now. + +No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through +and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling +influence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the +folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not +observed before, he was still incredulous, and fought against his +senses. + +'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want +with me?' + +'Much!'--Marley's voice; no doubt about it. + +'Who are you?' + +'Ask me who I _was_.' + +'Who _were_ you, then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're +particular, for a shade.' He was going to say '_to_ a shade,' but +substituted this, as more appropriate. + +'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.' + +'Can you--can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. + +'I can.' + +'Do it, then.' + +Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so +transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt +that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the +necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the +opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. + +'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost. + +'I don't,' said Scrooge. + +'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own +senses?' + +'I don't know,' said Scrooge. + +'Why do you doubt your senses?' + +'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder +of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, +a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. +There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!' + +Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in +his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be +smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his +terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. + +To sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, +would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something +very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal +atmosphere of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was +clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its +hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour +from an oven. + +'You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, +for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a +second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. + +'I do,' replied the Ghost. + +'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge. + +'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.' + +'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the +rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own +creation. Humbug, I tell you: humbug!' + +At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such +a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, +to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his +horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it +were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its +breast! + +Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face. + +'Mercy!' he said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?' + +'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or +not?' + +'I do,' said Scrooge; 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and +why do they come to me?' + +'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit +within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and +wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do +so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is +me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, +and turned to happiness!' + +Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its +shadowy hands. + +'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?' + +'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link +by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of +my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to _you_?' + +Scrooge trembled more and more. + +'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the +strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this +seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a +ponderous chain!' + +Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding +himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he +could see nothing. + +'Jacob!' he said imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more! Speak +comfort to me, Jacob!' + +'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other regions, +Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of +men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all +permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. +My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house--mark me;--in life my +spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; +and weary journeys lie before me!' + +It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his +hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he +did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. + +[Illustration: ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND] + +'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed in a +business-like manner, though with humility and deference. + +'Slow!' the Ghost repeated. + +'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time?' + +'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture +of remorse.' + +'You travel fast?' said Scrooge. + +[Illustration] + +'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost. + +'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,' +said Scrooge. + +The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so +hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have +been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. + +'Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'not to know +that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth +must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is +all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in +its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too +short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of +regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such +was I! Oh, such was I!' + +'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, +who now began to apply this to himself. + +'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my +business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, +forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my +trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my +business!' + +It held up its chain at arm's-length, as if that were the cause of all +its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. + +'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most. +Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, +and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a +poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have +conducted _me_?' + +Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this +rate, and began to quake exceedingly. + +'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone.' + +'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, +Jacob! Pray!' + +'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may +not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.' + +It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the +perspiration from his brow. + +'That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here +to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my +fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.' + +'You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. 'Thankee!' + +'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by Three Spirits.' + +Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done. + +'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded in a +faltering voice. + +'It is.' + +'I--I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge. + +'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the +path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One.' + +'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?' hinted +Scrooge. + +'Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon +the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. +Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember +what has passed between us!' + +When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the +table, and bound it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this by the +smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the +bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural +visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over +and about its arm. + +[Illustration: _The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and +thither in restless haste and moaning as they went_] + +The apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it took, the +window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it +was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they +were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, +warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. + +Not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the raising of +the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent +sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and +self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in +the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. + +Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked +out. + +The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in +restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains +like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were +linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to +Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in +a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who +cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an +infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was +clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and +had lost the power for ever. + +Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he +could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and +the night became as it had been when he walked home. + +Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had +entered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, +and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug!' but stopped at +the first syllable. And being, from the emotions he had undergone, or +the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the +dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in +need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep +upon the instant. + +[Illustration] + + +STAVE TWO + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS + + +When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could +scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his +chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret +eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. +So he listened for the hour. + +To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and +from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! +It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must +have got into the works. Twelve! + +He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous +clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped. + +'Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through a +whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything +has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!' + +The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his +way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve +of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very +little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and +extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and +fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if +night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This +was a great relief, because 'Three days after sight of this First of +Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would +have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count +by. + +Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over +and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more +perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he +thought. + +Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within +himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flew +back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and +presented the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or +not?' + +Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters more, +when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a +visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the +hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than +go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power. + +The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must +have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it +broke upon his listening ear. + +'Ding, dong!' + +'A quarter past,' said Scrooge, counting. + +'Ding, dong!' + +'Half past,' said Scrooge. + +'Ding, dong!' + +'A quarter to it.' said Scrooge. + +'Ding, dong!' + +'The hour itself,' said Scrooge triumphantly, 'and nothing else!' + +He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, +dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the +instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. + +The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not +the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to +which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; +and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself +face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as +I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. + +It was a strange figure--like a child; yet not so like a child as like +an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the +appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a +child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its +back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in +it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and +muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. +Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper +members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist +was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a +branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction +of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But +the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there +sprang a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and +which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a +great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. + +Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, +was _not_ its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and +glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one +instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its +distinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with +twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a +body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense +gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it +would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever. + +'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?' asked +Scrooge. + +'I am!' + +The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being +so close behind him, it were at a distance. + +'Who and what are you?' Scrooge demanded. + +'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.' + +'Long Past?' inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature. + +'No. Your past.' + +Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have +asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap, +and begged him to be covered. + +'What!' exclaimed the Ghost, 'would you so soon put out, with worldly +hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those +whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years +to wear it low upon my brow?' + +Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge +of having wilfully 'bonneted' the Spirit at any period of his life. He +then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. + +'Your welfare!' said the Ghost. + +Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that +a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The +Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately-- + +'Your reclamation, then. Take heed!' + +It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the +arm. + +'Rise! and walk with me!' + +It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the +hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the +thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in +his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon +him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not +to be resisted. He rose; but, finding that the Spirit made towards the +window, clasped its robe in supplication. + +'I am a mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, 'and liable to fall.' + +'Bear but a touch of my hand _there_,' said the Spirit, laying it upon +his heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this!' + +As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon +an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely +vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist +had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow +upon the ground. + +'Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked +about him. 'I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!' + +The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been +light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense +of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, +each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and +cares long, long forgotten! + +'Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. 'And what is that upon your +cheek?' + +Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a +pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would. + +'You recollect the way?' inquired the Spirit. + +'Remember it!' cried Scrooge with fervour; 'I could walk it blindfold.' + +'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!' observed the Ghost. +'Let us go on.' + +They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, +and tree, until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its +bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen +trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other +boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were +in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were +so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it. + +'These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said the Ghost. +'They have no consciousness of us.' + +The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named +them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why +did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why +was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry +Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several +homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! +What good had it ever done to him? + +'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child, +neglected by his friends, is left there still.' + +Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. + +They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a +mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola +on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of +broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls +were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. +Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and +sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient +state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the +open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and +vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the +place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by +candle light and not too much to eat. + +They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back +of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, +melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and +desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and +Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as +he had used to be. + +Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice +behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the +dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent +poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a +clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening +influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. + +The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, +intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully +real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe +stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. + +'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old +honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yonder +solitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first +time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his +wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put +down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him? +And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon +his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be +married to the Princess?' + +To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such +subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and +to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to +his business friends in the City, indeed. + +'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a +thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! +Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing +round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin +Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the +Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little +creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!' + +Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, +he said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy!' and cried again. + +'I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking +about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff; 'but it's too late now.' + +'What is the matter?' asked the Spirit. + +'Nothing,' said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas +carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: +that's all.' + +The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did so, +'Let us see another Christmas!' + +Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a +little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; +fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were +shown instead; but how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more +than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had +happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had +gone home for the jolly holidays. + +He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge +looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced +anxiously towards the door. + +It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting +in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, +addressed him as her 'dear, dear brother.' + +'I have come to bring you home, dear brother!' said the child, clapping +her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 'To bring you home, home, +home!' + +'Home, little Fan?' returned the boy. + +'Yes!' said the child, brimful of glee. 'Home for good and all. Home for +ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's +like heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to +bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; +and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And +you're to be a man!' said the child, opening her eyes; 'and are never to +come back here; but first we're to be together all the Christmas long, +and have the merriest time in all the world.' + +'You are quite a woman, little Fan!' exclaimed the boy. + +She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but, +being too little laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then +she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and +he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her. + +A terrible voice in the hall cried, 'Bring down Master Scrooge's box, +there!' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on +Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a +dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him +and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour +that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and +terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced +a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, +and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people; at +the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of +'something' to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, +but, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. +Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the +chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; +and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep; the quick +wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the +evergreens like spray. + +[Illustration: HE PRODUCED A DECANTER OF CURIOUSLY LIGHT WINE, AND A +BLOCK OF CURIOUSLY HEAVY CAKE] + +'Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,' said +the Ghost. 'But she had a large heart!' + +'So she had,' cried Scrooge. 'You're right. I will not gainsay it, +Spirit. God forbid!' + +'She died a woman,' said the Ghost, 'and had, as I think, children.' + +'One child,' Scrooge returned. + +'True,' said the Ghost. 'Your nephew!' + +Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly, 'Yes.' + +Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were +now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed +and re-passed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and +all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, +by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was Christmas-time +again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. + +The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he +knew it. + +'Know it!' said Scrooge. 'Was I apprenticed here?' + +They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting +behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must +have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great +excitement-- + +'Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!' + +Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which +pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his +capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his +organ of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, +jovial voice-- + +'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!' + +Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, +accompanied by his fellow-'prentice. + +'Dick Wilkins, to be sure!' said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes. +There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, +dear!' + +'Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig. 'No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, +Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,' cried old +Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack +Robinson!' + +You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into +the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in their +places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, +nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like +racehorses. + +'Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with +wonderful agility. 'Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room +here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!' + +Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or +couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in +a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from +public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps +were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as +snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to +see upon a winter's night. + +In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and +made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came +Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss +Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose +hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the +business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the +cook with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy +from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his +master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, +who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all +came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some +awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any how and +every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round +and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and +round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always +turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon +as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help +them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his +hands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done!' and the fiddler plunged +his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. +But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, +though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been +carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man +resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. + +[Illustration: _Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. +Fezziwig_] + +There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and +there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold +Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were +mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came +after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The +sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told +it him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then old Fezziwig stood +out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff +piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of +partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would +dance, and had no notion of walking. + +But if they had been twice as many--ah! four times--old Fezziwig would +have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to _her_, she +was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not +high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared +to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance +like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would +become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone +all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, +bow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the-needle, and back again to your +place: Fezziwig 'cut'--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his +legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger. + +When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. +Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking +hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him +or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two +'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died +away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter +in the back-shop. + +During the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like a man out of his +wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He +corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and +underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright +faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he +remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon +him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. + +'A small matter,' said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of +gratitude.' + +'Small!' echoed Scrooge. + +The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were +pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and when he had done so, +said: + +'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: +three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?' + +'It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking +unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. 'It isn't that, +Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our +service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power +lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it +is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives +is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.' + +He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. + +'What is the matter?' asked the Ghost. + +'Nothing particular,' said Scrooge. + +'Something, I think?' the Ghost insisted. + +'No,' said Scrooge, 'no. I should like to be able to say a word or two +to my clerk just now. That's all.' + +His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; +and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air. + +'My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. 'Quick!' + +This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but +it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was +older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and +rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care +and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, +which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of +the growing tree would fall. + +He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning +dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that +shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. + +'It matters little,' she said softly. 'To you, very little. Another idol +has displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come +as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.' + +'What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined. + +'A golden one.' + +'This is the even-handed dealing of the world!' he said. 'There is +nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it +professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!' + +'You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other +hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid +reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until +the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?' + +'What then?' he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what +then? I am not changed towards you.' + +She shook her head. + +'Am I?' + +'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and +content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly +fortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made you +were another man.' + +'I was a boy,' he said impatiently. + +'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she +returned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart +is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I +have thought of this I will not say. It is enough that I _have_ thought +of it, and can release you.' + +'Have I ever sought release?' + +'In words. No. Never.' + +'In what, then?' + +'In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of +life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of +any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,' +said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; 'tell me, +would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!' + +He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of +himself. But he said, with a struggle, 'You think not.' + +'I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered. 'Heaven +knows! When _I_ have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and +irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, +yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless +girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by +Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your +one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and +regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, +for the love of him you once were.' + +[Illustration: SHE LEFT HIM, AND THEY PARTED] + +He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, she resumed: + +'You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have +pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the +recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it +happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have +chosen!' + +She left him, and they parted. + +'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you +delight to torture me?' + +'One shadow more!' exclaimed the Ghost. + +'No more!' cried Scrooge. 'No more! I don't wish to see it. Show me no +more!' + +But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him +to observe what happened next. + +They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or +handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful +young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, +until he saw _her_, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. +The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more +children there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; +and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty +children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting +itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but +no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed +heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to +mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most +ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I +never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all +the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the +precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! +to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold +young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to +have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And +yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have +questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the +lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose +waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in +short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest +license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. + +[Illustration: _A flushed and boisterous group_] + +But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately +ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne +towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to +greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas +toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the +onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with +chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of +brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his +neck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The +shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package +was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in +the act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth, and was more than +suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden +platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and +gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough +that, by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the +parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where +they went to bed, and so subsided. + +And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of +the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her +and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such +another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have +called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his +life, his sight grew very dim indeed. + +'Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, 'I saw an +old friend of yours this afternoon.' + +'Who was it?' + +'Guess!' + +'How can I? Tut, don't I know?' she added in the same breath, laughing +as he laughed. 'Mr. Scrooge.' + +'Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut +up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His +partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. +Quite alone in the world, I do believe.' + +'Spirit!' said Scrooge in a broken voice, 'remove me from this place.' + +'I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,' said the +Ghost. 'That they are what they are do not blame me!' + +'Remove me!' Scrooge exclaimed, 'I cannot bear it!' + +He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a +face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces +it had shown him, wrestled with it. + +'Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!' + +In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost +with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort +of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and +bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized +the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its +head. + +[Illustration: _Laden with Christmas toys and presents_] + +The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its +whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he +could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken +flood upon the ground. + +He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible +drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a +parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel +to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep. + +[Illustration] + + +STAVE THREE + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS + + +Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in +bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told +that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was +restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial +purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to +him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned +uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this +new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own +hands, and, lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the +bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its +appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. + +Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being +acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of +day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing +that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; +between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide +and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite +as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was +ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing +between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. + +Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means +prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck One, and no +shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five +minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. +All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze +of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the +hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen +ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; +and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an +interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the +consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think--as you +or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the +predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would +unquestionably have done it too--at last, I say, he began to think that +the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining +room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea +taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in +his slippers to the door. + +The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock a strange voice called him by +his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. + +It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone +a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with +living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which +bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, +and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been +scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as +that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, +or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the +floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, +brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, +mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, +cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense +twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim +with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a +jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not +unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on +Scrooge as he came peeping round the door. + +'Come in!' exclaimed the Ghost. 'Come in! and know me better, man!' + +Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was +not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were +clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. + +'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. 'Look upon me!' + +Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, +or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the +figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be +warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the +ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no +other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining +icicles. Its dark-brown curls were long and free; free as its genial +face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its +unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was +an antique scabbard: but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was +eaten up with rust. + +'You have never seen the like of me before!' exclaimed the Spirit. + +'Never,' Scrooge made answer to it. + +'Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning +(for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?' +pursued the Phantom. + +'I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. 'I am afraid I have not. Have you +had many brothers, Spirit?' + +'More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost. + +'A tremendous family to provide for,' muttered Scrooge. + +The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. + +'Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively, 'conduct me where you will. I went +forth last night on compulsion, and I learned a lesson which is working +now. To-night if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.' + +'Touch my robe!' + +Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. + +Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, +brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, +all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the +hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, +where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk +and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement +in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence +it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the +road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. + +The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, +contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with +the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed +up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons: furrows +that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great +streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the +thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest +streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, +whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all +the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were +blazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very +cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of +cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer +sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. + +[Illustration: THERE WAS NOTHING VERY CHEERFUL IN THE CLIMATE] + +For the people who were shovelling away on the house-tops were jovial +and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now +and then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile far +than many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right, and not less +heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, +and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, +round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of +jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the +street in their apoplectic opulence: There were ruddy, brown-faced, +broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth +like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at +the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up +mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming +pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' +benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might +water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and +brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and +pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were +Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the +oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy +persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper +bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth +among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and +stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going +on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in +slow and passionless excitement. + +The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters +down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone +that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that +the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters +were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended +scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the +raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the +sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, +the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the +coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that +the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in +modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything +was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all +so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they +tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets +wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running +back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the +best humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and +fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons +behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, +and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose. + +But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and +away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and +with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores +of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, +carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor +revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with +Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as +their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. +And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there +were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each +other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their +good-humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to +quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! + +In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was +a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their +cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the +pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. + +'Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?' +asked Scrooge. + +'There is. My own.' + +'Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?' asked Scrooge. + +'To any kindly given. To a poor one most.' + +'Why to a poor one most?' asked Scrooge. + +'Because it needs it most.' + +'Spirit!' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, 'I wonder you, of all +the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these +people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment. + +'I!' cried the Spirit. + +'You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, +often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,' said +Scrooge; 'wouldn't you?' + +'I!' cried the Spirit. + +'You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,' said Scrooge. 'And +it comes to the same thing.' + +'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit. + +'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in +that of your family,' said Scrooge. + +'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who +lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, +ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as +strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. +Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.' + +Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had +been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality +of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that +notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any +place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as +gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could +have done in any lofty hall. + +And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this +power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and +his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's +clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his +robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to +bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think +of that! Bob had but fifteen 'Bob' a week himself; he pocketed on +Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of +Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house! + +Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a +twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a +goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda +Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master +Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting +the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, +conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day,) into his mouth, +rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his +linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and +girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt +the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts +of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and +exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, +although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow +potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out +and peeled. + +'What has ever got your precious father, then?' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And +your brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by +half an hour!' + +'Here's Martha, mother!' said a girl, appearing as she spoke. + +'Here's Martha, mother!' cried the two young Cratchits. 'Hurrah! There's +_such_ a goose, Martha!' + +'Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!' said Mrs. +Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet +for her with officious zeal. + +'We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the girl, 'and +had to clear away this morning, mother!' + +'Well! never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'Sit ye +down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!' + +'No, no! There's father coming,' cried the two young Cratchits, who were +everywhere at once. 'Hide, Martha, hide!' + +So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least +three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before +him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look +seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a +little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! + +'Why, where's our Martha?' cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. + +'Not coming,' said Mrs. Cratchit. + +'Not coming!' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; +for he had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church, and had come +home rampant. 'Not coming upon Christmas Day!' + +Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so +she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his +arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off +into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the +copper. + +'And how did little Tim behave?' asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had +rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his +heart's content. + +'As good as gold,' said Bob, 'and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful, +sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever +heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the +church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to +remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men +see.' + +Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when +he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. + +His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny +Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and +sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his +cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more +shabby--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and +stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master +Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, +with which they soon returned in high procession. + +[Illustration] + +Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of +all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of +course--and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. +Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing +hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss +Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob +took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young +Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, +mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest +they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At +last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a +breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the +carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, +and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of +delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two +young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and +feebly cried Hurrah! + +[Illustration: HE HAD BEEN TIM'S BLOOD-HORSE ALL THE WAY FROM CHURCH] + +There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was +such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, +were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and +mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; +indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small +atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every +one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were +steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being +changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous +to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in. + +Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning +out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and +stolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which +the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were +supposed. + +Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell +like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and +a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to +that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit +entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding, like a speckled +cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of +ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. + +Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he +regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since +their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her +mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. +Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it +was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat +heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a +thing. + +[Illustration: WITH THE PUDDING] + +At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth +swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and +considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a +shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family +drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half +a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. +Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. + +These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden +goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while +the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob +proposed: + +'A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!' + +Which all the family re-echoed. + +'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all. + +He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held +his withered little hand to his, as if he loved the child, and wished to +keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. + +'Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, 'tell +me if Tiny Tim will live.' + +'I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimney corner, +and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows +remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.' + +'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'Oh no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.' + +'If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future none other of my race,' +returned the Ghost, 'will find him here. What then? If he be like to +die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.' + +Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and +was overcome with penitence and grief. + +'Man,' said the Ghost, 'if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear +that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and +where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It +may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit +to live than millions like this poor man's child. O God! to hear the +insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry +brothers in the dust!' + +Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes +upon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name. + +'Mr. Scrooge!' said Bob. 'I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the +Feast!' + +'The Founder of the Feast, indeed!' cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. 'I +wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and +I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.' + +'My dear,' said Bob, 'the children! Christmas Day.' + +'It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, 'on which one drinks +the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. +Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, +poor fellow!' + +'My dear!' was Bob's mild answer. 'Christmas Day.' + +'I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said Mrs. Cratchit, +'not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! +He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!' + +The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their +proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of +all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the +family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which +was not dispelled for full five minutes. + +After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from +the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit +told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which +would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two +young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man +of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from +between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular +investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that +bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, +then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she +worked at a stretch and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for +a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how +she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord +'was much about as tall as Peter'; at which Peter pulled up his collar +so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All +this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by +they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny +Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. + +There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; +they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; +their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely +did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, +pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they +faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's +torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny +Tim, until the last. + +By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as +Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the +roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was +wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a +cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, +and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. +There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to +meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the +first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blinds of +guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and +fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near +neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them +enter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow! + +But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to +friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to +give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting +company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how +the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its +capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring with a generous hand its +bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very +lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of +light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out +loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that +he had any company but Christmas. + +And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a +bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast +about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread +itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost +that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, +rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery +red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, +and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of +darkest night. + +'What place is this?' asked Scrooge. + +'A place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,' +returned the Spirit. 'But they know me. See!' + +A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced +towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a +cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and +woman, with their children and their children's children, and another +generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. +The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind +upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a +very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined +in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got +quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank +again. + +The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and, +passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To +Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful +range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the +thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the +dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. + +Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, +on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there +stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, +and storm-birds--born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the +water--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. + +But, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that +through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of +brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough +table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their +can of grog; and one of them--the elder too, with his face all damaged +and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might +be--struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. + +Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea--on, on--until +being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a +ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the +bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their +several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or +had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of +some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And +every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder +word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had +shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he +cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember +him. + +It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of +the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the +lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as +profound as death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus +engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to +Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a +bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his +side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability! + +'Ha, ha!' laughed Scrooge's nephew. 'Ha, ha, ha!' + +If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed +in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to +know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. + +It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there +is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so +irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's +nephew laughed in this way--holding his sides, rolling his head, and +twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions--Scrooge's +niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled +friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. + +'Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!' + +'He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!' cried Scrooge's +nephew. 'He believed it, too!' + +'More shame for him, Fred!' said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless +those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in +earnest. + +She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, +surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made +to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about +her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the +sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. +Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but +satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory! + +'He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that's the truth; +and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their +own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.' + +'I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. 'At least, you +always tell _me_ so.' + +'What of that, my dear?' said Scrooge's nephew. 'His wealth is of no use +to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable +with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is +ever going to benefit Us with it.' + +'I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's +niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. + +'Oh, I have!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'I am sorry for him; I couldn't be +angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always. +Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine +with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.' + +'Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted Scrooge's +niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have +been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and with the +dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. + +'Well! I am very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'because I +haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do _you_ say, +Topper?' + +Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, +for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right +to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's +sister--the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the +roses--blushed. + +'Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 'He never +finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!' + +Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to +keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with +aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed. + +'I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that the consequence +of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I +think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. +I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own +thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean +to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for +I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help +thinking better of it--I defy him--if he finds me going there, in good +temper, year after year, and saying, "Uncle Scrooge, how are you?" If it +only put him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, _that's_ +something; and I think I shook him yesterday.' + +It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. +But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed +at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their +merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously. + +After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew +what they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: +especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and +never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over +it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other +tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle +it in two minutes) which had been familiar to the child who fetched +Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost +of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things +that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more; +and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he +might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with +his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob +Marley. + +[Illustration: _The way he went after that plump sister in the lace +tucker!_] + +But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they +played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never +better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. +Stop! There was first a game at blind man's-buff. Of course there was. +And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes +in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and +Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The +way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on +the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling +over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself +amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew +where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had +fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have +made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an +affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in +the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't +fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in +spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, +he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct +was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his +pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to +assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her +finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No +doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in +office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains. + +Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's-buff party, but was made +comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where +the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the +forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the +alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very +great, and, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters +hollow; though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. +There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all +played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting, in the interest he +had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he +sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed +right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to +cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in +his head to be. + +The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon +him with such favour that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay +until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done. + +'Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. 'One half-hour, Spirit, only one!' + +It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of +something, and the rest must find out what, he only answering to their +questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to +which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an +animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an +animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes and +lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show +of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was +never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a +bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every +fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar +of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to +get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a +similar state, cried out: + +'I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!' + +'What is it?' cried Fred. + +'It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge.' + +Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though +some objected that the reply to 'Is it a bear?' ought to have been +'Yes'; inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have +diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had +any tendency that way. + +'He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said Fred, 'and it +would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled +wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge!"' + +'Well! Uncle Scrooge!' they cried. + +'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!' +said Scrooge's nephew. 'He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, +nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!' + +Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that +he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked +them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the +whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his +nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. + +Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but +always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they +were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by +struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, +and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery's every +refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast +the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing and taught +Scrooge his precepts. + +It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts +of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into +the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that, while +Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, +clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it +until they left a children's Twelfth-Night party, when, looking at the +Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair +was grey. + +'Are spirits' lives so short?' asked Scrooge. + +'My life upon this globe is very brief,' replied the Ghost. 'It ends +to-night.' + +'To-night!' cried Scrooge. + +'To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.' + +The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at that moment. + +'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking +intently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not +belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a +claw?' + +'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's +sorrowful reply. 'Look here!' + +From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, +frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung +upon the outside of its garment. + +'O Man! look here! Look, look down here!' exclaimed the Ghost. + +They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but +prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have +filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a +stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted +them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat +enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no +degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the +mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and +dread. + +Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he +tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, +rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. + +'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more. + +'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they +cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This +girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of +all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, +unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out +his hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for +your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!' + +'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge. + +'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last +time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?' + +The bell struck Twelve. + +Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last +stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob +Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and +hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him. + + +STAVE FOUR + + + + +THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS + + +The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, +Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this +Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. + +It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its +face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched +hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure +from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was +surrounded. + +He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that +its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, +for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. + +'I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?' said +Scrooge. + +The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. + +'You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, +but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued. 'Is that so, +Spirit?' + +The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its +folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer +he received. + +Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the +silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found +that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit +paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to +recover. + +But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague, +uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were +ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his +own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great +heap of black. + +'Ghost of the Future!' he exclaimed, 'I fear you more than any spectre +I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope +to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your +company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?' + +It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. + +'Lead on!' said Scrooge. 'Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is +precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!' + +The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in +the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him +along. + +They scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather seemed to +spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they +were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants, who hurried +up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in +groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their +great gold seals, and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. + +The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing +that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their +talk. + +'No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 'I don't know much +about it either way. I only know he's dead.' + +'When did he die?' inquired another. + +'Last night, I believe.' + +'Why, what was the matter with him?' asked a third, taking a vast +quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. 'I thought he'd never +die.' + +'God knows,' said the first, with a yawn. + +'What has he done with his money?' asked a red-faced gentleman with a +pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills +of a turkey-cock. + +'I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, yawning again. +'Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to _me_. That's all +I know.' + +This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. + +'It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker; 'for, +upon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a +party, and volunteer?' + +'I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman with +the excrescence on his nose. 'But I must be fed if I make one.' + +Another laugh. + +[Illustration: + + _"How are you?" said one. + "How are you?" returned the other. + "Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?"_ + +] + +'Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first +speaker, 'for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll +offer to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not +at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to +stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!' + +Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. +Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. + +The phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons +meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie +here. + +He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very +wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing +well in their esteem in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a +business point of view. + +'How are you?' said one. + +'How are you?' returned the other. + +'Well!' said the first, 'old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?' + +'So I am told,' returned the second. 'Cold, isn't it?' + +'Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I suppose?' + +'No, no. Something else to think of. Good-morning!' + +Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their +parting. + +Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should +attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling +assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to +consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to +have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was +Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of +any one immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them. +But nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some +latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every +word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the +shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the +conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would +render the solution of these riddles easy. + +He looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man +stood in his accustomed corner; and though the clock pointed to his +usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among +the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little +surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of +life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out +in this. + +Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched +hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied, +from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, +that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, +and feel very cold. + +They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, +where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its +situation and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shop +and houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. +Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of +smell and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole +quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery. + +Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling +shop, below a penthouse roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and +greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of +rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse +iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred +and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and +sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a +charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly +seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without +by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line and +smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. + +Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a +woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely +entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was +closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by +the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other. +After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with +the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. + +'Let the charwoman alone to be the first!' cried she who had entered +first. 'Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the +undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a +chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!' + +'You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe, removing his +pipe from his mouth. 'Come into the parlour. You were made free of it +long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut +the door of the shop. Ah! how it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of +metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no +such old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our calling, +we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.' + +The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked +the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky +lamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth +again. + +While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on +the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool, crossing her +elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. + +'What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?' said the woman. 'Every person +has a right to take care of themselves. _He_ always did!' + +'That's true, indeed!' said the laundress. 'No man more so.' + +'Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! Who's the +wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?' + +'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 'We should hope +not.' + +'Very well then!' cried the woman. 'That's enough. Who's the worse for +the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?' + +'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. + +'If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,' +pursued the woman, 'why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had +been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with +Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.' + +'It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs. Dilber. 'It's a +judgment on him.' + +'I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the woman: 'and it +should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands +on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value +of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for +them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves +before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.' + +But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in +faded black, mounting the breach first, produced _his_ plunder. It was +not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, +and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined +and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give +for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found +that there was nothing more to come. + +'That's your account,' said Joe, 'and I wouldn't give another sixpence, +if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?' + + +[Illustration: _"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains."_] + +Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two +old fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few +boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner. + +'I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's +the way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. 'That's your account. If you asked +me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being +so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown.' + +'And now undo _my_ bundle, Joe,' said the first woman. + +Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, +and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy +roll of some dark stuff. + +'What do you call this?' said Joe. 'Bed-curtains?' + +'Ah!' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed +arms. 'Bed-curtains!' + +'You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying +there?' said Joe. + +'Yes, I do,' replied the woman. 'Why not?' + +'You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe, 'and you'll certainly do +it.' + +'I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by +reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, +Joe,' returned the woman coolly. 'Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, +now.' + +'His blankets?' asked Joe. + +'Whose else's do you think?' replied the woman. 'He isn't likely to take +cold without 'em, I dare say.' + +'I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?' said old Joe, stopping +in his work, and looking up. + +'Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. 'I an't so fond of +his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! +you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you won't find +a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine +one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.' + +'What do you call wasting of it?' asked old Joe. + +'Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied the woman, with +a laugh. 'Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If +calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for +anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than +he did in that one.' + +Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about +their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he +viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been +greater, though they had been obscene demons marketing the corpse +itself. + +'Ha, ha!' laughed the same woman when old Joe producing a flannel bag +with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. 'This +is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he +was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!' + +'Spirit!' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 'I see, I see. The +case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now. +Merciful heaven, what is this?' + +He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost +touched a bed--a bare, uncurtained bed--on which, beneath a ragged +sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, +announced itself in awful language. + +The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, +though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, +anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the +outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, +unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man. + +Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the +head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of +it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the +face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to +do it; but he had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the +spectre at his side. + +Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and +dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command; for this is thy +dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not +turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is +not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not +that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, +generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender, and the pulse a +man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the +wound, to sow the world with life immortal! + +No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them +when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up +now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping +cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! + +He lay in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to +say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind +word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was +a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone. What _they_ wanted in +the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge +did not dare to think. + +'Spirit!' he said, 'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not +leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!' + +Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. + +'I understand you,' Scrooge returned, 'and I would do it if I could. But +I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.' + +Again it seemed to look upon him. + +'If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this +man's death,' said Scrooge, quite agonised, 'show that person to me, +Spirit, I beseech you!' + +The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; +and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her +children were. + +She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked +up and down the room, started at every sound, looked out from the +window, glanced at the clock, tried, but in vain, to work with her +needle, and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play. + +At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, +and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though +he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now, a kind of +serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to +repress. + +He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, +and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a +long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. + +'Is it good,' she said, 'or bad?' to help him. + +'Bad,' he answered. + +'We are quite ruined?' + +'No. There is hope yet, Caroline.' + +'If _he_ relents,' she said, amazed, 'there is! Nothing is past hope, if +such a miracle has happened.' + +'He is past relenting,' said her husband. 'He is dead.' + +She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she +was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands. +She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was +the emotion of her heart. + +'What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of last night, said to me +when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay--and what I thought +was a mere excuse to avoid me--turns out to have been quite true. He was +not only very ill, but dying, then.' + +'To whom will our debt be transferred?' + +'I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready with the money; +and even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so +merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light +hearts, Caroline!' + +Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's +faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little +understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's +death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the +event, was one of pleasure. + +'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said Scrooge; 'or +that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever +present to me.' + +The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; +and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, +but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; +the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the +children seated round the fire. + +Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues +in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. +The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they +were very quiet! + +'"And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them."' + +Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy +must have read them out as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why +did he not go on? + +The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her +face. + +'The colour hurts my eyes,' she said. + +The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! + +'They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. 'It makes them weak by +candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes +home for the world. It must be near his time.' + +'Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book. 'But I think he +has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, +mother.' + +They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful +voice, that only faltered once: + +'I have known him walk with--I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon +his shoulder very fast indeed.' + +'And so have I,' cried Peter. 'Often.' + +'And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all. + +'But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon her work, +'and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble, no trouble. And +there is your father at the door!' + +She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had +need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, +and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young +Cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek +against his face, as if they said, 'Don't mind it, father. Don't be +grieved!' + +Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. +He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed +of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, +he said. + +'Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?' said his wife. + +'Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. 'I wish you could have gone. It would have +done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I +promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little +child!' cried Bob. 'My little child!' + +He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped +it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they +were. + +He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, which was +lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close +beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there +lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and +composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what +had happened, and went down again quite happy. + +They drew about the fire, and talked, the girls and mother working +still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's +nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the +street that day, and seeing that he looked a little--'just a little +down, you know,' said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. +'On which,' said Bob, 'for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you +ever heard, I told him. "I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit," he +said, "and heartily sorry for your good wife." By-the-bye, how he ever +knew _that_ I don't know.' + +'Knew what, my dear?' + +'Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob. + +'Everybody knows that,' said Peter. + +'Very well observed, my boy!' cried Bob. 'I hope they do. "Heartily +sorry," he said, "for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in +any way," he said, giving me his card, "that's where I live. Pray come +to me." Now, it wasn't,' cried Bob, 'for the sake of anything he might +be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite +delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt +with us.' + +'I'm sure he's a good soul!' said Mrs. Cratchit. + +'You would be sure of it, my dear,' returned Bob, 'if you saw and spoke +to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised--mark what I say!--if he got +Peter a better situation.' + +'Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs. Cratchit. + +'And then,' cried one of the girls, 'Peter will be keeping company with +some one, and setting up for himself.' + +'Get along with you!' retorted Peter, grinning. + +'It's just as likely as not,' said Bob, 'one of these days; though +there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however and whenever we +part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny +Tim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?' + +'Never, father!' cried they all. + +'And I know,' said Bob, 'I know, my dears, that when we recollect how +patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we +shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in +doing it.' + +'No, never, father!' they all cried again. + +'I am very happy,' said little Bob, 'I am very happy!' + +Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young +Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny +Tim, thy childish essence was from God! + +'Spectre,' said Scrooge, 'something informs me that our parting moment +is at hand. I know it but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom +we saw lying dead?' + +The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him, as before--though at a +different time, he thought: indeed there seemed no order in these latter +visions, save that they were in the Future--into the resorts of business +men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for +anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until +besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. + +'This court,' said Scrooge, 'through which we hurry now, is where my +place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the +house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come.' + +The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. + +'The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. 'Why do you point away?' + +The inexorable finger underwent no change. + +Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an +office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the +figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. + +He joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone, +accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round +before entering. + +A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to +learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by +houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, +not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A +worthy place! + +The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced +towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he +dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. + +'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge, +'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will +be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?' + +Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. + +'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, +they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the +ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!' + +The Spirit was immovable as ever. + +Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the +finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, +EBENEZER SCROOGE. + +'Am I that man who lay upon the bed?' he cried upon his knees. + +The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. + +'No, Spirit! Oh no, no!' + +The finger still was there. + +'Spirit!' he cried, tight clutching at its robe, 'hear me! I am not the +man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this +intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?' + +For the first time the hand appeared to shake. + +'Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it, +'your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may +change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?' + +The kind hand trembled. + +'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I +will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all +Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they +teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!' + +In his agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but +he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit stronger yet, +repulsed him. + +Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw +an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and +dwindled down into a bedpost. + + +STAVE FIVE + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE END OF IT + + +Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his +own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make +amends in! + +'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated +as he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive +within me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for +this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!' + +He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his +broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing +violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with +tears. + +'They are not torn down,' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains +in his arms, 'They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here--I am +here--the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. +They will be. I know they will!' + +His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside +out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making +them parties to every kind of extravagance. + +'I don't know what to do!' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the +same breath, and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. +'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as +a schoolboy, I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to +everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!' + +He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there, +perfectly winded. + +'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!' cried Scrooge, starting +off again, and going round the fireplace. 'There's the door by which the +Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of +Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering +Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!' + +Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was +a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long +line of brilliant laughs! + +'I don't know what day of the month it is,' said Scrooge. 'I don't know +how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite +a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! +Hallo here!' + +He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the +lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong, +bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clash, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! + +Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no +mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood +to dance to; golden sunlight; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry +bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious! + +'What's to-day?' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday +clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. + +'EH?' returned the boy with all his might of wonder. + +'What's to-day, my fine fellow?' said Scrooge. + +'To-day!' replied the boy. 'Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.' + +'It's Christmas Day!' said Scrooge to himself. 'I haven't missed it. The +Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. +Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!' + +'Hallo!' returned the boy. + +'Do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one, at the corner?' +Scrooge inquired. + +'I should hope I did,' replied the lad. + +'An intelligent boy!' said Scrooge. 'A remarkable boy! Do you know +whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there?--Not +the little prize turkey: the big one?' + +'What! the one as big as me?' returned the boy. + +'What a delightful boy!' said Scrooge. 'It's a pleasure to talk to him. +Yes, my buck!' + +'It's hanging there now,' replied the boy. + +'Is it?' said Scrooge. 'Go and buy it.' + +'Walk-ER!' exclaimed the boy. + +'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to +bring it here, that I may give them the directions where to take it. +Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him +in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a-crown!' + +The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger +who could have got a shot off half as fast. + +'I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's,' whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, +and splitting with a laugh. 'He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the +size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to +Bob's will be!' + +The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write +it he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street-door, ready +for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his +arrival, the knocker caught his eye. + +'I shall love it as long as I live!' cried Scrooge, patting it with his +hand. 'I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it +has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!--Here's the turkey. Hallo! +Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!' + +It _was_ a turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. +He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of +sealing-wax. + +'Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' said Scrooge. 'You +must have a cab.' + +The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid +for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the +chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by +the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and +chuckled till he cried. + +Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; +and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are +at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a +piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. + +He dressed himself 'all in his best,' and at last got out into the +streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them +with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walking with his hands behind +him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so +irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured +fellows said, 'Good-morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!' And Scrooge +said often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, +those were the blithest in his ears. + +He had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld the portly +gentleman who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and +said, 'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe?' It sent a pang across his heart +to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but +he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. + +'My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old +gentleman by both his hands, 'how do you do? I hope you succeeded +yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!' + +'Mr. Scrooge?' + +'Yes,' said Scrooge. 'That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant +to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness----' +Here Scrooge whispered in his ear. + +'Lord bless me!' cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. +'My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?' + +'If you please,' said Scrooge. 'Not a farthing less. A great many +back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that +favour?' + +'My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him, 'I don't know +what to say to such munifi----' + +'Don't say anything, please,' retorted Scrooge. 'Come and see me. Will +you come and see me?' + +'I will!' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it. + +'Thankee,' said Scrooge. 'I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty +times. Bless you!' + +He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people +hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned +beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the +windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had +never dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so much +happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's +house. + +He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and +knock. But he made a dash and did it. + +'Is your master at home, my dear?' said Scrooge to the girl. 'Nice girl! +Very.' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Where is he, my love?' said Scrooge. + +'He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you +upstairs, if you please.' + +'Thankee. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand already on the +dining-room lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear.' + +He turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. They were +looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these +young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see +that everything is right. + +'Fred!' said Scrooge. + +Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had +forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the +footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account. + +'Why, bless my soul!' cried Fred, 'who's that?' + +[Illustration: _"It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will +you let me in, Fred?"_] + +'It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, +Fred?' + +Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in +five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. +So did Topper when _he_ came. So did the plump sister when _she_ came. +So did every one when _they_ came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, +wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! + +But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there! If +he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That +was the thing he had set his heart upon. + +And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter +past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. +Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the +tank. + +His hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on +his stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to +overtake nine o'clock. + +'Hallo!' growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could +feign it. 'What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?' + +'I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. 'I _am_ behind my time.' + +'You are!' repeated Scrooge. 'Yes, I think you are. Step this way, sir, +if you please.' + +'It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from the tank. 'It +shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.' + +'Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge. 'I am not going to +stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,' he continued, +leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that +he staggered back into the tank again--'and therefore I am about to +raise your salary!' + +Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary +idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the +people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat. + +'A merry Christmas, Bob!' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could +not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. 'A merrier Christmas, +Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise +your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will +discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of +smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle +before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!' + +[Illustration: _"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I +am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer."_] + +Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; +and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as +good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old +City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old +world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them +laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that +nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did +not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as +these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they +should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less +attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for +him. + +He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the +Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of +him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed +the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as +Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One! + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL *** + + +[Illustration] + ++---------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: The Contents were added by the transcriber.| ++---------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens + + +***** This file should be named 24022-0.txt or 24022-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/0/2/24022/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/David_Copperfield.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/David_Copperfield.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f44724c --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/David_Copperfield.txt @@ -0,0 +1,38573 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: David Copperfield + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: December, 1996 [eBook #766] +[Most recently updated: October 25, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Jo Churcher and David Widger + + + +DAVID COPPERFIELD + + +By Charles Dickens + + + + AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED + TO + THE HON. Mr. AND Mrs. RICHARD WATSON, + OF + ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. + + +CONTENTS + + + I. I Am Born + II. I Observe + III. I Have a Change + IV. I Fall into Disgrace + V. I Am Sent Away + VI. I Enlarge My Circle of Acquaintance + VII. My ‘First Half’ at Salem House + VIII. My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon + IX. I Have a Memorable Birthday + X. I Become Neglected, and Am Provided For + XI. I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don’t Like It + XII. Liking Life on My Own Account No Better, I Form a Great Resolution + XIII. The Sequel of My Resolution + XIV. My Aunt Makes up Her Mind About Me + XV. I Make Another Beginning + XVI. I Am a New Boy in More Senses Than One + XVII. Somebody Turns Up + XVIII. A Retrospect + XIX. I Look About Me and Make a Discovery + XX. Steerforth’s Home + XXI. Little Em’ly + XXII. Some Old Scenes, and Some New People + XXIII. I Corroborate Mr. Dick, and Choose a Profession + XXIV. My First Dissipation + XXV. Good and Bad Angels + XXVI. I Fall into Captivity + XXVII. Tommy Traddles + XXVIII. Mr. Micawber’s Gauntlet + XXIX. I Visit Steerforth at His Home, Again + XXX. A Loss + XXXI. A Greater Loss + XXXII. The Beginning of a Long Journey + XXXIII. Blissful + XXXIV. My Aunt Astonishes Me + XXXV. Depression + XXXVI. Enthusiasm + XXXVII. A Little Cold Water + XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership + XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep + XL. The Wanderer + XLI. Dora’s Aunts + XLII. Mischief + XLIII. Another Retrospect + XLIV. Our Housekeeping + XLV. Mr. Dick Fulfils My Aunt’s Predictions + XLVI. Intelligence + XLVII. Martha + XLVIII. Domestic + XLIX. I Am Involved in Mystery + L. Mr. Peggotty’s Dream Comes True + LI. The Beginning of a Longer Journey + LII. I Assist at an Explosion + LIII. Another Retrospect + LIV. Mr. Micawber’s Transactions + LV. Tempest + LVI. The New Wound, and the Old + LVII. The Emigrants + LVIII. Absence + LIX. Return + LX. Agnes + LXI. I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents + LXII. A Light Shines on My Way + LXIII. A Visitor + LXIV. A Last Retrospect + + + + +PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION + + +I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in +the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the +composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest +in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between +pleasure and regret--pleasure in the achievement of a long design, +regret in the separation from many companions--that I am in danger of +wearying the reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private +emotions. + +Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any purpose, I have +endeavoured to say in it. + +It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully +the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or +how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself +into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain +are going from him for ever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, +indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no +one can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I have +believed it in the writing. + +Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close +this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards +the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month, +and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have +fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy. + + London, + _October_, 1850. + + + + +PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION + + +I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not find it +easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations of +having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal +heading would seem to require. My interest in it was so recent and +strong, and my mind was so divided between pleasure and regret--pleasure +in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many +companions--that I was in danger of wearying the reader with personal +confidences and private emotions. + +Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, I +had endeavoured to say in it. + +It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the +pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how +an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into +the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going +from him for ever. Yet, I had nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I +were to confess (which might be of less moment still), that no one can +ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in +the writing. + +So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only take +the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this the +best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child +of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I +love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a +favourite child. And his name is + +DAVID COPPERFIELD. + + 1869 + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID COPPERFIELD *** + +THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER + + + +CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN + + + +Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that +station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my +life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have +been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. +It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, +simultaneously. + +In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by +the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a +lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility +of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be +unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and +spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to +all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a +Friday night. + +I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show +better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified +by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, +that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still +a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of +having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in +the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it. + +I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the +newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going +people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and +preferred cork jackets, I don’t know; all I know is, that there was but +one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the +bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance +in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher +bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead +loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother’s own sherry was in the +market then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle +down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a +head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I +remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of +myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by +an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it +the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny +short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to +endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will +be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, +but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it +was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the +water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which +she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation +at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go +‘meandering’ about the world. It was in vain to represent to her +that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this +objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and +with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, ‘Let us +have no meandering.’ + +Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth. + +I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or ‘there by’, as they say in +Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon +the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is +something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw +me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have +of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the +churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it +lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour +was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house +were--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and locked +against it. + +An aunt of my father’s, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom +I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our +family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called +her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable +personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married +to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in the +sense of the homely adage, ‘handsome is, that handsome does’--for he +was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having +once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined +arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs’ window. These +evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay him +off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India with +his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was +once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think +it must have been a Baboo--or a Begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his +death reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobody +knew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name +again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, +established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and +was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible +retirement. + +My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she was +mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was ‘a +wax doll’. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not +yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was double +my mother’s age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He +died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came +into the world. + +This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be +excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no +claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to +have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what +follows. + +My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in +spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about +herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by +some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at +all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting +by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and +very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, +when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she +saw a strange lady coming up the garden. + +My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was +Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the +garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity +of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to +nobody else. + +When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. +My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any +ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and +looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against +the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became +perfectly flat and white in a moment. + +She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am +indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday. + +My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in +the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly, +began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen’s Head +in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown +and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to +come and open the door. My mother went. + +‘Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,’ said Miss Betsey; the emphasis +referring, perhaps, to my mother’s mourning weeds, and her condition. + +‘Yes,’ said my mother, faintly. + +‘Miss Trotwood,’ said the visitor. ‘You have heard of her, I dare say?’ + +My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable +consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering +pleasure. + +‘Now you see her,’ said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and begged +her to walk in. + +They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the best +room on the other side of the passage not being lighted--not having +been lighted, indeed, since my father’s funeral; and when they were both +seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to +restrain herself, began to cry. ‘Oh tut, tut, tut!’ said Miss Betsey, in +a hurry. ‘Don’t do that! Come, come!’ + +My mother couldn’t help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had +had her cry out. + +‘Take off your cap, child,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and let me see you.’ + +My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd +request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she +was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was +luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face. + +‘Why, bless my heart!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey. ‘You are a very Baby!’ + +My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her +years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, +sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and +would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which +ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and +that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she +found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands +folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire. + +‘In the name of Heaven,’ said Miss Betsey, suddenly, ‘why Rookery?’ + +‘Do you mean the house, ma’am?’ asked my mother. + +‘Why Rookery?’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Cookery would have been more to the +purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you.’ + +‘The name was Mr. Copperfield’s choice,’ returned my mother. ‘When he +bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it.’ + +The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old +elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss +Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, +like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such +repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if +their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, +some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks’-nests, burdening their higher +branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea. + +‘Where are the birds?’ asked Miss Betsey. + +‘The--?’ My mother had been thinking of something else. + +‘The rooks--what has become of them?’ asked Miss Betsey. + +‘There have not been any since we have lived here,’ said my mother. ‘We +thought--Mr. Copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; but +the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long +while.’ + +‘David Copperfield all over!’ cried Miss Betsey. ‘David Copperfield from +head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there’s not a rook near it, +and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned my mother, ‘is dead, and if you dare to +speak unkindly of him to me--’ + +My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of +committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have +settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better +training for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed +with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again very +meekly, and fainted. + +When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her, +whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The +twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as they +saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the +fire. + +‘Well?’ said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only +been taking a casual look at the prospect; ‘and when do you expect--’ + +‘I am all in a tremble,’ faltered my mother. ‘I don’t know what’s the +matter. I shall die, I am sure!’ + +‘No, no, no,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Have some tea.’ + +‘Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?’ cried my +mother in a helpless manner. + +‘Of course it will,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘It’s nothing but fancy. What do +you call your girl?’ + +‘I don’t know that it will be a girl, yet, ma’am,’ said my mother +innocently. + +‘Bless the Baby!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the +second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but +applying it to my mother instead of me, ‘I don’t mean that. I mean your +servant-girl.’ + +‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. + +‘Peggotty!’ repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. ‘Do you mean to +say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, +and got herself named Peggotty?’ ‘It’s her surname,’ said my mother, +faintly. ‘Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her Christian name +was the same as mine.’ + +‘Here! Peggotty!’ cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlour door. ‘Tea. +Your mistress is a little unwell. Don’t dawdle.’ + +Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been +a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house, +and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the +passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut +the door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the +skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee. + +‘You were speaking about its being a girl,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘I have no +doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. +Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl--’ + +‘Perhaps boy,’ my mother took the liberty of putting in. + +‘I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,’ returned Miss +Betsey. ‘Don’t contradict. From the moment of this girl’s birth, child, +I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her godmother, and I beg +you’ll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes +in life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with HER +affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guarded +from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I +must make that MY care.’ + +There was a twitch of Miss Betsey’s head, after each of these sentences, +as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any +plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, +at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too +much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and +bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what +to say. + +‘And was David good to you, child?’ asked Miss Betsey, when she had been +silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually +ceased. ‘Were you comfortable together?’ + +‘We were very happy,’ said my mother. ‘Mr. Copperfield was only too good +to me.’ + +‘What, he spoilt you, I suppose?’ returned Miss Betsey. + +‘For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world +again, yes, I fear he did indeed,’ sobbed my mother. + +‘Well! Don’t cry!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘You were not equally matched, +child--if any two people can be equally matched--and so I asked the +question. You were an orphan, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes.’ + +‘And a governess?’ + +‘I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to +visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of +notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed +to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married,’ said my mother +simply. + +‘Ha! Poor Baby!’ mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon the +fire. ‘Do you know anything?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ faltered my mother. + +‘About keeping house, for instance,’ said Miss Betsey. + +‘Not much, I fear,’ returned my mother. ‘Not so much as I could wish. +But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me--’ + +[‘Much he knew about it himself!’) said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis. +--‘And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and +he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his death’--my +mother broke down again here, and could get no farther. + +‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. --‘I kept my housekeeping-book +regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night,’ cried my +mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again. + +‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Don’t cry any more.’ --‘And I am +sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr. +Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each +other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines,’ resumed my +mother in another burst, and breaking down again. + +‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and you know that will +not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You mustn’t do +it!’ + +This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her +increasing indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval of +silence, only broken by Miss Betsey’s occasionally ejaculating ‘Ha!’ as +she sat with her feet upon the fender. + +‘David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,’ said +she, by and by. ‘What did he do for you?’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said my mother, answering with some difficulty, ‘was +so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to +me.’ + +‘How much?’ asked Miss Betsey. + +‘A hundred and five pounds a year,’ said my mother. + +‘He might have done worse,’ said my aunt. + +The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse +that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a +glance how ill she was,--as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there +had been light enough,--conveyed her upstairs to her own room with all +speed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been +for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a +special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor. + +Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived +within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of +portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied +over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers’ cotton. Peggotty +knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, +she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having a +magazine of jewellers’ cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article +in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her +presence. + +The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having +satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this +unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some +hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of +his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to +take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, +and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest +depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody +else. It is nothing to say that he hadn’t a word to throw at a dog. He +couldn’t have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one +gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as +he walked; but he wouldn’t have been rude to him, and he couldn’t have +been quick with him, for any earthly consideration. + +Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, and +making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers’ cotton, as +he softly touched his left ear: + +‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’ + +‘What!’ replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork. + +Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness--as he told my mother +afterwards--that it was a mercy he didn’t lose his presence of mind. But +he repeated sweetly: + +‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’ + +‘Nonsense!’ replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow. + +Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, +as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called upstairs again. +After some quarter of an hour’s absence, he returned. + +‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are--we are progressing slowly, +ma’am.’ + +‘Ba--a--ah!’ said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous +interjection. And corked herself as before. + +Really--really--as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked; +speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. +But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, +as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After +another absence, he again returned. + +‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are--we are progressing slowly, +ma’am.’ + +‘Ya--a--ah!’ said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip +absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his +spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, +in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for. + +Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at +his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, +reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour +after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to +and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make +his escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices +overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the +circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on +whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest. +That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had +been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled +his hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confounded +them with her own, and otherwise tousled and maltreated him. This was +in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half past twelve o’clock, +soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was. + +The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if +at any time. He sidled into the parlour as soon as he was at liberty, +and said to my aunt in his meekest manner: + +‘Well, ma’am, I am happy to congratulate you.’ + +‘What upon?’ said my aunt, sharply. + +Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt’s +manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to +mollify her. + +‘Mercy on the man, what’s he doing!’ cried my aunt, impatiently. ‘Can’t +he speak?’ + +‘Be calm, my dear ma’am,’ said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents. + +‘There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma’am. Be calm.’ + +It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn’t shake +him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own +head at him, but in a way that made him quail. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, ‘I am +happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma’am, and well over.’ + +During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery +of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. + +‘How is she?’ said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tied +on one of them. + +‘Well, ma’am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope,’ returned Mr. +Chillip. ‘Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be, +under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any +objection to your seeing her presently, ma’am. It may do her good.’ + +‘And SHE. How is SHE?’ said my aunt, sharply. + +Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my +aunt like an amiable bird. + +‘The baby,’ said my aunt. ‘How is she?’ + +‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘I apprehended you had known. It’s a +boy.’ + +My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the +manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip’s head with it, put it on +bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented +fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly +supposed I was entitled to see; and never came back any more. + +No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey +Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the +tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon +the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such +travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he, +without whom I had never been. + + + +CHAPTER 2. I OBSERVE + + +The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look +far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty +hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so +dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, +and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn’t +peck her in preference to apples. + +I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed +to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going +unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind +which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of +Peggotty’s forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being +roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. + +This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go +farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe +the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite +wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most +grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety +be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the +rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, +and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an +inheritance they have preserved from their childhood. + +I might have a misgiving that I am ‘meandering’ in stopping to say this, +but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part +upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from +anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close +observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I +undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. + +Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first +objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of +things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see. + + +There comes out of the cloud, our house--not new to me, but quite +familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty’s +kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in +the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner, +without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, +walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who +gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as +I look at him through the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, he is so +fierce. Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after +me with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at +night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. + +Here is a long passage--what an enormous perspective I make of +it!--leading from Peggotty’s kitchen to the front door. A dark +store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at +night; for I don’t know what may be among those tubs and jars and old +tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, +letting a mouldy air come out of the door, in which there is the smell +of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. Then +there are the two parlours: the parlour in which we sit of an evening, +my mother and I and Peggotty--for Peggotty is quite our companion, when +her work is done and we are alone--and the best parlour where we sit +on a Sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. There is something of a +doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me--I don’t +know when, but apparently ages ago--about my father’s funeral, and the +company having their black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother +reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was raised up from the +dead. And I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me +out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, +with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon. + +There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of +that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so +quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up, +early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother’s +room, to look out at it; and I see the red light shining on the +sun-dial, and think within myself, ‘Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that +it can tell the time again?’ + +Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window +near it, out of which our house can be seen, and IS seen many times +during the morning’s service, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself +as sure as she can that it’s not being robbed, or is not in flames. But +though Peggotty’s eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, +and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the +clergyman. But I can’t always look at him--I know him without that white +thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps +stopping the service to inquire--and what am I to do? It’s a dreadful +thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she +pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces +at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through +the porch, and there I see a stray sheep--I don’t mean a sinner, but +mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that +if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out +loud; and what would become of me then! I look up at the monumental +tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late of this +parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when +affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in +vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain; +and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from +Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a +good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with +another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet +cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes +gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a +drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat with +a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by Peggotty. + +And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed +bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the +ragged old rooks’-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom +of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the +yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are--a very preserve +of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and +padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than +fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my +mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, bolting furtive +gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. A great wind rises, and the +summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, +dancing about the parlour. When my mother is out of breath and rests +herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round +her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I +do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty. + +That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we +were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most +things to her direction, were among the first opinions--if they may be +so called--that I ever derived from what I saw. + +Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. I +had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very +perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I +remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were +a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but +having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from +spending the evening at a neighbour’s, I would rather have died upon +my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of +sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. +I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked +perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle +she kept for her thread--how old it looked, being so wrinkled in +all directions!--at the little house with a thatched roof, where the +yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of +St. Paul’s Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass +thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so +sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was +gone. + +‘Peggotty,’ says I, suddenly, ‘were you ever married?’ + +‘Lord, Master Davy,’ replied Peggotty. ‘What’s put marriage in your +head?’ + +She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she +stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its +thread’s length. + +‘But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?’ says I. ‘You are a very handsome +woman, an’t you?’ + +I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of +another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There +was a red velvet footstool in the best parlour, on which my mother +had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty’s +complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was +smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference. + +‘Me handsome, Davy!’ said Peggotty. ‘Lawk, no, my dear! But what put +marriage in your head?’ + +‘I don’t know!--You mustn’t marry more than one person at a time, may +you, Peggotty?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ says Peggotty, with the promptest decision. + +‘But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry +another person, mayn’t you, Peggotty?’ + +‘YOU MAY,’ says Peggotty, ‘if you choose, my dear. That’s a matter of +opinion.’ + +‘But what is your opinion, Peggotty?’ said I. + +I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so +curiously at me. + +‘My opinion is,’ said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little +indecision and going on with her work, ‘that I never was married myself, +Master Davy, and that I don’t expect to be. That’s all I know about the +subject.’ + +‘You an’t cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?’ said I, after sitting +quiet for a minute. + +I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite +mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own), +and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it +a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, +whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the +buttons on the back of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting +to the opposite side of the parlour, while she was hugging me. + +‘Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,’ said Peggotty, who +was not quite right in the name yet, ‘for I an’t heard half enough.’ + +I couldn’t quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she +was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those +monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in +the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled +them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on +account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them, +as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in +short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. I did, at least; but I had +my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into +various parts of her face and arms, all the time. + +We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when +the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother, +looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with +beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from +church last Sunday. + +As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and +kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow +than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding +comes, I am sensible, to my aid here. + +‘What does that mean?’ I asked him, over her shoulder. + +He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn’t like him or his deep +voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother’s in +touching me--which it did. I put it away, as well as I could. + +‘Oh, Davy!’ remonstrated my mother. + +‘Dear boy!’ said the gentleman. ‘I cannot wonder at his devotion!’ + +I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother’s face before. She +gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl, +turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her +home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with +his own, she glanced, I thought, at me. + +‘Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,’ said the gentleman, when he had +bent his head--I saw him!--over my mother’s little glove. + +‘Good night!’ said I. + +‘Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!’ said the gentleman, +laughing. ‘Shake hands!’ + +My right hand was in my mother’s left, so I gave him the other. + +‘Why, that’s the Wrong hand, Davy!’ laughed the gentleman. + +My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former +reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he +shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away. + +At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last +look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. + +Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the +fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother, +contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the +fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself. +--‘Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, standing +as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in +her hand. + +‘Much obliged to you, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, in a cheerful +voice, ‘I have had a VERY pleasant evening.’ + +‘A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,’ suggested Peggotty. + +‘A very agreeable change, indeed,’ returned my mother. + +Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and +my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound +asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said. +When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my +mother both in tears, and both talking. + +‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have liked,’ said +Peggotty. ‘That I say, and that I swear!’ + +‘Good Heavens!’ cried my mother, ‘you’ll drive me mad! Was ever any +poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself +the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married, +Peggotty?’ + +‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ‘Then, how can you +dare,’ said my mother--‘you know I don’t mean how can you dare, +Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable +and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I +haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?’ + +‘The more’s the reason,’ returned Peggotty, ‘for saying that it won’t +do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it do. No!’--I thought +Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic +with it. + +‘How can you be so aggravating,’ said my mother, shedding more tears +than before, ‘as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as +if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over +and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities +nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people +are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to +do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or +disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I +dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you’d quite enjoy it.’ + +Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought. + +‘And my dear boy,’ cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which +I was, and caressing me, ‘my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me +that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest +little fellow that ever was!’ + +‘Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,’ said Peggotty. + +‘You did, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You know you did. What else +was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, +when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I +wouldn’t buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed +the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is, +Peggotty. You can’t deny it.’ Then, turning affectionately to me, with +her cheek against mine, ‘Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, +cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, and +Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a great deal better than +mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’ + +At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of +the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite +heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of +wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest creature was +in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless +on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off, +when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the +elbow-chair, and made it up with me. + +We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long +time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found +my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in +her arms, after that, and slept soundly. + +Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, +or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, +I cannot recall. I don’t profess to be clear about dates. But there he +was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too, +to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not +appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked +my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it +for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so +she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would +never, never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a +fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. + +Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always +been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred +to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different +from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves. +Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother’s +wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her +going so often to visit at that neighbour’s; but I couldn’t, to my +satisfaction, make out how it was. + +Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black +whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy +jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child’s +instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make +much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not THE reason that +I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind, +or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to +making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, +that was, as yet, beyond me. + +One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr. +Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined +up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to +see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to +take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride. + +The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the +idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the +garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs +to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone +dismounted, and, with his horse’s bridle drawn over his arm, walked +slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my +mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I +recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I +recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between +them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic +temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong +way, excessively hard. + +Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf +by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I +don’t think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to +sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in +his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to +express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when +it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, +for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him, +I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he +was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and +thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being. +A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication +of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of +the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year +before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and +brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made +me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no +doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too. + +We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars +in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs, +and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and +boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together. + +They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we +came in, and said, ‘Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!’ + +‘Not yet,’ said Mr. Murdstone. + +‘And who’s this shaver?’ said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me. + +‘That’s Davy,’ returned Mr. Murdstone. + +‘Davy who?’ said the gentleman. ‘Jones?’ + +‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Murdstone. + +‘What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield’s encumbrance?’ cried the gentleman. +‘The pretty little widow?’ + +‘Quinion,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘take care, if you please. Somebody’s +sharp.’ + +‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being +curious to know. + +‘Only Brooks of Sheffield,’ said Mr. Murdstone. + +I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for, +at first, I really thought it was I. + +There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr. +Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he +was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some +laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said: + +‘And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the +projected business?’ + +‘Why, I don’t know that Brooks understands much about it at present,’ +replied Mr. Murdstone; ‘but he is not generally favourable, I believe.’ + +There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the +bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when +the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before +I drank it, stand up and say, ‘Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!’ The +toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that +it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite +enjoyed ourselves. + +We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and +looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself +when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came +back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two +gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from +the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since +the coats had first come home from the tailor’s. I must not forget that +we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the +cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work, +when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this +time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very +small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat +on, with ‘Skylark’ in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was +his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn’t a street door +to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr. +Skylark, he said it meant the vessel. + +I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the +two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with +one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was +more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with +something of my own feeling. I remarked that, once or twice when Mr. +Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make +sure of his not being displeased; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the +other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave +him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was +sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed +at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was +his own. + +We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my +mother and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was sent in +to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I +had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said +about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who +talked nonsense--but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as +I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all +acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she +supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way. + +Can I say of her face--altered as I have reason to remember it, perished +as I know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this +instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a +crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it +faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it +fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings +her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have +been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then? + +I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk, +and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the +side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said: + +‘What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can’t believe it.’ + +‘“Bewitching--“’ I began. + +My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me. + +‘It was never bewitching,’ she said, laughing. ‘It never could have been +bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn’t!’ + +‘Yes, it was. “Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield”,’ I repeated stoutly. ‘And, +“pretty.”’ + +‘No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,’ interposed my mother, laying +her fingers on my lips again. + +‘Yes it was. “Pretty little widow.”’ + +‘What foolish, impudent creatures!’ cried my mother, laughing and +covering her face. ‘What ridiculous men! An’t they? Davy dear--’ + +‘Well, Ma.’ + +‘Don’t tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully +angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn’t know.’ + +I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again, +and I soon fell fast asleep. + +It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day +when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am +about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards. + +We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as +before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit +of wax, and the box with St. Paul’s on the lid, and the crocodile book, +when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth +as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which I thought was +merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly: + +‘Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a +fortnight at my brother’s at Yarmouth? Wouldn’t that be a treat?’ + +‘Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?’ I inquired, provisionally. + +‘Oh, what an agreeable man he is!’ cried Peggotty, holding up her hands. +‘Then there’s the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and +the beach; and Am to play with--’ + +Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she +spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar. + +I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would +indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? + +‘Why then I’ll as good as bet a guinea,’ said Peggotty, intent upon my +face, ‘that she’ll let us go. I’ll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever +she comes home. There now!’ + +‘But what’s she to do while we’re away?’ said I, putting my small elbows +on the table to argue the point. ‘She can’t live by herself.’ + +If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of +that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth +darning. + +‘I say! Peggotty! She can’t live by herself, you know.’ + +‘Oh, bless you!’ said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. ‘Don’t +you know? She’s going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs. +Grayper’s going to have a lot of company.’ + +Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost +impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper’s (for it was +that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry +out this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had +expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged +that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid +for. + +The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came +soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid +that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion +of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a +carrier’s cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would +have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night, +and sleep in my hat and boots. + +It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how +eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what +I did leave for ever. + +I am glad to recollect that when the carrier’s cart was at the gate, and +my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for +the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am +glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat +against mine. + +I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother +ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me +once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which +she lifted up her face to mine, and did so. + +As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where +she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was +looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business +it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side, +seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back in the cart +denoted. + +I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this +supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the +boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by +the buttons she would shed. + + + +CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE + + +The carrier’s horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, +and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people +waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he +sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said +he was only troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his +head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, +with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say ‘drove’, but it struck +me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, +for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it +but whistling. + +Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have +lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same +conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always +went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of +which never relaxed; and I could not have believed unless I had heard +her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much. + +We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time +delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places, +that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked +rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great +dull waste that lay across the river; and I could not help wondering, if +the world were really as round as my geography book said, how any +part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that Yarmouth might be +situated at one of the poles; which would account for it. + +As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a +straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so +might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more +separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite +so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But +Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take +things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call +herself a Yarmouth Bloater. + +When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt +the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking +about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I +had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who +heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told me it +was well known (I suppose to those who had the good fortune to be born +Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place in the +universe. + +‘Here’s my Am!’ screamed Peggotty, ‘growed out of knowledge!’ + +He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how I +found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, that +I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house +since the night I was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me. +But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry +me home. He was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in +proportion, and round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy’s face and +curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in +a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they +would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. And you +couldn’t so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in +a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy. + +Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm, +and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes +bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went +past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders’ yards, shipwrights’ yards, +ship-breakers’ yards, caulkers’ yards, riggers’ lofts, smiths’ forges, +and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste +I had already seen at a distance; when Ham said, + +‘Yon’s our house, Mas’r Davy!’ + +I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness, +and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make +out. There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, +not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking +out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the +way of a habitation that was visible to me. + +‘That’s not it?’ said I. ‘That ship-looking thing?’ + +‘That’s it, Mas’r Davy,’ returned Ham. + +If it had been Aladdin’s palace, roc’s egg and all, I suppose I could +not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. There +was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there +were little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that +it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of +times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry land. +That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been meant to be +lived in, I might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but +never having been designed for any such use, it became a perfect abode. + +It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a +table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of +drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a +parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a +hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if +it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers +and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls there were +some common coloured pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects; +such as I have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing +the whole interior of Peggotty’s brother’s house again, at one view. +Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow +cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over +the little mantelshelf, was a picture of the ‘Sarah Jane’ lugger, built +at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it; a work of +art, combining composition with carpentry, which I considered to be one +of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There +were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I did not +divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort, +which served for seats and eked out the chairs. + +All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the +threshold--child-like, according to my theory--and then Peggotty opened +a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most +desirable bedroom ever seen--in the stern of the vessel; with a little +window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, +just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with +oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get +into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls +were whitewashed as white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my +eyes quite ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed +in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching, +that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it +smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this +discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother +dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards found that a +heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one +another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of, +were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and +kettles were kept. + +We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had seen +curtseying at the door when I was on Ham’s back, about a quarter of a +mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so) +with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn’t let me kiss her when I +offered to, but ran away and hid herself. By and by, when we had dined +in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with +a chop for me, a hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As +he called Peggotty ‘Lass’, and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I +had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her +brother; and so he turned out--being presently introduced to me as Mr. +Peggotty, the master of the house. + +‘Glad to see you, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You’ll find us rough, sir, +but you’ll find us ready.’ + +I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a +delightful place. + +‘How’s your Ma, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Did you leave her pretty +jolly?’ + +I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish, +and that she desired her compliments--which was a polite fiction on my +part. + +‘I’m much obleeged to her, I’m sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Well, sir, +if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, ‘long wi’ her,’ nodding at his +sister, ‘and Ham, and little Em’ly, we shall be proud of your company.’ + +Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. +Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking +that ‘cold would never get his muck off’. He soon returned, greatly +improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn’t help +thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and +crawfish,--that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very +red. + +After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights +being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat +that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting +up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat +outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near +but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em’ly +had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and +least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just +fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was +knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needlework +was as much at home with St. Paul’s and the bit of wax-candle, as if +they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my +first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling +fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of +his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. +I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence. + +‘Mr. Peggotty!’ says I. + +‘Sir,’ says he. + +‘Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of +ark?’ + +Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: + +‘No, sir. I never giv him no name.’ + +‘Who gave him that name, then?’ said I, putting question number two of +the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Why, sir, his father giv it him,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘I thought you were his father!’ + +‘My brother Joe was his father,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after a respectful pause. + +‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham’s father, and +began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody +else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it +out with Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Little Em’ly,’ I said, glancing at her. ‘She is your daughter, isn’t +she, Mr. Peggotty?’ + +‘No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father.’ + +I couldn’t help it. ‘--Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after another +respectful silence. + +‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the +bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said: + +‘Haven’t you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty?’ + +‘No, master,’ he answered with a short laugh. ‘I’m a bacheldore.’ + +‘A bachelor!’ I said, astonished. ‘Why, who’s that, Mr. Peggotty?’ +pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. + +‘That’s Missis Gummidge,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?’ + +But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own peculiar Peggotty--made such +impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could +only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to +bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that +Ham and Em’ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had +at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left +destitute: and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in +a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said +Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel--those were her +similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a +violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it +were ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy +blow with his right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore +a dreadful oath that he would be ‘Gormed’ if he didn’t cut and run +for good, if it was ever mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to +my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this +terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as +constituting a most solemn imprecation. + +I was very sensible of my entertainer’s goodness, and listened to the +women’s going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite +end of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for +themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious +state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole +upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the +flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep +rising in the night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat, after +all; and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on +board if anything did happen. + +Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it +shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out +with little Em’ly, picking up stones upon the beach. + +‘You’re quite a sailor, I suppose?’ I said to Em’ly. I don’t know that I +supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to +say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little +image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my +head to say this. + +‘No,’ replied Em’ly, shaking her head, ‘I’m afraid of the sea.’ + +‘Afraid!’ I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big +at the mighty ocean. ‘I an’t!’ + +‘Ah! but it’s cruel,’ said Em’ly. ‘I have seen it very cruel to some of +our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces.’ + +‘I hope it wasn’t the boat that--’ + +‘That father was drownded in?’ said Em’ly. ‘No. Not that one, I never +see that boat.’ + +‘Nor him?’ I asked her. + +Little Em’ly shook her head. ‘Not to remember!’ + +Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how I had +never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived +by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and +always meant to live so; and how my father’s grave was in the churchyard +near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had +walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But there were +some differences between Em’ly’s orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She +had lost her mother before her father; and where her father’s grave was +no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. + +‘Besides,’ said Em’ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, ‘your +father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a +fisherman and my mother was a fisherman’s daughter, and my uncle Dan is +a fisherman.’ + +‘Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?’ said I. + +‘Uncle Dan--yonder,’ answered Em’ly, nodding at the boat-house. + +‘Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think?’ + +‘Good?’ said Em’ly. ‘If I was ever to be a lady, I’d give him a sky-blue +coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a +cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money.’ + +I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures. +I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his +ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and +that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I +kept these sentiments to myself. + +Little Em’ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration +of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again, +picking up shells and pebbles. + +‘You would like to be a lady?’ I said. + +Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded ‘yes’. + +‘I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then. +Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn’t mind then, when +there comes stormy weather.---Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would +for the poor fishermen’s, to be sure, and we’d help ‘em with money when +they come to any hurt.’ This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and +therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the +contemplation of it, and little Em’ly was emboldened to say, shyly, + +‘Don’t you think you are afraid of the sea, now?’ + +It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a +moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels, +with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. However, I said +‘No,’ and I added, ‘You don’t seem to be either, though you say you +are,’--for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old +jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of her +falling over. + +‘I’m not afraid in this way,’ said little Em’ly. ‘But I wake when it +blows, and tremble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham and believe I hear ‘em +crying out for help. That’s why I should like so much to be a lady. But +I’m not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look here!’ + +She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which protruded +from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at some +height, without the least defence. The incident is so impressed on my +remembrance, that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form here, +I dare say, accurately as it was that day, and little Em’ly springing +forward to her destruction (as it appeared to me), with a look that I +have never forgotten, directed far out to sea. + +The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe +to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered; +fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been +times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have +thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that +in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there +was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards +him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have +a chance of ending that day? There has been a time since when I have +wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me +at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, +and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I +ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time since--I do +not say it lasted long, but it has been--when I have asked myself the +question, would it have been better for little Em’ly to have had the +waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I have +answered Yes, it would have been. + +This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But let it +stand. + +We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we thought +curious, and put some stranded starfish carefully back into the water--I +hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain +whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the +reverse--and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty’s dwelling. We +stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent +kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure. + +‘Like two young mavishes,’ Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, in our +local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment. + +Of course I was in love with little Em’ly. I am sure I loved that +baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more +disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time +of life, high and ennobling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up +something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealized, +and made a very angel of her. If, any sunny forenoon, she had spread +a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes, I don’t think I +should have regarded it as much more than I had had reason to expect. + +We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner, +hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up +himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told Em’ly +I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me I should be +reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she +did, and I have no doubt she did. + +As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty +in our way, little Em’ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no +future. We made no more provision for growing older, than we did for +growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty, +who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little +locker side by side, ‘Lor! wasn’t it beautiful!’ Mr. Peggotty smiled at +us from behind his pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing +else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that +they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum. + +I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so +agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances +of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful +disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for +other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for +her; but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, I +thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to +retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived. + +Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing +Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening +of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge’s looking up at the Dutch clock, +between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was +more, she had known in the morning he would go there. + +Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears +in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. ‘I am a lone lorn creetur’,’ were +Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, ‘and +everythink goes contrary with me.’ + +‘Oh, it’ll soon leave off,’ said Peggotty--I again mean our +Peggotty--‘and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than +to us.’ + +‘I feel it more,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. + +It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge’s +peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and +snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it +didn’t suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the +cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called +‘the creeps’. At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again +that she was ‘a lone lorn creetur’ and everythink went contrary with +her’. + +‘It is certainly very cold,’ said Peggotty. ‘Everybody must feel it so.’ + +‘I feel it more than other people,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. + +So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me, +to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. The +fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all +acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment; but Mrs. +Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and +made that former declaration with great bitterness. + +Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o’clock, this +unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched +and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had +been patching up a great pair of waterboots; and I, with little Em’ly +by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any +other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since +tea. + +‘Well, Mates,’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, ‘and how are you?’ + +We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs. +Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. + +‘What’s amiss?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. ‘Cheer up, +old Mawther!’ (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.) + +Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old +black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it +in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out, +ready for use. + +‘What’s amiss, dame?’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Nothing,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘You’ve come from The Willing Mind, +Dan’l?’ + +‘Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind tonight,’ said Mr. +Peggotty. + +‘I’m sorry I should drive you there,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. + +‘Drive! I don’t want no driving,’ returned Mr. Peggotty with an honest +laugh. ‘I only go too ready.’ + +‘Very ready,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. +‘Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that you’re +so ready.’ + +‘Along o’ you! It an’t along o’ you!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Don’t ye +believe a bit on it.’ + +‘Yes, yes, it is,’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I know what I am. I know that I +am a lone lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes contrary with +me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than +other people do, and I show it more. It’s my misfortun’.’ + +I really couldn’t help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the +misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. +Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with +another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. + +‘I an’t what I could wish myself to be,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I am far +from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. I feel my +troubles, and they make me contrary. I wish I didn’t feel ‘em, but I +do. I wish I could be hardened to ‘em, but I an’t. I make the house +uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. I’ve made your sister so all day, +and Master Davy.’ + +Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, ‘No, you haven’t, Mrs. +Gummidge,’ in great mental distress. + +‘It’s far from right that I should do it,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘It an’t +a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone lorn +creetur’, and had much better not make myself contrary here. If thinks +must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary myself, let me go +contrary in my parish. Dan’l, I’d better go into the house, and die and +be a riddance!’ + +Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. When +she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling +but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head +with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, +said in a whisper: + +‘She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’ + +I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed to +have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained +that it was the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother always took that +for a received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving +effect upon him. Some time after he was in his hammock that night, I +heard him myself repeat to Ham, ‘Poor thing! She’s been thinking of the +old ‘un!’ And whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner +during the remainder of our stay (which happened some few times), he +always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and +always with the tenderest commiseration. + +So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of +the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty’s times of going out and coming in, +and altered Ham’s engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, he +sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once +or twice he took us for a row. I don’t know why one slight set of +impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than +another, though I believe this obtains with most people, in reference +especially to the associations of their childhood. I never hear the +name, or read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain +Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em’ly +leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and +the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing +us the ships, like their own shadows. + +At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation +from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving +little Em’ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where +the carrier put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I +redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in +which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let.) +We were greatly overcome at parting; and if ever, in my life, I have had +a void made in my heart, I had one made that day. + +Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my +home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no +sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed +to point that way with a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the +sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my +comforter and friend. + +This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, the +more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was +to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing +in those transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and +looked confused and out of sorts. + +Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the +carrier’s horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold +grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! + +The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my +pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange +servant. + +‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t she come home?’ + +‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty. ‘She’s come home. Wait a bit, +Master Davy, and I’ll--I’ll tell you something.’ + +Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the +cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but +I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she +took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the +door. + +‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!’ she answered, +assuming an air of sprightliness. + +‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s mama?’ + +‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated Peggotty. + +‘Yes. Why hasn’t she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here +for? Oh, Peggotty!’ My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going to +tumble down. + +‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. ‘What is +it? Speak, my pet!’ + +‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’ + +Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat +down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn. + +I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn +in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in +anxious inquiry. + +‘You see, dear, I should have told you before now,’ said Peggotty, +‘but I hadn’t an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but +I couldn’t azackly’--that was always the substitute for exactly, in +Peggotty’s militia of words--‘bring my mind to it.’ + +‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened than before. + +‘Master Davy,’ said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand, +and speaking in a breathless sort of way. ‘What do you think? You have +got a Pa!’ + +I trembled, and turned white. Something--I don’t know what, or +how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the +dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. + +‘A new one,’ said Peggotty. + +‘A new one?’ I repeated. + +Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very +hard, and, putting out her hand, said: + +‘Come and see him.’ + +‘I don’t want to see him.’ --‘And your mama,’ said Peggotty. + +I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where +she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr. +Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly +I thought. + +‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control yourself, +always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’ + +I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my +mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down +again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him, +I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I turned to the +window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their +heads in the cold. + +As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was +changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find +anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into +the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel +was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like +Him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprang out to get at +me. + + + +CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE + + +If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could +give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now, +I wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it. +I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way +while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the +room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed, +and thought. + +I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the +cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in +the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the +washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a discontented +something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the +influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but, except that I +was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never thought +why I cried. At last in my desolation I began to consider that I was +dreadfully in love with little Em’ly, and had been torn away from her to +come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as +much as she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of +it, that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried +myself to sleep. + +I was awoke by somebody saying ‘Here he is!’ and uncovering my hot head. +My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them +who had done it. + +‘Davy,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered, +‘Nothing.’ I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling +lip, which answered her with greater truth. ‘Davy,’ said my mother. +‘Davy, my child!’ + +I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me +so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the +bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have +raised me up. + +‘This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!’ said my mother. ‘I have +no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your conscience, +I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody who is +dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty?’ + +Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a +sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, ‘Lord +forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, +may you never be truly sorry!’ + +‘It’s enough to distract me,’ cried my mother. ‘In my honeymoon, too, +when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not +envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy! +Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!’ cried my mother, turning +from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, ‘what a +troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to +be as agreeable as possible!’ + +I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peggotty’s, +and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone’s hand, and +he kept it on my arm as he said: + +‘What’s this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten?--Firmness, my dear!’ + +‘I am very sorry, Edward,’ said my mother. ‘I meant to be very good, but +I am so uncomfortable.’ + +‘Indeed!’ he answered. ‘That’s a bad hearing, so soon, Clara.’ + +‘I say it’s very hard I should be made so now,’ returned my mother, +pouting; ‘and it is--very hard--isn’t it?’ + +He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as +well, when I saw my mother’s head lean down upon his shoulder, and her +arm touch his neck--I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature +into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it. + +‘Go you below, my love,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘David and I will come +down, together. My friend,’ turning a darkening face on Peggotty, when +he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile; +‘do you know your mistress’s name?’ + +‘She has been my mistress a long time, sir,’ answered Peggotty, ‘I ought +to know it.’ ‘That’s true,’ he answered. ‘But I thought I heard you, as +I came upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken +mine, you know. Will you remember that?’ + +Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the +room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go, +and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut +the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him, +looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily, +to his. As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again +to hear my heart beat fast and high. + +‘David,’ he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, ‘if I +have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘I beat him.’ + +I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my +silence, that my breath was shorter now. + +‘I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, “I’ll conquer that +fellow”; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do +it. What is that upon your face?’ + +‘Dirt,’ I said. + +He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the +question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby +heart would have burst before I would have told him so. + +‘You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,’ he said, +with a grave smile that belonged to him, ‘and you understood me very +well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.’ + +He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs. +Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had +little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked +me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated. + +‘Clara, my dear,’ he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me +into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; ‘you will not be made +uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful +humours.’ + +God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have +been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that +season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish +ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might +have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my +hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate +him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so +scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she +followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some +freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time +for it was gone. + +We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my +mother--I am afraid I liked him none the better for that--and she was +very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister +of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that +evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that, +without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in, +or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant’s house +in London, with which his family had been connected from his +great-grandfather’s time, and in which his sister had a similar +interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no. + +After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an +escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest +it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the +garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed +him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlour +door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to +do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did +this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, +putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near +to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew +hers through his arm. + +It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she +was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and +voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, +as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, +she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two +uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard +brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard +steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung +upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at +that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. + +She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there +formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. Then she +looked at me, and said: + +‘Is that your boy, sister-in-law?’ + +My mother acknowledged me. + +‘Generally speaking,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I don’t like boys. How d’ye +do, boy?’ + +Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well, +and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that +Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words: + +‘Wants manner!’ + +Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of +being shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place +of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or +known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when +she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss +Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon +the looking-glass in formidable array. + +As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention +of ever going again. She began to ‘help’ my mother next morning, and was +in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and +making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing +I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by +a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the +premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the +coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the +door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that +she had got him. + +Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a +perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe +to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was +stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one +eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it myself +after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn’t be done. + +On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her +bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going +to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, +which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said: + +‘Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all +the trouble I can. You’re much too pretty and thoughtless’--my mother +blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character--‘to have +any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you’ll be +so good as give me your keys, my dear, I’ll attend to all this sort of +thing in future.’ + +From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all +day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do +with them than I had. + +My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow +of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain +household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation, +my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might have +been consulted. + +‘Clara!’ said Mr. Murdstone sternly. ‘Clara! I wonder at you.’ + +‘Oh, it’s very well to say you wonder, Edward!’ cried my mother, ‘and +it’s very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn’t like it +yourself.’ + +Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and +Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed +my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I +nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another +name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil’s humour, +that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. +Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr. +Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody +was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. +She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and +tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be firm, +and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing +there was no other firmness upon earth. + +‘It’s very hard,’ said my mother, ‘that in my own house--’ + +‘My own house?’ repeated Mr. Murdstone. ‘Clara!’ + +‘OUR own house, I mean,’ faltered my mother, evidently frightened--‘I +hope you must know what I mean, Edward--it’s very hard that in YOUR own +house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters. I am sure +I managed very well before we were married. There’s evidence,’ said my +mother, sobbing; ‘ask Peggotty if I didn’t do very well when I wasn’t +interfered with!’ + +‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘let there be an end of this. I go +tomorrow.’ + +‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘be silent! How dare you to +insinuate that you don’t know my character better than your words +imply?’ + +‘I am sure,’ my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and +with many tears, ‘I don’t want anybody to go. I should be very +miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don’t ask much. I am not +unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much +obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a +mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a +little inexperienced and girlish, Edward--I am sure you said so--but you +seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe.’ + +‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, again, ‘let there be an end of this. I go +tomorrow.’ + +‘Jane Murdstone,’ thundered Mr. Murdstone. ‘Will you be silent? How dare +you?’ + +Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held +it before her eyes. + +‘Clara,’ he continued, looking at my mother, ‘you surprise me! You +astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying +an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and +infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which +it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my +assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition +something like a housekeeper’s, and when she meets with a base return--’ + +‘Oh, pray, pray, Edward,’ cried my mother, ‘don’t accuse me of being +ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was +before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don’t, my dear!’ + +‘When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,’ he went on, after waiting until my +mother was silent, ‘with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled +and altered.’ + +‘Don’t, my love, say that!’ implored my mother very piteously. +‘Oh, don’t, Edward! I can’t bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am +affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn’t say it, if I +wasn’t sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she’ll tell you I’m +affectionate.’ + +‘There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone in +reply, ‘that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.’ + +‘Pray let us be friends,’ said my mother, ‘I couldn’t live under +coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I +know, and it’s very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to +endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don’t object to anything. I +should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving--’ My mother +was too much overcome to go on. + +‘Jane Murdstone,’ said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, ‘any harsh words +between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an +occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into it by another. +Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us both +try to forget it. And as this,’ he added, after these magnanimous words, +‘is not a fit scene for the boy--David, go to bed!’ + +I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. +I was so sorry for my mother’s distress; but I groped my way out, and +groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart +to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her +coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said +that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone +were sitting alone. + +Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the +parlour door, on hearing my mother’s voice. She was very earnestly and +humbly entreating Miss Murdstone’s pardon, which that lady granted, and +a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards +to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing to Miss +Murdstone, or without having first ascertained by some sure means, what +Miss Murdstone’s opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out +of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as +if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my +mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. + +The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone +religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since, +that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr. +Murdstone’s firmness, which wouldn’t allow him to let anybody off from +the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse +for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with +which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again, +the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like +a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone, +in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, +follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no +Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone +mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel +relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says +‘miserable sinners’, as if she were calling all the congregation names. +Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly +between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low +thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that +our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, +and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I +move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with +her prayer-book, and makes my side ache. + +Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my +mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, +and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if +my mother’s step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the +gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder +whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to +walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the +dreary dismal day. + +There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school. +Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course +agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. +In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those +lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by +Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them +a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled +firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept +at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing +enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly +remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look +upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their +shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present +themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no +feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked +along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been +cheered by the gentleness of my mother’s voice and manner all the +way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the +death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They +were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible, +some of them, to me--and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I +believe my poor mother was herself. + +Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again. + +I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books, +and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her +writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair +by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss +Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight +of these two has such an influence over me, that I begin to feel the +words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding +away, and going I don’t know where. I wonder where they do go, by the +by? + +I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a +history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give +it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have +got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip +over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over +half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book +if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly: + +‘Oh, Davy, Davy!’ + +‘Now, Clara,’ says Mr. Murdstone, ‘be firm with the boy. Don’t say, “Oh, +Davy, Davy!” That’s childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know +it.’ + +‘He does NOT know it,’ Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. + +‘I am really afraid he does not,’ says my mother. + +‘Then, you see, Clara,’ returns Miss Murdstone, ‘you should just give +him the book back, and make him know it.’ + +‘Yes, certainly,’ says my mother; ‘that is what I intend to do, my dear +Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don’t be stupid.’ + +I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am +not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down +before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before, +and stop to think. But I can’t think about the lesson. I think of the +number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone’s cap, or of the price of Mr. +Murdstone’s dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have +no business with, and don’t want to have anything at all to do with. Mr. +Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting +for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances +submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be +worked out when my other tasks are done. + +There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling +snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so +hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that +I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The +despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder +on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable +lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries +to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss +Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says +in a deep warning voice: + +‘Clara!’ + +My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out +of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, +and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. + +Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape +of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally +by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, ‘If I go into a cheesemonger’s shop, and +buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, +present payment’--at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. +I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until +dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt +of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help +me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of +the evening. + +It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies +generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been +without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was +like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when +I did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not +much gained but dinner; for Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me +untasked, and if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her +brother’s attention to me by saying, ‘Clara, my dear, there’s nothing +like work--give your boy an exercise’; which caused me to be clapped +down to some new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other +children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology +of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers +(though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and +held that they contaminated one another. + +The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six +months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not +made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and +alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied +but for one circumstance. + +It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little +room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which +nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, +Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the +Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came +out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and +my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the Arabian +Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,--and did me no harm; for whatever +harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It +is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings +and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It +is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my +small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my +favourite characters in them--as I did--and by putting Mr. and Miss +Murdstone into all the bad ones--which I did too. I have been Tom Jones +(a child’s Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have +sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I +verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and +Travels--I forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days +and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, +armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees--the perfect +realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of +being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. +The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the +Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in +despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or +alive. + +This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the +picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play +in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. +Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every +foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, +connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in +them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have +watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself +upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club +with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse. + +The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came to +that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again. + +One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my +mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone +binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, +which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the +air. + +‘I tell you, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘I have been often flogged +myself.’ + +‘To be sure; of course,’ said Miss Murdstone. + +‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, meekly. ‘But--but do you +think it did Edward good?’ + +‘Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?’ asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely. + +‘That’s the point,’ said his sister. + +To this my mother returned, ‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ and said no more. + +I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue, +and sought Mr. Murdstone’s eye as it lighted on mine. + +‘Now, David,’ he said--and I saw that cast again as he said it--‘you +must be far more careful today than usual.’ He gave the cane another +poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, +laid it down beside him, with an impressive look, and took up his book. + +This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt +the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, +but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, +if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me +with a smoothness there was no checking. + +We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of +distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared; +but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to +the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the +time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he +made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying. + +‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice. + +‘I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,’ said my mother. + +I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up +the cane: + +‘Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness, +the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today. That would be +stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly +expect so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy.’ + +As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone +said, ‘Clara! are you a perfect fool?’ and interfered. I saw my mother +stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. + +He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--I am certain he had a +delight in that formal parade of executing justice--and when we got +there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. + +‘Mr. Murdstone! Sir!’ I cried to him. ‘Don’t! Pray don’t beat me! I have +tried to learn, sir, but I can’t learn while you and Miss Murdstone are +by. I can’t indeed!’ + +‘Can’t you, indeed, David?’ he said. ‘We’ll try that.’ + +He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped +him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only a moment +that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in +the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, +between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think +of it. + +He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the +noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--I +heard my mother crying out--and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the +door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and +sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. + +How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness +seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my +smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel! + +I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled +up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and +ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and +made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I +felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious +criminal, I dare say. + +It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, +for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, +and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone +came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the +table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, +and then retired, locking the door after her. + +Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would +come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and +went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done +to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I +should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? Whether I was at all +in danger of being hanged? + +I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and +fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale +and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before +I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in +the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door +open, that I might avail myself of that permission. + +I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five +days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on +my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss +Murdstone excepted, during the whole time--except at evening prayers in +the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody +else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by +myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer, +before any one arose from the devotional posture. I only observed that +my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face +another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone’s hand was +bound up in a large linen wrapper. + +The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They +occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened +to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me; +the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring +of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or +singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in +my solitude and disgrace--the uncertain pace of the hours, especially +at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the +family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of night had +yet to come--the depressed dreams and nightmares I had--the return of +day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, +and I watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to +show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner--the +strange sensation of never hearing myself speak--the fleeting intervals +of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking, +and went away with it--the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh +smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church, +until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, and fear, and +remorse--all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead +of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the +last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken +in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, +said: + +‘Is that you, Peggotty?’ + +There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a +tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into +a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the +keyhole. + +I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole, +whispered: ‘Is that you, Peggotty dear?’ + +‘Yes, my own precious Davy,’ she replied. ‘Be as soft as a mouse, or the +Cat’ll hear us.’ + +I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the +urgency of the case; her room being close by. + +‘How’s mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?’ + +I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was +doing on mine, before she answered. ‘No. Not very.’ + +‘What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?’ + +‘School. Near London,’ was Peggotty’s answer. I was obliged to get her +to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat, +in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the +keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good +deal, I didn’t hear them. + +‘When, Peggotty?’ + +‘Tomorrow.’ + +‘Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my +drawers?’ which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it. + +‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Box.’ + +‘Shan’t I see mama?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Morning.’ + +Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these +words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole +has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: +shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of +its own. + +‘Davy, dear. If I ain’t been azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I +used to be. It ain’t because I don’t love you. Just as well and more, my +pretty poppet. It’s because I thought it better for you. And for someone +else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear?’ + +‘Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!’ I sobbed. + +‘My own!’ said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. ‘What I want to say, +is. That you must never forget me. For I’ll never forget you. And I’ll +take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I won’t +leave her. The day may come when she’ll be glad to lay her poor head. +On her stupid, cross old Peggotty’s arm again. And I’ll write to you, +my dear. Though I ain’t no scholar. And I’ll--I’ll--’ Peggotty fell to +kissing the keyhole, as she couldn’t kiss me. + +‘Thank you, dear Peggotty!’ said I. ‘Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you +promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and +little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they +might suppose, and that I sent ‘em all my love--especially to little +Em’ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?’ + +The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the +greatest affection--I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had +been her honest face--and parted. From that night there grew up in my +breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She did +not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy +in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her something +I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical +affection, too; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should +have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been +to me. + +In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going +to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She +also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come downstairs into +the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale +and with red eyes: into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my +suffering soul. + +‘Oh, Davy!’ she said. ‘That you could hurt anyone I love! Try to be +better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy, +that you should have such bad passions in your heart.’ + +They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more +sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat +my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, +and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then +glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and than look down, or look away. + +‘Master Copperfield’s box there!’ said Miss Murdstone, when wheels were +heard at the gate. + +I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone +appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door. The box +was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. + +‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note. + +‘Ready, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother. ‘Good-bye, Davy. You are +going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come home in the +holidays, and be a better boy.’ + +‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated. + +‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ replied my mother, who was holding me. ‘I +forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!’ + +‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated. + +Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on +the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and +then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. + + + +CHAPTER 5. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME + + +We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was +quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out to +ascertain for what, I saw, to My amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge +and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and squeezed me +to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though +I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very tender. Not +a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing one of her arms, she put +it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper bags of +cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into +my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze +with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief +is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I +picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a +keepsake for a long time. + +The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. I +shook my head, and said I thought not. ‘Then come up,’ said the carrier +to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly. + +Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think +it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, +nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I +could remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this +resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon +the horse’s back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly +small it looked, under those circumstances. + +I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse, +with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had +evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its +most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit +of paper, on which was written, in my mother’s hand, ‘For Davy. With my +love.’ I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good +as to reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I +had better do without it, and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes +on my sleeve and stopped myself. + +For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was +still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for +some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way. + +‘All the way where?’ inquired the carrier. + +‘There,’ I said. + +‘Where’s there?’ inquired the carrier. + +‘Near London,’ I said. + +‘Why that horse,’ said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, +‘would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.’ + +‘Are you only going to Yarmouth then?’ I asked. + +‘That’s about it,’ said the carrier. ‘And there I shall take you to the +stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you to--wherever it is.’ + +As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) +to say--he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic +temperament, and not at all conversational--I offered him a cake as a +mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, +and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have +done on an elephant’s. + +‘Did SHE make ‘em, now?’ said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his +slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee. + +‘Peggotty, do you mean, sir?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Her.’ + +‘Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.’ + +‘Do she though?’ said Mr. Barkis. He made up his mouth as if to whistle, +but he didn’t whistle. He sat looking at the horse’s ears, as if he saw +something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By and by, he +said: + +‘No sweethearts, I b’lieve?’ + +‘Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?’ For I thought he wanted +something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of +refreshment. + +‘Hearts,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Sweet hearts; no person walks with her!’ + +‘With Peggotty?’ + +‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Her.’ + +‘Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.’ + +‘Didn’t she, though!’ said Mr. Barkis. + +Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but +sat looking at the horse’s ears. + +‘So she makes,’ said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, +‘all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?’ + +I replied that such was the fact. + +‘Well. I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘P’raps you might be +writin’ to her?’ + +‘I shall certainly write to her,’ I rejoined. + +‘Ah!’ he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. ‘Well! If you was +writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’; +would you?’ + +‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated, innocently. ‘Is that all the +message?’ + +‘Ye-es,’ he said, considering. ‘Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.’ + +‘But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, +faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, and +could give your own message so much better.’ + +As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, +and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound +gravity, ‘Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,’ I readily undertook +its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel +at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and +an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: ‘My dear +Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. +Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he particularly wants you to +know--BARKIS IS WILLING.’ + +When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis +relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that +had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I +slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new +and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once +abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mr. Peggotty’s +family there, perhaps even with little Em’ly herself. + +The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any +horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was +more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and +wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had +put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up the yard +to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, when a +lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat were +hanging up, and said: + +‘Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. + +‘What name?’ inquired the lady. + +‘Copperfield, ma’am,’ I said. + +‘That won’t do,’ returned the lady. ‘Nobody’s dinner is paid for here, +in that name.’ + +‘Is it Murdstone, ma’am?’ I said. + +‘If you’re Master Murdstone,’ said the lady, ‘why do you go and give +another name, first?’ + +I explained to the lady how it was, who than rang a bell, and called +out, ‘William! show the coffee-room!’ upon which a waiter came running +out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed +a good deal surprised when he was only to show it to me. + +It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I could +have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and +I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to +sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the +door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set +of castors on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty. + +He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in +such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some +offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at +the table, and saying, very affably, ‘Now, six-foot! come on!’ + +I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely +difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, +or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing +opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful +manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second +chop, he said: + +‘There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?’ + +I thanked him and said, ‘Yes.’ Upon which he poured it out of a jug +into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look +beautiful. + +‘My eye!’ he said. ‘It seems a good deal, don’t it?’ + +‘It does seem a good deal,’ I answered with a smile. For it was quite +delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, +pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and +as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with +the other hand, he looked quite friendly. + +‘There was a gentleman here, yesterday,’ he said--‘a stout gentleman, by +the name of Topsawyer--perhaps you know him?’ + +‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think--’ + +‘In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled +choker,’ said the waiter. + +‘No,’ I said bashfully, ‘I haven’t the pleasure--’ + +‘He came in here,’ said the waiter, looking at the light through the +tumbler, ‘ordered a glass of this ale--WOULD order it--I told him +not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn’t to be +drawn; that’s the fact.’ + +I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I +thought I had better have some water. + +‘Why you see,’ said the waiter, still looking at the light through the +tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, ‘our people don’t like things +being ordered and left. It offends ‘em. But I’ll drink it, if you like. +I’m used to it, and use is everything. I don’t think it’ll hurt me, if I +throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I?’ + +I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought +he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his +head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible fear, I confess, +of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall +lifeless on the carpet. But it didn’t hurt him. On the contrary, I +thought he seemed the fresher for it. + +‘What have we got here?’ he said, putting a fork into my dish. ‘Not +chops?’ + +‘Chops,’ I said. + +‘Lord bless my soul!’ he exclaimed, ‘I didn’t know they were chops. Why, +a chop’s the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! Ain’t +it lucky?’ + +So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, +and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. +He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that, +another chop and another potato. When we had done, he brought me a +pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become +absent in his mind for some moments. + +‘How’s the pie?’ he said, rousing himself. + +‘It’s a pudding,’ I made answer. + +‘Pudding!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, bless me, so it is! What!’ looking at it +nearer. ‘You don’t mean to say it’s a batter-pudding!’ + +‘Yes, it is indeed.’ + +‘Why, a batter-pudding,’ he said, taking up a table-spoon, ‘is my +favourite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little ‘un, and let’s see +who’ll get most.’ + +The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in +and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his dispatch to +my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at +the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw anyone enjoy +a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if +his enjoyment of it lasted still. + +Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I asked +for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not only brought +it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the +letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to school. + +I said, ‘Near London,’ which was all I knew. + +‘Oh! my eye!’ he said, looking very low-spirited, ‘I am sorry for that.’ + +‘Why?’ I asked him. + +‘Oh, Lord!’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s the school where they +broke the boy’s ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he +was--let me see--how old are you, about?’ + +I told him between eight and nine. + +‘That’s just his age,’ he said. ‘He was eight years and six months old +when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when +they broke his second, and did for him.’ + +I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an +uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His answer was +not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, ‘With +whopping.’ + +The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, +which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the mingled pride and +diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there +were anything to pay. + +‘There’s a sheet of letter-paper,’ he returned. ‘Did you ever buy a +sheet of letter-paper?’ + +I could not remember that I ever had. + +‘It’s dear,’ he said, ‘on account of the duty. Threepence. That’s +the way we’re taxed in this country. There’s nothing else, except the +waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by that.’ + +‘What should you--what should I--how much ought I to--what would it be +right to pay the waiter, if you please?’ I stammered, blushing. + +‘If I hadn’t a family, and that family hadn’t the cowpock,’ said the +waiter, ‘I wouldn’t take a sixpence. If I didn’t support a aged pairint, +and a lovely sister,’--here the waiter was greatly agitated--‘I wouldn’t +take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I +should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live +on broken wittles--and I sleep on the coals’--here the waiter burst into +tears. + +I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any +recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of +heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he +received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, +directly afterwards, to try the goodness of. + +It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped +up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner +without any assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in +the bow-window say to the guard, ‘Take care of that child, George, or +he’ll burst!’ and from observing that the women-servants who were about +the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My +unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did +not appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration +without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose +this half awakened it; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple +confidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior +years (qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change +for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, even +then. + +I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving it, the +subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing +heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater +expediency of my travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed appetite +getting wind among the outside passengers, they were merry upon it +likewise; and asked me whether I was going to be paid for, at school, +as two brothers or three, and whether I was contracted for, or went upon +the regular terms; with other pleasant questions. But the worst of +it was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything, when an +opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, I should +remain hungry all night--for I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, +in my hurry. My apprehensions were realized. When we stopped for supper +I couldn’t muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it +very much, but sat by the fire and said I didn’t want anything. This did +not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with +a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the +way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like +a boa-constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time; +after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled +beef. + +We had started from Yarmouth at three o’clock in the afternoon, and we +were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer weather, +and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I +pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what +the inhabitants were about; and when boys came running after us, and +got up behind and swung there for a little way, I wondered whether their +fathers were alive, and whether they were happy at home. I had plenty to +think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind +of place I was going to--which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I +remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to +endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and +what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I +couldn’t satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him +in such a remote antiquity. + +The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and +being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to +prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their +falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard +sometimes, that I could not help crying out, ‘Oh! If you please!’--which +they didn’t like at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was an +elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a +haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had +a basket with her, and she hadn’t known what to do with it, for a long +time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could +go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly +miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the +basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave +me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, ‘Come, don’t YOU fidget. +YOUR bones are young enough, I’m sure!’ + +At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. +The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had +found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be +conceived. As the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so +they gradually one by one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised +by the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, +and by the uncommon indignation with which everyone repelled the +charge. I labour under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having +invariably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our +common nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is +the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. + +What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance, +and how I believed all the adventures of all my favourite heroes to be +constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it +out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the +cities of the earth, I need not stop here to relate. We approached it by +degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the Whitechapel district, +for which we were bound. I forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the +Blue Boar; but I know it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness +was painted up on the back of the coach. + +The guard’s eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at the +booking-office door: + +‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of Murdstone, +from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called for?’ + +Nobody answered. + +‘Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,’ said I, looking helplessly down. + +‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of Murdstone, +from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of Copperfield, to +be left till called for?’ said the guard. ‘Come! IS there anybody?’ + +No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the inquiry made no +impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in gaiters, with +one eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round my +neck, and tie me up in the stable. + +A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a +haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The coach +was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared +out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach +itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way. +Still, nobody appeared, to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, +Suffolk. + +More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him +and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, by +invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down +on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking +at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell of stables +(ever since associated with that morning), a procession of most +tremendous considerations began to march through my mind. Supposing +nobody should ever fetch me, how long would they consent to keep me +there? Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? Should I +sleep at night in one of those wooden bins, with the other luggage, +and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning; or should I +be turned out every night, and expected to come again to be left till +called for, when the office opened next day? Supposing there was no +mistake in the case, and Mr. Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid +of me, what should I do? If they allowed me to remain there until my +seven shillings were spent, I couldn’t hope to remain there when I began +to starve. That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the +customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk of +funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk back home, +how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to walk so far, how +could I make sure of anyone but Peggotty, even if I got back? If I +found out the nearest proper authorities, and offered myself to go for a +soldier, or a sailor, I was such a little fellow that it was most likely +they wouldn’t take me in. These thoughts, and a hundred other such +thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and +dismay. I was in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered +to the clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over +to him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for. + +As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance, +I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow +cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr. Murdstone’s; but there the +likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead +of being glossy, was rusty and dry. He was dressed in a suit of black +clothes which were rather rusty and dry too, and rather short in the +sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck-kerchief on, that was not +over-clean. I did not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was +all the linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of. + +‘You’re the new boy?’ he said. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. + +I supposed I was. I didn’t know. + +‘I’m one of the masters at Salem House,’ he said. + +I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to allude +to a commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at Salem +House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had +the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly insinuating +that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the +carrier had instructions to call for it at noon. + +‘If you please, sir,’ I said, when we had accomplished about the same +distance as before, ‘is it far?’ + +‘It’s down by Blackheath,’ he said. + +‘Is that far, sir?’ I diffidently asked. + +‘It’s a good step,’ he said. ‘We shall go by the stage-coach. It’s about +six miles.’ + +I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles +more, was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I had had +nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy something to +eat, I should be very much obliged to him. He appeared surprised at +this--I see him stop and look at me now--and after considering for a few +moments, said he wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off, +and that the best way would be for me to buy some bread, or whatever I +liked best that was wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where +we could get some milk. + +Accordingly we looked in at a baker’s window, and after I had made a +series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and +he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little +loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer’s shop, +we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon; which still left what +I thought a good deal of change, out of the second of the bright +shillings, and made me consider London a very cheap place. These +provisions laid in, we went on through a great noise and uproar that +confused my weary head beyond description, and over a bridge which, no +doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I think he told me so, but I was half +asleep), until we came to the poor person’s house, which was a part of +some alms-houses, as I knew by their look, and by an inscription on a +stone over the gate which said they were established for twenty-five +poor women. + +The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little +black doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned +window on one side, and another little diamond--paned window above; and +we went into the little house of one of these poor old women, who was +blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. On seeing the master +enter, the old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said +something that I thought sounded like ‘My Charley!’ but on seeing me +come in too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of +half curtsey. + +‘Can you cook this young gentleman’s breakfast for him, if you please?’ +said the Master at Salem House. + +‘Can I?’ said the old woman. ‘Yes can I, sure!’ + +‘How’s Mrs. Fibbitson today?’ said the Master, looking at another old +woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of clothes +that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by +mistake. + +‘Ah, she’s poorly,’ said the first old woman. ‘It’s one of her bad days. +If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe she’d +go out too, and never come to life again.’ + +As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a warm day, +she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied she was jealous +even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to know that she took its +impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in +dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at +me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else +was looking. The sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with +her own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the +fire as if she were sedulously keeping IT warm, instead of it keeping +her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion +of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her +such extreme joy that she laughed aloud--and a very unmelodious laugh +she had, I must say. + +I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a +basin of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I was yet +in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the +Master: + +‘Have you got your flute with you?’ + +‘Yes,’ he returned. + +‘Have a blow at it,’ said the old woman, coaxingly. ‘Do!’ + +The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, +and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together, +and began immediately to play. My impression is, after many years of +consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who +played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I have ever heard produced +by any means, natural or artificial. I don’t know what the tunes +were--if there were such things in the performance at all, which I +doubt--but the influence of the strain upon me was, first, to make me +think of all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back; then to +take away my appetite; and lastly, to make me so sleepy that I couldn’t +keep my eyes open. They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the +recollection rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room, with its +open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular +little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock’s +feathers displayed over the mantelpiece--I remember wondering when I +first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had known what +his finery was doomed to come to--fades from before me, and I nod, and +sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard +instead, and I am on my journey. The coach jolts, I wake with a start, +and the flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is +sitting with his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman +of the house looks on delighted. She fades in her turn, and he fades, +and all fades, and there is no flute, no Master, no Salem House, no +David Copperfield, no anything but heavy sleep. + +I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal +flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him +in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave +him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing +for a moment. I was in the middle state between sleeping and waking, +either then or immediately afterwards; for, as he resumed--it was a real +fact that he had stopped playing--I saw and heard the same old woman ask +Mrs. Fibbitson if it wasn’t delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. +Fibbitson replied, ‘Ay, ay! yes!’ and nodded at the fire: to which, I am +persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance. + +When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem +House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before, +and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the +roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road to take +up somebody else, they put me inside where there were no passengers, and +where I slept profoundly, until I found the coach going at a footpace up +a steep hill among green leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come to +its destination. + +A short walk brought us--I mean the Master and me--to Salem House, which +was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. Over a door +in this wall was a board with SALEM HOUSE upon it; and through a grating +in this door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a surly face, +which I found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with a +bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all +round his head. + +‘The new boy,’ said the Master. + +The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over--it didn’t take long, for +there was not much of me--and locked the gate behind us, and took out +the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark heavy trees, +when he called after my conductor. ‘Hallo!’ + +We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where +he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. + +‘Here! The cobbler’s been,’ he said, ‘since you’ve been out, Mr. Mell, +and he says he can’t mend ‘em any more. He says there ain’t a bit of the +original boot left, and he wonders you expect it.’ + +With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back a +few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately, +I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed then, for the first +time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and +that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud. + +Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and +unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I said to +Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my +not knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the boys were at their +several homes. That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the +sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; and that I was sent in holiday-time +as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we +went along. + +I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn +and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room with three +long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs +for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the +dirty floor. Some silkworms’ houses, made of the same materials, are +scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind +by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of +pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes +for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger than himself, +makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches +high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a +strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet +apples wanting air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink +splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, +and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the +varying seasons of the year. + +Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots upstairs, I +went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as I crept +along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, +which was lying on the desk, and bore these words: ‘TAKE CARE OF HIM. HE +BITES.’ + +I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog +underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could +see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell +came back, and asked me what I did up there? + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ says I, ‘if you please, I’m looking for the +dog.’ + +‘Dog?’ he says. ‘What dog?’ + +‘Isn’t it a dog, sir?’ + +‘Isn’t what a dog?’ + +‘That’s to be taken care of, sir; that bites.’ + +‘No, Copperfield,’ says he, gravely, ‘that’s not a dog. That’s a boy. +My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am +sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it.’ With that he +took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for +the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I went, +afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it. + +What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it was +possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was +reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever +my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be. That cruel man with +the wooden leg aggravated my sufferings. He was in authority; and if he +ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared +out from his lodge door in a stupendous voice, ‘Hallo, you sir! You +Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I’ll report you!’ The +playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house +and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, and the butcher +read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came +backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was ordered to +walk there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit, I recollect +that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy +who did bite. + +There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a +custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such +inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming +back, I could not read a boy’s name, without inquiring in what tone and +with what emphasis HE would read, ‘Take care of him. He bites.’ There +was one boy--a certain J. Steerforth--who cut his name very deep and +very often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, +and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy, one Tommy Traddles, +who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully +frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I fancied would +sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until +the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the +school then, Mr. Mell said--seemed to send me to Coventry by general +acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, ‘Take care of him. He +bites!’ + +It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same +with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and +when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, of +being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr. +Peggotty’s, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again +with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances +making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had +nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard. + +In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the +re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had +long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, there being +no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. +Before, and after them, I walked about--supervised, as I have mentioned, +by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp +about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky +water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which +seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have +blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end +of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat. +Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue +teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or eight +in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom, +worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out +the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put up his things +for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, until I almost +thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at +the top, and ooze away at the keys. + +I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my +head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, +and conning tomorrow’s lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up, +still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening +through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind +on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself +going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side +crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I picture myself coming +downstairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a +staircase window at the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house +with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J. +Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my foreboding +apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock +the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot +think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in +all of them I carried the same warning on my back. + +Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose +we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that +he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and +grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he +had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon +got used to them. + + + +CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE + + +I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg +began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I +inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the +boys. I was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before +long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got +on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way +of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and +were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much +as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box. + +One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would be home that +evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before +bedtime, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before +him. + +Mr. Creakle’s part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than +ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the +dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought +no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It +seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked +comfortable, as I went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle’s presence: +which so abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw +Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlour), or +anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain +and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him. + +‘So!’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘This is the young gentleman whose teeth are to +be filed! Turn him round.’ + +The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and +having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, +with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle’s side. +Mr. Creakle’s face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his +head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large +chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking +hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that +the two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about +him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a +whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in +that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick +veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on +looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. ‘Now,’ +said Mr. Creakle. ‘What’s the report of this boy?’ + +‘There’s nothing against him yet,’ returned the man with the wooden leg. +‘There has been no opportunity.’ + +I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle +(at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and +quiet) were not disappointed. + +‘Come here, sir!’ said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. + +‘Come here!’ said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture. + +‘I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,’ whispered Mr. +Creakle, taking me by the ear; ‘and a worthy man he is, and a man of +a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know me? Hey?’ +said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. + +‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with the pain. + +‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle. ‘But you will soon. Hey?’ + +‘You will soon. Hey?’ repeated the man with the wooden leg. I afterwards +found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle’s +interpreter to the boys. + +I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt, +all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard. + +‘I’ll tell you what I am,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last, +with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. ‘I’m a +Tartar.’ + +‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden leg. + +‘When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it,’ said Mr. Creakle; ‘and when I say +I will have a thing done, I will have it done.’ + +‘--Will have a thing done, I will have it done,’ repeated the man with +the wooden leg. + +‘I am a determined character,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘That’s what I am. I +do my duty. That’s what I do. My flesh and blood’--he looked at Mrs. +Creakle as he said this--‘when it rises against me, is not my flesh +and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow’--to the man with the wooden +leg--‘been here again?’ + +‘No,’ was the answer. + +‘No,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘He knows better. He knows me. Let him keep +away. I say let him keep away,’ said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon +the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, ‘for he knows me. Now you have +begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away.’ + +I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both +wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for +myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly, +that I couldn’t help saying, though I wondered at my own courage: + +‘If you please, sir--’ + +Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’ and bent his eyes upon me, as +if he would have burnt me up with them. + +‘If you please, sir,’ I faltered, ‘if I might be allowed (I am very +sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the +boys come back--’ + +Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to +frighten me, I don’t know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before +which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the +man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own +bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was +time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours. + +Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and +superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but +Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle’s table. He was a limp, +delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a +way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy +for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the +very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one HE +said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it +curled. + +It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of +intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself +by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of +the gate, over the top-bolt; upon that I said, ‘Traddles?’ to which he +replied, ‘The same,’ and then he asked me for a full account of myself +and family. + +It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He +enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of +either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy +who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form +of introduction, ‘Look here! Here’s a game!’ Happily, too, the greater +part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at +my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me +like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation +of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest I +should bite, and saying, ‘Lie down, sir!’ and calling me Towzer. This +was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some +tears, but on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated. + +I was not considered as being formally received into the school, +however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was +reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least +half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He +inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my +punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was ‘a jolly +shame’; for which I became bound to him ever afterwards. + +‘What money have you got, Copperfield?’ he said, walking aside with +me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him seven +shillings. + +‘You had better give it to me to take care of,’ he said. ‘At least, you +can if you like. You needn’t if you don’t like.’ + +I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening +Peggotty’s purse, turned it upside down into his hand. + +‘Do you want to spend anything now?’ he asked me. + +‘No thank you,’ I replied. + +‘You can, if you like, you know,’ said Steerforth. ‘Say the word.’ + +‘No, thank you, sir,’ I repeated. + +‘Perhaps you’d like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a bottle of +currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom?’ said Steerforth. ‘You belong +to my bedroom, I find.’ + +It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should +like that. + +‘Very good,’ said Steerforth. ‘You’ll be glad to spend another shilling +or so, in almond cakes, I dare say?’ + +I said, Yes, I should like that, too. + +‘And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?’ said +Steerforth. ‘I say, young Copperfield, you’re going it!’ + +I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too. + +‘Well!’ said Steerforth. ‘We must make it stretch as far as we can; +that’s all. I’ll do the best in my power for you. I can go out when I +like, and I’ll smuggle the prog in.’ With these words he put the money +in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would +take care it should be all right. He was as good as his word, if that +were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for +I feared it was a waste of my mother’s two half-crowns--though I had +preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious +saving. When we went upstairs to bed, he produced the whole seven +shillings’ worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: + +‘There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you’ve got.’ + +I couldn’t think of doing the honours of the feast, at my time of life, +while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him +to do me the favour of presiding; and my request being seconded by the +other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my +pillow, handing round the viands--with perfect fairness, I must say--and +dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was +his own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were +grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor. + +How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their +talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the +moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, +painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in +shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorus-box, +when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare +over us that was gone directly! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent +on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which +everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell +me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that +they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when +Traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner. + +I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. +I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar +without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; +that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging +in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. That +he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant +(J. Steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school; that he had +been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had +taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making +away with Mrs. Creakle’s money. With a good deal more of that sort, +which I wondered how they knew. + +I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an +obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but +had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, +as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. +Creakle’s service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, +and knowing his secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr. +Creakle, Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, +as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be +sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been +Tungay’s friend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some +remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very +cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against +his father’s usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned +him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had +been in a sad way, ever since. + +But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being one +boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that +boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was +stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. On being +asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see +him do it, he dipped a match into his phosphorus-box on purpose to shed +a glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down +with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle +that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time, +breathless. + +I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be wretchedly +paid; and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at Mr. +Creakle’s table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold; +which was again corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlour-boarder. +I heard that Mr. Sharp’s wig didn’t fit him; and that he needn’t be so +‘bounceable’--somebody else said ‘bumptious’--about it, because his own +red hair was very plainly to be seen behind. + +I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant’s son, came as a set-off +against the coal-bill, and was called, on that account, ‘Exchange or +Barter’--a name selected from the arithmetic book as expressing this +arrangement. I heard that the table beer was a robbery of parents, and +the pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the +school in general as being in love with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I +sat in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his +easy manner, and his curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard +that Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn’t a sixpence to +bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his +mother, was as poor as job. I thought of my breakfast then, and what had +sounded like ‘My Charley!’ but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as +a mouse about it. + +The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet +some time. The greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the +eating and drinking were over; and we, who had remained whispering and +listening half-undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too. + +‘Good night, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth. ‘I’ll take care of +you.’ ‘You’re very kind,’ I gratefully returned. ‘I am very much obliged +to you.’ + +‘You haven’t got a sister, have you?’ said Steerforth, yawning. + +‘No,’ I answered. + +‘That’s a pity,’ said Steerforth. ‘If you had had one, I should think +she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of girl. I +should have liked to know her. Good night, young Copperfield.’ + +‘Good night, sir,’ I replied. + +I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself, +I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his +handsome face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. He +was a person of great power in my eyes; that was, of course, the reason +of my mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in +the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his footsteps, in the +garden that I dreamed of walking in all night. + + + +CHAPTER 7. MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE + + +School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made +upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly +becoming hushed as death when Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and +stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book +surveying his captives. + +Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle’s elbow. He had no occasion, I thought, +to cry out ‘Silence!’ so ferociously, for the boys were all struck +speechless and motionless. + +Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this effect. + +‘Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you’re about, in this new +half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up +to the punishment. I won’t flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing +yourselves; you won’t rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get +to work, every boy!’ + +When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out again, +Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for +biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and +asked me what I thought of THAT, for a tooth? Was it a sharp tooth, hey? +Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep prong, hey? Did it bite, hey? +Did it bite? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made +me writhe; so I was very soon made free of Salem House (as Steerforth +said), and was very soon in tears also. + +Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, +which only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the boys +(especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances +of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the round of the schoolroom. Half the +establishment was writhing and crying, before the day’s work began; and +how much of it had writhed and cried before the day’s work was over, I +am really afraid to recollect, lest I should seem to exaggerate. + +I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his +profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting at +the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. I am +confident that he couldn’t resist a chubby boy, especially; that there +was a fascination in such a subject, which made him restless in his +mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby +myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think of the fellow now, my +blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation I should +feel if I could have known all about him without having ever been in his +power; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an incapable +brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held, +than to be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief--in either of +which capacities it is probable that he would have done infinitely less +mischief. + +Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we were +to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so +mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! + +Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye--humbly watching his eye, +as he rules a ciphering-book for another victim whose hands have just +been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the +sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don’t watch +his eye in idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a +dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my +turn to suffer, or somebody else’s. A lane of small boys beyond me, with +the same interest in his eye, watch it too. I think he knows it, +though he pretends he don’t. He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the +ciphering-book; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we +all droop over our books and tremble. A moment afterwards we are again +eyeing him. An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, +approaches at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a +determination to do better tomorrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before he +beats him, and we laugh at it,--miserable little dogs, we laugh, with +our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. + +Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz and +hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many bluebottles. A cloggy +sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or +two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I would give the +world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him +like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms +through my slumber, ruling those ciphering-books, until he softly comes +behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge +across my back. + +Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, though +I can’t see him. The window at a little distance from which I know he is +having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that instead. If he shows +his face near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression. +If he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth excepted) +stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. One +day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window +accidentally, with a ball. I shudder at this moment with the tremendous +sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to +Mr. Creakle’s sacred head. + +Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like +German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most +miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned--I think he was +caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was +only ruler’d on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle +about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little +while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw +skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first +to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some +time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those +symbols of mortality that caning couldn’t last for ever. But I believe +he only did it because they were easy, and didn’t want any features. + +He was very honourable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn duty +in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several +occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, +and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, +going away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never said +who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was +imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard-full +of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his +reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and +we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have +gone through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, +and nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense. + +To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss +Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn’t think Miss +Creakle equal to little Em’ly in point of beauty, and I didn’t love +her (I didn’t dare); but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary +attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When +Steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud +to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with +all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my +eyes; but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. + +Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful +friend; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honoured with his +countenance. He couldn’t--or at all events he didn’t--defend me from Mr. +Creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever I had been treated +worse than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck, +and that he wouldn’t have stood it himself; which I felt he intended +for encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There was one +advantage, and only one that I know of, in Mr. Creakle’s severity. He +found my placard in his way when he came up or down behind the form on +which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason +it was soon taken off, and I saw it no more. + +An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth +and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, +though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, +when he was doing me the honour of talking to me in the playground, that +I hazarded the observation that something or somebody--I forget what +now--was like something or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing +at the time; but when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got +that book? + +I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all +those other books of which I have made mention. + +‘And do you recollect them?’ Steerforth said. + +‘Oh yes,’ I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected +them very well. + +‘Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, ‘you +shall tell ‘em to me. I can’t get to sleep very early at night, and I +generally wake rather early in the morning. We’ll go over ‘em one after +another. We’ll make some regular Arabian Nights of it.’ + +I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced +carrying it into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed +on my favourite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am +not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but +I had a profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, +a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate; and these +qualities went a long way. + +The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits +and indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather hard work, +and it must be done; for to disappoint or to displease Steerforth was of +course out of the question. In the morning, too, when I felt weary, and +should have enjoyed another hour’s repose very much, it was a tiresome +thing to be roused, like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a +long story before the getting-up bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute; +and as he explained to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and +anything in my tasks that was too hard for me, I was no loser by the +transaction. Let me do myself justice, however. I was moved by no +interested or selfish motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I admired +and loved him, and his approval was return enough. It was so precious to +me that I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. + +Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in +one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little +tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty’s +promised letter--what a comfortable letter it was!--arrived before +‘the half’ was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest +of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty +bound, I laid at the feet of Steerforth, and begged him to dispense. + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said he: ‘the wine shall +be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling.’ + +I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of +it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy +was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, devoted to the +purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and +drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a +piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a +restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so +kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, +or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot assert that +the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly +the compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at +night and the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was +very sensible of his attention. + +We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more over +the other stories. The institution never flagged for want of a story, I +am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor +Traddles--I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to +laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of chorus, in general; +and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be +overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character +in the narrative. This rather put me out, very often. It was a great +jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn’t keep his teeth +from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion +with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember that when Gil Blas met +the captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited +such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who +was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly +conduct in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and +dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that +respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the +being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness +that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and +attracted a good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest there, +stimulated me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, +whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to +be much learnt. I believe our boys were, generally, as ignorant a set +as any schoolboys in existence; they were too much troubled and knocked +about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one +can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, +and worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth’s help, urged me on +somehow; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of +punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an exception to the +general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of +knowledge. + +In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me that +I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe that +Steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost +an occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing others to do so. +This troubled me the more for a long time, because I had soon told +Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep such a secret, than I could +keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two old women +Mr. Mell had taken me to see; and I was always afraid that Steerforth +would let it out, and twit him with it. + +We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my breakfast +that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock’s +feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the +introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. But the +visit had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in +their way. + +One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which +naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good +deal of noise in the course of the morning’s work. The great relief and +satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and +though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and +took notes of the principal offenders’ names, no great impression was +made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble tomorrow, +do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves +today. + +It was, properly, a half-holiday; being Saturday. But as the noise in +the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather was +not favourable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the +afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for +the occasion. It was the day of the week on which Mr. Sharp went out to +get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever +it was, kept school by himself. If I could associate the idea of a bull +or a bear with anyone so mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in +connexion with that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of +one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him bending +his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, +and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an +uproar that might have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy. +Boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss in the corner +with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, +dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled +about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and +before his eyes; mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, +everything belonging to him that they should have had consideration for. + +‘Silence!’ cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk +with the book. ‘What does this mean! It’s impossible to bear it. It’s +maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?’ + +It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside him, +following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all stop, +some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. + +Steerforth’s place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end +of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and +his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up +as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him. + +‘Silence, Mr. Steerforth!’ said Mr. Mell. + +‘Silence yourself,’ said Steerforth, turning red. ‘Whom are you talking +to?’ + +‘Sit down,’ said Mr. Mell. + +‘Sit down yourself,’ said Steerforth, ‘and mind your business.’ + +There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that +silence immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out behind +him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want +a pen mended. + +‘If you think, Steerforth,’ said Mr. Mell, ‘that I am not acquainted +with the power you can establish over any mind here’--he laid his hand, +without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my head--‘or that +I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to +every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken.’ + +‘I don’t give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you,’ said +Steerforth, coolly; ‘so I’m not mistaken, as it happens.’ + +‘And when you make use of your position of favouritism here, sir,’ +pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, ‘to insult a +gentleman--’ + +‘A what?--where is he?’ said Steerforth. + +Here somebody cried out, ‘Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!’ It was +Traddles; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his +tongue. --‘To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who +never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting +whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand,’ said Mr. Mell, +with his lips trembling more and more, ‘you commit a mean and base +action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go +on.’ + +‘Young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, coming forward up the room, +‘stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take the +liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are +an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do +that, you are an impudent beggar.’ + +I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was +going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. +I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned +into stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, with Tungay at his +side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at the door as if they were +frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his +hands, sat, for some moments, quite still. + +‘Mr. Mell,’ said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his whisper +was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his words; +‘you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?’ + +‘No, sir, no,’ returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking his +head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. ‘No, sir. No. I have +remembered myself, I--no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, I--I +have remembered myself, sir. I--I--could wish you had remembered me a +little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It--it--would have been more kind, sir, more +just, sir. It would have saved me something, sir.’ + +Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay’s +shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the +desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from his throne, as he +shook his head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same state of +agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to Steerforth, and said: + +‘Now, sir, as he don’t condescend to tell me, what is this?’ + +Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and +anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking +even in that interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he was in +appearance, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him. + +‘What did he mean by talking about favourites, then?’ said Steerforth at +length. + +‘Favourites?’ repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead +swelling quickly. ‘Who talked about favourites?’ + +‘He did,’ said Steerforth. + +‘And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?’ demanded Mr. Creakle, +turning angrily on his assistant. + +‘I meant, Mr. Creakle,’ he returned in a low voice, ‘as I said; that +no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favouritism to +degrade me.’ + +‘To degrade YOU?’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘My stars! But give me leave to ask +you, Mr. What’s-your-name’; and here Mr. Creakle folded his arms, cane +and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his brows that his +little eyes were hardly visible below them; ‘whether, when you talk +about favourites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir,’ said Mr. +Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again, +‘the principal of this establishment, and your employer.’ + +‘It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit,’ said Mr. Mell. ‘I +should not have done so, if I had been cool.’ + +Here Steerforth struck in. + +‘Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I called +him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn’t have called him a +beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it.’ + +Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to +be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an +impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though +no one spoke a word. + +‘I am surprised, Steerforth--although your candour does you honour,’ +said Mr. Creakle, ‘does you honour, certainly--I am surprised, +Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any +person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.’ + +Steerforth gave a short laugh. + +‘That’s not an answer, sir,’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘to my remark. I expect +more than that from you, Steerforth.’ + +If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would +be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. ‘Let him deny +it,’ said Steerforth. + +‘Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?’ cried Mr. Creakle. ‘Why, where +does he go a-begging?’ + +‘If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one,’ said +Steerforth. ‘It’s all the same.’ + +He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell’s hand gently patted me upon the +shoulder. I looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, +but Mr. Mell’s eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me +kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. + +‘Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,’ said Steerforth, +‘and to say what I mean,--what I have to say is, that his mother lives +on charity in an alms-house.’ + +Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the +shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: ‘Yes, I +thought so.’ + +Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured +politeness: + +‘Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if +you please, to set him right before the assembled school.’ + +‘He is right, sir, without correction,’ returned Mr. Mell, in the midst +of a dead silence; ‘what he has said is true.’ + +‘Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,’ said Mr. Creakle, +putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, +‘whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?’ + +‘I believe not directly,’ he returned. + +‘Why, you know not,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘Don’t you, man?’ + +‘I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very +good,’ replied the assistant. ‘You know what my position is, and always +has been, here.’ + +‘I apprehend, if you come to that,’ said Mr. Creakle, with his veins +swelling again bigger than ever, ‘that you’ve been in a wrong position +altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we’ll part, +if you please. The sooner the better.’ + +‘There is no time,’ answered Mr. Mell, rising, ‘like the present.’ + +‘Sir, to you!’ said Mr. Creakle. + +‘I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you,’ said Mr. Mell, +glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulders. +‘James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to +be ashamed of what you have done today. At present I would prefer to see +you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to anyone in whom I feel an +interest.’ + +Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his +flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his +successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm. +Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked +Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence +and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking +hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers--I did not quite know +what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, +though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for +being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of Mr. Mell’s +departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had +come from. + +We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on +one another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for +my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep +back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I +saw, might think it unfriendly--or, I should rather say, considering our +relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful--if +I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with +Traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. + +Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the +desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said +he didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. + +‘Who has ill-used him, you girl?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Why, you have,’ returned Traddles. + +‘What have I done?’ said Steerforth. + +‘What have you done?’ retorted Traddles. ‘Hurt his feelings, and lost +him his situation.’ + +‘His feelings?’ repeated Steerforth disdainfully. ‘His feelings will +soon get the better of it, I’ll be bound. His feelings are not like +yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation--which was a precious one, +wasn’t it?--do you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care +that he gets some money? Polly?’ + +We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was +a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he +asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, +and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he +condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for +us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us +by unselfishly doing it. But I must say that when I was going on with a +story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell’s old flute seemed more than once +to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was +tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully +somewhere, that I was quite wretched. + +I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy +amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by +heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. The new +master came from a grammar school; and before he entered on his duties, +dined in the parlour one day, to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth +approved of him highly, and told us he was a Brick. Without exactly +understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, I respected +him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge: +though he never took the pains with me--not that I was anybody--that Mr. +Mell had taken. + +There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily +school-life, that made an impression upon me which still survives. It +survives for many reasons. + +One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, +and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and +called out in his usual strong way: ‘Visitors for Copperfield!’ + +A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who the +visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then I, who +had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and +felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs +and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-room. These +orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as +I had never known before; and when I got to the parlour door, and the +thought came into my head that it might be my mother--I had only thought +of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then--I drew back my hand from the lock, +and stopped to have a sob before I went in. + +At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked +round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking +at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. I +could not help laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing +them, than at the appearance they made. We shook hands in a very +cordial way; and I laughed and laughed, until I pulled out my +pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. + +Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the +visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to +say something. + +‘Cheer up, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ said Ham, in his simpering way. ‘Why, how +you have growed!’ + +‘Am I grown?’ I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything +in particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry, to see old +friends. + +‘Growed, Mas’r Davy bor’? Ain’t he growed!’ said Ham. + +‘Ain’t he growed!’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all +three laughed until I was in danger of crying again. + +‘Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?’ I said. ‘And how my dear, dear, +old Peggotty is?’ + +‘Oncommon,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘And little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?’ + +‘On--common,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious +lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out +of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham’s arms. + +‘You see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘knowing as you was partial to a little +relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the +liberty. The old Mawther biled ‘em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled ‘em. +Yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, slowly, who I thought appeared to stick to the +subject on account of having no other subject ready, ‘Mrs. Gummidge, I +do assure you, she biled ‘em.’ + +I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who stood +smiling sheepishly over the shellfish, without making any attempt to +help him, said: + +‘We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favour, in one of our +Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen’. My sister she wrote to me the name of this +here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen’, +I was to come over and inquire for Mas’r Davy and give her dooty, +humbly wishing him well and reporting of the fam’ly as they was oncommon +toe-be-sure. Little Em’ly, you see, she’ll write to my sister when I go +back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it +quite a merry-go-rounder.’ + +I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. Peggotty +meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I +then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, +that I supposed little Em’ly was altered too, since we used to pick up +shells and pebbles on the beach? + +‘She’s getting to be a woman, that’s wot she’s getting to be,’ said Mr. +Peggotty. ‘Ask HIM.’ He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent +over the bag of shrimps. + +‘Her pretty face!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a light. + +‘Her learning!’ said Ham. + +‘Her writing!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Why it’s as black as jet! And so +large it is, you might see it anywheres.’ + +It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty +became inspired when he thought of his little favourite. He stands +before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and +pride, for which I can find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and +sparkle, as if their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad +chest heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench themselves, +in his earnestness; and he emphasizes what he says with a right arm that +shows, in my pigmy view, like a sledge-hammer. + +Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said much +more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in +of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers, +stopped in a song he was singing, and said: ‘I didn’t know you were +here, young Copperfield!’ (for it was not the usual visiting room) and +crossed by us on his way out. + +I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as +Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a +friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But I +said, modestly--Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time +afterwards--! + +‘Don’t go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth +boatmen--very kind, good people--who are relations of my nurse, and have +come from Gravesend to see me.’ + +‘Aye, aye?’ said Steerforth, returning. ‘I am glad to see them. How are +you both?’ + +There was an ease in his manner--a gay and light manner it was, but not +swaggering--which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment +with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal +spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for +aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think +a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was +a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. +I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed +to open their hearts to him in a moment. + +‘You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,’ I said, +‘when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and +that I don’t know what I should ever do here without him.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘You mustn’t tell them anything +of the sort.’ + +‘And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. +Peggotty,’ I said, ‘while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall +bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never +saw such a good house, Steerforth. It’s made out of a boat!’ + +‘Made out of a boat, is it?’ said Steerforth. ‘It’s the right sort of a +house for such a thorough-built boatman.’ + +‘So ‘tis, sir, so ‘tis, sir,’ said Ham, grinning. ‘You’re right, young +gen’l’m’n! Mas’r Davy bor’, gen’l’m’n’s right. A thorough-built boatman! +Hor, hor! That’s what he is, too!’ + +Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty +forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. + +‘Well, sir,’ he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends +of his neckerchief at his breast: ‘I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my +endeavours in my line of life, sir.’ + +‘The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,’ said Steerforth. He had +got his name already. + +‘I’ll pound it, it’s wot you do yourself, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, +shaking his head, ‘and wot you do well--right well! I thankee, sir. I’m +obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I’m rough, sir, +but I’m ready--least ways, I hope I’m ready, you unnerstand. My house +ain’t much for to see, sir, but it’s hearty at your service if ever you +should come along with Mas’r Davy to see it. I’m a reg’lar Dodman, +I am,’ said Mr. Peggotty, by which he meant snail, and this was in +allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every +sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; ‘but I wish you both +well, and I wish you happy!’ + +Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest +manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about +pretty little Em’ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and +too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good +deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that +she was getting on to be a woman; but I decided that was nonsense. + +We transported the shellfish, or the ‘relish’ as Mr. Peggotty had +modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper +that evening. But Traddles couldn’t get happily out of it. He was too +unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was +taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of Crab; +and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent +which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine +a horse’s constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek +Testament for refusing to confess. + +The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily +strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing +season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the +cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of +the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the +morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of +the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with +roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog’s-eared lesson-books, +cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, +hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of +ink, surrounding all. + +I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after +seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come +towards us, and to grow and grow. How from counting months, we came to +weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid that I should +not be sent for and when I learnt from Steerforth that I had been sent +for, and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that I might +break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at +last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after +tomorrow, tomorrow, today, tonight--when I was inside the Yarmouth mail, +and going home. + +I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an +incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, the +ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the +sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles, +but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses. + + + +CHAPTER 8. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON + + +When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was +not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice +little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold I was, I +know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire +downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin’s bed, pull the +Dolphin’s blankets round my head, and go to sleep. + +Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine +o’clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my +night’s rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. He +received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were +last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for +sixpence, or something of that sort. + +As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the +lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. + +‘You look very well, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, thinking he would like to know +it. + +Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff +as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other +acknowledgement of the compliment. + +‘I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,’ I said: ‘I wrote to Peggotty.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. + +Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. + +‘Wasn’t it right, Mr. Barkis?’ I asked, after a little hesitation. + +‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Barkis. + +‘Not the message?’ + +‘The message was right enough, perhaps,’ said Mr. Barkis; ‘but it come +to an end there.’ + +Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: ‘Came to an +end, Mr. Barkis?’ + +‘Nothing come of it,’ he explained, looking at me sideways. ‘No answer.’ + +‘There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, opening +my eyes. For this was a new light to me. + +‘When a man says he’s willin’,’ said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance +slowly on me again, ‘it’s as much as to say, that man’s a-waitin’ for a +answer.’ + +‘Well, Mr. Barkis?’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse’s ears; +‘that man’s been a-waitin’ for a answer ever since.’ + +‘Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?’ + +‘No--no,’ growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. ‘I ain’t got no call +to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself, I ain’t +a-goin’ to tell her so.’ + +‘Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, doubtfully. ‘You might +tell her, if you would,’ said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me, +‘that Barkis was a-waitin’ for a answer. Says you--what name is it?’ + +‘Her name?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head. + +‘Peggotty.’ + +‘Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?’ said Mr. Barkis. + +‘Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.’ + +‘Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis. + +He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, +and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time. + +‘Well!’ he resumed at length. ‘Says you, “Peggotty! Barkis is waitin’ +for a answer.” Says she, perhaps, “Answer to what?” Says you, “To what I +told you.” “What is that?” says she. “Barkis is willin’,” says you.’ + +This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge +of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he +slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference +to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk +from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, ‘Clara +Peggotty’--apparently as a private memorandum. + +Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, +and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old +home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my +mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was +no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road, +that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would +rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth’s company. But +there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees +wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old +rooks’-nests drifted away upon the wind. + +The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked +along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing +at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of +one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and +knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in +with a quiet, timid step. + +God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened +within me by the sound of my mother’s voice in the old parlour, when I +set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have +lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby. +The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart +brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence. + +I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother +murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. +She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she +held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she +sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion. + +I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she +called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room +to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head +down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and +put its hand to my lips. + +I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my +heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been +since. + +‘He is your brother,’ said my mother, fondling me. ‘Davy, my pretty boy! +My poor child!’ Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round +the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced +down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter +of an hour. + +It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much +before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had +gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before +night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that +we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the +time, as if the old days were come back. + +We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait +upon us, but my mother wouldn’t let her do it, and made her dine with +us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full +sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I +had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred +pounds. I had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little +knife and fork that wouldn’t cut. + +While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell +Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell +her, began to laugh, and throw her apron over her face. + +‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face +when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a +bag. + +‘What are you doing, you stupid creature?’ said my mother, laughing. + +‘Oh, drat the man!’ cried Peggotty. ‘He wants to marry me.’ + +‘It would be a very good match for you; wouldn’t it?’ said my mother. + +‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Peggotty. ‘Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t have him if +he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn’t have anybody.’ + +‘Then, why don’t you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?’ said my mother. + +‘Tell him so,’ retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. ‘He has +never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make so +bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.’ + +Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she +only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken +with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks, +went on with her dinner. + +I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at +her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she +was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and +too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me +to be almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was +superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and +fluttered. At last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it +affectionately on the hand of her old servant, + +‘Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?’ + +‘Me, ma’am?’ returned Peggotty, staring. ‘Lord bless you, no!’ + +‘Not just yet?’ said my mother, tenderly. + +‘Never!’ cried Peggotty. + +My mother took her hand, and said: + +‘Don’t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, +perhaps. What should I ever do without you!’ + +‘Me leave you, my precious!’ cried Peggotty. ‘Not for all the world and +his wife. Why, what’s put that in your silly little head?’--For Peggotty +had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child. + +But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went +running on in her own fashion. + +‘Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should +like to catch her at it! No, no, no,’ said Peggotty, shaking her head, +and folding her arms; ‘not she, my dear. It isn’t that there ain’t some +Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they sha’n’t be +pleased. They shall be aggravated. I’ll stay with you till I am a cross +cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, +and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be +found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me +in.’ + +‘And, Peggotty,’ says I, ‘I shall be glad to see you, and I’ll make you +as welcome as a queen.’ + +‘Bless your dear heart!’ cried Peggotty. ‘I know you will!’ And she +kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my hospitality. +After that, she covered her head up with her apron again and had another +laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little +cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table; +after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the +yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever. + +We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard +master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a +fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said +she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in +my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep +again, I crept close to my mother’s side according to my old custom, +broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my +little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful +hair drooping over me--like an angel’s wing as I used to think, I +recollect--and was very happy indeed. + +While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the +red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr. +and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire +got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save +my mother, Peggotty, and I. + +Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then +sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her +right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot +conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always +darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of +darning can have come from. From my earliest infancy she seems to have +been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any +chance in any other. + +‘I wonder,’ said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of +wondering on some most unexpected topic, ‘what’s become of Davy’s +great-aunt?’ ‘Lor, Peggotty!’ observed my mother, rousing herself from a +reverie, ‘what nonsense you talk!’ + +‘Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,’ said Peggotty. + +‘What can have put such a person in your head?’ inquired my mother. ‘Is +there nobody else in the world to come there?’ + +‘I don’t know how it is,’ said Peggotty, ‘unless it’s on account of +being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They +come and they go, and they don’t come and they don’t go, just as they +like. I wonder what’s become of her?’ + +‘How absurd you are, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘One would suppose +you wanted a second visit from her.’ + +‘Lord forbid!’ cried Peggotty. + +‘Well then, don’t talk about such uncomfortable things, there’s a good +soul,’ said my mother. ‘Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the +sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely +ever to trouble us again.’ + +‘No!’ mused Peggotty. ‘No, that ain’t likely at all.---I wonder, if she +was to die, whether she’d leave Davy anything?’ + +‘Good gracious me, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘what a nonsensical +woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear +boy’s ever being born at all.’ + +‘I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to forgive him now,’ hinted +Peggotty. + +‘Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?’ said my mother, rather +sharply. + +‘Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,’ said Peggotty. + +My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to +say such a thing. + +‘As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to +you or anybody else, you jealous thing!’ said she. ‘You had much better +go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don’t you?’ + +‘I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,’ said Peggotty. + +‘What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You +are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous +creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the +things, I suppose? I shouldn’t be surprised if you did. When you know +that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know +she does, Peggotty--you know it well.’ + +Peggotty muttered something to the effect of ‘Bother the best +intentions!’ and something else to the effect that there was a little +too much of the best intentions going on. + +‘I know what you mean, you cross thing,’ said my mother. ‘I understand +you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don’t colour +up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now, +Peggotty, and you sha’n’t escape from it. Haven’t you heard her +say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and +too--a--a--’ + +‘Pretty,’ suggested Peggotty. + +‘Well,’ returned my mother, half laughing, ‘and if she is so silly as to +say so, can I be blamed for it?’ + +‘No one says you can,’ said Peggotty. + +‘No, I should hope not, indeed!’ returned my mother. ‘Haven’t you heard +her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished to spare +me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and +which I really don’t know myself that I AM suited for; and isn’t she up +early and late, and going to and fro continually--and doesn’t she do +all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and +pantries and I don’t know where, that can’t be very agreeable--and do +you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?’ + +‘I don’t insinuate at all,’ said Peggotty. + +‘You do, Peggotty,’ returned my mother. ‘You never do anything else, +except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when +you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions--’ + +‘I never talked of ‘em,’ said Peggotty. + +‘No, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘but you insinuated. That’s what I +told you just now. That’s the worst of you. You WILL insinuate. I said, +at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk +of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I +don’t believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as +well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in +everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, +Peggotty--you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not +alluding to anybody present--it is solely because he is satisfied that +it is for a certain person’s benefit. He naturally loves a certain +person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person’s good. He +is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am +a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious +man. And he takes,’ said my mother, with the tears which were engendered +in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, ‘he takes great +pains with me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very +submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I +worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don’t +know what to do.’ + +Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently +at the fire. + +‘There, Peggotty,’ said my mother, changing her tone, ‘don’t let us fall +out with one another, for I couldn’t bear it. You are my true friend, I +know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, +or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean +that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night +when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the +gate to meet me.’ + +Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of friendship by +giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real +character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that +the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that +my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in +which she had indulged. The design was efficacious; for I remember that +my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that +Peggotty observed her less. + +When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles +snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in +remembrance of old times--she took it out of her pocket: I don’t know +whether she had kept it there ever since--and then we talked about Salem +House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great +subject. We were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, +and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass +out of my memory. + +It was almost ten o’clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all +got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and +Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps +I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went upstairs with my candle +directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I +ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought +a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar +feeling like a feather. + +I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as +I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my +memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two +or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my +own room, and presented myself in the parlour. + +He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss +Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made +no sign of recognition whatever. I went up to him, after a moment of +confusion, and said: ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I +did, and I hope you will forgive me.’ + +‘I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,’ he replied. + +The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my +eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so +red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face. + +‘How do you do, ma’am?’ I said to Miss Murdstone. + +‘Ah, dear me!’ sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop +instead of her fingers. ‘How long are the holidays?’ + +‘A month, ma’am.’ + +‘Counting from when?’ + +‘From today, ma’am.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Then here’s one day off.’ + +She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning +checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until +she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more +hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. + +It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, +though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into a state of +violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother +were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on +my mother’s lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss +Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it. + +‘My dear Jane!’ cried my mother. + +‘Good heavens, Clara, do you see?’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone. + +‘See what, my dear Jane?’ said my mother; ‘where?’ + +‘He’s got it!’ cried Miss Murdstone. ‘The boy has got the baby!’ + +She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, +and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very +ill that they were obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was solemnly +interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more +on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished +otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: ‘No doubt you are +right, my dear Jane.’ + +On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear +baby--it was truly dear to me, for our mother’s sake--was the innocent +occasion of Miss Murdstone’s going into a passion. My mother, who had +been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said: + +‘Davy! come here!’ and looked at mine. + +I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down. + +‘I declare,’ said my mother, gently, ‘they are exactly alike. I suppose +they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But they are +wonderfully alike.’ + +‘What are you talking about, Clara?’ said Miss Murdstone. + +‘My dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone +of this inquiry, ‘I find that the baby’s eyes and Davy’s are exactly +alike.’ + +‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, ‘you are a positive fool +sometimes.’ + +‘My dear Jane,’ remonstrated my mother. + +‘A positive fool,’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Who else could compare my +brother’s baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are +exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope +they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons +made.’ With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her. + +In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not +a favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did +like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly +that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, +boorish, and dull. + +I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into +the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother +seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the +moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humour, I +checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I +had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that +she was afraid to speak to me or to be kind to me, lest she should +give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a +lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own +offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I +only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way +as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike, +when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little +great-coat, poring over a book. + +In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. +There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of +these resources was approved of in the parlour. The tormenting humour +which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be +necessary to my poor mother’s training, and, as one of her trials, could +not be suffered to absent myself. + +‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to +leave the room as usual; ‘I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen +disposition.’ + +‘As sulky as a bear!’ said Miss Murdstone. + +I stood still, and hung my head. + +‘Now, David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘a sullen obdurate disposition is, of +all tempers, the worst.’ + +‘And the boy’s is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,’ +remarked his sister, ‘the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear +Clara, even you must observe it?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,’ said my mother, ‘but are you quite +sure--I am certain you’ll excuse me, my dear Jane--that you understand +Davy?’ + +‘I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,’ returned Miss +Murdstone, ‘if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don’t +profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.’ + +‘No doubt, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother, ‘your understanding is +very vigorous--’ + +‘Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,’ interposed Miss Murdstone, +angrily. + +‘But I am sure it is,’ resumed my mother; ‘and everybody knows it is. I +profit so much by it myself, in many ways--at least I ought to--that no +one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with +great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you.’ + +‘We’ll say I don’t understand the boy, Clara,’ returned Miss Murdstone, +arranging the little fetters on her wrists. ‘We’ll agree, if you please, +that I don’t understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But +perhaps my brother’s penetration may enable him to have some insight +into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject +when we--not very decently--interrupted him.’ + +‘I think, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, ‘that there +may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than +you.’ + +‘Edward,’ replied my mother, timidly, ‘you are a far better judge of all +questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said--’ + +‘You only said something weak and inconsiderate,’ he replied. ‘Try not +to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.’ + +My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered ‘Yes, my dear Edward,’ but +she said nothing aloud. + +‘I was sorry, David, I remarked,’ said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head +and his eyes stiffly towards me, ‘to observe that you are of a sullen +disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself +beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, +sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ I faltered. ‘I have never meant to be sullen +since I came back.’ + +‘Don’t take refuge in a lie, sir!’ he returned so fiercely, that I saw +my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose +between us. ‘You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own +room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You +know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. +Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. +I will have it done.’ + +Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. + +‘I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself,’ he +continued, ‘and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will +not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a +child. Sit down.’ + +He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog. + +‘One thing more,’ he said. ‘I observe that you have an attachment to low +and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The +kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need +improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing--since you, +Clara,’ addressing my mother in a lower voice, ‘from old associations +and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is +not yet overcome.’ + +‘A most unaccountable delusion it is!’ cried Miss Murdstone. + +‘I only say,’ he resumed, addressing me, ‘that I disapprove of your +preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be +abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the +consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.’ + +I knew well--better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother +was concerned--and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own +room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in +the parlour day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime. + +What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours +upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should +complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and +afraid to move an eye lest she should light on some look of dislike +or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What +intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and +watching Miss Murdstone’s little shiny steel beads as she strung them; +and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what +sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding of the +chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among +the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall! + +What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, +carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a +monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was +no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and +blunted them! + +What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there +were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and +that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too +many, and that I! + +What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ +myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some +hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of +weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as ‘Rule Britannia’, or +‘Away with Melancholy’; when they wouldn’t stand still to be learnt, but +would go threading my grandmother’s needle through my unfortunate head, +in at one ear and out at the other! What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, +in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps +with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely +made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and +yet was in everybody’s way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss +Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed! + +Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss +Murdstone said: ‘Here’s the last day off!’ and gave me the closing cup +of tea of the vacation. + +I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was +recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. +Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and +again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said: ‘Clara!’ when my mother +bent over me, to bid me farewell. + +I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not +sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was +there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that +lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed +the embrace. + +I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked +out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her +arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her +head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at +me, holding up her child. + +So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school--a silent +presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding +up her baby in her arms. + + + +CHAPTER 9. I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY + + +I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my +birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be +admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of +the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than +before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before; but beyond +this I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is +marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, +and to exist alone. + +It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full +two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that +birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it +must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no +interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other’s heels. + +How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung +about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my +rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of +the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the +foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the +raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the +floor. It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the +playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said: + +‘David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.’ + +I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some +of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the +distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great +alacrity. + +‘Don’t hurry, David,’ said Mr. Sharp. ‘There’s time enough, my boy, +don’t hurry.’ + +I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I +had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried +away to the parlour; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his +breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle +with an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper. + +‘David Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and +sitting down beside me. ‘I want to speak to you very particularly. I +have something to tell you, my child.’ + +Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking +at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. + +‘You are too young to know how the world changes every day,’ said Mrs. +Creakle, ‘and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn +it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, +some of us at all times of our lives.’ + +I looked at her earnestly. + +‘When you came away from home at the end of the vacation,’ said Mrs. +Creakle, after a pause, ‘were they all well?’ After another pause, ‘Was +your mama well?’ + +I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her +earnestly, making no attempt to answer. + +‘Because,’ said she, ‘I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your +mama is very ill.’ + +A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move +in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, +and it was steady again. + +‘She is very dangerously ill,’ she added. + +I knew all now. + +‘She is dead.’ + +There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a +desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. + +She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone +sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and +cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the +oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that +there was no ease for. + +And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed +upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut +up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had +been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I +thought of my father’s grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my +mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair +when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes +were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were +gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, +what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think +of when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral. I am +sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of +the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. + +If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember +that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in +the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I +saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their +classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked +slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I felt +it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take +exactly the same notice of them all, as before. + +I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy +night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by +country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We +had no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me +his pillow. I don’t know what good he thought it would do me, for I +had one of my own: but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a +sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, +as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. + +I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that +I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and +did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o’clock in the morning. I +looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a +fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty +little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, +and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said: + +‘Master Copperfield?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Will you come with me, young sir, if you please,’ he said, opening the +door, ‘and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home.’ + +I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a +shop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR, +HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling little +shop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including +one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a little +back-parlour behind the shop, where we found three young women at work +on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table, +and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. +There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black +crape--I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now. + +The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and +comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with +their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from +a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound +of hammering that kept a kind of tune: RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, +RAT--tat-tat, without any variation. + +‘Well,’ said my conductor to one of the three young women. ‘How do you +get on, Minnie?’ + +‘We shall be ready by the trying-on time,’ she replied gaily, without +looking up. ‘Don’t you be afraid, father.’ + +Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He was +so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say: + +‘That’s right.’ + +‘Father!’ said Minnie, playfully. ‘What a porpoise you do grow!’ + +‘Well, I don’t know how it is, my dear,’ he replied, considering about +it. ‘I am rather so.’ + +‘You are such a comfortable man, you see,’ said Minnie. ‘You take things +so easy.’ + +‘No use taking ‘em otherwise, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. + +‘No, indeed,’ returned his daughter. ‘We are all pretty gay here, thank +Heaven! Ain’t we, father?’ + +‘I hope so, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘As I have got my breath now, I +think I’ll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop, +Master Copperfield?’ + +I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing +me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning +for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put +them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attention +to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had ‘just +come up’, and to certain other fashions which he said had ‘just gone +out’. + +‘And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money,’ +said Mr. Omer. ‘But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody +knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or +how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that +point of view.’ + +I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have +been beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me back into +the parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way. + +He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door: +‘Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!’ which, after some time, +during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the +stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the +yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me. + +‘I have been acquainted with you,’ said Mr. Omer, after watching me +for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the +breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, ‘I have been +acquainted with you a long time, my young friend.’ + +‘Have you, sir?’ + +‘All your life,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I may say before it. I knew your +father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in +five-and-twen-ty foot of ground.’ + +‘RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,’ across the yard. + +‘He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction,’ +said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. ‘It was either his request or her direction, +I forget which.’ + +‘Do you know how my little brother is, sir?’ I inquired. + +Mr. Omer shook his head. + +‘RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat.’ + +‘He is in his mother’s arms,’ said he. + +‘Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?’ + +‘Don’t mind it more than you can help,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes. The baby’s +dead.’ + +My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the +scarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table, +in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I +should spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. She was +a pretty, good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a +soft, kind touch; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished +her work and being in good time, and was so different from me! + +Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across +the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was +full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could +speak. + +‘Well, Joram!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘How do you get on?’ + +‘All right,’ said Joram. ‘Done, sir.’ + +Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. + +‘What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the +club, then? Were you?’ said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. + +‘Yes,’ said Joram. ‘As you said we could make a little trip of it, and +go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me--and you.’ + +‘Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether,’ said Mr. +Omer, laughing till he coughed. + +‘--As you was so good as to say that,’ resumed the young man, ‘why I +turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of it?’ + +‘I will,’ said Mr. Omer, rising. ‘My dear’; and he stopped and turned to +me: ‘would you like to see your--’ + +‘No, father,’ Minnie interposed. + +‘I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘But perhaps +you’re right.’ + +I can’t say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother’s coffin that they +went to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never seen one that +I know of.--but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was +going on; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he had +been doing. + +The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard, +brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into the +shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind +to fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she did +upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, who I had +no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was +busy (he didn’t appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gone +for the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready. Then he +went out again; and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket, +and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her +gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behind +the door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face. + +All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head +leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things. +The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the baskets +being put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. I +remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half pianoforte-van, painted +of a sombre colour, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. There +was plenty of room for us all. + +I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life +(I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how +they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry +with them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among +creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very +cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people +sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on +one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great +deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and +moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though +it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came +upon them for their hardness of heart. + +So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed +themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast +unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind, +as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company before +those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once +bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to +tears when I came back--seeing the window of my mother’s room, and next +it that which, in the better time, was mine! + +I was in Peggotty’s arms before I got to the door, and she took me into +the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlled +it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could +be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She +sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was +above the ground, she said, she would never desert her. + +Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he +was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his +elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which +was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and +asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning. + +I said: ‘Yes.’ + +‘And your shirts,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘have you brought ‘em home?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am. I have brought home all my clothes.’ + +This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do +not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called +her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and +her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable +qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn +for business; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and +ink, and being moved by nothing. All the rest of that day, and from +morning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk, scratching composedly +with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to +everybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of +her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray. + +Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He +would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for +a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to +and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and +counting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her, +and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing, except the +clocks, in the whole motionless house. + +In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except +that, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room +where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every +night, and sat by my bed’s head while I went to sleep. A day or +two before the burial--I think it was a day or two before, but I am +conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing +to mark its progress--she took me into the room. I only recollect that +underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness +and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the +solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have +turned the cover gently back, I cried: ‘Oh no! oh no!’ and held her +hand. + +If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The +very air of the best parlour, when I went in at the door, the bright +condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the +patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the +odour of Miss Murdstone’s dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is +in the room, and comes to speak to me. + +‘And how is Master David?’ he says, kindly. + +I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his. + +‘Dear me!’ says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining in +his eye. ‘Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our +knowledge, ma’am?’ This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply. + +‘There is a great improvement here, ma’am?’ says Mr. Chillip. + +Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr. +Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens +his mouth no more. + +I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because +I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell +begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As +Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to +the same grave were made ready in the same room. + +There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, and +I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the +garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and +through the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have so often heard +the birds sing on a summer morning. + +We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every +other day, and the light not of the same colour--of a sadder colour. +Now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is +resting in the mould; and while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voice +of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and +plain, saying: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!’ +Then I hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that +good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the +best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one +day say: ‘Well done.’ + +There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that I +knew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first +saw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do +not mind them--I mind nothing but my grief--and yet I see and know them +all; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, and +her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me. + +It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before +us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with +the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to +the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks to +me; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask his +leave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. + +All this, I say, is yesterday’s event. Events of later date have floated +from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this +stands like a high rock in the ocean. + +I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness +of the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) was +suited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed; and +holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimes +smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother, +told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had +happened. + +‘She was never well,’ said Peggotty, ‘for a long time. She was uncertain +in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I thought at first +she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every +day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then she +cried; but afterwards she used to sing to it--so soft, that I once +thought, when I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was +rising away. + +‘I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late; +and that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same +to me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn’t my sweet girl.’ + +Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. + +‘The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when +you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, “I never +shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the +truth, I know.” + +‘She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told her +she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it was +all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me--she +was afraid of saying it to anybody else--till one night, a little more +than a week before it happened, when she said to him: “My dear, I think +I am dying.” + +‘“It’s off my mind now, Peggotty,” she told me, when I laid her in her +bed that night. “He will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every +day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. I am very tired. +If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don’t leave me. God bless +both my children! God protect and keep my fatherless boy!” + +‘I never left her afterwards,’ said Peggotty. ‘She often talked to them +two downstairs--for she loved them; she couldn’t bear not to love anyone +who was about her--but when they went away from her bed-side, she always +turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and never fell +asleep in any other way. + +‘On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: “If my baby +should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury +us together.” (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond +her.) “Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,” she said, +“and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once, +but a thousand times.”’ + +Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand. + +‘It was pretty far in the night,’ said Peggotty, ‘when she asked me for +some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, the +dear!--so beautiful! + +‘Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, how +kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and how +he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that +a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a +happy man in hers. “Peggotty, my dear,” she said then, “put me nearer to +you,” for she was very weak. “Lay your good arm underneath my neck,” she +said, “and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and I want it +to be near.” I put it as she asked; and oh Davy! the time had come when +my first parting words to you were true--when she was glad to lay her +poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty’s arm--and she died like a +child that had gone to sleep!’ + + +Thus ended Peggotty’s narration. From the moment of my knowing of the +death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanished +from me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young mother +of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls +round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the +parlour. What Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back +to the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may +be curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to her +calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest. + +The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the +little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for +ever on her bosom. + + + +CHAPTER 10. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR + + +The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the +solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was +to give Peggotty a month’s warning. Much as Peggotty would have disliked +such a service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in +preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part, and told me +why; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity. + +As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy +they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a +month’s warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when +I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was +not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to +know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither +she nor I could pick up any information on the subject. + +There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of +a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been +capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the +future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite +abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in +the parlour, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss +Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off +from Peggotty’s society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone’s, I +was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of +his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone’s +devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think that such fears were +groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect. + +I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was +still giddy with the shock of my mother’s death, and in a kind of +stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to +have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught +any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby, moody +man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the +feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere, +like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient +visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly +painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted +away, left the wall blank again. + +‘Peggotty,’ I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was +warming my hands at the kitchen fire, ‘Mr. Murdstone likes me less than +he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not +even see me now, if he can help it.’ + +‘Perhaps it’s his sorrow,’ said Peggotty, stroking my hair. + +‘I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow, +I should not think of it at all. But it’s not that; oh, no, it’s not +that.’ + +‘How do you know it’s not that?’ said Peggotty, after a silence. + +‘Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at +this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was +to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.’ + +‘What would he be?’ said Peggotty. + +‘Angry,’ I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. +‘If he was only sorry, he wouldn’t look at me as he does. I am only +sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.’ + +Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as +silent as she. + +‘Davy,’ she said at length. + +‘Yes, Peggotty?’ ‘I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of--all +the ways there are, and all the ways there ain’t, in short--to get a +suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there’s no such a thing, my +love.’ + +‘And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,’ says I, wistfully. ‘Do you mean +to go and seek your fortune?’ + +‘I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,’ replied Peggotty, ‘and +live there.’ + +‘You might have gone farther off,’ I said, brightening a little, ‘and +been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, +there. You won’t be quite at the other end of the world, will you?’ + +‘Contrary ways, please God!’ cried Peggotty, with great animation. ‘As +long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to +see you. One day, every week of my life!’ + +I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but even this +was not all, for Peggotty went on to say: + +‘I’m a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother’s, first, for another +fortnight’s visit--just till I have had time to look about me, and +get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking that +perhaps, as they don’t want you here at present, you might be let to go +along with me.’ + +If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about +me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that +time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being +again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of +renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells +were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships +breaking through the mist; of roaming up and down with little Em’ly, +telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells +and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next +moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone’s giving her consent; +but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening +grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and +Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the +spot. + +‘The boy will be idle there,’ said Miss Murdstone, looking into a +pickle-jar, ‘and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he +would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion.’ + +Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed it +for my sake, and remained silent. + +‘Humph!’ said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; +‘it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount +importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made +uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes.’ + +I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should +induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a +prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with +as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its +contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted; +for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart. + +Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty’s boxes. I had never known +him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into +the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and +went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be +said to find its way into Mr. Barkis’s visage. + +Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home +so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for +my mother and myself--had been formed. She had been walking in the +churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it +with her handkerchief at her eyes. + +So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign +of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great +stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to +me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least +notion at whom, or what he meant by it. + +‘It’s a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!’ I said, as an act of politeness. + +‘It ain’t bad,’ said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and +rarely committed himself. + +‘Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,’ I remarked, for his +satisfaction. + +‘Is she, though?’ said Mr. Barkis. + +After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, +and said: + +‘ARE you pretty comfortable?’ + +Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. + +‘But really and truly, you know. Are you?’ growled Mr. Barkis, sliding +nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. ‘Are you? +Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?’ + +At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave +her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the +left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly +bear it. + +Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a +little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help +observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient +for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without +the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over +it for some time. By and by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, +‘Are you pretty comfortable though?’ bore down upon us as before, until +the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another +descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length, +I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot-board, +pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well. + +He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, +and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was +in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and +almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he +had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth +pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have +any leisure for anything else. + +Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me +and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, +who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer +upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a +vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty’s trunks, +and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with +his forefinger to come under an archway. + +‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was all right.’ + +I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very +profound: ‘Oh!’ + +‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding +confidentially. ‘It was all right.’ + +Again I answered, ‘Oh!’ + +‘You know who was willin’,’ said my friend. ‘It was Barkis, and Barkis +only.’ + +I nodded assent. + +‘It’s all right,’ said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; ‘I’m a friend of +your’n. You made it all right, first. It’s all right.’ + +In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely +mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and +most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out +of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty’s calling me +away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told +her he had said it was all right. + +‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty, ‘but I don’t mind that! Davy dear, +what should you think if I was to think of being married?’ + +‘Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do +now?’ I returned, after a little consideration. + +Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as +of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and +embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. + +‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’ she asked again, when this was +over, and we were walking on. + +‘If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. + +‘I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, +Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to +see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.’ + +‘The sense of the dear!’ cried Peggotty. ‘What I have been thinking +of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more +independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better +heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else’s now. I don’t know +what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be +always near my pretty’s resting-place,’ said Peggotty, musing, ‘and be +able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid +not far off from my darling girl!’ + +We neither of us said anything for a little while. + +‘But I wouldn’t so much as give it another thought,’ said Peggotty, +cheerily ‘if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in +church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my +pocket.’ + +‘Look at me, Peggotty,’ I replied; ‘and see if I am not really glad, and +don’t truly wish it!’ As indeed I did, with all my heart. + +‘Well, my life,’ said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, ‘I have thought of +it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I’ll +think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime +we’ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain +creature,’ said Peggotty, ‘and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think +it would be my fault if I wasn’t--if I wasn’t pretty comfortable,’ +said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was +so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and +again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of +Mr. Peggotty’s cottage. + +It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a +little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she +had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed +in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about +me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the +same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same +state of conglomeration in the same old corner. + +But there was no little Em’ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where +she was. + +‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent +on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; ‘she’ll be home,’ +looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s +time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!’ + +Mrs. Gummidge moaned. + +‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. + +‘I feel it more than anybody else,’ said Mrs. Gummidge; ‘I’m a lone +lorn creetur’, and she used to be a’most the only thing that didn’t go +contrary with me.’ + +Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to +blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so +engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: ‘The old +‘un!’ From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken +place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits. + +Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful +a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt +rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em’ly was +not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found +myself strolling along the path to meet her. + +A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be +Em’ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. +But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her +dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a +curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and +pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done +such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken. + +Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of +turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me +to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage +before I caught her. + +‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly. + +‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I. + +‘And didn’t YOU know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was going to kiss her, +but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn’t a +baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. + +She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I +wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker +was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she +went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on +Mr. Peggotty’s inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide +it, and could do nothing but laugh. + +‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great +hand. + +‘So sh’ is! so sh’ is!’ cried Ham. ‘Mas’r Davy bor’, so sh’ is!’ and he +sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration +and delight, that made his face a burning red. + +Little Em’ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than +Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by +only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my +opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be +thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, +and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that +she captivated me more than ever. + +She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after +tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss +I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so +kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his +hand like water, ‘here’s another orphan, you see, sir. And here,’ said +Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, ‘is another of +‘em, though he don’t look much like it.’ + +‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, shaking my head, +‘I don’t think I should FEEL much like it.’ + +‘Well said, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ cried Ham, in an ecstasy. ‘Hoorah! Well +said! Nor more you wouldn’t! Hor! Hor!’--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty’s +back-hander, and little Em’ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. ‘And how’s +your friend, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty to me. + +‘Steerforth?’ said I. + +‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. ‘I knowed it was +something in our way.’ + +‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed Ham, laughing. + +‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And ye steer with a rudder, don’t ye? It +ain’t fur off. How is he, sir?’ + +‘He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.’ + +‘There’s a friend!’ said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. ‘There’s +a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it +ain’t a treat to look at him!’ + +‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said I, my heart warming with this +praise. + +‘Handsome!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘He stands up to you like--like a--why I +don’t know what he don’t stand up to you like. He’s so bold!’ + +‘Yes! That’s just his character,’ said I. ‘He’s as brave as a lion, and +you can’t think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.’ + +‘And I do suppose, now,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the +smoke of his pipe, ‘that in the way of book-larning he’d take the wind +out of a’most anything.’ + +‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows everything. He is astonishingly +clever.’ + +‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his +head. + +‘Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,’ said I. ‘He knows a task if he +only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give +you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily.’ + +Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘Of course +he will.’ + +‘He is such a speaker,’ I pursued, ‘that he can win anybody over; and I +don’t know what you’d say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty.’ + +Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘I have no +doubt of it.’ + +‘Then, he’s such a generous, fine, noble fellow,’ said I, quite carried +away by my favourite theme, ‘that it’s hardly possible to give him as +much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough +for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and +lower in the school than himself.’ + +I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little +Em’ly’s face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the +deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, +and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily +earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all +observed her at the same time, for as I stopped, they laughed and looked +at her. + +‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and would like to see him.’ + +Em’ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, +and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her +stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure +I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept +away till it was nearly bedtime. + +I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind +came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not +help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead +of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat +away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those +sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water +began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my +prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em’ly, and so +dropping lovingly asleep. + +The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was +a great exception--that little Em’ly and I seldom wandered on the beach +now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent +during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had +those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of +childish whims as Em’ly was, she was more of a little woman than I +had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me, +in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and +tormented me; and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and +was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times +were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the +wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this +hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April +afternoons; that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used +to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld +such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. + +On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an +exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges +tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this +property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when +he went away; until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with +the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion +he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a +little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put +behind the door and left there. These offerings of affection were of a +most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double +set of pigs’ trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of +apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, +a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork. + +Mr. Barkis’s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar +kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much +the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, +who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he +made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put +it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great +delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of +his pocket, in a partially melted state, and pocket it again when it was +done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all +called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the +flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself +with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I +remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her +apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were +all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose +courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she +was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. + +At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given +out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day’s holiday +together, and that little Em’ly and I were to accompany them. I had but +a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of +a whole day with Em’ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning; and +while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance, +driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections. + +Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but Mr. +Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him +such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary +in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his +hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were +of the largest size. Rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff +waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability. + +When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty +was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck, +and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose. + +‘No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. +‘I’m a lone lorn creetur’ myself, and everythink that reminds me of +creetur’s that ain’t lone and lorn, goes contrary with me.’ + +‘Come, old gal!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘Take and heave it.’ + +‘No, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. +‘If I felt less, I could do more. You don’t feel like me, Dan’l; thinks +don’t go contrary with you, nor you with them; you had better do it +yourself.’ + +But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a +hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we +all were by this time (Em’ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), +that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry +to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by +immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of +Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had +better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a +sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. + +Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing +we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some +rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em’ly and me alone in +the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em’ly’s waist, and +propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine +to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little +Em’ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; +informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that +I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her +affections. + +How merry little Em’ly made herself about it! With what a demure +assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little +woman said I was ‘a silly boy’; and then laughed so charmingly that +I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the +pleasure of looking at her. + +Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at +last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, +Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by the by, I should +hardly have thought, before, that he could wink: + +‘What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?’ + +‘Clara Peggotty,’ I answered. + +‘What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt +here?’ + +‘Clara Peggotty, again?’ I suggested. + +‘Clara Peggotty BARKIS!’ he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter +that shook the chaise. + +In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other +purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and +the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the +ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt +announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her +unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she +was very glad it was over. + +We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected, and +where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great +satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten +years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no +sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went +out for a stroll with little Em’ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis +philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with +the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; +for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of +pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he +was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large +quantity without any emotion. + +I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind +of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after +dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about +them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis’s mind to +an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed +anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he +had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my +hearing, on that very occasion, that I was ‘a young Roeshus’--by which I +think he meant prodigy. + +When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had +exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em’ly and I made a +cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. +Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, +and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, +never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand +in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our +heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried +by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in +it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar +off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such +guileless hearts at Peggotty’s marriage as little Em’ly’s and mine. I +am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely +procession. + +Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there +Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their +own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I +should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof +but that which sheltered little Em’ly’s head. + +Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and +were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. +Little Em’ly came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in +all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful +day. + +It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham +went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary +house, the protector of Em’ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that +a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack +upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as +nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that +night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons +until morning. + +With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window +as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. +After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little +home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been impressed by +a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlour (the tile-floored +kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which +opened, let down, and became a desk, within which was a large quarto +edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do +not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied +myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on +a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms +over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly +edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and +represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty’s +house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. + +I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little +Em’ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty’s, in a little room +in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the bed’s head) which +was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me +in exactly the same state. + +‘Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over +my head,’ said Peggotty, ‘you shall find it as if I expected you here +directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old +little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think +of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away.’ + +I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, +and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she +spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was +going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself +and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or +lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking +Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the +house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking +any more. + +And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon +without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart +from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of +my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless +thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. + +What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that +ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No +such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, +steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened +at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear +me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the +notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. + +I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong +that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a +systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month +after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think +of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; +whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished +through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have +helped me out. + +When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in +their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about +the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were +jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that if I did, I +might complain to someone. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often +asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before +that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember +connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was +but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his +closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with +the smell of the whole Pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding +something in a mortar under his mild directions. + +For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was +seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either +came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never +empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in +being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few +times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then +I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty +dutifully expressed it, was ‘a little near’, and kept a heap of money +in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats +and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a +tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted +out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate +scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday’s expenses. + +All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had +given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been +perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were +my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read +them over and over I don’t know how many times more. + +I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the +remembrance of, while I remember anything: and the recollection of +which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and +haunted happier times. + +I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, +meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the +corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with +a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman +cried: + +‘What! Brooks!’ + +‘No, sir, David Copperfield,’ I said. + +‘Don’t tell me. You are Brooks,’ said the gentleman. ‘You are Brooks of +Sheffield. That’s your name.’ + +At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh +coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I +had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no +matter--I need not recall when. + +‘And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?’ said +Mr. Quinion. + +He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk +with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. +Murdstone. + +‘He is at home at present,’ said the latter. ‘He is not being educated +anywhere. I don’t know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject.’ + +That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes darkened +with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. + +‘Humph!’ said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. ‘Fine +weather!’ + +Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my +shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: + +‘I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?’ + +‘Aye! He is sharp enough,’ said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. ‘You had +better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him.’ + +On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my +way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. +Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion +talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they +were speaking of me. + +Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next +morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when +Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, +where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands +in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them +all. + +‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘to the young this is a world for action; +not for moping and droning in.’ --‘As you do,’ added his sister. + +‘Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the +young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It +is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a +great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done +than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to +bend it and break it.’ + +‘For stubbornness won’t do here,’ said his sister ‘What it wants is, to +be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!’ + +He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: + +‘I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it +now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is +costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion +that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school. +What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin +it, the better.’ + +I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: +but it occurs to me now, whether or no. + +‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned sometimes,’ said Mr. +Murdstone. + +‘The counting-house, sir?’ I repeated. ‘Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the +wine trade,’ he replied. + +I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: + +‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned, or the business, or the +cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.’ + +‘I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,’ I said, remembering +what I vaguely knew of his and his sister’s resources. ‘But I don’t know +when.’ + +‘It does not matter when,’ he returned. ‘Mr. Quinion manages that +business.’ + +I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. + +‘Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, +and that he sees no reason why it shouldn’t, on the same terms, give +employment to you.’ + +‘He having,’ Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning +round, ‘no other prospect, Murdstone.’ + +Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, +without noticing what he had said: + +‘Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for +your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have +arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--’ + +‘--Which will be kept down to my estimate,’ said his sister. + +‘Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,’ said Mr. Murdstone; +‘as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you +are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on +your own account.’ + +‘In short, you are provided for,’ observed his sister; ‘and will please +to do your duty.’ + +Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was +to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased +or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion +about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor +had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to +go upon the morrow. + +Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black +crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard, stiff +corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for +the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off. Behold +me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small +trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), +in the post-chaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at +Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; +how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; +how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky +is empty! + + + +CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON’T LIKE IT + + +I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of +being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to +me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. +A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, +quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems +wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But +none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind +in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. + +Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in +Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the +last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the +river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a +crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the +tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun +with rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of +a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the +squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and +the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, +in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as +they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, +with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion’s. + +Murdstone and Grinby’s trade was among a good many kinds of people, but +an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain +packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there +were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. +I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of +this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine +them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse +and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be +pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put +upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work +was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. + +There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was +established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see +me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the +counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, +on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own +account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my +business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a +paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in +a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor’s Show. He also informed me +that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by +the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, +that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had +been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, +which was pale or mealy. Mealy’s father was a waterman, who had the +additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at +one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy’s--I think +his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. + +No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this +companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates with those +of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the +rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned +and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the +sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in +my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day +by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my +fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, +never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick +Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with +the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there +were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. + +The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was +general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the +counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and +found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black +tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large +one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very +extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, +but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a +stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass +hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very +seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did. + +‘This,’ said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, ‘is he.’ + +‘This,’ said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his +voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which +impressed me very much, ‘is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, +sir?’ + +I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at +ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that +time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. + +‘I am,’ said the stranger, ‘thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a +letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire +me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at +present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short,’ +said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, ‘as a +bedroom--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--’ and the +stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar. + +‘This is Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion to me. + +‘Ahem!’ said the stranger, ‘that is my name.’ + +‘Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion, ‘is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes +orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to +by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive +you as a lodger.’ + +‘My address,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in +short,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another +burst of confidence--‘I live there.’ + +I made him a bow. + +‘Under the impression,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that your peregrinations in +this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have +some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the +direction of the City Road,--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in another +burst of confidence, ‘that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to +call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.’ + +I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to +take that trouble. + +‘At what hour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘shall I--’ + +‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Quinion. + +‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘I beg to wish you good day, Mr. +Quinion. I will intrude no longer.’ + +So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very +upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. + +Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in +the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six +shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am +inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six +at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own +pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my +trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it being too heavy for my +strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was +a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which +was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. + +At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed +my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we +walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. +Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the shapes of corner houses +upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the +morning. + +Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby +like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he +presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all +young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor was altogether +unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), +with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins; and I may remark +here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both +the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was +always taking refreshment. + +There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and +Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young +woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and +informed me, before half an hour had expired, that she was ‘a Orfling’, +and came from St. Luke’s workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the +establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close +chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination +represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished. + +‘I never thought,’ said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and all, +to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, ‘before I was +married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it +necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all +considerations of private feeling must give way.’ + +I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’ + +‘Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present,’ +said Mrs. Micawber; ‘and whether it is possible to bring him through +them, I don’t know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really +should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which +I now employ it, but experientia does it,--as papa used to say.’ + +I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been +an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know +that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines once upon a time, +without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number +of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am +afraid. + +‘If Mr. Micawber’s creditors will not give him time,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, ‘they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it +to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither +can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law +expenses) from Mr. Micawber.’ + +I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence +confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so +full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very +twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was +the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time +I knew her. + +Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and so, +I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was perfectly +covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved ‘Mrs. Micawber’s +Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies’: but I never found that any +young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever +came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made +to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw, or heard of, +were creditors. THEY used to come at all hours, and some of them were +quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-maker, +used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o’clock in the +morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber--‘Come! You ain’t out +yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don’t hide, you know; that’s mean. I +wouldn’t be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d’ye +hear? Come!’ Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in +his wrath to the words ‘swindlers’ and ‘robbers’; and these being +ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the +street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew +Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with +grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by +a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; +but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with +extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of +gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known +her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king’s taxes at three +o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for +with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker’s) at four. On one +occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through +some chance as early as six o’clock, I saw her lying (of course with a +twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; +but I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, +over a veal cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her +papa and mama, and the company they used to keep. + +In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own +exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided +myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a +particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I +came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I +know well; and I was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support +myself on that money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday +night, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, +no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to +mind, as I hope to go to heaven! + +I was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could I be +otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that +often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby’s, of a morning, I could +not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the +pastrycooks’ doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for +my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice +of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between which I was divided, +according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin’s +Church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether. +The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special +pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth +of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the +Strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a +stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, +stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time +every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and +handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of +red beef from a cook’s shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a +glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of +business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have +forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought +from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, +like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, +and ordering a ‘small plate’ of that delicacy to eat with it. What the +waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, +I don’t know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, +and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for +himself, and I wish he hadn’t taken it. + +We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used +to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter. +When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street; or +I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and +stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, +because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself +emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house +close to the river, with an open space before it, where some +coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I +wonder what they thought of me! + +I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the +bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten +what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember +one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the +landlord: ‘What is your best--your very best--ale a glass?’ For it was a +special occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my birthday. + +‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlord, ‘is the price of the Genuine +Stunning ale.’ + +‘Then,’ says I, producing the money, ‘just draw me a glass of the +Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.’ + +The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, +with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, +looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out +from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying +me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his +shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking +over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them +from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as, +what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, +and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I +invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, +though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord’s +wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave +me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half +compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure. + +I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the +scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that +if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in +a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning until night, with +common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the +streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for +the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken +of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. + +Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby’s too. Besides that Mr. +Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so +anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the +rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there, +or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I +suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew +but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly +beyond my power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. +I knew from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any +of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon +became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other +boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were +different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and +the men generally spoke of me as ‘the little gent’, or ‘the young +Suffolker.’ A certain man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers, +and another named Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used +to address me sometimes as ‘David’: but I think it was mostly when we +were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain +them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were +fast perishing out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and +rebelled against my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him +in no time. + +My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and +abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for +one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy; +but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and +partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us) +revealed the truth. + +Mr. Micawber’s difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of +my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and +used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber’s calculations of ways and +means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber’s debts. On a Saturday +night, which was my grand treat,--partly because it was a great thing +to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the +shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went +home early,--Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences +to me; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or +coffee I had bought over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late +at my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob +violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations, +and sing about Jack’s delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end of +it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a +declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a +calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, ‘in +case anything turned up’, which was his favourite expression. And Mrs. +Micawber was just the same. + +A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our +respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, +notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never +allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and +drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on badly with +the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for themselves), +until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence. This she did one +evening as follows: + +‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I make no stranger of you, +and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber’s difficulties +are coming to a crisis.’ + +It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber’s +red eyes with the utmost sympathy. + +‘With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese--which is not adapted +to the wants of a young family’--said Mrs. Micawber, ‘there is really +not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of +the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost +unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is nothing to eat +in the house.’ + +‘Dear me!’ I said, in great concern. + +I had two or three shillings of my week’s money in my pocket--from which +I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this +conversation--and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion +begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing +me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn’t +think of it. + +‘No, my dear Master Copperfield,’ said she, ‘far be it from my thoughts! +But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another +kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept +of.’ + +I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it. + +‘I have parted with the plate myself,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Six tea, two +salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on, +in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me, +with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions are very +painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. +Micawber’s feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and +Clickett’--this was the girl from the workhouse--‘being of a vulgar +mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in +her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you--’ + +I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any +extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property +that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every +morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby’s. + +Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the +library; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to +a bookstall in the City Road--one part of which, near our house, was +almost all bookstalls and bird shops then--and sold them for whatever +they would bring. The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little +house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently +scolded by his wife every morning. More than once, when I went there +early, I had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his +forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over-night (I +am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking +hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the +pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a +baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. +Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; +but his wife had always got some--had taken his, I dare say, while he +was drunk--and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went +down together. At the pawnbroker’s shop, too, I began to be very well +known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took +a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a +Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while +he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made +a little treat, which was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar +relish in these meals which I well remember. + +At last Mr. Micawber’s difficulties came to a crisis, and he was +arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King’s Bench Prison +in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God +of day had now gone down upon him--and I really thought his heart was +broken and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a +lively game at skittles, before noon. + +On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him, +and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and just +short of that place I should see such another place, and just short of +that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on +until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and when at last I did see a +turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!), and thought how, when Roderick +Random was in a debtors’ prison, there was a man there with nothing +on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my +beating heart. + +Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his +room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me, +I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man +had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds +nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he +spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a +shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for +the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. + +We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted +grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until +another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the +bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast. +Then I was sent up to ‘Captain Hopkins’ in the room overhead, with Mr. +Micawber’s compliments, and I was his young friend, and would Captain +Hopkins lend me a knife and fork. + +Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr. +Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan +girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better +to borrow Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins’s comb. +The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large +whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it. +I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots +he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two +girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins’s children, the +dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his +threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but +I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife +and fork were in my hand. + +There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all. +I took back Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork early in the afternoon, +and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit. +She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot +afterwards to console us while we talked it over. + +I don’t know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family +benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it was, however, +and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen +table. With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two +parlours of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the +children, the Orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night and +day. I have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a long +time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move into the prison, where Mr. +Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the +house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were +sent over to the King’s Bench, except mine, for which a little room was +hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very +much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used +to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise +accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood. +Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant +prospect of a timberyard; and when I took possession of it, with the +reflection that Mr. Micawber’s troubles had come to a crisis at last, I +thought it quite a paradise. + +All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby’s in the same common +way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of +unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt, +made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom I +saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling +about the streets at meal-times. I led the same secretly unhappy life; +but I led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. The only changes +I am conscious of are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and +secondly, that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. +Micawber’s cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them +at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison +than they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with +them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten +the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the +morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six +o’clock, and that my favourite lounging-place in the interval was old +London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, +watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun +shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the +Monument. The Orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing +fictions respecting the wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no +more than that I hope I believed them myself. In the evening I used +to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr. +Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of +her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable +to say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby’s. + +Mr. Micawber’s affairs, although past their crisis, were very much +involved by reason of a certain ‘Deed’, of which I used to hear a great +deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition +with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it +then, that I am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal +parchments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great +extent in Germany. At last this document appeared to be got out of the +way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; +and Mrs. Micawber informed me that ‘her family’ had decided that Mr. +Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, +which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks. + +‘And then,’ said Mr. Micawber, who was present, ‘I have no doubt I +shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live +in a perfectly new manner, if--in short, if anything turns up.’ + +By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to +mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the +House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment +for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to +myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life, +and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and +women; and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously +develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this +while. + +There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman, +was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition +to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore +Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a +creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never +so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any +profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it +on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a +time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come +up to his room and sign it. + +When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see them +all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of +them already, and they me, that I got an hour’s leave of absence from +Murdstone and Grinby’s, and established myself in a corner for that +purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as could be got +into the small room without filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front +of the petition, while my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed +himself, to do honour to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close +to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. The +door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in, +in a long file: several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his +signature, and went out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins +said: ‘Have you read it?’--‘No.’---‘Would you like to hear it read?’ If +he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in +a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would +have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have +heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to +such phrases as ‘The people’s representatives in Parliament assembled,’ +‘Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honourable house,’ ‘His +gracious Majesty’s unfortunate subjects,’ as if the words were something +real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, +listening with a little of an author’s vanity, and contemplating (not +severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. + +As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and +lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which +may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I +wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to +come filing before me in review again, to the echo of Captain Hopkins’s +voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I +wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a +mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, +I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an +innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange +experiences and sordid things! + + + +CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION + + +In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that +gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy. +His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that +even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he bore +him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid. +He said he thought it was human nature. + +Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s Bench when his case was over, as +some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he +could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and +held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawber +and I had a lamb’s fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. + +‘On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, ‘in a little more flip,’ for we had been having some already, +‘the memory of my papa and mama.’ + +‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired, after drinking the toast in a +wine-glass. + +‘My mama departed this life,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘before Mr. Micawber’s +difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa +lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by +a numerous circle.’ + +Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who +happened to be in hand. + +As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a +question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber: + +‘May I ask, ma’am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr. +Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled +yet?’ + +‘My family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an +air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, ‘my +family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert +his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent, +Master Copperfield.’ + +I said I was sure of that. + +‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of opinion, +that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his +ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it +is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think +it indispensable that he should be upon the spot.’ + +‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested. + +‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That he may be ready--in case of +anything turning up.’ + +‘And do you go too, ma’am?’ + +The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the +flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she +replied: + +‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his +difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may +have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace +and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for +less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding +gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never +will desert Mr. Micawber. No!’ cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than +before, ‘I never will do it! It’s of no use asking me!’ + +I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her +to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm. + +‘Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I +do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his +liabilities both,’ she went on, looking at the wall; ‘but I never will +desert Mr. Micawber!’ + +Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I +was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr. +Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus +of + + Gee up, Dobbin, + Gee ho, Dobbin, + Gee up, Dobbin, + Gee up, and gee ho--o--o! + +--with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon +which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his +waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been +partaking. + +‘Emma, my angel!’ cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; ‘what is +the matter?’ + +‘I never will desert you, Micawber!’ she exclaimed. + +‘My life!’ said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. ‘I am perfectly +aware of it.’ + +‘He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He is +the husband of my affections,’ cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; ‘and I +ne--ver--will--desert Mr. Micawber!’ + +Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as +to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate +manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked +Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing; +and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn’t. +Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his +tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favour of +taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would have +taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that +until the strangers’ bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window, +until he came out with another chair and joined me. + +‘How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?’ I said. + +‘Very low,’ said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; ‘reaction. Ah, this has +been a dreadful day! We stand alone now--everything is gone from us!’ + +Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. +I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we +should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. +and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that +they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were +released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw +them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell +rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me +there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he +was so profoundly miserable. + +But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had +been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and +Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that a +parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night, +and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that the +thought first occurred to me--though I don’t know how it came into my +head--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution. + +I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so +intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless +without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for +a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that +moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it +ready made as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it +wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my +breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that +the life was unendurable. + +That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own +act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and never +from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes +had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was +a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying +himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not the +least hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge into +which I was fast settling down. + +The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of +what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going +away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived, +for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start for +Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in the +afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day +of his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure I +deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married +man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by our +mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, +though my resolution was now taken. + +I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining +term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder +of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me +to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I +had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to little +Wilkins Micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little Emma. I had +also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded. + +We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about +our approaching separation. + +‘I shall never, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘revert to the +period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of +you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging +description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘Copperfield,’ for so he had been +accustomed to call me, of late, ‘has a heart to feel for the distresses +of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to +plan, and a hand to--in short, a general ability to dispose of such +available property as could be made away with.’ + +I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we +were going to lose one another. + +‘My dear young friend,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I am older than you; a man +of some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, in +difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns +up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow +but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, that +I have never taken it myself, and am the’--here Mr. Micawber, who had +been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present +moment, checked himself and frowned--‘the miserable wretch you behold.’ + +‘My dear Micawber!’ urged his wife. + +‘I say,’ returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling +again, ‘the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do tomorrow +what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar +him!’ + +‘My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber observed. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your papa was very well in his way, and +Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we +ne’er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else +possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to +read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied +that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely +entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.’ Mr. +Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: ‘Not that I am sorry +for it. Quite the contrary, my love.’ After which, he was grave for a +minute or so. + +‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know. +Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and +six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure +twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, +the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, +and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!’ + +To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of +punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the +College Hornpipe. + +I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my +mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they +affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach +office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, +at the back. + +‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘God bless you! I never can +forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.’ + +‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘farewell! Every happiness and +prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade +myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel +that I had not occupied another man’s place in existence altogether in +vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), +I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your +prospects.’ + +I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the +children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist +cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was. +I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and +motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave +me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely +time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see +the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. +The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle +of the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back, +I suppose, to St. Luke’s workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at +Murdstone and Grinby’s. + +But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had +resolved to run away.---To go, by some means or other, down into the +country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to +my aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don’t know how this +desperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; +and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more +determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there +was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it +must be carried into execution. + +Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the +thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over +that old story of my poor mother’s about my birth, which it had been one +of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew +by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread +and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour +which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of +encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she +felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it +might have been altogether my mother’s fancy, and might have had no +foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my +terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so +well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very +possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually +engendered my determination. + +As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter +to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending +that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at +random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course +of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for +half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could +repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her +afterwards what I had wanted it for. + +Peggotty’s answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate +devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had +a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis’s box), and told me that +Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe, +Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however, +informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all +close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set +out at the end of that week. + +Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the +memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby’s, I +considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had +been paid a week’s wages in advance when I first came there, not to +present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my +stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that +I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly, +when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse +to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in +first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him, +when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had +gone to move my box to Tipp’s; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy +Potatoes, ran away. + +My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a +direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed +on the casks: ‘Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach +Office, Dover.’ This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I +should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging, +I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the +booking-office. + +There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, +standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught +as I was going by, and who, addressing me as ‘Sixpenn’orth of bad +ha’pence,’ hoped ‘I should know him agin to swear to’--in allusion, I +have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had +not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not +like a job. + +‘Wot job?’ said the long-legged young man. + +‘To move a box,’ I answered. + +‘Wot box?’ said the long-legged young man. + +I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted +him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence. + +‘Done with you for a tanner!’ said the long-legged young man, and +directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on +wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could +do to keep pace with the donkey. + +There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about +the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much +like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room +I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. +Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my +landlord’s family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so +I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a +minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King’s Bench prison. The +words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my +box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out +of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the +place appointed. + +Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my +pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and +though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very +much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the +chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my +mouth into his hand. + +‘Wot!’ said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a +frightful grin. ‘This is a pollis case, is it? You’re a-going to bolt, +are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!’ + +‘You give me my money back, if you please,’ said I, very much +frightened; ‘and leave me alone.’ + +‘Come to the pollis!’ said the young man. ‘You shall prove it yourn to +the pollis.’ + +‘Give me my box and money, will you,’ I cried, bursting into tears. + +The young man still replied: ‘Come to the pollis!’ and was dragging me +against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity +between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped +into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to +the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever. + +I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out +with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly +escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I +lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, +now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into +somebody’s arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by +fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time +be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where +he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never +stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on +the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the +retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the +night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage. + + + +CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION + + +For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the +way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the +donkey-cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon +collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent +Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish +image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep, +quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with +hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea. + +It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat +resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When +I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in +my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no +notion of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had +been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road. + +But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I +am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday +night!) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture +to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in +a day or two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though as +fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was +written up that ladies’ and gentlemen’s wardrobes were bought, and that +the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master +of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and +as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from +the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show +what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful +disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself. + +My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here +might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up +the next by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my +arm, and came back to the shop door. + +‘If you please, sir,’ I said, ‘I am to sell this for a fair price.’ + +Mr. Dolloby--Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least--took the +waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the door-post, went into +the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, +spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up +against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said: + +‘What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?’ + +‘Oh! you know best, sir,’ I returned modestly. + +‘I can’t be buyer and seller too,’ said Mr. Dolloby. ‘Put a price on +this here little weskit.’ + +‘Would eighteenpence be?’--I hinted, after some hesitation. + +Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. ‘I should rob my +family,’ he said, ‘if I was to offer ninepence for it.’ + +This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed +upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to +rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing, +however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. +Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good +night, and walked out of the shop the richer by that sum, and the +poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much. +Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that +I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair +of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that +trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed. +Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young +man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no +very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again set off with my +ninepence in my pocket. + +A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to +carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my +old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined +it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where +I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know +nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no shelter. + +I had had a hard day’s work, and was pretty well jaded when I came +climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some +trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack +in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, +and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent +within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, +without a roof above my head! + +Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom +house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I +dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; +and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth’s name upon my lips, +looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above +me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling +stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don’t know what, and walk +about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in +the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very +heavy, I lay down again and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep +that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of +the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that +Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out +alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained, +perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence +in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his +good nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away +from the wall as Mr. Creakle’s boys were getting up, and struck into the +long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover Road when I was +one of them, and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me +the wayfarer I was now, upon it. + +What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth! +In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met +people who were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the +congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the +sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the +porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, +glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old Sunday +morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt +quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. But for the +quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty, +weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I +should have had the courage to go on until next day. But it always went +before me, and I followed. + +I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight +road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I +see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester, +footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper. +One or two little houses, with the notice, ‘Lodgings for Travellers’, +hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence +I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I +had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and +toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night’s aspect, is a mere dream of +chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed +like Noah’s arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery +overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I +lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry’s +footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys +at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until +morning. + +Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the +beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on +every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling +that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any +strength for getting to my journey’s end, I resolved to make the sale +of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off, +that I might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began +a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops. + +It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in +second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the +look-out for customers at their shop doors. But as most of them had, +hanging up among their stock, an officer’s coat or two, epaulettes and +all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and +walked about for a long time without offering my merchandise to anyone. + +This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops, +and such shops as Mr. Dolloby’s, in preference to the regular dealers. +At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a +dirty lane, ending in an enclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the +palings of which some second-hand sailors’ clothes, that seemed to have +overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, +and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so +many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the +world. + +Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened +rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was +descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was +not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all +covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, +and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look +at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His +bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in +the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect +of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey. + +‘Oh, what do you want?’ grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous +whine. ‘Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, +what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!’ + +I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the +repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his +throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding +me by the hair, repeated: + +‘Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my +lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!’--which he screwed out of +himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head. + +‘I wanted to know,’ I said, trembling, ‘if you would buy a jacket.’ + +‘Oh, let’s see the jacket!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, my heart on fire, +show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!’ + +With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a +great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all +ornamental to his inflamed eyes. + +‘Oh, how much for the jacket?’ cried the old man, after examining it. +‘Oh--goroo!--how much for the jacket?’ + +‘Half-a-crown,’ I answered, recovering myself. + +‘Oh, my lungs and liver,’ cried the old man, ‘no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh, +my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!’ + +Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger +of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort +of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which +begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I +can find for it. + +‘Well,’ said I, glad to have closed the bargain, ‘I’ll take +eighteenpence.’ + +‘Oh, my liver!’ cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. ‘Get +out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and +limbs--goroo!--don’t ask for money; make it an exchange.’ I never was +so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that +I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I +would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry +him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat +there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight +became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money. + +There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, +I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the +reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from +the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing +about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out +his gold. ‘You ain’t poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out +your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil +for. Come! It’s in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open +and let’s have some!’ This, and many offers to lend him a knife for +the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a +succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys. +Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me, +mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering +me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I +thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his +own windy tune, the ‘Death of Nelson’; with an Oh! before every line, +and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for +me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the +patience and perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted +me, and used me very ill all day. + +He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one +time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another +with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these +overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with +tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me +in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to +a shilling. + +‘Oh, my eyes and limbs!’ he then cried, peeping hideously out of the +shop, after a long pause, ‘will you go for twopence more?’ + +‘I can’t,’ I said; ‘I shall be starved.’ + +‘Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?’ + +‘I would go for nothing, if I could,’ I said, ‘but I want the money +badly.’ + +‘Oh, go-roo!’ (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this +ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post at me, +showing nothing but his crafty old head); ‘will you go for fourpence?’ + +I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the +money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and +thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense +of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better +spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road. + +My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably, +after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as +well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again +next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds +and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards +to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were +already at work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up +my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful +companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful +leaves twining round them. + +The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a +dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most +ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, +perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them, and when I +took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I +suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and +who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a +tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round. + +‘Come here, when you’re called,’ said the tinker, ‘or I’ll rip your +young body open.’ + +I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to +propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black +eye. + +‘Where are you going?’ said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt +with his blackened hand. + +‘I am going to Dover,’ I said. + +‘Where do you come from?’ asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn +in my shirt, to hold me more securely. + +‘I come from London,’ I said. + +‘What lay are you upon?’ asked the tinker. ‘Are you a prig?’ + +‘N-no,’ I said. + +‘Ain’t you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,’ said the +tinker, ‘I’ll knock your brains out.’ + +With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then +looked at me from head to foot. + +‘Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?’ said the tinker. +‘If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!’ + +I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman’s look, +and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form ‘No!’ with her lips. + +‘I am very poor,’ I said, attempting to smile, ‘and have got no money.’ + +‘Why, what do you mean?’ said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that +I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. + +‘Sir!’ I stammered. + +‘What do you mean,’ said the tinker, ‘by wearing my brother’s silk +handkerchief! Give it over here!’ And he had mine off my neck in a +moment, and tossed it to the woman. + +The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, +and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made +the word ‘Go!’ with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker +seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me +away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned +upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget +seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet +tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked +back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a +bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of +her shawl, while he went on ahead. + +This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of +these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, +where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so +often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as +under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained +and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I +came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among +the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the +morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since, +with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; +and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, +grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came, +at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary +aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great +aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the +sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say, +when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed +figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, +and to leave me helpless and dispirited. + +I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various +answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed +her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great +buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide; a +third, that she was locked up in Maidstone jail for child-stealing; a +fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and +make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next, +were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not +liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had +to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and +destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was +all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and +worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in +London. + +The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on +the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, +deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been +mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a +horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man’s face, as I handed it up, +encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived; +though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my +lips. + +‘Trotwood,’ said he. ‘Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady?’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘rather.’ + +‘Pretty stiff in the back?’ said he, making himself upright. + +‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should think it very likely.’ + +‘Carries a bag?’ said he--‘bag with a good deal of room in it--is +gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?’ + +My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this +description. + +‘Why then, I tell you what,’ said he. ‘If you go up there,’ pointing +with his whip towards the heights, ‘and keep right on till you come to +some houses facing the sea, I think you’ll hear of her. My opinion is +she won’t stand anything, so here’s a penny for you.’ + +I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching +this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had +indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses +he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them, +went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop, +at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where +Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter, +who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the +inquiry to herself, turned round quickly. + +‘My mistress?’ she said. ‘What do you want with her, boy?’ + +‘I want,’ I replied, ‘to speak to her, if you please.’ + +‘To beg of her, you mean,’ retorted the damsel. + +‘No,’ I said, ‘indeed.’ But suddenly remembering that in truth I came +for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face +burn. + +My aunt’s handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put +her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that +I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I +needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state +of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed +the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with +cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or +garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously. + +‘This is Miss Trotwood’s,’ said the young woman. ‘Now you know; and +that’s all I have got to say.’ With which words she hurried into the +house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left +me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of +it towards the parlour window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn +in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the +windowsill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my +aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state. + +My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed +themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until +the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which +had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old +battered handleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie +with it. My shirt and trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and +the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have +frightened the birds from my aunt’s garden, as I stood at the gate. My +hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and +hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a +berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk +and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with +a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make +my first impression on, my formidable aunt. + +The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after +a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above +it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, +who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several +times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away. + +I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more +discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of +slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of +the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair +of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a +toll-man’s apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately +to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as +my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at +Blunderstone Rookery. + +‘Go away!’ said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop +in the air with her knife. ‘Go along! No boys here!’ + +I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of +her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without +a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly +in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger. + +‘If you please, ma’am,’ I began. + +She started and looked up. + +‘If you please, aunt.’ + +‘EH?’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard +approached. + +‘If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.’ + +‘Oh, Lord!’ said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path. + +‘I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came, +on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very +unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and +thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away +to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the +way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey.’ Here +my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands, +intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had +suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose +had been pent up within me all the week. + +My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her +countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry; +when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the +parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring +out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my +mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure +I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had +administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and +unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under +my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I +should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green +fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her +face, ejaculated at intervals, ‘Mercy on us!’ letting those exclamations +off like minute guns. + +After a time she rang the bell. ‘Janet,’ said my aunt, when her servant +came in. ‘Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish +to speak to him.’ + +Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I +was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went +on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down +the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper +window came in laughing. + +‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘don’t be a fool, because nobody can be more +discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don’t be a +fool, whatever you are.’ + +The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as +if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window. + +‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘you have heard me mention David Copperfield? +Now don’t pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better.’ + +‘David Copperfield?’ said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to +remember much about it. ‘David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David, +certainly.’ + +‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his +father as it’s possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too.’ + +‘His son?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘David’s son? Indeed!’ + +‘Yes,’ pursued my aunt, ‘and he has done a pretty piece of business. +He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run +away.’ My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and +behaviour of the girl who never was born. + +‘Oh! you think she wouldn’t have run away?’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘Bless and save the man,’ exclaimed my aunt, sharply, ‘how he talks! +Don’t I know she wouldn’t? She would have lived with her god-mother, +and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of +wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?’ + +‘Nowhere,’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘Well then,’ returned my aunt, softened by the reply, ‘how can you +pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon’s +lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I +put to you is, what shall I do with him?’ + +‘What shall you do with him?’ said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his +head. ‘Oh! do with him?’ + +‘Yes,’ said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up. +‘Come! I want some very sound advice.’ + +‘Why, if I was you,’ said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly +at me, ‘I should--’ The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a +sudden idea, and he added, briskly, ‘I should wash him!’ + +‘Janet,’ said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did +not then understand, ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath!’ + +Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help +observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and +completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room. + +My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. +There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and +carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon +a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome +than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed +that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was +arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a +mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces +fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and +perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little +encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like +a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. +She wore at her side a gentleman’s gold watch, if I might judge from its +size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen +at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like +little shirt-wristbands. + +Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should +have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously +bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle’s boys’ heads +after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange +kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his +vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when +she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were +mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed +like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and +waistcoat, and white trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his +money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it. + +Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a +perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of +her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until +afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my +aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement +of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying +the baker. + +The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a +moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing +in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the +old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt’s +inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the +drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, +the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves, the tall press +guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping +with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything. + +Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great +alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice +to cry out, ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ + +Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in +flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off +two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it; +while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third +animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from +those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in +attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground. + +To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way +over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that +she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her +life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey +over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, +however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking +part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was +upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret +places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid +in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and +incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the +donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding +how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming +that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was +ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, +I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, +and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to +comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more +ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon +at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually +starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small +quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she +would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go out to +the assault. + +The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains +in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low +that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I +had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a +pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three +great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don’t know, but I +felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down +on the sofa again and fell asleep. + +It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied +my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come +and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my +head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words, +‘Pretty fellow,’ or ‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too; but +certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe +that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing +at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of +swivel, and turned any way. + +We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting +at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with +considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no +complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious +to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in +profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me +sitting opposite, and said, ‘Mercy upon us!’ which did not by any means +relieve my anxiety. + +The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I +had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and +looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story, +which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During +my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone +to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was +checked by a frown from my aunt. + +‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be +married again,’ said my aunt, when I had finished, ‘I can’t conceive.’ + +‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick suggested. + +‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean? What business had +she to do it?’ + +‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, ‘she did it for +pleasure.’ + +‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for the poor +Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to +ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, +I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David +Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls +from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies +when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and +what more did she want?’ + +Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no +getting over this. + +‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my aunt. ‘Where +was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don’t tell +me!’ + +Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened. + +‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my aunt, +‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do, +was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he is--“It’s a boy.” A boy! +Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ‘em!’ + +The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me, +too, if I am to tell the truth. + +‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently +in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, +‘she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with +a name like it--and stands in THIS child’s light! And the natural +consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he +prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can +be.’ + +Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. + +‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘that +Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen +enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married +next, as the child relates. I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her +head, ‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the +newspapers, and will beat her well with one.’ + +I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject +of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That +Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and +most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved +me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s +dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last +grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down +as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had +was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her +humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on +her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in +my hands upon the table. + +‘Well, well!’ said my aunt, ‘the child is right to stand by those who +have stood by him--Janet! Donkeys!’ + +I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should +have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my +shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her +and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she +was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas +for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick +about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her +country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey +proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time. + +After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from +my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when +Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down +the blinds. + +‘Now, Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger +up as before, ‘I am going to ask you another question. Look at this +child.’ + +‘David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face. + +‘Exactly so,’ returned my aunt. ‘What would you do with him, now?’ + +‘Do with David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘Ay,’ replied my aunt, ‘with David’s son.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed.’ + +‘Janet!’ cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had +remarked before. ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll +take him up to it.’ + +Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but +in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing +up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my +aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was +prevalent there; and janet’s replying that she had been making tinder +down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in +my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there, +with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five +minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things +over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know +nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took +precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping. + +The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the +sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my +prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat +looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my +fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, +coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had +looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling +with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of +gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how +much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white +sheets!--inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places +under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never +might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I +remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that +track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. + + + +CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME + + +On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over +the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of +the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth +under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure +that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever +anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my +anxiety, lest it should give her offence. + +My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, were +attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could +look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at me--in +an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of +being on the other side of the small round table. When she had finished +her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair, +knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, +with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by +embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted +to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my +fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising +height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and +choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way +instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing +under my aunt’s close scrutiny. + +‘Hallo!’ said my aunt, after a long time. + +I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. + +‘I have written to him,’ said my aunt. + +‘To--?’ + +‘To your father-in-law,’ said my aunt. ‘I have sent him a letter that +I’ll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell +him!’ + +‘Does he know where I am, aunt?’ I inquired, alarmed. + +‘I have told him,’ said my aunt, with a nod. + +‘Shall I--be--given up to him?’ I faltered. + +‘I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We shall see.’ + +‘Oh! I can’t think what I shall do,’ I exclaimed, ‘if I have to go back +to Mr. Murdstone!’ + +‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said my aunt, shaking her head. ‘I +can’t say, I am sure. We shall see.’ + +My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy +of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a +coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the +teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in +the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole, +rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little +broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear +to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged +the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair’s breadth already. +When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off +the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner +of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box +to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan +between her and the light, to work. + +‘I wish you’d go upstairs,’ said my aunt, as she threaded her needle, +‘and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to know how he +gets on with his Memorial.’ + +I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. + +‘I suppose,’ said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the +needle in threading it, ‘you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?’ + +‘I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,’ I confessed. + +‘You are not to suppose that he hasn’t got a longer name, if he chose +to use it,’ said my aunt, with a loftier air. ‘Babley--Mr. Richard +Babley--that’s the gentleman’s true name.’ + +I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the +familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the +full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say: + +‘But don’t you call him by it, whatever you do. He can’t bear his name. +That’s a peculiarity of his. Though I don’t know that it’s much of a +peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear +it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his +name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else, +which he don’t. So take care, child, you don’t call him anything BUT Mr. +Dick.’ + +I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as I +went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the +same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when +I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him +still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the +paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the +large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, +the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed +to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my +being present. + +‘Ha! Phoebus!’ said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. ‘How does the world +go? I’ll tell you what,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘I shouldn’t wish it +to be mentioned, but it’s a--’ here he beckoned to me, and put his lips +close to my ear--‘it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!’ said Mr. Dick, +taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily. + +Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my +message. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Dick, in answer, ‘my compliments to her, and I--I +believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,’ said Mr. +Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a +confident look at his manuscript. ‘You have been to school?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘for a short time.’ + +‘Do you recollect the date,’ said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and +taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First had his +head cut off?’ I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred +and forty-nine. + +‘Well,’ returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking +dubiously at me. ‘So the books say; but I don’t see how that can be. +Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made +that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it +was taken off, into mine?’ + +I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information +on this point. + +‘It’s very strange,’ said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his +papers, and with his hand among his hair again, ‘that I never can get +that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter, +no matter!’ he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, ‘there’s time +enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well +indeed.’ + +I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. + +‘What do you think of that for a kite?’ he said. + +I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been +as much as seven feet high. + +‘I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Do you see +this?’ + +He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and +laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, +I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in +one or two places. + +‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it flies high, it +takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ‘em. I don’t +know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the +wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’ + +His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in +it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was +having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and +we parted the best friends possible. + +‘Well, child,’ said my aunt, when I went downstairs. ‘And what of Mr. +Dick, this morning?’ + +I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very +well indeed. + +‘What do you think of him?’ said my aunt. + +I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by +replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was +not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said, +folding her hands upon it: + +‘Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she thought +of anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!’ + +‘Is he--is Mr. Dick--I ask because I don’t know, aunt--is he at all out +of his mind, then?’ I stammered; for I felt I was on dangerous ground. + +‘Not a morsel,’ said my aunt. + +‘Oh, indeed!’ I observed faintly. + +‘If there is anything in the world,’ said my aunt, with great decision +and force of manner, ‘that Mr. Dick is not, it’s that.’ + +I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, ‘Oh, indeed!’ + +‘He has been CALLED mad,’ said my aunt. ‘I have a selfish pleasure in +saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit of +his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards--in fact, +ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me.’ + +‘So long as that?’ I said. + +‘And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,’ +pursued my aunt. ‘Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine--it +doesn’t matter how; I needn’t enter into that. If it hadn’t been for me, +his own brother would have shut him up for life. That’s all.’ + +I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt +strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too. + +‘A proud fool!’ said my aunt. ‘Because his brother was a little +eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he +didn’t like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to +some private asylum-place: though he had been left to his particular +care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a +wise man he must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt.’ + +Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite +convinced also. + +‘So I stepped in,’ said my aunt, ‘and made him an offer. I said, “Your +brother’s sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it +is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and come and live with +me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I am ready to take care +of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the +asylum-folks) have done.” After a good deal of squabbling,’ said my +aunt, ‘I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most +friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--But +nobody knows what that man’s mind is, except myself.’ + +My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed +defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the +other. + +‘He had a favourite sister,’ said my aunt, ‘a good creature, and very +kind to him. But she did what they all do--took a husband. And HE did +what they all do--made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind +of Mr. Dick (that’s not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear +of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a +fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is +oppressive to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King +Charles the First, child?’ + +‘Yes, aunt.’ + +‘Ah!’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. +‘That’s his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness +with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that’s the figure, +or the simile, or whatever it’s called, which he chooses to use. And why +shouldn’t he, if he thinks proper!’ + +I said: ‘Certainly, aunt.’ + +‘It’s not a business-like way of speaking,’ said my aunt, ‘nor a worldly +way. I am aware of that; and that’s the reason why I insist upon it, +that there shan’t be a word about it in his Memorial.’ + +‘Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’ + +‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is memorializing +the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other--one of those people, +at all events, who are paid to be memorialized--about his affairs. I +suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn’t been able to draw +it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it +don’t signify; it keeps him employed.’ + +In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards +of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the +Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. + +‘I say again,’ said my aunt, ‘nobody knows what that man’s mind is +except myself; and he’s the most amenable and friendly creature in +existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin +used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I +am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous +object than anybody else.’ + +If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars +for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should +have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably +from such a mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observing +that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised +in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had +addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else. + +At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship +of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with +some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her. +I believe that I began to know that there was something about my aunt, +notwithstanding her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honoured +and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp that day as on the day +before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was +thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going +by, ogled Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanours +that could be committed against my aunt’s dignity), she seemed to me to +command more of my respect, if not less of my fear. + +The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed +before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, was +extreme; but I made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable +as I could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and +I would have gone out to fly the great kite; but that I had still no +other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which I +had been decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house, +except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health’s sake, +paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed. At +length the reply from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my +infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her herself on the next +day. On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat +counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes +and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of +the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute. + +My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed +no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much +dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and I sat by, with my +thoughts running astray on all possible and impossible results of Mr. +Murdstone’s visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. Our dinner had +been indefinitely postponed; but it was growing so late, that my aunt +had ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, +and to my consternation and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a +side-saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop +in front of the house, looking about her. + +‘Go along with you!’ cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at the +window. ‘You have no business there. How dare you trespass? Go along! +Oh! you bold-faced thing!’ + +My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss Murdstone +looked about her, that I really believe she was motionless, and unable +for the moment to dart out according to custom. I seized the opportunity +to inform her who it was; and that the gentleman now coming near the +offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had dropped behind), was +Mr. Murdstone himself. + +‘I don’t care who it is!’ cried my aunt, still shaking her head and +gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. ‘I won’t be +trespassed upon. I won’t allow it. Go away! Janet, turn him round. +Lead him off!’ and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried +battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all +his four legs planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull him +round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him on, Miss Murdstone +struck at Janet with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see +the engagement, shouted vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying +among them the young malefactor who was the donkey’s guardian, and who +was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in +his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured +him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding +the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the +constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and executed on +the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the business, however, did +not last long; for the young rascal, being expert at a variety of feints +and dodges, of which my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away, +leaving some deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, +and taking his donkey in triumph with him. + +Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had +dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the +steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a +little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the house, with +great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, until they were +announced by Janet. + +‘Shall I go away, aunt?’ I asked, trembling. + +‘No, sir,’ said my aunt. ‘Certainly not!’ With which she pushed me into +a corner near her, and fenced Me in with a chair, as if it were a prison +or a bar of justice. This position I continued to occupy during the +whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and Miss Murdstone enter the +room. + +‘Oh!’ said my aunt, ‘I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure +of objecting. But I don’t allow anybody to ride over that turf. I make +no exceptions. I don’t allow anybody to do it.’ + +‘Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,’ said Miss Murdstone. + +‘Is it!’ said my aunt. + +Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing +began: + +‘Miss Trotwood!’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ observed my aunt with a keen look. ‘You are the Mr. +Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David Copperfield, of +Blunderstone Rookery!--Though why Rookery, I don’t know!’ + +‘I am,’ said Mr. Murdstone. + +‘You’ll excuse my saying, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘that I think it would +have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor +child alone.’ + +‘I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,’ observed Miss +Murdstone, bridling, ‘that I consider our lamented Clara to have been, +in all essential respects, a mere child.’ + +‘It is a comfort to you and me, ma’am,’ said my aunt, ‘who are getting +on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal +attractions, that nobody can say the same of us.’ + +‘No doubt!’ returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a very +ready or gracious assent. ‘And it certainly might have been, as you say, +a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into +such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion.’ + +‘I have no doubt you have,’ said my aunt. ‘Janet,’ ringing the bell, ‘my +compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down.’ + +Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the +wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction. + +‘Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgement,’ said my +aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was biting his +forefinger and looking rather foolish, ‘I rely.’ + +Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among +the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. + +My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on: + +‘Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an act of +greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you--’ + +‘Thank you,’ said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. ‘You needn’t mind +me.’ + +‘To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey,’ pursued Mr. +Murdstone, ‘rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has run away +from his friends and his occupation--’ + +‘And whose appearance,’ interposed his sister, directing general +attention to me in my indefinable costume, ‘is perfectly scandalous and +disgraceful.’ + +‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘have the goodness not to interrupt +me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the occasion of much +domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the lifetime of my late +dear wife, and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent +temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition. Both my sister and +myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but ineffectually. And +I have felt--we both have felt, I may say; my sister being fully in +my confidence--that it is right you should receive this grave and +dispassionate assurance from our lips.’ + +‘It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my +brother,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘but I beg to observe, that, of all the +boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.’ + +‘Strong!’ said my aunt, shortly. + +‘But not at all too strong for the facts,’ returned Miss Murdstone. + +‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, sir?’ + +‘I have my own opinions,’ resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face darkened +more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they +did very narrowly, ‘as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are +founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of +my own means and resources. I am responsible for them to myself, I act +upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this +boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business; +that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a +common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal +to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the exact +consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting +him in this appeal.’ + +‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had +been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I +suppose?’ + +‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking +in, ‘his character, I trust, would have been altogether different.’ + +‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have +gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt. + +‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, +‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane +Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’ + +Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur. + +‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’ + +Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it +so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, +before saying: + +‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’ + +‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone. + +‘And there was no settlement of the little property--the house and +garden--the what’s-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it--upon her +boy?’ + +‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,’ +Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest +irascibility and impatience. + +‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that. Left to her +unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any +condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the +face! Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married +again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in +short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy +at that time?’ + +‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘and +trusted implicitly in him.’ + +‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most +unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. ‘That’s +what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?’ + +‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned. ‘I am here to take David +back--to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think +proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any +promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some +idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his +complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended +to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you +that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step +in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever. +I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and last +time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If he is not--and you tell me +he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are +shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are open +to him.’ + +To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, +sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and +looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned her +eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her +attitude, and said: + +‘Well, ma’am, have YOU got anything to remark?’ + +‘Indeed, Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘all that I could say has +been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the fact +has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except my +thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am sure,’ +said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than +it discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham. + +‘And what does the boy say?’ said my aunt. ‘Are you ready to go, David?’ + +I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither +Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me. +That they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about +me, and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I +had been more miserable than I thought anybody could believe, who only +knew how young I was. And I begged and prayed my aunt--I forget in +what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then--to +befriend and protect me, for my father’s sake. + +‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘what shall I do with this child?’ + +Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, ‘Have him +measured for a suit of clothes directly.’ + +‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt triumphantly, ‘give me your hand, for your +common sense is invaluable.’ Having shaken it with great cordiality, she +pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone: + +‘You can go when you like; I’ll take my chance with the boy. If he’s all +you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have done. +But I don’t believe a word of it.’ + +‘Miss Trotwood,’ rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, as he +rose, ‘if you were a gentleman--’ + +‘Bah! Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t talk to me!’ + +‘How exquisitely polite!’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising. +‘Overpowering, really!’ + +‘Do you think I don’t know,’ said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the +sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at +him with infinite expression, ‘what kind of life you must have led that +poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don’t know what a woeful +day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her +way--smirking and making great eyes at her, I’ll be bound, as if you +couldn’t say boh! to a goose!’ + +‘I never heard anything so elegant!’ said Miss Murdstone. + +‘Do you think I can’t understand you as well as if I had seen you,’ +pursued my aunt, ‘now that I DO see and hear you--which, I tell you +candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! who so +smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent +had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her. +He doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father +to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren’t +they? Ugh! Get along with you, do!’ said my aunt. + +‘I never heard anything like this person in my life!’ exclaimed Miss +Murdstone. + +‘And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,’ said my aunt--‘God +forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where YOU won’t go in +a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you +must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor +caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing YOUR +notes?’ + +‘This is either insanity or intoxication,’ said Miss Murdstone, in a +perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt’s address +towards herself; ‘and my suspicion is that it’s intoxication.’ + +Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, +continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no +such thing. + +‘Mr. Murdstone,’ she said, shaking her finger at him, ‘you were a tyrant +to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby--I +know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her--and through the +best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. There +is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your +instruments may make the most of it.’ + +‘Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood,’ interposed Miss Murdstone, +‘whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not +experienced, my brother’s instruments?’ + +‘It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw +her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever +did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough +that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or +other; but I did hope it wouldn’t have been as bad as it has turned out. +That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here,’ +said my aunt; ‘to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through +afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance and makes the sight of +him odious now. Aye, aye! you needn’t wince!’ said my aunt. ‘I know it’s +true without that.’ + +He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile +upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I +remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour +had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been +running. + +‘Good day, sir,’ said my aunt, ‘and good-bye! Good day to you, too, +ma’am,’ said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. ‘Let me see you +ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon +your shoulders, I’ll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!’ + +It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my +aunt’s face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, +and Miss Murdstone’s face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, +no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a +word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother’s, and walked +haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking +after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey’s +reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution. + +No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, +and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her; +which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round +her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a +great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with +repeated bursts of laughter. + +‘You’ll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, Mr. +Dick,’ said my aunt. + +‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘to be the guardian of David’s +son.’ + +‘Very good,’ returned my aunt, ‘that’s settled. I have been thinking, do +you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?’ + +‘Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick. +‘David’s son’s Trotwood.’ + +‘Trotwood Copperfield, you mean,’ returned my aunt. + +‘Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield,’ said Mr. Dick, a little +abashed. + +My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, +which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked ‘Trotwood +Copperfield’, in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, +before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes +which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that +afternoon) should be marked in the same way. + +Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about +me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, +like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of +guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about +myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a +remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life--which seemed to lie +in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever +fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby’s. No one has ever raised that +curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, +with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that +life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering +and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how +long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or +less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that +I have written, and there I leave it. + + + +CHAPTER 15. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING + + +Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his +day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day +of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the +least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First +always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, +and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these +perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was +something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made +to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled +the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. +Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he +thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more +than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should +trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under +the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. It +was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite +when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his +room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it, +which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been +a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at +the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never +looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an +evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet +air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was +my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in and it came +lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to +the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually +out of a dream; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look +about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that +I pitied him with all my heart. + +While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not +go backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took +so kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my +adopted name of Trotwood into Trot; and even encouraged me to hope, that +if I went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her affections +with my sister Betsey Trotwood. + +‘Trot,’ said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was placed +as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, ‘we must not forget your education.’ + +This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her +referring to it. + +‘Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?’ said my aunt. + +I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her. + +‘Good,’ said my aunt. ‘Should you like to go tomorrow?’ + +Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt’s +evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and +said: ‘Yes.’ + +‘Good,’ said my aunt again. ‘Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise +tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and pack up Master Trotwood’s clothes +tonight.’ + +I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my +selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so +low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in +consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on +the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play +with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes +come over on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me +on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another kite for those +occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the +morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by +giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, +if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, +which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We +parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick +did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of +it. + +My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey +pony through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like +a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and +making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. When +we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, +however; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, +asked me whether I was happy? + +‘Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt,’ I said. + +She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on +the head with her whip. + +‘Is it a large school, aunt?’ I asked. + +‘Why, I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We are going to Mr. Wickfield’s +first.’ + +‘Does he keep a school?’ I asked. + +‘No, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He keeps an office.’ + +I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered +none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, +where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of +insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and +huckster’s goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down +upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which +were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect +indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much +coolness through an enemy’s country. + +At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; +a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and +beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied +the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on +the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. +The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with +carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two +stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been +covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings +and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little +windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever +fell upon the hills. + +When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon +the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the +ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the +house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and +the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the +window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is +sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged +to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but +looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest +stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a +red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he +went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, +with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a +long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as +he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at +us in the chaise. + +‘Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?’ said my aunt. + +‘Mr. Wickfield’s at home, ma’am,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘if you’ll please to +walk in there’--pointing with his long hand to the room he meant. + +We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low +parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a +glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony’s nostrils, +and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting +some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two +portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means +an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied +together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and +sweet expression of face, who was looking at me. + +I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah’s picture, when, a door +at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of +whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure +that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the +gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some years older +than when he had had his picture painted. + +‘Miss Betsey Trotwood,’ said the gentleman, ‘pray walk in. I was engaged +for a moment, but you’ll excuse my being busy. You know my motive. I +have but one in life.’ + +Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished +as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked +into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately +over the mantelshelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got +round it when they swept the chimney. + +‘Well, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it +was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich +gentleman of the county; ‘what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I +hope?’ + +‘No,’ replied my aunt. ‘I have not come for any law.’ + +‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘You had better come for +anything else.’ His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were +still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. +There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long +accustomed, under Peggotty’s tuition, to connect with port wine; and I +fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency +to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped +waistcoat, and nankeen trousers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric +neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy +(I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan. + +‘This is my nephew,’ said my aunt. + +‘Wasn’t aware you had one, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield. + +‘My grand-nephew, that is to say,’ observed my aunt. + +‘Wasn’t aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word,’ said Mr. +Wickfield. + +‘I have adopted him,’ said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing +that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, ‘and I have +brought him here, to put to a school where he may be thoroughly well +taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it +is, and all about it.’ + +‘Before I can advise you properly,’ said Mr. Wickfield--‘the old +question, you know. What’s your motive in this?’ + +‘Deuce take the man!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘Always fishing for motives, +when they’re on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and useful.’ + +‘It must be a mixed motive, I think,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his +head and smiling incredulously. + +‘A mixed fiddlestick,’ returned my aunt. ‘You claim to have one plain +motive in all you do yourself. You don’t suppose, I hope, that you are +the only plain dealer in the world?’ + +‘Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,’ he rejoined, +smiling. ‘Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. +There’s the difference. However, that’s beside the question. The best +school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?’ + +My aunt nodded assent. + +‘At the best we have,’ said Mr. Wickfield, considering, ‘your nephew +couldn’t board just now.’ + +‘But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?’ suggested my aunt. + +Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to +take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; +also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he +thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all +three going out together, when he stopped and said: + +‘Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting +to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?’ + +My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters +I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into +Mr. Wickfield’s office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first +occupied, to await their return. + +It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which +ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep’s pale +face looking out of the window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a +neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a +brass frame on the top to hang paper upon, and on which the writing he +was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I +thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not +see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable +to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below +the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare +say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended +to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their +way--such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of +the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper--but they +always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two +red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting. + +At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, +after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have +wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt +had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me. + +‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said my aunt. ‘I don’t know what to do, Trot.’ + +‘It does happen unfortunately,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘But I’ll tell you +what you can do, Miss Trotwood.’ + +‘What’s that?’ inquired my aunt. + +‘Leave your nephew here, for the present. He’s a quiet fellow. He +won’t disturb me at all. It’s a capital house for study. As quiet as a +monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.’ + +My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting +it. So did I. ‘Come, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘This is the +way out of the difficulty. It’s only a temporary arrangement, you know. +If it don’t act well, or don’t quite accord with our mutual convenience, +he can easily go to the right-about. There will be time to find some +better place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave +him here for the present!’ + +‘I am very much obliged to you,’ said my aunt; ‘and so is he, I see; +but--’ + +‘Come! I know what you mean,’ cried Mr. Wickfield. ‘You shall not be +oppressed by the receipt of favours, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for +him, if you like. We won’t be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you +will.’ + +‘On that understanding,’ said my aunt, ‘though it doesn’t lessen the +real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him.’ + +‘Then come and see my little housekeeper,’ said Mr. Wickfield. + +We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade +so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and into +a shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint +windows I had looked up at from the street: which had old oak seats +in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak +floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a prettily furnished +room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some +flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners; and in every nook +and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, +or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such +another good corner in the room; until I looked at the next one, and +found it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same +air of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. + +Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a +girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, +I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose +picture had looked at me downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as +if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child. +Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity +about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm spirit--that I never have +forgotten; that I shall never forget. This was his little housekeeper, +his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and +saw how he held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was. + +She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and +she looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house +could have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a +pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we +should go upstairs and see my room. We all went together, she before us: +and a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes; +and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it. + +I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a +stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But +I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old +staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and I +associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield +ever afterwards. + +My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and we +went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. As she +would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail +to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as I apprehend Mr. +Wickfield knew her too well to argue any point with her; some lunch was +provided for her there, and Agnes went back to her governess, and Mr. +Wickfield to his office. So we were left to take leave of one another +without any restraint. + +She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, +and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and +the best advice. + +‘Trot,’ said my aunt in conclusion, ‘be a credit to yourself, to me, and +Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!’ + +I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and +send my love to Mr. Dick. + +‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be +cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of +you.’ + +I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or +forget her admonition. + +‘The pony’s at the door,’ said my aunt, ‘and I am off! Stay here.’ With +these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, shutting +the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a departure, +and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I looked into the +street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away +without looking up, I understood her better and did not do her that +injustice. + +By five o’clock, which was Mr. Wickfield’s dinner-hour, I had mustered +up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was +only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before +dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I +doubted whether he could have dined without her. + +We did not stay there, after dinner, but came upstairs into the +drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for +her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed +its usual flavour, if it had been put there for him by any other hands. + +There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two +hours; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and +me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes +his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was +silent. She always observed this quickly, I thought, and always roused +him with a question or caress. Then he came out of his meditation, and +drank more wine. + +Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after +it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her +in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his +office. Then I went to bed too. + +But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and a +little way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old +houses, and the grey Cathedral; and might think of my coming through +that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived +in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up +the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke +to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his +was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards, +to warm it, AND TO RUB HIS OFF. + +It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was +still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of the window, and seeing +one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it +was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry. + + + +CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE + + +Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, +accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies--a grave +building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very +well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the +Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot--and +was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong. + +Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron +rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the +great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of +the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like +sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean +Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and +his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his +long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on +the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of +a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and +tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad +to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to do +with, as it did nothing for itself. + +But, sitting at work, not far from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty +young lady--whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I +supposed--who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor +Strong’s shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great +cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were going +out to the schoolroom, I was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield, +in bidding her good morning, address her as ‘Mrs. Strong’; and I was +wondering could she be Doctor Strong’s son’s wife, or could she be Mrs. +Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me. + +‘By the by, Wickfield,’ he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on +my shoulder; ‘you have not found any suitable provision for my wife’s +cousin yet?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘No. Not yet.’ + +‘I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,’ said +Doctor Strong, ‘for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two +bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say,’ he +added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, +‘“Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.”’ + +‘Egad, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Wickfield, ‘if Doctor Watts knew mankind, +he might have written, with as much truth, “Satan finds some mischief +still, for busy hands to do.” The busy people achieve their full share +of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people +been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting +power, this century or two? No mischief?’ + +‘Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,’ said +Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. + +‘Perhaps not,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘and you bring me back to the +question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able +to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,’ he said this with some +hesitation, ‘I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more +difficult.’ + +‘My motive,’ returned Doctor Strong, ‘is to make some suitable provision +for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie’s.’ + +‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘at home or abroad.’ + +‘Aye!’ replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasized those +words so much. ‘At home or abroad.’ + +‘Your own expression, you know,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Or abroad.’ + +‘Surely,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Surely. One or other.’ + +‘One or other? Have you no choice?’ asked Mr. Wickfield. + +‘No,’ returned the Doctor. + +‘No?’ with astonishment. + +‘Not the least.’ + +‘No motive,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘for meaning abroad, and not at home?’ + +‘No,’ returned the Doctor. + +‘I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,’ said Mr. +Wickfield. ‘It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known +it before. But I confess I entertained another impression.’ + +Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, +which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great +encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there +was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the +studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and +hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating ‘no’, and ‘not the least’, +and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged +on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield, +looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without +knowing that I saw him. + +The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the +house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great +urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the +Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There +were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the +broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of +painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me +of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously +engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor +good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me. + +‘A new boy, young gentlemen,’ said the Doctor; ‘Trotwood Copperfield.’ + +One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and +welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but +he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and +presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me +at my ease, if anything could. + +It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, +or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy +Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. I was +so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have +no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, +appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half believed it was an +imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become, +in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have +been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was +awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. +Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares +of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what +I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. +But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning +too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, +that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions +than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they +knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King’s Bench Prison? Was there +anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with +the Micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in +spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through +Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they +say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my +halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or +my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of +London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was +ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in +my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong’s, that I felt +distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself +whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried +off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my +response to any friendly notice or advance. + +But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield’s old house, that when +I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel +my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the +grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, +and to make the past more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning my +books, until dinner-time (we were out of school for good at three); and +went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet. + +Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained +by someone in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked +me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I +hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first. + +‘You have never been to school,’ I said, ‘have you?’ ‘Oh yes! Every +day.’ + +‘Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?’ + +‘Papa couldn’t spare me to go anywhere else,’ she answered, smiling and +shaking her head. ‘His housekeeper must be in his house, you know.’ + +‘He is very fond of you, I am sure,’ I said. + +She nodded ‘Yes,’ and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that +she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, she came +back again. + +‘Mama has been dead ever since I was born,’ she said, in her quiet way. +‘I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday. +Did you think whose it was?’ + +I told her yes, because it was so like herself. + +‘Papa says so, too,’ said Agnes, pleased. ‘Hark! That’s papa now!’ + +Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, +and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; and told +me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the +gentlest of men. + +‘There may be some, perhaps--I don’t know that there are--who abuse +his kindness,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Never be one of those, Trotwood, in +anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and whether that’s +a merit, or whether it’s a blemish, it deserves consideration in all +dealings with the Doctor, great or small.’ + +He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with +something; but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was +just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before. + +We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and his +lank hand at the door, and said: + +‘Here’s Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, sir.’ + +‘I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon,’ said his master. + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Uriah; ‘but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he begs +the favour of a word.’ + +As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked +at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked +at every object in the room, I thought,--yet seemed to look at nothing; +he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes +dutifully on his master. ‘I beg your pardon. It’s only to say, on +reflection,’ observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah’s head was +pushed away, and the speaker’s substituted--‘pray excuse me for this +intrusion--that as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner +I go abroad the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, +that she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them +banished, and the old Doctor--’ + +‘Doctor Strong, was that?’ Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely. + +‘Doctor Strong, of course,’ returned the other; ‘I call him the old +Doctor; it’s all the same, you know.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ returned Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Well, Doctor Strong,’ said the other--‘Doctor Strong was of the same +mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with me he +has changed his mind, why there’s no more to be said, except that the +sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I’d come back and say, +that the sooner I am off the better. When a plunge is to be made into +the water, it’s of no use lingering on the bank.’ + +‘There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. +Maldon, you may depend upon it,’ said Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Thank’ee,’ said the other. ‘Much obliged. I don’t want to look a +gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise, +I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I +suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor--’ + +‘Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband--do I +follow you?’ said Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Quite so,’ returned the other, ‘--would only have to say, that she +wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so and so, +as a matter of course.’ + +‘And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?’ asked Mr. Wickfield, +sedately eating his dinner. + +‘Why, because Annie’s a charming young girl, and the old Doctor--Doctor +Strong, I mean--is not quite a charming young boy,’ said Mr. Jack +Maldon, laughing. ‘No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean +that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable in that sort of +marriage.’ + +‘Compensation to the lady, sir?’ asked Mr. Wickfield gravely. + +‘To the lady, sir,’ Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But appearing +to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, +immovable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a +muscle of his face, he added: ‘However, I have said what I came to say, +and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of +course I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one +to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up +at the Doctor’s.’ + +‘Have you dined?’ asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards +the table. + +‘Thank’ee. I am going to dine,’ said Mr. Maldon, ‘with my cousin Annie. +Good-bye!’ + +Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went +out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with +a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this +was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon; whom I had not expected to +see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning. + +When we had dined, we went upstairs again, where everything went on +exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in +the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good +deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, +and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea; +and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and +showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she +said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. +I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her +beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all +good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins +already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em’ly, and I don’t love +Agnes--no, not at all in that way--but I feel that there are goodness, +peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the +coloured window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and +on me when I am near her, and on everything around. + +The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having +left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. +But he checked me and said: ‘Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, +or to go elsewhere?’ + +‘To stay,’ I answered, quickly. + +‘You are sure?’ + +‘If you please. If I may!’ + +‘Why, it’s but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid,’ he +said. + +‘Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!’ + +‘Than Agnes,’ he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, +and leaning against it. ‘Than Agnes!’ + +He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were +bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and +shaded by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while before. + +‘Now I wonder,’ he muttered, ‘whether my Agnes tires of me. When should +I ever tire of her! But that’s different, that’s quite different.’ + +He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet. + +‘A dull old house,’ he said, ‘and a monotonous life; but I must have +her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and +leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes like a +spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in--’ + +He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had +sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the +empty decanter, set it down and paced back again. + +‘If it is miserable to bear, when she is here,’ he said, ‘what would it +be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that.’ + +He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not +decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain +quietly where I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At length +he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered +mine. + +‘Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?’ he said in his usual manner, and as if +he were answering something I had just said. ‘I am glad of it. You are +company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, +wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us.’ + +‘I am sure it is for me, sir,’ I said. ‘I am so glad to be here.’ + +‘That’s a fine fellow!’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘As long as you are glad +to be here, you shall stay here.’ He shook hands with me upon it, and +clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had anything to do +at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own +pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if +I desired it for company’s sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for +his consideration; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was +not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for +half-an-hour, of his permission. + +But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling +myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for +me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, +with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up +every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I +fully believed) like a snail. + +‘You are working late tonight, Uriah,’ says I. + +‘Yes, Master Copperfield,’ says Uriah. + +As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more +conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about +him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases +down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one. + +‘I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. + +‘What work, then?’ I asked. + +‘I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘I +am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master +Copperfield!’ + +My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading +on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines +with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and +pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable +way of expanding and contracting themselves--that they seemed to twinkle +instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all. + +‘I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?’ I said, after looking at him +for some time. + +‘Me, Master Copperfield?’ said Uriah. ‘Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.’ + +It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently +ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and +warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his +pocket-handkerchief. + +‘I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,’ said Uriah Heep, +modestly; ‘let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very +umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have +much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a +sexton.’ + +‘What is he now?’ I asked. + +‘He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah +Heep. ‘But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be +thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!’ + +I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long? + +‘I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,’ said +Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he +had left off. ‘Since a year after my father’s death. How much have I +to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. +Wickfield’s kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise +not lay within the umble means of mother and self!’ + +‘Then, when your articled time is over, you’ll be a regular lawyer, I +suppose?’ said I. + +‘With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah. + +‘Perhaps you’ll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield’s business, one of these +days,’ I said, to make myself agreeable; ‘and it will be Wickfield and +Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.’ + +‘Oh no, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, shaking his head, ‘I am +much too umble for that!’ + +He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam +outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with +his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. + +‘Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. +‘If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I +can inform you.’ + +I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long +myself, though he was a friend of my aunt’s. + +‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘Your aunt is a sweet +lady, Master Copperfield!’ + +He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was +very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had +paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. + +‘A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah Heep. ‘She has a great +admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?’ + +I said, ‘Yes,’ boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive +me! + +‘I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘But I am sure +you must have.’ + +‘Everybody must have,’ I returned. + +‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘for that remark! +It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, +Master Copperfield!’ He writhed himself quite off his stool in the +excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements +for going home. + +‘Mother will be expecting me,’ he said, referring to a pale, +inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, ‘and getting uneasy; for though +we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one +another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of +tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I +should be.’ + +I said I should be glad to come. + +‘Thank you, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, putting his book +away upon the shelf--‘I suppose you stop here, some time, Master +Copperfield?’ + +I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I +remained at school. + +‘Oh, indeed!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘I should think YOU would come into the +business at last, Master Copperfield!’ + +I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme +was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly +replying to all my assurances, ‘Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should +think you would, indeed!’ and, ‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should +think you would, certainly!’ over and over again. Being, at last, ready +to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my +convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering ‘Yes,’ +instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me--his hand felt +like a fish, in the dark--he opened the door into the street a very +little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into +the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This +was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what +appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, +that he had launched Mr. Peggotty’s house on a piratical expedition, +with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription ‘Tidd’s +Practice’, under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little +Em’ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned. + +I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school +next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by +degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, +among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and +backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the +first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I +went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great +commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life +became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present +life grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long +time. + +Doctor Strong’s was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle’s +as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and +on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good +faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession +of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which +worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of +the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon +became warmly attached to it--I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, +in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learnt with a good +will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and +plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of +in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, +to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong’s boys. + +Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor’s house, and through +them I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor’s +history--as, how he had not yet been married twelve months to the +beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for +love; for she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so +our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, +how the Doctor’s cogitating manner was attributable to his being always +engaged in looking out for Greek roots; which, in my innocence and +ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furor on the Doctor’s part, +especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about, +until I understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new +Dictionary which he had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had +a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the +time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor’s plan, and +at the Doctor’s rate of going. He considered that it might be done +in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the +Doctor’s last, or sixty-second, birthday. + +But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must +have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for +he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have +touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked up +and down that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the house, +with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads +cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly +affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to +his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale +of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so +notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut +these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them +out of the courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their +presence; which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of +him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and +fro. Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for +the shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give +away. In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and +never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many +years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one +winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who +occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant +from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally +recognized, being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The +legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the +Doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the +door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such +things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to +handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the +pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own. + +It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. He +had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which +seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the +garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation +of them in the study or the parlour. She appeared to me to take great +care of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought +her vitally interested in the Dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of +which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining +of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked +about. + +I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a liking +for me on the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and was always +afterwards kind to me, and interested in me; and because she was very +fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house. There +was a curious constraint between her and Mr. Wickfield, I thought (of +whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore off. When she came there +of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his escort home, and ran +away with me instead. And sometimes, as we were running gaily across +the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would meet Mr. +Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to see us. + +Mrs. Strong’s mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was Mrs. +Markleham; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account of +her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces +of relations against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman, +who used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented +with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed +to be hovering above the flowers. There was a superstition among us +that this cap had come from France, and could only originate in the +workmanship of that ingenious nation: but all I certainly know about it, +is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs. +Markleham made HER appearance; that it was carried about to friendly +meetings in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of +trembling constantly; and that they improved the shining hours at Doctor +Strong’s expense, like busy bees. + +I observed the Old Soldier--not to adopt the name disrespectfully--to +pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by +something else I shall relate. It was the night of a little party at the +Doctor’s, which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Maldon’s departure +for India, whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind: +Mr. Wickfield having at length arranged the business. It happened to be +the Doctor’s birthday, too. We had had a holiday, had made presents to +him in the morning, had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and +had cheered him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And +now, in the evening, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with +him in his private capacity. + +Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in white, +with cherry-coloured ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in; +and he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. The clear red and +white of her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I +thought, when she turned round; but she looked very pretty, Wonderfully +pretty. + +‘I have forgotten, Doctor,’ said Mrs. Strong’s mama, when we were +seated, ‘to pay you the compliments of the day--though they are, as you +may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my case. Allow me +to wish you many happy returns.’ + +‘I thank you, ma’am,’ replied the Doctor. + +‘Many, many, many, happy returns,’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Not only +for your own sake, but for Annie’s, and John Maldon’s, and many other +people’s. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a little +creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to +Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden.’ + +‘My dear mama,’ said Mrs. Strong, ‘never mind that now.’ + +‘Annie, don’t be absurd,’ returned her mother. ‘If you are to blush to +hear of such things now you are an old married woman, when are you not +to blush to hear of them?’ + +‘Old?’ exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. ‘Annie? Come!’ + +‘Yes, John,’ returned the Soldier. ‘Virtually, an old married woman. +Although not old by years--for when did you ever hear me say, or who has +ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years!--your cousin +is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It +is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the Doctor. You +have found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder +yet, I venture to predict, if you deserve it. I have no false pride. +I never hesitate to admit, frankly, that there are some members of our +family who want a friend. You were one yourself, before your cousin’s +influence raised up one for you.’ + +The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make +light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further reminder. But +Mrs. Markleham changed her chair for one next the Doctor’s, and putting +her fan on his coat-sleeve, said: + +‘No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to dwell +on this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it quite my +monomania, it is such a subject of mine. You are a blessing to us. You +really are a Boon, you know.’ + +‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ said the Doctor. + +‘No, no, I beg your pardon,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘With nobody +present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, I cannot +consent to be put down. I shall begin to assert the privileges of a +mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly +honest and outspoken. What I am saying, is what I said when you first +overpowered me with surprise--you remember how surprised I was?--by +proposing for Annie. Not that there was anything so very much out of +the way, in the mere fact of the proposal--it would be ridiculous to say +that!--but because, you having known her poor father, and having known +her from a baby six months old, I hadn’t thought of you in such a light +at all, or indeed as a marrying man in any way,--simply that, you know.’ + +‘Aye, aye,’ returned the Doctor, good-humouredly. ‘Never mind.’ + +‘But I DO mind,’ said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his lips. ‘I +mind very much. I recall these things that I may be contradicted if I am +wrong. Well! Then I spoke to Annie, and I told her what had happened. +I said, “My dear, here’s Doctor Strong has positively been and made you +the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer.” Did I press it in +the least? No. I said, “Now, Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is +your heart free?” “Mama,” she said crying, “I am extremely young”--which +was perfectly true--“and I hardly know if I have a heart at all.” “Then, +my dear,” I said, “you may rely upon it, it’s free. At all events, my +love,” said I, “Doctor Strong is in an agitated state of mind, and +must be answered. He cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.” + “Mama,” said Annie, still crying, “would he be unhappy without me? If he +would, I honour and respect him so much, that I think I will have him.” + So it was settled. And then, and not till then, I said to Annie, “Annie, +Doctor Strong will not only be your husband, but he will represent your +late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will represent +the wisdom and station, and I may say the means, of our family; and will +be, in short, a Boon to it.” I used the word at the time, and I have +used it again, today. If I have any merit it is consistency.’ + +The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her +eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on +the ground too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice: + +‘Mama, I hope you have finished?’ ‘No, my dear Annie,’ returned the Old +Soldier, ‘I have not quite finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply +that I have not. I complain that you really are a little unnatural +towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you. I +mean to complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that +silly wife of yours.’ + +As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and +gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr. +Wickfield looked at her steadily. + +‘When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day,’ pursued +her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, ‘that there +was a family circumstance she might mention to you--indeed, I think, was +bound to mention--she said, that to mention it was to ask a favour; +and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to +have, she wouldn’t.’ + +‘Annie, my dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘That was wrong. It robbed me of a +pleasure.’ + +‘Almost the very words I said to her!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘Now +really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for this +reason, and won’t, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you +myself.’ + +‘I shall be glad if you will,’ returned the Doctor. + +‘Shall I?’ + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘Well, then, I will!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘That’s a bargain.’ And +having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor’s hand +several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned +triumphantly to her former station. + +Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and Adams, +the talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and +his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and +prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, in a post-chaise, +for Gravesend; where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay; +and was to be gone--unless he came home on leave, or for his health--I +don’t know how many years. I recollect it was settled by general +consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing +objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm +part of the day. For my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a +modern Sindbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in +the East, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes--a mile +long, if they could be straightened out. + +Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard her +singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before +people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she +couldn’t sing at all. She tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon, +but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when she tried to sing +by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden, +and left her quite distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys. +The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a +round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing +the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody +directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary +of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket. + +We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor’s mistakes, +of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the +watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs. +Strong had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well; and +her cousin Maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to +do. When he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together, +talking, on the sofa. From time to time she came and looked over the +Doctor’s hand, and told him what to play. She was very pale, as she +bent over him, and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out +the cards; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no +notice of this, if it were so. + +At supper, we were hardly so gay. Everyone appeared to feel that a +parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it +approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very +talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. And they +were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier: who +continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon’s youth. + +The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making everybody +happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion but that we were all at +the utmost height of enjoyment. + +‘Annie, my dear,’ said he, looking at his watch, and filling his glass, +‘it is past your cousin Jack’s time, and we must not detain him, since +time and tide--both concerned in this case--wait for no man. Mr. Jack +Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but +many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of time. +The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands +to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back.’ + +‘It’s an affecting thing,’ said Mrs. Markleham--‘however it’s viewed, +it’s affecting, to see a fine young man one has known from an infant, +going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind, +and not knowing what’s before him. A young man really well deserves +constant support and patronage,’ looking at the Doctor, ‘who makes such +sacrifices.’ + +‘Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,’ pursued the Doctor, +‘and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the +natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best +thing is to hope to do it, and that’s my case. I shall not weary you +with good advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your +cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can.’ + +Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. + +‘Farewell, Mr. Jack,’ said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all +stood up. ‘A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a +happy return home!’ + +We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; after +which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried +to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a +tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled +on the lawn for the purpose. Running in among them to swell the ranks, +I was very near the chaise when it rolled away; and I had a lively +impression made upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having +seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle past with an agitated face, and something +cherry-coloured in his hand. + +After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor’s +wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found +the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. +Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had +felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs. +Markleham cried: ‘Where’s Annie?’ + +No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But +all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we +found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until +it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding +to the usual means of recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her +head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking +around: + +‘Poor Annie! She’s so faithful and tender-hearted! It’s the parting from +her old playfellow and friend--her favourite cousin--that has done this. +Ah! It’s a pity! I am very sorry!’ + +When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all +standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she +did so, to lay it on the Doctor’s shoulder--or to hide it, I don’t know +which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and +her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had +been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so +they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her +on a sofa. + +‘Annie, my dear,’ said her mother, doing something to her dress. ‘See +here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a +cherry-coloured ribbon?’ + +It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it; I myself +looked everywhere, I am certain--but nobody could find it. + +‘Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?’ said her mother. + +I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but +burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while +ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for. + +Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She +entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought +for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took +their departure. + +We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I--Agnes and I +admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from +the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered +that she had left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any +service to her, I ran back to fetch it. + +I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted +and dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor’s +study, where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say +what I wanted, and to get a candle. + +The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside, and his young +wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, +was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory +out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But +with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was +so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a +wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don’t know what. The eyes +were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her +shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost +ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was +expressive, I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising +again before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, +love, and trustfulness--I see them all; and in them all, I see that +horror of I don’t know what. + +My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the +Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from +the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he +was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would +have her go to bed. + +But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay--to let +her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) +that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again +towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the +door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with +the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading. + +It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time +afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. + + + +CHAPTER 17. SOMEBODY TURNS UP + + +It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of +course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, +and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully +related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being +settled at Doctor Strong’s I wrote to her again, detailing my happy +condition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the +pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in +sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last +letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle, +not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. + +To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as +concisely, as a merchant’s clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which +were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write +what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and +interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, +were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more +expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that +Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have +desired more? + +I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite +kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a +prepossession the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; but to +think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from what she had +been thought to be, was a Moral!--that was her word. She was evidently +still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but +timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the +probability of my running away again soon: if I might judge from the +repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always +to be had of her for the asking. + +She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, +namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and +that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up, +to be let or sold. God knows I had no part in it while they remained +there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether +abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen +leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the winds +of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the +window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty +rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave +in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house +were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were +faded away. + +There was no other news in Peggotty’s letters. Mr. Barkis was an +excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had +our faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don’t know what they +were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for +me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but +poorly, and little Em’ly wouldn’t send her love, but said that Peggotty +might send it, if she liked. + +All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving +to myself the mention of little Em’ly, to whom I instinctively felt +that she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor +Strong’s, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and +always at unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by +surprise. But, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character, +and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon +discontinued these visits. I saw her on a Saturday, every third or +fourth week, when I went over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr. Dick +every alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to +stay until next morning. + +On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern +writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; in +relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to +press now, and that it really must be got out of hand. + +Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the more +agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake +shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be +served with more than one shilling’s-worth in the course of any one day. +This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where +he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that +he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found +on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an +agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for +all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always +desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense. +On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was +convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he +repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper. + +‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this +confidence to me, one Wednesday; ‘who’s the man that hides near our +house and frightens her?’ + +‘Frightens my aunt, sir?’ + +Mr. Dick nodded. ‘I thought nothing would have frightened her,’ he said, +‘for she’s--’ here he whispered softly, ‘don’t mention it--the wisest +and most wonderful of women.’ Having said which, he drew back, to +observe the effect which this description of her made upon me. + +‘The first time he came,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘was--let me see--sixteen +hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles’s execution. I think +you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘I don’t know how it can be,’ said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and shaking +his head. ‘I don’t think I am as old as that.’ + +‘Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?’ I asked. + +‘Why, really’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I don’t see how it can have been in that +year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of +hope. + +‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and +young, and I thought so. + +‘I can’t make it out,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. ‘There’s +something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the mistake +was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles’s head into +my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood +after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house.’ + +‘Walking about?’ I inquired. + +‘Walking about?’ repeated Mr. Dick. ‘Let me see, I must recollect a bit. +N-no, no; he was not walking about.’ + +I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing. + +‘Well, he wasn’t there at all,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘until he came up behind +her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I stood still +and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have +been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most +extraordinary thing!’ + +‘HAS he been hiding ever since?’ I asked. + +‘To be sure he has,’ retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. ‘Never +came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and he came up +behind her again, and I knew him again.’ + +‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’ + +‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and +making his teeth chatter. ‘Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, +come here,’ getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; +‘why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?’ + +‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’ + +Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and +having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, ‘No +beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went on to say, that from his window +he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person +money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk +away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no +more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and +had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which +preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind. + +I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the +unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and one of the line +of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but +after some reflection I began to entertain the question whether an +attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take +poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt’s protection, and whether +my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I knew from +herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet. +As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his +welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his +Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving +that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always +appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had +anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt. + +These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick’s life; they were +far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every +boy in the school; and though he never took an active part in any game +but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as anyone +among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles +or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly +breathing at the critical times! How often, at hare and hounds, have +I seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on +to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King +Charles the Martyr’s head, and all belonging to it! How many a +summer hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in +the cricket-field! How many winter days have I seen him, standing +blue-nosed, in the snow and east wind, looking at the boys going down +the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture! + +He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was +transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had +an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards. +He could turn cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old +court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird-cages of +old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string +and straw; with which we were all persuaded he could do anything that +could be done by hands. + +Mr. Dick’s renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednesdays, +Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I told +him all my aunt had told me; which interested the Doctor so much that +he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him. +This ceremony I performed; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever +he should not find me at the coach office, to come on there, and rest +himself until our morning’s work was over, it soon passed into a custom +for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little +late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the courtyard, +waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor’s beautiful +young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by +me or anyone, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and so +became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come +into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a +particular stool, which was called ‘Dick’, after him; here he would sit, +with his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might +be going on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never +been able to acquire. + +This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the +most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before +Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he +and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together +by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known among us as +The Doctor’s Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show +his respect for wisdom and knowledge. How it ever came about that the +Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous Dictionary, in these +walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as +reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too; and Mr. Dick, +listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of +hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the +world. + +As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom +windows--the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional +flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick +listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering +God knows where, upon the wings of hard words--I think of it as one of +the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel +as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might +somehow be the better for it--as if a thousand things it makes a noise +about, were not one half so good for it, or me. + +Agnes was one of Mr. Dick’s friends, very soon; and in often coming +to the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between +himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd +footing: that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my +guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that +arose, and invariably guided himself by my advice; not only having a +high respect for my native sagacity, but considering that I inherited a +good deal from my aunt. + +One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the +hotel to the coach office before going back to school (for we had an +hour’s school before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, who reminded +me of the promise I had made to take tea with himself and his mother: +adding, with a writhe, ‘But I didn’t expect you to keep it, Master +Copperfield, we’re so very umble.’ + +I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah +or detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood +looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to +be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be asked. + +‘Oh, if that’s all, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘and it really +isn’t our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening? +But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won’t mind owning to it, Master +Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition.’ + +I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had +no doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o’clock that +evening, which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself +as ready, to Uriah. + +‘Mother will be proud, indeed,’ he said, as we walked away together. ‘Or +she would be proud, if it wasn’t sinful, Master Copperfield.’ + +‘Yet you didn’t mind supposing I was proud this morning,’ I returned. + +‘Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!’ returned Uriah. ‘Oh, believe me, no! +Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn’t have deemed it at +all proud if you had thought US too umble for you. Because we are so +very umble.’ + +‘Have you been studying much law lately?’ I asked, to change the +subject. + +‘Oh, Master Copperfield,’ he said, with an air of self-denial, ‘my +reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in +the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.’ + +‘Rather hard, I suppose?’ said I. ‘He is hard to me sometimes,’ returned +Uriah. ‘But I don’t know what he might be to a gifted person.’ + +After beating a little tune on his chin as he walked on, with the two +forefingers of his skeleton right hand, he added: + +‘There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield--Latin words +and terms--in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble +attainments.’ + +‘Would you like to be taught Latin?’ I said briskly. ‘I will teach it +you with pleasure, as I learn it.’ + +‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ he answered, shaking his head. ‘I +am sure it’s very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much too umble +to accept it.’ + +‘What nonsense, Uriah!’ + +‘Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly +obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far +too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, +without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. +Learning ain’t for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he +is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield!’ + +I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as +when he delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his head all the +time, and writhing modestly. + +‘I think you are wrong, Uriah,’ I said. ‘I dare say there are several +things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn them.’ + +‘Oh, I don’t doubt that, Master Copperfield,’ he answered; ‘not in the +least. But not being umble yourself, you don’t judge well, perhaps, for +them that are. I won’t provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. I’m +much too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, Master Copperfield!’ + +We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the +street, and found there Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, only +short. She received me with the utmost humility, and apologized to me +for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they +had their natural affections, which they hoped would give no offence to +anyone. It was a perfectly decent room, half parlour and half kitchen, +but not at all a snug room. The tea-things were set upon the table, and +the kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an +escritoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was +Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of +Uriah’s books commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard: and +there were the usual articles of furniture. I don’t remember that any +individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but I do remember +that the whole place had. + +It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep’s humility, that she still wore +weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. +Heep’s decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise +in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her +mourning. + +‘This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure,’ said Mrs. Heep, +making the tea, ‘when Master Copperfield pays us a visit.’ + +‘I said you’d think so, mother,’ said Uriah. + +‘If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason,’ said +Mrs. Heep, ‘it would have been, that he might have known his company +this afternoon.’ + +I felt embarrassed by these compliments; but I was sensible, too, of +being entertained as an honoured guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep an +agreeable woman. + +‘My Uriah,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘has looked forward to this, sir, a long +while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I +joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall +ever be,’ said Mrs. Heep. + +‘I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma’am,’ I said, ‘unless you +like.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ retorted Mrs. Heep. ‘We know our station and are +thankful in it.’ + +I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah +gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me +with the choicest of the eatables on the table. There was nothing +particularly choice there, to be sure; but I took the will for the deed, +and felt that they were very attentive. Presently they began to talk +about aunts, and then I told them about mine; and about fathers and +mothers, and then I told them about mine; and then Mrs. Heep began to +talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell her about mine--but +stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a silence on that +subject. A tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance +against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of +dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had +against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and +wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty +I blush to think of, the more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I +took some credit to myself for being so confidential and felt that I was +quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers. + +They were very fond of one another: that was certain. I take it, that +had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which +the one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which I +was still less proof against. When there was nothing more to be got +out of me about myself (for on the Murdstone and Grinby life, and on my +journey, I was dumb), they began about Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah +threw the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. Heep caught it and threw it back to +Uriah, Uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep, +and so they went on tossing it about until I had no idea who had got it, +and was quite bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now +it was Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield, +now my admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield’s business +and resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine that +Mr. Wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was +he took so much; now one thing, now another, then everything at once; +and all the time, without appearing to speak very often, or to do +anything but sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they should be +overcome by their humility and the honour of my company, I found myself +perpetually letting out something or other that I had no business to +let out and seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah’s dinted +nostrils. + +I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out +of the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door--it +stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for +the time of year--came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming +loudly, ‘Copperfield! Is it possible?’ + +It was Mr. Micawber! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and +his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the +condescending roll in his voice, all complete! + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, ‘this is +indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with a sense +of the instability and uncertainty of all human--in short, it is a most +extraordinary meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon the +probability of something turning up (of which I am at present rather +sanguine), I find a young but valued friend turn up, who is connected +with the most eventful period of my life; I may say, with the +turning-point of my existence. Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you +do?’ + +I cannot say--I really cannot say--that I was glad to see Mr. Micawber +there; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him, +heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was. + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and settling +his chin in his shirt-collar. ‘She is tolerably convalescent. The twins +no longer derive their sustenance from Nature’s founts--in short,’ said +Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, ‘they are weaned--and +Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. She will be +rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has +proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of +friendship.’ + +I said I should be delighted to see her. + +‘You are very good,’ said Mr. Micawber. + +Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him. + +‘I have discovered my friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber genteelly, +and without addressing himself particularly to anyone, ‘not in solitude, +but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who +is apparently her offspring--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in another +of his bursts of confidence, ‘her son. I shall esteem it an honour to be +presented.’ + +I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. Micawber +known to Uriah Heep and his mother; which I accordingly did. As they +abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his +hand in his most courtly manner. + +‘Any friend of my friend Copperfield’s,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘has a +personal claim upon myself.’ + +‘We are too umble, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘my son and me, to be the +friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea with +us, and we are thankful to him for his company, also to you, sir, for +your notice.’ + +‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, ‘you are very obliging: and +what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?’ + +I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my +hat in my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil +at Doctor Strong’s. + +‘A pupil?’ said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. ‘I am extremely +happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield’s’--to +Uriah and Mrs. Heep--‘does not require that cultivation which, without +his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich +soil teeming with latent vegetation--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, +smiling, in another burst of confidence, ‘it is an intellect capable of +getting up the classics to any extent.’ + +Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a +ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in +this estimation of me. + +‘Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?’ I said, to get Mr. Micawber +away. + +‘If you will do her that favour, Copperfield,’ replied Mr. Micawber, +rising. ‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends +here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the +pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’ I knew he was certain to say +something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his +difficulties. ‘Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficulties. +Sometimes my difficulties have--in short, have floored me. There have +been times when I have administered a succession of facers to them; +there have been times when they have been too many for me, and I have +given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber, in the words of Cato, “Plato, thou +reasonest well. It’s all up now. I can show fight no more.” But at no +time of my life,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘have I enjoyed a higher degree of +satisfaction than in pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, +chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two +and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend Copperfield.’ + +Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, ‘Mr. Heep! Good +evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,’ and then walking out with me in his +most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement +with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went. + +It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little +room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly +flavoured with tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because +a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, +and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the +bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, +recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with +her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the +dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. +Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you a +pupil of Doctor Strong’s.’ + +I noticed, by the by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much +confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a +genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong’s. + +Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad to +see her too, and, after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down +on the small sofa near her. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if you will mention to Copperfield what +our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to know, I +will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether anything turns +up among the advertisements.’ + +‘I thought you were at Plymouth, ma’am,’ I said to Mrs. Micawber, as he +went out. + +‘My dear Master Copperfield,’ she replied, ‘we went to Plymouth.’ + +‘To be on the spot,’ I hinted. + +‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To be on the spot. But, the truth is, +talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence of my +family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department, +for a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. They would rather NOT have a man +of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the +others. Apart from which,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I will not disguise +from you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my +family which is settled in Plymouth, became aware that Mr. Micawber was +accompanied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the +twins, they did not receive him with that ardour which he might have +expected, being so newly released from captivity. In fact,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, lowering her voice,--‘this is between ourselves--our reception +was cool.’ + +‘Dear me!’ I said. + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘It is truly painful to contemplate mankind +in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception was, decidedly, +cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my family +which is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micawber, +before we had been there a week.’ + +I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. + +‘Still, so it was,’ continued Mrs. Micawber. ‘Under such circumstances, +what could a man of Mr. Micawber’s spirit do? But one obvious course +was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to return to +London, and to return at any sacrifice.’ + +‘Then you all came back again, ma’am?’ I said. + +‘We all came back again,’ replied Mrs. Micawber. ‘Since then, I have +consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most +expedient for Mr. Micawber to take--for I maintain that he must take +some course, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively. +‘It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live +upon air.’ + +‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said I. + +‘The opinion of those other branches of my family,’ pursued Mrs. +Micawber, ‘is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his attention +to coals.’ + +‘To what, ma’am?’ + +‘To coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To the coal trade. Mr. Micawber was +induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a +man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very +properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and see +the Medway. Which we came and saw. I say “we”, Master Copperfield; for +I never will,’ said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, ‘I never will desert Mr. +Micawber.’ + +I murmured my admiration and approbation. + +‘We came,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, ‘and saw the Medway. My opinion of +the coal trade on that river is, that it may require talent, but that +it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr. +Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the Medway; and +that is my individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was +of opinion that it would be rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral. +Firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never +having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great probability of +something turning up in a cathedral town. We have been here,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, ‘three days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up; and it may +not surprise you, my dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a +stranger, to know that we are at present waiting for a remittance from +London, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. Until the +arrival of that remittance,’ said Mrs. Micawber with much feeling, ‘I am +cut off from my home (I allude to lodgings in Pentonville), from my boy +and girl, and from my twins.’ + +I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this anxious +extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now returned: adding +that I only wished I had money enough, to lend them the amount they +needed. Mr. Micawber’s answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. He +said, shaking hands with me, ‘Copperfield, you are a true friend; but +when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is +possessed of shaving materials.’ At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber +threw her arms round Mr. Micawber’s neck and entreated him to be calm. +He wept; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell +for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps +for breakfast in the morning. + +When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come and +dine before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as I knew I +could not come next day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in +the evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at Doctor Strong’s +in the course of the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance +would arrive by that post), and propose the day after, if it would suit +me better. Accordingly I was called out of school next forenoon, and +found Mr. Micawber in the parlour; who had called to say that the dinner +would take place as proposed. When I asked him if the remittance had +come, he pressed my hand and departed. + +As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and +made me rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, arm +in arm: Uriah humbly sensible of the honour that was done him, and Mr. +Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. But +I was still more surprised, when I went to the little hotel next day at +the appointed dinner-hour, which was four o’clock, to find, from what +Mr. Micawber said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk +brandy-and-water at Mrs. Heep’s. + +‘And I’ll tell you what, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your +friend Heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. If I had +known that young man, at the period when my difficulties came to a +crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been a +great deal better managed than they were.’ + +I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. Micawber +had paid them nothing at all as it was; but I did not like to +ask. Neither did I like to say, that I hoped he had not been too +communicative to Uriah; or to inquire if they had talked much about me. +I was afraid of hurting Mr. Micawber’s feelings, or, at all events, Mrs. +Micawber’s, she being very sensitive; but I was uncomfortable about it, +too, and often thought about it afterwards. + +We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the +kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, +and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after +dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. + +Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good +company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if +it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about +the town, and proposed success to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and +himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there and that he +never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury. +He proposed me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a +review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the +property all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber: or, at least, +said, modestly, ‘If you’ll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall now have +the pleasure of drinking your health, ma’am.’ On which Mr. Micawber +delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber’s character, and said she +had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would +recommend me, when I came to a marrying time of life, to marry such +another woman, if such another woman could be found. + +As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and +convivial. Mrs. Micawber’s spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang ‘Auld +Lang Syne’. When we came to ‘Here’s a hand, my trusty frere’, we all +joined hands round the table; and when we declared we would ‘take a +right gude Willie Waught’, and hadn’t the least idea what it meant, we +were really affected. + +In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber +was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty +farewell of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I was not +prepared, at seven o’clock next morning, to receive the following +communication, dated half past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour +after I had left him:-- + +‘My DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, + +‘The die is cast--all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with a sickly +mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no +hope of the remittance! Under these circumstances, alike humiliating to +endure, humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have +discharged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment, +by giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, at +my residence, Pentonville, London. When it becomes due, it will not be +taken up. The result is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree +must fall. + +‘Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, be a +beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, and in that +hope. If he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day might, +by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remaining +existence--though his longevity is, at present (to say the least of it), +extremely problematical. + +‘This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever +receive + + ‘From + + ‘The + + ‘Beggared Outcast, + + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ + + +I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I +ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking +it on my way to Doctor Strong’s, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with +a word of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. +and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil +enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber’s conversation, eating walnuts out +of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they +did not see me, I thought it best, all things considered, not to +see them. So, with a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a +by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, +relieved that they were gone; though I still liked them very much, +nevertheless. + + + +CHAPTER 18. A RETROSPECT + + +My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence--the unseen, +unfelt progress of my life--from childhood up to youth! Let me think, +as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with +leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can +remember how it ran. + +A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went +together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that +purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world +being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white +arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me +hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream. + +I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months, over +several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling +afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says ‘No,’ but I say +‘Yes,’ and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have +been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even +I, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend +and public patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential +respect. I chiefly wonder what he’ll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong’s, +and what mankind will do to maintain any place against him. + +But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love. + +Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls’ establishment. I +adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round +face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies come to +the Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon +Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the +service I mentally insert Miss Shepherd’s name--I put her in among the +Royal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, +‘Oh, Miss Shepherd!’ in a transport of love. + +For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd’s feelings, but, at +length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have +Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd’s glove, and feel a +thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say +nothing to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd +and myself live but to be united. + +Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I +wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack +into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in +room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are +appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon +Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in +the cloak-room. Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day, +when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss +Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes! + +Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how +do I ever come to break with her? I can’t conceive. And yet a coolness +grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss +Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn’t stare so, and having avowed a +preference for Master Jones--for Jones! a boy of no merit whatever! The +gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the +Misses Nettingalls’ establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes +a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The +devotion of a life--it seems a life, it is all the same--is at an end; +Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family +know her no more. + +I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all +polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies, and shouldn’t +dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as +beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why +the girls can’t dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing +great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong +refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild +with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post. + +The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head +in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth +of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with +which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is +a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked, young butcher, with +rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. +His main use of this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong’s young +gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he’ll give it +‘em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could +undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He +waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls +challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I +resolve to fight the butcher. + +It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. +I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our +boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. +The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to +face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left +eyebrow. In another moment, I don’t know where the wall is, or where +I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the +butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon +the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; +sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second’s knee; sometimes +I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, +without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer +about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, +congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and +putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that the +victory is his. + +I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes, +and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy place +bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or +four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green +shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but that Agnes is a +sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time +light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always; I tell her +all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; she thinks +I couldn’t have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks +and trembles at my having fought him. + +Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days +that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has +left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor +Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is +going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate, +and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man than I had +thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world +yet, either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the +same as if he had never joined it. + +A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in +stately hosts that seem to have no end--and what comes next! I am +the head-boy, now! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a +condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was +myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part +of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--as +something I have passed, rather than have actually been--and almost +think of him as of someone else. + +And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield’s, where +is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, +a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes--my sweet +sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the +better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, +self-denying influence--is quite a woman. + +What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth +and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear +a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed +coat; and I use a great deal of bear’s grease--which, taken in +conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I +worship the eldest Miss Larkins. + +The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, +black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a +chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must +be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be +about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds. + +The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I +see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet +her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming +down the pavement, accompanied by her sister’s bonnet. She laughs and +talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in +walking up and down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I +know her to bow to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow +now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball, +where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military, +ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the +world. + +My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk +neckerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my best +clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, +to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to +her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff +old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his +head) is fraught with interest to me. When I can’t meet his daughter, +I go where I am likely to meet him. To say ‘How do you do, Mr. Larkins? +Are the young ladies and all the family quite well?’ seems so pointed, +that I blush. + +I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that +seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides, +I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks +outside Mr. Larkins’s house in the evening, though it cuts me to the +heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, +where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or +three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house +after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss +Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s +instead); wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd +would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might +rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something +she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally +disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure +before Miss Larkins, and expire. + +Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me. +When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at +the Larkins’s (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with +pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration +to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my +shoulder, and saying, ‘Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears!’ I +picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, ‘My dear +Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here +are twenty thousand pounds. Be happy!’ I picture my aunt relenting, +and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the +marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe--I believe, +on looking back, I mean--and modest I am sure; but all this goes on +notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where there are +lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and +the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with +blue flowers in her hair--forget-me-nots--as if SHE had any need to wear +forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party that I have ever +been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; for I appear not to +belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me, +except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he +needn’t do, as I have not come there to be insulted. + +But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes +upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me--she, the eldest Miss +Larkins!--and asks me pleasantly, if I dance? + +I stammer, with a bow, ‘With you, Miss Larkins.’ + +‘With no one else?’ inquires Miss Larkins. + +‘I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.’ + +Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says, +‘Next time but one, I shall be very glad.’ + +The time arrives. ‘It is a waltz, I think,’ Miss Larkins doubtfully +observes, when I present myself. ‘Do you waltz? If not, Captain +Bailey--’ + +But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss +Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He +is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been +wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where, +among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a +blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone +with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink +camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button-hole. I give it +her, and say: + +‘I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.’ + +‘Indeed! What is that?’ returns Miss Larkins. + +‘A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.’ + +‘You’re a bold boy,’ says Miss Larkins. ‘There.’ + +She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into +my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and +says, ‘Now take me back to Captain Bailey.’ + +I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the +waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman who +has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says: + +‘Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. +Copperfield.’ + +I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. + +‘I admire your taste, sir,’ says Mr. Chestle. ‘It does you credit. I +suppose you don’t take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty +large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our +neighbourhood--neighbourhood of Ashford--and take a run about our +place,--we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.’ + +I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a happy +dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She says I +waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in +imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear +divinity. For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous reflections; +but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call. I am imperfectly +consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the perished +flower. + +‘Trotwood,’ says Agnes, one day after dinner. ‘Who do you think is going +to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.’ + +‘Not you, I suppose, Agnes?’ + +‘Not me!’ raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. ‘Do +you hear him, Papa?--The eldest Miss Larkins.’ + +‘To--to Captain Bailey?’ I have just enough power to ask. + +‘No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.’ + +I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I +wear my worst clothes, I use no bear’s grease, and I frequently lament +over the late Miss Larkins’s faded flower. Being, by that time, rather +tired of this kind of life, and having received new provocation from +the butcher, I throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and +gloriously defeat him. + +This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear’s grease +in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to +seventeen. + + + +CHAPTER 19. I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY + + +I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my school-days +drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong’s. I had +been very happy there, I had a great attachment for the Doctor, and I +was eminent and distinguished in that little world. For these reasons +I was sorry to go; but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, I +was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of +the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the +wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the +wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me away. +So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that +I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school +without natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on +me, that other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt +about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my +recollection. I suppose the opening prospect confused me. I know that my +juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and that life was +more like a great fairy story, which I was just about to begin to read, +than anything else. + +My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which +I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find a +satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, ‘What I would like +to be?’ But I had no particular liking, that I could discover, for +anything. If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science +of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone +round the world on a triumphant voyage of discovery, I think I might +have considered myself completely suited. But, in the absence of any +such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit +that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it, +whatever it might be. + +Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative +and sage demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once; and on that +occasion (I don’t know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed +that I should be ‘a Brazier’. My aunt received this proposal so very +ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards +confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and +rattling his money. + +‘Trot, I tell you what, my dear,’ said my aunt, one morning in the +Christmas season when I left school: ‘as this knotty point is still +unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can +help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the +meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not +as a schoolboy.’ + +‘I will, aunt.’ + +‘It has occurred to me,’ pursued my aunt, ‘that a little change, and a +glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful in helping you to know your +own mind, and form a cooler judgement. Suppose you were to go down into +the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that--that +out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names,’ said my aunt, rubbing +her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so +called. + +‘Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!’ + +‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘that’s lucky, for I should like it too. But +it’s natural and rational that you should like it. And I am very +well persuaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural and +rational.’ + +‘I hope so, aunt.’ + +‘Your sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, ‘would have been as +natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You’ll be worthy of her, +won’t you?’ + +‘I hope I shall be worthy of YOU, aunt. That will be enough for me.’ + +‘It’s a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn’t live,’ +said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, ‘or she’d have been so vain +of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have been +completely turned, if there was anything of it left to turn.’ (My aunt +always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it +in this way to my poor mother.) ‘Bless me, Trotwood, how you do remind +me of her!’ + +‘Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?’ said I. + +‘He’s as like her, Dick,’ said my aunt, emphatically, ‘he’s as like her, +as she was that afternoon before she began to fret--bless my heart, he’s +as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!’ + +‘Is he indeed?’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘And he’s like David, too,’ said my aunt, decisively. + +‘He is very like David!’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘But what I want you to be, Trot,’ resumed my aunt, ‘--I don’t mean +physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm +fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,’ +said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. ‘With +determination. With character, Trot--with strength of character that is +not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. +That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might +both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.’ + +I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described. + +‘That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, +and to act for yourself,’ said my aunt, ‘I shall send you upon your +trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick’s going with you; but, on +second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me.’ + +Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the honour +and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the +world, restored the sunshine to his face. + +‘Besides,’ said my aunt, ‘there’s the Memorial--’ + +‘Oh, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, ‘I intend, Trotwood, to get +that done immediately--it really must be done immediately! And then it +will go in, you know--and then--’ said Mr. Dick, after checking himself, +and pausing a long time, ‘there’ll be a pretty kettle of fish!’ + +In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted +out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly +dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good +advice, and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I +should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me +to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into +Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do what I +would, for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed +upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, +and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself. + +I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and Mr. +Wickfield (my old room in whose house I had not yet relinquished), and +also of the good Doctor. Agnes was very glad to see me, and told me that +the house had not been like itself since I had left it. + +‘I am sure I am not like myself when I am away,’ said I. ‘I seem to +want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that’s not saying much; for +there’s no head in my right hand, and no heart. Everyone who knows you, +consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes.’ + +‘Everyone who knows me, spoils me, I believe,’ she answered, smiling. + +‘No. It’s because you are like no one else. You are so good, and so +sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are always +right.’ + +‘You talk,’ said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat at +work, ‘as if I were the late Miss Larkins.’ + +‘Come! It’s not fair to abuse my confidence,’ I answered, reddening at +the recollection of my blue enslaver. ‘But I shall confide in you, just +the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of that. Whenever I fall into +trouble, or fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you’ll let +me--even when I come to fall in love in earnest.’ + +‘Why, you have always been in earnest!’ said Agnes, laughing again. + +‘Oh! that was as a child, or a schoolboy,’ said I, laughing in my turn, +not without being a little shame-faced. ‘Times are altering now, and I +suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other. +My wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, +Agnes.’ + +Agnes laughed again, and shook her head. + +‘Oh, I know you are not!’ said I, ‘because if you had been you would +have told me. Or at least’--for I saw a faint blush in her face, ‘you +would have let me find it out for myself. But there is no one that I +know of, who deserves to love you, Agnes. Someone of a nobler character, +and more worthy altogether than anyone I have ever seen here, must rise +up, before I give my consent. In the time to come, I shall have a wary +eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful +one, I assure you.’ + +We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, +that had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as +mere children. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and +speaking in a different manner, said: + +‘Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not +have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps--something +I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual +alteration in Papa?’ + +I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must +have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast +down, and I saw tears in them. + +‘Tell me what it is,’ she said, in a low voice. + +‘I think--shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?’ + +‘Yes,’ she said. + +‘I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon +him since I first came here. He is often very nervous--or I fancy so.’ + +‘It is not fancy,’ said Agnes, shaking her head. + +‘His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I +have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he +is most certain to be wanted on some business.’ + +‘By Uriah,’ said Agnes. + +‘Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood +it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make +him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he +becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but +in this state I saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon +his desk, and shed tears like a child.’ + +Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and in +a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hanging +on his shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both looked towards +me, I felt to be very touching. There was such deep fondness for him, +and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in her beautiful look; +and there was such a fervent appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even +in my inmost thoughts, and to let no harsh construction find any place +against him; she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet +so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be so, too; that +nothing she could have said would have expressed more to me, or moved me +more. + +We were to drink tea at the Doctor’s. We went there at the usual hour; +and round the study fireside found the Doctor, and his young wife, and +her mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going away as if I were +going to China, received me as an honoured guest; and called for a log +of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old +pupil reddening in the blaze. + +‘I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood’s stead, Wickfield,’ +said the Doctor, warming his hands; ‘I am getting lazy, and want ease. +I shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, and lead a +quieter life.’ + +‘You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor,’ Mr. Wickfield +answered. + +‘But now I mean to do it,’ returned the Doctor. ‘My first master will +succeed me--I am in earnest at last--so you’ll soon have to arrange our +contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of knaves.’ + +‘And to take care,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you’re not imposed on, eh? +As you certainly would be, in any contract you should make for yourself. +Well! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my calling.’ + +‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Doctor, with a smile, +‘but my Dictionary; and this other contract-bargain--Annie.’ + +As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by Agnes, +she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and +timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were +suggested to his thoughts. + +‘There is a post come in from India, I observe,’ he said, after a short +silence. + +‘By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!’ said the Doctor. + +‘Indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Jack!’ said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. ‘That +trying climate!--like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath +a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn’t. My dear Doctor, it was +his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, +my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin +never was strong--not what can be called ROBUST, you know,’ said Mrs. +Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally, ‘--from +the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and +walking about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.’ + +Annie, thus addressed, made no reply. + +‘Do I gather from what you say, ma’am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?’ asked +Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Ill!’ replied the Old Soldier. ‘My dear sir, he’s all sorts of things.’ + +‘Except well?’ said Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Except well, indeed!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘He has had dreadful +strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every +kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver,’ said the Old Soldier +resignedly, ‘that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went +out!’ + +‘Does he say all this?’ asked Mr. Wickfield. + +‘Say? My dear sir,’ returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and her +fan, ‘you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that question. +Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first.’ + +‘Mama!’ said Mrs. Strong. + +‘Annie, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘once for all, I must really beg +that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I say. +You know as well as I do that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the +heels of any number of wild horses--why should I confine myself to four! +I WON’T confine myself to four--eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather +than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor’s plans.’ + +‘Wickfield’s plans,’ said the Doctor, stroking his face, and looking +penitently at his adviser. ‘That is to say, our joint plans for him. I +said myself, abroad or at home.’ + +‘And I said’ added Mr. Wickfield gravely, ‘abroad. I was the means of +sending him abroad. It’s my responsibility.’ + +‘Oh! Responsibility!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Everything was done for +the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; everything was done for the kindest and +best, we know. But if the dear fellow can’t live there, he can’t live +there. And if he can’t live there, he’ll die there, sooner than he’ll +overturn the Doctor’s plans. I know him,’ said the Old Soldier, fanning +herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, ‘and I know he’ll die there, +sooner than he’ll overturn the Doctor’s plans.’ + +‘Well, well, ma’am,’ said the Doctor cheerfully, ‘I am not bigoted to +my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some other +plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill health, he must +not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more +suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country.’ + +Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech--which, I need +not say, she had not at all expected or led up to--that she could only +tell the Doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that +operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand +with it. After which she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not being +more demonstrative when such kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on +her old playfellow; and entertained us with some particulars concerning +other deserving members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on +their deserving legs. + +All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up her +eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat +by his own daughter’s side. It appeared to me that he never thought of +being observed by anyone; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own +thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. He now asked +what Mr. Jack Maldon had actually written in reference to himself, and +to whom he had written? + +‘Why, here,’ said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the chimney-piece +above the Doctor’s head, ‘the dear fellow says to the Doctor +himself--where is it? Oh!--“I am sorry to inform you that my health is +suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced to the necessity +of returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.” That’s +pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of restoration! But Annie’s +letter is plainer still. Annie, show me that letter again.’ + +‘Not now, mama,’ she pleaded in a low tone. + +‘My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most +ridiculous persons in the world,’ returned her mother, ‘and perhaps the +most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never should have +heard of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself. +Do you call that confidence, my love, towards Doctor Strong? I am +surprised. You ought to know better.’ + +The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old lady, +I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled. + +‘Now let us see,’ said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her eye, +‘where the passage is. “The remembrance of old times, my dearest +Annie”--and so forth--it’s not there. “The amiable old Proctor”--who’s +he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and how +stupid I am! “Doctor,” of course. Ah! amiable indeed!’ Here she left +off, to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking +at us in a state of placid satisfaction. ‘Now I have found it. “You may +not be surprised to hear, Annie,”--no, to be sure, knowing that he never +was really strong; what did I say just now?--“that I have undergone +so much in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all +hazards; on sick leave, if I can; on total resignation, if that is +not to be obtained. What I have endured, and do endure here, is +insupportable.” And but for the promptitude of that best of creatures,’ +said Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing the Doctor as before, and refolding +the letter, ‘it would be insupportable to me to think of.’ + +Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as if +for his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely silent, with +his eyes fixed on the ground. Long after the subject was dismissed, +and other topics occupied us, he remained so; seldom raising his eyes, +unless to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the +Doctor, or his wife, or both. + +The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness and +expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and played duets +together, and we had quite a little concert. But I remarked two things: +first, that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was quite +herself, there was a blank between her and Mr. Wickfield which separated +them wholly from each other; secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed +to dislike the intimacy between her and Agnes, and to watch it with +uneasiness. And now, I must confess, the recollection of what I had seen +on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first began to return upon me +with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. The innocent beauty +of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the +natural grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at Agnes by her +side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose within +me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. + +She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy too, +that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. It closed +in an incident which I well remember. They were taking leave of each +other, and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when Mr. +Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and drew Agnes +quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the intervening time had been +cancelled, and I were still standing in the doorway on the night of the +departure, the expression of that night in the face of Mrs. Strong, as +it confronted his. + +I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible I +found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this +look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted +me when I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor’s roof with a dark +cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was +mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous +to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. The impending +shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct +form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where I had +worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure +in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees, which +remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim +smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor’s walk, and the +congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as +if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, +and its peace and honour given to the winds. + +But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which Agnes +had filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind sufficiently. +I should be there again soon, no doubt; I might sleep again--perhaps +often--in my old room; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone, +and the old time was past. I was heavier at heart when I packed up such +of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent to Dover, +than I cared to show to Uriah Heep; who was so officious to help me, +that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad that I was going. + +I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent show +of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the London coach. +I was so softened and forgiving, going through the town, that I had half +a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five shillings +to drink. But he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood +scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance was +so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which I had knocked out, +that I thought it best to make no advances. + +The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the road, +was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely +gruff. The latter point I achieved at great personal inconvenience; but +I stuck to it, because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing. + +‘You are going through, sir?’ said the coachman. + +‘Yes, William,’ I said, condescendingly (I knew him); ‘I am going to +London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards.’ + +‘Shooting, sir?’ said the coachman. + +He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time of +year, I was going down there whaling; but I felt complimented, too. + +‘I don’t know,’ I said, pretending to be undecided, ‘whether I shall +take a shot or not.’ ‘Birds is got wery shy, I’m told,’ said William. + +‘So I understand,’ said I. + +‘Is Suffolk your county, sir?’ asked William. + +‘Yes,’ I said, with some importance. ‘Suffolk’s my county.’ + +‘I’m told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there,’ said William. + +I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the +institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so I +shook my head, as much as to say, ‘I believe you!’ + +‘And the Punches,’ said William. ‘There’s cattle! A Suffolk Punch, when +he’s a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you ever breed any +Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?’ + +‘N-no,’ I said, ‘not exactly.’ + +‘Here’s a gen’lm’n behind me, I’ll pound it,’ said William, ‘as has bred +‘em by wholesale.’ + +The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising squint, +and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat +brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way +up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. His chin was cocked over +the coachman’s shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled +the back of my head; and as I looked at him, he leered at the leaders +with the eye with which he didn’t squint, in a very knowing manner. + +‘Ain’t you?’ asked William. + +‘Ain’t I what?’ said the gentleman behind. + +‘Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale?’ + +‘I should think so,’ said the gentleman. ‘There ain’t no sort of orse +that I ain’t bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is some +men’s fancy. They’re wittles and drink to me--lodging, wife, and +children--reading, writing, and Arithmetic--snuff, tobacker, and sleep.’ + +‘That ain’t a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it +though?’ said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. + +I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have +my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it. + +‘Well, if you don’t mind, sir,’ said William, ‘I think it would be more +correct.’ + +I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I +booked my place at the coach office I had had ‘Box Seat’ written against +the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in +a special great-coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that +distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and +had felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in the very first +stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other +merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across +me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a +canter! + +A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small +occasions, when it would have been better away, was assuredly not +stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the Canterbury +coach. It was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of speech. I spoke +from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt +completely extinguished, and dreadfully young. + +It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there +behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of +money in my pocket; and to look out for the places where I had slept on +my weary journey. I had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every +conspicuous landmark on the road. When I looked down at the trampers +whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up, +I felt as if the tinker’s blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt +again. When we clattered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I +caught a glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster lived +who had bought my jacket, I stretched my neck eagerly to look for the +place where I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my +money. When we came, at last, within a stage of London, and passed the +veritable Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy +hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down +and thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. + +We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of +establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the +coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, +which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. +I was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe +of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions +on any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering +advice to my inexperience. + +‘Well now,’ said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, ‘what would you +like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general: have a fowl!’ + +I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn’t in the humour for +a fowl. + +‘Ain’t you?’ said the waiter. ‘Young gentlemen is generally tired of +beef and mutton: have a weal cutlet!’ + +I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest +anything else. + +‘Do you care for taters?’ said the waiter, with an insinuating smile, +and his head on one side. ‘Young gentlemen generally has been overdosed +with taters.’ + +I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and +potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there +were any letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire--which I knew there +were not, and couldn’t be, but thought it manly to appear to expect. + +He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much +surprised) and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the +fire. While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with it; +and on my replying ‘Half a pint of sherry,’ thought it a favourable +opportunity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the +stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. I am of this +opinion, because, while I was reading the newspaper, I observed him +behind a low wooden partition, which was his private apartment, very +busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a chemist +and druggist making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, I +thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than +were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but +I was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing. + +Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that +poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I +resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; +and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw Julius Caesar and the +new Pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and +walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern +taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful +effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the +influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the +smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so +dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I +came out into the rainy street, at twelve o’clock at night, I felt as if +I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life +for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, +hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world. + +I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little +while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious +pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and +put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the +glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters, +I sat revolving it still, at past one o’clock, with my eyes on the +coffee-room fire. + +I was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a +manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier +life moving along--that I don’t know when the figure of a handsome +well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I +have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. But +I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his +coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire. + +At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, +who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting +them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small +pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the person who had come in, +and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. He +did not know me, but I knew him in a moment. + +At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to +speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have +lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was +still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving +of my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly +and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating +heart, and said: + +‘Steerforth! won’t you speak to me?’ + +He looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but I saw no +recognition in his face. + +‘You don’t remember me, I am afraid,’ said I. + +‘My God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘It’s little Copperfield!’ + +I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very +shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him +round the neck and cried. + +‘I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so +overjoyed to see you!’ + +‘And I am rejoiced to see you, too!’ he said, shaking my hands heartily. +‘Why, Copperfield, old boy, don’t be overpowered!’ And yet he was glad, +too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me. + +I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to +keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, +side by side. + +‘Why, how do you come to be here?’ said Steerforth, clapping me on the +shoulder. + +‘I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by +an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my +education there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?’ + +‘Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,’ he returned; ‘that is to say, +I get bored to death down there, periodically--and I am on my way now to +my mother’s. You’re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just +what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!’ + +‘I knew you immediately,’ I said; ‘but you are more easily remembered.’ + +He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, +and said gaily: + +‘Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of +town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious +enough, I remained here tonight instead of going on. I have not been in +town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away +at the play.’ + +‘I have been at the play, too,’ said I. ‘At Covent Garden. What a +delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!’ + +Steerforth laughed heartily. + +‘My dear young Davy,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, ‘you +are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher +than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a +more miserable business. Holloa, you sir!’ + +This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our +recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. + +‘Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir?’ + +‘Where does he sleep? What’s his number? You know what I mean,’ said +Steerforth. + +‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, with an apologetic air. ‘Mr. Copperfield +is at present in forty-four, sir.’ + +‘And what the devil do you mean,’ retorted Steerforth, ‘by putting Mr. +Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?’ + +‘Why, you see we wasn’t aware, sir,’ returned the waiter, still +apologetically, ‘as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give +Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, +sir.’ + +‘Of course it would be preferred,’ said Steerforth. ‘And do it at once.’ +The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, very +much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and +clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him +next morning at ten o’clock--an invitation I was only too proud and +happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went +upstairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and +where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not +being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, +which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for +six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient +Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, +rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the +gods. + + + +CHAPTER 20. STEERFORTH’S HOME + + +When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o’clock, and informed +me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no +occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed +too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing; +and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed +her on the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so +sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished, +that for some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under +the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, hearing her there with +a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback, +surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches, and looking anything but regal +in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the +waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me. + +It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but +in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where +the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table +covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the +fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little +round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first, +Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in +all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to +rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the change +he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state +I had held yesterday, with this morning’s comfort and this morning’s +entertainment. As to the waiter’s familiarity, it was quenched as if it +had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes. + +‘Now, Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, when we were alone, ‘I should like +to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you. +I feel as if you were my property.’ Glowing with pleasure to find that +he had still this interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed +the little expedition that I had before me, and whither it tended. + +‘As you are in no hurry, then,’ said Steerforth, ‘come home with me to +Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my mother--she +is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her--and +she will be pleased with you.’ + +‘I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you +are,’ I answered, smiling. + +‘Oh!’ said Steerforth, ‘everyone who likes me, has a claim on her that +is sure to be acknowledged.’ + +‘Then I think I shall be a favourite,’ said I. + +‘Good!’ said Steerforth. ‘Come and prove it. We will go and see the +lions for an hour or two--it’s something to have a fresh fellow like you +to show them to, Copperfield--and then we’ll journey out to Highgate by +the coach.’ + +I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake +presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room +and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told +her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my +acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw +a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the Museum, +where I could not help observing how much Steerforth knew, on an +infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to +make his knowledge. + +‘You’ll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if you have +not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you.’ + +‘I take a degree!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Not I! my dear Daisy--will you +mind my calling you Daisy?’ + +‘Not at all!’ said I. + +‘That’s a good fellow! My dear Daisy,’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘I +have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that +way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy +company enough for myself as I am.’ + +‘But the fame--’ I was beginning. + +‘You romantic Daisy!’ said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily: +‘why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may +gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. There’s +fame for him, and he’s welcome to it.’ + +I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change +the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth +could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and +lightness that were his own. + +Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away +so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an +old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, +though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and +a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting +Steerforth as ‘My dearest James,’ folded him in her arms. To this lady +he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome. + +It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the +windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great +vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only +time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces +of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth’s mother when she was a girl), +and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices, +coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and +sputtered, when I was called to dinner. + +There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, +dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good +looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not +expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite +to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had +black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her +lip. It was an old scar--I should rather call it seam, for it was not +discoloured, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her +mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across +the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had +altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years +of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little +dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as +I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the +effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt +eyes. + +She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother +called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long +time Mrs. Steerforth’s companion. It appeared to me that she never said +anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great +deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth +observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a +wild life at college, Miss Dartle put in thus: + +‘Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for +information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was +on all hands understood to be--eh?’ ‘It is education for a very grave +profession, if you mean that, Rosa,’ Mrs. Steerforth answered with some +coldness. + +‘Oh! Yes! That’s very true,’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘But isn’t it, +though?--I want to be put right, if I am wrong--isn’t it, really?’ + +‘Really what?’ said Mrs. Steerforth. + +‘Oh! You mean it’s not!’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I’m very glad to +hear it! Now, I know what to do! That’s the advantage of asking. I shall +never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, +and so forth, in connexion with that life, any more.’ + +‘And you will be right,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. ‘My son’s tutor is a +conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I +should have reliance on him.’ + +‘Should you?’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really +conscientious, now?’ + +‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. + +‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! Really +conscientious? Then he’s not--but of course he can’t be, if he’s really +conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from +this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know +for certain that he’s really conscientious!’ + +Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that +was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same +way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power, +though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before +dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention +of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if +Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was +going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I reminded him of +the boatman whom he had seen at school. + +‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with him, hadn’t +he?’ + +‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, though, as +a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a +daughter. In short, his house--or rather his boat, for he lives in one, +on dry land--is full of people who are objects of his generosity and +kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’ + +‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must see what +can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure of +a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to +make one of ‘em.’ + +My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference +to the tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss +Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in +again. + +‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said. + +‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth. + +‘That sort of people.---Are they really animals and clods, and beings of +another order? I want to know SO much.’ + +‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said +Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be +as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt +easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say--some people contend +for that, at least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them--but +they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like +their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded.’ + +‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, when I have been +better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! It’s such a delight +to know that, when they suffer, they don’t feel! Sometimes I have been +quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the +idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess, +but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and now I do know, and that +shows the advantage of asking--don’t it?’ + +I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw +Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, +and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I +thought of her. + +‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked. + +‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and +sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years +past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all +edge.’ + +‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said. + +Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment. + +‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’ + +‘By an unfortunate accident!’ + +‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at +her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to +have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now. + +‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; ‘and +she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one--though I can +hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child +of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My mother, who was +then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of +thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to +add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.’ + +‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I. + +‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some brothers are +not loved over much; and some love--but help yourself, Copperfield! +We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the +lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment +to me--the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his +features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, +winning self again. + +I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we +went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most +susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark +altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out +to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. +There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast +of the dice at backgammon--when I thought her, for one moment, in a +storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the +wall. + +It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her +son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She +showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his +baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first +knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. All the +letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own +chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of them, and I should +have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and +coaxed her out of the design. + +‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me, that you first became +acquainted,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one +table, while they played backgammon at another. ‘Indeed, I recollect his +speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken +his fancy there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my +memory.’ + +‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, +ma’am,’ said I, ‘and I stood in need of such a friend. I should have +been quite crushed without him.’ + +‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly. + +I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for +the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she +spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. + +‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; ‘far from it; +but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of +more importance even than that selection. My son’s high spirit made +it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its +superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found +such a man there.’ + +I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more +for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could be allowed +any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth. + +‘My son’s great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of +voluntary emulation and conscious pride,’ the fond lady went on to say. +‘He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the +monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his +station. It was like himself.’ + +I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself. + +‘So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course +in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every +competitor,’ she pursued. ‘My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that +you were quite devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made +yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman +if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son’s inspiring such +emotions; but I cannot be indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of +his merit, and I am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that +he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his +protection.’ + +Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else. +If I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her +figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and +no other in the world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a +word of this, or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost +pleasure, and honoured by Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, felt older than +I had done since I left Canterbury. + +When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and +decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would +seriously think of going down into the country with me. There was no +hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother hospitably said +the same. While we were talking, he more than once called me Daisy; +which brought Miss Dartle out again. + +‘But really, Mr. Copperfield,’ she asked, ‘is it a nickname? And +why does he give it you? Is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and +innocent? I am so stupid in these things.’ + +I coloured in replying that I believed it was. + +‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Now I am glad to know that! I ask for +information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and innocent; +and so you are his friend. Well, that’s quite delightful!’ + +She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too. +Steerforth and I, after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire, +talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went +upstairs together. Steerforth’s room was next to mine, and I went in to +look at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs, cushions +and footstools, worked by his mother’s hand, and with no sort of thing +omitted that could help to render it complete. Finally, her handsome +features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if +it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while +he slept. + +I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the +curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very +snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate +on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time, +when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me from above +the chimney-piece. + +It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The +painter hadn’t made the scar, but I made it; and there it was, coming +and going; now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and +now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I +had seen it when she was passionate. + +I wondered peevishly why they couldn’t put her anywhere else instead +of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly, +extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could +not forget that she was still there looking, ‘Is it really, though? +I want to know’; and when I awoke in the night, I found that I was +uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was +or not--without knowing what I meant. + + + +CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY + + +There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually +with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who +was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never +existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, +soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at +hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to +consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had +rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging +to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of +whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it +oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made +respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that +respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, +and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to +suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. +Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly +respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have +been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable +man. And of this, I noticed--the women-servants in the household were +so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and +generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. + +Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every +other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the +fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his +respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer, +by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported; +but Littimer was perfectly respectable. + +It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability +in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man’s presence. +How old he was himself, I could not guess--and that again went to his +credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might +have numbered fifty years as well as thirty. + +Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that +reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the +curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature +of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not +even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first +dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it +down like a baby. + +I gave him good morning, and asked him what o’clock it was. He took +out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and +preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the +face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and +said, if I pleased, it was half past eight. + +‘Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?’ + +‘Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.’ Another of his +characteristics--no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always. + +‘Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing for you, sir? The +warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at half past +nine.’ + +‘Nothing, I thank you.’ + +‘I thank YOU, sir, if you please’; and with that, and with a little +inclination of his head when he passed the bed-side, as an apology for +correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had +just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. + +Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and +never any less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have been +lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years, +by Steerforth’s companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, or Miss +Dartle’s conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I +became, as our smaller poets sing, ‘a boy again’. + +He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew everything, gave me +lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me +lessons in fencing--gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve +in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find +me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of +skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe +that Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose +anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his +respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising, +I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals. + +I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on +me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter. + +The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, as +may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many +occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a +thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him +for a much longer time. A dashing way he had of treating me like a +plaything, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have +adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance; it seemed the natural +sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it relieved me of +any uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and +measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above +all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanour that he +used towards no one else. As he had treated me at school differently +from all the rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike +any other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than +any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to him. He +made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day arrived for +our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether to take Littimer +or not, but decided to leave him at home. The respectable creature, +satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaux on +the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they were +intended to defy the shocks of ages, and received my modestly proffered +donation with perfect tranquillity. + +We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks on +my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother’s. The last thing I +saw was Littimer’s unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent +conviction that I was very young indeed. + +What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places, +I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was +so concerned, I recollect, even for the honour of Yarmouth, that when +Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, +as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind +of hole, I was highly pleased. We went to bed on our arrival (I observed +a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the +Dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. +Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the +beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the +boatmen in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, what he +was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming +out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and +swear he was myself grown out of knowledge. + +‘When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?’ he said. ‘I am at +your disposal. Make your own arrangements.’ + +‘Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth, +when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it +when it’s snug, it’s such a curious place.’ + +‘So be it!’ returned Steerforth. ‘This evening.’ + +‘I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,’ said I, +delighted. ‘We must take them by surprise.’ + +‘Oh, of course! It’s no fun,’ said Steerforth, ‘unless we take them by +surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition.’ + +‘Though they ARE that sort of people that you mentioned,’ I returned. + +‘Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?’ he exclaimed +with a quick look. ‘Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She’s +like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do? +You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘I must see Peggotty first of all.’ + +‘Well,’ replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. ‘Suppose I deliver you +up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?’ + +I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that +time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had +preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was. + +‘I’ll come anywhere you like,’ said Steerforth, ‘or do anything you +like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I’ll produce myself in +any state you please, sentimental or comical.’ + +I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, +carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went +out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea +was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not +much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and +lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped +the people in the streets and shaken hands with them. + +The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen +as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had +forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to +Mr. Omer’s shop. OMER AND Joram was now written up, where OMER used to +be; but the inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, +&c., remained as it was. + +My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I had +read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and +looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing +a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her +apron. I had no difficulty in recognizing either Minnie or Minnie’s +children. The glass door of the parlour was not open; but in the +workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old tune playing, as +if it had never left off. + +‘Is Mr. Omer at home?’ said I, entering. ‘I should like to see him, for +a moment, if he is.’ + +‘Oh yes, sir, he is at home,’ said Minnie; ‘the weather don’t suit his +asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!’ + +The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, +that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her +skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing +coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but +not much older-looking, stood before me. + +‘Servant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ ‘You can +shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,’ said I, putting out my +own. ‘You were very good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn’t +show that I thought so.’ + +‘Was I though?’ returned the old man. ‘I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t +remember when. Are you sure it was me?’ + +‘Quite.’ + +‘I think my memory has got as short as my breath,’ said Mr. Omer, +looking at me and shaking his head; ‘for I don’t remember you.’ + +‘Don’t you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having +breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I, +and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too--who wasn’t her husband then?’ + +‘Why, Lord bless my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown by his +surprise into a fit of coughing, ‘you don’t say so! Minnie, my dear, you +recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I think?’ + +‘My mother,’ I rejoined. + +‘To--be--sure,’ said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his +forefinger, ‘and there was a little child too! There was two parties. +The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at +Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?’ + +Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. + +‘Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I find my breath +gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as +it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t it?’ + +Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out +of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her +smallest child on the counter. + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in that +very ride, if you’ll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie to +marry Joram. “Do name it, sir,” says Joram. “Yes, do, father,” says +Minnie. And now he’s come into the business. And look here! The +youngest!’ + +Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her +father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was +dancing on the counter. + +‘Two parties, of course!’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head +retrospectively. ‘Ex-actly so! And Joram’s at work, at this minute, on +a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement’--the measurement of +the dancing child upon the counter--‘by a good two inches.---Will you +take something?’ + +I thanked him, but declined. + +‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Barkis’s the carrier’s wife--Peggotty’s +the boatman’s sister--she had something to do with your family? She was +in service there, sure?’ + +My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. + +‘I believe my breath will get long next, my memory’s getting so much +so,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, we’ve got a young relation of hers here, +under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dress-making +business--I assure you I don’t believe there’s a Duchess in England can +touch her.’ + +‘Not little Em’ly?’ said I, involuntarily. + +‘Em’ly’s her name,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and she’s little too. But if you’ll +believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this +town are mad against her.’ + +‘Nonsense, father!’ cried Minnie. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘I don’t say it’s the case with you,’ winking +at me, ‘but I say that half the women in Yarmouth--ah! and in five mile +round--are mad against that girl.’ + +‘Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,’ said +Minnie, ‘and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then +they couldn’t have done it.’ + +‘Couldn’t have done it, my dear!’ retorted Mr. Omer. ‘Couldn’t have +done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is there that any woman +couldn’t do, that she shouldn’t do--especially on the subject of another +woman’s good looks?’ + +I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered +this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath +eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully +expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little +black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, +come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however, +he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he +was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. + +‘You see,’ he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, ‘she +hasn’t taken much to any companions here; she hasn’t taken kindly to +any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In +consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em’ly wanted to be a +lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on +account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady +she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle--don’t you see?--and buy +him such-and-such fine things.’ + +‘I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me,’ I returned eagerly, +‘when we were both children.’ + +Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. ‘Just so. Then out of a +very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others +could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was +rather what might be called wayward--I’ll go so far as to say what I +should call wayward myself,’ said Mr. Omer; ‘--didn’t know her own mind +quite--a little spoiled--and couldn’t, at first, exactly bind herself +down. No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie?’ + +‘No, father,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘That’s the worst, I believe.’ + +‘So when she got a situation,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘to keep a fractious old +lady company, they didn’t very well agree, and she didn’t stop. At last +she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of ‘em are over, +and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth any six! Minnie, is +she worth any six, now?’ + +‘Yes, father,’ replied Minnie. ‘Never say I detracted from her!’ + +‘Very good,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘That’s right. And so, young gentleman,’ he +added, after a few moments’ further rubbing of his chin, ‘that you may +not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, I believe that’s +all about it.’ + +As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em’ly, I had no +doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr. +Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlour. My hurried +inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and, +looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a +most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had +looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child +of Minnie’s who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her +bright face to justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious +coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure, +but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a +good and happy course. + +The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas! +it was the tune that never DOES leave off--was beating, softly, all the +while. + +‘Wouldn’t you like to step in,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and speak to her? Walk +in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!’ + +I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I +was no less afraid of confusing myself.--but I informed myself of the +hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might +be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty +daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty’s. + +Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked +at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked +at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never +ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had +met. + +‘Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma’am?’ I said, feigning to speak roughly to +her. + +‘He’s at home, sir,’ returned Peggotty, ‘but he’s bad abed with the +rheumatics.’ + +‘Don’t he go over to Blunderstone now?’ I asked. + +‘When he’s well he do,’ she answered. + +‘Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?’ + +She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her +hands towards each other. + +‘Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call +the--what is it?--the Rookery,’ said I. + +She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided +frightened way, as if to keep me off. + +‘Peggotty!’ I cried to her. + +She cried, ‘My darling boy!’ and we both burst into tears, and were +locked in one another’s arms. + +What extravagances she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what +pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I +might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; I have not the +heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in +me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my +life, I dare say--not even to her--more freely than I did that morning. + +‘Barkis will be so glad,’ said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron, +‘that it’ll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell +him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?’ + +Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily +as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round +at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my +shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with +her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of +preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid. + +He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be +shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of +his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side +of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he +was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face +upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be +nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim--he looked the queerest +object I ever beheld. + +‘What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis, +with a slow rheumatic smile. + +‘Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn’t we?’ + +‘I was willin’ a long time, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis. + +‘A long time,’ said I. + +‘And I don’t regret it,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Do you remember what you +told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the +cooking?’ + +‘Yes, very well,’ I returned. + +‘It was as true,’ said Mr. Barkis, ‘as turnips is. It was as true,’ said +Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, +‘as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.’ + +Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result +of his reflections in bed; and I gave it. + +‘Nothing’s truer than them,’ repeated Mr. Barkis; ‘a man as poor as I +am, finds that out in his mind when he’s laid up. I’m a very poor man, +sir!’ + +‘I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.’ + +‘A very poor man, indeed I am,’ said Mr. Barkis. + +Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, +and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was +loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with +this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of +distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end +of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became +composed. + +‘Old clothes,’ said Mr. Barkis. + +‘Oh!’ said I. + +‘I wish it was Money, sir,’ said Mr. Barkis. + +‘I wish it was, indeed,’ said I. + +‘But it AIN’T,’ said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he +possibly could. + +I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes +more gently to his wife, said: + +‘She’s the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise +that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more! My dear, +you’ll get a dinner today, for company; something good to eat and drink, +will you?’ + +I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in +my honour, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, +extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace. + +‘I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear,’ said Mr. +Barkis, ‘but I’m a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for +a short nap, I’ll try and find it when I wake.’ + +We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got outside +the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now ‘a little +nearer’ than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before +producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of +agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky +box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the +most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; +but while Peggotty’s eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his +generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it. +So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no +doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just +woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his +pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in +having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a +sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures. + +I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth’s arrival and it was not long before +he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a +personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would +have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. +But his easy, spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome +looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, +and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest +in anybody’s heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His +manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these causes +combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before +he left the house that night. + +He stayed there with me to dinner--if I were to say willingly, I should +not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis’s room +like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy +weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything +he did; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming +impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which +was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even +now, in the remembrance. + +We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs, +unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where +I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations +they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what +she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her +hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth, +hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. + +‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall +sleep at the hotel.’ + +‘But to bring you so far,’ I returned, ‘and to separate, seems bad +companionship, Steerforth.’ + +‘Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong?’ he said. +‘What is “seems”, compared to that?’ It was settled at once. + +He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started +forth, at eight o’clock, for Mr. Peggotty’s boat. Indeed, they were more +and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for I thought even +then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his +determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, +and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, +then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of +the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love +of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was +worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--I say, if anyone had told +me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my +indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had +that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship +with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands towards the +old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had +sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty’s +door. + +‘This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?’ + +‘Dismal enough in the dark,’ he said: ‘and the sea roars as if it were +hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?’ ‘That’s +the boat,’ said I. + +‘And it’s the same I saw this morning,’ he returned. ‘I came straight to +it, by instinct, I suppose.’ + +We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the +door. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to keep +close to me, went in. + +A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the +moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I +was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs. +Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there who was +unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon +satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms +wide open, as if for little Em’ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed +expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort +of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em’ly by +the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em’ly +herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty’s delight, as +her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us +first) in the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty’s +embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of +our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this +was the way in which they were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the +background, clapping her hands like a madwoman. + +The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, +that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst +of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding +out my hand to him, when Ham shouted: + +‘Mas’r Davy! It’s Mas’r Davy!’ + +In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one +another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, +and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see +us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again +shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and +then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such +glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him. + +‘Why, that you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed--should come to this here +roof tonight, of all nights in my life,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is such a +thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe! Em’ly, my darling, +come here! Come here, my little witch! There’s Mas’r Davy’s friend, my +dear! There’s the gent’lman as you’ve heerd on, Em’ly. He comes to see +you, along with Mas’r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle’s life +as ever was or will be, Gorm the t’other one, and horroar for it!’ + +After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary +animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands +rapturously on each side of his niece’s face, and kissing it a dozen +times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and +patted it as if his hand had been a lady’s. Then he let her go; and as +she ran into the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon +us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction. + +‘If you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed now, and such gent’lmen--’ said +Mr. Peggotty. + +‘So th’ are, so th’ are!’ cried Ham. ‘Well said! So th’ are. Mas’r Davy +bor’--gent’lmen growed--so th’ are!’ + +‘If you two gent’lmen, gent’lmen growed,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘don’t +ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, +I’ll arks your pardon. Em’ly, my dear!--She knows I’m a going to tell,’ +here his delight broke out again, ‘and has made off. Would you be so +good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?’ + +Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared. + +‘If this ain’t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, +‘the brightest night o’ my life, I’m a shellfish--biled too--and more I +can’t say. This here little Em’ly, sir,’ in a low voice to Steerforth, +‘--her as you see a blushing here just now--’ + +Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest, +and of participation in Mr. Peggotty’s feelings, that the latter +answered him as if he had spoken. + +‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘That’s her, and so she is. Thankee, +sir.’ + +Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. + +‘This here little Em’ly of ours,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘has been, in our +house, what I suppose (I’m a ignorant man, but that’s my belief) no one +but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain’t my +child; I never had one; but I couldn’t love her more. You understand! I +couldn’t do it!’ + +‘I quite understand,’ said Steerforth. + +‘I know you do, sir,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘and thankee again. Mas’r +Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what +she is; but neither of you can’t fully know what she has been, is, and +will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I am as +rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can +know, I think, what our little Em’ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves,’ +sinking his voice lower yet, ‘that woman’s name ain’t Missis Gummidge +neither, though she has a world of merits.’ Mr. Peggotty ruffled his +hair again, with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was +going to say, and went on, with a hand upon each of his knees: + +‘There was a certain person as had know’d our Em’ly, from the time when +her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when +a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn’t,’ +said Mr. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own build--rough--a good deal o’ +the sou’-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a +chap, with his art in the right place.’ + +I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which +he sat grinning at us now. + +‘What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,’ said Mr. Peggotty, +with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that there art +of his to our little Em’ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a +sort o’ servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his +wittles, and in the long-run he makes it clear to me wot’s amiss. Now I +could wish myself, you see, that our little Em’ly was in a fair way of +being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to +a honest man as had a right to defend her. I don’t know how long I may +live, or how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any +night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the +town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn’t +make no head against, I could go down quieter for thinking “There’s a +man ashore there, iron-true to my little Em’ly, God bless her, and no +wrong can touch my Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’ + +Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were +waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a +nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before. + +‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s +bashfuller than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. “What! Him!” + says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many years, and like so +much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives +her a kiss, and I says no more to her than, “My dear, you’re right to +speak out, you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little +bird.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been so, +but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, +Be as you was with her, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my +hand, “I will!” he says. And he was--honourable and manful--for two year +going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore.’ + +Mr. Peggotty’s face, which had varied in its expression with the various +stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, +as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth’s (previously +wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided +the following speech between us: + +‘All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little +Em’ly from her work, and him with her! There ain’t so much in that, +you’ll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter +dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, +he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, “Look here! +This is to be my little wife!” And she says, half bold and half shy, and +half a laughing and half a crying, “Yes, Uncle! If you please.”--If I +please!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea; +‘Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--“If you please, I am steadier +now, and I have thought better of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife +as I can to him, for he’s a dear, good fellow!” Then Missis Gummidge, +she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder’s +out!’ said Mr. Peggotty--‘You come in! It took place this here present +hour; and here’s the man that’ll marry her, the minute she’s out of her +time.’ + +Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt +him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but +feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering +and great difficulty: + +‘She warn’t no higher than you was, Mas’r Davy--when you first +come--when I thought what she’d grow up to be. I see her grown +up--gent’lmen--like a flower. I’d lay down my life for +her--Mas’r Davy--Oh! most content and cheerful! She’s more to +me--gent’lmen--than--she’s all to me that ever I can want, and more +than ever I--than ever I could say. I--I love her true. There ain’t a +gent’lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that +can love his lady more than I love her, though there’s many a common +man--would say better--what he meant.’ + +I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now, +trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature +who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by +Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected +by the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the +recollections of my childhood, I don’t know. Whether I had come there +with any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em’ly, I don’t +know. I know that I was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first, +with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have +changed to pain. + +Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord +among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it +depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few +minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. + +‘Mr. Peggotty,’ he said, ‘you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve +to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you +joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a +brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to +come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go. +Any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--I +wouldn’t make, for the wealth of the Indies!’ + +So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em’ly. At first +little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they +brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but +she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully +Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would +embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and +tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen +Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how delighted he was with the boat and all +belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought +us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away +without any reserve. + +Em’ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and +listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth +told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr. +Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little Em’ly’s eyes were +fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry +adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the +narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em’ly +laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed +(Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and +light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, ‘When +the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow’; and he sang a sailor’s +song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost +fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and +murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen. + +As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success +never attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me), since +the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being +miserable, that she said next day she thought she must have been +bewitched. + +But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation. +When little Em’ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully) +across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up +shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used +to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting +these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he +was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this +time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner +by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy +myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly +reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from +him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening. + +As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had +some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from +his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men, +now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all +stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our +road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em’ly peeping after us, from +behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we +went. + +‘A most engaging little Beauty!’ said Steerforth, taking my arm. ‘Well! +It’s a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it’s quite a new +sensation to mix with them.’ + +‘How fortunate we are, too,’ I returned, ‘to have arrived to witness +their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy. +How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest +joy, as we have been!’ + +‘That’s rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn’t he?’ said +Steerforth. + +He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock +in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and +seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved: + +‘Ah, Steerforth! It’s well for you to joke about the poor! You may +skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from +me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how +exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman’s, +or humour a love like my old nurse’s, I know that there is not a joy or +sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you. +And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!’ + +He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, ‘Daisy, I believe you are +in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!’ Next moment he was +gaily singing Mr. Peggotty’s song, as we walked at a round pace back to +Yarmouth. + + + +CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE + + +Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the +country. We were very much together, I need not say; but occasionally we +were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I was +but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with Mr. Peggotty, +which was a favourite amusement of his, I generally remained ashore. My +occupation of Peggotty’s spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which +he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis +all day, I did not like to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth, +lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. Thus it +came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen +at Mr. Peggotty’s house of call, ‘The Willing Mind’, after I was in bed, +and of his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen’s clothes, whole moonlight +nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this +time, however, I knew that his restless nature and bold spirits +delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other +means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his +proceedings surprised me. + +Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an +interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar +scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had +naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or +four days that I can at once recall, we went our several ways after an +early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he +employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that +he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively +diverting himself where another man might not have found one. + +For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall +every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old +spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often +done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I +was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on +which I had looked out, when it was my father’s only, with such curious +feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it +was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which +Peggotty’s own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden +of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the churchyard path, +in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names +upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the +church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to +me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the figure +I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My +echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as +if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother’s +side. + +There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long +deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped +out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the +windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor +lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. He was always +sitting at my little window, looking out into the churchyard; and I +wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies +that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of +that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly +feeding in the light of the rising sun. + +Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America, +and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house, +and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall, +raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a +heavy head that it couldn’t hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with +which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. + +It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to +linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished +me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place +was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily +seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of +having been there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I +went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the +crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered +with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as +Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I +had lost as my excellent and generous aunt. + +MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by +a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I +could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by +the high road. Mr. Peggotty’s house being on that waste-place, and not +a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by. +Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on +together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling +lights of the town. + +One dark evening, when I was later than usual--for I had, that day, been +making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return +home--I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty’s house, sitting thoughtfully +before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he was +quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have +been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the +sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was +standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he +was lost in his meditations. + +He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made +me start too. + +‘You come upon me,’ he said, almost angrily, ‘like a reproachful ghost!’ + +‘I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,’ I replied. ‘Have I called +you down from the stars?’ + +‘No,’ he answered. ‘No.’ + +‘Up from anywhere, then?’ said I, taking my seat near him. + +‘I was looking at the pictures in the fire,’ he returned. + +‘But you are spoiling them for me,’ said I, as he stirred it quickly +with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot +sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into +the air. + +‘You would not have seen them,’ he returned. ‘I detest this mongrel +time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you been?’ + +‘I have been taking leave of my usual walk,’ said I. + +‘And I have been sitting here,’ said Steerforth, glancing round the +room, ‘thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of +our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the +place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don’t know what harm. David, +I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!’ + +‘My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?’ + +‘I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!’ he exclaimed. ‘I +wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!’ + +There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He +was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible. + +‘It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,’ +he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with +his face towards the fire, ‘than to be myself, twenty times richer and +twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in +this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!’ + +I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only +observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and +looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all +the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so +unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I could not hope to +advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at +first, but soon with returning gaiety. + +‘Tut, it’s nothing, Daisy! nothing!’ he replied. ‘I told you at the +inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a +nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, I think. At odd dull +times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what +they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who +“didn’t care”, and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to +the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping +over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.’ + +‘You are afraid of nothing else, I think,’ said I. + +‘Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,’ he answered. +‘Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I +tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me +(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!’ + +His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such +a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance +bent on the fire. + +‘So much for that!’ he said, making as if he tossed something light +into the air, with his hand. “‘Why, being gone, I am a man again,” like +Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the +feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.’ + +‘But where are they all, I wonder!’ said I. + +‘God knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘After strolling to the ferry looking +for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me +thinking, and you found me thinking.’ + +The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had +happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was +needed, against Mr. Peggotty’s return with the tide; and had left the +door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em’ly, with whom it was +an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after +very much improving Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits by a cheerful salutation and +a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away. + +He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge’s, for +they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious +conversation as we went along. + +‘And so,’ he said, gaily, ‘we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do +we?’ + +‘So we agreed,’ I returned. ‘And our places by the coach are taken, you +know.’ + +‘Ay! there’s no help for it, I suppose,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have +almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out +tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.’ + +‘As long as the novelty should last,’ said I, laughing. + +‘Like enough,’ he returned; ‘though there’s a sarcastic meaning in that +observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend. +Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am; but +while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass +a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I +think.’ + +‘Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,’ I returned. + +‘A nautical phenomenon, eh?’ laughed Steerforth. + +‘Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are +in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that +amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with +such fitful uses of your powers.’ + +‘Contented?’ he answered, merrily. ‘I am never contented, except with +your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt +the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of +these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad +apprenticeship, and now don’t care about it.---You know I have bought a +boat down here?’ + +‘What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed, +stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. ‘When you may never +care to come near the place again!’ + +‘I don’t know that,’ he returned. ‘I have taken a fancy to the place. At +all events,’ walking me briskly on, ‘I have bought a boat that was for +sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will +be master of her in my absence.’ + +‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You pretend +to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer +a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. +My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your +generosity?’ + +‘Tush!’ he answered, turning red. ‘The less said, the better.’ + +‘Didn’t I know?’ cried I, ‘didn’t I say that there was not a joy, or +sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to +you?’ + +‘Aye, aye,’ he answered, ‘you told me all that. There let it rest. We +have said enough!’ + +Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light +of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker +pace than before. + +‘She must be newly rigged,’ said Steerforth, ‘and I shall leave Littimer +behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell +you Littimer had come down?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.’ + +As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though +he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him +and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which +I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so. + +‘Oh no!’ he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. ‘Nothing +of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.’ + +‘The same as ever?’ said I. + +‘The same as ever,’ said Steerforth. ‘Distant and quiet as the North +Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She’s the “Stormy +Petrel” now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I’ll have +her christened again.’ + +‘By what name?’ I asked. + +‘The “Little Em’ly”.’ + +As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that +he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help +showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he +resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved. + +‘But see here,’ he said, looking before us, ‘where the original little +Em’ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he’s a true +knight. He never leaves her!’ + +Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural +ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He +was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, +and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his +side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an +undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, +to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that +they were well matched even in that particular. + +She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to +them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they +passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to +replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked +by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth +seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light +of a young moon. + +Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose +approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and +thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked +bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to +have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing +in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing +their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the +sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer +to them than before. + +‘That is a black shadow to be following the girl,’ said Steerforth, +standing still; ‘what does it mean?’ + +He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me. + +‘She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,’ said I. + +‘A beggar would be no novelty,’ said Steerforth; ‘but it is a strange +thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.’ + +‘Why?’ I asked. + +‘For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,’ he said, +after a pause, ‘of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil +did it come from, I wonder!’ + +‘From the shadow of this wall, I think,’ said I, as we emerged upon a +road on which a wall abutted. + +‘It’s gone!’ he returned, looking over his shoulder. ‘And all ill go +with it. Now for our dinner!’ + +But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering +afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken +expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only +seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, +seated warm and merry, at table. + +Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to +him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered +respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, +he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he +seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: ‘You are very young, +sir; you are exceedingly young.’ + +We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the +table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, +as I felt, he said to his master: + +‘I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.’ + +‘Who?’ cried Steerforth, much astonished. + +‘Miss Mowcher, sir.’ + +‘Why, what on earth does she do here?’ said Steerforth. + +‘It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me +that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir. +I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she +might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir.’ + +‘Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth. + +I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this +disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly +unacquainted. + +‘Then you shall know her,’ said Steerforth, ‘for she is one of the seven +wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.’ + +I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as +Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and +positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the +subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation +until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting +over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and +Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced: + +‘Miss Mowcher!’ + +I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at +the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her +appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round +a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty +or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey +eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a +finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was +obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. +Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it +entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she +had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for +though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have +been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings +generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a +common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. +This lady--dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her +forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with +her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut +up, making an uncommonly knowing face--after ogling Steerforth for a few +moments, broke into a torrent of words. + +‘What! My flower!’ she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him. +‘You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you +do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, you’re a +downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, ain’t I? Ha, ha, +ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn’t +have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, man alive, I’m everywhere. +I’m here and there, and where not, like the conjurer’s half-crown in the +lady’s handkercher. Talking of handkerchers--and talking of ladies--what +a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over +one of my shoulders, and I don’t say which!’ + +Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw +back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of +the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its +mahogany shelter above her head. + +‘Oh my stars and what’s-their-names!’ she went on, clapping a hand on +each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, ‘I’m of too full +a habit, that’s the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives +me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of +water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you’d think I was a +fine woman, wouldn’t you?’ + +‘I should think that, wherever I saw you,’ replied Steerforth. + +‘Go along, you dog, do!’ cried the little creature, making a whisk at +him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, ‘and don’t +be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers’s +last week--THERE’S a woman! How SHE wears!--and Mithers himself came +into the room where I was waiting for her--THERE’S a man! How HE wears! +and his wig too, for he’s had it these ten years--and he went on at +that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be +obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He’s a pleasant wretch, but he +wants principle.’ + +‘What were you doing for Lady Mithers?’ asked Steerforth. + +‘That’s tellings, my blessed infant,’ she retorted, tapping her nose +again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of +supernatural intelligence. ‘Never YOU mind! You’d like to know whether +I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her +complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn’t you? And so you shall, my +darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather’s name +was?’ + +‘No,’ said Steerforth. + +‘It was Walker, my sweet pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and he came of a +long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from.’ + +I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher’s wink except Miss +Mowcher’s self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening +to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had +said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one +eye turned up like a magpie’s. Altogether I was lost in amazement, +and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of +politeness. + +She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged +in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at +every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of +flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which +she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly +desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion: + +‘Who’s your friend?’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Steerforth; ‘he wants to know you.’ + +‘Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!’ returned Miss +Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. +‘Face like a peach!’ standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I +sat. ‘Quite tempting! I’m very fond of peaches. Happy to make your +acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure.’ + +I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers, +and that the happiness was mutual. + +‘Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a +preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. +‘What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t it!’ + +This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a +hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag +again. + +‘What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain’t +we, my sweet child?’ replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag +with her head on one side and her eye in the air. ‘Look here!’ taking +something out. ‘Scraps of the Russian Prince’s nails. Prince Alphabet +turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name’s got all the letters in +it, higgledy-piggledy.’ + +‘The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?’ said Steerforth. + +‘I believe you, my pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher. ‘I keep his nails in +order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.’ + +‘He pays well, I hope?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Pays, as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose,’ replied Miss +Mowcher. ‘None of your close shavers the Prince ain’t. You’d say so, if +you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.’ + +‘By your art, of course,’ said Steerforth. + +Miss Mowcher winked assent. ‘Forced to send for me. Couldn’t help it. +The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no +go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he +was. Like old iron!’ ‘Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?’ +inquired Steerforth. + +‘Oh, you’re a broth of a boy, ain’t you?’ returned Miss Mowcher, shaking +her head violently. ‘I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general, +and I showed you the scraps of the Prince’s nails to prove it. The +Prince’s nails do more for me in private families of the genteel sort, +than all my talents put together. I always carry ‘em about. They’re the +best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince’s nails, she must be +all right. I give ‘em away to the young ladies. They put ‘em in albums, +I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, “the whole social system” (as +the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of +Prince’s nails!’ said this least of women, trying to fold her short +arms, and nodding her large head. + +Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing +all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to +look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other. + +‘Well, well!’ she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, ‘this is +not business. Come, Steerforth, let’s explore the polar regions, and +have it over.’ + +She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a +little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On +Steerforth’s replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, +and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the +top, as if it were a stage. + +‘If either of you saw my ankles,’ she said, when she was safely +elevated, ‘say so, and I’ll go home and destroy myself!’ + +‘I did not,’ said Steerforth. + +‘I did not,’ said I. + +‘Well then,’ cried Miss Mowcher, ‘I’ll consent to live. Now, ducky, +ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.’ + +This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands; +who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and +his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, +evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss +Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown +hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her +pocket, was a most amazing spectacle. + +‘You’re a pretty fellow!’ said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection. +‘You’d be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months, +but for me. Just half a minute, my young friend, and we’ll give you a +polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!’ + +With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to +one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the +virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing +and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth’s head in the +busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time. + +‘There’s Charley Pyegrave, the duke’s son,’ she said. ‘You know +Charley?’ peeping round into his face. + +‘A little,’ said Steerforth. + +‘What a man HE is! THERE’S a whisker! As to Charley’s legs, if they +were only a pair (which they ain’t), they’d defy competition. Would you +believe he tried to do without me--in the Life-Guards, too?’ + +‘Mad!’ said Steerforth. + +‘It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried,’ returned Miss +Mowcher. ‘What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a +perfumer’s shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid.’ + +‘Charley does?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Charley does. But they haven’t got any of the Madagascar Liquid.’ + +‘What is it? Something to drink?’ asked Steerforth. + +‘To drink?’ returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. ‘To +doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in the +shop--elderly female--quite a Griffin--who had never even heard of it +by name. “Begging pardon, sir,” said the Griffin to Charley, “it’s +not--not--not ROUGE, is it?” “Rouge,” said Charley to the Griffin. “What +the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge?” “No +offence, sir,” said the Griffin; “we have it asked for by so many names, +I thought it might be.” Now that, my child,’ continued Miss Mowcher, +rubbing all the time as busily as ever, ‘is another instance of +the refreshing humbug I was speaking of. I do something in that way +myself--perhaps a good deal--perhaps a little--sharp’s the word, my dear +boy--never mind!’ + +‘In what way do you mean? In the rouge way?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Put this and that together, my tender pupil,’ returned the wary +Mowcher, touching her nose, ‘work it by the rule of Secrets in all +trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say I do a +little in that way myself. One Dowager, SHE calls it lip-salve. Another, +SHE calls it gloves. Another, SHE calls it tucker-edging. Another, SHE +calls it a fan. I call it whatever THEY call it. I supply it for ‘em, +but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with +such a face, that they’d as soon think of laying it on, before a whole +drawing-room, as before me. And when I wait upon ‘em, they’ll say to +me sometimes--WITH IT ON--thick, and no mistake--“How am I looking, +Mowcher? Am I pale?” Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn’t THAT refreshing, my young +friend!’ + +I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood upon +the dining table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at +Steerforth’s head, and winking at me over it. + +‘Ah!’ she said. ‘Such things are not much in demand hereabouts. That +sets me off again! I haven’t seen a pretty woman since I’ve been here, +jemmy.’ + +‘No?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Not the ghost of one,’ replied Miss Mowcher. + +‘We could show her the substance of one, I think?’ said Steerforth, +addressing his eyes to mine. ‘Eh, Daisy?’ + +‘Yes, indeed,’ said I. + +‘Aha?’ cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and then +peeping round at Steerforth’s. ‘Umph?’ + +The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and the +second like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed to have found +no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her head on one side and +her eye turned up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air and +were confident of its appearing presently. + +‘A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield?’ she cried, after a pause, and +still keeping the same look-out. ‘Aye, aye?’ + +‘No,’ said Steerforth, before I could reply. ‘Nothing of the sort. On +the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used--or I am much mistaken--to have a +great admiration for her.’ + +‘Why, hasn’t he now?’ returned Miss Mowcher. ‘Is he fickle? Oh, for +shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until Polly his +passion requited?--Is her name Polly?’ + +The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this question, +and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. + +‘No, Miss Mowcher,’ I replied. ‘Her name is Emily.’ + +‘Aha?’ she cried exactly as before. ‘Umph? What a rattle I am! Mr. +Copperfield, ain’t I volatile?’ + +Her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in +connexion with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any of us +had yet assumed: ‘She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged +to be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of +life. I esteem her for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her +good looks.’ + +‘Well said!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Hear, hear, hear! Now I’ll quench the +curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing +to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, +or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and +so forth, in this town. Do you observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of +which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin; +Christian name, Ham; surname, Peggotty; occupation, boat-builder; +also of this town. She lives with a relative; Christian name, unknown; +surname, Peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also of this town. She is the +prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. I admire her--as +my friend does--exceedingly. If it were not that I might appear to +disparage her Intended, which I know my friend would not like, I would +add, that to me she seems to be throwing herself away; that I am sure +she might do better; and that I swear she was born to be a lady.’ + +Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and +distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air +as if she were still looking for that answer. When he ceased she became +brisk again in an instant, and rattled away with surprising volubility. + +‘Oh! And that’s all about it, is it?’ she exclaimed, trimming his +whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing +round his head in all directions. ‘Very well: very well! Quite a long +story. Ought to end “and they lived happy ever afterwards”; oughtn’t +it? Ah! What’s that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, because +she’s enticing; I hate her with an E, because she’s engaged. I took her +to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her +name’s Emily, and she lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, +ain’t I volatile?’ + +Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any +reply, she continued, without drawing breath: + +‘There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection, +you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, I +understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I +understand yours,’ peeping down into his face. ‘Now you may mizzle, +jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair +I’ll operate on him.’ + +‘What do you say, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning +his seat. ‘Will you be improved?’ + +‘Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening.’ + +‘Don’t say no,’ returned the little woman, looking at me with the aspect +of a connoisseur; ‘a little bit more eyebrow?’ + +‘Thank you,’ I returned, ‘some other time.’ + +‘Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple,’ said +Miss Mowcher. ‘We can do it in a fortnight.’ + +‘No, I thank you. Not at present.’ + +‘Go in for a tip,’ she urged. ‘No? Let’s get the scaffolding up, then, +for a pair of whiskers. Come!’ + +I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my weak +point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed +for any decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the +time being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which +she held up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would +make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to +descend from her elevated station. Thus assisted, she skipped down with +much agility, and began to tie her double chin into her bonnet. + +‘The fee,’ said Steerforth, ‘is--’ + +‘Five bob,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and dirt cheap, my chicken. Ain’t I +volatile, Mr. Copperfield?’ + +I replied politely: ‘Not at all.’ But I thought she was rather so, when +she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, +dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. + +‘That’s the Till!’ observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair again, +and replacing in the bag a miscellaneous collection of little objects +she had emptied out of it. ‘Have I got all my traps? It seems so. It +won’t do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church “to +marry him to somebody”, as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha! +ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll! Now, I know I’m going to break +your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your +fortitude, and try to bear it. Good-bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take care of +yourself, jockey of Norfolk! How I have been rattling on! It’s all +the fault of you two wretches. I forgive you! “Bob swore!”--as the +Englishman said for “Good night”, when he first learnt French, and +thought it so like English. “Bob swore,” my ducks!’ + +With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, she +waddled to the door, where she stopped to inquire if she should leave +us a lock of her hair. ‘Ain’t I volatile?’ she added, as a commentary on +this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed. + +Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help +laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for this +inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which was after some +time, he told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and +made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. Some +people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said; but she was as +shrewdly and sharply observant as anyone he knew, and as long-headed as +she was short-armed. He told me that what she had said of being here, +and there, and everywhere, was true enough; for she made little darts +into the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to +know everybody. I asked him what her disposition was: whether it was at +all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side +of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these +questions after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to repeat +them. He told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her +skill, and her profits; and about her being a scientific cupper, if I +should ever have occasion for her service in that capacity. + +She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening: +and when we parted for the night Steerforth called after me over the +banisters, ‘Bob swore!’ as I went downstairs. + +I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis’s house, to find Ham walking +up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from him +that little Em’ly was inside. I naturally inquired why he was not there +too, instead of pacing the streets by himself? + +‘Why, you see, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, ‘Em’ly, +she’s talking to some ‘un in here.’ + +‘I should have thought,’ said I, smiling, ‘that that was a reason for +your being in here too, Ham.’ + +‘Well, Mas’r Davy, in a general way, so ‘t would be,’ he returned; +‘but look’ee here, Mas’r Davy,’ lowering his voice, and speaking very +gravely. ‘It’s a young woman, sir--a young woman, that Em’ly knowed +once, and doen’t ought to know no more.’ + +When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I had +seen following them, some hours ago. + +‘It’s a poor wurem, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, ‘as is trod under foot by all +the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o’ the churchyard don’t +hold any that the folk shrink away from, more.’ + +‘Did I see her tonight, Ham, on the sand, after we met you?’ + +‘Keeping us in sight?’ said Ham. ‘It’s like you did, Mas’r Davy. Not +that I know’d then, she was theer, sir, but along of her creeping soon +arterwards under Em’ly’s little winder, when she see the light come, +and whispering “Em’ly, Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart +towards me. I was once like you!” Those was solemn words, Mas’r Davy, +fur to hear!’ + +‘They were indeed, Ham. What did Em’ly do?’ ‘Says Em’ly, “Martha, is +it you? Oh, Martha, can it be you?”--for they had sat at work together, +many a day, at Mr. Omer’s.’ + +‘I recollect her now!’ cried I, recalling one of the two girls I had +seen when I first went there. ‘I recollect her quite well!’ + +‘Martha Endell,’ said Ham. ‘Two or three year older than Em’ly, but was +at the school with her.’ + +‘I never heard her name,’ said I. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’ + +‘For the matter o’ that, Mas’r Davy,’ replied Ham, ‘all’s told a’most +in them words, “Em’ly, Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart +towards me. I was once like you!” She wanted to speak to Em’ly. Em’ly +couldn’t speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and +he wouldn’t--no, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, with great earnestness, ‘he +couldn’t, kind-natur’d, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together, +side by side, for all the treasures that’s wrecked in the sea.’ + +I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as +Ham. + +‘So Em’ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,’ he pursued, ‘and gives it +to her out o’ winder to bring here. “Show that,” she says, “to my aunt, +Mrs. Barkis, and she’ll set you down by her fire, for the love of me, +till uncle is gone out, and I can come.” By and by she tells me what +I tell you, Mas’r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do? She +doen’t ought to know any such, but I can’t deny her, when the tears is +on her face.’ + +He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with +great care a pretty little purse. + +‘And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas’r Davy,’ +said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, ‘how +could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her--knowing what +she brought it for? Such a toy as it is!’ said Ham, thoughtfully looking +on it. ‘With such a little money in it, Em’ly my dear.’ + +I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again--for that +was more satisfactory to me than saying anything--and we walked up +and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and +Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept away, +but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. Even then, I +would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the +neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more than once. The door opening +immediately into it, I found myself among them before I considered +whither I was going. + +The girl--the same I had seen upon the sands--was near the fire. She +was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. +I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em’ly had but newly +risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been +lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl’s face, over which her +hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with +her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. +Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em’ly. Not a word was spoken +when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the +silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em’ly spoke first. + +‘Martha wants,’ she said to Ham, ‘to go to London.’ + +‘Why to London?’ returned Ham. + +He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of +compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship +with her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered +distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed +tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper. + +‘Better there than here,’ said a third voice aloud--Martha’s, though she +did not move. ‘No one knows me there. Everybody knows me here.’ + +‘What will she do there?’ inquired Ham. + +She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment; +then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as +a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist +herself. + +‘She will try to do well,’ said little Em’ly. ‘You don’t know what she +has said to us. Does he--do they--aunt?’ + +Peggotty shook her head compassionately. + +‘I’ll try,’ said Martha, ‘if you’ll help me away. I never can do worse +than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!’ with a dreadful shiver, +‘take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a +child!’ + +As Em’ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas +bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step +or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had +retired near me, and showed it to him. + +‘It’s all yourn, Em’ly,’ I could hear him say. ‘I haven’t nowt in all +the wureld that ain’t yourn, my dear. It ain’t of no delight to me, +except for you!’ + +The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away and went to +Martha. What she gave her, I don’t know. I saw her stooping over her, +and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, as she asked +was that enough? ‘More than enough,’ the other said, and took her hand +and kissed it. + +Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her +face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped +a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or +turned back; but no word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary, +wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away. + +As the door closed, little Em’ly looked at us three in a hurried manner +and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. + +‘Doen’t, Em’ly!’ said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. ‘Doen’t, +my dear! You doen’t ought to cry so, pretty!’ + +‘Oh, Ham!’ she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, ‘I am not so good a +girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful heart, sometimes, +I ought to have!’ + +‘Yes, yes, you have, I’m sure,’ said Ham. + +‘No! no! no!’ cried little Em’ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. ‘I am +not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not near!’ And still she +cried, as if her heart would break. + +‘I try your love too much. I know I do!’ she sobbed. ‘I’m often cross to +you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. You are +never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I should think of nothing +but how to be grateful, and to make you happy!’ + +‘You always make me so,’ said Ham, ‘my dear! I am happy in the sight of +you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you.’ + +‘Ah! that’s not enough!’ she cried. ‘That is because you are good; not +because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for +you, if you had been fond of someone else--of someone steadier and +much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and +changeable like me!’ + +‘Poor little tender-heart,’ said Ham, in a low voice. ‘Martha has +overset her, altogether.’ + +‘Please, aunt,’ sobbed Em’ly, ‘come here, and let me lay my head upon +you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I am not as good a girl +as I ought to be. I am not, I know!’ + +Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em’ly, with her +arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her +face. + +‘Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David, +for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a +better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than +I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of +a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my +heart!’ + +She dropped her face on my old nurse’s breast, and, ceasing this +supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman’s, half a +child’s, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better +suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have +been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant. + +She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking +encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to +raise her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was able to +smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while +Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat +again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his darling +had been crying. + +I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw her +innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his +bluff form as if it were her best support. When they went away together, +in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their +departure in my mind with Martha’s, I saw that she held his arm with +both her hands, and still kept close to him. + + + +CHAPTER 23. I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION + + +When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em’ly, and her +emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into +the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred +confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be +wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than towards the +pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have always been +persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, I then +devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears--even to Steerforth’s--of +what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an +accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of +the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her head. +I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there +it gave her image a new grace. + +While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. +As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me +as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult +him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. +For the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. +Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at +our departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and +sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty +hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our +going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good-bye; +and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth, +when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage +of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. +In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned, +and left a great many people very sorry behind US. + +‘Do you stay long here, Littimer?’ said I, as he stood waiting to see the +coach start. + +‘No, sir,’ he replied; ‘probably not very long, sir.’ + +‘He can hardly say, just now,’ observed Steerforth, carelessly. ‘He +knows what he has to do, and he’ll do it.’ + +‘That I am sure he will,’ said I. + +Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and I +felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good +journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a +mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. + +For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually +silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, +when I should see the old places again, and what new changes might +happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming +gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at +any moment, pulled me by the arm: + +‘Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at +breakfast?’ + +‘Oh!’ said I, taking it out of my pocket. ‘It’s from my aunt.’ + +‘And what does she say, requiring consideration?’ + +‘Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘that I came out on this +expedition to look about me, and to think a little.’ + +‘Which, of course, you have done?’ + +‘Indeed I can’t say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am +afraid I have forgotten it.’ + +‘Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,’ said +Steerforth. ‘Look to the right, and you’ll see a flat country, with a +good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you’ll see the same. +Look to the front, and you’ll find no difference; look to the rear, +and there it is still.’ I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable +profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to +its flatness. + +‘What says our aunt on the subject?’ inquired Steerforth, glancing at +the letter in my hand. ‘Does she suggest anything?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ said I. ‘She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a +proctor? What do you think of it?’ + +‘Well, I don’t know,’ replied Steerforth, coolly. ‘You may as well do +that as anything else, I suppose?’ + +I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and +professions so equally; and I told him so. + +‘What is a proctor, Steerforth?’ said I. + +‘Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,’ replied Steerforth. ‘He is, to +some faded courts held in Doctors’ Commons,--a lazy old nook near St. +Paul’s Churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. +He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, +would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best +what he is, by telling you what Doctors’ Commons is. It’s a +little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called +ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old +monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know +nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in +a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It’s a place that has an +ancient monopoly in suits about people’s wills and people’s marriages, +and disputes among ships and boats.’ + +‘Nonsense, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean to say that there +is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters?’ + +‘I don’t, indeed, my dear boy,’ he returned; ‘but I mean to say that +they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that +same Doctors’ Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them +blundering through half the nautical terms in Young’s Dictionary, +apropos of the “Nancy” having run down the “Sarah Jane”, or Mr. Peggotty +and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor +and cable to the “Nelson” Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there +another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting +a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge +in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman’s case, or +contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man’s a judge, and now he is +not a judge; now he’s one thing, now he’s another; now he’s something +else, change and change about; but it’s always a very pleasant, +profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an +uncommonly select audience.’ + +‘But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?’ said I, a little +puzzled. ‘Are they?’ + +‘No,’ returned Steerforth, ‘the advocates are civilians--men who have +taken a doctor’s degree at college--which is the first reason of my +knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both get +very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little +party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors’ Commons +kindly, David. They plume themselves on their gentility there, I can +tell you, if that’s any satisfaction.’ + +I made allowance for Steerforth’s light way of treating the subject, +and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and +antiquity which I associated with that ‘lazy old nook near St. Paul’s +Churchyard’, did not feel indisposed towards my aunt’s suggestion; which +she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it +had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors’ +Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour. + +‘That’s a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events,’ +said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; ‘and one deserving of all +encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors’ +Commons.’ + +I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt +was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had +taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln’s Inn +Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in +the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was +going to be burnt down every night. + +We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to +Doctors’ Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a +proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and +whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey’s +end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I +drove to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting +supper. + +If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been +better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me; +and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, +that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. + +‘So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?’ said I. ‘I am sorry for that. +Ah, Janet, how do you do?’ + +As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt’s visage +lengthen very much. + +‘I am sorry for it, too,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose. ‘I have had +no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.’ Before I could ask why, +she told me. + +‘I am convinced,’ said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness +on the table, ‘that Dick’s character is not a character to keep the +donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to +have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have +been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,’ said +my aunt, with emphasis, ‘there was one this afternoon at four o’clock. +A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a +donkey!’ + +I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. + +‘It was a donkey,’ said my aunt; ‘and it was the one with the stumpy +tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my +house.’ This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss +Murdstone. ‘If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder +to me to bear than another’s, that,’ said my aunt, striking the table, +‘is the animal!’ + +Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself +unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then +engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available +for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn’t hear of it. + +Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt’s rooms were very +high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or +might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don’t know--and consisted of +a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample +justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas +concerning London provision, and ate but little. + +‘I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar,’ +said my aunt, ‘and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I +hope the steak may be beef, but I don’t believe it. Nothing’s genuine in +the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.’ + +‘Don’t you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?’ I +hinted. + +‘Certainly not,’ returned my aunt. ‘It would be no pleasure to a London +tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was.’ + +I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, +which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, +Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which +was of a smarter construction than usual [‘in case of fire’, my aunt +said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual +preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, +according to certain established regulations from which no deviation, +however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and +water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these +accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting +opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast +in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, +from among the borders of her nightcap. + +‘Well, Trot,’ she began, ‘what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have +you not begun to think about it yet?’ + +‘I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a +good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like +it exceedingly.’ + +‘Come!’ said my aunt. ‘That’s cheering!’ + +‘I have only one difficulty, aunt.’ + +‘Say what it is, Trot,’ she returned. + +‘Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to +be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very +expensive?’ + +‘It will cost,’ returned my aunt, ‘to article you, just a thousand +pounds.’ + +‘Now, my dear aunt,’ said I, drawing my chair nearer, ‘I am uneasy in +my mind about that. It’s a large sum of money. You have expended a +great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all +things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. +Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any +outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and +exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? +Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that +it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second +mother, to consider. Are you certain?’ + +My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then +engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting +her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded +skirts, replied as follows: + +‘Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for +your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is +Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick’s conversation +on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the +resources of that man’s intellect, except myself!’ + +She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: + +‘It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence +upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your +poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor +child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed +me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, +perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been +a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon +my means; at least’--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was +confused--‘no, I have no other claim upon my means--and you are my +adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my +whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of +life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever +that old woman did for you.’ + +It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. +There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing +it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if +anything could. + +‘All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,’ said my aunt, +‘and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we’ll go to the +Commons after breakfast tomorrow.’ + +We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room +on the same floor with my aunt’s, and was a little disturbed in the +course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was +agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and +inquiring, ‘if I heard the engines?’ But towards morning she slept +better, and suffered me to do so too. + +At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and +Jorkins, in Doctors’ Commons. My aunt, who had this other general +opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, +gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some +silver. + +We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of +Saint Dunstan’s strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to +catch them at it, at twelve o’clock--and then went on towards Ludgate +Hill, and St. Paul’s Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place, +when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked +frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed +man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was +coming so close after us as to brush against her. + +‘Trot! My dear Trot!’ cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and +pressing my arm. ‘I don’t know what I am to do.’ + +‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. Step into +a shop, and I’ll soon get rid of this fellow.’ + +‘No, no, child!’ she returned. ‘Don’t speak to him for the world. I +entreat, I order you!’ + +‘Good Heaven, aunt!’ said I. ‘He is nothing but a sturdy beggar.’ + +‘You don’t know what he is!’ replied my aunt. ‘You don’t know who he is! +You don’t know what you say!’ + +We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had +stopped too. + +‘Don’t look at him!’ said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, ‘but +get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul’s Churchyard.’ + +‘Wait for you?’ I replied. + +‘Yes,’ rejoined my aunt. ‘I must go alone. I must go with him.’ + +‘With him, aunt? This man?’ + +‘I am in my senses,’ she replied, ‘and I tell you I must. Get me a +coach!’ + +However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right +to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a +few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost +before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don’t know how, +and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly, +that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so, +I heard her say to the coachman, ‘Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!’ +and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. + +What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of +his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the +person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the +nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable +to imagine. After half an hour’s cooling in the churchyard, I saw the +chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was +sitting in it alone. + +She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite +prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the +chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little +while. She said no more, except, ‘My dear child, never ask me what +it was, and don’t refer to it,’ until she had perfectly regained her +composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get +out. On her giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the +guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained. + +Doctors’ Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had +taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed +to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts +and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and +Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims +without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as +copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore +a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to +receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow’s room. + +‘Mr. Spenlow’s in Court, ma’am,’ said the dry man; ‘it’s an Arches day; +but it’s close by, and I’ll send for him directly.’ + +As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I +availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was +old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the +writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as +an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some +endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some +as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some +in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in +the Delegates’ Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts +there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand +them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books +of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in +massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in +ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, +and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor’s business. I was casting +my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects, +when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, +in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his +hat as he came. + +He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the +stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty +trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his +whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so +massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy +golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the +goldbeaters’ shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that +he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some +papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole +body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. + +I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously +received. He now said: + +‘And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession? +I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an +interview with her the other day,’--with another inclination of his +body--Punch again--‘that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was +good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care, +and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That +nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of’--Punch again. I bowed my +acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was +that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was +strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal. +That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew +something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter +of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked +it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably. + +‘Oh surely! surely!’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘We always, in this house, +propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to +propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a +partner. Mr. Jorkins.’ + +‘And the premium, sir,’ I returned, ‘is a thousand pounds?’ + +‘And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,’ said Mr. +Spenlow. ‘As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no +mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr. +Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect +Mr. Jorkins’s opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, +in short.’ + +‘I suppose, sir,’ said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, ‘that it is +not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful, +and made himself a perfect master of his profession’--I could not help +blushing, this looked so like praising myself--‘I suppose it is not the +custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--’ + +Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of +his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word ‘salary’: + +‘No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point +myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is +immovable.’ + +I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found +out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose +place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be +constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. +If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn’t listen to such +a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr. +Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things +might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins +would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would +have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have +grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing +business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins! + +It was settled that I should begin my month’s probation as soon as I +pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at +its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the +subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When +we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and +there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough +to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would +trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded +all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any +time. + +Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick +houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors’ names upon the doors, to be +the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth +had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my +thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off +from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the +horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were +sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the +Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in +the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen +him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I +learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, +lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were +sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow’s rank, and dressed like him in +black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. +Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty; +but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an +injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a +question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. +The public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel +man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself +at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the +place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of +one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library +of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little +roadside inns of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never, +on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, +time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and +I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any +character--except perhaps as a suitor. + +Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed +Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined +my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons, +feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins’s, on account +of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. + +We arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields without any new adventures, except +encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger’s cart, who suggested +painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my +plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to +get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be +considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be +uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. + +‘I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that too, my +dear,’ she returned. ‘There is a furnished little set of chambers to be +let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel.’ + +With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an +advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in +Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, with a +view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, +forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one +of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms +moderate, and could be taken for a month only, if required. + +‘Why, this is the very thing, aunt!’ said I, flushed with the possible +dignity of living in chambers. + +‘Then come,’ replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a +minute before laid aside. ‘We’ll go and look at ‘em.’ + +Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp +on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to +communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four +times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but +at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel +petticoat below a nankeen gown. + +‘Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma’am,’ said my +aunt. + +‘For this gentleman?’ said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her +keys. + +‘Yes, for my nephew,’ said my aunt. + +‘And a sweet set they is for sich!’ said Mrs. Crupp. + +So we went upstairs. + +They were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being +near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where +you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you +could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture +was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the +river was outside the windows. + +As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into +the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room +sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to +live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration +they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp’s countenance +and in my aunt’s, that the deed was done. + +‘Is it the last occupant’s furniture?’ inquired my aunt. + +‘Yes, it is, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Crupp. + +‘What’s become of him?’ asked my aunt. + +Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which +she articulated with much difficulty. ‘He was took ill here, ma’am, +and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died!’ + +‘Hey! What did he die of?’ asked my aunt. + +‘Well, ma’am, he died of drink,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. ‘And +smoke.’ + +‘Smoke? You don’t mean chimneys?’ said my aunt. + +‘No, ma’am,’ returned Mrs. Crupp. ‘Cigars and pipes.’ + +‘That’s not catching, Trot, at any rate,’ remarked my aunt, turning to +me. + +‘No, indeed,’ said I. + +In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took +them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that +time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other +necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that +she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession +the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now +found summun she could care for! + +On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that +the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which +was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the +intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books +from Mr. Wickfield’s; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I +wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was +to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I +need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my +possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great +disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went +away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the +coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and +that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering +on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and +on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface. + + + +CHAPTER 24. MY FIRST DISSIPATION + + +It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and +to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had +got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a +wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my +pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make +quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me. +It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come +and go without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping, +from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was +disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say, +too, that there were times when it was very dreary. + +It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked +a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by +sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I +don’t know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted +somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank, +in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp +appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had +died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as +to live, and not bother me with his decease. + +After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year, +and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my +own youthfulness as ever. + +Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must +be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to +Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had +gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near +St. Albans, but that she expected him to return tomorrow. I was so fond +of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends. + +As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked +about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him +at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle +was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest +in all our proceedings there, and said, ‘Was it really though?’ and so +forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know. +Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw +her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so +natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I +could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and +particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she +would be in Buckingham Street. + +I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the +Commons--and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how +much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when +Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. + +‘My dear Steerforth,’ cried I, ‘I began to think I should never see you +again!’ + +‘I was carried off, by force of arms,’ said Steerforth, ‘the very next +morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are +here!’ + +I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no +little pride, and he commended it highly. ‘I tell you what, old boy,’ he +added, ‘I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give +me notice to quit.’ + +This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he +would have to wait till doomsday. + +‘But you shall have some breakfast!’ said I, with my hand on the +bell-rope, ‘and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and I’ll +toast you some bacon in a bachelor’s Dutch-oven, that I have got here.’ + +‘No, no!’ said Steerforth. ‘Don’t ring! I can’t! I am going to breakfast +with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in Covent Garden.’ + +‘But you’ll come back to dinner?’ said I. + +‘I can’t, upon my life. There’s nothing I should like better, but I must +remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together tomorrow +morning.’ + +‘Then bring them here to dinner,’ I returned. ‘Do you think they would +come?’ + +‘Oh! they would come fast enough,’ said Steerforth; ‘but we should +inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us somewhere.’ + +I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I +really ought to have a little house-warming, and that there never +could be a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after +his approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost +resources. I therefore made him promise positively in the names of his +two friends, and we appointed six o’clock as the dinner-hour. + +When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my +desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was +well known she couldn’t be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young +man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms +would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we would +have him. Next Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn’t be in two +places at once (which I felt to be reasonable), and that ‘a young gal’ +stationed in the pantry with a bedroom candle, there never to desist +from washing plates, would be indispensable. I said, what would be +the expense of this young female? and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed +eighteenpence would neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed not; +and THAT was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner. + +It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the +ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp’s kitchen fireplace, that it was +capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a +fish-kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the +range? She couldn’t say fairer than that. Would I come and look at +it? As I should not have been much the wiser if I HAD looked at it, I +declined, and said, ‘Never mind fish.’ But Mrs. Crupp said, Don’t say +that; oysters was in, why not them? So THAT was settled. Mrs. Crupp +then said what she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot +roast fowls--from the pastry-cook’s; a dish of stewed beef, with +vegetables--from the pastry-cook’s; two little corner things, as a +raised pie and a dish of kidneys--from the pastrycook’s; a tart, and (if +I liked) a shape of jelly--from the pastrycook’s. This, Mrs. Crupp said, +would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, +and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. + +I acted on Mrs. Crupp’s opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook’s +myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard +mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled +marble, but was labelled ‘Mock Turtle’, I went in and bought a slab of +it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for +fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty, +consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we +found it what Steerforth called ‘rather a tight fit’ for four. + +These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in +Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail +wine-merchant’s in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and +saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor, they looked +so numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very +uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them. + +One of Steerforth’s friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham. +They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older +than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not +more than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself +indefinitely, as ‘a man’, and seldom or never in the first person +singular. + +‘A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said +Markham--meaning himself. + +‘It’s not a bad situation,’ said I, ‘and the rooms are really +commodious.’ + +‘I hope you have both brought appetites with you?’ said Steerforth. + +‘Upon my honour,’ returned Markham, ‘town seems to sharpen a man’s +appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually eating.’ + +Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to +preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was +announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good; +we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make +the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I was +not quite such good company during dinner as I could have wished to be, +for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by +observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and +that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the +wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The ‘young gal’ likewise +occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash the +plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, +and unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the +pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining +herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the +plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great +deal of destruction. + +These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the +cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of +the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless. +Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and +to remove the ‘young gal’ to the basement also, I abandoned myself to +enjoyment. + +I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of +half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made +me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own +jokes, and everybody else’s; called Steerforth to order for not passing +the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that +I meant to have a dinner-party exactly like that, once a week, until +further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger’s box, that +I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing +ten minutes long. + +I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually +starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was +needed. I proposed Steerforth’s health. I said he was my dearest friend, +the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was +delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more obligations than +I could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration than I could +ever express. I finished by saying, ‘I’ll give you Steerforth! God bless +him! Hurrah!’ We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one +to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the table to shake +hands with him, and I said (in two words) + +‘Steerforth--you’retheguidingstarofmyexistence.’ + +I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a +song. Markham was the singer, and he sang ‘When the heart of a man is +depressed with care’. He said, when he had sung it, he would give us +‘Woman!’ I took objection to that, and I couldn’t allow it. I said +it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never +permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as ‘The +Ladies!’ I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw +Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me--or at him--or at both of us. He +said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was. He said a man +was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there--never under +my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality +paramount. He said it was no derogation from a man’s dignity to confess +that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his health. + +Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying +to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech +about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears. +I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me +tomorrow, and the day after--each day at five o’clock, that we might +enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening. +I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt. +Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex! + +Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his forehead +against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his +face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as ‘Copperfield’, and +saying, ‘Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn’t +do it.’ Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the +looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass; +my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair--only my hair, nothing +else--looked drunk. + +Somebody said to me, ‘Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!’ There was +no bedroom before me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses; +the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth +opposite--all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre? To +be sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must excuse me if I saw +everybody out first, and turned the lamp off--in case of fire. + +Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling +for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by +the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near +the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was +Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on +my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation +for it. + +A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! +There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. +Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which +somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for +I hadn’t had it on before. Steerforth then said, ‘You are all right, +Copperfield, are you not?’ and I told him, ‘Neverberrer.’ + +A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took +money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, +and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of +him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we +were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit, +that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so +indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and +smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about +something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance +of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the +boxes, and I don’t know what more. The whole building looked to me as if +it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable +manner, when I tried to steady it. + +On somebody’s motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes, +where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, +with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own +figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of +these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people +about me crying ‘Silence!’ to somebody, and ladies casting indignant +glances at me, and--what! yes!--Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in +the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn’t +know. I see her face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its +indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. + +‘Agnes!’ I said, thickly, ‘Lorblessmer! Agnes!’ + +‘Hush! Pray!’ she answered, I could not conceive why. ‘You disturb the +company. Look at the stage!’ + +I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was +going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by and by, and +saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. + +‘Agnes!’ I said. ‘I’mafraidyou’renorwell.’ + +‘Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Listen! Are you +going away soon?’ + +‘Amigoarawaysoo?’ I repeated. + +‘Yes.’ + +I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand +her downstairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had +looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, +and replied in a low tone: + +‘I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in +it. Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you +home.’ + +She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with +her, I felt ashamed, and with a short ‘Goori!’ (which I intended for +‘Good night!’) got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped at +once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with +me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that +Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I +might open another bottle of wine. + +How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, +at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night--the bed a rocking sea +that was never still! How, as that somebody slowly settled down into +myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin +were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with +long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands, +hot plates of metal which no ice could cool! + +But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt when I became +conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences I +had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate--my recollection +of that indelible look which Agnes had given me--the torturing +impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I was, +how she came to be in London, or where she stayed--my disgust of +the very sight of the room where the revel had been held--my racking +head--the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of +going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day it was! + +Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton +broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of my +predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his +chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal +all! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away the +broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire remains +of yesterday’s feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen +breast and say, in heartfelt penitence, ‘Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp, +never mind the broken meats! I am very miserable!’--only that I doubted, +even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide +in! + + +CHAPTER 25. GOOD AND BAD ANGELS + + +I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of +headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind +relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had +taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months +back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming upstairs, with a letter in his +hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me +on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the banisters, he swung +into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state +of exhaustion. + +‘T. Copperfield, Esquire,’ said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with +his little cane. + +I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the +conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T. +Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which +he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for +the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state +that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast table, and +familiarize myself with the outside of it a little, before I could +resolve to break the seal. + +I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing +no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said was, ‘My dear +Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa’s agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in +Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and see me today, at any time you like +to appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES.’ + +It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my +satisfaction, that I don’t know what the ticket-porter can have +thought, unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have written +half-a-dozen answers at least. I began one, ‘How can I ever hope, +my dear Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting +impression’--there I didn’t like it, and then I tore it up. I began +another, ‘Shakespeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it is +that a man should put an enemy into his mouth’--that reminded me of +Markham, and it got no farther. I even tried poetry. I began one note, +in a six-syllable line, ‘Oh, do not remember’--but that associated +itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity. After many +attempts, I wrote, ‘My dear Agnes. Your letter is like you, and what +could I say of it that would be higher praise than that? I will come at +four o’clock. Affectionately and sorrowfully, T.C.’ With this missive +(which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was +out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed. + +If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman +in Doctors’ Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some +expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. +Although I left the office at half past three, and was prowling about +the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed +time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the +clock of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient +desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand +door-post of Mr. Waterbrook’s house. + +The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment was done on +the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good +deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but +rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse. + +She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy +fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch +I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my +self-reproach and shame, and--in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot +deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it was upon +the whole the wisest thing I could have done, or the most ridiculous. + +‘If it had been anyone but you, Agnes,’ said I, turning away my head, ‘I +should not have minded it half so much. But that it should have been you +who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, first.’ + +She put her hand--its touch was like no other hand--upon my arm for a +moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not help +moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. + +‘Sit down,’ said Agnes, cheerfully. ‘Don’t be unhappy, Trotwood. If you +cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?’ + +‘Ah, Agnes!’ I returned. ‘You are my good Angel!’ + +She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head. + +‘Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!’ + +‘If I were, indeed, Trotwood,’ she returned, ‘there is one thing that I +should set my heart on very much.’ + +I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her +meaning. + +‘On warning you,’ said Agnes, with a steady glance, ‘against your bad +Angel.’ + +‘My dear Agnes,’ I began, ‘if you mean Steerforth--’ + +‘I do, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. +He my bad Angel, or anyone’s! He, anything but a guide, a support, and +a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to +judge him from what you saw of me the other night?’ + +‘I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night,’ she quietly +replied. + +‘From what, then?’ + +‘From many things--trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me to +be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from your account +of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over +you.’ + +There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a +chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest; +but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it +that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on +her work; I sat seeming still to listen to her; and Steerforth, in spite +of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone. + +‘It is very bold in me,’ said Agnes, looking up again, ‘who have lived +in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you my +advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I know +in what it is engendered, Trotwood,--in how true a remembrance of our +having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating +to you. It is that which makes me bold. I am certain that what I say is +right. I am quite sure it is. I feel as if it were someone else speaking +to you, and not I, when I caution you that you have made a dangerous +friend.’ + +Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and +again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened. + +‘I am not so unreasonable as to expect,’ said Agnes, resuming her usual +tone, after a little while, ‘that you will, or that you can, at once, +change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all +a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not +hastily to do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me--I +mean,’ with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she +knew why, ‘as often as you think of me--to think of what I have said. Do +you forgive me for all this?’ + +‘I will forgive you, Agnes,’ I replied, ‘when you come to do Steerforth +justice, and to like him as well as I do.’ + +‘Not until then?’ said Agnes. + +I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, but +she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual +confidence as of old. + +‘And when, Agnes,’ said I, ‘will you forgive me the other night?’ + +‘When I recall it,’ said Agnes. + +She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to +allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had +disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the +theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and +to enlarge on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of +me when I was unable to take care of myself. + +‘You must not forget,’ said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation as +soon as I had concluded, ‘that you are always to tell me, not only when +you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded to +Miss Larkins, Trotwood?’ + +‘No one, Agnes.’ + +‘Someone, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her finger. + +‘No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. +Steerforth’s house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to--Miss +Dartle--but I don’t adore her.’ + +Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were +faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little +register of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and +termination of each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and +queens, in the History of England. Then she asked me if I had seen +Uriah. + +‘Uriah Heep?’ said I. ‘No. Is he in London?’ + +‘He comes to the office downstairs, every day,’ returned Agnes. ‘He +was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable business, +Trotwood.’ + +‘On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,’ said I. ‘What +can that be?’ + +Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one +another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of +hers: + +‘I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa.’ + +‘What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such +promotion!’ I cried, indignantly. ‘Have you made no remonstrance about +it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak +out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad step. You must +prevent it, Agnes, while there’s time.’ + +Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with a +faint smile at my warmth: and then replied: + +‘You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long after +that--not more than two or three days--when he gave me the first +intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between +his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, +and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very +sorry.’ + +‘Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?’ + +‘Uriah,’ she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘has made himself +indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered papa’s +weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until--to say +all that I mean in a word, Trotwood,--until papa is afraid of him.’ + +There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she +suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what it +was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. It +had long been going on to this, I was sensible: yes, I could not but +feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a +long time. I remained silent. + +‘His ascendancy over papa,’ said Agnes, ‘is very great. He professes +humility and gratitude--with truth, perhaps: I hope so--but his position +is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his power.’ + +I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to +me. + +‘At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me,’ pursued +Agnes, ‘he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very sorry, +and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa was very +much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have +seen him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership, +though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it.’ + +‘And how did you receive it, Agnes?’ + +‘I did, Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘what I hope was right. Feeling sure +that it was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be +made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load +of his life--I hope it will!--and that it would give me increased +opportunities of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood!’ cried Agnes, +putting her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, ‘I almost +feel as if I had been papa’s enemy, instead of his loving child. For +I know how he has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has +narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration +of his whole mind upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut +out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his +life, and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon +one idea. If I could ever set this right! If I could ever work out his +restoration, as I have so innocently been the cause of his decline!’ + +I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when I +had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there when +we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head +aside when we took leave of one another; but I had never seen her grieve +like this. It made me so sorry that I could only say, in a foolish, +helpless manner, ‘Pray, Agnes, don’t! Don’t, my dear sister!’ + +But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know +well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need of +my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different +in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud +had passed from a serene sky. + +‘We are not likely to remain alone much longer,’ said Agnes, ‘and while +I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to be +friendly to Uriah. Don’t repel him. Don’t resent (as I think you have a +general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may +not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think +first of papa and me!’ + +Agnes had no time to say more, for the room door opened, and Mrs. +Waterbrook, who was a large lady--or who wore a large dress: I don’t +exactly know which, for I don’t know which was dress and which was +lady--came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her +at the theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she +appeared to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a +state of intoxication. + +Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I was +a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me +considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, +and secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both these +questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again in her +good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to +dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and took my leave, making a +call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in +his absence. + +When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being opened, +plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was +not the only guest, for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in +disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the +stairs to carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability, when +he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before; +but well did I know him, and well did he know me. Conscience made +cowards of us both. + +I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short +throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to +be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the +honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. +Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in +a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as +looking like a near relation of Hamlet’s--say his aunt. + +Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady’s name; and her husband was there +too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to +be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry +Spikers, male and female; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. +Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what +or which, remotely connected with the Treasury. + +I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep +humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud +to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my +condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for +he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and +whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and +cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind. + +There were other guests--all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, +like the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention before he +came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles! My mind +flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to +draw the skeletons! + +I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, +steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, +and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner +so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length I had +a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was the old +unfortunate Tommy. + +I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had the +pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there. + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. ‘You are too young to have +been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?’ + +‘Oh, I don’t mean him!’ I returned. ‘I mean the gentleman named +Traddles.’ + +‘Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!’ said my host, with much diminished interest. +‘Possibly.’ + +‘If it’s really the same person,’ said I, glancing towards him, ‘it +was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he was an +excellent fellow.’ + +‘Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow,’ returned my host nodding his head +with an air of toleration. ‘Traddles is quite a good fellow.’ + +‘It’s a curious coincidence,’ said I. + +‘It is really,’ returned my host, ‘quite a coincidence, that Traddles +should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this morning, when +the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker’s +brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. A very +gentlemanly man, Mrs. Henry Spiker’s brother, Mr. Copperfield.’ + +I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I +knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by +profession. + +‘Traddles,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, ‘is a young man reading for the +bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow--nobody’s enemy but his own.’ + +‘Is he his own enemy?’ said I, sorry to hear this. + +‘Well,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with +his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. ‘I should say +he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say +he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was +recommended to me by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind +of talent for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I +am able to throw something in Traddles’s way, in the course of the year; +something--for him--considerable. Oh yes. Yes.’ + +I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner +in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word ‘Yes’, +every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely +conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver +spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the +heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of +the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the +people down in the trenches. + +My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was +announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet’s aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker +took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself, +was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I, +as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. I was +not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been, since it gave me +an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who +greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive +satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched +him over the banisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being +billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; +I, in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the +conversation was about the Aristocracy--and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook +repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood. + +It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we +had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our +scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who +had something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with +the law business of the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with +the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the +matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, +and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that +was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell +back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her +nephew himself. + +We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a +sanguine complexion. + +‘I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opinion,’ said Mr. Waterbrook, with +his wine-glass at his eye. ‘Other things are all very well in their way, +but give me Blood!’ + +‘Oh! There is nothing,’ observed Hamlet’s aunt, ‘so satisfactory to one! +There is nothing that is so much one’s beau-ideal of--of all that sort +of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am +happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I +should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service, +intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. +We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and +we say, “There it is! That’s Blood!” It is an actual matter of fact. We +point it out. It admits of no doubt.’ + +The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, +stated the question more decisively yet, I thought. + +‘Oh, you know, deuce take it,’ said this gentleman, looking round the +board with an imbecile smile, ‘we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must +have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little +behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and +may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people +into a variety of fixes--and all that--but deuce take it, it’s +delightful to reflect that they’ve got Blood in ‘em! Myself, I’d rather +at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d +be picked up by a man who hadn’t!’ + +This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, +gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great +notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. +Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, +entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and +exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and +overthrow. + +‘That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has +not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,’ said Mr. Gulpidge. + +‘Do you mean the D. of A.’s?’ said Mr. Spiker. + +‘The C. of B.’s!’ said Mr. Gulpidge. + +Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned. + +‘When the question was referred to Lord--I needn’t name him,’ said Mr. +Gulpidge, checking himself-- + +‘I understand,’ said Mr. Spiker, ‘N.’ + +Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded--‘was referred to him, his answer was, +“Money, or no release.”’ + +‘Lord bless my soul!’ cried Mr. Spiker. + +“‘Money, or no release,”’ repeated Mr. Gulpidge, firmly. ‘The next in +reversion--you understand me?’ + +‘K.,’ said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look. + +‘--K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket for +that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it.’ + +Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. + +‘So the matter rests at this hour,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing himself +back in his chair. ‘Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I forbear to +explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the interests +involved.’ + +Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such +interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed +an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew +no more about the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the +discretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such +a confidence, naturally desired to favour his friend with a confidence +of his own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, +in which it was Mr. Gulpidge’s turn to be surprised, and that by another +in which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker’s turn again, and so on, +turn and turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed +by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our +host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and +astonishment. I was very glad indeed to get upstairs to Agnes, and to +talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was +shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he +was obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for +a month, I had not nearly so much conversation with him as I could have +wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure +of another meeting when he should come back to town. He was greatly +interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of him with such +warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only +looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I +observed her. + +As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very much +at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few +days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again +so soon. This caused me to remain until all the company were gone. +Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful +reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so +beautiful, that I could have remained there half the night; but, having +no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook’s +society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my +inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that she was my better Angel; +and if I thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had +shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no +harm. + +I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted +Uriah, whom I don’t include in that denomination, and who had never +ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went downstairs. +He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly +fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a +great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves. + +It was in no disposition for Uriah’s company, but in remembrance of the +entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to +my rooms, and have some coffee. + +‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,’ he rejoined--‘I beg your pardon, +Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don’t like that +you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me +to your ouse.’ + +‘There is no constraint in the case,’ said I. ‘Will you come?’ + +‘I should like to, very much,’ replied Uriah, with a writhe. + +‘Well, then, come along!’ said I. + +I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to +mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road; +and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he +was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that +labour, when we got to my place. + +I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against +anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, +that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality +prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted +my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed +to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel +in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because +it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because +there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the +pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have +scalded him. + +‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,--I mean Mister Copperfield,’ said +Uriah, ‘to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected! +But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never +could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems +to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a +change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister +Copperfield?’ + +As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, +his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly +round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had +scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the +disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and +going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from +his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him +intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I +was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt. + +‘You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, +Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister Copperfield?’ observed Uriah. + +‘Yes,’ said I, ‘something.’ + +‘Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!’ he quietly returned. ‘I’m +glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master--Mister +Copperfield!’ + +I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for +having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, +however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee. + +‘What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!’ pursued +Uriah. ‘Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! Don’t +you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in +Mr. Wickfield’s business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and +Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master +Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!’ + +‘I recollect talking about it,’ said I, ‘though I certainly did not +think it very likely then.’ ‘Oh! who would have thought it likely, +Mister Copperfield!’ returned Uriah, enthusiastically. ‘I am sure I +didn’t myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too +umble. So I considered myself really and truly.’ + +He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I +looked at him. + +‘But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,’ he presently resumed, +‘may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been the +instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what +a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!’ + +‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said I. I could not help adding, rather +pointedly, ‘on all accounts.’ + +‘Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,’ replied Uriah. ‘On all accounts. +Miss Agnes’s above all! You don’t remember your own eloquent +expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day +that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have +forgot that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?’ + +‘No,’ said I, drily. + +‘Oh how glad I am you have not!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘To think that you +should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast, +and that you’ve not forgot it! Oh!--Would you excuse me asking for a cup +more coffee?’ + +Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, +and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me +start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by +his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours +of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a +sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious +anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt could not +escape his observation. + +He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped +it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, +he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed +and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped +again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me. + +‘So, Mr. Wickfield,’ said I, at last, ‘who is worth five hundred of +you--or me’; for my life, I think, I could not have helped dividing that +part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; ‘has been imprudent, has he, +Mr. Heep?’ + +‘Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, sighing +modestly. ‘Oh, very much so! But I wish you’d call me Uriah, if you +please. It’s like old times.’ + +‘Well! Uriah,’ said I, bolting it out with some difficulty. + +‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! +It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to +hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any observation?’ + +‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested. + +‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield. +It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to +you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had been in +my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. +Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under +his thumb. Un--der--his thumb,’ said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched +out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb +upon it, until it shook, and shook the room. + +If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr. +Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more. + +‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft voice, +most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not +diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, ‘there’s no doubt of +it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don’t know what at all. Mr. +Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, +and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How +thankful should I be!’ With his face turned towards me, as he finished, +but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where +he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with +it, as if he were shaving himself. + +I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty +face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing +for something else. + +‘Master Copperfield,’ he began--‘but am I keeping you up?’ + +‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’ + +‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since +first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I +never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of +my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield? +Will you?’ + +‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort. + +‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the +palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield--’ ‘Well, Uriah?’ + +‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried; and gave +himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her looking very +beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’ + +‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to +everyone around her,’ I returned. + +‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you very much for +that!’ + +‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you should thank +me.’ + +‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence +that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am,’ he +wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns, +‘umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever +been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind trusting you with my secret, +Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the +first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has +been in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure +affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on!’ + +I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of +the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock, +like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so +much as a thought of this red-headed animal’s, remained in my mind when +I looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, +and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room +seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to +which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred +before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to +say next, took possession of me. + +A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, +did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in +its full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with +a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a +minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes. + +‘Oh no, Master Copperfield!’ he returned; ‘oh dear, no! Not to anyone +but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I rest a +good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for +I trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I +smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She’s so much attached +to her father, Master Copperfield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a +daughter!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to +me.’ + +I fathomed the depth of the rascal’s whole scheme, and understood why he +laid it bare. + +‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield,’ he +pursued, ‘and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a +particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know +what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only known me on my umble +footing (on my umblest I should say, for I am very umble still), you +might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, +you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, “I’d crowns +resign, to call her mine!” I hope to do it, one of these days.’ + +Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could +think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a +wretch as this! + +‘There’s no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,’ Uriah +proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought +in my mind. ‘My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have +to work our way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements, before +it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her +familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I’m so much obliged +to you for this confidence! Oh, it’s such a relief, you can’t think, to +know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t +wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’ + +He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp +squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. + +‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away so, in the +confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it’s almost half past +one!’ + +I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really +thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually +scattered. + +‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stopping at--a sort +of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New +River ed--will have gone to bed these two hours.’ + +‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here, and that +I--’ + +‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’ he rejoined +ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you have any objections to +my laying down before the fire?’ + +‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and I’ll lie down +before the fire.’ + +His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of +its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, +then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the +level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an +incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any +little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less +than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right +in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, +in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty +in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best +arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of +the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the +sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and +a great-coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than +thankful. Having lent him a night-cap, which he put on at once, and in +which he made such an awful figure, that I have never worn one since, I +left him to his rest. + +I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned +and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this +creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how +I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her +peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If +I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender +eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen +him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague +terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next +room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a +leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger. + +The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn’t come out. I +thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I +had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so +haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that +I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his +back, with his legs extending to I don’t know where, gurglings taking +place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like +a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered +fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and +could not help wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking +another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and +hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky. + +When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven! +he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was +going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged +Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my +sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence. + + + +CHAPTER 26. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY + + +I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was +at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was +he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small +satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, +mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella +like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while +Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be +friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little +recompense. At the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered +about us without a moment’s intermission, like a great vulture: gorging +himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me. + +In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown +me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to +the partnership. ‘I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it +was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I +entreated him to make it.’ A miserable foreboding that she would +yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any +sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she +loved him. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her +own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors, +and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no +consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus +with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very +difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the +sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he +knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well. + +Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, +must destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from her manner, +of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet; +that I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what +impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation: she waving +her hand and smiling farewell from the coach window; her evil genius +writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed. + +I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When +Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when +I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this +subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be +redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a +part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head. + +I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth was at +Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was +very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of +Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I +think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just +then. I suspect the truth to be, that the influence of Agnes was upon +me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it was the more powerful +with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest. + +In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow +and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent +and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged +for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an +evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of +equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which I seem, on +looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my +existence. At about this time, too, I made three discoveries: first, +that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called ‘the +spazzums’, which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the +nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly, +that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the +brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much +given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification. + +On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my +having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going +alone to the theatre at night. I went to see The Stranger, as a Doctors’ +Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew +myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this +occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been +happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming +connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder, +on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her +education at Paris. But, he intimated that when she came home he should +hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a +widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgements. + +Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to +this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favour to come +down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. +Of course I said I would do him the favour; and he was to drive me down +in his phaeton, and to bring me back. + +When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration +to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred +mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow +ate entirely off plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being +constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table-beer. The old +clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business +several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion +penetrated to the breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of +the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India +sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had +an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day--about excommunicating a +baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the +evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a +calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. +However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in +no end of costs; and then the baker’s proctor, and the judge, and the +advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town +together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. + +The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks +and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors’ +Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all +points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then; +though I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my +time the great article of competition there was starch: which I think +was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature +of man to bear. + +We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in +reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in +the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a +solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, +less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things much more easily +in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and +that set us, as a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible +to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by +solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race +of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions. + +I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional +business? He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there +was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, +perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there +very pretty pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the +proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory +and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to +the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure +to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively +and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched +into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly +admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most +conveniently organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of +snugness. It lay in a nutshell. For example: You brought a divorce case, +or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in +the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family +group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied +with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the +Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the +same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the +Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. Well, you +played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very +good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the +Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without +any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in +both courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and +had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, +to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented +people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the +Commons, and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow +solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been +highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon +his heart, and say this to the whole world,--‘Touch the Commons, and +down comes the country!’ + +I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I had my +doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as +Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That +about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for +my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this hour, +got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has reappeared to annihilate +me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. I +don’t know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has +to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but whenever I see my +old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always +is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost. + +This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and +bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my +acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge; +and we talked about The Stranger and the Drama, and the pairs of horses, +until we came to Mr. Spenlow’s gate. + +There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was +not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully +kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were +clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just +distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs +and flowers grew in the growing season. ‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by +herself,’ I thought. ‘Dear me!’ + +We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall +where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, +whips, and walking-sticks. ‘Where is Miss Dora?’ said Mr. Spenlow to the +servant. ‘Dora!’ I thought. ‘What a beautiful name!’ + +We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical +breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I +heard a voice say, ‘Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter +Dora’s confidential friend!’ It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow’s voice, +but I didn’t know it, and I didn’t care whose it was. All was over in a +moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved +Dora Spenlow to distraction! + +She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t +know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that +everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an +instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking +back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her. + +‘I,’ observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured +something, ‘have seen Mr. Copperfield before.’ + +The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone! + +I don’t think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgement, +no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth +mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished +about. I said, ‘How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well.’ She +answered, ‘Very well.’ I said, ‘How is Mr. Murdstone?’ She replied, ‘My +brother is robust, I am obliged to you.’ + +Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each +other, then put in his word. + +‘I am glad to find,’ he said, ‘Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone +are already acquainted.’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield and myself,’ said Miss Murdstone, with severe +composure, ‘are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in +his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not +have known him.’ + +I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough. + +‘Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,’ said Mr. Spenlow to me, ‘to +accept the office--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora’s +confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss +Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector.’ + +A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket +instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for +purposes of protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing +thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly +afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, +that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to +her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said +was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress. + +The idea of dressing one’s self, or doing anything in the way of action, +in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit +down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the +captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora. What a form she had, what +a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner! + +The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing, +instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the +circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some company. Dora was +talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was--and a +great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--I was madly jealous +of him. + +What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn’t +bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was +torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no +share. When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head, +asked me across the dinner table, if that were the first occasion of my +seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was savage +and revengeful. + +I don’t remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea +what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off +Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next +to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the +gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little +ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather +diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought. + +When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies +were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel +apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable +creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was +about gardening. I think I heard him say, ‘my gardener’, several times. +I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a +garden of Eden all the while, with Dora. + +My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing +affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim +and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an +unexpected manner. + +‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a +window. ‘A word.’ + +I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. + +‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I need not enlarge upon +family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.’ ‘Far from it, +ma’am,’ I returned. + +‘Far from it,’ assented Miss Murdstone. ‘I do not wish to revive +the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received +outrages from a person--a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my +sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore +I would rather not mention her.’ + +I felt very fiery on my aunt’s account; but I said it would certainly be +better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear +her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in +a decided tone. + +Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then, +slowly opening her eyes, resumed: + +‘David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I +formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have +been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not +in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, +for some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change. +I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me.’ + +I inclined my head, in my turn. + +‘But it is not necessary,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘that these opinions +should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as +well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have +brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, +I would say, let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family +circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that +footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the +other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this?’ + +‘Miss Murdstone,’ I returned, ‘I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me +very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall +always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you +propose.’ + +Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just +touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, +she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round +her neck; which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state, +as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss +Murdstone’s nature, of the fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the +outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within. + +All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of +my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the +effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra +la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling +a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused +refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when +Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and +gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, +looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most +maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. + +It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a +stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by +dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her +little dog, who was called Jip--short for Gipsy. I approached him +tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth, +got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn’t hear of the least +familiarity. + +The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my +feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this +dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was +almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em’ly. To +be allowed to call her ‘Dora’, to write to her, to dote upon and worship +her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was +yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--I am +sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was +a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all +this, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, +let me laugh as I may. + +I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I +tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and +my pen shakes in my hand. + +‘You--are--out early, Miss Spenlow,’ said I. + +‘It’s so stupid at home,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Murdstone is so absurd! +She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be +aired, before I come out. Aired!’ (She laughed, here, in the most +melodious manner.) ‘On a Sunday morning, when I don’t practise, I must +do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. Besides, it’s +the brightest time of the whole day. Don’t you think so?’ + +I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it +was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute +before. + +‘Do you mean a compliment?’ said Dora, ‘or that the weather has really +changed?’ + +I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, +but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken +place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added +bashfully: to clench the explanation. + +I never saw such curls--how could I, for there never were such +curls!--as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat +and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have +hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession +it would have been! + +‘You have just come home from Paris,’ said I. + +‘Yes,’ said she. ‘Have you ever been there?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Oh! I hope you’ll go soon! You would like it so much!’ + +Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she +should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go, +was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I +wouldn’t leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly +consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the +curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our +relief. + +He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took +him up in her arms--oh my goodness!--and caressed him, but he persisted +upon barking still. He wouldn’t let me touch him, when I tried; and then +she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she +gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked +his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a +little double-bass. At length he was quiet--well he might be with her +dimpled chin upon his head!--and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. + +‘You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?’ said Dora. +--‘My pet.’ + +(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!) + +‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all so.’ + +‘She is a tiresome creature,’ said Dora, pouting. ‘I can’t think what +papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my +companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don’t want a protector. +Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can’t you, +Jip, dear?’ + +He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. + +‘Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such +thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross +people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, +and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for +us--don’t we, Jip?’ + +Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when +it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above +the last. + +‘It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have, +instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following +us about--isn’t it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won’t be confidential, and +we’ll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we’ll tease +her, and not please her--won’t we, Jip?’ + +If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees +on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of +being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune +the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it. + +It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in +front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, +and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog +up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in +Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, +strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has +come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, +and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two +slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. + +Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented +her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair +powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora’s arm in hers, and +marched us into breakfast as if it were a soldier’s funeral. + +How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don’t know. But, +I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous +system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By +and by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the +pew; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was +delivered--about Dora, of course--and I am afraid that is all I know of +the service. + +We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an +evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily +before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little +did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that +day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was +embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when +I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to +my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head! + +We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in +the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole +science of navigation, in which (as we couldn’t be expected to know +much about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old +Trinity Masters, for charity’s sake, to come and help him out. Dora was +at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and I had the +melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she +stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms. + +What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case +in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw ‘DORA’ engraved upon the +blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem +of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home +without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), +as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had +sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless +effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and +present in any visible form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora, +it would reveal my truth. + +I don’t mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after +day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to +what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought +upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only +to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was +that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the +Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left +to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken +in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I bought four +sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; I had no pride in them; for +Dora--and took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and +laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I +wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural +size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a +most affecting manner. + +And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to +Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not +only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that +beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where +the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet +spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was +quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, I +saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I +met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to +her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think +that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the +extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always +looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow’s +house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none. + +Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this +attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage +to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. +Spenlow’s house, ‘whose family,’ I added, ‘consists of one daughter’;--I +say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that +early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I +was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have +mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums +mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of +cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not +such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It +was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As +I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in +the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might +have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to +take in my presence. + +‘Cheer up, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘I can’t abear to see you so, sir: I’m +a mother myself.’ + +I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I +smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power. + +‘Come, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘Excuse me. I know what it is, sir. +There’s a lady in the case.’ + +‘Mrs. Crupp?’ I returned, reddening. + +‘Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!’ said Mrs. Crupp, nodding +encouragement. ‘Never say die, sir! If She don’t smile upon you, +there’s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr. +Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir.’ + +Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because +it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some +indistinct association with a washing-day. + +‘What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. +Crupp?’ said I. + +‘Mr. Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, ‘I’m a +mother myself.’ + +For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, +and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At +length she spoke again. + +‘When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. +Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘my remark were, I had now found summun +I could care for. “Thank Ev’in!” were the expression, “I have now found +summun I can care for!”--You don’t eat enough, sir, nor yet drink.’ + +‘Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?’ said I. + +‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, ‘I’ve +laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman +may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself. +He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his +boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as +the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to +which extreme he may, sir, there’s a young lady in both of ‘em.’ + +Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an +inch of vantage-ground left. + +‘It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,’ said Mrs. +Crupp, ‘that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took +in directly, though much swelled by drinking.’ + +‘Mrs. Crupp,’ said I, ‘I must beg you not to connect the young lady in +my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please.’ + +‘Mr. Copperfull,’ returned Mrs. Crupp, ‘I’m a mother myself, and not +likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to +intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. +Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good +heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, +sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘if you was to take to skittles, now, which is +healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good.’ + +With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the +brandy--which was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and +retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this +counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight +liberty on Mrs. Crupp’s part; but, at the same time, I was content +to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a +warning in future to keep my secret better. + + + +CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES + + +It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp’s advice, and, perhaps, +for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the +sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next +day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more +than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College +at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who +lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought +live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private +apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic +grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old +schoolfellow. + +I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have +wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to +have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, +into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, +on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable +either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, +and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking +out for the number I wanted. + +The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I +lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded +gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike +all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one +monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy +who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped +brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. +Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the +afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly +yet. + +‘Now,’ said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. ‘Has that there +little bill of mine been heerd on?’ + +‘Oh, master says he’ll attend to it immediate,’ was the reply. + +‘Because,’ said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer, +and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of +somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an +impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the +passage--‘because that there little bill has been running so long, that +I begin to believe it’s run away altogether, and never won’t be heerd +of. Now, I’m not a going to stand it, you know!’ said the milkman, still +throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage. + +As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never +was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a +butcher or a brandy-merchant. + +The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, +from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended +to immediate. + +‘I tell you what,’ said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first +time, and taking her by the chin, ‘are you fond of milk?’ + +‘Yes, I likes it,’ she replied. ‘Good,’ said the milkman. ‘Then you +won’t have none tomorrow. D’ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won’t +have tomorrow.’ + +I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of having +any today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her darkly, released +her chin, and with anything rather than good-will opened his can, and +deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away, +muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive +shriek. + +‘Does Mr. Traddles live here?’ I then inquired. + +A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied ‘Yes.’ Upon which +the youthful servant replied ‘Yes.’ + +‘Is he at home?’ said I. + +Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the +servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the +servant’s directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed the +back parlour-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably +belonging to the mysterious voice. + +When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high +above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was +delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to +his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, +though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a +sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among +his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered +with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at +nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of +a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a +faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious +arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, +and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, +particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same +Traddles who used to make models of elephants’ dens in writing-paper to +put flies in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable +works of art I have so often mentioned. + +In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large +white cloth. I could not make out what that was. + +‘Traddles,’ said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat down, +‘I am delighted to see you.’ + +‘I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,’ he returned. ‘I am very glad +indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you when +we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me, +that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers.’ ‘Oh! +You have chambers?’ said I. + +‘Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a +clerk,’ returned Traddles. ‘Three others and myself unite to have a +set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too. +Half-a-crown a week he costs me.’ + +His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old +unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he +made this explanation. + +‘It’s not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand,’ +said Traddles, ‘that I don’t usually give my address here. It’s only on +account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. For +myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and +it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything else.’ + +‘You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?’ said I. + +‘Why, yes,’ said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one another. ‘I +am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my terms, +after rather a long delay. It’s some time since I was articled, but the +payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull!’ said +Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out. + +‘Do you know what I can’t help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here +looking at you?’ I asked him. + +‘No,’ said he. + +‘That sky-blue suit you used to wear.’ + +‘Lord, to be sure!’ cried Traddles, laughing. ‘Tight in the arms and +legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, weren’t they?’ + +‘I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing +any harm to any of us, I acknowledge,’ I returned. + +‘Perhaps he might,’ said Traddles. ‘But dear me, there was a good deal +of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bedroom? When we used +to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha, ha, +ha! And do you remember when I got caned for crying about Mr. Mell? Old +Creakle! I should like to see him again, too!’ + +‘He was a brute to you, Traddles,’ said I, indignantly; for his good +humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday. + +‘Do you think so?’ returned Traddles. ‘Really? Perhaps he was rather. +But it’s all over, a long while. Old Creakle!’ + +‘You were brought up by an uncle, then?’ said I. + +‘Of course I was!’ said Traddles. ‘The one I was always going to write +to. And always didn’t, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. He died +soon after I left school.’ + +‘Indeed!’ + +‘Yes. He was a retired--what do you call +it!--draper--cloth-merchant--and had made me his heir. But he didn’t +like me when I grew up.’ + +‘Do you really mean that?’ said I. He was so composed, that I fancied he +must have some other meaning. + +‘Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,’ replied Traddles. ‘It was an +unfortunate thing, but he didn’t like me at all. He said I wasn’t at all +what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper.’ + +‘And what did you do?’ I asked. + +‘I didn’t do anything in particular,’ said Traddles. ‘I lived with them, +waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew +to his stomach--and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so I +wasn’t provided for.’ + +‘Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?’ + +‘Oh dear, yes!’ said Traddles. ‘I got fifty pounds. I had never been +brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to +do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a +professional man, who had been to Salem House--Yawler, with his nose on +one side. Do you recollect him?’ + +No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in my +day. + +‘It don’t matter,’ said Traddles. ‘I began, by means of his assistance, +to copy law writings. That didn’t answer very well; and then I began to +state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of work. For +I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of +doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself +as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty +pounds. Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however--Mr. +Waterbrook’s for one--and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate +enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way, +who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; and, indeed’ +(glancing at his table), ‘I am at work for him at this minute. I am not +a bad compiler, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, preserving the same air of +cheerful confidence in all he said, ‘but I have no invention at all; not +a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality +than I have.’ + +As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter +of course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience--I +can find no better expression--as before. + +‘So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape up +the hundred pounds at last,’ said Traddles; ‘and thank Heaven that’s +paid--though it was--though it certainly was,’ said Traddles, wincing +again as if he had had another tooth out, ‘a pull. I am living by the +sort of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these days, to +get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the making of +my fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to +be, with that agreeable face, and it’s so pleasant to see you, that I +sha’n’t conceal anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged.’ + +Engaged! Oh, Dora! + +‘She is a curate’s daughter,’ said Traddles; ‘one of ten, down in +Devonshire. Yes!’ For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect +on the inkstand. ‘That’s the church! You come round here to the left, +out of this gate,’ tracing his finger along the inkstand, ‘and exactly +where I hold this pen, there stands the house--facing, you understand, +towards the church.’ + +The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully +present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were +making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow’s house and garden at the same +moment. + +‘She is such a dear girl!’ said Traddles; ‘a little older than me, but +the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have been down +there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful +time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our +motto is “Wait and hope!” We always say that. “Wait and hope,” we always +say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was sixty--any age you +can mention--for me!’ + +Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand +upon the white cloth I had observed. + +‘However,’ he said, ‘it’s not that we haven’t made a beginning towards +housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by degrees, but we +have begun. Here,’ drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, ‘are +two pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot and stand, +she bought herself. You put that in a parlour window,’ said Traddles, +falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration, +‘with a plant in it, and--and there you are! This little round table +with the marble top (it’s two feet ten in circumference), I bought. You +want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your +wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and--and there you +are again!’ said Traddles. ‘It’s an admirable piece of workmanship--firm +as a rock!’ I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the +covering as carefully as he had removed it. + +‘It’s not a great deal towards the furnishing,’ said Traddles, ‘but +it’s something. The table-cloths, and pillow-cases, and articles of +that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does +the ironmongery--candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of +necessaries--because those things tell, and mount up. However, “wait and +hope!” And I assure you she’s the dearest girl!’ + +‘I am quite certain of it,’ said I. + +‘In the meantime,’ said Traddles, coming back to his chair; ‘and this is +the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I can. I don’t +make much, but I don’t spend much. In general, I board with the people +downstairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and Mrs. +Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company.’ + +‘My dear Traddles!’ I quickly exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about?’ + +Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what I was talking about. + +‘Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ I repeated. ‘Why, I am intimately acquainted +with them!’ + +An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old +experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could +ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to +their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord +to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the banister; and Mr. +Micawber, not a bit changed--his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar, +and his eye-glass, all the same as ever--came into the room with a +genteel and youthful air. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll +in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. ‘I was not +aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your +sanctum.’ + +Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. + +‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’ said I. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you are exceedingly obliging. I am in statu +quo.’ + +‘And Mrs. Micawber?’ I pursued. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘she is also, thank God, in statu quo.’ + +‘And the children, Mr. Micawber?’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I rejoice to reply that they are, likewise, +in the enjoyment of salubrity.’ + +All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though he +had stood face to face with me. But now, seeing me smile, he examined my +features with more attention, fell back, cried, ‘Is it possible! Have I +the pleasure of again beholding Copperfield!’ and shook me by both hands +with the utmost fervour. + +‘Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles!’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to think that I should +find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of +earlier days! My dear!’ calling over the banisters to Mrs. Micawber, +while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this +description of me. ‘Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles’s apartment, +whom he wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love!’ + +Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again. + +‘And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Micawber, +‘and all the circle at Canterbury?’ + +‘I have none but good accounts of them,’ said I. + +‘I am most delighted to hear it,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘It was at +Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may figuratively say, +of that religious edifice immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently +the resort of Pilgrims from the remotest corners of--in short,’ said Mr. +Micawber, ‘in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral.’ + +I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly as he +could; but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of concern in +his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as +of Mrs. Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting +drawers that were uneasy in their action. + +‘You find us, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on Traddles, +‘at present established, on what may be designated as a small and +unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my +career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no +stranger to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it +has been requisite that I should pause, until certain expected events +should turn up; when it has been necessary that I should fall back, +before making what I trust I shall not be accused of presumption in +terming--a spring. The present is one of those momentous stages in the +life of man. You find me, fallen back, FOR a spring; and I have every +reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result.’ + +I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in; a little +more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my +unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself for +company, and with a pair of brown gloves on. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me, ‘here is +a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his +acquaintance with you.’ + +It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up +to this announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state of +health, was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber +was obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in +the backyard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. She +presently revived, however, and was really pleased to see me. We had +half-an-hour’s talk, all together; and I asked her about the twins, +who, she said, were ‘grown great creatures’; and after Master and Miss +Micawber, whom she described as ‘absolute giants’, but they were not +produced on that occasion. + +Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I should not +have been averse to do so, but that I imagined I detected trouble, and +calculation relative to the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber’s +eye. I therefore pleaded another engagement; and observing that Mrs. +Micawber’s spirits were immediately lightened, I resisted all persuasion +to forego it. + +But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could +think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine +with me. The occupations to which Traddles stood pledged, rendered it +necessary to fix a somewhat distant one; but an appointment was made for +the purpose, that suited us all, and then I took my leave. + +Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by +which I had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; being +anxious (he explained to me) to say a few words to an old friend, in +confidence. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I need hardly tell you that +to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like that +which gleams--if I may be allowed the expression--which gleams--in your +friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a washerwoman, who +exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlour-window, dwelling next door, +and a Bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine that his +society is a source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I +am at present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon +commission. It is not an avocation of a remunerative description--in +other words, it does not pay--and some temporary embarrassments of a +pecuniary nature have been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to +add that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (I am +not at liberty to say in what direction), which I trust will enable me +to provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend Traddles, +in whom I have an unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, be prepared +to hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health which renders it +not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those +pledges of affection which--in short, to the infantine group. Mrs. +Micawber’s family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction +at this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware +that it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of +feeling with scorn, and with defiance!’ + +Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. + + + +CHAPTER 28. Mr. MICAWBER’S GAUNTLET + + +Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found +old friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn +condition, my appetite languished; and I was glad of it, for I felt +as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a +natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of walking exercise I took, +was not in this respect attended with its usual consequence, as the +disappointment counteracted the fresh air. I have my doubts, too, +founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my life, +whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in +any human subject who is always in torment from tight boots. I think +the extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct +itself with vigour. + +On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not repeat my +former extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles, +a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into +rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the +fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, ‘No! No, +sir! You will not ask me sich a thing, for you are better acquainted +with me than to suppose me capable of doing what I cannot do with ampial +satisfaction to my own feelings!’ But, in the end, a compromise was +effected; and Mrs. Crupp consented to achieve this feat, on condition +that I dined from home for a fortnight afterwards. + +And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in +consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. I +never was so much afraid of anyone. We made a compromise of everything. +If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which was +always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, to +prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen +unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last--which was not by any +means to be relied upon--she would appear with a reproachful aspect, +sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen +bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or +anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed made at +five o’clock in the afternoon--which I do still think an uncomfortable +arrangement--one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region of +wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. In short, +I would have done anything in an honourable way rather than give Mrs. +Crupp offence; and she was the terror of my life. + +I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in preference +to re-engaging the handy young man; against whom I had conceived a +prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday +morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been +missing since the former occasion. The ‘young gal’ was re-engaged; but +on the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then +withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the outer door; where a habit of +sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her +retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility. + +Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded +by Mr. Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two +wax-candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. +Micawber in her toilette at my dressing-table; having also caused the +fire in my bedroom to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber’s convenience; and +having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited the result with +composure. + +At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micawber +with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass; +Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; Traddles +carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They were +all delighted with my residence. When I conducted Mrs. Micawber to my +dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for her, +she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. Micawber to come in and +look. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘this is luxurious. This is a +way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a state +of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her +faith at the Hymeneal altar.’ + +‘He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, +archly. ‘He cannot answer for others.’ + +‘My dear,’ returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, ‘I have no +desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the +inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible +you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted +struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a +complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, +but I can bear it.’ + +‘Micawber!’ exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. ‘Have I deserved this! I, +who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, Micawber!’ ‘My +love,’ said Mr. Micawber, much affected, ‘you will forgive, and our old +and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary +laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision +with the Minion of Power--in other words, with a ribald Turncock +attached to the water-works--and will pity, not condemn, its excesses.’ + +Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving +me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of +water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the +payment of the company’s rates. + +To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. +Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to +the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a +moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance +of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of +boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to +see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, +as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, +instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. +As to Mrs. Micawber, I don’t know whether it was the effect of the cap, +or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but +she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark +was never gayer than that excellent woman. + +I suppose--I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose--that Mrs. Crupp, +after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that +point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: +besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over +it, as if if had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen +fireplace. But we were not in condition to judge of this fact from the +appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the ‘young gal’ had dropped it all +upon the stairs--where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it +was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the +crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full +of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the +banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy--about +the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora--if I had not +been relieved by the great good humour of my company, and by a bright +suggestion from Mr. Micawber. + +‘My dear friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘accidents will occur +in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that +pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the--a--I would +say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of +Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with +philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that +there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that +I believe, with a little division of labour, we could accomplish a good +one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would +put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired.’ + +There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of +bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied +ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber’s idea into effect. The division of +labour to which he had referred was this:--Traddles cut the mutton into +slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) +covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; I put them on +the gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. +Micawber’s direction; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred, +some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. When we had slices enough +done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the +wrist, more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention +divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing. + +What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle +of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting +down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and +hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the +midst of such a tempting noise and savour, we reduced the leg of mutton +to the bone. My own appetite came back miraculously. I am ashamed to +record it, but I really believe I forgot Dora for a little while. I am +satisfied that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the +feast more, if they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as +heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all +did, all at once; and I dare say there was never a greater success. + +We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, in +our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices +to a state of perfection that should crown the feast, when I was aware +of a strange presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the +staid Littimer, standing hat in hand before me. + +‘What’s the matter?’ I involuntarily asked. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master not +here, sir?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Have you not seen him, sir?’ + +‘No; don’t you come from him?’ + +‘Not immediately so, sir.’ + +‘Did he tell you you would find him here?’ + +‘Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here tomorrow, as +he has not been here today.’ + +‘Is he coming up from Oxford?’ + +‘I beg, sir,’ he returned respectfully, ‘that you will be seated, and +allow me to do this.’ With which he took the fork from my unresisting +hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were +concentrated on it. + +We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appearance +of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek +before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to +show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle +of a hastily concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as +if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and +assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through +his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion on the +table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own table; +and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had +come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights. + +Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it +round. We all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we +merely made a show of eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates, +he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. He took that off, +too, when it was done with; cleared the table; piled everything on the +dumb-waiter; gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled +the dumb-waiter into the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner, +and he never raised his eyes from what he was about. Yet his very +elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the +expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young. + +‘Can I do anything more, sir?’ + +I thanked him and said, No; but would he take no dinner himself? + +‘None, I am obliged to you, sir.’ + +‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ + +‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’ + +‘I should imagine that he might be here tomorrow, sir. I rather thought +he might have been here today, sir. The mistake is mine, no doubt, sir.’ + +‘If you should see him first--’ said I. + +‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I don’t think I shall see him first.’ + +‘In case you do,’ said I, ‘pray say that I am sorry he was not here +today, as an old schoolfellow of his was here.’ + +‘Indeed, sir!’ and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with a +glance at the latter. + +He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying +something naturally--which I never could, to this man--I said: + +‘Oh! Littimer!’ + +‘Sir!’ + +‘Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?’ + +‘Not particularly so, sir.’ + +‘You saw the boat completed?’ + +‘Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed.’ + +‘I know!’ He raised his eyes to mine respectfully. + +‘Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?’ + +‘I really can’t say, sir. I think--but I really can’t say, sir. I wish +you good night, sir.’ + +He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he +followed these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe +more freely when he was gone; but my own relief was very great, for +besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of +being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man’s presence, my +conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that I had mistrusted his +master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might +find it out. How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I +always DID feel as if this man were finding me out? + +Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with +a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by +bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable +fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark, +had taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with +infinite condescension. + +‘But punch, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, ‘like +time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present moment in high +flavour. My love, will you give me your opinion?’ + +Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent. + +‘Then I will drink,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if my friend Copperfield +will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my friend +Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world +side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have +sung together before now, that + + We twa hae run about the braes + And pu’d the gowans’ fine + +--in a figurative point of view--on several occasions. I am not exactly +aware,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old +indescribable air of saying something genteel, ‘what gowans may be, but +I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken +a pull at them, if it had been feasible.’ + +Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. So +we all did: Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time +Mr. Micawber and I could have been comrades in the battle of the world. + +‘Ahem!’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with the +punch and with the fire. ‘My dear, another glass?’ + +Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little; but we couldn’t allow that, +so it was a glassful. + +‘As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, sipping her punch, ‘Mr. Traddles being a part of our +domesticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. Micawber’s +prospects. For corn,’ said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, ‘as I have +repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not +remunerative. Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in +a fortnight cannot, however limited our ideas, be considered +remunerative.’ + +We were all agreed upon that. + +‘Then,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view of +things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman’s wisdom, when he +might otherwise go a little crooked, ‘then I ask myself this question. +If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be relied upon? +Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment, on the +suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious.’ + +Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, +eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was +very clearly put. + +‘The articles of corn and coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber, still more +argumentatively, ‘being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield, +I naturally look round the world, and say, “What is there in which a +person of Mr. Micawber’s talent is likely to succeed?” And I exclude +the doing anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty. +What is best suited to a person of Mr. Micawber’s peculiar temperament +is, I am convinced, a certainty.’ + +Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great +discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him much +credit. + +‘I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, ‘that I have long felt the Brewing business to be particularly +adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins! Look at Truman, +Hanbury, and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing that Mr. Micawber, +I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the +profits, I am told, are e-NOR-MOUS! But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into +those firms--which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his +services even in an inferior capacity--what is the use of dwelling upon +that idea? None. I may have a conviction that Mr. Micawber’s manners--’ + +‘Hem! Really, my dear,’ interposed Mr. Micawber. + +‘My love, be silent,’ said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown glove on his +hand. ‘I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. Micawber’s +manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. I may argue +within myself, that if I had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners +of Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire +confidence, and must extend the connexion. But if the various +banking-houses refuse to avail themselves of Mr. Micawber’s abilities, +or receive the offer of them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling +upon THAT idea? None. As to originating a banking-business, I may know +that there are members of my family who, if they chose to place their +money in Mr. Micawber’s hands, might found an establishment of that +description. But if they do NOT choose to place their money in Mr. +Micawber’s hands--which they don’t--what is the use of that? Again I +contend that we are no farther advanced than we were before.’ + +I shook my head, and said, ‘Not a bit.’ Traddles also shook his head, +and said, ‘Not a bit.’ + +‘What do I deduce from this?’ Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still with +the same air of putting a case lucidly. ‘What is the conclusion, my +dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in +saying, it is clear that we must live?’ + +I answered ‘Not at all!’ and Traddles answered ‘Not at all!’ and I found +myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must either live +or die. + +‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘It is precisely that. And the fact +is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can not live without something +widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now +I am convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber +several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of +themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. I may be +wrong, but I have formed that opinion.’ + +Both Traddles and I applauded it highly. + +‘Very well,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then what do I recommend? Here is Mr. +Micawber with a variety of qualifications--with great talent--’ + +‘Really, my love,’ said Mr. Micawber. + +‘Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with a +variety of qualifications, with great talent--I should say, with genius, +but that may be the partiality of a wife--’ + +Traddles and I both murmured ‘No.’ + +‘And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or employment. +Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on society. Then I would +make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it +right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, +forcibly, ‘that what Mr. Micawber has to do, is to throw down the +gauntlet to society, and say, in effect, “Show me who will take that up. +Let the party immediately step forward.”’ + +I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done. + +‘By advertising,’ said Mrs. Micawber--‘in all the papers. It appears to +me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to himself, in justice +to his family, and I will even go so far as to say in justice to +society, by which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in +all the papers; to describe himself plainly as so-and-so, with such and +such qualifications and to put it thus: “Now employ me, on remunerative +terms, and address, post-paid, to W. M., Post Office, Camden Town.”’ + +‘This idea of Mrs. Micawber’s, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, +making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing at me +sideways, ‘is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, when I last had the +pleasure of seeing you.’ + +‘Advertising is rather expensive,’ I remarked, dubiously. + +‘Exactly so!’ said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air. +‘Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I have made the identical +observation to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, that I +think Mr. Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself, +in justice to his family, and in justice to society) to raise a certain +sum of money--on a bill.’ + +Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass +and cast his eyes up at the ceiling; but I thought him observant of +Traddles, too, who was looking at the fire. + +‘If no member of my family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘is possessed of +sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill--I believe there is a +better business-term to express what I mean--’ + +Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested +‘Discount.’ + +‘To discount that bill,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘then my opinion is, that +Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill into the +Money Market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. If the +individuals in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great +sacrifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. I view +it, steadily, as an investment. I recommend Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr. +Copperfield, to do the same; to regard it as an investment which is sure +of return, and to make up his mind to any sacrifice.’ + +I felt, but I am sure I don’t know why, that this was self-denying +and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect. +Traddles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the +fire. + +‘I will not,’ said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her +scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom: +‘I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber’s +pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the +presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one +of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with the +course I advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived +when Mr. Micawber should exert himself and--I will add--assert himself, +and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am +merely a female, and that a masculine judgement is usually considered +more competent to the discussion of such questions; still I must not +forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in +the habit of saying, “Emma’s form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject +is inferior to none.” That my papa was too partial, I well know; but +that he was an observer of character in some degree, my duty and my +reason equally forbid me to doubt.’ + +With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace +the remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. Micawber +retired to my bedroom. And really I felt that she was a noble woman--the +sort of woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done all manner of +heroic things, in times of public trouble. + +In the fervour of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on the +treasure he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended his +hand to each of us in succession, and then covered his face with his +pocket-handkerchief, which I think had more snuff upon it than he +was aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the highest state of +exhilaration. + +He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our children +we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, +any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs. +Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had +dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they were totally +unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him, +and they might--I quote his own expression--go to the Devil. + +Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said +Traddles’s was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr. +Micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could +admire. He feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles +had honoured with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection +by honouring and blessing Traddles with her affection. Mr. Micawber +pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a +simplicity and honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed with, +‘I am very much obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she’s the +dearest girl!--’ + +Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the +utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of my affections. Nothing +but the serious assurance of his friend Copperfield to the contrary, +he observed, could deprive him of the impression that his friend +Copperfield loved and was beloved. After feeling very hot and +uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blushing, +stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in my hand, ‘Well! I +would give them D.!’ which so excited and gratified Mr. Micawber, +that he ran with a glass of punch into my bedroom, in order that Mrs. +Micawber might drink D., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from +within, in a shrill voice, ‘Hear, hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am +delighted. Hear!’ and tapping at the wall, by way of applause. + +Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. Micawber +telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first +thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the +cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He mentioned +a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, on +which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain +immediately, as it would require a large establishment. There would +probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content +himself with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of +business--say in Piccadilly,--which would be a cheerful situation for +Mrs. Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, or carrying up +the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that sort, +they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever +was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be, +we might rely on this--there would always be a room for Traddles, and a +knife and fork for me. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us +to forgive his having launched into these practical and business-like +details, and to excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new +arrangements in life. + +Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready, +broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made +tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went near her, in +handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper, +whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or +something of that kind; which I think I liked. After tea, we discussed a +variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough +to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have +considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the +favourite ballads of ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’, and ‘Little Tafflin’. +For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at +home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard +her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath +the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary +degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he had resolved to win +that woman or perish in the attempt. + +It was between ten and eleven o’clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace +her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. +Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to +slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read +it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle +over the banisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going +first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, +to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs. + +‘Traddles,’ said I, ‘Mr. Micawber don’t mean any harm, poor fellow: but, +if I were you, I wouldn’t lend him anything.’ + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, smiling, ‘I haven’t got +anything to lend.’ + +‘You have got a name, you know,’ said I. + +‘Oh! You call THAT something to lend?’ returned Traddles, with a +thoughtful look. + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Traddles. ‘Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you, +Copperfield; but--I am afraid I have lent him that already.’ + +‘For the bill that is to be a certain investment?’ I inquired. + +‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Not for that one. This is the first I have heard +of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that +one, on the way home. Mine’s another.’ + +‘I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,’ said I. ‘I hope not,’ +said Traddles. ‘I should think not, though, because he told me, only the +other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber’s expression, +“Provided for.”’ + +Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I +had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended. +But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which +he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, +that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels. + +I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half +laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between +us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought +it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind; +but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and +the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth’s. + +I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my +thoughts--if I may call it so--where I had placed her from the first. +But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness +that had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and +ashamed of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the +less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I +reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and I would +have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make +it. + +‘Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!’ laughed Steerforth, shaking +my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. ‘Have I detected you in +another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors’ Commons fellows are the +gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to +nothing!’ His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took +the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently +vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. + +‘I was so surprised at first,’ said I, giving him welcome with all +the cordiality I felt, ‘that I had hardly breath to greet you with, +Steerforth.’ + +‘Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,’ +replied Steerforth, ‘and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom. +How are you, my Bacchanal?’ + +‘I am very well,’ said I; ‘and not at all Bacchanalian tonight, though I +confess to another party of three.’ + +‘All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,’ returned +Steerforth. ‘Who’s our friend in the tights?’ + +I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He +laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he +was a man to know, and he must know him. ‘But who do you suppose our +other friend is?’ said I, in my turn. + +‘Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Not a bore, I hope? I thought he +looked a little like one.’ + +‘Traddles!’ I replied, triumphantly. + +‘Who’s he?’ asked Steerforth, in his careless way. + +‘Don’t you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?’ + +‘Oh! That fellow!’ said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top +of the fire, with the poker. ‘Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce +did you pick him up?’ + +I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that +Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with +a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see +the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I +could give him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue, when +he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly +beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the +same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so +forth. + +‘Why, Daisy, here’s a supper for a king!’ he exclaimed, starting out of +his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. ‘I shall do +it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.’ + +‘I thought you came from Oxford?’ I returned. + +‘Not I,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have been seafaring--better employed.’ + +‘Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,’ I remarked, ‘and I +understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he +certainly did not say so.’ + +‘Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring +for me at all,’ said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, +and drinking to me. ‘As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow +than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.’ + +‘That’s true, indeed,’ said I, moving my chair to the table. ‘So you +have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!’ interested to know all about it. +‘Have you been there long?’ + +‘No,’ he returned. ‘An escapade of a week or so.’ + +‘And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?’ + +‘Not yet. Going to be, I believe--in so many weeks, or months, or +something or other. I have not seen much of ‘em. By the by’; he laid +down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, +and began feeling in his pockets; ‘I have a letter for you.’ + +‘From whom?’ + +‘Why, from your old nurse,’ he returned, taking some papers out of his +breast pocket. “‘J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The Willing +Mind”; that’s not it. Patience, and we’ll find it presently. Old +what’s-his-name’s in a bad way, and it’s about that, I believe.’ + +‘Barkis, do you mean?’ + +‘Yes!’ still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents: +‘it’s all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary +there--surgeon, or whatever he is--who brought your worship into the +world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of +his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather +fast.---Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great-coat on the +chair yonder, and I think you’ll find the letter. Is it there?’ + +‘Here it is!’ said I. + +‘That’s right!’ + +It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It +informed me of her husband’s hopeless state, and hinted at his being +‘a little nearer’ than heretofore, and consequently more difficult +to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness +and watching, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain, +unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with ‘my +duty to my ever darling’--meaning myself. + +While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. + +‘It’s a bad job,’ he said, when I had done; ‘but the sun sets every day, +and people die every minute, and we mustn’t be scared by the common lot. +If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men’s doors +was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from +us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but +ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’ + +‘And win what race?’ said I. + +‘The race that one has started in,’ said he. ‘Ride on!’ + +I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome +head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that, +though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, +there were traces in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied +himself to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when +roused, was so passionately roused within him. I had it in my thoughts +to remonstrate with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy +that he took--such as this buffeting of rough seas, and braving of hard +weather, for example--when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject +of our conversation again, and pursued that instead. + +‘I tell you what, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if your high spirits will listen +to me--’ + +‘They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,’ he answered, +moving from the table to the fireside again. + +‘Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my +old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real +service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much +effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it +will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make, +I am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn’t you go a +day’s journey, if you were in my place?’ + +His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he +answered, in a low voice, ‘Well! Go. You can do no harm.’ + +‘You have just come back,’ said I, ‘and it would be in vain to ask you +to go with me?’ + +‘Quite,’ he returned. ‘I am for Highgate tonight. I have not seen +my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for +it’s something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.---Bah! +Nonsense!--You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?’ he said, holding me out +at arm’s length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. + +‘Yes, I think so.’ + +‘Well, then, don’t go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a +few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to +Yarmouth!’ + +‘You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always +running wild on some unknown expedition or other!’ + +He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still +holding me as before, and giving me a shake: + +‘Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can with +us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I +want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.’ + +‘Would you love each other too much, without me?’ + +‘Yes; or hate,’ laughed Steerforth; ‘no matter which. Come! Say the next +day!’ + +I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his cigar, +and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own +great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that +for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, +then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted, +and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought +of his saying, ‘Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’ and +wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run. + +I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber’s letter tumbled on +the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It +was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I +have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate +crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology, which he seemed to think +equivalent to winding up his affairs. + + +‘SIR--for I dare not say my dear Copperfield, + +‘It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is +Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of +his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has +sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed. + +‘The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot +call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering +on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal +possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory +includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description +belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but +also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the +Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. + +‘If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now +“commended” (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the +undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance +granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, +for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also, +in the fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned +will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more +helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for--in round +numbers--at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months +from the present date. + +‘After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, +that dust and ashes are for ever scattered + + ‘On + ‘The + ‘Head + ‘Of + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ + + +Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee +that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my night’s rest was +sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate’s daughter, +who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, +and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, +or any age that could be mentioned. + + + +CHAPTER 29. I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN + + +I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of +absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, +and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was +no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking +in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express +my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, +with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human +being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. + +We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were +treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at +all times. As I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one +or two o’clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication +case in court that morning, which was called The office of the judge +promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul’s correction, I passed +an hour or two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. +It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was +alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which +pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a +gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. +It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the +stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said +about touching the Commons and bringing down the country. + +Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was +agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we +were attended by a modest little parlour-maid, with blue ribbons in her +cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, +to catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. But what I +particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was +the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking +manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth’s, and +Steerforth’s with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out +between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager +visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or +passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth’s; or comprehending both of us +at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when +she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing +look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was, +and knew that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly +suspect me of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure +their hungry lustre. + +All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to +Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery +outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn +behind the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a +wandering light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When we +all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on +my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother +went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me. + +‘You have been a long time,’ she said, ‘without coming here. Is your +profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole +attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am +ignorant. Is it really, though?’ + +I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not +claim so much for it. + +‘Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when +I am wrong,’ said Rosa Dartle. ‘You mean it is a little dry, perhaps?’ + +‘Well,’ I replied; ‘perhaps it was a little dry.’ + +‘Oh! and that’s a reason why you want relief and change--excitement and +all that?’ said she. ‘Ah! very true! But isn’t it a little--Eh?--for +him; I don’t mean you?’ + +A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking, +with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond +that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt. + +‘Don’t it--I don’t say that it does, mind I want to know--don’t it +rather engross him? Don’t it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss +than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting--eh?’ With another +quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my +innermost thoughts. + +‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘pray do not think--’ + +‘I don’t!’ she said. ‘Oh dear me, don’t suppose that I think anything! +I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don’t state any opinion. I +want to found an opinion on what you tell me. Then, it’s not so? Well! I +am very glad to know it.’ + +‘It certainly is not the fact,’ said I, perplexed, ‘that I am +accountable for Steerforth’s having been away from home longer than +usual--if he has been: which I really don’t know at this moment, unless +I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while, until +last night.’ + +‘No?’ + +‘Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!’ + +As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the +marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured +lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was +something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her +eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me: + +‘What is he doing?’ + +I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. + +‘What is he doing?’ she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough to +consume her like a fire. ‘In what is that man assisting him, who never +looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are +honourable and faithful, I don’t ask you to betray your friend. I ask +you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it +restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it, that is +leading him?’ + +‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘how shall I tell you, so that you will +believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what +there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I firmly +believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean.’ + +As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, +from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel +mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a +pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly--a +hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before +the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine +porcelain--and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, ‘I swear you +to secrecy about this!’ said not a word more. + +Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son’s society, and +Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful +to her. It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on +account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal +resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or +impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious +dignity. I thought, more than once, that it was well no serious cause of +division had ever come between them; or two such natures--I ought rather +to express it, two such shades of the same nature--might have been +harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The +idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but +in a speech of Rosa Dartle’s. + +She said at dinner: + +‘Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking +about it all day, and I want to know.’ + +‘You want to know what, Rosa?’ returned Mrs. Steerforth. ‘Pray, pray, +Rosa, do not be mysterious.’ + +‘Mysterious!’ she cried. ‘Oh! really? Do you consider me so?’ + +‘Do I constantly entreat you,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘to speak plainly, +in your own natural manner?’ + +‘Oh! then this is not my natural manner?’ she rejoined. ‘Now you must +really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know +ourselves.’ + +‘It has become a second nature,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, without any +displeasure; ‘but I remember,--and so must you, I think,--when your +manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more +trustful.’ + +‘I am sure you are right,’ she returned; ‘and so it is that bad habits +grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I, +imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that’s very odd! I must +study to regain my former self.’ + +‘I wish you would,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. + +‘Oh! I really will, you know!’ she answered. ‘I will learn frankness +from--let me see--from James.’ + +‘You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,’ said Mrs. Steerforth quickly--for +there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, +though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the +world--‘in a better school.’ + +‘That I am sure of,’ she answered, with uncommon fervour. ‘If I am sure +of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.’ + +Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; +for she presently said, in a kind tone: + +‘Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be +satisfied about?’ + +‘That I want to be satisfied about?’ she replied, with provoking +coldness. ‘Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in +their moral constitution--is that the phrase?’ + +‘It’s as good a phrase as another,’ said Steerforth. + +‘Thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral +constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, +supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being +divided angrily and deeply?’ + +‘I should say yes,’ said Steerforth. + +‘Should you?’ she retorted. ‘Dear me! Supposing then, for instance--any +unlikely thing will do for a supposition--that you and your mother were +to have a serious quarrel.’ + +‘My dear Rosa,’ interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, +‘suggest some other supposition! James and I know our duty to each other +better, I pray Heaven!’ + +‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. ‘To be sure. That +would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Exactly. Now, I am glad I +have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know +that your duty to each other would prevent it! Thank you very much.’ + +One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must +not omit; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the +irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but +especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his +utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this singular +creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. That he should succeed, +was no matter of surprise to me. That she should struggle against the +fascinating influence of his delightful art--delightful nature I thought +it then--did not surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes +jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features and her manner slowly change; +I saw her look at him with growing admiration; I saw her try, more and +more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in +herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and finally, +I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and I +ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been all day, and we all sat +about the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as +if we had been children. + +Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth +was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know; but +we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her +departure. ‘She is playing her harp,’ said Steerforth, softly, at the +drawing-room door, ‘and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I +believe, these three years.’ He said it with a curious smile, which was +gone directly; and we went into the room and found her alone. + +‘Don’t get up,’ said Steerforth (which she had already done)’ my dear +Rosa, don’t! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish song.’ + +‘What do you care for an Irish song?’ she returned. + +‘Much!’ said Steerforth. ‘Much more than for any other. Here is Daisy, +too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let me +sit and listen as I used to do.’ + +He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat +himself near the harp. She stood beside it for some little while, in a +curious way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, +but not sounding it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one +sudden action, and played and sang. + +I don’t know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the +most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. There was +something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been +written, or set to music, but sprung out of passion within her; which +found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched +again when all was still. I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp +again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her right hand. + +A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:--Steerforth had +left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about +her, and had said, ‘Come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other +very much!’ And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury +of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. + +‘What is the matter with Rosa?’ said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in. + +‘She has been an angel, mother,’ returned Steerforth, ‘for a little +while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of +compensation.’ + +‘You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been +soured, remember, and ought not to be tried.’ + +Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until I +went with Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he laughed +about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little piece of +incomprehensibility. + +I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of +expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken +so much amiss, so suddenly. + +‘Oh, Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Anything you like--or nothing! +I told you she took everything, herself included, to a grindstone, and +sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires great care in dealing +with. She is always dangerous. Good night!’ + +‘Good night!’ said I, ‘my dear Steerforth! I shall be gone before you +wake in the morning. Good night!’ + +He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on +each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. + +‘Daisy,’ he said, with a smile--‘for though that’s not the name your +godfathers and godmothers gave you, it’s the name I like best to call +you by--and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to me!’ + +‘Why so I can, if I choose,’ said I. + +‘Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my +best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, +if circumstances should ever part us!’ + +‘You have no best to me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘and no worst. You are +always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.’ + +So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless +thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was +rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had to betray the confidence +of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no +risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, ‘God bless +you, Daisy, and good night!’ In my doubt, it did NOT reach them; and we +shook hands, and we parted. + +I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could, +looked into his room. He was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head +upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. + +The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost +wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But he +slept--let me think of him so again--as I had often seen him sleep at +school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him. --Never more, oh +God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and +friendship. Never, never more! + + + +CHAPTER 30. A LOSS + + +I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew that +Peggotty’s spare room--my room--was likely to have occupation enough +in a little while, if that great Visitor, before whose presence all +the living must give place, were not already in the house; so I betook +myself to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed. + +It was ten o’clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, and the +town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram’s, I found the shutters up, +but the shop door standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view +of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlour door, I entered, and +asked him how he was. + +‘Why, bless my life and soul!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘how do you find yourself? +Take a seat.---Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?’ + +‘By no means,’ said I. ‘I like it--in somebody else’s pipe.’ + +‘What, not in your own, eh?’ Mr. Omer returned, laughing. ‘All the +better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, myself, +for the asthma.’ + +Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down again +very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply +of that necessary, without which he must perish. + +‘I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis,’ said I. + +Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. + +‘Do you know how he is tonight?’ I asked. + +‘The very question I should have put to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Omer, +‘but on account of delicacy. It’s one of the drawbacks of our line of +business. When a party’s ill, we can’t ask how the party is.’ + +The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my apprehensions +too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, I +recognized it, however, and said as much. + +‘Yes, yes, you understand,’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. ‘We dursn’t +do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties +mightn’t recover, to say “Omer and Joram’s compliments, and how do you +find yourself this morning?”--or this afternoon--as it may be.’ + +Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his wind by +the aid of his pipe. + +‘It’s one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they +could often wish to show,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Take myself. If I have known +Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him forty years. +But I can’t go and say, “how is he?”’ + +I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so. + +‘I’m not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,’ said Mr. Omer. +‘Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it ain’t +likely that, to my own knowledge, I’d be self-interested under such +circumstances. I say it ain’t likely, in a man who knows his wind will +go, when it DOES go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open; and that man +a grandfather,’ said Mr. Omer. + +I said, ‘Not at all.’ + +‘It ain’t that I complain of my line of business,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It +ain’t that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. What +I wish is, that parties was brought up stronger-minded.’ + +Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in +silence; and then said, resuming his first point: + +‘Accordingly we’re obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to +limit ourselves to Em’ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she +don’t have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so +many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in +fact (she’s there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how +he is tonight; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, +they’d give you full partic’lers. Will you take something? A glass of +srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and water, myself,’ said Mr. Omer, +taking up his glass, ‘because it’s considered softening to the passages, +by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord +bless you,’ said Mr. Omer, huskily, ‘it ain’t the passages that’s out of +order! “Give me breath enough,” said I to my daughter Minnie, “and I’ll +find passages, my dear.”’ + +He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him +laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked +him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had +dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to +invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired +how little Emily was? + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub his +chin: ‘I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken +place.’ + +‘Why so?’ I inquired. + +‘Well, she’s unsettled at present,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It ain’t that she’s +not as pretty as ever, for she’s prettier--I do assure you, she is +prettier. It ain’t that she don’t work as well as ever, for she does. +She WAS worth any six, and she IS worth any six. But somehow she wants +heart. If you understand,’ said Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin again, +and smoking a little, ‘what I mean in a general way by the expression, +“A long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, my hearties, +hurrah!” I should say to you, that that was--in a general way--what I +miss in Em’ly.’ + +Mr. Omer’s face and manner went for so much, that I could +conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness of +apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on: ‘Now I consider this +is principally on account of her being in an unsettled state, you +see. We have talked it over a good deal, her uncle and myself, and her +sweetheart and myself, after business; and I consider it is principally +on account of her being unsettled. You must always recollect of Em’ly,’ +said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently, ‘that she’s a most extraordinary +affectionate little thing. The proverb says, “You can’t make a silk +purse out of a sow’s ear.” Well, I don’t know about that. I rather think +you may, if you begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old +boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn’t beat.’ + +‘I am sure she has!’ said I. + +‘To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle,’ said +Mr. Omer; ‘to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, and +closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, there’s +a struggle going on when that’s the case. Why should it be made a longer +one than is needful?’ + +I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all +my heart, in what he said. + +‘Therefore, I mentioned to them,’ said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable, +easy-going tone, ‘this. I said, “Now, don’t consider Em’ly nailed down +in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her services have been +more valuable than was supposed; her learning has been quicker than was +supposed; Omer and Joram can run their pen through what remains; and +she’s free when you wish. If she likes to make any little arrangement, +afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, +very well. If she don’t, very well still. We’re no losers, anyhow.” + For--don’t you see,’ said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, ‘it ain’t +likely that a man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, +would go and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, +like her?’ + +‘Not at all, I am certain,’ said I. + +‘Not at all! You’re right!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, her cousin--you +know it’s a cousin she’s going to be married to?’ + +‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘I know him well.’ + +‘Of course you do,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir! Her cousin being, as it +appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly sort +of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way +that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable +a little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little +house is now furnished right through, as neat and complete as a doll’s +parlour; and but for Barkis’s illness having taken this bad turn, poor +fellow, they would have been man and wife--I dare say, by this time. As +it is, there’s a postponement.’ + +‘And Emily, Mr. Omer?’ I inquired. ‘Has she become more settled?’ + +‘Why that, you know,’ he returned, rubbing his double chin again, ‘can’t +naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and separation, and +all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her, both +at once. Barkis’s death needn’t put it off much, but his lingering +might. Anyway, it’s an uncertain state of matters, you see.’ + +‘I see,’ said I. + +‘Consequently,’ pursued Mr. Omer, ‘Em’ly’s still a little down, and a +little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she’s more so than she was. +Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth +to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings the tears into her +eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie’s little girl, +you’d never forget it. Bless my heart alive!’ said Mr. Omer, pondering, +‘how she loves that child!’ + +Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Omer, +before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his +daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of Martha. + +‘Ah!’ he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected. +‘No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know it. I never thought +there was harm in the girl. I wouldn’t wish to mention it before my +daughter Minnie--for she’d take me up directly--but I never did. None of +us ever did.’ + +Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter’s footstep before I heard it, touched me +with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She and her husband +came in immediately afterwards. + +Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was ‘as bad as bad could be’; that he +was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully said in the +kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the +College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries’ Hall, if they were all called +in together, couldn’t help him. He was past both Colleges, Mr. Chillip +said, and the Hall could only poison him. + +Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I determined to +go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. and +Mrs. Joram; and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which +made Mr. Barkis quite a new and different creature. + +My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so much +surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in Peggotty, +too, when she came down; and I have seen it since; and I think, in the +expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises +dwindle into nothing. + +I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he +softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her +hands before her face. Ham was standing near her. + +We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the +room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, +but how strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the +kitchen! + +‘This is very kind of you, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘It’s oncommon kind,’ said Ham. + +‘Em’ly, my dear,’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘See here! Here’s Mas’r Davy come! +What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas’r Davy?’ + +There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of her +hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was +to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and creeping +to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling +still, upon his breast. + +‘It’s such a loving art,’ said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich hair +with his great hard hand, ‘that it can’t abear the sorrer of this. +It’s nat’ral in young folk, Mas’r Davy, when they’re new to these here +trials, and timid, like my little bird,--it’s nat’ral.’ + +She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a +word. + +‘It’s getting late, my dear,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and here’s Ham come +fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t’other loving art! What’ +Em’ly? Eh, my pretty?’ + +The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he +listened to her, and then said: + +‘Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen’t mean to ask me that! Stay +with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that’ll be so soon, is here +fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn’t think it, fur to see this +little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me,’ said Mr. Peggotty, +looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; ‘but the sea ain’t +more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle--a foolish +little Em’ly!’ + +‘Em’ly’s in the right in that, Mas’r Davy!’ said Ham. ‘Lookee here! As +Em’ly wishes of it, and as she’s hurried and frightened, like, besides, +I’ll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You doen’t ought--a married man like +you--or what’s as good--to take and hull away a day’s work. And you +doen’t ought to watch and work both. That won’t do. You go home and turn +in. You ain’t afeerd of Em’ly not being took good care on, I know.’ + +Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he +kissed her--and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature +had given him the soul of a gentleman--she seemed to cling closer to +her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the +door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that +prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to +her. + +‘Now, I’m a going upstairs to tell your aunt as Mas’r Davy’s here, and +that’ll cheer her up a bit,’ he said. ‘Sit ye down by the fire, the +while, my dear, and warm those mortal cold hands. You doen’t need to be +so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You’ll go along with me?--Well! +come along with me--come! If her uncle was turned out of house and home, +and forced to lay down in a dyke, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with +no less pride than before, ‘it’s my belief she’d go along with him, now! +But there’ll be someone else, soon,--someone else, soon, Em’ly!’ + +Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little +chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being +within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was really she, or +whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, I don’t know now. + +I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little +Emily’s dread of death--which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, I +took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself--and I had leisure, +before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness +of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my +sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me in her arms, and +blessed and thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to +her (that was what she said) in her distress. She then entreated me to +come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and admired +me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor; and +that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would +brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly +thing. + +The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw him, to +be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in +an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him so +much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when he was past creeping out of +bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the +divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on +the chair at the bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night +and day. His arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from +beneath him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered +were (in an explanatory tone) ‘Old clothes!’ + +‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over him, +while her brother and I stood at the bed’s foot. ‘Here’s my dear boy--my +dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis! That you sent +messages by, you know! Won’t you speak to Master Davy?’ + +He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the +only expression it had. + +‘He’s a going out with the tide,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his +hand. + +My eyes were dim and so were Mr. Peggotty’s; but I repeated in a +whisper, ‘With the tide?’ + +‘People can’t die, along the coast,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘except when +the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born, unless it’s pretty nigh +in--not properly born, till flood. He’s a going out with the tide. It’s +ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it +turns, he’ll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next +tide.’ + +We remained there, watching him, a long time--hours. What mysterious +influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall +not pretend to say; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is +certain he was muttering about driving me to school. + +‘He’s coming to himself,’ said Peggotty. + +Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence. +‘They are both a-going out fast.’ + +‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty. + +‘C. P. Barkis,’ he cried faintly. ‘No better woman anywhere!’ + +‘Look! Here’s Master Davy!’ said Peggotty. For he now opened his eyes. + +I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch +out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile: + +‘Barkis is willin’!’ + +And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. + + + +CHAPTER 31. A GREATER LOSS + + +It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty’s solicitation, to resolve to +stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should +have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought, +out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard +near the grave of ‘her sweet girl’, as she always called my mother; and +there they were to rest. + +In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little +enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even +now I could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme +satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of +Mr. Barkis’s will, and expounding its contents. + +I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will +should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the +box, at the bottom of a horse’s nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there +was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis +had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or +since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation +lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. +Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and +afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and +a half, in guineas and half-guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in +perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England +stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an +oyster-shell. From the circumstance of the latter article having +been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, +I conclude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which +never resolved themselves into anything definite. + +For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his +journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had +invented a fiction that it belonged to ‘Mr. Blackboy’, and was ‘to be +left with Barkis till called for’; a fable he had elaborately written on +the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. + +He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property +in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed +the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life; on his +decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little +Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share +alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty; +whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will +and testament. + +I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all +possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, +to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the +Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest +attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a +pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary +that I knew so much. + +In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all the +property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an +orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to +our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see +little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly +married in a fortnight. + +I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so. +I mean I was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer, to frighten +the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and +was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her +brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window; Mr. +Chillip’s baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at +the clergyman, over its nurse’s shoulder; Mr. Omer breathed short in +the background; no one else was there; and it was very quiet. We walked +about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some +young leaves from the tree above my mother’s grave. + +A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, +towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I +cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of +what must come again, if I go on. + +It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I +stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing +can make it otherwise than as it was. + +My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of +the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer’s. We were all +to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the +usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister +would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed +in, at the fireside. + +I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had rested +with Roderick Random’s knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of +going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft. +Then I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at +a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned +before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached +it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but +there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark. + +I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty’s house, and of the light within +it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand, +which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in. + +It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening +pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was +bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily +in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking +(but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen back, +already, on the society of the work-box with St. Paul’s upon the lid, +the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax-candle; and there +they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge +appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently +looked quite natural, too. + +‘You’re first of the lot, Mas’r Davy!’ said Mr. Peggotty with a happy +face. ‘Doen’t keep in that coat, sir, if it’s wet.’ + +‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up. +‘It’s quite dry.’ + +‘So ‘tis!’ said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. ‘As a chip! Sit ye +down, sir. It ain’t o’ no use saying welcome to you, but you’re welcome, +kind and hearty.’ + +‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!’ said I, +giving her a kiss. ‘And how are you, old woman?’ + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his +hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine +heartiness of his nature; ‘there’s not a woman in the wureld, sir--as I +tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She done her +dooty by the departed, and the departed know’d it; and the departed +done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the +departed;--and--and--and it’s all right!’ + +Mrs. Gummidge groaned. + +‘Cheer up, my pritty mawther!’ said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his head +aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences +to recall the memory of the old one.) ‘Doen’t be down! Cheer up, for +your own self, on’y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen’t +come nat’ral!’ + +‘Not to me, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘Nothink’s nat’ral to me but +to be lone and lorn.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows. + +‘Yes, yes, Dan’l!’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I ain’t a person to live with +them as has had money left. Things go too contrary with me. I had better +be a riddance.’ + +‘Why, how should I ever spend it without you?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with +an air of serious remonstrance. ‘What are you a talking on? Doen’t I +want you more now, than ever I did?’ + +‘I know’d I was never wanted before!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a +pitiable whimper, ‘and now I’m told so! How could I expect to be wanted, +being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!’ + +Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a +speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from +replying, by Peggotty’s pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After +looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he +glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the +window. + +‘Theer!’ said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. ‘Theer we are, Missis Gummidge!’ +Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. ‘Lighted up, accordin’ to custom! You’re +a wonderin’ what that’s fur, sir! Well, it’s fur our little Em’ly. You +see, the path ain’t over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I’m +here at the hour as she’s a comin’ home, I puts the light in the winder. +That, you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, +‘meets two objects. She says, says Em’ly, “Theer’s home!” she says. And +likewise, says Em’ly, “My uncle’s theer!” Fur if I ain’t theer, I never +have no light showed.’ + +‘You’re a baby!’ said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought +so. + +‘Well,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, +and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, +as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. ‘I doen’t know but I am. +Not, you see, to look at.’ + +‘Not azackly,’ observed Peggotty. + +‘No,’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, ‘not to look at, but to--to consider on, you +know. I doen’t care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a looking and +looking about that theer pritty house of our Em’ly’s, I’m--I’m Gormed,’ +said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis--‘theer! I can’t say more--if +I doen’t feel as if the littlest things was her, a’most. I takes ‘em up +and I put ‘em down, and I touches of ‘em as delicate as if they was our +Em’ly. So ‘tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn’t see one on +‘em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. There’s a babby fur +you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine!’ said Mr. Peggotty, relieving +his earnestness with a roar of laughter. + +Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud. + +‘It’s my opinion, you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face, +after some further rubbing of his legs, ‘as this is along of my havin’ +played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French, +and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions +and whales, and I doen’t know what all!--when she warn’t no higher than +my knee. I’ve got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle, +now!’ said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it, +‘I know wery well that arter she’s married and gone, I shall put that +candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I’m +here o’ nights (and where else should I live, bless your arts, whatever +fortun’ I come into!) and she ain’t here or I ain’t theer, I shall +put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I’m +expecting of her, like I’m a doing now. THERE’S a babby for you,’ said +Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, ‘in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why, +at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to +myself, “She’s a looking at it! Em’ly’s a coming!” THERE’S a babby +for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,’ said Mr. +Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; ‘fur +here she is!’ + +It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in, +for he had a large sou’wester hat on, slouched over his face. + +‘Wheer’s Em’ly?’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty +took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was +busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said: + +‘Mas’r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em’ly and me has +got to show you?’ + +We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and +fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air, +and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two. + +‘Ham! what’s the matter?’ + +‘Mas’r Davy!--’ Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept! + +I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don’t know what I thought, +or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. + +‘Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven’s sake, tell me what’s the matter!’ + +‘My love, Mas’r Davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that I’d have +died for, and would die for now--she’s gone!’ + +‘Gone!’ + +‘Em’ly’s run away! Oh, Mas’r Davy, think HOW she’s run away, when I +pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all +things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!’ + +The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped +hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste, +in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the +only object in the scene. + +‘You’re a scholar,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘and know what’s right and +best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break it to him, Mas’r +Davy?’ + +I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the +outside, to gain a moment’s time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust +forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it +when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years. + +I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we +all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given +me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and +lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from +his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me. + +‘Read it, sir,’ he said, in a low shivering voice. ‘Slow, please. I +doen’t know as I can understand.’ + +In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted +letter: + + +‘“When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even +when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away.”’ + + +‘I shall be fur away,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Stop! Em’ly fur away. Well!’ + + +‘“When I leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home!--in the +morning,”’ + +the letter bore date on the previous night: + + +’”--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This +will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew +how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that +never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to +write about myself! Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh, +for mercy’s sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as +now. Oh, don’t remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to +me--don’t remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if I +died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I +am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never +loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will +be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and +know no shame but me. God bless all! I’ll pray for all, often, on my +knees. If he don’t bring me back a lady, and I don’t pray for my own +self, I’ll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my +last thanks, for uncle!”’ + +That was all. + +He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At +length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as +I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, ‘I +thankee, sir, I thankee!’ without moving. + +Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS affliction, +that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, +and no one dared to disturb him. + +Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking +from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low +voice: + +‘Who’s the man? I want to know his name.’ + +Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. + +‘There’s a man suspected,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Who is it?’ + +‘Mas’r Davy!’ implored Ham. ‘Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I +must. You doen’t ought to hear it, sir.’ + +I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some +reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. + +‘I want to know his name!’ I heard said once more. + +‘For some time past,’ Ham faltered, ‘there’s been a servant about here, +at odd times. There’s been a gen’lm’n too. Both of ‘em belonged to one +another.’ + +Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. + +‘The servant,’ pursued Ham, ‘was seen along with--our poor girl--last +night. He’s been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was thought +to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen’t stay, Mas’r Davy, doen’t!’ + +I felt Peggotty’s arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the +house had been about to fall upon me. + +‘A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the +Norwich road, a’most afore the day broke,’ Ham went on. ‘The servant +went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it +again, Em’ly was nigh him. The t’other was inside. He’s the man.’ + +‘For the Lord’s love,’ said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out +his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. ‘Doen’t tell me his name’s +Steerforth!’ + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, ‘it ain’t no fault +of yourn--and I am far from laying of it to you--but his name is +Steerforth, and he’s a damned villain!’ + +Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until +he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat +from its peg in a corner. + +‘Bear a hand with this! I’m struck of a heap, and can’t do it,’ he said, +impatiently. ‘Bear a hand and help me. Well!’ when somebody had done so. +‘Now give me that theer hat!’ + +Ham asked him whither he was going. + +‘I’m a going to seek my niece. I’m a going to seek my Em’ly. I’m a +going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would +have drownded him, as I’m a living soul, if I had had one thought of +what was in him! As he sat afore me,’ he said, wildly, holding out his +clenched right hand, ‘as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down +dead, but I’d have drownded him, and thought it right!--I’m a going to +seek my niece.’ + +‘Where?’ cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. + +‘Anywhere! I’m a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I’m a going +to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me! +I tell you I’m a going to seek my niece!’ + +‘No, no!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying. +‘No, no, Dan’l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone +lorn Dan’l, and that’ll be but right! but not as you are now. Sit ye +down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you, +Dan’l--what have my contraries ever been to this!--and let us speak a +word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was +too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It’ll +soften your poor heart, Dan’l,’ laying her head upon his shoulder, ‘and +you’ll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan’l, “As +you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto +me”,--and that can never fail under this roof, that’s been our shelter +for so many, many year!’ + +He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that +had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the +desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better +feeling. My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too. + + + +CHAPTER 32. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY + + +What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so +I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than +when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress +of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was +brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I +did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a +noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of +my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his +pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face +to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have +loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--I should +have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that +I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all +but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. +That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end +between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known--they +were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were +as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead. + +Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My +sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne; +but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know! + +The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch +that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people +speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were +hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was +but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in +their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The +seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with +slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately +among themselves. + +It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would +have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even +if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I +left them, when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr. +Peggotty’s head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had +known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself, +then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it, +as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip +of silvery light from the unseen sun. + +‘We have had a mort of talk, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we had +all three walked a little while in silence, ‘of what we ought and doen’t +ought to do. But we see our course now.’ + +I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant +light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face +was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression of stern +determination in it--that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would +kill him. + +‘My dooty here, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is done. I’m a going to seek +my--’ he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: ‘I’m a going to seek +her. That’s my dooty evermore.’ + +He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired +if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not gone today, +fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I +was ready to go when he would. + +‘I’ll go along with you, sir,’ he rejoined, ‘if you’re agreeable, +tomorrow.’ + +We walked again, for a while, in silence. + +‘Ham,’ he presently resumed, ‘he’ll hold to his present work, and go and +live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--’ + +‘Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?’ I gently interposed. + +‘My station, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, ‘ain’t there no longer; and if +ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, +that one’s gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen’t mean as it should be +deserted. Fur from that.’ + +We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: + +‘My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer, +as it has always looked, since she fust know’d it. If ever she should +come a wandering back, I wouldn’t have the old place seem to cast her +off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to ‘t, and to +peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old +winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas’r Davy, seein’ +none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, +trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her +weary head where it was once so gay.’ + +I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. + +‘Every night,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as reg’lar as the night comes, the +candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should +see it, it may seem to say “Come back, my child, come back!” If ever +there’s a knock, Ham (partic’ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your +aunt’s door, doen’t you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my +fallen child!’ + +He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes. +During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same +expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant +light, I touched his arm. + +Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried +to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what +his thoughts were so bent, he replied: + +‘On what’s afore me, Mas’r Davy; and over yon.’ ‘On the life before you, +do you mean?’ He had pointed confusedly out to sea. + +‘Ay, Mas’r Davy. I doen’t rightly know how ‘tis, but from over yon there +seemed to me to come--the end of it like,’ looking at me as if he were +waking, but with the same determined face. + +‘What end?’ I asked, possessed by my former fear. + +‘I doen’t know,’ he said, thoughtfully; ‘I was calling to mind that the +beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it’s +gone! Mas’r Davy,’ he added; answering, as I think, my look; ‘you han’t +no call to be afeerd of me: but I’m kiender muddled; I don’t fare to +feel no matters,’--which was as much as to say that he was not himself, +and quite confounded. + +Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more. +The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however, +haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its +appointed time. + +We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no +longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast. +She took Mr. Peggotty’s hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so +comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her. + +‘Dan’l, my good man,’ said she, ‘you must eat and drink, and keep up +your strength, for without it you’ll do nowt. Try, that’s a dear soul! +An if I disturb you with my clicketten,’ she meant her chattering, ‘tell +me so, Dan’l, and I won’t.’ + +When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she +sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes +belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old +oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in +the same quiet manner: + +‘All times and seasons, you know, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, ‘I shall +be allus here, and everythink will look accordin’ to your wishes. I’m a +poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you’re away, and +send my letters to Mas’r Davy. Maybe you’ll write to me too, Dan’l, odd +times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies.’ + +‘You’ll be a solitary woman heer, I’m afeerd!’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘No, no, Dan’l,’ she returned, ‘I shan’t be that. Doen’t you mind me. I +shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you’ (Mrs. Gummidge meant a +home), ‘again you come back--to keep a Beein here for any that may hap +to come back, Dan’l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I +used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman +true to ‘em, a long way off.’ + +What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman. +She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would +be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid; she was so +forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I +held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There +were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the +outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of +ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance +rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but +would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being +asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under +weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all +sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she +appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. +She preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, +which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come +over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not even observe +her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day +through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone +together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke +into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the +door, said, ‘Ever bless you, Mas’r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!’ +Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order +that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when +he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the +prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty’s affliction; and I could not meditate +enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new +experience she unfolded to me. + +It was between nine and ten o’clock when, strolling in a melancholy +manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer’s door. Mr. Omer had +taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very +low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. + +‘A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘There was no good in +her, ever!’ + +‘Don’t say so,’ I returned. ‘You don’t think so.’ + +‘Yes, I do!’ cried Mrs. Joram, angrily. + +‘No, no,’ said I. + +Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but +she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young, +to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and +fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed. + +‘What will she ever do!’ sobbed Minnie. ‘Where will she go! What will +become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!’ + +I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was +glad she remembered it too, so feelingly. + +‘My little Minnie,’ said Mrs. Joram, ‘has only just now been got to +sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em’ly. All day long, little +Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether +Em’ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em’ly tied a ribbon off +her own neck round little Minnie’s the last night she was here, and laid +her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The +ribbon’s round my little Minnie’s neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps, +but what can I do? Em’ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another. +And the child knows nothing!’ + +Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of +her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty’s; more melancholy +myself, if possible, than I had been yet. + +That good creature--I mean Peggotty--all untired by her late anxieties +and sleepless nights, was at her brother’s, where she meant to stay till +morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for some +weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the +house’s only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion for her +services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will, and sat down +before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this. + +I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was +driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked +so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by +a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not +that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down upon +the door, as if it were given by a child. + +It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a +person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down, +to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be +walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss +Mowcher. + +I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind +reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts +were unable to shut up, she had shown me the ‘volatile’ expression of +face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last +meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest; +and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an +inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung her little hands in +such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined towards her. + +‘Miss Mowcher!’ said I, after glancing up and down the empty street, +without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; ‘how do you +come here? What is the matter?’ She motioned to me with her short right +arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into +the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella +in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender--it was a +low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon--in the +shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and +chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain. + +Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and +the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again, +‘Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?’ + +‘My dear young soul,’ returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands upon +her heart one over the other. ‘I am ill here, I am very ill. To think +that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps +prevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’ + +Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went +backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; +while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. + +‘I am surprised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distressed and serious’--when +she interrupted me. + +‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They are all surprised, these +inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural +feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me +for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that +I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that’s the +way. The old way!’ + +‘It may be, with others,’ I returned, ‘but I do assure you it is not +with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you +are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I +thought.’ + +‘What can I do?’ returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out +her arms to show herself. ‘See! What I am, my father was; and my sister +is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother these many +years--hard, Mr. Copperfield--all day. I must live. I do no harm. If +there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of +me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and +everything? If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that? Mine?’ + +No. Not Miss Mowcher’s, I perceived. + +‘If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,’ pursued +the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, +‘how much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had? +If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of +herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her +misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard? +Little Mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the bitterest +and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn’t do it. No. She might whistle +for her bread and butter till she died of Air.’ + +Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her +handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. + +‘Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you have,’ she +said, ‘that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure it +all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way +through the world, without being beholden to anyone; and that in return +for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can +throw bubbles back. If I don’t brood over all I want, it is the better +for me, and not the worse for anyone. If I am a plaything for you +giants, be gentle with me.’ + +Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with +very intent expression all the while, and pursued: + +‘I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to +walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn’t +overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I have +been here before, today, but the good woman wasn’t at home.’ + +‘Do you know her?’ I demanded. + +‘I know of her, and about her,’ she replied, ‘from Omer and Joram. I +was there at seven o’clock this morning. Do you remember what Steerforth +said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at +the inn?’ + +The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher’s head, and the greater bonnet on +the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this +question. + +I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my +thoughts many times that day. I told her so. + +‘May the Father of all Evil confound him,’ said the little woman, +holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, ‘and ten +times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was YOU who +had a boyish passion for her!’ + +‘I?’ I repeated. + +‘Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,’ cried Miss Mowcher, +wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the +fender, ‘why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?’ + +I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a +reason very different from her supposition. + +‘What did I know?’ said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief again, +and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals, +she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. ‘He was crossing you +and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had +I left the room a minute, when his man told me that “Young Innocence” + (so he called you, and you may call him “Old Guilt” all the days of your +life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but +his master was resolved that no harm should come of it--more for your +sake than for hers--and that that was their business here? How could I +BUT believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise +of her! You were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old +admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once +when I spoke to you of her. What could I think--what DID I think--but +that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had +fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you +(having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my +finding out the truth,’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the +fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms +distressfully lifted up, ‘because I am a sharp little thing--I need be, +to get through the world at all!--and they deceived me altogether, and +I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was +the beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on +purpose!’ + +I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss +Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of +breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with +her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise +moving, and without breaking silence. + +‘My country rounds,’ she added at length, ‘brought me to Norwich, Mr. +Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there, +about their secret way of coming and going, without you--which was +strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach +from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this +morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!’ + +Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, +that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in +among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large +doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy +reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her. + +‘I must go,’ she said at last, rising as she spoke. ‘It’s late. You +don’t mistrust me?’ + +Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me, +I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. + +‘Come!’ said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the +fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, ‘you know you wouldn’t +mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!’ + +I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of +myself. + +‘You are a young man,’ she said, nodding. ‘Take a word of advice, +even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with +mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.’ + +She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told +her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, +and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She +thanked me, and said I was a good fellow. + +‘Now, mind!’ she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and +looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.--‘I have some +reason to suspect, from what I have heard--my ears are always open; I +can’t afford to spare what powers I have--that they are gone abroad. But +if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, +I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. +Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the +poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer +had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!’ + +I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look +with which it was accompanied. + +‘Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a +full-sized woman,’ said the little creature, touching me appealingly +on the wrist. ‘If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like +what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to +mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of +me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my +day’s work is done. Perhaps you won’t, then, be very hard upon me, or +surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!’ + +I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from +that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her +out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and +properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished +this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without +the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a +heavier fall than usual from some over-charged water-spout sent it +toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling +violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her +relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella’s hopping on again, +like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed, +and slept till morning. + +In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we +went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham +were waiting to take leave of us. + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was +stowing his bag among the luggage, ‘his life is quite broke up. He +doen’t know wheer he’s going; he doen’t know--what’s afore him; he’s +bound upon a voyage that’ll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, +take my wured for ‘t, unless he finds what he’s a seeking of. I am sure +you’ll be a friend to him, Mas’r Davy?’ + +‘Trust me, I will indeed,’ said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly. + +‘Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I’m in good employ, +you know, Mas’r Davy, and I han’t no way now of spending what I gets. +Money’s of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out +for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir,’ +and he spoke very steadily and mildly, ‘you’re not to think but I shall +work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!’ + +I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the +time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he +naturally contemplated now. + +‘No, sir,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘all that’s past and over with me, +sir. No one can never fill the place that’s empty. But you’ll bear in +mind about the money, as theer’s at all times some laying by for him?’ + +Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, +though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late +brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I +cannot leave him even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his +modest fortitude and his great sorrow. + +As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down +the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on +the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself +against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should +enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her +sitting on a baker’s door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all +remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement +at a considerable distance. + +When we got to our journey’s end, our first pursuit was to look about +for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a +bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap +description, over a chandler’s shop, only two streets removed from +me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an +eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, +I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp’s approval, but +quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that +lady’s state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty’s tucking +up her widow’s gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and +setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the +light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never +allowed. + +Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London for +which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs. +Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate +between them; with the view of sparing the mother’s feelings as much +as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could +what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said he was a +man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and +that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him +in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o’clock in the afternoon as the +hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in +the morning. + +At the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house +where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful +confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was +closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin. + +No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the +occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before +us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle +glided, as we went in, from another part of the room and stood behind +her chair. + +I saw, directly, in his mother’s face, that she knew from himself what +he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion +than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have +raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more +like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that +the resemblance was not lost on my companion. + +She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, passionless +air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very +steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked +quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle’s keen glance comprehended all +of us. For some moments not a word was spoken. + +She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, ‘I +shouldn’t feel it nat’ral, ma’am, to sit down in this house. I’d sooner +stand.’ And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus: + +‘I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want +of me? What do you ask me to do?’ + +He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily’s +letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. ‘Please to read +that, ma’am. That’s my niece’s hand!’ + +She read it, in the same stately and impassive way,--untouched by its +contents, as far as I could see,--and returned it to him. + +‘“Unless he brings me back a lady,”’ said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that +part with his finger. ‘I come to know, ma’am, whether he will keep his +wured?’ + +‘No,’ she returned. + +‘Why not?’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know +that she is far below him.’ + +‘Raise her up!’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘She is uneducated and ignorant.’ + +‘Maybe she’s not; maybe she is,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I think not, ma’am; +but I’m no judge of them things. Teach her better!’ + +‘Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling +to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if +nothing else did.’ + +‘Hark to this, ma’am,’ he returned, slowly and quietly. ‘You know what +it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, +I couldn’t love her more. You doen’t know what it is to lose your child. +I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they +was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this disgrace, and she +shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she’s growed up +among, not one of us that’s lived along with her and had her for their +all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. +We’ll be content to let her be; we’ll be content to think of her, far +off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we’ll be content to +trust her to her husband,--to her little children, p’raps,--and bide the +time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God!’ + +The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect. +She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness +in her voice, as she answered: + +‘I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to +repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my +son’s career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than +that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other +compensation--’ + +‘I am looking at the likeness of the face,’ interrupted Mr. Peggotty, +with a steady but a kindling eye, ‘that has looked at me, in my home, at +my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?---smiling and friendly, when it was +so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness +of that face don’t turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering +money to me for my child’s blight and ruin, it’s as bad. I doen’t know, +being a lady’s, but what it’s worse.’ + +She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features; +and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly +with her hands: + +‘What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me +and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?’ + +Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but +she would not hear a word. + +‘No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has +been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, +whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had +no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a +miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic +deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched +fancy, against his mother’s claims upon his duty, love, respect, +gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have +strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no +injury?’ + +Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually. + +‘I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest +object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he +will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to +reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. +Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put +her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while +I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her +for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my +right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. This is the separation +that there is between us! And is this,’ she added, looking at her +visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, ‘no +injury?’ + +While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to +hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of +an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that +I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her +character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, +the same. + +She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it +was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an +end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, +when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless. + +‘Doen’t fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, +ma’am,’ he remarked, as he moved towards the door. ‘I come heer with no +hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done, +but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan’ning where I do. +This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right +senses and expect it.’ + +With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a +picture of a noble presence and a handsome face. + +We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and +roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green +then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the +garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless +step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me: + +‘You do well,’ she said, ‘indeed, to bring this fellow here!’ + +Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed +in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into +that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited +state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen +before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her +hand, and struck it. + +‘This is a fellow,’ she said, ‘to champion and bring here, is he not? +You are a true man!’ + +‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you are surely not so unjust as to condemn +ME!’ + +‘Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?’ she +returned. ‘Don’t you know that they are both mad with their own +self-will and pride?’ + +‘Is it my doing?’ I returned. + +‘Is it your doing!’ she retorted. ‘Why do you bring this man here?’ + +‘He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,’ I replied. ‘You may not know +it.’ + +‘I know that James Steerforth,’ she said, with her hand on her bosom, as +if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, ‘has +a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care +about this fellow, and his common niece?’ + +‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you deepen the injury. It is sufficient +already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong.’ + +‘I do him no wrong,’ she returned. ‘They are a depraved, worthless set. +I would have her whipped!’ + +Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. + +‘Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!’ I said indignantly. ‘How can you bear +to trample on his undeserved affliction!’ + +‘I would trample on them all,’ she answered. ‘I would have his house +pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags, +and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in +judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I +detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I +would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. +If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her +dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn’t part with it for Life +itself.’ + +The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak +impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made +itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of +being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her +would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance +of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have +never seen it in such a form as that. + +When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down +the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now +discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant +‘to set out on his travels’, that night. I asked him where he meant to +go? He only answered, ‘I’m a going, sir, to seek my niece.’ + +We went back to the little lodging over the chandler’s shop, and there +I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to +me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that +morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she +thought he had some project shaped out in his mind. + +I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three +dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good +things for which Peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured +on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, +coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut +ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an +hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty +got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them +on the table. + +He accepted, from his sister’s stock of ready money, a small sum on +account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him +for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell +him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us +both ‘Good-bye!’ + +‘All good attend you, dear old woman,’ he said, embracing Peggotty, ‘and +you too, Mas’r Davy!’ shaking hands with me. ‘I’m a-going to seek her, +fur and wide. If she should come home while I’m away--but ah, that ain’t +like to be!--or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she +and me shall live and die where no one can’t reproach her. If any hurt +should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, “My +unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’ + +He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went +down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty +evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which +that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of +feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at +the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost +him. + +Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, +rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, +or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor +pilgrim, and recalled the words: + +‘I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me, +remember that the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love is +with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’ + + + +CHAPTER 33. BLISSFUL + + +All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was +my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me, +even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied +others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The +greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the +brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I +don’t think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what +degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure +I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any +other young lady, with indignation and contempt. + +If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over +head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. +Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, +to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, +and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. + +The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take +a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of +my childhood, to go ‘round and round the house, without ever +touching the house’, thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this +incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the +moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and +garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting +my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top, +blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling +on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don’t exactly know what +from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great +objection. + +My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in +Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old +set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, +that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great +secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into +my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, +and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be +low-spirited about it. ‘The young lady might think herself well off,’ +she observed, ‘to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,’ she said, ‘what +did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!’ + +I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow’s proctorial gown and stiff cravat +took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence +for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my +eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam +when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in +a sea of stationery. And by the by, it used to be uncommonly strange +to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old +judges and doctors wouldn’t have cared for Dora, if they had known +her; how they wouldn’t have gone out of their senses with rapture, if +marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung, +and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of +madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his +road! + +I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds +of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench +was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more +tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house. + +Taking the management of Peggotty’s affairs into my own hands, with +no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the +Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything +into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these +proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street +(melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting Miss +Linwood’s Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework, +favourable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the +Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul’s. All these wonders +afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under +existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul’s, which, from her +long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the +lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that +work of art. + +Peggotty’s business, which was what we used to call ‘common-form +business’ in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form +business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning +to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a +gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; but as I knew he would be +back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate’s, and to the +Vicar-General’s office too, I told Peggotty to wait. + +We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate +transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, +when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling +of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence +clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow +much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis’s decease; and indeed he +came in like a bridegroom. + +But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company +with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as +thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little +to be trusted as of old. + +‘Ah, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘You know this gentleman, I +believe?’ + +I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him. +He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but +quickly decided what to do, and came up to me. + +‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that you are doing well?’ + +‘It can hardly be interesting to you,’ said I. ‘Yes, if you wish to +know.’ + +We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty. + +‘And you,’ said he. ‘I am sorry to observe that you have lost your +husband.’ + +‘It’s not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone,’ replied +Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. ‘I am glad to hope that there is +nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it.’ + +‘Ha!’ said he; ‘that’s a comfortable reflection. You have done your +duty?’ + +‘I have not worn anybody’s life away,’ said Peggotty, ‘I am thankful to +think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet +creetur to an early grave!’ + +He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant; and said, +turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face: + +‘We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to +us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I +do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, +exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good-will +now. There is an antipathy between us--’ + +‘An old one, I believe?’ said I, interrupting him. + +He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark +eyes. + +‘It rankled in your baby breast,’ he said. ‘It embittered the life of +your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope +you may correct yourself.’ + +Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, +in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow’s room, and +saying aloud, in his smoothest manner: + +‘Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow’s profession are accustomed to family +differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!’ +With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving it neatly +folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite +wish for his happiness and the lady’s, went out of the office. + +I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent +under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon +Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were +not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her +peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for +an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old +injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the +clerks. + +Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr. +Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to +acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the +history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought +anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state +party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by +somebody else--so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were +waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty’s bill of costs. + +‘Miss Trotwood,’ he remarked, ‘is very firm, no doubt, and not likely +to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and +I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side. +Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are +extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side’: +meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest. + +‘Rather a good marriage this, I believe?’ said Mr. Spenlow. + +I explained that I knew nothing about it. + +‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone +dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss +Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage.’ + +‘Do you mean that there is money, sir?’ I asked. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I understand there’s money. Beauty too, I am +told.’ + +‘Indeed! Is his new wife young?’ + +‘Just of age,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘So lately, that I should think they +had been waiting for that.’ + +‘Lord deliver her!’ said Peggotty. So very emphatically and +unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in +with the bill. + +Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to +look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it +softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all +Jorkins’s doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh. + +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Quite right. I should have been extremely +happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual +expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in my +professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I +have a partner--Mr. Jorkins.’ + +As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to +making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on Peggotty’s +behalf, and paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then retired to +her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a +divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed +now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages +annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was +Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only; +suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as +comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he +expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he +now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and +declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not +married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction. + +I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this, +and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which +reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He +said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the +ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of +a system. Very good. There you were! + +I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly +we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the +morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I +thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would +particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being +worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear +from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible? + +Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for +our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and +strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the +Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow +inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his +experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora’s +father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of +that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects +within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries, +should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased +by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even +ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents +it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary +speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and +crammed the public’s wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other +object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little +unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting +to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits +of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to +spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the +important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand +over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little +unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be +magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold +dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered +men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little +indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to +find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful +accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post +(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a +staff in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the +inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office +was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps, +in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was +altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that +but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard, +which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, +and upside down, long ago. + +Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then +argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what +was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt +that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the +office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who +was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good +predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing was perfect; +but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the +Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into +the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He +considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found +them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I +deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find +he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, +but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not +too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine +were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was +described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half +more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many, +or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don’t +know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet +awhile. + +I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here +it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this +conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged +into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow +told me this day week was Dora’s birthday, and he would be glad if I +would come down and join a little picnic on the occasion. I went out of +my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of +a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, ‘Favoured by papa. To remind’; +and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage. + +I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation +for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. +My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. +I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a +delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a +declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that +could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden +Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a +gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it +fresh, trotting down to Norwood. + +I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see +her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for +it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my +circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural +to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the +garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora +sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, +upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip +bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with +her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her +name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend +of Dora. Happy Miss Mills! + +Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my +bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had +the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might! + +‘Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!’ said Dora. + +I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of +words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them +so near HER. But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see +her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all +presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I +didn’t say, ‘Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!’ + +Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and +wouldn’t smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer +to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his +teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted, +and said, ‘My poor beautiful flowers!’ as compassionately, I thought, as +if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had! + +‘You’ll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Dora, ‘that that +cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother’s +marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn’t that delightful?’ + +I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was +delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of +superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us. + +‘She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,’ said Dora. ‘You can’t +believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.’ + +‘Yes, I can, my dear!’ said Julia. + +‘YOU can, perhaps, love,’ returned Dora, with her hand on Julia’s. +‘Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.’ + +I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course +of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that +wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in +the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been +unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired +from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a +calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth. + +But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him, +saying, ‘Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!’ And Miss Mills smiled +thoughtfully, as who should say, ‘Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief +existence in the bright morning of life!’ And we all walked from the +lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready. + +I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another. +There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the +guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and +I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking +towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and +wouldn’t allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should +crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself +with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great +astonishment is that I didn’t go over the head of my gallant grey into +the carriage. + +There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I +have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding +in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty +about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me +what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare +say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds +sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges +were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss +Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly. + +I don’t know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little +where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night +magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when +we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf. +There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a +rich landscape. + +It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my +jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own +sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red +whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not to be +endured--were my mortal foes. + +We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner +ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don’t +believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young +ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his +directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against +this man, and one of us must fall. + +Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing +should have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge +of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in +the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a +lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora! + +I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this +baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know; +but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in +pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received +my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because +she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can’t say. Dora’s health was +drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that +purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora’s eye as +I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me +over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant. + +The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the +latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general +breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being +put away; and I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and +remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not +well, and fly--I don’t know where--upon my gallant grey, when Dora and +Miss Mills met me. + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘you are dull.’ + +I begged her pardon. Not at all. + +‘And Dora,’ said Miss Mills, ‘YOU are dull.’ + +Oh dear no! Not in the least. + +‘Mr. Copperfield and Dora,’ said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable +air. ‘Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither +the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be +renewed. I speak,’ said Miss Mills, ‘from experience of the past--the +remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the +sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of +Sahara must not be plucked up idly.’ + +I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary +extent; but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it--and she let me! +I kissed Miss Mills’s hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go +straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed +up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the +trees: I with Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows, +folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck +immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees +for ever! + +But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and +calling ‘where’s Dora?’ So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing. +Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora +told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for +in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out, +and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in +every note of her dear voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all +the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to +do with it! + +I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real, +and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs. +Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang, +and others sang, and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the +caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening +came on; and we had tea, with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I +was still as happy as ever. + +I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people, +defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours +through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents +rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the +champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that +made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who +adulterated it!--and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, I +rode by the side and talked to Dora. She admired my horse and patted +him--oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse!--and her shawl +would not keep right, and now and then I drew it round her with my arm; +and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was, and to understand +that he must make up his mind to be friends with me. + +That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, +recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had +done with the world, and mustn’t on any account have the slumbering +echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did! + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘come to this side of the carriage a +moment--if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to you.’ + +Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with +my hand upon the carriage door! + +‘Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the day +after tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be +happy to see you.’ What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss +Mills’s head, and store Miss Mills’s address in the securest corner of +my memory! What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks +and fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices, and what an +inestimable value I set upon her friendship! + +Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, ‘Go back to Dora!’ and +I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and we talked +all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant grey so close to the +wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and ‘took the bark +off’, as his owner told me, ‘to the tune of three pun’ sivin’--which I +paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss Mills +sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses--and recalling, I suppose, the +ancient days when she and earth had anything in common. + +Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon; +but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said, +‘You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!’ and I consenting, we had +sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked +so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in +a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient +consciousness to take my leave. So we parted; I riding all the way +to London with the farewell touch of Dora’s hand still light on mine, +recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my +own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of +his five wits by love. + +When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora, +and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. There was no +other question that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the +answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing +myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction +on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed +for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills’s, fraught with +a declaration. + +How many times I went up and down the street, and round the +square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle +than the original one--before I could persuade myself to go up the steps +and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was +waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that +were Mr. Blackboy’s (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and +retreating. But I kept my ground. + +Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody wanted +HIM. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do. + +I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip +was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a new song, +called ‘Affection’s Dirge’), and Dora was painting flowers. What were my +feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; the identical Covent Garden +Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very like, or that +they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my +observation; but I knew from the paper round them which was accurately +copied, what the composition was. + +Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at +home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was +conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon +‘Affection’s Dirge’, got up, and left the room. + +I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. + +‘I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,’ said +Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. ‘It was a long way for him.’ + +I began to think I would do it today. + +‘It was a long way for him,’ said I, ‘for he had nothing to uphold him +on the journey.’ + +‘Wasn’t he fed, poor thing?’ asked Dora. + +I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. + +‘Ye-yes,’ I said, ‘he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the +unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.’ + +Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while--I +had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very +rigid state-- + +‘You didn’t seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one time +of the day.’ + +I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. + +‘You didn’t care for that happiness in the least,’ said Dora, slightly +raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, ‘when you were sitting by +Miss Kitt.’ + +Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the +little eyes. + +‘Though certainly I don’t know why you should,’ said Dora, ‘or why you +should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don’t mean what you +say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do whatever +you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!’ + +I don’t know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. +I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a +word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. +I told her that I idolized and worshipped her. Jip barked madly all the +time. + +When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased +so much the more. If she would like me to die for her, she had but to +say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora’s love was not a thing +to have on any terms. I couldn’t bear it, and I wouldn’t. I had loved +her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her. I loved her at +that minute to distraction. I should always love her, every minute, to +distraction. Lovers had loved before, and lovers would love again; but +no lover had loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as I loved +Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way, +got more mad every moment. + +Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet enough, +and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my +mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged. + +I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We must +have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to be married +without her papa’s consent. But, in our youthful ecstasy, I don’t think +that we really looked before us or behind us; or had any aspiration +beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our secret from Mr. +Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never entered my head, then, that there +was anything dishonourable in that. + +Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find her, +brought her back;--I apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had +passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory. But she +gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and +spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice from the Cloister. + +What an idle time it was! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time it +was! + +When I measured Dora’s finger for a ring that was to be made of +Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, found +me out, and laughed over his order-book, and charged me anything he +liked for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones--so associated +in my remembrance with Dora’s hand, that yesterday, when I saw such +another, by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a +momentary stirring in my heart, like pain! + +When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own +interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved, so +much, that if I had walked the air, I could not have been more above the +people not so situated, who were creeping on the earth! + +When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within +the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to +this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their +smoky feathers! When we had our first great quarrel (within a week +of our betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a +despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression +that ‘our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!’ which dreadful +words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over! + +When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by +stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss +Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss Mills +undertook the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the +pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoidance +of the Desert of Sahara! + +When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back +kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love’s own temple, where we arranged +a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at +least one letter on each side every day! + +What an idle time! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of all +the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one +retrospect I can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. + + + +CHAPTER 34. MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME + + +I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long +letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, and +what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a +thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the +least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about. I +assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my +belief that nothing like it had ever been known. + +Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, and +the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing +over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation +in which I had been living lately, and of which my very happiness +partook in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. I remember that +I sat resting my head upon my hand, when the letter was half done, +cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes were one of the elements of my +natural home. As if, in the retirement of the house made almost sacred +to me by her presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As if, +in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart +turned naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. + +Of Steerforth I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad grief +at Yarmouth, on account of Emily’s flight; and that on me it made a +double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. I knew how +quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she would never be +the first to breathe his name. + +To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read it, I +seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial voice in my +ears. What can I say more! + +While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice or +thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty (who +always volunteered that information to whomsoever would receive +it), that she was my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured +acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her +about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid the chat was all on her +own side, and of immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed to +stop, God bless her! when she had me for her theme. + +This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain +afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp +had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) +until Peggotty should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after +holding divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very high-pitched +voice, on the staircase--with some invisible Familiar it would appear, +for corporeally speaking she was quite alone at those times--addressed a +letter to me, developing her views. Beginning it with that statement +of universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life, +namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me that +she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods of her +existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, intruders, +and informers. She named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted, +wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders’ +weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to +look down upon. If a gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and +informers (but still naming no names), that was his own pleasure. He +had a right to please himself; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp, +stipulated for, was, that she should not be ‘brought in contract’ +with such persons. Therefore she begged to be excused from any further +attendance on the top set, until things were as they formerly was, and +as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her little +book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday morning, +when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, with the +benevolent view of saving trouble ‘and an ill-conwenience’ to all +parties. + +After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the +stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty +into breaking her legs. I found it rather harassing to live in this +state of siege, but was too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out +of it. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my door, +in spite of all these obstacles, ‘how do you do?’ + +‘My dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘I am delighted to see you at last, and very +sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much engaged--’ + +‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Traddles, ‘of course. Yours lives in London, I +think.’ + +‘What did you say?’ + +‘She--excuse me--Miss D., you know,’ said Traddles, colouring in his +great delicacy, ‘lives in London, I believe?’ + +‘Oh yes. Near London.’ + +‘Mine, perhaps you recollect,’ said Traddles, with a serious look, +‘lives down in Devonshire--one of ten. Consequently, I am not so much +engaged as you--in that sense.’ + +‘I wonder you can bear,’ I returned, ‘to see her so seldom.’ + +‘Hah!’ said Traddles, thoughtfully. ‘It does seem a wonder. I suppose it +is, Copperfield, because there is no help for it?’ + +‘I suppose so,’ I replied with a smile, and not without a blush. ‘And +because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Traddles, considering about it, ‘do I strike you in that +way, Copperfield? Really I didn’t know that I had. But she is such +an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it’s possible she may +have imparted something of those virtues to me. Now you mention it, +Copperfield, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I assure you she is always +forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine.’ + +‘Is she the eldest?’ I inquired. + +‘Oh dear, no,’ said Traddles. ‘The eldest is a Beauty.’ + +He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity of +this reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face: + +‘Not, of course, but that my Sophy--pretty name, Copperfield, I always +think?’ + +‘Very pretty!’ said I. + +‘Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too in my eyes, and would +be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody’s eyes (I should +think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is +a--’ he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands: +‘Splendid, you know,’ said Traddles, energetically. ‘Indeed!’ said I. + +‘Oh, I assure you,’ said Traddles, ‘something very uncommon, indeed! +Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and not being +able to enjoy much of it in consequence of their limited means, she +naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts +her in good humour!’ + +‘Is Sophy the youngest?’ I hazarded. + +‘Oh dear, no!’ said Traddles, stroking his chin. ‘The two youngest are +only nine and ten. Sophy educates ‘em.’ + +‘The second daughter, perhaps?’ I hazarded. + +‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Sarah’s the second. Sarah has something the matter +with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by and by, the +doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. +Sophy nurses her. Sophy’s the fourth.’ + +‘Is the mother living?’ I inquired. + +‘Oh yes,’ said Traddles, ‘she is alive. She is a very superior woman +indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, and--in +fact, she has lost the use of her limbs.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said I. + +‘Very sad, is it not?’ returned Traddles. ‘But in a merely domestic view +it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes her place. She is +quite as much a mother to her mother, as she is to the other nine.’ + +I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; and, +honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature +of Traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint +prospects in life, inquired how Mr. Micawber was? + +‘He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you,’ said Traddles. ‘I am not +living with him at present.’ + +‘No?’ + +‘No. You see the truth is,’ said Traddles, in a whisper, ‘he had changed +his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrassments; +and he don’t come out till after dark--and then in spectacles. There was +an execution put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber was in such +a dreadful state that I really couldn’t resist giving my name to that +second bill we spoke of here. You may imagine how delightful it was to +my feelings, Copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and Mrs. +Micawber recover her spirits.’ + +‘Hum!’ said I. ‘Not that her happiness was of long duration,’ pursued +Traddles, ‘for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came +in. It broke up the establishment. I have been living in a furnished +apartment since then, and the Mortimers have been very private indeed. +I hope you won’t think it selfish, Copperfield, if I mention that +the broker carried off my little round table with the marble top, and +Sophy’s flower-pot and stand?’ + +‘What a hard thing!’ I exclaimed indignantly. + +‘It was a--it was a pull,’ said Traddles, with his usual wince at that +expression. ‘I don’t mention it reproachfully, however, but with a +motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to repurchase them at the +time of their seizure; in the first place, because the broker, having an +idea that I wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent; and, +in the second place, because I--hadn’t any money. Now, I have kept +my eye since, upon the broker’s shop,’ said Traddles, with a great +enjoyment of his mystery, ‘which is up at the top of Tottenham Court +Road, and, at last, today I find them put out for sale. I have only +noticed them from over the way, because if the broker saw me, bless you, +he’d ask any price for them! What has occurred to me, having now the +money, is, that perhaps you wouldn’t object to ask that good nurse of +yours to come with me to the shop--I can show it her from round the +corner of the next street--and make the best bargain for them, as if +they were for herself, that she can!’ + +The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the +sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things +in my remembrance. + +I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that +we would all three take the field together, but on one condition. That +condition was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more +loans of his name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, ‘I have already done so, because +I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, but that I have +been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being passed to myself, there +is no longer any apprehension; but I pledge it to you, too, with the +greatest readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have paid. I have +no doubt Mr. Micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not. +One thing I ought to mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, +Copperfield. It refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. +He don’t tell me that it is provided for, but he says it WILL BE. Now, I +think there is something very fair and honest about that!’ + +I was unwilling to damp my good friend’s confidence, and therefore +assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to the +chandler’s shop, to enlist Peggotty; Traddles declining to pass the +evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions +that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could +re-purchase it, and because it was the evening he always devoted to +writing to the dearest girl in the world. + +I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in +Tottenham Court Road, while Peggotty was bargaining for the precious +articles; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly +offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back +again. The end of the negotiation was, that she bought the property on +tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was transported with pleasure. + +‘I am very much obliged to you, indeed,’ said Traddles, on hearing it +was to be sent to where he lived, that night. ‘If I might ask one other +favour, I hope you would not think it absurd, Copperfield?’ + +I said beforehand, certainly not. + +‘Then if you WOULD be good enough,’ said Traddles to Peggotty, ‘to +get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being Sophy’s, +Copperfield) to carry it home myself!’ + +Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with thanks, +and went his way up Tottenham Court Road, carrying the flower-pot +affectionately in his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions +of countenance I ever saw. + +We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms for +Peggotty which I never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody +else, I sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows, +and waiting for her as often as she chose. We were thus a good while in +getting to the Adelphi. + +On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden disappearance +of Mrs. Crupp’s pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. We +were both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door +standing open (which I had shut) and to hear voices inside. + +We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and went +into the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all people upon +earth, my aunt there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on a quantity of +luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her knee, like a +female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr. Dick leaning thoughtfully on +a great kite, such as we had often been out together to fly, with more +luggage piled about him! + +‘My dear aunt!’ cried I. ‘Why, what an unexpected pleasure!’ + +We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands; and +Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive, +cordially said she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull would have his +heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations. + +‘Holloa!’ said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful +presence. ‘How are YOU?’ + +‘You remember my aunt, Peggotty?’ said I. + +‘For the love of goodness, child,’ exclaimed my aunt, ‘don’t call the +woman by that South Sea Island name! If she married and got rid of +it, which was the best thing she could do, why don’t you give her the +benefit of the change? What’s your name now,--P?’ said my aunt, as a +compromise for the obnoxious appellation. + +‘Barkis, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, with a curtsey. + +‘Well! That’s human,’ said my aunt. ‘It sounds less as if you wanted a +missionary. How d’ye do, Barkis? I hope you’re well?’ + +Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt’s extending her +hand, Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her +acknowledgements. + +‘We are older than we were, I see,’ said my aunt. ‘We have only met each +other once before, you know. A nice business we made of it then! Trot, +my dear, another cup.’ + +I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state +of figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her +sitting on a box. + +‘Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy-chair, aunt,’ said I. ‘Why +should you be so uncomfortable?’ + +‘Thank you, Trot,’ replied my aunt, ‘I prefer to sit upon my property.’ +Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, ‘We needn’t +trouble you to wait, ma’am.’ + +‘Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma’am?’ said Mrs. +Crupp. + +‘No, I thank you, ma’am,’ replied my aunt. + +‘Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma’am?’ said Mrs. Crupp. +‘Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should I brile +a rasher? Ain’t there nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mr. +Copperfull?’ + +‘Nothing, ma’am,’ returned my aunt. ‘I shall do very well, I thank you.’ + +Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, +and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general +feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to +express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually +smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room. +‘Dick!’ said my aunt. ‘You know what I told you about time-servers and +wealth-worshippers?’ + +Mr. Dick--with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it--returned +a hasty answer in the affirmative. + +‘Mrs. Crupp is one of them,’ said my aunt. ‘Barkis, I’ll trouble you to +look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don’t fancy that +woman’s pouring-out!’ + +I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of +importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this +arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye +lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; and +what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within +her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. I began +to reflect whether I had done anything to offend her; and my conscience +whispered me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any +means be that, I wondered! + +As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near +her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy +as I could be. But I was very far from being really easy; and I should +still have been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite behind +my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head +darkly at me, and pointing at her. + +‘Trot,’ said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and +carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips--‘you needn’t go, +Barkis!--Trot, have you got to be firm and self-reliant?’ + +‘I hope so, aunt.’ + +‘What do you think?’ inquired Miss Betsey. + +‘I think so, aunt.’ + +‘Then why, my love,’ said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, ‘why do you +think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine tonight?’ + +I shook my head, unable to guess. + +‘Because,’ said my aunt, ‘it’s all I have. Because I’m ruined, my dear!’ + +If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river +together, I could hardly have received a greater shock. + +‘Dick knows it,’ said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. ‘I +am ruined, my dear Trot! All I have in the world is in this room, except +the cottage; and that I have left Janet to let. Barkis, I want to get a +bed for this gentleman tonight. To save expense, perhaps you can make +up something here for myself. Anything will do. It’s only for tonight. +We’ll talk about this, more, tomorrow.’ + +I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her--I am sure, for +her--by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she only +grieved for me. In another moment she suppressed this emotion; and said +with an aspect more triumphant than dejected: + +‘We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my +dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, +Trot!’ + + + +CHAPTER 35. DEPRESSION + + +As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me +in the first overpowering shock of my aunt’s intelligence, I proposed +to Mr. Dick to come round to the chandler’s shop, and take possession of +the bed which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler’s shop being +in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place +in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not +very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used +to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The +glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I dare +say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear, +beyond the compound of flavours I have already mentioned, and perhaps +the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his +accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t +room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, +sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, ‘You know, +Trotwood, I don’t want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. +Therefore, what does that signify to ME!’ + +I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the +causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt’s affairs. As I might +have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it +was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, ‘Now, Dick, +are you really and truly the philosopher I take you for?’ That then +he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, ‘Dick, I +am ruined.’ That then he had said, ‘Oh, indeed!’ That then my aunt had +praised him highly, which he was glad of. And that then they had come to +me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road. + +Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing +his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised +smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him +that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly +reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears +course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such +unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than +mine. I took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than I had +taken to depress him; and I soon understood (as I ought to have known at +first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in +the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my +intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for +any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. + +‘What can we do, Trotwood?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘There’s the Memorial-’ + +‘To be sure there is,’ said I. ‘But all we can do just now, Mr. Dick, +is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we are +thinking about it.’ + +He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if I +should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recall him +by some of those superior methods which were always at my command. But I +regret to state that the fright I had given him proved too much for his +best attempts at concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my +aunt’s face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if +he saw her growing thin on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put +a constraint upon his head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting +rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at +all. I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small +one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt +insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the act +of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt for the +purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached +an advanced stage of attenuation. + +My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was +a lesson to all of us--to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious +to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by that name; and, +strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was +to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over +her. She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a +conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that +circumstance. + +‘Trot, my dear,’ said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations for +compounding her usual night-draught, ‘No!’ + +‘Nothing, aunt?’ + +‘Not wine, my dear. Ale.’ + +‘But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of wine.’ + +‘Keep that, in case of sickness,’ said my aunt. ‘We mustn’t use it +carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint.’ + +I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being +resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late, +Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the +chandler’s shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner +of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human +misery. + +My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the +borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the +toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she +was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned +back on her knees. + +‘My dear,’ said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; ‘it’s a great +deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.’ + +I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: + +‘Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well +off.’ + +‘I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,’ said I. + +‘Well, then, why DON’T you think so?’ said my aunt. + +‘Because you and I are very different people,’ I returned. + +‘Stuff and nonsense, Trot!’ replied my aunt. + +My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little +affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking +her strips of toast in it. + +‘Trot,’ said she, ‘I don’t care for strange faces in general, but I +rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!’ + +‘It’s better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!’ said I. + +‘It’s a most extraordinary world,’ observed my aunt, rubbing her nose; +‘how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me. +It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that +sort, one would think.’ + +‘Perhaps she thinks so, too; it’s not her fault,’ said I. + +‘I suppose not,’ returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; ‘but +it’s very aggravating. However, she’s Barkis now. That’s some comfort. +Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.’ + +‘There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,’ said I. + +‘Nothing, I believe,’ returned my aunt. ‘Here, the poor fool has been +begging and praying about handing over some of her money--because she +has got too much of it. A simpleton!’ + +My aunt’s tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm +ale. + +‘She’s the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,’ said my aunt. +‘I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor dear +blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of +mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!’ + +Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to +her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her +discourse together. + +‘Ah! Mercy upon us!’ sighed my aunt. ‘I know all about it, Trot! Barkis +and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know all +about it. I don’t know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for +my part. I wonder they don’t knock out their brains against--against +mantelpieces,’ said my aunt; an idea which was probably suggested to her +by her contemplation of mine. + +‘Poor Emily!’ said I. + +‘Oh, don’t talk to me about poor,’ returned my aunt. ‘She should have +thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give me a kiss, Trot. +I am sorry for your early experience.’ + +As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and +said: + +‘Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?’ + +‘Fancy, aunt!’ I exclaimed, as red as I could be. ‘I adore her with my +whole soul!’ + +‘Dora, indeed!’ returned my aunt. ‘And you mean to say the little thing +is very fascinating, I suppose?’ + +‘My dear aunt,’ I replied, ‘no one can form the least idea what she is!’ + +‘Ah! And not silly?’ said my aunt. + +‘Silly, aunt!’ + +I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single +moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of +course; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. + +‘Not light-headed?’ said my aunt. + +‘Light-headed, aunt!’ I could only repeat this daring speculation +with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding +question. + +‘Well, well!’ said my aunt. ‘I only ask. I don’t depreciate her. Poor +little couple! And so you think you were formed for one another, and are +to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces +of confectionery, do you, Trot?’ + +She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful +and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched. + +‘We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,’ I replied; ‘and I dare +say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love +one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody +else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or +cease to love her; I don’t know what I should do--go out of my mind, I +think!’ + +‘Ah, Trot!’ said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; ‘blind, +blind, blind!’ + +‘Someone that I know, Trot,’ my aunt pursued, after a pause, ‘though of +a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that +reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look +for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful +earnestness.’ + +‘If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!’ I cried. + +‘Oh, Trot!’ she said again; ‘blind, blind!’ and without knowing why, +I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a +cloud. + +‘However,’ said my aunt, ‘I don’t want to put two young creatures out +of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though it is a +girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often--mind! +I don’t say always!--come to nothing, still we’ll be serious about it, +and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There’s time enough +for it to come to anything!’ + +This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but +I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of +her being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her +affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and after a +tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom. + +How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my +being poor, in Mr. Spenlow’s eyes; about my not being what I thought I +was, when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous necessity of +telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her +engagement if she thought fit; about how I should contrive to live, +during the long term of my articles, when I was earning nothing; about +doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything; +about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby +coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride no +gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and +selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it +was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted +to Dora that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to +think more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness +was inseparable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any +mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night! + +As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I +seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I +was ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny; +now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by +Mr. Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire; now +I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old Tiffey’s +daily biscuit, regularly eaten when St. Paul’s struck one; now I was +hopelessly endeavouring to get a licence to marry Dora, having nothing +but one of Uriah Heep’s gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole +Commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, I +was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. + +My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and +fro. Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long +flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like +a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which +I lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she +inferred from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey +was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its +igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after +that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself ‘Poor +boy!’ And then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how +unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of +myself. + +It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short +to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an +imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that +became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune, +and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least +notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was +trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary-sized nightcap, when I +awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep, +and saw the sun shining in through the window at last. + +There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the +streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had +many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving +Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, +and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk +treatment might freshen my wits a little; and I think it did them good, +for I soon came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take +was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered. +I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors’ Commons, +along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers, +growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters’ heads, intent on +this first effort to meet our altered circumstances. + +I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour’s +loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first, +appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up +at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora; +until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and curly. + +‘How are you, Copperfield?’ said he. ‘Fine morning!’ + +‘Beautiful morning, sir,’ said I. ‘Could I say a word to you before you +go into Court?’ + +‘By all means,’ said he. ‘Come into my room.’ + +I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and +touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a +closet door. + +‘I am sorry to say,’ said I, ‘that I have some rather disheartening +intelligence from my aunt.’ + +‘No!’ said he. ‘Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?’ + +‘It has no reference to her health, sir,’ I replied. ‘She has met with +some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed.’ + +‘You as-tound me, Copperfield!’ cried Mr. Spenlow. + +I shook my head. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘her affairs are so changed, +that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on +our part of some portion of the premium, of course,’ I put in this, on +the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--‘to +cancel my articles?’ + +What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking, +as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora. + +‘To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?’ + +I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where +my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for +myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis +on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a +son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon +my own resources. ‘I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said +Mr. Spenlow. ‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for +any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is +not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time--’ + +‘You are very good, sir,’ I murmured, anticipating a concession. + +‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘At the same time, I +was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if +I had not a partner--Mr. Jorkins--’ + +My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort. + +‘Do you think, sir,’ said I, ‘if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins--’ + +Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ‘Heaven forbid, Copperfield,’ +he replied, ‘that I should do any man an injustice: still less, Mr. +Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man +to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very +difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!’ + +I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been +alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu +Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very +late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be +consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of +his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was +a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and +reported to be twenty years of age. + +‘Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?’ I asked. + +‘By no means,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘But I have some experience of Mr. +Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy +to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your +mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.’ + +Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake +of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight +stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, +until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins’s room, and +evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance +there. + +‘Come in, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Come in!’ + +I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much +as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the +awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced +man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the +Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room +in his system for any other article of diet. + +‘You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?’ said Mr. Jorkins; +when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. + +I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name. + +‘He said I should object?’ asked Mr. Jorkins. + +I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable. + +‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can’t advance your object,’ said +Mr. Jorkins, nervously. ‘The fact is--but I have an appointment at the +Bank, if you’ll have the goodness to excuse me.’ + +With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when +I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging +the matter? + +‘No!’ said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. ‘Oh, no! +I object, you know,’ which he said very rapidly, and went out. ‘You must +be aware, Mr. Copperfield,’ he added, looking restlessly in at the door +again, ‘if Mr. Spenlow objects--’ + +‘Personally, he does not object, sir,’ said I. + +‘Oh! Personally!’ repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. ‘I +assure you there’s an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you +wish to be done, can’t be done. I--I really have got an appointment +at the Bank.’ With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my +knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons +again. + +Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. +Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to +understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the +adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake the task. + +‘Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, ‘you have +not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is +farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. +Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often +deceives people. No, Copperfield!’ shaking his head. ‘Mr. Jorkins is not +to be moved, believe me!’ + +I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as +to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with +sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and +that the recovery of my aunt’s thousand pounds was out of the +question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything +but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself +(though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went +homeward. + +I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to +myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their +sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at +my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth +to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling +of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back +on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I +associated its softened beauty with the stained-glass window in the +church, was smiling on me. + +‘Agnes!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the +world, what a pleasure to see you!’ + +‘Is it, indeed?’ she said, in her cordial voice. + +‘I want to talk to you so much!’ said I. ‘It’s such a lightening of my +heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror’s cap, there is no +one I should have wished for but you!’ + +‘What?’ returned Agnes. + +‘Well! perhaps Dora first,’ I admitted, with a blush. + +‘Certainly, Dora first, I hope,’ said Agnes, laughing. + +‘But you next!’ said I. ‘Where are you going?’ + +She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she +was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it +all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the +coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like +Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having +Agnes at my side! + +My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer +than a Bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited. +She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was +leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was +so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to +London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual +liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up +my residence in Mr. Wickfield’s house. She was not alone, she said. Her +papa was with her--and Uriah Heep. + +‘And now they are partners,’ said I. ‘Confound him!’ + +‘Yes,’ said Agnes. ‘They have some business here; and I took advantage +of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all friendly +and disinterested, Trotwood, for--I am afraid I may be cruelly +prejudiced--I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him.’ ‘Does he +exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?’ + +Agnes shook her head. ‘There is such a change at home,’ said she, ‘that +you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us now.’ + +‘They?’ said I. + +‘Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,’ said Agnes, +looking up into my face. + +‘I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,’ said I. ‘He wouldn’t sleep +there long.’ + +‘I keep my own little room,’ said Agnes, ‘where I used to learn my +lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room that +opens from the drawing-room?’ + +‘Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the +door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?’ + +‘It is just the same,’ said Agnes, smiling. ‘I am glad you think of it +so pleasantly. We were very happy.’ + +‘We were, indeed,’ said I. + +‘I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep, +you know. And so,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘I feel obliged to bear her +company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to +complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son, +it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her.’ + +I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her +any consciousness of Uriah’s design. Her mild but earnest eyes met +mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her +gentle face. + +‘The chief evil of their presence in the house,’ said Agnes, ‘is that I +cannot be as near papa as I could wish--Uriah Heep being so much between +us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say, +as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is practising +against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the +end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any +evil or misfortune in the world.’ + +A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died away, +even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been +to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were +drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt’s +circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had not +told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm +tremble in mine. + +We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference +of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract +question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex); +and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp, +had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of +my brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both of these +expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her +intention of bringing before a ‘British Judy’--meaning, it was supposed, +the bulwark of our national liberties. + +My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out +showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards--and being, besides, +greatly pleased to see Agnes--rather plumed herself on the affair than +otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes laid +her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I could not but think, +looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it +seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young and +inexperienced, my aunt confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in +simple love and truth. + +We began to talk about my aunt’s losses, and I told them what I had +tried to do that morning. + +‘Which was injudicious, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘but well meant. You are +a generous boy--I suppose I must say, young man, now--and I am proud of +you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the case +of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands.’ + +I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt. +My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes. + +‘Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, who had always kept her money matters +to herself. ‘--I don’t mean your sister, Trot, my dear, but myself--had +a certain property. It don’t matter how much; enough to live on. More; +for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her property +for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, laid +it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very good +interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she +was a man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new +investment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, +who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to +be--I am alluding to your father, Agnes--and she took it into her head +to lay it out for herself. So she took her pigs,’ said my aunt, ‘to a +foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First, she +lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving way--fishing up +treasure, or some such Tom Tiddler nonsense,’ explained my aunt, rubbing +her nose; ‘and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all, +to set the thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I +don’t know what the Bank shares were worth for a little while,’ said my +aunt; ‘cent per cent was the lowest of it, I believe; but the Bank was +at the other end of the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know; +anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence; +and Betsey’s sixpences were all there, and there’s an end of them. Least +said, soonest mended!’ + +My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a +kind of triumph on Agnes, whose colour was gradually returning. + +‘Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?’ said Agnes. + +‘I hope it’s enough, child,’ said my aunt. ‘If there had been more +money to lose, it wouldn’t have been all, I dare say. Betsey would have +contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, I have +little doubt. But there was no more money, and there’s no more story.’ + +Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her colour still came +and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew why. I thought +she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to +blame for what had happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed. + +‘Is that all?’ repeated my aunt. ‘Why, yes, that’s all, except, “And she +lived happy ever afterwards.” Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one +of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in +some things, though I can’t compliment you always’; and here my aunt +shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. ‘What’s to be +done? Here’s the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce +say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put it down at +that. Well!--That’s all we’ve got,’ said my aunt; with whom it was an +idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she +appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while. + +‘Then,’ said my aunt, after a rest, ‘there’s Dick. He’s good for a +hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I would +sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who appreciates +him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can Trot and +I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?’ + +‘I say, aunt,’ I interposed, ‘that I must do something!’ + +‘Go for a soldier, do you mean?’ returned my aunt, alarmed; ‘or go to +sea? I won’t hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We’re not going to +have any knockings on the head in THIS family, if you please, sir.’ + +I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode +of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held +for any long term? + +‘You come to the point, my dear,’ said my aunt. ‘They are not to be got +rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that +I don’t believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six would +die--of course--of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I +have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we can +do, is, to live the term out here, and get a bedroom hard by.’ + +I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain, +from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. Crupp; +but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring that, on the +first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs. +Crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life. + +‘I have been thinking, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, diffidently, ‘that if you +had time--’ + +‘I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after four +or five o’clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way and +another,’ said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the +hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon +the Norwood Road, ‘I have abundance of time.’ + +‘I know you would not mind,’ said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking in +a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I hear it +now, ‘the duties of a secretary.’ + +‘Mind, my dear Agnes?’ + +‘Because,’ continued Agnes, ‘Doctor Strong has acted on his intention of +retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked papa, I know, +if he could recommend him one. Don’t you think he would rather have his +favourite old pupil near him, than anybody else?’ + +‘Dear Agnes!’ said I. ‘What should I do without you! You are always my +good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any other light.’ + +Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good Angel (meaning +Dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been +used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the +evening--and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very +well. I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own +bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master; in short, +acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat down and wrote a letter to the +Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at +ten in the forenoon. This I addressed to Highgate--for in that place, so +memorable to me, he lived--and went and posted, myself, without losing a +minute. + +Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence +seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my aunt’s +birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlour window of +the cottage; and my easy-chair imitating my aunt’s much easier chair in +its position at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my +aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I knew +who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; and I +should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the +old order of my school days, even if I had supposed Agnes to be miles +away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder +into which they had fallen. + +My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did +look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the +cottage), but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she +said, ‘peppered everything’. A complete revolution, in which Peggotty +bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, +in regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even +Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did +without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. + +‘I think,’ said Agnes, turning pale, ‘it’s papa. He promised me that he +would come.’ + +I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah Heep. +I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great +change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance +shocked me. + +It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed +with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome +ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or +that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I +knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost +his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman--for that he had +not--but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of +his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that +crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the +two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah’s of power and Mr. +Wickfield’s of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can +express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly +have thought it a more degrading spectacle. + +He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he +stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was +only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, ‘Papa! Here is Miss +Trotwood--and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!’ and +then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook +hands more cordially with me. In the moment’s pause I speak of, I saw +Uriah’s countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes +saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him. + +What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy +to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was +anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face +might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light +it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual +abruptness. + +‘Well, Wickfield!’ said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first +time. ‘I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing +of my money for myself, because I couldn’t trust it to you, as you were +growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together, +and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the +whole firm, in my opinion.’ + +‘If I may umbly make the remark,’ said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, ‘I +fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if +Miss Agnes was a partner.’ + +‘You’re a partner yourself, you know,’ returned my aunt, ‘and that’s +about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?’ + +In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary +curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, +replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was +the same. + +‘And you, Master--I should say, Mister Copperfield,’ pursued Uriah. ‘I +hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even +under present circumstances.’ I believed that; for he seemed to relish +them very much. ‘Present circumstances is not what your friends would +wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes the man: +it’s--I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is,’ +said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, ‘but it isn’t money!’ + +Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at +a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump +handle, that he was a little afraid of. + +‘And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,--I should +say, Mister?’ fawned Uriah. ‘Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir? +Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising +up the umble, namely, mother and self--and in developing,’ he added, as +an afterthought, ‘the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.’ + +He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable +manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all +patience. + +‘Deuce take the man!’ said my aunt, sternly, ‘what’s he about? Don’t be +galvanic, sir!’ + +‘I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,’ returned Uriah; ‘I’m aware you’re +nervous.’ + +‘Go along with you, sir!’ said my aunt, anything but appeased. ‘Don’t +presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir, +conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir! +Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I am not going to be +serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’ + +Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this +explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant +manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her +head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me +aside in a meek voice: + +‘I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an +excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure +of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master +Copperfield), and it’s only natural, I am sure, that it should be made +quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn’t much +worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in +present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep,--we should +be really glad. I may go so far?’ said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his +partner. + +‘Uriah Heep,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, ‘is active +in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know +I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite +concur in!’ + +‘Oh, what a reward it is,’ said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk +of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, ‘to be so +trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the +fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!’ + +‘Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in the same +dull voice. ‘It’s a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner.’ + +The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the +light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the +same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me. + +‘You are not going, papa?’ said Agnes, anxiously. ‘Will you not walk +back with Trotwood and me?’ + +He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that +worthy had not anticipated him. + +‘I am bespoke myself,’ said Uriah, ‘on business; otherwise I should +have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to +represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master +Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood.’ + +With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us +like a mask. + +We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour +or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former +self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never +shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in +hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he +remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with +Agnes and me again; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am +sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very +touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him. + +My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner +room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but +insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes +sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what she +gave him, and no more--like a child--and we all three sat together at a +window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay down +on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while; +and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I could see +tears glittering in her eyes. + +I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and +truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near +the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She filled my +heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her +example, so directed--I know not how, she was too modest and gentle +to advise me in many words--the wandering ardour and unsettled purpose +within me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have +forborne, I solemnly believe I may refer to her. + +And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; +listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little +fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet +more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, +if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards--! + +There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my +head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me +start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: ‘Blind! Blind! +Blind!’ + + + +CHAPTER 36. ENTHUSIASM + +I began the next day with another dive into the Roman bath, and then +started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the +shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner +of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was, +to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away +on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the +painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with +a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my woodman’s +axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty, +by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And I went on at a +mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. + +When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a +different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was +associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life. +But that did not discourage me. With the new life, came new purpose, +new intention. Great was the labour; priceless the reward. Dora was the +reward, and Dora must be won. + +I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was not +a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the +forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength. +I had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was +breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, +and let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimulated +myself into such a heat, and got so out of breath, that I felt as if I +had been earning I don’t know how much. + +In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and examined +it narrowly,--for I felt it necessary to be practical. It would do for +me and Dora admirably: with a little front garden for Jip to run about +in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings, and a capital +room upstairs for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and faster than +ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at such a rate that I was there an +hour too early; and, though I had not been, should have been obliged to +stroll about to cool myself, before I was at all presentable. + +My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of +preparation, was to find the Doctor’s house. It was not in that part of +Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side +of the little town. When I had made this discovery, I went back, in +an attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth’s, and +looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close. +The conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking, +bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on +one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that +was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and +wearing its heart out. + +I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part +of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled about +until it was ten o’clock. The church with the slender spire, that stands +on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. An +old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place; and a fine +old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it. + +When I approached the Doctor’s cottage--a pretty old place, on which +he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the +embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed--I +saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he +had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had his old +companions about him, too; for there were plenty of high trees in the +neighbourhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass, looking after +him, as if they had been written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, +and were observing him closely in consequence. + +Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that +distance, I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to +meet him when he should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he +looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking +about me at all; and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary +pleasure, and he took me by both hands. + +‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said the Doctor, ‘you are a man! How do you +do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very much you +have improved! You are quite--yes--dear me!’ + +I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too. + +‘Oh dear, yes!’ said the Doctor; ‘Annie’s quite well, and she’ll be +delighted to see you. You were always her favourite. She said so, +last night, when I showed her your letter. And--yes, to be sure--you +recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield?’ + +‘Perfectly, sir.’ + +‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘To be sure. He’s pretty well, too.’ + +‘Has he come home, sir?’ I inquired. + +‘From India?’ said the Doctor. ‘Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon couldn’t bear +the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham--you have not forgotten Mrs. +Markleham?’ + +Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short time! + +‘Mrs. Markleham,’ said the Doctor, ‘was quite vexed about him, poor +thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a little +Patent place, which agrees with him much better.’ I knew enough of Mr. +Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there +was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking +up and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned +encouragingly to mine, went on: + +‘Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. It’s +very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure; but don’t you think you +could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were with +us. You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a foundation +that any edifice may be raised upon; and is it not a pity that you +should devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as I +can offer?’ + +I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical +style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly; reminding the Doctor that +I had already a profession. + +‘Well, well,’ said the Doctor, ‘that’s true. Certainly, your having +a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a +difference. But, my good young friend, what’s seventy pounds a year?’ + +‘It doubles our income, Doctor Strong,’ said I. + +‘Dear me!’ replied the Doctor. ‘To think of that! Not that I mean to +say it’s rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I have always +contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ, a present too. +Undoubtedly,’ said the Doctor, still walking me up and down with +his hand on my shoulder. ‘I have always taken an annual present into +account.’ + +‘My dear tutor,’ said I (now, really, without any nonsense), ‘to whom I +owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge--’ + +‘No, no,’ interposed the Doctor. ‘Pardon me!’ + +‘If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and +evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do me +such a service as I cannot express.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said the Doctor, innocently. ‘To think that so little should +go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, you will? On +your word, now?’ said the Doctor,--which he had always made a very grave +appeal to the honour of us boys. + +‘On my word, sir!’ I returned, answering in our old school manner. + +‘Then be it so,’ said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and still +keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. + +‘And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,’ said I, with a little--I +hope innocent--flattery, ‘if my employment is to be on the Dictionary.’ + +The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and +exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had +penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, ‘My dear young +friend, you have hit it. It IS the Dictionary!’ + +How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as his +head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that +since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with +it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed +arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk +about in the daytime with his considering cap on. His papers were in +a little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately +proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being +accustomed to that occupation; but we should soon put right what was +amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our +work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon’s efforts more troublesome to me than +I had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous +mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies’ heads, over +the Doctor’s manuscript, that I often became involved in labyrinths of +obscurity. + +The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together +on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at +seven o’clock. We were to work two hours every morning, and two or three +hours every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to rest. On Sundays, +of course, I was to rest also, and I considered these very easy terms. + +Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the Doctor +took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in +the Doctor’s new study, dusting his books,--a freedom which he never +permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favourites. + +They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to +table together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an approaching +arrival in Mrs. Strong’s face, before I heard any sound of it. A +gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and leading his horse into the +little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, +tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the +breakfast parlour, whip in hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon; and Mr. Jack +Maldon was not at all improved by India, I thought. I was in a state +of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not cutting down +trees in the forest of difficulty; and my impression must be received +with due allowance. + +‘Mr. Jack!’ said the Doctor. ‘Copperfield!’ + +Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I believed; +and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took great +umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except +when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie. ‘Have you breakfasted +this morning, Mr. Jack?’ said the Doctor. + +‘I hardly ever take breakfast, sir,’ he replied, with his head thrown +back in an easy-chair. ‘I find it bores me.’ + +‘Is there any news today?’ inquired the Doctor. + +‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Mr. Maldon. ‘There’s an account about +the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but they are +always being hungry and discontented somewhere.’ + +The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the +subject, ‘Then there’s no news at all; and no news, they say, is good +news.’ + +‘There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder,’ observed +Mr. Maldon. ‘But somebody is always being murdered, and I didn’t read +it.’ + +A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was +not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, +as I have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very +fashionable indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success, that I +have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have +been born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more then, because +it was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, +or to strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon. + +‘I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera +tonight,’ said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. ‘It’s the last good night +there will be, this season; and there’s a singer there, whom she really +ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so +charmingly ugly,’ relapsing into languor. + +The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, +turned to her and said: + +‘You must go, Annie. You must go.’ + +‘I would rather not,’ she said to the Doctor. ‘I prefer to remain at +home. I would much rather remain at home.’ + +Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me about +Agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was not likely to +come that day; and was so much disturbed, that I wondered how even the +Doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious. + +But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and +ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be +made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her +sing all the new singer’s songs to him; and how could she do that well, +unless she went? So the Doctor persisted in making the engagement for +her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come back to dinner. This concluded, he +went to his Patent place, I suppose; but at all events went away on his +horse, looking very idle. + +I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She had +not, but had sent into London to put her cousin off; and had gone out in +the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the Doctor to go with +her; and they had walked home by the fields, the Doctor told me, the +evening being delightful. I wondered then, whether she would have gone +if Agnes had not been in town, and whether Agnes had some good influence +over her too! + +She did not look very happy, I thought; but it was a good face, or a +very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the +time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches +as we were employed. When I left, at nine o’clock, she was kneeling on +the ground at the Doctor’s feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for +him. There was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green +leaves overhanging the open window of the low room; and I thought all +the way to Doctors’ Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking at +him as he read. + +I was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine +or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so +closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt +enthusiastically that the more I tired myself, the more I was doing to +deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my altered character to +Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few days, and +I deferred all I had to tell her until then; merely informing her in +my letters (all our communications were secretly forwarded through Miss +Mills), that I had much to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on +a short allowance of bear’s grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and +lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, +as being too luxurious for my stern career. + +Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience +to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the +parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been +with me to Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship +with the Doctor, I took with me. + +I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt’s +reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked +as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and +appetite, as having nothing useful to do. In this condition, he felt +more incapable of finishing the Memorial than ever; and the harder he +worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head of King Charles the First +got into it. Seriously apprehending that his malady would increase, +unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe +that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the way of being +really useful (which would be better), I made up my mind to try +if Traddles could help us. Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full +statement of all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital +answer, expressive of his sympathy and friendship. + +We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by the +sight of the flower-pot stand and the little round table in a corner of +the small apartment. He received us cordially, and made friends with +Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having +seen him before, and we both said, ‘Very likely.’ + +The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this,--I had +heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life +by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned +newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things +together, and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I +could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the +result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, +except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, +a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and +reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; +and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the +course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would +settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few +tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to +Dora through this thicket, axe in hand. + +‘I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!’ said I. ‘I’ll begin +tomorrow.’ + +Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion as +yet of my rapturous condition. + +‘I’ll buy a book,’ said I, ‘with a good scheme of this art in it; I’ll +work at it at the Commons, where I haven’t half enough to do; I’ll take +down the speeches in our court for practice--Traddles, my dear fellow, +I’ll master it!’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, opening his eyes, ‘I had no idea you were such +a determined character, Copperfield!’ + +I don’t know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. I +passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. + +‘You see,’ said Mr. Dick, wistfully, ‘if I could exert myself, Mr. +Traddles--if I could beat a drum--or blow anything!’ + +Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an +employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have +smiled for the world, replied composedly: + +‘But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?’ +‘Excellent!’ said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary +neatness. + +‘Don’t you think,’ said Traddles, ‘you could copy writings, sir, if I +got them for you?’ + +Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. ‘Eh, Trotwood?’ + +I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. ‘Tell him about the +Memorial,’ said Mr. Dick. + +I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King +Charles the First out of Mr. Dick’s manuscripts; Mr. Dick in the +meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and +sucking his thumb. + +‘But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn up +and finished,’ said Traddles after a little consideration. ‘Mr. Dick has +nothing to do with them. Wouldn’t that make a difference, Copperfield? +At all events, wouldn’t it be well to try?’ + +This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart, +while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a +scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant +success. + +On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work +Traddles procured for him--which was to make, I forget how many copies +of a legal document about some right of way--and on another table +we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our +instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what he had +before him, without the least departure from the original; and that when +he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles the +First, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute +in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us, +afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, +and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding +this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before +his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and +postponed the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we +took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, +and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned +by the following Saturday night ten shillings and nine-pence; and never, +while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the +neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing +them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with +tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious +influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully employed; +and if there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it was +the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in +existence, and me the most wonderful young man. + +‘No starving now, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me in a +corner. ‘I’ll provide for her, Sir!’ and he flourished his ten fingers +in the air, as if they were ten banks. + +I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. ‘It really,’ +said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and giving +it to me, ‘put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head!’ + +The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of +writing a letter) was addressed to me, ‘By the kindness of T. Traddles, +Esquire, of the Inner Temple.’ It ran thus:-- + + +‘MY DEAR COPPERFIELD, + +‘You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that +something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former +occasion that I was in expectation of such an event. + +‘I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our +favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture +of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with +one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will +accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found +commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the +spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China +to Peru? + +‘In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many +vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot +disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be +for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar +of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will +accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, +and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will +confer a Boon + + ‘On + ‘One + ‘Who + ‘Is + ‘Ever yours, + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ + + +I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, +and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles +that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I +expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we went off together to +the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was +situated near the top of the Gray’s Inn Road. + +The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins, +now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in +the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a +wash-hand-stand jug, what he called ‘a Brew’ of the agreeable beverage +for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of +renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising +boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of +limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also +became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. +Micawber told us, ‘her mother renewed her youth, like the Phoenix’. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘yourself and Mr. Traddles +find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little +discomforts incidental to that position.’ + +Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family +effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no +means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching +change. + +‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘of your friendly +interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may consider +it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, and I never +will desert Mr. Micawber.’ + +Traddles, appealed to by Mrs. Micawber’s eye, feelingly acquiesced. + +‘That,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that, at least, is my view, my dear Mr. +Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took upon myself +when I repeated the irrevocable words, “I, Emma, take thee, Wilkins.” I +read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous night, and +the conclusion I derived from it was, that I never could desert Mr. +Micawber. And,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘though it is possible I may be +mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will!’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, ‘I am not conscious +that you are expected to do anything of the sort.’ + +‘I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I am +now about to cast my lot among strangers; and I am also aware that the +various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the +most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least +notice of Mr. Micawber’s communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,’ +said Mrs. Micawber, ‘but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined +never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the +communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family, +that they object to the resolution I have taken; but I should not allow +myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my +papa and mama, were they still living.’ + +I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. ‘It +may be a sacrifice,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘to immure one’s-self in a +Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me, +it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities.’ + +‘Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?’ said I. + +Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand +jug, replied: + +‘To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into +arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our +friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of--and to be--his +confidential clerk.’ + +I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. + +‘I am bound to state to you,’ he said, with an official air, ‘that the +business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have +in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. +Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form +of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual +recognition. Of my friend Heep,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘who is a man of +remarkable shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. +My friend Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a +figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from +the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of +my services; and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such +address and intelligence as I chance to possess,’ said Mr. Micawber, +boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, ‘will be +devoted to my friend Heep’s service. I have already some acquaintance +with the law--as a defendant on civil process--and I shall immediately +apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and +remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add +that I allude to Mr. justice Blackstone.’ + +These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations +made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber’s discovering that +Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with +both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under +the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them +at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying +sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his +restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the general +interests of society; and by Master Micawber’s receiving those +discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all the while, amazed by Mr. +Micawber’s disclosure, and wondering what it meant; until Mrs. Micawber +resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my attention. + +‘What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is,’ said +Mrs. Micawber, ‘that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in applying +himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power +to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. +Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile +resources, and his flow of language, must distinguish himself. Now, for +example, Mr. Traddles,’ said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, ‘a +judge, or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond +the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr. +Micawber has accepted?’ + +‘My dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber--but glancing inquisitively at +Traddles, too; ‘we have time enough before us, for the consideration of +those questions.’ + +‘Micawber,’ she returned, ‘no! Your mistake in life is, that you do not +look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your family, if +not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest +point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you.’ + +Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding +satisfaction--still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his +opinion. + +‘Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,’ said Traddles, mildly +breaking the truth to her. ‘I mean the real prosaic fact, you know--’ + +‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be as +prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance.’ + +‘--Is,’ said Traddles, ‘that this branch of the law, even if Mr. +Micawber were a regular solicitor--’ + +‘Exactly so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. [‘Wilkins, you are squinting, and +will not be able to get your eyes back.’) + +‘--Has nothing,’ pursued Traddles, ‘to do with that. Only a barrister +is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could not be a +barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for +five years.’ + +‘Do I follow you?’ said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air +of business. ‘Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the +expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge or +Chancellor?’ + +‘He would be ELIGIBLE,’ returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis on +that word. + +‘Thank you,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘That is quite sufficient. If such is +the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on these +duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘as a +female, necessarily; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Micawber +possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the +judicial mind; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where +that mind will develop itself, and take a commanding station.’ + +I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind’s +eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald +head, and said with ostentatious resignation: + +‘My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am +reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally,’ in allusion +to his baldness, ‘for that distinction. I do not,’ said Mr. Micawber, +‘regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific +purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to +educate my son for the Church; I will not deny that I should be happy, +on his account, to attain to eminence.’ + +‘For the Church?’ said I, still pondering, between whiles, on Uriah +Heep. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘He has a remarkable head-voice, and will +commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local +connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy +that may arise in the Cathedral corps.’ + +On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain +expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it +presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between +that and bed) ‘The Wood-Pecker tapping’. After many compliments on this +performance, we fell into some general conversation; and as I was too +full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to +myself, I made them known to Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how +extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt’s being in +difficulties; and how comfortable and friendly it made them. + +When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed +myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without +wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. +I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in +due form: shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. +Micawber, to commemorate that eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me +in the first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old +friend to venture on the second. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his thumbs +in each of his waistcoat pockets, ‘the companion of my youth: if I may +be allowed the expression--and my esteemed friend Traddles: if I may be +permitted to call him so--will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, +myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most +uncompromising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that +on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new +existence,’ Mr. Micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred +thousand miles, ‘I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such +friends as I see before me. But all that I have to say in this way, I +have said. Whatever station in society I may attain, through the medium +of the learned profession of which I am about to become an unworthy +member, I shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be +safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, +contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining +unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been +under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts +recoil--I allude to spectacles--and possessing myself of a cognomen, to +which I can establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on +that score is, that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the +God of Day is once more high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on +the arrival of the four o’clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot +will be on my native heath--my name, Micawber!’ + +Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and +drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with much +solemnity: + +‘One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, and +that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles +has, on two several occasions, “put his name”, if I may use a common +expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first +occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left--let me say, in short, in the +lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of +the first obligation,’ here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, +‘was, I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half, of the second, +according to my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These +sums, united, make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to +forty-one, ten, eleven and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do +me the favour to check that total?’ + +I did so and found it correct. + +‘To leave this metropolis,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘and my friend Mr. +Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this +obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have, +therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold +in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I beg +to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I.O.U. for forty-one, ten, +eleven and a half, and I am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to +know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man!’ + +With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber placed +his I.O.U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well in +every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite +the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself +hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. Mr. +Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of +this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he +lighted us downstairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides; +and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, +I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, +that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some +compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for +never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have +had the moral courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to +his credit be it written), quite as well as I did. + + + +CHAPTER 37. A LITTLE COLD WATER + + +My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than +ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis +required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea +that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself +as I possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied +my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some +idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in +becoming a graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora. + +As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, +otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But another +Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss +Mills’s; and when Mr. Mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to +me in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle window), I +was to go there to tea. + +By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr. +Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. My aunt had +obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing +the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and +protecting in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom +she engaged from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such +terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she subsided into her own +kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being +supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp’s opinion and everybody else’s, and +rather favouring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the +bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than +encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her +portly form behind doors--leaving visible, however, a wide margin of +flannel petticoat--or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt +such unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a delight in +prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her +head, at times when Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way. + +My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little +improvements in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be richer +instead of poorer. Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a +dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my +occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime as a bedstead +could. I was the object of her constant solicitude; and my poor mother +herself could not have loved me better, or studied more how to make me +happy. + +Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to +participate in these labours; and, although she still retained something +of her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so +many marks of encouragement and confidence, that they were the best +friends possible. But the time had now come (I am speaking of the +Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills’s) when it was necessary +for her to return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had +undertaken in behalf of Ham. ‘So good-bye, Barkis,’ said my aunt, ‘and +take care of yourself! I am sure I never thought I could be sorry to +lose you!’ + +I took Peggotty to the coach office and saw her off. She cried at +parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We +had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon. + +‘And now, my own dear Davy,’ said Peggotty, ‘if, while you’re a +prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you’re out of +your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do +one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good right to ask +leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl’s own old stupid me!’ + +I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that +if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to +accepting a large sum on the spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more +comfort than anything I could have done. + +‘And, my dear!’ whispered Peggotty, ‘tell the pretty little angel that +I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! And tell her that +before she marries my boy, I’ll come and make your house so beautiful +for you, if you’ll let me!’ + +I declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave Peggotty such +delight that she went away in good spirits. + +I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all day, by +a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired +to Mr. Mills’s street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall +asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no bird-cage in +the middle window. + +He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine +him for being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my own Dora hang +up the bird-cage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run +in again when she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark +injuriously at an immense butcher’s dog in the street, who could have +taken him like a pill. + +Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling +out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a +Bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I +soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys--not that I meant to +do it, but that I was so full of the subject--by asking Dora, without +the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar? + +My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was +a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or +a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and +she stared at me with the most delightful wonder. + +‘How can you ask me anything so foolish?’ pouted Dora. ‘Love a beggar!’ + +‘Dora, my own dearest!’ said I. ‘I am a beggar!’ + +‘How can you be such a silly thing,’ replied Dora, slapping my hand, ‘as +to sit there, telling such stories? I’ll make Jip bite you!’ + +Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it +was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated: + +‘Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!’ + +‘I declare I’ll make Jip bite you!’ said Dora, shaking her curls, ‘if +you are so ridiculous.’ + +But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid +her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared +and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees +before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart; +but, for some time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear! Oh +dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And where was Julia Mills! And oh, +take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! until I was almost beside +myself. + +At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora +to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually +soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying +against mine. Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I +loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how I felt it right to offer to +release her from her engagement, because now I was poor; how I never +could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no fears of +poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by +her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers +knew; how I had begun to be practical, and look into the future; how a +crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much +more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate +eloquence quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about +it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me. + +‘Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?’ said I, rapturously, for I knew +by her clinging to me that it was. + +‘Oh, yes!’ cried Dora. ‘Oh, yes, it’s all yours. Oh, don’t be dreadful!’ + +I dreadful! To Dora! + +‘Don’t talk about being poor, and working hard!’ said Dora, nestling +closer to me. ‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’ + +‘My dearest love,’ said I, ‘the crust well-earned--’ + +‘Oh, yes; but I don’t want to hear any more about crusts!’ said Dora. +‘And Jip must have a mutton-chop every day at twelve, or he’ll die.’ + +I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained to Dora +that Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity. +I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my +labour--sketching in the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my +aunt in her room upstairs. + +‘I am not dreadful now, Dora?’ said I, tenderly. + +‘Oh, no, no!’ cried Dora. ‘But I hope your aunt will keep in her own +room a good deal. And I hope she’s not a scolding old thing!’ + +If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did. +But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardour, +to find that ardour so difficult of communication to her. I made another +trial. When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip’s ears, as +he lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said: + +‘My own! May I mention something?’ + +‘Oh, please don’t be practical!’ said Dora, coaxingly. ‘Because it +frightens me so!’ + +‘Sweetheart!’ I returned; ‘there is nothing to alarm you in all this. I +want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve you, +and inspire you, Dora!’ + +‘Oh, but that’s so shocking!’ cried Dora. + +‘My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us to +bear much worse things.’ ‘But I haven’t got any strength at all,’ +said Dora, shaking her curls. ‘Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be +agreeable!’ + +It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for +that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing +form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be +performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade +me--rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience--and she charmed me out +of my graver character for I don’t know how long. + +‘But, Dora, my beloved!’ said I, at last resuming it; ‘I was going to +mention something.’ + +The judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her, +to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying +me not to be dreadful any more. + +‘Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!’ I assured her. ‘But, Dora, my +love, if you will sometimes think,--not despondingly, you know; far from +that!--but if you will sometimes think--just to encourage yourself--that +you are engaged to a poor man--’ + +‘Don’t, don’t! Pray don’t!’ cried Dora. ‘It’s so very dreadful!’ + +‘My soul, not at all!’ said I, cheerfully. ‘If you will sometimes think +of that, and look about now and then at your papa’s housekeeping, and +endeavour to acquire a little habit--of accounts, for instance--’ + +Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half a +sob and half a scream. + +‘--It would be so useful to us afterwards,’ I went on. ‘And if you would +promise me to read a little--a little Cookery Book that I would send +you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in life, my +Dora,’ said I, warming with the subject, ‘is stony and rugged now, and +it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be +brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!’ + +I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most +enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had +said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where +was Julia Mills! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! +So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the +drawing-room. + +I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. +I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a +remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. +I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills’s work-box for a +smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case +instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, +who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could +be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills +came into the room. + +‘Who has done this?’ exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. + +I replied, ‘I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the destroyer!’--or +words to that effect--and hid my face from the light, in the sofa +cushion. + +At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging +on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for +my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I +was ‘a poor labourer’; and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked +me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss +Mills’s neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. + +Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained +from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and +gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer--from my manner of +stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, +and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a +wheelbarrow--and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite +composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her +eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss +Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to +vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy. + +I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very +unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general +principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of +cold splendour, and that where love was, all was. + +I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know +it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had +experienced yet? But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that +it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that +I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine +gender. + +I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there +was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious +to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery +Book? + +Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied: + +‘Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial +supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with +you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate +to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a +thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it +could be done, it might be well, but--’ And Miss Mills shook her head. + +I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills to +ask her, whether, for Dora’s sake, if she had any opportunity of luring +her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail +herself of it? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I +further asked her if she would take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if +she ever could insinuate it upon Dora’s acceptance, without frightening +her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this +trust, too; but was not sanguine. + +And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really +doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And +she loved me so much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made +Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold +that nose of his against the hot teapot for punishment because he +wouldn’t), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had got into a Fairy’s +bower, when I thought of having frightened her, and made her cry. + +After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French +songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off +dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than +before. + +We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while +before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some allusion +to tomorrow morning, I unluckily let out that, being obliged to exert +myself now, I got up at five o’clock. Whether Dora had any idea that +I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say; but it made a great +impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more. + +It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, in +her pretty coaxing way--as if I were a doll, I used to think: + +‘Now don’t get up at five o’clock, you naughty boy. It’s so +nonsensical!’ + +‘My love,’ said I, ‘I have work to do.’ + +‘But don’t do it!’ returned Dora. ‘Why should you?’ + +It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise +than lightly and playfully, that we must work to live. + +‘Oh! How ridiculous!’ cried Dora. + +‘How shall we live without, Dora?’ said I. + +‘How? Any how!’ said Dora. + +She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such +a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would +hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune. + +Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, +and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily +keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit +sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened +Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case +through the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was +turning quite grey. + + + +CHAPTER 38. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP + + +I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary +Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, +and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance +I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and +mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged +into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the +confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which +in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position +something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were +played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from +marks like flies’ legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong +place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in +my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, +and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, +there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary +characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who +insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, +meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood for +disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found +that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I +forgot them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments +of the system; in short, it was almost heart-breaking. + +It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the stay +and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was +a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them +down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months +I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers +in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off +from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the +paper as if it were in a fit! + +This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and should +never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who suggested +that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional +stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, +I accepted the proposal; and night after night, almost every night, for +a long time, we had a sort of Private Parliament in Buckingham Street, +after I came home from the Doctor’s. + +I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and Mr. +Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might +be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield’s Speakers, or a +volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives +against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep +the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as +Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount +Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent +heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy +and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little +distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my +might and main. The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not +to be exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of +policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to +every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable +Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption +or two, as ‘Hear!’ or ‘No!’ or ‘Oh!’ when the text seemed to require it: +which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country gentleman) +to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with +such things in the course of his Parliamentary career, and was made +responsible for such awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in +his mind sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really +had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the British +constitution, and the ruin of the country. + +Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to +midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good +practice was, that by and by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty +well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea +what my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had got them, +I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions of an immense +collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red +and green bottles in the chemists’ shops! + +There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It +was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began +laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a +snail’s pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on +all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive +characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at +the office; at the Doctor’s too: and I really did work, as the common +expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when I went to the Commons as +usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and +talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining of pains in +his head--he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe +he over-starched himself--I was at first alarmed by the idea that he was +not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness. + +Instead of returning my ‘Good morning’ with his usual affability, he +looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me +to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had +a door opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St. +Paul’s Churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a +warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into +buds. When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the +narrowness of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty +air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he +had found out about my darling Dora. + +If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could +hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him +into an upstairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by +a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers +sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and +flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, +are now obsolete. + +Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. +Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the +hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. + +‘Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, what you +have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone.’ + +I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my +childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy +with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it--opening her mouth a little +at the same time--and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with +expressions of devoted affection. + +‘I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow. + +I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said, +‘It is, sir!’ + +‘If I am not mistaken,’ said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought a +parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit +of blue ribbon, ‘those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield?’ + +I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at +such phrases at the top, as ‘My ever dearest and own Dora,’ ‘My best +beloved angel,’ ‘My blessed one for ever,’ and the like, blushed deeply, +and inclined my head. + +‘No, thank you!’ said Mr. Spenlow, coldly, as I mechanically offered +them back to him. ‘I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so +good as to proceed!’ + +That gentle creature, after a moment’s thoughtful survey of the carpet, +delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. + +‘I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in +reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow +and David Copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon +me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such--’ + +‘You will oblige me, ma’am,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, ‘by confining +yourself to facts.’ + +Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting +against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed: + +‘Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as I +can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. +I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, +in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently +endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but +without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss +Spenlow’s father’; looking severely at him--‘knowing how little +disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the +conscientious discharge of duty.’ + +Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss +Murdstone’s manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory +little wave of his hand. + +‘On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my +brother’s marriage,’ pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, ‘and +on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, +I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for +suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely.’ + +Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon’s eye! + +‘Still,’ resumed Miss Murdstone, ‘I found no proof until last night. +It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her +friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father’s +full concurrence,’ another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, ‘it was not +for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural +depravity of the human heart, at least I may--I must--be permitted, so +far to refer to misplaced confidence.’ + +Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. + +‘Last evening after tea,’ pursued Miss Murdstone, ‘I observed the little +dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying +something. I said to Miss Spenlow, “Dora, what is that the dog has in +his mouth? It’s paper.” Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her +frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said, +“Dora, my love, you must permit me.”’ + +Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! + +‘Miss Spenlow endeavoured,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘to bribe me with +kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery--that, of course, +I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching +him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even +when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my +endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, +he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself +to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I +obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with +having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from +her the packet which is now in David Copperfield’s hand.’ + +Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her +mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. + +‘You have heard Miss Murdstone,’ said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. ‘I beg +to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?’ + +The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my +heart, sobbing and crying all night--of her being alone, frightened, +and wretched, then--of her having so piteously begged and prayed that +stony-hearted woman to forgive her--of her having vainly offered her +those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets--of her being in such grievous +distress, and all for me--very much impaired the little dignity I had +been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute +or so, though I did my best to disguise it. + +‘There is nothing I can say, sir,’ I returned, ‘except that all the +blame is mine. Dora--’ + +‘Miss Spenlow, if you please,’ said her father, majestically. + +‘--was induced and persuaded by me,’ I went on, swallowing that colder +designation, ‘to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it.’ + +‘You are very much to blame, sir,’ said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro +upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body +instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and +spine. ‘You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield. +When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, +twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence. +If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, Mr. +Copperfield.’ + +‘I feel it, sir, I assure you,’ I returned. ‘But I never thought so, +before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so, +before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent--’ + +‘Pooh! nonsense!’ said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. ‘Pray don’t tell me to my +face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!’ + +‘Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?’ I returned, with all +humility. + +‘Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?’ said Mr. Spenlow, stopping +short upon the hearth-rug. ‘Have you considered your years, and my +daughter’s years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to +undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and +myself? Have you considered my daughter’s station in life, the projects +I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I +may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. +Copperfield?’ + +‘Very little, sir, I am afraid;’ I answered, speaking to him as +respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; ‘but pray believe me, I have +considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were +already engaged--’ + +‘I BEG,’ said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him, +as he energetically struck one hand upon the other--I could not help +noticing that even in my despair; ‘that YOU Will NOT talk to me of +engagements, Mr. Copperfield!’ + +The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one +short syllable. + +‘When I explained my altered position to you, sir,’ I began again, +substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to +him, ‘this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss +Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have +strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am +sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time--any length of +time? We are both so young, sir,--’ + +‘You are right,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great +many times, and frowning very much, ‘you are both very young. It’s all +nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters, +and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow’s letters to throw in +the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be +restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention +of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don’t want sense; and this is +the sensible course.’ + +No. I couldn’t think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there +was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly +considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I +didn’t exactly say so; I softened it down as much as I could; but I +implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don’t think I made myself very +ridiculous, but I know I was resolute. + +‘Very well, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I must try my influence +with my daughter.’ + +Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which +was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion +that he should have done this at first. + +‘I must try,’ said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, ‘my +influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. +Copperfield?’ For I had laid them on the table. + +Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn’t +possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. + +‘Nor from me?’ said Mr. Spenlow. + +No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him. + +‘Very well!’ said Mr. Spenlow. + +A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length +I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that +perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, +with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he +could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a +decidedly pious air: + +‘You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether +destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and +dearest relative?’ + +I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into +which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not +induce him to think me mercenary too? + +‘I don’t allude to the matter in that light,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘It +would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr. +Copperfield--I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by +all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, +you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?’ + +I certainly supposed so. + +‘And you can hardly think,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘having experience of what +we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable +and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary +arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest +revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are +made?’ + +I inclined my head in acquiescence. + +‘I should not allow,’ said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of +pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon +his toes and heels alternately, ‘my suitable provision for my child to +be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere +folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than +any feather. But I might--I might--if this silly business were not +completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment +to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the +consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. +Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to +open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of +life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long +since composed.’ + +There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which +quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his +affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he +was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw +tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this. + +But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he +told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how +could I say I wouldn’t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no +amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? + +‘In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with +any knowledge of life,’ said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both +hands. ‘Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.’ + +I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to +make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss +Murdstone’s heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--I say her eyebrows +rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her +face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that +hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have +fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the +dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with +oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of +spectacles. + +When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of +them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking +of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the +bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment +about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to +Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of +my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled +me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit +upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare +her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him +generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her +father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I +sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, +I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read +it. + +He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the +afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at +all uneasy about his daughter’s happiness. He had assured her, he said, +that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He +believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might +spare myself any solicitude on her account. + +‘You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. +Copperfield,’ he observed, ‘for me to send my daughter abroad again, +for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser +than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,’ for I had alluded to +her in the letter, ‘I respect that lady’s vigilance, and feel obliged to +her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. +Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, +Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.’ + +All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this +sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget +Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see +me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills’s sanction +and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen +where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on +its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed. +I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn’t help feeling, while +I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was +something in the style of Mr. Micawber. + +However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills’s street, and +walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills’s +maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen +reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in +at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss +Mills’s love of the romantic and mysterious. + +In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, +to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had +received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, +and saying. ‘Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!’ But Miss Mills, +mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had +not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara. + +Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I +could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she +had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, +and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between +Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must +suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No +matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at +last, and then Love was avenged. + +This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn’t encourage fallacious +hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and +told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We +resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, +and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my +devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss +Mills enjoyed herself completely. + +I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could +say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out +despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the Commons. + +I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the +ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen +stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my +pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly +in. + +The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for +the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody +else’s stool, and had not hung up his hat. + +‘This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield,’ said he, as I entered. + +‘What is?’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘Don’t you know?’ cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round +me. + +‘No!’ said I, looking from face to face. + +‘Mr. Spenlow,’ said Tiffey. + +‘What about him!’ + +‘Dead!’ I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of +the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my +neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took +any time. + +‘Dead?’ said I. + +‘He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself,’ +said Tiffey, ‘having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he +sometimes did, you know--’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the +stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage.’ + +‘Had they run away?’ + +‘They were not hot,’ said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; ‘no hotter, I +understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. The +reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house +was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They +found him a mile off.’ + +‘More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey,’ interposed a junior. + +‘Was it? I believe you are right,’ said Tiffey,--‘more than a mile +off--not far from the church--lying partly on the roadside, and partly +on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, +feeling ill before the fit came on--or even whether he was quite dead +then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible--no one appears +to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance +was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless.’ + +I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this +intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and +happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance--the +appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair +and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was +like a ghost--the indefinable impossibility of separating him from the +place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in--the +lazy hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish +with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and +out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject--this is easily +intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is, how, in the innermost +recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even of Death. How +I felt as if its might would push me from my ground in Dora’s thoughts. +How I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of her grief. +How it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, or being +consoled by others. How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out +everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that +unseasonable time of all times. + +In the trouble of this state of mind--not exclusively my own, I hope, +but known to others--I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from +one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss +Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. +I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, most sincerely, and shed +tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a +state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and +consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or +reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my +name brought before her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice +to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it. + +My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to +her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had +asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was +always crying, ‘Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!’ But she had not said No, +and that I made the most of. + +Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the +office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for +some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me +in. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, are +about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such repositories +of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and +searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as +well for you to assist us, if you please.’ + +I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances +in which my Dora would be placed--as, in whose guardianship, and so +forth--and this was something towards it. We began the search at once; +Mr. Jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the +papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers +(which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we +came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of +that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low. + +We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and +quietly, when Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to +his late partner as his late partner had applied to him: + +‘Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know +what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.’ + +‘Oh, I know he had!’ said I. + +They both stopped and looked at me. ‘On the very day when I last saw +him,’ said I, ‘he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long +since settled.’ + +Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord. + +‘That looks unpromising,’ said Tiffey. + +‘Very unpromising,’ said Mr. Jorkins. + +‘Surely you don’t doubt--’ I began. + +‘My good Mr. Copperfield!’ said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and +shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: ‘if you had been in the +Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on +which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted.’ + +‘Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!’ I replied persistently. + +‘I should call that almost final,’ observed Tiffey. ‘My opinion is--no +will.’ + +It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was +no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his +papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or +memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely +less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered +state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or +what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely +that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects +himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on +all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, +he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very +large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been +great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There +was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told me, +little thinking how interested I was in the story, that, paying all the +just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of outstanding bad +and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn’t give a thousand pounds +for all the assets remaining. + +This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures +all the time; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon +myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted +little Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but ‘Oh, poor papa! +Oh, dear papa!’ Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, +maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held +any other than chance communication with their brother for many years. +Not that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that +having been, on the occasion of Dora’s christening, invited to tea, when +they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they +had expressed their opinion in writing, that it was ‘better for the +happiness of all parties’ that they should stay away. Since which they +had gone their road, and their brother had gone his. + +These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to +take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, +exclaimed, ‘O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to +Putney!’ So they went, very soon after the funeral. + +How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don’t know; but I +contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood +pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of +friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the +Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. +How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample--! + +‘Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called attention to +J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened, +opened floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the +dewdrops of the heart? J. M.) + +‘Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not remark +this in moon likewise? J. M.) D., J. M. and J. took airing in carriage. +J. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned +smile to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain of +life composed! J. M.) + +‘Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial melody, +“Evening Bells”. Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpressibly +affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses +respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to +Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. M.) + +‘Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask +revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same, +cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. “Oh, dear, +dear Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child!” Soothed +and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again +overcome. “Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!” + Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public-house. +(Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. +Alas! J. M.) + +‘Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, “for +lady’s boots left out to heel”. Cook replies, “No such orders.” Man +argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On +Cook’s return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing. +D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be identified by +broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in +every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed +reference to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards +evening, strange boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no +balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain +further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes Cook +to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of D. +who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy +change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously, “Oh, +don’t, don’t, don’t! It is so wicked to think of anything but poor +papa!”--embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confine +himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. M.)’ + +Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. +To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before--to trace the +initial letter of Dora’s name through her sympathetic pages--to be made +more and more miserable by her--were my only comforts. I felt as if I +had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving +only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter +had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which +nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so +many people over so much, would enable me to enter! + + + +CHAPTER 39. WICKFIELD AND HEEP + + +My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my +prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go +to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was +let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer +term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, +where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, +whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of +mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she +decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I +believe, as because she happened not to like him. + +Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather +willingly into my aunt’s pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a +few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative +to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that +relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear +that,--I made up my mind to go. + +As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my +duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very +good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down +to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr. +Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow’s time; and although it had been quickened +by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made, +still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, +without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active +manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his +reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose +reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned +over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business +go, I regretted my aunt’s thousand pounds more than ever. + +But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and +outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves, +dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who +lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there +were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any +terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on +and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licences and +small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best; +and the competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and +inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, +with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, +and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice +them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; +which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was +known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal +opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of +a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place; +and the Commons was even scandalized by our principal inveigler (who +had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery +line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these +scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in +black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, +representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of +that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) +to his employer’s office. Many captives were brought to me in this way. +As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a +shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself +to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the +strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height +of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush +out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The +system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I +was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced +out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word ‘Marriage-licence’ +in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in +his arms and lifting me into a proctor’s. From this digression, let me +proceed to Dover. + +I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was +enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant +inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having +settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one +night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now +winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, +brightened up my hopes a little. + +Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober +pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old +signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It +appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered +the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I +was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was +inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where +she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and +rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence +would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues, +long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims +who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of +centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, +the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on +everything--I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, +softening spirit. + +Arrived at Mr. Wickfield’s house, I found, in the little lower room on +the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, +Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a +legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small +office. + +Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. +He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I +declined. + +‘I know the house of old, you recollect,’ said I, ‘and will find my way +upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?’ + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘To a man possessed of the higher +imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of +detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,’ +said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, ‘the mind is +not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a +great pursuit. A great pursuit!’ + +He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep’s old house; +and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, +under her own roof. + +‘It is humble,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘--to quote a favourite expression +of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious +domiciliary accommodation.’ + +I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his +friend Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were +close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: + +‘My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary +embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. +That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the +drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly +due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded +to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner +calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his +heart.’ + +‘I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,’ +I observed. + +‘Pardon me!’ said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, ‘I speak of +my friend Heep as I have experience.’ + +‘I am glad your experience is so favourable,’ I returned. + +‘You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber; and +hummed a tune. + +‘Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?’ I asked, to change the subject. + +‘Not much,’ said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. ‘Mr. Wickfield is, I dare +say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is +obsolete.’ + +‘I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,’ said I. + +‘My dear Copperfield!’ returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy +evolutions on his stool, ‘allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in +a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The +discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the +partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity +of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions +now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting +that in our friendly intercourse--which I trust will never be +disturbed!--we draw a line. On one side of this line,’ said Mr. +Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, ‘is the +whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on +the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs +Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I +trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this +proposition to his cooler judgement?’ + +Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on +him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be +offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands +with me. + +‘I am charmed, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘let me assure you, with +Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable +attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,’ said Mr. Micawber, +indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, ‘I do +Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!’ ‘I am glad of that, at least,’ said I. + +‘If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that +agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D. +was your favourite letter,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I should unquestionably +have supposed that A. had been so.’ + +We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us +occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done +before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, +by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly +what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had +this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he +uttered those words. + +I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best +remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his +pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing +order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between +him and me, since he had come into his new functions, which prevented +our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the +character of our intercourse. + +There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented +tokens of Mrs. Heep’s whereabouts. I looked into the room still +belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty +old-fashioned desk she had, writing. + +My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause +of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that +sweet regard and welcome! + +‘Ah, Agnes!’ said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; ‘I +have missed you so much, lately!’ + +‘Indeed?’ she replied. ‘Again! And so soon?’ + +I shook my head. + +‘I don’t know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that +I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in +the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and +support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it.’ + +‘And what is it?’ said Agnes, cheerfully. + +‘I don’t know what to call it,’ I replied. ‘I think I am earnest and +persevering?’ + +‘I am sure of it,’ said Agnes. + +‘And patient, Agnes?’ I inquired, with a little hesitation. + +‘Yes,’ returned Agnes, laughing. ‘Pretty well.’ + +‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady +and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must +want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind?’ + +‘Call it so, if you will,’ said Agnes. + +‘Well!’ I returned. ‘See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I +have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come +here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that +distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an +influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how +much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?’ + +Her head was bent down, looking at the fire. + +‘It’s the old story,’ said I. ‘Don’t laugh, when I say it was always +the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were +nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from +my adopted sister--’ + +Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which +I kissed. + +‘Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the +beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of +difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), +I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired +traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!’ + +I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice +failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I +write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were +within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been +so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had +perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing +of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest +and peace of having Agnes near me. + +In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender +voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house +that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this +weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last +meeting. + +‘And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,’ said I, when I had made +an end of my confidence. ‘Now, my reliance is on you.’ + +‘But it must not be on me, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, with a pleasant +smile. ‘It must be on someone else.’ + +‘On Dora?’ said I. + +‘Assuredly.’ + +‘Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,’ said I, a little embarrassed, ‘that +Dora is rather difficult to--I would not, for the world, say, to rely +upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth--but rather difficult +to--I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid +little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before +her father’s death, when I thought it right to mention to her--but I’ll +tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.’ + +Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the +cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it. + +‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she remonstrated, with a smile. ‘Just your old headlong +way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world, +without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. +Poor Dora!’ + +I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, +as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her +admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by +her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little +heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, +caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, +and loving me with all her childish innocence. + +I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two +together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each +adorning the other so much! + +‘What ought I to do then, Agnes?’ I inquired, after looking at the fire +a little while. ‘What would it be right to do?’ + +‘I think,’ said Agnes, ‘that the honourable course to take, would be to +write to those two ladies. Don’t you think that any secret course is an +unworthy one?’ + +‘Yes. If YOU think so,’ said I. + +‘I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,’ replied Agnes, with +a modest hesitation, ‘but I certainly feel--in short, I feel that your +being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself.’ + +‘Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am +afraid,’ said I. + +‘Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,’ she returned; ‘and +therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly +and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask +their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that +you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be +well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might +impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request, +without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should +think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement,’ said Agnes, +gently, ‘or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and +perseverance--and to Dora.’ + +‘But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her,’ +said I. ‘And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!’ + +‘Is that likely?’ inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in +her face. + +‘God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,’ said I. ‘It might +be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd +characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that +way!’ + +‘I don’t think, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes +to mine, ‘I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to +consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.’ + +I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though +with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted +the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for +which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went +downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep. + +I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out +in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity +of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and +pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a +pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. +Wickfield’s room, which was the shadow of its former self--having been +divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new +partner--and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his +chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings. + +‘You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?’ said Mr. +Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval. + +‘Is there room for me?’ said I. + +‘I am sure, Master Copperfield--I should say Mister, but the other +comes so natural,’ said Uriah,--‘I would turn out of your old room with +pleasure, if it would be agreeable.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Why should you be inconvenienced? There’s +another room. There’s another room.’ ‘Oh, but you know,’ returned Uriah, +with a grin, ‘I should really be delighted!’ + +To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at +all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my +leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again. + +I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had +asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in +that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for +her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or +dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies +of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I +made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation. + +‘I’m umbly thankful to you, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgement of +my inquiries concerning her health, ‘but I’m only pretty well. I haven’t +much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I +couldn’t expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, +sir?’ + +I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no +change in him. + +‘Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘There I must umbly +beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a thinness in him?’ + +‘Not more than usual,’ I replied. + +‘Don’t you though!’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘But you don’t take notice of him +with a mother’s eye!’ + +His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as +it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her +son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes. + +‘Don’t YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?’ inquired +Mrs. Heep. + +‘No,’ said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. +‘You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.’ + +Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. + +She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the +day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat +there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass +might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat +at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat +Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my +eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam +encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious +presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming +back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the +knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked +like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of +knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking +enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but +getting ready for a cast of her net by and by. + +At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After +dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I +were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly +bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching +again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the +piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury +(who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked +round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the +music. But she hardly ever spoke--I question if she ever did--without +making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty +assigned to her. + +This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two +great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their +ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained +downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. +Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day. + +I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could +barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but +Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably +remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out +by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified +in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in +London; for that began to trouble me again, very much. + +I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the +Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through +the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty +great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up. + +‘Well?’ said I. + +‘How fast you walk!’ said he. ‘My legs are pretty long, but you’ve given +‘em quite a job.’ + +‘Where are you going?’ said I. + +‘I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you’ll allow me the +pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.’ Saying this, with a jerk +of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he +fell into step beside me. + +‘Uriah!’ said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence. + +‘Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah. + +‘To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came Out +to walk alone, because I have had so much company.’ + +He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, ‘You mean +mother.’ + +‘Why yes, I do,’ said I. + +‘Ah! But you know we’re so very umble,’ he returned. ‘And having such a +knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we’re not +pushed to the wall by them as isn’t umble. All stratagems are fair in +love, sir.’ + +Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them +softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I +thought, as anything human could look. + +‘You see,’ he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, +and shaking his head at me, ‘you’re quite a dangerous rival, Master +Copperfield. You always was, you know.’ + +‘Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, +because of me?’ said I. + +‘Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,’ he replied. + +‘Put my meaning into any words you like,’ said I. ‘You know what it is, +Uriah, as well as I do.’ + +‘Oh no! You must put it into words,’ he said. ‘Oh, really! I couldn’t +myself.’ + +‘Do you suppose,’ said I, constraining myself to be very temperate +and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, ‘that I regard Miss Wickfield +otherwise than as a very dear sister?’ + +‘Well, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, ‘you perceive I am not bound +to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you +may!’ + +Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless +eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw. + +‘Come then!’ said I. ‘For the sake of Miss Wickfield--’ + +‘My Agnes!’ he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. +‘Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield!’ + +‘For the sake of Agnes Wickfield--Heaven bless her!’ + +‘Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!’ he interposed. + +‘I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon +have thought of telling to--Jack Ketch.’ + +‘To who, sir?’ said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear +with his hand. + +‘To the hangman,’ I returned. ‘The most unlikely person I could think +of,’--though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural +sequence. ‘I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents +you.’ + +‘Upon your soul?’ said Uriah. + +I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he +required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. + +‘Oh, Master Copperfield!’ he said. ‘If you had only had the +condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of +my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before +your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I’m +sure I’ll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you’ll +excuse the precautions of affection, won’t you? What a pity, Master +Copperfield, that you didn’t condescend to return my confidence! I’m +sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to +me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I +have liked you!’ + +All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, +while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was +quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured +great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with +him. + +‘Shall we turn?’ said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about towards +the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant +windows. + +‘Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,’ said I, breaking +a pretty long silence, ‘that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far +above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon +herself!’ + +‘Peaceful! Ain’t she!’ said Uriah. ‘Very! Now confess, Master +Copperfield, that you haven’t liked me quite as I have liked you. All +along you’ve thought me too umble now, I shouldn’t wonder?’ + +‘I am not fond of professions of humility,’ I returned, ‘or professions +of anything else.’ ‘There now!’ said Uriah, looking flabby and +lead-coloured in the moonlight. ‘Didn’t I know it! But how little +you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master +Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school +for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of +charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness--not +much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to +this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and +to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves +before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the +monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by +being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being +such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. “Be +umble, Uriah,” says father to me, “and you’ll get on. It was what was +always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best. +Be umble,” says father, “and you’ll do!” And really it ain’t done bad!’ + +It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable +cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I +had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. + +‘When I was quite a young boy,’ said Uriah, ‘I got to know what +umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I +stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, “Hold hard!” When +you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. “People like to be above +you,” says father, “keep yourself down.” I am very umble to the present +moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little power!’ + +And he said all this--I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight--that +I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his +power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I +fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, +and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this +long, suppression. + +His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, +that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have +another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was +determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying +very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the +communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this +retrospect, I don’t know; but they were raised by some influence. He +talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off +duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was not +growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I +would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down. + +When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more +adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was +the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the +temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition. + +I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to +drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went +out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should +follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick +for me. + +‘We seldom see our present visitor, sir,’ he said, addressing Mr. +Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, +‘and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two +of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and +appiness!’ + +I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across +to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the +broken gentleman, his partner. + +‘Come, fellow-partner,’ said Uriah, ‘if I may take the liberty,--now, +suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!’ + +I pass over Mr. Wickfield’s proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick, +his proposing Doctors’ Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking +everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual +effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in +Uriah’s deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest +exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before +me. It made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing +it. + +‘Come, fellow-partner!’ said Uriah, at last, ‘I’ll give you another one, +and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest of +her sex.’ + +Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look +at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink +back in his elbow-chair. + +‘I’m an umble individual to give you her elth,’ proceeded Uriah, ‘but I +admire--adore her.’ + +No physical pain that her father’s grey head could have borne, I think, +could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw +compressed now within both his hands. + +‘Agnes,’ said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the +nature of his action was, ‘Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the +divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is +a proud distinction, but to be her usband--’ + +Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her +father rose up from the table! ‘What’s the matter?’ said Uriah, turning +of a deadly colour. ‘You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I +hope? If I say I’ve an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as +good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any +other man!’ + +I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I +could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself +a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his +head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not +answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving +for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted--a frightful +spectacle. + +I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not +to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to +think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I +had grown up together, how I honoured her and loved her, how she was his +pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even +reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of +such a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may +have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look +at me--strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length +he said, ‘I know, Trotwood! My darling child and you--I know! But look +at him!’ + +He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much +out in his calculations, and taken by surprise. + +‘Look at my torturer,’ he replied. ‘Before him I have step by step +abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.’ + +‘I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and +quiet, and your house and home too,’ said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, +defeated air of compromise. ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I +have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I +suppose? There’s no harm done.’ + +‘I looked for single motives in everyone,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘and I was +satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he +is--oh, see what he is!’ + +‘You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,’ cried Uriah, +with his long forefinger pointing towards me. ‘He’ll say something +presently--mind you!--he’ll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you’ll +be sorry to have heard!’ + +‘I’ll say anything!’ cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. ‘Why +should I not be in all the world’s power if I am in yours?’ + +‘Mind! I tell you!’ said Uriah, continuing to warn me. ‘If you don’t +stop his mouth, you’re not his friend! Why shouldn’t you be in all the +world’s power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and +me know what we know, don’t we? Let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to +rouse ‘em? I don’t. Can’t you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you, +if I’ve gone too far, I’m sorry. What would you have, sir?’ + +‘Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!’ exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands. +‘What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was +on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed +since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and +indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother +turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I +have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I +dearly love, I know--you know! I thought it possible that I could truly +love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it +possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the +world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the +lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid +coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my +love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see +the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!’ + +He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he +had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner. + +‘I don’t know all I have done, in my fatuity,’ said Mr. Wickfield, +putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. ‘He knows +best,’ meaning Uriah Heep, ‘for he has always been at my elbow, +whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You +find him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a +little time ago. What need have I to say more!’ + +‘You haven’t need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at +all,’ observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. ‘You wouldn’t have +took it up so, if it hadn’t been for the wine. You’ll think better of +it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of +it? I haven’t stood by it!’ + +The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in +her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, ‘Papa, you are +not well. Come with me!’ + +He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy +shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet +I saw how much she knew of what had passed. + +‘I didn’t expect he’d cut up so rough, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. +‘But it’s nothing. I’ll be friends with him tomorrow. It’s for his good. +I’m umbly anxious for his good.’ + +I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes +had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late +at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike +twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes +touched me. + +‘You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye, +now!’ + +She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! + +‘Heaven bless you!’ she said, giving me her hand. + +‘Dearest Agnes!’ I returned, ‘I see you ask me not to speak of +tonight--but is there nothing to be done?’ + +‘There is God to trust in!’ she replied. + +‘Can I do nothing--I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?’ + +‘And make mine so much lighter,’ she replied. ‘Dear Trotwood, no!’ + +‘Dear Agnes,’ I said, ‘it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all +in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to +doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I +owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, +Agnes?’ + +More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands +from me, and moved a step back. + +‘Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! +Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as +yours!’ + +Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its +momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, +long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely +smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--I need have +none for her--and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone! + +It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door. +The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as +I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the +mingled day and night, Uriah’s head. + +‘Copperfield!’ said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron +on the roof, ‘I thought you’d be glad to hear before you went off, that +there are no squares broke between us. I’ve been into his room already, +and we’ve made it all smooth. Why, though I’m umble, I’m useful to him, +you know; and he understands his interest when he isn’t in liquor! What +an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield!’ + +I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology. + +‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Uriah. ‘When a person’s umble, you know, what’s +an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,’ with a jerk, ‘you have sometimes +plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?’ + +‘I suppose I have,’ I replied. + +‘I did that last night,’ said Uriah; ‘but it’ll ripen yet! It only wants +attending to. I can wait!’ + +Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. For +anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning +air out; but he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe +already, and he were smacking his lips over it. + + + +CHAPTER 40. THE WANDERER + + +We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, +about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My +aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room with +her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she was +particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedestrian +feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be estimated by +the duration of her walk. On this occasion she was so much disturbed in +mind as to find it necessary to open the bedroom door, and make a course +for herself, comprising the full extent of the bedrooms from wall to +wall; and while Mr. Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing +in and out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the +regularity of a clock-pendulum. + +When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick’s going out to +bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By that time +she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up +as usual. But instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass +upon her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece; +and, resting her left elbow on her right arm, and her chin on her left +hand, looked thoughtfully at me. As often as I raised my eyes from what +I was about, I met hers. ‘I am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear,’ +she would assure me with a nod, ‘but I am fidgeted and sorry!’ + +I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that +she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on +the chimney-piece. She came to her door, with even more than her usual +affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery; +but only said, ‘I have not the heart to take it, Trot, tonight,’ and +shook her head, and went in again. + +She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved +of it. I posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently +as I could, for the reply. I was still in this state of expectation, and +had been, for nearly a week; when I left the Doctor’s one snowy night, +to walk home. + +It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for +some time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow had +come on. It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes; and +it lay thick. The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as +if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers. + +My shortest way home,--and I naturally took the shortest way on such a +night--was through St. Martin’s Lane. Now, the church which gives its +name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there +being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand. +As I passed the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the corner, +a woman’s face. It looked in mine, passed across the narrow lane, +and disappeared. I knew it. I had seen it somewhere. But I could not +remember where. I had some association with it, that struck upon my +heart directly; but I was thinking of anything else when it came upon +me, and was confused. + +On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who +had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my seeing the +face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don’t think I had stopped +in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and +came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. Peggotty! + +Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had given the +money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell--side by side with whom, +he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the +treasures wrecked in the sea. + +We shook hands heartily. At first, neither of us could speak a word. + +‘Mas’r Davy!’ he said, gripping me tight, ‘it do my art good to see you, +sir. Well met, well met!’ + +‘Well met, my dear old friend!’ said I. + +‘I had my thowts o’ coming to make inquiration for you, sir, tonight,’ +he said, ‘but knowing as your aunt was living along wi’ you--fur I’ve +been down yonder--Yarmouth way--I was afeerd it was too late. I should +have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away.’ + +‘Again?’ said I. + +‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, patiently shaking his head, ‘I’m away tomorrow.’ + +‘Where were you going now?’ I asked. + +‘Well!’ he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, ‘I was +a-going to turn in somewheers.’ + +In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden +Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, +nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm +through his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened out of +the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and +a good fire burning, I took him in there. + +When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long +and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was greyer, +the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every +appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties +of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by +steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He shook the snow +from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was +inwardly making these remarks. As he sat down opposite to me at a table, +with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough +hand again, and grasped mine warmly. + +‘I’ll tell you, Mas’r Davy,’ he said,--‘wheer all I’ve been, and +what-all we’ve heerd. I’ve been fur, and we’ve heerd little; but I’ll +tell you!’ + +I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing +stronger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed +at the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his +face, I did not venture to disturb. + +‘When she was a child,’ he said, lifting up his head soon after we were +left alone, ‘she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about +them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a-shining and +a-shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded +made her think on it so much. I doen’t know, you see, but maybe she +believed--or hoped--he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers +is always a-blowing, and the country bright.’ + +‘It is likely to have been a childish fancy,’ I replied. + +‘When she was--lost,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I know’d in my mind, as he +would take her to them countries. I know’d in my mind, as he’d have told +her wonders of ‘em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how he got +her to listen to him fust, along o’ sech like. When we see his mother, +I know’d quite well as I was right. I went across-channel to France, and +landed theer, as if I’d fell down from the sky.’ + +I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little more, +and a hand softly interpose to keep it open. + +‘I found out an English gen’leman as was in authority,’ said Mr. +Peggotty, ‘and told him I was a-going to seek my niece. He got me them +papers as I wanted fur to carry me through--I doen’t rightly know how +they’re called--and he would have give me money, but that I was thankful +to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I’m sure! “I’ve +wrote afore you,” he says to me, “and I shall speak to many as will come +that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you’re +a-travelling alone.” I told him, best as I was able, what my gratitoode +was, and went away through France.’ + +‘Alone, and on foot?’ said I. + +‘Mostly a-foot,’ he rejoined; ‘sometimes in carts along with people +going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, and +often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. +I couldn’t talk to him,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘nor he to me; but we was +company for one another, too, along the dusty roads.’ + +I should have known that by his friendly tone. + +‘When I come to any town,’ he pursued, ‘I found the inn, and waited +about the yard till someone turned up (someone mostly did) as know’d +English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my niece, and they +told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited to see +any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it warn’t Em’ly, I went on +agen. By little and little, when I come to a new village or that, among +the poor people, I found they know’d about me. They would set me down at +their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and show +me where to sleep; and many a woman, Mas’r Davy, as has had a daughter +of about Em’ly’s age, I’ve found a-waiting fur me, at Our Saviour’s +Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim’lar kindnesses. Some has had +daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good them mothers was to +me!’ + +It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face distinctly. +My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too. + +‘They would often put their children--particular their little girls,’ +said Mr. Peggotty, ‘upon my knee; and many a time you might have seen +me sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, a’most as if they’d +been my Darling’s children. Oh, my Darling!’ + +Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling hand +upon the hand he put before his face. ‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, ‘doen’t +take no notice.’ + +In a very little while he took his hand away and put it on his breast, +and went on with his story. ‘They often walked with me,’ he said, ‘in +the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and +I said, “I’m very thankful to you! God bless you!” they always seemed to +understand, and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn’t +hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way +over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The +people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town, +maybe the country through, but that I got news of her being seen among +them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know’d his servant see ‘em there, +all three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made +fur them mountains, Mas’r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went, +ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up +with ‘em, and I crossed ‘em. When I got nigh the place as I had been +told of, I began to think within my own self, “What shall I do when I +see her?”’ + +The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at +the door, and the hands begged me--prayed me--not to cast it forth. + +‘I never doubted her,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘No! Not a bit! On’y let her +see my face--on’y let her heer my voice--on’y let my stanning still +afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the +child she had been--and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she’d have +fell down at my feet! I know’d it well! Many a time in my sleep had I +heerd her cry out, “Uncle!” and seen her fall like death afore me. Many +a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, “Em’ly, my +dear, I am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!”’ + +He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. + +‘He was nowt to me now. Em’ly was all. I bought a country dress to put +upon her; and I know’d that, once found, she would walk beside me over +them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To +put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore--to take her on +my arm again, and wander towards home--to stop sometimes upon the road, +and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart--was all that I +thowt of now. I doen’t believe I should have done so much as look at +him. But, Mas’r Davy, it warn’t to be--not yet! I was too late, and they +was gone. Wheer, I couldn’t learn. Some said heer, some said theer. +I travelled heer, and I travelled theer, but I found no Em’ly, and I +travelled home.’ + +‘How long ago?’ I asked. + +‘A matter o’ fower days,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I sighted the old boat +arter dark, and the light a-shining in the winder. When I come nigh and +looked in through the glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis Gummidge +sittin’ by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, “Doen’t +be afeerd! It’s Dan’l!” and I went in. I never could have thowt the old +boat would have been so strange!’ From some pocket in his breast, he +took out, with a very careful hand a small paper bundle containing two +or three letters or little packets, which he laid upon the table. + +‘This fust one come,’ he said, selecting it from the rest, ‘afore I had +been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of paper, directed +to me, and put underneath the door in the night. She tried to hide her +writing, but she couldn’t hide it from Me!’ + +He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly +the same form, and laid it on one side. + +‘This come to Missis Gummidge,’ he said, opening another, ‘two or three +months ago.’ After looking at it for some moments, he gave it to me, and +added in a low voice, ‘Be so good as read it, sir.’ + +I read as follows: + + +‘Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from +my wicked hand! But try, try--not for my sake, but for uncle’s goodness, +try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! Try, +pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of +paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off +ever naming me among yourselves--and whether, of a night, when it is my +old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one +he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about +it! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as +hard with me as I deserve--as I well, well, know I deserve--but to be so +gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to +me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have +disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to +write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my +eyes again! + +‘Dear, if your heart is hard towards me--justly hard, I know--but, +listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most--him whose +wife I was to have been--before you quite decide against my poor poor +prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write +something for me to read--I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you +would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving--tell +him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, +I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was +going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and +oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and +uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last +breath!’ + + +Some money was enclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was +untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way. +Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, +which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and +made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference +to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had +written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen. + +‘What answer was sent?’ I inquired of Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Missis Gummidge,’ he returned, ‘not being a good scholar, sir, Ham +kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I was +gone to seek her, and what my parting words was.’ + +‘Is that another letter in your hand?’ said I. + +‘It’s money, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little way. ‘Ten +pound, you see. And wrote inside, “From a true friend,” like the fust. +But the fust was put underneath the door, and this come by the post, day +afore yesterday. I’m a-going to seek her at the post-mark.’ + +He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Rhine. He had found out, +at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had +drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well understand. He +laid it between us on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand, +tracked his course upon it with the other. + +I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head. + +‘He works,’ he said, ‘as bold as a man can. His name’s as good, in all +that part, as any man’s is, anywheres in the wureld. Anyone’s hand is +ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help them. He’s +never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister’s belief is [‘twixt +ourselves) as it has cut him deep.’ + +‘Poor fellow, I can believe it!’ + +‘He ain’t no care, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty in a solemn +whisper--‘kinder no care no-how for his life. When a man’s wanted for +rough sarvice in rough weather, he’s theer. When there’s hard duty to +be done with danger in it, he steps for’ard afore all his mates. And yet +he’s as gentle as any child. There ain’t a child in Yarmouth that doen’t +know him.’ + +He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; +put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast +again. The face was gone from the door. I still saw the snow drifting +in; but nothing else was there. + +‘Well!’ he said, looking to his bag, ‘having seen you tonight, Mas’r +Davy (and that doos me good!), I shall away betimes tomorrow morning. +You have seen what I’ve got heer’; putting his hand on where the little +packet lay; ‘all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might come +to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to die, and it was lost, +or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never know’d by him +but what I’d took it, I believe the t’other wureld wouldn’t hold me! I +believe I must come back!’ + +He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before +going out. + +‘I’d go ten thousand mile,’ he said, ‘I’d go till I dropped dead, to lay +that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em’ly, I’m content. +If I doen’t find her, maybe she’ll come to hear, sometime, as her loving +uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I +know her, even that will turn her home at last!’ + +As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit +away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in +conversation until it was gone. + +He spoke of a traveller’s house on the Dover Road, where he knew he +could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over +Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Everything +seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he +resumed his solitary journey through the snow. + +I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the +face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had +covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen; +and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back +over my shoulder. + + + +CHAPTER 41. DORA’S AUNTS + + +At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented their +compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given his +letter their best consideration, ‘with a view to the happiness of +both parties’--which I thought rather an alarming expression, not +only because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family +difference before-mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life) +observed that conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let +off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colours not at +all suggested by their original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they +begged to forbear expressing, ‘through the medium of correspondence’, an +opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield’s communication; but that if +Mr. Copperfield would do them the favour to call, upon a certain day +(accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), they +would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject. + +To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful +compliments, that he would have the honour of waiting on the Misses +Spenlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their +kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple. +Having dispatched which missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition +of strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived. + +It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this +eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr. +Mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me--or I felt +as if he were, which was the same thing--had brought his conduct to a +climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should +he go to India, except to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do +with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that +part; being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had +floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephants’ teeth); +having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing now to go out there +again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was nothing to me. +However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and +Julia with him; and Julia went into the country to take leave of +her relations; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, +announcing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle +and all) was to be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake +of which I became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of +its predecessor! + +I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being +divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions +of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical character +in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy medium +between these two extremes; my aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick +threw one of his shoes after Traddles and me, for luck, as we went +downstairs. + +Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as +I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had +never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It +gave him a surprised look--not to say a hearth-broomy kind of +expression--which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. + +I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking to +Putney; and saying that if he WOULD smooth it down a little-- + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing +his hair all kinds of ways, ‘nothing would give me greater pleasure. But +it won’t.’ + +‘Won’t be smoothed down?’ said I. + +‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a +half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again +the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate +hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine.’ + +I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by +his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; and said +that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, +for he had none. + +‘Oh!’ returned Traddles, laughing. ‘I assure you, it’s quite an old +story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle’s wife couldn’t bear it. She said +it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, when I first fell +in love with Sophy. Very much!’ + +‘Did she object to it?’ + +‘SHE didn’t,’ rejoined Traddles; ‘but her eldest sister--the one that’s +the Beauty--quite made game of it, I understand. In fact, all the +sisters laugh at it.’ + +‘Agreeable!’ said I. + +‘Yes,’ returned Traddles with perfect innocence, ‘it’s a joke for us. +They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged to +shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about it.’ + +‘By the by, my dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘your experience may suggest +something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom you have +just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family? Was there +anything like--what we are going through today, for instance?’ I added, +nervously. + +‘Why,’ replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade had +stolen, ‘it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in my case. +You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could +endure the thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite +settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they +called her the old maid. Accordingly, when I mentioned it, with the +greatest precaution, to Mrs. Crewler--’ + +‘The mama?’ said I. + +‘The mama,’ said Traddles--‘Reverend Horace Crewler--when I mentioned it +with every possible precaution to Mrs. Crewler, the effect upon her was +such that she gave a scream and became insensible. I couldn’t approach +the subject again, for months.’ + +‘You did at last?’ said I. + +‘Well, the Reverend Horace did,’ said Traddles. ‘He is an excellent man, +most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to her that she ought, +as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it +was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As to +myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey +towards the family.’ + +‘The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles?’ + +‘Why, I can’t say they did,’ he returned. ‘When we had comparatively +reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You +recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter +with her spine?’ + +‘Perfectly!’ + +‘She clenched both her hands,’ said Traddles, looking at me in dismay; +‘shut her eyes; turned lead-colour; became perfectly stiff; and +took nothing for two days but toast-and-water, administered with a +tea-spoon.’ + +‘What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles!’ I remarked. + +‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!’ said Traddles. ‘She is a very +charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, they all +have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent +while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I know +it must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield; which were +like a criminal’s. After Sarah was restored, we still had to break it +to the other eight; and it produced various effects upon them of a most +pathetic nature. The two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only +just left off de-testing me.’ + +‘At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope?’ said I. + +‘Ye-yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it,’ said +Traddles, doubtfully. ‘The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; +and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great +consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we +are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And +they’ll all hate me for taking her away!’ + +His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his +head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, +for I was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation +and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on +anything. On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, +I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of +mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass +of ale. This having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he +conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow’s door. + +I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid +opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass +in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding +a neat garden. Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing +Traddles’s hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those +obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious +snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned +clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time +to the jerking of my heart,--which it wouldn’t. Also of looking round +the room for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that +Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. +Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fireplace, and +bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in +black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of +the late Mr. Spenlow. + +‘Pray,’ said one of the two little ladies, ‘be seated.’ + +When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something which +was not a cat--my first seat was--I so far recovered my sight, as to +perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the +family; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the +two sisters; and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the +conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand--so familiar as +it looked to me, and yet so odd!--and was referring to it through an +eye-glass. They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with +a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, +or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, +which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their +carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had +not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each +other, like an Idol. + +‘Mr. Copperfield, I believe,’ said the sister who had got my letter, +addressing herself to Traddles. + +This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I was Mr. +Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest +themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield, +and altogether we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all +distinctly heard Jip give two short barks, and receive another choke. + +‘Mr. Copperfield!’ said the sister with the letter. + +I did something--bowed, I suppose--and was all attention, when the other +sister struck in. + +‘My sister Lavinia,’ said she ‘being conversant with matters of this +nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the +happiness of both parties.’ + +I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs +of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. +Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured +of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous +assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such +sentiments--to which he had never given any sort of expression that +I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a +superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he +had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking +his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by +swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of +secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house +with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed +upon. + +‘We will not,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘enter on the past history of this +matter. Our poor brother Francis’s death has cancelled that.’ + +‘We had not,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘been in the habit of frequent +association with our brother Francis; but there was no decided division +or disunion between us. Francis took his road; we took ours. We +considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should +be so. And it was so.’ + +Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head +after speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss Clarissa +never moved her arms. She sometimes played tunes upon them with her +fingers--minuets and marches I should think--but never moved them. + +‘Our niece’s position, or supposed position, is much changed by our +brother Francis’s death,’ said Miss Lavinia; ‘and therefore we consider +our brother’s opinions as regarded her position as being changed too. We +have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young gentleman +possessed of good qualities and honourable character; or that you have +an affection--or are fully persuaded that you have an affection--for our +niece.’ + +I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody had +ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my assistance +with a confirmatory murmur. + +Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when Miss Clarissa, +who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother +Francis, struck in again: + +‘If Dora’s mama,’ she said, ‘when she married our brother Francis, had +at once said that there was not room for the family at the dinner-table, +it would have been better for the happiness of all parties.’ + +‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘Perhaps we needn’t mind that +now.’ + +‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘it belongs to the subject. With +your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to speak, I +should not think of interfering. On this branch of the subject I have a +voice and an opinion. It would have been better for the happiness of +all parties, if Dora’s mama, when she married our brother Francis, had +mentioned plainly what her intentions were. We should then have known +what we had to expect. We should have said “Pray do not invite us, +at any time”; and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been +avoided.’ + +When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed: again +referring to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little +bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds’ eyes. +They were not unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden +manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like +canaries. + +Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed: + +‘You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. Copperfield, +to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece.’ + +‘If our brother Francis,’ said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, if I +may call anything so calm a breaking out, ‘wished to surround himself +with an atmosphere of Doctors’ Commons, and of Doctors’ Commons only, +what right or desire had we to object? None, I am sure. We have ever +been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on anyone. But why not say +so? Let our brother Francis and his wife have their society. Let +my sister Lavinia and myself have our society. We can find it for +ourselves, I hope.’ + +As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me, both Traddles and +I made some sort of reply. Traddles was inaudible. I think I observed, +myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. I don’t in the +least know what I meant. + +‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, ‘you +can go on, my dear.’ + +Miss Lavinia proceeded: + +‘Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful +indeed in considering this letter; and we have not considered it without +finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. We +have no doubt that you think you like her very much.’ + +‘Think, ma’am,’ I rapturously began, ‘oh!--’ + +But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as +requesting that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon. + +‘Affection,’ said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for +corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every +clause, ‘mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express +itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, +waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away, +and finds it still ripening in the shade.’ + +Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her +supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity +with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached +to these words. + +‘The light--for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the +light--inclinations of very young people,’ pursued Miss Lavinia, ‘are +dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the difficulty of knowing +whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that +my sister Clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, Mr. +Copperfield, and Mr.--’ + +‘Traddles,’ said my friend, finding himself looked at. + +‘I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?’ said Miss Clarissa, +again glancing at my letter. + +Traddles said ‘Exactly so,’ and became pretty red in the face. + +Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, I +fancied that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in Miss +Lavinia, an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of +domestic interest, a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition +to pet it, in which there was a good bright ray of hope. I thought +I perceived that Miss Lavinia would have uncommon satisfaction in +superintending two young lovers, like Dora and me; and that Miss +Clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her superintend +us, and in chiming in with her own particular department of the subject +whenever that impulse was strong upon her. This gave me courage to +protest most vehemently that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or +anyone believe; that all my friends knew how I loved her; that my aunt, +Agnes, Traddles, everyone who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how +earnest my love had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to +Traddles. And Traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a +Parliamentary Debate, really did come out nobly: confirming me in good +round terms, and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently +made a favourable impression. + +‘I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little +experience of such things,’ said Traddles, ‘being myself engaged to a +young lady--one of ten, down in Devonshire--and seeing no probability, +at present, of our engagement coming to a termination.’ + +‘You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles,’ observed +Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, ‘of the affection +that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?’ + +‘Entirely, ma’am,’ said Traddles. + +Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. Miss +Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh. +‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘take my smelling-bottle.’ + +Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic +vinegar--Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while; and +then went on to say, rather faintly: + +‘My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what +course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary +likings, of such very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield and +our niece.’ + +‘Our brother Francis’s child,’ remarked Miss Clarissa. ‘If our brother +Francis’s wife had found it convenient in her lifetime (though she had +an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to invite the family +to her dinner-table, we might have known our brother Francis’s child +better at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, proceed.’ + +Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards +herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking +notes she had made on that part of it. + +‘It seems to us,’ said she, ‘prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring these +feelings to the test of our own observation. At present we know nothing +of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there +may be in them. Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr. +Copperfield’s proposal, as to admit his visits here.’ + +‘I shall never, dear ladies,’ I exclaimed, relieved of an immense load +of apprehension, ‘forget your kindness!’ + +‘But,’ pursued Miss Lavinia,--‘but, we would prefer to regard those +visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must guard +ourselves from recognizing any positive engagement between Mr. +Copperfield and our niece, until we have had an opportunity--’ + +‘Until YOU have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa. + +‘Be it so,’ assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh--‘until I have had an +opportunity of observing them.’ + +‘Copperfield,’ said Traddles, turning to me, ‘you feel, I am sure, that +nothing could be more reasonable or considerate.’ + +‘Nothing!’ cried I. ‘I am deeply sensible of it.’ + +‘In this position of affairs,’ said Miss Lavinia, again referring to +her notes, ‘and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we +must require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of +honour, that no communication of any kind shall take place between him +and our niece without our knowledge. That no project whatever shall be +entertained with regard to our niece, without being first submitted to +us--’ ‘To you, sister Lavinia,’ Miss Clarissa interposed. + +‘Be it so, Clarissa!’ assented Miss Lavinia resignedly--‘to me--and +receiving our concurrence. We must make this a most express and serious +stipulation, not to be broken on any account. We wished Mr. Copperfield +to be accompanied by some confidential friend today,’ with an +inclination of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, ‘in order that +there might be no doubt or misconception on this subject. If Mr. +Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving +this promise, I beg you to take time to consider it.’ + +I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervour, that not a moment’s +consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the required +promise, in a most impassioned manner; called upon Traddles to witness +it; and denounced myself as the most atrocious of characters if I ever +swerved from it in the least degree. + +‘Stay!’ said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand; ‘we resolved, before we +had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone +for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You will allow us to +retire.’ + +It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. They +persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, these +little birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the +congratulations of Traddles, and to feel as if I were translated to +regions of exquisite happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the +quarter of an hour, they reappeared with no less dignity than they had +disappeared. They had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were +made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner. + +I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. + +‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘the rest is with you.’ + +Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and +glanced at them. + +‘We shall be happy,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘to see Mr. Copperfield to +dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our hour is +three.’ + +I bowed. + +‘In the course of the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘we shall be happy to +see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six.’ + +I bowed again. + +‘Twice in the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘but, as a rule, not oftener.’ + +I bowed again. + +‘Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘mentioned in Mr. Copperfield’s +letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is better for the +happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return +them. When it is better for the happiness of all parties that no +visiting should take place, (as in the case of our brother Francis, and +his establishment) that is quite different.’ + +I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their +acquaintance; though I must say I was not quite sure of their getting +on very satisfactorily together. The conditions being now closed, I +expressed my acknowledgements in the warmest manner; and, taking the +hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, pressed it, in +each case, to my lips. + +Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for a +minute, requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, and was +conducted into another room. There I found my blessed darling stopping +her ears behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall; +and Jip in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel. + +Oh! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed and +cried at first, and wouldn’t come out from behind the door! How fond we +were of one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of +bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored +him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited! + +‘My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever!’ + +‘Oh, DON’T!’ pleaded Dora. ‘Please!’ + +‘Are you not my own for ever, Dora?’ + +‘Oh yes, of course I am!’ cried Dora, ‘but I am so frightened!’ + +‘Frightened, my own?’ + +‘Oh yes! I don’t like him,’ said Dora. ‘Why don’t he go?’ + +‘Who, my life?’ + +‘Your friend,’ said Dora. ‘It isn’t any business of his. What a stupid +he must be!’ + +‘My love!’ (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish ways.) +‘He is the best creature!’ + +‘Oh, but we don’t want any best creatures!’ pouted Dora. + +‘My dear,’ I argued, ‘you will soon know him well, and like him of all +things. And here is my aunt coming soon; and you’ll like her of all +things too, when you know her.’ + +‘No, please don’t bring her!’ said Dora, giving me a horrified +little kiss, and folding her hands. ‘Don’t. I know she’s a naughty, +mischief-making old thing! Don’t let her come here, Doady!’ which was a +corruption of David. + +Remonstrance was of no use, then; so I laughed, and admired, and was +very much in love and very happy; and she showed me Jip’s new trick of +standing on his hind legs in a corner--which he did for about the space +of a flash of lightning, and then fell down--and I don’t know how long I +should have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not +come in to take me away. Miss Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told +me Dora was exactly like what she had been herself at her age--she must +have altered a good deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been +a toy. I wanted to persuade Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my +proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in; so I +went to Traddles without her, and walked away with him on air. + +‘Nothing could be more satisfactory,’ said Traddles; ‘and they are very +agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you +were to be married years before me, Copperfield.’ + +‘Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles?’ I inquired, in the +pride of my heart. + +‘She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters,’ said +Traddles. + +‘Does she sing at all?’ I asked. + +‘Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little +when they’re out of spirits,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing scientific.’ + +‘She doesn’t sing to the guitar?’ said I. + +‘Oh dear no!’ said Traddles. + +‘Paint at all?’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Traddles. + +I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of her +flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we went home +arm in arm in great good humour and delight. I encouraged him to talk +about Sophy, on the way; which he did with a loving reliance on her +that I very much admired. I compared her in my mind with Dora, with +considerable inward satisfaction; but I candidly admitted to myself that +she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for Traddles, too. + +Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful +issue of the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the +course of it. She was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on +Dora’s aunts without loss of time. But she took such a long walk up and +down our rooms that night, while I was writing to Agnes, that I began to +think she meant to walk till morning. + +My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the +good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. She wrote, +by return of post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful. +She was always cheerful from that time. + +I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journeys to Highgate +considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally wanted to go +there as often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings being quite +impracticable, I compounded with Miss Lavinia for permission to visit +every Saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged Sundays. +So, the close of every week was a delicious time for me; and I got +through the rest of the week by looking forward to it. + +I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora’s aunts +rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could have +expected. My aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the +conference; and within a few more days, Dora’s aunts called upon her, +in due state and form. Similar but more friendly exchanges took place +afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four weeks. I know that my +aunt distressed Dora’s aunts very much, by utterly setting at naught the +dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking out to Putney at extraordinary +times, as shortly after breakfast or just before tea; likewise by +wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her +head, without at all deferring to the prejudices of civilization on that +subject. But Dora’s aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric +and somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; and although +my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora’s aunts, by expressing +heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me too +well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general +harmony. + +The only member of our small society who positively refused to adapt +himself to circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt without +immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, +and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she +really were too much for his feelings. All kinds of treatment were tried +with him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, bringing him to Buckingham +Street (where he instantly dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all +beholders); but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my +aunt’s society. He would sometimes think he had got the better of his +objection, and be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his +snub nose, and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but +to blind him and put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly +muffled him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was +reported at the door. + +One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train. +It was, that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy +or plaything. My aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, always +called her Little Blossom; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia’s life was +to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat her +like a pet child. What Miss Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of +course. It was very odd to me; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her +degree, much as Dora treated Jip in his. + +I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this; and one day when we were +out walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a while, to +go out walking by ourselves), I said to her that I wished she could get +them to behave towards her differently. + +‘Because you know, my darling,’ I remonstrated, ‘you are not a child.’ + +‘There!’ said Dora. ‘Now you’re going to be cross!’ + +‘Cross, my love?’ + +‘I am sure they’re very kind to me,’ said Dora, ‘and I am very happy--’ + +‘Well! But my dearest life!’ said I, ‘you might be very happy, and yet +be treated rationally.’ + +Dora gave me a reproachful look--the prettiest look!--and then began to +sob, saying, if I didn’t like her, why had I ever wanted so much to be +engaged to her? And why didn’t I go away, now, if I couldn’t bear her? + +What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted on +her, after that! + +‘I am sure I am very affectionate,’ said Dora; ‘you oughtn’t to be cruel +to me, Doady!’ + +‘Cruel, my precious love! As if I would--or could--be cruel to you, for +the world!’ + +‘Then don’t find fault with me,’ said Dora, making a rosebud of her +mouth; ‘and I’ll be good.’ + +I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give +her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep +accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the volume with me on +my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry +and more inviting); and as we strolled about the Common, I showed her an +old housekeeping-book of my aunt’s, and gave her a set of tablets, and +a pretty little pencil-case and box of leads, to practise housekeeping +with. + +But the cookery-book made Dora’s head ache, and the figures made her +cry. They wouldn’t add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew +little nosegays and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets. + +Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we +walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when we +passed a butcher’s shop, I would say: + +‘Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a +shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?’ + +My pretty little Dora’s face would fall, and she would make her mouth +into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a +kiss. + +‘Would you know how to buy it, my darling?’ I would repeat, perhaps, if +I were very inflexible. + +Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph: + +‘Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need I know? Oh, +you silly boy!’ + +So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she +would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice +Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and +then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in +such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever. + +Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted, +was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so +pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to +come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth, +that I was very glad I had bought it. + +And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the +songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as happy as +the week was long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss +Lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like +a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that +I had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a plaything +too--but not often. + + + +CHAPTER 42. MISCHIEF + +I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript +is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous +short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of +responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have +already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a +patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, +and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any +strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my +success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have +worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could +have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, +and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one +object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon +its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit +of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, +in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man +indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents +neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted +feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I +do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My +meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have +tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself +to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in +small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed +it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from +the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and +hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this +earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the +two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that +ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no +substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never +to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and +never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, +to have been my golden rules. + +How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, +I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful +love. + +She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was +the Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and +do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was +last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came +together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged +to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic +complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in +such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah, +like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession. + +‘You see, Master Copperfield,’ said he, as he forced himself upon my +company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, ‘where a person loves, a +person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the +beloved one.’ + +‘Of whom are you jealous, now?’ said I. + +‘Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,’ he returned, ‘of no one in +particular just at present--no male person, at least.’ + +‘Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?’ + +He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed. + +‘Really, Master Copperfield,’ he said, ‘--I should say Mister, but I +know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got into--you’re so insinuating, that +you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don’t mind telling you,’ putting +his fish-like hand on mine, ‘I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I +never was, with Mrs. Strong.’ + +His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning. + +‘What do you mean?’ said I. + +‘Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, with a dry +grin, ‘I mean, just at present, what I say.’ + +‘And what do you mean by your look?’ I retorted, quietly. + +‘By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I mean +by my look?’ + +‘Yes,’ said I. ‘By your look.’ + +He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his +nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went +on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly: + +‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was +for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was +for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far +beneath her, myself, to be noticed.’ + +‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’ + +‘--And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a +meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. + +‘Don’t you know the Doctor better,’ said I, ‘than to suppose him +conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?’ + +He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made +his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as +he answered: + +‘Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr. +Maldon!’ + +My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on +that subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled +possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I +saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting. + +‘He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me +about,’ said Uriah. ‘One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek +and umble--and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of thing--and I don’t!’ + +He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they +seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the +while. + +‘She is one of your lovely women, she is,’ he pursued, when he had +slowly restored his face to its natural form; ‘and ready to be no friend +to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up +to higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master +Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We +umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of ‘em.’ + +I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in +his face, with poor success. + +‘Now, I’m not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,’ he +continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red eyebrows +would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, ‘and I shall +do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don’t approve of it. +I don’t mind acknowledging to you that I’ve got rather a grudging +disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain’t a-going, if I +know it, to run the risk of being plotted against.’ + +‘You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that +everybody else is doing the like, I think,’ said I. + +‘Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve got a motive, as +my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn’t +be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow people in my +way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!’ + +‘I don’t understand you,’ said I. + +‘Don’t you, though?’ he returned, with one of his jerks. ‘I’m astonished +at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I’ll try to be +plainer, another time.---Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the +gate, sir?’ + +‘It looks like him,’ I replied, as carelessly as I could. + +Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and +doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not +a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, +particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any +ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a +scarecrow in want of support. + +It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening +but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had +arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was +expected to tea. + +I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little +betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to +Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured +Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now +making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked +at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her +looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself +into a fever about it. + +I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but +it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the +drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly +keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure +enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old +door. + +At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes +by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken +to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never +been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she +was ten thousand times prettier yet. + +Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was +‘too clever’. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so +earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of +pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck, +and laid her innocent cheek against her face. + +I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit +down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up +so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful +regard which Agnes cast upon her. + +Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was +the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut +and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like +fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked +on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and +we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another. + +The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet +interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making +acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when +Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace +and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from +Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete. + +‘I am so glad,’ said Dora, after tea, ‘that you like me. I didn’t think +you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is +gone.’ + +I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora +and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her; +and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that +sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on +the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the +original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be +recorded under lock and key. + +Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising +character; but Dora corrected that directly. + +‘Oh no!’ she said, shaking her curls at me; ‘it was all praise. He +thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it.’ + +‘My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he +knows,’ said Agnes, with a smile; ‘it is not worth their having.’ + +‘But please let me have it,’ said Dora, in her coaxing way, ‘if you +can!’ + +We made merry about Dora’s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a +goose, and she didn’t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew +away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call +for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing +softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went. + +‘Don’t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady,’ +said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right +hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, ‘I might +have been more clever perhaps?’ + +‘My love!’ said I, ‘what nonsense!’ + +‘Do you think it is nonsense?’ returned Dora, without looking at me. +‘Are you sure it is?’ + +‘Of course I am!’ ‘I have forgotten,’ said Dora, still turning the +button round and round, ‘what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad +boy.’ + +‘No blood-relation,’ I replied; ‘but we were brought up together, like +brother and sister.’ + +‘I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?’ said Dora, beginning on +another button of my coat. + +‘Perhaps because I couldn’t see you, and not love you, Dora!’ + +‘Suppose you had never seen me at all,’ said Dora, going to another +button. + +‘Suppose we had never been born!’ said I, gaily. + +I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence +at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and +at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of +her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At +length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to +give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss--once, +twice, three times--and went out of the room. + +They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora’s +unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved +to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. +They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip’s +reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. +There was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; +and Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being +foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a +second parting at the coach door, and a third when Dora, in spite of +the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to +remind Agnes at the coach window about writing, and to shake her curls +at me on the box. + +The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were +to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short +walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what +praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty +creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my +most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of +doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child! + +Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that +night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight +along the quiet road that led to the Doctor’s house, I told Agnes it was +her doing. + +‘When you were sitting by her,’ said I, ‘you seemed to be no less her +guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.’ + +‘A poor angel,’ she returned, ‘but faithful.’ + +The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural +to me to say: + +‘The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that +ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed today, that I have +begun to hope you are happier at home?’ + +‘I am happier in myself,’ she said; ‘I am quite cheerful and +light-hearted.’ + +I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the +stars that made it seem so noble. + +‘There has been no change at home,’ said Agnes, after a few moments. + +‘No fresh reference,’ said I, ‘to--I wouldn’t distress you, Agnes, but I +cannot help asking--to what we spoke of, when we parted last?’ + +‘No, none,’ she answered. + +‘I have thought so much about it.’ + +‘You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple love +and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood,’ she added, +after a moment; ‘the step you dread my taking, I shall never take.’ + +Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool +reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance +from her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly. + +‘And when this visit is over,’ said I,--‘for we may not be alone another +time,--how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before you come to +London again?’ + +‘Probably a long time,’ she replied; ‘I think it will be best--for +papa’s sake--to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, for +some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of Dora’s, and we +shall frequently hear of one another that way.’ + +We were now within the little courtyard of the Doctor’s cottage. It was +growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong’s chamber, +and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. + +‘Do not be troubled,’ she said, giving me her hand, ‘by our misfortunes +and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If +you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God +bless you always!’ In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her +cheerful voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her +company. I stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with +a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had +engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the +gate, when, happening to turn my head, I saw a light in the Doctor’s +study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been +working at the Dictionary without my help. With the view of seeing if +this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good night, if he were +yet sitting among his books, I turned back, and going softly across the +hall, and gently opening the door, looked in. + +The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the +shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of +his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor’s +table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his +hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning +forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor’s arm. + +For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced a +step under that impression, when I met Uriah’s eye, and saw what was the +matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain +me, and I remained. + +‘At any rate,’ observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, ‘we +may keep the door shut. We needn’t make it known to ALL the town.’ + +Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open, +and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former +position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice +and manner, more intolerable--at least to me--than any demeanour he +could have assumed. + +‘I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘to +point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about. +You didn’t exactly understand me, though?’ + +I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old +master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and +encouragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his +custom to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey +head. + +‘As you didn’t understand me, Master Copperfield,’ resumed Uriah in +the same officious manner, ‘I may take the liberty of umbly mentioning, +being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong’s attention to the +goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It’s much against the grain with me, I assure +you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; but really, +as it is, we’re all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be. That +was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn’t understand me.’ I wonder +now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake +the breath out of his body. + +‘I dare say I didn’t make myself very clear,’ he went on, ‘nor you +neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a subject +a wide berth. Hows’ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak plain; +and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that--did you speak, sir?’ + +This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have touched any +heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah’s. + +‘--mentioned to Doctor Strong,’ he proceeded, ‘that anyone may see that +Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor Strong’s +wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come (we being at +present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be), when Doctor +Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun, +before Mr. Maldon went to India; that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come +back, for nothing else; and that he’s always here, for nothing else. +When you come in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner,’ +towards whom he turned, ‘to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and +honour, whether he’d ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, +Mr. Wickfield, sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? +Come, partner!’ + +‘For God’s sake, my dear Doctor,’ said Mr. Wickfield again laying his +irresolute hand upon the Doctor’s arm, ‘don’t attach too much weight to +any suspicions I may have entertained.’ + +‘There!’ cried Uriah, shaking his head. ‘What a melancholy confirmation: +ain’t it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, when I was nothing +but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I’ve seen him twenty times, if +I’ve seen him once, quite in a taking about it--quite put out, you know +(and very proper in him as a father; I’m sure I can’t blame him), to +think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with what oughtn’t to be.’ + +‘My dear Strong,’ said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, ‘my good +friend, I needn’t tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one +master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. I +may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake.’ + +‘You have had doubts, Wickfield,’ said the Doctor, without lifting up +his head. ‘You have had doubts.’ + +‘Speak up, fellow-partner,’ urged Uriah. + +‘I had, at one time, certainly,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I--God forgive +me--I thought YOU had.’ + +‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief. +‘I thought, at one time,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you wished to send +Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.’ + +‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor. ‘To give Annie pleasure, by making +some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing else.’ + +‘So I found,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I couldn’t doubt it, when you told +me so. But I thought--I implore you to remember the narrow construction +which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much +disparity in point of years--’ + +‘That’s the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!’ observed Uriah, +with fawning and offensive pity. + +‘--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her +respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly +considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings +and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven’s sake +remember that!’ + +‘How kind he puts it!’ said Uriah, shaking his head. + +‘Always observing her from one point of view,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘but +by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider +what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape-’ + +‘No! There’s no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ observed Uriah, +‘when it’s got to this.’ + +‘--that I did,’ said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly +at his partner, ‘that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her +duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse +to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I +saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned +this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone. And though it +is terrible to you to hear,’ said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, ‘if you +knew how terrible it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for +me!’ + +The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr. +Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down. + +‘I am sure,’ said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a +Conger-eel, ‘that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. +But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning +that Copperfield has noticed it too.’ + +I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me! + +‘Oh! it’s very kind of you, Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, undulating all +over, ‘and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know +that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant. +You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don’t deny it! You deny it +with the best intentions; but don’t do it, Copperfield.’ + +I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, +and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances +was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use +raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it. + +We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked +twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his +chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting +his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more +honour, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have effected, said: + +‘I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame. +I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions--I +call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody’s inmost +mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object.’ + +Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy. + +‘Of which my Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘never, but for me, could have +been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not feel, +tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life--my Life--upon the +truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject of this +conversation!’ + +I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of +the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could +have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the +plain old Doctor did. + +‘But I am not prepared,’ he went on, ‘to deny--perhaps I may have been, +without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that I may have +unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man +quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the +observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too +plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than +mine.’ + +I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner +towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested +in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential +manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her +integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description. + +‘I married that lady,’ said the Doctor, ‘when she was extremely young. I +took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it +was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father +well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of +all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear +I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and +her affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!’ + +He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding +the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its +earnestness. + +‘I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and +vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in +years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut +out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still +young and still beautiful, but with her judgement more matured--no, +gentlemen--upon my truth!’ + +His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and +generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could +have imparted to it. + +‘My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have +had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great +injustice.’ + +His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, +stopped for a few moments; then he went on: + +‘Once awakened from my dream--I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or +other, all my life--I see how natural it is that she should have some +regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does +regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of +what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have +seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during +this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady’s name +never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt.’ + +For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little +while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before: + +‘It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have +occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach; not +I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my +friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired +we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when the time comes--may +it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure!--when my death shall +release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured +face, with unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow +then, to happier and brighter days.’ + +I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, +so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, +brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added: + +‘Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it. +What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me +an old friend’s arm upstairs!’ + +Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went +slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. + +‘Well, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah, meekly turning to me. ‘The thing +hasn’t took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old +Scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat; but this +family’s out of the cart, I think!’ + +I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never +was before, and never have been since. + +‘You villain,’ said I, ‘what do you mean by entrapping me into your +schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we +had been in discussion together?’ + +As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy +exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he +forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had +set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I couldn’t bear +it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck +it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had +burnt them. + +He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at +each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the +white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and +leave it a deeper red. + +‘Copperfield,’ he said at length, in a breathless voice, ‘have you taken +leave of your senses?’ + +‘I have taken leave of you,’ said I, wresting my hand away. ‘You dog, +I’ll know no more of you.’ + +‘Won’t you?’ said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his +hand there. ‘Perhaps you won’t be able to help it. Isn’t this ungrateful +of you, now?’ + +‘I have shown you often enough,’ said I, ‘that I despise you. I have +shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing +your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?’ + +He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had +hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think +that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for +the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter. + +There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to +take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly. + +‘Copperfield,’ he said, removing his hand from his cheek, ‘you have +always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr. +Wickfield’s.’ + +‘You may think what you like,’ said I, still in a towering rage. ‘If it +is not true, so much the worthier you.’ + +‘And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!’ he rejoined. + +I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to +bed, when he came between me and the door. + +‘Copperfield,’ he said, ‘there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won’t +be one.’ + +‘You may go to the devil!’ said I. + +‘Don’t say that!’ he replied. ‘I know you’ll be sorry afterwards. How +can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit? +But I forgive you.’ + +‘You forgive me!’ I repeated disdainfully. + +‘I do, and you can’t help yourself,’ replied Uriah. ‘To think of your +going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! But there +can’t be a quarrel without two parties, and I won’t be one. I will be +a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you’ve got to +expect.’ + +The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was +very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be +disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my +passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I should expect from +him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, +I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there +to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house +too, at his mother’s lodging; and before I had gone many hundred yards, +came up with me. + +‘You know, Copperfield,’ he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head), +‘you’re in quite a wrong position’; which I felt to be true, and that +made me chafe the more; ‘you can’t make this a brave thing, and you +can’t help being forgiven. I don’t intend to mention it to mother, nor +to any living soul. I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder +that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so +umble!’ + +I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If +he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief +and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay +tormented half the night. + +In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing, +and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if +nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck +him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events +his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat +perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard +that he went to a dentist’s in London on the Monday morning, and had a +tooth out. I hope it was a double one. + +The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for +a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. +Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual +work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his +own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and laid +an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the +subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no +one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes +certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. + +Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed +before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud +when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle +compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she +should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her +life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see +her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I +sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out +of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and +deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage +then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing. + +As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor’s house, +the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness +of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent +solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were +increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when +she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had +always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I +thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, +and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where +he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp +her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully. + +Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me, +in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a word. The +Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements +away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond +of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered +into them with great good-will, and was loud in her commendations. But +Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and +seemed to have no care for anything. + +I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have walked, +at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest +of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into +the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in +the person of Mr. Dick. + +What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am +as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me in +the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days, +his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded; and there is a subtlety of +perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one +of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this +mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of +the truth shot straight. + +He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, +of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been +accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor’s Walk at Canterbury. But +matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time +(and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. If he had +never been so happy as when the Doctor read that marvellous performance, +the Dictionary, to him; he was now quite miserable unless the Doctor +pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were +engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. +Strong, and helping her to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the +beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet +interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their +breasts; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and +he became what no one else could be--a link between them. + +When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and +down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the +Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie; +kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among +the little leaves; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, +in everything he did, a delicate desire to be her friend; showering +sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the +watering-pot; when I think of him never wandering in that better mind +of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the +unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful +service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something +wrong, or from his wish to set it right--I really feel almost ashamed +of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the +utmost I have done with mine. + +‘Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!’ my aunt would proudly +remark, when we conversed about it. ‘Dick will distinguish himself yet!’ + +I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the +visit at the Doctor’s was still in progress, I observed that the postman +brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heep, who remained +at Highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time; and that +these were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, +who now assumed a round legal hand. I was glad to infer, from these +slight premises, that Mr. Micawber was doing well; and consequently was +much surprised to receive, about this time, the following letter from +his amiable wife. + + + + ‘CANTERBURY, Monday Evening. + +‘You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to receive +this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still more so, by +the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But my +feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to +consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber), +I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former +lodger. + +‘You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and Mr. +Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been preserved a +spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given +a bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period +when that obligation would become due. This has actually happened. +But, in general, Mr. Micawber has had no secrets from the bosom of +affection--I allude to his wife--and has invariably, on our retirement +to rest, recalled the events of the day. + +‘You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the +poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. Micawber is +entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His life is a mystery to +the partner of his joys and sorrows--I again allude to his wife--and if +I should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning +to night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in +the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat +an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular +fallacy to express an actual fact. + +‘But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is +estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his +twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger +who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting +our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him +with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will +Settle himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give +any explanation whatever of this distracting policy. + +‘This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise me, +knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best +to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly +obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the +children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, +dear Mr. Copperfield, + + ‘Your afflicted, + ‘EMMA MICAWBER.’ + + +I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber’s experience +any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr. +Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but +the letter set me thinking about him very much. + + + +CHAPTER 43. ANOTHER RETROSPECT + + +Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me +stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying +the shadow of myself, in dim procession. + +Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer +day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all +in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in +mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river +that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is +ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. +Faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and +rolls away. + +Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies. +The clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather-glass hangs in the hall. +Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both, +devoutly. + +I have come legally to man’s estate. I have attained the dignity of +twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. +Let me think what I have achieved. + +I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable +income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all +pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting +the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I +record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never +fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in +words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a +trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound +hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know +the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall +never be converted. + +My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it +is not in Traddles’s way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting his +failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He has +occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of +dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. +He is called to the bar; and with admirable industry and self-denial +has scraped another hundred pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose +chambers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at +his call; and, considering the figure, I should think the Inner Temple +must have made a profit by it. + +I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling +to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a +magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken +heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for +them. Altogether, I am well off, when I tell my income on the fingers +of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the +middle joint. + +We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little cottage +very near the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. My +aunt, however (who has sold the house at Dover, to good advantage), is +not going to remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more +tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend? My marriage? Yes! + +Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa +have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter, +they are. Miss Lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my +darling’s wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and +differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man, with a long +bundle, and a yard measure under his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed +in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house; +and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her +thimble off. They make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending +for her to come and try something on. We can’t be happy together for +five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the +door, and says, ‘Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step upstairs!’ + +Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of +furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy +the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go +to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for +Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a +long time to accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it; +whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is +horribly frightened. + +Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately. +Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again. +She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own +honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to +see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and +looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at +such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what +he seeks, and what he dreads. + +Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon +in the Commons--where I still occasionally attend, for form’s sake, when +I have time? The realization of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am +going to take out the licence. + +It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it, +as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the +names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora +Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, +the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various +transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is +the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and +doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected. + +Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I +can’t believe that it is going to be; and yet I can’t believe but that +everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I +am to be married the day after tomorrow. The Surrogate knows me, when +I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a +Masonic understanding between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is +in attendance as my general backer. + +‘I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow,’ I say to Traddles, +‘it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will be +soon.’ + +‘Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,’ he replies. ‘I +hope so too. It’s a satisfaction to know that she’ll wait for me any +length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl--’ + +‘When are you to meet her at the coach?’ I ask. + +‘At seven,’ says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch--the +very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill. +‘That is about Miss Wickfield’s time, is it not?’ + +‘A little earlier. Her time is half past eight.’ ‘I assure you, my dear +boy,’ says Traddles, ‘I am almost as pleased as if I were going to +be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a happy +termination. And really the great friendship and consideration of +personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting +her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my +warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it.’ + +I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine, +and so on; but I don’t believe it. Nothing is real. + +Sophy arrives at the house of Dora’s aunts, in due course. She has the +most agreeable of faces,--not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily +pleasant,--and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging +creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great +pride; and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every +individual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate +him in a corner on his choice. + +I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and +beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking +for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the +glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her +acquaintance. + +Still I don’t believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are +supremely happy; but I don’t believe it yet. I can’t collect myself. I +can’t check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and +unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very early in the morning a +week or two ago, and had never been to bed since. I can’t make out when +yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my +pocket, many months. + +Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house--our +house--Dora’s and mine--I am quite unable to regard myself as its +master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half +expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see +me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright +and new; with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, +and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out; with the +spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and +Dora’s garden hat with the blue ribbon--do I remember, now, how I loved +her in such another hat when I first knew her!--already hanging on its +little peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner; +and everybody tumbling over Jip’s pagoda, which is much too big for the +establishment. Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest +of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not +there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps +in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather +long, notwithstanding; but by and by I hear a rustling at the door, and +someone taps. + +I say, ‘Come in!’ but someone taps again. + +I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of bright +eyes, and a blushing face; they are Dora’s eyes and face, and Miss +Lavinia has dressed her in tomorrow’s dress, bonnet and all, for me to +see. I take my little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little +scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once, +because I am so pleased; and I believe it less than ever. + +‘Do you think it pretty, Doady?’ says Dora. + +Pretty! I should rather think I did. + +‘And are you sure you like me very much?’ says Dora. + +The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia +gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only +to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a +delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and +then takes off her bonnet--looking so natural without it!--and runs away +with it in her hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar +dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether +he’ll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand +upon the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life. + +I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard by; +and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road and +fetch my aunt. + +I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in +lavender-coloured silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet +has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to +church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, +who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. +Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents +a dazzling combination of cream colour and light blue; and both he and +Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves. + +No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem +to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we drive +along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill +me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have +no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily +occupations. + +My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way +short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought on the +box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss. + +‘God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor +dear Baby this morning.’ ‘So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt.’ + +‘Tut, child!’ says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality +to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to me, +who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door. + +The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom +in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone +for that. + +The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. + +A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, +like a drill-sergeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even +then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females +procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous +infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those +vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven. + +Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some +other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly +flavouring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep +voice, and our all being very attentive. + +Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the +first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of +Pidger, in sobs; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes +taking care of Dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as +a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little Dora +trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers. + +Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora’s trembling less +and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being +got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an +April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being +hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa. + +Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. +Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring her to sign it; of +Peggotty’s hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear +mother married; of its being over, and our going away. + +Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife +upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, +pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint +airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago. + +Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what +a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and talkative in +the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles +(whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost +fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to +have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing gaily; and of Dora being so +fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps +her hand. + +Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and +substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any +other dream, without the least perception of their flavour; eating +and drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more +believing in the viands than in anything else. + +Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea +of what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full +conviction that I haven’t said it. Of our being very sociably and simply +happy (always in a dream though); and of Jip’s having wedding cake, and +its not agreeing with him afterwards. + +Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora’s going away +to change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and +our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at +breakfast touching Dora’s aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but +a little proud of it too. + +Of Dora’s being ready, and of Miss Lavinia’s hovering about her, loth to +lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. +Of Dora’s making a long series of surprised discoveries that she +has forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody’s running +everywhere to fetch them. + +Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say +good-bye, looking, with their bright colours and ribbons, like a bed +of flowers. Of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and +coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms. + +Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora’s +saying no, that she must carry him, or else he’ll think she don’t like +him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our +going, arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, ‘If +I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don’t remember it!’ and +bursting into tears. + +Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her +once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving +Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells. + +We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at +last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well! + +‘Are you happy now, you foolish boy?’ says Dora, ‘and sure you don’t +repent?’ + + +I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are +gone, and I resume the journey of my story. + + + +CHAPTER 44. OUR HOUSEKEEPING + + +It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and the +bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own +small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in +respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. + +It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was +so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any +occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, +not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. +Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her +seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it +was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course--nobody’s +business any more--all the romance of our engagement put away upon a +shelf, to rust--no one to please but one another--one another to please, +for life. + +When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so +strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It +was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to +talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know +for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an +astonishing event to see her do it! + +I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping +house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She +kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been +Mrs. Crupp’s daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with +Mary Anne. + +Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged +her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character, +as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do +everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many +things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life; +of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to +a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the +Life-Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon +shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him +as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it +need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides +which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the evening at +our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the +kitchen. + +Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to +believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and +that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to the dustman. + +But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and +were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she +had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the +cause of our first little quarrel. + +‘My dearest life,’ I said one day to Dora, ‘do you think Mary Anne has +any idea of time?’ + +‘Why, Doady?’ inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her drawing. + +‘My love, because it’s five, and we were to have dined at four.’ + +Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was +too fast. + +‘On the contrary, my love,’ said I, referring to my watch, ‘it’s a few +minutes too slow.’ + +My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and +drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn’t +dine off that, though it was very agreeable. + +‘Don’t you think, my dear,’ said I, ‘it would be better for you to +remonstrate with Mary Anne?’ + +‘Oh no, please! I couldn’t, Doady!’ said Dora. + +‘Why not, my love?’ I gently asked. + +‘Oh, because I am such a little goose,’ said Dora, ‘and she knows I am!’ + +I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any +system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little. + +‘Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy’s forehead!’ said Dora, and still +being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her +rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a +quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in +spite of myself. + +‘There’s a good child,’ said Dora, ‘it makes its face so much prettier +to laugh.’ ‘But, my love,’ said I. + +‘No, no! please!’ cried Dora, with a kiss, ‘don’t be a naughty Blue +Beard! Don’t be serious!’ + +‘My precious wife,’ said I, ‘we must be serious sometimes. Come! Sit +down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let +us talk sensibly. You know, dear’; what a little hand it was to hold, +and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! ‘You know, my love, it is +not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one’s dinner. Now, is +it?’ + +‘N-n-no!’ replied Dora, faintly. + +‘My love, how you tremble!’ + +‘Because I KNOW you’re going to scold me,’ exclaimed Dora, in a piteous +voice. + +‘My sweet, I am only going to reason.’ + +‘Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!’ exclaimed Dora, in despair. +‘I didn’t marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a +poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!’ + +I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her +curls from side to side, and said, ‘You cruel, cruel boy!’ so many +times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few +turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again. + +‘Dora, my darling!’ + +‘No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married +me, or else you wouldn’t reason with me!’ returned Dora. + +I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it +gave me courage to be grave. + +‘Now, my own Dora,’ said I, ‘you are very childish, and are talking +nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out +yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was +made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; +today, I don’t dine at all--and I am afraid to say how long we waited +for breakfast--and then the water didn’t boil. I don’t mean to reproach +you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.’ + +‘Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!’ cried Dora. + +‘Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!’ + +‘You said, I wasn’t comfortable!’ cried Dora. ‘I said the housekeeping +was not comfortable!’ + +‘It’s exactly the same thing!’ cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, +for she wept most grievously. + +I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, +and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against +the door. I sat down again, and said: + +‘I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am +only trying to show you, my dear, that you must--you really must’ (I +was resolved not to give this up)--‘accustom yourself to look after Mary +Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me.’ + +‘I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,’ sobbed Dora. +‘When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little +bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to +surprise you.’ + +‘And it was very kind of you, my own darling,’ said I. ‘I felt it so +much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that you +bought a Salmon--which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound +six--which was more than we can afford.’ + +‘You enjoyed it very much,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And you said I was a Mouse.’ + +‘And I’ll say so again, my love,’ I returned, ‘a thousand times!’ + +But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be +comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt +as if I had said I don’t know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry +away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as +made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted +by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. + +It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my +aunt, in our house, sitting up for me. + +‘Is anything the matter, aunt?’ said I, alarmed. + +‘Nothing, Trot,’ she replied. ‘Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has +been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That’s +all.’ + +I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I +sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon +after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I +happened to meet my aunt’s eyes, which were resting on my face. There +was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. + +‘I assure you, aunt,’ said I, ‘I have been quite unhappy myself all +night, to think of Dora’s being so. But I had no other intention than to +speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.’ + +My aunt nodded encouragement. + +‘You must have patience, Trot,’ said she. + +‘Of course. Heaven knows I don’t mean to be unreasonable, aunt!’ + +‘No, no,’ said my aunt. ‘But Little Blossom is a very tender little +blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.’ + +I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife; +and I was sure that she knew I did. + +‘Don’t you think, aunt,’ said I, after some further contemplation of the +fire, ‘that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual +advantage, now and then?’ + +‘Trot,’ returned my aunt, with some emotion, ‘no! Don’t ask me such a +thing.’ + +Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. + +‘I look back on my life, child,’ said my aunt, ‘and I think of some who +are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I +judged harshly of other people’s mistakes in marriage, it may have been +because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I +have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. +I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another +some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and +division must not come between us, at this time of day.’ + +‘Division between us!’ cried I. + +‘Child, child!’ said my aunt, smoothing her dress, ‘how soon it might +come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I +meddled in anything, a prophet couldn’t say. I want our pet to like me, +and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second +marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!’ + +I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the +full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. + +‘These are early days, Trot,’ she pursued, ‘and Rome was not built in a +day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself’; a cloud passed +over her face for a moment, I thought; ‘and you have chosen a very +pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it +will be your pleasure too--of course I know that; I am not delivering +a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, +and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop +in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child,’ here my aunt rubbed her +nose, ‘you must just accustom yourself to do without ‘em. But remember, +my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are +to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless +you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!’ + +My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the +blessing. + +‘Now,’ said she, ‘light my little lantern, and see me into my bandbox by +the garden path’; for there was a communication between our cottages in +that direction. ‘Give Betsey Trotwood’s love to Blossom, when you come +back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsey up as a +scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she’s quite grim enough +and gaunt enough in her private capacity!’ + +With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was +accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her +home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light +me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but +I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much +impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that Dora +and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one +could assist us, to take much notice of it. + +Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I +was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted +and she had been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I +believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference +was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a +hundred years. + +The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants. +Mary Anne’s cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to +our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took +him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with +ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, +on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the +tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my +name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs. +Kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went +out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that +art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of +women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the +kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour, +as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this +unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with +intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating +in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in +Dora’s bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of +failure. + +Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance +in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out +immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat +turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. +In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be +roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery Book, +and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour +to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed +us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between +redness and cinders. + +I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred +a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It +appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen’s books, as if we might +have kept the basement storey paved with butter, such was the extensive +scale of our consumption of that article. I don’t know whether the +Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the +demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market, +I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most +wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house. + +As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of +penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened +several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, +and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were +personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials, +who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such +inexplicable items as ‘quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C.)’; ‘Half-quartern +gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)’; ‘Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)’--the +parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on +explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. + +One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to +Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that +afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring +him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic +happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and +said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting and +preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his +bliss. + +I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end +of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a +little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only +two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always +room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because +nothing had a place of its own, except Jip’s pagoda, which invariably +blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles +was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora’s +flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the +possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his +own good-humour, ‘Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!’ + +There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never +been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to +think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even +if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the +melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced +expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and +made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he +may be said to have engrossed the conversation. + +However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how +sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no +objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing +plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, +which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further +blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could +not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of +mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that +our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our +butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; +but I kept my reflections to myself. + +‘My love,’ said I to Dora, ‘what have you got in that dish?’ + +I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at +me, as if she wanted to kiss me. + +‘Oysters, dear,’ said Dora, timidly. + +‘Was that YOUR thought?’ said I, delighted. + +‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora. + +‘There never was a happier one!’ I exclaimed, laying down the +carving-knife and fork. ‘There is nothing Traddles likes so much!’ + +‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora, ‘and so I bought a beautiful little barrel +of them, and the man said they were very good. But I--I am afraid +there’s something the matter with them. They don’t seem right.’ Here +Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. + +‘They are only opened in both shells,’ said I. ‘Take the top one off, my +love.’ + +‘But it won’t come off!’ said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very +much distressed. + +‘Do you know, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, cheerfully examining the +dish, ‘I think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but I +think it is in consequence--of their never having been opened.’ + +They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn’t +have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the +mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with +capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have +made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to +express enjoyment of the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation +on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there +happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder. + +My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be +annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the +discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy +evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I +discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering +in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By +and by she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if +she was busying herself with a set of doll’s tea-things, that I was not +particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played +a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, +it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream +of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet +over. + +When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from seeing +him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my +side. ‘I am very sorry,’ she said. ‘Will you try to teach me, Doady?’ + +‘I must teach myself first, Dora,’ said I. ‘I am as bad as you, love.’ + +‘Ah! But you can learn,’ she returned; ‘and you are a clever, clever +man!’ + +‘Nonsense, mouse!’ said I. + +‘I wish,’ resumed my wife, after a long silence, ‘that I could have gone +down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!’ + +Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, +and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. + +‘Why so?’ I asked. + +‘I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned +from her,’ said Dora. + +‘All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for +these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, +she was the Agnes whom we know,’ said I. + +‘Will you call me a name I want you to call me?’ inquired Dora, without +moving. + +‘What is it?’ I asked with a smile. + +‘It’s a stupid name,’ she said, shaking her curls for a moment. +‘Child-wife.’ + +I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so +called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined +about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me: + +‘I don’t mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead +of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are +going to be angry with me, say to yourself, “it’s only my child-wife!” + When I am very disappointing, say, “I knew, a long time ago, that she +would make but a child-wife!” When you miss what I should like to be, +and I think can never be, say, “still my foolish child-wife loves me!” + For indeed I do.’ + +I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she was +serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now +said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one +before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed; +sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all +the little bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad +behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even +too lazy to be teased. + +This appeal of Dora’s made a strong impression on me. I look back on the +time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to +come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle +head towards me once again; and I can still declare that this one little +speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best +account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to +its artless pleading. + +Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful +housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, +bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and +thread all the leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and made +quite a desperate little attempt ‘to be good’, as she called it. But the +figures had the old obstinate propensity--they WOULD NOT add up. When +she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip +would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her +own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; +and I think that was the only decided result obtained. + +Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work--for I wrote +a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a +writer--I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be +good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and +lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at +the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip +up, to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip’s +favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she +would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, ‘like a lion’--which +was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was +striking--and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she +would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then +she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it +spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and +say in a low voice, ‘Oh, it’s a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!’ +And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book +away, after pretending to crush the lion with it. + +Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would +sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other +documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and +endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one +with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them +out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again, +backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and +would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face +clouded--and for me!--and I would go softly to her, and say: + +‘What’s the matter, Dora?’ + +Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, ‘They won’t come right. They +make my head ache so. And they won’t do anything I want!’ + +Then I would say, ‘Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora.’ + +Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay +profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be +dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair, +or trying the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If +I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so +scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that +the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her +path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; +and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar. + +I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same +considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now, +that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife’s sake. I +search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any +reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something +had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment +of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the +summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, +I did miss something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it +was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon +the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I +could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character +and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with +power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but +I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that +never had been meant to be, and never could have been. + +I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence +of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. +If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, +and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me +nothing to extenuate it now. + +Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, +and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to our +scrambling household arrangements; but I had got used to those, and Dora +I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful +in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old +trifles. + +When the debates were heavy--I mean as to length, not quality, for in +the last respect they were not often otherwise--and I went home late, +Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come +downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit +for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged +in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the +hour, and be so mute, that I would often think she had dropped asleep. +But generally, when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me +with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken. + +‘Oh, what a weary boy!’ said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as I +was shutting up my desk. + +‘What a weary girl!’ said I. ‘That’s more to the purpose. You must go to +bed another time, my love. It’s far too late for you.’ + +‘No, don’t send me to bed!’ pleaded Dora, coming to my side. ‘Pray, +don’t do that!’ + +‘Dora!’ To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. ‘Not well, my dear! +not happy!’ + +‘Yes! quite well, and very happy!’ said Dora. ‘But say you’ll let me +stop, and see you write.’ + +‘Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!’ I replied. + +‘Are they bright, though?’ returned Dora, laughing. ‘I’m so glad they’re +bright.’ ‘Little Vanity!’ said I. + +But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I +knew that very well, before she told me so. + +‘If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!’ +said Dora. ‘Do you think them pretty?’ + +‘Very pretty.’ + +‘Then let me always stop and see you write.’ + +‘I am afraid that won’t improve their brightness, Dora.’ + +‘Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you’ll not forget me then, while +you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something +very, very silly?---more than usual?’ inquired Dora, peeping over my +shoulder into my face. + +‘What wonderful thing is that?’ said I. + +‘Please let me hold the pens,’ said Dora. ‘I want to have something to +do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the +pens?’ + +The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my +eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, +she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her +triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a +new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of +pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a +page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The +preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the +bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she +took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if +he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless +she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it +to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round +the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear +to other men. + +She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about +the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender +waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were +locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but +Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a +good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as +merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke. + +So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, +and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was ‘a cross old +thing’. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She +courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the +guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked +the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went +wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that +she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed +her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in +a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house: + +‘Where’s Little Blossom?’ + + + +CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S PREDICTIONS + + +It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his +neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two +or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent +quarters under the Doctor’s roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and +the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap. + +Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life, +Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. +She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, +pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself +to her child. The Doctor’s desire that Annie should be entertained, +was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who +expressed unqualified approval of his discretion. + +I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor’s wound without +knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and +selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she +confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young +wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so +strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life. + +‘My dear soul,’ she said to him one day when I was present, ‘you know +there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut +up here.’ + +The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. ‘When she comes to her mother’s +age,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, ‘then it’ll be +another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and +a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not Annie, you +know; and Annie is not her mother.’ + +‘Surely, surely,’ said the Doctor. + +‘You are the best of creatures--no, I beg your pardon!’ for the Doctor +made a gesture of deprecation, ‘I must say before your face, as I always +say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you +don’t--now do you?---enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie?’ + +‘No,’ said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone. + +‘No, of course not,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘Take your Dictionary, +for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work! +The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort, +we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron, +a bedstead. But we can’t expect a Dictionary--especially when it’s +making--to interest Annie, can we?’ + +The Doctor shook his head. + +‘And that’s why I so much approve,’ said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him +on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, ‘of your thoughtfulness. It shows +that you don’t expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on +young shoulders. You have studied Annie’s character, and you understand +it. That’s what I find so charming!’ + +Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little +sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments. + +‘Therefore, my dear Doctor,’ said the Old Soldier, giving him several +affectionate taps, ‘you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now, +do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with +Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you +shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every +consideration in the universe!’ + +She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear +a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance +in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled +herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an +eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that +she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to +protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother’s remonstrance +always was, ‘Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I must +tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the +kindness of Doctor Strong.’ + +This was usually said in the Doctor’s presence, and appeared to me to +constitute Annie’s principal inducement for withdrawing her objections +when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother, +and went where the Old Soldier would. + +It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes +my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation. +Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I should have +been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that +former night in the Doctor’s study, had made a change in my mistrust. I +believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse suspicions. + +My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with +me, and said she couldn’t make it out; she wished they were happier; she +didn’t think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) +mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, ‘that +if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give ‘em to +the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of +something sensible on her part.’ + +But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an +idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a +corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in +some extraordinary manner. + +Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely +the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed +neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his +original foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith +in his ever Moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building. + +But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his +head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out +with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a +significant cough: + +‘You couldn’t speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I +am afraid?’ + +‘Certainly, Mr. Dick,’ said I; ‘come in!’ + +‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose, +after he had shaken hands with me. ‘Before I sit down, I wish to make an +observation. You know your aunt?’ + +‘A little,’ I replied. + +‘She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!’ + +After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself +as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity +than usual, and looked at me. + +‘Now, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I am going to put a question to you.’ + +‘As many as you please,’ said I. + +‘What do you consider me, sir?’ asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms. + +‘A dear old friend,’ said I. ‘Thank you, Trotwood,’ returned Mr. Dick, +laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. ‘But +I mean, boy,’ resuming his gravity, ‘what do you consider me in this +respect?’ touching his forehead. + +I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. + +‘Weak?’ said Mr. Dick. + +‘Well,’ I replied, dubiously. ‘Rather so.’ + +‘Exactly!’ cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. ‘That +is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who’s +head, and put it you know where, there was a--’ Mr. Dick made his two +hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and +then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one +another, to express confusion. ‘There was that sort of thing done to me +somehow. Eh?’ + +I nodded at him, and he nodded back again. + +‘In short, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, ‘I am +simple.’ + +I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. + +‘Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won’t hear of it; but I am. I +know I am. If she hadn’t stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut +up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I’ll provide for her! +I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will. +I’ll leave it all to her. She shall be rich--noble!’ + +Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then +folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands, +put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it. + +‘Now you are a scholar, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘You are a fine +scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is. +You know what honour he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. +Humble, humble--condescending even to poor Dick, who is simple and knows +nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite, +along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the larks. The kite +has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter with +it.’ + +I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving +of our best respect and highest esteem. + +‘And his beautiful wife is a star,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘A shining star. I +have seen her shine, sir. But,’ bringing his chair nearer, and laying +one hand upon my knee--‘clouds, sir--clouds.’ + +I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the +same expression into my own, and shaking my head. + +‘What clouds?’ said Mr. Dick. + +He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, +that I took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might +have entered on an explanation to a child. + +‘There is some unfortunate division between them,’ I replied. ‘Some +unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the +discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost nothing.’ + +Mr. Dick, who had told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused +when I had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and +his hand upon my knee. + +‘Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood?’ he said, after some time. + +‘No. Devoted to her.’ + +‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick. + +The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned +back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could +possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits than +ever. He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before, +said--first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it +really did represent my aunt: + +‘Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done nothing +to set things right?’ + +‘Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference,’ I replied. + +‘Fine scholar,’ said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. ‘Why has HE +done nothing?’ + +‘For the same reason,’ I returned. + +‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before me, +more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself +repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had +nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his body. + +‘A poor fellow with a craze, sir,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘a simpleton, a +weak-minded person--present company, you know!’ striking himself again, +‘may do what wonderful people may not do. I’ll bring them together, boy. +I’ll try. They’ll not blame me. They’ll not object to me. They’ll not +mind what I do, if it’s wrong. I’m only Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick? +Dick’s nobody! Whoo!’ He blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he +blew himself away. + +It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard +the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora +home. + +‘Not a word, boy!’ he pursued in a whisper; ‘leave all the blame with +Dick--simple Dick--mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for some time, +that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After what you have said +to me, I am sure I have got it. All right!’ Not another word did Mr. +Dick utter on the subject; but he made a very telegraph of himself for +the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of my aunt’s mind), to +enjoin inviolable secrecy on me. + +To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, +though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; +descrying a strange gleam of good sense--I say nothing of good feeling, +for that he always exhibited--in the conclusion to which he had come. At +last I began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his +mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it. + +One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I +strolled up to the Doctor’s cottage. It was autumn, when there were no +debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like +our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, +unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind. + +It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming +out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife, +helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with +someone in his study; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs. +Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. We went into the +drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. There was +never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours +as we were. + +We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually +contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her +newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, ‘My goodness gracious, +Annie, why didn’t you tell me there was someone in the Study!’ + +‘My dear mama,’ she quietly returned, ‘how could I know that you desired +the information?’ + +‘Desired the information!’ said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. ‘I +never had such a turn in all my life!’ + +‘Have you been to the Study, then, mama?’ asked Annie. + +‘BEEN to the Study, my dear!’ she returned emphatically. ‘Indeed I have! +I came upon the amiable creature--if you’ll imagine my feelings, Miss +Trotwood and David--in the act of making his will.’ + +Her daughter looked round from the window quickly. + +‘In the act, my dear Annie,’ repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the +newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, +‘of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of +the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the +darling--for he is nothing less!--tell you how it was. Perhaps you know, +Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until +one’s eyes are literally falling out of one’s head with being stretched +to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which +a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me +to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with +the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with +the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the +darling Doctor pen in hand. “This simply expresses then,” said the +Doctor--Annie, my love, attend to the very words--“this simply expresses +then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all +unconditionally?” One of the professional people replied, “And gives her +all unconditionally.” Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, +I said, “Good God, I beg your pardon!” fell over the door-step, and came +away through the little back passage where the pantry is.’ + +Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she +stood leaning against a pillar. + +‘But now isn’t it, Miss Trotwood, isn’t it, David, invigorating,’ said +Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, ‘to find a man +at Doctor Strong’s time of life, with the strength of mind to do this +kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when +Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the +subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, “My dear, there is no +doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision +for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to do.”’ + +Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors’ feet as they +went out. + +‘It’s all over, no doubt,’ said the Old Soldier, after listening; ‘the +dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind’s at rest. +Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study +with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trotwood, +David, pray come and see the Doctor.’ + +I was conscious of Mr. Dick’s standing in the shadow of the room, +shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my +aunt’s rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her +intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the Study, or +how Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy-chair, or how +my aunt and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes +were quicker than mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I +ever knew. But this I know,--that we saw the Doctor before he saw us, +sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted, +resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw +Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on +his arm. That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor’s arm, causing him +to look up with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head, +his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands +imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look I had never +forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper, +and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The +Astonishment, than anything else I can think of. + +The gentleness of the Doctor’s manner and surprise, the dignity that +mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern +of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, +‘That man mad!’ (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she +had saved him)--I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about +it. + +‘Doctor!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘What is it that’s amiss? Look here!’ + +‘Annie!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Not at my feet, my dear!’ + +‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! Oh, my +husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know what it is +that has come between us!’ + +Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming +to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, +‘Annie, get up immediately, and don’t disgrace everybody belonging to +you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of +my mind on the spot!’ + +‘Mama!’ returned Annie. ‘Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my +husband, and even you are nothing here.’ + +‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. ‘Me, nothing! The child has taken +leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water!’ + +I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this +request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham +panted, stared, and fanned herself. + +‘Annie!’ said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. ‘My dear! +If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our +married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. +There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to +make you happy. I truly love and honour you. Rise, Annie, pray!’ + +But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank +down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head +upon it, said: + +‘If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my +husband in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice +to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have +any friend here, who honours my husband, or has ever cared for me, and +has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help +to mediate between us, I implore that friend to speak!’ + +There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation, +I broke the silence. + +‘Mrs. Strong,’ I said, ‘there is something within my knowledge, which +I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have +concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come when it would +be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your +appeal absolves me from his injunction.’ + +She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was +right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it +gave me had been less convincing. + +‘Our future peace,’ she said, ‘may be in your hands. I trust it +confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that +nothing you, or anyone, can tell me, will show my husband’s noble heart +in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, +disregard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before God +afterwards.’ + +Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his +permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little +softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had +passed in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham +during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with +which she occasionally interrupted it, defy description. + +When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with +her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor’s +hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the +room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly +raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and +looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes. + +‘All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,’ she said in a +low, submissive, tender voice, ‘I will lay bare before you. I could not +live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now.’ + +‘Nay, Annie,’ said the Doctor, mildly, ‘I have never doubted you, my +child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.’ + +‘There is great need,’ she answered, in the same way, ‘that I should +open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year +by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as +Heaven knows!’ + +‘Really,’ interrupted Mrs. Markleham, ‘if I have any discretion at +all--’ + +[‘Which you haven’t, you Marplot,’ observed my aunt, in an indignant +whisper.) --‘I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite +to enter into these details.’ + +‘No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,’ said Annie without +removing her eyes from his face, ‘and he will hear me. If I say anything +to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and +long, myself.’ + +‘Upon my word!’ gasped Mrs. Markleham. + +‘When I was very young,’ said Annie, ‘quite a little child, my first +associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient +friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear +to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He +stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon +them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been +to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.’ + +‘Makes her mother nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. + +‘Not so mama,’ said Annie; ‘but I make him what he was. I must do that. +As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his +interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to +him, I can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose +praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have +trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama, +how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of +a sudden, as a lover.’ + +‘I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!’ +said Mrs. Markleham. + +[‘Then hold your tongue, for the Lord’s sake, and don’t mention it any +more!’ muttered my aunt.) + +‘It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,’ said +Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, ‘that I was agitated +and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the +character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. +But nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was +proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married.’ ‘--At +Saint Alphage, Canterbury,’ observed Mrs. Markleham. + +[‘Confound the woman!’ said my aunt, ‘she WON’T be quiet!’) + +‘I never thought,’ proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, ‘of any +worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no +room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when +I say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that +anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion.’ + +‘Me!’ cried Mrs. Markleham. + +[‘Ah! You, to be sure!’ observed my aunt, ‘and you can’t fan it away, my +military friend!’) + +‘It was the first unhappiness of my new life,’ said Annie. ‘It was the +first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These moments have +been more, of late, than I can count; but not--my generous husband!--not +for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a +recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you!’ + +She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and +true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as +steadfastly as she on him. + +‘Mama is blameless,’ she went on, ‘of having ever urged you for herself, +and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure,--but when I saw +how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you +were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, +who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense +of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought--and +sold to you, of all men on earth--fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, +in which I forced you to participate. I cannot tell you what it +was--mama cannot imagine what it was--to have this dread and trouble +always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I +crowned the love and honour of my life!’ + +‘A specimen of the thanks one gets,’ cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears, +‘for taking care of one’s family! I wish I was a Turk!’ + +[‘I wish you were, with all my heart--and in your native country!’ said +my aunt.) + +‘It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin +Maldon. I had liked him’: she spoke softly, but without any hesitation: +‘very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had not +happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really +loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. There can +be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ + +I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to +what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange +application that I could not divine. ‘There can be no disparity in +marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose’--‘no disparity in +marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ + +‘There is nothing,’ said Annie, ‘that we have in common. I have long +found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no +more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having +saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart.’ + +She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness +that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before. + +‘When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely +bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape +I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have +worked his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would have +tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship. But I thought no +worse of him, until the night of his departure for India. That night I +knew he had a false and thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, +in Mr. Wickfield’s scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the +dark suspicion that shadowed my life.’ + +‘Suspicion, Annie!’ said the Doctor. ‘No, no, no!’ + +‘In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!’ she returned. ‘And +when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and +grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my +own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had +spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had +been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me--my mind revolted from +the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that +hour till now has never passed them.’ + +Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; and +retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more. + +‘I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from +that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of +this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his +situation here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his +advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, +have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and +burden of my secret.’ + +She sunk down gently at the Doctor’s feet, though he did his utmost to +prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face: + +‘Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if +this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. You never +can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations; +to find that anyone could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my +heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming +that belief. I was very young, and had no adviser. Between mama and +me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into +myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honoured +you so much, and so much wished that you should honour me!’ + +‘Annie, my pure heart!’ said the Doctor, ‘my dear girl!’ + +‘A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so +many whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge +and trouble on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. I +used to be afraid that I had better have remained your pupil, and almost +your child. I used to fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and +wisdom. If all this made me shrink within myself (as indeed it did), +when I had that to tell, it was still because I honoured you so much, +and hoped that you might one day honour me.’ + +‘That day has shone this long time, Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘and can +have but one long night, my dear.’ + +‘Another word! I afterwards meant--steadfastly meant, and purposed to +myself--to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one +to whom you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of +friends! The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with +so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old +apprehension--at other times to lingering suppositions nearer to the +truth--has been made clear tonight; and by an accident I have also come +to know, tonight, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even +under that mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in +return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with +all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear +face, revered as a father’s, loved as a husband’s, sacred to me in +my childhood as a friend’s, and solemnly declare that in my lightest +thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the +fidelity I owe you!’ + +She had her arms around the Doctor’s neck, and he leant his head down +over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. + +‘Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think +or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my +many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I +have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband, +for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures!’ + +In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, +without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. +And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so; +for I am confident that I detected him at that moment in the act of +making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of +delight. + +‘You are a very remarkable man, Dick!’ said my aunt, with an air of +unqualified approbation; ‘and never pretend to be anything else, for I +know better!’ + +With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we +three stole quietly out of the room, and came away. + +‘That’s a settler for our military friend, at any rate,’ said my aunt, +on the way home. ‘I should sleep the better for that, if there was +nothing else to be glad of!’ + +‘She was quite overcome, I am afraid,’ said Mr. Dick, with great +commiseration. + +‘What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?’ inquired my aunt. + +‘I don’t think I ever saw a crocodile,’ returned Mr. Dick, mildly. + +‘There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn’t been for +that old Animal,’ said my aunt, with strong emphasis. ‘It’s very much +to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after +marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think the +only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young +woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, +or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What +are you thinking of, Trot?’ + +I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on +some of the expressions used. ‘There can be no disparity in marriage +like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ ‘The first mistaken impulse of +an undisciplined heart.’ ‘My love was founded on a rock.’ But we were at +home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind +was blowing. + + + +CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE + + +I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for +dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a +solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success +had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at +that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth’s +house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that +neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit, +it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without +making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole, +pretty often. + +I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a +quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best +rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned +windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal, +close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered +way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and +there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the +only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look. +I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had +been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some +childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge +of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should +have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say. + +As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not +go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long +train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that +I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, +the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments +dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination, +incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it +was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked +on, and a voice at my side made me start. + +It was a woman’s voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs. +Steerforth’s little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in +her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to +the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate +bows of sober brown. + +‘If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak +to Miss Dartle?’ + +‘Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?’ I inquired. + +‘Not tonight, sir, but it’s just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a +night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I +saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.’ + +I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs. +Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room +a good deal. + +When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the +garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was +sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great +city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as +I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some +larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no +inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman. + +She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought +her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last; +the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer. + +Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion; +and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to +conceal. + +‘I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,’ said I, standing near +her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture +of invitation to sit down. + +‘If you please,’ said she. ‘Pray has this girl been found?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘And yet she has run away!’ + +I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were +eager to load her with reproaches. + +‘Run away?’ I repeated. + +‘Yes! From him,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘If she is not found, perhaps +she never will be found. She may be dead!’ + +The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed +in any other face that ever I have seen. + +‘To wish her dead,’ said I, ‘may be the kindest wish that one of her own +sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much, +Miss Dartle.’ + +She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another +scornful laugh, said: + +‘The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends +of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish +to know what is known of her?’ + +‘Yes,’ said I. + +She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards +a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a +kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, ‘Come here!’--as if she were +calling to some unclean beast. + +‘You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this +place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?’ said she, looking over her shoulder +at me with the same expression. + +I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, ‘Come +here!’ again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer, +who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his +position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, +strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with +which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was +worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. + +‘Now,’ said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching +the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure +rather than pain. ‘Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.’ + +‘Mr. James and myself, ma’am--’ + +‘Don’t address yourself to me!’ she interrupted with a frown. + +‘Mr. James and myself, sir--’ + +‘Nor to me, if you please,’ said I. + +Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight +obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most +agreeable to him; and began again. + +‘Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever +since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James’s protection. We have been in a +variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in +France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.’ + +He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to +that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking +chords upon a dumb piano. + +‘Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more +settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have +been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the +languages; and wouldn’t have been known for the same country-person. I +noticed that she was much admired wherever we went.’ + +Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her, +and slightly smile to himself. + +‘Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress; +what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with +this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.’ + +He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant +prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth. + +Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the +other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with +his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a +little on one side: + +‘The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being +occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr. +James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and +things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again. +The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself, +that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still +matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again; +and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could +have expected.’ + +Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with +her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a +respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on: + +‘At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and +reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of +Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to +the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in +charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all +concerned, he was’--here an interruption of the short cough--‘gone. But +Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for +he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, +who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as +good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way: +her connexions being very common.’ + +He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the +scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss +Dartle’s face. + +‘This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do +anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore +harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone +so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The +young woman’s violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his +departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to +be held by force; or, if she couldn’t have got to a knife, or got to the +sea, she’d have beaten her head against the marble floor.’ + +Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in +her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered. + +‘But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me,’ +said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, ‘which anybody might +have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind +intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more +outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She +had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason +in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn’t been upon my guard, I am +convinced she would have had my blood.’ + +‘I think the better of her for it,’ said I, indignantly. + +Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, ‘Indeed, sir? But you’re +young!’ and resumed his narrative. + +‘It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh +her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and +to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night; +forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on +a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to +my knowledge, since.’ + +‘She is dead, perhaps,’ said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could +have spurned the body of the ruined girl. + +‘She may have drowned herself, miss,’ returned Mr. Littimer, catching at +an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. ‘It’s very possible. Or, +she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen’s wives +and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the +habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their +boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days. +Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the +children she was a boatman’s daughter, and that in her own country, long +ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.’ + +Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting +on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was +innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her +Mother had she been a poor man’s wife; and to the great voice of the +sea, with its eternal ‘Never more!’ + +‘When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle--’ + +‘Did I tell you not to speak to me?’ she said, with stern contempt. + +‘You spoke to me, miss,’ he replied. ‘I beg your pardon. But it is my +service to obey.’ + +‘Do your service,’ she returned. ‘Finish your story, and go!’ + +‘When it was clear,’ he said, with infinite respectability and an +obedient bow, ‘that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the +place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed +him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and +I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could bear, and I have +borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he insulted me too far. He hurt +me. Knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother, +and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of +coming home to England, and relating--’ + +‘For money which I paid him,’ said Miss Dartle to me. + +‘Just so, ma’am--and relating what I knew. I am not aware,’ said Mr. +Littimer, after a moment’s reflection, ‘that there is anything else. +I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a +respectable situation.’ + +Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were +anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which had +occurred to my mind, I said in reply: + +‘I could wish to know from this--creature,’ I could not bring myself +to utter any more conciliatory word, ‘whether they intercepted a letter +that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she +received it.’ + +He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the +tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip +of every finger of his left. + +Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. + +‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ he said, awakening from his abstraction, +‘but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant. +Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield +wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr. +Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to +maintain.’ + +After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and +said, ‘You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if +you choose. What answer do you make?’ + +‘Sir,’ he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those +delicate tips, ‘my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr. +James’s confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two +different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would +encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and +unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid +going.’ + +‘Is that all?’ inquired Miss Dartle of me. + +I indicated that I had nothing more to say. ‘Except,’ I added, as I +saw him moving off, ‘that I understand this fellow’s part in the wicked +story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been +her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too +much into public.’ + +He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual +repose of manner. + +‘Thank you, sir. But you’ll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are +neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are +not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is +more to their own peril, I believe, than to other people’s. Consequently +speaking, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir.’ + +With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went +away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss +Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence; her +manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man. + +‘He says besides,’ she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, ‘that +his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away +to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is of no +interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there +is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they +are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious. +Neither is this of any interest to you; but it introduces what I wish to +say. This devil whom you make an angel of. I mean this low girl whom he +picked out of the tide-mud,’ with her black eyes full upon me, and her +passionate finger up, ‘may be alive,--for I believe some common things +are hard to die. If she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such +price found and taken care of. We desire that, too; that he may not +by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are united in one +interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that so +coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what +you have heard.’ + +I saw, by the change in her face, that someone was advancing behind me. +It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore, +and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner, but still, +I perceived--and I was touched by it--with an ineffaceable remembrance +of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was +far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was +almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady +still; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been +a light in my very dreams at school. + +‘Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘And has he heard Littimer himself?’ + +‘Yes; I have told him why you wished it.’ ‘You are a good girl. I have +had some slight correspondence with your former friend, sir,’ addressing +me, ‘but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation. +Therefore I have no other object in this, than what Rosa has mentioned. +If, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you +brought here (for whom I am sorry--I can say no more), my son may be +saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!’ + +She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. + +‘Madam,’ I said respectfully, ‘I understand. I assure you I am in no +danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I must +say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, +that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly +deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of +water from your son’s hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake.’ + +‘Well, Rosa, well!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to +interpose, ‘it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am +told?’ + +I answered that I had been some time married. + +‘And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I +understand you are beginning to be famous.’ + +‘I have been very fortunate,’ I said, ‘and find my name connected with +some praise.’ + +‘You have no mother?’--in a softened voice. + +‘No.’ + +‘It is a pity,’ she returned. ‘She would have been proud of you. Good +night!’ + +I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it +was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could +still its very pulses, it appeared, and draw the placid veil before +her face, through which she sat looking straight before her on the far +distance. + +As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing +how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened +and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to +twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky +the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad +valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with +the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass +them. I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for +before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their +feet. + +Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should +be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into +London in quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to +place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him; but was +more in London than elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in +the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few +who loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded +to find. + +He kept a lodging over the little chandler’s shop in Hungerford Market, +which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he +first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On +making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that he +had not gone out yet, and I should find him in his room upstairs. + +He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The +room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always +kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he +thought it possible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap +at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand upon his +shoulder. + +‘Mas’r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye down. +You’re kindly welcome, sir!’ + +‘Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, taking the chair he handed me, ‘don’t expect +much! I have heard some news.’ + +‘Of Em’ly!’ + +He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as +he fixed his eyes on mine. + +‘It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him.’ + +He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence +to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, +with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having +gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning +his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption, but remained +throughout perfectly still. He seemed to pursue her figure through +the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were +nothing. + +When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked out +of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants. + +‘How do you fare to feel about it, Mas’r Davy?’ he inquired at length. + +‘I think that she is living,’ I replied. + +‘I doen’t know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the wildness +of her art--! That there blue water as she used to speak on. Could she +have thowt o’ that so many year, because it was to be her grave!’ + +He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the +little room. + +‘And yet,’ he added, ‘Mas’r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was +living--I have know’d, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that I +should find her--I have been so led on by it, and held up by it--that I +doen’t believe I can have been deceived. No! Em’ly’s alive!’ + +He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into +a resolute expression. + +‘My niece, Em’ly, is alive, sir!’ he said, steadfastly. ‘I doen’t know +wheer it comes from, or how ‘tis, but I am told as she’s alive!’ + +He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a +few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then +proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last +night, it would be wise to take. + +‘Now, my dear friend--‘I began. + +‘Thankee, thankee, kind sir,’ he said, grasping my hand in both of his. + +‘If she should make her way to London, which is likely--for where could +she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she +wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?--’ + +‘And she won’t go home,’ he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. ‘If +she had left of her own accord, she might; not as It was, sir.’ + +‘If she should come here,’ said I, ‘I believe there is one person, +here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do +you remember--hear what I say, with fortitude--think of your great +object!--do you remember Martha?’ + +‘Of our town?’ + +I needed no other answer than his face. + +‘Do you know that she is in London?’ + +‘I have seen her in the streets,’ he answered, with a shiver. + +‘But you don’t know,’ said I, ‘that Emily was charitable to her, with +Ham’s help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we met one +night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened +at the door.’ + +‘Mas’r Davy!’ he replied in astonishment. ‘That night when it snew so +hard?’ + +‘That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting +from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention +her to you then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak, +and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you understand?’ + +‘Too well, sir,’ he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a +whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. + +‘You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? I +could only hope to do so by chance.’ + +‘I think, Mas’r Davy, I know wheer to look.’ + +‘It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her +tonight?’ + +He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to observe +what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room, +put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and +finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remember to have +seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet, +which he placed upon a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, +neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a +night, no doubt. + +‘The time was, Mas’r Davy,’ he said, as we came downstairs, ‘when I +thowt this girl, Martha, a’most like the dirt underneath my Em’ly’s +feet. God forgive me, theer’s a difference now!’ + +As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to +satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same words +as formerly, that Ham was just the same, ‘wearing away his life with +kiender no care nohow for ‘t; but never murmuring, and liked by all’. + +I asked him what he thought Ham’s state of mind was, in reference to the +cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What +he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should +encounter? + +‘I doen’t know, sir,’ he replied. ‘I have thowt of it oftentimes, but I +can’t awize myself of it, no matters.’ + +I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we +were all three on the beach. ‘Do you recollect,’ said I, ‘a certain wild +way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about “the end of it”?’ + +‘Sure I do!’ said he. + +‘What do you suppose he meant?’ + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘I’ve put the question to myself a mort o’ +times, and never found no answer. And theer’s one curious thing--that, +though he is so pleasant, I wouldn’t fare to feel comfortable to try and +get his mind upon ‘t. He never said a wured to me as warn’t as dootiful +as dootiful could be, and it ain’t likely as he’d begin to speak any +other ways now; but it’s fur from being fleet water in his mind, where +them thowts lays. It’s deep, sir, and I can’t see down.’ + +‘You are right,’ said I, ‘and that has sometimes made me anxious.’ + +‘And me too, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined. ‘Even more so, I do assure you, +than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him. +I doen’t know as he’d do violence under any circumstances, but I hope as +them two may be kep asunders.’ + +We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now, +and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his +devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his +faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude. +We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and +pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of +the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought. + +We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred +to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman’s interest in the +lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, +and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore, +that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, +likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went. + +He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her, +but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about. +Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too. + +She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the +manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed +destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and I +suppose the strange fascination in the secrecy and mystery of so +following anyone, made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she +turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost; +and I said, ‘We may speak to her now’; and, mending our pace, we went +after her. + + +CHAPTER 47. MARTHA + + +We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her, +having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was +the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading +streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents +of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this +and the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow +water-side street by Millbank before we came up with her. At that moment +she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so +close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly. + +A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were +housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my companion +without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both +followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we +could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her. + +There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street, +a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old +ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the street ceases, +and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river. As +soon as she came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come +to her destination; and presently went slowly along by the brink of the +river, looking intently at it. + +All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house; +indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in +some way associated with the lost girl. But that one dark glimpse of the +river, through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going +no farther. + +The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and +solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor +houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. A +sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and +rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one +part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished, +rotted away. In another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron +monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, +anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange +objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, +underneath which--having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet +weather--they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. +The clash and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose +by night to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that +poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among +old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like +green hair, and the rags of last year’s handbills offering rewards for +drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, led down through the ooze +and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a story that one of the pits +dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague was hereabout; and +a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole +place. Or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that +nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream. + +As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to +corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the +river’s brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and +still, looking at the water. + +There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled +us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then signed +to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to +speak to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without trembling; +for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in which she +stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking +at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread +within me. + +I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in +gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she +was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more +like the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and +never can forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me +no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm +within my grasp. + +At the same moment I said ‘Martha!’ + +She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength +that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than +mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw +whose it was, she made but one more effort and dropped down between us. +We carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones, +and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little while she sat +among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands. + +‘Oh, the river!’ she cried passionately. ‘Oh, the river!’ + +‘Hush, hush!’ said I. ‘Calm yourself.’ + +But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, ‘Oh, the +river!’ over and over again. + +‘I know it’s like me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know that I belong to it. +I know that it’s the natural company of such as I am! It comes from +country places, where there was once no harm in it--and it creeps +through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable--and it goes away, +like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled--and I feel that +I must go with it!’ I have never known what despair was, except in the +tone of those words. + +‘I can’t keep away from it. I can’t forget it. It haunts me day and +night. It’s the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that’s +fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!’ + +The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion, +as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have read his +niece’s history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in any +painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. He +shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand--I touched it with my +own, for his appearance alarmed me--was deadly cold. + +‘She is in a state of frenzy,’ I whispered to him. ‘She will speak +differently in a little time.’ + +I don’t know what he would have said in answer. He made some motion with +his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to +her with his outstretched hand. + +A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid +her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of +humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could +speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would +have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more +tranquil. + +‘Martha,’ said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise--she seemed +to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was +weak, and leaned against a boat. ‘Do you know who this is, who is with +me?’ + +She said faintly, ‘Yes.’ + +‘Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?’ + +She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in +a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without +appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against +her forehead. + +‘Are you composed enough,’ said I, ‘to speak on the subject which so +interested you--I hope Heaven may remember it!--that snowy night?’ + +Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to +me for not having driven her away from the door. + +‘I want to say nothing for myself,’ she said, after a few moments. ‘I +am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,’ she had +shrunk away from him, ‘if you don’t feel too hard to me to do it, that +I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.’ ‘It has never been +attributed to you,’ I returned, earnestly responding to her earnestness. + +‘It was you, if I don’t deceive myself,’ she said, in a broken voice, +‘that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me; was so +gentle to me; didn’t shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave me +such kind help! Was it you, sir?’ + +‘It was,’ said I. + +‘I should have been in the river long ago,’ she said, glancing at it +with a terrible expression, ‘if any wrong to her had been upon my mind. +I never could have kept out of it a single winter’s night, if I had not +been free of any share in that!’ + +‘The cause of her flight is too well understood,’ I said. ‘You are +innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,--we know.’ + +‘Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better +heart!’ exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; ‘for she was +always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant +and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, +knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost everything that makes +life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever +from her!’ + +Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his +eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. + +‘And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some +belonging to our town,’ cried Martha, ‘the bitterest thought in all my +mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me, +and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven knows, I would have died +to have brought back her good name!’ + +Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and +grief was terrible. + +‘To have died, would not have been much--what can I say?---I would +have lived!’ she cried. ‘I would have lived to be old, in the wretched +streets--and to wander about, avoided, in the dark--and to see the day +break on the ghastly line of houses, and remember how the same sun used +to shine into my room, and wake me once--I would have done even that, to +save her!’ + +Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them +up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture +constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as +though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and +drooping her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections. + +‘What shall I ever do!’ she said, fighting thus with her despair. ‘How +can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to +everyone I come near!’ Suddenly she turned to my companion. ‘Stamp upon +me, kill me! When she was your pride, you would have thought I had +done her harm if I had brushed against her in the street. You can’t +believe--why should you?---a syllable that comes out of my lips. It +would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a +word. I don’t complain. I don’t say she and I are alike--I know there +is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all my guilt and +wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and +love her. Oh, don’t think that all the power I had of loving anything is +quite worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being +what I am, and having ever known her; but don’t think that of me!’ + +He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild +distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. + +‘Martha,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘God forbid as I should judge you. Forbid +as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen’t know half the +change that’s come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it +likely. Well!’ he paused a moment, then went on. ‘You doen’t understand +how ‘tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. You +doen’t understand what ‘tis we has afore us. Listen now!’ + +His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him, +as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was +quite hushed and mute. + +‘If you heerd,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘owt of what passed between Mas’r +Davy and me, th’ night when it snew so hard, you know as I have +been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,’ he repeated +steadily. ‘Fur she’s more dear to me now, Martha, than she was dear +afore.’ + +She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. + +‘I have heerd her tell,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as you was early left +fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough +seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you’d had such +a friend, you’d have got into a way of being fond of him in course of +time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.’ + +As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her, +taking it up from the ground for that purpose. + +‘Whereby,’ said he, ‘I know, both as she would go to the wureld’s +furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would +fly to the wureld’s furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she +ain’t no call to doubt my love, and doen’t--and doen’t,’ he repeated, +with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, ‘there’s shame +steps in, and keeps betwixt us.’ + +I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself, +new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature +it presented. + +‘According to our reckoning,’ he proceeded, ‘Mas’r Davy’s here, and +mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to +London. We believe--Mas’r Davy, me, and all of us--that you are as +innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child. You’ve +spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew +she was! I knew she always was, to all. You’re thankful to her, and you +love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward you!’ + +She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were +doubtful of what he had said. + +‘Will you trust me?’ she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. + +‘Full and free!’ said Mr. Peggotty. + +‘To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any +shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to +you, and bring you to her?’ she asked hurriedly. + +We both replied together, ‘Yes!’ + +She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote +herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never +waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there +was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object +she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its +passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if +that were possible, than she had been upon the river’s brink that night; +and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore! + +She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said +this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the +gloomy water. + +We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted +at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often +changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her +eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed +as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet. + +She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if +occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two +addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to +her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived +herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not +to know. + +Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred +to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to +accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would +do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could +not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her +engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked +us both. She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence +upon her was equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but +remained inexorable. + +‘There may be work to be got,’ she said. ‘I’ll try.’ + +‘At least take some assistance,’ I returned, ‘until you have tried.’ + +‘I could not do what I have promised, for money,’ she replied. ‘I could +not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take away +your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away +the only certain thing that saves me from the river.’ + +‘In the name of the great judge,’ said I, ‘before whom you and all of us +must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do +some good, if we will.’ + +She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she +answered: + +‘It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature +for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good +should come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever +come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long +while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to +try for. I know no more, and I can say no more.’ + +Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out +her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was some +healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been +ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity +of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes +expressed privation and endurance. + +We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same +direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I +had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to +Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting +her, to follow her any farther. He being of the same mind, and equally +reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours, +which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way; +and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort, +there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss +to interpret. + +It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and +was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul’s, the sound +of which I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of +striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my +aunt’s cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining +out across the road. + +Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, +and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in +the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise +that I saw a man standing in her little garden. + +He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I +stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now, +though obscured; and I recognized the man whom I had once supposed to be +a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and had once encountered with my aunt in the +streets of the city. + +He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry +appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were +the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the +ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a +covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone. + +The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came +out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it +chink. + +‘What’s the use of this?’ he demanded. + +‘I can spare no more,’ returned my aunt. + +‘Then I can’t go,’ said he. ‘Here! You may take it back!’ + +‘You bad man,’ returned my aunt, with great emotion; ‘how can you use me +so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What have +I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to +your deserts?’ + +‘And why don’t you abandon me to my deserts?’ said he. + +‘You ask me why!’ returned my aunt. ‘What a heart you must have!’ + +He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at +length he said: + +‘Is this all you mean to give me, then?’ + +‘It is all I CAN give you,’ said my aunt. ‘You know I have had losses, +and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, why +do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing +what you have become?’ + +‘I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,’ he said. ‘I lead the +life of an owl.’ + +‘You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,’ said my aunt. +‘You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You +treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it. +Don’t add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done +me!’ + +‘Aye!’ he returned. ‘It’s all very fine--Well! I must do the best I can, +for the present, I suppose.’ + +In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt’s indignant tears, +and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps, +as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came +out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour. + +‘Aunt,’ said I, hurriedly. ‘This man alarming you again! Let me speak to +him. Who is he?’ + +‘Child,’ returned my aunt, taking my arm, ‘come in, and don’t speak to +me for ten minutes.’ + +We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the round +green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and +occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she +came out, and took a seat beside me. + +‘Trot,’ said my aunt, calmly, ‘it’s my husband.’ + +‘Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!’ + +‘Dead to me,’ returned my aunt, ‘but living.’ + +I sat in silent amazement. + +‘Betsey Trotwood don’t look a likely subject for the tender passion,’ +said my aunt, composedly, ‘but the time was, Trot, when she believed in +that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there +was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given +him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her +heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever, in a +grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down.’ + +‘My dear, good aunt!’ + +‘I left him,’ my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of +mine, ‘generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I left +him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected +a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks +and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another +woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he +is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,’ said +my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; ‘and +I believed him--I was a fool!--to be the soul of honour!’ + +She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. + +‘He is nothing to me now, Trot--less than nothing. But, sooner than have +him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in +this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals +when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am +so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what +I once believed him to be, I wouldn’t have even this shadow of my idle +fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman +was.’ + +My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress. + +‘There, my dear!’ she said. ‘Now you know the beginning, middle, and +end, and all about it. We won’t mention the subject to one another any +more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is +my grumpy, frumpy story, and we’ll keep it to ourselves, Trot!’ + + + +CHAPTER 48. DOMESTIC + + +I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the +punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very +successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, +notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of +my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has +always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any +good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the +faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this +reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise +I got, the more I tried to deserve. + +It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials +it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They +express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to +them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress. + +Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and +accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence. +Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and +bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find +out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and +nothing else. I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so +prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself +reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night, +therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the +last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the +old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except, +perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session. + +I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year +and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the +housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page. +The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook; +in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the +remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor. + +He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole +existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper +occasions,--as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in +the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron +missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very +much attached to us, and wouldn’t go. He was a tearful boy, and broke +into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion +was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother--no +anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a +sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands; +and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had +a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing +his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on +the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would +take completely out of his pocket, but always economized and secreted. + +This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, +was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew--and +he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when +he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey. +I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself +into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he +was an old man. + +I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate’s manner of +getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora’s watch, which, like +everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own; +and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a +weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and +Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as +I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when +four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn’t play, were +found upon his person. + +The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable +to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and +in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. For example: +the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made +certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed +to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and +corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew +of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a +new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every +morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned +to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was +informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of +sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A +little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and +confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, +on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so +ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money +to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being +permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case +that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends +in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head. + +At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police +approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until +he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn’t be +quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora +before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she +found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life +until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd +of, ‘up the country’ somewhere; I have no geographical idea where. + +All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our +mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one +evening, in spite of my tenderness for her. + +‘My love,’ said I, ‘it is very painful to me to think that our want of +system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got +used to), but other people.’ + +‘You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be +cross!’ said Dora. + +‘No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.’ + +‘I think I don’t want to know,’ said Dora. + +‘But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.’ + +Dora put his nose to mine, and said ‘Boh!’ to drive my seriousness away; +but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at +me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of +countenance. + +‘The fact is, my dear,’ I began, ‘there is contagion in us. We infect +everyone about us.’ + +I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora’s face had not +admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was +going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, +for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made +my meaning plainer. + +‘It is not merely, my pet,’ said I, ‘that we lose money and comfort, and +even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we +incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into +our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the +fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out +ill because we don’t turn out very well ourselves.’ + +‘Oh, what an accusation,’ exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; ‘to say +that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!’ + +‘My dearest,’ I remonstrated, ‘don’t talk preposterous nonsense! Who has +made the least allusion to gold watches?’ + +‘You did,’ returned Dora. ‘You know you did. You said I hadn’t turned +out well, and compared me to him.’ + +‘To whom?’ I asked. + +‘To the page,’ sobbed Dora. ‘Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your +affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn’t you tell me +your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn’t you say, +you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a +transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my +goodness!’ + +‘Now, Dora, my love,’ I returned, gently trying to remove the +handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, ‘this is not only very ridiculous +of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it’s not true.’ + +‘You always said he was a story-teller,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And now you say +the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!’ + +‘My darling girl,’ I retorted, ‘I really must entreat you to be +reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora, +unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never +learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to +people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were +as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are +not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we +don’t--I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We +are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can’t +help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss, +and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that’s all. Come +now. Don’t be foolish!’ + +Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. +She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had +I ever been married? Why hadn’t I said, even the day before we went to +church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I +couldn’t bear her, why didn’t I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or +to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not +call her a transported page; Julia never had called her anything of the +sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being +in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of +effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course. + +What other course was left to take? To ‘form her mind’? This was a +common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I +resolved to form Dora’s mind. + +I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would +have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave--and +disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which +occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her--and fatigued her +to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite +casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she +started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers. +No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little +wife’s mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive +perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest +apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought +Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. + +I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever +he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of +Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon +Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it +had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her +always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found +myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always +playing spider to Dora’s fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her +infinite disturbance. + +Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time +when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I +should have ‘formed her mind’ to my entire satisfaction, I persevered, +even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been +all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with +determination, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that +perhaps Dora’s mind was already formed. + +On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned +my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in +action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to +try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired +of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under +restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar +for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable. + +Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but +there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind +that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I +would keep it for the future in my own breast. + +I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears; +and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company +lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely +felt, and which indeed it was. + +‘The truth is, Dora, my life,’ I said; ‘I have been trying to be wise.’ + +‘And to make me wise too,’ said Dora, timidly. ‘Haven’t you, Doady?’ + +I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed +the parted lips. + +‘It’s of not a bit of use,’ said Dora, shaking her head, until the +ear-rings rang again. ‘You know what a little thing I am, and what I +wanted you to call me from the first. If you can’t do so, I am afraid +you’ll never like me. Are you sure you don’t think, sometimes, it would +have been better to have--’ + +‘Done what, my dear?’ For she made no effort to proceed. + +‘Nothing!’ said Dora. + +‘Nothing?’ I repeated. + +She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her +favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a +profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see +it. + +‘Don’t I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to +have tried to form my little wife’s mind?’ said I, laughing at myself. +‘Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.’ + +‘Is that what you have been trying?’ cried Dora. ‘Oh what a shocking +boy!’ + +‘But I shall never try any more,’ said I. ‘For I love her dearly as she +is.’ + +‘Without a story--really?’ inquired Dora, creeping closer to me. + +‘Why should I seek to change,’ said I, ‘what has been so precious to me +for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural self, my +sweet Dora; and we’ll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our +old way, and be happy.’ + +‘And be happy!’ returned Dora. ‘Yes! All day! And you won’t mind things +going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?’ + +‘No, no,’ said I. ‘We must do the best we can.’ + +‘And you won’t tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,’ coaxed +Dora; ‘will you? Because you know it’s so dreadfully cross!’ + +‘No, no,’ said I. + +‘It’s better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn’t it?’ said +Dora. + +‘Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.’ + +‘In the world! Ah, Doady, it’s a large place!’ + +She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed +me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip’s new +collar. + +So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy +in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not +reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved +to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself, +but I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate +into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait. + +And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more, +but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall? + +The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were +changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like +a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife +dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated, +once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something +wanting. + +In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my mind +on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the +light. What I missed, I still regarded--I always regarded--as something +that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of +realization; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural +pain, as all men did. But that it would have been better for me if my +wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I +had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew. + +Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt +was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, +and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct +sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy +dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the +better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; and then the +contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like +spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but +never more could be reanimated here. + +Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have +happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known +each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence, that it +was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and +sight, like gossamer floating in the air. + +I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and +slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence +of it in me; I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I +bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held +the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case +required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when Agnes +wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and +interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and +read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them +out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear +old clever, famous boy. + +‘The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.’ Those words of +Mrs. Strong’s were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost +always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the night; I +remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls +of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it +first loved Dora; and that if it had been disciplined, it never +could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret +experience. + +‘There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and +purpose.’ Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt +Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt +myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear +on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the +discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think. +It made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better +still, made Dora’s life all sunshine. + +But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter +hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile +upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be. +The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, +and, unconscious of captivity, took wing. + +‘When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,’ said Dora, ‘I shall +make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.’ + +‘I suspect, my dear,’ said my aunt quietly working by her side, ‘he has +a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.’ + +‘Do you think he is old?’ said Dora, astonished. ‘Oh, how strange it +seems that Jip should be old!’ + +‘It’s a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in +life,’ said my aunt, cheerfully; ‘I don’t feel more free from it than I +used to be, I assure you.’ + +‘But Jip,’ said Dora, looking at him with compassion, ‘even little Jip! +Oh, poor fellow!’ + +‘I dare say he’ll last a long time yet, Blossom,’ said my aunt, patting +Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who +responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various +asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. ‘He must +have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn’t wonder +if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring. Bless +the little dog!’ exclaimed my aunt, ‘if he had as many lives as a cat, +and was on the point of losing ‘em all, he’d bark at me with his last +breath, I believe!’ + +Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt +to such a furious extent, that he couldn’t keep straight, but barked +himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached +her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable +reason he considered the glasses personal. + +Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when +he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand, +repeating thoughtfully, ‘Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!’ + +‘His lungs are good enough,’ said my aunt, gaily, ‘and his dislikes are +not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. But if +you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for +that, and I’ll give you one.’ + +‘Thank you, aunt,’ said Dora, faintly. ‘But don’t, please!’ + +‘No?’ said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. + +‘I couldn’t have any other dog but Jip,’ said Dora. ‘It would be so +unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn’t be such friends with any other dog +but Jip; because he wouldn’t have known me before I was married, +and wouldn’t have barked at Doady when he first came to our house. I +couldn’t care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, aunt.’ + +‘To be sure!’ said my aunt, patting her cheek again. ‘You are right.’ + +‘You are not offended,’ said Dora. ‘Are you?’ + +‘Why, what a sensitive pet it is!’ cried my aunt, bending over her +affectionately. ‘To think that I could be offended!’ + +‘No, no, I didn’t really think so,’ returned Dora; ‘but I am a little +tired, and it made me silly for a moment--I am always a silly little +thing, you know, but it made me more silly--to talk about Jip. He +has known me in all that has happened to me, haven’t you, Jip? And I +couldn’t bear to slight him, because he was a little altered--could I, +Jip?’ + +Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. + +‘You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you’ll leave your mistress yet?’ +said Dora. ‘We may keep one another company a little longer!’ + +My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and +was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on Sunday), we +thought she would be ‘running about as she used to do’, in a few days. +But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and +still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very +merry; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced +round Jip, were dull and motionless. + +I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night. +She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it +for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and +look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. +My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a +moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished +his post of candle-bearer to anyone alive. Traddles would be often at +the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive +messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay +procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. + +But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in +my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching +to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the +recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with +myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt +had left her with a parting cry of ‘Good night, Little Blossom,’ I sat +down at my desk alone, and tried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was, +and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree! + + +CHAPTER 49. I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY + + +I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated +Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor’s Commons; which I read with +some surprise: + + +‘MY DEAR SIR, + +‘Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable +lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the +limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional +duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by +the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must +continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This +fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which +your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to +the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar +appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name to +which I do myself the honour to refer, will ever be treasured among +the muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our +former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal +esteem amounting to affection. + +‘It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a +fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark +(if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who +now takes up the pen to address you--it is not, I repeat, for one +so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of +congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands. + +‘If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing +these imperfect characters thus far--which may be, or may not be, as +circumstances arise--you will naturally inquire by what object am I +influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that +I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed +to develop it; premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature. + +‘Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may +possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing +the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted +to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever +dispelled--that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment +destroyed--that my heart is no longer in the right place--and that I no +more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. +The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon +dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. +‘Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the +assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber’s influence, though exercised in +the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention +to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of +eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past +enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of +mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King’s Bench Prison. In +stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of +that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, +at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary +communication is accomplished. + +‘I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield, +or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that +gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, +and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. I +confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and +place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet + + ‘Remain, + ‘Of + ‘A + ‘Fallen Tower, + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER. + +‘P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that +Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions.’ + + +I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr. +Micawber’s lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish +with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and +impossible occasions, I still believed that something important lay +hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down, +to think about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and +was still pursuing it, when Traddles found me in the height of my +perplexity. + +‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘I never was better pleased to see you. You +come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most opportune +time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr. +Micawber.’ + +‘No?’ cried Traddles. ‘You don’t say so? And I have received one from +Mrs. Micawber!’ + +With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under +the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he +saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. +I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber’s letter, and returned the +elevation of eyebrows with which he said “‘Wielding the thunderbolt, +or directing the devouring and avenging flame!” Bless me, +Copperfield!’--and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber’s +epistle. + +It ran thus: + + +‘My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember +one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, +may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I +would not intrude upon his kindness, were I in any other position than +on the confines of distraction. + +‘Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber +(formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my +addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best +indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. +Micawber’s conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually +augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. +Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm +does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, +when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber +assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have +long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited +confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is +anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a +separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to +buy ‘lemon-stunners’--a local sweetmeat--he presented an oyster-knife at +the twins! + +‘I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. +Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest +conception of my heart-rending situation. + +‘May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? Will +he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh yes, +for I know his heart! + +‘The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female +sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his +hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which +he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance +of matrimonial anxiety detected, d, o, n, distinctly traced. The +West-End destination of the coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently +implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him? +Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his +agonized family? Oh no, for that would be too much! + +‘If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will Mr. +T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In +any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication +strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however +distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should ever +reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be most improbable), a letter +addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be fraught with +less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, who +subscribes herself, in extreme distress, + +‘Mr. Thomas Traddles’s respectful friend and suppliant, + + ‘EMMA MICAWBER.’ + + +‘What do you think of that letter?’ said Traddles, casting his eyes upon +me, when I had read it twice. + +‘What do you think of the other?’ said I. For he was still reading it +with knitted brows. + +‘I think that the two together, Copperfield,’ replied Traddles, +‘mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their +correspondence--but I don’t know what. They are both written in good +faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing!’ he was +now alluding to Mrs. Micawber’s letter, and we were standing side by +side comparing the two; ‘it will be a charity to write to her, at all +events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber.’ + +I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with +having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking +a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place; but my +absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my +hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. +I had often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what +‘pecuniary liabilities’ they were establishing in Canterbury, and to +recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah +Heep. + +However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our +joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, +Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of +speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels +in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be +very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber’s appointment. + +Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before +the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his +arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, +with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of +trees that had shaded him in his youth. + +When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and +something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit +of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout +and tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more +and more of it as we conversed with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed +to hang less easily, and his shirt-collar, though still of the old +formidable dimensions, rather drooped. + +‘Gentlemen!’ said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, ‘you are +friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with +reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in esse, and +Mrs. Traddles in posse,--presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. +Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and +for woe.’ + +We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then +directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, ‘I assure you, +gentlemen,’ when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of +address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ he returned, pressing my hand, ‘your cordiality +overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the Temple once +called Man--if I may be permitted so to express myself--bespeaks a heart +that is an honour to our common nature. I was about to observe that +I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my +existence fleeted by.’ + +‘Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,’ said I. ‘I hope she is well?’ + +‘Thank you,’ returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this +reference, ‘she is but so-so. And this,’ said Mr. Micawber, nodding +his head sorrowfully, ‘is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many +revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was +not proclaimed, from day to day, by importune voices declining to vacate +the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor +to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and +detainees were merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Micawber, +‘when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure +has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children +thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I +have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, +you will know how to excuse me.’ + +‘We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,’ said I. + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, ‘when I was an +inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch +his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on +those glorious terms!’ + +Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted +my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the +other, and walked away between us. + +‘There are some landmarks,’ observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back +over his shoulder, ‘on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety +of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the +Bench in my chequered career.’ + +‘Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles. + +‘I am, sir,’ interposed Mr. Micawber. + +‘I hope,’ said Traddles, ‘it is not because you have conceived a dislike +to the law--for I am a lawyer myself, you know.’ + +Mr. Micawber answered not a word. + +‘How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?’ said I, after a silence. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of +much excitement, and turning pale, ‘if you ask after my employer as +YOUR friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY friend, +I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my +employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this--that +whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to +say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to +decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of +desperation in my professional capacity.’ + +I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme +that roused him so much. ‘May I ask,’ said I, ‘without any hazard of +repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?’ + +‘Miss Wickfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, ‘is, as she always +is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the +only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young +lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love +and truth, and goodness!--Take me,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘down a turning, +for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!’ + +We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his +pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as +gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no +means inspiriting. + +‘It is my fate,’ said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even +that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; +‘it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have +become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of +arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the +earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick +time.’ + +Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his +pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any +person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a +tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned--not knowing +what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet--that it would give me +great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to +Highgate, where a bed was at his service. + +‘You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,’ said +I, ‘and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter +reminiscences.’ + +‘Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve +you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles, prudently. + +‘Gentlemen,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘do with me as you will! I am a +straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by +the elephants--I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.’ + +We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; +and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the +way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do +for the best--so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most +part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten +himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound +melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat +exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. + +We went to my aunt’s house rather than to mine, because of Dora’s not +being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed +Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, +retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a +mental wrestle with himself. + +Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of +anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such +person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen +times in five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on +the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could +only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, ‘My dear sir, you +overpower me!’ Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it +again with greater vigour than before. + +‘The friendliness of this gentleman,’ said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, ‘if +you will allow me, ma’am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary +of our coarser national sports--floors me. To a man who is struggling +with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception +is trying, I assure you.’ + +‘My friend Mr. Dick,’ replied my aunt proudly, ‘is not a common man.’ + +‘That I am convinced of,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘My dear sir!’ for Mr. +Dick was shaking hands with him again; ‘I am deeply sensible of your +cordiality!’ + +‘How do you find yourself?’ said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. + +‘Indifferent, my dear sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. + +‘You must keep up your spirits,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and make yourself as +comfortable as possible.’ + +Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding +Mr. Dick’s hand again within his own. ‘It has been my lot,’ he observed, +‘to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an +occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the +present!’ + +At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that +we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so +anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal +something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a +perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes +wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by +turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting +to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation +was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her +wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it +necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. + +‘You are a very old friend of my nephew’s, Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt. +‘I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.’ + +‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I wish I had had the honour of knowing +you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present +behold.’ + +‘I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,’ said my aunt. + +Mr. Micawber inclined his head. ‘They are as well, ma’am,’ he +desperately observed after a pause, ‘as Aliens and Outcasts can ever +hope to be.’ + +‘Lord bless you, sir!’ exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. ‘What are +you talking about?’ + +‘The subsistence of my family, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘trembles +in the balance. My employer--’ + +Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons +that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the +other appliances he used in making punch. + +‘Your employer, you know,’ said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle +reminder. + +‘My good sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘you recall me, I am obliged to +you.’ They shook hands again. ‘My employer, ma’am--Mr. Heep--once did +me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the +stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should +probably be a mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, +and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to +the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to +seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets +their unnatural feats by playing the barrel-organ.’ + +Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, +signified that these performances might be expected to take place after +he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. + +My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept +beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with +which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was +not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this +point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged; +whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the +snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting +to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most +remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered +all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out +his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, +‘this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and +self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question.’ + +‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘what is the matter? Pray speak out. You are +among friends.’ + +‘Among friends, sir!’ repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved +came breaking out of him. ‘Good heavens, it is principally because I AM +among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, +gentlemen? What is NOT the matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is +the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name +of the whole atrocious mass is--HEEP!’ + +My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were +possessed. + +‘The struggle is over!’ said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating with +his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with +both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. ‘I will +lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything +that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal +scoundrel’s service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, +substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots +at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and +I’ll do it. With an appetite!’ + +I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might +come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn’t +hear a word. + +‘I’ll put my hand in no man’s hand,’ said Mr. Micawber, gasping, +puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man +fighting with cold water, ‘until I have--blown to +fragments--the--a--detestable--serpent--HEEP! I’ll partake of no +one’s hospitality, until I have--a--moved Mount Vesuvius--to +eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal--HEEP! Refreshment--a--underneath +this roof--particularly punch--would--a--choke me--unless--I +had--previously--choked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable +cheat, and liar--HEEP! I--a--I’ll know nobody--and--a--say +nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until I have +crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the--transcendent and immortal +hypocrite and perjurer--HEEP!’ + +I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber’s dying on the spot. The manner +in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, +whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way +on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a +vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when +he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible +colour in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession +of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they +seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in +the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me +off, and wouldn’t hear a word. + +‘No, Copperfield!--No communication--a--until--Miss +Wickfield--a--redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate +scoundrel--HEEP!’ (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three +words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when +he felt it coming.) ‘Inviolable secret--a--from the whole world--a--no +exceptions--this day week--a--at breakfast-time--a--everybody +present--including aunt--a--and extremely friendly gentleman--to be at +the hotel at Canterbury--a--where--Mrs. Micawber and myself--Auld Lang +Syne in chorus--and--a--will expose intolerable ruffian--HEEP! No more +to say--a--or listen to persuasion--go immediately--not capable--a--bear +society--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--HEEP!’ + +With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at +all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber +rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and +wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But +even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted; +for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, +the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring +tavern, at which he had called to write it:-- + + + ‘Most secret and confidential. +‘MY DEAR SIR, + +‘I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your +excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering +volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more +easily conceived than described. + +‘I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the +morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at +Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of +uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal +exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed. + +‘The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable +me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall +simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where + + Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, + The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, + + ‘--With the plain Inscription, + + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’ + + + +CHAPTER 50. Mr. PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES TRUE + + +By this time, some months had passed since our interview on the bank +of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had +communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of +her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that +any clue had been obtained, for a moment, to Emily’s fate. I confess +that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper +and deeper into the belief that she was dead. + +His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know--and I believe +his honest heart was transparent to me--he never wavered again, in his +solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although +I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong +assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so +affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of +his fine nature, that the respect and honour in which I held him were +exalted every day. + +His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had +been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things +wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help +himself. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the +light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, +and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on reading something in the +newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a +journey of three--or four-score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, +and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted +me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always +steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily’s sake, when she should +be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never +heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart. + +Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. +I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough +cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid +wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when +he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe in the +garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, the picture +of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have in my +childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind +moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind. + +One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting +near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she +had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should have +seen her again. + +‘Did she tell you why?’ I inquired. + +‘I asked her, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘but it is but few words as she +ever says, and she on’y got my promise and so went away.’ + +‘Did she say when you might expect to see her again?’ I demanded. + +‘No, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his +face. ‘I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could +tell.’ + +As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, +I made no other comment on this information than that I supposed he +would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept +to myself, and those were faint enough. + +I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight +afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. +Micawber’s week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was +a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and +heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark; +and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro +in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little +voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an +evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for +the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed. + +There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side +of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was +walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes +towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure +beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and +beckoning. + +‘Martha!’ said I, going to it. + +‘Can you come with me?’ she inquired, in an agitated whisper. ‘I have +been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come, +and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out +long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?’ + +My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty +gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, +and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come +expeditiously on foot. + +I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes, +with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was +coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was +to drive, she answered, ‘Anywhere near Golden Square! And quick!’--then +shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the +other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. + +Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and +dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how strongly +she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural +inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. +We proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of +the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we +were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at first. + +We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, +where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have +some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on +to one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part, +where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single +families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off +in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my +arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was +like a tributary channel to the street. + +The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were +opened and people’s heads put out; and we passed other people on the +stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before +we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over +flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these +were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a +broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood; +cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and +broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur +were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened +the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some +attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this +dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there +with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to +a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away +from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had +been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was +scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad +air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other +glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked +giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust-heap of the +mansion. + +We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the +way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female +figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of +stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure +pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle, and went in. + +‘What’s this!’ said Martha, in a whisper. ‘She has gone into my room. I +don’t know her!’ + +I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle. + +I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen +before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, +when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood, +what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her +former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little +back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a +touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof, little better +than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers, +there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we +stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on +my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; +that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of +ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom +we had heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my +position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha +kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude. + +‘It matters little to me her not being at home,’ said Rosa Dartle +haughtily, ‘I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.’ + +‘Me?’ replied a soft voice. + +At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily’s! + +‘Yes,’ returned Miss Dartle, ‘I have come to look at you. What? You are +not ashamed of the face that has done so much?’ + +The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern +sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had +seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the +passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting +through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke. + +‘I have come to see,’ she said, ‘James Steerforth’s fancy; the girl who +ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her +native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like +James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like.’ + +There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these +taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself +before it. It was succeeded by a moment’s pause. + +When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a +stamp upon the ground. + +‘Stay there!’ she said, ‘or I’ll proclaim you to the house, and the +whole street! If you try to evade me, I’ll stop you, if it’s by the +hair, and raise the very stones against you!’ + +A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence +succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to +the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was +for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come? +I thought impatiently. + +‘So!’ said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, ‘I see her at last! +Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, +and that hanging head!’ + +‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, spare me!’ exclaimed Emily. ‘Whoever you are, +you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven’s sake spare me, if you would +be spared yourself!’ + +‘If I would be spared!’ returned the other fiercely; ‘what is there in +common between US, do you think!’ + +‘Nothing but our sex,’ said Emily, with a burst of tears. + +‘And that,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘is so strong a claim, preferred by one +so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and +abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to +our sex!’ + +‘I have deserved this,’ said Emily, ‘but it’s dreadful! Dear, dear lady, +think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back! +Oh, home, home!’ + +Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and +looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. +Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her +cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph. + +‘Listen to what I say!’ she said; ‘and reserve your false arts for your +dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than you could +charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.’ + +‘Oh, have some mercy on me!’ cried Emily. ‘Show me some compassion, or I +shall die mad!’ + +‘It would be no great penance,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘for your crimes. Do +you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid +waste?’ + +‘Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don’t think of it!’ cried Emily; +and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, +her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, +and her hair streaming about her. ‘Has there ever been a single minute, +waking or sleeping, when it hasn’t been before me, just as it used to +be in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever! +Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the +agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never +would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would +have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had +some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them +were always fond of me!’ She dropped on her face, before the imperious +figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her +dress. + +Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of +brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she +must keep a strong constraint upon herself--I write what I sincerely +believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with +her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and +character seemed forced into that expression.---Would he never come? + +‘The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!’ she said, when she had so +far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust +herself to speak. ‘YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought +on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money +would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the +trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible +thing your people dealt in.’ + +‘Oh, not that!’ cried Emily. ‘Say anything of me; but don’t visit +my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as +honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you +have no mercy for me.’ + +‘I speak,’ she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and +drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily’s touch, ‘I speak +of HIS home--where I live. Here,’ she said, stretching out her hand with +her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, ‘is a +worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief +in a house where she wouldn’t have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of +anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up +from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed +back to her original place!’ + +‘No! no!’ cried Emily, clasping her hands together. ‘When he first came +into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me +being carried to my grave!--I had been brought up as virtuous as you or +any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any +lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, +you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I +don’t defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know +when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all +his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved +him!’ + +Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck +at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by +passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which +had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at +her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and +trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never +seen such a sight, and never could see such another. + +‘YOU love him? You?’ she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if +it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. + +Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. + +‘And tell that to ME,’ she added, ‘with your shameful lips? Why don’t +they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have +this girl whipped to death.’ + +And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the +rack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, +broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a +sight of shame for gods and men. + +‘SHE love!’ she said. ‘THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, she’d +tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!’ + +Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would +have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she +suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained +it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to +herself. + +‘I came here, you pure fountain of love,’ she said, ‘to see--as I began +by telling you--what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am +satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours, +with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are +expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it’s all gone, you +can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken +toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, +and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and +an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and +trustfulness--which you look like, and is quite consistent with your +story!--I have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I’ll +do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!’ + +Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over +her face like a spasm, and left her smiling. + +‘Hide yourself,’ she pursued, ‘if not at home, somewhere. Let it be +somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life--or, better still, in some +obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have +found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means +sometimes. I believe they may be easily found.’ + +A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, +and listened to it as if it were music. + +‘I am of a strange nature, perhaps,’ Rosa Dartle went on; ‘but I can’t +breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I +will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If you live here +tomorrow, I’ll have your story and your character proclaimed on the +common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; and it +is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If, +leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your +true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), +the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being +assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your +hand, I am sanguine as to that.’ + +Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could +I bear it? ‘Oh me, oh me!’ exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that +might have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there +was no relenting in Rosa Dartle’s smile. ‘What, what, shall I do!’ + +‘Do?’ returned the other. ‘Live happy in your own reflections! +Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth’s +tenderness--he would have made you his serving-man’s wife, would he +not?---or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who +would have taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud remembrances, and +the consciousness of your own virtues, and the honourable position to +which they have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the +human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in +his condescension. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways +and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair--find one, and take +your flight to Heaven!’ + +I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was +his, thank God! + +She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out +of my sight. + +‘But mark!’ she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to +go away, ‘I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that +I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach +altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say; and +what I say, I mean to do!’ + +The foot upon the stairs came nearer--nearer--passed her as she went +down--rushed into the room! + +‘Uncle!’ + +A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw +him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few +seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it--oh, how tenderly!--and +drew a handkerchief before it. + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, ‘I +thank my Heav’nly Father as my dream’s come true! I thank Him hearty for +having guided of me, in His own ways, to my darling!’ + +With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled +face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, +motionless and unconscious, down the stairs. + + + +CHAPTER 51. THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY + + +It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was +walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise +now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr. +Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me +half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared his head, as it was +always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high +respect. I had been telling her all that had happened overnight. Without +saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him, +and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that she had no +need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she +had said a thousand. + +‘I’ll go in now, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘and look after Little Blossom, +who will be getting up presently.’ + +‘Not along of my being heer, ma’am, I hope?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Unless +my wits is gone a bahd’s neezing’--by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say, +bird’s-nesting--‘this morning, ‘tis along of me as you’re a-going to +quit us?’ + +‘You have something to say, my good friend,’ returned my aunt, ‘and will +do better without me.’ + +‘By your leave, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘I should take it kind, +pervising you doen’t mind my clicketten, if you’d bide heer.’ + +‘Would you?’ said my aunt, with short good-nature. ‘Then I am sure I +will!’ + +So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty’s, and walked with him to a +leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where +she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr. +Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small +rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before +beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force +of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty +companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. + +‘I took my dear child away last night,’ Mr. Peggotty began, as he +raised his eyes to ours, ‘to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been +expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed me +right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said +to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe +me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at home so playful--and see +her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Saviour wrote in with his +blessed hand--I felt a wownd go to my ‘art, in the midst of all its +thankfulness.’ + +He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing +why; and then cleared his voice. + +‘It warn’t for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on’y to +think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen’t know why I do so much +as mention of it now, I’m sure. I didn’t have it in my mind a minute +ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat’ral, that I +yielded to it afore I was aweer.’ + +‘You are a self-denying soul,’ said my aunt, ‘and will have your +reward.’ + +Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his +face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an +acknowledgement of her good opinion; then took up the thread he had +relinquished. + +‘When my Em’ly took flight,’ he said, in stern wrath for the moment, +‘from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer spotted +snake as Mas’r Davy see,--and his story’s trew, and may GOD confound +him!--she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many +stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, believing +the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces, +for she was a-coming by. She heerd herself a-crying out, like as if +it was another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and +rocks, and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so +fur she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her +ears. Of a sudden--or so she thowt, you unnerstand--the day broke, wet +and windy, and she was lying b’low a heap of stone upon the shore, and +a woman was a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, +what was it as had gone so much amiss?’ + +He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so +vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what +he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can +hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually +present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an +astonishing air of fidelity. + +‘As Em’ly’s eyes--which was heavy--see this woman better,’ Mr. Peggotty +went on, ‘she know’d as she was one of them as she had often talked to +on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in +the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly +in boats and carriages, and know’d all that country, ‘long the coast, +miles and miles. She hadn’t no children of her own, this woman, being +a young wife; but she was a-looking to have one afore long. And may +my prayers go up to Heaven that ‘twill be a happiness to her, and a +comfort, and a honour, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful to +her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer, +and heerafter!’ + +‘Amen!’ said my aunt. + +‘She had been summat timorous and down,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and had sat, +at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was, +when Em’ly talked to the children. But Em’ly had took notice of her, +and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was partial to +the children herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that when +Em’ly went that way, she always giv Em’ly flowers. This was her as +now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em’ly told her, +and she--took her home. She did indeed. She took her home,’ said Mr. +Peggotty, covering his face. + +He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen him +affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did +not attempt to disturb him. + +‘It was a little cottage, you may suppose,’ he said, presently, ‘but she +found space for Em’ly in it,--her husband was away at sea,--and she kep +it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not +many near) to keep it secret too. Em’ly was took bad with fever, +and, what is very strange to me is,--maybe ‘tis not so strange to +scholars,--the language of that country went out of her head, and she +could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if +she had dreamed it, that she lay there always a-talking her own tongue, +always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and +begging and imploring of ‘em to send theer and tell how she was dying, +and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was on’y a wured. A’most +the whole time, she thowt,--now, that him as I made mention on just now +was lurking for her unnerneath the winder; now that him as had brought +her to this was in the room,--and cried to the good young woman not to +give her up, and know’d, at the same time, that she couldn’t unnerstand, +and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore +her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and theer was no today, nor +yesterday, nor yet tomorrow; but everything in her life as ever had +been, or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as +never could be, was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor +welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! How long this lasted, I +doen’t know; but then theer come a sleep; and in that sleep, from being +a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of +the littlest child.’ + +Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own +description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. + +‘It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there +warn’t a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon +the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a +Sunday morning; but the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the +hills beyond, warn’t home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her +friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then she know’d as the old +boat warn’t round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; +and know’d where she was, and why; and broke out a-crying on that good +young woman’s bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a-lying now, a-cheering of +her with its pretty eyes!’ + +He could not speak of this good friend of Emily’s without a flow of +tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless +her! + +‘That done my Em’ly good,’ he resumed, after such emotion as I could +not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her +heart; ‘that done Em’ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the language +of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make +signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure, +and trying to learn the names of common things--names as she seemed +never to have heerd in all her life--till one evening come, when she +was a-setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the +beach. And of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what +would be in English, “Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!”--for you +are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her “Pretty lady”, as +the general way in that country is, and that she had taught ‘em to +call her “Fisherman’s daughter” instead. The child says of a sudden, +“Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!” Then Em’ly unnerstands her; and +she answers, bursting out a-crying; and it all comes back! + +‘When Em’ly got strong again,’ said Mr. Peggotty, after another short +interval of silence, ‘she cast about to leave that good young creetur, +and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two +together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that +to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they +would take for all they done. I’m a’most glad on it, though they was +so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth +corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas’r Davy, +it’ll outlast all the treasure in the wureld. + +‘Em’ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at a +inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. --Let him never +come nigh me. I doen’t know what hurt I might do him!--Soon as she see +him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon +her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw’d. She come to England, +and was set ashore at Dover. + +‘I doen’t know,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘for sure, when her ‘art begun to +fail her; but all the way to England she had thowt to come to her dear +home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face tow’rds it. But, +fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of +us being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it, +kiender by force, upon the road: “Uncle, uncle,” she says to me, “the +fear of not being worthy to do what my torn and bleeding breast so +longed to do, was the most fright’ning fear of all! I turned back, when +my ‘art was full of prayers that I might crawl to the old door-step, in +the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead +in the morning.” + +‘She come,’ said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an +awe-stricken whisper, ‘to London. She--as had never seen it in her +life--alone--without a penny--young--so pretty--come to London. A’most +the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she +believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work +as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her, +about a lodging fur the night, and making secret inquiration concerning +of me and all at home, tomorrow. When my child,’ he said aloud, and with +an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, ‘stood upon the +brink of more than I can say or think on--Martha, trew to her promise, +saved her.’ + +I could not repress a cry of joy. + +‘Mas’r Davy!’ said he, gripping my hand in that strong hand of his, +‘it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir! She was +arnest. She had know’d of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and what +to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above all! She come, white and +hurried, upon Em’ly in her sleep. She says to her, “Rise up from worse +than death, and come with me!” Them belonging to the house would have +stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. “Stand away +from me,” she says, “I am a ghost that calls her from beside her open +grave!” She told Em’ly she had seen me, and know’d I loved her, and +forgive her. She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She took her, faint +and trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said, than if +she had had no ears. She walked among ‘em with my child, minding only +her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from that black +pit of ruin! + +‘She attended on Em’ly,’ said Mr. Peggotty, who had released my hand, +and put his own hand on his heaving chest; ‘she attended to my Em’ly, +lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day. +Then she went in search of me; then in search of you, Mas’r Davy. She +didn’t tell Em’ly what she come out fur, lest her ‘art should fail, and +she should think of hiding of herself. How the cruel lady know’d of +her being theer, I can’t say. Whether him as I have spoke so much of, +chanced to see ‘em going theer, or whether (which is most like, to my +thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, I doen’t greatly ask myself. +My niece is found. + +‘All night long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘we have been together, Em’ly +and me. ‘Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in wureds, +through them broken-hearted tears; ‘tis less as I have seen of her dear +face, as grow’d into a woman’s at my hearth. But, all night long, her +arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid heer; and we knows +full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more.’ + +He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect +repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. + +‘It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot,’ said my aunt, drying her eyes, +‘when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister Betsey +Trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, hardly anything would +have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good young +creature’s baby!’ + +Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt’s feelings, but could +not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her +commendation. We all remained silent, and occupied with our own +reflections (my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and +now laughing and calling herself a fool); until I spoke. + +‘You have quite made up your mind,’ said I to Mr. Peggotty, ‘as to the +future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.’ + +‘Quite, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned; ‘and told Em’ly. Theer’s mighty +countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea.’ + +‘They will emigrate together, aunt,’ said I. + +‘Yes!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. ‘No one can’t reproach +my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over theer!’ + +I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. + +‘I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir,’ he returned, ‘to get +information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two +months from now, there’ll be one sailing--I see her this morning--went +aboard--and we shall take our passage in her.’ + +‘Quite alone?’ I asked. + +‘Aye, Mas’r Davy!’ he returned. ‘My sister, you see, she’s that fond +of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on’y of her own country, +that it wouldn’t be hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, theer’s +one she has in charge, Mas’r Davy, as doen’t ought to be forgot.’ + +‘Poor Ham!’ said I. + +‘My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma’am, and he takes +kindly to her,’ Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt’s better information. +‘He’ll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen it’s like he +couldn’t bring himself to open his lips to another. Poor fellow!’ said +Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘theer’s not so much left him, that he +could spare the little as he has!’ + +‘And Mrs. Gummidge?’ said I. + +‘Well, I’ve had a mort of consideration, I do tell you,’ returned Mr. +Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went +on, ‘concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis Gummidge falls +a-thinking of the old ‘un, she an’t what you may call good company. +Betwixt you and me, Mas’r Davy--and you, ma’am--wen Mrs. Gummidge takes +to wimicking,’--our old country word for crying,--‘she’s liable to be +considered to be, by them as didn’t know the old ‘un, peevish-like. Now +I DID know the old ‘un,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I know’d his merits, +so I unnerstan’ her; but ‘tan’t entirely so, you see, with +others--nat’rally can’t be!’ + +My aunt and I both acquiesced. + +‘Wheerby,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘my sister might--I doen’t say she would, +but might--find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble now-and-again. +Theerfur ‘tan’t my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge ‘long with them, +but to find a Beein’ fur her wheer she can fisherate for herself.’ +(A Beein’ signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to +provide.) ‘Fur which purpose,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I means to make her +a ‘lowance afore I go, as’ll leave her pretty comfort’ble. She’s the +faithfullest of creeturs. ‘Tan’t to be expected, of course, at her +time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to +be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and +fur-away country. So that’s what I’m a-going to do with her.’ + +He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody’s claims and strivings, but +his own. + +‘Em’ly,’ he continued, ‘will keep along with me--poor child, she’s sore +in need of peace and rest!--until such time as we goes upon our voyage. +She’ll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I hope her troubles +will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once +more by her rough but loving uncle.’ + +My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great +satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty. + +‘Theer’s one thing furder, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, putting his hand in his +breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had +seen before, which he unrolled on the table. ‘Theer’s these here +banknotes--fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she +come away with. I’ve asked her about that (but not saying why), and have +added of it up. I an’t a scholar. Would you be so kind as see how ‘tis?’ + +He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and +observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. + +‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, taking it back. ‘This money, if you doen’t +see objections, Mas’r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, in a cover +directed to him; and put that up in another, directed to his mother. +I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it’s the +price on; and that I’m gone, and past receiving of it back.’ + +I told him that I thought it would be right to do so--that I was +thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. + +‘I said that theer was on’y one thing furder,’ he proceeded with a grave +smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his +pocket; ‘but theer was two. I warn’t sure in my mind, wen I come out +this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what had +so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out, and put +it in the post-office, telling of ‘em how all was as ‘tis; and that I +should come down tomorrow to unload my mind of what little needs a-doing +of down theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth.’ + +‘And do you wish me to go with you?’ said I, seeing that he left +something unsaid. + +‘If you could do me that kind favour, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied. ‘I know +the sight on you would cheer ‘em up a bit.’ + +My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should +go--as I found on talking it over with her--I readily pledged myself to +accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently, +we were on the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground. + +As we passed along the familiar street at night--Mr. Peggotty, in +despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag--I glanced into Omer +and Joram’s shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his +pipe. I felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his +sister and Ham; and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind. + +‘How is Mr. Omer, after this long time?’ said I, going in. + +He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of +me, and soon recognized me with great delight. + +‘I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honour as this visit,’ +said he, ‘only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am wheeled about. +With the exception of my limbs and my breath, howsoever, I am as hearty +as a man can be, I’m thankful to say.’ + +I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and +saw, now, that his easy-chair went on wheels. + +‘It’s an ingenious thing, ain’t it?’ he inquired, following the +direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. ‘It runs +as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. Bless you, +my little Minnie--my grand-daughter you know, Minnie’s child--puts her +little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as +clever and merry as ever you see anything! And I tell you what--it’s a +most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in.’ + +I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and +find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as if +his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various +branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. + +‘I see more of the world, I can assure you,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘in this +chair, than ever I see out of it. You’d be surprised at the number of +people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would! There’s +twice as much in the newspaper, since I’ve taken to this chair, as there +used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I do get +through! That’s what I feel so strong, you know! If it had been my eyes, +what should I have done? If it had been my ears, what should I have +done? Being my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my +breath shorter when I used ‘em. And now, if I want to go out into +the street or down to the sands, I’ve only got to call Dick, Joram’s +youngest ‘prentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord +Mayor of London.’ + +He half suffocated himself with laughing here. + +‘Lord bless you!’ said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, ‘a man must take +the fat with the lean; that’s what he must make up his mind to, in this +life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent business!’ + +‘I am very glad to hear it,’ said I. + +‘I knew you would be,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘And Joram and Minnie are like +Valentines. What more can a man expect? What’s his limbs to that!’ + +His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of +the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. + +‘And since I’ve took to general reading, you’ve took to general writing, +eh, sir?’ said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. ‘What a lovely work +that was of yours! What expressions in it! I read it every word--every +word. And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!’ + +I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I +thought this association of ideas significant. + +‘I give you my word and honour, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘that when I lay +that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in three +separate and indiwidual wollumes--one, two, three; I am as proud as +Punch to think that I once had the honour of being connected with +your family. And dear me, it’s a long time ago, now, ain’t it? Over +at Blunderstone. With a pretty little party laid along with the other +party. And you quite a small party then, yourself. Dear, dear!’ + +I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that I +did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and how +kindly he had always treated her, I gave him a general account of her +restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha; which I knew would please +the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and said, feelingly, +when I had done: + +‘I am rejoiced at it, sir! It’s the best news I have heard for many +a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what’s going to be undertook for that +unfortunate young woman, Martha, now?’ + +‘You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since +yesterday,’ said I, ‘but on which I can give you no information yet, Mr. +Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in +doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is +disinterested and good.’ + +‘Because you know,’ said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had left +off, ‘whatever is done, I should wish to be a member of. Put me down for +anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could think +the girl all bad, and I am glad to find she’s not. So will my daughter +Minnie be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some things--her +mother was just the same as her--but their hearts are soft and kind. +It’s all show with Minnie, about Martha. Why she should consider it +necessary to make any show, I don’t undertake to tell you. But it’s all +show, bless you. She’d do her any kindness in private. So, put me down +for whatever you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me +a line where to forward it. Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘when a man is +drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when he +finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second +time, in a speeches of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a +kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don’t speak of myself, +particular,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘because, sir, the way I look at it is, that +we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, +on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us +always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!’ + +He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back +of his chair, expressly made for its reception. + +‘There’s Em’ly’s cousin, him that she was to have been married to,’ said +Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, ‘as fine a fellow as there is in +Yarmouth! He’ll come and talk or read to me, in the evening, for an hour +together sometimes. That’s a kindness, I should call it! All his life’s +a kindness.’ + +‘I am going to see him now,’ said I. + +‘Are you?’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Tell him I was hearty, and sent my respects. +Minnie and Joram’s at a ball. They would be as proud to see you as I +am, if they was at home. Minnie won’t hardly go out at all, you see, “on +account of father”, as she says. So I swore tonight, that if she didn’t +go, I’d go to bed at six. In consequence of which,’ Mr. Omer shook +himself and his chair with laughter at the success of his device, ‘she +and Joram’s at a ball.’ + +I shook hands with him, and wished him good night. + +‘Half a minute, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘If you was to go without seeing +my little elephant, you’d lose the best of sights. You never see such +a sight! Minnie!’ A musical little voice answered, from somewhere +upstairs, ‘I am coming, grandfather!’ and a pretty little girl with +long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into the shop. + +‘This is my little elephant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, fondling the child. +‘Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant!’ + +The little elephant set the door of the parlour open, enabling me to see +that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. +Omer who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty +forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer’s +chair. + +‘The elephant butts, you know, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, winking, ‘when he +goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!’ + +At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to +marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer +in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching +the door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and +looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his +life’s exertions. + +After a stroll about the town I went to Ham’s house. Peggotty had now +removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of +Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the +good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr. +Barkis drove was still at work. + +I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who had +been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if +she could have been induced to desert her post, by anyone else. He +had evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their +aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out ‘to take a turn on +the beach’. He presently came home, very glad to see me; and I hope they +were all the better for my being there. We spoke, with some approach to +cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty’s growing rich in a new country, and of +the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily +by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the +serenest of the party. + +But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the +Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was +the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted; +though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and +better than any boat-builder in any yard in all that part. There were +times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in +the boat-house; and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never +mentioned her as a woman. + +I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me +alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he +came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. +That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was +taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the +old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head. + +All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and +tackle; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his +little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in +parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with +him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more, +before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the evening. +But I so arranged it, as that I should meet Ham first. + +It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met him +at a retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, and turned +back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he really +wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his face. We had walked but +a little way together, when he said, without looking at me: + +‘Mas’r Davy, have you seen her?’ + +‘Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon,’ I softly answered. + +We walked a little farther, and he said: + +‘Mas’r Davy, shall you see her, d’ye think?’ + +‘It would be too painful to her, perhaps,’ said I. + +‘I have thowt of that,’ he replied. ‘So ‘twould, sir, so ‘twould.’ + +‘But, Ham,’ said I, gently, ‘if there is anything that I could write +to her, for you, in case I could not tell it; if there is anything +you would wish to make known to her through me; I should consider it a +sacred trust.’ + +‘I am sure on’t. I thankee, sir, most kind! I think theer is something I +could wish said or wrote.’ + +‘What is it?’ + +We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. + +‘’Tan’t that I forgive her. ‘Tan’t that so much. ‘Tis more as I beg of +her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd times, +I think that if I hadn’t had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she was +that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she’d have told me what was +struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and I might +have saved her.’ + +I pressed his hand. ‘Is that all?’ ‘Theer’s yet a something else,’ he +returned, ‘if I can say it, Mas’r Davy.’ + +We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He +was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was +merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. + +‘I loved her--and I love the mem’ry of her--too deep--to be able to +lead her to believe of my own self as I’m a happy man. I could only be +happy--by forgetting of her--and I’m afeerd I couldn’t hardly bear as +she should be told I done that. But if you, being so full of learning, +Mas’r Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to believe +I wasn’t greatly hurt: still loving of her, and mourning for her: +anything as might bring her to believe as I was not tired of my life, +and yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease +from troubling and the weary are at rest--anything as would ease her +sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or as +‘twas possible that anyone could ever be to me what she was--I should +ask of you to say that--with my prayers for her--that was so dear.’ + +I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do +this as well as I could. + +‘I thankee, sir,’ he answered. ‘’Twas kind of you to meet me. ‘Twas kind +of you to bear him company down. Mas’r Davy, I unnerstan’ very well, +though my aunt will come to Lon’on afore they sail, and they’ll unite +once more, that I am not like to see him agen. I fare to feel sure on’t. +We doen’t say so, but so ‘twill be, and better so. The last you see on +him--the very last--will you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of +the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to?’ + +This I also promised, faithfully. + +‘I thankee agen, sir,’ he said, heartily shaking hands. ‘I know wheer +you’re a-going. Good-bye!’ + +With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could +not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his figure, +crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face towards a +strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until +he was a shadow in the distance. + +The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached; and, on +entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old +lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, +looking at Mr. Peggotty. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece, +and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate; but he raised his +head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner. + +‘Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to ‘t, eh, Mas’r Davy?’ +he said, taking up the candle. ‘Bare enough, now, an’t it?’ ‘Indeed you +have made good use of the time,’ said I. + +‘Why, we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like a--I +doen’t know what Missis Gummidge an’t worked like,’ said Mr. Peggotty, +looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently approving simile. + +Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. + +‘Theer’s the very locker that you used to sit on, ‘long with Em’ly!’ +said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. ‘I’m a-going to carry it away with me, +last of all. And heer’s your old little bedroom, see, Mas’r Davy! A’most +as bleak tonight, as ‘art could wish!’ + +In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept +around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very +mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the +oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that first +great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child +who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth: and a foolish, fearful +fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at +any turn. + +‘’Tis like to be long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, ‘afore +the boat finds new tenants. They look upon ‘t, down heer, as being +unfortunate now!’ + +‘Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?’ I asked. + +‘To a mast-maker up town,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I’m a-going to give the +key to him tonight.’ + +We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, +sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the +chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the +door before extinguishing the candle. + +‘Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and clinging +to his arm ‘my dear Dan’l, the parting words I speak in this house is, I +mustn’t be left behind. Doen’t ye think of leaving me behind, Dan’l! Oh, +doen’t ye ever do it!’ + +Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and from me +to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. + +‘Doen’t ye, dearest Dan’l, doen’t ye!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, fervently. +‘Take me ‘long with you, Dan’l, take me ‘long with you and Em’ly! I’ll +be your servant, constant and trew. If there’s slaves in them parts +where you’re a-going, I’ll be bound to you for one, and happy, but +doen’t ye leave me behind, Dan’l, that’s a deary dear!’ + +‘My good soul,’ said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘you doen’t know +what a long voyage, and what a hard life ‘tis!’ ‘Yes, I do, Dan’l! I can +guess!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘But my parting words under this roof is, +I shall go into the house and die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan’l. +I can work. I can live hard. I can be loving and patient now--more than +you think, Dan’l, if you’ll on’y try me. I wouldn’t touch the ‘lowance, +not if I was dying of want, Dan’l Peggotty; but I’ll go with you and +Em’ly, if you’ll on’y let me, to the world’s end! I know how ‘tis; I +know you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, ‘tan’t so no +more! I ain’t sat here, so long, a-watching, and a-thinking of your +trials, without some good being done me. Mas’r Davy, speak to him for +me! I knows his ways, and Em’ly’s, and I knows their sorrows, and can be +a comfort to ‘em, some odd times, and labour for ‘em allus! Dan’l, deary +Dan’l, let me go ‘long with you!’ + +And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and +affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well +deserved. + +We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door +on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in +the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to London outside the +coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. +Gummidge was happy. + + + +CHAPTER 52. I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION + + +When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within +four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted how we +should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah! how +easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now! + +We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber’s stipulation for my +aunt’s attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be +represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take this +course, when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never +would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt +remained behind, on any pretence. + +‘I won’t speak to you,’ said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. ‘I’ll +be disagreeable! I’ll make Jip bark at you all day. I shall be sure that +you really are a cross old thing, if you don’t go!’ + +‘Tut, Blossom!’ laughed my aunt. ‘You know you can’t do without me!’ + +‘Yes, I can,’ said Dora. ‘You are no use to me at all. You never run up +and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and tell me stories +about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered with +dust--oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! You never do anything at +all to please me, do you, dear?’ Dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and +say, ‘Yes, you do! I’m only joking!’-lest my aunt should think she +really meant it. + +‘But, aunt,’ said Dora, coaxingly, ‘now listen. You must go. I shall +tease you, ‘till you let me have my own way about it. I shall lead my +naughty boy such a life, if he don’t make you go. I shall make myself +so disagreeable--and so will Jip! You’ll wish you had gone, like a good +thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don’t go. Besides,’ said Dora, +putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, ‘why +shouldn’t you both go? I am not very ill indeed. Am I?’ + +‘Why, what a question!’ cried my aunt. + +‘What a fancy!’ said I. + +‘Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!’ said Dora, slowly looking from +one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us +as she lay upon her couch. ‘Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not +believe you; and then I shall cry!’ + +I saw, in my aunt’s face, that she began to give way now, and Dora +brightened again, as she saw it too. + +‘You’ll come back with so much to tell me, that it’ll take at least +a week to make me understand!’ said Dora. ‘Because I know I shan’t +understand, for a length of time, if there’s any business in it. And +there’s sure to be some business in it! If there’s anything to add up, +besides, I don’t know when I shall make it out; and my bad boy will look +so miserable all the time. There! Now you’ll go, won’t you? You’ll only +be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while you are gone. +Doady will carry me upstairs before you go, and I won’t come down again +till you come back; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding +letter from me, because she has never been to see us!’ + +We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and +that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, +because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry; +and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went +down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that night. + +At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which +we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a +letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half +past nine. After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, +to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as +if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables. + +Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, +and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and +churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the +towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich +country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, +as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when +they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of +their own age, and my pretty Dora’s youth; and of the many, never old, +who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells +had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up +within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as +circles do in water. + +I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go +nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to +the design I had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its +gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of +its old peace seemed to touch my heart. + +I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by +the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night’s +sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient +enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business +for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant +member of society. + +We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast. +As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine o’clock, our +restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more +pretence of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been +a mere form from the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room. +Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on +the ceiling; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. +Micawber’s coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of +the half hour, he appeared in the street. + +‘Here he is,’ said I, ‘and not in his legal attire!’ + +My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast +in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that +was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a +determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but +feeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands, +as firmly over his ears as he possibly could; and instantly took it off +again, to welcome Mr. Micawber. + +‘Gentlemen, and madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘good morning! My dear sir,’ +to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, ‘you are extremely +good.’ + +‘Have you breakfasted?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Have a chop!’ + +‘Not for the world, my good sir!’ cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him on +his way to the bell; ‘appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been +strangers.’ + +Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to think +it so obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook +hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly. + +‘Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘attention!’ + +Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush. + +‘Now, sir,’ said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, ‘we +are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU please.’ + +‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I trust you will shortly witness an +eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention +here that we have been in communication together?’ + +‘It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, to whom I +looked in surprise. ‘Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference to +what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my +judgement.’ + +‘Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,’ pursued Mr. Micawber, ‘what I +contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.’ + +‘Highly so,’ said Traddles. + +‘Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,’ said Mr. +Micawber, ‘you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the +moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be regarded in +any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature, +is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form +by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of +circumstances?’ + +‘We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘and will do +what you please.’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘your confidence is not, at +the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start +of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company, +inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose +Stipendiary I am.’ + +My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval. + +‘I have no more,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘to say at present.’ + +With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a +comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant, +and his face extremely pale. + +Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright +on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took +out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My +aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was +expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the +old house, without saying one word on the way. + +We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the +ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large +office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed +but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom, +like a new kind of shirt-frill. + +As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud: + +‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’ + +‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, gravely, ‘I hope I see you well?’ + +‘Is Miss Wickfield at home?’ said I. + +‘Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,’ he +returned; ‘but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old +friends. Will you walk in, sir?’ + +He preceded us to the dining-room--the first room I had entered in that +house--and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield’s former office, +said, in a sonorous voice: + +‘Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr. +Dixon!’ + +I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit +astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it +astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he +had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost +closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to +his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we +were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him +over my aunt’s shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as +humble as ever. + +‘Well, I am sure,’ he said. ‘This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To +have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul’s at once, is a treat +unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may +umbly express myself so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends, +whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she’s getting on. We have +been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, +lately, I do assure you.’ + +I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else +to do. + +‘Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an umble +clerk, and held your pony; ain’t they?’ said Uriah, with his sickliest +smile. ‘But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘to tell you the truth, I think you are +pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that’s any satisfaction +to you.’ + +‘Thank you, Miss Trotwood,’ said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner, +‘for your good opinion! Micawber, tell ‘em to let Miss Agnes know--and +mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present +company!’ said Uriah, setting chairs. + +‘You are not busy, Mr. Heep?’ said Traddles, whose eye the cunning red +eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded us. + +‘No, Mr. Traddles,’ replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and +squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. ‘Not +so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not +easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our +hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield’s being +hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it’s a pleasure as well as a +duty, I am sure, to work for him. You’ve not been intimate with Mr. +Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I’ve only had the honour of +seeing you once myself?’ + +‘No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,’ returned Traddles; +‘or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep.’ + +There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at +the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But, +seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face, simple manner, and +hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole +body, but especially his throat: + +‘I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much +as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you +the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently +spoken of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject +he’s very strong upon, if you never heard him.’ + +I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have +done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr. +Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and +had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality, +and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it. + +I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an +ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile, +some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles, +unobserved except by me, went out. + +‘Don’t wait, Micawber,’ said Uriah. + +Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect +before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow-men, +and that man his employer. + +‘What are you waiting for?’ said Uriah. ‘Micawber! did you hear me tell +you not to wait?’ + +‘Yes!’ replied the immovable Mr. Micawber. + +‘Then why DO you wait?’ said Uriah. + +‘Because I--in short, choose,’ replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst. + +Uriah’s cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly +tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber +attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every +feature. + +‘You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,’ he said, with an +effort at a smile, ‘and I am afraid you’ll oblige me to get rid of you. +Go along! I’ll talk to you presently.’ + +‘If there is a scoundrel on this earth,’ said Mr. Micawber, suddenly +breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, ‘with whom I have already +talked too much, that scoundrel’s name is--HEEP!’ + +Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round +upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could +wear, he said, in a lower voice: + +‘Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are +playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care. +You’ll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me. +There’s no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud +stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you? +None of your plots against me; I’ll counterplot you! Micawber, you be +off. I’ll talk to you presently.’ + +‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘there is a sudden change in this fellow, in +more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in +one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with +him as he deserves!’ + +‘You are a precious set of people, ain’t you?’ said Uriah, in the same +low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his +forehead, with his long lean hand, ‘to buy over my clerk, who is the +very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it, +before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss +Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I’ll stop your husband shorter +than will be pleasant to you. I won’t know your story professionally, +for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your +father, you had better not join that gang. I’ll ruin him, if you do. +Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before +it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don’t want to +be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to +presently, you fool! while there’s time to retreat. Where’s mother?’ he +said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles, +and pulling down the bell-rope. ‘Fine doings in a person’s own house!’ + +‘Mrs. Heep is here, sir,’ said Traddles, returning with that worthy +mother of a worthy son. ‘I have taken the liberty of making myself known +to her.’ + +‘Who are you to make yourself known?’ retorted Uriah. ‘And what do you +want here?’ + +‘I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ said Traddles, in a +composed and business-like way. ‘And I have a power of attorney from him +in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.’ + +‘The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,’ said Uriah, +turning uglier than before, ‘and it has been got from him by fraud!’ + +‘Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,’ returned Traddles +quietly; ‘and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you +please, to Mr. Micawber.’ + +‘Ury--!’ Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture. + +‘YOU hold your tongue, mother,’ he returned; ‘least said, soonest +mended.’ + +‘But, my Ury--’ + +‘Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?’ + +Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his +pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the +extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The +suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was +useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer +with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all +this time being desperate too, and at his wits’ end for the means +of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the +experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had +known him so long, and disliked him so heartily. + +I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us, +one after another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I +remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed +on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her +slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the +odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could +never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her +having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man. + +After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us +with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address +to me, half whining, and half abusive. + +‘You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself +so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place, +eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, I shouldn’t have +wondered; for I don’t make myself out a gentleman (though I never was +in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being +you!--And you’re not afraid of doing this, either? You don’t think at +all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into +trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr. +What’s-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber. +There’s your referee. Why don’t you make him speak? He has learnt his +lesson, I see.’ + +Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the +edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay +feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might +follow. + +Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the +greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first +syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst +forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive +weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the +form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and +glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of +their style of composition, he began to read as follows: + + +‘“Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen--“’ + +‘Bless and save the man!’ exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. ‘He’d write +letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!’ + +Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on. + +‘“In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate +Villain that has ever existed,”’ Mr. Micawber, without looking off the +letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, +‘“I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of +pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have +ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, +Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the +attendants of my career.”’ + +The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these +dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he +read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of +his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed. + +‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered +the office--or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the +Bureau--of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of +Wickfield and--HEEP, but in reality, wielded by--HEEP alone. HEEP, and +only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is +the Forger and the Cheat.”’ + +Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, +as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of +dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and +disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. +The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood. + +‘The Devil take you!’ said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. ‘I’ll +be even with you.’ + +‘Approach me again, you--you--you HEEP of infamy,’ gasped Mr. Micawber, +‘and if your head is human, I’ll break it. Come on, come on!’ + +I think I never saw anything more ridiculous--I was sensible of it, even +at the time--than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler, +and crying, ‘Come on!’ while Traddles and I pushed him back into a +corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in +emerging again. + +His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for +sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then +held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face +looking down. + +Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter. + +‘“The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into +the service of--HEEP,”’ always pausing before that word and uttering +it with astonishing vigour, ‘“were not defined, beyond the pittance of +twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on +the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive +words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the +poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance +between myself and--HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for +me to solicit from--HEEP--pecuniary advances towards the support of +Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising family? Need I say that this +necessity had been foreseen by--HEEP? That those advances were secured +by I.O.U.’s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal +institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in the web +he had spun for my reception?”’ + +Mr. Micawber’s enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this +unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or +anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read on: + +‘“Then it was that--HEEP--began to favour me with just so much of his +confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business. +Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to +dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly +called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the +mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. +W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible +way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--HEEP--was professing +unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused +gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, +with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious +ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind!”’ + +Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a +quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of +the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. + +‘“It is not my intention,”’ he continued reading on, ‘“to enter on a +detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it +is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature, +affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I +have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within +myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence +and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities +to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that +gentleman’s grievous wrong and injury, by--HEEP. Stimulated by the +silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor +without--to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W.--I entered on a not +unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted--now, to the +best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding +twelve calendar months.”’ + +He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and +appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. + +‘“My charges against--HEEP,”’ he read on, glancing at him, and drawing +the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of +need, ‘“are as follows.”’ + +We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his. + +‘“First,”’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘“When Mr. W.’s faculties and memory +for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or +expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--HEEP--designedly +perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When +Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business,--HEEP was always at hand +to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W.’s signature under such +circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other +documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw +out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six +fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business +charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or +had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the +appearance of having originated in Mr. W.’s own dishonest intention, and +of having been accomplished by Mr. W.’s own dishonest act; and has used +it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.”’ + +‘You shall prove this, you Copperfield!’ said Uriah, with a threatening +shake of the head. ‘All in good time!’ + +‘Ask--HEEP--Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,’ said Mr. +Micawber, breaking off from the letter; ‘will you?’ + +‘The fool himself--and lives there now,’ said Uriah, disdainfully. + +‘Ask--HEEP--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,’ said Mr. +Micawber; ‘will you?’ + +I saw Uriah’s lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his +chin. + +‘Or ask him,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if he ever burnt one there. If he says +yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber, +and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!’ + +The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of +these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried +out, in much agitation: + +‘Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!’ + +‘Mother!’ he retorted, ‘will you keep quiet? You’re in a fright, and +don’t know what you say or mean. Umble!’ he repeated, looking at me, +with a snarl; ‘I’ve umbled some of ‘em for a pretty long time back, +umble as I was!’ + +Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently +proceeded with his composition. + +‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, +information, and belief--“’ + +‘But that won’t do,’ muttered Uriah, relieved. ‘Mother, you keep quiet.’ + +‘We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for you +finally, sir, very shortly,’ replied Mr. Micawber. + +‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, +information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries, +books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and has distinctly done +so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following, +that is to say:”’ + +Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, +which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not +at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, +in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of +legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily +when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression +of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so +forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. +We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them +too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to +wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds +well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on +state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the +meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there +be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by +making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too +numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a +nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many +greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words. + +Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips: + +‘“To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, and +it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead +to some discoveries, and to the downfall of--HEEP’S--power over the W. +family,--as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, assume--unless the +filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from +allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made, +the said--HEEP--deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from +Mr. W., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and +nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by--HEEP--to +Mr. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the sum was never +advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to this +instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins +Micawber, are forgeries by--HEEP. I have, in my possession, in his hand +and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.’s signature, here +and there defaced by fire, but legible to anyone. I never attested any +such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.”’ Uriah +Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened +a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about, +and turned again towards us, without looking in it. + +‘“And I have the document,”’ Mr. Micawber read again, looking about as +if it were the text of a sermon, ‘“in my possession,--that is to say, +I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have since +relinquished it to Mr. Traddles.”’ + +‘It is quite true,’ assented Traddles. + +‘Ury, Ury!’ cried the mother, ‘be umble and make terms. I know my +son will be umble, gentlemen, if you’ll give him time to think. Mr. +Copperfield, I’m sure you know that he was always very umble, sir!’ + +It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when +the son had abandoned it as useless. + +‘Mother,’ he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in which +his hand was wrapped, ‘you had better take and fire a loaded gun at me.’ + +‘But I love you, Ury,’ cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she did; or +that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, to be sure, +they were a congenial couple. ‘And I can’t bear to hear you provoking +the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. I told the gentleman +at first, when he told me upstairs it was come to light, that I would +answer for your being umble, and making amends. Oh, see how umble I am, +gentlemen, and don’t mind him!’ + +‘Why, there’s Copperfield, mother,’ he angrily retorted, pointing his +lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as the +prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him; ‘there’s +Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say less than +you’ve blurted out!’ + +‘I can’t help it, Ury,’ cried his mother. ‘I can’t see you running into +danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble, as you +always was.’ + +He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me +with a scowl: + +‘What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with it. +What do you look at me for?’ + +Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a +performance with which he was so highly satisfied. + +‘“Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by--HEEP’S--false +books, and--HEEP’S--real memoranda, beginning with the partially +destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend, at the time of +its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our taking possession of +our present abode, in the locker or bin devoted to the reception of the +ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, +the very virtues, the parental affections, and the sense of honour, of +the unhappy Mr. W. have been for years acted on by, and warped to the +base purposes of--HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and +plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement +of the avaricious, false, and grasping--HEEP. That the engrossing object +of--HEEP--was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his ulterior +views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely to himself. +That his last act, completed but a few months since, was to induce Mr. +W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even +a bill of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a +certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by--HEEP--on the four common +quarter-days in each and every year. That these meshes; beginning with +alarming and falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the +receiver, at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and +ill-judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he +was morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended +borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from--HEEP--and +by--HEEP--fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself, +on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated by a +miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries--gradually +thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world beyond. Bankrupt, +as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all other hope, and +in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster in the garb of +man,”’--Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn of +expression,--‘“who, by making himself necessary to him, had achieved his +destruction. All this I undertake to show. Probably much more!”’ + +I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, half +sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as if Mr. +Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, ‘Pardon me,’ +and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense +enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter. + +‘“I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate these +accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the +landscape on which we appear to be an encumbrance. That is soon done. It +may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, +as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will +follow next in order. So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has +done much; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. +I trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation--of which the +smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of +arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of +morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of +one whom it were superfluous to call Demon--combined with the struggle +of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, +may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funeral +pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a +gallant and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to +cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish +objects, + + For England, home, and Beauty. + + ‘“Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER.”’ + + +Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded +up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she +might like to keep. + +There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in +the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to strike Uriah; +and, with a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors +clanking open. It was empty. + +‘Where are the books?’ he cried, with a frightful face. ‘Some thief has +stolen the books!’ + +Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. ‘I did, when I got the key +from you as usual--but a little earlier--and opened it this morning.’ + +‘Don’t be uneasy,’ said Traddles. ‘They have come into my possession. I +will take care of them, under the authority I mentioned.’ + +‘You receive stolen goods, do you?’ cried Uriah. + +‘Under such circumstances,’ answered Traddles, ‘yes.’ + +What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been profoundly +quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and seize him by the +collar with both hands! + +‘You know what I want?’ said my aunt. + +‘A strait-waistcoat,’ said he. + +‘No. My property!’ returned my aunt. ‘Agnes, my dear, as long as +I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I +wouldn’t--and, my dear, I didn’t, even to Trot, as he knows--breathe a +syllable of its having been placed here for investment. But, now I know +this fellow’s answerable for it, and I’ll have it! Trot, come and take +it away from him!’ + +Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property in +his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don’t know; but she certainly pulled at +it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself between them, and to +assure her that we would all take care that he should make the utmost +restitution of everything he had wrongly got. This, and a few moments’ +reflection, pacified her; but she was not at all disconcerted by what +she had done (though I cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed +her seat composedly. + +During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamouring to her son +to be ‘umble’; and had been going down on her knees to all of us in +succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his +chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but +not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look: + +‘What do you want done?’ + +‘I will tell you what must be done,’ said Traddles. + +‘Has that Copperfield no tongue?’ muttered Uriah, ‘I would do a good +deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had cut +it out.’ + +‘My Uriah means to be umble!’ cried his mother. ‘Don’t mind what he +says, good gentlemen!’ + +‘What must be done,’ said Traddles, ‘is this. First, the deed of +relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me +now--here.’ + +‘Suppose I haven’t got it,’ he interrupted. + +‘But you have,’ said Traddles; ‘therefore, you know, we won’t suppose +so.’ And I cannot help avowing that this was the first occasion on +which I really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, patient, +practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. ‘Then,’ said Traddles, +‘you must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become +possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing. All the +partnership books and papers must remain in our possession; all your +books and papers; all money accounts and securities, of both kinds. In +short, everything here.’ + +‘Must it? I don’t know that,’ said Uriah. ‘I must have time to think +about that.’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied Traddles; ‘but, in the meanwhile, and until +everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession +of these things; and beg you--in short, compel you--to keep to your own +room, and hold no communication with anyone.’ + +‘I won’t do it!’ said Uriah, with an oath. + +‘Maidstone jail is a safer place of detention,’ observed Traddles; ‘and +though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able to +right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing +YOU. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I! Copperfield, will you go +round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers?’ + +Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to +interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it +was all true, and if he didn’t do what we wanted, she would, and much +more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling. +To inquire what he might have done, if he had had any boldness, would +be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of +a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly +nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time +of his mean life. + +‘Stop!’ he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. ‘Mother, +hold your noise. Well! Let ‘em have that deed. Go and fetch it!’ + +‘Do you help her, Mr. Dick,’ said Traddles, ‘if you please.’ + +Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied her +as a shepherd’s dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him +little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the +box in which it was, where we found a banker’s book and some other +papers that were afterwards serviceable. + +‘Good!’ said Traddles, when this was brought. ‘Now, Mr. Heep, you can +retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I declare +to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be +done; that it is what I have explained; and that it must be done without +delay.’ + +Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the +room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said: + +‘Copperfield, I have always hated you. You’ve always been an upstart, +and you’ve always been against me.’ + +‘As I think I told you once before,’ said I, ‘it is you who have been, +in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable +to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in +the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is +as certain as death.’ + +‘Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where I +picked up so much umbleness), from nine o’clock to eleven, that labour +was a curse; and from eleven o’clock to one, that it was a blessing and +a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don’t know what all, eh?’ said +he with a sneer. ‘You preach, about as consistent as they did. +Won’t umbleness go down? I shouldn’t have got round my gentleman +fellow-partner without it, I think. --Micawber, you old bully, I’ll pay +YOU!’ + +Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and +making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, +then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of +‘witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself +and Mrs. Micawber’. After which, he invited the company generally to the +contemplation of that affecting spectacle. + +‘The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and +myself, is now withdrawn,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘and my children and the +Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms.’ + +As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we +were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I +dare say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to +return to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of +hope; and for someone else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles +remained for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by Mr. Dick; +and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted +hurriedly from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from +what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning--her better resolution +notwithstanding--I felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger +days which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber. + +His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the +sitting-room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, +we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber +exclaiming, ‘Emma! my life!’ rushed into Mrs. Micawber’s arms. Mrs. +Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss +Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micawber’s last +letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger leaped. The twins +testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations. +Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by +early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his +better feelings, and blubbered. + +‘Emma!’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘The cloud is past from my mind. Mutual +confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know +no further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!’ cried Mr. Micawber, +shedding tears. ‘Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, +rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the +end!’ + +With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, +and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak +prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be anything +but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury +and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support. + +But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away, +the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered +complete, was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; and +then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognized me. + +‘Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said the poor lady, giving me her +hand, ‘but I am not strong; and the removal of the late misunderstanding +between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for me.’ + +‘Is this all your family, ma’am?’ said my aunt. + +‘There are no more at present,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. + +‘Good gracious, I didn’t mean that, ma’am,’ said my aunt. ‘I mean, are +all these yours?’ + +‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is a true bill.’ + +‘And that eldest young gentleman, now,’ said my aunt, musing, ‘what has +he been brought up to?’ + +‘It was my hope when I came here,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to have got +Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more +strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in +the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he +has--in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, +rather than in sacred edifices.’ + +‘But he means well,’ said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. + +‘I dare say, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘that he means +particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his +meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.’ + +Master Micawber’s moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he +demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born +a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird? +Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist’s shop? +Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a +lawyer? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed +by violence? Whether he could do anything, without being brought up to +something? + +My aunt mused a little while, and then said: + +‘Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to +emigration.’ + +‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘it was the dream of my youth, and the +fallacious aspiration of my riper years.’ I am thoroughly persuaded, by +the by, that he had never thought of it in his life. + +‘Aye?’ said my aunt, with a glance at me. ‘Why, what a thing it would +be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to +emigrate now.’ + +‘Capital, madam, capital,’ urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. + +‘That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. +Copperfield,’ assented his wife. + +‘Capital?’ cried my aunt. ‘But you are doing us a great service--have +done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of +the fire--and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to +find the capital?’ + +‘I could not receive it as a gift,’ said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and +animation, ‘but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per +cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability--say my notes of +hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to +allow time for something to turn up--’ + +‘Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,’ returned my aunt, +‘if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some +people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, +why shouldn’t you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of +this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.’ + +‘There is but one question, my dear ma’am, I could wish to ask,’ said +Mrs. Micawber. ‘The climate, I believe, is healthy?’ + +‘Finest in the world!’ said my aunt. + +‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then my question arises. Now, are +the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. Micawber’s +abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will +not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that +sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to +develop themselves--that would be amply sufficient--and find their own +expansion?’ + +‘No better opening anywhere,’ said my aunt, ‘for a man who conducts +himself well, and is industrious.’ + +‘For a man who conducts himself well,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her +clearest business manner, ‘and is industrious. Precisely. It is +evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. +Micawber!’ + +‘I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that +it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself +and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up +on that shore. It is no distance--comparatively speaking; and though +consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that +is a mere matter of form.’ + +Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, +looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed +about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of +Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, as he walked +back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the +unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at +the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer! + + + +CHAPTER 53. ANOTHER RETROSPECT + + +I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the +moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent +love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me--turn to look upon the +Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground! + +I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our +cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it in +feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks +or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while. + +They have left off telling me to ‘wait a few days more’. I have begun +to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my +child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip. + +He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he misses in +his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he +mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is +sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on +Dora’s bed--she sitting at the bedside--and mildly licks her hand. + +Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or +complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her dear +old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no +sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the +little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our +wedding-day, and all that happy time. + +What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be--and in all +life, within doors and without--when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly +room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her +little fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I sit thus; +but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind. + + +It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt’s hands, shows me how +her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and bright it +is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears. + +‘Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,’ she says, when I +smile; ‘but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and +because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the +glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. +Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!’ + +‘That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given you, +Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.’ + +‘Ah! but I didn’t like to tell you,’ says Dora, ‘then, how I had cried +over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can run about +again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places where we +were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old walks? And +not forget poor papa?’ + +‘Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to get +well, my dear.’ + +‘Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don’t know!’ + + +It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the +same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a smile +upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up and down stairs +now. She lies here all the day. + +‘Doady!’ + +‘My dear Dora!’ + +‘You won’t think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what you +told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield’s not being well? I +want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.’ + +‘I will write to her, my dear.’ + +‘Will you?’ + +‘Directly.’ + +‘What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my dear, +it’s not a whim. It’s not a foolish fancy. I want, very much indeed, to +see her!’ + +‘I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to +come.’ + +‘You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?’ Dora whispers, with +her arm about my neck. + +‘How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?’ + +‘My empty chair!’ She clings to me for a little while, in silence. ‘And +you really miss me, Doady?’ looking up, and brightly smiling. ‘Even +poor, giddy, stupid me?’ + +‘My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?’ + +‘Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!’ creeping closer to me, and +folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is quiet, and +quite happy. + +‘Quite!’ she says. ‘Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her that I +want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to wish for.’ + +‘Except to get well again, Dora.’ + +‘Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think--you know I always was a silly little +thing!--that that will never be!’ + +‘Don’t say so, Dora! Dearest love, don’t think so!’ + +‘I won’t, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my dear +boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife’s empty chair!’ + + +It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been among +us for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have sat with +Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked much, but Dora +has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now alone. + +Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have told me +so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts--but I am far from +sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. I have +withdrawn by myself, many times today, to weep. I have remembered Who +wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I have bethought me +of all that gracious and compassionate history. I have tried to resign +myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done +imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end +will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, +I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a +pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. + +‘I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have +often thought of saying, lately. You won’t mind?’ with a gentle look. + +‘Mind, my darling?’ + +‘Because I don’t know what you will think, or what you may have thought +sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am +afraid I was too young.’ + +I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and +speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken +heart, that she is speaking of herself as past. + +‘I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don’t mean in years only, but +in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little +creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved +each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I +was not fit to be a wife.’ + +I try to stay my tears, and to reply, ‘Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be +a husband!’ + +‘I don’t know,’ with the old shake of her curls. ‘Perhaps! But if I had +been more fit to be married I might have made you more so, too. Besides, +you are very clever, and I never was.’ + +‘We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.’ + +‘I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would have +wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion +for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting +in his home. She wouldn’t have improved. It is better as it is.’ + +‘Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a +reproach!’ + +‘No, not a syllable!’ she answers, kissing me. ‘Oh, my dear, you never +deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word to +you, in earnest--it was all the merit I had, except being pretty--or you +thought me so. Is it lonely, down-stairs, Doady?’ + +‘Very! Very!’ + +‘Don’t cry! Is my chair there?’ + +‘In its old place.’ + +‘Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want +to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, and send her +up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come--not even aunt. +I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes, quite +alone.’ + +I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my +grief. + +‘I said that it was better as it is!’ she whispers, as she holds me in +her arms. ‘Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your +child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have +tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love +her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better +as it is!’ + +Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the +message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. + +His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of +flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. +As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined +heart is chastened heavily--heavily. + +I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those +secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every +little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles +make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the +image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love, +and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would +it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and a +girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply! + +How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife’s +old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, +and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go upstairs. + +‘Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!’ + +He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes +to my face. + +‘Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!’ + +He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with +a plaintive cry, is dead. + +‘Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!’ --That face, so full of pity, and of +grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn +hand upraised towards Heaven! + +‘Agnes?’ + +It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things +are blotted out of my remembrance. + + + +CHAPTER 54. Mr. MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS + + +This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind +beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was walled +up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at an end, that +I never could find any refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I +say, but not in the first shock of my grief. It slowly grew to that. +If the events I go on to relate, had not thickened around me, in the +beginning to confuse, and in the end to augment, my affliction, it is +possible (though I think not probable), that I might have fallen at once +into this condition. As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew +my own distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest +pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on +all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that was +closed for ever. + +When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came to be +agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my peace in change +and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know. The spirit of Agnes so +pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, that +I assume I may refer the project to her influence. But her influence was +so quiet that I know no more. + +And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her with +the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of +what she would be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the +fullness of time, had found a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from +the moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before me with her +upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. When +the Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep--they told +me so when I could bear to hear it--on her bosom, with a smile. From my +swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her +words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a purer +region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and softening its +pain. + +Let me go on. + +I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us from +the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of my +departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the ‘final +pulverization of Heep’; and for the departure of the emigrants. + +At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of friends in +my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We +proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber’s house; where, and at +Mr. Wickfield’s, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive +meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, +she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. +Micawber’s heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many +years. + +‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,’ was my aunt’s first salutation after we +were seated. ‘Pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal of +mine?’ + +‘My dear madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘perhaps I cannot better express +the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and I may +add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing +the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the +shore, and our Bark is on the sea.’ + +‘That’s right,’ said my aunt. ‘I augur all sort of good from your +sensible decision.’ + +‘Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,’ he rejoined. He then referred +to a memorandum. ‘With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling +us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have +reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose +my notes of hand--drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the +amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying +to such securities--at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. +The proposition I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and +twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not +allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of--Something--to turn +up. We might not,’ said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it +represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, ‘on the +first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, +or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is sometimes +difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it +will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.’ + +‘Arrange it in any way you please, sir,’ said my aunt. + +‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of +the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish +is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, +as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, +as we are now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common +magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being +an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as +between man and man.’ + +I don’t know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; +I don’t know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish +it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, ‘as between man +and man’. + +‘I propose,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Bills--a convenience to the mercantile +world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who +appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them +ever since--because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other +description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to +execute any such instrument. As between man and man.’ + +My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to +agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty +in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion. + +‘In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, +with some pride, ‘for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood +to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends +at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire +the process--if process it may be called--of milking cows. My younger +children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will +permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer +parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, +been brought home, within an inch of being run over. I have myself +directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and +my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, +when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to +render any voluntary service in that direction--which I regret to say, +for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, +with imprecations, to desist.’ + +‘All very right indeed,’ said my aunt, encouragingly. ‘Mrs. Micawber has +been busy, too, I have no doubt.’ + +‘My dear madam,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like air. +‘I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged in pursuits +immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware +that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities +as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have +devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it +seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always +fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might +address her discourse at starting, ‘that the time is come when the past +should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by +the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the +lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr. +Micawber.’ + +I said I thought so too. + +‘This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs. +Micawber, ‘in which I view the subject. When I lived at home with my +papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under +discussion in our limited circle, “In what light does my Emma view the +subject?” That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point +as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and +my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may +be.’ + +‘No doubt. Of course you have, ma’am,’ said my aunt. + +‘Precisely so,’ assented Mrs. Micawber. ‘Now, I may be wrong in my +conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual impression +is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an +apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require +pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,’ said Mrs. Micawber, +with an air of deep sagacity, ‘that there are members of my family who +have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their +names.---I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children, +but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money +Market.’ + +The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this +discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to +astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, ‘Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I +shouldn’t wonder if you were right!’ + +‘Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary +shackles that have so long enthralled him,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘and of +commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range +for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr. +Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that +my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could +wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at +a festive entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr. +Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member +of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his +views.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, ‘it may be better for me +to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that +assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature: +my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent +Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians.’ + +‘Micawber,’ said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, ‘no! You have never +understood them, and they have never understood you.’ + +Mr. Micawber coughed. + +‘They have never understood you, Micawber,’ said his wife. ‘They may +be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their +misfortune.’ + +‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, ‘to +have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have +the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that +I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,--in +short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the +whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than +derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my +dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which +our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a +barrier to your wishes.’ + +The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber +his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before +Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they +ceremoniously did. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when +they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes +red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, ‘I don’t make any excuse for +troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested +in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not +worn out?’ + +‘I am quite myself,’ said I, after a pause. ‘We have more cause to think +of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.’ + +‘Surely, surely,’ answered Traddles. ‘Who can forget it!’ + +‘But even that is not all,’ said I. ‘During the last fortnight, some new +trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of London every day. +Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening. +Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost +midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for +others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her.’ + +My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until +I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and +she put her hand on mine. + +‘It’s nothing, Trot; it’s nothing. There will be no more of it. You +shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these +affairs.’ + +‘I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,’ Traddles began, ‘that +although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for +himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I +never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must +be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into +which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and +impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among +papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has +written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield’s, and often across the +table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have +spoken; is quite extraordinary.’ + +‘Letters!’ cried my aunt. ‘I believe he dreams in letters!’ + +‘There’s Mr. Dick, too,’ said Traddles, ‘has been doing wonders! As soon +as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such +charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr. +Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we +have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, +and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us.’ + +‘Dick is a very remarkable man,’ exclaimed my aunt; ‘and I always said +he was. Trot, you know it.’ + +‘I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,’ pursued Traddles, at once with +great delicacy and with great earnestness, ‘that in your absence Mr. +Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had +fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions +under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, +even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on +particular points of business, has recovered itself very much; and he +has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should +have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But +what I have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not +to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall +never have done.’ His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it +transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable +Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was +not the less pleasant for that. + +‘Now, let me see,’ said Traddles, looking among the papers on the +table. ‘Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of +unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and +falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield +might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no +deficiency or defalcation whatever.’ + +‘Oh, thank Heaven!’ cried Agnes, fervently. + +‘But,’ said Traddles, ‘the surplus that would be left as his means of +support--and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would +be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds, +that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he +might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been +receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. You +yourself, Miss Wickfield--Copperfield--I--’ + +‘I have considered it, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, looking to me, ‘and I feel +that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the recommendation of +a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much.’ + +‘I will not say that I recommend it,’ observed Traddles. ‘I think it +right to suggest it. No more.’ + +‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ answered Agnes, steadily, ‘for it gives +me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and +dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could I wish for! I have +always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he +was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe +him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost +height of my hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next +great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and +responsibility--that I can know.’ + +‘Have you thought how, Agnes?’ + +‘Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many +people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don’t +mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and +keep a school, I shall be useful and happy.’ + +The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first +the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was +too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily +looking among the papers. + +‘Next, Miss Trotwood,’ said Traddles, ‘that property of yours.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ sighed my aunt. ‘All I have got to say about it is, that if +it’s gone, I can bear it; and if it’s not gone, I shall be glad to get +it back.’ + +‘It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?’ said +Traddles. + +‘Right!’ replied my aunt. + +‘I can’t account for more than five,’ said Traddles, with an air of +perplexity. + +‘--thousand, do you mean?’ inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure, +‘or pounds?’ + +‘Five thousand pounds,’ said Traddles. + +‘It was all there was,’ returned my aunt. ‘I sold three, myself. One, I +paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I have by me. +When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum, +but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would +come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out nobly--persevering, +self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. Don’t speak to me, for I find +my nerves a little shaken!’ + +Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms +folded; but she had wonderful self-command. + +‘Then I am delighted to say,’ cried Traddles, beaming with joy, ‘that we +have recovered the whole money!’ + +‘Don’t congratulate me, anybody!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘How so, sir?’ + +‘You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?’ said +Traddles. + +‘Of course I did,’ said my aunt, ‘and was therefore easily silenced. +Agnes, not a word!’ + +‘And indeed,’ said Traddles, ‘it was sold, by virtue of the power of +management he held from you; but I needn’t say by whom sold, or on whose +actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that +rascal,--and proved, too, by figures,--that he had possessed himself of +the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep other deficiencies +and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and +helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of +interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made +himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud.’ + +‘And at last took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt; ‘and wrote me +a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon +which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt +the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to +do it; and if he couldn’t, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s +sake.---If anybody speaks to me, I’ll leave the house!’ + +We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face. + +‘Well, my dear friend,’ said my aunt, after a pause, ‘and you have +really extorted the money back from him?’ + +‘Why, the fact is,’ returned Traddles, ‘Mr. Micawber had so completely +hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an +old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable +circumstance is, that I really don’t think he grasped this sum even so +much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in +the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said +he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield.’ + +‘Ha!’ said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at +Agnes. ‘And what’s become of him?’ + +‘I don’t know. He left here,’ said Traddles, ‘with his mother, who had +been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. They +went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know no more about +him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He +seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr. +Micawber; which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment.’ + +‘Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?’ I asked. + +‘Oh dear, yes, I should think so,’ he replied, shaking his head, +seriously. ‘I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one +way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an +opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that +man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever +object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It’s his only compensation +for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along +the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every +object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that +comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So the crooked +courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason, +or for none. It’s only necessary to consider his history here,’ said +Traddles, ‘to know that.’ + +‘He’s a monster of meanness!’ said my aunt. + +‘Really I don’t know about that,’ observed Traddles thoughtfully. ‘Many +people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it.’ + +‘And now, touching Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt. + +‘Well, really,’ said Traddles, cheerfully, ‘I must, once more, give Mr. +Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and persevering +for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth +speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did +right, for right’s sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made +with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence.’ + +‘I think so too,’ said I. + +‘Now, what would you give him?’ inquired my aunt. + +‘Oh! Before you come to that,’ said Traddles, a little disconcerted, +‘I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry +everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for +it’s perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair. +Those I.O.U.’s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the +advances he had--’ + +‘Well! They must be paid,’ said my aunt. + +‘Yes, but I don’t know when they may be proceeded on, or where they +are,’ rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; ‘and I anticipate, that, +between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly +arrested, or taken in execution.’ + +‘Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution,’ +said my aunt. ‘What’s the amount altogether?’ + +‘Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them +transactions--with great form, in a book,’ rejoined Traddles, smiling; +‘and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five.’ + +‘Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?’ said my aunt. ‘Agnes, +my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What should +it be? Five hundred pounds?’ + +Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended +a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr. +Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the +family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds; +and that Mr. Micawber’s arrangement for the repayment of the advances +should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him +to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this, I added the +suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his character and +history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr. +Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another +hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, +by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty’s story to him as I might feel +justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to +bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We +all entered warmly into these views; and I may mention at once, that the +principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will +and harmony. + +Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I reminded +him of the second and last point to which he had adverted. + +‘You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a +painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,’ said Traddles, hesitating; +‘but I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day +of Mr. Micawber’s memorable denunciation a threatening allusion was made +by Uriah Heep to your aunt’s--husband.’ + +My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented +with a nod. + +‘Perhaps,’ observed Traddles, ‘it was mere purposeless impertinence?’ + +‘No,’ returned my aunt. + +‘There was--pardon me--really such a person, and at all in his power?’ +hinted Traddles. + +‘Yes, my good friend,’ said my aunt. + +Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he +had not been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate +of Mr. Micawber’s liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he +had made; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep; and +that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt +he would. + +My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to +her cheeks. ‘You are quite right,’ she said. ‘It was very thoughtful to +mention it.’ + +‘Can I--or Copperfield--do anything?’ asked Traddles, gently. + +‘Nothing,’ said my aunt. ‘I thank you many times. Trot, my dear, a vain +threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don’t any of you +speak to me!’ With that she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her +upright carriage, looking at the door. + +‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ said my aunt, when they entered. ‘We have +been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for keeping +you out of the room so long; and I’ll tell you what arrangements we +propose.’ + +These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the +family,--children and all being then present,--and so much to the +awakening of Mr. Micawber’s punctual habits in the opening stage of +all bill transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately +rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of +hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes, +he returned in the custody of a sheriff ‘s officer, informing us, in +a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite prepared for this +event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah Heep’s, soon paid the +money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table, +filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only +that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full +completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with +the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them +sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, +and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their +precious value, was a sight indeed. + +‘Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you’ll allow me to advise +you,’ said my aunt, after silently observing him, ‘is to abjure that +occupation for evermore.’ + +‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is my intention to register such a +vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest it. I +trust,’ said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, ‘that my son Wilkins will ever bear +in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than +use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his +unhappy parent!’ Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image +of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy +abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued), +folded them up and put them in his pocket. + +This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with sorrow +and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on the morrow. +It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a +sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield’s affairs should be +brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction +of Traddles; and that Agnes should also come to London, pending those +arrangements. We passed the night at the old house, which, freed from +the presence of the Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my +old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home. + +We went back next day to my aunt’s house--not to mine--and when she and +I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said: + +‘Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind lately?’ + +‘Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling that +you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, it is now.’ + +‘You have had sorrow enough, child,’ said my aunt, affectionately, +‘without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other +motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.’ + +‘I know that well,’ said I. ‘But tell me now.’ + +‘Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?’ asked my aunt. + +‘Of course.’ + +‘At nine,’ said she. ‘I’ll tell you then, my dear.’ + +At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to +London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of +the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse. +The driver recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand +at the window, drove slowly off; we following. + +‘You understand it now, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He is gone!’ + +‘Did he die in the hospital?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on her +face. + +‘He was there once before,’ said my aunt presently. ‘He was ailing a +long time--a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he knew his +state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry +then. Very sorry.’ + +‘You went, I know, aunt.’ + +‘I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.’ + +‘He died the night before we went to Canterbury?’ said I. My aunt +nodded. ‘No one can harm him now,’ she said. ‘It was a vain threat.’ + +We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. ‘Better here +than in the streets,’ said my aunt. ‘He was born here.’ + +We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember well, +where the service was read consigning it to the dust. + +‘Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,’ said my aunt, as we +walked back to the chariot, ‘I was married. God forgive us all!’ We took +our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding +my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said: + +‘He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot--and he was sadly +changed!’ + +It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became +composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she said, +or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all! + +So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the +following short note, which had arrived by that morning’s post from Mr. +Micawber: + + + ‘Canterbury, + + ‘Friday. + +‘My dear Madam, and Copperfield, + +‘The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again +enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of +a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed! + +‘Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty’s High Court of King’s +Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and +the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal +jurisdiction in this bailiwick. + + ‘Now’s the day, and now’s the hour, + See the front of battle lower, + See approach proud EDWARD’S power-- + Chains and slavery! + +‘Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not +supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have +attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future +traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us +hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to debtors in +this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces on its wall, +inscribed with a rusty nail, + + ‘The obscure initials, + + ‘W. M. + +‘P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles +(who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the +debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and +family are at the height of earthly bliss.’ + + + +CHAPTER 55. TEMPEST + + +I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by +an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, +that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger +and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing +its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days. + +For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so +vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet +room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened +and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it +and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as +any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, +I will try to write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it +happens again before me. + +The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my +good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up +to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers +(they being very much together); but Emily I never saw. + +One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty +and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how +tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he +had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was most +tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired; +and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much +with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them. + +My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I +intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had +a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this +evening’s conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and +myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose +I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of +her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to +her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, +to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give +her the opportunity. + +I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her. +I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her +what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully +repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. +Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any +man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr. +Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak. + +I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun +was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent +presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose +we all do feel such things. + +‘Trot, my dear,’ she said, when I opened my eyes, ‘I couldn’t make up my +mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?’ + +I replied yes, and he soon appeared. + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, when we had shaken hands, ‘I giv Em’ly your +letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you +to read it, and if you see no hurt in’t, to be so kind as take charge +on’t.’ + +‘Have you read it?’ said I. + +He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows: + + +‘I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your +good and blessed kindness to me! + +‘I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die. +They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over +them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what +uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to him. + +‘Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in this +world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come +to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.’ + + +This, blotted with tears, was the letter. + +‘May I tell her as you doen’t see no hurt in’t, and as you’ll be so kind +as take charge on’t, Mas’r Davy?’ said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it. +‘Unquestionably,’ said I--‘but I am thinking--’ + +‘Yes, Mas’r Davy?’ + +‘I am thinking,’ said I, ‘that I’ll go down again to Yarmouth. There’s +time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. My +mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letter +of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her, +in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to +both of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and +cannot discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am +restless, and shall be better in motion. I’ll go down tonight.’ + +Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of my +mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, would +have had the effect. He went round to the coach office, at my request, +and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started, +by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so many +vicissitudes. + +‘Don’t you think that,’ I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of +London, ‘a very remarkable sky? I don’t remember to have seen one like +it.’ + +‘Nor I--not equal to it,’ he replied. ‘That’s wind, sir. There’ll be +mischief done at sea, I expect, before long.’ + +It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the +colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up into +most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than +there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the +earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in +a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were +frightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with +an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and +the sky was more overcast, and blew hard. + +But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely +over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder +and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face +the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in +September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or +came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the +coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this +storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any +shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a +sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. + +When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth +when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like +of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late, +having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of +London; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had +risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of +these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us +of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and +flung into a by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell +of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen +great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about +the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it +blew harder. + +As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty +wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. +Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered +salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat +country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its +banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. +When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught +at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another +shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the +people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, +making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. + +I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering +along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with +flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and +holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, +not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind +buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look +away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag +back. + +Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away +in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think +might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. +Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they +looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners, +excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older +faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their +glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were +surveying an enemy. + +The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at +it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, +and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came +rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if +the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a +hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its +purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows +thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the +land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full +might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another +monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys +(with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted +up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming +sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change +its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal +shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the +clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of +all nature. + +Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it is +still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon +that coast--had brought together, I made my way to his house. It was +shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and +by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he had +gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairing +in which his skill was required; but that he would be back tomorrow +morning, in good time. + +I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to +sleep, but in vain, it was five o’clock in the afternoon. I had not sat +five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir +it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, +with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been +seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep +off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had +another night like the last! + +I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an +uneasiness in Ham’s not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I +was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my +long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble +in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement +of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should +not have been surprised, I think, to encounter someone who I knew must +be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curious +inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances +the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and +vivid. + +In this state, the waiter’s dismal intelligence about the ships +immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my +uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his +returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong +with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, +and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea +at all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go +over to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. + +I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too +soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking +the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the question, and said +there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off +in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to +seafaring. + +So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing +what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If +such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the +rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the +apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious +tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there +was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new +terrors, real and fanciful. + +I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast +to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm +without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them. +Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering +sea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham were always in the +fore-ground. + +My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with +a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before +the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of +doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new +and indefinable horror; and when I awoke--or rather when I shook off +the lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled with +objectless and unintelligible fear. + +I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the +awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. +At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall +tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed. + +It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the +inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed, +exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations +vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense +refined. + +For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now, +that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing +of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up, +several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except the +reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning, +and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void. + +At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on +my clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly +saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were +clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved +away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl, +who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door, +screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the others +had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their +company. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked +me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, +were out in the storm? + +I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate, +and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes +of foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance +before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind. + +There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned +to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--off +a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. I have an +impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and +in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, +I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear +friends, but who they were I don’t know, at the siege of some town in a +roar of cannonading. + +The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not +hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion +and awoke. It was broad day--eight or nine o’clock; the storm raging, in +lieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and calling at my door. + +‘What is the matter?’ I cried. + +‘A wreck! Close by!’ + +I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck? + +‘A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make +haste, sir, if you want to see her! It’s thought, down on the beach, +she’ll go to pieces every moment.’ + +The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped +myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street. + +Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to +the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came +facing the wild sea. + +The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more +sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished +by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea, +having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was +infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance +it had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and the +height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another, +bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most +appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, +and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless +efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked +out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the +great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his +bare arm (a tattoo’d arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the +left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us! + +One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay +over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that +ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment’s +pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it +would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this +portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, +turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at +work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, +conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even +above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, +sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, +spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling +surge. + +The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and +a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had +struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted +in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting +amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating +were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke, +there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with +the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining +mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. + +There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a +desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her +deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but +her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell +rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards +us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were +gone. The agony on the shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped their +hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly +up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I +found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom +I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. + +They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don’t know how, +for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to +understand--that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and +could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt +to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, +there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation +moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking +through them to the front. + +I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But, +distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the +determination in his face, and his look out to sea--exactly the same +look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily’s +flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both +arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen +to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! + +Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel +sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up +in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. + +Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the +calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people +present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. ‘Mas’r Davy,’ +he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, ‘if my time is come, ‘tis +come. If ‘tan’t, I’ll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all! +Mates, make me ready! I’m a-going off!’ + +I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people +around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was +bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the +precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I +don’t know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on +the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and +penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw +him standing alone, in a seaman’s frock and trousers: a rope in his +hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the +best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out +himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. + +The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she +was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon +the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red +cap on,--not like a sailor’s cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few +yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his +anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I +saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action +brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend. + +Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended +breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great +retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope +which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a +moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, falling +with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. They +hauled in hastily. + +He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took +no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for +leaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--and +was gone as before. + +And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the +valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, +borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was +nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At +length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his +vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when a high, green, vast +hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed +to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! + +Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been +broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation +was in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead. +He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I +remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried; +but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous +heart was stilled for ever. + +As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a +fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever +since, whispered my name at the door. + +‘Sir,’ said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, +with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, ‘will you come over yonder?’ + +The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I +asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support +me: + +‘Has a body come ashore?’ + +He said, ‘Yes.’ + +‘Do I know it?’ I asked then. + +He answered nothing. + +But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had +looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter +fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by +the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying +with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. + + + +CHAPTER 56. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD + +No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in +that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need to +have said, ‘Think of me at my best!’ I had done that ever; and could I +change now, looking on this sight! + +They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a +flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men +who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him +merry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the +midst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where Death was +already. + +But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one +another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were +not right to lay him down in the same quiet room. + +We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as I +could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to +provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night. +I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to +receive it, could only rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge that +duty as faithfully as I could. + +I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity +when I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came +out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there +were many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a +little way out upon the road, I saw more: but at length only the bleak +night and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful +friendship. + +Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by +fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and +brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, I +arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of +what I had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all through +the night, awaiting orders to advance. + +The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind was +raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered +way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and +nothing moved. + +I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I did +ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the +bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and +looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said: + +‘I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?’ + +‘I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.’ + +‘Is anything the matter, sir?---Mr. James?--’ ‘Hush!’ said I. ‘Yes, +something has happened, that I have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is +at home?’ + +The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now, +even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but +would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with +her. What message should she take upstairs? + +Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to +carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which +we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air +of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had +not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was +there. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. I +wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more! + +The house was so still that I heard the girl’s light step upstairs. On +her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth +was an invalid and could not come down; but that if I would excuse her +being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I +stood before her. + +She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had +taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens +of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded, +remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. She +murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her +own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and with +her stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth. + +At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of +her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil +tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herself +a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth’s +observation; and scrutinized me with a piercing gaze that never +faltered, never shrunk. + +‘I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. + +‘I am unhappily a widower,’ said I. + +‘You are very young to know so great a loss,’ she returned. ‘I am +grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good to +you.’ + +‘I hope Time,’ said I, looking at her, ‘will be good to all of us. +Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest +misfortunes.’ + +The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. The +whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change. + +I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled. +She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then, +addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness: + +‘My son is ill.’ + +‘Very ill.’ + +‘You have seen him?’ + +‘I have.’ + +‘Are you reconciled?’ + +I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her head +towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, and +in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa, ‘Dead!’ + +That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read, +plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her look +quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with +vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face. + +The handsome lady--so like, oh so like!--regarded me with a fixed look, +and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepare +herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreated +her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure. + +‘When I was last here,’ I faltered, ‘Miss Dartle told me he was sailing +here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If he +were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he +was; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which--’ + +‘Rosa!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘come to me!’ + +She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire +as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh. + +‘Now,’ she said, ‘is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he made +atonement to you--with his life! Do you hear?---His life!’ + +Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound +but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. + +‘Aye!’ cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, ‘look at +me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!’ striking the scar, ‘at +your dead child’s handiwork!’ + +The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. Always +the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with +an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always +proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were +locked and the face frozen up in pain. + +‘Do you remember when he did this?’ she proceeded. ‘Do you remember +when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his +pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, +marked until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for +what you made him!’ + +‘Miss Dartle,’ I entreated her. ‘For Heaven’s sake--’ + +‘I WILL speak!’ she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. ‘Be +silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! Moan +for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your +loss of him, moan for mine!’ + +She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as +if her passion were killing her by inches. + +‘You, resent his self-will!’ she exclaimed. ‘You, injured by his haughty +temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities +which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared +him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you +rewarded, now, for your years of trouble?’ + +‘Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!’ + +‘I tell you,’ she returned, ‘I WILL speak to her. No power on earth +should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these +years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved +him!’ turning on her fiercely. ‘I could have loved him, and asked no +return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his +caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it +better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love +would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering under +foot!’ + +With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did +it. + +‘Look here!’ she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. +‘When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw +it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show +the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such +knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was +freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you +were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart!’ + +She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for it +was little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the +smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. + +‘I descended--as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated me +with his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupation +of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the +inconstant humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his +fancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power I +had, than I would have married him on his being forced to take me for +his wife. We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you saw +it, and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece +of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, +no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your love. I +tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did!’ + +She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the +set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if +the face had been a picture. + +‘Miss Dartle,’ said I, ‘if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for +this afflicted mother--’ + +‘Who feels for me?’ she sharply retorted. ‘She has sown this. Let her +moan for the harvest that she reaps today!’ + +‘And if his faults--’ I began. + +‘Faults!’ she cried, bursting into passionate tears. ‘Who dares malign +him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!’ + +‘No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer +remembrance than I,’ I replied. ‘I meant to say, if you have no +compassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter on +them--’ + +‘It’s false,’ she cried, tearing her black hair; ‘I loved him!’ + +‘--if his faults cannot,’ I went on, ‘be banished from your remembrance, +in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen +before, and render it some help!’ + +All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. +Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to +time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no other +sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to +loosen the dress. + +‘A curse upon you!’ she said, looking round at me, with a mingled +expression of rage and grief. ‘It was in an evil hour that you ever came +here! A curse upon you! Go!’ + +After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the +sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure +in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, +calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and +trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid +of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house +as I went out. + +Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother’s room. She +was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctors +were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a +statue, except for the low sound now and then. + +I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windows +of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden +hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and +silence, broken only by his mother’s moaning. + + + +CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS + + +One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of +these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who +were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. +In this, no time was to be lost. + +I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the +task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late +catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any +newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him. + +‘If it penetrates to him, sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on +the breast, ‘it shall first pass through this body!’ + +Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new +state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely +lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child +of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of +civilization, and about to return to his native wilds. + +He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of +oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on +the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner’s telescope +under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky +as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his +manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it, +were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most +uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl +which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received +me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong +knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same +manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly +visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever +saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious +cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely +turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any +direction, and to ‘tumble up’, or sing out, ‘Yeo--Heave--Yeo!’ on the +shortest notice. + +Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden +steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure +of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of +the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be +no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help +me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and +received his promise. + +The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down +public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose +protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants, +being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so +many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was +one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath. +My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts, +in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, +with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle +before her, that had now outlived so much. + +It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr. +Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter, +and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any +trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. + +‘And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?’ asked my aunt. + +Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his +wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday. + +‘The boat brought you word, I suppose?’ said my aunt. + +‘It did, ma’am,’ he returned. + +‘Well?’ said my aunt. ‘And she sails--’ + +‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘I am informed that we must positively be on board +before seven tomorrow morning.’ + +‘Heyday!’ said my aunt, ‘that’s soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr. +Peggotty?’ ‘’Tis so, ma’am. She’ll drop down the river with that theer +tide. If Mas’r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen’, arternoon +o’ next day, they’ll see the last on us.’ + +‘And that we shall do,’ said I, ‘be sure!’ + +‘Until then, and until we are at sea,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with a +glance of intelligence at me, ‘Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly +keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my +love,’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, +‘my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear, +that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary +to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is +peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England. +I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should +scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, +but-’ + +‘I can only say for myself,’ said my aunt, ‘that I will drink all +happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure.’ + +‘And I too!’ said Agnes, with a smile. + +Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be +quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could +not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own +clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was +about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, +on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members +of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable +instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its +body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in +the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest +son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have +done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a +series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything +so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it +in his pocket at the close of the evening. + +‘The luxuries of the old country,’ said Mr. Micawber, with an intense +satisfaction in their renouncement, ‘we abandon. The denizens of the +forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of +the land of the Free.’ + +Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs. + +‘I have a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot, +‘that it is a member of my family!’ + +‘If so, my dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of +warmth on that subject, ‘as the member of your family--whoever he, she, +or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps +the Member may now wait MY convenience.’ + +‘Micawber,’ said his wife, in a low tone, ‘at such a time as this--’ + +‘“It is not meet,”’ said Mr. Micawber, rising, ‘“that every nice offence +should bear its comment!” Emma, I stand reproved.’ + +‘The loss, Micawber,’ observed his wife, ‘has been my family’s, not +yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which +their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to +extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’ + +‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’ + +‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife. + +‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a moment, +irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall +upon your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in +attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’ + +Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of +which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words +might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy +reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed, +in a legal manner, ‘Heep v. Micawber’. From this document, I learned +that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, ‘Was in a final paroxysm of +despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by +bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of +his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship, +that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that +such a Being ever lived. + +Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the +money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at +the Sheriff ‘s Officer who had effected the capture. On his release, +he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the +transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect, +about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the +total. + +This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another +transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for +his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over +which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, +folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From +the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums +out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of +compound interest on what he called ‘the principal amount of forty-one, +ten, eleven and a half’, for various periods. After a careful +consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources, +he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the +amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and +fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand +with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, +a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many +acknowledgements. + +‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her +head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.’ + +Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he +put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. + +‘If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, +Mrs. Micawber,’ said my aunt, ‘you must let us hear from you, you know.’ + +‘My dear Miss Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘I shall only be too happy +to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to +correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, +will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one +who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?’ + +I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of +writing. + +‘Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,’ said Mr. +Micawber. ‘The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and +we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely +crossing,’ said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, ‘merely +crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.’ + +I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber, +that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as +if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went +from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across +the channel. + +‘On the voyage, I shall endeavour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘occasionally +to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust, +be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her +sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional +impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, “Little Tafflin”. Porpoises +and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our +Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of +interest will be continually descried. In short,’ said Mr. Micawber, +with the old genteel air, ‘the probability is, all will be found so +exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the +main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished!’ + +With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he +had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the +highest naval authorities. + +‘What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, +‘is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old +country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family, +but to our children’s children. However vigorous the sapling,’ said Mrs. +Micawber, shaking her head, ‘I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when +our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that +fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Britannia must take her chance. I am +bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no +particular wish upon the subject.’ + +‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘there, you are wrong. You are going +out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the +connexion between yourself and Albion.’ + +‘The connexion in question, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘has not +laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at +all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.’ + +‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘There, I again say, you are wrong. +You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen, +even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself +and Albion.’ + +Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half +receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber’s views as they were +stated, but very sensible of their foresight. + +‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I wish Mr. Micawber to +feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber +should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old +knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have +not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I +may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I +know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot +shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. +I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it +vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.’ + +‘My love,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is +barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.’ + +‘I think not, Micawber,’ she rejoined. ‘Not fully. My dear Mr. +Copperfield, Mr. Micawber’s is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going +to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood +and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his +stand upon that vessel’s prow, and firmly say, “This country I am +come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of +profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are +mine!”’ + +Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal +in this idea. + +‘I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,’ said Mrs. Micawber, +in her argumentative tone, ‘to be the Caesar of his own fortunes. That, +my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From +the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon +that vessel’s prow and say, “Enough of delay: enough of disappointment: +enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new. +Produce your reparation. Bring it forward!”’ + +Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were then +stationed on the figure-head. + +‘And doing that,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘--feeling his position--am I not +right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his +connexion with Britain? An important public character arising in that +hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home? +Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of +talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but +a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were +guilty of such absurd weakness.’ + +Mrs. Micawber’s conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave +a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it +before. + +‘And therefore it is,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I the more wish, that, +at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber +may be--I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr. +Micawber will be--a page of History; and he ought then to be represented +in the country which gave him birth, and did NOT give him employment!’ + +‘My love,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘it is impossible for me not to be +touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good +sense. What will be--will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my +native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our +descendants!’ + +‘That’s well,’ said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I drink +my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!’ + +Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each +knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return; +and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his +brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way, +establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would. + +Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr. +Micawber’s pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my +aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful +farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the +last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition, +sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look, +from the river, like a miserable light-house. + +I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had +departed, in a boat, as early as five o’clock. It was a wonderful +instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my +association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden +stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now +that they were gone. + +In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to +Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd +of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her +mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting +through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went +on board. + +Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber +had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of +Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had +paid the money, which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks; +and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of +what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber’s coming out of the +gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and +telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the +night before last. + +It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at +first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as +my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in +a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the +ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and +heaps of miscellaneous baggage--‘lighted up, here and there, by dangling +lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail +or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, +taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and +drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few +feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children +established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of +a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a +week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed +to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily +carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away +samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation +appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the ‘tween decks. + +As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open +port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily’s; +it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with +a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding +me of--Agnes! But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the +unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it again; and only knew that +the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship; +that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, +assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging +Mr. Peggotty’s goods. + +‘Is there any last wured, Mas’r Davy?’ said he. ‘Is there any one +forgotten thing afore we parts?’ + +‘One thing!’ said I. ‘Martha!’ + +He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and +Martha stood before me. + +‘Heaven bless you, you good man!’ cried I. ‘You take her with you!’ + +She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more at +that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and honoured +any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul. + +The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had, +remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me +in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged +me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf +ears, he moved me more. + +The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm, +and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was +looking distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words +to me were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber. + +We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance, to +see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset. +She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was +visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and +so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, +with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there +clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw. + +Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship +began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, +which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed +and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the +waving of the hats and handkerchiefs--and then I saw her! + +Then I saw her, at her uncle’s side, and trembling on his shoulder. He +pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last +good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with +the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with +all the might of his great love! + +Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart +together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed +away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed +ashore--and fallen darkly upon me. + + + +CHAPTER 58. ABSENCE + + +It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the +ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many +unavailing sorrows and regrets. + +I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the shock +was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and went away; +and believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a +field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is +struck, so I, when I was left alone with my undisciplined heart, had no +conception of the wound with which it had to strive. + +The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and grain +by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened +and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, +wherein I could distinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees, +it became a hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost--love, +friendship, interest; of all that had been shattered--my first trust, +my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life; of all that +remained--a ruined blank and waste, lying wide around me, unbroken, to +the dark horizon. + +If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned for my +child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I mourned for him +who might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he had won +mine long ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the +stormy sea; and for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where I +had heard the night-wind blowing, when I was a child. + +From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no hope +of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying my burden +with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I drooped beneath +it, and I said in my heart that it could never be lightened. + +When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die. +Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually +turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I +passed on farther away,--from city to city, seeking I know not what, and +trying to leave I know not what behind. + +It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of +distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can +only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to +look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. +I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, +cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets--the +old abiding places of History and Fancy--as a dreamer might; bearing my +painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they +fade before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the +night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it--as +at last I did, thank Heaven!--and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to +dawn. + +For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my +mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home--reasons then +struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct expression--kept me +on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place to +place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, I had lingered long in one spot. I +had had no purpose, no sustaining soul within me, anywhere. + +I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the great +passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the +by-ways of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken to my +heart, I did not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread +heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice +and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing else. + +I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was to +rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along +the mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I think some +long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence +awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. I remember pausing +once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite +despairing. I remember almost hoping that some better change was +possible within me. + +I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote +heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of +the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were +richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of +dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the +avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey +rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually +blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the +mountain’s-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so +dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. +So did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge +across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and +roared away among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound of +distant singing--shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening cloud +floated midway along the mountain’s-side, I could almost have believed +it came from there, and was not earthly music. All at once, in this +serenity, great Nature spoke to me; and soothed me to lay down my weary +head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept yet, since Dora died! + +I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before, +and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was +making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had received none for a +long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived +at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter +since I left home. + +The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of Agnes. + +She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That was all +she told me of herself. The rest referred to me. + +She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her +own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she said) how +such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial +and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that in my every +purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief +I had undergone. She, who so gloried in my fame, and so looked forward +to its augmentation, well knew that I would labour on. She knew that in +me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. As the endurance +of my childish days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater +calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as +they had taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to God, who +had taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly affection +cherished me always, and was always at my side go where I would; proud +of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to +do. + +I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour ago! +When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud grow +dim, and all the colours in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon +the mountain-tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt +that the night was passing from my mind, and all its shadows clearing, +there was no name for the love I bore her, dearer to me, henceforward, +than ever until then. + +I read her letter many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I told her +that I had been in sore need of her help; that without her I was not, +and I never had been, what she thought me; but that she inspired me to +be that, and I would try. + +I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since the +beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions until the +expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in that valley, +and its neighbourhood, all the time. + +The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some +time longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which was +growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to resume my pen; +to work. + +I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out Nature, +never sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human interest +I had lately shrunk from. It was not long, before I had almost as many +friends in the valley as in Yarmouth: and when I left it, before the +winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial +greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were not conveyed in +English words. + +I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a +purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to +Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very advantageously for +me; and the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from +travellers whom I encountered by chance. After some rest and change, I +fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which took strong +possession of me. As I advanced in the execution of this task, I felt it +more and more, and roused my utmost energies to do it well. This was my +third work of fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of +rest, I thought of returning home. + +For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had accustomed +myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired when I left +England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had been in many +countries, and I hope I had improved my store of knowledge. + +I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall here, of this +term of absence--with one reservation. I have made it, thus far, with +no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I have elsewhere +said, this narrative is my written memory. I have desired to keep the +most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. I enter on it +now. I cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as +to know when I began to think that I might have set its earliest and +brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot say at what stage of my grief +it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward +boyhood, I had thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may +have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss +or want of something never to be realized, of which I had been sensible. +But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when +I was left so sad and lonely in the world. + +If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of +my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely dreaded when I +was first impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne +to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that +betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown. + +I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had +grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had ever loved me +with another love--and I sometimes thought the time was when she might +have done so--I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, that I had +accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere children, +as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. I had bestowed my +passionate tenderness upon another object; and what I might have done, +I had not done; and what Agnes was to me, I and her own noble heart had +made her. + +In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I +tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I +did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might +possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as +to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and +departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her +the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in her, her +knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my +friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved +me, could I believe that she would love me now? + +I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and +fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been +to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was +not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had +deservedly lost her. + +That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with +unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it +was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with +shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my +hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and +fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought I had +concerning her--is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from +myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought +the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our +long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed. + +I had thought, much and often, of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what +might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us; +I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much +realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The +very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and +would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted +in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been +between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, +more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors. +Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the +conviction that it could never be. + +These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting +quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my +return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the +sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in +the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me +home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship +reflected. + +Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And +home was very dear to me, and Agnes too--but she was not mine--she was +never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past! + + + +CHAPTER 59. RETURN + + +I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining, +and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I +walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach; +and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were +like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy +friends. + +I have often remarked--I suppose everybody has--that one’s going away +from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. +As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an old house on +Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or +bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that +a neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience, +was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s +Cathedral looking older. + +For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt +had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get +into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my +departure. He had chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me, in his +last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the +dearest girl in the world. + +They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning +so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of +taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill +and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and +silent, through the misty streets. + +The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something +for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, +I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different +time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the +changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural. + +‘Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?’ I asked the waiter, +as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. + +‘Holborn Court, sir. Number two.’ + +‘Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?’ +said I. + +‘Well, sir,’ returned the waiter, ‘probably he has, sir; but I am not +aware of it myself.’ + +This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter +of more authority--a stout, potential old man, with a double chin, +in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a +churchwarden’s pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company +with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers. + +‘Mr. Traddles,’ said the spare waiter. ‘Number two in the Court.’ + +The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. + +‘I was inquiring,’ said I, ‘whether Mr. Traddles, at number two in the +Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?’ + +‘Never heard his name,’ said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. + +I felt quite apologetic for Traddles. + +‘He’s a young man, sure?’ said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes +severely on me. ‘How long has he been in the Inn?’ + +‘Not above three years,’ said I. + +The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty +years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what +I would have for dinner? + +I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on +Traddles’s account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered +a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his +obscurity. + +As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking +that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he +was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, +stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the +room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the +same manner when the chief waiter was a boy--if he ever was a boy, +which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw +myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, +without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable +green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; +and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of +decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old +port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be +very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom +to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted +apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), +and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable +gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly +frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I +came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, +and the orderly silence of the place--which was bare of guests, the Long +Vacation not yet being over--were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles, +and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come. + +I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my +hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near +me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to +meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its +own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in a +whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the +Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave +to his laundress’s daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had +a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more +than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers +by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; and +settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him. + +Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I +dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in +the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number +two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post +informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top +storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to +be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, +dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass. + +In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant +sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or +attorney’s clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls. +Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole +where the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient, +I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was +silent. + +Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart +beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES painted on +it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing +else. I therefore knocked again. + +A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very +much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it +legally, presented himself. + +‘Is Mr. Traddles within?’ I said. + +‘Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.’ + +‘I want to see him.’ + +After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me +in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, +into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; +where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), +seated at a table, and bending over papers. + +‘Good God!’ cried Traddles, looking up. ‘It’s Copperfield!’ and rushed +into my arms, where I held him tight. + +‘All well, my dear Traddles?’ + +‘All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!’ + +We cried with pleasure, both of us. + +‘My dear fellow,’ said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, +which was a most unnecessary operation, ‘my dearest Copperfield, my +long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How +brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, I never was so +rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!’ + +I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to +speak, at first. + +‘My dear fellow!’ said Traddles. ‘And grown so famous! My glorious +Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you come +from, WHAT have you been doing?’ + +Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had +clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously +stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with +the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great-coat. Without +putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, +both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook +hands across the hearth. + +‘To think,’ said Traddles, ‘that you should have been so nearly coming +home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!’ + +‘What ceremony, my dear Traddles?’ + +‘Good gracious me!’ cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. +‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’ + +‘Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.’ + +‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, sticking his hair upright +with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, ‘I am married!’ + +‘Married!’ I cried joyfully. + +‘Lord bless me, yes!’ said Traddles--‘by the Reverend Horace--to +Sophy--down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s behind the window +curtain! Look here!’ + +To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same +instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a +more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe +(as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed +her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might +of heart. + +‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, ‘what a delightful re-union this is! You are +so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I +am!’ + +‘And so am I,’ said I. + +‘And I am sure I am!’ said the blushing and laughing Sophy. + +‘We are all as happy as possible!’ said Traddles. ‘Even the girls are +happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!’ + +‘Forgot?’ said I. + +‘The girls,’ said Traddles. ‘Sophy’s sisters. They are staying with us. +They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when--was it you +that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?’ + +‘It was,’ said I, laughing. + +‘Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,’ said Traddles, ‘I was romping +with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. +But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn’t look +quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And +they are now--listening, I have no doubt,’ said Traddles, glancing at +the door of another room. + +‘I am sorry,’ said I, laughing afresh, ‘to have occasioned such a +dispersion.’ + +‘Upon my word,’ rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, ‘if you had seen +them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to +pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in +the maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch +the girls?’ + +Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with +a peal of laughter. + +‘Really musical, isn’t it, my dear Copperfield?’ said Traddles. ‘It’s +very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an +unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you +know, it’s positively delicious. It’s charming. Poor things, they have +had a great loss in Sophy--who, I do assure you, Copperfield is, and +ever was, the dearest girl!--and it gratifies me beyond expression +to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very +delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very +delightful.’ + +Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the +goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he +had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently +relieved and pleased him greatly. + +‘But then,’ said Traddles, ‘our domestic arrangements are, to say +the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even +Sophy’s being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of +abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to +rough it. And Sophy’s an extraordinary manager! You’ll be surprised how +those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it’s done!’ + +‘Are many of the young ladies with you?’ I inquired. + +‘The eldest, the Beauty is here,’ said Traddles, in a low confidential +voice, ‘Caroline. And Sarah’s here--the one I mentioned to you as having +something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the +two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa’s here.’ + +‘Indeed!’ cried I. + +‘Yes,’ said Traddles. ‘Now the whole set--I mean the chambers--is only +three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way, +and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room,’ said +Traddles, pointing. ‘Two in that.’ + +I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation +remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me. + +‘Well!’ said Traddles, ‘we are prepared to rough it, as I said just now, +and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But there’s +a little room in the roof--a very nice room, when you’re up there--which +Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that’s our room at present. +It’s a capital little gipsy sort of place. There’s quite a view from +it.’ + +‘And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!’ said I. ‘How +rejoiced I am!’ + +‘Thank you, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, as we shook hands +once more. ‘Yes, I am as happy as it’s possible to be. There’s your old +friend, you see,’ said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot +and stand; ‘and there’s the table with the marble top! All the other +furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord +bless you, we haven’t so much as a tea-spoon.’ + +‘All to be earned?’ said I, cheerfully. + +‘Exactly so,’ replied Traddles, ‘all to be earned. Of course we have +something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But +they’re Britannia metal.’ + +‘The silver will be the brighter when it comes,’ said I. + +‘The very thing we say!’ cried Traddles. ‘You see, my dear Copperfield,’ +falling again into the low confidential tone, ‘after I had delivered my +argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL, which did me great service +with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some serious +conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact +that Sophy--who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl!--’ + +‘I am certain she is!’ said I. + +‘She is, indeed!’ rejoined Traddles. ‘But I am afraid I am wandering +from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?’ + +‘You said that you dwelt upon the fact--’ + +‘True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long +period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more +than content to take me--in short,’ said Traddles, with his old frank +smile, ‘on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then +proposed to the Reverend Horace--who is a most excellent clergyman, +Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough +to live upon, without pinching himself--that if I could turn the corner, +say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my +way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could +plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that +case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the liberty of representing +that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the +circumstance of Sophy’s being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not +to operate with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in +life--don’t you see?’ + +‘Certainly it ought not,’ said I. + +‘I am glad you think so, Copperfield,’ rejoined Traddles, ‘because, +without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and +brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. +Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful +to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should +happen to him--I refer to the Reverend Horace--’ + +‘I understand,’ said I. + +‘--Or to Mrs. Crewler--it would be the utmost gratification of my +wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable +manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain +the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful +time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then +into her head--’ + +‘What mounted?’ I asked. + +‘Her grief,’ replied Traddles, with a serious look. ‘Her feelings +generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior +woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass +her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the +chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system +in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by +unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday +six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I +saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! Mrs. +Crewler couldn’t see me before we left--couldn’t forgive me, then, for +depriving her of her child--but she is a good creature, and has done so +since. I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.’ + +‘And in short, my dear friend,’ said I, ‘you feel as blest as you +deserve to feel!’ + +‘Oh! That’s your partiality!’ laughed Traddles. ‘But, indeed, I am in a +most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I get up at +five every morning, and don’t mind it at all. I hide the girls in the +daytime, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure you I am +quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the day before +the first day of Michaelmas Term. But here,’ said Traddles, breaking off +in his confidence, and speaking aloud, ‘ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield, +Miss Crewler--Miss Sarah--Miss Louisa--Margaret and Lucy!’ + +They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh. +They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; but there was +a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy’s bright looks, which was +better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. +We all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had +lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and +produced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting +the outer door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure +and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then +quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire. + +She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. ‘Tom’ had taken +her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, +too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of +nothing but me. ‘Tom’ had never had me out of his thoughts, she really +believed, all the time I had been away. ‘Tom’ was the authority for +everything. ‘Tom’ was evidently the idol of her life; never to be shaken +on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done +homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might. + +The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, +pleased me very much. I don’t know that I thought it very reasonable; +but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their +character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed the tea-spoons that +were still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty +her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion +against anyone, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was +the Beauty’s sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and +capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly +considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural +endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees, +they could not have been more satisfied of that. + +But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and +their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest +little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If +Traddles were addressed as ‘a darling’, once in the course of that +evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, +or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch +something, he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, +at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything without +Sophy. Somebody’s hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. +Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could +hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in +Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written +home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in +the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but +Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were +entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them. +How many children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can’t +imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that +ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens +to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another +(every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty +generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The best +of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had +a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am sure, +when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to walk with me to the +coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or +any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses. + +Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure, +for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. If +I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that +withered Gray’s Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. +The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the +attorneys’ offices; and of the tea and toast, and children’s songs, in +that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, +ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and +bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had +dreamed that the Sultan’s famous family had been admitted on the roll of +attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the +golden water into Gray’s Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken +leave of Traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, with +a great change in my despondency about him. I began to think he would +get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters in England. + +Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him +at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness +to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke +and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and separations that had +marked my life. I had not seen a coal fire, since I had left England +three years ago: though many a wood fire had I watched, as it crumbled +into hoary ashes, and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth, +which not inaptly figured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes. + +I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could +contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was +for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had +taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants on +her tenderness; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that +had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of +my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown. + +I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and could +I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she +had calmly held in mine,--when I found my eyes resting on a countenance +that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early +remembrances. + +Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in +the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the +shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this +time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that +I thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he +sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be born. + +Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had +never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his +little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his +elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to +apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it. + +I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr. +Chillip?’ + +He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and +replied, in his slow way, ‘I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank +you, sir. I hope YOU are well.’ + +‘You don’t remember me?’ said I. + +‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his +head as he surveyed me, ‘I have a kind of an impression that something +in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn’t lay my hand +upon your name, really.’ + +‘And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,’ I returned. + +‘Did I indeed, sir?’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Is it possible that I had the +honour, sir, of officiating when--?’ + +‘Yes,’ said I. + +‘Dear me!’ cried Mr. Chillip. ‘But no doubt you are a good deal changed +since then, sir?’ + +‘Probably,’ said I. + +‘Well, sir,’ observed Mr. Chillip, ‘I hope you’ll excuse me, if I am +compelled to ask the favour of your name?’ + +On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook hands +with me--which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being +to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his +hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with +it. Even now, he put his hand in his coat-pocket as soon as he could +disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. + +‘Dear me, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one +side. ‘And it’s Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should have +known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. +There’s a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir.’ + +‘I never had the happiness of seeing my father,’ I observed. + +‘Very true, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. ‘And very much +to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir,’ said +Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, ‘down in our part of +the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir,’ +said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. +‘You must find it a trying occupation, sir!’ + +‘What is your part of the country now?’ I asked, seating myself near +him. + +‘I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund’s, sir,’ said +Mr. Chillip. ‘Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that +neighbourhood, under her father’s will, I bought a practice down there, +in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is +growing quite a tall lass now, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, giving his little +head another little shake. ‘Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks +only last week. Such is time, you see, sir!’ + +As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this +reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him +company with another. ‘Well, sir,’ he returned, in his slow way, ‘it’s +more than I am accustomed to; but I can’t deny myself the pleasure +of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honour of +attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir!’ + +I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon +produced. ‘Quite an uncommon dissipation!’ said Mr. Chillip, stirring +it, ‘but I can’t resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no +family, sir?’ + +I shook my head. + +‘I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,’ said +Mr. Chillip. ‘I heard it from your father-in-law’s sister. Very decided +character there, sir?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ said I, ‘decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr. +Chillip?’ + +‘Are you not aware, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest +smile, ‘that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?’ + +‘No,’ said I. + +‘He is indeed, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Married a young lady of that +part, with a very good little property, poor thing.---And this action +of the brain now, sir? Don’t you find it fatigue you?’ said Mr. Chillip, +looking at me like an admiring Robin. + +I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. ‘I was aware of +his being married again. Do you attend the family?’ I asked. + +‘Not regularly. I have been called in,’ he replied. ‘Strong +phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone +and his sister, sir.’ + +I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened +by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, +and thoughtfully exclaim, ‘Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. +Copperfield!’ + +‘And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?’ +said I. + +‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Chillip, ‘a medical man, being so much in +families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his +profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to +this life and the next.’ + +‘The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say,’ +I returned: ‘what are they doing as to this?’ + +Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. + +‘She was a charming woman, sir!’ he observed in a plaintive manner. + +‘The present Mrs. Murdstone?’ + +‘A charming woman indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip; ‘as amiable, I am sure, +as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip’s opinion is, that her spirit +has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but +melancholy mad. And the ladies,’ observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, ‘are +great observers, sir.’ + +‘I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, +Heaven help her!’ said I. ‘And she has been.’ + +‘Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,’ said +Mr. Chillip; ‘but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered +forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the +sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly +reduced her to a state of imbecility?’ + +I told him I could easily believe it. + +‘I have no hesitation in saying,’ said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself +with another sip of negus, ‘between you and me, sir, that her mother +died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone +nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and +their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now, +more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was +Mrs. Chillip’s remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the +ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer!’ + +‘Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such +association) religious still?’ I inquired. + +‘You anticipate, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite +red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. ‘One of Mrs. +Chillip’s most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,’ he proceeded, in the +calmest and slowest manner, ‘quite electrified me, by pointing out +that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine +Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, +with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The +ladies are great observers, sir?’ + +‘Intuitively,’ said I, to his extreme delight. + +‘I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,’ he +rejoined. ‘It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, +I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it +is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker +tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine.’ + +‘I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,’ said I. + +‘Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,’ pursued the meekest of little +men, much encouraged, ‘that what such people miscall their religion, is +a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say, +sir,’ he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, ‘that I DON’T +find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?’ + +‘I never found it either!’ said I. + +‘In the meantime, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, ‘they are much disliked; +and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them +to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in +our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a +continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own +hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that +brain of yours, if you’ll excuse my returning to it. Don’t you expose it +to a good deal of excitement, sir?’ + +I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip’s own brain, +under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic +to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he was quite +loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, +that he was then at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional +evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a +patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. ‘And I assure +you, sir,’ he said, ‘I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could +not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman +me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that +alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield?’ + +I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night, +early in the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted +and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her +better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again, +appeared to terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile, ‘Is she so, +indeed, sir? Really?’ and almost immediately called for a candle, and +went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not +actually stagger under the negus; but I should think his placid little +pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had +done since the great night of my aunt’s disappointment, when she struck +at him with her bonnet. + +Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on +the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt’s old parlour while +she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and +Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open +arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to +talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of +his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and Peggotty +had a great deal to say about my poor mother’s second husband, and ‘that +murdering woman of a sister’,--on whom I think no pain or penalty would +have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any +other designation. + + + +CHAPTER 60. AGNES + + +My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How +the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; +how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on +account of those ‘pecuniary liabilities’, in reference to which he had +been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into +my aunt’s service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out +her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving +tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set her seal on the same +great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the +marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics--already +more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, +as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly +occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and +kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance +of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life +that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; +and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully +know what he was. + +‘And when, Trot,’ said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat +in our old way before the fire, ‘when are you going over to Canterbury?’ + +‘I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless you +will go with me?’ + +‘No!’ said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. ‘I mean to stay where I +am.’ + +Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury +today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her. + +She was pleased, but answered, ‘Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have +kept till tomorrow!’ and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking +thoughtfully at the fire. + +Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, +without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been +occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed +to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less +regrets. ‘Oh, Trot,’ I seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and I +understood her better now--‘Blind, blind, blind!’ + +We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found +that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the +current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful +as it had been once. + +‘You will find her father a white-haired old man,’ said my aunt, ‘though +a better man in all other respects--a reclaimed man. Neither will you +find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his +one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink +very much, before they can be measured off in that way.’ + +‘Indeed they must,’ said I. + +‘You will find her,’ pursued my aunt, ‘as good, as beautiful, as +earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher +praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her.’ + +There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh, how +had I strayed so far away! + +‘If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like +herself,’ said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with +tears, ‘Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful and happy, +as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy!’ + +‘Has Agnes any--’ I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. + +‘Well? Hey? Any what?’ said my aunt, sharply. + +‘Any lover,’ said I. + +‘A score,’ cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. ‘She might +have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone!’ + +‘No doubt,’ said I. ‘No doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of +her? Agnes could care for no other.’ + +My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. +Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said: + +‘I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.’ + +‘A prosperous one?’ said I. + +‘Trot,’ returned my aunt gravely, ‘I can’t say. I have no right to tell +you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it.’ + +She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble), +that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. +I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and +nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart. + +‘If it should be so,’ I began, ‘and I hope it is-’ + +‘I don’t know that it is,’ said my aunt curtly. ‘You must not be ruled +by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very slight, +perhaps. I have no right to speak.’ + +‘If it should be so,’ I repeated, ‘Agnes will tell me at her own good +time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will not be +reluctant to confide in me.’ + +My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them +upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and by she +put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, looking into the +past, without saying another word, until we parted for the night. + +I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school-days. +I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining +a victory over myself; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her +face again. + +The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet +streets, where every stone was a boy’s book to me. I went on foot to the +old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned; and +looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where +first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, +saw that it was a little parlour now, and that there was no office. +Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, +still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid +who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on +her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old +staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged +drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on +their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many +a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little +changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. +Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time. + +I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the +opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons, +when I first came there; and how I had used to speculate about the +people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my +eyes up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in +pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the +water-spout yonder, and flowed into the road. The feeling with which +I used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet +evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over +their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, +as then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the +sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. + +The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start and +turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She +stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms. + +‘Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.’ + +‘No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!’ + +‘Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!’ + +I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent. +Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon +me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole +years. + +She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,--I owed her so +much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance +for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell +her (as I had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me; +but all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. + +With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to +the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, +in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora’s grave. With the +unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my +memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I +could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from +nothing it awoke. How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear +self, the better angel of my life? + +‘And you, Agnes,’ I said, by and by. ‘Tell me of yourself. You have +hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!’ + +‘What should I tell?’ she answered, with her radiant smile. ‘Papa is +well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set at rest, +our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all.’ + +‘All, Agnes?’ said I. + +She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. + +‘Is there nothing else, Sister?’ I said. + +Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She +smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head. + +I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, sharply +painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to +discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was +uneasy, and I let it pass. + +‘You have much to do, dear Agnes?’ + +‘With my school?’ said she, looking up again, in all her bright +composure. + +‘Yes. It is laborious, is it not?’ + +‘The labour is so pleasant,’ she returned, ‘that it is scarcely grateful +in me to call it by that name.’ + +‘Nothing good is difficult to you,’ said I. + +Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head, +I saw the same sad smile. + +‘You will wait and see papa,’ said Agnes, cheerfully, ‘and pass the +day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always call it +yours.’ + +I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt’s at night; +but I would pass the day there, joyfully. + +‘I must be a prisoner for a little while,’ said Agnes, ‘but here are the +old books, Trotwood, and the old music.’ + +‘Even the old flowers are here,’ said I, looking round; ‘or the old +kinds.’ + +‘I have found a pleasure,’ returned Agnes, smiling, ‘while you have been +absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were children. +For we were very happy then, I think.’ + +‘Heaven knows we were!’ said I. + +‘And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,’ said Agnes, +with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, ‘has been a welcome +companion. Even this,’ showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still +hanging at her side, ‘seems to jingle a kind of old tune!’ + +She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. + +It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. It +was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I once shook +the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which +it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. I set +this steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more it behoved +me never to forget it. + +I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old adversary the +butcher--now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop--went +down to look at the place where I had fought him; and there meditated +on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and +likings, and dislikings, of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived +that time but Agnes; and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and +higher. + +When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, a +couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself almost +every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We sat down to +dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow +of his handsome picture on the wall. + +The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my +memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no +wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; where Agnes and her little +charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and +we three sat together, talking of the bygone days. + +‘My part in them,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, ‘has much +matter for regret--for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, you +well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my power.’ + +I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. + +‘I should cancel with it,’ he pursued, ‘such patience and devotion, such +fidelity, such a child’s love, as I must not forget, no! even to forget +myself.’ + +‘I understand you, sir,’ I softly said. ‘I hold it--I have always held +it--in veneration.’ + +‘But no one knows, not even you,’ he returned, ‘how much she has done, +how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear Agnes!’ + +She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, +very pale. + +‘Well, well!’ he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial +she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had +told me. ‘Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has +anyone?’ + +‘Never, sir.’ + +‘It’s not much--though it was much to suffer. She married me in +opposition to her father’s wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him +to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard +man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her +heart.’ + +Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. + +‘She had an affectionate and gentle heart,’ he said; ‘and it was broken. +I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. She +loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always labouring, in +secret, under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time +of his last repulse--for it was not the first, by many--pined away +and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you +recollect me with, when you first came.’ He kissed Agnes on her cheek. + +‘My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all +unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, +Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what +I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes +is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother’s +story, in her character; and so I tell it you tonight, when we three are +again together, after such great changes. I have told it all.’ + +His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more +pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted +anything by which to mark this night of our re-union, I should have +found it in this. + +Agnes rose up from her father’s side, before long; and going softly to +her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in +that place. + +‘Have you any intention of going away again?’ Agnes asked me, as I was +standing by. + +‘What does my sister say to that?’ + +‘I hope not.’ + +‘Then I have no such intention, Agnes.’ + +‘I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,’ she said, mildly. +‘Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good; +and if I could spare my brother,’ with her eyes upon me, ‘perhaps the +time could not.’ + +‘What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.’ + +‘I made you, Trotwood?’ + +‘Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!’ I said, bending over her. ‘I tried to tell +you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts since +Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our little +room--pointing upward, Agnes?’ + +‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she returned, her eyes filled with tears. ‘So loving, so +confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?’ + +‘As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have ever +been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to something +better; ever directing me to higher things!’ + +She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet +smile. + +‘And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that there +is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet don’t +know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you, +and be guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past. +Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may +come between us, I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now, +and have always done. You will always be my solace and resource, as you +have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always +before me, pointing upward!’ + +She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what I +said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then she went +on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. ‘Do you know, +what I have heard tonight, Agnes,’ said I, strangely seems to be a part +of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first--with +which I sat beside you in my rough school-days?’ + +‘You knew I had no mother,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and felt kindly +towards me.’ + +‘More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this story, +that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding +you; something that might have been sorrowful in someone else (as I can +now understand it was), but was not so in you.’ + +She softly played on, looking at me still. + +‘Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could +be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease +to be so, until you ceased to live?---Will you laugh at such a dream?’ + +‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’ + +For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the +start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me +with her own calm smile. + +As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless +memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. I was not +happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and, +thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that +sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I might yet love her with +a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the strife had been within me +when I loved her here. + + + +CHAPTER 61. I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS + + +For a time--at all events until my book should be completed, which would +be the work of several months--I took up my abode in my aunt’s house at +Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which I had looked out at +the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I quietly +pursued my task. + +In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when +their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my +story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and +triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest +earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, I have +already said. If the books I have written be of any worth, they will +supply the rest. I shall otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the +rest will be of interest to no one. + +Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life +there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had +managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement; and my +worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon +me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had no +knowledge--chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer--I +agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There, the +devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and +there, at intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary of +State without the salary. + +Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an +obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking +about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take +the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me +a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers; being already +aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence, +and considering the Commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything +to make it worse. + +The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles’s +door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of +Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty +little strip of garden with a pump in it. But there I always found her, +the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no +strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his +official closet with melody. + +I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copy-book; +and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the +table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had +just come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a paper out +of his desk, and asked me what I thought of that handwriting? + +‘Oh, DON’T, Tom!’ cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before the +fire. + +‘My dear,’ returned Tom, in a delighted state, ‘why not? What do you say +to that writing, Copperfield?’ + +‘It’s extraordinarily legal and formal,’ said I. ‘I don’t think I ever +saw such a stiff hand.’ + +‘Not like a lady’s hand, is it?’ said Traddles. + +‘A lady’s!’ I repeated. ‘Bricks and mortar are more like a lady’s hand!’ + +Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was +Sophy’s writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a +copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired +this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off--I forget how +many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all +this, and said that when ‘Tom’ was made a judge he wouldn’t be so ready +to proclaim it. Which ‘Tom’ denied; averring that he should always be +equally proud of it, under all circumstances. + +‘What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles!’ +said I, when she had gone away, laughing. + +‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, ‘she is, without any +exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her +punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, +Copperfield!’ + +‘Indeed, you have reason to commend her!’ I returned. ‘You are a happy +fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the +happiest people in the world.’ + +‘I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,’ returned Traddles. ‘I +admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up +by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day’s +arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, +caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of +the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in +its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up +at night with me if it’s ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging +always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can’t believe it, +Copperfield!’ + +He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them +on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. + +‘I positively sometimes can’t believe it,’ said Traddles. ‘Then our +pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful! +When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and +draw those curtains--which she made--where could we be more snug? When +it’s fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets +abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the +jewellers’ shops; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, +coiled up on white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could +afford it; and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are +capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal +lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if +she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, +butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both +afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we +stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, +sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would THAT do, if I was made +a judge? And we parcel it out--such a room for us, such rooms for the +girls, and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it +would do, or it wouldn’t do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at +half-price to the pit of the theatre--the very smell of which is cheap, +in my opinion, at the money--and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: +which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home, +perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook’s-shop, or a little +lobster at the fishmongers, and bring it here, and make a splendid +supper, chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if +I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn’t do this!’ + +‘You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,’ thought +I, ‘that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,’ I said aloud, +‘I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?’ + +‘Really,’ replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, ‘I can’t wholly +deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of the back rows +of the King’s Bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came +into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I am +afraid there’s a skeleton--in a wig--on the ledge of the desk.’ + +After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a +smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, ‘Old Creakle!’ + +‘I have a letter from that old--Rascal here,’ said I. For I never was +less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, than +when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. + +‘From Creakle the schoolmaster?’ exclaimed Traddles. ‘No!’ + +‘Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and +fortune,’ said I, looking over my letters, ‘and who discover that they +were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not +a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex +Magistrate.’ + +I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at +all. + +‘How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?’ said I. + +‘Oh dear me!’ replied Traddles, ‘it would be very difficult to answer +that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, +or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or +jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the +county to nominate him for the commission.’ + +‘On the commission he is, at any rate,’ said I. ‘And he writes to me +here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true +system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making +sincere and lasting converts and penitents--which, you know, is by +solitary confinement. What do you say?’ + +‘To the system?’ inquired Traddles, looking grave. + +‘No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?’ + +‘I don’t object,’ said Traddles. + +‘Then I’ll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our +treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose, +and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?’ + +‘Perfectly,’ said Traddles. + +‘Yet, if you’ll read his letter, you’ll find he is the tenderest of +men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,’ said I; +‘though I can’t find that his tenderness extends to any other class of +created beings.’ + +Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not +expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of +similar practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the +time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening. + +On the appointed day--I think it was the next day, but no +matter--Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was +powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast +expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what +an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had +proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an +industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving +old. + +In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of +Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old +schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three of the +busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. He +received me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and +had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Creakle +expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always +been Traddles’s guide, philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor +was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance. His face was +as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. The +scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost +gone; and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable +to look at. + +After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might have +supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken +into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and +nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors, we began +our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the +great kitchen, where every prisoner’s dinner was in course of being set +out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity +and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered +whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast +between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not +to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk +of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred +ever dined half so well. But I learned that the ‘system’ required high +living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found +that on that head and on all others, ‘the system’ put an end to all +doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least +idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered. + +As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of +Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages +of this all-governing and universally over-riding system? I found +them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners--so that no one man in +confinement there, knew anything about another; and the reduction of +prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition +and repentance. + +Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, +and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the +manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there +was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each +other, and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. +This, at the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case; +but, as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have +hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently +as I could. + +And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion +in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the +coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors’ shops. I found a +vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying +very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. I +found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible +grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within +reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were +the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, +their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many +of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories +showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by +them. + +However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro, +of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite, and who really +appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgement +until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood, was also +a bright particular star; but it was his misfortune to have his glory +a little dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so +much of Twenty Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, +and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he +seemed to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to +see him. + +I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty +Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we came to +the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in +it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was +reading a Hymn Book. + +There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty Seven +reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven +heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of +conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr. Creakle directed the +door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty Seven to be invited out into +the passage. This was done; and whom should Traddles and I then behold, +to our amazement, in this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep! + +He knew us directly; and said, as he came out--with the old writhe,-- + +‘How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?’ + +This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather +thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking +notice of us. + +‘Well, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. ‘How do +you find yourself today?’ + +‘I am very umble, sir!’ replied Uriah Heep. + +‘You are always so, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle. + +Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: ‘Are you quite +comfortable?’ + +‘Yes, I thank you, sir!’ said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction. +‘Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies, +now, sir. That’s what makes me comfortable.’ + +Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing +himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: ‘How do you find +the beef?’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of this +voice, ‘it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it’s my duty to +bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,’ said Uriah, looking round +with a meek smile, ‘and I ought to bear the consequences without +repining.’ A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven’s celestial +state of mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had +given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made +by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of +us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly +meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of +light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out Twenty +Eight. + +I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of +resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good book! + +‘Twenty Eight,’ said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken, +‘you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has it been +since?’ + +‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, ‘it has been better made. If I +might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don’t think the milk which +is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir, that there is +a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure +state is difficult to be obtained.’ + +It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty +Eight against Mr. Creakle’s Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own +man in hand. + +‘What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?’ said the questioner in +spectacles. + +‘I thank you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer; ‘I see my follies now, sir. +I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former +companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.’ + +‘You are quite happy yourself?’ said the questioner, nodding +encouragement. + +‘I am much obliged to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer. ‘Perfectly so.’ + +‘Is there anything at all on your mind now?’ said the questioner. ‘If +so, mention it, Twenty Eight.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, ‘if my eyes have not +deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me +in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, +that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless +life in the service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led +by them into weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist. I hope +that gentleman will take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my +freedom. It is for his good. I am conscious of my own past follies. I +hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin to which he has been a +party.’ + +I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each with one +hand, as if they had just come into church. + +‘This does you credit, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner. ‘I should +have expected it of you. Is there anything else?’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not +his eyes, ‘there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that +I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, +if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that +I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself, and that I call her to +repentance--if he will be so good.’ + +‘I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner, ‘that the +gentleman you refer to feels very strongly--as we all must--what you +have so properly said. We will not detain you.’ + +‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer. ‘Gentlemen, I wish you a good +day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and +amend!’ + +With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him and +Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through +some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the group, as his +door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful +case. + +‘Now, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with +his man, ‘is there anything that anyone can do for you? If so, mention +it.’ + +‘I would umbly ask, sir,’ returned Uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent +head, ‘for leave to write again to mother.’ + +‘It shall certainly be granted,’ said Mr. Creakle. + +‘Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain’t safe.’ + +Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a scandalized +whisper of ‘Hush!’ + +‘Immortally safe, sir,’ returned Uriah, writhing in the direction of +the voice. ‘I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never should +have been got into my present state if I hadn’t come here. I wish mother +had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took up, +and was brought here.’ + +This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction--greater satisfaction, I +think, than anything that had passed yet. + +‘Before I come here,’ said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would +have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, ‘I was +given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies. There’s a deal +of sin outside. There’s a deal of sin in mother. There’s nothing but sin +everywhere--except here.’ + +‘You are quite changed?’ said Mr. Creakle. + +‘Oh dear, yes, sir!’ cried this hopeful penitent. + +‘You wouldn’t relapse, if you were going out?’ asked somebody else. + +‘Oh de-ar no, sir!’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘this is very gratifying. You have addressed +Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything further to +him?’ + +‘You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. +Copperfield,’ said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look +I never saw, even on his visage. ‘You knew me when, in spite of my +follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them that +was violent--you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once, you +struck me a blow in the face, you know.’ + +General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me. + +‘But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Uriah, making his forgiving +nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I shall +not record. ‘I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear malice. +I freely forgive you, and I hope you’ll curb your passions in future. I +hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. You’ve +been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you’d +better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. +too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of +you gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I +think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be +best for you. I pity all who ain’t brought here!’ + +He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation; +and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked +in. + +It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain to +ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That appeared to be +the last thing about which they had anything to say. I addressed +myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected from certain latent +indications in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir was +worth. + +‘Do you know,’ said I, as we walked along the passage, ‘what felony was +Number Twenty Seven’s last “folly”?’ + +The answer was that it was a Bank case. + +‘A fraud on the Bank of England?’ I asked. ‘Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, +and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on. It was a deep +plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven +was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself +safe; but not quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his +tail--and only just.’ + +‘Do you know Twenty Eight’s offence?’ + +‘Twenty Eight,’ returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low +tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, to +guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference +to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; ‘Twenty Eight (also +transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of +two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, the night before +they were going abroad. I particularly recollect his case, from his +being took by a dwarf.’ + +‘A what?’ + +‘A little woman. I have forgot her name?’ + +‘Not Mowcher?’ + +‘That’s it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a flaxen +wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see in all +your born days; when the little woman, being in Southampton, met +him walking along the street--picked him out with her sharp eye in a +moment--ran betwixt his legs to upset him--and held on to him like grim +Death.’ + +‘Excellent Miss Mowcher!’ cried I. + +‘You’d have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the +witness-box at the trial, as I did,’ said my friend. ‘He cut her face +right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took +him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so +tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take ‘em +both together. She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly +complimented by the Bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. She +said in Court that she’d have took him single-handed (on account of what +she knew concerning him), if he had been Samson. And it’s my belief she +would!’ + +It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it. + +We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to +represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty Seven +and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged; that exactly +what they were then, they had always been; that the hypocritical knaves +were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place; +that they knew its market-value at least as well as we did, in the +immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated; in +a word, that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully suggestive piece of +business altogether. We left them to their system and themselves, and +went home wondering. + +‘Perhaps it’s a good thing, Traddles,’ said I, ‘to have an unsound Hobby +ridden hard; for it’s the sooner ridden to death.’ + +‘I hope so,’ replied Traddles. + + + +CHAPTER 62. A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY + + +The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above +two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voice +might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions +and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word of +praise as I heard nothing else. + +At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and +passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy +sense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when I left +her--and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the +past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest +part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as I went, the +thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence. + +Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those +thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar +off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place. +When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening face; moved +her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the +shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived; I thought +what a fate mine might have been--but only thought so, as I had thought +after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be. + +My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, I +wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured +assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I +had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear; +comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her: and now +it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day +when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when I +could say ‘Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and I +never have loved since!’ + +She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been +to me, she still was; wholly unaltered. + +Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, +since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or an +avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we +thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, +according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often +fell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, as +if we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence. I +believed that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night; and +that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression. + +This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new +confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my +mind--whether she could have that perception of the true state of +my breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me +pain--began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was +nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every poor +action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set this +right beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us, to break it +down at once with a determined hand. + +It was--what lasting reason have I to remember it!--a cold, harsh, +winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not +deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the +wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweeping +over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to +any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those +solitary regions, or a deserted ocean. + +‘Riding today, Trot?’ said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. + +‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going over to Canterbury. It’s a good day for a +ride.’ + +‘I hope your horse may think so too,’ said my aunt; ‘but at present he +is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, +as if he thought his stable preferable.’ + +My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but +had not at all relented towards the donkeys. + +‘He will be fresh enough, presently!’ said I. + +‘The ride will do his master good, at all events,’ observed my aunt, +glancing at the papers on my table. ‘Ah, child, you pass a good many +hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was +to write them.’ + +‘It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,’ I returned. ‘As to the +writing, it has its own charms, aunt.’ + +‘Ah! I see!’ said my aunt. ‘Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and +much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!’ + +‘Do you know anything more,’ said I, standing composedly before her--she +had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair--‘of that +attachment of Agnes?’ + +She looked up in my face a little while, before replying: + +‘I think I do, Trot.’ + +‘Are you confirmed in your impression?’ I inquired. + +‘I think I am, Trot.’ + +She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or +suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination to +show her a perfectly cheerful face. + +‘And what is more, Trot--’ said my aunt. + +‘Yes!’ + +‘I think Agnes is going to be married.’ + +‘God bless her!’ said I, cheerfully. + +‘God bless her!’ said my aunt, ‘and her husband too!’ + +I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted, +and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had +resolved to do. + +How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice, +brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; +the hard clatter of the horse’s hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; +the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit +as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, +stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically; +the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky, +as if they were drawn on a huge slate! + +I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now, +and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing +me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and +sat in one of the old-fashioned windows. + +I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing, +and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my last +visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I should +soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects. + +‘So I make the most of the present time, you see,’ said Agnes, ‘and talk +to you while I may.’ + +As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her +mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her. + +‘You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!’ + +‘Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.’ + +She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously +discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention. + +‘My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?’ + +‘No!’ she answered, with a look of astonishment. + +‘Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?’ + +‘No!’ she answered, as before. + +‘Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debt +of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards +you?’ + +‘I remember it,’ she said, gently, ‘very well.’ + +‘You have a secret,’ said I. ‘Let me share it, Agnes.’ + +She cast down her eyes, and trembled. + +‘I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard--but from other +lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange--that there is someone upon +whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of +what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as you say +you can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in +this matter, of all others!’ + +With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the +window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put +her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the +heart. + +And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. +Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly +sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with +hope than fear or sorrow. + +‘Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?’ + +‘Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speak +to you by and by--another time. I will write to you. Don’t speak to me +now. Don’t! don’t!’ + +I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on +that former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very +world that I must search through in a moment. ‘Agnes, I cannot bear +to see you so, and think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl, +dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share +your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to +give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to +lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!’ + +‘Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!’ was all I could +distinguish. + +Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once a clue +to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think +of? + +‘I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven’s sake, +Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all +that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you have any +lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer; that +I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that +I could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy; +dismiss it, for I don’t deserve it! I have not suffered quite in vain. +You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what +I feel for you.’ + +She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards +me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear: + +‘I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood--which, indeed, I do +not doubt--to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have +sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have +come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed +away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened +for me. If I have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what you +suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it. It has long been mine, and +must remain mine.’ + +‘Agnes! Stay! A moment!’ + +She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her +waist. ‘In the course of years!’ ‘It is not a new one!’ New thoughts and +hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were +changing. + +‘Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour--whom I so devotedly love! +When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this +confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our +lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hope +that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different +from Sister!--’ + +Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed, +and I saw my hope brighten in them. + +‘Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more mindful +of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I think my +heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were so +much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and +disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon in +everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first +and greater one of loving you as I do!’ + +Still weeping, but not sadly--joyfully! And clasped in my arms as she +had never been, as I had thought she never was to be! + +‘When I loved Dora--fondly, Agnes, as you know--’ + +‘Yes!’ she cried, earnestly. ‘I am glad to know it!’ + +‘When I loved her--even then, my love would have been incomplete, +without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost +her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!’ + +Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my +shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine! + +‘I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I +returned home, loving you!’ + +And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the +conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, and +entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had come into the better +knowledge of myself and of her; how I had resigned myself to what that +better knowledge brought; and how I had come there, even that day, in my +fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said) that she could take me +for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon +the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to +be what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even +out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife +looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to +tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom! + +‘I am so blest, Trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is one +thing I must say.’ + +‘Dearest, what?’ + +She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my +face. + +‘Do you know, yet, what it is?’ + +‘I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.’ + +‘I have loved you all my life!’ + +O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers +so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for the +rapture of being thus, never to be divided more! + +We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed +calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars +began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them, we +thanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity. + +We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the +moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I following +her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and, +toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who +should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own. + + +It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She +was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in +readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by +the fire. + +‘Goodness me!’ said my aunt, peering through the dusk, ‘who’s this +you’re bringing home?’ + +‘Agnes,’ said I. + +As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little +discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said ‘Agnes’; but +seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, +and rubbed her nose with them. + +She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the +lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles +twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them +off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the +discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom. + +‘By the by, aunt,’ said I, after dinner; ‘I have been speaking to Agnes +about what you told me.’ + +‘Then, Trot,’ said my aunt, turning scarlet, ‘you did wrong, and broke +your promise.’ + +‘You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won’t be, when you +learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.’ + +‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. + +As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her +annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we +both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look +through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first +and only time in all my knowledge of her. + +The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, she +flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with +all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured, +but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we were +all happy together. + +I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation +with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state +of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes +was going to be married; and that I now knew better than anyone how true +it was. + + +We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor and +Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them +full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the +source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself, +the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a +rock! + +‘Dearest husband!’ said Agnes. ‘Now that I may call you by that name, I +have one thing more to tell you.’ + +‘Let me hear it, love.’ + +‘It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.’ + +‘She did.’ + +‘She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was?’ + +I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to +my side. + +‘She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last +charge.’ + +‘And it was--’ + +‘That only I would occupy this vacant place.’ + +And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her, +though we were so happy. + + + + +CHAPTER 63. A VISITOR + +What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an +incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight, +and without which one thread in the web I have spun would have a +ravelled end. + +I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I had +been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in +our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children were +playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see me. + +He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he had +come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an +old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. + +As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the +beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory +to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, it +produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother’s +lap to be out of harm’s way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left +her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap +of golden curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened +next. + +‘Let him come in here!’ said I. + +There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale, +grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to +bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, +starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it +was Mr. Peggotty! + +It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old +age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with +the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, +to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I +had seen. + +‘Mas’r Davy,’ said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so +naturally on my ear! ‘Mas’r Davy, ‘tis a joyful hour as I see you, once +more, ‘long with your own trew wife!’ + +‘A joyful hour indeed, old friend!’ cried I. + +‘And these heer pretty ones,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘To look at these heer +flowers! Why, Mas’r Davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of +these, when I first see you! When Em’ly warn’t no bigger, and our poor +lad were BUT a lad!’ + +‘Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,’ said I. +‘But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in England but +this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old +black bag among it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass +of Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!’ + +‘Are you alone?’ asked Agnes. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, kissing her hand, ‘quite alone.’ + +We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and +as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he +was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece. + +‘It’s a mort of water,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘fur to come across, and +on’y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water [‘specially when ‘tis salt) +comes nat’ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. --Which is +verse,’ said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, ‘though I hadn’t +such intentions.’ + +‘Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?’ asked Agnes. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ he returned. ‘I giv the promise to Em’ly, afore I come +away. You see, I doen’t grow younger as the years comes round, and if +I hadn’t sailed as ‘twas, most like I shouldn’t never have done ‘t. And +it’s allus been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas’r Davy and your +own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too +old.’ + +He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. +Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he +might see us better. + +‘And now tell us,’ said I, ‘everything relating to your fortunes.’ + +‘Our fortuns, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, ‘is soon told. We haven’t fared +nohows, but fared to thrive. We’ve allus thrived. We’ve worked as we +ought to ‘t, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but +we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and what with +stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t’other, we are as +well to do, as well could be. Theer’s been kiender a blessing fell upon +us,’ said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, ‘and we’ve +done nowt but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, why +then today. If not today, why then tomorrow.’ + +‘And Emily?’ said Agnes and I, both together. + +‘Em’ly,’ said he, ‘arter you left her, ma’am--and I never heerd her +saying of her prayers at night, t’other side the canvas screen, when we +was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name--and arter she and +me lost sight of Mas’r Davy, that theer shining sundown--was that low, +at first, that, if she had know’d then what Mas’r Davy kep from us so +kind and thowtful, ‘tis my opinion she’d have drooped away. But theer +was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ‘em, and she took care +of them; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of +them; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped +her.’ + +‘When did she first hear of it?’ I asked. + +‘I kep it from her arter I heerd on ‘t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘going +on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among the +beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to the +roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on the land, a +traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen’t rightly +mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink, +and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He’d got an +old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm. +That’s how she know’d it. When I came home at night, I found she know’d +it.’ + +He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well +remembered overspread his face. + +‘Did it change her much?’ we asked. + +‘Aye, for a good long time,’ he said, shaking his head; ‘if not to this +present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had a +deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and +come through. I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if you could see my +Em’ly now, Mas’r Davy, whether you’d know her!’ + +‘Is she so altered?’ I inquired. + +‘I doen’t know. I see her ev’ry day, and doen’t know; But, odd-times, I +have thowt so. A slight figure,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at the fire, +‘kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty +head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way--timid a’most. That’s +Em’ly!’ + +We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. + +‘Some thinks,’ he said, ‘as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, as her +marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how ‘tis. She might have +married well, a mort of times, “but, uncle,” she says to me, “that’s +gone for ever.” Cheerful along with me; retired when others is by; +fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick +person, or fur to do some kindness tow’rds a young girl’s wedding (and +she’s done a many, but has never seen one); fondly loving of her uncle; +patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble. +That’s Em’ly!’ + +He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked +up from the fire. + +‘Is Martha with you yet?’ I asked. + +‘Martha,’ he replied, ‘got married, Mas’r Davy, in the second year. A +young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market with his +mas’r’s drays--a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back--made +offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and +then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke to me fur to +tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live fower +hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds.’ + +‘Mrs. Gummidge?’ I suggested. + +It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a +roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had +been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked +boat. + +‘Would you believe it!’ he said. ‘Why, someun even made offer fur to +marry her! If a ship’s cook that was turning settler, Mas’r Davy, didn’t +make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I’m Gormed--and I can’t say no +fairer than that!’ + +I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr. +Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off +laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the +greater Mr. Peggotty’s ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. + +‘And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?’ I asked, when I was grave enough. + +‘If you’ll believe me,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘Missis Gummidge, ‘stead +of saying “thank you, I’m much obleeged to you, I ain’t a-going fur +to change my condition at my time of life,” up’d with a bucket as was +standing by, and laid it over that theer ship’s cook’s head ‘till he +sung out fur help, and I went in and reskied of him.’ + +Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both +kept him company. + +‘But I must say this, for the good creetur,’ he resumed, wiping his +face, when we were quite exhausted; ‘she has been all she said she’d +be to us, and more. She’s the willingest, the trewest, the +honestest-helping woman, Mas’r Davy, as ever draw’d the breath of life. +I have never know’d her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, +not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. And +thinking of the old ‘un is a thing she never done, I do assure you, +since she left England!’ + +‘Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber,’ said I. ‘He has paid off every +obligation he incurred here--even to Traddles’s bill, you remember my +dear Agnes--and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing +well. But what is the latest news of him?’ + +Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and +produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much +care, a little odd-looking newspaper. + +‘You are to understan’, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, ‘as we have left the +Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to Port +Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer’s what we call a town.’ + +‘Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?’ said I. + +‘Bless you, yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and turned to with a will. I never +wish to meet a better gen’l’man for turning to with a will. I’ve seen +that theer bald head of his a perspiring in the sun, Mas’r Davy, till I +a’most thowt it would have melted away. And now he’s a Magistrate.’ + +‘A Magistrate, eh?’ said I. + +Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I +read aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times: + + +‘The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman, +WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, came +off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to +suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons +must have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the +company in the passage and on the stairs. The beauty, fashion, and +exclusiveness of Port Middlebay, flocked to do honour to one so +deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. Doctor +Mell (of Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided, +and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the +cloth, and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which +we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted +amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and +patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Doctor +Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed “Our distinguished +Guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better +himself, and may his success among us be such as to render his bettering +himself impossible!” The cheering with which the toast was received +defies description. Again and again it rose and fell, like the waves +of ocean. At length all was hushed, and WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, +presented himself to return thanks. Far be it from us, in the present +comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, +to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the +smoothly-flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address! +Suffice it to observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that +those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful +career to its source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory +from the shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were +unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present. The +remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; Mrs. MICAWBER (who gracefully bowed +her acknowledgements from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was +elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene), +Mrs. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber); Mrs. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER, +ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that +he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so, +with their permission, in a song); Mrs. MICAWBER’S FAMILY (well known, +it is needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the +conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic +for dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported themselves +until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior, +and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena, fourth daughter of Doctor +Mell, were particularly remarkable.’ + + +I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have +discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor +pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing +to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read +thus: + + +‘TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE, + +‘THE EMINENT AUTHOR. + +‘My Dear Sir, + +‘Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the +lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion +of the civilized world. + +‘But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances over +which I have had no control) from the personal society of the friend and +companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his soaring flight. +Nor have I been debarred, + + Though seas between us braid ha’ roared, + +(BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread +before us. + +‘I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an +individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear Sir, +taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, +I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of Port +Middlebay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering agent. + +‘Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not +unappreciated. Though “remote”, we are neither “unfriended”, +“melancholy”, nor (I may add) “slow”. Go on, my dear Sir, in your Eagle +course! The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch +it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction! + +‘Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe, +will ever be found, while it has light and life, + + ‘The + ‘Eye + ‘Appertaining to + + ‘WILKINS MICAWBER, + ‘Magistrate.’ + + +I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that +Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that journal. +There was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge; +there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to +be shortly republished, in a neat volume, ‘with considerable additions’; +and, unless I am very much mistaken, the Leading Article was his also. + +We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr. +Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of his +stay,--which, I think, was something less than a month,--and his sister +and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him +aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on +earth. + +But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet +I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While I was copying +the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and +gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little earth. + +‘For Em’ly,’ he said, as he put it in his breast. ‘I promised, Mas’r +Davy.’ + + + +CHAPTER 64. A LAST RETROSPECT + + +And now my written story ends. I look back, once more--for the last +time--before I close these leaves. + +I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. +I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of +many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. + +What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these; +all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question! + +Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score +years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a +stretch in winter weather. + +Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in +spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the +lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a +yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. +Paul’s upon the lid. + +The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, +when I wondered why the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples, +are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole +neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); +but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket +nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching +at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour +at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt’s old disappointment is set +right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora +(the next in order) says she spoils her. + +There is something bulky in Peggotty’s pocket. It is nothing smaller +than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by +this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which +Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very +curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile +stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of +Sheffield. + +Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant +kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there +are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods +and winks, ‘Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the +Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt’s the most +extraordinary woman in the world, sir!’ + +Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me +a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, +feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the +mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered +woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say. + +‘Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman’s name.’ + +Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, ‘Mr. Copperfield.’ + +‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I +hope Time will be good to you.’ + +Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids +her look again, tries to rouse her. + +‘You have seen my son, sir,’ says the elder lady. ‘Are you reconciled?’ + +Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. +Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, ‘Rosa, come to me. He is +dead!’ Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels +with her; now fiercely telling her, ‘I loved him better than you ever +did!’--now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus +I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away, +from year to year. + +What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this, +married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can +this be Julia Mills? + +Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry +cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman +in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin +in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never +sings Affection’s Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, +who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in +money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her +better in the Desert of Sahara. + +Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately +house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no +green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. +What Julia calls ‘society’, I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his +Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me +of the Doctor as ‘so charmingly antique’. But when society is the name +for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is +professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard +mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of +Sahara, and had better find the way out. + +And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his Dictionary +(somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also +the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so +influential as in days of yore! + +Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair +(where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant +friction of his lawyer’s-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old +Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as +I look around me: + +‘If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!’ + +‘You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days, +too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?’ + +‘When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town talk +then!’ + +‘At all events,’ says Traddles, ‘if I ever am one--’ ‘Why, you know you +will be.’ + +‘Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, as I +said I would.’ + +We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with +Traddles. It is Sophy’s birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses +to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. + +‘I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most +at heart. There’s the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four +hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the +very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars +and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably; +there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house +for the Reverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler’s decease; and all of them +happy.’ + +‘Except--’ I suggest. + +‘Except the Beauty,’ says Traddles. ‘Yes. It was very unfortunate that +she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash and glare +about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our +house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.’ + +Traddles’s house is one of the very houses--or it easily may have +been--which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It +is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room +and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into +upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty and the girls. +There is no room to spare in the house; for more of ‘the girls’ are +here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how +to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to +the door, and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of +breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow +with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s birthday, are the three +married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband’s +brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another husband’s sister, +who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the +same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the +large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, +across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia +metal. + +And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these +faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by +which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And +that remains. + +I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. + +My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear +presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. + +O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life +indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows +which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID COPPERFIELD *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Great Expectations + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: July, 1998 [eBook #1400] +[Most recently updated: April 27, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + + +[Illustration] + + + + +Great Expectations + +[1867 Edition] + +by Charles Dickens + + +Contents + + Chapter I. + Chapter II. + Chapter III. + Chapter IV. + Chapter V. + Chapter VI. + Chapter VII. + Chapter VIII. + Chapter IX. + Chapter X. + Chapter XI. + Chapter XII. + Chapter XIII. + Chapter XIV. + Chapter XV. + Chapter XVI. + Chapter XVII. + Chapter XVIII. + Chapter XIX. + Chapter XX. + Chapter XXI. + Chapter XXII. + Chapter XXIII. + Chapter XXIV. + Chapter XXV. + Chapter XXVI. + Chapter XXVII. + Chapter XXVIII. + Chapter XXIX. + Chapter XXX. + Chapter XXXI. + Chapter XXXII. + Chapter XXXIII. + Chapter XXXIV. + Chapter XXXV. + Chapter XXXVI. + Chapter XXXVII. + Chapter XXXVIII. + Chapter XXXIX. + Chapter XL. + Chapter XLI. + Chapter XLII. + Chapter XLIII. + Chapter XLIV. + Chapter XLV. + Chapter XLVI. + Chapter XLVII. + Chapter XLVIII. + Chapter XLIX. + Chapter L. + Chapter LI. + Chapter LII. + Chapter LIII. + Chapter LIV. + Chapter LV. + Chapter LVI. + Chapter LVII. + Chapter LVIII. + Chapter LIX. + +[Illustration] + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EXPECTATIONS *** + +Chapter I. + + +My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my +infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit +than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. + +I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his +tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. +As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of +either of them (for their days were long before the days of +photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were +unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on +my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, +with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, +“_Also Georgiana Wife of the Above_,” I drew a childish conclusion that +my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each +about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside +their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of +mine,—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that +universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I religiously +entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands +in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state +of existence. + +Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river +wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad +impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on +a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out +for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the +churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also +Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, +Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the +aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness +beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, +with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low +leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from +which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of +shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. + +“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from +among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you +little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!” + +A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man +with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his +head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and +lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by +briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose +teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin. + +“Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it, +sir.” + +“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!” + +“Pip, sir.” + +“Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!” + +“Pip. Pip, sir.” + +“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!” + +I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the +alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church. + +The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and +emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. +When the church came to itself,—for he was so sudden and strong that he +made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my +feet,—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high +tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously. + +[Illustration] + +“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat cheeks you +ha’ got.” + +I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my +years, and not strong. + +“Darn me if I couldn’t eat ’em,” said the man, with a threatening shake +of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind to’t!” + +I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the +tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; +partly, to keep myself from crying. + +“Now lookee here!” said the man. “Where’s your mother?” + +“There, sir!” said I. + +He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder. + +“There, sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.” + +“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger your +mother?” + +“Yes, sir,” said I; “him too; late of this parish.” + +“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “Who d’ye live with,—supposin’ +you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?” + +“My sister, sir,—Mrs. Joe Gargery,—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, +sir.” + +“Blacksmith, eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg. + +After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to +my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he +could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, +and mine looked most helplessly up into his. + +“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you’re to be +let to live. You know what a file is?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you know what wittles is?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a +greater sense of helplessness and danger. + +“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He +tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or +I’ll have your heart and liver out.” He tilted me again. + +I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both +hands, and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, +sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.” + +He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped +over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright +position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:— + +“You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You +bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and +you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your +having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall +be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no +matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore +out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. +There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I +am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has +a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his +heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide +himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in +bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think +himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and +creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man +from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I +find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what +do you say?” + +I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken +bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in +the morning. + +“Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man. + +I said so, and he took me down. + +“Now,” he pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook, and you +remember that young man, and you get home!” + +“Goo-good night, sir,” I faltered. + +“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. “I +wish I was a frog. Or a eel!” + +At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his +arms,—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,—and limped +towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the +nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked +in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, +stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his +ankle and pull him in. + +When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose +legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When +I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of +my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on +again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and +picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into +the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were +heavy or the tide was in. + +The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped +to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not +nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long +angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the +river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the +prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the +beacon by which the sailors steered,—like an unhooped cask upon a +pole,—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with +some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was +limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, +and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a +terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their +heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I +looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of +him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping. + + + + +Chapter II. + + +My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, +and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours +because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find +out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a +hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her +husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both +brought up by hand. + +She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general +impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe +was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth +face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to +have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, +good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a sort +of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness. + +My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing +redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible +she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall +and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her +figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in +front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful +merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this +apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn +it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken +it off, every day of her life. + +Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of +the dwellings in our country were,—most of them, at that time. When I +ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was +sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and +having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment +I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, +sitting in the chimney corner. + +“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s +out now, making it a baker’s dozen.” + +“Is she?” + +“Yes, Pip,” said Joe; “and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.” + +At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat +round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler +was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled +frame. + +“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a grab at +Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,” said Joe, slowly +clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at +it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.” + +“Has she been gone long, Joe?” I always treated him as a larger species +of child, and as no more than my equal. + +“Well,” said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, “she’s been on the +Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a-coming! Get +behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.” + +I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, +and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, +and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by +throwing me—I often served as a connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to +get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly +fenced me up there with his great leg. + +“Where have you been, you young monkey?” said Mrs. Joe, stamping her +foot. “Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with +fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you +was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.” + +“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool, crying and +rubbing myself. + +“Churchyard!” repeated my sister. “If it warn’t for me you’d have been +to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by +hand?” + +“You did,” said I. + +“And why did I do it, I should like to know?” exclaimed my sister. + +I whimpered, “I don’t know.” + +“_I_ don’t!” said my sister. “I’d never do it again! I know that. I may +truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off since born you were. +It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without +being your mother.” + +My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at +the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the +mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was +under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me +in the avenging coals. + +“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. “Churchyard, +indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.” One of us, by the by, +had not said it at all. “You’ll drive _me_ to the churchyard betwixt +you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without +me!” + +As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me +over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and +calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the +grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his +right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with +his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times. + +My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, +that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard +and fast against her bib,—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and +sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she +took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, +in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,—using +both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and +moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a +final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very +thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the +loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other. + +On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. +I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful +acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew +Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my +larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. +Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of +my trousers. + +The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I +found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap +from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. +And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our +already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his +good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare +the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each +other’s admiration now and then,—which stimulated us to new exertions. +To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast +diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he +found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my +untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately +considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had +best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the +circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at +me, and got my bread and butter down my leg. + +Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss +of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he +didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than +usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like +a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on +one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw +that my bread and butter was gone. + +The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of +his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s +observation. + +“What’s the matter _now_?” said she, smartly, as she put down her cup. + +“I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious +remonstrance. “Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll +stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip.” + +“What’s the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply than before. + +“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do +it,” said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still your elth’s +your elth.” + +By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, +and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little +while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking +guiltily on. + +“Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said my sister, out of +breath, “you staring great stuck pig.” + +Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and +looked at me again. + +“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, +and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, +“you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, +any time. But such a—” he moved his chair and looked about the floor +between us, and then again at me—“such a most oncommon Bolt as that!” + +“Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister. + +“You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, +with his bite still in his cheek, “I Bolted, myself, when I was your +age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never +see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted +dead.” + +My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying +nothing more than the awful words, “You come along and be dosed.” + +Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine +medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; +having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the +best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a +choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like +a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded +a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater +comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be +held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to +swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and +meditating before the fire), “because he had had a turn.” Judging from +myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had +none before. + +Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in +the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret +burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great +punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I +never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the +housekeeping property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping +one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about +the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, +as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the +voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to +secrecy, declaring that he couldn’t and wouldn’t starve until +to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the +young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his +hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should +mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and +liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on +end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s +ever did? + +It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with +a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with +the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the +load on _his_ leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the +bread and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped +away, and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom. + +“Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final +warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; “was that great +guns, Joe?” + +“Ah!” said Joe. “There’s another conwict off.” + +“What does that mean, Joe?” said I. + +Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, +“Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition like Tar-water. + +While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my +mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, “What’s a convict?” Joe put +_his_ mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, +that I could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.” + +“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after +sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re +firing warning of another.” + +“_Who’s_ firing?” said I. + +“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, +“what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no +lies.” + +It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be +told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite +unless there was company. + +At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost +pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a +word that looked to me like “sulks.” Therefore, I naturally pointed to +Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, “her?” But Joe +wouldn’t hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, +and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make +nothing of the word. + +“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “I should like to know—if you +wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes from?” + +“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t quite mean +that but rather the contrary. “From the Hulks!” + +“Oh-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!” + +Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you so.” + +“And please, what’s Hulks?” said I. + +“That’s the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister, pointing me out +with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. “Answer him one +question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, +right ’cross th’ meshes.” We always used that name for marshes, in our +country. + +“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?” said +I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation. + +It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. “I tell you what, +young fellow,” said she, “I didn’t bring you up by hand to badger +people’s lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had. +People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, +and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking +questions. Now, you get along to bed!” + +I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went +upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe’s thimble +having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I +felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were +handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking +questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe. + +Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought +that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. +No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in +mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in +mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal +terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had +no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed me +at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on +requirement, in the secrecy of my terror. + +If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting +down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate +calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the +gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at +once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been +inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob +the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no +getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have +struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very +pirate himself rattling his chains. + +As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was +shot with grey, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, +and every crack in every board calling after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get +up, Mrs. Joe!” In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied +than usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare +hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back +was half turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for +selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole +some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I +tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night’s slice), some +brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had +secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid, +Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from +a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and +a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the +pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that +was put away so carefully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner, +and I found it was the pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not +intended for early use, and would not be missed for some time. + +There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I +unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. +Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which +I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the +misty marshes. + + + + +Chapter III. + + +It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the +outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there +all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw +the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort +of spiders’ webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. +On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so +thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our +village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came +there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I +looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience +like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks. + +The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that +instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. +This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and +banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly +as could be, “A boy with somebody else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The +cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, +and steaming out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!” One black +ox, with a white cravat on,—who even had to my awakened conscience +something of a clerical air,—fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and +moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved +round, that I blubbered out to him, “I couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t +for myself I took it!” Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of +smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and +a flourish of his tail. + +All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I +went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, +as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I +knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there +on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that +when I was ’prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks +there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last +too far to the right, and consequently had to try back along the +river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes +that staked the tide out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I +had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and +had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man +sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, +and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep. + +I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, +in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on +the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but +another man! + +And yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, and had a great iron +on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that +the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat +broad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for +I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at +me,—it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself +down, for it made him stumble,—and then he ran into the mist, stumbling +twice as he went, and I lost him. + +“It’s the young man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified +him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had +known where it was. + +I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right +man,—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all +night left off hugging and limping,—waiting for me. He was awfully +cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face +and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that +when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it +occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my +bundle. He did not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, +but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my +pockets. + +“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he. + +“Brandy,” said I. + +He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious +manner,—more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent +hurry, than a man who was eating it,—but he left off to take some of +the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite +as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his +teeth, without biting it off. + +“I think you have got the ague,” said I. + +“I’m much of your opinion, boy,” said he. + +“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’ve been lying out on the +meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.” + +“I’ll eat my breakfast afore they’re the death of me,” said he. “I’d do +that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is +over there, directly afterwards. I’ll beat the shivers so far, I’ll bet +you.” + +He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all +at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round +us, and often stopping—even stopping his jaws—to listen. Some real or +fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the +marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,— + +“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?” + +“No, sir! No!” + +“Nor giv’ no one the office to follow you?” + +“No!” + +“Well,” said he, “I believe you. You’d be but a fierce young hound +indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched +warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint +is!” + +Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, +and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over +his eyes. + +Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down +upon the pie, I made bold to say, “I am glad you enjoy it.” + +“Did you speak?” + +“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.” + +“Thankee, my boy. I do.” + +I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now +noticed a decided similarity between the dog’s way of eating, and the +man’s. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He +swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; +and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought +there was danger in every direction of somebody’s coming to take the +pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to +appreciate it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with +him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of +which particulars he was very like the dog. + +“I am afraid you won’t leave any of it for him,” said I, timidly; after +a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making +the remark. “There’s no more to be got where that came from.” It was +the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint. + +“Leave any for him? Who’s him?” said my friend, stopping in his +crunching of pie-crust. + +“The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.” + +“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. “Him? Yes, +yes! _He_ don’t want no wittles.” + +“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I. + +The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and +the greatest surprise. + +“Looked? When?” + +“Just now.” + +“Where?” + +“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him nodding +asleep, and thought it was you.” + +He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his +first idea about cutting my throat had revived. + +“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained, trembling; +“and—and”—I was very anxious to put this delicately—“and with—the same +reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn’t you hear the cannon last +night?” + +“Then there _was_ firing!” he said to himself. + +“I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,” I returned, “for we +heard it up at home, and that’s farther away, and we were shut in +besides.” + +“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man’s alone on these flats, with a +light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears +nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees +the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried +afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself +challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make +ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on—and +there’s nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night—coming up +in order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp—I see a hundred. And as to +firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad +day,—But this man”; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my +being there; “did you notice anything in him?” + +“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly knew I +knew. + +“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, +with the flat of his hand. + +“Yes, there!” + +“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of +his grey jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him down, like a +bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, +boy.” + +I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and +he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet +grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding +his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which +he handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. +I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself +into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping +away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, +so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw +of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his +fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last +I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still +going. + + + + +Chapter IV. + + +I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me +up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet +been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the +house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon +the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,—an article into +which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was +vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment. + +“And where the deuce ha’ _you_ been?” was Mrs. Joe’s Christmas +salutation, when I and my conscience showed ourselves. + +I said I had been down to hear the Carols. “Ah! well!” observed Mrs. +Joe. “You might ha’ done worse.” Not a doubt of that I thought. + +“Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s the same thing) a +slave with her apron never off, _I_ should have been to hear the +Carols,” said Mrs. Joe. “I’m rather partial to Carols, myself, and +that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing any.” + +Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had +retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a +conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her +eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and +exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. +This was so much her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for +weeks together, be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to +their legs. + +We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork +and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had +been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not +being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive +arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of +breakfast; “for I ain’t,” said Mrs. Joe,—“I ain’t a-going to have no +formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I’ve got +before me, I promise you!” + +So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on +a forced march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of +milk and water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the +dresser. In the meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and +tacked a new flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the +old one, and uncovered the little state parlour across the passage, +which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the +year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four +little white crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black +nose and a basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of +the other. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite +art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than +dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the +same by their religion. + +My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that +is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a +well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he +was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. +Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and +everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive +occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, +the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, +I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young +offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and +delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged +majesty of the law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on being +born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, +and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I +was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make +them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the +free use of my limbs. + +Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle +for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to +what I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever Mrs. +Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be +equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had +done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the +Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the +terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived +the idea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman +said, “Ye are now to declare it!” would be the time for me to rise and +propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure +that I might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to +this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday. + +Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble +the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle, +but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in +the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was +half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and +Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked +(it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and +everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery. + +The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and +the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large +shining bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud +of; indeed it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could +only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he +himself confessed that if the Church was “thrown open,” meaning to +competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it. The Church +not being “thrown open,” he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he +punished the Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,—always +giving the whole verse,—he looked all round the congregation first, as +much as to say, “You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your +opinion of this style!” + +I opened the door to the company,—making believe that it was a habit of +ours to open that door,—and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to +Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. _I_ was +not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties. + +“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged +slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair +standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been +all but choked, and had that moment come to, “I have brought you as the +compliments of the season—I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry +wine—and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.” + +Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with +exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells. +Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, “O, Un—cle +Pum-ble—chook! This _is_ kind!” Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he +now retorted, “It’s no more than your merits. And now are you all +bobbish, and how’s Sixpennorth of halfpence?” meaning me. + +We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts +and oranges and apples to the parlour; which was a change very like +Joe’s change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister +was uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally +more gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I +remember Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, +who held a conventionally juvenile position, because she had married +Mr. Hubble,—I don’t know at what remote period,—when she was much +younger than he. I remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered, +stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs +extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some +miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane. + +Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn’t +robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in +at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and +the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to +speak (I didn’t want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the +scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure +corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason +to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have +left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think +the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, +every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an +unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched +up by these moral goads. + +It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with +theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a +religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,—and +ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. +Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low +reproachful voice, “Do you hear that? Be grateful.” + +“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which +brought you up by hand.” + +Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful +presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the +young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the +company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally +wicious.” Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a +particularly unpleasant and personal manner. + +Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when +there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and +comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did +so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being +plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about +half a pint. + +A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with +some severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the +Church being “thrown open”—what kind of sermon _he_ would have given +them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he +remarked that he considered the subject of the day’s homily, ill +chosen; which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many +subjects “going about.” + +“True again,” said Uncle Pumblechook. “You’ve hit it, sir! Plenty of +subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their +tails. That’s what’s wanted. A man needn’t go far to find a subject, if +he’s ready with his salt-box.” Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short +interval of reflection, “Look at Pork alone. There’s a subject! If you +want a subject, look at Pork!” + +“True, sir. Many a moral for the young,” returned Mr. Wopsle,—and I +knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; “might be deduced +from that text.” + +(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.) + +Joe gave me some more gravy. + +“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his +fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,—“swine +were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put +before us, as an example to the young.” (I thought this pretty well in +him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) +“What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.” + +“Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble. + +“Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,” assented Mr. Wopsle, rather +irritably, “but there is no girl present.” + +“Besides,” said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, “think what +you’ve got to be grateful for. If you’d been born a Squeaker—” + +“He _was_, if ever a child was,” said my sister, most emphatically. + +Joe gave me some more gravy. + +“Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “If +you had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you—” + +“Unless in that form,” said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish. + +“But I don’t mean in that form, sir,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had +an objection to being interrupted; “I mean, enjoying himself with his +elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and +rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he +wouldn’t. And what would have been your destination?” turning on me +again. “You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according +to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would +have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped +you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his +frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would +have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. +Not a bit of it!” + +Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take. + +“He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hubble, +commiserating my sister. + +“Trouble?” echoed my sister; “trouble?” and then entered on a fearful +catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts +of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled +from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I +had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I +had contumaciously refused to go there. + +I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with +their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in +consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during +the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it +until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in +comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the +pause was broken which ensued upon my sister’s recital, and in which +pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with +indignation and abhorrence. + +“Yet,” said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the +theme from which they had strayed, “Pork—regarded as biled—is rich, +too; ain’t it?” + +“Have a little brandy, uncle,” said my sister. + +O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say +it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under +the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate. + +My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle, +and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man +trifled with his glass,—took it up, looked at it through the light, put +it down,—prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were +briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding. + +I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the +table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his +glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the +brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with +unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning +round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and +rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window, +violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, +and apparently out of his mind. + +I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t know how I +had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my +dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and +surveying the company all round as if _they_ had disagreed with him, +sank down into his chair with the one significant gasp, “Tar!” + +I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be +worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, +by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it. + +“Tar!” cried my sister, in amazement. “Why, how ever could Tar come +there?” + +But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn’t +hear the word, wouldn’t hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all +away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had +begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in +getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and +mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on +to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of +gratitude. + +By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of +pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. +The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the +genial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over +the day, when my sister said to Joe, “Clean plates,—cold.” + +I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my +bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my +soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was +gone. + +“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with her best +grace—“you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious +present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!” + +Must they! Let them not hope to taste it! + +“You must know,” said my sister, rising, “it’s a pie; a savory pork +pie.” + +The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of +having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously, +all things considered,—“Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavours; +let us have a cut at this same pie.” + +My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. +I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in +the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit +of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do +no harm,” and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never +been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, +merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that +I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of +the table, and ran for my life. + +But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost +into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a +pair of handcuffs to me, saying, “Here you are, look sharp, come on!” + + + + +Chapter V. + + +The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their +loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from +table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen +empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of +“Gracious goodness gracious me, what’s gone—with the—pie!” + +The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring; at +which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was the +sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the +company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his +right hand, and his left on my shoulder. + +“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but as I have +mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,” (which he hadn’t), +“I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith.” + +“And pray what might you want with _him_?” retorted my sister, quick to +resent his being wanted at all. + +“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for myself, I should +reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife’s acquaintance; +speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.” + +This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr. +Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good again!” + +“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant, who had by this time picked +out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with these, and I find +the lock of one of ’em goes wrong, and the coupling don’t act pretty. +As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over +them?” + +Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would +necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer two +hours than one. “Will it? Then will you set about it at once, +blacksmith?” said the off-hand sergeant, “as it’s on his Majesty’s +service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they’ll make +themselves useful.” With that, he called to his men, who came trooping +into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. +And then they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands +loosely clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now, +easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly over +their high stocks, out into the yard. + +All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was +in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the +handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the +better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little +more of my scattered wits. + +“Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing himself to +Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the +inference that he was equal to the time. + +“It’s just gone half past two.” + +“That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting; “even if I was +forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How far might you call +yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon?” + +“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe. + +“That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ’em about dusk. A little before +dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.” + +“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way. + +“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They’re pretty well known to be out +on the marshes still, and they won’t try to get clear of ’em before +dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?” + +Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of +me. + +“Well!” said the sergeant, “they’ll find themselves trapped in a +circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you’re +ready, his Majesty the King is.” + +Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather +apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its +wooden windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the +bellows, the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then +Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on. + +The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general +attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer +from the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a +glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, “Give him wine, +Mum. I’ll engage there’s no tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him +and said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take +wine, if it was equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his +Majesty’s health and compliments of the season, and took it all at a +mouthful and smacked his lips. + +“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr. Pumblechook. + +“I’ll tell you something,” returned the sergeant; “I suspect that +stuff’s of _your_ providing.” + +Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, “Ay, ay? Why?” + +“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, “you’re +a man that knows what’s what.” + +“D’ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. “Have +another glass!” + +“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the sergeant. “The top of mine to the +foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of mine,—Ring once, ring +twice,—the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live +a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you +are at the present moment of your life!” + +The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for +another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality +appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the +bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a +gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine +that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with +the same liberality, when the first was gone. + +As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge, +enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for a +dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed +themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened +with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively +anticipation of “the two villains” being taken, and when the bellows +seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke +to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and +all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the +blaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale +afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have +turned pale on their account, poor wretches. + +At last, Joe’s job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As +Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us +should go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. +Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies’ +society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was +agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should +have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe’s curiosity to know +all about it and how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, “If +you bring the boy back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t +look to me to put it together again.” + +The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr. +Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully +sensible of that gentleman’s merits under arid conditions, as when +something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in. +Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and +to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in +the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I +treasonably whispered to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shan’t find them.” and +Joe whispered to me, “I’d give a shilling if they had cut and run, +Pip.” + +We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was +cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming +on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A +few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came +out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard. +There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant’s +hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the +graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding +anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate +at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us +here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back. + +Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little +thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men +hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should +come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who +had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving +imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the +hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in +treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him? + +It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe’s +back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a +hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and +to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a +pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking +the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist. +Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it. +Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the +mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, +though all of a watery lead colour. + +With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe’s broad shoulder, I +looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I +could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by +his blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and +could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful +start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a +sheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at us; +and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared +angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but, except +these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass, +there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes. + +The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we +were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all +stopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a +long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but +it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised +together,—if one might judge from a confusion in the sound. + +To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under +their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment’s listening, +Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) +agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not +be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men +should make towards it “at the double.” So we slanted to the right +(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had +to hold on tight to keep my seat. + +It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he +spoke all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and up banks, and over +gates, and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no +man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became +more and more apparent that it was made by more than one voice. +Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. +When it broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate +than ever, and we after them. After a while, we had so run it down, +that we could hear one voice calling “Murder!” and another voice, +“Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way for the runaway convicts!” Then +both voices would seem to be stifled in a struggle, and then would +break out again. And when it had come to this, the soldiers ran like +deer, and Joe too. + +The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and +two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and +levelled when we all ran in. + +“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a +ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come +asunder!” + +Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, +and blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the +ditch to help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and +the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and +struggling; but of course I knew them both directly. + +“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged +sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “_I_ took him! _I_ +give him up to you! Mind that!” + +“It’s not much to be particular about,” said the sergeant; “it’ll do +you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs +there!” + +“I don’t expect it to do me any good. I don’t want it to do me more +good than it does now,” said my convict, with a greedy laugh. “I took +him. He knows it. That’s enough for me.” + +The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old +bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. +He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both +separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from +falling. + +“Take notice, guard,—he tried to murder me,” were his first words. + +“Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try, and not do +it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what I done. I not only +prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,—dragged +him this far on his way back. He’s a gentleman, if you please, this +villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder +him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag +him back!” + +The other one still gasped, “He tried—he tried-to—murder me. Bear—bear +witness.” + +“Lookee here!” said my convict to the sergeant. “Single-handed I got +clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha’ got +clear of these death-cold flats likewise—look at my leg: you won’t find +much iron on it—if I hadn’t made the discovery that _he_ was here. Let +_him_ go free? Let _him_ profit by the means as I found out? Let _him_ +make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had +died at the bottom there,” and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch +with his manacled hands, “I’d have held to him with that grip, that you +should have been safe to find him in my hold.” + +The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his +companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead +man if you had not come up.” + +“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy. “He’s a liar born, and +he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it written there? Let him +turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.” + +The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, +however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set +expression, looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and +at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker. + +“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you see what a villain he is? +Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That’s how he looked +when we were tried together. He never looked at me.” + +The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes +restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment +on the speaker, with the words, “You are not much to look at,” and with +a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict +became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him +but for the interposition of the soldiers. “Didn’t I tell you,” said +the other convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And any +one could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon +his lips curious white flakes, like thin snow. + +“Enough of this parley,” said the sergeant. “Light those torches.” + +As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went +down on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first +time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe’s back on the brink of the +ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly +when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I +had been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my +innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended +my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it +all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a +day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having +been more attentive. + +The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four +torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been +almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards +very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in +a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches +kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the +opposite bank of the river. “All right,” said the sergeant. “March.” + +We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a +sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. “You are expected +on board,” said the sergeant to my convict; “they know you are coming. +Don’t straggle, my man. Close up here.” + +The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate +guard. I had hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe carried one of the +torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to +see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good +path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and +there where a dike came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy +sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming +in after us. The torches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon +the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I +could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air +about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather +to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We +could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, +that two or three times we had to halt while they rested. + +After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut +and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, +and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was +a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a +stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an +overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a +dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in +their great-coats were not much interested in us, but just lifted their +heads and took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant +made some kind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the +convict whom I call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, +to go on board first. + +My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the +hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up +his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if +he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the +sergeant, and remarked,— + +“I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some +persons laying under suspicion alonger me.” + +“You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing coolly +looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have no call to say it +here. You’ll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about +it, before it’s done with, you know.” + +“I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can’t +starve; at least _I_ can’t. I took some wittles, up at the willage over +yonder,—where the church stands a’most out on the marshes.” + +“You mean stole,” said the sergeant. + +“And I’ll tell you where from. From the blacksmith’s.” + +“Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe. + +“Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me. + +“It was some broken wittles—that’s what it was—and a dram of liquor, +and a pie.” + +“Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?” asked +the sergeant, confidentially. + +“My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don’t you know, +Pip?” + +“So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and +without the least glance at me,—“so you’re the blacksmith, are you? +Than I’m sorry to say, I’ve eat your pie.” + +“God knows you’re welcome to it,—so far as it was ever mine,” returned +Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We don’t know what you +have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor +miserable fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?” + +The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man’s throat +again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard +were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough +stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a +crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or +interested in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or +spoke a word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, +“Give way, you!” which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the +light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from +the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and +moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes +to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we +saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches +were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over +with him. + + + + +Chapter VI. + + +My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so +unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I +hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it. + +I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference +to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I +loved Joe,—perhaps for no better reason in those early days than +because the dear fellow let me love him,—and, as to him, my inner self +was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when +I first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe +the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted +that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing +Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at +night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up +my tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I +never afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair +whisker, without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe +knew it, I never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at +yesterday’s meat or pudding when it came on to-day’s table, without +thinking that he was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, +if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life +remarked that his beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he +suspected tar in it, would bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, +I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too +cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. I had had no +intercourse with the world at that time, and I imitated none of its +many inhabitants who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius, I +made the discovery of the line of action for myself. + +As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took +me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome +journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad +temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have +excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In +his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such an +insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the +kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have +hanged him, if it had been a capital offence. + +By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little +drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through +having been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and +noise of tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump +between the shoulders, and the restorative exclamation “Yah! Was there +ever such a boy as this!” from my sister,) I found Joe telling them +about the convict’s confession, and all the visitors suggesting +different ways by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook +made out, after carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got +upon the roof of the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the +house, and had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made +of his bedding cut into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very +positive and drove his own chaise-cart—over everybody—it was agreed +that it must be so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, “No!” with +the feeble malice of a tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat +on, he was unanimously set at naught,—not to mention his smoking hard +behind, as he stood with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp +out: which was not calculated to inspire confidence. + +This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a +slumberous offence to the company’s eyesight, and assisted me up to bed +with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be +dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as +I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted +long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned +saving on exceptional occasions. + + + + +Chapter VII. + + +At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family +tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My +construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I +read “wife of the Above” as a complimentary reference to my father’s +exaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations +had been referred to as “Below,” I have no doubt I should have formed +the worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my +notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at +all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my +declaration that I was to “walk in the same all the days of my life,” +laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our +house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down +by the wheelwright’s or up by the mill. + +When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I +could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called +“Pompeyed,” or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only +odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra +boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was +favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior +position might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the +kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my +earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be +contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, +but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure. + +Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is +to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited +infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in +the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the +improving opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, +and Mr. Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to +overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and +occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. +Wopsle “examined” the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those +occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark +Antony’s oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by +Collins’s Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. +Wopsle as Revenge throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and +taking the War-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not +with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of +the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the +disadvantage of both gentlemen. + +Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution, +kept in the same room—a little general shop. She had no idea what stock +she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a +little greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a +Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop +transactions. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s granddaughter; I +confess myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what +relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, +too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, +in respect of her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, +her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending +and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a +week-day limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated. + +Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. +Wopsle’s great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been +a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every +letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who +seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and +baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to +read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. + +One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending +great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must +have been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a +long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet +on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two +to print and smear this epistle:— + +“MI DEER JO i OPE U R KRWITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE +U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN +BLEVE ME INF XN PIP.” + + +There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by +letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered +this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe +received it as a miracle of erudition. + +“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a +scholar you are! An’t you?” + +“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; +with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly. + +“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to anythink! Here’s a J and +a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.” + +[Illustration] + +I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this +monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I +accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit +his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to +embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I +should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the +rest, Jo.” + +“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching +eye, “One, two, three. Why, here’s three Js, and three Os, and three +J-O, Joes in it, Pip!” + +I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the +whole letter. + +“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a scholar.” + +“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage. + +“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe. + +“But supposing you did?” + +“It _can’t_ be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’ I’m uncommon fond of reading, +too.” + +“Are you, Joe?” + +“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and +sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he +continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “when you _do_ come to a J +and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting +reading is!” + +I derived from this, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its +infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,— + +“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?” + +“No, Pip.” + +“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?” + +“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his +usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire +between the lower bars; “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given +to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my +mother, most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, +indeed, ’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only to +be equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t hammer at his +anwil.—You’re a listening and understanding, Pip?” + +“Yes, Joe.” + +“Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several +times; and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say, “Joe,” +she’d say, “now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,” and +she’d put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that +he couldn’t abear to be without us. So, he’d come with a most +tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where +we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us +and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. +Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the +fire, and looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.” + +“Certainly, poor Joe!” + +“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the +poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining +equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his +hart, don’t you see?” + +I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so. + +“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a-biling, Pip, or the +pot won’t bile, don’t you know?” + +I saw that, and said so. + +“Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so +I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would +have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure _you_, Pip. In +time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a +purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his +tombstone that, Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader +he were that good in his heart.” + +Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful +perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself. + +“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like +striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so +much surprised in all my life,—couldn’t credit my own ed,—to tell you +the truth, hardly believed it _were_ my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, +it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs +money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not +to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for +my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren’t long of +following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.” + +Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, +and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, +with the round knob on the top of the poker. + +“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got +acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,”—Joe looked firmly at me as if +he knew I was not going to agree with him;—“your sister is a fine +figure of a woman.” + +I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt. + +“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that +subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the +poker after every word following, “a-fine-figure—of—a—woman!” + +I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so, +Joe.” + +“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “_I_ am glad I think so, Pip. +A little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does +it signify to Me?” + +I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it +signify? + +“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I +got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing +you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, +along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued with a countenance +expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, “if you could have +been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have +formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!” + +Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.” + +“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity. “When I +offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at +such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to +her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little +child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for _him_ at the forge!’” + +I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck: +who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever the best of friends; +an’t us, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!” + +When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:— + +“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That’s about where it lights; +here we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I +tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn’t +see too much of what we’re up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the +sly. And why on the sly? I’ll tell you why, Pip.” + +He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could +have proceeded in his demonstration. + +“Your sister is given to government.” + +“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea +(and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a +favour of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury. + +“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the government of +you and myself.” + +“Oh!” + +“And she an’t over partial to having scholars on the premises,” Joe +continued, “and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a +scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don’t you +see?” + +I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as “Why—” +when Joe stopped me. + +“Stay a bit. I know what you’re a-going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I +don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I +don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down +upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page, +Pip,” Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, “candour +compels fur to admit that she is a Buster.” + +Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital +Bs. + +“Why don’t I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off, +Pip?” + +“Yes, Joe.” + +“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might +feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that +placid occupation; “your sister’s a master-mind. A master-mind.” + +“What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But +Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely +stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, +“Her.” + +“And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, +and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip,—and this I want to +say very serious to you, old chap,—I see so much in my poor mother, of +a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never +getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going +wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur +rather of the two go wrong the t’other way, and be a little +ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I +wish there warn’t no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it +all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and +I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.” + +Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from +that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, +afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about +him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up +to Joe in my heart. + +“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here’s the +Dutch-clock a-working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of ’em, +and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook’s mare mayn’t +have set a forefoot on a piece o’ ice, and gone down.” + +Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, +to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a +woman’s judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no +confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe +was out on one of these expeditions. + +Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to +listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew +keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of +lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, +and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to +them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the +glittering multitude. + +“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!” + +The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as +she came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, +ready for Mrs. Joe’s alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might +see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that +nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these +preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon +landed, and Uncle Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with +a cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air +in with us that it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire. + +“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and +throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, +“if this boy ain’t grateful this night, he never will be!” + +I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly +uninformed why he ought to assume that expression. + +“It’s only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he won’t be Pompeyed. +But I have my fears.” + +“She ain’t in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “She knows +better.” + +She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows, +“She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with _his_ lips and +eyebrows, “She?” My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of +his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such +occasions, and looked at her. + +“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you staring at? +Is the house afire?” + +“—Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted, “mentioned—she.” + +“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you call Miss +Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you’ll go so far as that.” + +“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe. + +“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sister. + +“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he’s going. And +he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking her head at me as an +encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, “or I’ll work him.” + +I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,—everybody for miles round had +heard of Miss Havisham up town,—as an immensely rich and grim lady who +lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who +led a life of seclusion. + +“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she come to know +Pip!” + +“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?” + +“—Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted, “mentioned that +she wanted him to go and play there.” + +“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and +play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be +a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes—we won’t say quarterly or +half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you—but +sometimes—go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle +Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn’t +Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for +us—though you may not think it, Joseph,” in a tone of the deepest +reproach, as if he were the most callous of nephews, “then mention this +boy, standing Prancing here”—which I solemnly declare I was not +doing—“that I have for ever been a willing slave to?” + +“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily pointed! +Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.” + +“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe +apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose, +“you do not yet—though you may not think it—know the case. You may +consider that you do, but you do _not_, Joseph. For you do not know +that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, +this boy’s fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham’s, has +offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to +keep him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss +Havisham’s to-morrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!” cried my sister, +casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, “here I stand talking to +mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching +cold at the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair +of his head to the sole of his foot!” + +With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face +was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps +of water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and +thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside +myself. (I may here remark that I suppose myself to be better +acquainted than any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a +wedding-ring, passing unsympathetically over the human countenance.) + +When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the +stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was +trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered +over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the +Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been +dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but +especially unto them which brought you up by hand!” + +“Good-bye, Joe!” + +“God bless you, Pip, old chap!” + +I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what +with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But +they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the +questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what +on earth I was expected to play at. + + + + +Chapter VIII. + + +Mr. Pumblechook’s premises in the High Street of the market town, were +of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a +cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be +a very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; +and I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and +saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds +and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and +bloom. + +It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this +speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in +an attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the +bedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my +eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity +between seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did +his shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and flavour about the +corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and +flavour about the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I +hardly knew which was which. The same opportunity served me for +noticing that Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by +looking across the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact +_his_ business by keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to +get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating +the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, +who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist. The watchmaker, always +poring over a little desk with a magnifying-glass at his eye, and +always inspected by a group of smock-frocks poring over him through the +glass of his shop-window, seemed to be about the only person in the +High Street whose trade engaged his attention. + +Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o’clock in the parlour +behind the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of +bread and butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered +Mr. Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my +sister’s idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be +imparted to my diet,—besides giving me as much crumb as possible in +combination with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm +water into my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the +milk out altogether,—his conversation consisted of nothing but +arithmetic. On my politely bidding him Good-morning, he said, +pompously, “Seven times nine, boy?” And how should _I_ be able to +answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach! I +was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum +that lasted all through the breakfast. “Seven?” “And four?” “And +eight?” “And six?” “And two?” “And ten?” And so on. And after each +figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do to get a bite or a +sup, before the next came; while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, +and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) +a gorging and gormandizing manner. + +For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o’clock came and we started +for Miss Havisham’s; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the +manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady’s roof. Within a +quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham’s house, which was of old +brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the +windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were +rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; so +we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to +open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. +Pumblechook said, “And fourteen?” but I pretended not to hear him), and +saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing +was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long +time. + +A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded “What name?” To which +my conductor replied, “Pumblechook.” The voice returned, “Quite right,” +and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the +court-yard, with keys in her hand. + +“This,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “is Pip.” + +“This is Pip, is it?” returned the young lady, who was very pretty and +seemed very proud; “come in, Pip.” + +Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate. + +“Oh!” she said. “Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?” + +“If Miss Havisham wished to see me,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, +discomfited. + +“Ah!” said the girl; “but you see she don’t.” + +She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. +Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not +protest. But he eyed me severely,—as if _I_ had done anything to +him!—and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: “Boy! Let +your behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by +hand!” I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to +propound through the gate, “And sixteen?” But he didn’t. + +My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. +It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The +brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the +wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood +open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. +The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate; and it +made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the +brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea. + +She saw me looking at it, and she said, “You could drink without hurt +all the strong beer that’s brewed there now, boy.” + +“I should think I could, miss,” said I, in a shy way. + +“Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy; +don’t you think so?” + +“It looks like it, miss.” + +“Not that anybody means to try,” she added, “for that’s all done with, +and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to strong +beer, there’s enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor +House.” + +[Illustration] + +“Is that the name of this house, miss?” + +“One of its names, boy.” + +“It has more than one, then, miss?” + +“One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or +Hebrew, or all three—or all one to me—for enough.” + +“Enough House,” said I; “that’s a curious name, miss.” + +“Yes,” she replied; “but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it +was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They +must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But +don’t loiter, boy.” + +Though she called me “boy” so often, and with a carelessness that was +far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much +older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and +self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been +one-and-twenty, and a queen. + +We went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two +chains across it outside,—and the first thing I noticed was, that the +passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. +She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, +and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us. + +At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, “Go in.” + +I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you, miss.” + +To this she returned: “Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.” +And scornfully walked away, and—what was worse—took the candle with +her. + +This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only +thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told +from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a +pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of +daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed +from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite +unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded +looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady’s +dressing-table. + +Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no +fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow +resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the +strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. + +She was dressed in rich materials,—satins, and lace, and silks,—all of +white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent +from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was +white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and +some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid +than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. +She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,—the +other was on the table near her hand,—her veil was but half arranged, +her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay +with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some +flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the +looking-glass. + +It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though +I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I +saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been +white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw +that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and +like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her +sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure +of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had +shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly +waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage +lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches +to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out of +a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to +have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if +I could. + +“Who is it?” said the lady at the table. + +“Pip, ma’am.” + +“Pip?” + +“Mr. Pumblechook’s boy, ma’am. Come—to play.” + +“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.” + +It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of +the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped +at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at +twenty minutes to nine. + +“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who +has never seen the sun since you were born?” + +I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie +comprehended in the answer “No.” + +“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands, one upon +the other, on her left side. + +“Yes, ma’am.” (It made me think of the young man.) + +“What do I touch?” + +“Your heart.” + +“Broken!” + +She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and +with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept +her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if +they were heavy. + +“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I have done +with men and women. Play.” + +I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she +could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the +wide world more difficult to be done under the circumstances. + +“I sometimes have sick fancies,” she went on, “and I have a sick fancy +that I want to see some play. There, there!” with an impatient movement +of the fingers of her right hand; “play, play, play!” + +For a moment, with the fear of my sister’s working me before my eyes, I +had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed +character of Mr. Pumblechook’s chaise-cart. But I felt myself so +unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss +Havisham in what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as +she said, when we had taken a good look at each other,— + +“Are you sullen and obstinate?” + +“No, ma’am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t play just +now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so +I would do it if I could; but it’s so new here, and so strange, and so +fine,—and melancholy—.” I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or had +already said it, and we took another look at each other. + +Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the +dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in +the looking-glass. + +“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so +familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.” + +As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she +was still talking to herself, and kept quiet. + +“Call Estella,” she repeated, flashing a look at me. “You can do that. +Call Estella. At the door.” + +To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, +bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor +responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, +was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and +her light came along the dark passage like a star. + +Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the +table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her +pretty brown hair. “Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it +well. Let me see you play cards with this boy.” + +“With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring-boy!” + +I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,—only it seemed so +unlikely,—“Well? You can break his heart.” + +“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest +disdain. + +“Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.” + +“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards. + +It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had +stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that +Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had +taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the +dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now +yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the +shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now +yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, +this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the +withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like +grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud. + +So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and +trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew +nothing then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies +buried in ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being +distinctly seen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have +looked as if the admission of the natural light of day would have +struck her to dust. + +“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain, +before our first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has! And what +thick boots!” + +I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to +consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so +strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it. + +She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I +knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for +a stupid, clumsy labouring-boy. + +“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked +on. “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What +do you think of her?” + +“I don’t like to say,” I stammered. + +“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down. + +“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper. + +“Anything else?” + +“I think she is very pretty.” + +“Anything else?” + +“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then with a +look of supreme aversion.) + +“Anything else?” + +“I think I should like to go home.” + +“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?” + +“I am not sure that I shouldn’t like to see her again, but I should +like to go home now.” + +“You shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play the game out.” + +Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost sure +that Miss Havisham’s face could not smile. It had dropped into a +watchful and brooding expression,—most likely when all the things about +her had become transfixed,—and it looked as if nothing could ever lift +it up again. Her chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice +had dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her; +altogether, she had the appearance of having dropped body and soul, +within and without, under the weight of a crushing blow. + +I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She +threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she +despised them for having been won of me. + +“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham. “Let me think.” + +I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she +checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her +right hand. + +“There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of +weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him +roam and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.” + +I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she +stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side +entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must +necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded +me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange +room many hours. + +“You are to wait here, you boy,” said Estella; and disappeared and +closed the door. + +I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my +coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was +not favourable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me +now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever +taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called +knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and +then I should have been so too. + +She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She +put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and +meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in +disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,—I +cannot hit upon the right name for the smart—God knows what its name +was,—that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the +girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of +them. This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she +gave a contemptuous toss—but with a sense, I thought, of having made +too sure that I was so wounded—and left me. + +But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face +in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my +sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. +As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so +bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, +that needed counteraction. + +My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in +which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is +nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be +only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is +small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many +hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within +myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with +injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my +sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had +cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave +her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, +disgraces, fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had +nursed this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a +solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was +morally timid and very sensitive. + +I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the +brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my +face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat +were acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon +in spirits to look about me. + +To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the +brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high +wind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there +had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no +pigeons in the dove-cot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, +no malt in the storehouse, no smells of grains and beer in the copper +or the vat. All the uses and scents of the brewery might have +evaporated with its last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a +wilderness of empty casks, which had a certain sour remembrance of +better days lingering about them; but it was too sour to be accepted as +a sample of the beer that was gone,—and in this respect I remember +those recluses as being like most others. + +Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old +wall; not so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough +to look over it, and see that the rank garden was the garden of the +house, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was +a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes +walked there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But +she seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation +presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw _her_ walking +on them at the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, +and held her pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never +looked round, and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery +itself,—by which I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used +to make the beer, and where the brewing utensils still were. When I +first went into it, and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the +door looking about me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and +ascend some light iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, +as if she were going out into the sky. + +It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened +to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a +stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes—a little dimmed by +looking up at the frosty light—towards a great wooden beam in a low +nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure +hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one +shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded +trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was +Miss Havisham’s, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if +she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and +in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment +before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror +was greatest of all when I found no figure there. + +Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of +people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving +influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have +brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself +as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to +let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I +thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason. + +She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that +my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the +gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, +when she touched me with a taunting hand. + +“Why don’t you cry?” + +“Because I don’t want to.” + +“You do,” said she. “You have been crying till you are half blind, and +you are near crying again now.” + +She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. +I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s, and was immensely relieved to +find him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I +was wanted at Miss Havisham’s again, I set off on the four-mile walk to +our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply +revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; +that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of +calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had +considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived +bad way. + + + + +Chapter IX. + + +When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss +Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself +getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the +small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the +kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient +length. + +If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other +young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden +in mine,—which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to +suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,—it is the key to many +reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as +my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I +felt convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and +although she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an +impression that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my +dragging her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before +the contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I +could, and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall. + +The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by +a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came +gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details +divulged to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes +and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat +heaving with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence. + +“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the +chair of honour by the fire. “How did you get on up town?” + +I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me. + +“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer. +Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?” + +Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy +perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my +obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered +as if I had discovered a new idea, “I mean pretty well.” + +My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,—I +had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,—when Mr. +Pumblechook interposed with “No! Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad +to me, ma’am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me +towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,— + +“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?” + +I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred Pound,” and +finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could—which was +somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my +pence-table from “twelve pence make one shilling,” up to “forty pence +make three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had +done for me, “_Now!_ How much is forty-three pence?” To which I +replied, after a long interval of reflection, “I don’t know.” And I was +so aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know. + +Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, and +said, “Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for +instance?” + +“Yes!” said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was +highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and +brought him to a dead stop. + +“Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?” Mr. Pumblechook began again when he +had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the +screw. + +“Very tall and dark,” I told him. + +“Is she, uncle?” asked my sister. + +Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he +had never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind. + +“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the way to have +him! We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?”) + +“I am sure, uncle,” returned Mrs. Joe, “I wish you had him always; you +know so well how to deal with him.” + +“Now, boy! What was she a-doing of, when you went in today?” asked Mr. +Pumblechook. + +“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet coach.” + +Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another—as they well +might—and both repeated, “In a black velvet coach?” + +“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella—that’s her niece, I think—handed her +in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had +cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat +mine, because she told me to.” + +“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook. + +“Four dogs,” said I. + +“Large or small?” + +“Immense,” said I. “And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver +basket.” + +Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter +amazement. I was perfectly frantic,—a reckless witness under the +torture,—and would have told them anything. + +“Where _was_ this coach, in the name of gracious?” asked my sister. + +“In Miss Havisham’s room.” They stared again. “But there weren’t any +horses to it.” I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting +four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of +harnessing. + +“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the boy mean?” + +“I’ll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion is, it’s a +sedan-chair. She’s flighty, you know,—very flighty,—quite flighty +enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.” + +“Did you ever see her in it, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. + +“How could I,” he returned, forced to the admission, “when I never see +her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!” + +“Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?” + +“Why, don’t you know,” said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, “that when I have +been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the +door has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don’t say you +don’t know _that_, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did +you play at, boy?” + +“We played with flags,” I said. (I beg to observe that I think of +myself with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.) + +“Flags!” echoed my sister. + +“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and +Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out +at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.” + +“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords from?” + +“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in it,—and jam,—and +pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up +with candles.” + +“That’s true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. “That’s the +state of the case, for that much I’ve seen myself.” And then they both +stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my +countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers +with my right hand. + +If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have +betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that +there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement +but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear +in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the +marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I +escaped. The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to +have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own +mind than for the gratification of his, related my pretended +experiences. + +Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the +kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only +as regarded him,—not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards +Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat +debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham’s +acquaintance and favour. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would “do +something” for me; their doubts related to the form that something +would take. My sister stood out for “property.” Mr. Pumblechook was in +favour of a handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel +trade,—say, the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the +deepest disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I +might only be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the +veal-cutlets. “If a fool’s head can’t express better opinions than +that,” said my sister, “and you have got any work to do, you had better +go and do it.” So he went. + +After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing +up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had +done for the night. Then I said, “Before the fire goes out, Joe, I +should like to tell you something.” + +“Should you, Pip?” said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge. +“Then tell us. What is it, Pip?” + +“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting +it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all that about Miss +Havisham’s?” + +“Remember?” said Joe. “I believe you! Wonderful!” + +“It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.” + +“What are you telling of, Pip?” cried Joe, falling back in the greatest +amazement. “You don’t mean to say it’s—” + +“Yes I do; it’s lies, Joe.” + +“But not all of it? Why sure you don’t mean to say, Pip, that there was +no black welwet co—eh?” For, I stood shaking my head. “But at least +there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,” said Joe, persuasively, “if there +warn’t no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?” + +“No, Joe.” + +“A dog?” said Joe. “A puppy? Come?” + +“No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.” + +As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay. +“Pip, old chap! This won’t do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect +to go to?” + +“It’s terrible, Joe; ain’t it?” + +“Terrible?” cried Joe. “Awful! What possessed you?” + +“I don’t know what possessed me, Joe,” I replied, letting his shirt +sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head; +“but I wish you hadn’t taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and I +wish my boots weren’t so thick nor my hands so coarse.” + +And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn’t been +able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to +me, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s +who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that +I knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the +lies had come of it somehow, though I didn’t know how. + +This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal +with as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of +metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it. + +“There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,” said Joe, after some +rumination, “namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn’t +ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to +the same. Don’t you tell no more of ’em, Pip. _That_ ain’t the way to +get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don’t make +it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You’re oncommon +small. Likewise you’re a oncommon scholar.” + +“No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.” + +“Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I’ve +seen letters—Ah! and from gentlefolks!—that I’ll swear weren’t wrote in +print,” said Joe. + +“I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It’s only +that.” + +“Well, Pip,” said Joe, “be it so or be it son’t, you must be a common +scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon +his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can’t sit and write his acts of +Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted +Prince, with the alphabet.—Ah!” added Joe, with a shake of the head +that was full of meaning, “and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z. +And _I_ know what that is to do, though I can’t say I’ve exactly done +it.” + +There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged +me. + +“Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,” pursued Joe, +reflectively, “mightn’t be the better of continuing for to keep company +with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon +ones,—which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?” + +“No, Joe.” + +“(I’m sorry there weren’t a flag, Pip). Whether that might be or +mightn’t be, is a thing as can’t be looked into now, without putting +your sister on the Rampage; and that’s a thing not to be thought of as +being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a +true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can’t get to +be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through +going crooked. So don’t tell no more on ’em, Pip, and live well and die +happy.” + +“You are not angry with me, Joe?” + +“No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay of +a stunning and outdacious sort,—alluding to them which bordered on +weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,—a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip, +their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed. +That’s all, old chap, and don’t never do it no more.” + +When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget +Joe’s recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and +unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common +Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and +how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting +in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how +Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above +the level of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I “used +to do” when I was at Miss Havisham’s; as though I had been there weeks +or months, instead of hours; and as though it were quite an old subject +of remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day. + +That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it +is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, +and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read +this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of +thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the +formation of the first link on one memorable day. + + + + +Chapter X. + + +The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, +that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to +get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous +conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle’s +great-aunt’s at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to +get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she +would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging +of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her +promise within five minutes. + +The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt +may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples and +put straws down one another’s backs, until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt +collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with +a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, +the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand +to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a +little spelling,—that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this +volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt fell into a state of +coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils +then entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the +subject of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the +hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a +rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they +had been unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more +illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature I have +since met with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having various +specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part +of the Course was usually lightened by several single combats between +Biddy and refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave +out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we could,—or +what we couldn’t—in a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, +shrill, monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or +reverence for, what we were reading about. When this horrible din had +lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt, +who staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was +understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and we emerged into +the air with shrieks of intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that +there was no prohibition against any pupil’s entertaining himself with +a slate or even with the ink (when there was any), but that it was not +easy to pursue that branch of study in the winter season, on account of +the little general shop in which the classes were holden—and which was +also Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s sitting-room and bedchamber—being but +faintly illuminated through the agency of one low-spirited dip-candle +and no snuffers. + +It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under +these circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that very +evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by imparting some +information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of +moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D +which she had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I +supposed, until she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle. + +Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of course Joe +liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders +from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that +evening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the +Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps. + +There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk +scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to +be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and +had grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our +country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it +to account. + +It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly at +these records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I +merely wished him good evening, and passed into the common room at the +end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and +where Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a +stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with “Halloa, Pip, old chap!” and the +moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me. + +He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was +all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were +taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his +mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away +and looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he +nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit +down there. + +But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of +resort, I said “No, thank you, sir,” and fell into the space Joe made +for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, +and seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again +when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg—in a very odd way, as +it struck me. + +“You was saying,” said the strange man, turning to Joe, “that you was a +blacksmith.” + +“Yes. I said it, you know,” said Joe. + +“What’ll you drink, Mr.—? You didn’t mention your name, by the bye.” + +Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. “What’ll +you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?” + +“Well,” said Joe, “to tell you the truth, I ain’t much in the habit of +drinking at anybody’s expense but my own.” + +“Habit? No,” returned the stranger, “but once and away, and on a +Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery.” + +“I wouldn’t wish to be stiff company,” said Joe. “Rum.” + +“Rum,” repeated the stranger. “And will the other gentleman originate a +sentiment.” + +“Rum,” said Mr. Wopsle. + +“Three Rums!” cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. “Glasses +round!” + +“This other gentleman,” observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle, +“is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at +church.” + +“Aha!” said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. “The +lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!” + +“That’s it,” said Joe. + +The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put his +legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping +broad-brimmed traveller’s hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over +his head in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he +looked at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a +half-laugh, come into his face. + +“I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a +solitary country towards the river.” + +“Most marshes is solitary,” said Joe. + +“No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or +vagrants of any sort, out there?” + +“No,” said Joe; “none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don’t +find _them_, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?” + +Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented; +but not warmly. + +“Seems you have been out after such?” asked the stranger. + +“Once,” returned Joe. “Not that we wanted to take them, you understand; +we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn’t us, +Pip?” + +“Yes, Joe.” + +The stranger looked at me again,—still cocking his eye, as if he were +expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,—and said, “He’s a +likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?” + +“Pip,” said Joe. + +“Christened Pip?” + +“No, not christened Pip.” + +“Surname Pip?” + +“No,” said Joe, “it’s a kind of family name what he gave himself when a +infant, and is called by.” + +“Son of yours?” + +“Well,” said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in +anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at +the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was +discussed over pipes,—“well—no. No, he ain’t.” + +“Nevvy?” said the strange man. + +“Well,” said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, “he +is not—no, not to deceive you, he is _not_—my nevvy.” + +“What the Blue Blazes is he?” asked the stranger. Which appeared to me +to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength. + +Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about +relationships, having professional occasion to bear in mind what female +relations a man might not marry; and expounded the ties between me and +Joe. Having his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most +terrifically snarling passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to +think he had done quite enough to account for it when he added, “—as +the poet says.” + +And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he +considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and +poke it into my eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing +who visited at our house should always have put me through the same +inflammatory process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to +mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our +social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such +ophthalmic steps to patronise me. + +All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at +me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me +down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, +until the glasses of rum and water were brought; and then he made his +shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was. + +It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was +pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at +me, and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it +and he tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but _with a +file_. + +He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had done it +he wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I knew it to be Joe’s +file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the +instrument. I sat gazing at him, spell-bound. But he now reclined on +his settle, taking very little notice of me, and talking principally +about turnips. + +There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause +before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, +which stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on +Saturdays than at other times. The half-hour and the rum and water +running out together, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand. + +“Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery,” said the strange man. “I think I’ve +got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the +boy shall have it.” + +He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some +crumpled paper, and gave it to me. “Yours!” said he. “Mind! Your own.” + +I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners, +and holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. +Wopsle good-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look +with his aiming eye,—no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may +be done with an eye by hiding it. + +On the way home, if I had been in a humour for talking, the talk must +have been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of +the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide +open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in a +manner stupefied by this turning up of my old misdeed and old +acquaintance, and could think of nothing else. + +My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in +the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to +tell her about the bright shilling. “A bad un, I’ll be bound,” said +Mrs. Joe triumphantly, “or he wouldn’t have given it to the boy! Let’s +look at it.” + +I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. “But what’s +this?” said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and catching up the +paper. “Two One-Pound notes?” + +Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to +have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle-markets +in the county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the +Jolly Bargemen to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat +down on my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty +sure that the man would not be there. + +Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, +Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. +Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under +some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in +the state parlour. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and +many a night and day. + +I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the +strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the +guiltily coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of +conspiracy with convicts,—a feature in my low career that I had +previously forgotten. I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed +me that when I least expected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed +myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Havisham’s, next Wednesday; and in +my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who +held it, and I screamed myself awake. + + + + +Chapter XI. + + +At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham’s, and my hesitating +ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting me, +as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage +where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the +candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously +saying, “You are to come this way to-day,” and took me to quite another +part of the house. + +The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square +basement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square, +however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and +opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a +small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a +detached dwelling-house, that looked as if it had once belonged to the +manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the +outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham’s room, and +like Miss Havisham’s watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. + +We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a +low ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in +the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, “You are to go and +stand there boy, till you are wanted.” “There”, being the window, I +crossed to it, and stood “there,” in a very uncomfortable state of +mind, looking out. + +It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the +neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree +that had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new +growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different colour, as if +that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This +was my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been +some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge; +but, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of +garden, and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the +window, as if it pelted me for coming there. + +I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that +its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room +except the shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in +all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection. + +There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had +been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me +that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended +not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the +admission that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to +be a toady and humbug. + +They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody’s pleasure, +and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to +repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded +me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I +found when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. +Indeed, when I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had +any features at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her +face. + +“Poor dear soul!” said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my +sister’s. “Nobody’s enemy but his own!” + +“It would be much more commendable to be somebody else’s enemy,” said +the gentleman; “far more natural.” + +“Cousin Raymond,” observed another lady, “we are to love our +neighbour.” + +“Sarah Pocket,” returned Cousin Raymond, “if a man is not his own +neighbour, who is?” + +Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn), +“The idea!” But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good idea +too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and +emphatically, “_Very_ true!” + +“Poor soul!” Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been +looking at me in the mean time), “he is so very strange! Would anyone +believe that when Tom’s wife died, he actually could not be induced to +see the importance of the children’s having the deepest of trimmings to +their mourning? ‘Good Lord!’ says he, ‘Camilla, what can it signify so +long as the poor bereaved little things are in black?’ So like Matthew! +The idea!” + +“Good points in him, good points in him,” said Cousin Raymond; “Heaven +forbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he never +will have, any sense of the proprieties.” + +“You know I was obliged,” said Camilla,—“I was obliged to be firm. I +said, ‘It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.’ I told him that, +without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from +breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out +in his violent way, and said, with a D, ‘Then do as you like.’ Thank +Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly +went out in a pouring rain and bought the things.” + +“_He_ paid for them, did he not?” asked Estella. + +“It’s not the question, my dear child, who paid for them,” returned +Camilla. “_I_ bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace, +when I wake up in the night.” + +The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or +call along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the +conversation and caused Estella to say to me, “Now, boy!” On my turning +round, they all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went +out, I heard Sarah Pocket say, “Well I am sure! What next!” and Camilla +add, with indignation, “Was there ever such a fancy! The i-d_e_-a!” + +As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella +stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting +manner, with her face quite close to mine,— + +“Well?” + +“Well, miss?” I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself. + +She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her. + +“Am I pretty?” + +“Yes; I think you are very pretty.” + +“Am I insulting?” + +“Not so much so as you were last time,” said I. + +“Not so much so?” + +“No.” + +She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face +with such force as she had, when I answered it. + +“Now?” said she. “You little coarse monster, what do you think of me +now?” + +“I shall not tell you.” + +“Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?” + +“No,” said I, “that’s not it.” + +“Why don’t you cry again, you little wretch?” + +“Because I’ll never cry for you again,” said I. Which was, I suppose, +as false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for +her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards. + +We went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going +up, we met a gentleman groping his way down. + +“Whom have we here?” asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me. + +“A boy,” said Estella. + +He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an +exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin +in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the +light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, +and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn’t lie down but stood up +bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were +disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and +strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he +had let them. He was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight +then, that he ever would be anything to me, but it happened that I had +this opportunity of observing him well. + +“Boy of the neighbourhood? Hey?” said he. + +“Yes, sir,” said I. + +“How do _you_ come here?” + +“Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,” I explained. + +“Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and +you’re a bad set of fellows. Now mind!” said he, biting the side of his +great forefinger as he frowned at me, “you behave yourself!” + +With those words, he released me—which I was glad of, for his hand +smelt of scented soap—and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether +he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn’t be a doctor, or he +would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much +time to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham’s room, +where she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella +left me standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham +cast her eyes upon me from the dressing-table. + +“So!” she said, without being startled or surprised: “the days have +worn away, have they?” + +“Yes, ma’am. To-day is—” + +“There, there, there!” with the impatient movement of her fingers. “I +don’t want to know. Are you ready to play?” + +I was obliged to answer in some confusion, “I don’t think I am, ma’am.” + +“Not at cards again?” she demanded, with a searching look. + +“Yes, ma’am; I could do that, if I was wanted.” + +“Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy,” said Miss Havisham, +impatiently, “and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work?” + +I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to +find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing. + +“Then go into that opposite room,” said she, pointing at the door +behind me with her withered hand, “and wait there till I come.” + +I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. +From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had +an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in +the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than +to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed +colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry +branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the +chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its +darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but +every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and +dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was a long table with a +tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the +house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece +of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily +overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, +as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its +seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with +blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some +circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in +the spider community. + +I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same +occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles +took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a +ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of +hearing, and not on terms with one another. + +These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching +them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. +In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, +and she looked like the Witch of the place. + +“This,” said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, “is where +I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here.” + +With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and +there and die at once, the complete realisation of the ghastly waxwork +at the Fair, I shrank under her touch. + +“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her +stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?” + +“I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.” + +“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!” + +She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, +leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, “Come, come, come! +Walk me, walk me!” + +I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss +Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and +she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have +been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr. +Pumblechook’s chaise-cart. + +She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, “Slower!” +Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she +twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to +believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a +while she said, “Call Estella!” so I went out on the landing and roared +that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light +appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round +and round the room. + +If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should +have felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the +three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn’t know +what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss Havisham +twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,—with a shame-faced +consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing. + +“Dear Miss Havisham,” said Miss Sarah Pocket. “How well you look!” + +“I do not,” returned Miss Havisham. “I am yellow skin and bone.” + +Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she +murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, “Poor dear +soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!” + +“And how are _you_?” said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to +Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss +Havisham wouldn’t stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly +obnoxious to Camilla. + +“Thank you, Miss Havisham,” she returned, “I am as well as can be +expected.” + +“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Miss Havisham, with exceeding +sharpness. + +“Nothing worth mentioning,” replied Camilla. “I don’t wish to make a +display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in +the night than I am quite equal to.” + +“Then don’t think of me,” retorted Miss Havisham. + +“Very easily said!” remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a +hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. “Raymond is a +witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night. +Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings +and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with +anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive, +I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure I +wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night—The +idea!” Here, a burst of tears. + +The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and +him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this +point, and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, “Camilla, my +dear, it is well known that your family feelings are gradually +undermining you to the extent of making one of your legs shorter than +the other.” + +“I am not aware,” observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard but +once, “that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that +person, my dear.” + +Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated +old woman, with a small face that might have been made of +walnut-shells, and a large mouth like a cat’s without the whiskers, +supported this position by saying, “No, indeed, my dear. Hem!” + +“Thinking is easy enough,” said the grave lady. + +“What is easier, you know?” assented Miss Sarah Pocket. + +“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to +rise from her legs to her bosom. “It’s all very true! It’s a weakness +to be so affectionate, but I can’t help it. No doubt my health would be +much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn’t change my disposition +if I could. It’s the cause of much suffering, but it’s a consolation to +know I posses it, when I wake up in the night.” Here another burst of +feeling. + +Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going +round and round the room; now brushing against the skirts of the +visitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber. + +“There’s Matthew!” said Camilla. “Never mixing with any natural ties, +never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa +with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my +head over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don’t know +where—” + +(“Much higher than your head, my love,” said Mr. Camilla.) + +“I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of +Matthew’s strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me.” + +“Really I must say I should think not!” interposed the grave lady. + +“You see, my dear,” added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious +personage), “the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to +thank you, my love?” + +“Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort,” resumed +Camilla, “I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond +is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total +inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte +tuner’s across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even +supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,—and now to be told—” +Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical +as to the formation of new combinations there. + +When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and +herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great +influence in bringing Camilla’s chemistry to a sudden end. + +“Matthew will come and see me at last,” said Miss Havisham, sternly, +“when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,—there,” striking +the table with her stick, “at my head! And yours will be there! And +your husband’s there! And Sarah Pocket’s there! And Georgiana’s there! +Now you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast +upon me. And now go!” + +At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in +a new place. She now said, “Walk me, walk me!” and we went on again. + +“I suppose there’s nothing to be done,” exclaimed Camilla, “but comply +and depart. It’s something to have seen the object of one’s love and +duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy +satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have +that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a +display of my feelings, but it’s very hard to be told one wants to +feast on one’s relations,—as if one was a Giant,—and to be told to go. +The bare idea!” + +Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving +bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I +supposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of +view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah +Pocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last; but Sarah was +too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful +slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah +Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, “Bless you, +Miss Havisham dear!” and with a smile of forgiving pity on her +walnut-shell countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. + +While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked +with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she +stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it +some seconds,— + +“This is my birthday, Pip.” + +I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick. + +“I don’t suffer it to be spoken of. I don’t suffer those who were here +just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but +they dare not refer to it.” + +Of course _I_ made no further effort to refer to it. + +“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of +decay,” stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the +table, but not touching it, “was brought here. It and I have worn away +together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of +mice have gnawed at me.” + +She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking +at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the +once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state +to crumble under a touch. + +“When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look, “and when +they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the bride’s table,—which shall +be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,—so much the +better if it is done on this day!” + +She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own +figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too +remained quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. +In the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in +its remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I +might presently begin to decay. + +At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an +instant, Miss Havisham said, “Let me see you two play cards; why have +you not begun?” With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as +before; I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham +watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella’s beauty, and +made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella’s breast and +hair. + +Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she +did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games, +a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard +to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left +to wander about as I liked. + +It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which +I had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last +occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I saw +one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let the +visitors out,—for she had returned with the keys in her hand,—I +strolled into the garden, and strolled all over it. It was quite a +wilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it, +which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of +weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a +weedy offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. + +When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but +a fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal +corner upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for +a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window, +and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a +pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. + +This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside +me. He had been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, +and I now saw that he was inky. + +“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!” + +Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to be +best answered by itself, _I_ said, “Halloa!” politely omitting young +fellow. + +“Who let _you_ in?” said he. + +“Miss Estella.” + +“Who gave you leave to prowl about?” + +“Miss Estella.” + +“Come and fight,” said the pale young gentleman. + +What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question +since; but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was so +astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a +spell. + +“Stop a minute, though,” he said, wheeling round before we had gone +many paces. “I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it +is!” In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against +one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my +hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my +stomach. + +The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was +unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was +particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hit +out at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, “Aha! Would +you?” and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite +unparalleled within my limited experience. + +“Laws of the game!” said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to +his right. “Regular rules!” Here, he skipped from his right leg on to +his left. “Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!” Here, +he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I +looked helplessly at him. + +I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt +morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have +had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to +consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I +followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by +the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking +me if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he +begged my leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned +with a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. “Available for +both,” he said, placing these against the wall. And then fell to +pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a +manner at once light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty. + +Although he did not look very healthy,—having pimples on his face, and +a breaking out at his mouth,—these dreadful preparations quite appalled +me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he +had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For +the rest, he was a young gentleman in a grey suit (when not denuded for +battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in +advance of the rest of him as to development. + +My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every +demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were +minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life, +as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, +looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly +fore-shortened. + +But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a +great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest +surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, +looking up at me out of a black eye. + +His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no +strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked +down; but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or +drinking out of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in +seconding himself according to form, and then came at me with an air +and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for me at +last. He got heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I +hit him, the harder I hit him; but he came up again and again and +again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head +against the wall. Even after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and +turned round and round confusedly a few times, not knowing where I was; +but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up: at the +same time panting out, “That means you have won.” + +He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the +contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go +so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of +savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly +wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, “Can I help you?” +and he said “No thankee,” and I said “Good afternoon,” and _he_ said +“Same to you.” + +When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys. +But she neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her +waiting; and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though +something had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the +gate, too, she stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me. + +“Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.” + +I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone +through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was +given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and +that it was worth nothing. + +What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with +the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the +light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming +against a black night-sky, and Joe’s furnace was flinging a path of +fire across the road. + + + + +Chapter XII. + + +My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. +The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman +on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the +more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt +that the pale young gentleman’s blood was on my head, and that the Law +would avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I +had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go +stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and +pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves +open to severe punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, +and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and +trepidation before going on an errand, lest the officers of the County +Jail should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman’s nose had stained +my trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the +dead of night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman’s +teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand tangles, as I +devised incredible ways of accounting for that damnatory circumstance +when I should be haled before the Judges. + +When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of +violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of +Justice, especially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush +behind the gate;—whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal +vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those +grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:—whether +suborned boys—a numerous band of mercenaries—might be engaged to fall +upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more;—it was high +testimony to my confidence in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, +that I never imagined _him_ accessory to these retaliations; they +always came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives of his, +goaded on by the state of his visage and an indignant sympathy with the +family features. + +However, go to Miss Havisham’s I must, and go I did. And behold! +nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, +and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I +found the same gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in +at the windows of the detached house; but my view was suddenly stopped +by the closed shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner +where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the +young gentleman’s existence. There were traces of his gore in that +spot, and I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man. + +On the broad landing between Miss Havisham’s own room and that other +room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,—a +light chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed +there since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular +occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired +of walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and +across the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over +again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as +long as three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general +mention of these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled +that I should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, +and because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten +months. + +As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more +to me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was I +going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I +believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know +everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that +desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer +my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,—or anything +but my daily dinner,—nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my +services. + +Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told +me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me; +sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite +familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she +hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we +were alone, “Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?” And when I said +yes (for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when +we played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish +of Estella’s moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods +were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled +what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish +fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like “Break their +hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!” + +There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which +the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of +rendering homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in +that relation towards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure +of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the +introduction of Old Clem’s respected name. Thus, you were to hammer +boys round—Old Clem! With a thump and a sound—Old Clem! Beat it out, +beat it out—Old Clem! With a clink for the stout—Old Clem! Blow the +fire, blow the fire—Old Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher—Old Clem! +One day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly +saying to me, with the impatient movement of her fingers, “There, +there, there! Sing!” I was surprised into crooning this ditty as I +pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy that she +took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her sleep. +After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about, +and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain was so +subdued, even when there were three of us, that it made less noise in +the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind. + +What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character +fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts +were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light +from the misty yellow rooms? + +Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had +not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I +had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly +fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger +to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of +him. Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella +discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more +potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but +Biddy; but I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to +do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did +not know then, though I think I know now. + +Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost +insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, +Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of +discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to +this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these +hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would +have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of +mind, that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before +him,—as it were, to operate upon,—and he would drag me up from my stool +(usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me +before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, +“Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by +hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which +so did do. Now, Mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would +rumple my hair the wrong way,—which from my earliest remembrance, as +already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any +fellow-creature to do,—and would hold me before him by the sleeve,—a +spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself. + +Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations +about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, +that I used to want—quite painfully—to burst into spiteful tears, fly +at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister +spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at +every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, +would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of +my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job. + +In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at, +while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe’s perceiving that he +was not favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old +enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on +his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my +sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into +opposition on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out +of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating +end to every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to +lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching +sight of me as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, “Come! +there’s enough of _you_! _You_ get along to bed; _you_’ve given trouble +enough for one night, I hope!” As if I had besought them as a favour to +bother my life out. + +We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we +should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss +Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my +shoulder; and said with some displeasure,— + +“You are growing tall, Pip!” + +I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, +that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no +control. + +She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at +me again; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and +moody. On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was +over, and I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a +movement of her impatient fingers:— + +“Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.” + +“Joe Gargery, ma’am.” + +“Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?” + +“Yes, Miss Havisham.” + +“You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with +you, and bring your indentures, do you think?” + +I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour to be +asked. + +“Then let him come.” + +“At any particular time, Miss Havisham?” + +“There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come +along with you.” + +When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister +“went on the Rampage,” in a more alarming degree than at any previous +period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats +under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we +graciously thought she _was_ fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent +of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud +sobbing, got out the dustpan,—which was always a very bad sign,—put on +her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not +satisfied with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, +and cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the +back-yard. It was ten o’clock at night before we ventured to creep in +again, and then she asked Joe why he hadn’t married a Negress Slave at +once? Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker +and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have +been a better speculation. + + + + +Chapter XIII. + + +It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see Joe +arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss +Havisham’s. However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the +occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in +his working-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so +dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for +me he pulled up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the +hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. + +At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town +with us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook’s and called for “when we +had done with our fine ladies”—a way of putting the case, from which +Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the +day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to +do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable +HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the +direction he had taken. + +We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver +bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited +Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it was +a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were +carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were +displayed as articles of property,—much as Cleopatra or any other +sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or +procession. + +When we came to Pumblechook’s, my sister bounced in and left us. As it +was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham’s house. +Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe +took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; +as if he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to +half a quarter of an ounce. + +Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew +so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back +at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the +greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of +his toes. + +Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff +and conducted him into Miss Havisham’s presence. She was seated at her +dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately. + +“Oh!” said she to Joe. “You are the husband of the sister of this boy?” + +I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or +so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with +his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a +worm. + +“You are the husband,” repeated Miss Havisham, “of the sister of this +boy?” + +It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted +in addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham. + +“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe now observed in a manner that was at +once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great +politeness, “as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time +what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man.” + +“Well!” said Miss Havisham. “And you have reared the boy, with the +intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?” + +“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever friends, and it +were looked for’ard to betwixt us, as being calc’lated to lead to +larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the +business,—such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,—not +but what they would have been attended to, don’t you see?” + +“Has the boy,” said Miss Havisham, “ever made any objection? Does he +like the trade?” + +“Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,” returned Joe, +strengthening his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and +politeness, “that it were the wish of your own hart.” (I saw the idea +suddenly break upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the +occasion, before he went on to say) “And there weren’t no objection on +your part, and Pip it were the great wish of your hart!” + +It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him sensible that he +ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures to +him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he +persisted in being to Me. + +“Have you brought his indentures with you?” asked Miss Havisham. + +“Well, Pip, you know,” replied Joe, as if that were a little +unreasonable, “you yourself see me put ’em in my ’at, and therefore you +know as they are here.” With which he took them out, and gave them, not +to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good +fellow,—I _know_ I was ashamed of him,—when I saw that Estella stood at +the back of Miss Havisham’s chair, and that her eyes laughed +mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to +Miss Havisham. + +“You expected,” said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, “no +premium with the boy?” + +“Joe!” I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. “Why don’t you +answer—” + +“Pip,” returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, “which I +meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself +and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it +to be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?” + +Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was +better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took +up a little bag from the table beside her. + +“Pip has earned a premium here,” she said, “and here it is. There are +five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master, Pip.” + +As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in +him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, +persisted in addressing me. + +“This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,” said Joe, “and it is as such +received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near, +nor nowheres. And now, old chap,” said Joe, conveying to me a +sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that +familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham,—“and now, old chap, +may we do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and +another, and by them which your liberal present—have-conweyed—to be—for +the satisfaction of mind-of—them as never—” here Joe showed that he +felt he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly +rescued himself with the words, “and from myself far be it!” These +words had such a round and convincing sound for him that he said them +twice. + +“Good-bye, Pip!” said Miss Havisham. “Let them out, Estella.” + +“Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?” I asked. + +“No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!” + +Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe +in a distinct emphatic voice, “The boy has been a good boy here, and +that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no +other and no more.” + +How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but I +know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs +instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went +after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the +gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the +daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me, +“Astonishing!” And there he remained so long saying, “Astonishing” at +intervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming +back. At length he prolonged his remark into “Pip, I do assure _you_ +this is as-TON-ishing!” and so, by degrees, became conversational and +able to walk away. + +I have reason to think that Joe’s intellects were brightened by the +encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook’s +he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in what +took place in Mr. Pumblechook’s parlour: where, on our presenting +ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman. + +“Well?” cried my sister, addressing us both at once. “And what’s +happened to _you_? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor +society as this, I am sure I do!” + +“Miss Havisham,” said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of +remembrance, “made it wery partick’ler that we should give her—were it +compliments or respects, Pip?” + +“Compliments,” I said. + +“Which that were my own belief,” answered Joe; “her compliments to Mrs. +J. Gargery—” + +“Much good they’ll do me!” observed my sister; but rather gratified +too. + +“And wishing,” pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another +effort of remembrance, “that the state of Miss Havisham’s elth were +sitch as would have—allowed, were it, Pip?” + +“Of her having the pleasure,” I added. + +“Of ladies’ company,” said Joe. And drew a long breath. + +“Well!” cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook. +“She might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but +it’s better late than never. And what did she give young Rantipole +here?” + +“She giv’ him,” said Joe, “nothing.” + +Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on. + +“What she giv’,” said Joe, “she giv’ to his friends. ‘And by his +friends,’ were her explanation, ‘I mean into the hands of his sister +Mrs. J. Gargery.’ Them were her words; ‘Mrs. J. Gargery.’ She mayn’t +have know’d,” added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, “whether it +were Joe, or Jorge.” + +My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden +arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all +about it beforehand. + +“And how much have you got?” asked my sister, laughing. Positively +laughing! + +“What would present company say to ten pound?” demanded Joe. + +“They’d say,” returned my sister, curtly, “pretty well. Not too much, +but pretty well.” + +“It’s more than that, then,” said Joe. + +That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he +rubbed the arms of his chair, “It’s more than that, Mum.” + +“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began my sister. + +“Yes I do, Mum,” said Pumblechook; “but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good +in you! Go on!” + +“What would present company say,” proceeded Joe, “to twenty pound?” + +“Handsome would be the word,” returned my sister. + +“Well, then,” said Joe, “It’s more than twenty pound.” + +That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a +patronizing laugh, “It’s more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her +up, Joseph!” + +“Then to make an end of it,” said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to +my sister; “it’s five-and-twenty pound.” + +“It’s five-and-twenty pound, Mum,” echoed that basest of swindlers, +Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; “and it’s no more than +your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy +of the money!” + +If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently +awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into +custody, with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality +far behind. + +“Now you see, Joseph and wife,” said Pumblechook, as he took me by the +arm above the elbow, “I am one of them that always go right through +with what they’ve begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That’s +_my_ way. Bound out of hand.” + +“Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,” said my sister (grasping the +money), “we’re deeply beholden to you.” + +“Never mind me, Mum,” returned that diabolical cornchandler. “A +pleasure’s a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know; we +must have him bound. I said I’d see to it—to tell you the truth.” + +The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at once +went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial +presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, +exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; +indeed, it was the general impression in Court that I had been taken +red-handed; for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, +I heard some people say, “What’s he done?” and others, “He’s a young +’un, too, but looks bad, don’t he?” One person of mild and benevolent +aspect even gave me a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent +young man fitted up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and +entitled TO BE READ IN MY CELL. + +The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a +church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and with +mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with +folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading +the newspapers,—and with some shining black portraits on the walls, +which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and +sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and +attested, and I was “bound”; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while +as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little +preliminaries disposed of. + +When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been +put into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly +tortured, and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were +merely rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook’s. And there my +sister became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would +serve her but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue +Boar, and that Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring +the Hubbles and Mr. Wopsle. + +It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For, it +inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole +company, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it +worse, they all asked me from time to time,—in short, whenever they had +nothing else to do,—why I didn’t enjoy myself? And what could I +possibly do then, but say I _was_ enjoying myself,—when I wasn’t! + +However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the +most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent +contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table; +and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had +fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I +played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, +or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared +to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair +beside him to illustrate his remarks. + +My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they +wouldn’t let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, +woke me up and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the +evening Mr. Wopsle gave us Collins’s ode, and threw his bloodstained +sword in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and +said, “The Commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it +wasn’t the Tumblers’ Arms.” That, they were all in excellent spirits on +the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and +asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive +bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by +wanting to know all about everybody’s private affairs) that _he_ was +the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole +the weakest pilgrim going. + +Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly +wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like +Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now. + + + + +Chapter XIV. + + +It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be +black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive +and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. + +Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s +temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had +believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed +in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose +solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had +believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I +had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and +independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all +coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella +see it on any account. + +How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, +how much Miss Havisham’s, how much my sister’s, is now of no moment to +me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well +or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. + +Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my +shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe’s ’prentice, I should be +distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt +that I was dusty with the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight +upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have +been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I +have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its +interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance +any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my +way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly +entered road of apprenticeship to Joe. + +I remember that at a later period of my “time,” I used to stand about +the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my +own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness +between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both +there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite +as dejected on the first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that +after-time; but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe +while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I _am_ glad to +know of myself in that connection. + +For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I +proceed to add was Joe’s. It was not because I was faithful, but +because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier +or a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of +industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, +that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible +to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing +man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it +has touched one’s self in going by, and I know right well that any good +that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented +Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me. + +What I wanted, who can say? How can _I_ say, when I never knew? What I +dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and +commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of +the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she +would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing +the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me. +Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were +singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss +Havisham’s would seem to show me Estella’s face in the fire, with her +pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me,—often at +such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the +wall which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her +just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at +last. + +After that, when we went in to supper, the place and the meal would +have a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of +home than ever, in my own ungracious breast. + + + + +Chapter XV. + + +As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s room, my +education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, +until Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little +catalogue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a +half-penny. Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of +literature were the opening lines, + + When I went to Lunnon town sirs, + Too rul loo rul + Too rul loo rul + Wasn’t I done very brown sirs? + Too rul loo rul + Too rul loo rul + + +—still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with +the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, +except that I thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in +excess of the poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to +Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he +kindly complied. As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for +a dramatic lay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over +and bullied and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of +ways, I soon declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. +Wopsle in his poetic fury had severely mauled me. + +Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so +well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted +to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my +society and less open to Estella’s reproach. + +The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken +slate and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational +implements: to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew +Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, +under my tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke +his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere +else,—even with a learned air,—as if he considered himself to be +advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. + +It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river +passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, +looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on +at the bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out +to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss +Havisham and Estella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, +upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just the +same.—Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange +life appeared to have something to do with everything that was +picturesque. + +One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself +on being “most awful dull,” that I had given him up for the day, I lay +on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying +traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky +and in the water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought +concerning them that had been much in my head. + +“Joe,” said I; “don’t you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?” + +“Well, Pip,” returned Joe, slowly considering. “What for?” + +“What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?” + +“There is some wisits p’r’aps,” said Joe, “as for ever remains open to +the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might +think you wanted something,—expected something of her.” + +“Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?” + +“You might, old chap,” said Joe. “And she might credit it. Similarly +she mightn’t.” + +Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard +at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition. + +“You see, Pip,” Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, “Miss +Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the +handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were +all.” + +“Yes, Joe. I heard her.” + +“ALL,” Joe repeated, very emphatically. + +“Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.” + +“Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,—Make a end +on it!—As you was!—Me to the North, and you to the South!—Keep in +sunders!” + +I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me to +find that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more +probable. + +“But, Joe.” + +“Yes, old chap.” + +“Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day +of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after +her, or shown that I remember her.” + +“That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes +all four round,—and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four +round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of +hoofs—” + +“I don’t mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don’t mean a present.” + +But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon +it. “Or even,” said he, “if you was helped to knocking her up a new +chain for the front door,—or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws +for general use,—or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork +when she took her muffins,—or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such +like—” + +“I don’t mean any present at all, Joe,” I interposed. + +“Well,” said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly +pressed it, “if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn’t. No, I would _not_. For +what’s a door-chain when she’s got one always up? And shark-headers is +open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you’d go +into brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can’t +show himself oncommon in a gridiron,—for a gridiron IS a gridiron,” +said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring +to rouse me from a fixed delusion, “and you may haim at what you like, +but a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your +leave, and you can’t help yourself—” + +“My dear Joe,” I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, “don’t +go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any +present.” + +“No, Pip,” Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all +along; “and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip.” + +“Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack +just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I +would go uptown and make a call on Miss Est—Havisham.” + +“Which her name,” said Joe, gravely, “ain’t Estavisham, Pip, unless she +have been rechris’ened.” + +“I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, +Joe?” + +In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of +it. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received +with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a +visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for +a favour received, then this experimental trip should have no +successor. By these conditions I promised to abide. + +Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick. He +pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,—a clear Impossibility,—but +he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him to +have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but wilfully to +have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its +understanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of +great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even +seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by +mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his +dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the +Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention +of ever coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper’s out on the marshes, +and on working-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his +hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his +neck and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the +sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched, +locomotively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when accosted or +otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful, +half-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it +was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking. + +This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and +timid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner +of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was +necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, +and that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe’s ’prentice, +Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace +him; howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, +or did anything, openly importing hostility; I only noticed that he +always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old +Clem, he came in out of time. + +Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of +my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just +got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by +and by he said, leaning on his hammer,— + +“Now, master! Sure you’re not a-going to favour only one of us. If +Young Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick.” I suppose he +was about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an +ancient person. + +“Why, what’ll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?” said Joe. + +“What’ll _I_ do with it! What’ll _he_ do with it? I’ll do as much with +it as _him_,” said Orlick. + +“As to Pip, he’s going up town,” said Joe. + +“Well then, as to Old Orlick, _he_’s a-going up town,” retorted that +worthy. “Two can go up town. Tain’t only one wot can go up town. + +“Don’t lose your temper,” said Joe. + +“Shall if I like,” growled Orlick. “Some and their uptowning! Now, +master! Come. No favouring in this shop. Be a man!” + +The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was +in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot +bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, +whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,—as if +it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,—and +finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and +he again leaned on his hammer,— + +“Now, master!” + +“Are you all right now?” demanded Joe. + +“Ah! I am all right,” said gruff Old Orlick. + +“Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men,” said +Joe, “let it be a half-holiday for all.” + +My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,—she was +a most unscrupulous spy and listener,—and she instantly looked in at +one of the windows. + +“Like you, you fool!” said she to Joe, “giving holidays to great idle +hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in +that way. I wish _I_ was his master!” + +“You’d be everybody’s master, if you durst,” retorted Orlick, with an +ill-favoured grin. + +(“Let her alone,” said Joe.) + +“I’d be a match for all noodles and all rogues,” returned my sister, +beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. “And I couldn’t be a +match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who’s the +dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn’t be a match for the +rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and +the worst rogue between this and France. Now!” + +“You’re a foul shrew, Mother Gargery,” growled the journeyman. “If that +makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good’un.” + +(“Let her alone, will you?” said Joe.) + +“What did you say?” cried my sister, beginning to scream. “What did you +say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, +with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!” Each of these exclamations +was a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of +all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for +her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she +consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself +into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; “what was the +name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold +me! Oh!” + +“Ah-h-h!” growled the journeyman, between his teeth, “I’d hold you, if +you was my wife. I’d hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you.” + +(“I tell you, let her alone,” said Joe.) + +“Oh! To hear him!” cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a +scream together,—which was her next stage. “To hear the names he’s +giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my +husband standing by! Oh! Oh!” Here my sister, after a fit of clappings +and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and +threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,—which were the last stages +on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete +success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked. + +What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical +interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he +meant by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether +he was man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation +admitted of nothing less than coming on, and was on his defence +straightway; so, without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt +aprons, they went at one another, like two giants. But, if any man in +that neighbourhood could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. +Orlick, as if he had been of no more account than the pale young +gentleman, was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come +out of it. Then Joe unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had +dropped insensible at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I +think), and who was carried into the house and laid down, and who was +recommended to revive, and would do nothing but struggle and clench her +hands in Joe’s hair. Then came that singular calm and silence which +succeed all uproars; and then, with the vague sensation which I have +always connected with such a lull,—namely, that it was Sunday, and +somebody was dead,—I went upstairs to dress myself. + +[Illustration] + +When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any +other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick’s nostrils, +which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared +from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a +peaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence +on Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting +observation that might do me good, “On the Rampage, Pip, and off the +Rampage, Pip:—such is Life!” + +With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very +serious in a man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to +Miss Havisham’s, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed +the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how I +debated whether I should go away without ringing; nor, how I should +undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back. + +Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella. + +“How, then? You here again?” said Miss Pocket. “What do you want?” + +When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah +evidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my +business. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, +and presently brought the sharp message that I was to “come up.” + +Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone. + +“Well?” said she, fixing her eyes upon me. “I hope you want nothing? +You’ll get nothing.” + +“No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing +very well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you.” + +“There, there!” with the old restless fingers. “Come now and then; come +on your birthday.—Ay!” she cried suddenly, turning herself and her +chair towards me, “You are looking round for Estella? Hey?” + +I had been looking round,—in fact, for Estella,—and I stammered that I +hoped she was well. + +“Abroad,” said Miss Havisham; “educating for a lady; far out of reach; +prettier than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you +have lost her?” + +There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last +words, and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a +loss what to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by +dismissing me. When the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the +walnut-shell countenance, I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my +home and with my trade and with everything; and that was all I took by +_that_ motion. + +As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at +the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, +who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in +his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that +moment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word of it on +the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner +did he see me, than he appeared to consider that a special Providence +had put a ’prentice in his way to be read at; and he laid hold of me, +and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlour. As I +knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the +way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better +than none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into +Pumblechook’s just as the street and the shops were lighting up. + +As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I +don’t know how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it +took until half-past nine o’ clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle +got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he +became so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful +career. I thought it a little too much that he should complain of being +cut short in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to +seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course began. This, however, was +a mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the +identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When +Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively +apologetic, Pumblechook’s indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, +too, took pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and +maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating +circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every +occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master’s daughter to care a +button for me; and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating +conduct on the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general +feebleness of my character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle +had closed the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his +head, and saying, “Take warning, boy, take warning!” as if it were a +well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation, provided +I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my benefactor. + +It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with +Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, +and it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of +the lamp’s usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance +on the fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose +with a change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we +came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house. + +“Halloa!” we said, stopping. “Orlick there?” + +“Ah!” he answered, slouching out. “I was standing by a minute, on the +chance of company.” + +“You are late,” I remarked. + +Orlick not unnaturally answered, “Well? And _you_’re late.” + +“We have been,” said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,—“we +have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening.” + +Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all +went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending +his half-holiday up and down town? + +“Yes,” said he, “all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn’t see +you, but I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns +is going again.” + +“At the Hulks?” said I. + +“Ay! There’s some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been +going since dark, about. You’ll hear one presently.” + +In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the +well-remembered boom came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily +rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing +and threatening the fugitives. + +“A good night for cutting off in,” said Orlick. “We’d be puzzled how to +bring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night.” + +The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in +silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening’s +tragedy, fell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, +with his hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very +dark, very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then, the +sound of the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled +sulkily along the course of the river. I kept myself to myself and my +thoughts. Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly game +on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick +sometimes growled, “Beat it out, beat it out,—Old Clem! With a clink +for the stout,—Old Clem!” I thought he had been drinking, but he was +not drunk. + +Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us +past the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find—it being +eleven o’clock—in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and +unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered +about. Mr. Wopsle dropped in to ask what was the matter (surmising that +a convict had been taken), but came running out in a great hurry. + +“There’s something wrong,” said he, without stopping, “up at your +place, Pip. Run all!” + +“What is it?” I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side. + +“I can’t quite understand. The house seems to have been violently +entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has +been attacked and hurt.” + +We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no +stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole +village was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there +was Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor in the midst +of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, +and so I became aware of my sister,—lying without sense or movement on +the bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow on +the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was +turned towards the fire,—destined never to be on the Rampage again, +while she was the wife of Joe. + + + + +Chapter XVI. + + +With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to +believe that _I_ must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, +or at all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under +obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than +any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began +to reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all +sides, I took another view of the case, which was more reasonable. + +Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a +quarter after eight o’clock to a quarter before ten. While he was +there, my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had +exchanged Good Night with a farm-labourer going home. The man could not +be more particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into +dense confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been +before nine. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found +her struck down on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The +fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle +very long; the candle, however, had been blown out. + +Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond +the blowing out of the candle,—which stood on a table between the door +and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and +was struck,—was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such +as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one +remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with +something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were +dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable +violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when +Joe picked her up, was a convict’s leg-iron which had been filed +asunder. + +Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith’s eye, declared it to have +been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the +Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe’s opinion was +corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the +prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they +claimed to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been +worn by either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, +one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his +iron. + +Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed +the iron to be my convict’s iron,—the iron I had seen and heard him +filing at, on the marshes,—but my mind did not accuse him of having put +it to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have +become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. +Either Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file. + +Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we +picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the +evening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and +he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against +him, save the quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with +everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man; if +he had come back for his two bank-notes there could have been no +dispute about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore +them. Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in +so silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could +look round. + +It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however +undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered +unspeakable trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I +should at last dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the +story. For months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally +in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The +contention came, after all, to this;—the secret was such an old one +now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not +tear it away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much +mischief, it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me +if he believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not +believe it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets +as a monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of +course—for, was I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing +is always done?—and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see +any such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of +the assailant. + +The Constables and the Bow Street men from London—for, this happened in +the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police—were about the house for +a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like +authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously +wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, +and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead +of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood +about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks +that filled the whole neighbourhood with admiration; and they had a +mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as +taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it. + +Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay +very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects +multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of +the realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and +her speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as +to be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always +by her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate +in speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than +indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, +extraordinary complications arose between them which I was always +called in to solve. The administration of mutton instead of medicine, +the substitution of Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among +the mildest of my own mistakes. + +However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A +tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part +of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three +months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then +remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We +were at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a +circumstance happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle’s +great-aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had +fallen, and Biddy became a part of our establishment. + +It may have been about a month after my sister’s reappearance in the +kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the +whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household. +Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly +cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had +been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me +every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, “Such a fine +figure of a woman as she once were, Pip!” Biddy instantly taking the +cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy; Joe +became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life, +and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that +did him good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had +all more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that +they had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest +spirits they had ever encountered. + +Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty that +had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made +nothing of it. Thus it was:— + +Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a +character that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost +eagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly +wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T, +from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the +sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my +sister’s ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a +qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one +after another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the +shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and +displayed it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook +her head to that extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified +lest in her weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck. + +When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this +mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at +it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked +thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his +initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me. + +“Why, of course!” cried Biddy, with an exultant face. “Don’t you see? +It’s _him_!” + +Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify +him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the +kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his +arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out, +with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly +distinguished him. + +I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was +disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest +anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his +being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him given +something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were +particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his +reception, she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and +there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have +seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that +day, a day rarely passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, +and without Orlick’s slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as +if he knew no more than I did what to make of it. + + + + +Chapter XVII. + + +I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was +varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more +remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying +another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty +at the gate; I found Miss Havisham just as I had left her, and she +spoke of Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same words. +The interview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I +was going, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may mention +at once that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking +the guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than +causing her to ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after +that, I took it. + +So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened +room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that +I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that +mysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew +older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house as to my +thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. +It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate +my trade and to be ashamed of home. + +Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her +shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands +were always clean. She was not beautiful,—she was common, and could not +be like Estella,—but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. +She had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly +out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself +one evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes +that were very pretty and very good. + +It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring +at—writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at +once by a sort of stratagem—and seeing Biddy observant of what I was +about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without +laying it down. + +“Biddy,” said I, “how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you +are very clever.” + +“What is it that I manage? I don’t know,” returned Biddy, smiling. + +She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not +mean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising. + +“How do you manage, Biddy,” said I, “to learn everything that I learn, +and always to keep up with me?” I was beginning to be rather vain of my +knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the +greater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have +no doubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price. + +“I might as well ask you,” said Biddy, “how _you_ manage?” + +“No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see +me turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy.” + +“I suppose I must catch it like a cough,” said Biddy, quietly; and went +on with her sewing. + +Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at +Biddy sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her +rather an extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was +equally accomplished in the terms of our trade, and the names of our +different sorts of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I +knew, Biddy knew. Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith +as I, or better. + +“You are one of those, Biddy,” said I, “who make the most of every +chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how +improved you are!” + +Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. “I was +your first teacher though; wasn’t I?” said she, as she sewed. + +“Biddy!” I exclaimed, in amazement. “Why, you are crying!” + +“No I am not,” said Biddy, looking up and laughing. “What put that in +your head?” + +What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it +dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been +until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of +living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled +the hopeless circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the +miserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school, +with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be dragged and +shouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there must +have been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first +uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of +course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I +looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps +I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too +reserved, and should have patronised her more (though I did not use +that precise word in my meditations) with my confidence. + +“Yes, Biddy,” I observed, when I had done turning it over, “you were my +first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being +together like this, in this kitchen.” + +“Ah, poor thing!” replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness to +transfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her, +making her more comfortable; “that’s sadly true!” + +“Well!” said I, “we must talk together a little more, as we used to do. +And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a +quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat.” + +My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook +the care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out +together. It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed +the village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the +marshes and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I +began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my +usual way. When we came to the river-side and sat down on the bank, +with the water rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it +would have been without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time +and place for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence. + +“Biddy,” said I, after binding her to secrecy, “I want to be a +gentleman.” + +“O, I wouldn’t, if I was you!” she returned. “I don’t think it would +answer.” + +“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular reasons for +wanting to be a gentleman.” + +“You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as you are?” + +“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I am. I am +disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to +either, since I was bound. Don’t be absurd.” + +“Was I absurd?” said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; “I am sorry +for that; I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be +comfortable.” + +“Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be +comfortable—or anything but miserable—there, Biddy!—unless I can lead a +very different sort of life from the life I lead now.” + +“That’s a pity!” said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air. + +Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind +of quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half +inclined to shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave +utterance to her sentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I +knew it was much to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped. + +“If I could have settled down,” I said to Biddy, plucking up the short +grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings +out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,—“if I could have +settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was +little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe +would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone +partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to +keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a +fine Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for +_you_; shouldn’t I, Biddy?” + +Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for +answer, “Yes; I am not over-particular.” It scarcely sounded +flattering, but I knew she meant well. + +“Instead of that,” said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade +or two, “see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, +and—what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had +told me so!” + +Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more +attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships. + +“It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,” she +remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. “Who said it?” + +I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I +was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I +answered, “The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more +beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I +want to be a gentleman on her account.” Having made this lunatic +confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I +had some thoughts of following it. + +“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?” +Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause. + +“I don’t know,” I moodily answered. + +“Because, if it is to spite her,” Biddy pursued, “I should think—but +you know best—that might be better and more independently done by +caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should +think—but you know best—she was not worth gaining over.” + +Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was +perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed +village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and +wisest of men fall every day? + +“It may be all quite true,” said I to Biddy, “but I admire her +dreadfully.” + +In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good +grasp on the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All +the while knowing the madness of my heart to be so very mad and +misplaced, that I was quite conscious it would have served my face +right, if I had lifted it up by my hair, and knocked it against the +pebbles as a punishment for belonging to such an idiot. + +Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. +She put her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by +work, upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my +hair. Then she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with +my face upon my sleeve I cried a little,—exactly as I had done in the +brewery yard,—and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much ill-used +by somebody, or by everybody; I can’t say which. + +“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is, that you have felt +you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, +and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it +and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a +poor one, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your +teacher at the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would +set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, +and it’s of no use now.” So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from +the bank, and said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, “Shall +we walk a little farther, or go home?” + +“Biddy,” I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving +her a kiss, “I shall always tell you everything.” + +“Till you’re a gentleman,” said Biddy. + +“You know I never shall be, so that’s always. Not that I have any +occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,—as I +told you at home the other night.” + +“Ah!” said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships. +And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, “shall we walk a +little farther, or go home?” + +I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the +summer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very +beautiful. I began to consider whether I was not more naturally and +wholesomely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing +beggar my neighbour by candle-light in the room with the stopped +clocks, and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be very good +for me if I could get her out of my head, with all the rest of those +remembrances and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish +what I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked +myself the question whether I did not surely know that if Estella were +beside me at that moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? +I was obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said +to myself, “Pip, what a fool you are!” + +We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed +right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and +somebody else to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no +pleasure, from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded her +own breast than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her +much the better of the two? + +“Biddy,” said I, when we were walking homeward, “I wish you could put +me right.” + +“I wish I could!” said Biddy. + +“If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,—you don’t mind my +speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?” + +“Oh dear, not at all!” said Biddy. “Don’t mind me.” + +“If I could only get myself to do it, _that_ would be the thing for +me.” + +“But you never will, you see,” said Biddy. + +It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would +have done if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore +observed I was not quite sure of that. But Biddy said she _was_, and +she said it decisively. In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet +I took it rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point. + +When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and +get over a stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, +or from the rushes, or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant +way), Old Orlick. + +“Halloa!” he growled, “where are you two going?” + +“Where should we be going, but home?” + +“Well, then,” said he, “I’m jiggered if I don’t see you home!” + +This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite supposititious case of +his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, +but used it, like his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, +and convey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I was younger, +I had had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he +would have done it with a sharp and twisted hook. + +Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper, +“Don’t let him come; I don’t like him.” As I did not like him either, I +took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn’t want +seeing home. He received that piece of information with a yell of +laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little +distance. + +Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in +that murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give +any account, I asked her why she did not like him. + +“Oh!” she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us, +“because I—I am afraid he likes me.” + +“Did he ever tell you he liked you?” I asked indignantly. + +“No,” said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, “he never told me +so; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye.” + +However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not +doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon +Old Orlick’s daring to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on +myself. + +“But it makes no difference to you, you know,” said Biddy, calmly. + +“No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don’t like it; I don’t +approve of it.” + +“Nor I neither,” said Biddy. “Though _that_ makes no difference to +you.” + +“Exactly,” said I; “but I must tell you I should have no opinion of +you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent.” + +I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances +were favourable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that +demonstration. He had struck root in Joe’s establishment, by reason of +my sister’s sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him +dismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as +I had reason to know thereafter. + +And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated +its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I +was clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the +plain honest working life to which I was born had nothing in it to be +ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect and +happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively that my +disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone, and that I was +growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep company +with Biddy,—when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the +Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and +scatter my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and +often before I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in +all directions by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss +Havisham was going to make my fortune when my time was out. + +If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my +perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was +brought to a premature end, as I proceed to relate. + + + + +Chapter XVIII. + + +It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a +Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three +Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. +Of that group I was one. + +A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued +in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective in +the description, and identified himself with every witness at the +Inquest. He faintly moaned, “I am done for,” as the victim, and he +barbarously bellowed, “I’ll serve you out,” as the murderer. He gave +the medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; +and he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard +blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding +the mental competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle’s +hands, became Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed +himself thoroughly, and we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully +comfortable. In this cosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful +Murder. + +Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning +over the back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an +expression of contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great +forefinger as he watched the group of faces. + +“Well!” said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done, +“you have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no doubt?” + +Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked +at everybody coldly and sarcastically. + +“Guilty, of course?” said he. “Out with it. Come!” + +“Sir,” returned Mr. Wopsle, “without having the honour of your +acquaintance, I do say Guilty.” Upon this we all took courage to unite +in a confirmatory murmur. + +“I know you do,” said the stranger; “I knew you would. I told you so. +But now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know, that +the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is +proved—proved—to be guilty?” + +“Sir,” Mr. Wopsle began to reply, “as an Englishman myself, I—” + +“Come!” said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. “Don’t evade +the question. Either you know it, or you don’t know it. Which is it to +be?” + +He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a +bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr. +Wopsle,—as it were to mark him out—before biting it again. + +“Now!” said he. “Do you know it, or don’t you know it?” + +“Certainly I know it,” replied Mr. Wopsle. + +“Certainly you know it. Then why didn’t you say so at first? Now, I’ll +ask you another question,”—taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as if he +had a right to him,—“_do_ you know that none of these witnesses have +yet been cross-examined?” + +Mr. Wopsle was beginning, “I can only say—” when the stranger stopped +him. + +“What? You won’t answer the question, yes or no? Now, I’ll try you +again.” Throwing his finger at him again. “Attend to me. Are you aware, +or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been +cross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no?” + +Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor +opinion of him. + +“Come!” said the stranger, “I’ll help you. You don’t deserve help, but +I’ll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What is it?” + +“What is it?” repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss. + +“Is it,” pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious +manner, “the printed paper you have just been reading from?” + +“Undoubtedly.” + +“Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it +distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal +advisers instructed him altogether to reserve his defence?” + +“I read that just now,” Mr. Wopsle pleaded. + +“Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don’t ask you what you read +just now. You may read the Lord’s Prayer backwards, if you like,—and, +perhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my +friend; not to the top of the column; you know better than that; to the +bottom, to the bottom.” (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of +subterfuge.) “Well? Have you found it?” + +“Here it is,” said Mr. Wopsle. + +“Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it +distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was +instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! +Do you make that of it?” + +Mr. Wopsle answered, “Those are not the exact words.” + +“Not the exact words!” repeated the gentleman bitterly. “Is that the +exact substance?” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Wopsle. + +“Yes,” repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the company +with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. “And now I +ask you what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that +passage before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having +pronounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?” + +We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought +him, and that he was beginning to be found out. + +“And that same man, remember,” pursued the gentleman, throwing his +finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,—“that same man might be summoned as a +juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed +himself, might return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon +his pillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and truly +try the issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the +prisoner at the bar, and would a true verdict give according to the +evidence, so help him God!” + +We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too +far, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet +time. + +The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and +with a manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of +us that would effectually do for each individual if he chose to +disclose it, left the back of the settle, and came into the space +between the two settles, in front of the fire, where he remained +standing, his left hand in his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of +his right. + +“From information I have received,” said he, looking round at us as we +all quailed before him, “I have reason to believe there is a blacksmith +among you, by name Joseph—or Joe—Gargery. Which is the man?” + +“Here is the man,” said Joe. + +The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went. + +“You have an apprentice,” pursued the stranger, “commonly known as Pip? +Is he here?” + +“I am here!” I cried. + +The stranger did not recognise me, but I recognised him as the +gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit +to Miss Havisham. I had known him the moment I saw him looking over the +settle, and now that I stood confronting him with his hand upon my +shoulder, I checked off again in detail his large head, his dark +complexion, his deep-set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large +watch-chain, his strong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the +smell of scented soap on his great hand. + +“I wish to have a private conference with you two,” said he, when he +had surveyed me at his leisure. “It will take a little time. Perhaps we +had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my +communication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you +please to your friends afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.” + +Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen, +and in a wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange +gentleman occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of +his finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion +as an impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front +door. Our conference was held in the state parlour, which was feebly +lighted by one candle. + +It began with the strange gentleman’s sitting down at the table, +drawing the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his +pocket-book. He then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little +aside, after peering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to +ascertain which was which. + +“My name,” he said, “is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am +pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I +commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice +had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you +see me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I +do. No less, no more.” + +Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got +up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus +having one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground. + +“Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of +this young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his +indentures at his request and for his good? You would want nothing for +so doing?” + +“Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip’s +way,” said Joe, staring. + +“Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,” returned Mr. +Jaggers. “The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want +anything?” + +“The answer is,” returned Joe, sternly, “No.” + +I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool +for his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between +breathless curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it. + +“Very well,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Recollect the admission you have made, +and don’t try to go from it presently.” + +“Who’s a-going to try?” retorted Joe. + +“I don’t say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?” + +“Yes, I do keep a dog.” + +“Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. +Bear that in mind, will you?” repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes +and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. +“Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got +to make is, that he has great expectations.” + +Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another. + +“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his +finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property. +Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that +property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of +life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, +as a young fellow of great expectations.” + +My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss +Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale. + +“Now, Mr. Pip,” pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of what I have +to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request of +the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear the +name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great +expectations being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have +any objection, this is the time to mention it.” + +My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, +that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection. + +“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that +the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a +profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered +to mention that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first +hand by word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be +carried out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, +you are distinctly to understand that you are most positively +prohibited from making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or +reference, however distant, to any individual whomsoever as _the_ +individual, in all the communications you may have with me. If you have +a suspicion in your own breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. +It is not the least to the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition +are; they may be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere +whim. This is not for you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. +Your acceptance of it, and your observance of it as binding, is the +only remaining condition that I am charged with, by the person from +whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise +responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your +expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me. +Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a +rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this is the time +to mention it. Speak out.” + +Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection. + +“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.” +Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he +still could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and +even now he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while +he spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my +disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. “We come next, to mere +details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used the +term ‘expectations’ more than once, you are not endowed with +expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money +amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will +please consider me your guardian. Oh!” for I was going to thank him, “I +tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn’t render +them. It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance +with your altered position, and that you will be alive to the +importance and necessity of at once entering on that advantage.” + +I said I had always longed for it. + +“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he retorted; +“keep to the record. If you long for it now, that’s enough. Am I +answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper +tutor? Is that it?” + +I stammered yes, that was it. + +“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don’t think that +wise, mind, but it’s my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom +you would prefer to another?” + +I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt; +so, I replied in the negative. + +“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think +might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don’t recommend him, +observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is +one Mr. Matthew Pocket.” + +Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham’s relation. The +Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose +place was to be at Miss Havisham’s head, when she lay dead, in her +bride’s dress on the bride’s table. + +“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then +shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer. + +My answer was, that I had heard of the name. + +“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question is, what +do you say of it?” + +I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his +recommendation— + +“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great head very +slowly. “Recollect yourself!” + +Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him +for his recommendation— + +“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning +and smiling both at once,—“no, no, no; it’s very well done, but it +won’t do; you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not +the word, Mr. Pip. Try another.” + +Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his +mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket— + +“_That_’s more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.—And (I added), I would +gladly try that gentleman. + +“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be +prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When +will you come to London?” + +I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I +supposed I could come directly. + +“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes to come +in, and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week. You’ll +want some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?” + +He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them +out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he +had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he +had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe. + +“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?” + +“I _am_!” said Joe, in a very decided manner. + +“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?” + +“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And it ever +will be similar according.” + +“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,—“what if it was in my +instructions to make you a present, as compensation?” + +“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded. + +“For the loss of his services.” + +Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have +often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or +pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. “Pip +is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to +honour and fortun’, as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money +can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child—what come +to the forge—and ever the best of friends!—” + +O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I +see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your eyes, +and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good +faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my +arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s +wing! + +But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future +fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I +begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best +of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes +with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but +said not another word. + +Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognised in Joe the +village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, +weighing in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:— + +“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half +measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in +charge to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the +contrary you mean to say—” Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped +by Joe’s suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell +pugilistic purpose. + +“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my place +bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if +you’re a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay +and stand or fall by!” + +I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to +me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any +one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a-going to be +bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when +Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing any +inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory +remarks. They were these. + +“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you are to be a +gentleman—the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall +receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a +hackney-coach at the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to +me. Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the +trust I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, +understand that, finally. Understand that!” + +He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone +on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off. + +Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he +was going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired +carriage. + +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.” + +“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what’s the matter?” + +“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions; +so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my +taking leave of any one I know, about here, before I go away?” + +“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me. + +“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?” + +“No,” said he. “No objection.” + +I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had +already locked the front door and vacated the state parlour, and was +seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at +the burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the +coals, and nothing was said for a long time. + +My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at +her needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next +Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the +glowing coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; the +longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak. + +At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?” + +“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his +knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to +make off somewhere, “which I left it to yourself, Pip.” + +“I would rather you told, Joe.” + +“Pip’s a gentleman of fortun’ then,” said Joe, “and God bless him in +it!” + +Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked +at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily +congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their +congratulations that I rather resented. + +I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with +the grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and +say nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in +good time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, +save that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. +Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work +again, and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining +his knees, said, “Ay, ay, I’ll be ekervally partickler, Pip;” and then +they congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at +the notion of my being a gentleman that I didn’t half like it. + +Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some +idea of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts +entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, +and even repeated after Biddy, the words “Pip” and “Property.” But I +doubt if they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I +cannot suggest a darker picture of her state of mind. + +I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and Biddy +became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy. +Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is +possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied +with myself. + +Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand, +looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and +about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I +caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they +often looked at me,—particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they +were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did +by word or sign. + +At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen +door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings +to air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am +afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the +rustic objects among which I had passed my life. + +“Saturday night,” said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and cheese +and beer. “Five more days, and then the day before _the_ day! They’ll +soon go.” + +“Yes, Pip,” observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-mug. +“They’ll soon go.” + +“Soon, soon go,” said Biddy. + +“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and +order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I’ll come and put +them on there, or that I’ll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook’s. It +would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here.” + +“Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure +too, Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese +on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper +as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. “So might +Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.” + +“That’s just what I don’t want, Joe. They would make such a business of +it,—such a coarse and common business,—that I couldn’t bear myself.” + +“Ah, that indeed, Pip!” said Joe. “If you couldn’t abear yourself—” + +Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister’s plate, “Have you +thought about when you’ll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister +and me? You will show yourself to us; won’t you?” + +“Biddy,” I returned with some resentment, “you are so exceedingly quick +that it’s difficult to keep up with you.” + +(“She always were quick,” observed Joe.) + +“If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say +that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,—most likely +on the evening before I go away.” + +Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an +affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I +got into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a +mean little room that I should soon be parted from and raised above, +for ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances too, and even +at the same moment I fell into much the same confused division of mind +between it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in +so often between the forge and Miss Havisham’s, and Biddy and Estella. + +The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and +the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I +saw Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or +two in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and +light it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me +that he wanted comforting, for some reason or other. + +He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his +pipe, and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew +that they talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing +tone by both of them more than once. I would not have listened for +more, if I could have heard more; so I drew away from the window, and +sat down in my one chair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and +strange that this first night of my bright fortunes should be the +loneliest I had ever known. + +Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe’s pipe +floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,—not +obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared +together. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy +bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more. + + + + +Chapter XIX. + + +Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life, +and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay +heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened +between me and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of a +misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and +that, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or +clean gone. + +Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our +approaching separation; but they only referred to it when I did. After +breakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best +parlour, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With +all the novelty of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, +and thought perhaps the clergyman wouldn’t have read that about the +rich man and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all. + +After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off +the marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I +felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion +for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after +Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the +low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them +one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a dinner +of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of +condescension, upon everybody in the village. + +If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my +companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among +those graves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place +recalled the wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and +badge! My comfort was, that it happened a long time ago, and that he +had doubtless been transported a long way off, and that he was dead to +me, and might be veritably dead into the bargain. + +No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these +grazing cattle,—though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a +more respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they might +stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great +expectations,—farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, +henceforth I was for London and greatness; not for smith’s work in +general, and for you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and, +lying down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham +intended me for Estella, fell asleep. + +When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me, +smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my +eyes, and said,— + +“As being the last time, Pip, I thought I’d foller.” + +“And Joe, I am very glad you did so.” + +“Thankee, Pip.” + +“You may be sure, dear Joe,” I went on, after we had shaken hands, +“that I shall never forget you.” + +“No, no, Pip!” said Joe, in a comfortable tone, “_I_’m sure of that. +Ay, ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to get it well +round in a man’s mind, to be certain on it. But it took a bit of time +to get it well round, the change come so oncommon plump; didn’t it?” + +Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe’s being so mightily secure of +me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said, +“It does you credit, Pip,” or something of that sort. Therefore, I made +no remark on Joe’s first head; merely saying as to his second, that the +tidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a +gentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I +were one. + +“Have you though?” said Joe. “Astonishing!” + +“It’s a pity now, Joe,” said I, “that you did not get on a little more, +when we had our lessons here; isn’t it?” + +“Well, I don’t know,” returned Joe. “I’m so awful dull. I’m only master +of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so awful dull; but it’s +no more of a pity now, than it was—this day twelvemonth—don’t you see?” + +What I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to +do something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he had +been better qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly +innocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I would mention it to +Biddy in preference. + +So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our +little garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a +general way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never +forget her, said I had a favour to ask of her. + +“And it is, Biddy,” said I, “that you will not omit any opportunity of +helping Joe on, a little.” + +“How helping him on?” asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance. + +“Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,—in fact, I think he is the dearest +fellow that ever lived,—but he is rather backward in some things. For +instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners.” + +Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her +eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me. + +“O, his manners! won’t his manners do then?” asked Biddy, plucking a +black-currant leaf. + +“My dear Biddy, they do very well here—” + +“O! they _do_ very well here?” interrupted Biddy, looking closely at +the leaf in her hand. + +“Hear me out,—but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I +shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would +hardly do him justice.” + +“And don’t you think he knows that?” asked Biddy. + +It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most +distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly,— + +“Biddy, what do you mean?” + +Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,—and the +smell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that +evening in the little garden by the side of the lane,—said, “Have you +never considered that he may be proud?” + +“Proud?” I repeated, with disdainful emphasis. + +“O! there are many kinds of pride,” said Biddy, looking full at me and +shaking her head; “pride is not all of one kind—” + +“Well? What are you stopping for?” said I. + +“Not all of one kind,” resumed Biddy. “He may be too proud to let any +one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills +well and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is; though it +sounds bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I +do.” + +“Now, Biddy,” said I, “I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not +expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You +are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can’t help +showing it.” + +“If you have the heart to think so,” returned Biddy, “say so. Say so +over and over again, if you have the heart to think so.” + +“If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy,” said I, in a +virtuous and superior tone; “don’t put it off upon me. I am very sorry +to see it, and it’s a—it’s a bad side of human nature. I did intend to +ask you to use any little opportunities you might have after I was +gone, of improving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am +extremely sorry to see this in you, Biddy,” I repeated. “It’s a—it’s a +bad side of human nature.” + +“Whether you scold me or approve of me,” returned poor Biddy, “you may +equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here, at +all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no +difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be +unjust neither,” said Biddy, turning away her head. + +I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in +which sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to +think I was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, +and Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and +took a dejected stroll until supper-time; again feeling it very +sorrowful and strange that this, the second night of my bright +fortunes, should be as lonely and unsatisfactory as the first. + +But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency +to Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I +had, I went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open, +and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his +breakfast in the parlour behind his shop, and who did not think it +worth his while to come out to me, but called me in to him. + +“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. “How are +you, and what can I do for you?” + +Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was +slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a +prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous +little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let +into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that +heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags. + +“Mr. Trabb,” said I, “it’s an unpleasant thing to have to mention, +because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome +property.” + +A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up +from the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, +“Lord bless my soul!” + +“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I, casually drawing some +guineas out of my pocket and looking at them; “and I want a fashionable +suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them,” I added—otherwise I +thought he might only pretend to make them, “with ready money.” + +“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened +his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each +elbow, “don’t hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate +you? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop?” + +Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side. +When I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his +labours by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into +the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible +corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with +any blacksmith, alive or dead. + +“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, “or +I’ll knock your head off!—Do me the favour to be seated, sir. Now, +this,” said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out +in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand +under it to show the gloss, “is a very sweet article. I can recommend +it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you +shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and with +a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant’s +brushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.) + +Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had +deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again. +Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. “And let +me have none of your tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent +it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.” + +Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential +confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an +article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it +would ever be an honour to him to reflect upon a distinguished +fellow-townsman’s (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having +worn. “Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr. +Trabb to the boy after that, “or shall I kick you out of the shop and +bring them myself?” + +I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb’s +judgment, and re-entered the parlour to be measured. For although Mr. +Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented +with it, he said apologetically that it “wouldn’t do under existing +circumstances, sir,—wouldn’t do at all.” So, Mr. Trabb measured and +calculated me in the parlour, as if I were an estate and he the finest +species of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that I +felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his +pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles +to Mr. Pumblechook’s on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand +upon the parlour lock, “I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be +expected to patronise local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a +turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem +it. Good-morning, sir, much obliged.—Door!” + +The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what +it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his +hands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money +was, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb’s boy. + +After this memorable event, I went to the hatter’s, and the +bootmaker’s, and the hosier’s, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard’s +dog whose outfit required the services of so many trades. I also went +to the coach-office and took my place for seven o’clock on Saturday +morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come +into a handsome property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, +it followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention +diverted through the window by the High Street, and concentrated his +mind upon me. When I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my +steps towards Pumblechook’s, and, as I approached that gentleman’s +place of business, I saw him standing at his door. + +He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with +the chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had +prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, and he too ordered +his shopman to “come out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed. + +“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when +he and I and the collation were alone, “I give you joy of your good +fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!” + +This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of +expressing himself. + +“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for +some moments, “that I should have been the humble instrument of leading +up to this, is a proud reward.” + +I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said +or hinted, on that point. + +“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook; “if you will allow me to +call you so—” + +I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands +again, and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an +emotional appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young +friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping +the fact before the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in +the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon +he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in +Joseph. + +“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must be hungry, +you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the +Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here’s one or two +little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. +But do I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he +had sat down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of +happy infancy? And may I—_may_ I—?” + +This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was +fervent, and then sat down again. + +“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, +and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment! And yet I +cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore me One—and +likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May I—_may_ I—?” + +I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his +glass and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned +myself upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more +direct to my head. + +Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of +tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and +took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry, +poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophising the +fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store +for you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this +humble roof for one as—Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr. +Pumblechook, getting up again, “but may I? _may_ I—?” + +It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so he +did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself +with my knife, I don’t know. + +“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had +the honour of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect +that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honour. May—” + +I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him. + +“We’ll drink her health,” said I. + +“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid +with admiration, “that’s the way you know ’em, sir!” (I don’t know who +Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person +present); “that’s the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever +forgiving and ever affable. It might,” said the servile Pumblechook, +putting down his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a +common person, have the appearance of repeating—but _may_ I—?” + +When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. “Let +us never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her faults of temper, but +it is to be hoped she meant well.” + +At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in +the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting. + +I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes +sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I +mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village, +and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he +intimated, worthy of my confidence, and—in short, might he? Then he +asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we +had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he +had ever been my favourite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken +ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he +never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of +hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling +convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a +sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow. + +By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask +my advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was +an opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and +seed trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred +before in that or any other neighbourhood. What alone was wanting to +the realisation of a vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital. +Those were the two little words, more capital. Now it appeared to him +(Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the business, through +a sleeping partner, sir,—which sleeping partner would have nothing to +do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine the +books,—and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his +pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,—it appeared to him that that +might be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with +property, which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? +He had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it +as my opinion. “Wait a bit!” The united vastness and distinctness of +this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake +hands with me, but said he really must,—and did. + +We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and +over again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don’t know what mark), and +to render me efficient and constant service (I don’t know what +service). He also made known to me for the first time in my life, and +certainly after having kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had +always said of me, “That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun’ +will be no common fortun’.” He said with a tearful smile that it was a +singular thing to think of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out +into the air, with a dim perception that there was something unwonted +in the conduct of the sunshine, and found that I had slumberously got +to the turnpike without having taken any account of the road. + +There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He was a long way +down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to +stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless. + +“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for speech. +“Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without +that affability on your part.—May I, as an old friend and well-wisher? +_May_ I?” + +We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young +carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me +and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the +road; and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge +before I pursued my way home. + +I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little +I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that +same afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want +next morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost. + +So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I +went to Mr. Pumblechook’s, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to +Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook’s own room was given up to me to dress +in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My +clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new and +eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a +trifle short of the wearer’s expectation. But after I had had my new +suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of +posturing with Mr. Pumblechook’s very limited dressing-glass, in the +futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being +market morning at a neighbouring town some ten miles off, Mr. +Pumblechook was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to +leave, and was not likely to shake hands with him again before +departing. This was all as it should be, and I went out in my new +array, fearfully ashamed of having to pass the shopman, and suspicious +after all that I was at a personal disadvantage, something like Joe’s +in his Sunday suit. + +I went circuitously to Miss Havisham’s by all the back ways, and rang +at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my +gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when +she saw me so changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise turned +from brown to green and yellow. + +“You?” said she. “You? Good gracious! What do you want?” + +“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say good-bye +to Miss Havisham.” + +I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went +to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned +and took me up, staring at me all the way. + +Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread +table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, +and at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then +just abreast of the rotted bride-cake. + +“Don’t go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?” + +“I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,” I was exceedingly +careful what I said, “and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking +leave of you.” + +“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick play +round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were +bestowing the finishing gift. + +“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss +Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham!” + +“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with +delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. _I_ have heard about it, Pip. So you +go to-morrow?” + +“Yes, Miss Havisham.” + +“And you are adopted by a rich person?” + +“Yes, Miss Havisham.” + +“Not named?” + +“No, Miss Havisham.” + +“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?” + +“Yes, Miss Havisham.” + +She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her +enjoyment of Sarah Pocket’s jealous dismay. “Well!” she went on; “you +have a promising career before you. Be good—deserve it—and abide by Mr. +Jaggers’s instructions.” She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and +Sarah’s countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. +“Good-bye, Pip!—you will always keep the name of Pip, you know.” + +“Yes, Miss Havisham.” + +“Good-bye, Pip!” + +She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to my +lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her; it came +naturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket +with triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with +both her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly +lighted room beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs. + +Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen +out. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree +confounded. I said “Good-bye, Miss Pocket;” but she merely stared, and +did not seem collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the +house, I made the best of my way back to Pumblechook’s, took off my new +clothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in my older dress, +carrying it—to speak the truth—much more at my ease too, though I had +the bundle to carry. + +And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had run +out fast and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more +steadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled +away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more +appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I +dressed myself out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my +splendour until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, +graced by the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish +with. We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in +spirits. + +I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little +hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all +alone. I am afraid—sore afraid—that this purpose originated in my sense +of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to the +coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing of +this taint in the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room on +this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and had +an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me in +the morning. I did not. + +All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places +instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now +pigs, now men,—never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied me +until the day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and +partly dressed, and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in +taking it fell asleep. + +Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not +sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when +I started up with a terrible idea that it must be late in the +afternoon. But long after that, and long after I had heard the clinking +of the teacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolution to go +downstairs. After all, I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and +unstrapping my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again, +until Biddy called to me that I was late. + +It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal, +saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me, +“Well! I suppose I must be off!” and then I kissed my sister who was +laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed Biddy, +and threw my arms around Joe’s neck. Then I took up my little +portmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I +presently heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing +an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped +then, to wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above +his head, crying huskily “Hooroar!” and Biddy put her apron to her +face. + +I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had +supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to +have had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High +Street. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very +peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to +show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all +beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave +and sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger-post at the end of the +village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, “Good-bye, O my dear, +dear friend!” + +Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain +upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was +better after I had cried than before,—more sorry, more aware of my own +ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe +with me then. + +So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the +course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was +clear of the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would +not get down when we changed horses and walk back, and have another +evening at home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made +up my mind, and still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite +practicable to get down and walk back, when we changed again. And while +I was occupied with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact +resemblance to Joe in some man coming along the road towards us, and my +heart would beat high.—As if he could possibly be there! + +We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to +go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and +the world lay spread before me. + +This is the end of the first stage of Pip’s expectations. + + + + +Chapter XX. + + +The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five +hours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by +which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about +the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London. + +We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was +treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: +otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I +might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, +crooked, narrow, and dirty. + +Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and +he had written after it on his card, “just out of Smithfield, and close +by the coach-office.” Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to +have as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed +me up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier +of steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on +his box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old +weather-stained pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a +work of time. It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets +outside, and ragged things behind for I don’t know how many footmen to +hold on by, and a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from +yielding to the temptation. + +I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a +straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why the +horses’ nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman +beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop +we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open +door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS. + +“How much?” I asked the coachman. + +The coachman answered, “A shilling—unless you wish to make it more.” + +I naturally said I had no wish to make it more. + +“Then it must be a shilling,” observed the coachman. “I don’t want to +get into trouble. _I_ know _him_!” He darkly closed an eye at Mr. +Jaggers’s name, and shook his head. + +When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the +ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his +mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my +hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home? + +“He is not,” returned the clerk. “He is in Court at present. Am I +addressing Mr. Pip?” + +I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip. + +“Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn’t say how +long he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time +being valuable, that he won’t be longer than he can help.” + +With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner +chamber at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a +velveteen suit and knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on +being interrupted in the perusal of the newspaper. + +“Go and wait outside, Mike,” said the clerk. + +I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk +shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used, +and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone. + +Mr. Jaggers’s room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most +dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, +and the distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted +themselves to peep down at me through it. There were not so many papers +about, as I should have expected to see; and there were some odd +objects about, that I should not have expected to see,—such as an old +rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and +packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly +swollen, and twitchy about the nose. Mr. Jaggers’s own high-backed +chair was of deadly black horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, +like a coffin; and I fancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and +bit his forefinger at the clients. The room was but small, and the +clients seemed to have had a habit of backing up against the wall; the +wall, especially opposite to Mr. Jaggers’s chair, being greasy with +shoulders. I recalled, too, that the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled +forth against the wall when I was the innocent cause of his being +turned out. + +I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers’s +chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I +called to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to +everybody else’s disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many +other clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have +the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what +was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came +there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers’s +family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such +ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the +blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. +Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits +may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and +grit that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in +Mr. Jaggers’s close room, until I really could not bear the two casts +on the shelf above Mr. Jaggers’s chair, and got up and went out. + +When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I +waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into +Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being +all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to +me. So, I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a +street where I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul’s bulging at me +from behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate +Prison. Following the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered +with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles; and from this, and +from the quantity of people standing about smelling strongly of spirits +and beer, I inferred that the trials were on. + +While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk +minister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a +trial or so: informing me that he could give me a front place for half +a crown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice +in his wig and robes,—mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and +presently offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I +declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as +to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also +where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors’ +Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the interest +of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that “four on ’em” +would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the +morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a +sickening idea of London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice’s +proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his +pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently not +belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had +bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought +myself well rid of him for a shilling. + +I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I +found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour +of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became +aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well as +I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew +Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the +pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when +they first passed me, that “Jaggers would do it if it was to be done.” +There was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and +one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted +her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, “Jaggers +is for him, ’Melia, and what more _could_ you have?” There was a +red-eyed little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering +there, in company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; +and while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a +highly excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a +lamp-post and accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the +words, “O Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, +give me Jaggerth!” These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian +made a deep impression on me, and I admired and wondered more than +ever. + +At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close +into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards +me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there +was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder and +walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed +himself to his followers. + +First, he took the two secret men. + +“Now, I have nothing to say to _you_,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his +finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know. As to the result, +it’s a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up. Have you +paid Wemmick?” + +“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the men, +submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers’s face. + +“I don’t ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made it +up at all. Has Wemmick got it?” + +“Yes, sir,” said both the men together. + +“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won’t have it!” said Mr Jaggers, +waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If you say a word to +me, I’ll throw up the case.” + +“We thought, Mr. Jaggers—” one of the men began, pulling off his hat. + +“That’s what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers. “_You_ thought! I +think for you; that’s enough for you. If I want you, I know where to +find you; I don’t want you to find me. Now I won’t have it. I won’t +hear a word.” + +The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind +again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more. + +“And now _you_!” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on +the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly +separated,—“Oh! Amelia, is it?” + +“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.” + +“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for me you +wouldn’t be here and couldn’t be here?” + +“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless you, sir, well +we knows that!” + +“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?” + +“My Bill, sir!” the crying woman pleaded. + +“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If you don’t +know that your Bill’s in good hands, I know it. And if you come here +bothering about your Bill, I’ll make an example of both your Bill and +you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?” + +“O yes, sir! Every farden.” + +“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another +word—one single word—and Wemmick shall give you your money back.” + +This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately. No +one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the +skirts of Mr. Jaggers’s coat to his lips several times. + +“I don’t know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating +strain: “What does this fellow want?” + +“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?” + +“Who’s he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my coat.” + +The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing +it, replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate.” + +“You’re too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the way.” + +“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquaintance, +turning white, “don’t thay you’re again Habraham Latharuth!” + +“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there’s an end of it. Get out of the +way.” + +“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen’th gone to Mithter +Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter +Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you’d have the condethenthun +to be bought off from the t’other thide—at hany thuperior prithe!—money +no object!—Mithter Jaggerth—Mithter—!” + +My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and +left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further +interruption, we reached the front office, where we found the clerk and +the man in velveteen with the fur cap. + +“Here’s Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and +approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially. + +“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of +hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling +at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?” + +“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer from a +constitutional cold; “arter a deal o’ trouble, I’ve found one, sir, as +might do.” + +“What is he prepared to swear?” + +“Well, Mas’r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap this +time; “in a general way, anythink.” + +Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you before,” +said he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, “that if you +ever presumed to talk in that way here, I’d make an example of you. You +infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?” + +The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious +what he had done. + +“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his +elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?” + +“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian, very sternly, +“once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is +prepared to swear?” + +Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson +from his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to character, or to having +been in his company and never left him all the night in question.” + +“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?” + +Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the +ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before +beginning to reply in a nervous manner, “We’ve dressed him up like—” +when my guardian blustered out,— + +“What? You WILL, will you?” + +(“Spooney!” added the clerk again, with another stir.) + +After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:— + +“He is dressed like a ’spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook.” + +“Is he here?” asked my guardian. + +“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round the +corner.” + +“Take him past that window, and let me see him.” + +The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to it, +behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an +accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short +suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was +not by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of +recovery, which was painted over. + +“Tell him to take his witness away directly,” said my guardian to the +clerk, in extreme disgust, “and ask him what he means by bringing such +a fellow as that.” + +My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, +standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed +to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements +he had made for me. I was to go to “Barnard’s Inn,” to young Mr. +Pocket’s rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I +was to remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go +with him to his father’s house on a visit, that I might try how I liked +it. Also, I was told what my allowance was to be,—it was a very liberal +one,—and had handed to me from one of my guardian’s drawers, the cards +of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, +and such other things as I could in reason want. “You will find your +credit good, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt +like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, “but I shall by +this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find +you outrunning the constable. Of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but +that’s no fault of mine.” + +After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked +Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth +while, I was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, +if I pleased. + +I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk +was rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I +accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. +We found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way +among them by saying coolly yet decisively, “I tell you it’s no use; he +won’t have a word to say to one of you;” and we soon got clear of them, +and went on side by side. + + + + +Chapter XXI. + + +Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was +like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in +stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have +been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some +marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been +softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. +The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment +over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them +off. I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his +linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for +he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a +lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, +that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were +quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering +eyes,—small, keen, and black,—and thin wide mottled lips. He had had +them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years. + +“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick to me. + +“No,” said I. + +“_I_ was new here once,” said Mr. Wemmick. “Rum to think of now!” + +“You are well acquainted with it now?” + +“Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick. “I know the moves of it.” + +“Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of saying +something than for information. + +“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are +plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.” + +“If there is bad blood between you and them,” said I, to soften it off +a little. + +“O! I don’t know about bad blood,” returned Mr. Wemmick; “there’s not +much bad blood about. They’ll do it, if there’s anything to be got by +it.” + +“That makes it worse.” + +“You think so?” returned Mr. Wemmick. “Much about the same, I should +say.” + +He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before +him: walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the +streets to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a +mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the +top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical +appearance, and that he was not smiling at all. + +“Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr. Wemmick. + +“Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith, west of +London.” + +“Is that far?” + +“Well! Say five miles.” + +“Do you know him?” + +“Why, you’re a regular cross-examiner!” said Mr. Wemmick, looking at me +with an approving air. “Yes, I know him. _I_ know him!” + +There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of +these words that rather depressed me; and I was still looking sideways +at his block of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text, +when he said here we were at Barnard’s Inn. My depression was not +alleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment +to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town +was a mere public-house. Whereas I now found Barnard to be a +disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection +of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club +for Tom-cats. + +We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an +introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me +like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in +it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the +most dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever +seen. I thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those +houses were divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and +curtain, crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable +makeshift; while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, +as if no new wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of +Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the +present occupants and their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy +mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, +and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and +humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry +rot and wet rot and all the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and +cellar,—rot of rat and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand +besides—addressed themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, +“Try Barnard’s Mixture.” + +So imperfect was this realisation of the first of my great +expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he, +mistaking me; “the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does +me.” + +He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,—which +appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of +those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find +themselves without the means of coming down,—to a set of chambers on +the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was +a label on the letter-box, “Return shortly.” + +“He hardly thought you’d come so soon,” Mr. Wemmick explained. “You +don’t want me any more?” + +“No, thank you,” said I. + +“As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most likely meet +pretty often. Good day.” + +“Good day.” + +I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he +thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting +himself,— + +“To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?” + +I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, +but said yes. + +“I have got so out of it!” said Mr. Wemmick,—“except at last. Very +glad, I’m sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!” + +When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window +and had nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it +came down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not +put my head out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view +of the Inn through the window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully +looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated. + +Mr. Pocket, Junior’s, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly +maddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written my +name with my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the +window, before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose +before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a +member of society of about my own standing. He had a paper-bag under +each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of +breath. + +“Mr. Pip?” said he. + +“Mr. Pocket?” said I. + +“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry; but I knew there was a +coach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you would +come by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,—not +that that is any excuse,—for I thought, coming from the country, you +might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden +Market to get it good.” + +For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my +head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think +this was a dream. + +“Dear me!” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “This door sticks so!” + +As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while +the paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold +them. He relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with +the door as if it were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, +that he staggered back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite +door, and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start +out of my head, and as if this must be a dream. + +“Pray come in,” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “Allow me to lead the way. I +am rather bare here, but I hope you’ll be able to make out tolerably +well till Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably +through to-morrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk +about London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As +to our table, you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied +from our coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add) at your +expense, such being Mr. Jaggers’s directions. As to our lodging, it’s +not by any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my +father hasn’t anything to give me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take +it, if he had. This is our sitting-room,—just such chairs and tables +and carpet and so forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You +mustn’t give me credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, +because they come for you from the coffee-house. This is my little +bedroom; rather musty, but Barnard’s _is_ musty. This is your bedroom; +the furniture’s hired for the occasion, but I trust it will answer the +purpose; if you should want anything, I’ll go and fetch it. The +chambers are retired, and we shall be alone together, but we shan’t +fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg your pardon, you’re holding the +fruit all this time. Pray let me take these bags from you. I am quite +ashamed.” + +As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, +One, Two, I saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I +knew to be in mine, and he said, falling back,— + +“Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!” + +“And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!” + + + + +Chapter XXII. + + +The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in +Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The idea of its being +you!” said he. “The idea of its being _you_!” said I. And then we +contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. “Well!” said the +pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humouredly, “it’s all +over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you’ll forgive +me for having knocked you about so.” + +I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the +pale young gentleman’s name) still rather confounded his intention with +his execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly. + +“You hadn’t come into your good fortune at that time?” said Herbert +Pocket. + +“No,” said I. + +“No,” he acquiesced: “I heard it had happened very lately. _I_ was +rather on the lookout for good fortune then.” + +“Indeed?” + +“Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy +to me. But she couldn’t,—at all events, she didn’t.” + +I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that. + +“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had sent for +me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I +suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been +what-you-may-called it to Estella.” + +“What’s that?” I asked, with sudden gravity. + +He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his +attention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word. +“Affianced,” he explained, still busy with the fruit. “Betrothed. +Engaged. What’s-his-named. Any word of that sort.” + +“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked. + +“Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it. _She’s_ a Tartar.” + +“Miss Havisham?” + +“I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard and +haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by +Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.” + +“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?” + +“None,” said he. “Only adopted.” + +“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?” + +“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?” + +“No,” said I. + +“Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And +now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come +there, that day?” + +I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst +out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn’t ask +him if _he_ was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly +established. + +“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on. + +“Yes.” + +“You know he is Miss Havisham’s man of business and solicitor, and has +her confidence when nobody else has?” + +This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with +a constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers +in Miss Havisham’s house on the very day of our combat, but never at +any other time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having +ever seen me there. + +“He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he +called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father +from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham’s +cousin; not that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he +is a bad courtier and will not propitiate her.” + +Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking. +I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since, who +more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural +incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something +wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the +same time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich. I +don’t know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first +occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what +means. + +He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered +languor about him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did +not seem indicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, +but it was better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful. +His figure was a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had +taken such liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be +light and young. Whether Mr. Trabb’s local work would have sat more +gracefully on him than on me, may be a question; but I am conscious +that he carried off his rather old clothes much better than I carried +off my new suit. + +As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a +bad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story, +and laid stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. +I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a +country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would +take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever +he saw me at a loss or going wrong. + +“With pleasure,” said he, “though I venture to prophesy that you’ll +want very few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I +should like to banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me +the favour to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?” + +I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my +Christian name was Philip. + +“I don’t take to Philip,” said he, smiling, “for it sounds like a moral +boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, +or so fat that he couldn’t see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that +he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a +bird’s-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in +the neighbourhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, +and you have been a blacksmith,—would you mind it?” + +“I shouldn’t mind anything that you propose,” I answered, “but I don’t +understand you.” + +“Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There’s a charming piece of +music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.” + +“I should like it very much.” + +“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened, +“here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the +table, because the dinner is of your providing.” + +This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a +nice little dinner,—seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor’s Feast,—and it +acquired additional relish from being eaten under those independent +circumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around us. +This again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the +banquet off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have +said, the lap of luxury,—being entirely furnished forth from the +coffee-house,—the circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a +comparatively pastureless and shifty character; imposing on the waiter +the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he fell +over them), the melted butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the +bookshelves, the cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled fowl into +my bed in the next room,—where I found much of its parsley and butter +in a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this made +the feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my +pleasure was without alloy. + +We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his +promise to tell me about Miss Havisham. + +“True,” he replied. “I’ll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the +topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put +the knife in the mouth,—for fear of accidents,—and that while the fork +is reserved for that use, it is not put further in than necessary. It +is scarcely worth mentioning, only it’s as well to do as other people +do. Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under. This +has two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is +the object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening +oysters, on the part of the right elbow.” + +He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we +both laughed and I scarcely blushed. + +“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must +know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her +father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in +your part of the world, and was a brewer. I don’t know why it should be +a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you +cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was +and brew. You see it every day.” + +“Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?” said I. + +“Not on any account,” returned Herbert; “but a public-house may keep a +gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his +daughter.” + +“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded. + +“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; she +had a half-brother. Her father privately married again—his cook, I +rather think.” + +“I thought he was proud,” said I. + +“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, +because he was proud, and in course of time _she_ died. When she was +dead, I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then +the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are +acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, +extravagant, undutiful,—altogether bad. At last his father disinherited +him; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though +not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.—Take another glass of wine, +and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to +be so strictly conscientious in emptying one’s glass, as to turn it +bottom upwards with the rim on one’s nose.” + +I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I +thanked him, and apologised. He said, “Not at all,” and resumed. + +“Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after +as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what +with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. +There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been +between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a +deep and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father’s +anger. Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,—merely breaking off, +my dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a +tumbler.” + +Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to +say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a +much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it +within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologised, and again he +said in the cheerfullest manner, “Not at all, I am sure!” and resumed. + +“There appeared upon the scene—say at the races, or the public balls, +or anywhere else you like—a certain man, who made love to Miss +Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, +before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that +he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he +was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a +gentleman, my father most strongly asseverates; because it is a +principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever +was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no +varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you +put on, the more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued +Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. I believe +she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time; but all the +susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then, and she +passionately loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized +him. He practised on her affection in that systematic way, that he got +great sums of money from her, and he induced her to buy her brother out +of a share in the brewery (which had been weakly left him by his +father) at an immense price, on the plea that when he was her husband +he must hold and manage it all. Your guardian was not at that time in +Miss Havisham’s counsels, and she was too haughty and too much in love +to be advised by any one. Her relations were poor and scheming, with +the exception of my father; he was poor enough, but not time-serving or +jealous. The only independent one among them, he warned her that she +was doing too much for this man, and was placing herself too +unreservedly in his power. She took the first opportunity of angrily +ordering my father out of the house, in his presence, and my father has +never seen her since.” + +I thought of her having said, “Matthew will come and see me at last +when I am laid dead upon that table;” and I asked Herbert whether his +father was so inveterate against her? + +“It’s not that,” said he, “but she charged him, in the presence of her +intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon +her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would +look true—even to him—and even to her. To return to the man and make an +end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were +bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were +invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter—” + +“Which she received,” I struck in, “when she was dressing for her +marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?” + +“At the hour and minute,” said Herbert, nodding, “at which she +afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that it +most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can’t tell you, because I +don’t know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she +laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never +since looked upon the light of day.” + +“Is that all the story?” I asked, after considering it. + +“All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it +out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss +Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was +absolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one +thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced +confidence acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it +was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits.” + +“I wonder he didn’t marry her and get all the property,” said I. + +“He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have +been a part of her half-brother’s scheme,” said Herbert. “Mind! I don’t +know that.” + +“What became of the two men?” I asked, after again considering the +subject. + +“They fell into deeper shame and degradation—if there can be deeper—and +ruin.” + +“Are they alive now?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but +adopted. When adopted?” + +Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “There has always been an Estella, +since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, +Handel,” said he, finally throwing off the story as it were, “there is +a perfectly open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss +Havisham, you know.” + +“And all that I know,” I retorted, “you know.” + +“I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity +between you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your +advancement in life,—namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to +whom you owe it,—you may be very sure that it will never be encroached +upon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me.” + +In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject +done with, even though I should be under his father’s roof for years +and years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I +felt he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as +I understood the fact myself. + +It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for +the purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we were so much the +lighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this to +be the case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the +course of conversation, what he was? He replied, “A capitalist,—an +Insurer of Ships.” I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in +search of some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, “In the +City.” + +I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in +the City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer +on his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible +head open. But again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd +impression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich. + +“I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in +insuring ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut +into the Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of +these things will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on +my own account. I think I shall trade,” said he, leaning back in his +chair, “to the East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and +precious woods. It’s an interesting trade.” + +“And the profits are large?” said I. + +“Tremendous!” said he. + +I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than +my own. + +[Illustration] + +“I think I shall trade, also,” said he, putting his thumbs in his +waist-coat pockets, “to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum. +Also to Ceylon, especially for elephants’ tusks.” + +“You will want a good many ships,” said I. + +“A perfect fleet,” said he. + +Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked +him where the ships he insured mostly traded to at present? + +“I haven’t begun insuring yet,” he replied. “I am looking about me.” + +Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard’s Inn. I said +(in a tone of conviction), “Ah-h!” + +“Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.” + +“Is a counting-house profitable?” I asked. + +“To—do you mean to the young fellow who’s in it?” he asked, in reply. + +“Yes; to you.” + +“Why, n-no; not to me.” He said this with the air of one carefully +reckoning up and striking a balance. “Not directly profitable. That is, +it doesn’t pay me anything, and I have to—keep myself.” + +This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as +if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative +capital from such a source of income. + +“But the thing is,” said Herbert Pocket, “that you look about you. +_That’s_ the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and +you look about you.” + +It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn’t be out of a +counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred +to his experience. + +“Then the time comes,” said Herbert, “when you see your opening. And +you go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then +there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing +to do but employ it.” + +This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden; +very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded +to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all +blows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine then. +It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest +necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have +been sent in on my account from the coffee-house or somewhere else. + +Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so +unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being +puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways, +and we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the +streets, and went half-price to the Theatre; and next day we went to +church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the +Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe +did. + +On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had +left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them +partook of that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That +I could have been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on +the very last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of +impossibilities, geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the +London streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the +dusk of evening, there were depressing hints of reproaches for that I +had put the poor old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of +night, the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning +about Barnard’s Inn, under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my +heart. + +On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to the +counting-house to report himself,—to look about him, too, I +suppose,—and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or two +to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It +appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched +were incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging +from the places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday +morning. Nor did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my +eyes as at all a good Observatory; being a back second floor up a yard, +of a grimy presence in all particulars, and with a look into another +back second floor, rather than a look out. + +I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon ’Change, and I saw +fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to +be great merchants, though I couldn’t understand why they should all be +out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a +celebrated house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have +been the most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help +noticing, even then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths +and knives and waiters’ clothes, than in the steaks. This collation +disposed of at a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not +charged for), we went back to Barnard’s Inn and got my little +portmanteau, and then took coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at +two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and had very little way to walk +to Mr. Pocket’s house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct +into a little garden overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket’s children +were playing about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my +interests or prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. +and Mrs. Pocket’s children were not growing up or being brought up, but +were tumbling up. + +Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with +her legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket’s two nurse-maids +were looking about them while the children played. “Mamma,” said +Herbert, “this is young Mr. Pip.” Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me +with an appearance of amiable dignity. + +“Master Alick and Miss Jane,” cried one of the nurses to two of the +children, “if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you’ll fall over +into the river and be drownded, and what’ll your pa say then?” + +At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket’s handkerchief, and +said, “If that don’t make six times you’ve dropped it, Mum!” Upon which +Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, “Thank you, Flopson,” and settling +herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance +immediately assumed a knitted and intent expression as if she had been +reading for a week, but before she could have read half a dozen lines, +she fixed her eyes upon me, and said, “I hope your mamma is quite +well?” This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I +began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such +person I had no doubt she would have been quite well and would have +been very much obliged and would have sent her compliments, when the +nurse came to my rescue. + +“Well!” she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, “if that don’t +make seven times! What ARE you a-doing of this afternoon, Mum!” Mrs. +Pocket received her property, at first with a look of unutterable +surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a laugh of +recognition, and said, “Thank you, Flopson,” and forgot me, and went on +reading. + +I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than +six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had +scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the +region of air, wailing dolefully. + +“If there ain’t Baby!” said Flopson, appearing to think it most +surprising. “Make haste up, Millers.” + +Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by +degrees the child’s wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a +young ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all +the time, and I was curious to know what the book could be. + +We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at any +rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the +remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed +near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and +tumbled over her,—always very much to her momentary astonishment, and +their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for +this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to +speculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with the baby, +which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. +Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby +and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself. + +“Gracious me, Flopson!” said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a +moment, “everybody’s tumbling!” + +“Gracious you, indeed, Mum!” returned Flopson, very red in the face; +“what have you got there?” + +“_I_ got here, Flopson?” asked Mrs. Pocket. + +“Why, if it ain’t your footstool!” cried Flopson. “And if you keep it +under your skirts like that, who’s to help tumbling? Here! Take the +baby, Mum, and give me your book.” + +Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a +little in her lap, while the other children played about it. This had +lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders +that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made +the second discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the +little Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down. + +Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the +children into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket +came out of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to +find that Mr. Pocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression +of face, and with his very grey hair disordered on his head, as if he +didn’t quite see his way to putting anything straight. + + + + +Chapter XXIII. + + +Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to +see him. “For, I really am not,” he added, with his son’s smile, “an +alarming personage.” He was a young-looking man, in spite of his +perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed quite +natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; +there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would +have been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was +very near being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to +Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which +were black and handsome, “Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?” +And she looked up from her book, and said, “Yes.” She then smiled upon +me in an absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of +orange-flower water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on +any foregone or subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been +thrown out, like her previous approaches, in general conversational +condescension. + +I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs. +Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased +Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased +father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody’s determined +opposition arising out of entirely personal motives,—I forget whose, if +I ever knew,—the Sovereign’s, the Prime Minister’s, the Lord +Chancellor’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s, anybody’s,—and had tacked +himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite +supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for +storming the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate +address engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first +stone of some building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage +either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed +Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature +of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the +acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge. + +So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady +by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but +perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, +in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was +also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to +mount to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing +the one or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket +had taken Time by the forelock (when, to judge from its length, it +would seem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the +knowledge of the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing +to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that +dower upon them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket +that his wife was “a treasure for a Prince.” Mr. Pocket had invested +the Prince’s treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was +supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. +Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, +because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of +a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one. + +Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a +pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for +my own private sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two other +similar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle +and Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of +architecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appearance, +was reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of +exploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge. + +Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody +else’s hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house +and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the +servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of +saving trouble; but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the +servants felt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their +eating and drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They +allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always +appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to have boarded +in would have been the kitchen,—always supposing the boarder capable of +self-defence, for, before I had been there a week, a neighbouring lady +with whom the family were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that +she had seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. +Pocket, who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said that it +was an extraordinary thing that the neighbours couldn’t mind their own +business. + +By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been +educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished +himself; but that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket +very early in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the +calling of a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,—of whom +it was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always +going to help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the +blades had left the Grindstone,—he had wearied of that poor work and +had come to London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he +had “read” with divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them, +and had refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned +his acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction, +and on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still +maintained the house I saw. + +Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour; a widow lady of that highly +sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, +and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. +This lady’s name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honour of taking her +down to dinner on the day of my installation. She gave me to understand +on the stairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. +Pocket should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read +with him. That did not extend to me, she told me in a gush of love and +confidence (at that time, I had known her something less than five +minutes); if they were all like Me, it would be quite another thing. + +“But dear Mrs. Pocket,” said Mrs. Coiler, “after her early +disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), +requires so much luxury and elegance—” + +“Yes, ma’am,” I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going to +cry. + +“And she is of so aristocratic a disposition—” + +“Yes, ma’am,” I said again, with the same object as before. + +“—That it _is_ hard,” said Mrs. Coiler, “to have dear Mr. Pocket’s time +and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket.” + +I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher’s time +and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing, +and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company +manners. + +It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and +Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and +other instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian +name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy. It +further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the +garden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which +her grandpapa would have come into the book, if he ever had come at +all. Drummle didn’t say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a +sulky kind of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognised Mrs. +Pocket as a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler +the toady neighbour showed any interest in this part of the +conversation, and it appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but +it promised to last a long time, when the page came in with the +announcement of a domestic affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook +had mislaid the beef. To my unutterable amazement, I now, for the first +time, saw Mr. Pocket relieve his mind by going through a performance +that struck me as very extraordinary, but which made no impression on +anybody else, and with which I soon became as familiar as the rest. He +laid down the carving-knife and fork,—being engaged in carving, at the +moment,—put his two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make +an extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had done +this, and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on with +what he was about. + +Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked +it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the +pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at me +when she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and +localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and +when she made an occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little +to her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for +being on the opposite side of the table. + +After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made +admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,—a sagacious way of +improving their minds. There were four little girls, and two little +boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby’s next +successor who was as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and +Millers, much as though those two non-commissioned officers had been +recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. +Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been as if she +rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but +didn’t quite know what to make of them. + +“Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby,” said Flopson. “Don’t +take it that way, or you’ll get its head under the table.” + +Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head upon +the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious +concussion. + +“Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum,” said Flopson; “and Miss Jane, come +and dance to baby, do!” + +One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely +taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place +by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and +laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the +meantime had twice endeavoured to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, +and we all laughed and were glad. + +Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, +then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket’s lap, and gave it the nut-crackers +to play with; at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice +that the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its +eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the +two nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the staircase +with a dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly +lost half his buttons at the gaming-table. + +I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket’s falling into a +discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a +sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the +baby on her lap, who did most appalling things with the nut-crackers. +At length little Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, +softly left her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the +dangerous weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the +same time, and not approving of this, said to Jane,— + +“You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!” + +“Mamma dear,” lisped the little girl, “baby ood have put hith eyeth +out.” + +“How dare you tell me so?” retorted Mrs. Pocket. “Go and sit down in +your chair this moment!” + +Mrs. Pocket’s dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if +I myself had done something to rouse it. + +“Belinda,” remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table, +“how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the +protection of baby.” + +“I will not allow anybody to interfere,” said Mrs. Pocket. “I am +surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of +interference.” + +“Good God!” cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation. +“Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is nobody to +save them?” + +“I will not be interfered with by Jane,” said Mrs. Pocket, with a +majestic glance at that innocent little offender. “I hope I know my +poor grandpapa’s position. Jane, indeed!” + +Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did +lift himself some inches out of his chair. “Hear this!” he helplessly +exclaimed to the elements. “Babies are to be nut-crackered dead, for +people’s poor grandpapa’s positions!” Then he let himself down again, +and became silent. + +We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A +pause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a +series of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the +only member of the family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had +any decided acquaintance. + +“Mr. Drummle,” said Mrs. Pocket, “will you ring for Flopson? Jane, you +undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with +ma!” + +The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with all its might. It +doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket’s arm, exhibited a +pair of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its +soft face, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it +gained its point after all, for I saw it through the window within a +few minutes, being nursed by little Jane. + +It happened that the other five children were left behind at the +dinner-table, through Flopson’s having some private engagement, and +their not being anybody else’s business. I thus became aware of the +mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in +the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his +face heightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, +as if he couldn’t make out how they came to be boarding and lodging in +that establishment, and why they hadn’t been billeted by Nature on +somebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way he asked them certain +questions,—as why little Joe had that hole in his frill, who said, Pa, +Flopson was going to mend it when she had time,—and how little Fanny +came by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it +when she didn’t forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and +gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play; and then as +they went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up by the +hair he dismissed the hopeless subject. + +In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop +had each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I +was pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but +as I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,—not to +say for other waters,—I at once engaged to place myself under the +tuition of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to +whom I was introduced by my new allies. This practical authority +confused me very much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he +could have known how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt +if he would have paid it. + +There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we +should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable +domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid +came in, and said, “If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to you.” + +“Speak to your master?” said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused +again. “How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or +speak to me—at some other time.” + +“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” returned the housemaid, “I should wish to +speak at once, and to speak to master.” + +Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of +ourselves until he came back. + +“This is a pretty thing, Belinda!” said Mr. Pocket, returning with a +countenance expressive of grief and despair. “Here’s the cook lying +insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh +butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!” + +Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, “This is +that odious Sophia’s doing!” + +“What do you mean, Belinda?” demanded Mr. Pocket. + +“Sophia has told you,” said Mrs. Pocket. “Did I not see her with my own +eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask +to speak to you?” + +“But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,” returned Mr. Pocket, +“and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?” + +“And do you defend her, Matthew,” said Mrs. Pocket, “for making +mischief?” + +Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan. + +“Am I, grandpapa’s granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?” said +Mrs. Pocket. “Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful +woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after +the situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.” + +There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the +attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a +hollow voice, “Good night, Mr. Pip,” when I deemed it advisable to go +to bed and leave him. + + + + +Chapter XXIV. + + +After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and +had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had +ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk +together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he +referred to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed +for any profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my +destiny if I could “hold my own” with the average of young men in +prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to +the contrary. + +He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition +of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the +functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that +with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, +and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his +way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself +on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state +at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his +compact with me, that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling +mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no +doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no +such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever +regard him as having anything ludicrous about him—or anything but what +was serious, honest, and good—in his tutor communication with me. + +When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had +begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my +bedroom in Barnard’s Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my +manners would be none the worse for Herbert’s society. Mr. Pocket did +not object to this arrangement, but urged that before any step could +possibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt +that this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan would +save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little Britain and imparted +my wish to Mr. Jaggers. + +“If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,” said I, “and one or +two other little things, I should be quite at home there.” + +“Go it!” said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. “I told you you’d get +on. Well! How much do you want?” + +I said I didn’t know how much. + +“Come!” retorted Mr. Jaggers. “How much? Fifty pounds?” + +“O, not nearly so much.” + +“Five pounds?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, “O, more than +that.” + +“More than that, eh!” retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with +his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the +wall behind me; “how much more?” + +“It is so difficult to fix a sum,” said I, hesitating. + +“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let’s get at it. Twice five; will that do? +Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?” + +I said I thought that would do handsomely. + +“Four times five will do handsomely, will it?” said Mr. Jaggers, +knitting his brows. “Now, what do you make of four times five?” + +“What do I make of it?” + +“Ah!” said Mr. Jaggers; “how much?” + +“I suppose you make it twenty pounds,” said I, smiling. + +“Never mind what _I_ make it, my friend,” observed Mr. Jaggers, with a +knowing and contradictory toss of his head. “I want to know what _you_ +make it.” + +“Twenty pounds, of course.” + +“Wemmick!” said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. “Take Mr. Pip’s +written order, and pay him twenty pounds.” + +This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked +impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never +laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising +himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows +joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to +creak, as if _they_ laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened +to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to +Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers’s manner. + +“Tell him that, and he’ll take it as a compliment,” answered Wemmick; +“he don’t mean that you _should_ know what to make of it.—Oh!” for I +looked surprised, “it’s not personal; it’s professional: only +professional.” + +Wemmick was at his desk, lunching—and crunching—on a dry hard biscuit; +pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth, as +if he were posting them. + +“Always seems to me,” said Wemmick, “as if he had set a man-trap and +was watching it. Suddenly—click—you’re caught!” + +Without remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, +I said I supposed he was very skilful? + +“Deep,” said Wemmick, “as Australia.” Pointing with his pen at the +office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the +purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the +globe. “If there was anything deeper,” added Wemmick, bringing his pen +to paper, “he’d be it.” + +Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said, +“Ca-pi-tal!” Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he +replied,— + +“We don’t run much into clerks, because there’s only one Jaggers, and +people won’t have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would +you like to see ’em? You are one of us, as I may say.” + +I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the +post, and had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key of +which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his +coat-collar like an iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark +and shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark in Mr. +Jaggers’s room seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase +for years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something +between a publican and a rat-catcher—a large pale, puffed, swollen +man—was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby +appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to +be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers’s coffers. “Getting evidence +together,” said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, “for the Bailey.” In the +room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair +(his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was +similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented +to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt +me anything I pleased,—and who was in an excessive white-perspiration, +as if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back room, a +high-shouldered man with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was +dressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been +waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of +the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers’s own use. + +This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick +led me into my guardian’s room, and said, “This you’ve seen already.” + +“Pray,” said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them +caught my sight again, “whose likenesses are those?” + +“These?” said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off +the horrible heads before bringing them down. “These are two celebrated +ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap +(why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the +inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered +his master, and, considering that he wasn’t brought up to evidence, +didn’t plan it badly.” + +“Is it like him?” I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat +upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. + +“Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, +directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, +hadn’t you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick. He then explained this +affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady +and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, +“Had it made for me, express!” + +“Is the lady anybody?” said I. + +“No,” returned Wemmick. “Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, +didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except +one,—and she wasn’t of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn’t +have caught _her_ looking after this urn, unless there was something to +drink in it.” Wemmick’s attention being thus directed to his brooch, he +put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his +pocket-handkerchief. + +“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked. “He has the +same look.” + +“You’re right,” said Wemmick; “it’s the genuine look. Much as if one +nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he +came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He +forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed +testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though” (Mr. +Wemmick was again apostrophising), “and you said you could write Greek. +Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!” +Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the +largest of his mourning rings and said, “Sent out to buy it for me, +only the day before.” + +While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, +the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived +from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I +ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood +before me, dusting his hands. + +“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One brings +another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take ’em. They’re +curiosities. And they’re property. They may not be worth much, but, +after all, they’re property and portable. It don’t signify to you with +your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, +‘Get hold of portable property’.” + +When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a +friendly manner:— + +“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn’t +mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I +should consider it an honour. I have not much to show you; but such two +or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I +am fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house.” + +I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. + +“Thankee,” said he; “then we’ll consider that it’s to come off, when +convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?” + +“Not yet.” + +“Well,” said Wemmick, “he’ll give you wine, and good wine. I’ll give +you punch, and not bad punch. And now I’ll tell you something. When you +go to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.” + +“Shall I see something very uncommon?” + +“Well,” said Wemmick, “you’ll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very +uncommon, you’ll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original +wildness of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won’t lower your +opinion of Mr. Jaggers’s powers. Keep your eye on it.” + +I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his +preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I +would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers “at it?” + +For several reasons, and not least because I didn’t clearly know what +Mr. Jaggers would be found to be “at,” I replied in the affirmative. We +dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a +blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the +fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably +chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or +cross-examination,—I don’t know which,—and was striking her, and the +bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever +degree, said a word that he didn’t approve of, he instantly required to +have it “taken down.” If anybody wouldn’t make an admission, he said, +“I’ll have it out of you!” and if anybody made an admission, he said, +“Now I have got you!” The magistrates shivered under a single bite of +his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his +words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their +direction. Which side he was on I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to +me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I +stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was +making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive +under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the +representative of British law and justice in that chair that day. + + + + +Chapter XXV. + + +Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book +as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an +acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and +comprehension,—in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the +large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he +himself lolled about in a room,—he was idle, proud, niggardly, +reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, +who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the +discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley +Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that +gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. + +Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought +to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and +admired her beyond measure. He had a woman’s delicacy of feature, and +was—“as you may see, though you never saw her,” said Herbert to +me—“exactly like his mother.” It was but natural that I should take to +him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest +evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one +another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in +our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He +would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious +creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and +I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the +back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the +moonlight in mid-stream. + +Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a +half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down +to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often +took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all +hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so +pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of +untried youth and hope. + +When I had been in Mr. Pocket’s family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. +Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket’s sister. Georgiana, whom I +had seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also turned up. She +was a cousin,—an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity +religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of +cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me +in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a +grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the +complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held +in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily +disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon +themselves. + +These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied +myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began +to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should +have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my +books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to +feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; +and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I +wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as +great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less. + +I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write +him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He +replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect +me at the office at six o’clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, +putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. + +“Did you think of walking down to Walworth?” said he. + +“Certainly,” said I, “if you approve.” + +“Very much,” was Wemmick’s reply, “for I have had my legs under the +desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I’ll tell you +what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,—which +is of home preparation,—and a cold roast fowl,—which is from the +cook’s-shop. I think it’s tender, because the master of the shop was a +Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. +I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, “Pick us out a +good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box +another day or two, we could easily have done it.” He said to that, +“Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop.” I let him, of +course. As far as it goes, it’s property and portable. You don’t object +to an aged parent, I hope?” + +I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, +“Because I have got an aged parent at my place.” I then said what +politeness required. + +“So, you haven’t dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?” he pursued, as we walked +along. + +“Not yet.” + +“He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect +you’ll have an invitation to-morrow. He’s going to ask your pals, too. +Three of ’em; ain’t there?” + +Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my +intimate associates, I answered, “Yes.” + +“Well, he’s going to ask the whole gang,”—I hardly felt complimented by +the word,—“and whatever he gives you, he’ll give you good. Don’t look +forward to variety, but you’ll have excellence. And there’s another rum +thing in his house,” proceeded Wemmick, after a moment’s pause, as if +the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; “he never lets a +door or window be fastened at night.” + +“Is he never robbed?” + +“That’s it!” returned Wemmick. “He says, and gives it out publicly, “I +want to see the man who’ll rob _me_.” Lord bless you, I have heard him, +a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in +our front office, “You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn +there; why don’t you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can’t I +tempt you?” Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, +for love or money.” + +“They dread him so much?” said I. + +“Dread him,” said Wemmick. “I believe you they dread him. Not but what +he’s artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia +metal, every spoon.” + +“So they wouldn’t have much,” I observed, “even if they—” + +“Ah! But _he_ would have much,” said Wemmick, cutting me short, “and +they know it. He’d have their lives, and the lives of scores of ’em. +He’d have all he could get. And it’s impossible to say what he couldn’t +get, if he gave his mind to it.” + +I was falling into meditation on my guardian’s greatness, when Wemmick +remarked:— + +“As to the absence of plate, that’s only his natural depth, you know. A +river’s its natural depth, and he’s his natural depth. Look at his +watch-chain. That’s real enough.” + +“It’s very massive,” said I. + +“Massive?” repeated Wemmick. “I think so. And his watch is a gold +repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it’s worth a penny. Mr. Pip, +there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about +that watch; there’s not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who +wouldn’t identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it +was red hot, if inveigled into touching it.” + +At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a +more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the +road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the +district of Walworth. + +It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little +gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. +Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of +garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery +mounted with guns. + +“My own doing,” said Wemmick. “Looks pretty; don’t it?” + +I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; +with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them +sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. + +“That’s a real flagstaff, you see,” said Wemmick, “and on Sundays I run +up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I +hoist it up—so—and cut off the communication.” + +The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and +two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he +hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and +not merely mechanically. + +“At nine o’clock every night, Greenwich time,” said Wemmick, “the gun +fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you’ll +say he’s a Stinger.” + +The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, +constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an +ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. + +“Then, at the back,” said Wemmick, “out of sight, so as not to impede +the idea of fortifications,—for it’s a principle with me, if you have +an idea, carry it out and keep it up,—I don’t know whether that’s your +opinion—” + +I said, decidedly. + +“—At the back, there’s a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I +knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and +you’ll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir,” said +Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, “if +you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of +a time in point of provisions.” + +Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was +approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long +time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. +Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower +was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which +might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he +had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill +going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent +that it made the back of your hand quite wet. + +“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my +own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,” said Wemmick, in +acknowledging my compliments. “Well; it’s a good thing, you know. It +brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn’t +mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn’t put +you out?” + +I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we +found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, +cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. + +“Well aged parent,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial +and jocose way, “how am you?” + +“All right, John; all right!” replied the old man. + +“Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,” said Wemmick, “and I wish you could hear +his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he likes. Nod away at +him, if you please, like winking!” + +“This is a fine place of my son’s, sir,” cried the old man, while I +nodded as hard as I possibly could. “This is a pretty pleasure-ground, +sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept +together by the Nation, after my son’s time, for the people’s +enjoyment.” + +“You’re as proud of it as Punch; ain’t you, Aged?” said Wemmick, +contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; +“_there’s_ a nod for you;” giving him a tremendous one; “_there’s_ +another for you;” giving him a still more tremendous one; “you like +that, don’t you? If you’re not tired, Mr. Pip—though I know it’s tiring +to strangers—will you tip him one more? You can’t think how it pleases +him.” + +I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him +bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in +the arbour; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had +taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present +pitch of perfection. + +“Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?” + +“O yes,” said Wemmick, “I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It’s a +freehold, by George!” + +“Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?” + +“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. +Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is +another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and +when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it’s not +in any way disagreeable to you, you’ll oblige me by doing the same. I +don’t wish it professionally spoken about.” + +Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his +request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and +talking, until it was almost nine o’clock. “Getting near gun-fire,” +said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; “it’s the Aged’s treat.” + +Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, +with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great +nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the +moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and +repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the +Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a +cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup +in it ring. Upon this, the Aged—who I believe would have been blown out +of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows—cried out exultingly, +“He’s fired! I heerd him!” and I nodded at the old gentleman until it +is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. + +The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me +his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious +character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been +committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and +several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,—upon which +Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, “every +one of ’em Lies, sir.” These were agreeably dispersed among small +specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the +proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. +They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had +been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general +sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan +on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the +suspension of a roasting-jack. + +There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged +in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered +to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper +was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot +insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have +been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. +Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there +being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when +I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that +pole on my forehead all night. + +Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him +cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from +my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a +most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at +half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, +Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened +into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business +and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as +unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the +drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, +had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the +Stinger. + + + + +Chapter XXVI. + + +It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early +opportunity of comparing my guardian’s establishment with that of his +cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with +his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he +called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends +which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. “No ceremony,” he stipulated, +“and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow.” I asked him where we should +come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his +general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, +“Come here, and I’ll take you home with me.” I embrace this opportunity +of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or +a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, +which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer’s shop. It had an +unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would +wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, +whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his +room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o’clock next day, he +seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than +usual, for we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only +washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And +even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, +he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before +he put his coat on. + +There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into +the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was +something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled his +presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along +westward, he was recognised ever and again by some face in the crowd of +the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he +never otherwise recognised anybody, or took notice that anybody +recognised him. + +He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side +of that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in +want of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and +opened the door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and +little used. So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark +brown rooms on the first floor. There were carved garlands on the +panelled walls, and as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know +what kind of loops I thought they looked like. + +Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his +dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the +whole house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was +comfortably laid—no silver in the service, of course—and at the side of +his chair was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and +decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed +throughout, that he kept everything under his own hand, and distributed +everything himself. + +There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, +that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, +trials, acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very +solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, +and there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a +little table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring +the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an +evening and fall to work. + +As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,—for he and I had +walked together,—he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, +and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to +be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. + +“Pip,” said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to +the window, “I don’t know one from the other. Who’s the Spider?” + +“The spider?” said I. + +“The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.” + +“That’s Bentley Drummle,” I replied; “the one with the delicate face is +Startop.” + +Not making the least account of “the one with the delicate face,” he +returned, “Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that +fellow.” + +He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his +replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to +screw discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came +between me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. + +She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,—but I may have thought her +younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely +pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot +say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be +parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious +expression of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see +Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked +to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had +seen rise out of the Witches’ caldron. + +She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a +finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats +at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, +while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the +housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice +mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all +the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our +host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the +table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean +plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just +disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant +than the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I always saw +in her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made +a dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other +natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to pass +behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room. + +Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her own +striking appearance and by Wemmick’s preparation, I observed that +whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my +guardian, and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put +before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and +wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I +fancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and +a purpose of always holding her in suspense. + +Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather +than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of +our dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing +my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronise Herbert, and to +boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my +lips. It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the +development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious +way at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off. + +It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our +conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied +for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. +Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to +our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that +as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible +agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity +about this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show +how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in +a ridiculous manner. + +Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian, +taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, +was leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and +showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. +Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper’s, like a trap, +as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do +this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention. + +“If you talk of strength,” said Mr. Jaggers, “_I_’ll show you a wrist. +Molly, let them see your wrist.” + +Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other +hand behind her waist. “Master,” she said, in a low voice, with her +eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. “Don’t.” + +“_I_’ll show you a wrist,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable +determination to show it. “Molly, let them see your wrist.” + +“Master,” she again murmured. “Please!” + +“Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking +at the opposite side of the room, “let them see _both_ your wrists. +Show them. Come!” + +He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She +brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by +side. The last wrist was much disfigured,—deeply scarred and scarred +across and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from +Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us +in succession. + +“There’s power here,” said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews +with his forefinger. “Very few men have the power of wrist that this +woman has. It’s remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these +hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw +stronger in that respect, man’s or woman’s, than these.” + +While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued +to look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment +he ceased, she looked at him again. “That’ll do, Molly,” said Mr. +Jaggers, giving her a slight nod; “you have been admired, and can go.” +She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, +putting the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and +passed round the wine. + +“At half-past nine, gentlemen,” said he, “we must break up. Pray make +the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I +drink to you.” + +If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more, +it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose +depreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree, +until he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. +Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed +to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers’s wine. + +In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink, +and I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some +boorish sneer of Drummle’s, to the effect that we were too free with +our money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that +it came with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my +presence but a week or so before. + +“Well,” retorted Drummle; “he’ll be paid.” + +“I don’t mean to imply that he won’t,” said I, “but it might make you +hold your tongue about us and our money, I should think.” + +“_You_ should think!” retorted Drummle. “Oh Lord!” + +“I dare say,” I went on, meaning to be very severe, “that you wouldn’t +lend money to any of us if we wanted it.” + +“You are right,” said Drummle. “I wouldn’t lend one of you a sixpence. +I wouldn’t lend anybody a sixpence.” + +“Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say.” + +“_You_ should say,” repeated Drummle. “Oh Lord!” + +This was so very aggravating—the more especially as I found myself +making no way against his surly obtuseness—that I said, disregarding +Herbert’s efforts to check me,— + +“Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I’ll tell you what +passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money.” + +“_I_ don’t want to know what passed between Herbert there and you,” +growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we might +both go to the devil and shake ourselves. + +“I’ll tell you, however,” said I, “whether you want to know or not. We +said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed +to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.” + +Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands +in his pockets and his round shoulders raised; plainly signifying that +it was quite true, and that he despised us as asses all. + +Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than +I had shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop, +being a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact +opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct +personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop +tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made +us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, +Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his +pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and +would have flung it at his adversary’s head, but for our entertainer’s +dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that +purpose. + +“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and +hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, “I am exceedingly +sorry to announce that it’s half past nine.” + +On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door, +Startop was cheerily calling Drummle “old boy,” as if nothing had +happened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not +even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so Herbert and I, +who remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides; +Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the +houses, much as he was wont to follow in his boat. + +As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for +a moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found +him in his dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard +at it, washing his hands of us. + +I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything +disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame +me much. + +“Pooh!” said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the +water-drops; “it’s nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.” + +He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, +and towelling himself. + +“I am glad you like him, sir,” said I—“but I don’t.” + +“No, no,” my guardian assented; “don’t have too much to do with him. +Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one +of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller—” + +Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye. + +“But I am not a fortune-teller,” he said, letting his head drop into a +festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. “You know what I +am, don’t you? Good night, Pip.” + +“Good night, sir.” + +In about a month after that, the Spider’s time with Mr. Pocket was up +for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he +went home to the family hole. + + + + +Chapter XXVII. + + +“MY DEAR MR PIP:— + +“I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is +going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if +agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard’s Hotel +Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, when if not agreeable please leave +word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of +you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and +doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the +love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from + +“Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant, +“BIDDY.” + + +“P.S. He wishes me most particular to write _what larks_. He says you +will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see +him, even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is +a worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last +little sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again _what +larks_.” + +I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its +appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings +I looked forward to Joe’s coming. + +Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with +considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of +incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly +would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming +to Barnard’s Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall +in Bentley Drummle’s way. I had little objection to his being seen by +Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the +sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in +contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are +usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise. + +I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite +unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those +wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were vastly +different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honour of +occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring +upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a +boy in boots,—top boots,—in bondage and slavery to whom I might have +been said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of +the refuse of my washerwoman’s family), and had clothed him with a blue +coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots +already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to +eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my +existence. + +This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday +morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for +floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he +thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being +so interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of +suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see _him_, he +wouldn’t have been quite so brisk about it. + +However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and +I got up early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and +breakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately +the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact +that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some +weak giant of a Sweep. + +As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger +pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on the +staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming +upstairs,—his state boots being always too big for him,—and by the time +it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of his +ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his +finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards +distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a +faint single rap, and Pepper—such was the compromising name of the +avenging boy—announced “Mr. Gargery!” I thought he never would have +done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the +mat, but at last he came in. + +“Joe, how are you, Joe?” + +“Pip, how AIR you, Pip?” + +With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put down +on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them +straight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump. + +“I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.” + +But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird’s-nest +with eggs in it, wouldn’t hear of parting with that piece of property, +and persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way. + +“Which you have that growed,” said Joe, “and that swelled, and that +gentle-folked;” Joe considered a little before he discovered this word; +“as to be sure you are a honour to your king and country.” + +“And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.” + +“Thank God,” said Joe, “I’m ekerval to most. And your sister, she’s no +worse than she were. And Biddy, she’s ever right and ready. And all +friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. ’Ceptin Wopsle; he’s had a +drop.” + +All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the +bird’s-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and +round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown. + +“Had a drop, Joe?” + +“Why yes,” said Joe, lowering his voice, “he’s left the Church and went +into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him to +London along with me. And his wish were,” said Joe, getting the +bird’s-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an +egg with his right; “if no offence, as I would ’and you that.” + +I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of a +small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that +very week, of “the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, +whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National +Bard has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic +circles.” + +“Were you at his performance, Joe?” I inquired. + +“I _were_,” said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity. + +“Was there a great sensation?” + +“Why,” said Joe, “yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel. +Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir, +whether it were calc’lated to keep a man up to his work with a good +hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with +“Amen!” A man may have had a misfortun’ and been in the Church,” said +Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, “but that +is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I +meantersay, if the ghost of a man’s own father cannot be allowed to +claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning ’at +is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers +brings it off, try to keep it on how you may.” + +A ghost-seeing effect in Joe’s own countenance informed me that Herbert +had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his +hand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird’s-nest. + +“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and Pip”—here his +eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so +plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the +family, that I frowned it down and confused him more—“I meantersay, you +two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? +For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions,” +said Joe, confidentially, “and I believe its character do stand it; but +I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself,—not in the case that I wished him +to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him.” + +Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our +dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me +“sir,” Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the +room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,—as if it were +only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a +resting place,—and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the +chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals. + +“Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?” asked Herbert, who always +presided of a morning. + +“Thankee, Sir,” said Joe, stiff from head to foot, “I’ll take whichever +is most agreeable to yourself.” + +“What do you say to coffee?” + +“Thankee, Sir,” returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal, +“since you _are_ so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run +contrairy to your own opinions. But don’t you never find it a little +’eating?” + +“Say tea then,” said Herbert, pouring it out. + +Here Joe’s hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his +chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it +were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again +soon. + +“When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?” + +“Were it yesterday afternoon?” said Joe, after coughing behind his +hand, as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came. +“No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon” (with +an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality). + +“Have you seen anything of London yet?” + +“Why, yes, Sir,” said Joe, “me and Wopsle went off straight to look at +the Blacking Ware’us. But we didn’t find that it come up to its +likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,” added +Joe, in an explanatory manner, “as it is there drawd too +architectooralooral.” + +I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily +expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect +Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted by his +hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant +attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by +wicket-keeping. He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the +greatest skill; now, rushing at it and catching it neatly as it +dropped; now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and humouring +it in various parts of the room and against a good deal of the pattern +of the paper on the wall, before he felt it safe to close with it; +finally splashing it into the slop-basin, where I took the liberty of +laying hands upon it. + +[Illustration] + +As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to +reflect upon,—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself +to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why +should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for his +holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of +meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had +his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such +remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more +than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it; that I was +heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City. + +I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was +all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have +been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with +him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head. + +“Us two being now alone, sir,”—began Joe. + +“Joe,” I interrupted, pettishly, “how can you call me, sir?” + +Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like +reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars +were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look. + +“Us two being now alone,” resumed Joe, “and me having the intentions +and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now +conclude—leastways begin—to mention what have led to my having had the +present honour. For was it not,” said Joe, with his old air of lucid +exposition, “that my only wish were to be useful to you, I should not +have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and abode of +gentlemen.” + +I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance +against this tone. + +“Well, sir,” pursued Joe, “this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen +t’other night, Pip;”—whenever he subsided into affection, he called me +Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; “when +there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same +identical,” said Joe, going down a new track, “do comb my ’air the +wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were +him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a +playfellow by yourself.” + +“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.” + +“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,” said Joe, slightly tossing his +head, “though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same +identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at the +Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the +workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, +‘Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.’” + +“Miss Havisham, Joe?” + +“‘She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s word, ‘to speak to you.’” Joe sat and +rolled his eyes at the ceiling. + +“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.” + +“Next day, sir,” said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off, +“having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.” + +“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?” + +“Which I say, sir,” replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if +he were making his will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her +expression air then as follering: ‘Mr. Gargery. You air in +correspondence with Mr. Pip?’ Having had a letter from you, I were able +to say ‘I am.’ (When I married your sister, sir, I said ‘I will;’ and +when I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’) ‘Would you tell him, +then,’ said she, ‘that which Estella has come home and would be glad to +see him.’” + +I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause of +its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his +errand, I should have given him more encouragement. + +“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got home and asked her fur to write the +message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, ‘I know he will be very +glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see +him, go!’ I have now concluded, sir,” said Joe, rising from his chair, +“and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a +greater height.” + +“But you are not going now, Joe?” + +“Yes I am,” said Joe. + +“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?” + +“No I am not,” said Joe. + +Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted out of that manly heart as he +gave me his hand. + +“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded +together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a +whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions +among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any +fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be +together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and +beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but +that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these +clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge, the +kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if +you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even +my pipe. You won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you +should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge +window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old +burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope I’ve +beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless +you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!” + +I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in +him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he +spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched +me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover +myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the +neighbouring streets; but he was gone. + + + + +Chapter XXVIII. + + +It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first +flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe’s. +But, when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow’s coach, and had been +down to Mr. Pocket’s and back, I was not by any means convinced on the +last point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting up +at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not +expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from Miss +Havisham’s, and she was exacting and mightn’t like it. All other +swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such +pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should +innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else’s manufacture is +reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin +of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of +compactly folding up my bank-notes for security’s sake, abstracts the +notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine, +when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes! + +Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much +disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was +tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots +in the archway of the Blue Boar’s posting-yard; it was almost solemn to +imagine him casually produced in the tailor’s shop, and confounding the +disrespectful senses of Trabb’s boy. On the other hand, Trabb’s boy +might worm himself into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless +and desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him in the High +Street. My patroness, too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the +whole, I resolved to leave the Avenger behind. + +It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as +winter had now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until +two or three hours after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys +was two o’clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to +spare, attended by the Avenger,—if I may connect that expression with +one who never attended on me if he could possibly help it. + +At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dock-yards +by stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside +passengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling +their ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised +when Herbert, meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were +two convicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was an old +reason now for constitutionally faltering whenever I heard the word +“convict.” + +“You don’t mind them, Handel?” said Herbert. + +“O no!” + +“I thought you seemed as if you didn’t like them?” + +“I can’t pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don’t +particularly. But I don’t mind them.” + +“See! There they are,” said Herbert, “coming out of the Tap. What a +degraded and vile sight it is!” + +They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler +with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands. +The two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their +legs,—irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I +likewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried a +thick-knobbed bludgeon under his arm; but he was on terms of good +understanding with them, and stood with them beside him, looking on at +the putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as if the convicts +were an interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he +the Curator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and +appeared as a matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the +world, both convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller +suit of clothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions of those +shapes, and his attire disguised him absurdly; but I knew his +half-closed eye at one glance. There stood the man whom I had seen on +the settle at the Three Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night, and who had +brought me down with his invisible gun! + +It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had +never seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye +appraised my watch-chain, and then he incidentally spat and said +something to the other convict, and they laughed and slued themselves +round with a clink of their coupling manacle, and looked at something +else. The great numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; +their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower +animals; their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded with +pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way in which all present looked at them +and kept from them; made them (as Herbert had said) a most disagreeable +and degraded spectacle. + +But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the +back of the coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and +that there were no places for the two prisoners but on the seat in +front behind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had +taken the fourth place on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, +and said that it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such +villainous company, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and +infamous, and shameful, and I don’t know what else. At this time the +coach was ready and the coachman impatient, and we were all preparing +to get up, and the prisoners had come over with their keeper,—bringing +with them that curious flavour of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and +hearthstone, which attends the convict presence. + +“Don’t take it so much amiss, sir,” pleaded the keeper to the angry +passenger; “I’ll sit next you myself. I’ll put ’em on the outside of +the row. They won’t interfere with you, sir. You needn’t know they’re +there.” + +“And don’t blame _me_,” growled the convict I had recognised. “_I_ +don’t want to go. _I_ am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am +concerned any one’s welcome to _my_ place.” + +“Or mine,” said the other, gruffly. “_I_ wouldn’t have incommoded none +of you, if I’d had _my_ way.” Then they both laughed, and began +cracking nuts, and spitting the shells about.—As I really think I +should have liked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so +despised. + +At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman, +and that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So +he got into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into +the place next him, and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as +they could, and the convict I had recognised sat behind me with his +breath on the hair of my head. + +“Good-bye, Handel!” Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a +blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip. + +It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict’s +breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The +sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and +searching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more +breathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in +doing it; and I was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side, +in my shrinking endeavours to fend him off. + +The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us +all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way +House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed +off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a +couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, +and how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I +were going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the +question up again. + +But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although I +could recognise nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and +shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that +blew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against +the wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. The very first +words I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words of +my own thought, “Two One Pound notes.” + +“How did he get ’em?” said the convict I had never seen. + +“How should I know?” returned the other. “He had ’em stowed away +somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.” + +“I wish,” said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, “that I +had ’em here.” + +“Two one pound notes, or friends?” + +“Two one pound notes. I’d sell all the friends I ever had for one, and +think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says—?” + +“So he says,” resumed the convict I had recognised,—“it was all said +and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the +Dock-yard,—‘You’re a-going to be discharged?’ Yes, I was. Would I find +out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two +one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.” + +“More fool you,” growled the other. “I’d have spent ’em on a Man, in +wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed +nothing of you?” + +“Not a ha’porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried +again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.” + +“And was that—Honour!—the only time you worked out, in this part of the +country?” + +“The only time.” + +“What might have been your opinion of the place?” + +“A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, +mist, and mudbank.” + +They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually +growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say. + +After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and +been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling +certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not +only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and +so differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could +have known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our +being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a +dread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in +his hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as +soon as we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This +device I executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot +under my feet; I had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down +before me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the +first stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their +way with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off +to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting +for them at the slime-washed stairs,—again heard the gruff “Give way, +you!” like and order to dogs,—again saw the wicked Noah’s Ark lying out +on the black water. + +I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether +undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on +to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension +of a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am +confident that it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the +revival for a few minutes of the terror of childhood. + +The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered +my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As +soon as he had apologised for the remissness of his memory, he asked me +if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook? + +“No,” said I, “certainly not.” + +The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from +the Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and +took the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local +newspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this +paragraph:— + +Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference +to the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of +this neighbourhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our +as yet not universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our +columns!) that the youth’s earliest patron, companion, and friend, was +a highly respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn +and seed trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business +premises are situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is +not wholly irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as +the Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our +town produced the founder of the latter’s fortunes. Does the +thought-contracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local +Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the +BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB. SAP. + +I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the +days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met +somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have +told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my +fortunes. + + + + +Chapter XXIX. + + +Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to +Miss Havisham’s, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham’s side +of town,—which was not Joe’s side; I could go there to-morrow,—thinking +about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for +me. + +She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could +not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for +me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark +rooms, set the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down +the cobwebs, destroy the vermin,—in short, do all the shining deeds of +the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to +look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked +windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with +its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich +attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the +inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had +taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so +set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had +been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her +with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this +place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be +followed into my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the +conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified +truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her +simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my +sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against +reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against +happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I +loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence +in restraining me than if I had devoutly believed her to be human +perfection. + +I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I +had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the +gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart +moderately quiet. I heard the side-door open, and steps come across the +courtyard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its +rusty hinges. + +Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started +much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober +grey dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of +porter at Miss Havisham’s door. + +“Orlick!” + +“Ah, young master, there’s more changes than yours. But come in, come +in. It’s opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.” + +I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. “Yes!” +said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards +the house. “Here I am!” + +“How did you come here?” + +“I come here,” he retorted, “on my legs. I had my box brought alongside +me in a barrow.” + +“Are you here for good?” + +“I ain’t here for harm, young master, I suppose?” + +I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my +mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my +legs and arms, to my face. + +“Then you have left the forge?” I said. + +“Do this look like a forge?” replied Orlick, sending his glance all +round him with an air of injury. “Now, do it look like it?” + +I asked him how long he had left Gargery’s forge? + +“One day is so like another here,” he replied, “that I don’t know +without casting it up. However, I come here some time since you left.” + +“I could have told you that, Orlick.” + +“Ah!” said he, dryly. “But then you’ve got to be a scholar.” + +By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one +just within the side-door, with a little window in it looking on the +courtyard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of +place usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were +hanging on the wall, to which he now added the gate key; and his +patchwork-covered bed was in a little inner division or recess. The +whole had a slovenly, confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a +human dormouse; while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a +corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was +fitted up,—as indeed he was. + +“I never saw this room before,” I remarked; “but there used to be no +Porter here.” + +“No,” said he; “not till it got about that there was no protection on +the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and +Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended +to the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, +and I took it. It’s easier than bellowsing and hammering.—That’s +loaded, that is.” + +My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock over the +chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine. + +“Well,” said I, not desirous of more conversation, “shall I go up to +Miss Havisham?” + +“Burn me, if I know!” he retorted, first stretching himself and then +shaking himself; “my orders ends here, young master. I give this here +bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till +you meet somebody.” + +“I am expected, I believe?” + +“Burn me twice over, if I can say!” said he. + +Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in +my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, +while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who +appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason +of me. + +“Oh!” said she. “You, is it, Mr. Pip?” + +“It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family +are all well.” + +“Are they any wiser?” said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; +“they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know +your way, sir?” + +Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I +ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old +way at the door of Miss Havisham’s room. “Pip’s rap,” I heard her say, +immediately; “come in, Pip.” + +She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two +hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on +the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been +worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an +elegant lady whom I had never seen. + +“Come in, Pip,” Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking +round or up; “come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as +if I were a queen, eh?—Well?” + +She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a +grimly playful manner,— + +“Well?” + +“I heard, Miss Havisham,” said I, rather at a loss, “that you were so +kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.” + +“Well?” + +The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked +archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella’s eyes. But she +was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, +in all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance, that +I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I +slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O the +sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the +inaccessibility that came about her! + +She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt +in seeing her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a +long, long time. + +“Do you find her much changed, Pip?” asked Miss Havisham, with her +greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between +them, as a sign to me to sit down there. + +“When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella +in the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into +the old—” + +“What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?” Miss Havisham +interrupted. “She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away +from her. Don’t you remember?” + +I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better +then, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she +had no doubt of my having been quite right, and of her having been very +disagreeable. + +“Is _he_ changed?” Miss Havisham asked her. + +“Very much,” said Estella, looking at me. + +“Less coarse and common?” said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella’s +hair. + +Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, +and looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still, +but she lured me on. + +We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had so +wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from +France, and that she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old, +she had brought those qualities into such subjection to her beauty that +it was impossible and out of nature—or I thought so—to separate them +from her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence +from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had +disturbed my boyhood,—from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had +first made me ashamed of home and Joe,—from all those visions that had +raised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the +anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden +window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me +to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life +of my life. + +It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and +return to the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow. When we had +conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the +neglected garden: on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel +her about a little, as in times of yore. + +So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I +had strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert; +I, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she, +quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As +we drew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,— + +“I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight +that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.” + +“You rewarded me very much.” + +“Did I?” she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. “I remember I +entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill +that he should be brought here to pester me with his company.” + +“He and I are great friends now.” + +“Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father?” + +“Yes.” + +I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish +look, and she already treated me more than enough like a boy. + +“Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your +companions,” said Estella. + +“Naturally,” said I. + +“And necessarily,” she added, in a haughty tone; “what was fit company +for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now.” + +In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering +intention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put +it to flight. + +“You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times?” said +Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting +times. + +“Not the least.” + +The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my +side, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at +hers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me +more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being +so set apart for her and assigned to her. + +The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and +after we had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again +into the brewery yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her +walking on the casks, that first old day, and she said, with a cold and +careless look in that direction, “Did I?” I reminded her where she had +come out of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said, “I +don’t remember.” “Not remember that you made me cry?” said I. “No,” +said she, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe +that her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry +again, inwardly,—and that is the sharpest crying of all. + +“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and +beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart,—if that has anything to +do with my memory.” + +I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of +doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty +without it. + +“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said +Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But +you know what I mean. I have no softness there, +no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.” + +What _was_ it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and +looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? +No. In some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of +resemblance to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been +acquired by children, from grown person with whom they have been much +associated and secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will +produce a remarkable occasional likeness of expression between faces +that are otherwise quite different. And yet I could not trace this to +Miss Havisham. I looked again, and though she was still looking at me, +the suggestion was gone. + +What _was_ it? + +“I am serious,” said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow +was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; “if we are to be thrown +much together, you had better believe it at once. No!” imperiously +stopping me as I opened my lips. “I have not bestowed my tenderness +anywhere. I have never had any such thing.” + +In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she +pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same +first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to +have seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, +again the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed +me. My involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. +Instantly the ghost passed once more and was gone. + +What _was_ it? + +“What is the matter?” asked Estella. “Are you scared again?” + +“I should be, if I believed what you said just now,” I replied, to turn +it off. + +“Then you don’t? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will +soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be +laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round +of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my +cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.” + +Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand +now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We +walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in +bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of +the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it +could not have been more cherished in my remembrance. + +There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me; +we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more +in her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her +beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my +delight, and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness +had chosen us for one another. Wretched boy! + +At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise, +that my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and +would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in +the room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while +we were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me. + +It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began +the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But, in +the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the +chair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and +beautiful than before, and I was under stronger enchantment. + +The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand, +and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre +of the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms +stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow +cloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the +door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity +that was of its kind quite dreadful. + +Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and +said in a whisper,— + +“Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?” + +“Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.” + +She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as +she sat in the chair. “Love her, love her, love her! How does she use +you?” + +Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question +at all) she repeated, “Love her, love her, love her! If she favours +you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to +pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love +her, love her, love her!” + +Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her +utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm +round my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her. + +“Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, +to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. +Love her!” + +She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she +meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead +of love—despair—revenge—dire death—it could not have sounded from her +lips more like a curse. + +“I’ll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, +“what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning +self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself +and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the +smiter—as I did!” + +When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught +her round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a +dress, and struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck +herself against the wall and fallen dead. + +All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I +was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in +the room. + +He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a +pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was +of great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a +client or a witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief +as if he were immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing, as +if he knew he should not have time to do it before such client or +witness committed himself, that the self-committal has followed +directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him in the room he +had this expressive pocket-handkerchief in both hands, and was looking +at us. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent +pause in that attitude, “Indeed? Singular!” and then put the +handkerchief to its right use with wonderful effect. + +Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody else) +afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and +stammered that he was as punctual as ever. + +“As punctual as ever,” he repeated, coming up to us. “(How do you do, +Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you +are here, Pip?” + +I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to +come and see Estella. To which he replied, “Ah! Very fine young lady!” +Then he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his +large hands, and put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket +were full of secrets. + +“Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?” said he, when +he came to a stop. + +“How often?” + +“Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?” + +“Oh! Certainly not so many.” + +“Twice?” + +“Jaggers,” interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief, “leave my Pip +alone, and go with him to your dinner.” + +He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While +we were still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved +yard at the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat +and drink; offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred +times and once. + +I considered, and said, “Never.” + +“And never will, Pip,” he retorted, with a frowning smile. “She has +never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this +present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays +hands on such food as she takes.” + +“Pray, sir,” said I, “may I ask you a question?” + +“You may,” said he, “and I may decline to answer it. Put your +question.” + +“Estella’s name. Is it Havisham or—?” I had nothing to add. + +“Or what?” said he. + +“Is it Havisham?” + +“It is Havisham.” + +This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited +us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my green +and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a +maid-servant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but +who, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole +time. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed before my +guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the +two ladies left us. + +Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that +roof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to +himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella’s face once during +dinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered, +but never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often +looked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his +face never showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took a +dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often +referring in conversation with me to my expectations; but here, again, +he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he +extorted—and even did extort, though I don’t know how—those references +out of my innocent self. + +And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him +of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that +really was too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had +nothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted +the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass +again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and +cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had +known the wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or +four times I feebly thought I would start conversation; but whenever he +saw me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his +hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to +take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn’t answer. + +I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her in +the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her +cap,—which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,—and +strewing the ground with her hair,—which assuredly had never grown on +_her_ head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss +Havisham’s room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss +Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels +from her dressing-table into Estella’s hair, and about her bosom and +arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick +eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him, +with those rich flushes of glitter and colour in it. + +[Illustration] + +Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and +came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the +glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, +of the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in +the light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out +long ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his +cold presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I +could never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never +bear to hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear +to see him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be +within a foot or two of him,—it was, that my feelings should be in the +same place with him,—_that_, was the agonizing circumstance. + +We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged that when +Estella came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should +meet her at the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her +and left her. + +My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the +night, Miss Havisham’s words, “Love her, love her, love her!” sounded +in my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my +pillow, “I love her, I love her, I love her!” hundreds of times. Then, +a burst of gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, +once the blacksmith’s boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by +no means rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she +begin to be interested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her +that was mute and sleeping now? + +Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never +thought there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, +because I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, +and Joe had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God +forgive me! soon dried. + + + + +Chapter XXX. + + +After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar +in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick’s +being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. +“Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,” said my guardian, +comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, “because the man +who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.” It seemed +quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was not +exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a +satisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. “Very +good, Pip,” he observed, when I had concluded, “I’ll go round +presently, and pay our friend off.” Rather alarmed by this summary +action, I was for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend +himself might be difficult to deal with. “Oh no he won’t,” said my +guardian, making his pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect +confidence; “I should like to see him argue the question with _me_.” + +As we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I +breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely +hold my cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a +walk, and that I would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers +was occupied, if he would let the coachman know that I would get into +my place when overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar +immediately after breakfast. By then making a loop of about a couple of +miles into the open country at the back of Pumblechook’s premises, I +got round into the High Street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and +felt myself in comparative security. + +It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was +not disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognised and stared +after. One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops +and went a little way down the street before me, that they might turn, +as if they had forgotten something, and pass me face to face,—on which +occasions I don’t know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they +of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was a +distinguished one, and I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until +Fate threw me in the way of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb’s boy. + +Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I +beheld Trabb’s boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. +Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best +beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced +with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating +myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb’s boy smote +together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in +every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace, +“Hold me! I’m so frightened!” feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and +contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed +him, his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of +extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust. + +This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced +another two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, +and indignation, I again beheld Trabb’s boy approaching. He was coming +round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest +industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb’s with +cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became +aware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his +motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees +more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His +sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators, +and I felt utterly confounded. + +I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when +I again beheld Trabb’s boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he +was entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my +great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the +opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted young +friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his +hand, “Don’t know yah!” Words cannot state the amount of aggravation +and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb’s boy, when passing abreast of me, +he pulled up his shirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm +akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, +and drawling to his attendants, “Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, ’pon +my soul don’t know yah!” The disgrace attendant on his immediately +afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with +crows, as from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was +a blacksmith, culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and +was, so to speak, ejected by it into the open country. + +[Illustration] + +But unless I had taken the life of Trabb’s boy on that occasion, I +really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To have +struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower +recompense from him than his heart’s best blood, would have been futile +and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an +invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew +out again between his captor’s legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, +however, to Mr. Trabb by next day’s post, to say that Mr. Pip must +decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed +to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited +Loathing in every respectable mind. + +The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my +box-seat again, and arrived in London safe,—but not sound, for my heart +was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel +of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then +went on to Barnard’s Inn. + +I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back. +Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition to +the dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my +friend and chum. As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger +in the hall, which could merely be regarded in the light of an +antechamber to the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of +the severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be +afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to +find him employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to +Hyde Park corner to see what o’clock it was. + +Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to +Herbert, “My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell +you.” + +“My dear Handel,” he returned, “I shall esteem and respect your +confidence.” + +“It concerns myself, Herbert,” said I, “and one other person.” + +Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side, +and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I +didn’t go on. + +“Herbert,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “I love—I +adore—Estella.” + +Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy +matter-of-course way, “Exactly. Well?” + +“Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?” + +“What next, I mean?” said Herbert. “Of course I know _that_.” + +“How do you know it?” said I. + +“How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.” + +“I never told you.” + +“Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I +have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since +I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here +together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you +told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her +the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed.” + +“Very well, then,” said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome +light, “I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a +most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And +if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her.” + +“Lucky for you then, Handel,” said Herbert, “that you are picked out +for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, +we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of +that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella’s views on the adoration +question?” + +I shook my head gloomily. “Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from +me,” said I. + +“Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have +something more to say?” + +“I am ashamed to say it,” I returned, “and yet it’s no worse to say it +than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a +blacksmith’s boy but yesterday; I am—what shall I say I am—to-day?” + +“Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,” returned Herbert, smiling, +and clapping his hand on the back of mine—“a good fellow, with +impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and +dreaming, curiously mixed in him.” + +I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this +mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognised the +analysis, but thought it not worth disputing. + +“When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,” I went on, “I +suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have +done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised +me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella—” + +(“And when don’t you, you know?” Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the +fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.) + +“—Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain +I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden +ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of +one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the +best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what +they are!” In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been +there, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday. + +“Now, Handel,” Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, “it seems to +me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into +our gift-horse’s mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to +me that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether +overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn’t you tell me that +your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were +not endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you +so,—though that is a very large If, I grant,—could you believe that of +all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations +towards you unless he were sure of his ground?” + +I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people +often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth +and justice;—as if I wanted to deny it! + +“I should think it _was_ a strong point,” said Herbert, “and I should +think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you +must bide your guardian’s time, and he must bide his client’s time. +You’ll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then +perhaps you’ll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you’ll be +nearer getting it, for it must come at last.” + +“What a hopeful disposition you have!” said I, gratefully admiring his +cheery ways. + +“I ought to have,” said Herbert, “for I have not much else. I must +acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is +not my own, but my father’s. The only remark I ever heard him make on +your story, was the final one, “The thing is settled and done, or Mr. +Jaggers would not be in it.” And now before I say anything more about +my father, or my father’s son, and repay confidence with confidence, I +want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a +moment,—positively repulsive.” + +“You won’t succeed,” said I. + +“O yes I shall!” said he. “One, two, three, and now I am in for it. +Handel, my good fellow;”—though he spoke in this light tone, he was +very much in earnest,—“I have been thinking since we have been talking +with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition +of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am +I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never +referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted, +for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage +ultimately?” + +“Never.” + +“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my +soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself +from her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.” + +I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old +marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had +subdued me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were +solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, +smote upon my heart again. There was silence between us for a little +while. + +“Yes; but my dear Handel,” Herbert went on, as if we had been talking, +instead of silent, “its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of +a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very +serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of +what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may +lead to miserable things.” + +“I know it, Herbert,” said I, with my head still turned away, “but I +can’t help it.” + +“You can’t detach yourself?” + +“No. Impossible!” + +“You can’t try, Handel?” + +“No. Impossible!” + +“Well!” said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had been +asleep, and stirring the fire, “now I’ll endeavour to make myself +agreeable again!” + +So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs in +their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about, +looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and +came back to his chair by the fire: where he sat down, nursing his left +leg in both arms. + +“I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my +father’s son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father’s son +to remark that my father’s establishment is not particularly brilliant +in its housekeeping.” + +“There is always plenty, Herbert,” said I, to say something +encouraging. + +“O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest +approval, and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. +Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as +well as I do. I suppose there was a time once when my father had not +given matters up; but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask +you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part +of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are +always most particularly anxious to be married?” + +This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, “Is it +so?” + +“I don’t know,” said Herbert, “that’s what I want to know. Because it +is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next +me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little +Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you +might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual +contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already +made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. +And indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.” + +“Then you are?” said I. + +“I am,” said Herbert; “but it’s a secret.” + +I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured with +further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my +weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength. + +“May I ask the name?” I said. + +“Name of Clara,” said Herbert. + +“Live in London?” + +“Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,” said Herbert, who had become +curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting +theme, “that she is rather below my mother’s nonsensical family +notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. +I think he was a species of purser.” + +“What is he now?” said I. + +“He’s an invalid now,” replied Herbert. + +“Living on—?” + +“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant, +for I had intended my question to apply to his means. “I have never +seen him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known +Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous +rows,—roars, and pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument.” In +looking at me and then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time +recovered his usual lively manner. + +“Don’t you expect to see him?” said I. + +“O yes, I constantly expect to see him,” returned Herbert, “because I +never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the +ceiling. But I don’t know how long the rafters may hold.” + +When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told +me that the moment he began to realise Capital, it was his intention to +marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition, +engendering low spirits, “But you _can’t_ marry, you know, while you’re +looking about you.” + +As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision +to realise this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my +pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my +attention, I opened it and found it to be the play-bill I had received +from Joe, relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian +renown. “And bless my heart,” I involuntarily added aloud, “it’s +to-night!” + +This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve +to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet +Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable +means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me +by reputation and that I should be presented to her, and when we had +warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our +candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest +of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark. + + + + +Chapter XXXI. + + +On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country +elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The +whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble +boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer +with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in +life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of +white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My +gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could +have wished that his curls and forehead had been more probable. + +Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action +proceeded. The late king of the country not only appeared to have been +troubled with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it +with him to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom +also carried a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had +the appearance of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of +anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which were +suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led +to the Shade’s being advised by the gallery to “turn over!”—a +recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted +of this majestic spirit, that whereas it always appeared with an air of +having been out a long time and walked an immense distance, it +perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its +terrors to be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom +lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public +to have too much brass about her; her chin being attached to her diadem +by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her +waist being encircled by another, and each of her arms by another, so +that she was openly mentioned as “the kettle-drum.” The noble boy in +the ancestral boots was inconsistent, representing himself, as it were +in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a +clergyman, and a person of the utmost importance at a Court +fencing-match, on the authority of whose practised eye and nice +discrimination the finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a +want of toleration for him, and even—on his being detected in holy +orders, and declining to perform the funeral service—to the general +indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such +slow musical madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken off +her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who +had been long cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the +front row of the gallery, growled, “Now the baby’s put to bed let’s +have supper!” Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping. + +Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with +playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or +state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on +the question whether ’twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared +yes, and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for +it;” and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such +fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged +with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking +disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very +neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat +iron), a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness +of his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had +given him. On his taking the recorders,—very like a little black flute +that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the +door,—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he +recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, +“And don’t _you_ do it, neither; you’re a deal worse than _him_!” And I +grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of +these occasions. + +But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the +appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical +wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in +a comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike, +the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, “Look out! Here’s the +undertaker a coming, to see how you’re a getting on with your work!” I +believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle +could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it, +without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast; +but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without +the comment, “Wai-ter!” The arrival of the body for interment (in an +empty black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a +general joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the +bearers, of an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended +Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the +orchestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the +king off the kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles +upward. + +We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle; +but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, +feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I +laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll; +and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly +fine in Mr. Wopsle’s elocution,—not for old associations’ sake, I am +afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and +downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural +circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything. +When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I +said to Herbert, “Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.” + +We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough +either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy +smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we +came up with him,— + +“Mr. Pip and friend?” + +Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed. + +“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the honour.” + +“Waldengarver?” I repeated—when Herbert murmured in my ear, “Probably +Wopsle.” + +“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?” + +“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned and +asked, “How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.” + +I don’t know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the +addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue +ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some +extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice. + +“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed his cloak +beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see +the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he might have made more of his +stockings.” + +I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door, +into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle +was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just +room for us to look at him over one another’s shoulders, by keeping the +packing-case door, or lid, wide open. + +“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip, +you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in +former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been +acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.” + +Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to +get himself out of his princely sables. + +“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner of that +property, “or you’ll bust ’em. Bust ’em, and you’ll bust +five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a +finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave ’em to me.” + +With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, +on the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over +backward with his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow. + +I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, +Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,— + +“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?” + +Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.” So +I said “Capitally.” + +“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?” said Mr. +Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage. + +Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and concrete.” So +I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon +it, “Massive and concrete.” + +“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, +with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall +at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair. + +“But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man who was +on his knees, “in which you’re out in your reading. Now mind! I don’t +care who says contrairy; I tell you so. You’re out in your reading of +Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, +made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to +put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal +(which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and +whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don’t +see no wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.” + +Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful +Dependent—I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My view is a +little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, +they will improve.” + +Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve. + +“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, “that there was a +man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service,—I +mean, the representation?” + +We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I +added, “He was drunk, no doubt.” + +“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer would see +to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.” + +“You know his employer?” said I. + +Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both +ceremonies very slowly. “You must have observed, gentlemen,” said he, +“an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance +expressive of low malignity, who went through—I will not say +sustained—the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King +of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!” + +Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for +Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, +that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put +on,—which jostled us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought +of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind +to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard’s with us, +wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat until +two o’clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing his +plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general +recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end +with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft +and without a chance or hope. + +Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, +and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that +I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to +Miss Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing +twenty words of it. + + + + +Chapter XXXII. + + +One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note +by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; +for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, +I divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, +or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:— + +“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I +believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham +has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her +regard. + + +“Yours, ESTELLA.” + + +If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits of +clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be +content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew no +peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought me +either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the +coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the +Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still +felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight +longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I +had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, +when Wemmick ran against me. + +“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do? I should hardly have +thought this was _your_ beat.” + +I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by +coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged. + +“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly the Aged. +He’s in wonderful feather. He’ll be eighty-two next birthday. I have a +notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighbourhood shouldn’t +complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. +However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?” + +“To the office?” said I, for he was tending in that direction. + +“Next thing to it,” returned Wemmick, “I am going to Newgate. We are in +a banker’s-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road +taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word +or two with our client.” + +“Did your client commit the robbery?” I asked. + +“Bless your soul and body, no,” answered Wemmick, very drily. “But he +is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused +of it, you know.” + +“Only neither of us is,” I remarked. + +“Yah!” said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger; +“you’re a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate? +Have you time to spare?” + +I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief, +notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my +eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry +whether I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and +ascertained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the +trying of his temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be +expected,—which I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined +Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by +the information I had received, accepted his offer. + +We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge +where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison +rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much +neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all +public wrongdoing—and which is always its heaviest and longest +punishment—was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better +than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their +prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavour of their +soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was +going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, +were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, +disorderly, depressing scene it was. + +It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener +might walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his +seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, “What, +Captain Tom? Are _you_ there? Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black +Bill behind the cistern? Why I didn’t look for you these two months; +how do you find yourself?” Equally in his stopping at the bars and +attending to anxious whisperers,—always singly,—Wemmick with his +post-office in an immovable state, looked at them while in conference, +as if he were taking particular notice of the advance they had made, +since last observed, towards coming out in full blow at their trial. + +He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department +of Mr. Jaggers’s business; though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers +hung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His +personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod, +and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both +hands, and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in +his pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting +the raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible +from the insufficient money produced, said, “it’s no use, my boy. I’m +only a subordinate. I can’t take it. Don’t go on in that way with a +subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had +better address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals +in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, +may be worth the while of another; that’s my recommendation to you, +speaking as a subordinate. Don’t try on useless measures. Why should +you? Now, who’s next?” + +Thus, we walked through Wemmick’s greenhouse, until he turned to me and +said, “Notice the man I shall shake hands with.” I should have done so, +without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet. + +Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can see +now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-coloured frock-coat, with a +peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that +went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner of +the bars, and put his hand to his hat—which had a greasy and fatty +surface like cold broth—with a half-serious and half-jocose military +salute. + +“Colonel, to you!” said Wemmick; “how are you, Colonel?” + +“All right, Mr. Wemmick.” + +“Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too +strong for us, Colonel.” + +“Yes, it was too strong, sir,—but _I_ don’t care.” + +“No, no,” said Wemmick, coolly, “_you_ don’t care.” Then, turning to +me, “Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought +his discharge.” + +I said, “Indeed?” and the man’s eyes looked at me, and then looked over +my head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand across +his lips and laughed. + +“I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,” he said to Wemmick. + +“Perhaps,” returned my friend, “but there’s no knowing.” + +“I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick,” +said the man, stretching out his hand between two bars. + +“Thankye,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. “Same to you, +Colonel.” + +“If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick,” said the +man, unwilling to let his hand go, “I should have asked the favour of +your wearing another ring—in acknowledgment of your attentions.” + +“I’ll accept the will for the deed,” said Wemmick. “By the by; you were +quite a pigeon-fancier.” The man looked up at the sky. “I am told you +had a remarkable breed of tumblers. _Could_ you commission any friend +of yours to bring me a pair, if you’ve no further use for ’em?” + +“It shall be done, sir.” + +“All right,” said Wemmick, “they shall be taken care of. +Good-afternoon, Colonel. Good-bye!” They shook hands again, and as we +walked away Wemmick said to me, “A Coiner, a very good workman. The +Recorder’s report is made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on +Monday. Still you see, as far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are +portable property all the same.” With that, he looked back, and nodded +at this dead plant, and then cast his eyes about him in walking out of +the yard, as if he were considering what other pot would go best in its +place. + +As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great +importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less than +by those whom they held in charge. “Well, Mr. Wemmick,” said the +turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates, +and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, “what’s Mr. +Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it +manslaughter, or what’s he going to make of it?” + +“Why don’t you ask him?” returned Wemmick. + +“O yes, I dare say!” said the turnkey. + +“Now, that’s the way with them here, Mr. Pip,” remarked Wemmick, +turning to me with his post-office elongated. “They don’t mind what +they ask of me, the subordinate; but you’ll never catch ’em asking any +questions of my principal.” + +“Is this young gentleman one of the ’prentices or articled ones of your +office?” asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick’s humour. + +“There he goes again, you see!” cried Wemmick, “I told you so! Asks +another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well, +supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?” + +“Why then,” said the turnkey, grinning again, “he knows what Mr. +Jaggers is.” + +“Yah!” cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a +facetious way, “you’re dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do +with my principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I’ll +get him to bring an action against you for false imprisonment.” + +The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us +over the spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the +street. + +“Mind you, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my arm +to be more confidential; “I don’t know that Mr. Jaggers does a better +thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He’s always so +high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. +That Colonel durst no more take leave of _him_, than that turnkey durst +ask him his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and +them, he slips in his subordinate,—don’t you see?—and so he has ’em, +soul and body.” + +I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian’s +subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the +first time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities. + +Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where +suppliants for Mr. Jaggers’s notice were lingering about as usual, and +I returned to my watch in the street of the coach-office, with some +three hours on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange +it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and +crime; that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter +evening, I should have first encountered it; that, it should have +reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded +but not gone; that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune and +advancement. While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful +young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with +absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished +that Wemmick had not met me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone +with him, so that, of all days in the year on this day, I might not +have had Newgate in my breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust +off my feet as I sauntered to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, +and I exhaled its air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, +remembering who was coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and +I was not yet free from the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick’s +conservatory, when I saw her face at the coach window and her hand +waving to me. + +What _was_ the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had +passed? + + + + +Chapter XXXIII. + + +In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately +beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was +more winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I +thought I saw Miss Havisham’s influence in the change. + +We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and +when it was all collected I remembered—having forgotten everything but +herself in the meanwhile—that I knew nothing of her destination. + +“I am going to Richmond,” she told me. “Our lesson is, that there are +two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the +Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, +and you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges +out of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, +but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own +devices, you and I.” + +As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an inner +meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with +displeasure. + +“A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a +little?” + +“Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you +are to take care of me the while.” + +She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a +waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen +such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, +he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clue without which he +couldn’t find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the +establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous +article, considering the hole’s proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, +and somebody’s pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us +into another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a +scorched leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked +at this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order; +which, proving to be merely, “Some tea for the lady,” sent him out of +the room in a very low state of mind. + +I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong +combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that +the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising +proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department. +Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that +with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all +happy there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.) + +“Where are you going to, at Richmond?” I asked Estella. + +“I am going to live,” said she, “at a great expense, with a lady there, +who has the power—or says she has—of taking me about, and introducing +me, and showing people to me and showing me to people.” + +“I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?” + +“Yes, I suppose so.” + +She answered so carelessly, that I said, “You speak of yourself as if +you were some one else.” + +“Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,” said Estella, +smiling delightfully, “you must not expect me to go to school to _you_; +I must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?” + +“I live quite pleasantly there; at least—” It appeared to me that I was +losing a chance. + +“At least?” repeated Estella. + +“As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.” + +“You silly boy,” said Estella, quite composedly, “how can you talk such +nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest +of his family?” + +“Very superior indeed. He is nobody’s enemy—” + +“Don’t add but his own,” interposed Estella, “for I hate that class of +man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and +spite, I have heard?” + +“I am sure I have every reason to say so.” + +“You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,” said +Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once +grave and rallying, “for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and +insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, +write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment +and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realise to yourself +the hatred those people feel for you.” + +“They do me no harm, I hope?” + +Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very +singular to me, and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When +she left off—and she had not laughed languidly, but with real +enjoyment—I said, in my diffident way with her,— + +“I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any +harm.” + +“No, no you may be sure of that,” said Estella. “You may be certain +that I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and +the tortures they undergo!” She laughed again, and even now when she +had told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not +doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion. I +thought there must really be something more here than I knew; she saw +the thought in my mind, and answered it. + +“It is not easy for even you.” said Estella, “to know what satisfaction +it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of +the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not +brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not +your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed +and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that +is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round +childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a +woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up +in the night. I did.” + +It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these +remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of +that look of hers for all my expectations in a heap. + +“Two things I can tell you,” said Estella. “First, notwithstanding the +proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your +mind at rest that these people never will—never would in a hundred +years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great +or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so +busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it.” + +As she gave it to me playfully,—for her darker mood had been but +momentary—I held it and put it to my lips. “You ridiculous boy,” said +Estella, “will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the +same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?” + +“What spirit was that?” said I. + +“I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and +plotters.” + +“If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?” + +“You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you +like.” + +I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue’s. “Now,” said +Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, “you are to take +care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond.” + +Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon us, +and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our +intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, +I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on +against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it +always was. + +I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clue, +brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of +tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and +forks (including carvers), spoons (various), salt-cellars, a meek +little muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron +cover, Moses in the bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a +quantity of parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof +impressions of the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of +bread, and ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in +with, expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a +prolonged absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came +back with a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I +steeped in hot water, and so from the whole of these appliances +extracted one cup of I don’t know what for Estella. + +The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, +and the chambermaid taken into consideration,—in a word, the whole +house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella’s +purse much lightened,—we got into our post-coach and drove away. +Turning into Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon +under the walls of which I was so ashamed. + +“What place is that?” Estella asked me. + +I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognising it, and then told +her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again, murmuring, +“Wretches!” I would not have confessed to my visit for any +consideration. + +“Mr. Jaggers,” said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else, +“has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place +than any man in London.” + +“He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,” said Estella, in a +low voice. + +“You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?” + +“I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since I +can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could +speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with +him?” + +“Once habituated to his distrustful manner,” said I, “I have done very +well.” + +“Are you intimate?” + +“I have dined with him at his private house.” + +“I fancy,” said Estella, shrinking “that must be a curious place.” + +“It is a curious place.” + +I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with +her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe +the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden +glare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive +with that inexplicable feeling I had had before; and when we were out +of it, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in +lightning. + +So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by +which we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this +side of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she +told me, for she had never left Miss Havisham’s neighbourhood until she +had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in +going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her +while she remained here? To that she emphatically said “God forbid!” +and no more. + +It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me; +that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task +had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she +had not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should +have felt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose +to do it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to +crush it and throw it away. + +When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew +Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I +hoped I should see her sometimes. + +“O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you +are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned.” + +I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of? + +“No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of +some station, though not averse to increasing her income.” + +“I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.” + +“It is a part of Miss Havisham’s plans for me, Pip,” said Estella, with +a sigh, as if she were tired; “I am to write to her constantly and see +her regularly and report how I go on,—I and the jewels,—for they are +nearly all mine now.” + +It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she +did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up. + +We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house +by the green,—a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches, +embroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their +court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still +cut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and +stiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession of +the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go +the silent way of the rest. + +A bell with an old voice—which I dare say in its time had often said to +the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted +sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire—sounded +gravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-coloured maids came fluttering +out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she +gave me her hand and a smile, and said good-night, and was absorbed +likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I +should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy +with her, but always miserable. + +I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in +with a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our +own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party +escorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite +of his being subject to Flopson. + +Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on +domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and +servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But +Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of +the baby’s having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him +quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot +Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be +regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either +to apply externally or to take as a tonic. + +Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical +advice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a +highly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging +him to accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as +she sat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a +sovereign remedy for baby, I thought—Well—No, I wouldn’t. + + + + +Chapter XXXIV. + + +As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to +notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on +my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, +but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of +chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe. My conscience was +not by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the +night,—like Camilla,—I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, +that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss +Havisham’s face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with +Joe in the honest old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat +alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like +the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home. + +Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of +mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part +in its production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations, +and yet had had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my +satisfaction that I should have done much better. Now, concerning the +influence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty, and so +I perceived—though dimly enough perhaps—that it was not beneficial to +anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert. My +lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not +afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace +with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having +unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor +arts they practised; because such littlenesses were their natural bent, +and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them +slumbering. But Herbert’s was a very different case, and it often +caused me a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in +crowding his sparely furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery +work, and placing the Canary-breasted Avenger at his disposal. + +So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began +to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert must +begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop’s suggestion, we put +ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the +Grove: the object of which institution I have never divined, if it were +not that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to +quarrel among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause +six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratifying +social ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I +understood nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast +of the society: which ran “Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good +feeling ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove.” + +The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was in +Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honour of +joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about +town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts +at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his +equipage headforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion +deliver himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way—like +coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could +not be, according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of +age. + +In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken +Herbert’s expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make +no such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every +direction, and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into +keeping late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him +with a desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about +him more hopefully about midday; that he drooped when he came into +dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather +clearly, after dinner; that he all but realised Capital towards +midnight; and that at about two o’clock in the morning, he became so +deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to +America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his +fortune. + +I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at +Hammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert +would often come to Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those +seasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that +the opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the +general tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out in life somewhere, +was a thing to transact itself somehow. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew +greyer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by +the hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her footstool, +read her book of dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about +her grandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it +into bed whenever it attracted her notice. + +As I am now generalising a period of my life with the object of +clearing my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once +completing the description of our usual manners and customs at +Barnard’s Inn. + +We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people +could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less +miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. +There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying +ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my +belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one. + +Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look +about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which he +consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an +almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not remember that I +ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what we +undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a +Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except +at a certain hour of every afternoon to “go to Lloyd’s”—in observance +of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything +else in connection with Lloyd’s that I could find out, except come back +again. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively +must find an opening, he would go on ’Change at a busy time, and walk +in and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the +assembled magnates. “For,” says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on +one of those special occasions, “I find the truth to be, Handel, that +an opening won’t come to one, but one must go to it,—so I have been.” + +If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated +one another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond +expression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the sight +of the Avenger’s livery; which had a more expensive and a less +remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the +four-and-twenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast +became a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at +breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, “not +unwholly unconnected,” as my local paper might put it, “with jewelery,” +I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake him +off his feet,—so that he was actually in the air, like a booted +Cupid,—for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll. + +At certain times—meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our +humour—I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery,— + +“My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.” + +“My dear Handel,” Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, “if you +will believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange +coincidence.” + +“Then, Herbert,” I would respond, “let us look into our affairs.” + +We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for +this purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to +confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And +I know Herbert thought so too. + +We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of +something similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds +might be fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the +mark. Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of +ink, and a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was +something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery. + +I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in +a neat hand, the heading, “Memorandum of Pip’s debts”; with Barnard’s +Inn and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet +of paper, and write across it with similar formalities, “Memorandum of +Herbert’s debts.” + +Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side, +which had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half +burnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and +otherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us +exceedingly, insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to +distinguish between this edifying business proceeding and actually +paying the money. In point of meritorious character, the two things +seemed about equal. + +When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on? +Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful +manner at the sight of his accumulating figures. + +“They are mounting up, Handel,” Herbert would say; “upon my life, they +are mounting up.” + +“Be firm, Herbert,” I would retort, plying my own pen with great +assiduity. “Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare +them out of countenance.” + +“So I would, Handel, only they are staring _me_ out of countenance.” + +However, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would +fall to work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the +plea that he had not got Cobbs’s bill, or Lobbs’s, or Nobbs’s, as the +case might be. + +“Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it +down.” + +“What a fellow of resource you are!” my friend would reply, with +admiration. “Really your business powers are very remarkable.” + +I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions, the +reputation of a first-rate man of business,—prompt, decisive, +energetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities +down upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My +self-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. +When I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly, +docketed each on the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical +bundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not +my administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into +a focus for him. + +My business habits had one other bright feature, which I called +“leaving a Margin.” For example; supposing Herbert’s debts to be one +hundred and sixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I would say, “Leave a +margin, and put them down at two hundred.” Or, supposing my own to be +four times as much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven +hundred. I had the highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, +but I am bound to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have +been an expensive device. For, we always ran into new debt immediately, +to the full extent of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of +freedom and solvency it imparted, got pretty far on into another +margin. + +But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these +examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable +opinion of myself. Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert’s +compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the +table before me among the stationery, and feel like a Bank of some +sort, rather than a private individual. + +We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we +might not be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one +evening, when we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said +door, and fall on the ground. “It’s for you, Handel,” said Herbert, +going out and coming back with it, “and I hope there is nothing the +matter.” This was in allusion to its heavy black seal and border. + +The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were simply, that I +was an honoured sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. +Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past +six in the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the +interment on Monday next at three o’clock in the afternoon. + + + + +Chapter XXXV. + + +It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and +the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my +sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That +the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed +unable to compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my +thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming +towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the +door. In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, +there was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of +the sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she +were still alive and had been often there. + +Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my +sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret +which may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and +perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized +with a violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had +suffered so much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have +revengefully pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity. + +Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him that +I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in the +curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the +morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the +forge. + +It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times +when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, +vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that +softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the +beans and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it +would be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should +be softened as they thought of me. + +At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. +had put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally +absurd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a +black bandage,—as if that instrument could possibly communicate any +comfort to anybody,—were posted at the front door; and in one of them I +recognised a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young +couple into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of +intoxication rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped +round the neck with both arms. All the children of the village, and +most of the women, were admiring these sable warders and the closed +windows of the house and forge; and as I came up, one of the two +warders (the postboy) knocked at the door,—implying that I was far too +much exhausted by grief to have strength remaining to knock for myself. + +Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a +wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlour. Here, Mr. +Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves +up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity +of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished +putting somebody’s hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; +so he held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and +confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of +warm affection. + +Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow +under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where, +as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent +down and said to him, “Dear Joe, how are you?” he said, “Pip, old chap, +you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a—” and clasped my hand +and said no more. + +Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly +here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as I +thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and +there began to wonder in what part of the house it—she—my sister—was. +The air of the parlour being faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I +looked about for the table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible +until one had got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut-up plum +cake upon it, and there were cut-up oranges, and sandwiches, and +biscuits, and two decanters that I knew very well as ornaments, but had +never seen used in all my life; one full of port, and one of sherry. +Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook +in a black cloak and several yards of hatband, who was alternately +stuffing himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my +attention. The moment he succeeded, he came over to me (breathing +sherry and crumbs), and said in a subdued voice, “May I, dear sir?” and +did. I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent +speechless paroxysm in a corner. We were all going to “follow,” and +were all in course of being tied up separately (by Trabb) into +ridiculous bundles. + +“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr. +Trabb called “formed” in the parlour, two and two,—and it was +dreadfully like a preparation for some grim kind of dance; “which I +meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the +church myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it +with willing harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbours +would look down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in +respect.” + +“Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!” cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a +depressed business-like voice. “Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are +ready!” + +So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses +were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and +Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had +been brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of +Undertaking ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded +under a horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole +looked like a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and +blundering along, under the guidance of two keepers,—the postboy and +his comrade. + +The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and +we were much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful +and vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us +off, and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such +times the more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on +our emergence round some corner of expectancy, “_Here_ they come!” +“_Here_ they are!” and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was +much annoyed by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted +all the way as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, +and smoothing my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the +excessive pride of Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited +and vainglorious in being members of so distinguished a procession. + +And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the +ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard, +close to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this +parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was +laid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the +light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees. + +Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing, +I desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even +when those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it +brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it +fleeth like a shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him +cough a reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came +unexpectedly into large property. When we got back, he had the +hardihood to tell me that he wished my sister could have known I had +done her so much honour, and to hint that she would have considered it +reasonably purchased at the price of her death. After that, he drank +all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two +talked (which I have since observed to be customary in such cases) as +if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and were +notoriously immortal. Finally, he went away with Mr. and Mrs. +Hubble,—to make an evening of it, I felt sure, and to tell the Jolly +Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes and my earliest +benefactor. + +When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men—but not his Boy; I +looked for him—had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too, +the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a +cold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlour, not in the old +kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his +knife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great +restraint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his pipe, and +when I had loitered with him about the forge, and when we sat down +together on the great block of stone outside it, we got on better. I +noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to +make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress; in which +the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was. + +He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little +room, and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had done rather a great +thing in making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing +in, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a +little talk. + +“Biddy,” said I, “I think you might have written to me about these sad +matters.” + +“Do you, Mr. Pip?” said Biddy. “I should have written if I had thought +that.” + +“Don’t suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider +that you ought to have thought that.” + +“Do you, Mr. Pip?” + +She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with +her, that I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After +looking a little at her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave +up that point. + +“I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy +dear?” + +“Oh! I can’t do so, Mr. Pip,” said Biddy, in a tone of regret but still +of quiet conviction. “I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am +going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of +Mr. Gargery, together, until he settles down.” + +“How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo—” + +“How am I going to live?” repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary +flush upon her face. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get +the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be +well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious +and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,” +pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, “the +new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you +after that time, and have had time since then to improve.” + +“I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.” + +“Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,” murmured Biddy. + +It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well! +I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further +with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes. + +“I have not heard the particulars of my sister’s death, Biddy.” + +“They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad +states—though they had got better of late, rather than worse—for four +days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and +said quite plainly, ‘Joe.’ As she had never said any word for a long +while, I ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs +to me that she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to +put her arms round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid +her head down on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she +presently said ‘Joe’ again, and once ‘Pardon,’ and once ‘Pip.’ And so +she never lifted her head up any more, and it was just an hour later +when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found she was gone.” + +Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that +were coming out, were blurred in my own sight. + +“Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Do you know what is become of Orlick?” + +“I should think from the colour of his clothes that he is working in +the quarries.” + +“Of course you have seen him then?—Why are you looking at that dark +tree in the lane?” + +“I saw him there, on the night she died.” + +“That was not the last time either, Biddy?” + +“No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.—It is of +no use,” said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running +out, “you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and +he is gone.” + +It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by +this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told +her that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of +that country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she +told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,—she +didn’t say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,—but ever did +his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a +gentle heart. + +“Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,” said I; “and Biddy, +we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often +down here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone.” + +Biddy said never a single word. + +“Biddy, don’t you hear me?” + +“Yes, Mr. Pip.” + +“Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,—which appears to me to be in +bad taste, Biddy,—what do you mean?” + +“What do I mean?” asked Biddy, timidly. + +“Biddy,” said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, “I must request +to know what you mean by this?” + +“By this?” said Biddy. + +“Now, don’t echo,” I retorted. “You used not to echo, Biddy.” + +“Used not!” said Biddy. “O Mr. Pip! Used!” + +Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another +silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position. + +“Biddy,” said I, “I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, +to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the +goodness, Biddy, to tell me why.” + +“Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?” asked +Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the +stars with a clear and honest eye. + +“O dear me!” said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in +despair. “This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don’t say any +more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much.” + +For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and +when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of +her as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the +churchyard and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the +night, and that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an +unkindness, what an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me. + +Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and +looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There I +stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of +health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright +sun of the life in store for him were shining on it. + +“Good-bye, dear Joe!—No, don’t wipe it off—for God’s sake, give me your +blackened hand!—I shall be down soon and often.” + +[Illustration] + +“Never too soon, sir,” said Joe, “and never too often, Pip!” + +Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk +and a crust of bread. “Biddy,” said I, when I gave her my hand at +parting, “I am not angry, but I am hurt.” + +“No, don’t be hurt,” she pleaded quite pathetically; “let only me be +hurt, if I have been ungenerous.” + +Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to +me, as I suspect they did, that I should _not_ come back, and that +Biddy was quite right, all I can say is,—they were quite right too. + + + + +Chapter XXXVI. + + +Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our +debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like +exemplary transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a +way of doing; and I came of age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction, +that I should do so before I knew where I was. + +Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had +nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a +profound sensation in Barnard’s Inn. But we had looked forward to my +one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and +anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly +help saying something definite on that occasion. + +I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my +birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from +Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call +upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced +us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual +flutter when I repaired to my guardian’s office, a model of +punctuality. + +In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and +incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of +tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting +it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian’s room. It was +November, and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back +against the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails. + +“Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, +Mr. Pip.” + +We shook hands,—he was always a remarkably short shaker,—and I thanked +him. + +“Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian. + +As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his +boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time +when I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the +shelf were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were +making a stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation. + +“Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the +box, “I am going to have a word or two with you.” + +“If you please, sir.” + +“What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the +ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,—“what +do you suppose you are living at the rate of?” + +“At the rate of, sir?” + +“At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, +“the—rate—of?” And then looked all round the room, and paused with his +pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose. + +I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed +any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, +I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply +seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his +nose with an air of satisfaction. + +“Now, I have asked _you_ a question, my friend,” said Mr. Jaggers. +“Have you anything to ask _me_?” + +“Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several +questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.” + +“Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?” + +“No. Ask another.” + +“Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?” + +“Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask another.” + +I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from +the inquiry, “Have-I—anything to receive, sir?” On that, Mr. Jaggers +said, triumphantly, “I thought we should come to it!” and called to +Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it +in, and disappeared. + +“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You have been +drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick’s +cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?” + +“I am afraid I must say yes, sir.” + +“You know you must say yes; don’t you?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did +know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend,” +cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show of +protesting: “it’s likely enough that you think you wouldn’t, but you +would. You’ll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this +piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it +and tell me what it is.” + +“This is a bank-note,” said I, “for five hundred pounds.” + +“That is a bank-note,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five hundred pounds. +And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?” + +“How could I do otherwise!” + +“Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Undoubtedly.” + +“You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that +handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this +day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome +sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until +the donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your +money affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from +Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are +in communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere +agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my +instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but +I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.” + +I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great +liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. “I am +not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to carry your words to any one;” and +then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and +stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against +him. + +After a pause, I hinted,— + +“There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to +waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it +again?” + +“What is it?” said he. + +I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me +aback to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. +“Is it likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my patron, the +fountain-head you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon—” there I +delicately stopped. + +“Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That’s no question as it stands, +you know.” + +“Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a precise +form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?” + +“Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with his +dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening when we first +encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, +Pip?” + +“You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that +person appeared.” + +“Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that’s my answer.” + +As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my +strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came +quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I +had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him. + +“Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?” + +Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question, but in +altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer +it,—and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when my +eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their +suspended attention, and were going to sneeze. + +“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs +of his warmed hands, “I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That’s a +question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that better, when I +tell you it’s a question that might compromise _me_. Come! I’ll go a +little further with you; I’ll say something more.” + +He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the +calves of his legs in the pause he made. + +“When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself, +“you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person +discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that +person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything +about it. And that’s all I have got to say.” + +We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked +thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion +that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him +into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he +resented this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did +object to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I +raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me +all the time, and was doing so still. + +“If that is all you have to say, sir,” I remarked, “there can be +nothing left for me to say.” + +He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me +where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert. +As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favour us with his +company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on +walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation +for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had +his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk +to Wemmick. + +The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my +pocket, a thought had come into my head which had been often there +before; and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise +with concerning such thought. + +He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going +home. He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office +candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near +the door, ready to be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his +hat and great-coat ready, and was beating himself all over the chest +with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business. + +“Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous +to serve a friend.” + +Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion +were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort. + +“This friend,” I pursued, “is trying to get on in commercial life, but +has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a +beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.” + +“With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust. + +“With _some_ money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot +across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home—“with _some_ +money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.” + +“Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “I should like just to run over with you on my +fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as +Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark, two; +Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.” +He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his +safe-key on the palm of his hand. “There’s as many as six, you see, to +choose from.” + +“I don’t understand you,” said I. + +“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take a walk upon +your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch +of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and +you may know the end of it too,—but it’s a less pleasant and profitable +end.” + +I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after +saying this. + +“This is very discouraging,” said I. + +“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick. + +“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indignation, +“that a man should never—” + +“—Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. “Certainly he +should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,—and then it +becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get +rid of him.” + +“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?” + +“That,” he returned, “is my deliberate opinion in this office.” + +“Ah!” said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole +here; “but would that be your opinion at Walworth?” + +“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity, “Walworth is one place, and this +office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is +another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments +must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken +in this office.” + +“Very well,” said I, much relieved, “then I shall look you up at +Walworth, you may depend upon it.” + +“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there, in a private and +personal capacity.” + +We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my +guardian’s ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in +his doorway, towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and +stood by to snuff out the candles. We all three went into the street +together, and from the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. +Jaggers and I turned ours. + +I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers +had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or a +Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable +consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all +seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he +made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than +Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to +dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, +because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes +fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and +forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty. + + + + +Chapter XXXVII. + + +Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth +sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage +to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union +Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of +defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most +pacific manner by the Aged. + +“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, “rather +had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word +that he would soon be home from his afternoon’s walk. He is very +regular in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my +son.” + +I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and +we went in and sat down by the fireside. + +“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his +chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I +expect?” I nodded. “Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand +at his business, sir?” I nodded hard. “Yes; so they tell me. His +business is the Law?” I nodded harder. “Which makes it more surprising +in my son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law, +but to the Wine-Coopering.” + +Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the +reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into +the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very +sprightly manner, “No, to be sure; you’re right.” And to this hour I +have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I +had made. + +As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making +some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his +own calling in life had been “the Wine-Coopering.” By dint of straining +that term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on +the chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my +meaning understood. + +“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the warehousing. First, +over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he +intended to refer me to Liverpool; “and then in the City of London +here. However, having an infirmity—for I am hard of hearing, sir—” + +I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment. + +“—Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he +went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and +little made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to +what you said, you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, +“what I say is, No to be sure; you’re right.” + +I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled +me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this +imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall +on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little +wooden flap with “JOHN” upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried +with great triumph, “My son’s come home!” and we both went out to the +drawbridge. + +It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the +other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with +the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge, +that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had +come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he +was accompanied. + +Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in +the post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or +three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed +of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both +before and behind, made her figure very like a boy’s kite; and I might +have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves +a little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of +fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in +discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our +going in, and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for +announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a +moment to the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently +another click came, and another little door tumbled open with “Miss +Skiffins” on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then +Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up +together. On Wemmick’s return from working these mechanical appliances, +I expressed the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he +said, “Well, you know, they’re both pleasant and useful to the Aged. +And by George, sir, it’s a thing worth mentioning, that of all the +people who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known +to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me!” + +“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins, “with his own hands +out of his own head.” + +While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green +gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was +company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the +property, and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he +did this to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I +seized the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle. + +Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I +had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in +behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how +we had fought. I glanced at Herbert’s home, and at his character, and +at his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for; +those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had +derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I +confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might +have done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham +in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the +possibility of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the +certainty of his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any +mean distrusts, retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told +Wemmick), and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a +great affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some +rays upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick’s experience +and knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my +resources to help Herbert to some present income,—say of a hundred a +year, to keep him in good hope and heart,—and gradually to buy him on +to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to +understand that my help must always be rendered without Herbert’s +knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one else in the world +with whom I could advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his +shoulder, and saying, “I can’t help confiding in you, though I know it +must be troublesome to you; but that is your fault, in having ever +brought me here.” + +Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of +start, “Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is +devilish good of you.” + +“Say you’ll help me to be good then,” said I. + +“Ecod,” replied Wemmick, shaking his head, “that’s not my trade.” + +“Nor is this your trading-place,” said I. + +“You are right,” he returned. “You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip, +I’ll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be +done by degrees. Skiffins (that’s her brother) is an accountant and +agent. I’ll look him up and go to work for you.” + +“I thank you ten thousand times.” + +“On the contrary,” said he, “I thank you, for though we are strictly in +our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there +_are_ Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.” + +After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned +into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The +responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and +that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me +in some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were +going to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a +hay-stack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as +it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss +Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the back premises +became strongly excited, and repeatedly expressed his desire to +participate in the entertainment. + +The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right +moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth +as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed +the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of +John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some +spasmodic infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I +got used to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss +Skiffins’s arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and +I rather suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the +profile of an undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very +new moon, was a piece of portable property that had been given her by +Wemmick. + +We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was +delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged +especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage +tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins—in the +absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of +her family on Sunday afternoons—washed up the tea-things, in a trifling +lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on +her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now, +Aged Parent, tip us the paper.” + +Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that +this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman +infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I won’t offer an +apology,” said Wemmick, “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures—are +you, Aged P.?” + +“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself +spoken to. + +“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper,” +said Wemmick, “and he’ll be as happy as a king. We are all attention, +Aged One.” + +“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so busy +and so pleased, that it really was quite charming. + +The Aged’s reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle’s +great-aunt’s, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come +through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was +always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into +them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was +equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on, +quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we all +expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he +resumed again. + +As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a +shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. +Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually +stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins’s waist. In course of time I saw +his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment +Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm +again as if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest +deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins’s composure +while she did this was one of the most remarkable sights I have ever +seen, and if I could have thought the act consistent with abstraction +of mind, I should have deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it +mechanically. + +By and by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm beginning to disappear again, and +gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to +widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite +enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side +of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness +of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid +it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am +justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged’s reading, +Wemmick’s arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled +to it by Miss Skiffins. + +At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time +for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a black +bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical +dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these +appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who +was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and +Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer +to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had +best go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and +having passed a pleasant evening. + +Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth, +stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter +appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would +be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out to +Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by +appointment in the City several times, but never held any communication +with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was, that +we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long +established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted +capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a +partner. Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which +Herbert was the subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds +down, and engaged for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at +certain dates out of my income: some, contingent on my coming into my +property. Miss Skiffins’s brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick +pervaded it throughout, but never appeared in it. + +The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the +least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the +radiant face with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a +mighty piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the +young merchant’s name), and of Clarriker’s having shown an +extraordinary inclination towards him, and of his belief that the +opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his +face brighter, he must have thought me a more and more affectionate +friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of +triumph when I saw him so happy. At length, the thing being done, and +he having that day entered Clarriker’s House, and he having talked to +me for a whole evening in a flush of pleasure and success, I did really +cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations +had done some good to somebody. + +A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my +view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all +the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not +much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart. + + + + +Chapter XXXVIII. + + +If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to +be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O +the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within +me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it +would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that +house. + +The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a +widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother +looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother’s complexion was +pink, and the daughter’s was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, +and the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good +position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little, +if any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but +the understanding was established that they were necessary to her, and +that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss +Havisham’s before the time of her seclusion. + +In Mrs. Brandley’s house and out of Mrs. Brandley’s house, I suffered +every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The +nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of +familiarity without placing me on terms of favour, conduced to my +distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned +the very familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a +constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, +steward, half-brother, poor relation,—if I had been a younger brother +of her appointed husband,—I could not have seemed to myself further +from my hopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her +by her name and hearing her call me by mine became, under the +circumstances an aggravation of my trials; and while I think it likely +that it almost maddened her other lovers, I know too certainly that it +almost maddened me. + +She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of +every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of them +without that. + +I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used +often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were picnics, +fête days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, +through which I pursued her,—and they were all miseries to me. I never +had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the +four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with +me unto death. + +Throughout this part of our intercourse,—and it lasted, as will +presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,—she habitually +reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced +upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check +in this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me. + +“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat +apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; “will you never +take warning?” + +“Of what?” + +“Of me.” + +“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?” + +“Do I mean! If you don’t know what I mean, you are blind.” + +I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the +reason that I always was restrained—and this was not the least of my +miseries—by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her, +when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My +dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy +disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious +struggle in her bosom. + +“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now, for you +wrote to me to come to you, this time.” + +“That’s true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always +chilled me. + +After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on +to say:— + +“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day +at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She +would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, +for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can +you take me?” + +“Can I take you, Estella!” + +“You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay +all charges out of my purse. You hear the condition of your going?” + +“And must obey,” said I. + +This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others +like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as +seen her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we +found her in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless +to add that there was no change in Satis House. + +She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when I +last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there was +something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces. +She hung upon Estella’s beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her +gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked +at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had +reared. + +From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to +pry into my heart and probe its wounds. “How does she use you, Pip; how +does she use you?” she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness, +even in Estella’s hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire at +night, she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella’s hand drawn +through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her, by +dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular +letters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated; +and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind +mortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch +stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a +very spectre. + +I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of +dependence and even of degradation that it awakened,—I saw in this that +Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham’s revenge on men, and that she +was not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw +in this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her +out to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with +the malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of all admirers, +and that all who staked upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in +this that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even +while the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my +being staved off so long and the reason for my late guardian’s +declining to commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. +In a word, I saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there +before my eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in +this, the distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which +her life was hidden from the sun. + +The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on +the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the +steady dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I +looked round at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the +stopped clock, and at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the +table and the ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly +reflection thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I +saw in everything the construction that my mind had come to, repeated +and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across +the landing where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it +were, in the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the +crawlings of the spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as +they betook their little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the +gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor. + +It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose +between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever +seen them opposed. + +We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham +still had Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and still clutched +Estella’s hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. +She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather +endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it. + +“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are you tired +of me?” + +“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her arm, +and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at +the fire. + +“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, passionately +striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of me.” + +Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at +the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a +self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was +almost cruel. + +“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold, cold heart!” + +“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she +leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do +you reproach me for being cold? You?” + +“Are you not?” was the fierce retort. + +“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all +the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the +failure; in short, take me.” + +“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; “Look at +her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I +took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its +stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!” + +[Illustration] + +“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I could +walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But +what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe +everything to you. What would you have?” + +“Love,” replied the other. + +“You have it.” + +“I have not,” said Miss Havisham. + +“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the easy +grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never +yielding either to anger or tenderness,—“mother by adoption, I have +said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All +that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, +I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, +my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.” + +“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. +“Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all +times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call +me mad, let her call me mad!” + +“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all people? Does +any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I +do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as +well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool +that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up +into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!” + +“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon forgotten!” + +“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella,—“not forgotten, but treasured up +in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have +you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving +admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything that +you excluded? Be just to me.” + +“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair +with both her hands. + +“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I +learnt my lesson?” + +“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action. + +“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I +learnt my lesson?” + +“But to be proud and hard to _me_!” Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as +she stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and +hard to _me_!” + +Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was +not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at +the fire again. + +“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence “why +you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a +separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have +never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any +weakness that I can charge myself with.” + +“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “But +yes, yes, she would call it so!” + +“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment +of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If you +had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of +these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as +the daylight by which she had never once seen your face,—if you had +done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the +daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and +angry?” + +Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, +and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer. + +“Or,” said Estella,—“which is a nearer case,—if you had taught her, +from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, +that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her +enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had +blighted you and would else blight her;—if you had done this, and then, +for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she +could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?” + +Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her +face), but still made no answer. + +“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The success +is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” + +Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, +among the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took +advantage of the moment—I had sought one from the first—to leave the +room, after beseeching Estella’s attention to her, with a movement of +my hand. When I left, Estella was yet standing by the great +chimney-piece, just as she had stood throughout. Miss Havisham’s grey +hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and +was a miserable sight to see. + +It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an +hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about +the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I +found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham’s knee, taking up some stitches +in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and +of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old +banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella +and I played at cards, as of yore,—only we were skilful now, and played +French games,—and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed. + +I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first +time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to +come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this +side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind +the half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the +room overhead, in the room beneath,—everywhere. At last, when the night +was slow to creep on towards two o’clock, I felt that I absolutely +could no longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I +must get up. I therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out +across the yard into the long stone passage, designing to gain the +outer courtyard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no +sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss +Havisham going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I +followed her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She +carried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken from +one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most unearthly object by +its light. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, I felt the mildewed +air of the feast-chamber, without seeing her open the door, and I heard +her walking there, and so across into her own room, and so across again +into that, never ceasing the low cry. After a time, I tried in the dark +both to get out, and to go back, but I could do neither until some +streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to lay my hands. During +the whole interval, whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I +heard her footstep, saw her light pass above, and heard her ceaseless +low cry. + +Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between +her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and +there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor, +did Miss Havisham’s manner towards Estella in anywise change, except +that I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former +characteristics. + +It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley +Drummle’s name upon it; or I would, very gladly. + +On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and +when good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody’s +agreeing with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to +order, forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, +according to the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute’s +turn to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me +while the decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost +between us, that might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when +he called upon the company to pledge him to “Estella!” + +“Estella who?” said I. + +“Never you mind,” retorted Drummle. + +“Estella of where?” said I. “You are bound to say of where.” Which he +was, as a Finch. + +“Of Richmond, gentlemen,” said Drummle, putting me out of the question, +“and a peerless beauty.” + +Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I +whispered Herbert. + +“I know that lady,” said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had +been honoured. + +“_Do_ you?” said Drummle. + +“And so do I,” I added, with a scarlet face. + +“_Do_ you?” said Drummle. “_O_, Lord!” + +This was the only retort—except glass or crockery—that the heavy +creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly incensed by it +as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place +and said that I could not but regard it as being like the honourable +Finch’s impudence to come down to that Grove,—we always talked about +coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of +expression,—down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew +nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by +that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew +where I was to be found. + +Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood, +after this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The +debate upon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least six more +honourable members told six more, during the discussion, that they +believed _they_ knew where _they_ were to be found. However, it was +decided at last (the Grove being a Court of Honour) that if Mr. Drummle +would bring never so slight a certificate from the lady, importing that +he had the honour of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, +as a gentleman and a Finch, for “having been betrayed into a warmth +which.” Next day was appointed for the production (lest our honour +should take cold from delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a +polite little avowal in Estella’s hand, that she had had the honour of +dancing with him several times. This left me no course but to regret +that I had been “betrayed into a warmth which,” and on the whole to +repudiate, as untenable, the idea that I was to be found anywhere. +Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an hour, while the +Grove engaged in indiscriminate contradiction, and finally the +promotion of good feeling was declared to have gone ahead at an amazing +rate. + +I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot +adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should +show any favour to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far +below the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been +referable to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my +love for her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to +that hound. No doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had +favoured; but a worthier object would have caused me a different kind +and degree of distress. + +It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle +had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A +little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed +one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and +Estella held him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, +now almost flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him +very well, now scarcely remembering who he was. + +The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait, +however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a +blockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness, which +sometimes did him good service,—almost taking the place of +concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching +Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil +himself and drop at the right nick of time. + +At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls +at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties, +this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration +on her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the +next opportunity; which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to +take her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go. I +was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such +places. + +“Are you tired, Estella?” + +“Rather, Pip.” + +“You should be.” + +“Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to +write, before I go to sleep.” + +“Recounting to-night’s triumph?” said I. “Surely a very poor one, +Estella.” + +“What do you mean? I didn’t know there had been any.” + +“Estella,” said I, “do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is +looking over here at us.” + +“Why should I look at him?” returned Estella, with her eyes on me +instead. “What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,—to use +your words,—that I need look at?” + +“Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,” said I. “For he +has been hovering about you all night.” + +“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,” replied Estella, with a +glance towards him, “hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help +it?” + +“No,” I returned; “but cannot the Estella help it?” + +“Well!” said she, laughing, after a moment, “perhaps. Yes. Anything you +like.” + +“But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should +encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is +despised.” + +“Well?” said she. + +“You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, +ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow.” + +“Well?” said she. + +“You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous +roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don’t you?” + +“Well?” said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her +lovely eyes the wider. + +To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it +from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, “Well! Then, that is +why it makes me wretched.” + +Now, if I could have believed that she favoured Drummle with any idea +of making me—me—wretched, I should have been in better heart about it; +but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the +question, that I could believe nothing of the kind. + +“Pip,” said Estella, casting her glance over the room, “don’t be +foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and +may be meant to have. It’s not worth discussing.” + +“Yes it is,” said I, “because I cannot bear that people should say, +‘she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest +in the crowd.’” + +“I can bear it,” said Estella. + +“Oh! don’t be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.” + +“Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!” said Estella, opening +her hands. “And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a +boor!” + +“There is no doubt you do,” said I, something hurriedly, “for I have +seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never +give to—me.” + +“Do you want me then,” said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and +serious, if not angry, look, “to deceive and entrap you?” + +“Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?” + +“Yes, and many others,—all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I’ll +say no more.” + + + + +And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled +my heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on +unhindered, to the event that had impended over me longer yet; the +event that had begun to be prepared for, before I knew that the world +held Estella, and in the days when her baby intelligence was receiving +its first distortions from Miss Havisham’s wasting hands. + +In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of +state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, +the tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried +through the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in +the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of +hollow to the great iron ring. All being made ready with much labour, +and the hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and +the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring +was put into his hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and +rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near +and afar, that tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an +instant the blow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon +me. + + + + +Chapter XXXIX. + + +I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to +enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third +birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard’s Inn more than a year, +and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the +river. + +Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original +relations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my +inability to settle to anything,—which I hope arose out of the restless +and incomplete tenure on which I held my means,—I had a taste for +reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of +Herbert’s was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have +brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter. + +Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and +had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping +that to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, +I sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend. + +It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, +mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been +driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the +East there were an eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the +gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their +roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of +windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, +of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these +rages of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been +the worst of all. + +Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time, +and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so +exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the +wind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges +of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed +against the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they rocked, +that I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse. +Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it +could not bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the doors +open and looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; +and when I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black +windows (opening them ever so little was out of the question in the +teeth of such wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were +blown out, and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were +shuddering, and that the coal-fires in barges on the river were being +carried away before the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain. + +I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book at +eleven o’clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul’s, and all the many +church-clocks in the City—some leading, some accompanying, some +following—struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind; +and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it, +when I heard a footstep on the stair. + +What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the +footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I +listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on. +Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up +my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had +stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet. + +“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out, looking +down. + +“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath. + +“What floor do you want?” + +“The top. Mr. Pip.” + +“That is my name.—There is nothing the matter?” + +“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came on. + +I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly +within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its +circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere +instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was +strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched +and pleased by the sight of me. + +Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially +dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-grey +hair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong +on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to +weather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp +included us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was +holding out both his hands to me. + +“Pray what is your business?” I asked him. + +“My business?” he repeated, pausing. “Ah! Yes. I will explain my +business, by your leave.” + +“Do you wish to come in?” + +“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, master.” + +I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the +sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face. +I resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to +respond to it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, +having set the lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to +explain himself. + +He looked about him with the strangest air,—an air of wondering +pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,—and he +pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head +was furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-grey hair grew only on +its sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the +contrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding out both his hands +to me. + +“What do you mean?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad. + +He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over +his head. “It’s disapinting to a man,” he said, in a coarse broken +voice, “arter having looked for’ard so distant, and come so fur; but +you’re not to blame for that,—neither on us is to blame for that. I’ll +speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please.” + +He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his +forehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him +attentively then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did not know +him. + +“There’s no one nigh,” said he, looking over his shoulder; “is there?” + +“Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night, +ask that question?” said I. + +“You’re a game one,” he returned, shaking his head at me with a +deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most +exasperating; “I’m glad you’ve grow’d up, a game one! But don’t catch +hold of me. You’d be sorry arterwards to have done it.” + +I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet +I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and +the rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the +intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first +stood face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my +convict more distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair +before the fire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to +me; no need to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round +his head; no need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a +shivering turn across the room, looking back at me for recognition. I +knew him before he gave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, +I had not been conscious of remotely suspecting his identity. + +He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands. Not +knowing what to do,—for, in my astonishment I had lost my +self-possession,—I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them +heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them. + +“You acted noble, my boy,” said he. “Noble, Pip! And I have never +forgot it!” + +At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I +laid a hand upon his breast and put him away. + +“Stay!” said I. “Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I did +when I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by +mending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not +necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be +something good in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not +repulse you; but surely you must understand that—I—” + +My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at +me, that the words died away on my tongue. + +“You was a-saying,” he observed, when we had confronted one another in +silence, “that surely I must understand. What, surely must I +understand?” + +“That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long +ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have +repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad +that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But +our ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look +weary. Will you drink something before you go?” + +He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly +observant of me, biting a long end of it. “I think,” he answered, still +with the end at his mouth and still observant of me, “that I _will_ +drink (I thank you) afore I go.” + +There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table near +the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the +bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum +and water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look +at me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his +neckerchief between his teeth—evidently forgotten—made my hand very +difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with +amazement that his eyes were full of tears. + +Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished +him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and +felt a touch of reproach. “I hope,” said I, hurriedly putting something +into a glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, “that you +will not think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of +doing it, and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!” + +As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of +his neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and +stretched out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew +his sleeve across his eyes and forehead. + +“How are you living?” I asked him. + +“I’ve been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in +the new world,” said he; “many a thousand mile of stormy water off from +this.” + +“I hope you have done well?” + +“I’ve done wonderfully well. There’s others went out alonger me as has +done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I’m famous for +it.” + +“I am glad to hear it.” + +“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.” + +Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which +they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my +mind. + +“Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me,” I inquired, +“since he undertook that trust?” + +“Never set eyes upon him. I warn’t likely to it.” + +“He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was a +poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little +fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay +them back. You can put them to some other poor boy’s use.” I took out +my purse. + +He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he +watched me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents. They +were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to him. +Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, folded them +long-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped +the ashes into the tray. + +“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, +and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you _how_ you have done +well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?” + +“How?” + +“Ah!” + +He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with +his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars, +to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither +looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only +now that I began to tremble. + +When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were without +sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it +distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property. + +“Might a mere warmint ask what property?” said he. + +I faltered, “I don’t know.” + +“Might a mere warmint ask whose property?” said he. + +I faltered again, “I don’t know.” + +“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your income +since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?” + +With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose +out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking +wildly at him. + +“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have been some +guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As +to the first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J?” + +All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its +disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed +in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to +struggle for every breath I drew. + +“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun +with a J, and might be Jaggers,—put it as he had come over sea to +Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. +‘However, you have found me out,’ you says just now. Well! However, did +I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for +particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.” + +I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I +stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I +seemed to be suffocating,—I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I +grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught +me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on +one knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and +that I shuddered at, very near to mine. + +“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done +it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea +should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got +rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; +I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I +tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to +know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his +head so high that he could make a gentleman,—and, Pip, you’re him!” + +The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the +repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded +if he had been some terrible beast. + +“Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son,—more to me +nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a +hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of +sheep till I half forgot wot men’s and women’s faces wos like, I see +yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my +dinner or my supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again, a looking at me +whiles I eats and drinks!’ I see you there a many times, as plain as +ever I see you on them misty marshes. ‘Lord strike me dead!’ I says +each time,—and I goes out in the air to say it under the open +heavens,—‘but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I’ll make that boy a +gentleman!’ And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these +here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show +money with lords for wagers, and beat ’em!” + +In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly +fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one +grain of relief I had. + +“Look’ee here!” he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and +turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his +touch as if he had been a snake, “a gold ’un and a beauty: _that’s_ a +gentleman’s, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; _that’s_ a +gentleman’s, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at +your clothes; better ain’t to be got! And your books too,” turning his +eyes round the room, “mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And +you read ’em; don’t you? I see you’d been a reading of ’em when I come +in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read ’em to me, dear boy! And if they’re in +foreign languages wot I don’t understand, I shall be just as proud as +if I did.” + +Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood +ran cold within me. + +“Don’t you mind talking, Pip,” said he, after again drawing his sleeve +over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I +well remembered,—and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so +much in earnest; “you can’t do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You +ain’t looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn’t prepared for +this as I wos. But didn’t you never think it might be me?” + +“O no, no, no,” I returned, “Never, never!” + +“Well, you see it _wos_ me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but +my own self and Mr. Jaggers.” + +“Was there no one else?” I asked. + +“No,” said he, with a glance of surprise: “who else should there be? +And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There’s bright eyes +somewheres—eh? Isn’t there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the +thoughts on?” + +O Estella, Estella! + +“They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy ’em. Not that a +gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can’t win ’em off of his own +game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you, +dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money +left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got +my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I +went for you. ‘Lord strike a blight upon it,’ I says, wotever it was I +went for, ‘if it ain’t for him!’ It all prospered wonderful. As I giv’ +you to understand just now, I’m famous for it. It was the money left +me, and the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. +Jaggers—all for you—when he first come arter you, agreeable to my +letter.” + +O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,—far from +contented, yet, by comparison happy! + +“And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look’ee here, to know +in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them +colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I +say? I says to myself, ‘I’m making a better gentleman nor ever _you_’ll +be!’ When one of ’em says to another, ‘He was a convict, a few year +ago, and is a ignorant common fellow now, for all he’s lucky,’ what do +I say? I says to myself, ‘If I ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no +learning, I’m the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which +on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?’ This way I kep myself +a-going. And this way I held steady afore my mind that I would for +certain come one day and see my boy, and make myself known to him, on +his own ground.” + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for +anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood. + +“It warn’t easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn’t +safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for +I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear +boy, I done it!” + +I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had +seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him; +even now, I could not separate his voice from those voices, though +those were loud and his was silent. + +“Where will you put me?” he asked, presently. “I must be put +somewheres, dear boy.” + +“To sleep?” said I. + +“Yes. And to sleep long and sound,” he answered; “for I’ve been +sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.” + +“My friend and companion,” said I, rising from the sofa, “is absent; +you must have his room.” + +“He won’t come back to-morrow; will he?” + +“No,” said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost +efforts; “not to-morrow.” + +“Because, look’ee here, dear boy,” he said, dropping his voice, and +laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, “caution is +necessary.” + +“How do you mean? Caution?” + +“By G——, it’s Death!” + +“What’s death?” + +“I was sent for life. It’s death to come back. There’s been overmuch +coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if +took.” + +Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched +me with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to +come to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him +instead of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the +strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with +the strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, +it would have been better, for his preservation would then have +naturally and tenderly addressed my heart. + +My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen +from without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did +so, he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I +saw him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal +again. It almost seemed to me as if he must stoop down presently, to +file at his leg. + +When I had gone into Herbert’s room, and had shut off any other +communication between it and the staircase than through the room in +which our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to +bed? He said yes, but asked me for some of my “gentleman’s linen” to +put on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and +my blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me +good-night. + +I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire +in the room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to +go to bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it +was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked +I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces. + +Miss Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not +designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a +sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to +practise on when no other practice was at hand; those were the first +smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,—it was for the +convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out +of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, +that I had deserted Joe. + +I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to +Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense +of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every +consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that +I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could +never, never, undo what I had done. + +In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I +could have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. +With these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I +had had mysterious warnings of this man’s approach. That, for weeks +gone by, I had passed faces in the streets which I had thought like +his. That these likenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming over +the sea, had drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had somehow sent +these messengers to mine, and that now on this stormy night he was as +good as his word, and with me. + +Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen +him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man; that I had +heard that other convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; +that I had seen him down in the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild +beast. Out of such remembrances I brought into the light of the fire a +half-formed terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with +him in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it +filled the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in and look at +my dreadful burden. + +He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and +lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he +had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the +key to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat +down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the +floor. When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the +perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were +striking five, the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the +wind and rain intensified the thick black darkness. + +THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP’S EXPECTATIONS. + + + + +Chapter XL. + + +It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so +far as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought +pressing on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused +concourse at a distance. + +The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was +self-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would +inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service +now, but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by +an animated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room +secret from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They +both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically +looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; +indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get +up a mystery with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning +that my uncle had unexpectedly come from the country. + +This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness +for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all, +I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there +to come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black +staircase I fell over something, and that something was a man crouching +in a corner. + +As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but +eluded my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman +to come quickly; telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind +being as fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the +lantern by rekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we +examined the staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one +there. It then occurred to me as possible that the man might have +slipped into my rooms; so, lighting my candle at the watchman’s, and +leaving him standing at the door, I examined them carefully, including +the room in which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and +assuredly no other man was in those chambers. + +It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on +that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the +chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at +the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had +perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the +night, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in +the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man +who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in +the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the +night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came +upstairs. + +“The night being so bad, sir,” said the watchman, as he gave me back my +glass, “uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three +gentlemen that I have named, I don’t call to mind another since about +eleven o’clock, when a stranger asked for you.” + +“My uncle,” I muttered. “Yes.” + +“You saw him, sir?” + +“Yes. Oh yes.” + +“Likewise the person with him?” + +“Person with him!” I repeated. + +“I judged the person to be with him,” returned the watchman. “The +person stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person +took this way when he took this way.” + +“What sort of person?” + +The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working +person; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-coloured kind of +clothes on, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of the +matter than I did, and naturally; not having my reason for attaching +weight to it. + +When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without +prolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two +circumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocent +solution apart,—as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home, who +had not gone near this watchman’s gate, might have strayed to my +staircase and dropped asleep there,—and my nameless visitor might have +brought some one with him to show him the way,—still, joined, they had +an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a +few hours had made me. + +I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of +the morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been +dozing a whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an +hour and a half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up +uneasily, with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, +making thunder of the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into +a profound sleep from which the daylight woke me with a start. + +All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor +could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly +dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. As +to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an +elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild +morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I +sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to +appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long +I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or +even who I was that made it. + +At last, the old woman and the niece came in,—the latter with a head +not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,—and testified surprise +at sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come +in the night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations +were to be modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they +knocked the furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream +or sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the fire again, waiting +for—Him—to come to breakfast. + +By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to +bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight. + +“I do not even know,” said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the +table, “by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my +uncle.” + +“That’s it, dear boy! Call me uncle.” + +“You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?” + +“Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.” + +“Do you mean to keep that name?” + +“Why, yes, dear boy, it’s as good as another,—unless you’d like +another.” + +“What is your real name?” I asked him in a whisper. + +“Magwitch,” he answered, in the same tone; “chrisen’d Abel.” + +“What were you brought up to be?” + +“A warmint, dear boy.” + +He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some +profession. + +“When you came into the Temple last night—” said I, pausing to wonder +whether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long +ago. + +“Yes, dear boy?” + +“When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had +you any one with you?” + +“With me? No, dear boy.” + +“But there was some one there?” + +“I didn’t take particular notice,” he said, dubiously, “not knowing the +ways of the place. But I think there _was_ a person, too, come in +alonger me.” + +“Are you known in London?” + +“I hope not!” said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger that +made me turn hot and sick. + +“Were you known in London, once?” + +“Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.” + +“Were you—tried—in London?” + +“Which time?” said he, with a sharp look. + +“The last time.” + +He nodded. “First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.” + +It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up a +knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, “And what I done is +worked out and paid for!” fell to at his breakfast. + +He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his +actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed +him since I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in +his mouth, and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to +bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun +with any appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat +much as I did,—repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and +gloomily looking at the cloth. + +“I’m a heavy grubber, dear boy,” he said, as a polite kind of apology +when he made an end of his meal, “but I always was. If it had been in +my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha’ got into lighter +trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as +shepherd t’other side the world, it’s my belief I should ha’ turned +into a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn’t a had my smoke.” + +As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the +breast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a +handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having +filled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his +pocket were a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from the fire with the +tongs, and lighted his pipe at it, and then turned round on the +hearth-rug with his back to the fire, and went through his favourite +action of holding out both his hands for mine. + +“And this,” said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he puffed +at his pipe,—“and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine +One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip’late, is, to +stand by and look at you, dear boy!” + +I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning +slowly to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was +chained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his +hoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed bald head with its +iron grey hair at the sides. + +“I mustn’t see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets; +there mustn’t be no mud on _his_ boots. My gentleman must have horses, +Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant to +ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood +’uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. +We’ll show ’em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t us?” + +He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with +papers, and tossed it on the table. + +“There’s something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It’s +yourn. All I’ve got ain’t mine; it’s yourn. Don’t you be afeerd on it. +There’s more where that come from. I’ve come to the old country fur to +see my gentleman spend his money _like_ a gentleman. That’ll be _my_ +pleasure. _My_ pleasure ’ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you +all!” he wound up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once +with a loud snap, “blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to +the colonist a stirring up the dust, I’ll show a better gentleman than +the whole kit on you put together!” + +“Stop!” said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, “I want to +speak to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you +are to be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what +projects you have.” + +“Look’ee here, Pip,” said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly +altered and subdued manner; “first of all, look’ee here. I forgot +myself half a minute ago. What I said was low; that’s what it was; low. +Look’ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain’t a-going to be low.” + +“First,” I resumed, half groaning, “what precautions can be taken +against your being recognised and seized?” + +“No, dear boy,” he said, in the same tone as before, “that don’t go +first. Lowness goes first. I ain’t took so many year to make a +gentleman, not without knowing what’s due to him. Look’ee here, Pip. I +was low; that’s what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy.” + +Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I +replied, “I _have_ looked over it. In Heaven’s name, don’t harp upon +it!” + +“Yes, but look’ee here,” he persisted. “Dear boy, I ain’t come so fur, +not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying—” + +“How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?” + +“Well, dear boy, the danger ain’t so great. Without I was informed +agen, the danger ain’t so much to signify. There’s Jaggers, and there’s +Wemmick, and there’s you. Who else is there to inform?” + +“Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?” said +I. + +“Well,” he returned, “there ain’t many. Nor yet I don’t intend to +advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from +Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who’s to gain by it? Still, +look’ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I +should ha’ come to see you, mind you, just the same.” + +“And how long do you remain?” + +“How long?” said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping +his jaw as he stared at me. “I’m not a-going back. I’ve come for good.” + +“Where are you to live?” said I. “What is to be done with you? Where +will you be safe?” + +“Dear boy,” he returned, “there’s disguising wigs can be bought for +money, and there’s hair powder, and spectacles, and black +clothes,—shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what +others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of +living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it.” + +“You take it smoothly now,” said I, “but you were very serious last +night, when you swore it was Death.” + +“And so I swear it is Death,” said he, putting his pipe back in his +mouth, “and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, +and it’s serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What +then, when that’s once done? Here I am. To go back now ’ud be as bad as +to stand ground—worse. Besides, Pip, I’m here, because I’ve meant it by +you, years and years. As to what I dare, I’m a old bird now, as has +dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I’m not +afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there’s Death hid inside of it, +there is, and let him come out, and I’ll face him, and then I’ll +believe in him and not afore. And now let me have a look at my +gentleman agen.” + +Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of +admiring proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the while. + +It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some quiet +lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert +returned: whom I expected in two or three days. That the secret must be +confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I +could have put the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with +him out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means so +plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who reserved +his consent to Herbert’s participation until he should have seen him +and formed a favourable judgment of his physiognomy. “And even then, +dear boy,” said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament out +of his pocket, “we’ll have him on his oath.” + +To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about +the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to +state what I never quite established; but this I can say, that I never +knew him put it to any other use. The book itself had the appearance of +having been stolen from some court of justice, and perhaps his +knowledge of its antecedents, combined with his own experience in that +wise, gave him a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or +charm. On this first occasion of his producing it, I recalled how he +had made me swear fidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had +described himself last night as always swearing to his resolutions in +his solitude. + +As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he +looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next +discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an +extraordinary belief in the virtues of “shorts” as a disguise, and had +in his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made him +something between a dean and a dentist. It was with considerable +difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a +prosperous farmer’s; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close, +and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the +laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until +his change of dress was made. + +It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions; but in my +dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not +get out to further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to +remain shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account +to open the door. + +There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex +Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within +hail of my windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so +fortunate as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I +then went from shop to shop, making such purchases as were necessary to +the change in his appearance. This business transacted, I turned my +face, on my own account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his +desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately and stood before his +fire. + +“Now, Pip,” said he, “be careful.” + +“I will, sir,” I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of what +I was going to say. + +“Don’t commit yourself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and don’t commit any one. +You understand—any one. Don’t tell me anything: I don’t want to know +anything; I am not curious.” + +Of course I saw that he knew the man was come. + +“I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,” said I, “to assure myself that what I +have been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at +least I may verify it.” + +Mr. Jaggers nodded. “But did you say ‘told’ or ‘informed’?” he asked +me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in a +listening way at the floor. “Told would seem to imply verbal +communication. You can’t have verbal communication with a man in New +South Wales, you know.” + +“I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.” + +“Good.” + +“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the +benefactor so long unknown to me.” + +“That is the man,” said Mr. Jaggers, “in New South Wales.” + +“And only he?” said I. + +“And only he,” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for +my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss +Havisham.” + +“As you say, Pip,” returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon me +coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all +responsible for that.” + +“And yet it looked so like it, sir,” I pleaded with a downcast heart. + +“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head +and gathering up his skirts. “Take nothing on its looks; take +everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.” + +“I have no more to say,” said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for +a little while. “I have verified my information, and there’s an end.” + +“And Magwitch—in New South Wales—having at last disclosed himself,” +said Mr. Jaggers, “you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout my +communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of +fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of +fact. You are quite aware of that?” + +“Quite, sir.” + +“I communicated to Magwitch—in New South Wales—when he first wrote to +me—from New South Wales—the caution that he must not expect me ever to +deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him +another caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his +letter at some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I +cautioned him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all +likely to obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his +natural life; and that his presenting himself in this country would be +an act of felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the +law. I gave Magwitch that caution,” said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at +me; “I wrote it to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt.” + +“No doubt,” said I. + +“I have been informed by Wemmick,” pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking +hard at me, “that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from +a colonist of the name of Purvis, or—” + +“Or Provis,” I suggested. + +“Or Provis—thank you, Pip. Perhaps it _is_ Provis? Perhaps you know +it’s Provis?” + +“Yes,” said I. + +“You know it’s Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist +of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on +behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by +return of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received +the explanation of Magwitch—in New South Wales?” + +“It came through Provis,” I replied. + +“Good day, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; “glad to have +seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch—in New South Wales—or in +communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention +that the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to +you, together with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. +Good-day, Pip!” + +We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I +turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two +vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open, +and to force out of their swollen throats, “O, what a man he is!” + +Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done +nothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found the +terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking negro-head, in +safety. + +Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on. +Whatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than +what he had worn before. To my thinking, there was something in him +that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed +him and the better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching +fugitive on the marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was partly +referable, no doubt, to his old face and manner growing more familiar +to me; but I believe too that he dragged one of his legs as if there +were still a weight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there was +Convict in the very grain of the man. + +The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and gave +him a savage air that no dress could tame; added to these were the +influences of his subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all, +his consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways +of sitting and standing, and eating and drinking,—of brooding about in +a high-shouldered reluctant style,—of taking out his great horn-handled +jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,—of lifting +light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy +pannikins,—of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it +the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make +the most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and +then swallowing it,—in these ways and a thousand other small nameless +instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon, +Bondsman, plain as plain could be. + +It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had +conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the +effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon +the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it +was most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of +pretence, and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It +was abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut +short. + +Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful +mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his +knotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head +tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit +and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all +the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to +start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of +him, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the +first agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for +me and the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon +come back. Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and +begin to dress myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave +him there with everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a +private soldier. + +I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those +lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and +the rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and +hanged on my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the +dread that he would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he +was not asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged +pack of cards of his own,—a game that I never saw before or since, and +in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the +table,—when he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would +ask me to read to him,—“Foreign language, dear boy!” While I complied, +he, not comprehending a single word, would stand before the fire +surveying me with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between +the fingers of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb +show to the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary +student pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was +not more wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and +recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me +and the fonder he was of me. + +This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It +lasted about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go +out, except when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one +evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite +worn out,—for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful +dreams,—I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis, +who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an +instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand. + +“Quiet! It’s Herbert!” I said; and Herbert came bursting in, with the +airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him. + +“Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again +how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must +have been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my—Halloa! I +beg your pardon.” + +He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by +seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly +putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something +else. + +“Herbert, my dear friend,” said I, shutting the double doors, while +Herbert stood staring and wondering, “something very strange has +happened. This is—a visitor of mine.” + +“It’s all right, dear boy!” said Provis coming forward, with his little +clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. “Take it in +your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in +any way sumever! Kiss it!” + +“Do so, as he wishes it,” I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at me +with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis +immediately shaking hands with him, said, “Now you’re on your oath, you +know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan’t make a gentleman on +you!” + + + + +Chapter XLI. + + +In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of +Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I +recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings +reflected in Herbert’s face, and not least among them, my repugnance +towards the man who had done so much for me. + +What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there +had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. +Saving his troublesome sense of having been “low” on one occasion since +his return,—on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the +moment my revelation was finished,—he had no perception of the +possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast +that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support +the character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as +for himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, +and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite +established in his own mind. + +“Though, look’ee here, Pip’s comrade,” he said to Herbert, after having +discoursed for some time, “I know very well that once since I come +back—for half a minute—I’ve been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had +been low. But don’t you fret yourself on that score. I ain’t made Pip a +gentleman, and Pip ain’t a-going to make you a gentleman, not fur me +not to know what’s due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, you two +may count upon me always having a genteel muzzle on. Muzzled I have +been since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled +I am at the present time, muzzled I ever will be.” + +Herbert said, “Certainly,” but looked as if there were no specific +consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were +anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us +together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat +late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and saw +him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I +experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of +his arrival. + +Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I +had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in +bringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a +large city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is +conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that +any of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who +were passing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty +when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate +with us, nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the +fountain, I saw his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, +when I stood for a few moments in the doorway of the building where I +lived, before going up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and +lifeless as the staircase was when I ascended it. + +Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so +blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound +words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the +question, What was to be done? + +The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had +stood,—for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in +one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with +his pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards, +and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,—I say his +chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but +next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had +no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my +patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that +confidence without shaping a syllable. + +“What,” said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,—“what is +to be done?” + +“My poor dear Handel,” he replied, holding his head, “I am too stunned +to think.” + +“So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be +done. He is intent upon various new expenses,—horses, and carriages, +and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.” + +“You mean that you can’t accept—” + +“How can I?” I interposed, as Herbert paused. “Think of him! Look at +him!” + +An involuntary shudder passed over both of us. + +“Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to +me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!” + +“My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated. + +“Then,” said I, “after all, stopping short here, never taking another +penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily +in debt,—very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,—and I have +been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.” + +“Well, well, well!” Herbert remonstrated. “Don’t say fit for nothing.” + +“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that +is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but +for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.” + +Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a +warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it. + +“Anyhow, my dear Handel,” said he presently, “soldiering won’t do. If +you were to renounce this patronage and these favours, I suppose you +would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have +already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! +Besides, it’s absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker’s +house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you +know.” + +Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. + +“But there is another question,” said Herbert. “This is an ignorant, +determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he +seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce +character.” + +“I know he is,” I returned. “Let me tell you what evidence I have seen +of it.” And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of +that encounter with the other convict. + +“See, then,” said Herbert; “think of this! He comes here at the peril +of his life, for the realisation of his fixed idea. In the moment of +realisation, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from +under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. +Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?” + +“I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night +of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his +putting himself in the way of being taken.” + +“Then you may rely upon it,” said Herbert, “that there would be great +danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he +remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you +forsook him.” + +I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me +from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard +myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my +chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that +even if Provis were recognised and taken, in spite of himself, I should +be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so +wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would +far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I +would ever have come to this! + +But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done? + +“The first and the main thing to be done,” said Herbert, “is to get him +out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be +induced to go.” + +“But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?” + +“My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next +street, there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to +him and making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get +him away could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything +else in his life, now.” + +“There, again!” said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands +held out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. “I know +nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night +and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, +and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified +me two days in my childhood!” + +Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and +fro together, studying the carpet. + +“Handel,” said Herbert, stopping, “you feel convinced that you can take +no further benefits from him; do you?” + +“Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?” + +“And you feel convinced that you must break with him?” + +“Herbert, can you ask me?” + +“And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he +has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from +throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir +a finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in +Heaven’s name, and we’ll see it out together, dear old boy.” + +It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again, +with only that done. + +“Now, Herbert,” said I, “with reference to gaining some knowledge of +his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point +blank.” + +“Yes. Ask him,” said Herbert, “when we sit at breakfast in the +morning.” For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would +come to breakfast with us. + +With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams +concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear +which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned +transport. Waking, I never lost that fear. + +He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat +down to his meal. He was full of plans “for his gentleman’s coming out +strong, and like a gentleman,” and urged me to begin speedily upon the +pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the +chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to +look out at once for a “fashionable crib” near Hyde Park, in which he +could have “a shake-down.” When he had made an end of his breakfast, +and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of +preface,— + +“After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that +the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You +remember?” + +“Remember!” said he. “I think so!” + +“We want to know something about that man—and about you. It is strange +to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to +tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing +more?” + +“Well!” he said, after consideration. “You’re on your oath, you know, +Pip’s comrade?” + +“Assuredly,” replied Herbert. + +“As to anything I say, you know,” he insisted. “The oath applies to +all.” + +“I understand it to do so.” + +“And look’ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for,” he +insisted again. + +“So be it.” + +He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, +when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think +it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, +stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each +knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent +moments, looked round at us and said what follows. + + + + +Chapter XLII. + + +“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life +like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll +put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in +jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it. +That’s _my_ life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, +arter Pip stood my friend. + +“I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged. I’ve been +locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I’ve been carted here and +carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and +stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no more +notion where I was born than you have—if so much. I first become aware +of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had +run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with him, and +left me wery cold. + +“I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did I know it? +Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be chaffinch, +sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as +the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did. + +“So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel +Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at +him, and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, +took up, to that extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up. + +“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as +much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for +there warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the +name of being hardened. ‘This is a terrible hardened one,’ they says to +prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this +boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured +my head, some on ’em,—they had better a measured my stomach,—and others +on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I +couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But +what the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, +mustn’t I?—Howsomever, I’m a getting low, and I know what’s due. Dear +boy and Pip’s comrade, don’t you be afeerd of me being low. + +“Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,—though +that warn’t as often as you may think, till you put the question +whether you would ha’ been over-ready to give me work yourselves,—a bit +of a poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a +haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don’t pay and +lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a +Traveller’s Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, +learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a +penny a time learnt me to write. I warn’t locked up as often now as +formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still. + +“At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted +wi’ a man whose skull I’d crack wi’ this poker, like the claw of a +lobster, if I’d got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and +that’s the man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, +according to what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last +night. + +“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to a public +boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was +a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the +night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth +that I know’d on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when +I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a +sporting one) called him out, and said, ‘I think this is a man that +might suit you,’—meaning I was. + +“Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a +watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of +clothes. + +“‘To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck,’ says Compeyson to me. + +“‘Yes, master, and I’ve never been in it much.’ (I had come out of +Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have +been for something else; but it warn’t.) + +“‘Luck changes,’ says Compeyson; ‘perhaps yours is going to change.’ + +“I says, ‘I hope it may be so. There’s room.’ + +“‘What can you do?’ says Compeyson. + +“‘Eat and drink,’ I says; ‘if you’ll find the materials.’ + +“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five +shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place. + +“I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on +to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson’s business in which +we was to go pardners? Compeyson’s business was the swindling, +handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts +of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs +out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was +Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as +cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned. + +“There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,—not as +being so chrisen’d, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a +shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a +rich lady some years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but +Compeyson betted and gamed, and he’d have run through the king’s taxes. +So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, +and Compeyson’s wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity +on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and +nobody. + +“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn’t; and I won’t pretend I +was partick’ler—for where ’ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade? +So I begun wi’ Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur +lived at the top of Compeyson’s house (over nigh Brentford it was), and +Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in +case he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled +the account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a +tearing down into Compeyson’s parlour late at night, in only a flannel +gown, with his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson’s wife, +‘Sally, she really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can’t get rid of +her. She’s all in white,’ he says, ‘wi’ white flowers in her hair, and +she’s awful mad, and she’s got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she +says she’ll put it on me at five in the morning.’ + +“Says Compeyson: ‘Why, you fool, don’t you know she’s got a living +body? And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, +or in at the window, and up the stairs?’ + +“‘I don’t know how she’s there,’ says Arthur, shivering dreadful with +the horrors, ‘but she’s standing in the corner at the foot of the bed, +awful mad. And over where her heart’s broke—_you_ broke it!—there’s +drops of blood.’ + +“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go up alonger this +drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend her a +hand, will you?’ But he never come nigh himself. + +“Compeyson’s wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most +dreadful. ‘Why look at her!’ he cries out. ‘She’s a shaking the shroud +at me! Don’t you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain’t it awful to see her +so mad?’ Next he cries, ‘She’ll put it on me, and then I’m done for! +Take it away from her, take it away!’ And then he catched hold of us, +and kep on a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed +I see her myself. + +“Compeyson’s wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the +horrors off, and by and by he quieted. ‘O, she’s gone! Has her keeper +been for her?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ says Compeyson’s wife. ‘Did you tell him +to lock her and bar her in?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And to take that ugly thing away +from her?’ ‘Yes, yes, all right.’ ‘You’re a good creetur,’ he says, +‘don’t leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!’ + +“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and +then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here she is! She’s +got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s coming out of the +corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you—one of each +side—don’t let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. +Don’t let her throw it over my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to +get it round me. She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then he lifted +himself up hard, and was dead. + +“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and me +was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own +book,—this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade +on. + +“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done—which ’ud +take a week—I’ll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip’s comrade, that +that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always +in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a +getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he’d got craft, and +he’d got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and no +mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi’—Stop though! I ain’t +brought _her_ in—” + +He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in +the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and +spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them +on again. + +“There ain’t no need to go into it,” he said, looking round once more. +“The time wi’ Compeyson was a’most as hard a time as ever I had; that +said, all’s said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for +misdemeanor, while with Compeyson?” + +I answered, No. + +“Well!” he said, “I _was_, and got convicted. As to took up on +suspicion, that was twice or three times in the four or five year that +it lasted; but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both +committed for felony,—on a charge of putting stolen notes in +circulation,—and there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, +‘Separate defences, no communication,’ and that was all. And I was so +miserable poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on +my back, afore I could get Jaggers. + +“When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman +Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his black clothes and his +white pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. +When the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, +I noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the +evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had +come for’ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the +money had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work +the thing and get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see +the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, ‘My lord and +gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your +eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be +spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to +as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here +transactions, and only suspected; t’other, the elder, always seen in +’em and always wi’ his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is +but one in it, which is the one, and, if there is two in it, which is +much the worst one?’ And such-like. And when it come to character, +warn’t it Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn’t it his +schoolfellows as was in this position and in that, and warn’t it him as +had been know’d by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to +his disadvantage? And warn’t it me as had been tried afore, and as had +been know’d up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when +it come to speech-making, warn’t it Compeyson as could speak to ’em wi’ +his face dropping every now and then into his white +pocket-handkercher,—ah! and wi’ verses in his speech, too,—and warn’t +it me as could only say, ‘Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most +precious rascal’? And when the verdict come, warn’t it Compeyson as was +recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company, and +giving up all the information he could agen me, and warn’t it me as got +never a word but Guilty? And when I says to Compeyson, ‘Once out of +this court, I’ll smash that face of yourn!’ ain’t it Compeyson as prays +the Judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood betwixt us? And +when we’re sentenced, ain’t it him as gets seven year, and me fourteen, +and ain’t it him as the Judge is sorry for, because he might a done so +well, and ain’t it me as the Judge perceives to be a old offender of +wiolent passion, likely to come to worse?” + +He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked +it, took two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching +out his hand towards me said, in a reassuring manner, “I ain’t a-going +to be low, dear boy!” + +He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped +his face and head and neck and hands, before he could go on. + +[Illustration] + +“I had said to Compeyson that I’d smash that face of his, and I swore +Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I +couldn’t get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him +and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at +him, when I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn’t a +strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I +escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, +envying them as was in ’em and all over, when I first see my boy!” + +He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent +to me again, though I had felt great pity for him. + +“By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them +marshes too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to +get quit of me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him +down. I smashed his face. ‘And now,’ says I ‘as the worst thing I can +do, caring nothing for myself, I’ll drag you back.’ And I’d have swum +off, towing him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I’d a got him +aboard without the soldiers. + +“Of course he’d much the best of it to the last,—his character was so +good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my murderous +intentions; and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought +to trial again, and sent for life. I didn’t stop for life, dear boy and +Pip’s comrade, being here.” + +He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took his +tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his +button-hole, and slowly filled it, and began to smoke. + +“Is he dead?” I asked, after a silence. + +“Is who dead, dear boy?” + +“Compeyson.” + +“He hopes _I_ am, if he’s alive, you may be sure,” with a fierce look. +“I never heerd no more of him.” + +Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He +softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his +eyes on the fire, and I read in it:— + +“Young Havisham’s name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed +to be Miss Havisham’s lover.” + +I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by; +but we neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he +stood smoking by the fire. + + + + +Chapter XLIII. + + +Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be +traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state +of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison +before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which +I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, +and the returned transport whom I harboured? The road would be none the +smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not +be helped, nor I extenuated. + +A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather, +his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already +there. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could +hardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of +him, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any +such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release +himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an +informer was scarcely to be imagined. + +Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe—or so I resolved—a word +of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could go +abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we +were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. +I resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went. + +On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley’s, Estella’s maid was called +to tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, +as usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there +without me; when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation +in the answer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that +her maid believed she was only coming back at all for a little while. I +could make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make +nothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture. + +Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I +always took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the +conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came +back from Miss Havisham’s. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to +consider separately what it would be best to say; whether we should +devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious +observation; or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should +propose an expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, +and he would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his +present hazard was not to be thought of. + +Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise +to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe +or his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and +Herbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be +absent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his +impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to be +begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to Herbert +also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that +pretence,—as, to make purchases, or the like. + +Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham’s, I set +off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out on +the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and +whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of +mist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly +ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, +to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle! + +As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a +very lame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into +the coffee-room, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I +ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very +well knew why he had come there. + +Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had +nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of +coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which +it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly +irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By +degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the +fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my +hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to +stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him. + +“Is this a cut?” said Mr. Drummle. + +“Oh!” said I, poker in hand; “it’s you, is it? How do you do? I was +wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.” + +With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself +side by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the +fire. + +“You have just come down?” said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away +with his shoulder. + +“Yes,” said I, edging _him_ a little away with _my_ shoulder. + +“Beastly place,” said Drummle. “Your part of the country, I think?” + +“Yes,” I assented. “I am told it’s very like your Shropshire.” + +“Not in the least like it,” said Drummle. + +Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr. +Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his. + +“Have you been here long?” I asked, determined not to yield an inch of +the fire. + +“Long enough to be tired of it,” returned Drummle, pretending to yawn, +but equally determined. + +“Do you stay here long?” + +“Can’t say,” answered Mr. Drummle. “Do you?” + +“Can’t say,” said I. + +I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle’s +shoulder had claimed another hair’s breadth of room, I should have +jerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged +a similar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. +He whistled a little. So did I. + +“Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?” said Drummle. + +“Yes. What of that?” said I. + +Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, “Oh!” +and laughed. + +“Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?” + +“No,” said he, “not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the +saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way +villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses—and +smithies—and that. Waiter!” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is that horse of mine ready?” + +“Brought round to the door, sir.” + +“I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won’t ride to-day; the weather +won’t do.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +“And I don’t dine, because I’m going to dine at the lady’s.” + +“Very good, sir.” + +Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his +great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so +exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the +robber in the story-book is said to have taken the old lady) and seat +him on the fire. + +One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief +came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well +squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our +hands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in +the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle’s +was cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both +stood our ground. + +“Have you been to the Grove since?” said Drummle. + +“No,” said I, “I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was +there.” + +“Was that when we had a difference of opinion?” + +“Yes,” I replied, very shortly. + +“Come, come! They let you off easily enough,” sneered Drummle. “You +shouldn’t have lost your temper.” + +“Mr. Drummle,” said I, “you are not competent to give advice on that +subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that +occasion), I don’t throw glasses.” + +“I do,” said Drummle. + +After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of +smouldering ferocity, I said,— + +“Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don’t think it an +agreeable one.” + +“I am sure it’s not,” said he, superciliously over his shoulder; “I +don’t think anything about it.” + +“And therefore,” I went on, “with your leave, I will suggest that we +hold no kind of communication in future.” + +“Quite my opinion,” said Drummle, “and what I should have suggested +myself, or done—more likely—without suggesting. But don’t lose your +temper. Haven’t you lost enough without that?” + +“What do you mean, sir?” + +“Waiter!” said Drummle, by way of answering me. + +The waiter reappeared. + +“Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don’t +ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady’s?” + +“Quite so, sir!” + +When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his +hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle, +careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket +and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and +boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without +introducing Estella’s name, which I could not endure to hear him utter; +and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were +no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have +remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but for +the incursion of three thriving farmers—laid on by the waiter, I +think—who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and +rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we +were obliged to give way. + +I saw him through the window, seizing his horse’s mane, and mounting in +his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought +he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in +his mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-coloured dress +appeared with what was wanted,—I could not have said from where: +whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not,—and as Drummle +leaned down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a +jerk of his head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching +shoulders and ragged hair of this man whose back was towards me +reminded me of Orlick. + +Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or +no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the +journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house +that it would have been so much the better for me never to have +entered, never to have seen. + + + + +Chapter XLIV. + + +In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles +burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham +seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. +Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both +raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I +derived that, from the look they interchanged. + +“And what wind,” said Miss Havisham, “blows you here, Pip?” + +Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused. +Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and +then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as +plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived +I had discovered my real benefactor. + +“Miss Havisham,” said I, “I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to +Estella; and finding that some wind had blown _her_ here, I followed.” + +Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down, +I took the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often seen her +occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural +place for me, that day. + +“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, +presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not +displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.” + +Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the +action of Estella’s fingers as they worked that she attended to what I +said; but she did not look up. + +“I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery, +and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, +anything. There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not +my secret, but another’s.” + +As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to +go on, Miss Havisham repeated, “It is not your secret, but another’s. +Well?” + +“When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I +belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left, I +suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have +come,—as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid +for it?” + +“Ay, Pip,” replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head; “you did.” + +“And that Mr. Jaggers—” + +“Mr. Jaggers,” said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, “had +nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and +his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same +relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that +as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one.” + +Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no +suppression or evasion so far. + +“But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least +you led me on?” said I. + +“Yes,” she returned, again nodding steadily, “I let you go on.” + +“Was that kind?” + +“Who am I,” cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor and +flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in +surprise,—“who am I, for God’s sake, that I should be kind?” + +It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I +told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst. + +“Well, well, well!” she said. “What else?” + +“I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,” I said, to soothe +her, “in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for +my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more +disinterested) purpose. In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you +punished—practised on—perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses +your intention, without offence—your self-seeking relations?” + +“I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my +history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you +not to have it so! You made your own snares. _I_ never made them.” + +Waiting until she was quiet again,—for this, too, flashed out of her in +a wild and sudden way,—I went on. + +“I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham, +and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them +to have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be +false and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you +or no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that +you deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you +suppose them to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and +incapable of anything designing or mean.” + +“They are your friends,” said Miss Havisham. + +“They made themselves my friends,” said I, “when they supposed me to +have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and +Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think.” + +This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do +them good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and +then said quietly,— + +“What do you want for them?” + +“Only,” said I, “that you would not confound them with the others. They +may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the same +nature.” + +Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,— + +“What do you want for them?” + +“I am not so cunning, you see,” I said, in answer, conscious that I +reddened a little, “as that I could hide from you, even if I desired, +that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money +to do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the +nature of the case must be done without his knowledge, I could show you +how.” + +“Why must it be done without his knowledge?” she asked, settling her +hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively. + +“Because,” said I, “I began the service myself, more than two years +ago, without his knowledge, and I don’t want to be betrayed. Why I fail +in my ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the +secret which is another person’s and not mine.” + +She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire. +After watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light of +the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by the +collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me again—at +first, vacantly—then, with a gradually concentrating attention. All +this time Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her +attention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in +our dialogue,— + +“What else?” + +“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my +trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I have loved you +long and dearly.” + +She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her +fingers plied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved +countenance. I saw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from +her to me. + +“I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me +to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought +you could not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. +But I must say it now.” + +Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going, +Estella shook her head. + +“I know,” said I, in answer to that action,—“I know. I have no hope +that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become +of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love +you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.” + +Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook +her head again. + +“It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise +on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all +these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected +on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, +in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.” + +I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she +sat looking by turns at Estella and at me. + +“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are sentiments, +fancies,—I don’t know how to call them,—which I am not able to +comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form +of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch +nothing there. I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to +warn you of this; now, have I not?” + +I said in a miserable manner, “Yes.” + +“Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. +Now, did you not think so?” + +“I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and +beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.” + +“It is in _my_ nature,” she returned. And then she added, with a stress +upon the words, “It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great +difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can +do no more.” + +“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and +pursuing you?” + +“It is quite true,” she replied, referring to him with the indifference +of utter contempt. + +“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with +you this very day?” + +She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied, +“Quite true.” + +“You cannot love him, Estella!” + +Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily, +“What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do +not mean what I say?” + +“You would never marry him, Estella?” + +She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her +work in her hands. Then she said, “Why not tell you the truth? I am +going to be married to him.” + +I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better +than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear +her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a +ghastly look upon Miss Havisham’s, that it impressed me, even in my +passionate hurry and grief. + +“Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this +fatal step. Put me aside for ever,—you have done so, I well know,—but +bestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham +gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done +to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly +love you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as +dearly, though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can +bear it better, for your sake!” + +My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have +been touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all +intelligible to her own mind. + +“I am going,” she said again, in a gentler voice, “to be married to +him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be +married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by +adoption? It is my own act.” + +“Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?” + +“On whom should I fling myself away?” she retorted, with a smile. +“Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if +people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is +done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading me +into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me +wait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which +has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say +no more. We shall never understand each other.” + +“Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!” I urged, in despair. + +“Don’t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,” said Estella; “I shall +not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary +boy—or man?” + +“O Estella!” I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do +what I would to restrain them; “even if I remained in England and could +hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle’s wife?” + +“Nonsense,” she returned,—“nonsense. This will pass in no time.” + +“Never, Estella!” + +“You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.” + +“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You +have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the +rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been +in every prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of +the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the +darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You +have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever +become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London +buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be +displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to +me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my +life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the +little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I +associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to +that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me +feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!” + +In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, +I don’t know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an +inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering +moments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,—and soon +afterwards with stronger reason,—that while Estella looked at me merely +with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand +still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of +pity and remorse. + +All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at +the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker colour than when I +went in. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and +then struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time +come to myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the +inn and see Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach +and be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as +tire myself out. + +It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow +intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the +Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was +close by the river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till +to-morrow; but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could +get to bed myself without disturbing him. + +As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the +Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it +ill that the night-porter examined me with much attention as he held +the gate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I +mentioned my name. + +“I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here’s a note, sir. The +messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my +lantern?” + +[Illustration] + +Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to +Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the +words, “PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.” I opened it, the watchman holding up +his light, and read inside, in Wemmick’s writing,— + +“DON’T GO HOME.” + + + + +Chapter XLV. + + +Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made +the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney +chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed +was always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the +chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next +in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in +order on his list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the +back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling +over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the +fireplace and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched +little washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner. + +As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, +before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those +virtuous days—an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which +instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever +be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the +bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a +staringly wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and +lay there footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more +close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. +And thus, in the gloom and death of the night, we stared at one +another. + +What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an +inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I +looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a +number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers’, and earwigs from the +market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying +by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever +tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,—a +disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable +approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those +extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves +audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little +washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the +chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired +a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw +written, DON’T GO HOME. + +Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never +warded off this DON’T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I +thought of, as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had +read in the newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums +in the night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had +been found in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that +he must have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to +assure myself that there were no red marks about; then opened the door +to look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship +of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But +all this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home, +and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were +questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed +there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I +thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when I +recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and +tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,—even then I was +pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don’t go home. +When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a +vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present +tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do +not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may +not and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and +should not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and +rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the +wall again. + +I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was +plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally +plain that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could +be taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had +been so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to +startle me from my uneasy bed. + +The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o’clock. The little +servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I +passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, +and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was +making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a +perspective view of the Aged in bed. + +“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home, then?” + +“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn’t go home.” + +“That’s all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left a note for you +at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come +to?” + +I told him. + +“I’ll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the +notes,” said Wemmick; “it’s a good rule never to leave documentary +evidence if you can help it, because you don’t know when it may be put +in. I’m going to take a liberty with you. _Would_ you mind toasting +this sausage for the Aged P.?” + +I said I should be delighted to do it. + +“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wemmick to the +little servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don’t you see, Mr. Pip?” +he added, winking, as she disappeared. + +I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse +proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged’s sausage and he +buttered the crumb of the Aged’s roll. + +“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand one +another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have +been engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official +sentiments are one thing. We are extra official.” + +I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted +the Aged’s sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out. + +“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “being in a +certain place where I once took you,—even between you and me, it’s as +well not to mention names when avoidable—” + +“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.” + +“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “that a +certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not +unpossessed of portable property,—I don’t know who it may really be,—we +won’t name this person—” + +“Not necessary,” said I. + +“—Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good +many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations, +and not quite irrespective of the government expense—” + +In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged’s sausage, +and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick’s; for which +I apologised. + +“—By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of +thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures had been raised +and theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden +Court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again.” + +“By whom?” said I. + +“I wouldn’t go into that,” said Wemmick, evasively, “it might clash +with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard +other curious things in the same place. I don’t tell it you on +information received. I heard it.” + +He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set +forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing +it before him, he went into the Aged’s room with a clean white cloth, +and tied the same under the old gentleman’s chin, and propped him up, +and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then +he placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All +right, ain’t you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All +right, John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit +understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was +therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in +complete ignorance of these proceedings. + +“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to +suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back, “is inseparable from +the person to whom you have adverted; is it?” + +Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn’t undertake to say that, of my +own knowledge. I mean, I couldn’t undertake to say it was at first. But +it either is, or it will be, or it’s in great danger of being.” + +As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying +as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out +of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I +told him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to +ask him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he +deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his +breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his +notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me +once, to put my question. + +“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is +Compeyson?” + +He answered with one other nod. + +“Is he living?” + +One other nod. + +“Is he in London?” + +He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave +me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast. + +“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he emphasised and +repeated for my guidance, “I come to what I did, after hearing what I +heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to +Clarriker’s to find Mr. Herbert.” + +“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety. + +“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any +details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody—Tom, +Jack, or Richard—being about the chambers, or about the immediate +neighbourhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way +while you were out of the way.” + +“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?” + +“He _was_ puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my +opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too +far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I’ll tell you something. Under +existing circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you +are once in it. Don’t break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things +slacken, before you try the open, even for foreign air.” + +I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had +done? + +“Mr. Herbert,” said Wemmick, “after being all of a heap for half an +hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is +courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden +Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a +bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You +are acquainted with the young lady, most probably?” + +“Not personally,” said I. + +The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion +who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to +present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very +moderate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the +state of the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time +before I made her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert’s +prospects by stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful +philosophy: he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not +been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews; +and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in Clara’s esteem, +and although the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged +messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I +did not trouble Wemmick with these particulars. + +“The house with the bow-window,” said Wemmick, “being by the +river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and +being kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished +upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that +as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very +well of it, for three reasons I’ll give you. That is to say: _Firstly_. +It’s altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual +heap of streets great and small. _Secondly_. Without going near it +yourself, you could always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, +through Mr. Herbert. _Thirdly_. After a while and when it might be +prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a +foreign packet-boat, there he is—ready.” + +Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and +again, and begged him to proceed. + +“Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, +and by nine o’clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or +Richard,—whichever it may be,—you and I don’t want to know,—quite +successfully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he was +summoned to Dover, and, in fact, he was taken down the Dover road and +cornered out of it. Now, another great advantage of all this is, that +it was done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself +about your movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off +and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it; +and for the same reason I recommended that, even if you came back last +night, you should not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you +want confusion.” + +Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and +began to get his coat on. + +“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, “I +have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more,—from a +Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal +capacity,—I shall be glad to do it. Here’s the address. There can be no +harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is +well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,—which is another +reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone +home, don’t go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip”; +his hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; “and let +me finally impress one important point upon you.” He laid his hands +upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail yourself of +this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t know what +may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen to the portable property.” + +Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I +forbore to try. + +“Time’s up,” said Wemmick, “and I must be off. If you had nothing more +pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that’s what I should +advise. You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a +perfectly quiet day with the Aged,—he’ll be up presently,—and a little +bit of—you remember the pig?” + +“Of course,” said I. + +“Well; and a little bit of _him_. That sausage you toasted was his, and +he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old +acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!” in a cheery shout. + +“All right, John; all right, my boy!” piped the old man from within. + +I soon fell asleep before Wemmick’s fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed +one another’s society by falling asleep before it more or less all day. +We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and I +nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it +drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire +for toast; and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from +his glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was +expected. + + + + +Chapter XLVI. + + +Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, +not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore +boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side +region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to +me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted +was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to +find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks’s Basin; and I had no other +guide to Chinks’s Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk. + +It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself +among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces, +what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of +ship-builders and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into +the ground, though for years off duty, what mountainous country of +accumulated casks and timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old +Green Copper. After several times falling short of my destination and +as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill +Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, +where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and there +were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined +windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,—whose long and +narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden +frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated +haymaking-rakes which had grown old and lost most of their teeth. + +Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a +wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is +another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, +Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly +woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was +immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into the +parlour and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to see his very +familiar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar room +and region; and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at the +corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the +chimney-piece, and the coloured engravings on the wall, representing +the death of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George +the Third in a state coachman’s wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, +on the terrace at Windsor. + +“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite satisfied, though +eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if you’ll wait +till she comes down, I’ll make you known to her, and then we’ll go +upstairs. _That’s_ her father.” + +I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably +expressed the fact in my countenance. + +“I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,” said Herbert, smiling, “but I +have never seen him. Don’t you smell rum? He is always at it.” + +“At rum?” said I. + +“Yes,” returned Herbert, “and you may suppose how mild it makes his +gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his +room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and +_will_ weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler’s shop.” + +While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and +then died away. + +“What else can be the consequence,” said Herbert, in explanation, “if +he _will_ cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right hand—and +everywhere else—can’t expect to get through a Double Gloucester without +hurting himself.” + +He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious +roar. + +“To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs. +Whimple,” said Herbert, “for of course people in general won’t stand +that noise. A curious place, Handel; isn’t it?” + +It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean. + +“Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, when I told him so, “is the best of +housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without her +motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no +relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim.” + +“Surely that’s not his name, Herbert?” + +“No, no,” said Herbert, “that’s my name for him. His name is Mr. +Barley. But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and mother +to love a girl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself +or anybody else about her family!” + +Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he +first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at +an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home to +nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the +motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated with +equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that +nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by +reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject +more psychological than Gout, Rum, and Purser’s stores. + +As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley’s sustained +growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door +opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so came +in with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the +basket, and presented, blushing, as “Clara.” She really was a most +charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that +truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service. + +“Look here,” said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a compassionate +and tender smile, after we had talked a little; “here’s poor Clara’s +supper, served out every night. Here’s her allowance of bread, and +here’s her slice of cheese, and here’s her rum,—which I drink. This is +Mr. Barley’s breakfast for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two +mutton-chops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two +ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It’s +stewed up together, and taken hot, and it’s a nice thing for the gout, +I should think!” + +There was something so natural and winning in Clara’s resigned way of +looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and +something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of +yielding herself to Herbert’s embracing arm; and something so gentle in +her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks’s Basin, +and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, with Old Barley growling in the +beam,—that I would not have undone the engagement between her and +Herbert for all the money in the pocket-book I had never opened. + +I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the +growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was +heard above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it +through the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, +“Papa wants me, darling!” and ran away. + +“There is an unconscionable old shark for you!” said Herbert. “What do +you suppose he wants now, Handel?” + +“I don’t know,” said I. “Something to drink?” + +“That’s it!” cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary +merit. “He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table. +Wait a moment, and you’ll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There he +goes!” Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. “Now,” said +Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, “he’s drinking. Now,” said +Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, “he’s down again +on his back!” + +Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to +see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley’s door, he was heard hoarsely +muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the +following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something +quite the reverse:— + +“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here’s old Bill Barley. Here’s old Bill Barley, +bless your eyes. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the +Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder, +here’s your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you.” + +In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley +would commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while +it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which +was fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river. + +In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and +airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found +Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel +none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was +softened,—indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never +afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly. + +The opportunity that the day’s rest had given me for reflection had +resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting +Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man might +otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own +destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his +fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick’s judgment +and sources of information? + +“Ay, ay, dear boy!” he answered, with a grave nod, “Jaggers knows.” + +“Then, I have talked with Wemmick,” said I, “and have come to tell you +what caution he gave me and what advice.” + +This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told +him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or +prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that +my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping +close for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had +said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time +came, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might +be safest in Wemmick’s judgment. What was to follow that I did not +touch upon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it +in my own mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in +declared peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by +enlarging my expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled +and difficult circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it +were no worse? + +He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His +coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a +venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had +very little fear of his safety with such good help. + +Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said that +something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick’s +suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. “We are both good +watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the +right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no +boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance +is worth saving. Never mind the season; don’t you think it might be a +good thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, +and were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into +that habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, +and there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or +fifty-first.” + +I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed that +it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never +recognise us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. +But we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part +of his window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was +right. + +Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go; +remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and +that I would take half an hour’s start of him. “I don’t like to leave +you here,” I said to Provis, “though I cannot doubt your being safer +here than near me. Good-bye!” + +“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don’t know when we may +meet again, and I don’t like good-bye. Say good-night!” + +“Good-night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time +comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good-night, good-night!” + +We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left +him on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the +stair-rail to light us downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of +the first night of his return, when our positions were reversed, and +when I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at +parting from him as it was now. + +Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no +appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the +foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name +of Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. +Campbell. He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there +was, that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a +strong personal interest in his being well cared for, and living a +secluded life. So, when we went into the parlour where Mrs. Whimple and +Clara were seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. +Campbell, but kept it to myself. + +When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of +the motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a +little affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk +had grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the +hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were +redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks’s Basin to fill it +to overflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and +went home very sadly. + +All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The +windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark +and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the +fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between +me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my bedside +when he came in,—for I went straight to bed, dispirited and +fatigued,—made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that, +he looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as +solemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour. + +Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat +was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach her +within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and +practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in +cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been +out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the +hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old +London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there +was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But +I knew well enough how to ‘shoot’ the bridge after seeing it done, and +so began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to +Erith. The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were +pulling a pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the +blind towards the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less +frequently than three times in a week, and he never brought me a single +word of intelligence that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there +was cause for alarm, and I could not get rid of the notion of being +watched. Once received, it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning +persons I suspected of watching me, it would be hard to calculate. + +In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in +hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to +stand at one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, +and to think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards +Clara. But I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, +and that any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going +swiftly, silently, and surely, to take him. + + + + +Chapter XLVII. + + +Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, +and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, +and had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at +the Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him +as I did. + +My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed +for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the +want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve +it by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But +I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more +money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and +plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, +to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction—whether +it was a false kind or a true, I hardly know—in not having profited by +his generosity since his revelation of himself. + +As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella +was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a +conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had +confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her +to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of +hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you +who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own +last year, last month, last week? + +It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, +towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a +range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause +for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror +fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would +with dread, for Herbert’s returning step at night, lest it should be +fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,—for all that, and +much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to +inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed +about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could. + +There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could +not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London +Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be +brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing +this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the +water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings +that I have now to tell of. + +One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the +wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, +and had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had +become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back +among the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I +had seen the signal in his window, All well. + +As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort +myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and +solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would +afterwards go to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved +his questionable triumph was in that water-side neighbourhood (it is +nowhere now), and to that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that +Mr. Wopsle had not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the +contrary, had rather partaken of its decline. He had been ominously +heard of, through the play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection +with a little girl of noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen +him as a predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red +brick, and an outrageous hat all over bells. + +I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house, +where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every +half-yard of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the +knives,—to this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the +Lord Mayor’s dominions which is not geographical,—and wore out the time +in dozing over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of +dinners. By and by, I roused myself, and went to the play. + +There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty’s service,—a most +excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so +tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,—who knocked all +the little men’s hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and +brave, and who wouldn’t hear of anybody’s paying taxes, though he was +very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in +the cloth, and on that property married a young person in +bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the whole population of +Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning out on the beach +to rub their own hands and shake everybody else’s, and sing “Fill, +fill!” A certain dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn’t fill, or +do anything else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly +stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed +to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so +effectually done (the Swab family having considerable political +influence) that it took half the evening to set things right, and then +it was only brought about through an honest little grocer with a white +hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock, with a +gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking everybody down +from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn’t confute with what he had +overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle’s (who had never been heard of +before) coming in with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of +great power direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all +to go to prison on the spot, and that he had brought the boatswain down +the Union Jack, as a slight acknowledgment of his public services. The +boatswain, unmanned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on +the Jack, and then cheering up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your +Honour, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, +conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately shoved into +a dusty corner, while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from that +corner, surveying the public with a discontented eye, became aware of +me. + +The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in +the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected Mr. +Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric +countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in +the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great +cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. +But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for, +the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,—on account of +the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice of +his daughter’s heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a +flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,—summoned a sententious +Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, +after an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a +high-crowned hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. +The business of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked +at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various +colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with +great surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he +were lost in amazement. + +There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr. +Wopsle’s eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his +mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat +thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large +watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking of +it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him +waiting for me near the door. + +“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the +street together. “I saw that you saw me.” + +“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you. But who +else was there?” + +“Who else?” + +“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost +look again; “and yet I could swear to him.” + +Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning. + +“Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there,” +said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, “I can’t be positive; +yet I think I should.” + +Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me +when I went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill. + +“Oh! He can’t be in sight,” said Mr. Wopsle. “He went out before I went +off. I saw him go.” + +Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected +this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some +admission. Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but +said nothing. + +“I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw +that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a +ghost.” + +My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak +yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on +to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was +perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there. + +“I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is +so very strange! You’ll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I +could hardly believe it myself, if you told me.” + +“Indeed?” said I. + +“No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas +Day, when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery’s, and some +soldiers came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?” + +“I remember it very well.” + +“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that +we joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took +the lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?” + +“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought,—except the last +clause. + +“And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that +there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been +severely handled and much mauled about the face by the other?” + +“I see it all before me.” + +“And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre, +and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes, +with the torchlight shining on their faces,—I am particular about +that,—with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an +outer ring of dark night all about us?” + +“Yes,” said I. “I remember all that.” + +“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I +saw him over your shoulder.” + +“Steady!” I thought. I asked him then, “Which of the two do you suppose +you saw?” + +“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily, “and I’ll swear I +saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him.” + +“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could put on +of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious indeed!” + +I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation +threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson’s +having been behind me “like a ghost.” For if he had ever been out of my +thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was +in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I +should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if I +had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had +found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there, +because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger +there might be about us, danger was always near and active. + +I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He +could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man. +It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to +identify him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, +and known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How +was he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, +in black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I +believed not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no +especial notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a +face at all disfigured would have attracted my attention. + +When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I +extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate +refreshment, after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was +between twelve and one o’clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates +were shut. No one was near me when I went in and went home. + +Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. +But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what +I had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his +hint. As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to +the Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I +went to bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. +Herbert and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very +cautious. And we were very cautious indeed,—more cautious than before, +if that were possible,—and I for my part never went near Chinks’s +Basin, except when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank +as I looked at anything else. + + + + +Chapter XLVIII. + + +The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred +about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf +below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, +undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was +strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy +concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one +overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers’s hand, and he passed it through my +arm. + +“As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. +Where are you bound for?” + +“For the Temple, I think,” said I. + +“Don’t you know?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Well,” I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in +cross-examination, “I do _not_ know, for I have not made up my mind.” + +“You are going to dine?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You don’t mind admitting +that, I suppose?” + +“No,” I returned, “I don’t mind admitting that.” + +“And are not engaged?” + +“I don’t mind admitting also that I am not engaged.” + +“Then,” said Mr. Jaggers, “come and dine with me.” + +I was going to excuse myself, when he added, “Wemmick’s coming.” So I +changed my excuse into an acceptance,—the few words I had uttered, +serving for the beginning of either,—and we went along Cheapside and +slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up +brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely +finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the +afternoon’s bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, +opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at +the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall. + +At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing, +hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the +business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers’s fire, its rising +and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were +playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse, +fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a +corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance +of a host of hanged clients. + +We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And, +as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have +thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much +as a look to Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no +objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it +was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he +raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if +there were twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one. + +“Did you send that note of Miss Havisham’s to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?” Mr. +Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner. + +“No, sir,” returned Wemmick; “it was going by post, when you brought +Mr. Pip into the office. Here it is.” He handed it to his principal +instead of to me. + +“It’s a note of two lines, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, “sent +up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your +address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of +business you mentioned to her. You’ll go down?” + +“Yes,” said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in +those terms. + +“When do you think of going down?” + +“I have an impending engagement,” said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was +putting fish into the post-office, “that renders me rather uncertain of +my time. At once, I think.” + +“If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,” said Wemmick to Mr. +Jaggers, “he needn’t write an answer, you know.” + +Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I +settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass +of wine, and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not +at me. + +“So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,” said Mr. Jaggers, “has played his +cards. He has won the pool.” + +It was as much as I could do to assent. + +“Hah! He is a promising fellow—in his way—but he may not have it all +his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to +be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her—” + +“Surely,” I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, “you do not +seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?” + +“I didn’t say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and +beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be +a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work +to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such +circumstances, because it’s a toss-up between two results.” + +“May I ask what they are?” + +“A fellow like our friend the Spider,” answered Mr. Jaggers, “either +beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but +he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick _his_ opinion.” + +“Either beats or cringes,” said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself +to me. + +“So here’s to Mrs. Bentley Drummle,” said Mr. Jaggers, taking a +decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of +us and for himself, “and may the question of supremacy be settled to +the lady’s satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady _and_ the +gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow +you are to-day!” + +She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the +table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, +nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, +as she spoke, arrested my attention. + +“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,” said I, “was rather +painful to me.” + +The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood +looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or +whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did +go. Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and +such hands on a memorable occasion very lately! + +He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained +before me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those +hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I +compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of, +and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband and +a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the +housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over +me when I last walked—not alone—in the ruined garden, and through the +deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I +saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach +window; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like +lightning, when I had passed in a carriage—not alone—through a sudden +glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association +had helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link, +wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a +chance swift from Estella’s name to the fingers with their knitting +action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this +woman was Estella’s mother. + +Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed +the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said +the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the +wine again, and went on with his dinner. + +Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the +room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands +were Estella’s hands, and her eyes were Estella’s eyes, and if she had +reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less +sure that my conviction was the truth. + +It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round, +quite as a matter of business,—just as he might have drawn his salary +when that came round,—and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of +perpetual readiness for cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine, +his post-office was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office +for its quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong +twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth. + +We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping +among Mr. Jaggers’s stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right +twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down +Gerrard Street in the Walworth direction, before I found that I was +walking arm in arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had +evaporated into the evening air. + +“Well!” said Wemmick, “that’s over! He’s a wonderful man, without his +living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine +with him,—and I dine more comfortably unscrewed.” + +I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so. + +“Wouldn’t say it to anybody but yourself,” he answered. “I know that +what is said between you and me goes no further.” + +I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, Mrs. +Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of +the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned +Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll +of the head, and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness. + +“Wemmick,” said I, “do you remember telling me, before I first went to +Mr. Jaggers’s private house, to notice that housekeeper?” + +“Did I?” he replied. “Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me,” he added, +suddenly, “I know I did. I find I am not quite unscrewed yet.” + +“A wild beast tamed, you called her.” + +“And what do _you_ call her?” + +“The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?” + +“That’s his secret. She has been with him many a long year.” + +“I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in +being acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me +goes no further.” + +“Well!” Wemmick replied, “I don’t know her story,—that is, I don’t know +all of it. But what I do know I’ll tell you. We are in our private and +personal capacities, of course.” + +“Of course.” + +“A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for +murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I +believe had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it +was up, as you may suppose.” + +“But she was acquitted.” + +“Mr. Jaggers was for her,” pursued Wemmick, with a look full of +meaning, “and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a +desperate case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and +he worked it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to +have made him. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day +for many days, contending against even a committal; and at the trial +where he couldn’t work it himself, sat under counsel, and—every one +knew—put in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,—a +woman a good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. +It was a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman +in Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick +(as we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of +jealousy. The murdered woman,—more a match for the man, certainly, in +point of years—was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had +been a violent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched +and torn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, +there was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this +woman, and on the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. +Jaggers principally rested his case. You may be sure,” said Wemmick, +touching me on the sleeve, “that he never dwelt upon the strength of +her hands then, though he sometimes does now.” + +I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner +party. + +“Well, sir!” Wemmick went on; “it happened—happened, don’t you +see?—that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of her +apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was; in +particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully +contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a +bruise or two about her,—nothing for a tramp,—but the backs of her +hands were lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? +Now, Mr. Jaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of +brambles which were not as high as her face; but which she could not +have got through and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles +were actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the +fact that the brambles in question were found on examination to have +been broken through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little +spots of blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made +was this: it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that +she was under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the +murder, frantically destroyed her child by this man—some three years +old—to revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: +“We say these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and +we show you the brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and +you set up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept +all consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have +destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have +scratched her hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder +of her child; why don’t you? As to this case, if you _will_ have +scratches, we say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted +for them, assuming for the sake of argument that you have not invented +them?” “To sum up, sir,” said Wemmick, “Mr. Jaggers was altogether too +many for the jury, and they gave in.” + +“Has she been in his service ever since?” + +“Yes; but not only that,” said Wemmick, “she went into his service +immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since +been taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was +tamed from the beginning.” + +“Do you remember the sex of the child?” + +“Said to have been a girl.” + +“You have nothing more to say to me to-night?” + +“Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing.” + +We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for +my thoughts, though with no relief from the old. + + + + +Chapter XLIX. + + +Putting Miss Havisham’s note in my pocket, that it might serve as my +credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her +waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I +went down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway +House, and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for +I sought to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to +leave it in the same manner. + +The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet +echoing courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old +monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong +walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, +were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral +chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried +on avoiding observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell +of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the +rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high +trees of the priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was +changed, and that Estella was gone out of it for ever. + +An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who +lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the +gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, +and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was +not in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. +Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on +the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the +contemplation of, the ashy fire. + +Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old +chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There +was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to +pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could +charge her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in +the progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked +fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in +a low voice, “Is it real?” + +“It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost +no time.” + +“Thank you. Thank you.” + +As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I +remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me. + +“I want,” she said, “to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when +you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But +perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my +heart?” + +When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous +right hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it +again before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it. + +“You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do +something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it +not?” + +“Something that I would like done very much.” + +“What is it?” + +I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had +not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking +in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be +so; for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed +that she was conscious of the fact. + +“Do you break off,” she asked then, with her former air of being afraid +of me, “because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?” + +“No, no,” I answered, “how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped +because I thought you were not following what I said.” + +“Perhaps I was not,” she answered, putting a hand to her head. “Begin +again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me.” + +She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was +habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of +forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her +how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how in +this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her) +involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they +were the weighty secrets of another. + +“So!” said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. “And +how much money is wanting to complete the purchase?” + +I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. “Nine +hundred pounds.” + +“If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as +you have kept your own?” + +“Quite as faithfully.” + +“And your mind will be more at rest?” + +“Much more at rest.” + +“Are you very unhappy now?” + +She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an +unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my +voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and +softly laid her forehead on it. + +“I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of +disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned.” + +After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire +again. + +“It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of +unhappiness. Is it true?” + +“Too true.” + +“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as +done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?” + +“Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the +tone of the question. But there is nothing.” + +She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room +for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her +pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and +wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung +from her neck. + +“You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?” + +“Quite. I dined with him yesterday.” + +“This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your +irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if +you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it +to you.” + +“Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving +it from him.” + +She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and +evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the +receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled +again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the +pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without +looking at me. + +“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, “I +forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do +it!” + +“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore +mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want +forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.” + +She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, +and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees +at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, +when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have +been raised to heaven from her mother’s side. + +To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet +gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got +my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of +mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and +wept. I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that +the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was +not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground. + +“O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have I done!” + +“If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me +answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. +Is she married?” + +“Yes.” + +It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house +had told me so. + +“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and crushed +her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. “What +have I done!” + +I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a +grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form +that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found +vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of +day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had +secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, +her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and +must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew +equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her +punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this +earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become +a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, +the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been +curses in this world? + +“Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a +looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know +what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!” And so again, +twenty, fifty times over, What had she done! + +“Miss Havisham,” I said, when her cry had died away, “you may dismiss +me from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and +if you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a +part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that +than to bemoan the past through a hundred years.” + +“Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip—my dear!” There was an earnest womanly +compassion for me in her new affection. “My dear! Believe this: when +she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At +first, I meant no more.” + +“Well, well!” said I. “I hope so.” + +“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did +worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, +and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and +point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.” + +“Better,” I could not help saying, “to have left her a natural heart, +even to be bruised or broken.” + +With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and +then burst out again, What had she done! + +“If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have some +compassion for me and a better understanding of me.” + +“Miss Havisham,” I answered, as delicately as I could, “I believe I may +say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first +left this neighbourhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, +and I hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed +between us give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to +Estella? Not as she is, but as she was when she first came here?” + +She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and +her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and +replied, “Go on.” + +“Whose child was Estella?” + +She shook her head. + +“You don’t know?” + +She shook her head again. + +“But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?” + +“Brought her here.” + +“Will you tell me how that came about?” + +She answered in a low whisper and with caution: “I had been shut up in +these rooms a long time (I don’t know how long; you know what time the +clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear +and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for +him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the +newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would +look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here +asleep, and I called her Estella.” + +“Might I ask her age then?” + +“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an +orphan and I adopted her.” + +So convinced I was of that woman’s being her mother, that I wanted no +evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I +thought, the connection here was clear and straight. + +What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had +succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew +of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No +matter with what other words we parted; we parted. + +Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I +called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I +would not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before +leaving. For I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, +and I felt that the dying light was suited to my last view of it. + +By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which +the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and +leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on +end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by +the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the +paths where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary +all! + +Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little +door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at +the opposite door,—not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started +and swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was +encumbered with a growth of fungus,—when I turned my head to look back. +A childish association revived with wonderful force in the moment of +the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to +the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam +shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,—though to be +sure I was there in an instant. + +The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of this +illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an +indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I +had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on +into the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let +me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go +upstairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I +had left her. I took the latter course and went up. + +I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in +the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back +towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly +away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw +her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about +her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high. + +I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. +That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over +her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same +purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, +and all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the +ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered +her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,—that this +occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or +thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the +floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were +floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded +bridal dress. + +Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running +away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries +at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like +a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or +why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the +flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her +garments no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us. + +She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even +touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if I +unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire +would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon’s +coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my +hands were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of +feeling. + +On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, +but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay +mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon’s directions, her bed was +carried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to +be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, +an hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her +stick, and had heard her say that she would lie one day. + +Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still +had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had +covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a +white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that +had been and was changed was still upon her. + +I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I +got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next +post. Miss Havisham’s family I took upon myself; intending to +communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he +liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, +as soon as I returned to town. + +There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had +happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she +began to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that +she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, “What have I done!” +And then, “When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like +mine.” And then, “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive +her!’” She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she +sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in +another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word. + +As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that +pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could +not drive out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I +would return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and +being taken up clear of the town. At about six o’clock of the morning, +therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as +they said, not stopping for being touched, “Take the pencil and write +under my name, ‘I forgive her.’” + + + + +Chapter L. + + +My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in +the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less +severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames +had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My +right hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It +was bandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand +and arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat like +a cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had +been caught by the fire, but not my head or face. + +When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came +back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He +was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages, +and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put +them on again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful +for. + +At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I +might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the +flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I dozed +for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham’s cries, and by her +running at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain of +the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I +suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention +engaged. + +Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That was +made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our +agreeing—without agreement—to make my recovery of the use of my hands a +question of so many hours, not of so many weeks. + +My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all +was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect +confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the +day was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more +by the light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it +spontaneously. + +“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.” + +“Where was Clara?” + +“Dear little thing!” said Herbert. “She was up and down with +Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor +the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though. +What with rum and pepper,—and pepper and rum,—I should think his +pegging must be nearly over.” + +“And then you will be married, Herbert?” + +“How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?—Lay your arm out upon +the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I’ll sit down here, and get the +bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was +speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?” + +“I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.” + +“So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and +told me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some +woman that he had had great trouble with.—Did I hurt you?” + +I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start. + +“I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it.” + +“Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is. +Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?” + +“Tell me by all means. Every word.” + +Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been +rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. +“Your head is cool?” he said, touching it. + +“Quite,” said I. “Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert.” + +“It seems,” said Herbert, “—there’s a bandage off most charmingly, and +now comes the cool one,—makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow, +don’t it? but it will be comfortable presently,—it seems that the woman +was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman; +revengeful, Handel, to the last degree.” + +“To what last degree?” + +“Murder.—Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?” + +“I don’t feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?” + +“Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,” said +Herbert, “but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and +the reputation of that defence first made his name known to Provis. It +was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, and there had been +a struggle—in a barn. Who began it, or how fair it was, or how unfair, +may be doubtful; but how it ended is certainly not doubtful, for the +victim was found throttled.” + +“Was the woman brought in guilty?” + +“No; she was acquitted.—My poor Handel, I hurt you!” + +“It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?” + +“This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little +child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very +night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the +young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore +that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he +should never see it again; then she vanished.—There’s the worst arm +comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right +hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light than +by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don’t see the poor +blistered patches too distinctly.—You don’t think your breathing is +affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly.” + +“Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?” + +“There comes the darkest part of Provis’s life. She did.” + +“That is, he says she did.” + +“Why, of course, my dear boy,” returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise, +and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. “He says it all. +I have no other information.” + +“No, to be sure.” + +“Now, whether,” pursued Herbert, “he had used the child’s mother ill, +or whether he had used the child’s mother well, Provis doesn’t say; but +she had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he +described to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for +her, and forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be +called upon to depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause +of her death, he hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept +himself dark, as he says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was +only vaguely talked of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the +jealousy arose. After the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost +the child and the child’s mother.” + +“I want to ask—” + +“A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson, +the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping +out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course +afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him +poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed +the point of Provis’s animosity.” + +“I want to know,” said I, “and particularly, Herbert, whether he told +you when this happened?” + +“Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His +expression was, ‘a round score o’ year ago, and a’most directly after I +took up wi’ Compeyson.’ How old were you when you came upon him in the +little churchyard?” + +“I think in my seventh year.” + +“Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you +brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would +have been about your age.” + +“Herbert,” said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, “can you +see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?” + +“By the firelight,” answered Herbert, coming close again. + +“Look at me.” + +“I do look at you, my dear boy.” + +“Touch me.” + +“I do touch you, my dear boy.” + +“You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much +disordered by the accident of last night?” + +“N-no, my dear boy,” said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. +“You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself.” + +“I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the +river, is Estella’s Father.” + + + + +Chapter LI. + + +What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving +Estella’s parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the +question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before +me by a wiser head than my own. + +But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was +seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter +down,—that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. +Jaggers, and come at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I +felt that I did this for Estella’s sake, or whether I was glad to +transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some +rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps +the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth. + +Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street +that night. Herbert’s representations that, if I did, I should probably +be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive’s safety would +depend upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, +again and again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. +Jaggers to-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my +hurts looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out +together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left +Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain. + +There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over +the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things +straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into +Mr. Jaggers’s room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the +outer office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick’s post that morning, I knew +what was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick +together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to +compromise him. + +My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my +shoulders, favoured my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief +account of the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to +give him all the details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused +our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the +rules of evidence, than it had been before. While I described the +disaster, Mr. Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. +Wemmick leaned back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the +pockets of his trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. +The two brutal casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official +proceedings, seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn’t +smell fire at the present moment. + +My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced +Miss Havisham’s authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for +Herbert. Mr. Jaggers’s eyes retired a little deeper into his head when +I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, +with instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was +in course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. +Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, looked +on at me. “I am sorry, Pip,” said he, as I put the check in my pocket, +when he had signed it, “that we do nothing for _you_.” + +“Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I returned, “whether she +could do nothing for me, and I told her No.” + +“Everybody should know his own business,” said Mr. Jaggers. And I saw +Wemmick’s lips form the words “portable property.” + +“I should _not_ have told her No, if I had been you,” said Mr Jaggers; +“but every man ought to know his own business best.” + +“Every man’s business,” said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me, +“is portable property.” + +As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at +heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:— + +“I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to +give me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave +me all she possessed.” + +“Did she?” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and +then straightening himself. “Hah! I don’t think I should have done so, +if I had been Miss Havisham. But _she_ ought to know her own business +best.” + +“I know more of the history of Miss Havisham’s adopted child than Miss +Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.” + +Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated “Mother?” + +“I have seen her mother within these three days.” + +“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.” + +“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Perhaps I know more of Estella’s history than even you do,” said I. “I +know her father too.” + +A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner—he was too +self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being +brought to an indefinably attentive stop—assured me that he did not +know who her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis’s +account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark; +which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers’s +client until some four years later, and when he could have no reason +for claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this +unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers’s part before, though I was quite sure +of it now. + +“So! You know the young lady’s father, Pip?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis—from New South Wales.” + +Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest +start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the +sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the +action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the +announcement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just +then, lest Mr. Jaggers’s sharpness should detect that there had been +some communication unknown to him between us. + +“And on what evidence, Pip,” asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he +paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, “does Provis make +this claim?” + +“He does not make it,” said I, “and has never made it, and has no +knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.” + +For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so +unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket +without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked +with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face. + +Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation +that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact +knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look +towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been +for some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers’s look. When I did at last +turn my eyes in Wemmick’s direction, I found that he had unposted his +pen, and was intent upon the table before him. + +“Hah!” said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the +table. “What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?” + +But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a +passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and +manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had +lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had +made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I +represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence +from him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said +that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted +assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it, +and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he +cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, +and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, +whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything +else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and +silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to +Wemmick, and said, “Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle +heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the +innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business +life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to +represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be +more open with me!” + +I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr. +Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving +crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his +employment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something +like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder. + +“What’s all this?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You with an old father, and you +with pleasant and playful ways?” + +“Well!” returned Wemmick. “If I don’t bring ’em here, what does it +matter?” + +“Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling +openly, “this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.” + +“Not a bit of it,” returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. “I +think you’re another.” + +Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still +distrustful that the other was taking him in. + +“_You_ with a pleasant home?” said Mr. Jaggers. + +“Since it don’t interfere with business,” returned Wemmick, “let it be +so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if _you_ might be +planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of +these days, when you’re tired of all this work.” + +Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and +actually drew a sigh. “Pip,” said he, “we won’t talk about ‘poor +dreams;’ you know more about such things than I, having much fresher +experience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I’ll put a +case to you. Mind! I admit nothing.” + +He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly +said that he admitted nothing. + +“Now, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “put this case. Put the case that a +woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child +concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal +adviser, on his representing to her that he must know, with an eye to +the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put +the case that, at the same time he held a trust to find a child for an +eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.” + +“I follow you, sir.” + +“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he +saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain +destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at +a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that +he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, +neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing +up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw +in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, +to develop into the fish that were to come to his net,—to be +prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.” + +“I follow you, sir.” + +“Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the +heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make +no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this +power: “I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, +you did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you +through it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it +should be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be +produced. Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring +you off. If you are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, +your child is still saved.” Put the case that this was done, and that +the woman was cleared.” + +“I understand you perfectly.” + +“But that I make no admissions?” + +“That you make no admissions.” And Wemmick repeated, “No admissions.” + +“Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little +shaken the woman’s intellects, and that when she was set at liberty, +she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be +sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the +old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking +out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend +the imaginary case?” + +“Quite.” + +“Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That +the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the +mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many +miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was +still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case +to yourself very carefully.” + +“I do.” + +“I ask Wemmick to put it to _him_self very carefully.” + +And Wemmick said, “I do.” + +“For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father’s? I think +he would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother’s? I +think if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was. For +the daughter’s? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her +parentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to +disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for +life. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her +the subject of those ‘poor dreams’ which have, at one time or another, +been in the heads of more men than you think likely, then I tell you +that you had better—and would much sooner when you had thought well of +it—chop off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right +hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut _that_ off +too.” + +I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his +lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same. +“Now, Wemmick,” said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, “what +item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?” + +Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the +odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times: +with this difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to +say conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional +light to the other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now +inflexible with one another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and +Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest +point in abeyance for a moment. I had never seen them on such ill +terms; for generally they got on very well indeed together. + +But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of +Mike, the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on +his sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance +within those walls. This individual, who, either in his own person or +in that of some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble +(which in that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his eldest +daughter was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this +melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially +before the fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike’s eye +happened to twinkle with a tear. + +“What are you about?” demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation. +“What do you come snivelling here for?” + +“I didn’t go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.” + +“You did,” said Wemmick. “How dare you? You’re not in a fit state to +come here, if you can’t come here without spluttering like a bad pen. +What do you mean by it?” + +“A man can’t help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,” pleaded Mike. + +“His what?” demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. “Say that again!” + +“Now look here my man,” said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and +pointing to the door. “Get out of this office. I’ll have no feelings +here. Get out.” + +“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.” + +So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and +Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and +went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had +just had lunch. + + + + +Chapter LII. + + +From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss +Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s brother, the +accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s and bringing Clarriker to me, +I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the +only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, +since I was first apprised of my great expectations. + +Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House +were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a +small branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension +of the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would +go out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for a +separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more +settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening +its hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves. + +But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home +of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told +me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara +Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join +them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the +Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in +those bright plans, I felt that Herbert’s way was clearing fast, and +that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his +daughter would soon be happily provided for. + +We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it +presented no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal +that I was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably +restored; disfigured, but fairly serviceable. + +On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received +the following letter from Wemmick by the post. + +“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say +Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try +it. Now burn.” + +When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire—but not +before we had both got it by heart—we considered what to do. For, of +course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view. + +“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and I think I +know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A +good fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and +honourable.” + +I had thought of him more than once. + +“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?” + +“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere +freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know +that there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. +You go with him?” + +“No doubt.” + +“Where?” + +It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the +point, almost indifferent what port we made for,—Hamburg, Rotterdam, +Antwerp,—the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any +foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do. I +had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the +boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for +search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would +leave London at about the time of high-water, our plan would be to get +down the river by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot +until we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we +lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we +made inquiries beforehand. + +Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after +breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for +Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our +thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign +steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied +ourselves that we knew the build and colour of each. We then separated +for a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were necessary; +Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do +without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o’clock reported it +done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen +Startop, and he was more than ready to join. + +Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; +our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our +object, we should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not +come home to dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that +he should not go there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he +should prepare Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on +Wednesday, when he saw us approach, and not sooner; that all the +arrangements with him should be concluded that Monday night; and that +he should be communicated with no more in any way, until we took him on +board. + +These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home. + +On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter +in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not +ill-written. It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left +home), and its contents were these:— + +“If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow +night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln, +you had better come. If you want information regarding _your uncle +Provis_, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. +_You must come alone_. Bring this with you.” + +I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange +letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I +must decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would +take me down in time for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of +going, for it would be too close upon the time of the flight. And +again, for anything I knew, the proffered information might have some +important bearing on the flight itself. + +If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still +have gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,—my watch showing +me that the coach started within half an hour,—I resolved to go. I +should certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle +Provis. That, coming on Wemmick’s letter and the morning’s busy +preparation, turned the scale. + +It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of +almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this +mysterious epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be +secret got mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same +mechanical kind of way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling +him that as I should be so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I +had decided to hurry down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss +Havisham was faring. I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock +up the chambers, and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If +I had taken a hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have +missed my aim; going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out +of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in +straw, when I came to myself. + +For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter; it +had so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning +hurry and flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had +waited for Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now +I began to wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt +whether I had sufficient reason for being there, and to consider +whether I should get out presently and go back, and to argue against +ever heeding an anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through +all those phases of contradiction and indecision to which I suppose +very few hurried people are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis +by name mastered everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already +without knowing it,—if that be reasoning,—in case any harm should +befall him through my not going, how could I ever forgive myself! + +It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary +to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside +in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of +minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was +preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she +was still very ill, though considered something better. + +My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I +dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able +to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for +me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain +me with my own story,—of course with the popular feature that +Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes. + +“Do you know the young man?” said I. + +“Know him!” repeated the landlord. “Ever since he was—no height at +all.” + +“Does he ever come back to this neighbourhood?” + +“Ay, he comes back,” said the landlord, “to his great friends, now and +again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him.” + +“What man is that?” + +“Him that I speak of,” said the landlord. “Mr. Pumblechook.” + +“Is he ungrateful to no one else?” + +“No doubt he would be, if he could,” returned the landlord, “but he +can’t. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him.” + +“Does Pumblechook say so?” + +“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han’t no call to say so.” + +“But does he say so?” + +“It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of +it, sir,” said the landlord. + +I thought, “Yet Joe, dear Joe, _you_ never tell of it. Long-suffering +and loving Joe, _you_ never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!” + +“Your appetite’s been touched like by your accident,” said the +landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. “Try a tenderer +bit.” + +“No, thank you,” I replied, turning from the table to brood over the +fire. “I can eat no more. Please take it away.” + +I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as +through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; +the meaner he, the nobler Joe. + +My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the +fire for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not +from my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened +round my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for +the letter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it, +and was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of +the coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed place was the +little sluice-house by the limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine. +Towards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to spare. + +[Illustration] + + + + +Chapter LIII. + + +It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed +lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there +was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large +moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in +among the piled mountains of cloud. + +There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A +stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were +so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew +them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had +no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my +inclination, I went on against it. + +The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor +that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards +the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old +lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew +the limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles +apart; so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, +there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two +bright specks. + +At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand +still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose +and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while +I seemed to have the whole flats to myself. + +It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was +burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and +left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It +lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the +tools and barrows that were lying about. + +Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,—for the rude +path lay through it,—I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened +my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, +I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, +and how the house—of wood with a tiled roof—would not be proof against +the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and +ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapour of the kiln +crept in a ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I +knocked again. No answer still, and I tried the latch. + +It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a +lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle +bedstead. As there was a loft above, I called, “Is there any one here?” +but no voice answered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it +was past nine, called again, “Is there any one here?” There being still +no answer, I went out at the door, irresolute what to do. + +It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen +already, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the +shelter of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was +considering that some one must have been there lately and must soon be +coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it came into my head +to look if the wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken +up the candle in my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent +shock; and the next thing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in +a strong running noose, thrown over my head from behind. + +“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I’ve got you!” + +“What is this?” I cried, struggling. “Who is it? Help, help, help!” + +Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on my +bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man’s hand, +sometimes a strong man’s breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my +cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled +ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. “And +now,” said the suppressed voice with another oath, “call out again, and +I’ll make short work of you!” + +Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the +surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in +execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little. +But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt +before, it were now being boiled. + +The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black +darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter. +After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he +wanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the +sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and +breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue +point of the match; even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,—no +wonder there,—and one after another the sparks died out. + +The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As +the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and +touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending +over the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, +breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and +showed me Orlick. + +Whom I had looked for, I don’t know. I had not looked for him. Seeing +him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes +upon him. + +He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, +and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away +from him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms +folded on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to +a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,—a fixture +there,—the means of ascent to the loft above. + +“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, “I’ve +got you.” + +“Unbind me. Let me go!” + +“Ah!” he returned, “_I_’ll let you go. I’ll let you go to the moon, +I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good time.” + +“Why have you lured me here?” + +“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look. + +“Why have you set upon me in the dark?” + +“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than +two. O you enemy, you enemy!” + +His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms +folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a +malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he +put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a +brass-bound stock. + +“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim at me. “Do +you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!” + +“Yes,” I answered. + +[Illustration] + +“You cost me that place. You did. Speak!” + +“What else could I do?” + +“You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to +come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?” + +“When did I?” + +“When didn’t you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to +her.” + +“You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done +you no harm, if you had done yourself none.” + +“You’re a liar. And you’ll take any pains, and spend any money, to +drive me out of this country, will you?” said he, repeating my words to +Biddy in the last interview I had with her. “Now, I’ll tell you a piece +of information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of +this country as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty +times told, to the last brass farden!” As he shook his heavy hand at +me, with his mouth snarling like a tiger’s, I felt that it was true. + +“What are you going to do to me?” + +“I’m a-going,” said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a +heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,—“I’m +a-going to have your life!” + +He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it +across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again. + +“You was always in Old Orlick’s way since ever you was a child. You +goes out of his way this present night. He’ll have no more on you. +You’re dead.” + +I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked +wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none. + +“More than that,” said he, folding his arms on the table again, “I +won’t have a rag of you, I won’t have a bone of you, left on earth. +I’ll put your body in the kiln,—I’d carry two such to it, on my +shoulders—and, let people suppose what they may of you, they shall +never know nothing.” + +My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences +of such a death. Estella’s father would believe I had deserted him, +would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me, +when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had +called at Miss Havisham’s gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would +never know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what I +had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed +through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible +than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And so +quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn +generations,—Estella’s children, and their children,—while the wretch’s +words were yet on his lips. + +“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other beast,—which is +wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,—I’ll have a good look +at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!” + +It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though few +could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the +hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by +a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I +resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some +last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of +men were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of +Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no +farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to +me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my +miserable errors,—still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I +would have done it. + +He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his +neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink +slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and +took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw +flash into his face. + +“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick’s a-going to tell +you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.” + +Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted +the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her +death, before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words. + +“It was you, villain,” said I. + +“I tell you it was your doing,—I tell you it was done through you,” he +retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the +vacant air between us. “I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you +to-night. _I_ giv’ it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a +limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come +to life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was +favoured, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? +Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.” + +He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of the +bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly +understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an +end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew +that when I was changed into a part of the vapour that had crept +towards me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he +would do as he had done in my sister’s case,—make all haste to the +town, and be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My +rapid mind pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with +him in it, and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and +the white vapour creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved. + +It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years +while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented +pictures to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of +my brain, I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons +without seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of +these images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him +himself,—who would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!—that +I knew of the slightest action of his fingers. + +When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which he +sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and, +shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, +stood before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight. + +“Wolf, I’ll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled +over on your stairs that night.” + +I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of +the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman’s lantern on the wall. I +saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open; +there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around. + +“And why was Old Orlick there? I’ll tell you something more, wolf. You +and her _have_ pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as +getting a easy living in it goes, and I’ve took up with new companions, +and new masters. Some of ’em writes my letters when I wants ’em +wrote,—do you mind?—writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands; +they’re not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I’ve had a firm mind +and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your +sister’s burying. I han’t seen a way to get you safe, and I’ve looked +arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself, +‘Somehow or another I’ll have him!’ What! When I looks for you, I finds +your uncle Provis, eh?” + +Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks’s Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, +all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was +over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his +back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running +out to sea! + +“_You_ with a uncle too! Why, I know’d you at Gargery’s when you was so +small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and +thumb and chucked you away dead (as I’d thoughts o’ doing, odd times, +when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you +hadn’t found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for +to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old +Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year +ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a +bullock, as he means to drop you—hey?—when he come for to hear +that—hey?” + +In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I +turned my face aside to save it from the flame. + +“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt child dreads +the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was +smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick’s a match for you and +know’d you’d come to-night! Now I’ll tell you something more, wolf, and +this ends it. There’s them that’s as good a match for your uncle Provis +as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him ’ware them, when he’s lost his +nevvy! Let him ’ware them, when no man can’t find a rag of his dear +relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There’s them that can’t +and that won’t have Magwitch,—yes, _I_ know the name!—alive in the same +land with them, and that’s had such sure information of him when he was +alive in another land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave it +unbeknown and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that writes fifty +hands, and that’s not like sneaking you as writes but one. ’Ware +Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!” + +He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an +instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the +light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and +Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again. + +There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the +opposite wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and +forwards. His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever +before, as he did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his +sides, and with his eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. +Wild as my inward hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures +that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand +that, unless he had resolved that I was within a few moments of surely +perishing out of all human knowledge, he would never have told me what +he had told. + +Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed it +away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed +slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked +at me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of +his hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and +swearing horribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw +in his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle. + +The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one +vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and +struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I +could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until +then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard +responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the +door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of +men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly +out into the night. + +After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the +same place, with my head on some one’s knee. My eyes were fixed on the +ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,—had opened on it before +my mind saw it,—and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I +was in the place where I had lost it. + +Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who +supported me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came +between me and it a face. The face of Trabb’s boy! + +“I think he’s all right!” said Trabb’s boy, in a sober voice; “but +ain’t he just pale though!” + +At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, +and I saw my supporter to be— + +“Herbert! Great Heaven!” + +“Softly,” said Herbert. “Gently, Handel. Don’t be too eager.” + +“And our old comrade, Startop!” I cried, as he too bent over me. + +“Remember what he is going to assist us in,” said Herbert, “and be +calm.” + +The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain in +my arm. “The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is +to-night? How long have I been here?” For, I had a strange and strong +misgiving that I had been lying there a long time—a day and a +night,—two days and nights,—more. + +“The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.” + +“Thank God!” + +“And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,” said Herbert. “But +you can’t help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you got? Can +you stand?” + +“Yes, yes,” said I, “I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throbbing +arm.” + +They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen +and inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they +tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully +replaced it in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain +some cooling lotion to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the +door of the dark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the +quarry on our way back. Trabb’s boy—Trabb’s overgrown young man +now—went before us with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come +in at the door. But, the moon was a good two hours higher than when I +had last seen the sky, and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. +The white vapour of the kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as +I had thought a prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now. + +Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,—which at +first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining +quiet,—I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our +chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had +met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I was +gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the +inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His +uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an +hour’s consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who +volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went down. +Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his +uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he +resolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the +Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, +finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham’s, where they lost me. +Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when +I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh +themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. +Among the loungers under the Boar’s archway happened to be Trabb’s +Boy,—true to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he +had no business,—and Trabb’s boy had seen me passing from Miss +Havisham’s in the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb’s boy became +their guide, and with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by +the town way to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went +along, Herbert reflected, that I might, after all, have been brought +there on some genuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis’s +safety, and, bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be +mischievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and +went on by himself, and stole round the house two or three times, +endeavouring to ascertain whether all was right within. As he could +hear nothing but indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was +while my mind was so busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I +was there, when suddenly I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, +and rushed in, closely followed by the other two. + +When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our +immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it +was, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such +a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might be +fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we +relinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the +present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather +light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am convinced, would have +been much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his +intervention saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy was of a +malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it +was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s +expense. When we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed +to meet his views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an +ill opinion of him (which made no impression on him at all). + +Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London +that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be +clear away before the night’s adventure began to be talked of. Herbert +got a large bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this +stuff dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear +its pain on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, +and I went at once to bed, and lay in bed all day. + +My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for +to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of +itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the +mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon +me that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with +such consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near. + +No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining from +communication with him that day; yet this again increased my +restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing +that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell me +so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was +something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the +fact had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days +wore on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell, +my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow +morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning +head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to +high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew +in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a +fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to +myself with a start, “Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!” + +They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, +and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the +notion I had had in the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and +the opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed +and went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for +four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last +self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept +soundly. + +Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking +lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a +marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was +spanned by bridges that were turning coldly grey, with here and there +at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the +clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the +unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn +from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. +From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well. + +Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on +the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the +fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In +good time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the +sharp morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still +flowing towards us. + +“When it turns at nine o’clock,” said Herbert, cheerfully, “look out +for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!” + + + + +Chapter LIV. + + +It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind +blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. We +had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly +possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the +bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were +questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for +it was wholly set on Provis’s safety. I only wondered for the passing +moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered +circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever. + +We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if +we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had +taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After +a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two +or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went +on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then +about high-water,—half-past eight. + +Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being +with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, +and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long +reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is +broad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and +where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we +could choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all +night. The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would +start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at +what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail +the first; so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we +should have another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each +vessel. + +The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was +so great to me that I felt it difficult to realise the condition in +which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the +movement on the river, and the moving river itself,—the road that ran +with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us +on,—freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use +in the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, +and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day. + +At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present +extent, and watermen’s boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing +colliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now; but +of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part so +many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and +there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide; +the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a +much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and +we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly. + +Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its +oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor’s Gate, and +we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen, +and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking +immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside; here, were +colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off +stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coal swinging up, +which were then rattled over the side into barges; here, at her +moorings was to-morrow’s steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good +notice; and here to-morrow’s for Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we +crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a faster +beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond stairs. + +“Is he there?” said Herbert. + +“Not yet.” + +“Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his +signal?” + +“Not well from here; but I think I see it.—Now I see him! Pull both. +Easy, Herbert. Oars!” + +We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board, +and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas +bag; and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished. + +“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his +seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!” + +Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty +chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the +moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and +shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the +figure-head of the _John of Sunderland_ making a speech to the winds +(as is done by many Johns), and the _Betsy of Yarmouth_ with a firm +formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her +head; in and out, hammers going in ship-builders’ yards, saws going at +timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky +ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible +sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent +lightermen, in and out,—out at last upon the clearer river, where the +ships’ boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled +waters with them over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly +out to the wind. + +At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had +looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We +certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not +either attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by +any boat, I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, +or to make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any +appearance of molestation. + +He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural +part of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he +had led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. +He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his +gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not +disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no +notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted +it, but it must come before he troubled himself. + +“If you knowed, dear boy,” he said to me, “what it is to sit here +alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day +betwixt four walls, you’d envy me. But you don’t know what it is.” + +“I think I know the delights of freedom,” I answered. + +“Ah,” said he, shaking his head gravely. “But you don’t know it equal +to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it +equal to me,—but I ain’t a-going to be low.” + +It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he +should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected +that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the +habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I +was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:— + +“You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t’other side the world, I +was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for +all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could +come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody’s head would be troubled about +him. They ain’t so easy concerning me here, dear boy,—wouldn’t be, +leastwise, if they knowed where I was.” + +“If all goes well,” said I, “you will be perfectly free and safe again +within a few hours.” + +“Well,” he returned, drawing a long breath, “I hope so.” + +“And think so?” + +He dipped his hand in the water over the boat’s gunwale, and said, +smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:— + +“Ay, I s’pose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be more quiet +and easy-going than we are at present. But—it’s a flowing so soft and +pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes me think it—I was a +thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the +bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this +river what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can’t no more hold their tide +than I can hold this. And it’s run through my fingers and gone, you +see!” holding up his dripping hand. + +“But for your face I should think you were a little despondent,” said +I. + +“Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of +that there rippling at the boat’s head making a sort of a Sunday tune. +Maybe I’m a growing a trifle old besides.” + +He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of +face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of +England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been +in constant terror; for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer +into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he +would be safest where he was, and he said. “Do you, dear boy?” and +quietly sat down again. + +The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the +sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose +none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By +imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of +the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the +muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. +As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a +boat or two’s length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch +the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a +large transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And +soon the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, +and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking +advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us +in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of +the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and +mudbanks. + +Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive +with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour’s rest +proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery +stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. It +was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim +horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and the great +floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed +stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round +the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, +straw-laden, with a brown sail, had followed; and some +ballast-lighters, shaped like a child’s first rude imitation of a boat, +lay low in the mud; and a little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles +stood crippled in the mud on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes +stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out of the mud, and red +landmarks and tidemarks stuck out of the mud, and an old landing-stage +and an old roofless building slipped into the mud, and all about us was +stagnation and mud. + +We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder +work now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and +rowed until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a +little, so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on +the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into +black; and there was the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were +the rising grounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, +save here and there in the foreground a melancholy gull. + +As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full, +would not rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for +clearly our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could +find. So, they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for +anything like a house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or +five dull miles. It was very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with +her galley-fire smoking and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. +The night was as dark by this time as it would be until morning; and +what light we had, seemed to come more from the river than the sky, as +the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars. + +At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that we +were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular +intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or +other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and +there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little +creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them +nervously. Sometimes, “What was that ripple?” one of us would say in a +low voice. Or another, “Is that a boat yonder?” And afterwards we would +fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with +what an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels. + +At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran +alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard +by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light +to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I +dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good +fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various +liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,—“such as +they were,” the landlord said. No other company was in the house than +the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the “Jack” of the +little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been +low-water mark too. + +With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came +ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all +else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the +kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop +were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as +carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there +were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have +thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off, +notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found. + +While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the +Jack—who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes +on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as +interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a +drowned seaman washed ashore—asked me if we had seen a four-oared +galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must +have gone down then, and yet she “took up too,” when she left there. + +“They must ha’ thought better on’t for some reason or another,” said +the Jack, “and gone down.” + +“A four-oared galley, did you say?” said I. + +“A four,” said the Jack, “and two sitters.” + +“Did they come ashore here?” + +“They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I’d ha’ been +glad to pison the beer myself,” said the Jack, “or put some rattling +physic in it.” + +“Why?” + +“_I_ know why,” said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much +mud had washed into his throat. + +“He thinks,” said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale +eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,—“he thinks they was, what +they wasn’t.” + +“_I_ knows what I thinks,” observed the Jack. + +“_You_ thinks Custom ’Us, Jack?” said the landlord. + +“I do,” said the Jack. + +“Then you’re wrong, Jack.” + +“AM I!” + +In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in +his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, +knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on +again. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he +could afford to do anything. + +“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, +Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly. + +“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked ’em overboard. +Swallered ’em. Sowed ’em, to come up small salad. Done with their +buttons!” + +“Don’t be cheeky, Jack,” remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and +pathetic way. + +“A Custom ’Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons,” said the +Jack, repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, “when +they comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don’t +go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and +both with and against another, without there being Custom ’Us at the +bottom of it.” Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, +having no one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the +subject. + +This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind +was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and +I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley +hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an +ugly circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced +Provis to go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop +by this time knew the state of the case), and held another council. +Whether we should remain at the house until near the steamer’s time, +which would be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off +early in the morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we +deemed it the better course to lie where we were, until within an hour +or so of the steamer’s time, and then to get out in her track, and +drift easily with the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into +the house and went to bed. + +I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a +few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house +(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled +me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the +window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and, +as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw +two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at +nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I +could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction +of the Nore. + +My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going +away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back +of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder +day than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I +could see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I +soon lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the +matter, and fell asleep again. + +We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before +breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our +charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the +men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no +thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,—as, indeed, +it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away +together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take +us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about +noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he +and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern. + +He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me +on the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in +danger, not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As +we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, +while I went on to reconnoitre; for it was towards it that the men had +passed in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no +boat off the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were +there any signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the +tide was high, and there might have been some footprints under water. + +When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I +waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited; +sometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving +about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got +aboard easily, and rowed out into the track of the steamer. By that +time it wanted but ten minutes of one o’clock, and we began to look out +for her smoke. + +But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards +we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on +at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity of +saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands +cordially, and neither Herbert’s eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I +saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way +ahead of us, and row out into the same track. + +A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer’s smoke, +by reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was visible, +coming head on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the +tide, that she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to +sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, “Trust to +me, dear boy,” and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was +very skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her, and +fallen alongside. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, +she kept alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or +two when we pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder-lines, and +looked at us attentively,—as did all the rowers; the other sitter was +wrapped up, much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some +instruction to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in +either boat. + +Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first, +and gave me the word “Hamburg,” in a low voice, as we sat face to face. +She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew +louder and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, +when the galley hailed us. I answered. + +“You have a returned Transport there,” said the man who held the lines. +“That’s the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch, +otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender, +and you to assist.” + +At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew, +he ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke +ahead, had got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on +to our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. This caused great +confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and +heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but +felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw +the steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner’s shoulder, +and saw that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, +and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite +frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start up, +lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the +shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that +the face disclosed, was the face of the other convict of long ago. +Still, in the same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white +terror on it that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board +the steamer, and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink +from under me. + +It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand +mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I was +taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; +but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone. + +What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of +her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first +distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the +galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong +strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and +eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, +bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up +his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and +true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, +but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled +at the wrists and ankles. + +The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water +was resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not +understanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had +been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and +we were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out +was kept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were +gone; but everybody knew that it was hopeless now. + +At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern +we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. +Here I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,—Provis no +longer,—who had received some very severe injury in the chest, and a +deep cut in the head. + +He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the +steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to +his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought +he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did +not pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, +but that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify +him, that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had +both gone overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him +(Magwitch) out of our boat, and the endeavour of his captor to keep him +in it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down +fiercely locked in each other’s arms, and that there had been a +struggle under water, and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, +and swum away. + +I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told +me. The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their +going overboard. + +When I asked this officer’s permission to change the prisoner’s wet +clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the +public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take +charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book +which had once been in my hands passed into the officer’s. He further +gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to +accord that grace to my two friends. + +The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone +down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was +likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to +be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it +took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may +have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in +various stages of decay. + +We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then +Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and +Startop were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a +doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch’s side, I felt +that that was my place henceforth while he lived. + +For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted, +wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man +who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, +gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a +series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to +Joe. + +His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, +and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm +I could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that I +could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was +unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living, +people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not +doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had +been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken +prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation +under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who +was the cause of his arrest. + +As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us, +and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how +grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake. + +“Dear boy,” he answered, “I’m quite content to take my chance. I’ve +seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.” + +No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No. +Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick’s hint now. +I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to +the Crown. + +“Lookee here, dear boy,” said he “It’s best as a gentleman should not +be knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by +chance alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for +the last o’ many times, and I don’t ask no more.” + +“I will never stir from your side,” said I, “when I am suffered to be +near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!” + +I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away as +he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his +throat,—softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing +that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might +not otherwise have thought of until too late,—that he need never know +how his hopes of enriching me had perished. + + + + +Chapter LV. + + +He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been +immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down +for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, +to speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had +meant to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened +that there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could +give the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his +private house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and +Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner’s behalf would admit nothing. It was the +sole resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five +minutes when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could +prevent its going against us. + +I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the +fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for +having “let it slip through my fingers,” and said we must memorialise +by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal +from me that, although there might be many cases in which the +forfeiture would not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this +case to make it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not +related to the outlaw, or connected with him by any recognisable tie; +he had put his hand to no writing or settlement in my favour before his +apprehension, and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I +finally resolved, and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my +heart should never be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to +establish one. + +There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer had +hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some +accurate knowledge of Magwitch’s affairs. When his body was found, many +miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he +was only recognisable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still +legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a +banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the +designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of +information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. +Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His +ignorance, poor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but +that my inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers’s aid. + +After three days’ delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over +for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness +came, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial +at the next Sessions, which would come on in a month. + +It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one +evening, a good deal cast down, and said,— + +“My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you.” + +His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he +thought. + +“We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am +very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.” + +“Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but +my need is no greater now than at another time.” + +“You will be so lonely.” + +“I have not leisure to think of that,” said I. “You know that I am +always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I +should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from +him, you know that my thoughts are with him.” + +The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to +both of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words. + +“My dear fellow,” said Herbert, “let the near prospect of our +separation—for, it is very near—be my justification for troubling you +about yourself. Have you thought of your future?” + +“No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.” + +“But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must +not be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few +friendly words go, with me.” + +“I will,” said I. + +“In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a—” + +I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, “A +clerk.” + +“A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as a +clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now, +Handel,—in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?” + +There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in +which after saying “Now, Handel,” as if it were the grave beginning of +a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, +stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy. + +“Clara and I have talked about it again and again,” Herbert pursued, +“and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in +her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come +together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her +husband’s friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well, +Handel!” + +I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could +not yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my +mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly. +Secondly,—Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my +thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative. + +“But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury +to your business, leave the question open for a little while—” + +“For any while,” cried Herbert. “Six months, a year!” + +“Not so long as that,” said I. “Two or three months at most.” + +Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement, +and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must +go away at the end of the week. + +“And Clara?” said I. + +“The dear little thing,” returned Herbert, “holds dutifully to her +father as long as he lasts; but he won’t last long. Mrs. Whimple +confides to me that he is certainly going.” + +“Not to say an unfeeling thing,” said I, “he cannot do better than go.” + +“I am afraid that must be admitted,” said Herbert; “and then I shall +come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I +will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed +darling comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the +red book, and hasn’t a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for +the son of my mother!” + +On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,—full of +bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,—as he sat on one of the +seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note +to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and +over again, and then went to my lonely home,—if it deserved the name; +for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere. + +On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an +unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him +alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had +come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of +explanation in reference to that failure. + +“The late Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little got at +the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was +from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people +being always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, +seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I +thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only +suppose now, that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, +habitually to deceive his own instruments. You don’t blame me, I hope, +Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart.” + +“I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most +earnestly for all your interest and friendship.” + +“Thank you, thank you very much. It’s a bad job,” said Wemmick, +scratching his head, “and I assure you I haven’t been so cut up for a +long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable +property. Dear me!” + +“What _I_ think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property.” + +“Yes, to be sure,” said Wemmick. “Of course, there can be no objection +to your being sorry for him, and I’d put down a five-pound note myself +to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson +having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and +being so determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have +been saved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been +saved. That’s the difference between the property and the owner, don’t +you see?” + +I invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass of +grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he +was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up +to it, and after having appeared rather fidgety,— + +“What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?” + +“Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months.” + +“These twelve years, more likely,” said Wemmick. “Yes. I’m going to +take a holiday. More than that; I’m going to take a walk. More than +that; I’m going to ask you to take a walk with me.” + +I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then, +when Wemmick anticipated me. + +“I know your engagements,” said he, “and I know you are out of sorts, +Mr. Pip. But if you _could_ oblige me, I should take it as a kindness. +It ain’t a long walk, and it’s an early one. Say it might occupy you +(including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn’t you +stretch a point and manage it?” + +He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little +to do for him. I said I could manage it,—would manage it,—and he was so +very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his +particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half +past eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time. + +Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday +morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking +tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two +glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have +been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his +bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty. + +When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and +were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was +considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put it +over his shoulder. “Why, we are not going fishing!” said I. “No,” +returned Wemmick, “but I like to walk with one.” + +I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went +towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said +suddenly,— + +“Halloa! Here’s a church!” + +There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather +surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,— + +“Let’s go in!” + +We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked +all round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, +and getting something out of paper there. + +“Halloa!” said he. “Here’s a couple of pair of gloves! Let’s put ’em +on!” + +As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened +to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They +were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side +door, escorting a lady. + +“Halloa!” said Wemmick. “Here’s Miss Skiffins! Let’s have a wedding.” + +That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now +engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The +Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the +altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much +difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary to +put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the +pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old +gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe +resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to +perfection. + +The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at +those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without +preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out +of his waistcoat-pocket before the service began, “Halloa! Here’s a +ring!” + +I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; +while a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby’s, made a +feint of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of +giving the lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the +clergyman’s being unintentionally scandalised, and it happened thus. +When he said, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” the +old gentleman, not in the least knowing what point of the ceremony we +had arrived at, stood most amiably beaming at the ten commandments. +Upon which, the clergyman said again, “WHO giveth this woman to be +married to this man?” The old gentleman being still in a state of most +estimable unconsciousness, the bridegroom cried out in his accustomed +voice, “Now Aged P. you know; who giveth?” To which the Aged replied +with great briskness, before saying that _he_ gave, “All right, John, +all right, my boy!” And the clergyman came to so gloomy a pause upon +it, that I had doubts for the moment whether we should get completely +married that day. + +It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church +Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, +and put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, +put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. “_Now_, Mr. +Pip,” said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came +out, “let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a +wedding-party!” + +Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so +away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle +board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after +the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer +unwound Wemmick’s arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in +a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, +and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have +done. + +We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on +table, Wemmick said, “Provided by contract, you know; don’t be afraid +of it!” I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the +Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I +could. + +Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with +him, and wished him joy. + +“Thankee!” said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. “She’s such a manager of +fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for +yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!” calling me back, and speaking low. “This is +altogether a Walworth sentiment, please.” + +“I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,” said I. + +Wemmick nodded. “After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers may +as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or +something of the kind.” + + + + +Chapter LVI. + + +He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his +committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken +two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great +pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his +hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke +very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the +first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he +ought to hear. + +Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after +the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities of +being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for his +illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a +determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else. + +Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the +regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record +on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I +do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he +wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day +when the prison door closed upon him. + +The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man +who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner +or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered +over the question whether he might have been a better man under better +circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that +way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. + +It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his +desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in +attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his +eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had +seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was +a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I +never knew him complain. + +When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be +made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It +was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long, +and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the +bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting +close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he +stretched forth to me. + +The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said +for him were said,—how he had taken to industrious habits, and had +thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that +he had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It +was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him +guilty. + +At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible +experience of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing +of Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of +Death. But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds +before me, I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that +I saw two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that +sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was he; seated, +that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. + +The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colours of the moment, +down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering +in the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside +it at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men and +women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and +weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There +had been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been +stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains +and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great +gallery full of people,—a large theatrical audience,—looked on, as the +two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge +addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must +single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had +been an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments +and punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of +years; and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had +made his escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable +man would seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when +far removed from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a +peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those +propensities and passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered +him a scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest and +repentance, and had come back to the country where he was proscribed. +Being here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading +the officers of Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of +flight, he had resisted them, and had—he best knew whether by express +design, or in the blindness of his hardihood—caused the death of his +denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment +for his return to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his +case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die. + +The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the +glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of +light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, +and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, +with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all +things, and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face +in this way of light, the prisoner said, “My Lord, I have received my +sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,” and sat down +again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had +to say to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of +them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard +look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three +shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had +taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of +having to be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held +my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got +up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), +and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him +and me. + +I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder’s +Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that +night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting +forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my +sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I +had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men +in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the +Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took +no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed +in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away +from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful +and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable +restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, +wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. +To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, +dusty spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and +their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association. + +The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more +strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an +intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I +sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, +that I was willing to do anything that would assure him of the +singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There +was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer +always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick +prisoners in the room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as +sick nurses, (malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be +thanked!) always joined in the same report. + +As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly +looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face +until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would +subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then +he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to +understand his meaning very well. + +The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change in +him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and +lighted up as I entered. + +“Dear boy,” he said, as I sat down by his bed: “I thought you was late. +But I knowed you couldn’t be that.” + +“It is just the time,” said I. “I waited for it at the gate.” + +“You always waits at the gate; don’t you, dear boy?” + +“Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.” + +“Thank’ee dear boy, thank’ee. God bless you! You’ve never deserted me, +dear boy.” + +I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once +meant to desert him. + +“And what’s the best of all,” he said, “you’ve been more comfortable +alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. +That’s best of all.” + +He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, +and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and +a film came over the placid look at the white ceiling. + +“Are you in much pain to-day?” + +“I don’t complain of none, dear boy.” + +“You never do complain.” + +He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to +mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid +it there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it. + +The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I +found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, +“You needn’t go yet.” I thanked him gratefully, and asked, “Might I +speak to him, if he can hear me?” + +The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, +though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid +look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me. + +“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I +say?” + +A gentle pressure on my hand. + +“You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.” + +A stronger pressure on my hand. + +“She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a +lady and very beautiful. And I love her!” + +With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my +yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, +he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying +on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, +and his head dropped quietly on his breast. + +Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men +who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better +words that I could say beside his bed, than “O Lord, be merciful to him +a sinner!” + + + + +Chapter LVII. + + +Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to +quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally +determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills +up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and +began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought +rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and +concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth +beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me +had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that +it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even +careless as to that. + +For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,—anywhere, +according as I happened to sink down,—with a heavy head and aching +limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which +appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; +and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I +found I could not do so. + +Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the +night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether +I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great +terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found +myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up +the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been +inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and +groaning of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my +own making; whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark +corner of the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, +that Miss Havisham was consuming within it,—these were things that I +tried to settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that +morning on my bed. But the vapour of a limekiln would come between me +and them, disordering them all, and it was through the vapour at last +that I saw two men looking at me. + +“What do you want?” I asked, starting; “I don’t know you.” + +“Well, sir,” returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the +shoulder, “this is a matter that you’ll soon arrange, I dare say, but +you’re arrested.” + +“What is the debt?” + +“Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller’s account, I +think.” + +“What is to be done?” + +“You had better come to my house,” said the man. “I keep a very nice +house.” + +I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to +them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I +still lay there. + +“You see my state,” said I. “I would come with you if I could; but +indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die +by the way.” + +Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to +believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in my +memory by only this one slender thread, I don’t know what they did, +except that they forbore to remove me. + +That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I +often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I +confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a +brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the +giddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a +vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored +in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered +off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own +remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes +struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and +that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and +would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me +down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a +constant tendency in all these people,—who, when I was very ill, would +present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, +and would be much dilated in size,—above all, I say, I knew that there +was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to +settle down into the likeness of Joe. + +After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice +that while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature +did not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I +opened my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the +bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the +window-seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw +Joe. I asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was +Joe’s. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that +looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe. + +At last, one day, I took courage, and said, “_Is_ it Joe?” + +And the dear old home-voice answered, “Which it air, old chap.” + +“O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell +me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!” + +For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and +put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him. + +“Which dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe, “you and me was ever friends. +And when you’re well enough to go out for a ride—what larks!” + +After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back +towards me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me +from getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, +“O God bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!” + +Joe’s eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding +his hand, and we both felt happy. + +“How long, dear Joe?” + +“Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old +chap?” + +“Yes, Joe.” + +“It’s the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June.” + +“And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?” + +“Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your +being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, +and being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal +of walking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, +and marriage were the great wish of his hart—” + +“It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you +said to Biddy.” + +“Which it were,” said Joe, “that how you might be amongst strangers, +and that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a +moment might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, ‘Go +to him, without loss of time.’ That,” said Joe, summing up with his +judicial air, “were the word of Biddy. ‘Go to him,’ Biddy say, ‘without +loss of time.’ In short, I shouldn’t greatly deceive you,” Joe added, +after a little grave reflection, “if I represented to you that the word +of that young woman were, ‘without a minute’s loss of time.’” + +There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked to +in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at +stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that +I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay +quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in +it. + +Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at +him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the +pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its +curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as +the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the +room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own +writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, +Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the +pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his +sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was +necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, +and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; +and when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might +have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen +spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on +the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into +space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was +tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole he +got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had +removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with +his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the +effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there, +with unbounded satisfaction. + +Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to +talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He +shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered. + +“Is she dead, Joe?” + +“Why you see, old chap,” said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by +way of getting at it by degrees, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, +for that’s a deal to say; but she ain’t—” + +“Living, Joe?” + +“That’s nigher where it is,” said Joe; “she ain’t living.” + +“Did she linger long, Joe?” + +“Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you +was put to it) a week,” said Joe; still determined, on my account, to +come at everything by degrees. + +“Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?” + +“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she had settled the most +of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had +wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the +accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, +do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand +unto him? ‘Because of Pip’s account of him, the said Matthew.’ I am +told by Biddy, that air the writing,” said Joe, repeating the legal +turn as if it did him infinite good, “‘account of him the said +Matthew.’ And a cool four thousand, Pip!” + +I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature +of the four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money +more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being +cool. + +This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I +had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other +relations had any legacies? + +“Miss Sarah,” said Joe, “she have twenty-five pound perannium fur to +buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty +pound down. Mrs.—what’s the name of them wild beasts with humps, old +chap?” + +“Camels?” said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know. + +Joe nodded. “Mrs. Camels,” by which I presently understood he meant +Camilla, “she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in +spirits when she wake up in the night.” + +The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give +me great confidence in Joe’s information. “And now,” said Joe, “you +ain’t that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one +additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he’s been a bustin’ open a +dwelling-ouse.” + +“Whose?” said I. + +“Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous,” said +Joe, apologetically; “still, a Englishman’s ouse is his Castle, and +castles must not be busted ’cept when done in war time. And wotsume’er +the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart.” + +“Is it Pumblechook’s house that has been broken into, then?” + +“That’s it, Pip,” said Joe; “and they took his till, and they took his +cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, +and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him +up to his bedpust, and they giv’ him a dozen, and they stuffed his +mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he +knowed Orlick, and Orlick’s in the county jail.” + +By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow +to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe +stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again. + +For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need, +that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in +the old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old +unassertive protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my +life since the days of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles +of the fever that was gone. He did everything for me except the +household work, for which he had engaged a very decent woman, after +paying off the laundress on his first arrival. “Which I do assure you, +Pip,” he would often say, in explanation of that liberty; “I found her +a tapping the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and drawing off the +feathers in a bucket, for sale. Which she would have tapped yourn next, +and draw’d it off with you a laying on it, and was then a carrying away +the coals gradiwally in the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the +wine and spirits in your Wellington boots.” + +We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had +once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day +came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, +took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were +still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of +the wealth of his great nature. + +And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, +where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, +and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be +Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how +it had grown and changed, and how the little wild-flowers had been +forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and +by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning +and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed +there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday +bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I +felt that I was not nearly thankful enough,—that I was too weak yet to +be even that,—and I laid my head on Joe’s shoulder, as I had laid it +long ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too +much for my young senses. + +More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used to +talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change +whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my +eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right. + +When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me—so +easily!—across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful +Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet +made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of +my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself +now, and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself +whether I ought to refer to it when he did not. + +“Have you heard, Joe,” I asked him that evening, upon further +consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, “who my patron +was?” + +“I heerd,” returned Joe, “as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap.” + +“Did you hear who it was, Joe?” + +“Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv’ you +the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.” + +“So it was.” + +“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way. + +“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with +increasing diffidence. + +“Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?” + +“Yes.” + +“I think,” said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather +evasively at the window-seat, “as I _did_ hear tell that how he were +something or another in a general way in that direction.” + +“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?” + +“Not partickler, Pip.” + +“If you would like to hear, Joe—” I was beginning, when Joe got up and +came to my sofa. + +“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the best of +friends; ain’t us, Pip?” + +I was ashamed to answer him. + +“Wery good, then,” said Joe, as if I _had_ answered; “that’s all right; +that’s agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as +betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There’s subjects enough +as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your +poor sister and her Rampages! And don’t you remember Tickler?” + +“I do indeed, Joe.” + +“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to keep you and +Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my +inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it +were not so much,” said Joe, in his favourite argumentative way, “that +she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that +she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain’t a +grab at a man’s whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your +sister was quite welcome), that ’ud put a man off from getting a little +child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into +heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up +and says to himself, ‘Where is the good as you are a-doing? I grant you +I see the ’arm,’ says the man, ‘but I don’t see the good. I call upon +you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.’” + +“The man says?” I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak. + +“The man says,” Joe assented. “Is he right, that man?” + +“Dear Joe, he is always right.” + +“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “then abide by your words. If he’s always +right (which in general he’s more likely wrong), he’s right when he +says this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when +you was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know’d as J. +Gargery’s power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal +to his inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two +sech, and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy +giv’ herself a deal o’ trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost +awful dull), as I should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this +light, as I should so put it. Both of which,” said Joe, quite charmed +with his logical arrangement, “being done, now this to you a true +friend, say. Namely. You mustn’t go a overdoing on it, but you must +have your supper and your wine and water, and you must be put betwixt +the sheets.” + +The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact +and kindness with which Biddy—who with her woman’s wit had found me out +so soon—had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But +whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all +dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not +understand. + +Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to +develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension +of, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less +easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear +fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names, +the dear “old Pip, old chap,” that now were music in my ears. I too had +fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But, +imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe’s hold upon them began +to slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to +understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was +all mine. + +Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that +in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given +Joe’s innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got +stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better +loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away? + +It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the +Temple Gardens leaning on Joe’s arm, that I saw this change in him very +plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at +the river, and I chanced to say as we got up,— + +“See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back +by myself.” + +“Which do not overdo it, Pip,” said Joe; “but I shall be happy fur to +see you able, sir.” + +The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no +further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be weaker +than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was +thoughtful. + +I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing +change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I +was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come +down to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not +quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little +savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I +must not suffer him to do it. + +It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to +bed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,—to-morrow being +Sunday,—and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday +morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this +last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts +(that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go +out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I +cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically +arrived at a resolution too. + +We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and +then walked in the fields. + +“I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,” I said. + +“Dear old Pip, old chap, you’re a’most come round, sir.” + +“It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.” + +“Likeways for myself, sir,” Joe returned. + +“We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were +days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall +forget these.” + +“Pip,” said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, “there has +been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us—have been.” + +At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done +all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well +as in the morning? + +“Yes, dear Joe, quite.” + +“And are always a getting stronger, old chap?” + +“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.” + +Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and +said, in what I thought a husky voice, “Good night!” + +When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of +my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before +breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him; +for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and +he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. + +I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These +were its brief contents:— + +“Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear +Pip and will do better without + + +JO. + + +“P.S. Ever the best of friends.” + + +Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I +had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my +creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be +quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money; +but Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name. + +What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and +there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance +with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved +Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my +thoughts, and had formed into a settled purpose? + +The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how +humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost +all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in +my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, “Biddy, I think you +once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed +away from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been +since. If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take +me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can +receive me like a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and +have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am +a little worthier of you that I was,—not much, but a little. And, +Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge +with Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in +this country, or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an +opportunity awaits me which I set aside, when it was offered, until I +knew your answer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will +go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world +for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a +better world for you.” + +Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to +the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I +have left to tell. + + + + +Chapter LVIII. + + +The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down to +my native place and its neighbourhood before I got there. I found the +Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a +great change in the Boar’s demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated +my good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property, +the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was going out +of property. + +It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so +often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, +which was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and +could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and +post-chaises up the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as +in the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and +the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom. + +Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled +round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits +of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of +the Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to +be sold as old building materials, and pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in +whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew house; LOT 2 on that part of +the main building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were +marked off on other parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn +down to make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in +the dust and was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open +gate, and looking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger +who had no business there, I saw the auctioneer’s clerk walking on the +casks and telling them off for the information of a catalogue-compiler, +pen in hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so +often pushed along to the tune of Old Clem. + +When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar’s coffee-room, I found Mr. +Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved +in appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and +addressed me in the following terms:— + +“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be +expected! what else could be expected!” + +As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I +was broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it. + +“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, “put a muffin on table. +And has it come to this! Has it come to this!” + +I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me +and poured out my tea—before I could touch the teapot—with the air of a +benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last. + +“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, “put the salt on. In +happier times,” addressing me, “I think you took sugar? And did you +take milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress.” + +“Thank you,” said I, shortly, “but I don’t eat watercresses.” + +“You don’t eat ’em,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding his +head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if +abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. “True. +The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn’t bring any, William.” + +I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand +over me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did. + +“Little more than skin and bone!” mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. “And +yet when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread +afore him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!” + +This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner +in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, “May I?” +and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the +same fat five fingers. + +“Hah!” he went on, handing me the bread and butter. “And air you +a-going to Joseph?” + +“In heaven’s name,” said I, firing in spite of myself, “what does it +matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone.” + +It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook +the opportunity he wanted. + +“Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article in +question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the +behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, “I _will_ leave that +teapot alone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I +forgit myself when I take such an interest in your breakfast, as to +wish your frame, exhausted by the debilitating effects of +prodigygality, to be stimilated by the ’olesome nourishment of your +forefathers. And yet,” said Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and +waiter, and pointing me out at arm’s length, “this is him as I ever +sported with in his days of happy infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I +tell you this is him!” + +A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be +particularly affected. + +“This is him,” said Pumblechook, “as I have rode in my shay-cart. This +is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister +of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M’ria from +her own mother, let him deny it if he can!” + +The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave +the case a black look. + +“Young man,” said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old +fashion, “you air a-going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you ask +me, where you air a-going? I say to you, Sir, you air a-going to +Joseph.” + +The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that. + +“Now,” said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air of +saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and +conclusive, “I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of +the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is +William, which his father’s name was Potkins if I do not deceive +myself.” + +“You do not, sir,” said William. + +“In their presence,” pursued Pumblechook, “I will tell you, young man, +what to say to Joseph. Says you, “Joseph, I have this day seen my +earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun’s. I will name no +names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have +seen that man.” + +“I swear I don’t see him here,” said I. + +“Say that likewise,” retorted Pumblechook. “Say you said that, and even +Joseph will probably betray surprise.” + +“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.” + +“Says you,” Pumblechook went on, “‘Joseph, I have seen that man, and +that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your +character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and +ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of +gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,’ says you,” here Pumblechook shook his head +and hand at me, “‘he knows my total deficiency of common human +gratitoode. _He_ knows it, Joseph, as none can. _You_ do not know it, +Joseph, having no call to know it, but that man do.’” + +Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face +to talk thus to mine. + +“Says you, ‘Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now +repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of +Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it +plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. _Reward of ingratitoode to +his earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun’s_. But that man said he +did not repent of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to +do it, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would +do it again.’” + +“It’s pity,” said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted +breakfast, “that the man did not say what he had done and would do +again.” + +“Squires of the Boar!” Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord, +“and William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town +or down town, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do +it, kind to do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again.” + +With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air, +and left the house; leaving me much more astonished than delighted by +the virtues of that same indefinite “it.” I was not long after him in +leaving the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him +holding forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a +select group, who honoured me with very unfavourable glances as I +passed on the opposite side of the way. + +But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose +great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be, +contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for +my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew +nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness +further and further behind. + +The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were +soaring high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more +beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many +pleasant pictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the +change for the better that would come over my character when I had a +guiding spirit at my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I +had proved, beguiled my way. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for +my heart was softened by my return, and such a change had come to pass, +that I felt like one who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, +and whose wanderings had lasted many years. + +The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the +little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness’ +sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a +holiday; no children were there, and Biddy’s house was closed. Some +hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, +before she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated. + +But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it +under the sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe’s hammer. +Long after I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I +heard it and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, +and the white thorns were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and +their leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the +clink of Joe’s hammer was not in the midsummer wind. + +Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I +saw it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no +glittering shower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and +still. + +But the house was not deserted, and the best parlour seemed to be in +use, for there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the +window was open and gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning +to peep over the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in +arm. + +At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but +in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she +wept to see me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, +because I looked so worn and white. + +“But dear Biddy, how smart you are!” + +“Yes, dear Pip.” + +“And Joe, how smart _you_ are!” + +“Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.” + +I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then— + +“It’s my wedding-day!” cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, “and I am +married to Joe!” + +They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on the +old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe’s +restoring touch was on my shoulder. “Which he warn’t strong enough, my +dear, fur to be surprised,” said Joe. And Biddy said, “I ought to have +thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy.” They were both so +overjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to +them, so delighted that I should have come by accident to make their +day complete! + +My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never +breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me +in my illness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been +his knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour! + +“Dear Biddy,” said I, “you have the best husband in the whole world, +and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have—But no, you +couldn’t love him better than you do.” + +“No, I couldn’t indeed,” said Biddy. + +“And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will +make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble +Joe!” + +Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before +his eyes. + +“And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in +charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you +have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I +am going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I +shall never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have +kept me out of prison, and have sent it to you, don’t think, dear Joe +and Biddy, that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I +could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if +I could!” + +They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no +more. + +“But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, +and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter +night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for +ever. Don’t tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy, +that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honoured you +both, because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, +I said it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I +did.” + +“I ain’t a-going,” said Joe, from behind his sleeve, “to tell him +nothink o’ that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain’t. Nor yet no one ain’t.” + +“And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind +hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you +say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and +then I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better +of me, in the time to come!” + +“O dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe. “God knows as I forgive you, if I +have anythink to forgive!” + +“Amen! And God knows I do!” echoed Biddy. + +“Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few +minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go +with me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say +good-bye!” + + + + +I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition +with my creditors,—who gave me ample time to pay them in full,—and I +went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, and +within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four +months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across +the parlour ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under +old Bill Barley’s growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to +marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until +he brought her back. + +Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived +happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my +debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It +was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to +Herbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert’s partnership +had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he +told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow +and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not +leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we +made mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had +a good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so +much to Herbert’s ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often +wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I +was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude +had never been in him at all, but had been in me. + + + + +Chapter LIX. + + +For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily +eyes,—though they had both been often before my fancy in the +East,—when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I +laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it +so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking +his pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as +strong as ever, though a little grey, sat Joe; and there, fenced into +the corner with Joe’s leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking +at the fire, was—I again! + +“We giv’ him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,” said Joe, +delighted, when I took another stool by the child’s side (but I did +_not_ rumple his hair), “and we hoped he might grow a little bit like +you, and we think he do.” + +I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we +talked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took +him down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, +and he showed me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the +memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife +of the Above. + +“Biddy,” said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little +girl lay sleeping in her lap, “you must give Pip to me one of these +days; or lend him, at all events.” + +“No, no,” said Biddy, gently. “You must marry.” + +“So Herbert and Clara say, but I don’t think I shall, Biddy. I have so +settled down in their home, that it’s not at all likely. I am already +quite an old bachelor.” + +Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, +and then put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into +mine. There was something in the action, and in the light pressure of +Biddy’s wedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it. + +“Dear Pip,” said Biddy, “you are sure you don’t fret for her?” + +“O no,—I think not, Biddy.” + +“Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her? + +“My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a +foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But +that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,—all +gone by!” + +Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly +intended to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for +her sake. Yes, even so. For Estella’s sake. + +I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being +separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and +who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, +brutality, and meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, +from an accident consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This +release had befallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, +she was married again. + +The early dinner hour at Joe’s, left me abundance of time, without +hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark. +But, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think +of old times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place. + +There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the +wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a +rough fence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had +struck root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A +gate in the fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in. + +A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet +up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the +moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where +every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, +and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was +looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure +in it. + +The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving +towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the +figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, +when it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if +much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,— + +“Estella!” + +“I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.” + +The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable +majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it, +I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened, +softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was +the friendly touch of the once insensible hand. + +We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, “After so many years, +it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our +first meeting was! Do you often come back?” + +“I have never been here since.” + +“Nor I.” + +The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white +ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought +of the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had +heard on earth. + +Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us. + +“I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been +prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!” + +The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and +the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing +that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she +said quietly,— + +“Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in +this condition?” + +“Yes, Estella.” + +“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not +relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I +have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I +made in all the wretched years.” + +“Is it to be built on?” + +“At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And +you,” she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,—“you +live abroad still?” + +“Still.” + +“And do well, I am sure?” + +“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore—yes, I do +well.” + +“I have often thought of you,” said Estella. + +“Have you?” + +“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from +me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant +of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the +admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.” + +“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered. + +And we were silent again until she spoke. + +“I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave of you in +taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.” + +“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, +the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and +painful.” + +“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “‘God bless +you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will +not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when suffering has been +stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what +your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a +better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me +we are friends.” + +“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from +the bench. + +“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella. + +I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as +the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so +the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of +tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting +from her. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EXPECTATIONS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Hard_Times.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Hard_Times.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01c45fd --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Hard_Times.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12031 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hard Times, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Hard Times + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: March 17, 2013 [eBook #786] +[This file was first posted on January 20, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + HARD TIMES + AND + REPRINTED PIECES {0} + + + * * * * * + + By CHARLES DICKENS + + * * * * * + + _With illustrations by Marcus Stone_, _Maurice_ + _Greiffenhagen_, _and F. Walker_ + + * * * * * + + LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. + NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + 1905 + + + + +CONTENTS + + _BOOK THE FIRST_. _SOWING_ + PAGE + CHAPTER I +_The One Thing Needful_ 3 + CHAPTER II +_Murdering the Innocents_ 4 + CHAPTER III +_A Loophole_ 8 + CHAPTER IV +_Mr. Bounderby_ 12 + CHAPTER V +_The Keynote_ 18 + CHAPTER VI +_Sleary’s Horsemanship_ 23 + CHAPTER VII +_Mrs. Sparsit_ 33 + CHAPTER VIII +_Never Wonder_ 38 + CHAPTER IX +_Sissy’s Progress_ 43 + CHAPTER X +_Stephen Blackpool_ 49 + CHAPTER XI +_No Way Out_ 53 + CHAPTER XII +_The Old Woman_ 59 + CHAPTER XIII +_Rachael_ 63 + CHAPTER XIV +_The Great Manufacturer_ 69 + CHAPTER XV +_Father and Daughter_ 73 + CHAPTER XVI +_Husband and Wife_ 79 + _BOOK THE SECOND_. _REAPING_ + CHAPTER I +_Effects in the Bank_ 84 + CHAPTER II +_Mr. James Harthouse_ 94 + CHAPTER III +_The Whelp_ 101 + CHAPTER IV +_Men and Brothers_ 111 + CHAPTER V +_Men and Masters_ 105 + CHAPTER VI +_Fading Away_ 116 + CHAPTER VII +_Gunpowder_ 126 + CHAPTER VIII +_Explosion_ 136 + CHAPTER IX +_Hearing the Last of it_ 146 + CHAPTER X +_Mrs. Sparsit’s Staircase_ 152 + CHAPTER XI +_Lower and Lower_ 156 + CHAPTER XII +_Down_ 163 + _BOOK THE THIRD_. _GARNERING_ + CHAPTER I +_Another Thing Needful_ 167 + CHAPTER II +_Very Ridiculous_ 172 + CHAPTER III +_Very Decided_ 179 + CHAPTER IV +_Lost_ 186 + CHAPTER V +_Found_ 193 + CHAPTER VI +_The Starlight_ 200 + CHAPTER VII +_Whelp-Hunting_ 208 + CHAPTER VIII +_Philosophical_ 216 + CHAPTER IX +_Final_ 222 + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE +_Stephen and Rachael in the Sick-room_ 64 +_Mr. Harthouse Dining at the Bounderbys’_ 100 +_Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the Garden_ 132 +_Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft_ 206 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARD TIMES*** + +BOOK THE FIRST +_SOWING_ + + +CHAPTER I +THE ONE THING NEEDFUL + + +‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but +Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out +everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon +Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the +principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle +on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’ + +The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the +speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring +every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis +was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his +eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two +dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the +speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was +helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and +dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which +bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the +wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of +a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts +stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square +legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by +the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it +was,—all helped the emphasis. + +‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’ + +The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, +all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of +little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial +gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. + + + +CHAPTER II +MURDERING THE INNOCENTS + + +THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and +calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are +four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for +anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas +Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication +table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of +human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere +question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get +some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or +Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all +supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas +Gradgrind—no, sir! + +In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether +to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In +such terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’ +Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers +before him, who were to be filled so full of facts. + +Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before +mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, +and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one +discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim +mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be +stormed away. + +‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his +square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’ + +‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and +curtseying. + +‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. +Call yourself Cecilia.’ + +‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in a +trembling voice, and with another curtsey. + +‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he +mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’ + +‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his +hand. + +‘We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us +about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?’ + +‘If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses +in the ring, sir.’ + +‘You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe +your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?’ + +‘Oh yes, sir.’ + +‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and +horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.’ + +(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) + +‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, for +the general behoof of all the little pitchers. ‘Girl number twenty +possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! +Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.’ + +The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, +perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, +darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely white-washed room, +irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of the +inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow +interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came +in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner +of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, +whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to +receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone +upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same +rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. +His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of +lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something +paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair +might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead +and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, +that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’ + +‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, +four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy +countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with +iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and much more) Bitzer. + +‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse +is.’ + +She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have +blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly +blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the +light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennæ +of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down +again. + +The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and +drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other +people’s too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a +system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard +of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England. +To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the +scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly +customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right, +follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he +always fought All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He +was certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that +unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from +high authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, when +Commissioners should reign upon earth. + +‘Very well,’ said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. +‘That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a +room with representations of horses?’ + +After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, ‘Yes, sir!’ +Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes was +wrong, cried out in chorus, ‘No, sir!’—as the custom is, in these +examinations. + +‘Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?’ + +A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, +ventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would +paint it. + +‘You _must_ paper it,’ said the gentleman, rather warmly. + +‘You must paper it,’ said Thomas Gradgrind, ‘whether you like it or not. +Don’t tell _us_ you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?’ + +‘I’ll explain to you, then,’ said the gentleman, after another and a +dismal pause, ‘why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations of +horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in +reality—in fact? Do you?’ + +‘Yes, sir!’ from one half. ‘No, sir!’ from the other. + +‘Of course no,’ said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong +half. ‘Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in +fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is +called Taste, is only another name for Fact.’ Thomas Gradgrind nodded +his approbation. + +‘This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,’ said the +gentleman. ‘Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a +room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon +it?’ + +There being a general conviction by this time that ‘No, sir!’ was always +the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of NO was very strong. +Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe. + +‘Girl number twenty,’ said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of +knowledge. + +Sissy blushed, and stood up. + +‘So you would carpet your room—or your husband’s room, if you were a +grown woman, and had a husband—with representations of flowers, would +you?’ said the gentleman. ‘Why would you?’ + +‘If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,’ returned the girl. + +‘And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have +people walking over them with heavy boots?’ + +‘It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if you +please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and +pleasant, and I would fancy—’ + +‘Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,’ cried the gentleman, quite elated +by coming so happily to his point. ‘That’s it! You are never to fancy.’ + +‘You are not, Cecilia Jupe,’ Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, ‘to do +anything of that kind.’ + +‘Fact, fact, fact!’ said the gentleman. And ‘Fact, fact, fact!’ repeated +Thomas Gradgrind. + +‘You are to be in all things regulated and governed,’ said the gentleman, +‘by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of +commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, +and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. +You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of +use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk +upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in +carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and +perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds +and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going +up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. +You must use,’ said the gentleman, ‘for all these purposes, combinations +and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are +susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This +is fact. This is taste.’ + +The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as +if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded. + +‘Now, if Mr. M’Choakumchild,’ said the gentleman, ‘will proceed to give +his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, +to observe his mode of procedure.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. ‘Mr. M’Choakumchild, we only wait for +you.’ + +So, Mr. M’Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred +and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, +in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte +legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had +answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, +syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general +cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying +and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends +of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way into Her +Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had taken the +bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, +French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Sheds +of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the +peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the +productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their +boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. Ah, +rather overdone, M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, +how infinitely better he might have taught much more! + +He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the +Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after +another, to see what they contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. When +from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, +dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy +lurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort him! + + + +CHAPTER III +A LOOPHOLE + + +MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable +satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a model. He +intended every child in it to be a model—just as the young Gradgrinds +were all models. + +There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. They +had been lectured at, from their tenderest years; coursed, like little +hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run +to the lecture-room. The first object with which they had an +association, or of which they had a remembrance, was a large black board +with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it. + +Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre Fact +forbid! I only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing castle, +with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood +captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical dens by the hair. + +No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the +moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever +learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what +you are! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each +little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a +Professor Owen, and driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive +engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field +with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who +worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet +more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those +celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous +ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. + +To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind +directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the wholesale hardware +trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for a +suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. +Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a mile or two of a great +town—called Coketown in the present faithful guide-book. + +A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not +the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising fact in +the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the +principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A +calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this +side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this wing, a +total of twelve in the other wing; four-and-twenty carried over to the +back wings. A lawn and garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight +like a botanical account-book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and +water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, +fire-proof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with +all their brushes and brooms; everything that heart could desire. + +Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in +various departments of science too. They had a little conchological +cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical +cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits +of stone and ore looked as though they might have been broken from the +parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names; +and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found +his way into their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at +more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness’ sake, that the +greedy little Gradgrinds grasped it! + +Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. He was +an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would probably have +described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a +definition) as ‘an eminently practical’ father. He had a particular +pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have a +special application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting held in +Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was +sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his eminently practical friend +Gradgrind. This always pleased the eminently practical friend. He knew +it to be his due, but his due was acceptable. + +He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which +was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, when his ears +were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and banging band +attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its +rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating from the +summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was ‘Sleary’s +Horse-riding’ which claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout +modern statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche +of early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as +some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then +inaugurating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean +flower-act. Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders +which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to +‘elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing +dog Merrylegs.’ He was also to exhibit ‘his astounding feat of throwing +seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, +thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before +attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such +rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.’ +The same Signor Jupe was to ‘enliven the varied performances at frequent +intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.’ Lastly, he was +to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William +Button, of Tooley Street, in ‘the highly novel and laughable +hippo-comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford.’ + +Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed +on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects +from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction. But, +the turning of the road took him by the back of the booth, and at the +back of the booth a number of children were congregated in a number of +stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the +place. + +This brought him to a stop. ‘Now, to think of these vagabonds,’ said he, +‘attracting the young rabble from a model school.’ + +A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the young +rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look for any child +he knew by name, and might order off. Phenomenon almost incredible +though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his own metallurgical +Louisa, peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and +his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a +hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act! + +Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family +was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said: + +‘Louisa!! Thomas!!’ + +Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at her father with +more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but +gave himself up to be taken home like a machine. + +‘In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, leading +each away by a hand; ‘what do you do here?’ + +‘Wanted to see what it was like,’ returned Louisa, shortly. + +‘What it was like?’ + +‘Yes, father.’ + +There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in +the girl: yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there +was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a +starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its +expression. Not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with +uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them, +analogous to the changes on a blind face groping its way. + +She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would +seem to become a woman all at once. Her father thought so as he looked +at her. She was pretty. Would have been self-willed (he thought in his +eminently practical way) but for her bringing-up. + +‘Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult to believe +that you, with your education and resources, should have brought your +sister to a scene like this.’ + +‘I brought _him_, father,’ said Louisa, quickly. ‘I asked him to come.’ + +‘I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to hear it. It makes +Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, Louisa.’ + +She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her cheek. + +‘You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; Thomas +and you, who may be said to be replete with facts; Thomas and you, who +have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here!’ cried +Mr. Gradgrind. ‘In this degraded position! I am amazed.’ + +‘I was tired, father. I have been tired a long time,’ said Louisa. + +‘Tired? Of what?’ asked the astonished father. + +‘I don’t know of what—of everything, I think.’ + +‘Say not another word,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You are childish. I +will hear no more.’ He did not speak again until they had walked some +half-a-mile in silence, when he gravely broke out with: ‘What would your +best friends say, Louisa? Do you attach no value to their good opinion? +What would Mr. Bounderby say?’ At the mention of this name, his daughter +stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense and searching character. +He saw nothing of it, for before he looked at her, she had again cast +down her eyes! + +‘What,’ he repeated presently, ‘would Mr. Bounderby say?’ All the way to +Stone Lodge, as with grave indignation he led the two delinquents home, +he repeated at intervals ‘What would Mr. Bounderby say?’—as if Mr. +Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy. + + + +CHAPTER IV +MR. BOUNDERBY + + +NOT being Mrs. Grundy, who _was_ Mr. Bounderby? + +Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s bosom friend, as a +man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual +relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near +was Mr. Bounderby—or, if the reader should prefer it, so far off. + +He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, +loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse +material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A +man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, +and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes +open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him +of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could +never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always +proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his +old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility. + +A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr. Bounderby +looked older; his seven or eight and forty might have had the seven or +eight added to it again, without surprising anybody. He had not much +hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was +left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being +constantly blown about by his windy boastfulness. + +In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the hearthrug, +warming himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby delivered some +observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance of its being his +birthday. He stood before the fire, partly because it was a cool spring +afternoon, though the sun shone; partly because the shade of Stone Lodge +was always haunted by the ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus +took up a commanding position, from which to subdue Mrs. Gradgrind. + +‘I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn’t know such a +thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty. +That’s the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was new to +me, for I was born in a ditch.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of +surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic +without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to +life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on +her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch? + +‘No! As wet as a sop. A foot of water in it,’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Enough to give a baby cold,’ Mrs. Gradgrind considered. + +‘Cold? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, and of everything +else, I believe, that was capable of inflammation,’ returned Mr. +Bounderby. ‘For years, ma’am, I was one of the most miserable little +wretches ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was always moaning and +groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you wouldn’t have touched me +with a pair of tongs.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most appropriate thing +her imbecility could think of doing. + +‘How I fought through it, _I_ don’t know,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was +determined, I suppose. I have been a determined character in later life, +and I suppose I was then. Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody +to thank for my being here, but myself.’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his mother— + +‘_My_ mother? Bolted, ma’am!’ said Bounderby. + +Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave it up. + +‘My mother left me to my grandmother,’ said Bounderby; ‘and, according to +the best of my remembrance, my grandmother was the wickedest and the +worst old woman that ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by any +chance, she would take ’em off and sell ’em for drink. Why, I have known +that grandmother of mine lie in her bed and drink her four-teen glasses +of liquor before breakfast!’ + +Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of vitality, +looked (as she always did) like an indifferently executed transparency of +a small female figure, without enough light behind it. + +‘She kept a chandler’s shop,’ pursued Bounderby, ‘and kept me in an +egg-box. That was the cot of _my_ infancy; an old egg-box. As soon as I +was big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became a young +vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, +everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; +they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an +incumbrance, and a pest. I know that very well.’ + +His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social +distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, was only to +be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast. + +‘I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I was to +do it or not, ma’am, I did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw +me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, clerk, +chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are +the antecedents, and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +learnt his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and +was first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the +steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the direction of a +drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. +Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your +model schools, and your training schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish +of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all +right, all correct—he hadn’t such advantages—but let us have hard-headed, +solid-fisted people—the education that made him won’t do for everybody, +he knows well—such and such his education was, however, and you may force +him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the +facts of his life.’ + +Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +stopped. He stopped just as his eminently practical friend, still +accompanied by the two young culprits, entered the room. His eminently +practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, and gave Louisa a +reproachful look that plainly said, ‘Behold your Bounderby!’ + +‘Well!’ blustered Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter? What is young +Thomas in the dumps about?’ + +He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa. + +‘We were peeping at the circus,’ muttered Louisa, haughtily, without +lifting up her eyes, ‘and father caught us.’ + +‘And, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband in a lofty manner, ‘I should as +soon have expected to find my children reading poetry.’ + +‘Dear me,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘How can you, Louisa and Thomas! I +wonder at you. I declare you’re enough to make one regret ever having +had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn’t. _Then_ +what would you have done, I should like to know?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent remarks. +He frowned impatiently. + +‘As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn’t go and +look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you, instead of +circuses!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘You know, as well as I do, no young +people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend +lectures about circuses. What can you possibly want to know of circuses +then? I am sure you have enough to do, if that’s what you want. With my +head in its present state, I couldn’t remember the mere names of half the +facts you have got to attend to.’ + +‘That’s the reason!’ pouted Louisa. + +‘Don’t tell me that’s the reason, because it can’t be nothing of the +sort,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘Go and be somethingological directly.’ +Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and usually dismissed her +children to their studies with this general injunction to choose their +pursuit. + +In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind’s stock of facts in general was woefully +defective; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her to her high matrimonial +position, had been influenced by two reasons. Firstly, she was most +satisfactory as a question of figures; and, secondly, she had ‘no +nonsense’ about her. By nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it is +probable she was as free from any alloy of that nature, as any human +being not arrived at the perfection of an absolute idiot, ever was. + +The simple circumstance of being left alone with her husband and Mr. +Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this admirable lady again without +collision between herself and any other fact. So, she once more died +away, and nobody minded her. + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to the fireside, ‘you +are always so interested in my young people—particularly in Louisa—that I +make no apology for saying to you, I am very much vexed by this +discovery. I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the +education of the reason of my family. The reason is (as you know) the +only faculty to which education should be addressed. ‘And yet, +Bounderby, it would appear from this unexpected circumstance of to-day, +though in itself a trifling one, as if something had crept into Thomas’s +and Louisa’s minds which is—or rather, which is not—I don’t know that I +can express myself better than by saying—which has never been intended to +be developed, and in which their reason has no part.’ + +‘There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at a parcel of +vagabonds,’ returned Bounderby. ‘When I was a vagabond myself, nobody +looked with any interest at _me_; I know that.’ + +‘Then comes the question; said the eminently practical father, with his +eyes on the fire, ‘in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise?’ + +‘I’ll tell you in what. In idle imagination.’ + +‘I hope not,’ said the eminently practical; ‘I confess, however, that the +misgiving _has_ crossed me on my way home.’ + +‘In idle imagination, Gradgrind,’ repeated Bounderby. ‘A very bad thing +for anybody, but a cursed bad thing for a girl like Louisa. I should ask +Mrs. Gradgrind’s pardon for strong expressions, but that she knows very +well I am not a refined character. Whoever expects refinement in _me_ +will be disappointed. I hadn’t a refined bringing up.’ + +‘Whether,’ said Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, and +his cavernous eyes on the fire, ‘whether any instructor or servant can +have suggested anything? Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been reading +anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle story-book can +have got into the house? Because, in minds that have been practically +formed by rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, so +incomprehensible.’ + +‘Stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, who all this time had been standing, as +before, on the hearth, bursting at the very furniture of the room with +explosive humility. ‘You have one of those strollers’ children in the +school.’ + +‘Cecilia Jupe, by name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with something of a stricken +look at his friend. + +‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby again. ‘How did she come there?’ + +‘Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first time, only just +now. She specially applied here at the house to be admitted, as not +regularly belonging to our town, and—yes, you are right, Bounderby, you +are right.’ + +‘Now, stop a bit!’ cried Bounderby, once more. ‘Louisa saw her when she +came?’ + +‘Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the application to me. +But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Gradgrind’s presence.’ + +‘Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, ‘what passed?’ + +‘Oh, my poor health!’ returned Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘The girl wanted to come +to the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come to the school, and +Louisa and Thomas both said that the girl wanted to come, and that Mr. +Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it possible to contradict +them when such was the fact!’ + +‘Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Turn this girl to +the right about, and there’s an end of it.’ + +‘I am much of your opinion.’ + +‘Do it at once,’ said Bounderby, ‘has always been my motto from a child. +When I thought I would run away from my egg-box and my grandmother, I did +it at once. Do you the same. Do this at once!’ + +‘Are you walking?’ asked his friend. ‘I have the father’s address. +Perhaps you would not mind walking to town with me?’ + +‘Not the least in the world,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘as long as you do it +at once!’ + +So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat—he always threw it on, as expressing a +man who had been far too busily employed in making himself, to acquire +any fashion of wearing his hat—and with his hands in his pockets, +sauntered out into the hall. ‘I never wear gloves,’ it was his custom to +say. ‘I didn’t climb up the ladder in _them_.—Shouldn’t be so high up, +if I had.’ + +Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. Gradgrind +went up-stairs for the address, he opened the door of the children’s +study and looked into that serene floor-clothed apartment, which, +notwithstanding its book-cases and its cabinets and its variety of +learned and philosophical appliances, had much of the genial aspect of a +room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa languidly leaned upon the window +looking out, without looking at anything, while young Thomas stood +sniffing revengefully at the fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger +Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody; and little Jane, after +manufacturing a good deal of moist pipe-clay on her face with +slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over vulgar fractions. + +‘It’s all right now, Louisa: it’s all right, young Thomas,’ said Mr. +Bounderby; ‘you won’t do so any more. I’ll answer for it’s being all +over with father. Well, Louisa, that’s worth a kiss, isn’t it?’ + +‘You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,’ returned Louisa, when she had coldly +paused, and slowly walked across the room, and ungraciously raised her +cheek towards him, with her face turned away. + +‘Always my pet; ain’t you, Louisa?’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Good-bye, +Louisa!’ + +He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, rubbing the cheek he had +kissed, with her handkerchief, until it was burning red. She was still +doing this, five minutes afterwards. + +‘What are you about, Loo?’ her brother sulkily remonstrated. ‘You’ll rub +a hole in your face.’ + +‘You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you like, Tom. I +wouldn’t cry!’ + + + +CHAPTER V +THE KEYNOTE + + +COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a +triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. +Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing +our tune. + +It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the +smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of +unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town +of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of +smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It +had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling +dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a +rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the +steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an +elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large +streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like +one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went +in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same +pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as +yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and +the next. + +These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work +by which it was sustained; against them were to be set off, comforts of +life which found their way all over the world, and elegancies of life +which made, we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely +bear to hear the place mentioned. The rest of its features were +voluntary, and they were these. + +You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the +members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there—as the members of +eighteen religious persuasions had done—they made it a pious warehouse of +red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental +examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it. The solitary exception +was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the +door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All +the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe +characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, +the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been +either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the +contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, +everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, +everywhere in the immaterial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, +and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master +and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in +hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or +show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the +dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. + +A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of course +got on well? Why no, not quite well. No? Dear me! + +No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects like +gold that had stood the fire. First, the perplexing mystery of the place +was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? Because, whoever did, +the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the +streets on a Sunday morning, and note how few of _them_ the barbarous +jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away +from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners of +their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the +church and chapel going, as at a thing with which they had no manner of +concern. Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there +was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be +heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning +for acts of parliament that should make these people religious by main +force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained that these same +people _would_ get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they did +get drunk, and proved at tea parties that no inducement, human or Divine +(except a medal), would induce them to forego their custom of getting +drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular +statements, showing that when they didn’t get drunk, they took opium. +Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail, with more tabular +statements, outdoing all the previous tabular statements, and showing +that the same people _would_ resort to low haunts, hidden from the public +eye, where they heard low singing and saw low dancing, and mayhap joined +in it; and where A. B., aged twenty-four next birthday, and committed for +eighteen months’ solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever shown +himself particularly worthy of belief) his ruin began, as he was +perfectly sure and confident that otherwise he would have been a tip-top +moral specimen. Then came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two +gentlemen at this present moment walking through Coketown, and both +eminently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular +statements derived from their own personal experience, and illustrated by +cases they had known and seen, from which it clearly appeared—in short, +it was the only clear thing in the case—that these same people were a bad +lot altogether, gentlemen; that do what you would for them they were +never thankful for it, gentlemen; that they were restless, gentlemen; +that they never knew what they wanted; that they lived upon the best, and +bought fresh butter; and insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but +prime parts of meat, and yet were eternally dissatisfied and +unmanageable. In short, it was the moral of the old nursery fable: + + There was an old woman, and what do you think? + She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; + Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, + And yet this old woman would NEVER be quiet. + +Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the case of +the Coketown population and the case of the little Gradgrinds? Surely, +none of us in our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to be +told at this time of day, that one of the foremost elements in the +existence of the Coketown working-people had been for scores of years, +deliberately set at nought? That there was any Fancy in them demanding +to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in +convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long and +monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief—some +relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a +vent—some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a +stirring band of music—some occasional light pie in which even +M’Choakumchild had no finger—which craving must and would be satisfied +aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the laws of the +Creation were repealed? + +‘This man lives at Pod’s End, and I don’t quite know Pod’s End,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. ‘Which is it, Bounderby?’ + +Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but knew no more +respecting it. So they stopped for a moment, looking about. + +Almost as they did so, there came running round the corner of the street +at a quick pace and with a frightened look, a girl whom Mr. Gradgrind +recognized. ‘Halloa!’ said he. ‘Stop! Where are you going! Stop!’ +Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, and made him a curtsey. + +‘Why are you tearing about the streets,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘in this +improper manner?’ + +‘I was—I was run after, sir,’ the girl panted, ‘and I wanted to get +away.’ + +‘Run after?’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Who would run after _you_?’ + +The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for her, by the +colourless boy, Bitzer, who came round the corner with such blind speed +and so little anticipating a stoppage on the pavement, that he brought +himself up against Mr. Gradgrind’s waistcoat and rebounded into the road. + +‘What do you mean, boy?’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘What are you doing? How +dare you dash against—everybody—in this manner?’ Bitzer picked up his +cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and backing, and knuckling his +forehead, pleaded that it was an accident. + +‘Was this boy running after you, Jupe?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Yes, sir,’ said the girl reluctantly. + +‘No, I wasn’t, sir!’ cried Bitzer. ‘Not till she run away from me. But +the horse-riders never mind what they say, sir; they’re famous for it. +You know the horse-riders are famous for never minding what they say,’ +addressing Sissy. ‘It’s as well known in the town as—please, sir, as the +multiplication table isn’t known to the horse-riders.’ Bitzer tried Mr. +Bounderby with this. + +‘He frightened me so,’ said the girl, ‘with his cruel faces!’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Bitzer. ‘Oh! An’t you one of the rest! An’t you a +horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her if she would know +how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered to tell her again, and she +ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that she might know how to answer +when she was asked. You wouldn’t have thought of saying such mischief if +you hadn’t been a horse-rider?’ + +‘Her calling seems to be pretty well known among ’em,’ observed Mr. +Bounderby. ‘You’d have had the whole school peeping in a row, in a +week.’ + +‘Truly, I think so,’ returned his friend. ‘Bitzer, turn you about and +take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear of your +running in this manner any more, boy, and you will hear of me through the +master of the school. You understand what I mean. Go along.’ + +The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again, +glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated. + +‘Now, girl,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘take this gentleman and me to your +father’s; we are going there. What have you got in that bottle you are +carrying?’ + +‘Gin,’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Dear, no, sir! It’s the nine oils.’ + +‘The what?’ cried Mr. Bounderby. + +‘The nine oils, sir, to rub father with.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short laugh, ‘what the devil do +you rub your father with nine oils for?’ + +‘It’s what our people aways use, sir, when they get any hurts in the +ring,’ replied the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure herself +that her pursuer was gone. ‘They bruise themselves very bad sometimes.’ + +‘Serve ’em right,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘for being idle.’ She glanced up +at his face, with mingled astonishment and dread. + +‘By George!’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘when I was four or five years younger +than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten oils, twenty oils, forty +oils, would have rubbed off. I didn’t get ’em by posture-making, but by +being banged about. There was no rope-dancing for me; I danced on the +bare ground and was larruped with the rope.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a man as Mr. +Bounderby. His character was not unkind, all things considered; it might +have been a very kind one indeed, if he had only made some round mistake +in the arithmetic that balanced it, years ago. He said, in what he meant +for a reassuring tone, as they turned down a narrow road, ‘And this is +Pod’s End; is it, Jupe?’ + +‘This is it, sir, and—if you wouldn’t mind, sir—this is the house.’ + +She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little public-house, with +dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if, for want of +custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone the way all +drunkards go, and was very near the end of it. + +‘It’s only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you wouldn’t +mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get a candle. If you should +hear a dog, sir, it’s only Merrylegs, and he only barks.’ + +‘Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!’ said Mr. Bounderby, entering last with his +metallic laugh. ‘Pretty well this, for a self-made man!’ + + + +CHAPTER VI +SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP + + +THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs +might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse +upon the sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman letters. +Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had +touched off the lines: + + Good malt makes good beer, + Walk in, and they’ll draw it here; + Good wine makes good brandy, + Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy. + +Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was another +Pegasus—a theatrical one—with real gauze let in for his wings, golden +stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk. + +As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had not +grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. +Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They followed the +girl up some steep corner-stairs without meeting any one, and stopped in +the dark while she went on for a candle. They expected every moment to +hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not +barked when the girl and the candle appeared together. + +‘Father is not in our room, sir,’ she said, with a face of great +surprise. ‘If you wouldn’t mind walking in, I’ll find him directly.’ +They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with +a quick light step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed +in it. The white night-cap, embellished with two peacock’s feathers and +a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon +enlivened the varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and +retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other +token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to +Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal who +went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut out of it, for any +sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus’s Arms. + +They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy went +from one to another in quest of her father; and presently they heard +voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in a great +hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it empty, and +looked round with her hands clasped and her face full of terror. + +‘Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don’t know why he +should go there, but he must be there; I’ll bring him in a minute!’ She +was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair +streaming behind her. + +‘What does she mean!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Back in a minute? It’s more +than a mile off.’ + +Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, and +introducing himself with the words, ‘By your leaves, gentlemen!’ walked +in with his hands in his pockets. His face, close-shaven, thin, and +sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll +all round his head, and parted up the centre. His legs were very robust, +but shorter than legs of good proportions should have been. His chest +and back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. He was +dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl +round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, +and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of +the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, +nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned +in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated +for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American +Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old +face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried +upside down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by the +crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father’s hand, +according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be +observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, +white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so +pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part +of the spectators; but in private, where his characteristics were a +precocious cutaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the +Turf, turfy. + +‘By your leaves, gentlemen,’ said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round +the room. ‘It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!’ + +‘It was,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I +can’t wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with +you.’ + +‘You see, my friend,’ Mr. Bounderby put in, ‘we are the kind of people +who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people who don’t know +the value of time.’ + +‘I have not,’ retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to +foot, ‘the honour of knowing _you_,—but if you mean that you can make +more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your +appearance, that you are about right.’ + +‘And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I should think,’ said +Cupid. + +‘Kidderminster, stow that!’ said Mr. Childers. (Master Kidderminster was +Cupid’s mortal name.) + +‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ cried Master +Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. ‘If you want to +cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.’ + +‘Kidderminster,’ said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, ‘stow that!—Sir,’ +to Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may +not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that +Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.’ + +‘Has—what has he missed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent +Bounderby for assistance. + +‘Missed his tip.’ + +‘Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done ’em once,’ +said Master Kidderminster. ‘Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was +loose in his ponging.’ + +‘Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his +tumbling,’ Mr. Childers interpreted. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is tip, is it?’ + +‘In a general way that’s missing his tip,’ Mr. E. W. B. Childers +answered. + +‘Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh!’ +ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. ‘Queer sort of company, +too, for a man who has raised himself!’ + +‘Lower yourself, then,’ retorted Cupid. ‘Oh Lord! if you’ve raised +yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.’ + +‘This is a very obtrusive lad!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting +his brows on him. + +‘We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were +coming,’ retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. ‘It’s a pity +you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, +ain’t you?’ + +‘What does this unmannerly boy mean,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in +a sort of desperation, ‘by Tight-Jeff?’ + +‘There! Get out, get out!’ said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend +from the room, rather in the prairie manner. ‘Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, +it don’t much signify: it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were +going to give me a message for Jupe?’ + +‘Yes, I was.’ + +‘Then,’ continued Mr. Childers, quickly, ‘my opinion is, he will never +receive it. Do you know much of him?’ + +‘I never saw the man in my life.’ + +‘I doubt if you ever _will_ see him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s +off.’ + +‘Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?’ + +‘Ay! I mean,’ said Mr. Childers, with a nod, ‘that he has cut. He was +goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed +to-day. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he +can’t stand it.’ + +‘Why has he been—so very much—Goosed?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the +word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance. + +‘His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,’ said Childers. +‘He has his points as a Cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of +_them_.’ + +‘A Cackler!’ Bounderby repeated. ‘Here we go again!’ + +‘A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,’ said Mr. E. W. B. +Childers, superciliously throwing the interpretation over his shoulder, +and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair—which all shook at +once. ‘Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to +know that his daughter knew of his being goosed, than to go through with +it.’ + +‘Good!’ interrupted Mr. Bounderby. ‘This is good, Gradgrind! A man so +fond of his daughter, that he runs away from her! This is devilish good! +Ha! ha! Now, I’ll tell you what, young man. I haven’t always occupied +my present station of life. I know what these things are. You may be +astonished to hear it, but my mother—ran away from _me_.’ + +E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all astonished to +hear it. + +‘Very well,’ said Bounderby. ‘I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran +away from me. Do I excuse her for it? No. Have I ever excused her for +it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her probably the very +worst woman that ever lived in the world, except my drunken grandmother. +There’s no family pride about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental +humbug about me. I call a spade a spade; and I call the mother of Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favour, what I should call +her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this +man. He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that’s what he is, in +English.’ + +‘It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English +or whether in French,’ retorted Mr. E. W. B. Childers, facing about. ‘I +am telling your friend what’s the fact; if you don’t like to hear it, you +can avail yourself of the open air. You give it mouth enough, you do; +but give it mouth in your own building at least,’ remonstrated E. W. B. +with stern irony. ‘Don’t give it mouth in this building, till you’re +called upon. You have got some building of your own I dare say, now?’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his money and laughing. + +‘Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?’ said +Childers. ‘Because this isn’t a strong building, and too much of you +might bring it down!’ + +Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, as from +a man finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was +seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, and a bundle tied +up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never believe it of him, +but he has cut away and left her.’ + +‘Pray,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘why will she never believe it of him?’ + +‘Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder. Because, +up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her,’ said Childers, taking a +step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Master +Kidderminster walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart +than the general run of men, and with a very knowing assumption of being +stiff in the knees. This walk was common to all the male members of +Sleary’s company, and was understood to express, that they were always on +horseback. + +‘Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,’ said Childers, giving +his hair another shake, as he looked up from the empty box. ‘Now, he +leaves her without anything to take to.’ + +‘It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to express +that opinion,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly. + +‘_I_ never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year old.’ + +‘Oh! Indeed?’ said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been +defrauded of his good opinion. ‘I was not aware of its being the custom +to apprentice young persons to—’ + +‘Idleness,’ Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. ‘No, by the Lord +Harry! Nor I!’ + +‘Her father always had it in his head,’ resumed Childers, feigning +unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby’s existence, ‘that she was to be taught +the deuce-and-all of education. How it got into his head, I can’t say; I +can only say that it never got out. He has been picking up a bit of +reading for her, here—and a bit of writing for her, there—and a bit of +ciphering for her, somewhere else—these seven years.’ + +Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, stroked +his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt and a little +hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had sought to conciliate that +gentleman, for the sake of the deserted girl. + +‘When Sissy got into the school here,’ he pursued, ‘her father was as +pleased as Punch. I couldn’t altogether make out why, myself, as we were +not stationary here, being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose, +however, he had this move in his mind—he was always half-cracked—and then +considered her provided for. If you should happen to have looked in +to-night, for the purpose of telling him that you were going to do her +any little service,’ said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and +repeating his look, ‘it would be very fortunate and well-timed; very +fortunate and well-timed.’ + +‘On the contrary,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I came to tell him that her +connections made her not an object for the school, and that she must not +attend any more. Still, if her father really has left her, without any +connivance on her part—Bounderby, let me have a word with you.’ + +Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his equestrian +walk, to the landing outside the door, and there stood stroking his face, +and softly whistling. While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in +Mr. Bounderby’s voice as ‘No. _I_ say no. I advise you not. I say by +no means.’ While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone +the words, ‘But even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which +has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. Think +of it, Bounderby, in that point of view.’ + +Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s company gradually gathered +together from the upper regions, where they were quartered, and, from +standing about, talking in low voices to one another and to Mr. Childers, +gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room. There were two or +three handsome young women among them, with their two or three husbands, +and their two or three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, +who did the fairy business when required. The father of one of the +families was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the +families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often +made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the +apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling +casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins, +ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. All the +mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and the tight-rope, +and perform rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; none of them were at all +particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a +Greek chariot, drove six in hand into every town they came to. They all +assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their +private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic +arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have +produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable +gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for +any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity +one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much +generous construction, as the every-day virtues of any class of people in +the world. + +Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with +one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like +the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a +muddled head which was never sober and never drunk. + +‘Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose +breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s, ‘Your thervant! +Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You’ve heard of my Clown +and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?’ + +He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered ‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, Thquire,’ he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining +with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. ‘Ith +it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?’ + +‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. + +‘Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any +more than I want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to take her prentith, +though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and +not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if you’d been chilled and +heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath +young, ath often ath I have been, _your_ voithe wouldn’t have lathted +out, Thquire, no more than mine.’ + +‘I dare say not,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it +a name, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease. + +‘Nothing for me, I thank you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you +haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.’ + +Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who +had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve, +which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire +to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies—cried, ‘Father, hush! +she has come back!’ Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she +had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their +looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and +took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady +(herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, +and to weep over her. + +‘Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,’ said Sleary. + +‘O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone +to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I am +sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor +father, until you come back!’ It was so pathetic to hear her saying many +things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched +out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it, +that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the +case in hand. + +‘Now, good people all,’ said he, ‘this is wanton waste of time. Let the +girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have +been run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! Your father has +absconded—deserted you—and you mustn’t expect to see him again as long as +you live.’ + +They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that +advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being +impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they took it in +extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered ‘Shame!’ and the women ‘Brute!’ +and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to Mr. +Bounderby. + +‘I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that +you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good natur’d +people, my people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their +movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned if I don’t +believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.’ + +Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind +found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject. + +‘It is of no moment,’ said he, ‘whether this person is to be expected +back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and there is no +present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on all +hands.’ + +‘Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that!’ From Sleary. + +‘Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl, +Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in +consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not +enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am +prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing +to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you. +The only condition (over and above your good behaviour) I make is, that +you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also, +that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no +more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations +comprise the whole of the case.’ + +‘At the thame time,’ said Sleary, ‘I mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho +that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you like, +Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know +your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you’re a lying at prethent, +would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine would be a thithter to you. I +don’t pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what, +when you mith’d your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath +or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad +tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at +him went, and that I don’t expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of +life, with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and I have +thed my thay.’ + +The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who +received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked: + +‘The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing +your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical +education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand) +appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that much.’ + +The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild +crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face +full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the force of the +change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, ‘she will +go!’ + +‘Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,’ Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; ‘I +say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!’ + +‘When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting into tears again after +a minute’s silence, ‘how will he ever find me if I go away!’ + +‘You may be quite at ease,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the +whole matter like a sum: ‘you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score. +In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr.—’ + +‘Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all over +England, and alwayth paythe ith way.’ + +‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went. I +should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have +no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown. +I am well known.’ + +‘Well known,’ assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. ‘You’re one of +the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight of money out of the +houthe. But never mind that at prethent.’ + +There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands +before her face, ‘Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me +go away before I break my heart!’ + +The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together—it was +soon done, for they were not many—and to pack them in a basket which had +often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground, still +sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby +stood near the door, ready to take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the +middle of the room, with the male members of the company about him, +exactly as he would have stood in the centre of the ring during his +daughter Josephine’s performance. He wanted nothing but his whip. + +The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and +smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed about +her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing +her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and were a +tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether. + +‘Now, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘If you are quite determined, come!’ + +But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and +every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the +professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give +her a parting kiss—Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature +there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to +have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary +was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both +her hands, and would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master +manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid +act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him +crying. + +‘Good-bye, my dear!’ said Sleary. ‘You’ll make your fortun, I hope, and +none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. I with +your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have +the dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have +performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!’ + +With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his +company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to +Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse. + +‘There the ith, Thquire,’ he said, sweeping her with a professional +glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, ‘and the’ll do you +juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!’ + +‘Good-bye, Cecilia!’ ‘Good-bye, Sissy!’ ‘God bless you, dear!’ In a +variety of voices from all the room. + +But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her +bosom, and he now interposed with ‘Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large +to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!’ + +‘No, no!’ she said, in another burst of tears. ‘Oh, no! Pray let me +keep it for father till he comes back! He will want it when he comes +back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me for it. I +must keep it for him, if you please!’ + +‘Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell, +Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of +your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, +when you’re grown up and married and well off, you come upon any +horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give +it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People mutht be +amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than +ever, by so much talking; ‘they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they +can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. +I’ve got my living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I +conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to +you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!’ + +The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and the +fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, too—soon lost the three +figures and the basket in the darkness of the street. + + + +CHAPTER VII +MRS. SPARSIT + + +MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his +establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. +Sparsit was this lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in +attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with the +Bully of humility inside. + +For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly +connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called Lady +Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by +the mother’s side what Mrs. Sparsit still called ‘a Powler.’ Strangers +of limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not +to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might +be a business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. The +better class of minds, however, did not need to be informed that the +Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly +far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost +themselves—which they had rather frequently done, as respected +horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the +Insolvent Debtors’ Court. + +The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a Powler, married this +lady, being by the father’s side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely +fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a +mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen +years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, +and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long +slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He inherited a +fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all before he came into it, and +spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at +twenty-four (the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he +did not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the +honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years +older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady +Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to maintain +herself, went out at a salary. And here she was now, in her elderly +days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows +which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby’s tea as he took his +breakfast. + +If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess +whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, he could not +have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it +belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it +belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he would not +allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favourable +circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with every +possible advantage, and showered waggon-loads of early roses all over +that lady’s path. ‘And yet, sir,’ he would say, ‘how does it turn out +after all? Why here she is at a hundred a year (I give her a hundred, +which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown!’ + +Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties +took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. +It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not +only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There +was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough +elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a +rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the +Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, +An Englishman’s house is his castle, Church and State, and God save the +Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an +orator of this kind brought into his peroration, + + ‘Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, + A breath can make them, as a breath has made,’ + +—it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company that he +had heard of Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you are unusually slow, sir, with +your breakfast this morning.’ + +‘Why, ma’am,’ he returned, ‘I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind’s whim;’ +Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking—as if somebody +were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say Thomas, +and he wouldn’t; ‘Tom Gradgrind’s whim, ma’am, of bringing up the +tumbling-girl.’ + +‘The girl is now waiting to know,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘whether she is to +go straight to the school, or up to the Lodge.’ + +‘She must wait, ma’am,’ answered Bounderby, ‘till I know myself. We +shall have Tom Gradgrind down here presently, I suppose. If he should +wish her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, ma’am.’ + +‘Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby.’ + +‘I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last night, in order that +he might sleep on it before he decided to let her have any association +with Louisa.’ + +‘Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of you!’ Mrs. Sparsit’s +Coriolanian nose underwent a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her +black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea. + +‘It’s tolerably clear to _me_,’ said Bounderby, ‘that the little puss can +get small good out of such companionship.’ + +‘Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am, I’m speaking of Louisa.’ + +‘Your observation being limited to “little puss,”’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +‘and there being two little girls in question, I did not know which might +be indicated by that expression.’ + +‘Louisa,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. ‘Louisa, Louisa.’ + +‘You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.’ Mrs. Sparsit took a +little more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows over her +steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking +the infernal gods. + +‘If you had said I was another father to Tom—young Tom, I mean, not my +friend Tom Gradgrind—you might have been nearer the mark. I am going to +take young Tom into my office. Going to have him under my wing, ma’am.’ + +‘Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?’ Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’ +in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting +consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him. + +‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational +cramming before then,’ said Bounderby. ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have +enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he +knew how empty of learning _my_ young maw was, at his time of life.’ +Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had heard of it often +enough. ‘But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such +subjects, in speaking to any one on equal terms. Here, for example, I +have been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. Why, what do +_you_ know about tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in +the mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the +lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were coming out of the +Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, +when I hadn’t a penny to buy a link to light you.’ + +‘I certainly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely +mournful, ‘was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early age.’ + +‘Egad, ma’am, so was I,’ said Bounderby, ‘—with the wrong side of it. A +hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you. People +like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, have no +idea _how_ hard a paving-stone is, without trying it. No, no, it’s of no +use my talking to _you_ about tumblers. I should speak of foreign +dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies +and honourables.’ + +‘I trust, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, ‘it is +not necessary that you should do anything of that kind. I hope I have +learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If I have +acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, and can +scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for that, since I believe +it is a general sentiment.’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said her patron, ‘perhaps some people may be pleased to +say that they do like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what Josiah +Bounderby, of Coketown, has gone through. But you must confess that you +were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, ma’am, you know you were +born in the lap of luxury.’ + +‘I do not, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of her head, ‘deny +it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with his back +to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement of his position. + +‘And you were in crack society. Devilish high society,’ he said, warming +his legs. + +‘It is true, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of humility +the very opposite of his, and therefore in no danger of jostling it. + +‘You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of it,’ said Mr. +Bounderby. + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood upon +her. ‘It is unquestionably true.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his legs +in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind +being then announced, he received the former with a shake of the hand, +and the latter with a kiss. + +‘Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind. + +Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. +Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in +her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the +blustrous Bounderby had the following remarks to make: + +‘Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that lady by the teapot, is +Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as mistress of this house, and she is a +highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come again into any +room in this house, you will make a short stay in it if you don’t behave +towards that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I don’t care a +button what you do to _me_, because I don’t affect to be anybody. So far +from having high connections I have no connections at all, and I come of +the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and +you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come +here.’ + +‘I hope, Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, ‘that +this was merely an oversight.’ + +‘My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said Bounderby, ‘that +this was merely an oversight. Very likely. However, as you are aware, +ma’am, I don’t allow of even oversights towards you.’ + +‘You are very good indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head +with her State humility. ‘It is not worth speaking of.’ + +Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears in +her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind. +She stood looking intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her +eyes upon the ground, while he proceeded thus: + +‘Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when you +are not in attendance at the school, to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, +who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa—this is Miss +Louisa—the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to +expressly understand that the whole of that subject is past, and is not +to be referred to any more. From this time you begin your history. You +are, at present, ignorant, I know.’ + +‘Yes, sir, very,’ she answered, curtseying. + +‘I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; +and you will be a living proof to all who come into communication with +you, of the advantages of the training you will receive. You will be +reclaimed and formed. You have been in the habit now of reading to your +father, and those people I found you among, I dare say?’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping +his voice. + +‘Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when +Merrylegs was always there.’ + +‘Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown. +‘I don’t ask about him. I understand you to have been in the habit of +reading to your father?’ + +‘O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest—O, of all the +happy times we had together, sir!’ + +It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at her. + +‘And what,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, ‘did you read to +your father, Jupe?’ + +‘About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the +Genies,’ she sobbed out; ‘and about—’ + +‘Hush!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is enough. Never breathe a word of +such destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid +training, and I shall observe it with interest.’ + +‘Well,’ returned Mr. Bounderby, ‘I have given you my opinion already, and +I shouldn’t do as you do. But, very well, very well. Since you are bent +upon it, _very_ well!’ + +So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to +Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or bad. +And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got +behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the +evening. + + + +CHAPTER VIII +NEVER WONDER + + +LET us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune. + +When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to +begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying ‘Tom, I +wonder’—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped +forth into the light and said, ‘Louisa, never wonder!’ + +Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the +reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and +affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, +multiplication, and division, settle everything somehow, and never +wonder. Bring to me, says M’Choakumchild, yonder baby just able to walk, +and I will engage that it shall never wonder. + +Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there happened to be in +Coketown a considerable population of babies who had been walking against +time towards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and +more. These portentous infants being alarming creatures to stalk about +in any human society, the eighteen denominations incessantly scratched +one another’s faces and pulled one another’s hair by way of agreeing on +the steps to be taken for their improvement—which they never did; a +surprising circumstance, when the happy adaptation of the means to the +end is considered. Still, although they differed in every other +particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially inconceivable), +they were pretty well united on the point that these unlucky infants were +never to wonder. Body number one, said they must take everything on +trust. Body number two, said they must take everything on political +economy. Body number three, wrote leaden little books for them, showing +how the good grown-up baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, and the +bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body number four, under +dreary pretences of being droll (when it was very melancholy indeed), +made the shallowest pretences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into +which it was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But, +all the bodies agreed that they were never to wonder. + +There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was easy. Mr. +Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what the people read in this +library: a point whereon little rivers of tabular statements periodically +flowed into the howling ocean of tabular statements, which no diver ever +got to any depth in and came up sane. It was a disheartening +circumstance, but a melancholy fact, that even these readers persisted in +wondering. They wondered about human nature, human passions, human hopes +and fears, the struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares and joys and +sorrows, the lives and deaths of common men and women! They sometimes, +after fifteen hours’ work, sat down to read mere fables about men and +women, more or less like themselves, and about children, more or less +like their own. They took De Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and +seemed to be on the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker. +Mr. Gradgrind was for ever working, in print and out of print, at this +eccentric sum, and he never could make out how it yielded this +unaccountable product. + +‘I am sick of my life, Loo. I, hate it altogether, and I hate everybody +except you,’ said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind in the +hair-cutting chamber at twilight. + +‘You don’t hate Sissy, Tom?’ + +‘I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she hates me,’ said Tom, +moodily. + +‘No, she does not, Tom, I am sure!’ + +‘She must,’ said Tom. ‘She must just hate and detest the whole set-out +of us. They’ll bother her head off, I think, before they have done with +her. Already she’s getting as pale as wax, and as heavy as—I am.’ + +Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a chair before +the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky face on his arms. His +sister sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now looking at him, now +looking at the bright sparks as they dropped upon the hearth. + +‘As to me,’ said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner of ways with his sulky +hands, ‘I am a Donkey, that’s what _I_ am. I am as obstinate as one, I +am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like +to kick like one.’ + +‘Not me, I hope, Tom?’ + +‘No, Loo; I wouldn’t hurt _you_. I made an exception of you at first. I +don’t know what this—jolly old—Jaundiced Jail,’ Tom had paused to find a +sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the parental roof, and +seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of +this one, ‘would be without you.’ + +‘Indeed, Tom? Do you really and truly say so?’ + +‘Why, of course I do. What’s the use of talking about it!’ returned Tom, +chafing his face on his coat-sleeve, as if to mortify his flesh, and have +it in unison with his spirit. + +‘Because, Tom,’ said his sister, after silently watching the sparks +awhile, ‘as I get older, and nearer growing up, I often sit wondering +here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that I can’t reconcile you +to home better than I am able to do. I don’t know what other girls know. +I can’t play to you, or sing to you. I can’t talk to you so as to +lighten your mind, for I never see any amusing sights or read any amusing +books that it would be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when +you are tired.’ + +‘Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that respect; and I am a Mule +too, which you’re not. If father was determined to make me either a Prig +or a Mule, and I am not a Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a +Mule. And so I am,’ said Tom, desperately. + +‘It’s a great pity,’ said Louisa, after another pause, and speaking +thoughtfully out of her dark corner: ‘it’s a great pity, Tom. It’s very +unfortunate for both of us.’ + +‘Oh! You,’ said Tom; ‘you are a girl, Loo, and a girl comes out of it +better than a boy does. I don’t miss anything in you. You are the only +pleasure I have—you can brighten even this place—and you can always lead +me as you like.’ + +‘You are a dear brother, Tom; and while you think I can do such things, I +don’t so much mind knowing better. Though I do know better, Tom, and am +very sorry for it.’ She came and kissed him, and went back into her +corner again. + +‘I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about,’ said Tom, +spitefully setting his teeth, ‘and all the Figures, and all the people +who found them out: and I wish I could put a thousand barrels of +gunpowder under them, and blow them all up together! However, when I go +to live with old Bounderby, I’ll have my revenge.’ + +‘Your revenge, Tom?’ + +‘I mean, I’ll enjoy myself a little, and go about and see something, and +hear something. I’ll recompense myself for the way in which I have been +brought up.’ + +‘But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as +father thinks, and is a great deal rougher, and not half so kind.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tom, laughing; ‘I don’t mind that. I shall very well know how +to manage and smooth old Bounderby!’ + +Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the high presses +in the room were all blended together on the wall and on the ceiling, as +if the brother and sister were overhung by a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful +imagination—if such treason could have been there—might have made it out +to be the shadow of their subject, and of its lowering association with +their future. + +‘What is your great mode of smoothing and managing, Tom? Is it a +secret?’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tom, ‘if it is a secret, it’s not far off. It’s you. You are +his little pet, you are his favourite; he’ll do anything for you. When +he says to me what I don’t like, I shall say to him, “My sister Loo will +be hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She always used to tell me she +was sure you would be easier with me than this.” That’ll bring him +about, or nothing will.’ + +After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom wearily +relapsed into the present time, and twined himself yawning round and +about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his head more and more, until +he suddenly looked up, and asked: + +‘Have you gone to sleep, Loo?’ + +‘No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.’ + +‘You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could find,’ said +Tom. ‘Another of the advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.’ + +‘Tom,’ enquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as if she were +reading what she asked in the fire, and it was not quite plainly written +there, ‘do you look forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. +Bounderby’s?’ + +‘Why, there’s one thing to be said of it,’ returned Tom, pushing his +chair from him, and standing up; ‘it will be getting away from home.’ + +‘There is one thing to be said of it,’ Louisa repeated in her former +curious tone; ‘it will be getting away from home. Yes.’ + +‘Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, Loo, and to +leave you here. But I must go, you know, whether I like it or not; and I +had better go where I can take with me some advantage of your influence, +than where I should lose it altogether. Don’t you see?’ + +‘Yes, Tom.’ + +The answer was so long in coming, though there was no indecision in it, +that Tom went and leaned on the back of her chair, to contemplate the +fire which so engrossed her, from her point of view, and see what he +could make of it. + +‘Except that it is a fire,’ said Tom, ‘it looks to me as stupid and blank +as everything else looks. What do you see in it? Not a circus?’ + +‘I don’t see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But since I have been +looking at it, I have been wondering about you and me, grown up.’ + +‘Wondering again!’ said Tom. + +‘I have such unmanageable thoughts,’ returned his sister, ‘that they +_will_ wonder.’ + +‘Then I beg of you, Louisa,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, who had opened the door +without being heard, ‘to do nothing of that description, for goodness’ +sake, you inconsiderate girl, or I shall never hear the last of it from +your father. And, Thomas, it is really shameful, with my poor head +continually wearing me out, that a boy brought up as you have been, and +whose education has cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his +sister to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly said that she is +not to do it.’ + +Louisa denied Tom’s participation in the offence; but her mother stopped +her with the conclusive answer, ‘Louisa, don’t tell me, in my state of +health; for unless you had been encouraged, it is morally and physically +impossible that you could have done it.’ + +‘I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red sparks +dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. It made me think, +after all, how short my life would be, and how little I could hope to do +in it.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. ‘Nonsense! +Don’t stand there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to my face, when you +know very well that if it was ever to reach your father’s ears I should +never hear the last of it. After all the trouble that has been taken +with you! After the lectures you have attended, and the experiments you +have seen! After I have heard you myself, when the whole of my right +side has been benumbed, going on with your master about combustion, and +calcination, and calorification, and I may say every kind of ation that +could drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd +way about sparks and ashes! I wish,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a +chair, and discharging her strongest point before succumbing under these +mere shadows of facts, ‘yes, I really _do_ wish that I had never had a +family, and then you would have known what it was to do without me!’ + + + +CHAPTER IX +SISSY’S PROGRESS + + +SISSY JUPE had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M’Choakumchild and +Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months +of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long so very +hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled +ciphering-book, that assuredly she would have run away, but for only one +restraint. + +It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of no +arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance of all calculation, +and went dead against any table of probabilities that any Actuary would +have drawn up from the premises. The girl believed that her father had +not deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and in +the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she +was. + +The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, +rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound arithmetical basis, +that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with +pity. Yet, what was to be done? M’Choakumchild reported that she had a +very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of +the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact +measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, +unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith; that she +would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process) +immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps +at fourteen-pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, as +low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of +Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler +three feet high, for returning to the question, ‘What is the first +principle of this science?’ the absurd answer, ‘To do unto others as I +would that they should do unto me.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; +that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of +knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular +statements A to Z; and that Jupe ‘must be kept to it.’ So Jupe was kept +to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. + +‘It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!’ she said, one night, +when Louisa had endeavoured to make her perplexities for next day +something clearer to her. + +‘Do you think so?’ + +‘I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to me now, +would be so easy then.’ + +‘You might not be the better for it, Sissy.’ + +Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, ‘I should not be the worse, +Miss Louisa.’ To which Miss Louisa answered, ‘I don’t know that.’ + +There had been so little communication between these two—both because +life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like a piece of machinery +which discouraged human interference, and because of the prohibition +relative to Sissy’s past career—that they were still almost strangers. +Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed to Louisa’s face, was +uncertain whether to say more or to remain silent. + +‘You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than I can +ever be,’ Louisa resumed. ‘You are pleasanter to yourself, than _I_ am +to _my_self.’ + +‘But, if you please, Miss Louisa,’ Sissy pleaded, ‘I am—O so stupid!’ + +Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would be wiser +by-and-by. + +‘You don’t know,’ said Sissy, half crying, ‘what a stupid girl I am. All +through school hours I make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild call +me up, over and over again, regularly to make mistakes. I can’t help +them. They seem to come natural to me.’ + +‘Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild never make any mistakes themselves, I +suppose, Sissy?’ + +‘O no!’ she eagerly returned. ‘They know everything.’ + +‘Tell me some of your mistakes.’ + +‘I am almost ashamed,’ said Sissy, with reluctance. ‘But to-day, for +instance, Mr. M’Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural +Prosperity.’ + +‘National, I think it must have been,’ observed Louisa. + +‘Yes, it was.—But isn’t it the same?’ she timidly asked. + +‘You had better say, National, as he said so,’ returned Louisa, with her +dry reserve. + +‘National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. +And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn’t this a +prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, +and a’n’t you in a thriving state?’ + +‘What did you say?’ asked Louisa. + +‘Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought I couldn’t know whether it +was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or +not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. +But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,’ +said Sissy, wiping her eyes. + +‘That was a great mistake of yours,’ observed Louisa. + +‘Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he +would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and +in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are +starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your +remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I couldn’t think of a +better one—that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were +starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And +that was wrong, too.’ + +‘Of course it was.’ + +‘Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, +Here are the stutterings—’ + +‘Statistics,’ said Louisa. + +‘Yes, Miss Louisa—they always remind me of stutterings, and that’s +another of my mistakes—of accidents upon the sea. And I find (Mr. +M’Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went +to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or +burnt to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss;’ here Sissy +fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest +error; ‘I said it was nothing.’ + +‘Nothing, Sissy?’ + +‘Nothing, Miss—to the relations and friends of the people who were +killed. I shall never learn,’ said Sissy. ‘And the worst of all is, +that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I +am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I don’t like +it.’ + +Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it drooped abashed +before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. Then she +asked: + +‘Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well +taught too, Sissy?’ + +Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her sense that +they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa added, ‘No one hears +us; and if any one did, I am sure no harm could be found in such an +innocent question.’ + +‘No, Miss Louisa,’ answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, shaking her +head; ‘father knows very little indeed. It’s as much as he can do to +write; and it’s more than people in general can do to read his writing. +Though it’s plain to _me_.’ + +‘Your mother?’ + +‘Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when I was born. She +was;’ Sissy made the terrible communication nervously; ‘she was a +dancer.’ + +‘Did your father love her?’ Louisa asked these questions with a strong, +wild, wandering interest peculiar to her; an interest gone astray like a +banished creature, and hiding in solitary places. + +‘O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved me, first, for her sake. +He carried me about with him when I was quite a baby. We have never been +asunder from that time.’ + +‘Yet he leaves you now, Sissy?’ + +‘Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; nobody knows him as I +do. When he left me for my good—he never would have left me for his +own—I know he was almost broken-hearted with the trial. He will not be +happy for a single minute, till he comes back.’ + +‘Tell me more about him,’ said Louisa, ‘I will never ask you again. +Where did you live?’ + +‘We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. +Father’s a;’ Sissy whispered the awful word, ‘a clown.’ + +‘To make the people laugh?’ said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence. + +‘Yes. But they wouldn’t laugh sometimes, and then father cried. Lately, +they very often wouldn’t laugh, and he used to come home despairing. +Father’s not like most. Those who didn’t know him as well as I do, and +didn’t love him as dearly as I do, might believe he was not quite right. +Sometimes they played tricks upon him; but they never knew how he felt +them, and shrunk up, when he was alone with me. He was far, far timider +than they thought!’ + +‘And you were his comfort through everything?’ + +She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. ‘I hope so, and father +said I was. It was because he grew so scared and trembling, and because +he felt himself to be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to +be his words), that he wanted me so much to know a great deal, and be +different from him. I used to read to him to cheer his courage, and he +was very fond of that. They were wrong books—I am never to speak of them +here—but we didn’t know there was any harm in them.’ + +‘And he liked them?’ said Louisa, with a searching gaze on Sissy all this +time. + +‘O very much! They kept him, many times, from what did him real harm. +And often and often of a night, he used to forget all his troubles in +wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with the story, or +would have her head cut off before it was finished.’ + +‘And your father was always kind? To the last?’ asked Louisa +contravening the great principle, and wondering very much. + +‘Always, always!’ returned Sissy, clasping her hands. ‘Kinder and kinder +than I can tell. He was angry only one night, and that was not to me, +but Merrylegs. Merrylegs;’ she whispered the awful fact; ‘is his +performing dog.’ + +‘Why was he angry with the dog?’ Louisa demanded. + +‘Father, soon after they came home from performing, told Merrylegs to +jump up on the backs of the two chairs and stand across them—which is one +of his tricks. He looked at father, and didn’t do it at once. +Everything of father’s had gone wrong that night, and he hadn’t pleased +the public at all. He cried out that the very dog knew he was failing, +and had no compassion on him. Then he beat the dog, and I was +frightened, and said, “Father, father! Pray don’t hurt the creature who +is so fond of you! O Heaven forgive you, father, stop!” And he stopped, +and the dog was bloody, and father lay down crying on the floor with the +dog in his arms, and the dog licked his face.’ + +Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kissed her, took her +hand, and sat down beside her. + +‘Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. Now that I have +asked you so much, tell me the end. The blame, if there is any blame, is +mine, not yours.’ + +‘Dear Miss Louisa,’ said Sissy, covering her eyes, and sobbing yet; ‘I +came home from the school that afternoon, and found poor father just come +home too, from the booth. And he sat rocking himself over the fire, as +if he was in pain. And I said, “Have you hurt yourself, father?” (as he +did sometimes, like they all did), and he said, “A little, my darling.” +And when I came to stoop down and look up at his face, I saw that he was +crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he hid his face; and at first +he shook all over, and said nothing but “My darling;” and “My love!”’ + +Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a coolness not +particularly savouring of interest in anything but himself, and not much +of that at present. + +‘I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,’ observed his sister. ‘You have +no occasion to go away; but don’t interrupt us for a moment, Tom dear.’ + +‘Oh! very well!’ returned Tom. ‘Only father has brought old Bounderby +home, and I want you to come into the drawing-room. Because if you come, +there’s a good chance of old Bounderby’s asking me to dinner; and if you +don’t, there’s none.’ + +‘I’ll come directly.’ + +‘I’ll wait for you,’ said Tom, ‘to make sure.’ + +Sissy resumed in a lower voice. ‘At last poor father said that he had +given no satisfaction again, and never did give any satisfaction now, and +that he was a shame and disgrace, and I should have done better without +him all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that came into +my heart, and presently he was quiet and I sat down by him, and told him +all about the school and everything that had been said and done there. +When I had no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, and +kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me to fetch some of the +stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best +place, which was at the other end of town from there; and then, after +kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone down-stairs, I turned +back that I might be a little bit more company to him yet, and looked in +at the door, and said, “Father dear, shall I take Merrylegs?” Father +shook his head and said, “No, Sissy, no; take nothing that’s known to be +mine, my darling;” and I left him sitting by the fire. Then the thought +must have come upon him, poor, poor father! of going away to try +something for my sake; for when I came back, he was gone.’ + +‘I say! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ Tom remonstrated. + +‘There’s no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the nine oils ready for +him, and I know he will come back. Every letter that I see in Mr. +Gradgrind’s hand takes my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think it +comes from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. Sleary promised +to write as soon as ever father should be heard of, and I trust to him to +keep his word.’ + +‘Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!’ said Tom, with an impatient +whistle. ‘He’ll be off if you don’t look sharp!’ + +After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind in the +presence of his family, and said in a faltering way, ‘I beg your pardon, +sir, for being troublesome—but—have you had any letter yet about me?’ +Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, whatever it was, and +look for the reply as earnestly as Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind +regularly answered, ‘No, Jupe, nothing of the sort,’ the trembling of +Sissy’s lip would be repeated in Louisa’s face, and her eyes would follow +Sissy with compassion to the door. Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these +occasions by remarking, when she was gone, that if Jupe had been properly +trained from an early age she would have remonstrated to herself on sound +principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem +(though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could +take as strong a hold as Fact. + +This observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. As to Tom, +he was becoming that not unprecedented triumph of calculation which is +usually at work on number one. As to Mrs. Gradgrind, if she said +anything on the subject, she would come a little way out of her wrappers, +like a feminine dormouse, and say: + +‘Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and worried by that +girl Jupe’s so perseveringly asking, over and over again, about her +tiresome letters! Upon my word and honour I seem to be fated, and +destined, and ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never to +hear the last of. It really is a most extraordinary circumstance that it +appears as if I never was to hear the last of anything!’ + +At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind’s eye would fall upon her; and under +the influence of that wintry piece of fact, she would become torpid +again. + + + +CHAPTER X +STEPHEN BLACKPOOL + + +I ENTERTAIN a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked as any +people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous +idiosyncrasy, as a reason why I would give them a little more play. + +In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost fortifications +of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing +airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow +courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into +existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for some one man’s +purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, +and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great +exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a +draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, +as though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be +expected to be born in it; among the multitude of Coketown, generically +called ‘the Hands,’—a race who would have found more favour with some +people, if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, or, like the +lower creatures of the seashore, only hands and stomachs—lived a certain +Stephen Blackpool, forty years of age. + +Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that every +life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a +misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had +become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same +somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own. He had known, to use his +words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind +of rough homage to the fact. + +A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of +face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which his +iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a +particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. He took +no place among those remarkable ‘Hands,’ who, piecing together their +broken intervals of leisure through many years, had mastered difficult +sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely things. He held no +station among the Hands who could make speeches and carry on debates. +Thousands of his compeers could talk much better than he, at any time. +He was a good power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What +more he was, or what else he had in him, if anything, let him show for +himself. + +The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they were +illuminated, like Fairy palaces—or the travellers by express-train said +so—were all extinguished; and the bells had rung for knocking off for the +night, and had ceased again; and the Hands, men and women, boy and girl, +were clattering home. Old Stephen was standing in the street, with the +old sensation upon him which the stoppage of the machinery always +produced—the sensation of its having worked and stopped in his own head. + +‘Yet I don’t see Rachael, still!’ said he. + +It was a wet night, and many groups of young women passed him, with their +shawls drawn over their bare heads and held close under their chins to +keep the rain out. He knew Rachael well, for a glance at any one of +these groups was sufficient to show him that she was not there. At last, +there were no more to come; and then he turned away, saying in a tone of +disappointment, ‘Why, then, ha’ missed her!’ + +But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw another of +the shawled figures in advance of him, at which he looked so keenly that +perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement—if he +could have seen it without the figure itself moving along from lamp to +lamp, brightening and fading as it went—would have been enough to tell +him who was there. Making his pace at once much quicker and much softer, +he darted on until he was very near this figure, then fell into his +former walk, and called ‘Rachael!’ + +She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp; and raising her hood +a little, showed a quiet oval face, dark and rather delicate, irradiated +by a pair of very gentle eyes, and further set off by the perfect order +of her shining black hair. It was not a face in its first bloom; she was +a woman five and thirty years of age. + +‘Ah, lad! ’Tis thou?’ When she had said this, with a smile which would +have been quite expressed, though nothing of her had been seen but her +pleasant eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they went on together. + +‘I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Early t’night, lass?’ + +‘’Times I’m a little early, Stephen! ’times a little late. I’m never to +be counted on, going home.’ + +‘Nor going t’other way, neither, ’t seems to me, Rachael?’ + +‘No, Stephen.’ + +He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, but with a +respectful and patient conviction that she must be right in whatever she +did. The expression was not lost upon her; she laid her hand lightly on +his arm a moment as if to thank him for it. + +‘We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, and getting to be +such old folk, now.’ + +‘No, Rachael, thou’rt as young as ever thou wast.’ + +‘One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, without ’t other +getting so too, both being alive,’ she answered, laughing; ‘but, anyways, +we’re such old friends, and t’ hide a word of honest truth fro’ one +another would be a sin and a pity. ’Tis better not to walk too much +together. ’Times, yes! ’Twould be hard, indeed, if ’twas not to be at +all,’ she said, with a cheerfulness she sought to communicate to him. + +‘’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.’ + +‘Try to think not; and ’twill seem better.’ + +‘I’ve tried a long time, and ’ta’nt got better. But thou’rt right; ’t +might mak fok talk, even of thee. Thou hast been that to me, Rachael, +through so many year: thou hast done me so much good, and heartened of me +in that cheering way, that thy word is a law to me. Ah, lass, and a +bright good law! Better than some real ones.’ + +‘Never fret about them, Stephen,’ she answered quickly, and not without +an anxious glance at his face. ‘Let the laws be.’ + +‘Yes,’ he said, with a slow nod or two. ‘Let ’em be. Let everything be. +Let all sorts alone. ’Tis a muddle, and that’s aw.’ + +‘Always a muddle?’ said Rachael, with another gentle touch upon his arm, +as if to recall him out of the thoughtfulness, in which he was biting the +long ends of his loose neckerchief as he walked along. The touch had its +instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a smiling face upon her, +and said, as he broke into a good-humoured laugh, ‘Ay, Rachael, lass, +awlus a muddle. That’s where I stick. I come to the muddle many times +and agen, and I never get beyond it.’ + +They had walked some distance, and were near their own homes. The +woman’s was the first reached. It was in one of the many small streets +for which the favourite undertaker (who turned a handsome sum out of the +one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a black ladder, in order +that those who had done their daily groping up and down the narrow stairs +might slide out of this working world by the windows. She stopped at the +corner, and putting her hand in his, wished him good night. + +‘Good night, dear lass; good night!’ + +She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, down the dark +street, and he stood looking after her until she turned into one of the +small houses. There was not a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but +had its interest in this man’s eyes; not a tone of her voice but had its +echo in his innermost heart. + +When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way, glancing up +sometimes at the sky, where the clouds were sailing fast and wildly. +But, they were broken now, and the rain had ceased, and the moon +shone,—looking down the high chimneys of Coketown on the deep furnaces +below, and casting Titanic shadows of the steam-engines at rest, upon the +walls where they were lodged. The man seemed to have brightened with the +night, as he went on. + +His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was +narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass that any people +found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched little toys, mixed +up in its window with cheap newspapers and pork (there was a leg to be +raffled for to-morrow-night), matters not here. He took his end of +candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end of candle on the counter, +without disturbing the mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little +room, and went upstairs into his lodging. + +It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various +tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few books +and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent +and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, the room was +clean. + +Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round three-legged +table standing there, he stumbled against something. As he recoiled, +looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of a woman in a +sitting attitude. + +‘Heaven’s mercy, woman!’ he cried, falling farther off from the figure. +‘Hast thou come back again!’ + +Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to preserve her +sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed hand on the floor, +while the other was so purposeless in trying to push away her tangled +hair from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the dirt upon +it. A creature so foul to look at, in her tatters, stains and splashes, +but so much fouler than that in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful +thing even to see her. + +After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself with +the hand not necessary to her support, she got her hair away from her +eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat swaying her +body to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed +intended as the accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though her face was +stolid and drowsy. + +‘Eigh, lad? What, yo’r there?’ Some hoarse sounds meant for this, came +mockingly out of her at last; and her head dropped forward on her breast. + +‘Back agen?’ she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that moment +said it. ‘Yes! And back agen. Back agen ever and ever so often. Back? +Yes, back. Why not?’ + +Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, she +scrambled up, and stood supporting herself with her shoulders against the +wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a dunghill-fragment of a +bonnet, and trying to look scornfully at him. + +‘I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell +thee off a score of times!’ she cried, with something between a furious +menace and an effort at a defiant dance. ‘Come awa’ from th’ bed!’ He +was sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden in his hands. ‘Come +awa! from ’t. ’Tis mine, and I’ve a right to t’!’ + +As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and passed—his +face still hidden—to the opposite end of the room. She threw herself +upon the bed heavily, and soon was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair, +and moved but once all that night. It was to throw a covering over her; +as if his hands were not enough to hide her, even in the darkness. + + + +CHAPTER XI +NO WAY OUT + + +THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the +monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A +clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all +the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s +monotony, were at their heavy exercise again. + +Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special +contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen worked, +to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he +laboured. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of mind, that Art +will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side by side, the work of +GOD and the work of man; and the former, even though it be a troop of +Hands of very small account, will gain in dignity from the comparison. + +So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power. +It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will +do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the +capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or +discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at +any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with +the composed faces and the regulated actions. There is no mystery in it; +there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of them, for +ever.—Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic for material objects, +and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means! + +The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the flaming +lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work went on. The +rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the curse of all that +tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, the +steam from the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the +shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of +mist and rain. + +The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon the +pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear for an hour. + +Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet streets, +haggard and worn. He turned from his own class and his own quarter, +taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along, towards the hill on +which his principal employer lived, in a red house with black outside +shutters, green inside blinds, a black street door, up two white steps, +BOUNDERBY (in letters very like himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round +brazen door-handle underneath it, like a brazen full-stop. + +Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would his +servant say that one of the Hands begged leave to speak to him? Message +in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There was +nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he might come in. + +Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew by +sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at the +fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton stirrup. +It was a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit’s dignity and service, not to +lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but implied that in her own +stately person she considered lunch a weakness. + +‘Now, Stephen,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter with _you_?’ + +Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one—these Hands will never do that! +Lord bless you, sir, you’ll never catch them at that, if they have been +with you twenty years!—and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, +tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat. + +‘Now, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, ‘we have never +had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of the +unreasonable ones. You don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and +to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many +of ’em do!’ Mr. Bounderby always represented this to be the sole, +immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied; +‘and therefore I know already that you have not come here to make a +complaint. Now, you know, I am certain of that, beforehand.’ + +‘No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ th’ kind.’ + +Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his previous +strong conviction. ‘Very well,’ he returned. ‘You’re a steady Hand, and +I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. As it’s not +that, let me hear what it is. What have you got to say? Out with it, +lad!’ + +Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I can go, Mr. +Bounderby, if you wish it,’ said that self-sacrificing lady, making a +feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup. + +Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in suspension +before swallowing it, and putting out his left hand. Then, withdrawing +his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen: + +‘Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are not +to suppose because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn’t been very +high up the tree—ah, up at the top of the tree! Now, if you have got +anything to say that can’t be said before a born lady, this lady will +leave the room. If what you have got to say _can_ be said before a born +lady, this lady will stay where she is.’ + +‘Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to year, +sin’ I were born mysen’,’ was the reply, accompanied with a slight flush. + +‘Very well,’ said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and leaning +back. ‘Fire away!’ + +‘I ha’ coom,’ Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after a +moment’s consideration, ‘to ask yo yor advice. I need ’t overmuch. I +were married on Eas’r Monday nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were +a young lass—pretty enow—wi’ good accounts of herseln. Well! She went +bad—soon. Not along of me. Gonnows I were not a unkind husband to her.’ + +‘I have heard all this before,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘She took to +drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, and +played old Gooseberry.’ + +‘I were patient wi’ her.’ + +(‘The more fool you, I think,’ said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to his +wine-glass.) + +‘I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to wean her fra ’t ower and ower +agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried t’other. I ha’ gone home, +many’s the time, and found all vanished as I had in the world, and her +without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare ground. I ha’ dun ’t +not once, not twice—twenty time!’ + +Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its affecting +evidence of the suffering he had undergone. + +‘From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She disgraced +herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she coom back, she +coom back. What could I do t’ hinder her? I ha’ walked the streets +nights long, ere ever I’d go home. I ha’ gone t’ th’ brigg, minded to +fling myseln ower, and ha’ no more on’t. I ha’ bore that much, that I +were owd when I were young.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, raised the +Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to say, ‘The great +know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your humble eye in My +direction.’ + +‘I ha’ paid her to keep awa’ fra’ me. These five year I ha’ paid her. I +ha’ gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha’ lived hard and sad, but +not ashamed and fearfo’ a’ the minnits o’ my life. Last night, I went +home. There she lay upon my har-stone! There she is!’ + +In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress, he +fired for the moment like a proud man. In another moment, he stood as he +had stood all the time—his usual stoop upon him; his pondering face +addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half shrewd, +half perplexed, as if his mind were set upon unravelling something very +difficult; his hat held tight in his left hand, which rested on his hip; +his right arm, with a rugged propriety and force of action, very +earnestly emphasizing what he said: not least so when it always paused, a +little bent, but not withdrawn, as he paused. + +‘I was acquainted with all this, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘except +the last clause, long ago. It’s a bad job; that’s what it is. You had +better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got married. +However, it’s too late to say that.’ + +‘Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point of +years, this unlucky job of yours?’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty nighbut.’ + +‘Indeed, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great placidity. ‘I +inferred, from its being so miserable a marriage, that it was probably an +unequal one in point of years.’ + +Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long way that +had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a little +more sherry. + +‘Well? Why don’t you go on?’ he then asked, turning rather irritably on +Stephen Blackpool. + +‘I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o’ this woman.’ +Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of his +attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having +received a moral shock. + +‘What do you mean?’ said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against +the chimney-piece. ‘What are you talking about? You took her for better +for worse.’ + +‘I mun’ be ridden o’ her. I cannot bear ’t nommore. I ha’ lived under +’t so long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity and comforting words o’ th’ +best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha’ gone +battering mad.’ + +‘He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, +sir,’ observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much dejected by the +immorality of the people. + +‘I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. I were a coming to ’t. I ha’ +read i’ th’ papers that great folk (fair faw ’em a’! I wishes ’em no +hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst so fast, but that +they can be set free fro’ _their_ misfortnet marriages, an’ marry ower +agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they +has rooms o’ one kind an’ another in their houses, above a bit, and they +can live asunders. We fok ha’ only one room, and we can’t. When that +won’t do, they ha’ gowd an’ other cash, an’ they can say “This for yo’ +an’ that for me,” an’ they can go their separate ways. We can’t. Spite +o’ all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I +mun be ridden o’ this woman, and I want t’ know how?’ + +‘No how,’ returned Mr. Bounderby. + +‘If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a law to punish me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry her—saying such a thing could be, +which it never could or would, an’ her so good—there’s a law to punish +me, in every innocent child belonging to me?’ + +‘Of course there is.’ + +‘Now, a’ God’s name,’ said Stephen Blackpool, ‘show me the law to help +me!’ + +‘Hem! There’s a sanctity in this relation of life,’ said Mr. Bounderby, +‘and—and—it must be kept up.’ + +‘No no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Tan’t kep’ up that way. Not that way. +’Tis kep’ down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a fact’ry when a chilt, +but I ha’ gotten een to see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ +papers every ’Sizes, every Sessions—and you read too—I know it!—with +dismay—how th’ supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting unchained from one +another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and +brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let +us ha’ this, right understood. Mine’s a grievous case, an’ I want—if yo +will be so good—t’ know the law that helps me.’ + +‘Now, I tell you what!’ said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his +pockets. ‘There _is_ such a law.’ + +Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his +attention, gave a nod. + +‘But it’s not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of +money.’ + +‘How much might that be?’ Stephen calmly asked. + +‘Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Commons with a suit, and you’d have to +go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you’d have to go to the +House of Lords with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament to +enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of +very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,’ +said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Perhaps twice the money.’ + +‘There’s no other law?’ + +‘Certainly not.’ + +‘Why then, sir,’ said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that +right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, ‘’_tis_ a +muddle. ’Tis just a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner I am dead, the +better.’ + +(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the people.) + +‘Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, my good fellow,’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘about things you don’t understand; and don’t you call the +Institutions of your country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real +muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are +not your piece-work, and the only thing you have got to do, is, to mind +your piece-work. You didn’t take your wife for fast and for loose; but +for better for worse. If she has turned out worse—why, all we have got +to say is, she might have turned out better.’ + +‘’Tis a muddle,’ said Stephen, shaking his head as he moved to the door. +‘’Tis a’ a muddle!’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what!’ Mr. Bounderby resumed, as a valedictory +address. ‘With what I shall call your unhallowed opinions, you have been +quite shocking this lady: who, as I have already told you, is a born +lady, and who, as I have not already told you, has had her own marriage +misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds—tens of Thousands +of Pounds!’ (he repeated it with great relish). ‘Now, you have always +been a steady Hand hitherto; but my opinion is, and so I tell you +plainly, that you are turning into the wrong road. You have been +listening to some mischievous stranger or other—they’re always about—and +the best thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;’ here +his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; ‘I can see as far into a +grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I +had my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle +soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Yes, I do!’ cried Mr. +Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate cunning. ‘By the Lord Harry, +I do!’ + +With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen said, +‘Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.’ So he left Mr. Bounderby swelling +at his own portrait on the wall, as if he were going to explode himself +into it; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup, +looking quite cast down by the popular vices. + + + +CHAPTER XII +THE OLD WOMAN + + +OLD STEPHEN descended the two white steps, shutting the black door with +the brazen door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he +gave a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot +hand clouded it. He crossed the street with his eyes bent upon the +ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully away, when he felt a touch upon +his arm. + +It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment—the touch that could +calm the wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand of the sublimest +love and patience could abate the raging of the sea—yet it was a woman’s +hand too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though withered +by time, on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned. She was very +cleanly and plainly dressed, had country mud upon her shoes, and was +newly come from a journey. The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted +noise of the streets; the spare shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the +heavy umbrella, and little basket; the loose long-fingered gloves, to +which her hands were unused; all bespoke an old woman from the country, +in her plain holiday clothes, come into Coketown on an expedition of rare +occurrence. Remarking this at a glance, with the quick observation of +his class, Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face—his face, which, +like the faces of many of his order, by dint of long working with eyes +and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had acquired the +concentrated look with which we are familiar in the countenances of the +deaf—the better to hear what she asked him. + +‘Pray, sir,’ said the old woman, ‘didn’t I see you come out of that +gentleman’s house?’ pointing back to Mr. Bounderby’s. ‘I believe it was +you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in following?’ + +‘Yes, missus,’ returned Stephen, ‘it were me.’ + +‘Have you—you’ll excuse an old woman’s curiosity—have you seen the +gentleman?’ + +‘Yes, missus.’ + +‘And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, outspoken, and hearty?’ +As she straightened her own figure, and held up her head in adapting her +action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old +woman before, and had not quite liked her. + +‘O yes,’ he returned, observing her more attentively, ‘he were all that.’ + +‘And healthy,’ said the old woman, ‘as the fresh wind?’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Stephen. ‘He were ett’n and drinking—as large and as +loud as a Hummobee.’ + +‘Thank you!’ said the old woman, with infinite content. ‘Thank you!’ + +He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague +remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed of some old +woman like her. + +She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to her +humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it not? To which she +answered ‘Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!’ Then he said, she came from the +country, he saw? To which she answered in the affirmative. + +‘By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by Parliamentary this +morning, and I’m going back the same forty mile this afternoon. I walked +nine mile to the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the road +to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back to-night. That’s +pretty well, sir, at my age!’ said the chatty old woman, her eye +brightening with exultation. + +‘’Deed ’tis. Don’t do’t too often, missus.’ + +‘No, no. Once a year,’ she answered, shaking her head. ‘I spend my +savings so, once every year. I come regular, to tramp about the streets, +and see the gentlemen.’ + +‘Only to see ’em?’ returned Stephen. + +‘That’s enough for me,’ she replied, with great earnestness and interest +of manner. ‘I ask no more! I have been standing about, on this side of +the way, to see that gentleman,’ turning her head back towards Mr. +Bounderby’s again, ‘come out. But, he’s late this year, and I have not +seen him. You came out instead. Now, if I am obliged to go back without +a glimpse of him—I only want a glimpse—well! I have seen you, and you +have seen him, and I must make that do.’ Saying this, she looked at +Stephen as if to fix his features in her mind, and her eye was not so +bright as it had been. + +With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all submission +to the patricians of Coketown, this seemed so extraordinary a source of +interest to take so much trouble about, that it perplexed him. But they +were passing the church now, and as his eye caught the clock, he +quickened his pace. + +He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, quite +easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his telling her where he worked, +the old woman became a more singular old woman than before. + +‘An’t you happy?’ she asked him. + +‘Why—there’s awmost nobbody but has their troubles, missus.’ He answered +evasively, because the old woman appeared to take it for granted that he +would be very happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. +He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the old woman +had lived so long, and could count upon his having so little, why so much +the better for her, and none the worse for him. + +‘Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you mean?’ she said. + +‘Times. Just now and then,’ he answered, slightly. + +‘But, working under such a gentleman, they don’t follow you to the +Factory?’ + +No, no; they didn’t follow him there, said Stephen. All correct there. +Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her +pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard +claims almost as magnificent of late years.) + +They were now in the black by-road near the place, and the Hands were +crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a Serpent of many +coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman was +delighted with the very bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever +heard, she said, and sounded grand! + +She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to shake hands with her +before going in, how long he had worked there? + +‘A dozen year,’ he told her. + +‘I must kiss the hand,’ said she, ‘that has worked in this fine factory +for a dozen year!’ And she lifted it, though he would have prevented +her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her +simplicity, surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic +action there was a something neither out of time nor place: a something +which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as serious, or done +with such a natural and touching air. + +He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this old woman, +when, having occasion to move round the loom for its adjustment, he +glanced through a window which was in his corner, and saw her still +looking up at the pile of building, lost in admiration. Heedless of the +smoke and mud and wet, and of her two long journeys, she was gazing at +it, as if the heavy thrum that issued from its many stories were proud +music to her. + +She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung +up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy Palace over +the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and +scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his thoughts +had gone back to the dreary room above the little shop, and to the +shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart. + +Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. +The bell again; the glare of light and heat dispelled; the factories, +looming heavy in the black wet night—their tall chimneys rising up into +the air like competing Towers of Babel. + +He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had walked +with her a little way; but he had his new misfortune on him, in which no +one else could give him a moment’s relief, and, for the sake of it, and +because he knew himself to want that softening of his anger which no +voice but hers could effect, he felt he might so far disregard what she +had said as to wait for her again. He waited, but she had eluded him. +She was gone. On no other night in the year could he so ill have spared +her patient face. + +O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a home +and dread to go to it, through such a cause. He ate and drank, for he +was exhausted—but he little knew or cared what; and he wandered about in +the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and brooding and brooding. + +No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael had +taken great pity on him years ago, and to her alone he had opened his +closed heart all this time, on the subject of his miseries; and he knew +very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take him. He +thought of the home he might at that moment have been seeking with +pleasure and pride; of the different man he might have been that night; +of the lightness then in his now heavy-laden breast; of the then restored +honour, self-respect, and tranquillity all torn to pieces. He thought of +the waste of the best part of his life, of the change it made in his +character for the worse every day, of the dreadful nature of his +existence, bound hand and foot, to a dead woman, and tormented by a demon +in her shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were first +brought together in these circumstances, how mature now, how soon to grow +old. He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry, how +many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she +had contentedly pursued her own lone quiet path—for him—and how he had +sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed face, that smote him +with remorse and despair. He set the picture of her up, beside the +infamous image of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole +earthly course of one so gentle, good, and self-denying, was subjugate to +such a wretch as that! + +Filled with these thoughts—so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of +growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards +the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every misty +light turn red—he went home for shelter. + + + +CHAPTER XIII +RACHAEL + + +A CANDLE faintly burned in the window, to which the black ladder had +often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most precious in +this world to a striving wife and a brood of hungry babies; and Stephen +added to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the +casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt out with so +unequal a hand as Death. The inequality of Birth was nothing to it. +For, say that the child of a King and the child of a Weaver were born +to-night in the same moment, what was that disparity, to the death of any +human creature who was serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this +abandoned woman lived on! + +From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to the inside, with +suspended breath and with a slow footstep. He went up to his door, +opened it, and so into the room. + +Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was there, sitting by the bed. + +She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the midnight +of his mind. She sat by the bed, watching and tending his wife. That is +to say, he saw that some one lay there, and he knew too well it must be +she; but Rachael’s hands had put a curtain up, so that she was screened +from his eyes. Her disgraceful garments were removed, and some of +Rachael’s were in the room. Everything was in its place and order as he +had always kept it, the little fire was newly trimmed, and the hearth was +freshly swept. It appeared to him that he saw all this in Rachael’s +face, and looked at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut +out from his view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not +before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own eyes +were filled too. + +She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that all was +quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice. + +‘I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are very late.’ + +‘I ha’ been walking up an’ down.’ + +‘I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls very +heavy, and the wind has risen.’ + +The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in the +chimney, and the surging noise! To have been out in such a wind, and not +to have known it was blowing! + +‘I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. Landlady came round for +me at dinner-time. There was some one here that needed looking to, she +said. And ‘deed she was right. All wandering and lost, Stephen. +Wounded too, and bruised.’ + +He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head before her. + +‘I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she worked +with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted her and married +her when I was her friend—’ + +He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan. + +‘And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and certain that +’tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much as suffer, for want +of aid. Thou knowest who said, “Let him who is without sin among you +cast the first stone at her!” There have been plenty to do that. Thou +art not the man to cast the last stone, Stephen, when she is brought so +low.’ + +‘O Rachael, Rachael!’ + +‘Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!’ she said, in +compassionate accents. ‘I am thy poor friend, with all my heart and +mind.’ + + [Picture: Stephen and Rachael in the sick room] + +The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of the +self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing her. She +steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she poured some liquid +from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The +three-legged table had been drawn close to the bedside, and on it there +were two bottles. This was one. + +It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with his +eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He turned of a +deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him. + +‘I will stay here, Stephen,’ said Rachael, quietly resuming her seat, +‘till the bells go Three. ’Tis to be done again at three, and then she +may be left till morning.’ + +‘But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my dear.’ + +‘I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put to it. +’Tis thou who art in need of rest—so white and tired. Try to sleep in +the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can +well believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for thee than for me.’ + +He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him as +if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at him. She had +cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her to defend him from +himself. + +‘She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I +have spoken to her times and again, but she don’t notice! ’Tis as well +so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I +can, and she never the wiser.’ + +‘How long, Rachael, is ’t looked for, that she’ll be so?’ + +‘Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to-morrow.’ + +His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, causing +him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled with the wet. +‘No,’ he said, ‘it was not that. He had had a fright.’ + +‘A fright?’ + +‘Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. When +I—’ It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the mantel-shelf, +as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it +were palsied. + +‘Stephen!’ + +She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her. + +‘No! Don’t, please; don’t. Let me see thee setten by the bed. Let me +see thee, a’ so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as I see thee +when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, +never!’ + +He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. After a +time he controlled himself, and, resting with an elbow on one knee, and +his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim +candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining +round her head. He could have believed she had. He did believe it, as +the noise without shook the window, rattled at the door below, and went +about the house clamouring and lamenting. + +‘When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be hoped she’ll leave thee to +thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope so now. +And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.’ + +He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head; but, +by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of the wind, he ceased +to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom, or even into the +voices of the day (his own included) saying what had been really said. +Even this imperfect consciousness faded away at last, and he dreamed a +long, troubled dream. + +He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been set—but +she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the midst of his +imaginary happiness—stood in the church being married. While the +ceremony was performing, and while he recognized among the witnesses some +whom he knew to be living, and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness +came on, succeeded by the shining of a tremendous light. It broke from +one line in the table of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the +building with the words. They were sounded through the church, too, as +if there were voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole +appearance before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it +had been, but himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight +before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could have +been brought together into one space, they could not have looked, he +thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and there was not one +pitying or friendly eye among the millions that were fastened on his +face. He stood on a raised stage, under his own loom; and, looking up at +the shape the loom took, and hearing the burial service distinctly read, +he knew that he was there to suffer death. In an instant what he stood +on fell below him, and he was gone. + +—Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and to places that +he knew, he was unable to consider; but he was back in those places by +some means, and with this condemnation upon him, that he was never, in +this world or the next, through all the unimaginable ages of eternity, to +look on Rachael’s face or hear her voice. Wandering to and fro, +unceasingly, without hope, and in search of he knew not what (he only +knew that he was doomed to seek it), he was the subject of a nameless, +horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape which everything +took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form sooner or later. The +object of his miserable existence was to prevent its recognition by any +one among the various people he encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led +them out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets where +it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew it to be +secreted, and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of the +mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word. + +The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the house-tops, and +the larger spaces through which he had strayed contracted to the four +walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it was as his eyes +had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen into a doze, in the +chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. The +table stood in the same place, close by the bedside, and on it, in its +real proportions and appearance, was the shape so often repeated. + +He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was sure it +moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope about a little. Then the +curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed put it back, and +sat up. + +With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she looked +all round the room, and passed the corner where he slept in his chair. +Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand over them as a +shade, while she looked into it. Again they went all round the room, +scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and returned to that corner. He +thought, as she once more shaded them—not so much looking at him, as +looking for him with a brutish instinct that he was there—that no single +trace was left in those debauched features, or in the mind that went +along with them, of the woman he had married eighteen years before. But +that he had seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed +her to be the same. + +All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and +powerless, except to watch her. + +Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she +sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, and her head resting +on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round the room. And now, +for the first time, her eyes stopped at the table with the bottles on it. + +Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the defiance of +last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, stretched out her +greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while +considering which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she +laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death +in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth. + +Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be +real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, wake! + +She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very +cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her lips. A +moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come +about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up +with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized her by +the hair; but Rachael had the cup. + +Stephen broke out of his chair. ‘Rachael, am I wakin’ or dreamin’ this +dreadfo’ night?’ + +‘’Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. ’Tis near three. +Hush! I hear the bells.’ + +The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They +listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she +was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her +forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been +awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. + +‘I thought it must be near three,’ she said, calmly pouring from the cup +into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. ‘I am thankful I +stayed! ’Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she’s +quiet again. The few drops in the basin I’ll pour away, for ’tis bad +stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it.’ As she spoke, she +drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the +hearth. + +She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before +going out into the wind and rain. + +‘Thou’lt let me walk wi’ thee at this hour, Rachael?’ + +‘No, Stephen. ’Tis but a minute, and I’m home.’ + +‘Thou’rt not fearfo’;’ he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the +door; ‘to leave me alone wi’ her!’ + +As she looked at him, saying, ‘Stephen?’ he went down on his knee before +her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. + +‘Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!’ + +‘I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not +like me. Between them, and a working woman fu’ of faults, there is a +deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed.’ + +She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they +fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. + +‘Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak’st me humbly wishfo’ to be +more like thee, and fearfo’ to lose thee when this life is ower, and a’ +the muddle cleared awa’. Thou’rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my +soul alive!’ + +She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his +hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of +his face. + +‘I coom home desp’rate. I coom home wi’out a hope, and mad wi’ thinking +that when I said a word o’ complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. +I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on table. I +never hurt a livin’ creetur; but happenin’ so suddenly upon ’t, I thowt, +“How can _I_ say what I might ha’ done to myseln, or her, or both!”’ + +She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him +from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and holding +them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly: + +‘But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha’ seen thee, aw this +night. In my troublous sleep I ha’ known thee still to be there. +Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o’ +her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think o’ +anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by +th’ side on’t. And so I will try t’ look t’ th’ time, and so I will try +t’ trust t’ th’ time, when thou and me at last shall walk together far +awa’, beyond the deep gulf, in th’ country where thy little sister is.’ + +He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade him +good night in a broken voice, and went out into the street. + +The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and still +blew strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, and the rain had spent +itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He stood +bare-headed in the road, watching her quick disappearance. As the +shining stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was Rachael, in +the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life. + + + +CHAPTER XIV +THE GREAT MANUFACTURER + + +TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material wrought +up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. +But, less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its varying +seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, and made the only +stand that ever _was_ made in the place against its direful uniformity. + +‘Louisa is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘almost a young woman.’ + +Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not minding what +anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas a foot taller than +when his father had last taken particular notice of him. + +‘Thomas is becoming,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘almost a young man.’ + +Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking about +it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a stiff shirt-collar. + +‘Really,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘the period has arrived when Thomas ought +to go to Bounderby.’ + +Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby’s Bank, made him an +inmate of Bounderby’s house, necessitated the purchase of his first +razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations relative to +number one. + +The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work on +hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward in his mill, and +worked her up into a very pretty article indeed. + +‘I fear, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that your continuance at the school +any longer would be useless.’ + +‘I am afraid it would, sir,’ Sissy answered with a curtsey. + +‘I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his +brow, ‘that the result of your probation there has disappointed me; has +greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. +M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I +looked for. You are extremely deficient in your facts. Your +acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are altogether backward, +and below the mark.’ + +‘I am sorry, sir,’ she returned; ‘but I know it is quite true. Yet I +have tried hard, sir.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have +observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;’ Sissy very timid here; ‘that +perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be allowed +to try a little less, I might have—’ + +‘No, Jupe, no,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest +and most eminently practical way. ‘No. The course you pursued, you +pursued according to the system—the system—and there is no more to be +said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early +life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, +and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am +disappointed.’ + +‘I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness +to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection +of her.’ + +‘Don’t shed tears,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t shed tears. I don’t +complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young +woman—and—and we must make that do.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, very much,’ said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey. + +‘You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally pervading way) you +are serviceable in the family also; so I understand from Miss Louisa, +and, indeed, so I have observed myself. I therefore hope,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, ‘that you can make yourself happy in those relations.’ + +‘I should have nothing to wish, sir, if—’ + +‘I understand you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind; ‘you still refer to your father. +I have heard from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that bottle. Well! +If your training in the science of arriving at exact results had been +more successful, you would have been wiser on these points. I will say +no more.’ + +He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; otherwise he +held her calculating powers in such very slight estimation that he must +have fallen upon that conclusion. Somehow or other, he had become +possessed by an idea that there was something in this girl which could +hardly be set forth in a tabular form. Her capacity of definition might +be easily stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at +nothing; yet he was not sure that if he had been required, for example, +to tick her off into columns in a parliamentary return, he would have +quite known how to divide her. + +In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, the processes of +Time are very rapid. Young Thomas and Sissy being both at such a stage +of their working up, these changes were effected in a year or two; while +Mr. Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in his course, and underwent no +alteration. + +Except one, which was apart from his necessary progress through the mill. +Time hustled him into a little noisy and rather dirty machinery, in a +by-comer, and made him Member of Parliament for Coketown: one of the +respected members for ounce weights and measures, one of the +representatives of the multiplication table, one of the deaf honourable +gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen, blind honourable gentlemen, lame +honourable gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen, to every other +consideration. Else wherefore live we in a Christian land, eighteen +hundred and odd years after our Master? + +All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet and reserved, and so +much given to watching the bright ashes at twilight as they fell into the +grate, and became extinct, that from the period when her father had said +she was almost a young woman—which seemed but yesterday—she had scarcely +attracted his notice again, when he found her quite a young woman. + +‘Quite a young woman,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, musing. ‘Dear me!’ + +Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful than usual for +several days, and seemed much engrossed by one subject. On a certain +night, when he was going out, and Louisa came to bid him good-bye before +his departure—as he was not to be home until late and she would not see +him again until the morning—he held her in his arms, looking at her in +his kindest manner, and said: + +‘My dear Louisa, you are a woman!’ + +She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the night when she +was found at the Circus; then cast down her eyes. ‘Yes, father.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I must speak with you alone and +seriously. Come to me in my room after breakfast to-morrow, will you?’ + +‘Yes, father.’ + +‘Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are you not well?’ + +‘Quite well, father.’ + +‘And cheerful?’ + +She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar manner. ‘I am as +cheerful, father, as I usually am, or usually have been.’ + +‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. So, he kissed her and went away; and +Louisa returned to the serene apartment of the hair-cutting character, +and leaning her elbow on her hand, looked again at the short-lived sparks +that so soon subsided into ashes. + +‘Are you there, Loo?’ said her brother, looking in at the door. He was +quite a young gentleman of pleasure now, and not quite a prepossessing +one. + +‘Dear Tom,’ she answered, rising and embracing him, ‘how long it is since +you have been to see me!’ + +‘Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the evenings; and in the +daytime old Bounderby has been keeping me at it rather. But I touch him +up with you when he comes it too strong, and so we preserve an +understanding. I say! Has father said anything particular to you to-day +or yesterday, Loo?’ + +‘No, Tom. But he told me to-night that he wished to do so in the +morning.’ + +‘Ah! That’s what I mean,’ said Tom. ‘Do you know where he is +to-night?’—with a very deep expression. + +‘No.’ + +‘Then I’ll tell you. He’s with old Bounderby. They are having a regular +confab together up at the Bank. Why at the Bank, do you think? Well, +I’ll tell you again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit’s ears as far off as possible, +I expect.’ + +With her hand upon her brother’s shoulder, Louisa still stood looking at +the fire. Her brother glanced at her face with greater interest than +usual, and, encircling her waist with his arm, drew her coaxingly to him. + +‘You are very fond of me, an’t you, Loo?’ + +‘Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long intervals go by without +coming to see me.’ + +‘Well, sister of mine,’ said Tom, ‘when you say that, you are near my +thoughts. We might be so much oftener together—mightn’t we? Always +together, almost—mightn’t we? It would do me a great deal of good if you +were to make up your mind to I know what, Loo. It would be a splendid +thing for me. It would be uncommonly jolly!’ + +Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He could make nothing +of her face. He pressed her in his arm, and kissed her cheek. She +returned the kiss, but still looked at the fire. + +‘I say, Loo! I thought I’d come, and just hint to you what was going on: +though I supposed you’d most likely guess, even if you didn’t know. I +can’t stay, because I’m engaged to some fellows to-night. You won’t +forget how fond you are of me?’ + +‘No, dear Tom, I won’t forget.’ + +‘That’s a capital girl,’ said Tom. ‘Good-bye, Loo.’ + +She gave him an affectionate good-night, and went out with him to the +door, whence the fires of Coketown could be seen, making the distance +lurid. She stood there, looking steadfastly towards them, and listening +to his departing steps. They retreated quickly, as glad to get away from +Stone Lodge; and she stood there yet, when he was gone and all was quiet. +It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the +fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, +that greatest and longest-established Spinner of all, would weave from +the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a +secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes. + + + +CHAPTER XV +FATHER AND DAUGHTER + + +ALTHOUGH Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue Beard, his room was quite +a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever they could prove +(which is usually anything you like), they proved there, in an army +constantly strengthening by the arrival of new recruits. In that charmed +apartment, the most complicated social questions were cast up, got into +exact totals, and finally settled—if those concerned could only have been +brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory should be made +without any windows, and the astronomer within should arrange the starry +universe solely by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in _his_ +Observatory (and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon +the teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could settle all +their destinies on a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one dirty +little bit of sponge. + +To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly statistical clock +in it, which measured every second with a beat like a rap upon a +coffin-lid; Louisa repaired on the appointed morning. A window looked +towards Coketown; and when she sat down near her father’s table, she saw +the high chimneys and the long tracts of smoke looming in the heavy +distance gloomily. + +‘My dear Louisa,’ said her father, ‘I prepared you last night to give me +your serious attention in the conversation we are now going to have +together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say, +so much justice to the education you have received, that I have perfect +confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are not +romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong +dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone, +I know you will view and consider what I am going to communicate.’ + +He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something. But +she said never a word. + +‘Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has +been made to me.’ + +Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far +surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, ‘a proposal of +marriage, my dear.’ To which she returned, without any visible emotion +whatever: + +‘I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the +moment at a loss, ‘you are even more dispassionate than I expected, +Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have +it in charge to make?’ + +‘I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or unprepared, I +wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear you state it to me, +father.’ + +Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as +his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, turned it over, +laid it down, took it up again, and even then had to look along the blade +of it, considering how to go on. + +‘What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have +undertaken then to let you know that—in short, that Mr. Bounderby has +informed me that he has long watched your progress with particular +interest and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately +arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That time, to +which he has so long, and certainly with great constancy, looked forward, +is now come. Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and +has entreated me to make it known to you, and to express his hope that +you will take it into your favourable consideration.’ + +Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. The +distant smoke very black and heavy. + +‘Father,’ said Louisa, ‘do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question. +‘Well, my child,’ he returned, ‘I—really—cannot take upon myself to say.’ + +‘Father,’ pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, ‘do you ask +me to love Mr. Bounderby?’ + +‘My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.’ + +‘Father,’ she still pursued, ‘does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?’ + +‘Really, my dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘it is difficult to answer your +question—’ + +‘Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father? + +‘Certainly, my dear. Because;’ here was something to demonstrate, and it +set him up again; ‘because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on +the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do +you the injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending +to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using synonymous terms) +sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up under his eyes, +to very little purpose, if he could so far forget what is due to your +good sense, not to say to his, as to address you from any such ground. +Therefore, perhaps the expression itself—I merely suggest this to you, my +dear—may be a little misplaced.’ + +‘What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?’ + +‘Why, my dear Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by this +time, ‘I would advise you (since you ask me) to consider this question, +as you have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as +one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such +subjects with irrelevant fancies, and other absurdities that have no +existence, properly viewed—really no existence—but it is no compliment to +you to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? +You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby +is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your +respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on the +contrary, there is a great suitability. Then the question arises, Is +this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage? In +considering this question, it is not unimportant to take into account the +statistics of marriage, so far as they have yet been obtained, in England +and Wales. I find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion +of these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages, +and that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather more than +three-fourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable as +showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the +British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and +among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet +furnished us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I have +mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all +but disappears.’ + +‘What do you recommend, father,’ asked Louisa, her reserved composure not +in the least affected by these gratifying results, ‘that I should +substitute for the term I used just now? For the misplaced expression?’ + +‘Louisa,’ returned her father, ‘it appears to me that nothing can be +plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you +state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he +does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I think +nothing can be plainer than that?’ + +‘Shall I marry him?’ repeated Louisa, with great deliberation. + +‘Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear +Louisa, to know that you do not come to the consideration of that +question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that +belong to many young women.’ + +‘No, father,’ she returned, ‘I do not.’ + +‘I now leave you to judge for yourself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I have +stated the case, as such cases are usually stated among practical minds; +I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its +time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.’ + +From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned +back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, +perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was +impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up +confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a +bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, +between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will +elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be +sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and +too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, +matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into +the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost +opportunities that are drowned there. + +Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the +town, that he said, at length: ‘Are you consulting the chimneys of the +Coketown works, Louisa?’ + +‘There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet +when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!’ she answered, turning +quickly. + +‘Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the +remark.’ To do him justice he did not, at all. + +She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating +her attention upon him again, said, ‘Father, I have often thought that +life is very short.’—This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he +interposed. + +‘It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human +life is proved to have increased of late years. The calculations of +various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which +cannot go wrong, have established the fact.’ + +‘I speak of my own life, father.’ + +‘O indeed? Still,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I need not point out to you, +Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in the +aggregate.’ + +‘While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am +fit for. What does it matter?’ + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words; +replying, ‘How, matter? What matter, my dear?’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding +this, ‘asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask myself is, shall +I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, +father. Have you not?’ + +‘Certainly, my dear.’ + +‘Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied +to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that +this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I +should wish him to know what I said.’ + +‘It is quite right, my dear,’ retorted her father approvingly, ‘to be +exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have you any wish in +reference to the period of your marriage, my child?’ + +‘None, father. What does it matter!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her +hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with some +little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding +her hand, said: + +‘Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one question, +because the possibility implied in it appeared to me to be too remote. +But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never entertained in secret any +other proposal?’ + +‘Father,’ she returned, almost scornfully, ‘what other proposal can have +been made to _me_? Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What are my +heart’s experiences?’ + +‘My dear Louisa,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. ‘You +correct me justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.’ + +‘What do _I_ know, father,’ said Louisa in her quiet manner, ‘of tastes +and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part of my nature +in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I +had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be +grasped?’ As she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon +a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or +ash. + +‘My dear,’ assented her eminently practical parent, ‘quite true, quite +true.’ + +‘Why, father,’ she pursued, ‘what a strange question to ask _me_! The +baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among children, has +never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so +careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart. You have trained me so +well, that I never dreamed a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely +with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s +belief or a child’s fear.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to +it. ‘My dear Louisa,’ said he, ‘you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, +my dear girl.’ + +So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he said, ‘I +may assure you now, my favourite child, that I am made happy by the sound +decision at which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable +man; and what little disparity can be said to exist between you—if any—is +more than counterbalanced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has +always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still +in your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age. +Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.’ + +Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the esteemed lady +with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked +beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning animation when they +entered, and presently the faint transparency was presented in a sitting +attitude. + +‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, who had waited for the achievement of +this feat with some impatience, ‘allow me to present to you Mrs. +Bounderby.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘so you have settled it! Well, I’m sure I +hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as +soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider +that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as +all girls do. However, I give you joy, my dear—and I hope you may now +turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must +give you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don’t touch my right +shoulder, for there’s something running down it all day long. And now +you see,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the +affectionate ceremony, ‘I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and +night, to know what I am to call him!’ + +‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, solemnly, ‘what do you mean?’ + +‘Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! +I must call him something. It’s impossible,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a +mingled sense of politeness and injury, ‘to be constantly addressing him +and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is +insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well +know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless +the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my +relations. Then, what am I to call him!’ + +Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable +emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after +delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed: + +‘As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I ask it with a fluttering +in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet,—that it may +take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall +never hear the last of.’ + +When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly +turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in +a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen +it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud +and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether. + + + +CHAPTER XVI +HUSBAND AND WIFE + + +MR. BOUNDERBY’S first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was +occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could +not make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences of the step +might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and baggage, to Lady +Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge from the premises; whether +she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful or tearing; whether she would +break her heart, or break the looking-glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all +foresee. However, as it must be done, he had no choice but to do it; so, +after attempting several letters, and failing in them all, he resolved to +do it by word of mouth. + +On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this momentous purpose, +he took the precaution of stepping into a chemist’s shop and buying a +bottle of the very strongest smelling-salts. ‘By George!’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘if she takes it in the fainting way, I’ll have the skin off +her nose, at all events!’ But, in spite of being thus forearmed, he +entered his own house with anything but a courageous air; and appeared +before the object of his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of +coming direct from the pantry. + +‘Good evening, Mr. Bounderby!’ + +‘Good evening, ma’am, good evening.’ He drew up his chair, and Mrs. +Sparsit drew back hers, as who should say, ‘Your fireside, sir. I freely +admit it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you think proper.’ + +‘Don’t go to the North Pole, ma’am!’ said Mr. Bounderby. + +‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of her +former position. + +Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a stiff, sharp +pair of scissors, she picked out holes for some inscrutable ornamental +purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connexion +with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some +liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little +bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before +she looked up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her +attention with a hitch of his head. + +‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his +pockets, and assuring himself with his right hand that the cork of the +little bottle was ready for use, ‘I have no occasion to say to you, that +you are not only a lady born and bred, but a devilish sensible woman.’ + +‘Sir,’ returned the lady, ‘this is indeed not the first time that you +have honoured me with similar expressions of your good opinion.’ + +‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘I am going to astonish you.’ + +‘Yes, sir?’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, and in the most +tranquil manner possible. She generally wore mittens, and she now laid +down her work, and smoothed those mittens. + +‘I am going, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘to marry Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I hope you may be happy, Mr. +Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be happy, sir!’ And she said it +with such great condescension as well as with such great compassion for +him, that Bounderby,—far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her +workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the hearthrug,—corked up the +smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, ‘Now confound this +woman, who could have even guessed that she would take it in this way!’ + +‘I wish with all my heart, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a highly superior +manner; somehow she seemed, in a moment, to have established a right to +pity him ever afterwards; ‘that you may be in all respects very happy.’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Bounderby, with some resentment in his tone: +which was clearly lowered, though in spite of himself, ‘I am obliged to +you. I hope I shall be.’ + +‘_Do_ you, sir!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. ‘But +naturally you do; of course you do.’ + +A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s part, succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit +sedately resumed her work and occasionally gave a small cough, which +sounded like the cough of conscious strength and forbearance. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Bounderby, ‘under these circumstances, I imagine +it would not be agreeable to a character like yours to remain here, +though you would be very welcome here.’ + +‘Oh, dear no, sir, I could on no account think of that!’ Mrs. Sparsit +shook her head, still in her highly superior manner, and a little changed +the small cough—coughing now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose within +her, but had better be coughed down. + +‘However, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘there are apartments at the Bank, +where a born and bred lady, as keeper of the place, would be rather a +catch than otherwise; and if the same terms—’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to promise that you would +always substitute the phrase, annual compliment.’ + +‘Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the same annual compliment would be +acceptable there, why, I see nothing to part us, unless you do.’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘The proposal is like yourself, and if the +position I shall assume at the Bank is one that I could occupy without +descending lower in the social scale—’ + +‘Why, of course it is,’ said Bounderby. ‘If it was not, ma’am, you don’t +suppose that I should offer it to a lady who has moved in the society you +have moved in. Not that _I_ care for such society, you know! But _you_ +do.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.’ + +‘You’ll have your own private apartments, and you’ll have your coals and +your candles, and all the rest of it, and you’ll have your maid to attend +upon you, and you’ll have your light porter to protect you, and you’ll be +what I take the liberty of considering precious comfortable,’ said +Bounderby. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say no more. In yielding up my trust +here, I shall not be freed from the necessity of eating the bread of +dependence:’ she might have said the sweetbread, for that delicate +article in a savoury brown sauce was her favourite supper: ‘and I would +rather receive it from your hand, than from any other. Therefore, sir, I +accept your offer gratefully, and with many sincere acknowledgments for +past favours. And I hope, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an +impressively compassionate manner, ‘I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may +be all you desire, and deserve!’ + +Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in vain +for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his explosive +ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on him, as a Victim. +She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the +more obliging, the more cheerful, the more hopeful, the more exemplary +altogether, she; the forlorner Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that +tenderness for his melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used +to break out into cold perspirations when she looked at him. + +Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight weeks’ +time, and Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone Lodge as an accepted +wooer. Love was made on these occasions in the form of bracelets; and, +on all occasions during the period of betrothal, took a manufacturing +aspect. Dresses were made, jewellery was made, cakes and gloves were +made, settlements were made, and an extensive assortment of Facts did +appropriate honour to the contract. The business was all Fact, from +first to last. The Hours did not go through any of those rosy +performances, which foolish poets have ascribed to them at such times; +neither did the clocks go any faster, or any slower, than at other +seasons. The deadly statistical recorder in the Gradgrind observatory +knocked every second on the head as it was born, and buried it with his +accustomed regularity. + +So the day came, as all other days come to people who will only stick to +reason; and when it came, there were married in the church of the florid +wooden legs—that popular order of architecture—Josiah Bounderby Esquire +of Coketown, to Louisa eldest daughter of Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of +Stone Lodge, M.P. for that borough. And when they were united in holy +matrimony, they went home to breakfast at Stone Lodge aforesaid. + +There was an improving party assembled on the auspicious occasion, who +knew what everything they had to eat and drink was made of, and how it +was imported or exported, and in what quantities, and in what bottoms, +whether native or foreign, and all about it. The bridesmaids, down to +little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an intellectual point of view, fit +helpmates for the calculating boy; and there was no nonsense about any of +the company. + +After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed them in the following terms: + +‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Since you have +done my wife and myself the honour of drinking our healths and happiness, +I suppose I must acknowledge the same; though, as you all know me, and +know what I am, and what my extraction was, you won’t expect a speech +from a man who, when he sees a Post, says “that’s a Post,” and when he +sees a Pump, says “that’s a Pump,” and is not to be got to call a Post a +Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either of them a Toothpick. If you want a +speech this morning, my friend and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, is a +Member of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I am not your man. +However, if I feel a little independent when I look around this table +to-day, and reflect how little I thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter when I was a ragged street-boy, who never washed his face unless +it was at a pump, and that not oftener than once a fortnight, I hope I +may be excused. So, I hope you like my feeling independent; if you +don’t, I can’t help it. I _do_ feel independent. Now I have mentioned, +and you have mentioned, that I am this day married to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has long been my wish to be so. +I have watched her bringing-up, and I believe she is worthy of me. At +the same time—not to deceive you—I believe I am worthy of her. So, I +thank you, on both our parts, for the good-will you have shown towards +us; and the best wish I can give the unmarried part of the present +company, is this: I hope every bachelor may find as good a wife as I have +found. And I hope every spinster may find as good a husband as my wife +has found.’ + +Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip to +Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might take the opportunity of seeing +how the Hands got on in those parts, and whether they, too, required to +be fed with gold spoons; the happy pair departed for the railroad. The +bride, in passing down-stairs, dressed for her journey, found Tom waiting +for her—flushed, either with his feelings, or the vinous part of the +breakfast. + +‘What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate sister, Loo!’ +whispered Tom. + +She clung to him as she should have clung to some far better nature that +day, and was a little shaken in her reserved composure for the first +time. + +‘Old Bounderby’s quite ready,’ said Tom. ‘Time’s up. Good-bye! I shall +be on the look-out for you, when you come back. I say, my dear Loo! +AN’T it uncommonly jolly now!’ + + * * * * * + + END OF THE FIRST BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND +_REAPING_ + + +CHAPTER I +EFFECTS IN THE BANK + + +A SUNNY midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in +Coketown. + +Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of +its own, which appeared impervious to the sun’s rays. You only knew the +town was there, because you knew there could have been no such sulky +blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now +confusedly tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of +Heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and fell, +or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross +light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness:—Coketown in the +distance was suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be +seen. + +The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that +it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was +such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were +made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such +ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were +ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; +they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; +they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether +they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; +they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not +always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon +which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was +very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner +felt he was ill-used—that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely +alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences +of any of his acts—he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he +would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified +the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions. + +However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they never had +pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, on the contrary, had +been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the +haze yonder; and it increased and multiplied. + +The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was so +bright that it even shone through the heavy vapour drooping over +Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily. Stokers emerged from low +underground doorways into factory yards, and sat on steps, and posts, and +palings, wiping their swarthy visages, and contemplating coals. The +whole town seemed to be frying in oil. There was a stifling smell of hot +oil everywhere. The steam-engines shone with it, the dresses of the +Hands were soiled with it, the mills throughout their many stories oozed +and trickled it. The atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the +breath of the simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled +languidly in the desert. But no temperature made the melancholy mad +elephants more mad or more sane. Their wearisome heads went up and down +at the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair +weather and foul. The measured motion of their shadows on the walls, was +the substitute Coketown had to show for the shadows of rustling woods; +while, for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, all the year round, +from the dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the whirr of shafts and +wheels. + +Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the passenger +more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls of the mills. +Sun-blinds, and sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main streets +and the shops; but the mills, and the courts and alleys, baked at a +fierce heat. Down upon the river that was black and thick with dye, some +Coketown boys who were at large—a rare sight there—rowed a crazy boat, +which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every +dip of an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun itself, however +beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and +rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering +more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil +eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the +things it looks upon to bless. + +Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on the shadier +side of the frying street. Office-hours were over: and at that period of +the day, in warm weather, she usually embellished with her genteel +presence, a managerial board-room over the public office. Her own +private sitting-room was a story higher, at the window of which post of +observation she was ready, every morning, to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he +came across the road, with the sympathizing recognition appropriate to a +Victim. He had been married now a year; and Mrs. Sparsit had never +released him from her determined pity a moment. + +The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome monotony of the town. It +was another red brick house, with black outside shutters, green inside +blinds, a black street-door up two white steps, a brazen door-plate, and +a brazen door-handle full stop. It was a size larger than Mr. +Bounderby’s house, as other houses were from a size to half-a-dozen sizes +smaller; in all other particulars, it was strictly according to pattern. + +Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening-tide among the +desks and writing implements, she shed a feminine, not to say also +aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, with her needlework or +netting apparatus, at the window, she had a self-laudatory sense of +correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude business aspect of the +place. With this impression of her interesting character upon her, Mrs. +Sparsit considered herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The +townspeople who, in their passing and repassing, saw her there, regarded +her as the Bank Dragon keeping watch over the treasures of the mine. + +What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little as they did. Gold +and silver coin, precious paper, secrets that if divulged would bring +vague destruction upon vague persons (generally, however, people whom she +disliked), were the chief items in her ideal catalogue thereof. For the +rest, she knew that after office-hours, she reigned supreme over all the +office furniture, and over a locked-up iron room with three locks, +against the door of which strong chamber the light porter laid his head +every night, on a truckle bed, that disappeared at cockcrow. Further, +she was lady paramount over certain vaults in the basement, sharply +spiked off from communication with the predatory world; and over the +relics of the current day’s work, consisting of blots of ink, worn-out +pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn so small, that +nothing interesting could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. Sparsit +tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a little armoury of cutlasses and +carbines, arrayed in vengeful order above one of the official +chimney-pieces; and over that respectable tradition never to be separated +from a place of business claiming to be wealthy—a row of +fire-buckets—vessels calculated to be of no physical utility on any +occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral influence, almost equal +to bullion, on most beholders. + +A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed Mrs. Sparsit’s +empire. The deaf serving-woman was rumoured to be wealthy; and a saying +had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she +would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her +money. It was generally considered, indeed, that she had been due some +time, and ought to have fallen long ago; but she had kept her life, and +her situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that occasioned much +offence and disappointment. + +Mrs. Sparsit’s tea was just set for her on a pert little table, with its +tripod of legs in an attitude, which she insinuated after office-hours, +into the company of the stern, leathern-topped, long board-table that +bestrode the middle of the room. The light porter placed the tea-tray on +it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage. + +‘Thank you, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Thank _you_, ma’am,’ returned the light porter. He was a very light +porter indeed; as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined a +horse, for girl number twenty. + +‘All is shut up, Bitzer?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘All is shut up, ma’am.’ + +‘And what,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, ‘is the news of the +day? Anything?’ + +‘Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have heard anything particular. Our +people are a bad lot, ma’am; but that is no news, unfortunately.’ + +‘What are the restless wretches doing now?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Merely going on in the old way, ma’am. Uniting, and leaguing, and +engaging to stand by one another.’ + +‘It is much to be regretted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, making her nose more +Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength of her severity, +‘that the united masters allow of any such class-combinations.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces +against employing any man who is united with any other man,’ said Mrs. +Sparsit. + +‘They have done that, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer; ‘but it rather fell +through, ma’am.’ + +‘I do not pretend to understand these things,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with +dignity, ‘my lot having been signally cast in a widely different sphere; +and Mr. Sparsit, as a Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any +such dissensions. I only know that these people must be conquered, and +that it’s high time it was done, once for all.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, with a demonstration of great respect for +Mrs. Sparsit’s oracular authority. ‘You couldn’t put it clearer, I am +sure, ma’am.’ + +As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat with +Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught her eye and seen that she was +going to ask him something, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, +inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her tea, glancing +through the open window, down into the street. + +‘Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.’ He now and then +slided into my lady, instead of ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgment +of Mrs. Sparsit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence. + +‘The clerks,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible +crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, ‘are trustworthy, +punctual, and industrious, of course?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception.’ + +He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the +establishment, for which volunteer service he received a present at +Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an +extremely clear-headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to rise +in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, that he had no +affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of the +nicest and coldest calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. +Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young man of the +steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his +father’s death, that his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, +this excellent young economist had asserted that right for her with such +a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been +shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed +her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first, because all +gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and +secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity would +have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and sell it +for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained +by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of man—not a +part of man’s duty, but the whole. + +‘Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception, ma’am,’ repeated Bitzer. + +‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her tea-cup, and taking +a long gulp. + +‘Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma’am, I don’t like his +ways at all.’ + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, ‘do you +recollect my having said anything to you respecting names?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. It’s quite true that you did object to names +being used, and they’re always best avoided.’ + +‘Please to remember that I have a charge here,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with +her air of state. ‘I hold a trust here, Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. +However improbable both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it +years ago, that he would ever become my patron, making me an annual +compliment, I cannot but regard him in that light. From Mr. Bounderby I +have received every acknowledgment of my social station, and every +recognition of my family descent, that I could possibly expect. More, +far more. Therefore, to my patron I will be scrupulously true. And I do +not consider, I will not consider, I cannot consider,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +with a most extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, ‘that I +_should_ be scrupulously true, if I allowed names to be mentioned under +this roof, that are unfortunately—most unfortunately—no doubt of +that—connected with his.’ + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged pardon. + +‘No, Bitzer,’ continued Mrs. Sparsit, ‘say an individual, and I will hear +you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must excuse me.’ + +‘With the usual exception, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, trying back, ‘of an +individual.’ + +‘Ah—h!’ Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head +over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the conversation again +at the point where it had been interrupted. + +‘An individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘has never been what he ought to +have been, since he first came into the place. He is a dissipated, +extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma’am. He wouldn’t get it +either, if he hadn’t a friend and relation at court, ma’am!’ + +‘Ah—h!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with another melancholy shake of her head. + +‘I only hope, ma’am,’ pursued Bitzer, ‘that his friend and relation may +not supply him with the means of carrying on. Otherwise, ma’am, we know +out of whose pocket _that_ money comes.’ + +‘Ah—h!’ sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with another melancholy shake of her +head. + +‘He is to be pitied, ma’am. The last party I have alluded to, is to be +pitied, ma’am,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Yes, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I have always pitied the delusion, +always.’ + +‘As to an individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, dropping his voice and drawing +nearer, ‘he is as improvident as any of the people in this town. And you +know what _their_ improvidence is, ma’am. No one could wish to know it +better than a lady of your eminence does.’ + +‘They would do well,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘to take example by you, +Bitzer.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am. But, since you do refer to me, now look at me, ma’am. +I have put by a little, ma’am, already. That gratuity which I receive at +Christmas, ma’am: I never touch it. I don’t even go the length of my +wages, though they’re not high, ma’am. Why can’t they do as I have done, +ma’am? What one person can do, another can do.’ + +This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, +who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to +wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty +thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every +one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why +don’t you go and do it? + +‘As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘it’s stuff and +nonsense. _I_ don’t want recreations. I never did, and I never shall; I +don’t like ’em. As to their combining together; there are many of them, +I have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon one another could +earn a trifle now and then, whether in money or good will, and improve +their livelihood. Then, why don’t they improve it, ma’am! It’s the +first consideration of a rational creature, and it’s what they pretend to +want.’ + +‘Pretend indeed!’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma’am, till it becomes quite +nauseous, concerning their wives and families,’ said Bitzer. ‘Why look +at me, ma’am! I don’t want a wife and family. Why should they?’ + +‘Because they are improvident,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, ‘that’s where it is. If they were more +provident and less perverse, ma’am, what would they do? They would say, +“While my hat covers my family,” or “while my bonnet covers my +family,”—as the case might be, ma’am—“I have only one to feed, and that’s +the person I most like to feed.”’ + +‘To be sure,’ assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating muffin. + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, knuckling his forehead again, in return +for the favour of Mrs. Sparsit’s improving conversation. ‘Would you wish +a little more hot water, ma’am, or is there anything else that I could +fetch you?’ + +‘Nothing just now, Bitzer.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am. I shouldn’t wish to disturb you at your meals, ma’am, +particularly tea, knowing your partiality for it,’ said Bitzer, craning a +little to look over into the street from where he stood; ‘but there’s a +gentleman been looking up here for a minute or so, ma’am, and he has come +across as if he was going to knock. That _is_ his knock, ma’am, no +doubt.’ + +He stepped to the window; and looking out, and drawing in his head again, +confirmed himself with, ‘Yes, ma’am. Would you wish the gentleman to be +shown in, ma’am?’ + +‘I don’t know who it can be,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, wiping her mouth and +arranging her mittens. + +‘A stranger, ma’am, evidently.’ + +‘What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of the evening, unless +he comes upon some business for which he is too late, I don’t know,’ said +Mrs. Sparsit, ‘but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr. +Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see him is any part of +the duty I have accepted, I will see him. Use your own discretion, +Bitzer.’ + +Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit’s magnanimous words, +repeated his knock so loudly that the light porter hastened down to open +the door; while Mrs. Sparsit took the precaution of concealing her little +table, with all its appliances upon it, in a cupboard, and then decamped +up-stairs, that she might appear, if needful, with the greater dignity. + +‘If you please, ma’am, the gentleman would wish to see you,’ said Bitzer, +with his light eye at Mrs. Sparsit’s keyhole. So, Mrs. Sparsit, who had +improved the interval by touching up her cap, took her classical features +down-stairs again, and entered the board-room in the manner of a Roman +matron going outside the city walls to treat with an invading general. + +The visitor having strolled to the window, and being then engaged in +looking carelessly out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry as man +could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with all imaginable +coolness, with his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon +him, in part arising from excessive summer, and in part from excessive +gentility. For it was to be seen with half an eye that he was a thorough +gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of everything, and +putting no more faith in anything than Lucifer. + +‘I believe, sir,’ quoth Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you wished to see me.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, turning and removing his hat; ‘pray excuse +me.’ + +‘Humph!’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a stately bend. ‘Five and +thirty, good-looking, good figure, good teeth, good voice, good breeding, +well-dressed, dark hair, bold eyes.’ All which Mrs. Sparsit observed in +her womanly way—like the Sultan who put his head in the pail of +water—merely in dipping down and coming up again. + +‘Please to be seated, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Thank you. Allow me.’ He placed a chair for her, but remained himself +carelessly lounging against the table. ‘I left my servant at the railway +looking after the luggage—very heavy train and vast quantity of it in the +van—and strolled on, looking about me. Exceedingly odd place. Will you +allow me to ask you if it’s _always_ as black as this?’ + +‘In general much blacker,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, in her uncompromising +way. + +‘Is it possible! Excuse me: you are not a native, I think?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘It was once my good or ill fortune, +as it may be—before I became a widow—to move in a very different sphere. +My husband was a Powler.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, really!’ said the stranger. ‘Was—?’ + +Mrs. Sparsit repeated, ‘A Powler.’ + +‘Powler Family,’ said the stranger, after reflecting a few moments. Mrs. +Sparsit signified assent. The stranger seemed a little more fatigued +than before. + +‘You must be very much bored here?’ was the inference he drew from the +communication. + +‘I am the servant of circumstances, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I have +long adapted myself to the governing power of my life.’ + +‘Very philosophical,’ returned the stranger, ‘and very exemplary and +laudable, and—’ It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to finish the +sentence, so he played with his watch-chain wearily. + +‘May I be permitted to ask, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘to what I am +indebted for the favour of—’ + +‘Assuredly,’ said the stranger. ‘Much obliged to you for reminding me. +I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to Mr. Bounderby, the banker. +Walking through this extraordinarily black town, while they were getting +dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom I met; one of the +working people; who appeared to have been taking a shower-bath of +something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw material—’ + +Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head. + +‘—Raw material—where Mr. Bounderby, the banker, might reside. Upon +which, misled no doubt by the word Banker, he directed me to the Bank. +Fact being, I presume, that Mr. Bounderby the Banker does _not_ reside in +the edifice in which I have the honour of offering this explanation?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘he does not.’ + +‘Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my letter at the present +moment, nor have I. But strolling on to the Bank to kill time, and having +the good fortune to observe at the window,’ towards which he languidly +waved his hand, then slightly bowed, ‘a lady of a very superior and +agreeable appearance, I considered that I could not do better than take +the liberty of asking that lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker _does_ +live. Which I accordingly venture, with all suitable apologies, to do.’ + +The inattention and indolence of his manner were sufficiently relieved, +to Mrs. Sparsit’s thinking, by a certain gallantry at ease, which offered +her homage too. Here he was, for instance, at this moment, all but +sitting on the table, and yet lazily bending over her, as if he +acknowledged an attraction in her that made her charming—in her way. + +‘Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially must be,’ said the +stranger, whose lightness and smoothness of speech were pleasant +likewise; suggesting matter far more sensible and humorous than it ever +contained—which was perhaps a shrewd device of the founder of this +numerous sect, whosoever may have been that great man: ‘therefore I may +observe that my letter—here it is—is from the member for this +place—Gradgrind—whom I have had the pleasure of knowing in London.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such confirmation was +quite unnecessary, and gave Mr. Bounderby’s address, with all needful +clues and directions in aid. + +‘Thousand thanks,’ said the stranger. ‘Of course you know the Banker +well?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. ‘In my dependent relation towards +him, I have known him ten years.’ + +‘Quite an eternity! I think he married Gradgrind’s daughter?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly compressing her mouth, ‘he had +that—honour.’ + +‘The lady is quite a philosopher, I am told?’ + +‘Indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘_Is_ she?’ + +‘Excuse my impertinent curiosity,’ pursued the stranger, fluttering over +Mrs. Sparsit’s eyebrows, with a propitiatory air, ‘but you know the +family, and know the world. I am about to know the family, and may have +much to do with them. Is the lady so very alarming? Her father gives +her such a portentously hard-headed reputation, that I have a burning +desire to know. Is she absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and +stunningly clever? I see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You +have poured balm into my anxious soul. As to age, now. Forty? Five and +thirty?’ + +Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. ‘A chit,’ said she. ‘Not twenty when she +was married.’ + +‘I give you my honour, Mrs. Powler,’ returned the stranger, detaching +himself from the table, ‘that I never was so astonished in my life!’ + +It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent of his capacity +of being impressed. He looked at his informant for full a quarter of a +minute, and appeared to have the surprise in his mind all the time. ‘I +assure you, Mrs. Powler,’ he then said, much exhausted, ‘that the +father’s manner prepared me for a grim and stony maturity. I am obliged +to you, of all things, for correcting so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse +my intrusion. Many thanks. Good day!’ + +He bowed himself out; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding in the window curtain, saw +him languishing down the street on the shady side of the way, observed of +all the town. + +‘What do you think of the gentleman, Bitzer?’ she asked the light porter, +when he came to take away. + +‘Spends a deal of money on his dress, ma’am.’ + +‘It must be admitted,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that it’s very tasteful.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ returned Bitzer, ‘if that’s worth the money.’ + +‘Besides which, ma’am,’ resumed Bitzer, while he was polishing the table, +‘he looks to me as if he gamed.’ + +‘It’s immoral to game,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘It’s ridiculous, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘because the chances are against +the players.’ + +Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit from working, or +whether it was that her hand was out, she did no work that night. She +sat at the window, when the sun began to sink behind the smoke; she sat +there, when the smoke was burning red, when the colour faded from it, +when darkness seemed to rise slowly out of the ground, and creep upward, +upward, up to the house-tops, up the church steeple, up to the summits of +the factory chimneys, up to the sky. Without a candle in the room, Mrs. +Sparsit sat at the window, with her hands before her, not thinking much +of the sounds of evening; the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, the +rumbling of wheels, the steps and voices of passengers, the shrill street +cries, the clogs upon the pavement when it was their hour for going by, +the shutting-up of shop-shutters. Not until the light porter announced +that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse herself +from her reverie, and convey her dense black eyebrows—by that time +creased with meditation, as if they needed ironing out-up-stairs. + +‘O, you Fool!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was alone at her supper. Whom +she meant, she did not say; but she could scarcely have meant the +sweetbread. + + + +CHAPTER II +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE + + +THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the +Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits +more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out +everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything? + +Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were +attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentlemen; +they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in +imitation of them; and they yaw-yawed in their speech like them; and they +served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political +economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was +seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced. + +Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school, +there was one of a good family and a better appearance, with a happy turn +of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons on the +occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors) +view of a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever +known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by +the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on +the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded +thirty-two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole +system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, +and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow’s cap. And the +honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of +humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any +serious reference to the Coroner’s Inquest, and brought the railway off +with Cheers and Laughter. + +Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than +himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; +and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, +and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored +there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored +everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said +one day, ‘Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and +they want men. I wonder you don’t go in for statistics.’ Jem, rather +taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as +ready to ‘go in’ for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. +He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it +about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, ‘If you want to bring in, +for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, +look after my brother Jem, for he’s your man.’ After a few dashes in the +public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages +approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to +become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had +last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his +hand; superscribed, ‘Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. +Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.’ + +Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse’s +card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he +found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so +disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to ‘go in’ for something +else. + +‘My name, sir,’ said his visitor, ‘is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown.’ + +Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) +to have a pleasure he had long expected. + +‘Coketown, sir,’ said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, ‘is not the +kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow +me—or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man—I’ll tell you +something about it before we go any further.’ + +Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. + +‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Bounderby. ‘I don’t promise it. First +of all, you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink to us. It’s the +healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the +lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from +you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster +than we wear ’em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great +Britain and Ireland.’ + +By way of ‘going in’ to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, ‘Mr. +Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of +thinking. On conviction.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Bounderby. ‘Now, you have heard a lot of +talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I’ll +state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and +it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is. +More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves, unless we laid +down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re not a-going to do.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.’ + +‘Lastly,’ said Bounderby, ‘as to our Hands. There’s not a Hand in this +town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. +That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. +Now, they’re not a-going—none of ’em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and +venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place.’ + +Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and +refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. + +‘Why, you see,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, ‘it suits my disposition to have a +full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I +make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. +Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall +respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind’s +letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don’t you deceive +yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit +of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.’ + +If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would +have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. + +‘So now,’ said Bounderby, ‘we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, +equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of +the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as +proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my +independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, +and I hope you’re pretty well.’ + +The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for +the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with +favour. + +‘Perhaps you know,’ said he, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, I married Tom +Gradgrind’s daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk up +town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s +daughter.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, ‘you anticipate my dearest wishes.’ + +They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted the +new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, to the private red +brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds, +and the black street door up the two white steps. In the drawing-room of +which mansion, there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl +Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so +careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so +sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart humility—from which she +shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite +a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than +in manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play was so +locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine +expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a +loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them +there, and her mind apparently quite alone—it was of no use ‘going in’ +yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration. + +From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house itself. +There was no mute sign of a woman in the room. No graceful little +adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed +her influence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, +there the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved +by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in +the midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied +their places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another, +and well matched. + +‘This, sir,’ said Bounderby, ‘is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind’s +eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined +your father’s muster-roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind’s colleague before +long, I believe we shall at least hear of him in connexion with one of +our neighbouring towns. You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my +junior. I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw +something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have married me. She has +lots of expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. If you want +to cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you to a better +adviser than Loo Bounderby.’ + +To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more likely to +learn, Mr. Harthouse could never be recommended. + +‘Come!’ said his host. ‘If you’re in the complimentary line, you’ll get +on here, for you’ll meet with no competition. I have never been in the +way of learning compliments myself, and I don’t profess to understand the +art of paying ’em. In fact, despise ’em. But, your bringing-up was +different from mine; mine was a real thing, by George! You’re a +gentleman, and I don’t pretend to be one. I am Josiah Bounderby of +Coketown, and that’s enough for me. However, though I am not influenced +by manners and station, Loo Bounderby may be. She hadn’t my +advantages—disadvantages you would call ’em, but I call ’em advantages—so +you’ll not waste your power, I dare say.’ + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, turning with a smile to Louisa, ‘is a noble +animal in a comparatively natural state, quite free from the harness in +which a conventional hack like myself works.’ + +‘You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,’ she quietly returned. ‘It is +natural that you should.’ + +He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen so much of +the world, and thought, ‘Now, how am I to take this?’ + +‘You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what Mr. Bounderby +has said, to the service of your country. You have made up your mind,’ +said Louisa, still standing before him where she had first stopped—in all +the singular contrariety of her self-possession, and her being obviously +very ill at ease—‘to show the nation the way out of all its +difficulties.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he returned, laughing, ‘upon my honour, no. I will +make no such pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and there, up +and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and +as some confess they have, and some do not; and I am going in for your +respected father’s opinions—really because I have no choice of opinions, +and may as well back them as anything else.’ + +‘Have you none of your own?’ asked Louisa. + +‘I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. I assure you I +attach not the least importance to any opinions. The result of the +varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction +is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the +subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other +set, and just as much harm as any other set. There’s an English family +with a charming Italian motto. What will be, will be. It’s the only +truth going!’ + +This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty—a vice so dangerous, so +deadly, and so common—seemed, he observed, a little to impress her in his +favour. He followed up the advantage, by saying in his pleasantest +manner: a manner to which she might attach as much or as little meaning +as she pleased: ‘The side that can prove anything in a line of units, +tens, hundreds, and thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the +most fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite as much attached +to it as if I believed it. I am quite ready to go in for it, to the same +extent as if I believed it. And what more could I possibly do, if I did +believe it!’ + +‘You are a singular politician,’ said Louisa. + +‘Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the largest party in the +state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we all fell out of our adopted +ranks and were reviewed together.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, interposed +here with a project for postponing the family dinner till half-past six, +and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the meantime on a round of visits to +the voting and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity. +The round of visits was made; and Mr. James Harthouse, with a discreet +use of his blue coaching, came off triumphantly, though with a +considerable accession of boredom. + +In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, but they sat +down only three. It was an appropriate occasion for Mr. Bounderby to +discuss the flavour of the hap’orth of stewed eels he had purchased in +the streets at eight years old; and also of the inferior water, specially +used for laying the dust, with which he had washed down that repast. He +likewise entertained his guest over the soup and fish, with the +calculation that he (Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least three +horses under the guise of polonies and saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in +a languid manner, received with ‘charming!’ every now and then; and they +probably would have decided him to ‘go in’ for Jerusalem again to-morrow +morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa. + +‘Is there nothing,’ he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the head of +the table, where her youthful figure, small and slight, but very +graceful, looked as pretty as it looked misplaced; ‘is there nothing that +will move that face?’ + +Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, in an unexpected +shape. Tom appeared. She changed as the door opened, and broke into a +beaming smile. + +A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have thought so much of +it, but that he had wondered so long at her impassive face. She put out +her hand—a pretty little soft hand; and her fingers closed upon her +brother’s, as if she would have carried them to her lips. + +‘Ay, ay?’ thought the visitor. ‘This whelp is the only creature she +cares for. So, so!’ + +The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The appellation was not +flattering, but not unmerited. + +‘When I was your age, young Tom,’ said Bounderby, ‘I was punctual, or I +got no dinner!’ + +‘When you were my age,’ resumed Tom, ‘you hadn’t a wrong balance to get +right, and hadn’t to dress afterwards.’ + +‘Never mind that now,’ said Bounderby. + +‘Well, then,’ grumbled Tom. ‘Don’t begin with me.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under-strain as +it went on; ‘your brother’s face is quite familiar to me. Can I have +seen him abroad? Or at some public school, perhaps?’ + +‘No,’ she resumed, quite interested, ‘he has never been abroad yet, and +was educated here, at home. Tom, love, I am telling Mr. Harthouse that +he never saw you abroad.’ + +‘No such luck, sir,’ said Tom. + +There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he was a sullen +young fellow, and ungracious in his manner even to her. So much the +greater must have been the solitude of her heart, and her need of some +one on whom to bestow it. ‘So much the more is this whelp the only +creature she has ever cared for,’ thought Mr. James Harthouse, turning it +over and over. ‘So much the more. So much the more.’ + +Both in his sister’s presence, and after she had left the room, the whelp +took no pains to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby, whenever he could +indulge it without the observation of that independent man, by making wry +faces, or shutting one eye. Without responding to these telegraphic +communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him much in the course of the +evening, and showed an unusual liking for him. At last, when he rose to +return to his hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew the way by +night, the whelp immediately proffered his services as guide, and turned +out with him to escort him thither. + + [Picture: Mr. Harthouse dines at the Bounderby’s] + + + +CHAPTER III +THE WHELP + + +IT was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought up +under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be a +hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with Tom. It was very strange +that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own guidance for +five consecutive minutes, should be incapable at last of governing +himself; but so it was with Tom. It was altogether unaccountable that a +young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, +should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovelling +sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom. + +‘Do you smoke?’ asked Mr. James Harthouse, when they came to the hotel. + +‘I believe you!’ said Tom. + +He could do no less than ask Tom up; and Tom could do no less than go up. +What with a cooling drink adapted to the weather, but not so weak as +cool; and what with a rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those parts; +Tom was soon in a highly free and easy state at his end of the sofa, and +more than ever disposed to admire his new friend at the other end. + +Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking a little while, and +took an observation of his friend. ‘He don’t seem to care about his +dress,’ thought Tom, ‘and yet how capitally he does it. What an easy +swell he is!’ + +Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom’s eye, remarked that he drank +nothing, and filled his glass with his own negligent hand. + +‘Thank’ee,’ said Tom. ‘Thank’ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have +had about a dose of old Bounderby to-night.’ Tom said this with one eye +shut up again, and looking over his glass knowingly, at his entertainer. + +‘A very good fellow indeed!’ returned Mr. James Harthouse. + +‘You think so, don’t you?’ said Tom. And shut up his eye again. + +Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising from his end of the sofa, and +lounging with his back against the chimney-piece, so that he stood before +the empty fire-grate as he smoked, in front of Tom and looking down at +him, observed: + +‘What a comical brother-in-law you are!’ + +‘What a comical brother-in-law old Bounderby is, I think you mean,’ said +Tom. + +‘You are a piece of caustic, Tom,’ retorted Mr. James Harthouse. + +There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate with such a +waistcoat; in being called Tom, in such an intimate way, by such a voice; +in being on such off-hand terms so soon, with such a pair of whiskers; +that Tom was uncommonly pleased with himself. + +‘Oh! I don’t care for old Bounderby,’ said he, ‘if you mean that. I +have always called old Bounderby by the same name when I have talked +about him, and I have always thought of him in the same way. I am not +going to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It would be rather +late in the day.’ + +‘Don’t mind me,’ returned James; ‘but take care when his wife is by, you +know.’ + +‘His wife?’ said Tom. ‘My sister Loo? O yes!’ And he laughed, and took +a little more of the cooling drink. + +James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and attitude, +smoking his cigar in his own easy way, and looking pleasantly at the +whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only +to hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul if required. It +certainly did seem that the whelp yielded to this influence. He looked +at his companion sneakingly, he looked at him admiringly, he looked at +him boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa. + +‘My sister Loo?’ said Tom. ‘_She_ never cared for old Bounderby.’ + +‘That’s the past tense, Tom,’ returned Mr. James Harthouse, striking the +ash from his cigar with his little finger. ‘We are in the present tense, +now.’ + +‘Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present tense. First person +singular, I do not care; second person singular, thou dost not care; +third person singular, she does not care,’ returned Tom. + +‘Good! Very quaint!’ said his friend. ‘Though you don’t mean it.’ + +‘But I _do_ mean it,’ cried Tom. ‘Upon my honour! Why, you won’t tell +me, Mr. Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister Loo does care for +old Bounderby.’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ returned the other, ‘what am I bound to suppose, when I +find two married people living in harmony and happiness?’ + +Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. If his second leg +had not been already there when he was called a dear fellow, he would +have put it up at that great stage of the conversation. Feeling it +necessary to do something then, he stretched himself out at greater +length, and, reclining with the back of his head on the end of the sofa, +and smoking with an infinite assumption of negligence, turned his common +face, and not too sober eyes, towards the face looking down upon him so +carelessly yet so potently. + +‘You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, ‘and therefore, you +needn’t be surprised that Loo married old Bounderby. She never had a +lover, and the governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.’ + +‘Very dutiful in your interesting sister,’ said Mr. James Harthouse. + +‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as dutiful, and it would not have come +off as easily,’ returned the whelp, ‘if it hadn’t been for me.’ + +The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows; but the whelp was obliged to go +on. + +‘_I_ persuaded her,’ he said, with an edifying air of superiority. ‘I +was stuck into old Bounderby’s bank (where I never wanted to be), and I +knew I should get into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby’s pipe +out; so I told her my wishes, and she came into them. She would do +anything for me. It was very game of her, wasn’t it?’ + +‘It was charming, Tom!’ + +‘Not that it was altogether so important to her as it was to me,’ +continued Tom coolly, ‘because my liberty and comfort, and perhaps my +getting on, depended on it; and she had no other lover, and staying at +home was like staying in jail—especially when I was gone. It wasn’t as +if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; but still it was a good +thing in her.’ + +‘Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so placidly.’ + +‘Oh,’ returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, ‘she’s a regular girl. +A girl can get on anywhere. She has settled down to the life, and _she_ +don’t mind. It does just as well as another. Besides, though Loo is a +girl, she’s not a common sort of girl. She can shut herself up within +herself, and think—as I have often known her sit and watch the fire—for +an hour at a stretch.’ + +‘Ay, ay? Has resources of her own,’ said Harthouse, smoking quietly. + +‘Not so much of that as you may suppose,’ returned Tom; ‘for our governor +had her crammed with all sorts of dry bones and sawdust. It’s his +system.’ + +‘Formed his daughter on his own model?’ suggested Harthouse. + +‘His daughter? Ah! and everybody else. Why, he formed Me that way!’ +said Tom. + +‘Impossible!’ + +‘He did, though,’ said Tom, shaking his head. ‘I mean to say, Mr. +Harthouse, that when I first left home and went to old Bounderby’s, I was +as flat as a warming-pan, and knew no more about life, than any oyster +does.’ + +‘Come, Tom! I can hardly believe that. A joke’s a joke.’ + +‘Upon my soul!’ said the whelp. ‘I am serious; I am indeed!’ He smoked +with great gravity and dignity for a little while, and then added, in a +highly complacent tone, ‘Oh! I have picked up a little since. I don’t +deny that. But I have done it myself; no thanks to the governor.’ + +‘And your intelligent sister?’ + +‘My intelligent sister is about where she was. She used to complain to +me that she had nothing to fall back upon, that girls usually fall back +upon; and I don’t see how she is to have got over that since. But _she_ +don’t mind,’ he sagaciously added, puffing at his cigar again. ‘Girls +can always get on, somehow.’ + +‘Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. Bounderby’s address, I +found an ancient lady there, who seems to entertain great admiration for +your sister,’ observed Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last small +remnant of the cigar he had now smoked out. + +‘Mother Sparsit!’ said Tom. ‘What! you have seen her already, have you?’ + +His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, to shut up his +eye (which had grown rather unmanageable) with the greater expression, +and to tap his nose several times with his finger. + +‘Mother Sparsit’s feeling for Loo is more than admiration, I should +think,’ said Tom. ‘Say affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit never set +her cap at Bounderby when he was a bachelor. Oh no!’ + +These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before a giddy drowsiness +came upon him, followed by complete oblivion. He was roused from the +latter state by an uneasy dream of being stirred up with a boot, and also +of a voice saying: ‘Come, it’s late. Be off!’ + +‘Well!’ he said, scrambling from the sofa. ‘I must take my leave of you +though. I say. Yours is very good tobacco. But it’s too mild.’ + +‘Yes, it’s too mild,’ returned his entertainer. + +‘It’s—it’s ridiculously mild,’ said Tom. ‘Where’s the door! Good +night!’ + +He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter through a mist, +which, after giving him some trouble and difficulty, resolved itself into +the main street, in which he stood alone. He then walked home pretty +easily, though not yet free from an impression of the presence and +influence of his new friend—as if he were lounging somewhere in the air, +in the same negligent attitude, regarding him with the same look. + +The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of what he +had done that night, and had been less of a whelp and more of a brother, +he might have turned short on the road, might have gone down to the +ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have gone to bed in it for +good and all, and have curtained his head for ever with its filthy +waters. + + + +CHAPTER IV +MEN AND BROTHERS + + +‘OH, my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends +and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding +despotism! Oh, my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and +fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round +one another as One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors +that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the +sweat of our brows, upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of +our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon +the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!’ + +‘Good!’ ‘Hear, hear, hear!’ ‘Hurrah!’ and other cries, arose in many +voices from various parts of the densely crowded and suffocatingly close +Hall, in which the orator, perched on a stage, delivered himself of this +and what other froth and fume he had in him. He had declaimed himself +into a violent heat, and was as hoarse as he was hot. By dint of roaring +at the top of his voice under a flaring gaslight, clenching his fists, +knitting his brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with his arms, he had +taken so much out of himself by this time, that he was brought to a stop, +and called for a glass of water. + +As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink of +water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd of attentive faces +turned towards him, was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by +Nature’s evidence, he was above the mass in very little but the stage on +which he stood. In many great respects he was essentially below them. +He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; +he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe +solid sense. An ill-made, high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and +his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he contrasted +most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of his +hearers in their plain working clothes. Strange as it always is to +consider any assembly in the act of submissively resigning itself to the +dreariness of some complacent person, lord or commoner, whom +three-fourths of it could, by no human means, raise out of the slough of +inanity to their own intellectual level, it was particularly strange, and +it was even particularly affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, +whose honesty in the main no competent observer free from bias could +doubt, so agitated by such a leader. + +Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah! The eagerness both of attention and +intention, exhibited in all the countenances, made them a most impressive +sight. There was no carelessness, no languor, no idle curiosity; none of +the many shades of indifference to be seen in all other assemblies, +visible for one moment there. That every man felt his condition to be, +somehow or other, worse than it might be; that every man considered it +incumbent on him to join the rest, towards the making of it better; that +every man felt his only hope to be in his allying himself to the comrades +by whom he was surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong +(unhappily wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, +faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one who chose to +see what was there, as the bare beams of the roof and the whitened brick +walls. Nor could any such spectator fail to know in his own breast, that +these men, through their very delusions, showed great qualities, +susceptible of being turned to the happiest and best account; and that to +pretend (on the strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried) +that they went astray wholly without cause, and of their own irrational +wills, was to pretend that there could be smoke without fire, death +without birth, harvest without seed, anything or everything produced from +nothing. + +The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his corrugated forehead from +left to right several times with his handkerchief folded into a pad, and +concentrated all his revived forces, in a sneer of great disdain and +bitterness. + +‘But oh, my friends and brothers! Oh, men and Englishmen, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown! What shall we say of that man—that +working-man, that I should find it necessary so to libel the glorious +name—who, being practically and well acquainted with the grievances and +wrongs of you, the injured pith and marrow of this land, and having heard +you, with a noble and majestic unanimity that will make Tyrants tremble, +resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United Aggregate Tribunal, +and to abide by the injunctions issued by that body for your benefit, +whatever they may be—what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, +since such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his +post, and sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a +craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to make to you +the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and +will _not_ be one of those associated in the gallant stand for Freedom +and for Right?’ + +The assembly was divided at this point. There were some groans and +hisses, but the general sense of honour was much too strong for the +condemnation of a man unheard. ‘Be sure you’re right, Slackbridge!’ +‘Put him up!’ ‘Let’s hear him!’ Such things were said on many sides. +Finally, one strong voice called out, ‘Is the man heer? If the man’s +heer, Slackbridge, let’s hear the man himseln, ’stead o’ yo.’ Which was +received with a round of applause. + +Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering smile; and, +holding out his right hand at arm’s length (as the manner of all +Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, waited until there was a +profound silence. + +‘Oh, my friends and fellow-men!’ said Slackbridge then, shaking his head +with violent scorn, ‘I do not wonder that you, the prostrate sons of +labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. But he who sold +his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, +and Castlereagh existed, and this man exists!’ + +Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage, ended in the man +himself standing at the orator’s side before the concourse. He was pale +and a little moved in the face—his lips especially showed it; but he +stood quiet, with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be heard. There +was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and this functionary now took +the case into his own hands. + +‘My friends,’ said he, ‘by virtue o’ my office as your president, I askes +o’ our friend Slackbridge, who may be a little over hetter in this +business, to take his seat, whiles this man Stephen Blackpool is heern. +You all know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him awlung o’ his +misfort’ns, and his good name.’ + +With that, the chairman shook him frankly by the hand, and sat down +again. Slackbridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot forehead—always +from left to right, and never the reverse way. + +‘My friends,’ Stephen began, in the midst of a dead calm; ‘I ha’ hed +what’s been spok’n o’ me, and ’tis lickly that I shan’t mend it. But I’d +liefer you’d hearn the truth concernin myseln, fro my lips than fro onny +other man’s, though I never cud’n speak afore so monny, wi’out bein +moydert and muddled.’ + +Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it off, in his +bitterness. + +‘I’m th’ one single Hand in Bounderby’s mill, o’ a’ the men theer, as +don’t coom in wi’ th’ proposed reg’lations. I canna coom in wi’ ’em. My +friends, I doubt their doin’ yo onny good. Licker they’ll do yo hurt.’ + +Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and frowned sarcastically. + +‘But ’t an’t sommuch for that as I stands out. If that were aw, I’d coom +in wi’ th’ rest. But I ha’ my reasons—mine, yo see—for being hindered; +not on’y now, but awlus—awlus—life long!’ + +Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and tearing. ‘Oh, +my friends, what but this did I tell you? Oh, my fellow-countrymen, what +warning but this did I give you? And how shows this recreant conduct in +a man on whom unequal laws are known to have fallen heavy? Oh, you +Englishmen, I ask you how does this subornation show in one of +yourselves, who is thus consenting to his own undoing and to yours, and +to your children’s and your children’s children’s?’ + +There was some applause, and some crying of Shame upon the man; but the +greater part of the audience were quiet. They looked at Stephen’s worn +face, rendered more pathetic by the homely emotions it evinced; and, in +the kindness of their nature, they were more sorry than indignant. + +‘’Tis this Delegate’s trade for t’ speak,’ said Stephen, ‘an’ he’s paid +for ’t, an’ he knows his work. Let him keep to ’t. Let him give no heed +to what I ha had’n to bear. That’s not for him. That’s not for nobbody +but me.’ + +There was a propriety, not to say a dignity in these words, that made the +hearers yet more quiet and attentive. The same strong voice called out, +‘Slackbridge, let the man be heern, and howd thee tongue!’ Then the +place was wonderfully still. + +‘My brothers,’ said Stephen, whose low voice was distinctly heard, ‘and +my fellow-workmen—for that yo are to me, though not, as I knows on, to +this delegate here—I ha but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore if I +was to speak till Strike o’ day. I know weel, aw what’s afore me. I +know weel that yo aw resolve to ha nommore ado wi’ a man who is not wi’ +yo in this matther. I know weel that if I was a lyin parisht i’ th’ +road, yo’d feel it right to pass me by, as a forrenner and stranger. +What I ha getn, I mun mak th’ best on.’ + +‘Stephen Blackpool,’ said the chairman, rising, ‘think on ’t agen. Think +on ’t once agen, lad, afore thou’rt shunned by aw owd friends.’ + +There was an universal murmur to the same effect, though no man +articulated a word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen’s face. To repent of +his determination, would be to take a load from all their minds. He +looked around him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain of anger with +them was in his heart; he knew them, far below their surface weaknesses +and misconceptions, as no one but their fellow-labourer could. + +‘I ha thowt on ’t, above a bit, sir. I simply canna coom in. I mun go +th’ way as lays afore me. I mun tak my leave o’ aw heer.’ + +He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up his arms, and stood for +the moment in that attitude; not speaking until they slowly dropped at +his sides. + +‘Monny’s the pleasant word as soom heer has spok’n wi’ me; monny’s the +face I see heer, as I first seen when I were yoong and lighter heart’n +than now. I ha’ never had no fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi’ any +o’ my like; Gonnows I ha’ none now that’s o’ my makin’. Yo’ll ca’ me +traitor and that—yo I mean t’ say,’ addressing Slackbridge, ‘but ’tis +easier to ca’ than mak’ out. So let be.’ + +He had moved away a pace or two to come down from the platform, when he +remembered something he had not said, and returned again. + +‘Haply,’ he said, turning his furrowed face slowly about, that he might +as it were individually address the whole audience, those both near and +distant; ‘haply, when this question has been tak’n up and discoosed, +there’ll be a threat to turn out if I’m let to work among yo. I hope I +shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and I shall work solitary among yo +unless it cooms—truly, I mun do ’t, my friends; not to brave yo, but to +live. I ha nobbut work to live by; and wheerever can I go, I who ha +worked sin I were no heighth at aw, in Coketown heer? I mak’ no +complaints o’ bein turned to the wa’, o’ bein outcasten and overlooken +fro this time forrard, but hope I shall be let to work. If there is any +right for me at aw, my friends, I think ’tis that.’ + +Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in the building, but the +slight rustle of men moving a little apart, all along the centre of the +room, to open a means of passing out, to the man with whom they had all +bound themselves to renounce companionship. Looking at no one, and going +his way with a lowly steadiness upon him that asserted nothing and sought +nothing, Old Stephen, with all his troubles on his head, left the scene. + +Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm extended during the +going out, as if he were repressing with infinite solicitude and by a +wonderful moral power the vehement passions of the multitude, applied +himself to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman Brutus, oh, my +British countrymen, condemned his son to death; and had not the Spartan +mothers, oh my soon to be victorious friends, driven their flying +children on the points of their enemies’ swords? Then was it not the +sacred duty of the men of Coketown, with forefathers before them, an +admiring world in company with them, and a posterity to come after them, +to hurl out traitors from the tents they had pitched in a sacred and a +God-like cause? The winds of heaven answered Yes; and bore Yes, east, +west, north, and south. And consequently three cheers for the United +Aggregate Tribunal! + +Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The multitude of +doubtful faces (a little conscience-stricken) brightened at the sound, +and took it up. Private feeling must yield to the common cause. Hurrah! +The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when the assembly dispersed. + +Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the +life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in the land who +looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and never finds it, +is in cheering society as compared with him who passes ten averted faces +daily, that were once the countenances of friends. Such experience was +to be Stephen’s now, in every waking moment of his life; at his work, on +his way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, everywhere. By +general consent, they even avoided that side of the street on which he +habitually walked; and left it, of all the working men, to him only. + +He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little +with other men, and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had +never known before the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent +recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief +that had been poured into it by drops through such small means. It was +even harder than he could have believed possible, to separate in his own +conscience his abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless sense of +shame and disgrace. + +The first four days of his endurance were days so long and heavy, that he +began to be appalled by the prospect before him. Not only did he see no +Rachael all the time, but he avoided every chance of seeing her; for, +although he knew that the prohibition did not yet formally extend to the +women working in the factories, he found that some of them with whom he +was acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others, and +dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the rest if she were +seen in his company. So, he had been quite alone during the four days, +and had spoken to no one, when, as he was leaving his work at night, a +young man of a very light complexion accosted him in the street. + +‘Your name’s Blackpool, ain’t it?’ said the young man. + +Stephen coloured to find himself with his hat in his hand, in his +gratitude for being spoken to, or in the suddenness of it, or both. He +made a feint of adjusting the lining, and said, ‘Yes.’ + +‘You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I mean?’ said Bitzer, the +very light young man in question. + +Stephen answered ‘Yes,’ again. + +‘I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away from you. Mr. +Bounderby wants to speak to you. You know his house, don’t you?’ + +Stephen said ‘Yes,’ again. + +‘Then go straight up there, will you?’ said Bitzer. ‘You’re expected, +and have only to tell the servant it’s you. I belong to the Bank; so, if +you go straight up without me (I was sent to fetch you), you’ll save me a +walk.’ + +Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direction, turned about, and +betook himself as in duty bound, to the red brick castle of the giant +Bounderby. + + + +CHAPTER V +MEN AND MASTERS + + +‘WELL, Stephen,’ said Bounderby, in his windy manner, ‘what’s this I +hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to _you_? Come in, +and speak up.’ + +It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. A tea-table was +set out; and Mr. Bounderby’s young wife, and her brother, and a great +gentleman from London, were present. To whom Stephen made his obeisance, +closing the door and standing near it, with his hat in his hand. + +‘This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +The gentleman he addressed, who was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the +sofa, got up, saying in an indolent way, ‘Oh really?’ and dawdled to the +hearthrug where Mr. Bounderby stood. + +‘Now,’ said Bounderby, ‘speak up!’ + +After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely and +discordantly on Stephen’s ear. Besides being a rough handling of his +wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he really was the self-interested +deserter he had been called. + +‘What were it, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘as yo were pleased to want wi’ me?’ + +‘Why, I have told you,’ returned Bounderby. ‘Speak up like a man, since +you are a man, and tell us about yourself and this Combination.’ + +‘Wi’ yor pardon, sir,’ said Stephen Blackpool, ‘I ha’ nowt to sen about +it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, finding something +in his way here, began to blow at it directly. + +‘Now, look here, Harthouse,’ said he, ‘here’s a specimen of ’em. When +this man was here once before, I warned this man against the mischievous +strangers who are always about—and who ought to be hanged wherever they +are found—and I told this man that he was going in the wrong direction. +Now, would you believe it, that although they have put this mark upon +him, he is such a slave to them still, that he’s afraid to open his lips +about them?’ + +‘I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir; not as I was fearfo’ o’ openin’ my +lips.’ + +‘You said! Ah! _I_ know what you said; more than that, I know what you +mean, you see. Not always the same thing, by the Lord Harry! Quite +different things. You had better tell us at once, that that fellow +Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up the people to mutiny; and +that he is not a regular qualified leader of the people: that is, a most +confounded scoundrel. You had better tell us so at once; you can’t +deceive me. You want to tell us so. Why don’t you?’ + +‘I’m as sooary as yo, sir, when the people’s leaders is bad,’ said +Stephen, shaking his head. ‘They taks such as offers. Haply ’tis na’ +the sma’est o’ their misfortuns when they can get no better.’ + +The wind began to get boisterous. + +‘Now, you’ll think this pretty well, Harthouse,’ said Mr. Bounderby. +‘You’ll think this tolerably strong. You’ll say, upon my soul this is a +tidy specimen of what my friends have to deal with; but this is nothing, +sir! You shall hear me ask this man a question. Pray, Mr. +Blackpool’—wind springing up very fast—‘may I take the liberty of asking +you how it happens that you refused to be in this Combination?’ + +‘How ’t happens?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the arms of his coat, and +jerking his head and shutting his eyes in confidence with the opposite +wall: ‘how it happens.’ + +‘I’d leefer not coom to ’t, sir; but sin you put th’ question—an’ not +want’n t’ be ill-manner’n—I’ll answer. I ha passed a promess.’ + +‘Not to me, you know,’ said Bounderby. (Gusty weather with deceitful +calms. One now prevailing.) + +‘O no, sir. Not to yo.’ + +‘As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to do +with it,’ said Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall. ‘If only +Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you would have joined +and made no bones about it?’ + +‘Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.’ + +‘Though he knows,’ said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing a gale, ‘that there +are a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too good for! +Now, Mr. Harthouse, you have been knocking about in the world some time. +Did you ever meet with anything like that man out of this blessed +country?’ And Mr. Bounderby pointed him out for inspection, with an +angry finger. + +‘Nay, ma’am,’ said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the +words that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself to Louisa, +after glancing at her face. ‘Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o’ th’ +kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ kind. They’ve not doon me a kindness, ma’am, as +I know and feel. But there’s not a dozen men amoong ’em, ma’am—a dozen? +Not six—but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest and by +himseln. God forbid as I, that ha’ known, and had’n experience o’ these +men aw my life—I, that ha’ ett’n an’ droonken wi’ ’em, an’ seet’n wi’ +’em, and toil’n wi’ ’em, and lov’n ’em, should fail fur to stan by ’em +wi’ the truth, let ’em ha’ doon to me what they may!’ + +He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character—deepened +perhaps by a proud consciousness that he was faithful to his class under +all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where he was, and did not +even raise his voice. + +‘No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one another, faithfo’ to one another, +’fectionate to one another, e’en to death. Be poor amoong ’em, be sick +amoong ’em, grieve amoong ’em for onny o’ th’ monny causes that carries +grief to the poor man’s door, an’ they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle wi’ +yo, comfortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ yo. Be sure o’ that, ma’am. They’d +be riven to bits, ere ever they’d be different.’ + +‘In short,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘it’s because they are so full of virtues +that they have turned you adrift. Go through with it while you are about +it. Out with it.’ + +‘How ’tis, ma’am,’ resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his natural +refuge in Louisa’s face, ‘that what is best in us fok, seems to turn us +most to trouble an’ misfort’n an’ mistake, I dunno. But ’tis so. I know +’tis, as I know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We’re patient +too, an’ wants in general to do right. An’ I canna think the fawt is aw +wi’ us.’ + +‘Now, my friend,’ said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated +more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by seeming to appeal to +any one else, ‘if you will favour me with your attention for half a +minute, I should like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, +that you had nothing to tell us about this business. You are quite sure +of that before we go any further.’ + +‘Sir, I am sure on ’t.’ + +‘Here’s a gentleman from London present,’ Mr. Bounderby made a backhanded +point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, ‘a Parliament gentleman. I +should like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, +instead of taking the substance of it—for I know precious well, +beforehand, what it will be; nobody knows better than I do, take +notice!—instead of receiving it on trust from my mouth.’ + +Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a rather +more troubled mind than usual. He turned his eyes involuntarily to his +former refuge, but at a look from that quarter (expressive though +instantaneous) he settled them on Mr. Bounderby’s face. + +‘Now, what do you complain of?’ asked Mr. Bounderby. + +‘I ha’ not coom here, sir,’ Stephen reminded him, ‘to complain. I coom +for that I were sent for.’ + +‘What,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, ‘do you people, in a +general way, complain of?’ + +Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, and +then seemed to make up his mind. + +‘Sir, I were never good at showin o ’t, though I ha had’n my share in +feeling o ’t. ’Deed we are in a muddle, sir. Look round town—so rich as +’tis—and see the numbers o’ people as has been broughten into bein heer, +fur to weave, an’ to card, an’ to piece out a livin’, aw the same one +way, somehows, ’twixt their cradles and their graves. Look how we live, +an’ wheer we live, an’ in what numbers, an’ by what chances, and wi’ what +sameness; and look how the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never +works us no nigher to ony dis’ant object—ceptin awlus, Death. Look how +you considers of us, and writes of us, and talks of us, and goes up wi’ +yor deputations to Secretaries o’ State ’bout us, and how yo are awlus +right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never had’n no reason in us sin +ever we were born. Look how this ha growen an’ growen, sir, bigger an’ +bigger, broader an’ broader, harder an’ harder, fro year to year, fro +generation unto generation. Who can look on ’t, sir, and fairly tell a +man ’tis not a muddle?’ + +‘Of course,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Now perhaps you’ll let the gentleman +know, how you would set this muddle (as you’re so fond of calling it) to +rights.’ + +‘I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to ’t. ’Tis not me as should be +looken to for that, sir. ’Tis them as is put ower me, and ower aw the +rest of us. What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not to do’t?’ + +‘I’ll tell you something towards it, at any rate,’ returned Mr. +Bounderby. ‘We will make an example of half a dozen Slackbridges. We’ll +indict the blackguards for felony, and get ’em shipped off to penal +settlements.’ + +Stephen gravely shook his head. + +‘Don’t tell me we won’t, man,’ said Mr. Bounderby, by this time blowing a +hurricane, ‘because we will, I tell you!’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of absolute certainty, +‘if yo was t’ tak a hundred Slackbridges—aw as there is, and aw the +number ten times towd—an’ was t’ sew ’em up in separate sacks, an’ sink +’em in the deepest ocean as were made ere ever dry land coom to be, yo’d +leave the muddle just wheer ’tis. Mischeevous strangers!’ said Stephen, +with an anxious smile; ‘when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we can +call to mind, o’ th’ mischeevous strangers! ’Tis not by _them_ the +trouble’s made, sir. ’Tis not wi’ _them_ ’t commences. I ha no favour +for ’em—I ha no reason to favour ’em—but ’tis hopeless and useless to +dream o’ takin them fro their trade, ’stead o’ takin their trade fro +them! Aw that’s now about me in this room were heer afore I coom, an’ +will be heer when I am gone. Put that clock aboard a ship an’ pack it +off to Norfolk Island, an’ the time will go on just the same. So ’tis +wi’ Slackbridge every bit.’ + +Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a cautionary +movement of her eyes towards the door. Stepping back, he put his hand +upon the lock. But he had not spoken out of his own will and desire; and +he felt it in his heart a noble return for his late injurious treatment +to be faithful to the last to those who had repudiated him. He stayed to +finish what was in his mind. + +‘Sir, I canna, wi’ my little learning an’ my common way, tell the +genelman what will better aw this—though some working men o’ this town +could, above my powers—but I can tell him what I know will never do ’t. +The strong hand will never do ’t. Vict’ry and triumph will never do ’t. +Agreeing fur to mak one side unnat’rally awlus and for ever right, and +toother side unnat’rally awlus and for ever wrong, will never, never do +’t. Nor yet lettin alone will never do ’t. Let thousands upon thousands +alone, aw leading the like lives and aw faw’en into the like muddle, and +they will be as one, and yo will be as anoother, wi’ a black unpassable +world betwixt yo, just as long or short a time as sich-like misery can +last. Not drawin nigh to fok, wi’ kindness and patience an’ cheery ways, +that so draws nigh to one another in their monny troubles, and so +cherishes one another in their distresses wi’ what they need +themseln—like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha seen in aw +his travels can beat—will never do ’t till th’ Sun turns t’ ice. Most o’ +aw, rating ’em as so much Power, and reg’latin ’em as if they was figures +in a soom, or machines: wi’out loves and likens, wi’out memories and +inclinations, wi’out souls to weary and souls to hope—when aw goes quiet, +draggin on wi’ ’em as if they’d nowt o’ th’ kind, and when aw goes +onquiet, reproachin ’em for their want o’ sitch humanly feelins in their +dealins wi’ yo—this will never do ’t, sir, till God’s work is onmade.’ + +Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know if anything +more were expected of him. + +‘Just stop a moment,’ said Mr. Bounderby, excessively red in the face. +‘I told you, the last time you were here with a grievance, that you had +better turn about and come out of that. And I also told you, if you +remember, that I was up to the gold spoon look-out.’ + +‘I were not up to ’t myseln, sir; I do assure yo.’ + +‘Now it’s clear to me,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘that you are one of those +chaps who have always got a grievance. And you go about, sowing it and +raising crops. That’s the business of _your_ life, my friend.’ + +Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had other +business to do for his life. + +‘You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, you see,’ said +Mr. Bounderby, ‘that even your own Union, the men who know you best, will +have nothing to do with you. I never thought those fellows could be +right in anything; but I tell you what! I so far go along with them for +a novelty, that _I_’ll have nothing to do with you either.’ + +Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face. + +‘You can finish off what you’re at,’ said Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning +nod, ‘and then go elsewhere.’ + +‘Sir, yo know weel,’ said Stephen expressively, ‘that if I canna get work +wi’ yo, I canna get it elsewheer.’ + +The reply was, ‘What I know, I know; and what you know, you know. I have +no more to say about it.’ + +Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to his no more; +therefore, with a sigh, and saying, barely above his breath, ‘Heaven help +us aw in this world!’ he departed. + + + +CHAPTER VI +FADING AWAY + + +IT was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The +shadows of night had gathered so fast, that he did not look about him +when he closed the door, but plodded straight along the street. Nothing +was further from his thoughts than the curious old woman he had +encountered on his previous visit to the same house, when he heard a step +behind him that he knew, and turning, saw her in Rachael’s company. + +He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her only. + +‘Ah, Rachael, my dear! Missus, thou wi’ her!’ + +‘Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with reason I must say,’ +the old woman returned. ‘Here I am again, you see.’ + +‘But how wi’ Rachael?’ said Stephen, falling into their step, walking +between them, and looking from the one to the other. + +‘Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much as I came to be with +you,’ said the old woman, cheerfully, taking the reply upon herself. ‘My +visiting time is later this year than usual, for I have been rather +troubled with shortness of breath, and so put it off till the weather was +fine and warm. For the same reason I don’t make all my journey in one +day, but divide it into two days, and get a bed to-night at the +Travellers’ Coffee House down by the railroad (a nice clean house), and +go back Parliamentary, at six in the morning. Well, but what has this to +do with this good lass, says you? I’m going to tell you. I have heard +of Mr. Bounderby being married. I read it in the paper, where it looked +grand—oh, it looked fine!’ the old woman dwelt on it with strange +enthusiasm: ‘and I want to see his wife. I have never seen her yet. +Now, if you’ll believe me, she hasn’t come out of that house since noon +to-day. So not to give her up too easily, I was waiting about, a little +last bit more, when I passed close to this good lass two or three times; +and her face being so friendly I spoke to her, and she spoke to me. +There!’ said the old woman to Stephen, ‘you can make all the rest out for +yourself now, a deal shorter than I can, I dare say!’ + +Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive propensity to dislike +this old woman, though her manner was as honest and simple as a manner +possibly could be. With a gentleness that was as natural to him as he +knew it to be to Rachael, he pursued the subject that interested her in +her old age. + +‘Well, missus,’ said he, ‘I ha seen the lady, and she were young and +hansom. Wi’ fine dark thinkin eyes, and a still way, Rachael, as I ha +never seen the like on.’ + +‘Young and handsome. Yes!’ cried the old woman, quite delighted. ‘As +bonny as a rose! And what a happy wife!’ + +‘Aye, missus, I suppose she be,’ said Stephen. But with a doubtful +glance at Rachael. + +‘Suppose she be? She must be. She’s your master’s wife,’ returned the +old woman. + +Stephen nodded assent. ‘Though as to master,’ said he, glancing again at +Rachael, ‘not master onny more. That’s aw enden ’twixt him and me.’ + +‘Have you left his work, Stephen?’ asked Rachael, anxiously and quickly. + +‘Why, Rachael,’ he replied, ‘whether I ha lef’n his work, or whether his +work ha lef’n me, cooms t’ th’ same. His work and me are parted. ’Tis +as weel so—better, I were thinkin when yo coom up wi’ me. It would ha +brought’n trouble upon trouble if I had stayed theer. Haply ’tis a +kindness to monny that I go; haply ’tis a kindness to myseln; anyways it +mun be done. I mun turn my face fro Coketown fur th’ time, and seek a +fort’n, dear, by beginnin fresh.’ + +‘Where will you go, Stephen?’ + +‘I donno t’night,’ said he, lifting off his hat, and smoothing his thin +hair with the flat of his hand. ‘But I’m not goin t’night, Rachael, nor +yet t’morrow. ’Tan’t easy overmuch t’ know wheer t’ turn, but a good +heart will coom to me.’ + +Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly aided him. Before he +had so much as closed Mr. Bounderby’s door, he had reflected that at +least his being obliged to go away was good for her, as it would save her +from the chance of being brought into question for not withdrawing from +him. Though it would cost him a hard pang to leave her, and though he +could think of no similar place in which his condemnation would not +pursue him, perhaps it was almost a relief to be forced away from the +endurance of the last four days, even to unknown difficulties and +distresses. + +So he said, with truth, ‘I’m more leetsome, Rachael, under ’t, than I +could’n ha believed.’ It was not her part to make his burden heavier. +She answered with her comforting smile, and the three walked on together. + +Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and cheerful, finds +much consideration among the poor. The old woman was so decent and +contented, and made so light of her infirmities, though they had +increased upon her since her former interview with Stephen, that they +both took an interest in her. She was too sprightly to allow of their +walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be +talked to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to +their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than ever. + +‘Come to my poor place, missus,’ said Stephen, ‘and tak a coop o’ tea. +Rachael will coom then; and arterwards I’ll see thee safe t’ thy +Travellers’ lodgin. ’T may be long, Rachael, ere ever I ha th’ chance o’ +thy coompany agen.’ + +They complied, and the three went on to the house where he lodged. When +they turned into a narrow street, Stephen glanced at his window with a +dread that always haunted his desolate home; but it was open, as he had +left it, and no one was there. The evil spirit of his life had flitted +away again, months ago, and he had heard no more of her since. The only +evidence of her last return now, were the scantier moveables in his room, +and the grayer hair upon his head. + +He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot water from +below, and brought in small portions of tea and sugar, a loaf, and some +butter from the nearest shop. The bread was new and crusty, the butter +fresh, and the sugar lump, of course—in fulfilment of the standard +testimony of the Coketown magnates, that these people lived like princes, +sir. Rachael made the tea (so large a party necessitated the borrowing +of a cup), and the visitor enjoyed it mightily. It was the first glimpse +of sociality the host had had for many days. He too, with the world a +wide heath before him, enjoyed the meal—again in corroboration of the +magnates, as exemplifying the utter want of calculation on the part of +these people, sir. + +‘I ha never thowt yet, missus,’ said Stephen, ‘o’ askin thy name.’ + +The old lady announced herself as ‘Mrs. Pegler.’ + +‘A widder, I think?’ said Stephen. + +‘Oh, many long years!’ Mrs. Pegler’s husband (one of the best on record) +was already dead, by Mrs. Pegler’s calculation, when Stephen was born. + +‘’Twere a bad job, too, to lose so good a one,’ said Stephen. ‘Onny +children?’ + +Mrs. Pegler’s cup, rattling against her saucer as she held it, denoted +some nervousness on her part. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now, not now.’ + +‘Dead, Stephen,’ Rachael softly hinted. + +‘I’m sooary I ha spok’n on ’t,’ said Stephen, ‘I ought t’ hadn in my mind +as I might touch a sore place. I—I blame myseln.’ + +While he excused himself, the old lady’s cup rattled more and more. ‘I +had a son,’ she said, curiously distressed, and not by any of the usual +appearances of sorrow; ‘and he did well, wonderfully well. But he is not +to be spoken of if you please. He is—’ Putting down her cup, she moved +her hands as if she would have added, by her action, ‘dead!’ Then she +said aloud, ‘I have lost him.’ + +Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given the old lady pain, +when his landlady came stumbling up the narrow stairs, and calling him to +the door, whispered in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by no means deaf, for +she caught a word as it was uttered. + +‘Bounderby!’ she cried, in a suppressed voice, starting up from the +table. ‘Oh hide me! Don’t let me be seen for the world. Don’t let him +come up till I’ve got away. Pray, pray!’ She trembled, and was +excessively agitated; getting behind Rachael, when Rachael tried to +reassure her; and not seeming to know what she was about. + +‘But hearken, missus, hearken,’ said Stephen, astonished. ‘’Tisn’t Mr. +Bounderby; ’tis his wife. Yo’r not fearfo’ o’ her. Yo was hey-go-mad +about her, but an hour sin.’ + +‘But are you sure it’s the lady, and not the gentleman?’ she asked, still +trembling. + +‘Certain sure!’ + +‘Well then, pray don’t speak to me, nor yet take any notice of me,’ said +the old woman. ‘Let me be quite to myself in this corner.’ + +Stephen nodded; looking to Rachael for an explanation, which she was +quite unable to give him; took the candle, went downstairs, and in a few +moments returned, lighting Louisa into the room. She was followed by the +whelp. + +Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet in her hand, +when Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by this visit, put the candle +on the table. Then he too stood, with his doubled hand upon the table +near it, waiting to be addressed. + +For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the dwellings +of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she was face to +face with anything like individuality in connection with them. She knew +of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results +in work a given number of them would produce in a given space of time. +She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or +beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of +toiling insects than of these toiling men and women. + +Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; +something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; +something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into +difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and +over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a +rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and +such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast +fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did +some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew +the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of +separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its +component drops. + +She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few chairs, +the few books, the common prints, and the bed, she glanced to the two +women, and to Stephen. + +‘I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just now. I +should like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. Is this your +wife?’ + +Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, and dropped +again. + +‘I remember,’ said Louisa, reddening at her mistake; ‘I recollect, now, +to have heard your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though I was not +attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a +question that would give pain to any one here. If I should ask any other +question that may happen to have that result, give me credit, if you +please, for being in ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.’ + +As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to +her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner +was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid. + +‘He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? You +would be his first resource, I think.’ + +‘I have heard the end of it, young lady,’ said Rachael. + +‘Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would +probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as much?’ + +‘The chances are very small, young lady—next to nothing—for a man who +gets a bad name among them.’ + +‘What shall I understand that you mean by a bad name?’ + +‘The name of being troublesome.’ + +‘Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of the +other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the two so deeply separated in this +town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between +them?’ + +Rachael shook her head in silence. + +‘He fell into suspicion,’ said Louisa, ‘with his fellow-weavers, +because—he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it must +have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made +it?’ + +Rachael burst into tears. ‘I didn’t seek it of him, poor lad. I prayed +him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d come to it +through me. But I know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break +his word. I know that of him well.’ + +Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude, +with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice rather less steady +than usual. + +‘No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an’ what love, an’ +respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I passed that +promess, I towd her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a solemn +promess. ’Tis gone fro’ me, for ever.’ + +Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new +in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features softened. +‘What will you do?’ she asked him. And her voice had softened too. + +‘Weel, ma’am,’ said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; ‘when I +ha finished off, I mun quit this part, and try another. Fortnet or +misfortnet, a man can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’—cept +laying down and dying.’ + +‘How will you travel?’ + +‘Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.’ + +Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a +bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the table. + +‘Rachael, will you tell him—for you know how, without offence—that this +is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat him to take it?’ + +‘I canna do that, young lady,’ she answered, turning her head aside. +‘Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis +for him to know his heart, and what is right according to it.’ + +Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome +with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self-command, who had been +so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure in a +moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out +hers, as if she would have touched him; then checked herself, and +remained still. + +‘Not e’en Rachael,’ said Stephen, when he stood again with his face +uncovered, ‘could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny words, kinder. T’ +show that I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak two pound. +I’ll borrow ’t for t’ pay ’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I +ha done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more my lastin +thankfulness for this present action.’ + +She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much +smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor +picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of +expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord +Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a century. + +Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his walking-stick +with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had attained this stage. +Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put +in a word. + +‘Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to him a +moment. Something comes into my head. If you’ll step out on the stairs, +Blackpool, I’ll mention it. Never mind a light, man!’ Tom was +remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, to get one. ‘It +don’t want a light.’ + +Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held the lock +in his hand. + +‘I say!’ he whispered. ‘I think I can do you a good turn. Don’t ask me +what it is, because it may not come to anything. But there’s no harm in +my trying.’ + +His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen’s ear, it was so hot. + +‘That was our light porter at the Bank,’ said Tom, ‘who brought you the +message to-night. I call him our light porter, because I belong to the +Bank too.’ + +Stephen thought, ‘What a hurry he is in!’ He spoke so confusedly. + +‘Well!’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! When are you off?’ + +‘T’ day’s Monday,’ replied Stephen, considering. ‘Why, sir, Friday or +Saturday, nigh ’bout.’ + +‘Friday or Saturday,’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! I am not sure that I +can do you the good turn I want to do you—that’s my sister, you know, in +your room—but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, there’s +no harm done. So I tell you what. You’ll know our light porter again?’ + +‘Yes, sure,’ said Stephen. + +‘Very well,’ returned Tom. ‘When you leave work of a night, between this +and your going away, just hang about the Bank an hour or so, will you? +Don’t take on, as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging +about there; because I shan’t put him up to speak to you, unless I find I +can do you the service I want to do you. In that case he’ll have a note +or a message for you, but not else. Now look here! You are sure you +understand.’ + +He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a button-hole of +Stephen’s coat, and was screwing that corner of the garment tight up +round and round, in an extraordinary manner. + +‘I understand, sir,’ said Stephen. + +‘Now look here!’ repeated Tom. ‘Be sure you don’t make any mistake then, +and don’t forget. I shall tell my sister as we go home, what I have in +view, and she’ll approve, I know. Now look here! You’re all right, are +you? You understand all about it? Very well then. Come along, Loo!’ + +He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not return into the +room, or wait to be lighted down the narrow stairs. He was at the bottom +when she began to descend, and was in the street before she could take +his arm. + +Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and sister were +gone, and until Stephen came back with the candle in his hand. She was +in a state of inexpressible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an +unaccountable old woman, wept, ‘because she was such a pretty dear.’ Yet +Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the object of her admiration should +return by chance, or anybody else should come, that her cheerfulness was +ended for that night. It was late too, to people who rose early and +worked hard; therefore the party broke up; and Stephen and Rachael +escorted their mysterious acquaintance to the door of the Travellers’ +Coffee House, where they parted from her. + +They walked back together to the corner of the street where Rachael +lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence crept upon them. +When they came to the dark corner where their unfrequent meetings always +ended, they stopped, still silent, as if both were afraid to speak. + +‘I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, afore I go, but if not—’ + +‘Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis better that we make up our minds +to be open wi’ one another.’ + +‘Thou’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and better. I ha been thinkin then, +Rachael, that as ’tis but a day or two that remains, ’twere better for +thee, my dear, not t’ be seen wi’ me. ’T might bring thee into trouble, +fur no good.’ + +‘’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou know’st our old +agreement. ’Tis for that.’ + +‘Well, well,’ said he. ‘’Tis better, onnyways.’ + +‘Thou’lt write to me, and tell me all that happens, Stephen?’ + +‘Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi’ thee, Heaven bless thee, +Heaven thank thee and reward thee!’ + +‘May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, and send thee +peace and rest at last!’ + +‘I towd thee, my dear,’ said Stephen Blackpool—‘that night—that I would +never see or think o’ onnything that angered me, but thou, so much better +than me, should’st be beside it. Thou’rt beside it now. Thou mak’st me +see it wi’ a better eye. Bless thee. Good night. Good-bye!’ + +It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a sacred +remembrance to these two common people. Utilitarian economists, +skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up +infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will +have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the +utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much +in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is +utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand +face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you. + +Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word from any +one, and shunned in all his comings and goings as before. At the end of +the second day, he saw land; at the end of the third, his loom stood +empty. + +He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on each of the +two first evenings; and nothing had happened there, good or bad. That he +might not be remiss in his part of the engagement, he resolved to wait +full two hours, on this third and last night. + +There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby’s house, sitting at +the first-floor window as he had seen her before; and there was the light +porter, sometimes talking with her there, and sometimes looking over the +blind below which had BANK upon it, and sometimes coming to the door and +standing on the steps for a breath of air. When he first came out, +Stephen thought he might be looking for him, and passed near; but the +light porter only cast his winking eyes upon him slightly, and said +nothing. + +Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long day’s +labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, leaned against a wall under +an archway, strolled up and down, listened for the church clock, stopped +and watched children playing in the street. Some purpose or other is so +natural to every one, that a mere loiterer always looks and feels +remarkable. When the first hour was out, Stephen even began to have an +uncomfortable sensation upon him of being for the time a disreputable +character. + +Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light all down +the long perspective of the street, until they were blended and lost in +the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the first-floor window, drew down the +blind, and went up-stairs. Presently, a light went up-stairs after her, +passing first the fanlight of the door, and afterwards the two staircase +windows, on its way up. By and by, one corner of the second-floor blind +was disturbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit’s eye were there; also the other +corner, as if the light porter’s eye were on that side. Still, no +communication was made to Stephen. Much relieved when the two hours were +at last accomplished, he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for +so much loitering. + +He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his temporary +bed upon the floor; for his bundle was made up for to-morrow, and all was +arranged for his departure. He meant to be clear of the town very early; +before the Hands were in the streets. + +It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his room, +mournfully wondering whether he should ever see it again, he went out. +The town was as entirely deserted as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, +rather than hold communication with him. Everything looked wan at that +hour. Even the coming sun made but a pale waste in the sky, like a sad +sea. + +By the place where Rachael lived, though it was not in his way; by the +red brick streets; by the great silent factories, not trembling yet; by +the railway, where the danger-lights were waning in the strengthening +day; by the railway’s crazy neighbourhood, half pulled down and half +built up; by scattered red brick villas, where the besmoked evergreens +were sprinkled with a dirty powder, like untidy snuff-takers; by +coal-dust paths and many varieties of ugliness; Stephen got to the top of +the hill, and looked back. + +Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and the bells were going +for the morning work. Domestic fires were not yet lighted, and the high +chimneys had the sky to themselves. Puffing out their poisonous volumes, +they would not be long in hiding it; but, for half an hour, some of the +many windows were golden, which showed the Coketown people a sun +eternally in eclipse, through a medium of smoked glass. + +So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So strange, to have +the road-dust on his feet instead of the coal-grit. So strange to have +lived to his time of life, and yet to be beginning like a boy this summer +morning! With these musings in his mind, and his bundle under his arm, +Stephen took his attentive face along the high road. And the trees +arched over him, whispering that he left a true and loving heart behind. + + + +CHAPTER VII +GUNPOWDER + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE, ‘going in’ for his adopted party, soon began to +score. With the aid of a little more coaching for the political sages, a +little more genteel listlessness for the general society, and a tolerable +management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, most effective and most +patronized of the polite deadly sins, he speedily came to be considered +of much promise. The not being troubled with earnestness was a grand +point in his favour, enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows with +as good a grace as if he had been born one of the tribe, and to throw all +other tribes overboard, as conscious hypocrites. + +‘Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Bounderby, and who do not believe +themselves. The only difference between us and the professors of virtue +or benevolence, or philanthropy—never mind the name—is, that we know it +is all meaningless, and say so; while they know it equally and will never +say so.’ + +Why should she be shocked or warned by this reiteration? It was not so +unlike her father’s principles, and her early training, that it need +startle her. Where was the great difference between the two schools, +when each chained her down to material realities, and inspired her with +no faith in anything else? What was there in her soul for James +Harthouse to destroy, which Thomas Gradgrind had nurtured there in its +state of innocence! + +It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her mind—implanted +there before her eminently practical father began to form it—a struggling +disposition to believe in a wider and nobler humanity than she had ever +heard of, constantly strove with doubts and resentments. With doubts, +because the aspiration had been so laid waste in her youth. With +resentments, because of the wrong that had been done her, if it were +indeed a whisper of the truth. Upon a nature long accustomed to +self-suppression, thus torn and divided, the Harthouse philosophy came as +a relief and justification. Everything being hollow and worthless, she +had missed nothing and sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had +said to her father, when he proposed her husband. What did it matter, +she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she asked herself, What +did anything matter—and went on. + +Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards some end, yet +so gradually, that she believed herself to remain motionless. As to Mr. +Harthouse, whither _he_ tended, he neither considered nor cared. He had +no particular design or plan before him: no energetic wickedness ruffled +his lassitude. He was as much amused and interested, at present, as it +became so fine a gentleman to be; perhaps even more than it would have +been consistent with his reputation to confess. Soon after his arrival +he languidly wrote to his brother, the honourable and jocular member, +that the Bounderbys were ‘great fun;’ and further, that the female +Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, and +remarkably pretty. After that, he wrote no more about them, and devoted +his leisure chiefly to their house. He was very often in their house, in +his flittings and visitings about the Coketown district; and was much +encouraged by Mr. Bounderby. It was quite in Mr. Bounderby’s gusty way +to boast to all his world that _he_ didn’t care about your highly +connected people, but that if his wife Tom Gradgrind’s daughter did, she +was welcome to their company. + +Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new sensation, if the +face which changed so beautifully for the whelp, would change for him. + +He was quick enough to observe; he had a good memory, and did not forget +a word of the brother’s revelations. He interwove them with everything +he saw of the sister, and he began to understand her. To be sure, the +better and profounder part of her character was not within his scope of +perception; for in natures, as in seas, depth answers unto depth; but he +soon began to read the rest with a student’s eye. + +Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and grounds, about fifteen +miles from the town, and accessible within a mile or two, by a railway +striding on many arches over a wild country, undermined by deserted +coal-shafts, and spotted at night by fires and black shapes of stationary +engines at pits’ mouths. This country, gradually softening towards the +neighbourhood of Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, there mellowed into a rustic +landscape, golden with heath, and snowy with hawthorn in the spring of +the year, and tremulous with leaves and their shadows all the summer +time. The bank had foreclosed a mortgage effected on the property thus +pleasantly situated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his +determination to make a shorter cut than usual to an enormous fortune, +overspeculated himself by about two hundred thousand pounds. These +accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families of +Coketown, but the bankrupts had no connexion whatever with the +improvident classes. + +It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction to instal himself in this +snug little estate, and with demonstrative humility to grow cabbages in +the flower-garden. He delighted to live, barrack-fashion, among the +elegant furniture, and he bullied the very pictures with his origin. +‘Why, sir,’ he would say to a visitor, ‘I am told that Nickits,’ the late +owner, ‘gave seven hundred pound for that Seabeach. Now, to be plain +with you, if I ever, in the whole course of my life, take seven looks at +it, at a hundred pound a look, it will be as much as I shall do. No, by +George! I don’t forget that I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. For +years upon years, the only pictures in my possession, or that I could +have got into my possession, by any means, unless I stole ’em, were the +engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the blacking bottles +that I was overjoyed to use in cleaning boots with, and that I sold when +they were empty for a farthing a-piece, and glad to get it!’ + +Then he would address Mr. Harthouse in the same style. + +‘Harthouse, you have a couple of horses down here. Bring half a dozen +more if you like, and we’ll find room for ’em. There’s stabling in this +place for a dozen horses; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full +number. A round dozen of ’em, sir. When that man was a boy, he went to +Westminster School. Went to Westminster School as a King’s Scholar, when +I was principally living on garbage, and sleeping in market baskets. +Why, if I wanted to keep a dozen horses—which I don’t, for one’s enough +for me—I couldn’t bear to see ’em in their stalls here, and think what my +own lodging used to be. I couldn’t look at ’em, sir, and not order ’em +out. Yet so things come round. You see this place; you know what sort +of a place it is; you are aware that there’s not a completer place of its +size in this kingdom or elsewhere—I don’t care where—and here, got into +the middle of it, like a maggot into a nut, is Josiah Bounderby. While +Nickits (as a man came into my office, and told me yesterday), Nickits, +who used to act in Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the +chief-justices and nobility of this country applauding him till they were +black in the face, is drivelling at this minute—drivelling, sir!—in a +fifth floor, up a narrow dark back street in Antwerp.’ + +It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long sultry +summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face which had set him +wondering when he first saw it, and to try if it would change for him. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident that I find you +alone here. I have for some time had a particular wish to speak to you.’ + +It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the time of day +being that at which she was always alone, and the place being her +favourite resort. It was an opening in a dark wood, where some felled +trees lay, and where she would sit watching the fallen leaves of last +year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home. + +He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face. + +‘Your brother. My young friend Tom—’ + +Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of interest. ‘I +never in my life,’ he thought, ‘saw anything so remarkable and so +captivating as the lighting of those features!’ His face betrayed his +thoughts—perhaps without betraying him, for it might have been according +to its instructions so to do. + +‘Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly interest is so beautiful—Tom +should be so proud of it—I know this is inexcusable, but I am so +compelled to admire.’ + +‘Being so impulsive,’ she said composedly. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, no: you know I make no pretence with you. You know I am +a sordid piece of human nature, ready to sell myself at any time for any +reasonable sum, and altogether incapable of any Arcadian proceeding +whatever.’ + +‘I am waiting,’ she returned, ‘for your further reference to my brother.’ + +‘You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as worthless a dog as you +will find, except that I am not false—not false. But you surprised and +started me from my subject, which was your brother. I have an interest +in him.’ + +‘Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse?’ she asked, half +incredulously and half gratefully. + +‘If you had asked me when I first came here, I should have said no. I +must say now—even at the hazard of appearing to make a pretence, and of +justly awakening your incredulity—yes.’ + +She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to speak, but could not +find voice; at length she said, ‘Mr. Harthouse, I give you credit for +being interested in my brother.’ + +‘Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know how little I do claim, but +I will go that length. You have done so much for him, you are so fond of +him; your whole life, Mrs. Bounderby, expresses such charming +self-forgetfulness on his account—pardon me again—I am running wide of +the subject. I am interested in him for his own sake.’ + +She had made the slightest action possible, as if she would have risen in +a hurry and gone away. He had turned the course of what he said at that +instant, and she remained. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he resumed, in a lighter manner, and yet with a show of +effort in assuming it, which was even more expressive than the manner he +dismissed; ‘it is no irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your +brother’s years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, and expensive—a little +dissipated, in the common phrase. Is he?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Allow me to be frank. Do you think he games at all?’ + +‘I think he makes bets.’ Mr. Harthouse waiting, as if that were not her +whole answer, she added, ‘I know he does.’ + +‘Of course he loses?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the probability of your +sometimes supplying him with money for these purposes?’ + +She sat, looking down; but, at this question, raised her eyes searchingly +and a little resentfully. + +‘Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. Bounderby. I think Tom +may be gradually falling into trouble, and I wish to stretch out a +helping hand to him from the depths of my wicked experience.—Shall I say +again, for his sake? Is that necessary?’ + +She seemed to try to answer, but nothing came of it. + +‘Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to me,’ said James +Harthouse, again gliding with the same appearance of effort into his more +airy manner; ‘I will confide to you my doubt whether he has had many +advantages. Whether—forgive my plainness—whether any great amount of +confidence is likely to have been established between himself and his +most worthy father.’ + +‘I do not,’ said Louisa, flushing with her own great remembrance in that +wise, ‘think it likely.’ + +‘Or, between himself, and—I may trust to your perfect understanding of my +meaning, I am sure—and his highly esteemed brother-in-law.’ + +She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red when she replied in a +fainter voice, ‘I do not think that likely, either.’ + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, after a short silence, ‘may there be a +better confidence between yourself and me? Tom has borrowed a +considerable sum of you?’ + +‘You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,’ she returned, after some +indecision: she had been more or less uncertain, and troubled throughout +the conversation, and yet had in the main preserved her self-contained +manner; ‘you will understand that if I tell you what you press to know, +it is not by way of complaint or regret. I would never complain of +anything, and what I have done I do not in the least regret.’ + +‘So spirited, too!’ thought James Harthouse. + +‘When I married, I found that my brother was even at that time heavily in +debt. Heavily for him, I mean. Heavily enough to oblige me to sell some +trinkets. They were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly. I +attached no value to them. They, were quite worthless to me.’ + +Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only feared in her +conscience that he knew, that she spoke of some of her husband’s gifts. +She stopped, and reddened again. If he had not known it before, he would +have known it then, though he had been a much duller man than he was. + +‘Since then, I have given my brother, at various times, what money I +could spare: in short, what money I have had. Confiding in you at all, +on the faith of the interest you profess for him, I will not do so by +halves. Since you have been in the habit of visiting here, he has wanted +in one sum as much as a hundred pounds. I have not been able to give it +to him. I have felt uneasy for the consequences of his being so +involved, but I have kept these secrets until now, when I trust them to +your honour. I have held no confidence with any one, because—you +anticipated my reason just now.’ She abruptly broke off. + +He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an opportunity here of +presenting her own image to her, slightly disguised as her brother. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the world worldly, I feel +the utmost interest, I assure you, in what you tell me. I cannot +possibly be hard upon your brother. I understand and share the wise +consideration with which you regard his errors. With all possible +respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and for Mr. Bounderby, I think I perceive +that he has not been fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage +towards the society in which he has his part to play, he rushes into +these extremes for himself, from opposite extremes that have long been +forced—with the very best intentions we have no doubt—upon him. Mr. +Bounderby’s fine bluff English independence, though a most charming +characteristic, does not—as we have agreed—invite confidence. If I might +venture to remark that it is the least in the world deficient in that +delicacy to which a youth mistaken, a character misconceived, and +abilities misdirected, would turn for relief and guidance, I should +express what it presents to my own view.’ + +As she sat looking straight before her, across the changing lights upon +the grass into the darkness of the wood beyond, he saw in her face her +application of his very distinctly uttered words. + +‘All allowance,’ he continued, ‘must be made. I have one great fault to +find with Tom, however, which I cannot forgive, and for which I take him +heavily to account.’ + +Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and asked him what fault was that? + +‘Perhaps,’ he returned, ‘I have said enough. Perhaps it would have been +better, on the whole, if no allusion to it had escaped me.’ + +‘You alarm me, Mr. Harthouse. Pray let me know it.’ + +‘To relieve you from needless apprehension—and as this confidence +regarding your brother, which I prize I am sure above all possible +things, has been established between us—I obey. I cannot forgive him for +not being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his life, of the +affection of his best friend; of the devotion of his best friend; of her +unselfishness; of her sacrifice. The return he makes her, within my +observation, is a very poor one. What she has done for him demands his +constant love and gratitude, not his ill-humour and caprice. Careless +fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be +regardless of this vice in your brother, or inclined to consider it a +venial offence.’ + +The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suffused with tears. They +rose from a deep well, long concealed, and her heart was filled with +acute pain that found no relief in them. + +‘In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. Bounderby, that I +must aspire. My better knowledge of his circumstances, and my direction +and advice in extricating them—rather valuable, I hope, as coming from a +scapegrace on a much larger scale—will give me some influence over him, +and all I gain I shall certainly use towards this end. I have said +enough, and more than enough. I seem to be protesting that I am a sort +of good fellow, when, upon my honour, I have not the least intention to +make any protestation to that effect, and openly announce that I am +nothing of the sort. Yonder, among the trees,’ he added, having lifted +up his eyes and looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; +‘is your brother himself; no doubt, just come down. As he seems to be +loitering in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk towards +him, and throw ourselves in his way. He has been very silent and doleful +of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is touched—if there are such +things as consciences. Though, upon my honour, I hear of them much too +often to believe in them.’ + +He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they advanced to meet +the whelp. He was idly beating the branches as he lounged along: or he +stooped viciously to rip the moss from the trees with his stick. He was +startled when they came upon him while he was engaged in this latter +pastime, and his colour changed. + +‘Halloa!’ he stammered; ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ + +‘Whose name, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse, putting his hand upon his shoulder +and turning him, so that they all three walked towards the house +together, ‘have you been carving on the trees?’ + +‘Whose name?’ returned Tom. ‘Oh! You mean what girl’s name?’ + +‘You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some fair creature’s on +the bark, Tom.’ + + [Picture: Mr. Harthouse and Tom Gradgrind in the garden] + +‘Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair creature with a +slashing fortune at her own disposal would take a fancy to me. Or she +might be as ugly as she was rich, without any fear of losing me. I’d +carve her name as often as she liked.’ + +‘I am afraid you are mercenary, Tom.’ + +‘Mercenary,’ repeated Tom. ‘Who is not mercenary? Ask my sister.’ + +‘Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, Tom?’ said Louisa, +showing no other sense of his discontent and ill-nature. + +‘You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,’ returned her brother sulkily. +‘If it does, you can wear it.’ + +‘Tom is misanthropical to-day, as all bored people are now and then,’ +said Mr. Harthouse. ‘Don’t believe him, Mrs. Bounderby. He knows much +better. I shall disclose some of his opinions of you, privately +expressed to me, unless he relents a little.’ + +‘At all events, Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom, softening in his admiration of +his patron, but shaking his head sullenly too, ‘you can’t tell her that I +ever praised her for being mercenary. I may have praised her for being +the contrary, and I should do it again, if I had as good reason. +However, never mind this now; it’s not very interesting to you, and I am +sick of the subject.’ + +They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted her visitor’s arm and +went in. He stood looking after her, as she ascended the steps, and +passed into the shadow of the door; then put his hand upon her brother’s +shoulder again, and invited him with a confidential nod to a walk in the +garden. + +‘Tom, my fine fellow, I want to have a word with you.’ + +They had stopped among a disorder of roses—it was part of Mr. Bounderby’s +humility to keep Nickits’s roses on a reduced scale—and Tom sat down on a +terrace-parapet, plucking buds and picking them to pieces; while his +powerful Familiar stood over him, with a foot upon the parapet, and his +figure easily resting on the arm supported by that knee. They were just +visible from her window. Perhaps she saw them. + +‘Tom, what’s the matter?’ + +‘Oh! Mr. Harthouse,’ said Tom with a groan, ‘I am hard up, and bothered +out of my life.’ + +‘My good fellow, so am I.’ + +‘You!’ returned Tom. ‘You are the picture of independence. Mr. +Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. You have no idea what a state I have +got myself into—what a state my sister might have got me out of, if she +would only have done it.’ + +He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from his teeth +with a hand that trembled like an infirm old man’s. After one +exceedingly observant look at him, his companion relapsed into his +lightest air. + +‘Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your sister. You +have had money of her, you dog, you know you have.’ + +‘Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was I to get it? Here’s +old Bounderby always boasting that at my age he lived upon twopence a +month, or something of that sort. Here’s my father drawing what he calls +a line, and tying me down to it from a baby, neck and heels. Here’s my +mother who never has anything of her own, except her complaints. What +_is_ a fellow to do for money, and where _am_ I to look for it, if not to +my sister?’ + +He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by dozens. Mr. +Harthouse took him persuasively by the coat. + +‘But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got it—’ + +‘Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don’t say she has got it. I may have +wanted more than she was likely to have got. But then she ought to get +it. She could get it. It’s of no use pretending to make a secret of +matters now, after what I have told you already; you know she didn’t +marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for his sake, but for my sake. +Then why doesn’t she get what I want, out of him, for my sake? She is +not obliged to say what she is going to do with it; she is sharp enough; +she could manage to coax it out of him, if she chose. Then why doesn’t +she choose, when I tell her of what consequence it is? But no. There +she sits in his company like a stone, instead of making herself agreeable +and getting it easily. I don’t know what you may call this, but I call +it unnatural conduct.’ + +There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on +the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong +inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind junior, as the injured men of +Coketown threatened to pitch their property into the Atlantic. But he +preserved his easy attitude; and nothing more solid went over the stone +balustrades than the accumulated rosebuds now floating about, a little +surface-island. + +‘My dear Tom,’ said Harthouse, ‘let me try to be your banker.’ + +‘For God’s sake,’ replied Tom, suddenly, ‘don’t talk about bankers!’ And +very white he looked, in contrast with the roses. Very white. + +Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accustomed to the best +society, was not to be surprised—he could as soon have been affected—but +he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble +touch of wonder. Albeit it was as much against the precepts of his +school to wonder, as it was against the doctrines of the Gradgrind +College. + +‘What is the present need, Tom? Three figures? Out with them. Say what +they are.’ + +‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Tom, now actually crying; and his tears were +better than his injuries, however pitiful a figure he made: ‘it’s too +late; the money is of no use to me at present. I should have had it +before to be of use to me. But I am very much obliged to you; you’re a +true friend.’ + +A true friend! ‘Whelp, whelp!’ thought Mr. Harthouse, lazily; ‘what an +Ass you are!’ + +‘And I take your offer as a great kindness,’ said Tom, grasping his hand. +‘As a great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘Well,’ returned the other, ‘it may be of more use by and by. And, my +good fellow, if you will open your bedevilments to me when they come +thick upon you, I may show you better ways out of them than you can find +for yourself.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Tom, shaking his head dismally, and chewing rosebuds. +‘I wish I had known you sooner, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘Now, you see, Tom,’ said Mr. Harthouse in conclusion, himself tossing +over a rose or two, as a contribution to the island, which was always +drifting to the wall as if it wanted to become a part of the mainland: +‘every man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the +rest of my fellow-creatures. I am desperately intent;’ the languor of +his desperation being quite tropical; ‘on your softening towards your +sister—which you ought to do; and on your being a more loving and +agreeable sort of brother—which you ought to be.’ + +‘I will be, Mr. Harthouse.’ + +‘No time like the present, Tom. Begin at once.’ + +‘Certainly I will. And my sister Loo shall say so.’ + +‘Having made which bargain, Tom,’ said Harthouse, clapping him on the +shoulder again, with an air which left him at liberty to infer—as he did, +poor fool—that this condition was imposed upon him in mere careless good +nature to lessen his sense of obligation, ‘we will tear ourselves asunder +until dinner-time.’ + +When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy enough, his +body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. ‘I +didn’t mean to be cross, Loo,’ he said, giving her his hand, and kissing +her. ‘I know you are fond of me, and you know I am fond of you.’ + +After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s face that day, for some one +else. Alas, for some one else! + +‘So much the less is the whelp the only creature that she cares for,’ +thought James Harthouse, reversing the reflection of his first day’s +knowledge of her pretty face. ‘So much the less, so much the less.’ + + + +CHAPTER VIII +EXPLOSION + + +THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse +rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, +smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his +young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his +eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke vanishing into the air, so +rich and soft with summer odours, he reckoned up his advantages as an +idle winner might count his gains. He was not at all bored for the time, +and could give his mind to it. + +He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband was +excluded. He had established a confidence with her, that absolutely +turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and the absence, now +and at all times, of any congeniality between them. He had artfully, but +plainly, assured her that he knew her heart in its last most delicate +recesses; he had come so near to her through its tenderest sentiment; he +had associated himself with that feeling; and the barrier behind which +she lived, had melted away. All very odd, and very satisfactory! + +And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. +Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he +lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, +than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs setting +with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships. + +When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape +by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is +trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode; when he is +aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used +up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or +to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil. + +So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and +reckoning up the steps he had taken on the road by which he happened to +be travelling. The end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly; +but he troubled himself with no calculations about it. What will be, +will be. + +As he had rather a long ride to take that day—for there was a public +occasion ‘to do’ at some distance, which afforded a tolerable opportunity +of going in for the Gradgrind men—he dressed early and went down to +breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous +evening. No. He resumed where he had left off. There was a look of +interest for him again. + +He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own satisfaction, as +was to be expected under the fatiguing circumstances; and came riding +back at six o’clock. There was a sweep of some half-mile between the +lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the +smooth gravel, once Nickits’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the +shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the road. + +‘Harthouse!’ cried Mr. Bounderby. ‘Have you heard?’ + +‘Heard what?’ said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring +Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes. + +‘Then you _haven’t_ heard!’ + +‘I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing else.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path +before the horse’s head, to explode his bombshell with more effect. + +‘The Bank’s robbed!’ + +‘You don’t mean it!’ + +‘Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. Robbed with +a false key.’ + +‘Of much?’ + +Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed +mortified by being obliged to reply, ‘Why, no; not of very much. But it +might have been.’ + +‘Of how much?’ + +‘Oh! as a sum—if you stick to a sum—of not more than a hundred and fifty +pound,’ said Bounderby, with impatience. ‘But it’s not the sum; it’s the +fact. It’s the fact of the Bank being robbed, that’s the important +circumstance. I am surprised you don’t see it.’ + +‘My dear Bounderby,’ said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle to +his servant, ‘I _do_ see it; and am as overcome as you can possibly +desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental view. +Nevertheless, I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you—which I do +with all my soul, I assure you—on your not having sustained a greater +loss.’ + +‘Thank’ee,’ replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. ‘But I +tell you what. It might have been twenty thousand pound.’ + +‘I suppose it might.’ + +‘Suppose it might! By the Lord, you _may_ suppose so. By George!’ said +Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and shakes of his head. ‘It +might have been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it would have +been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but for the fellows’ being +disturbed.’ + +Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer. + +‘Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows pretty well what it might have +been, if you don’t,’ blustered Bounderby. ‘Dropped, sir, as if she was +shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing before. Does her +credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion!’ + +She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged her to take his +arm; and as they moved on very slowly, asked her how the robbery had been +committed. + +‘Why, I am going to tell you,’ said Bounderby, irritably giving his arm +to Mrs. Sparsit. ‘If you hadn’t been so mighty particular about the sum, +I should have begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she _is_ +a lady), Mrs. Sparsit?’ + +‘I have already had the honour—’ + +‘Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw him too on the same +occasion?’ Mr. Harthouse inclined his head in assent, and Bitzer +knuckled his forehead. + +‘Very well. They live at the Bank. You know they live at the Bank, +perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of business +hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room that this +young fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the +little safe in young Tom’s closet, the safe used for petty purposes, +there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.’ + +‘A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,’ said Bitzer. + +‘Come!’ retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, ‘let’s have +none of _your_ interruptions. It’s enough to be robbed while you’re +snoring because you’re too comfortable, without being put right with +_your_ four seven ones. I didn’t snore, myself, when I was your age, let +me tell you. I hadn’t victuals enough to snore. And I didn’t four seven +one. Not if I knew it.’ + +Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at +once particularly impressed and depressed by the instance last given of +Mr. Bounderby’s moral abstinence. + +‘A hundred and fifty odd pound,’ resumed Mr. Bounderby. ‘That sum of +money, young Tom locked in his safe, not a very strong safe, but that’s +no matter now. Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night, +while this young fellow snored—Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, you say you have +heard him snore?’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I cannot say that I have heard him +precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on +winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard +him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard +him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be +sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty +sense of giving strict evidence, ‘that I would convey any imputation on +his moral character. Far from it. I have always considered Bitzer a +young man of the most upright principle; and to that I beg to bear my +testimony.’ + +‘Well!’ said the exasperated Bounderby, ‘while he was snoring, _or_ +choking, _or_ Dutch-clocking, _or_ something _or_ other—being asleep—some +fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed in the house or not +remains to be seen, got to young Tom’s safe, forced it, and abstracted +the contents. Being then disturbed, they made off; letting themselves +out at the main door, and double-locking it again (it was double-locked, +and the key under Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which was +picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve o’clock to-day. No +alarm takes place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning, and +begins to open and prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at +Tom’s safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and the +money gone.’ + +‘Where is Tom, by the by?’ asked Harthouse, glancing round. + +‘He has been helping the police,’ said Bounderby, ‘and stays behind at +the Bank. I wish these fellows had tried to rob me when I was at his +time of life. They would have been out of pocket if they had invested +eighteenpence in the job; I can tell ’em that.’ + +‘Is anybody suspected?’ + +‘Suspected? I should think there was somebody suspected. Egod!’ said +Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. Sparsit’s arm to wipe his heated head. +‘Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody +suspected. No, thank you!’ + +Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected? + +‘Well,’ said Bounderby, stopping and facing about to confront them all, +‘I’ll tell you. It’s not to be mentioned everywhere; it’s not to be +mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned (there’s a +gang of ’em) may be thrown off their guard. So take this in confidence. +Now wait a bit.’ Mr. Bounderby wiped his head again. ‘What should you +say to;’ here he violently exploded: ‘to a Hand being in it?’ + +‘I hope,’ said Harthouse, lazily, ‘not our friend Blackpot?’ + +‘Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,’ returned Bounderby, ‘and that’s the man.’ + +Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and surprise. + +‘O yes! I know!’ said Bounderby, immediately catching at the sound. ‘I +know! I am used to that. I know all about it. They are the finest +people in the world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of the +gab, they have. They only want to have their rights explained to them, +they do. But I tell you what. Show me a dissatisfied Hand, and I’ll +show you a man that’s fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it is.’ + +Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains had been +taken to disseminate—and which some people really believed. + +‘But I am acquainted with these chaps,’ said Bounderby. ‘I can read ’em +off, like books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I appeal to you. What warning did +I give that fellow, the first time he set foot in the house, when the +express object of his visit was to know how he could knock Religion over, +and floor the Established Church? Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high +connexions, you are on a level with the aristocracy,—did I say, or did I +not say, to that fellow, “you can’t hide the truth from me: you are not +the kind of fellow I like; you’ll come to no good”?’ + +‘Assuredly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you did, in a highly impressive +manner, give him such an admonition.’ + +‘When he shocked you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby; ‘when he shocked your +feelings?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake of her head, ‘he +certainly did so. Though I do not mean to say but that my feelings may +be weaker on such points—more foolish if the term is preferred—than they +might have been, if I had always occupied my present position.’ + +Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, as much as +to say, ‘I am the proprietor of this female, and she’s worth your +attention, I think.’ Then, resumed his discourse. + +‘You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to him when you saw +him. I didn’t mince the matter with him. I am never mealy with ’em. I +KNOW ’em. Very well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went off, +nobody knows where: as my mother did in my infancy—only with this +difference, that he is a worse subject than my mother, if possible. What +did he do before he went? What do you say;’ Mr. Bounderby, with his hat +in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every little division of his +sentences, as if it were a tambourine; ‘to his being seen—night after +night—watching the Bank?—to his lurking about there—after dark?—To its +striking Mrs. Sparsit—that he could be lurking for no good—To her calling +Bitzer’s attention to him, and their both taking notice of him—And to its +appearing on inquiry to-day—that he was also noticed by the neighbours?’ +Having come to the climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put +his tambourine on his head. + +‘Suspicious,’ said James Harthouse, ‘certainly.’ + +‘I think so, sir,’ said Bounderby, with a defiant nod. ‘I think so. But +there are more of ’em in it. There’s an old woman. One never hears of +these things till the mischief’s done; all sorts of defects are found out +in the stable door after the horse is stolen; there’s an old woman turns +up now. An old woman who seems to have been flying into town on a +broomstick, every now and then. _She_ watches the place a whole day +before this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, she steals +away with him and holds a council with him—I suppose, to make her report +on going off duty, and be damned to her.’ + +There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk from +observation, thought Louisa. + +‘This is not all of ’em, even as we already know ’em,’ said Bounderby, +with many nods of hidden meaning. ‘But I have said enough for the +present. You’ll have the goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to no +one. It may take time, but we shall have ’em. It’s policy to give ’em +line enough, and there’s no objection to that.’ + +‘Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, as +notice-boards observe,’ replied James Harthouse, ‘and serve them right. +Fellows who go in for Banks must take the consequences. If there were no +consequences, we should all go in for Banks.’ He had gently taken +Louisa’s parasol from her hand, and had put it up for her; and she walked +under its shade, though the sun did not shine there. + +‘For the present, Loo Bounderby,’ said her husband, ‘here’s Mrs. Sparsit +to look after. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been acted upon by this +business, and she’ll stay here a day or two. So make her comfortable.’ + +‘Thank you very much, sir,’ that discreet lady observed, ‘but pray do not +let My comfort be a consideration. Anything will do for Me.’ + +It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her association +with that domestic establishment, it was that she was so excessively +regardless of herself and regardful of others, as to be a nuisance. On +being shown her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible of its comforts +as to suggest the inference that she would have preferred to pass the +night on the mangle in the laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses +were accustomed to splendour, ‘but it is my duty to remember,’ Mrs. +Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty grace: particularly when any +of the domestics were present, ‘that what I was, I am no longer. +Indeed,’ said she, ‘if I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. +Sparsit was a Powler, or that I myself am related to the Scadgers family; +or if I could even revoke the fact, and make myself a person of common +descent and ordinary connexions; I would gladly do so. I should think +it, under existing circumstances, right to do so.’ The same Hermitical +state of mind led to her renunciation of made dishes and wines at dinner, +until fairly commanded by Mr. Bounderby to take them; when she said, +‘Indeed you are very good, sir;’ and departed from a resolution of which +she had made rather formal and public announcement, to ‘wait for the +simple mutton.’ She was likewise deeply apologetic for wanting the salt; +and, feeling amiably bound to bear out Mr. Bounderby to the fullest +extent in the testimony he had borne to her nerves, occasionally sat back +in her chair and silently wept; at which periods a tear of large +dimensions, like a crystal ear-ring, might be observed (or rather, must +be, for it insisted on public notice) sliding down her Roman nose. + +But Mrs. Sparsit’s greatest point, first and last, was her determination +to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were occasions when in looking at him she +was involuntarily moved to shake her head, as who would say, ‘Alas, poor +Yorick!’ After allowing herself to be betrayed into these evidences of +emotion, she would force a lambent brightness, and would be fitfully +cheerful, and would say, ‘You have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful +to find;’ and would appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. +Bounderby bore up as he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she often +apologized, she found it excessively difficult to conquer. She had a +curious propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby ‘Miss Gradgrind,’ and yielded +to it some three or four score times in the course of the evening. Her +repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest confusion; +but indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss Gradgrind: +whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom she had had the +happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. +Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a further singularity of +this remarkable case, that the more she thought about it, the more +impossible it appeared; ‘the differences,’ she observed, ‘being such.’ + +In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried the case of the +robbery, examined the witnesses, made notes of the evidence, found the +suspected persons guilty, and sentenced them to the extreme punishment of +the law. That done, Bitzer was dismissed to town with instructions to +recommend Tom to come home by the mail-train. + +When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, ‘Don’t be low, sir. +Pray let me see you cheerful, sir, as I used to do.’ Mr. Bounderby, upon +whom these consolations had begun to produce the effect of making him, in +a bull-headed blundering way, sentimental, sighed like some large +sea-animal. ‘I cannot bear to see you so, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Try +a hand at backgammon, sir, as you used to do when I had the honour of +living under your roof.’ ‘I haven’t played backgammon, ma’am,’ said Mr. +Bounderby, ‘since that time.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, +‘I am aware that you have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no +interest in the game. But I shall be happy, sir, if you will +condescend.’ + +They played near a window, opening on the garden. It was a fine night: +not moonlight, but sultry and fragrant. Louisa and Mr. Harthouse +strolled out into the garden, where their voices could be heard in the +stillness, though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, from her place at +the backgammon board, was constantly straining her eyes to pierce the +shadows without. ‘What’s the matter, ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby; ‘you +don’t see a Fire, do you?’ ‘Oh dear no, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I +was thinking of the dew.’ ‘What have you got to do with the dew, ma’am?’ +said Mr. Bounderby. ‘It’s not myself, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I am +fearful of Miss Gradgrind’s taking cold.’ ‘She never takes cold,’ said +Mr. Bounderby. ‘Really, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. And was affected with +a cough in her throat. + +When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a glass of +water. ‘Oh, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Not your sherry warm, with +lemon-peel and nutmeg?’ ‘Why, I have got out of the habit of taking it +now, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘The more’s the pity, sir,’ returned +Mrs. Sparsit; ‘you are losing all your good old habits. Cheer up, sir! +If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will offer to make it for you, as I +have often done.’ + +Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything she +pleased, that considerate lady made the beverage, and handed it to Mr. +Bounderby. ‘It will do you good, sir. It will warm your heart. It is +the sort of thing you want, and ought to take, sir.’ And when Mr. +Bounderby said, ‘Your health, ma’am!’ she answered with great feeling, +‘Thank you, sir. The same to you, and happiness also.’ Finally, she +wished him good night, with great pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, +with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed in something tender, +though he could not, for his life, have mentioned what it was. + +Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and waited for +her brother’s coming home. That could hardly be, she knew, until an hour +past midnight; but in the country silence, which did anything but calm +the trouble of her thoughts, time lagged wearily. At last, when the +darkness and stillness had seemed for hours to thicken one another, she +heard the bell at the gate. She felt as though she would have been glad +that it rang on until daylight; but it ceased, and the circles of its +last sound spread out fainter and wider in the air, and all was dead +again. + +She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. Then she arose, +put on a loose robe, and went out of her room in the dark, and up the +staircase to her brother’s room. His door being shut, she softly opened +it and spoke to him, approaching his bed with a noiseless step. + +She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and drew his +face to hers. She knew that he only feigned to be asleep, but she said +nothing to him. + +He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and asked who that +was, and what was the matter? + +‘Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you loved me in your life, +and have anything concealed from every one besides, tell it to me.’ + +‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo. You have been dreaming.’ + +‘My dear brother:’ she laid her head down on his pillow, and her hair +flowed over him as if she would hide him from every one but herself: ‘is +there nothing that you have to tell me? Is there nothing you can tell me +if you will? You can tell me nothing that will change me. O Tom, tell +me the truth!’ + +‘I don’t know what you mean, Loo!’ + +‘As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy night, so you must lie +somewhere one night, when even I, if I am living then, shall have left +you. As I am here beside you, barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in +darkness, so must I lie through all the night of my decay, until I am +dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell me the truth now!’ + +‘What is it you want to know?’ + +‘You may be certain;’ in the energy of her love she took him to her bosom +as if he were a child; ‘that I will not reproach you. You may be certain +that I will be compassionate and true to you. You may be certain that I +will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have you nothing to tell me? +Whisper very softly. Say only “yes,” and I shall understand you!’ + +She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained doggedly silent. + +‘Not a word, Tom?’ + +‘How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I don’t know what you mean? +Loo, you are a brave, kind girl, worthy I begin to think of a better +brother than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to bed, go to +bed.’ + +‘You are tired,’ she whispered presently, more in her usual way. + +‘Yes, I am quite tired out.’ + +‘You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. Have any fresh +discoveries been made?’ + +‘Only those you have heard of, from—him.’ + +‘Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to those people, and +that we saw those three together?’ + +‘No. Didn’t you yourself particularly ask me to keep it quiet when you +asked me to go there with you?’ + +‘Yes. But I did not know then what was going to happen.’ + +‘Nor I neither. How could I?’ + +He was very quick upon her with this retort. + +‘Ought I to say, after what has happened,’ said his sister, standing by +the bed—she had gradually withdrawn herself and risen, ‘that I made that +visit? Should I say so? Must I say so?’ + +‘Good Heavens, Loo,’ returned her brother, ‘you are not in the habit of +asking my advice. Say what you like. If you keep it to yourself, I +shall keep it to _my_self. If you disclose it, there’s an end of it.’ + +It was too dark for either to see the other’s face; but each seemed very +attentive, and to consider before speaking. + +‘Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is really implicated in +this crime?’ + +‘I don’t know. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.’ + +‘He seemed to me an honest man.’ + +‘Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not be so.’ There was +a pause, for he had hesitated and stopped. + +‘In short,’ resumed Tom, as if he had made up his mind, ‘if you come to +that, perhaps I was so far from being altogether in his favour, that I +took him outside the door to tell him quietly, that I thought he might +consider himself very well off to get such a windfall as he had got from +my sister, and that I hoped he would make good use of it. You remember +whether I took him out or not. I say nothing against the man; he may be +a very good fellow, for anything I know; I hope he is.’ + +‘Was he offended by what you said?’ + +‘No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. Where are you, Loo?’ +He sat up in bed and kissed her. ‘Good night, my dear, good night.’ + +‘You have nothing more to tell me?’ + +‘No. What should I have? You wouldn’t have me tell you a lie!’ + +‘I wouldn’t have you do that to-night, Tom, of all the nights in your +life; many and much happier as I hope they will be.’ + +‘Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am sure I wonder I don’t +say anything to get to sleep. Go to bed, go to bed.’ + +Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his head, and +lay as still as if that time had come by which she had adjured him. She +stood for some time at the bedside before she slowly moved away. She +stopped at the door, looked back when she had opened it, and asked him if +he had called her? But he lay still, and she softly closed the door and +returned to her room. + +Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, crept out +of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his pillow again: +tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but +impenitently spurning himself, and no less hatefully and unprofitably +spurning all the good in the world. + + + +CHAPTER IX +HEARING THE LAST OF IT + + +MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. +Bounderby’s retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, under her +Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an +iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners from that bold +rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy region in its neighbourhood, +but for the placidity of her manner. Although it was hard to believe +that her retiring for the night could be anything but a form, so severely +wide awake were those classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it +seem that her rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her +manner of sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty +mittens (they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of +ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her cotton +stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that most observers would have been +constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some freak of nature, in +the earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked order. + +She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got +from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in +herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping +over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility +of locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance +in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot with +consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full +possession of her breath and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. +Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace. + +She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant conversation +with him soon after her arrival. She made him her stately curtsey in the +garden, one morning before breakfast. + +‘It appears but yesterday, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that I had the +honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to wish to +be made acquainted with Mr. Bounderby’s address.’ + +‘An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the course of +Ages,’ said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. Sparsit with the +most indolent of all possible airs. + +‘We live in a singular world, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to have +made a remark, similar in effect, though not so epigrammatically +expressed.’ + +‘A singular world, I would say, sir,’ pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after +acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows, not +altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its dulcet +tones; ‘as regards the intimacies we form at one time, with individuals +we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that +occasion you went so far as to say you were actually apprehensive of Miss +Gradgrind.’ + +‘Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. I +availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and it is +unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s +talent for—in fact for anything requiring accuracy—with a combination of +strength of mind—and Family—is too habitually developed to admit of any +question.’ He was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took +him so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course +of its execution. + +‘You found Miss Gradgrind—I really cannot call her Mrs. Bounderby; it’s +very absurd of me—as youthful as I described her?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit, +sweetly. + +‘You drew her portrait perfectly,’ said Mr. Harthouse. ‘Presented her +dead image.’ + +‘Very engaging, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly to +revolve over one another. + +‘Highly so.’ + +‘It used to be considered,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘that Miss Gradgrind was +wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me considerably and +strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and indeed here _is_ Mr. +Bounderby!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great many times, as +if she had been talking and thinking of no one else. ‘How do you find +yourself this morning, sir? Pray let us see you cheerful, sir.’ + +Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings of his +load, had by this time begun to have the effect of making Mr. Bounderby +softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder than usual to most +other people from his wife downward. So, when Mrs. Sparsit said with +forced lightness of heart, ‘You want your breakfast, sir, but I dare say +Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to preside at the table,’ Mr. Bounderby +replied, ‘If I waited to be taken care of by my wife, ma’am, I believe +you know pretty well I should wait till Doomsday, so I’ll trouble _you_ +to take charge of the teapot.’ Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her +old position at table. + +This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so +humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting she never +could think of sitting in that place under existing circumstances, often +as she had had the honour of making Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast, before +Mrs. Gradgrind—she begged pardon, she meant to say Miss Bounderby—she +hoped to be excused, but she really could not get it right yet, though +she trusted to become familiar with it by and by—had assumed her present +position. It was only (she observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to +be a little late, and Mr. Bounderby’s time was so very precious, and she +knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the moment, +that she had taken the liberty of complying with his request; long as his +will had been a law to her. + +‘There! Stop where you are, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘stop where you +are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I +believe.’ + +‘Don’t say that, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity, +‘because that is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind is not +to be you, sir.’ + +‘You may set your mind at rest, ma’am.—You can take it very quietly, +can’t you, Loo?’ said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering way to his wife. + +‘Of course. It is of no moment. Why should it be of any importance to +me?’ + +‘Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’ +said Mr. Bounderby, swelling with a sense of slight. ‘You attach too +much importance to these things, ma’am. By George, you’ll be corrupted +in some of your notions here. You are old-fashioned, ma’am. You are +behind Tom Gradgrind’s children’s time.’ + +‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Louisa, coldly surprised. ‘What has +given you offence?’ + +‘Offence!’ repeated Bounderby. ‘Do you suppose if there was any offence +given me, I shouldn’t name it, and request to have it corrected? I am a +straightforward man, I believe. I don’t go beating about for +side-winds.’ + +‘I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too diffident, or too +delicate,’ Louisa answered him composedly: ‘I have never made that +objection to you, either as a child or as a woman. I don’t understand +what you would have.’ + +‘Have?’ returned Mr. Bounderby. ‘Nothing. Otherwise, don’t you, Loo +Bounderby, know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, +would have it?’ + +She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups ring, with +a proud colour in her face that was a new change, Mr. Harthouse thought. +‘You are incomprehensible this morning,’ said Louisa. ‘Pray take no +further trouble to explain yourself. I am not curious to know your +meaning. What does it matter?’ + +Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay +on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. +Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and +strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband and confidence +against him with another, into which she had fallen by degrees so fine +that she could not retrace them if she tried. But whether she ever tried +or no, lay hidden in her own closed heart. + +Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion, that, +assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after breakfast, and being then alone +with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste kiss upon his hand, murmured +‘My benefactor!’ and retired, overwhelmed with grief. Yet it is an +indubitable fact, within the cognizance of this history, that five +minutes after he had left the house in the self-same hat, the same +descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony of the Powlers, +shook her right-hand mitten at his portrait, made a contemptuous grimace +at that work of art, and said ‘Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad +of it.’ + +Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer appeared. Bitzer had +come down by train, shrieking and rattling over the long line of arches +that bestrode the wild country of past and present coal-pits, with an +express from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to inform Louisa that Mrs. +Gradgrind lay very ill. She had never been well within her daughter’s +knowledge; but, she had declined within the last few days, had continued +sinking all through the night, and was now as nearly dead, as her limited +capacity of being in any state that implied the ghost of an intention to +get out of it, allowed. + +Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colourless servitor at +Death’s door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, Louisa rumbled to Coketown, +over the coal-pits past and present, and was whirled into its smoky jaws. +She dismissed the messenger to his own devices, and rode away to her old +home. + +She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her father was usually +sifting and sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap in London (without +being observed to turn up many precious articles among the rubbish), and +was still hard at it in the national dust-yard. Her mother had taken it +rather as a disturbance than otherwise, to be visited, as she reclined +upon her sofa; young people, Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy she +had never softened to again, since the night when the stroller’s child +had raised her eyes to look at Mr. Bounderby’s intended wife. She had no +inducements to go back, and had rarely gone. + +Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the best +influences of old home descend upon her. The dreams of childhood—its +airy fables; its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of +the world beyond: so good to be believed in once, so good to be +remembered when outgrown, for then the least among them rises to the +stature of a great Charity in the heart, suffering little children to +come into the midst of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in +the stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all the children +of Adam that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and +not worldly-wise—what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she +had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the enchanted roads of what +she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, +first coming upon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had seen +it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as itself; not a grim +Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and its big +dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, never to be moved by anything +but so many calculated tons of leverage—what had she to do with these? +Her remembrances of home and childhood were remembrances of the drying up +of every spring and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The +golden waters were not there. They were flowing for the fertilization of +the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles. + +She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her, into the house +and into her mother’s room. Since the time of her leaving home, Sissy +had lived with the rest of the family on equal terms. Sissy was at her +mother’s side; and Jane, her sister, now ten or twelve years old, was in +the room. + +There was great trouble before it could be made known to Mrs. Gradgrind +that her eldest child was there. She reclined, propped up, from mere +habit, on a couch: as nearly in her old usual attitude, as anything so +helpless could be kept in. She had positively refused to take to her +bed; on the ground that if she did, she would never hear the last of it. + +Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle of shawls, and the +sound of another voice addressing her seemed to take such a long time in +getting down to her ears, that she might have been lying at the bottom of +a well. The poor lady was nearer Truth than she ever had been: which had +much to do with it. + +On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she replied, at +cross-purposes, that she had never called him by that name since he +married Louisa; that pending her choice of an objectionable name, she had +called him J; and that she could not at present depart from that +regulation, not being yet provided with a permanent substitute. Louisa +had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken to her often, before she +arrived at a clear understanding who it was. She then seemed to come to +it all at once. + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘and I hope you are going on +satisfactorily to yourself. It was all your father’s doing. He set his +heart upon it. And he ought to know.’ + +‘I want to hear of you, mother; not of myself.’ + +‘You want to hear of me, my dear? That’s something new, I am sure, when +anybody wants to hear of me. Not at all well, Louisa. Very faint and +giddy.’ + +‘Are you in pain, dear mother?’ + +‘I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘but +I couldn’t positively say that I have got it.’ + +After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. Louisa, holding +her hand, could feel no pulse; but kissing it, could see a slight thin +thread of life in fluttering motion. + +‘You very seldom see your sister,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind. ‘She grows like +you. I wish you would look at her. Sissy, bring her here.’ + +She was brought, and stood with her hand in her sister’s. Louisa had +observed her with her arm round Sissy’s neck, and she felt the difference +of this approach. + +‘Do you see the likeness, Louisa?’ + +‘Yes, mother. I should think her like me. But—’ + +‘Eh! Yes, I always say so,’ Mrs. Gradgrind cried, with unexpected +quickness. ‘And that reminds me. I—I want to speak to you, my dear. +Sissy, my good girl, leave us alone a minute.’ Louisa had relinquished +the hand: had thought that her sister’s was a better and brighter face +than hers had ever been: had seen in it, not without a rising feeling of +resentment, even in that place and at that time, something of the +gentleness of the other face in the room; the sweet face with the +trusting eyes, made paler than watching and sympathy made it, by the rich +dark hair. + +Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with an awful lull upon +her face, like one who was floating away upon some great water, all +resistance over, content to be carried down the stream. She put the +shadow of a hand to her lips again, and recalled her. + +‘You were going to speak to me, mother.’ + +‘Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your father is almost always +away now, and therefore I must write to him about it.’ + +‘About what, mother? Don’t be troubled. About what?’ + +‘You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have said anything, on any +subject, I have never heard the last of it: and consequently, that I have +long left off saying anything.’ + +‘I can hear you, mother.’ But, it was only by dint of bending down to +her ear, and at the same time attentively watching the lips as they +moved, that she could link such faint and broken sounds into any chain of +connexion. + +‘You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies of +all kinds from morning to night. If there is any Ology left, of any +description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say +is, I hope I shall never hear its name.’ + +‘I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go on.’ This, to keep +her from floating away. + +‘But there is something—not an Ology at all—that your father has missed, +or forgotten, Louisa. I don’t know what it is. I have often sat with +Sissy near me, and thought about it. I shall never get its name now. +But your father may. It makes me restless. I want to write to him, to +find out for God’s sake, what it is. Give me a pen, give me a pen.’ + +Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from the poor head, which +could just turn from side to side. + +She fancied, however, that her request had been complied with, and that +the pen she could not have held was in her hand. It matters little what +figures of wonderful no-meaning she began to trace upon her wrappers. +The hand soon stopped in the midst of them; the light that had always +been feeble and dim behind the weak transparency, went out; and even Mrs. +Gradgrind, emerged from the shadow in which man walketh and disquieteth +himself in vain, took upon her the dread solemnity of the sages and +patriarchs. + + + +CHAPTER X +MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE + + +MRS. SPARSIT’S nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman +made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, where, +notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based upon her becoming +consciousness of her altered station, she resigned herself with noble +fortitude to lodging, as one may say, in clover, and feeding on the fat +of the land. During the whole term of this recess from the guardianship +of the Bank, Mrs. Sparsit was a pattern of consistency; continuing to +take such pity on Mr. Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, +and to call his portrait a Noodle to _its_ face, with the greatest +acrimony and contempt. + +Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition that Mrs. +Sparsit was a highly superior woman to perceive that he had that general +cross upon him in his deserts (for he had not yet settled what it was), +and further that Louisa would have objected to her as a frequent visitor +if it had comported with his greatness that she should object to anything +he chose to do, resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So +when her nerves were strung up to the pitch of again consuming +sweetbreads in solitude, he said to her at the dinner-table, on the day +before her departure, ‘I tell you what, ma’am; you shall come down here +of a Saturday, while the fine weather lasts, and stay till Monday.’ To +which Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect, though not of the Mahomedan +persuasion: ‘To hear is to obey.’ + +Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an idea in the +nature of an allegorical fancy, into her head. Much watching of Louisa, +and much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanour, which +keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit’s edge, must have given her as +it were a lift, in the way of inspiration. She erected in her mind a +mighty Staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and +down those stairs, from day to day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa +coming. + +It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit’s life, to look up at her +staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down. Sometimes slowly, sometimes +quickly, sometimes several steps at one bout, sometimes stopping, never +turning back. If she had once turned back, it might have been the death +of Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief. + +She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, when Mr. +Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded above. Mrs. Sparsit was +in good spirits, and inclined to be conversational. + +‘And pray, sir,’ said she, ‘if I may venture to ask a question +appertaining to any subject on which you show reserve—which is indeed +hardy in me, for I well know you have a reason for everything you do—have +you received intelligence respecting the robbery?’ + +‘Why, ma’am, no; not yet. Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect it +yet. Rome wasn’t built in a day, ma’am.’ + +‘Very true, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head. + +‘Nor yet in a week, ma’am.’ + +‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a gentle melancholy upon +her. + +‘In a similar manner, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘I can wait, you know. If +Romulus and Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were +better off in their youth than I was, however. They had a she-wolf for a +nurse; I had only a she-wolf for a grandmother. She didn’t give any +milk, ma’am; she gave bruises. She was a regular Alderney at that.’ + +‘Ah!’ Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered. + +‘No, ma’am,’ continued Bounderby, ‘I have not heard anything more about +it. It’s in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather sticks to business +at present—something new for him; he hadn’t the schooling _I_ had—is +helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over. +Do what you like under the rose, but don’t give a sign of what you’re +about; or half a hundred of ’em will combine together and get this fellow +who has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves +will grow in confidence by little and little, and we shall have ’em.’ + +‘Very sagacious indeed, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Very interesting. The +old woman you mentioned, sir—’ + +‘The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, cutting the matter +short, as it was nothing to boast about, ‘is not laid hold of; but, she +may take her oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her +villainous old mind. In the mean time, ma’am, I am of opinion, if you +ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked about, the better.’ + +The same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from her +packing operations, looked towards her great staircase and saw Louisa +still descending. + +She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very low; +he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, and his face +almost touched her hair. ‘If not quite!’ said Mrs. Sparsit, straining +her hawk’s eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear a +word of their discourse, or even to know that they were speaking softly, +otherwise than from the expression of their figures; but what they said +was this: + +‘You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?’ + +‘Oh, perfectly!’ + +‘His face, and his manner, and what he said?’ + +‘Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be. +Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was knowing to hold forth, in the +humble-virtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the +time, “My good fellow, you are over-doing this!”’ + +‘It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that man.’ + +‘My dear Louisa—as Tom says.’ Which he never did say. ‘You know no good +of the fellow?’ + +‘No, certainly.’ + +‘Nor of any other such person?’ + +‘How can I,’ she returned, with more of her first manner on her than he +had lately seen, ‘when I know nothing of them, men or women?’ + +‘My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive representation of +your devoted friend, who knows something of several varieties of his +excellent fellow-creatures—for excellent they are, I am quite ready to +believe, in spite of such little foibles as always helping themselves to +what they can get hold of. This fellow talks. Well; every fellow talks. +He professes morality. Well; all sorts of humbugs profess morality. +From the House of Commons to the House of Correction, there is a general +profession of morality, except among our people; it really is that +exception which makes our people quite reviving. You saw and heard the +case. Here was one of the fluffy classes pulled up extremely short by my +esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby—who, as we know, is not possessed of that +delicacy which would soften so tight a hand. The member of the fluffy +classes was injured, exasperated, left the house grumbling, met somebody +who proposed to him to go in for some share in this Bank business, went +in, put something in his pocket which had nothing in it before, and +relieved his mind extremely. Really he would have been an uncommon, +instead of a common, fellow, if he had not availed himself of such an +opportunity. Or he may have originated it altogether, if he had the +cleverness.’ + +‘I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,’ returned Louisa, after +sitting thoughtful awhile, ‘to be so ready to agree with you, and to be +so lightened in my heart by what you say.’ + +‘I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I have talked it over +with my friend Tom more than once—of course I remain on terms of perfect +confidence with Tom—and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of his. +Will you walk?’ + +They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct in the +twilight—she leaning on his arm—and she little thought how she was going +down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase. + +Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When Louisa had arrived at +the bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it might fall in upon her if it +would; but, until then, there it was to be, a Building, before Mrs. +Sparsit’s eyes. And there Louisa always was, upon it. + +And always gliding down, down, down! + +Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she heard of him here and +there; she saw the changes of the face he had studied; she, too, remarked +to a nicety how and when it clouded, how and when it cleared; she kept +her black eyes wide open, with no touch of pity, with no touch of +compunction, all absorbed in interest. In the interest of seeing her, +ever drawing, with no hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the bottom +of this new Giant’s Staircase. + +With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as contradistinguished from his +portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the smallest intention of interrupting the +descent. Eager to see it accomplished, and yet patient, she waited for +the last fall, as for the ripeness and fulness of the harvest of her +hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary gaze upon the stairs; and +seldom so much as darkly shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at +the figure coming down. + + + +CHAPTER XI +LOWER AND LOWER + + +THE figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always +verging, like a weight in deep water, to the black gulf at the bottom. + +Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s decease, made an expedition from +London, and buried her in a business-like manner. He then returned with +promptitude to the national cinder-heap, and resumed his sifting for the +odds and ends he wanted, and his throwing of the dust about into the eyes +of other people who wanted other odds and ends—in fact resumed his +parliamentary duties. + +In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch and ward. Separated +from her staircase, all the week, by the length of iron road dividing +Coketown from the country house, she yet maintained her cat-like +observation of Louisa, through her husband, through her brother, through +James Harthouse, through the outsides of letters and packets, through +everything animate and inanimate that at any time went near the stairs. +‘Your foot on the last step, my lady,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, apostrophizing +the descending figure, with the aid of her threatening mitten, ‘and all +your art shall never blind me.’ + +Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa’s character or the +graft of circumstances upon it,—her curious reserve did baffle, while it +stimulated, one as sagacious as Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr. +James Harthouse was not sure of her. There were times when he could not +read the face he had studied so long; and when this lonely girl was a +greater mystery to him, than any woman of the world with a ring of +satellites to help her. + +So the time went on; until it happened that Mr. Bounderby was called away +from home by business which required his presence elsewhere, for three or +four days. It was on a Friday that he intimated this to Mrs. Sparsit at +the Bank, adding: ‘But you’ll go down to-morrow, ma’am, all the same. +You’ll go down just as if I was there. It will make no difference to +you.’ + +‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, ‘let me beg you not to +say that. Your absence will make a vast difference to me, sir, as I +think you very well know.’ + +‘Well, ma’am, then you must get on in my absence as well as you can,’ +said Mr. Bounderby, not displeased. + +‘Mr. Bounderby,’ retorted Mrs. Sparsit, ‘your will is to me a law, sir; +otherwise, it might be my inclination to dispute your kind commands, not +feeling sure that it will be quite so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind to +receive me, as it ever is to your own munificent hospitality. But you +shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your invitation.’ + +‘Why, when I invite you to my house, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, opening his +eyes, ‘I should hope you want no other invitation.’ + +‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘I should hope not. Say no +more, sir. I would, sir, I could see you gay again.’ + +‘What do you mean, ma’am?’ blustered Bounderby. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, ‘there was wont to be an elasticity in you +which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, sir!’ + +Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult adjuration, backed +up by her compassionate eye, could only scratch his head in a feeble and +ridiculous manner, and afterwards assert himself at a distance, by being +heard to bully the small fry of business all the morning. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when her patron was gone on +his journey, and the Bank was closing, ‘present my compliments to young +Mr. Thomas, and ask him if he would step up and partake of a lamb chop +and walnut ketchup, with a glass of India ale?’ Young Mr. Thomas being +usually ready for anything in that way, returned a gracious answer, and +followed on its heels. ‘Mr. Thomas,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘these plain +viands being on table, I thought you might be tempted.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said the whelp. And gloomily fell to. + +‘How is Mr. Harthouse, Mr. Tom?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. + +‘Oh, he’s all right,’ said Tom. + +‘Where may he be at present?’ Mrs. Sparsit asked in a light +conversational manner, after mentally devoting the whelp to the Furies +for being so uncommunicative. + +‘He is shooting in Yorkshire,’ said Tom. ‘Sent Loo a basket half as big +as a church, yesterday.’ + +‘The kind of gentleman, now,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly, ‘whom one might +wager to be a good shot!’ + +‘Crack,’ said Tom. + +He had long been a down-looking young fellow, but this characteristic had +so increased of late, that he never raised his eyes to any face for three +seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit consequently had ample means of watching +his looks, if she were so inclined. + +‘Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of mine,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘as +indeed he is of most people. May we expect to see him again shortly, Mr. +Tom?’ + +‘Why, _I_ expect to see him to-morrow,’ returned the whelp. + +‘Good news!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, blandly. + +‘I have got an appointment with him to meet him in the evening at the +station here,’ said Tom, ‘and I am going to dine with him afterwards, I +believe. He is not coming down to the country house for a week or so, +being due somewhere else. At least, he says so; but I shouldn’t wonder +if he was to stop here over Sunday, and stray that way.’ + +‘Which reminds me!’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Would you remember a message to +your sister, Mr. Tom, if I was to charge you with one?’ + +‘Well? I’ll try,’ returned the reluctant whelp, ‘if it isn’t a long un.’ + +‘It is merely my respectful compliments,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘and I fear +I may not trouble her with my society this week; being still a little +nervous, and better perhaps by my poor self.’ + +‘Oh! If that’s all,’ observed Tom, ‘it wouldn’t much matter, even if I +was to forget it, for Loo’s not likely to think of you unless she sees +you.’ + +Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable compliment, he +relapsed into a hangdog silence until there was no more India ale left, +when he said, ‘Well, Mrs. Sparsit, I must be off!’ and went off. + +Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window all day long looking +at the customers coming in and out, watching the postmen, keeping an eye +on the general traffic of the street, revolving many things in her mind, +but, above all, keeping her attention on her staircase. The evening +come, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and went quietly out: having her +reasons for hovering in a furtive way about the station by which a +passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, and for preferring to peep into it +round pillars and corners, and out of ladies’ waiting-room windows, to +appearing in its precincts openly. + +Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the expected train came +in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. Tom waited until the crowd had +dispersed, and the bustle was over; and then referred to a posted list of +trains, and took counsel with porters. That done, he strolled away idly, +stopping in the street and looking up it and down it, and lifting his hat +off and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and +exhibiting all the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one who +had still to wait until the next train should come in, an hour and forty +minutes hence. + +‘This is a device to keep him out of the way,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, +starting from the dull office window whence she had watched him last. +‘Harthouse is with his sister now!’ + +It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off with her +utmost swiftness to work it out. The station for the country house was +at the opposite end of the town, the time was short, the road not easy; +but she was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged coach, so quick in +darting out of it, producing her money, seizing her ticket, and diving +into the train, that she was borne along the arches spanning the land of +coal-pits past and present, as if she had been caught up in a cloud and +whirled away. + +All the journey, immovable in the air though never left behind; plain to +the dark eyes of her mind, as the electric wires which ruled a colossal +strip of music-paper out of the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes +of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, with the figure coming down. +Very near the bottom now. Upon the brink of the abyss. + +An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath its +drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass down the +wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it into a +green lane, and become hidden in a summer-growth of leaves and branches. +One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their nests, and a bat heavily +crossing and recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick +dust that felt like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she +very softly closed a gate. + +She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went round +it, peeping between the leaves at the lower windows. Most of them were +open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but there were no lights +yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden with no better effect. +She thought of the wood, and stole towards it, heedless of long grass and +briers: of worms, snails, and slugs, and all the creeping things that be. +With her dark eyes and her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. +Sparsit softly crushed her way through the thick undergrowth, so intent +upon her object that she probably would have done no less, if the wood +had been a wood of adders. + +Hark! + +The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, fascinated by +the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes in the gloom, as she stopped and +listened. + +Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The appointment _was_ a +device to keep the brother away! There they were yonder, by the felled +tree. + +Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit advanced closer to them. +She drew herself up, and stood behind a tree, like Robinson Crusoe in his +ambuscade against the savages; so near to them that at a spring, and that +no great one, she could have touched them both. He was there secretly, +and had not shown himself at the house. He had come on horseback, and +must have passed through the neighbouring fields; for his horse was tied +to the meadow side of the fence, within a few paces. + +‘My dearest love,’ said he, ‘what could I do? Knowing you were alone, +was it possible that I could stay away?’ + +‘You may hang your head, to make yourself the more attractive; _I_ don’t +know what they see in you when you hold it up,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit; +‘but you little think, my dearest love, whose eyes are on you!’ + +That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him to go away, she +commanded him to go away; but she neither turned her face to him, nor +raised it. Yet it was remarkable that she sat as still as ever the +amiable woman in ambuscade had seen her sit, at any period in her life. +Her hands rested in one another, like the hands of a statue; and even her +manner of speaking was not hurried. + +‘My dear child,’ said Harthouse; Mrs. Sparsit saw with delight that his +arm embraced her; ‘will you not bear with my society for a little while?’ + +‘Not here.’ + +‘Where, Louisa? + +‘Not here.’ + +‘But we have so little time to make so much of, and I have come so far, +and am altogether so devoted, and distracted. There never was a slave at +once so devoted and ill-used by his mistress. To look for your sunny +welcome that has warmed me into life, and to be received in your frozen +manner, is heart-rending.’ + +‘Am I to say again, that I must be left to myself here?’ + +‘But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where shall we meet?’ + +They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too; for she thought +there was another listener among the trees. It was only rain, beginning +to fall fast, in heavy drops. + +‘Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently supposing +that its master is at home and will be charmed to receive me?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though I am the most +unfortunate fellow in the world, I believe, to have been insensible to +all other women, and to have fallen prostrate at last under the foot of +the most beautiful, and the most engaging, and the most imperious. My +dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let you go, in this hard abuse of +your power.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and heard him +then and there, within her (Mrs. Sparsit’s) greedy hearing, tell her how +he loved her, and how she was the stake for which he ardently desired to +play away all that he had in life. The objects he had lately pursued, +turned worthless beside her; such success as was almost in his grasp, he +flung away from him like the dirt it was, compared with her. Its +pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him near her, or its renunciation if it +took him from her, or flight if she shared it, or secrecy if she +commanded it, or any fate, or every fate, all was alike to him, so that +she was true to him,—the man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she +had inspired at their first meeting with an admiration, an interest, of +which he had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her +confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her. All this, and more, +in his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl of her own gratified malice, in +the dread of being discovered, in the rapidly increasing noise of heavy +rain among the leaves, and a thunderstorm rolling up—Mrs. Sparsit +received into her mind, set off with such an unavoidable halo of +confusion and indistinctness, that when at length he climbed the fence +and led his horse away, she was not sure where they were to meet, or +when, except that they had said it was to be that night. + +But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and while she +tracked that one she must be right. ‘Oh, my dearest love,’ thought Mrs. +Sparsit, ‘you little think how well attended you are!’ + +Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the house. What +to do next? It rained now, in a sheet of water. Mrs. Sparsit’s white +stockings were of many colours, green predominating; prickly things were +in her shoes; caterpillars slung themselves, in hammocks of their own +making, from various parts of her dress; rills ran from her bonnet, and +her Roman nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in the +density of the shrubbery, considering what next? + +Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and muffled, and +stealing away. She elopes! She falls from the lowermost stair, and is +swallowed up in the gulf. + +Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, she +struck into a side-path parallel with the ride. Mrs. Sparsit followed in +the shadow of the trees, at but a short distance; for it was not easy to +keep a figure in view going quickly through the umbrageous darkness. + +When she stopped to close the side-gate without noise, Mrs. Sparsit +stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit went on. She went by the way +Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from the green lane, crossed the stony +road, and ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train for +Coketown would come through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew; so she +understood Coketown to be her first place of destination. + +In Mrs. Sparsit’s limp and streaming state, no extensive precautions were +necessary to change her usual appearance; but, she stopped under the lee +of the station wall, tumbled her shawl into a new shape, and put it on +over her bonnet. So disguised she had no fear of being recognized when +she followed up the railroad steps, and paid her money in the small +office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in +another corner. Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, and to the +rain, as it washed off the roof, and pattered on the parapets of the +arches. Two or three lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw +the lightning to advantage as it quivered and zigzagged on the iron +tracks. + +The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually deepening +to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. Fire and steam, and +smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a bell, and a shriek; Louisa put +into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another: the little station a +desert speck in the thunderstorm. + +Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and cold, Mrs. Sparsit +exulted hugely. The figure had plunged down the precipice, and she felt +herself, as it were, attending on the body. Could she, who had been so +active in the getting up of the funeral triumph, do less than exult? +‘She will be at Coketown long before him,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, ‘though +his horse is never so good. Where will she wait for him? And where will +they go together? Patience. We shall see.’ + +The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when the train stopped +at its destination. Gutters and pipes had burst, drains had overflowed, +and streets were under water. In the first instant of alighting, Mrs. +Sparsit turned her distracted eyes towards the waiting coaches, which +were in great request. ‘She will get into one,’ she considered, ‘and +will be away before I can follow in another. At all risks of being run +over, I must see the number, and hear the order given to the coachman.’ + +But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa got into no +coach, and was already gone. The black eyes kept upon the +railroad-carriage in which she had travelled, settled upon it a moment +too late. The door not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit +passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and found it empty. +Wet through and through: with her feet squelching and squashing in her +shoes whenever she moved; with a rash of rain upon her classical visage; +with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig; with all her clothes spoiled; with +damp impressions of every button, string, and hook-and-eye she wore, +printed off upon her highly connected back; with a stagnant verdure on +her general exterior, such as accumulates on an old park fence in a +mouldy lane; Mrs. Sparsit had no resource but to burst into tears of +bitterness and say, ‘I have lost her!’ + + + +CHAPTER XII +DOWN + + +THE national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great many +noisy little fights among themselves, had dispersed for the present, and +Mr. Gradgrind was at home for the vacation. + +He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, proving +something no doubt—probably, in the main, that the Good Samaritan was a +Bad Economist. The noise of the rain did not disturb him much; but it +attracted his attention sufficiently to make him raise his head +sometimes, as if he were rather remonstrating with the elements. When it +thundered very loudly, he glanced towards Coketown, having it in his mind +that some of the tall chimneys might be struck by lightning. + +The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was pouring down like +a deluge, when the door of his room opened. He looked round the lamp +upon his table, and saw, with amazement, his eldest daughter. + +‘Louisa!’ + +‘Father, I want to speak to you.’ + +‘What is the matter? How strange you look! And good Heaven,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, wondering more and more, ‘have you come here exposed to this +storm?’ + +She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. ‘Yes.’ Then she +uncovered her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall where they might, +stood looking at him: so colourless, so dishevelled, so defiant and +despairing, that he was afraid of her. + +‘What is it? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what is the matter.’ + +She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on his arm. + +‘Father, you have trained me from my cradle?’ + +‘Yes, Louisa.’ + +‘I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.’ + +He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: ‘Curse the hour? +Curse the hour?’ + +‘How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable +things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the +graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you +done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have +bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!’ + +She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom. + +‘If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in +which my whole life sinks. I did not mean to say this; but, father, you +remember the last time we conversed in this room?’ + +He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was with +difficulty he answered, ‘Yes, Louisa.’ + +‘What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my lips then, if you +had given me a moment’s help. I don’t reproach you, father. What you +have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself; but O! if +you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, what a +much better and much happier creature I should have been this day!’ + +On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his hand and +groaned aloud. + +‘Father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what even I +feared while I strove against it—as it has been my task from infancy to +strive against every natural prompting that has arisen in my heart; if +you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, +affections, weaknesses capable of being cherished into strength, defying +all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his +arithmetic than his Creator is,—would you have given me to the husband +whom I am now sure that I hate?’ + +He said, ‘No. No, my poor child.’ + +‘Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and blight that have +hardened and spoiled me? Would you have robbed me—for no one’s +enrichment—only for the greater desolation of this world—of the +immaterial part of my life, the spring and summer of my belief, my refuge +from what is sordid and bad in the real things around me, my school in +which I should have learned to be more humble and more trusting with +them, and to hope in my little sphere to make them better?’ + +‘O no, no. No, Louisa.’ + +‘Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped my way by my +sense of touch, and had been free, while I knew the shapes and surfaces +of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in regard to them; I should +have been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, +more innocent and human in all good respects, than I am with the eyes I +have. Now, hear what I have come to say.’ + +He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising as he did so, they +stood close together: she, with a hand upon his shoulder, looking fixedly +in his face. + +‘With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have never been for a +moment appeased; with an ardent impulse towards some region where rules, +and figures, and definitions were not quite absolute; I have grown up, +battling every inch of my way.’ + +‘I never knew you were unhappy, my child.’ + +‘Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have almost repulsed and +crushed my better angel into a demon. What I have learned has left me +doubting, misbelieving, despising, regretting, what I have not learned; +and my dismal resource has been to think that life would soon go by, and +that nothing in it could be worth the pain and trouble of a contest.’ + +‘And you so young, Louisa!’ he said with pity. + +‘And I so young. In this condition, father—for I show you now, without +fear or favour, the ordinary deadened state of my mind as I know it—you +proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made a pretence to him +or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father, you knew, and he knew, +that I never did. I was not wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of +being pleasant and useful to Tom. I made that wild escape into something +visionary, and have slowly found out how wild it was. But Tom had been +the subject of all the little tenderness of my life; perhaps he became so +because I knew so well how to pity him. It matters little now, except as +it may dispose you to think more leniently of his errors.’ + +As her father held her in his arms, she put her other hand upon his other +shoulder, and still looking fixedly in his face, went on. + +‘When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into rebellion against the +tie, the old strife, made fiercer by all those causes of disparity which +arise out of our two individual natures, and which no general laws shall +ever rule or state for me, father, until they shall be able to direct the +anatomist where to strike his knife into the secrets of my soul.’ + +‘Louisa!’ he said, and said imploringly; for he well remembered what had +passed between them in their former interview. + +‘I do not reproach you, father, I make no complaint. I am here with +another object.’ + +‘What can I do, child? Ask me what you will.’ + +‘I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into my way a new +acquaintance; a man such as I had had no experience of; used to the +world; light, polished, easy; making no pretences; avowing the low +estimate of everything, that I was half afraid to form in secret; +conveying to me almost immediately, though I don’t know how or by what +degrees, that he understood me, and read my thoughts. I could not find +that he was worse than I. There seemed to be a near affinity between us. +I only wondered it should be worth his while, who cared for nothing else, +to care so much for me.’ + +‘For you, Louisa!’ + +Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, but that he felt +her strength departing from her, and saw a wild dilating fire in the eyes +steadfastly regarding him. + +‘I say nothing of his plea for claiming my confidence. It matters very +little how he gained it. Father, he did gain it. What you know of the +story of my marriage, he soon knew, just as well.’ + +Her father’s face was ashy white, and he held her in both his arms. + +‘I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. But if you ask me +whether I have loved him, or do love him, I tell you plainly, father, +that it may be so. I don’t know.’ + +She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders, and pressed them both +upon her side; while in her face, not like itself—and in her figure, +drawn up, resolute to finish by a last effort what she had to say—the +feelings long suppressed broke loose. + +‘This night, my husband being away, he has been with me, declaring +himself my lover. This minute he expects me, for I could release myself +of his presence by no other means. I do not know that I am sorry, I do +not know that I am ashamed, I do not know that I am degraded in my own +esteem. All that I know is, your philosophy and your teaching will not +save me. Now, father, you have brought me to this. Save me by some +other means!’ + +He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the floor, but +she cried out in a terrible voice, ‘I shall die if you hold me! Let me +fall upon the ground!’ And he laid her down there, and saw the pride of +his heart and the triumph of his system, lying, an insensible heap, at +his feet. + + * * * * * + + END OF THE SECOND BOOK + + + + +BOOK THE THIRD +_GARNERING_ + + +CHAPTER I +ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL + + +LOUISA awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly opened on her old bed +at home, and her old room. It seemed, at first, as if all that had +happened since the days when these objects were familiar to her were the +shadows of a dream, but gradually, as the objects became more real to her +sight, the events became more real to her mind. + +She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her eyes were +strained and sore, and she was very weak. A curious passive inattention +had such possession of her, that the presence of her little sister in the +room did not attract her notice for some time. Even when their eyes had +met, and her sister had approached the bed, Louisa lay for minutes +looking at her in silence, and suffering her timidly to hold her passive +hand, before she asked: + +‘When was I brought to this room?’ + +‘Last night, Louisa.’ + +‘Who brought me here?’ + +‘Sissy, I believe.’ + +‘Why do you believe so?’ + +‘Because I found her here this morning. She didn’t come to my bedside to +wake me, as she always does; and I went to look for her. She was not in +her own room either; and I went looking for her all over the house, until +I found her here taking care of you and cooling your head. Will you see +father? Sissy said I was to tell him when you woke.’ + +‘What a beaming face you have, Jane!’ said Louisa, as her young +sister—timidly still—bent down to kiss her. + +‘Have I? I am very glad you think so. I am sure it must be Sissy’s +doing.’ + +The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent itself. ‘You +can tell father if you will.’ Then, staying her for a moment, she said, +‘It was you who made my room so cheerful, and gave it this look of +welcome?’ + +‘Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. It was—’ + +Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. When her sister had +withdrawn, she turned her head back again, and lay with her face towards +the door, until it opened and her father entered. + +He had a jaded anxious look upon him, and his hand, usually steady, +trembled in hers. He sat down at the side of the bed, tenderly asking +how she was, and dwelling on the necessity of her keeping very quiet +after her agitation and exposure to the weather last night. He spoke in +a subdued and troubled voice, very different from his usual dictatorial +manner; and was often at a loss for words. + +‘My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.’ He was so much at a loss at that +place, that he stopped altogether. He tried again. + +‘My unfortunate child.’ The place was so difficult to get over, that he +tried again. + +‘It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavour to tell you how +overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by what broke upon me last night. +The ground on which I stand has ceased to be solid under my feet. The +only support on which I leaned, and the strength of which it seemed, and +still does seem, impossible to question, has given way in an instant. I +am stunned by these discoveries. I have no selfish meaning in what I +say; but I find the shock of what broke upon me last night, to be very +heavy indeed.’ + +She could give him no comfort herein. She had suffered the wreck of her +whole life upon the rock. + +‘I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any happy chance undeceived +me some time ago, it would have been better for us both; better for your +peace, and better for mine. For I am sensible that it may not have been +a part of my system to invite any confidence of that kind. I had proved +my—my system to myself, and I have rigidly administered it; and I must +bear the responsibility of its failures. I only entreat you to believe, +my favourite child, that I have meant to do right.’ + +He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In gauging +fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, and in staggering over +the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do +great things. Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled +about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of +purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept. + +‘I am well assured of what you say, father. I know I have been your +favourite child. I know you have intended to make me happy. I have +never blamed you, and I never shall.’ + +He took her outstretched hand, and retained it in his. + +‘My dear, I have remained all night at my table, pondering again and +again on what has so painfully passed between us. When I consider your +character; when I consider that what has been known to me for hours, has +been concealed by you for years; when I consider under what immediate +pressure it has been forced from you at last; I come to the conclusion +that I cannot but mistrust myself.’ + +He might have added more than all, when he saw the face now looking at +him. He did add it in effect, perhaps, as he softly moved her scattered +hair from her forehead with his hand. Such little actions, slight in +another man, were very noticeable in him; and his daughter received them +as if they had been words of contrition. + +‘But,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesitation, as well as with a +wretched sense of happiness, ‘if I see reason to mistrust myself for the +past, Louisa, I should also mistrust myself for the present and the +future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far from feeling +convinced now, however differently I might have felt only this time +yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you repose in me; that I know how +to respond to the appeal you have come home to make to me; that I have +the right instinct—supposing it for the moment to be some quality of that +nature—how to help you, and to set you right, my child.’ + +She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face upon her arm, so +that he could not see it. All her wildness and passion had subsided; +but, though softened, she was not in tears. Her father was changed in +nothing so much as in the respect that he would have been glad to see her +in tears. + +‘Some persons hold,’ he pursued, still hesitating, ‘that there is a +wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart. I have not +supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed +the head to be all-sufficient. It may not be all-sufficient; how can I +venture this morning to say it is! If that other kind of wisdom should +be what I have neglected, and should be the instinct that is wanted, +Louisa—’ + +He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half unwilling to admit it +even now. She made him no answer, lying before him on her bed, still +half-dressed, much as he had seen her lying on the floor of his room last +night. + +‘Louisa,’ and his hand rested on her hair again, ‘I have been absent from +here, my dear, a good deal of late; and though your sister’s training has +been pursued according to—the system,’ he appeared to come to that word +with great reluctance always, ‘it has necessarily been modified by daily +associations begun, in her case, at an early age. I ask you—ignorantly +and humbly, my daughter—for the better, do you think?’ + +‘Father,’ she replied, without stirring, ‘if any harmony has been +awakened in her young breast that was mute in mine until it turned to +discord, let her thank Heaven for it, and go upon her happier way, taking +it as her greatest blessing that she has avoided my way.’ + +‘O my child, my child!’ he said, in a forlorn manner, ‘I am an unhappy +man to see you thus! What avails it to me that you do not reproach me, +if I so bitterly reproach myself!’ He bent his head, and spoke low to +her. ‘Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change may have been slowly +working about me in this house, by mere love and gratitude: that what the +Head had left undone and could not do, the Heart may have been doing +silently. Can it be so?’ + +She made him no reply. + +‘I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could I be arrogant, and +you before me! Can it be so? Is it so, my dear?’ He looked upon her +once more, lying cast away there; and without another word went out of +the room. He had not been long gone, when she heard a light tread near +the door, and knew that some one stood beside her. + +She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should be seen in her +distress, and that the involuntary look she had so resented should come +to this fulfilment, smouldered within her like an unwholesome fire. All +closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air that would be +healthful to the earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that +would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So in her bosom even now; the +strongest qualities she possessed, long turned upon themselves, became a +heap of obduracy, that rose against a friend. + +It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and that she understood +herself to be supposed to have fallen asleep. The sympathetic hand did +not claim her resentment. Let it lie there, let it lie. + +It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler thoughts; and she +rested. As she softened with the quiet, and the consciousness of being +so watched, some tears made their way into her eyes. The face touched +hers, and she knew that there were tears upon it too, and she the cause +of them. + +As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy retired, so that +she stood placidly near the bedside. + +‘I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to ask if you would let me +stay with you?’ + +‘Why should you stay with me? My sister will miss you. You are +everything to her.’ + +‘Am I?’ returned Sissy, shaking her head. ‘I would be something to you, +if I might.’ + +‘What?’ said Louisa, almost sternly. + +‘Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At all events, I would like +to try to be as near it as I can. And however far off that may be, I +will never tire of trying. Will you let me?’ + +‘My father sent you to ask me.’ + +‘No indeed,’ replied Sissy. ‘He told me that I might come in now, but he +sent me away from the room this morning—or at least—’ + +She hesitated and stopped. + +‘At least, what?’ said Louisa, with her searching eyes upon her. + +‘I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, for I felt very +uncertain whether you would like to find me here.’ + +‘Have I always hated you so much?’ + +‘I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have always wished that you +should know it. But you changed to me a little, shortly before you left +home. Not that I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I knew so +little, and it was so natural in many ways, going as you were among other +friends, that I had nothing to complain of, and was not at all hurt.’ + +Her colour rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. Louisa understood +the loving pretence, and her heart smote her. + +‘May I try?’ said Sissy, emboldened to raise her hand to the neck that +was insensibly drooping towards her. + +Louisa, taking down the hand that would have embraced her in another +moment, held it in one of hers, and answered: + +‘First, Sissy, do you know what I am? I am so proud and so hardened, so +confused and troubled, so resentful and unjust to every one and to +myself, that everything is stormy, dark, and wicked to me. Does not that +repel you?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me otherwise is so laid +waste, that if I had been bereft of sense to this hour, and instead of +being as learned as you think me, had to begin to acquire the simplest +truths, I could not want a guide to peace, contentment, honour, all the +good of which I am quite devoid, more abjectly than I do. Does not that +repel you?’ + +‘No!’ + +In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her old +devoted spirit, the once deserted girl shone like a beautiful light upon +the darkness of the other. + +Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck and join its fellow +there. She fell upon her knees, and clinging to this stroller’s child +looked up at her almost with veneration. + +‘Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have compassion on my great need, and let +me lay this head of mine upon a loving heart!’ + +‘O lay it here!’ cried Sissy. ‘Lay it here, my dear.’ + + + +CHAPTER II +VERY RIDICULOUS + + +MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole night and a day in a state of so much +hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would scarcely +have recognized him during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of +the honourable and jocular member. He was positively agitated. He +several times spoke with an emphasis, similar to the vulgar manner. He +went in and went out in an unaccountable way, like a man without an +object. He rode like a highwayman. In a word, he was so horribly bored +by existing circumstances, that he forgot to go in for boredom in the +manner prescribed by the authorities. + +After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, as if it were a +leap, he waited up all night: from time to time ringing his bell with the +greatest fury, charging the porter who kept watch with delinquency in +withholding letters or messages that could not fail to have been +entrusted to him, and demanding restitution on the spot. The dawn +coming, the morning coming, and the day coming, and neither message nor +letter coming with either, he went down to the country house. There, the +report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Bounderby in town. Left for +town suddenly last evening. Not even known to be gone until receipt of +message, importing that her return was not to be expected for the +present. + +In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to follow her to town. +He went to the house in town. Mrs. Bounderby not there. He looked in at +the Bank. Mr. Bounderby away and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. Sparsit away? +Who could have been reduced to sudden extremity for the company of that +griffin! + +‘Well! I don’t know,’ said Tom, who had his own reasons for being uneasy +about it. ‘She was off somewhere at daybreak this morning. She’s always +full of mystery; I hate her. So I do that white chap; he’s always got +his blinking eyes upon a fellow.’ + +‘Where were you last night, Tom?’ + +‘Where was I last night!’ said Tom. ‘Come! I like that. I was waiting +for you, Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as _I_ never saw it come down +before. Where was I too! Where were you, you mean.’ + +‘I was prevented from coming—detained.’ + +‘Detained!’ murmured Tom. ‘Two of us were detained. I was detained +looking for you, till I lost every train but the mail. It would have +been a pleasant job to go down by that on such a night, and have to walk +home through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in town after all.’ + +‘Where?’ + +‘Where? Why, in my own bed at Bounderby’s.’ + +‘Did you see your sister?’ + +‘How the deuce,’ returned Tom, staring, ‘could I see my sister when she +was fifteen miles off?’ + +Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he was so true +a friend, Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of that interview with the +smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, and debated for the hundredth +time what all this could mean? He made only one thing clear. It was, +that whether she was in town or out of town, whether he had been +premature with her who was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost +courage, or they were discovered, or some mischance or mistake, at +present incomprehensible, had occurred, he must remain to confront his +fortune, whatever it was. The hotel where he was known to live when +condemned to that region of blackness, was the stake to which he was +tied. As to all the rest—What will be, will be. + +‘So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an assignation, or a +penitent remonstrance, or an impromptu wrestle with my friend Bounderby +in the Lancashire manner—which would seem as likely as anything else in +the present state of affairs—I’ll dine,’ said Mr. James Harthouse. +‘Bounderby has the advantage in point of weight; and if anything of a +British nature is to come off between us, it may be as well to be in +training.’ + +Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negligently on a sofa, +ordered ‘Some dinner at six—with a beefsteak in it,’ and got through the +intervening time as well as he could. That was not particularly well; +for he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours went on, +and no kind of explanation offered itself, his perplexity augmented at +compound interest. + +However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do, and +entertained himself with the facetious idea of the training more than +once. ‘It wouldn’t be bad,’ he yawned at one time, ‘to give the waiter +five shillings, and throw him.’ At another time it occurred to him, ‘Or +a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone might be hired by the hour.’ +But these jests did not tell materially on the afternoon, or his +suspense; and, sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully. + +It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about in +the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, listening at the +door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps +approached that room. But, after dinner, when the day turned to +twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and still no communication +was made to him, it began to be as he expressed it, ‘like the Holy Office +and slow torture.’ However, still true to his conviction that +indifference was the genuine high-breeding (the only conviction he had), +he seized this crisis as the opportunity for ordering candles and a +newspaper. + +He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this newspaper, +when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously and +apologetically: + +‘Beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted, sir, if you please.’ + +A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the Police said to +the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in return, with +bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by ‘wanted’? + +‘Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes to see you.’ + +‘Outside? Where?’ + +‘Outside this door, sir.’ + +Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a block-head duly +qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried into the gallery. +A young woman whom he had never seen stood there. Plainly dressed, very +quiet, very pretty. As he conducted her into the room and placed a chair +for her, he observed, by the light of the candles, that she was even +prettier than he had at first believed. Her face was innocent and +youthful, and its expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of +him, or in any way disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely +preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that +consideration for herself. + +‘I speak to Mr. Harthouse?’ she said, when they were alone. + +‘To Mr. Harthouse.’ He added in his mind, ‘And you speak to him with the +most confiding eyes I ever saw, and the most earnest voice (though so +quiet) I ever heard.’ + +‘If I do not understand—and I do not, sir’—said Sissy, ‘what your honour +as a gentleman binds you to, in other matters:’ the blood really rose in +his face as she began in these words: ‘I am sure I may rely upon it to +keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what I am going to say. I will +rely upon it, if you will tell me I may so far trust—’ + +‘You may, I assure you.’ + +‘I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. In coming to you, sir, +I have no advice or encouragement beyond my own hope.’ He thought, ‘But +that is very strong,’ as he followed the momentary upward glance of her +eyes. He thought besides, ‘This is a very odd beginning. I don’t see +where we are going.’ + +‘I think,’ said Sissy, ‘you have already guessed whom I left just now!’ + +‘I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness during the last +four-and-twenty hours (which have appeared as many years),’ he returned, +‘on a lady’s account. The hopes I have been encouraged to form that you +come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.’ + +‘I left her within an hour.’ + +‘At—!’ + +‘At her father’s.’ + +Mr. Harthouse’s face lengthened in spite of his coolness, and his +perplexity increased. ‘Then I certainly,’ he thought, ‘do _not_ see +where we are going.’ + +‘She hurried there last night. She arrived there in great agitation, and +was insensible all through the night. I live at her father’s, and was +with her. You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as +you live.’ + +Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found himself in the +position of not knowing what to say, made the discovery beyond all +question that he was so circumstanced. The child-like ingenuousness with +which his visitor spoke, her modest fearlessness, her truthfulness which +put all artifice aside, her entire forgetfulness of herself in her +earnest quiet holding to the object with which she had come; all this, +together with her reliance on his easily given promise—which in itself +shamed him—presented something in which he was so inexperienced, and +against which he knew any of his usual weapons would fall so powerless; +that not a word could he rally to his relief. + +At last he said: + +‘So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and by such lips, is +really disconcerting in the last degree. May I be permitted to inquire, +if you are charged to convey that information to me in those hopeless +words, by the lady of whom we speak?’ + +‘I have no charge from her.’ + +‘The drowning man catches at the straw. With no disrespect for your +judgment, and with no doubt of your sincerity, excuse my saying that I +cling to the belief that there is yet hope that I am not condemned to +perpetual exile from that lady’s presence.’ + +‘There is not the least hope. The first object of my coming here, sir, +is to assure you that you must believe that there is no more hope of your +ever speaking with her again, than there would be if she had died when +she came home last night.’ + +‘Must believe? But if I can’t—or if I should, by infirmity of nature, be +obstinate—and won’t—’ + +‘It is still true. There is no hope.’ + +James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous smile upon his lips; +but her mind looked over and beyond him, and the smile was quite thrown +away. + +He bit his lip, and took a little time for consideration. + +‘Well! If it should unhappily appear,’ he said, ‘after due pains and +duty on my part, that I am brought to a position so desolate as this +banishment, I shall not become the lady’s persecutor. But you said you +had no commission from her?’ + +‘I have only the commission of my love for her, and her love for me. I +have no other trust, than that I have been with her since she came home, +and that she has given me her confidence. I have no further trust, than +that I know something of her character and her marriage. O Mr. +Harthouse, I think you had that trust too!’ + +He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been—in that +nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they +had not been whistled away—by the fervour of this reproach. + +‘I am not a moral sort of fellow,’ he said, ‘and I never make any +pretensions to the character of a moral sort of fellow. I am as immoral +as need be. At the same time, in bringing any distress upon the lady who +is the subject of the present conversation, or in unfortunately +compromising her in any way, or in committing myself by any expression of +sentiments towards her, not perfectly reconcilable with—in fact with—the +domestic hearth; or in taking any advantage of her father’s being a +machine, or of her brother’s being a whelp, or of her husband’s being a +bear; I beg to be allowed to assure you that I have had no particularly +evil intentions, but have glided on from one step to another with a +smoothness so perfectly diabolical, that I had not the slightest idea the +catalogue was half so long until I began to turn it over. Whereas I +find,’ said Mr. James Harthouse, in conclusion, ‘that it is really in +several volumes.’ + +Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way seemed, for that +once, a conscious polishing of but an ugly surface. He was silent for a +moment; and then proceeded with a more self-possessed air, though with +traces of vexation and disappointment that would not be polished out. + +‘After what has been just now represented to me, in a manner I find it +impossible to doubt—I know of hardly any other source from which I could +have accepted it so readily—I feel bound to say to you, in whom the +confidence you have mentioned has been reposed, that I cannot refuse to +contemplate the possibility (however unexpected) of my seeing the lady no +more. I am solely to blame for the thing having come to this—and—and, I +cannot say,’ he added, rather hard up for a general peroration, ‘that I +have any sanguine expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fellow, or +that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow whatever.’ + +Sissy’s face sufficiently showed that her appeal to him was not finished. + +‘You spoke,’ he resumed, as she raised her eyes to him again, ‘of your +first object. I may assume that there is a second to be mentioned?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Will you oblige me by confiding it?’ + +‘Mr. Harthouse,’ returned Sissy, with a blending of gentleness and +steadiness that quite defeated him, and with a simple confidence in his +being bound to do what she required, that held him at a singular +disadvantage, ‘the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave +here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in +no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it +is the only compensation you have left it in your power to make. I do +not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something, and +it is necessary. Therefore, though without any other authority than I +have given you, and even without the knowledge of any other person than +yourself and myself, I ask you to depart from this place to-night, under +an obligation never to return to it.’ + +If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her plain faith in the +truth and right of what she said; if she had concealed the least doubt or +irresolution, or had harboured for the best purpose any reserve or +pretence; if she had shown, or felt, the lightest trace of any +sensitiveness to his ridicule or his astonishment, or any remonstrance he +might offer; he would have carried it against her at this point. But he +could as easily have changed a clear sky by looking at it in surprise, as +affect her. + +‘But do you know,’ he asked, quite at a loss, ‘the extent of what you +ask? You probably are not aware that I am here on a public kind of +business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, +and sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate +manner? You probably are not aware of that, but I assure you it’s the +fact.’ + +It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact. + +‘Besides which,’ said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn or two across the +room, dubiously, ‘it’s so alarmingly absurd. It would make a man so +ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in such an +incomprehensible way.’ + +‘I am quite sure,’ repeated Sissy, ‘that it is the only reparation in +your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would not have come here.’ + +He glanced at her face, and walked about again. ‘Upon my soul, I don’t +know what to say. So immensely absurd!’ + +It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secrecy. + +‘If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,’ he said, stopping again +presently, and leaning against the chimney-piece, ‘it could only be in +the most inviolable confidence.’ + +‘I will trust to you, sir,’ returned Sissy, ‘and you will trust to me.’ + +His leaning against the chimney-piece reminded him of the night with the +whelp. It was the self-same chimney-piece, and somehow he felt as if +_he_ were the whelp to-night. He could make no way at all. + +‘I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridiculous position,’ he +said, after looking down, and looking up, and laughing, and frowning, and +walking off, and walking back again. ‘But I see no way out of it. What +will be, will be. _This_ will be, I suppose. I must take off myself, I +imagine—in short, I engage to do it.’ + +Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but she was happy in +it, and her face beamed brightly. + +‘You will permit me to say,’ continued Mr. James Harthouse, ‘that I doubt +if any other ambassador, or ambassadress, could have addressed me with +the same success. I must not only regard myself as being in a very +ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at all points. Will you +allow me the privilege of remembering my enemy’s name?’ + +‘_My_ name?’ said the ambassadress. + +‘The only name I could possibly care to know, to-night.’ + +‘Sissy Jupe.’ + +‘Pardon my curiosity at parting. Related to the family?’ + +‘I am only a poor girl,’ returned Sissy. ‘I was separated from my +father—he was only a stroller—and taken pity on by Mr. Gradgrind. I have +lived in the house ever since.’ + +She was gone. + +‘It wanted this to complete the defeat,’ said Mr. James Harthouse, +sinking, with a resigned air, on the sofa, after standing transfixed a +little while. ‘The defeat may now be considered perfectly accomplished. +Only a poor girl—only a stroller—only James Harthouse made nothing +of—only James Harthouse a Great Pyramid of failure.’ + +The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the Nile. He took a pen +upon the instant, and wrote the following note (in appropriate +hieroglyphics) to his brother: + + Dear Jack,—All up at Coketown. Bored out of the place, and going in + for camels. + + Affectionately, + JEM. + +He rang the bell. + +‘Send my fellow here.’ + +‘Gone to bed, sir.’ + +‘Tell him to get up, and pack up.’ + +He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, announcing his +retirement from that part of the country, and showing where he would be +found for the next fortnight. The other, similar in effect, to Mr. +Gradgrind. Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon their superscriptions, +he had left the tall chimneys of Coketown behind, and was in a railway +carriage, tearing and glaring over the dark landscape. + +The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. James Harthouse derived +some comfortable reflections afterwards, from this prompt retreat, as one +of his few actions that made any amends for anything, and as a token to +himself that he had escaped the climax of a very bad business. But it +was not so, at all. A secret sense of having failed and been +ridiculous—a dread of what other fellows who went in for similar sorts of +things, would say at his expense if they knew it—so oppressed him, that +what was about the very best passage in his life was the one of all +others he would not have owned to on any account, and the only one that +made him ashamed of himself. + + + +CHAPTER III +VERY DECIDED + + +THE indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her voice +reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual +sneezes that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her +patron until she found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically +sweeping in upon him at his hotel in St. James’s Street, exploded the +combustibles with which she was charged, and blew up. Having executed +her mission with infinite relish, this high-minded woman then fainted +away on Mr. Bounderby’s coat-collar. + +Mr. Bounderby’s first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave +her to progress as she might through various stages of suffering on the +floor. He next had recourse to the administration of potent +restoratives, such as screwing the patient’s thumbs, smiting her hands, +abundantly watering her face, and inserting salt in her mouth. When +these attentions had recovered her (which they speedily did), he hustled +her into a fast train without offering any other refreshment, and carried +her back to Coketown more dead than alive. + +Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting spectacle +on her arrival at her journey’s end; but considered in any other light, +the amount of damage she had by that time sustained was excessive, and +impaired her claims to admiration. Utterly heedless of the wear and tear +of her clothes and constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. +Bounderby immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone +Lodge. + +‘Now, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, bursting into his father-in-law’s +room late at night; ‘here’s a lady here—Mrs. Sparsit—you know Mrs. +Sparsit—who has something to say to you that will strike you dumb.’ + +‘You have missed my letter!’ exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the +apparition. + +‘Missed your letter, sir!’ bawled Bounderby. ‘The present time is no +time for letters. No man shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown +about letters, with his mind in the state it’s in now.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate remonstrance, ‘I +speak of a very special letter I have written to you, in reference to +Louisa.’ + +‘Tom Gradgrind,’ replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand several +times with great vehemence on the table, ‘I speak of a very special +messenger that has come to me, in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit, +ma’am, stand forward!’ + +That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without any +voice and with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed throat, became +so aggravating and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr. +Bounderby, unable to bear it, seized her by the arm and shook her. + +‘If you can’t get it out, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘leave _me_ to get it +out. This is not a time for a lady, however highly connected, to be +totally inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. +Sparsit latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation to overhear a +conversation out of doors between your daughter and your precious +gentleman-friend, Mr. James Harthouse.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘Ah! Indeed!’ cried Bounderby. ‘And in that conversation—’ + +‘It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby. I know what +passed.’ + +‘You do? Perhaps,’ said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so +quiet and assuasive father-in-law, ‘you know where your daughter is at +the present time!’ + +‘Undoubtedly. She is here.’ + +‘Here?’ + +‘My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud out-breaks, on +all accounts. Louisa is here. The moment she could detach herself from +that interview with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply +regret to have been the means of introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, +for protection. I myself had not been at home many hours, when I +received her—here, in this room. She hurried by the train to town, she +ran from town to this house, through a raging storm, and presented +herself before me in a state of distraction. Of course, she has remained +here ever since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, to +be more quiet.’ + +Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every +direction except Mrs. Sparsit’s direction; and then, abruptly turning +upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched woman: + +‘Now, ma’am! We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may think +proper to offer, for going about the country at express pace, with no +other luggage than a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma’am!’ + +‘Sir,’ whispered Mrs. Sparsit, ‘my nerves are at present too much shaken, +and my health is at present too much impaired, in your service, to admit +of my doing more than taking refuge in tears.’ (Which she did.) + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘without making any observation to you +that may not be made with propriety to a woman of good family, what I +have got to add to that, is that there is something else in which it +appears to me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And the coach in +which we came here being at the door, you’ll allow me to hand you down to +it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the best course for you to +pursue, will be to put your feet into the hottest water you can bear, and +take a glass of scalding rum and butter after you get into bed.’ With +these words, Mr. Bounderby extended his right hand to the weeping lady, +and escorted her to the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive +sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone. + +‘Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to +speak to me,’ he resumed, ‘here I am. But, I am not in a very agreeable +state, I tell you plainly: not relishing this business, even as it is, +and not considering that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively +treated by your daughter, as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown ought to be +treated by his wife. You have your opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, +I know. If you mean to say anything to me to-night, that goes against +this candid remark, you had better let it alone.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. Bounderby +took particular pains to harden himself at all points. It was his +amiable nature. + +‘My dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind began in reply. + +‘Now, you’ll excuse me,’ said Bounderby, ‘but I don’t want to be too +dear. That, to start with. When I begin to be dear to a man, I +generally find that his intention is to come over me. I am not speaking +to you politely; but, as you are aware, I am _not_ polite. If you like +politeness, you know where to get it. You have your gentleman-friends, +you know, and they’ll serve you with as much of the article as you want. +I don’t keep it myself.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we are all liable to mistakes—’ + +‘I thought you couldn’t make ’em,’ interrupted Bounderby. + +‘Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes and I +should feel sensible of your delicacy, and grateful for it, if you would +spare me these references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our +conversation with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in +connecting him with mine.’ + +‘I never mentioned his name!’ said Bounderby. + +‘Well, well!’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive, +air. And he sat for a little while pondering. ‘Bounderby, I see reason +to doubt whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.’ + +‘Who do you mean by We?’ + +‘Let me say I, then,’ he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted +question; ‘I doubt whether I have understood Louisa. I doubt whether I +have been quite right in the manner of her education.’ + +‘There you hit it,’ returned Bounderby. ‘There I agree with you. You +have found it out at last, have you? Education! I’ll tell you what +education is—To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the +shortest allowance of everything except blows. That’s what _I_ call +education.’ + +‘I think your good sense will perceive,’ Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in +all humility, ‘that whatever the merits of such a system may be, it would +be difficult of general application to girls.’ + +‘I don’t see it at all, sir,’ returned the obstinate Bounderby. + +‘Well,’ sighed Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we will not enter into the question. I +assure you I have no desire to be controversial. I seek to repair what +is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good +spirit, Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.’ + +‘I don’t understand you, yet,’ said Bounderby, with determined obstinacy, +‘and therefore I won’t make any promises.’ + +‘In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind +proceeded, in the same depressed and propitiatory manner, ‘I appear to +myself to have become better informed as to Louisa’s character, than in +previous years. The enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and +the discovery is not mine. I think there are—Bounderby, you will be +surprised to hear me say this—I think there are qualities in Louisa, +which—which have been harshly neglected, and—and a little perverted. +And—and I would suggest to you, that—that if you would kindly meet me in +a timely endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a while—and to +encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and consideration—it—it +would be the better for the happiness of all of us. Louisa,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind, shading his face with his hand, ‘has always been my favourite +child.’ + +The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on +hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably was, on the brink +of a fit. With his very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent +up his indignation, however, and said: + +‘You’d like to keep her here for a time?’ + +‘I—I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you should allow +Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of +course Cecilia Jupe), who understands her, and in whom she trusts.’ + +‘I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, standing up with +his hands in his pockets, ‘that you are of opinion that there’s what +people call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself.’ + +‘I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between Louisa, +and—and—and almost all the relations in which I have placed her,’ was her +father’s sorrowful reply. + +‘Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby the flushed, +confronting him with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his +pockets, and his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was +boisterous. ‘You have said your say; I am going to say mine. I am a +Coketown man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. I know the bricks of +this town, and I know the works of this town, and I know the chimneys of +this town, and I know the smoke of this town, and I know the Hands of +this town. I know ’em all pretty well. They’re real. When a man tells +me anything about imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, whoever +he is, that I know what he means. He means turtle soup and venison, with +a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up with a coach and six. +That’s what your daughter wants. Since you are of opinion that she ought +to have what she wants, I recommend you to provide it for her. Because, +Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I hoped, after my entreaty, you would +have taken a different tone.’ + +‘Just wait a bit,’ retorted Bounderby; ‘you have said your say, I +believe. I heard you out; hear me out, if you please. Don’t make +yourself a spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, +although I am sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, +I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low as that. Now, there’s +an incompatibility of some sort or another, I am given to understand by +you, between your daughter and me. I’ll give _you_ to understand, in +reply to that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility of the +first magnitude—to be summed up in this—that your daughter don’t properly +know her husband’s merits, and is not impressed with such a sense as +would become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance. That’s plain +speaking, I hope.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘this is unreasonable.’ + +‘Is it?’ said Bounderby. ‘I am glad to hear you say so. Because when +Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights, tells me that what I say is +unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish sensible. With +your permission I am going on. You know my origin; and you know that for +a good many years of my life I didn’t want a shoeing-horn, in consequence +of not having a shoe. Yet you may believe or not, as you think proper, +that there are ladies—born ladies—belonging to families—Families!—who +next to worship the ground I walk on.’ + +He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law’s head. + +‘Whereas your daughter,’ proceeded Bounderby, ‘is far from being a born +lady. That you know, yourself. Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff +about such things, for you are very well aware I don’t; but that such is +the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change it. Why do I say this?’ + +‘Not, I fear,’ observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, ‘to spare me.’ + +‘Hear me out,’ said Bounderby, ‘and refrain from cutting in till your +turn comes round. I say this, because highly connected females have been +astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself, +and to witness her insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered +it. And I wonder myself now, and I won’t suffer it.’ + +‘Bounderby,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, ‘the less we say to-night +the better, I think.’ + +‘On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I +think. That is,’ the consideration checked him, ‘till I have said all I +mean to say, and then I don’t care how soon we stop. I come to a +question that may shorten the business. What do you mean by the proposal +you made just now?’ + +‘What do I mean, Bounderby?’ + +‘By your visiting proposition,’ said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk +of the hayfield. + +‘I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, +for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may +tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many respects.’ + +‘To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?’ said +Bounderby. + +‘If you put it in those terms.’ + +‘What made you think of this?’ said Bounderby. + +‘I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it +asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in +trying to set her right? You have accepted a great charge of her; for +better for worse, for—’ + +Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to +Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an angry start. + +‘Come!’ said he, ‘I don’t want to be told about that. I know what I took +her for, as well as you do. Never you mind what I took her for; that’s +my look out.’ + +‘I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or +less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some yielding on your +part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an act of +true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards Louisa.’ + +‘I think differently,’ blustered Bounderby. ‘I am going to finish this +business according to my own opinions. Now, I don’t want to make a +quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I don’t +think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject. +As to your gentleman-friend, he may take himself off, wherever he likes +best. If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don’t fall +in my way, I shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do it. As to your +daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by +leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve +o’clock at noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I +shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you’ll take +charge of her for the future. What I shall say to people in general, of +the incompatibility that led to my so laying down the law, will be this. +I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up; she’s the daughter of +Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses wouldn’t +pull together. I am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I +believe; and most people will understand fast enough that it must be a +woman rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up +to my mark.’ + +‘Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,’ urged Mr. +Gradgrind, ‘before you commit yourself to such a decision.’ + +‘I always come to a decision,’ said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: ‘and +whatever I do, I do at once. I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s +addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he +knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, +after his making himself a party to sentimental humbug. I have given you +my decision, and I have got no more to say. Good night!’ + +So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At five minutes +past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be +carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country +retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life. + + + +CHAPTER IV +LOST + + +THE robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to +occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that +establishment now. In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as +a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more +admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud instead of the sea, he +liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his business ardour. +Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even +advanced upon his usual display of bustle, and every day made such a rout +in renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers who +had it in hand almost wished it had never been committed. + +They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they had been so +quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that most people really did +suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No +implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or made a self-betraying +step. More remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and +the mysterious old woman remained a mystery. + +Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of stirring +beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s investigations was, that he +resolved to hazard a bold burst. He drew up a placard, offering Twenty +Pounds reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of +complicity in the robbery of Coketown Bank on such a night; he described +the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and +manner, as minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and +in what direction he had been last seen going; he had the whole printed +in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he caused the walls +to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon +the sight of the whole population at one blow. + +The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning to disperse +the groups of workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, collected round +the placards, devouring them with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the +eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read. These people, +as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there was always +some such ready to help them—stared at the characters which meant so much +with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any +aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and +full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter +of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling +wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands cleared out again into +the streets, there were still as many readers as before. + +Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night; +and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, and had +brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the +down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow-brothers and +fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what a to-do was +there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called ‘that damning document,’ +and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man +community! ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of +those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and +of Union, is appropriately capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the +galling yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism +treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which +right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies +all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the garden—oh, my +brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say, +_now_, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and +about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and +disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this +abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you +crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like +race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots, +happily cast him out and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood +here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face and foot +to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember +how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with +not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst +us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the +avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And +now, my friends—my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that +stigma—my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose +scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my +friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, +with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his +native deformity, a What? A thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, +with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character +of the Coketown operative! Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred +bond, to which your children and your children’s children yet unborn have +set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of the +United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous +for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly +disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the +shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his +dishonest actions!’ + +Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. A few +stern voices called out ‘No!’ and a score or two hailed, with assenting +cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ the caution from one man, ‘Slackbridge, y’or over +hetter in’t; y’or a goen too fast!’ But these were pigmies against an +army; the general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to +Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively +panting at them. + +These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their +homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes +before, returned. + +‘Who is it?’ asked Louisa. + +‘It is Mr. Bounderby,’ said Sissy, timid of the name, ‘and your brother +Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, and that you +know her.’ + +‘What do they want, Sissy dear?’ + +‘They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, and seems angry.’ + +‘Father,’ said Louisa, for he was present, ‘I cannot refuse to see them, +for a reason that will explain itself. Shall they come in here?’ + +As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. She +reappeared with them directly. Tom was last; and remained standing in +the obscurest part of the room, near the door. + +‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said her husband, entering with a cool nod, ‘I don’t +disturb you, I hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here is a young +woman who has been making statements which render my visit necessary. +Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate reason +or other to say anything at all about those statements, good or bad, I am +obliged to confront her with your daughter.’ + +‘You have seen me once before, young lady,’ said Rachael, standing in +front of Louisa. + +Tom coughed. + +‘You have seen me, young lady,’ repeated Rachael, as she did not answer, +‘once before.’ + +Tom coughed again. + +‘I have.’ + +Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, ‘Will you +make it known, young lady, where, and who was there?’ + +‘I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night of his +discharge from his work, and I saw you there. He was there too; and an +old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a +dark corner. My brother was with me.’ + +‘Why couldn’t you say so, young Tom?’ demanded Bounderby. + +‘I promised my sister I wouldn’t.’ Which Louisa hastily confirmed. ‘And +besides,’ said the whelp bitterly, ‘she tells her own story so precious +well—and so full—that what business had I to take it out of her mouth!’ + +‘Say, young lady, if you please,’ pursued Rachael, ‘why, in an evil hour, +you ever came to Stephen’s that night.’ + +‘I felt compassion for him,’ said Louisa, her colour deepening, ‘and I +wished to know what he was going to do, and wished to offer him +assistance.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby. ‘Much flattered and obliged.’ + +‘Did you offer him,’ asked Rachael, ‘a bank-note?’ + +‘Yes; but he refused it, and would only take two pounds in gold.’ + +Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again. + +‘Oh, certainly!’ said Bounderby. ‘If you put the question whether your +ridiculous and improbable account was true or not, I am bound to say it’s +confirmed.’ + +‘Young lady,’ said Rachael, ‘Stephen Blackpool is now named as a thief in +public print all over this town, and where else! There have been a +meeting to-night where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way. +Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the best!’ Her indignation +failed her, and she broke off sobbing. + +‘I am very, very sorry,’ said Louisa. + +‘Oh, young lady, young lady,’ returned Rachael, ‘I hope you may be, but I +don’t know! I can’t say what you may ha’ done! The like of you don’t +know us, don’t care for us, don’t belong to us. I am not sure why you +may ha’ come that night. I can’t tell but what you may ha’ come wi’ some +aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble you brought such as the poor +lad. I said then, Bless you for coming; and I said it of my heart, you +seemed to take so pitifully to him; but I don’t know now, I don’t know!’ + +Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so +faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted. + +‘And when I think,’ said Rachael through her sobs, ‘that the poor lad was +so grateful, thinkin you so good to him—when I mind that he put his hand +over his hard-worken face to hide the tears that you brought up there—Oh, +I hope you may be sorry, and ha’ no bad cause to be it; but I don’t know, +I don’t know!’ + +‘You’re a pretty article,’ growled the whelp, moving uneasily in his dark +corner, ‘to come here with these precious imputations! You ought to be +bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be by +rights.’ + +She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound that +was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke. + +‘Come!’ said he, ‘you know what you have engaged to do. You had better +give your mind to that; not this.’ + +‘’Deed, I am loath,’ returned Rachael, drying her eyes, ‘that any here +should see me like this; but I won’t be seen so again. Young lady, when +I had read what’s put in print of Stephen—and what has just as much truth +in it as if it had been put in print of you—I went straight to the Bank +to say I knew where Stephen was, and to give a sure and certain promise +that he should be here in two days. I couldn’t meet wi’ Mr. Bounderby +then, and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you was +not to be found, and I went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill +to-night, I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen—for I know wi’ +pride he will come back to shame it!—and then I went again to seek Mr. +Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and he +believed no word I said, and brought me here.’ + +‘So far, that’s true enough,’ assented Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in +his pockets and his hat on. ‘But I have known you people before to-day, +you’ll observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, I +recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as doing. You have +undertaken to do something; all I remark upon that at present is, do it!’ + +‘I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this afternoon, as I +have written to him once before sin’ he went away,’ said Rachael; ‘and he +will be here, at furthest, in two days.’ + +‘Then, I’ll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,’ retorted Mr. +Bounderby, ‘that you yourself have been looked after now and then, not +being considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account +of most people being judged according to the company they keep. The +post-office hasn’t been forgotten either. What I’ll tell you is, that no +letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has +become of yours, I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re mistaken, and +never wrote any.’ + +‘He hadn’t been gone from here, young lady,’ said Rachael, turning +appealingly to Louisa, ‘as much as a week, when he sent me the only +letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in +another name.’ + +‘Oh, by George!’ cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, ‘he +changes his name, does he! That’s rather unlucky, too, for such an +immaculate chap. It’s considered a little suspicious in Courts of +Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many names.’ + +‘What,’ said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, ‘what, young +lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The masters +against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin +to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul +of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go wrong all through wi’ this +side, or must he go wrong all through wi’ that, or else be hunted like a +hare?’ + +‘Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,’ returned Louisa; ‘and I hope +that he will clear himself.’ + +‘You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!’ + +‘All the surer, I suppose,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘for your refusing to +tell where he is? Eh?’ + +‘He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi’ the unmerited +reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own accord to +clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character, +and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been +done against him,’ said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a rock +throws off the sea, ‘and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.’ + +‘Notwithstanding which,’ added Mr. Bounderby, ‘if he can be laid hold of +any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As +to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out +to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and +there’s an end of it. I wish you good night all! I must be off to look +a little further into this.’ + +Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept +close to him, and went away with him. The only parting salutation of +which he delivered himself was a sulky ‘Good night, father!’ With a +brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the house. + +Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of +speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said: + +‘Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me better.’ + +‘It goes against me,’ Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, ‘to mistrust +any one; but when I am so mistrusted—when we all are—I cannot keep such +things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you an +injury. I don’t think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it +again, wi’ the poor lad so wronged.’ + +‘Did you tell him in your letter,’ inquired Sissy, ‘that suspicion seemed +to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the Bank at +night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back, +and would be ready.’ + +‘Yes, dear,’ she returned; ‘but I can’t guess what can have ever taken +him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his way. His way +was the same as mine, and not near it.’ + +Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and +whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were news of +him. + +‘I doubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if he can be here till next day.’ + +‘Then I will come next night too,’ said Sissy. + +When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his +head, and said to his daughter: + +‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you +believe him to be implicated?’ + +‘I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do +not believe it now.’ + +‘That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing +him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they so honest?’ + +‘Very honest.’ + +‘And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, +musing, ‘does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? +Who is he?’ + +His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his +hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, +hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by +accident met Sissy’s at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and +Louisa put her finger on her lip. + +Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not +come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home +with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke +in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of +looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor +ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it. + +The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and +Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth +day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to +have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with +his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, +sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town +looked for Stephen to be brought in next day. + +During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his +shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, +horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard +rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour +when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station; +offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who +were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear. + +The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael’s letter +had gone, Rachael’s letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had +decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt +in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing +that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point +opinion was divided. + +Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp +plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. ‘_Was_ the +suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the +man, and why did he not come back?’ + +Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of night +the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows how far away +in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him until morning. + + + +CHAPTER V +FOUND + + +DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where +was the man, and why did he not come back? + +Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat with her in her +small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, +whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was +lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, +like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of their set routine, whatever +happened. Day and night again, day and night again. The monotony was +unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool’s disappearance was falling into the +general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder as any piece of +machinery in Coketown. + +‘I misdoubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if there is as many as twenty left in all +this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.’ + +She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the +lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was already +dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat at the window +where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their +sorrowful talk. + +‘If it hadn’t been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you to +speak to,’ pursued Rachael, ‘times are, when I think my mind would not +have kept right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you +believe that though appearances may rise against him, he will be proved +clear?’ + +‘I do believe so,’ returned Sissy, ‘with my whole heart. I feel so +certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all +discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him +than if I had known him through as many years of trial as you have.’ + +‘And I, my dear,’ said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, ‘have known +him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so faithful to +everything honest and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and +I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, +God knows my heart. I have never once left trusting Stephen Blackpool!’ + +‘We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from +suspicion, sooner or later.’ + +‘The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,’ said Rachael, +‘and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, purposely to +comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi’ me when I am not yet +free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever +have spoken those mistrusting words to the young lady. And yet I—’ + +‘You don’t mistrust her now, Rachael?’ + +‘Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can’t at all +times keep out of my mind—’ + +Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that Sissy, +sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention. + +‘I can’t at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some one. I +can’t think who ’tis, I can’t think how or why it may be done, but I +mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that +by his coming back of his own accord, and showing himself innocent before +them all, some one would be confounded, who—to prevent that—has stopped +him, and put him out of the way.’ + +‘That is a dreadful thought,’ said Sissy, turning pale. + +‘It _is_ a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.’ + +Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet. + +‘When it makes its way into my mind, dear,’ said Rachael, ‘and it will +come sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi’ counting on to +high numbers as I work, and saying over and over again pieces that I knew +when I were a child—I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, that, however +tired I am, I want to walk fast, miles and miles. I must get the better +of this before bed-time. I’ll walk home wi’ you.’ + +‘He might fall ill upon the journey back,’ said Sissy, faintly offering a +worn-out scrap of hope; ‘and in such a case, there are many places on the +road where he might stop.’ + +‘But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and he’s not +there.’ + +‘True,’ was Sissy’s reluctant admission. + +‘He’d walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and couldn’t +walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride, lest he should +have none of his own to spare.’ + +‘Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael. Come +into the air!’ + +Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael’s shawl upon her shining black hair in +the usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The night being +fine, little knots of Hands were here and there lingering at street +corners; but it was supper-time with the greater part of them, and there +were but few people in the streets. + +‘You’re not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.’ + +‘I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little fresh. +‘Times when I can’t, I turn weak and confused.’ + +‘But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at any +time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news comes +to-morrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and strengthen +you for another week. Will you go?’ + +‘Yes, dear.’ + +They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby’s house stood. +The way to Sissy’s destination led them past the door, and they were +going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown, +which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and scattered a +considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches were rattling before +them and behind them as they approached Mr. Bounderby’s, and one of the +latter drew up with such briskness as they were in the act of passing the +house, that they looked round involuntarily. The bright gaslight over +Mr. Bounderby’s steps showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an +ecstasy of excitement, struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing +them at the same moment, called to them to stop. + +‘It’s a coincidence,’ exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released by the +coachman. ‘It’s a Providence! Come out, ma’am!’ then said Mrs. Sparsit, +to some one inside, ‘come out, or we’ll have you dragged out!’ + +Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom Mrs. +Sparsit incontinently collared. + +‘Leave her alone, everybody!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great energy. +‘Let nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in, ma’am!’ then said +Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of command. ‘Come in, ma’am, or +we’ll have you dragged in!’ + +The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an ancient +woman by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house, would have +been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to all true English +stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a way into that +dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when the phenomenon was +enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time associated all over +the town with the Bank robbery, it would have lured the stragglers in, +with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had been expected to +fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the chance witnesses on the ground, +consisting of the busiest of the neighbours to the number of some +five-and-twenty, closed in after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in +after Mrs. Sparsit and her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly +irruption into Mr. Bounderby’s dining-room, where the people behind lost +not a moment’s time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the +people in front. + +‘Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit. ‘Rachael, young woman; +you know who this is?’ + +‘It’s Mrs. Pegler,’ said Rachael. + +‘I should think it is!’ cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. ‘Fetch Mr. +Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!’ Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling +herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of entreaty. +‘Don’t tell me,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. ‘I have told you twenty +times, coming along, that I will _not_ leave you till I have handed you +over to him myself.’ + +Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the whelp, +with whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr. Bounderby looked +more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this uninvited party in his +dining-room. + +‘Why, what’s the matter now!’ said he. ‘Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?’ + +‘Sir,’ explained that worthy woman, ‘I trust it is my good fortune to +produce a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by my wish to +relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such imperfect clues to +the part of the country in which that person might be supposed to reside, +as have been afforded by the young woman, Rachael, fortunately now +present to identify, I have had the happiness to succeed, and to bring +that person with me—I need not say most unwillingly on her part. It has +not been, sir, without some trouble that I have effected this; but +trouble in your service is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold +a real gratification.’ + +Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby’s visage exhibited an +extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions of +discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view. + +‘Why, what do you mean by this?’ was his highly unexpected demand, in +great warmth. ‘I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs. Sparsit, +ma’am?’ + +‘Sir!’ exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly. + +‘Why don’t you mind your own business, ma’am?’ roared Bounderby. ‘How +dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family affairs?’ + +This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit. She sat +down stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a fixed stare at +Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one another, as if they +were frozen too. + +‘My dear Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. ‘My darling boy! I am +not to blame. It’s not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady over and over +again, that I knew she was doing what would not be agreeable to you, but +she would do it.’ + +‘What did you let her bring you for? Couldn’t you knock her cap off, or +her tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to her?’ asked +Bounderby. + +‘My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be +brought by constables, and it was better to come quietly than make that +stir in such a’—Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly round the +walls—‘such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my fault! +My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived quiet, and secret, +Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the condition once. I have never +said I was your mother. I have admired you at a distance; and if I have +come to town sometimes, with long times between, to take a proud peep at +you, I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.’ + +Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient +mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table, while the +spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs. Pegler’s appeal, and +at each succeeding syllable became more and more round-eyed. Mr. +Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr. +Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady: + +‘I am surprised, madam,’ he observed with severity, ‘that in your old age +you have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son, after your +unnatural and inhuman treatment of him.’ + +‘_Me_ unnatural!’ cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. ‘_Me_ inhuman! To my dear +boy?’ + +‘Dear!’ repeated Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Yes; dear in his self-made prosperity, +madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you deserted him in his +infancy, and left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.’ + +‘_I_ deserted my Josiah!’ cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands. ‘Now, +Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for your scandal +against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my arms before Josiah +was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live to know better!’ + +She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the +possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone: + +‘Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to—to be brought up in +the gutter?’ + +‘Josiah in the gutter!’ exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. ‘No such a thing, sir. +Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give _you_ to +know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of parents that +loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on +themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and cipher beautiful, and +I’ve his books at home to show it! Aye, have I!’ said Mrs. Pegler, with +indignant pride. ‘And my dear boy knows, and will give _you_ to know, +sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight years old, his +mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and +her pride to do it, to help him out in life, and put him ’prentice. And +a steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and +well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And _I_’ll +give you to know, sir—for this my dear boy won’t—that though his mother +kept but a little village shop, he never forgot her, but pensioned me on +thirty pound a year—more than I want, for I put by out of it—only making +the condition that I was to keep down in my own part, and make no boasts +about him, and not trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at +him once a year, when he has never knowed it. And it’s right,’ said poor +old Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, ‘that I _should_ keep down +in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do a +many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep my pride +in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love’s own sake! And I am +ashamed of you, sir,’ said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, ‘for your slanders and +suspicions. And I never stood here before, nor never wanted to stand +here when my dear son said no. And I shouldn’t be here now, if it hadn’t +been for being brought here. And for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to +accuse me of being a bad mother to my son, with my son standing here to +tell you so different!’ + +The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur of +sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself innocently +placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had +never ceased walking up and down, and had every moment swelled larger and +larger, and grown redder and redder, stopped short. + +‘I don’t exactly know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘how I come to be favoured +with the attendance of the present company, but I don’t inquire. When +they’re quite satisfied, perhaps they’ll be so good as to disperse; +whether they’re satisfied or not, perhaps they’ll be so good as to +disperse. I’m not bound to deliver a lecture on my family affairs, I +have not undertaken to do it, and I’m not a going to do it. Therefore +those who expect any explanation whatever upon that branch of the +subject, will be disappointed—particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can’t +know it too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a +mistake made, concerning my mother. If there hadn’t been +over-officiousness it wouldn’t have been made, and I hate +over-officiousness at all times, whether or no. Good evening!’ + +Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the door +open for the company to depart, there was a blustering sheepishness upon +him, at once extremely crestfallen and superlatively absurd. Detected as +the Bully of humility, who had built his windy reputation upon lies, and +in his boastfulness had put the honest truth as far away from him as if +he had advanced the mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to +a pedigree, he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off +at the door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole +town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully +more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even that +unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into +the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable man +and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. + +Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son’s for +that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and there parted. +Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke with +much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal +failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work well. + +As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late occasions, he +had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that as long as +Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge, he was so far +safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen her once since she +went home: that is to say on the night when he still stuck close to +Bounderby, as already related. + +There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister’s mind, to +which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless and +ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had +presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, +when Rachael spoke of some one who would be confounded by Stephen’s +return, having put him out of the way. Louisa had never spoken of +harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion with the robbery, +she and Sissy had held no confidence on the subject, save in that one +interchange of looks when the unconscious father rested his gray head on +his hand; but it was understood between them, and they both knew it. +This other fear was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a +ghostly shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far +less of its being near the other. + +And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve with +him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show himself. Why +didn’t he? + +Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was +the man, and why did he not come back? + + + +CHAPTER VI +THE STARLIGHT + + +THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in +the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country. + +As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the +neighbourhood’s too—after the manner of those pious persons who do +penance for their own sins by putting other people into sackcloth—it was +customary for those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure air, +which is not absolutely the most wicked among the vanities of life, to +get a few miles away by the railroad, and then begin their walk, or their +lounge in the fields. Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the +smoke by the usual means, and were put down at a station about midway +between the town and Mr. Bounderby’s retreat. + +Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of coal, +it was green elsewhere, and there were trees to see, and there were larks +singing (though it was Sunday), and there were pleasant scents in the +air, and all was over-arched by a bright blue sky. In the distance one +way, Coketown showed as a black mist; in another distance hills began to +rise; in a third, there was a faint change in the light of the horizon +where it shone upon the far-off sea. Under their feet, the grass was +fresh; beautiful shadows of branches flickered upon it, and speckled it; +hedgerows were luxuriant; everything was at peace. Engines at pits’ +mouths, and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily +labour into the ground, were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short +space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve without the +shocks and noises of another time. + +They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, sometimes +getting over a fragment of a fence so rotten that it dropped at a touch +of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown +with grass, marking the site of deserted works. They followed paths and +tracks, however slight. Mounds where the grass was rank and high, and +where brambles, dock-weed, and such-like vegetation, were confusedly +heaped together, they always avoided; for dismal stories were told in +that country of the old pits hidden beneath such indications. + +The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had seen no one, near +or distant, for a long time; and the solitude remained unbroken. ‘It is +so still here, Rachael, and the way is so untrodden, that I think we must +be the first who have been here all the summer.’ + +As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those rotten +fragments of fence upon the ground. She got up to look at it. ‘And yet +I don’t know. This has not been broken very long. The wood is quite +fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps too.—O Rachael!’ + +She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael had already started +up. + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘I don’t know. There is a hat lying in the grass.’ They went forward +together. Rachael took it up, shaking from head to foot. She broke into +a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen Blackpool was written in his +own hand on the inside. + +‘O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made away with. He is lying +murdered here!’ + +‘Is there—has the hat any blood upon it?’ Sissy faltered. + +They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no mark of +violence, inside or out. It had been lying there some days, for rain and +dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape was on the grass where it +had fallen. They looked fearfully about them, without moving, but could +see nothing more. ‘Rachael,’ Sissy whispered, ‘I will go on a little by +myself.’ + +She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward, when +Rachael caught her in both arms with a scream that resounded over the +wide landscape. Before them, at their very feet, was the brink of a +black ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They sprang back, and fell +upon their knees, each hiding her face upon the other’s neck. + +‘O, my good Lord! He’s down there! Down there!’ At first this, and her +terrific screams, were all that could be got from Rachael, by any tears, +by any prayers, by any representations, by any means. It was impossible +to hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, or she would have +flung herself down the shaft. + +‘Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven, not these +dreadful cries! Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of Stephen!’ + +By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the agony of +such a moment, Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and to look at her +with a tearless face of stone. + +‘Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn’t leave him lying maimed at +the bottom of this dreadful place, a moment, if you could bring help to +him?’ + +‘No, no, no!’ + +‘Don’t stir from here, for his sake! Let me go and listen.’ + +She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her hands +and knees, and called to him as loud as she could call. She listened, +but no sound replied. She called again and listened; still no answering +sound. She did this, twenty, thirty times. She took a little clod of +earth from the broken ground where he had stumbled, and threw it in. She +could not hear it fall. + +The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago, +almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and looked all +round her, seeing no help. ‘Rachael, we must lose not a moment. We must +go in different directions, seeking aid. You shall go by the way we have +come, and I will go forward by the path. Tell any one you see, and every +one what has happened. Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!’ + +She knew by Rachael’s face that she might trust her now. And after +standing for a moment to see her running, wringing her hands as she ran, +she turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the hedge to tie +her shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw her bonnet aside, and +ran as she had never run before. + +Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven’s name! Don’t stop for breath. Run, run! +Quickening herself by carrying such entreaties in her thoughts, she ran +from field to field, and lane to lane, and place to place, as she had +never run before; until she came to a shed by an engine-house, where two +men lay in the shade, asleep on straw. + +First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and breathless as +she was, what had brought her there, were difficulties; but they no +sooner understood her than their spirits were on fire like hers. One of +the men was in a drunken slumber, but on his comrade’s shouting to him +that a man had fallen down the Old Hell Shaft, he started out to a pool +of dirty water, put his head in it, and came back sober. + +With these two men she ran to another half-a-mile further, and with that +one to another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a horse was found; and +she got another man to ride for life or death to the railroad, and send a +message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave him. By this time a whole +village was up: and windlasses, ropes, poles, candles, lanterns, all +things necessary, were fast collecting and being brought into one place, +to be carried to the Old Hell Shaft. + +It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying in +the grave where he had been buried alive. She could not bear to remain +away from it any longer—it was like deserting him—and she hurried swiftly +back, accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers, including the drunken man +whom the news had sobered, and who was the best man of all. When they +came to the Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as she had left it. +The men called and listened as she had done, and examined the edge of the +chasm, and settled how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until +the implements they wanted should come up. + +Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, every +whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought it was a cry +at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound +arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. +After they had waited some time, straggling people who had heard of the +accident began to come up; then the real help of implements began to +arrive. In the midst of this, Rachael returned; and with her party there +was a surgeon, who brought some wine and medicines. But, the expectation +among the people that the man would be found alive was very slight +indeed. + +There being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man +put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there by the general +consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed +men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were accepted to work, only +Sissy and Rachael were at first permitted within this ring; but, later in +the day, when the message brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind +and Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there. + +The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first sat +down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to descend +securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the +construction of this machine, simple as it was; requisites had been found +wanting, and messages had had to go and return. It was five o’clock in +the afternoon of the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent +down to try the air, while three or four rough faces stood crowded close +together, attentively watching it: the man at the windlass lowering as +they were told. The candle was brought up again, feebly burning, and +then some water was cast in. Then the bucket was hooked on; and the +sobered man and another got in with lights, giving the word ‘Lower away!’ + +As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there +was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women looking on, +that came as it was wont to come. The signal was given and the windlass +stopped, with abundant rope to spare. Apparently so long an interval +ensued with the men at the windlass standing idle, that some women +shrieked that another accident had happened! But the surgeon who held +the watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly +admonished them to keep silence. He had not well done speaking, when the +windlass was reversed and worked again. Practised eyes knew that it did +not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up, and +that only one was returning. + +The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon +the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The +sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There +was an universal cry of ‘Alive or dead?’ and then a deep, profound hush. + +When he said ‘Alive!’ a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in +them. + +‘But he’s hurt very bad,’ he added, as soon as he could make himself +heard again. ‘Where’s doctor? He’s hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno +how to get him up.’ + +They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, as he +asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the replies. The +sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening sky touched every +face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen in all its rapt suspense. + +The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and the +pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small matters +with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime, under the +surgeon’s directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which others made a +thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw, while he himself +contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As +these were made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last +come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the +light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, +and sometimes glancing down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon +the people, he was not the least conspicuous figure in the scene. It was +dark now, and torches were kindled. + +It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which was +quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man had fallen upon a +mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up, and that +his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side. He +lay upon his back with one arm doubled under him, and according to his +own belief had hardly stirred since he fell, except that he had moved his +free hand to a side pocket, in which he remembered to have some bread and +meat (of which he had swallowed crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a +little water in it now and then. He had come straight away from his +work, on being written to, and had walked the whole journey; and was on +his way to Mr. Bounderby’s country house after dark, when he fell. He +was crossing that dangerous country at such a dangerous time, because he +was innocent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn’t rest from +coming the nearest way to deliver himself up. The Old Hell Shaft, the +pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of its bad name to the +last; for though Stephen could speak now, he believed it would soon be +found to have mangled the life out of him. + +When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried charges from +his comrades and the surgeon after the windlass had begun to lower him, +disappeared into the pit. The rope went out as before, the signal was +made as before, and the windlass stopped. No man removed his hand from +it now. Every one waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to +the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, +and all the ring leaned forward. + +For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it +appeared, and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained. It +was scarcely endurable to look at the rope, and think of its giving way. +But, ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, +and the connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket with the two +men holding on at the sides—a sight to make the head swim, and oppress +the heart—and tenderly supporting between them, slung and tied within, +the figure of a poor, crushed, human creature. + +A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept aloud, as +this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly from its iron +deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. At first, none but the +surgeon went close to it. He did what he could in its adjustment on the +couch, but the best that he could do was to cover it. That gently done, +he called to him Rachael and Sissy. And at that time the pale, worn, +patient face was seen looking up at the sky, with the broken right hand +lying bare on the outside of the covering garments, as if waiting to be +taken by another hand. + +They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and administered some +drops of cordial and wine. Though he lay quite motionless looking up at +the sky, he smiled and said, ‘Rachael.’ She stooped down on the grass at +his side, and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the sky, +for he could not so much as turn them to look at her. + +‘Rachael, my dear.’ + +She took his hand. He smiled again and said, ‘Don’t let ’t go.’ + +‘Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen?’ + +‘I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been—dreadful, and dree, and long, my +dear—but ’tis ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle! Fro’ first to last, a +muddle!’ + +The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word. + +‘I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have cost wi’in the knowledge o’ +old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives—fathers, sons, +brothers, dear to thousands an’ thousands, an’ keeping ’em fro’ want and +hunger. I ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ Firedamp crueller +than battle. I ha’ read on ’t in the public petition, as onny one may +read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in which they ha’ pray’n and +pray’n the lawmakers for Christ’s sake not to let their work be murder to +’em, but to spare ’em for th’ wives and children that they loves as well +as gentlefok loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi’out need; +when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out need. See how we die an’ no need, +one way an’ another—in a muddle—every day!’ + +He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. Merely as the +truth. + +‘Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. Thou’rt not like +to forget her now, and me so nigh her. Thou know’st—poor, patient, +suff’rin, dear—how thou didst work for her, seet’n all day long in her +little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, awlung +o’ sickly air as had’n no need to be, an’ awlung o’ working people’s +miserable homes. A muddle! Aw a muddle!’ + +Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his face +turned up to the night sky. + +‘If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I +should’n ha’ had’n need to coom heer. If we was not in a muddle among +ourseln, I should’n ha’ been, by my own fellow weavers and workin’ +brothers, so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know’d me right—if he’d +ever know’d me at aw—he would’n ha’ took’n offence wi’ me. He would’n +ha’ suspect’n me. But look up yonder, Rachael! Look aboove!’ + +Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a star. + + [Picture: Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft] + +‘It ha’ shined upon me,’ he said reverently, ‘in my pain and trouble down +below. It ha’ shined into my mind. I ha’ look’n at ’t and thowt o’ +thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, +I hope. If soom ha’ been wantin’ in unnerstan’in me better, I, too, ha’ +been wantin’ in unnerstan’in them better. When I got thy letter, I +easily believen that what the yoong ledy sen and done to me, and what her +brother sen and done to me, was one, and that there were a wicked plot +betwixt ’em. When I fell, I were in anger wi’ her, an’ hurryin on t’ be +as onjust t’ her as oothers was t’ me. But in our judgments, like as in +our doins, we mun bear and forbear. In my pain an’ trouble, lookin up +yonder,—wi’ it shinin on me—I ha’ seen more clear, and ha’ made it my +dyin prayer that aw th’ world may on’y coom toogether more, an’ get a +better unnerstan’in o’ one another, than when I were in ’t my own weak +seln.’ + +Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite side to +Rachael, so that he could see her. + +‘You ha’ heard?’ he said, after a few moments’ silence. ‘I ha’ not +forgot you, ledy.’ + +‘Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And your prayer is mine.’ + +‘You ha’ a father. Will yo tak’ a message to him?’ + +‘He is here,’ said Louisa, with dread. ‘Shall I bring him to you?’ + +‘If yo please.’ + +Louisa returned with her father. Standing hand-in-hand, they both looked +down upon the solemn countenance. + +‘Sir, yo will clear me an’ mak my name good wi’ aw men. This I leave to +yo.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how? + +‘Sir,’ was the reply: ‘yor son will tell yo how. Ask him. I mak no +charges: I leave none ahint me: not a single word. I ha’ seen an’ spok’n +wi’ yor son, one night. I ask no more o’ yo than that yo clear me—an’ I +trust to yo to do ’t.’ + +The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon being +anxious for his removal, those who had torches or lanterns, prepared to +go in front of the litter. Before it was raised, and while they were +arranging how to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward at the star: + +‘Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin’ on me down there in my +trouble, I thowt it were the star as guided to Our Saviour’s home. I +awmust think it be the very star!’ + +They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to +take him in the direction whither the star seemed to him to lead. + +‘Rachael, beloved lass! Don’t let go my hand. We may walk toogether +t’night, my dear!’ + +‘I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, all the way.’ + +‘Bless thee! Will soombody be pleased to coover my face!’ + +They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, and +over the wide landscape; Rachael always holding the hand in hers. Very +few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral +procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; +and through humility, and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his +Redeemer’s rest. + + + +CHAPTER VII +WHELP-HUNTING + + +BEFORE the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft was broken, one figure +had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not +stood near Louisa, who held her father’s arm, but in a retired place by +themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to the couch, Sissy, +attentive to all that happened, slipped behind that wicked shadow—a sight +in the horror of his face, if there had been eyes there for any sight but +one—and whispered in his ear. Without turning his head, he conferred +with her a few moments, and vanished. Thus the whelp had gone out of the +circle before the people moved. + +When the father reached home, he sent a message to Mr. Bounderby’s, +desiring his son to come to him directly. The reply was, that Mr. +Bounderby having missed him in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him +since, had supposed him to be at Stone Lodge. + +‘I believe, father,’ said Louisa, ‘he will not come back to town +to-night.’ Mr. Gradgrind turned away, and said no more. + +In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as soon as it was +opened, and seeing his son’s place empty (he had not the courage to look +in at first) went back along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby on his way +there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon explain, but +entreated not then to be asked for, he had found it necessary to employ +his son at a distance for a little while. Also, that he was charged with +the duty of vindicating Stephen Blackpool’s memory, and declaring the +thief. Mr. Bounderby quite confounded, stood stock-still in the street +after his father-in-law had left him, swelling like an immense +soap-bubble, without its beauty. + +Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept it all that +day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door, he said, without opening +it, ‘Not now, my dears; in the evening.’ On their return in the evening, +he said, ‘I am not able yet—to-morrow.’ He ate nothing all day, and had +no candle after dark; and they heard him walking to and fro late at +night. + +But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual hour, and took +his usual place at the table. Aged and bent he looked, and quite bowed +down; and yet he looked a wiser man, and a better man, than in the days +when in this life he wanted nothing—but Facts. Before he left the room, +he appointed a time for them to come to him; and so, with his gray head +drooping, went away. + +‘Dear father,’ said Louisa, when they kept their appointment, ‘you have +three young children left. They will be different, I will be different +yet, with Heaven’s help.’ + +She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant with her help too. + +‘Your wretched brother,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Do you think he had +planned this robbery, when he went with you to the lodging?’ + +‘I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very much, and had spent +a great deal.’ + +‘The poor man being about to leave the town, it came into his evil brain +to cast suspicion on him?’ + +‘I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat there, father. For I +asked him to go there with me. The visit did not originate with him.’ + +‘He had some conversation with the poor man. Did he take him aside?’ + +‘He took him out of the room. I asked him afterwards, why he had done +so, and he made a plausible excuse; but since last night, father, and +when I remember the circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can imagine +too truly what passed between them.’ + +‘Let me know,’ said her father, ‘if your thoughts present your guilty +brother in the same dark view as mine.’ + +‘I fear, father,’ hesitated Louisa, ‘that he must have made some +representation to Stephen Blackpool—perhaps in my name, perhaps in his +own—which induced him to do in good faith and honesty, what he had never +done before, and to wait about the Bank those two or three nights before +he left the town.’ + +‘Too plain!’ returned the father. ‘Too plain!’ + +He shaded his face, and remained silent for some moments. Recovering +himself, he said: + +‘And now, how is he to be found? How is he to be saved from justice? In +the few hours that I can possibly allow to elapse before I publish the +truth, how is he to be found by us, and only by us? Ten thousand pounds +could not effect it.’ + +‘Sissy has effected it, father.’ + +He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in his house, +and said in a tone of softened gratitude and grateful kindness, ‘It is +always you, my child!’ + +‘We had our fears,’ Sissy explained, glancing at Louisa, ‘before +yesterday; and when I saw you brought to the side of the litter last +night, and heard what passed (being close to Rachael all the time), I +went to him when no one saw, and said to him, “Don’t look at me. See +where your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and your own!” He +was in a tremble before I whispered to him, and he started and trembled +more then, and said, “Where can I go? I have very little money, and I +don’t know who will hide me!” I thought of father’s old circus. I have +not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this time of year, and I read of +him in a paper only the other day. I told him to hurry there, and tell +his name, and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. “I’ll get to him +before the morning,” he said. And I saw him shrink away among the +people.’ + +‘Thank Heaven!’ exclaimed his father. ‘He may be got abroad yet.’ + +It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had directed him was +within three hours’ journey of Liverpool, whence he could be swiftly +dispatched to any part of the world. But, caution being necessary in +communicating with him—for there was a greater danger every moment of his +being suspected now, and nobody could be sure at heart but that Mr. +Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of public zeal, might play a Roman +part—it was consented that Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place in +question, by a circuitous course, alone; and that the unhappy father, +setting forth in an opposite direction, should get round to the same +bourne by another and wider route. It was further agreed that he should +not present himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his intentions should be +mistrusted, or the intelligence of his arrival should cause his son to +take flight anew; but, that the communication should be left to Sissy and +Louisa to open; and that they should inform the cause of so much misery +and disgrace, of his father’s being at hand and of the purpose for which +they had come. When these arrangements had been well considered and were +fully understood by all three, it was time to begin to carry them into +execution. Early in the afternoon, Mr. Gradgrind walked direct from his +own house into the country, to be taken up on the line by which he was to +travel; and at night the remaining two set forth upon their different +course, encouraged by not seeing any face they knew. + +The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for odd numbers +of minutes, at branch-places, up illimitable flights of steps, or down +wells—which was the only variety of those branches—and, early in the +morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two from the town they +sought. From this dismal spot they were rescued by a savage old +postilion, who happened to be up early, kicking a horse in a fly: and so +were smuggled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs lived: +which, although not a magnificent or even savoury approach, was, as is +usual in such cases, the legitimate highway. + +The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton of +Sleary’s Circus. The company had departed for another town more than +twenty miles off, and had opened there last night. The connection +between the two places was by a hilly turnpike-road, and the travelling +on that road was very slow. Though they took but a hasty breakfast, and +no rest (which it would have been in vain to seek under such anxious +circumstances), it was noon before they began to find the bills of +Sleary’s Horse-riding on barns and walls, and one o’clock when they +stopped in the market-place. + +A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, commencing at that very hour, +was in course of announcement by the bellman as they set their feet upon +the stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, to avoid making +inquiries and attracting attention in the town, they should present +themselves to pay at the door. If Mr. Sleary were taking the money, he +would be sure to know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he were +not, he would be sure to see them inside; and, knowing what he had done +with the fugitive, would proceed with discretion still. + +Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the well-remembered +booth. The flag with the inscription SLEARY’S HORSE-RIDING was there; +and the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary was not there. Master +Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by the wildest +credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded to the invincible force of +circumstances (and his beard), and, in the capacity of a man who made +himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the +exchequer—having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his leisure +moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out +for base coin, Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw +anything but money; so Sissy passed him unrecognised, and they went in. + +The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stencilled with black +spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it is the favourite +recreation of that monarch to do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his +Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the present Emperor, and his +reign was peaceful. Miss Josephine Sleary, in her celebrated graceful +Equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, was then announced by a new clown (who +humorously said Cauliflower Act), and Mr. Sleary appeared, leading her +in. + +Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with his long whip-lash, +and the Clown had only said, ‘If you do it again, I’ll throw the horse at +you!’ when Sissy was recognised both by father and daughter. But they +got through the Act with great self-possession; and Mr. Sleary, saving +for the first instant, conveyed no more expression into his locomotive +eye than into his fixed one. The performance seemed a little long to +Sissy and Louisa, particularly when it stopped to afford the Clown an +opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary (who said ‘Indeed, sir!’ to all his +observations in the calmest way, and with his eye on the house) about two +legs sitting on three legs looking at one leg, when in came four legs, +and laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of three legs, +and threw ’em at four legs, who ran away with one leg. For, although an +ingenious Allegory relating to a butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, +and a leg of mutton, this narrative consumed time; and they were in great +suspense. At last, however, little fair-haired Josephine made her +curtsey amid great applause; and the Clown, left alone in the ring, had +just warmed himself, and said, ‘Now _I_’ll have a turn!’ when Sissy was +touched on the shoulder, and beckoned out. + +She took Louisa with her; and they were received by Mr. Sleary in a very +little private apartment, with canvas sides, a grass floor, and a wooden +ceiling all aslant, on which the box company stamped their approbation, +as if they were coming through. ‘Thethilia,’ said Mr. Sleary, who had +brandy and water at hand, ‘it doth me good to thee you. You wath alwayth +a favourite with uth, and you’ve done uth credith thinth the old timeth +I’m thure. You mutht thee our people, my dear, afore we thpeak of +bithnith, or they’ll break their hearth—ethpethially the women. Here’th +Jothphine hath been and got married to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath +got a boy, and though he’th only three yearth old, he thtickth on to any +pony you can bring againtht him. He’th named The Little Wonder of +Thcolathtic Equitation; and if you don’t hear of that boy at Athley’th, +you’ll hear of him at Parith. And you recollect Kidderminthter, that +wath thought to be rather thweet upon yourthelf? Well. He’th married +too. Married a widder. Old enough to be hith mother. Thee wath +Tightrope, thee wath, and now thee’th nothing—on accounth of fat. +They’ve got two children, tho we’re thtrong in the Fairy bithnith and the +Nurthery dodge. If you wath to thee our Children in the Wood, with their +father and mother both a dyin’ on a horthe—their uncle a retheiving of +’em ath hith wardth, upon a horthe—themthelvth both a goin’ a +black-berryin’ on a horthe—and the Robinth a coming in to cover ’em with +leavth, upon a horthe—you’d thay it wath the completetht thing ath ever +you thet your eyeth on! And you remember Emma Gordon, my dear, ath wath +a’motht a mother to you? Of courthe you do; I needn’t athk. Well! +Emma, thee lotht her huthband. He wath throw’d a heavy back-fall off a +Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda thing ath the Thultan of the Indieth, and +he never got the better of it; and thee married a thecond time—married a +Cheethemonger ath fell in love with her from the front—and he’th a +Overtheer and makin’ a fortun.’ + +These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, related with +great heartiness, and with a wonderful kind of innocence, considering +what a bleary and brandy-and-watery old veteran he was. Afterwards he +brought in Josephine, and E. W. B. Childers (rather deeply lined in the +jaws by daylight), and the Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in +a word, all the company. Amazing creatures they were in Louisa’s eyes, +so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative +of leg; but it was very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy, and +very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain from tears. + +‘There! Now Thethilia hath kithd all the children, and hugged all the +women, and thaken handth all round with all the men, clear, every one of +you, and ring in the band for the thecond part!’ + +As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low tone. ‘Now, Thethilia, +I don’t athk to know any thecreth, but I thuppothe I may conthider thith +to be Mith Thquire.’ + +‘This is his sister. Yes.’ + +‘And t’other on’th daughter. That’h what I mean. Hope I thee you well, +mith. And I hope the Thquire’th well?’ + +‘My father will be here soon,’ said Louisa, anxious to bring him to the +point. ‘Is my brother safe?’ + +‘Thafe and thound!’ he replied. ‘I want you jutht to take a peep at the +Ring, mith, through here. Thethilia, you know the dodgeth; find a +thpy-hole for yourthelf.’ + +They each looked through a chink in the boards. + +‘That’h Jack the Giant Killer—piethe of comic infant bithnith,’ said +Sleary. ‘There’th a property-houthe, you thee, for Jack to hide in; +there’th my Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a thpit, for Jack’th +thervant; there’th little Jack himthelf in a thplendid thoot of armour; +there’th two comic black thervanth twithe ath big ath the houthe, to +thtand by it and to bring it in and clear it; and the Giant (a very +ecthpenthive bathket one), he an’t on yet. Now, do you thee ’em all?’ + +‘Yes,’ they both said. + +‘Look at ’em again,’ said Sleary, ‘look at ’em well. You thee em all? +Very good. Now, mith;’ he put a form for them to sit on; ‘I have my +opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath hith. I don’t want to know +what your brother’th been up to; ith better for me not to know. All I +thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the +Thquire. Your brother ith one them black thervanth.’ + +Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly of +satisfaction. + +‘Ith a fact,’ said Sleary, ‘and even knowin’ it, you couldn’t put your +finger on him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep your brother here +after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint off. +Let the Thquire come here after the performanth, or come here yourthelf +after the performanth, and you thall find your brother, and have the +whole plathe to talk to him in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long +ath he’th well hid.’ + +Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary +no longer then. She left her love for her brother, with her eyes full of +tears; and she and Sissy went away until later in the afternoon. + +Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had encountered +no one whom he knew; and was now sanguine with Sleary’s assistance, of +getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of the +three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any +disguise, he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, +beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South +America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most +speedily and privately dispatched. + +This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite vacated; +not only by the audience, but by the company and by the horses. After +watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit +down by the side-door, smoking; as if that were his signal that they +might approach. + +‘Your thervant, Thquire,’ was his cautious salutation as they passed in. +‘If you want me you’ll find me here. You muthn’t mind your thon having a +comic livery on.’ + +They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the +Clown’s performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the back +benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, +sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to +call his son. + +In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated +to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, knee-breeches, buckled +shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing fitting him, and everything of +coarse material, moth-eaten and full of holes; with seams in his black +face, where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition +daubed all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful +as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other +means have believed in, weighable and measurable fact though it was. And +one of his model children had come to this! + +At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in remaining +up there by himself. Yielding at length, if any concession so sullenly +made can be called yielding, to the entreaties of Sissy—for Louisa he +disowned altogether—he came down, bench by bench, until he stood in the +sawdust, on the verge of the circle, as far as possible, within its +limits from where his father sat. + +‘How was this done?’ asked the father. + +‘How was what done?’ moodily answered the son. + +‘This robbery,’ said the father, raising his voice upon the word. + +‘I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up ajar before I went +away. I had had the key that was found, made long before. I dropped it +that morning, that it might be supposed to have been used. I didn’t take +the money all at once. I pretended to put my balance away every night, +but I didn’t. Now you know all about it.’ + +‘If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,’ said the father, ‘it would have +shocked me less than this!’ + +‘I don’t see why,’ grumbled the son. ‘So many people are employed in +situations of trust; so many people, out of so many, will be dishonest. +I have heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How can _I_ +help laws? You have comforted others with such things, father. Comfort +yourself!’ + +The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in his +disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw: his hands, with the black partly +worn away inside, looking like the hands of a monkey. The evening was +fast closing in; and from time to time, he turned the whites of his eyes +restlessly and impatiently towards his father. They were the only parts +of his face that showed any life or expression, the pigment upon it was +so thick. + +‘You must be got to Liverpool, and sent abroad.’ + +‘I suppose I must. I can’t be more miserable anywhere,’ whimpered the +whelp, ‘than I have been here, ever since I can remember. That’s one +thing.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with Sleary, to whom he +submitted the question, How to get this deplorable object away? + +‘Why, I’ve been thinking of it, Thquire. There’th not muth time to +lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or no. Ith over twenty mileth to the rail. +There’th a coath in half an hour, that goeth _to_ the rail, ‘purpothe to +cath the mail train. That train will take him right to Liverpool.’ + +‘But look at him,’ groaned Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Will any coach—’ + +‘I don’t mean that he thould go in the comic livery,’ said Sleary. ‘Thay +the word, and I’ll make a Jothkin of him, out of the wardrobe, in five +minutes.’ + +‘I don’t understand,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. + +‘A Jothkin—a Carter. Make up your mind quick, Thquire. There’ll be beer +to feth. I’ve never met with nothing but beer ath’ll ever clean a comic +blackamoor.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented; Mr. Sleary rapidly turned out from a box, +a smock frock, a felt hat, and other essentials; the whelp rapidly +changed clothes behind a screen of baize; Mr. Sleary rapidly brought +beer, and washed him white again. + +‘Now,’ said Sleary, ‘come along to the coath, and jump up behind; I’ll go +with you there, and they’ll thuppothe you one of my people. Thay +farewell to your family, and tharp’th the word.’ With which he +delicately retired. + +‘Here is your letter,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘All necessary means will be +provided for you. Atone, by repentance and better conduct, for the +shocking action you have committed, and the dreadful consequences to +which it has led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, and may God forgive +you as I do!’ + +The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and their +pathetic tone. But, when Louisa opened her arms, he repulsed her afresh. + +‘Not you. I don’t want to have anything to say to you!’ + +‘O Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my love!’ + +‘After all your love!’ he returned, obdurately. ‘Pretty love! Leaving +old Bounderby to himself, and packing my best friend Mr. Harthouse off, +and going home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty love that! +Coming out with every word about our having gone to that place, when you +saw the net was gathering round me. Pretty love that! You have +regularly given me up. You never cared for me.’ + +‘Tharp’th the word!’ said Sleary, at the door. + +They all confusedly went out: Louisa crying to him that she forgave him, +and loved him still, and that he would one day be sorry to have left her +so, and glad to think of these her last words, far away: when some one +ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy, who were both before him +while his sister yet clung to his shoulder, stopped and recoiled. + +For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips parted, his thin +nostrils distended, his white eyelashes quivering, his colourless face +more colourless than ever, as if he ran himself into a white heat, when +other people ran themselves into a glow. There he stood, panting and +heaving, as if he had never stopped since the night, now long ago, when +he had run them down before. + +‘I’m sorry to interfere with your plans,’ said Bitzer, shaking his head, +‘but I can’t allow myself to be done by horse-riders. I must have young +Mr. Tom; he mustn’t be got away by horse-riders; here he is in a smock +frock, and I must have him!’ + +By the collar, too, it seemed. For, so he took possession of him. + + + +CHAPTER VIII +PHILOSOPHICAL + + +THEY went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the door to keep intruders +out. Bitzer, still holding the paralysed culprit by the collar, stood in +the Ring, blinking at his old patron through the darkness of the +twilight. + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive to +him, ‘have you a heart?’ + +‘The circulation, sir,’ returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of the +question, ‘couldn’t be carried on without one. No man, sir, acquainted +with the facts established by Harvey relating to the circulation of the +blood, can doubt that I have a heart.’ + +‘Is it accessible,’ cried Mr. Gradgrind, ‘to any compassionate +influence?’ + +‘It is accessible to Reason, sir,’ returned the excellent young man. +‘And to nothing else.’ + +They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind’s face as white as the +pursuer’s. + +‘What motive—even what motive in reason—can you have for preventing the +escape of this wretched youth,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘and crushing his +miserable father? See his sister here. Pity us!’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Bitzer, in a very business-like and logical manner, +‘since you ask me what motive I have in reason, for taking young Mr. Tom +back to Coketown, it is only reasonable to let you know. I have +suspected young Mr. Tom of this bank-robbery from the first. I had had +my eye upon him before that time, for I knew his ways. I have kept my +observations to myself, but I have made them; and I have got ample proofs +against him now, besides his running away, and besides his own +confession, which I was just in time to overhear. I had the pleasure of +watching your house yesterday morning, and following you here. I am +going to take young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him +over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby +will then promote me to young Mr. Tom’s situation. And I wish to have +his situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good.’ + +‘If this is solely a question of self-interest with you—’ Mr. Gradgrind +began. + +‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,’ returned Bitzer; ‘but I am +sure you know that the whole social system is a question of +self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person’s +self-interest. It’s your only hold. We are so constituted. I was +brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are +aware.’ + +‘What sum of money,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘will you set against your +expected promotion?’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Bitzer, ‘for hinting at the proposal; but I +will not set any sum against it. Knowing that your clear head would +propose that alternative, I have gone over the calculations in my mind; +and I find that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, +would not be as safe and good for me as my improved prospects in the +Bank.’ + +‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would +have said, See how miserable I am! ‘Bitzer, I have but one chance left +to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of +the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any +degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, I entreat +and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance.’ + +‘I really wonder, sir,’ rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative +manner, ‘to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling was +paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain ended.’ + +It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that +everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give +anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was +to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every +inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a +bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it +was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there. + +‘I don’t deny,’ added Bitzer, ‘that my schooling was cheap. But that +comes right, sir. I was made in the cheapest market, and have to dispose +of myself in the dearest.’ + +He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy crying. + +‘Pray don’t do that,’ said he, ‘it’s of no use doing that: it only +worries. You seem to think that I have some animosity against young Mr. +Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the reasonable +grounds I have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. If he was to +resist, I should set up the cry of Stop thief! But, he won’t resist, you +may depend upon it.’ + +Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as immovably +jammed in his head as his fixed one, had listened to these doctrines with +profound attention, here stepped forward. + +‘Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knowth perfectly +well (better than you, becauthe I thed it to her), that I didn’t know +what your thon had done, and that I didn’t want to know—I thed it wath +better not, though I only thought, then, it wath thome thkylarking. +However, thith young man having made it known to be a robbery of a bank, +why, that’h a theriouth thing; muth too theriouth a thing for me to +compound, ath thith young man hath very properly called it. +Conthequently, Thquire, you muthn’t quarrel with me if I take thith young +man’th thide, and thay he’th right and there’th no help for it. But I +tell you what I’ll do, Thquire; I’ll drive your thon and thith young man +over to the rail, and prevent expothure here. I can’t conthent to do +more, but I’ll do that.’ + +Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction on Mr. Gradgrind’s +part, followed this desertion of them by their last friend. But, Sissy +glanced at him with great attention; nor did she in her own breast +misunderstand him. As they were all going out again, he favoured her +with one slight roll of his movable eye, desiring her to linger behind. +As he locked the door, he said excitedly: + +‘The Thquire thtood by you, Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the Thquire. +More than that: thith ith a prethiouth rathcal, and belongth to that +bluthtering Cove that my people nearly pitht out o’ winder. It’ll be a +dark night; I’ve got a horthe that’ll do anything but thpeak; I’ve got a +pony that’ll go fifteen mile an hour with Childerth driving of him; I’ve +got a dog that’ll keep a man to one plathe four-and-twenty hourth. Get a +word with the young Thquire. Tell him, when he theeth our horthe begin +to danthe, not to be afraid of being thpilt, but to look out for a +pony-gig coming up. Tell him, when he theeth that gig clothe by, to jump +down, and it’ll take him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog leth thith +young man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to go. And if my horthe +ever thtirth from that thpot where he beginth a danthing, till the +morning—I don’t know him?—Tharp’th the word!’ + +The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering about +the market-place in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary’s +equipage was ready. It was a fine sight, to behold the learned dog +barking round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him, with his one +practicable eye, that Bitzer was the object of his particular attentions. +Soon after dark they all three got in and started; the learned dog (a +formidable creature) already pinning Bitzer with his eye, and sticking +close to the wheel on his side, that he might be ready for him in the +event of his showing the slightest disposition to alight. + +The other three sat up at the inn all night in great suspense. At eight +o’clock in the morning Mr. Sleary and the dog reappeared: both in high +spirits. + +‘All right, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, ‘your thon may be aboard-a-thip by +thith time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a half after we left +there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat +(he would have walthed if he hadn’t been in harneth), and then I gave him +the word and he went to thleep comfortable. When that prethiouth young +Rathcal thed he’d go for’ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith +neck-hankercher with all four legth in the air and pulled him down and +rolled him over. Tho he come back into the drag, and there he that, +’till I turned the horthe’th head, at half-patht thixth thith morning.’ + +Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course; and hinted as +delicately as he could, at a handsome remuneration in money. + +‘I don’t want money mythelf, Thquire; but Childerth ith a family man, and +if you wath to like to offer him a five-pound note, it mightn’t be +unactheptable. Likewithe if you wath to thtand a collar for the dog, or +a thet of bellth for the horthe, I thould be very glad to take ’em. +Brandy and water I alwayth take.’ He had already called for a glass, and +now called for another. ‘If you wouldn’t think it going too far, +Thquire, to make a little thpread for the company at about three and +thixth ahead, not reckoning Luth, it would make ’em happy.’ + +All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very willingly +undertook to render. Though he thought them far too slight, he said, for +such a service. + +‘Very well, Thquire; then, if you’ll only give a Horthe-riding, a +bethpeak, whenever you can, you’ll more than balanthe the account. Now, +Thquire, if your daughter will ethcuthe me, I thould like one parting +word with you.’ + +Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room; Mr. Sleary, stirring +and drinking his brandy and water as he stood, went on: + +‘Thquire,—you don’t need to be told that dogth ith wonderful animalth.’ + +‘Their instinct,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘is surprising.’ + +‘Whatever you call it—and I’m bletht if _I_ know what to call it’—said +Sleary, ‘it ith athtonithing. The way in whith a dog’ll find you—the +dithtanthe he’ll come!’ + +‘His scent,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘being so fine.’ + +‘I’m bletht if I know what to call it,’ repeated Sleary, shaking his +head, ‘but I have had dogth find me, Thquire, in a way that made me think +whether that dog hadn’t gone to another dog, and thed, “You don’t happen +to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do you? Perthon of the name of +Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding way—thtout man—game eye?” And whether that +dog mightn’t have thed, “Well, I can’t thay I know him mythelf, but I +know a dog that I think would be likely to be acquainted with him.” And +whether that dog mightn’t have thought it over, and thed, “Thleary, +Thleary! O yeth, to be thure! A friend of mine menthioned him to me at +one time. I can get you hith addreth directly.” In conthequenth of my +being afore the public, and going about tho muth, you thee, there mutht +be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that _I_ don’t know!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this speculation. + +‘Any way,’ said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and water, +‘ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at Chethter. We wath +getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh into +our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had travelled a long way, he +wath in a very bad condithon, he wath lame, and pretty well blind. He +went round to our children, one after another, as if he wath a theeking +for a child he know’d; and then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up +behind, and thtood on hith two forelegth, weak ath he wath, and then he +wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.’ + +‘Sissy’s father’s dog!’ + +‘Thethilia’th father’th old dog. Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, from +my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead—and buried—afore that +dog come back to me. Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it over a +long time, whether I thould write or not. But we agreed, “No. There’th +nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her +unhappy?” Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he +broke hith own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him; +never will be known, now, Thquire, till—no, not till we know how the +dogth findth uth out!’ + +‘She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour; and she will +believe in his affection to the last moment of her life,’ said Mr. +Gradgrind. + +‘It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don’t it, Thquire?’ +said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths of his brandy +and water: ‘one, that there ith a love in the world, not all +Thelf-interetht after all, but thomething very different; t’other, that +it hath a way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith +thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the +wayth of the dogth ith!’ + +Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no reply. Mr. Sleary +emptied his glass and recalled the ladies. + +‘Thethilia my dear, kith me and good-bye! Mith Thquire, to thee you +treating of her like a thithter, and a thithter that you trutht and +honour with all your heart and more, ith a very pretty thight to me. I +hope your brother may live to be better detherving of you, and a greater +comfort to you. Thquire, thake handth, firtht and latht! Don’t be croth +with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be +alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they an’t +made for it. You _mutht_ have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the +kind thing too, and make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!’ + +‘And I never thought before,’ said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in at the +door again to say it, ‘that I wath tho muth of a Cackler!’ + + + +CHAPTER IX +FINAL + + +IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain +blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt +that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be +wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant +discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a +woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it +accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the +discovery that to discharge this highly connected female—to have it in +his power to say, ‘She was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, +but I wouldn’t have it, and got rid of her’—would be to get the utmost +possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the same +time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her deserts. + +Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby came in to +lunch, and sat himself down in the dining-room of former days, where his +portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her cotton +stirrup, little thinking whither she was posting. + +Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity for Mr. +Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In virtue +thereof, it had become her habit to assume a woful look, which woful look +she now bestowed upon her patron. + +‘What’s the matter now, ma’am?’ said Mr. Bounderby, in a very short, +rough way. + +‘Pray, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, ‘do not bite my nose off.’ + +‘Bite your nose off, ma’am?’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. ‘_Your_ nose!’ +meaning, as Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that it was too developed a nose for +the purpose. After which offensive implication, he cut himself a crust +of bread, and threw the knife down with a noise. + +Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, ‘Mr. Bounderby, +sir!’ + +‘Well, ma’am?’ retorted Mr. Bounderby. ‘What are you staring at?’ + +‘May I ask, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘have you been ruffled this +morning?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am.’ + +‘May I inquire, sir,’ pursued the injured woman, ‘whether _I_ am the +unfortunate cause of your having lost your temper?’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘I am not come here to +be bullied. A female may be highly connected, but she can’t be permitted +to bother and badger a man in my position, and I am not going to put up +with it.’ (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to get on: foreseeing that if +he allowed of details, he would be beaten.) + +Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian eyebrows; +gathered up her work into its proper basket; and rose. + +‘Sir,’ said she, majestically. ‘It is apparent to me that I am in your +way at present. I will retire to my own apartment.’ + +‘Allow me to open the door, ma’am.’ + +‘Thank you, sir; I can do it for myself.’ + +‘You had better allow me, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, passing her, and +getting his hand upon the lock; ‘because I can take the opportunity of +saying a word to you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I rather think +you are cramped here, do you know? It appears to me, that, under my +humble roof, there’s hardly opening enough for a lady of your genius in +other people’s affairs.’ + +Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said with great +politeness, ‘Really, sir?’ + +‘I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have +happened, ma’am,’ said Bounderby; ‘and it appears to my poor judgment—’ + +‘Oh! Pray, sir,’ Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with sprightly cheerfulness, +‘don’t disparage your judgment. Everybody knows how unerring Mr. +Bounderby’s judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of it. It must be the +theme of general conversation. Disparage anything in yourself but your +judgment, sir,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, laughing. + +Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed: + +‘It appears to me, ma’am, I say, that a different sort of establishment +altogether would bring out a lady of _your_ powers. Such an +establishment as your relation, Lady Scadgers’s, now. Don’t you think +you might find some affairs there, ma’am, to interfere with?’ + +‘It never occurred to me before, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit; ‘but now +you mention it, should think it highly probable.’ + +‘Then suppose you try, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, laying an envelope with a +cheque in it in her little basket. ‘You can take your own time for +going, ma’am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be more agreeable to +a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals by herself, and not to be +intruded upon. I really ought to apologise to you—being only Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown—for having stood in your light so long.’ + +‘Pray don’t name it, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit. ‘If that portrait +could speak, sir—but it has the advantage over the original of not +possessing the power of committing itself and disgusting others,—it would +testify, that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually +addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle does, can +awaken surprise or indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only +inspire contempt.’ + +Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a medal struck to +commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him fixedly from head to +foot, swept disdainfully past him, and ascended the staircase. Mr. +Bounderby closed the door, and stood before the fire; projecting himself +after his old explosive manner into his portrait—and into futurity. + + * * * * * + +Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting out a daily +fight at the points of all the weapons in the female armoury, with the +grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in +bed with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her insufficient income down by +about the middle of every quarter, in a mean little airless lodging, a +mere closet for one, a mere crib for two; but did he see more? Did he +catch any glimpse of himself making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the +rising young man, so devoted to his master’s great merits, who had won +young Tom’s place, and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the +times when by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint +reflection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, whereby +five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty years of age, each taking +upon himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, should for ever dine +in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in Bounderby buildings, for ever attend +a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, for +ever be supported out of a Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all +healthy stomachs, with a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and bluster? +Had he any prescience of the day, five years to come, when Josiah +Bounderby of Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and +this same precious will was to begin its long career of quibble, plunder, +false pretences, vile example, little service and much law? Probably +not. Yet the portrait was to see it all out. + +Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, sitting +thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did _he_ see? Did he +see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible +theories to appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures +subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no longer trying to grind +that Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of +himself, therefore much despised by his late political associates? Did +he see them, in the era of its being quite settled that the national +dustmen have only to do with one another, and owe no duty to an +abstraction called a People, ‘taunting the honourable gentleman’ with +this and with that and with what not, five nights a-week, until the small +hours of the morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing +his men. + + * * * * * + +Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as in +days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler face. How much of the +future might arise before _her_ vision? Broadsides in the streets, +signed with her father’s name, exonerating the late Stephen Blackpool, +weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his own +son, with such extenuation as his years and temptation (he could not +bring himself to add, his education) might beseech; were of the Present. +So, Stephen Blackpool’s tombstone, with her father’s record of his death, +was almost of the Present, for she knew it was to be. These things she +could plainly see. But, how much of the Future? + +A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once again +appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to and fro at +the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of pensive beauty, +always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and serene, and even +cheerful; who, of all the people in the place, alone appeared to have +compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of her own sex, who was +sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of her, and crying to her; a +woman working, ever working, but content to do it, and preferring to do +it as her natural lot, until she should be too old to labour any more? +Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was to be. + +A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on paper blotted +with tears, that her words had too soon come true, and that all the +treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear +face? At length this brother coming nearer home, with hope of seeing +her, and being delayed by illness; and then a letter, in a strange hand, +saying ‘he died in hospital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence +and love of you: his last word being your name’? Did Louisa see these +things? Such things were to be. + +Herself again a wife—a mother—lovingly watchful of her children, ever +careful that they should have a childhood of the mind no less than a +childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even a more beautiful thing, +and a possession, any hoarded scrap of which, is a blessing and happiness +to the wisest? Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was never to be. + +But, happy Sissy’s happy children loving her; all children loving her; +she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty +fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler +fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality +with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of +infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally +stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show, will +be the Writing on the Wall,—she holding this course as part of no +fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or +covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be +done,—did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be. + +Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our two fields of +action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall sit with +lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and +cold. + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARD TIMES*** + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0} _Reprinted Pieces_ was released as a separate eText by Project +Gutenberg, and is not included in this eText. + + + + +******* This file should be named 786-0.txt or 786-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/8/786 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Little_Dorrit.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Little_Dorrit.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c9cc92 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Little_Dorrit.txt @@ -0,0 +1,37263 @@ + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + + +Title: Little Dorrit + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #963] +Release Date: July, 1997 +Last Updated: February 11, 2023 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Produced by Jo Churcher and David Widger + + + + +LITTLE DORRIT + +By Charles Dickens + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Preface to the 1857 Edition + + + BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY + 1. Sun and Shadow + 2. Fellow Travellers + 3. Home + 4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream + 5. Family Affairs + 6. The Father of the Marshalsea + 7. The Child of the Marshalsea + 8. The Lock + 9. little Mother + 10. Containing the whole Science of Government + 11. Let Loose + 12. Bleeding Heart Yard + 13. Patriarchal + 14. Little Dorrit’s Party + 15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream + 16. Nobody’s Weakness + 17. Nobody’s Rival + 18. Little Dorrit’s Lover + 19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations + 20. Moving in Society + 21. Mr Merdle’s Complaint + 22. A Puzzle + 23. Machinery in Motion + 24. Fortune-Telling + 25. Conspirators and Others + 26. Nobody’s State of Mind + 27. Five-and-Twenty + 28. Nobody’s Disappearance + 29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming + 30. The Word of a Gentleman + 31. Spirit + 32. More Fortune-Telling + 33. Mrs Merdle’s Complaint + 34. A Shoal of Barnacles + 35. What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit’s Hand + 36. The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan + + + BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES + + 1. Fellow Travellers + 2. Mrs General + 3. On the Road + 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit + 5. Something Wrong Somewhere + 6. Something Right Somewhere + 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism + 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ‘It Never Does’ + 9. Appearance and Disappearance + 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken + 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit + 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden + 13. The Progress of an Epidemic + 14. Taking Advice + 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should + not be joined together + 16. Getting on + 17. Missing + 18. A Castle in the Air + 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air + 20. Introduces the next + 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor + 22. Who Passes by this Road so late? + 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her + Dreams + 24. The Evening of a Long Day + 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office + 26. Reaping the Whirlwind + 27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea + 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea + 29. A Plea in the Marshalsea + 30. Closing in + 31. Closed + 32. Going + 33. Going! + 34. Gone + + + + +PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION + + +I have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two +years. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its +merits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read +as a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have +held its threads with a more continuous attention than anyone else can +have given them during its desultory publication, it is not unreasonable +to ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state, and +with the pattern finished. + +If I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the +Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the +common experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention the +unimportant fact of my having done that violence to good manners, in the +days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea. If I might +make so bold as to defend that extravagant conception, Mr Merdle, I +would hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the +times of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally +laudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the +preposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good +and an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence +that it has been brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of +the public examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. But, +I submit myself to suffer judgment to go by default on all these counts, +if need be, and to accept the assurance (on good authority) that nothing +like them was ever known in this land. + +Some of my readers may have an interest in being informed whether or no +any portions of the Marshalsea Prison are yet standing. I did not know, +myself, until the sixth of this present month, when I went to look. I +found the outer front courtyard, often mentioned here, metamorphosed +into a butter shop; and I then almost gave up every brick of the jail +for lost. Wandering, however, down a certain adjacent ‘Angel Court, +leading to Bermondsey’, I came to ‘Marshalsea Place:’ the houses in +which I recognised, not only as the great block of the former prison, +but as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind’s-eye when I became +Little Dorrit’s biographer. The smallest boy I ever conversed with, +carrying the largest baby I ever saw, offered a supernaturally +intelligent explanation of the locality in its old uses, and was very +nearly correct. How this young Newton (for such I judge him to be) came +by his information, I don’t know; he was a quarter of a century too +young to know anything about it of himself. I pointed to the window of +the room where Little Dorrit was born, and where her father lived so +long, and asked him what was the name of the lodger who tenanted that +apartment at present? He said, ‘Tom Pythick.’ I asked him who was Tom +Pythick? and he said, ‘Joe Pythick’s uncle.’ + +A little further on, I found the older and smaller wall, which used +to enclose the pent-up inner prison where nobody was put, except for +ceremony. But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of +Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very +paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard +to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that +the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon rooms +in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of +many miserable years. + +In the Preface to Bleak House I remarked that I had never had so many +readers. In the Preface to its next successor, Little Dorrit, I have +still to repeat the same words. Deeply sensible of the affection and +confidence that have grown up between us, I add to this Preface, as I +added to that, May we meet again! + +London May 1857 + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE DORRIT *** + +BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY + + + + +CHAPTER 1. Sun and Shadow + + +Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. + +A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern +France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in +Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been +stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. +Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, +staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, +staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be +seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their +load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air +barely moved their faint leaves. + +There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, +or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two +colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not +pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never +mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at +their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or +day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, +Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, +descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, +sought the shade alike--taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too +intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great +flaming jewel of fire. + +The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of +Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, +slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere +else. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the +hill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable +plain. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the +monotonous wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped +beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, +in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did +their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; +so did the exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or +grew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly +over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like +a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in +the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting. + +Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep +out the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a +white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of +the twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted with winking lamps, +dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and +begging--was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the +nearest strip of shade. So, with people lounging and lying wherever +shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with +occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious +drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling +in the sun one day. + +In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its +chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at +it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for +itself, were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured +bench, immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon +it with a knife, a set of draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, +a set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all +the chamber held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition +to the seen vermin, the two men. + +It received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars +fashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be +always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave. +There was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom +of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground. +Upon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with +his knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted against the +opposite sides of the aperture. The bars were wide enough apart to +admit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on +negligently, for his greater ease. + +A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the +imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all +deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, +so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air +was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, +the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have +kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the +Indian ocean. + +The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked +his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one +shoulder, and growled, ‘To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that +never shines in here!’ + +He was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he +might see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of +a wild beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close together, +were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in +his, and they were sharp rather than bright--pointed weapons with little +surface to betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered, +and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a +clockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome +after its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much +as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and +tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at +all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy +state, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating +(seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was +unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the +prison grime. + +The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown +coat. + +‘Get up, pig!’ growled the first. ‘Don’t sleep when I am hungry.’ + +‘It’s all one, master,’ said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not +without cheerfulness; ‘I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will. +It’s all the same.’ + +As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown +coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it +as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back +against the wall opposite to the grating. + +‘Say what the hour is,’ grumbled the first man. + +‘The mid-day bells will ring--in forty minutes.’ When he made the +little pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain +information. + +‘You are a clock. How is it that you always know?’ + +‘How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was +brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See +here! Marseilles harbour;’ on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all +out with a swarthy forefinger; ‘Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain +over there, Algiers over _there_. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. +Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine +Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, +Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away +to--hey! there’s no room for Naples;’ he had got to the wall by this +time; ‘but it’s all one; it’s in there!’ + +He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a +lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though +rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his +grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown +throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like +trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and +a knife in it. + +‘Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! Civita +Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in +there), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys +is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national +razor in its case--the guillotine locked up.’ + +The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat. + +Some lock below gurgled in _its_ throat immediately afterwards, and then +a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of +a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the +prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old, +and a basket. + +‘How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you see, +going round with me to have a peep at her father’s birds. Fie, then! +Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.’ + +He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at +the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to +mistrust. ‘I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,’ said he +(they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); ‘and if I +might recommend you not to game--’ + +‘You don’t recommend the master!’ said John Baptist, showing his teeth +as he smiled. + +‘Oh! but the master wins,’ returned the jailer, with a passing look of +no particular liking at the other man, ‘and you lose. It’s quite another +thing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of +Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good +wine by it. Look at the birds, my pretty!’ + +‘Poor birds!’ said the child. + +The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped +shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel’s in the prison. John +Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for +him. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance +at the basket. + +‘Stay!’ said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge +of the grate, ‘she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor +John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So, +there’s a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine +leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--this veal in savoury jelly is for +Monsieur Rigaud. Again--these three white little loaves are for Monsieur +Rigaud. Again, this cheese--again, this wine--again, this tobacco--all +for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!’ + +The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth, +well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back +her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an +expression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas she had put the +lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John +Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two +thumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready +confidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it +caressingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this +distinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the +daughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had +all his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he +rested, began to eat with an appetite. + +When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that +was more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up under his +nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and +cruel manner. + +‘There!’ said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the +crumbs out, ‘I have expended all the money I received; here is the note +of it, and _that’s_ a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected +yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at +an hour after mid-day, to-day.’ + +‘To try me, eh?’ said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in +mouth. + +‘You have said it. To try you.’ + +‘There is no news for me?’ asked John Baptist, who had begun, +contentedly, to munch his bread. + +The jailer shrugged his shoulders. + +‘Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?’ + +‘What do I know!’ cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern +quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers, +as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. ‘My friend, how is it +possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know, +John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here +sometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.’ + +He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but +Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite so +quick an appetite as before. + +‘Adieu, my birds!’ said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty +child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss. + +‘Adieu, my birds!’ the pretty child repeated. + +Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he +walked away with her, singing her the song of the child’s game: + + ‘Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!’ + +that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and +in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely: + + ‘Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Always gay!’ + +Which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the +prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the +song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the +child’s head disappeared, and the prison-keeper’s head disappeared, but +the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed. + +Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before +the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment, +and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had +better resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again +upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly +accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before +himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way +through them as if to clear them off were a sort of game. + +Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the +veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth +water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president +and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could, +and to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink +to contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose +came down. + +‘How do you find the bread?’ + +‘A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,’ returned John Baptist, +holding up his knife. + +‘How sauce?’ + +‘I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or +so--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,’ said John Baptist, +demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing +what he had in his mouth. + +‘Here!’ cried Monsieur Rigaud. ‘You may drink. You may finish this.’ + +It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor +Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned +it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips. + +‘Put the bottle by with the rest,’ said Rigaud. + +The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted +match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of +little squares of paper which had been brought in with it. + +‘Here! You may have one.’ + +‘A thousand thanks, my master!’ John Baptist said in his own language, +and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen. + +Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock +into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the +bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in +each hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable +attraction of Monsieur Rigaud’s eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of +that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They +were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once +followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise. + +‘What an infernal hole this is!’ said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long +pause. ‘Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the +light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!’ + +It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the +staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else. + +‘Cavalletto,’ said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from +this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, ‘you +know me for a gentleman?’ + +‘Surely, surely!’ + +‘How long have we been here?’ + +‘I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight. You, nine weeks and three +days, at five this afternoon.’ + +‘Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread +the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the +dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?’ + +‘Never!’ + +‘Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?’ + +John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the +right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian +language. + +‘No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a +gentleman?’ + +‘ALTRO!’ returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a +most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, +a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, +a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present +instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression, +our familiar English ‘I believe you!’ + +‘Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I’ll live, and +a gentleman I’ll die! It’s my intent to be a gentleman. It’s my game. +Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!’ + +He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air: + +‘Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny’s dice-box into the company +of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose +papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing +his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition +of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively +recognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It’s well +done! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes.’ + +Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down. + +‘What’s the hour now?’ he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather +difficult of association with merriment. + +‘A little half-hour after mid-day.’ + +‘Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come! +Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I +shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made +ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.’ + +Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and +showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected. + +‘I am a’--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--‘I am a cosmopolitan +gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--Canton de +Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born +in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.’ + +His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds +of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion +and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he +was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to +undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a +person as John Baptist Cavalletto. + +‘Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have +lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I +have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try +to prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do +your lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the +Exchange?’ + +He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a +witness to his gentility that had often done him good service before. + +‘Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I had been +ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of +the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, _they_ become +poor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,--kept then by Monsieur Henri +Barronneau--sixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health. I had +lived in the house some four months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had +the misfortune to die;--at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It +happens without any aid of mine, pretty often.’ + +John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers’ ends, +Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted the +second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his +companion, who, preoccupied with his own case, hardly looked at him. + +‘Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She was two-and-twenty. She had +gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was +beautiful. I continued to live at the Cross of Gold. I married Madame +Barronneau. It is not for me to say whether there was any great +disparity in such a match. Here I stand, with the contamination of a +jail upon me; but it is possible that you may think me better suited to +her than her former husband was.’ + +He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and +a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere +swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, +blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world. + +‘Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me. _That_ is not to +prejudice me, I hope?’ + +His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that +little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an +argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro--an +infinite number of times. + +‘Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say nothing +in defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my character to govern. +I can’t submit; I must govern. Unfortunately, the property of Madame +Rigaud was settled upon herself. Such was the insane act of her late +husband. More unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife’s +relations interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud, +and who must govern, the consequences are inimical to peace. There +was yet another source of difference between us. Madame Rigaud was +unfortunately a little vulgar. I sought to improve her manners and +ameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by her +relations) resented my endeavours. Quarrels began to arise between us; +and, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the relations of +Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours. It has been said +that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may have been seen to slap +her face--nothing more. I have a light hand; and if I have been seen +apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, I have done it +almost playfully.’ + +If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his smile +at this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said that +they would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate woman +seriously. + +‘I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be +sensitive and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations of +Madame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how +to deal with them. They knew that, and their machinations were conducted +in secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent +and unfortunate collision. Even when I wanted any little sum of money +for my personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collision--and +I, too, a man whose character it is to govern! One night, Madame Rigaud +and myself were walking amicably--I may say like lovers--on a height +overhanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to +her relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on +the want of duty and devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be +influenced by their jealous animosity towards her husband. Madame Rigaud +retorted; I retorted; Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked +her. I admit it. Frankness is a part of my character. At length, Madame +Rigaud, in an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself +upon me with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard +at some distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, +trampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing herself to +death upon the rocks below. Such is the train of incidents which +malice has perverted into my endeavouring to force from Madame Rigaud +a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her persistence in a refusal to +make the concession I required, struggling with her--assassinating her!’ + +He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn +about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, +with his back to the light. + +‘Well,’ he demanded after a silence, ‘have you nothing to say to all +that?’ + +‘It’s ugly,’ returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening +his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall. + +‘What do you mean?’ + +John Baptist polished his knife in silence. + +‘Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?’ + +‘Al-tro!’ returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and stood +for ‘Oh, by no means!’ + +‘What then?’ + +‘Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.’ + +‘Well,’ cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his +shoulder with an oath, ‘let them do their worst!’ + +‘Truly I think they will,’ murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent +his head to put his knife in his sash. + +Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking +to and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud +sometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light, +or make some irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to +go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace with his eyes +turned downward, nothing came of these inclinings. + +By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The sound +of voices succeeded, and the tread of feet. The door clashed, the voices +and the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs, +followed by a guard of soldiers. + +‘Now, Monsieur Rigaud,’ said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with +his keys in his hands, ‘have the goodness to come out.’ + +‘I am to depart in state, I see?’ + +‘Why, unless you did,’ returned the jailer, ‘you might depart in so many +pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. There’s a +crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn’t love you.’ + +He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the +corner of the chamber. ‘Now,’ said he, as he opened it and appeared +within, ‘come out.’ + +There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like +the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud’s face as it was then. Neither is there +any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in +every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both +are conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole +deep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate +extremity. + +He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion’s; put it +tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; +threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into +the side gallery on which the door opened, without taking any further +notice of Signor Cavalletto. As to that little man himself, his whole +attention had become absorbed in getting near the door and looking out +at it. Precisely as a beast might approach the opened gate of his den +and eye the freedom beyond, he passed those few moments in watching and +peering, until the door was closed upon him. + +There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable, +profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar. +He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of +the party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave +the word ‘march!’ and so they all went jingling down the staircase. The +door clashed--the key turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath +of unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a +tiny wreath of smoke from the cigar. + +Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient ape, +or roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left solitary, +had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this departure. As he +yet stood clasping the grate with both hands, an uproar broke upon his +hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, execrations, all comprehended +in it, though (as in a storm) nothing but a raging swell of sound +distinctly heard. + +Excited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by his +anxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the +chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and tried to shake +it, leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and never rested until +the noise, becoming more and more distant, had died away. How many +better prisoners have worn their noble hearts out so; no man thinking +of it; not even the beloved of their souls realising it; great kings +and governors, who had made them captive, careering in the sunlight +jauntily, and men cheering them on. Even the said great personages dying +in bed, making exemplary ends and sounding speeches; and polite history, +more servile than their instruments, embalming them! + +At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the +compass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep +when he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his +crossed arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his lightness, in his +good humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with +hard bread and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts, +altogether a true son of the land that gave him birth. + +The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down in +a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the +fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate +the goodness of a better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the +interminable plains were in repose--and so deep a hush was on the sea, +that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 Fellow Travellers + + +‘No more of yesterday’s howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?’ + +‘I have heard none.’ + +‘Then you may be sure there _is_ none. When these people howl, they howl +to be heard.’ + +‘Most people do, I suppose.’ + +‘Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.’ + +‘Do you mean the Marseilles people?’ + +‘I mean the French people. They’re always at it. As to Marseilles, we +know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the +world that was ever composed. It couldn’t exist without allonging and +marshonging to something or other--victory or death, or blazes, or +something.’ + +The speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time, looked +over the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of Marseilles; and +taking up a determined position by putting his hands in his pockets and +rattling his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh. + +‘Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you, +I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful +business, instead of shutting ‘em up in quarantine!’ + +‘Tiresome enough,’ said the other. ‘But we shall be out to-day.’ + +‘Out to-day!’ repeated the first. ‘It’s almost an aggravation of the +enormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever been in +for?’ + +‘For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the East, +and as the East is the country of the plague--’ + +‘The plague!’ repeated the other. ‘That’s my grievance. I have had the +plague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like a sane man +shut up in a madhouse; I can’t stand the suspicion of the thing. I came +here as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague +is to give me the plague. And I have had it--and I have got it.’ + +‘You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,’ said the second speaker, smiling. + +‘No. If you knew the real state of the case, that’s the last observation +you would think of making. I have been waking up night after night, and +saying, _now_ I have got it, _now_ it has developed itself, _now_ I am +in for it, _now_ these fellows are making out their case for their +precautions. Why, I’d as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck +upon a card in a collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been +leading here.’ + +‘Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it’s over,’ urged a cheerful +feminine voice. + +‘Over!’ repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any +ill-nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word +spoken by anybody else is a new injury. ‘Over! and why should I say no +more about it because it’s over?’ + +It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles was, +like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which +had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty years or more, and +shone with a bright reflection of them. + +‘There! Never mind, Father, never mind!’ said Mrs Meagles. ‘For goodness +sake content yourself with Pet.’ + +‘With Pet?’ repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however, +being close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles +immediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart. + +Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging free in +natural ringlets. A lovely girl, with a frank face, and wonderful eyes; +so large, so soft, so bright, set to such perfection in her kind good +head. She was round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and there was in +Pet an air of timidity and dependence which was the best weakness in +the world, and gave her the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and +pleasant could have been without. + +‘Now, I ask you,’ said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, falling +back a step himself, and handing his daughter a step forward to +illustrate his question: ‘I ask you simply, as between man and man, +you know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in +quarantine?’ + +‘It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.’ + +‘Come!’ said Mr Meagles, ‘that’s something to be sure. I am obliged to +you for that remark. Now, Pet, my darling, you had better go along with +Mother and get ready for the boat. The officer of health, and a variety +of humbugs in cocked hats, are coming off to let us out of this at last: +and all we jail-birds are to breakfast together in something approaching +to a Christian style again, before we take wing for our different +destinations. Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.’ + +He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and very +neatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed off in the +train of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare scorched terrace +all three together, and disappeared through a staring white archway. +Mr Meagles’s companion, a grave dark man of forty, still stood looking +towards this archway after they were gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him +on the arm. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said he, starting. + +‘Not at all,’ said Mr Meagles. + +They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall, +getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what +cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning. Mr +Meagles’s companion resumed the conversation. + +‘May I ask you,’ he said, ‘what is the name of--’ + +‘Tattycoram?’ Mr Meagles struck in. ‘I have not the least idea.’ + +‘I thought,’ said the other, ‘that--’ + +‘Tattycoram?’ suggested Mr Meagles again. + +‘Thank you--that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times +wondered at the oddity of it.’ + +‘Why, the fact is,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘Mrs Meagles and myself are, you +see, practical people.’ + +‘That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and +interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and down on +these stones,’ said the other, with a half smile breaking through the +gravity of his dark face. + +‘Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we took +Pet to church at the Foundling--you have heard of the Foundling Hospital +in London? Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?’ + +‘I have seen it.’ + +‘Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the +music--because, as practical people, it is the business of our lives to +show her everything that we think can please her--Mother (my usual name +for Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, that it was necessary to take her out. +“What’s the matter, Mother?” said I, when we had brought her a little +round: “you are frightening Pet, my dear.” “Yes, I know that, Father,” + says Mother, “but I think it’s through my loving her so much, that it +ever came into my head.” “That ever what came into your head, Mother?” + “O dear, dear!” cried Mother, breaking out again, “when I saw all those +children ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none of +them has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in Heaven, +I thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and look among those +young faces, wondering which is the poor child she brought into this +forlorn world, never through all its life to know her love, her kiss, +her face, her voice, even her name!” Now that was practical in Mother, +and I told her so. I said, “Mother, that’s what I call practical in you, +my dear.”’ + +The other, not unmoved, assented. + +‘So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I +think you’ll approve of. Let us take one of those same little children +to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should +find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide +of ours, we shall know what we have to take into account. We shall +know what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and +experiences that have formed us--no parents, no child-brother or sister, +no individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And +that’s the way we came by Tattycoram.’ + +‘And the name itself--’ + +‘By George!’ said Mr Meagles, ‘I was forgetting the name itself. Why, +she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle--an arbitrary name, +of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty, +because, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be +a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of +effect, don’t you see? As to Beadle, that I needn’t say was wholly out +of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on +any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and +absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks +our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it +is a beadle. You haven’t seen a beadle lately?’ + +‘As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, no.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion’s breast +with great animation, ‘don’t you see a beadle, now, if you can help it. +Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday +at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or +I should hit him. The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the +originator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a +blessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet’s little +maid. At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we +got into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always +Tattycoram.’ + +‘Your daughter,’ said the other, when they had taken another silent turn +to and fro, and, after standing for a moment at the wall glancing down +at the sea, had resumed their walk, ‘is your only child, I know, Mr +Meagles. May I ask you--in no impertinent curiosity, but because I have +had so much pleasure in your society, may never in this labyrinth of +a world exchange a quiet word with you again, and wish to preserve an +accurate remembrance of you and yours--may I ask you, if I have not +gathered from your good wife that you have had other children?’ + +‘No. No,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Not exactly other children. One other +child.’ + +‘I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.’ + +‘Never mind,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘If I am grave about it, I am not at all +sorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy. Pet +had a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes--exactly like +Pet’s--above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it.’ + +‘Ah! indeed, indeed!’ + +‘Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up in +the minds of Mrs Meagles and myself which perhaps you may--or perhaps +you may not--understand. Pet and her baby sister were so exactly alike, +and so completely one, that in our thoughts we have never been able +to separate them since. It would be of no use to tell us that our dead +child was a mere infant. We have changed that child according to the +changes in the child spared to us and always with us. As Pet has grown, +that child has grown; as Pet has become more sensible and womanly, her +sister has become more sensible and womanly by just the same degrees. +It would be as hard to convince me that if I was to pass into the other +world to-morrow, I should not, through the mercy of God, be received +there by a daughter, just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself +is not a reality at my side.’ + +‘I understand you,’ said the other, gently. + +‘As to her,’ pursued her father, ‘the sudden loss of her little picture +and playfellow, and her early association with that mystery in which we +all have our equal share, but which is not often so forcibly presented +to a child, has necessarily had some influence on her character. Then, +her mother and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had +a sort of grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves +to her. We have been advised more than once when she has been a +little ailing, to change climate and air for her as often as we +could--especially at about this time of her life--and to keep her +amused. So, as I have no need to stick at a bank-desk now (though I have +been poor enough in my time I assure you, or I should have married Mrs +Meagles long before), we go trotting about the world. This is how you +found us staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and +the Desert, and all the rest of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be a +greater traveller in course of time than Captain Cook.’ + +‘I thank you,’ said the other, ‘very heartily for your confidence.’ + +‘Don’t mention it,’ returned Mr Meagles, ‘I am sure you are quite +welcome. And now, Mr Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether you have yet +come to a decision where to go next?’ + +‘Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to +be drifted where any current may set.’ + +‘It’s extraordinary to me--if you’ll excuse my freedom in saying +so--that you don’t go straight to London,’ said Mr Meagles, in the tone +of a confidential adviser. + +‘Perhaps I shall.’ + +‘Ay! But I mean with a will.’ + +‘I have no will. That is to say,’--he coloured a little,--‘next to none +that I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent; +heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which +was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I +was of age, and exiled there until my father’s death there, a year ago; +always grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me +in middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished +before I could sound the words.’ + +‘Light ‘em up again!’ said Mr Meagles. + +‘Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and +mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced +everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, +had no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern +religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and +sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain +for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable +discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing +graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart +everywhere--this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to +apply it to such a beginning of life.’ + +‘Really though?’ said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture +offered to his imagination. ‘That was a tough commencement. But come! +You must now study, and profit by, all that lies beyond it, like a +practical man.’ + +‘If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your +direction--’ + +‘Why, so they are!’ said Mr Meagles. + +‘Are they indeed?’ + +‘Well, I suppose so,’ returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. ‘Eh? One +can but _be_ practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else.’ + +‘My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected to +find it, then,’ said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile. +‘Enough of me. Here is the boat.’ + +The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained +a national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed +and came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated +together. There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of +the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing, +sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, +gritty, and undecipherable results. Finally, everything was done +according to rule, and the travellers were at liberty to depart +whithersoever they would. + +They made little account of stare and glare, in the new pleasure of +recovering their freedom, but flitted across the harbour in gay boats, +and reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun was excluded by closed +lattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty ceilings, and resounding +corridors tempered the intense heat. There, a great table in a great +room was soon profusely covered with a superb repast; and the quarantine +quarters became bare indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern +fruits, cooled wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops, +and all the colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors. + +‘But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now,’ said Mr Meagles. +‘One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind; I +dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let +out.’ + +They were about thirty in company, and all talking; but necessarily in +groups. Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter between them, +the last three on one side of the table: on the opposite side sat Mr +Clennam; a tall French gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart +and terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had +shown himself the mildest of men; and a handsome young Englishwoman, +travelling quite alone, who had a proud observant face, and had either +withdrawn herself from the rest or been avoided by the rest--nobody, +herself excepted perhaps, could have quite decided which. The rest +of the party were of the usual materials: travellers on business, and +travellers for pleasure; officers from India on leave; merchants in +the Greek and Turkey trades; a clerical English husband in a meek +strait-waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his young wife; a majestic +English mama and papa, of the patrician order, with a family of three +growing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the confusion of +their fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother, tough in travel, +with a very decidedly grown-up daughter indeed, which daughter went +sketching about the universe in the expectation of ultimately toning +herself off into the married state. + +The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr Meagles in his last remark. + +‘Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?’ said she, slowly and +with emphasis. + + +‘That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I don’t pretend to know positively +how a prisoner might feel. I never was one before.’ + +‘Mademoiselle doubts,’ said the French gentleman in his own language, +‘it’s being so easy to forgive?’ + +‘I do.’ + +Pet had to translate this passage to Mr Meagles, who never by any +accident acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any country +into which he travelled. ‘Oh!’ said he. ‘Dear me! But that’s a pity, +isn’t it?’ + +‘That I am not credulous?’ said Miss Wade. + +‘Not exactly that. Put it another way. That you can’t believe it easy to +forgive.’ + +‘My experience,’ she quietly returned, ‘has been correcting my belief +in many respects, for some years. It is our natural progress, I have +heard.’ + +‘Well, well! But it’s not natural to bear malice, I hope?’ said Mr +Meagles, cheerily. + +‘If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always +hate that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. I +know no more.’ + +‘Strong, sir?’ said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his +habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with +a perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow. +‘Rather forcible in our fair friend, you’ll agree with me, I think?’ + +The French gentleman courteously replied, ‘Plait-il?’ To which Mr +Meagles returned with much satisfaction, ‘You are right. My opinion.’ + +The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr Meagles made the +company a speech. It was short enough and sensible enough, considering +that it was a speech at all, and hearty. It merely went to the effect +that as they had all been thrown together by chance, and had all +preserved a good understanding together, and were now about to disperse, +and were not likely ever to find themselves all together again, what +could they do better than bid farewell to one another, and give one +another good-speed in a simultaneous glass of cool champagne all round +the table? It was done, and with a general shaking of hands the assembly +broke up for ever. + +The solitary young lady all this time had said no more. She rose with +the rest, and silently withdrew to a remote corner of the great room, +where she sat herself on a couch in a window, seeming to watch the +reflection of the water as it made a silver quivering on the bars of the +lattice. She sat, turned away from the whole length of the apartment, as +if she were lonely of her own haughty choice. And yet it would have been +as difficult as ever to say, positively, whether she avoided the rest, +or was avoided. + +The shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her +forehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty. One could +hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the arched +dark eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering what its +expression would be if a change came over it. That it could soften or +relent, appeared next to impossible. That it could deepen into anger or +any extreme of defiance, and that it must change in that direction when +it changed at all, would have been its peculiar impression upon most +observers. It was dressed and trimmed into no ceremony of expression. +Although not an open face, there was no pretence in it. ‘I am +self-contained and self-reliant; your opinion is nothing to me; I have +no interest in you, care nothing for you, and see and hear you with +indifference’--this it said plainly. It said so in the proud eyes, in +the lifted nostril, in the handsome but compressed and even cruel mouth. +Cover either two of those channels of expression, and the third would +have said so still. Mask them all, and the mere turn of the head would +have shown an unsubduable nature. + +Pet had moved up to her (she had been the subject of remark among her +family and Mr Clennam, who were now the only other occupants of the +room), and was standing at her side. + +‘Are you’--she turned her eyes, and Pet faltered--‘expecting any one to +meet you here, Miss Wade?’ + +‘I? No.’ + +‘Father is sending to the Poste Restante. Shall he have the pleasure of +directing the messenger to ask if there are any letters for you?’ + +‘I thank him, but I know there can be none.’ + +‘We are afraid,’ said Pet, sitting down beside her, shyly and half +tenderly, ‘that you will feel quite deserted when we are all gone.’ + +‘Indeed!’ + +‘Not,’ said Pet, apologetically and embarrassed by her eyes, ‘not, of +course, that we are any company to you, or that we have been able to be +so, or that we thought you wished it.’ + +‘I have not intended to make it understood that I did wish it.’ + +‘No. Of course. But--in short,’ said Pet, timidly touching her hand as +it lay impassive on the sofa between them, ‘will you not allow Father to +tender you any slight assistance or service? He will be very glad.’ + +‘Very glad,’ said Mr Meagles, coming forward with his wife and Clennam. +‘Anything short of speaking the language, I shall be delighted to +undertake, I am sure.’ + +‘I am obliged to you,’ she returned, ‘but my arrangements are made, and +I prefer to go my own way in my own manner.’ + +‘_Do_ you?’ said Mr Meagles to himself, as he surveyed her with a puzzled +look. ‘Well! There’s character in that, too.’ + +‘I am not much used to the society of young ladies, and I am afraid I +may not show my appreciation of it as others might. A pleasant journey +to you. Good-bye!’ + +She would not have put out her hand, it seemed, but that Mr Meagles put +out his so straight before her that she could not pass it. She put hers +in it, and it lay there just as it had lain upon the couch. + +‘Good-bye!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘This is the last good-bye upon the list, +for Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he only waits +to say it to Pet. Good-bye! We may never meet again.’ + +‘In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to +meet _us_, from many strange places and by many strange roads,’ was the +composed reply; ‘and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is +set to them to do to us, will all be done.’ + +There was something in the manner of these words that jarred upon Pet’s +ear. It implied that what was to be done was necessarily evil, and it +caused her to say in a whisper, ‘O Father!’ and to shrink childishly, in +her spoilt way, a little closer to him. This was not lost on the +speaker. + +‘Your pretty daughter,’ she said, ‘starts to think of such things. Yet,’ +looking full upon her, ‘you may be sure that there are men and women +already on their road, who have their business to do with _you_, and who +will do it. Of a certainty they will do it. They may be coming hundreds, +thousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now; +they may be coming, for anything you know or anything you can do to +prevent it, from the vilest sweepings of this very town.’ + +With the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression on her +beauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look, +she left the room. + +Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse in +passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she had +secured for her own occupation. When she had almost completed the +journey, and was passing along the gallery in which her room was, she +heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and +within she saw the attendant upon the girl she had just left; the maid +with the curious name. + +She stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl! Her +rich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed and hot, +and as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with an unsparing +hand. + +‘Selfish brutes!’ said the girl, sobbing and heaving between whiles. +‘Not caring what becomes of me! Leaving me here hungry and thirsty and +tired, to starve, for anything they care! Beasts! Devils! Wretches!’ + +‘My poor girl, what is the matter?’ + +She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands +suspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with +great scarlet blots. ‘It’s nothing to you what’s the matter. It don’t +signify to any one.’ + +‘O yes it does; I am sorry to see you so.’ + +‘You are not sorry,’ said the girl. ‘You are glad. You know you are +glad. I never was like this but twice over in the quarantine yonder; and +both times you found me. I am afraid of you.’ + +‘Afraid of me?’ + +‘Yes. You seem to come like my own anger, my own malice, my +own--whatever it is--I don’t know what it is. But I am ill-used, I am +ill-used, I am ill-used!’ Here the sobs and the tears, and the tearing +hand, which had all been suspended together since the first surprise, +went on together anew. + +The visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile. It was +wonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily +struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old. + +‘I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it’s me that +looks after her, as if I was old, and it’s she that’s always petted and +called Baby! I detest the name. I hate her! They make a fool of her, +they spoil her. She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of +me than if I was a stock and a stone!’ So the girl went on. + +‘You must have patience.’ + +‘I _won’t_ have patience!’ + +‘If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, you +must not mind it.’ + +I _will_ mind it.’ + +‘Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position.’ + +‘I don’t care for that. I’ll run away. I’ll do some mischief. I won’t +bear it; I can’t bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!’ + +The observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the +girl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the +dissection and exposition of an analogous case. + +The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness +of life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed +off into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By corresponding degrees +she sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside +the bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and +wet hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have +nothing to take to her repentant breast. + +‘Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I +am mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and +sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don’t and won’t. +What have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I +am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want. They are nothing +but good to me. I love them dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a +thankless creature than they always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am +afraid of you. I am afraid of myself when I feel my temper coming, and I +am as much afraid of you. Go away from me, and let me pray and cry +myself better!’ + +The day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and the +hot night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the morning, +all dispersed, went their appointed ways. And thus ever by day and +night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and +toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by +sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one +another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life. + + + + +CHAPTER 3. Home + + +It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening +church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked +and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. +Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of +the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire +despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down +almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, +as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. +Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish +relief to an overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no +rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient +world--all _taboo_ with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South +Sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home +again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe +but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to change the brooding mind, +or raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the +monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think +what a weary life he led, and make the best of it--or the worst, +according to the probabilities. + +At such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of religion and +morality, Mr Arthur Clennam, newly arrived from Marseilles by way of +Dover, and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the window of a +coffee-house on Ludgate Hill. Ten thousand responsible houses surrounded +him, frowning as heavily on the streets they composed, as if they were +every one inhabited by the ten young men of the Calender’s story, who +blackened their faces and bemoaned their miseries every night. Fifty +thousand lairs surrounded him where people lived so unwholesomely that +fair water put into their crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be +corrupt on Sunday morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was +amazed that they failed to sleep in company with their butcher’s meat. +Miles of close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped +for air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass. Through +the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in the place of +a fine fresh river. What secular want could the million or so of +human beings whose daily labour, six days in the week, lay among these +Arcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of which they had no escape +between the cradle and the grave--what secular want could they possibly +have upon their seventh day? Clearly they could want nothing but a +stringent policeman. + +Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, +counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and burdens of +songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick +people it might be the death of in the course of the year. As the hour +approached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating. +At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively +importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, +Come to church, Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware +that the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low +spirits, They _won’t_ come, they _won’t_ come, they _won’t_ come! At the +five minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the +neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per +second, as a groan of despair. + +‘Thank Heaven!’ said Clennam, when the hour struck, and the bell +stopped. + +But its sound had revived a long train of miserable Sundays, and the +procession would not stop with the bell, but continued to march on. +‘Heaven forgive me,’ said he, ‘and those who trained me. How I have +hated this day!’ + +There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands +before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced +business with the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was +going to Perdition?--a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and +drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy--and which, for the further +attraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line +with some such hiccupping reference as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii, v. 6 & +7. There was the sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military +deserter, he was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three times +a day, morally handcuffed to another boy; and when he would willingly +have bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or +two of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. There was the +interminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of face and +unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible--bound, like her +own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straitest boards, +with one dinted ornament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and a +wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves--as if it, of +all books! were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural +affection, and gentle intercourse. There was the resentful Sunday of a +little later, when he sat down glowering and glooming through the tardy +length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no +more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than +if he had been bred among idolaters. There was a legion of Sundays, +all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing +before him. + +‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table. ‘Wish see +bed-room?’ + +‘Yes. I have just made up my mind to do it.’ + +‘Chaymaid!’ cried the waiter. ‘Gelen box num seven wish see room!’ + +‘Stay!’ said Clennam, rousing himself. ‘I was not thinking of what I +said; I answered mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. I am going +home.’ + +‘Deed, sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here, gome.’ + +He sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull houses +opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former inhabitants +were ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for their old +places of imprisonment. Sometimes a face would appear behind the dingy +glass of a window, and would fade away into the gloom as if it had seen +enough of life and had vanished out of it. Presently the rain began to +fall in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began +to collect under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out +hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then wet +umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the mud had +been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could say? But it +seemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in five minutes to +have splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam. The lamplighter was +going his rounds now; and as the fiery jets sprang up under his touch, +one might have fancied them astonished at being suffered to introduce +any show of brightness into such a dismal scene. + +Mr Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked out. +In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, +and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful +form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale +smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to +the gutters. + +He crossed by St Paul’s and went down, at a long angle, almost to the +water’s edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which +lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and +Cheapside. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful +Company, now the illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that +seemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and +discover its history; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here +and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little +bill, FOUND DROWNED, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the +house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, +standing by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square court-yard +where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying +much) as the iron railings enclosing them were rusty; behind it, +a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with long, narrow, +heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to +slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on +some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring +cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds, +appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance. + +‘Nothing changed,’ said the traveller, stopping to look round. ‘Dark and +miserable as ever. A light in my mother’s window, which seems never to +have been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and +dragged my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!’ + +He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work +of festooned jack-towels and children’s heads with water on the brain, +designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked. A +shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the +door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes. + +He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist +his keen eyes. ‘Ah, Mr Arthur?’ he said, without any emotion, ‘you are +come at last? Step in.’ + +Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door. + +‘Your figure is filled out, and set,’ said the old man, turning to look +at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; ‘but you don’t +come up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your mother.’ + +‘How is my mother?’ + +‘She is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually +bedridden, and hasn’t been out of it fifteen times in as many years, +Arthur.’ They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room. The old man +had put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his right elbow +with his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at +the visitor. The visitor offered his hand. The old man took it coldly +enough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to which he returned as soon as +he could. + +‘I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath, +Arthur,’ he said, shaking his head warily. + +‘You wouldn’t have me go away again?’ + +‘Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It’s not what _I_ would have. I have +stood between your father and mother for a number of years. I don’t +pretend to stand between your mother and you.’ + +‘Will you tell her that I have come home?’ + +‘Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh, to be sure! I’ll tell her that you have come +home. Please to wait here. You won’t find the room changed.’ He took +another candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first on the table, +and went upon his errand. He was a short, bald old man, in a +high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, and long drab +gaiters. He might, from his dress, have been either clerk or servant, +and in fact had long been both. There was nothing about him in the way +of decoration but a watch, which was lowered into the depths of its +proper pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key +moored above it, to show where it was sunk. His head was awry, and +he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had +yielded at about the same time as those of the house, and he ought to +have been propped up in a similar manner. + +‘How weak am I,’ said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, ‘that I could +shed tears at this reception! I, who have never experienced anything +else; who have never expected anything else.’ + +He not only could, but did. It was the momentary yielding of a nature +that had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not +quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet. He subdued it, took up the +candle, and examined the room. The old articles of furniture were in +their old places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and +smoke plagues of London, were framed and glazed upon the walls. There +was the old cellaret with nothing in it, lined with lead, like a sort of +coffin in compartments; there was the old dark closet, also with nothing +in it, of which he had been many a time the sole contents, in days of +punishment, when he had regarded it as the veritable entrance to that +bourne to which the tract had found him galloping. There was the large, +hard-featured clock on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its +figured brows upon him with a savage joy when he was behind-hand with +his lessons, and which, when it was wound up once a week with an iron +handle, used to sound as if it were growling in ferocious anticipation +of the miseries into which it would bring him. But here was the old man +come back, saying, ‘Arthur, I’ll go before and light you.’ + +Arthur followed him up the staircase, which was panelled off into spaces +like so many mourning tablets, into a dim bed-chamber, the floor of +which had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fire-place was in a +dell. On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with +one great angular black bolster like the block at a state execution in +the good old times, sat his mother in a widow’s dress. + +She and his father had been at variance from his earliest remembrance. +To sit speechless himself in the midst of rigid silence, glancing in +dread from the one averted face to the other, had been the peacefullest +occupation of his childhood. She gave him one glassy kiss, and four +stiff fingers muffled in worsted. This embrace concluded, he sat down on +the opposite side of her little table. There was a fire in the grate, +as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a kettle on +the hob, as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a +little mound of damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little +mound swept together under the grate, as there had been night and day +for fifteen years. There was a smell of black dye in the airless room, +which the fire had been drawing out of the crape and stuff of the +widow’s dress for fifteen months, and out of the bier-like sofa for +fifteen years. + +‘Mother, this is a change from your old active habits.’ + +‘The world has narrowed to these dimensions, Arthur,’ she replied, +glancing round the room. ‘It is well for me that I never set my heart +upon its hollow vanities.’ + +The old influence of her presence and her stern strong voice, so +gathered about her son, that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid +chill and reserve of his childhood. + +‘Do you never leave your room, mother?’ + +‘What with my rheumatic affection, and what with its attendant debility +or nervous weakness--names are of no matter now--I have lost the use +of my limbs. I never leave my room. I have not been outside this door +for--tell him for how long,’ she said, speaking over her shoulder. + +‘A dozen year next Christmas,’ returned a cracked voice out of the +dimness behind. + +‘Is that Affery?’ said Arthur, looking towards it. + +The cracked voice replied that it was Affery: and an old woman came +forward into what doubtful light there was, and kissed her hand once; +then subsided again into the dimness. + +‘I am able,’ said Mrs Clennam, with a slight motion of her +worsted-muffled right hand toward a chair on wheels, standing before a +tall writing cabinet close shut up, ‘I am able to attend to my business +duties, and I am thankful for the privilege. It is a great privilege. +But no more of business on this day. It is a bad night, is it not?’ + +‘Yes, mother.’ + +‘Does it snow?’ + +‘Snow, mother? And we only yet in September?’ + +‘All seasons are alike to me,’ she returned, with a grim kind of +luxuriousness. ‘I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here. +The Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all that.’ With her cold grey +eyes and her cold grey hair, and her immovable face, as stiff as the +folds of her stony head-dress,--her being beyond the reach of the +seasons seemed but a fit sequence to her being beyond the reach of all +changing emotions. + +On her little table lay two or three books, her handkerchief, a pair of +steel spectacles newly taken off, and an old-fashioned gold watch in a +heavy double case. Upon this last object her son’s eyes and her own now +rested together. + +‘I see that you received the packet I sent you on my father’s death, +safely, mother.’ + +‘You see.’ + +‘I never knew my father to show so much anxiety on any subject, as that +his watch should be sent straight to you.’ + +‘I keep it here as a remembrance of your father.’ + +‘It was not until the last, that he expressed the wish; when he could +only put his hand upon it, and very indistinctly say to me “your +mother.” A moment before, I thought him wandering in his mind, as he +had been for many hours--I think he had no consciousness of pain in his +short illness--when I saw him turn himself in his bed and try to open +it.’ + +‘Was your father, then, not wandering in his mind when he tried to open +it?’ + +‘No. He was quite sensible at that time.’ + +Mrs Clennam shook her head; whether in dismissal of the deceased or +opposing herself to her son’s opinion, was not clearly expressed. + +‘After my father’s death I opened it myself, thinking there might be, +for anything I knew, some memorandum there. However, as I need not tell +you, mother, there was nothing but the old silk watch-paper worked in +beads, which you found (no doubt) in its place between the cases, where +I found and left it.’ + +Mrs Clennam signified assent; then added, ‘No more of business on this +day,’ and then added, ‘Affery, it is nine o’clock.’ + +Upon this, the old woman cleared the little table, went out of the room, +and quickly returned with a tray on which was a dish of little rusks and +a small precise pat of butter, cool, symmetrical, white, and plump. The +old man who had been standing by the door in one attitude during the +whole interview, looking at the mother up-stairs as he had looked at the +son down-stairs, went out at the same time, and, after a longer absence, +returned with another tray on which was the greater part of a bottle +of port wine (which, to judge by his panting, he had brought from the +cellar), a lemon, a sugar-basin, and a spice box. With these materials +and the aid of the kettle, he filled a tumbler with a hot and +odorous mixture, measured out and compounded with as much nicety as a +physician’s prescription. Into this mixture Mrs Clennam dipped certain +of the rusks, and ate them; while the old woman buttered certain other +of the rusks, which were to be eaten alone. When the invalid had eaten +all the rusks and drunk all the mixture, the two trays were removed; +and the books and the candle, watch, handkerchief, and spectacles were +replaced upon the table. She then put on the spectacles and read certain +passages aloud from a book--sternly, fiercely, wrathfully--praying that +her enemies (she made them by her tone and manner expressly hers) might +be put to the edge of the sword, consumed by fire, smitten by plagues +and leprosy, that their bones might be ground to dust, and that they +might be utterly exterminated. As she read on, years seemed to fall +away from her son like the imaginings of a dream, and all the old dark +horrors of his usual preparation for the sleep of an innocent child to +overshadow him. + +She shut the book and remained for a little time with her face shaded by +her hand. So did the old man, otherwise still unchanged in attitude; so, +probably, did the old woman in her dimmer part of the room. Then the +sick woman was ready for bed. + +‘Good night, Arthur. Affery will see to your accommodation. Only touch +me, for my hand is tender.’ He touched the worsted muffling of her +hand--that was nothing; if his mother had been sheathed in brass there +would have been no new barrier between them--and followed the old man +and woman down-stairs. + +The latter asked him, when they were alone together among the heavy +shadows of the dining-room, would he have some supper? + +‘No, Affery, no supper.’ + +‘You shall if you like,’ said Affery. ‘There’s her tomorrow’s partridge +in the larder--her first this year; say the word and I’ll cook it.’ + +No, he had not long dined, and could eat nothing. + +‘Have something to drink, then,’ said Affery; ‘you shall have some of +her bottle of port, if you like. I’ll tell Jeremiah that you ordered me +to bring it you.’ + +No; nor would he have that, either. + +‘It’s no reason, Arthur,’ said the old woman, bending over him to +whisper, ‘that because I am afeared of my life of ‘em, you should be. +You’ve got half the property, haven’t you?’ + +‘Yes, yes.’ + +‘Well then, don’t you be cowed. You’re clever, Arthur, an’t you?’ + +He nodded, as she seemed to expect an answer in the affirmative. + +‘Then stand up against them! She’s awful clever, and none but a clever +one durst say a word to her. _He’s_ a clever one--oh, he’s a clever +one!--and he gives it her when he has a mind to’t, he does!’ + +‘Your husband does?’ + +‘Does? It makes me shake from head to foot, to hear him give it her. My +husband, Jeremiah Flintwinch, can conquer even your mother. What can he +be but a clever one to do that!’ + +His shuffling footstep coming towards them caused her to retreat to the +other end of the room. Though a tall, hard-favoured, sinewy old woman, +who in her youth might have enlisted in the Foot Guards without much +fear of discovery, she collapsed before the little keen-eyed crab-like +old man. + +‘Now, Affery,’ said he, ‘now, woman, what are you doing? Can’t you find +Master Arthur something or another to pick at?’ + +Master Arthur repeated his recent refusal to pick at anything. + +‘Very well, then,’ said the old man; ‘make his bed. Stir yourself.’ His +neck was so twisted that the knotted ends of his white cravat usually +dangled under one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, always +contending with a second nature of habitual repression, gave his +features a swollen and suffused look; and altogether, he had a weird +appearance of having hanged himself at one time or other, and of having +gone about ever since, halter and all, exactly as some timely hand had +cut him down. + +‘You’ll have bitter words together to-morrow, Arthur; you and your +mother,’ said Jeremiah. ‘Your having given up the business on your +father’s death--which she suspects, though we have left it to you to +tell her--won’t go off smoothly.’ + +‘I have given up everything in life for the business, and the time came +for me to give up that.’ + +‘Good!’ cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning Bad. ‘Very good! only don’t +expect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I stood between +your mother and your father, fending off this, and fending off that, and +getting crushed and pounded betwixt em; and I’ve done with such work.’ + +‘You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah.’ + +‘Good. I’m glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline it, if +I had been. That’s enough--as your mother says--and more than enough of +such matters on a Sabbath night. Affery, woman, have you found what you +want yet?’ + +She had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and hastened +to gather them up, and to reply, ‘Yes, Jeremiah.’ Arthur Clennam helped +her by carrying the load himself, wished the old man good night, and +went up-stairs with her to the top of the house. + +They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close house, +little used, to a large garret bed-room. Meagre and spare, like all the +other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the +place of banishment for the worn-out furniture. Its movables were ugly +old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats; +a threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crippled wardrobe, +a lean set of fire-irons like the skeleton of a set deceased, a +washing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of +dirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each +terminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers +who might prefer to impale themselves. Arthur opened the long low +window, and looked out upon the old blasted and blackened forest of +chimneys, and the old red glare in the sky, which had seemed to him once +upon a time but a nightly reflection of the fiery environment that was +presented to his childish fancy in all directions, let it look where it +would. + +He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at +Affery Flintwinch making the bed. + +‘Affery, you were not married when I went away.’ + +She screwed her mouth into the form of saying ‘No,’ shook her head, and +proceeded to get a pillow into its case. + +‘How did it happen?’ + +‘Why, Jeremiah, o’ course,’ said Affery, with an end of the pillow-case +between her teeth. + +‘Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about? I should have +thought that neither of you would have married; least of all should I +have thought of your marrying each other.’ + +‘No more should I,’ said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly in its +case. + +‘That’s what I mean. When did you begin to think otherwise?’ + +‘Never begun to think otherwise at all,’ said Mrs Flintwinch. + +Seeing, as she patted the pillow into its place on the bolster, that he +was still looking at her as if waiting for the rest of her reply, +she gave it a great poke in the middle, and asked, ‘How could I help +myself?’ + +‘How could you help yourself from being married!’ + +‘O’ course,’ said Mrs Flintwinch. ‘It was no doing o’ mine. I’d never +thought of it. I’d got something to do, without thinking, indeed! She +kept me to it (as well as he) when she could go about, and she could go +about then.’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘Well?’ echoed Mrs Flintwinch. ‘That’s what I said myself. Well! What’s +the use of considering? If them two clever ones have made up their minds +to it, what’s left for _me_ to do? Nothing.’ + +‘Was it my mother’s project, then?’ + +‘The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me the wish!’ cried Affery, +speaking always in a low tone. ‘If they hadn’t been both of a mind in +it, how could it ever have been? Jeremiah never courted me; t’ant likely +that he would, after living in the house with me and ordering me +about for as many years as he’d done. He said to me one day, he said, +“Affery,” he said, “now I am going to tell you something. What do you +think of the name of Flintwinch?” “What do I think of it?” I says. +“Yes,” he said, “because you’re going to take it,” he said. “Take it?” I +says. “Jere-_mi_-ah?” Oh! he’s a clever one!’ + +Mrs Flintwinch went on to spread the upper sheet over the bed, and the +blanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had quite +concluded her story. + +‘Well?’ said Arthur again. + +‘Well?’ echoed Mrs Flintwinch again. ‘How could I help myself? He said +to me, “Affery, you and me must be married, and I’ll tell you why. She’s +failing in health, and she’ll want pretty constant attendance up in +her room, and we shall have to be much with her, and there’ll be nobody +about now but ourselves when we’re away from her, and altogether it will +be more convenient. She’s of my opinion,” he said, “so if you’ll put +your bonnet on next Monday morning at eight, we’ll get it over.”’ Mrs +Flintwinch tucked up the bed. + +‘Well?’ + +‘Well?’ repeated Mrs Flintwinch, ‘I think so! I sits me down and says +it. Well!--Jeremiah then says to me, “As to banns, next Sunday being the +third time of asking (for I’ve put ‘em up a fortnight), is my reason for +naming Monday. She’ll speak to you about it herself, and now she’ll find +you prepared, Affery.” That same day she spoke to me, and she said, “So, +Affery, I understand that you and Jeremiah are going to be married. I +am glad of it, and so are you, with reason. It is a very good thing for +you, and very welcome under the circumstances to me. He is a sensible +man, and a trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a pious man.” + What could I say when it had come to that? Why, if it had been--a +smothering instead of a wedding,’ Mrs Flintwinch cast about in her mind +with great pains for this form of expression, ‘I couldn’t have said a +word upon it, against them two clever ones.’ + +‘In good faith, I believe so.’ + +‘And so you may, Arthur.’ + +‘Affery, what girl was that in my mother’s room just now?’ + +‘Girl?’ said Mrs Flintwinch in a rather sharp key. + +‘It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you--almost hidden in the dark +corner?’ + +‘Oh! She? Little Dorrit? _She_‘s nothing; she’s a whim of--hers.’ It was +a peculiarity of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of Mrs Clennam +by name. ‘But there’s another sort of girls than that about. Have you +forgot your old sweetheart? Long and long ago, I’ll be bound.’ + +‘I suffered enough from my mother’s separating us, to remember her. I +recollect her very well.’ + +‘Have you got another?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Here’s news for you, then. She’s well to do now, and a widow. And if +you like to have her, why you can.’ + +‘And how do you know that, Affery?’ + +‘Them two clever ones have been speaking about it.--There’s Jeremiah on +the stairs!’ She was gone in a moment. + +Mrs Flintwinch had introduced into the web that his mind was busily +weaving, in that old workshop where the loom of his youth had stood, the +last thread wanting to the pattern. The airy folly of a boy’s love had +found its way even into that house, and he had been as wretched under +its hopelessness as if the house had been a castle of romance. Little +more than a week ago at Marseilles, the face of the pretty girl from +whom he had parted with regret, had had an unusual interest for him, and +a tender hold upon him, because of some resemblance, real or imagined, +to this first face that had soared out of his gloomy life into the +bright glories of fancy. He leaned upon the sill of the long low window, +and looking out upon the blackened forest of chimneys again, began to +dream; for it had been the uniform tendency of this man’s life--so much +was wanting in it to think about, so much that might have been better +directed and happier to speculate upon--to make him a dreamer, after +all. + + + + +CHAPTER 4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream + + +When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her +old mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that +night, and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours. +In fact it was not at all like a dream; it was so very real in every +respect. It happened in this wise. + +The bed-chamber occupied by Mr and Mrs Flintwinch was within a few paces +of that to which Mrs Clennam had been so long confined. It was not on +the same floor, for it was a room at the side of the house, which was +approached by a steep descent of a few odd steps, diverging from the +main staircase nearly opposite to Mrs Clennam’s door. It could scarcely +be said to be within call, the walls, doors, and panelling of the old +place were so cumbrous; but it was within easy reach, in any undress, +at any hour of the night, in any temperature. At the head of the bed +and within a foot of Mrs Flintwinch’s ear, was a bell, the line of which +hung ready to Mrs Clennam’s hand. Whenever this bell rang, up started +Affery, and was in the sick room before she was awake. + +Having got her mistress into bed, lighted her lamp, and given her good +night, Mrs Flintwinch went to roost as usual, saving that her lord had +not yet appeared. It was her lord himself who became--unlike the +last theme in the mind, according to the observation of most +philosophers--the subject of Mrs Flintwinch’s dream. + +It seemed to her that she awoke after sleeping some hours, and found +Jeremiah not yet abed. That she looked at the candle she had left +burning, and, measuring the time like King Alfred the Great, was +confirmed by its wasted state in her belief that she had been asleep for +some considerable period. That she arose thereupon, muffled herself up +in a wrapper, put on her shoes, and went out on the staircase, much +surprised, to look for Jeremiah. + +The staircase was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went +straight down it without any of those deviations peculiar to dreams. +She did not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided herself by the +banisters on account of her candle having died out. In one corner of +the hall, behind the house-door, there was a little waiting-room, like a +well-shaft, with a long narrow window in it as if it had been ripped up. +In this room, which was never used, a light was burning. + +Mrs Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her +stockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges on the door, +which stood a little open. She expected to see Jeremiah fast asleep or +in a fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual +health. But what--hey?--Lord forgive us!--Mrs Flintwinch muttered some +ejaculation to this effect, and turned giddy. + +For, Mr Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr Flintwinch asleep. He sat on +one side of the small table, looking keenly at himself on the other side +with his chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The waking Flintwinch had his +full front face presented to his wife; the sleeping Flintwinch was +in profile. The waking Flintwinch was the old original; the sleeping +Flintwinch was the double, just as she might have distinguished between +a tangible object and its reflection in a glass, Affery made out this +difference with her head going round and round. + +If she had had any doubt which was her own Jeremiah, it would have been +resolved by his impatience. He looked about him for an offensive weapon, +caught up the snuffers, and, before applying them to the cabbage-headed +candle, lunged at the sleeper as though he would have run him through +the body. + +‘Who’s that? What’s the matter?’ cried the sleeper, starting. + +Mr Flintwinch made a movement with the snuffers, as if he would have +enforced silence on his companion by putting them down his throat; the +companion, coming to himself, said, rubbing his eyes, ‘I forgot where I +was.’ + +‘You have been asleep,’ snarled Jeremiah, referring to his watch, ‘two +hours. You said you would be rested enough if you had a short nap.’ + +‘I have had a short nap,’ said Double. + +‘Half-past two o’clock in the morning,’ muttered Jeremiah. ‘Where’s your +hat? Where’s your coat? Where’s the box?’ + +‘All here,’ said Double, tying up his throat with sleepy carefulness in +a shawl. ‘Stop a minute. Now give me the sleeve--not that sleeve, the +other one. Ha! I’m not as young as I was.’ Mr Flintwinch had pulled +him into his coat with vehement energy. ‘You promised me a second glass +after I was rested.’ + +‘Drink it!’ returned Jeremiah, ‘and--choke yourself, I was going +to say--but go, I mean.’ At the same time he produced the identical +port-wine bottle, and filled a wine-glass. + +‘Her port-wine, I believe?’ said Double, tasting it as if he were in the +Docks, with hours to spare. ‘Her health.’ + +He took a sip. + +‘Your health!’ + +He took another sip. + +‘His health!’ + +He took another sip. + +‘And all friends round St Paul’s.’ He emptied and put down the +wine-glass half-way through this ancient civic toast, and took up the +box. It was an iron box some two feet square, which he carried under his +arms pretty easily. Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, with +jealous eyes; tried it with his hands, to be sure that he had a firm +hold of it; bade him for his life be careful what he was about; and then +stole out on tiptoe to open the door for him. Affery, anticipating +the last movement, was on the staircase. The sequence of things was +so ordinary and natural, that, standing there, she could hear the door +open, feel the night air, and see the stars outside. + +But now came the most remarkable part of the dream. She felt so afraid +of her husband, that being on the staircase, she had not the power to +retreat to her room (which she might easily have done before he had +fastened the door), but stood there staring. Consequently when he came +up the staircase to bed, candle in hand, he came full upon her. He +looked astonished, but said not a word. He kept his eyes upon her, and +kept advancing; and she, completely under his influence, kept retiring +before him. Thus, she walking backward and he walking forward, they +came into their own room. They were no sooner shut in there, than Mr +Flintwinch took her by the throat, and shook her until she was black in +the face. + +‘Why, Affery, woman--Affery!’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘What have you been +dreaming of? Wake up, wake up! What’s the matter?’ + +‘The--the matter, Jeremiah?’ gasped Mrs Flintwinch, rolling her eyes. + +‘Why, Affery, woman--Affery! You have been getting out of bed in your +sleep, my dear! I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, below, and +find you in your wrapper here, with the nightmare. Affery, woman,’ said +Mr Flintwinch, with a friendly grin on his expressive countenance, ‘if +you ever have a dream of this sort again, it’ll be a sign of your being +in want of physic. And I’ll give you such a dose, old woman--such a +dose!’ + +Mrs Flintwinch thanked him and crept into bed. + + + + +CHAPTER 5. Family Affairs + + +As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was +wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall +cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself +at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang himself more +effectually--and her son appeared. + +‘Are you any better this morning, mother?’ + +She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she +had shown over-night when speaking of the weather. ‘I shall never be +better any more. It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear +it.’ + +Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall +cabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a +dumb church organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought with him), +while he took his seat beside it. + +She opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and put +them back again. Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in it, by +which any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her +thoughts. + +‘Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Are you inclined to enter upon +business?’ + +‘Am I inclined, Arthur? Rather, are you? Your father has been dead a +year and more. I have been at your disposal, and waiting your pleasure, +ever since.’ + +‘There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did leave, I +travelled a little for rest and relief.’ + +She turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood his +last words. + +‘For rest and relief.’ + +She glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of her +lips to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness how little +of either it afforded her. + +‘Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the direction and +management of the estate, there remained little business, or I might say +none, that I could transact, until you had had time to arrange matters +to your satisfaction.’ + +‘The accounts are made out,’ she returned. ‘I have them here. The +vouchers have all been examined and passed. You can inspect them when +you like, Arthur; now, if you please.’ + +‘It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed. +Shall I proceed then?’ + +‘Why not?’ she said, in her frozen way. + +‘Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our +dealings have been progressively on the decline. We have never shown +much confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the +track we have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been +left far behind. I need not dwell on this to you, mother. You know it +necessarily.’ + +‘I know what you mean,’ she answered, in a qualified tone. + +‘Even this old house in which we speak,’ pursued her son, ‘is an +instance of what I say. In my father’s earlier time, and in his uncle’s +time before him, it was a place of business--really a place of business, +and business resort. Now, it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, out +of date and out of purpose. All our consignments have long been made to +Rovinghams’ the commission-merchants; and although, as a check upon +them, and in the stewardship of my father’s resources, your judgment and +watchfulness have been actively exerted, still those qualities would +have influenced my father’s fortunes equally, if you had lived in any +private dwelling: would they not?’ + +‘Do you consider,’ she returned, without answering his question, ‘that +a house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and +afflicted--justly infirm and righteously afflicted--mother?’ + +‘I was speaking only of business purposes.’ + +‘With what object?’ + +‘I am coming to it.’ + +‘I foresee,’ she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, ‘what it is. +But the Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation. In my +sinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it.’ + +‘Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my +apprehensions that you would--’ + +‘You knew I would. You knew _me_,’ she interrupted. + +Her son paused for a moment. He had struck fire out of her, and was +surprised. ‘Well!’ she said, relapsing into stone. ‘Go on. Let me hear.’ + +‘You have anticipated, mother, that I decide for my part, to abandon +the business. I have done with it. I will not take upon myself to advise +you; you will continue it, I see. If I had any influence with you, I +would simply use it to soften your judgment of me in causing you this +disappointment: to represent to you that I have lived the half of a long +term of life, and have never before set my own will against yours. I +cannot say that I have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit, +to your rules; I cannot say that I believe my forty years have been +profitable or pleasant to myself, or any one; but I have habitually +submitted, and I only ask you to remember it.’ + +Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had +any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet. Woe to +the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes +presided. Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, +veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and +destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as +we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite +Thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, +and Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she +built up to scale Heaven. + +‘Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me? I +think there can be nothing else. You have been short, but full of +matter!’ + +‘Mother, I have yet something more to say. It has been upon my mind, +night and day, this long time. It is far more difficult to say than what +I have said. That concerned myself; this concerns us all.’ + +‘Us all! Who are us all?’ + +‘Yourself, myself, my dead father.’ + +She took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat +looking towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian +sculpture. + +‘You knew my father infinitely better than I ever knew him; and his +reserve with me yielded to you. You were much the stronger, mother, and +directed him. As a child, I knew it as well as I know it now. I knew +that your ascendancy over him was the cause of his going to China to +take care of the business there, while you took care of it here (though +I do not even now know whether these were really terms of separation +that you agreed upon); and that it was your will that I should remain +with you until I was twenty, and then go to him as I did. You will not +be offended by my recalling this, after twenty years?’ + +‘I am waiting to hear why you recall it.’ + +He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and against +his will: + +‘I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to +suspect--’ + +At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with +a dark frown. She then suffered them to seek the fire, as before; but +with the frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had +indented it in the hard granite face, to frown for ages. + +‘--that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of +mind--remorse? Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct +suggesting that; or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him hint at +such a thing?’ + +‘I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to infer +that your father was a prey to,’ she returned, after a silence. ‘You +speak so mysteriously.’ + +‘Is it possible, mother,’ her son leaned forward to be the nearer to her +while he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk, ‘is +it possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any one, and made no +reparation?’ + +Looking at him wrathfully, she bent herself back in her chair to keep +him further off, but gave him no reply. + +‘I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this thought has never at any +time flashed upon you, it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, even in +this confidence, to breathe it. But I cannot shake it off. Time and +change (I have tried both before breaking silence) do nothing to wear it +out. Remember, I was with my father. Remember, I saw his face when he +gave the watch into my keeping, and struggled to express that he sent it +as a token you would understand, to you. Remember, I saw him at the last +with the pencil in his failing hand, trying to write some word for you +to read, but to which he could give no shape. The more remote and cruel +this vague suspicion that I have, the stronger the circumstances that +could give it any semblance of probability to me. For Heaven’s sake, let +us examine sacredly whether there is any wrong entrusted to us to set +right. No one can help towards it, mother, but you.’ + +Still so recoiling in her chair that her overpoised weight moved it, +from time to time, a little on its wheels, and gave her the appearance +of a phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from him, she interposed her +left arm, bent at the elbow with the back of her hand towards her face, +between herself and him, and looked at him in a fixed silence. + +‘In grasping at money and in driving hard bargains--I have begun, and I +must speak of such things now, mother--some one may have been grievously +deceived, injured, ruined. You were the moving power of all this +machinery before my birth; your stronger spirit has been infused into +all my father’s dealings for more than two score years. You can set +these doubts at rest, I think, if you will really help me to discover +the truth. Will you, mother?’ + +He stopped in the hope that she would speak. But her grey hair was not +more immovable in its two folds, than were her firm lips. + +‘If reparation can be made to any one, if restitution can be made to any +one, let us know it and make it. Nay, mother, if within my means, let +_me_ make it. I have seen so little happiness come of money; it has +brought within my knowledge so little peace to this house, or to any one +belonging to it, that it is worth less to me than to another. It can buy +me nothing that will not be a reproach and misery to me, if I am haunted +by a suspicion that it darkened my father’s last hours with remorse, and +that it is not honestly and justly mine.’ + +There was a bell-rope hanging on the panelled wall, some two or three +yards from the cabinet. By a swift and sudden action of her foot, she +drove her wheeled chair rapidly back to it and pulled it +violently--still holding her arm up in its shield-like posture, as if he +were striking at her, and she warding off the blow. + +A girl came hurrying in, frightened. + +‘Send Flintwinch here!’ + +In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within the +door. ‘What! You’re hammer and tongs, already, you two?’ he said, coolly +stroking his face. ‘I thought you would be. I was pretty sure of it.’ + +‘Flintwinch!’ said the mother, ‘look at my son. Look at him!’ + +‘Well, I _am_ looking at him,’ said Flintwinch. + +She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and as +she went on, pointed at the object of her anger. + +‘In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his foot is +dry--he asperses his father’s memory to his mother! Asks his mother +to become, with him, a spy upon his father’s transactions through a +lifetime! Has misgivings that the goods of this world which we have +painfully got together early and late, with wear and tear and toil and +self-denial, are so much plunder; and asks to whom they shall be given +up, as reparation and restitution!’ + +Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from being +beyond her control that it was even lower than her usual tone. She also +spoke with great distinctness. + +‘Reparation!’ said she. ‘Yes, truly! It is easy for him to talk of +reparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign lands, and +living a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him look at me, in prison, +and in bonds here. I endure without murmuring, because it is appointed +that I shall so make reparation for my sins. Reparation! Is there none +in this room? Has there been none here this fifteen years?’ + +Thus was she always balancing her bargains with the Majesty of heaven, +posting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, and +claiming her due. She was only remarkable in this, for the force +and emphasis with which she did it. Thousands upon thousands do it, +according to their varying manner, every day. + +‘Flintwinch, give me that book!’ + +The old man handed it to her from the table. She put two fingers between +the leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to her son in +a threatening way. + +‘In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this commentary, there were +pious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have cursed their sons for +less than this: who would have sent them forth, and sent whole nations +forth, if such had supported them, to be avoided of God and man, and +perish, down to the baby at the breast. But I only tell you that if you +ever renew that theme with me, I will renounce you; I will so dismiss +you through that doorway, that you had better have been motherless from +your cradle. I will never see or know you more. And if, after all, you +were to come into this darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body +should bleed, if I could make it, when you came near me.’ + +In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous +as the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a +religious proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was +silent. + +‘Now,’ said Jeremiah; ‘premising that I’m not going to stand between you +two, will you let me ask (as I _have_ been called in, and made a third) +what is all this about?’ + +‘Take your version of it,’ returned Arthur, finding it left to him to +speak, ‘from my mother. Let it rest there. What I have said, was said to +my mother only.’ + +‘Oh!’ returned the old man. ‘From your mother? Take it from your mother? +Well! But your mother mentioned that you had been suspecting your father. +That’s not dutiful, Mr Arthur. Who will you be suspecting next?’ + +‘Enough,’ said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was addressed +for the moment to the old man only. ‘Let no more be said about this.’ + +‘Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit,’ the old man persisted. ‘Let us see +how we stand. Have you told Mr Arthur that he mustn’t lay offences at +his father’s door? That he has no right to do it? That he has no ground +to go upon?’ + +‘I tell him so now.’ + +‘Ah! Exactly,’ said the old man. ‘You tell him so now. You hadn’t told +him so before, and you tell him so now. Ay, ay! That’s right! You know I +stood between you and his father so long, that it seems as if death had +made no difference, and I was still standing between you. So I will, and +so in fairness I require to have that plainly put forward. Arthur, you +please to hear that you have no right to mistrust your father, and have +no ground to go upon.’ + +He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to +himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. ‘Now,’ he +resumed, standing behind her: ‘in case I should go away leaving things +half done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half +and get into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to +do about the business?’ + +‘He has relinquished it.’ + +‘In favour of nobody, I suppose?’ + +Mrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. He +observed the look and said, ‘To my mother, of course. She does what she +pleases.’ + +‘And if any pleasure,’ she said after a short pause, ‘could arise for me +out of the disappointment of my expectations that my son, in the prime +of his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it +of great profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful +servant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink +or float with it.’ + +Jeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw money, darted a sudden +look at the son, which seemed to say, ‘I owe _you_ no thanks for this; +_you_ have done nothing towards it!’ and then told the mother that he +thanked her, and that Affery thanked her, and that he would never desert +her, and that Affery would never desert her. Finally, he hauled up his +watch from its depths, and said, ‘Eleven. Time for your oysters!’ and with +that change of subject, which involved no change of expression or manner, +rang the bell. + +But Mrs Clennam, resolved to treat herself with the greater rigour for +having been supposed to be unacquainted with reparation, refused to +eat her oysters when they were brought. They looked tempting; eight in +number, circularly set out on a white plate on a tray covered with a +white napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered French roll, and a little +compact glass of cool wine and water; but she resisted all persuasions, +and sent them down again--placing the act to her credit, no doubt, in +her Eternal Day-Book. + +This refection of oysters was not presided over by Affery, but by the +girl who had appeared when the bell was rung; the same who had been in +the dimly-lighted room last night. Now that he had an opportunity of +observing her, Arthur found that her diminutive figure, small features, +and slight spare dress, gave her the appearance of being much younger +than she was. A woman, probably of not less than two-and-twenty, she +might have been passed in the street for little more than half that +age. Not that her face was very youthful, for in truth there was more +consideration and care in it than naturally belonged to her utmost +years; but she was so little and light, so noiseless and shy, and +appeared so conscious of being out of place among the three hard elders, +that she had all the manner and much of the appearance of a subdued +child. + +In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between patronage +and putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hydraulic +pressure, Mrs Clennam showed an interest in this dependent. Even in the +moment of her entrance, upon the violent ringing of the bell, when the +mother shielded herself with that singular action from the son, Mrs +Clennam’s eyes had had some individual recognition in them, which seemed +reserved for her. As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, +and shades of colour in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs +Clennam’s demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little +Dorrit, there was a fine gradation. + +Little Dorrit let herself out to do needlework. At so much a day--or at +so little--from eight to eight, Little Dorrit was to be hired. Punctual +to the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punctual to the moment, Little +Dorrit vanished. What became of Little Dorrit between the two eights was +a mystery. + +Another of the moral phenomena of Little Dorrit. Besides her +consideration money, her daily contract included meals. She had an +extraordinary repugnance to dining in company; would never do so, if +it were possible to escape. Would always plead that she had this bit of +work to begin first, or that bit of work to finish first; and would, of +a certainty, scheme and plan--not very cunningly, it would seem, for she +deceived no one--to dine alone. Successful in this, happy in carrying +off her plate anywhere, to make a table of her lap, or a box, or the +ground, or even as was supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining moderately +at a mantel-shelf; the great anxiety of Little Dorrit’s day was set at +rest. + +It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit’s face; she was so retiring, +plied her needle in such removed corners, and started away so scared if +encountered on the stairs. But it seemed to be a pale transparent face, +quick in expression, though not beautiful in feature, its soft hazel +eyes excepted. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a quick little pair +of busy hands, and a shabby dress--it must needs have been very shabby +to look at all so, being so neat--were Little Dorrit as she sat at work. + +For these particulars or generalities concerning Little Dorrit, Mr +Arthur was indebted in the course of the day to his own eyes and to Mrs +Affery’s tongue. If Mrs Affery had had any will or way of her own, it +would probably have been unfavourable to Little Dorrit. But as ‘them two +clever ones’--Mrs Affery’s perpetual reference, in whom her personality +was swallowed up--were agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a matter of +course, she had nothing for it but to follow suit. Similarly, if the +two clever ones had agreed to murder Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs +Affery, being required to hold the candle, would no doubt have done it. + +In the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, and +preparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, Mrs +Affery made the communications above set forth; invariably putting +her head in at the door again after she had taken it out, to enforce +resistance to the two clever ones. It appeared to have become a perfect +passion with Mrs Flintwinch, that the only son should be pitted against +them. + +In the course of the day, too, Arthur looked through the whole house. +Dull and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon +years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which +nothing could rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and +lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was +no colour in all the house; such colour as had ever been there, had long +ago started away on lost sunbeams--got itself absorbed, perhaps, into +flowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. There +was not one straight floor from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings +were so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might +have told fortunes in them better than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold +hearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed but in heaps of soot +that had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little +dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In what had once been +a drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal +processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round +the frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one +undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on its own axis and got upside +down, and another had fallen off altogether. The room Arthur Clennam’s +deceased father had occupied for business purposes, when he first +remembered him, was so unaltered that he might have been imagined still +to keep it invisibly, as his visible relict kept her room up-stairs; +Jeremiah Flintwinch still going between them negotiating. His picture, +dark and gloomy, earnestly speechless on the wall, with the eyes +intently looking at his son as they had looked when life departed from +them, seemed to urge him awfully to the task he had attempted; but as +to any yielding on the part of his mother, he had now no hope, and as to +any other means of setting his distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a +long time. Down in the cellars, as up in the bed-chambers, old objects +that he well remembered were changed by age and decay, but were still in +their old places; even to empty beer-casks hoary with cobwebs, and empty +wine-bottles with fur and fungus choking up their throats. There, too, +among unusual bottle-racks and pale slants of light from the yard above, +was the strong room stored with old ledgers, which had as musty and +corrupt a smell as if they were regularly balanced, in the dead small +hours, by a nightly resurrection of old book-keepers. + +The baking-dish was served up in a penitential manner on a shrunken +cloth at an end of the dining-table, at two o’clock, when he dined with +Mr Flintwinch, the new partner. Mr Flintwinch informed him that his +mother had recovered her equanimity now, and that he need not fear her +again alluding to what had passed in the morning. ‘And don’t you lay +offences at your father’s door, Mr Arthur,’ added Jeremiah, ‘once for +all, don’t do it! Now, we have done with the subject.’ + +Mr Flintwinch had been already rearranging and dusting his own +particular little office, as if to do honour to his accession to new +dignity. He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had +sucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, +and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery. Thus +refreshed, he tucked up his shirt-sleeves and went to work again; and Mr +Arthur, watching him as he set about it, plainly saw that his father’s +picture, or his father’s grave, would be as communicative with him as +this old man. + +‘Now, Affery, woman,’ said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall. ‘You +hadn’t made Mr Arthur’s bed when I was up there last. Stir yourself. +Bustle.’ + +But Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so unwilling +to assist at another implacable consignment of his mother’s enemies +(perhaps himself among them) to mortal disfigurement and immortal ruin, +that he announced his intention of lodging at the coffee-house where he +had left his luggage. Mr Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting +rid of him, and his mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of +saving, to most domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls +of her own chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence. +Daily business hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch, +and he, were to devote together to a necessary checking of books and +papers; and he left the home he had so lately found, with depressed +heart. + +But Little Dorrit? + +The business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of oysters +and partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk, +were from ten to six for about a fortnight. Sometimes Little Dorrit was +employed at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes appeared as a humble +visitor: which must have been her character on the occasion of his +arrival. His original curiosity augmented every day, as he watched for +her, saw or did not see her, and speculated about her. Influenced by his +predominant idea, he even fell into a habit of discussing with himself +the possibility of her being in some way associated with it. At last he +resolved to watch Little Dorrit and know more of her story. + + + + +CHAPTER 6. The Father of the Marshalsea + + +Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint +George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way +going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years +before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, +and the world is none the worse without it. + +It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid +houses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; +environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at +top. Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within +it a much closer and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders against +the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred +fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated +behind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a +strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which +formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in +which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles. + +Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown +the strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they had come to be +considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as +ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other +cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are +stone-blind. Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors +(who received them with open arms), except at certain constitutional +moments when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of +overlooking something which neither he nor anybody else knew anything +about. On these truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a +feint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this +somebody pretended to do his something: and made a reality of walking +out again as soon as he hadn’t done it--neatly epitomising the +administration of most of the public affairs in our right little, tight +little, island. + +There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when +the sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a +debtor with whom this narrative has some concern. + +He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged +gentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was going +out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a +debtor who was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he +doubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear--like +all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said--that he was going +out again directly. + +He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style; +with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings upon the +fingers in those days--which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a +hundred times in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail. +His principal anxiety was about his wife. + +‘Do you think, sir,’ he asked the turnkey, ‘that she will be very much +shocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?’ + +The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of ‘em was +and some of ‘em wasn’t. In general, more no than yes. ‘What like is she, +you see?’ he philosophically asked: ‘that’s what it hinges on.’ + +‘She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed.’ + +‘That,’ said the turnkey, ‘is agen her.’ + +‘She is so little used to go out alone,’ said the debtor, ‘that I am at +a loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she walks.’ + +‘P’raps,’ quoth the turnkey, ‘she’ll take a ackney coach.’ + +‘Perhaps.’ The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip. ‘I hope she +will. She may not think of it.’ + +‘Or p’raps,’ said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the the top +of his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child +for whose weakness he felt a compassion, ‘p’raps she’ll get her brother, +or her sister, to come along with her.’ + +‘She has no brother or sister.’ + +‘Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young ‘ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it! One +or another on ‘em,’ said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the refusal +of all his suggestions. + +‘I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring the +children.’ + +‘The children?’ said the turnkey. ‘And the rules? Why, lord set you +up like a corner pin, we’ve a reg’lar playground o’ children here. +Children! Why we swarm with ‘em. How many a you got?’ + +‘Two,’ said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again, +and turning into the prison. + +The turnkey followed him with his eyes. ‘And you another,’ he observed +to himself, ‘which makes three on you. And your wife another, I’ll lay +a crown. Which makes four on you. And another coming, I’ll lay +half-a-crown. Which’ll make five on you. And I’ll go another seven and +sixpence to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!’ + +He was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a little +boy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely +corroborated. + +‘Got a room now; haven’t you?’ the turnkey asked the debtor after a week +or two. + +‘Yes, I have got a very good room.’ + +‘Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?’ said the turnkey. + +‘I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the +carrier, this afternoon.’ + +‘Missis and little ‘uns a coming to keep you company?’ asked the +turnkey. + +‘Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for +a few weeks.’ + +‘Even for a few weeks, _of_ course,’ replied the turnkey. And he followed +him again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was +gone. + +The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he +knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters +of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, +suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of +mysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face +of the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in +the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible +could be made of his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour +to reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp +practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was +only to put the case out at compound interest and incomprehensibility. +The irresolute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually about the +trembling lip on every such occasion, and the sharpest practitioners +gave him up as a hopeless job. + +‘Out?’ said the turnkey, ‘_he_‘ll never get out, unless his creditors take +him by the shoulders and shove him out.’ + +He had been there five or six months, when he came running to this +turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife was +ill. + +‘As anybody might a known she would be,’ said the turnkey. + +‘We intended,’ he returned, ‘that she should go to a country lodging +only to-morrow. What am I to do! Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!’ + +‘Don’t waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your fingers,’ +responded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, ‘but come +along with me.’ + +The turnkey conducted him--trembling from head to foot, and constantly +crying under his breath, What was he to do! while his irresolute fingers +bedabbled the tears upon his face--up one of the common staircases in +the prison to a door on the garret story. Upon which door the turnkey +knocked with the handle of his key. + +‘Come in!’ cried a voice inside. + +The turnkey, opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill-smelling +little room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages seated at a +rickety table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy. + +‘Doctor,’ said the turnkey, ‘here’s a gentleman’s wife in want of you +without a minute’s loss of time!’ + +The doctor’s friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, puffiness, +red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in +the comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all-fourey, +tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The doctor was amazingly shabby, in +a torn and darned rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and eminently +short of buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon +carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by +mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen. ‘Childbed?’ said +the doctor. ‘I’m the boy!’ With that the doctor took a comb from the +chimney-piece and stuck his hair upright--which appeared to be his +way of washing himself--produced a professional chest or case, of most +abject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals +were, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became +a ghastly medical scarecrow. + +The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to return +to the lock, and made for the debtor’s room. All the ladies in the +prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them +had already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably +carrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from +their own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest +volubility. The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a +disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, +to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now +complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others, +with several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to +the prevalent excitement. + +It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the +high walls. In the debtor’s confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and +messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but +was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had +volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls +and ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden +device, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with +the other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time +enunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature, +adapted to the occasion. + +‘The flies trouble you, don’t they, my dear?’ said Mrs Bangham. ‘But +p’raps they’ll take your mind off of it, and do you good. What between +the buryin ground, the grocer’s, the waggon-stables, and the paunch +trade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large. P’raps they’re sent as a +consolation, if we only know’d it. How are you now, my dear? No better? +No, my dear, it ain’t to be expected; you’ll be worse before you’re +better, and you know it, don’t you? Yes. That’s right! And to think of +a sweet little cherub being born inside the lock! Now ain’t it pretty, +ain’t _that_ something to carry you through it pleasant? Why, we ain’t +had such a thing happen here, my dear, not for I couldn’t name the time +when. And you a crying too?’ said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more +and more. ‘You! Making yourself so famous! With the flies a falling into +the gallipots by fifties! And everything a going on so well! And here if +there ain’t,’ said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, ‘if there ain’t your +dear gentleman along with Dr Haggage! And now indeed we _are_ complete, I +_think_!’ + +The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient +with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the +opinion, ‘We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall +come out of this like a house afire;’ and as he and Mrs Bangham took +possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else +had always done, the means at hand were as good on the whole as better +would have been. The special feature in Dr Haggage’s treatment of the +case, was his determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark. As thus: + +‘Mrs Bangham,’ said the doctor, before he had been there twenty minutes, +‘go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving in.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. But none on my accounts,’ said Mrs Bangham. + +‘Mrs Bangham,’ returned the doctor, ‘I am in professional attendance +on this lady, and don’t choose to allow any discussion on your part. Go +outside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee that you’ll break down.’ + +‘You’re to be obeyed, sir,’ said Mrs Bangham, rising. ‘If you was to put +your own lips to it, I think you wouldn’t be the worse, for you look but +poorly, sir.’ + +‘Mrs Bangham,’ returned the doctor, ‘I am not your business, thank you, +but you are mine. Never you mind _me_, if you please. What you have got to +do, is, to do as you are told, and to go and get what I bid you.’ + +Mrs Bangham submitted; and the doctor, having administered her +potion, took his own. He repeated the treatment every hour, being very +determined with Mrs Bangham. Three or four hours passed; the flies +fell into the traps by hundreds; and at length one little life, hardly +stronger than theirs, appeared among the multitude of lesser deaths. + +‘A very nice little girl indeed,’ said the doctor; ‘little, but +well-formed. Halloa, Mrs Bangham! You’re looking queer! You be off, +ma’am, this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or we shall have you +in hysterics.’ + +By this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor’s irresolute +hands, like leaves from a wintry tree. Not one was left upon them that +night, when he put something that chinked into the doctor’s greasy palm. +In the meantime Mrs Bangham had been out on an errand to a neighbouring +establishment decorated with three golden balls, where she was very well +known. + +‘Thank you,’ said the doctor, ‘thank you. Your good lady is quite +composed. Doing charmingly.’ + +‘I am very happy and very thankful to know it,’ said the debtor, ‘though +I little thought once, that--’ + +‘That a child would be born to you in a place like this?’ said the +doctor. ‘Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room +is all we want here. We are quiet here; we don’t get badgered here; +there’s no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a +man’s heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man’s at +home, and to say he’ll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes +threatening letters about money to this place. It’s freedom, sir, it’s +freedom! I have had to-day’s practice at home and abroad, on a march, +and aboard ship, and I’ll tell you this: I don’t know that I have ever +pursued it under such quiet circumstances as here this day. Elsewhere, +people are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one +thing, anxious respecting another. Nothing of the kind here, sir. We +have done all that--we know the worst of it; we have got to the bottom, +we can’t fall, and what have we found? Peace. That’s the word for +it. Peace.’ With this profession of faith, the doctor, who was an old +jail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had the additional and +unusual stimulus of money in his pocket, returned to his associate and +chum in hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, +and brandy. + +Now, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he had +already begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to the +same point. Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a +dull relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that +kept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man with +strength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have +broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he +was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took +one step upward. + +When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make +plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in +succession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor end of them or +him, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it +had been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder +children now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the +baby, and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her. + +‘Why, I’m getting proud of you,’ said his friend the turnkey, one day. +‘You’ll be the oldest inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn’t be like +the Marshalsea now, without you and your family.’ + +The turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in laudatory +terms to new-comers, when his back was turned. ‘You took notice of him,’ +he would say, ‘that went out of the lodge just now?’ + +New-comer would probably answer Yes. + +‘Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed’cated at no +end of expense. Went into the Marshal’s house once to try a new piano +for him. Played it, I understand, like one o’clock--beautiful! As to +languages--speaks anything. We’ve had a Frenchman here in his time, and +it’s my opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did. We’ve had +an Italian here in his time, and he shut _him_ up in about half a minute. +You’ll find some characters behind other locks, I don’t say you won’t; +but if you want the top sawyer in such respects as I’ve mentioned, you +must come to the Marshalsea.’ + +When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been +languishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained +any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did--went +upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died +there. He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; +and an attorney’s clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court, +engrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease, +and which all the prisoners signed. When he appeared again he was +greyer (he had soon begun to turn grey); and the turnkey noticed that +his hands went often to his trembling lips again, as they had used to do +when he first came in. But he got pretty well over it in a month or +two; and in the meantime the children played about the yard as regularly +as ever, but in black. + +Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer +world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose +on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her +clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and +to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison +prisonous, of the streets streety. + +Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, and his +legs got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool +was ‘beyond him,’ he complained. He sat in an arm-chair with a cushion, +and sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn’t turn +the key. When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often turned +it for him. + +‘You and me,’ said the turnkey, one snowy winter’s night when the lodge, +with a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, ‘is the oldest +inhabitants. I wasn’t here myself above seven year before you. I shan’t +last long. When I’m off the lock for good and all, you’ll be the Father +of the Marshalsea.’ + +The turnkey went off the lock of this world next day. His words were +remembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down from +generation to generation--a Marshalsea generation might be calculated as +about three months--that the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and +the white hair, was the Father of the Marshalsea. + +And he grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen to +claim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to +deprive him of his rights. A disposition began to be perceived in him +to exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was generally +understood that you must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the +fleeting generations of debtors said. + +All new-comers were presented to him. He was punctilious in the exaction +of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with +overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his +sense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an +introduction in the mere yard, as informal--a thing that might happen +to anybody), with a kind of bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to +the Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place. +So the world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than +twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked +small at first, but there was very good company there--among a +mixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air. + +It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his +door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at +long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea. +‘With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.’ He received the +gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public character. Sometimes +these correspondents assumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old +Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he +considered this in bad taste, and was always a little hurt by it. + +In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of wearing +out, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the correspondents +to which in the hurried circumstances of departure many of them might +not be equal, he established the custom of attending collegians of +a certain standing, to the gate, and taking leave of them there. The +collegian under treatment, after shaking hands, would occasionally +stop to wrap up something in a bit of paper, and would come back again +calling ‘Hi!’ + +He would look round surprised.’Me?’ he would say, with a smile. + +By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would paternally +add, VWhat have you forgotten? What can I do for you?’ + +‘I forgot to leave this,’ the collegian would usually return, ‘for the +Father of the Marshalsea.’ + +‘My good sir,’ he would rejoin, ‘he is infinitely obliged to you.’ But, +to the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the pocket into +which he had slipped the money during two or three turns about the yard, +lest the transaction should be too conspicuous to the general body of +collegians. + +One afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a rather +large party of collegians, who happened to be going out, when, as he was +coming back, he encountered one from the poor side who had been taken in +execution for a small sum a week before, had ‘settled’ in the course of +that afternoon, and was going out too. The man was a mere Plasterer in +his working dress; had his wife with him, and a bundle; and was in high +spirits. + +‘God bless you, sir,’ he said in passing. + +‘And you,’ benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea. + +They were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the +Plasterer called out, ‘I say!--sir!’ and came back to him. + +‘It ain’t much,’ said the Plasterer, putting a little pile of halfpence +in his hand, ‘but it’s well meant.’ + +The Father of the Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in copper +yet. His children often had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had +gone into the common purse to buy meat that he had eaten, and drink that +he had drunk; but fustian splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence +on him, front to front, was new. + +‘How dare you!’ he said to the man, and feebly burst into tears. + +The Plasterer turned him towards the wall, that his face might not be +seen; and the action was so delicate, and the man was so penetrated with +repentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he could make him no less +acknowledgment than, ‘I know you meant it kindly. Say no more.’ + +‘Bless your soul, sir,’ urged the Plasterer, ‘I did indeed. I’d do more +by you than the rest of ‘em do, I fancy.’ + +‘What would you do?’ he asked. + +‘I’d come back to see you, after I was let out.’ + +‘Give me the money again,’ said the other, eagerly, ‘and I’ll keep it, +and never spend it. Thank you for it, thank you! I shall see you again?’ + +‘If I live a week you shall.’ + +They shook hands and parted. The collegians, assembled in Symposium in +the Snuggery that night, marvelled what had happened to their Father; he +walked so late in the shadows of the yard, and seemed so downcast. + + + + +CHAPTER 7. The Child of the Marshalsea + + +The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor +Haggage’s brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians, +like the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her +existence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being +almost a part of the entrance footing of every new collegian to nurse +the child who had been born in the college. + +‘By rights,’ remarked the turnkey when she was first shown to him, ‘I +ought to be her godfather.’ + +The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, ‘Perhaps +you wouldn’t object to really being her godfather?’ + +‘Oh! _I_ don’t object,’ replied the turnkey, ‘if you don’t.’ + +Thus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, when +the turnkey, being relieved, was off the lock; and that the turnkey +went up to the font of Saint George’s Church, and promised and vowed and +renounced on her behalf, as he himself related when he came back, ‘like +a good ‘un.’ + +This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the child, +over and above his former official one. When she began to walk and talk, +he became fond of her; bought a little arm-chair and stood it by the +high fender of the lodge fire-place; liked to have her company when he +was on the lock; and used to bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk +to him. The child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the turnkey that +she would come climbing up the lodge-steps of her own accord at all +hours of the day. When she fell asleep in the little armchair by the +high fender, the turnkey would cover her with his pocket-handkerchief; +and when she sat in it dressing and undressing a doll which soon came +to be unlike dolls on the other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible +family resemblance to Mrs Bangham--he would contemplate her from the +top of his stool with exceeding gentleness. Witnessing these things, +the collegians would express an opinion that the turnkey, who was a +bachelor, had been cut out by nature for a family man. But the turnkey +thanked them, and said, ‘No, on the whole it was enough to see other +people’s children there.’ + +At what period of her early life the little creature began to perceive +that it was not the habit of all the world to live locked up in narrow +yards surrounded by high walls with spikes at the top, would be a +difficult question to settle. But she was a very, very little creature +indeed, when she had somehow gained the knowledge that her clasp of her +father’s hand was to be always loosened at the door which the great key +opened; and that while her own light steps were free to pass beyond it, +his feet must never cross that line. A pitiful and plaintive look, with +which she had begun to regard him when she was still extremely young, +was perhaps a part of this discovery. + +With a pitiful and plaintive look for everything, indeed, but with +something in it for only him that was like protection, this Child of +the Marshalsea and the child of the Father of the Marshalsea, sat by her +friend the turnkey in the lodge, kept the family room, or wandered about +the prison-yard, for the first eight years of her life. With a pitiful +and plaintive look for her wayward sister; for her idle brother; for the +high blank walls; for the faded crowd they shut in; for the games of the +prison children as they whooped and ran, and played at hide-and-seek, +and made the iron bars of the inner gateway ‘Home.’ + +Wistful and wondering, she would sit in summer weather by the high +fender in the lodge, looking up at the sky through the barred window, +until, when she turned her eyes away, bars of light would arise between +her and her friend, and she would see him through a grating, too. + +‘Thinking of the fields,’ the turnkey said once, after watching her, +‘ain’t you?’ + +‘Where are they?’ she inquired. + +‘Why, they’re--over there, my dear,’ said the turnkey, with a vague +flourish of his key. ‘Just about there.’ + +‘Does anybody open them, and shut them? Are they locked?’ + +The turnkey was discomfited. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Not in general.’ + +‘Are they very pretty, Bob?’ She called him Bob, by his own particular +request and instruction. + +‘Lovely. Full of flowers. There’s buttercups, and there’s daisies, +and there’s’--the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral +nomenclature--‘there’s dandelions, and all manner of games.’ + +‘Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?’ + +‘Prime,’ said the turnkey. + +‘Was father ever there?’ + +‘Hem!’ coughed the turnkey. ‘O yes, he was there, sometimes.’ + +‘Is he sorry not to be there now?’ + +‘N-not particular,’ said the turnkey. + +‘Nor any of the people?’ she asked, glancing at the listless crowd +within. ‘O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?’ + +At this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and changed the +subject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he found his little +friend getting him into a political, social, or theological corner. +But this was the origin of a series of Sunday excursions that these two +curious companions made together. They used to issue from the lodge on +alternate Sunday afternoons with great gravity, bound for some meadows +or green lanes that had been elaborately appointed by the turnkey in +the course of the week; and there she picked grass and flowers to bring +home, while he smoked his pipe. Afterwards, there were tea-gardens, +shrimps, ale, and other delicacies; and then they would come back hand +in hand, unless she was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep +on his shoulder. + +In those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider +a question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained +undetermined on the day of his death. He decided to will and bequeath +his little property of savings to his godchild, and the point arose how +could it be so ‘tied up’ as that only she should have the benefit of +it? His experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the +enormous difficulty of ‘tying up’ money with any approach to tightness, +and contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that +through a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to +every new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in +and out. + +‘Supposing,’ he would say, stating the case with his key on the +professional gentleman’s waistcoat; ‘supposing a man wanted to leave his +property to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so that nobody else +should ever be able to make a grab at it; how would you tie up that +property?’ + +‘Settle it strictly on herself,’ the professional gentleman would +complacently answer. + +‘But look here,’ quoth the turnkey. ‘Supposing she had, say a brother, +say a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make a grab at that +property when she came into it--how about that?’ + +‘It would be settled on herself, and they would have no more legal claim +on it than you,’ would be the professional answer. + +‘Stop a bit,’ said the turnkey. ‘Supposing she was tender-hearted, and +they came over her. Where’s your law for tying it up then?’ + +The deepest character whom the turnkey sounded, was unable to produce +his law for tying such a knot as that. So, the turnkey thought about it +all his life, and died intestate after all. + +But that was long afterwards, when his god-daughter was past sixteen. +The first half of that space of her life was only just accomplished, +when her pitiful and plaintive look saw her father a widower. From that +time the protection that her wondering eyes had expressed towards him, +became embodied in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took upon +herself a new relation towards the Father. + +At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting +her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. But +this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her, +and began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there. Through +this little gate, she passed out of childhood into the care-laden world. + +What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her +sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much, or how little of the +wretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies hidden with +many mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which +was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and +laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of +the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by +love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! + +With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the +one so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common daily +tone and habits of the common members of the free community who are not +shut up in prisons; born and bred in a social condition, false even with +a reference to the falsest condition outside the walls; drinking from +infancy of a well whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own +unwholesome and unnatural taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her +womanly life. + +No matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule (not +unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what +humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even +in the matter of lifting and carrying; through how much weariness +and hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she drudged on, until +recognised as useful, even indispensable. That time came. She took the +place of eldest of the three, in all things but precedence; was the +head of the fallen family; and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and +shames. + +At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts, that is, could put down +in words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted +would cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. She had been, +by snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, +and got her sister and brother sent to day-schools by desultory starts, +during three or four years. There was no instruction for any of them at +home; but she knew well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be +the Father of the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own children. + +To these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own +contriving. Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there +appeared a dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn the +dancing-master’s art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At thirteen +years old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself to the +dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and preferred her humble +petition. + +‘If you please, I was born here, sir.’ + +‘Oh! You are the young lady, are you?’ said the dancing-master, +surveying the small figure and uplifted face. + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘And what can I do for you?’ said the dancing-master. + +‘Nothing for me, sir, thank you,’ anxiously undrawing the strings of +the little bag; ‘but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to +teach my sister cheap--’ + +‘My child, I’ll teach her for nothing,’ said the dancing-master, +shutting up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever +danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The sister was so +apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant leisure to bestow +upon her (for it took him a matter of ten weeks to set to his creditors, +lead off, turn the Commissioners, and right and left back to his +professional pursuits), that wonderful progress was made. Indeed the +dancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to display it before +he left to a few select friends among the collegians, that at six +o’clock on a certain fine morning, a minuet de la cour came off in +the yard--the college-rooms being of too confined proportions for the +purpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so +conscientiously executed, that the dancing-master, having to play the +kit besides, was thoroughly blown. + +The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master’s +continuing his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor child +to try again. She watched and waited months for a seamstress. In the +fulness of time a milliner came in, and to her she repaired on her own +behalf. + +‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ she said, looking timidly round the door of +the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: ‘but I was born here.’ + +Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the +milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the +dancing-master had said: + +‘Oh! _You_ are the child, are you?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am.’ + +‘I am sorry I haven’t got anything for you,’ said the milliner, shaking +her head. + +‘It’s not that, ma’am. If you please I want to learn needle-work.’ + +‘Why should you do that,’ returned the milliner, ‘with me before you? It +has not done me much good.’ + +‘Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes +here,’ she returned in all simplicity; ‘but I want to learn just the +same.’ + +‘I am afraid you are so weak, you see,’ the milliner objected. + +‘I don’t think I am weak, ma’am.’ + +‘And you are so very, very little, you see,’ the milliner objected. + +‘Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed,’ returned the Child of the +Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate defect of hers, +which came so often in her way. The milliner--who was not morose or +hard-hearted, only newly insolvent--was touched, took her in hand with +goodwill, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her +a cunning work-woman in course of time. + +In course of time, and in the very self-same course of time, the Father +of the Marshalsea gradually developed a new flower of character. The +more Fatherly he grew as to the Marshalsea, and the more dependent he +became on the contributions of his changing family, the greater stand +he made by his forlorn gentility. With the same hand that he pocketed +a collegian’s half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away the +tears that streamed over his cheeks if any reference were made to his +daughters’ earning their bread. So, over and above other daily cares, +the Child of the Marshalsea had always upon her the care of preserving +the genteel fiction that they were all idle beggars together. + +The sister became a dancer. There was a ruined uncle in the family +group--ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing +no more how than his ruiner did, but accepting the fact as an inevitable +certainty--on whom her protection devolved. Naturally a retired and +simple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined at the time +when that calamity fell upon him, further than that he left off washing +himself when the shock was announced, and never took to that luxury any +more. He had been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; +and when he fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a +clarionet as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the +theatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there +a long time when she took her poor station in it; and he accepted +the task of serving as her escort and guardian, just as he would have +accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation--anything but soap. + +To enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary +for the Child of the Marshalsea to go through an elaborate form with the +Father. + +‘Fanny is not going to live with us just now, father. She will be here a +good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle.’ + +‘You surprise me. Why?’ + +‘I think uncle wants a companion, father. He should be attended to, and +looked after.’ + +‘A companion? He passes much of his time here. And you attend to him and +look after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will. You +all go out so much; you all go out so much.’ + +This was to keep up the ceremony and pretence of his having no idea that +Amy herself went out by the day to work. + +‘But we are always glad to come home, father; now, are we not? And as to +Fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of him, it +may be as well for her not quite to live here, always. She was not born +here as I was, you know, father.’ + +‘Well, Amy, well. I don’t quite follow you, but it’s natural I suppose +that Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should, +too. So, you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way. +Good, good. I’ll not meddle; don’t mind me.’ + +To get her brother out of the prison; out of the succession to Mrs +Bangham in executing commissions, and out of the slang interchange with +very doubtful companions consequent upon both; was her hardest task. At +eighteen he would have dragged on from hand to mouth, from hour to hour, +from penny to penny, until eighty. Nobody got into the prison from whom +he derived anything useful or good, and she could find no patron for him +but her old friend and godfather. + +‘Dear Bob,’ said she, ‘what is to become of poor Tip?’ His name was +Edward, and Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the walls. + +The turnkey had strong private opinions as to what would become of +poor Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of averting their +fulfilment, as to sound Tip in reference to the expediency of running +away and going to serve his country. But Tip had thanked him, and said +he didn’t seem to care for his country. + +‘Well, my dear,’ said the turnkey, ‘something ought to be done with him. +Suppose I try and get him into the law?’ + +‘That would be so good of you, Bob!’ + +The turnkey had now two points to put to the professional gentlemen as +they passed in and out. He put this second one so perseveringly that +a stool and twelve shillings a week were at last found for Tip in the +office of an attorney in a great National Palladium called the Palace +Court; at that time one of a considerable list of everlasting bulwarks +to the dignity and safety of Albion, whose places know them no more. + +Tip languished in Clifford’s Inns for six months, and at the expiration +of that term sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets, +and incidentally observed to his sister that he was not going back +again. + +‘Not going back again?’ said the poor little anxious Child of the +Marshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front rank +of her charges. + +‘I am so tired of it,’ said Tip, ‘that I have cut it.’ + +Tip tired of everything. With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, and Mrs +Bangham succession, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend, +got him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade, +into the law again, into an auctioneers, into a brewery, into a +stockbroker’s, into the law again, into a coach office, into a waggon +office, into the law again, into a general dealer’s, into a distillery, +into the law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the +Billingsgate trade, into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. +But whatever Tip went into, he came out of tired, announcing that he +had cut it. Wherever he went, this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the +prison walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling; +and to prowl about within their narrow limits in the old slip-shod, +purposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real immovable Marshalsea walls +asserted their fascination over him, and brought him back. + +Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her +brother’s rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful changes, +she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada. When he +was tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that, +he graciously consented to go to Canada. And there was grief in her +bosom over parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a +straight course at last. + +‘God bless you, dear Tip. Don’t be too proud to come and see us, when +you have made your fortune.’ + +‘All right!’ said Tip, and went. + +But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool. +After making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself +so strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back +again. Carrying out which intention, he presented himself before her at +the expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired +than ever. + +At length, after another interval of successorship to Mrs Bangham, he +found a pursuit for himself, and announced it. + +‘Amy, I have got a situation.’ + +‘Have you really and truly, Tip?’ + +‘All right. I shall do now. You needn’t look anxious about me any more, +old girl.’ + +‘What is it, Tip?’ + +‘Why, you know Slingo by sight?’ + +‘Not the man they call the dealer?’ + +‘That’s the chap. He’ll be out on Monday, and he’s going to give me a +berth.’ + +‘What is he a dealer in, Tip?’ + +‘Horses. All right! I shall do now, Amy.’ + +She lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him +once. A whisper passed among the elder collegians that he had been seen +at a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for +massive silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in +bank notes; but it never reached her ears. One evening she was alone at +work--standing up at the window, to save the twilight lingering above +the wall--when he opened the door and walked in. + +She kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any questions. He +saw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry. + +‘I am afraid, Amy, you’ll be vexed this time. Upon my life I am!’ + +‘I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. Have you come back?’ + +‘Why--yes.’ + +‘Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well, +I am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip.’ + +‘Ah! But that’s not the worst of it.’ + +‘Not the worst of it?’ + +‘Don’t look so startled. No, Amy, not the worst of it. I have come back, +you see; but--_don’t_ look so startled--I have come back in what I may +call a new way. I am off the volunteer list altogether. I am in now, as +one of the regulars.’ + +‘Oh! Don’t say you are a prisoner, Tip! Don’t, don’t!’ + +‘Well, I don’t want to say it,’ he returned in a reluctant tone; ‘but if +you can’t understand me without my saying it, what am I to do? I am in +for forty pound odd.’ + +For the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. She +cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill +their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip’s graceless feet. + +It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring +_him_ to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside +himself if he knew the truth. The thing was incomprehensible to Tip, and +altogether a fanciful notion. He yielded to it in that light only, when +he submitted to her entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister. +There was no want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for +to the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better +comprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally. + +This was the life, and this the history, of the child of the Marshalsea +at twenty-two. With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable +yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and +fro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was +pointed out to every one. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, +she had found it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and +go as secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates, +outside of which she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity +had grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little +figure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them. + +Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all +things else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, +and the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed through it and +flowed on. + +This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now going +home upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by Arthur +Clennam. This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; +turning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going back again, +passing on to Saint George’s Church, turning back suddenly once more, +and flitting in at the open outer gate and little court-yard of the +Marshalsea. + + + + +CHAPTER 8. The Lock + + +Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what +place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there +was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the +street, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard. + +He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner, +which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for +him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, +reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in +the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that +phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked +itself up, at the back of the old man’s neck, into a confusion of grey +hair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his +hat off. A greasy hat it was, and a napless; impending over his eyes, +cracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief +dangling out below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his +shoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how +much of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no one +could have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case, +containing some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a pennyworth +of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly +comforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur +Clennam looked at him. + +To this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry, +touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with +the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far +off, and who was a little dull of hearing also. + +‘Pray, sir,’ said Arthur, repeating his question, ‘what is this place?’ + +‘Ay! This place?’ returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on +its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. ‘This is the +Marshalsea, sir.’ + +‘The debtors’ prison?’ + +‘Sir,’ said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary +to insist upon that designation, ‘the debtors’ prison.’ + +He turned himself about, and went on. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Arthur, stopping him once more, ‘but will you +allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?’ + +‘Any one can _go in_,’ replied the old man; plainly adding by the +significance of his emphasis, ‘but it is not every one who can go out.’ + +‘Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?’ + +‘Sir,’ returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his +hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him. +‘I am.’ + +‘I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good +object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?’ + +‘My name, sir,’ replied the old man most unexpectedly, ‘is Dorrit.’ + +Arthur pulled off his hat to him. ‘Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen +words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that +assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of +addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long +absence. I have seen at my mother’s--Mrs Clennam in the city--a young +woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken +of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have +had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a +minute before you came up, pass in at that door.’ + +The old man looked at him attentively. ‘Are you a sailor, sir?’ he +asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that +replied to him. ‘Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you +might be. Are you in earnest, sir?’ + +‘I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in +plain earnest.’ + +‘I know very little of the world, sir,’ returned the other, who had a +weak and quavering voice. ‘I am merely passing on, like the shadow over +the sun-dial. It would be worth no man’s while to mislead me; it would +really be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The +young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother’s child. My brother +is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your +mother’s (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest +in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.’ + +He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him. + +‘My brother,’ said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing +round again, ‘has been here many years; and much that happens even among +ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn’t +enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece’s working at +her needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said +among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now! +Come and see.’ + +Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was +turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into +a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door +and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before, +turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the +turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and +the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted. + +The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in +the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain +and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered +about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old +man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or +fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. ‘They are rather dark, +sir, but you will not find anything in the way.’ + +He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had +no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw +the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone. + +She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and +was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad +in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table. +A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon, +salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his +particular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles +in a saucer, were not wanting. + +She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with +his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her +to be reassured and to trust him. + +‘I found this gentleman,’ said the uncle--‘Mr Clennam, William, son of +Amy’s friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying +his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my +brother William, sir.’ + +‘I hope,’ said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, ‘that my respect for +your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, +sir.’ + +‘Mr Clennam,’ returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the +flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, ‘you do me +honour. You are welcome, sir;’ with a low bow. ‘Frederick, a chair. Pray +sit down, Mr Clennam.’ + +He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his +own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his +manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians. + +‘You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen +to these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have +mentioned that I am the Father of this place.’ + +‘I--so I have understood,’ said Arthur, dashing at the assertion. + +‘You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl, +sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear, +put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which +we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me +the honour, sir, to--’ + +‘Thank you,’ returned Arthur. ‘Not a morsel.’ + +He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that +the probability of his daughter’s having had a reserve as to her family +history, should be so far out of his mind. + +She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to +his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in +observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself, +and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled +and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud +of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost +heart. + +The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an +amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at +distinction. ‘Frederick,’ said he, ‘you and Fanny sup at your lodgings +to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?’ + +‘She is walking with Tip.’ + +‘Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little +wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was +rather’--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round +the room--‘a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?’ + +‘My first.’ + +‘You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my +knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any +pretensions--comes here without being presented to me.’ + +‘As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,’ +said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride. + +‘Yes!’ the Father of the Marshalsea assented. ‘We have even exceeded +that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee--quite +a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the +name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last +Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six +months.’ + +‘I don’t remember his name, father.’ + +‘Frederick, do _you_ remember his name?’ + +Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that +Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with +any hope of information. + +‘I mean,’ said his brother, ‘the gentleman who did that handsome action +with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr +Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you +may like, perhaps, to know what it was.’ + +‘Very much,’ said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head +beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over +it. + +‘It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a +duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it +on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness. +A--well--a--it’s of no use to disguise the fact--you must know, Mr +Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire +to offer some little--Testimonial--to the Father of the place.’ + +To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her +timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight. + +‘Sometimes,’ he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing +his throat every now and then; ‘sometimes--hem--it takes one shape and +sometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money. And it is, I cannot +but confess it, it is too often--hem--acceptable. This gentleman that I +refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying +to my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with +great--ahem--information.’ All this time, though he had finished his +supper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and +fork, as if some of it were still before him. ‘It appeared from his +conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning +it at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to me. But it came +out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium--beautiful +cluster of geranium to be sure--which he had brought from his +conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a +piece of paper round it, on which was written, “For the Father of the +Marshalsea,” and presented it to me. But this was--hem--not all. He made +a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in +half an hour. I--ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two +guineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials +in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always +been--ha--unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than +with this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.’ + +Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme, +when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty +girl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit, +though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed +together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man +who was with her, stopped too. + +‘Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell +is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good +night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam +will excuse any household business you may have together. He knows, I +dare say, that I have but one room here.’ + +‘I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,’ said the second girl. + +‘And I my clothes,’ said Tip. + +Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of +drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles, +which she handed to her brother and sister. ‘Mended and made up?’ +Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered ‘Yes.’ +He had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room. +The bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand, +and were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained, +and the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such +conveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a +close, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot, +or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but +constant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind, +comfortable. + +All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go. +‘Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,’ he said, with his ragged clarionet case +under his arm; ‘the lock, child, the lock!’ + +Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had +already clattered down-stairs. ‘Now, Mr Clennam,’ said the uncle, +looking back as he shuffled out after them, ‘the lock, sir, the lock.’ + +Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his +testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his +child; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a +word, in explanation of his having come there. + +‘Allow me,’ said the Father, ‘to see you down-stairs.’ + +She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone. ‘Not on any +account,’ said the visitor, hurriedly. ‘Pray allow me to--’ chink, +chink, chink. + +‘Mr Clennam,’ said the Father, ‘I am deeply, deeply--’ But his visitor +had shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone down-stairs with +great speed. + +He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last two or +three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following, +when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the +entrance. He turned back hastily. + +‘Pray forgive me,’ he said, ‘for speaking to you here; pray forgive me +for coming here at all! I followed you to-night. I did so, that I might +endeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the +terms on which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I +have preserved our distant relations at her house, lest I should +unintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in +her estimation. What I have seen here, in this short time, has greatly +increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense +me for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence.’ + +She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke to +her. + +‘You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I--but I +wish you had not watched me.’ + +He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her +father’s behalf; and he respected it, and was silent. + +‘Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don’t know what we +should have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid +it may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more +to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank +you.’ + +‘Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother +long?’ + +‘I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.’ + +‘How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?’ + +‘No. She does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, father +and I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I wrote out +that I wished to do needlework, and gave his address. And he got what +I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs +Clennam found me that way, and sent for me. The gate will be locked, +sir!’ + +She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for +her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he +could scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the +quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried +words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father. + +But he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge +closed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing +there with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get +through the night, when a voice accosted him from behind. + +‘Caught, eh?’ said the voice. ‘You won’t go home till morning. Oh! It’s +you, is it, Mr Clennam?’ + +The voice was Tip’s; and they stood looking at one another in the +prison-yard, as it began to rain. + +‘You’ve done it,’ observed Tip; ‘you must be sharper than that next +time.’ + +‘But you are locked in too,’ said Arthur. + +‘I believe I am!’ said Tip, sarcastically. ‘About! But not in your way. +I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must +never know it. I don’t see why, myself.’ + +‘Can I get any shelter?’ asked Arthur. ‘What had I better do?’ + +‘We had better get hold of Amy first of all,’ said Tip, referring any +difficulty to her as a matter of course. + +‘I would rather walk about all night--it’s not much to do--than give +that trouble.’ + +‘You needn’t do that, if you don’t mind paying for a bed. If you don’t +mind paying, they’ll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the +circumstances. If you’ll come along, I’ll introduce you there.’ + +As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room +he had lately left, where the light was still burning. ‘Yes, sir,’ said +Tip, following his glance. ‘That’s the governor’s. She’ll sit with him +for another hour reading yesterday’s paper to him, or something of that +sort; and then she’ll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away +without a sound.’ + +‘I don’t understand you.’ + +‘The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the +turnkey’s. First house there,’ said Tip, pointing out the doorway into +which she had retired. ‘First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much +for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the +governor, poor dear girl, day and night.’ + +This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the +prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club. +The apartment on the ground-floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery +in question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots, +glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were +still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment. +The Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to +grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third +point of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective; +being but a cooped-up apartment. + +The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here +to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. Whether +they were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. The +keeper of a chandler’s shop in a front parlour, who took in gentlemen +boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in +his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that he stood up +litigiously for the interests of the college; and he had undefined and +undefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a ‘Fund,’ which ought to +come to the collegians. He liked to believe this, and always impressed +the shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not, +for his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion had +got rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding, +that his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week; +and that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by +the marshal, regularly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to make the +bed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after +which unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he +always did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a +letter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous +conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the +whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state +of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally +broke out. + +In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about +him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part +of a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful +enjoyment of the Snuggery’s resources, pointed out the common kitchen +fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water +supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the +deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to +the Marshalsea. + +The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into +a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, +the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights, +spittoons and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking +itself to the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without +preparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room +up-stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish +form, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if +not of want, kept him waking and unhappy. + +Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison, +but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind +while he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might +die there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who +died in the prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were +observed, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to +escaping, what chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could +scale the walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon +the other side? whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a +staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? As to +Fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there? + +And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting +of a picture in which three people kept before him. His father, with the +steadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in +the portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion; +Little Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head +turned away. + +What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to +this poor girl! What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven grant +it!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace back his +fall to her. What if any act of hers and of his father’s, should have +even remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low! + +A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and +in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance +to be struck? ‘I admit that I was accessory to that man’s captivity. I +have suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his prison: I in mine. I +have paid the penalty.’ + +When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession +of him. When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair, +warding him off with this justification. When he awoke, and sprang up +causelessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had +slowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: ‘He withers away in +his prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I +owe on this score!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 9. Little Mother + + +The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in +at the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more +welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with +it. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial +south-west wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow +Marshalsea. While it roared through the steeple of St George’s Church, +and twirled all the cowls in the neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat +the Southwark smoke into the jail; and, plunging down the chimneys +of the few early collegians who were yet lighting their fires, half +suffocated them. + +Arthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, though +his bed had been in a more private situation, and less affected by the +raking out of yesterday’s fire, the kindling of to-day’s under the +collegiate boiler, the filling of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the +sweeping and sawdusting of the common room, and other such preparations. +Heartily glad to see the morning, though little rested by the night, he +turned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced +the yard for two heavy hours before the gate was opened. + +The walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried +over them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of +sea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The rain, carried aslant by +flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had +visited last night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the +wall, where he walked up and down among the waits of straw and dust +and paper, the waste droppings of the pump, and the stray leaves of +yesterday’s greens. It was as haggard a view of life as a man need look +upon. + +Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had +brought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that +where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw +nothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once, +was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to +leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam +walked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in +his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his +discoveries. + +At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step, +taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a +joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself +again in the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother +last night. + +There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not +difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and +errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain +until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival +with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp +whitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of +butter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants +upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency, +was a sight to see. Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns +and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such +umbrellas and walking-sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. All of +them wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women, were made up of +patches and pieces of other people’s individuality, and had no sartorial +existence of their own proper. Their walk was the walk of a race apart. +They had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if +they were eternally going to the pawnbroker’s. When they coughed, they +coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in +draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which +gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no +satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with +borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they +were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something +handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders, +shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and +dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their +figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in +alcoholic breathings. + +As these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and one of +them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services, +it came into Arthur Clennam’s mind that he would speak to Little Dorrit +again before he went away. She would have recovered her first surprise, +and might feel easier with him. He asked this member of the fraternity +(who had two red herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking brush +under his arm), where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee +at. The nondescript replied in encouraging terms, and brought him to a +coffee-shop in the street within a stone’s throw. + +‘Do you know Miss Dorrit?’ asked the new client. + +The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside--That was +the one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her many years. +In regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in the same +house with herself and uncle. + +This changed the client’s half-formed design of remaining at the +coffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit +had issued forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript with a +confidential message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited +on her father last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at +her uncle’s lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to +the house, which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with +half-a-crown; and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop, +repaired with all speed to the clarionet-player’s dwelling. + +There were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed to be +as full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubtful +which might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a +shuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and alighted on his hat. +He then observed that in the parlour window was a blind with the +inscription, MR CRIPPLES’s ACADEMY; also in another line, EVENING +TUITION; and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy, with a slice +of bread-and-butter and a battledore. The window being accessible from +the footway, he looked in over the blind, returned the shuttlecock, and +put his question. + +‘Dorrit?’ said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact). +‘_Mr_ Dorrit? Third bell and one knock.’ + +The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book of +the street-door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. The +frequency of the inscriptions, ‘Old Dorrit,’ and ‘Dirty Dick,’ in +combination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of Mr +Cripples’s pupils. There was ample time to make these observations +before the door was opened by the poor old man himself. + +‘Ha!’ said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, ‘you were shut in last +night?’ + +‘Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently.’ + +‘Oh!’ said he, pondering. ‘Out of my brother’s way? True. Would you come +up-stairs and wait for her?’ + +‘Thank you.’ + +Turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or +said, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was very close, and +had an unwholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the +back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and +lines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung; as if the +inhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites +not worth attending to. In the back garret--a sickly room, with a +turn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the +blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a +half-finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled +down anyhow on a rickety table. + +There was no one there. The old man mumbling to himself, after some +consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch +her back. The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside, +and that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration +of ‘Don’t, stupid!’ and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel, +concluded that the young lady was in an undress. The uncle, without +appearing to come to any conclusion, shuffled in again, sat down in his +chair, and began warming his hands at the fire; not that it was cold, or +that he had any waking idea whether it was or not. + +‘What did you think of my brother, sir?’ he asked, when he by-and-by +discovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to the +chimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down. + +‘I was glad,’ said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts were +on the brother before him; ‘to find him so well and cheerful.’ + +‘Ha!’ muttered the old man, ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!’ + +Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet case. He +did not want it at all. He discovered, in due time, that it was not the +little paper of snuff (which was also on the chimney-piece), put it back +again, took down the snuff instead, and solaced himself with a pinch. He +was as feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches as in everything else, but +a certain little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn +nerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth. + +‘Amy, Mr Clennam. What do you think of her?’ + +‘I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and +thought of her.’ + +‘My brother would have been quite lost without Amy,’ he returned. ‘We +should all have been lost without Amy. She is a very good girl, Amy. She +does her duty.’ + +Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises a certain tone of custom, +which he had heard from the father last night with an inward protest and +feeling of antagonism. It was not that they stinted her praises, or +were insensible to what she did for them; but that they were lazily +habituated to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition. +He fancied that although they had before them, every day, the means of +comparison between her and one another and themselves, they regarded her +as being in her necessary place; as holding a position towards them all +which belonged to her, like her name or her age. He fancied that they +viewed her, not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as +appertaining to it; as being vaguely what they had a right to expect, +and nothing more. + +Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in +coffee, oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang. That was Amy, +he said, and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with as vivid +a picture on his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and decayed +figure, as if he were still drooping in his chair. + +She came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual +timid manner. Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat faster +than usual. + +‘Mr Clennam, Amy,’ said her uncle, ‘has been expecting you some time.’ + +‘I took the liberty of sending you a message.’ + +‘I received the message, sir.’ + +‘Are you going to my mother’s this morning? I think not, for it is past +your usual hour.’ + +‘Not to-day, sir. I am not wanted to-day.’ + +‘Will you allow Me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may +be going? I can then speak to you as we walk, both without detaining you +here, and without intruding longer here myself.’ + +She looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased. He made a pretence of +having mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the bedstead +right, to answer her sister’s impatient knock at the wall, and to say a +word softly to her uncle. Then he found it, and they went down-stairs; +she first, he following; the uncle standing at the stair-head, and +probably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor. + +Mr Cripples’s pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted +from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and +books, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been +to see Dirty Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the +mysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when they burst into pebbles +and yells, and likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried +the pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples +had been the chief of the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on, +they could scarcely have done greater justice to their education. + +In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little +Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. ‘Will you go by the Iron Bridge,’ +said he, ‘where there is an escape from the noise of the street?’ Little +Dorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he +would ‘not mind’ Mr Cripples’s boys, for she had herself received +her education, such as it was, in Mr Cripples’s evening academy. He +returned, with the best will in the world, that Mr Cripples’s boys were +forgiven out of the bottom of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously +become a master of the ceremonies between them, and bring them more +naturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived +in his golden days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the +purpose. + +The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but +no rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The little creature +seemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found +himself thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child. +Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his. + +‘I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be +locked in. It was very unfortunate.’ + +It was nothing, he returned. He had had a very good bed. + +‘Oh yes!’ she said quickly; ‘she believed there were excellent beds at +the coffee-house.’ He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic +hotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation. + +‘I believe it is very expensive,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘but my father has +told me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there. And wine,’ she +added timidly. + +‘Were you ever there?’ + +‘Oh no! Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.’ + +To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of +that superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel! + +‘I asked you last night,’ said Clennam, ‘how you had become acquainted +with my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Do you think your father ever did?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was +scared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he +felt it necessary to say: + +‘I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you +must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least +alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that at no time of +your father’s life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at +him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than +make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh. + +Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the +roaring streets as though it had been open country. The wind blew +roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on +the road and pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds +raced on furiously in the lead-coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced +after them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction. +Little Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven’s +creatures. + +‘Let me put you in a coach,’ said Clennam, very nearly adding ‘my poor +child.’ + +She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to +her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and +was touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side, +making its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such +a place of rest. + +‘You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found afterwards +that you had been so generous to my father, that I could not resist your +message, if it was only to thank you; especially as I wished very much +to say to you--’ she hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her eyes, +but did not fall. + +‘To say to me--?’ + +‘That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don’t judge him, sir, +as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long! +I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown +different in some things since.’ + +‘My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.’ + +‘Not,’ she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept +upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, ‘not that he has +anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be +ashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for +him that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite +true. It all happened just as he related it. He is very much respected. +Everybody who comes in, is glad to know him. He is more courted than +anyone else. He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.’ + +If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she +grew boastful of her father. + +‘It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman’s, and quite +a study. I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to +be superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why they make him +presents, as because they know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed +for being in need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a +century, and be prosperous!’ + +What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears, +what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed +false brightness round him! + +‘If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because +I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place +itself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there. +I have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there +through misfortune. They are almost all kind-hearted to one another. +And it would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that I have had many +quiet, comfortable hours there; that I had an excellent friend there +when I was quite a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been +taught there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there. I +think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little +attachment for it, after all this.’ + +She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said, +raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend’s, ‘I did not mean to say +so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems +to set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had +not followed me, sir. I don’t wish it so much now, unless you should +think--indeed I don’t wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so +confusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid +may be the case.’ + +He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting +himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well +as he could. + +‘I feel permitted now,’ he said, ‘to ask you a little more concerning +your father. Has he many creditors?’ + +‘Oh! a great number.’ + +‘I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?’ + +‘Oh yes! a great number.’ + +‘Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you +cannot--who is the most influential of them?’ + +Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to +hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was a +commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, ‘or something.’ He lived +in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it. He was under +Government--high in the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to have +acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this +formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and +the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned +him. + +‘It can do no harm,’ thought Arthur, ‘if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.’ + +The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness +intercepted it. ‘Ah!’ said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild +despair of a lifetime. ‘Many people used to think once of getting my +poor father out, but you don’t know how hopeless it is.’ + +She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from +the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with +eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile +figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from +his purpose of helping her. + +‘Even if it could be done,’ said she--‘and it never can be done +now--where could father live, or how could he live? I have often thought +that if such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to +him now. People might not think so well of him outside as they do there. +He might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there. He might +not be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that.’ + +Here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling; +and the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy, +trembled as they clasped each other. + +‘It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little +money, and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so anxious about us, +you see, feeling helplessly shut up there. Such a good, good father!’ + +He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was soon +gone. She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one +with her emotions. He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs +and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the +wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on +the shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she +was again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother’s +room. + +‘You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?’ + +‘Oh very, very glad, sir!’ + +‘Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a friend +you had?’ + +His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said. + +And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard. He +was ‘only a plasterer,’ Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to +form high social expectations of Plornish. He lived at the last house in +Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway. + +Arthur took down the address and gave her his. He had now done all he +sought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a +reliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that +she would cherish it. + +‘There is one friend!’ he said, putting up his pocketbook. ‘As I take +you back--you are going back?’ + +‘Oh yes! going straight home.’ + +‘--As I take you back,’ the word home jarred upon him, ‘let me ask you to +persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions, +and say no more.’ + +‘You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.’ + +They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the +poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters +usual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that +was pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage +through common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this +little, slender, careful creature on his arm. How young she seemed to +him, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that +beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not +here. He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes, +and shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought +of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her +innocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her +childish aspect. + +They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a +voice cried, ‘Little mother, little mother!’ Little Dorrit stopping and +looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them +(still crying ‘little mother’), fell down, and scattered the contents of +a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud. + +‘Oh, Maggy,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘what a clumsy child you are!’ + +Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began +to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam +helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud; +but they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggy then +smeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam +as a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like. + +She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large +feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and +almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light, +and to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening +expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she +was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not +exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile; +a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable +by being constantly there. A great white cap, with a quantity of +opaque frilling that was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy’s +baldness, and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to +retain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a +gipsy’s baby. A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported +what the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general +resemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her +shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion. + +Arthur Clennam looked at Little Dorrit with the expression of one +saying, ‘May I ask who this is?’ Little Dorrit, whose hand this Maggy, +still calling her little mother, had begun to fondle, answered in words +(they were under a gateway into which the majority of the potatoes had +rolled). + +‘This is Maggy, sir.’ + +‘Maggy, sir,’ echoed the personage presented. ‘Little mother!’ + +‘She is the grand-daughter--’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Grand-daughter,’ echoed Maggy. + +‘Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old are +you?’ + +‘Ten, mother,’ said Maggy. + +‘You can’t think how good she is, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, with +infinite tenderness. + +‘Good _she_ is,’ echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most +expressive way from herself to her little mother. + +‘Or how clever,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘She goes on errands as well as +any one.’ Maggy laughed. ‘And is as trustworthy as the Bank of England.’ +Maggy laughed. ‘She earns her own living entirely. Entirely, sir!’ said +Little Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone. ‘Really does!’ + +‘What is her history?’ asked Clennam. + +‘Think of that, Maggy?’ said Little Dorrit, taking her two large hands +and clapping them together. ‘A gentleman from thousands of miles away, +wanting to know your history!’ + +‘_My_ history?’ cried Maggy. ‘Little mother.’ + +‘She means me,’ said Little Dorrit, rather confused; ‘she is very much +attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should +have been; was she, Maggy?’ + +Maggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand, +drank out of it, and said, ‘Gin.’ Then beat an imaginary child, and said, +‘Broom-handles and pokers.’ + +‘When Maggy was ten years old,’ said Little Dorrit, watching her face +while she spoke, ‘she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any +older ever since.’ + +‘Ten years old,’ said Maggy, nodding her head. ‘But what a nice +hospital! So comfortable, wasn’t it? Oh so nice it was. Such a Ev’nly +place!’ + +‘She had never been at peace before, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, turning +towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, ‘and she always runs off +upon that.’ + +‘Such beds there is there!’ cried Maggy. ‘Such lemonades! Such oranges! +Such d’licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, AIN’T it a delightful +place to go and stop at!’ + +‘So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,’ said Little Dorrit, +in her former tone of telling a child’s story; the tone designed for +Maggy’s ear, ‘and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came +out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however +long she lived--’ + +‘However long she lived,’ echoed Maggy. + +‘--And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began +to laugh she couldn’t stop herself--which was a great pity--’ + +(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.) + +‘--Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years +was very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy began +to take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very +industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as +she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support +herself. And that,’ said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands +together again, ‘is Maggy’s history, as Maggy knows!’ + +Ah! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness, +though he had never heard of the words Little mother; though he had +never seen the fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no +sight for the tears now standing in the colourless eyes; though he had +had no hearing for the sob that checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty +gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the basket of +muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the +common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these lights. +Never, never! + +They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the +gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop +at a grocer’s window, short of their destination, for her to show her +learning. She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in +the tickets of prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled, +with a large balance of success against her failures, through various +philanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, +Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head +of Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious +establishments and adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure +brought a rosy tint into Little Dorrit’s face when Maggy made a hit, +he felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer’s +window until the rain and wind were tired. + +The court-yard received them at last, and there he said goodbye to +Little Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less than +ever when he saw her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, the little +mother attended by her big child. + +The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had +tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away. + + + + +CHAPTER 10. Containing the whole Science of Government + + +The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) +the most important Department under Government. No public business of +any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of +the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, +and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the +plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express +authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had +been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody +would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had +been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks +of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical +correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office. + +This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one +sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, +was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to +study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through +the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, +the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments +in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT. + +Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it +invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted +on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public +departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what it was. + +It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of +all public departments and professional politicians all round the +Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every +new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as +necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their +utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from +the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had +been raving on hustings because it hadn’t been done, and who had been +asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest +on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn’t been done, and who had +been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself +that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It +is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session +through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to +do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session +virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable +stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective +chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal +speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and +gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering +with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found +out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not +political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution +Office went beyond it. + +Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, +keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not +to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any +ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be +by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, +and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It +was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office +that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. +Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, +memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent +grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, +jobbed people, people who couldn’t get rewarded for merit, and people +who couldn’t get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked +up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office. + +Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. Unfortunates +with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had +better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English +recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony +had passed safely through other public departments; who, according to +rule, had been bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by +the other; got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and +never reappeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries +minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, +entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, +all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, +except the business that never came out of it; and _its_ name was Legion. + +Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. Sometimes, +parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary +motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as +to hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would +the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, in whose department it +was to defend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket, +and make a regular field-day of the occasion. Then would he come down to +that house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman +foot to foot. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman +that the Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, +but was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this +matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that, +although the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and wholly +right, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would he be there +to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his +honour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good +sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the +Circumlocution Office alone, and never approached this matter. Then +would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circumlocution +Office sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with +the Circumlocution Office account of this matter. And although one +of two things always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution +Office had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say +of which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one +half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always voted +immaculate by an accommodating majority. + +Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of a +long career of this nature, that several solemn lords had attained the +reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business, solely from +having practised, How not to do it, as the head of the Circumlocution +Office. As to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple, the result +of all this was that they stood divided into two classes, and, down to +the junior messenger, either believed in the Circumlocution Office as +a heaven-born institution that had an absolute right to do whatever it +liked; or took refuge in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant +nuisance. + +The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the +Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered +themselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction, +and took it ill if any other family had much to say to it. The Barnacles +were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed +all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either +the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the +Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not +quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the +nation theirs. + +The Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually coached +or crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution Office, when +that noble or right honourable individual sat a little uneasily in his +saddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a newspaper, +was more flush of blood than money. As a Barnacle he had his place, +which was a snug thing enough; and as a Barnacle he had of course put +in his son Barnacle Junior in the office. But he had intermarried with +a branch of the Stiltstalkings, who were also better endowed in a +sanguineous point of view than with real or personal property, and of +this marriage there had been issue, Barnacle junior and three young +ladies. What with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the +three young ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself, +Mr Tite Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day +rather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he always +attributed to the country’s parsimony. + +For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one day +at the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions awaited that +gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a waiting room, and a +fire-proof passage where the Department seemed to keep its wind. On this +occasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as he had been before, with the +noble prodigy at the head of the Department; but was absent. Barnacle +Junior, however, was announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the +office horizon. + +With Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found that +young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the parental fire, +and supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf. It was a comfortable +room, handsomely furnished in the higher official manner; and presenting +stately suggestions of the absent Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the +leather-covered desk to sit at, the leather-covered desk to stand at, +the formidable easy-chair and hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the +torn-up papers, the dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of +them, like medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather +and mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it. + +The present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam’s card in his hand, had a +youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever +was seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half +fledged like a young bird; and a compassionate observer might have urged +that, if he had not singed the calves of his legs, he would have died +of cold. He had a superior eye-glass dangling round his neck, but +unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes and such limp little +eyelids that it wouldn’t stick in when he put it up, but kept tumbling +out against his waistcoat buttons with a click that discomposed him very +much. + +‘Oh, I say. Look here! My father’s not in the way, and won’t be in the +way to-day,’ said Barnacle Junior. ‘Is this anything that I can do?’ + +(Click! Eye-glass down. Barnacle Junior quite frightened and feeling all +round himself, but not able to find it.) + +‘You are very good,’ said Arthur Clennam. ‘I wish however to see Mr +Barnacle.’ + +‘But I say. Look here! You haven’t got any appointment, you know,’ said +Barnacle Junior. + +(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and put it up again.) + +‘No,’ said Arthur Clennam. ‘That is what I wish to have.’ + +‘But I say. Look here! Is this public business?’ asked Barnacle junior. + +(Click! Eye-glass down again. Barnacle Junior in that state of search +after it that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at present.) + +‘Is it,’ said Barnacle junior, taking heed of his visitor’s brown face, +‘anything about--Tonnage--or that sort of thing?’ + +(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and stuck +his glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye began watering +dreadfully.) + +‘No,’ said Arthur, ‘it is nothing about tonnage.’ + +‘Then look here. Is it private business?’ + +‘I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr Dorrit.’ + +‘Look here, I tell you what! You had better call at our house, if you +are going that way. Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. My +father’s got a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at home by it.’ + +(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eye-glass +side, but ashamed to make any further alteration in his painful +arrangements.) + +‘Thank you. I will call there now. Good morning.’ Young Barnacle seemed +discomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to go. + +‘You are quite sure,’ said Barnacle junior, calling after him when he +got to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright business idea +he had conceived; ‘that it’s nothing about Tonnage?’ + +‘Quite sure.’ + +With such assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken place +if it _had_ been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to pursue his +inquiries. + +Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor Square +itself, but it was very near it. It was a hideous little street of dead +wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses inhabited by +coachmen’s families, who had a passion for drying clothes and decorating +their window-sills with miniature turnpike-gates. The principal +chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews +Street; and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented +about early morning and twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and +kitchen-stuff. Punch’s shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews +Street, while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of +the neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality. Yet +there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews +Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject +hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of these fearful +little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in +great request), the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence +in the most aristocratic part of town, inhabited solely by the elite of +the beau monde. + +If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow margin had +not been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this particular branch +would have had a pretty wide selection among, let us say, ten thousand +houses, offering fifty times the accommodation for a third of the money. +As it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his gentlemanly residence extremely +inconvenient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a public servant, +at the door of the country, and adduced it as another instance of the +country’s parsimony. + +Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed +front, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp +waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews Street, +Grosvenor Square. To the sense of smell the house was like a sort of +bottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and when the footman +opened the door, he seemed to take the stopper out. + +The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was to +the Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was a back +and a bye way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt; and both in +complexion and consistency he had suffered from the closeness of his +pantry. A sallow flabbiness was upon him when he took the stopper out, +and presented the bottle to Mr Clennam’s nose. + +‘Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say that I +have just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle, who recommended me to call +here.’ + +The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon +them on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box, +and carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up) pondered +over the card a little; then said, ‘Walk in.’ It required some judgment +to do it without butting the inner hall-door open, and in the consequent +mental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. +The visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the door-mat. + +Still the footman said ‘Walk in,’ so the visitor followed him. At the +inner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and another +stopper taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled with +concentrated provisions and extract of Sink from the pantry. After a +skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman’s opening the +door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding some one there +with consternation, and backing on the visitor with disorder, the +visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a close back parlour. +There he had an opportunity of refreshing himself with both the +bottles at once, looking out at a low blinding wall three feet off, +and speculating on the number of Barnacle families within the bills of +mortality who lived in such hutches of their own free flunkey choice. + +Mr Barnacle would see him. Would he walk up-stairs? He would, and +he did; and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found Mr +Barnacle himself, the express image and presentment of How not to do it. + +Mr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so +parsimonious and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He wound +and wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound and wound +folds of tape and paper round the neck of the country. His wristbands +and collar were oppressive; his voice and manner were oppressive. He +had a large watch-chain and bunch of seals, a coat buttoned up to +inconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to inconvenience, an unwrinkled +pair of trousers, a stiff pair of boots. He was altogether splendid, +massive, overpowering, and impracticable. He seemed to have been sitting +for his portrait to Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life. + +‘Mr Clennam?’ said Mr Barnacle. ‘Be seated.’ + +Mr Clennam became seated. + +‘You have called on me, I believe,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘at the +Circumlocution--’ giving it the air of a word of about five-and-twenty +syllables--‘Office.’ + +‘I have taken that liberty.’ + +Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, ‘I do not deny +that it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let me know +your business.’ + +‘Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am quite +a stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest in the +inquiry I am about to make.’ + +Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now +sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to say +to his visitor, ‘If you will be good enough to take me with my present +lofty expression, I shall feel obliged.’ + +‘I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of Dorrit, +who has been there many years. I wish to investigate his confused +affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after +this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition. The name of +Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly +influential interest among his creditors. Am I correctly informed?’ + +It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on +any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle +said, ‘Possibly.’ + +‘On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?’ + +‘The Circumlocution Department, sir,’ Mr Barnacle replied, ‘may have +possibly recommended--possibly--I cannot say--that some public claim +against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to which this +person may have belonged, should be enforced. The question may have +been, in the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution +Department for its consideration. The Department may have either +originated, or confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation.’ + +‘I assume this to be the case, then.’ + +‘The Circumlocution Department,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘is not responsible +for any gentleman’s assumptions.’ + +‘May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real +state of the case?’ + +‘It is competent,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘to any member of the--Public,’ +mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, +‘to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are +required to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the +proper branch of that Department.’ + +‘Which is the proper branch?’ + +‘I must refer you,’ returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, ‘to the +Department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.’ + +‘Excuse my mentioning--’ + +‘The Department is accessible to the--Public,’ Mr Barnacle was always +checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, ‘if +the--Public approaches it according to the official forms; if +the--Public does not approach it according to the official forms, +the--Public has itself to blame.’ + +Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a wounded +man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, all rolled +into one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews +Street by the flabby footman. + +Having got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in perseverance, +to betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office, and try what +satisfaction he could get there. So he went back to the Circumlocution +Office, and once more sent up his card to Barnacle junior by a messenger +who took it very ill indeed that he should come back again, and who was +eating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the hall fire. + +He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found that +young gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary way on +to four o’clock. + +‘I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a manner,’ Said +Barnacle junior, looking over his shoulder. + +‘I want to know--’ + +‘Look here. Upon my soul you mustn’t come into the place saying you +want to know, you know,’ remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning about and +putting up the eye-glass. + +‘I want to know,’ said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to +persistence in one short form of words, ‘the precise nature of the claim +of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.’ + +‘I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you know. +Egad, you haven’t got an appointment,’ said Barnacle junior, as if the +thing were growing serious. + +‘I want to know,’ said Arthur, and repeated his case. + +Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and then +put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again. ‘You have +no right to come this sort of move,’ he then observed with the greatest +weakness. ‘Look here. What do you mean? You told me you didn’t know +whether it was public business or not.’ + +‘I have now ascertained that it is public business,’ returned the +suitor, ‘and I want to know’--and again repeated his monotonous inquiry. + +Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless +way, ‘Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn’t come into the place saying you +want to know, you know!’ The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was +to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone +as before. The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a +wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness. + +‘Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the Secretarial +Department,’ he said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it. +‘Jenkinson,’ to the mashed potatoes messenger, ‘Mr Wobbler!’ + +Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming +of the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, accompanied +the messenger to another floor of the building, where that functionary +pointed out Mr Wobbler’s room. He entered that apartment, and found two +gentlemen sitting face to face at a large and easy desk, one of whom was +polishing a gun-barrel on his pocket-handkerchief, while the other was +spreading marmalade on bread with a paper-knife. + +‘Mr Wobbler?’ inquired the suitor. + +Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at his assurance. + +‘So he went,’ said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an +extremely deliberate speaker, ‘down to his cousin’s place, and took the +Dog with him by rail. Inestimable Dog. Flew at the porter fellow when he +was put into the dog-box, and flew at the guard when he was taken out. +He got half-a-dozen fellows into a Barn, and a good supply of Rats, and +timed the Dog. Finding the Dog able to do it immensely, made the match, +and heavily backed the Dog. When the match came off, some devil of +a fellow was bought over, Sir, Dog was made drunk, Dog’s master was +cleaned out.’ + +‘Mr Wobbler?’ inquired the suitor. + +The gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without looking +up from that occupation, ‘What did he call the Dog?’ + +‘Called him Lovely,’ said the other gentleman. ‘Said the Dog was the +perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations. Found him +particularly like her when hocussed.’ + +‘Mr Wobbler?’ said the suitor. + +Both gentlemen laughed for some time. The gentleman with the gun-barrel, +considering it, on inspection, in a satisfactory state, referred it to +the other; receiving confirmation of his views, he fitted it into its +place in the case before him, and took out the stock and polished that, +softly whistling. + +‘Mr Wobbler?’ said the suitor. + +‘What’s the matter?’ then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full. + +‘I want to know--’ and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth what +he wanted to know. + +‘Can’t inform you,’ observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch. ‘Never +heard of it. Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr Clive, second +door on the left in the next passage.’ + +‘Perhaps he will give me the same answer.’ + +‘Very likely. Don’t know anything about it,’ said Mr Wobbler. + +The suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman with +the gun called out ‘Mister! Hallo!’ + +He looked in again. + +‘Shut the door after you. You’re letting in a devil of a draught here!’ + +A few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next +passage. In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing nothing +particular, number two doing nothing particular, number three doing +nothing particular. They seemed, however, to be more directly concerned +than the others had been in the effective execution of the great +principle of the office, as there was an awful inner apartment with a +double door, in which the Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled +in council, and out of which there was an imposing coming of papers, +and into which there was an imposing going of papers, almost constantly; +wherein another gentleman, number four, was the active instrument. + +‘I want to know,’ said Arthur Clennam,--and again stated his case in the +same barrel-organ way. As number one referred him to number two, and +as number two referred him to number three, he had occasion to state +it three times before they all referred him to number four, to whom he +stated it again. + +Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable +young fellow--he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of +the family--and he said in an easy way, ‘Oh! you had better not bother +yourself about it, I think.’ + +‘Not bother myself about it?’ + +‘No! I recommend you not to bother yourself about it.’ + +This was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself at a +loss how to receive it. + +‘You can if you like. I can give you plenty of forms to fill up. Lots of +‘em here. You can have a dozen if you like. But you’ll never go on with +it,’ said number four. + +‘Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse me; I am a stranger in England.’ + +‘_I_ don’t say it would be hopeless,’ returned number four, with a frank +smile. ‘I don’t express an opinion about that; I only express an opinion +about you. _I_ don’t think you’d go on with it. However, of course, you +can do as you like. I suppose there was a failure in the performance of +a contract, or something of that kind, was there?’ + +‘I really don’t know.’ + +‘Well! That you can find out. Then you’ll find out what Department the +contract was in, and then you’ll find out all about it there.’ + +‘I beg your pardon. How shall I find out?’ + +‘Why, you’ll--you’ll ask till they tell you. Then you’ll memorialise +that Department (according to regular forms which you’ll find out) for +leave to memorialise this Department. If you get it (which you may after +a time), that memorial must be entered in that Department, sent to +be registered in this Department, sent back to be signed by that +Department, sent back to be countersigned by this Department, and then +it will begin to be regularly before that Department. You’ll find out +when the business passes through each of these stages by asking at both +Departments till they tell you.’ + +‘But surely this is not the way to do the business,’ Arthur Clennam +could not help saying. + +This airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in +supposing for a moment that it was. This light in hand young Barnacle +knew perfectly that it was not. This touch and go young Barnacle had +‘got up’ the Department in a private secretaryship, that he might +be ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand; and he fully +understood the Department to be a politico-diplomatic hocus pocus piece +of machinery for the assistance of the nobs in keeping off the +snobs. This dashing young Barnacle, in a word, was likely to become a +statesman, and to make a figure. + +‘When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it is,’ +pursued this bright young Barnacle, ‘then you can watch it from time +to time through that Department. When it comes regularly before this +Department, then you must watch it from time to time through this +Department. We shall have to refer it right and left; and when we refer +it anywhere, then you’ll have to look it up. When it comes back to us +at any time, then you had better look _us_ up. When it sticks anywhere, +you’ll have to try to give it a jog. When you write to another +Department about it, and then to this Department about it, and don’t +hear anything satisfactory about it, why then you had better--keep on +writing.’ + +Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. ‘But I am obliged to you at +any rate,’ said he, ‘for your politeness.’ + +‘Not at all,’ replied this engaging young Barnacle. ‘Try the thing, and +see how you like it. It will be in your power to give it up at any time, +if you don’t like it. You had better take a lot of forms away with you. +Give him a lot of forms!’ With which instruction to number two, this +sparkling young Barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers one +and three, and carried them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding +Idol of the Circumlocution Office. + +Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and went +his way down the long stone passage and the long stone staircase. He had +come to the swing doors leading into the street, and was waiting, not +over patiently, for two people who were between him and them to pass out +and let him follow, when the voice of one of them struck familiarly on +his ear. He looked at the speaker and recognised Mr Meagles. Mr Meagles +was very red in the face--redder than travel could have made him--and +collaring a short man who was with him, said, ‘come out, you rascal, +come Out!’ + +It was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an unexpected +sight to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and emerge into the +street with the short man, who was of an unoffending appearance, that +Clennam stood still for the moment exchanging looks of surprise with the +porter. He followed, however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down +the street with his enemy at his side. He soon came up with his old +travelling companion, and touched him on the back. The choleric face +which Mr Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he +put out his friendly hand. + +‘How are you?’ said Mr Meagles. ‘How d’ye _do?_ I have only just come over +from abroad. I am glad to see you.’ + +‘And I am rejoiced to see you.’ + +‘Thank’ee. Thank’ee!’ + +‘Mrs Meagles and your daughter--?’ + +‘Are as well as possible,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘I only wish you had come +upon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness.’ + +Though it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated state +that attracted the attention of the passersby; more particularly as +he leaned his back against a railing, took off his hat and cravat, and +heartily rubbed his steaming head and face, and his reddened ears and +neck, without the least regard for public opinion. + +‘Whew!’ said Mr Meagles, dressing again. ‘That’s comfortable. Now I am +cooler.’ + +‘You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles. What is the matter?’ + +‘Wait a bit, and I’ll tell you. Have you leisure for a turn in the +Park?’ + +‘As much as you please.’ + +‘Come along then. Ah! you may well look at him.’ He happened to have +turned his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so angrily +collared. ‘He’s something to look at, that fellow is.’ + +He was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of +dress; being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose hair +had turned grey, and in whose face and forehead there were deep lines of +cogitation, which looked as though they were carved in hard wood. He +was dressed in decent black, a little rusty, and had the appearance of +a sagacious master in some handicraft. He had a spectacle-case in his +hand, which he turned over and over while he was thus in question, +with a certain free use of the thumb that is never seen but in a hand +accustomed to tools. + +‘You keep with us,’ said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of Way, ‘and +I’ll introduce you presently. Now then!’ + +Clennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to the +Park, what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner) could have +been doing. His appearance did not at all justify the suspicion that he +had been detected in designs on Mr Meagles’s pocket-handkerchief; nor +had he any appearance of being quarrelsome or violent. He was a quiet, +plain, steady man; made no attempt to escape; and seemed a little +depressed, but neither ashamed nor repentant. If he were a criminal +offender, he must surely be an incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no +offender, why should Mr Meagles have collared him in the Circumlocution +Office? He perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own +mind alone, but in Mr Meagles’s too; for such conversation as they had +together on the short way to the Park was by no means well sustained, +and Mr Meagles’s eye always wandered back to the man, even when he spoke +of something very different. + +At length they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and +said: + +‘Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His name +is Doyce, Daniel Doyce. You wouldn’t suppose this man to be a notorious +rascal; would you?’ + +‘I certainly should not.’ It was really a disconcerting question, with +the man there. + +‘No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn’t suppose him to be +a public offender; would you?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty of? +Murder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, house-breaking, highway +robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which should you say, now?’ + +‘I should say,’ returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in +Daniel Doyce’s face, ‘not one of them.’ + +‘You are right,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘But he has been ingenious, and he has +been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country’s service. That makes +him a public offender directly, sir.’ + +Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head. + +‘This Doyce,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘is a smith and engineer. He is not in a +large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A dozen years +ago, he perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process) +of great importance to his country and his fellow-creatures. I won’t say +how much money it cost him, or how many years of his life he had been +about it, but he brought it to perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn’t it a +dozen?’ said Mr Meagles, addressing Doyce. ‘He is the most exasperating +man in the world; he never complains!’ + +‘Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago.’ + +‘Rather better?’ said Mr Meagles, ‘you mean rather worse. Well, Mr +Clennam, he addresses himself to the Government. The moment he addresses +himself to the Government, he becomes a public offender! Sir,’ said Mr +Meagles, in danger of making himself excessively hot again, ‘he ceases +to be an innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit. He is treated from +that instant as a man who has done some infernal action. He is a man to +be shirked, put off, brow-beaten, sneered at, handed over by this +highly-connected young or old gentleman, to that highly-connected young +or old gentleman, and dodged back again; he is a man with no rights in +his own time, or his own property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable +to get rid of anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible means.’ + +It was not so difficult to believe, after the morning’s experience, as +Mr Meagles supposed. + +‘Don’t stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and over,’ +cried Mr Meagles, ‘but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to me.’ + +‘I undoubtedly was made to feel,’ said the inventor, ‘as if I had +committed an offence. In dancing attendance at the various offices, I +was always treated, more or less, as if it was a very bad offence. I +have frequently found it necessary to reflect, for my own self-support, +that I really had not done anything to bring myself into the Newgate +Calendar, but only wanted to effect a great saving and a great +improvement.’ + +‘There!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Judge whether I exaggerate. Now you’ll be +able to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case.’ + +With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the +established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course +narrative which we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance +and correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and +insults, my lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred +and seventy-two, allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his +invention at his own expense. How the trials were made in the presence +of a board of six, of whom two ancient members were too blind to see it, +two other ancient members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient +member was too lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too +pig-headed to look at it. How there were more years; more impertinences, +ignorances, and insults. How my lords then made a Minute, number five +thousand one hundred and three, whereby they resigned the business to +the Circumlocution Office. How the Circumlocution Office, in course of +time, took up the business as if it were a bran new thing of yesterday, +which had never been heard of before; muddled the business, addled the +business, tossed the business in a wet blanket. How the impertinences, +ignorances, and insults went through the multiplication table. How there +was a reference of the invention to three Barnacles and a Stiltstalking, +who knew nothing about it; into whose heads nothing could be hammered +about it; who got bored about it, and reported physical impossibilities +about it. How the Circumlocution Office, in a Minute, number eight +thousand seven hundred and forty, ‘saw no reason to reverse the decision +at which my lords had arrived.’ How the Circumlocution Office, being +reminded that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved the business. +How there had been a final interview with the head of the Circumlocution +Office that very morning, and how the Brazen Head had spoken, and had +been, upon the whole, and under all the circumstances, and looking at it +from the various points of view, of opinion that one of two courses was +to be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, either to +leave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again. + +‘Upon which,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘as a practical man, I then and there, in +that presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it was plain to +me that he was an infamous rascal and treasonable disturber of the +government peace, and took him away. I brought him out of the office +door by the collar, that the very porter might know I was a practical +man who appreciated the official estimate of such characters; and here +we are!’ + +If that airy young Barnacle had been there, he would have frankly told +them perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its function. +That what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to the national ship +as long as they could. That to trim the ship, lighten the ship, clean +the ship, would be to knock them off; that they could but be knocked off +once; and that if the ship went down with them yet sticking to it, that +was the ship’s look out, and not theirs. + +‘There!’ said Mr Meagles, ‘now you know all about Doyce. Except, which I +own does not improve my state of mind, that even now you don’t hear him +complain.’ + +‘You must have great patience,’ said Arthur Clennam, looking at him with +some wonder, ‘great forbearance.’ + +‘No,’ he returned, ‘I don’t know that I have more than another man.’ + +‘By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!’ cried Mr Meagles. + +Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, ‘You see, my experience of these +things does not begin with myself. It has been in my way to know a +little about them from time to time. Mine is not a particular case. I am +not worse used than a hundred others who have put themselves in the same +position--than all the others, I was going to say.’ + +‘I don’t know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my case; +but I am very glad that you do.’ + +‘Understand me! I don’t say,’ he replied in his steady, planning +way, and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye were +measuring it, ‘that it’s recompense for a man’s toil and hope; but it’s +a certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted on this.’ + +He spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone, which +is often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with great +nicety. It belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or his peculiar +way of tilting up his hat at the back every now and then, as if he were +contemplating some half-finished work of his hand and thinking about it. + +‘Disappointed?’ he went on, as he walked between them under the trees. +‘Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt I am hurt. That’s +only natural. But what I mean when I say that people who put themselves +in the same position are mostly used in the same way--’ + +‘In England,’ said Mr Meagles. + +‘Oh! of course I mean in England. When they take their inventions into +foreign countries, that’s quite different. And that’s the reason why so +many go there.’ + +Mr Meagles very hot indeed again. + +‘What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of our +government, it is its regular way. Have you ever heard of any projector +or inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible, and whom it did +not discourage and ill-treat?’ + +‘I cannot say that I ever have.’ + +‘Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any useful +thing? Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?’ + +‘I am a good deal older than my friend here,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘and I’ll +answer that. Never.’ + +‘But we all three have known, I expect,’ said the inventor, ‘a pretty +many cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon miles, and years +upon years, behind the rest of us; and of its being found out persisting +in the use of things long superseded, even after the better things were +well known and generally taken up?’ + +They all agreed upon that. + +‘Well then,’ said Doyce, with a sigh, ‘as I know what such a metal will +do at such a temperature, and such a body under such a pressure, so I +may know (if I will only consider), how these great lords and gentlemen +will certainly deal with such a matter as mine. I have no right to be +surprised, with a head upon my shoulders, and memory in it, that I fall +into the ranks with all who came before me. I ought to have let it +alone. I have had warning enough, I am sure.’ + +With that he put up his spectacle-case, and said to Arthur, ‘If I don’t +complain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you that I +feel it towards our mutual friend. Many’s the day, and many’s the way in +which he has backed me.’ + +‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Mr Meagles. + +Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence. +Though it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his +respect for his own case, that he should abstain from idle murmuring, +it was evident that he had grown the older, the sterner, and the poorer, +for his long endeavour. He could not but think what a blessed thing +it would have been for this man, if he had taken a lesson from the +gentlemen who were so kind as to take a nation’s affairs in charge, and +had learnt How not to do it. + +Mr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then began +to cool and clear up. + +‘Come, come!’ said he. ‘We shall not make this the better by being grim. +Where do you think of going, Dan?’ + +‘I shall go back to the factory,’ said Dan. + +‘Why then, we’ll all go back to the factory, or walk in that direction,’ +returned Mr Meagles cheerfully. ‘Mr Clennam won’t be deterred by its +being in Bleeding Heart Yard.’ + +‘Bleeding Heart Yard?’ said Clennam. ‘I want to go there.’ + +‘So much the better,’ cried Mr Meagles. ‘Come along!’ + +As they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more than +one, thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate destination +for a man who had been in official correspondence with my lords and the +Barnacles--and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britannia herself might +come to look for lodgings in Bleeding Heart Yard some ugly day or other, +if she over-did the Circumlocution Office. + + + + +CHAPTER 11. Let Loose + + +A late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The +stream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the +clouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, as if they +were half curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in +the water. The flat expanse of country about Chalons lay a long heavy +streak, occasionally made a little ragged by a row of poplar trees +against the wrathful sunset. On the banks of the river Saone it was wet, +depressing, solitary; and the night deepened fast. + +One man slowly moving on towards Chalons was the only visible figure in +the landscape. Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided. With an old +sheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough, unbarked stick cut out of +some wood in his hand; miry, footsore, his shoes and gaiters trodden +out, his hair and beard untrimmed; the cloak he carried over his +shoulder, and the clothes he wore, sodden with wet; limping along in +pain and difficulty; he looked as if the clouds were hurrying from him, +as if the wail of the wind and the shuddering of the grass were directed +against him, as if the low mysterious plashing of the water murmured at +him, as if the fitful autumn night were disturbed by him. + +He glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly; and +sometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him. Then he +limped on again, toiling and muttering. + +‘To the devil with this plain that has no end! To the devil with these +stones that cut like knives! To the devil with this dismal darkness, +wrapping itself about one with a chill! I hate you!’ + +And he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he threw +about him, if he could. He trudged a little further; and looking into +the distance before him, stopped again. + +‘I, hungry, thirsty, weary. You, imbeciles, where the lights are yonder, +eating and drinking, and warming yourselves at fires! I wish I had the +sacking of your town; I would repay you, my children!’ + +But the teeth he set at the town, and the hand he shook at the town, +brought the town no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and thirstier, +and wearier, when his feet were on its jagged pavement, and he stood +looking about him. + +There was the hotel with its gateway, and its savoury smell of cooking; +there was the cafe with its bright windows, and its rattling of +dominoes; there was the dyer’s with its strips of red cloth on the +doorposts; there was the silversmith’s with its earrings, and its +offerings for altars; there was the tobacco dealer’s with its lively +group of soldier customers coming out pipe in mouth; there were the bad +odours of the town, and the rain and the refuse in the kennels, and +the faint lamps slung across the road, and the huge Diligence, and its +mountain of luggage, and its six grey horses with their tails tied up, +getting under weigh at the coach office. But no small cabaret for a +straitened traveller being within sight, he had to seek one round the +dark corner, where the cabbage leaves lay thickest, trodden about the +public cistern at which women had not yet left off drawing water. There, +in the back street he found one, the Break of Day. The curtained windows +clouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, and it announced +in legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial embellishment +of billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one could play +billiards; that there one could find meat, drink, and lodgings, whether +one came on horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept good wines, +liqueurs, and brandy. The man turned the handle of the Break of Day +door, and limped in. + +He touched his discoloured slouched hat, as he came in at the door, to +a few men who occupied the room. Two were playing dominoes at one of the +little tables; three or four were seated round the stove, conversing +as they smoked; the billiard-table in the centre was left alone for the +time; the landlady of the Daybreak sat behind her little counter among +her cloudy bottles of syrups, baskets of cakes, and leaden drainage for +glasses, working at her needle. + +Making his way to an empty little table in a corner of the room behind +the stove, he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the ground. As +he raised his head from stooping to do so, he found the landlady beside +him. + +‘One can lodge here to-night, madame?’ + +‘Perfectly!’ said the landlady in a high, sing-song, cheery voice. + +‘Good. One can dine--sup--what you please to call it?’ + +‘Ah, perfectly!’ cried the landlady as before. + +‘Dispatch then, madame, if you please. Something to eat, as quickly as +you can; and some wine at once. I am exhausted.’ + +‘It is very bad weather, monsieur,’ said the landlady. + +‘Cursed weather.’ + +‘And a very long road.’ + +‘A cursed road.’ + +His hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands until +a bottle of wine was brought from the counter. Having filled and emptied +his little tumbler twice, and having broken off an end from the great +loaf that was set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup-plate, +salt, pepper, and oil, he rested his back against the corner of the +wall, made a couch of the bench on which he sat, and began to chew +crust, until such time as his repast should be ready. + +There had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the stove, +and that temporary inattention to and distraction from one another, +which is usually inseparable in such a company from the arrival of a +stranger. It had passed over by this time; and the men had done glancing +at him, and were talking again. + +‘That’s the true reason,’ said one of them, bringing a story he had +been telling, to a close, ‘that’s the true reason why they said that the +devil was let loose.’ The speaker was the tall Swiss belonging to the +church, and he brought something of the authority of the church into the +discussion--especially as the devil was in question. + +The landlady having given her directions for the new guest’s +entertainment to her husband, who acted as cook to the Break of Day, had +resumed her needlework behind her counter. She was a smart, neat, bright +little woman, with a good deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and +she struck into the conversation with several laughing nods of her head, +but without looking up from her work. + +‘Ah Heaven, then,’ said she. ‘When the boat came up from Lyons, and +brought the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles, +some fly-catchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I.’ + +‘Madame, you are always right,’ returned the tall Swiss. ‘Doubtless you +were enraged against that man, madame?’ + +‘Ay, yes, then!’ cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work, +opening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side. ‘Naturally, +yes.’ + +‘He was a bad subject.’ + +‘He was a wicked wretch,’ said the landlady, ‘and well merited what he +had the good fortune to escape. So much the worse.’ + +‘Stay, madame! Let us see,’ returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning +his cigar between his lips. ‘It may have been his unfortunate destiny. +He may have been the child of circumstances. It is always possible that +he had, and has, good in him if one did but know how to find it out. +Philosophical philanthropy teaches--’ + +The rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection to +the introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two players +at dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest against +philosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the Break of Day. + +‘Hold there, you and your philanthropy,’ cried the smiling landlady, +nodding her head more than ever. ‘Listen then. I am a woman, I. I know +nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and +what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. +And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women +both, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none. That there are +people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are +people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there +are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage +beasts and cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope; but I have +seen (in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little +Break of Day) that there are such people. And I do not doubt that this +man--whatever they call him, I forget his name--is one of them.’ + +The landlady’s lively speech was received with greater favour at +the Break of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable +whitewashers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great +Britain. + +‘My faith! If your philosophical philanthropy,’ said the landlady, +putting down her work, and rising to take the stranger’s soup from her +husband, who appeared with it at a side door, ‘puts anybody at the mercy +of such people by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, or +both, take it away from the Break of Day, for it isn’t worth a sou.’ + +As she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude to a +sitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache went up +under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache. + +‘Well!’ said the previous speaker, ‘let us come back to our subject. +Leaving all that aside, gentlemen, it was because the man was acquitted +on his trial that people said at Marseilles that the devil was let +loose. That was how the phrase began to circulate, and what it meant; +nothing more.’ + +‘How do they call him?’ said the landlady. ‘Biraud, is it not?’ + +‘Rigaud, madame,’ returned the tall Swiss. + +‘Rigaud! To be sure.’ + +The traveller’s soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by a dish +of vegetables. He ate all that was placed before him, emptied his bottle +of wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with +his cup of coffee. As he became refreshed, he became overbearing; and +patronised the company at the Daybreak in certain small talk at which he +assisted, as if his condition were far above his appearance. + +The company might have had other engagements, or they might have felt +their inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and not +being replaced by other company, left their new patron in possession of +the Break of Day. The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen; the +landlady was quiet at her work; and the refreshed traveller sat smoking +by the stove, warming his ragged feet. + +‘Pardon me, madame--that Biraud.’ + +‘Rigaud, monsieur.’ + +‘Rigaud. Pardon me again--has contracted your displeasure, how?’ + +The landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself that +this was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an ill-looking +man, observed the nose coming down and the moustache going up, and +strongly inclined to the latter decision. Rigaud was a criminal, she +said, who had killed his wife. + +‘Ay, ay? Death of my life, that’s a criminal indeed. But how do you know +it?’ + +‘All the world knows it.’ + +‘Hah! And yet he escaped justice?’ + +‘Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its satisfaction. +So the law says. Nevertheless, all the world knows he did it. The people +knew it so well, that they tried to tear him to pieces.’ + +‘Being all in perfect accord with their own wives?’ said the guest. +‘Haha!’ + +The landlady of the Break of Day looked at him again, and felt almost +confirmed in her last decision. He had a fine hand, though, and he +turned it with a great show. She began once more to think that he was +not ill-looking after all. + +‘Did you mention, madame--or was it mentioned among the gentlemen--what +became of him?’ + +The landlady shook her head; it being the first conversational stage at +which her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time to what +she said. It had been mentioned at the Daybreak, she remarked, on the +authority of the journals, that he had been kept in prison for his own +safety. However that might be, he had escaped his deserts; so much the +worse. + +The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, and +as she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression that +might have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting conclusion +on the subject of his good or bad looks if she had seen it. When she did +look up, the expression was not there. The hand was smoothing his shaggy +moustache. + +‘May one ask to be shown to bed, madame?’ + +Very willingly, monsieur. Hola, my husband! My husband would conduct him +up-stairs. There was one traveller there, asleep, who had gone to bed +very early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue; but it was a large +chamber with two beds in it, and space enough for twenty. This the +landlady of the Break of Day chirpingly explained, calling between +whiles, ‘Hola, my husband!’ out at the side door. + +My husband answered at length, ‘It is I, my wife!’ and presenting +himself in his cook’s cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow +staircase; the traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and +bidding the landlady good night with a complimentary reference to the +pleasure of seeing her again to-morrow. It was a large room, with a +rough splintery floor, unplastered rafters overhead, and two bedsteads +on opposite sides. Here ‘my husband’ put down the candle he carried, and +with a sidelong look at his guest stooping over his knapsack, gruffly +gave him the instruction, ‘The bed to the right!’ and left him to his +repose. The landlord, whether he was a good or a bad physiognomist, had +fully made up his mind that the guest was an ill-looking fellow. + +The guest looked contemptuously at the clean coarse bedding prepared for +him, and, sitting down on the rush chair at the bedside, drew his money +out of his pocket, and told it over in his hand. ‘One must eat,’ he +muttered to himself, ‘but by Heaven I must eat at the cost of some other +man to-morrow!’ + +As he sat pondering, and mechanically weighing his money in his palm, +the deep breathing of the traveller in the other bed fell so regularly +upon his hearing that it attracted his eyes in that direction. The man +was covered up warm, and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so +that he could be only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing, +still going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and +gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and +cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and +incentive to get a glimpse of the sleeper’s face. + +The waking traveller, therefore, stole a little nearer, and yet a little +nearer, and a little nearer to the sleeping traveller’s bed, until he +stood close beside it. Even then he could not see his face, for he had +drawn the sheet over it. The regular breathing still continuing, he put +his smooth white hand (such a treacherous hand it looked, as it went +creeping from him!) to the sheet, and gently lifted it away. + +‘Death of my soul!’ he whispered, falling back, ‘here’s Cavalletto!’ + +The little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep, perhaps, by the +stealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and +with a long deep respiration opened his eyes. At first they were not +awake, though open. He lay for some seconds looking placidly at his +old prison companion, and then, all at once, with a cry of surprise and +alarm, sprang out of bed. + +‘Hush! What’s the matter? Keep quiet! It’s I. You know me?’ cried the +other, in a suppressed voice. + +But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations +and ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on +his trousers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck, +manifested an unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than +renew the acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell back +upon the door, and set his shoulders against it. + +‘Cavalletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes and look at me. Not the name you +used to call me--don’t use that--Lagnier, say Lagnier!’ + +John Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened to their utmost width, +made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right +forefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand +everything that the other could possibly advance during the whole term +of his life. + +‘Cavalletto! Give me your hand. You know Lagnier, the gentleman. Touch +the hand of a gentleman!’ + +Submitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John +Baptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his +hand in his patron’s. Monsieur Lagnier laughed; and having given it a +squeeze, tossed it up and let it go. + +‘Then you were--’ faltered John Baptist. + +‘Not shaved? No. See here!’ cried Lagnier, giving his head a twirl; ‘as +tight on as your own.’ + +John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if to +recall where he was. His patron took that opportunity of turning the key +in the door, and then sat down upon his bed. + +‘Look!’ he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters. ‘That’s a poor trim +for a gentleman, you’ll say. No matter, you shall see how soon I’ll mend +it. Come and sit down. Take your old place!’ + +John Baptist, looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor at +the bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time. + +‘That’s well!’ cried Lagnier. ‘Now we might be in the old infernal hole +again, hey? How long have you been out?’ + +‘Two days after you, my master.’ + +‘How do you come here?’ + +‘I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once, +and since then I have changed about. I have been doing odds and ends at +Avignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons; upon the Rhone, upon the Saone.’ As +he spoke, he rapidly mapped the places out with his sunburnt hand upon +the floor. + +‘And where are you going?’ + +‘Going, my master?’ + +‘Ay!’ + +John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing how. +‘By Bacchus!’ he said at last, as if he were forced to the admission, ‘I +have sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and perhaps to England.’ + +‘Cavalletto. This is in confidence. I also am going to Paris and perhaps +to England. We’ll go together.’ + +The little man nodded his head, and showed his teeth; and yet seemed not +quite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement. + +‘We’ll go together,’ repeated Lagnier. ‘You shall see how soon I will +force myself to be recognised as a gentleman, and you shall profit by +it. It is agreed? Are we one?’ + +‘Oh, surely, surely!’ said the little man. + +‘Then you shall hear before I sleep--and in six words, for I want +sleep--how I appear before you, I, Lagnier. Remember that. Not the +other.’ + +‘Altro, altro! Not Ri----’ Before John Baptist could finish the name, his +comrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his mouth. + +‘Death! what are you doing? Do you want me to be trampled upon and +stoned? Do _you_ want to be trampled upon and stoned? You would be. You +don’t imagine that they would set upon me, and let my prison chum go? +Don’t think it!’ + +There was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his +friend’s jaw, from which his friend inferred that if the course of +events really came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lagnier would +so distinguish him with his notice as to ensure his having his full +share of it. He remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman Monsieur +Lagnier was, and how few weak distinctions he made. + +‘I am a man,’ said Monsieur Lagnier, ‘whom society has deeply wronged +since you last saw me. You know that I am sensitive and brave, and that +it is my character to govern. How has society respected those qualities +in me? I have been shrieked at through the streets. I have been guarded +through the streets against men, and especially women, running at me +armed with any weapons they could lay their hands on. I have lain in +prison for security, with the place of my confinement kept a secret, +lest I should be torn out of it and felled by a hundred blows. I have +been carted out of Marseilles in the dead of night, and carried leagues +away from it packed in straw. It has not been safe for me to go near my +house; and, with a beggar’s pittance in my pocket, I have walked through +vile mud and weather ever since, until my feet are crippled--look at +them! Such are the humiliations that society has inflicted upon me, +possessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which you know me to +possess. But society shall pay for it.’ + +All this he said in his companion’s ear, and with his hand before his +lips. + +‘Even here,’ he went on in the same way, ‘even in this mean +drinking-shop, society pursues me. Madame defames me, and her guests +defame me. I, too, a gentleman with manners and accomplishments +to strike them dead! But the wrongs society has heaped upon me are +treasured in this breast.’ + +To all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the suppressed +hoarse voice, said from time to time, ‘Surely, surely!’ tossing his +head and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clearest case against +society that perfect candour could make out. + +‘Put my shoes there,’ continued Lagnier. ‘Hang my cloak to dry there +by the door. Take my hat.’ He obeyed each instruction, as it was given. +‘And this is the bed to which society consigns me, is it? Hah. _Very_ +well!’ + +As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief +bound round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the +bedclothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so +very nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as +it did, and the nose from any more coming down as it did. + +‘Shaken out of destiny’s dice-box again into your company, eh? By +Heaven! So much the better for you. You’ll profit by it. I shall need a +long rest. Let me sleep in the morning.’ + +John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and +wishing him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have supposed +that the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress; +but he did exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to foot, +saving his shoes. When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with +some of its coverings over him, and his coat still tied round his neck, +to get through the night. + +When he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its +namesake. He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the +door with great caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was astir there +but the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and madame’s little +counter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid madame his little note +at it over night, and wanted to see nobody--wanted nothing but to get on +his shoes and his knapsack, open the door, and run away. + +He prospered in his object. No movement or voice was heard when he +opened the door; no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief looked +out of the upper window. When the sun had raised his full disc above the +flat line of the horizon, and was striking fire out of the long muddy +vista of paved road with its weary avenue of little trees, a black speck +moved along the road and splashed among the flaming pools of rain-water, +which black speck was John Baptist Cavalletto running away from his +patron. + + + + +CHAPTER 12. Bleeding Heart Yard + + +In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note +where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there +were Royal hunting-seats--howbeit no sport is left there now but for +hunters of men--Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found; a place much +changed in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient +greatness about it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few +large dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of +the recognition of their old proportions, gave the Yard a character. +It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded +glories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen +stones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling +prevalent in the Yard, that it had a character. + +As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which +it stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that you +got into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original +approach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby +streets, which went about and about, tortuously ascending to the level +again. At this end of the Yard and over the gateway, was the factory of +Daniel Doyce, often heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron, +with the clink of metal upon metal. + +The opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of its +name. The more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a +murder; the gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the +whole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of +former times closely imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father for +remaining true to her own true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he +chose for her. The legend related how that the young lady used to be +seen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of +which the burden was, ‘Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,’ +until she died. It was objected by the murderous party that this Refrain +was notoriously the invention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and +romantic, still lodging in the Yard. But, forasmuch as all favourite +legends must be associated with the affections, and as many more people +fall in love than commit murder--which it may be hoped, howsoever bad we +are, will continue until the end of the world to be the dispensation +under which we shall live--the Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding +away story, carried the day by a great majority. Neither party would +listen to the antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the +neighbourhood, showing the Bleeding Heart to have been the heraldic +cognisance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged. +And, considering that the hour-glass they turned from year to year was +filled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the Bleeding Heart Yarders +had reason enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden +grain of poetry that sparkled in it. + +Down in to the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr Meagles, +and Clennam. Passing along the Yard, and between the open doors on +either hand, all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy +ones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here Arthur +Clennam stopped to look about him for the domicile of Plornish, +plasterer, whose name, according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel +Doyce had never seen or heard of to that hour. + +It was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over a +lime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder +and a barrel or two. The last house in Bleeding Heart Yard which she +had described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to +various tenants; but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the +parlour, by means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of +which hand (on which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate +nail of the genteelest form) referred all inquirers to that apartment. + +Parting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with +Mr Meagles, Clennam went alone into the entry, and knocked with his +knuckles at the parlour-door. It was opened presently by a woman with +a child in her arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging the +upper part of her dress. This was Mrs Plornish, and this maternal +action was the action of Mrs Plornish during a large part of her waking +existence. + +Was Mr Plornish at home? ‘Well, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish, a civil woman, +‘not to deceive you, he’s gone to look for a job.’ + +‘Not to deceive you’ was a method of speech with Mrs Plornish. She would +deceive you, under any circumstances, as little as might be; but she had +a trick of answering in this provisional form. + +‘Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait for him?’ + +‘I have been expecting him,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘this half an hour, at +any minute of time. Walk in, sir.’ + +Arthur entered the rather dark and close parlour (though it was lofty +too), and sat down in the chair she placed for him. + +‘Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘and I take +it kind of you.’ + +He was at a loss to understand what she meant; and by expressing as much +in his looks, elicited her explanation. + +‘It ain’t many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth their +while to move their hats,’ said Mrs Plornish. ‘But people think more of +it than people think.’ + +Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a +courtesy being unusual, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch the +cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at +him, asked Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was? + +‘Four year just turned, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish. ‘He _is_ a fine little +fellow, ain’t he, sir? But this one is rather sickly.’ She tenderly +hushed the baby in her arms, as she said it. ‘You wouldn’t mind my +asking if it happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would +you?’ asked Mrs Plornish wistfully. + +She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any +kind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather +than answer No. But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a shade of +disappointment on her face, as she checked a sigh, and looked at the +low fire. Then he saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was a young woman, made +somewhat slatternly in herself and her belongings by poverty; and so +dragged at by poverty and the children together, that their united +forces had already dragged her face into wrinkles. + +‘All such things as jobs,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘seems to me to have gone +underground, they do indeed.’ (Herein Mrs Plornish limited her remark to +the plastering trade, and spoke without reference to the Circumlocution +Office and the Barnacle Family.) + +‘Is it so difficult to get work?’ asked Arthur Clennam. + +‘Plornish finds it so,’ she returned. ‘He is quite unfortunate. Really +he is.’ + +Really he was. He was one of those many wayfarers on the road of life, +who seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it +impossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors. A +willing, working, soft hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took +his fortune as smoothly as could be expected; but it was a rough one. It +so rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him, it was such an +exceptional case when his powers were in any request, that his misty +mind could not make out how it happened. He took it as it came, +therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of +them; and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised. + +‘It’s not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure,’ said Mrs Plornish, +lifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of the problem +between the bars of the grate; ‘nor yet for want of working at them when +they are to be got. No one ever heard my husband complain of work.’ + +Somehow or other, this was the general misfortune of Bleeding Heart +Yard. From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically +going about, of labour being scarce--which certain people seemed to take +extraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to it on their +own terms--but Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing a Yard as any in +Britain, was never the better for the demand. That high old family, the +Barnacles, had long been too busy with their great principle to look +into the matter; and indeed the matter had nothing to do with their +watchfulness in out-generalling all other high old families except the +Stiltstalkings. + +While Mrs Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, her lord +returned. A smooth-cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered man of +thirty. Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in the face, +flannel-jacketed, lime-whitened. + +‘This is Plornish, sir.’ + +‘I came,’ said Clennam, rising, ‘to beg the favour of a little +conversation with you on the subject of the Dorrit family.’ + +Plornish became suspicious. Seemed to scent a creditor. Said, ‘Ah, yes. +Well. He didn’t know what satisfaction _he_ could give any gentleman, +respecting that family. What might it be about, now?’ + +‘I know you better,’ said Clennam, smiling, ‘than you suppose.’ + +Plornish observed, not smiling in return, And yet he hadn’t the pleasure +of being acquainted with the gentleman, neither. + +‘No,’ said Arthur, ‘I know your kind offices at second hand, but on the +best authority; through Little Dorrit.--I mean,’ he explained, ‘Miss +Dorrit.’ + +‘Mr Clennam, is it? Oh! I’ve heard of you, Sir.’ + +‘And I of you,’ said Arthur. + +‘Please to sit down again, Sir, and consider yourself welcome.--Why, +yes,’ said Plornish, taking a chair, and lifting the elder child upon +his knee, that he might have the moral support of speaking to a stranger +over his head, ‘I have been on the wrong side of the Lock myself, and +in that way we come to know Miss Dorrit. Me and my wife, we are well +acquainted with Miss Dorrit.’ + +‘Intimate!’ cried Mrs Plornish. Indeed, she was so proud of the +acquaintance, that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the +Yard by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss Dorrit’s +father had become insolvent. The Bleeding Hearts resented her claiming +to know people of such distinction. + +‘It was her father that I got acquainted with first. And through getting +acquainted with him, you see--why--I got acquainted with her,’ said +Plornish tautologically. + +‘I see.’ + +‘Ah! And there’s manners! There’s polish! There’s a gentleman to have +run to seed in the Marshalsea jail! Why, perhaps you are not aware,’ +said Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a perverse +admiration of what he ought to have pitied or despised, ‘not aware that +Miss Dorrit and her sister dursn’t let him know that they work for a +living. No!’ said Plornish, looking with a ridiculous triumph first at +his wife, and then all round the room. ‘Dursn’t let him know it, they +dursn’t!’ + +‘Without admiring him for that,’ Clennam quietly observed, ‘I am very +sorry for him.’ The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish, for the +first time, that it might not be a very fine trait of character after +all. He pondered about it for a moment, and gave it up. + +‘As to me,’ he resumed, ‘certainly Mr Dorrit is as affable with me, I +am sure, as I can possibly expect. Considering the differences and +distances betwixt us, more so. But it’s Miss Dorrit that we were +speaking of.’ + +‘True. Pray how did you introduce her at my mother’s!’ + +Mr Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his +lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found +himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his +wife, said, ‘Sally, _you_ may as well mention how it was, old woman.’ + +‘Miss Dorrit,’ said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side, and +laying her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown +again, ‘came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling that +how she wished for needlework, and asked if it would be considered any +ill-conwenience in case she was to give her address here.’ (Plornish +repeated, her address here, in a low voice, as if he were making +responses at church.) ‘Me and Plornish says, No, Miss Dorrit, no +ill-conwenience,’ (Plornish repeated, no ill-conwenience,) ‘and she +wrote it in, according. Which then me and Plornish says, Ho Miss +Dorrit!’ (Plornish repeated, Ho Miss Dorrit.) ‘Have you thought of +copying it three or four times, as the way to make it known in more +places than one? No, says Miss Dorrit, I have not, but I will. She +copied it out according, on this table, in a sweet writing, and +Plornish, he took it where he worked, having a job just then,’ (Plornish +repeated job just then,) ‘and likewise to the landlord of the Yard; +through which it was that Mrs Clennam first happened to employ Miss +Dorrit.’ Plornish repeated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs Plornish having +come to an end, feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she +kissed it. + +‘The landlord of the Yard,’ said Arthur Clennam, ‘is--’ + +‘He is Mr Casby, by name, he is,’ said Plornish, ‘and Pancks, he +collects the rents. That,’ added Mr Plornish, dwelling on the subject +with a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no connection with any +specific object, and to lead him nowhere, ‘that is about what _they_ are, +you may believe me or not, as you think proper.’ + +‘Ay?’ returned Clennam, thoughtful in his turn. ‘Mr Casby, too! An old +acquaintance of mine, long ago!’ + +Mr Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and made +none. As there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest +in it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport of his visit; +namely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip’s release, +with as little detriment as possible to the self-reliance and +self-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to possess any remnant +of those qualities: without doubt a very wide stretch of supposition. +Plornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the +Defendant’s own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff +was a ‘Chaunter’--meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of +horses--and that he (Plornish) considered that ten shillings in the +pound ‘would settle handsome,’ and that more would be a waste of money. +The Principal and instrument soon drove off together to a stable-yard in +High Holborn, where a remarkably fine grey gelding, worth, at the lowest +figure, seventy-five guineas (not taking into account the value of the +shot he had been made to swallow for the improvement of his form), was +to be parted with for a twenty-pound note, in consequence of his having +run away last week with Mrs Captain Barbary of Cheltenham, who wasn’t up +to a horse of his courage, and who, in mere spite, insisted on selling +him for that ridiculous sum: or, in other words, on giving him away. +Plornish, going up this yard alone and leaving his Principal outside, +found a gentleman with tight drab legs, a rather old hat, a little +hooked stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain Maroon of Gloucestershire, +a private friend of Captain Barbary); who happened to be there, in +a friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning the +remarkably fine grey gelding to any real judge of a horse and quick +snapper-up of a good thing, who might look in at that address as per +advertisement. This gentleman, happening also to be the Plaintiff in the +Tip case, referred Mr Plornish to his solicitor, and declined to treat +with Mr Plornish, or even to endure his presence in the yard, unless +he appeared there with a twenty-pound note: in which case only, the +gentleman would augur from appearances that he meant business, and +might be induced to talk to him. On this hint, Mr Plornish retired +to communicate with his Principal, and presently came back with the +required credentials. Then said Captain Maroon, ‘Now, how much time do +you want to make the other twenty in? Now, I’ll give you a month.’ Then +said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn’t suit, ‘Now, I’ll tell what I’ll +do with you. You shall get me a good bill at four months, made payable +at a banking-house, for the other twenty!’ Then said Captain Maroon, +when _that_ wouldn’t suit, ‘Now, come; Here’s the last I’ve got to say +to you. You shall give me another ten down, and I’ll run my pen clean +through it.’ Then said Captain Maroon when _that_ wouldn’t suit, ‘Now, +I’ll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up; he has used me bad, but +I’ll let him off for another five down and a bottle of wine; and if you +mean done, say done, and if you don’t like it, leave it.’ Finally said +Captain Maroon, when _that_ wouldn’t suit either, ‘Hand over, then!’--And +in consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and +discharged the prisoner. + +‘Mr Plornish,’ said Arthur, ‘I trust to you, if you please, to keep my +secret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, +and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by +some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a +service, but may do him one, and his sister also.’ + +‘The last reason, sir,’ said Plornish, ‘would be quite sufficient. Your +wishes shall be attended to.’ + +‘A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. A +Friend who hopes that for his sister’s sake, if for no one else’s, he +will make good use of his liberty.’ + +‘Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to.’ + +‘And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as +to communicate freely with me, and to point out to me any means by which +you think I may be delicately and really useful to Little Dorrit, I +shall feel under an obligation to you.’ + +‘Don’t name it, sir,’ returned Plornish, ‘it’ll be ekally a pleasure an +a--it’l be ekally a pleasure and a--’ Finding himself unable to balance +his sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish wisely dropped it. He took +Clennam’s card and appropriate pecuniary compliment. + +He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal +was in the same mind. So his Principal offered to set him down at the +Marshalsea Gate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars +Bridge. On the way, Arthur elicited from his new friend a confused +summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart Yard. They was all hard +up there, Mr Plornish said, uncommon hard up, to be sure. Well, he +couldn’t say how it was; he didn’t know as anybody _could_ say how it +was; all he know’d was, that so it was. When a man felt, on his own +back and in his own belly, that poor he was, that man (Mr Plornish gave +it as his decided belief) know’d well that he was poor somehow or +another, and you couldn’t talk it out of him, no more than you could +talk Beef into him. Then you see, some people as was better off said, +and a good many such people lived pretty close up to the mark themselves +if not beyond it so he’d heerd, that they was ‘improvident’ (that was +the favourite word) down the Yard. For instance, if they see a man with +his wife and children going to Hampton Court in a Wan, perhaps once in a +year, they says, ‘Hallo! I thought you was poor, my improvident friend!’ +Why, Lord, how hard it was upon a man! What was a man to do? He couldn’t +go mollancholy mad, and even if he did, you wouldn’t be the better for +it. In Mr Plornish’s judgment you would be the worse for it. Yet you +seemed to want to make a man mollancholy mad. You was always at it--if +not with your right hand, with your left. What was they a doing in the +Yard? Why, take a look at ‘em and see. There was the girls and their +mothers a working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their +trimming, or their waistcoat making, day and night and night and day, +and not more than able to keep body and soul together after all--often +not so much. There was people of pretty well all sorts of trades you +could name, all wanting to work, and yet not able to get it. There was +old people, after working all their lives, going and being shut up in +the workhouse, much worse fed and lodged and treated altogether, +than--Mr Plornish said manufacturers, but appeared to mean malefactors. +Why, a man didn’t know where to turn himself for a crumb of comfort. As +to who was to blame for it, Mr Plornish didn’t know who was to blame for +it. He could tell you who suffered, but he couldn’t tell you whose fault +it was. It wasn’t _his_ place to find out, and who’d mind what he said, +if he did find out? He only know’d that it wasn’t put right by them what +undertook that line of business, and that it didn’t come right of +itself. And, in brief, his illogical opinion was, that if you couldn’t +do nothing for him, you had better take nothing from him for doing of +it; so far as he could make out, that was about what it come to. Thus, +in a prolix, gently-growling, foolish way, did Plornish turn the tangled +skein of his estate about and about, like a blind man who was trying to +find some beginning or end to it; until they reached the prison gate. +There, he left his Principal alone; to wonder, as he rode away, how many +thousand Plornishes there might be within a day or two’s journey of the +Circumlocution Office, playing sundry curious variations on the same +tune, which were not known by ear in that glorious institution. + + + + +CHAPTER 13. Patriarchal + + +The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam’s memory the +smouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had +fanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of +his boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed +old Christopher (so he was still occasionally spoken of by some +irreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, and in whom +familiarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was reputed to +be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good quantity of blood out of +the stones of several unpromising courts and alleys. + +After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced +that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one, +and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He +had no hopeful inquiry to make at present, concerning Little Dorrit +either; but he argued with himself that it might--for anything he +knew--it might be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed this +acquaintance. It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he +would have presented himself at Mr Casby’s door, if there had been no +Little Dorrit in existence; for we all know how we all deceive +ourselves--that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves +excepted, deceive themselves--as to motives of action. + +With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its +way, that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what had no +reference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr +Casby’s street. Mr Casby lived in a street in the Gray’s Inn Road, which +had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one +heat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; +but which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood +still ever since. There is no such place in that part now; but it +remained there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at +the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive +summerhouses, that it had meant to run over in no time. + +‘The house,’ thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, ‘is as little +changed as my mother’s, and looks almost as gloomy. But the likeness +ends outside. I know its staid repose within. The smell of its jars of +old rose-leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here.’ + +When his knock at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape brought a +woman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like +wintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring. +He stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house--one might have +fancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner--and the +door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The +furniture was formal, grave, and quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as +prepossessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden +stool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little, can ever +wear. There was a grave clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and +there was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage, as +if he were ticking too. The parlour-fire ticked in the grate. There was +only one person on the parlour-hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket +ticked audibly. + +The servant-maid had ticked the two words ‘Mr Clennam’ so softly that +she had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door +she had closed, unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in life, whose +smooth grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire-light +flickered on them, sat in an arm-chair, with his list shoes on the +rug, and his thumbs slowly revolving over one another. This was old +Christopher Casby--recognisable at a glance--as unchanged in twenty +years and upward as his own solid furniture--as little touched by the +influence of the varying seasons as the old rose-leaves and old lavender +in his porcelain jars. + +Perhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so troublesome +for the imagination to picture as a boy. And yet he had changed very +little in his progress through life. Confronting him, in the room in +which he sat, was a boy’s portrait, which anybody seeing him would have +identified as Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though disguised with +a haymaking rake, for which he had had, at any time, as much taste or +use as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a +bank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a +village church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same +calm blue eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked +so very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its +sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very +benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in +the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with +the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the +Patriarch with the list shoes. + +Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him. +Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the +Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy +in the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the +streets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters +and for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would +appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch, +or to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, +and on being informed, ‘Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to +Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,’ had cried in a rapture of disappointment, +‘Oh! why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species! Oh! +why, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to +the friendless!’ With that head, however, he remained old Christopher +Casby, proclaimed by common report rich in house property; and with that +head, he now sat in his silent parlour. Indeed it would be the height of +unreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head. + +Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows +turned towards him. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Clennam, ‘I fear you did not hear me +announced?’ + +‘No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?’ + +‘I wished to pay my respects.’ + +Mr Casby seemed a feather’s weight disappointed by the last words, +having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor’s wishing to pay +something else. ‘Have I the pleasure, sir,’ he proceeded--‘take a chair, +if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! truly, yes, I think +I have! I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted +with those features? I think I address a gentleman of whose return to +this country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?’ + +‘That is your present visitor.’ + +‘Really! Mr Clennam?’ + +‘No other, Mr Casby.’ + +‘Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?’ + +Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some +quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations +in his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never +been better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with +the possessor of ‘that head’ as it shed its patriarchal light upon him. + +‘We are older, Mr Clennam,’ said Christopher Casby. + +‘We are--not younger,’ said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that +he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was +nervous. + +‘And your respected father,’ said Mr Casby, ‘is no more! I was grieved +to hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.’ + +Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him. + +‘There was a time,’ said Mr Casby, ‘when your parents and myself were +not on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among +us. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I +say her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self.’ + +His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit. What with +his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be +delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his +physiognomical expression seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could +have said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the +benignity was; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him. + +‘Those times, however,’ pursued Mr Casby, ‘are past and gone, past and +gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected +mother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind +with which she bears her trials, bears her trials.’ + +When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands +crossed before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle +smile, as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be +put into words. As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it, +lest he should soar too high; and his meekness therefore preferred to be +unmeaning. + +‘I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions,’ said +Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, ‘to mention +Little Dorrit to my mother.’ + +‘Little--? Dorrit? That’s the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a +small tenant of mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That’s the name. Ah, yes, yes! +You call her Little Dorrit?’ + +No road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led no +further. + +‘My daughter Flora,’ said Mr Casby, ‘as you may have heard probably, Mr +Clennam, was married and established in life, several years ago. She +had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few +months. She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you, if you +will permit me to let her know that you are here.’ + +‘By all means,’ returned Clennam. ‘I should have preferred the request, +if your kindness had not anticipated me.’ + +Upon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy +step (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He had a long +wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, +and a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in +bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal. + +He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible +again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it, +and shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man +came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot +of Clennam before he could stop. + +‘Halloa!’ he said. + +Clennam saw no reason why he should not say ‘Halloa!’ too. + +‘What’s the matter?’ said the short dark man. + +‘I have not heard that anything is the matter,’ returned Clennam. + +‘Where’s Mr Casby?’ asked the short dark man, looking about. + +‘He will be here directly, if you want him.’ + +‘_I_ want him?’ said the short dark man. ‘Don’t you?’ + +This elicited a word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the +delivery of which the short dark man held his breath and looked at him. +He was dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of +eyes; a scrubby little black chin; wiry black hair striking out from his +head in prongs, like forks or hair-pins; and a complexion that was very +dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art. +He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been +in the coals; he was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and +puffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-engine. + +‘Oh!’ said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there. ‘Very well. +That’s right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say +that Pancks is come in?’ And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out +by another door. + +Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the +last of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by some +forgotten means, come in contact with Arthur’s sensorium. He was aware +of motes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that time; seen +through which medium, Christopher Casby was a mere Inn signpost, without +any Inn--an invitation to rest and be thankful, when there was no place +to put up at, and nothing whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some +of these specks even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring +designs in ‘that head,’ and as being a crafty impostor. Other motes +there were which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who, +having stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other +men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit, +he had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his head well +polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning enough to seize +the idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town-agent to +Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least +business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody +could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also, +that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched +lettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining +crown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam +called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select +their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; +and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a +Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, +on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting +thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of +nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often +accepted in lieu of the internal character. + +Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them, +Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding +on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid, +with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished: +and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be +seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its +own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show +of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear +down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the +cumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was +now following in the wake of that dingy little craft. + +The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these +meditations. Clennam’s eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old +passion than it shivered and broke to pieces. + +Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to +an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the +opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality, +and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam’s case. In his +youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the +locked-up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been, +in his desert home, like Robinson Crusoe’s money; exchangeable with no +one, lying idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her. +Ever since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his +arrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his +Present or Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily +have been for anything he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past +unchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last of the +Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, saying in effect, ‘Be good +enough to throw it down and dance upon it. This is Flora.’ + +Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; +but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a +peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all +she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who +had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and +artless now. That was a fatal blow. + +This is Flora! + +‘I am sure,’ giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of +her girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her own +funeral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, ‘I am ashamed +to see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he’ll find me fearfully +changed, I am actually an old woman, it’s shocking to be found out, it’s +really shocking!’ + +He assured her that she was just what he had expected and that time had +not stood still with himself. + +‘Oh! But with a gentleman it’s so different and really you look so +amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, +while, as to me, you know--oh!’ cried Flora with a little scream, ‘I am +dreadful!’ + +The Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the +drama under representation, glowed with vacant serenity. + +‘But if we talk of not having changed,’ said Flora, who, whatever +she said, never once came to a full stop, ‘look at Papa, is not Papa +precisely what he was when you went away, isn’t it cruel and unnatural +of Papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way +much longer people who don’t know us will begin to suppose that I am +Papa’s Mama!’ + +That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered. + +‘Oh Mr Clennam you insincerest of creatures,’ said Flora, ‘I perceive +already you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old +way when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know--at +least I don’t mean that, I--oh I don’t know what I mean!’ Here Flora +tittered confusedly, and gave him one of her old glances. + +The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece +was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door +by which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by name. He received +an answer from some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of sight +directly. + +‘You mustn’t think of going yet,’ said Flora--Arthur had looked at his +hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: ‘you could +never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur--I mean Mr Arthur--or I +suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper--but I am sure I don’t know +what I am saying--without a word about the dear old days gone for ever, +when I come to think of it I dare say it would be much better not to +speak of them and it’s highly probable that you have some much more +agreeable engagement and pray let Me be the last person in the world +to interfere with it though there _was_ a time, but I am running into +nonsense again.’ + +Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the +days she referred to? Could there have been anything like her present +disjointed volubility in the fascinations that had captivated him? + +‘Indeed I have little doubt,’ said Flora, running on with astonishing +speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very +few of them, ‘that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China +so long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and +extend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should +propose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than +that the Chinese lady should accept you and think herself very well off +too, I only hope she’s not a Pagodian dissenter.’ + +‘I am not,’ returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, ‘married to +any lady, Flora.’ + +‘Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long +on my account!’ tittered Flora; ‘but of course you never did why should +you, pray don’t answer, I don’t know where I’m running to, oh do tell me +something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long +and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards +and do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is +it only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their +foreheads don’t they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells +all over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don’t they +really do it?’ Flora gave him another of her old glances. Instantly she +went on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time. + +‘Then it’s all true and they really do! good gracious Arthur!--pray +excuse me--old habit--Mr Clennam far more proper--what a country to live +in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how +very dark and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and +the sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody +carries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the +feet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you +are!’ + +In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old glances +without in the least knowing what to do with it. + +‘Dear dear,’ said Flora, ‘only to think of the changes at home +Arthur--cannot overcome it, and seems so natural, Mr Clennam far more +proper--since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language +which I am persuaded you speak like a Native if not better for you were +always quick and clever though immensely difficult no doubt, I am sure +the tea chests alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Arthur--I +am doing it again, seems so natural, most improper--as no one could have +believed, who could have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can’t imagine +it myself!’ + +‘Is that your married name?’ asked Arthur, struck, in the midst of all +this, by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone +when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they +had stood to one another. ‘Finching?’ + +‘Finching oh yes isn’t it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he +proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must +say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he +wasn’t answerable for it and couldn’t help it could he, Excellent man, +not at all like you but excellent man!’ + +Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One +moment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner +of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the +departed Mr F., and began again. + +‘No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it’s quite right you +should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and +indeed you couldn’t be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought +to know, but I can’t help recalling that there _was_ a time when things +were very different.’ + +‘My dear Mrs Finching,’ Arthur began, struck by the good tone again. + +‘Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!’ + +‘Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in +finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams, +when we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope.’ + +‘You don’t seem so,’ pouted Flora, ‘you take it very coolly, but +however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese +ladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps I am +the cause myself, it’s just as likely.’ + +‘No, no,’ Clennam entreated, ‘don’t say that.’ + +‘Oh I must you know,’ said Flora, in a positive tone, ‘what nonsense not +to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well.’ + +In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick +perception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly +unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to +interweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their +present interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed. + +‘One remark,’ said Flora, giving their conversation, without the +slightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a +love-quarrel, ‘I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, when +your Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called +down into the little breakfast-room where they were looking at one +another with your Mama’s parasol between them seated on two chairs like +mad bulls what was I to do?’ + +‘My dear Mrs Finching,’ urged Clennam--‘all so long ago and so long +concluded, is it worth while seriously to--’ + +‘I can’t Arthur,’ returned Flora, ‘be denounced as heartless by the +whole society of China without setting myself right when I have the +opportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there +was Paul and Virginia which had to be returned and which was returned +without note or comment, not that I mean to say you could have written +to me watched as I was but if it had only come back with a red wafer on +the cover I should have known that it meant Come to Pekin Nankeen and +What’s the third place, barefoot.’ + +‘My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you. +We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but +accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,’ gently remonstrated +Arthur. + +‘One more remark,’ proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, ‘I wish +to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I had a +cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back +drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor +and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary +period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became +acquainted with us at a mutual friend’s, he was all attention he called +next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send +in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.’s part it was +adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could +I do?’ + +‘Nothing whatever,’ said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, ‘but +what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that +you did quite right.’ + +‘One last remark,’ proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a +wave of her hand, ‘I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer, +there _was_ a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being +mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no +longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here +is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where +he is not wanted.’ + +With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid +caution--such a gesture had Clennam’s eyes been familiar with in the old +time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way +behind again; and came to a full stop at last. + +Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age +behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus +making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated +with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the +comical were curiously blended. + +For example. As if there were a secret understanding between herself +and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of +post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that +moment round the corner; and as if she couldn’t (and wouldn’t) have +walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family +umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect +concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of +mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation +of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the +relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner, +by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all +the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery +was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was +empty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque +revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to +her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that +there was a tender memory in it. + +The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled +‘Yes!’ Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so +heartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that +never had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for +the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to +the family desire. Therefore, he stayed to dinner. + +Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a +quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who +happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant +account of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and +hauled him out. + +‘Bleeding Heart Yard?’ said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. ‘It’s a +troublesome property. Don’t pay you badly, but rents are very hard to +get there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the +places belonging to you.’ + +Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of +being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said +himself whatever Pancks said for him. + +‘Indeed?’ returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently +made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead +of the Tug. ‘The people are so poor there?’ + +‘_You_ can’t say, you know,’ snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands +out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find +any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, ‘whether they’re +poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says +he’s rich, you’re generally sure he isn’t. Besides, if they _are_ poor, +you can’t help it. You’d be poor yourself if you didn’t get your rents.’ + +‘True enough,’ said Arthur. + +‘You’re not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,’ +pursued Pancks. ‘You’re not going to lodge ‘em for nothing. You’re not +going to open your gates wide and let ‘em come free. Not if you know it, +you ain’t.’ + +Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality. + +‘If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week +comes round hasn’t got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you +got the room, then? If you haven’t got the one thing, why have you got +the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean +by it? What are you up to? That’s what _you_ say to a man of that sort; +and if you didn’t say it, more shame for you!’ Mr Pancks here made a +singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the +region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one. + +‘You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east +here, I believe?’ said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address. + +‘Oh, pretty well,’ said Pancks. ‘You’re not particular to east or +north-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is +a good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it. +You ain’t nice as to situation--not you.’ + +There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who +also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with +a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff +yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who +owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only +got fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was, +that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three +places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her +countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the +phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that +article. A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that +she had no name but Mr F.’s Aunt. + +She broke upon the visitor’s view under the following circumstances: +Flora said when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr +Clennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy? Clennam +in return implied his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he +adored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all. +Flora said, oh yes, she didn’t mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful +will, but he had left her as a separate legacy, his Aunt. She then +went out of the room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather +triumphantly presented ‘Mr F.’s Aunt.’ + +The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.’s Aunt, +were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by +a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being +totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no +association of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind. Mr F.’s Aunt +may have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it +may have been ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted. + +The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the +Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup, +some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes. +The conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr F.’s Aunt, +after regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze, +delivered the following fearful remark: + +‘When we lived at Henley, Barnes’s gander was stole by tinkers.’ + +Mr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, ‘All right, ma’am.’ But +the effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam was absolutely +to frighten him. And another circumstance invested this old lady with +peculiar terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged +that she saw any individual. The polite and attentive stranger would +desire, say, to consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His +expressive action would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he +do? No man could say, ‘Mr F.’s Aunt, will you permit me?’ Every man +retired from the spoon, as Clennam did, cowed and baffled. + +There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest +way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted +feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table +taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took +of Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of +porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and +that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds. +The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he +disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a +good soul who was feeding some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a +hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he +kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant +to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were +coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a +puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away. + +All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and +drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made +Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not +look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or +warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr F.’s Aunt sat silently +defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal +of the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated +another observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without +consulting anybody. + +Flora had just said, ‘Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for +Mr F.’s Aunt?’ + +‘The Monument near London Bridge,’ that lady instantly proclaimed, ‘was +put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was +not the fire in which your uncle George’s workshops was burned down.’ + +Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, ‘Indeed, ma’am? All right!’ +But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other +ill-usage, Mr F.’s Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the +following additional proclamation: + +‘I hate a fool!’ + +She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely +injurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the +visitor’s head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F.’s Aunt from +the room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.’s Aunt offering no +resistance, but inquiring on her way out, ‘What he come there for, +then?’ with implacable animosity. + +When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever +old lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and ‘took +dislikes’--peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than +otherwise. As Flora’s good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no +fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was +relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or +two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get +under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the +necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr Pancks in which direction +he was going? + +‘Citywards, sir,’ said Pancks. + +‘Shall we walk together?’ said Arthur. + +‘Quite agreeable,’ said Pancks. + +Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there +was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a +golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the +late Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow at half-past one +and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered +nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the north-west side of +Gray’s-Inn Gardens at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. He tried +at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora--not the +vanished Flora, or the mermaid--but Flora wouldn’t have it, couldn’t +have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him +from their bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and +so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good +fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour, +have drifted anywhere. + +When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of +Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of +nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction +with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were +evidently the conditions under which he reflected. + +‘A fresh night!’ said Arthur. + +‘Yes, it’s pretty fresh,’ assented Pancks. ‘As a stranger you feel the +climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven’t got time to feel +it.’ + +‘You lead such a busy life?’ + +‘Yes, I have always some of ‘em to look up, or something to look after. +But I like business,’ said Pancks, getting on a little faster. ‘What’s a +man made for?’ + +‘For nothing else?’ said Clennam. + +Pancks put the counter question, ‘What else?’ It packed up, in the +smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam’s life; and he +made no answer. + +‘That’s what I ask our weekly tenants,’ said Pancks. ‘Some of ‘em will +pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we’re always +grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we’re awake. I say to them, +What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven’t a word to +answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.’ + +‘Ah dear, dear, dear!’ sighed Clennam. + +‘Here am I,’ said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant. +‘What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out +of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt +my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I’ll keep you +always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with +the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.’ + +When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: ‘Have +you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?’ + +‘What’s taste?’ drily retorted Pancks. + +‘Let us say inclination.’ + +‘I have an inclination to get money, sir,’ said Pancks, ‘if you will +show me how.’ He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his +companion for the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a +singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest, +but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these +cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, +seemed irreconcilable with banter. + +‘You are no great reader, I suppose?’ said Clennam. + +‘Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything +but advertisements relative to next of kin. If _that’s_ a taste, I have +got that. You’re not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘Not that I ever heard of.’ + +‘I know you’re not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much character +to let a chance escape her.’ + +‘Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?’ + +‘You’d have heard of something to your advantage.’ + +‘Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time.’ + +‘There’s a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish +Clennam to have it for the asking,’ said Pancks, taking his note-book +from his breast pocket and putting it in again. ‘I turn off here. I wish +you good night.’ + +‘Good night!’ said Clennam. But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and +untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into +the distance. + +They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at the +corner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself in his +mother’s dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed +and cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He turned slowly down +Aldersgate Street, and was pondering his way along towards Saint Paul’s, +purposing to come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of +their light and life, when a crowd of people flocked towards him on the +same pavement, and he stood aside against a shop to let them pass. As +they came up, he made out that they were gathered around a something +that was carried on men’s shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter, +hastily made of a shutter or some such thing; and a recumbent figure +upon it, and the scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle +carried by one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him +that an accident had occurred. The litter stopped under a lamp before it +had passed him half-a-dozen paces, for some readjustment of the burden; +and, the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst of the array. + +‘An accident going to the Hospital?’ he asked an old man beside him, who +stood shaking his head, inviting conversation. + +‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘along of them Mails. They ought to be prosecuted +and fined, them Mails. They come a racing out of Lad Lane and Wood +Street at twelve or fourteen mile a hour, them Mails do. The only wonder +is, that people ain’t killed oftener by them Mails.’ + +‘This person is not killed, I hope?’ + +‘I don’t know!’ said the man, ‘it an’t for the want of a will in them +Mails, if he an’t.’ The speaker having folded his arms, and set in +comfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any of the +bystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure sympathy with +the sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to Clennam, ‘They’re a +public nuisance, them Mails, sir;’ another, ‘_I_ see one on ‘em pull up +within half a inch of a boy, last night;’ another, ‘_I_ see one on ‘em +go over a cat, sir--and it might have been your own mother;’ and all +representing, by implication, that if he happened to possess any public +influence, he could not use it better than against them Mails. + +‘Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to save +his life from them Mails,’ argued the first old man; ‘and _he_ knows when +they’re a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from limb. What can +you expect from a poor foreigner who don’t know nothing about ‘em!’ + +‘Is this a foreigner?’ said Clennam, leaning forward to look. + +In the midst of such replies as ‘Frenchman, sir,’ ‘Porteghee, sir,’ +‘Dutchman, sir,’ ‘Prooshan, sir,’ and other conflicting testimony, he +now heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for +water. A general remark going round, in reply, of ‘Ah, poor fellow, +he says he’ll never get over it; and no wonder!’ Clennam begged to be +allowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature. He was immediately +handed to the front, to speak to him. + +‘First, he wants some water,’ said he, looking round. (A dozen good +fellows dispersed to get it.) ‘Are you badly hurt, my friend?’ he asked +the man on the litter, in Italian. + +‘Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes. It’s my leg, it’s my leg. But it pleases me to +hear the old music, though I am very bad.’ + +‘You are a traveller! Stay! See, the water! Let me give you some.’ + +They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It was at a +convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly +raise the head with one hand and hold the glass to his lips with the +other. A little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth. A +lively face, apparently. Earrings in his ears. + +‘That’s well. You are a traveller?’ + +‘Surely, sir.’ + +‘A stranger in this city?’ + +‘Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived this unhappy evening.’ + +‘From what country?’ + +‘Marseilles.’ + +‘Why, see there! I also! Almost as much a stranger here as you, though +born here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don’t be cast +down.’ The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it, +and gently replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure. ‘I won’t +leave you till you shall be well taken care of. Courage! You will be +very much better half an hour hence.’ + +‘Ah! Altro, Altro!’ cried the poor little man, in a faintly incredulous +tone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the +forefinger a back-handed shake in the air. + +Arthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an +encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring +hospital of Saint Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the bearers and +he being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool, +methodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was as near at +hand, and as ready to appear as Calamity herself. ‘He hardly knows an +English word,’ said Clennam; ‘is he badly hurt?’ + +‘Let us know all about it first,’ said the surgeon, continuing his +examination with a businesslike delight in it, ‘before we pronounce.’ + +After trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand and +two hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction +and in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to +another gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the +patient on the shoulder, and said, ‘He won’t hurt. He’ll do very well. +It’s difficult enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg +this time.’ Which Clennam interpreted to the patient, who was full of +gratitude, and, in his demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter’s +hand and the surgeon’s several times. + +‘It’s a serious injury, I suppose?’ said Clennam. + +‘Ye-es,’ replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist +contemplating the work upon his easel. ‘Yes, it’s enough. There’s a +compound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation below. They are +both of a beautiful kind.’ He gave the patient a friendly clap on the +shoulder again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow +indeed, and worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a +manner interesting to science. + +‘He speaks French?’ said the surgeon. + +‘Oh yes, he speaks French.’ + +‘He’ll be at no loss here, then.--You have only to bear a little pain +like a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as +well as it does,’ he added, in that tongue, ‘and you’ll walk again to +a marvel. Now, let us see whether there’s anything else the matter, and +how our ribs are?’ + +There was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound. Clennam +remained until everything possible to be done had been skilfully and +promptly done--the poor belated wanderer in a strange land movingly +besought that favour of him--and lingered by the bed to which he was in +due time removed, until he had fallen into a doze. Even then he wrote a +few words for him on his card, with a promise to return to-morrow, and +left it to be given to him when he should awake. + +All these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven o’clock at +night as he came out at the Hospital Gate. He had hired a lodging for +the present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that +quarter, by Snow Hill and Holborn. + +Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last +adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he +could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora. +She necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and +little happiness. + +When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he +had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened +forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by +which he had come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare, +so blank. No childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; that one +remembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly. + +It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another. +For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained +Reality on being proved--was obdurate to the sight and touch, and +relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness--the one tender +recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted +away. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed +with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and he had now. + +He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted +in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had +been without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him +to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and +severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart. +Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of +reserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of +his Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge +not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity. + +And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel +selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue +had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore +it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in +appearance, to the basest elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a +mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in +the dark, it could rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and +hailing it. + +Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way +by which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way +by which other men had come to it. That he should have missed so much, +and at his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to +bear him company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just +regret. He looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which +the afterglow subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they +dropped to dust, and thought, ‘How soon I too shall pass through such +changes, and be gone!’ + +To review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, +and seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by one, as he came +down towards them. + +‘From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and +unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, +my return, my mother’s welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to +the afternoon of this day with poor Flora,’ said Arthur Clennam, ‘what +have I found!’ + +His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and +came as if they were an answer: + +‘Little Dorrit.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 14. Little Dorrit’s Party + + +Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This +history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit’s eyes, and shall begin +that course by seeing him. + +Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to +her, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place +with famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and +swords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden, +as a place where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece, +pine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque +ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre, +showing wonderful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and +gentlemen, and which was for ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or +poor uncle; desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches +in it, where the miserable children in rags among whom she had just now +passed, like young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together +for warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all +ye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, and +will bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as +a place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, want, beauty, +ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street gutters; all confused +together,--made the room dimmer than it was in Little Dorrit’s eyes, as +they timidly saw it from the door. + +At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round +wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The brown, +grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and +considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was +something that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference +that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness. Now he regarded +her with that attentive and inquiring look before which Little Dorrit’s +eyes had always fallen, and before which they fell still. + +‘My poor child! Here at midnight?’ + +‘I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you must +be very much surprised.’ + +‘Are you alone?’ + +‘No sir, I have got Maggy with me.’ + +Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of +her name, Maggy appeared from the landing outside, on the broad grin. +She instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly +solemn. + +‘And I have no fire,’ said Clennam. ‘And you are--’ He was going to say +so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been a reference +to her poverty, saying instead, ‘And it is so cold.’ + +Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made +her sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them +together and got a blaze. + +‘Your foot is like marble, my child;’ he had happened to touch it, while +stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; ‘put it nearer +the warmth.’ Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite warm, it +was very warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin, +worn shoe. + +Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her story, and +it was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her +father, if he saw them; that he might think, ‘why did he dine to-day, +and leave this little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!’ She had +no belief that it would have been a just reflection; she simply knew, +by experience, that such delusions did sometimes present themselves to +people. It was a part of her father’s misfortunes that they did. + +‘Before I say anything else,’ Little Dorrit began, sitting before +the pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its +harmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a +mystery far above her in degree, and almost removed beyond her guessing +at; ‘may I tell you something, sir?’ + +‘Yes, my child.’ + +A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a +child. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a +slight thing; but he said directly: + +‘I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just now +gave yourself the name they give you at my mother’s, and as that is the +name by which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.’ + +‘Little Dorrit.’ + +‘Little mother,’ Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a +correction. + +‘It’s all the same, Maggy,’ returned Little Dorrit, ‘all the same.’ + +‘Is it all the same, mother?’ + +‘Just the same.’ + +Maggy laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit’s eyes and ears, +the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be. +There was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when +it again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She wondered what he +was thinking of, as he looked at Maggy and her. She thought what a +good father he would be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and +cherish his daughter. + +‘What I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘is, that my +brother is at large.’ + +Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well. + +‘And what I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, trembling +in all her little figure and in her voice, ‘is, that I am not to know +whose generosity released him--am never to ask, and am never to be told, +and am never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!’ + +He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he would be +thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance +of doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one. + +‘And what I was going to say, sir, is,’ said Little Dorrit, trembling +more and more, ‘that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that +he can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father +would feel it. And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him, +and I might--but I don’t know him and I must not--I know that!--I would +tell him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep without having +prayed to Heaven to bless him and reward him. And if I knew him, and I +might, I would go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss +it and ask him not to draw it away, but to leave it--O to leave it for a +moment--and let my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks +to give him!’ + +Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to +him, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her +eyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she +thought. He was not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, ‘There, +Little Dorrit, there, there, there! We will suppose that you did know +this person, and that you might do all this, and that it was all done. +And now tell me, Who am quite another person--who am nothing more than +the friend who begged you to trust him--why you are out at midnight, and +what it is that brings you so far through the streets at this late hour, +my slight, delicate,’ child was on his lips again, ‘Little Dorrit!’ + +‘Maggy and I have been to-night,’ she answered, subduing herself with +the quiet effort that had long been natural to her, ‘to the theatre +where my sister is engaged.’ + +‘And oh ain’t it a Ev’nly place,’ suddenly interrupted Maggy, who seemed +to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose. +‘Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain’t no Chicking in it.’ + +Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again. + +‘We went there,’ said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, ‘because +I like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing +well; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor +Uncle is aware. It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, because +when I am not out at work, I am with my father, and even when I am out +at work, I hurry home to him. But I pretend to-night that I am at a +party.’ + +As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to +the face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it. + +‘Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life.’ + +She paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, ‘I hope +there is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I had +not pretended a little.’ + +She feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to +contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their +knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed +neglect. But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its +strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the +pretence of recreation and enjoyment. He asked where the suppositious +party was? At a place where she worked, answered Little Dorrit, +blushing. She had said very little about it; only a few words to +make her father easy. Her father did not believe it to be a grand +party--indeed he might suppose that. And she glanced for an instant at +the shawl she wore. + +‘It is the first night,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that I have ever been away +from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.’ In Little +Dorrit’s eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor +passed over her as she said the words. + +‘But this is not,’ she added, with the quiet effort again, ‘what I have +come to trouble you with, sir. My sister’s having found a friend, a lady +she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause +of my coming away from home. And being away, and coming (on purpose) +round by where you lived and seeing a light in the window--’ + +Not for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little Dorrit’s +eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights +than this. She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up +at it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who +had spoken to her as a friend and protector. + +‘There were three things,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that I thought I would +like to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs. First, what I +have tried to say, but never can--never shall--’ + +‘Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to the +second,’ said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze +shine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the +table. + +‘I think,’ said Little Dorrit--‘this is the second thing, sir--I think +Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come +from and where I go to. Where I live, I mean.’ + +‘Indeed!’ returned Clennam quickly. He asked her, after short +consideration, why she supposed so. + +‘I think,’ replied Little Dorrit, ‘that Mr Flintwinch must have watched +me.’ + +And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his +brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that? + +‘I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, when +I was going back. Both times I thought (though that may easily be my +mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident.’ + +‘Did he say anything?’ + +‘No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.’ + +‘The devil take his head!’ mused Clennam, still looking at the fire; +‘it’s always on one side.’ + +He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to +touch something to eat--it was very difficult, she was so timid and +shy--and then said, musing again: + +‘Is my mother at all changed to you?’ + +‘Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better +tell her my history. I wondered whether I might--I mean, whether you +would like me to tell her. I wondered,’ said Little Dorrit, looking at +him in a suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked +at her, ‘whether you would advise me what I ought to do.’ + +‘Little Dorrit,’ said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between +these two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the +varying tone and connection in which it was used; ‘do nothing. I will +have some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do nothing, Little +Dorrit--except refresh yourself with such means as there are here. I +entreat you to do that.’ + +‘Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,’ said Little Dorrit, as he softly +put her glass towards her, ‘nor thirsty.--I think Maggy might like +something, perhaps.’ + +‘We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,’ said +Clennam: ‘but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.’ + +‘Yes. You will not be offended, sir?’ + +‘I promise that, unreservedly.’ + +‘It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don’t think it +unreasonable or ungrateful in me,’ said Little Dorrit, with returning +and increasing agitation. + +‘No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid +that I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is.’ + +‘Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying +that you are coming to-morrow?’ + +‘Oh, that was nothing! Yes.’ + +‘Can you guess,’ said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in +one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul +looking steadily out of her eyes, ‘what I am going to ask you not to +do?’ + +‘I think I can. But I may be wrong.’ + +‘No, you are not wrong,’ said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. ‘If we +should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me +ask you for it.’ + +‘I Will,--I Will.’ + +‘Don’t encourage him to ask. Don’t understand him if he does ask. Don’t +give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to +think better of him!’ + +Clennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her +anxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him. + +‘You don’t know what he is,’ she said; ‘you don’t know what he really +is. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not +gradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately +and truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in +anybody’s. And I cannot bear to think,’ cried Little Dorrit, covering +her tears with her hands, ‘I cannot bear to think that you of all the +world should see him in his only moments of degradation.’ + +‘Pray,’ said Clennam, ‘do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little +Dorrit! This is quite understood now.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from +saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew +for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you. +Not because I am ashamed of him,’ she dried her tears quickly, ‘but +because I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud +of him.’ + +Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone. +Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the +fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best +diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she +drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe +after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent +state, ‘Oh, ain’t it d’licious! Ain’t it hospitally!’ When she had +finished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket +(she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the +table, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy’s +pleasure in doing this and her little mother’s pleasure in seeing Maggy +pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the +late conversation. + +‘But the gates will have been locked long ago,’ said Clennam, suddenly +remembering it. ‘Where are you going?’ + +‘I am going to Maggy’s lodging,’ answered Little Dorrit. ‘I shall be +quite safe, quite well taken care of.’ + +‘I must accompany you there,’ said Clennam, ‘I cannot let you go alone.’ + +‘Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!’ begged Little +Dorrit. + +She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in +obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand +that Maggy’s lodging was of the obscurest sort. ‘Come, Maggy,’ said +Little Dorrit cheerily, ‘we shall do very well; we know the way by this +time, Maggy?’ + +‘Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,’ chuckled Maggy. And away +they went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, ‘God bless you!’ She +said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above--who +knows!--as a whole cathedral choir. + +Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he +followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time +on Little Dorrit’s privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure +in the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she +looked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather, +flitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in +his compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from +the rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her +up in his arms and carry her to her journey’s end. + +In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the +Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn +down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further, +and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of +being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long +afterwards. + +But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in +darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, ‘Now, this is a +good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence. Consequently, +we will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them +so, we must walk about till day.’ + +Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice, +Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close +and still. ‘Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be +patient, and wait for day.’ + +It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out +into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past +one. ‘In only five hours and a half,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘we shall be +able to go home.’ To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being +so near, was a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and +peeped through into the court-yard. ‘I hope he is sound asleep,’ said +Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, ‘and does not miss me.’ + +The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down +Maggy’s basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close +together, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and +silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at +a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was +startled, and whispered, ‘Maggy, I see some one. Come away!’ Maggy +would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a +little, and come back again. + +As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty +well. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and +shivered and whimpered. ‘It will soon be over, dear,’ said Little Dorrit +patiently. ‘Oh it’s all very fine for you, little mother,’ returned +Maggy, ‘but I’m a poor thing, only ten years old.’ At last, in the dead +of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid +the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she +sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing +the clouds pass over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at +Little Dorrit’s party. + +‘If it really was a party!’ she thought once, as she sat there. ‘If it +was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear +was its master, and had never been inside these walls. And if Mr +Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful +music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be! I +wonder--’ Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that she sat +looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous again, +and wanted to get up and walk. + +Three o’clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London +Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and +looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little +spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining +like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and +misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in +nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men, +whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at +full speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit, +happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely +upon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling +or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to ‘let +the woman and the child go by!’ + +So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had +sounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east, +already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came +after them. + +‘What are you doing with the child?’ she said to Maggy. + +She was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and neither +ugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally +coarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound. + +‘What are you doing with yourself?’ retorted Maggy, for want of a better +answer. + +‘Can’t you see, without my telling you?’ + +‘I don’t know as I can,’ said Maggy. + +‘Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing +with the child?’ + +The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close +at Maggy’s side. + +‘Poor thing!’ said the woman. ‘Have you no feeling, that you keep her +out in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that +you don’t see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you +don’t look as if you had much) that you don’t take more pity on this +cold and trembling little hand?’ + +She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own +two, chafing it. ‘Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,’ she said, bending +her face, ‘and tell me where’s she taking you.’ + +Little Dorrit turned towards her. + +‘Why, my God!’ she said, recoiling, ‘you’re a woman!’ + +‘Don’t mind that!’ said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that +had suddenly released hers. ‘I am not afraid of you.’ + +‘Then you had better be,’ she answered. ‘Have you no mother?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘No father?’ + +‘Yes, a very dear one.’ + +‘Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!’ + +‘I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a +child.’ + +‘You can’t do it,’ said the woman. ‘You are kind and innocent; but you +can’t look at me out of a child’s eyes. I never should have touched you, +but I thought that you were a child.’ And with a strange, wild cry, she +went away. + +No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of +the streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going +to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic +at markets; in the stir of the riverside. There was coming day in the +flaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had +at another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and +the ghastly dying of the night. + +They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it +should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit, +leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the +Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps +and looked in. + +‘Who’s that?’ cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if +he were going to bed in a vault. + +‘It’s no one particular, sir,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Stop!’ cried the man. ‘Let’s have a look at you!’ + +This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to +present herself and her charge before him. + +‘I thought so!’ said he. ‘I know _you_.’ + +‘We have often seen each other,’ said Little Dorrit, recognising the +sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, ‘when I have +been at church here.’ + +‘More than that, we’ve got your birth in our Register, you know; you’re +one of our curiosities.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘To be sure. As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out so +early?’ + +‘We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.’ + +‘You don’t mean it? And there’s another hour good yet! Come into the +vestry. You’ll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters. +I’m waiting for the painters, or I shouldn’t be here, you may depend +upon it. One of our curiosities mustn’t be cold when we have it in our +power to warm her up comfortable. Come along.’ + +He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred +the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a +particular volume. ‘Here you are, you see,’ he said, taking it down and +turning the leaves. ‘Here you’ll find yourself, as large as life. Amy, +daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of +St George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much +as a day’s or a night’s absence, ever since. Is it true?’ + +‘Quite true, till last night.’ + +‘Lord!’ But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something +else to him, to wit: ‘I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and +tired. Stay a bit. I’ll get some cushions out of the church, and you and +your friend shall lie down before the fire. Don’t be afraid of not +going in to join your father when the gate opens. _I’ll_ call you.’ + +He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground. + +‘There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind +thanking. I’ve daughters of my own. And though they weren’t born in the +Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of +carrying on, of your father’s breed. Stop a bit. I must put something +under the cushion for your head. Here’s a burial volume, just the +thing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this book. But what makes these books +interesting to most people is--not who’s in ‘em, but who isn’t--who’s +coming, you know, and when. That’s the interesting question.’ + +Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them +to their hour’s repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit +was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate, +untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves. + +This was Little Dorrit’s party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and +exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and +the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which +Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER 15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream + + +The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, +and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and +worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what +would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and +that was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it +was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look +more wretched. The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights +and the smoke were clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with +a rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw +lingering in that dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other +places; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after +it had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. +The place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of +wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and +rushed out again: making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she +were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes. +So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human +sounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way. + +The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam’s room made the +greatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In her +two long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly +all night. On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, as she did; but +for the most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon itself +evenly and slowly. During many hours of the short winter days, however, +when it was dusk there early in the afternoon, changing distortions of +herself in her wheeled chair, of Mr Flintwinch with his wry neck, of +Mistress Affery coming and going, would be thrown upon the house wall +that was over the gateway, and would hover there like shadows from a +great magic lantern. As the room-ridden invalid settled for the night, +these would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery’s magnified shadow +always flitting about, last, until it finally glided away into the air, +as though she were off upon a witch excursion. Then the solitary light +would burn unchangingly, until it burned pale before the dawn, and at +last died under the breath of Mrs Affery, as her shadow descended on it +from the witch-region of sleep. + +Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, +summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, to +the spot that _must_ be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light +were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an +appointed event should be watched out! Which of the vast multitude of +travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and +toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by +sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one +another; which of the host may, with no suspicion of the journey’s end, +be travelling surely hither? + +Time shall show us. The post of honour and the post of shame, the +general’s station and the drummer’s, a peer’s statue in Westminster +Abbey and a seaman’s hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and +the workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the +guillotine--the travellers to all are on the great high road, but it +has wonderful divergencies, and only Time shall show us whither each +traveller is bound. + +On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been heavy all +day, dreamed this dream: + +She thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for tea, and +was warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the skirt of her +gown tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the middle of the grate, +bordered on either hand by a deep cold black ravine. She thought that +as she sat thus, musing upon the question whether life was not for some +people a rather dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden noise +behind her. She thought that she had been similarly frightened once last +week, and that the noise was of a mysterious kind--a sound of rustling +and of three or four quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or +tremble was communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the +floor, or even as if she had been touched by some awful hand. She +thought that this revived within her certain old fears of hers that +the house was haunted; and that she flew up the kitchen stairs without +knowing how she got up, to be nearer company. + +Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door of +her liege lord’s office standing open, and the room empty. That she went +to the ripped-up window in the little room by the street door to connect +her palpitating heart, through the glass, with living things beyond +and outside the haunted house. That she then saw, on the wall over the +gateway, the shadows of the two clever ones in conversation above. That +she then went upstairs with her shoes in her hand, partly to be near +the clever ones as a match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what they +were talking about. + +‘None of your nonsense with me,’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘I won’t take it +from you.’ + +Mrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was just +ajar, and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold words. + +‘Flintwinch,’ returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice, +‘there is a demon of anger in you. Guard against it.’ + +‘I don’t care whether there’s one or a dozen,’ said Mr Flintwinch, +forcibly suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer the +mark. ‘If there was fifty, they should all say, None of your nonsense +with me, I won’t take it from you--I’d make ‘em say it, whether they +liked it or not.’ + +‘What have I done, you wrathful man?’ her strong voice asked. + +‘Done?’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘Dropped down upon me.’ + +‘If you mean, remonstrated with you--’ + +‘Don’t put words into my mouth that I don’t mean,’ said Jeremiah, +sticking to his figurative expression with tenacious and impenetrable +obstinacy: ‘I mean dropped down upon me.’ + +‘I remonstrated with you,’ she began again, ‘because--’ + +‘I won’t have it!’ cried Jeremiah. ‘You dropped down upon me.’ + +‘I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man,’ (Jeremiah +chuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase,) ‘for having been +needlessly significant to Arthur that morning. I have a right to +complain of it as almost a breach of confidence. You did not mean it--’ + +‘I won’t have it!’ interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging back +the concession. ‘I did mean it.’ + +‘I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose,’ she +replied, after a pause that seemed an angry one. ‘It is useless my +addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who has a set purpose +not to hear me.’ + +‘Now, I won’t take that from you either,’ said Jeremiah. ‘I have no such +purpose. I have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to know why I meant +it, you rash and headstrong old woman?’ + +‘After all, you only restore me my own words,’ she said, struggling with +her indignation. ‘Yes.’ + +‘This is why, then. Because you hadn’t cleared his father to him, and +you ought to have done it. Because, before you went into any tantrum +about yourself, who are--’ + +‘Hold there, Flintwinch!’ she cried out in a changed voice: ‘you may go +a word too far.’ + +The old man seemed to think so. There was another pause, and he had +altered his position in the room, when he spoke again more mildly: + +‘I was going to tell you why it was. Because, before you took your own +part, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur’s father. +Arthur’s father! I had no particular love for Arthur’s father. I served +Arthur’s father’s uncle, in this house, when Arthur’s father was not +much above me--was poorer as far as his pocket went--and when his uncle +might as soon have left me his heir as have left him. He starved in the +parlour, and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference +in our positions; there was not much more than a flight of breakneck +stairs between us. I never took to him in those times; I don’t know that +I ever took to him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute +chap, who had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he +was young. And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle +had named for him, I didn’t need to look at you twice (you were a +good-looking woman at that time) to know who’d be master. You have stood +of your own strength ever since. Stand of your own strength now. Don’t +lean against the dead.’ + +‘I do _not_--as you call it--lean against the dead.’ + +‘But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted,’ growled Jeremiah, +‘and that’s why you drop down upon me. You can’t forget that I didn’t +submit. I suppose you are astonished that I should consider it worth my +while to have justice done to Arthur’s father? Hey? It doesn’t matter +whether you answer or not, because I know you are, and you know you are. +Come, then, I’ll tell you how it is. I may be a bit of an oddity in +point of temper, but this is my temper--I can’t let anybody have +entirely their own way. You are a determined woman, and a clever woman; +and when you see your purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it. +Who knows that better than I do?’ + +‘Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it to +myself. Add that.’ + +‘Justified it to yourself? I said you were the most determined woman on +the face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you are determined +to justify any object you entertain, of course you’ll do it.’ + +‘Man! I justify myself by the authority of these Books,’ she cried, with +stern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that followed to strike the +dead-weight of her arm upon the table. + +‘Never mind that,’ returned Jeremiah calmly, ‘we won’t enter into that +question at present. However that may be, you carry out your purposes, +and you make everything go down before them. Now, I won’t go down before +them. I have been faithful to you, and useful to you, and I am attached +to you. But I can’t consent, and I won’t consent, and I never did +consent, and I never will consent to be lost in you. Swallow up +everybody else, and welcome. The peculiarity of my temper is, ma’am, +that I won’t be swallowed up alive.’ + +Perhaps this had originally been the mainspring of the understanding +between them. Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr +Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her +while. + +‘Enough and more than enough of the subject,’ said she gloomily. + +‘Unless you drop down upon me again,’ returned the persistent +Flintwinch, ‘and then you must expect to hear of it again.’ + +Mistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began walking +up and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away; +but that, as he did not issue forth when she had stood listening and +trembling in the shadowy hall a little time, she crept up-stairs again, +impelled as before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more cowered +outside the door. + +‘Please to light the candle, Flintwinch,’ Mrs Clennam was saying, +apparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone. ‘It is nearly +time for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in the dark.’ + +Mr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said as he put it down +upon the table: + +‘What are you going to do with Little Dorrit? Is she to come to work +here for ever? To come to tea here for ever? To come backwards and +forwards here, in the same way, for ever?’ + +‘How can you talk about “for ever” to a maimed creature like me? Are we +not all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn by the +scythe many years ago: since when I have been lying here, waiting to be +gathered into the barn?’ + +‘Ay, ay! But since you have been lying here--not near dead--nothing like +it--numbers of children and young people, blooming women, strong men, +and what not, have been cut down and carried; and still here are you, +you see, not much changed after all. Your time and mine may be a long +one yet. When I say for ever, I mean (though I am not poetical) through +all our time.’ Mr Flintwinch gave this explanation with great calmness, +and calmly waited for an answer. + +‘So long as Little Dorrit is quiet and industrious, and stands in need +of the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, I suppose, +unless she withdraws of her own act, she will continue to come here, I +being spared.’ + +‘Nothing more than that?’ said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and chin. + +‘What should there be more than that! What could there be more than +that!’ she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way. + +Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, they +remained looking at each other with the candle between them, and +that she somehow derived an impression that they looked at each other +fixedly. + +‘Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam,’ Affery’s liege lord then demanded +in a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression that seemed +quite out of proportion to the simple purpose of his words, ‘where she +lives?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Would you--now, would you like to know?’ said Jeremiah with a pounce as +if he had sprung upon her. + +‘If I cared to know, I should know already. Could I not have asked her +any day?’ + +‘Then you don’t care to know?’ + +‘I do not.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath said, with his +former emphasis, ‘For I have accidentally--mind!--found out.’ + +‘Wherever she lives,’ said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard +voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading +them off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, ‘she +has made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me.’ + +‘After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any how?’ +said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out +of him in his own wry shape. + +‘Flintwinch,’ said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden +energy that made Affery start, ‘why do you goad me? Look round this +room. If it is any compensation for my long confinement within these +narrow limits--not that I complain of being afflicted; you know I never +complain of that--if it is any compensation to me for long confinement +to this room, that while I am shut up from all pleasant change I am also +shut up from the knowledge of some things that I may prefer to avoid +knowing, why should you, of all men, grudge me that belief?’ + +‘I don’t grudge it to you,’ returned Jeremiah. + +‘Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from +me, and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, unobserved and +unquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to +my condition. Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?’ + +‘I asked you a question. That’s all.’ + +‘I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more.’ Here the sound of +the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery’s bell rang with +a hasty jerk. + +More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in +the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could, +descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them, +resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally +threw her apron over her head. Then the bell rang once more, and then +once more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate +summons, Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath. + +At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the +hall, muttering and calling ‘Affery woman!’ all the way. Affery still +remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, +candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused +her. + +‘Oh Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, waking. ‘What a start you gave me!’ + +‘What have you been doing, woman?’ inquired Jeremiah. ‘You’ve been rung +for fifty times.’ + +‘Oh Jeremiah,’ said Mistress Affery, ‘I have been a-dreaming!’ + +Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the +candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the +illumination of the kitchen. + +‘Don’t you know it’s her tea-time?’ he demanded with a vicious grin, and +giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery’s chair a kick. + +‘Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don’t know what’s come to me. But I got such a +dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went--off a-dreaming, that I think it +must be that.’ + +‘Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!’ said Mr Flintwinch, ‘what are you talking about?’ + +‘Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the +kitchen here--just here.’ + +Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held +down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his +light and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls. + +‘Rats, cats, water, drains,’ said Jeremiah. + +Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head. ‘No, Jeremiah; +I have felt it before. I have felt it up-stairs, and once on the +staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night--a rustle +and a sort of trembling touch behind me.’ + +‘Affery, my woman,’ said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his nose +to that lady’s lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, +‘if you don’t get tea pretty quick, old woman, you’ll become sensible +of a rustle and a touch that’ll send you flying to the other end of the +kitchen.’ + +This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to +hasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam’s chamber. But, for all that, she now +began to entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong +in the gloomy house. Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after +daylight departed; and never went up or down stairs in the dark without +having her apron over her head, lest she should see something. + +What with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs +Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which +it may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her +recovery. In the vagueness and indistinctness of all her new experiences +and perceptions, as everything about her was mysterious to herself she +began to be mysterious to others: and became as difficult to be made out +to anybody’s satisfaction as she found the house and everything in it +difficult to make out to her own. + +She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam’s tea, when the soft +knock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. Mistress +Affery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the +hall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in +silence, as expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would +frighten her out of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces. + +After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur. +Mistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering, +‘Affery, I am glad it’s you. I want to ask you a question.’ Affery +immediately replied, ‘For goodness sake don’t ask me nothing, Arthur! I +am frightened out of one half of my life, and dreamed out of the +other. Don’t ask me nothing! I don’t know which is which, or what is +what!’--and immediately started away from him, and came near him no +more. + +Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for +needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination, +now sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily +emerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam’s return, occupied with crowds +of wild speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress and her +husband and the noises in the house. When the ferocious devotional +exercises were engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress +Affery’s eyes towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to +appear at those propitious moments, and make the party one too many. + +Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of +the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain +occasions, generally at about the quiet hour towards bed-time, when she +would suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of +terror to Mr Flintwinch, reading the paper near Mrs Clennam’s little +table: + +‘There, Jeremiah! Now! What’s that noise?’ + +Then the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr Flintwinch +would snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down that moment +against his will, ‘Affery, old woman, you shall have a dose, old woman, +such a dose! You have been dreaming again!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 16. Nobody’s Weakness + + +The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles +family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr +Meagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face +on a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a +cottage-residence of his own. The weather being fine and dry, and any +English road abounding in interest for him who had been so long away, +he sent his valise on by the coach, and set out to walk. A walk was in +itself a new enjoyment to him, and one that had rarely diversified his +life afar off. + +He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over the +heath. It was bright and shining there; and when he found himself so far +on his road to Twickenham, he found himself a long way on his road to +a number of airier and less substantial destinations. They had risen +before him fast, in the healthful exercise and the pleasant road. It is +not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something. And +he had plenty of unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been +walking to the Land’s End. + +First, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the question, +what he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation he should +devote himself, and in what direction he had best seek it. He was far +from rich, and every day of indecision and inaction made his inheritance +a source of greater anxiety to him. As often as he began to consider how +to increase this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his misgiving +that there was some one with an unsatisfied claim upon his justice, +returned; and that alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk. +Again, there was the subject of his relations with his mother, which +were now upon an equable and peaceful but never confidential footing, +and whom he saw several times a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a +constant subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of +her own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person +between whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on one +hand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of compassion, +respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity. Thinking of her, and +of the possibility of her father’s release from prison by the unbarring +hand of death--the only change of circumstance he could foresee that +might enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished to be, by +altering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and +giving her a home--he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted +daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were +a last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form +was so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere +in which these other subjects floated before him. + +He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a +figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as +he gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression +from something in the turn of the head, and in the figure’s action of +consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when +the man--for it was a man’s figure--pushed his hat up at the back of his +head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be +Daniel Doyce. + +‘How do you do, Mr Doyce?’ said Clennam, overtaking him. ‘I am glad to +see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.’ + +‘Ha! Mr Meagles’s friend!’ exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of +some mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand. ‘I +am glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I forget your name?’ + +‘Readily. It’s not a celebrated name. It’s not Barnacle.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Daniel, laughing. ‘And now I know what it is. It’s +Clennam. How do you do, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘I have some hope,’ said Arthur, as they walked on together, ‘that we +may be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.’ + +‘Meaning Twickenham?’ returned Daniel. ‘I am glad to hear it.’ + +They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of +conversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good +sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine +what was original and daring in conception with what was patient and +minute in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man. It was at first +difficult to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur’s +advances in that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done +this, and he had done that, and such a thing was of his making, and +such another thing was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his +trade; until, as he gradually became assured that his companion had a +real interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then +it appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had +originally been apprenticed by his widowed mother to a lock-maker; that +he had ‘struck out a few little things’ at the lock-maker’s, which had +led to his being released from his indentures with a present, which +present had enabled him to gratify his ardent wish to bind himself to +a working engineer, under whom he had laboured hard, learned hard, and +lived hard, seven years. His time being out, he had ‘worked in the shop’ +at weekly wages seven or eight years more; and had then betaken +himself to the banks of the Clyde, where he had studied, and filed, and +hammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six +or seven years more. There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he +had accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in +Germany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done very +well indeed--never better. However, he had naturally felt a preference +for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do +whatever service he could do, there rather than elsewhere. And so he had +come home. And so at home he had established himself in business, and +had invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, after a dozen +years of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in the +Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the +Circumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British +Order of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and +Stiltstalkings. + +‘It is much to be regretted,’ said Clennam, ‘that you ever turned your +thoughts that way, Mr Doyce.’ + +‘True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? if he +has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, +he must follow where it leads him.’ + +‘Hadn’t he better let it go?’ said Clennam. + +‘He can’t do it,’ said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile. +‘It’s not put into his head to be buried. It’s put into his head to be +made useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you +shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same +terms.’ + +‘That is to say,’ said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet +companion, ‘you are not finally discouraged even now?’ + +‘I have no right to be, if I am,’ returned the other. ‘The thing is as +true as it ever was.’ + +When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to +change the direct point of their conversation and not to change it +too abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business to +relieve him of a portion of its anxieties? + +‘No,’ he returned, ‘not at present. I had when I first entered on it, +and a good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could +not easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought +his share for myself and have gone on by myself ever since. And here’s +another thing,’ he said, stopping for a moment with a good-humoured +laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar +suppleness of thumb, on Clennam’s arm, ‘no inventor can be a man of +business, you know.’ + +‘No?’ said Clennam. + +‘Why, so the men of business say,’ he answered, resuming the walk and +laughing outright. ‘I don’t know why we unfortunate creatures should +be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted +that we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent +friend over yonder,’ said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, ‘extends +a sort of protection to me, don’t you know, as a man not quite able to +take care of himself?’ + +Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he +recognised the truth of the description. + +‘So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not +guilty of any inventions,’ said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass +his hand over his forehead, ‘if it’s only in deference to the current +opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I don’t think he’ll find +that I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them; +but that’s for him to say--whoever he is--not for me.’ + +‘You have not chosen him yet, then?’ + +‘No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. The fact +is, there’s more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough +for me as I grow older. What with the books and correspondence, and +foreign journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can’t do all. I +am going to talk over the best way of negotiating the matter, if I find +a spare half-hour between this and Monday morning, with my--my Nurse and +protector,’ said Doyce, with laughing eyes again. ‘He is a sagacious man +in business, and has had a good apprenticeship to it.’ + +After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at +their journey’s end. A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was +noticeable in Daniel Doyce--a calm knowledge that what was true must +remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and +would be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea +had run dry--which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the +official quality. + +As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that +showed it to the best advantage. It was a charming place (none the worse +for being a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just what +the residence of the Meagles family ought to be. It stood in a garden, +no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year as Pet now was +in the May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome +trees and spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It +was made out of an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether +pulled down, and another part had been changed into the present cottage; +so there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles, +and a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was +even the later addition of a conservatory sheltering itself against it, +uncertain of hue in its deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent +portions flashing to the sun’s rays, now like fire and now like harmless +water drops; which might have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was +the peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates +saying: Young or old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you, +thus runs the current always. Let the heart swell into what discord it +will, thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever +the same tune. Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting of +the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the +rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road +that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are +so capricious and distracted. + +The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to +receive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came +out. Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out. Pet scarcely +had come out, when Tattycoram came out. Never had visitors a more +hospitable reception. + +‘Here we are, you see,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘boxed up, Mr Clennam, within +our own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand--that is, +travel--again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No allonging and marshonging +here!’ + +‘A different kind of beauty, indeed!’ said Clennam, looking about him. + +‘But, Lord bless me!’ cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish, +‘it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn’t it? +Do you know, I have often wished myself back again? We were a capital +party.’ + +This was Mr Meagles’s invariable habit. Always to object to everything +while he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he +was not travelling. + +‘If it was summer-time,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘which I wish it was on your +account, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you +would hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. Being practical +people, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being +practical people too, come about us in myriads. We are delighted to see +you, Clennam (if you’ll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily +assure you, we are delighted.’ + +‘I have not had so pleasant a greeting,’ said Clennam--then he recalled +what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully +added ‘except once--since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the +Mediterranean.’ + +‘Ah!’ returned Mr Meagles. ‘Something like a look out, _that_ was, wasn’t +it? I don’t want a military government, but I shouldn’t mind a little +allonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this neighbourhood +sometimes. It’s Devilish still.’ + +Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a +dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was +just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without, +and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some traces of the +migratory habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames +and furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was easy to see that it +was one of Mr Meagles’s whims to have the cottage always kept, in their +absence, as if they were always coming back the day after to-morrow. Of +articles collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast +miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair. There +were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in +that department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps +Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model villages from +Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from Herculaneum and +Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of +Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish slippers, Tuscan +hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves, Genoese velvets and +filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab +lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite +variety of lumber. There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of +places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the +regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like +Neptune’s, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every +holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in +the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr +Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of +what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, and people +_had_ considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought to +know something of the subject, had declared that ‘Sage, Reading’ (a +specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan’s-down tippet for +a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a +fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for +yourself; if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it? +Titian, that might or might not be--perhaps he had only touched it. +Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn’t touched it, but Mr Meagles rather +declined to overhear the remark. + +When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own +snug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a +dressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of +counter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop +for shovelling out money. + +‘Here they are, you see,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘I stood behind these two +articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of +gadding about than I now think of--staying at home. When I left the Bank +for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me. I mention it +at once, or you might suppose that I sit in my counting-house (as Pet +says I do), like the king in the poem of the four-and-twenty blackbirds, +counting out my money.’ + +Clennam’s eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two +pretty little girls with their arms entwined. ‘Yes, Clennam,’ said +Mr Meagles, in a lower voice. ‘There they both are. It was taken some +seventeen years ago. As I often say to Mother, they were babies then.’ + +‘Their names?’ said Arthur. + +‘Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet’s name is +Minnie; her sister’s Lillie.’ + +‘Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?’ +asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway. + +‘I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both +are still so like you. Indeed,’ said Clennam, glancing from the fair +original to the picture and back, ‘I cannot even now say which is not +your portrait.’ + +‘D’ye hear that, Mother?’ cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had followed +her daughter. ‘It’s always the same, Clennam; nobody can decide. The +child to your left is Pet.’ + +The picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked at +it again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in +passing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away +with an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that changed its +beauty into ugliness. + +‘But come!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘You have had a long walk, and will be glad +to get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he’d never think of +taking _his_ boots off, unless we showed him a boot-jack.’ + +‘Why not?’ asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam. + +‘Oh! You have so many things to think about,’ returned Mr Meagles, +clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to +itself on any account. ‘Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and +screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.’ + +‘In my calling,’ said Daniel, amused, ‘the greater usually includes the +less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me.’ + +Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room +by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest, +affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of +the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the +Circumlocution Office. His curious sense of a general superiority to +Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything +in Doyce’s personal character as on the mere fact of his being an +originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the +idea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour +afterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which +had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at +Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with +it. No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to +fall in love with Pet? + +He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other, +and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at +less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young +in health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old +at forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not +marry, until they had attained that time of life. On the other hand, the +question was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of +it. + +He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for +him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his +good wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only +child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial +of their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to +contemplate. But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the +nearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it. And why +not in his favour, as well as in another’s? + +When he had got so far, it came again into his head that the question +was, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of it. + +Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; +and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and +depressed his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes +began to fail him. He came to the final resolution, as he made himself +ready for dinner, that he would not allow himself to fall in love with +Pet. + +There were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant indeed. +They had so many places and people to recall, and they were all so easy +and cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting out like an amused +spectator at cards, or coming in with some shrewd little experiences of +his own, when it happened to be to the purpose), that they might have +been together twenty times, and not have known so much of one another. + +‘And Miss Wade,’ said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number of +fellow-travellers. ‘Has anybody seen Miss Wade?’ + +‘I have,’ said Tattycoram. + +She had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent for, +and was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her dark +eyes and made this unexpected answer. + +‘Tatty!’ her young mistress exclaimed. ‘You seen Miss Wade?--where?’ + +‘Here, miss,’ said Tattycoram. + +‘How?’ + +An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to answer +‘With my eyes!’ But her only answer in words was: ‘I met her near the +church.’ + +‘What was she doing there I wonder!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Not going to it, +I should think.’ + +‘She had written to me first,’ said Tattycoram. + +‘Oh, Tatty!’ murmured her mistress, ‘take your hands away. I feel as if +some one else was touching me!’ + +She said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not more +petulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have done, who +laughed next moment. Tattycoram set her full red lips together, and +crossed her arms upon her bosom. + +‘Did you wish to know, sir,’ she said, looking at Mr Meagles, ‘what Miss +Wade wrote to me about?’ + +‘Well, Tattycoram,’ returned Mr Meagles, ‘since you ask the question, +and we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you +are so inclined.’ + +‘She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived,’ said Tattycoram, +‘and she had seen me not quite--not quite--’ + +‘Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?’ suggested Mr Meagles, +shaking his head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution. ‘Take a little +time--count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ + +She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath. + +‘So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,’ she looked +down at her young mistress, ‘or found myself worried,’ she looked down +at her again, ‘I might go to her, and be considerately treated. I was +to think of it, and could speak to her by the church. So I went there to +thank her.’ + +‘Tatty,’ said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder +that the other might take it, ‘Miss Wade almost frightened me when we +parted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as having been so +near me without my knowing it. Tatty dear!’ + +Tatty stood for a moment, immovable. + +‘Hey?’ cried Mr Meagles. ‘Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ + +She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lips to the +caressing hand. It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner’s beautiful +curls, and Tattycoram went away. + +‘Now there,’ said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the +dumb-waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards himself. +‘There’s a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn’t among +practical people. Mother and I know, solely from being practical, that +there are times when that girl’s whole nature seems to roughen itself +against seeing us so bound up in Pet. No father and mother were bound +up in her, poor soul. I don’t like to think of the way in which that +unfortunate child, with all that passion and protest in her, feels when +she hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday. I am always inclined to +call out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ + +Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb waiters in +the persons of two parlour-maids with rosy faces and bright eyes, who +were a highly ornamental part of the table decoration. ‘And why not, you +see?’ said Mr Meagles on this head. ‘As I always say to Mother, why +not have something pretty to look at, if you have anything at all?’ + +A certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family were +at home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, completed the +establishment. Mr Meagles regretted that the nature of the duties in +which she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit unpresentable at present, +but hoped to introduce her to the new visitor to-morrow. She was an +important part of the Cottage, he said, and all his friends knew her. +That was her picture up in the corner. When they went away, she always +put on the silk-gown and the jet-black row of curls represented in that +portrait (her hair was reddish-grey in the kitchen), established herself +in the breakfast-room, put her spectacles between two particular leaves +of Doctor Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind all +day until they came back again. It was supposed that no persuasion could +be invented which would induce Mrs Tickit to abandon her post at the +blind, however long their absence, or to dispense with the attendance +of Dr Buchan; the lucubrations of which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles +implicitly believed she had never yet consulted to the extent of one +word in her life. + +In the evening they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat looking +over her father’s hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at the +piano. She was a spoilt child; but how could she be otherwise? Who could +be much with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not yield to her +endearing influence? Who could pass an evening in the house, and not +love her for the grace and charm of her very presence in the room? This +was Clennam’s reflection, notwithstanding the final conclusion at which +he had arrived up-stairs. + +In making it, he revoked. ‘Why, what are you thinking of, my good sir?’ +asked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner. ‘I beg your +pardon. Nothing,’ returned Clennam. ‘Think of something, next time; +that’s a dear fellow,’ said Mr Meagles. Pet laughingly believed he had +been thinking of Miss Wade. ‘Why of Miss Wade, Pet?’ asked her father. +‘Why, indeed!’ said Arthur Clennam. Pet coloured a little, and went to +the piano again. + +As they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host if +he could give him half an hour’s conversation before breakfast in the +morning? The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered behind a moment, +having his own word to add to that topic. + +‘Mr Meagles,’ he said, on their being left alone, ‘do you remember when +you advised me to go straight to London?’ + +‘Perfectly well.’ + +‘And when you gave me some other good advice which I needed at that +time?’ + +‘I won’t say what it was worth,’ answered Mr Meagles: ‘but of course I +remember our being very pleasant and confidential together.’ + +‘I have acted on your advice; and having disembarrassed myself of an +occupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to devote +myself and what means I have, to another pursuit.’ + +‘Right! You can’t do it too soon,’ said Mr Meagles. + +‘Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is +looking for a partner in his business--not a partner in his mechanical +knowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the business arising +from it to the best account.’ + +‘Just so,’ said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with the +old business expression of face that had belonged to the scales and +scoop. + +‘Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our conversation, +that he was going to take your valuable advice on the subject of finding +such a partner. If you should think our views and opportunities at all +likely to coincide, perhaps you will let him know my available position. +I speak, of course, in ignorance of the details, and they may be +unsuitable on both sides.’ + +‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Mr Meagles, with the caution belonging to the +scales and scoop. + +‘But they will be a question of figures and accounts--’ + +‘Just so, just so,’ said Mr Meagles, with arithmetical solidity +belonging to the scales and scoop. + +‘--And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce +responds, and you think well of it. If you will at present, therefore, +allow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige me.’ + +‘Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘And +without anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of business, +have of course reserved, I am free to say to you that I think something +may come of this. Of one thing you may be perfectly certain. Daniel is +an honest man.’ + +‘I am so sure of it that I have promptly made up my mind to speak to +you.’ + +‘You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct him; +he is one of a crotchety sort,’ said Mr Meagles, evidently meaning +nothing more than that he did new things and went new ways; ‘but he is +as honest as the sun, and so good night!’ + +Clennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and made +up his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love with +Pet. She was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive any true +impression given to her gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make +the man who should be so happy as to communicate it, the most fortunate +and enviable of all men, that he was very glad indeed he had come to +that conclusion. + +But, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite +conclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his mind; to +justify himself, perhaps. + +‘Suppose that a man,’ so his thoughts ran, ‘who had been of age some +twenty years or so; who was a diffident man, from the circumstances of +his youth; who was rather a grave man, from the tenor of his life; who +knew himself to be deficient in many little engaging qualities which +he admired in others, from having been long in a distant region, with +nothing softening near him; who had no kind sisters to present to her; +who had no congenial home to make her known in; who was a stranger in +the land; who had not a fortune to compensate, in any measure, for +these defects; who had nothing in his favour but his honest love and his +general wish to do right--suppose such a man were to come to this house, +and were to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to +persuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it would +be!’ + +He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. Year +after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so +many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the +lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet. + +Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he +had imagined. It was nobody’s, nobody’s within his knowledge; why should +it trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought--who has not +thought for a moment, sometimes?--that it might be better to flow away +monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to +happiness with its insensibility to pain. + + + + +CHAPTER 17. Nobody’s Rival + + +Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him. +As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the +river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows. +When he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the +opposite side, and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over. + +This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly +and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As +Arthur came over the stile and down to the water’s edge, the lounger +glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly +tossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his +way of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them +into the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty +in it. Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar +impression from a man’s manner of doing some very little thing: plucking +a flower, clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient +object. + +The gentleman’s thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he +took no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively, +and watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the +river on receiving his master’s sign. The ferry-boat came over, however, +without his receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him +by the collar and walked him into it. + +‘Not this morning,’ he said to the dog. ‘You won’t do for ladies’ +company, dripping wet. Lie down.’ + +Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat. +The dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, with his hands +in his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect. Man and +dog both jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and +went away. Clennam was glad to be rid of them. + +The church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the little +lane by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he pulled the +bell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall. + +‘I heard no dog last night,’ thought Clennam. The gate was opened by +one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the +man. + +‘Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,’ said the blushing portress, as +they all came together in the garden. Then she said to the master of the +dog, ‘Mr Clennam, sir,’ and tripped away. + +‘Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now,’ said +the man. Upon which the dog became mute. ‘Allow me to introduce +myself--Henry Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well +this morning!’ + +The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought, +that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love +with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan. + +‘It’s new to you, I believe?’ said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled +the place. + +‘Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.’ + +‘Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look charming in +the spring, before they went away last time. I should like you to have +seen it then.’ + +But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him +in the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility. + +‘I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during +the last three years, and it’s--a Paradise.’ + +It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise +resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only +called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her +out within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him! + +And ah! how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed the dog, +and how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened colour in her +face, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute +happiness! When had Clennam seen her look like this? Not that there was +any reason why he might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look +like this, or that he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like +this; but still--when had he ever known her do it! + +He stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan when he had talked +about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. The dog had put +his great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom. She +had laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far, +far, too much--that is to say, supposing there had been any third person +looking on who loved her. + +She disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand in his +and wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she would take +his arm and be escorted into the house. To this Gowan had no objection. +No, he knew he was too safe. + +There was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles’s good-humoured face when they +all three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most objectionable +but one of the party) came in to breakfast. Neither it, nor the touch +of uneasiness on Mrs Meagles as she directed her eyes towards it, was +unobserved by Clennam. + +‘Well, Gowan,’ said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; ‘how goes the +world with you this morning?’ + +‘Much as usual, sir. Lion and I being determined not to waste anything +of our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from Kingston, my +present headquarters, where I am making a sketch or two.’ Then he told +how he had met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and they had come over together. + +‘Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?’ said Mrs Meagles. (Clennam became +attentive.) + +‘My mother is quite well, thank you.’ (Clennam became inattentive.) ‘I +have taken the liberty of making an addition to your family dinner-party +to-day, which I hope will not be inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles. I +couldn’t very well get out of it,’ he explained, turning to the latter. +‘The young fellow wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well +connected, I thought you would not object to my transferring him here.’ + +‘Who _is_ the young fellow?’ asked Mr Meagles with peculiar complacency. + +‘He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle’s son, Clarence Barnacle, who +is in his father’s Department. I can at least guarantee that the river +shall not suffer from his visit. He won’t set it on fire.’ + +‘Aye, aye?’ said Meagles. ‘A Barnacle is he? _We_ know something of that +family, eh, Dan? By George, they are at the top of the tree, though! Let +me see. What relation will this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now? His +Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who +was the second daughter by the third marriage--no! There I am wrong! +That was Lady Seraphina--Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the +second marriage of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with the +Honourable Clementina Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow’s +father married a Stiltstalking and _his_ father married his cousin who +was a Barnacle. The father of that father who married a Barnacle, +married a Joddleby.--I am getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want +to make out what relation this young fellow is to Lord Decimus.’ + +‘That’s easily stated. His father is nephew to Lord Decimus.’ + +‘Nephew--to--Lord--Decimus,’ Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with his +eyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the full +flavour of the genealogical tree. ‘By George, you are right, Gowan. So +he is.’ + +‘Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle.’ + +‘But stop a bit!’ said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh +discovery. ‘Then on the mother’s side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great +aunt.’ + +‘Of course she is.’ + +‘Aye, aye, aye?’ said Mr Meagles with much interest. ‘Indeed, indeed? We +shall be glad to see him. We’ll entertain him as well as we can, in our +humble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope, at all events.’ + +In the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great +harmless outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him burst +out of the Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the collar. But his +good friend had a weakness which none of us need go into the next street +to find, and which no amount of Circumlocution experience could long +subdue in him. Clennam looked at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it +beforehand, and looked at his plate, and made no sign, and said no word. + +‘I am much obliged to you,’ said Gowan, to conclude the subject. +‘Clarence is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best fellows +that ever lived!’ + +It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this +Gowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a +knave; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most engaging, +the simplest, truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived. +The process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the +premises, might have been stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: ‘I claim to be +always book-keeping, with a peculiar nicety, in every man’s case, and +posting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him. I do +this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most +worthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition +to make the gratifying report, that there is much less difference than +you are inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel.’ The +effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed +to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower +it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was its only +disagreeable or dangerous feature. + +It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction +as the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam had never +seen upon his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again; +and there was the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely +face of his wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, +it appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; +and, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of +the dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw +tears rise to Mr Meagles’s eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was +either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not +insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more +delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much +she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the +rest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and +took his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in +the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in +her father’s room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest +tenderness, and weeping on her father’s shoulder. + +The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the +house, look over Mr Meagles’s collection, and beguile the time with +conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it +in an off-hand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an artist by +profession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight, +careless, amateur way with him--a perceptible limp, both in his devotion +to art and his attainments--which Clennam could scarcely understand. + +He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out +of window. + +‘You know Mr Gowan?’ he said in a low voice. + +‘I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at home.’ + +‘An artist, I infer from what he says?’ + +‘A sort of a one,’ said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone. + +‘What sort of a one?’ asked Clennam, with a smile. + +‘Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace,’ +said Doyce, ‘and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly.’ + +Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very +distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan, +originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a +Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at +his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the +last extremity. In consideration of this eminent public service, the +Barnacle then in power had recommended the Crown to bestow a pension of +two or three hundred a-year on his widow; to which the next Barnacle in +power had added certain shady and sedate apartments in the Palaces at +Hampton Court, where the old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy +of the times in company with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her +son, Mr Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that +very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been +difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to +be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that +exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the +cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would become +a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, +and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not +provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, that +several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that +portfolios of his performances had been handed about o’ nights, and +declared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect +phaenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had +asked the President and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with +his own magnificent gravity, ‘Do you know, there appears to me to +be really immense merit in that work?’ and, in short, that people of +condition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, +somehow, it had all failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against +it obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus’s +picture. They had determined to believe that in every service, except +their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and late, and +by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr Gowan, like that +worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet’s nor anybody else’s, hung +midway between two points: jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had +left: jaundiced and jealous as to the other that he couldn’t reach. + +Such was the substance of Clennam’s discoveries concerning him, made +that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards. + +About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, attended +by his eye-glass; in honour of whose family connections, Mr Meagles had +cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and had placed on duty +in their stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle was in the last +degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured +involuntarily, ‘Look here! upon my soul, you know!’ before his presence +of mind returned. + +Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking +his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of +his general debility: + +‘I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that fellow?’ + +‘A friend of our host’s. None of mine.’ + +‘He’s a most ferocious Radical, you know,’ said Young Barnacle. + +‘Is he? How do you know?’ + +‘Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the most +tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to +that extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came back to +our Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw such a +fellow.’ + +‘What did he want?’ + +‘Ecod, sir,’ returned Young Barnacle, ‘he said he wanted to know, you +know! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and said he +wanted to know!’ + +The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied +this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for +the opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely +solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct +Mrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs Meagles’s right +hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his whole family were there. + +All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of the +dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, overdone--and +all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. Conversationless at +any time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion, +and solely referable to Clennam. He was under a pressing and continual +necessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass +to get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles’s plate, to +hang down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully +restored to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his +frequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to stick +in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he +looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eyes, +forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture of the +dinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly increased his +difficulties, but never released him from the necessity of looking at +Clennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this ill-starred young man was +clearly seized with a dread that he was coming, by some artful device, +round to that point of wanting to know, you know. + +It may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had much +enjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly enjoyed Young +Barnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the tale became a full +fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles seemed to feel that this +small spice of Barnacle imparted to his table the flavour of the whole +family-tree. In its presence, his frank, fine, genuine qualities +paled; he was not so easy, he was not so natural, he was striving after +something that did not belong to him, he was not himself. What a strange +peculiarity on the part of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another +such case! + +At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young +Barnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable Gowan +went away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet had taken +the most amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clennam, but Clennam +had been a little reserved since breakfast--that is to say, would have +been, if he had loved her. + +When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into the +chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, to +ask him how and at what hour he proposed returning on the morrow? After +settling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce about this Gowan--who +would have run in his head a good deal, if he had been his rival. + +‘Those are not good prospects for a painter,’ said Clennam. + +‘No,’ returned Doyce. + +Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his +pocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain quiet +perception in his face that they were going to say something more. + +‘I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits, after +he came this morning?’ said Clennam. + +‘Yes,’ returned Doyce. + +‘But not his daughter?’ said Clennam. + +‘No,’ said Doyce. + +There was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the flame of +his candle, slowly resumed: + +‘The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope of +separating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed to like +him, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as I dare say +you do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.’ + +‘There--’ Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped. + +‘Yes, you have taken cold,’ said Daniel Doyce. But without looking at +him. + +‘--There is an engagement between them, of course?’ said Clennam airily. + +‘No. As I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the +gentleman’s part, but none has been made. Since their recent return, +our friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the utmost. Minnie +would not deceive her father and mother. You have travelled with them, +and I believe you know what a bond there is among them, extending even +beyond this present life. All that there is between Miss Minnie and Mr +Gowan, I have no doubt we see.’ + +‘Ah! We see enough!’ cried Arthur. + +Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard a +mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse +some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had +been uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of +a crotchety band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind, +without Clennam’s hearing it too? + +The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and +dripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the trees. The +rain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears. + +If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he +had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded +himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his +hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if +he had done this and found that all was lost; he would have been, +that night, unutterably miserable. As it was-- + +As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily. + + + + +CHAPTER 18. Little Dorrit’s Lover + + +Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without +finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer +shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and +winged a Collegian or two. + +Little Dorrit’s lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the +sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time, +to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his +early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an +ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family. While the succession +was yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug +tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being +a non-resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection +within the College walls. + +Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her +little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name, +Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder. +When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to +counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting +her out for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the +keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down +his father’s dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side +thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her +through that airy perspective. + +If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable +days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and +is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up +again and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk +on that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of +her birthday, ‘Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!’ At twenty-three, +the same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of +the Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul. + +Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak +light hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through +the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if +it couldn’t collect itself. Young John was gentle likewise. But he was +great of soul. Poetical, expansive, faithful. + +Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young +John had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and +shades. Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without +self-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, and they were +united. She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. There +was a fitness in that. Say he became a resident turnkey. She would +officially succeed to the chamber she had rented so long. There was a +beautiful propriety in that. It looked over the wall, if you stood on +tip-toe; and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, +would become a very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then, +being all in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in +the lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would +be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them by +hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying with them +on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the +Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of time, in pastoral +domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the +picture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close against the +prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: ‘Sacred to +the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years +Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life, +universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand +eight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly +beloved and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who +survived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last +in the Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There +she died.’ + +The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son’s attachment--indeed +it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind +that had impelled him to conduct himself with irascibility towards the +customers, and damage the business--but they, in their turns, had worked +it out to desirable conclusions. Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had +desired her husband to take notice that their John’s prospects of the +Lock would certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, +who had herself a kind of claim upon the College and was much respected +there. Mrs Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on +the one hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other +hand, Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery’s) sentiment +was, that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and +not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, desired +her husband to recollect that their John had never been strong, and +that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it was, without +his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody couldn’t say +he wouldn’t be if he was crossed. These arguments had so powerfully +influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he +had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed ‘a lucky +touch,’ signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good +Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and +becoming triumphant. But Young John had never taken courage to make +the declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had +returned excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers. + +In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last +person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained +a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably +ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the +family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the +prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and +his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and +loftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by +the scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some +gentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These +were not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account. +No, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about +the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low. But he +took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes +even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor (who was +proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in his society. +With no less readiness and condescension did he receive attentions from +Chivery Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair and newspaper to +him, when he came into the Lodge during one of his spells of duty; and +who had even mentioned to him, that, if he would like at any time after +dusk quietly to step out into the fore-court and take a look at the +street, there was not much to prevent him. If he did not avail himself +of this latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for +it; inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at +times, ‘Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and very +respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate perception +of one’s position here. A very well conducted family indeed, the +Chiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me.’ + +The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence. +He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the +miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to resenting any affront from _her_ +brother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most +pacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against +that sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that +his noble mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not +incompatible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate +that gallant soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of +a fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply +honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young +lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was +an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit’s worth and difference from +all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for +being simply what she was. + +The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried +out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of +the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the advantage of a +retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business +was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it +maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like +a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt. + +From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of +baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not +empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in +a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his +figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a +chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of +lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with +side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of +state very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that +in addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid +gloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory +hand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in +this heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to +Mr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew which +way the wind blew. + +The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that +Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of +receiving presentations. After making the tour of the yard, Little +Dorrit’s lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, and knocked with his +knuckles at the Father’s door. + +‘Come in, come in!’ said a gracious voice. The Father’s voice, her +father’s, the Marshalsea’s father’s. He was seated in his black velvet +cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the +table, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared for holding his +Court. + +‘Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!’ + +‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.’ + +‘Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.’ + +‘I have taken the liberty, sir, of--’ + +‘Eh?’ The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows at this +point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind. + +‘--A few cigars, sir.’ + +‘Oh!’ (For the moment, excessively surprised.) ‘Thank you, Young John, +thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too--No? Well then, I will say +no more about it. Put them on the mantelshelf, if you please, Young +John. And sit down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, I am sure--Miss;’ here Young John turned the great hat +round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly twirling mouse-cage; +‘Miss Amy quite well, sir?’ + +‘Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.’ + +‘Indeed, sir?’ + +‘Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all go out a +good deal. But at their time of life, it’s natural, John.’ + +‘Very much so, I am sure, sir.’ + +‘An airing. An airing. Yes.’ He was blandly tapping his fingers on +the table, and casting his eyes up at the window. ‘Amy has gone for +an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to the Iron +Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere.’ +He returned to conversation. ‘Your father is not on duty at present, I +think, John?’ + +‘No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.’ Another twirl of the +great hat, and then Young John said, rising, ‘I am afraid I must wish +you good day, sir.’ + +‘So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,’ with the utmost +condescension, ‘never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You +are no stranger here, you know.’ + +Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended +the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up +visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call +over the banisters with particular distinctness, ‘Much obliged to you +for your little testimonial, John!’ + +Little Dorrit’s lover very soon laid down his penny on the tollplate of +the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known +and well-beloved figure. At first he feared she was not there; but as he +walked on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking +at the water. She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what +she might be thinking about. There were the piles of city roofs and +chimneys, more free from smoke than on week-days; and there were the +distant masts and steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about them. + +Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that +although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and +twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still +she did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem +to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to her. The place was +quiet, and now or never was the time to speak to her. + +He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was +close upon her. When he said ‘Miss Dorrit!’ she started and fell back +from him, with an expression in her face of fright and something like +dislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had often avoided him +before--always, indeed, for a long, long while. She had turned away and +glided off so often when she had seen him coming toward her, that the +unfortunate Young John could not think it accidental. But he had hoped +that it might be shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of +the state of his heart, anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary +look had said, ‘You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on +earth than you!’ + +It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said in her +soft little voice, ‘Oh, Mr John! Is it you?’ But she felt what it had +been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another +equally confused. + +‘Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.’ + +‘Yes, rather. I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.’ + +‘Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit +chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you--’ + +She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, ‘O father, +father!’ in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away. + +‘Miss Amy, I hope I don’t give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit. +I assure you I found him very well and in the best of Spirits, and he +showed me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to +say that I was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very +much.’ + +To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her +hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood as if she +were in pain, murmured, ‘O father, how can you! O dear, dear father, how +can you, can you, do it!’ + +The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not +knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief +and put it to her still averted face, she hurried away. At first he +remained stock still; then hurried after her. + +‘Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment? Miss Amy, +if it comes to that, let _me_ go. I shall go out of my senses, if I have +to think that I have driven you away like this.’ + +His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to +a stop. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do,’ she cried, ‘I don’t know what to +do!’ + +To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command, +who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed, +there was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself +with it as its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the +pavement. He felt it necessary to explain himself. He might be +misunderstood--supposed to mean something, or to have done something, +that had never entered into his imagination. He begged her to hear him +explain himself, as the greatest favour she could show him. + +‘Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It were +vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever +I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false +representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very well +that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn +me from a height. What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be +admitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they +are placed from my lowlier station--for, whether viewed as tobacco or +viewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly--and ever wish them well and +happy.’ + +There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast +between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit, +perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little Dorrit entreated him +to disparage neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to +divest himself of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior. This +gave him a little comfort. + +‘Miss Amy,’ he then stammered, ‘I have had for a long time--ages they +seem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say something to +you. May I say it?’ + +Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the +faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at +great speed half across the Bridge without replying! + +‘May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it? I have +been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any such +intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of my saying +it unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up +by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut up one that I would +fling myself off that parapet to give half a moment’s joy to! Not that +that’s much to do, for I’d do it for twopence.’ + +The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance, +might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him +respectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do. + +‘If you please, John Chivery,’ she returned, trembling, but in a quiet +way, ‘since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say +any more--if you please, no.’ + +‘Never, Miss Amy?’ + +‘No, if you please. Never.’ + +‘O Lord!’ gasped Young John. + +‘But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want +to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to +express. When you think of us, John--I mean my brother, and sister, +and me--don’t think of us as being any different from the rest; for, +whatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago, +and never can be any more. It will be much better for you, and much +better for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing +now.’ + +Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and +would be heartily glad to do anything she wished. + +‘As to me,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘think as little of me as you can; the +less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as +the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties +always occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, unprotected girl. I +particularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate, I +am unprotected and solitary.’ + +He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so much +want him to remember that? + +‘Because,’ returned Little Dorrit, ‘I know I can then quite trust you +not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are so generous +that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and I always will. I +am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust you. I like this place +where we are speaking better than any place I know;’ her slight colour +had faded, but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; ‘and I +may be often here. I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to +be quite sure that you will never come here again in search of me. And I +am--quite sure!’ + +She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable wretch, but +her word was more than a law for him. + +‘And good-bye, John,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘And I hope you will have a +good wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will deserve to be +happy, and you will be, John.’ + +As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was +under the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth must be +known--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor +common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst into tears. + +‘Oh, don’t cry,’ said Little Dorrit piteously. ‘Don’t, don’t! Good-bye, +John. God bless you!’ + +‘Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!’ + +And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a +seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid +her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were +sad. + +It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, +to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet +collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned +to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little +direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst +back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription +for a tombstone in St George’s Churchyard: + +‘Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth +mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight +hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last +breath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which was +accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations + + +The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the +College-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father +made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children +on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other +occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual, +and at which times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants, +and blessed those young insolvents with a benignity that was highly +edifying--the brothers, walking up and down the College-yard together, +were a memorable sight. Frederick the free, was so humbled, bowed, +withered, and faded; William the bond, was so courtly, condescending, +and benevolently conscious of a position; that in this regard only, if +in no other, the brothers were a spectacle to wonder at. + +They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit’s +Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of state +were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several +new presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally +left on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and +the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As +he walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of +his brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor +creature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities +in every little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to +get over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at. + +His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and +groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage +as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had +got lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whitey-brown paper in his +hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff. +That falteringly taken, he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly, +put his hands behind him, and shuffle on so at his side until he took +another pinch, or stood still to look about him--perchance suddenly +missing his clarionet. + +The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on, +but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out, +seeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the yard, +William the bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by +graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented +Frederick the free from running against the company, or being jostled +against the wall. The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible, +but even they, according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to +find in the two brothers a sight to wonder at. + +‘You are a little low this evening, Frederick,’ said the Father of the +Marshalsea. ‘Anything the matter?’ + +‘The matter?’ He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes +again. ‘No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.’ + +‘If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick--’ + +‘Aye, aye!’ said the old man hurriedly. ‘But I can’t be. I can’t be. +Don’t talk so. That’s all over.’ + +The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he +was on friendly terms, as who should say, ‘An enfeebled old man, this; +but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is +potent!’ and steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the +threadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of +his character as a fraternal guide, philosopher and friend, if he had +only steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him. + +‘I think, William,’ said the object of his affectionate consideration, +‘that I am tired, and will go home to bed.’ + +‘My dear Frederick,’ returned the other, ‘don’t let me detain you; don’t +sacrifice your inclination to me.’ + +‘Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,’ said +Frederick, ‘weaken me.’ + +‘My dear Frederick,’ returned the Father of the Marshalsea, ‘do you +think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits +are as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are? Not to revert +again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if +you take air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always +at your service. Why not use it more regularly than you do?’ + +‘Hah!’ sighed the other. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ + +‘But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,’ the Father +of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, ‘unless you act on that +assent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of example. Necessity +and time have taught me what to do. At certain stated hours of the day, +you will find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the +paper, receiving company, eating and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy +during many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually. +Amy has grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and +you know what a good girl she is.’ + +The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, ‘Hah! Yes, +yes, yes, yes.’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand +upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him--mildly, because of his +weakness, poor dear soul; ‘you said that before, and it does not express +much, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could rouse you, my +good Frederick; you want to be roused.’ + +‘Yes, William, yes. No doubt,’ returned the other, lifting his dim eyes +to his face. ‘But I am not like you.’ + +The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest +self-depreciation, ‘Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; +you might be, if you chose!’ and forbore, in the magnanimity of his +strength, to press his fallen brother further. + +There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual +on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife +or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time had been when the +Father himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own +poor wife had wept. But it was many years ago; and now he was like +a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from +sea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness in the fresher +passengers taken aboard at the last port. He was inclined to +remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who couldn’t get on +without crying, had no business there. In manner, if not in words, he +always testified his displeasure at these interruptions of the general +harmony; and it was so well understood, that delinquents usually +withdrew if they were aware of him. + +On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with an +air of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and graciously +disposed to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight of the Lodge, +several Collegians were basking; some taking leave of visitors, and +some who had no visitors, watching the frequent turning of the key, and +conversing with one another and with Mr Chivery. The paternal entrance +made a sensation of course; and Mr Chivery, touching his hat (in a short +manner though) with his key, hoped he found himself tolerable. + +‘Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?’ + +Mr Chivery said in a low growl, ‘Oh! _he_ was all right.’ Which was his +general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a little +sullen. + +‘I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery. And very smart he +looked, I assure you.’ + +So Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that his wish +was that the boy didn’t lay out so much money upon it. For what did it +bring him in? It only brought him in wexation. And he could get that +anywhere for nothing. + +‘How vexation, Chivery?’ asked the benignant father. + +‘No odds,’ returned Mr Chivery. ‘Never mind. Mr Frederick going out?’ + +‘Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and +not quite well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my dear +Frederick!’ + +Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the +company in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door which +Mr Chivery unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea showed the +amiable solicitude of a superior being that he should come to no harm. + +‘Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may see +him go along the passage and down the steps. Take care, Frederick! (He +is very infirm.) Mind the steps! (He is so very absent.) Be careful +how you cross, Frederick. (I really don’t like the notion of his going +wandering at large, he is so extremely liable to be run over.)’ + +With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts and +much anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the assembled +company in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his brother was to be +pitied for not being under lock and key, that an opinion to that effect +went round among the Collegians assembled. + +But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, he +said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His brother +Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more comfortable to +himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that he was safe within +the walls. Still, it must be remembered that to support an existence +there during many years, required a certain combination of qualities--he +did not say high qualities, but qualities--moral qualities. Now, had his +brother Frederick that peculiar union of qualities? Gentlemen, he was a +most excellent man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the +simplicity of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other +places, do for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said, +Heaven forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character +than in his present voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to +that College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength of +character to go through a good deal and to come out of a good deal. Was +his beloved brother Frederick that man? No. They saw him, even as it +was, crushed. Misfortune crushed him. He had not power of recoil enough, +not elasticity enough, to be a long time in such a place, and yet +preserve his self-respect and feel conscious that he was a gentleman. +Frederick had not (if he might use the expression) Power enough to see +in any delicate little attentions and--and--Testimonials that he might +under such circumstances receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine +spirit animating the Collegians as a community, and at the same time +no degradation to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a +gentleman. Gentlemen, God bless you! + +Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion to +the company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard again, +and going with his own poor shabby dignity past the Collegian in the +dressing-gown who had no coat, and past the Collegian in the sea-side +slippers who had no shoes, and past the stout greengrocer Collegian in +the corduroy knee-breeches who had no cares, and past the lean clerk +Collegian in buttonless black who had no hopes, up his own poor shabby +staircase to his own poor shabby room. + +There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was +ready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her +little prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on all +prisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him. + +Uncle had gone home, then? she asked him, as she changed his coat and +gave him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her father +enjoyed his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No! Did he not feel +quite well? + +As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked +with downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over him that was +like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in +an unconnected and embarrassed manner. + +‘Something, I--hem!--I don’t know what, has gone wrong with Chivery. +He is not--ha!--not nearly so obliging and attentive as usual to-night. +It--hem!--it’s a little thing, but it puts me out, my love. It’s +impossible to forget,’ turning his hands over and over and looking +closely at them, ‘that--hem!--that in such a life as mine, I am +unfortunately dependent on these men for something every hour in the +day.’ + +Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while he +spoke. Bending her head she looked another way. + +‘I--hem!--I can’t think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He is +generally so--so very attentive and respectful. And to-night he was +quite--quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good Heaven! +if I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery and his brother +officers, I might starve to death here.’ While he spoke, he was opening +and shutting his hands like valves; so conscious all the time of that +touch of shame, that he shrunk before his own knowledge of his meaning. + +‘I--ha!--I can’t think what it’s owing to. I am sure I cannot imagine +what the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here once, a +turnkey of the name of Jackson (I don’t think you can remember him, +my dear, you were very young), and--hem!--and he had a--brother, and +this--young brother paid his addresses to--at least, did not go so far +as to pay his addresses to--but admired--respectfully admired--the--not +daughter, the sister--of one of us; a rather distinguished Collegian; I +may say, very much so. His name was Captain Martin; and he +consulted me on the question whether it was necessary that his +daughter--sister--should hazard offending the turnkey brother by +being too--ha!--too plain with the other brother. Captain Martin was +a gentleman and a man of honour, and I put it to him first to give me +his--his own opinion. Captain Martin (highly respected in the army) then +unhesitatingly said that it appeared to him that his--hem!--sister was +not called upon to understand the young man too distinctly, and that +she might lead him on--I am doubtful whether “lead him on” was Captain +Martin’s exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him--on her +father’s--I should say, brother’s--account. I hardly know how I have +strayed into this story. I suppose it has been through being unable to +account for Chivery; but as to the connection between the two, I don’t +see--’ + +His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing him, +and her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little while there +was a dead silence and stillness; and he remained shrunk in his chair, +and she remained with her arm round his neck and her head bowed down +upon his shoulder. + +His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she moved, +it was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his usual seat, +she took hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as yet, look at one +another. By little and little he began; laying down his knife and fork +with a noise, taking things up sharply, biting at his bread as if he +were offended with it, and in other similar ways showing that he was out +of sorts. At length he pushed his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with +the strangest inconsistency. + +‘What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter +whether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next week, or +next year? What am I worth to anyone? A poor prisoner, fed on alms and +broken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!’ + +‘Father, father!’ As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held up +her hands to him. + +‘Amy,’ he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and +looking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad. ‘I tell you, if you +could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn’t believe it to be the +creature you have only looked at through the bars of this cage. I was +young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was independent--by God +I was, child!--and people sought me out, and envied me. Envied me!’ + +‘Dear father!’ She tried to take down the shaking arm that he flourished +in the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away. + +‘If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever so +ill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it. But I have +no such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,’ he cried, looking +haggardly about, ‘fail to preserve at least that little of the times of +his prosperity and respect. Let his children have that clue to what he +was. Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed +look--they say such things happen, I don’t know--my children will have +never seen me.’ + +‘Father, father!’ + +‘O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don’t listen to me, stop +me, blush for me, cry for me--even you, Amy! Do it, do it! I do it to +myself! I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care long even for +that.’ + +‘Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!’ She was clinging to +him with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, and +caught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck. + +‘Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father! Only +think of me, father, for one little moment!’ + +Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually breaking +down into a miserable whining. + +‘And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against it. I +am not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief person in the +place. They’ll tell you it’s your father. Go out and ask who is never +trifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy. They’ll say, +your father. Go out and ask what funeral here (it must be here, I know +it can be nowhere else) will make more talk, and perhaps more grief, +than any that has ever gone out at the gate. They’ll say your father’s. +Well then. Amy! Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there +nothing to redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by but his +ruin and decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he is +gone, poor castaway, gone?’ + +He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length suffering +her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey head rest +against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. Presently he changed +the subject of his lamentations, and clasping his hands about her as she +embraced him, cried, O Amy, his motherless, forlorn child! O the days +that he had seen her careful and laborious for him! Then he reverted to +himself, and weakly told her how much better she would have loved him +if she had known him in his vanished character, and how he would have +married her to a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his +daughter, and how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden +at his fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he +meant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings +he then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads +respectfully. + +Thus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with the +jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of +his soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his affectionate child. +No one else ever beheld him in the details of his humiliation. Little +recked the Collegians who were laughing in their rooms over his late +address in the Lodge, what a serious picture they had in their obscure +gallery of the Marshalsea that Sunday night. + +There was a classical daughter once--perhaps--who ministered to her +father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little Dorrit, +though of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did much more, +in comforting her father’s wasted heart upon her innocent breast, and +turning to it a fountain of love and fidelity that never ran dry or +waned through all his years of famine. + +She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or +seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she +could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the +whole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, and he sobbed +in his weakness no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and +had recovered his usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his supper +afresh, and, sitting by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For +now he sat in his black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; +and would have comported himself towards any Collegian who might have +looked in to ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or +Master of the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea. + +To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his wardrobe; +when he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those shirts she proposed +would be exceedingly acceptable, for those he had were worn out, and, +being ready-made, had never fitted him. Being conversational, and in a +reasonable flow of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat +as it hung behind the door: remarking that the Father of the place +would set an indifferent example to his children, already disposed to be +slovenly, if he went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, +as to the heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his +cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should buy +him a new one. + +While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put the +small room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to the +advanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to bless her +and wish her Good night. All this time he had never once thought of _her_ +dress, her shoes, her need of anything. No other person upon earth, save +herself, could have been so unmindful of her wants. + +He kissed her many times with ‘Bless you, my love. Good night, my dear!’ + +But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of +him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament +and despair again. ‘Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back +presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.’ + +He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary? + +‘Yes, father.’ + +‘Then come back by all means, my love.’ + +‘I shall be very quiet, father.’ + +‘Don’t think of me, my dear,’ he said, giving her his kind permission +fully. ‘Come back by all means.’ + +He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire +together very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard her, +and called out who was that? + +‘Only Amy, father.’ + +‘Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.’ + +He raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to +bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both the +private father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him +then. + +‘My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no +recreations, many cares I am afraid?’ + +‘Don’t think of that, dear. I never do.’ + +‘You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for you; but +all I have been able to do, I have done.’ + +‘Yes, my dear father,’ she rejoined, kissing him. ‘I know, I know.’ + +‘I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,’ he said, with a catch +in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of +self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness. ‘It is +all I could do for my children--I have done it. Amy, my love, you are +by far the best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my +mind--whatever I have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done +freely and without murmuring.’ + +Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can +surely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this +man had been, can impose upon himself. Enough, for the present place, +that he lay down with wet eyelashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after +bestowing his life of degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted +child upon whom its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone +had saved him to be even what he was. + +That child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was but too +content to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor dear, good dear, +truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she had for him, as she +hushed him to rest. + +She never left him all that night. As if she had done him a wrong which +her tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his sleep, at +times softly kissing him with suspended breath, and calling him in a +whisper by some endearing name. At times she stood aside so as not to +intercept the low fire-light, and, watching him when it fell upon his +sleeping face, wondered did he look now at all as he had looked when he +was prosperous and happy; as he had so touched her by imagining that he +might look once more in that awful time. At the thought of that time, +she kneeled beside his bed again, and prayed, ‘O spare his life! O +save him to me! O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, +much-changed, dear dear father!’ + +Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did she +give him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had stolen +down-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to her own +high garret, the smokeless housetops and the distant country hills were +discernible over the wall in the clear morning. As she gently opened the +window, and looked eastward down the prison yard, the spikes upon the +wall were tipped with red, then made a sullen purple pattern on the sun +as it came flaming up into the heavens. The spikes had never looked so +sharp and cruel, nor the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy +and contracted. She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the +sunrise on wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the +sunrise on great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were +rustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the sun +had risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and said, in +a burst of sorrow and compassion, ‘No, no, I have never seen him in my +life!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 20. Moving in Society + + +If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a +satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging +illustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it +amply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean +experiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready +to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody’s bread, spend +anybody’s money, drink from anybody’s cup and break it afterwards. +To have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout +invoking the death’s head apparition of the family gentility to come and +scare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the +first water. + +Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a +billiard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means of +his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of +impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. Whoever had paid +him the compliment, he very readily accepted the compliment with _his_ +compliments, and there was an end of it. Issuing forth from the gate +on these easy terms, he became a billiard-marker; and now occasionally +looked in at the little skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat +(second-hand), with a shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank +the beer of the Collegians. + +One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman’s +character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling +had never induced him to spare her a moment’s uneasiness, or to put +himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that +Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The same rank Marshalsea +flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she +sacrificed her life to her father, and in his having no idea that she +had done anything for himself. + +When this spirited young man and his sister had begun systematically +to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this +narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at about the period when +they began to dine on the College charity. It is certain that the more +reduced and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton +emerged from its tomb; and that when there was anything particularly +shabby in the wind, the skeleton always came out with the ghastliest +flourish. + +Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept +late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to +arrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore +stayed with him until, with Maggy’s help, she had put everything right +about him, and had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards +or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper. She then got on her bonnet +and went out, having been anxious to get out much sooner. There was, as +usual, a cessation of the small-talk in the Lodge as she passed through +it; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the +intimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, ‘Look out. Here +she is!’ + +She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples’s, +she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre +where they were engaged. Having taken thought of this probability by +the way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she +set off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and +not very far away. + +Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the +ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door, +with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of +itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being +further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen +with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door, +looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured +by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for +her to enter a dark hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out +than anything else--where she could hear the distant playing of music +and the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he +had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in +a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message +up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The +first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and +half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it +seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was +very good-natured, and said, ‘Come with me; I’ll soon find Miss Dorrit +for you,’ Miss Dorrit’s sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer +at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the +sound of dancing feet. + +At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were +tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of +unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and +rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed +to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little +Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment, +was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister’s voice. + +‘Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?’ + +‘I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day +to-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--’ + +‘But the idea, Amy, of _you_ coming behind! I never did!’ As her sister +said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a +more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were +heaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on +anything they could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted +ironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they +chattered. + +Just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put +his head round a beam on the left, and said, ‘Less noise there, ladies!’ +and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a +quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said, +‘Less noise there, darlings!’ and also disappeared. + +‘The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing +I could have conceived!’ said her sister. ‘Why, how did you ever get +here?’ + +‘I don’t know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring +me in.’ + +‘Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I +believe. _I_ couldn’t have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of +the world.’ + +It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a +plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of +the rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against +her services. Not to make too much of them. + +‘Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have +got something on your mind about me?’ said Fanny. She spoke as if her +sister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced +grandmother. + +‘It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the +bracelet, Fanny--’ + +The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said, +‘Look out there, ladies!’ and disappeared. The sprightly gentleman with +the black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and +said, ‘Look out there, darlings!’ and also disappeared. Thereupon all +the young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind. + +‘Well, Amy?’ said Fanny, doing as the rest did; ‘what were you going to +say?’ + +‘Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, +Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to +know a little more if you will confide more to me.’ + +‘Now, ladies!’ said the boy in the Scotch cap. ‘Now, darlings!’ said the +gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone in a moment, and +the music and the dancing feet were heard again. + +Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these +rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and +during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman +with the black hair) was continually calling out through the music, +‘One, two, three, four, five, six--go! One, two, three, four, five, +six--go! Steady, darlings! One, two, three, four, five, six--go!’ +Ultimately the voice stopped, and they all came back again, more or less +out of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, and making ready +for the streets. ‘Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before +us,’ whispered Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important +happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old beam, and +saying, ‘Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!’ and the gentleman with +the black hair looking round his old beam, and saying, ‘Everybody at +eleven to-morrow, darlings!’ each in his own accustomed manner. + +When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out +of the way, and there was a great empty well before them, looking down +into the depths of which Fanny said, ‘Now, uncle!’ Little Dorrit, as her +eyes became used to the darkness, faintly made him out at the bottom of +the well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its +ragged case under his arm. + +The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their +little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes, +from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below +there to the bottom. He had been in that place six nights a week for +many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his +music-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play. +There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the +popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had +‘mugged’ at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he +had shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the +effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters +of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and +Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him a few times with +pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always responded to +this attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale +phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any occasion, had +any other part in what was going on than the part written out for the +clarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the clarionet, +he had no part at all. Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy +miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied +his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground. +Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her +until she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all +surprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said +in his tremulous voice, ‘I am coming, I am coming!’ and crept forth by +some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell. + +‘And so, Amy,’ said her sister, when the three together passed out at +the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different +from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy’s arm as the arm to +be relied on: ‘so, Amy, you are curious about me?’ + +She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the +condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms, +and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal +terms, had a vast deal of the family in it. + +‘I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.’ + +‘So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a +little provoking, I am sure you’ll consider what a thing it is to +occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I +shouldn’t care,’ said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, ‘if +the others were not so common. None of them have come down in the world +as we have. They are all on their own level. Common.’ + +Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her. +Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. ‘I +was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a +difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all +about it. We’ll drop him at the cook’s shop where he is going to dine.’ + +They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a +dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats, +vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg +of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full +of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire +pudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of +veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going +at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own +richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial +delicacies. Within, were a few wooden partitions, behind which such +customers as found it more convenient to take away their dinners in +stomachs than in their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny +opening her reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that +repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not looking +at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering ‘Dinner? Ha! +Yes, yes, yes!’ slowly vanished from them into the mist. + +‘Now, Amy,’ said her sister, ‘come with me, if you are not too tired to +walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.’ + +The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the toss +she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable), made +her sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley +Street, and thither they directed their steps. Arrived at that grand +destination, Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the +door, inquired for Mrs Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although +he had powder on his head and was backed up by two other footmen +likewise powdered, not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked +Fanny to walk in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they +went up-stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind, +and were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several +drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden cage +holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and putting +itself into many strange upside-down postures. This peculiarity has been +observed in birds of quite another feather, climbing upon golden wires. + +The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever +imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She +looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question, +but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of +communication with another room. The curtain shook next moment, and a +lady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it behind her again +as she entered. + +The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young +and fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling handsome +eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome +bosom, and was made the most of in every particular. Either because she +had a cold, or because it suited her face, she wore a rich white +fillet tied over her head and under her chin. And if ever there were +an unfeeling handsome chin that looked as if, for certain, it had never +been, in familiar parlance, ‘chucked’ by the hand of man, it was the +chin curbed up so tight and close by that laced bridle. + +‘Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny. ‘My sister, ma’am.’ + +‘I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember that you +had a sister.’ + +‘I did not mention that I had,’ said Fanny. + +‘Ah!’ Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who should +say, ‘I have caught you. I know you didn’t!’ All her action was usually +with her left hand because her hands were not a pair; and left being +much the whiter and plumper of the two. Then she added: ‘Sit down,’ and +composed herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions, +on an ottoman near the parrot. + +‘Also professional?’ said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through +an eye-glass. + +Fanny answered No. ‘No,’ said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. ‘Has not a +professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.’ + +‘My sister, ma’am,’ said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture +of deference and hardihood, ‘has been asking me to tell her, as between +sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you. And as I had +engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty +of bringing her with me, when perhaps you would tell her. I wish her to +know, and perhaps you will tell her?’ + +‘Do you think, at your sister’s age--’ hinted Mrs Merdle. + +‘She is much older than she looks,’ said Fanny; ‘almost as old as I am.’ + +‘Society,’ said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, ‘is +so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to +explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that. I wish Society +was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting--Bird, be quiet!’ + +The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society +and it asserted its right to its exactions. + +‘But,’ resumed Mrs Merdle, ‘we must take it as we find it. We know it is +hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but unless we +are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one +myself--most delightful life and perfect climate, I am told), we +must consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle is a most extensive +merchant, his transactions are on the vastest scale, his wealth and +influence are very great, but even he--Bird, be quiet!’ + +The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so +expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it. + +‘Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal +acquaintance,’ she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, ‘by relating +the circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot object to comply +with her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was first married extremely +young) of two or three-and-twenty.’ + +Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister. + +‘A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing Society +is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. Perhaps he +inherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, by nature. The +weakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a moment.’ + +She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow; +quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently +addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose behoof, too, she +occasionally arranged her dress, or the composition of her figure upon +the ottoman. + +‘So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state I dare +say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be lamented, no doubt, +particularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it; +but so it is. Society suppresses us and dominates us--Bird, be quiet!’ + +The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting +divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his +black tongue. + +‘It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide +range of experience, and cultivated feeling,’ said Mrs Merdle from her +nest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to refresh her +memory as to whom she was addressing,--‘that the stage sometimes has +a fascination for young men of that class of character. In saying the +stage, I mean the people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I +heard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what +that usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the +Opera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.’ + +She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters +now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a +hard sound. + +‘As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was +much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister, +by rejecting my son’s advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner), +had brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were +of the profoundest anguish--acute.’ + +She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right. + +‘In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in Society--can +be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and +represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your +sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from +my expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me +with--what shall I say--a sort of family assertion on her own part?’ Mrs +Merdle smiled. + +‘I told you, ma’am,’ said Fanny, with a heightening colour, ‘that +although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest, +that I considered my family as good as your son’s; and that I had a +brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion, +and would not consider such a connection any honour.’ + +‘Miss Dorrit,’ said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through +her glass, ‘precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister, +in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it +so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,’ addressing Little +Dorrit, ‘(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my +arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of +the delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on +a common footing.’ (This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a +cheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye +to bribery.) + +‘And I told you, Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny, ‘that we might be unfortunate, +but we are not common.’ + +‘I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,’ assented Mrs Merdle. + +‘And I told you, Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny, ‘that if you spoke to me +of the superiority of your son’s standing in Society, it was barely +possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my +origin; and that my father’s standing, even in the Society in which +he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently +superior, and was acknowledged by every one.’ + +‘Quite accurate,’ rejoined Mrs Merdle. ‘A most admirable memory.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the +rest.’ + +‘There is very little to tell,’ said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth +of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be +unfeeling in, ‘but it is to your sister’s credit. I pointed out to your +sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society +in which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved--though +charming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would +consequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which +we should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and +from which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with +abhorrence. In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your +sister.’ + +‘Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,’ Fanny pouted, with a +toss of her gauzy bonnet, ‘that I had already had the honour of telling +your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.’ + +‘Well, Miss Dorrit,’ assented Mrs Merdle, ‘perhaps I might have +mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because +my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might +persevere and you might have something to say to him. I also mentioned +to your sister--I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit--that +my son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be +an absolute beggar. (I mention that merely as a fact which is part of +the narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, +except in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our +artificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.) +Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your +sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger; +and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a +mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker’s.’ + +Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face. + +‘Also,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘as to promise to give me the present pleasure +of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms. +On which occasion,’ added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting +something in Fanny’s hand, ‘Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell +with best wishes in my own dull manner.’ + +The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of +the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed +to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, +and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over +the outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and black +tongue. + +‘Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,’ said Mrs Merdle. ‘If we could +only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might +have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons +from whom I am at present excluded. A more primitive state of society +would be delicious to me. There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons, +something about Lo the poor Indians whose something mind! If a few +thousand persons moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I +would put my name down directly; but as, moving in Society, we can’t be +Indians, unfortunately--Good morning!’ + +They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, the +elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out +into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square. + +‘Well?’ said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking. +‘Have you nothing to say, Amy?’ + +‘Oh, I don’t know what to say!’ she answered, distressed. ‘You didn’t +like this young man, Fanny?’ + +‘Like him? He is almost an idiot.’ + +‘I am so sorry--don’t be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to +say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you +anything.’ + +‘You little Fool!’ returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull +she gave her arm. ‘Have you no spirit at all? But that’s just the way! +You have no self-respect, you have no becoming pride, just as you allow +yourself to be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a +thing,’ with the scornfullest emphasis, ‘you would let your family be +trodden on, and never turn.’ + +‘Don’t say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.’ + +‘You do what you can for them!’ repeated Fanny, walking her on very +fast. ‘Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had +any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can +be--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for +it?’ + +‘No, Fanny, I am sure.’ + +‘Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can you make +her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some +credit with the money!’ + +They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her +uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man practising +his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room. +Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and +indignantly pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did +all that in quiet reality. When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink, +she threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much +as her father had been last night. + +‘If you despise me,’ she said, bursting into vehement tears, ‘because I +am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? It was your +doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs +Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold +us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a dancer!’ + +‘O Fanny!’ + +‘And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she +likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in the law, and +the docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might +at least approve of his being defended.’ + +All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the +corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment +while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody +had said something. + +‘And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to show +himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him +with impunity. If you don’t feel for yourself because you go out to +work, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he +has undergone so long.’ + +Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply. +The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said +nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire. +Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on +again. + +Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her +passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in +the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became +remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little +Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that +she would, she must! Thereupon she said again, and again, ‘I beg your +pardon, Amy,’ and ‘Forgive me, Amy,’ almost as passionately as she had +said what she regretted. + +‘But indeed, indeed, Amy,’ she resumed when they were seated in sisterly +accord side by side, ‘I hope and I think you would have seen this +differently, if you had known a little more of Society.’ + +‘Perhaps I might, Fanny,’ said the mild Little Dorrit. + +‘You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there, +Amy,’ pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, ‘I have +been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and +spirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?’ + +Little Dorrit answered ‘Yes. O yes!’ + +‘And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may +have been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not be so, +Amy?’ + +Little Dorrit again nodded ‘Yes,’ with a more cheerful face than heart. + +‘Especially as we know,’ said Fanny, ‘that there certainly is a tone in +the place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and +which does make it different from other aspects of Society. So kiss me +once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and +that you are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl.’ + +The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue, +but was cut short now by Fanny’s announcement that it was time to go; +which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and +taking the clarionet out of his mouth. + +Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the +Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and going into it +that evening was like going into a deep trench. The shadow of the wall +was on every object. Not least upon the figure in the old grey gown and +the black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door +of the dim room. + +‘Why not upon me too!’ thought Little Dorrit, with the door yet in her +hand. ‘It was not unreasonable in Fanny.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 21. Mr Merdle’s Complaint + + +Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley +Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall +than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of +the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in +Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and +their inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people +were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in +the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way +with the dullness of the houses. + +Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who +take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform +twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all +approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern +of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same +inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything without exception +to be taken at a high valuation--who has not dined with these? The +house so drearily out of repair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed +house, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but +angular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the +hatchment always up, the house where the collector has called for one +quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home--who has not dined with +these? The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who +does not know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the +disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is +unacquainted with that haunted habitation? + +Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs +Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; +but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of +Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said ‘Let us license them; let us know +them.’ + +Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a +Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in +everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of +course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, +Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said +to projectors, ‘Now, what name have you got? Have you got Merdle?’ And, +the reply being in the negative, had said, ‘Then I won’t look at you.’ + +This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which +required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson +and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose +upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted +something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr +and Mortimer might have married on the same speculation. + +Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels +showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with +the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society +approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of +men,--did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of +all his gain and care, as a man might. + +That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise +with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his desire was to the +utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its +drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine in company; he had not +very much to say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad, +overhanging, watchful head, that particular kind of dull red colour +in his cheeks which is rather stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy +expression about his coat-cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and +had reasons for being anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said, +he was a pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private +confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by every +one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if that were it +which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle’s receptions and concerts), +he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was mostly to be found +against walls and behind doors. Also when he went out to it, instead of +its coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and upon the +whole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating it +nevertheless, and always moving in it--and always laying out money on it +with the greatest liberality. + +Mrs Merdle’s first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the +bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and +had come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none +in point of coldness. The colonel’s son was Mrs Merdle’s only child. He +was of a chuckle-headed, high-shouldered make, with a general appearance +of being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few +signs of reason, that a by-word went among his companions that his brain +had been frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St John’s, New +Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from +that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his infancy, +through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his +head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses to crack. It is +probable that both these representations were of ex post facto +origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name was Sparkler) being +monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner of undesirable young +ladies, and in remarking of every successive young lady to whom he +tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was ‘a doosed fine gal--well +educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her.’ + +A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon +another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he +wanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards, +and being in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the +lounges, and all the parties, and being well known, Society was +satisfied with its son-in-law. This happy result Mr Merdle would have +considered well attained, though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive +article. And he did not get Mr Sparkler by any means cheap for +Society, even as it was. + +There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while +Little Dorrit was stitching at her father’s new shirts by his side that +night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the +City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates +from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury +magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty magnates,--all the magnates +that keep us going, and sometimes trip us up. + +‘I am told,’ said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, ‘that Mr Merdle has +made another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand pounds.’ + +Horse Guards had heard two. + +Treasury had heard three. + +Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means clear but +that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes of calculation +and combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate. It +was one of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with +habitual luck and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us +but few. But here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank +case, and who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put +this new success at? + +Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could +only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great +appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million +of money. + +Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a +new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of +Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into +the coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best +interests of Society. + +Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still +detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken +off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival. +Treasury said Merdle’s work punished him a little. Bishop said he was +glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman +who accepted it with meekness. + +Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the +dinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society’s meats had +a seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down a countess who +was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she +was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a +simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly +brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person +carried it. + +Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner. +It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to +drink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle’s own share of +the repast might have been paid for with eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was +magnificent. The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of +the day. He was the stateliest man in the company. He did nothing, but +he looked on as few other men could have done. He was Mr Merdle’s +last gift to Society. Mr Merdle didn’t want him, and was put out of +countenance when the great creature looked at him; but inappeasable +Society would have him--and had got him. + +The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of +the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom. +Treasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith. + +Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial. +Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates paired off. Mr +Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth. Sometimes a magnate +addressed him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion +towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more +than rouse himself from his calculations and pass the wine. + +When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr +Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, and +checked them off as they went out at the door. + +Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England’s +world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that +original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on +a new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was to extend +the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt--he gave Mr +Merdle to understand--patriotic on the subject. + +‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Mr Merdle; ‘thank you. I accept your +congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.’ + +‘Why, I don’t unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because,’ +smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke +banteringly, ‘it never can be worth your while to come among us and help +us.’ + +Mr Merdle felt honoured by the-- + +‘No, no,’ said Treasury, ‘that is not the light in which one so +distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be +expected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by +accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose +to one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of his +influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it to him as +a duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.’ + +Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its +claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury moved +on, and Bar came up. + +Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his +persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned +to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root +of all good, who had for a long time reflected a shining lustre on the +annals even of our commercial country--if he mentioned, disinterestedly, +and as, what we lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a +fact that had come by accident within his knowledge. He had been +required to look over the title of a very considerable estate in one of +the eastern counties--lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers +loved to be particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties. +Now, the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased +by one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive +eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to Bar’s +knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, ‘I shall have the +honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, and, +strictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity.’ Such a +purchase would involve not only a great legitimate political influence, +but some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value. +Now, that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of +occupying even his capital, and of fully employing even his active and +vigorous intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that +the question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so +high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we would +not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess himself of +such influences as these; and to exercise them--we would not say for his +own, or for his party’s, but we would say for Society’s--benefit. + +Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of +his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-glass up the +grand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly sidling in the direction +of the sideboard. + +Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to +Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than +when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious, +who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to +look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance, +judiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our +brethren at large. + +Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn’t +mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in +Bishop’s good opinion. + +Bishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right +leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle ‘don’t mind the apron; a mere form!’ +put this case to his good friend: + +Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not +unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose +example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little +money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa? + +Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention, +Bishop put another case: + +Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings +of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it +had occurred to him that to shed a little money in _that_ direction might +be a great conception finely executed? + +Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for +inquiring. + +Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. It was +not that _he_ looked to them, but that Society looked to them. +Just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed +Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most +agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to assure his +good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good friend’s regard +on all occasions for the best interests of Society; and he considered +that he was at once consulting those interests and expressing the +feeling of Society, when he wished him continued prosperity, continued +increase of riches, and continued things in general. + +Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates gradually +floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle. +That gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth until the soul of the +chief butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the +rest, and became of no account in the stream of people on the grand +staircase. Mrs Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out +to be seen, Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth +of tea in a corner and got more than he wanted. + +Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody, +and whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he came upon Mr Merdle +drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm. + +Mr Merdle started. ‘Oh! It’s you!’ + +‘Any better to-day?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I am no better.’ + +‘A pity I didn’t see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, or let +me come to you.’ + +‘Well!’ he replied. ‘I will come to-morrow as I drive by.’ + +Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and +as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon +it to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental +strain beyond which no man could go; that the point varied with various +textures of brain and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had +occasion to notice in several of his learned brothers; but the point of +endurance passed by a line’s breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued. +Not to intrude on the sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now +(with the jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle’s +case? Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a +brief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit +which all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had +frequently been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an +over-taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up +by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a glass +of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a charm. Without +presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the consideration of so +profound a professor of the great healing art, he would venture to +inquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate calculations, +the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their tone by a +gentle and yet generous stimulant? + +‘Yes,’ said the physician, ‘yes, you are both right. But I may as well +tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has +the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and +the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool +temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should +say, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without +reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with +him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can’t say. I +only say, that at present I have not found it out.’ + +There was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint on the bosom now displaying +precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there +was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint on young Sparkler hovering about +the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady +with no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint +on the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were +present; or on any of the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint +enough as he moved about among the throng, receiving homage. + +Mr Merdle’s complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one another +in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he +had one, being solely his own affair. Had he that deep-seated recondite +complaint, and did any doctor find it out? Patience, in the meantime, +the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and +could be seen on the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun’s course. + + + + +CHAPTER 22. A Puzzle + + +Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea +in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great +Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the +paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that +sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point +of gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned +by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for +which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give +him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that +gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family +circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts. +He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and +representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to +pay his respects; but he didn’t find that he got on with him personally. +There appeared to be something (he didn’t know what it was) wanting in +him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness, +but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps +cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently +brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial +unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to +bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way +tending. + +In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been +accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the +gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father +of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of +the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the +Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised +by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on +the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery’s politeness +and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that +Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his +companions in bold relief. + +Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge, +had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam, +coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone. + +‘(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Chivery in a secret manner; +‘but which way might you be going?’ + +‘I am going over the Bridge.’ He saw in Mr Chivery, with some +astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on +his lips. + +‘(Private) I ask your pardon again,’ said Mr Chivery, ‘but could you go +round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in +at that address?’ handing him a little card, printed for circulation +among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure +Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in +Fancy Snuffs, &c. &c. + +‘(Private) It an’t tobacco business,’ said Mr Chivery. ‘The truth is, +it’s my wife. She’s wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point +respecting--yes,’ said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam’s look of +apprehension with a nod, ‘respecting _her_.’ + +‘I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an’t above ten minutes out of your +way. Please to ask for _Mrs_ Chivery!’ These instructions, Mr Chivery, who +had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the +outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of +visitors when it pleased him. + +Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address +set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small +establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working +at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a +little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little +instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail +stock in trade. + +Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the +solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he +believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat +behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head. + +‘You may see him now,’ said she, ‘if you’ll condescend to take a peep.’ + +With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little +parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very +little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths +tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two; +and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the +last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of +furling the sails, a little woe-begone young man. + +‘Our John,’ said Mrs Chivery. + +Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing +there? + +‘It’s the only change he takes,’ said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head +afresh. ‘He won’t go out, even in the back-yard, when there’s no linen; +but when there’s linen to keep the neighbours’ eyes off, he’ll sit +there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!’ Mrs +Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her +eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business. + +‘Please to take a seat, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery. ‘Miss Dorrit is the +matter with Our John, sir; he’s a breaking his heart for her, and I +would wish to take the liberty to ask how it’s to be made good to his +parents when bust?’ + +Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about +Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this +speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to +shake her head and dry her eyes. + +‘Sir,’ said she in continuation, ‘you are acquainted with the family, +and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with +the family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people +happy, let me, for Our John’s sake, and for both their sakes, implore +you so to do!’ + +‘I have been so habituated,’ returned Arthur, at a loss, ‘during +the short time I have known her, to consider Little--I have been so +habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from +that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise. +Does she know your son?’ + +‘Brought up together, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery. ‘Played together.’ + +‘Does she know your son as her admirer?’ + +‘Oh! bless you, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant +shiver, ‘she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he +was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else +had. Young men like John don’t take to ivory hands a pinting, for +nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.’ + +‘Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.’ + +‘Then she knows it, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘by word of mouth.’ + +‘Are you sure?’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘sure and certain as in this house I am. I see +my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my +son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he +done it!’ Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the +foregoing circumstantiality and repetition. + +‘May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which +causes you so much uneasiness?’ + +‘That,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘took place on that same day when to this +house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this +house since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour +when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the +quarter, came!’ An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from +this speech by Mrs Chivery’s peculiar power of construction. + +‘May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?’ + +‘You may,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘and I will give it to you in honour and in +word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one’s good word +and every one’s good wish. He played with her as a child when in that +yard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon +the Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met +her, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to +say. He made his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their +views, and against Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views +and against sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she +has answered Our John, “No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have +any husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my +intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of +you, and forget me!” This is the way in which she is doomed to be a +constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she +unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John has come to find +no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that +yard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that +goes home to his mother’s heart!’ Here the good woman pointed to the +little window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in +the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and +besought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise +his influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events. + +She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so +undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative +positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam +could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to attach to +Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that removed her +from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding +her--that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to +suppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such +person. On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just +as good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him; +and that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty +of isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a +weakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and +ethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice +and eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out +of her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and +those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in +unison, with this newly presented idea. + +He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his +mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he might be +relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of +Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his +power to do so, and if he could discover what they were. At the same +time he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined +strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and +particularly advised her to endeavour to win her son’s confidence and so +to make quite sure of the state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the +latter precaution superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her +head as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected +from this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had +kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away. + +The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two +crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in +the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon +it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It was a pleasant +day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute +come there for air. He had left her in her father’s room within an hour. + +It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face +and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but before he +reached her, she turned her head. + +‘Have I startled you?’ he asked. + +‘I thought I knew the step,’ she answered, hesitating. + +‘And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected +mine.’ + +‘I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it--sounded +like yours.’ + +‘Are you going further?’ + +‘No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change.’ + +They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him, +and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around: + +‘It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes +have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.’ + +‘Unfeeling?’ + +‘To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change +and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped +place.’ + +‘Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the +spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.’ + +‘Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me +out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to +you?’ + +‘Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.’ + +He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great +agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained +silent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure. The +Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with +Mrs Chivery’s theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy +which sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the +hopeless--newer fancy still--in the hopeless unattainable distance. + +They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little Dorrit +looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself +at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so +preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned +upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very +basket partook of the change. + +‘Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.’ + +‘So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn’t let me. If he takes and +sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, “Maggy, you hurry away and +back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer’s a +good ‘un,” I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what’s a poor thing of +ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he happens to be a coming in as +I come out, and if he says “Where are you going, Maggy?” and if I says, +“I’m a going So and So,” and if he says, “I’ll have a Try too,” and if +he goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and +says, “Take that one to the same place, and if the answer’s a good ‘un +I’ll give you a shilling,” it ain’t my fault, mother!’ + +Arthur read, in Little Dorrit’s downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that +the letters were addressed. + +‘I’m a going So and So. There! That’s where I am a going to,’ said +Maggy. ‘I’m a going So and So. It ain’t you, Little Mother, that’s got +anything to do with it--it’s you, you know,’ said Maggy, addressing +Arthur. ‘You’d better come, So and So, and let me take and give ‘em to +you.’ + +‘We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,’ said +Clennam in a low voice. + +‘Well, then, come across the road,’ answered Maggy in a very loud +whisper. ‘Little Mother wasn’t to know nothing of it, and she would +never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead +of bothering and loitering about. It ain’t my fault. I must do what I am +told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.’ + +Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters. +That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in +the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from +the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being +restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during +three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as +he would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr +Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his +I.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that +Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at +length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature, +accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that +the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary +to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that +generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting +towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a +false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced +him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that +evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be +happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends +who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the +exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence; +the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught +with the usual beneficent consequences. + +These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and +pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and +excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then +commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the +shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have +disappointed her otherwise. + +When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before, +she said all at once: + +‘I think I had better go. I had better go home.’ + +‘Don’t be distressed,’ said Clennam, ‘I have answered the letters. They +were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.’ + +‘But I am afraid,’ she returned, ‘to leave him, I am afraid to leave +any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don’t mean it--even +Maggy.’ + +‘It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And +in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only +saving you uneasiness.’ + +‘Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the +other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that +I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I +see these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling +in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had +far better stay at home!’ + +The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself +from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the +tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her. + +‘Don’t call it home, my child!’ he entreated. ‘It is always painful to +me to hear you call it home.’ + +‘But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it +for a single moment?’ + +‘You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.’ + +‘I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much +better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don’t go with me, let me +go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.’ + +He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move +while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered +out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking. + +She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the +letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way? + +No. + +When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on, +when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had +been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and +additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless +unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind, +by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge +with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the +ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, +here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet? + +He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he +thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought +of her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit +thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of +the Marshalsea wall. + + + + +CHAPTER 23. Machinery in Motion + + +Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of +the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him, +that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at +nine o’clock one morning to make his report. + +‘Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,’ he opened the business +by saying, ‘and desires nothing so much as that you should examine the +affairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely understand them. He has +handed me the keys of all his books and papers--here they are jingling +in this pocket--and the only charge he has given me is “Let Mr Clennam +have the means of putting himself on a perfect equality with me as to +knowing whatever I know. If it should come to nothing after all, he +will respect my confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I +should have nothing to do with him.” And there, you see,’ said Mr +Meagles, ‘you have Daniel Doyce all over.’ + +‘A very honourable character.’ + +‘Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very honourable. Very +odd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, with +a hearty enjoyment of his friend’s eccentricity, ‘that I had a whole +morning in What’s-his-name Yard--’ + +‘Bleeding Heart?’ + +‘A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him to +pursue the subject at all?’ + +‘How was that?’ + +‘How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in connection +with it than he declared off.’ + +‘Declared off on my account?’ + +‘I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, “That will +never do!” What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, Meagles; +that would never do. Why would it never do? You’ll hardly believe it, +Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, ‘but it came out +that it would never do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham +together, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which +he had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the +time that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul’s Cathedral. +“Whereas,” says he, “Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his +proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open +free speech. Which I can’t bear,” says he, “which I really am too proud +to bear.”’ + +‘I should as soon suspect--’ + +‘Of course you would,’ interrupted Mr Meagles, ‘and so I told him. But +it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man +than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it. Well, +Clennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that +before resuming with you I should look over the books and form my own +opinion. I looked over the books, and formed my own opinion. “Is it, on +the whole, for, or against?” says he. “For,” says I. “Then,” says he, +“you may now, my good friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming +his opinion. To enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect +freedom, I shall go out of town for a week.” And he’s gone,’ said Mr +Meagles; ‘that’s the rich conclusion of the thing.’ + +‘Leaving me,’ said Clennam, ‘with a high sense, I must say, of his +candour and his--’ + +‘Oddity,’ Mr Meagles struck in. ‘I should think so!’ + +It was not exactly the word on Clennam’s lips, but he forbore to +interrupt his good-humoured friend. + +‘And now,’ added Mr Meagles, ‘you can begin to look into matters as soon +as you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you may want +explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more.’ + +They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same +forenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced +eyes in Mr Doyce’s way of managing his affairs, but they almost always +involved some ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain +road to the desired end. That his papers were in arrear, and that he +stood in need of assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was +clear enough; but all the results of his undertakings during many years +were distinctly set forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had +been done for the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was +in its genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The +calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were many, +were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but were always +plain and directed straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that +a far more elaborate and taking show of business--such as the records of +the Circumlocution Office made perhaps--might be far less serviceable, +as being meant to be far less intelligible. + +Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the +facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand +the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright +little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they +agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a +half-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in +which Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was +even something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as +good as concluded. + +‘And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,’ said he, with a cordial shake of the +hand, ‘that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I +could not have found one more to my mind.’ + +‘I say the same,’ said Clennam. + +‘And I say of both of you,’ added Mr Meagles, ‘that you are well +matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you +stick to the Works, Dan, with your--’ + +‘Uncommon sense?’ suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile. + +‘You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right hand +to the other. Here’s my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to +both of you.’ + +The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession +of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it +opened to him an active and promising career. The three friends dined +together on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives +and children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard +dined and was full of meat. Two months had barely gone by in all, when +Bleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again, +that the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the +partnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE +AND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had +the affairs of the firm in his mind for years. + +The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of +wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches, +and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were +in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a +suicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to +pieces. A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with +the workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in +this perspective, which brought to Clennam’s mind the child’s old +picture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel’s +murder. The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the +counting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical +clinks and thumps. The patient figures at work were swarthy with the +filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up +through every chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a +step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for +the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at once +a fanciful and practical air in Clennam’s eyes, which was a welcome +change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting +the array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these +things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him. + +Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet +labouring up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed by +another bonnet. He then perceived that the first bonnet was on the head +of Mr F.’s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the head of Flora, +who seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep ascent with +considerable difficulty. + +Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, Clennam +lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and extricating them +from the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the more necessary by Mr +F.’s Aunt already stumbling over some impediment, and menacing steam +power as an Institution with a stony reticule she carried. + +‘Good gracious, Arthur,--I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper--the +climb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again without +a fire-escape and Mr F.’s Aunt slipping through the steps and bruised +all over and you in the machinery and foundry way too only think, and +never told us!’ + +Thus, Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F.’s Aunt rubbed her esteemed +insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared. + +‘Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though +naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any attraction +at _our_ house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, that’s pretty +certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black I wonder, not that +I expect that she should be anything but a perfect contrast to me in all +particulars for I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are +quite right to be devoted no doubt though what I am saying Arthur never +mind I hardly know myself Good gracious!’ + +By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. As +Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him. + +‘And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,’ said Flora; +‘delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now +has he really? then one understands the partnership and sees it all, +don’t tell me anything about it for I know I have no claim to ask the +question the golden chain that once was forged being snapped and very +proper.’ + +Flora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the youthful +glances. + +‘Dear Arthur--force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate and +adapted to existing circumstances--I must beg to be excused for taking +the liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far presume upon +old times for ever faded never more to bloom as to call with Mr F.’s +Aunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A great deal superior to +China not to be denied and much nearer though higher up!’ + +‘I am very happy to see you,’ said Clennam, ‘and I thank you, Flora, +very much for your kind remembrance.’ + +‘More than I can say myself at any rate,’ returned Flora, ‘for I might +have been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no doubt +whatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered Me or +anything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to make, one +last explanation I wish to offer--’ + +‘My dear Mrs Finching,’ Arthur remonstrated in alarm. + +‘Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!’ + +‘Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into +explanations? I assure you none are needed. I am satisfied--I am +perfectly satisfied.’ + +A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.’s Aunt making the following +inexorable and awful statement: + +‘There’s mile-stones on the Dover road!’ + +With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge this +missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend himself; the +rather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by the honour of a +visit from this venerable lady, when it was plain she held him in the +utmost abhorrence. He could not but look at her with disconcertment, as +she sat breathing bitterness and scorn, and staring leagues away. Flora, +however, received the remark as if it had been of a most apposite and +agreeable nature; approvingly observing aloud that Mr F.’s Aunt had a +great deal of spirit. Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her +burning indignation, that illustrious woman then added, ‘Let him meet +it if he can!’ And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an +appendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that +Clennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was hurled. + +‘One last remark,’ resumed Flora, ‘I was going to say I wish to make one +last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.’s Aunt and myself would not have +intruded on business hours Mr F. having been in business and though the +wine trade still business is equally business call it what you will and +business habits are just the same as witness Mr F. himself who had his +slippers always on the mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon +and his boots inside the fender at ten minutes before eight in the +morning to the moment in all weathers light or dark--would not therefore +have intruded without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped +will be kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and +Clennam probably more business-like.’ + +‘Pray say nothing in the way of apology,’ Arthur entreated. ‘You are +always welcome.’ + +‘Very polite of you to say so Arthur--cannot remember Mr Clennam until +the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true +it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber’s chain has bound people, +fond memory brings the light of other days around people--very polite +but more polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery +business without so much as sending a line or a card to papa--I don’t +say me though there was a time but that is past and stern reality has +now my gracious never mind--does not look like it you must confess.’ + +Even Flora’s commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was so +much more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding interview. + +‘Though indeed,’ she hurried on, ‘nothing else is to be expected and why +should it be expected and if it’s not to be expected why should it be, +and I am far from blaming you or any one, When your mama and my papa +worried us to death and severed the golden bowl--I mean bond but I dare +say you know what I mean and if you don’t you don’t lose much and care +just as little I will venture to add--when they severed the golden bond +that bound us and threw us into fits of crying on the sofa nearly choked +at least myself everything was changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I +know I did so with my eyes open but he was so very unsettled and in such +low spirits that he had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of +something from the chemist’s and I did it for the best.’ + +‘My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.’ + +‘It’s perfectly clear you think so,’ returned Flora, ‘for you take it +very coolly, if I hadn’t known it to be China I should have guessed +myself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right however and I +cannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa’s property being about +here we heard it from Pancks and but for him we never should have heard +one word about it I am satisfied.’ + +‘No, no, don’t say that.’ + +‘What nonsense not to say it Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--easier and less +trying to me than Mr Clennam--when I know it and you know it too and +can’t deny it.’ + +‘But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly visit.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Flora, tossing her head. ‘I dare say!’ and she gave him +another of the old looks. ‘However when Pancks told us I made up my mind +that Mr F.’s Aunt and I would come and call because when papa--which was +before that--happened to mention her name to me and to say that you were +interested in her I said at the moment Good gracious why not have her +here then when there’s anything to do instead of putting it out.’ + +‘When you say Her,’ observed Clennam, by this time pretty well +bewildered, ‘do you mean Mr F.’s--’ + +‘My goodness, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with old +remembrances--who ever heard of Mr F.’s Aunt doing needlework and going +out by the day?’ + +‘Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?’ + +‘Why yes of course,’ returned Flora; ‘and of all the strangest names I +ever heard the strangest, like a place down in the country with a +turnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or something from a +seed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot and come up speckled.’ + +‘Then, Flora,’ said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the conversation, +‘Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to you, was he? What +did he say?’ + +‘Oh you know what papa is,’ rejoined Flora, ‘and how aggravatingly he +sits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one another +till he makes one giddy if one keeps one’s eyes upon him, he said when +we were talking of you--I don’t know who began the subject Arthur (Doyce +and Clennam) but I am sure it wasn’t me, at least I hope not but you +really must excuse my confessing more on that point.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Arthur. ‘By all means.’ + +‘You are very ready,’ pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a +captivating bashfulness, ‘that I must admit, Papa said you had spoken of +her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and that’s all.’ + +‘That’s all?’ said Arthur, a little disappointed. + +‘Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this +business and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I said +to Mr F.’s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable +to all parties that she should be engaged at our house when required +for I know she often goes to your mama’s and I know that your mama has +a very touchy temper Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--or I never might have +married Mr F. and might have been at this hour but I am running into +nonsense.’ + +‘It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.’ + +Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better than +her youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She said it with +so much heart that Clennam would have given a great deal to buy his +old character of her on the spot, and throw it and the mermaid away for +ever. + +‘I think, Flora,’ he said, ‘that the employment you can give Little +Dorrit, and the kindness you can show her--’ + +‘Yes and I will,’ said Flora, quickly. + +‘I am sure of it--will be a great assistance and support to her. I do +not feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, for I +acquired the knowledge confidentially, and under circumstances that +bind me to silence. But I have an interest in the little creature, and +a respect for her that I cannot express to you. Her life has been one +of such trial and devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely +imagine. I can hardly think of her, far less speak of her, without +feeling moved. Let that feeling represent what I could tell you, and +commit her to your friendliness with my thanks.’ + +Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor +Flora couldn’t accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, must +make the old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own enjoyment as +to his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her shawl as she took it. +Then, looking towards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing +two figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, ‘Papa! Hush, +Arthur, for Mercy’s sake!’ and tottered back to her chair with an +amazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise +and maidenly flutter of her spirits. + +The Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the +counting-house in the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for him, +towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner. + +‘I heard from Flora,’ said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile, +‘that she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I thought +I’d come also, thought I’d come also.’ + +The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself +profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his long +white hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down among the +noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, when he said to +Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, ‘And you are in a new +business, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!’ he seemed +to have done benevolent wonders. + +‘Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,’ said Arthur, after making his +acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile protesting, with +a gesture, against his use of that respectable name; ‘that she hopes +occasionally to employ the young needlewoman you recommended to my +mother. For which I have been thanking her.’ + +The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, that +assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, and took +him in tow. + +‘You didn’t recommend her, you know,’ said Pancks; ‘how could you? You +knew nothing about her, you didn’t. The name was mentioned to you, and +you passed it on. That’s what _you_ did.’ + +‘Well!’ said Clennam. ‘As she justifies any recommendation, it is much +the same thing.’ + +‘You are glad she turns out well,’ said Pancks, ‘but it wouldn’t have +been your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit’s not yours as it +is, and the blame wouldn’t have been yours as it might have been. You +gave no guarantee. You knew nothing about her.’ + +‘You are not acquainted, then,’ said Arthur, hazarding a random question, +‘with any of her family?’ + +‘Acquainted with any of her family?’ returned Pancks. ‘How should you be +acquainted with any of her family? You never heard of ‘em. You can’t +be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? You should think +not!’ + +All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his +head benevolently, as the case required. + +‘As to being a reference,’ said Pancks, ‘you know, in a general way, +what being a reference means. It’s all your eye, that is! Look at your +tenants down the Yard here. They’d all be references for one another, +if you’d let ‘em. What would be the good of letting ‘em? It’s no +satisfaction to be done by two men instead of one. One’s enough. A +person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee +that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another +person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural +legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match. And four +wooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don’t want +any.’ Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his. + +A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.’s Aunt, who had been +sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She +now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect +on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity +observed: + +‘You can’t make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in +it. You couldn’t do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when +he’s dead.’ + +Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, ‘Indeed, +ma’am! Bless my soul! I’m surprised to hear it.’ Despite his presence of +mind, however, the speech of Mr F.’s Aunt produced a depressing effect +on the little assembly; firstly, because it was impossible to disguise +that Clennam’s unoffending head was the particular temple of reason +depreciated; and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions +whose Uncle George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be +invoked under that appellation. + +Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness +and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.’s Aunt was ‘very lively to-day, +and she thought they had better go.’ But Mr F.’s Aunt proved so lively +as to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she +would not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if +‘He’--too evidently meaning Clennam--wanted to get rid of her, ‘let +him chuck her out of winder;’ and urgently expressing her desire to see +‘Him’ perform that ceremony. + +In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any +emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at +the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with +an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for +some weeks. ‘Why, bless my heart, ma’am!’ said Mr Pancks, rubbing up his +hair in great astonishment, ‘is that you? How do you _do_, ma’am? You +are looking charming to-day! I am delighted to see you. Favour me with +your arm, ma’am; we’ll have a little walk together, you and me, if +you’ll honour me with your company.’ And so escorted Mr F.’s Aunt down +the private staircase of the counting-house with great gallantry and +success. The patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done +it himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she followed +in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted whisper +(which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the cup of life to +the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the late Mr F. was at +the bottom of it. + +Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his +mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions. +They were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was +mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look +up for the cause. The cause was Mr Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon +his ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and +cast it off, with his jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with +the fingers of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, +and with the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for +another course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the +books and papers. + +Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he +might come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the +affirmative. Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made +himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with +a puff and a snort. + +‘Mr F.’s Aunt is appeased, I hope?’ said Clennam. + +‘All right, sir,’ said Pancks. + +‘I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the +breast of that lady,’ said Clennam. ‘Do you know why?’ + +‘Does _she_ know why?’ said Pancks. + +‘I suppose not.’ + +‘_I_ suppose not,’ said Pancks. + +He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat, +which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the +bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration. + +‘Mr Clennam,’ he then began, ‘I am in want of information, sir.’ + +‘Connected with this firm?’ asked Clennam. + +‘No,’ said Pancks. + +‘With what then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want it of +me.’ + +‘Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,’ said Pancks, ‘if I can persuade you +to furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. Dorrit. +That’s the name, sir?’ + +Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his +right-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the +look. + +‘I don’t understand you, Mr Pancks.’ + +‘That’s the name that I want to know about.’ + +‘And what do you want to know?’ + +‘Whatever you can and will tell me.’ This comprehensive summary of his +desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the part of +Mr Pancks’s machinery. + +‘This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather +extraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.’ + +‘It may be all extraordinary together,’ returned Pancks. ‘It may be out +of the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it is business. I +am a man of business. What business have I in this present world, except +to stick to business? No business.’ + +With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in +earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. It +was as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as ever, and he +could see nothing lurking in it that was at all expressive of a latent +mockery that had seemed to strike upon his ear in the voice. + +‘Now,’ said Pancks, ‘to put this business on its own footing, it’s not +my proprietor’s.’ + +‘Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?’ + +Pancks nodded. ‘My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my proprietor’s I +hear name--name of young person Mr Clennam wants to serve. Say, name +first mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in the Yard. Say, I go to +Plornish. Say, I ask Plornish as a matter of business for information. +Say, Plornish, though six weeks in arrear to my proprietor, declines. +Say, Mrs Plornish declines. Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the +case.’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned Pancks, ‘say, I come to him. Say, here I am.’ + +With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his breath +coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell back a step +(in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to show his dingy hull +complete, then forged a-head again, and directed his quick glance by +turns into his hat where his note-book was, and into Clennam’s face. + +‘Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be as +plain with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First--’ + +‘All right!’ said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his +broken nail. ‘I see! “What’s your motive?”’ + +‘Exactly.’ + +‘Motive,’ said Pancks, ‘good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; not +stateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good. +Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,’ said Pancks, with his +forefinger still up as a caution. ‘Better admit motive to be good.’ + +‘Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?’ + +Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and +buttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking straight +at Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, ‘I want +supplementary information of any sort.’ + +Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-tug, so +useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and watched him as if +it were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all he +wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in +Mr Pancks’s eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations +in his mind. After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr +Pancks with such leading information as it was in his power to impart +him; well knowing that Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, +was pretty sure to find other means of getting it. + +He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary +declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and that +his own intentions were good (two declarations which that coaly little +gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly told him that as to +the Dorrit lineage or former place of habitation, he had no information +to communicate, and that his knowledge of the family did not extend +beyond the fact that it appeared to be now reduced to five members; +namely, to two brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with +three children. The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks, +as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to him +the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and +events through which he had become invested with that character. To +all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous +manner as he became more interested, listened with great attention; +appearing to derive the most agreeable sensations from the painfullest +parts of the narrative, and particularly to be quite charmed by the +account of William Dorrit’s long imprisonment. + +‘In conclusion, Mr Pancks,’ said Arthur, ‘I have but to say this. I have +reasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as I can of the +Dorrit family, particularly at my mother’s house’ (Mr Pancks nodded), +‘and for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a man of business as you +are--eh?’ + +For Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual force. + +‘It’s nothing,’ said Pancks. + +‘So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect understanding of +a fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain with you, that you shall +enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family when you have it in your +power, as I have enlightened you. It may not give you a very flattering +idea of my business habits, that I failed to make my terms beforehand,’ +continued Clennam; ‘but I prefer to make them a point of honour. I have +seen so much business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the +truth, Mr Pancks, I am tired of them.’ + +Mr Pancks laughed. ‘It’s a bargain, sir,’ said he. ‘You shall find me +stick to it.’ + +After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting his +ten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what he had +been told, and went over it carefully, before the means of supplying a +gap in his memory should be no longer at hand. ‘It’s all right,’ he said +at last, ‘and now I’ll wish you good day, as it’s collecting day in the +Yard. By-the-bye, though. A lame foreigner with a stick.’ + +‘Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?’ said Clennam. + +‘When he can pay, sir,’ replied Pancks. ‘Take all you can get, and +keep back all you can’t be forced to give up. That’s business. The lame +foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. Is he good for +it?’ + +‘I am,’ said Clennam, ‘and I will answer for him.’ + +‘That’s enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,’ said Pancks, +making a note of the case in his book, ‘is my bond. I want my bond, you +see. Pay up, or produce your property! That’s the watchword down the +Yard. The lame foreigner with the stick represented that you sent him; +but he could represent (as far as that goes) that the Great Mogul sent +him. He has been in the hospital, I believe?’ + +‘Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now +discharged.’ + +‘It’s pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a +hospital?’ said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound. + +‘I have been shown so too,’ said Clennam, coldly. + +Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under steam +in a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was snorting +down the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, before he +seemed to be well out of the counting-house. + +Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in +consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the +inhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding his +bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters, +sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake. +Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any +house in which he was known to be, listening for fragments of his +discourses to the inmates; and, when he was rumoured to be coming down +the stairs, often could not disperse so quickly but that he would be +prematurely in among them, demanding their own arrears, and rooting them +to the spot. Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr Pancks’s What were +they up to? and What did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr +Pancks wouldn’t hear of excuses, wouldn’t hear of complaints, wouldn’t +hear of repairs, wouldn’t hear of anything but unconditional money down. +Perspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric directions, and +becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed the tide of the yard +into a most agitated and turbid state. It had not settled down into calm +water again full two hours after he had been seen fuming away on the +horizon at the top of the steps. + +There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the +popular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was +universally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do with; and +that it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a gentleman like Mr +Casby should put his rents in his hands, and never know him in his true +light. For (said the Bleeding Hearts), if a gentleman with that head of +hair and them eyes took his rents into his own hands, ma’am, there +would be none of this worriting and wearing, and things would be very +different. + +At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch--who had +floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying +began, with the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his +shining bumps and silken locks--at which identical hour and minute, +that first-rate humbug of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the +little Dock of his exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned +his thumbs: + +‘A very bad day’s work, Pancks, very bad day’s work. It seems to me, +sir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in justice to +myself, that you ought to have got much more money, much more money.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 24. Fortune-Telling + + +Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who, +having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series +of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as +regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom +that there are no such stone-blind men as those who will not see, +obtained an audience with her on the common staircase outside the door. + +‘There’s been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,’ Plornish +growled, ‘and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever I met +with such. The way she snapped a person’s head off, dear me!’ + +The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away from Mr +F.’s Aunt. ‘For,’ said he, to excuse himself, ‘she is, I do assure you, +the winegariest party.’ + +At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject +sufficiently to observe: + +‘But she’s neither here nor there just at present. The other lady, she’s +Mr Casby’s daughter; and if Mr Casby an’t well off, none better, it an’t +through any fault of Pancks. For, as to Pancks, he does, he really does, +he does indeed!’ + +Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but +conscientiously emphatic. + +‘And what she come to our place for,’ he pursued, ‘was to leave word +that if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card--which it’s Mr Casby’s +house that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, where he really +does, beyond belief--she would be glad for to engage her. She was a old +and a dear friend, she said particular, of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to +prove herself a useful friend to _his_ friend. Them was her words. Wishing +to know whether Miss Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would +see you, Miss, and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes, +or, if you was engaged to-morrow, when?’ + +‘I can go to-morrow, thank you,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘This is very kind +of you, but you are always kind.’ + +Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room door +for her readmission, and followed her in with such an exceedingly bald +pretence of not having been out at all, that her father might +have observed it without being very suspicious. In his affable +unconsciousness, however, he took no heed. Plornish, after a little +conversation, in which he blended his former duty as a Collegian with +his present privilege as a humble outside friend, qualified again by his +low estate as a plasterer, took his leave; making the tour of the prison +before he left, and looking on at a game of skittles with the mixed +feelings of an old inhabitant who had his private reasons for believing +that it might be his destiny to come back again. + +Early in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic +trust, set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron Bridge, +though it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that part of her +journey than in any other. At five minutes before eight her hand was on +the Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as high as she could reach. + +She gave Mrs Finching’s card to the young woman who opened the door, and +the young woman told her that ‘Miss Flora’--Flora having, on her return +to the parental roof, reinvested herself with the title under which she +had lived there--was not yet out of her bedroom, but she was to please +to walk up into Miss Flora’s sitting-room. She walked up into +Miss Flora’s sitting-room, as in duty bound, and there found a +breakfast-table comfortably laid for two, with a supplementary tray +upon it laid for one. The young woman, disappearing for a few moments, +returned to say that she was to please to take a chair by the fire, +and to take off her bonnet and make herself at home. But Little Dorrit, +being bashful, and not used to make herself at home on such occasions, +felt at a loss how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with +her bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards. + +Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why did +she sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her by the +fire reading the paper, and hadn’t that heedless girl given her the +message then, and had she really been in her bonnet all this time, and +pray for goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora taking it off in the +best-natured manner in the world, was so struck with the face disclosed, +that she said, ‘Why, what a good little thing you are, my dear!’ and +pressed her face between her hands like the gentlest of women. + +It was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had hardly +time to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the breakfast-table +full of business, and plunged over head and ears into loquacity. + +‘Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of all +mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to meet you +when you came in and to say that any one that interested Arthur Clennam +half so much must interest me and that I gave you the heartiest welcome +and was so glad, instead of which they never called me and there I +still am snoring I dare say if the truth was known and if you don’t like +either cold fowl or hot boiled ham which many people don’t I dare say +besides Jews and theirs are scruples of conscience which we must all +respect though I must say I wish they had them equally strong when they +sell us false articles for real that certainly ain’t worth the money I +shall be quite vexed,’ said Flora. + +Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and tea was +all she usually-- + +‘Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,’ said Flora, +turning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself wink +by splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look into the +teapot. ‘You are coming here on the footing of a friend and companion +you know if you will let me take that liberty and I should be ashamed +of myself indeed if you could come here upon any other, besides which +Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms--you are tired my dear.’ + +‘No, ma’am.’ + +‘You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I dare +say live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,’ said Flora, +‘dear dear is there anything that would do you good?’ + +‘Indeed I am quite well, ma’am. I thank you again and again, but I am +quite well.’ + +‘Then take your tea at once I beg,’ said Flora, ‘and this wing of fowl +and bit of ham, don’t mind me or wait for me, because I always carry in +this tray myself to Mr F.’s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and a charming +old lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind the door and very +like though too much forehead and as to a pillar with a marble pavement +and balustrades and a mountain, I never saw him near it nor not likely +in the wine trade, excellent man but not at all in that way.’ + +Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following the +references to that work of art. + +‘Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his +sight,’ said Flora, ‘though of course I am unable to say how long that +might have lasted if he hadn’t been cut short while I was a new broom, +worthy man but not poetical manly prose but not romance.’ + +Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given it a +head that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, top-heavy +for Shakespeare. + +‘Romance, however,’ Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.’s Aunt’s +toast, ‘as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you will be +surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach +once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the +rest on his knees, Romance was fled with the early days of Arthur +Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we became marble and stern reality +usurped the throne, Mr F. said very much to his credit that he was +perfectly aware of it and even preferred that state of things +accordingly the word was spoken the fiat went forth and such is life you +see my dear and yet we do not break but bend, pray make a good breakfast +while I go in with the tray.’ + +She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning of her +scattered words. She soon came back again; and at last began to take her +own breakfast, talking all the while. + +‘You see, my dear,’ said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of some +brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her tea, ‘I am +obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my medical man though +the flavour is anything but agreeable being a poor creature and it may +be have never recovered the shock received in youth from too much giving +way to crying in the next room when separated from Arthur, have you +known him long?’ + +As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this +question--for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her new +patroness having left her far behind--she answered that she had known Mr +Clennam ever since his return. + +‘To be sure you couldn’t have known him before unless you had been in +China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,’ returned Flora, +‘for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not +at all so and as to corresponding what about? that’s very true unless +tea, so it was at his mother’s was it really that you knew him first, +highly sensible and firm but dreadfully severe--ought to be the mother +of the man in the iron mask.’ + +‘Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur’s mother it’s +naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of her than +I had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on as I am certain +to do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a go-cart--shocking +comparison really--invalid and not her fault--I never know or can +imagine.’ + +‘Shall I find my work anywhere, ma’am?’ asked Little Dorrit, looking +timidly about; ‘can I get it?’ + +‘You industrious little fairy,’ returned Flora, taking, in another cup +of tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, ‘there’s +not the slightest hurry and it’s better that we should begin by being +confidential about our mutual friend--too cold a word for me at least +I don’t mean that, very proper expression mutual friend--than become +through mere formalities not you but me like the Spartan boy with the +fox biting him, which I hope you’ll excuse my bringing up for of all +the tiresome boys that will go tumbling into every sort of company that +boy’s the tiresomest.’ + +Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen. ‘Hadn’t I +better work the while?’ she asked. ‘I can work and attend too. I would +rather, if I may.’ + +Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her work, +that Flora answered, ‘Well my dear whatever you like best,’ and produced +a basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly put it by her +side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded the needle, and +began to hem. + +‘What nimble fingers you have,’ said Flora, ‘but are you sure you are +well?’ + +‘Oh yes, indeed!’ + +Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a thorough +good romantic disclosure. She started off at score, tossing her head, +sighing in the most demonstrative manner, making a great deal of use +of her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not often, glancing at the quiet +face that bent over the work. + +‘You must know my dear,’ said Flora, ‘but that I have no doubt you know +already not only because I have already thrown it out in a general way +but because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what’s his names +upon my brow that before I was introduced to the late Mr F. I had +been engaged to Arthur Clennam--Mr Clennam in public where reserve is +necessary Arthur here--we were all in all to one another it was the +morning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was everything else of +that sort in the highest degree, when rent asunder we turned to stone in +which capacity Arthur went to China and I became the statue bride of the +late Mr F.’ + +Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself immensely. + +‘To paint,’ said she, ‘the emotions of that morning when all was marble +within and Mr F.’s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it stands to +reason must have been in shameful repair or it never could have broken +down two streets from the house and Mr F.’s Aunt brought home like the +fifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I will not attempt, +suffice it to say that the hollow form of breakfast took place in the +dining-room downstairs that papa partaking too freely of pickled salmon +was ill for weeks and that Mr F. and myself went upon a continental +tour to Calais where the people fought for us on the pier until they +separated us though not for ever that was not yet to be.’ + +The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the greatest +complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to flesh and +blood. + +‘I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good spirits his +appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered the wine weak but +palatable and all was well, we returned to the immediate neighbourhood +of Number Thirty Little Gosling Street London Docks and settled down, +ere we had yet fully detected the housemaid in selling the feathers +out of the spare bed Gout flying upwards soared with Mr F. to another +sphere.’ + +His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped her +eyes. + +‘I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most indulgent +husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint +at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint +bottle it was not ecstasy but it was comfort, I returned to papa’s roof +and lived secluded if not happy during some years until one day papa +came smoothly blundering in and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me +below, I went below and found him ask me not what I found him except +that he was still unmarried still unchanged!’ + +The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have +stopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her. +They worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them watching +the stitches. + +‘Ask me not,’ said Flora, ‘if I love him still or if he still loves me +or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and +it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to +be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must +be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem +comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to +me we have fatal reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!’ + +All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really +believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into +full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in +it. + +‘Hush!’ repeated Flora, ‘I have now told you all, confidence is +established between us hush, for Arthur’s sake I will always be a friend +to you my dear girl and in Arthur’s name you may always rely upon me.’ + +The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose and +kissed her hand. ‘You are very cold,’ said Flora, changing to her own +natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the change. ‘Don’t +work to-day. I am sure you are not well I am sure you are not strong.’ + +‘It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by Mr +Clennam’s kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved so +long.’ + +‘Well really my dear,’ said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be +always honest when she gave herself time to think about it, ‘it’s as +well to leave that alone now, for I couldn’t undertake to say after all, +but it doesn’t signify lie down a little!’ + +‘I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I shall +be quite well directly,’ returned Little Dorrit, with a faint smile. +‘You have overpowered me with gratitude, that’s all. If I keep near the +window for a moment I shall be quite myself.’ + +Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately +retired to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air stirring +on Little Dorrit’s face soon brightened it. In a very few minutes she +returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as +ever. + +Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her +where she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said +that she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure +he would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that +she would therefore do so now with Flora’s permission. Receiving an +encouraging answer, she condensed the narrative of her life into a few +scanty words about herself and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and +Flora took it all in with a natural tenderness that quite understood it, +and in which there was no incoherence. + +When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through +hers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr +Pancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to begin. (Mr F.’s +Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those +gentlemen she was received according to their characters; the Patriarch +appearing to do her some inestimable service in saying that he was glad +to see her, glad to see her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite +sound as a salute. + +In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any +circumstances, and particularly under Flora’s insisting on her +drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her +constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that +gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of +likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he +glance at the little note-book by his side. Observing that he made no +sketch, however, and that he talked about business only, she began to +have suspicions that he represented some creditor of her father’s, the +balance due to whom was noted in that pocket volume. Regarded from this +point of view Mr Pancks’s puffings expressed injury and impatience, and +each of his louder snorts became a demand for payment. + +But here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous conduct +on the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table half an hour, +and was at work alone. Flora had ‘gone to lie down’ in the next room, +concurrently with which retirement a smell of something to drink +had broken out in the house. The Patriarch was fast asleep, with his +philanthropic mouth open under a yellow pocket-handkerchief in the +dining-room. At this quiet time, Mr Pancks softly appeared before her, +urbanely nodding. + +‘Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?’ inquired Pancks in a low voice. + +‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Busy, I see,’ observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by inches. +‘What are those now, Miss Dorrit?’ + +‘Handkerchiefs.’ + +‘Are they, though!’ said Pancks. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it.’ Not in +the least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit. ‘Perhaps you +wonder who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune-teller.’ + +Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad. + +‘I belong body and soul to my proprietor,’ said Pancks; ‘you saw my +proprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other way, +sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.’ + +Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm. ‘I wish +you’d show me the palm of your hand,’ said Pancks. ‘I should like to +have a look at it. Don’t let me be troublesome.’ + +He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but she +laid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left hand with +her thimble on it. + +‘Years of toil, eh?’ said Pancks, softly, touching it with his blunt +forefinger. ‘But what else are we made for? Nothing. Hallo!’ looking +into the lines. ‘What’s this with bars? It’s a College! And what’s this +with a grey gown and a black velvet cap? it’s a father! And what’s this +with a clarionet? It’s an uncle! And what’s this in dancing-shoes? It’s +a sister! And what’s this straggling about in an idle sort of a way? +It’s a brother! And what’s this thinking for ‘em all? Why, this is you, +Miss Dorrit!’ + +Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and she +thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter and +gentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes were on +her hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming or correcting +the impression was gone. + +‘Now, the deuce is in it,’ muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in her +hand with his clumsy finger, ‘if this isn’t me in the corner here! What +do I want here? What’s behind me?’ + +He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the wrist, and +affected to look at the back of the hand for what was behind him. + +‘Is it any harm?’ asked Little Dorrit, smiling. + +‘Deuce a bit!’ said Pancks. ‘What do you think it’s worth?’ + +‘I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller.’ + +‘True,’ said Pancks. ‘What’s it worth? You shall live to see, Miss +Dorrit.’ + +Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through his +prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous manner; +and repeated slowly, ‘Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit. You shall live +to see.’ + +She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were only +by his knowing so much about her. + +‘Ah! That’s it!’ said Pancks, pointing at her. ‘Miss Dorrit, not that, +ever!’ + +More surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she looked to +him for an explanation of his last words. + +‘Not that,’ said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an imitation +of a surprised look and manner that appeared to be unintentionally +grotesque. ‘Don’t do that. Never on seeing me, no matter when, no matter +where. I am nobody. Don’t take on to mind me. Don’t mention me. Take no +notice. Will you agree, Miss Dorrit?’ + +‘I hardly know what to say,’ returned Little Dorrit, quite astounded. +‘Why?’ + +‘Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven’t told you so +much of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what’s behind +me on that little hand. I have told you you shall live to see. Is it +agreed, Miss Dorrit?’ + +‘Agreed that I--am--to--’ + +‘To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first. Not +to mind me when I come and go. It’s very easy. I am no loss, I am not +handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors grubber. +You need do no more than think, “Ah! Pancks the gipsy at his +fortune-telling--he’ll tell the rest of my fortune one day--I shall live +to know it.” Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?’ + +‘Ye-es,’ faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, ‘I suppose +so, while you do no harm.’ + +‘Good!’ Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and stooped +forward. ‘Honest creature, woman of capital points, but heedless and +a loose talker, Miss Dorrit.’ With that he rubbed his hands as if the +interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted away to the door, +and urbanely nodded himself out again. + +If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct +on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved +in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing +circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded +him in Mr Casby’s house of significantly glancing at her and snorting +at her--which was not much, after what he had done already--he began to +pervade her daily life. She saw him in the street, constantly. When she +went to Mr Casby’s, he was always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam’s, +he came there on any pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week +had not gone by, when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one +night, conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one +of his familiar companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally at +his ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself among +the visitors at her father’s Sunday levee; to see him arm in arm with +a Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame, that he had +greatly distinguished himself one evening at the social club that held +its meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech to the members +of the institution, singing a song, and treating the company to five +gallons of ale--report madly added a bushel of shrimps. The effect on +Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as he became an eye-witness of in +his faithful visits, made an impression on Little Dorrit only second to +that produced by the phenomena themselves. They seemed to gag and bind +him. He could only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn’t +be believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he never +said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit. Mr Pancks +crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with Tip in some +unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the College on that +gentleman’s arm. Throughout he never took any notice of Little Dorrit, +save once or twice when he happened to come close to her and there +was no one very near; on which occasions, he said in passing, +with a friendly look and a puff of encouragement, ‘Pancks the +gipsy--fortune-telling.’ + +Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, but +keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept many heavier +loads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and was stealing yet, +over the patient heart. Every day found her something more retiring +than the day before. To pass in and out of the prison unnoticed, and +elsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten, were, for herself, her chief +desires. + +To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth +and character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could without +desertion of any duty. There were afternoon times when she was +unemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards with her +father, when she could be spared and was better away. Then she would +flit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that led to her room, +and take her seat at the window. Many combinations did those spikes +upon the wall assume, many light shapes did the strong iron weave itself +into, many golden touches fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat +there musing. New zig-zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when +she saw it through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still, +always over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her +solitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand. + +A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little +Dorrit’s room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little +but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had +ever been able to buy, had gone to her father’s room. Howbeit, for this +poor place she showed an increasing love; and to sit in it alone became +her favourite rest. + +Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries, when +she was seated at her window, and heard Maggy’s well-known step coming +up the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the apprehension of being +summoned away. As Maggy’s step came higher up and nearer, she trembled +and faltered; and it was as much as she could do to speak, when Maggy at +length appeared. + +‘Please, Little Mother,’ said Maggy, panting for breath, ‘you must come +down and see him. He’s here.’ + +‘Who, Maggy?’ + +‘Who, o’ course Mr Clennam. He’s in your father’s room, and he says to +me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it’s only me.’ + +‘I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to lie down. +See! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my grateful regard, that +you left me so, or I would have come.’ + +‘Well, it an’t very polite though, Little Mother,’ said the staring +Maggy, ‘to turn your face away, neither!’ + +Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in +inventing them. ‘Putting both your hands afore your face too!’ she went +on. ‘If you can’t bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to +tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her +feelings and breaking her heart at ten year old, poor thing!’ + +‘It’s to ease my head, Maggy.’ + +‘Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too. +Don’t go and have all the crying to yourself,’ expostulated Maggy, ‘that +an’t not being greedy.’ And immediately began to blubber. + +It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with +the excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her great +delight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the +errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour longer, +combined with a misgiving on Maggy’s part that she had left her good +temper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed. So away she went, +muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the +appointed time, came back. + +‘He was very sorry, I can tell you,’ she announced, ‘and wanted to send +a doctor. And he’s coming again to-morrow he is and I don’t think he’ll +have a good sleep to-night along o’ hearing about your head, Little +Mother. Oh my! Ain’t you been a-crying!’ + +‘I think I have, a little, Maggy.’ + +‘A little! Oh!’ + +‘But it’s all over now--all over for good, Maggy. And my head is much +better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad I did not +go down.’ + +Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her +hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which +her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, exulted in her +brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window. Over +against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic exertions that were not +at all required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling +occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her own knees, and said, with a +voracious appetite for stories, and with widely-opened eyes: + +‘Now, Little Mother, let’s have a good ‘un!’ + +‘What shall it be about, Maggy?’ + +‘Oh, let’s have a princess,’ said Maggy, ‘and let her be a reg’lar one. +Beyond all belief, you know!’ + +Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile upon +her face, which was flushed by the sunset, began: + +‘Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he +could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold and silver, diamonds +and rubies, riches of every kind. He had palaces, and he had--’ + +‘Hospitals,’ interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. ‘Let him have +hospitals, because they’re so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of +Chicking.’ + +‘Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.’ + +‘Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?’ said Maggy. + +‘Plenty of everything.’ + +‘Lor!’ chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. ‘Wasn’t it prime!’ + +‘This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful +Princess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood all her +lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown +up, she was the wonder of the world. Now, near the Palace where this +Princess lived, there was a cottage in which there was a poor little +tiny woman, who lived all alone by herself.’ + +‘An old woman,’ said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips. + +‘No, not an old woman. Quite a young one.’ + +‘I wonder she warn’t afraid,’ said Maggy. ‘Go on, please.’ + +‘The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she went +by in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman spinning at +her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked +at her. So, one day she stopped the coachman a little way from the +cottage, and got out and walked on and peeped in at the door, and there, +as usual, was the tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at +the Princess, and the Princess looked at her.’ + +‘Like trying to stare one another out,’ said Maggy. ‘Please go on, +Little Mother.’ + +‘The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power of +knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep it +there? This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she lived +all alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled down at +the Princess’s feet, and asked her never to betray her. So the Princess +said, I never will betray you. Let me see it. So the tiny woman closed +the shutter of the cottage window and fastened the door, and trembling +from head to foot for fear that any one should suspect her, opened a +very secret place and showed the Princess a shadow.’ + +‘Lor!’ said Maggy. + +‘It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one +who had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to come back. +It was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman showed it to the +Princess, she was proud of it with all her heart, as a great, great +treasure. When the Princess had considered it a little while, she said +to the tiny woman, And you keep watch over this every day? And she cast +down her eyes, and whispered, Yes. Then the Princess said, Remind me +why. To which the other replied, that no one so good and kind had ever +passed that way, and that was why in the beginning. She said, too, that +nobody missed it, that nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had +gone on, to those who were expecting him--’ + +‘Some one was a man then?’ interposed Maggy. + +Little Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed: + +‘--Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this +remembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody. The Princess made +answer, Ah! But when the cottager died it would be discovered there. The +tiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would sink quietly into +her own grave, and would never be found.’ + +‘Well, to be sure!’ said Maggy. ‘Go on, please.’ + +‘The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may suppose, +Maggy.’ + +[‘And well she might be,’ said Maggy.) + +‘So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it. Every +day she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, and there +she saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning at her wheel, +and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. At +last one day the wheel was still, and the tiny woman was not to be seen. +When the Princess made inquiries why the wheel had stopped, and where +the tiny woman was, she was informed that the wheel had stopped because +there was nobody to turn it, the tiny woman being dead.’ + +[‘They ought to have took her to the Hospital,’ said Maggy, and then +she’d have got over it.’) + +‘The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny +woman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place where +she had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped in at the +door. There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody for her to look +at, so she went in at once to search for the treasured shadow. But there +was no sign of it to be found anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny +woman had told her the truth, and that it would never give anybody any +trouble, and that it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she +and it were at rest together. + +‘That’s all, Maggy.’ + +The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit’s face when she came +thus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to shade it. + +‘Had she got to be old?’ Maggy asked. + +‘The tiny woman?’ + +‘Ah!’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘But it would have been just the +same if she had been ever so old.’ + +‘Would it raly!’ said Maggy. ‘Well, I suppose it would though.’ And sat +staring and ruminating. + +She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little Dorrit, +to entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window. As she +glanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer up with the +corner of his eye as he went by. + +‘Who’s he, Little Mother?’ said Maggy. She had joined her at the window +and was leaning on her shoulder. ‘I see him come in and out often.’ + +‘I have heard him called a fortune-teller,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘But I +doubt if he could tell many people even their past or present fortunes.’ + +‘Couldn’t have told the Princess hers?’ said Maggy. + +Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the prison, +shook her head. + +‘Nor the tiny woman hers?’ said Maggy. + +‘No,’ said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her. ‘But let +us come away from the window.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 25. Conspirators and Others + + +The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged +on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small +way, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring +and starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the +fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, DEBTS RECOVERED. + +This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little +slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few +of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of +choking. A professor of writing occupied the first-floor, and enlivened +the garden railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what +his pupils had been before six lessons and while the whole of his young +family shook the table, and what they had become after six lessons +when the young family was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was +limited to one airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg +his landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments +accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he should +be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or +supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or meals of Mr and Miss +Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour. + +Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired, +together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her +heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker +resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr +Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages for a +breach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the counsel for +Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount +of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and +having been cast in corresponding damages, still suffered occasional +persecution from the youth of Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by +the majesty of the law, and having her damages invested in the public +securities, was regarded with consideration. + +In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his +blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow +head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who +had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and +whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks +had usually dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week, +or so, enjoyed an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter. +Mr Pancks was one of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg +had no terrors, the argument with which he reassured himself being +twofold; that is to say, firstly, ‘that it wouldn’t do twice,’ and +secondly, ‘that he wasn’t worth it.’ Fortified within this double +armour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on easy terms. + +Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his +quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now that he +had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after midnight +with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even after those +untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though his duties as his +proprietor’s grubber were in no wise lessened; and though that service +bore no greater resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered +in its many thorns; some new branch of industry made a constant demand +upon him. When he cast off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take +an anonymous craft in tow, and labour away afresh in other waters. + +The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery to +an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been +easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He nestled in the bosom +of the tobacco business within a week or two after his first appearance +in the College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of +a good understanding with Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered +as to lure that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him +to undertake mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at +uncertain intervals for as long a space as two or three days together. +The prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would have +protested against it as detrimental to the Highland typification on the +doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to +take strong interest in the business which these starts were supposed +to advance--and this she held to be good for his drooping spirits; +the other, that Mr Pancks confidentially agreed to pay her, for the +occupation of her son’s time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence +per day. The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the +pithy terms, ‘If your John is weak enough, ma’am, not to take it, +that is no reason why you should be, don’t you see? So, quite between +ourselves, ma’am, business being business, here it is!’ + +What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he +knew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been already +remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed +that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He +locked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors. +Even his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform +whole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept +his mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door. He never opened it without +occasion. When it was necessary to let anything out, he opened it a +little way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and +locked it again. Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the +Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting +for a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so +that one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would +often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips, +and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to his +inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as +legible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon +which it was turned. + +That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at +Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited +Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous +(because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed +for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton +with oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker’s--not _the_ +baker’s but an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, +and nuts was also made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on +Saturday night, to gladden the visitor’s heart. + +The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor’s +reception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and +sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory +hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by +disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as +the young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit. + +‘I am glad,’ said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character, +‘to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance, +sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive +your feelings! If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, +who was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably +good address; ‘if I was to outlive my own feelings, I’d leave fifty +pound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.’ + +Miss Rugg heaved a sigh. + +‘My daughter, sir,’ said Mr Rugg. ‘Anastatia, you are no stranger to the +state of this young man’s affections. My daughter has had her trials, +sir’--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular +number--‘and she can feel for you.’ + +Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, +professed himself to that effect. + +‘What I envy you, sir, is,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘allow me to take your hat--we +are rather short of pegs--I’ll put it in the corner, nobody will tread +on it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I +belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.’ + +Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what +was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit. +He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything +as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself +out of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do, +but he hoped he did it. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, ‘you are a young man that +it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should +like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal +profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend +to play a good knife and fork?’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Young John, ‘I don’t eat much at present.’ + +Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. ‘My daughter’s case, sir,’ said he, ‘at +the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she +became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose I could have put it +in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the +amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not +exceed ten ounces per week.’ + +‘I think I go a little beyond that, sir,’ returned the other, +hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame. + +‘But in your case there’s no fiend in human form,’ said Mr Rugg, with +argumentative smile and action of hand. ‘Observe, Mr Chivery! +No fiend in human form!’ + +‘No, sir, certainly,’ Young John added with simplicity, ‘I should be +very sorry if there was.’ + +‘The sentiment,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘is what I should have expected from your +known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard +it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn’t hear it. Mr Pancks, +on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr Chivery. For what we +are going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!’ + +But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg’s manner of delivering this +introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was +expected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally in +his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss Rugg, +perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to +the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A bread-and-butter +pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and +radishes vanished by the same means. Then came the dessert. + +Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr +Pancks’s note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief but +curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks looked over +his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out +little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table; +Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and +Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists of meditation. When Mr +Pancks, who supported the character of chief conspirator, had completed +his extracts, he looked them over, corrected them, put up his note-book, +and held them like a hand at cards. + +‘Now, there’s a churchyard in Bedfordshire,’ said Pancks. ‘Who takes +it?’ + +‘I’ll take it, sir,’ returned Mr Rugg, ‘if no one bids.’ + +Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again. + +‘Now, there’s an Enquiry in York,’ said Pancks. ‘Who takes it?’ + +‘I’m not good for York,’ said Mr Rugg. + +‘Then perhaps,’ pursued Pancks, ‘you’ll be so obliging, John Chivery?’ + +Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand +again. + +‘There’s a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family +Bible; I may as well take that, too. That’s two to me. Two to me,’ +repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. ‘Here’s a Clerk at +Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for +you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me. Here’s a Stone; three +to me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me. And all, for the present, +told.’ + +When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and +in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own +breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a sparing +hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two little +portions. ‘Cash goes out fast,’ he said anxiously, as he pushed a +portion to each of his male companions, ‘very fast.’ + +‘I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,’ said Young John, ‘that I deeply +regret my circumstances being such that I can’t afford to pay my own +charges, or that it’s not advisable to allow me the time necessary for +my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would give me greater +satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward.’ + +This young man’s disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in +the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate +retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had +had her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity, +at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if +he were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as he restored it to his +pocket, mixed rum and water for the party, not forgetting her fair self, +and handed to every one his glass. When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose, +and silently holding out his glass at arm’s length above the centre of +the table, by that gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to +unite in a general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up +to a certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss +Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not +happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome by the +contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some +ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw in confusion. + +Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville; +and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. The only waking +moments at which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate +himself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object, +were when he showed a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the +stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard. + +The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr +Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow, +that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast. +Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words +of the only language in which he could communicate with the people about +him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was +new in those parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing +to wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the +smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as +if he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled +up and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his +white teeth. + +It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with +the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded +that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it +to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to +his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own +countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the +world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it +particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a +notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he +was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to +his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do +things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been +carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always +proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit +itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the +protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged +them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun. + +This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding +Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners +in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and +though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, +that did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that +foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got +their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still +it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn’t count. They believed +that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional +assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing +to do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, +as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite +Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. +Not to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind. + +Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make +head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr +Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the +top of the same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding +Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily +limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no +knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on +farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish’s children of +an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be +an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his +head. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him ‘Mr +Baptist,’ but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his +lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn’t mind +it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he +were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the +language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain +Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly +ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying ‘Me ope +you leg well soon,’ that it was considered in the Yard but a very short +remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to +think that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became +more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his +instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the +Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying ‘Mr Baptist--tea-pot!’ +‘Mr Baptist--dust-pan!’ ‘Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!’ ‘Mr +Baptist--coffee-biggin!’ At the same time exhibiting those articles, +and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the +Anglo-Saxon tongue. + +It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his +occupation, that Mr Pancks’s fancy became attracted by the little man. +Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found +Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a +chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way +possible. + +‘Now, old chap,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘pay up!’ + +He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly +handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his +right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air +for an odd sixpence. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. ‘That’s it, is it? +You’re a quick customer. It’s all right. I didn’t expect to receive it, +though.’ + +Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to +Mr Baptist. ‘E please. E glad get money.’ + +The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly +attractive to Mr Pancks. ‘How’s he getting on in his limb?’ he asked Mrs +Plornish. + +‘Oh, he’s a deal better, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish. ‘We expect next week +he’ll be able to leave off his stick entirely.’ (The opportunity +being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great +accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr Baptist, ‘E ope +you leg well soon.’) + +‘He’s a merry fellow, too,’ said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a +mechanical toy. ‘How does he live?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ rejoined Mrs Plornish, ‘he turns out to have quite a power +of carving them flowers that you see him at now.’ (Mr Baptist, watching +their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in +her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, ‘E please. Double good!’) + +‘Can he live by that?’ asked Mr Pancks. + +‘He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able, +in time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and +gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door--makes ‘em for him, +in short, when he knows he wants ‘em.’ + +‘And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain’t hard at it?’ said +Mr Pancks. + +‘Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to +walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular +understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children, +and he sits in the sun--he’ll sit down anywhere, as if it was an +arm-chair--and he’ll sing, and he’ll laugh!’ + +‘Laugh!’ echoed Mr Pancks. ‘He looks to me as if every tooth in his head +was always laughing.’ + +‘But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t’other end of the +Yard,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘he’ll peep out in the curiousest way! So that +some of us thinks he’s peeping out towards where his own country is, and +some of us thinks he’s looking for somebody he don’t want to see, and +some of us don’t know what to think.’ + +Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or +perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping. +In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man +who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue, +it didn’t matter. Altro! + +‘What’s Altro?’ said Pancks. + +‘Hem! It’s a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,’ said Mrs +Plornish. + +‘Is it?’ said Pancks. ‘Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon. +Altro!’ + +Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr +Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became +a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night, +to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in +at Mr Baptist’s door, and, finding him in his room, to say, ‘Hallo, old +chap! Altro!’ To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright +nods and smiles, ‘Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!’ After this +highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an +appearance of being lightened and refreshed. + + + + +CHAPTER 26. Nobody’s State of Mind + + +If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to +restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of +much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not +the least of these would have been a contention, always waging within +it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard +him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was +unworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is +slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will +gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles that its origin is not +dispassionate, such a nature becomes distressed. + +Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam’s mind, and would +have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and +subjects but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid. As it +was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce’s mind; at all events, +it so happened that it usually fell to Mr Doyce’s turn, rather than +to Clennam’s, to speak of him in the friendly conversations they held +together. These were of frequent occurrence now; as the two partners +shared a portion of a roomy house in one of the grave old-fashioned City +streets, lying not far from the Bank of England, by London Wall. + +Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had excused +himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head at the door of +Clennam’s sitting-room to say Good night. + +‘Come in, come in!’ said Clennam. + +‘I saw you were reading,’ returned Doyce, as he entered, ‘and thought +you might not care to be disturbed.’ + +But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not +have known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes +upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before him. He shut +it up, rather quickly. + +‘Are they well?’ he asked. + +‘Yes,’ said Doyce; ‘they are well. They are all well.’ + +Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief +in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly +repeating, ‘They are all well. Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I +thought.’ + +‘Any company at the cottage?’ + +‘No, no company.’ + +‘And how did you get on, you four?’ asked Clennam gaily. + +‘There were five of us,’ returned his partner. ‘There was +What’s-his-name. He was there.’ + +‘Who is he?’ said Clennam. + +‘Mr Henry Gowan.’ + +‘Ah, to be sure!’ cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, ‘Yes!--I forgot +him.’ + +‘As I mentioned, you may remember,’ said Daniel Doyce, ‘he is always +there on Sunday.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ returned Clennam; ‘I remember now.’ + +Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. ‘Yes. He +was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. _He_ was +there too.’ + +‘Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,’ observed Clennam. + +‘Quite so,’ assented his partner. ‘More attached to the dog than I am to +the man.’ + +‘You mean Mr--?’ + +‘I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,’ said Daniel Doyce. + +There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up +his watch. + +‘Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,’ he said. ‘Our +judgments--I am supposing a general case--’ + +‘Of course,’ said Doyce. + +‘Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost +without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard +upon them. For instance, Mr--’ + +‘Gowan,’ quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost +always devolved. + +‘Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a +good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an +unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.’ + +‘Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,’ returned his partner. ‘I see +him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old +friend’s house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend’s +face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face +of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and +affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.’ + +‘We don’t know,’ said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, +‘that he will not make her happy.’ + +‘We don’t know,’ returned his partner, ‘that the earth will last another +hundred years, but we think it highly probable.’ + +‘Well, well!’ said Clennam, ‘we must be hopeful, and we must at least +try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity +of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is +successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and +we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom +she finds worthy of it.’ + +‘Maybe, my friend,’ said Doyce. ‘Maybe also, that she is too young and +petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.’ + +‘That,’ said Clennam, ‘would be far beyond our power of correction.’ + +Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, ‘I fear so.’ + +‘Therefore, in a word,’ said Clennam, ‘we should make up our minds that +it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor +thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part, +not to depreciate him.’ + +‘I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege +of objecting to him,’ returned the other. ‘But, if I am not sure of +myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you +are, and how much to be respected. Good night, _my_ friend and partner!’ +He shook his hand in saying this, as if there had been something serious +at the bottom of their conversation; and they separated. + +By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and had +always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when +he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr +Meagles’s sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the Ferry. +If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden passion into his breast, +this period might have been a period of real trial; under the actual +circumstances, doubtless it was nothing--nothing. + +Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest, +his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this +period might have been a little meritorious. In the constant effort not +to be betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience, +the pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold +instead to some high principle of honour and generosity, there might +have been a little merit. In the resolution not even to avoid Mr +Meagles’s house, lest, in the selfish sparing of himself, he should +bring any slight distress upon the daughter through making her the cause +of an estrangement which he believed the father would regret, there +might have been a little merit. In the modest truthfulness of always +keeping in view the greater equality of Mr Gowan’s years and the greater +attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a little +merit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly unaffected way +and with a manful and composed constancy, while the pain within him +(peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, there might have been +some quiet strength of character. But, after the resolution he had made, +of course he could have no such merits as these; and such a state of +mind was nobody’s--nobody’s. + +Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody’s or +somebody’s. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all +occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam’s presuming to have debated +the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He +had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat +him with, which might of itself (in the supposititious case of his +not having taken that sagacious course) have been a very uncomfortable +element in his state of mind. + +‘I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,’ said Mr Henry Gowan, +calling on Clennam the next morning. ‘We had an agreeable day up the +river there.’ + +So he had heard, Arthur said. + +‘From your partner?’ returned Henry Gowan. ‘What a dear old fellow he +is!’ + +‘I have a great regard for him.’ + +‘By Jove, he is the finest creature!’ said Gowan. ‘So fresh, so green, +trusts in such wonderful things!’ + +Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to +grate on Clennam’s hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he +had a high regard for Mr Doyce. + +‘He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, +laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is +delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul! +Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in +comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me +add, without including you. You are genuine also.’ + +‘Thank you for the compliment,’ said Clennam, ill at ease; ‘you are too, +I hope?’ + +‘So so,’ rejoined the other. ‘To be candid with you, tolerably. I am +not a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure you, +in confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of another +man’s--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the chances are that +the more you give him, the more he’ll impose upon you. They all do it.’ + +‘All painters?’ + +‘Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the +market. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose upon +you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a corresponding +extent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent. So great the +success, so great the imposition. But what a capital world it is!’ cried +Gowan with warm enthusiasm. ‘What a jolly, excellent, lovable world it +is!’ + +‘I had rather thought,’ said Clennam, ‘that the principle you mention +was chiefly acted on by--’ + +‘By the Barnacles?’ interrupted Gowan, laughing. + +‘By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circumlocution +Office.’ + +‘Ah! Don’t be hard upon the Barnacles,’ said Gowan, laughing afresh, +‘they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of +the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by +Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that would astonish you!’ + +‘It would. Very much,’ said Clennam, drily. + +‘And after all,’ cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his +which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, +‘though I can’t deny that the Circumlocution Office may ultimately +shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in +our time--and it’s a school for gentlemen.’ + +‘It’s a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the +people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,’ said Clennam, +shaking his head. + +‘Ah! You are a terrible fellow,’ returned Gowan, airily. ‘I can +understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the +most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of his +wits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want to present +you to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to give me the +opportunity.’ + +In nobody’s state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired +less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid. + +‘My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary +red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,’ said Gowan. ‘If you would make +your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take +you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed. Really +that’s the state of the case.’ + +What could Clennam say after this? His retiring character included a +great deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised and +unused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say that he was +happy to place himself at Mr Gowan’s disposal. Accordingly he said it, +and the day was fixed. And a dreaded day it was on his part, and a very +unwelcome day when it came and they went down to Hampton Court together. + +The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times, +to be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies. There was a +temporary air about their establishments, as if they were going away the +moment they could get anything better; there was also a dissatisfied air +about themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already +got something much better. Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or +less observable as soon as their doors were opened; screens not half +high enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded +off obscure corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads +among the knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe +that they didn’t hide anything; panes of glass which requested you +not to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no +connection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in walls, +which were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no thoroughfares, which +were evidently doors to little kitchens. Mental reservations and artful +mysteries grew out of these things. Callers looking steadily into the +eyes of their receivers, pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; +people, confronting closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see +bottles; visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas, +and a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made +believe to be sitting in a primeval silence. There was no end to the +small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the gipsies of +gentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting for, one another. + +Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly +soured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the consciousness +that they had never got enough out of the public; the second, the +consciousness that the public were admitted into the building. Under the +latter great wrong, a few suffered dreadfully--particularly on Sundays, +when they had for some time expected the earth to open and swallow +the public up; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in +consequence of some reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the +Universe. + +Mrs Gowan’s door was attended by a family servant of several years’ +standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning a +situation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time expecting, +and to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly knew that the public +could never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the +idea that the public kept him out. Under the influence of this injury +(and perhaps of some little straitness and irregularity in the matter +of wages), he had grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind; +and now beholding in Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, +received him with ignominy. + +Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her a +courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently +well-favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a +certain impossible bloom under each eye. She was a little lofty with +him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and who must +have had something real about her or she could not have existed, but it +was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her figure or her complexion; +so was a grey old gentleman of dignified and sullen appearance; both of +whom had come to dinner. But, as they had all been in the British +Embassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a British Embassy +cannot better establish a character with the Circumlocution Office than +by treating its compatriots with illimitable contempt (else it would +become like the Embassies of other countries), Clennam felt that on the +whole they let him off lightly. + +The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster +Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for +many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. +This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time, +and had done it with such complete success that the very name of +Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the +distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a quarter of a +century. + +He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like +a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a +whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of +the service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble +Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb. +He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted +the vegetables. + +There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small +footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn’t got into the +Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned +and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of +the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government. + +Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son’s +being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts, +instead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose +as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the +evil days. It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what +little pivots this great world goes round upon. + +‘If John Barnacle,’ said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times +had been fully ascertained, ‘if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most +unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and +I think the country would have been preserved.’ + +The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus +Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with +instructions to charge, she thought the country would have been +preserved. + +The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and +Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed +their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, +and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the +conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the +country would have been preserved. + +It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and +Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving +was not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about +John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor +Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because +there was nobody else but mob. And this was the feature of the +conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to it, very +disagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there, +silently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds. +Remembering, however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the +life of that nation’s body or the life of its soul, the question was +usually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, +William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle +or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob, +bethinking himself that mob was used to it. + +Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the +three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what +they said. Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown +him off as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal +disquiet in anything that passed. His healthy state of mind appeared +even to derive a gratification from Clennam’s position of embarrassment +and isolation among the good company; and if Clennam had been in that +condition with which Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have +suspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, +even while he sat at the table. + +In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time +less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries +in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that +epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, +and retiring at his lowest temperature. + +Then Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant +arm-chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted +slaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial favour, +invited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the presence. He +obeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord Lancaster +Stiltstalking. + +‘Mr Clennam,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘apart from the happiness I have in +becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place--a +mere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It +is the subject in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the +pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.’ + +Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did +not yet quite understand. + +‘First,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘now, is she really pretty?’ + +In nobody’s difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to +answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say ‘Who?’ + +‘Oh! You know!’ she returned. ‘This flame of Henry’s. This unfortunate +fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the +name--Miss Mickles--Miggles.’ + +‘Miss Meagles,’ said Clennam, ‘is very beautiful.’ + +‘Men are so often mistaken on those points,’ returned Mrs Gowan, shaking +her head, ‘that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of +it, even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so +much gravity and emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?’ + +The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied, +‘Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.’ + +‘Picked the people up,’ said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed +fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on her little +table. ‘Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled against them.’ + +‘The people?’ + +‘Yes. The Miggles people.’ + +‘I really cannot say,’ said Clennam, ‘where my friend Mr Meagles first +presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.’ + +‘I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind +where--somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very +plebeian?’ + +‘Really, ma’am,’ returned Clennam, ‘I am so undoubtedly plebeian myself, +that I do not feel qualified to judge.’ + +‘Very neat!’ said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen. ‘Very happy! +From which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal to her +looks?’ + +Clennam, after a moment’s stiffness, bowed. + +‘That’s comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me you +had travelled with them?’ + +‘I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter, +during some months.’ (Nobody’s heart might have been wrung by the +remembrance.) + +‘Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of +them. You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long time, +and I find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the opportunity of +speaking to one so well informed about it as yourself, is an immense +relief to me. Quite a boon. Quite a blessing, I am sure.’ + +‘Pardon me,’ returned Clennam, ‘but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan’s +confidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me to +be. Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No word on this +topic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and myself.’ + +Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was +playing ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of +cavalry. + +‘Not in his confidence? No,’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘No word has passed between +you? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed confidences, Mr +Clennam; and as you have been together intimately among these people, I +cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort exists in the present case. +Perhaps you have heard that I have suffered the keenest distress of +mind from Henry’s having taken to a pursuit which--well!’ shrugging her +shoulders, ‘a very respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists +are, as artists, quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our +family have gone beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to +feel a little--’ + +As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute to +be magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was mighty +little danger of the family’s ever going beyond an Amateur, even as it +was. + +‘Henry,’ the mother resumed, ‘is self-willed and resolute; and as these +people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can entertain very +little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be broken off. I apprehend +the girl’s fortune will be very small; Henry might have done much +better; there is scarcely anything to compensate for the connection: +still, he acts for himself; and if I find no improvement within a short +time, I see no other course than to resign myself and make the best of +these people. I am infinitely obliged to you for what you have told +me.’ + +As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With an +uneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he then said +in a still lower tone than he had adopted yet: + +‘Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to be a +duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in +attempting to discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very great +misconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to require setting +right. You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family to strain every +nerve, I think you said--’ + +‘Every nerve,’ repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm obstinacy, +with her green fan between her face and the fire. + +‘To secure Mr Henry Gowan?’ + +The lady placidly assented. + +‘Now that is so far,’ said Arthur, ‘from being the case, that I know +Mr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have interposed all +reasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end to it.’ + +Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with it, +and tapped her smiling lips. ‘Why, of course,’ said she. ‘Just what I +mean.’ + +Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean. + +‘Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don’t you see?’ + +Arthur did not see; and said so. + +‘Why, don’t I know my son, and don’t I know that this is exactly the way +to hold him?’ said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; ‘and do not these Miggles +people know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd people, Mr Clennam: +evidently people of business! I believe Miggles belonged to a Bank. It +ought to have been a very profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its +management. This is very well done, indeed.’ + +‘I beg and entreat you, ma’am--’ Arthur interposed. + +‘Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?’ + +It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in this +haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips with her +fan, that he said very earnestly, ‘Believe me, ma’am, this is unjust, a +perfectly groundless suspicion.’ + +‘Suspicion?’ repeated Mrs Gowan. ‘Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, Certainty. +It is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have taken _you_ in +completely.’ She laughed; and again sat tapping her lips with her fan, +and tossing her head, as if she added, ‘Don’t tell me. I know such +people will do anything for the honour of such an alliance.’ + +At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry Gowan +came across the room saying, ‘Mother, if you can spare Mr Clennam for +this time, we have a long way to go, and it’s getting late.’ Mr Clennam +thereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do; and Mrs Gowan showed him, +to the last, the same look and the same tapped contemptuous lips. + +‘You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,’ said Gowan, as +the door closed upon them. ‘I fervently hope she has not bored you?’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Clennam. + +They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it on +the road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam declined one. Do +what he would, he fell into such a mood of abstraction that Gowan said +again, ‘I am very much afraid my mother has bored you?’ To which he +roused himself to answer, ‘Not at all!’ and soon relapsed again. + +In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his thoughtfulness +would have turned principally on the man at his side. He would have +thought of the morning when he first saw him rooting out the stones with +his heel, and would have asked himself, ‘Does he jerk me out of the +path in the same careless, cruel way?’ He would have thought, had this +introduction to his mother been brought about by him because he knew +what she would say, and that he could thus place his position before +a rival and loftily warn him off, without himself reposing a word of +confidence in him? He would have thought, even if there were no such +design as that, had he brought him there to play with his repressed +emotions, and torment him? The current of these meditations would have +been stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to +himself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such +suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high, +unenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, the striving +within him would have been hardest; and looking up and catching Gowan’s +eyes, he would have started as if he had done him an injury. + +Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would have +gradually trailed off again into thinking, ‘Where are we driving, he +and I, I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will it be with us, and +with her, in the obscure distance?’ Thinking of her, he would have been +troubled anew with a reproachful misgiving that it was not even loyal to +her to dislike him, and that in being so easily prejudiced against him +he was less deserving of her than at first. + +‘You are evidently out of spirits,’ said Gowan; ‘I am very much afraid +my mother must have bored you dreadfully.’ + +‘Believe me, not at all,’ said Clennam. ‘It’s nothing--nothing!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 27. Five-and-Twenty + +A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks’s desire to collect +information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible +bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return +from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this +period. What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit family, what more +he really wanted to find out, and why he should trouble his busy head +about them at all, were questions that often perplexed him. Mr Pancks +was not a man to waste his time and trouble in researches prompted by +idle curiosity. That he had a specific object Clennam could not doubt. +And whether the attainment of that object by Mr Pancks’s industry might +bring to light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced +his mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious speculation. + +Not that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination to +repair a wrong that had been done in his father’s time, should a +wrong come to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed act +of injustice, which had hung over him since his father’s death, was +so vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality widely +remote from his idea of it. But, if his apprehensions should prove to +be well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay down all he had, and +begin the world anew. As the fierce dark teaching of his childhood had +never sunk into his heart, so that first article in his code of morals +was, that he must begin, in practical humility, with looking well to +his feet on Earth, and that he could never mount on wings of words to +Heaven. Duty on earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these +first, as the first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow +was the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved +with vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men’s eyes +and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials +costing absolutely nothing. + +No. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him +uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the +understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might take some +course upon it without imparting it to him. On the other hand, when he +recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to +suppose that there was any likelihood of that strange personage being +on that track at all, there were times when he wondered that he made so +much of it. Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he +tossed about and came to no haven. + +The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary association, +did not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so much in her own +room, that he began to miss her and to find a blank in her place. He had +written to her to inquire if she were better, and she had written +back, very gratefully and earnestly telling him not to be uneasy on her +behalf, for she was quite well; but he had not seen her, for what, in +their intercourse, was a long time. + +He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who had +mentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always said +when she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr Meagles in an +excited state walking up and down his room. On his opening the door, Mr +Meagles stopped, faced round, and said: + +‘Clennam!--Tattycoram!’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘Lost!’ + +‘Why, bless my heart alive!’ cried Clennam in amazement. ‘What do you +mean?’ + +‘Wouldn’t count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn’t be got to do it; stopped +at eight, and took herself off.’ + +‘Left your house?’ + +‘Never to come back,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. ‘You don’t know +that girl’s passionate and proud character. A team of horses couldn’t +draw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old Bastille couldn’t keep +her.’ + +‘How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me.’ + +‘As to how it happened, it’s not so easy to relate: because you must +have the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl herself, +before you can fully understand it. But it came about in this way. Pet +and Mother and I have been having a good deal of talk together of late. +I’ll not disguise from you, Clennam, that those conversations have not +been of as bright a kind as I could wish; they have referred to our +going away again. In proposing to do which, I have had, in fact, an +object.’ + +Nobody’s heart beat quickly. + +‘An object,’ said Mr Meagles, after a moment’s pause, ‘that I will not +disguise from you, either, Clennam. There’s an inclination on the part +of my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess the person. +Henry Gowan.’ + +‘I was not unprepared to hear it.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, ‘I wish to God you had never +had to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done all we could +to get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried tender advice, we +have tried time, we have tried absence. As yet, of no use. Our late +conversations have been upon the subject of going away for another year +at least, in order that there might be an entire separation and breaking +off for that term. Upon that question, Pet has been unhappy, and +therefore Mother and I have been unhappy.’ + +Clennam said that he could easily believe it. + +‘Well!’ continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, ‘I admit as a +practical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical woman, +that we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make mountains of our +molehills in a way that is calculated to be rather trying to people who +look on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam. Still, Pet’s happiness +or unhappiness is quite a life or death question with us; and we may be +excused, I hope, for making much of it. At all events, it might have +been borne by Tattycoram. Now, don’t you think so?’ + +‘I do indeed think so,’ returned Clennam, in most emphatic recognition +of this very moderate expectation. + +‘No, sir,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. ‘She couldn’t +stand it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the wearing and tearing +of that girl within her own breast, has been such that I have +softly said to her again and again in passing her, “Five-and-twenty, +Tattycoram, five-and-twenty!” I heartily wish she could have gone +on counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then it wouldn’t have +happened.’ + +Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his +heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and +gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook +his head again. + +‘I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have thought +it all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and we know her +story; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of what was raging in +her mother’s heart before ever such a creature as this poor thing was +in the world; we’ll gloss her temper over, Mother, we won’t notice it at +present, my dear, we’ll take advantage of some better disposition in her +another time. So we said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if +it was to be; she broke out violently one night.’ + +‘How, and why?’ + +‘If you ask me Why,’ said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the +question, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the +family’s, ‘I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as having +been pretty near my words to Mother. As to How, we had said Good night +to Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must allow), and she +had attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was her maid. Perhaps Pet, +having been out of sorts, may have been a little more inconsiderate than +usual in requiring services of her: but I don’t know that I have any +right to say so; she was always thoughtful and gentle.’ + +‘The gentlest mistress in the world.’ + +‘Thank you, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; ‘you +have often seen them together. Well! We presently heard this unfortunate +Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what was the matter, +Pet came back in a tremble, saying she was frightened of her. Close +after her came Tattycoram in a flaming rage. “I hate you all three,” + says she, stamping her foot at us. “I am bursting with hate of the whole +house.”’ + +‘Upon which you--?’ + +‘I?’ said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have commanded +the belief of Mrs Gowan herself. ‘I said, count five-and-twenty, +Tattycoram.’ + +Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air of +profound regret. + +‘She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture of +passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in the face, +and counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn’t control herself +to go any further. There she broke down, poor thing, and gave the other +seventeen to the four winds. Then it all burst out. She detested us, she +was miserable with us, she couldn’t bear it, she wouldn’t bear it, she +was determined to go away. She was younger than her young mistress, and +would she remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was +young and interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn’t, +she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t! What did we think she, Tattycoram, might +have been if she had been caressed and cared for in her childhood, like +her young mistress? As good as her? Ah! Perhaps fifty times as good. +When we pretended to be so fond of one another, we exulted over her; +that was what we did; we exulted over her and shamed her. And all in +the house did the same. They talked about their fathers and mothers, and +brothers and sisters; they liked to drag them up before her face. There +was Mrs Tickit, only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her, +had been amused by the child’s trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the +wretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name. Why, who didn’t; +and who were we that we should have a right to name her like a dog or a +cat? But she didn’t care. She would take no more benefits from us; she +would fling us her name back again, and she would go. She would leave +us that minute, nobody should stop her, and we should never hear of her +again.’ + +Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of his +original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as he +described her to have been. + +‘Ah, well!’ he said, wiping his face. ‘It was of no use trying reason +then, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what her +mother’s story must have been); so I quietly told her that she should +not go at that late hour of night, and I gave her my hand and took her +to her room, and locked the house doors. But she was gone this morning.’ + +‘And you know no more of her?’ + +‘No more,’ returned Mr Meagles. ‘I have been hunting about all day. She +must have gone very early and very silently. I have found no trace of +her down about us.’ + +‘Stay! You want,’ said Clennam, after a moment’s reflection, ‘to see +her? I assume that?’ + +‘Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet +want to give her another chance; come! You yourself,’ said Mr Meagles, +persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not his own at all, +‘want to give the poor passionate girl another chance, I know, Clennam.’ + +‘It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,’ said Clennam, ‘when +you are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was, have you +thought of that Miss Wade?’ + +‘I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of our +neighbourhood, and I don’t know that I should have done so then but +for finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea that +Tattycoram must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled what she +said that day at dinner when you were first with us.’ + +‘Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?’ + +‘To tell you the truth,’ returned Mr Meagles, ‘it’s because I have an +addled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me waiting +here. There is one of those odd impressions in my house, which do +mysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems to have +picked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which everybody seems +to have got hold of loosely from somebody and let go again, that she +lives, or was living, thereabouts.’ Mr Meagles handed him a slip of +paper, on which was written the name of one of the dull by-streets in +the Grosvenor region, near Park Lane. + +‘Here is no number,’ said Arthur looking over it. + +‘No number, my dear Clennam?’ returned his friend. ‘No anything! The +very name of the street may have been floating in the air; for, as I +tell you, none of my people can say where they got it from. However, +it’s worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in company than +alone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that immovable woman’s, +I thought perhaps--’ Clennam finished the sentence for him by taking up +his hat again, and saying he was ready. + +It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to the top +of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets +of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as +stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a +labyrinth near Park Lane. Wildernesses of corner houses, with barbarous +old porticoes and appurtenances; horrors that came into existence under +some wrong-headed person in some wrong-headed time, still demanding +the blind admiration of all ensuing generations and determined to do +so until they tumbled down; frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little +tenements, with the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door +on the giant model of His Grace’s in the Square to the squeezed window +of the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening +doleful. Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to +hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last +result of the great mansions’ breeding in-and-in; and, where their +little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron +columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches. Here and +there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in it, loomed down +upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity. The shops, +few in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as nothing to them. +The pastrycook knew who was on his books, and in that knowledge could be +calm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his +window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly. A few +oranges formed the greengrocer’s whole concession to the vulgar mind. A +single basket made of moss, once containing plovers’ eggs, held all that +the poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets +seemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be gone out +to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to. +On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with bright parti-coloured +plumage and white polls, like an extinct race of monstrous birds; and +butlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour, each of whom appeared +distrustful of all other butlers. The roll of carriages in the Park was +done for the day; the street lamps were lighting; and wicked little +grooms in the tightest fitting garments, with twists in their legs +answering to the twists in their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing +straws and exchanging fraudulent secrets. The spotted dogs who went out +with the carriages, and who were so associated with splendid equipages +that it looked like a condescension in those animals to come out without +them, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages. Here and there was a +retiring public-house which did not require to be supported on the +shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery were not much +wanted. + +This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their +inquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person as +Miss Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was one of the +parasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and gloomy; like a brick +and mortar funeral. They inquired at several little area gates, where +a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous +little shoot of wooden steps, but could gain no information. They walked +up the street on one side of the way, and down it on the other, what +time two vociferous news-sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that +had never happened and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices +into the secret chambers; but nothing came of it. At length they stood +at the corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark, +and they were no wiser. + +It happened that in the street they had several times passed a dingy +house, apparently empty, with bills in the windows, announcing that it +was to let. The bills, as a variety in the funeral procession, almost +amounted to a decoration. Perhaps because they kept the house separated +in his mind, or perhaps because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed +in passing, ‘It is clear she don’t live there,’ Clennam now proposed +that they should go back and try that house before finally going away. +Mr Meagles agreed, and back they went. + +They knocked once, and they rang once, without any response. ‘Empty,’ +said Mr Meagles, listening. ‘Once more,’ said Clennam, and knocked +again. After that knock they heard a movement below, and somebody +shuffling up towards the door. + +The confined entrance was so dark that it was impossible to make out +distinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared to be an +old woman. ‘Excuse our troubling you,’ said Clennam. ‘Pray can you +tell us where Miss Wade lives?’ The voice in the darkness unexpectedly +replied, ‘Lives here.’ + +‘Is she at home?’ + +No answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again. ‘Pray is she at home?’ + +After another delay, ‘I suppose she is,’ said the voice abruptly; ‘you +had better come in, and I’ll ask.’ + +They were summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure +rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, ‘Come up, if you +please; you can’t tumble over anything.’ They groped their way up-stairs +towards a faint light, which proved to be the light of the street +shining through a window; and the figure left them shut in an airless +room. + +‘This is odd, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, softly. + +‘Odd enough,’ assented Clennam in the same tone, ‘but we have succeeded; +that’s the main point. Here’s a light coming!’ + +The light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty, very +wrinkled and dry. ‘She’s at home,’ she said (and the voice was the same +that had spoken before); ‘she’ll come directly.’ Having set the lamp +down on the table, the old woman dusted her hands on her apron, which +she might have done for ever without cleaning them, looked at the +visitors with a dim pair of eyes, and backed out. + +The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant +of the house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there as she might +have established herself in an Eastern caravanserai. A small square +of carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that +evidently did not belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and +travelling articles, formed the whole of her surroundings. Under some +former regular inhabitant, the stifling little apartment had broken out +into a pier-glass and a gilt table; but the gilding was as faded as last +year’s flowers, and the glass was so clouded that it seemed to hold in +magic preservation all the fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected. +The visitors had had a minute or two to look about them, when the door +opened and Miss Wade came in. + +She was exactly the same as when they had parted, just as handsome, just +as scornful, just as repressed. She manifested no surprise in seeing +them, nor any other emotion. She requested them to be seated; and +declining to take a seat herself, at once anticipated any introduction +of their business. + +‘I apprehend,’ she said, ‘that I know the cause of your favouring me +with this visit. We may come to it at once.’ + +‘The cause then, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘is Tattycoram.’ + +‘So I supposed.’ + +‘Miss Wade,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘will you be so kind as to say whether you +know anything of her?’ + +‘Surely. I know she is here with me.’ + +‘Then, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘allow me to make known to you that I +shall be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter will +be happy to have her back. She has been with us a long time: we don’t +forget her claims upon us, and I hope we know how to make allowances.’ + +‘You hope to know how to make allowances?’ she returned, in a level, +measured voice. ‘For what?’ + +‘I think my friend would say, Miss Wade,’ Arthur Clennam interposed, +seeing Mr Meagles rather at a loss, ‘for the passionate sense that +sometimes comes upon the poor girl, of being at a disadvantage. Which +occasionally gets the better of better remembrances.’ + +The lady broke into a smile as she turned her eyes upon him. ‘Indeed?’ +was all she answered. + +She stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this +acknowledgment of his remark that Mr Meagles stared at her under a sort +of fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make another move. +After waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments, Arthur said: + +‘Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?’ + +‘That is easily done,’ said she. ‘Come here, child.’ She had opened a +door while saying this, and now led the girl in by the hand. It was +very curious to see them standing together: the girl with her disengaged +fingers plaiting the bosom of her dress, half irresolutely, half +passionately; Miss Wade with her composed face attentively regarding +her, and suggesting to an observer, with extraordinary force, in her +composure itself (as a veil will suggest the form it covers), the +unquenchable passion of her own nature. + +‘See here,’ she said, in the same level way as before. ‘Here is your +patron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear, if you are +sensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be, again, a foil to +his pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant wilfulness, and a toy in +the house showing the goodness of the family. You can have your droll +name again, playfully pointing you out and setting you apart, as it is +right that you should be pointed out and set apart. (Your birth, you +know; you must not forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this +gentleman’s daughter, Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder +of her own superiority and her gracious condescension. You can recover +all these advantages and many more of the same kind which I dare say +start up in your memory while I speak, and which you lose in taking +refuge with me--you can recover them all by telling these gentlemen how +humbled and penitent you are, and by going back to them to be forgiven. +What do you say, Harriet? Will you go?’ + +The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually risen +in anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her lustrous black +eyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the folds it had been +puckering up, ‘I’d die sooner!’ + +Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked quietly +round and said with a smile, ‘Gentlemen! What do you do upon that?’ + +Poor Mr Meagles’s inexpressible consternation in hearing his motives and +actions so perverted, had prevented him from interposing any word until +now; but now he regained the power of speech. + +‘Tattycoram,’ said he, ‘for I’ll call you by that name still, my good +girl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave it to you, +and conscious that you know it--’ + +‘I don’t!’ said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself with +the same busy hand. + +‘No, not now, perhaps,’ said Mr Meagles; ‘not with that lady’s eyes so +intent upon you, Tattycoram,’ she glanced at them for a moment, ‘and +that power over you, which we see she exercises; not now, perhaps, but +at another time. Tattycoram, I’ll not ask that lady whether she believes +what she has said, even in the anger and ill blood in which I and my +friend here equally know she has spoken, though she subdues herself, +with a determination that any one who has once seen her is not likely +to forget. I’ll not ask you, with your remembrance of my house and all +belonging to it, whether you believe it. I’ll only say that you have +no profession to make to me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat; +and that all in the world that I ask you to do, is, to count +five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ + +She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, ‘I won’t. +Miss Wade, take me away, please.’ + +The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it +was wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her rich +colour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting themselves +against the opportunity of retracing their steps. ‘I won’t. I won’t. +I won’t!’ she repeated in a low, thick voice. ‘I’d be torn to pieces +first. I’d tear myself to pieces first!’ + +Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on the +girl’s neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her former +smile and speaking exactly in her former tone, ‘Gentlemen! What do you +do upon that?’ + +‘Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!’ cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her besides +with an earnest hand. ‘Hear that lady’s voice, look at that lady’s face, +consider what is in that lady’s heart, and think what a future lies +before you. My child, whatever you may think, that lady’s influence +over you--astonishing to us, and I should hardly go too far in saying +terrible to us to see--is founded in passion fiercer than yours, and +temper more violent than yours. What can you two be together? What can +come of it?’ + +‘I am alone here, gentlemen,’ observed Miss Wade, with no change of +voice or manner. ‘Say anything you will.’ + +‘Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, +‘at her present pass; though I hope not altogether to dismiss it, +even with the injury you do her so strongly before me. Excuse me for +reminding you in her hearing--I must say it--that you were a mystery +to all of us, and had nothing in common with any of us when she +unfortunately fell in your way. I don’t know what you are, but you don’t +hide, can’t hide, what a dark spirit you have within you. If it should +happen that you are a woman, who, from whatever cause, has a perverted +delight in making a sister-woman as wretched as she is (I am old enough +to have heard of such), I warn her against you, and I warn you against +yourself.’ + +‘Gentlemen!’ said Miss Wade, calmly. ‘When you have concluded--Mr +Clennam, perhaps you will induce your friend--’ + +‘Not without another effort,’ said Mr Meagles, stoutly. ‘Tattycoram, +my poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.’ + +‘Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you,’ said +Clennam in a low emphatic voice. ‘Turn to the friends you have not +forgotten. Think once more!’ + +‘I won’t! Miss Wade,’ said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, and +speaking with her hand held to her throat, ‘take me away!’ + +‘Tattycoram,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Once more yet! The only thing I ask of +you in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!’ + +She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down her +bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned her face +resolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her under this final +appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that repressing hand +upon her own bosom with which she had watched her in her struggle at +Marseilles, then put her arm about her waist as if she took possession +of her for evermore. + +And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to +dismiss the visitors. + +‘As it is the last time I shall have the honour,’ she said, ‘and as you +have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the foundation of my +influence here, you may now know that it is founded in a common cause. +What your broken plaything is as to birth, I am. She has no name, I have +no name. Her wrong is my wrong. I have nothing more to say to you.’ + +This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As Clennam +followed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the +same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a +very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and +not breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with: + +‘I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the +contrast of her extraction to this girl’s and mine, and in the high good +fortune that awaits her.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 28. Nobody’s Disappearance + + +Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his +lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing +nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer +coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl +by the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her +if anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as +having been refused at the house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make +the experiment of a personal interview. That worthy lady being unable to +obtain one, and being steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought +Arthur to essay once more what he could do. All that came of his +compliance was, his discovery that the empty house was left in charge +of the old woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of +furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number of +half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information whatever +to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a +memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-agent’s young man had +left in the hall. + +Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave +her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery +over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive +days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers, +to the effect that if a certain young person who had lately left +home without reflection, would at any time apply to his address at +Twickenham, everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches +need be apprehended. The unexpected consequences of this notification +suggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some +hundreds of young persons must be leaving their homes without reflection +every day; for shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham, +who, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded +compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and +back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement +produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be +always watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter +upon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced +to apply with confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to +fifty pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person, +but because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly +relieve the advertiser’s mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed +themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as, +for example, to apprise him that their attention having been called to +the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they should +ever hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to make it +known to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he would oblige +them with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection a certain +entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results would ensue to +mankind. + +Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had +begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new +and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities, +went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday. The senior +partner took the coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick. + +A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of +his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had +that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which +country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything +within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees, +the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green +islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on +the surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically +towards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all +expressive of rest. In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, +or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, +or lowing of a cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath +of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened +the fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the +glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the +purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which +the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the +real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both +were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery +of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer’s soothed heart, +because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful. + +Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look about +him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked +at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water. He was slowly +resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he +had, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions. + +Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to +have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face was towards +him, and she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction. +There was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam had never seen in it +before; and as he came near her, it entered his mind all at once that +she was there of a set purpose to speak to him. + +She gave him her hand, and said, ‘You wonder to see me here by myself? +But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant +at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more +confident. You always come this way, do you not?’ + +As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter +on his arm, and saw the roses shake. + +‘Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I came out +of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so +likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and +told us you were walking down.’ + +His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked +her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they turned into it on +his movement or on hers matters little. He never knew how that was. + +‘It is very grave here,’ said Clennam, ‘but very pleasant at this hour. +Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light at the +other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach, +I think.’ + +In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich brown +hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes raised to +his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and trustfulness in +him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was +so beautiful that it was well for his peace--or ill for his peace, he +did not quite know which--that he had made that vigorous resolution he +had so often thought about. + +She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been +thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it mentioned. She +broke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that +papa had abandoned the idea. + +At this, he thought directly, ‘they are to be married.’ + +‘Mr Clennam,’ she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low +that he bent his head to hear her. ‘I should very much like to give you +my confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive +it. I should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago, +because--I felt that you were becoming so much our friend.’ + +‘How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it to +me. Pray trust me.’ + +‘I could never have been afraid of trusting you,’ she returned, raising +her eyes frankly to his face. ‘I think I would have done so some time +ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, even now.’ + +‘Mr Gowan,’ said Arthur Clennam, ‘has reason to be very happy. God bless +his wife and him!’ + +She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her hand +as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining +roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it seemed to him, +he first finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody’s +heart so much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in +his own eyes, as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man +who had done with that part of life. + +He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while, +slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he asked her, in +a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would +say to him as her friend and her father’s friend, many years older than +herself; was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she +would ask of him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give +him the lasting gratification of believing it was in his power to +render? + +She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden +sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, bursting +into tears again: ‘O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell +me you do not blame me.’ + +‘I blame you?’ said Clennam. ‘My dearest girl! I blame you? No!’ + +After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially +up into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked +him from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she +gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement +from him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the +darkening trees. + +‘And, now, Minnie Gowan,’ at length said Clennam, smiling; ‘will you ask +me nothing?’ + +‘Oh! I have very much to ask of you.’ + +‘That’s well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.’ + +‘You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly +think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,’ she spoke with great agitation, +‘seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so +dearly love it!’ + +‘I am sure of that,’ said Clennam. ‘Can you suppose I doubt it?’ + +‘No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and +being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so +neglectful of it, so unthankful.’ + +‘My dear girl,’ said Clennam, ‘it is in the natural progress and change +of time. All homes are left so.’ + +‘Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as +there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of +far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not +that I am much, but that they have made so much of me!’ + +Pet’s affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she +pictured what would happen. + +‘I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first +I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years. +And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and +entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you +can spare a little while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder +of him when I left him, than I ever was in all my life. For there is +nobody--he told me so himself when he talked to me this very day--there +is nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts so much.’ + +A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped like +a heavy stone into the well of Clennam’s heart, and swelled the water +to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily as he tried to +say, that it should be done--that he gave her his faithful promise. + +‘If I do not speak of mama,’ said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty +in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even to +consider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and the +fading light as they slowly diminished in number--‘it is because mama +will understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss in a +different way, and will look forward in a different manner. But you know +what a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember her too; will +you not?’ + +Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she +wished. + +‘And, dear Mr Clennam,’ said Minnie, ‘because papa and one whom I need +not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as +they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride, +and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one +another, and to be a happiness to one another, and to be proud of one +another, and to love one another, both loving me so dearly; oh, as you +are a kind, true man! when I am first separated from home (I am going a +long distance away), try to reconcile papa to him a little more, and use +your great influence to keep him before papa’s mind free from +prejudice and in his real form. Will you do this for me, as you are a +noble-hearted friend?’ + +Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes +ever made in men’s natural relations to one another: when was such +reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been tried +many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded; nothing +has ever come of it but failure. + +So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound himself +to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would do it. + +They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and withdrew +her arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, and with the +hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by touching one of +the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to him, she said: + +‘Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have seen +me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If you have +anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully done, but any +trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or having it in my +power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your noble heart!’ + +He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without shrinking. He +kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had nothing to forgive. +As he stooped to meet the innocent face once again, she whispered, +‘Good-bye!’ and he repeated it. It was taking leave of all his old +hopes--all nobody’s old restless doubts. They came out of the avenue +next moment, arm-in-arm as they had entered it: and the trees seemed to +close up behind them in the darkness, like their own perspective of the +past. + +The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly, +speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet’s name among them, Clennam +called out, ‘She is here, with me.’ There was some little wondering and +laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had all come together, +it ceased, and Pet glided away. + +Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and down +on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for a few +minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the house. Mr +Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for a few minutes more +without speaking, until at length the former broke silence. + +‘Arthur,’ said he, using that familiar address for the first time in +their communication, ‘do you remember my telling you, as we walked up +and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at Marseilles, that +Pet’s baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother and me to have grown as +she had grown, and changed as she had changed?’ + +‘Very well.’ + +‘You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to +separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet was, +the other was?’ + +‘Yes, very well.’ + +‘Arthur,’ said Mr Meagles, much subdued, ‘I carry that fancy further +to-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had loved my dead +child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like what Pet is +now.’ + +‘Thank you!’ murmured Clennam, ‘thank you!’ And pressed his hand. + +‘Will you come in?’ said Mr Meagles, presently. + +‘In a little while.’ + +Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on the +river’s brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put +his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of roses. +Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but +certainly he bent down on the shore and gently launched them on the +flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them +away. + +The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on +which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheerful. +They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready +store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to +sleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away +upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our +breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas. + + + + +CHAPTER 29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming + + +The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these +transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying +round of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each +recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant +return of the same sequences of machinery, like a dragging piece of +clockwork. + +The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one may +suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human being has. +Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as they formerly were +when the occupant of the chair was familiar with them, images of people +as they too used to be, with little or no allowance made for the lapse +of time since they were seen; of these, there must have been many in the +long routine of gloomy days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the +hour when we were personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind +stricken motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable +to measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than +the shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the +infirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost all +recluses. + +What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat +from season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself. Mr +Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily like +some eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it out of +her, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was too strong +for him. So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to regard her +liege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of blank wonder, to +go about the house after dark with her apron over her head, always to +listen for the strange noises and sometimes to hear them, and never +to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep-waking state, was occupation +enough for her. + +There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made out, +for her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, and saw +more people than had been used to come there for some years. This might +easily be, the house having been long deserted; but he did receive +letters, and comers, and keep books, and correspond. Moreover, he went +about to other counting-houses, and to wharves, and docks, and to the +Custom House, and to Garraway’s Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee +House, and on ‘Change; so that he was much in and out. He began, too, +sometimes of an evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish +for his society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at +the shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to +exchange small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who frequented +that establishment. At some period of every day, he and Mrs Clennam held +a council on matters of business; and it appeared to Affery, who was +always groping about, listening and watching, that the two clever ones +were making money. + +The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch’s dazed lady had fallen, had +now begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that she was +held in very low account by the two clever ones, as a person, never +of strong intellect, who was becoming foolish. Perhaps because her +appearance was not of a commercial cast, or perhaps because it occurred +to him that his having taken her to wife might expose his judgment to +doubt in the minds of customers, Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon +her that she should hold her peace on the subject of her conjugal +relations, and should no longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic +trio. Her frequent forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her +startled manner, since Mr Flintwinch’s habit of avenging himself on her +remissness by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking +her, occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be +thus waylaid next. + +Little Dorrit had finished a long day’s work in Mrs Clennam’s room, and +was neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before going home. +Mr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was addressing an inquiry to +Mrs Clennam on the subject of her health, coupled with the remark that, +‘happening to find himself in that direction,’ he had looked in to +inquire, on behalf of his proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs +Clennam, with a deep contraction of her brows, was looking at him. + +‘Mr Casby knows,’ said she, ‘that I am not subject to changes. The +change that I await here is the great change.’ + +‘Indeed, ma’am?’ returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards the +figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and fraying +of her work from the carpet. ‘You look nicely, ma’am.’ + +‘I bear what I have to bear,’ she answered. ‘Do you what you have to +do.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘such is my endeavour.’ + +‘You are often in this direction, are you not?’ asked Mrs Clennam. + +‘Why, yes, ma’am,’ said Pancks, ‘rather so lately; I have lately been +round this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.’ + +‘Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by deputy, +about me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to see them. +They have no need to trouble themselves to send. You have no need to +trouble yourself to come.’ + +‘Not the least trouble, ma’am,’ said Mr Pancks. ‘You really are looking +uncommonly nicely, ma’am.’ + +‘Thank you. Good evening.’ + +The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the door, +was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to prolong his +visit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest expression, glanced +at the little figure again, said ‘Good evening, ma ‘am; don’t come down, +Mrs Affery, I know the road to the door,’ and steamed out. Mrs Clennam, +her chin resting on her hand, followed him with attentive and darkly +distrustful eyes; and Affery stood looking at her as if she were +spell-bound. + +Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam’s eyes turned from the door by +which Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the carpet. +With her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her eyes vigilant +and lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until she attracted her +attention. Little Dorrit coloured under such a gaze, and looked down. +Mrs Clennam still sat intent. + +‘Little Dorrit,’ she said, when she at last broke silence, ‘what do you +know of that man?’ + +‘I don’t know anything of him, ma’am, except that I have seen him about, +and that he has spoken to me.’ + +‘What has he said to you?’ + +‘I don’t understand what he has said, he is so strange. But nothing +rough or disagreeable.’ + +‘Why does he come here to see you?’ + +‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness. + +‘You know that he does come here to see you?’ + +‘I have fancied so,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘But why he should come here or +anywhere for that, ma’am, I can’t think.’ + +Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, set +face, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately been upon +the form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat absorbed. Some minutes +elapsed before she came out of this thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard +composure. + +Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid to +disturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where she +had been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round by the +wheeled chair. She stopped at its side to say ‘Good night, ma’am.’ + +Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little Dorrit, +confused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some momentary +recollection of the story of the Princess may have been in her mind. + +‘Tell me, Little Dorrit,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘have you many friends now?’ + +‘Very few, ma’am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.’ + +‘Meaning,’ said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing to +the door, ‘that man?’ + +‘Oh no, ma’am!’ + +‘Some friend of his, perhaps?’ + +‘No ma’am.’ Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. ‘Oh no! No one at +all like him, or belonging to him.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. ‘It is no affair of mine. I +ask, because I take an interest in you; and because I believe I was your +friend when you had no other who could serve you. Is that so?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but for +you and the work you gave me, we should have wanted everything.’ + +‘We,’ repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her dead +husband’s, which always lay upon her table. ‘Are there many of you?’ + +‘Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep regularly out +of what we get.’ + +‘Have you undergone many privations? You and your father and who else +there may be of you?’ asked Mrs Clennam, speaking deliberately, and +meditatively turning the watch over and over. + +‘Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,’ said Little Dorrit, in her +soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; ‘but I think not harder--as to +that--than many people find it.’ + +‘That’s well said!’ Mrs Clennam quickly returned. ‘That’s the truth! +You are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl too, or I much +mistake you.’ + +‘It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that,’ said +Little Dorrit. ‘I am indeed.’ + +Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had never +dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little seamstress, +and kissed her on the forehead. + +‘Now go, Little Dorrit,’ said she, ‘or you will be late, poor child!’ + +In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first +became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing +than this. Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other +clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones +embracing each other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all +mankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps +down the stairs, that the house door might be safely shut. + +On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead +of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less +wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably expected to do, +fluttering up and down the court outside the house. The moment he saw +Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with his finger to his nose +(as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), ‘Pancks the gipsy, fortune-telling,’ +and went away. ‘Lord save us, here’s a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it +now!’ cried Mistress Affery. ‘What next!’ + +She stood at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a +rainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying fast, and the wind was +coming up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken +loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing +round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to +blow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering +in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for +this attempted desecration, and to mutter, ‘Let them rest! Let them +rest!’ + +Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to +be equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and +preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not, +until the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in +a violent gust of wind and shutting her out. ‘What’s to be done now, +what’s to be done now!’ cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in +this last uneasy dream of all; ‘when she’s all alone by herself +inside, and can no more come down to open it than the churchyard dead +themselves!’ + +In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the +rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several +times. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the +door as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it +is none the less what most people would have done in the same situation, +and it is what she did. + +From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling +something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man’s hand. + +The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about +it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity +of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where +it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress +Affery’s start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under +his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache. + +‘What’s the matter?’ he asked in plain English. ‘What are you frightened +at?’ + +‘At you,’ panted Affery. + +‘Me, madam?’ + +‘And the dismal evening, and--and everything,’ said Affery. ‘And here! +The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can’t get in.’ + +‘Hah!’ said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. ‘Indeed! Do you +know such a name as Clennam about here?’ + +‘Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!’ cried +Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry. + +‘Where about here?’ + +‘Where!’ cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole. +‘Where but here in this house? And she’s all alone in her room, and lost +the use of her limbs and can’t stir to help herself or me, and t’other +clever one’s out, and Lord forgive me!’ cried Affery, driven into a +frantic dance by these accumulated considerations, ‘if I ain’t a-going +headlong out of my mind!’ + +Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the +gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon rested +on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door. + +‘Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?’ he +inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not +choose but keep her eyes upon. + +‘Up there!’ said Affery. ‘Them two windows.’ + +‘Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting +myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, frankly--frankness is +a part of my character--shall I open the door for you?’ + +‘Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,’ cried +Affery, ‘for she may be a-calling to me at this very present minute, or +may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there’s +no knowing what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind +at thinking of it!’ + +‘Stay, my good madam!’ He restrained her impatience with a smooth white +hand. ‘Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?’ + +‘Yes, yes, yes,’ cried Affery. ‘Long ago.’ + +‘Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character. +I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.’ He showed her +that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with +water; she had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow, +as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his +teeth from chattering. ‘I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam, +and have been delayed by the weather: the infernal weather! In +consequence of this, madam, some necessary business that I should +otherwise have transacted here within the regular hours (necessary +business because money-business), still remains to be done. Now, if you +will fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for +my opening the door, I’ll open the door. If this arrangement should be +objectionable, I’ll--’ and with the same smile he made a significant +feint of backing away. + +Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave +in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to +do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow +window, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in +a moment had his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very +sinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress +Affery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go +straight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent +him? + +Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the +house door. ‘Now, my dear madam,’ he said, as he took back his cloak and +threw it on, ‘if you have the goodness to--what the Devil’s that!’ + +The strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar +shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off. A +tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter. + +‘What the Devil is it?’ + +‘I don’t know what it is, but I’ve heard the like of it over and over +again,’ said Affery, who had caught his arm. + +He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy +start and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless. After +listening a few moments, he made light of it. + +‘Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever +personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?’ He +held the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out +again if she failed. + +‘Don’t you say anything about the door and me, then,’ whispered Affery. + +‘Not a word.’ + +‘And don’t you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round +the corner.’ + +‘Madam, I am a statue.’ + +Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment +her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to +the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out +of the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no +desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a +message into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly. The +two returning together--the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up +briskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could +get housed--saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark, +and heard the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, ‘Who is +it? What is it? Why does no one answer? Who _is_ that, down there?’ + + + + +CHAPTER 30. The Word of a Gentleman + + +When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the +twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back. +‘Death of my soul!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, how did you get here?’ + +Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger’s +wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over +his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of +standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at +a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation; +receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness +that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim +raillery, as he did it, ‘Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my +woman! This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again, +mistress. What’s it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be +choked! It’s the only choice I’ll give you.’ + +Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment, +her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable +to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards +and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however, +picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed. + +‘Permit me,’ said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who +stopped and released his victim. ‘Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and +wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that +relation playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody +up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what +is going on here?’ + +This reference to Mrs Clennam’s voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step +into the hall and call up the staircase. ‘It’s all right, I am here, +Affery is coming with your light.’ Then he said to the latter +flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, ‘Get out with you, and get +up-stairs!’ and then turned to the stranger and said to him, ‘Now, sir, +what might you please to want?’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said the stranger, ‘I must be so troublesome as to +propose a candle.’ + +‘True,’ assented Jeremiah. ‘I was going to do so. Please to stand where +you are while I get one.’ + +The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the +gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his +eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box. +When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match +after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull +glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little +spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger, +taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked +intently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted +the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of +a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the +doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression. + +‘Be so good,’ said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty +sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, ‘as to step into my +counting-house.--It’s all right, I tell you!’ petulantly breaking off to +answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there, +speaking in persuasive tones. ‘Don’t I tell you it’s all right? Preserve +the woman, has she no reason at all in her!’ + +‘Timorous,’ remarked the stranger. + +‘Timorous?’ said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went +before with the candle. ‘More courageous than ninety men in a hundred, +sir, let me tell you.’ + +‘Though an invalid?’ + +‘Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left +in the House now. My partner.’ + +Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect +that at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any +one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own +office, which presented a sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he +put the light on his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest +twist upon him, ‘Your commands.’ + +‘My name is Blandois.’ + +‘Blandois. I don’t know it,’ said Jeremiah. + +‘I thought it possible,’ resumed the other, ‘that you might have been +advised from Paris--’ + +‘We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of +Blandois,’ said Jeremiah. + +‘No?’ + +‘No.’ + +Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois, +opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say, +with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch +were too near together: + +‘You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as I +supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the +dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness +to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my +character--still, however, uncommonly like.’ + +‘Indeed?’ said Jeremiah, perversely. ‘But I have not received any letter +of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of Blandois.’ + +‘Just so,’ said the stranger. + +‘_Just_ so,’ said Jeremiah. + +Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the +correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book +from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and +handed it to Mr Flintwinch. ‘No doubt you are well acquainted with the +writing. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, and requires no advice. +You are a far more competent judge of such affairs than I am. It is my +misfortune to be, not so much a man of business, as what the world calls +(arbitrarily) a gentleman.’ + +Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, ‘We have +to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our +Firm, M. Blandois, of this city,’ &c. &c. ‘Such facilities as he may +require and such attentions as may lie in your power,’ &c. &c. ‘Also +have to add that if you will honour M. Blandois’ drafts at sight to the +extent of, say Fifty Pounds sterling (50_l_.),’ &c. &c. + +‘Very good, sir,’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘Take a chair. To the extent of +anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-fashioned, +steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render you our best +assistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be +advised of it. Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings +the advice.’ + +‘That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,’ returned Mr Blandois, +passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, ‘I know to the cost +of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having +racked them both. You see me in the plight in which I came out of the +packet within this half-hour. I ought to have been here hours ago, +and then I should not have to apologise--permit me to apologise--for +presenting myself so unreasonably, and frightening--no, by-the-bye, you +said not frightening; permit me to apologise again--the esteemed lady, +Mrs Clennam, in her invalid chamber above stairs.’ + +Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that +Mr Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly +personage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped +his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr +Blandois to-night, out of business hours? + +‘Faith!’ returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders, +‘I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have the +kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of +perfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the place, the better. +Next door, if that’s all.’ + +Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, ‘For a gentleman of your habits, +there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--’ when Mr +Blandois took him up. + +‘So much for my habits! my dear sir,’ snapping his fingers. ‘A citizen +of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman, +by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced +habits. A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not +absolutely poisonous wine, are all I want tonight. But I want that much +without the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.’ + +‘There is,’ said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation, +as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois’ shining eyes, which were restless; +‘there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can +recommend; but there’s no style about it.’ + +‘I dispense with style!’ said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. ‘Do me the +honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too +troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois +across the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket, where the +dark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought +himself of going up to tell the invalid that he would not be absent five +minutes. + +‘Oblige me,’ said the visitor, on his saying so, ‘by presenting my card +of visit. Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs +Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having +occasioned any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her +convenience to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes, +after he shall have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with +something to eat and drink.’ + +Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, ‘She’ll be glad +to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no +attractions, wishes me to say that she won’t hold you to your offer, in +case you should think better of it.’ + +‘To think better of it,’ returned the gallant Blandois, ‘would be to +slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry +towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my +character!’ Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his +cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern; +taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with his portmanteau on +the outer side of the gateway. + +The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr +Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar +in which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was +much too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in +it, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the +little private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally +given up to him. Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked +hair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain, +Mr Blandois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his +knees drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the +jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had +once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of the iron +grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles. + +His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of +Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting all +the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring +others with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter disregard of +other people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys +of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a +softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his +great black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it. +The softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old +wicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars. And when he +could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and +wiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the substitution of +vine-leaves to finish the picture. + +On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in +that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they +belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting +light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never +working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the +warning were fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance. + +Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took +a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, smoked it +out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted +from his thin lips in a thin stream: + +‘Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. Haha! +Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent +master in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have +a quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating +manners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A +gentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die. +You shall win, however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit, +Blandois. You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged +you, to your own high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by +right and by nature, my Blandois!’ + +To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and +drink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook himself into +a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, ‘Hold, +then! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!’ arose +and went back to the house of Clennam and Co. + +He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions +from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the +staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam’s room. Tea was prepared +there, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually +attended the reception of expected visitors. They were slight on the +greatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China +tea-service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery. +For the rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and +the figure in the widow’s dress, as if attired for execution; the fire +topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little +mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all as they had +been for fifteen years. + +Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of +Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent +her head and requested him to sit. They looked very closely at one +another. That was but natural curiosity. + +‘I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few who +come here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so removed +from observation. It would be idle to expect that they should have. Out +of sight, out of mind. While I am grateful for the exception, I don’t +complain of the rule.’ + +Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed +her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For +which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr--he begged +pardon--but by name had not the distinguished honour-- + +‘Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.’ + +Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch’s most obedient humble servant. He +entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest +consideration. + +‘My husband being dead,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘and my son preferring +another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days +than Mr Flintwinch.’ + +‘What do you call yourself?’ was the surly demand of that gentleman. +‘You have the head of two men.’ + +‘My sex disqualifies me,’ she proceeded with merely a slight turn of +her eyes in Jeremiah’s direction, ‘from taking a responsible part in +the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch +combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it +used to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this +letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power +of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did. This +however is not interesting to you. You are English, sir?’ + +‘Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In effect, I +am of no country,’ said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting +it: ‘I descend from half-a-dozen countries.’ + +‘You have been much about the world?’ + +‘It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and +everywhere!’ + +‘You have no ties, probably. Are not married?’ + +‘Madam,’ said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, ‘I adore +your sex, but I am not married--never was.’ + +Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea, +happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and +to fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her +own eyes so that she could not get them away. The effect of this fancy +was to keep her staring at him with the tea-pot in her hand, not only to +her own great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them +both, to Mrs Clennam’s and Mr Flintwinch’s. Thus a few ghostly moments +supervened, when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why. + +‘Affery,’ her mistress was the first to say, ‘what is the matter with +you?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand +extended towards the visitor. ‘It ain’t me. It’s him!’ + +‘What does this good woman mean?’ cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot, +and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted +surprisingly with the slight force of his words. ‘How is it possible to +understand this good creature?’ + +‘It’s _not_ possible,’ said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly +in that direction. ‘She don’t know what she means. She’s an idiot, a +wanderer in her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose! +Get along with you, my woman,’ he added in her ear, ‘get along with you, +while you know you’re Affery, and before you’re shaken to yeast.’ + +Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood, +relinquished the tea-pot as her husband seized it, put her apron over +her head, and in a twinkling vanished. The visitor gradually broke into +a smile, and sat down again. + +‘You’ll excuse her, Mr Blandois,’ said Jeremiah, pouring out the tea +himself, ‘she’s failing and breaking up; that’s what she’s about. Do you +take sugar, sir?’ + +‘Thank you, no tea for me.--Pardon my observing it, but that’s a very +remarkable watch!’ + +The tea-table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval between +it and Mrs Clennam’s own particular table. Mr Blandois in his gallantry +had risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of toast was already +there), and it was in placing the cup conveniently within her reach that +the watch, lying before her as it always did, attracted his attention. +Mrs Clennam looked suddenly up at him. + +‘May I be permitted? Thank you. A fine old-fashioned watch,’ he said, +taking it in his hand. ‘Heavy for use, but massive and genuine. I have +a partiality for everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself. +Hah! A gentleman’s watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove +it from the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked +with beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians. +Quaint things!’ + +‘They are old-fashioned, too,’ said Mrs Clennam. + +‘Very. But this is not so old as the watch, I think?’ + +‘I think not.’ + +‘Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!’ remarked Mr +Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. ‘Now is this D. N. F.? +It might be almost anything.’ + +‘Those are the letters.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with a cup +of tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the contents, +began to do so: always entirely filling his mouth before he emptied it +at a gulp; and always deliberating again before he refilled it. + +‘D. N. F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I make no +doubt,’ observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again. ‘I adore +her memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, +I adore but too readily. It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but +adoration of female beauty and merit constitutes three parts of my +character, madam.’ + +Mr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of tea, +which he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes directed to +the invalid. + +‘You may be heart-free here, sir,’ she returned to Mr Blandois. ‘Those +letters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any name.’ + +‘Of a motto, perhaps,’ said Mr Blandois, casually. + +‘Of a sentence. They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not Forget!’ + +‘And naturally,’ said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch and stepping +backward to his former chair, ‘you do _not_ forget.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he +had taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances: +that is to say, with his head thrown back and his cup held still at his +lips, while his eyes were still directed at the invalid. She had that +force of face, and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or +obstinacy, which represented in her case what would have been gesture +and action in another, as she replied with her deliberate strength of +speech: + +‘No, sir, I do not forget. To lead a life as monotonous as mine has been +during many years, is not the way to forget. To lead a life of +self-correction is not the way to forget. To be sensible of having (as +we all have, every one of us, all the children of Adam!) offences +to expiate and peace to make, does not justify the desire to forget. +Therefore I have long dismissed it, and I neither forget nor wish to +forget.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the bottom +of his tea-cup, round and round, here gulped it down, and putting the +cup in the tea-tray, as done with, turned his eyes upon Mr Blandois as +if to ask him what he thought of that? + +‘All expressed, madam,’ said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow and his +white hand on his breast, ‘by the word “naturally,” which I am proud +to have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation (but without +appreciation I could not be Blandois) to employ.’ + +‘Pardon me, sir,’ she returned, ‘if I doubt the likelihood of a +gentleman of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court +and to be courted--’ + +‘Oh madam! By Heaven!’ + +‘--If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite comprehending +what belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to obtrude doctrine upon +you,’ she looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, ‘(for +you go your own way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will +say this much: that I shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and +tried pilots, under whom I cannot be shipwrecked--can not be--and that +if I were unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I +should not be half as chastened as I am.’ + +It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible +opponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself +and her own deception. + +‘If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might +complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never +have done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to +be a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who +are made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities. +But I have no such tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one, +the subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, +and against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the +difference between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that +gateway yonder. But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to +make the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain +here, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction might +otherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do +forget, nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me +than with millions.’ + +As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored +it to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied. +With her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards, +looking at it steadily and half-defiantly. + +Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, +keeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his +moustache with his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgety, +and now struck in. + +‘There, there, there!’ said he. ‘That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam, +and you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not +of a pious cast.’ + +‘On the contrary, sir!’ that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers. +‘Your pardon! It’s a part of my character. I am sensitive, ardent, +conscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and +imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!’ + +There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch’s face that he might +be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of +this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did, +he overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and +approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam. + +‘With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir,’ she +then said, ‘though really through your accidental allusion, I have +been led away into the subject of myself and my infirmities. Being so +considerate as to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate +as to overlook that. Don’t compliment me, if you please.’ For he was +evidently going to do it. ‘Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any +service, and I hope your stay in this city may prove agreeable.’ + +Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. ‘This is an +old room,’ he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking +round when he got near the door, ‘I have been so interested that I have +not observed it. But it’s a genuine old room.’ + +‘It is a genuine old house,’ said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile. ‘A +place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.’ + +‘Faith!’ cried the visitor. ‘If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to +take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more. +An old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none +greater. I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have +been called picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque--I +have greater merits, perhaps--but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy, +sympathy!’ + +‘I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you’ll find it very dingy and +very bare,’ said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. ‘It’s not worth your +looking at.’But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the +back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs +Clennam, and they went out of the room together. + +‘You don’t care to go up-stairs?’ said Jeremiah, on the landing. + +‘On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be +ravished!’ + +Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr +Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room +which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. ‘There, Mr +Blandois!’ said Jeremiah, showing it, ‘I hope you may think that worth +coming so high to see. I confess I don’t.’ + +Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and +passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch +had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after +throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking +at him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned +about on the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly; +and on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with +that ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every +similar moment since they left Mrs Clennam’s chamber) a diabolically +silent laugh. + +As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the +physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a +height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a +step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time +increased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this +accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr +Clennam’s room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he +found his look unchanged. + +‘A most admirable old house,’ smiled Mr Blandois. ‘So mysterious. Do you +never hear any haunted noises here?’ + +‘Noises,’ returned Mr Flintwinch. ‘No.’ + +‘Nor see any devils?’ + +‘Not,’ said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner, +‘not any that introduce themselves under that name and in that +capacity.’ + +‘Haha! A portrait here, I see.’ + +(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.) + +‘It’s a portrait, sir, as you observe.’ + +‘May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?’ + +‘Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband.’ + +‘Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?’ said the visitor. + +Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted +himself about again, and again found himself the subject of the same +look and smile. ‘Yes, Mr Blandois,’ he replied tartly. ‘It was his, and +his uncle’s before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that’s all I +can tell you of its pedigree.’ + +‘That’s a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend +up-stairs.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he +did during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that +fell short of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always +felt obliged to retreat a little. ‘She is a remarkable woman. Great +fortitude--great strength of mind.’ + +‘They must have been very happy,’ said Blandois. + +‘Who?’ demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him. + +Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and his +left forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his arms akimbo +and striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch +with the advancing nose and the retreating moustache. + +‘As happy as most other married people, I suppose,’ returned Mr +Flintwinch. ‘I can’t say. I don’t know. There are secrets in all +families.’ + +‘Secrets!’ cried Mr Blandois, quickly. ‘Say it again, my son.’ + +‘I say,’ replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so +suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated +chest. ‘I say there are secrets in all families.’ + +‘So there are,’ cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and +rolling him backwards and forwards. ‘Haha! you are right. So there are! +Secrets! Holy Blue! There are the devil’s own secrets in some families, +Mr Flintwinch!’ With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both +shoulders several times, as if in a friendly and humorous way he were +rallying him on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back +his head, hooked his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of +laughter. It was in vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him. +He had his laugh out. + +‘But, favour me with the candle a moment,’ he said, when he had done. +‘Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!’ holding +up the light at arm’s length. ‘A decided expression of face here too, +though not of the same character. Looks as if he were saying, what is +it--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch? By Heaven, sir, he does!’ + +As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then, +leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a +charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that +he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds. + +Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which +involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser +and rougher, much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch, +whose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its +immobility intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left +hanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting +down, he outwardly maintained an equable composure. They had brought +their survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and +he stood there, eyeing Mr Blandois. + +‘I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,’ was his calm remark. ‘I +didn’t expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.’ + +‘In admirable spirits,’ returned Blandois. ‘Word of honour! never more +refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?’ + +‘I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,’ replied that +gentleman. + +‘Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure +to come.’ + +‘I can’t say I’m sensible of such a sensation at present,’ returned Mr +Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. ‘If I should find it coming on, I’ll +mention it.’ + +‘Now I,’ said Blandois, ‘I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we +shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?’ + +‘N-no,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. ‘I +can’t say I do.’ + +‘I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately +acquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?’ + +‘Not yet,’ said Mr Flintwinch. + +Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a +little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and +invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old +dog as he was. + +Without a moment’s indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation, +and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged, +through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and +pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago +passed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr Blandois’ +room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who +(crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition +of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr +Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr +Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr +Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering +gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr +Flintwinch’s, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr +Flintwinch’s, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw. +Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get, +and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was +at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the +clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion’s part of the wine +as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask. + +In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent +Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had +the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion +were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew +indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He +therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle. + +‘You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,’ said Mr Flintwinch, with a +business-like face at parting. + +‘My Cabbage,’ returned the other, taking him by the collar with both +hands, ‘I’ll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive +at parting;’ here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly +on both cheeks; ‘the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you +shall see me again!’ + +He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came +duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with +surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by +way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating +face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this +occasion, and would be seen again. + + + + +CHAPTER 31. Spirit + + +Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the +metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed +to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens +dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping +along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened +by the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he +were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were +always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat +is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period. +Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some +wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such +quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a +long unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal +buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a +thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted +itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse +neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have +the same character of not being his--of not being anybody’s. Yet this +old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being +dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the +greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the +country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town +mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse’s lodging through +a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets. + +Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a +slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist +and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small +measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with +a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance--chance acquaintance +very often--has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the +consequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he +shall pass again. For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse; +and on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks +they might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in, +under the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than +ever in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of +whom smells of all the others. + +Mrs Plornish’s father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like +a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding +business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able +to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all +with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to +the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his +district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on +the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the +Marshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law’s difficulties coming to +that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but +he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of +the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish +cupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune +should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved +an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these +little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour. + +But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and +no Old Men’s Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter’s +admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father’s talents as she +could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had +as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she +could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little +old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about +Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus; +and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small +internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself +of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by +a baby. On his ‘days out,’ those flecks of light in his flat vista of +pollard old men,’ it was at once Mrs Plornish’s delight and sorrow, +when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of +porter, to say, ‘Sing us a song, Father.’ Then he would give them Chloe, +and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had +hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs +Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as +Father, and wipe her eyes. + +If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the +noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be +presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish +could not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart +Yard. ‘Here’s Father,’ she would say, presenting him to a neighbour. +‘Father will soon be home with us for good, now. Ain’t Father looking +well? Father’s a sweeter singer than ever; you’d never have forgotten +it, if you’d aheard him just now.’ As to Mr Plornish, he had married +these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy’s daughter, and only +wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a +fortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical +genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. ‘For why,’ +argued Mr Plornish, ‘why go a-binding music when you’ve got it in +yourself? That’s where it is, I consider.’ + +Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain +sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring +audience to witness that he really could not help being more free +with this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his +simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had +been several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his +son-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to +himself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the +patronage of the Father of that national institution. + +Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man +held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats +and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying +district where the tenantry were in a primitive state. It seemed as if +there were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old +man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful. +When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner. He +had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his +decayed condition after he was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he +could hold up his head at all, poor creature. ‘In the Workhouse, sir, +the Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no +speciality. Most deplorable!’ + +It was Old Nandy’s birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about +its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old +men should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding +Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and +gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in +to see how they all were. + +‘Miss Dorrit,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘here’s Father! Ain’t he looking nice? +And such voice he’s in!’ + +Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him +this long time. + +‘No, they’re rather hard on poor Father,’ said Mrs Plornish with a +lengthening face, ‘and don’t let him have half as much change and fresh +air as would benefit him. But he’ll soon be home for good, now. Won’t +you, Father?’ + +‘Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.’ + +Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably +made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched +in the following terms: + +‘John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there’s a ounce of wittles or drink of +any sort in this present roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on +it. While there’s a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present +roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should +be nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share +on it as if it was something, much or little. And this is what I mean +and so I don’t deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to +entreat of you, and therefore why not do it?’ + +To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had +composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish’s +father pipingly replied: + +‘I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is +the same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as +it’s not to take it out of your children’s mouths, which take it is, and +call it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though +may they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!’ + +Mrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner +of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again +by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his +respects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable. + +Her answer was, ‘I am going straight home, and if he will come with me +I shall be so glad to take care of him--so glad,’ said Little Dorrit, +always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, ‘of his company.’ + +‘There, Father!’ cried Mrs Plornish. ‘Ain’t you a gay young man to +be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your +neck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you’re a regular beau +yourself, Father, if ever there was one.’ + +With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a +loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and +her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old +father as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit’s. + +They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron +Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the +water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he +would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was +to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens, +and live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter), +and it was a special birthday of the old man. They were within five +minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street, +they came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port. + +‘Why, good gracious me, Amy!’ cried that young lady starting. ‘You never +mean it!’ + +‘Mean what, Fanny dear?’ + +‘Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,’ returned the young +lady with burning indignation, ‘but I don’t think even I could have +believed this, of even you!’ + +‘Fanny!’ cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished. + +‘Oh! Don’t Fanny me, you mean little thing, don’t! The idea of coming +along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!’ +(firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun). + +‘O Fanny!’ + +‘I tell you not to Fanny me, for I’ll not submit to it! I never knew +such a thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to +disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!’ + +‘Does it disgrace anybody,’ said Little Dorrit, very gently, ‘to take +care of this poor old man?’ + +‘Yes, miss,’ returned her sister, ‘and you ought to know it does. +And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. The +principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their +misfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep +low company. But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I +have. You’ll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way, +unmolested.’ + +With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old +disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for +Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and +who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the +way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, ‘I hope nothing’s +wrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope there’s nothing the matter +in the honoured family?’ + +‘No, no,’ returned Little Dorrit. ‘No, thank you. Give me your arm +again, Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now.’ + +So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the +Lodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it happened +that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at +the moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in +arm. As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the +utmost agitation and despondency of mind; and--altogether regardless of +Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as +he always did in that gracious presence--turned about, and hurried in at +his own doorway and up the staircase. + +Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under +her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little +Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny +following her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came +into the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair, +buried his face in his hands, and uttered a groan. + +‘Of course,’ said Fanny. ‘Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope +you believe me, Miss?’ + +‘What is it, father?’ cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. ‘Have I +made you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!’ + +‘You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you’--Fanny paused for a sufficiently +strong expression--‘you Common-minded little Amy! You complete +prison-child!’ + +He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed +out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger +daughter, ‘Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you +have cut me to the soul.’ + +‘Innocent in intention!’ the implacable Fanny struck in. ‘Stuff in +intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!’ + +‘Father!’ cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. ‘I am very sorry. +Pray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!’ + +‘How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!’ cried Fanny. ‘You +know how it is. I have told you already, so don’t fly in the face of +Providence by attempting to deny it!’ + +‘Hush! Amy,’ said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several +times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand +that dropped across his knee, ‘I have done what I could to keep you +select here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here. I +may have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no +opinion. I have endured everything here but humiliation. That I have +happily been spared--until this day.’ + +Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his +pocket-handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground +beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him +remorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his +pocket-handkerchief once more. + +‘Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all +my troubles there has been that--Spirit in myself, and that--that +submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has +spared me--ha--humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly +felt it.’ + +‘Of course! How could it be otherwise?’ exclaimed the irrepressible +Fanny. ‘Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!’ (air-gun again). + +‘But, dear father,’ cried Little Dorrit, ‘I don’t justify myself for +having wounded your dear heart--no! Heaven knows I don’t!’ She clasped +her hands in quite an agony of distress. ‘I do nothing but beg and pray +you to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you +were kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were +always glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I +would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done +in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!’ +said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, ‘for anything the world +could give me, or anything it could take away.’ + +Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry +herself, and to say--as this young lady always said when she was half in +passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful +with everybody else--that she wished she were dead. + +The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter +to his breast, and patted her head. + +‘There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will forget it +as soon as I can. I,’ with hysterical cheerfulness, ‘I--shall soon be +able to dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad +to see my old pensioner--as such, as such--and that I do--ha--extend as +much protection and kindness to the--hum--the bruised reed--I trust I +may so call him without impropriety--as in my circumstances, I can. It +is quite true that this is the case, my dear child. At the same +time, I preserve in doing this, if I may--ha--if I may use the +expression--Spirit. Becoming Spirit. And there are some things which +are,’ he stopped to sob, ‘irreconcilable with that, and wound +that--wound it deeply. It is not that I have seen my good Amy +attentive, and--ha--condescending to my old pensioner--it is not _that_ +that hurts me. It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being +explicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter, +coming into this College out of the public streets--smiling! +smiling!--arm in arm with--O my God, a livery!’ + +This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate +gentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his +clenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air. His excited feelings +might have found some further painful utterance, but for a knock at the +door, which had been already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still +wishing herself dead, and indeed now going so far as to add, buried) +cried ‘Come in!’ + +‘Ah, Young John!’ said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. ‘What +is it, Young John?’ + +‘A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, and a +message with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, sir, I would +bring it to your room.’ The speaker’s attention was much distracted by +the piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her father’s feet, with her +head turned away. + +‘Indeed, John? Thank you.’ + +‘The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir--it’s the answer--and the message +was, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and word that he +would do himself the pleasure of calling this afternoon, hoping to see +you, and likewise,’ attention more distracted than before, ‘Miss Amy.’ + +‘Oh!’ As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a bank-note in +it), he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh. ‘Thank +you, Young John. Quite right. Much obliged to you for your attention. No +one waiting?’ + +‘No, sir, no one waiting.’ + +‘Thank you, John. How is your mother, Young John?’ + +‘Thank you, sir, she’s not quite as well as we could wish--in fact, we +none of us are, except father--but she’s pretty well, sir.’ + +‘Say we sent our remembrances, will you? Say kind remembrances, if you +please, Young John.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, I will.’ And Mr Chivery junior went his way, having +spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself, +to the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having +at such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And +feeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to +the abode of his inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence by +his own rash act. + +‘There, there, Amy!’ said the Father, when Young John had closed the +door, ‘let us say no more about it.’ The last few minutes had improved +his spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. ‘Where is my old +pensioner all this while? We must not leave him by himself any longer, +or he will begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me. +Will you fetch him, my child, or shall I?’ + +‘If you wouldn’t mind, father,’ said Little Dorrit, trying to bring her +sobbing to a close. + +‘Certainly I will go, my dear. I forgot; your eyes are rather red. +There! Cheer up, Amy. Don’t be uneasy about me. I am quite myself again, +my love, quite myself. Go to your room, Amy, and make yourself look +comfortable and pleasant to receive Mr Clennam.’ + +‘I would rather stay in my own room, Father,’ returned Little Dorrit, +finding it more difficult than before to regain her composure. ‘I would +far rather not see Mr Clennam.’ + +‘Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that’s folly. Mr Clennam is a very gentlemanly +man--very gentlemanly. A little reserved at times; but I will say +extremely gentlemanly. I couldn’t think of your not being here to +receive Mr Clennam, my dear, especially this afternoon. So go and +freshen yourself up, Amy; go and freshen yourself up, like a good girl.’ + +Thus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only pausing +for a moment as she went out of the room, to give her sister a kiss of +reconciliation. Upon which, that young lady, feeling much harassed +in her mind, and having for the time worn out the wish with which she +generally relieved it, conceived and executed the brilliant idea of +wishing Old Nandy dead, rather than that he should come bothering there +like a disgusting, tiresome, wicked wretch, and making mischief between +two sisters. + +The Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his black +velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went +down into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing there hat in +hand just within the gate, as he had stood all this time. ‘Come, Nandy!’ +said he, with great suavity. ‘Come up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way; +why don’t you come up-stairs?’ He went the length, on this occasion, +of giving him his hand and saying, ‘How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty +well?’ To which that vocalist returned, ‘I thank you, honoured sir, I am +all the better for seeing your honour.’ As they went along the yard, the +Father of the Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date. +‘An old acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner.’ And then said, ‘Be +covered, my good Nandy; put your hat on,’ with great consideration. + +His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the tea +ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter, +eggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he gave her a +bank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful +of the change. These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress, +and his daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented +himself; whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their +meal. + +‘Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness +of doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam.’ Fanny +acknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such +cases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not +understanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of +the conspirators. ‘This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner +of mine, Old Nandy, a very faithful old man.’ (He always spoke of him as +an object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than +himself.) ‘Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think my daughter +Amy has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?’ + +‘O yes!’ said Arthur Clennam. + +‘Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish’s father.’ + +‘Indeed? I am glad to see him.’ + +‘You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr +Clennam.’ + +‘I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,’ said Arthur, +secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure. + +‘It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are +always glad to see him,’ observed the Father of the Marshalsea. Then he +added behind his hand, [‘Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day.’) + +By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread +the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison +very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. ‘If Maggy +will spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,’ remarked the +Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, ‘my old +pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.’ + +So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in +width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish’s father was handsomely regaled. +Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that +other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of +its many wonders. + +The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he +remarked on the pensioner’s infirmities and failings, as if he were +a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the +harmless animal he exhibited. + +‘Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last +teeth,’ he explained to the company, ‘are going, poor old boy.’) + +At another time, he said, ‘No shrimps, Nandy?’ and on his not instantly +replying, observed, [‘His hearing is becoming very defective. He’ll be +deaf directly.’) + +At another time he asked him, ‘Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard +within the walls of that place of yours?’ + +‘No, sir; no. I haven’t any great liking for that.’ + +‘No, to be sure,’ he assented. ‘Very natural.’ Then he privately +informed the circle [‘Legs going.’) + +Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him +anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was? + +‘John Edward,’ said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork +to consider. ‘How old, sir? Let me think now.’ + +The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead [‘Memory weak.’) + +‘John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn’t say at this minute, +sir, whether it’s two and two months, or whether it’s two and five +months. It’s one or the other.’ + +‘Don’t distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,’ he returned, +with infinite forbearance. [‘Faculties evidently decaying--old man rusts +in the life he leads!’) + +The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the +pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of +his chair after tea to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his intimating +that he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself +look as erect and strong as possible. + +‘We don’t call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,’ he said, putting one +in his hand. ‘We call it tobacco.’ + +‘Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and duty to +Miss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good night, Mr Clennam.’ + +‘And mind you don’t forget us, you know, Nandy,’ said the Father. ‘You +must come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You must not come +out without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good night, Nandy. Be +very careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven +and worn.’ With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down: +and when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction +on him, ‘A melancholy sight that, Mr Clennam, though one has the +consolation of knowing that he doesn’t feel it himself. The poor old +fellow is a dismal wreck. Spirit broken and gone--pulverised--crushed +out of him, sir, completely!’ + +As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive +to these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator, +while Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it +away. He noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of +an affable and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in +the yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped +short of a blessing. + +When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the +bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her +departure. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this +time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. He kissed +Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his +father, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat +down. + +‘Tip, dear,’ said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, ‘don’t you +see--’ + +‘Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have +here--I say, if you refer to that,’ answered Tip, jerking his head with +emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, ‘I see!’ + +‘Is that all you say?’ + +‘That’s all I say. And I suppose,’ added the lofty young man, after a +moment’s pause, ‘that visitor will understand me, when I say that’s all +I say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn’t +used me like a gentleman.’ + +‘I do not understand that,’ observed the obnoxious personage referred to +with tranquillity. + +‘No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know +that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent +appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary +accommodation, easily within his power--easily within his power, +mind!--and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to +be excused, I consider that he doesn’t treat me like a gentleman.’ + +The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no +sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:-- + +‘How dare you--’ But his son stopped him. + +‘Now, don’t ask me how I dare, father, because that’s bosh. As to the +fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual +present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.’ + +‘I should think so!’ cried Fanny. + +‘A proper spirit?’ said the Father. ‘Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming +spirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me--_me_--spirit!’ + +‘Now, don’t let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the +subject. I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has +not treated me like a gentleman. And there’s an end of it.’ + +‘But there is not an end of it, sir,’ returned the Father. ‘But there +shall not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You have made up +your mind?’ + +‘Yes, _I_ have. What’s the good of keeping on like that?’ + +‘Because,’ returned the Father, in a great heat, ‘you had no right to +make up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, to what +is--hum--parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don’t ask me to desist; +there is a--hum--a general principle involved here, which rises even +above considerations of--ha--hospitality. I object to the assertion made +by my son. I--ha--I personally repel it.’ + +‘Why, what is it to you, father?’ returned the son, over his shoulder. + +‘What is it to me, sir? I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will not +endure it. I,’ he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his +face. ‘I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I +myself may at a certain time--ha--or times, have made a--hum--an appeal, +and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent +appeal to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me +suppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was +not extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to +be excused. Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received +treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to it?’ + +His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any +account be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn’t endure this. + +Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on his +own hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by +his own blood? + +‘You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this +injury of your own accord!’ said the young gentleman morosely. ‘What I +have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said had +nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people’s hats?’ + +‘I reply it has everything to do with me,’ returned the Father. ‘I point +out to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha--delicacy and +peculiarity of your father’s position should strike you dumb, sir, if +nothing else should, in laying down such--ha--such unnatural principles. +Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, you +are at least--hum--not a Christian? Are you--ha--an Atheist? And is it +Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual +for begging to be excused this time, when the same individual +may--ha--respond with the required accommodation next time? Is it the +part of a Christian not to--hum--not to try him again?’ He had worked +himself into quite a religious glow and fervour. + +‘I see precious well,’ said Mr Tip, rising, ‘that I shall get no +sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do +is to cut. Good night, Amy. Don’t be vexed. I am very sorry it happens +here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can’t altogether part with +my spirit, even for your sake, old girl.’ + +With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss +Fanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of +Clennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing +that she had always known him for one of the large body of conspirators. + +When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined +to sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a +gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to +the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his +own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about +the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten. +He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it +being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled +Collegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony. + +‘Such, you see, Mr Clennam,’ said the Father, ‘are the incongruities +of my position here. But a public duty! No man, I am sure, would more +readily recognise a public duty than yourself.’ + +Clennam besought him not to delay a moment. + +‘Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can +leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with +confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards +erasing from Mr Clennam’s mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant +circumstance which has occurred since tea-time.’ + +Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and +therefore required no erasure. + +‘My dear sir,’ said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a +grasp of Clennam’s hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his +note and enclosure that afternoon, ‘Heaven ever bless you!’ + +So, at last, Clennam’s purpose in remaining was attained, and he could +speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as nobody, and she +was by. + + + + +CHAPTER 32. More Fortune-Telling + + +Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque +frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her +serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side +of the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable +eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat +was opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement +of the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide +of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few +who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled +about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed +unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and +such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was +the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the +Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle +of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful +termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by +the united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their +Father. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality +informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in +the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among +the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got +him hard and fast. + +As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she +trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently +put his hand upon her work, and said, ‘Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it +down.’ + +She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then +nervously clasping together, but he took one of them. + +‘How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!’ + +‘I have been busy, sir.’ + +‘But I heard only to-day,’ said Clennam, ‘by mere accident, of your +having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me, +then?’ + +‘I--I don’t know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You +generally are now, are you not?’ + +He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes +that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with +as much concern as tenderness. + +‘My child, your manner is so changed!’ + +The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her +hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head +bent and her whole form trembling. + +‘My own Little Dorrit,’ said Clennam, compassionately. + +She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at +least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while +before he spoke again. + +‘I cannot bear,’ he said then, ‘to see you weep; but I hope this is a +relief to an overcharged heart.’ + +‘Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.’ + +‘Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just +now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have +come in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of +them. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad +consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment’s heart-ache, Little +Dorrit.’ + +She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner, +‘You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry +for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--’ + +‘Hush!’ said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand. +‘Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new +indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything +but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don’t +you?’ + +‘I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my +mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this +place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!’ In raising +her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she +had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, ‘You have not been +ill, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Nor tried? Nor hurt?’ she asked him, anxiously. + +It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said +in reply: + +‘To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over. +Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command +than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me +better!’ + +He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He +never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that +looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers. + +‘But it brings me to something that I wish to say,’ he continued, ‘and +therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales +and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to +confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how +grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had +gone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that +made up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all +this, I fancied I loved some one.’ + +‘Do I know her, sir?’ asked Little Dorrit. + +‘No, my child.’ + +‘Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?’ + +‘Flora. No, no. Do you think--’ + +‘I never quite thought so,’ said Little Dorrit, more to herself than +him. ‘I did wonder at it a little.’ + +‘Well!’ said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in +the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an +older man, who had done with that tender part of life, ‘I found out my +mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got +wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and +looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I +found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the +top, and was descending quickly.’ + +If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart, +in speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and +serving her. + +‘I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in +me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection +with me, was gone, and would never shine again.’ + +O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in +his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast +of his Little Dorrit! + +‘All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of +this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years +that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the +amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?’ + +‘Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch +you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but +it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.’ + +He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her +clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully +thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his +breast, with the dying cry, ‘I love him!’ and the remotest suspicion +of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little +creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a +slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her +domestic story made all else dark to him. + +‘For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So +far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for +your friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted; +and any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish +before me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me.’ + +‘I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here,’ +said Little Dorrit, faintly. + +‘So you said that day upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterwards. +Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if +you would!’ + +‘Secret? No, I have no secret,’ said Little Dorrit in some trouble. + +They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to +what they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from +Maggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time +spoke: + +‘I say! Little Mother!’ + +‘Yes, Maggy.’ + +‘If you an’t got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about +the Princess. _She_ had a secret, you know.’ + +‘The Princess had a secret?’ said Clennam, in some surprise. ‘What +Princess was that, Maggy?’ + +‘Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten,’ said Maggy, ‘catching the +poor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a secret? _I_ +never said so.’ + +‘I beg your pardon. I thought you did.’ + +‘No, I didn’t. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out? It +was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at +her wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep it there? And so the +t’other one says to her, no I don’t; and so the t’other one says to her, +yes you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is. +And she wouldn’t go into the Hospital, and so she died. _You_ know, Little +Mother; tell him that. For it was a reg’lar good secret, that was!’ cried +Maggy, hugging herself. + +Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was +struck by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that it +was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and that there +was nothing in it which she wouldn’t be ashamed to tell again to anybody +else, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was. + +However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see +him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger +interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it +than he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never +forgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point--the +suspicion he had formed. + +‘Little Dorrit,’ he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than +he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear +him, ‘another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have +tried for opportunities. Don’t mind me, who, for the matter of years, +might be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an +old man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and +that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you +discharge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have +implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision +for you in a more suitable place. But you may have an interest--I will +not say, now, though even that might be--may have, at another time, +an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your +affection here.’ + +She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head. + +‘It may be, dear Little Dorrit.’ + +‘No. No. No.’ She shook her head, after each slow repetition of +the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long +afterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards, +within those prison walls; within that very room. + +‘But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth +to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try +with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel +for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.’ + +‘O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!’ She said this, looking +at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same +resigned accents as before. + +‘I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating +trust in me.’ + +‘Can I do less than that, when you are so good!’ + +‘Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or +anxiety, concealed from me?’ + +‘Almost none.’ + +‘And you have none now?’ + +She shook her head. But she was very pale. + +‘When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, for +they do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad place, I +may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual +occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit’s mind?’ + +She seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long +afterwards--and said, more brightly, ‘Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!’ + +The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was +coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound +was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it +knew what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached, +which it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and, +after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and +snorting in at the keyhole. + +Before Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without, +stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition, +looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. He had a +lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco +smoke. + +‘Pancks the gipsy,’ he observed out of breath, ‘fortune-telling.’ + +He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most +curious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor’s grubber, he were +the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the +turnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction he put +his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull +at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he +underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst +of that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction +of himself, ‘Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.’ + +‘I am spending the evening with the rest of ‘em,’ said Pancks. ‘I’ve +been singing. I’ve been taking a part in White sand and grey sand. +_I_ don’t know anything about it. Never mind. I’ll take any part in +anything. It’s all the same, if you’re loud enough.’ + +At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But he soon perceived +that though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the +staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any +grain or berry. + +‘How d’ye do, Miss Dorrit?’ said Pancks. ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind my +running round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I heard was here, +from Mr Dorrit. How are you, Sir?’ + +Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay. + +‘Gay!’ said Pancks. ‘I’m in wonderful feather, sir. I can’t stop a +minute, or I shall be missed, and I don’t want ‘em to miss me.--Eh, Miss +Dorrit?’ + +He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking +at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark +species of cockatoo. + +‘I haven’t been here half an hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair, +and I said, “I’ll go and support him!” I ought to be down in Bleeding +Heart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ + +His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to +sparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one +might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a +knuckle to any part of his figure. + +‘Capital company here,’ said Pancks.--‘Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ + +She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with +a nod towards Clennam. + +‘Don’t mind him, Miss Dorrit. He’s one of us. We agreed that you +shouldn’t take on to mind me before people, but we didn’t mean Mr +Clennam. He’s one of us. He’s in it. An’t you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, Miss +Dorrit?’ + +The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to +Clennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they +exchanged quick looks. + +‘I was making a remark,’ said Pancks, ‘but I declare I forget what +it was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I’ve been treating ‘em all +round.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ + +‘Very generous of you,’ she returned, noticing another of the quick +looks between the two. + +‘Not at all,’ said Pancks. ‘Don’t mention it. I’m coming into my +property, that’s the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I’ll give +‘em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in +faggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and plum-pudding for every one. +Quart of double stout a head. Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the +authorities give permission.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ + +She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by +Clennam’s growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him +after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr +Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any +word. + +‘And oh, by-the-bye!’ said Pancks, ‘you were to live to know what was +behind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my +darling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ + +He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black +prongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the myriads of +points that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a +wonderful mystery. + +‘But I shall be missed;’ he came back to that; ‘and I don’t want ‘em to +miss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me +stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you’ll step out +of the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night. Miss Dorrit, I +wish you good fortune.’ + +He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur +followed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled +over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard. + +‘What is it, for Heaven’s sake!’ Arthur demanded, when they burst out +there both together. + +‘Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him.’ + +With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a +cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which +man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have +been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared +with the rampancy of Mr Pancks. + +‘Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,’ said Pancks. ‘Stop a moment. Come to the pump.’ + +They adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under +the spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle. +Mr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and +blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief. + +‘I am the clearer for that,’ he gasped to Clennam standing astonished. +‘But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair, +knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress, +knowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, Mr Rugg--a little +higher, sir,--that’ll do!’ + +Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening, +did Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr +Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts. +Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the button-hole, led him +behind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of +papers. + +Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers. + +‘Stay!’ said Clennam in a whisper.’You have made a discovery.’ + +Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to +convey, ‘We rather think so.’ + +‘Does it implicate any one?’ + +‘How implicate, sir?’ + +‘In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?’ + +‘Not a bit of it.’ + +‘Thank God!’ said Clennam to himself. ‘Now show me.’ + +‘You are to understand’--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers, +and speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, ‘Where’s the +Pedigree? Where’s Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we +are.--You are to understand that we are this very day virtually +complete. We shan’t be legally for a day or two. Call it at the outside +a week. We’ve been at it night and day for I don’t know how long. Mr +Rugg, you know how long? Never mind. Don’t say. You’ll only confuse me. +You shall tell her, Mr Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where’s that +rough total, Mr Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There sir! That’s what you’ll +have to break to her. That man’s your Father of the Marshalsea!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 33. Mrs Merdle’s Complaint + + +Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people, +the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of +which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur, +Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son’s marriage. In her +progress to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly +influenced, not only by her maternal affections but by three politic +considerations. + +Of these, the first may have been that her son had never signified the +smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability +to dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a +grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial +inroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of +a man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry’s debts must +clearly be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law. When, +to these three-fold points of prudence there is added the fact that +Mrs Gowan yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having +yielded his, and that Mr Meagles’s objection to the marriage had +been the sole obstacle in its way all along, it becomes the height of +probability that the relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing +particular, turned these ideas in her sagacious mind. + +Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her +individual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by +diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business; +that she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination +under which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time, +but what could a mother do; and the like. She had already called Arthur +Clennam to bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles +family; and she followed up the move by now impounding the family itself +for the same purpose. In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles, +she slided herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully +yielding to irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and +good-breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the +difficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was +hers--not his. The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she +foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on that +innocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was presented to her +by her son, she said on embracing her, ‘My dear, what have you done to +Henry that has bewitched him so!’ at the same time allowing a few tears +to carry before them, in little pills, the cosmetic powder on her nose; +as a delicate but touching signal that she suffered much inwardly for +the show of composure with which she bore her misfortune. + +Among the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being +Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that +Power), Mrs Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court +Bohemians, without exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an +upstart; but they turned them down again, by falling flat on their faces +to worship his wealth. In which compensating adjustment of their noses, +they were pretty much like Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest +of them. + +To Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after +having given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into town for the +purpose in a one-horse carriage irreverently called at that period of +English history, a pill-box. It belonged to a job-master in a small way, +who drove it himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of +the old ladies in Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony, +in that encampment, that the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded +as the private property of the jobber for the time being, and that the +job-master should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber +in possession. So the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest +job-masters in the universe, always pretended to know of no other job +but the job immediately in hand. + +Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with +the parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one +side, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species. +To whom entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened +the light on the spots of bloom. + +‘My dear soul,’ said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend’s hand +with this fan after a little indifferent conversation, ‘you are my only +comfort. That affair of Henry’s that I told you of, is to take place. +Now, how does it strike you? I am dying to know, because you represent +and express Society so well.’ + +Mrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review; +and having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle’s and the London +jewellers’ to be in good order, replied: + +‘As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that +he should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that +he should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a +handsome establishment by marriage. Society does not see, otherwise, +what he has to do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!’ + +For the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the conference as +if he were a judge (and indeed he looked rather like one), had wound up +the exposition with a shriek. + +‘Cases there are,’ said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little +finger of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that neat +action; ‘cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, and is +rich, and has a handsome establishment already. Those are of a different +kind. In such cases--’ + +Mrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the +jewel-stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, ‘why, a man +looks out for this sort of thing, my dear.’ Then the parrot shrieked +again, and she put up her glass to look at him, and said, ‘Bird! Do be +quiet!’ + +‘But, young men,’ resumed Mrs Merdle, ‘and by young men you know +what I mean, my love--I mean people’s sons who have the world before +them--they must place themselves in a better position towards Society by +marriage, or Society really will not have any patience with their making +fools of themselves. Dreadfully worldly all this sounds,’ said Mrs +Merdle, leaning back in her nest and putting up her glass again, ‘does +it not?’ + +‘But it is true,’ said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air. + +‘My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment,’ returned Mrs Merdle; +‘because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and there is +nothing more to be said. If we were in a more primitive state, if we +lived under roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep and creatures +instead of banker’s accounts (which would be delicious; my dear, I am +pastoral to a degree, by nature), well and good. But we don’t live +under leaves, and keep cows and sheep and creatures. I perfectly exhaust +myself sometimes, in pointing out the distinction to Edmund Sparkler.’ + +Mrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman’s name +was mentioned, replied as follows: + +‘My love, you know the wretched state of the country--those unfortunate +concessions of John Barnacle’s!--and you therefore know the reasons for +my being as poor as Thingummy.’ + +‘A church mouse?’ Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile. + +‘I was thinking of the other proverbial church person--Job,’ said Mrs +Gowan. ‘Either will do. It would be idle to disguise, consequently, that +there is a wide difference between the position of your son and mine. I +may add, too, that Henry has talent--’ + +‘Which Edmund certainly has not,’ said Mrs Merdle, with the greatest +suavity. + +‘--and that his talent, combined with disappointment,’ Mrs Gowan went +on, ‘has led him into a pursuit which--ah dear me! You know, my dear. +Such being Henry’s different position, the question is what is the most +inferior class of marriage to which I can reconcile myself.’ + +Mrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms +(beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she +omitted to reply for a while. Roused at length by the silence, she +folded the arms, and with admirable presence of mind looked her friend +full in the face, and said interrogatively, ‘Ye-es? And then?’ + +‘And then, my dear,’ said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, ‘I +should be glad to hear what you have to say to it.’ + +Here the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed +last, burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up and +down on both legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, and +pausing for a reply, with his head as much awry as he could possibly +twist it. + +‘Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady,’ +said Mrs Merdle; ‘but Society is perhaps a little mercenary, you know, +my dear.’ + +‘From what I can make out,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘I believe I may say that +Henry will be relieved from debt--’ + +‘Much in debt?’ asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass. + +‘Why tolerably, I should think,’ said Mrs Gowan. + +‘Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so,’ Mrs Merdle observed in +a comfortable sort of way. + +‘And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred +a-year, or perhaps altogether something more, which, in Italy-’ + +‘Oh! Going to Italy?’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘For Henry to study. You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear. +That dreadful Art--’ + +True. Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted friend. +She understood. Say no more! + +‘And that,’ said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, ‘that’s all. +That,’ repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment, and +tapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin; +might be called a chin and a half at present), ‘that’s all! On the death +of the old people, I suppose there will be more to come; but how it may +be restricted or locked up, I don’t know. And as to that, they may live +for ever. My dear, they are just the kind of people to do it.’ + +Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who +knew what Society’s mothers were, and what Society’s daughters were, and +what Society’s matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and +what scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and +what bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of +her capacious bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch. Knowing, +however, what was expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of +the fiction to be nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put +her required contribution of gloss upon it. + +‘And that is all, my dear?’ said she, heaving a friendly sigh. ‘Well, +well! The fault is not yours. You have nothing to reproach yourself +with. You must exercise the strength of mind for which you are renowned, +and make the best of it.’ + +‘The girl’s family have made,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘of course, the most +strenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold Henry.’ + +‘Of course they have, my dear,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried +myself morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the +connection.’ + +‘No doubt you have, my dear,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘And all of no use. All has broken down beneath me. Now tell me, my +love. Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant consent to +Henry’s marrying among people not in Society; or, have I acted with +inexcusable weakness?’ + +In answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan (speaking +as a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be commended, that +she was much to be sympathised with, that she had taken the highest of +parts, and had come out of the furnace refined. And Mrs Gowan, who of +course saw through her own threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that +Mrs Merdle saw through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see +through it perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had +gone into it, with immense complacency and gravity. + +The conference was held at four or five o’clock in the afternoon, when +all the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was resonant of +carriage-wheels and double-knocks. It had reached this point when Mr +Merdle came home from his daily occupation of causing the British +name to be more and more respected in all parts of the civilised globe +capable of the appreciation of world-wide commercial enterprise and +gigantic combinations of skill and capital. For, though nobody knew with +the least precision what Mr Merdle’s business was, except that it was +to coin money, these were the terms in which everybody defined it on all +ceremonious occasions, and which it was the last new polite reading of +the parable of the camel and the needle’s eye to accept without inquiry. + +For a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr Merdle +looked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of his vast +transactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of heads with +some inferior spirit. He presented himself before the two ladies in the +course of a dismal stroll through his mansion, which had no apparent +object but escape from the presence of the chief butler. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, stopping short in confusion; ‘I didn’t +know there was anybody here but the parrot.’ + +However, as Mrs Merdle said, ‘You can come in!’ and as Mrs Gowan said +she was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, he came in, +and stood looking out at a distant window, with his hands crossed under +his uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as if he were taking himself +into custody. In this attitude he fell directly into a reverie from +which he was only aroused by his wife’s calling to him from her ottoman, +when they had been for some quarter of an hour alone. + +‘Eh? Yes?’ said Mr Merdle, turning towards her. ‘What is it?’ + +‘What is it?’ repeated Mrs Merdle. ‘It is, I suppose, that you have not +heard a word of my complaint.’ + +‘Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?’ said Mr Merdle. ‘I didn’t know that you +were suffering from a complaint. What complaint?’ + +‘A complaint of you,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘Oh! A complaint of me,’ said Mr Merdle. ‘What is the--what have I--what +may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?’ + +In his withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to +shape this question. As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself +that he was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his +forefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by +instantly driving his bill into it. + +‘You were saying, Mrs Merdle,’ said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger +in his mouth, ‘that you had a complaint against me?’ + +‘A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more +emphatically, than by having to repeat it,’ said Mrs Merdle. ‘I might as +well have stated it to the wall. I had far better have stated it to the +bird. He would at least have screamed.’ + +‘You don’t want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,’ said Mr Merdle, +taking a chair. + +‘Indeed I don’t know,’ retorted Mrs Merdle, ‘but that you had better do +that, than be so moody and distraught. One would at least know that you +were sensible of what was going on around you.’ + +‘A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,’ said Mr Merdle, +heavily. + +‘And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,’ +returned Mrs Merdle. ‘That’s very true. If you wish to know the +complaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you +really ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate yourself +to Society.’ + +Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head +that he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair, +cried: + +‘Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who +does more for Society than I do? Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle? +Do you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle? Do you look in the glass and see +yourself, Mrs Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, and who it’s +all provided for? And yet will you tell me that I oughtn’t to go into +Society? I, who shower money upon it in this way? I, who might always be +said--to--to--to harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go +about saturating Society every day of my life.’ + +‘Pray, don’t be violent, Mr Merdle,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘Violent?’ said Mr Merdle. ‘You are enough to make me desperate. You +don’t know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don’t know +anything of the sacrifices I make for it.’ + +‘I know,’ returned Mrs Merdle, ‘that you receive the best in the land. I +know that you move in the whole Society of the country. And I believe +I know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence about it, I know I +know) who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle.’ + +‘Mrs Merdle,’ retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and yellow +face, ‘I know that as well as you do. If you were not an ornament to +Society, and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you and I would never +have come together. When I say a benefactor to it, I mean a person who +provides it with all sorts of expensive things to eat and drink and look +at. But, to tell me that I am not fit for it after all I have done +for it--after all I have done for it,’ repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild +emphasis that made his wife lift up her eyelids, ‘after all--all!--to +tell me I have no right to mix with it after all, is a pretty reward.’ + +‘I say,’ answered Mrs Merdle composedly, ‘that you ought to make +yourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. There is +a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as +you do.’ + +‘How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?’ asked Mr Merdle. + +‘How do you carry them about?’ said Mrs Merdle. ‘Look at yourself in the +glass.’ + +Mr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the nearest +mirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid blood to his +temples, whether a man was to be called to account for his digestion? + +‘You have a physician,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘He does me no good,’ said Mr Merdle. + +Mrs Merdle changed her ground. + +‘Besides,’ said she, ‘your digestion is nonsense. I don’t speak of your +digestion. I speak of your manner.’ + +‘Mrs Merdle,’ returned her husband, ‘I look to you for that. You supply +manner, and I supply money.’ + +‘I don’t expect you,’ said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her +cushions, ‘to captivate people. I don’t want you to take any trouble +upon yourself, or to try to be fascinating. I simply request you to care +about nothing--or seem to care about nothing--as everybody else does.’ + +‘Do I ever say I care about anything?’ asked Mr Merdle. + +‘Say? No! Nobody would attend to you if you did. But you show it.’ + +‘Show what? What do I show?’ demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly. + +‘I have already told you. You show that you carry your business cares +an projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else +they belong to,’ said Mrs Merdle. ‘Or seeming to. Seeming would be quite +enough: I ask no more. Whereas you couldn’t be more occupied with your +day’s calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to +be, if you were a carpenter.’ + +‘A carpenter!’ repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan. +‘I shouldn’t so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.’ + +‘And my complaint is,’ pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark, +‘that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct +it, Mr Merdle. If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund +Sparkler.’ The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed +the head of her son through her glass. ‘Edmund; we want you here.’ + +Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room +without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady +with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his +body, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his +capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue. + +The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it +were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, ‘That he had heard +it noticed by fellers.’ + +‘Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,’ said Mrs Merdle, with languid +triumph. ‘Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!’ Which in truth +was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be +the last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an +impression from anything that passed in his presence. + +‘And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,’ said Mrs Merdle, waving +her favourite hand towards her husband, ‘how he has heard it noticed.’ + +‘I couldn’t,’ said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before, +‘couldn’t undertake to say what led to it--‘cause memory desperate +loose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well +educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded +to--’ + +‘There! Never mind the sister,’ remarked Mrs Merdle, a little +impatiently. ‘What did the brother say?’ + +‘Didn’t say a word, ma’am,’ answered Mr Sparkler. ‘As silent a feller as +myself. Equally hard up for a remark.’ + +‘Somebody said something,’ returned Mrs Merdle. ‘Never mind who it was.’ + +[‘Assure you I don’t in the least,’ said Mr Sparkler.) + +‘But tell us what it was.’ + +Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some +severe mental discipline before he replied: + +‘Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own--occasionally +compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich +and knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that--but say +the Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carried the Shop about, on his back +rather--like Jew clothesmen with too much business.’ + +‘Which,’ said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about her, +‘is exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm up-stairs.’ + +Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to +Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to +see nine wastes of space. When he had thus entertained himself he went +down-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground-floor; +and then came up-stairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets +on the first-floor; as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his +oppressed soul. Through all the rooms he wandered, as he always did, +like the last person on earth who had any business to approach them. Let +Mrs Merdle announce, with all her might, that she was at Home ever +so many nights in a season, she could not announce more widely and +unmistakably than Mr Merdle did that he was never at home. + +At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer +always finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked +to his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to +dinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot. At dinner, he was +envied and flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and +Bishoped, as much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home +alone, and being instantly put out again in his own hall, like a +rushlight, by the chief butler, went sighing to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER 34. A Shoal of Barnacles + + +Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage, +and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of +Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large +family might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was +capable of receiving. + +To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been +impossible for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could have held +all the members and connections of that illustrious house. Secondly, +because wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation +under the sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post +was a Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any +spot of earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but +to that spot of earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the +Circumlocution Office sent out a Barnacle and a despatch-box. Thus the +Barnacles were all over the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing +the compass. + +But, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in +summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on +which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be +pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles. +This Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently +with new additions to the list, and holding conferences with that +gentleman when he was not engaged (as he generally was at this period) +in examining and paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the +apartment of scales and scoop. + +One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles +felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most +elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the +honour of having such company. This guest was Clennam. But Clennam had +made a promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and, +in the chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied +obligations. In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on +all occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles +cheerfully, ‘I shall come, of course.’ + +His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr +Meagles’s way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own +anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism +might produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast. +The national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by +coming down to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom +of an old friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited. +‘For,’ said he, ‘as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a +public duty and a public service, and as their business with me was to +prevent it by wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and +drink together with a show of being of one mind.’ Mr Meagles was much +amused by his friend’s oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting +air of allowance than usual, when he rejoined: ‘Well, well, Dan, you +shall have your own crotchety way.’ + +To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey +by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and +disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would +accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his +usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all. + +‘You see, Clennam,’ he happened to remark in the course of conversation +one day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the +marriage, ‘I am a disappointed man. That you know already.’ + +‘Upon my word,’ said Clennam, a little embarrassed, ‘I scarcely know +how.’ + +‘Why,’ returned Gowan, ‘I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or +a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided +for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to +do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.’ + +Clennam was beginning, ‘But on the other hand--’ when Gowan took him up. + +‘Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a +beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.’ + +[‘Is there much of it?’ Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt +ashamed of himself.) + +‘And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal +good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my +childish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to +a public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here +without them, and thus I am a disappointed man.’ + +Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself), +was this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station +which the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having +already carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful +or a promising thing anywhere? + +‘Not bitterly disappointed, I think,’ he said aloud. + +‘Hang it, no; not bitterly,’ laughed Gowan. ‘My people are not worth +that--though they are charming fellows, and I have the greatest +affection for them. Besides, it’s pleasant to show them that I can do +without them, and that they may all go to the Devil. And besides, again, +most men are disappointed in life, somehow or other, and influenced by +their disappointment. But it’s a dear good world, and I love it!’ + +‘It lies fair before you now,’ said Arthur. + +‘Fair as this summer river,’ cried the other, with enthusiasm, ‘and by +Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it. +It’s the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings, +isn’t it?’ + +‘Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,’ said Clennam. + +‘And imposition,’ added Gowan, laughing; ‘we won’t leave out the +imposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being +a disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to face it out +gravely enough. Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my +being just enough soured not to be able to do that.’ + +‘To do what?’ asked Clennam. + +‘To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps +himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence +as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and +giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for +it, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in short, to pass the +bottle of smoke according to rule.’ + +‘But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is; +and to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect +it deserves; is it not?’ Arthur reasoned. ‘And your vocation, Gowan, +may really demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought +that all Art did.’ + +‘What a good fellow you are, Clennam!’ exclaimed the other, stopping +to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. ‘What a capital +fellow! _You_ have never been disappointed. That’s easy to see.’ + +It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly +resolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his +hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on: + +‘Clennam, I don’t like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give +any money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what +I do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to +sell. If we didn’t want to sell it for the most we can get for it, we +shouldn’t do it. Being work, it has to be done; but it’s easily enough +done. All the rest is hocus-pocus. Now here’s one of the advantages, or +disadvantages, of knowing a disappointed man. You hear the truth.’ + +Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it +sank into Clennam’s mind. It so took root there, that he began to fear +Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had +gained little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his +inconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions. He found a contest still +always going on in his breast between his promise to keep Gowan in +none but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced +observation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he +quite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he +distorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he never +sought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with +willingness and great relief. For he never could forget what he had +been; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no better reason +than that he had come in his way. + +Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over, +Gowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise, +and discharge the generous function he had accepted. This last week was, +in truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. Before Pet, or before +Gowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam had more than once found him +alone, with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often +seen him look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was +not seen by them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen +like a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion, +many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother +and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and +sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had +had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping. +Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing +and cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, had her flights into store +rooms, where she would cry until her eyes were red, and would then +come out, attributing that appearance to pickled onions and pepper, and +singing clearer than ever. Mrs Tickit, finding no balsam for a wounded +mind in Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, suffered greatly from low spirits, +and from moving recollections of Minnie’s infancy. When the latter was +powerful with her, she usually sent up secret messages importing +that she was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that she +solicited a sight of ‘her child’ in the kitchen; there, she would bless +her child’s face, and bless her child’s heart, and hug her child, in a +medley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, rolling-pins, and +pie-crust, with the tenderness of an old attached servant, which is a +very pretty tenderness indeed. + +But all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, and it +came; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to the feast. + +There was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office, and Mews +Street, Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle _nee_ +Stiltstalking, who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and the +three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments +and ready to go off, and yet not going off with the sharpness of flash +and bang that might have been expected, but rather hanging fire. There +was Barnacle junior, also from the Circumlocution Office, leaving the +Tonnage of the country, which he was somehow supposed to take under +his protection, to look after itself, and, sooth to say, not at all +impairing the efficiency of its protection by leaving it alone. There +was the engaging Young Barnacle, deriving from the sprightly side of the +family, also from the Circumlocution Office, gaily and agreeably helping +the occasion along, and treating it, in his sparkling way, as one of the +official forms and fees of the Church Department of How not to do it. +There were three other Young Barnacles from three other offices, insipid +to all the senses, and terribly in want of seasoning, doing the marriage +as they would have ‘done’ the Nile, Old Rome, the new singer, or +Jerusalem. + +But there was greater game than this. There was Lord Decimus Tite +Barnacle himself, in the odour of Circumlocution--with the very smell of +Despatch-Boxes upon him. Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, who +had risen to official heights on the wings of one indignant idea, and +that was, My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister +of this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the +charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to +damp the independent self-reliance, of its people. That was, in other +words, that this great statesman was always yet to be told that it +behoved the Pilot of the ship to do anything but prosper in the private +loaf and fish trade ashore, the crew being able, by dint of hard +pumping, to keep the ship above water without him. On this sublime +discovery in the great art How not to do it, Lord Decimus had long +sustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any +ill-advised member of either House but try How to do it by bringing in +a Bill to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord +Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place and solemnly said, soaring +into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering soared around +him, that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it behoved him as the +Minister of this free country, to set bounds to the philanthropy, +to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the +enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance, of its people. The +discovery of this Behoving Machine was the discovery of the political +perpetual motion. It never wore out, though it was always going round +and round in all the State Departments. + +And there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was +William Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor +Stiltstalking, and who always kept ready his own particular recipe for +How not to do it; sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it fresh +out of him, with a ‘First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the House what +Precedent we have for the course into which the honourable gentleman +would precipitate us;’ sometimes asking the honourable gentleman to +favour him with his own version of the Precedent; sometimes telling +the honourable gentleman that he (William Barnacle) would search for a +Precedent; and oftentimes crushing the honourable gentleman flat on +the spot by telling him there was no Precedent. But Precedent and +Precipitate were, under all circumstances, the well-matched pair of +battle-horses of this able Circumlocutionist. No matter that the unhappy +honourable gentleman had been trying in vain, for twenty-five years, to +precipitate William Barnacle into this--William Barnacle still put it to +the House, and (at second-hand or so) to the country, whether he was to +be precipitated into this. No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable +with the nature of things and course of events that the wretched +honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for +this--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman +for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and +would tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this. It +might perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was +not high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made, +or, if made in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mud. But +Precedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most +people. + +And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped +through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or +three at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art +which he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle +Governments. This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on +any one topic, to return an answer on any other. It had done immense +service, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution +Office. + +And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary +Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through +their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon +staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses +or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and +cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family; +and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men’s +motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the +night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried +out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever +they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a +swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn, +quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying +out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the +family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and +dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part +of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on +all sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts +of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest +notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they +fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate +heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there +was not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might +fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury +to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as +applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these +hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down. + +It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that +attended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what +is that subtracted from Legion! But the sprinkling was a swarm in the +Twickenham cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle) +married the happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle +himself to conduct Mrs Meagles to breakfast. + +The entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have +been. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly +appreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and that did not +improve him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had stood in the +way, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family greatness +had made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, pervaded +the affair, though it was never openly expressed. Then the Barnacles +felt that they for their parts would have done with the Meagleses when +the present patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the +same for their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed +man who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had allowed +his mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might give them +some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired his pencil and +his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he hoped in time +to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that he begged +such of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any good +thing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor painter. +Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal, +turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the +bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the +hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting, +with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of +sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much +as wanted to get out of. Then Mr Tite Barnacle could not but feel that +there was a person in company, who would have disturbed his life-long +sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence in full official character, if such +disturbance had been possible: while Barnacle junior did, with +indignation, communicate to two vapid gentlemen, his relatives, that +there was a feller here, look here, who had come to our Department +without an appointment and said he wanted to know, you know; and that, +look here, if he was to break out now, as he might you know (for you +never could tell what an ungentlemanly Radical of that sort would be up +to next), and was to say, look here, that he wanted to know this moment, +you know, that would be jolly; wouldn’t it? + +The pleasantest part of the occasion by far, to Clennam, was the +painfullest. When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet in the room +with the two pictures (where the company were not), before going with +her to the threshold which she could never recross to be the old Pet and +the old delight, nothing could be more natural and simple than the three +were. Gowan himself was touched, and answered Mr Meagles’s ‘O Gowan, +take care of her, take care of her!’ with an earnest ‘Don’t be so +broken-hearted, sir. By Heaven I will!’ + +And so, with the last sobs and last loving words, and a last look to +Clennam of confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the carriage, +and her husband waved his hand, and they were away for Dover; though not +until the faithful Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown and jet black curls, had +rushed out from some hiding-place, and thrown both her shoes after +the carriage: an apparition which occasioned great surprise to the +distinguished company at the windows. + +The said company being now relieved from further attendance, and the +chief Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand just +then to send a mail or two which was in danger of going straight to its +destination, beating about the seas like the Flying Dutchman, and to +arrange with complexity for the stoppage of a good deal of important +business otherwise in peril of being done), went their several ways; +with all affability conveying to Mr and Mrs Meagles that general +assurance that what they had been doing there, they had been doing at a +sacrifice for Mr and Mrs Meagles’s good, which they always conveyed to +Mr John Bull in their official condescension to that most unfortunate +creature. + +A miserable blank remained in the house and in the hearts of the father +and mother and Clennam. Mr Meagles called only one remembrance to his +aid, that really did him good. + +‘It’s very gratifying, Arthur,’ he said, ‘after all, to look back upon.’ + +‘The past?’ said Clennam. + +‘Yes--but I mean the company.’ + +It had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it really +did him good. ‘It’s very gratifying,’ he said, often repeating the +remark in the course of the evening. ‘Such high company!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 35. What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit’s Hand + + +It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with +Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him +Little Dorrit’s fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate +that had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating. His right +was now clear, nothing interposed in his way, the Marshalsea gates stood +open, the Marshalsea walls were down, a few flourishes of his pen, and +he was extremely rich. + +In his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr +Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience +and secrecy that nothing could tire. ‘I little thought, sir,’ said +Pancks, ‘when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you +what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little +thought, sir, when I told you you were not of the Clennams of +Cornwall, that I was ever going to tell you who were of the Dorrits of +Dorsetshire.’ He then went on to detail. How, having that name recorded +in his note-book, he was first attracted by the name alone. How, having +often found two exactly similar names, even belonging to the same place, +to involve no traceable consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at +first give much heed to this, except in the way of speculation as to +what a surprising change would be made in the condition of a little +seamstress, if she could be shown to have any interest in so large a +property. How he rather supposed himself to have pursued the idea into +its next degree, because there was something uncommon in the quiet +little seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his curiosity. +How he had felt his way inch by inch, and ‘Moled it out, sir’ (that was +Mr Pancks’s expression), grain by grain. How, in the beginning of +the labour described by this new verb, and to render which the more +expressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook his hair +over them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes to sudden +darkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again. How he had made +acquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he might come and go there +as all other comers and goers did; and how his first ray of light was +unconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit himself and by his son; to both of +whom he easily became known; with both of whom he talked much, casually +[‘but always Moleing you’ll observe,’ said Mr Pancks): and from whom he +derived, without being at all suspected, two or three little points of +family history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested +others. How it had at length become plain to Mr Pancks that he had made +a real discovery of the heir-at-law to a great fortune, and that his +discovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and perfection. How +he had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to secrecy in a solemn +manner, and taken him into Moleing partnership. How they had employed +John Chivery as their sole clerk and agent, seeing to whom he was +devoted. And how, until the present hour, when authorities mighty in the +Bank and learned in the law declared their successful labours ended, +they had confided in no other human being. + +‘So if the whole thing had broken down, sir,’ concluded Pancks, ‘at the +very last, say the day before the other day when I showed you our papers +in the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but ourselves would +have been cruelly disappointed, or a penny the worse.’ + +Clennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him +throughout the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an amazement +which even the preparation he had had for the main disclosure smoothed +down, ‘My dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost you a great sum of money.’ + +‘Pretty well, sir,’ said the triumphant Pancks. ‘No trifle, though we +did it as cheap as it could be done. And the outlay was a difficulty, +let me tell you.’ + +‘A difficulty!’ repeated Clennam. ‘But the difficulties you have so +wonderfully conquered in the whole business!’ shaking his hand again. + +‘I’ll tell you how I did it,’ said the delighted Pancks, putting his +hair into a condition as elevated as himself. ‘First, I spent all I had +of my own. That wasn’t much.’ + +‘I am sorry for it,’ said Clennam: ‘not that it matters now, though. +Then, what did you do?’ + +‘Then,’ answered Pancks, ‘I borrowed a sum of my proprietor.’ + +‘Of Mr Casby?’ said Clennam. ‘He’s a fine old fellow.’ + +‘Noble old boy; an’t he?’ said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of the +dryest snorts. ‘Generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old +buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent. I engaged to pay him, sir. +But we never do business for less at our shop.’ + +Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant +condition, been a little premature. + +‘I said to that boiling-over old Christian,’ Mr Pancks pursued, +appearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, ‘that I had got a +little project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful one; which +wanted a certain small capital. I proposed to him to lend me the +money on my note. Which he did, at twenty; sticking the twenty on in a +business-like way, and putting it into the note, to look like a part of +the principal. If I had broken down after that, I should have been his +grubber for the next seven years at half wages and double grind. But +he’s a perfect Patriarch; and it would do a man good to serve him on +such terms--on any terms.’ + +Arthur for his life could not have said with confidence whether Pancks +really thought so or not. + +‘When that was gone, sir,’ resumed Pancks, ‘and it did go, though I +dribbled it out like so much blood, I had taken Mr Rugg into the secret. +I proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it’s the same thing; +she made a little money by a speculation in the Common Pleas once). He +lent it at ten, and thought that pretty high. But Mr Rugg’s a red-haired +man, sir, and gets his hair cut. And as to the crown of his hat, it’s +high. And as to the brim of his hat, it’s narrow. And there’s no more +benevolence bubbling out of him, than out of a ninepin.’ + +‘Your own recompense for all this, Mr Pancks,’ said Clennam, ‘ought to +be a large one.’ + +‘I don’t mistrust getting it, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘I have made no +bargain. I owed you one on that score; now I have paid it. Money out of +pocket made good, time fairly allowed for, and Mr Rugg’s bill settled, +a thousand pounds would be a fortune to me. That matter I place in your +hands. I authorize you now to break all this to the family in any way +you think best. Miss Amy Dorrit will be with Mrs Finching this morning. +The sooner done the better. Can’t be done too soon.’ + +This conversation took place in Clennam’s bed-room, while he was yet in +bed. For Mr Pancks had knocked up the house and made his way in, very +early in the morning; and, without once sitting down or standing still, +had delivered himself of the whole of his details (illustrated with a +variety of documents) at the bedside. He now said he would ‘go and look +up Mr Rugg’, from whom his excited state of mind appeared to require +another back; and bundling up his papers, and exchanging one more hearty +shake of the hand with Clennam, he went at full speed down-stairs, and +steamed off. + +Clennam, of course, resolved to go direct to Mr Casby’s. He dressed +and got out so quickly that he found himself at the corner of the +patriarchal street nearly an hour before her time; but he was not sorry +to have the opportunity of calming himself with a leisurely walk. + +When he returned to the street, and had knocked at the bright brass +knocker, he was informed that she had come, and was shown up-stairs to +Flora’s breakfast-room. Little Dorrit was not there herself, but Flora +was, and testified the greatest amazement at seeing him. + +‘Good gracious, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam!’ cried that lady, ‘who would +have ever thought of seeing such a sight as this and pray excuse a +wrapper for upon my word I really never and a faded check too which +is worse but our little friend is making me, not that I need mind +mentioning it to you for you must know that there are such things a +skirt, and having arranged that a trying on should take place after +breakfast is the reason though I wish not so badly starched.’ + +‘I ought to make an apology,’ said Arthur, ‘for so early and abrupt a +visit; but you will excuse it when I tell you the cause.’ + +‘In times for ever fled Arthur,’ returned Mrs Finching, ‘pray excuse +me Doyce and Clennam infinitely more correct and though unquestionably +distant still ‘tis distance lends enchantment to the view, at least I +don’t mean that and if I did I suppose it would depend considerably on +the nature of the view, but I’m running on again and you put it all out +of my head.’ + +She glanced at him tenderly, and resumed: + +‘In times for ever fled I was going to say it would have sounded +strange indeed for Arthur Clennam--Doyce and Clennam naturally quite +different--to make apologies for coming here at any time, but that is +past and what is past can never be recalled except in his own case as +poor Mr F. said when he was in spirits Cucumber and therefore never ate +it.’ + +She was making the tea when Arthur came in, and now hastily finished +that operation. + +‘Papa,’ she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the tea-pot +lid, ‘is sitting prosingly breaking his new laid egg in the back parlour +over the City article exactly like the Woodpecker Tapping and need never +know that you are here, and our little friend you are well aware may be +fully trusted when she comes down from cutting out on the large table +overhead.’ + +Arthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little +friend he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little +friend. At which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands, +fell into a tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like the +good-natured creature she really was. + +‘For gracious sake let me get out of the way first,’ said Flora, putting +her hands to her ears and moving towards the door, ‘or I know I shall +go off dead and screaming and make everybody worse, and the dear little +thing only this morning looking so nice and neat and good and yet so +poor and now a fortune is she really and deserves it too! and might I +mention it to Mr F.’s Aunt Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once or +if objectionable not on any account.’ + +Arthur nodded his free permission, since Flora shut out all verbal +communication. Flora nodded in return to thank him, and hurried out of +the room. + +Little Dorrit’s step was already on the stairs, and in another moment +she was at the door. Do what he could to compose his face, he could not +convey so much of an ordinary expression into it, but that the moment +she saw it she dropped her work, and cried, ‘Mr Clennam! What’s the +matter?’ + +‘Nothing, nothing. That is, no misfortune has happened. I have come +to tell you something, but it is a piece of great good-fortune.’ + +‘Good-fortune?’ + +‘Wonderful fortune!’ + +They stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed upon his +face. He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink down. She put +a hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and partly so to preserve +their relative positions as that her intent look at him should be shaken +by no change of attitude in either of them. Her lips seemed to repeat +‘Wonderful fortune?’ He repeated it again, aloud. + +‘Dear Little Dorrit! Your father.’ + +The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and shoots +of expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her +breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast. He would have clasped +the little figure closer, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him not +to be moved. + +‘Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must +go to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within +a few days. Your father will be free within a few hours. Remember we +must go to him from here, to tell him of it!’ + +That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again. + +‘This is not all the good-fortune. This is not all the wonderful +good-fortune, my dear Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?’ + +Her lips shaped ‘Yes.’ + +‘Your father will be no beggar when he is free. He will want for +nothing. Shall I tell you more? Remember! He knows nothing of it; we +must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!’ + +She seemed to entreat him for a little time. He held her in his arm, +and, after a pause, bent down his ear to listen. + +‘Did you ask me to go on?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘He will be a rich man. He is a rich man. A great sum of money +is waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all +henceforth very wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven +that you are rewarded!’ + +As he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and raised +her arm towards his neck; cried out ‘Father! Father! Father!’ and +swooned away. + +Upon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on +a sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation +in a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to +take a spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it would do her good; +or whether she congratulated Little Dorrit’s father on coming into +possession of a hundred thousand smelling-bottles; or whether she +explained that she put seventy-five thousand drops of spirits of +lavender on fifty thousand pounds of lump sugar, and that she entreated +Little Dorrit to take that gentle restorative; or whether she bathed the +foreheads of Doyce and Clennam in vinegar, and gave the late Mr F. more +air; no one with any sense of responsibility could have undertaken to +decide. A tributary stream of confusion, moreover, poured in from an +adjoining bedroom, where Mr F.’s Aunt appeared, from the sound of her +voice, to be in a horizontal posture, awaiting her breakfast; and from +which bower that inexorable lady snapped off short taunts, whenever she +could get a hearing, as, ‘Don’t believe it’s his doing!’ and ‘He needn’t +take no credit to himself for it!’ and ‘It’ll be long enough, I expect, +afore he’ll give up any of his own money!’ all designed to disparage +Clennam’s share in the discovery, and to relieve those inveterate +feelings with which Mr F.’s Aunt regarded him. + +But Little Dorrit’s solicitude to get to her father, and to carry the +joyful tidings to him, and not to leave him in his jail a moment with +this happiness in store for him and still unknown to him, did more for +her speedy restoration than all the skill and attention on earth could +have done. ‘Come with me to my dear father. Pray come and tell my dear +father!’ were the first words she said. Her father, her father. She +spoke of nothing but him, thought of nothing but him. Kneeling down and +pouring out her thankfulness with uplifted hands, her thanks were for +her father. + +Flora’s tenderness was quite overcome by this, and she launched out +among the cups and saucers into a wonderful flow of tears and speech. + +‘I declare,’ she sobbed, ‘I never was so cut up since your mama and my +papa not Doyce and Clennam for this once but give the precious little +thing a cup of tea and make her put it to her lips at least pray Arthur +do, not even Mr F.’s last illness for that was of another kind and gout +is not a child’s affection though very painful for all parties and Mr +F. a martyr with his leg upon a rest and the wine trade in itself +inflammatory for they will do it more or less among themselves and who +can wonder, it seems like a dream I am sure to think of nothing at all +this morning and now Mines of money is it really, but you must know my +darling love because you never will be strong enough to tell him all +about it upon teaspoons, mightn’t it be even best to try the directions +of my own medical man for though the flavour is anything but agreeable +still I force myself to do it as a prescription and find the benefit, +you’d rather not why no my dear I’d rather not but still I do it as a +duty, everybody will congratulate you some in earnest and some not and +many will congratulate you with all their hearts but none more so I +do assure you from the bottom of my own I do myself though sensible of +blundering and being stupid, and will be judged by Arthur not Doyce and +Clennam for this once so good-bye darling and God bless you and may you +be very happy and excuse the liberty, vowing that the dress shall never +be finished by anybody else but shall be laid by for a keepsake just +as it is and called Little Dorrit though why that strangest of +denominations at any time I never did myself and now I never shall!’ + + +Thus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite. Little Dorrit thanked her, +and embraced her, over and over again; and finally came out of the house +with Clennam, and took coach for the Marshalsea. + +It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a +sensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of wealth +and grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her +own carriage through very different scenes, when all the familiar +experiences would have vanished away, she looked frightened. But when +he substituted her father for herself, and told her how he would ride in +his carriage, and how great and grand he would be, her tears of joy +and innocent pride fell fast. Seeing that the happiness her mind could +realise was all shining upon him, Arthur kept that single figure before +her; and so they rode brightly through the poor streets in the prison +neighbourhood to carry him the great news. + +When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw +something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood +looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he +perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a-piece. Two or +three Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently +joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the +midst of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father +was going to get his discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in +the remotest room in the College. + +Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. He +was sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the sunlight +by the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and +he had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon +the stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing +Arthur Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look +in both of them which had already caught attention in the yard below, +struck him. He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his +newspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth +a little open and his lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand, +he touched it, but not with his usual state; and then he turned to his +daughter, who had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his +shoulder, and looked attentively in her face. + +‘Father! I have been made so happy this morning!’ + +‘You have been made so happy, my dear?’ + +‘By Mr Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful +intelligence about you! If he had not with his great kindness and +gentleness, prepared me for it, father--prepared me for it, father--I +think I could not have borne it.’ + +Her agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her face. +He put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam. + +‘Compose yourself, sir,’ said Clennam, ‘and take a little time to think. +To think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life. We have +all heard of great surprises of joy. They are not at an end, sir. They +are rare, but not at an end.’ + +‘Mr Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for--’ He touched himself upon +the breast, instead of saying ‘me.’ + +‘No,’ returned Clennam. + +‘What surprise,’ he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, and +there stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put his +glasses exactly level on the table: ‘what such surprise can be in store +for me?’ + +‘Let me answer with another question. Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what surprise +would be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to you. Do not be +afraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be.’ + +He looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to +change into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the wall +beyond the window, and on the spikes at top. He slowly stretched out the +hand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall. + +‘It is down,’ said Clennam. ‘Gone!’ + +He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him. + +‘And in its place,’ said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, ‘are the means +to possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out. Mr +Dorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will +be free, and highly prosperous. I congratulate you with all my soul on +this change of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon +to carry the treasure you have been blest with here--the best of all the +riches you can have elsewhere--the treasure at your side.’ + +With those words, he pressed his hand and released it; and his daughter, +laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity +with her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled +him with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in +gratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him. + +‘I shall see him as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear love, with +the dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him +long ago. O my dear, my dear! O father, father! O thank God, thank God!’ + +He yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return them, +except that he put an arm about her. Neither did he say one word. His +steadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, and he began to +shake as if he were very cold. Explaining to Little Dorrit that he would +run to the coffee-house for a bottle of wine, Arthur fetched it with all +the haste he could use. While it was being brought from the cellar to +the bar, a number of excited people asked him what had happened; when he +hurriedly informed them that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune. + +On coming back with the wine in his hand, he found that she had placed +her father in his easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and neckcloth. +They filled a tumbler with wine, and held it to his lips. When he had +swallowed a little, he took the glass himself and emptied it. Soon +after that, he leaned back in his chair and cried, with his handkerchief +before his face. + +After this had lasted a while Clennam thought it a good season for +diverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its details. +Slowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he explained them as +best he could, and enlarged on the nature of Pancks’s service. + +‘He shall be--ha--he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir,’ said +the Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room. ‘Assure +yourself, Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be--ha--shall +be nobly rewarded. No one, my dear sir, shall say that he has an +unsatisfied claim against me. I shall repay the--hum--the advances I +have had from you, sir, with peculiar pleasure. I beg to be informed at +your earliest convenience, what advances you have made my son.’ + +He had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a +moment. + +‘Everybody,’ he said, ‘shall be remembered. I will not go away from +here in anybody’s debt. All the people who have been--ha--well behaved +towards myself and my family, shall be rewarded. Chivery shall be +rewarded. Young John shall be rewarded. I particularly wish, and intend, +to act munificently, Mr Clennam.’ + +‘Will you allow me,’ said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, ‘to +supply any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit? I thought it best to bring +a sum of money for the purpose.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, thank you. I accept with readiness, at the present +moment, what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously taken. I am +obliged to you for the temporary accommodation. Exceedingly temporary, +but well timed--well timed.’ His hand had closed upon the money, and +he carried it about with him. ‘Be so kind, sir, as to add the amount to +those former advances to which I have already referred; being careful, +if you please, not to omit advances made to my son. A mere verbal +statement of the gross amount is all I shall--ha--all I shall require.’ + +His eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a +moment to kiss her, and to pat her head. + +‘It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a speedy +and complete change in your very plain dress. Something must be done +with Maggy too, who at present is--ha--barely respectable, barely +respectable. And your sister, Amy, and your brother. And _my_ brother, +your uncle--poor soul, I trust this will rouse him--messengers must be +despatched to fetch them. They must be informed of this. We must break +it to them cautiously, but they must be informed directly. We owe it +as a duty to them and to ourselves, from this moment, not to let +them--hum--not to let them do anything.’ + +This was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy to +the fact that they did something for a livelihood. + +He was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his +hand, when a great cheering arose in the yard. ‘The news has spread +already,’ said Clennam, looking down from the window. ‘Will you show +yourself to them, Mr Dorrit? They are very earnest, and they evidently +wish it.’ + +‘I--hum--ha--I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear,’ he said, +jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, ‘to have made some +change in my dress first, and to have bought a--hum--a watch and chain. +But if it must be done as it is, it--ha--it must be done. Fasten the +collar of my shirt, my dear. Mr Clennam, would you oblige me--hum--with +a blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow. Button +my coat across at the chest, my love. It looks--ha--it looks broader, +buttoned.’ + +With his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking +Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning +on an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he +kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he +withdrew into the room again, he said ‘Poor creatures!’ in a tone of +much pity for their miserable condition. + +Little Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose +himself. On Arthur’s speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks that +he might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful business +to its close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with her until her +father should be quite calm and at rest. He needed no second entreaty; +and she prepared her father’s bed, and begged him to lie down. For +another half-hour or more he would be persuaded to do nothing but +go about the room, discussing with himself the probabilities for and +against the Marshal’s allowing the whole of the prisoners to go to the +windows of the official residence which commanded the street, to see +himself and family depart for ever in a carriage--which, he said, he +thought would be a Sight for them. But gradually he began to droop and +tire, and at last stretched himself upon the bed. + +She took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his +forehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money in +his hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said: + +‘Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I +could--ha--could pass through the Lodge at this moment, and--hum--take a +walk?’ + +‘I think not, Mr Dorrit,’ was the unwilling reply. ‘There are certain +forms to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself +a form, I fear it is one that for a little longer has to be observed +too.’ + +At this he shed tears again. + +‘It is but a few hours, sir,’ Clennam cheerfully urged upon him. + +‘A few hours, sir,’ he returned in a sudden passion. ‘You talk very +easily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a +man who is choking for want of air?’ + +It was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding some +more tears and querulously complaining that he couldn’t breathe, he +slowly fell into a slumber. Clennam had abundant occupation for his +thoughts, as he sat in the quiet room watching the father on his bed, +and the daughter fanning his face. + +Little Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his grey hair +aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards +Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject +of her thoughts. + +‘Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?’ + +‘No doubt. All.’ + +‘All the debts for which he had been imprisoned here, all my life and +longer?’ + +‘No doubt.’ + +There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; +something that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, and +said: + +‘You are glad that he should do so?’ + +‘Are you?’ asked Little Dorrit, wistfully. + +‘Am I? Most heartily glad!’ + +‘Then I know I ought to be.’ + +‘And are you not?’ + +‘It seems to me hard,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that he should have lost so +many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well. +It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.’ + +‘My dear child--’ Clennam was beginning. + +‘Yes, I know I am wrong,’ she pleaded timidly, ‘don’t think any worse of +me; it has grown up with me here.’ + +The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little +Dorrit’s mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, in +compassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck +Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the +prison atmosphere upon her. + +He thought this, and forbore to say another word. With the thought, her +purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little +spot made them the more beautiful. + +Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, +her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her +head dropped down on the pillow at her father’s side. Clennam rose +softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the +prison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets. + + + + +CHAPTER 36. The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan + + +And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the +prison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to +know them no more. + +The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its +length, and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay. He had +been high with Mr Rugg, and had threatened to employ some one else. He +had requested Mr Rugg not to presume upon the place in which he found +him, but to do his duty, sir, and to do it with promptitude. He had told +Mr Rugg that he knew what lawyers and agents were, and that he would not +submit to imposition. On that gentleman’s humbly representing that +he exerted himself to the utmost, Miss Fanny was very short with him; +desiring to know what less he could do, when he had been told a dozen +times that money was no object, and expressing her suspicion that he +forgot whom he talked to. + +Towards the Marshal, who was a Marshal of many years’ standing, and +with whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported +himself with severity. That officer, on personally tendering his +congratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr +Dorrit’s occupation until his departure. Mr Dorrit thanked him at the +moment, and replied that he would think of it; but the Marshal was no +sooner gone than he sat down and wrote him a cutting note, in which +he remarked that he had never on any former occasion had the honour of +receiving his congratulations (which was true, though indeed there had +not been anything particular to congratulate him upon), and that he +begged, on behalf of himself and family, to repudiate the Marshal’s +offer, with all those thanks which its disinterested character and its +perfect independence of all worldly considerations demanded. + +Although his brother showed so dim a glimmering of interest in their +altered fortunes that it was very doubtful whether he understood them, +Mr Dorrit caused him to be measured for new raiment by the hosiers, +tailors, hatters, and bootmakers whom he called in for himself; and +ordered that his old clothes should be taken from him and burned. Miss +Fanny and Mr Tip required no direction in making an appearance of great +fashion and elegance; and the three passed this interval together at the +best hotel in the neighbourhood--though truly, as Miss Fanny said, the +best was very indifferent. In connection with that establishment, Mr +Tip hired a cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat turn out, which +was usually to be observed for two or three hours at a time gracing the +Borough High Street, outside the Marshalsea court-yard. A modest +little hired chariot and pair was also frequently to be seen there; +in alighting from and entering which vehicle, Miss Fanny fluttered the +Marshal’s daughters by the display of inaccessible bonnets. + +A great deal of business was transacted in this short period. Among +other items, Messrs Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were +instructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter +to Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine +shillings and eightpence, being the amount of principal and interest +computed at the rate of five per cent. per annum, in which their +client believed himself to be indebted to Mr Clennam. In making this +communication and remittance, Messrs Peddle and Pool were further +instructed by their client to remind Mr Clennam that the favour of the +advance now repaid (including gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and +to inform him that it would not have been accepted if it had been openly +proffered in his name. With which they requested a stamped receipt, and +remained his obedient servants. A great deal of business had likewise to +be done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit +so long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him +by Collegians for small sums of money. To these he responded with the +greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first writing +to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon him in his +room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast accumulation of +documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every such +case, ‘it is a donation, not a loan’) with a great deal of good counsel: +to the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to +be long remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his own and +the general respect even there. + +The Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal and +traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years’ standing, the event +was creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers. +Perhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite aware of it, that the +thing might in the lottery of chances have happened to themselves, or +that something of the sort might yet happen to themselves some day or +other. They took it very well. A few were low at the thought of being +left behind, and being left poor; but even these did not grudge the +family their brilliant reverse. There might have been much more envy in +politer places. It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have +been disposed to be less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from +hand to mouth--from the pawnbroker’s hand to the day’s dinner. + +They got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame and +glass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family mansion or +preserved among the family papers); and to which he returned a gracious +answer. In that document he assured them, in a Royal manner, that he +received the profession of their attachment with a full conviction +of its sincerity; and again generally exhorted them to follow his +example--which, at least in so far as coming into a great property was +concerned, there is no doubt they would have gladly imitated. He took +the same occasion of inviting them to a comprehensive entertainment, to +be given to the whole College in the yard, and at which he signified +he would have the honour of taking a parting glass to the health and +happiness of all those whom he was about to leave behind. + +He did not in person dine at this public repast (it took place at two in +the afternoon, and his dinners now came in from the hotel at six), but +his son was so good as to take the head of the principal table, and to +be very free and engaging. He himself went about among the company, and +took notice of individuals, and saw that the viands were of the quality +he had ordered, and that all were served. On the whole, he was like a +baron of the olden time in a rare good humour. At the conclusion of the +repast, he pledged his guests in a bumper of old Madeira; and told them +that he hoped they had enjoyed themselves, and what was more, that they +would enjoy themselves for the rest of the evening; that he wished them +well; and that he bade them welcome. His health being drunk with +acclamations, he was not so baronial after all but that in trying to +return thanks he broke down, in the manner of a mere serf with a heart +in his breast, and wept before them all. After this great success, which +he supposed to be a failure, he gave them ‘Mr Chivery and his brother +officers;’ whom he had beforehand presented with ten pounds each, and +who were all in attendance. Mr Chivery spoke to the toast, saying, What +you undertake to lock up, lock up; but remember that you are, in the +words of the fettered African, a man and a brother ever. The list of +toasts disposed of, Mr Dorrit urbanely went through the motions of +playing a game of skittles with the Collegian who was the next oldest +inhabitant to himself; and left the tenantry to their diversions. + +But all these occurrences preceded the final day. And now the day +arrived when he and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and +when the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them no more. + +Noon was the hour appointed for the departure. As it approached, there +was not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent. The latter class +of gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the greater part of +the Collegians were brightened up as much as circumstances allowed. Two +or three flags were even displayed, and the children put on odds and +ends of ribbon. Mr Dorrit himself, at this trying time, preserved a +serious but graceful dignity. Much of his great attention was given to +his brother, as to whose bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious. + +‘My dear Frederick,’ said he, ‘if you will give me your arm we will pass +among our friends together. I think it is right that we should go out +arm in arm, my dear Frederick.’ + +‘Hah!’ said Frederick. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ + +‘And if, my dear Frederick--if you could, without putting any great +constraint upon yourself, throw a little (pray excuse me, Frederick), a +little polish into your usual demeanour--’ + +‘William, William,’ said the other, shaking his head, ‘it’s for you to +do all that. I don’t know how. All forgotten, forgotten!’ + +‘But, my dear fellow,’ returned William, ‘for that very reason, if +for no other, you must positively try to rouse yourself. What you +have forgotten you must now begin to recall, my dear Frederick. Your +position--’ + +‘Eh?’ said Frederick. + +‘Your position, my dear Frederick.’ + +‘Mine?’ He looked first at his own figure, and then at his brother’s, +and then, drawing a long breath, cried, ‘Hah, to be sure! Yes, yes, +yes.’ + +‘Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one. Your position, as +my brother, is a very fine one. And I know that it belongs to your +conscientious nature to try to become worthy of it, my dear Frederick, +and to try to adorn it. To be no discredit to it, but to adorn it.’ + +‘William,’ said the other weakly, and with a sigh, ‘I will do anything +you wish, my brother, provided it lies in my power. Pray be so kind as +to recollect what a limited power mine is. What would you wish me to do +to-day, brother? Say what it is, only say what it is.’ + +‘My dearest Frederick, nothing. It is not worth troubling so good a +heart as yours with.’ + +‘Pray trouble it,’ returned the other. ‘It finds it no trouble, William, +to do anything it can for you.’ + +William passed his hand across his eyes, and murmured with august +satisfaction, ‘Blessings on your attachment, my poor dear fellow!’ Then +he said aloud, ‘Well, my dear Frederick, if you will only try, as we +walk out, to show that you are alive to the occasion--that you think +about it--’ + +‘What would you advise me to think about it?’ returned his submissive +brother. + +‘Oh! my dear Frederick, how can I answer you? I can only say what, in +leaving these good people, I think myself.’ + +‘That’s it!’ cried his brother. ‘That will help me.’ + +‘I find that I think, my dear Frederick, and with mixed emotions in +which a softened compassion predominates, What will they do without me!’ + +‘True,’ returned his brother. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes. I’ll think that as we +go, What will they do without my brother! Poor things! What will they do +without him!’ + +Twelve o’clock having just struck, and the carriage being reported ready +in the outer court-yard, the brothers proceeded down-stairs arm-in-arm. +Edward Dorrit, Esquire (once Tip), and his sister Fanny followed, +also arm-in-arm; Mr Plornish and Maggy, to whom had been entrusted the +removal of such of the family effects as were considered worth removing, +followed, bearing bundles and burdens to be packed in a cart. + +In the yard, were the Collegians and turnkeys. In the yard, were Mr +Pancks and Mr Rugg, come to see the last touch given to their work. +In the yard, was Young John making a new epitaph for himself, on +the occasion of his dying of a broken heart. In the yard, was the +Patriarchal Casby, looking so tremendously benevolent that many +enthusiastic Collegians grasped him fervently by the hand, and the wives +and female relatives of many more Collegians kissed his hand, nothing +doubting that he had done it all. In the yard, was the man with the +shadowy grievance respecting the Fund which the Marshal embezzled, who +had got up at five in the morning to complete the copying of a perfectly +unintelligible history of that transaction, which he had committed to Mr +Dorrit’s care, as a document of the last importance, calculated to stun +the Government and effect the Marshal’s downfall. In the yard, was the +insolvent whose utmost energies were always set on getting into debt, +who broke into prison with as much pains as other men have broken out +of it, and who was always being cleared and complimented; while the +insolvent at his elbow--a mere little, snivelling, striving tradesman, +half dead of anxious efforts to keep out of debt--found it a hard +matter, indeed, to get a Commissioner to release him with much reproof +and reproach. In the yard, was the man of many children and many +burdens, whose failure astonished everybody; in the yard, was the man of +no children and large resources, whose failure astonished nobody. There, +were the people who were always going out to-morrow, and always putting +it off; there, were the people who had come in yesterday, and who +were much more jealous and resentful of this freak of fortune than +the seasoned birds. There, were some who, in pure meanness of spirit, +cringed and bowed before the enriched Collegian and his family; there, +were others who did so really because their eyes, accustomed to the +gloom of their imprisonment and poverty, could not support the light of +such bright sunshine. There, were many whose shillings had gone into his +pocket to buy him meat and drink; but none who were now obtrusively Hail +fellow well met! with him, on the strength of that assistance. It was +rather to be remarked of the caged birds, that they were a little shy +of the bird about to be so grandly free, and that they had a tendency to +withdraw themselves towards the bars, and seem a little fluttered as he +passed. + +Through these spectators the little procession, headed by the two +brothers, moved slowly to the gate. Mr Dorrit, yielding to the vast +speculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, was +great, and sad, but not absorbed. He patted children on the head +like Sir Roger de Coverley going to church, he spoke to people in the +background by their Christian names, he condescended to all present, and +seemed for their consolation to walk encircled by the legend in golden +characters, ‘Be comforted, my people! Bear it!’ + +At last three honest cheers announced that he had passed the gate, and +that the Marshalsea was an orphan. Before they had ceased to ring in the +echoes of the prison walls, the family had got into their carriage, and +the attendant had the steps in his hand. + +Then, and not before, ‘Good Gracious!’ cried Miss Fanny all at once, +‘Where’s Amy!’ + +Her father had thought she was with her sister. Her sister had thought +she was ‘somewhere or other.’ They had all trusted to finding her, as +they had always done, quietly in the right place at the right moment. +This going away was perhaps the very first action of their joint lives +that they had got through without her. + +A minute might have been consumed in the ascertaining of these points, +when Miss Fanny, who, from her seat in the carriage, commanded the long +narrow passage leading to the Lodge, flushed indignantly. + +‘Now I do say, Pa,’ cried she, ‘that this is disgraceful!’ + +‘What is disgraceful, Fanny?’ + +‘I do say,’ she repeated, ‘this is perfectly infamous! Really almost +enough, even at such a time as this, to make one wish one was dead! +Here is that child Amy, in her ugly old shabby dress, which she was so +obstinate about, Pa, which I over and over again begged and prayed her +to change, and which she over and over again objected to, and promised +to change to-day, saying she wished to wear it as long as ever she +remained in there with you--which was absolutely romantic nonsense of +the lowest kind--here is that child Amy disgracing us to the last moment +and at the last moment, by being carried out in that dress after all. +And by that Mr Clennam too!’ + +The offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment. Clennam +appeared at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure in +his arms. + +‘She has been forgotten,’ he said, in a tone of pity not free from +reproach. ‘I ran up to her room (which Mr Chivery showed me) and found +the door open, and that she had fainted on the floor, dear child. +She appeared to have gone to change her dress, and to have sunk down +overpowered. It may have been the cheering, or it may have happened +sooner. Take care of this poor cold hand, Miss Dorrit. Don’t let it +fall.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Miss Dorrit, bursting into tears. ‘I believe +I know what to do, if you will give me leave. Dear Amy, open your eyes, +that’s a love! Oh, Amy, Amy, I really am so vexed and ashamed! Do rouse +yourself, darling! Oh, why are they not driving on! Pray, Pa, do drive +on!’ + +The attendant, getting between Clennam and the carriage-door, with a +sharp ‘By your leave, sir!’ bundled up the steps, and they drove away. + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES + + + + +CHAPTER 1. Fellow Travellers + + +In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the +highest ridges of the Alps. + +It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the +Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva. +The air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. Baskets, +troughs, and tubs of grapes stood in the dim village doorways, stopped +the steep and narrow village streets, and had been carrying all day +along the roads and lanes. Grapes, split and crushed under foot, lay +about everywhere. The child carried in a sling by the laden peasant +woman toiling home, was quieted with picked-up grapes; the idiot sunning +his big goitre under the leaves of the wooden chalet by the way to the +Waterfall, sat munching grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was +redolent of leaves and stalks of grapes; the company in every little +cabaret were eating, drinking, talking grapes. A pity that no ripe touch +of this generous abundance could be given to the thin, hard, stony wine, +which after all was made from the grapes! + +The air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the bright +day. Shining metal spires and church-roofs, distant and rarely seen, had +sparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain-tops had been so clear that +unaccustomed eyes, cancelling the intervening country, and slighting +their rugged heights for something fabulous, would have measured them as +within a few hours easy reach. Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the +valleys, whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for +months together, had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky. +And now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede, +like spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset +faded out of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly +defined in their loneliness above the mists and shadows. + +Seen from these solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, +which was one of them, the ascending Night came up the mountain like a +rising water. When it at last rose to the walls of the convent of the +Great Saint Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were +another Ark, and floated on the shadowy waves. + +Darkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to +the rough convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing the +mountain. As the heat of the glowing day when they had stopped to drink +at the streams of melted ice and snow, was changed to the searching cold +of the frosty rarefied night air at a great height, so the fresh beauty +of the lower journey had yielded to barrenness and desolation. A craggy +track, up which the mules in single file scrambled and turned from +block to block, as though they were ascending the broken staircase of +a gigantic ruin, was their way now. No trees were to be seen, nor any +vegetable growth save a poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks +of rock. Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward +to the convent as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the +snow haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars +built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the +perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered +about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the +mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply +down. + +The file of mules, jaded by their day’s work, turned and wound slowly +up the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in his +broad-brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff or two +upon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed. There was no +speaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the fatigue of the +journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the breath, partly as if +they had just emerged from very clear crisp water, and partly as if they +had been sobbing, kept them silent. + +At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed through +the snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the mules pricked up +their drooping heads, the travellers’ tongues were loosened, and in a +sudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, clinking, and talking, +they arrived at the convent door. + +Other mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant riders and +some with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into a pool +of mud. Riding-saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and strings of bells, +mules and men, lanterns, torches, sacks, provender, barrels, cheeses, +kegs of honey and butter, straw bundles and packages of many shapes, +were crowded confusedly together in this thawed quagmire and about the +steps. Up here in the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and +seemed dissolving into cloud. The breath of the men was cloud, the +breath of the mules was cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud, +speakers close at hand were not seen for cloud, though their voices and +all other sounds were surprisingly clear. Of the cloudy line of mules +hastily tied to rings in the wall, one would bite another, or kick +another, and then the whole mist would be disturbed: with men diving +into it, and cries of men and beasts coming out of it, and no bystander +discerning what was wrong. In the midst of this, the great stable of the +convent, occupying the basement story and entered by the basement door, +outside which all the disorder was, poured forth its contribution of +cloud, as if the whole rugged edifice were filled with nothing else, +and would collapse as soon as it had emptied itself, leaving the snow to +fall upon the bare mountain summit. + +While all this noise and hurry were rife among the living travellers, +there, too, silently assembled in a grated house half-a-dozen paces +removed, with the same cloud enfolding them and the same snow flakes +drifting in upon them, were the dead travellers found upon the mountain. +The mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner +with her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised +to his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips +after years and years. An awful company, mysteriously come together! A +wild destiny for that mother to have foreseen! ‘Surrounded by so many +and such companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look, +I and my child will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint +Bernard, outlasting generations who will come to see us, and will never +know our name, or one word of our story but the end.’ + +The living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just then. +They thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and warming +themselves at the convent fire. Disengaged from the turmoil, which was +already calming down as the crowd of mules began to be bestowed in the +stable, they hurried shivering up the steps and into the building. There +was a smell within, coming up from the floor, of tethered beasts, like +the smell of a menagerie of wild animals. There were strong arched +galleries within, huge stone piers, great staircases, and thick walls +pierced with small sunken windows--fortifications against the mountain +storms, as if they had been human enemies. There were gloomy vaulted +sleeping-rooms within, intensely cold, but clean and hospitably prepared +for guests. Finally, there was a parlour for guests to sit in and sup +in, where a table was already laid, and where a blazing fire shone red +and high. + +In this room, after having had their quarters for the night allotted +to them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently drew round the +hearth. They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most +numerous and important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by +one of the others on the way up. It consisted of an elderly lady, two +grey-haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and their brother. These were +attended (not to mention four guides), by a courier, two footmen, and +two waiting-maids: which strong body of inconvenience was accommodated +elsewhere under the same roof. The party that had overtaken them, and +followed in their train, consisted of only three members: one lady and +two gentlemen. The third party, which had ascended from the valley +on the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in +number: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on +a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and +silent, and all in spectacles. + +These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and +waiting for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging +to the party of three, made advances towards conversation. Throwing out +his lines for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself +to his own companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included +all the company if they chose to be included, that it had been a long +day, and that he felt for the ladies. That he feared one of the +young ladies was not a strong or accustomed traveller, and had been +over-fatigued two or three hours ago. That he had observed, from his +station in the rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted. +That he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of +inquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did. +That he had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits, +and that it had been but a passing discomfort. That he trusted (by this +time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) he might +be permitted to express his hope that she was now none the worse, and +that she would not regret having made the journey. + +‘My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir,’ returned the Chief, ‘is quite +restored, and has been greatly interested.’ + +‘New to mountains, perhaps?’ said the insinuating traveller. + +‘New to--ha--to mountains,’ said the Chief. + +‘But you are familiar with them, sir?’ the insinuating traveller +assumed. + +‘I am--hum--tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late years,’ +replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand. + +The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an +inclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady, +who had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the ladies in +whose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest. + +He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day. + +‘Incommoded, certainly,’ returned the young lady, ‘but not tired.’ + +The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the +distinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every lady must doubtless +be incommoded by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating +animal, the mule. + +‘We have had, of course,’ said the young lady, who was rather reserved +and haughty, ‘to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny. And the +impossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible +place, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not +convenient.’ + +‘A savage place indeed,’ said the insinuating traveller. + +The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner +was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a +remark in a low soft voice. + +‘But, like other inconvenient places,’ she observed, ‘it must be seen. +As a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.’ + +‘O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs +General,’ returned the other, carelessly. + +‘You, madam,’ said the insinuating traveller, ‘have visited this spot +before?’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Mrs General. ‘I have been here before. Let me +commend you, my dear,’ to the former young lady, ‘to shade your face +from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You, +too, my dear,’ to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so; +while the former merely said, ‘Thank you, Mrs General, I am Perfectly +comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.’ + +The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in +the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came +strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in +the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly +large enough to yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his +equipment. + +‘These fellows are an immense time with supper,’ he drawled. ‘I wonder +what they’ll give us! Has anybody any idea?’ + +‘Not roast man, I believe,’ replied the voice of the second gentleman of +the party of three. + +‘I suppose not. What d’ye mean?’ he inquired. + +‘That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps you +will do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general fire,’ +returned the other. + +The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, +cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his +coat tucked under his arms, something as if he were Of the Poultry +species and were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this +reply; he seemed about to demand further explanation, when it was +discovered--through all eyes turning on the speaker--that the lady with +him, who was young and beautiful, had not heard what had passed through +having fainted with her head upon his shoulder. + +‘I think,’ said the gentleman in a subdued tone, ‘I had best carry +her straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a light?’ +addressing his companion, ‘and to show the way? In this strange rambling +place I don’t know that I could find it.’ + +‘Pray, let me call my maid,’ cried the taller of the young ladies. + +‘Pray, let me put this water to her lips,’ said the shorter, who had not +spoken yet. + +Each doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance. Indeed, +when the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest any one should +strike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to them on the road), +there was a prospect of too much assistance. Seeing this, and saying as +much in a few words to the slighter and younger of the two ladies, +the gentleman put his wife’s arm over his shoulder, lifted her up, and +carried her away. + +His friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly up +and down the room without coming to the fire again, pulling his black +moustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself committed +to the late retort. While the subject of it was breathing injury in a +corner, the Chief loftily addressed this gentleman. + +‘Your friend, sir,’ said he, ‘is--ha--is a little impatient; and, in +his impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes +to--hum--to--but we will waive that, we will waive that. Your friend is +a little impatient, sir.’ + +‘It may be so, sir,’ returned the other. ‘But having had the honour of +making that gentleman’s acquaintance at the hotel at Geneva, where we +and much good company met some time ago, and having had the honour +of exchanging company and conversation with that gentleman on several +subsequent excursions, I can hear nothing--no, not even from one of your +appearance and station, sir--detrimental to that gentleman.’ + +‘You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me. In +remarking that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such thing. I +make that remark, because it is not to be doubted that my son, being by +birth and by--ha--by education a--hum--a gentleman, would have readily +adapted himself to any obligingly expressed wish on the subject of the +fire being equally accessible to the whole of the present circle. Which, +in principle, I--ha--for all are--hum--equal on these occasions--I +consider right.’ + +‘Good,’ was the reply. ‘And there it ends! I am your son’s obedient +servant. I beg your son to receive the assurance of my profound +consideration. And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, that my friend +is sometimes of a sarcastic temper.’ + +‘The lady is your friend’s wife, sir?’ + +‘The lady is my friend’s wife, sir.’ + +‘She is very handsome.’ + +‘Sir, she is peerless. They are still in the first year of their +marriage. They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an +artistic, tour.’ + +‘Your friend is an artist, sir?’ + +The gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and +wafting the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven. As who should +say, I devote him to the celestial Powers as an immortal artist! + +‘But he is a man of family,’ he added. ‘His connections are of the best. +He is more than an artist: he is highly connected. He may, in effect, +have repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, sarcastically (I +make the concession of both words); but he has them. Sparks that have +been struck out during our intercourse have shown me this.’ + +‘Well! I hope,’ said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally +disposing of the subject, ‘that the lady’s indisposition may be only +temporary.’ + +‘Sir, I hope so.’ + +‘Mere fatigue, I dare say.’ + +‘Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled to-day, and +she fell from the saddle. She fell lightly, and was up again without +assistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained towards +evening of a slight bruise in the side. She spoke of it more than once, +as we followed your party up the mountain.’ + +The head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar, +appeared by this time to think that he had condescended more than +enough. He said no more, and there was silence for some quarter of an +hour until supper appeared. + +With the supper came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be no +old Fathers) to take the head of the table. It was like the supper of +an ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the convent in more +genial air was not wanting. The artist traveller calmly came and took +his place at table when the rest sat down, with no apparent sense upon +him of his late skirmish with the completely dressed traveller. + +‘Pray,’ he inquired of the host, over his soup, ‘has your convent many +of its famous dogs now?’ + +‘Monsieur, it has three.’ + +‘I saw three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in question.’ + +The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, +whose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like +braces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint +Bernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard +dogs, replied, doubtless those were the three in question. + +‘And I think,’ said the artist traveller, ‘I have seen one of them +before.’ + +It was possible. He was a dog sufficiently well known. Monsieur might +have easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, when he +(the dog) had gone down with one of the order to solicit aid for the +convent. + +‘Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?’ + +Monsieur was right. + +‘And never without a dog. The dog is very important.’ + +Again Monsieur was right. The dog was very important. People were justly +interested in the dog. As one of the dogs celebrated everywhere, +Ma’amselle would observe. + +Ma’amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not yet +well accustomed to the French tongue. Mrs General, however, observed it +for her. + +‘Ask him if he has saved many lives?’ said, in his native English, the +young man who had been put out of countenance. + +The host needed no translation of the question. He promptly replied in +French, ‘No. Not this one.’ + +‘Why not?’ the same gentleman asked. + +‘Pardon,’ returned the host composedly, ‘give him the opportunity and +he will do it without doubt. For example, I am well convinced,’ smiling +sedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be handed round, on the young +man who had been put out of countenance, ‘that if you, Monsieur, would +give him the opportunity, he would hasten with great ardour to fulfil +his duty.’ + +The artist traveller laughed. The insinuating traveller (who evinced +a provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), wiping some +drops of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, joined the +conversation. + +‘It is becoming late in the year, my Father,’ said he, ‘for +tourist-travellers, is it not?’ + +‘Yes, it is late. Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be left +to the winter snows.’ + +‘And then,’ said the insinuating traveller, ‘for the scratching dogs and +the buried children, according to the pictures!’ + +‘Pardon,’ said the host, not quite understanding the allusion. ‘How, +then the scratching dogs and the buried children according to the +pictures?’ + +The artist traveller struck in again before an answer could be given. + +‘Don’t you know,’ he coldly inquired across the table of his companion, +‘that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or can have any +possible business this way?’ + +‘Holy blue! No; never heard of it.’ + +‘So it is, I believe. And as they know the signs of the weather +tolerably well, they don’t give much employment to the dogs--who have +consequently died out rather--though this house of entertainment is +conveniently situated for themselves. Their young families, I am told, +they usually leave at home. But it’s a grand idea!’ cried the artist +traveller, unexpectedly rising into a tone of enthusiasm. ‘It’s a +sublime idea. It’s the finest idea in the world, and brings tears into +a man’s eyes, by Jupiter!’ He then went on eating his veal with great +composure. + +There was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this speech +to make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined and the +person well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so +skilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not perfectly +acquainted with the English language to understand, or, even +understanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate was its +tone. After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, the speaker +again addressed his friend. + +‘Look,’ said he, in his former tone, ‘at this gentleman our host, not +yet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly +urbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit for a crown! Dine +with the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe +the contrast. This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a +face in perfect drawing, leaves some laborious life and comes up here +I don’t know how many feet above the level of the sea, for no other +purpose on earth (except enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital +refectory) than to keep an hotel for idle poor devils like you and +me, and leave the bill to our consciences! Why, isn’t it a beautiful +sacrifice? What do we want more to touch us? Because rescued people of +interesting appearance are not, for eight or nine months out of every +twelve, holding on here round the necks of the most sagacious of dogs +carrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage the place? No! Bless the +place. It’s a great place, a glorious place!’ + +The chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the +important party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being +numbered among poor devils. No sooner had the artist traveller ceased +speaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having it +incumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having deserted +that duty for a little while. + +He weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life must +be a very dreary life here in the winter. + +The host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous. The air +was difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively. The cold +was very severe. One needed youth and strength to bear it. However, +having them and the blessing of Heaven-- + +Yes, that was very good. ‘But the confinement,’ said the grey-haired +gentleman. + +There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to +walk about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and take +exercise there. + +‘But the space,’ urged the grey-haired gentleman. ‘So small. +So--ha--very limited.’ + +Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit, +and that tracks had to be made to them also. + +Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was +so--ha--hum--so very contracted. More than that, it was always the same, +always the same. + +With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his +shoulders. That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say that almost +all objects had their various points of view. Monsieur and he did not +see this poor life of his from the same point of view. Monsieur was not +used to confinement. + +‘I--ha--yes, very true,’ said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed to +receive quite a shock from the force of the argument. + +Monsieur, as an English traveller, surrounded by all means of travelling +pleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, and servants-- + +‘Perfectly, perfectly. Without doubt,’ said the gentleman. + +Monsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person who +had not the power to choose, I will go here to-morrow, or there next +day; I will pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds. Monsieur +could not realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated itself in such +things to the force of necessity. + +‘It is true,’ said Monsieur. ‘We will--ha--not pursue the subject. +You are--hum--quite accurate, I have no doubt. We will say no more.’ + +The supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he spoke, +and moved back to his former place by the fire. As it was very cold +at the greater part of the table, the other guests also resumed their +former seats by the fire, designing to toast themselves well before +going to bed. The host, when they rose from the table, bowed to all +present, wished them good night, and withdrew. But first the insinuating +traveller had asked him if they could have some wine made hot; and as +he had answered Yes, and had presently afterwards sent it in, that +traveller, seated in the centre of the group, and in the full heat of +the fire, was soon engaged in serving it out to the rest. + +At this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been silently +attentive in her dark corner (the fire-light was the chief light in the +sombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what had been said of the +absent lady, glided out. She was at a loss which way to turn when she +had softly closed the door; but, after a little hesitation among the +sounding passages and the many ways, came to a room in a corner of the +main gallery, where the servants were at their supper. From these she +obtained a lamp, and a direction to the lady’s room. + +It was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, the +bare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she +went along that the place was something like a prison. The arched door +of the lady’s room, or cell, was not quite shut. After knocking at it +two or three times without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently +open, and looked in. + +The lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected from +the cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been covered +when she revived from her fainting fit. A dull light placed in the deep +recess of the window, made little impression on the arched room. The +visitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, ‘Are +you better?’ + +The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake +her. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively. + +‘She is very pretty,’ she said to herself. ‘I never saw so beautiful a +face. O how unlike me!’ + +It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it +filled her eyes with tears. + +‘I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I could +very easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on +this!’ + +With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the +sleeper’s hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering. + +‘I like to look at her,’ she breathed to herself. ‘I like to see what +has affected him so much.’ + +She had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes and +started. + +‘Pray don’t be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from +down-stairs. I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do +anything for you.’ + +‘I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my +assistance?’ + +‘No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?’ + +‘Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to, +and is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a moment. It had +hurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all at once.’ + +‘May I stay with you until some one comes? Would you like it?’ + +‘I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel +the cold too much.’ + +‘I don’t mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.’ She quickly moved +one of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as +quickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew +it over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her +shoulder. + +‘You have so much the air of a kind nurse,’ said the lady, smiling on +her, ‘that you seem as if you had come to me from home.’ + +‘I am very glad of it.’ + +‘I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean, +before I was married.’ + +‘And before you were so far away from it.’ + +‘I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took +the best part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I +dropped asleep here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it.’ + +There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice, +which made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment. + +‘It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this +covering in which you have wrapped me,’ said the visitor after a +pause; ‘for do you know, I think I have been looking for you some time.’ + +‘Looking for me?’ + +‘I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you +whenever I found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is +addressed to you? Is it not?’ + +The lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched her as +she did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she put her lips +to her visitor’s cheek, and pressed her hand. + +‘The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me +at some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me the first time I see +her.’ + +‘Perhaps you don’t,’ said the visitor, hesitating--‘perhaps you don’t +know my story? Perhaps he never told you my story?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Oh no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at +present, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is not much +in it, but it might account to you for my asking you not to say anything +about the letter here. You saw my family with me, perhaps? Some of +them--I only say this to you--are a little proud, a little prejudiced.’ + +‘You shall take it back again,’ said the other; ‘and then my husband is +sure not to see it. He might see it and speak of it, otherwise, by some +accident. Will you put it in your bosom again, to be certain?’ + +She did so with great care. Her small, slight hand was still upon the +letter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside. + +‘I promised,’ said the visitor, rising, ‘that I would write to him after +seeing you (I could hardly fail to see you sooner or later), and tell +him if you were well and happy. I had better say you were well and +happy.’ + +‘Yes, yes, yes! Say I was very well and very happy. And that I thanked +him affectionately, and would never forget him.’ + +‘I shall see you in the morning. After that we are sure to meet again +before very long. Good night!’ + +‘Good night. Thank you, thank you. Good night, my dear!’ + +Both of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this parting, +and as the visitor came out of the door. She had expected to meet the +lady’s husband approaching it; but the person in the gallery was not +he: it was the traveller who had wiped the wine-drops from his moustache +with the piece of bread. When he heard the step behind him, he turned +round--for he was walking away in the dark. + +His politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young lady’s +lighting herself down-stairs, or going down alone. He took her lamp, +held it so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, and followed +her all the way to the supper-room. She went down, not easily hiding how +much she was inclined to shrink and tremble; for the appearance of this +traveller was particularly disagreeable to her. She had sat in her quiet +corner before supper imagining what he would have been in the scenes and +places within her experience, until he inspired her with an aversion +that made him little less than terrific. + +He followed her down with his smiling politeness, followed her in, +and resumed his seat in the best place in the hearth. There with the +wood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising and falling upon him +in the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to warm, drinking the +hot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow imitating him on the +wall and ceiling. + +The tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed +except the young lady’s father, who dozed in his chair by the fire. +The traveller had been at the pains of going a long way up-stairs to his +sleeping-room to fetch his pocket-flask of brandy. He told them so, as +he poured its contents into what was left of the wine, and drank with a +new relish. + +‘May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?’ + +The grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to +withdraw. He answered in the affirmative. + +‘I also!’ said the traveller. ‘I shall hope to have the honour +of offering my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer +circumstances, than on this dismal mountain.’ + +The gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to him. + +‘We poor gentlemen, sir,’ said the traveller, pulling his moustache dry +with his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; ‘we poor +gentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and graces of +life are precious to us. To your health, sir!’ + +‘Sir, I thank you.’ + +‘To the health of your distinguished family--of the fair ladies, your +daughters!’ + +‘Sir, I thank you again, I wish you good night. My dear, are +our--ha--our people in attendance?’ + +‘They are close by, father.’ + +‘Permit me!’ said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, as +the gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn through his +daughter’s. ‘Good repose! To the pleasure of seeing you once more! To +to-morrow!’ + +As he kissed his hand, with his best manner and his daintiest smile, +the young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a +dread of touching him. + +‘Humph!’ said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and whose +voice dropped when he was left alone. ‘If they all go to bed, why I must +go. They are in a devil of a hurry. One would think the night would be +long enough, in this freezing silence and solitude, if one went to bed +two hours hence.’ + +Throwing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon the +travellers’ book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and ink beside +it, as if the night’s names had been registered when he was absent. +Taking it in his hand, he read these entries. + + + William Dorrit, Esquire + Frederick Dorrit, Esquire + Edward Dorrit, Esquire + Miss Dorrit + Miss Amy Dorrit + Mrs General + and Suite. + From France to Italy. + + Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan. + From France to Italy. + + +To which he added, in a small complicated hand, ending with a long lean +flourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the names: + + + Blandois. Paris. + From France to Italy. + + +And then, with his nose coming down over his moustache and his moustache +going up and under his nose, repaired to his allotted cell. + + + + +CHAPTER 2. Mrs General + + +It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of +sufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line +to herself in the Travellers’ Book. + +Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral +town, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as +a single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a +martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove +the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and +had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of +ceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage +being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind +the proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General drove until the +commissary died. In the course of their united journey, they ran over +several people who came in the way of the proprieties; but always in a +high style and with composure. + +The commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable to +the service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his hearse, +and they all had feathers and black velvet housings with his coat of +arms in the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what quantity of dust +and ashes was deposited at the bankers’. It then transpired that the +commissary had so far stolen a march on Mrs General as to have bought +himself an annuity some years before his marriage, and to have reserved +that circumstance in mentioning, at the period of his proposal, that +his income was derived from the interest of his money. Mrs General +consequently found her means so much diminished, that, but for the +perfect regulation of her mind, she might have felt disposed to question +the accuracy of that portion of the late service which had declared that +the commissary could take nothing away with him. + +In this state of affairs it occurred to Mrs General, that she might +‘form the mind,’ and eke the manners of some young lady of distinction. +Or, that she might harness the proprieties to the carriage of some rich +young heiress or widow, and become at once the driver and guard of such +vehicle through the social mazes. Mrs General’s communication of this +idea to her clerical and commissariat connection was so warmly applauded +that, but for the lady’s undoubted merit, it might have appeared as +though they wanted to get rid of her. Testimonials representing Mrs +General as a prodigy of piety, learning, virtue, and gentility, were +lavishly contributed from influential quarters; and one venerable +archdeacon even shed tears in recording his testimony to her perfections +(described to him by persons on whom he could rely), though he had never +had the honour and moral gratification of setting eyes on Mrs General in +all his life. + +Thus delegated on her mission, as it were by Church and State, Mrs +General, who had always occupied high ground, felt in a condition to +keep it, and began by putting herself up at a very high figure. An +interval of some duration elapsed, in which there was no bid for Mrs +General. At length a county-widower, with a daughter of fourteen, opened +negotiations with the lady; and as it was a part either of the native +dignity or of the artificial policy of Mrs General (but certainly one +or the other) to comport herself as if she were much more sought than +seeking, the widower pursued Mrs General until he prevailed upon her to +form his daughter’s mind and manners. + +The execution of this trust occupied Mrs General about seven years, in +the course of which time she made the tour of Europe, and saw most of +that extensive miscellany of objects which it is essential that all +persons of polite cultivation should see with other people’s eyes, +and never with their own. When her charge was at length formed, the +marriage, not only of the young lady, but likewise of her father, the +widower, was resolved on. The widower then finding Mrs General both +inconvenient and expensive, became of a sudden almost as much affected +by her merits as the archdeacon had been, and circulated such praises +of her surpassing worth, in all quarters where he thought an opportunity +might arise of transferring the blessing to somebody else, that Mrs +General was a name more honourable than ever. + +The phoenix was to let, on this elevated perch, when Mr Dorrit, who +had lately succeeded to his property, mentioned to his bankers that he +wished to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well connected, well +accustomed to good society, who was qualified at once to complete the +education of his daughters, and to be their matron or chaperon. Mr +Dorrit’s bankers, as bankers of the county-widower, instantly said, ‘Mrs +General.’ + +Pursuing the light so fortunately hit upon, and finding the concurrent +testimony of the whole of Mrs General’s acquaintance to be of the +pathetic nature already recorded, Mr Dorrit took the trouble of going +down to the county of the county-widower to see Mrs General, in whom he +found a lady of a quality superior to his highest expectations. + +‘Might I be excused,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘if I inquired--ha--what remune--’ + +‘Why, indeed,’ returned Mrs General, stopping the word, ‘it is a subject +on which I prefer to avoid entering. I have never entered on it with my +friends here; and I cannot overcome the delicacy, Mr Dorrit, with +which I have always regarded it. I am not, as I hope you are aware, a +governess--’ + +‘O dear no!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Pray, madam, do not imagine for a moment +that I think so.’ He really blushed to be suspected of it. + +Mrs General gravely inclined her head. ‘I cannot, therefore, put a price +upon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I can render +them spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere return for any +consideration. Neither do I know how, or where, to find a case parallel +to my own. It is peculiar.’ + +No doubt. But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could the +subject be approached? + +‘I cannot object,’ said Mrs General--‘though even that is disagreeable +to me--to Mr Dorrit’s inquiring, in confidence of my friends here, what +amount they have been accustomed, at quarterly intervals, to pay to my +credit at my bankers’.’ + +Mr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgements. + +‘Permit me to add,’ said Mrs General, ‘that beyond this, I can never +resume the topic. Also that I can accept no second or inferior position. +If the honour were proposed to me of becoming known to Mr Dorrit’s +family--I think two daughters were mentioned?--’ + +‘Two daughters.’ + +‘I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a companion, +protector, Mentor, and friend.’ + +Mr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it would +be quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions. He almost +said as much. + +‘I think,’ repeated Mrs General, ‘two daughters were mentioned?’ + +‘Two daughters,’ said Mr Dorrit again. + +‘It would therefore,’ said Mrs General, ‘be necessary to add a third +more to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), which my +friends here have been accustomed to make to my bankers’.’ + +Mr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the +county-widower, and finding that he had been accustomed to pay three +hundred pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, without any +severe strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that he himself must +pay four. Mrs General being an article of that lustrous surface which +suggests that it is worth any money, he made a formal proposal to be +allowed to have the honour and pleasure of regarding her as a member of +his family. Mrs General conceded that high privilege, and here she was. + +In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with +it, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely +voluminous; always upright behind the proprieties. She might have +been taken--had been taken--to the top of the Alps and the bottom of +Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing +a pin. If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as +though from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather +because she was a chalky creation altogether, than because she mended +her complexion with violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had +no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If +she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name +or any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who +had never lighted well. + +Mrs General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it +from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves +or rails on which she started little trains of other people’s opinions, +which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her +propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but +Mrs General’s way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and +make believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways +of forming a mind--to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, +lock them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, +and, beyond all comparison, the properest. + +Mrs General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, +miseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion +was to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and blood was to +change to milk and water. The little that was left in the world, +when all these deductions were made, it was Mrs General’s province to +varnish. In that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of +brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every +object that came under consideration. The more cracked it was, the more +Mrs General varnished it. + +There was varnish in Mrs General’s voice, varnish in Mrs General’s +touch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General’s figure. Mrs +General’s dreams ought to have been varnished--if she had any--lying +asleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow +falling on his house-top. + + + + +CHAPTER 3. On the Road + + +The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists +had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the +new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new +existence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, +and the mountain, a shining waste of immense white heaps and masses, to +be a region of cloud floating between the blue sky above and the earth +far below. + +Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning +at the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths +which were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at +work in several places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to +be foot-thawed again about the door. Mules were busily brought out, tied +to the rings in the wall, and laden; strings of bells were buckled +on, burdens were adjusted, the voices of drivers and riders sounded +musically. Some of the earliest had even already resumed their journey; +and, both on the level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on +the downward way of yesterday’s ascent, little moving figures of men and +mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear +tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues. + +In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the feathery +ashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter, +and milk. It also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family, making tea +for his party from a supply he had brought up with him, together with +several other small stores which were chiefly laid in for the use of the +strong body of inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already +breakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking their +cigars. + +‘Gowan, eh?’ muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning +over the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them to +breakfast. ‘Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that’s all I have got to +say! If it was worth my while, I’d pull his nose. But it isn’t worth my +while--fortunately for him. How’s his wife, Amy? I suppose you know. +You generally know things of that sort.’ + +‘She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.’ + +‘Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,’ said +Tip, ‘or he and I might have come into collision.’ + +‘It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and not be +fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.’ + +‘With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. You +haven’t been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits, +have you, Amy?’ + +He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss +Fanny, and at his father too. + +‘I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip,’ +said Little Dorrit. + +‘You needn’t call me Tip, Amy child,’ returned that young gentleman +with a frown; ‘because that’s an old habit, and one you may as well lay +aside.’ + +‘I didn’t mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once, +that it seemed at the moment the right word.’ + +‘Oh yes!’ Miss Fanny struck in. ‘Natural, and right word, and once, and +all the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well +why you have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can’t +blind _me_.’ + +‘I will not try to, Fanny. Don’t be angry.’ + +‘Oh! angry!’ returned that young lady with a flounce. ‘I have no +patience’ (which indeed was the truth). + +‘Pray, Fanny,’ said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, ‘what do you mean? +Explain yourself.’ + +‘Oh! Never mind, Pa,’ replied Miss Fanny, ‘it’s no great matter. +Amy will understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before +yesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.’ + +‘My child,’ said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, ‘has your +sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?’ + +‘However meek we are,’ Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, ‘we +don’t go creeping into people’s rooms on the tops of cold mountains, +and sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something +about them beforehand. It’s not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs +Gowan is.’ + +‘Whose friend?’ inquired her father. + +‘Pa, I am sorry to say,’ returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time +succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and +grievance, which she was often at great pains to do: ‘that I believe her +to be a friend of that very objectionable and unpleasant person, who, +with a total absence of all delicacy, which our experience might have +led us to expect from him, insulted us and outraged our feelings in +so public and wilful a manner on an occasion to which it is understood +among us that we will not more pointedly allude.’ + +‘Amy, my child,’ said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a +dignified affection, ‘is this the case?’ + +Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was. + +‘Yes it is!’ cried Miss Fanny. ‘Of course! I said so! And now, Pa, I do +declare once for all’--this young lady was in the habit of declaring the +same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in +a day--‘that this is shameful! I do declare once for all that it ought +to be put a stop to. Is it not enough that we have gone through what +is only known to ourselves, but are we to have it thrown in our faces, +perseveringly and systematically, by the very person who should spare +our feelings most? Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every +moment of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to forget? I say +again, it is absolutely infamous!’ + +‘Well, Amy,’ observed her brother, shaking his head, ‘you know I stand +by you whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must say, that, upon +my soul, I do consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your +sisterly affection, that you should back up a man who treated me in the +most ungentlemanly way in which one man can treat another. And who,’ he +added convincingly, ‘must be a low-minded thief, you know, or he never +could have conducted himself as he did.’ + +‘And see,’ said Miss Fanny, ‘see what is involved in this! Can we ever +hope to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and +Pa’s valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, +and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing +about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial! Why, a policeman,’ +said Miss Fanny, ‘if a beggar had a fit in the street, could but go +plunging about with tumblers, as this very Amy did in this very room +before our very eyes last night!’ + +‘I don’t so much mind that, once in a way,’ remarked Mr Edward; ‘but +your Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another thing.’ + +‘He is part of the same thing,’ returned Miss Fanny, ‘and of a piece +with all the rest. He obtruded himself upon us in the first instance. +We never wanted him. I always showed him, for one, that I could +have dispensed with his company with the greatest pleasure. +He then commits that gross outrage upon our feelings, which he never +could or would have committed but for the delight he took in exposing +us; and then we are to be demeaned for the service of his friends! Why, +I don’t wonder at this Mr Gowan’s conduct towards you. What else was +to be expected when he was enjoying our past misfortunes--gloating over +them at the moment!’ + +‘Father--Edward--no indeed!’ pleaded Little Dorrit. ‘Neither Mr nor Mrs +Gowan had ever heard our name. They were, and they are, quite ignorant +of our history.’ + +‘So much the worse,’ retorted Fanny, determined not to admit anything in +extenuation, ‘for then you have no excuse. If they had known about us, +you might have felt yourself called upon to conciliate them. That would +have been a weak and ridiculous mistake, but I can respect a mistake, +whereas I can’t respect a wilful and deliberate abasing of those who +should be nearest and dearest to us. No. I can’t respect that. I can do +nothing but denounce that.’ + +‘I never offend you wilfully, Fanny,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘though you +are so hard with me.’ + +‘Then you should be more careful, Amy,’ returned her sister. ‘If you do +such things by accident, you should be more careful. If I happened to +have been born in a peculiar place, and under peculiar circumstances +that blunted my knowledge of propriety, I fancy I should think myself +bound to consider at every step, “Am I going, ignorantly, to compromise +any near and dear relations?” That is what I fancy _I_ should do, if it +was _my_ case.’ + +Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by his +authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom. + +‘My dear,’ said he to his younger daughter, ‘I beg you to--ha--to say +no more. Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not without +considerable reason. You have now a--hum--a great position to support. +That great position is not occupied by yourself alone, but by--ha--by +me, and--ha hum--by us. Us. Now, it is incumbent upon all people in an +exalted position, but it is particularly so on this family, for reasons +which I--ha--will not dwell upon, to make themselves respected. To be +vigilant in making themselves respected. Dependants, to respect us, must +be--ha--kept at a distance and--hum--kept down. Down. Therefore, your +not exposing yourself to the remarks of our attendants by appearing to +have at any time dispensed with their services and performed them for +yourself, is--ha--highly important.’ + +‘Why, who can doubt it?’ cried Miss Fanny. ‘It’s the essence of +everything.’ + +‘Fanny,’ returned her father, grandiloquently, ‘give me leave, my dear. +We then come to--ha--to Mr Clennam. I am free to say that I do not, Amy, +share your sister’s sentiments--that is to say altogether--hum-- +altogether--in reference to Mr Clennam. I am content to regard that +individual in the light of--ha--generally--a well-behaved person. Hum. +A well-behaved person. Nor will I inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any +time, obtrude himself on--ha--my society. He knew my society to +be--hum--sought, and his plea might be that he regarded me in the light +of a public character. But there were circumstances attending +my--ha--slight knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which,’ +here Mr Dorrit became extremely grave and impressive, ‘would render it +highly indelicate in Mr Clennam to--ha--to seek to renew communication +with me or with any member of my family under existing circumstances. +If Mr Clennam has sufficient delicacy to perceive the impropriety of +any such attempt, I am bound as a responsible gentleman to--ha--defer +to that delicacy on his part. If, on the other hand, Mr Clennam has not +that delicacy, I cannot for a moment--ha--hold any correspondence with +so--hum--coarse a mind. In either case, it would appear that Mr Clennam +is put altogether out of the question, and that we have nothing to do +with him or he with us. Ha--Mrs General!’ + +The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at the +breakfast-table, terminated the discussion. Shortly afterwards, the +courier announced that the valet, and the footman, and the two maids, +and the four guides, and the fourteen mules, were in readiness; so the +breakfast party went out to the convent door to join the cavalcade. + +Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was on +the spot to pay his respects to the ladies. When he gallantly pulled +off his slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had even a more +sinister look, standing swart and cloaked in the snow, than he had +in the fire-light over-night. But, as both her father and her sister +received his homage with some favour, she refrained from expressing any +distrust of him, lest it should prove to be a new blemish derived from +her prison birth. + +Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was +yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, +backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the +chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking +down after them. Long after he was a mere black stick in the snow, she +felt as though she could yet see that smile of his, that high nose, and +those eyes that were too near it. And even after that, when the convent +was gone and some light morning clouds veiled the pass below it, the +ghastly skeleton arms by the wayside seemed to be all pointing up at +him. + +More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to +melt, Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came +down into the softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again the streams +descending from glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at, +again they came among the pine-trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant +heights and dales, the wooden chalets and rough zigzag fences of Swiss +country. Sometimes the way so widened that she and her father could +ride abreast. And then to look at him, handsomely clothed in his fur and +broadcloths, rich, free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving +far away among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before +them to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough. + +Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the +clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to +the family credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient +animal enjoyment, which seemed to express that the air and change did +him good. In all other respects, save one, he shone with no light but +such as was reflected from his brother. His brother’s greatness, wealth, +freedom, and grandeur, pleased him without any reference to himself. +Silent and retiring, he had no use for speech when he could hear his +brother speak; no desire to be waited on, so that the servants devoted +themselves to his brother. The only noticeable change he originated in +himself, was an alteration in his manner to his younger niece. Every day +it refined more and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by age +to youth, and still more rarely susceptible, one would have said, of the +fitness with which he invested it. On those occasions when Miss Fanny +did declare once for all, he would take the next opportunity of baring +his grey head before his younger niece, and of helping her to alight, +or handing her to the carriage, or showing her any other attention, with +the profoundest deference. Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced, +being always heartily simple, spontaneous, and genuine. Neither would he +ever consent, even at his brother’s request, to be helped to any place +before her, or to take precedence of her in anything. So jealous was he +of her being respected, that, on this very journey down from the Great +Saint Bernard, he took sudden and violent umbrage at the footman’s being +remiss to hold her stirrup, though standing near when she dismounted; +and unspeakably astonished the whole retinue by charging at him on a +hard-headed mule, riding him into a corner, and threatening to trample +him to death. + +They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped them. +Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the person of the +courier riding before, to see that the rooms of state were ready. He was +the herald of the family procession. The great travelling-carriage came +next: containing, inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit, +and Mrs General; outside, some of the retainers, and (in fine weather) +Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for whom the box was reserved. Then came +the chariot containing Frederick Dorrit, Esquire, and an empty place +occupied by Edward Dorrit, Esquire, in wet weather. Then came the +fourgon with the rest of the retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much +as it could carry of the mud and dust which the other vehicles left +behind. + +These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the return +of the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles were there, +much company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura--like +the body of a swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on +wheels, and having another wooden tray without wheels put atop of it--to +the trim English carriage. But there was another adornment of the +hotel which Mr Dorrit had not bargained for. Two strange travellers +embellished one of his rooms. + +The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that he was +blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that +he was the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the +head of a wooden pig. He ought never to have made the concession, he +said, but the very genteel lady had so passionately prayed him for the +accommodation of that room to dine in, only for a little half-hour, that +he had been vanquished. The little half-hour was expired, the lady and +gentleman were taking their little dessert and half-cup of coffee, the +note was paid, the horses were ordered, they would depart immediately; +but, owing to an unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven, they were not +yet gone. + +Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit’s indignation, as he turned at the foot +of the staircase on hearing these apologies. He felt that the family +dignity was struck at by an assassin’s hand. He had a sense of his +dignity, which was of the most exquisite nature. He could detect a +design upon it when nobody else had any perception of the fact. His +life was made an agony by the number of fine scalpels that he felt to be +incessantly engaged in dissecting his dignity. + +‘Is it possible, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, ‘that you +have--ha--had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the disposition +of any other person?’ + +Thousands of pardons! It was the host’s profound misfortune to have been +overcome by that too genteel lady. He besought Monseigneur not to enrage +himself. He threw himself on Monseigneur for clemency. If Monseigneur +would have the distinguished goodness to occupy the other salon +especially reserved for him, for but five minutes, all would go well. + +‘No, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘I will not occupy any salon. I will leave +your house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it. How do +you dare to act like this? Who am I that you--ha--separate me from other +gentlemen?’ + +Alas! The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur was +the most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most important, +the most estimable, the most honoured. If he separated Monseigneur from +others, it was only because he was more distinguished, more cherished, +more generous, more renowned. + +‘Don’t tell me so, sir,’ returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat. ‘You have +affronted me. You have heaped insults upon me. How dare you? Explain +yourself.’ + +Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he had +nothing more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and confide +himself to the so well-known magnanimity of Monseigneur! + +‘I tell you, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, ‘that you +separate me--ha--from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions +between me and other gentlemen of fortune and station. I demand of you, +why? I wish to know on--ha--what authority, on whose authority. Reply +sir. Explain. Answer why.’ + +Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, that +Monseigneur, ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without cause. +There was no why. Monsieur the Courier would represent to Monseigneur, +that he deceived himself in suspecting that there was any why, but the +why his devoted servant had already had the honour to present to him. +The very genteel lady-- + +‘Silence!’ cried Mr Dorrit. ‘Hold your tongue! I will hear no more +of the very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you. Look at this +family--my family--a family more genteel than any lady. You have treated +this family with disrespect; you have been insolent to this family. I’ll +ruin you. Ha--send for the horses, pack the carriages, I’ll not set foot +in this man’s house again!’ + +No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French +colloquial powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within the +province of the ladies. Miss Fanny, however, now supported her father +with great bitterness; declaring, in her native tongue, that it was +quite clear there was something special in this man’s impertinence; +and that she considered it important that he should be, by some means, +forced to give up his authority for making distinctions between that +family and other wealthy families. What the reasons of his presumption +could be, she was at a loss to imagine; but reasons he must have, and +they ought to be torn from him. + +All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made +themselves parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed by +the courier’s now bestirring himself to get the carriages out. With the +aid of some dozen people to each wheel, this was done at a great cost of +noise; and then the loading was proceeded with, pending the arrival of +the horses from the post-house. + +But the very genteel lady’s English chariot being already horsed and at +the inn-door, the landlord had slipped up-stairs to represent his hard +case. This was notified to the yard by his now coming down the staircase +in attendance on the gentleman and the lady, and by his pointing out the +offended majesty of Mr Dorrit to them with a significant motion of his +hand. + +‘Beg your pardon,’ said the gentleman, detaching himself from the +lady, and coming forward. ‘I am a man of few words and a bad hand at an +explanation--but lady here is extremely anxious that there should be no +Row. Lady--a mother of mine, in point of fact--wishes me to say that she +hopes no Row.’ + +Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, and +saluted the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner. + +‘No, but really--here, old feller; you!’ This was the gentleman’s way of +appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as a great and +providential relief. ‘Let you and I try to make this all right. Lady so +very much wishes no Row.’ + +Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed a +diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, ‘Why you must confess, +that when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand, and they belong to you, +it’s not pleasant to find other people in ‘em.’ + +‘No,’ said the other, ‘I know it isn’t. I admit it. Still, let you and I +try to make it all right, and avoid Row. The fault is not this chap’s +at all, but my mother’s. Being a remarkably fine woman with no bigodd +nonsense about her--well educated, too--she was too many for this chap. +Regularly pocketed him.’ + +‘If that’s the case--’ Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began. + +‘Assure you ‘pon my soul ‘tis the case. Consequently,’ said the other +gentleman, retiring on his main position, ‘why Row?’ + +‘Edmund,’ said the lady from the doorway, ‘I hope you have explained, +or are explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman and his family +that the civil landlord is not to blame?’ + +‘Assure you, ma’am,’ returned Edmund, ‘perfectly paralysing myself with +trying it on.’ He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for +some seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of confidence, ‘Old feller! +_Is_ it all right?’ + +‘I don’t know, after all,’ said the lady, gracefully advancing a step or +two towards Mr Dorrit, ‘but that I had better say myself, at once, +that I assured this good man I took all the consequences on myself of +occupying one of a stranger’s suite of rooms during his absence, for +just as much (or as little) time as I could dine in. I had no idea the +rightful owner would come back so soon, nor had I any idea that he +had come back, or I should have hastened to make restoration of my +ill-gotten chamber, and to have offered my explanation and apology. I +trust in saying this--’ + +For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed and +speechless before the two Miss Dorrits. At the same moment, Miss Fanny, +in the foreground of a grand pictorial composition, formed by the +family, the family equipages, and the family servants, held her sister +tight under one arm to detain her on the spot, and with the other arm +fanned herself with a distinguished air, and negligently surveyed the +lady from head to foot. + +The lady, recovering herself quickly--for it was Mrs Merdle and she was +not easily dashed--went on to add that she trusted in saying this, she +apologised for her boldness, and restored this well-behaved landlord to +the favour that was so very valuable to him. Mr Dorrit, on the altar of +whose dignity all this was incense, made a gracious reply; and said +that his people should--ha--countermand his horses, and he +would--hum--overlook what he had at first supposed to be an affront, +but now regarded as an honour. Upon this the bosom bent to him; and its +owner, with a wonderful command of feature, addressed a winning smile of +adieu to the two sisters, as young ladies of fortune in whose favour she +was much prepossessed, and whom she had never had the gratification of +seeing before. + +Not so, however, Mr Sparkler. This gentleman, becoming transfixed at +the same moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix himself +again, but stood stiffly staring at the whole composition with Miss +Fanny in the Foreground. On his mother saying, ‘Edmund, we are quite +ready; will you give me your arm?’ he seemed, by the motion of his lips, +to reply with some remark comprehending the form of words in which his +shining talents found the most frequent utterance, but he relaxed no +muscle. So fixed was his figure, that it would have been matter of some +difficulty to bend him sufficiently to get him in the carriage-door, +if he had not received the timely assistance of a maternal pull from +within. He was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the +back of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place. There +it remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and probably +much longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly surprising +should happen to a codfish) like an ill-executed eye in a large locket. + +This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her +so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her +asperities exceedingly. When the procession was again in motion next +day, she occupied her place in it with a new gaiety; and showed such a +flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General looked rather surprised. + +Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny +was pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a +quiet one. Sitting opposite her father in the travelling-carriage, and +recalling the old Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream. +All that she saw was new and wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed +to her as if those visions of mountains and picturesque countries might +melt away at any moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner, +bring up with a jolt at the old Marshalsea gate. + +To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having +glided into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan +and contrive, no cares of others to load herself with. Strange as that +was, it was far stranger yet to find a space between herself and her +father, where others occupied themselves in taking care of him, and +where she was never expected to be. At first, this was so much more +unlike her old experience than even the mountains themselves, that she +had been unable to resign herself to it, and had tried to retain her +old place about him. But he had spoken to her alone, and had said that +people--ha--people in an exalted position, my dear, must scrupulously +exact respect from their dependents; and that for her, his daughter, +Miss Amy Dorrit, of the sole remaining branch of the Dorrits of +Dorsetshire, to be known to--hum--to occupy herself in fulfilling the +functions of--ha hum--a valet, would be incompatible with that respect. +Therefore, my dear, he--ha--he laid his parental injunctions upon +her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now to conduct herself +with--hum--a proper pride, and to preserve the rank of a lady; +and consequently he requested her to abstain from doing what would +occasion--ha--unpleasant and derogatory remarks. She had obeyed without +a murmur. Thus it had been brought about that she now sat in her corner +of the luxurious carriage with her little patient hands folded before +her, quite displaced even from the last point of the old standing ground +in life on which her feet had lingered. + +It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more +surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her +own inner life as she went through its vacant places all day long. The +gorges of the Simplon, its enormous depths and thundering waterfalls, +the wonderful road, the points of danger where a loose wheel or a +faltering horse would have been destruction, the descent into Italy, the +opening of that beautiful land as the rugged mountain-chasm widened and +let them out from a gloomy and dark imprisonment--all a dream--only the +old mean Marshalsea a reality. Nay, even the old mean Marshalsea was +shaken to its foundations when she pictured it without her father. She +could scarcely believe that the prisoners were still lingering in the +close yard, that the mean rooms were still every one tenanted, and that +the turnkey still stood in the Lodge letting people in and out, all just +as she well knew it to be. + +With a remembrance of her father’s old life in prison hanging about her +like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a +dream of her birth-place into a whole day’s dream. The painted room in +which she awoke, often a humbled state-chamber in a dilapidated palace, +would begin it; with its wild red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the +glass, its orange-trees on the cracked white terrace outside the window, +a group of monks and peasants in the little street below, misery and +magnificence wrestling with each other upon every rood of ground in +the prospect, no matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing +magnificence with the strength of fate. To this would succeed a +labyrinth of bare passages and pillared galleries, with the family +procession already preparing in the quadrangle below, through the +carriages and luggage being brought together by the servants for the +day’s journey. Then breakfast in another painted chamber, damp-stained +and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, which, to her +timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in the +ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For then the courier (who +himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the +Marshalsea) would present himself to report that all was ready; and then +her father’s valet would pompously induct him into his travelling-cloak; +and then Fanny’s maid, and her own maid (who was a weight on Little +Dorrit’s mind--absolutely made her cry at first, she knew so little +what to do with her), would be in attendance; and then her brother’s man +would complete his master’s equipment; and then her father would give +his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her, and, +escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs. +There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages, +which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and +clattering, they would do; and so they would be driven madly through +narrow unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the town gate. + +Among the day’s unrealities would be roads where the bright red vines +were looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; woods of +olives; white villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely without, but +frightful in their dirt and poverty within; crosses by the way; deep +blue lakes with fairy islands, and clustering boats with awnings of +bright colours and sails of beautiful forms; vast piles of building +mouldering to dust; hanging-gardens where the weeds had grown so strong +that their stems, like wedges driven home, had split the arch and rent +the wall; stone-terraced lanes, with the lizards running into and out +of every chink; beggars of all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque, +hungry, merry; children beggars and aged beggars. Often at +posting-houses and other halting places, these miserable creatures would +appear to her the only realities of the day; and many a time, when the +money she had brought to give them was all given away, she would sit +with her folded hands, thoughtfully looking after some diminutive girl +leading her grey father, as if the sight reminded her of something in +the days that were gone. + +Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in +splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders, +walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great +churches; where there were winking lamps of gold and silver among +pillars and arches, kneeling figures dotted about at confessionals and +on the pavements; where there was the mist and scent of incense; where +there were pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars, great heights and +distances, all softly lighted through stained glass, and the massive +curtains that hung in the doorways. From these cities they would go on +again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where +there was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window +with a whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to +support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing +to hope, nothing to do but die. + +Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper inmates +were all banished, and which were all changed into barracks: troops +of idle soldiers leaning out of the state windows, where their +accoutrements hung drying on the marble architecture, and showing to the +mind like hosts of rats who were (happily) eating away the props of the +edifices that supported them, and must soon, with them, be smashed on +the heads of the other swarms of soldiers and the swarms of priests, and +the swarms of spies, who were all the ill-looking population left to be +ruined, in the streets below. + +Through such scenes, the family procession moved on to Venice. And here +it dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some few months +in a palace (itself six times as big as the whole Marshalsea) on the +Grand Canal. + +In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with water, +and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by +no sound but the softened ringing of church-bells, the rippling of +the current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the corners of the +flowing streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her task being done, sat +down to muse. The family began a gay life, went here and there, and +turned night into day; but she was timid of joining in their gaieties, +and only asked leave to be left alone. + +Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas that were always kept +in waiting, moored to painted posts at the door--when she could escape +from the attendance of that oppressive maid, who was her mistress, and +a very hard one--and would be taken all over the strange city. Social +people in other gondolas began to ask each other who the little solitary +girl was whom they passed, sitting in her boat with folded hands, +looking so pensively and wonderingly about her. Never thinking that +it would be worth anybody’s while to notice her or her doings, Little +Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, lost manner, went about the city none the +less. + +But her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, overhanging +the canal, with other balconies below, and none above. It was of massive +stone darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy which came from the East +to that collection of wild fancies; and Little Dorrit was little indeed, +leaning on the broad-cushioned ledge, and looking over. As she liked no +place of an evening half so well, she soon began to be watched for, and +many eyes in passing gondolas were raised, and many people said, There +was the little figure of the English girl who was always alone. + +Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English girl; +such people were all unknown to her. She would watch the sunset, in its +long low lines of purple and red, and its burning flush high up into +the sky: so glowing on the buildings, and so lightening their structure, +that it made them look as if their strong walls were transparent, and +they shone from within. She would watch those glories expire; and then, +after looking at the black gondolas underneath, taking guests to music +and dancing, would raise her eyes to the shining stars. Was there no +party of her own, in other times, on which the stars had shone? To think +of that old gate now! + +She would think of that old gate, and of herself sitting at it in the +dead of the night, pillowing Maggy’s head; and of other places and of +other scenes associated with those different times. And then she would +lean upon her balcony, and look over at the water, as though they all +lay underneath it. When she got to that, she would musingly watch its +running, as if, in the general vision, it might run dry, and show her +the prison again, and herself, and the old room, and the old inmates, +and the old visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed. + + + + +CHAPTER 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit + + +Dear Mr Clennam, + +I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to +hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am +to write to you; for everything about you is as you have been accustomed +to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it should be me, which can only +be for a very little while together and very seldom--while everything in +my life is so strange, and I miss so much. + +When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago, +though it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a mountain +excursion like ourselves. She told me she was very well and very happy. +She sent you the message, by me, that she thanked you affectionately and +would never forget you. She was quite confiding with me, and I loved her +almost as soon as I spoke to her. But there is nothing singular in that; +who could help loving so beautiful and winning a creature! I could not +wonder at any one loving her. No indeed. + +It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan’s account, I hope--for I +remember that you said you had the interest of a true friend in her--if +I tell you that I wish she could have married some one better suited to +her. Mr Gowan seems fond of her, and of course she is very fond of him, +but I thought he was not earnest enough--I don’t mean in that respect--I +mean in anything. I could not keep it out of my mind that if I was Mrs +Gowan (what a change that would be, and how I must alter to become like +her!) I should feel that I was rather lonely and lost, for the want of +some one who was steadfast and firm in purpose. I even thought she felt +this want a little, almost without knowing it. But mind you are not made +uneasy by this, for she was ‘very well and very happy.’ And she looked +most beautiful. + +I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been expecting +for some days past to see her here. I will ever be as good a friend to +her as I can for your sake. Dear Mr Clennam, I dare say you think little +of having been a friend to me when I had no other (not that I have any +other now, for I have made no new friends), but I think much of it, and +I never can forget it. + +I wish I knew--but it is best for no one to write to me--how Mr and Mrs +Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought for them, +and that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two grandchildren, +and sings all his songs over and over again. I cannot quite keep back +the tears from my eyes when I think of my poor Maggy, and of the blank +she must have felt at first, however kind they all are to her, without +her Little Mother. Will you go and tell her, as a strict secret, with my +love, that she never can have regretted our separation more than I have +regretted it? And will you tell them all that I have thought of them +every day, and that my heart is faithful to them everywhere? O, if you +could know how faithful, you would almost pity me for being so far away +and being so grand! + +You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very well +in health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to him, and +that he is very different indeed from what he used to be when you used +to see him. There is an improvement in my uncle too, I think, though he +never complained of old, and never exults now. Fanny is very graceful, +quick, and clever. It is natural to her to be a lady; she has adapted +herself to our new fortunes with wonderful ease. + +This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I sometimes +almost despair of ever being able to do so. I find that I cannot learn. +Mrs General is always with us, and we speak French and speak Italian, +and she takes pains to form us in many ways. When I say we speak French +and Italian, I mean they do. As for me, I am so slow that I scarcely +get on at all. As soon as I begin to plan, and think, and try, all my +planning, thinking, and trying go in old directions, and I begin to feel +careful again about the expenses of the day, and about my dear father, +and about my work, and then I remember with a start that there are no +such cares left, and that in itself is so new and improbable that it +sets me wandering again. I should not have the courage to mention this +to any one but you. + +It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights. +They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not collected +enough--not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite understand +what I mean--to have all the pleasure in them that I might have. What +I knew before them, blends with them, too, so curiously. For instance, +when we were among the mountains, I often felt (I hesitate to tell such +an idle thing, dear Mr Clennam, even to you) as if the Marshalsea must +be behind that great rock; or as if Mrs Clennam’s room where I have +worked so many days, and where I first saw you, must be just beyond that +snow. Do you remember one night when I came with Maggy to your lodging +in Covent Garden? That room I have often and often fancied I have seen +before me, travelling along for miles by the side of our carriage, when +I have looked out of the carriage-window after dark. We were shut out +that night, and sat at the iron gate, and walked about till morning. +I often look up at the stars, even from the balcony of this room, and +believe that I am in the street again, shut out with Maggy. It is the +same with people that I left in England. + +When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into other +gondolas as if I hoped to see them. It would overcome me with joy to +see them, but I don’t think it would surprise me much, at first. In my +fanciful times, I fancy that they might be anywhere; and I almost expect +to see their dear faces on the bridges or the quays. + +Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you. It must +seem very strange to any one but me, and does even to me: I often feel +the old sad pity for--I need not write the word--for him. Changed as he +is, and inexpressibly blest and thankful as I always am to know it, the +old sorrowful feeling of compassion comes upon me sometimes with such +strength that I want to put my arms round his neck, tell him how I love +him, and cry a little on his breast. I should be glad after that, and +proud and happy. But I know that I must not do this; that he would not +like it, that Fanny would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed; +and so I quiet myself. Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that +I have come to be at a distance from him; and that even in the midst of +all the servants and attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me. + +Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I must +write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say in this +weak letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish thoughts of +mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you because I know you +will understand me if anybody can, and will make more allowance for me +than anybody else would if you cannot--in all these thoughts, there is +one thought scarcely ever--never--out of my memory, and that is that +I hope you sometimes, in a quiet moment, have a thought for me. I must +tell you that as to this, I have felt, ever since I have been away, an +anxiety which I am very anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you +may think of me in a new light, or a new character. Don’t do that, I +could not bear that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose. +It would break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way +that would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to +me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think +of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never think of me +as dressing any better, or living any better, than when you first +knew me. That you will remember me only as the little shabby girl you +protected with so much tenderness, from whose threadbare dress you have +kept away the rain, and whose wet feet you have dried at your fire. +That you will think of me (when you think of me at all), and of my true +affection and devoted gratitude, always without change, as of + + + Your poor child, + + LITTLE DORRIT. + + +P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs +Gowan. Her words were, ‘Very well and very happy.’ And she looked most +beautiful. + + + + +CHAPTER 5. Something Wrong Somewhere + + +The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was +much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour +of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference +with Mrs General. + +The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his +valet, to Mrs General’s apartment (which would have absorbed about a +third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that +lady, and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview. It being +that period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had +coffee in their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at +breakfast in a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now +the prey of watery vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was +accessible to the valet. That envoy found her on a little square of +carpet, so extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone +and marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for +the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come into +possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty purses by +one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had that moment been +transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial saloon with which it had +no connection. + +Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty +coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit’s +apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his +gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and +escorted Mrs General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by mysterious +staircases and corridors, from Mrs General’s apartment,--hoodwinked by +a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like +opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with a thousand downward +stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture in them had been weeping +tears of rust into the Adriatic for centuries--to Mr Dorrit’s apartment: +with a whole English house-front of window, a prospect of beautiful +church-domes rising into the blue sky sheer out of the water which +reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the +doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure, +drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles. + +Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub that +had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare +butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General. A chair to Mrs General. An +easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you +mean? Now, leave us! + +‘Mrs General,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I took the liberty--’ + +‘By no means,’ Mrs General interposed. ‘I was quite at your disposition. +I had had my coffee.’ + +‘--I took the liberty,’ said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent +placidity of one who was above correction, ‘to solicit the favour of +a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather worried +respecting my--ha--my younger daughter. You will have observed a great +difference of temperament, madam, between my two daughters?’ + +Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never +without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), ‘There is a +great difference.’ + +‘May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?’ said Mr Dorrit, with a +deference not incompatible with majestic serenity. + +‘Fanny,’ returned Mrs General, ‘has force of character and +self-reliance. Amy, none.’ + +None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs General, +ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who +taught her sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General, ask me, her +father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this +slighted little creature from her childhood up! + +No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit’s head. He looked at Mrs +General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the +proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, ‘True, madam.’ + +‘I would not,’ said Mrs General, ‘be understood to say, observe, +that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material +there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.’ + +‘Will you be kind enough, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘to be--ha--more +explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter’s having--hum--too +much material. What material?’ + +‘Fanny,’ returned Mrs General, ‘at present forms too many opinions. +Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.’ + +Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr Dorrit +hastened to reply, ‘Unquestionably, madam, you are right.’ Mrs General +returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, ‘I believe so.’ + +‘But you are aware, my dear madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘that my daughters +had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very +young; and that, in consequence of my not having been until lately +the recognised heir to my property, they have lived with me as +a comparatively poor, though always proud, gentleman, in--ha +hum--retirement!’ + +‘I do not,’ said Mrs General, ‘lose sight of the circumstance.’ + +‘Madam,’ pursued Mr Dorrit, ‘of my daughter Fanny, under her present +guidance and with such an example constantly before her--’ + +(Mrs General shut her eyes.) + +--‘I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in Fanny. +But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and vexes my +thoughts. I must inform you that she has always been my favourite.’ + +‘There is no accounting,’ said Mrs General, ‘for these partialities.’ + +‘Ha--no,’ assented Mr Dorrit. ‘No. Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing +that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does not care to go +about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes +are evidently not her tastes. Which,’ said Mr Dorrit, summing up with +judicial gravity, ‘is to say, in other words, that there is something +wrong in--ha--Amy.’ + +‘May we incline to the supposition,’ said Mrs General, with a little +touch of varnish, ‘that something is referable to the novelty of the +position?’ + +‘Excuse me, madam,’ observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. ‘The daughter +of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time comparatively far from +affluent--comparatively--and herself reared in--hum--retirement, need +not of necessity find this position so very novel.’ + +‘True,’ said Mrs General, ‘true.’ + +‘Therefore, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I took the liberty’ (he laid an +emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with +urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), ‘I took the +liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the +topic to you, and inquire how you would advise me?’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ returned Mrs General, ‘I have conversed with Amy several +times since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the +formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering +exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to +wonder. I have pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr Eustace, the +classical tourist, did not think much of it; and that he compared the +Rialto, greatly to its disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars +Bridges. I need not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet +found my arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to +advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a baseless +assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been accustomed to +exercise influence over the minds of others.’ + +‘Hum--madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I have been at the head of--ha of +a considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not +unaccustomed to--an influential position.’ + +‘I am happy,’ returned Mrs General, ‘to be so corroborated. I would +therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit should speak to +Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her. Being +his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached to him, she is all the +more likely to yield to his influence.’ + +‘I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, +‘but--ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--’ + +‘On my province, Mr Dorrit?’ said Mrs General, graciously. ‘Do not +mention it.’ + +‘Then, with your leave, madam,’ resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his little +bell to summon his valet, ‘I will send for her at once.’ + +‘Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?’ + +‘Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for a +minute or two--’ + +‘Not at all.’ + +So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy’s maid, and to +request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit wished to +see her in his own room. In delivering this charge to Tinkler, Mr Dorrit +looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous eye upon him until he +went out at the door, mistrusting that he might have something in his +mind prejudicial to the family dignity; that he might have even got wind +of some Collegiate joke before he came into the service, and might be +derisively reviving its remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler +had happened to smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would +have persuaded Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was +the case. As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to +be of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger +that threatened him. And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him +again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he left a +vague impression on Mr Dorrit’s mind that he was a well-conducted young +fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his Catechism by a +widowed mother. + +‘Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘you have just now been the subject of some +conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you scarcely +seem at home here. Ha--how is this?’ + +A pause. + +‘I think, father, I require a little time.’ + +‘Papa is a preferable mode of address,’ observed Mrs General. ‘Father is +rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to +the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very +good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism. You will find it +serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to +yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes, +poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.’ + +‘Pray, my child,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘attend to the--hum--precepts of Mrs +General.’ + +Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent +varnisher, promised to try. + +‘You say, Amy,’ pursued Mr Dorrit, ‘that you think you require time. +Time for what?’ + +Another pause. + +‘To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,’ said +Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she had very +nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire +to submit herself to Mrs General and please him. + +Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. ‘Amy,’ he returned, +‘it appears to me, I must say, that you have had abundance of time for +that. Ha--you surprise me. You disappoint me. Fanny has conquered any +such little difficulties, and--hum--why not you?’ + +‘I hope I shall do better soon,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘I hope so,’ returned her father. ‘I--ha--I most devoutly hope so, Amy. +I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively say, in +the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much indebted +for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or any other +occasion,’ Mrs General shut her eyes, ‘that I--ha hum--am not pleased +with you. You make Mrs General’s a thankless task. You--ha--embarrass +me very much. You have always (as I have informed Mrs General) been my +favourite child; I have always made you a--hum--a friend and companion; +in return, I beg--I--ha--I _do_ beg, that you accommodate yourself +better to--hum--circumstances, and dutifully do what becomes your--your +station.’ + +Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being excited +on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly emphatic. + +‘I do beg,’ he repeated, ‘that this may be attended to, and that you +will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a manner both +becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and satisfactory to +myself and Mrs General.’ + +That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, slowly +opening them and rising, added these words: + +‘If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of +my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have +no further cause of anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking, +as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at +vagrants with the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a +very dear young friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing +disagreeable should ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing +in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive +of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A +truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything +that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.’ Having delivered +this exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a sweeping obeisance, and +retired with an expression of mouth indicative of Prunes and Prism. + +Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet +earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except for a +passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone with him +the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was +repressed emotion in her face. + +Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was not +for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to +him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession +to fortune, that even now she could never see him as he used to be +before the prison days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind. +She felt that, in what he had just now said to her and in his whole +bearing towards her, there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea +wall. It took a new shape, but it was the old sad shadow. She began +with sorrowful unwillingness to acknowledge to herself that she was +not strong enough to keep off the fear that no space in the life of man +could overcome that quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had +no blame to bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with, +no emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded +tenderness. + +This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the +brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and +the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the +long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her +seat beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with +him, and of usefulness to him. If he divined what was in her thoughts, +his own were not in tune with it. After some uneasy moving in his seat, +he got up and walked about, looking very much dissatisfied. + +‘Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?’ + +‘No, no. Nothing else.’ + +‘I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you will not +think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more than ever, to +adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me--for indeed I have tried +all along, though I have failed, I know.’ + +‘Amy,’ he returned, turning short upon her. ‘You--ha--habitually hurt +me.’ + +‘Hurt you, father! I!’ + +‘There is a--hum--a topic,’ said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the +ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly shocked +face, ‘a painful topic, a series of events which I wish--ha--altogether +to obliterate. This is understood by your sister, who has already +remonstrated with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother; +it is understood by--ha hum--by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness +except yourself--ha--I am sorry to say, except yourself. You, +Amy--hum--you alone and only you--constantly revive the topic, though +not in words.’ + +She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently touched +him. The trembling hand may have said, with some expression, ‘Think of +me, think how I have worked, think of my many cares!’ But she said not a +syllable herself. + +There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had +not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to justify +himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made nothing of it. + +‘I was there all those years. I was--ha--universally acknowledged as +the head of the place. I--hum--I caused you to be respected there, Amy. +I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there. I deserve a return. I +claim a return. I say, sweep it off the face of the earth and begin +afresh. Is that much? I ask, is _that_ much?’ + +He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way; but +gesticulated at, and appealed to, the empty air. + +‘I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered better than +any one--ha--I say than any one! If _I_ can put that aside, if _I_ can +eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge before the +world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted--is it a great deal to +expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect--that my children +should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed experience off the face +of the earth?’ + +In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in a +carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear anything. + +‘Accordingly, they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does it. You +alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and companion of my +life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it. You alone say you +can’t do it. I provide you with valuable assistance to do it. I attach +an accomplished and highly bred lady--ha--Mrs General, to you, for the +purpose of doing it. Is it surprising that I should be displeased? Is it +necessary that I should defend myself for expressing my displeasure? +No!’ + +Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any +abatement of his flushed mood. + +‘I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I express +any displeasure at all. I--hum--I necessarily make that appeal within +limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by that lady, what I +desire to be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I complain for my own sake? +No. No. Principally for--ha hum--your sake, Amy.’ + +This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of pursuing +it, to have just that instant come into his head. + +‘I said I was hurt. So I am. So I--ha--am determined to be, whatever +is advanced to the contrary. I am hurt that my daughter, seated in +the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and proclaim herself +unequal to her destiny. I am hurt that she should--ha--systematically +reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and seem--hum--I had almost said +positively anxious--to announce to wealthy and distinguished society +that she was born and bred in--ha hum--a place that I myself decline to +name. But there is no inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling +hurt, and yet complaining principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say +again, I do. It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of +Mrs General, to form a--hum--a surface. It is for your sake that I wish +you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking words of +Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not perfectly proper, +placid, and pleasant.’ + +He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a +sort of ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He fell +silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little while, +looked down at her. Her head drooped, and he could not see her face; but +her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression of her dejected +figure there was no blame--nothing but love. He began to whimper, just +as he had done that night in the prison when she afterwards sat at +his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he was a poor ruin and a poor +wretch in the midst of his wealth; and clasped her in his arms. ‘Hush, +hush, my own dear! Kiss me!’ was all she said to him. His tears +were soon dried, much sooner than on the former occasion; and he was +presently afterwards very high with his valet, as a way of righting +himself for having shed any. + +With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this was +the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he spoke to his +daughter Amy of the old days. + +But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from her +apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young persons of +distinction were something the worse for late hours. As to Miss Fanny, +she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for what she called +‘going into society;’ and would have gone into it head-foremost fifty +times between sunset and sunrise, if so many opportunities had been at +her disposal. As to Mr Edward, he, too, had a large acquaintance, and +was generally engaged (for the most part, in diceing circles, or others +of a kindred nature), during the greater part of every night. For this +gentleman, when his fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage +of being already prepared for the highest associates, and having little +to learn: so much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made +him acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking. + +At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old +gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might have +practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by the other +inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose the restoration +to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had ordered to be confiscated, +but which she had ventured to preserve. Notwithstanding some objections +from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she detested the +sound of it, the concession had been made. But it was then discovered +that he had had enough of it, and never played it, now that it was no +longer his means of getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new +habit of shuffling into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted +paper of snuff in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who +had proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might +not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when it was +bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits of renowned +Venetians. It was never made out what his dazed eyes saw in them; +whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures, or whether he +confusedly identified them with a glory that was departed, like the +strength of his own mind. But he paid his court to them with great +exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the pursuit. After the +first few days, Little Dorrit happened one morning to assist at these +attentions. It so evidently heightened his gratification that she often +accompanied him afterwards, and the greatest delight of which the old +man had shown himself susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these +excursions, when he would carry a chair about for her from picture +to picture, and stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances, +silently presenting her to the noble Venetians. + +It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their having +seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and gentleman whom they +had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, ‘I forget the name,’ said +he. ‘I dare say you remember them, William? I dare say you do, Edward?’ + +‘_I_ remember ‘em well enough,’ said the latter. + +‘I should think so,’ observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head and +a glance at her sister. ‘But they would not have been recalled to our +remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn’t tumbled over the subject.’ + +‘My dear, what a curious phrase,’ said Mrs General. ‘Would not +inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be better?’ + +‘Thank you very much, Mrs General,’ returned the young lady, ‘no, I +think not. On the whole I prefer my own expression.’ + +This was always Miss Fanny’s way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs +General. But she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at +another time. + +‘I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,’ said +Little Dorrit, ‘even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen you since, +you know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; because I should +like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become better acquainted with +her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.’ + +‘Well, Amy,’ said Fanny, ‘I am sure I am glad to find you at last +expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in Venice. +Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable acquaintances, remains to +be determined.’ + +‘Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.’ + +‘No doubt,’ said Fanny. ‘But you can’t separate her from her husband, I +believe, without an Act of Parliament.’ + +‘Do you think, Papa,’ inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and +hesitation, ‘there is any objection to my making this visit?’ + +‘Really,’ he replied, ‘I--ha--what is Mrs General’s view?’ + +Mrs General’s view was, that not having the honour of any acquaintance +with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not in a position +to varnish the present article. She could only remark, as a general +principle observed in the varnishing trade, that much depended on the +quarter from which the lady under consideration was accredited to a +family so conspicuously niched in the social temple as the family of +Dorrit. + +At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was about +(connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the name +of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former state of +existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when Edward Dorrit, +Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass in his eye, and the +preliminary remark of ‘I say--you there! Go out, will you!’--which was +addressed to a couple of men who were handing the dishes round, as a +courteous intimation that their services could be temporarily dispensed +with. + +Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire, +proceeded. + +‘Perhaps it’s a matter of policy to let you all know that these +Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman’s, I can’t be +supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people of +importance, if that makes any difference.’ + +‘That, I would say,’ observed the fair varnisher, ‘Makes the greatest +difference. The connection in question, being really people of +importance and consideration--’ + +‘As to that,’ said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, ‘I’ll give you the means of +judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the famous name +of Merdle?’ + +‘The great Merdle!’ exclaimed Mrs General. + +‘_The_ Merdle,’ said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. ‘They are known to him. +Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend’s mother--is intimate +with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their visiting list.’ + +‘If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,’ said Mrs +General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if she +were doing homage to some visible graven image. + +‘I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,’ Mr Dorrit +observed, with a decided change in his manner, ‘how he becomes possessed +of this--hum--timely information?’ + +‘It’s not a long story, sir,’ returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, ‘and you +shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the lady you had +the parley with at what’s-his-name place.’ + +‘Martigny,’ interposed Miss Fanny with an air of infinite languor. + +‘Martigny,’ assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight wink; +in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and laughed and +reddened. + +‘How can that be, Edward?’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘You informed me that the +name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha--Sparkler. Indeed, +you showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler.’ + +‘No doubt of it, father; but it doesn’t follow that his mother’s name +must be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is her son. She +is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of her, as you decide +to winter there. Sparkler is just come here. I passed last evening in +company with Sparkler. Sparkler is a very good fellow on the +whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in consequence of being +tremendously smitten with a certain young lady.’ Here Edward Dorrit, +Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his glass across the table. ‘We +happened last night to compare notes about our travels, and I had the +information I have given you from Sparkler himself.’ Here he ceased; +continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face much +twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his +glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile. + +‘Under these circumstances,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I believe I express the +sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say +that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to your +gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this desire,’ said +Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, ‘as an auspicious +omen. It is quite right to know these people. It is a very proper +thing. Mr Merdle’s is a name of--ha--world-wide repute. Mr Merdle’s +undertakings are immense. They bring him in such vast sums of money that +they are regarded as--hum--national benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of +this time. The name of Merdle is the name of the age. Pray do everything +on my behalf that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will +certainly notice them.’ + +This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit’s recognition settled the +matter. It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, and +forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any time, +except by Little Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the meal +proceeded to its conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the table. +Little Dorrit rose and left the table. When Edward and Fanny remained +whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit remained eating figs +and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly fixed the attention of +all three by rising out of his chair, striking his hand upon the table, +and saying, ‘Brother! I protest against it!’ + +If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up the +ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his audience +more. The paper fell from Mr Dorrit’s hand, and he sat petrified, with a +fig half way to his mouth. + +‘Brother!’ said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his +trembling voice, ‘I protest against it! I love you; you know I love you +dearly. In these many years I have never been untrue to you in a single +thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have struck any man who spoke +ill of you. But, brother, brother, brother, I protest against it!’ + +It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a +decrepit man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair rose on +his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which had faded from +them for five-and-twenty years, started out again, and there was an +energy in his hand that made its action nervous once more. + +‘My dear Frederick!’ exclaimed Mr Dorrit faintly. ‘What is wrong? What +is the matter?’ + +‘How dare you,’ said the old man, turning round on Fanny, ‘how dare you +do it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?’ + +‘Uncle?’ cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, ‘why do you +attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?’ + +‘Done?’ returned the old man, pointing to her sister’s place, ‘where’s +your affectionate invaluable friend? Where’s your devoted guardian? +Where’s your more than mother? How dare you set up superiorities against +all these characters combined in your sister? For shame, you false girl, +for shame!’ + +‘I love Amy,’ cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, ‘as well as I love +my life--better than I love my life. I don’t deserve to be so treated. I +am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it’s possible for any +human being to be. I wish I was dead. I never was so wickedly wronged. +And only because I am anxious for the family credit.’ + +‘To the winds with the family credit!’ cried the old man, with great +scorn and indignation. ‘Brother, I protest against pride. I protest +against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us here who have known +what we have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any +pretension that puts Amy at a moment’s disadvantage, or to the cost of +a moment’s pain. We may know that it’s a base pretension by its having +that effect. It ought to bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest +against it in the sight of God!’ + +As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might +have been a blacksmith’s. After a few moments’ silence, it had relaxed +into its usual weak condition. He went round to his brother with his +ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a +softened voice, ‘William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me, +for I felt obliged to say it!’ and then went, in his bowed way, out of +the palace hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room. + +All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still continued to +do so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, had not opened his +lips, and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit also had been utterly +discomfited, and quite unable to assert himself in any way. Fanny was +now the first to speak. + +‘I never, never, never was so used!’ she sobbed. ‘There never was +anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and cruel! +Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if she could know +that she had been innocently the means of exposing me to such treatment! +But I’ll never tell her! No, good darling, I’ll never tell her!’ + +This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence. + +‘My dear,’ said he, ‘I--ha--approve of your resolution. It will be--ha +hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might--hum--it +might distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her greatly. It +is considerate and right to avoid doing so. We will--ha--keep this to +ourselves.’ + +‘But the cruelty of Uncle!’ cried Miss Fanny. ‘O, I never can forgive +the wanton cruelty of Uncle!’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained +unusually pale, ‘I must request you not to say so. You must remember +that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was. You must remember +that your uncle’s state requires--hum--great forbearance from us, great +forbearance.’ + +‘I am sure,’ cried Fanny, piteously, ‘it is only charitable to suppose +that there must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he never could +have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.’ + +‘Fanny,’ returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, ‘you know, with +his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is; and, I +entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the fidelity +that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw your own +conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.’ + +This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing throughout, +but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss Fanny awakened +much affectionate uneasiness in her sister’s mind that day by passing +the greater part of it in violent fits of embracing her, and in +alternately giving her brooches, and wishing herself dead. + + + + +CHAPTER 6. Something Right Somewhere + + +To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two +powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding +promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral +ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind, +which time is not likely to improve. The worst class of sum worked in +the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are +always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of +others, and never in Addition as to their own. + +The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented +boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A +certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of +it. To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is +one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose +with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it. + +In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting +that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal +fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have more power in his +little finger (provided he had none), than such another had (provided he +had much) in his whole mind and body. If the objection were taken that +the thing commended was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, ‘My +good fellow, what do we all turn out but trash? _I_ turn out nothing else, +and I make you a present of the confession.’ + +To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his +splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of showing +that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the +Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he belonged to the family. +Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed +them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together, +and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his +light disparagement of his claims on anybody’s consideration. + +Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be understood, +wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes +of his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to +countenance her. He never made the representation, on the contrary +seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his +pains to depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position. +From the days of their honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being +usually regarded as the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying +her, but whose chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality. + +To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and +at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of +Gowan. When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva, +Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had +remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle +the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a +five-franc piece on the terms, ‘Tails, kick; heads, encourage,’ and +abiding by the voice of the oracle. It chanced, however, that his wife +expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance +of feeling in the hotel was against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to +encourage him. + +Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it was +not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and +very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find +out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a man? In the first +place, he opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife, +because her father had paid his debts and it was desirable to take an +early opportunity of asserting his independence. In the second place, +he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of +being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in +declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought +to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a +pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making +him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces. +He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the +address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease +of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and +unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in the +manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him and to +every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun +belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which +he found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of +numbers of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois +overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently +strengthening these inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some +amusement from his talk, he had glided into a way of having him for +a companion. This, though he supposed him to live by his wits at +play-tables and the like; though he suspected him to be a coward, while +he himself was daring and courageous; though he thoroughly knew him to +be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared so little for him, after all, +that if he had given her any tangible personal cause to regard him with +aversion, he would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out +of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city. + +Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan, +alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle’s protest, +though it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her +company, the two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under +Mr Dorrit’s window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in +high state to Mrs Gowan’s lodging. In truth, their state was rather too +high for the lodging, which was, as Fanny complained, ‘fearfully out of +the way,’ and which took them through a complexity of narrow streets of +water, which the same lady disparaged as ‘mere ditches.’ + +The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken +away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present +anchorage in company with a vine almost as much in want of training as +the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves. The features of the +surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about +it, which had been under suppositious repair so long that the means of +repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay; +a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses +at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like +rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; +and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all +hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of +them. + +On the first-floor of the house was a Bank--a surprising experience for +any gentleman of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from +a British city--where two spare clerks, like dried dragoons, in green +velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small +counter in a small room, containing no other visible objects than an +empty iron-safe with the door open, a jug of water, and a papering of +garland of roses; but who, on lawful requisition, by merely dipping +their hands out of sight, could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc +pieces. Below the Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred +windows, which had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats. Above the +Bank was Mrs Gowan’s residence. + +Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were +bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; notwithstanding +that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the +prevailing Venetian odour of bilge water and an ebb tide on a weedy +shore was very strong; the place was better within, than it promised. +The door was opened by a smiling man like a reformed assassin--a +temporary servant--who ushered them into the room where Mrs Gowan sat, +with the announcement that two beautiful English ladies were come to see +the mistress. + +Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a +covered basket, and rose, a little hurriedly. Miss Fanny was excessively +courteous to her, and said the usual nothings with the skill of a +veteran. + +‘Papa was extremely sorry,’ proceeded Fanny, ‘to be engaged to-day (he +is so much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly large!); +and particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr Gowan. That I may +be sure to acquit myself of a commission which he impressed upon me at +least a dozen times, allow me to relieve my conscience by placing it on +the table at once.’ + +Which she did with veteran ease. + +‘We have been,’ said Fanny, ‘charmed to understand that you know the +Merdles. We hope it may be another means of bringing us together.’ + +‘They are friends,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘of Mr Gowan’s family. I have not +yet had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, but I +suppose I shall be presented to her at Rome.’ + +‘Indeed?’ returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching her +own superiority. ‘I think you’ll like her.’ + +‘You know her very well?’ + +‘Why, you see,’ said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty shoulders, +‘in London one knows every one. We met her on our way here, and, to say +the truth, papa was at first rather cross with her for taking one of the +rooms that our people had ordered for us. However, of course, that soon +blew over, and we were all good friends again.’ + +Although the visit had as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of +conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between +them, which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated +interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was +near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit. +She was quicker to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other +case--but one. + +‘You have been quite well,’ she now said, ‘since that night?’ + +‘Quite, my dear. And you?’ + +‘Oh! I am always well,’ said Little Dorrit, timidly. ‘I--yes, thank you.’ + +There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that +Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had +met. Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had +checked Little Dorrit in an instant. + +‘You don’t know that you are a favourite of my husband’s, and that I am +almost bound to be jealous of you?’ said Mrs Gowan. + +Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head. + +‘He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are +quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.’ + +‘He speaks far too well of me,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘I doubt that; but I don’t at all doubt that I must tell him you +are here. I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you--and Miss +Dorrit--go, without doing so. May I? You can excuse the disorder and +discomfort of a painter’s studio?’ + +The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that +she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs Gowan went to +a door, looked in beyond it, and came back. ‘Do Henry the favour to come +in,’ said she, ‘I knew he would be pleased!’ + +The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was +Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing +on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint +Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him. She +recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at her. + +‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door. +‘It’s only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model to-day. I am making +a study of him. It saves me money to turn him to some use. We poor +painters have none to spare.’ + +Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies +without coming out of his corner. + +‘A thousand pardons!’ said he. ‘But the Professore here is so inexorable +with me, that I am afraid to stir.’ + +‘Don’t stir, then,’ said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached the +easel. ‘Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they +may know what it’s meant for. There he stands, you see. A bravo waiting +for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the +common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger +waiting to do somebody a good turn--whatever you think he looks most +like!’ + +‘Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to +elegance and beauty,’ remarked Blandois. + +‘Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,’ returned Gowan, touching the painted +face with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, ‘a +murderer after the fact. Show that white hand of yours, Blandois. Put it +outside the cloak. Keep it still.’ + +Blandois’ hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally +shake it. + +‘He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a +victim, you observe,’ said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand +with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, ‘and these are the tokens of +it. Outside the cloak, man!--Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking +of?’ + +Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more; +now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance; +and now he stood in the required position, with a little new swagger. + +His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit +stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once attracted by +his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked +at each other all the time. She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and +supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she +caressed in her hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at +her to say, ‘He won’t hurt you, Miss Dorrit.’ + +‘I am not afraid of him,’ she returned in the same breath; ‘but will you +look at him?’ + +In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog with +both hands by the collar. + +‘Blandois! How can you be such a fool as to provoke him! By Heaven, and +the other place too, he’ll tear you to bits! Lie down! Lion! Do you hear +my voice, you rebel!’ + +The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was +obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, resolved to +get across the room. He had been crouching for a spring at the moment +when his master caught him. + +‘Lion! Lion!’ He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle between +master and dog. ‘Get back! Down, Lion! Get out of his sight, Blandois! +What devil have you conjured into the dog?’ + +‘I have done nothing to him.’ + +‘Get out of his sight or I can’t hold the wild beast! Get out of the +room! By my soul, he’ll kill you!’ + +The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle as Blandois +vanished; then, in the moment of the dog’s submission, the master, +little less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, and +standing over him, struck him many times severely with the heel of his +boot, so that his mouth was presently bloody. + +‘Now get you into that corner and lie down,’ said Gowan, ‘or I’ll take +you out and shoot you.’ + +Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and chest. +Lion’s master stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, recovering +his usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to his frightened wife +and her visitors. Probably the whole occurrence had not occupied two +minutes. + +‘Come, come, Minnie! You know he is always good-humoured and tractable. +Blandois must have irritated him,--made faces at him. The dog has his +likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but +I am sure you will give him a character, Minnie, for never having been +like this before.’ + +Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; Little +Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had cried out +twice or thrice, held Gowan’s arm for protection; Lion, deeply ashamed +of having caused them this alarm, came trailing himself along the ground +to the feet of his mistress. + +‘You furious brute,’ said Gowan, striking him with his foot again. ‘You +shall do penance for this.’ And he struck him again, and yet again. + +‘O, pray don’t punish him any more,’ cried Little Dorrit. ‘Don’t hurt +him. See how gentle he is!’ At her entreaty, Gowan spared him; and he +deserved her intercession, for truly he was as submissive, and as sorry, +and as wretched as a dog could be. + +It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit unrestrained, +even though Fanny had not been, under the best of circumstances, the +least trifle in the way. In such further communication as passed among +them before the sisters took their departure, Little Dorrit fancied it +was revealed to her that Mr Gowan treated his wife, even in his very +fondness, too much like a beautiful child. He seemed so unsuspicious of +the depths of feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that +she doubted if there could be any such depths in himself. She wondered +whether his want of earnestness might be the natural result of his want +of such qualities, and whether it was with people as with ships, that, +in too shallow and rocky waters, their anchors had no hold, and they +drifted anywhere. + +He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the +poor quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, and +remarking that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his relatives, who +would be dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him with better, he would +live in better to oblige them. At the water’s edge they were saluted by +Blandois, who looked white enough after his late adventure, but who made +very light of it notwithstanding,--laughing at the mention of Lion. + +Leaving the two together under the scrap of vine upon the causeway, +Gowan idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and Blandois +lighting a cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in state as they had +come. They had not glided on for many minutes, when Little Dorrit became +aware that Fanny was more showy in manner than the occasion appeared to +require, and, looking about for the cause through the window and through +the open door, saw another gondola evidently in waiting on them. + +As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways; +sometimes shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; sometimes, +when the way was broad enough, skimming along side by side with them; +and sometimes following close astern; and as Fanny gradually made no +disguise that she was playing off graces upon somebody within it, of +whom she at the same time feigned to be unconscious; Little Dorrit at +length asked who it was? + +To which Fanny made the short answer, ‘That gaby.’ + +‘Who?’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘My dear child,’ returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before her +Uncle’s protest she might have said, You little fool, instead), ‘how +slow you are! Young Sparkler.’ + +She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting her +elbow on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan of black +and gold. The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward again, with some +swift trace of an eye in the window, Fanny laughed coquettishly and +said, ‘Did you ever see such a fool, my love?’ + +‘Do you think he means to follow you all the way?’ asked Little Dorrit. + +‘My precious child,’ returned Fanny, ‘I can’t possibly answer for what +an idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think it highly +probable. It’s not such an enormous distance. All Venice would scarcely +be that, I imagine, if he’s dying for a glimpse of me.’ + +‘And is he?’ asked Little Dorrit in perfect simplicity. + +‘Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to answer,’ +said her sister. ‘I believe he is. You had better ask Edward. He tells +Edward he is, I believe. I understand he makes a perfect spectacle of +himself at the Casino, and that sort of places, by going on about me. +But you had better ask Edward if you want to know.’ + +‘I wonder he doesn’t call,’ said Little Dorrit after thinking a moment. + +‘My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly informed. +I should not be at all surprised if he called to-day. The creature has +only been waiting to get his courage up, I suspect.’ + +‘Will you see him?’ + +‘Indeed, my darling,’ said Fanny, ‘that’s just as it may happen. Here he +is again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!’ + +Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the +window like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for stopping his +bark suddenly, except the real reason. + +‘When you asked me if I will see him, my dear,’ said Fanny, almost as +well composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as Mrs Merdle +herself, ‘what do you mean?’ + +‘I mean,’ said Little Dorrit--‘I think I rather mean what do you mean, +dear Fanny?’ + +Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and +affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully +affectionate way: + +‘Now tell me, my little pet. When we saw that woman at Martigny, how +did you think she carried it off? Did you see what she decided on in a +moment?’ + +‘No, Fanny.’ + +‘Then I’ll tell you, Amy. She settled with herself, now I’ll never +refer to that meeting under such different circumstances, and I’ll never +pretend to have any idea that these are the same girls. That’s _her_ way +out of a difficulty. What did I tell you when we came away from Harley +Street that time? She is as insolent and false as any woman in the +world. But in the first capacity, my love, she may find people who can +match her.’ + +A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny’s bosom, indicated +with great expression where one of these people was to be found. + +‘Not only that,’ pursued Fanny, ‘but she gives the same charge to +Young Sparkler; and doesn’t let him come after me until she has got it +thoroughly into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles (for one +really can’t call it a head), that he is to pretend to have been first +struck with me in that Inn Yard.’ + +‘Why?’ asked Little Dorrit. + +‘Why? Good gracious, my love!’ (again very much in the tone of You +stupid little creature) ‘how can you ask? Don’t you see that I may have +become a rather desirable match for a noddle? And don’t you see that she +puts the deception upon us, and makes a pretence, while she shifts it +from her own shoulders (very good shoulders they are too, I must say),’ +observed Miss Fanny, glancing complacently at herself, ‘of considering +our feelings?’ + +‘But we can always go back to the plain truth.’ + +‘Yes, but if you please we won’t,’ retorted Fanny. ‘No; I am not going +to have that done, Amy. The pretext is none of mine; it’s hers, and she +shall have enough of it.’ + +In the triumphant exaltation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her +Spanish fan with one hand, squeezed her sister’s waist with the other, +as if she were crushing Mrs Merdle. + +‘No,’ repeated Fanny. ‘She shall find me go her way. She took it, and +I’ll follow it. And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, I’ll go on +improving that woman’s acquaintance until I have given her maid, +before her eyes, things from my dressmaker’s ten times as handsome and +expensive as she once gave me from hers!’ + +Little Dorrit was silent; sensible that she was not to be heard on +any question affecting the family dignity, and unwilling to lose to no +purpose her sister’s newly and unexpectedly restored favour. She could +not concur, but she was silent. Fanny well knew what she was thinking +of; so well, that she soon asked her. + +Her reply was, ‘Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?’ + +‘Encourage him, my dear?’ said her sister, smiling contemptuously, ‘that +depends upon what you call encourage. No, I don’t mean to encourage him. +But I’ll make a slave of him.’ + +Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny +was not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of black and +gold, and used it to tap her sister’s nose; with the air of a proud +beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a +homely companion. + +‘I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him subject +to me. And if I don’t make his mother subject to me, too, it shall not +be my fault.’ + +‘Do you think--dear Fanny, don’t be offended, we are so comfortable +together now--that you can quite see the end of that course?’ + +‘I can’t say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear,’ answered +Fanny, with supreme indifference; ‘all in good time. Such are my +intentions. And really they have taken me so long to develop, that here +we are at home. And Young Sparkler at the door, inquiring who is within. +By the merest accident, of course!’ + +In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card-case in +hand, affecting to put the question to a servant. This conjunction +of circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting himself +before the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient times would not +have been considered one of favourable augury for his suit; since the +gondoliers of the young ladies, having been put to some inconvenience +by the chase, so neatly brought their own boat in the gentlest collision +with the bark of Mr Sparkler, as to tip that gentleman over like a +larger species of ninepin, and cause him to exhibit the soles of his +shoes to the object of his dearest wishes: while the nobler portions of +his anatomy struggled at the bottom of his boat in the arms of one of +his men. + +However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the gentleman +hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been expected, and +stammered for himself with blushes, ‘Not at all so.’ Miss Fanny had no +recollection of having ever seen him before, and was passing on, with a +distant inclination of her head, when he announced himself by name. Even +then she was in a difficulty from being unable to call it to mind, until +he explained that he had had the honour of seeing her at Martigny. Then +she remembered him, and hoped his lady-mother was well. + +‘Thank you,’ stammered Mr Sparkler, ‘she’s uncommonly well--at least, +poorly.’ + +‘In Venice?’ said Miss Fanny. + +‘In Rome,’ Mr Sparkler answered. ‘I am here by myself, myself. I came to +call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself. Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit likewise. In +fact, upon the family.’ + +Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether her +papa or brother was within? The reply being that they were both within, +Mr Sparkler humbly offered his arm. Miss Fanny accepting it, was squired +up the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, who, if he still believed (which +there is not any reason to doubt) that she had no nonsense about her, +rather deceived himself. + +Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings, of a +sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they +might have claimed kindred with the waifs of seaweed drifting under +the windows, or clinging to the walls and weeping for their imprisoned +relations, Miss Fanny despatched emissaries for her father and brother. +Pending whose appearance, she showed to great advantage on a sofa, +completing Mr Sparkler’s conquest with some remarks upon Dante--known +to that gentleman as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File, +who used to put leaves round his head, and sit upon a stool for some +unaccountable purpose, outside the cathedral at Florence. + +Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most +courtly manners. He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle. He inquired +particularly after Mr Merdle. Mr Sparkler said, or rather twitched out +of himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle having +completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at +Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don’t you see, to remain in +London when there wasn’t a soul there, and not feeling herself this year +quite up to visiting about at people’s places, had resolved to have +a touch at Rome, where a woman like herself, with a proverbially fine +appearance, and with no nonsense about her, couldn’t fail to be a great +acquisition. As to Mr Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the +City and the rest of those places, and was such a doosed extraordinary +phenomenon in Buying and Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if +the monetary system of the country would be able to spare him; though +that his work was occasionally one too many for him, and that he would +be all the better for a temporary shy at an entirely new scene and +climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal. As to himself, Mr Sparkler +conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on rather particular +business, wherever they were going. + +This immense conversational achievement required time, but was effected. +Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr Sparkler would +shortly dine with them. Mr Sparkler received the idea so kindly that Mr +Dorrit asked what he was going to do that day, for instance? As he was +going to do nothing that day (his usual occupation, and one for which he +was particularly qualified), he was secured without postponement; being +further bound over to accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening. + +At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus’s son taking +after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending the great +staircase. If Fanny had been charming in the morning, she was now thrice +charming, very becomingly dressed in her most suitable colours, and with +an air of negligence upon her that doubled Mr Sparkler’s fetters, and +riveted them. + +‘I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler,’ said his host at dinner, +‘with--ha--Mr Gowan. Mr Henry Gowan?’ + +‘Perfectly, sir,’ returned Mr Sparkler. ‘His mother and my mother are +cronies in fact.’ + +‘If I had thought of it, Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as +magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, ‘you should have despatched +a note to them, asking them to dine to-day. Some of our people could +have--ha--fetched them, and taken them home. We could have spared +a--hum--gondola for that purpose. I am sorry to have forgotten this. +Pray remind me of them to-morrow.’ + +Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take their +patronage; but she promised not to fail in the reminder. + +‘Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint--ha--Portraits?’ inquired Mr Dorrit. + +Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the job. + +‘He has no particular walk?’ said Mr Dorrit. + +Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a +particular walk a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes; as, for +example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes. Whereas, he +believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of shoes. + +‘No speciality?’ said Mr Dorrit. + +This being a very long word for Mr Sparkler, and his mind being +exhausted by his late effort, he replied, ‘No, thank you. I seldom take +it.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘It would be very agreeable to me to present +a gentleman so connected, with some--ha--Testimonial of my desire to +further his interests, and develop the--hum--germs of his genius. I +think I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture. If the result should +be--ha--mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards engage him to try his +hand upon my family.’ + +The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr +Sparkler, that there was an opening here for saying there were some of +the family (emphasising ‘some’ in a marked manner) to whom no painter +could render justice. But, for want of a form of words in which to +express the idea, it returned to the skies. + +This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded the +notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it. She surmised, +she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by +marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for +dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to +give him the commission whether he could paint a likeness or not: though +indeed both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking +likeness on his easel that day, and having had the opportunity of +comparing it with the original. These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as +perhaps they were intended to do) nearly distracted; for while on +the one hand they expressed Miss Fanny’s susceptibility of the tender +passion, she herself showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his +admiration that his eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown +rival. + +Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it +at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an +attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box, +and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony. The theatre being +dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during the +representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in conversation +with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as she had little +confidences with them, and little disputes concerning the identity of +people in distant boxes, that the wretched Sparkler hated all mankind. +But he had two consolations at the close of the performance. She gave +him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his +blessed privilege to give her his arm down-stairs again. These crumbs of +encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is +not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too. + +The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other Mermen +with other lights were ready at many of the doors. The Dorrit Merman +held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another +heavy set of fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant +feet twinkling down the stairs beside him. Among the loiterers here, was +Blandois of Paris. He spoke, and moved forward beside Fanny. + +Little Dorrit was in front with her brother and Mrs General (Mr Dorrit +had remained at home), but on the brink of the quay they all came +together. She started again to find Blandois close to her, handing Fanny +into the boat. + +‘Gowan has had a loss,’ he said, ‘since he was made happy to-day by a +visit from fair ladies.’ + +‘A loss?’ repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, and +taking her seat. + +‘A loss,’ said Blandois. ‘His dog Lion.’ + +Little Dorrit’s hand was in his, as he spoke. + + +‘He is dead,’ said Blandois. + +‘Dead?’ echoed Little Dorrit. ‘That noble dog?’ + +‘Faith, dear ladies!’ said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his +shoulders, ‘somebody has poisoned that noble dog. He is as dead as the +Doges!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism + + +Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well +together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend, +and Mrs General’s very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard +as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had +never tried harder than she did now, to be varnished by Mrs General. It +made her anxious and ill at ease to be operated upon by that smoothing +hand, it is true; but she submitted herself to the family want in +its greatness as she had submitted herself to the family want in its +littleness, and yielded to her own inclinations in this thing no more +than she had yielded to her hunger itself, in the days when she had +saved her dinner that her father might have his supper. + +One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more +sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less devoted +and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles and sacrifices, +might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may often be observed in +life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not appear to reason half +as carefully as the folks who get the better of them. The continued +kindness of her sister was this comfort to Little Dorrit. It was nothing +to her that the kindness took the form of tolerant patronage; she was +used to that. It was nothing to her that it kept her in a tributary +position, and showed her in attendance on the flaming car in which Miss +Fanny sat on an elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better +place. Always admiring Fanny’s beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not +now asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached +to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny’s, she gave her +all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained. + +The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused into +the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by Fanny into +society, left but a very small residue of any natural deposit at the +bottom of the mixture. This rendered confidences with Fanny doubly +precious to Little Dorrit, and heightened the relief they afforded her. + +‘Amy,’ said Fanny to her one night when they were alone, after a day so +tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny would have +taken another dip into society with the greatest pleasure in life, ‘I +am going to put something into your little head. You won’t guess what it +is, I suspect.’ + +‘I don’t think that’s likely, dear,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Come, I’ll give you a clue, child,’ said Fanny. ‘Mrs General.’ + +Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily in the +ascendant all day--everything having been surface and varnish and show +without substance--Little Dorrit looked as if she had hoped that Mrs +General was safely tucked up in bed for some hours. + +‘_Now_, can you guess, Amy?’ said Fanny. + +‘No, dear. Unless I have done anything,’ said Little Dorrit, rather +alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish and ruffle +surface. + +Fanny was so very much amused by the misgiving, that she took up her +favourite fan (being then seated at her dressing-table with her armoury +of cruel instruments about her, most of them reeking from the heart +of Sparkler), and tapped her sister frequently on the nose with it, +laughing all the time. + +‘Oh, our Amy, our Amy!’ said Fanny. ‘What a timid little goose our Amy +is! But this is nothing to laugh at. On the contrary, I am very cross, +my dear.’ + +‘As it is not with me, Fanny, I don’t mind,’ returned her sister, +smiling. + +‘Ah! But I do mind,’ said Fanny, ‘and so will you, Pet, when I enlighten +you. Amy, has it never struck you that somebody is monstrously polite to +Mrs General?’ + +‘Everybody is polite to Mrs General,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘Because--’ + +‘Because she freezes them into it?’ interrupted Fanny. ‘I don’t mean +that; quite different from that. Come! Has it never struck you, Amy, +that Pa is monstrously polite to Mrs General.’ + +Amy, murmuring ‘No,’ looked quite confounded. + +‘No; I dare say not. But he is,’ said Fanny. ‘He is, Amy. And remember +my words. Mrs General has designs on Pa!’ + +‘Dear Fanny, do you think it possible that Mrs General has designs on +any one?’ + +‘Do I think it possible?’ retorted Fanny. ‘My love, I know it. I tell +you she has designs on Pa. And more than that, I tell you Pa considers +her such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and such an +acquisition to our family, that he is ready to get himself into a state +of perfect infatuation with her at any moment. And that opens a pretty +picture of things, I hope? Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama!’ + +Little Dorrit did not reply, ‘Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama;’ +but she looked anxious, and seriously inquired what had led Fanny to +these conclusions. + +‘Lord, my darling,’ said Fanny, tartly. ‘You might as well ask me how +I know when a man is struck with myself! But, of course I do know. It +happens pretty often: but I always know it. I know this in much the same +way, I suppose. At all events, I know it.’ + +‘You never heard Papa say anything?’ + +‘Say anything?’ repeated Fanny. ‘My dearest, darling child, what +necessity has he had, yet awhile, to say anything?’ + +‘And you have never heard Mrs General say anything?’ + +‘My goodness me, Amy,’ returned Fanny, ‘is she the sort of woman to say +anything? Isn’t it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do +at present but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on, +and go sweeping about? Say anything! If she had the ace of trumps in her +hand at whist, she wouldn’t say anything, child. It would come out when +she played it.’ + +‘At least, you may be mistaken, Fanny. Now, may you not?’ + +‘O yes, I _may_ be,’ said Fanny, ‘but I am not. However, I am glad you +can contemplate such an escape, my dear, and I am glad that you can take +this for the present with sufficient coolness to think of such a chance. +It makes me hope that you may be able to bear the connection. I should +not be able to bear it, and I should not try. I’d marry young Sparkler +first.’ + +‘O, you would never marry him, Fanny, under any circumstances.’ + +‘Upon my word, my dear,’ rejoined that young lady with exceeding +indifference, ‘I wouldn’t positively answer even for that. There’s +no knowing what might happen. Especially as I should have many +opportunities, afterwards, of treating that woman, his mother, in her +own style. Which I most decidedly should not be slow to avail myself of, +Amy.’ + +No more passed between the sisters then; but what had passed gave the +two subjects of Mrs General and Mr Sparkler great prominence in Little +Dorrit’s mind, and thenceforth she thought very much of both. + +Mrs General, having long ago formed her own surface to such perfection +that it hid whatever was below it (if anything), no observation was to +be made in that quarter. Mr Dorrit was undeniably very polite to her +and had a high opinion of her; but Fanny, impetuous at most times, might +easily be wrong for all that. Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the +different footing that any one could see what was going on there, and +Little Dorrit saw it and pondered on it with many doubts and wonderings. + +The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice +and cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to such +distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day, +or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into +such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of +coughing. The constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he +was so inseparable from Edward, that, when that gentleman wished for +a change of society, he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out +like a conspirator in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways; +though he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called +every other day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an +intermittent fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and +down before the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to +have made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in +a thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left the +gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery ambush +and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a custom-house +officer. It was probably owing to this fortification of the natural +strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the air, and the +salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, whatever the +cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his mistress by +a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, and that +peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than +a young man, became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy +puffiness. + +Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with +affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea of +commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity. Blandois highly +extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be agreeable to +Blandois to communicate to his friend the great opportunity reserved +for him. Blandois accepted the commission with his own free elegance of +manner, and swore he would discharge it before he was an hour older. On +his imparting the news to Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the +Devil with great liberality some round dozen of times (for he resented +patronage almost as much as he resented the want of it), and was +inclined to quarrel with his friend for bringing him the message. + +‘It may be a defect in my mental vision, Blandois,’ said he, ‘but may I +die if I see what you have to do with this.’ + +‘Death of my life,’ replied Blandois, ‘nor I neither, except that I +thought I was serving my friend.’ + +‘By putting an upstart’s hire in his pocket?’ said Gowan, frowning. +‘Do you mean that? Tell your other friend to get his head painted for +the sign of some public-house, and to get it done by a sign-painter. Who +am I, and who is he?’ + +‘Professore,’ returned the ambassador, ‘and who is Blandois?’ + +Without appearing at all interested in the latter question, Gowan +angrily whistled Mr Dorrit away. But, next day, he resumed the subject +by saying in his off-hand manner and with a slighting laugh, ‘Well, +Blandois, when shall we go to this Maecenas of yours? We journeymen must +take jobs when we can get them. When shall we go and look after this +job?’ + +‘When you will,’ said the injured Blandois, ‘as you please. What have I +to do with it? What is it to me?’ + +‘I can tell you what it is to me,’ said Gowan. ‘Bread and cheese. One +must eat! So come along, my Blandois.’ + +Mr Dorrit received them in the presence of his daughters and of Mr +Sparkler, who happened, by some surprising accident, to be calling +there. ‘How are you, Sparkler?’ said Gowan carelessly. ‘When you have +to live by your mother wit, old boy, I hope you may get on better than I +do.’ + +Mr Dorrit then mentioned his proposal. ‘Sir,’ said Gowan, laughing, +after receiving it gracefully enough, ‘I am new to the trade, and not +expert at its mysteries. I believe I ought to look at you in various +lights, tell you you are a capital subject, and consider when I shall be +sufficiently disengaged to devote myself with the necessary enthusiasm +to the fine picture I mean to make of you. I assure you,’ and he laughed +again, ‘I feel quite a traitor in the camp of those dear, gifted, good, +noble fellows, my brother artists, by not doing the hocus-pocus better. +But I have not been brought up to it, and it’s too late to learn it. +Now, the fact is, I am a very bad painter, but not much worse than the +generality. If you are going to throw away a hundred guineas or so, I +am as poor as a poor relation of great people usually is, and I shall be +very much obliged to you, if you’ll throw them away upon me. I’ll do the +best I can for the money; and if the best should be bad, why even then, +you may probably have a bad picture with a small name to it, instead of +a bad picture with a large name to it.’ + +This tone, though not what he had expected, on the whole suited Mr +Dorrit remarkably well. It showed that the gentleman, highly connected, +and not a mere workman, would be under an obligation to him. He +expressed his satisfaction in placing himself in Mr Gowan’s hands, and +trusted that he would have the pleasure, in their characters of private +gentlemen, of improving his acquaintance. + +‘You are very good,’ said Gowan. ‘I have not forsworn society since I +joined the brotherhood of the brush (the most delightful fellows on the +face of the earth), and am glad enough to smell the old fine gunpowder +now and then, though it did blow me into mid-air and my present calling. +You’ll not think, Mr Dorrit,’ and here he laughed again in the easiest +way, ‘that I am lapsing into the freemasonry of the craft--for it’s not +so; upon my life I can’t help betraying it wherever I go, though, by +Jupiter, I love and honour the craft with all my might--if I propose a +stipulation as to time and place?’ + +Ha! Mr Dorrit could erect no--hum--suspicion of that kind on Mr Gowan’s +frankness. + +‘Again you are very good,’ said Gowan. ‘Mr Dorrit, I hear you are going +to Rome. I am going to Rome, having friends there. Let me begin to do +you the injustice I have conspired to do you, there--not here. We shall +all be hurried during the rest of our stay here; and though there’s not +a poorer man with whole elbows in Venice, than myself, I have not quite +got all the Amateur out of me yet--comprising the trade again, you +see!--and can’t fall on to order, in a hurry, for the mere sake of the +sixpences.’ + +These remarks were not less favourably received by Mr Dorrit than their +predecessors. They were the prelude to the first reception of Mr and Mrs +Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on his usual ground in +the new family. + +His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground. Miss Fanny understood, +with particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan’s good looks had cost her +husband very dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her +in the Barnacle family; and that the Dowager Mrs Gowan, nearly +heart-broken, had resolutely set her face against the marriage until +overpowered by her maternal feelings. Mrs General likewise clearly +understood that the attachment had occasioned much family grief and +dissension. Of honest Mr Meagles no mention was made; except that it +was natural enough that a person of that sort should wish to raise his +daughter out of his own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for +trying his best to do so. + +Little Dorrit’s interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted +belief was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation. She +could see that it had its part in throwing upon Mrs Gowan the touch of a +shadow under which she lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge +that there was not the least truth in it. But it had an influence in +placing obstacles in the way of her association with Mrs Gowan by making +the Prunes and Prism school excessively polite to her, but not very +intimate with her; and Little Dorrit, as an enforced sizar of that +college, was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances. + +Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already +established between the two, which would have carried them over +greater difficulties, and made a friendship out of a more restricted +intercourse. As though accidents were determined to be favourable to +it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the aversion which each +perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion +amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy towards an +odious creature of the reptile kind. + +And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this active +one. To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same manner; and +to both of them his manner had uniformly something in it, which +they both knew to be different from his bearing towards others. The +difference was too minute in its expression to be perceived by others, +but they knew it to be there. A mere trick of his evil eyes, a mere turn +of his smooth white hand, a mere hair’s-breadth of addition to the fall +of his nose and the rise of the moustache in the most frequent movement +of his face, conveyed to both of them, equally, a swagger personal to +themselves. It was as if he had said, ‘I have a secret power in this +quarter. I know what I know.’ + +This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and never +by each so perfectly to the knowledge of the other, as on a day when he +came to Mr Dorrit’s to take his leave before quitting Venice. Mrs +Gowan was herself there for the same purpose, and he came upon the +two together; the rest of the family being out. The two had not been +together five minutes, and the peculiar manner seemed to convey to them, +‘You were going to talk about me. Ha! Behold me here to prevent it!’ + +‘Gowan is coming here?’ said Blandois, with a smile. + +Mrs Gowan replied he was not coming. + +‘Not coming!’ said Blandois. ‘Permit your devoted servant, when you +leave here, to escort you home.’ + +‘Thank you: I am not going home.’ + +‘Not going home!’ said Blandois. ‘Then I am forlorn.’ + +That he might be; but he was not so forlorn as to roam away and leave +them together. He sat entertaining them with his finest compliments, and +his choicest conversation; but he conveyed to them, all the time, ‘No, +no, no, dear ladies. Behold me here expressly to prevent it!’ + +He conveyed it to them with so much meaning, and he had such a +diabolical persistency in him, that at length, Mrs Gowan rose to depart. +On his offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the staircase, +she retained Little Dorrit’s hand in hers, with a cautious pressure, and +said, ‘No, thank you. But, if you will please to see if my boatman is +there, I shall be obliged to you.’ + +It left him no choice but to go down before them. As he did so, hat in +hand, Mrs Gowan whispered: + +‘He killed the dog.’ + +‘Does Mr Gowan know it?’ Little Dorrit whispered. + +‘No one knows it. Don’t look towards me; look towards him. He will turn +his face in a moment. No one knows it, but I am sure he did. You are?’ + +‘I--I think so,’ Little Dorrit answered. + +‘Henry likes him, and he will not think ill of him; he is so generous +and open himself. But you and I feel sure that we think of him as he +deserves. He argued with Henry that the dog had been already poisoned +when he changed so, and sprang at him. Henry believes it, but we do not. +I see he is listening, but can’t hear. Good-bye, my love! Good-bye!’ + +The last words were spoken aloud, as the vigilant Blandois stopped, +turned his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the staircase. +Assuredly he did look then, though he looked his politest, as if any +real philanthropist could have desired no better employment than to lash +a great stone to his neck, and drop him into the water flowing beyond +the dark arched gateway in which he stood. No such benefactor to mankind +being on the spot, he handed Mrs Gowan to her boat, and stood there +until it had shot out of the narrow view; when he handed himself into +his own boat and followed. + +Little Dorrit had sometimes thought, and now thought again as she +retraced her steps up the staircase, that he had made his way too easily +into her father’s house. But so many and such varieties of people did +the same, through Mr Dorrit’s participation in his elder daughter’s +society mania, that it was hardly an exceptional case. A perfect fury +for making acquaintances on whom to impress their riches and importance, +had seized the House of Dorrit. + +It appeared on the whole, to Little Dorrit herself, that this same +society in which they lived, greatly resembled a superior sort of +Marshalsea. Numbers of people seemed to come abroad, pretty much +as people had come into the prison; through debt, through idleness, +relationship, curiosity, and general unfitness for getting on at home. +They were brought into these foreign towns in the custody of couriers +and local followers, just as the debtors had been brought into the +prison. They prowled about the churches and picture-galleries, much in +the old, dreary, prison-yard manner. They were usually going away again +to-morrow or next week, and rarely knew their own minds, and seldom did +what they said they would do, or went where they said they would go: in +all this again, very like the prison debtors. They paid high for poor +accommodation, and disparaged a place while they pretended to like it: +which was exactly the Marshalsea custom. They were envied when they went +away by people left behind, feigning not to want to go: and that again +was the Marshalsea habit invariably. A certain set of words and phrases, +as much belonging to tourists as the College and the Snuggery belonged +to the jail, was always in their mouths. They had precisely the same +incapacity for settling down to anything, as the prisoners used to have; +they rather deteriorated one another, as the prisoners used to do; and +they wore untidy dresses, and fell into a slouching way of life: still, +always like the people in the Marshalsea. + +The period of the family’s stay at Venice came, in its course, to an +end, and they moved, with their retinue, to Rome. Through a repetition +of the former Italian scenes, growing more dirty and more haggard as +they went on, and bringing them at length to where the very air was +diseased, they passed to their destination. A fine residence had been +taken for them on the Corso, and there they took up their abode, in a +city where everything seemed to be trying to stand still for ever on +the ruins of something else--except the water, which, following eternal +laws, tumbled and rolled from its glorious multitude of fountains. + +Here it seemed to Little Dorrit that a change came over the Marshalsea +spirit of their society, and that Prunes and Prism got the upper hand. +Everybody was walking about St Peter’s and the Vatican on somebody +else’s cork legs, and straining every visible object through somebody +else’s sieve. Nobody said what anything was, but everybody said what the +Mrs Generals, Mr Eustace, or somebody else said it was. The whole body +of travellers seemed to be a collection of voluntary human sacrifices, +bound hand and foot, and delivered over to Mr Eustace and his +attendants, to have the entrails of their intellects arranged according +to the taste of that sacred priesthood. Through the rugged remains +of temples and tombs and palaces and senate halls and theatres and +amphitheatres of ancient days, hosts of tongue-tied and blindfolded +moderns were carefully feeling their way, incessantly repeating Prunes +and Prism in the endeavour to set their lips according to the received +form. Mrs General was in her pure element. Nobody had an opinion. There +was a formation of surface going on around her on an amazing scale, and +it had not a flaw of courage or honest free speech in it. + +Another modification of Prunes and Prism insinuated itself on Little +Dorrit’s notice very shortly after their arrival. They received an early +visit from Mrs Merdle, who led that extensive department of life in the +Eternal City that winter; and the skilful manner in which she and Fanny +fenced with one another on the occasion, almost made her quiet sister +wink, like the glittering of small-swords. + +‘So delighted,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘to resume an acquaintance so +inauspiciously begun at Martigny.’ + +‘At Martigny, of course,’ said Fanny. ‘Charmed, I am sure!’ + +‘I understand,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘from my son Edmund Sparkler, that +he has already improved that chance occasion. He has returned quite +transported with Venice.’ + +‘Indeed?’ returned the careless Fanny. ‘Was he there long?’ + +‘I might refer that question to Mr Dorrit,’ said Mrs Merdle, turning the +bosom towards that gentleman; ‘Edmund having been so much indebted to +him for rendering his stay agreeable.’ + +‘Oh, pray don’t speak of it,’ returned Fanny. ‘I believe Papa had the +pleasure of inviting Mr Sparkler twice or thrice,--but it was nothing. +We had so many people about us, and kept such open house, that if he had +that pleasure, it was less than nothing.’ + +‘Except, my dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘except--ha--as it afforded me +unusual gratification to--hum--show by any means, however slight and +worthless, the--ha, hum--high estimation in which, in--ha--common with +the rest of the world, I hold so distinguished and princely a character +as Mr Merdle’s.’ + +The bosom received this tribute in its most engaging manner. ‘Mr +Merdle,’ observed Fanny, as a means of dismissing Mr Sparkler into the +background, ‘is quite a theme of Papa’s, you must know, Mrs Merdle.’ + +‘I have been--ha--disappointed, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘to understand +from Mr Sparkler that there is no great--hum--probability of Mr Merdle’s +coming abroad.’ + +‘Why, indeed,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘he is so much engaged and in such +request, that I fear not. He has not been able to get abroad for years. +You, Miss Dorrit, I believe have been almost continually abroad for a +long time.’ + +‘Oh dear yes,’ drawled Fanny, with the greatest hardihood. ‘An immense +number of years.’ + +‘So I should have inferred,’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘Exactly,’ said Fanny. + +‘I trust, however,’ resumed Mr Dorrit, ‘that if I have not +the--hum--great advantage of becoming known to Mr Merdle on this side +of the Alps or Mediterranean, I shall have that honour on returning to +England. It is an honour I particularly desire and shall particularly +esteem.’ + +‘Mr Merdle,’ said Mrs Merdle, who had been looking admiringly at Fanny +through her eye-glass, ‘will esteem it, I am sure, no less.’ + +Little Dorrit, still habitually thoughtful and solitary though no longer +alone, at first supposed this to be mere Prunes and Prism. But as her +father when they had been to a brilliant reception at Mrs Merdle’s, +harped at their own family breakfast-table on his wish to know Mr +Merdle, with the contingent view of benefiting by the advice of that +wonderful man in the disposal of his fortune, she began to think it had +a real meaning, and to entertain a curiosity on her own part to see the +shining light of the time. + + + + +CHAPTER 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ‘It Never Does’ + + +While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves +for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched +out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling +pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in +Bleeding Heart Yard, and the vigorous clink of iron upon iron was heard +there through the working hours. + +The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into sound +trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious devices, had +done much to enhance the character of the factory. As an ingenious man, +he had necessarily to encounter every discouragement that the ruling +powers for a length of time had been able by any means to put in the way +of this class of culprits; but that was only reasonable self-defence in +the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural +and mortal enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis +of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution +Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious +at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by +making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the +best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, as +though invention were on a par with felony. The system had uniformly +found great favour with the Barnacles, and that was only reasonable, +too; for one who worthily invents must be in earnest, and the Barnacles +abhorred and dreaded nothing half so much. That again was very +reasonable; since in a country suffering under the affliction of a great +amount of earnestness, there might, in an exceeding short space of time, +be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a post. + +Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties attached +to it, and soberly worked on for the work’s sake. Clennam cheering him +with a hearty co-operation, was a moral support to him, besides doing +good service in his business relation. The concern prospered, and the +partners were fast friends. + +But Daniel could not forget the old design of so many years. It was not +in reason to be expected that he should; if he could have lightly +forgotten it, he could never have conceived it, or had the patience and +perseverance to work it out. So Clennam thought, when he sometimes +observed him of an evening looking over the models and drawings, and +consoling himself by muttering with a sigh as he put them away again, +that the thing was as true as it ever was. + +To show no sympathy with so much endeavour, and so much disappointment, +would have been to fail in what Clennam regarded as among the implied +obligations of his partnership. A revival of the passing interest in +the subject which had been by chance awakened at the door of the +Circumlocution Office, originated in this feeling. He asked his partner +to explain the invention to him; ‘having a lenient consideration,’ he +stipulated, ‘for my being no workman, Doyce.’ + +‘No workman?’ said Doyce. ‘You would have been a thorough workman if you +had given yourself to it. You have as good a head for understanding such +things as I have met with.’ + +‘A totally uneducated one, I am sorry to add,’ said Clennam. + +‘I don’t know that,’ returned Doyce, ‘and I wouldn’t have you say +that. No man of sense who has been generally improved, and has improved +himself, can be called quite uneducated as to anything. I don’t +particularly favour mysteries. I would as soon, on a fair and clear +explanation, be judged by one class of man as another, provided he had +the qualification I have named.’ + +‘At all events,’ said Clennam--‘this sounds as if we were exchanging +compliments, but we know we are not--I shall have the advantage of as +plain an explanation as can be given.’ + +‘Well!’ said Daniel, in his steady even way, ‘I’ll try to make it so.’ + +He had the power, often to be found in union with such a character, of +explaining what he himself perceived, and meant, with the direct force +and distinctness with which it struck his own mind. His manner of +demonstration was so orderly and neat and simple, that it was not easy +to mistake him. There was something almost ludicrous in the complete +irreconcilability of a vague conventional notion that he must be a +visionary man, with the precise, sagacious travelling of his eye and +thumb over the plans, their patient stoppages at particular points, +their careful returns to other points whence little channels of +explanation had to be traced up, and his steady manner of making +everything good and everything sound at each important stage, before +taking his hearer on a line’s-breadth further. His dismissal of himself +from his description, was hardly less remarkable. He never said, I +discovered this adaptation or invented that combination; but showed the +whole thing as if the Divine artificer had made it, and he had happened +to find it; so modest he was about it, such a pleasant touch of respect +was mingled with his quiet admiration of it, and so calmly convinced he +was that it was established on irrefragable laws. + +Not only that evening, but for several succeeding evenings, Clennam was +quite charmed by this investigation. The more he pursued it, and the +oftener he glanced at the grey head bending over it, and the shrewd eye +kindling with pleasure in it and love of it--instrument for probing his +heart though it had been made for twelve long years--the less he could +reconcile it to his younger energy to let it go without one effort more. +At length he said: + +‘Doyce, it came to this at last--that the business was to be sunk with +Heaven knows how many more wrecks, or begun all over again?’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Doyce, ‘that’s what the noblemen and gentlemen made of +it after a dozen years.’ + +‘And pretty fellows too!’ said Clennam, bitterly. + +‘The usual thing!’ observed Doyce. ‘I must not make a martyr of myself, +when I am one of so large a company.’ + +‘Relinquish it, or begin it all over again?’ mused Clennam. + +‘That was exactly the long and the short of it,’ said Doyce. + +‘Then, my friend,’ cried Clennam, starting up and taking his +work-roughened hand, ‘it shall be begun all over again!’ + +Doyce looked alarmed, and replied in a hurry--for him, ‘No, no. Better +put it by. Far better put it by. It will be heard of, one day. I can +put it by. You forget, my good Clennam; I _have_ put it by. It’s all at an +end.’ + +‘Yes, Doyce,’ returned Clennam, ‘at an end as far as your efforts and +rebuffs are concerned, I admit, but not as far as mine are. I am younger +than you: I have only once set foot in that precious office, and I am +fresh game for them. Come! I’ll try them. You shall do exactly as you +have been doing since we have been together. I will add (as I easily +can) to what I have been doing, the attempt to get public justice done +to you; and, unless I have some success to report, you shall hear no +more of it.’ + +Daniel Doyce was still reluctant to consent, and again and again urged +that they had better put it by. But it was natural that he should +gradually allow himself to be over-persuaded by Clennam, and should +yield. Yield he did. So Arthur resumed the long and hopeless labour of +striving to make way with the Circumlocution Office. + +The waiting-rooms of that Department soon began to be familiar with his +presence, and he was generally ushered into them by its janitors much +as a pickpocket might be shown into a police-office; the principal +difference being that the object of the latter class of public business +is to keep the pickpocket, while the Circumlocution object was to +get rid of Clennam. However, he was resolved to stick to the Great +Department; and so the work of form-filling, corresponding, minuting, +memorandum-making, signing, counter-signing, counter-counter-signing, +referring backwards and forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise, and +zig-zag, recommenced. + +Here arises a feature of the Circumlocution Office, not previously +mentioned in the present record. When that admirable Department got +into trouble, and was, by some infuriated members of Parliament whom +the smaller Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under diabolic +possession, attacked on the merits of no individual case, but as an +Institution wholly abominable and Bedlamite; then the noble or right +honourable Barnacle who represented it in the House, would smite that +member and cleave him asunder, with a statement of the quantity of +business (for the prevention of business) done by the Circumlocution +Office. Then would that noble or right honourable Barnacle hold in his +hand a paper containing a few figures, to which, with the permission +of the House, he would entreat its attention. Then would the inferior +Barnacles exclaim, obeying orders, ‘Hear, Hear, Hear!’ and ‘Read!’ Then +would the noble or right honourable Barnacle perceive, sir, from this +little document, which he thought might carry conviction even to the +perversest mind (Derisive laughter and cheering from the Barnacle fry), +that within the short compass of the last financial half-year, this +much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and received fifteen +thousand letters (Loud cheers), had written twenty-four thousand minutes +(Louder cheers), and thirty-two thousand five hundred and seventeen +memoranda (Vehement cheering). Nay, an ingenious gentleman connected +with the Department, and himself a valuable public servant, had done +him the favour to make a curious calculation of the amount of stationery +consumed in it during the same period. It formed a part of this same +short document; and he derived from it the remarkable fact that the +sheets of foolscap paper it had devoted to the public service would pave +the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from end to end, and leave +nearly a quarter of a mile to spare for the park (Immense cheering and +laughter); while of tape--red tape--it had used enough to stretch, in +graceful festoons, from Hyde Park Corner to the General Post Office. +Then, amidst a burst of official exultation, would the noble or right +honourable Barnacle sit down, leaving the mutilated fragments of the +Member on the field. No one, after that exemplary demolition of him, +would have the hardihood to hint that the more the Circumlocution Office +did, the less was done, and that the greatest blessing it could confer +on an unhappy public would be to do nothing. + +With sufficient occupation on his hands, now that he had this additional +task--such a task had many and many a serviceable man died of before his +day--Arthur Clennam led a life of slight variety. Regular visits to his +mother’s dull sick room, and visits scarcely less regular to Mr Meagles +at Twickenham, were its only changes during many months. + +He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit. He had been prepared to miss +her very much, but not so much. He knew to the full extent only through +experience, what a large place in his life was left blank when her +familiar little figure went out of it. He felt, too, that he must +relinquish the hope of its return, understanding the family character +sufficiently well to be assured that he and she were divided by a broad +ground of separation. The old interest he had had in her, and her old +trusting reliance on him, were tinged with melancholy in his mind: so +soon had change stolen over them, and so soon had they glided into the +past with other secret tendernesses. + +When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the less +sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than distance. +It helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the place assigned +him by the family. He saw that he was cherished in her grateful +remembrance secretly, and that they resented him with the jail and the +rest of its belongings. + +Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded about +her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way. She was his innocent +friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit. This very change +of circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, begun on the night +when the roses floated away, of considering himself as a much older man +than his years really made him. He regarded her from a point of view +which in its remoteness, tender as it was, he little thought would have +been unspeakable agony to her. He speculated about her future destiny, +and about the husband she might have, with an affection for her which +would have drained her heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it. + +Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking on +himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had combated +in the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long ago either, +reckoning by months and seasons), were finally departed. His relations +with her father and mother were like those on which a widower son-in-law +might have stood. If the twin sister who was dead had lived to pass away +in the bloom of womanhood, and he had been her husband, the nature of +his intercourse with Mr and Mrs Meagles would probably have been just +what it was. This imperceptibly helped to render habitual the impression +within him, that he had done with, and dismissed that part of life. + +He invariably heard of Minnie from them, as telling them in her letters +how happy she was, and how she loved her husband; but inseparable from +that subject, he invariably saw the old cloud on Mr Meagles’s face. Mr +Meagles had never been quite so radiant since the marriage as before. +He had never quite recovered the separation from Pet. He was the same +good-humoured, open creature; but as if his face, from being much turned +towards the pictures of his two children which could show him only one +look, unconsciously adopted a characteristic from them, it always had +now, through all its changes of expression, a look of loss in it. + +One wintry Saturday when Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager Mrs +Gowan drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended to be the +exclusive equipage of so many individual proprietors. She descended, in +her shady ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr and Mrs Meagles with a +call. + +‘And how do you both do, Papa and Mama Meagles?’ said she, encouraging +her humble connections. ‘And when did you last hear from or about my +poor fellow?’ + +My poor fellow was her son; and this mode of speaking of him politely +kept alive, without any offence in the world, the pretence that he had +fallen a victim to the Meagles’ wiles. + +‘And the dear pretty one?’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘Have you later news of her +than I have?’ + +Which also delicately implied that her son had been captured by mere +beauty, and under its fascination had forgone all sorts of worldly +advantages. + +‘I am sure,’ said Mrs Gowan, without straining her attention on the +answers she received, ‘it’s an unspeakable comfort to know they continue +happy. My poor fellow is of such a restless disposition, and has been +so used to roving about, and to being inconstant and popular among all +manner of people, that it’s the greatest comfort in life. I suppose +they’re as poor as mice, Papa Meagles?’ + +Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, ‘I hope not, ma’am. I +hope they will manage their little income.’ + +‘Oh! my dearest Meagles!’ returned the lady, tapping him on the arm with +the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a yawn and +the company, ‘how can you, as a man of the world and one of the most +business-like of human beings--for you know you are business-like, and a +great deal too much for us who are not--’ + +(Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be an +artful schemer.) + +‘--How can you talk about their managing their little means? My poor +dear fellow! The idea of his managing hundreds! And the sweet pretty +creature too. The notion of her managing! Papa Meagles! Don’t!’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, gravely, ‘I am sorry to admit, then, +that Henry certainly does anticipate his means.’ + +‘My dear good man--I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of +relations;--positively, Mama Meagles,’ exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully, +as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time, +‘a kind of relations! My dear good man, in this world none of us can +have _everything_ our own way.’ + +This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all good +breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in his deep +designs. Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that she dwelt upon +it; repeating ‘Not _everything_. No, no; in this world we must not expect +_everything_, Papa Meagles.’ + +‘And may I ask, ma’am,’ retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in +colour, ‘who does expect everything?’ + +‘Oh, nobody, nobody!’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘I was going to say--but you put +me out. You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say?’ + +Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles while +she thought about it; a performance not tending to the cooling of that +gentleman’s rather heated spirits. + +‘Ah! Yes, to be sure!’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘You must remember that my poor +fellow has always been accustomed to expectations. They may have been +realised, or they may not have been realised--’ + +‘Let us say, then, may not have been realised,’ observed Mr Meagles. + +The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off with +her head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her former +manner. + +‘It makes no difference. My poor fellow has been accustomed to that +sort of thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared for the +consequences. I myself always clearly foresaw the consequences, and am +not surprised. And you must not be surprised. In fact, can’t be +surprised. Must have been prepared for it.’ + +Mr Meagles looked at his wife and at Clennam; bit his lip; and coughed. + +‘And now here’s my poor fellow,’ Mrs Gowan pursued, ‘receiving notice +that he is to hold himself in expectation of a baby, and all the +expenses attendant on such an addition to his family! Poor Henry! But +it can’t be helped now; it’s too late to help it now. Only don’t talk of +anticipating means, Papa Meagles, as a discovery; because that would be +too much.’ + +‘Too much, ma’am?’ said Mr Meagles, as seeking an explanation. + +‘There, there!’ said Mrs Gowan, putting him in his inferior place with +an expressive action of her hand. ‘Too much for my poor fellow’s +mother to bear at this time of day. They are fast married, and can’t +be unmarried. There, there! I know that! You needn’t tell me that, Papa +Meagles. I know it very well. What was it I said just now? That it was +a great comfort they continued happy. It is to be hoped they will still +continue happy. It is to be hoped Pretty One will do everything she +can to make my poor fellow happy, and keep him contented. Papa and Mama +Meagles, we had better say no more about it. We never did look at this +subject from the same side, and we never shall. There, there! Now I am +good.’ + +Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in maintenance +of her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition to Mr Meagles +that he must not expect to bear his honours of alliance too cheaply, Mrs +Gowan was disposed to forgo the rest. If Mr Meagles had submitted to +a glance of entreaty from Mrs Meagles, and an expressive gesture from +Clennam, he would have left her in the undisturbed enjoyment of this +state of mind. But Pet was the darling and pride of his heart; and if he +could ever have championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than +in the days when she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been +now, when, as its daily grace and delight, she was lost to it. + +‘Mrs Gowan, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘I have been a plain man all my +life. If I was to try--no matter whether on myself, on somebody else, +or both--any genteel mystifications, I should probably not succeed in +them.’ + +‘Papa Meagles,’ returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but with +the bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly than usual as +the neighbouring surface became paler, ‘probably not.’ + +‘Therefore, my good madam,’ said Mr Meagles, at great pains to +restrain himself, ‘I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no such +mystification played off upon me.’ + +‘Mama Meagles,’ observed Mrs Gowan, ‘your good man is incomprehensible.’ + +Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into the +discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her. Mr Meagles interposed to +prevent that consummation. + +‘Mother,’ said he, ‘you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair +match. Let me beg of you to remain quiet. Come, Mrs Gowan, come! Let +us try to be sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us try to +be fair. Don’t you pity Henry, and I won’t pity Pet. And don’t be +one-sided, my dear madam; it’s not considerate, it’s not kind. Don’t +let us say that we hope Pet will make Henry happy, or even that we hope +Henry will make Pet happy,’ (Mr Meagles himself did not look happy as he +spoke the words,) ‘but let us hope they will make each other happy.’ + +‘Yes, sure, and there leave it, father,’ said Mrs Meagles the +kind-hearted and comfortable. + +‘Why, mother, no,’ returned Mr Meagles, ‘not exactly there. I can’t +quite leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words more. Mrs +Gowan, I hope I am not over-sensitive. I believe I don’t look it.’ + +‘Indeed you do not,’ said Mrs Gowan, shaking her head and the great +green fan together, for emphasis. + +‘Thank you, ma’am; that’s well. Notwithstanding which, I feel a +little--I don’t want to use a strong word--now shall I say hurt?’ +asked Mr Meagles at once with frankness and moderation, and with a +conciliatory appeal in his tone. + +‘Say what you like,’ answered Mrs Gowan. ‘It is perfectly indifferent to +me.’ + +‘No, no, don’t say that,’ urged Mr Meagles, ‘because that’s not +responding amiably. I feel a little hurt when I hear references made to +consequences having been foreseen, and to its being too late now, and so +forth.’ + +‘_Do_ you, Papa Meagles?’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘I am not surprised.’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ reasoned Mr Meagles, ‘I was in hopes you would have been +at least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender a subject +is surely not generous.’ + +‘I am not responsible,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘for your conscience, you know.’ + +Poor Mr Meagles looked aghast with astonishment. + +‘If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me, which is yours +and fits you,’ pursued Mrs Gowan, ‘don’t blame me for its pattern, Papa +Meagles, I beg!’ + +‘Why, good Lord, ma’am!’ Mr Meagles broke out, ‘that’s as much as to +state--’ + +‘Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles,’ said Mrs Gowan, who became extremely +deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that gentleman became at +all warm, ‘perhaps to prevent confusion, I had better speak for myself +than trouble your kindness to speak for me. It’s as much as to state, +you begin. If you please, I will finish the sentence. It is as much as +to state--not that I wish to press it or even recall it, for it is of no +use now, and my only wish is to make the best of existing +circumstances--that from the first to the last I always objected to this +match of yours, and at a very late period yielded a most unwilling +consent to it.’ + +‘Mother!’ cried Mr Meagles. ‘Do you hear this! Arthur! Do you hear +this!’ + +‘The room being of a convenient size,’ said Mrs Gowan, looking about +as she fanned herself, ‘and quite charmingly adapted in all respects to +conversation, I should imagine I am audible in any part of it.’ + +Some moments passed in silence, before Mr Meagles could hold himself in +his chair with sufficient security to prevent his breaking out of it at +the next word he spoke. At last he said: ‘Ma’am, I am very unwilling to +revive them, but I must remind you what my opinions and my course were, +all along, on that unfortunate subject.’ + +‘O, my dear sir!’ said Mrs Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with +accusatory intelligence, ‘they were well understood by me, I assure +you.’ + +‘I never, ma’am,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘knew unhappiness before that time, +I never knew anxiety before that time. It was a time of such distress to +me that--’ That Mr Meagles could really say no more about it, in short, +but passed his handkerchief before his face. + +‘I understood the whole affair,’ said Mrs Gowan, composedly looking +over her fan. ‘As you have appealed to Mr Clennam, I may appeal to Mr +Clennam, too. He knows whether I did or not.’ + +‘I am very unwilling,’ said Clennam, looked to by all parties, ‘to take +any share in this discussion, more especially because I wish to preserve +the best understanding and the clearest relations with Mr Henry Gowan. +I have very strong reasons indeed, for entertaining that wish. Mrs Gowan +attributed certain views of furthering the marriage to my friend here, +in conversation with me before it took place; and I endeavoured to +undeceive her. I represented that I knew him (as I did and do) to be +strenuously opposed to it, both in opinion and action.’ + +‘You see?’ said Mrs Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards Mr +Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him that he had +better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on. ‘You see? Very good! +Now Papa and Mama Meagles both!’ here she rose; ‘allow me to take the +liberty of putting an end to this rather formidable controversy. I will +not say another word upon its merits. I will only say that it is an +additional proof of what one knows from all experience; that this kind +of thing never answers--as my poor fellow himself would say, that it +never pays--in one word, that it never does.’ + +Mr Meagles asked, What kind of thing? + +‘It is in vain,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘for people to attempt to get on +together who have such extremely different antecedents; who are jumbled +against each other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of way; and who +cannot look at the untoward circumstance which has shaken them together +in the same light. It never does.’ + +Mr Meagles was beginning, ‘Permit me to say, ma’am--’ + +‘No, don’t,’ returned Mrs Gowan. ‘Why should you! It is an ascertained +fact. It never does. I will therefore, if you please, go my way, leaving +you to yours. I shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow’s +pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most +affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and +semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things +quite amusing in its impracticability. I assure you it never does.’ + +The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than to +any one in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and Mama +Meagles. Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the Pill-Box which was +at the service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; and she got +into that vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was driven away. + +Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humour, often +recounted to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, she +had found it impossible to know those people who belonged to Henry’s +wife, and who had made that desperate set to catch him. Whether she had +come to the conclusion beforehand, that to get rid of them would give +her favourite pretence a better air, might save her some occasional +inconvenience, and could risk no loss (the pretty creature being fast +married, and her father devoted to her), was best known to herself. +Though this history has its opinion on that point too, and decidedly in +the affirmative. + + + + +CHAPTER 9. Appearance and Disappearance + + +‘Arthur, my dear boy,’ said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the following +day, ‘Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don’t feel +comfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant connection of +ours--that dear lady who was here yesterday--’ + +‘I understand,’ said Arthur. + +‘Even that affable and condescending ornament of society,’ pursued Mr +Meagles, ‘may misrepresent us, we are afraid. We could bear a great +deal, Arthur, for her sake; but we think we would rather not bear that, +if it was all the same to her.’ + +‘Good,’ said Arthur. ‘Go on.’ + +‘You see,’ proceeded Mr Meagles ‘it might put us wrong with our +son-in-law, it might even put us wrong with our daughter, and it might +lead to a great deal of domestic trouble. You see, don’t you?’ + +‘Yes, indeed,’ returned Arthur, ‘there is much reason in what you say.’ +He had glanced at Mrs Meagles, who was always on the good and sensible +side; and a petition had shone out of her honest face that he would +support Mr Meagles in his present inclinings. + +‘So we are very much disposed, are Mother and I,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘to +pack up bags and baggage and go among the Allongers and Marshongers once +more. I mean, we are very much disposed to be off, strike right through +France into Italy, and see our Pet.’ + +‘And I don’t think,’ replied Arthur, touched by the motherly +anticipation in the bright face of Mrs Meagles (she must have been very +like her daughter, once), ‘that you could do better. And if you ask me +for my advice, it is that you set off to-morrow.’ + +‘Is it really, though?’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Mother, this is being backed +in an idea!’ + +Mother, with a look which thanked Clennam in a manner very agreeable to +him, answered that it was indeed. + +‘The fact is, besides, Arthur,’ said Mr Meagles, the old cloud coming +over his face, ‘that my son-in-law is already in debt again, and that I +suppose I must clear him again. It may be as well, even on this account, +that I should step over there, and look him up in a friendly way. Then +again, here’s Mother foolishly anxious (and yet naturally too) about +Pet’s state of health, and that she should not be left to feel lonesome +at the present time. It’s undeniably a long way off, Arthur, and a +strange place for the poor love under all the circumstances. Let her be +as well cared for as any lady in that land, still it is a long way off. +just as Home is Home though it’s never so Homely, why you see,’ said Mr +Meagles, adding a new version to the proverb, ‘Rome is Rome, though it’s +never so Romely.’ + +‘All perfectly true,’ observed Arthur, ‘and all sufficient reasons for +going.’ + +‘I am glad you think so; it decides me. Mother, my dear, you may get +ready. We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign +languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time), and you +must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can. I require a deal +of pulling through, Arthur,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head, ‘a deal +of pulling through. I stick at everything beyond a noun-substantive--and +I stick at him, if he’s at all a tight one.’ + +‘Now I think of it,’ returned Clennam, ‘there’s Cavalletto. He shall +go with you, if you like. I could not afford to lose him, but you will +bring him safe back.’ + +‘Well! I am much obliged to you, my boy,’ said Mr Meagles, turning it +over, ‘but I think not. No, I think I’ll be pulled through by Mother. +Cavallooro (I stick at his very name to start with, and it sounds like +the chorus to a comic song) is so necessary to you, that I don’t like +the thought of taking him away. More than that, there’s no saying when +we may come home again; and it would never do to take him away for +an indefinite time. The cottage is not what it was. It only holds two +little people less than it ever did, Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid +Tattycoram; but it seems empty now. Once out of it, there’s no knowing +when we may come back to it. No, Arthur, I’ll be pulled through by +Mother.’ + +They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam thought; +therefore did not press his proposal. + +‘If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it wouldn’t +trouble you,’ Mr Meagles resumed, ‘I should be glad to think--and so +would Mother too, I know--that you were brightening up the old place +with a bit of life it was used to when it was full, and that the Babies +on the wall there had a kind eye upon them sometimes. You so belong to +the spot, and to them, Arthur, and we should every one of us have been +so happy if it had fallen out--but, let us see--how’s the weather for +travelling now?’ Mr Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to +look out of the window. + +They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept the +talk in that safe direction until it had become easy again, when he +gently diverted it to Henry Gowan and his quick sense and agreeable +qualities when he was delicately dealt with; he likewise dwelt on the +indisputable affection he entertained for his wife. Clennam did not fail +of his effect upon good Mr Meagles, whom these commendations greatly +cheered; and who took Mother to witness that the single and cordial +desire of his heart in reference to their daughter’s husband, was +harmoniously to exchange friendship for friendship, and confidence for +confidence. Within a few hours the cottage furniture began to be wrapped +up for preservation in the family absence--or, as Mr Meagles expressed +it, the house began to put its hair in papers--and within a few days +Father and Mother were gone, Mrs Tickit and Dr Buchan were posted, as of +yore, behind the parlour blind, and Arthur’s solitary feet were rustling +among the dry fallen leaves in the garden walks. + +As he had a liking for the spot, he seldom let a week pass without +paying a visit. Sometimes, he went down alone from Saturday to Monday; +sometimes his partner accompanied him; sometimes, he merely strolled for +an hour or two about the house and garden, saw that all was right, and +returned to London again. At all times, and under all circumstances, Mrs +Tickit, with her dark row of curls, and Dr Buchan, sat in the parlour +window, looking out for the family return. + +On one of his visits Mrs Tickit received him with the words, ‘I +have something to tell you, Mr Clennam, that will surprise you.’ So +surprising was the something in question, that it actually brought Mrs +Tickit out of the parlour window and produced her in the garden walk, +when Clennam went in at the gate on its being opened for him. + +‘What is it, Mrs Tickit?’ said he. + +‘Sir,’ returned that faithful housekeeper, having taken him into the +parlour and closed the door; ‘if ever I saw the led away and deluded +child in my life, I saw her identically in the dusk of yesterday +evening.’ + +‘You don’t mean Tatty--’ + +‘Coram yes I do!’ quoth Mrs Tickit, clearing the disclosure at a leap. + +‘Where?’ + +‘Mr Clennam,’ returned Mrs Tickit, ‘I was a little heavy in my eyes, +being that I was waiting longer than customary for my cup of tea which +was then preparing by Mary Jane. I was not sleeping, nor what a person +would term correctly, dozing. I was more what a person would strictly +call watching with my eyes closed.’ + +Without entering upon an inquiry into this curious abnormal condition, +Clennam said, ‘Exactly. Well?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ proceeded Mrs Tickit, ‘I was thinking of one thing and +thinking of another, just as you yourself might. Just as anybody might.’ + +‘Precisely so,’ said Clennam. ‘Well?’ + +‘And when I do think of one thing and do think of another,’ pursued +Mrs Tickit, ‘I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of the +family. Because, dear me! a person’s thoughts,’ Mrs Tickit said this +with an argumentative and philosophic air, ‘however they may stray, will +go more or less on what is uppermost in their minds. They _will_ do it, +sir, and a person can’t prevent them.’ + +Arthur subscribed to this discovery with a nod. + +‘You find it so yourself, sir, I’ll be bold to say,’ said Mrs Tickit, +‘and we all find it so. It an’t our stations in life that changes us, Mr +Clennam; thoughts is free!--As I was saying, I was thinking of one thing +and thinking of another, and thinking very much of the family. Not of +the family in the present times only, but in the past times too. For +when a person does begin thinking of one thing and thinking of another +in that manner, as it’s getting dark, what I say is, that all times +seem to be present, and a person must get out of that state and consider +before they can say which is which.’ + +He nodded again; afraid to utter a word, lest it should present any new +opening to Mrs Tickit’s conversational powers. + +‘In consequence of which,’ said Mrs Tickit, ‘when I quivered my eyes and +saw her actual form and figure looking in at the gate, I let them close +again without so much as starting, for that actual form and figure came +so pat to the time when it belonged to the house as much as mine or your +own, that I never thought at the moment of its having gone away. But, +sir, when I quivered my eyes again, and saw that it wasn’t there, then +it all flooded upon me with a fright, and I jumped up.’ + +‘You ran out directly?’ said Clennam. + +‘I ran out,’ assented Mrs Tickit, ‘as fast as ever my feet would carry +me; and if you’ll credit it, Mr Clennam, there wasn’t in the whole +shining Heavens, no not so much as a finger of that young woman.’ + +Passing over the absence from the firmament of this novel constellation, +Arthur inquired of Mrs Tickit if she herself went beyond the gate? + +‘Went to and fro, and high and low,’ said Mrs Tickit, ‘and saw no sign +of her!’ + +He then asked Mrs Tickit how long a space of time she supposed there +might have been between the two sets of ocular quiverings she had +experienced? Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her reply, +had no settled opinion between five seconds and ten minutes. She was so +plainly at sea on this part of the case, and had so clearly been +startled out of slumber, that Clennam was much disposed to regard the +appearance as a dream. Without hurting Mrs Tickit’s feelings with that +infidel solution of her mystery, he took it away from the cottage with +him; and probably would have retained it ever afterwards if a +circumstance had not soon happened to change his opinion. + +He was passing at nightfall along the Strand, and the lamp-lighter was +going on before him, under whose hand the street-lamps, blurred by the +foggy air, burst out one after another, like so many blazing sunflowers +coming into full-blow all at once,--when a stoppage on the pavement, +caused by a train of coal-waggons toiling up from the wharves at the +river-side, brought him to a stand-still. He had been walking quickly, +and going with some current of thought, and the sudden check given to +both operations caused him to look freshly about him, as people under +such circumstances usually do. + +Immediately, he saw in advance--a few people intervening, but still +so near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out +his arm--Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: a +swaggering man, with a high nose, and a black moustache as false in its +colour as his eyes were false in their expression, who wore his heavy +cloak with the air of a foreigner. His dress and general appearance were +those of a man on travel, and he seemed to have very recently joined +the girl. In bending down (being much taller than she was), listening +to whatever she said to him, he looked over his shoulder with the +suspicious glance of one who was not unused to be mistrustful that his +footsteps might be dogged. It was then that Clennam saw his face; as +his eyes lowered on the people behind him in the aggregate, without +particularly resting upon Clennam’s face or any other. + +He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent down, +listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the obstructed +stream of people flowed on. Still bending his head and listening to the +girl, he went on at her side, and Clennam followed them, resolved to +play this unexpected play out, and see where they went. + +He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about it), +when he was again as suddenly brought up as he had been by the stoppage. +They turned short into the Adelphi,--the girl evidently leading,--and +went straight on, as if they were going to the Terrace which overhangs +the river. + +There is always, to this day, a sudden pause in that place to the roar +of the great thoroughfare. The many sounds become so deadened that the +change is like putting cotton in the ears, or having the head thickly +muffled. At that time the contrast was far greater; there being no small +steam-boats on the river, no landing places but slippery wooden stairs +and foot-causeways, no railroad on the opposite bank, no hanging bridge +or fish-market near at hand, no traffic on the nearest bridge of stone, +nothing moving on the stream but watermen’s wherries and coal-lighters. +Long and broad black tiers of the latter, moored fast in the mud as if +they were never to move again, made the shore funereal and silent after +dark; and kept what little water-movement there was, far out towards +mid-stream. At any hour later than sunset, and not least at that hour +when most of the people who have anything to eat at home are going home +to eat it, and when most of those who have nothing have hardly yet slunk +out to beg or steal, it was a deserted place and looked on a deserted +scene. + +Such was the hour when Clennam stopped at the corner, observing the girl +and the strange man as they went down the street. The man’s footsteps +were so noisy on the echoing stones that he was unwilling to add the +sound of his own. But when they had passed the turning and were in the +darkness of the dark corner leading to the terrace, he made after them +with such indifferent appearance of being a casual passenger on his way, +as he could assume. + +When he rounded the dark corner, they were walking along the terrace +towards a figure which was coming towards them. If he had seen it by +itself, under such conditions of gas-lamp, mist, and distance, he might +not have known it at first sight, but with the figure of the girl to +prompt him, he at once recognised Miss Wade. + +He stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the street +as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him there; but he +kept a careful eye on the three. When they came together, the man took +off his hat, and made Miss Wade a bow. The girl appeared to say a few +words as though she presented him, or accounted for his being late, or +early, or what not; and then fell a pace or so behind, by herself. Miss +Wade and the man then began to walk up and down; the man having the +appearance of being extremely courteous and complimentary in manner; +Miss Wade having the appearance of being extremely haughty. + +When they came down to the corner and turned, she was saying, ‘If I +pinch myself for it, sir, that is my business. Confine yourself to +yours, and ask me no question.’ + +‘By Heaven, ma’am!’ he replied, making her another bow. ‘It was my +profound respect for the strength of your character, and my admiration +of your beauty.’ + +‘I want neither the one nor the other from any one,’ said she, ‘and +certainly not from you of all creatures. Go on with your report.’ + +‘Am I pardoned?’ he asked, with an air of half abashed gallantry. + +‘You are paid,’ she said, ‘and that is all you want.’ + +Whether the girl hung behind because she was not to hear the business, +or as already knowing enough about it, Clennam could not determine. They +turned and she turned. She looked away at the river, as she walked +with her hands folded before her; and that was all he could make of +her without showing his face. There happened, by good fortune, to be a +lounger really waiting for some one; and he sometimes looked over the +railing at the water, and sometimes came to the dark corner and looked +up the street, rendering Arthur less conspicuous. + +When Miss Wade and the man came back again, she was saying, ‘You must +wait until to-morrow.’ + +‘A thousand pardons?’ he returned. ‘My faith! Then it’s not convenient +to-night?’ + +‘No. I tell you I must get it before I can give it to you.’ + +She stopped in the roadway, as if to put an end to the conference. He of +course stopped too. And the girl stopped. + +‘It’s a little inconvenient,’ said the man. ‘A little. But, Holy Blue! +that’s nothing in such a service. I am without money to-night, by +chance. I have a good banker in this city, but I would not wish to draw +upon the house until the time when I shall draw for a round sum.’ + +‘Harriet,’ said Miss Wade, ‘arrange with him--this gentleman here--for +sending him some money to-morrow.’ She said it with a slur of the word +gentleman which was more contemptuous than any emphasis, and walked +slowly on. + +The man bent his head again, and the girl spoke to him as they both +followed her. Clennam ventured to look at the girl as they moved away. +He could note that her rich black eyes were fastened upon the man with a +scrutinising expression, and that she kept at a little distance from +him, as they walked side by side to the further end of the terrace. + +A loud and altered clank upon the pavement warned him, before he could +discern what was passing there, that the man was coming back alone. +Clennam lounged into the road, towards the railing; and the man passed +at a quick swing, with the end of his cloak thrown over his shoulder, +singing a scrap of a French song. + +The whole vista had no one in it now but himself. The lounger had +lounged out of view, and Miss Wade and Tattycoram were gone. More than +ever bent on seeing what became of them, and on having some information +to give his good friend, Mr Meagles, he went out at the further end of +the terrace, looking cautiously about him. He rightly judged that, at +first at all events, they would go in a contrary direction from their +late companion. He soon saw them in a neighbouring bye-street, which was +not a thoroughfare, evidently allowing time for the man to get well +out of their way. They walked leisurely arm-in-arm down one side of the +street, and returned on the opposite side. When they came back to the +street-corner, they changed their pace for the pace of people with an +object and a distance before them, and walked steadily away. Clennam, no +less steadily, kept them in sight. + +They crossed the Strand, and passed through Covent Garden (under the +windows of his old lodging where dear Little Dorrit had come that +night), and slanted away north-east, until they passed the great +building whence Tattycoram derived her name, and turned into the Gray’s +Inn Road. Clennam was quite at home here, in right of Flora, not to +mention the Patriarch and Pancks, and kept them in view with ease. He +was beginning to wonder where they might be going next, when that wonder +was lost in the greater wonder with which he saw them turn into the +Patriarchal street. That wonder was in its turn swallowed up on the +greater wonder with which he saw them stop at the Patriarchal door. A +low double knock at the bright brass knocker, a gleam of light into the +road from the opened door, a brief pause for inquiry and answer and the +door was shut, and they were housed. + +After looking at the surrounding objects for assurance that he was +not in an odd dream, and after pacing a little while before the house, +Arthur knocked at the door. It was opened by the usual maid-servant, +and she showed him up at once, with her usual alacrity, to Flora’s +sitting-room. + +There was no one with Flora but Mr F.’s Aunt, which respectable +gentlewoman, basking in a balmy atmosphere of tea and toast, was +ensconced in an easy-chair by the fireside, with a little table at her +elbow, and a clean white handkerchief spread over her lap on which +two pieces of toast at that moment awaited consumption. Bending over +a steaming vessel of tea, and looking through the steam, and breathing +forth the steam, like a malignant Chinese enchantress engaged in the +performance of unholy rites, Mr F.’s Aunt put down her great teacup and +exclaimed, ‘Drat him, if he an’t come back again!’ + +It would seem from the foregoing exclamation that this uncompromising +relative of the lamented Mr F., measuring time by the acuteness of her +sensations and not by the clock, supposed Clennam to have lately gone +away; whereas at least a quarter of a year had elapsed since he had had +the temerity to present himself before her. + +‘My goodness Arthur!’ cried Flora, rising to give him a cordial +reception, ‘Doyce and Clennam what a start and a surprise for though not +far from the machinery and foundry business and surely might be taken +sometimes if at no other time about mid-day when a glass of sherry and a +humble sandwich of whatever cold meat in the larder might not come amiss +nor taste the worse for being friendly for you know you buy it somewhere +and wherever bought a profit must be made or they would never keep the +place it stands to reason without a motive still never seen and learnt +now not to be expected, for as Mr F. himself said if seeing is believing +not seeing is believing too and when you don’t see you may fully believe +you’re not remembered not that I expect you Arthur Doyce and Clennam to +remember me why should I for the days are gone but bring another teacup +here directly and tell her fresh toast and pray sit near the fire.’ + +Arthur was in the greatest anxiety to explain the object of his +visit; but was put off for the moment, in spite of himself, by what he +understood of the reproachful purport of these words, and by the genuine +pleasure she testified in seeing him. + +‘And now pray tell me something all you know,’ said Flora, drawing her +chair near to his, ‘about the good dear quiet little thing and all the +changes of her fortunes carriage people now no doubt and horses without +number most romantic, a coat of arms of course and wild beasts on their +hind legs showing it as if it was a copy they had done with mouths from +ear to ear good gracious, and has she her health which is the first +consideration after all for what is wealth without it Mr F. himself so +often saying when his twinges came that sixpence a day and find yourself +and no gout so much preferable, not that he could have lived on anything +like it being the last man or that the previous little thing though far +too familiar an expression now had any tendency of that sort much too +slight and small but looked so fragile bless her?’ + +Mr F.’s Aunt, who had eaten a piece of toast down to the crust, here +solemnly handed the crust to Flora, who ate it for her as a matter of +business. Mr F.’s Aunt then moistened her ten fingers in slow succession +at her lips, and wiped them in exactly the same order on the white +handkerchief; then took the other piece of toast, and fell to work +upon it. While pursuing this routine, she looked at Clennam with an +expression of such intense severity that he felt obliged to look at her +in return, against his personal inclinations. + +‘She is in Italy, with all her family, Flora,’ he said, when the dreaded +lady was occupied again. + +‘In Italy is she really?’ said Flora, ‘with the grapes growing +everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land of poetry with +burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the organ-boys +come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched nobody can wonder +being so young and bringing their white mice with them most humane, and +is she really in that favoured land with nothing but blue about her and +dying gladiators and Belvederes though Mr F. himself did not believe +for his objection when in spirits was that the images could not be true +there being no medium between expensive quantities of linen badly got +up and all in creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem +probable though perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor +which may account for it.’ + +Arthur tried to edge a word in, but Flora hurried on again. + +‘Venice Preserved too,’ said she, ‘I think you have been there is it +well or ill preserved for people differ so and Maccaroni if they really +eat it like the conjurors why not cut it shorter, you are acquainted +Arthur--dear Doyce and Clennam at least not dear and most assuredly +not Doyce for I have not the pleasure but pray excuse me--acquainted I +believe with Mantua what _has_ it got to do with Mantua-making for I never +have been able to conceive?’ + +‘I believe there is no connection, Flora, between the two,’ Arthur was +beginning, when she caught him up again. + +‘Upon your word no isn’t there I never did but that’s like me I run away +with an idea and having none to spare I keep it, alas there was a time +dear Arthur that is to say decidedly not dear nor Arthur neither but you +understand me when one bright idea gilded the what’s-his-name horizon of +et cetera but it is darkly clouded now and all is over.’ + +Arthur’s increasing wish to speak of something very different was by +this time so plainly written on his face, that Flora stopped in a tender +look, and asked him what it was? + +‘I have the greatest desire, Flora, to speak to some one who is now in +this house--with Mr Casby no doubt. Some one whom I saw come in, and +who, in a misguided and deplorable way, has deserted the house of a +friend of mine.’ + +‘Papa sees so many and such odd people,’ said Flora, rising, ‘that I +shouldn’t venture to go down for any one but you Arthur but for you I +would willingly go down in a diving-bell much more a dining-room and +will come back directly if you’ll mind and at the same time not mind Mr +F.’s Aunt while I’m gone.’ + +With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving +Clennam under dreadful apprehension of this terrible charge. + +The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F.’s Aunt’s demeanour +when she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and prolonged +sniff. Finding it impossible to avoid construing this demonstration +into a defiance of himself, its gloomy significance being unmistakable, +Clennam looked plaintively at the excellent though prejudiced lady +from whom it emanated, in the hope that she might be disarmed by a meek +submission. + +‘None of your eyes at me,’ said Mr F.’s Aunt, shivering with hostility. +‘Take that.’ + +‘That’ was the crust of the piece of toast. Clennam accepted the boon +with a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the pressure +of a little embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr F.’s Aunt, +elevating her voice into a cry of considerable power, exclaimed, ‘He +has a proud stomach, this chap! He’s too proud a chap to eat it!’ and, +coming out of her chair, shook her venerable fist so very close to his +nose as to tickle the surface. But for the timely return of Flora, to +find him in this difficult situation, further consequences might +have ensued. Flora, without the least discomposure or surprise, but +congratulating the old lady in an approving manner on being ‘very lively +to-night’, handed her back to her chair. + +‘He has a proud stomach, this chap,’ said Mr F.’s relation, on being +reseated. ‘Give him a meal of chaff!’ + +‘Oh! I don’t think he would like that, aunt,’ returned Flora. + +‘Give him a meal of chaff, I tell you,’ said Mr F.’s Aunt, glaring round +Flora on her enemy. ‘It’s the only thing for a proud stomach. Let him +eat up every morsel. Drat him, give him a meal of chaff!’ + +Under a general pretence of helping him to this refreshment, Flora got +him out on the staircase; Mr F.’s Aunt even then constantly reiterating, +with inexpressible bitterness, that he was ‘a chap,’ and had a ‘proud +stomach,’ and over and over again insisting on that equine provision +being made for him which she had already so strongly prescribed. + +‘Such an inconvenient staircase and so many corner-stairs Arthur,’ +whispered Flora, ‘would you object to putting your arm round me under my +pelerine?’ + +With a sense of going down-stairs in a highly-ridiculous manner, Clennam +descended in the required attitude, and only released his fair burden at +the dining-room door; indeed, even there she was rather difficult to +be got rid of, remaining in his embrace to murmur, ‘Arthur, for mercy’s +sake, don’t breathe it to papa!’ + +She accompanied Arthur into the room, where the Patriarch sat alone, +with his list shoes on the fender, twirling his thumbs as if he had +never left off. The youthful Patriarch, aged ten, looked out of his +picture-frame above him with no calmer air than he. Both smooth heads +were alike beaming, blundering, and bumpy. + +‘Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. I hope you are well, sir, I hope you +are well. Please to sit down, please to sit down.’ + +‘I had hoped, sir,’ said Clennam, doing so, and looking round with a +face of blank disappointment, ‘not to find you alone.’ + +‘Ah, indeed?’ said the Patriarch, sweetly. ‘Ah, indeed?’ + +‘I told you so you know papa,’ cried Flora. + +‘Ah, to be sure!’ returned the Patriarch. ‘Yes, just so. Ah, to be +sure!’ + +‘Pray, sir,’ demanded Clennam, anxiously, ‘is Miss Wade gone?’ + +‘Miss--? Oh, you call her Wade,’ returned Mr Casby. ‘Highly proper.’ + +Arthur quickly returned, ‘What do you call her?’ + +‘Wade,’ said Mr Casby. ‘Oh, always Wade.’ + +After looking at the philanthropic visage and the long silky white hair +for a few seconds, during which Mr Casby twirled his thumbs, and smiled +at the fire as if he were benevolently wishing it to burn him that he +might forgive it, Arthur began: + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Casby--’ + +‘Not so, not so,’ said the Patriarch, ‘not so.’ + +‘--But, Miss Wade had an attendant with her--a young woman brought up +by friends of mine, over whom her influence is not considered very +salutary, and to whom I should be glad to have the opportunity of giving +the assurance that she has not yet forfeited the interest of those +protectors.’ + +‘Really, really?’ returned the Patriarch. + +‘Will you therefore be so good as to give me the address of Miss Wade?’ + +‘Dear, dear, dear!’ said the Patriarch, ‘how very unfortunate! If you +had only sent in to me when they were here! I observed the young woman, +Mr Clennam. A fine full-coloured young woman, Mr Clennam, with very dark +hair and very dark eyes. If I mistake not, if I mistake not?’ + +Arthur assented, and said once more with new expression, ‘If you would +be so good as to give me the address.’ + +‘Dear, dear, dear!’ exclaimed the Patriarch in sweet regret. ‘Tut, tut, +tut! what a pity, what a pity! I have no address, sir. Miss Wade mostly +lives abroad, Mr Clennam. She has done so for some years, and she is (if +I may say so of a fellow-creature and a lady) fitful and uncertain to a +fault, Mr Clennam. I may not see her again for a long, long time. I may +never see her again. What a pity, what a pity!’ + +Clennam saw now, that he had as much hope of getting assistance out of +the Portrait as out of the Patriarch; but he said nevertheless: + +‘Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have +mentioned, and under any obligation of secrecy that you may consider it +your duty to impose, give me any information at all touching Miss Wade? +I have seen her abroad, and I have seen her at home, but I know nothing +of her. Could you give me any account of her whatever?’ + +‘None,’ returned the Patriarch, shaking his big head with his utmost +benevolence. ‘None at all. Dear, dear, dear! What a real pity that +she stayed so short a time, and you delayed! As confidential agency +business, agency business, I have occasionally paid this lady money; but +what satisfaction is it to you, sir, to know that?’ + +‘Truly, none at all,’ said Clennam. + +‘Truly,’ assented the Patriarch, with a shining face as he +philanthropically smiled at the fire, ‘none at all, sir. You hit the +wise answer, Mr Clennam. Truly, none at all, sir.’ + +His turning of his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, was +so typical to Clennam of the way in which he would make the subject +revolve if it were pursued, never showing any new part of it nor +allowing it to make the smallest advance, that it did much to help to +convince him of his labour having been in vain. He might have taken any +time to think about it, for Mr Casby, well accustomed to get on anywhere +by leaving everything to his bumps and his white hair, knew his strength +to lie in silence. So there Casby sat, twirling and twirling, and making +his polished head and forehead look largely benevolent in every knob. + +With this spectacle before him, Arthur had risen to go, when from the +inner Dock where the good ship Pancks was hove down when out in no +cruising ground, the noise was heard of that steamer labouring towards +him. It struck Arthur that the noise began demonstratively far off, as +though Mr Pancks sought to impress on any one who might happen to think +about it, that he was working on from out of hearing. + +Mr Pancks and he shook hands, and the former brought his employer a +letter or two to sign. Mr Pancks in shaking hands merely scratched his +eyebrow with his left forefinger and snorted once, but Clennam, who +understood him better now than of old, comprehended that he had almost +done for the evening and wished to say a word to him outside. Therefore, +when he had taken his leave of Mr Casby, and (which was a more difficult +process) of Flora, he sauntered in the neighbourhood on Mr Pancks’s line +of road. + +He had waited but a short time when Mr Pancks appeared. Mr Pancks +shaking hands again with another expressive snort, and taking off his +hat to put his hair up, Arthur thought he received his cue to speak to +him as one who knew pretty well what had just now passed. Therefore he +said, without any preface: + +‘I suppose they were really gone, Pancks?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Pancks. ‘They were really gone.’ + +‘Does he know where to find that lady?’ + +‘Can’t say. I should think so.’ + +Mr Pancks did not? No, Mr Pancks did not. Did Mr Pancks know anything +about her? + +‘I expect,’ rejoined that worthy, ‘I know as much about her as she knows +about herself. She is somebody’s child--anybody’s, nobody’s. Put her in +a room in London here with any six people old enough to be her parents, +and her parents may be there for anything she knows. They may be in any +house she sees, they may be in any churchyard she passes, she may run +against ‘em in any street, she may make chance acquaintance of ‘em at +any time; and never know it. She knows nothing about ‘em. She knows +nothing about any relative whatever. Never did. Never will.’ + +‘Mr Casby could enlighten her, perhaps?’ + +‘May be,’ said Pancks. ‘I expect so, but don’t know. He has long had +money (not overmuch as I make out) in trust to dole out to her when +she can’t do without it. Sometimes she’s proud and won’t touch it for +a length of time; sometimes she’s so poor that she must have it. She +writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, +and revengeful never lived. She came for money to-night. Said she had +peculiar occasion for it.’ + +‘I think,’ observed Clennam musing, ‘I by chance know what occasion--I +mean into whose pocket the money is to go.’ + +‘Indeed?’ said Pancks. ‘If it’s a compact, I recommend that party to be +exact in it. I wouldn’t trust myself to that woman, young and handsome +as she is, if I had wronged her; no, not for twice my proprietor’s +money! Unless,’ Pancks added as a saving clause, ‘I had a lingering +illness on me, and wanted to get it over.’ + +Arthur, hurriedly reviewing his own observation of her, found it to +tally pretty nearly with Mr Pancks’s view. + +‘The wonder is to me,’ pursued Pancks, ‘that she has never done for my +proprietor, as the only person connected with her story she can lay +hold of. Mentioning that, I may tell you, between ourselves, that I am +sometimes tempted to do for him myself.’ + +Arthur started and said, ‘Dear me, Pancks, don’t say that!’ + +‘Understand me,’ said Pancks, extending five cropped coaly finger-nails +on Arthur’s arm; ‘I don’t mean, cut his throat. But by all that’s +precious, if he goes too far, I’ll cut his hair!’ + +Having exhibited himself in the new light of enunciating this tremendous +threat, Mr Pancks, with a countenance of grave import, snorted several +times and steamed away. + + + + +CHAPTER 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken + + +The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a +good deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were +under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur +Clennam ample leisure, in three or four successive days, to exhaust the +subject of his late glimpse of Miss Wade and Tattycoram. He had been +able to make no more of it and no less of it, and in this unsatisfactory +condition he was fain to leave it. + +During this space he had not been to his mother’s dismal old house. +One of his customary evenings for repairing thither now coming round, +he left his dwelling and his partner at nearly nine o’clock, and slowly +walked in the direction of that grim home of his youth. + +It always affected his imagination as wrathful, mysterious, and sad; +and his imagination was sufficiently impressible to see the whole +neighbourhood under some tinge of its dark shadow. As he went along, +upon a dreary night, the dim streets by which he went, seemed all +depositories of oppressive secrets. The deserted counting-houses, with +their secrets of books and papers locked up in chests and safes; the +banking-houses, with their secrets of strong rooms and wells, the +keys of which were in a very few secret pockets and a very few secret +breasts; the secrets of all the dispersed grinders in the vast mill, +among whom there were doubtless plunderers, forgers, and trust-betrayers +of many sorts, whom the light of any day that dawned might reveal; he +could have fancied that these things, in hiding, imparted a heaviness +to the air. The shadow thickening and thickening as he approached its +source, he thought of the secrets of the lonely church-vaults, where the +people who had hoarded and secreted in iron coffers were in their turn +similarly hoarded, not yet at rest from doing harm; and then of the +secrets of the river, as it rolled its turbid tide between two frowning +wildernesses of secrets, extending, thick and dense, for many miles, and +warding off the free air and the free country swept by winds and wings +of birds. + +The shadow still darkening as he drew near the house, the melancholy +room which his father had once occupied, haunted by the appealing face +he had himself seen fade away with him when there was no other watcher +by the bed, arose before his mind. Its close air was secret. The gloom, +and must, and dust of the whole tenement, were secret. At the heart of +it his mother presided, inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly +holding all the secrets of her own and his father’s life, and austerely +opposing herself, front to front, to the great final secret of all life. + +He had turned into the narrow and steep street from which the court of +enclosure wherein the house stood opened, when another footstep turned +into it behind him, and so close upon his own that he was jostled to the +wall. As his mind was teeming with these thoughts, the encounter took +him altogether unprepared, so that the other passenger had had time to +say, boisterously, ‘Pardon! Not my fault!’ and to pass on before the +instant had elapsed which was requisite to his recovery of the realities +about him. + +When that moment had flashed away, he saw that the man striding on +before him was the man who had been so much in his mind during the last +few days. It was no casual resemblance, helped out by the force of +the impression the man made upon him. It was the man; the man he had +followed in company with the girl, and whom he had overheard talking to +Miss Wade. + +The street was a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who +although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) +went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he looked at him. With +no defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the +figure in view a little longer, Clennam quickened his pace to pass the +twist in the street which hid him from his sight. On turning it, he saw +the man no more. + +Standing now, close to the gateway of his mother’s house, he looked +down the street: but it was empty. There was no projecting shadow large +enough to obscure the man; there was no turning near that he could have +taken; nor had there been any audible sound of the opening and closing +of a door. Nevertheless, he concluded that the man must have had a key +in his hand, and must have opened one of the many house-doors and gone +in. + +Ruminating on this strange chance and strange glimpse, he turned into +the court-yard. As he looked, by mere habit, towards the feebly lighted +windows of his mother’s room, his eyes encountered the figure he had +just lost, standing against the iron railings of the little waste +enclosure looking up at those windows and laughing to himself. Some of +the many vagrant cats who were always prowling about there by night, +and who had taken fright at him, appeared to have stopped when he had +stopped, and were looking at him with eyes by no means unlike his own +from tops of walls and porches, and other safe points of pause. He had +only halted for a moment to entertain himself thus; he immediately went +forward, throwing the end of his cloak off his shoulder as he went, +ascended the unevenly sunken steps, and knocked a sounding knock at the +door. + +Clennam’s surprise was not so absorbing but that he took his resolution +without any incertitude. He went up to the door too, and ascended the +steps too. His friend looked at him with a braggart air, and sang to +himself. + + + ‘Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!’ + + +After which he knocked again. + +‘You are impatient, sir,’ said Arthur. + +‘I am, sir. Death of my life, sir,’ returned the stranger, ‘it’s my +character to be impatient!’ + +The sound of Mistress Affery cautiously chaining the door before she +opened it, caused them both to look that way. Affery opened it a very +little, with a flaring candle in her hands and asked who was that, at +that time of night, with that knock! ‘Why, Arthur!’ she added with +astonishment, seeing him first. ‘Not you sure? Ah, Lord save us! No,’ +she cried out, seeing the other. ‘Him again!’ + +‘It’s true! Him again, dear Mrs Flintwinch,’ cried the stranger. ‘Open +the door, and let me take my dear friend Jeremiah to my arms! Open the +door, and let me hasten myself to embrace my Flintwinch!’ + +‘He’s not at home,’ cried Affery. + +‘Fetch him!’ cried the stranger. ‘Fetch my Flintwinch! Tell him that it +is his old Blandois, who comes from arriving in England; tell him that +it is his little boy who is here, his cabbage, his well-beloved! Open +the door, beautiful Mrs Flintwinch, and in the meantime let me to pass +upstairs, to present my compliments--homage of Blandois--to my lady! My +lady lives always? It is well. Open then!’ + +To Arthur’s increased surprise, Mistress Affery, stretching her eyes +wide at himself, as if in warning that this was not a gentleman for +him to interfere with, drew back the chain, and opened the door. The +stranger, without ceremony, walked into the hall, leaving Arthur to +follow him. + +‘Despatch then! Achieve then! Bring my Flintwinch! Announce me to my +lady!’ cried the stranger, clanking about the stone floor. + +‘Pray tell me, Affery,’ said Arthur aloud and sternly, as he surveyed +him from head to foot with indignation; ‘who is this gentleman?’ + +‘Pray tell me, Affery,’ the stranger repeated in his turn, ‘who--ha, ha, +ha!--who is this gentleman?’ + +The voice of Mrs Clennam opportunely called from her chamber above, +‘Affery, let them both come up. Arthur, come straight to me!’ + +‘Arthur?’ exclaimed Blandois, taking off his hat at arm’s length, +and bringing his heels together from a great stride in making him a +flourishing bow. ‘The son of my lady? I am the all-devoted of the son of +my lady!’ + +Arthur looked at him again in no more flattering manner than before, +and, turning on his heel without acknowledgment, went up-stairs. The +visitor followed him up-stairs. Mistress Affery took the key from behind +the door, and deftly slipped out to fetch her lord. + +A bystander, informed of the previous appearance of Monsieur Blandois +in that room, would have observed a difference in Mrs Clennam’s present +reception of him. Her face was not one to betray it; and her suppressed +manner, and her set voice, were equally under her control. It wholly +consisted in her never taking her eyes off his face from the moment of +his entrance, and in her twice or thrice, when he was becoming noisy, +swaying herself a very little forward in the chair in which she sat +upright, with her hands immovable upon its elbows; as if she gave him +the assurance that he should be presently heard at any length he would. +Arthur did not fail to observe this; though the difference between the +present occasion and the former was not within his power of observation. + +‘Madame,’ said Blandois, ‘do me the honour to present me to Monsieur, +your son. It appears to me, madame, that Monsieur, your son, is disposed +to complain of me. He is not polite.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Arthur, striking in expeditiously, ‘whoever you are, and +however you come to be here, if I were the master of this house I would +lose no time in placing you on the outside of it.’ + +‘But you are not,’ said his mother, without looking at him. +‘Unfortunately for the gratification of your unreasonable temper, you +are not the master, Arthur.’ + +‘I make no claim to be, mother. If I object to this person’s manner of +conducting himself here, and object to it so much, that if I had any +authority here I certainly would not suffer him to remain a minute, I +object on your account.’ + +‘In the case of objection being necessary,’ she returned, ‘I could +object for myself. And of course I should.’ + +The subject of their dispute, who had seated himself, laughed aloud, and +rapped his legs with his hand. + +‘You have no right,’ said Mrs Clennam, always intent on Blandois, +however directly she addressed her son, ‘to speak to the prejudice of +any gentleman (least of all a gentleman from another country), because +he does not conform to your standard, or square his behaviour by your +rules. It is possible that the gentleman may, on similar grounds, object +to you.’ + +‘I hope so,’ returned Arthur. + +‘The gentleman,’ pursued Mrs Clennam, ‘on a former occasion brought +a letter of recommendation to us from highly esteemed and responsible +correspondents. I am perfectly unacquainted with the gentleman’s object +in coming here at present. I am entirely ignorant of it, and cannot be +supposed likely to be able to form the remotest guess at its nature;’ +her habitual frown became stronger, as she very slowly and weightily +emphasised those words; ‘but, when the gentleman proceeds to explain +his object, as I shall beg him to have the goodness to do to myself and +Flintwinch, when Flintwinch returns, it will prove, no doubt, to be one +more or less in the usual way of our business, which it will be both our +business and our pleasure to advance. It can be nothing else.’ + +‘We shall see, madame!’ said the man of business. + +‘We shall see,’ she assented. ‘The gentleman is acquainted with +Flintwinch; and when the gentleman was in London last, I remember +to have heard that he and Flintwinch had some entertainment or +good-fellowship together. I am not in the way of knowing much that +passes outside this room, and the jingle of little worldly things beyond +it does not much interest me; but I remember to have heard that.’ + +‘Right, madame. It is true.’ He laughed again, and whistled the burden +of the tune he had sung at the door. + +‘Therefore, Arthur,’ said his mother, ‘the gentleman comes here as an +acquaintance, and no stranger; and it is much to be regretted that your +unreasonable temper should have found offence in him. I regret it. I say +so to the gentleman. You will not say so, I know; therefore I say it for +myself and Flintwinch, since with us two the gentleman’s business lies.’ + +The key of the door below was now heard in the lock, and the door was +heard to open and close. In due sequence Mr Flintwinch appeared; on +whose entrance the visitor rose from his chair, laughing loud, and +folded him in a close embrace. + +‘How goes it, my cherished friend!’ said he. ‘How goes the world, my +Flintwinch? Rose-coloured? So much the better, so much the better! Ah, +but you look charming! Ah, but you look young and fresh as the flowers +of Spring! Ah, good little boy! Brave child, brave child!’ + +While heaping these compliments on Mr Flintwinch, he rolled him about +with a hand on each of his shoulders, until the staggerings of that +gentleman, who under the circumstances was dryer and more twisted than +ever, were like those of a teetotum nearly spent. + +‘I had a presentiment, last time, that we should be better and more +intimately acquainted. Is it coming on you, Flintwinch? Is it yet coming +on?’ + +‘Why, no, sir,’ retorted Mr Flintwinch. ‘Not unusually. Hadn’t you +better be seated? You have been calling for some more of that port, sir, +I guess?’ + +‘Ah, Little joker! Little pig!’ cried the visitor. ‘Ha ha ha ha!’ And +throwing Mr Flintwinch away, as a closing piece of raillery, he sat down +again. + +The amazement, suspicion, resentment, and shame, with which Arthur +looked on at all this, struck him dumb. Mr Flintwinch, who had spun +backward some two or three yards under the impetus last given to him, +brought himself up with a face completely unchanged in its stolidity +except as it was affected by shortness of breath, and looked hard at +Arthur. Not a whit less reticent and wooden was Mr Flintwinch outwardly, +than in the usual course of things: the only perceptible difference in +him being that the knot of cravat which was generally under his ear, +had worked round to the back of his head: where it formed an ornamental +appendage not unlike a bagwig, and gave him something of a courtly +appearance. + +As Mrs Clennam never removed her eyes from Blandois (on whom they had +some effect, as a steady look has on a lower sort of dog), so Jeremiah +never removed his from Arthur. It was as if they had tacitly agreed to +take their different provinces. Thus, in the ensuing silence, Jeremiah +stood scraping his chin and looking at Arthur as though he were trying +to screw his thoughts out of him with an instrument. + +After a little, the visitor, as if he felt the silence irksome, rose, +and impatiently put himself with his back to the sacred fire which had +burned through so many years. Thereupon Mrs Clennam said, moving one of +her hands for the first time, and moving it very slightly with an action +of dismissal: + +‘Please to leave us to our business, Arthur.’ + +‘Mother, I do so with reluctance.’ + +‘Never mind with what,’ she returned, ‘or with what not. Please to leave +us. Come back at any other time when you may consider it a duty to bury +half an hour wearily here. Good night.’ + +She held up her muffled fingers that he might touch them with his, +according to their usual custom, and he stood over her wheeled chair to +touch her face with his lips. He thought, then, that her cheek was +more strained than usual, and that it was colder. As he followed the +direction of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr Flintwinch’s good +friend, Mr Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his finger and thumb with one +loud contemptuous snap. + +‘I leave your--your business acquaintance in my mother’s room, Mr +Flintwinch,’ said Clennam, ‘with a great deal of surprise and a great +deal of unwillingness.’ + +The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again. + +‘Good night, mother.’ + +‘Good night.’ + +‘I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch,’ said Blandois, +standing astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to arrest +Clennam’s retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; ‘I had a +friend once, who had heard so much of the dark side of this city and +its ways, that he wouldn’t have confided himself alone by night with two +people who had an interest in getting him under the ground--my faith! +not even in a respectable house like this--unless he was bodily too +strong for them. Bah! What a poltroon, my Flintwinch! Eh?’ + +‘A cur, sir.’ + +‘Agreed! A cur. But he wouldn’t have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he +had known them to have the will to silence him, without the power. He +wouldn’t have drunk from a glass of water under such circumstances--not +even in a respectable house like this, my Flintwinch--unless he had seen +one of them drink first, and swallow too!’ + +Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was +half-choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out. +The visitor saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose came +down over his moustache and his moustache went up under his nose, in an +ominous and ugly smile. + +‘For Heaven’s sake, Affery,’ whispered Clennam, as she opened the door +for him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight of the +night-sky, ‘what is going on here?’ + +Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark +with her apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a low, +deadened voice. + +‘Don’t ask me anything, Arthur. I’ve been in a dream for ever so long. +Go away!’ + +He went out, and she shut the door upon him. He looked up at the windows +of his mother’s room, and the dim light, deadened by the yellow blinds, +seemed to say a response after Affery, and to mutter, ‘Don’t ask me +anything. Go away!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit + + +Dear Mr Clennam, + +As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and +as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other +trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure +for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to +devote an hour to writing to you again. This time, I write from Rome. + +We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long +upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so +when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the +Via Gregoriana. I dare say you know it. + +Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is +what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging, +but perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have +done, because you have been in many different countries and have +seen many different customs. Of course it is a far, far better +place--millions of times--than any I have ever been used to until +lately; and I fancy I don’t look at it with my own eyes, but with hers. +For it would be easy to see that she has always been brought up in a +tender and happy home, even if she had not told me so with great love +for it. + +Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and +it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan paints. The windows +are blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been +all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there +before--oh,--I should think, for years! There is a curtain more +dust-coloured than red, which divides it, and the part behind the +curtain makes the private sitting-room. When I first saw her there she +was alone, and her work had fallen out of her hand, and she was looking +up at the sky shining through the tops of the windows. Pray do not be +uneasy when I tell you, but it was not quite so airy, nor so bright, nor +so cheerful, nor so happy and youthful altogether as I should have liked +it to be. + +On account of Mr Gowan’s painting Papa’s picture (which I am not quite +convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him +doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her since then +than I might have had without this fortunate chance. She is very much +alone. Very much alone indeed. + +Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, when +it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o’clock +in the afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had +been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in +it, and she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see, +but the old man who had brought it. He was telling her a long story (of +robbers outside the walls being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint), +to entertain her--as he said to me when I came out, ‘because he had a +daughter of his own, though she was not so pretty.’ + +I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to +say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her, +for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not +doubt that he is--but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears +as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not +wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her. If it does not +seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged +poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could +ever tell you if she was to try. But don’t be frightened, I am not going +to try. + +Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan’s unsettled +and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little. +He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and +throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring +about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings +for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no +belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself. Is it so? +I wonder what you will say when you come to this! I know how you will +look, and I can almost hear the voice in which you would tell me on the +Iron Bridge. + +Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company +here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is +with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out +very little. I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way +of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested +success in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same +people, would not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their +daughters. Then he goes into the country besides, to think about making +sketches; and in all places where there are visitors, he has a large +acquaintance and is very well known. Besides all this, he has a friend +who is much in his society both at home and away from home, though he +treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his behaviour +to him. I am quite sure (because she has told me so), that she does not +like this friend. He is so revolting to me, too, that his being away +from here, at present, is quite a relief to my mind. How much more to +hers! + +But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved +to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little +uncomfortable without occasion, is this. She is so true and so devoted, +and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his for ever, +that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and +conceal all his faults, until she dies. I believe she conceals them, and +always will conceal them, even from herself. She has given him a heart +that can never be taken back; and however much he may try it, he will +never wear out its affection. You know the truth of this, as you know +everything, far far better than I; but I cannot help telling you what a +nature she shows, and that you can never think too well of her. + +I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such +friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to +me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me. +When she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you +had always called me Little Dorrit. I told her that the name was much +dearer to me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too. + +Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not +know that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, and just a +week after they came. It has made them very happy. However, I must tell +you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint +with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was +sometimes a slight given to their love for her. It was but yesterday, +when I was there, that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and +go out, as if he was afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented +himself by that means. Yet I am sure they are both so considerate, +good-humoured, and reasonable, that he might spare them. It is hard in +him not to think of them a little more. + +I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked at +first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much, +that I was half inclined not to send it. But when I thought it over a +little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that I had only +been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed, +because I was quickened by your interest in it. Indeed, you may be sure +that is the truth. + +And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have +little left to say. + +We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can hardly +think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me. She has +a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and +then all the way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he +means to follow her everywhere. I was much confused by his speaking to +me about it, but he would. I did not know what to say, but at last I +told him that I thought he had better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell +him this) is much too spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he +would, all the same. I have no lover, of course. + +If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will +perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me +something about her travels, and surely it is time she did. I think it +is indeed, but I don’t know what to tell you. Since we left Venice we +have been in a great many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among +them, and have seen so many wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy +when I think what a crowd they make. But you can tell me so much more +about them than I can tell you, that why should I tire you with my +accounts and descriptions? + +Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar +difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward +now. One of my frequent thoughts is this:--Old as these cities are, +their age itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they +should have been in their places all through those days when I did not +even know of the existence of more than two or three of them, and when +I scarcely knew of anything outside our old walls. There is something +melancholy in it, and I don’t know why. When we went to see the famous +leaning tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the +buildings near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so +young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired! I could not +at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, ‘O +how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our room, and +when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the yard--O how many +times this place was just as quiet and lovely as it is to-day!’ It quite +overpowered me. My heart was so full that tears burst out of my eyes, +though I did what I could to restrain them. And I have the same feeling +often--often. + +Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to +myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed of myself +as very young indeed! I am not very old, you may say. No, but that is +not what I mean. I have always dreamed of myself as a child learning +to do needlework. I have often dreamed of myself as back there, seeing +faces in the yard little known, and which I should have thought I had +quite forgotten; but, as often as not, I have been abroad here--in +Switzerland, or France, or Italy--somewhere where we have been--yet +always as that little child. I have dreamed of going down to Mrs +General, with the patches on my clothes in which I can first remember +myself. I have over and over again dreamed of taking my place at dinner +at Venice when we have had a large company, in the mourning for my poor +mother which I wore when I was eight years old, and wore long after it +was threadbare and would mend no more. It has been a great distress to +me to think how irreconcilable the company would consider it with my +father’s wealth, and how I should displease and disgrace him and Fanny +and Edward by so plainly disclosing what they wished to keep secret. But +I have not grown out of the little child in thinking of it; and at the +self-same moment I have dreamed that I have sat with the heart-ache at +table, calculating the expenses of the dinner, and quite distracting +myself with thinking how they were ever to be made good. I have never +dreamed of the change in our fortunes itself; I have never dreamed of +your coming back with me that memorable morning to break it; I have +never even dreamed of you. + +Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and +others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round +you by night. For I must now confess to you that I suffer from +home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, as +sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it. I cannot bear to turn my +face further away from it. My heart is a little lightened when we turn +towards it, even for a few miles, and with the knowledge that we are +soon to turn away again. So dearly do I love the scene of my poverty and +your kindness. O so dearly, O so dearly! + +Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again. We are all +fond of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for our +return. My dear father talks of a visit to London late in this next +spring, on some affairs connected with the property, but I have no hope +that he will bring me with him. + +I have tried to get on a little better under Mrs General’s instruction, +and I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be. I have begun to speak +and understand, almost easily, the hard languages I told you about. I +did not remember, at the moment when I wrote last, that you knew them +both; but I remembered it afterwards, and it helped me on. God bless +you, dear Mr Clennam. Do not forget + + Your ever grateful and affectionate + + LITTLE DORRIT. + +P.S.--Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best +remembrance in which you can hold her. You cannot think too generously +or too highly of her. I forgot Mr Pancks last time. Please, if you +should see him, give him your Little Dorrit’s kind regard. He was very +good to Little D. + + + + +CHAPTER 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden + + +The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land. +Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good +to any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he +had any capacity or utterance of any sort in him, which had ever thrown, +for any creature, the feeblest farthing-candle ray of light on any path +of duty or diversion, pain or pleasure, toil or rest, fact or fancy, +among the multiplicity of paths in the labyrinth trodden by the sons +of Adam; nobody had the smallest reason for supposing the clay of which +this object of worship was made, to be other than the commonest clay, +with as clogged a wick smouldering inside of it as ever kept an image of +humanity from tumbling to pieces. All people knew (or thought they knew) +that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, +prostrated themselves before him, more degradedly and less excusably +than the darkest savage creeps out of his hole in the ground to +propitiate, in some log or reptile, the Deity of his benighted soul. + +Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as +a protest against their meanness. The multitude worshipped on +trust--though always distinctly knowing why--but the officiators at the +altar had the man habitually in their view. They sat at his feasts, and +he sat at theirs. There was a spectre always attendant on him, saying to +these high priests, ‘Are such the signs you trust, and love to honour; +this head, these eyes, this mode of speech, the tone and manner of this +man? You are the levers of the Circumlocution Office, and the rulers of +men. When half-a-dozen of you fall out by the ears, it seems that mother +earth can give birth to no other rulers. Does your qualification lie in +the superior knowledge of men which accepts, courts, and puffs this man? +Or, if you are competent to judge aright the signs I never fail to +show you when he appears among you, is your superior honesty your +qualification?’ Two rather ugly questions these, always going about +town with Mr Merdle; and there was a tacit agreement that they must be +stifled. + +In Mrs Merdle’s absence abroad, Mr Merdle still kept the great house +open for the passage through it of a stream Of visitors. A few of these +took affable possession of the establishment. Three or four ladies of +distinction and liveliness used to say to one another, ‘Let us dine at +our dear Merdle’s next Thursday. Whom shall we have?’ Our dear Merdle +would then receive his instructions; and would sit heavily among the +company at table and wander lumpishly about his drawing-rooms +afterwards, only remarkable for appearing to have nothing to do with the +entertainment beyond being in its way. + +The Chief Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man’s life, relaxed +nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners when the bosom +was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the bosom was +there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He was a hard man, and +would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine. He would not +allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up to his mark. He set forth +the table for his own dignity. If the guests chose to partake of what +was served, he saw no objection; but it was served for the maintenance +of his rank. As he stood by the sideboard he seemed to announce, ‘I have +accepted office to look at this which is now before me, and to look at +nothing less than this.’ If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a +part of his own state of which he was, from unavoidable circumstances, +temporarily deprived, just as he might have missed a centre-piece, or a +choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to the Banker’s. + +Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner. Lord Decimus was to +be there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant young Barnacle +was to be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary Barnacles who went +about the provinces when the House was up, warbling the praises of their +Chief, were to be represented there. It was understood to be a great +occasion. Mr Merdle was going to take up the Barnacles. Some delicate +little negotiations had occurred between him and the noble Decimus--the +young Barnacle of engaging manners acting as negotiator--and Mr Merdle +had decided to cast the weight of his great probity and great riches +into the Barnacle scale. Jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps +because it was indisputable that if the adherence of the immortal Enemy +of Mankind could have been secured by a job, the Barnacles would have +jobbed him--for the good of the country, for the good of the country. + +Mrs Merdle had written to this magnificent spouse of hers, whom it was +heresy to regard as anything less than all the British Merchants since +the days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded three feet deep all +over--had written to this spouse of hers, several letters from Rome, in +quick succession, urging upon him with importunity that now or never was +the time to provide for Edmund Sparkler. Mrs Merdle had shown him that +the case of Edmund was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result +from his having some good thing directly. In the grammar of Mrs +Merdle’s verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one mood, the +Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs Merdle’s +verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr Merdle to conjugate, that his +sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became quite agitated. + +In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes +round the Chief Butler’s shoes without raising them to the index of that +stupendous creature’s thoughts, had signified to him his intention of +giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but a very special +dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no +objection to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could +be done; and the day of the dinner was now come. + +Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the fire, +waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom or never took +the liberty of standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite +alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such +a deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary +manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone +creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive +retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows +which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back +into it when the fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making +himself so easy. They were even more than sufficient, if his +uncomfortable glances at them might be taken to mean anything. + +Mr Merdle’s right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the +evening paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his +wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the +evening paper that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief +projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle +wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid +achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his +house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own +hearthrug, while the little ships were sailing into dinner. + +Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle was the +first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. Bar, strengthened +as usual with his double eye-glass and his little jury droop, was +overjoyed to see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined that we were +going to sit in Banco, as we lawyers called it, to take a special +argument? + +‘Indeed,’ said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was Ferdinand; +‘how so?’ + +‘Nay,’ smiled Bar. ‘If you don’t know, how can I know? You are in the +innermost sanctuary of the temple; I am one of the admiring concourse on +the plain without.’ + +Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer +he had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer. Bar was +likewise always modest and self-depreciatory--in his way. Bar was a man +of great variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his +patterns. Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes a jury-man; +and he must get that jury-man over, if he could. + +‘Our illustrious host and friend,’ said Bar; ‘our shining mercantile +star;--going into politics?’ + +‘Going? He has been in Parliament some time, you know,’ returned the +engaging young Barnacle. + +‘True,’ said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men, +which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic +tradesmen on common juries: ‘he has been in Parliament for some time. +Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and wavering star? Humph?’ + +An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph? into an +affirmative answer, But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar as he +strolled up-stairs, and gave him no answer at all. + +‘Just so, just so,’ said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to be put +off in that way, ‘and therefore I spoke of our sitting _in Banco_ to take +a special argument--meaning this to be a high and solemn occasion, when, +as Captain Macheath says, “the judges are met: a terrible show!” We +lawyers are sufficiently liberal, you see, to quote the Captain, though +the Captain is severe upon us. Nevertheless, I think I could put in +evidence an admission of the Captain’s,’ said Bar, with a little jocose +roll of his head; for, in his legal current of speech, he always assumed +the air of rallying himself with the best grace in the world; ‘an +admission of the Captain’s that Law, in the gross, is at least +intended to be impartial. For what says the Captain, if I quote +him correctly--and if not,’ with a light-comedy touch of his double +eye-glass on his companion’s shoulder, ‘my learned friend will set me +right: + + + “Since laws were made for every degree, + To curb vice in others as well as in me, + I wonder we ha’n’t better company + Upon Tyburn Tree!”’ + + +These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood +before the fire. So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the entrance +of Bar with such a reference in his mouth, that Bar explained himself +to have been quoting Gay. ‘Assuredly not one of our Westminster Hall +authorities,’ said he, ‘but still no despicable one to a man possessing +the largely-practical Mr Merdle’s knowledge of the world.’ + +Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but +subsequently looked as if he thought he wouldn’t. The interval afforded +time for Bishop to be announced. + +Bishop came in with meekness, and yet with a strong and rapid step as if +he wanted to get his seven-league dress-shoes on, and go round the world +to see that everybody was in a satisfactory state. Bishop had no idea +that there was anything significant in the occasion. That was the most +remarkable trait in his demeanour. He was crisp, fresh, cheerful, +affable, bland; but so surprisingly innocent. + +Bar sidled up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the +health of Mrs Bishop. Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in the +article of taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was well. Young +Mr Bishop was also well. He was down, with his young wife and little +family, at his Cure of Souls. + +The representatives of the Barnacle Chorus dropped in next, and Mr +Merdle’s physician dropped in next. Bar, who had a bit of one eye and a +bit of his double eye-glass for every one who came in at the door, no +matter with whom he was conversing or what he was talking about, got +among them all by some skilful means, without being seen to get at them, +and touched each individual gentleman of the jury on his own individual +favourite spot. With some of the Chorus, he laughed about the sleepy +member who had gone out into the lobby the other night, and voted the +wrong way: with others, he deplored that innovating spirit in the time +which could not even be prevented from taking an unnatural interest in +the public service and the public money: with the physician he had a +word to say about the general health; he had also a little information +to ask him for, concerning a professional man of unquestioned erudition +and polished manners--but those credentials in their highest development +he believed were the possession of other professors of the healing art +(jury droop)--whom he had happened to have in the witness-box the day +before yesterday, and from whom he had elicited in cross-examination +that he claimed to be one of the exponents of this new mode of treatment +which appeared to Bar to--eh?--well, Bar thought so; Bar had thought, +and hoped, Physician would tell him so. Without presuming to decide +where doctors disagreed, it did appear to Bar, viewing it as a question +of common sense and not of so-called legal penetration, that this new +system was--might be, in the presence of so great an authority--say, +Humbug? Ah! Fortified by such encouragement, he could venture to say +Humbug; and now Bar’s mind was relieved. + +Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr Johnson’s celebrated acquaintance, had +only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this +time. This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with +ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire, +holding no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general +resemblance to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them. + +But now, Lord Decimus arrived. The Chief Butler, who up to this time +had limited himself to a branch of his usual function by looking at the +company as they entered (and that, with more of defiance than favour), +put himself so far out of his way as to come up-stairs with him and +announce him. Lord Decimus being an overpowering peer, a bashful young +member of the Lower House who was the last fish but one caught by the +Barnacles, and who had been invited on this occasion to commemorate his +capture, shut his eyes when his Lordship came in. + +Lord Decimus, nevertheless, was glad to see the Member. He was also +glad to see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, glad to see +Physician, glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see Chorus, glad to +see Ferdinand his private secretary. Lord Decimus, though one of the +greatest of the earth, was not remarkable for ingratiatory manners, and +Ferdinand had coached him up to the point of noticing all the fellows +he might find there, and saying he was glad to see them. When he had +achieved this rush of vivacity and condescension, his Lordship composed +himself into the picture after Cuyp, and made a third cow in the group. + +Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury and must now lay +hold of the Foreman, soon came sidling up, double eye-glass in hand. Bar +tendered the weather, as a subject neatly aloof from official reserve, +for the Foreman’s consideration. Bar said that he was told (as everybody +always is told, though who tells them, and why, will ever remain a +mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit this year. Lord Decimus +had not heard anything amiss of his peaches, but rather believed, if his +people were correct, he was to have no apples. No apples? Bar was lost +in astonishment and concern. It would have been all one to him, in +reality, if there had not been a pippin on the surface of the earth, but +his show of interest in this apple question was positively painful. +Now, to what, Lord Decimus--for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather +information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us--to +what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed? Lord Decimus could not +undertake to propound any theory about it. This might have stopped +another man; but Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, said, ‘As to pears, +now?’ + +Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as +a master-stroke. Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree +formerly growing in a garden near the back of his dame’s house at Eton, +upon which pear-tree the only joke of his life perennially bloomed. It +was a joke of a compact and portable nature, turning on the difference +between Eton pears and Parliamentary pairs; but it was a joke, a refined +relish of which would seem to have appeared to Lord Decimus impossible +to be had without a thorough and intimate acquaintance with the tree. +Therefore, the story at first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then +gradually found it in winter, carried it through the changing season, +saw it bud, saw it blossom, saw it bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen; in +short, cultivated the tree in that diligent and minute manner before it +got out of the bed-room window to steal the fruit, that many thanks had +been offered up by belated listeners for the trees having been planted +and grafted prior to Lord Decimus’s time. Bar’s interest in apples was +so overtopped by the wrapt suspense in which he pursued the changes +of these pears, from the moment when Lord Decimus solemnly opened with +‘Your mentioning pears recalls to my remembrance a pear-tree,’ down to +the rich conclusion, ‘And so we pass, through the various changes +of life, from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs,’ that he had to go +down-stairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him +at table in order that he might hear the anecdote out. By that time, Bar +felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner with a good +appetite. + +It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. The +rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the choicest +fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship in gold and +silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious to the senses of +taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition. O, what +a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how +blessedly and enviably endowed--in one word, what a rich man! + +He took his usual poor eighteenpennyworth of food in his usual +indigestive way, and had as little to say for himself as ever a +wonderful man had. Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those sublimities +who have no occasion to be talked to, for they can be at any time +sufficiently occupied with the contemplation of their own greatness. +This enabled the bashful young Member to keep his eyes open long enough +at a time to see his dinner. But, whenever Lord Decimus spoke, he shut +them again. + +The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the party. +Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that his +innocence stood in his way. He was so soon left behind. When there was +any little hint of anything being in the wind, he got lost directly. +Worldly affairs were too much for him; he couldn’t make them out at all. + +This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy to +have heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting on +the good side, the sound and plain sagacity--not demonstrative or +ostentatious, but thoroughly sound and practical--of our friend Mr +Sparkler. + +Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so. A vote was +a vote, and always acceptable. + +Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler to-day, Mr Merdle. + +‘He is away with Mrs Merdle,’ returned that gentleman, slowly coming +out of a long abstraction, in the course of which he had been fitting a +tablespoon up his sleeve. ‘It is not indispensable for him to be on the +spot.’ + +‘The magic name of Merdle,’ said Bar, with the jury droop, ‘no doubt +will suffice for all.’ + +‘Why--yes--I believe so,’ assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon aside, +and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of the other +hand. ‘I believe the people in my interest down there will not make any +difficulty.’ + +‘Model people!’ said Bar. + +‘I am glad you approve of them,’ said Mr Merdle. + +‘And the people of those other two places, now,’ pursued Bar, with a +bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction +of his magnificent neighbour; ‘we lawyers are always curious, always +inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, +since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some +corner;--the people of those other two places now? Do they yield so +laudably to the vast and cumulative influence of such enterprise and +such renown; do those little rills become absorbed so quietly +and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural laws, so +beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon its +wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is +perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?’ + +Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar’s eloquence, looked fitfully about +the nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said hesitating: + +‘They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society. They will +return anybody I send to them for that purpose.’ + +‘Cheering to know,’ said Bar. ‘Cheering to know.’ + +The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this +Island, containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty, +out-of-the-way constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle’s pocket. +Ferdinand Barnacle laughed in his easy way, and airily said they were +a nice set of fellows. Bishop, mentally perambulating among paths of +peace, was altogether swallowed up in absence of mind. + +‘Pray,’ asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, ‘what +is this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a debtors’ +prison proving to be of a wealthy family, and having come into the +inheritance of a large sum of money? I have met with a variety of +allusions to it. Do you know anything of it, Ferdinand?’ + +‘I only know this much,’ said Ferdinand, ‘that he has given the +Department with which I have the honour to be associated;’ this +sparkling young Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who should +say, We know all about these forms of speech, but we must keep it up, +we must keep the game alive; ‘no end of trouble, and has put us into +innumerable fixes.’ + +‘Fixes?’ repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and pondering +on the word that made the bashful Member shut his eyes quite tight. +‘Fixes?’ + +‘A very perplexing business indeed,’ observed Mr Tite Barnacle, with an +air of grave resentment. + +‘What,’ said Lord Decimus, ‘was the character of his business; what was +the nature of these--a--Fixes, Ferdinand?’ + +‘Oh, it’s a good story, as a story,’ returned that gentleman; ‘as good +a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had +incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of +the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the +performance of a contract which was not at all performed. He was a +partner in a house in some large way--spirits, or buttons, or wine, or +blacking, or oatmeal, or woollen, or pork, or hooks and eyes, or iron, +or treacle, or shoes, or something or other that was wanted for troops, +or seamen, or somebody--and the house burst, and we being among +the creditors, detainees were lodged on the part of the Crown in a +scientific manner, and all the rest of it. When the fairy had appeared +and he wanted to pay us off, Egad we had got into such an exemplary +state of checking and counter-checking, signing and counter-signing, +that it was six months before we knew how to take the money, or how to +give a receipt for it. It was a triumph of public business,’ said this +handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily, ‘You never saw such a lot of +forms in your life. “Why,” the attorney said to me one day, “if I wanted +this office to give me two or three thousand pounds instead of take it, +I couldn’t have more trouble about it.” “You are right, old fellow,” + I told him, “and in future you’ll know that we have something to do +here.”’ The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing +heartily. He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners +were exceedingly winning. + +Mr Tite Barnacle’s view of the business was of a less airy character. He +took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to +pay the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so +many years. But Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently +a weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are +believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of +unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to +condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; +it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the +buttoned-up man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his +current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white +cravat. + +‘May I ask,’ said Lord Decimus, ‘if Mr Darrit--or Dorrit--has any +family?’ + +Nobody else replying, the host said, ‘He has two daughters, my lord.’ + +‘Oh! you are acquainted with him?’ asked Lord Decimus. + +‘Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too. In fact,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I rather +believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund +Sparkler. He is susceptible, and--I--think--the conquest--’ Here Mr +Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, as he usually did when he +found himself observed or listened to. + +Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this +family, had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a low +voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical +illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to +Like. He regarded this power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth +to it, as something remarkably interesting and curious--something +indefinably allied to the loadstone and gravitation. Bishop, who +had ambled back to earth again when the present theme was broached, +acquiesced. He said it was indeed highly important to Society that one +in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself invested with a +power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged +in the superior power of a more legitimate and more gigantic growth, the +influence of which (as in the case of our friend at whose board we sat) +was habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests of Society. +Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a lesser, +each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a blended and a +softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable warmth throughout +the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of putting the case very +much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, meanwhile (not to throw away a +jury-man), making a show of sitting at his feet and feeding on his +precepts. + +The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member cooled +in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, +and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a +flat country, seemed to project himself across the table-cloth, hide the +light from the honourable Member, cool the honourable Member’s marrow, +and give him a woeful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate +traveller to take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the +gloomiest of shades; and when he said, ‘Your health sir!’ all around him +was barrenness and desolation. + +At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover +about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to +arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and +enabling the smaller birds to flutter up-stairs; which could not be +done until he had urged his noble pinions in that direction. After some +delay, and several stretches of his wings which came to nothing, he +soared to the drawing-rooms. + +And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two people +are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with one another. +Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) knew perfectly +well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, specifically to the end +that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have five minutes’ conversation +together. The opportunity so elaborately prepared was now arrived, and +it seemed from that moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as +get the two chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest +persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective. It was +in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to look at the +bronze horses near Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded, and wandered away. +It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to Lord Decimus to tell him +the history of the unique Dresden vases. Then Lord Decimus evaded and +wandered away, while he was getting his man up to the mark. + +‘Did you ever see such a thing as this?’ said Ferdinand to Bar when he +had been baffled twenty times. + +‘Often,’ returned Bar. + +‘Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the +other,’ said Ferdinand, ‘it will not come off after all.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Bar. ‘I’ll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my lord.’ + +Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. ‘Confound them both!’ +said he, looking at his watch. ‘I want to get away. Why the deuce can’t +they come together! They both know what they want and mean to do. Look +at them!’ + +They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each with +an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which could not +have been more transparently ridiculous though his real mind had been +chalked on his back. Bishop, who had just now made a third with Bar and +Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut him out of the subject and +washed him in sweet oil, was seen to approach Lord Decimus and glide +into conversation. + +‘I must get Merdle’s doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,’ said +Ferdinand; ‘and then I must lay hold of my illustrious kinsman, and +decoy him if I can--drag him if I can’t--to the conference.’ + +‘Since you do me the honour,’ said Bar, with his slyest smile, to ask +for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure. I don’t +think this is to be done by one man. But if you will undertake to pen +my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he is now so profoundly +engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear Merdle into the presence, +without the possibility of getting away.’ + +‘Done!’ said Ferdinand. ‘Done!’ said Bar. + +Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, jauntily +waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily drooping to an +Universe of Jurymen, he, in the most accidental manner ever seen, +found himself at Mr Merdle’s shoulder, and embraced that opportunity of +mentioning a little point to him, on which he particularly wished to +be guided by the light of his practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr +Merdle’s arm and walked him gently away.) A banker, whom we would call +A. B., advanced a considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen +thousand pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P. +Q. (Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle +tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q. whom +we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.’s hands the +title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter Doddles. +Now, the point was this. A limited right of felling and lopping in +the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q. then past his +majority, and whom we would call X. Y.--but really this was too bad! In +the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the host with chopping our dry +chaff of law, was really too bad! Another time! Bar was truly repentant, +and would not say another syllable. Would Bishop favour him with +half-a-dozen words? (He had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by +side with Lord Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.) + +And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, always +excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that anything was going +on, formed in one group round the fire in the next drawing-room, and +pretended to be chatting easily on the infinite variety of small topics, +while everybody’s thoughts and eyes were secretly straying towards the +secluded pair. The Chorus were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring +under the dreadful apprehension that some good thing was going to +be diverted from them! Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He +conversed with the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with +which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means +of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church. +Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to avoid +it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of reading. +Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so? And Physician said, +decidedly, yes he did. + +Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished on +the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and the +two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed by Lord +Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services +might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact, within a quarter +of an hour Lord Decimus called to him ‘Ferdinand!’ and he went, and +took his place in the conference for some five minutes more. Then a +half-suppressed gasp broke out among the Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose +to take his leave. Again coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making +himself popular, he shook hands in the most brilliant manner with the +whole company, and even said to Bar, ‘I hope you were not bored by my +pears?’ To which Bar retorted, ‘Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?’ neatly +showing that he had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that +he could never forget it while his life remained. + +All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, took +itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the opera. +Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur glasses to +Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance of Mr Merdle’s +saying something. But Merdle, as usual, oozed sluggishly and muddily +about his drawing-room, saying never a word. + +In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund Sparkler, +Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide renown, was +made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and proclamation was +issued, to all true believers, that this admirable appointment was to +be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of homage, rendered by the +graceful and gracious Decimus, to that commercial interest which must +ever in a great commercial country--and all the rest of it, with +blast of trumpet. So, bolstered by this mark of Government homage, the +wonderful Bank and all the other wonderful undertakings went on and went +up; and gapers came to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at +the house where the golden wonder lived. + +And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in +his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, and +wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if they had +known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have wondered +about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost precision. + + + + +CHAPTER 13. The Progress of an Epidemic + + +That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical +one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of +the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare +no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest +health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions: is +a fact as firmly established by experience as that we human creatures +breathe an atmosphere. A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred +upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these +virulent disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in +close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is +communicable. + +As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so +the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to +resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every +lip, and carried into every ear. There never was, there never had +been, there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, +as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the +greatest that had appeared. + +Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated +halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men as on +the Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the small grocery +and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard, +at the top of the steps, with her little old father and Maggy acting +as assistants, habitually held forth about him over the counter in +conversation with her customers. Mr Plornish, who had a small share in a +small builder’s business in the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on +the tops of scaffolds and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell +him as Mr Merdle was _the_ one, mind you, to put us all to rights in +respects of that which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe +home as much as we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, +sole lodger of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by +the savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, +for investment in one of Mr Merdle’s certain enterprises. The female +Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and hundredweights of +talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how, ma’am, they had heard +from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in the line, that his lady’s +dresses would fill three waggons. That how she was as handsome a lady, +ma’am, as lived, no matter wheres, and a busk like marble itself. That +how, according to what they was told, ma’am, it was her son by a former +husband as was took into the Government; and a General he had been, and +armies he had marched again and victory crowned, if all you heard was to +be believed. That how it was reported that Mr Merdle’s words had been, +that if they could have made it worth his while to take the whole +Government he would have took it without a profit, but that take it he +could not and stand a loss. That how it was not to be expected, ma’am, +that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you might say and utter +no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it was much to be regretted +that something handsome hadn’t been got up to make it worth his while; +for it was such and only such that knowed the heighth to which the bread +and butchers’ meat had rose, and it was such and only such that both +could and would bring that heighth down. + +So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr +Pancks’s rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease took +the singular form, on those occasions, of causing the infected to find +an unfathomable excuse and consolation in allusions to the magic name. + +‘Now, then!’ Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. ‘Pay up! +Come on!’ + +‘I haven’t got it, Mr Pancks,’ Defaulter would reply. ‘I tell you the +truth, sir, when I say I haven’t got so much as a single sixpence of it +to bless myself with.’ + +‘This won’t do, you know,’ Mr Pancks would retort. ‘You don’t expect it +_will_ do; do you?’ + +Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited ‘No, sir,’ having no such +expectation. + +‘My proprietor isn’t going to stand this, you know,’ Mr Pancks would +proceed. ‘He don’t send me here for this. Pay up! Come!’ + +The Defaulter would make answer, ‘Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich +gentleman whose name is in everybody’s mouth--if my name was Merdle, +sir--I’d soon pay up, and be glad to do it.’ + +Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house-doors +or in the entries, and in the presence of several deeply interested +Bleeding Hearts. They always received a reference of this kind with a +low murmur of response, as if it were convincing; and the Defaulter, +however black and discomfited before, always cheered up a little in +making it. + +‘If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn’t have cause to complain of me +then. No, believe me!’ the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of the +head. ‘I’d pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn’t have to +ask me.’ + +The response would be heard again here, implying that it was impossible +to say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing to paying the +money down. + +Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, ‘Well! +You’ll have the broker in, and be turned out; that’s what’ll happen to +you. It’s no use talking to me about Mr Merdle. You are not Mr Merdle, +any more than I am.’ + +‘No, sir,’ the Defaulter would reply. ‘I only wish you _were_ him, sir.’ + +The response would take this up quickly; replying with great feeling, +‘Only wish you _were_ him, sir.’ + +‘You’d be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,’ the Defaulter +would go on with rising spirits, ‘and it would be better for all +parties. Better for our sakes, and better for yours, too. You wouldn’t +have to worry no one, then, sir. You wouldn’t have to worry us, and you +wouldn’t have to worry yourself. You’d be easier in your own mind, sir, +and you’d leave others easier, too, you would, if you were Mr Merdle.’ + +Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an irresistible +sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He could only bite +his nails and puff away to the next Defaulter. The responsive Bleeding +Hearts would then gather round the Defaulter whom he had just abandoned, +and the most extravagant rumours would circulate among them, to their +great comfort, touching the amount of Mr Merdle’s ready money. + +From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr Pancks, +having finished his day’s collection, repaired with his note-book +under his arm to Mrs Plornish’s corner. Mr Pancks’s object was not +professional, but social. He had had a trying day, and wanted a little +brightening. By this time he was on friendly terms with the Plornish +family, having often looked in upon them at similar seasons, and borne +his part in recollections of Miss Dorrit. + +Mrs Plornish’s shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, and +presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in which Mrs +Plornish unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening of the parlour +consisted in the wall being painted to represent the exterior of a +thatched cottage; the artist having introduced (in as effective a manner +as he found compatible with their highly disproportionate dimensions) +the real door and window. The modest sunflower and hollyhock were +depicted as flourishing with great luxuriance on this rustic dwelling, +while a quantity of dense smoke issuing from the chimney indicated good +cheer within, and also, perhaps, that it had not been lately swept. +A faithful dog was represented as flying at the legs of the friendly +visitor, from the threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a +cloud of pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling. On the door (when +it was shut), appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting +the inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M. Plornish; the partnership +expressing man and wife. No Poetry and no Art ever charmed the +imagination more than the union of the two in this counterfeit cottage +charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that Plornish had a habit +of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work, when his +hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when his back +swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted the +blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country. To Mrs Plornish, it +was still a most beautiful cottage, a most wonderful deception; and +it made no difference that Mr Plornish’s eye was some inches above the +level of the gable bed-room in the thatch. To come out into the shop +after it was shut, and hear her father sing a song inside this cottage, +was a perfect Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And +truly if that famous period had been revived, or had ever been at all, +it may be doubted whether it would have produced many more heartily +admiring daughters than the poor woman. + +Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish +came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. ‘I guessed it was +you, Mr Pancks,’ said she, ‘for it’s quite your regular night; ain’t it? +Here’s father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like +a brisk young shopman. Ain’t he looking well? Father’s more pleased to +see you than if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and +when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never +heard father in such voice as he is at present,’ said Mrs Plornish, her +own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. ‘He gave us Strephon +last night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this +speech across the table. “John Edward Nandy,” says Plornish to father, +“I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles +this night.” An’t it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?’ + +Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner, +replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro +chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had +gone to the West-End with some work, and had said he should be back +by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage, +where he encountered the elder Master Plornish just come home from +school. Examining that young student, lightly, on the educational +proceedings of the day, he found that the more advanced pupils who +were in the large text and the letter M, had been set the copy ‘Merdle, +Millions.’ + +‘And how are _you_ getting on, Mrs Plornish,’ said Pancks, ‘since we’re +mentioning millions?’ + +‘Very steady, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs Plornish. ‘Father, dear, would +you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your +taste being so beautiful?’ + +John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his +daughter’s request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror +of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any +disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run away to +the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with Mr Pancks. + +‘It’s quite true that the business is very steady indeed,’ said Mrs +Plornish, lowering her voice; ‘and has a excellent connection. The only +thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.’ + +This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in +commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard, +was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish’s trade. When Mr Dorrit had +established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount +of emotion and a determination to support her in it, that did honour to +human nature. Recognising her claim upon their generous feelings as one +who had long been a member of their community, they pledged themselves, +with great feeling, to deal with Mrs Plornish, come what would and +bestow their patronage on no other establishment. Influenced by these +noble sentiments, they had even gone out of their way to purchase little +luxuries in the grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; +saying to one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for +a neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if +not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the +articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In short, if the + +Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete +success; whereas, by reason of their exclusively confining themselves to +owing, the profits actually realised had not yet begun to appear in the +books. + +Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair +up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy, +re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come +and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met +with something that had scared him. All three going into the shop, and +watching through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go +through the following extraordinary performances. First, he was observed +hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping +up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the +side of the shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of +his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away +altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and +with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no further up the street +than he had gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared. The +object of this last manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the +shop with a sudden twist, from the steps again, explained that he +had made a wide and obscure circuit round to the other, or Doyce and +Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the Yard and bolted in. +He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be, and his heart +seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered and +jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door. + +‘Hallo, old chap!’ said Mr Pancks. ‘Altro, old boy! What’s the matter?’ + +Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well +as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless, +Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers +which made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter. + +‘E ask know,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘what go wrong?’ + +‘Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,’ returned Mr Baptist, +imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his +right forefinger. ‘Come there!’ + +Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as +signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the +Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist’s request, and +they all went into the cottage. + +‘E ope you no fright,’ said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks +in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. ‘What appen? Peaka +Padrona!’ + +‘I have seen some one,’ returned Baptist. ‘I have rincontrato him.’ + +‘Im? Oo him?’ asked Mrs Plornish. + +‘A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him +again.’ + +‘Ow you know him bad?’ asked Mrs Plornish. + +‘It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.’ + +‘E see you?’ asked Mrs Plornish. + +‘No. I hope not. I believe not.’ + +‘He says,’ Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and +Pancks with mild condescension, ‘that he has met a bad man, but he hopes +the bad man didn’t see him--Why,’ inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to +the Italian language, ‘why ope bad man no see?’ + +‘Padrona, dearest,’ returned the little foreigner whom she so +considerately protected, ‘do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it +matters not. I have fear of this man. I do not wish to see him, I do not +wish to be known of him--never again! Enough, most beautiful. Leave it.’ + +The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to +the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as +the tea had been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the +less surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was +Mr Pancks, whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard since the +entrance of the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load +getting up a steep incline. Maggy, now better dressed than of yore, +though still faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been +in the background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring +and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely +suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it, though +much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means excepting the two +young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal as if their eating +the bread and butter were rendered almost superfluous by the painful +probability of the worst of men shortly presenting himself for the +purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by degrees began to chirp a little; +but never stirred from the seat he had taken behind the door and close +to the window, though it was not his usual place. As often as the little +bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with the end of the +little curtain in his hand and the rest before his face; evidently not +at all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all +his doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible bloodhound. + +The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr +Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the +attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the children +were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal +that her father should favour them with Chloe, when the bell rang again, +and Mr Clennam came in. + +Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the +waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely. +Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late +occurrence at his mother’s. He looked worn and solitary. He felt so, +too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting-house by +that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he had received +another letter from Miss Dorrit. + +The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general +attention from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground +immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little +Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last +were obstructed by tears. She was particularly delighted when Clennam +assured her that there were hospitals, and very kindly conducted +hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in virtue of +being specially remembered in the letter. Everybody was pleased and +interested, and Clennam was well repaid for his trouble. + +‘But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,’ said Mrs +Plornish, ‘if you’d condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; and +many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so kindly.’ + +Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal +acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his +highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity. + +‘John Edward Nandy,’ said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman. +‘Sir. It’s not too often that you see unpretending actions without a +spark of pride, and therefore when you see them give grateful honour +unto the same, being that if you don’t, and live to want ‘em, it follows +serve you right.’ + +To which Mr Nandy replied: + +‘I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is the +same as mine, and therefore no more words and not being backwards +with that opinion, which opinion giving it as yes, Thomas, yes, is the +opinion in which yourself and me must ever be unanimously jined by all, +and where there is not difference of opinion there can be none but one +opinion, which fully no, Thomas, Thomas, no!’ + +Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their high +appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and explained +as to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going straight home to +refresh after a long day’s labour, or he would have readily accepted the +hospitable offer. As Mr Pancks was somewhat noisily getting his steam +up for departure, he concluded by asking that gentleman if he would walk +with him? Mr Pancks said he desired no better engagement, and the two +took leave of Happy Cottage. + +‘If you will come home with me, Pancks,’ said Arthur, when they got into +the street, ‘and will share what dinner or supper there is, it will +be next door to an act of charity; for I am weary and out of sorts +to-night.’ + +‘Ask me to do a greater thing than that,’ said Pancks, ‘when you want it +done, and I’ll do it.’ + +Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding and +accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr Rugg’s +back in the Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away on the +memorable day of the family’s departure, these two had looked after it +together, and had walked slowly away together. When the first letter +came from little Dorrit, nobody was more interested in hearing of +her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at that moment in Clennam’s +breast-pocket, particularly remembered him by name. Though he had never +before made any profession or protestation to Clennam, and though what +he had just said was little enough as to the words in which it was +expressed, Clennam had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in +his own odd way, was becoming attached to him. All these strings +intertwining made Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night. + +‘I am quite alone,’ Arthur explained as they walked on. ‘My partner is +away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our business, and +you shall do just as you like.’ + +‘Thank you. You didn’t take particular notice of little Altro just now; +did you?’ said Pancks. + +‘No. Why?’ + +‘He’s a bright fellow, and I like him,’ said Pancks. ‘Something has +gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause that can have +overset him?’ + +‘You surprise me! None whatever.’ + +Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite unprepared +for them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of them. + +‘Perhaps you’ll ask him,’ said Pancks, ‘as he’s a stranger?’ + +‘Ask him what?’ returned Clennam. + +‘What he has on his mind.’ + +‘I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, I +think,’ said Clennam. ‘I have found him in every way so diligent, so +grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that it might look +like suspecting him. And that would be very unjust.’ + +‘True,’ said Pancks. ‘But, I say! You oughtn’t to be anybody’s +proprietor, Mr Clennam. You’re much too delicate.’ + +‘For the matter of that,’ returned Clennam laughing, ‘I have not a large +proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is his livelihood. He keeps +the keys of the Factory, watches it every alternate night, and acts as a +sort of housekeeper to it generally; but we have little work in the way +of his ingenuity, though we give him what we have. No! I am rather his +adviser than his proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his +banker would be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not +curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many +people’s heads, should run even in little Cavalletto’s?’ + +‘Ventures?’ retorted Pancks, with a snort. ‘What ventures?’ + +‘These Merdle enterprises.’ + +‘Oh! Investments,’ said Pancks. ‘Ay, ay! I didn’t know you were speaking +of investments.’ + +His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a doubt +whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied, however, with +a quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase in the labouring +of his machinery, Arthur did not pursue the matter, and they soon +arrived at his house. + +A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table before +the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr Pancks’s +works in a highly effective manner; so that when Clennam produced his +Eastern pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern pipe, the latter +gentleman was perfectly comfortable. + +They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel +with wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in her +favour. He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus: + +‘Yes. Investments is the word.’ + +Clennam, with his former look, said ‘Ah!’ + +‘I am going back to it, you see,’ said Pancks. + +‘Yes. I see you are going back to it,’ returned Clennam, wondering why. + +‘Wasn’t it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro’s head? +Eh?’ said Pancks as he smoked. ‘Wasn’t that how you put it?’ + +‘That was what I said.’ + +‘Ay! But think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their +all meeting me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and +everywhere. Whether they pay, or whether they don’t pay. Merdle, Merdle, +Merdle. Always Merdle.’ + +‘Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,’ said Arthur. + +‘An’t it?’ returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more drily +than comported with his recent oiling, he added: ‘Because you see these +people don’t understand the subject.’ + +‘Not a bit,’ assented Clennam. + +‘Not a bit,’ cried Pancks. ‘Know nothing of figures. Know nothing of +money questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it, sir!’ + +‘If they had--’ Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without +change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual +efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped. + +‘If they had?’ repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone. + +‘I thought you--spoke,’ said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the +interruption. + +‘Not at all,’ said Pancks. ‘Not yet. I may in a minute. If they had?’ + +‘If they had,’ observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take +his friend, ‘why, I suppose they would have known better.’ + +‘How so, Mr Clennam?’ Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect of +having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the +heavy charge he now fired off. ‘They’re right, you know. They don’t mean +to be, but they’re right.’ + +‘Right in sharing Cavalletto’s inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?’ + +‘Per-fectly, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘I’ve gone into it. I’ve made the +calculations. I’ve worked it. They’re safe and genuine.’ Relieved by +having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would +permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at +Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too. + +In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection +with which he was laden. It is the manner of communicating these +diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go about. + +‘Do you mean, my good Pancks,’ asked Clennam emphatically, ‘that you +would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out +at this kind of interest?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Pancks. ‘Already done it, sir.’ + +Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, another +long sagacious look at Clennam. + +‘I tell you, Mr Clennam, I’ve gone into it,’ said Pancks. ‘He’s a man of +immense resources--enormous capital--government influence. They’re the +best schemes afloat. They’re safe. They’re certain.’ + +‘Well!’ returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at the +fire gravely. ‘You surprise me!’ + +‘Bah!’ Pancks retorted. ‘Don’t say that, sir. It’s what you ought to do +yourself! Why don’t you do as I do?’ + +Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have +told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at first, as many +physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated +in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to +many sufferers who are neither ignorant nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or +might not, have caught the illness himself from a subject of this class; +but in this category he appeared before Clennam, and the infection he +threw off was all the more virulent. + +‘And you have really invested,’ Clennam had already passed to that word, +‘your thousand pounds, Pancks?’ + +‘To be sure, sir!’ replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke. ‘And +only wish it ten!’ + +Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that night; +the one, his partner’s long-deferred hope; the other, what he had seen +and heard at his mother’s. In the relief of having this companion, +and of feeling that he could trust him, he passed on to both, and both +brought him round again, with an increase and acceleration of force, to +his point of departure. + +It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment subject, +after an interval of silent looking at the fire through the smoke of his +pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied with the great National +Department. ‘A hard case it has been, and a hard case it is on Doyce,’ +he finished by saying, with all the honest feeling the topic roused in +him. + +‘Hard indeed,’ Pancks acquiesced. ‘But you manage for him, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘How do you mean?’ + +‘Manage the money part of the business?’ + +‘Yes. As well as I can.’ + +‘Manage it better, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘Recompense him for his toils and +disappointments. Give him the chances of the time. He’ll never benefit +himself in that way, patient and preoccupied workman. He looks to you, +sir.’ + +‘I do my best, Pancks,’ returned Clennam, uneasily. ‘As to duly weighing +and considering these new enterprises of which I have had no experience, +I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.’ + +‘Growing old?’ cried Pancks. ‘Ha, ha!’ + +There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and +series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks’s astonishment at, +and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could +not be questioned. + +‘Growing old?’ cried Pancks. ‘Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, hear +him!’ + +The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks’s continued snorts, no less +than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single +instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful of something +happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that took place between +the breath he jerked out of himself and the smoke he jerked into +himself. This abandonment of the second topic threw him on the third. + +‘Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,’ he said, when there was a +favourable pause, ‘I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state +that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to +me, may be really mine. Shall I tell you how this is? Shall I put a +great trust in you?’ + +‘You shall, sir,’ said Pancks, ‘if you believe me worthy of it.’ + +‘I do.’ + +‘You may!’ Mr Pancks’s short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the +sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and +convincing. Arthur shook the hand warmly. + +He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was +possible consistently with their being made intelligible and never +alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation +of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he +entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed. Mr Pancks listened +with such interest that, regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe, +he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands +during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair +all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a +journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father’s spirit. + +‘Brings me back, sir,’ was his exclamation then, with a startling touch +on Clennam’s knee, ‘brings me back, sir, to the Investments! I don’t +say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong you never +committed. That’s you. A man must be himself. But I say this, +fearing you may want money to save your own blood from exposure and +disgrace--make as much as you can!’ + +Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too. + +‘Be as rich as you can, sir,’ Pancks adjured him with a powerful +concentration of all his energies on the advice. ‘Be as rich as you +honestly can. It’s your duty. Not for your sake, but for the sake of +others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who really _is_ growing +old) depends upon you. Your relative depends upon you. You don’t know +what depends upon you.’ + +‘Well, well, well!’ returned Arthur. ‘Enough for to-night.’ + +‘One word more, Mr Clennam,’ retorted Pancks, ‘and then enough for +to-night. Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves, +and impostors? Why should you leave all the gains that are to be got to +my proprietor and the like of him? Yet you’re always doing it. When I +say you, I mean such men as you. You know you are. Why, I see it +every day of my life. I see nothing else. It’s my business to see it. +Therefore I say,’ urged Pancks, ‘Go in and win!’ + +‘But what of Go in and lose?’ said Arthur. + +‘Can’t be done, sir,’ returned Pancks. ‘I have looked into it. Name up +everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great position--high +connection--government influence. Can’t be done!’ + +Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed +his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost +persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and +smoked it out. They said little more; but were company to one another in +silently pursuing the same subjects, and did not part until midnight. +On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when he had shaken hands with Clennam, +worked completely round him before he steamed out at the door. This, +Arthur received as an assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks, +if he ever should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters +of which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could in +any way affect himself. + +At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on +other things, he thought of Mr Pancks’s investment of his thousand +pounds, and of his having ‘looked into it.’ He thought of Mr Pancks’s +being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being usually of a +sanguine character. He thought of the great National Department, and of +the delight it would be to him to see Doyce better off. He thought +of the darkly threatening place that went by the name of Home in his +remembrance, and of the gathering shadows which made it yet more darkly +threatening than of old. He observed anew that wherever he went, he +saw, or heard, or touched, the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it +difficult even to remain at his desk a couple of hours, without having +it presented to one of his bodily senses through some agency or other. +He began to think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and +that nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it. Though indeed +he began to remember, when he got to this, even _he_ did not mistrust it; +he had only happened to keep aloof from it. + +Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs +of sickening. + + + + +CHAPTER 14. Taking Advice + + +When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber +that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the +Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news +with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of +news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English papers. Some +laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was +virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good +enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles, +said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole +constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, was, +that Decimus _should_ strengthen himself. A few bilious Britons there were +who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but their objection +was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly +abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons +unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great numbers +of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive hours, +that those invisible and anonymous Britons ‘ought to take it up;’ and +that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it. But of what +class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures +hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly +happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons +were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those +interests, was not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the +shore of the black Thames, made apparent to men. + +Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it, +with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting +displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the place. Mr Merdle +wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She hoped Edmund might like +it, but really she didn’t know. It would keep him in town a good +deal, and he preferred the country. Still, it was not a disagreeable +position--and it was a position. There was no denying that the thing +was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and was not a bad thing for Edmund if he +liked it. It was just as well that he should have something to do, and +it was just as well that he should have something for doing it. Whether +it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen. + +Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of +small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry +Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of +his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, +vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was +the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass +that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance +could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass’s) +getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan’s) getting it +himself. He said it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing +to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to +draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, +capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of +himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an +affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here. +He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and +make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate +action always resulted in that young gentleman’s making a dreary and +forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to +be doubted. + +Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler’s +affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being +universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr +Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently +identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than +usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness, +she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good +service. But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined +whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted +with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more +immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs +Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no +subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state +of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle’s house, and on her +sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from +the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared +with a heaving bosom that she detested everybody, and she wished she was +dead. + +‘Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.’ + +‘Matter, you little Mole,’ said Fanny. ‘If you were not the blindest of +the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The idea of daring to +pretend to assert that you have eyes in your head, and yet ask me what’s +the matter!’ + +‘Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?’ + +‘Mis-ter Spark-ler!’ repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he were +the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be near her +mind. ‘No, Miss Bat, it is not.’ + +Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her +sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself +hateful, but that everybody drove her to it. + +‘I don’t think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.’ + +‘Stuff and nonsense!’ replied the young lady, turning angry again; ‘I am +as well as you are. Perhaps I might say better, and yet make no boast of +it.’ + +Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any soothing +words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to remain quiet. At +first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her looking-glass, that +of all the trying sisters a girl could have, she did think the most +trying sister was a flat sister. That she knew she was at times a +wretched temper; that she knew she made herself hateful; that when she +made herself hateful, nothing would do her half the good as being told +so; but that, being afflicted with a flat sister, she never _was_ told so, +and the consequence resulted that she was absolutely tempted and +goaded into making herself disagreeable. Besides (she angrily told +her looking-glass), she didn’t want to be forgiven. It was not a right +example, that she should be constantly stooping to be forgiven by a +younger sister. And this was the Art of it--that she was always being +placed in the position of being forgiven, whether she liked it or not. +Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her sister came and +sat close at her side to comfort her, said, ‘Amy, you’re an Angel!’ + +‘But, I tell you what, my Pet,’ said Fanny, when her sister’s gentleness +had calmed her, ‘it now comes to this; that things cannot and shall not +go on as they are at present going on, and that there must be an end of +this, one way or another.’ + +As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little Dorrit +returned, ‘Let us talk about it.’ + +‘Quite so, my dear,’ assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes. ‘Let us talk +about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise me. _Will_ you +advise me, my sweet child?’ + +Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, ‘I will, Fanny, as well as +I can.’ + +‘Thank you, dearest Amy,’ returned Fanny, kissing her. ‘You are my +anchor.’ + +Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a bottle of +sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid for a fine +handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant for the night, and went +on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and forehead from time to time to +cool them. + +‘My love,’ Fanny began, ‘our characters and points of view are +sufficiently different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very +probable that I shall surprise you by what I am going to say. What I am +going to say, my dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, we labour, +socially speaking, under disadvantages. You don’t quite understand what +I mean, Amy?’ + +‘I have no doubt I shall,’ said Amy, mildly, ‘after a few words more.’ + +‘Well, my dear, what I mean is, that we are, after all, newcomers into +fashionable life.’ + +‘I am sure, Fanny,’ Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous admiration, +‘no one need find that out in you.’ + +‘Well, my dear child, perhaps not,’ said Fanny, ‘though it’s most kind +and most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say so.’ Here she +dabbed her sister’s forehead, and blew upon it a little. ‘But you are,’ +resumed Fanny, ‘as is well known, the dearest little thing that ever +was! To resume, my child. Pa is extremely gentlemanly and extremely well +informed, but he is, in some trifling respects, a little different from +other gentlemen of his fortune: partly on account of what he has gone +through, poor dear: partly, I fancy, on account of its often running in +his mind that other people are thinking about that, while he is talking +to them. Uncle, my love, is altogether unpresentable. Though a dear +creature to whom I am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking, +shocking. Edward is frightfully expensive and dissipated. I don’t mean +that there is anything ungenteel in that itself--far from it--but I +do mean that he doesn’t do it well, and that he doesn’t, if I may +so express myself, get the money’s-worth in the sort of dissipated +reputation that attaches to him.’ + +‘Poor Edward!’ sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family history in +the sigh. + +‘Yes. And poor you and me, too,’ returned Fanny, rather sharply. +‘Very true! Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs General. +And I tell you again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may reverse a +common proverb and adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves who _will_ +catch mice. That woman, I am quite sure and confident, will be our +mother-in-law.’ + +‘I can hardly think, Fanny--’ Fanny stopped her. + +‘Now, don’t argue with me about it, Amy,’ said she, ‘because I know +better.’ Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her sister’s +forehead again, and blew upon it again. ‘To resume once more, my dear. +It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and spirited, Amy, as you +very well know: too much so, I dare say) whether I shall make up my mind +to take it upon myself to carry the family through.’ + +‘How?’ asked her sister, anxiously. + +‘I will not,’ said Fanny, without answering the question, ‘submit to +be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit to be, in any +respect whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs Merdle.’ + +Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle of sweet +water, with a still more anxious look. Fanny, quite punishing her own +forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to give it, fitfully went +on. + +‘That he has somehow or other, and how is of no consequence, attained a +very good position, no one can deny. That it is a very good connection, +no one can deny. And as to the question of clever or not clever, I doubt +very much whether a clever husband would be suitable to me. I cannot +submit. I should not be able to defer to him enough.’ + +‘O, my dear Fanny!’ expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind of +terror had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant. ‘If you +loved any one, all this feeling would change. If you loved any one, you +would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself +in your devotion to him. If you loved him, Fanny--’ Fanny had stopped +the dabbing hand, and was looking at her fixedly. + +‘O, indeed!’ cried Fanny. ‘Really? Bless me, how much some people know +of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I certainly +seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little thing, I was only in +fun,’ dabbing her sister’s forehead; ‘but don’t you be a silly puss, +and don’t you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate +impossibilities. There! Now, I’ll go back to myself.’ + +‘Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for +a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr +Sparkler.’ + +‘_Let_ you say, my dear?’ retorted Fanny. ‘Why, of course, I will _let_ +you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We are +together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the +slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning +either.’ + +‘But at some time?’ + +‘At no time, for anything I know at present,’ answered Fanny, with +indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning +restlessness, she added, ‘You talk about the clever men, you little +thing! It’s all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but +where are they? _I_ don’t see them anywhere near _me_!’ + +‘My dear Fanny, so short a time--’ + +‘Short time or long time,’ interrupted Fanny. ‘I am impatient of our +situation. I don’t like our situation, and very little would induce +me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and differently +circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do. Let +them. They are driven by their lives and characters; I am driven by +mine.’ + +‘Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the +wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.’ + +‘Amy, my dear Amy,’ retorted Fanny, parodying her words, ‘I know that I +wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert +myself with greater effect against that insolent woman.’ + +‘Would you therefore--forgive my asking, Fanny--therefore marry her +son?’ + +‘Why, perhaps,’ said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. ‘There may be many +less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear. That piece +of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great success to get her +son off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps, she little thinks how I +would retort upon her if I married her son. I would oppose her in +everything, and compete with her. I would make it the business of my +life.’ + +Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about the +room; always stopping and standing still while she spoke. + +‘One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older. And I +would!’ + +This was followed by another walk. + +‘I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know--if I +didn’t, but I should from her son--all about her age. And she should +hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and affectionately: +how well she looked, considering her time of life. I could make her seem +older at once, by being myself so much younger. I may not be as handsome +as she is; I am not a fair judge of that question, I suppose; but I know +I am handsome enough to be a thorn in her side. And I would be!’ + +‘My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for +this?’ + +‘It wouldn’t be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am fitted +for. Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is no matter; +I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any other.’ + +There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a +short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great +looking-glass came to another stop. + +‘Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I will give her +her due, and not deny it. But is it so far beyond all others that it is +altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am not so sure of it. Give +some much younger woman the latitude as to dress that she has, being +married; and we would see about that, my dear!’ + +Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought her +back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her sister’s hands in hers, +and clapped all four hands above her head as she looked in her sister’s +face laughing: + +‘And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten--the dancer who bore +no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, oh dear +no!--should dance through her life, and dance in her way, to such a tune +as would disturb her insolent placidity a little. Just a little, my dear +Amy, just a little!’ + +Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy’s face, she brought the +four hands down, and laid only one on Amy’s lips. + +‘Now, don’t argue with me, child,’ she said in a sterner way, ‘because +it is of no use. I understand these subjects much better than you do. I +have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be. Now we have talked this +over comfortably, and may go to bed. You best and dearest little mouse, +Good night!’ With those words Fanny weighed her Anchor, and--having +taken so much advice--left off being advised for that occasion. + +Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler’s treatment by his enslaver, +with new reasons for attaching importance to all that passed between +them. There were times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his +mental feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that +she would all but dismiss him for good. There were other times when she +got on much better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of +superiority seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If +Mr Sparkler had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of +swains, he was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of +his trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London +between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater will of his +own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed +his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally strong +compulsion. + +Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said +more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her through her +eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her +beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. The defiant +character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally +happened that she did), was not expressive of concessions to the +impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say +audibly, ‘A spoilt beauty--but with that face and shape, who could +wonder?’ + +It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the +new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new +understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as if in +attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking +towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet ever to look +back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained +silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. Moreover, it became plain +whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly office of drawing +him out, that he was not to be drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would +presently, without any pointed application in the world, chance to say +something with such a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he +had put his hand into a bee-hive. + +There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm +Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance +in itself. Mr Sparkler’s demeanour towards herself changed. It became +fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies--at +their own residence, at Mrs Merdle’s, or elsewhere--she would find +herself stealthily supported round the waist by Mr Sparkler’s arm. Mr +Sparkler never offered the slightest explanation of this attention; +but merely smiled with an air of blundering, contented, good-natured +proprietorship, which, in so heavy a gentleman, was ominously +expressive. + +Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a heavy +heart. They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite, nearly +all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and commanding +all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up and down. At +three or four o’clock in the afternoon, English time, the view from this +window was very bright and peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit +and muse here, much as she had been used to while away the time in her +balcony at Venice. Seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the +shoulder, and Fanny said, ‘Well, Amy dear,’ and took her seat at her +side. Their seat was a part of the window; when there was anything in +the way of a procession going on, they used to have bright draperies +hung out of the window, and used to kneel or sit on this seat, and look +out at it, leaning on the brilliant colour. But there was no procession +that day, and Little Dorrit was rather surprised by Fanny’s being at +home at that hour, as she was generally out on horseback then. + +‘Well, Amy,’ said Fanny, ‘what are you thinking of, little one?’ + +‘I was thinking of you, Fanny.’ + +‘No? What a coincidence! I declare here’s some one else. You were not +thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?’ + +Amy _had_ been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr Sparkler. +She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. Mr Sparkler +came and sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the fraternal +railing come behind her, and apparently stretch on to include Fanny. + +‘Well, my little sister,’ said Fanny with a sigh, ‘I suppose you know +what this means?’ + +‘She’s as beautiful as she’s doated on,’ stammered Mr Sparkler--‘and +there’s no nonsense about her--it’s arranged--’ + +‘You needn’t explain, Edmund,’ said Fanny. + +‘No, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler. + +‘In short, pet,’ proceeded Fanny, ‘on the whole, we are engaged. We +must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according to the +opportunities. Then it’s done, and very little more need be said.’ + +‘My dear Fanny,’ said Mr Sparkler, with deference, ‘I should like to say +a word to Amy.’ + +‘Well, well! Say it for goodness’ sake,’ returned the young lady. + +‘I am convinced, my dear Amy,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘that if ever there +was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, who had no +nonsense about her--’ + +‘We know all about that, Edmund,’ interposed Miss Fanny. ‘Never mind +that. Pray go on to something else besides our having no nonsense about +us.’ + +‘Yes, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘And I assure you, Amy, that nothing +can be a greater happiness to myself, myself--next to the happiness of +being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious girl who hasn’t +an atom of--’ + +‘Pray, Edmund, pray!’ interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her pretty +foot upon the floor. + +‘My love, you’re quite right,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘and I know I have a +habit of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater +happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of being united to +pre-eminently the most glorious of girls--than to have the happiness +of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself,’ +said Mr Sparkler manfully, ‘be up to the mark on some other subjects +at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the +general opinion would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy I AM +up to the mark!’ + +Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof. + +‘A knife and fork and an apartment,’ proceeded Mr Sparkler, growing, in +comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite diffuse, ‘will ever +be at Amy’s disposal. My Governor, I am sure, will always be proud to +entertain one whom I so much esteem. And regarding my mother,’ said Mr +Sparkler, ‘who is a remarkably fine woman, with--’ + +‘Edmund, Edmund!’ cried Miss Fanny, as before. + +‘With submission, my soul,’ pleaded Mr Sparkler. ‘I know I have a habit +of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for taking the +trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all sides to be a +remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn’t any.’ + +‘That may be, or may not be,’ returned Fanny, ‘but pray don’t mention it +any more.’ + +‘I will not, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler. + +‘Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?’ +inquired Fanny. + +‘So far from it, my adorable girl,’ answered Mr Sparkler, ‘I apologise +for having said so much.’ + +Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question +implied had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal +railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, take +his leave. He did not go without being congratulated by Amy, as well +as she could discharge that office in the flutter and distress of her +spirits. + +When he was gone, she said, ‘O Fanny, Fanny!’ and turned to her sister +in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there. Fanny +laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her sister’s and cried +too--a little. It was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any +hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling in her on the matter. From that +hour the way she had chosen lay before her, and she trod it with her own +imperious self-willed step. + + + + +CHAPTER 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons +should not be joined together + + +Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted +matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her +troth, received the communication at once with great dignity and with a +large display of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened +prospect of advantageous ground from which to make acquaintances, and +his parental pride being developed by Miss Fanny’s ready sympathy with +that great object of his existence. He gave her to understand that her +noble ambition found harmonious echoes in his heart; and bestowed +his blessing on her, as a child brimful of duty and good principle, +self-devoted to the aggrandisement of the family name. + +To Mr Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr Dorrit said, +he would not disguise that the alliance Mr Sparkler did him the honour +to propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as being in unison +with the spontaneous affections of his daughter Fanny, and as opening +a family connection of a gratifying nature with Mr Merdle, the +master spirit of the age. Mrs Merdle also, as a leading lady rich in +distinction, elegance, grace, and beauty, he mentioned in very laudatory +terms. He felt it his duty to remark (he was sure a gentleman of Mr +Sparkler’s fine sense would interpret him with all delicacy), that he +could not consider this proposal definitely determined on, until he +should have had the privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr +Merdle; and of ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the views +of that eminent gentleman as that his (Mr Dorrit’s) daughter would be +received on that footing which her station in life and her dowry and +expectations warranted him in requiring that she should maintain in +what he trusted he might be allowed, without the appearance of being +mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World. While saying this, which +his character as a gentleman of some little station, and his character +as a father, equally demanded of him, he would not be so diplomatic +as to conceal that the proposal remained in hopeful abeyance and +under conditional acceptance, and that he thanked Mr Sparkler for the +compliment rendered to himself and to his family. He concluded with +some further and more general observations on the--ha--character of an +independent gentleman, and the--hum--character of a possibly too +partial and admiring parent. To sum the whole up shortly, he received +Mr Sparkler’s offer very much as he would have received three or four +half-crowns from him in the days that were gone. + +Mr Sparkler, finding himself stunned by the words thus heaped upon his +inoffensive head, made a brief though pertinent rejoinder; the same +being neither more nor less than that he had long perceived Miss Fanny +to have no nonsense about her, and that he had no doubt of its being all +right with his Governor. At that point the object of his affections shut +him up like a box with a spring lid, and sent him away. + +Proceeding shortly afterwards to pay his respects to the Bosom, Mr +Dorrit was received by it with great consideration. Mrs Merdle had heard +of this affair from Edmund. She had been surprised at first, because she +had not thought Edmund a marrying man. Society had not thought Edmund +a marrying man. Still, of course she had seen, as a woman (we women +did instinctively see these things, Mr Dorrit!), that Edmund had been +immensely captivated by Miss Dorrit, and she had openly said that Mr +Dorrit had much to answer for in bringing so charming a girl abroad to +turn the heads of his countrymen. + +‘Have I the honour to conclude, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘that the +direction which Mr Sparkler’s affections have taken, is--ha-approved of +by you?’ + +‘I assure you, Mr Dorrit,’ returned the lady, ‘that, personally, I am +charmed.’ + +That was very gratifying to Mr Dorrit. + +‘Personally,’ repeated Mrs Merdle, ‘charmed.’ + +This casual repetition of the word ‘personally,’ moved Mr Dorrit to +express his hope that Mr Merdle’s approval, too, would not be wanting? + +‘I cannot,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘take upon myself to answer positively for +Mr Merdle; gentlemen, especially gentlemen who are what Society calls +capitalists, having their own ideas of these matters. But I should +think--merely giving an opinion, Mr Dorrit--I should think Mr Merdle +would be upon the whole,’ here she held a review of herself before +adding at her leisure, ‘quite charmed.’ + +At the mention of gentlemen whom Society called capitalists, Mr Dorrit +had coughed, as if some internal demur were breaking out of him. Mrs +Merdle had observed it, and went on to take up the cue. + +‘Though, indeed, Mr Dorrit, it is scarcely necessary for me to make that +remark, except in the mere openness of saying what is uppermost to one +whom I so highly regard, and with whom I hope I may have the pleasure +of being brought into still more agreeable relations. For one cannot +but see the great probability of your considering such things from Mr +Merdle’s own point of view, except indeed that circumstances have made +it Mr Merdle’s accidental fortune, or misfortune, to be engaged in +business transactions, and that they, however vast, may a little cramp +his horizons. I am a very child as to having any notion of business,’ +said Mrs Merdle; ‘but I am afraid, Mr Dorrit, it may have that +tendency.’ + +This skilful see-saw of Mr Dorrit and Mrs Merdle, so that each of them +sent the other up, and each of them sent the other down, and neither +had the advantage, acted as a sedative on Mr Dorrit’s cough. He remarked +with his utmost politeness, that he must beg to protest against its +being supposed, even by Mrs Merdle, the accomplished and graceful +(to which compliment she bent herself), that such enterprises as Mr +Merdle’s, apart as they were from the puny undertakings of the rest of +men, had any lower tendency than to enlarge and expand the genius in +which they were conceived. ‘You are generosity itself,’ said Mrs Merdle +in return, smiling her best smile; ‘let us hope so. But I confess I am +almost superstitious in my ideas about business.’ + +Mr Dorrit threw in another compliment here, to the effect that business, +like the time which was precious in it, was made for slaves; and that it +was not for Mrs Merdle, who ruled all hearts at her supreme pleasure, +to have anything to do with it. Mrs Merdle laughed, and conveyed to +Mr Dorrit an idea that the Bosom flushed--which was one of her best +effects. + +‘I say so much,’ she then explained, ‘merely because Mr Merdle has +always taken the greatest interest in Edmund, and has always expressed +the strongest desire to advance his prospects. Edmund’s public position, +I think you know. His private position rests solely with Mr Merdle. In +my foolish incapacity for business, I assure you I know no more.’ + +Mr Dorrit again expressed, in his own way, the sentiment that business +was below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses. He then mentioned his +intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to Mr Merdle. Mrs +Merdle concurred with all her heart--or with all her art, which was +exactly the same thing--and herself despatched a preparatory letter by +the next post to the eighth wonder of the world. + +In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses on +the great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the +subject with flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books and +ciphering-books: where the titles of the elementary rules of +arithmetic diverge into swans, eagles, griffins, and other calligraphic +recreations, and where the capital letters go out of their minds and +bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink. Nevertheless, he did render the +purport of his letter sufficiently clear, to enable Mr Merdle to make a +decent pretence of having learnt it from that source. Mr Merdle replied +to it accordingly. Mr Dorrit replied to Mr Merdle; Mr Merdle replied to +Mr Dorrit; and it was soon announced that the corresponding powers had +come to a satisfactory understanding. + +Now, and not before, Miss Fanny burst upon the scene, completely arrayed +for her new part. Now and not before, she wholly absorbed Mr Sparkler in +her light, and shone for both, and twenty more. No longer feeling that +want of a defined place and character which had caused her so much +trouble, this fair ship began to steer steadily on a shaped course, and +to swim with a weight and balance that developed her sailing qualities. + +‘The preliminaries being so satisfactorily arranged, I think I will now, +my dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘announce--ha--formally, to Mrs General--’ + +‘Papa,’ returned Fanny, taking him up short upon that name, ‘I don’t see +what Mrs General has got to do with it.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘it will be an act of courtesy to--hum--a +lady, well bred and refined--’ + +‘Oh! I am sick of Mrs General’s good breeding and refinement, papa,’ +said Fanny. ‘I am tired of Mrs General.’ + +‘Tired,’ repeated Mr Dorrit in reproachful astonishment, ‘of--ha--Mrs +General.’ + +‘Quite disgusted with her, papa,’ said Fanny. ‘I really don’t see what +she has to do with my marriage. Let her keep to her own matrimonial +projects--if she has any.’ + +‘Fanny,’ returned Mr Dorrit, with a grave and weighty slowness upon him, +contrasting strongly with his daughter’s levity: ‘I beg the favour of +your explaining--ha--what it is you mean.’ + +‘I mean, papa,’ said Fanny, ‘that if Mrs General should happen to have +any matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite enough to +occupy her spare time. And that if she has not, so much the better; but +still I don’t wish to have the honour of making announcements to her.’ + +‘Permit me to ask you, Fanny,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘why not?’ + +‘Because she can find my engagement out for herself, papa,’ retorted +Fanny. ‘She is watchful enough, I dare say. I think I have seen her +so. Let her find it out for herself. If she should not find it out for +herself, she will know it when I am married. And I hope you will not +consider me wanting in affection for you, papa, if I say it strikes me +that will be quite enough for Mrs General.’ + +‘Fanny,’ returned Mr Dorrit, ‘I am amazed, I am displeased by +this--hum--this capricious and unintelligible display of animosity +towards--ha--Mrs General.’ + +‘Do not, if you please, papa,’ urged Fanny, ‘call it animosity, because +I assure you I do not consider Mrs General worth my animosity.’ + +At this, Mr Dorrit rose from his chair with a fixed look of severe +reproof, and remained standing in his dignity before his daughter. His +daughter, turning the bracelet on her arm, and now looking at him, and +now looking from him, said, ‘Very well, papa. I am truly sorry if you +don’t like it; but I can’t help it. I am not a child, and I am not Amy, +and I must speak.’ + +‘Fanny,’ gasped Mr Dorrit, after a majestic silence, ‘if I request +you to remain here, while I formally announce to Mrs General, as +an exemplary lady, who is--hum--a trusted member of this family, +the--ha--the change that is contemplated among us; if I--ha--not only +request it, but--hum--insist upon it--’ + +‘Oh, papa,’ Fanny broke in with pointed significance, ‘if you make so +much of it as that, I have in duty nothing to do but comply. I hope I +may have my thoughts upon the subject, however, for I really cannot help +it under the circumstances.’ So, Fanny sat down with a meekness which, +in the junction of extremes, became defiance; and her father, either not +deigning to answer, or not knowing what to answer, summoned Mr Tinkler +into his presence. + +‘Mrs General.’ + +Mr Tinkler, unused to receive such short orders in connection with the +fair varnisher, paused. Mr Dorrit, seeing the whole Marshalsea and all +its testimonials in the pause, instantly flew at him with, ‘How dare +you, sir? What do you mean?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ pleaded Mr Tinkler, ‘I was wishful to know--’ + +‘You wished to know nothing, sir,’ cried Mr Dorrit, highly flushed. +‘Don’t tell me you did. Ha. You didn’t. You are guilty of mockery, sir.’ + +‘I assure you, sir--’ Mr Tinkler began. + +‘Don’t assure me!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘I will not be assured by a +domestic. You are guilty of mockery. You shall leave me--hum--the whole +establishment shall leave me. What are you waiting for?’ + +‘Only for my orders, sir.’ + +‘It’s false,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘you have your orders. Ha--hum. My +compliments to Mrs General, and I beg the favour of her coming to me, if +quite convenient, for a few minutes. Those are your orders.’ + +In his execution of this mission, Mr Tinkler perhaps expressed that Mr +Dorrit was in a raging fume. However that was, Mrs General’s skirts were +very speedily heard outside, coming along--one might almost have said +bouncing along--with unusual expedition. Albeit, they settled down at +the door and swept into the room with their customary coolness. + +‘Mrs General,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘take a chair.’ + +Mrs General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended into the +chair which Mr Dorrit offered. + +‘Madam,’ pursued that gentleman, ‘as you have had the kindness to +undertake the--hum--formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded +that nothing nearly affecting them can--ha--be indifferent to you--’ + +‘Wholly impossible,’ said Mrs General in the calmest of ways. + +‘--I therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now +present--’ + +Mrs General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny, who made +a very low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came loftily +upright again. + +‘--That my daughter Fanny is--ha--contracted to be married to Mr +Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted. Hence, madam, you will be +relieved of half your difficult charge--ha--difficult charge.’ Mr +Dorrit repeated it with his angry eye on Fanny. ‘But not, I hope, to +the--hum--diminution of any other portion, direct or indirect, of the +footing you have at present the kindness to occupy in my family.’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on +one another in exemplary repose, ‘is ever considerate, and ever but too +appreciative of my friendly services.’ + +(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, ‘You are right.’) + +‘Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of which +the circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to offer her my +sincere congratulations. When free from the trammels of passion,’ Mrs +General closed her eyes at the word, as if she could not utter it, and +see anybody; ‘when occurring with the approbation of near relatives; +and when cementing the proud structure of a family edifice; these are +usually auspicious events. I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer +her my best congratulations.’ + +Here Mrs General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her +face, ‘Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism.’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ she superadded aloud, ‘is ever most obliging; and for +the attention, and I will add distinction, of having this confidence +imparted to me by himself and Miss Dorrit at this early time, I beg to +offer the tribute of my thanks. My thanks, and my congratulations, are +equally the meed of Mr Dorrit and of Miss Dorrit.’ + +‘To me,’ observed Miss Fanny, ‘they are excessively +gratifying--inexpressibly so. The relief of finding that you have no +objection to make, Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind, I am +sure. I hardly know what I should have done,’ said Fanny, ‘if you had +interposed any objection, Mrs General.’ + +Mrs General changed her gloves, as to the right glove being uppermost +and the left undermost, with a Prunes and Prism smile. + +‘To preserve your approbation, Mrs General,’ said Fanny, returning the +smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, ‘will +of course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of +course be perfect wretchedness. I am sure your great kindness will +not object, and I hope papa will not object, to my correcting a +small mistake you have made, however. The best of us are so liable to +mistakes, that even you, Mrs General, have fallen into a little error. +The attention and distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs +General, as attaching to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the +most complimentary and gratifying description; but they don’t at all +proceed from me. The merit of having consulted you on the subject would +have been so great in me, that I feel I must not lay claim to it when it +really is not mine. It is wholly papa’s. I am deeply obliged to you for +your encouragement and patronage, but it was papa who asked for it. +I have to thank you, Mrs General, for relieving my breast of a great +weight by so handsomely giving your consent to my engagement, but you +have really nothing to thank me for. I hope you will always approve of +my proceedings after I have left home and that my sister also may long +remain the favoured object of your condescension, Mrs General.’ + +With this address, which was delivered in her politest manner, Fanny +left the room with an elegant and cheerful air--to tear up-stairs with +a flushed face as soon as she was out of hearing, pounce in upon her +sister, call her a little Dormouse, shake her for the better opening of +her eyes, tell her what had passed below, and ask her what she thought +of Pa now? + +Towards Mrs Merdle, the young lady comported herself with great +independence and self-possession; but not as yet with any more decided +opening of hostilities. Occasionally they had a slight skirmish, as when +Fanny considered herself patted on the back by that lady, or as when Mrs +Merdle looked particularly young and well; but Mrs Merdle always soon +terminated those passages of arms by sinking among her cushions with the +gracefullest indifference, and finding her attention otherwise engaged. +Society (for that mysterious creature sat upon the Seven Hills too) +found Miss Fanny vastly improved by her engagement. She was much more +accessible, much more free and engaging, much less exacting; insomuch +that she now entertained a host of followers and admirers, to the bitter +indignation of ladies with daughters to marry, who were to be regarded +as Having revolted from Society on the Miss Dorrit grievance, and +erected a rebellious standard. Enjoying the flutter she caused. Miss +Dorrit not only haughtily moved through it in her own proper person, but +haughtily, even Ostentatiously, led Mr Sparkler through it too: seeming +to say to them all, ‘If I think proper to march among you in triumphal +procession attended by this weak captive in bonds, rather than a +stronger one, that is my business. Enough that I choose to do it!’ Mr +Sparkler for his part, questioned nothing; but went wherever he was +taken, did whatever he was told, felt that for his bride-elect to be +distinguished was for him to be distinguished on the easiest terms, and +was truly grateful for being so openly acknowledged. + +The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of affairs +prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to England, and +take his appointed part in the expression and direction of its genius, +learning, commerce, spirit, and sense. The land of Shakespeare, Milton, +Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of a host of past and present abstract +philosophers, natural philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in +their myriad forms, called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it, +lest it should perish. Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry +from the depths of his country’s soul, declared that he must go. + +It followed that the question was rendered pressing when, where, and +how Mr Sparkler should be married to the foremost girl in all this world +with no nonsense about her. Its solution, after some little mystery and +secrecy, Miss Fanny herself announced to her sister. + +‘Now, my child,’ said she, seeking her out one day, ‘I am going to tell +you something. It is only this moment broached; and naturally I hurry to +you the moment it _is_ broached.’ + +‘Your marriage, Fanny?’ + +‘My precious child,’ said Fanny, ‘don’t anticipate me. Let me impart my +confidence to you, you flurried little thing, in my own way. As to your +guess, if I answered it literally, I should answer no. For really it is +not my marriage that is in question, half as much as it is Edmund’s.’ + +Little Dorrit looked, and perhaps not altogether without cause, somewhat +at a loss to understand this fine distinction. + +‘I am in no difficulty,’ exclaimed Fanny, ‘and in no hurry. I am not +wanted at any public office, or to give any vote anywhere else. +But Edmund is. And Edmund is deeply dejected at the idea of going away +by himself, and, indeed, I don’t like that he should be trusted by +himself. For, if it’s possible--and it generally is--to do a foolish +thing, he is sure to do it.’ + +As she concluded this impartial summary of the reliance that might be +safely placed upon her future husband, she took off, with an air of +business, the bonnet she wore, and dangled it by its strings upon the +ground. + +‘It is far more Edmund’s question, therefore, than mine. However, we +need say no more about that. That is self-evident on the face of it. +Well, my dearest Amy! The point arising, is he to go by himself, or is +he not to go by himself, this other point arises, are we to be married +here and shortly, or are we to be married at home months hence?’ + +‘I see I am going to lose you, Fanny.’ + +‘What a little thing you are,’ cried Fanny, half tolerant and half +impatient, ‘for anticipating one! Pray, my darling, hear me out. That +woman,’ she spoke of Mrs Merdle, of course, ‘remains here until after +Easter; so, in the case of my being married here and going to London +with Edmund, I should have the start of her. That is something. Further, +Amy. That woman being out of the way, I don’t know that I greatly object +to Mr Merdle’s proposal to Pa that Edmund and I should take up our abode +in that house--_you_ know--where you once went with a dancer, my dear, +until our own house can be chosen and fitted up. Further still, Amy. +Papa having always intended to go to town himself, in the spring,--you +see, if Edmund and I were married here, we might go off to Florence, +where papa might join us, and we might all three travel home together. +Mr Merdle has entreated Pa to stay with him in that same mansion I have +mentioned, and I suppose he will. But he is master of his own actions; +and upon that point (which is not at all material) I can’t speak +positively.’ + +The difference between papa’s being master of his own actions and Mr +Sparkler’s being nothing of the sort, was forcibly expressed by Fanny in +her manner of stating the case. Not that her sister noticed it; for she +was divided between regret at the coming separation, and a lingering +wish that she had been included in the plans for visiting England. + +‘And these are the arrangements, Fanny dear?’ + +‘Arrangements!’ repeated Fanny. ‘Now, really, child, you are a little +trying. You know I particularly guarded myself against laying my words +open to any such construction. What I said was, that certain questions +present themselves; and these are the questions.’ + +Little Dorrit’s thoughtful eyes met hers, tenderly and quietly. + +‘Now, my own sweet girl,’ said Fanny, weighing her bonnet by the strings +with considerable impatience, ‘it’s no use staring. A little owl could +stare. I look to you for advice, Amy. What do you advise me to do?’ + +‘Do you think,’ asked Little Dorrit, persuasively, after a short +hesitation, ‘do you think, Fanny, that if you were to put it off for a +few months, it might be, considering all things, best?’ + +‘No, little Tortoise,’ retorted Fanny, with exceeding sharpness. ‘I +don’t think anything of the kind.’ + +Here, she threw her bonnet from her altogether, and flounced into a +chair. But, becoming affectionate almost immediately, she flounced out +of it again, and kneeled down on the floor to take her sister, chair and +all, in her arms. + +‘Don’t suppose I am hasty or unkind, darling, because I really am not. +But you are such a little oddity! You make one bite your head off, +when one wants to be soothing beyond everything. Didn’t I tell you, you +dearest baby, that Edmund can’t be trusted by himself? And don’t you +know that he can’t?’ + +‘Yes, yes, Fanny. You said so, I know.’ + +‘And you know it, I know,’ retorted Fanny. ‘Well, my precious child! If +he is not to be trusted by himself, it follows, I suppose, that I should +go with him?’ + +‘It--seems so, love,’ said Little Dorrit. + +‘Therefore, having heard the arrangements that are feasible to carry +out that object, am I to understand, dearest Amy, that on the whole you +advise me to make them?’ + +‘It--seems so, love,’ said Little Dorrit again. + +‘Very well,’ cried Fanny with an air of resignation, ‘then I suppose it +must be done! I came to you, my sweet, the moment I saw the doubt, and +the necessity of deciding. I have now decided. So let it be.’ + +After yielding herself up, in this pattern manner, to sisterly advice +and the force of circumstances, Fanny became quite benignant: as one +who had laid her own inclinations at the feet of her dearest friend, and +felt a glow of conscience in having made the sacrifice. ‘After all, my +Amy,’ she said to her sister, ‘you are the best of small creatures, and +full of good sense; and I don’t know what I shall ever do without you!’ + +With which words she folded her in a closer embrace, and a really fond +one. + +‘Not that I contemplate doing without You, Amy, by any means, for I hope +we shall ever be next to inseparable. And now, my pet, I am going +to give you a word of advice. When you are left alone here with Mrs +General--’ + +‘I am to be left alone here with Mrs General?’ said Little Dorrit, +quietly. + +‘Why, of course, my precious, till papa comes back! Unless you call +Edward company, which he certainly is not, even when he is here, and +still more certainly is not when he is away at Naples or in Sicily. I +was going to say--but you are such a beloved little Marplot for putting +one out--when you are left alone here with Mrs General, Amy, don’t you +let her slide into any sort of artful understanding with you that she is +looking after Pa, or that Pa is looking after her. She will if she can. +I know her sly manner of feeling her way with those gloves of hers. But +don’t you comprehend her on any account. And if Pa should tell you when +he comes back, that he has it in contemplation to make Mrs General your +mama (which is not the less likely because I am going away), my advice +to you is, that you say at once, “Papa, I beg to object most strongly. +Fanny cautioned me about this, and she objected, and I object.” I don’t +mean to say that any objection from you, Amy, is likely to be of the +smallest effect, or that I think you likely to make it with any degree +of firmness. But there is a principle involved--a filial principle--and +I implore you not to submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General, +without asserting it in making every one about you as uncomfortable as +possible. I don’t expect you to stand by it--indeed, I know you won’t, +Pa being concerned--but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to +any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a +match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. Whatever weight +I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of +attractions--used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that +woman--I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on the head and +false hair (for I am confident it’s not all real, ugly as it is and +unlikely as it appears that any One in their Senses would go to the +expense of buying it) of Mrs General!’ + +Little Dorrit received this counsel without venturing to oppose it but +without giving Fanny any reason to believe that she intended to act upon +it. Having now, as it were, formally wound up her single life and +arranged her worldly affairs, Fanny proceeded with characteristic ardour +to prepare for the serious change in her condition. + +The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris under the +protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that outfit for a bride +on which it would be extremely low, in the present narrative, to bestow +an English name, but to which (on a vulgar principle it observes +of adhering to the language in which it professes to be written) it +declines to give a French one. The rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased +by these agents, in the course of a few weeks made its way through the +intervening country, bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an +immense army of shabby mendicants in uniform who incessantly repeated +the Beggar’s Petition over it, as if every individual warrior among them +were the ancient Belisarius: and of whom there were so many Legions, +that unless the Courier had expended just one bushel and a half of +silver money relieving their distresses, they would have worn the +wardrobe out before it got to Rome, by turning it over and over. Through +all such dangers, however, it was triumphantly brought, inch by inch, +and arrived at its journey’s end in fine condition. + +There it was exhibited to select companies of female viewers, in whose +gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings. Concurrently, active +preparations were made for the day on which some of its treasures were +to be publicly displayed. Cards of breakfast-invitation were sent out +to half the English in the city of Romulus; the other half made +arrangements to be under arms, as criticising volunteers, at various +outer points of the solemnity. The most high and illustrious English +Signor Edgardo Dorrit, came post through the deep mud and ruts (from +forming a surface under the improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace +the occasion. The best hotel and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to +work to prepare the feast. The drafts of Mr Dorrit almost constituted a +run on the Torlonia Bank. The British Consul hadn’t had such a marriage +in the whole of his Consularity. + +The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled with +envy to see how the Island Savages contrived these things now-a-days. +The murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the Soldiery, +whom sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their villainous +hideousness, might have come off their pedestals to run away with the +Bride. The choked old fountain, where erst the gladiators washed, might +have leaped into life again to honour the ceremony. The Temple of +Vesta might have sprung up anew from its ruins, expressly to lend its +countenance to the occasion. Might have done; but did not. Like sentient +things--even like the lords and ladies of creation sometimes--might +have done much, but did nothing. The celebration went off with admirable +pomp; monks in black robes, white robes, and russet robes stopped to +look after the carriages; wandering peasants in fleeces of sheep, begged +and piped under the house-windows; the English volunteers defiled; the +day wore on to the hour of vespers; the festival wore away; the thousand +churches rang their bells without any reference to it; and St Peter +denied that he had anything to do with it. + +But by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day’s journey +towards Florence. It was the peculiarity of the nuptials that they +were all Bride. Nobody noticed the Bridegroom. Nobody noticed the first +Bridesmaid. Few could have seen Little Dorrit (who held that post) for +the glare, even supposing many to have sought her. So, the Bride had +mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the +Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair +pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a +long, long avenue of wrack and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to +have gone the same road, before and since. + +If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little low +that night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling of +depression as the being able to sit at work by her father, as in the old +time, and help him to his supper and his rest. But that was not to be +thought of now, when they sat in the state-equipage with Mrs General on +the coach-box. And as to supper! If Mr Dorrit had wanted supper, there +was an Italian cook and there was a Swiss confectioner, who must +have put on caps as high as the Pope’s Mitre, and have performed the +mysteries of Alchemists in a copper-saucepaned laboratory below, before +he could have got it. + +He was sententious and didactic that night. If he had been simply +loving, he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she accepted him +as he was--when had she not accepted him as he was!--and made the most +and best of him. Mrs General at length retired. Her retirement for the +night was always her frostiest ceremony, as if she felt it necessary +that the human imagination should be chilled into stone to prevent +its following her. When she had gone through her rigid preliminaries, +amounting to a sort of genteel platoon-exercise, she withdrew. Little +Dorrit then put her arm round her father’s neck, to bid him good night. + +‘Amy, my dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, taking her by the hand, ‘this is the +close of a day, that has--ha--greatly impressed and gratified me.’ + +‘A little tired you, dear, too?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it arises +from an occasion so--hum--replete with gratification of the purest +kind.’ + +Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from her +own heart. + +‘My dear,’ he continued, ‘this is an occasion--ha--teeming with a good +example. With a good example, my favourite and attached child--hum--to +you.’ + +Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, though +he stopped as if he expected her to say something. + +‘Amy,’ he resumed; ‘your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted +ha hum--a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of +our--ha--connection, and to--hum--consolidate our social relations. My +love, I trust that the time is not far distant when some--ha--eligible +partner may be found for you.’ + +‘Oh no! Let me stay with you. I beg and pray that I may stay with you! I +want nothing but to stay and take care of you!’ + +She said it like one in sudden alarm. + +‘Nay, Amy, Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘This is weak and foolish, weak +and foolish. You have a--ha--responsibility imposed upon you by your +position. It is to develop that position, and be--hum--worthy of that +position. As to taking care of me; I can--ha--take care of myself. +Or,’ he added after a moment, ‘if I should need to be taken care of, +I--hum--can, with the--ha--blessing of Providence, be taken care of, +I--ha hum--I cannot, my dear child, think of engrossing, and--ha--as it +were, sacrificing you.’ + +O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self-denial; +at which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; at which to +believe it, if such a thing could be! + +‘Don’t speak, Amy. I positively say I cannot do it. I--ha--must not do +it. My--hum--conscience would not allow it. I therefore, my love, take +the opportunity afforded by this gratifying and impressive occasion +of--ha--solemnly remarking, that it is now a cherished wish and purpose +of mine to see you--ha--eligibly (I repeat eligibly) married.’ + +‘Oh no, dear! Pray!’ + +‘Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I am well persuaded that if the topic were +referred to any person of superior social knowledge, of superior +delicacy and sense--let us say, for instance, to--ha--Mrs General--that +there would not be two opinions as to the--hum--affectionate character +and propriety of my sentiments. But, as I know your loving and dutiful +nature from--hum--from experience, I am quite satisfied that it is +necessary to say no more. I have--hum--no husband to propose at +present, my dear: I have not even one in view. I merely wish that we +should--ha--understand each other. Hum. Good night, my dear and sole +remaining daughter. Good night. God bless you!’ + +If the thought ever entered Little Dorrit’s head that night, that he +could give her up lightly now in his prosperity, and when he had it in +his mind to replace her with a second wife, she drove it away. Faithful +to him still, as in the worst times through which she had borne him +single-handed, she drove the thought away; and entertained no harder +reflection, in her tearful unrest, than that he now saw everything +through their wealth, and through the care he always had upon him that +they should continue rich, and grow richer. + +They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, for +three weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join Fanny. +Little Dorrit would have been glad to bear him company so far, only for +the sake of her own love, and then to have turned back alone, thinking +of dear England. But, though the Courier had gone on with the Bride, the +Valet was next in the line; and the succession would not have come to +her, as long as any one could be got for money. + +Mrs General took life easily--as easily, that is, as she could +take anything--when the Roman establishment remained in their sole +occupation; and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired carriage +that was left them, and alight alone and wander among the ruins of old +Rome. The ruins of the vast old Amphitheatre, of the old Temples, of the +old commemorative Arches, of the old trodden highways, of the old +tombs, besides being what they were, to her were ruins of the old +Marshalsea--ruins of her own old life--ruins of the faces and forms +that of old peopled it--ruins of its loves, hopes, cares, and joys. Two +ruined spheres of action and suffering were before the solitary girl +often sitting on some broken fragment; and in the lonely places, under +the blue sky, she saw them both together. + +Up, then, would come Mrs General; taking all the colour out of +everything, as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing +Prunes and Prism, in Mr Eustace’s text, wherever she could lay a hand; +looking everywhere for Mr Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else; +scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, and bolting them +whole without any human visitings--like a Ghoule in gloves. + + + + +CHAPTER 16. Getting on + + +The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish +Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was +not interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must +continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not +be wanted. As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to +be butlered. The Chief Butler, no doubt, reflected that the course of +nature required the wealthy population to be kept up, on his account. + +He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall-door +without frowning at it, and said, in a very handsome way, to one of +his men, ‘Thomas, help with the luggage.’ He even escorted the Bride +up-stairs into Mr Merdle’s presence; but this must be considered as an +act of homage to the sex (of which he was an admirer, being notoriously +captivated by the charms of a certain Duchess), and not as a committal +of himself with the family. + +Mr Merdle was slinking about the hearthrug, waiting to welcome Mrs +Sparkler. His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced to +do so, and he gave her such a superfluity of coat-cuff that it was like +being received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes. When he put his +lips to hers, besides, he took himself into custody by the wrists, and +backed himself among the ottomans and chairs and tables as if he were +his own Police officer, saying to himself, ‘Now, none of that! Come! +I’ve got you, you know, and you go quietly along with me!’ + +Mrs Sparkler, installed in the rooms of state--the innermost sanctuary +of down, silk, chintz, and fine linen--felt that so far her triumph was +good, and her way made, step by step. On the day before her marriage, +she had bestowed on Mrs Merdle’s maid with an air of gracious +indifference, in Mrs Merdle’s presence, a trifling little keepsake +(bracelet, bonnet, and two dresses, all new) about four times as +valuable as the present formerly made by Mrs Merdle to her. She was now +established in Mrs Merdle’s own rooms, to which some extra touches had +been given to render them more worthy of her occupation. In her mind’s +eye, as she lounged there, surrounded by every luxurious accessory that +wealth could obtain or invention devise, she saw the fair bosom that +beat in unison with the exultation of her thoughts, competing with the +bosom that had been famous so long, outshining it, and deposing it. +Happy? Fanny must have been happy. No more wishing one’s self dead now. + +The Courier had not approved of Mr Dorrit’s staying in the house of +a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook Street, +Grosvenor Square. Mr Merdle ordered his carriage to be ready early +in the morning that he might wait upon Mr Dorrit immediately after +breakfast. + +Bright the carriage looked, sleek the horses looked, gleaming the +harness looked, luscious and lasting the liveries looked. A rich, +responsible turn-out. An equipage for a Merdle. Early people looked +after it as it rattled along the streets, and said, with awe in their +breath, ‘There he goes!’ + +There he went, until Brook Street stopped him. Then, forth from its +magnificent case came the jewel; not lustrous in itself, but quite the +contrary. + +Commotion in the office of the hotel. Merdle! The landlord, though +a gentleman of a haughty spirit who had just driven a pair of +thorough-bred horses into town, turned out to show him up-stairs. +The clerks and servants cut him off by back-passages, and were found +accidentally hovering in doorways and angles, that they might look upon +him. Merdle! O ye sun, moon, and stars, the great man! The rich man, who +had in a manner revised the New Testament, and already entered into the +kingdom of Heaven. The man who could have any one he chose to dine with +him, and who had made the money! As he went up the stairs, people were +already posted on the lower stairs, that his shadow might fall upon them +when he came down. So were the sick brought out and laid in the track of +the Apostle--who had _not_ got into the good society, and had _not_ made +the money. + +Mr Dorrit, dressing-gowned and newspapered, was at his breakfast. The +Courier, with agitation in his voice, announced ‘Miss Mairdale!’ Mr +Dorrit’s overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up. + +‘Mr Merdle, this is--ha--indeed an honour. Permit me to express +the--hum--sense, the high sense, I entertain of this--ha hum--highly +gratifying act of attention. I am well aware, sir, of the many demands +upon your time, and its--ha--enormous value,’ Mr Dorrit could not +say enormous roundly enough for his own satisfaction. ‘That you +should--ha--at this early hour, bestow any of your priceless time upon +me, is--ha--a compliment that I acknowledge with the greatest esteem.’ +Mr Dorrit positively trembled in addressing the great man. + +Mr Merdle uttered, in his subdued, inward, hesitating voice, a few +sounds that were to no purpose whatever; and finally said, ‘I am glad to +see you, sir.’ + +‘You are very kind,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Truly kind.’ By this time the +visitor was seated, and was passing his great hand over his exhausted +forehead. ‘You are well, I hope, Mr Merdle?’ + +‘I am as well as I--yes, I am as well as I usually am,’ said Mr Merdle. + +‘Your occupations must be immense.’ + +‘Tolerably so. But--Oh dear no, there’s not much the matter with _me_,’ +said Mr Merdle, looking round the room. + +‘A little dyspeptic?’ Mr Dorrit hinted. + +‘Very likely. But I--Oh, I am well enough,’ said Mr Merdle. + +There were black traces on his lips where they met, as if a little train +of gunpowder had been fired there; and he looked like a man who, if his +natural temperament had been quicker, would have been very feverish that +morning. This, and his heavy way of passing his hand over his forehead, +had prompted Mr Dorrit’s solicitous inquiries. + +‘Mrs Merdle,’ Mr Dorrit insinuatingly pursued, ‘I left, as you will be +prepared to hear, the--ha--observed of all observers, the--hum--admired +of all admirers, the leading fascination and charm of Society in Rome. +She was looking wonderfully well when I quitted it.’ + +‘Mrs Merdle,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘is generally considered a very attractive +woman. And she is, no doubt. I am sensible of her being so.’ + +‘Who can be otherwise?’ responded Mr Dorrit. + +Mr Merdle turned his tongue in his closed mouth--it seemed rather a +stiff and unmanageable tongue--moistened his lips, passed his hand over +his forehead again, and looked all round the room again, principally +under the chairs. + +‘But,’ he said, looking Mr Dorrit in the face for the first time, and +immediately afterwards dropping his eyes to the buttons of Mr Dorrit’s +waistcoat; ‘if we speak of attractions, your daughter ought to be the +subject of our conversation. She is extremely beautiful. Both in face +and figure, she is quite uncommon. When the young people arrived last +night, I was really surprised to see such charms.’ + +Mr Dorrit’s gratification was such that he said--ha--he could not +refrain from telling Mr Merdle verbally, as he had already done by +letter, what honour and happiness he felt in this union of their +families. And he offered his hand. Mr Merdle looked at the hand for a +little while, took it on his for a moment as if his were a yellow salver +or fish-slice, and then returned it to Mr Dorrit. + +‘I thought I would drive round the first thing,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘to +offer my services, in case I can do anything for you; and to say that +I hope you will at least do me the honour of dining with me to-day, and +every day when you are not better engaged during your stay in town.’ + +Mr Dorrit was enraptured by these attentions. + +‘Do you stay long, sir?’ + +‘I have not at present the intention,’ said Mr Dorrit, +‘of--ha--exceeding a fortnight.’ + +‘That’s a very short stay, after so long a journey,’ returned Mr Merdle. + +‘Hum. Yes,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘But the truth is--ha--my dear Mr Merdle, +that I find a foreign life so well suited to my health and taste, that +I--hum--have but two objects in my present visit to London. First, +the--ha--the distinguished happiness and--ha--privilege which I now +enjoy and appreciate; secondly, the arrangement--hum--the laying out, +that is to say, in the best way, of--ha, hum--my money.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mr Merdle, after turning his tongue again, ‘if I can +be of any use to you in that respect, you may command me.’ + +Mr Dorrit’s speech had had more hesitation in it than usual, as he +approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so +exalted a potentate might take it. He had doubts whether reference to +any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail +affair to so wholesale a dealer. Greatly relieved by Mr Merdle’s +affable offer of assistance, he caught at it directly, and heaped +acknowledgments upon him. + +‘I scarcely--ha--dared,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I assure you, to hope for +so--hum--vast an advantage as your direct advice and assistance. Though +of course I should, under any circumstances, like the--ha, hum--rest of +the civilised world, have followed in Mr Merdle’s train.’ + +‘You know we may almost say we are related, sir,’ said Mr Merdle, +curiously interested in the pattern of the carpet, ‘and, therefore, you +may consider me at your service.’ + +‘Ha. Very handsome, indeed!’ cried Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha. Most handsome!’ + +‘It would not,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘be at the present moment easy for +what I may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good things--of +course I speak of my own good things--’ + +‘Of course, of course!’ cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that there +were no other good things. + +‘--Unless at a high price. At what we are accustomed to term a very long +figure.’ + +Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit. Ha, ha, ha! Long +figure. Good. Ha. Very expressive to be sure! + +‘However,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I do generally retain in my own hands the +power of exercising some preference--people in general would be pleased +to call it favour--as a sort of compliment for my care and trouble.’ + +‘And public spirit and genius,’ Mr Dorrit suggested. + +Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of those +qualities like a bolus; then added, ‘As a sort of return for it. I will +see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power (for people are +jealous, and it is limited), to your advantage.’ + +‘You are very good,’ replied Mr Dorrit. ‘You are _very_ good.’ + +‘Of course,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘there must be the strictest integrity +and uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest faith +between man and man; there must be unimpeached and unimpeachable +confidence; or business could not be carried on.’ + +Mr Dorrit hailed these generous sentiments with fervour. + +‘Therefore,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I can only give you a preference to a +certain extent.’ + +‘I perceive. To a defined extent,’ observed Mr Dorrit. + +‘Defined extent. And perfectly above-board. As to my advice, however,’ +said Mr Merdle, ‘that is another matter. That, such as it is--’ + +Oh! Such as it was! (Mr Dorrit could not bear the faintest appearance of +its being depreciated, even by Mr Merdle himself.) + +‘--That, there is nothing in the bonds of spotless honour between myself +and my fellow-man to prevent my parting with, if I choose. And that,’ +said Mr Merdle, now deeply intent upon a dust-cart that was passing the +windows, ‘shall be at your command whenever you think proper.’ + +New acknowledgments from Mr Dorrit. New passages of Mr Merdle’s hand +over his forehead. Calm and silence. Contemplation of Mr Dorrit’s +waistcoat buttons by Mr Merdle. + +‘My time being rather precious,’ said Mr Merdle, suddenly getting up, +as if he had been waiting in the interval for his legs and they had just +come, ‘I must be moving towards the City. Can I take you anywhere, sir? +I shall be happy to set you down, or send you on. My carriage is at your +disposal.’ + +Mr Dorrit bethought himself that he had business at his banker’s. His +banker’s was in the City. That was fortunate; Mr Merdle would take +him into the City. But, surely, he might not detain Mr Merdle while he +assumed his coat? Yes, he might and must; Mr Merdle insisted on it. So +Mr Dorrit, retiring into the next room, put himself under the hands of +his valet, and in five minutes came back glorious. + +Then said Mr Merdle, ‘Allow me, sir. Take my arm!’ Then leaning on +Mr Merdle’s arm, did Mr Dorrit descend the staircase, seeing the +worshippers on the steps, and feeling that the light of Mr Merdle shone +by reflection in himself. Then the carriage, and the ride into the +City; and the people who looked at them; and the hats that flew off grey +heads; and the general bowing and crouching before this wonderful mortal +the like of which prostration of spirit was not to be seen--no, by +high Heaven, no! It may be worth thinking of by Fawners of all +denominations--in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s Cathedral put +together, on any Sunday in the year. It was a rapturous dream to Mr +Dorrit to find himself set aloft in this public car of triumph, making a +magnificent progress to that befitting destination, the golden Street of +the Lombards. + +There Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and +leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit’s disposition. So the dream +increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the bank alone, and +people looked at _him_ in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the ears of +his mind, he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled glibly along, +‘A wonderful man to be Mr Merdle’s friend!’ + +At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and provided +for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the dust of the +earth, but of some superior article for the present unknown, shed +their lustrous benediction upon Mr Dorrit’s daughter’s marriage. And Mr +Dorrit’s daughter that day began, in earnest, her competition with that +woman not present; and began it so well that Mr Dorrit could all but +have taken his affidavit, if required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her +life been lying at full length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard +of such a rough word in the English tongue as Marshalsea. + +Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner +company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit like theatrical snow. As the +friend and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop, +Treasury, Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr Dorrit’s +acquaintance. In Mr Merdle’s heap of offices in the City, when Mr Dorrit +appeared at any of them on his business taking him Eastward (which it +frequently did, for it throve amazingly), the name of Dorrit was always +a passport to the great presence of Merdle. So the dream increased in +rapture every hour, as Mr Dorrit felt increasingly sensible that this +connection had brought him forward indeed. + +Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time +lightly, on Mr Dorrit’s mind. It was the Chief Butler. That stupendous +character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the +dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered questionable. He looked +at him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to +dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like. Seated +at table in the act of drinking, Mr Dorrit still saw him through his +wine-glass, regarding him with a cold and ghostly eye. It misgave him +that the Chief Butler must have known a Collegian, and must have seen +him in the College--perhaps had been presented to him. He looked as +closely at the Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet +he did not recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere. Ultimately he was +inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no sentiment +in the great creature. But he was not relieved by that; for, let him +think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his supercilious eye, +even when that eye was on the plate and other table-garniture; and he +never let him out of it. To hint to him that this confinement in his eye +was disagreeable, or to ask him what he meant, was an act too daring to +venture upon; his severity with his employers and their visitors being +terrific, and he never permitting himself to be approached with the +slightest liberty. + + + + +CHAPTER 17. Missing + + +The term of Mr Dorrit’s visit was within two days of being out, and he +was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose +victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants +of the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it, +read: + +‘Mrs Finching.’ + +The servant waited in speechless deference. + +‘Man, man,’ said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous indignation, +‘explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous name. I am wholly +unacquainted with it. Finching, sir?’ said Mr Dorrit, perhaps avenging +himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute. ‘Ha! What do you mean by +Finching?’ + +The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, for +he backed away from Mr Dorrit’s severe regard, as he replied, ‘A lady, +sir.’ + +‘I know no such lady, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Take this card away. I know +no Finching of either sex.’ + +‘Ask your pardon, sir. The lady said she was aware she might be unknown +by name. But she begged me to say, sir, that she had formerly the honour +of being acquainted with Miss Dorrit. The lady said, sir, the youngest +Miss Dorrit.’ + +Mr Dorrit knitted his brows and rejoined, after a moment or two, ‘Inform +Mrs Finching, sir,’ emphasising the name as if the innocent man were +solely responsible for it, ‘that she can come up.’ + +He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were admitted +she might leave some message, or might say something below, having +a disgraceful reference to that former state of existence. Hence the +concession, and hence the appearance of Flora, piloted in by the man, +man. + +‘I have not the pleasure,’ said Mr Dorrit, standing with the card in his +hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely have been a +first-class pleasure if he had had it, ‘of knowing either this name, or +yourself, madam. Place a chair, sir.’ + +The responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe. +Flora, putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, proceeded +to introduce herself. At the same time a singular combination of +perfumes was diffused through the room, as if some brandy had been put +by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or as if some lavender-water had +been put by mistake in a brandy-bottle. + +‘I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they would +be far too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear extremely +bold in a lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon the whole +however difficult and even apparently improper though Mr F.’s Aunt would +have willingly accompanied me and as a character of great force and +spirit would probably have struck one possessed of such a knowledge of +life as no doubt with so many changes must have been acquired, for Mr F. +himself said frequently that although well educated in the neighbourhood +of Blackheath at as high as eighty guineas which is a good deal for +parents and the plate kept back too on going away but that is more a +meanness than its value that he had learnt more in his first years as a +commercial traveller with a large commission on the sale of an article +that nobody would hear of much less buy which preceded the wine trade +a long time than in the whole six years in that academy conducted by a +college Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever than a married man I +do not see and never did but pray excuse me that is not the point.’ + +Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification. + +‘I must openly admit that I have no pretensions,’ said Flora, ‘but +having known the dear little thing which under altered circumstances +appears a liberty but is not so intended and Goodness knows there was no +favour in half-a-crown a-day to such a needle as herself but quite the +other way and as to anything lowering in it far from it the labourer is +worthy of his hire and I am sure I only wish he got it oftener and more +animal food and less rheumatism in the back and legs poor soul.’ + +‘Madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, as the +relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; ‘madam,’ said Mr +Dorrit, very red in the face, ‘if I understand you to refer to--ha--to +anything in the antecedents of--hum--a daughter of mine, involving--ha +hum--daily compensation, madam, I beg to observe that the--ha--fact, +assuming it--ha--to be fact, never was within my knowledge. Hum. I +should not have permitted it. Ha. Never! Never!’ + +‘Unnecessary to pursue the subject,’ returned Flora, ‘and would not have +mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only +letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you +may set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it +and sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on +a better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I +know not, pray excuse me I am roving off again.’ + +Mr Dorrit backed to his chair in a stony way, and seated himself, as +Flora gave him a softening look and played with her parasol. + +‘The dear little thing,’ said Flora, ‘having gone off perfectly limp +and white and cold in my own house or at least papa’s for though not +a freehold still a long lease at a peppercorn on the morning when +Arthur--foolish habit of our youthful days and Mr Clennam far more +adapted to existing circumstances particularly addressing a stranger and +that stranger a gentleman in an elevated station--communicated the glad +tidings imparted by a person of name of Pancks emboldens me.’ + +At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, frowned +again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had hesitated long +ago, and said, ‘Do me the favour to--ha--state your pleasure, madam.’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ said Flora, ‘you are very kind in giving me permission and +highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for though more +stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but a likeness still, +the object of my intruding is my own without the slightest consultation +with any human being and most decidedly not with Arthur--pray excuse me +Doyce and Clennam I don’t know what I am saying Mr Clennam solus--for to +put that individual linked by a golden chain to a purple time when all +was ethereal out of any anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a +monarch not that I have the least idea how much that would come to but +using it as the total of all I have in the world and more.’ + +Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these latter +words, repeated, ‘State your pleasure, madam.’ + +‘It’s not likely I well know,’ said Flora, ‘but it’s possible and being +possible when I had the gratification of reading in the papers that you +had arrived from Italy and were going back I made up my mind to try it +for you might come across him or hear something of him and if so what a +blessing and relief to all!’ + +‘Allow me to ask, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild +confusion, ‘to whom--ha--TO WHOM,’ he repeated it with a raised voice in +mere desperation, ‘you at present allude?’ + +‘To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no doubt you +have read in the papers equally with myself,’ said Flora, ‘not referring +to private sources by the name of Pancks from which one gathers what +dreadfully ill-natured things some people are wicked enough to whisper +most likely judging others by themselves and what the uneasiness +and indignation of Arthur--quite unable to overcome it Doyce and +Clennam--cannot fail to be.’ + +It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible result, +that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter. This +caused Mrs Finching, with many apologies for being in great practical +difficulties as to finding the way to her pocket among the stripes of +her dress at length to produce a police handbill, setting forth that +a foreign gentleman of the name of Blandois, last from Venice, had +unaccountably disappeared on such a night in such a part of the city of +London; that he was known to have entered such a house, at such an hour; +that he was stated by the inmates of that house to have left it, about +so many minutes before midnight; and that he had never been beheld +since. This, with exact particulars of time and locality, and with +a good detailed description of the foreign gentleman who had so +mysteriously vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large. + +‘Blandois!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Venice! And this description! I know this +gentleman. He has been in my house. He is intimately acquainted with a +gentleman of good family (but in indifferent circumstances), of whom I +am a--hum--patron.’ + +‘Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more,’ said Flora, ‘that +in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign +gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to +make inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards +and volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn’t he +come forward and say he’s there and clear all parties up?’ + +‘Pray, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, ‘who is +Clennam and Co.? Ha. I see the name mentioned here, in connection with +the occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois was seen to +enter: who is Clennam and Co.? Is it the individual of whom I had +formerly--hum--some--ha--slight transitory knowledge, and to whom I +believe you have referred? Is it--ha--that person?’ + +‘It’s a very different person indeed,’ replied Flora, ‘with no limbs and +wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his mother.’ + +‘Clennam and Co. a--hum--a mother!’ exclaimed Mr Dorrit. + +‘And an old man besides,’ said Flora. + +Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his mind +by this account. Neither was it rendered more favourable to sanity by +Flora’s dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch’s cravat, and +describing him, without the lightest boundary line of separation between +his identity and Mrs Clennam’s, as a rusty screw in gaiters. Which +compound of man and woman, no limbs, wheels, rusty screw, grimness, and +gaiters, so completely stupefied Mr Dorrit, that he was a spectacle to +be pitied. + +‘But I would not detain you one moment longer,’ said Flora, upon whom +his condition wrought its effect, though she was quite unconscious of +having produced it, ‘if you would have the goodness to give your promise +as a gentleman that both in going back to Italy and in Italy too you +would look for this Mr Blandois high and low and if you found or heard +of him make him come forward for the clearing of all parties.’ + +By that time Mr Dorrit had so far recovered from his bewilderment, as to +be able to say, in a tolerably connected manner, that he should consider +that his duty. Flora was delighted with her success, and rose to take +her leave. + +‘With a million thanks,’ said she, ‘and my address upon my card in case +of anything to be communicated personally, I will not send my love to +the dear little thing for it might not be acceptable, and indeed there +is no dear little thing left in the transformation so why do it but +both myself and Mr F.’s Aunt ever wish her well and lay no claim to any +favour on our side you may be sure of that but quite the other way for +what she undertook to do she did and that is more than a great many of +us do, not to say anything of her doing it as well as it could be +done and I myself am one of them for I have said ever since I began to +recover the blow of Mr F’s death that I would learn the Organ of which +I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a +note, good evening!’ + +When Mr Dorrit, who attended her to the room-door, had had a little time +to collect his senses, he found that the interview had summoned back +discarded reminiscences which jarred with the Merdle dinner-table. +He wrote and sent off a brief note excusing himself for that day, and +ordered dinner presently in his own rooms at the hotel. He had another +reason for this. His time in London was very nearly out, and was +anticipated by engagements; his plans were made for returning; and he +thought it behoved his importance to pursue some direct inquiry into the +Blandois disappearance, and be in a condition to carry back to Mr +Henry Gowan the result of his own personal investigation. He therefore +resolved that he would take advantage of that evening’s freedom to go +down to Clennam and Co.’s, easily to be found by the direction set forth +in the handbill; and see the place, and ask a question or two there +himself. + +Having dined as plainly as the establishment and the Courier would let +him, and having taken a short sleep by the fire for his better recovery +from Mrs Finching, he set out in a hackney-cabriolet alone. The deep +bell of St Paul’s was striking nine as he passed under the shadow of +Temple Bar, headless and forlorn in these degenerate days. + +As he approached his destination through the by-streets and water-side +ways, that part of London seemed to him an uglier spot at such an hour +than he had ever supposed it to be. Many long years had passed since he +had seen it; he had never known much of it; and it wore a mysterious and +dismal aspect in his eyes. So powerfully was his imagination impressed +by it, that when his driver stopped, after having asked the way more +than once, and said to the best of his belief this was the gateway they +wanted, Mr Dorrit stood hesitating, with the coach-door in his hand, +half afraid of the dark look of the place. + +Truly, it looked as gloomy that night as even it had ever looked. Two of +the handbills were posted on the entrance wall, one on either side, and +as the lamp flickered in the night air, shadows passed over them, not +unlike the shadows of fingers following the lines. A watch was evidently +kept upon the place. As Mr Dorrit paused, a man passed in from over the +way, and another man passed out from some dark corner within; and both +looked at him in passing, and both remained standing about. + +As there was only one house in the enclosure, there was no room for +uncertainty, so he went up the steps of that house and knocked. There +was a dim light in two windows on the first-floor. The door gave back +a dreary, vacant sound, as though the house were empty; but it was not, +for a light was visible, and a step was audible, almost directly. They +both came to the door, and a chain grated, and a woman with her apron +thrown over her face and head stood in the aperture. + +‘Who is it?’ said the woman. + +Mr Dorrit, much amazed by this appearance, replied that he was from +Italy, and that he wished to ask a question relative to the missing +person, whom he knew. + +‘Hi!’ cried the woman, raising a cracked voice. ‘Jeremiah!’ + +Upon this, a dry old man appeared, whom Mr Dorrit thought he identified +by his gaiters, as the rusty screw. The woman was under apprehensions +of the dry old man, for she whisked her apron away as he approached, and +disclosed a pale affrighted face. ‘Open the door, you fool,’ said the +old man; ‘and let the gentleman in.’ + +Mr Dorrit, not without a glance over his shoulder towards his driver and +the cabriolet, walked into the dim hall. ‘Now, sir,’ said Mr Flintwinch, +‘you can ask anything here you think proper; there are no secrets here, +sir.’ + +Before a reply could be made, a strong stern voice, though a woman’s, +called from above, ‘Who is it?’ + +‘Who is it?’ returned Jeremiah. ‘More inquiries. A gentleman from +Italy.’ + +‘Bring him up here!’ + +Mr Flintwinch muttered, as if he deemed that unnecessary; but, turning +to Mr Dorrit, said, ‘Mrs Clennam. She _will_ do as she likes. I’ll show +you the way.’ He then preceded Mr Dorrit up the blackened staircase; +that gentleman, not unnaturally looking behind him on the road, saw the +woman following, with her apron thrown over her head again in her former +ghastly manner. + +Mrs Clennam had her books open on her little table. ‘Oh!’ said she +abruptly, as she eyed her visitor with a steady look. ‘You are from +Italy, sir, are you. Well?’ + +Mr Dorrit was at a loss for any more distinct rejoinder at the moment +than ‘Ha--well?’ + +‘Where is this missing man? Have you come to give us information where +he is? I hope you have?’ + +‘So far from it, I--hum--have come to seek information.’ + +‘Unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here. Flintwinch, show +the gentleman the handbill. Give him several to take away. Hold the +light for him to read it.’ + +Mr Flintwinch did as he was directed, and Mr Dorrit read it through, +as if he had not previously seen it; glad enough of the opportunity of +collecting his presence of mind, which the air of the house and of the +people in it had a little disturbed. While his eyes were on the paper, +he felt that the eyes of Mr Flintwinch and of Mrs Clennam were on him. +He found, when he looked up, that this sensation was not a fanciful one. + +‘Now you know as much,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘as we know, sir. Is Mr +Blandois a friend of yours?’ + +‘No--a--hum--an acquaintance,’ answered Mr Dorrit. + +‘You have no commission from him, perhaps?’ + +‘I? Ha. Certainly not.’ + +The searching look turned gradually to the floor, after taking Mr +Flintwinch’s face in its way. Mr Dorrit, discomfited by finding that +he was the questioned instead of the questioner, applied himself to the +reversal of that unexpected order of things. + +‘I am--ha--a gentleman of property, at present residing in Italy with my +family, my servants, and--hum--my rather large establishment. Being in +London for a short time on affairs connected with--ha--my estate, +and hearing of this strange disappearance, I wished to make myself +acquainted with the circumstances at first-hand, because there is--ha +hum--an English gentleman in Italy whom I shall no doubt see on my +return, who has been in habits of close and daily intimacy with Monsieur +Blandois. Mr Henry Gowan. You may know the name.’ + +‘Never heard of it.’ + +Mrs Clennam said it, and Mr Flintwinch echoed it. + +‘Wishing to--ha--make the narrative coherent and consecutive to him,’ +said Mr Dorrit, ‘may I ask--say, three questions?’ + +‘Thirty, if you choose.’ + +‘Have you known Monsieur Blandois long?’ + +‘Not a twelvemonth. Mr Flintwinch here, will refer to the books and tell +you when, and by whom at Paris he was introduced to us. If that,’ +Mrs Clennam added, ‘should be any satisfaction to you. It is poor +satisfaction to us.’ + +‘Have you seen him often?’ + +‘No. Twice. Once before, and--’ + +‘That once,’ suggested Mr Flintwinch. + +‘And that once.’ + +‘Pray, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, with a growing fancy upon him as he +recovered his importance, that he was in some superior way in the +Commission of the Peace; ‘pray, madam, may I inquire, for the greater +satisfaction of the gentleman whom I have the honour to--ha--retain, or +protect or let me say to--hum--know--to know--Was Monsieur Blandois here +on business on the night indicated in this present sheet?’ + +‘On what he called business,’ returned Mrs Clennam. + +‘Is--ha--excuse me--is its nature to be communicated?’ + +‘No.’ + +It was evidently impracticable to pass the barrier of that reply. + +‘The question has been asked before,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘and the answer +has been, No. We don’t choose to publish our transactions, however +unimportant, to all the town. We say, No.’ + +‘I mean, he took away no money with him, for example,’ said Mr Dorrit. + +‘He took away none of ours, sir, and got none here.’ + +‘I suppose,’ observed Mr Dorrit, glancing from Mrs Clennam to Mr +Flintwinch, and from Mr Flintwinch to Mrs Clennam, ‘you have no way of +accounting to yourself for this mystery?’ + +‘Why do you suppose so?’ rejoined Mrs Clennam. + +Disconcerted by the cold and hard inquiry, Mr Dorrit was unable to +assign any reason for his supposing so. + +‘I account for it, sir,’ she pursued after an awkward silence on Mr +Dorrit’s part, ‘by having no doubt that he is travelling somewhere, or +hiding somewhere.’ + +‘Do you know--ha--why he should hide anywhere?’ + +‘No.’ + +It was exactly the same No as before, and put another barrier up. + +‘You asked me if I accounted for the disappearance to myself,’ Mrs +Clennam sternly reminded him, ‘not if I accounted for it to you. I do +not pretend to account for it to you, sir. I understand it to be no more +my business to do that, than it is yours to require that.’ + +Mr Dorrit answered with an apologetic bend of his head. As he stepped +back, preparatory to saying he had no more to ask, he could not but +observe how gloomily and fixedly she sat with her eyes fastened on +the ground, and a certain air upon her of resolute waiting; also, +how exactly the self-same expression was reflected in Mr Flintwinch, +standing at a little distance from her chair, with his eyes also on the +ground, and his right hand softly rubbing his chin. + +At that moment, Mistress Affery (of course, the woman with the apron) +dropped the candlestick she held, and cried out, ‘There! O good Lord! +there it is again. Hark, Jeremiah! Now!’ + +If there were any sound at all, it was so slight that she must have +fallen into a confirmed habit of listening for sounds; but Mr Dorrit +believed he did hear a something, like the falling of dry leaves. The +woman’s terror, for a very short space, seemed to touch the three; and +they all listened. + +Mr Flintwinch was the first to stir. ‘Affery, my woman,’ said he, +sidling at her with his fists clenched, and his elbows quivering with +impatience to shake her, ‘you are at your old tricks. You’ll be walking +in your sleep next, my woman, and playing the whole round of your +distempered antics. You must have some physic. When I have shown this +gentleman out, I’ll make you up such a comfortable dose, my woman; such +a comfortable dose!’ + +It did not appear altogether comfortable in expectation to Mistress +Affery; but Jeremiah, without further reference to his healing medicine, +took another candle from Mrs Clennam’s table, and said, ‘Now, sir; shall +I light you down?’ + +Mr Dorrit professed himself obliged, and went down. Mr Flintwinch shut +him out, and chained him out, without a moment’s loss of time. +He was again passed by the two men, one going out and the other coming +in; got into the vehicle he had left waiting, and was driven away. + +Before he had gone far, the driver stopped to let him know that he +had given his name, number, and address to the two men, on their joint +requisition; and also the address at which he had taken Mr Dorrit up, +the hour at which he had been called from his stand and the way by which +he had come. This did not make the night’s adventure run any less hotly +in Mr Dorrit’s mind, either when he sat down by his fire again, or +when he went to bed. All night he haunted the dismal house, saw the two +people resolutely waiting, heard the woman with her apron over her face +cry out about the noise, and found the body of the missing Blandois, now +buried in the cellar, and now bricked up in a wall. + + + + +CHAPTER 18. A Castle in the Air + + +Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit’s satisfaction in +remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself +to Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having had any +knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damped +over-night, while it was still fresh, by a debate that arose within him +whether or no he should take the Marshalsea in his way back, and look +at the old gate. He had decided not to do so; and had astonished the +coachman by being very fierce with him for proposing to go over London +Bridge and recross the river by Waterloo Bridge--a course which would +have taken him almost within sight of his old quarters. Still, for all +that, the question had raised a conflict in his breast; and, for some +odd reason or no reason, he was vaguely dissatisfied. Even at the Merdle +dinner-table next day, he was so out of sorts about it that he +continued at intervals to turn it over and over, in a manner frightfully +inconsistent with the good society surrounding him. It made him hot to +think what the Chief Butler’s opinion of him would have been, if that +illustrious personage could have plumbed with that heavy eye of his the +stream of his meditations. + +The farewell banquet was of a gorgeous nature, and wound up his visit +in a most brilliant manner. Fanny combined with the attractions of her +youth and beauty, a certain weight of self-sustainment as if she had +been married twenty years. He felt that he could leave her with a +quiet mind to tread the paths of distinction, and wished--but without +abatement of patronage, and without prejudice to the retiring virtues of +his favourite child--that he had such another daughter. + +‘My dear,’ he told her at parting, ‘our family looks to you +to--ha--assert its dignity and--hum--maintain its importance. I know you +will never disappoint it.’ + +‘No, papa,’ said Fanny, ‘you may rely upon that, I think. My best love +to dearest Amy, and I will write to her very soon.’ + +‘Shall I convey any message to--ha--anybody else?’ asked Mr Dorrit, in +an insinuating manner. + +‘Papa,’ said Fanny, before whom Mrs General instantly loomed, ‘no, I +thank you. You are very kind, Pa, but I must beg to be excused. There +is no other message to send, I thank you, dear papa, that it would be at +all agreeable to you to take.’ + +They parted in an outer drawing-room, where only Mr Sparkler waited +on his lady, and dutifully bided his time for shaking hands. When Mr +Sparkler was admitted to this closing audience, Mr Merdle came creeping +in with not much more appearance of arms in his sleeves than if he +had been the twin brother of Miss Biffin, and insisted on escorting +Mr Dorrit down-stairs. All Mr Dorrit’s protestations being in vain, +he enjoyed the honour of being accompanied to the hall-door by this +distinguished man, who (as Mr Dorrit told him in shaking hands on the +step) had really overwhelmed him with attentions and services during +this memorable visit. Thus they parted; Mr Dorrit entering his carriage +with a swelling breast, not at all sorry that his Courier, who had +come to take leave in the lower regions, should have an opportunity of +beholding the grandeur of his departure. + +The aforesaid grandeur was yet full upon Mr Dorrit when he alighted at +his hotel. Helped out by the Courier and some half-dozen of the hotel +servants, he was passing through the hall with a serene magnificence, +when lo! a sight presented itself that struck him dumb and motionless. +John Chivery, in his best clothes, with his tall hat under his arm, his +ivory-handled cane genteelly embarrassing his deportment, and a bundle +of cigars in his hand! + +‘Now, young man,’ said the porter. ‘This is the gentleman. This young +man has persisted in waiting, sir, saying you would be glad to see him.’ + +Mr Dorrit glared on the young man, choked, and said, in the mildest of +tones, ‘Ah! Young John! It is Young John, I think; is it not?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Young John. + +‘I--ha--thought it was Young John!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘The young man may +come up,’ turning to the attendants, as he passed on: ‘oh yes, he may +come up. Let Young John follow. I will speak to him above.’ + +Young John followed, smiling and much gratified. Mr Dorrit’s rooms were +reached. Candles were lighted. The attendants withdrew. + +‘Now, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit, turning round upon him and seizing him by +the collar when they were safely alone. ‘What do you mean by this?’ + +The amazement and horror depicted in the unfortunate John’s face--for +he had rather expected to be embraced next--were of that powerfully +expressive nature that Mr Dorrit withdrew his hand and merely glared at +him. + +‘How dare you do this?’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘How do you presume to come +here? How dare you insult me?’ + +‘I insult you, sir?’ cried Young John. ‘Oh!’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mr Dorrit. ‘Insult me. Your coming here is an +affront, an impertinence, an audacity. You are not wanted here. +Who sent you here? What--ha--the Devil do you do here?’ + +‘I thought, sir,’ said Young John, with as pale and shocked a face as +ever had been turned to Mr Dorrit’s in his life--even in his College +life: ‘I thought, sir, you mightn’t object to have the goodness to +accept a bundle--’ + +‘Damn your bundle, sir!’ cried Mr Dorrit, in irrepressible rage. +‘I--hum--don’t smoke.’ + +‘I humbly beg your pardon, sir. You used to.’ + +‘Tell me that again,’ cried Mr Dorrit, quite beside himself, ‘and I’ll +take the poker to you!’ + +John Chivery backed to the door. + +‘Stop, sir!’ cried Mr Dorrit. ‘Stop! Sit down. Confound you sit down!’ + +John Chivery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr Dorrit +walked up and down the room; rapidly at first; then, more slowly. Once, +he went to the window, and stood there with his forehead against the +glass. All of a sudden, he turned and said: + +‘What else did you come for, Sir?’ + +‘Nothing else in the world, sir. Oh dear me! Only to say, Sir, that I +hoped you was well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was Well?’ + +‘What’s that to you, sir?’ retorted Mr Dorrit. + +‘It’s nothing to me, sir, by rights. I never thought of lessening the +distance betwixt us, I am sure. I know it’s a liberty, sir, but I never +thought you’d have taken it ill. Upon my word and honour, sir,’ said +Young John, with emotion, ‘in my poor way, I am too proud to have come, +I assure you, if I had thought so.’ + +Mr Dorrit was ashamed. He went back to the window, and leaned his +forehead against the glass for some time. When he turned, he had his +handkerchief in his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with it, and +he looked tired and ill. + +‘Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but--ha--some +remembrances are not happy remembrances, and--hum--you shouldn’t have +come.’ + +‘I feel that now, sir,’ returned John Chivery; ‘but I didn’t before, and +Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir.’ + +‘No. No,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘I am--hum--sure of that. Ha. Give me your +hand, Young John, give me your hand.’ + +Young John gave it; but Mr Dorrit had driven his heart out of it, and +nothing could change his face now, from its white, shocked look. + +‘There!’ said Mr Dorrit, slowly shaking hands with him. ‘Sit down again, +Young John.’ + +‘Thank you, sir--but I’d rather stand.’ + +Mr Dorrit sat down instead. After painfully holding his head a little +while, he turned it to his visitor, and said, with an effort to be easy: + +‘And how is your father, Young John? How--ha--how are they all, Young +John?’ + +‘Thank you, sir, They’re all pretty well, sir. They’re not any ways +complaining.’ + +‘Hum. You are in your--ha--old business I see, John?’ said Mr Dorrit, +with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematised. + +‘Partly, sir. I am in my’--John hesitated a little--‘father’s business +likewise.’ + +‘Oh indeed!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Do you--ha hum--go upon the ha--’ + +‘Lock, sir? Yes, sir.’ + +‘Much to do, John?’ + +‘Yes, sir; we’re pretty heavy at present. I don’t know how it is, but we +generally _are_ pretty heavy.’ + +‘At this time of the year, Young John?’ + +‘Mostly at all times of the year, sir. I don’t know the time that makes +much difference to us. I wish you good night, sir.’ + +‘Stay a moment, John--ha--stay a moment. Hum. Leave me the cigars, John, +I--ha--beg.’ + +‘Certainly, sir.’ John put them, with a trembling hand, on the table. + +‘Stay a moment, Young John; stay another moment. It would be a--ha--a +gratification to me to send a little--hum--Testimonial, by such a trusty +messenger, to be divided among--ha hum--them--_them_--according to their +wants. Would you object to take it, John?’ + +‘Not in any ways, sir. There’s many of them, I’m sure, that would be the +better for it.’ + +‘Thank you, John. I--ha--I’ll write it, John.’ + +His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and wrote it in +a tremulous scrawl at last. It was a cheque for one hundred pounds. He +folded it up, put it in Young John’s hand, and pressed the hand in his. + +‘I hope you’ll--ha--overlook--hum--what has passed, John.’ + +‘Don’t speak of it, sir, on any accounts. I don’t in any ways bear +malice, I’m sure.’ + +But nothing while John was there could change John’s face to its natural +colour and expression, or restore John’s natural manner. + +‘And, John,’ said Mr Dorrit, giving his hand a final pressure, and +releasing it, ‘I hope we--ha--agree that we have spoken together +in confidence; and that you will abstain, in going out, from saying +anything to any one that might--hum--suggest that--ha--once I--’ + +‘Oh! I assure you, sir,’ returned John Chivery, ‘in my poor humble way, +sir, I’m too proud and honourable to do it, sir.’ + +Mr Dorrit was not too proud and honourable to listen at the door that +he might ascertain for himself whether John really went straight out, or +lingered to have any talk with any one. There was no doubt that he went +direct out at the door, and away down the street with a quick step. +After remaining alone for an hour, Mr Dorrit rang for the Courier, +who found him with his chair on the hearth-rug, sitting with his back +towards him and his face to the fire. ‘You can take that bundle of +cigars to smoke on the journey, if you like,’ said Mr Dorrit, with +a careless wave of his hand. ‘Ha--brought by--hum--little offering +from--ha--son of old tenant of mine.’ + +Next morning’s sun saw Mr Dorrit’s equipage upon the Dover road, where +every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house, established +for the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole business of the +human race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr Dorrit was +waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced +at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury. However, it being the +Courier’s business to get him out of the hands of the banditti, the +Courier brought him off at every stage; and so the red-jackets went +gleaming merrily along the spring landscape, rising and falling to +a regular measure, between Mr Dorrit in his snug corner and the next +chalky rise in the dusty highway. + +Another day’s sun saw him at Calais. And having now got the Channel +between himself and John Chivery, he began to feel safe, and to find +that the foreign air was lighter to breathe than the air of England. + +On again by the heavy French roads for Paris. Having now quite recovered +his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to castle-building +as he rode along. It was evident that he had a very large castle in +hand. All day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding +a wing here, putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, +strengthening the defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, +making in all respects a superb castle of it. His preoccupied face so +clearly denoted the pursuit in which he was engaged, that every cripple +at the post-houses, not blind, who shoved his little battered tin-box in +at the carriage window for Charity in the name of Heaven, Charity in the +name of our Lady, Charity in the name of all the Saints, knew as well +what work he was at, as their countryman Le Brun could have known it +himself, though he had made that English traveller the subject of a +special physiognomical treatise. + +Arrived at Paris, and resting there three days, Mr Dorrit strolled +much about the streets alone, looking in at the shop-windows, and +particularly the jewellers’ windows. Ultimately, he went into the most +famous jeweller’s, and said he wanted to buy a little gift for a lady. + +It was a charming little woman to whom he said it--a sprightly little +woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green velvet bower +to attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little books of account +which one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the entry of any articles +more commercial than kisses, at a dainty little shining desk which +looked in itself like a sweetmeat. + +For example, then, said the little woman, what species of gift did +Monsieur desire? A love-gift? + +Mr Dorrit smiled, and said, Eh, well! Perhaps. What did he know? It was +always possible; the sex being so charming. Would she show him some? + +Most willingly, said the little woman. Flattered and enchanted to show +him many. But pardon! To begin with, he would have the great goodness +to observe that there were love-gifts, and there were nuptial gifts. +For example, these ravishing ear-rings and this necklace so superb to +correspond, were what one called a love-gift. These brooches and these +rings, of a beauty so gracious and celestial, were what one called, with +the permission of Monsieur, nuptial gifts. + +Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr Dorrit hinted, smiling, to +purchase both, and to present the love-gift first, and to finish with +the nuptial offering? + +Ah Heaven! said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers of her +two little hands against each other, that would be generous indeed, that +would be a special gallantry! And without doubt the lady so crushed with +gifts would find them irresistible. + +Mr Dorrit was not sure of that. But, for example, the sprightly little +woman was very sure of it, she said. So Mr Dorrit bought a gift of +each sort, and paid handsomely for it. As he strolled back to his hotel +afterwards, he carried his head high: having plainly got up his castle +now to a much loftier altitude than the two square towers of Notre Dame. + +Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his castle +exclusively for his own eye, Mr Dorrit posted away for Marseilles. +Building on, building on, busily, busily, from morning to night. Falling +asleep, and leaving great blocks of building materials dangling in the +air; waking again, to resume work and get them into their places. What +time the Courier in the rumble, smoking Young John’s best cigars, left +a little thread of thin light smoke behind--perhaps as _he_ built a +castle or two with stray pieces of Mr Dorrit’s money. + +Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was as +strong, not a Cathedral summit was as high, as Mr Dorrit’s castle. +Neither the Saone nor the Rhone sped with the swiftness of that peerless +building; nor was the Mediterranean deeper than its foundations; nor +were the distant landscapes on the Cornice road, nor the hills and bay +of Genoa the Superb, more beautiful. Mr Dorrit and his matchless castle +were disembarked among the dirty white houses and dirtier felons of +Civita Vecchia, and thence scrambled on to Rome as they could, through +the filth that festered on the way. + + + + +CHAPTER 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air + + +The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most +travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls +of Rome, when Mr Dorrit’s carriage, still on its last wearisome +stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage herdsmen and +the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way while the light +lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left the wilderness +blank. At some turns of the road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an +exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed that the city was yet far +off; but this poor relief was rare and short-lived. The carriage dipped +down again into a hollow of the black dry sea, and for a long time there +was nothing visible save its petrified swell and the gloomy sky. + +Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could +not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious, in +every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he +had been since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked. +The Courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As +often as Mr Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was +very often), he saw him smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still +generally standing up the while and looking about him, like a man who +had his suspicions, and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit, +pulling up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were +cut-throat looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have +slept at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning. But, +for all this, he worked at his castle in the intervals. + +And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window-gap and crazy +wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks, spectral +cypress-trees, patches of tangled vine, and the changing of the track to +a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything was crumbling away, +from the unsightly buildings to the jolting road--now, these objects +showed that they were nearing Rome. And now, a sudden twist and stoppage +of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit with the mistrust that the brigand +moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, +letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself +assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession, which came +mechanically chaunting by, with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, +lurid torches, swinging censers, and a great cross borne before a +priest. He was an ugly priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with +an overhanging brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking +bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, +seemed to threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of +his hand, which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller’s +salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr Dorrit, +made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, as the priest +drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, taking its dead +along with it. Upon their so-different way went Mr Dorrit’s company too; +and soon, with their coach load of luxuries from the two great capitals +of Europe, they were (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of +Rome. + +Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been; +but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that it was +later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, when his +equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to +receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked. No. She was within. +Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling servants; let them keep where +they were; let them help to unload the carriage; he would find Miss +Dorrit for himself. + +So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked into +various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a small +ante-room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two other rooms; +and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he approached it through the +dark avenue they made. + +There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, looking +in unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For why like +jealousy? There was only his daughter and his brother there: he, with +his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood +fire; she seated at a little table, busied with some embroidery work. +Allowing for the great difference in the still-life of the picture, the +figures were much the same as of old; his brother being sufficiently +like himself to represent himself, for a moment, in the composition. +So had he sat many a night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat, +devoted to him. Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old +miserable poverty. Whence, then, the pang in his heart? + +‘Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?’ + +Her uncle shook his head and said, ‘Since when, my dear; since when?’ + +‘I think,’ returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, ‘that you have +been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready, +and so interested.’ + +‘My dear child--all you.’ + +‘All me, uncle!’ + +‘Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so +considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to +hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well! It’s treasured +up, my darling, treasured up.’ + +‘There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,’ said Little +Dorrit, cheerfully. + +‘Well, well, well!’ murmured the old man. ‘Thank God!’ + +She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look +revived that former pain in her father’s breast; in his poor weak +breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the +little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the +morning without a night only can clear away. + +‘I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,’ said the old man, ‘since +we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don’t count Mrs General; I +don’t care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was +impatient of me. And I don’t wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am +sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as +well as I can. I know I am not fit company for our company. My brother +William,’ said the old man admiringly, ‘is fit company for monarchs; +but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William +Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here’s your father, Amy! +My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see +you!’ + +(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in +the doorway.) + +Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father’s +neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient, +and a little querulous. ‘I am glad to find you at last, Amy,’ he said. +‘Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any one to receive me at last. +I appear to have been--ha--so little expected, that upon my word +I began--ha hum--to think it might be right to offer an apology +for--ha--taking the liberty of coming back at all.’ + +‘It was so late, my dear William,’ said his brother, ‘that we had given +you up for to-night.’ + +‘I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,’ returned his brother with an +elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; ‘and I hope I can +travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.’ + +‘Surely, surely,’ returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given +offence. ‘Surely, William.’ + +‘Thank you, Amy,’ pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his +wrappers. ‘I can do it without assistance. I--ha--need not trouble you, +Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or--hum--would +it cause too much inconvenience?’ + +‘Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.’ + +‘Thank you, my love,’ said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him; +‘I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs General pretty +well?’ + +‘Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so, +when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.’ + +Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being +overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, his +face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, ‘Extremely sorry to +hear that Mrs General is not well.’ + +During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with +something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had +a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented +it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself +of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire: + +‘Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you +to--ha--concentrate your solicitude on me in that--hum--very particular +manner?’ + +‘I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes to +see you again; that’s all.’ + +‘Don’t say that’s all, because--ha--that’s not all. You--hum--you +think,’ said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, ‘that I am not +looking well.’ + +‘I thought you looked a little tired, love.’ + +‘Then you are mistaken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha, I am _not_ tired. Ha, hum. I +am very much fresher than I was when I went away.’ + +He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her +justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. As +he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy +doze, of not a minute’s duration, and awoke with a start. + +‘Frederick,’ he said, turning to his brother: ‘I recommend you to go to +bed immediately.’ + +‘No, William. I’ll wait and see you sup.’ + +‘Frederick,’ he retorted, ‘I beg you to go to bed. I--ha--make it a +personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long +ago. You are very feeble.’ + +‘Hah!’ said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. ‘Well, well, +well! I dare say I am.’ + +‘My dear Frederick,’ returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority +to his brother’s failing powers, ‘there can be no doubt of it. It is +painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses me. Hum. I don’t +find you looking at all well. You are not fit for this sort of thing. +You should be more careful, you should be very careful.’ + +‘Shall I go to bed?’ asked Frederick. + +‘Dear Frederick,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘do, I adjure you! Good night, +brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all pleased +with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.’ After dismissing his brother +in this gracious way, he fell into a doze again before the old man was +well out of the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs, +but for his daughter’s restraining hold. + +‘Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,’ he said, when he was thus roused. +‘He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more--hum--broken, +than I have--ha, hum--ever known. Has he had any illness since I have +been gone?’ + +‘No, father.’ + +‘You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?’ + +‘I have not observed it, dear.’ + +‘Greatly broken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Greatly broken. My poor, +affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account what he +was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!’ + +His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little +table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention. She sat at +his side as in the days that were gone, for the first time since those +days ended. They were alone, and she helped him to his meat and poured +out his drink for him, as she had been used to do in the prison. All +this happened now, for the first time since their accession to wealth. +She was afraid to look at him much, after the offence he had taken; but +she noticed two occasions in the course of his meal, when he all of a +sudden looked at her, and looked about him, as if the association were +so strong that he needed assurance from his sense of sight that they +were not in the old prison-room. Both times, he put his hand to his head +as if he missed his old black cap--though it had been ignominiously +given away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but +still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor. + +He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often +reverted to his brother’s declining state. Though he expressed the +greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that poor +Frederick--ha hum--drivelled. There was no other word to express it; +drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have +undergone from the excessive tediousness of his Society--wandering and +babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, wandering and babbling on--if +it had not been for the relief she had had in Mrs General. +Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his former satisfaction, that +that--ha--superior woman was poorly. + +Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest +thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason +to recall that night. She always remembered that, when he looked about +him under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to +keep it out of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately +expatiating on the great riches and great company that had encompassed +him in his absence, and on the lofty position he and his family had to +sustain. Nor did she fail to recall that there were two under-currents, +side by side, pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one +showing her how well he had got on without her, and how independent +he was of her; the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost +complaining of her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected +him while he was away. + +His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the +court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle. So +naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in +the greater part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how +she was. + +‘She is very well. She is going away next week.’ + +‘Home?’ asked Mr Dorrit. + +‘After a few weeks’ stay upon the road.’ + +‘She will be a vast loss here,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘A vast--ha--acquisition +at home. To Fanny, and to--hum--the rest of the--ha--great world.’ + +Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon, +and assented very softly. + +‘Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and a +dinner before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you should +return in time. She has invited both you and me to her dinner.’ + +‘She is--ha--very kind. When is the day?’ + +‘The day after to-morrow.’ + +‘Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and +shall--hum--be delighted.’ + +‘May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?’ + +‘No!’ he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if +forgetful of leave-taking. ‘You may not, Amy. I want no help. I am your +father, not your infirm uncle!’ He checked himself, as abruptly as he +had broken into this reply, and said, ‘You have not kissed me, Amy. Good +night, my dear! We must marry--ha--we must marry _you_, now.’ With that +he went, more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and, +almost as soon as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was +to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their +cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and +key. After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost +himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the +eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed. + +Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped +he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent down his +compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very +well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come +forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he +then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with +Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his +description of himself. + +As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone +together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand with +immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed +with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his +manner towards Mrs General was very particular. The perfect formation of +that accomplished lady’s surface rendered it difficult to displace an +atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a +slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye. + +Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and +Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell +asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as +they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first +of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but, +on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa, +Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that +infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at +about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep. + +He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which +had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when +Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the +poor man. ‘The most estimable and affectionate of brothers,’ he said, +‘but--ha, hum--broken up altogether. Unhappily, declining fast.’ + +‘Mr Frederick, sir,’ quoth Mrs General, ‘is habitually absent and +drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.’ + +Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off. ‘Fast declining, +madam. A wreck. A ruin. Mouldering away before our eyes. Hum. Good +Frederick!’ + +‘You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?’ said Mrs General, +after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick. + +‘Surrounded,’ replied Mr Dorrit, ‘by--ha--all that can charm the taste, +and--hum--elevate the mind. Happy, my dear madam, in a--hum--husband.’ + +Mrs General was a little fluttered; seeming delicately to put the word +away with her gloves, as if there were no knowing what it might lead to. + +‘Fanny,’ Mr Dorrit continued. ‘Fanny, Mrs General, has high +qualities. Ha. Ambition--hum--purpose, consciousness of--ha--position, +determination to support that position--ha, hum--grace, beauty, and +native nobility.’ + +‘No doubt,’ said Mrs General (with a little extra stiffness). + +‘Combined with these qualities, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘Fanny +has--ha--manifested one blemish which has made me--hum--made me uneasy, +and--ha--I must add, angry; but which I trust may now be considered +at an end, even as to herself, and which is undoubtedly at an end as +to--ha--others.’ + +‘To what, Mr Dorrit,’ returned Mrs General, with her gloves again +somewhat excited, ‘can you allude? I am at a loss to--’ + +‘Do not say that, my dear madam,’ interrupted Mr Dorrit. + +Mrs General’s voice, as it died away, pronounced the words, ‘at a loss +to imagine.’ + +After which Mr Dorrit was seized with a doze for about a minute, out of +which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness. + +‘I refer, Mrs General, to that--ha--strong spirit of opposition, +or--hum--I might say--ha--jealousy in Fanny, which has occasionally +risen against the--ha--sense I entertain of--hum--the claims of--ha--the +lady with whom I have now the honour of communing.’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ returned Mrs General, ‘is ever but too obliging, ever but +too appreciative. If there have been moments when I have imagined that +Miss Dorrit has indeed resented the favourable opinion Mr Dorrit has +formed of my services, I have found, in that only too high opinion, my +consolation and recompense.’ + +‘Opinion of your services, madam?’ said Mr Dorrit. + +‘Of,’ Mrs General repeated, in an elegantly impressive manner, ‘my +services.’ + +‘Of your services alone, dear madam?’ said Mr Dorrit. + +‘I presume,’ retorted Mrs General, in her former impressive manner, ‘of +my services alone. For, to what else,’ said Mrs General, with a slightly +interrogative action of her gloves, ‘could I impute--’ + +‘To--ha--yourself, Mrs General. Ha, hum. To yourself and your merits,’ +was Mr Dorrit’s rejoinder. + +‘Mr Dorrit will pardon me,’ said Mrs General, ‘if I remark that this +is not a time or place for the pursuit of the present conversation. +Mr Dorrit will excuse me if I remind him that Miss Dorrit is in the +adjoining room, and is visible to myself while I utter her name. Mr +Dorrit will forgive me if I observe that I am agitated, and that I find +there are moments when weaknesses I supposed myself to have subdued, +return with redoubled power. Mr Dorrit will allow me to withdraw.’ + +‘Hum. Perhaps we may resume this--ha--interesting conversation,’ said +Mr Dorrit, ‘at another time; unless it should be, what I hope it is +not--hum--in any way disagreeable to--ah--Mrs General.’ + +‘Mr Dorrit,’ said Mrs General, casting down her eyes as she rose with a +bend, ‘must ever claim my homage and obedience.’ + +Mrs General then took herself off in a stately way, and not with that +amount of trepidation upon her which might have been expected in a less +remarkable woman. Mr Dorrit, who had conducted his part of the dialogue +with a certain majestic and admiring condescension--much as some people +may be seen to conduct themselves in Church, and to perform their part +in the service--appeared, on the whole, very well satisfied with himself +and with Mrs General too. On the return of that lady to tea, she had +touched herself up with a little powder and pomatum, and was not without +moral enchantment likewise: the latter showing itself in much sweet +patronage of manner towards Miss Dorrit, and in an air of as tender +interest in Mr Dorrit as was consistent with rigid propriety. At the +close of the evening, when she rose to retire, Mr Dorrit took her by the +hand as if he were going to lead her out into the Piazza of the people +to walk a minuet by moonlight, and with great solemnity conducted her to +the room door, where he raised her knuckles to his lips. Having parted +from her with what may be conjectured to have been a rather bony kiss of +a cosmetic flavour, he gave his daughter his blessing, graciously. And +having thus hinted that there was something remarkable in the wind, he +again went to bed. + +He remained in the seclusion of his own chamber next morning; but, early +in the afternoon, sent down his best compliments to Mrs General, by Mr +Tinkler, and begged she would accompany Miss Dorrit on an airing +without him. His daughter was dressed for Mrs Merdle’s dinner before he +appeared. He then presented himself in a refulgent condition as to his +attire, but looking indefinably shrunken and old. However, as he was +plainly determined to be angry with her if she so much as asked him how +he was, she only ventured to kiss his cheek, before accompanying him to +Mrs Merdle’s with an anxious heart. + +The distance that they had to go was very short, but he was at his +building work again before the carriage had half traversed it. Mrs +Merdle received him with great distinction; the bosom was in admirable +preservation, and on the best terms with itself; the dinner was very +choice; and the company was very select. + +It was principally English; saving that it comprised the usual French +Count and the usual Italian Marchese--decorative social milestones, +always to be found in certain places, and varying very little in +appearance. The table was long, and the dinner was long; and Little +Dorrit, overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers and a large white +cravat, lost sight of her father altogether, until a servant put a scrap +of paper in her hand, with a whispered request from Mrs Merdle that she +would read it directly. Mrs Merdle had written on it in pencil, ‘Pray +come and speak to Mr Dorrit, I doubt if he is well.’ + +She was hurrying to him, unobserved, when he got up out of his chair, +and leaning over the table called to her, supposing her to be still in +her place: + +‘Amy, Amy, my child!’ + +The action was so unusual, to say nothing of his strange eager +appearance and strange eager voice, that it instantaneously caused a +profound silence. + +‘Amy, my dear,’ he repeated. ‘Will you go and see if Bob is on the +lock?’ + +She was at his side, and touching him, but he still perversely supposed +her to be in her seat, and called out, still leaning over the table, +‘Amy, Amy. I don’t feel quite myself. Ha. I don’t know what’s the matter +with me. I particularly wish to see Bob. Ha. Of all the turnkeys, he’s +as much my friend as yours. See if Bob is in the lodge, and beg him to +come to me.’ + +All the guests were now in consternation, and everybody rose. + +‘Dear father, I am not there; I am here, by you.’ + +‘Oh! You are here, Amy! Good. Hum. Good. Ha. Call Bob. If he has been +relieved, and is not on the lock, tell Mrs Bangham to go and fetch him.’ + +She was gently trying to get him away; but he resisted, and would not +go. + +‘I tell you, child,’ he said petulantly, ‘I can’t be got up the narrow +stairs without Bob. Ha. Send for Bob. Hum. Send for Bob--best of all the +turnkeys--send for Bob!’ + +He looked confusedly about him, and, becoming conscious of the number of +faces by which he was surrounded, addressed them: + +‘Ladies and gentlemen, the duty--ha--devolves upon me of--hum--welcoming +you to the Marshalsea! Welcome to the Marshalsea! The space +is--ha--limited--limited--the parade might be wider; but you will +find it apparently grow larger after a time--a time, ladies and +gentlemen--and the air is, all things considered, very good. It blows +over the--ha--Surrey hills. Blows over the Surrey hills. This is the +Snuggery. Hum. Supported by a small subscription of the--ha--Collegiate +body. In return for which--hot water--general kitchen--and little +domestic advantages. Those who are habituated to the--ha--Marshalsea, +are pleased to call me its father. I am accustomed to be complimented by +strangers as the--ha--Father of the Marshalsea. Certainly, if years of +residence may establish a claim to so--ha--honourable a title, I may +accept the--hum--conferred distinction. My child, ladies and gentlemen. +My daughter. Born here!’ + +She was not ashamed of it, or ashamed of him. She was pale and +frightened; but she had no other care than to soothe him and get him +away, for his own dear sake. She was between him and the wondering +faces, turned round upon his breast with her own face raised to his. He +held her clasped in his left arm, and between whiles her low voice was +heard tenderly imploring him to go away with her. + +‘Born here,’ he repeated, shedding tears. ‘Bred here. Ladies and +gentlemen, my daughter. Child of an unfortunate father, but--ha--always +a gentleman. Poor, no doubt, but--hum--proud. Always proud. It +has become a--hum--not infrequent custom for my--ha--personal +admirers--personal admirers solely--to be pleased to express +their desire to acknowledge my semi-official position here, +by offering--ha--little tributes, which usually take the form +of--ha--voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours to--hum--to +uphold a Tone here--a Tone--I beg it to be understood that I do not +consider myself compromised. Ha. Not compromised. Ha. Not a beggar. No; +I repudiate the title! At the same time far be it from me to--hum--to +put upon the fine feelings by which my partial friends are actuated, +the slight of scrupling to admit that those offerings are--hum--highly +acceptable. On the contrary, they are most acceptable. In my child’s +name, if not in my own, I make the admission in the fullest manner, at +the same time reserving--ha--shall I say my personal dignity? Ladies and +gentlemen, God bless you all!’ + +By this time, the exceeding mortification undergone by the Bosom had +occasioned the withdrawal of the greater part of the company into other +rooms. The few who had lingered thus long followed the rest, and Little +Dorrit and her father were left to the servants and themselves. Dearest +and most precious to her, he would come with her now, would he not? He +replied to her fervid entreaties, that he would never be able to get up +the narrow stairs without Bob; where was Bob, would nobody fetch Bob? +Under pretence of looking for Bob, she got him out against the stream of +gay company now pouring in for the evening assembly, and got him into a +coach that had just set down its load, and got him home. + +The broad stairs of his Roman palace were contracted in his failing +sight to the narrow stairs of his London prison; and he would suffer no +one but her to touch him, his brother excepted. They got him up to his +room without help, and laid him down on his bed. And from that hour his +poor maimed spirit, only remembering the place where it had broken its +wings, cancelled the dream through which it had since groped, and knew +of nothing beyond the Marshalsea. When he heard footsteps in the street, +he took them for the old weary tread in the yards. When the hour came +for locking up, he supposed all strangers to be excluded for the night. +When the time for opening came again, he was so anxious to see Bob, that +they were fain to patch up a narrative how that Bob--many a year dead +then, gentle turnkey--had taken cold, but hoped to be out to-morrow, or +the next day, or the next at furthest. + +He fell away into a weakness so extreme that he could not raise his +hand. But he still protected his brother according to his long usage; +and would say with some complacency, fifty times a day, when he saw him +standing by his bed, ‘My good Frederick, sit down. You are very feeble +indeed.’ + +They tried him with Mrs General, but he had not the faintest knowledge +of her. Some injurious suspicion lodged itself in his brain, that she +wanted to supplant Mrs Bangham, and that she was given to drinking. He +charged her with it in no measured terms; and was so urgent with his +daughter to go round to the Marshal and entreat him to turn her out, +that she was never reproduced after the first failure. + +Saving that he once asked ‘if Tip had gone outside?’ the remembrance of +his two children not present seemed to have departed from him. But the +child who had done so much for him and had been so poorly repaid, was +never out of his mind. Not that he spared her, or was fearful of her +being spent by watching and fatigue; he was not more troubled on that +score than he had usually been. No; he loved her in his old way. They +were in the jail again, and she tended him, and he had constant need of +her, and could not turn without her; and he even told her, sometimes, +that he was content to have undergone a great deal for her sake. As to +her, she bent over his bed with her quiet face against his, and would +have laid down her own life to restore him. + +When he had been sinking in this painless way for two or three days, she +observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch--a pompous gold +watch that made as great a to-do about its going as if nothing else +went but itself and Time. She suffered it to run down; but he was still +uneasy, and showed that was not what he wanted. At length he roused +himself to explain that he wanted money to be raised on this watch. He +was quite pleased when she pretended to take it away for the purpose, +and afterwards had a relish for his little tastes of wine and jelly, +that he had not had before. + +He soon made it plain that this was so; for, in another day or two +he sent off his sleeve-buttons and finger-rings. He had an amazing +satisfaction in entrusting her with these errands, and appeared to +consider it equivalent to making the most methodical and provident +arrangements. After his trinkets, or such of them as he had been able to +see about him, were gone, his clothes engaged his attention; and it +is as likely as not that he was kept alive for some days by the +satisfaction of sending them, piece by piece, to an imaginary +pawnbroker’s. + +Thus for ten days Little Dorrit bent over his pillow, laying her cheek +against his. Sometimes she was so worn out that for a few minutes +they would slumber together. Then she would awake; to recollect with +fast-flowing silent tears what it was that touched her face, and to see, +stealing over the cherished face upon the pillow, a deeper shadow than +the shadow of the Marshalsea Wall. + +Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle +melted one after another. Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross-ruled +countenance on which they were traced, became fair and blank. +Quietly, quietly, the reflected marks of the prison bars and of the +zig-zag iron on the wall-top, faded away. Quietly, quietly, the face +subsided into a far younger likeness of her own than she had ever seen +under the grey hair, and sank to rest. + +At first her uncle was stark distracted. ‘O my brother! O William, +William! You to go before me; you to go alone; you to go, and I to +remain! You, so far superior, so distinguished, so noble; I, a poor +useless creature fit for nothing, and whom no one would have missed!’ + +It did her, for the time, the good of having him to think of and to +succour. + +‘Uncle, dear uncle, spare yourself, spare me!’ + +The old man was not deaf to the last words. When he did begin to +restrain himself, it was that he might spare her. He had no care for +himself; but, with all the remaining power of the honest heart, stunned +so long and now awaking to be broken, he honoured and blessed her. + +‘O God,’ he cried, before they left the room, with his wrinkled hands +clasped over her. ‘Thou seest this daughter of my dear dead brother! All +that I have looked upon, with my half-blind and sinful eyes, Thou hast +discerned clearly, brightly. Not a hair of her head shall be harmed +before Thee. Thou wilt uphold her here to her last hour. And I know Thou +wilt reward her hereafter!’ + +They remained in a dim room near, until it was almost midnight, quiet +and sad together. At times his grief would seek relief in a burst like +that in which it had found its earliest expression; but, besides that +his little strength would soon have been unequal to such strains, he +never failed to recall her words, and to reproach himself and calm +himself. The only utterance with which he indulged his sorrow, was the +frequent exclamation that his brother was gone, alone; that they had +been together in the outset of their lives, that they had fallen into +misfortune together, that they had kept together through their many +years of poverty, that they had remained together to that day; and that +his brother was gone alone, alone! + +They parted, heavy and sorrowful. She would not consent to leave him +anywhere but in his own room, and she saw him lie down in his clothes +upon his bed, and covered him with her own hands. Then she sank upon her +own bed, and fell into a deep sleep: the sleep of exhaustion and +rest, though not of complete release from a pervading consciousness of +affliction. Sleep, good Little Dorrit. Sleep through the night! + +It was a moonlight night; but the moon rose late, being long past the +full. When it was high in the peaceful firmament, it shone through +half-closed lattice blinds into the solemn room where the stumblings and +wanderings of a life had so lately ended. Two quiet figures were within +the room; two figures, equally still and impassive, equally removed +by an untraversable distance from the teeming earth and all that it +contains, though soon to lie in it. + +One figure reposed upon the bed. The other, kneeling on the floor, +drooped over it; the arms easily and peacefully resting on the coverlet; +the face bowed down, so that the lips touched the hand over which with +its last breath it had bent. The two brothers were before their Father; +far beyond the twilight judgment of this world; high above its mists and +obscurities. + + + + +CHAPTER 20. Introduces the next + + +The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais. +A low-lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the tide +ebbing out towards low water-mark. There had been no more water on the +bar than had sufficed to float the packet in; and now the bar itself, +with a shallow break of sea over it, looked like a lazy marine monster +just risen to the surface, whose form was indistinctly shown as it lay +asleep. The meagre lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard as if +it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, +dropped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves. The long +rows of gaunt black piles, slimy and wet and weather-worn, with funeral +garlands of seaweed twisted about them by the late tide, might +have represented an unsightly marine cemetery. Every wave-dashed, +storm-beaten object, was so low and so little, under the broad grey sky, +in the noise of the wind and sea, and before the curling lines of surf, +making at it ferociously, that the wonder was there was any Calais left, +and that its low gates and low wall and low roofs and low ditches and +low sand-hills and low ramparts and flat streets, had not yielded +long ago to the undermining and besieging sea, like the fortifications +children make on the sea-shore. + +After slipping among oozy piles and planks, stumbling up wet steps and +encountering many salt difficulties, the passengers entered on their +comfortless peregrination along the pier; where all the French vagabonds +and English outlaws in the town (half the population) attended to +prevent their recovery from bewilderment. After being minutely inspected +by all the English, and claimed and reclaimed and counter-claimed as +prizes by all the French in a hand-to-hand scuffle three quarters of a +mile long, they were at last free to enter the streets, and to make off +in their various directions, hotly pursued. + +Clennam, harassed by more anxieties than one, was among this devoted +band. Having rescued the most defenceless of his compatriots from +situations of great extremity, he now went his way alone, or as nearly +alone as he could be, with a native gentleman in a suit of grease and +a cap of the same material, giving chase at a distance of some fifty +yards, and continually calling after him, ‘Hi! Ice-say! You! Seer! +Ice-say! Nice Oatel!’ + +Even this hospitable person, however, was left behind at last, and +Clennam pursued his way, unmolested. There was a tranquil air in the +town after the turbulence of the Channel and the beach, and its dulness +in that comparison was agreeable. He met new groups of his countrymen, +who had all a straggling air of having at one time overblown themselves, +like certain uncomfortable kinds of flowers, and of being now mere +weeds. They had all an air, too, of lounging out a limited round, day +after day, which strongly reminded him of the Marshalsea. But, taking +no further note of them than was sufficient to give birth to the +reflection, he sought out a certain street and number which he kept in +his mind. + +‘So Pancks said,’ he murmured to himself, as he stopped before a dull +house answering to the address. ‘I suppose his information to be correct +and his discovery, among Mr Casby’s loose papers, indisputable; but, +without it, I should hardly have supposed this to be a likely place.’ + +A dead sort of house, with a dead wall over the way and a dead gateway +at the side, where a pendant bell-handle produced two dead tinkles, and +a knocker produced a dead, flat, surface-tapping, that seemed not to +have depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracked door. However, the +door jarred open on a dead sort of spring; and he closed it behind him +as he entered a dull yard, soon brought to a close by another dead wall, +where an attempt had been made to train some creeping shrubs, which were +dead; and to make a little fountain in a grotto, which was dry; and to +decorate that with a little statue, which was gone. + +The entry to the house was on the left, and it was garnished as the +outer gateway was, with two printed bills in French and English, +announcing Furnished Apartments to let, with immediate possession. A +strong cheerful peasant woman, all stocking, petticoat, white cap, and +ear-ring, stood here in a dark doorway, and said with a pleasant show of +teeth, ‘Ice-say! Seer! Who?’ + +Clennam, replying in French, said the English lady; he wished to see +the English lady. ‘Enter then and ascend, if you please,’ returned the +peasant woman, in French likewise. He did both, and followed her up a +dark bare staircase to a back room on the first-floor. Hence, there was +a gloomy view of the yard that was dull, and of the shrubs that were +dead, and of the fountain that was dry, and of the pedestal of the +statue that was gone. + +‘Monsieur Blandois,’ said Clennam. + +‘With pleasure, Monsieur.’ + +Thereupon the woman withdrew and left him to look at the room. It was +the pattern of room always to be found in such a house. Cool, dull, and +dark. Waxed floor very slippery. A room not large enough to skate in; +nor adapted to the easy pursuit of any other occupation. Red and +white curtained windows, little straw mat, little round table with a +tumultuous assemblage of legs underneath, clumsy rush-bottomed chairs, +two great red velvet arm-chairs affording plenty of space to be +uncomfortable in, bureau, chimney-glass in several pieces pretending to +be in one piece, pair of gaudy vases of very artificial flowers; between +them a Greek warrior with his helmet off, sacrificing a clock to the +Genius of France. + +After some pause, a door of communication with another room was opened, +and a lady entered. She manifested great surprise on seeing Clennam, and +her glance went round the room in search of some one else. + +‘Pardon me, Miss Wade. I am alone.’ + +‘It was not your name that was brought to me.’ + +‘No; I know that. Excuse me. I have already had experience that my name +does not predispose you to an interview; and I ventured to mention the +name of one I am in search of.’ + +‘Pray,’ she returned, motioning him to a chair so coldly that he +remained standing, ‘what name was it that you gave?’ + +‘I mentioned the name of Blandois.’ + +‘Blandois?’ + +‘A name you are acquainted with.’ + +‘It is strange,’ she said, frowning, ‘that you should still press an +undesired interest in me and my acquaintances, in me and my affairs, Mr +Clennam. I don’t know what you mean.’ + +‘Pardon me. You know the name?’ + +‘What can you have to do with the name? What can I have to do with the +name? What can you have to do with my knowing or not knowing any name? +I know many names and I have forgotten many more. This may be in the +one class, or it may be in the other, or I may never have heard it. I am +acquainted with no reason for examining myself, or for being examined, +about it.’ + +‘If you will allow me,’ said Clennam, ‘I will tell you my reason for +pressing the subject. I admit that I do press it, and I must beg you to +forgive me if I do so, very earnestly. The reason is all mine, I do not +insinuate that it is in any way yours.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ she returned, repeating a little less haughtily than before +her former invitation to him to be seated: to which he now deferred, as +she seated herself. ‘I am at least glad to know that this is not another +bondswoman of some friend of yours, who is bereft of free choice, and +whom I have spirited away. I will hear your reason, if you please.’ + +‘First, to identify the person of whom we speak,’ said Clennam, ‘let me +observe that it is the person you met in London some time back. You will +remember meeting him near the river--in the Adelphi!’ + +‘You mix yourself most unaccountably with my business,’ she replied, +looking full at him with stern displeasure. ‘How do you know that?’ + +‘I entreat you not to take it ill. By mere accident.’ + +‘What accident?’ + +‘Solely the accident of coming upon you in the street and seeing the +meeting.’ + +‘Do you speak of yourself, or of some one else?’ + +‘Of myself. I saw it.’ + +‘To be sure it was in the open street,’ she observed, after a few +moments of less and less angry reflection. ‘Fifty people might have seen +it. It would have signified nothing if they had.’ + +‘Nor do I make my having seen it of any moment, nor (otherwise than as +an explanation of my coming here) do I connect my visit with it or the +favour that I have to ask.’ + +‘Oh! You have to ask a favour! It occurred to me,’ and the handsome face +looked bitterly at him, ‘that your manner was softened, Mr Clennam.’ + +He was content to protest against this by a slight action without +contesting it in words. He then referred to Blandois’ disappearance, of +which it was probable she had heard? However probable it was to him, she +had heard of no such thing. Let him look round him (she said) and judge +for himself what general intelligence was likely to reach the ears of +a woman who had been shut up there while it was rife, devouring her own +heart. When she had uttered this denial, which he believed to be true, +she asked him what he meant by disappearance? That led to his narrating +the circumstances in detail, and expressing something of his anxiety +to discover what had really become of the man, and to repel the dark +suspicions that clouded about his mother’s house. She heard him with +evident surprise, and with more marks of suppressed interest than he +had seen in her; still they did not overcome her distant, proud, and +self-secluded manner. When he had finished, she said nothing but these +words: + +‘You have not yet told me, sir, what I have to do with it, or what the +favour is? Will you be so good as come to that?’ + +‘I assume,’ said Arthur, persevering, in his endeavour to soften +her scornful demeanour, ‘that being in communication--may I say, +confidential communication?--with this person--’ + +‘You may say, of course, whatever you like,’ she remarked; ‘but I do not +subscribe to your assumptions, Mr Clennam, or to any one’s.’ + +‘--that being, at least in personal communication with him,’ said +Clennam, changing the form of his position in the hope of making +it unobjectionable, ‘you can tell me something of his antecedents, +pursuits, habits, usual place of residence. Can give me some little clue +by which to seek him out in the likeliest manner, and either produce +him, or establish what has become of him. This is the favour I ask, +and I ask it in a distress of mind for which I hope you will feel some +consideration. If you should have any reason for imposing conditions +upon me, I will respect it without asking what it is.’ + +‘You chanced to see me in the street with the man,’ she observed, +after being, to his mortification, evidently more occupied with her own +reflections on the matter than with his appeal. ‘Then you knew the man +before?’ + +‘Not before; afterwards. I never saw him before, but I saw him again on +this very night of his disappearance. In my mother’s room, in fact. I +left him there. You will read in this paper all that is known of him.’ + +He handed her one of the printed bills, which she read with a steady and +attentive face. + +‘This is more than _I_ knew of him,’ she said, giving it back. +Clennam’s looks expressed his heavy disappointment, perhaps his +incredulity; for she added in the same unsympathetic tone: ‘You don’t +believe it. Still, it is so. As to personal communication: it seems that +there was personal communication between him and your mother. And yet +you say you believe _her_ declaration that she knows no more of him!’ + +A sufficiently expressive hint of suspicion was conveyed in these words, +and in the smile by which they were accompanied, to bring the blood into +Clennam’s cheeks. + +‘Come, sir,’ she said, with a cruel pleasure in repeating the stab, ‘I +will be as open with you as you can desire. I will confess that if I +cared for my credit (which I do not), or had a good name to preserve +(which I have not, for I am utterly indifferent to its being considered +good or bad), I should regard myself as heavily compromised by having +had anything to do with this fellow. Yet he never passed in at _my_ +door--never sat in colloquy with _me_ until midnight.’ + +She took her revenge for her old grudge in thus turning his subject +against him. Hers was not the nature to spare him, and she had no +compunction. + +‘That he is a low, mercenary wretch; that I first saw him prowling about +Italy (where I was, not long ago), and that I hired him there, as the +suitable instrument of a purpose I happened to have; I have no objection +to tell you. In short, it was worth my while, for my own pleasure--the +gratification of a strong feeling--to pay a spy who would fetch and +carry for money. I paid this creature. And I dare say that if I had +wanted to make such a bargain, and if I could have paid him enough, and +if he could have done it in the dark, free from all risk, he would have +taken any life with as little scruple as he took my money. That, at +least, is my opinion of him; and I see it is not very far removed from +yours. Your mother’s opinion of him, I am to assume (following your +example of assuming this and that), was vastly different.’ + +‘My mother, let me remind you,’ said Clennam, ‘was first brought into +communication with him in the unlucky course of business.’ + +‘It appears to have been an unlucky course of business that last brought +her into communication with him,’ returned Miss Wade; ‘and business +hours on that occasion were late.’ + +‘You imply,’ said Arthur, smarting under these cool-handed thrusts, of +which he had deeply felt the force already, ‘that there was something--’ + +‘Mr Clennam,’ she composedly interrupted, ‘recollect that I do not speak +by implication about the man. He is, I say again without disguise, a low +mercenary wretch. I suppose such a creature goes where there is occasion +for him. If I had not had occasion for him, you would not have seen him +and me together.’ + +Wrung by her persistence in keeping that dark side of the case before +him, of which there was a half-hidden shadow in his own breast, Clennam +was silent. + +‘I have spoken of him as still living,’ she added, ‘but he may have been +put out of the way for anything I know. For anything I care, also. I +have no further occasion for him.’ + +With a heavy sigh and a despondent air, Arthur Clennam slowly rose. +She did not rise also, but said, having looked at him in the meanwhile +with a fixed look of suspicion, and lips angrily compressed: + +‘He was the chosen associate of your dear friend, Mr Gowan, was he not? +Why don’t you ask your dear friend to help you?’ + +The denial that he was a dear friend rose to Arthur’s lips; but he +repressed it, remembering his old struggles and resolutions, and said: + +‘Further than that he has never seen Blandois since Blandois set out for +England, Mr Gowan knows nothing additional about him. He was a chance +acquaintance, made abroad.’ + +‘A chance acquaintance made abroad!’ she repeated. ‘Yes. Your dear +friend has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances he can +make, seeing what a wife he has. I hate his wife, sir.’ + +The anger with which she said it, the more remarkable for being so much +under her restraint, fixed Clennam’s attention, and kept him on the +spot. It flashed out of her dark eyes as they regarded him, quivered in +her nostrils, and fired the very breath she exhaled; but her face was +otherwise composed into a disdainful serenity; and her attitude was as +calmly and haughtily graceful as if she had been in a mood of complete +indifference. + +‘All I will say is, Miss Wade,’ he remarked, ‘that you can have received +no provocation to a feeling in which I believe you have no sharer.’ + +‘You may ask your dear friend, if you choose,’ she returned, ‘for his +opinion upon that subject.’ + +‘I am scarcely on those intimate terms with my dear friend,’ said +Arthur, in spite of his resolutions, ‘that would render my approaching +the subject very probable, Miss Wade.’ + +‘I hate him,’ she returned. ‘Worse than his wife, because I was once +dupe enough, and false enough to myself, almost to love him. You have +seen me, sir, only on common-place occasions, when I dare say you have +thought me a common-place woman, a little more self-willed than the +generality. You don’t know what I mean by hating, if you know me no +better than that; you can’t know, without knowing with what care I have +studied myself and people about me. For this reason I have for some +time inclined to tell you what my life has been--not to propitiate your +opinion, for I set no value on it; but that you may comprehend, when +you think of your dear friend and his dear wife, what I mean by hating. +Shall I give you something I have written and put by for your perusal, +or shall I hold my hand?’ + +Arthur begged her to give it to him. She went to the bureau, unlocked +it, and took from an inner drawer a few folded sheets of paper. Without +any conciliation of him, scarcely addressing him, rather speaking as if +she were speaking to her own looking-glass for the justification of her +own stubbornness, she said, as she gave them to him: + +‘Now you may know what I mean by hating! No more of that. Sir, whether +you find me temporarily and cheaply lodging in an empty London house, or +in a Calais apartment, you find Harriet with me. You may like to see +her before you leave. Harriet, come in!’ She called Harriet again. The +second call produced Harriet, once Tattycoram. + +‘Here is Mr Clennam,’ said Miss Wade; ‘not come for you; he has given +you up,--I suppose you have, by this time?’ + +‘Having no authority, or influence--yes,’ assented Clennam. + +‘Not come in search of you, you see; but still seeking some one. He +wants that Blandois man.’ + +‘With whom I saw you in the Strand in London,’ hinted Arthur. + +‘If you know anything of him, Harriet, except that he came from +Venice--which we all know--tell it to Mr Clennam freely.’ + +‘I know nothing more about him,’ said the girl. + +‘Are you satisfied?’ Miss Wade inquired of Arthur. + +He had no reason to disbelieve them; the girl’s manner being so natural +as to be almost convincing, if he had had any previous doubts. He +replied, ‘I must seek for intelligence elsewhere.’ + +He was not going in the same breath; but he had risen before the girl +entered, and she evidently thought he was. She looked quickly at him, +and said: + +‘Are they well, sir?’ + +‘Who?’ + +She stopped herself in saying what would have been ‘all of them;’ +glanced at Miss Wade; and said ‘Mr and Mrs Meagles.’ + +‘They were, when I last heard of them. They are not at home. By the way, +let me ask you. Is it true that you were seen there?’ + +‘Where? Where does any one say I was seen?’ returned the girl, sullenly +casting down her eyes. + +‘Looking in at the garden gate of the cottage.’ + +‘No,’ said Miss Wade. ‘She has never been near it.’ + +‘You are wrong, then,’ said the girl. ‘I went down there the last time +we were in London. I went one afternoon when you left me alone. And I +did look in.’ + +‘You poor-spirited girl,’ returned Miss Wade with infinite contempt; +‘does all our companionship, do all our conversations, do all your old +complainings, tell for so little as that?’ + +‘There was no harm in looking in at the gate for an instant,’ said the +girl. ‘I saw by the windows that the family were not there.’ + +‘Why should you go near the place?’ + +‘Because I wanted to see it. Because I felt that I should like to look +at it again.’ + +As each of the two handsome faces looked at the other, Clennam felt how +each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other to pieces. + +‘Oh!’ said Miss Wade, coldly subduing and removing her glance; ‘if you +had any desire to see the place where you led the life from which I +rescued you because you had found out what it was, that is another +thing. But is that your truth to me? Is that your fidelity to me? Is +that the common cause I make with you? You are not worth the confidence +I have placed in you. You are not worth the favour I have shown you. You +are no higher than a spaniel, and had better go back to the people who +did worse than whip you.’ + +‘If you speak so of them with any one else by to hear, you’ll provoke me +to take their part,’ said the girl. + +‘Go back to them,’ Miss Wade retorted. ‘Go back to them.’ + +‘You know very well,’ retorted Harriet in her turn, ‘that I won’t go +back to them. You know very well that I have thrown them off, and never +can, never shall, never will, go back to them. Let them alone, then, +Miss Wade.’ + +‘You prefer their plenty to your less fat living here,’ she rejoined. +‘You exalt them, and slight me. What else should I have expected? I +ought to have known it.’ + +‘It’s not so,’ said the girl, flushing high, ‘and you don’t say what you +mean. I know what you mean. You are reproaching me, underhanded, with +having nobody but you to look to. And because I have nobody but you +to look to, you think you are to make me do, or not do, everything you +please, and are to put any affront upon me. You are as bad as they were, +every bit. But I will not be quite tamed, and made submissive. I will +say again that I went to look at the house, because I had often thought +that I should like to see it once more. I will ask again how they are, +because I once liked them and at times thought they were kind to me.’ + +Hereupon Clennam said that he was sure they would still receive her +kindly, if she should ever desire to return. + +‘Never!’ said the girl passionately. ‘I shall never do that. Nobody +knows that better than Miss Wade, though she taunts me because she has +made me her dependent. And I know I am so; and I know she is overjoyed +when she can bring it to my mind.’ + +‘A good pretence!’ said Miss Wade, with no less anger, haughtiness, and +bitterness; ‘but too threadbare to cover what I plainly see in this. My +poverty will not bear competition with their money. Better go back at +once, better go back at once, and have done with it!’ + +Arthur Clennam looked at them, standing a little distance asunder in the +dull confined room, each proudly cherishing her own anger; each, with +a fixed determination, torturing her own breast, and torturing the +other’s. He said a word or two of leave-taking; but Miss Wade barely +inclined her head, and Harriet, with the assumed humiliation of an +abject dependent and serf (but not without defiance for all that), made +as if she were too low to notice or to be noticed. + +He came down the dark winding stairs into the yard with an increased +sense upon him of the gloom of the wall that was dead, and of the shrubs +that were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, and of the statue that +was gone. Pondering much on what he had seen and heard in that house, +as well as on the failure of all his efforts to trace the suspicious +character who was lost, he returned to London and to England by the +packet that had taken him over. On the way he unfolded the sheets of +paper, and read in them what is reproduced in the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor + + +I have the misfortune of not being a fool. From a very early age I have +detected what those about me thought they hid from me. If I could have +been habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually discerning the +truth, I might have lived as smoothly as most fools do. + +My childhood was passed with a grandmother; that is to say, with a lady +who represented that relative to me, and who took that title on herself. +She had no claim to it, but I--being to that extent a little fool--had +no suspicion of her. She had some children of her own family in her +house, and some children of other people. All girls; ten in number, +including me. We all lived together and were educated together. + +I must have been about twelve years old when I began to see how +determinedly those girls patronised me. I was told I was an orphan. +There was no other orphan among us; and I perceived (here was the +first disadvantage of not being a fool) that they conciliated me in an +insolent pity, and in a sense of superiority. I did not set this down +as a discovery, rashly. I tried them often. I could hardly make them +quarrel with me. When I succeeded with any of them, they were sure to +come after an hour or two, and begin a reconciliation. I tried them over +and over again, and I never knew them wait for me to begin. They were +always forgiving me, in their vanity and condescension. Little images of +grown people! + +One of them was my chosen friend. I loved that stupid mite in a +passionate way that she could no more deserve than I can remember +without feeling ashamed of, though I was but a child. She had what they +called an amiable temper, an affectionate temper. She could distribute, +and did distribute pretty looks and smiles to every one among them. I +believe there was not a soul in the place, except myself, who knew that +she did it purposely to wound and gall me! + +Nevertheless, I so loved that unworthy girl that my life was made stormy +by my fondness for her. I was constantly lectured and disgraced for what +was called ‘trying her;’ in other words charging her with her little +perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing her that I read her +heart. However, I loved her faithfully; and one time I went home with +her for the holidays. + +She was worse at home than she had been at school. She had a crowd of +cousins and acquaintances, and we had dances at her house, and went out +to dances at other houses, and, both at home and out, she tormented my +love beyond endurance. Her plan was, to make them all fond of her--and +so drive me wild with jealousy. To be familiar and endearing with them +all--and so make me mad with envying them. When we were left alone in +our bedroom at night, I would reproach her with my perfect knowledge of +her baseness; and then she would cry and cry and say I was cruel, and +then I would hold her in my arms till morning: loving her as much as +ever, and often feeling as if, rather than suffer so, I could so hold +her in my arms and plunge to the bottom of a river--where I would still +hold her after we were both dead. + +It came to an end, and I was relieved. In the family there was an aunt +who was not fond of me. I doubt if any of the family liked me much; but +I never wanted them to like me, being altogether bound up in the one +girl. The aunt was a young woman, and she had a serious way with her +eyes of watching me. She was an audacious woman, and openly looked +compassionately at me. After one of the nights that I have spoken of, I +came down into a greenhouse before breakfast. Charlotte (the name of +my false young friend) had gone down before me, and I heard this aunt +speaking to her about me as I entered. I stopped where I was, among the +leaves, and listened. + +The aunt said, ‘Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death, and this +must not continue.’ I repeat the very words I heard. + +Now, what did she answer? Did she say, ‘It is I who am wearing her to +death, I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, yet she +tells me every night that she loves me devotedly, though she knows what +I make her undergo?’ No; my first memorable experience was true to +what I knew her to be, and to all my experience. She began sobbing and +weeping (to secure the aunt’s sympathy to herself), and said, ‘Dear +aunt, she has an unhappy temper; other girls at school, besides I, try +hard to make it better; we all try hard.’ + +Upon that the aunt fondled her, as if she had said something noble +instead of despicable and false, and kept up the infamous pretence by +replying, ‘But there are reasonable limits, my dear love, to everything, +and I see that this poor miserable girl causes you more constant and +useless distress than even so good an effort justifies.’ + +The poor miserable girl came out of her concealment, as you may be +prepared to hear, and said, ‘Send me home.’ I never said another word +to either of them, or to any of them, but ‘Send me home, or I will +walk home alone, night and day!’ When I got home, I told my supposed +grandmother that, unless I was sent away to finish my education +somewhere else before that girl came back, or before any one of them +came back, I would burn my sight away by throwing myself into the fire, +rather than I would endure to look at their plotting faces. + +I went among young women next, and I found them no better. Fair +words and fair pretences; but I penetrated below those assertions of +themselves and depreciations of me, and they were no better. Before +I left them, I learned that I had no grandmother and no recognised +relation. I carried the light of that information both into my past +and into my future. It showed me many new occasions on which people +triumphed over me, when they made a pretence of treating me with +consideration, or doing me a service. + +A man of business had a small property in trust for me. I was to be +a governess; I became a governess; and went into the family of a poor +nobleman, where there were two daughters--little children, but the +parents wished them to grow up, if possible, under one instructress. The +mother was young and pretty. From the first, she made a show of behaving +to me with great delicacy. I kept my resentment to myself; but I knew +very well that it was her way of petting the knowledge that she was my +Mistress, and might have behaved differently to her servant if it had +been her fancy. + +I say I did not resent it, nor did I; but I showed her, by not +gratifying her, that I understood her. When she pressed me to take wine, +I took water. If there happened to be anything choice at table, she +always sent it to me: but I always declined it, and ate of the rejected +dishes. These disappointments of her patronage were a sharp retort, and +made me feel independent. + +I liked the children. They were timid, but on the whole disposed to +attach themselves to me. There was a nurse, however, in the house, a +rosy-faced woman always making an obtrusive pretence of being gay and +good-humoured, who had nursed them both, and who had secured their +affections before I saw them. I could almost have settled down to my +fate but for this woman. Her artful devices for keeping herself before +the children in constant competition with me, might have blinded many +in my place; but I saw through them from the first. On the pretext of +arranging my rooms and waiting on me and taking care of my wardrobe (all +of which she did busily), she was never absent. The most crafty of her +many subtleties was her feint of seeking to make the children fonder of +me. She would lead them to me and coax them to me. ‘Come to good Miss +Wade, come to dear Miss Wade, come to pretty Miss Wade. She loves you +very much. Miss Wade is a clever lady, who has read heaps of books, and +can tell you far better and more interesting stories than I know. Come +and hear Miss Wade!’ How could I engage their attentions, when my heart +was burning against these ignorant designs? How could I wonder, when I +saw their innocent faces shrinking away, and their arms twining round +her neck, instead of mine? Then she would look up at me, shaking their +curls from her face, and say, ‘They’ll come round soon, Miss Wade; +they’re very simple and loving, ma’am; don’t be at all cast down about +it, ma’am’--exulting over me! + +There was another thing the woman did. At times, when she saw that she +had safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding by these means, +she would call the attention of the children to it, and would show them +the difference between herself and me. ‘Hush! Poor Miss Wade is not +well. Don’t make a noise, my dears, her head aches. Come and comfort +her. Come and ask her if she is better; come and ask her to lie down. I +hope you have nothing on your mind, ma’am. Don’t take on, ma’am, and be +sorry!’ + +It became intolerable. Her ladyship, my Mistress, coming in one day when +I was alone, and at the height of feeling that I could support it no +longer, I told her I must go. I could not bear the presence of that +woman Dawes. + +‘Miss Wade! Poor Dawes is devoted to you; would do anything for you!’ + +I knew beforehand she would say so; I was quite prepared for it; I only +answered, it was not for me to contradict my Mistress; I must go. + +‘I hope, Miss Wade,’ she returned, instantly assuming the tone of +superiority she had always so thinly concealed, ‘that nothing I have +ever said or done since we have been together, has justified your use of +that disagreeable word, “Mistress.” It must have been wholly inadvertent +on my part. Pray tell me what it is.’ + +I replied that I had no complaint to make, either of my Mistress or to +my Mistress; but I must go. + +She hesitated a moment, and then sat down beside me, and laid her hand +on mine. As if that honour would obliterate any remembrance! + +‘Miss Wade, I fear you are unhappy, through causes over which I have no +influence.’ + +I smiled, thinking of the experience the word awakened, and said, ‘I +have an unhappy temper, I suppose.’ + +‘I did not say that.’ + +‘It is an easy way of accounting for anything,’ said I. + +‘It may be; but I did not say so. What I wish to approach is something +very different. My husband and I have exchanged some remarks upon the +subject, when we have observed with pain that you have not been easy +with us.’ + +‘Easy? Oh! You are such great people, my lady,’ said I. + +‘I am unfortunate in using a word which may convey a meaning--and +evidently does--quite opposite to my intention.’ (She had not expected +my reply, and it shamed her.) ‘I only mean, not happy with us. It is +a difficult topic to enter on; but, from one young woman to another, +perhaps--in short, we have been apprehensive that you may allow some +family circumstances of which no one can be more innocent than yourself, +to prey upon your spirits. If so, let us entreat you not to make them +a cause of grief. My husband himself, as is well known, formerly had a +very dear sister who was not in law his sister, but who was universally +beloved and respected--’ + +I saw directly that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead woman, +whoever she was, and to have that boast of me and advantage of me; I +saw, in the nurse’s knowledge of it, an encouragement to goad me as +she had done; and I saw, in the children’s shrinking away, a vague +impression, that I was not like other people. I left that house that +night. + +After one or two short and very similar experiences, which are not to +the present purpose, I entered another family where I had but one pupil: +a girl of fifteen, who was the only daughter. The parents here were +elderly people: people of station, and rich. A nephew whom they had +brought up was a frequent visitor at the house, among many other +visitors; and he began to pay me attention. I was resolute in repulsing +him; for I had determined when I went there, that no one should pity me +or condescend to me. But he wrote me a letter. It led to our being +engaged to be married. + +He was a year younger than I, and young-looking even when that allowance +was made. He was on absence from India, where he had a post that was +soon to grow into a very good one. In six months we were to be married, +and were to go to India. I was to stay in the house, and was to be +married from the house. Nobody objected to any part of the plan. + +I cannot avoid saying he admired me; but, if I could, I would. Vanity +has nothing to do with the declaration, for his admiration worried me. +He took no pains to hide it; and caused me to feel among the rich people +as if he had bought me for my looks, and made a show of his purchase to +justify himself. They appraised me in their own minds, I saw, and were +curious to ascertain what my full value was. I resolved that they +should not know. I was immovable and silent before them; and would have +suffered any one of them to kill me sooner than I would have laid myself +out to bespeak their approval. + +He told me I did not do myself justice. I told him I did, and it was +because I did and meant to do so to the last, that I would not stoop to +propitiate any of them. He was concerned and even shocked, when I added +that I wished he would not parade his attachment before them; but he +said he would sacrifice even the honest impulses of his affection to my +peace. + +Under that pretence he began to retort upon me. By the hour together, he +would keep at a distance from me, talking to any one rather than to me. +I have sat alone and unnoticed, half an evening, while he conversed with +his young cousin, my pupil. I have seen all the while, in people’s eyes, +that they thought the two looked nearer on an equality than he and I. +I have sat, divining their thoughts, until I have felt that his young +appearance made me ridiculous, and have raged against myself for ever +loving him. + +For I did love him once. Undeserving as he was, and little as he thought +of all these agonies that it cost me--agonies which should have made him +wholly and gratefully mine to his life’s end--I loved him. I bore with +his cousin’s praising him to my face, and with her pretending to think +that it pleased me, but full well knowing that it rankled in my breast; +for his sake. While I have sat in his presence recalling all my slights +and wrongs, and deliberating whether I should not fly from the house at +once and never see him again--I have loved him. + +His aunt (my Mistress you will please to remember) deliberately, +wilfully, added to my trials and vexations. It was her delight to +expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India, and on the +establishment we should keep, and the company we should entertain when +he got his advancement. My pride rose against this barefaced way of +pointing out the contrast my married life was to present to my then +dependent and inferior position. I suppressed my indignation; but I +showed her that her intention was not lost upon me, and I repaid her +annoyance by affecting humility. What she described would surely be +a great deal too much honour for me, I would tell her. I was afraid +I might not be able to support so great a change. Think of a mere +governess, her daughter’s governess, coming to that high distinction! It +made her uneasy, and made them all uneasy, when I answered in this way. +They knew that I fully understood her. + +It was at the time when my troubles were at their highest, and when +I was most incensed against my lover for his ingratitude in caring as +little as he did for the innumerable distresses and mortifications I +underwent on his account, that your dear friend, Mr Gowan, appeared +at the house. He had been intimate there for a long time, but had been +abroad. He understood the state of things at a glance, and he understood +me. + +He was the first person I had ever seen in my life who had understood +me. He was not in the house three times before I knew that he +accompanied every movement of my mind. In his coldly easy way with all +of them, and with me, and with the whole subject, I saw it clearly. +In his light protestations of admiration of my future husband, in his +enthusiasm regarding our engagement and our prospects, in his hopeful +congratulations on our future wealth and his despondent references to +his own poverty--all equally hollow, and jesting, and full of mockery--I +saw it clearly. He made me feel more and more resentful, and more and +more contemptible, by always presenting to me everything that surrounded +me with some new hateful light upon it, while he pretended to exhibit +it in its best aspect for my admiration and his own. He was like the +dressed-up Death in the Dutch series; whatever figure he took upon his +arm, whether it was youth or age, beauty or ugliness, whether he danced +with it, sang with it, played with it, or prayed with it, he made it +ghastly. + +You will understand, then, that when your dear friend complimented me, +he really condoled with me; that when he soothed me under my vexations, +he laid bare every smarting wound I had; that when he declared my +‘faithful swain’ to be ‘the most loving young fellow in the world, with +the tenderest heart that ever beat,’ he touched my old misgiving that +I was made ridiculous. These were not great services, you may say. They +were acceptable to me, because they echoed my own mind, and confirmed +my own knowledge. I soon began to like the society of your dear friend +better than any other. + +When I perceived (which I did, almost as soon) that jealousy was growing +out of this, I liked this society still better. Had I not been subject +to jealousy, and were the endurances to be all mine? No. Let him know +what it was! I was delighted that he should know it; I was delighted +that he should feel keenly, and I hoped he did. More than that. He was +tame in comparison with Mr Gowan, who knew how to address me on equal +terms, and how to anatomise the wretched people around us. + +This went on, until the aunt, my Mistress, took it upon herself to speak +to me. It was scarcely worth alluding to; she knew I meant nothing; but +she suggested from herself, knowing it was only necessary to suggest, +that it might be better if I were a little less companionable with Mr +Gowan. + +I asked her how she could answer for what I meant? She could always +answer, she replied, for my meaning nothing wrong. I thanked her, +but said I would prefer to answer for myself and to myself. Her other +servants would probably be grateful for good characters, but I wanted +none. + +Other conversation followed, and induced me to ask her how she knew that +it was only necessary for her to make a suggestion to me, to have it +obeyed? Did she presume on my birth, or on my hire? I was not bought, +body and soul. She seemed to think that her distinguished nephew had +gone into a slave-market and purchased a wife. + +It would probably have come, sooner or later, to the end to which it did +come, but she brought it to its issue at once. She told me, with assumed +commiseration, that I had an unhappy temper. On this repetition of the +old wicked injury, I withheld no longer, but exposed to her all I had +known of her and seen in her, and all I had undergone within myself +since I had occupied the despicable position of being engaged to her +nephew. I told her that Mr Gowan was the only relief I had had in my +degradation; that I had borne it too long, and that I shook it off too +late; but that I would see none of them more. And I never did. + +Your dear friend followed me to my retreat, and was very droll on the +severance of the connection; though he was sorry, too, for the excellent +people (in their way the best he had ever met), and deplored the +necessity of breaking mere house-flies on the wheel. He protested before +long, and far more truly than I then supposed, that he was not worth +acceptance by a woman of such endowments, and such power of character; +but--well, well--! + +Your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited +his inclinations; and then reminded me that we were both people of the +world, that we both understood mankind, that we both knew there was no +such thing as romance, that we were both prepared for going different +ways to seek our fortunes like people of sense, and that we both foresaw +that whenever we encountered one another again we should meet as the +best friends on earth. So he said, and I did not contradict him. + +It was not very long before I found that he was courting his present +wife, and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach. I hated +her then, quite as much as I hate her now; and naturally, therefore, +could desire nothing better than that she should marry him. But I was +restlessly curious to look at her--so curious that I felt it to be one +of the few sources of entertainment left to me. I travelled a little: +travelled until I found myself in her society, and in yours. Your dear +friend, I think, was not known to you then, and had not given you any of +those signal marks of his friendship which he has bestowed upon you. + +In that company I found a girl, in various circumstances of whose +position there was a singular likeness to my own, and in whose character +I was interested and pleased to see much of the rising against swollen +patronage and selfishness, calling themselves kindness, protection, +benevolence, and other fine names, which I have described as inherent in +my nature. I often heard it said, too, that she had ‘an unhappy temper.’ +Well understanding what was meant by the convenient phrase, and wanting +a companion with a knowledge of what I knew, I thought I would try to +release the girl from her bondage and sense of injustice. I have no +occasion to relate that I succeeded. + +We have been together ever since, sharing my small means. + + + + +CHAPTER 22. Who passes by this Road so late? + + +Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst +of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power with valuable +possessions on the map of the world, had occasion for the services of +one or two engineers, quick in invention and determined in execution: +practical men, who could make the men and means their ingenuity +perceived to be wanted out of the best materials they could find +at hand; and who were as bold and fertile in the adaptation of such +materials to their purpose, as in the conception of their purpose +itself. This Power, being a barbaric one, had no idea of stowing away +a great national object in a Circumlocution Office, as strong wine is +hidden from the light in a cellar until its fire and youth are gone, +and the labourers who worked in the vineyard and pressed the grapes are +dust. With characteristic ignorance, it acted on the most decided and +energetic notions of How to do it; and never showed the least respect +for, or gave any quarter to, the great political science, How not to do +it. Indeed it had a barbarous way of striking the latter art and mystery +dead, in the person of any enlightened subject who practised it. + +Accordingly, the men who were wanted were sought out and found; which +was in itself a most uncivilised and irregular way of proceeding. Being +found, they were treated with great confidence and honour (which again +showed dense political ignorance), and were invited to come at once and +do what they had to do. In short, they were regarded as men who meant to +do it, engaging with other men who meant it to be done. + +Daniel Doyce was one of the chosen. There was no foreseeing at that time +whether he would be absent months or years. The preparations for his +departure, and the conscientious arrangement for him of all the details +and results of their joint business, had necessitated labour within a +short compass of time, which had occupied Clennam day and night. He +had slipped across the water in his first leisure, and had slipped as +quickly back again for his farewell interview with Doyce. + +Him Arthur now showed, with pains and care, the state of their gains and +losses, responsibilities and prospects. Daniel went through it all +in his patient manner, and admired it all exceedingly. He audited the +accounts, as if they were a far more ingenious piece of mechanism than +he had ever constructed, and afterwards stood looking at them, weighing +his hat over his head by the brims, as if he were absorbed in the +contemplation of some wonderful engine. + +‘It’s all beautiful, Clennam, in its regularity and order. Nothing can +be plainer. Nothing can be better.’ + +‘I am glad you approve, Doyce. Now, as to the management of your capital +while you are away, and as to the conversion of so much of it as the +business may need from time to time--’ His partner stopped him. + +‘As to that, and as to everything else of that kind, all rests with you. +You will continue in all such matters to act for both of us, as you +have done hitherto, and to lighten my mind of a load it is much relieved +from.’ + +‘Though, as I often tell you,’ returned Clennam, ‘you unreasonably +depreciate your business qualities.’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ said Doyce, smiling. ‘And perhaps not. Anyhow, I have a +calling that I have studied more than such matters, and that I am better +fitted for. I have perfect confidence in my partner, and I am satisfied +that he will do what is best. If I have a prejudice connected with money +and money figures,’ continued Doyce, laying that plastic workman’s thumb +of his on the lapel of his partner’s coat, ‘it is against speculating. +I don’t think I have any other. I dare say I entertain that prejudice, +only because I have never given my mind fully to the subject.’ + +‘But you shouldn’t call it a prejudice,’ said Clennam. ‘My dear Doyce, +it is the soundest sense.’ + +‘I am glad you think so,’ returned Doyce, with his grey eye looking kind +and bright. + +‘It so happens,’ said Clennam, ‘that just now, not half an hour before +you came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who looked in +here. We both agreed that to travel out of safe investments is one of +the most dangerous, as it is one of the most common, of those follies +which often deserve the name of vices.’ + +‘Pancks?’ said Doyce, tilting up his hat at the back, and nodding with +an air of confidence. ‘Aye, aye, aye! That’s a cautious fellow.’ + +‘He is a very cautious fellow indeed,’ returned Arthur. ‘Quite a +specimen of caution.’ + +They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from the +cautious character of Mr Pancks, than was quite intelligible, judged by +the surface of their conversation. + +‘And now,’ said Daniel, looking at his watch, ‘as time and tide wait +for no man, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, bag and +baggage, at the gate below, let me say a last word. I want you to grant +a request of mine.’ + +‘Any request you can make--Except,’ Clennam was quick with his +exception, for his partner’s face was quick in suggesting it, ‘except +that I will abandon your invention.’ + +‘That’s the request, and you know it is,’ said Doyce. + +‘I say, No, then. I say positively, No. Now that I have begun, I will +have some definite reason, some responsible statement, something in the +nature of a real answer, from those people.’ + +‘You will not,’ returned Doyce, shaking his head. ‘Take my word for it, +you never will.’ + +‘At least, I’ll try,’ said Clennam. ‘It will do me no harm to try.’ + +‘I am not certain of that,’ rejoined Doyce, laying his hand persuasively +on his shoulder. ‘It has done me harm, my friend. It has aged me, tired +me, vexed me, disappointed me. It does no man any good to have his +patience worn out, and to think himself ill-used. I fancy, even already, +that unavailing attendance on delays and evasions has made you something +less elastic than you used to be.’ + +‘Private anxieties may have done that for the moment,’ said Clennam, +‘but not official harrying. Not yet. I am not hurt yet.’ + +‘Then you won’t grant my request?’ + +‘Decidedly, No,’ said Clennam. ‘I should be ashamed if I submitted to +be so soon driven out of the field, where a much older and a much more +sensitively interested man contended with fortitude so long.’ + +As there was no moving him, Daniel Doyce returned the grasp of his hand, +and, casting a farewell look round the counting-house, went down-stairs +with him. Doyce was to go to Southampton to join the small staff of +his fellow-travellers; and a coach was at the gate, well furnished and +packed, and ready to take him there. The workmen were at the gate to see +him off, and were mightily proud of him. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Doyce!’ +said one of the number. ‘Wherever you go, they’ll find as they’ve got a +man among ‘em, a man as knows his tools and as his tools knows, a man +as is willing and a man as is able, and if that’s not a man, where is +a man!’ This oration from a gruff volunteer in the back-ground, not +previously suspected of any powers in that way, was received with three +loud cheers; and the speaker became a distinguished character for ever +afterwards. In the midst of the three loud cheers, Daniel gave them all +a hearty ‘Good Bye, Men!’ and the coach disappeared from sight, as if +the concussion of the air had blown it out of Bleeding Heart Yard. + +Mr Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was +among the workmen, and had done as much towards the cheering as a mere +foreigner could. In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, +who do so rally one another’s blood and spirit when they cheer in +earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all +its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred’s downwards. Mr Baptist +had been in a manner whirled away before the onset, and was taking his +breath in quite a scared condition when Clennam beckoned him to follow +up-stairs, and return the books and papers to their places. + +In the lull consequent on the departure--in that first vacuity which +ensues on every separation, foreshadowing the great separation that +is always overhanging all mankind--Arthur stood at his desk, looking +dreamily out at a gleam of sun. But his liberated attention soon +reverted to the theme that was foremost in his thoughts, and began, for +the hundredth time, to dwell upon every circumstance that had impressed +itself upon his mind on the mysterious night when he had seen the man at +his mother’s. Again the man jostled him in the crooked street, again +he followed the man and lost him, again he came upon the man in the +court-yard looking at the house, again he followed the man and stood +beside him on the door-steps. + + + ‘Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!’ + + +It was not the first time, by many, that he had recalled the song of the +child’s game, of which the fellow had hummed this verse while they stood +side by side; but he was so unconscious of having repeated it audibly, +that he started to hear the next verse. + + + ‘Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Always gay!’ + + +Cavalletto had deferentially suggested the words and tune, supposing him +to have stopped short for want of more. + +‘Ah! You know the song, Cavalletto?’ + +‘By Bacchus, yes, sir! They all know it in France. I have heard it many +times, sung by the little children. The last time when it I have heard,’ +said Mr Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually went back to his +native construction of sentences when his memory went near home, ‘is +from a sweet little voice. A little voice, very pretty, very innocent. +Altro!’ + +‘The last time I heard it,’ returned Arthur, ‘was in a voice quite the +reverse of pretty, and quite the reverse of innocent.’ He said it more +to himself than to his companion, and added to himself, repeating +the man’s next words. ‘Death of my life, sir, it’s my character to be +impatient!’ + +‘EH!’ cried Cavalletto, astounded, and with all his colour gone in a +moment. + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘Sir! You know where I have heard that song the last time?’ + +With his rapid native action, his hands made the outline of a high hook +nose, pushed his eyes near together, dishevelled his hair, puffed out +his upper lip to represent a thick moustache, and threw the heavy end +of an ideal cloak over his shoulder. While doing this, with a swiftness +incredible to one who has not watched an Italian peasant, he indicated a +very remarkable and sinister smile. The whole change passed over him +like a flash of light, and he stood in the same instant, pale and +astonished, before his patron. + +‘In the name of Fate and wonder,’ said Clennam, ‘what do you mean? Do +you know a man of the name of Blandois?’ + +‘No!’ said Mr Baptist, shaking his head. + +‘You have just now described a man who was by when you heard that song; +have you not?’ + +‘Yes!’ said Mr Baptist, nodding fifty times. + +‘And was he not called Blandois?’ + +‘No!’ said Mr Baptist. ‘Altro, Altro, Altro, Altro!’ He could not reject +the name sufficiently, with his head and his right forefinger going at +once. + +‘Stay!’ cried Clennam, spreading out the handbill on his desk. ‘Was this +the man? You can understand what I read aloud?’ + +‘Altogether. Perfectly.’ + +‘But look at it, too. Come here and look over me, while I read.’ + +Mr Baptist approached, followed every word with his quick eyes, saw +and heard it all out with the greatest impatience, then clapped his +two hands flat upon the bill as if he had fiercely caught some noxious +creature, and cried, looking eagerly at Clennam, ‘It is the man! Behold +him!’ + +‘This is of far greater moment to me’ said Clennam, in great agitation, +‘than you can imagine. Tell me where you knew the man.’ + +Mr Baptist, releasing the paper very slowly and with much discomfiture, +and drawing himself back two or three paces, and making as though he +dusted his hands, returned, very much against his will: + +‘At Marsiglia--Marseilles.’ + +‘What was he?’ + +‘A prisoner, and--Altro! I believe yes!--an,’ Mr Baptist crept closer +again to whisper it, ‘Assassin!’ + +Clennam fell back as if the word had struck him a blow: so terrible +did it make his mother’s communication with the man appear. +Cavalletto dropped on one knee, and implored him, with a redundancy of +gesticulation, to hear what had brought himself into such foul company. + +He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband +trading, and how he had in time been released from prison, and how he +had gone away from those antecedents. How, at the house of entertainment +called the Break of Day at Chalons on the Saone, he had been awakened +in his bed at night by the same assassin, then assuming the name of +Lagnier, though his name had formerly been Rigaud; how the assassin had +proposed that they should join their fortunes together; how he held +the assassin in such dread and aversion that he had fled from him at +daylight, and how he had ever since been haunted by the fear of seeing +the assassin again and being claimed by him as an acquaintance. When he +had related this, with an emphasis and poise on the word, ‘assassin,’ +peculiarly belonging to his own language, and which did not serve to +render it less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly sprang to his feet, +pounced upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that would have been +absolute madness in any man of Northern origin, cried ‘Behold the same +assassin! Here he is!’ + +In his passionate raptures, he at first forgot the fact that he had +lately seen the assassin in London. On his remembering it, it suggested +hope to Clennam that the recognition might be of later date than the +night of the visit at his mother’s; but Cavalletto was too exact and +clear about time and place, to leave any opening for doubt that it had +preceded that occasion. + +‘Listen,’ said Arthur, very seriously. ‘This man, as we have read here, +has wholly disappeared.’ + +‘Of it I am well content!’ said Cavalletto, raising his eyes piously. ‘A +thousand thanks to Heaven! Accursed assassin!’ + +‘Not so,’ returned Clennam; ‘for until something more is heard of him, I +can never know an hour’s peace.’ + +‘Enough, Benefactor; that is quite another thing. A million of excuses!’ + +‘Now, Cavalletto,’ said Clennam, gently turning him by the arm, so that +they looked into each other’s eyes. ‘I am certain that for the little +I have been able to do for you, you are the most sincerely grateful of +men.’ + +‘I swear it!’ cried the other. + +‘I know it. If you could find this man, or discover what has become of +him, or gain any later intelligence whatever of him, you would render +me a service above any other service I could receive in the world, and +would make me (with far greater reason) as grateful to you as you are to +me.’ + +‘I know not where to look,’ cried the little man, kissing Arthur’s +hand in a transport. ‘I know not where to begin. I know not where to go. +But, courage! Enough! It matters not! I go, in this instant of time!’ + +‘Not a word to any one but me, Cavalletto.’ + +‘Al-tro!’ cried Cavalletto. And was gone with great speed. + + + + +CHAPTER 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, +respecting her Dreams + + +Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist, +otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam +entered on a weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control his +attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of +thought; it rode at anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold to no +other idea. As though a criminal should be chained in a stationary boat +on a deep clear river, condemned, whatever countless leagues of water +flowed past him, always to see the body of the fellow-creature he had +drowned lying at the bottom, immovable, and unchangeable, except as +the eddies made it broad or long, now expanding, now contracting +its terrible lineaments; so Arthur, below the shifting current of +transparent thoughts and fancies which were gone and succeeded by others +as soon as come, saw, steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its +place, the one subject that he endeavoured with all his might to rid +himself of, and that he could not fly from. + +The assurance he now had, that Blandois, whatever his right name, was +one of the worst of characters, greatly augmented the burden of his +anxieties. Though the disappearance should be accounted for to-morrow, +the fact that his mother had been in communication with such a man, +would remain unalterable. That the communication had been of a secret +kind, and that she had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he +hoped might be known to no one beyond himself; yet, knowing it, how +could he separate it from his old vague fears, and how believe that +there was nothing evil in such relations? + +Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his knowledge +of her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of helplessness. It was +like the oppression of a dream to believe that shame and exposure were +impending over her and his father’s memory, and to be shut out, as by a +brazen wall, from the possibility of coming to their aid. The purpose he +had brought home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view, +was, with her greatest determination, defeated by his mother herself, at +the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most. His advice, +energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources whatsoever, were all +made useless. If she had been possessed of the old fabled influence, and +had turned those who looked upon her into stone, she could not have +rendered him more completely powerless (so it seemed to him in his +distress of mind) than she did, when she turned her unyielding face to +his in her gloomy room. + +But the light of that day’s discovery, shining on these considerations, +roused him to take a more decided course of action. Confident in the +rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense of overhanging danger +closing in around, he resolved, if his mother would still admit of no +approach, to make a desperate appeal to Affery. If she could be brought +to become communicative, and to do what lay in her to break the spell of +secrecy that enshrouded the house, he might shake off the paralysis of +which every hour that passed over his head made him more acutely +sensible. This was the result of his day’s anxiety, and this was the +decision he put in practice when the day closed in. + +His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the door +open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If circumstances +had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would have opened the +door to his knock. Circumstances being uncommonly unfavourable, the door +stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was smoking his pipe on the steps. + +‘Good evening,’ said Arthur. + +‘Good evening,’ said Mr Flintwinch. + +The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch’s mouth, as if it +circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry +throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked +chimneys and the mists from the crooked river. + +‘Have you any news?’ said Arthur. + +‘We have no news,’ said Jeremiah. + +‘I mean of the foreign man,’ Arthur explained. + +‘_I_ mean of the foreign man,’ said Jeremiah. + +He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under +his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam’s mind, and not for the +first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got +rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that +were at issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps not actively strong; +yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as crusty as an old jackdaw. +Such a man, coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man, and +having the will to put an end to him and no relenting, might do it +pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour. + +While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted +over the main one that was always in Clennam’s mind, Mr Flintwinch, +regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and +one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more +as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he +were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying it in his own way. + +‘You’ll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur, +I should think,’ said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the +ashes out. + +Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had stared +at him unpolitely. ‘But my mind runs so much upon this matter,’ he said, +‘that I lose myself.’ + +‘Hah! Yet I don’t see,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his leisure, +‘why it should trouble _you_, Arthur.’ + +‘No?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly: much as if he were +of the canine race, and snapped at Arthur’s hand. + +‘Is it nothing to see those placards about? Is it nothing to me to +see my mother’s name and residence hawked up and down in such an +association?’ + +‘I don’t see,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, ‘that +it need signify much to you. But I’ll tell you what I do see, Arthur,’ +glancing up at the windows; ‘I see the light of fire and candle in your +mother’s room!’ + +‘And what has that to do with it?’ + +‘Why, sir, I read by it,’ said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself at him, +‘that if it’s advisable (as the proverb says it is) to let sleeping dogs +lie, it’s just as advisable, perhaps, to let missing dogs lie. Let ‘em +be. They generally turn up soon enough.’ + +Mr Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark, and went +into the dark hall. Clennam stood there, following him with his eyes, +as he dipped for a light in the phosphorus-box in the little room at the +side, got one after three or four dips, and lighted the dim lamp against +the wall. All the while, Clennam was pursuing the probabilities--rather +as if they were being shown to him by an invisible hand than as if he +himself were conjuring them up--of Mr Flintwinch’s ways and means of +doing that darker deed, and removing its traces by any of the black +avenues of shadow that lay around them. + +‘Now, sir,’ said the testy Jeremiah; ‘will it be agreeable to walk +up-stairs?’ + +‘My mother is alone, I suppose?’ + +‘Not alone,’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘Mr Casby and his daughter are with +her. They came in while I was smoking, and I stayed behind to have my +smoke out.’ + +This was the second disappointment. Arthur made no remark upon it, and +repaired to his mother’s room, where Mr Casby and Flora had been +taking tea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast. The relics of those +delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table or from the +scorched countenance of Affery, who, with the kitchen toasting-fork +still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage; except +that she had a considerable advantage over the general run of such +personages in point of significant emblematical purpose. + +Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care +indicative of an intention to stay some time. Mr Casby, too, was beaming +near the hob, with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warm butter of +the toast were exuding through the patriarchal skull, and with his face +as ruddy as if the colouring matter of the anchovy paste were mantling +in the patriarchal visage. Seeing this, as he exchanged the +usual salutations, Clennam decided to speak to his mother without +postponement. + +It had long been customary, as she never changed her room, for those who +had anything to say to her apart, to wheel her to her desk; where she +sat, usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the +room, and the person who talked with her seated in a corner, on a stool +which was always set in that place for that purpose. Except that it +was long since the mother and son had spoken together without the +intervention of a third person, it was an ordinary matter of course +within the experience of visitors for Mrs Clennam to be asked, with a +word of apology for the interruption, if she could be spoken with on +a matter of business, and, on her replying in the affirmative, to be +wheeled into the position described. + +Therefore, when Arthur now made such an apology, and such a request, +and moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, Mrs Finching +merely began to talk louder and faster, as a delicate hint that she +could overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long white locks with +sleepy calmness. + +‘Mother, I have heard something to-day which I feel persuaded you don’t +know, and which I think you should know, of the antecedents of that man +I saw here.’ + +‘I know nothing of the antecedents of the man you saw here, Arthur.’ + +She spoke aloud. He had lowered his own voice; but she rejected that +advance towards confidence as she rejected every other, and spoke in her +usual key and in her usual stern voice. + +‘I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me +direct.’ + +She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to tell her what it +was? + +‘I thought it right that you should know it.’ + +‘And what is it?’ + +‘He has been a prisoner in a French gaol.’ + +She answered with composure, ‘I should think that very likely.’ + +‘But in a gaol for criminals, mother. On an accusation of murder.’ + +She started at the word, and her looks expressed her natural horror. Yet +she still spoke aloud, when she demanded:-- + +‘Who told you so?’ + +‘A man who was his fellow-prisoner.’ + +‘That man’s antecedents, I suppose, were not known to you, before he +told you?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Though the man himself was?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘My case and Flintwinch’s, in respect of this other man! I dare say the +resemblance is not so exact, though, as that your informant became known +to you through a letter from a correspondent with whom he had deposited +money? How does that part of the parallel stand?’ + +Arthur had no choice but to say that his informant had not become known +to him through the agency of any such credentials, or indeed of any +credentials at all. Mrs Clennam’s attentive frown expanded by degrees +into a severe look of triumph, and she retorted with emphasis, ‘Take +care how you judge others, then. I say to you, Arthur, for your good, +take care how you judge!’ + +Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes quite as much as from the +stress she laid upon her words. She continued to look at him; and if, +when he entered the house, he had had any latent hope of prevailing in +the least with her, she now looked it out of his heart. + +‘Mother, shall I do nothing to assist you?’ + +‘Nothing.’ + +‘Will you entrust me with no confidence, no charge, no explanation? +Will you take no counsel with me? Will you not let me come near you?’ + +‘How can you ask me? You separated yourself from my affairs. It was not +my act; it was yours. How can you consistently ask me such a question? +You know that you left me to Flintwinch, and that he occupies your +place.’ + +Glancing at Jeremiah, Clennam saw in his very gaiters that his attention +was closely directed to them, though he stood leaning against the wall +scraping his jaw, and pretended to listen to Flora as she held forth in +a most distracting manner on a chaos of subjects, in which mackerel, and +Mr F.’s Aunt in a swing, had become entangled with cockchafers and the +wine trade. + +‘A prisoner, in a French gaol, on an accusation of murder,’ repeated +Mrs Clennam, steadily going over what her son had said. ‘That is all you +know of him from the fellow-prisoner?’ + +‘In substance, all.’ + +‘And was the fellow-prisoner his accomplice and a murderer, too? But, of +course, he gives a better account of himself than of his friend; it is +needless to ask. This will supply the rest of them here with something +new to talk about. Casby, Arthur tells me--’ + +‘Stay, mother! Stay, stay!’ He interrupted her hastily, for it had not +entered his imagination that she would openly proclaim what he had told +her. + +‘What now?’ she said with displeasure. ‘What more?’ + +‘I beg you to excuse me, Mr Casby--and you, too, Mrs Finching--for one +other moment with my mother--’ + +He had laid his hand upon her chair, or she would otherwise have wheeled +it round with the touch of her foot upon the ground. They were still +face to face. She looked at him, as he ran over the possibilities of +some result he had not intended, and could not foresee, being influenced +by Cavalletto’s disclosure becoming a matter of notoriety, and hurriedly +arrived at the conclusion that it had best not be talked about; though +perhaps he was guided by no more distinct reason than that he had taken +it for granted that his mother would reserve it to herself and her +partner. + +‘What now?’ she said again, impatiently. ‘What is it?’ + +‘I did not mean, mother, that you should repeat what I have +communicated. I think you had better not repeat it.’ + +‘Do you make that a condition with me?’ + +‘Well! Yes.’ + +‘Observe, then! It is you who make this a secret,’ said she, holding +up her hand, ‘and not I. It is you, Arthur, who bring here doubts and +suspicions and entreaties for explanations, and it is you, Arthur, who +bring secrets here. What is it to me, do you think, where the man has +been, or what he has been? What can it be to me? The whole world may +know it, if they care to know it; it is nothing to me. Now, let me go.’ + +He yielded to her imperious but elated look, and turned her chair back +to the place from which he had wheeled it. In doing so he saw elation +in the face of Mr Flintwinch, which most assuredly was not inspired by +Flora. This turning of his intelligence and of his whole attempt and +design against himself, did even more than his mother’s fixedness and +firmness to convince him that his efforts with her were idle. Nothing +remained but the appeal to his old friend Affery. + +But even to get the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making the +appeal, seemed one of the least promising of human undertakings. She +was so completely under the thrall of the two clever ones, was so +systematically kept in sight by one or other of them, and was so afraid +to go about the house besides, that every opportunity of speaking to her +alone appeared to be forestalled. Over and above that, Mistress Affery, +by some means (it was not very difficult to guess, through the sharp +arguments of her liege lord), had acquired such a lively conviction +of the hazard of saying anything under any circumstances, that she had +remained all this time in a corner guarding herself from approach with +that symbolical instrument of hers; so that, when a word or two had +been addressed to her by Flora, or even by the bottle-green patriarch +himself, she had warded off conversation with the toasting-fork like a +dumb woman. + +After several abortive attempts to get Affery to look at him while +she cleared the table and washed the tea-service, Arthur thought of an +expedient which Flora might originate. To whom he therefore whispered, +‘Could you say you would like to go through the house?’ + +Now, poor Flora, being always in fluctuating expectation of the time +when Clennam would renew his boyhood and be madly in love with her +again, received the whisper with the utmost delight; not only as +rendered precious by its mysterious character, but as preparing the +way for a tender interview in which he would declare the state of his +affections. She immediately began to work out the hint. + +‘Ah dear me the poor old room,’ said Flora, glancing round, ‘looks just +as ever Mrs Clennam I am touched to see except for being smokier which +was to be expected with time and which we must all expect and reconcile +ourselves to being whether we like it or not as I am sure I have had to +do myself if not exactly smokier dreadfully stouter which is the same or +worse, to think of the days when papa used to bring me here the least of +girls a perfect mass of chilblains to be stuck upon a chair with my feet +on the rails and stare at Arthur--pray excuse me--Mr Clennam--the +least of boys in the frightfullest of frills and jackets ere yet Mr +F. appeared a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the +well-known spectre of some place in Germany beginning with a B is a +moral lesson inculcating that all the paths in life are similar to the +paths down in the North of England where they get the coals and make the +iron and things gravelled with ashes!’ + +Having paid the tribute of a sigh to the instability of human existence, +Flora hurried on with her purpose. + +‘Not that at any time,’ she proceeded, ‘its worst enemy could have said +it was a cheerful house for that it was never made to be but always +highly impressive, fond memory recalls an occasion in youth ere yet the +judgment was mature when Arthur--confirmed habit--Mr Clennam--took +me down into an unused kitchen eminent for mouldiness and proposed to +secrete me there for life and feed me on what he could hide from his +meals when he was not at home for the holidays and on dry bread in +disgrace which at that halcyon period too frequently occurred, would +it be inconvenient or asking too much to beg to be permitted to revive +those scenes and walk through the house?’ + +Mrs Clennam, who responded with a constrained grace to Mrs Finching’s +good nature in being there at all, though her visit (before Arthur’s +unexpected arrival) was undoubtedly an act of pure good nature and no +self-gratification, intimated that all the house was open to her. Flora +rose and looked to Arthur for his escort. ‘Certainly,’ said he, aloud; +‘and Affery will light us, I dare say.’ + +Affery was excusing herself with ‘Don’t ask nothing of me, Arthur!’ when +Mr Flintwinch stopped her with ‘Why not? Affery, what’s the matter with +you, woman? Why not, jade!’ Thus expostulated with, she came unwillingly +out of her corner, resigned the toasting-fork into one of her husband’s +hands, and took the candlestick he offered from the other. + +‘Go before, you fool!’ said Jeremiah. ‘Are you going up, or down, Mrs +Finching?’ + +Flora answered, ‘Down.’ + +‘Then go before, and down, you Affery,’ said Jeremiah. ‘And do it +properly, or I’ll come rolling down the banisters, and tumbling over +you!’ + +Affery headed the exploring party; Jeremiah closed it. He had no +intention of leaving them. Clennam looking back, and seeing him +following three stairs behind, in the coolest and most methodical +manner exclaimed in a low voice, ‘Is there no getting rid of him!’ Flora +reassured his mind by replying promptly, ‘Why though not exactly +proper Arthur and a thing I couldn’t think of before a younger man or +a stranger still I don’t mind him if you so particularly wish it and +provided you’ll have the goodness not to take me too tight.’ + +Wanting the heart to explain that this was not at all what he meant, +Arthur extended his supporting arm round Flora’s figure. ‘Oh my goodness +me,’ said she. ‘You are very obedient indeed really and it’s extremely +honourable and gentlemanly in you I am sure but still at the same time +if you would like to be a little tighter than that I shouldn’t consider +it intruding.’ + +In this preposterous attitude, unspeakably at variance with his anxious +mind, Clennam descended to the basement of the house; finding that +wherever it became darker than elsewhere, Flora became heavier, and +that when the house was lightest she was too. Returning from the dismal +kitchen regions, which were as dreary as they could be, Mistress Affery +passed with the light into his father’s old room, and then into the old +dining-room; always passing on before like a phantom that was not to be +overtaken, and neither turning nor answering when he whispered, ‘Affery! +I want to speak to you!’ + +In the dining-room, a sentimental desire came over Flora to look into +the dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the days of his +boyhood--not improbably because, as a very dark closet, it was a likely +place to be heavy in. Arthur, fast subsiding into despair, had opened +it, when a knock was heard at the outer door. + +Mistress Affery, with a suppressed cry, threw her apron over her head. + +‘What? You want another dose!’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘You shall have it, +my woman, you shall have a good one! Oh! You shall have a sneezer, you +shall have a teaser!’ + +‘In the meantime is anybody going to the door?’ said Arthur. + +‘In the meantime, _I_ am going to the door, sir,’ returned the old man so +savagely, as to render it clear that in a choice of difficulties he felt +he must go, though he would have preferred not to go. ‘Stay here the +while, all! Affery, my woman, move an inch, or speak a word in your +foolishness, and I’ll treble your dose!’ + +The moment he was gone, Arthur released Mrs Finching: with some +difficulty, by reason of that lady misunderstanding his intentions, and +making arrangements with a view to tightening instead of slackening. + +‘Affery, speak to me now!’ + +‘Don’t touch me, Arthur!’ she cried, shrinking from him. ‘Don’t come +near me. He’ll see you. Jeremiah will. Don’t.’ + +‘He can’t see me,’ returned Arthur, suiting the action to the word, ‘if +I blow the candle out.’ + +‘He’ll hear you,’ cried Affery. + +‘He can’t hear me,’ returned Arthur, suiting the action to the words +again, ‘if I draw you into this black closet, and speak here. Why do +you hide your face?’ + +‘Because I am afraid of seeing something.’ + +‘You can’t be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness, Affery.’ + +‘Yes I am. Much more than if it was light.’ + +‘Why are you afraid?’ + +‘Because the house is full of mysteries and secrets; because it’s full +of whisperings and counsellings; because it’s full of noises. There +never was such a house for noises. I shall die of ‘em, if Jeremiah don’t +strangle me first. As I expect he will.’ + +‘I have never heard any noises here, worth speaking of.’ + +‘Ah! But you would, though, if you lived in the house, and was obliged +to go about it as I am,’ said Affery; ‘and you’d feel that they was so +well worth speaking of, that you’d feel you was nigh bursting through +not being allowed to speak of ‘em. Here’s Jeremiah! You’ll get me +killed.’ + +‘My good Affery, I solemnly declare to you that I can see the light of +the open door on the pavement of the hall, and so could you if you would +uncover your face and look.’ + +‘I durstn’t do it,’ said Affery, ‘I durstn’t never, Arthur. I’m always +blind-folded when Jeremiah an’t a looking, and sometimes even when he +is.’ + +‘He cannot shut the door without my seeing him,’ said Arthur. ‘You are +as safe with me as if he was fifty miles away.’ + +[‘I wish he was!’ cried Affery.) + +‘Affery, I want to know what is amiss here; I want some light thrown +on the secrets of this house.’ + +‘I tell you, Arthur,’ she interrupted, ‘noises is the secrets, rustlings +and stealings about, tremblings, treads overhead and treads underneath.’ + +‘But those are not all the secrets.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Affery. ‘Don’t ask me no more. Your old sweetheart +an’t far off, and she’s a blabber.’ + +His old sweetheart, being in fact so near at hand that she was then +reclining against him in a flutter, a very substantial angle of +forty-five degrees, here interposed to assure Mistress Affery with +greater earnestness than directness of asseveration, that what she heard +should go no further, but should be kept inviolate, ‘if on no other +account on Arthur’s--sensible of intruding in being too familiar Doyce +and Clennam’s.’ + +‘I make an imploring appeal to you, Affery, to you, one of the few +agreeable early remembrances I have, for my mother’s sake, for your +husband’s sake, for my own, for all our sakes. I am sure you can tell me +something connected with the coming here of this man, if you will.’ + +‘Why, then I’ll tell you, Arthur,’ returned Affery--‘Jeremiah’s coming!’ + +‘No, indeed he is not. The door is open, and he is standing outside, +talking.’ + +‘I’ll tell you then,’ said Affery, after listening, ‘that the first time +he ever come he heard the noises his own self. “What’s that?” he said to +me. “I don’t know what it is,” I says to him, catching hold of him, +“but I have heard it over and over again.” While I says it, he stands a +looking at me, all of a shake, he do.’ + +‘Has he been here often?’ + +‘Only that night, and the last night.’ + +‘What did you see of him on the last night, after I was gone?’ + +‘Them two clever ones had him all alone to themselves. Jeremiah come +a dancing at me sideways, after I had let you out (he always comes a +dancing at me sideways when he’s going to hurt me), and he said to me, +“Now, Affery,” he said, “I am a coming behind you, my woman, and a going +to run you up.” So he took and squeezed the back of my neck in his hand, +till it made me open my mouth, and then he pushed me before him to bed, +squeezing all the way. That’s what he calls running me up, he do. Oh, +he’s a wicked one!’ + +‘And did you hear or see no more, Affery?’ + +‘Don’t I tell you I was sent to bed, Arthur! Here he is!’ + +‘I assure you he is still at the door. Those whisperings and +counsellings, Affery, that you have spoken of. What are they?’ + +‘How should I know? Don’t ask me nothing about ‘em, Arthur. Get away!’ + +‘But my dear Affery; unless I can gain some insight into these hidden +things, in spite of your husband and in spite of my mother, ruin will +come of it.’ + +‘Don’t ask me nothing,’ repeated Affery. ‘I have been in a dream for +ever so long. Go away, go away!’ + +‘You said that before,’ returned Arthur. ‘You used the same expression +that night, at the door, when I asked you what was going on here. What +do you mean by being in a dream?’ + +‘I an’t a going to tell you. Get away! I shouldn’t tell you, if you was +by yourself; much less with your old sweetheart here.’ + +It was equally vain for Arthur to entreat, and for Flora to protest. +Affery, who had been trembling and struggling the whole time, turned a +deaf ear to all adjuration, and was bent on forcing herself out of the +closet. + +‘I’d sooner scream to Jeremiah than say another word! I’ll call out to +him, Arthur, if you don’t give over speaking to me. Now here’s the very +last word I’ll say afore I call to him--If ever you begin to get the +better of them two clever ones your own self (you ought to it, as I told +you when you first come home, for you haven’t been a living here long +years, to be made afeared of your life as I have), then do you get the +better of ‘em afore my face; and then do you say to me, Affery tell your +dreams! Maybe, then I’ll tell ‘em!’ + +The shutting of the door stopped Arthur from replying. They glided into +the places where Jeremiah had left them; and Clennam, stepping forward +as that old gentleman returned, informed him that he had accidentally +extinguished the candle. Mr Flintwinch looked on as he re-lighted it at +the lamp in the hall, and preserved a profound taciturnity respecting +the person who had been holding him in conversation. Perhaps his +irascibility demanded compensation for some tediousness that the visitor +had expended on him; however that was, he took such umbrage at seeing +his wife with her apron over her head, that he charged at her, and +taking her veiled nose between his thumb and finger, appeared to throw +the whole screw-power of his person into the wring he gave it. + +Flora, now permanently heavy, did not release Arthur from the survey of +the house, until it had extended even to his old garret bedchamber. His +thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the tour of inspection; yet +he took particular notice at the time, as he afterwards had occasion to +remember, of the airlessness and closeness of the house; that they left +the track of their footsteps in the dust on the upper floors; and that +there was a resistance to the opening of one room door, which occasioned +Affery to cry out that somebody was hiding inside, and to continue to +believe so, though somebody was sought and not discovered. When they at +last returned to his mother’s room, they found her shading her face +with her muffled hand, and talking in a low voice to the Patriarch as he +stood before the fire, whose blue eyes, polished head, and silken locks, +turning towards them as they came in, imparted an inestimable value and +inexhaustible love of his species to his remark: + +‘So you have been seeing the premises, seeing the premises--premises-- +seeing the premises!’ + +It was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom, yet he made it an +exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of. + + + + +CHAPTER 24. The Evening of a Long Day + + +That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued +his shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had +done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it, +could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of +with confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned. Rumour had it +that Mr Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had +plainly intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough +for him; that he had said, ‘No--a Peerage, or plain Merdle.’ This was +reported to have plunged Lord Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a +slough of doubts as so lofty a person could be sunk. For the Barnacles, +as a group of themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions +belonged to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became +ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at +the family door, and immediately shut it again. Not only (said Rumour) +had the troubled Decimus his own hereditary part in this impression, but +he also knew of several Barnacle claims already on the file, which came +into collision with that of the master spirit. Right or wrong, Rumour +was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he was, or was supposed to be, in +stately excogitation of the difficulty, lent her some countenance by +taking, on several public occasions, one of those elephantine trots of +his through a jungle of overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on +his trunk as Gigantic Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity, +Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings. + +So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three +months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid +in one tomb in the strangers’ cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs Sparkler were +established in their own house: a little mansion, rather of the Tite +Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience, with a perpetual smell +in it of the day before yesterday’s soup and coach-horses, but extremely +dear, as being exactly in the centre of the habitable globe. In this +enviable abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler +had intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when +active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier with +his tidings of death. Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received +them with a violent burst of grief, which had lasted twelve hours; +after which, she had arisen to see about her mourning, and to take every +precaution that could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs Merdle’s. A +gloom was then cast over more than one distinguished family (according +to the politest sources of intelligence), and the Courier went back +again. + +Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast over +them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It was a hot +summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the habitable +globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in +its head, was that evening particularly stifling. The bells of the +churches had done their worst in the way of clanging among the +unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted windows of the +churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk, and had died out +opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking through an open +window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette +and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at another +window where her husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view. +Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of that +view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other two. + +‘It’s like lying in a well,’ said Mrs Sparkler, changing her position +fretfully. ‘Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, why don’t you +say it?’ + +Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, ‘My life, I have +nothing to say.’ But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented +himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his +wife’s couch. + +‘Good gracious, Edmund!’ said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, ‘you are +absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don’t!’ + +Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal absence of +mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt so hard at a +sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question. He +smiled, said, ‘I ask your pardon, my dear,’ and threw it out of window. + +‘You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,’ said Mrs +Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; ‘you look so +aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down.’ + +‘Certainly, my dear,’ said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the same +spot. + +‘If I didn’t know that the longest day was past,’ said Fanny, yawning in +a dreary manner, ‘I should have felt certain this was the longest day. I +never did experience such a day.’ + +‘Is that your fan, my love?’ asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one and +presenting it. + +‘Edmund,’ returned his wife, more wearily yet, ‘don’t ask weak +questions, I entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?’ + +‘Yes, I thought it was yours,’ said Mr Sparkler. + +‘Then you shouldn’t ask,’ retorted Fanny. After a little while she +turned on her sofa and exclaimed, ‘Dear me, dear me, there never was +such a long day as this!’ After another little while, she got up slowly, +walked about, and came back again. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, ‘I +think you must have got the fidgets.’ + +‘Oh, Fidgets!’ repeated Mrs Sparkler. ‘Don’t.’ + +‘My adorable girl,’ urged Mr Sparkler, ‘try your aromatic vinegar. I +have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly refreshed her. + +And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, with no +non--’ + +‘Good Gracious!’ exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. ‘It’s beyond all +patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the +world, I am certain.’ + +Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, and +he appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed a few trifles +about, and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the +three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw herself among its +pillows. + +‘Now Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to be able +to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much with what I +am going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. Oh, you _do_ look so +big!’ + +Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he couldn’t +help it, and said that ‘our fellows,’ without more particularly +indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus +Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain. + +‘You ought to have told me so before,’ Fanny complained. + +‘My dear,’ returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, ‘I didn’t know +It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling you.’ + +‘There! For goodness sake, don’t talk,’ said Fanny; ‘I want to talk, +myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take such +precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of +dreadful depression in which I am this evening.’ + +‘My dear,’ answered Mr Sparkler; ‘being as you are well known to be, a +remarkably fine woman with no--’ + +‘Oh, good GRACIOUS!’ cried Fanny. + +Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation, +accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down +again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to +saying in explanation: + +‘I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in +society.’ + +‘Calculated to shine in society,’ retorted Fanny with great +irritability; ‘yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner recover, +in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa’s death, and my +poor uncle’s--though I do not disguise from myself that the last was +a happy release, for, if you are not presentable you had much better +die--’ + +‘You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?’ Mr Sparkler humbly +interrupted. + +‘Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking +of my poor uncle?’ + +‘You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,’ said Mr +Sparkler, ‘that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love.’ + +‘Now you have put me out,’ observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her +fan, ‘and I had better go to bed.’ + +‘Don’t do that, my love,’ urged Mr Sparkler. ‘Take time.’ + +Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her +eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given +up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she +opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner: + +‘What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at the very +period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for +very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in a situation +which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society. It’s +too bad, really!’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘I don’t think it need keep you at +home.’ + +‘Edmund, you ridiculous creature,’ returned Fanny, with great +indignation; ‘do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not +wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a +time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her +inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is boundless.’ + +Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought ‘it might be got over.’ + +‘Got over!’ repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn. + +‘For a time,’ Mr Sparkler submitted. + +Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler +declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that positively +it was enough to make one wish one was dead! + +‘However,’ she said, when she had in some measure recovered from her +sense of personal ill-usage; ‘provoking as it is, and cruel as it seems, +I suppose it must be submitted to.’ + +‘Especially as it was to be expected,’ said Mr Sparkler. + +‘Edmund,’ returned his wife, ‘if you have nothing more becoming to do +than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand, +when she finds herself in adversity, I think _you_ had better go to bed!’ + +Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most +tender and earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs Sparkler +requested him to go round to the other side of the sofa and sit in the +window-curtain, to tone himself down. + +‘Now, Edmund,’ she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him with +it at arm’s length, ‘what I was going to say to you when you began as +usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our being alone +any more, and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own +satisfaction, I must arrange to have some people or other always here; +for I really cannot, and will not, have another such day as this has +been.’ + +Mr Sparkler’s sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it had no +nonsense about it. He added, ‘And besides, you know it’s likely that +you’ll soon have your sister--’ + +‘Dearest Amy, yes!’ cried Mrs Sparkler with a sigh of affection. +‘Darling little thing! Not, however, that Amy would do here alone.’ + +Mr Sparkler was going to say ‘No?’ interrogatively, but he saw his +danger and said it assentingly, ‘No, Oh dear no; she wouldn’t do here +alone.’ + +‘No, Edmund. For not only are the virtues of the precious child of that +still character that they require a contrast--require life and movement +around them to bring them out in their right colours and make one love +them of all things; but she will require to be roused, on more accounts +than one.’ + +‘That’s it,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘Roused.’ + +‘Pray don’t, Edmund! Your habit of interrupting without having the least +thing in the world to say, distracts one. You must be broken of it. +Speaking of Amy;--my poor little pet was devotedly attached to poor +papa, and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly, and grieved +very much. I have done so myself. I have felt it dreadfully. But Amy +will no doubt have felt it even more, from having been on the spot the +whole time, and having been with poor dear papa at the last; which I +unhappily was not.’ + +Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, ‘Dear, dear, beloved papa! How +truly gentlemanly he was! What a contrast to poor uncle!’ + +‘From the effects of that trying time,’ she pursued, ‘my good little +Mouse will have to be roused. Also, from the effects of this long +attendance upon Edward in his illness; an attendance which is not +yet over, which may even go on for some time longer, and which in the +meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear papa’s affairs from +being wound up. Fortunately, however, the papers with his agents +here being all sealed up and locked up, as he left them when he +providentially came to England, the affairs are in that state of order +that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his health in +Sicily, sufficiently to come over, and administer, or execute, or +whatever it may be that will have to be done.’ + +‘He couldn’t have a better nurse to bring him round,’ Mr Sparkler made +bold to opine. + +‘For a wonder, I can agree with you,’ returned his wife, languidly +turning her eyelids a little in his direction (she held forth, in +general, as if to the drawing-room furniture), ‘and can adopt your +words. He couldn’t have a better nurse to bring him round. There are +times when my dear child is a little wearing to an active mind; but, as +a nurse, she is Perfection. Best of Amys!’ + +Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that Edward had +had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl. + +‘If Bout, Edmund,’ returned Mrs Sparkler, ‘is the slang term for +indisposition, he has. If it is not, I am unable to give an opinion +on the barbarous language you address to Edward’s sister. That he +contracted Malaria Fever somewhere, either by travelling day and night +to Rome, where, after all, he arrived too late to see poor dear papa +before his death--or under some other unwholesome circumstances--is +indubitable, if that is what you mean. Likewise that his extremely +careless life has made him a very bad subject for it indeed.’ + +Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows +in the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs Sparkler closed her eyes again, +and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies, +or of Yellow Jack. + +‘So, Amy,’ she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, ‘will require +to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks. And +lastly, she will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know +very well to be at the bottom of her heart. Don’t ask me what it is, +Edmund, because I must decline to tell you.’ + +‘I am not going to, my dear,’ said Mr Sparkler. + +‘I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child,’ Mrs +Sparkler continued, ‘and cannot have her near me too soon. Amiable and +dear little Twoshoes! As to the settlement of poor papa’s affairs, my +interest in that is not very selfish. Papa behaved very generously to me +when I was married, and I have little or nothing to expect. Provided +he had made no will that can come into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs +General, I am contented. Dear papa, dear papa.’ + +She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives. The name +soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say: + +‘It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward’s illness, I am +thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his sense +not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened--down to the time +of poor dear papa’s death at all events--that he paid off Mrs General +instantly, and sent her out of the house. I applaud him for it. I could +forgive him a great deal for doing, with such promptitude, so exactly +what I would have done myself!’ + +Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double +knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to avoid +making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the person knocking +were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off. + +‘Halloa!’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘Who’s this?’ + +‘Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!’ said Mrs +Sparkler. ‘Look out.’ + +The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its lamps. Mr +Sparkler’s head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy +that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and flattening the +unknown below. + +‘It’s one fellow,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘I can’t see who--stop though!’ + +On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had +another look. He came back as the door was opened, and announced that he +believed he had identified ‘his governor’s tile.’ He was not mistaken, +for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was introduced immediately +afterwards. + +‘Candles!’ said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the darkness. + +‘It’s light enough for me,’ said Mr Merdle. + +When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered standing +behind the door, picking his lips. ‘I thought I’d give you a call,’ he +said. ‘I am rather particularly occupied just now; and, as I happened to +be out for a stroll, I thought I’d give you a call.’ + +As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been dining? + +‘Well,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I haven’t been dining anywhere, particularly.’ + +‘Of course you have dined?’ said Fanny. + +‘Why--no, I haven’t exactly dined,’ said Mr Merdle. + +He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered, as if he +were not sure about it. Something to eat was proposed. ‘No, thank you,’ +said Mr Merdle, ‘I don’t feel inclined for it. I was to have dined out +along with Mrs Merdle. But as I didn’t feel inclined for dinner, I let +Mrs Merdle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage, and +thought I’d take a stroll instead.’ + +Would he have tea or coffee? ‘No, thank you,’ said Mr Merdle. ‘I looked +in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.’ + +At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair which Edmund +Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly +about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first +time, who could not make up his mind to start. He now put his hat upon +another chair beside him, and, looking down into it as if it were some +twenty feet deep, said again: ‘You see I thought I’d give you a call.’ + +‘Flattering to us,’ said Fanny, ‘for you are not a calling man.’ + +‘No--no,’ returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into +custody under both coat-sleeves. ‘No, I am not a calling man.’ + +‘You have too much to do for that,’ said Fanny. ‘Having so much to do, +Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must +have it seen to. You must not be ill.’ + +‘Oh! I am very well,’ replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about it. ‘I +am as well as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as well as I want to +be.’ + +The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all +times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great +difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler began to wonder +how long the master-mind meant to stay. + +‘I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.’ + +‘Aye! Quite a coincidence,’ said Mr Merdle. + +Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue +talking. ‘I was saying,’ she pursued, ‘that my brother’s illness has +occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa’s property.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Merdle; ‘yes. There has been a delay.’ + +‘Not that it is of consequence,’ said Fanny. + +‘Not,’ assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all +that part of the room which was within his range: ‘not that it is of any +consequence.’ + +‘My only anxiety is,’ said Fanny, ‘that Mrs General should not get +anything.’ + +‘_She_ won’t get anything,’ said Mr Merdle. + +Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle, after +taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought he saw +something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last +remark the confirmatory words, ‘Oh dear no. No. Not she. Not likely.’ + +As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if he +were going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage in his way home? + +‘No,’ he answered; ‘I shall go by the shortest way, and leave Mrs Merdle +to--’ here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as if he were +telling his own fortune--‘to take care of herself. I dare say she’ll +manage to do it.’ + +‘Probably,’ said Fanny. + +There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying back +on her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her former +retirement from mundane affairs. + +‘But, however,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I am equally detaining you and myself. +I thought I’d give you a call, you know.’ + +‘Charmed, I am sure,’ said Fanny. + +‘So I am off,’ added Mr Merdle, getting up. ‘Could you lend me a +penknife?’ + +It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could seldom +prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a man of such +vast business as Mr Merdle. ‘Isn’t it?’ Mr Merdle acquiesced; ‘but +I want one; and I know you have got several little wedding keepsakes +about, with scissors and tweezers and such things in them. You shall +have it back to-morrow.’ + +‘Edmund,’ said Mrs Sparkler, ‘open (now, very carefully, I beg and +beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my +little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr Merdle; ‘but if you have got one with a darker +handle, I think I should prefer one with a darker handle.’ + +‘Tortoise-shell?’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr Merdle; ‘yes. I think I should prefer +tortoise-shell.’ + +Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise-shell box, +and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, his wife +said to the master-spirit graciously: + +‘I will forgive you, if you ink it.’ + +‘I’ll undertake not to ink it,’ said Mr Merdle. + +The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a moment +entombed Mrs Sparkler’s hand: wrist, bracelet, and all. Where his own +hand had shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was as remote from Mrs +Sparkler’s sense of touch as if he had been a highly meritorious Chelsea +Veteran or Greenwich Pensioner. + +Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was the +longest day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there never +was a woman, not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so worn out by +idiotic and lumpish people, Fanny passed into the balcony for a breath +of air. Waters of vexation filled her eyes; and they had the effect of +making the famous Mr Merdle, in going down the street, appear to leap, +and waltz, and gyrate, as if he were possessed of several Devils. + + + + +CHAPTER 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office + + +The dinner-party was at the great Physician’s. Bar was there, and in +full force. Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most engaging +state. Few ways of life were hidden from Physician, and he was oftener +in its darkest places than even Bishop. There were brilliant ladies +about London who perfectly doted on him, my dear, as the most charming +creature and the most delightful person, who would have been shocked to +find themselves so close to him if they could have known on what sights +those thoughtful eyes of his had rested within an hour or two, and near +to whose beds, and under what roofs, his composed figure had stood. But +Physician was a composed man, who performed neither on his own trumpet, +nor on the trumpets of other people. Many wonderful things did he see +and hear, and much irreconcilable moral contradiction did he pass his +life among; yet his equality of compassion was no more disturbed than +the Divine Master’s of all healing was. He went, like the rain, +among the just and unjust, doing all the good he could, and neither +proclaiming it in the synagogues nor at the corner of streets. + +As no man of large experience of humanity, however quietly carried +it may be, can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the +possession of such knowledge, Physician was an attractive man. Even the +daintier gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his secret, and +who would have been startled out of more wits than they had, by the +monstrous impropriety of his proposing to them ‘Come and see what I +see!’ confessed his attraction. Where he was, something real was. And +half a grain of reality, like the smallest portion of some other scarce +natural productions, will flavour an enormous quantity of diluent. + +It came to pass, therefore, that Physician’s little dinners always +presented people in their least conventional lights. The guests said to +themselves, whether they were conscious of it or no, ‘Here is a man who +really has an acquaintance with us as we are, who is admitted to some +of us every day with our wigs and paint off, who hears the wanderings of +our minds, and sees the undisguised expression of our faces, when both +are past our control; we may as well make an approach to reality with +him, for the man has got the better of us and is too strong for us.’ +Therefore, Physician’s guests came out so surprisingly at his round +table that they were almost natural. + +Bar’s knowledge of that agglomeration of jurymen which is called +humanity was as sharp as a razor; yet a razor is not a generally +convenient instrument, and Physician’s plain bright scalpel, though far +less keen, was adaptable to far wider purposes. Bar knew all about the +gullibility and knavery of people; but Physician could have given him +a better insight into their tendernesses and affections, in one week of +his rounds, than Westminster Hall and all the circuits put together, +in threescore years and ten. Bar always had a suspicion of this, and +perhaps was glad to encourage it (for, if the world were really a great +Law Court, one would think that the last day of Term could not too soon +arrive); and so he liked and respected Physician quite as much as any +other kind of man did. + +Mr Merdle’s default left a Banquo’s chair at the table; but, if he had +been there, he would have merely made the difference of Banquo in it, +and consequently he was no loss. Bar, who picked up all sorts of odds +and ends about Westminster Hall, much as a raven would have done if he +had passed as much of his time there, had been picking up a great many +straws lately and tossing them about, to try which way the Merdle wind +blew. He now had a little talk on the subject with Mrs Merdle herself; +sidling up to that lady, of course, with his double eye-glass and his +jury droop. + +‘A certain bird,’ said Bar; and he looked as if it could have been no +other bird than a magpie; ‘has been whispering among us lawyers lately, +that there is to be an addition to the titled personages of this realm.’ + +‘Really?’ said Mrs Merdle. + +‘Yes,’ said Bar. ‘Has not the bird been whispering in very different +ears from ours--in lovely ears?’ He looked expressively at Mrs Merdle’s +nearest ear-ring. + +‘Do you mean mine?’ asked Mrs Merdle. + +‘When I say lovely,’ said Bar, ‘I always mean you.’ + +‘You never mean anything, I think,’ returned Mrs Merdle (not +displeased). + +‘Oh, cruelly unjust!’ said Bar. ‘But, the bird.’ + +‘I am the last person in the world to hear news,’ observed Mrs Merdle, +carelessly arranging her stronghold. ‘Who is it?’ + +‘What an admirable witness you would make!’ said Bar. ‘No jury (unless +we could empanel one of blind men) could resist you, if you were ever so +bad a one; but you would be such a good one!’ + +‘Why, you ridiculous man?’ asked Mrs Merdle, laughing. + +Bar waved his double eye-glass three or four times between himself and +the Bosom, as a rallying answer, and inquired in his most insinuating +accents: + +‘What am I to call the most elegant, accomplished and charming of women, +a few weeks, or it may be a few days, hence?’ + +‘Didn’t your bird tell you what to call her?’ answered Mrs Merdle. ‘Do +ask it to-morrow, and tell me the next time you see me what it says.’ + +This led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two; but +Bar, with all his sharpness, got nothing out of them. Physician, on the +other hand, taking Mrs Merdle down to her carriage and attending on her +as she put on her cloak, inquired into the symptoms with his usual calm +directness. + +‘May I ask,’ he said, ‘is this true about Merdle?’ + +‘My dear doctor,’ she returned, ‘you ask me the very question that I was +half disposed to ask you.’ + +‘To ask me! Why me?’ + +‘Upon my honour, I think Mr Merdle reposes greater confidence in you +than in any one.’ + +‘On the contrary, he tells me absolutely nothing, even professionally. +You have heard the talk, of course?’ + +‘Of course I have. But you know what Mr Merdle is; you know how +taciturn and reserved he is. I assure you I have no idea what foundation +for it there may be. I should like it to be true; why should I deny that +to you? You would know better, if I did!’ + +‘Just so,’ said Physician. + +‘But whether it is all true, or partly true, or entirely false, I am +wholly unable to say. It is a most provoking situation, a most absurd +situation; but you know Mr Merdle, and are not surprised.’ + +Physician was not surprised, handed her into her carriage, and bade her +Good Night. He stood for a moment at his own hall door, looking sedately +at the elegant equipage as it rattled away. On his return up-stairs, the +rest of the guests soon dispersed, and he was left alone. Being a great +reader of all kinds of literature (and never at all apologetic for that +weakness), he sat down comfortably to read. + +The clock upon his study table pointed to a few minutes short of twelve, +when his attention was called to it by a ringing at the door bell. A man +of plain habits, he had sent his servants to bed and must needs go down +to open the door. He went down, and there found a man without hat or +coat, whose shirt sleeves were rolled up tight to his shoulders. For a +moment, he thought the man had been fighting: the rather, as he was much +agitated and out of breath. A second look, however, showed him that +the man was particularly clean, and not otherwise discomposed as to his +dress than as it answered this description. + +‘I come from the warm-baths, sir, round in the neighbouring street.’ + +‘And what is the matter at the warm-baths?’ + +‘Would you please to come directly, sir. We found that, lying on the +table.’ + +He put into the physician’s hand a scrap of paper. Physician looked at +it, and read his own name and address written in pencil; nothing more. +He looked closer at the writing, looked at the man, took his hat from +its peg, put the key of his door in his pocket, and they hurried away +together. + +When they came to the warm-baths, all the other people belonging to that +establishment were looking out for them at the door, and running up and +down the passages. ‘Request everybody else to keep back, if you please,’ +said the physician aloud to the master; ‘and do you take me straight to +the place, my friend,’ to the messenger. + +The messenger hurried before him, along a grove of little rooms, +and turning into one at the end of the grove, looked round the door. +Physician was close upon him, and looked round the door too. + +There was a bath in that corner, from which the water had been hastily +drained off. Lying in it, as in a grave or sarcophagus, with a hurried +drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it, was the body of a +heavily-made man, with an obtuse head, and coarse, mean, common +features. A sky-light had been opened to release the steam with which +the room had been filled; but it hung, condensed into water-drops, +heavily upon the walls, and heavily upon the face and figure in the +bath. The room was still hot, and the marble of the bath still warm; but +the face and figure were clammy to the touch. The white marble at the +bottom of the bath was veined with a dreadful red. On the ledge at +the side, were an empty laudanum-bottle and a tortoise-shell handled +penknife--soiled, but not with ink. + +‘Separation of jugular vein--death rapid--been dead at least half an +hour.’ This echo of the physician’s words ran through the passages +and little rooms, and through the house while he was yet straightening +himself from having bent down to reach to the bottom of the bath, and +while he was yet dabbling his hands in water; redly veining it as the +marble was veined, before it mingled into one tint. + +He turned his eyes to the dress upon the sofa, and to the watch, money, +and pocket-book on the table. A folded note half buckled up in the +pocket-book, and half protruding from it, caught his observant glance. +He looked at it, touched it, pulled it a little further out from among +the leaves, said quietly, ‘This is addressed to me,’ and opened and read +it. + +There were no directions for him to give. The people of the house knew +what to do; the proper authorities were soon brought; and they took an +equable business-like possession of the deceased, and of what had been +his property, with no greater disturbance of manner or countenance than +usually attends the winding-up of a clock. Physician was glad to walk +out into the night air--was even glad, in spite of his great experience, +to sit down upon a door-step for a little while: feeling sick and faint. + +Bar was a near neighbour of his, and, when he came to the house, he saw +a light in the room where he knew his friend often sat late getting up +his work. As the light was never there when Bar was not, it gave him +assurance that Bar was not yet in bed. In fact, this busy bee had +a verdict to get to-morrow, against evidence, and was improving the +shining hours in setting snares for the gentlemen of the jury. + +Physician’s knock astonished Bar; but, as he immediately suspected that +somebody had come to tell him that somebody else was robbing him, or +otherwise trying to get the better of him, he came down promptly and +softly. He had been clearing his head with a lotion of cold water, as a +good preparative to providing hot water for the heads of the jury, and +had been reading with the neck of his shirt thrown wide open that he +might the more freely choke the opposite witnesses. In consequence, he +came down, looking rather wild. Seeing Physician, the least expected of +men, he looked wilder and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘You asked me once what Merdle’s complaint was.’ + +‘Extraordinary answer! I know I did.’ + +‘I told you I had not found out.’ + +‘Yes. I know you did.’ + +‘I have found it out.’ + +‘My God!’ said Bar, starting back, and clapping his hand upon the +other’s breast. ‘And so have I! I see it in your face.’ + +They went into the nearest room, where Physician gave him the letter to +read. He read it through half-a-dozen times. There was not much in it +as to quantity; but it made a great demand on his close and continuous +attention. He could not sufficiently give utterance to his regret that +he had not himself found a clue to this. The smallest clue, he said, +would have made him master of the case, and what a case it would have +been to have got to the bottom of! + +Physician had engaged to break the intelligence in Harley Street. Bar +could not at once return to his inveiglements of the most enlightened +and remarkable jury he had ever seen in that box, with whom, he could +tell his learned friend, no shallow sophistry would go down, and no +unhappily abused professional tact and skill prevail (this was the way +he meant to begin with them); so he said he would go too, and would +loiter to and fro near the house while his friend was inside. They +walked there, the better to recover self-possession in the air; and the +wings of day were fluttering the night when Physician knocked at the +door. + +A footman of rainbow hues, in the public eye, was sitting up for his +master--that is to say, was fast asleep in the kitchen over a couple +of candles and a newspaper, demonstrating the great accumulation of +mathematical odds against the probabilities of a house being set on fire +by accident When this serving man was roused, Physician had still to +await the rousing of the Chief Butler. At last that noble creature came +into the dining-room in a flannel gown and list shoes; but with his +cravat on, and a Chief Butler all over. It was morning now. Physician +had opened the shutters of one window while waiting, that he might see +the light. + +‘Mrs Merdle’s maid must be called, and told to get Mrs Merdle up, and +prepare her as gently as she can to see me. I have dreadful news to +break to her.’ + +Thus Physician to the Chief Butler. The latter, who had a candle in his +hand, called his man to take it away. Then he approached the window with +dignity; looking on at Physician’s news exactly as he had looked on at +the dinners in that very room. + +‘Mr Merdle is dead.’ + +‘I should wish,’ said the Chief Butler, ‘to give a month’s notice.’ + +‘Mr Merdle has destroyed himself.’ + +‘Sir,’ said the Chief Butler, ‘that is very unpleasant to the feelings +of one in my position, as calculated to awaken prejudice; and I should +wish to leave immediately.’ + +‘If you are not shocked, are you not surprised, man?’ demanded the +Physician, warmly. + +The Chief Butler, erect and calm, replied in these memorable words. +‘Sir, Mr Merdle never was the gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on +Mr Merdle’s part would surprise me. Is there anybody else I can send to +you, or any other directions I can give before I leave, respecting what +you would wish to be done?’ + +When Physician, after discharging himself of his trust up-stairs, +rejoined Bar in the street, he said no more of his interview with Mrs +Merdle than that he had not yet told her all, but that what he had told +her she had borne pretty well. Bar had devoted his leisure in the street +to the construction of a most ingenious man-trap for catching the whole +of his jury at a blow; having got that matter settled in his mind, +it was lucid on the late catastrophe, and they walked home slowly, +discussing it in every bearing. Before parting at the Physician’s door, +they both looked up at the sunny morning sky, into which the smoke of a +few early fires and the breath and voices of a few early stirrers were +peacefully rising, and then looked round upon the immense city, and +said, if all those hundreds and thousands of beggared people who were +yet asleep could only know, as they two spoke, the ruin that impended +over them, what a fearful cry against one miserable soul would go up to +Heaven! + +The report that the great man was dead, got about with astonishing +rapidity. At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were +known, and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of +Light to meet the demand of the occasion. He had concealed a dropsy from +infancy, he had inherited a large estate of water on the chest from his +grandfather, he had had an operation performed upon him every morning +of his life for eighteen years, he had been subject to the explosion of +important veins in his body after the manner of fireworks, he had had +something the matter with his lungs, he had had something the matter +with his heart, he had had something the matter with his brain. Five +hundred people who sat down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the +whole subject, believed before they had done breakfast, that they +privately and personally knew Physician to have said to Mr Merdle, ‘You +must expect to go out, some day, like the snuff of a candle;’ and that +they knew Mr Merdle to have said to Physician, ‘A man can die but once.’ +By about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, something the matter with the +brain, became the favourite theory against the field; and by twelve the +something had been distinctly ascertained to be ‘Pressure.’ + +Pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind, and seemed to +make everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted all day but for +Bar’s having taken the real state of the case into Court at half-past +nine. This led to its beginning to be currently whispered all over +London by about one, that Mr Merdle had killed himself. Pressure, +however, so far from being overthrown by the discovery, became a greater +favourite than ever. There was a general moralising upon Pressure, in +every street. All the people who had tried to make money and had not +been able to do it, said, There you were! You no sooner began to devote +yourself to the pursuit of wealth than you got Pressure. The idle people +improved the occasion in a similar manner. See, said they, what you +brought yourself to by work, work, work! You persisted in working, you +overdid it. Pressure came on, and you were done for! This consideration +was very potent in many quarters, but nowhere more so than among the +young clerks and partners who had never been in the slightest danger +of overdoing it. These, one and all, declared, quite piously, that they +hoped they would never forget the warning as long as they lived, and +that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off Pressure, and +preserve them, a comfort to their friends, for many years. + +But, at about the time of High ‘Change, Pressure began to wane, and +appalling whispers to circulate, east, west, north, and south. At first +they were faint, and went no further than a doubt whether Mr Merdle’s +wealth would be found to be as vast as had been supposed; whether there +might not be a temporary difficulty in ‘realising’ it; whether there +might not even be a temporary suspension (say a month or so), on the +part of the wonderful Bank. As the whispers became louder, which they +did from that time every minute, they became more threatening. He had +sprung from nothing, by no natural growth or process that any one could +account for; he had been, after all, a low, ignorant fellow; he had been +a down-looking man, and no one had ever been able to catch his eye; +he had been taken up by all sorts of people in quite an unaccountable +manner; he had never had any money of his own, his ventures had been +utterly reckless, and his expenditure had been most enormous. In steady +progression, as the day declined, the talk rose in sound and purpose. +He had left a letter at the Baths addressed to his physician, and his +physician had got the letter, and the letter would be produced at the +Inquest on the morrow, and it would fall like a thunderbolt upon the +multitude he had deluded. Numbers of men in every profession and trade +would be blighted by his insolvency; old people who had been in easy +circumstances all their lives would have no place of repentance for +their trust in him but the workhouse; legions of women and children +would have their whole future desolated by the hand of this mighty +scoundrel. Every partaker of his magnificent feasts would be seen to +have been a sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes; every servile +worshipper of riches who had helped to set him on his pedestal, would +have done better to worship the Devil point-blank. So, the talk, lashed +louder and higher by confirmation on confirmation, and by edition after +edition of the evening papers, swelled into such a roar when night came, +as might have brought one to believe that a solitary watcher on the +gallery above the Dome of St Paul’s would have perceived the night air +to be laden with a heavy muttering of the name of Merdle, coupled with +every form of execration. + +For by that time it was known that the late Mr Merdle’s complaint +had been simply Forgery and Robbery. He, the uncouth object of such +wide-spread adulation, the sitter at great men’s feasts, the roc’s egg +of great ladies’ assemblies, the subduer of exclusiveness, the leveller +of pride, the patron of patrons, the bargain-driver with a Minister +for Lordships of the Circumlocution Office, the recipient of more +acknowledgment within some ten or fifteen years, at most, than had been +bestowed in England upon all peaceful public benefactors, and upon +all the leaders of all the Arts and Sciences, with all their works to +testify for them, during two centuries at least--he, the shining wonder, +the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, +until it stopped over a certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and +disappeared--was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that +ever cheated the gallows. + + + + +CHAPTER 26. Reaping the Whirlwind + + +With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hurried feet, Mr Pancks +rushed into Arthur Clennam’s Counting-house. The Inquest was over, the +letter was public, the Bank was broken, the other model structures of +straw had taken fire and were turned to smoke. The admired piratical +ship had blown up, in the midst of a vast fleet of ships of all rates, +and boats of all sizes; and on the deep was nothing but ruin; nothing +but burning hulls, bursting magazines, great guns self-exploded tearing +friends and neighbours to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy +spars and going down every minute, spent swimmers, floating dead, and +sharks. + +The usual diligence and order of the Counting-house at the Works were +overthrown. Unopened letters and unsorted papers lay strewn about the +desk. In the midst of these tokens of prostrated energy and dismissed +hope, the master of the Counting-house stood idle in his usual place, +with his arms crossed on the desk, and his head bowed down upon them. + +Mr Pancks rushed in and saw him, and stood still. In another minute, Mr +Pancks’s arms were on the desk, and Mr Pancks’s head was bowed down +upon them; and for some time they remained in these attitudes, idle and +silent, with the width of the little room between them. + +Mr Pancks was the first to lift up his head and speak. + +‘I persuaded you to it, Mr Clennam. I know it. Say what you will. You +can’t say more to me than I say to myself. You can’t say more than I +deserve.’ + +‘O, Pancks, Pancks!’ returned Clennam, ‘don’t speak of deserving. What +do I myself deserve!’ + +‘Better luck,’ said Pancks. + +‘I,’ pursued Clennam, without attending to him, ‘who have ruined my +partner! Pancks, Pancks, I have ruined Doyce! The honest, self-helpful, +indefatigable old man who has worked his way all through his life; +the man who has contended against so much disappointment, and who has +brought out of it such a good and hopeful nature; the man I have felt +so much for, and meant to be so true and useful to; I have ruined +him--brought him to shame and disgrace--ruined him, ruined him!’ + +The agony into which the reflection wrought his mind was so distressing +to see, that Mr Pancks took hold of himself by the hair of his head, and +tore it in desperation at the spectacle. + +‘Reproach me!’ cried Pancks. ‘Reproach me, sir, or I’ll do myself an +injury. Say,--You fool, you villain. Say,--Ass, how could you do it; +Beast, what did you mean by it! Catch hold of me somewhere. Say +something abusive to me!’ All the time, Mr Pancks was tearing at his +tough hair in a most pitiless and cruel manner. + +‘If you had never yielded to this fatal mania, Pancks,’ said Clennam, +more in commiseration than retaliation, ‘it would have been how much +better for you, and how much better for me!’ + +‘At me again, sir!’ cried Pancks, grinding his teeth in remorse. ‘At +me again!’ + +‘If you had never gone into those accursed calculations, and brought out +your results with such abominable clearness,’ groaned Clennam, ‘it would +have been how much better for you, Pancks, and how much better for me!’ + +‘At me again, sir!’ exclaimed Pancks, loosening his hold of his hair; +‘at me again, and again!’ + +Clennam, however, finding him already beginning to be pacified, had said +all he wanted to say, and more. He wrung his hand, only adding, ‘Blind +leaders of the blind, Pancks! Blind leaders of the blind! But Doyce, +Doyce, Doyce; my injured partner!’ That brought his head down on the +desk once more. + +Their former attitudes and their former silence were once more first +encroached upon by Pancks. + +‘Not been to bed, sir, since it began to get about. Been high and low, +on the chance of finding some hope of saving any cinders from the fire. +All in vain. All gone. All vanished.’ + +‘I know it,’ returned Clennam, ‘too well.’ + +Mr Pancks filled up a pause with a groan that came out of the very +depths of his soul. + +‘Only yesterday, Pancks,’ said Arthur; ‘only yesterday, Monday, I had +the fixed intention of selling, realising, and making an end of it.’ + +‘I can’t say as much for myself, sir,’ returned Pancks. ‘Though it’s +wonderful how many people I’ve heard of, who were going to realise +yesterday, of all days in the three hundred and sixty-five, if it hadn’t +been too late!’ + +His steam-like breathings, usually droll in their effect, were more +tragic than so many groans: while from head to foot, he was in that +begrimed, besmeared, neglected state, that he might have been an +authentic portrait of Misfortune which could scarcely be discerned +through its want of cleaning. + +‘Mr Clennam, had you laid out--everything?’ He got over the break before +the last word, and also brought out the last word itself with great +difficulty. + +‘Everything.’ + +Mr Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a wrench +that he pulled out several prongs of it. After looking at these with an +eye of wild hatred, he put them in his pocket. + +‘My course,’ said Clennam, brushing away some tears that had been +silently dropping down his face, ‘must be taken at once. What wretched +amends I can make must be made. I must clear my unfortunate partner’s +reputation. I must retain nothing for myself. I must resign to our +creditors the power of management I have so much abused, and I must work +out as much of my fault--or crime--as is susceptible of being worked out +in the rest of my days.’ + +‘Is it impossible, sir, to tide over the present?’ + +‘Out of the question. Nothing can be tided over now, Pancks. The sooner +the business can pass out of my hands, the better for it. There are +engagements to be met, this week, which would bring the catastrophe +before many days were over, even if I would postpone it for a single day +by going on for that space, secretly knowing what I know. All last night +I thought of what I would do; what remains is to do it.’ + +‘Not entirely of yourself?’ said Pancks, whose face was as damp as if +his steam were turning into water as fast as he dismally blew it off. +‘Have some legal help.’ + +‘Perhaps I had better.’ + +‘Have Rugg.’ + +‘There is not much to do. He will do it as well as another.’ + +‘Shall I fetch Rugg, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘If you could spare the time, I should be much obliged to you.’ + +Mr Pancks put on his hat that moment, and steamed away to Pentonville. +While he was gone Arthur never raised his head from the desk, but +remained in that one position. + +Mr Pancks brought his friend and professional adviser, Mr Rugg, back +with him. Mr Rugg had had such ample experience, on the road, of Mr +Pancks’s being at that present in an irrational state of mind, that he +opened his professional mediation by requesting that gentleman to take +himself out of the way. Mr Pancks, crushed and submissive, obeyed. + +‘He is not unlike what my daughter was, sir, when we began the Breach of +Promise action of Rugg and Bawkins, in which she was Plaintiff,’ said +Mr Rugg. ‘He takes too strong and direct an interest in the case. His +feelings are worked upon. There is no getting on, in our profession, +with feelings worked upon, sir.’ + +As he pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, he saw, in a side +glance or two, that a great change had come over his client. + +‘I am sorry to perceive, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘that you have been +allowing your own feelings to be worked upon. Now, pray don’t, pray +don’t. These losses are much to be deplored, sir, but we must look ‘em +in the face.’ + +‘If the money I have sacrificed had been all my own, Mr Rugg,’ sighed Mr +Clennam, ‘I should have cared far less.’ + +‘Indeed, sir?’ said Mr Rugg, rubbing his hands with a cheerful air. +‘You surprise me. That’s singular, sir. I have generally found, in my +experience, that it’s their own money people are most particular about. +I have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people’s money, and +bear it very well: very well indeed.’ + +With these comforting remarks, Mr Rugg seated himself on an office-stool +at the desk and proceeded to business. + +‘Now, Mr Clennam, by your leave, let us go into the matter. Let us see +the state of the case. The question is simple. The question is the +usual plain, straightforward, common-sense question. What can we do for +ourself? What can we do for ourself?’ + +‘This is not the question with me, Mr Rugg,’ said Arthur. ‘You mistake +it in the beginning. It is, what can I do for my partner, how can I best +make reparation to him?’ + +‘I am afraid, sir, do you know,’ argued Mr Rugg persuasively, ‘that you +are still allowing your feeling to be worked upon. I _don’t_ like the +term “reparation,” sir, except as a lever in the hands of counsel. Will +you excuse my saying that I feel it my duty to offer you the caution, +that you really must not allow your feelings to be worked upon?’ + +‘Mr Rugg,’ said Clennam, nerving himself to go through with what he had +resolved upon, and surprising that gentleman by appearing, in his +despondency, to have a settled determination of purpose; ‘you give me +the impression that you will not be much disposed to adopt the course I +have made up my mind to take. If your disapproval of it should render +you unwilling to discharge such business as it necessitates, I am sorry +for it, and must seek other aid. But I will represent to you at once, +that to argue against it with me is useless.’ + +‘Good, sir,’ answered Mr Rugg, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Good, sir. +Since the business is to be done by some hands, let it be done by mine. +Such was my principle in the case of Rugg and Bawkins. Such is my +principle in most cases.’ + +Clennam then proceeded to state to Mr Rugg his fixed resolution. He told +Mr Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and integrity, +and that in all he meant to do, he was guided above all things by a +knowledge of his partner’s character, and a respect for his feelings. He +explained that his partner was then absent on an enterprise of +importance, and that it particularly behoved himself publicly to accept +the blame of what he had rashly done, and publicly to exonerate his +partner from all participation in the responsibility of it, lest the +successful conduct of that enterprise should be endangered by the +slightest suspicion wrongly attaching to his partner’s honour and credit +in another country. He told Mr Rugg that to clear his partner morally, +to the fullest extent, and publicly and unreservedly to declare that he, +Arthur Clennam, of that Firm, had of his own sole act, and even +expressly against his partner’s caution, embarked its resources in the +swindles that had lately perished, was the only real atonement within +his power; was a better atonement to the particular man than it would be +to many men; and was therefore the atonement he had first to make. With +this view, his intention was to print a declaration to the foregoing +effect, which he had already drawn up; and, besides circulating it among +all who had dealings with the House, to advertise it in the public +papers. Concurrently with this measure (the description of which cost Mr +Rugg innumerable wry faces and great uneasiness in his limbs), he would +address a letter to all the creditors, exonerating his partner in a +solemn manner, informing them of the stoppage of the House until their +pleasure could be known and his partner communicated with, and humbly +submitting himself to their direction. If, through their consideration +for his partner’s innocence, the affairs could ever be got into such +train as that the business could be profitably resumed, and its present +downfall overcome, then his own share in it should revert to his +partner, as the only reparation he could make to him in money value for +the distress and loss he had unhappily brought upon him, and he himself, +at as small a salary as he could live upon, would ask to be allowed to +serve the business as a faithful clerk. + +Though Mr Rugg saw plainly there was no preventing this from being done, +still the wryness of his face and the uneasiness of his limbs so sorely +required the propitiation of a Protest, that he made one. ‘I offer no +objection, sir,’ said he, ‘I argue no point with you. I will carry out +your views, sir; but, under protest.’ Mr Rugg then stated, not without +prolixity, the heads of his protest. These were, in effect, because the +whole town, or he might say the whole country, was in the first madness +of the late discovery, and the resentment against the victims would be +very strong: those who had not been deluded being certain to wax +exceedingly wroth with them for not having been as wise as they were: +and those who had been deluded being certain to find excuses and reasons +for themselves, of which they were equally certain to see that other +sufferers were wholly devoid: not to mention the great probability of +every individual sufferer persuading himself, to his violent +indignation, that but for the example of all the other sufferers he +never would have put himself in the way of suffering. Because such a +declaration as Clennam’s, made at such a time, would certainly draw down +upon him a storm of animosity, rendering it impossible to calculate on +forbearance in the creditors, or on unanimity among them; and exposing +him a solitary target to a straggling cross-fire, which might bring him +down from half-a-dozen quarters at once. + +To all this Clennam merely replied that, granting the whole protest, +nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the force, of the +voluntary and public exoneration of his partner. He therefore, once +and for all, requested Mr Rugg’s immediate aid in getting the business +despatched. Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; and Arthur, retaining no +property to himself but his clothes and books, and a little loose +money, placed his small private banker’s-account with the papers of the +business. + +The disclosure was made, and the storm raged fearfully. Thousands of +people were wildly staring about for somebody alive to heap reproaches +on; and this notable case, courting publicity, set the living somebody +so much wanted, on a scaffold. When people who had nothing to do with +the case were so sensible of its flagrancy, people who lost money by it +could scarcely be expected to deal mildly with it. Letters of reproach +and invective showered in from the creditors; and Mr Rugg, who sat upon +the high stool every day and read them all, informed his client within a +week that he feared there were writs out. + +‘I must take the consequences of what I have done,’ said Clennam. ‘The +writs will find me here.’ + +On the very next morning, as he was turning in Bleeding Heart Yard by +Mrs Plornish’s corner, Mrs Plornish stood at the door waiting for him, +and mysteriously besought him to step into Happy Cottage. There he found +Mr Rugg. + +‘I thought I’d wait for you here. I wouldn’t go on to the Counting-house +this morning if I was you, sir.’ + +‘Why not, Mr Rugg?’ + +‘There are as many as five out, to my knowledge.’ + +‘It cannot be too soon over,’ said Clennam. ‘Let them take me at once.’ + +‘Yes, but,’ said Mr Rugg, getting between him and the door, ‘hear +reason, hear reason. They’ll take you soon enough, Mr Clennam, I don’t +doubt; but, hear reason. It almost always happens, in these cases, +that some insignificant matter pushes itself in front and makes much +of itself. Now, I find there’s a little one out--a mere Palace Court +jurisdiction--and I have reason to believe that a caption may be made +upon that. I wouldn’t be taken upon that.’ + +‘Why not?’ asked Clennam. + +‘I’d be taken on a full-grown one, sir,’ said Mr Rugg. ‘It’s as well to +keep up appearances. As your professional adviser, I should prefer your +being taken on a writ from one of the Superior Courts, if you have no +objection to do me that favour. It looks better.’ + +‘Mr Rugg,’ said Arthur, in his dejection, ‘my only wish is, that it +should be over. I will go on, and take my chance.’ + +‘Another word of reason, sir!’ cried Mr Rugg. ‘Now, this _is_ reason. +The other may be taste; but this is reason. If you should be taken on a +little one, sir, you would go to the Marshalsea. Now, you know what the +Marshalsea is. Very close. Excessively confined. Whereas in the King’s +Bench--’ Mr Rugg waved his right hand freely, as expressing abundance of +space. + +‘I would rather,’ said Clennam, ‘be taken to the Marshalsea than to any +other prison.’ + +‘Do you say so indeed, sir?’ returned Mr Rugg. ‘Then this is taste, too, +and we may be walking.’ + +He was a little offended at first, but he soon overlooked it. They +walked through the Yard to the other end. The Bleeding Hearts were more +interested in Arthur since his reverses than formerly; now regarding him +as one who was true to the place and had taken up his freedom. Many of +them came out to look after him, and to observe to one another, with +great unctuousness, that he was ‘pulled down by it.’ Mrs Plornish +and her father stood at the top of the steps at their own end, much +depressed and shaking their heads. + +There was nobody visibly in waiting when Arthur and Mr Rugg arrived +at the Counting-house. But an elderly member of the Jewish persuasion, +preserved in rum, followed them close, and looked in at the glass before +Mr Rugg had opened one of the day’s letters. ‘Oh!’ said Mr Rugg, +looking up. ‘How do you do? Step in--Mr Clennam, I think this is the +gentleman I was mentioning.’ + +This gentleman explained the object of his visit to be ‘a tyfling madder +ob bithznithz,’ and executed his legal function. + +‘Shall I accompany you, Mr Clennam?’ asked Mr Rugg politely, rubbing his +hands. + +‘I would rather go alone, thank you. Be so good as send me my clothes.’ +Mr Rugg in a light airy way replied in the affirmative, and shook hands +with him. He and his attendant then went down-stairs, got into the first +conveyance they found, and drove to the old gates. + +‘Where I little thought, Heaven forgive me,’ said Clennam to himself, +‘that I should ever enter thus!’ + +Mr Chivery was on the Lock, and Young John was in the Lodge: either +newly released from it, or waiting to take his own spell of duty. Both +were more astonished on seeing who the prisoner was, than one might have +thought turnkeys would have been. The elder Mr Chivery shook hands with +him in a shame-faced kind of way, and said, ‘I don’t call to mind, +sir, as I was ever less glad to see you.’ The younger Mr Chivery, more +distant, did not shake hands with him at all; he stood looking at him +in a state of indecision so observable that it even came within the +observation of Clennam with his heavy eyes and heavy heart. Presently +afterwards, Young John disappeared into the jail. + +As Clennam knew enough of the place to know that he was required to +remain in the Lodge a certain time, he took a seat in a corner, and +feigned to be occupied with the perusal of letters from his pocket. +They did not so engross his attention, but that he saw, with gratitude, +how the elder Mr Chivery kept the Lodge clear of prisoners; how he +signed to some, with his keys, not to come in, how he nudged others with +his elbows to go out, and how he made his misery as easy to him as he +could. + +Arthur was sitting with his eyes fixed on the floor, recalling the past, +brooding over the present, and not attending to either, when he felt +himself touched upon the shoulder. It was by Young John; and he said, +‘You can come now.’ + +He got up and followed Young John. When they had gone a step or two +within the inner iron-gate, Young John turned and said to him: + +‘You want a room. I have got you one.’ + +‘I thank you heartily.’ + +Young John turned again, and took him in at the old doorway, up the old +staircase, into the old room. Arthur stretched out his hand. Young John +looked at it, looked at him--sternly--swelled, choked, and said: + +‘I don’t know as I can. No, I find I can’t. But I thought you’d like the +room, and here it is for you.’ + +Surprise at this inconsistent behaviour yielded when he was gone (he +went away directly) to the feelings which the empty room awakened in +Clennam’s wounded breast, and to the crowding associations with the +one good and gentle creature who had sanctified it. Her absence in his +altered fortunes made it, and him in it, so very desolate and so much in +need of such a face of love and truth, that he turned against the +wall to weep, sobbing out, as his heart relieved itself, ‘O my Little +Dorrit!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea + + +The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking +upon it, was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a solitary +arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and yielded +himself to his thoughts. + +In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, and +got there,--the first change of feeling which the prison most commonly +induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many men had slipped +down to the depths of degradation and disgrace by so many ways,--he +could think of some passages in his life, almost as if he were removed +from them into another state of existence. Taking into account where he +was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free +to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from +the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his +later life which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable +that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to +Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact +itself, but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the +dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions. + +None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, +until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right +perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it +comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent +uses of adversity. It came to Clennam in his adversity, strongly and +tenderly. ‘When I first gathered myself together,’ he thought, ‘and +set something like purpose before my jaded eyes, whom had I before me, +toiling on, for a good object’s sake, without encouragement, without +notice, against ignoble obstacles that would have turned an army of +received heroes and heroines? One weak girl! When I tried to conquer +my misplaced love, and to be generous to the man who was more fortunate +than I, though he should never know it or repay me with a gracious word, +in whom had I watched patience, self-denial, self-subdual, charitable +construction, the noblest generosity of the affections? In the same poor +girl! If I, a man, with a man’s advantages and means and energies, had +slighted the whisper in my heart, that if my father had erred, it was my +first duty to conceal the fault and to repair it, what youthful figure +with tender feet going almost bare on the damp ground, with spare hands +ever working, with its slight shape but half protected from the +sharp weather, would have stood before me to put me to shame? Little +Dorrit’s.’ So always as he sat alone in the faded chair, thinking. +Always, Little Dorrit. Until it seemed to him as if he met the reward of +having wandered away from her, and suffered anything to pass between him +and his remembrance of her virtues. + +His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in a very +little way, without being turned towards him. + +‘I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out. Can I do anything for +you?’ + +‘Many thanks. Nothing.’ + +‘You’ll excuse me opening the door,’ said Mr Chivery; ‘but I couldn’t +make you hear.’ + +‘Did you knock?’ ‘Half-a-dozen times.’ + +Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from its +noontide doze, that the inmates were loitering about the shady yard, and +that it was late in the afternoon. He had been thinking for hours. + +‘Your things is come,’ said Mr Chivery, ‘and my son is going to carry +‘em up. I should have sent ‘em up but for his wishing to carry ‘em +himself. Indeed he would have ‘em himself, and so I couldn’t send ‘em +up. Mr Clennam, could I say a word to you?’ + +‘Pray come in,’ said Arthur; for Mr Chivery’s head was still put in at +the door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon him, +instead of both eyes. This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery--true +politeness; though his exterior had very much of a turnkey about it, and +not the least of a gentleman. + +‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mr Chivery, without advancing; ‘it’s no odds me +coming in. Mr Clennam, don’t you take no notice of my son (if you’ll +be so good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult. My son has a +‘art, and my son’s ‘art is in the right place. Me and his mother knows +where to find it, and we find it sitiwated correct.’ + +With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut the +door. He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son succeeded him. + +‘Here’s your portmanteau,’ he said to Arthur, putting it carefully down. + +‘It’s very kind of you. I am ashamed that you should have the trouble.’ + +He was gone before it came to that; but soon returned, saying exactly as +before, ‘Here’s your black box:’ which he also put down with care. + +‘I am very sensible of this attention. I hope we may shake hands now, Mr +John.’ + +Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket made +of his left thumb and middle-finger and said as he had said at first, +‘I don’t know as I can. No; I find I can’t!’ He then stood regarding the +prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in his eyes that looked +like pity. + +‘Why are you angry with me,’ said Clennam, ‘and yet so ready to do me +these kind services? There must be some mistake between us. If I have +done anything to occasion it I am sorry.’ + +‘No mistake, sir,’ returned John, turning the wrist backwards and +forwards in the socket, for which it was rather tight. ‘No mistake, sir, +in the feelings with which my eyes behold you at the present moment! If +I was at all fairly equal to your weight, Mr Clennam--which I am not; +and if you weren’t under a cloud--which you are; and if it wasn’t +against all rules of the Marshalsea--which it is; those feelings are +such, that they would stimulate me, more to having it out with you in +a Round on the present spot than to anything else I could name.’ + +Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little anger. +‘Well, well!’ he said. ‘A mistake, a mistake!’ Turning away, he sat down +with a heavy sigh in the faded chair again. + +Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause, cried +out, ‘I beg your pardon!’ + +‘Freely granted,’ said Clennam, waving his hand without raising his +sunken head. ‘Say no more. I am not worth it.’ + +‘This furniture, sir,’ said Young John in a voice of mild and soft +explanation, ‘belongs to me. I am in the habit of letting it out to +parties without furniture, that have the room. It an’t much, but it’s at +your service. Free, I mean. I could not think of letting you have it on +any other terms. You’re welcome to it for nothing.’ + +Arthur raised his head again to thank him, and to say he could +not accept the favour. John was still turning his wrist, and still +contending with himself in his former divided manner. + +‘What is the matter between us?’ said Arthur. + +‘I decline to name it, sir,’ returned Young John, suddenly turning loud +and sharp. ‘Nothing’s the matter.’ + +Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for an explanation of his +behaviour. After a while, Arthur turned away his head again. Young John +said, presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness: + +‘The little round table, sir, that’s nigh your elbow, was--you know +whose--I needn’t mention him--he died a great gentleman. I bought it of +an individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after him. But the +individual wasn’t any ways equal to him. Most individuals would find it +hard to come up to his level.’ + +Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and kept it +there. + +‘Perhaps you may not be aware, sir,’ said Young John, ‘that I intruded +upon him when he was over here in London. On the whole he was of opinion +that it _was_ an intrusion, though he was so good as to ask me to sit +down and to inquire after father and all other old friends. Leastways +humblest acquaintances. He looked, to me, a good deal changed, and I +said so when I came back. I asked him if Miss Amy was well--’ + +‘And she was?’ + +‘I should have thought you would have known without putting the question +to such as me,’ returned Young John, after appearing to take a large +invisible pill. ‘Since you do put me the question, I am sorry I can’t +answer it. But the truth is, he looked upon the inquiry as a liberty, +and said, “What was that to me?” It was then I became quite aware I was +intruding: of which I had been fearful before. However, he spoke very +handsome afterwards; very handsome.’ + +They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John +remarked, at about the middle of the pause, ‘He both spoke and acted +very handsome.’ + +It was again Young John who broke the silence by inquiring: + +‘If it’s not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to go +without eating and drinking?’ + +‘I have not felt the want of anything yet,’ returned Clennam. ‘I have no +appetite just now.’ + +‘The more reason why you should take some support, sir,’ urged Young +John. ‘If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours and hours +partaking of no refreshment because you have no appetite, why then you +should and must partake of refreshment without an appetite. I’m going to +have tea in my own apartment. If it’s not a liberty, please to come and +take a cup. Or I can bring a tray here in two minutes.’ + +Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he +refused, and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both +the elder Mr Chivery’s entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery’s apology, +Arthur rose and expressed his willingness to take a cup of tea in Mr +John’s apartment. Young John locked his door for him as they went out, +slided the key into his pocket with great dexterity, and led the way to +his own residence. + +It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the room +to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched family had +left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her insensible from +the floor. He foresaw where they were going as soon as their feet +touched the staircase. The room was so far changed that it was papered +now, and had been repainted, and was far more comfortably furnished; but +he could recall it just as he had seen it in that single glance, when he +raised her from the ground and carried her down to the carriage. + +Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers. + +‘I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?’ + +‘I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!’ + +Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and to +look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance about +the room. Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily rattled a +quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for the common +kitchen to fill it with hot water. + +The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of his +return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so mournfully of +her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone hard with him to +resist it, even though he had not been alone. Alone, he did not try. +He had his hand on the insensible wall as tenderly as if it had been +herself that he touched, and pronounced her name in a low voice. He +stood at the window, looking over the prison-parapet with its grim +spiked border, and breathed a benediction through the summer haze +towards the distant land where she was rich and prosperous. + +Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed that he +had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a cabbage leaf, +some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage leaf, and a little +basket of water-cresses and salad herbs. When these were arranged upon +the table to his satisfaction, they sat down to tea. + +Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham +sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He could +force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea. + +‘Try a little something green,’ said Young John, handing him the basket. + +He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the bread +turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it was good +enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham through the whole +Marshalsea. + +‘Try a little more something green, sir,’ said Young John; and again +handed the basket. + +It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull imprisoned +bird, and John had so evidently brought the little basket as a handful +of fresh relief from the stale hot paving-stones and bricks of the jail, +that Clennam said, with a smile, ‘It was very kind of you to think of +putting this between the wires; but I cannot even get this down to-day.’ + +As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away his +own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the +ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another, +so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it +between both his hands, and to eye Clennam attentively. + +‘I wonder,’ he at length said, compressing his green packet with some +force, ‘that if it’s not worth your while to take care of yourself for +your own sake, it’s not worth doing for some one else’s.’ + +‘Truly,’ returned Arthur, with a sigh and a smile, ‘I don’t know for +whose.’ + +‘Mr Clennam,’ said John, warmly, ‘I am surprised that a gentleman who +is capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of, should be +capable of the mean action of making me such an answer. Mr Clennam, I am +surprised that a gentleman who is capable of having a heart of his own, +should be capable of the heartlessness of treating mine in that way. I +am astonished at it, sir. Really and truly I am astonished!’ + +Having got upon his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young John +sat down again, and fell to rolling his green packet on his right leg; +never taking his eyes off Clennam, but surveying him with a fixed look +of indignant reproach. + +‘I had got over it, sir,’ said John. ‘I had conquered it, knowing that +it _must_ be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think no more +about it. I shouldn’t have given my mind to it again, I hope, if to this +prison you had not been brought, and in an hour unfortunate for me, +this day!’ (In his agitation Young John adopted his mother’s powerful +construction of sentences.) ‘When you first came upon me, sir, in the +Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas tree had been made a capture of than +a private defendant, such mingled streams of feelings broke loose again +within me, that everything was for the first few minutes swept away +before them, and I was going round and round in a vortex. I got out of +it. I struggled, and got out of it. If it was the last word I had to +speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers I strove, and out of it +I came. I argued that if I had been rude, apologies was due, and those +apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make. And now, when +I’ve been so wishful to show that one thought is next to being a holy +one with me and goes before all others--now, after all, you dodge me +when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me back upon myself. For, do +not, sir,’ said Young John, ‘do not be so base as to deny that dodge you +do, and thrown me back upon myself you have!’ + +All amazement, Arthur gazed at him like one lost, only saying, ‘What is +it? What do you mean, John?’ But, John, being in that state of mind in +which nothing would seem to be more impossible to a certain class of +people than the giving of an answer, went ahead blindly. + +‘I hadn’t,’ John declared, ‘no, I hadn’t, and I never had the +audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost. I +hadn’t, no, why should I say I hadn’t if I ever had, any hope that it +was possible to be so blest, not after the words that passed, not even +if barriers insurmountable had not been raised! But is that a reason why +I am to have no memory, why I am to have no thoughts, why I am to have +no sacred spots, nor anything?’ + +‘What can you mean?’ cried Arthur. + +‘It’s all very well to trample on it, sir,’ John went on, scouring a +very prairie of wild words, ‘if a person can make up his mind to be +guilty of the action. It’s all very well to trample on it, but it’s +there. It may be that it couldn’t be trampled upon if it wasn’t there. +But that doesn’t make it gentlemanly, that doesn’t make it honourable, +that doesn’t justify throwing a person back upon himself after he has +struggled and strived out of himself like a butterfly. The world may +sneer at a turnkey, but he’s a man--when he isn’t a woman, which among +female criminals he’s expected to be.’ + +Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a +truthfulness in Young John’s simple, sentimental character, and a sense +of being wounded in some very tender respect, expressed in his burning +face and in the agitation of his voice and manner, which Arthur must +have been cruel to disregard. He turned his thoughts back to the +starting-point of this unknown injury; and in the meantime Young John, +having rolled his green packet pretty round, cut it carefully into three +pieces, and laid it on a plate as if it were some particular delicacy. + +‘It seems to me just possible,’ said Arthur, when he had retraced the +conversation to the water-cresses and back again, ‘that you have made +some reference to Miss Dorrit.’ + +‘It is just possible, sir,’ returned John Chivery. + +‘I don’t understand it. I hope I may not be so unlucky as to make you +think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to offend you +yet, when I say I don’t understand it.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Young John, ‘will you have the perfidy to deny that you know +and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it not the +presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice?’ + +‘Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you should +suspect me of it I am at a loss to think. Did you ever hear from Mrs +Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned John, shortly. ‘Never heard of such a thing.’ + +‘But I did. Can you imagine why?’ + +‘No, sir,’ returned John, shortly. ‘I can’t imagine why.’ + +‘I will tell you. I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit’s happiness; +and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned your affection--’ + +Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. ‘Miss Dorrit +never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as in my humble +way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment that she ever did, +or that she ever led me to believe she did; no, nor even that it was +ever to be expected in any cool reason that she would or could. She was +far above me in all respects at all times. As likewise,’ added John, +‘similarly was her gen-teel family.’ + +His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so very +respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak legs, and +his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a Goliath might +have sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur’s hands. + +‘You speak, John,’ he said, with cordial admiration, ‘like a Man.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, ‘then I +wish you’d do the same.’ + +He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur +regard him with a wondering expression of face. + +‘Leastways,’ said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, ‘if too +strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When I say to you, +Mr Clennam, take care of yourself for some one else’s sake, why not be +open, though a turnkey? Why did I get you the room which I knew you’d +like best? Why did I carry up your things? Not that I found ‘em heavy; +I don’t mention ‘em on that accounts; far from it. Why have I cultivated +you in the manner I have done since the morning? On the ground of your +own merits? No. They’re very great, I’ve no doubt at all; but not on the +ground of them. Another’s merits have had their weight, and have had far +more weight with Me. Then why not speak free?’ + +‘Unaffectedly, John,’ said Clennam, ‘you are so good a fellow and I have +so true a respect for your character, that if I have appeared to be less +sensible than I really am of the fact that the kind services you have +rendered me to-day are attributable to my having been trusted by +Miss Dorrit as her friend--I confess it to be a fault, and I ask your +forgiveness.’ + +‘Oh! why not,’ John repeated with returning scorn, ‘why not speak free!’ + +‘I declare to you,’ returned Arthur, ‘that I do not understand you. +Look at me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely that I +would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of being ungrateful +or treacherous to you. I do not understand you.’ + +John’s incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He rose, +backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to come +there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully. + +‘Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don’t know?’ + +‘What, John?’ + +‘Lord,’ said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the +wall. ‘He says, What!’ + +Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the +spikes, and looked at John. + +‘He says What! And what is more,’ exclaimed Young John, surveying him in +a doleful maze, ‘he appears to mean it! Do you see this window, sir?’ + +‘Of course I see this window.’ + +‘See this room?’ + +‘Why, of course I see this room.’ + +‘That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been +witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to +week, from month to month. For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit here +when she has not seen me!’ + +‘Witnesses of what?’ said Clennam. + +‘Of Miss Dorrit’s love.’ + +‘For whom?’ + +‘You,’ said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon the +breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale face, +holding the arms, and shaking his head at him. + +If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light touch +upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more. He stood +amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and seeming now and +then to form the word ‘Me!’ without uttering it; his hands dropped at +his sides; his whole appearance that of a man who has been awakened from +sleep, and stupefied by intelligence beyond his full comprehension. + +‘Me!’ he at length said aloud. + +‘Ah!’ groaned Young John. ‘You!’ + +He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, ‘Your fancy. You +are completely mistaken.’ + +‘I mistaken, sir!’ said Young John. ‘_I_ completely mistaken on that +subject! No, Mr Clennam, don’t tell me so. On any other, if you like, +for I don’t set up to be a penetrating character, and am well aware of +my own deficiencies. But, _I_ mistaken on a point that has caused me +more smart in my breast than a flight of savages’ arrows could have +done! _I_ mistaken on a point that almost sent me into my grave, as +I sometimes wished it would, if the grave could only have been made +compatible with the tobacco-business and father and mother’s feelings! I +mistaken on a point that, even at the present moment, makes me take out +my pocket-handkerchief like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure +I don’t know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every +rightly constituted male mind loves ‘em great and small. Don’t tell me +so, don’t tell me so!’ + +Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the +surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine +absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen in +a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his +pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes. Having dried +them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a sniff, he put +it up again. + +The touch was still in its influence so like a blow that Arthur could +not get many words together to close the subject with. He assured John +Chivery when he had returned his handkerchief to his pocket, that he +did all honour to his disinterestedness and to the fidelity of his +remembrance of Miss Dorrit. As to the impression on his mind, of which +he had just relieved it--here John interposed, and said, ‘No impression! +Certainty!’--as to that, they might perhaps speak of it at another time, +but would say no more now. Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go +back to his room, with John’s leave, and come out no more that night. +John assented, and he crept back in the shadow of the wall to his own +lodging. + +The feeling of the blow was still so strong upon him that, when the +dirty old woman was gone whom he found sitting on the stairs outside +his door, waiting to make his bed, and who gave him to understand while +doing it, that she had received her instructions from Mr Chivery, ‘not +the old ‘un but the young ‘un,’ he sat down in the faded arm-chair, +pressing his head between his hands, as if he had been stunned. Little +Dorrit love him! More bewildering to him than his misery, far. + +Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his +child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling upon +the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of himself as one +who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought him old. Something +reminded him that he had not thought himself so, until the roses had +floated away upon the river. + +He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took them +out and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like the sound +of her sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones of tenderness, +that were not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now it was that the +quiet desolation of her answer, ‘No, No, No,’ made to him that night +in that very room--that night when he had been shown the dawn of her +altered fortune, and when other words had passed between them which he +had been destined to remember in humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into +his mind. + +Consider the improbability. + +But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become +fainter. There was another and a curious inquiry of his own heart’s that +concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he had felt to believe +that she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in +a half-formed consciousness he had had that there would be a kind of +nobleness in his helping her love for any one, was there no suppressed +something on his own side that he had hushed as it arose? Had he ever +whispered to himself that he must not think of such a thing as her +loving him, that he must not take advantage of her gratitude, that he +must keep his experience in remembrance as a warning and reproof; +that he must regard such youthful hopes as having passed away, as his +friend’s dead daughter had passed away; that he must be steady in saying +to himself that the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and +old? + +He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day when she +had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. Quite as he might +have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No difference? + +The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness also +found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought with them a +basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met +with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return. Mrs Plornish was +affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but +not lucid manner, that there was ups you see, and there was downs. It +was in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know. He had +heerd it given for a truth that accordin’ as the world went round, which +round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his +turn of standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying +the wrong way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What +Mr Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman’s ed would come +up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman’s air would be a pleasure to +look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then! + +It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, +wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, +was intelligible. It may have arisen out of her softened state of mind, +out of her sex’s wit, out of a woman’s quick association of ideas, +or out of a woman’s no association of ideas, but it further happened +somehow that Mrs Plornish’s intelligibility displayed itself upon the +very subject of Arthur’s meditations. + +‘The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,’ said Mrs +Plornish, ‘you hardly would believe. It’s made him quite poorly. As +to his voice, this misfortune has took it away. You know what a sweet +singer father is; but he couldn’t get a note out for the children at +tea, if you’ll credit what I tell you.’ + +While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and +looked retrospectively about the room. + +‘As to Mr Baptist,’ pursued Mrs Plornish, ‘whatever he’ll do when he +comes to know of it, I can’t conceive nor yet imagine. He’d have been +here before now, you may be sure, but that he’s away on confidential +business of your own. The persevering manner in which he follows up that +business, and gives himself no rest from it--it really do,’ said +Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner, ‘as I say to him, +Mooshattonisha padrona.’ + +Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this Tuscan +sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not conceal his +exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist. + +‘But what I say is, Mr Clennam,’ the good woman went on, ‘there’s always +something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself admit. +Speaking in this room, it’s not hard to think what the present something +is. It’s a thing to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is not +here to know it.’ + +Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression. + +‘It’s a thing,’ reiterated Mrs Plornish, ‘to be thankful for, indeed, +that Miss Dorrit is far away. It’s to be hoped she is not likely to hear +of it. If she had been here to see it, sir, it’s not to be doubted +that the sight of you,’ Mrs Plornish repeated those words--‘not to be +doubted, that the sight of you--in misfortune and trouble, would have +been almost too much for her affectionate heart. There’s nothing I can +think of, that would have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.’ + +Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of +quivering defiance in her friendly emotion. + +‘Yes!’ said she. ‘And it shows what notice father takes, though at his +time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy Cottage +knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, “Mary, it’s much to +be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.” Those +were father’s words. Father’s own words was, “Much to be rejoiced in, +Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.” I says to +father then, I says to him, “Father, you are right!” That,’ Mrs Plornish +concluded, with the air of a very precise legal witness, ‘is what passed +betwixt father and me. And I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt +me and father.’ + +Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this +opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave +Mr Clennam to himself. ‘For, you see,’ said Mr Plornish, gravely, ‘I +know what it is, old gal;’ repeating that valuable remark several times, +as if it appeared to him to include some great moral secret. Finally, +the worthy couple went away arm in arm. + +Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little Dorrit! + + +Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over. Granted +that she had loved him, and he had known it and had suffered himself +to love her, what a road to have led her away upon--the road that would +have brought her back to this miserable place! He ought to be much +comforted by the reflection that she was quit of it forever; that she +was, or would soon be, married (vague rumours of her father’s projects +in that direction had reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her +sister’s marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on +all those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone. + +Dear Little Dorrit. + +Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. Every +thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled +thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had +worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest +of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and +pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere waste and darkened +sky. + +As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep within +those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such thoughts. What time +Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, after composing and arranging +the following monumental inscription on his pillow-- + + + STRANGER! + RESPECT THE TOMB OF + JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR, + WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE + NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION. + HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE, + AND FELT INCLINED + TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM; + BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE, + CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME + MAGNANIMOUS. + + + + +CHAPTER 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea + + +The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on +Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community +within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got +together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in +the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held +in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected that he was +sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a +poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The whole population were +shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the +last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became +so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and +down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and toasts +and sentiments, and when the yard was nearly left to the women and +children. + +Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and moped. +After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment within the +four small walls of the very room he occupied, this consciousness made +him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the observation of other men, and +shrinking from his own, he began to change very sensibly. Anybody might +see that the shadow of the wall was dark upon him. + +One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, and +when he had been trying to read and had not been able to release even +the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a footstep stopped +at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose and opened it, and an +agreeable voice accosted him with ‘How do you do, Mr Clennam? I hope I +am not unwelcome in calling to see you.’ + +It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very +good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, in +contrast with the squalid prison. + +‘You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,’ he said, taking the seat +which Clennam offered him. + +‘I must confess to being much surprised.’ + +‘Not disagreeably, I hope?’ + +‘By no means.’ + +‘Thank you. Frankly,’ said the engaging young Barnacle, ‘I have been +excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a +temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two private +gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?’ + +‘Your office?’ + +‘Our Circumlocution place.’ + +‘I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable +establishment.’ + +‘Upon my life,’ said the vivacious young Barnacle, ‘I am heartily glad to +know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. I should have +so exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to do with your +difficulties.’ + +Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the responsibility. + +‘That’s right,’ said Ferdinand. ‘I am very happy to hear it. I was +rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor you, +because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that kind +of thing now and then. We don’t want to do it; but if men will be +gravelled, why--we can’t help it.’ + +‘Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,’ returned Arthur, +gloomily, ‘I am much obliged to you for your interest in me.’ + +‘No, but really! Our place is,’ said the easy young Barnacle, ‘the most +inoffensive place possible. You’ll say we are a humbug. I won’t say +we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, and must be. +Don’t you see?’ + +‘I do not,’ said Clennam. + +‘You don’t regard it from the right point of view. It is the point of +view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the point of +view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a +Department as you’ll find anywhere.’ + +‘Is your place there to be left alone?’ asked Clennam. + +‘You exactly hit it,’ returned Ferdinand. ‘It is there with the express +intention that everything shall be left alone. That is what it means. +That is what it’s for. No doubt there’s a certain form to be kept up +that it’s for something else, but it’s only a form. Why, good Heaven, +we are nothing but forms! Think what a lot of our forms you have gone +through. And you have never got any nearer to an end?’ + +‘Never,’ said Clennam. + +‘Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have +us--official and effectual. It’s like a limited game of cricket. A field +of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public Service, and we +block the balls.’ + +Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle +replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their backs +broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games. + +‘And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,’ he pursued, +‘on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your +temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it; +because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky place, in +our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr Clennam, I am +quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and myself, I know I may +be. I was so, when I first saw you making the mistake of not leaving us +alone; because I perceived that you were inexperienced and sanguine, and +had--I hope you’ll not object to my saying--some simplicity?’ + +‘Not at all.’ + +‘Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went out +of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I never am +official when I can help it) something to the effect that if I were you, +I wouldn’t bother myself. However, you did bother yourself, and you have +since bothered yourself. Now, don’t do it any more.’ + +‘I am not likely to have the opportunity,’ said Clennam. + +‘Oh yes, you are! You’ll leave here. Everybody leaves here. There are no +ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don’t come back to us. That entreaty +is the second object of my call. Pray, don’t come back to us. Upon my +honour,’ said Ferdinand in a very friendly and confiding way, ‘I shall +be greatly vexed if you don’t take warning by the past and keep away +from us.’ + +‘And the invention?’ said Clennam. + +‘My good fellow,’ returned Ferdinand, ‘if you’ll excuse the freedom of +that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and nobody +cares twopence-halfpenny about it.’ + +‘Nobody in the Office, that is to say?’ + +‘Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any +invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone. +You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the +Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don’t be bored by it) tends +to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,’ said the sprightly young +Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, ‘our place is not a wicked Giant to +be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill showing you, as it grinds +immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind blows.’ + +‘If I could believe that,’ said Clennam, ‘it would be a dismal prospect +for all of us.’ + +‘Oh! Don’t say so!’ returned Ferdinand. ‘It’s all right. We must have +humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn’t get on without humbug. A little +humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if you leave it +alone.’ + +With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising +Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of +watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand +rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous +bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the +circumstances of his visit. + +‘Is it fair to ask,’ he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a real +feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour, ‘whether it +is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of this passing +inconvenience?’ + +‘I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.’ + +‘He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,’ said Ferdinand +Barnacle. + +Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased, was +silent. + +‘A consummate rascal, of course,’ said Ferdinand, ‘but remarkably +clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such a +master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so completely--did +so much with them!’ + +In his easy way, he was really moved to genuine admiration. + +‘I hope,’ said Arthur, ‘that he and his dupes may be a warning to people +not to have so much done with them again.’ + +‘My dear Mr Clennam,’ returned Ferdinand, laughing, ‘have you really +such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity and as +genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardon me, but +I think you really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the +beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete manual of +governing them. When they can be got to believe that the kettle is made +of the precious metals, in that fact lies the whole power of men like +our late lamented. No doubt there are here and there,’ said Ferdinand +politely, ‘exceptional cases, where people have been taken in for what +appeared to them to be much better reasons; and I need not go far to +find such a case; but they don’t invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope +that when I have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud +will have given place to sunshine. Don’t come a step beyond the door. I +know the way out perfectly. Good day!’ + +With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went +down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in the +front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his noble +kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could triumphantly +answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to question the Nobs about +their statesmanship. + +He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two +afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an +elderly Phoebus. + +‘How do you do to-day, sir?’ said Mr Rugg. ‘Is there any little thing I +can do for you to-day, sir?’ + +‘No, I thank you.’ + +Mr Rugg’s enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper’s +enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman’s enjoyment of a +heavy wash, or a dustman’s enjoyment of an overflowing dust-bin, or any +other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of business. + +‘I still look round, from time to time, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, cheerfully, +‘to see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating at the gate. +They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we could have +expected.’ + +He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of +congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a +little. + +‘As thick,’ repeated Mr Rugg, ‘as we could reasonably have expected. +Quite a shower-bath of ‘em. I don’t often intrude upon you now, when I +look round, because I know you are not inclined for company, and that if +you wished to see me, you would leave word in the Lodge. But I am here +pretty well every day, sir. Would this be an unseasonable time, sir,’ +asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, ‘for me to offer an observation?’ + +‘As seasonable a time as any other.’ + +‘Hum! Public opinion, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘has been busy with you.’ + +‘I don’t doubt it.’ + +‘Might it not be advisable, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, ‘now +to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to public opinion? +We all do it in one way or another. The fact is, we must do it.’ + +‘I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business to +expect that I ever shall.’ + +‘Don’t say that, sir, don’t say that. The cost of being moved to the +Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is strong that +you ought to be there, why--really--’ + +‘I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,’ said Arthur, ‘that my +determination to remain here was a matter of taste.’ + +‘Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That’s the +Question.’ Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite pathetic. +‘I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is an extensive +affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man can come for a +pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping. It is not in keeping. +I can’t tell you, sir, in how many quarters I heard it mentioned. I +heard comments made upon it last night in a Parlour frequented by what +I should call, if I did not look in there now and then myself, the best +legal company--I heard, there, comments on it that I was sorry to hear. +They hurt me on your account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My +daughter (but a woman, you’ll say: yet still with a feeling for these +things, and even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff +in Rugg and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great +surprise. Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of +us can quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn’t a trifling +concession to that opinion be--Come, sir,’ said Rugg, ‘I will put it on +the lowest ground of argument, and say, Amiable?’ + +Arthur’s thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and the +question remained unanswered. + +‘As to myself, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had reduced +him to a state of indecision, ‘it is a principle of mine not to consider +myself when a client’s inclinations are in the scale. But, knowing your +considerate character and general wish to oblige, I will repeat that I +should prefer your being in the Bench. Your case has made a noise; it +is a creditable case to be professionally concerned in; I should feel on +a better standing with my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don’t +let that influence you, sir. I merely state the fact.’ + +So errant had the prisoner’s attention already grown in solitude and +dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only one +silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to shake +off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall the thread +of his talk, and hurriedly say, ‘I am unchanged, and unchangeable, in my +decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!’ Mr Rugg, without concealing that +he was nettled and mortified, replied: + +‘Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record, sir, I am +aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I hear it remarked +in several companies, and in very good company, that however worthy of a +foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an Englishman to remain in +the Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of his island home admit +of his removal to the Bench, I thought I would depart from the narrow +professional line marked out to me, and mention it. Personally,’ said Mr +Rugg, ‘I have no opinion on the topic.’ + +‘That’s well,’ returned Arthur. + +‘Oh! None at all, sir!’ said Mr Rugg. ‘If I had, I should have been +unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in this +place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse. But it was +not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be now empowered to +mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of military exterior at +present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never intended to +remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a superior abode. But my +course as a professional machine is clear; I have nothing to do with it. +Is it your good pleasure to see the gentleman, sir?’ + +‘Who is waiting to see me, did you say?’ + +‘I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was your +professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited +function was performed. Happily,’ said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, ‘I did not +so far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman for his name.’ + +‘I suppose I have no resource but to see him,’ sighed Clennam, wearily. + +‘Then it _is_ your good pleasure, sir?’ retorted Rugg. ‘Am I honoured by +your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as I pass out? I +am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.’ His leave he took accordingly, in +dudgeon. + +The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened Clennam’s +curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a half-forgetfulness +of such a visitor’s having been referred to, was already creeping over +it as a part of the sombre veil which almost always dimmed it now, when +a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused him. It appeared to ascend them, +not very promptly or spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and +clatter meant to be insulting. As it paused for a moment on the +landing outside his door, he could not recall his association with the +peculiarity of its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment +was given him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open +by a thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of +many anxieties. + +‘Salve, fellow jail-bird!’ said he. ‘You want me, it seems. Here I am!’ + +Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, Cavalletto +followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed Cavalletto. Neither of +the two had been there since its present occupant had had possession of +it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard, sidled near the window, put his hat on +the ground, stirred his hair up with both hands, and folded his arms, +like a man who had come to a pause in a hard day’s work. Mr Baptist, +never taking his eyes from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on +the floor with his back against the door and one of his ankles in +each hand: resuming the attitude (except that it was now expressive of +unwinking watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the +deeper shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles. + +‘I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen,’ said Monsieur +Blandois, otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, ‘that you want me, +brother-bird. Here I am!’ + +Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was +turned up by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, +without removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging +with his hands in his pockets. + +‘You villain of ill-omen!’ said Arthur. ‘You have purposely cast a +dreadful suspicion upon my mother’s house. Why have you done it? +What prompted you to the devilish invention?’ + +Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed. ‘Hear this +noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this creature of Virtue! But +take care, take care. It is possible, my friend, that your ardour is a +little compromising. Holy Blue! It is possible.’ + +‘Signore!’ interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: ‘for to +commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him, Rigaud; is +it not?’ + +‘It is the truth.’ + +‘I go, consequentementally,’--it would have given Mrs Plornish great +concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional lengthening +of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his English,--‘first +among my countrymen. I ask them what news in Londra, of foreigners +arrived. Then I go among the French. Then I go among the Germans. They +all tell me. The great part of us know well the other, and they all tell +me. But!--no person can tell me nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,’ +said Cavalletto, thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers +spread, and doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly +follow the action, ‘I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners; +and fifteen times,’ repeating the same swift performance, ‘they know +nothing. But!--’ + +At this significant Italian rest on the word ‘But,’ his backhanded shake +of his right forefinger came into play; a very little, and very +cautiously. + +‘But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that he +is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white +hair--hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives retired +secrettementally, in a certain place. But!--’ with another rest upon +the word, ‘who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and smokes. It is +necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know, poor people), to +have patience. I have patience. I ask where is this certain place. One. +believes it is here, one believes it is there. Eh well! It is not here, +it is not there. I wait patientissamentally. At last I find it. Then I +watch; then I hide, until he walks and smokes. He is a soldier with grey +hair--But!--’ a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from +side to side of the back-handed forefinger--‘he is also this man that +you see.’ + +It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who had +been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even then +bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus pointing +him out. + +‘Eh well, Signore!’ he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur again. ‘I +waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to Signor Panco,’ an +air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this designation, ‘to come and +help. I showed him, Rigaud, at his window, to Signor Panco, who was +often the spy in the day. I slept at night near the door of the house. +At last we entered, only this to-day, and now you see him! As he would +not come up in presence of the illustrious Advocate,’ such was Mr +Baptist’s honourable mention of Mr Rugg, ‘we waited down below there, +together, and Signor Panco guarded the street.’ + +At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the impudent +and wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over the moustache +and the moustache went up under the nose. When nose and moustache had +settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud loudly snapped his +fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to jerk the snaps at Arthur, +as if they were palpable missiles which he jerked into his face. + +‘Now, Philosopher!’ said Rigaud. ‘What do you want with me?’ + +‘I want to know,’ returned Arthur, without disguising his abhorrence, +‘how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my mother’s house?’ + +‘Dare!’ cried Rigaud. ‘Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare? By Heaven, my +small boy, but you are a little imprudent!’ + +‘I want that suspicion to be cleared away,’ said Arthur. ‘You shall +be taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know, moreover, +what business you had there when I had a burning desire to fling you +down-stairs. Don’t frown at me, man! I have seen enough of you to know +that you are a bully and coward. I need no revival of my spirits from +the effects of this wretched place to tell you so plain a fact, and one +that you know so well.’ + +White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, ‘By Heaven, +my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady, your +respectable mother’--and seemed for a minute undecided how to act. +His indecision was soon gone. He sat himself down with a threatening +swagger, and said: + +‘Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of your +madmen to get me a bottle of wine. I won’t talk to you without wine. +Come! Yes or no?’ + +‘Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,’ said Arthur, scornfully, +producing the money. + +‘Contraband beast,’ added Rigaud, ‘bring Port wine! I’ll drink nothing +but Porto-Porto.’ + +The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his +significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post at +the door, Signor Panco offered his services. He soon returned with the +bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the place, originating +in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians (in common with a +scarcity of much else), was already opened for use. + +‘Madman! A large glass,’ said Rigaud. + +Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible conflict of +feeling on the question of throwing it at his head. + +‘Haha!’ boasted Rigaud. ‘Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. +A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What +the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It’s a part of my +character to be waited on!’ + +He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the contents +when he had done saying it. + +‘Hah!’ smacking his lips. ‘Not a very old prisoner _that_! I judge by +your looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood much +sooner than it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing--losing body +and colour already. I salute you!’ + +He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and +afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand. + +‘To business,’ he then continued. ‘To conversation. You have shown +yourself more free of speech than body, sir.’ + +‘I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself to be. +You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than that.’ + +‘Add, always a gentleman, and it’s no matter. Except in that regard, we +are all alike. For example: you couldn’t for your life be a gentleman; +I couldn’t for my life be otherwise. How great the difference! Let us go +on. Words, sir, never influence the course of the cards, or the course +of the dice. Do you know that? You do? I also play a game, and words are +without power over it.’ + +Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story was +known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and faced it out, +with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was. + +‘No, my son,’ he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. ‘I play my game +to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death of my Soul! +I’ll win it. You want to know why I played this little trick that +you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and that I have--do you +understand me? have--a commodity to sell to my lady your respectable +mother. I described my precious commodity, and fixed my price. Touching +the bargain, your admirable mother was a little too calm, too stolid, +too immovable and statue-like. In fine, your admirable mother vexed me. +To make variety in my position, and to amuse myself--what! a gentleman +must be amused at somebody’s expense!--I conceived the happy idea of +disappearing. An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my +Flintwinch would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, +bah, bah, don’t look as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well enough +pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts ravished. How +strongly will you have it?’ + +He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they nearly +spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to him anew. He +set down his glass and said: + +‘I’ll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you +Cavalletto, and fill!’ + +The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud, +and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out +from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did so, of his old +submission with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that +with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in +an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary +eye upon him); and the easy yielding of all to a good-natured, careless, +predominant propensity to sit down on the ground again: formed a very +remarkable combination of character. + +‘This happy idea, brave sir,’ Rigaud resumed after drinking, ‘was a +happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your dear +mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a lesson +in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all the amiable +persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man to fear. By +Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might have restored her wit +to my lady your mother--might, under the pressing little suspicion your +wisdom has recognised, have persuaded her at last to announce, covertly, +in the journals, that the difficulties of a certain contract would be +removed by the appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps +yes, perhaps no. But that, you have interrupted. Now, what is it you +say? What is it you want?’ + +Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in bonds, +than when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany him to his +mother’s house. All the undiscernible difficulties and dangers he had +ever feared were closing in, when he could not stir hand or foot. + +‘Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you +will; perhaps,’ said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of his +glass with his horrible smile, ‘you would have done better to leave me +alone?’ + +‘No! At least,’ said Clennam, ‘you are known to be alive and unharmed. +At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and they can +produce you before any public authorities, or before hundreds of +people!’ + +‘But will not produce me before one,’ said Rigaud, snapping his +fingers again with an air of triumphant menace. ‘To the Devil with your +witnesses! To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil with yourself! +What! Do I know what I know, for that? Have I my commodity on sale, for +that? Bah, poor debtor! You have interrupted my little project. Let it +pass. How then? What remains? To you, nothing; to me, all. Produce +_me_! Is that what you want? I will produce myself, only too quickly. +Contrabandist! Give me pen, ink, and paper.’ + +Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his +former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling, +wrote, and read aloud, as follows: + + +‘To MRS CLENNAM. + +‘Wait answer. + +‘Prison of the Marshalsea. +‘At the apartment of your son. + +‘Dear Madam, + +‘I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner here +(who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living for politic +reasons in retirement), that you have had fears for my safety. + +‘Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and constant. + +‘With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that I +foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will not +yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I have had +the honour to submit to you. I name one week from this day, for a last +final visit on my part; when you will unconditionally accept it or +reject it, with its train of consequences. + +‘I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting +business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details to +our perfect mutual satisfaction. + +‘In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner having +deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and nourishment +at an hotel shall be paid by you. + +‘Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most distinguished +consideration, + + ‘RIGAUD BLANDOIS. + +‘A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch. + +‘I kiss the hands of Madame F.’ + + +When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it with +a flourish at Clennam’s feet. ‘Hola you! Apropos of producing, let +somebody produce that at its address, and produce the answer here.’ + +‘Cavalletto,’ said Arthur. ‘Will you take this fellow’s letter?’ + +But, Cavalletto’s significant finger again expressing that his post was +at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him with so much +trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on the floor backed up +by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his own ankles,--Signor Panco +once more volunteered. His services being accepted, Cavalletto suffered +the door to open barely wide enough to admit of his squeezing himself +out, and immediately shut it on him. + +‘Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my +superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,’ said Rigaud, +‘and I follow the letter and cancel my week’s grace. _You_ wanted me? You +have got me! How do you like me?’ + +‘You know,’ returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his helplessness, +‘that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.’ + +‘To the Devil with you and your prison,’ retorted Rigaud, leisurely, +as he took from his pocket a case containing the materials for making +cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in folding a few for present +use; ‘I care for neither of you. Contrabandist! A light.’ + +Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had been +something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white hands, with +the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over another like +serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from shuddering inwardly, as +if he had been looking on at a nest of those creatures. + +‘Hola, Pig!’ cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if +Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule. ‘What! The infernal old jail +was a respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars and stones +of that place. It was a prison for men. But this? Bah! A hospital for +imbeciles!’ + +He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his face +that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping beak of a +nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird picture. When +he had lighted a second cigarette at the still burning end of the first, +he said to Clennam: + +‘One must pass the time in the madman’s absence. One must talk. One +can’t drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another bottle. +She’s handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste, still, by +the Thunder and the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate you on your +admiration.’ + +‘I neither know nor ask,’ said Clennam, ‘of whom you speak.’ + +‘Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan, the fair +Gowan.’ + +‘Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?’ + +‘Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend.’ + +‘Do you sell all your friends?’ + +Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a momentary +revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips again, as he +answered with coolness: + +‘I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live, your +politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How do you live? +How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady of mine! I rather +think, yes!’ + +Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking out at +the wall. + +‘Effectively, sir,’ said Rigaud, ‘Society sells itself and sells me: and +I sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with another lady. Also +handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How do they call her? Wade.’ + +He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the +mark. + +‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses me in +the street, and I am not insensible. I respond. That handsome lady and +strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in full confidence, “I have +my curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You are not more than ordinarily +honourable, perhaps?” I announce myself, “Madame, a gentleman from +the birth, and a gentleman to the death; but _not_ more than ordinarily +honourable. I despise such a weak fantasy.” Thereupon she is pleased to +compliment. “The difference between you and the rest is,” she answers, +“that you say so.” For she knows Society. I accept her congratulations +with gallantry and politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are +inseparable from my character. She then makes a proposition, which is, +in effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears to her +that I am for the passing time the cat of the house, the friend of +the family; that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken the fancy to be +acquainted with their movements, to know the manner of their life, how +the fair Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana is cherished, and so +on. She is not rich, but offers such and such little recompenses for the +little cares and derangements of such services; and I graciously--to do +everything graciously is a part of my character--consent to accept them. +O yes! So goes the world. It is the mode.’ + +Though Clennam’s back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the +end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too +near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the +head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness from clause to clause +of what he said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not +already know. + +‘Whoof! The fair Gowana!’ he said, lighting a third cigarette with a +sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away. ‘Charming, but +imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make mysteries of +letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the mountain, that her +husband might not see them. No, no. That was not well. Whoof! The Gowana +was mistaken there.’ + +‘I earnestly hope,’ cried Arthur aloud, ‘that Pancks may not be long +gone, for this man’s presence pollutes the room.’ + +‘Ah! But he’ll flourish here, and everywhere,’ said Rigaud, with an +exulting look and snap of his fingers. ‘He always has; he always will!’ +Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides +that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the +gallant personage of the song. + + + ‘Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay! + + +‘Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail. Sing +it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I’ll be affronted and +compromising; and then some people who are not dead yet, had better have +been stoned along with them!’ + + + ‘Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Of all the king’s knights ‘tis the flower, + Always gay!’ + + +Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing it +might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do +it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. Rigaud +laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut. + +Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks’s step was +heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam insupportably +long. His step was attended by another step; and when Cavalletto opened +the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch. The latter was no +sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and embraced him boisterously. + +‘How do you find yourself, sir?’ said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he could +disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little ceremony. +‘Thank you, no; I don’t want any more.’ This was in reference to another +menace of attention from his recovered friend. ‘Well, Arthur. You +remember what I said to you about sleeping dogs and missing ones. It’s +come true, you see.’ + +He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his head +in a moralising way as he looked round the room. + +‘And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘Hah! +you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market, Arthur.’ + +If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little Flintwinch, +with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat, and cried: + +‘To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to the +Devil with the Pig-Driver! Now! Give me the answer to my letter.’ + +‘If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,’ returned Mr +Flintwinch, ‘I’ll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have for +him.’ + +He did so. It was in his mother’s maimed writing, on a slip of paper, +and contained only these words: + + +‘I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented +without more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and +representative. Your affectionate M. C.’ + + +Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces. Rigaud +in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on the back with +his feet upon the seat. + +‘Now, Beau Flintwinch,’ he said, when he had closely watched the note to +its destruction, ‘the answer to my letter?’ + +‘Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped, +and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.’ Mr Flintwinch +screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily. ‘She sends +her compliments, and says she doesn’t on the whole wish to term +you unreasonable, and that she agrees. But without prejudicing the +appointment that stands for this day week.’ + +Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended from +his throne, saying, ‘Good! I go to seek an hotel!’ But, there his eyes +encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post. + +‘Come, Pig,’ he added, ‘I have had you for a follower against my will; +now, I’ll have you against yours. I tell you, my little reptiles, I +am born to be served. I demand the service of this contrabandist as my +domestic until this day week.’ + +In answer to Cavalletto’s look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign +to go; but he added aloud, ‘unless you are afraid of him.’ Cavalletto +replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.’No, master, I am not +afraid of him, when I no more keep it secrettementally that he was once +my comrade.’ Rigaud took no notice of either remark until he had lighted +his last cigarette and was quite ready for walking. + +‘Afraid of him,’ he said then, looking round upon them all. ‘Whoof! My +children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all afraid of him. You +give him his bottle of wine here; you give him meat, drink, and lodging +there; you dare not touch him with a finger or an epithet. No. It is his +character to triumph! Whoof! + + + ‘Of all the king’s knights he’s the flower, + And he’s always gay!’ + + +With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of the +room closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had pressed into +his service because he tolerably well knew it would not be easy to get +rid of him. Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his chin, and looking about +with caustic disparagement of the Pig-Market, nodded to Arthur, and +followed. Mr Pancks, still penitent and depressed, followed too; after +receiving with great attention a secret word or two of instructions from +Arthur, and whispering back that he would see this affair out, and stand +by it to the end. The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more +despised, more scorned and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more +miserable and fallen than before, was left alone again. + + + + +CHAPTER 29. A Plea in the Marshalsea + + +Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up with. +Brooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, will not +arm a man against misery. Next morning, Clennam felt that his health was +sinking, as his spirits had already sunk and that the weight under which +he bent was bearing him down. + +Night after night he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at twelve or +one o’clock, and had sat at his window watching the sickly lamps in the +yard, and looking upward for the first wan trace of day, hours before it +was possible that the sky could show it to him. Now when the night came, +he could not even persuade himself to undress. + +For a burning restlessness set in, an agonised impatience of the prison, +and a conviction that he was going to break his heart and die there, +which caused him indescribable suffering. His dread and hatred of the +place became so intense that he felt it a labour to draw his breath in +it. The sensation of being stifled sometimes so overpowered him, that +he would stand at the window holding his throat and gasping. At the +same time a longing for other air, and a yearning to be beyond the blind +blank wall, made him feel as if he must go mad with the ardour of the +desire. + +Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before him, +and its violence and continuity had worn themselves out in their cases, +as they did in his. Two nights and a day exhausted it. It came back by +fits, but those grew fainter and returned at lengthening intervals. A +desolate calm succeeded; and the middle of the week found him settled +down in the despondency of low, slow fever. + +With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr and +Mrs Plornish. His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, was that +they should not come near him; for, in the morbid state of his nerves, +he sought to be left alone, and spared the being seen so subdued and +weak. He wrote a note to Mrs Plornish representing himself as occupied +with his affairs, and bound by the necessity of devoting himself to +them, to remain for a time even without the pleasant interruption of +a sight of her kind face. As to Young John, who looked in daily at a +certain hour, when the turnkeys were relieved, to ask if he could do +anything for him; he always made a pretence of being engaged in writing, +and to answer cheerfully in the negative. The subject of their only +long conversation had never been revived between them. Through all these +changes of unhappiness, however, it had never lost its hold on Clennam’s +mind. + +The sixth day of the appointed week was a moist, hot, misty day. It +seemed as though the prison’s poverty, and shabbiness, and dirt, were +growing in the sultry atmosphere. With an aching head and a weary heart, +Clennam had watched the miserable night out, listening to the fall of +rain on the yard pavement, thinking of its softer fall upon the country +earth. A blurred circle of yellow haze had risen up in the sky in lieu +of sun, and he had watched the patch it put upon his wall, like a bit of +the prison’s raggedness. He had heard the gates open; and the badly shod +feet that waited outside shuffle in; and the sweeping, and pumping, +and moving about, begin, which commenced the prison morning. So ill and +faint that he was obliged to rest many times in the process of getting +himself washed, he had at length crept to his chair by the open window. +In it he sat dozing, while the old woman who arranged his room went +through her morning’s work. + +Light of head with want of sleep and want of food (his appetite, and +even his sense of taste, having forsaken him), he had been two or three +times conscious, in the night, of going astray. He had heard fragments +of tunes and songs in the warm wind, which he knew had no existence. +Now that he began to doze in exhaustion, he heard them again; and voices +seemed to address him, and he answered, and started. + +Dozing and dreaming, without the power of reckoning time, so that +a minute might have been an hour and an hour a minute, some abiding +impression of a garden stole over him--a garden of flowers, with a +damp warm wind gently stirring their scents. It required such a painful +effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into this, or +inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to have become +quite an old and importunate one when he looked round. Beside the +tea-cup on his table he saw, then, a blooming nosegay: a wonderful +handful of the choicest and most lovely flowers. + +Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight. He took them up and +inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put +them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold hands are opened +to receive the cheering of a fire. It was not until he had delighted in +them for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his +door to ask the woman who must have put them there, how they had come +into her hands. But she was gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for +the tea she had left for him on the table was cold. He tried to drink +some, but could not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair +by the open window, and put the flowers on the little round table of +old. + +When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left him, +he subsided into his former state. One of the night-tunes was playing +in the wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a light touch, +and, after a moment’s pause, a quiet figure seemed to stand there, with +a black mantle on it. It seemed to draw the mantle off and drop it on +the ground, and then it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn +dress. It seemed to tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and +to burst into tears. + +He roused himself, and cried out. And then he saw, in the loving, +pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; and +she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him +in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with +her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as +the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a +living presence, called him by his name. + +‘O, my best friend! Dear Mr Clennam, don’t let me see you weep! Unless +you weep with pleasure to see me. I hope you do. Your own poor child +come back!’ + +So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune. In the sound of her +voice, in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so +Angelically comforting and true! + +As he embraced her, she said to him, ‘They never told me you were ill,’ +and drawing an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon her bosom, +put a hand upon his head, and resting her cheek upon that hand, nursed +him as lovingly, and GOD knows as innocently, as she had nursed her +father in that room when she had been but a baby, needing all the care +from others that she took of them. + +When he could speak, he said, ‘Is it possible that you have come to me? +And in this dress?’ + +‘I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other. I have +always kept it by me, to remind me: though I wanted no reminding. I am +not alone, you see. I have brought an old friend with me.’ + +Looking round, he saw Maggy in her big cap which had been long +abandoned, with a basket on her arm as in the bygone days, chuckling +rapturously. + +‘It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my brother. +I sent round to Mrs Plornish almost as soon as we arrived, that I might +hear of you and let you know I had come. Then I heard that you were +here. Did you happen to think of me in the night? I almost believe you +must have thought of me a little. I thought of you so anxiously, and it +appeared so long to morning.’ + +‘I have thought of you--’ he hesitated what to call her. She perceived +it in an instant. + +‘You have not spoken to me by my right name yet. You know what my right +name always is with you.’ + +‘I have thought of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every +minute, since I have been here.’ + +‘Have you? Have you?’ + +He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled in +it, with a feeling of shame. He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, dishonoured +prisoner. + +‘I was here before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to come +straight to you. I should have done you more harm than good, at first; +for the prison was so familiar and yet so strange, and it brought back +so many remembrances of my poor father, and of you too, that at first +it overpowered me. But we went to Mr Chivery before we came to the gate, +and he brought us in, and got John’s room for us--my poor old room, you +know--and we waited there a little. I brought the flowers to the door, +but you didn’t hear me.’ + +She looked something more womanly than when she had gone away, and the +ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible upon her face. But, +otherwise, she was quite unchanged. The same deep, timid earnestness +that he had always seen in her, and never without emotion, he saw still. +If it had a new meaning that smote him to the heart, the change was in +his perception, not in her. + +She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and noiselessly +began, with Maggy’s help, to make his room as fresh and neat as it could +be made, and to sprinkle it with a pleasant-smelling water. When that +was done, the basket, which was filled with grapes and other fruit, +was unpacked, and all its contents were quietly put away. When that was +done, a moment’s whisper despatched Maggy to despatch somebody else to +fill the basket again; which soon came back replenished with new +stores, from which a present provision of cooling drink and jelly, and +a prospective supply of roast chicken and wine and water, were the first +extracts. These various arrangements completed, she took out her old +needle-case to make him a curtain for his window; and thus, with a quiet +reigning in the room, that seemed to diffuse itself through the else +noisy prison, he found himself composed in his chair, with Little Dorrit +working at his side. + +To see the modest head again bent down over its task, and the nimble +fingers busy at their old work--though she was not so absorbed in it, +but that her compassionate eyes were often raised to his face, and, when +they drooped again had tears in them--to be so consoled and comforted, +and to believe that all the devotion of this great nature was turned to +him in his adversity to pour out its inexhaustible wealth of goodness +upon him, did not steady Clennam’s trembling voice or hand, or +strengthen him in his weakness. Yet it inspired him with an inward +fortitude, that rose with his love. And how dearly he loved her now, +what words can tell! + +As they sat side by side in the shadow of the wall, the shadow fell like +light upon him. She would not let him speak much, and he lay back in +his chair, looking at her. Now and again she would rise and give him +the glass that he might drink, or would smooth the resting-place of his +head; then she would gently resume her seat by him, and bend over her +work again. + +The shadow moved with the sun, but she never moved from his side, except +to wait upon him. The sun went down and she was still there. She had +done her work now, and her hand, faltering on the arm of his chair since +its last tending of him, was hesitating there yet. He laid his hand upon +it, and it clasped him with a trembling supplication. + +‘Dear Mr Clennam, I must say something to you before I go. I have put it +off from hour to hour, but I must say it.’ + +‘I too, dear Little Dorrit. I have put off what I must say.’ + +She nervously moved her hand towards his lips as if to stop him; then it +dropped, trembling, into its former place. + +‘I am not going abroad again. My brother is, but I am not. He was always +attached to me, and he is so grateful to me now--so much too grateful, +for it is only because I happened to be with him in his illness--that +he says I shall be free to stay where I like best, and to do what I like +best. He only wishes me to be happy, he says.’ + +There was one bright star shining in the sky. She looked up at it while +she spoke, as if it were the fervent purpose of her own heart shining +above her. + +‘You will understand, I dare say, without my telling you, that my +brother has come home to find my dear father’s will, and to take +possession of his property. He says, if there is a will, he is sure I +shall be left rich; and if there is none, that he will make me so.’ + +He would have spoken; but she put up her trembling hand again, and he +stopped. + +‘I have no use for money, I have no wish for it. It would be of no value +at all to me but for your sake. I could not be rich, and you here. I +must always be much worse than poor, with you distressed. Will you let +me lend you all I have? Will you let me give it you? Will you let me +show you that I have never forgotten, that I never can forget, your +protection of me when this was my home? Dear Mr Clennam, make me of all +the world the happiest, by saying Yes? Make me as happy as I can be in +leaving you here, by saying nothing to-night, and letting me go +away with the hope that you will think of it kindly; and that for my +sake--not for yours, for mine, for nobody’s but mine!--you will give me +the greatest joy I can experience on earth, the joy of knowing that I +have been serviceable to you, and that I have paid some little of the +great debt of my affection and gratitude. I can’t say what I wish to +say. I can’t visit you here where I have lived so long, I can’t think of +you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and comforting as I +ought. My tears will make their way. I cannot keep them back. But +pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little Dorrit, now, in your +affliction! Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and implore you with all my +grieving heart, my friend--my dear!--take all I have, and make it a +Blessing to me!’ + +The star had shone on her face until now, when her face sank upon his +hand and her own. + +It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and softly +answered her. + +‘No, darling Little Dorrit. No, my child. I must not hear of such a +sacrifice. Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a price, +that I could never support their weight, never bear the reproach of +possessing them. But with what ardent thankfulness and love I say this, +I may call Heaven to witness!’ + +‘And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your affliction?’ + +‘Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to you. +If, in the bygone days when this was your home and when this was your +dress, I had understood myself (I speak only of myself) better, and +had read the secrets of my own breast more distinctly; if, through my +reserve and self-mistrust, I had discerned a light that I see brightly +now when it has passed far away, and my weak footsteps can never +overtake it; if I had then known, and told you that I loved and honoured +you, not as the poor child I used to call you, but as a woman whose +true hand would raise me high above myself and make me a far happier and +better man; if I had so used the opportunity there is no recalling--as +I wish I had, O I wish I had!--and if something had kept us apart then, +when I was moderately thriving, and when you were poor; I might have met +your noble offer of your fortune, dearest girl, with other words than +these, and still have blushed to touch it. But, as it is, I must never +touch it, never!’ + +She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little +supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words. + +‘I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit. I must not descend so low as +that, and carry you--so dear, so generous, so good--down with me. GOD +bless you, GOD reward you! It is past.’ + +He took her in his arms, as if she had been his daughter. + +‘Always so much older, so much rougher, and so much less worthy, even +what I was must be dismissed by both of us, and you must see me only as +I am. I put this parting kiss upon your cheek, my child--who might have +been more near to me, who never could have been more dear--a ruined man +far removed from you, for ever separated from you, whose course is +run while yours is but beginning. I have not the courage to ask to be +forgotten by you in my humiliation; but I ask to be remembered only as I +am.’ + +The bell began to ring, warning visitors to depart. He took her mantle +from the wall, and tenderly wrapped it round her. + +‘One other word, my Little Dorrit. A hard one to me, but it is a +necessary one. The time when you and this prison had anything in common +has long gone by. Do you understand?’ + +‘O! you will never say to me,’ she cried, weeping bitterly, and holding +up her clasped hands in entreaty, ‘that I am not to come back any more! +You will surely not desert me so!’ + +‘I would say it, if I could; but I have not the courage quite to shut +out this dear face, and abandon all hope of its return. But do not come +soon, do not come often! This is now a tainted place, and I well know +the taint of it clings to me. You belong to much brighter and better +scenes. You are not to look back here, my Little Dorrit; you are to look +away to very different and much happier paths. Again, GOD bless you in +them! GOD reward you!’ + +Maggy, who had fallen into very low spirits, here cried, ‘Oh get him +into a hospital; do get him into a hospital, Mother! He’ll never look +like hisself again, if he an’t got into a hospital. And then the little +woman as was always a spinning at her wheel, she can go to the cupboard +with the Princess, and say, what do you keep the Chicking there for? and +then they can take it out and give it to him, and then all be happy!’ + +The interruption was seasonable, for the bell had nearly rung itself +out. Again tenderly wrapping her mantle about her, and taking her on his +arm (though, but for her visit, he was almost too weak to walk), Arthur +led Little Dorrit down-stairs. She was the last visitor to pass out at +the Lodge, and the gate jarred heavily and hopelessly upon her. + +With the funeral clang that it sounded into Arthur’s heart, his sense of +weakness returned. It was a toilsome journey up-stairs to his room, and +he re-entered its dark solitary precincts in unutterable misery. + +When it was almost midnight, and the prison had long been quiet, a +cautious creak came up the stairs, and a cautious tap of a key was given +at his door. It was Young John. He glided in, in his stockings, and held +the door closed, while he spoke in a whisper. + +‘It’s against all rules, but I don’t mind. I was determined to come +through, and come to you.’ + +‘What is the matter?’ + +‘Nothing’s the matter, sir. I was waiting in the court-yard for Miss +Dorrit when she came out. I thought you’d like some one to see that she +was safe.’ + +‘Thank you, thank you! You took her home, John?’ + +‘I saw her to her hotel. The same that Mr Dorrit was at. Miss Dorrit +walked all the way, and talked to me so kind, it quite knocked me over. +Why do you think she walked instead of riding?’ + +‘I don’t know, John.’ + +‘To talk about you. She said to me, “John, you was always honourable, +and if you’ll promise me that you will take care of him, and never let +him want for help and comfort when I am not there, my mind will be at +rest so far.” I promised her. And I’ll stand by you,’ said John Chivery, +‘for ever!’ + +Clennam, much affected, stretched out his hand to this honest spirit. + +‘Before I take it,’ said John, looking at it, without coming from the +door, ‘guess what message Miss Dorrit gave me.’ + +Clennam shook his head. + +‘“Tell him,”’ repeated John, in a distinct, though quavering voice, +‘“that his Little Dorrit sent him her undying love.” Now it’s delivered. +Have I been honourable, sir?’ + +‘Very, very!’ + +‘Will you tell Miss Dorrit I’ve been honourable, sir?’ + +‘I will indeed.’ + +‘There’s my hand, sir,’ said John, ‘and I’ll stand by you forever!’ + +After a hearty squeeze, he disappeared with the same cautious creak upon +the stair, crept shoeless over the pavement of the yard, and, locking +the gates behind him, passed out into the front where he had left his +shoes. If the same way had been paved with burning ploughshares, it is +not at all improbable that John would have traversed it with the same +devotion, for the same purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER 30. Closing in + + +The last day of the appointed week touched the bars of the Marshalsea +gate. Black, all night, since the gate had clashed upon Little Dorrit, +its iron stripes were turned by the early-glowing sun into stripes of +gold. Far aslant across the city, over its jumbled roofs, and through +the open tracery of its church towers, struck the long bright rays, bars +of the prison of this lower world. + +Throughout the day the old house within the gateway remained untroubled +by any visitors. But, when the sun was low, three men turned in at the +gateway and made for the dilapidated house. + +Rigaud was the first, and walked by himself smoking. Mr Baptist was +the second, and jogged close after him, looking at no other object. +Mr Pancks was the third, and carried his hat under his arm for the +liberation of his restive hair; the weather being extremely hot. They +all came together at the door-steps. + +‘You pair of madmen!’ said Rigaud, facing about. ‘Don’t go yet!’ + +‘We don’t mean to,’ said Mr Pancks. + +Giving him a dark glance in acknowledgment of his answer, Rigaud knocked +loudly. He had charged himself with drink, for the playing out of his +game, and was impatient to begin. He had hardly finished one long +resounding knock, when he turned to the knocker again and began another. +That was not yet finished when Jeremiah Flintwinch opened the door, and +they all clanked into the stone hall. Rigaud, thrusting Mr Flintwinch +aside, proceeded straight up-stairs. His two attendants followed him, Mr +Flintwinch followed them, and they all came trooping into Mrs Clennam’s +quiet room. It was in its usual state; except that one of the windows +was wide open, and Affery sat on its old-fashioned window-seat, mending +a stocking. The usual articles were on the little table; the usual +deadened fire was in the grate; the bed had its usual pall upon it; and +the mistress of all sat on her black bier-like sofa, propped up by her +black angular bolster that was like the headsman’s block. + +Yet there was a nameless air of preparation in the room, as if it were +strung up for an occasion. From what the room derived it--every one of +its small variety of objects being in the fixed spot it had occupied +for years--no one could have said without looking attentively at its +mistress, and that, too, with a previous knowledge of her face. Although +her unchanging black dress was in every plait precisely as of old, and +her unchanging attitude was rigidly preserved, a very slight additional +setting of her features and contraction of her gloomy forehead was so +powerfully marked, that it marked everything about her. + +‘Who are these?’ she said, wonderingly, as the two attendants entered. +‘What do these people want here?’ + +‘Who are these, dear madame, is it?’ returned Rigaud. ‘Faith, they are +friends of your son the prisoner. And what do they want here, is it? +Death, madame, I don’t know. You will do well to ask them.’ + +‘You know you told us at the door, not to go yet,’ said Pancks. + +‘And you know you told me at the door, you didn’t mean to go,’ retorted +Rigaud. ‘In a word, madame, permit me to present two spies of the +prisoner’s--madmen, but spies. If you wish them to remain here during +our little conversation, say the word. It is nothing to me.’ + +‘Why should I wish them to remain here?’ said Mrs Clennam. ‘What have I +to do with them?’ + +‘Then, dearest madame,’ said Rigaud, throwing himself into an arm-chair +so heavily that the old room trembled, ‘you will do well to dismiss +them. It is your affair. They are not my spies, not my rascals.’ + +‘Hark! You Pancks,’ said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him +angrily, ‘you Casby’s clerk! Attend to your employer’s business and your +own. Go. And take that other man with you.’ + +‘Thank you, ma’am,’ returned Mr Pancks, ‘I am glad to say I see no +objection to our both retiring. We have done all we undertook to do for +Mr Clennam. His constant anxiety has been (and it grew worse upon him +when he became a prisoner), that this agreeable gentleman should be +brought back here to the place from which he slipped away. Here he +is--brought back. And I will say,’ added Mr Pancks, ‘to his ill-looking +face, that in my opinion the world would be no worse for his slipping +out of it altogether.’ + +‘Your opinion is not asked,’ answered Mrs Clennam. ‘Go.’ + +‘I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma’am,’ said Pancks; +‘and sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can’t be present. It’s my fault, that +is.’ + +‘You mean his own,’ she returned. + +‘No, I mean mine, ma’am,’ said Pancks, ‘for it was my misfortune to lead +him into a ruinous investment.’ (Mr Pancks still clung to that word, +and never said speculation.) ‘Though I can prove by figures,’ added Mr +Pancks, with an anxious countenance, ‘that it ought to have been a good +investment. I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life, +and it comes out--regarded as a question of figures--triumphant. The +present is not a time or place,’ Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing +glance into his hat, where he kept his calculations, ‘for entering upon +the figures; but the figures are not to be disputed. Mr Clennam ought to +have been at this moment in his carriage and pair, and I ought to have +been worth from three to five thousand pound.’ + +Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence that +could hardly have been surpassed, if he had had the amount in his +pocket. These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every +moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to +afford him consolation to the end of his days. + +‘However,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘enough of that. Altro, old boy, you have +seen the figures, and you know how they come out.’ Mr Baptist, who had +not the slightest arithmetical power of compensating himself in this +way, nodded, with a fine display of bright teeth. + +At whom Mr Flintwinch had been looking, and to whom he then said: + +‘Oh! it’s you, is it? I thought I remembered your face, but I wasn’t +certain till I saw your teeth. Ah! yes, to be sure. It was this +officious refugee,’ said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, ‘who came knocking +at the door on the night when Arthur and Chatterbox were here, and who +asked me a whole Catechism of questions about Mr Blandois.’ + +‘It is true,’ Mr Baptist cheerfully admitted. ‘And behold him, padrone! +I have found him consequentementally.’ + +‘I shouldn’t have objected,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, ‘to your having +broken your neck consequentementally.’ + +‘And now,’ said Mr Pancks, whose eye had often stealthily wandered to +the window-seat and the stocking that was being mended there, ‘I’ve +only one other word to say before I go. If Mr Clennam was here--but +unfortunately, though he has so far got the better of this fine +gentleman as to return him to this place against his will, he is ill +and in prison--ill and in prison, poor fellow--if he was here,’ said Mr +Pancks, taking one step aside towards the window-seat, and laying +his right hand upon the stocking; ‘he would say, “Affery, tell your +dreams!”’ + +Mr Pancks held up his right forefinger between his nose and the stocking +with a ghostly air of warning, turned, steamed out and towed Mr Baptist +after him. The house-door was heard to close upon them, their steps +were heard passing over the dull pavement of the echoing court-yard, and +still nobody had added a word. Mrs Clennam and Jeremiah had exchanged a +look; and had then looked, and looked still, at Affery, who sat mending +the stocking with great assiduity. + +‘Come!’ said Mr Flintwinch at length, screwing himself a curve or two in +the direction of the window-seat, and rubbing the palms of his hands on +his coat-tail as if he were preparing them to do something: ‘Whatever +has to be said among us had better be begun to be said without more loss +of time.--So, Affery, my woman, take yourself away!’ + +In a moment Affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught +hold of the windowsill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the +window-seat with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand, +beating expected assailants off. + +‘No, I won’t, Jeremiah--no, I won’t--no, I won’t! I won’t go! I’ll stay +here. I’ll hear all I don’t know, and say all I know. I will, at last, +if I die for it. I will, I will, I will, I will!’ + +Mr Flintwinch, stiffening with indignation and amazement, moistened the +fingers of one hand at his lips, softly described a circle with them in +the palm of the other hand, and continued with a menacing grin to +screw himself in the direction of his wife; gasping some remark as he +advanced, of which, in his choking anger, only the words, ‘Such a dose!’ +were audible. + +‘Not a bit nearer, Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, never ceasing to beat the +air. ‘Don’t come a bit nearer to me, or I’ll rouse the neighbourhood! +I’ll throw myself out of window. I’ll scream Fire and Murder! I’ll wake +the dead! Stop where you are, or I’ll make shrieks enough to wake the +dead!’ + +The determined voice of Mrs Clennam echoed ‘Stop!’ Jeremiah had stopped +already. + +‘It is closing in, Flintwinch. Let her alone. Affery, do you turn +against me after these many years?’ + +‘I do, if it’s turning against you to hear what I don’t know, and say +what I know. I have broke out now, and I can’t go back. I am determined +to do it. I will do it, I will, I will, I will! If that’s turning +against you, yes, I turn against both of you two clever ones. I told +Arthur when he first come home to stand up against you. I told him it +was no reason, because I was afeard of my life of you, that he should +be. All manner of things have been a-going on since then, and I won’t +be run up by Jeremiah, nor yet I won’t be dazed and scared, nor made a +party to I don’t know what, no more. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! I’ll +up for Arthur when he has nothing left, and is ill, and in prison, and +can’t up for himself. I will, I will, I will, I will!’ + +‘How do you know, you heap of confusion,’ asked Mrs Clennam sternly, +‘that in doing what you are doing now, you are even serving Arthur?’ + +‘I don’t know nothing rightly about anything,’ said Affery; ‘and if +ever you said a true word in your life, it’s when you call me a heap of +confusion, for you two clever ones have done your most to make me such. +You married me whether I liked it or not, and you’ve led me, pretty well +ever since, such a life of dreaming and frightening as never was known, +and what do you expect me to be but a heap of confusion? You wanted to +make me such, and I am such; but I won’t submit no longer; no, I won’t, +I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’ She was still beating the air against all +comers. + +After gazing at her in silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud. ‘You +see and hear this foolish creature. Do you object to such a piece of +distraction remaining where she is?’ + +‘I, madame,’ he replied, ‘do I? That’s a question for you.’ + +‘I do not,’ she said, gloomily. ‘There is little left to choose now. +Flintwinch, it is closing in.’ + +Mr Flintwinch replied by directing a look of red vengeance at his wife, +and then, as if to pinion himself from falling upon her, screwed his +crossed arms into the breast of his waistcoat, and with his chin very +near one of his elbows stood in a corner, watching Rigaud in the oddest +attitude. Rigaud, for his part, arose from his chair, and seated himself +on the table with his legs dangling. In this easy attitude, he met Mrs +Clennam’s set face, with his moustache going up and his nose coming +down. + +‘Madame, I am a gentleman--’ + +‘Of whom,’ she interrupted in her steady tones, ‘I have heard +disparagement, in connection with a French jail and an accusation of +murder.’ + +He kissed his hand to her with his exaggerated gallantry. + +‘Perfectly. Exactly. Of a lady too! What absurdity! How incredible! I +had the honour of making a great success then; I hope to have the +honour of making a great success now. I kiss your hands. Madame, I am a +gentleman (I was going to observe), who when he says, “I will definitely +finish this or that affair at the present sitting,” does definitely +finish it. I announce to you that we are arrived at our last sitting on +our little business. You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?’ + +She kept her eyes fixed upon him with a frown. ‘Yes.’ + +‘Further, I am a gentleman to whom mere mercenary trade-bargains are +unknown, but to whom money is always acceptable as the means of pursuing +his pleasures. You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?’ + +‘Scarcely necessary to ask, one would say. Yes.’ + +‘Further, I am a gentleman of the softest and sweetest disposition, +but who, if trifled with, becomes enraged. Noble natures under such +circumstances become enraged. I possess a noble nature. When the lion +is awakened--that is to say, when I enrage--the satisfaction of my +animosity is as acceptable to me as money. You always do me the favour +to follow, and to comprehend?’ + +‘Yes,’ she answered, somewhat louder than before. + +‘Do not let me derange you; pray be tranquil. I have said we are now +arrived at our last sitting. Allow me to recall the two sittings we have +held.’ + +‘It is not necessary.’ + +‘Death, madame,’ he burst out, ‘it’s my fancy! Besides, it clears the +way. The first sitting was limited. I had the honour of making your +acquaintance--of presenting my letter; I am a Knight of Industry, at +your service, madame, but my polished manners had won me so much of +success, as a master of languages, among your compatriots who are as +stiff as their own starch is to one another, but are ready to relax to +a foreign gentleman of polished manners--and of observing one or two +little things,’ he glanced around the room and smiled, ‘about this +honourable house, to know which was necessary to assure me, and +to convince me that I had the distinguished pleasure of making the +acquaintance of the lady I sought. I achieved this. I gave my word +of honour to our dear Flintwinch that I would return. I gracefully +departed.’ + +Her face neither acquiesced nor demurred. The same when he paused, and +when he spoke, it as yet showed him always the one attentive frown, +and the dark revelation before mentioned of her being nerved for the +occasion. + +‘I say, gracefully departed, because it was graceful to retire without +alarming a lady. To be morally graceful, not less than physically, is +a part of the character of Rigaud Blandois. It was also politic, as +leaving you with something overhanging you, to expect me again with a +little anxiety on a day not named. But your slave is politic. By Heaven, +madame, politic! Let us return. On the day not named, I have again the +honour to render myself at your house. I intimate that I have something +to sell, which, if not bought, will compromise madame whom I highly +esteem. I explain myself generally. I demand--I think it was a thousand +pounds. Will you correct me?’ + +Thus forced to speak, she replied with constraint, ‘You demanded as much +as a thousand pounds.’ + +‘I demand at present, Two. Such are the evils of delay. But to return +once more. We are not accordant; we differ on that occasion. I am +playful; playfulness is a part of my amiable character. Playfully, I +become as one slain and hidden. For, it may alone be worth half the sum +to madame, to be freed from the suspicions that my droll idea awakens. +Accident and spies intermix themselves against my playfulness, and spoil +the fruit, perhaps--who knows? only you and Flintwinch--when it is just +ripe. Thus, madame, I am here for the last time. Listen! Definitely the +last.’ + +As he struck his straggling boot-heels against the flap of the table, +meeting her frown with an insolent gaze, he began to change his tone for +a fierce one. + +‘Bah! Stop an instant! Let us advance by steps. Here is my Hotel-note to +be paid, according to contract. Five minutes hence we may be at daggers’ +points. I’ll not leave it till then, or you’ll cheat me. Pay it! Count +me the money!’ + +‘Take it from his hand and pay it, Flintwinch,’ said Mrs Clennam. + +He spirted it into Mr Flintwinch’s face when the old man advanced to +take it, and held forth his hand, repeating noisily, ‘Pay it! Count it +out! Good money!’ Jeremiah picked the bill up, looked at the total with +a bloodshot eye, took a small canvas bag from his pocket, and told the +amount into his hand. + +Rigaud chinked the money, weighed it in his hand, threw it up a little +way and caught it, chinked it again. + +‘The sound of it, to the bold Rigaud Blandois, is like the taste of +fresh meat to the tiger. Say, then, madame. How much?’ + +He turned upon her suddenly with a menacing gesture of the weighted hand +that clenched the money, as if he were going to strike her with it. + +‘I tell you again, as I told you before, that we are not rich here, as +you suppose us to be, and that your demand is excessive. I have not the +present means of complying with such a demand, if I had ever so great an +inclination.’ + +‘If!’ cried Rigaud. ‘Hear this lady with her If! Will you say that you +have not the inclination?’ + +‘I will say what presents itself to me, and not what presents itself to +you.’ + +‘Say it then. As to the inclination. Quick! Come to the inclination, and +I know what to do.’ + +She was no quicker, and no slower, in her reply. ‘It would seem that +you have obtained possession of a paper--or of papers--which I assuredly +have the inclination to recover.’ + +Rigaud, with a loud laugh, drummed his heels against the table, and +chinked his money. ‘I think so! I believe you there!’ + +‘The paper might be worth, to me, a sum of money. I cannot say how much, +or how little.’ + +‘What the Devil!’ he asked savagely. ‘Not after a week’s grace to +consider?’ + +‘No! I will not out of my scanty means--for I tell you again, we are +poor here, and not rich--I will not offer any price for a power that I +do not know the worst and the fullest extent of. This is the third time +of your hinting and threatening. You must speak explicitly, or you may +go where you will, and do what you will. It is better to be torn to +pieces at a spring, than to be a mouse at the caprice of such a cat.’ + +He looked at her so hard with those eyes too near together that the +sinister sight of each, crossing that of the other, seemed to make the +bridge of his hooked nose crooked. After a long survey, he said, with +the further setting off of his internal smile: + +‘You are a bold woman!’ + +‘I am a resolved woman.’ + +‘You always were. What? She always was; is it not so, my little +Flintwinch?’ + +‘Flintwinch, say nothing to him. It is for him to say, here and now, +all he can; or to go hence, and do all he can. You know this to be our +determination. Leave him to his action on it.’ + +She did not shrink under his evil leer, or avoid it. He turned it upon +her again, but she remained steady at the point to which she had fixed +herself. He got off the table, placed a chair near the sofa, sat down in +it, and leaned an arm upon the sofa close to her own, which he touched +with his hand. Her face was ever frowning, attentive, and settled. + +‘It is your pleasure then, madame, that I shall relate a morsel of +family history in this little family society,’ said Rigaud, with a +warning play of his lithe fingers on her arm. ‘I am something of a +doctor. Let me touch your pulse.’ + +She suffered him to take her wrist in his hand. Holding it, he proceeded +to say: + +‘A history of a strange marriage, and a strange mother, and a revenge, +and a suppression.--Aye, aye, aye? this pulse is beating curiously! +It appears to me that it doubles while I touch it. Are these the usual +changes of your malady, madame?’ + +There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but there +was none in her face. On his face there was his own smile. + +‘I have lived an adventurous life. I am an adventurous character. I have +known many adventurers; interesting spirits--amiable society! To one +of them I owe my knowledge and my proofs--I repeat it, estimable +lady--proofs--of the ravishing little family history I go to commence. +You will be charmed with it. But, bah! I forget. One should name a +history. Shall I name it the history of a house? But, bah, again. There +are so many houses. Shall I name it the history of this house?’ + +Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left +elbow; that hand often tapping her arm to beat his words home; his +legs crossed; his right hand sometimes arranging his hair, sometimes +smoothing his moustache, sometimes striking his nose, always threatening +her whatever it did; coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, and powerful, +he pursued his narrative at his ease. + +‘In fine, then, I name it the history of this house. I commence it. +There live here, let us suppose, an uncle and nephew. The uncle, a +rigid old gentleman of strong force of character; the nephew, habitually +timid, repressed, and under constraint.’ + +Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the +rolled up end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here cried +out, ‘Jeremiah, keep off from me! I’ve heerd, in my dreams, of Arthur’s +father and his uncle. He’s a talking of them. It was before my time +here; but I’ve heerd in my dreams that Arthur’s father was a poor, +irresolute, frightened chap, who had had everything but his orphan life +scared out of him when he was young, and that he had no voice in the +choice of his wife even, but his uncle chose her. There she sits! I +heerd it in my dreams, and you said it to her own self.’ + +As Mr Flintwinch shook his fist at her, and as Mrs Clennam gazed upon +her, Rigaud kissed his hand to her. + +‘Perfectly right, dear Madame Flintwinch. You have a genius for +dreaming.’ + +‘I don’t want none of your praises,’ returned Affery. ‘I don’t want to +have nothing at all to say to you. But Jeremiah said they was dreams, +and I’ll tell ‘em as such!’ Here she put her apron in her mouth again, +as if she were stopping somebody else’s mouth--perhaps Jeremiah’s, which +was chattering with threats as if he were grimly cold. + +‘Our beloved Madame Flintwinch,’ said Rigaud, ‘developing all of a +sudden a fine susceptibility and spirituality, is right to a marvel. +Yes. So runs the history. Monsieur, the uncle, commands the nephew to +marry. Monsieur says to him in effect, “My nephew, I introduce to you a +lady of strong force of character, like myself--a resolved lady, a stern +lady, a lady who has a will that can break the weak to powder: a lady +without pity, without love, implacable, revengeful, cold as the stone, +but raging as the fire.” Ah! what fortitude! Ah, what superiority of +intellectual strength! Truly, a proud and noble character that I +describe in the supposed words of Monsieur, the uncle. Ha, ha, ha! Death +of my soul, I love the sweet lady!’ + +Mrs Clennam’s face had changed. There was a remarkable darkness of +colour on it, and the brow was more contracted. ‘Madame, madame,’ said +Rigaud, tapping her on the arm, as if his cruel hand were sounding a +musical instrument, ‘I perceive I interest you. I perceive I awaken your +sympathy. Let us go on.’ + +The drooping nose and the ascending moustache had, however, to be hidden +for a moment with the white hand, before he could go on; he enjoyed the +effect he made so much. + +‘The nephew, being, as the lucid Madame Flintwinch has remarked, a poor +devil who has had everything but his orphan life frightened and famished +out of him--the nephew abases his head, and makes response: “My uncle, +it is to you to command. Do as you will!” Monsieur, the uncle, does as +he will. It is what he always does. The auspicious nuptials take place; +the newly married come home to this charming mansion; the lady is +received, let us suppose, by Flintwinch. Hey, old intriguer?’ + +Jeremiah, with his eyes upon his mistress, made no reply. Rigaud looked +from one to the other, struck his ugly nose, and made a clucking with +his tongue. + +‘Soon the lady makes a singular and exciting discovery. Thereupon, +full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms--see you, +madame!--a scheme of retribution, the weight of which she ingeniously +forces her crushed husband to bear himself, as well as execute upon her +enemy. What superior intelligence!’ + +‘Keep off, Jeremiah!’ cried the palpitating Affery, taking her apron +from her mouth again. ‘But it was one of my dreams, that you told her, +when you quarrelled with her one winter evening at dusk--there she sits +and you looking at her--that she oughtn’t to have let Arthur when he +come home, suspect his father only; that she had always had the strength +and the power; and that she ought to have stood up more to Arthur, for +his father. It was in the same dream where you said to her that she was +not--not something, but I don’t know what, for she burst out tremendous +and stopped you. You know the dream as well as I do. When you come +down-stairs into the kitchen with the candle in your hand, and hitched +my apron off my head. When you told me I had been dreaming. When you +wouldn’t believe the noises.’ After this explosion Affery put her apron +into her mouth again; always keeping her hand on the window-sill and her +knee on the window-seat, ready to cry out or jump out if her lord and +master approached. + +Rigaud had not lost a word of this. + +‘Haha!’ he cried, lifting his eyebrows, folding his arms, and leaning +back in his chair. ‘Assuredly, Madame Flintwinch is an oracle! How shall +we interpret the oracle, you and I and the old intriguer? He said that +you were not--? And you burst out and stopped him! What was it you were +not? What is it you are not? Say then, madame!’ + +Under this ferocious banter, she sat breathing harder, and her mouth was +disturbed. Her lips quivered and opened, in spite of her utmost efforts +to keep them still. + +‘Come then, madame! Speak, then! Our old intriguer said that you were +not--and you stopped him. He was going to say that you were not--what? +I know already, but I want a little confidence from you. How, then? You +are not what?’ + +She tried again to repress herself, but broke out vehemently, ‘Not +Arthur’s mother!’ + +‘Good,’ said Rigaud. ‘You are amenable.’ + +With the set expression of her face all torn away by the explosion +of her passion, and with a bursting, from every rent feature, of the +smouldering fire so long pent up, she cried out: ‘I will tell it myself! +I will not hear it from your lips, and with the taint of your wickedness +upon it. Since it must be seen, I will have it seen by the light I stood +in. Not another word. Hear me!’ + +‘Unless you are a more obstinate and more persisting woman than even +I know you to be,’ Mr Flintwinch interposed, ‘you had better leave Mr +Rigaud, Mr Blandois, Mr Beelzebub, to tell it in his own way. What does +it signify when he knows all about it?’ + +‘He does not know all about it.’ + +‘He knows all he cares about it,’ Mr Flintwinch testily urged. + +‘He does not know _me_.’ + +‘What do you suppose he cares for you, you conceited woman?’ said Mr +Flintwinch. + +‘I tell you, Flintwinch, I will speak. I tell you when it has come +to this, I will tell it with my own lips, and will express myself +throughout it. What! Have I suffered nothing in this room, no +deprivation, no imprisonment, that I should condescend at last to +contemplate myself in such a glass as _that_. Can you see him? Can you +hear him? If your wife were a hundred times the ingrate that she is, and +if I were a thousand times more hopeless than I am of inducing her to be +silent if this man is silenced, I would tell it myself, before I would +bear the torment of the hearing it from him.’ + +Rigaud pushed his chair a little back; pushed his legs out straight +before him; and sat with his arms folded over against her. + +‘You do not know what it is,’ she went on addressing him, ‘to be brought +up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no light youth +of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, +punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our +ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us--these +were the themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me +with an abhorrence of evil-doers. When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed +his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon +me that his bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. +He told me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he +had lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and +where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last. He told me +that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had acknowledged +him as one; and that from his school-days to that hour, his uncle’s roof +has been a sanctuary to him from the contagion of the irreligious +and dissolute. When, within a twelvemonth of our marriage, I found +my husband, at that time when my father spoke of him, to have sinned +against the Lord and outraged me by holding a guilty creature in my +place, was I to doubt that it had been appointed to me to make the +discovery, and that it was appointed to me to lay the hand of punishment +upon that creature of perdition? Was I to dismiss in a moment--not my +own wrongs--what was I! but all the rejection of sin, and all the war +against it, in which I had been bred?’ + +She laid her wrathful hand upon the watch on the table. + +‘No! “Do not forget.” The initials of those words are within here now, +and were within here then. I was appointed to find the old letter that +referred to them, and that told me what they meant, and whose work they +were, and why they were worked, lying with this watch in his secret +drawer. But for that appointment there would have been no discovery. +“Do not forget.” It spoke to me like a voice from an angry cloud. Do +not forget the deadly sin, do not forget the appointed discovery, do not +forget the appointed suffering. I did not forget. Was it my own wrong I +remembered? Mine! I was but a servant and a minister. What power could I +have over them, but that they were bound in the bonds of their sin, and +delivered to me!’ + +More than forty years had passed over the grey head of this determined +woman, since the time she recalled. More than forty years of strife +and struggle with the whisper that, by whatever name she called her +vindictive pride and rage, nothing through all eternity could change +their nature. Yet, gone those more than forty years, and come this +Nemesis now looking her in the face, she still abided by her old +impiety--still reversed the order of Creation, and breathed her own +breath into a clay image of her Creator. Verily, verily, travellers have +seen many monstrous idols in many countries; but no human eyes have ever +seen more daring, gross, and shocking images of the Divine nature than +we creatures of the dust make in our own likenesses, of our own bad +passions. + +‘When I forced him to give her up to me, by her name and place of +abode,’ she went on in her torrent of indignation and defence; ‘when I +accused her, and she fell hiding her face at my feet, was it my injury +that I asserted, were they my reproaches that I poured upon her? Those +who were appointed of old to go to wicked kings and accuse them--were +they not ministers and servants? And had not I, unworthy and far-removed +from them, sin to denounce? When she pleaded to me her youth, and his +wretched and hard life (that was her phrase for the virtuous training he +had belied), and the desecrated ceremony of marriage there had +secretly been between them, and the terrors of want and shame that had +overwhelmed them both when I was first appointed to be the instrument of +their punishment, and the love (for she said the word to me, down at my +feet) in which she had abandoned him and left him to me, was it _my_ +enemy that became my footstool, were they the words of my wrath that +made her shrink and quiver! Not unto me the strength be ascribed; not +unto me the wringing of the expiation!’ + +Many years had come and gone since she had had the free use even of +her fingers; but it was noticeable that she had already more than once +struck her clenched hand vigorously upon the table, and that when she +said these words she raised her whole arm in the air, as though it had +been a common action with her. + +‘And what was the repentance that was extorted from the hardness of her +heart and the blackness of her depravity? I, vindictive and implacable? +It may be so, to such as you who know no righteousness, and no +appointment except Satan’s. Laugh; but I will be known as I know +myself, and as Flintwinch knows me, though it is only to you and this +half-witted woman.’ + +‘Add, to yourself, madame,’ said Rigaud. ‘I have my little suspicions +that madame is rather solicitous to be justified to herself.’ + +‘It is false. It is not so. I have no need to be,’ she said, with great +energy and anger. + +‘Truly?’ retorted Rigaud. ‘Hah!’ + +‘I ask, what was the penitence, in works, that was demanded of her? +“You have a child; I have none. You love that child. Give him to me. He +shall believe himself to be my son, and he shall be believed by every +one to be my son. To save you from exposure, his father shall swear +never to see or communicate with you more; equally to save him from +being stripped by his uncle, and to save your child from being a beggar, +you shall swear never to see or communicate with either of them more. +That done, and your present means, derived from my husband, renounced, +I charge myself with your support. You may, with your place of retreat +unknown, then leave, if you please, uncontradicted by me, the lie that +when you passed out of all knowledge but mine, you merited a good name.” + That was all. She had to sacrifice her sinful and shameful affections; +no more. She was then free to bear her load of guilt in secret, and to +break her heart in secret; and through such present misery (light enough +for her, I think!) to purchase her redemption from endless misery, if +she could. If, in this, I punished her here, did I not open to her a way +hereafter? If she knew herself to be surrounded by insatiable vengeance +and unquenchable fires, were they mine? If I threatened her, then and +afterwards, with the terrors that encompassed her, did I hold them in my +right hand?’ + +She turned the watch upon the table, and opened it, and, with an +unsoftening face, looked at the worked letters within. + +‘They did _not_ forget. It is appointed against such offences that the +offenders shall not be able to forget. If the presence of Arthur was a +daily reproach to his father, and if the absence of Arthur was a daily +agony to his mother, that was the just dispensation of Jehovah. As well +might it be charged upon me, that the stings of an awakened conscience +drove her mad, and that it was the will of the Disposer of all things +that she should live so, many years. I devoted myself to reclaim the +otherwise predestined and lost boy; to give him the reputation of an +honest origin; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of +practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his +entrance into this condemned world. Was that a cruelty? Was I, too, +not visited with consequences of the original offence in which I had no +complicity? Arthur’s father and I lived no further apart, with half the +globe between us, than when we were together in this house. He died, +and sent this watch back to me, with its Do not forget. I do NOT forget, +though I do not read it as he did. I read in it, that I was appointed +to do these things. I have so read these three letters since I have +had them lying on this table, and I did so read them, with equal +distinctness, when they were thousands of miles away.’ + +As she took the watch-case in her hand, with that new freedom in the use +of her hand of which she showed no consciousness whatever, bending her +eyes upon it as if she were defying it to move her, Rigaud cried with a +loud and contemptuous snapping of his fingers. ‘Come, madame! Time runs +out. Come, lady of piety, it must be! You can tell nothing I don’t know. +Come to the money stolen, or I will! Death of my soul, I have had enough +of your other jargon. Come straight to the stolen money!’ + +‘Wretch that you are,’ she answered, and now her hands clasped her head: +‘through what fatal error of Flintwinch’s, through what incompleteness +on his part, who was the only other person helping in these things and +trusted with them, through whose and what bringing together of the ashes +of a burnt paper, you have become possessed of that codicil, I know no +more than how you acquired the rest of your power here--’ + +‘And yet,’ interrupted Rigaud, ‘it is my odd fortune to have by me, in a +convenient place that I know of, that same short little addition to the +will of Monsieur Gilbert Clennam, written by a lady and witnessed by the +same lady and our old intriguer! Ah, bah, old intriguer, crooked little +puppet! Madame, let us go on. Time presses. You or I to finish?’ + +‘I!’ she answered, with increased determination, if it were possible. +‘I, because I will not endure to be shown myself, and have myself +shown to any one, with your horrible distortion upon me. You, with your +practices of infamous foreign prisons and galleys would make it the +money that impelled me. It was not the money.’ + +‘Bah, bah, bah! I repudiate, for the moment, my politeness, and say, +Lies, lies, lies. You know you suppressed the deed and kept the money.’ + +‘Not for the money’s sake, wretch!’ She made a struggle as if she were +starting up; even as if, in her vehemence, she had almost risen on her +disabled feet. ‘If Gilbert Clennam, reduced to imbecility, at the point +of death, and labouring under the delusion of some imaginary relenting +towards a girl of whom he had heard that his nephew had once had a fancy +for her which he had crushed out of him, and that she afterwards drooped +away into melancholy and withdrawal from all who knew her--if, in that +state of weakness, he dictated to me, whose life she had darkened with +her sin, and who had been appointed to know her wickedness from her +own hand and her own lips, a bequest meant as a recompense to her +for supposed unmerited suffering; was there no difference between my +spurning that injustice, and coveting mere money--a thing which you, and +your comrades in the prisons, may steal from anyone?’ + +‘Time presses, madame. Take care!’ + +‘If this house was blazing from the roof to the ground,’ she returned, +‘I would stay in it to justify myself against my righteous motives being +classed with those of stabbers and thieves.’ + +Rigaud snapped his fingers tauntingly in her face. ‘One thousand guineas +to the little beauty you slowly hunted to death. One thousand guineas +to the youngest daughter her patron might have at fifty, or (if he +had none) brother’s youngest daughter, on her coming of age, “as the +remembrance his disinterestedness may like best, of his protection of +a friendless young orphan girl.” Two thousand guineas. What! You will +never come to the money?’ + +‘That patron,’ she was vehemently proceeding, when he checked her. + +‘Names! Call him Mr Frederick Dorrit. No more evasions.’ + +‘That Frederick Dorrit was the beginning of it all. If he had not been +a player of music, and had not kept, in those days of his youth and +prosperity, an idle house where singers, and players, and such-like +children of Evil turned their backs on the Light and their faces to the +Darkness, she might have remained in her lowly station, and might not +have been raised out of it to be cast down. But, no. Satan entered into +that Frederick Dorrit, and counselled him that he was a man of innocent +and laudable tastes who did kind actions, and that here was a poor girl +with a voice for singing music with. Then he is to have her taught. Then +Arthur’s father, who has all along been secretly pining in the ways of +virtuous ruggedness for those accursed snares which are called the Arts, +becomes acquainted with her. And so, a graceless orphan, training to be +a singing girl, carries it, by that Frederick Dorrit’s agency, against +me, and I am humbled and deceived!--Not I, that is to say,’ she added +quickly, as colour flushed into her face; ‘a greater than I. What am I?’ + +Jeremiah Flintwinch, who had been gradually screwing himself towards +her, and who was now very near her elbow without her knowing it, made a +specially wry face of objection when she said these words, and moreover +twitched his gaiters, as if such pretensions were equivalent to little +barbs in his legs. + +‘Lastly,’ she continued, ‘for I am at the end of these things, and I +will say no more of them, and you shall say no more of them, and all +that remains will be to determine whether the knowledge of them can +be kept among us who are here present; lastly, when I suppressed that +paper, with the knowledge of Arthur’s father--’ + +‘But not with his consent, you know,’ said Mr Flintwinch. + +‘Who said with his consent?’ She started to find Jeremiah so near her, +and drew back her head, looking at him with some rising distrust. ‘You +were often enough between us when he would have had me produce it and +I would not, to have contradicted me if I had said, with his consent. I +say, when I suppressed that paper, I made no effort to destroy it, but +kept it by me, here in this house, many years. The rest of the Gilbert +property being left to Arthur’s father, I could at any time, without +unsettling more than the two sums, have made a pretence of finding +it. But, besides that I must have supported such pretence by a direct +falsehood (a great responsibility), I have seen no new reason, in +all the time I have been tried here, to bring it to light. It was a +rewarding of sin; the wrong result of a delusion. I did what I was +appointed to do, and I have undergone, within these four walls, what +I was appointed to undergo. When the paper was at last destroyed--as +I thought--in my presence, she had long been dead, and her patron, +Frederick Dorrit, had long been deservedly ruined and imbecile. He had +no daughter. I had found the niece before then; and what I did for her, +was better for her far than the money of which she would have had no +good.’ She added, after a moment, as though she addressed the watch: +‘She herself was innocent, and I might not have forgotten to relinquish +it to her at my death:’ and sat looking at it. + +‘Shall I recall something to you, worthy madame?’ said Rigaud. ‘The +little paper was in this house on the night when our friend the +prisoner--jail-comrade of my soul--came home from foreign countries. +Shall I recall yet something more to you? The little singing-bird +that never was fledged, was long kept in a cage by a guardian of your +appointing, well enough known to our old intriguer here. Shall we coax +our old intriguer to tell us when he saw him last?’ + +‘I’ll tell you!’ cried Affery, unstopping her mouth. ‘I dreamed it, +first of all my dreams. Jeremiah, if you come a-nigh me now, I’ll scream +to be heard at St Paul’s! The person as this man has spoken of, was +Jeremiah’s own twin brother; and he was here in the dead of the night, +on the night when Arthur come home, and Jeremiah with his own hands give +him this paper, along with I don’t know what more, and he took it away +in an iron box--Help! Murder! Save me from Jere-_mi_-ah!’ + +Mr Flintwinch had made a run at her, but Rigaud had caught him in his +arms midway. After a moment’s wrestle with him, Flintwinch gave up, and +put his hands in his pockets. + +‘What!’ cried Rigaud, rallying him as he poked and jerked him back with +his elbows, ‘assault a lady with such a genius for dreaming! Ha, ha, ha! +Why, she’ll be a fortune to you as an exhibition. All that she dreams +comes true. Ha, ha, ha! You’re so like him, Little Flintwinch. So like +him, as I knew him (when I first spoke English for him to the host) in +the Cabaret of the Three Billiard Tables, in the little street of the +high roofs, by the wharf at Antwerp! Ah, but he was a brave boy to +drink. Ah, but he was a brave boy to smoke! Ah, but he lived in a sweet +bachelor-apartment--furnished, on the fifth floor, above the wood and +charcoal merchant’s, and the dress-maker’s, and the chair-maker’s, and +the maker of tubs--where I knew him too, and wherewith his cognac and +tobacco, he had twelve sleeps a day and one fit, until he had a fit too +much, and ascended to the skies. Ha, ha, ha! What does it matter how I +took possession of the papers in his iron box? Perhaps he confided it +to my hands for you, perhaps it was locked and my curiosity was piqued, +perhaps I suppressed it. Ha, ha, ha! What does it matter, so that I +have it safe? We are not particular here; hey, Flintwinch? We are not +particular here; is it not so, madame?’ + +Retiring before him with vicious counter-jerks of his own elbows, Mr +Flintwinch had got back into his corner, where he now stood with his +hands in his pockets, taking breath, and returning Mrs Clennam’s stare. +‘Ha, ha, ha! But what’s this?’ cried Rigaud. ‘It appears as if you +don’t know, one the other. Permit me, Madame Clennam who suppresses, to +present Monsieur Flintwinch who intrigues.’ + +Mr Flintwinch, unpocketing one of his hands to scrape his jaw, advanced +a step or so in that attitude, still returning Mrs Clennam’s look, and +thus addressed her: + +‘Now, I know what you mean by opening your eyes so wide at me, but you +needn’t take the trouble, because I don’t care for it. I’ve been telling +you for how many years that you’re one of the most opinionated and +obstinate of women. That’s what _you_ are. You call yourself humble and +sinful, but you are the most Bumptious of your sex. That’s what _you_ +are. I have told you, over and over again when we have had a tiff, that +you wanted to make everything go down before you, but I wouldn’t go down +before you--that you wanted to swallow up everybody alive, but I +wouldn’t be swallowed up alive. Why didn’t you destroy the paper when +you first laid hands upon it? I advised you to; but no, it’s not your +way to take advice. You must keep it forsooth. Perhaps you may carry it +out at some other time, forsooth. As if I didn’t know better than that! +I think I see your pride carrying it out, with a chance of being +suspected of having kept it by you. But that’s the way you cheat +yourself. Just as you cheat yourself into making out that you didn’t do +all this business because you were a rigorous woman, all slight, and +spite, and power, and unforgiveness, but because you were a servant and +a minister, and were appointed to do it. Who are you, that you should be +appointed to do it? That may be your religion, but it’s my gammon. And +to tell you all the truth while I am about it,’ said Mr Flintwinch, +crossing his arms, and becoming the express image of irascible +doggedness, ‘I have been rasped--rasped these forty years--by your +taking such high ground even with me, who knows better; the effect of it +being coolly to put me on low ground. I admire you very much; you are a +woman of strong head and great talent; but the strongest head, and the +greatest talent, can’t rasp a man for forty years without making him +sore. So I don’t care for your present eyes. Now, I am coming to the +paper, and mark what I say. You put it away somewhere, and you kept your +own counsel where. You’re an active woman at that time, and if you want +to get that paper, you can get it. But, mark. There comes a time when +you are struck into what you are now, and then if you want to get that +paper, you can’t get it. So it lies, long years, in its hiding-place. At +last, when we are expecting Arthur home every day, and when any day may +bring him home, and it’s impossible to say what rummaging he may make +about the house, I recommend you five thousand times, if you can’t get +at it, to let me get at it, that it may be put in the fire. But no--no +one but you knows where it is, and that’s power; and, call yourself +whatever humble names you will, I call you a female Lucifer in appetite +for power! On a Sunday night, Arthur comes home. He has not been in this +room ten minutes, when he speaks of his father’s watch. You know very +well that the Do Not Forget, at the time when his father sent that watch +to you, could only mean, the rest of the story being then all dead and +over, Do Not Forget the suppression. Make restitution! Arthur’s ways +have frightened you a bit, and the paper shall be burnt after all. So, +before that jumping jade and Jezebel,’ Mr Flintwinch grinned at his +wife, ‘has got you into bed, you at last tell me where you have put the +paper, among the old ledgers in the cellars, where Arthur himself went +prowling the very next morning. But it’s not to be burnt on a Sunday +night. No; you are strict, you are; we must wait over twelve o’clock, +and get into Monday. Now, all this is a swallowing of me up alive that +rasps me; so, feeling a little out of temper, and not being as strict as +yourself, I take a look at the document before twelve o’clock to refresh +my memory as to its appearance--fold up one of the many yellow old +papers in the cellars like it--and afterwards, when we have got into +Monday morning, and I have, by the light of your lamp, to walk from you, +lying on that bed, to this grate, make a little exchange like the +conjuror, and burn accordingly. My brother Ephraim, the lunatic-keeper +(I wish he had had himself to keep in a strait-waistcoat), had had many +jobs since the close of the long job he got from you, but had not done +well. His wife died (not that that was much; mine might have died +instead, and welcome), he speculated unsuccessfully in lunatics, he got +into difficulty about over-roasting a patient to bring him to reason, +and he got into debt. He was going out of the way, on what he had been +able to scrape up, and a trifle from me. He was here that early Monday +morning, waiting for the tide; in short, he was going to Antwerp, where +(I am afraid you’ll be shocked at my saying, And be damned to him!) he +made the acquaintance of this gentleman. He had come a long way, and, I +thought then, was only sleepy; but, I suppose now, was drunk. When +Arthur’s mother had been under the care of him and his wife, she had +been always writing, incessantly writing,--mostly letters of confession +to you, and Prayers for forgiveness. My brother had handed, from time to +time, lots of these sheets to me. I thought I might as well keep them to +myself as have them swallowed up alive too; so I kept them in a box, +looking over them when I felt in the humour. Convinced that it was +advisable to get the paper out of the place, with Arthur coming about +it, I put it into this same box, and I locked the whole up with two +locks, and I trusted it to my brother to take away and keep, till I +should write about it. I did write about it, and never got an answer. I +didn’t know what to make of it, till this gentleman favoured us with his +first visit. Of course, I began to suspect how it was, then; and I don’t +want his word for it now to understand how he gets his knowledge from my +papers, and your paper, and my brother’s cognac and tobacco talk (I wish +he’d had to gag himself). Now, I have only one thing more to say, you +hammer-headed woman, and that is, that I haven’t altogether made up my +mind whether I might, or might not, have ever given you any trouble +about the codicil. I think not; and that I should have been quite +satisfied with knowing I had got the better of you, and that I held the +power over you. In the present state of circumstances, I have no more +explanation to give you till this time to-morrow night. So you may as +well,’ said Mr Flintwinch, terminating his oration with a screw, ‘keep +your eyes open at somebody else, for it’s no use keeping ‘em open at +me.’ + +She slowly withdrew them when he had ceased, and dropped her forehead on +her hand. Her other hand pressed hard upon the table, and again the +curious stir was observable in her, as if she were going to rise. + +‘This box can never bring, elsewhere, the price it will bring here. This +knowledge can never be of the same profit to you, sold to any other +person, as sold to me. But I have not the present means of raising the +sum you have demanded. I have not prospered. What will you take now, and +what at another time, and how am I to be assured of your silence?’ + +‘My angel,’ said Rigaud, ‘I have said what I will take, and time +presses. Before coming here, I placed copies of the most important of +these papers in another hand. Put off the time till the Marshalsea gate +shall be shut for the night, and it will be too late to treat. The +prisoner will have read them.’ + +She put her two hands to her head again, uttered a loud exclamation, and +started to her feet. She staggered for a moment, as if she would have +fallen; then stood firm. + +‘Say what you mean. Say what you mean, man!’ + +Before her ghostly figure, so long unused to its erect attitude, and so +stiffened in it, Rigaud fell back and dropped his voice. It was, to all +the three, almost as if a dead woman had risen. + +‘Miss Dorrit,’ answered Rigaud, ‘the little niece of Monsieur Frederick, +whom I have known across the water, is attached to the prisoner. Miss +Dorrit, little niece of Monsieur Frederick, watches at this moment over +the prisoner, who is ill. For her I with my own hands left a packet +at the prison, on my way here, with a letter of instructions, “_for his +sake_”--she will do anything for his sake--to keep it without breaking +the seal, in case of its being reclaimed before the hour of shutting up +to-night--if it should not be reclaimed before the ringing of the prison +bell, to give it to him; and it encloses a second copy for herself, +which he must give to her. What! I don’t trust myself among you, now we +have got so far, without giving my secret a second life. And as to its +not bringing me, elsewhere, the price it will bring here, say then, +madame, have you limited and settled the price the little niece will +give--for his sake--to hush it up? Once more I say, time presses. The +packet not reclaimed before the ringing of the bell to-night, you cannot +buy. I sell, then, to the little girl!’ + +Once more the stir and struggle in her, and she ran to a closet, tore +the door open, took down a hood or shawl, and wrapped it over her head. +Affery, who had watched her in terror, darted to her in the middle of +the room, caught hold of her dress, and went on her knees to her. + +‘Don’t, don’t, don’t! What are you doing? Where are you going? You’re a +fearful woman, but I don’t bear you no ill-will. I can do poor Arthur +no good now, that I see; and you needn’t be afraid of me. I’ll keep your +secret. Don’t go out, you’ll fall dead in the street. Only promise me, +that, if it’s the poor thing that’s kept here secretly, you’ll let me +take charge of her and be her nurse. Only promise me that, and never be +afraid of me.’ + +Mrs Clennam stood still for an instant, at the height of her rapid +haste, saying in stern amazement: + +‘Kept here? She has been dead a score of years or more. Ask +Flintwinch--ask _him_. They can both tell you that she died when Arthur +went abroad.’ + +‘So much the worse,’ said Affery, with a shiver, ‘for she haunts the +house, then. Who else rustles about it, making signals by dropping +dust so softly? Who else comes and goes, and marks the walls with +long crooked touches when we are all a-bed? Who else holds the door +sometimes? But don’t go out--don’t go out! Mistress, you’ll die in the +street!’ + +Her mistress only disengaged her dress from the beseeching hands, said +to Rigaud, ‘Wait here till I come back!’ and ran out of the room. They +saw her, from the window, run wildly through the court-yard and out at +the gateway. + +For a few moments they stood motionless. Affery was the first to move, +and she, wringing her hands, pursued her mistress. Next, Jeremiah +Flintwinch, slowly backing to the door, with one hand in a pocket, and +the other rubbing his chin, twisted himself out in his reticent way, +speechlessly. Rigaud, left alone, composed himself upon the window-seat +of the open window, in the old Marseilles-jail attitude. He laid his +cigarettes and fire-box ready to his hand, and fell to smoking. + +‘Whoof! Almost as dull as the infernal old jail. Warmer, but almost as +dismal. Wait till she comes back? Yes, certainly; but where is she gone, +and how long will she be gone? No matter! Rigaud Lagnier Blandois, my +amiable subject, you will get your money. You will enrich yourself. You +have lived a gentleman; you will die a gentleman. You triumph, my little +boy; but it is your character to triumph. Whoof!’ + +In the hour of his triumph, his moustache went up and his nose came +down, as he ogled a great beam over his head with particular +satisfaction. + + + + +CHAPTER 31. Closed + + +The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when +the figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the immediate +neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there +were only a few straggling people to notice it; but, ascending from the +river by the crooked ways that led to London Bridge, and passing into +the great main road, it became surrounded by astonishment. + +Resolute and wild of look, rapid of foot and yet weak and uncertain, +conspicuously dressed in its black garments and with its hurried +head-covering, gaunt and of an unearthly paleness, it pressed forward, +taking no more heed of the throng than a sleep-walker. More remarkable +by being so removed from the crowd it was among than if it had been +lifted on a pedestal to be seen, the figure attracted all eyes. +Saunterers pricked up their attention to observe it; busy people, +crossing it, slackened their pace and turned their heads; companions +pausing and standing aside, whispered one another to look at this +spectral woman who was coming by; and the sweep of the figure as it +passed seemed to create a vortex, drawing the most idle and most curious +after it. + +Made giddy by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring faces +into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being in the air, +and the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by the unexpected +changes in half-remembered objects, and the want of likeness between the +controllable pictures her imagination had often drawn of the life from +which she was secluded and the overwhelming rush of the reality, she +held her way as if she were environed by distracting thoughts, rather +than by external humanity and observation. But, having crossed the +bridge and gone some distance straight onward, she remembered that she +must ask for a direction; and it was only then, when she stopped and +turned to look about her for a promising place of inquiry, that she +found herself surrounded by an eager glare of faces. + +‘Why are you encircling me?’ she asked, trembling. + +None of those who were nearest answered; but from the outer ring there +arose a shrill cry of ‘’Cause you’re mad!’ + +‘I am sure as sane as any one here. I want to find the Marshalsea +prison.’ + +The shrill outer circle again retorted, ‘Then that ‘ud show you was mad +if nothing else did, ‘cause it’s right opposite!’ + +A short, mild, quiet-looking young man made his way through to her, as +a whooping ensued on this reply, and said: ‘Was it the Marshalsea you +wanted? I’m going on duty there. Come across with me.’ + +She laid her hand upon his arm, and he took her over the way; the crowd, +rather injured by the near prospect of losing her, pressing before and +behind and on either side, and recommending an adjournment to Bedlam. +After a momentary whirl in the outer court-yard, the prison-door opened, +and shut upon them. In the Lodge, which seemed by contrast with the +outer noise a place of refuge and peace, a yellow lamp was already +striving with the prison shadows. + +‘Why, John!’ said the turnkey who admitted them. ‘What is it?’ + +‘Nothing, father; only this lady not knowing her way, and being badgered +by the boys. Who did you want, ma’am?’ + +‘Miss Dorrit. Is she here?’ + +The young man became more interested. ‘Yes, she is here. What might your +name be?’ + +‘Mrs Clennam.’ + +‘Mr Clennam’s mother?’ asked the young man. + +She pressed her lips together, and hesitated. ‘Yes. She had better be +told it is his mother.’ + +‘You see,’ said the young man, ‘the Marshal’s family living in the +country at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the rooms +in his house to use when she likes. Don’t you think you had better come +up there, and let me bring Miss Dorrit?’ + +She signified her assent, and he unlocked a door and conducted her up +a side staircase into a dwelling-house above. He showed her into a +darkening room, and left her. The room looked down into the darkening +prison-yard, with its inmates strolling here and there, leaning out +of windows communing as much apart as they could with friends who were +going away, and generally wearing out their imprisonment as they best +might that summer evening. The air was heavy and hot; the closeness +of the place, oppressive; and from without there arose a rush of +free sounds, like the jarring memory of such things in a headache and +heartache. She stood at the window, bewildered, looking down into this +prison as it were out of her own different prison, when a soft word or +two of surprise made her start, and Little Dorrit stood before her. + +‘Is it possible, Mrs Clennam, that you are so happily recovered as--’ + +Little Dorrit stopped, for there was neither happiness nor health in the +face that turned to her. + +‘This is not recovery; it is not strength; I don’t know what it is.’ +With an agitated wave of her hand, she put all that aside. ‘You have a +packet left with you which you were to give to Arthur, if it was not +reclaimed before this place closed to-night.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘I reclaim it.’ + +Little Dorrit took it from her bosom, and gave it into her hand, which +remained stretched out after receiving it. + +‘Have you any idea of its contents?’ + +Frightened by her being there with that new power Of Movement in her, +which, as she said herself, was not strength, and which was unreal +to look upon, as though a picture or statue had been animated, Little +Dorrit answered ‘No.’ + +‘Read them.’ + +Little Dorrit took the packet from the still outstretched hand, and +broke the seal. Mrs Clennam then gave her the inner packet that was +addressed to herself, and held the other. The shadow of the wall and of +the prison buildings, which made the room sombre at noon, made it too +dark to read there, with the dusk deepening apace, save in the window. +In the window, where a little of the bright summer evening sky +could shine upon her, Little Dorrit stood, and read. After a broken +exclamation or so of wonder and of terror, she read in silence. When +she had finished, she looked round, and her old mistress bowed herself +before her. + +‘You know, now, what I have done.’ + +‘I think so. I am afraid so; though my mind is so hurried, and so sorry, +and has so much to pity that it has not been able to follow all I have +read,’ said Little Dorrit tremulously. + +‘I will restore to you what I have withheld from you. Forgive me. Can +you forgive me?’ + +‘I can, and Heaven knows I do! Do not kiss my dress and kneel to me; you +are too old to kneel to me; I forgive you freely without that.’ + +‘I have more yet to ask.’ + +‘Not in that posture,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘It is unnatural to see your +grey hair lower than mine. Pray rise; let me help you.’ With that she +raised her up, and stood rather shrinking from her, but looking at her +earnestly. + +‘The great petition that I make to you (there is another which grows +out of it), the great supplication that I address to your merciful and +gentle heart, is, that you will not disclose this to Arthur until I am +dead. If you think, when you have had time for consideration, that it +can do him any good to know it while I am yet alive, then tell him. But +you will not think that; and in such case, will you promise me to spare +me until I am dead?’ + +‘I am so sorry, and what I have read has so confused my thoughts,’ +returned Little Dorrit, ‘that I can scarcely give you a steady answer. +If I should be quite sure that to be acquainted with it will do Mr +Clennam no good--’ + +‘I know you are attached to him, and will make him the first +consideration. It is right that he should be the first consideration. I +ask that. But, having regarded him, and still finding that you may spare +me for the little time I shall remain on earth, will you do it?’ + +‘I will.’ + +‘GOD bless you!’ + +She stood in the shadow so that she was only a veiled form to Little +Dorrit in the light; but the sound of her voice, in saying those three +grateful words, was at once fervent and broken--broken by emotion as +unfamiliar to her frozen eyes as action to her frozen limbs. + +‘You will wonder, perhaps,’ she said in a stronger tone, ‘that I can +better bear to be known to you whom I have wronged, than to the son +of my enemy who wronged me.--For she did wrong me! She not only sinned +grievously against the Lord, but she wronged me. What Arthur’s father +was to me, she made him. From our marriage day I was his dread, and that +she made me. I was the scourge of both, and that is referable to her. +You love Arthur (I can see the blush upon your face; may it be the dawn +of happier days to both of you!), and you will have thought already that +he is as merciful and kind as you, and why do I not trust myself to him +as soon as to you. Have you not thought so?’ + +‘No thought,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘can be quite a stranger to my heart, +that springs out of the knowledge that Mr Clennam is always to be relied +upon for being kind and generous and good.’ + +‘I do not doubt it. Yet Arthur is, of the whole world, the one person +from whom I would conceal this, while I am in it. I kept over him as +a child, in the days of his first remembrance, my restraining and +correcting hand. I was stern with him, knowing that the transgressions +of the parents are visited on their offspring, and that there was an +angry mark upon him at his birth. I have sat with him and his father, +seeing the weakness of his father yearning to unbend to him; and forcing +it back, that the child might work out his release in bondage and +hardship. I have seen him, with his mother’s face, looking up at me in +awe from his little books, and trying to soften me with his mother’s +ways that hardened me.’ + +The shrinking of her auditress stopped her for a moment in her flow of +words, delivered in a retrospective gloomy voice. + +‘For his good. Not for the satisfaction of my injury. What was I, and +what was the worth of that, before the curse of Heaven! I have seen that +child grow up; not to be pious in a chosen way (his mother’s influence +lay too heavy on him for that), but still to be just and upright, and +to be submissive to me. He never loved me, as I once half-hoped he +might--so frail we are, and so do the corrupt affections of the flesh +war with our trusts and tasks; but he always respected me and ordered +himself dutifully to me. He does to this hour. With an empty place in +his heart that he has never known the meaning of, he has turned +away from me and gone his separate road; but even that he has done +considerately and with deference. These have been his relations towards +me. Yours have been of a much slighter kind, spread over a much shorter +time. When you have sat at your needle in my room, you have been in fear +of me, but you have supposed me to have been doing you a kindness; you +are better informed now, and know me to have done you an injury. Your +misconstruction and misunderstanding of the cause in which, and the +motives with which, I have worked out this work, is lighter to endure +than his would be. I would not, for any worldly recompense I can +imagine, have him in a moment, however blindly, throw me down from the +station I have held before him all his life, and change me altogether +into something he would cast out of his respect, and think detected and +exposed. Let him do it, if it must be done, when I am not here to see +it. Let me never feel, while I am still alive, that I die before his +face, and utterly perish away from him, like one consumed by lightning +and swallowed by an earthquake.’ + +Her pride was very strong in her, the pain of it and of her old passions +was very sharp with her, when she thus expressed herself. Not less so, +when she added: + +‘Even now, I see _you_ shrink from me, as if I had been cruel.’ + +Little Dorrit could not gainsay it. She tried not to show it, but she +recoiled with dread from the state of mind that had burnt so fiercely +and lasted so long. It presented itself to her, with no sophistry upon +it, in its own plain nature. + +‘I have done,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘what it was given to me to do. I have +set myself against evil; not against good. I have been an instrument +of severity against sin. Have not mere sinners like myself been +commissioned to lay it low in all time?’ + +‘In all time?’ repeated Little Dorrit. + +‘Even if my own wrong had prevailed with me, and my own vengeance had +moved me, could I have found no justification? None in the old days +when the innocent perished with the guilty, a thousand to one? When the +wrath of the hater of the unrighteous was not slaked even in blood, and +yet found favour?’ + +‘O, Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘angry feelings and +unforgiving deeds are no comfort and no guide to you and me. My life +has been passed in this poor prison, and my teaching has been very +defective; but let me implore you to remember later and better days. +Be guided only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the +friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who +shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if +we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him. There +is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. +There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other +footsteps, I am certain.’ + +In the softened light of the window, looking from the scene of her early +trials to the shining sky, she was not in stronger opposition to the +black figure in the shade than the life and doctrine on which she rested +were to that figure’s history. It bent its head low again, and said not +a word. It remained thus, until the first warning bell began to ring. + +‘Hark!’ cried Mrs Clennam starting, ‘I said I had another petition. +It is one that does not admit of delay. The man who brought you this +packet and possesses these proofs, is now waiting at my house to be +bought off. I can keep this from Arthur, only by buying him off. He +asks a large sum; more than I can get together to pay him without having +time. He refuses to make any abatement, because his threat is, that if +he fails with me, he will come to you. Will you return with me and show +him that you already know it? Will you return with me and try to prevail +with him? Will you come and help me with him? Do not refuse what I ask +in Arthur’s name, though I dare not ask it for Arthur’s sake!’ + +Little Dorrit yielded willingly. She glided away into the prison for a +few moments, returned, and said she was ready to go. They went out +by another staircase, avoiding the lodge; and coming into the front +court-yard, now all quiet and deserted, gained the street. + +It was one of those summer evenings when there is no greater darkness +than a long twilight. The vista of street and bridge was plain to see, +and the sky was serene and beautiful. People stood and sat at their +doors, playing with children and enjoying the evening; numbers were +walking for air; the worry of the day had almost worried itself out, and +few but themselves were hurried. As they crossed the bridge, the clear +steeples of the many churches looked as if they had advanced out of the +murk that usually enshrouded them, and come much nearer. The smoke that +rose into the sky had lost its dingy hue and taken a brightness upon it. +The beauties of the sunset had not faded from the long light films of +cloud that lay at peace in the horizon. From a radiant centre, over +the whole length and breadth of the tranquil firmament, great shoots of +light streamed among the early stars, like signs of the blessed later +covenant of peace and hope that changed the crown of thorns into a +glory. + +Less remarkable, now that she was not alone and it was darker, Mrs +Clennam hurried on at Little Dorrit’s side, unmolested. They left the +great thoroughfare at the turning by which she had entered it, and wound +their way down among the silent, empty, cross-streets. Their feet were +at the gateway, when there was a sudden noise like thunder. + +‘What was that! Let us make haste in,’ cried Mrs Clennam. + +They were in the gateway. Little Dorrit, with a piercing cry, held her +back. + +In one swift instant the old house was before them, with the man lying +smoking in the window; another thundering sound, and it heaved, surged +outward, opened asunder in fifty places, collapsed, and fell. Deafened +by the noise, stifled, choked, and blinded by the dust, they hid their +faces and stood rooted to the spot. The dust storm, driving between them +and the placid sky, parted for a moment and showed them the stars. As +they looked up, wildly crying for help, the great pile of chimneys, +which was then alone left standing like a tower in a whirlwind, rocked, +broke, and hailed itself down upon the heap of ruin, as if every +tumbling fragment were intent on burying the crushed wretch deeper. + +So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be unrecognisable, +they ran back from the gateway into the street, crying and shrieking. +There, Mrs Clennam dropped upon the stones; and she never from that hour +moved so much as a finger again, or had the power to speak one word. +For upwards of three years she reclined in a wheeled chair, looking +attentively at those about her and appearing to understand what they +said; but the rigid silence she had so long held was evermore enforced +upon her, and except that she could move her eyes and faintly express a +negative and affirmative with her head, she lived and died a statue. + +Affery had been looking for them at the prison, and had caught sight +of them at a distance on the bridge. She came up to receive her old +mistress in her arms, to help to carry her into a neighbouring house, +and to be faithful to her. The mystery of the noises was out now; +Affery, like greater people, had always been right in her facts, and +always wrong in the theories she deduced from them. + +When the storm of dust had cleared away and the summer night was calm +again, numbers of people choked up every avenue of access, and parties +of diggers were formed to relieve one another in digging among the +ruins. There had been a hundred people in the house at the time of its +fall, there had been fifty, there had been fifteen, there had been +two. Rumour finally settled the number at two; the foreigner and Mr +Flintwinch. + +The diggers dug all through the short night by flaring pipes of gas, and +on a level with the early sun, and deeper and deeper below it as it rose +into its zenith, and aslant of it as it declined, and on a level with it +again as it departed. Sturdy digging, and shovelling, and carrying away, +in carts, barrows, and baskets, went on without intermission, by night +and by day; but it was night for the second time when they found the +dirty heap of rubbish that had been the foreigner before his head had +been shivered to atoms, like so much glass, by the great beam that lay +upon him, crushing him. + +Still, they had not come upon Flintwinch yet; so the sturdy digging and +shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission by night and +by day. It got about that the old house had had famous cellarage (which +indeed was true), and that Flintwinch had been in a cellar at the +moment, or had had time to escape into one, and that he was safe under +its strong arch, and even that he had been heard to cry, in hollow, +subterranean, suffocated notes, ‘Here I am!’ At the opposite extremity +of the town it was even known that the excavators had been able to open +a communication with him through a pipe, and that he had received both +soup and brandy by that channel, and that he had said with admirable +fortitude that he was All right, my lads, with the exception of his +collar-bone. But the digging and shovelling and carrying away went on +without intermission, until the ruins were all dug out, and the cellars +opened to the light; and still no Flintwinch, living or dead, all right +or all wrong, had been turned up by pick or spade. + +It began then to be perceived that Flintwinch had not been there at the +time of the fall; and it began then to be perceived that he had been +rather busy elsewhere, converting securities into as much money as could +be got for them on the shortest notice, and turning to his own exclusive +account his authority to act for the Firm. Affery, remembering that the +clever one had said he would explain himself further in four-and-twenty +hours’ time, determined for her part that his taking himself off within +that period with all he could get, was the final satisfactory sum and +substance of his promised explanation; but she held her peace, devoutly +thankful to be quit of him. As it seemed reasonable to conclude that a +man who had never been buried could not be unburied, the diggers gave +him up when their task was done, and did not dig down for him into the +depths of the earth. + +This was taken in ill part by a great many people, who persisted +in believing that Flintwinch was lying somewhere among the London +geological formation. Nor was their belief much shaken by repeated +intelligence which came over in course of time, that an old man who wore +the tie of his neckcloth under one ear, and who was very well known to +be an Englishman, consorted with the Dutchmen on the quaint banks of the +canals of the Hague and in the drinking-shops of Amsterdam, under the +style and designation of Mynheer von Flyntevynge. + + + + +CHAPTER 32. Going + + +Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg +descrying no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement, +Mr Pancks suffered desperately from self-reproaches. If it had not been +for those infallible figures which proved that Arthur, instead of pining +in imprisonment, ought to be promenading in a carriage and pair, and +that Mr Pancks, instead of being restricted to his clerkly wages, ought +to have from three to five thousand pounds of his own at his immediate +disposal, that unhappy arithmetician would probably have taken to his +bed, and there have made one of the many obscure persons who turned +their faces to the wall and died, as a last sacrifice to the late Mr +Merdle’s greatness. Solely supported by his unimpugnable calculations, +Mr Pancks led an unhappy and restless life; constantly carrying his +figures about with him in his hat, and not only going over them himself +on every possible occasion, but entreating every human being he could +lay hold of to go over them with him, and observe what a clear case it +was. Down in Bleeding Heart Yard there was scarcely an inhabitant of +note to whom Mr Pancks had not imparted his demonstration, and, as +figures are catching, a kind of cyphering measles broke out in that +locality, under the influence of which the whole Yard was light-headed. + +The more restless Mr Pancks grew in his mind, the more impatient he +became of the Patriarch. In their later conferences his snorting assumed +an irritable sound which boded the Patriarch no good; likewise, Mr +Pancks had on several occasions looked harder at the Patriarchal bumps +than was quite reconcilable with the fact of his not being a painter, or +a peruke-maker in search of the living model. + +However, he steamed in and out of his little back Dock according as he +was wanted or not wanted in the Patriarchal presence, and business had +gone on in its customary course. Bleeding Heart Yard had been harrowed +by Mr Pancks, and cropped by Mr Casby, at the regular seasons; Mr Pancks +had taken all the drudgery and all the dirt of the business as _his_ +share; Mr Casby had taken all the profits, all the ethereal vapour, and +all the moonshine, as his share; and, in the form of words which that +benevolent beamer generally employed on Saturday evenings, when he +twirled his fat thumbs after striking the week’s balance, ‘everything +had been satisfactory to all parties--all parties--satisfactory, sir, to +all parties.’ + +The Dock of the Steam-Tug, Pancks, had a leaden roof, which, frying in +the very hot sunshine, may have heated the vessel. Be that as it +may, one glowing Saturday evening, on being hailed by the lumbering +bottle-green ship, the Tug instantly came working out of the Dock in a +highly heated condition. + +‘Mr Pancks,’ was the Patriarchal remark, ‘you have been remiss, you have +been remiss, sir.’ + +‘What do you mean by that?’ was the short rejoinder. + +The Patriarchal state, always a state of calmness and composure, was +so particularly serene that evening as to be provoking. Everybody else +within the bills of mortality was hot; but the Patriarch was perfectly +cool. Everybody was thirsty, and the Patriarch was drinking. There was +a fragrance of limes or lemons about him; and he made a drink of golden +sherry, which shone in a large tumbler as if he were drinking the +evening sunshine. This was bad, but not the worst. The worst was, that +with his big blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, +and his bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his +easy shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance +of having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human +species, while he himself wanted nothing but his own milk of human +kindness. + +Wherefore, Mr Pancks said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ and put his hair +up with both hands, in a highly portentous manner. + +‘I mean, Mr Pancks, that you must be sharper with the people, sharper +with the people, much sharper with the people, sir. You don’t squeeze +them. You don’t squeeze them. Your receipts are not up to the mark. You +must squeeze them, sir, or our connection will not continue to be as +satisfactory as I could wish it to be to all parties. All parties.’ + +‘_Don’t_ I squeeze ‘em?’ retorted Mr Pancks. ‘What else am I made for?’ + +‘You are made for nothing else, Mr Pancks. You are made to do your +duty, but you don’t do your duty. You are paid to squeeze, and you +must squeeze to pay.’ The Patriarch so much surprised himself by this +brilliant turn, after Dr Johnson, which he had not in the least +expected or intended, that he laughed aloud; and repeated with great +satisfaction, as he twirled his thumbs and nodded at his youthful +portrait, ‘Paid to squeeze, sir, and must squeeze to pay.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Pancks. ‘Anything more?’ + +‘Yes, sir, yes, sir. Something more. You will please, Mr Pancks, to +squeeze the Yard again, the first thing on Monday morning.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Pancks. ‘Ain’t that too soon? I squeezed it dry to-day.’ + +‘Nonsense, sir. Not near the mark, not near the mark.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Pancks, watching him as he benevolently gulped down a good +draught of his mixture. ‘Anything more?’ + +‘Yes, sir, yes, sir, something more. I am not at all pleased, Mr Pancks, +with my daughter; not at all pleased. Besides calling much too often +to inquire for Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam, who is not just now in +circumstances that are by any means calculated to--to be satisfactory to +all parties, she goes, Mr Pancks, unless I am much deceived, to inquire +for Mr Clennam in jail. In jail.’ + +‘He’s laid up, you know,’ said Pancks. ‘Perhaps it’s kind.’ + +‘Pooh, pooh, Mr Pancks. She has nothing to do with that, nothing to do +with that. I can’t allow it. Let him pay his debts and come out, come +out; pay his debts, and come out.’ + +Although Mr Pancks’s hair was standing up like strong wire, he gave it +another double-handed impulse in the perpendicular direction, and smiled +at his proprietor in a most hideous manner. + +‘You will please to mention to my daughter, Mr Pancks, that I can’t +allow it, can’t allow it,’ said the Patriarch blandly. + +‘Oh!’ said Pancks. ‘You couldn’t mention it yourself?’ + +‘No, sir, no; you are paid to mention it,’ the blundering old booby +could not resist the temptation of trying it again, ‘and you must +mention it to pay, mention it to pay.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Pancks. ‘Anything more?’ + +‘Yes, sir. It appears to me, Mr Pancks, that you yourself are too often +and too much in that direction, that direction. I recommend you, Mr +Pancks, to dismiss from your attention both your own losses and other +people’s losses, and to mind your business, mind your business.’ + +Mr Pancks acknowledged this recommendation with such an extraordinarily +abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the monosyllable ‘Oh!’ that even +the unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue eyes in something of a hurry, to +look at him. Mr Pancks, with a sniff of corresponding intensity, then +added, ‘Anything more?’ + +‘Not at present, sir, not at present. I am going,’ said the Patriarch, +finishing his mixture, and rising with an amiable air, ‘to take a little +stroll, a little stroll. Perhaps I shall find you here when I come back. +If not, sir, duty, duty; squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, on Monday; squeeze +on Monday!’ + +Mr Pancks, after another stiffening of his hair, looked on at the +Patriarchal assumption of the broad-brimmed hat, with a momentary +appearance of indecision contending with a sense of injury. He was also +hotter than at first, and breathed harder. But he suffered Mr Casby to +go out, without offering any further remark, and then took a peep at +him over the little green window-blinds. ‘I thought so,’ he observed. ‘I +knew where you were bound to. Good!’ He then steamed back to his Dock, +put it carefully in order, took down his hat, looked round the Dock, +said ‘Good-bye!’ and puffed away on his own account. He steered straight +for Mrs Plornish’s end of Bleeding Heart Yard, and arrived there, at the +top of the steps, hotter than ever. + +At the top of the steps, resisting Mrs Plornish’s invitations to come +and sit along with father in Happy Cottage--which to his relief were not +so numerous as they would have been on any other night than Saturday, +when the connection who so gallantly supported the business with +everything but money gave their orders freely--at the top of the steps +Mr Pancks remained until he beheld the Patriarch, who always entered +the Yard at the other end, slowly advancing, beaming, and surrounded +by suitors. Then Mr Pancks descended and bore down upon him, with his +utmost pressure of steam on. + +The Patriarch, approaching with his usual benignity, was surprised to +see Mr Pancks, but supposed him to have been stimulated to an immediate +squeeze instead of postponing that operation until Monday. The +population of the Yard were astonished at the meeting, for the two +powers had never been seen there together, within the memory of the +oldest Bleeding Heart. But they were overcome by unutterable amazement +when Mr Pancks, going close up to the most venerable of men and halting +in front of the bottle-green waistcoat, made a trigger of his right +thumb and forefinger, applied the same to the brim of the broad-brimmed +hat, and, with singular smartness and precision, shot it off the +polished head as if it had been a large marble. + +Having taken this little liberty with the Patriarchal person, Mr Pancks +further astounded and attracted the Bleeding Hearts by saying in an +audible voice, ‘Now, you sugary swindler, I mean to have it out with +you!’ + +Mr Pancks and the Patriarch were instantly the centre of a press, all +eyes and ears; windows were thrown open, and door-steps were thronged. + +‘What do you pretend to be?’ said Mr Pancks. ‘What’s your moral game? +What do you go in for? Benevolence, an’t it? You benevolent!’ Here Mr +Pancks, apparently without the intention of hitting him, but merely to +relieve his mind and expend his superfluous power in wholesome exercise, +aimed a blow at the bumpy head, which the bumpy head ducked to +avoid. This singular performance was repeated, to the ever-increasing +admiration of the spectators, at the end of every succeeding article of +Mr Pancks’s oration. + +‘I have discharged myself from your service,’ said Pancks, ‘that I may +tell you what you are. You’re one of a lot of impostors that are the +worst lot of all the lots to be met with. Speaking as a sufferer by +both, I don’t know that I wouldn’t as soon have the Merdle lot as your +lot. You’re a driver in disguise, a screwer by deputy, a wringer, and +squeezer, and shaver by substitute. You’re a philanthropic sneak. You’re +a shabby deceiver!’ + +(The repetition of the performance at this point was received with a +burst of laughter.) + +‘Ask these good people who’s the hard man here. They’ll tell you Pancks, +I believe.’ + +This was confirmed with cries of ‘Certainly,’ and ‘Hear!’ + +‘But I tell you, good people--Casby! This mound of meekness, this lump +of love, this bottle-green smiler, this is your driver!’ said Pancks. +‘If you want to see the man who would flay you alive--here he is! Don’t +look for him in me, at thirty shillings a week, but look for him in +Casby, at I don’t know how much a year!’ + +‘Good!’ cried several voices. ‘Hear Mr Pancks!’ + +‘Hear Mr Pancks?’ cried that gentleman (after repeating the popular +performance). ‘Yes, I should think so! It’s almost time to hear Mr +Pancks. Mr Pancks has come down into the Yard to-night on purpose that +you should hear him. Pancks is only the Works; but here’s the Winder!’ + +The audience would have gone over to Mr Pancks, as one man, woman, and +child, but for the long, grey, silken locks, and the broad-brimmed hat. + +‘Here’s the Stop,’ said Pancks, ‘that sets the tune to be ground. And +there is but one tune, and its name is Grind, Grind, Grind! Here’s the +Proprietor, and here’s his Grubber. Why, good people, when he comes +smoothly spinning through the Yard to-night, like a slow-going +benevolent Humming-Top, and when you come about him with your complaints +of the Grubber, you don’t know what a cheat the Proprietor is! What do +you think of his showing himself to-night, that I may have all the blame +on Monday? What do you think of his having had me over the coals this +very evening, because I don’t squeeze you enough? What do you think of +my being, at the present moment, under special orders to squeeze you dry +on Monday?’ + +The reply was given in a murmur of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Shabby!’ + +‘Shabby?’ snorted Pancks. ‘Yes, I should think so! The lot that your +Casby belongs to, is the shabbiest of all the lots. Setting their +Grubbers on, at a wretched pittance, to do what they’re ashamed and +afraid to do and pretend not to do, but what they will have done, or +give a man no rest! Imposing on you to give their Grubbers nothing but +blame, and to give them nothing but credit! Why, the worst-looking +cheat in all this town who gets the value of eighteenpence under false +pretences, an’t half such a cheat as this sign-post of The Casby’s Head +here!’ + +Cries of ‘That’s true!’ and ‘No more he an’t!’ + +‘And see what you get of these fellows, besides,’ said Pancks. ‘See what +more you get of these precious Humming-Tops, revolving among you with +such smoothness that you’ve no idea of the pattern painted on ‘em, or +the little window in ‘em. I wish to call your attention to myself for a +moment. I an’t an agreeable style of chap, I know that very well.’ + +The auditory were divided on this point; its more uncompromising members +crying, ‘No, you are not,’ and its politer materials, ‘Yes, you are.’ + +‘I am, in general,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘a dry, uncomfortable, dreary +Plodder and Grubber. That’s your humble servant. There’s his full-length +portrait, painted by himself and presented to you, warranted a likeness! +But what’s a man to be, with such a man as this for his Proprietor? +What can be expected of him? Did anybody ever find boiled mutton and +caper-sauce growing in a cocoa-nut?’ + +None of the Bleeding Hearts ever had, it was clear from the alacrity of +their response. + +‘Well,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘and neither will you find in Grubbers like +myself, under Proprietors like this, pleasant qualities. I’ve been a +Grubber from a boy. What has my life been? Fag and grind, fag and grind, +turn the wheel, turn the wheel! I haven’t been agreeable to myself, +and I haven’t been likely to be agreeable to anybody else. If I was a +shilling a week less useful in ten years’ time, this impostor would give +me a shilling a week less; if as useful a man could be got at sixpence +cheaper, he would be taken in my place at sixpence cheaper. Bargain and +sale, bless you! Fixed principles! It’s a mighty fine sign-post, is The +Casby’s Head,’ said Mr Pancks, surveying it with anything rather than +admiration; ‘but the real name of the House is the Sham’s Arms. Its +motto is, Keep the Grubber always at it. Is any gentleman present,’ said +Mr Pancks, breaking off and looking round, ‘acquainted with the English +Grammar?’ + +Bleeding Heart Yard was shy of claiming that acquaintance. + +‘It’s no matter,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘I merely wish to remark that the task +this Proprietor has set me, has been never to leave off conjugating the +Imperative Mood Present Tense of the verb To keep always at it. Keep +thou always at it. Let him keep always at it. Keep we or do we keep +always at it. Keep ye or do ye or you keep always at it. Let them keep +always at it. Here is your benevolent Patriarch of a Casby, and there is +his golden rule. He is uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not +at all so. He is as sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water. He +provides the pitch, and I handle it, and it sticks to me. Now,’ said +Mr Pancks, closing upon his late Proprietor again, from whom he had +withdrawn a little for the better display of him to the Yard; ‘as I am +not accustomed to speak in public, and as I have made a rather lengthy +speech, all circumstances considered, I shall bring my observations to a +close by requesting you to get out of this.’ + +The Last of the Patriarchs had been so seized by assault, and required +so much room to catch an idea in, an so much more room to turn it in, +that he had not a word to offer in reply. He appeared to be meditating +some Patriarchal way out of his delicate position, when Mr Pancks, once +more suddenly applying the trigger to his hat, shot it off again with +his former dexterity. On the preceding occasion, one or two of the +Bleeding Heart Yarders had obsequiously picked it up and handed it to +its owner; but Mr Pancks had now so far impressed his audience, that the +Patriarch had to turn and stoop for it himself. + +Quick as lightning, Mr Pancks, who, for some moments, had had his right +hand in his coat pocket, whipped out a pair of shears, swooped upon the +Patriarch behind, and snipped off short the sacred locks that flowed +upon his shoulders. In a paroxysm of animosity and rapidity, Mr Pancks +then caught the broad-brimmed hat out of the astounded Patriarch’s hand, +cut it down into a mere stewpan, and fixed it on the Patriarch’s head. + +Before the frightful results of this desperate action, Mr Pancks himself +recoiled in consternation. A bare-polled, goggle-eyed, big-headed +lumbering personage stood staring at him, not in the least impressive, +not in the least venerable, who seemed to have started out of the +earth to ask what was become of Casby. After staring at this phantom in +return, in silent awe, Mr Pancks threw down his shears, and fled for a +place of hiding, where he might lie sheltered from the consequences of +his crime. Mr Pancks deemed it prudent to use all possible despatch in +making off, though he was pursued by nothing but the sound of laughter +in Bleeding Heart Yard, rippling through the air and making it ring +again. + + + + +CHAPTER 33. Going! + + +The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes +of the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable. + +It was Little Dorrit’s lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The +Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in +their shadows as their child, while she thought for Clennam, worked for +him, watched him, and only left him, still to devote her utmost love and +care to him. Her part in the life outside the gate urged its pressing +claims upon her too, and her patience untiringly responded to them. +Here was Fanny, proud, fitful, whimsical, further advanced in that +disqualified state for going into society which had so much fretted +her on the evening of the tortoise-shell knife, resolved always to want +comfort, resolved not to be comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged, +and resolved that nobody should have the audacity to think her so. Here +was her brother, a weak, proud, tipsy, young old man, shaking from +head to foot, talking as indistinctly as if some of the money he plumed +himself upon had got into his mouth and couldn’t be got out, unable to +walk alone in any act of his life, and patronising the sister whom he +selfishly loved (he always had that negative merit, ill-starred and +ill-launched Tip!) because he suffered her to lead him. Here was Mrs +Merdle in gauzy mourning--the original cap whereof had possibly been +rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded to a highly +becoming article from the Parisian market--warring with Fanny foot to +foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every hour in the day. +Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to keep the peace between +them, but humbly inclining to the opinion that they could do no better +than agree that they were both remarkably fine women, and that there was +no nonsense about either of them--for which gentle recommendation they +united in falling upon him frightfully. Then, too, here was Mrs General, +got home from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every +other day, demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some +vacant appointment or other. Of which remarkable gentlewoman it may be +finally observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman of whose +transcendent fitness for any vacant appointment on the face of this +earth, so many people were (as the warmth of her Testimonials evinced) +so perfectly satisfied--or who was so very unfortunate in having a +large circle of ardent and distinguished admirers, who never themselves +happened to want her in any capacity. + +On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle’s decease, many important +persons had been unable to determine whether they should cut Mrs Merdle, +or comfort her. As it seemed, however, essential to the strength of +their own case that they should admit her to have been cruelly deceived, +they graciously made the admission, and continued to know her. It +followed that Mrs Merdle, as a woman of fashion and good breeding who +had been sacrificed to the wiles of a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle +was found out from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, the +moment he was found out in his pocket), must be actively championed by +her order for her order’s sake. She returned this fealty by causing it +to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious +shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she +came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well. + +Mr Sparkler’s lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a +gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be +reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative +height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the +Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect +of nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs +Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel +little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before +yesterday’s soup and coach-horses was as constant as Death to man, +arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn +rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed +themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of +the genteel establishment Fanny’s children would be poked by-and-by, and +who would take care of those unborn little victims. + +Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or +anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which +his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit’s sole reliance during this +heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but she had written +to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in +the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points +on which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one, +the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting +presence in the Marshalsea, was referable. + +Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen +into Rigaud’s hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of +that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. The +old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles +the importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore he wrote +back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she +expressed on that head, and adding that he would not come over to +England ‘without making some attempt to trace them out.’ + +By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be +agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to +lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned +to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on +together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and +without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were +the best fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who +was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter’s happiness by +being constantly slighted in her presence, said ‘Good, Henry! You are +my Pet’s husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if +you wish it, good!’ This arrangement involved the contingent advantage, +which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs +Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their +communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high +spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the +degrading necessity of knowing whence it came. + +Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great +ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had +been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for +some time back. The occupation he set himself was to visit these with +all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he +had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill, +and bring away such box or parcel. + +With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his +pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his +difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he +pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them. +Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow +the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid +to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner, +entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly +renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the +ground that they were ‘all bosh.’ Sometimes interpreters were called +in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as +instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. On a +balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much; +for, although he found no property, he found so many debts and various +associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word +he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with +injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police +were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of +Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious +language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), +and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and +public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a +cheerful and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm. + +But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear, +shrewd, persevering man. When he had ‘worked round,’ as he called it, to +Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not +disheartened. ‘The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,’ +argued Mr Meagles, ‘the nearer I am likely to come to the papers, +whether they turn up or no. Because it is only reasonable to conclude +that he would deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from +people over in England, and where they would yet be accessible to +himself, don’t you see?’ + +At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for +him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute +or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no more; and that when she +told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, who was on his way to see +him, had an interest in ascertaining something about the man if he +could, he had asked her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known +to Miss Wade, then living in such a street at Calais. ‘Oho!’ said Mr +Meagles. + +As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles +rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the +peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, ‘Ice-say! Seer! Who?’ +In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that +there was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know +something of what you and themselves were up to; and returned, ‘Miss +Wade, my dear.’ He was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade. + +‘It’s some time since we met,’ said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; ‘I +hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?’ + +Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade +asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again? +Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the room without +observing anything in the shape of a box. + +‘Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,’ said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable, +managing, not to say coaxing voice, ‘it is possible that you may be able +to throw a light upon a little something that is at present dark. Any +unpleasant bygones between us are bygones, I hope. Can’t be helped now. +You recollect my daughter? Time changes so! A mother!’ + +In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key-note. He +paused for any expression of interest, but paused in vain. + +‘That is not the subject you wished to enter on?’ she said, after a cold +silence. + +‘No, no,’ returned Mr Meagles. ‘No. I thought your good nature might--’ + +‘I thought you knew,’ she interrupted, with a smile, ‘that my good +nature is not to be calculated upon?’ + +‘Don’t say so,’ said Mr Meagles; ‘you do yourself an injustice. However, +to come to the point.’ For he was sensible of having gained nothing +by approaching it in a roundabout way. ‘I have heard from my friend +Clennam, who, you will be sorry to hear, has been and still is very +ill--’ + +He paused again, and again she was silent. + +‘--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London +by a violent accident. Now, don’t mistake me! I know it was a slight +knowledge,’ said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling an angry +interruption which he saw about to break. ‘I am fully aware of that. It +was a slight knowledge, I know. But the question is,’ Mr Meagles’s voice +here became comfortable again, ‘did he, on his way to England last time, +leave a box of papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in +some receptacle or other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him +to leave them here for a short time, until he wanted them?’ + +‘The question is?’ she repeated. ‘Whose question is?’ + +‘Mine,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘And not only mine but Clennam’s question, and +other people’s question. Now, I am sure,’ continued Mr Meagles, whose +heart was overflowing with Pet, ‘that you can’t have any unkind feeling +towards my daughter; it’s impossible. Well! It’s her question, too; +being one in which a particular friend of hers is nearly interested. +So here I am, frankly to say that is the question, and to ask, Now, did +he?’ + +‘Upon my word,’ she returned, ‘I seem to be a mark for everybody who +knew anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and dismissed, +to aim their questions at!’ + +‘Now, don’t,’ remonstrated Mr Meagles, ‘don’t! Don’t take offence, +because it’s the plainest question in the world, and might be asked +of any one. The documents I refer to were not his own, were wrongfully +obtained, might at some time or other be troublesome to an innocent +person to have in keeping, and are sought by the people to whom they +really belong. He passed through Calais going to London, and there were +reasons why he should not take them with him then, why he should wish +to be able to put his hand upon them readily, and why he should distrust +leaving them with people of his own sort. Did he leave them here? I +declare if I knew how to avoid giving you offence, I would take any +pains to do it. I put the question personally, but there’s nothing +personal in it. I might put it to any one; I have put it already to many +people. Did he leave them here? Did he leave anything here?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Then unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?’ + +‘I know nothing about them. I have now answered your unaccountable +question. He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about them.’ + +‘There!’ said Mr Meagles rising. ‘I am sorry for it; that’s over; and I +hope there is not much harm done.--Tattycoram well, Miss Wade?’ + +‘Harriet well? O yes!’ + +‘I have put my foot in it again,’ said Mr Meagles, thus corrected. ‘I +can’t keep my foot out of it here, it seems. Perhaps, if I had thought +twice about it, I might never have given her the jingling name. But, +when one means to be good-natured and sportive with young people, one +doesn’t think twice. Her old friend leaves a kind word for her, Miss +Wade, if you should think proper to deliver it.’ + +She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face out +of the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the Hotel where +he had left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: ‘Beaten, Mother; +no effects!’ He took it next to the London Steam Packet, which sailed in +the night; and next to the Marshalsea. + +The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles presented +themselves at the wicket towards nightfall. Miss Dorrit was not there +then, he said; but she had been there in the morning, and invariably +came in the evening. Mr Clennam was slowly mending; and Maggy and Mrs +Plornish and Mr Baptist took care of him by turns. Miss Dorrit was sure +to come back that evening before the bell rang. There was the room the +Marshal had lent her, up-stairs, in which they could wait for her, if +they pleased. Mistrustful that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see +him without preparation, Mr Meagles accepted the offer; and they were +left shut up in the room, looking down through its barred window into +the jail. + +The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that +she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to +gasp for air. He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making +himself worse by laboriously fanning himself with her handkerchief, when +he turned towards the opening door. + +‘Eh? Good gracious!’ said Mr Meagles, ‘this is not Miss Dorrit! Why, +Mother, look! Tattycoram!’ + +No other. And in Tattycoram’s arms was an iron box some two feet square. +Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen, in the first of her dreams, going +out of the old house in the dead of the night under Double’s arm. This, +Tattycoram put on the ground at her old master’s feet: this, Tattycoram +fell on her knees by, and beat her hands upon, crying half in exultation +and half in despair, half in laughter and half in tears, ‘Pardon, dear +Master; take me back, dear Mistress; here it is!’ + +‘Tatty!’ exclaimed Mr Meagles. + +‘What you wanted!’ said Tattycoram. ‘Here it is! I was put in the next +room not to see you. I heard you ask her about it, I heard her say she +hadn’t got it, I was there when he left it, and I took it at bedtime and +brought it away. Here it is!’ + +‘Why, my girl,’ cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, ‘how did +you come over?’ + +‘I came in the boat with you. I was sitting wrapped up at the other end. +When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another coach and followed +you here. She never would have given it up after what you had said to +her about its being wanted; she would sooner have sunk it in the sea, or +burnt it. But, here it is!’ + +The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her ‘Here it is!’ + +‘She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he left +it, and I knew well that after what you said, and after her denying +it, she never would have given it up. But here it is! Dear Master, dear +Mistress, take me back again, and give me back the dear old name! Let +this intercede for me. Here it is!’ + +Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better than when +they took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection again. + +‘Oh! I have been so wretched,’ cried Tattycoram, weeping much more, +‘always so unhappy, and so repentant! I was afraid of her from the first +time I saw her. I knew she had got a power over me through understanding +what was bad in me so well. It was a madness in me, and she could raise +it whenever she liked. I used to think, when I got into that state, that +people were all against me because of my first beginning; and the kinder +they were to me, the worse fault I found in them. I made it out that +they triumphed above me, and that they wanted to make me envy them, when +I know--when I even knew then--that they never thought of such a thing. +And my beautiful young mistress not so happy as she ought to have been, +and I gone away from her! Such a brute and a wretch as she must think +me! But you’ll say a word to her for me, and ask her to be as forgiving +as you two are? For I am not so bad as I was,’ pleaded Tattycoram; ‘I am +bad enough, but not so bad as I was, indeed. I have had Miss Wade +before me all this time, as if it was my own self grown ripe--turning +everything the wrong way, and twisting all good into evil. I have had +her before me all this time, finding no pleasure in anything but keeping +me as miserable, suspicious, and tormenting as herself. Not that she had +much to do, to do that,’ cried Tattycoram, in a closing great burst of +distress, ‘for I was as bad as bad could be. I only mean to say, that, +after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite so bad +again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees. I’ll try very +hard. I won’t stop at five-and-twenty, sir, I’ll count five-and-twenty +hundred, five-and-twenty thousand!’ + +Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little Dorrit +came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, and her +gentle face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy. The secret +was safe now! She could keep her own part of it from him; he should +never know of her loss; in time to come he should know all that was of +import to himself; but he should never know what concerned her only. +That was all passed, all forgiven, all forgotten. + +‘Now, my dear Miss Dorrit,’ said Mr Meagles; ‘I am a man of business--or +at least was--and I am going to take my measures promptly, in that +character. Had I better see Arthur to-night?’ + +‘I think not to-night. I will go to his room and ascertain how he is. +But I think it will be better not to see him to-night.’ + +‘I am much of your opinion, my dear,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘and therefore +I have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room. Then I shall +probably not see him for some little time to come. But I’ll explain what +I mean when you come back.’ + +She left the room. Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the window, +saw her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison-yard. He said +gently, ‘Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good girl.’ + +She went up to the window. + +‘You see that young lady who was here just now--that little, quiet, +fragile figure passing along there, Tatty? Look. The people stand out +of the way to let her go by. The men--see the poor, shabby fellows--pull +off their hats to her quite politely, and now she glides in at that +doorway. See her, Tattycoram?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the child +of this place. She was born here, and lived here many years. I can’t +breathe here. A doleful place to be born and bred in, Tattycoram?’ + +‘Yes indeed, sir!’ + +‘If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that +everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast +it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an useless +existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has +been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I +tell you what I consider those eyes of hers, that were here just now, to +have always looked at, to get that expression?’ + +‘Yes, if you please, sir.’ + +‘Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no +antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us +with the Almighty, or with ourselves.’ + +They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the +prisoners, until she was seen coming back. She was soon in the room, and +recommended that Arthur, whom she had left calm and composed, should not +be visited that night. + +‘Good!’ said Mr Meagles, cheerily. ‘I have not a doubt that’s best. I +shall trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your hands, and I +well know they couldn’t be in better. I am off again to-morrow morning.’ + +Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where? + +‘My dear,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘I can’t live without breathing. This place +has taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again until +Arthur is out of this place.’ + +‘How is that a reason for going off again to-morrow morning?’ + +‘You shall understand,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘To-night we three will put up +at a City Hotel. To-morrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram will go down +to Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by Dr Buchan in the +parlour-window, will think them a couple of ghosts; and I shall go +abroad again for Doyce. We must have Dan here. Now, I tell you, my love, +it’s of no use writing and planning and conditionally speculating upon +this and that and the other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we +must have Doyce here. I devote myself at daybreak to-morrow morning, to +bringing Doyce here. It’s nothing to me to go and find him. I’m an old +traveller, and all foreign languages and customs are alike to me--I +never understand anything about any of ‘em. Therefore I can’t be put +to any inconvenience. Go at once I must, it stands to reason; because +I can’t live without breathing freely; and I can’t breathe freely until +Arthur is out of this Marshalsea. I am stifled at the present moment, +and have scarcely breath enough to say this much, and to carry this +precious box down-stairs for you.’ + +They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles carrying +the box. Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which rather surprised +him. He called a coach for her and she got into it, and he placed the +box beside her when she was seated. In her joy and gratitude she kissed +his hand. + +‘I don’t like that, my dear,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘It goes against my +feeling of what’s right, that _you_ should do homage to _me_--at the +Marshalsea Gate.’ + +She bent forward, and kissed his cheek. + +‘You remind me of the days,’ said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping--‘but +she’s very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that no +one sees them--and he certainly is well connected and of a very good +family!’ + +It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if he +made the most of it, who could blame him? + + + + +CHAPTER 34. Gone + + +On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but otherwise +restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On a healthy autumn +day; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the +summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops +had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clustering in the +orchards were russet, and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson +among the yellowing foliage. Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy +winter that was coming were to be caught through unaccustomed openings +among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from +the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rested on it as the +bloom lies on the plum. So, from the seashore the ocean was no longer to +be seen lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were +open, and its whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand +on the beach to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like +autumn-tinted leaves that had drifted from the trees. + +Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with its +fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of +any of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its bricks and bars +bore uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam, listening to the voice +as it read to him, heard in it all that great Nature was doing, heard in +it all the soothing songs she sings to man. At no Mother’s knee but hers +had he ever dwelt in his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, +on the harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the +early-fostered seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from +blighting winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery +acorns. But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were +memories of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every merciful +and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his life. + +When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring that +the light was strong upon them. + +Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade +the window. Maggy sat at her needlework in her old place. The light +softened, Little Dorrit brought her chair closer to his side. + +‘This will soon be over now, dear Mr Clennam. Not only are Mr Doyce’s +letters to you so full of friendship and encouragement, but Mr Rugg says +his letters to him are so full of help, and that everybody (now a little +anger is past) is so considerate, and speaks so well of you, that it +will soon be over now.’ + +‘Dear girl. Dear heart. Good angel!’ + +‘You praise me far too much. And yet it is such an exquisite pleasure +to me to hear you speak so feelingly, and to--and to see,’ said Little +Dorrit, raising her eyes to his, ‘how deeply you mean it, that I cannot +say Don’t.’ + +He lifted her hand to his lips. + +‘You have been here many, many times, when I have not seen you, Little +Dorrit?’ + +‘Yes, I have been here sometimes when I have not come into the room.’ + +‘Very often?’ + +‘Rather often,’ said Little Dorrit, timidly. + +‘Every day?’ + +‘I think,’ said Little Dorrit, after hesitating, ‘that I have been here +at least twice every day.’ + +He might have released the little light hand after fervently kissing it +again; but that, with a very gentle lingering where it was, it seemed to +court being retained. He took it in both of his, and it lay softly on his +breast. + +‘Dear Little Dorrit, it is not my imprisonment only that will soon be +over. This sacrifice of you must be ended. We must learn to part again, +and to take our different ways so wide asunder. You have not forgotten +what we said together, when you came back?’ + +‘O no, I have not forgotten it. But something has been--You feel quite +strong to-day, don’t you?’ + +‘Quite strong.’ + +The hand he held crept up a little nearer his face. + +‘Do you feel quite strong enough to know what a great fortune I have +got?’ + +‘I shall be very glad to be told. No fortune can be too great or good +for Little Dorrit.’ + +‘I have been anxiously waiting to tell you. I have been longing and +longing to tell you. You are sure you will not take it?’ + +‘Never!’ + +‘You are quite sure you will not take half of it?’ + +‘Never, dear Little Dorrit!’ + +As she looked at him silently, there was something in her affectionate +face that he did not quite comprehend: something that could have broken +into tears in a moment, and yet that was happy and proud. + +‘You will be sorry to hear what I have to tell you about Fanny. Poor +Fanny has lost everything. She has nothing left but her husband’s +income. All that papa gave her when she married was lost as your money +was lost. It was in the same hands, and it is all gone.’ + +Arthur was more shocked than surprised to hear it. ‘I had hoped it might +not be so bad,’ he said: ‘but I had feared a heavy loss there, knowing +the connection between her husband and the defaulter.’ + +‘Yes. It is all gone. I am very sorry for Fanny; very, very, very sorry +for poor Fanny. My poor brother too!’ + +‘Had _he_ property in the same hands?’ + +‘Yes! And it’s all gone.--How much do you think my own great fortune +is?’ + +As Arthur looked at her inquiringly, with a new apprehension on him, +she withdrew her hand, and laid her face down on the spot where it had +rested. + +‘I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here. When +papa came over to England, he confided everything he had to the same +hands, and it is all swept away. O my dearest and best, are you quite +sure you will not share my fortune with me now?’ + +Locked in his arms, held to his heart, with his manly tears upon her own +cheek, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped it in its +fellow-hand. + +‘Never to part, my dearest Arthur; never any more, until the last! +I never was rich before, I never was proud before, I never was happy +before, I am rich in being taken by you, I am proud in having been +resigned by you, I am happy in being with you in this prison, as I +should be happy in coming back to it with you, if it should be the will +of GOD, and comforting and serving you with all my love and truth. I am +yours anywhere, everywhere! I love you dearly! I would rather pass my +life here with you, and go out daily, working for our bread, than I +would have the greatest fortune that ever was told, and be the greatest +lady that ever was honoured. O, if poor papa may only know how blest at +last my heart is, in this room where he suffered for so many years!’ + + +Maggy had of course been staring from the first, and had of course been +crying her eyes out long before this. Maggy was now so overjoyed that, +after hugging her little mother with all her might, she went down-stairs +like a clog-hornpipe to find somebody or other to whom to impart her +gladness. Whom should Maggy meet but Flora and Mr F.’s Aunt opportunely +coming in? And whom else, as a consequence of that meeting, should +Little Dorrit find waiting for herself, when, a good two or three hours +afterwards, she went out? + +Flora’s eyes were a little red, and she seemed rather out of spirits. +Mr F.’s Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance of being past +bending by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure. Her bonnet +was cocked up behind in a terrific manner; and her stony reticule was as +rigid as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon’s head, and had got it +at that moment inside. With these imposing attributes, Mr F.’s Aunt, +publicly seated on the steps of the Marshal’s official residence, had +been for the two or three hours in question a great boon to the younger +inhabitants of the Borough, whose sallies of humour she had considerably +flushed herself by resenting at the point of her umbrella, from time to +time. + +‘Painfully aware, Miss Dorrit, I am sure,’ said Flora, ‘that to propose +an adjournment to any place to one so far removed by fortune and so +courted and caressed by the best society must ever appear intruding +even if not a pie-shop far below your present sphere and a back-parlour +though a civil man but if for the sake of Arthur--cannot overcome it +more improper now than ever late Doyce and Clennam--one last remark I +might wish to make one last explanation I might wish to offer perhaps +your good nature might excuse under pretence of three kidney ones the +humble place of conversation.’ + +Rightly interpreting this rather obscure speech, Little Dorrit returned +that she was quite at Flora’s disposition. Flora accordingly led the +way across the road to the pie-shop in question: Mr F.’s Aunt stalking +across in the rear, and putting herself in the way of being run over, +with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. + +When the ‘three kidney ones,’ which were to be a blind to the +conversation, were set before them on three little tin platters, each +kidney one ornamented with a hole at the top, into which the civil man +poured hot gravy out of a spouted can as if he were feeding three lamps, +Flora took out her pocket-handkerchief. + +‘If Fancy’s fair dreams,’ she began, ‘have ever pictured that when +Arthur--cannot overcome it pray excuse me--was restored to freedom even +a pie as far from flaky as the present and so deficient in kidney as to +be in that respect like a minced nutmeg might not prove unacceptable if +offered by the hand of true regard such visions have for ever fled +and all is cancelled but being aware that tender relations are in +contemplation beg to state that I heartily wish well to both and find +no fault with either not the least, it may be withering to know that ere +the hand of Time had made me much less slim than formerly and dreadfully +red on the slightest exertion particularly after eating I well know when +it takes the form of a rash, it might have been and was not through the +interruption of parents and mental torpor succeeded until the mysterious +clue was held by Mr F. still I would not be ungenerous to either and I +heartily wish well to both.’ + +Little Dorrit took her hand, and thanked her for all her old kindness. + +‘Call it not kindness,’ returned Flora, giving her an honest kiss, ‘for +you always were the best and dearest little thing that ever was if I +may take the liberty and even in a money point of view a saving being +Conscience itself though I must add much more agreeable than mine ever +was to me for though not I hope more burdened than other people’s yet +I have always found it far readier to make one uncomfortable than +comfortable and evidently taking a greater pleasure in doing it but I am +wandering, one hope I wish to express ere yet the closing scene draws +in and it is that I do trust for the sake of old times and old sincerity +that Arthur will know that I didn’t desert him in his misfortunes but +that I came backwards and forwards constantly to ask if I could do +anything for him and that I sat in the pie-shop where they very civilly +fetched something warm in a tumbler from the hotel and really very nice +hours after hours to keep him company over the way without his knowing +it.’ + +Flora really had tears in her eyes now, and they showed her to great +advantage. + +‘Over and above which,’ said Flora, ‘I earnestly beg you as the dearest +thing that ever was if you’ll still excuse the familiarity from one who +moves in very different circles to let Arthur understand that I don’t +know after all whether it wasn’t all nonsense between us though pleasant +at the time and trying too and certainly Mr F. did work a change and +the spell being broken nothing could be expected to take place without +weaving it afresh which various circumstances have combined to prevent +of which perhaps not the least powerful was that it was not to be, I +am not prepared to say that if it had been agreeable to Arthur and had +brought itself about naturally in the first instance I should not have +been very glad being of a lively disposition and moped at home where +papa undoubtedly is the most aggravating of his sex and not improved +since having been cut down by the hand of the Incendiary into something +of which I never saw the counterpart in all my life but jealousy is not +my character nor ill-will though many faults.’ + +Without having been able closely to follow Mrs Finching through this +labyrinth, Little Dorrit understood its purpose, and cordially accepted +the trust. + +‘The withered chaplet my dear,’ said Flora, with great enjoyment, ‘is +then perished the column is crumbled and the pyramid is standing upside +down upon its what’s-his-name call it not giddiness call it not weakness +call it not folly I must now retire into privacy and look upon the ashes +of departed joys no more but taking a further liberty of paying for the +pastry which has formed the humble pretext of our interview will for +ever say Adieu!’ + +Mr F.’s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had +been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her +first assumption of that public position on the Marshal’s steps, took +the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe +to the relict of her late nephew. + +‘Bring him for’ard, and I’ll chuck him out o’ winder!’ + +Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that +they were going home to dinner. Mr F.’s Aunt persisted in replying, +‘Bring him for’ard and I’ll chuck him out o’ winder!’ Having reiterated +this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of +defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.’s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in +the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until +such time as ‘he’ should have been ‘brought for’ard,’ and the chucking +portion of his destiny accomplished. + +In this condition of things, Flora confided to Little Dorrit that she +had not seen Mr F.’s Aunt so full of life and character for weeks; that +she would find it necessary to remain there ‘hours perhaps,’ until the +inexorable old lady could be softened; and that she could manage her +best alone. They parted, therefore, in the friendliest manner, and with +the kindest feeling on both sides. + +Mr F.’s Aunt holding out like a grim fortress, and Flora becoming in +need of refreshment, a messenger was despatched to the hotel for the +tumbler already glanced at, which was afterwards replenished. With the +aid of its content, a newspaper, and some skimming of the cream of the +pie-stock, Flora got through the remainder of the day in perfect good +humour; though occasionally embarrassed by the consequences of an +idle rumour which circulated among the credulous infants of the +neighbourhood, to the effect that an old lady had sold herself to the +pie-shop to be made up, and was then sitting in the pie-shop parlour, +declining to complete her contract. This attracted so many young persons +of both sexes, and, when the shades of evening began to fall, occasioned +so much interruption to the business, that the merchant became very +pressing in his proposals that Mr F.’s Aunt should be removed. A +conveyance was accordingly brought to the door, which, by the joint +efforts of the merchant and Flora, this remarkable woman was at last +induced to enter; though not without even then putting her head out of +the window, and demanding to have him ‘brought for’ard’ for the purpose +originally mentioned. As she was observed at this time to direct baleful +glances towards the Marshalsea, it has been supposed that this admirably +consistent female intended by ‘him,’ Arthur Clennam. This, however, is +mere speculation; who the person was, who, for the satisfaction of Mr +F.’s Aunt’s mind, ought to have been brought forward and never was +brought forward, will never be positively known. + + +The autumn days went on, and Little Dorrit never came to the Marshalsea +now and went away without seeing him. No, no, no. + +One morning, as Arthur listened for the light feet that every morning +ascended winged to his heart, bringing the heavenly brightness of a new +love into the room where the old love had wrought so hard and been so +true; one morning, as he listened, he heard her coming, not alone. + +‘Dear Arthur,’ said her delighted voice outside the door, ‘I have some +one here. May I bring some one in?’ + +He had thought from the tread there were two with her. He answered +‘Yes,’ and she came in with Mr Meagles. Sun-browned and jolly Mr +Meagles looked, and he opened his arms and folded Arthur in them, like a +sun-browned and jolly father. + +‘Now I am all right,’ said Mr Meagles, after a minute or so. ‘Now it’s +over. Arthur, my dear fellow, confess at once that you expected me +before.’ + +‘I did,’ said Arthur; ‘but Amy told me--’ + +‘Little Dorrit. Never any other name.’ (It was she who whispered it.) + +‘--But my Little Dorrit told me that, without asking for any further +explanation, I was not to expect you until I saw you.’ + +‘And now you see me, my boy,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand +stoutly; ‘and now you shall have any explanation and every explanation. +The fact is, I _was_ here--came straight to you from the Allongers +and Marshongers, or I should be ashamed to look you in the face this +day,--but you were not in company trim at the moment, and I had to start +off again to catch Doyce.’ + +‘Poor Doyce!’ sighed Arthur. + +‘Don’t call him names that he don’t deserve,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘_He’s_ +not poor; _he’s_ doing well enough. Doyce is a wonderful fellow over +there. I assure you he is making out his case like a house a-fire. He +has fallen on his legs, has Dan. Where they don’t want things done and +find a man to do ‘em, that man’s off his legs; but where they do want +things done and find a man to do ‘em, that man’s on his legs. You won’t +have occasion to trouble the Circumlocution Office any more. Let me tell +you, Dan has done without ‘em!’ + +‘What a load you take from my mind!’ cried Arthur. ‘What happiness you +give me!’ + +‘Happiness?’ retorted Mr Meagles. ‘Don’t talk about happiness till you +see Dan. I assure you Dan is directing works and executing labours over +yonder, that it would make your hair stand on end to look at. He’s no +public offender, bless you, now! He’s medalled and ribboned, and starred +and crossed, and I don’t-know-what all’d, like a born nobleman. But we +mustn’t talk about that over here.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Oh, egad!’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head very seriously, ‘he must +hide all those things under lock and key when he comes over here. They +won’t do over here. In that particular, Britannia is a Britannia in the +Manger--won’t give her children such distinctions herself, and won’t +allow them to be seen when they are given by other countries. No, no, +Dan!’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head again. ‘That won’t do here!’ + +‘If you had brought me (except for Doyce’s sake) twice what I have +lost,’ cried Arthur, ‘you would not have given me the pleasure that you +give me in this news.’ + +‘Why, of course, of course,’ assented Mr Meagles. ‘Of course I know +that, my good fellow, and therefore I come out with it in the first +burst. Now, to go back, about catching Doyce. I caught Doyce. Ran +against him among a lot of those dirty brown dogs in women’s nightcaps a +great deal too big for ‘em, calling themselves Arabs and all sorts of +incoherent races. _You_ know ‘em! Well! He was coming straight to me, +and I was going to him, and so we came back together.’ + +‘Doyce in England!’ exclaimed Arthur. + +‘There!’ said Mr Meagles, throwing open his arms. ‘I am the worst man +in the world to manage a thing of this sort. I don’t know what I should +have done if I had been in the diplomatic line--right, perhaps! The long +and short of it is, Arthur, we have both been in England this fortnight. +And if you go on to ask where Doyce is at the present moment, why, my +plain answer is--here he is! And now I can breathe again at last!’ + +Doyce darted in from behind the door, caught Arthur by both hands, and +said the rest for himself. + +‘There are only three branches of my subject, my dear Clennam,’ said +Doyce, proceeding to mould them severally, with his plastic thumb, on +the palm of his hand, ‘and they’re soon disposed of. First, not a word +more from you about the past. There was an error in your calculations. +I know what that is. It affects the whole machine, and failure is the +consequence. You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another +time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every +failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too +sensible a man not to learn from this failure. So much for firstly. +Secondly. I was sorry you should have taken it so heavily to heart, and +reproached yourself so severely; I was travelling home night and day +to put matters right, with the assistance of our friend, when I fell in +with our friend as he has informed you. Thirdly. We two agreed, that, +after what you had undergone, after your distress of mind, and after +your illness, it would be a pleasant surprise if we could so far keep +quiet as to get things perfectly arranged without your knowledge, and +then come and say that all the affairs were smooth, that everything was +right, that the business stood in greater want of you than ever it did, +and that a new and prosperous career was opened before you and me as +partners. That’s thirdly. But you know we always make an allowance for +friction, and so I have reserved space to close in. My dear Clennam, +I thoroughly confide in you; you have it in your power to be quite as +useful to me as I have, or have had, it in my power to be useful to you; +your old place awaits you, and wants you very much; there is nothing to +detain you here one half-hour longer.’ + +There was silence, which was not broken until Arthur had stood for some +time at the window with his back towards them, and until his little wife +that was to be had gone to him and stayed by him. + +‘I made a remark a little while ago,’ said Daniel Doyce then, ‘which I +am inclined to think was an incorrect one. I said there was nothing +to detain you here, Clennam, half an hour longer. Am I mistaken in +supposing that you would rather not leave here till to-morrow morning? +Do I know, without being very wise, where you would like to go, direct +from these walls and from this room?’ + +‘You do,’ returned Arthur. ‘It has been our cherished purpose.’ + +‘Very well!’ said Doyce. ‘Then, if this young lady will do me the honour +of regarding me for four-and-twenty hours in the light of a father, and +will take a ride with me now towards Saint Paul’s Churchyard, I dare say +I know what we want to get there.’ + +Little Dorrit and he went out together soon afterwards, and Mr Meagles +lingered behind to say a word to his friend. + +‘I think, Arthur, you will not want Mother and me in the morning and +we will keep away. It might set Mother thinking about Pet; she’s a +soft-hearted woman. She’s best at the Cottage, and I’ll stay there and +keep her company.’ + +With that they parted for the time. And the day ended, and the night +ended, and the morning came, and Little Dorrit, simply dressed as usual +and having no one with her but Maggy, came into the prison with the +sunshine. The poor room was a happy room that morning. Where in the +world was there a room so full of quiet joy! + +‘My dear love,’ said Arthur. ‘Why does Maggy light the fire? We shall be +gone directly.’ + +‘I asked her to do it. I have taken such an odd fancy. I want you to +burn something for me.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘Only this folded paper. If you will put it in the fire with your own +hand, just as it is, my fancy will be gratified.’ + +‘Superstitious, darling Little Dorrit? Is it a charm?’ + +‘It is anything you like best, my own,’ she answered, laughing with +glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, ‘if you will only +humour me when the fire burns up.’ + +So they stood before the fire, waiting: Clennam with his arm about her +waist, and the fire shining, as fire in that same place had often shone, +in Little Dorrit’s eyes. ‘Is it bright enough now?’ said Arthur. ‘Quite +bright enough now,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘Does the charm want any words +to be said?’ asked Arthur, as he held the paper over the flame. ‘You can +say (if you don’t mind) “I love you!”’ answered Little Dorrit. So he said +it, and the paper burned away. + +They passed very quietly along the yard; for no one was there, though +many heads were stealthily peeping from the windows. Only one face, +familiar of old, was in the Lodge. When they had both accosted it, and +spoken many kind words, Little Dorrit turned back one last time with her +hand stretched out, saying, ‘Good-bye, good John! I hope you will live +very happy, dear!’ + +Then they went up the steps of the neighbouring Saint George’s Church, +and went up to the altar, where Daniel Doyce was waiting in his paternal +character. And there was Little Dorrit’s old friend who had given her +the Burial Register for a pillow; full of admiration that she should +come back to them to be married, after all. + +And they were married with the sun shining on them through the painted +figure of Our Saviour on the window. And they went into the very room +where Little Dorrit had slumbered after her party, to sign the Marriage +Register. And there, Mr Pancks, (destined to be chief clerk to Doyce and +Clennam, and afterwards partner in the house), sinking the Incendiary +in the peaceful friend, looked in at the door to see it done, with Flora +gallantly supported on one arm and Maggy on the other, and a back-ground +of John Chivery and father and other turnkeys who had run round for the +moment, deserting the parent Marshalsea for its happy child. Nor had +Flora the least signs of seclusion upon her, notwithstanding her recent +declaration; but, on the contrary, was wonderfully smart, and enjoyed +the ceremonies mightily, though in a fluttered way. + +Little Dorrit’s old friend held the inkstand as she signed her name, and +the clerk paused in taking off the good clergyman’s surplice, and all +the witnesses looked on with special interest. ‘For, you see,’ said +Little Dorrit’s old friend, ‘this young lady is one of our curiosities, +and has come now to the third volume of our Registers. Her birth is in +what I call the first volume; she lay asleep, on this very floor, +with her pretty head on what I call the second volume; and she’s now +a-writing her little name as a bride in what I call the third volume.’ + +They all gave place when the signing was done, and Little Dorrit and her +husband walked out of the church alone. They paused for a moment on the +steps of the portico, looking at the fresh perspective of the street in +the autumn morning sun’s bright rays, and then went down. + +Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went down +to give a mother’s care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny’s neglected +children no less than to their own, and to leave that lady going into +Society for ever and a day. Went down to give a tender nurse and friend +to Tip for some few years, who was never vexed by the great exactions he +made of her in return for the riches he might have given her if he had +ever had them, and who lovingly closed his eyes upon the Marshalsea +and all its blighted fruits. They went quietly down into the roaring +streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine +and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and +the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar. + + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE DORRIT *** + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #968] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT + +by Charles Dickens + + + + +PREFACE + +What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain +truth to another. That which is commonly called a long-sight, perceives +in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non-existent to +a short-sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there may +occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some +readers; whether it is ALWAYS the writer who colours highly, or whether +it is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull? + +On this head of exaggeration I have a positive experience, more curious +than the speculation I have just set down. It is this: I have never +touched a character precisely from the life, but some counterpart of +that character has incredulously asked me: “Now really, did I ever +really, see one like it?” + +All the Pecksniff family upon earth are quite agreed, I believe, that +Mr Pecksniff is an exaggeration, and that no such character ever +existed. I will not offer any plea on his behalf to so powerful and +genteel a body, but will make a remark on the character of Jonas +Chuzzlewit. + +I conceive that the sordid coarseness and brutality of Jonas would be +unnatural, if there had been nothing in his early education, and in the +precept and example always before him, to engender and develop the vices +that make him odious. But, so born and so bred, admired for that which +made him hateful, and justified from his cradle in cunning, treachery, +and avarice; I claim him as the legitimate issue of the father upon whom +those vices are seen to recoil. And I submit that their recoil upon that +old man, in his unhonoured age, is not a mere piece of poetical justice, +but is the extreme exposition of a direct truth. + +I make this comment, and solicit the reader’s attention to it in his or +her consideration of this tale, because nothing is more common in real +life than a want of profitable reflection on the causes of many vices +and crimes that awaken the general horror. What is substantially true of +families in this respect, is true of a whole commonwealth. As we sow, +we reap. Let the reader go into the children’s side of any prison in +England, or, I grieve to add, of many workhouses, and judge whether +those are monsters who disgrace our streets, people our hulks and +penitentiaries, and overcrowd our penal colonies, or are creatures whom +we have deliberately suffered to be bred for misery and ruin. + +The American portion of this story is in no other respect a caricature +than as it is an exhibition, for the most part (Mr Bevan expected), of +a ludicrous side, ONLY, of the American character--of that side which +was, four-and-twenty years ago, from its nature, the most obtrusive, and +the most likely to be seen by such travellers as Young Martin and Mark +Tapley. As I had never, in writing fiction, had any disposition to +soften what is ridiculous or wrong at home, so I then hoped that the +good-humored people of the United States would not be generally disposed +to quarrel with me for carrying the same usage abroad. I am happy to +believe that my confidence in that great nation was not misplaced. + +When this book was first published, I was given to understand, by some +authorities, that the Watertoast Association and eloquence were beyond +all bounds of belief. Therefore I record the fact that all that portion +of Martin Chuzzlewit’s experiences is a literal paraphrase of some +reports of public proceedings in the United States (especially of the +proceedings of a certain Brandywine Association), which were printed in +the Times Newspaper in June and July, 1843--at about the time when I was +engaged in writing those parts of the book; and which remain on the file +of the Times Newspaper, of course. + +In all my writings, I hope I have taken every available opportunity of +showing the want of sanitary improvements in the neglected dwellings +of the poor. Mrs Sarah Gamp was, four-and-twenty years ago, a fair +representation of the hired attendant on the poor in sickness. The +hospitals of London were, in many respects, noble Institutions; in +others, very defective. I think it not the least among the instances +of their mismanagement, that Mrs Betsey Prig was a fair specimen of +a Hospital Nurse; and that the Hospitals, with their means and funds, +should have left it to private humanity and enterprise, to enter on +an attempt to improve that class of persons--since, greatly improved +through the agency of good women. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT + +At a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, in +the city of New York, by two hundred representatives of the Press of +the United States of America, I made the following observations, among +others:-- + +“So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I might +have been contented with troubling you no further from my present +standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge +myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever +and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second +reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national +generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been +by the amazing changes I have seen around me on every side--changes +moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and +peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth +of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and +amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no +advancement can take place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant +as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes +in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to +correct when I was here first. And this brings me to a point on which I +have, ever since I landed in the United States last November, observed +a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it, but in reference +to which I will, with your good leave, take you into my confidence now. +Even the Press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, +and I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances observed +its information to be not strictly accurate with reference to myself. +Indeed, I have, now and again, been more surprised by printed news that +I have read of myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read +in my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with +which I have for some months past been collecting materials for, and +hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished me; seeing +that all that time my declaration has been perfectly well known to my +publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no consideration on earth +would induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have +resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you), is, +on my return to England, in my own person, in my own Journal, to bear, +for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes +in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that +wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, +I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet +temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for +the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here +and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so +long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause +to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of +mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do and cause +to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it +as an act of plain justice and honour.” + +I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay upon +them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness. So long as +this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part of it, and will +be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences and impressions of +America. + +CHARLES DICKENS. + +May, 1868. + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT *** + + +CHAPTER ONE + +INTRODUCTORY, CONCERNING THE PEDIGREE OF THE CHUZZLEWIT FAMILY + + +As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can +possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first +assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction +to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and +Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely connected with the +agricultural interest. If it should ever be urged by grudging and +malicious persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any period of the family +history, displayed an overweening amount of family pride, surely the +weakness will be considered not only pardonable but laudable, when the +immense superiority of the house to the rest of mankind, in respect of +this its ancient origin, is taken into account. + +It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we +have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to meet, +in the records of all old families, with innumerable repetitions of +the same phase of character. Indeed, it may be laid down as a general +principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount +of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days those two amusements, +combining a wholesome excitement with a promising means of repairing +shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful +recreation of the Quality of this land. + +Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and happiness +to find, that in various periods of our history, the Chuzzlewits were +actively connected with divers slaughterous conspiracies and bloody +frays. It is further recorded of them, that being clad from head to +heel in steel of proof, they did on many occasions lead their +leather-jerkined soldiers to the death with invincible courage, and +afterwards return home gracefully to their relations and friends. + +There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with +William the Conqueror. It does not appear that this illustrious ancestor +‘came over’ that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at any subsequent +period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have been ever greatly +distinguished by the possession of landed estate. And it is well known +that for the bestowal of that kind of property upon his favourites, +the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were as remarkable as those +virtues are usually found to be in great men when they give away what +belongs to other people. + +Perhaps in this place the history may pause to congratulate itself upon +the enormous amount of bravery, wisdom, eloquence, virtue, gentle birth, +and true nobility, that appears to have come into England with the +Norman Invasion: an amount which the genealogy of every ancient family +lends its aid to swell, and which would beyond all question have been +found to be just as great, and to the full as prolific in giving birth +to long lines of chivalrous descendants, boastful of their origin, even +though William the Conqueror had been William the Conquered; a change of +circumstances which, it is quite certain, would have made no manner of +difference in this respect. + +There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if indeed +the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this remarkable +stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another Chuzzlewit +to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation, and there +intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue, one +olive-complexioned son. This probable conjecture is strengthened, if not +absolutely confirmed, by a fact which cannot fail to be interesting +to those who are curious in tracing the progress of hereditary tastes +through the lives of their unconscious inheritors. It is a notable +circumstance that in these later times, many Chuzzlewits, being +unsuccessful in other pursuits, have, without the smallest rational +hope of enriching themselves, or any conceivable reason, set up as +coal-merchants; and have, month after month, continued gloomily to watch +a small stock of coals, without in any one instance negotiating with a +purchaser. The remarkable similarity between this course of proceeding +and that adopted by their Great Ancestor beneath the vaults of the +Parliament House at Westminster, is too obvious and too full of +interest, to stand in need of comment. + +It is also clearly proved by the oral traditions of the Family, that +there existed, at some one period of its history which is not distinctly +stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so familiarized to +the use and composition of inflammatory and combustible engines, that +she was called ‘The Match Maker;’ by which nickname and byword she is +recognized in the Family legends to this day. Surely there can be +no reasonable doubt that this was the Spanish lady, the mother of +Chuzzlewit Fawkes. + +But there is one other piece of evidence, bearing immediate reference +to their close connection with this memorable event in English History, +which must carry conviction, even to a mind (if such a mind there be) +remaining unconvinced by these presumptive proofs. + +There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly respectable +and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of the Chuzzlewit +Family (for his bitterest enemy never dared to hint at his being +otherwise than a wealthy man), a dark lantern of undoubted antiquity; +rendered still more interesting by being, in shape and pattern, +extremely like such as are in use at the present day. Now this +gentleman, since deceased, was at all times ready to make oath, and +did again and again set forth upon his solemn asseveration, that he had +frequently heard his grandmother say, when contemplating this venerable +relic, ‘Aye, aye! This was carried by my fourth son on the fifth of +November, when he was a Guy Fawkes.’ These remarkable words wrought +(as well they might) a strong impression on his mind, and he was in the +habit of repeating them very often. The just interpretation which +they bear, and the conclusion to which they lead, are triumphant and +irresistible. The old lady, naturally strong-minded, was nevertheless +frail and fading; she was notoriously subject to that confusion of +ideas, or, to say the least, of speech, to which age and garrulity +are liable. The slight, the very slight, confusion apparent in these +expressions is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction. ‘Aye, +aye,’ quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is +necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, ‘Aye, aye! +This lantern was carried by my forefather’--not fourth son, which is +preposterous--‘on the fifth of November. And HE was Guy Fawkes.’ Here +we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in strict +accordance with the character of the speaker. Indeed the anecdote is +so plainly susceptible of this meaning and no other, that it would be +hardly worth recording in its original state, were it not a proof of +what may be (and very often is) affected not only in historical prose +but in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a little ingenious labour +on the part of a commentator. + +It has been said that there is no instance, in modern times, of a +Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great. But +here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable figments +from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence. For letters +are yet in the possession of various branches of the family, from which +it distinctly appears, being stated in so many words, that one Diggory +Chuzzlewit was in the habit of perpetually dining with Duke Humphrey. +So constantly was he a guest at that nobleman’s table, indeed; and so +unceasingly were His Grace’s hospitality and companionship forced, as +it were, upon him; that we find him uneasy, and full of constraint and +reluctance; writing his friends to the effect that if they fail to do +so and so by bearer, he will have no choice but to dine again with Duke +Humphrey; and expressing himself in a very marked and extraordinary +manner as one surfeited of High Life and Gracious Company. + +It has been rumoured, and it is needless to say the rumour originated in +the same base quarters, that a certain male Chuzzlewit, whose birth must +be admitted to be involved in some obscurity, was of very mean and low +descent. How stands the proof? When the son of that individual, to whom +the secret of his father’s birth was supposed to have been communicated +by his father in his lifetime, lay upon his deathbed, this question was +put to him in a distinct, solemn, and formal way: ‘Toby Chuzzlewit, +who was your grandfather?’ To which he, with his last breath, no less +distinctly, solemnly, and formally replied: and his words were taken +down at the time, and signed by six witnesses, each with his name and +address in full: ‘The Lord No Zoo.’ It may be said--it HAS been said, +for human wickedness has no limits--that there is no Lord of that +name, and that among the titles which have become extinct, none at all +resembling this, in sound even, is to be discovered. But what is the +irresistible inference? Rejecting a theory broached by some well-meaning +but mistaken persons, that this Mr Toby Chuzzlewit’s grandfather, to +judge from his name, must surely have been a Mandarin (which is wholly +insupportable, for there is no pretence of his grandmother ever having +been out of this country, or of any Mandarin having been in it within +some years of his father’s birth; except those in the tea-shops, which +cannot for a moment be regarded as having any bearing on the question, +one way or other), rejecting this hypothesis, is it not manifest that +Mr Toby Chuzzlewit had either received the name imperfectly from his +father, or that he had forgotten it, or that he had mispronounced it? +and that even at the recent period in question, the Chuzzlewits were +connected by a bend sinister, or kind of heraldic over-the-left, with +some unknown noble and illustrious House? + +From documentary evidence, yet preserved in the family, the fact is +clearly established that in the comparatively modern days of the Diggory +Chuzzlewit before mentioned, one of its members had attained to +very great wealth and influence. Throughout such fragments of his +correspondence as have escaped the ravages of the moths (who, in right +of their extensive absorption of the contents of deeds and papers, may +be called the general registers of the Insect World), we find him making +constant reference to an uncle, in respect of whom he would seem to have +entertained great expectations, as he was in the habit of seeking to +propitiate his favour by presents of plate, jewels, books, watches, and +other valuable articles. Thus, he writes on one occasion to his +brother in reference to a gravy-spoon, the brother’s property, which he +(Diggory) would appear to have borrowed or otherwise possessed himself +of: ‘Do not be angry, I have parted with it--to my uncle.’ On another +occasion he expresses himself in a similar manner with regard to a +child’s mug which had been entrusted to him to get repaired. On another +occasion he says, ‘I have bestowed upon that irresistible uncle of mine +everything I ever possessed.’ And that he was in the habit of paying +long and constant visits to this gentleman at his mansion, if, indeed, +he did not wholly reside there, is manifest from the following sentence: +‘With the exception of the suit of clothes I carry about with me, +the whole of my wearing apparel is at present at my uncle’s.’ This +gentleman’s patronage and influence must have been very extensive, for +his nephew writes, ‘His interest is too high’--‘It is too much’--‘It is +tremendous’--and the like. Still it does not appear (which is strange) +to have procured for him any lucrative post at court or elsewhere, or +to have conferred upon him any other distinction than that which was +necessarily included in the countenance of so great a man, and the being +invited by him to certain entertainment’s, so splendid and costly in +their nature, that he calls them ‘Golden Balls.’ + +It is needless to multiply instances of the high and lofty station, and +the vast importance of the Chuzzlewits, at different periods. If it +came within the scope of reasonable probability that further proofs were +required, they might be heaped upon each other until they formed an Alps +of testimony, beneath which the boldest scepticism should be crushed +and beaten flat. As a goodly tumulus is already collected, and decently +battened up above the Family grave, the present chapter is content to +leave it as it is: merely adding, by way of a final spadeful, that many +Chuzzlewits, both male and female, are proved to demonstration, on the +faith of letters written by their own mothers, to have had chiselled +noses, undeniable chins, forms that might have served the sculptor for a +model, exquisitely-turned limbs and polished foreheads of so transparent +a texture that the blue veins might be seen branching off in various +directions, like so many roads on an ethereal map. This fact in itself, +though it had been a solitary one, would have utterly settled and +clenched the business in hand; for it is well known, on the authority +of all the books which treat of such matters, that every one of these +phenomena, but especially that of the chiselling, are invariably +peculiar to, and only make themselves apparent in, persons of the very +best condition. + +This history having, to its own perfect satisfaction, (and, +consequently, to the full contentment of all its readers,) proved the +Chuzzlewits to have had an origin, and to have been at one time or other +of an importance which cannot fail to render them highly improving and +acceptable acquaintance to all right-minded individuals, may now proceed +in earnest with its task. And having shown that they must have had, by +reason of their ancient birth, a pretty large share in the foundation +and increase of the human family, it will one day become its province to +submit, that such of its members as shall be introduced in these pages, +have still many counterparts and prototypes in the Great World about us. +At present it contents itself with remarking, in a general way, on this +head: Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without +implying any direct participation in the Manboddo doctrine touching the +probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do +play very strange and extraordinary tricks. Secondly, and yet without +trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of Adam having +a vast number of qualities which belong more particularly to swine than +to any other class of animals in the creation, that some men certainly +are remarkable for taking uncommon good care of themselves. + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +WHEREIN CERTAIN PERSONS ARE PRESENTED TO THE READER, WITH WHOM HE MAY, +IF HE PLEASE, BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED + + +It was pretty late in the autumn of the year, when the declining sun +struggling through the mist which had obscured it all day, looked +brightly down upon a little Wiltshire village, within an easy journey of +the fair old town of Salisbury. + +Like a sudden flash of memory or spirit kindling up the mind of an old +man, it shed a glory upon the scene, in which its departed youth and +freshness seemed to live again. The wet grass sparkled in the light; +the scanty patches of verdure in the hedges--where a few green twigs +yet stood together bravely, resisting to the last the tyranny of nipping +winds and early frosts--took heart and brightened up; the stream which +had been dull and sullen all day long, broke out into a cheerful smile; +the birds began to chirp and twitter on the naked boughs, as though the +hopeful creatures half believed that winter had gone by, and spring +had come already. The vane upon the tapering spire of the old church +glistened from its lofty station in sympathy with the general gladness; +and from the ivy-shaded windows such gleams of light shone back upon +the glowing sky, that it seemed as if the quiet buildings were the +hoarding-place of twenty summers, and all their ruddiness and warmth +were stored within. + +Even those tokens of the season which emphatically whispered of the +coming winter, graced the landscape, and, for the moment, tinged its +livelier features with no oppressive air of sadness. The fallen leaves, +with which the ground was strewn, gave forth a pleasant fragrance, and +subduing all harsh sounds of distant feet and wheels created a repose +in gentle unison with the light scattering of seed hither and thither by +the distant husbandman, and with the noiseless passage of the plough as +it turned up the rich brown earth, and wrought a graceful pattern in +the stubbled fields. On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn +berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards +where the fruits were jewels; others stripped of all their garniture, +stood, each the centre of its little heap of bright red leaves, watching +their slow decay; others again, still wearing theirs, had them all +crunched and crackled up, as though they had been burnt; about the stems +of some were piled, in ruddy mounds, the apples they had borne that +year; while others (hardy evergreens this class) showed somewhat stern +and gloomy in their vigour, as charged by nature with the admonition +that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous favourites she grants +the longest term of life. Still athwart their darker boughs, the +sunbeams struck out paths of deeper gold; and the red light, mantling in +among their swarthy branches, used them as foils to set its brightness +off, and aid the lustre of the dying day. + +A moment, and its glory was no more. The sun went down beneath the long +dark lines of hill and cloud which piled up in the west an airy city, +wall heaped on wall, and battlement on battlement; the light was all +withdrawn; the shining church turned cold and dark; the stream forgot +to smile; the birds were silent; and the gloom of winter dwelt on +everything. + +An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and +rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music. The +withering leaves no longer quiet, hurried to and fro in search of +shelter from its chill pursuit; the labourer unyoked his horses, and +with head bent down, trudged briskly home beside them; and from the +cottage windows lights began to glance and wink upon the darkening +fields. + +Then the village forge came out in all its bright importance. The lusty +bellows roared Ha ha! to the clear fire, which roared in turn, and bade +the shining sparks dance gayly to the merry clinking of the hammers on +the anvil. The gleaming iron, in its emulation, sparkled too, and shed +its red-hot gems around profusely. The strong smith and his men dealt +such strokes upon their work, as made even the melancholy night rejoice, +and brought a glow into its dark face as it hovered about the door and +windows, peeping curiously in above the shoulders of a dozen loungers. +As to this idle company, there they stood, spellbound by the place, and, +casting now and then a glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled +their lazy elbows more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little +further in: no more disposed to tear themselves away than if they had +been born to cluster round the blazing hearth like so many crickets. + +Out upon the angry wind! how from sighing, it began to bluster round the +merry forge, banging at the wicket, and grumbling in the chimney, as if +it bullied the jolly bellows for doing anything to order. And what an +impotent swaggerer it was too, for all its noise; for if it had any +influence on that hoarse companion, it was but to make him roar his +cheerful song the louder, and by consequence to make the fire burn +the brighter, and the sparks to dance more gayly yet; at length, they +whizzed so madly round and round, that it was too much for such a surly +wind to bear; so off it flew with a howl giving the old sign before the +ale-house door such a cuff as it went, that the Blue Dragon was more +rampant than usual ever afterwards, and indeed, before Christmas, reared +clean out of its crazy frame. + +It was small tyranny for a respectable wind to go wreaking its vengeance +on such poor creatures as the fallen leaves, but this wind happening to +come up with a great heap of them just after venting its humour on the +insulted Dragon, did so disperse and scatter them that they fled away, +pell-mell, some here, some there, rolling over each other, whirling +round and round upon their thin edges, taking frantic flights into the +air, and playing all manner of extraordinary gambols in the extremity +of their distress. Nor was this enough for its malicious fury; for not +content with driving them abroad, it charged small parties of them and +hunted them into the wheel wright’s saw-pit, and below the planks and +timbers in the yard, and, scattering the sawdust in the air, it looked +for them underneath, and when it did meet with any, whew! how it drove +them on and followed at their heels! + +The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, and a giddy chase +it was; for they got into unfrequented places, where there was no +outlet, and where their pursuer kept them eddying round and round at his +pleasure; and they crept under the eaves of houses, and clung tightly to +the sides of hay-ricks, like bats; and tore in at open chamber windows, +and cowered close to hedges; and, in short, went anywhere for safety. +But the oddest feat they achieved was, to take advantage of the sudden +opening of Mr Pecksniff’s front-door, to dash wildly into his passage; +whither the wind following close upon them, and finding the back-door +open, incontinently blew out the lighted candle held by Miss Pecksniff, +and slammed the front-door against Mr Pecksniff who was at that moment +entering, with such violence, that in the twinkling of an eye he lay on +his back at the bottom of the steps. Being by this time weary of such +trifling performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoicing, +roaring over moor and meadow, hill and flat, until it got out to sea, +where it met with other winds similarly disposed, and made a night of +it. + +In the meantime Mr Pecksniff, having received from a sharp angle in the +bottom step but one, that sort of knock on the head which lights up, for +the patient’s entertainment, an imaginary general illumination of very +bright short-sixes, lay placidly staring at his own street door. And it +would seem to have been more suggestive in its aspect than street +doors usually are; for he continued to lie there, rather a lengthy and +unreasonable time, without so much as wondering whether he was hurt +or no; neither, when Miss Pecksniff inquired through the key-hole in a +shrill voice, which might have belonged to a wind in its teens, ‘Who’s +there’ did he make any reply; nor, when Miss Pecksniff opened the door +again, and shading the candle with her hand, peered out, and looked +provokingly round him, and about him, and over him, and everywhere but +at him, did he offer any remark, or indicate in any manner the least +hint of a desire to be picked up. + +‘I see you,’ cried Miss Pecksniff, to the ideal inflicter of a runaway +knock. ‘You’ll catch it, sir!’ + +Still Mr Pecksniff, perhaps from having caught it already, said nothing. + +‘You’re round the corner now,’ cried Miss Pecksniff. She said it at a +venture, but there was appropriate matter in it too; for Mr Pecksniff, +being in the act of extinguishing the candles before mentioned pretty +rapidly, and of reducing the number of brass knobs on his street door +from four or five hundred (which had previously been juggling of their +own accord before his eyes in a very novel manner) to a dozen or so, +might in one sense have been said to be coming round the corner, and +just turning it. + +With a sharply delivered warning relative to the cage and the constable, +and the stocks and the gallows, Miss Pecksniff was about to close the +door again, when Mr Pecksniff (being still at the bottom of the steps) +raised himself on one elbow, and sneezed. + +‘That voice!’ cried Miss Pecksniff. ‘My parent!’ + +At this exclamation, another Miss Pecksniff bounced out of the parlour; +and the two Miss Pecksniffs, with many incoherent expressions, dragged +Mr Pecksniff into an upright posture. + +‘Pa!’ they cried in concert. ‘Pa! Speak, Pa! Do not look so wild my +dearest Pa!’ + +But as a gentleman’s looks, in such a case of all others, are by no +means under his own control, Mr Pecksniff continued to keep his mouth +and his eyes very wide open, and to drop his lower jaw, somewhat after +the manner of a toy nut-cracker; and as his hat had fallen off, and his +face was pale, and his hair erect, and his coat muddy, the spectacle he +presented was so very doleful, that neither of the Miss Pecksniffs could +repress an involuntary screech. + +‘That’ll do,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘I’m better.’ + +‘He’s come to himself!’ cried the youngest Miss Pecksniff. + +‘He speaks again!’ exclaimed the eldest. + +With these joyful words they kissed Mr Pecksniff on either cheek; and +bore him into the house. Presently, the youngest Miss Pecksniff ran +out again to pick up his hat, his brown paper parcel, his umbrella, his +gloves, and other small articles; and that done, and the door closed, +both young ladies applied themselves to tending Mr Pecksniff’s wounds in +the back parlour. + +They were not very serious in their nature; being limited to abrasions +on what the eldest Miss Pecksniff called ‘the knobby parts’ of her +parent’s anatomy, such as his knees and elbows, and to the development +of an entirely new organ, unknown to phrenologists, on the back of his +head. These injuries having been comforted externally, with patches of +pickled brown paper, and Mr Pecksniff having been comforted internally, +with some stiff brandy-and-water, the eldest Miss Pecksniff sat down +to make the tea, which was all ready. In the meantime the youngest Miss +Pecksniff brought from the kitchen a smoking dish of ham and eggs, and, +setting the same before her father, took up her station on a low stool +at his feet; thereby bringing her eyes on a level with the teaboard. + +It must not be inferred from this position of humility, that the +youngest Miss Pecksniff was so young as to be, as one may say, forced to +sit upon a stool, by reason of the shortness of her legs. Miss Pecksniff +sat upon a stool because of her simplicity and innocence, which were +very great, very great. Miss Pecksniff sat upon a stool because she was +all girlishness, and playfulness, and wildness, and kittenish buoyancy. +She was the most arch and at the same time the most artless creature, +was the youngest Miss Pecksniff, that you can possibly imagine. It +was her great charm. She was too fresh and guileless, and too full of +child-like vivacity, was the youngest Miss Pecksniff, to wear combs in +her hair, or to turn it up, or to frizzle it, or braid it. She wore it +in a crop, a loosely flowing crop, which had so many rows of curls in +it, that the top row was only one curl. Moderately buxom was her shape, +and quite womanly too; but sometimes--yes, sometimes--she even wore +a pinafore; and how charming THAT was! Oh! she was indeed ‘a gushing +thing’ (as a young gentleman had observed in verse, in the Poet’s Corner +of a provincial newspaper), was the youngest Miss Pecksniff! + +Mr Pecksniff was a moral man--a grave man, a man of noble sentiments and +speech--and he had had her christened Mercy. Mercy! oh, what a charming +name for such a pure-souled Being as the youngest Miss Pecksniff! Her +sister’s name was Charity. There was a good thing! Mercy and Charity! +And Charity, with her fine strong sense and her mild, yet not +reproachful gravity, was so well named, and did so well set off and +illustrate her sister! What a pleasant sight was that the contrast +they presented; to see each loved and loving one sympathizing with, and +devoted to, and leaning on, and yet correcting and counter-checking, +and, as it were, antidoting, the other! To behold each damsel in her +very admiration of her sister, setting up in business for herself on +an entirely different principle, and announcing no connection with +over-the-way, and if the quality of goods at that establishment don’t +please you, you are respectfully invited to favour ME with a call! And +the crowning circumstance of the whole delightful catalogue was, that +both the fair creatures were so utterly unconscious of all this! +They had no idea of it. They no more thought or dreamed of it than Mr +Pecksniff did. Nature played them off against each other; THEY had no +hand in it, the two Miss Pecksniffs. + +It has been remarked that Mr Pecksniff was a moral man. So he was. +Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr Pecksniff, especially +in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a +homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus’s purse of good sentiments in +his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, +except that if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, +they were the very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He was a +most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous precept than a copy book. Some +people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the +way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies, the +shadows cast by his brightness; that was all. His very throat was moral. +You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low fence of white +cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie for he fastened it +behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of +collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part +of Mr Pecksniff, ‘There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is +peace, a holy calm pervades me.’ So did his hair, just grizzled with +an iron-grey which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt +upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. +So did his person, which was sleek though free from corpulency. So did +his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black +suit, and state of widower and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to +the same purpose, and cried aloud, ‘Behold the moral Pecksniff!’ + +The brazen plate upon the door (which being Mr Pecksniff’s, could +not lie) bore this inscription, ‘PECKSNIFF, ARCHITECT,’ to which Mr +Pecksniff, on his cards of business, added, AND LAND SURVEYOR.’ In one +sense, and only one, he may be said to have been a Land Surveyor on a +pretty large scale, as an extensive prospect lay stretched out before +the windows of his house. Of his architectural doings, nothing was +clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything; but +it was generally understood that his knowledge of the science was almost +awful in its profundity. + +Mr Pecksniff’s professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not +entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of +rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his graver +toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural employment. His +genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums. A +young gentleman’s premium being paid, and the young gentleman come to +Mr Pecksniff’s house, Mr Pecksniff borrowed his case of mathematical +instruments (if silver-mounted or otherwise valuable); entreated him, +from that moment, to consider himself one of the family; complimented +him highly on his parents or guardians, as the case might be; and +turned him loose in a spacious room on the two-pair front; where, in the +company of certain drawing-boards, parallel rulers, very stiff-legged +compasses, and two, or perhaps three, other young gentlemen, he improved +himself, for three or five years, according to his articles, in making +elevations of Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight; +and in constructing in the air a vast quantity of Castles, Houses of +Parliament, and other Public Buildings. Perhaps in no place in the +world were so many gorgeous edifices of this class erected as under +Mr Pecksniff’s auspices; and if but one-twentieth part of the churches +which were built in that front room, with one or other of the Miss +Pecksniffs at the altar in the act of marrying the architect, could only +be made available by the parliamentary commissioners, no more churches +would be wanted for at least five centuries. + +‘Even the worldly goods of which we have just disposed,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, glancing round the table when he had finished, ‘even cream, +sugar, tea, toast, ham--’ + +‘And eggs,’ suggested Charity in a low voice. + +‘And eggs,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘even they have their moral. See how they +come and go! Every pleasure is transitory. We can’t even eat, long. +If we indulge in harmless fluids, we get the dropsy; if in exciting +liquids, we get drunk. What a soothing reflection is that!’ + +‘Don’t say WE get drunk, Pa,’ urged the eldest Miss Pecksniff. + +‘When I say we, my dear,’ returned her father, ‘I mean mankind in +general; the human race, considered as a body, and not as individuals. +There is nothing personal in morality, my love. Even such a thing as +this,’ said Mr Pecksniff, laying the fore-finger of his left hand upon +the brown paper patch on the top of his head, ‘slight casual baldness +though it be, reminds us that we are but’--he was going to say ‘worms,’ +but recollecting that worms were not remarkable for heads of hair, he +substituted ‘flesh and blood.’ + +‘Which,’ cried Mr Pecksniff after a pause, during which he seemed to +have been casting about for a new moral, and not quite successfully, +‘which is also very soothing. Mercy, my dear, stir the fire and throw up +the cinders.’ + +The young lady obeyed, and having done so, resumed her stool, reposed +one arm upon her father’s knee, and laid her blooming cheek upon +it. Miss Charity drew her chair nearer the fire, as one prepared for +conversation, and looked towards her father. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Pecksniff, after a short pause, during which he had been +silently smiling, and shaking his head at the fire--‘I have again been +fortunate in the attainment of my object. A new inmate will very shortly +come among us.’ + +‘A youth, papa?’ asked Charity. + +‘Ye-es, a youth,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘He will avail himself of the +eligible opportunity which now offers, for uniting the advantages of the +best practical architectural education with the comforts of a home, and +the constant association with some who (however humble their sphere, +and limited their capacity) are not unmindful of their moral +responsibilities.’ + +‘Oh Pa!’ cried Mercy, holding up her finger archly. ‘See advertisement!’ + +‘Playful--playful warbler,’ said Mr Pecksniff. It may be observed in +connection with his calling his daughter a ‘warbler,’ that she was not +at all vocal, but that Mr Pecksniff was in the frequent habit of using +any word that occurred to him as having a good sound, and rounding a +sentence well without much care for its meaning. And he did this so +boldly, and in such an imposing manner, that he would sometimes stagger +the wisest people with his eloquence, and make them gasp again. + +His enemies asserted, by the way, that a strong trustfulness in sounds +and forms was the master-key to Mr Pecksniff’s character. + +‘Is he handsome, Pa?’ inquired the younger daughter. + +‘Silly Merry!’ said the eldest: Merry being fond for Mercy. ‘What is the +premium, Pa? tell us that.’ + +‘Oh, good gracious, Cherry!’ cried Miss Mercy, holding up her hands with +the most winning giggle in the world, ‘what a mercenary girl you are! oh +you naughty, thoughtful, prudent thing!’ + +It was perfectly charming, and worthy of the Pastoral age, to see how +the two Miss Pecksniffs slapped each other after this, and then subsided +into an embrace expressive of their different dispositions. + +‘He is well looking,’ said Mr Pecksniff, slowly and distinctly; ‘well +looking enough. I do not positively expect any immediate premium with +him.’ + +Notwithstanding their different natures, both Charity and Mercy +concurred in opening their eyes uncommonly wide at this announcement, +and in looking for the moment as blank as if their thoughts had actually +had a direct bearing on the main chance. + +‘But what of that!’ said Mr Pecksniff, still smiling at the fire. ‘There +is disinterestedness in the world, I hope? We are not all arrayed in two +opposite ranks; the OFfensive and the DEfensive. Some few there are +who walk between; who help the needy as they go; and take no part with +either side. Umph!’ + +There was something in these morsels of philanthropy which reassured the +sisters. They exchanged glances, and brightened very much. + +‘Oh! let us not be for ever calculating, devising, and plotting for the +future,’ said Mr Pecksniff, smiling more and more, and looking at the +fire as a man might, who was cracking a joke with it: ‘I am weary of +such arts. If our inclinations are but good and open-hearted, let us +gratify them boldly, though they bring upon us Loss instead of Profit. +Eh, Charity?’ + +Glancing towards his daughters for the first time since he had begun +these reflections, and seeing that they both smiled, Mr Pecksniff eyed +them for an instant so jocosely (though still with a kind of saintly +waggishness) that the younger one was moved to sit upon his knee +forthwith, put her fair arms round his neck, and kiss him twenty times. +During the whole of this affectionate display she laughed to a most +immoderate extent: in which hilarious indulgence even the prudent Cherry +joined. + +‘Tut, tut,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pushing his latest-born away and running +his fingers through his hair, as he resumed his tranquil face. ‘What +folly is this! Let us take heed how we laugh without reason lest we cry +with it. What is the domestic news since yesterday? John Westlock is +gone, I hope?’ + +‘Indeed, no,’ said Charity. + +‘And why not?’ returned her father. ‘His term expired yesterday. And his +box was packed, I know; for I saw it, in the morning, standing in the +hall.’ + +‘He slept last night at the Dragon,’ returned the young lady, ‘and had +Mr Pinch to dine with him. They spent the evening together, and Mr Pinch +was not home till very late.’ + +‘And when I saw him on the stairs this morning, Pa,’ said Mercy with her +usual sprightliness, ‘he looked, oh goodness, SUCH a monster! with his +face all manner of colours, and his eyes as dull as if they had been +boiled, and his head aching dreadfully, I am sure from the look of +it, and his clothes smelling, oh it’s impossible to say how strong, +oh’--here the young lady shuddered--‘of smoke and punch.’ + +‘Now I think,’ said Mr Pecksniff with his accustomed gentleness, though +still with the air of one who suffered under injury without complaint, +‘I think Mr Pinch might have done better than choose for his companion +one who, at the close of a long intercourse, had endeavoured, as he +knew, to wound my feelings. I am not quite sure that this was delicate +in Mr Pinch. I am not quite sure that this was kind in Mr Pinch. I will +go further and say, I am not quite sure that this was even ordinarily +grateful in Mr Pinch.’ + +‘But what can anyone expect from Mr Pinch!’ cried Charity, with as +strong and scornful an emphasis on the name as if it would have given +her unspeakable pleasure to express it, in an acted charade, on the calf +of that gentleman’s leg. + +‘Aye, aye,’ returned her father, raising his hand mildly: ‘it is +very well to say what can we expect from Mr Pinch, but Mr Pinch is +a fellow-creature, my dear; Mr Pinch is an item in the vast total of +humanity, my love; and we have a right, it is our duty, to expect in +Mr Pinch some development of those better qualities, the possession +of which in our own persons inspires our humble self-respect. No,’ +continued Mr Pecksniff. ‘No! Heaven forbid that I should say, nothing +can be expected from Mr Pinch; or that I should say, nothing can be +expected from any man alive (even the most degraded, which Mr Pinch is +not, no, really); but Mr Pinch has disappointed me; he has hurt me; +I think a little the worse of him on this account, but not if human +nature. Oh, no, no!’ + +‘Hark!’ said Miss Charity, holding up her finger, as a gentle rap was +heard at the street door. ‘There is the creature! Now mark my words, he +has come back with John Westlock for his box, and is going to help +him to take it to the mail. Only mark my words, if that isn’t his +intention!’ + +Even as she spoke, the box appeared to be in progress of conveyance from +the house, but after a brief murmuring of question and answer, it was +put down again, and somebody knocked at the parlour door. + +‘Come in!’ cried Mr Pecksniff--not severely; only virtuously. ‘Come in!’ + +An ungainly, awkward-looking man, extremely short-sighted, and +prematurely bald, availed himself of this permission; and seeing that +Mr Pecksniff sat with his back towards him, gazing at the fire, +stood hesitating, with the door in his hand. He was far from handsome +certainly; and was drest in a snuff-coloured suit, of an uncouth make at +the best, which, being shrunk with long wear, was twisted and tortured +into all kinds of odd shapes; but notwithstanding his attire, and his +clumsy figure, which a great stoop in his shoulders, and a ludicrous +habit he had of thrusting his head forward, by no means redeemed, one +would not have been disposed (unless Mr Pecksniff said so) to consider +him a bad fellow by any means. He was perhaps about thirty, but he might +have been almost any age between sixteen and sixty; being one of those +strange creatures who never decline into an ancient appearance, but look +their oldest when they are very young, and get it over at once. + +Keeping his hand upon the lock of the door, he glanced from Mr Pecksniff +to Mercy, from Mercy to Charity, and from Charity to Mr Pecksniff again, +several times; but the young ladies being as intent upon the fire as +their father was, and neither of the three taking any notice of him, he +was fain to say, at last, + +‘Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Pecksniff: I beg your pardon for intruding; +but--’ + +‘No intrusion, Mr Pinch,’ said that gentleman very sweetly, but without +looking round. ‘Pray be seated, Mr Pinch. Have the goodness to shut the +door, Mr Pinch, if you please.’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ said Pinch; not doing so, however, but holding it +rather wider open than before, and beckoning nervously to somebody +without: ‘Mr Westlock, sir, hearing that you were come home--’ + +‘Mr Pinch, Mr Pinch!’ said Pecksniff, wheeling his chair about, and +looking at him with an aspect of the deepest melancholy, ‘I did not +expect this from you. I have not deserved this from you!’ + +‘No, but upon my word, sir--’ urged Pinch. + +‘The less you say, Mr Pinch,’ interposed the other, ‘the better. I utter +no complaint. Make no defence.’ + +‘No, but do have the goodness, sir,’ cried Pinch, with great +earnestness, ‘if you please. Mr Westlock, sir, going away for good and +all, wishes to leave none but friends behind him. Mr Westlock and you, +sir, had a little difference the other day; you have had many little +differences.’ + +‘Little differences!’ cried Charity. + +‘Little differences!’ echoed Mercy. + +‘My loves!’ said Mr Pecksniff, with the same serene upraising of his +hand; ‘My dears!’ After a solemn pause he meekly bowed to Mr Pinch, as +who should say, ‘Proceed;’ but Mr Pinch was so very much at a loss how +to resume, and looked so helplessly at the two Miss Pecksniffs, that +the conversation would most probably have terminated there, if a +good-looking youth, newly arrived at man’s estate, had not stepped +forward from the doorway and taken up the thread of the discourse. + +‘Come, Mr Pecksniff,’ he said, with a smile, ‘don’t let there be any +ill-blood between us, pray. I am sorry we have ever differed, and +extremely sorry I have ever given you offence. Bear me no ill-will at +parting, sir.’ + +‘I bear,’ answered Mr Pecksniff, mildly, ‘no ill-will to any man on +earth.’ + +‘I told you he didn’t,’ said Pinch, in an undertone; ‘I knew he didn’t! +He always says he don’t.’ + +‘Then you will shake hands, sir?’ cried Westlock, advancing a step or +two, and bespeaking Mr Pinch’s close attention by a glance. + +‘Umph!’ said Mr Pecksniff, in his most winning tone. + +‘You will shake hands, sir.’ + +‘No, John,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a calmness quite ethereal; ‘no, I +will not shake hands, John. I have forgiven you. I had already forgiven +you, even before you ceased to reproach and taunt me. I have embraced +you in the spirit, John, which is better than shaking hands.’ + +‘Pinch,’ said the youth, turning towards him, with a hearty disgust of +his late master, ‘what did I tell you?’ + +Poor Pinch looked down uneasily at Mr Pecksniff, whose eye was fixed +upon him as it had been from the first; and looking up at the ceiling +again, made no reply. + +‘As to your forgiveness, Mr Pecksniff,’ said the youth, ‘I’ll not have +it upon such terms. I won’t be forgiven.’ + +‘Won’t you, John?’ retorted Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. ‘You must. You +can’t help it. Forgiveness is a high quality; an exalted virtue; far +above YOUR control or influence, John. I WILL forgive you. You cannot +move me to remember any wrong you have ever done me, John.’ + +‘Wrong!’ cried the other, with all the heat and impetuosity of his age. +‘Here’s a pretty fellow! Wrong! Wrong I have done him! He’ll not even +remember the five hundred pounds he had with me under false pretences; +or the seventy pounds a year for board and lodging that would have been +dear at seventeen! Here’s a martyr!’ + +‘Money, John,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘is the root of all evil. I grieve +to see that it is already bearing evil fruit in you. But I will not +remember its existence. I will not even remember the conduct of that +misguided person’--and here, although he spoke like one at peace with +all the world, he used an emphasis that plainly said “I have my eye +upon the rascal now”--‘that misguided person who has brought you here +to-night, seeking to disturb (it is a happiness to say, in vain) the +heart’s repose and peace of one who would have shed his dearest blood to +serve him.’ + +The voice of Mr Pecksniff trembled as he spoke, and sobs were heard from +his daughters. Sounds floated on the air, moreover, as if two spirit +voices had exclaimed: one, ‘Beast!’ the other, ‘Savage!’ + +‘Forgiveness,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘entire and pure forgiveness is not +incompatible with a wounded heart; perchance when the heart is wounded, +it becomes a greater virtue. With my breast still wrung and grieved to +its inmost core by the ingratitude of that person, I am proud and glad +to say that I forgive him. Nay! I beg,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, raising his +voice, as Pinch appeared about to speak, ‘I beg that individual not to +offer a remark; he will truly oblige me by not uttering one word, just +now. I am not sure that I am equal to the trial. In a very short space +of time, I shall have sufficient fortitude, I trust to converse with +him as if these events had never happened. But not,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +turning round again towards the fire, and waving his hand in the +direction of the door, ‘not now.’ + +‘Bah!’ cried John Westlock, with the utmost disgust and disdain the +monosyllable is capable of expressing. ‘Ladies, good evening. Come, +Pinch, it’s not worth thinking of. I was right and you were wrong. +That’s small matter; you’ll be wiser another time.’ + +So saying, he clapped that dejected companion on the shoulder, turned +upon his heel, and walked out into the passage, whither poor Mr +Pinch, after lingering irresolutely in the parlour for a few seconds, +expressing in his countenance the deepest mental misery and gloom +followed him. Then they took up the box between them, and sallied out to +meet the mail. + +That fleet conveyance passed, every night, the corner of a lane at some +distance; towards which point they bent their steps. For some minutes +they walked along in silence, until at length young Westlock burst into +a loud laugh, and at intervals into another, and another. Still there +was no response from his companion. + +‘I’ll tell you what, Pinch!’ he said abruptly, after another lengthened +silence--‘You haven’t half enough of the devil in you. Half enough! You +haven’t any.’ + +‘Well!’ said Pinch with a sigh, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. It’s compliment +to say so. If I haven’t, I suppose, I’m all the better for it.’ + +‘All the better!’ repeated his companion tartly: ‘All the worse, you +mean to say.’ + +‘And yet,’ said Pinch, pursuing his own thoughts and not this last +remark on the part of his friend, ‘I must have a good deal of what +you call the devil in me, too, or how could I make Pecksniff so +uncomfortable? I wouldn’t have occasioned him so much distress--don’t +laugh, please--for a mine of money; and Heaven knows I could find good +use for it too, John. How grieved he was!’ + +‘HE grieved!’ returned the other. + +‘Why didn’t you observe that the tears were almost starting out of his +eyes!’ cried Pinch. ‘Bless my soul, John, is it nothing to see a man +moved to that extent and know one’s self to be the cause! And did you +hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?’ + +‘Do you WANT any blood shed for you?’ returned his friend, with +considerable irritation. ‘Does he shed anything for you that you DO +want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you, pocket +money for you? Does he shed even legs of mutton for you in any decent +proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said Pinch, sighing again, ‘that I am a great eater; I +can’t disguise from myself that I’m a great eater. Now, you know that, +John.’ + +‘You a great eater!’ retorted his companion, with no less indignation +than before. ‘How do you know you are?’ + +There appeared to be forcible matter in this inquiry, for Mr Pinch only +repeated in an undertone that he had a strong misgiving on the subject, +and that he greatly feared he was. + +‘Besides, whether I am or no,’ he added, ‘that has little or nothing to +do with his thinking me ungrateful. John, there is scarcely a sin in the +world that is in my eyes such a crying one as ingratitude; and when +he taxes me with that, and believes me to be guilty of it, he makes me +miserable and wretched.’ + +‘Do you think he don’t know that?’ returned the other scornfully. +‘But come, Pinch, before I say anything more to you, just run over the +reasons you have for being grateful to him at all, will you? Change +hands first, for the box is heavy. That’ll do. Now, go on.’ + +‘In the first place,’ said Pinch, ‘he took me as his pupil for much less +than he asked.’ + +‘Well,’ rejoined his friend, perfectly unmoved by this instance of +generosity. ‘What in the second place?’ + +‘What in the second place?’ cried Pinch, in a sort of desperation, ‘why, +everything in the second place. My poor old grandmother died happy to +think that she had put me with such an excellent man. I have grown up +in his house, I am in his confidence, I am his assistant, he allows me a +salary; when his business improves, my prospects are to improve too. +All this, and a great deal more, is in the second place. And in the very +prologue and preface to the first place, John, you must consider this, +which nobody knows better than I: that I was born for much plainer and +poorer things, that I am not a good hand for his kind of business, and +have no talent for it, or indeed for anything else but odds and ends +that are of no use or service to anybody.’ + +He said this with so much earnestness, and in a tone so full of feeling, +that his companion instinctively changed his manner as he sat down on +the box (they had by this time reached the finger-post at the end of the +lane); motioned him to sit down beside him; and laid his hand upon his +shoulder. + +‘I believe you are one of the best fellows in the world,’ he said, ‘Tom +Pinch.’ + +‘Not at all,’ rejoined Tom. ‘If you only knew Pecksniff as well as I do, +you might say it of him, indeed, and say it truly.’ + +‘I’ll say anything of him, you like,’ returned the other, ‘and not +another word to his disparagement.’ + +‘It’s for my sake, then; not his, I am afraid,’ said Pinch, shaking his +head gravely. + +‘For whose you please, Tom, so that it does please you. Oh! He’s a +famous fellow! HE never scraped and clawed into his pouch all your poor +grandmother’s hard savings--she was a housekeeper, wasn’t she, Tom?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Pinch, nursing one of his large knees, and nodding his +head; ‘a gentleman’s housekeeper.’ + +‘HE never scraped and clawed into his pouch all her hard savings; +dazzling her with prospects of your happiness and advancement, which he +knew (and no man better) never would be realised! HE never speculated +and traded on her pride in you, and her having educated you, and on her +desire that you at least should live to be a gentleman. Not he, Tom!’ + +‘No,’ said Tom, looking into his friend’s face, as if he were a little +doubtful of his meaning. ‘Of course not.’ + +‘So I say,’ returned the youth, ‘of course he never did. HE didn’t take +less than he had asked, because that less was all she had, and more than +he expected; not he, Tom! He doesn’t keep you as his assistant +because you are of any use to him; because your wonderful faith in his +pretensions is of inestimable service in all his mean disputes; because +your honesty reflects honesty on him; because your wandering about this +little place all your spare hours, reading in ancient books and foreign +tongues, gets noised abroad, even as far as Salisbury, making of him, +Pecksniff the master, a man of learning and of vast importance. HE gets +no credit from you, Tom, not he.’ + +‘Why, of course he don’t,’ said Pinch, gazing at his friend with a more +troubled aspect than before. ‘Pecksniff get credit from me! Well!’ + +‘Don’t I say that it’s ridiculous,’ rejoined the other, ‘even to think +of such a thing?’ + +‘Why, it’s madness,’ said Tom. + +‘Madness!’ returned young Westlock. ‘Certainly it’s madness. Who but +a madman would suppose he cares to hear it said on Sundays, that the +volunteer who plays the organ in the church, and practises on summer +evenings in the dark, is Mr Pecksniff’s young man, eh, Tom? Who but a +madman would suppose it is the game of such a man as he, to have his +name in everybody’s mouth, connected with the thousand useless odds and +ends you do (and which, of course, he taught you), eh, Tom? Who but a +madman would suppose you advertised him hereabouts, much cheaper and +much better than a chalker on the walls could, eh, Tom? As well might +one suppose that he doesn’t on all occasions pour out his whole heart +and soul to you; that he doesn’t make you a very liberal and indeed +rather an extravagant allowance; or, to be more wild and monstrous +still, if that be possible, as well might one suppose,’ and here, at +every word, he struck him lightly on the breast, ‘that Pecksniff traded +in your nature, and that your nature was to be timid and distrustful +of yourself, and trustful of all other men, but most of all, of him who +least deserves it. There would be madness, Tom!’ + +Mr Pinch had listened to all this with looks of bewilderment, which +seemed to be in part occasioned by the matter of his companion’s speech, +and in part by his rapid and vehement manner. Now that he had come to a +close, he drew a very long breath; and gazing wistfully in his face as +if he were unable to settle in his own mind what expression it wore, and +were desirous to draw from it as good a clue to his real meaning as it +was possible to obtain in the dark, was about to answer, when the sound +of the mail guard’s horn came cheerily upon their ears, putting +an immediate end to the conference; greatly as it seemed to the +satisfaction of the younger man, who jumped up briskly, and gave his +hand to his companion. + +‘Both hands, Tom. I shall write to you from London, mind!’ + +‘Yes,’ said Pinch. ‘Yes. Do, please. Good-bye. Good-bye. I can hardly +believe you’re going. It seems, now, but yesterday that you came. +Good-bye! my dear old fellow!’ + +John Westlock returned his parting words with no less heartiness of +manner, and sprung up to his seat upon the roof. Off went the mail at +a canter down the dark road; the lamps gleaming brightly, and the horn +awakening all the echoes, far and wide. + +‘Go your ways,’ said Pinch, apostrophizing the coach; ‘I can hardly +persuade myself but you’re alive, and are some great monster who visits +this place at certain intervals, to bear my friends away into the world. +You’re more exulting and rampant than usual tonight, I think; and you +may well crow over your prize; for he is a fine lad, an ingenuous lad, +and has but one fault that I know of; he don’t mean it, but he is most +cruelly unjust to Pecksniff!’ + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +IN WHICH CERTAIN OTHER PERSONS ARE INTRODUCED; ON THE SAME TERMS AS IN +THE LAST CHAPTER + + +Mention has been already made more than once, of a certain Dragon who +swung and creaked complainingly before the village alehouse door. A +faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm of rain, +snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a +faint lack-lustre shade of grey. But there he hung; rearing, in a state +of monstrous imbecility, on his hind legs; waxing, with every month that +passed, so much more dim and shapeless, that as you gazed at him on +one side of the sign-board it seemed as if he must be gradually melting +through it, and coming out upon the other. + +He was a courteous and considerate dragon, too; or had been in his +distincter days; for in the midst of his rampant feebleness, he kept +one of his forepaws near his nose, as though he would say, ‘Don’t +mind me--it’s only my fun;’ while he held out the other in polite and +hospitable entreaty. Indeed it must be conceded to the whole brood +of dragons of modern times, that they have made a great advance in +civilisation and refinement. They no longer demand a beautiful virgin +for breakfast every morning, with as much regularity as any tame single +gentleman expects his hot roll, but rest content with the society of +idle bachelors and roving married men; and they are now remarkable +rather for holding aloof from the softer sex and discouraging their +visits (especially on Saturday nights), than for rudely insisting on +their company without any reference to their inclinations, as they are +known to have done in days of yore. + +Nor is this tribute to the reclaimed animals in question so wide a +digression into the realms of Natural History as it may, at first sight, +appear to be; for the present business of these pages in with the dragon +who had his retreat in Mr Pecksniff’s neighbourhood, and that courteous +animal being already on the carpet, there is nothing in the way of its +immediate transaction. + +For many years, then, he had swung and creaked, and flapped himself +about, before the two windows of the best bedroom of that house of +entertainment to which he lent his name; but never in all his swinging, +creaking, and flapping, had there been such a stir within its dingy +precincts, as on the evening next after that upon which the incidents, +detailed in the last chapter occurred; when there was such a hurrying up +and down stairs of feet, such a glancing of lights, such a whispering +of voices, such a smoking and sputtering of wood newly lighted in a +damp chimney, such an airing of linen, such a scorching smell of hot +warming-pans, such a domestic bustle and to-do, in short, as never +dragon, griffin, unicorn, or other animal of that species presided over, +since they first began to interest themselves in household affairs. + +An old gentleman and a young lady, travelling, unattended, in a rusty +old chariot with post-horses; coming nobody knew whence and going nobody +knew whither; had turned out of the high road, and driven unexpectedly +to the Blue Dragon; and here was the old gentleman, who had taken this +step by reason of his sudden illness in the carriage, suffering the most +horrible cramps and spasms, yet protesting and vowing in the very midst +of his pain, that he wouldn’t have a doctor sent for, and wouldn’t take +any remedies but those which the young lady administered from a small +medicine-chest, and wouldn’t, in a word, do anything but terrify the +landlady out of her five wits, and obstinately refuse compliance with +every suggestion that was made to him. + +Of all the five hundred proposals for his relief which the good woman +poured out in less than half an hour, he would entertain but one. That +was that he should go to bed. And it was in the preparation of his bed +and the arrangement of his chamber, that all the stir was made in the +room behind the Dragon. + +He was, beyond all question, very ill, and suffered exceedingly; not the +less, perhaps, because he was a strong and vigorous old man, with a will +of iron, and a voice of brass. But neither the apprehensions which +he plainly entertained, at times, for his life, nor the great pain he +underwent, influenced his resolution in the least degree. He would have +no person sent for. The worse he grew, the more rigid and inflexible he +became in his determination. If they sent for any person to attend him, +man, woman, or child, he would leave the house directly (so he told +them), though he quitted it on foot, and died upon the threshold of the +door. + +Now, there being no medical practitioner actually resident in the +village, but a poor apothecary who was also a grocer and general dealer, +the landlady had, upon her own responsibility, sent for him, in the +very first burst and outset of the disaster. Of course it followed, as +a necessary result of his being wanted, that he was not at home. He had +gone some miles away, and was not expected home until late at night; so +the landlady, being by this time pretty well beside herself, dispatched +the same messenger in all haste for Mr Pecksniff, as a learned man +who could bear a deal of responsibility, and a moral man who could +administer a world of comfort to a troubled mind. That her guest had +need of some efficient services under the latter head was obvious enough +from the restless expressions, importing, however, rather a worldly than +a spiritual anxiety, to which he gave frequent utterance. + +From this last-mentioned secret errand, the messenger returned with no +better news than from the first; Mr Pecksniff was not at home. However, +they got the patient into bed without him; and in the course of two +hours, he gradually became so far better that there were much longer +intervals than at first between his terms of suffering. By degrees, he +ceased to suffer at all; though his exhaustion was occasionally so great +that it suggested hardly less alarm than his actual endurance had done. + +It was in one of his intervals of repose, when, looking round with +great caution, and reaching uneasily out of his nest of pillows, he +endeavoured, with a strange air of secrecy and distrust, to make use +of the writing materials which he had ordered to be placed on a table +beside him, that the young lady and the mistress of the Blue Dragon +found themselves sitting side by side before the fire in the sick +chamber. + +The mistress of the Blue Dragon was in outward appearance just what a +landlady should be: broad, buxom, comfortable, and good looking, with a +face of clear red and white, which, by its jovial aspect, at once bore +testimony to her hearty participation in the good things of the larder +and cellar, and to their thriving and healthful influences. She was a +widow, but years ago had passed through her state of weeds, and burst +into flower again; and in full bloom she had continued ever since; and +in full bloom she was now; with roses on her ample skirts, and roses +on her bodice, roses in her cap, roses in her cheeks,--aye, and roses, +worth the gathering too, on her lips, for that matter. She had still a +bright black eye, and jet black hair; was comely, dimpled, plump, and +tight as a gooseberry; and though she was not exactly what the world +calls young, you may make an affidavit, on trust, before any mayor or +magistrate in Christendom, that there are a great many young ladies in +the world (blessings on them one and all!) whom you wouldn’t like half +as well, or admire half as much, as the beaming hostess of the Blue +Dragon. + +As this fair matron sat beside the fire, she glanced occasionally with +all the pride of ownership, about the room; which was a large apartment, +such as one may see in country places, with a low roof and a sunken +flooring, all downhill from the door, and a descent of two steps on +the inside so exquisitely unexpected, that strangers, despite the +most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in head first, as into a +plunging-bath. It was none of your frivolous and preposterously bright +bedrooms, where nobody can close an eye with any kind of propriety or +decent regard to the association of ideas; but it was a good, dull, +leaden, drowsy place, where every article of furniture reminded you +that you came there to sleep, and that you were expected to go to sleep. +There was no wakeful reflection of the fire there, as in your modern +chambers, which upon the darkest nights have a watchful consciousness of +French polish; the old Spanish mahogany winked at it now and then, as +a dozing cat or dog might, nothing more. The very size and shape, and +hopeless immovability of the bedstead, and wardrobe, and in a minor +degree of even the chairs and tables, provoked sleep; they were plainly +apoplectic and disposed to snore. There were no staring portraits +to remonstrate with you for being lazy; no round-eyed birds upon the +curtains, disgustingly wide awake, and insufferably prying. The +thick neutral hangings, and the dark blinds, and the heavy heap +of bed-clothes, were all designed to hold in sleep, and act as +nonconductors to the day and getting up. Even the old stuffed fox upon +the top of the wardrobe was devoid of any spark of vigilance, for his +glass eye had fallen out, and he slumbered as he stood. + +The wandering attention of the mistress of the Blue Dragon roved to +these things but twice or thrice, and then for but an instant at a time. +It soon deserted them, and even the distant bed with its strange burden, +for the young creature immediately before her, who, with her downcast +eyes intently fixed upon the fire, sat wrapped in silent meditation. + +She was very young; apparently no more than seventeen; timid and +shrinking in her manner, and yet with a greater share of self possession +and control over her emotions than usually belongs to a far more +advanced period of female life. This she had abundantly shown, but now, +in her tending of the sick gentleman. She was short in stature; and her +figure was slight, as became her years; but all the charms of youth and +maidenhood set it off, and clustered on her gentle brow. Her face was +very pale, in part no doubt from recent agitation. Her dark brown hair, +disordered from the same cause, had fallen negligently from its bonds, +and hung upon her neck; for which instance of its waywardness no male +observer would have had the heart to blame it. + +Her attire was that of a lady, but extremely plain; and in her manner, +even when she sat as still as she did then, there was an indefinable +something which appeared to be in kindred with her scrupulously +unpretending dress. She had sat, at first looking anxiously towards the +bed; but seeing that the patient remained quiet, and was busy with his +writing, she had softly moved her chair into its present place; partly, +as it seemed, from an instinctive consciousness that he desired to avoid +observation; and partly that she might, unseen by him, give some vent to +the natural feelings she had hitherto suppressed. + +Of all this, and much more, the rosy landlady of the Blue Dragon took +as accurate note and observation as only woman can take of woman. And at +length she said, in a voice too low, she knew, to reach the bed: + +‘You have seen the gentleman in this way before, miss? Is he used to +these attacks?’ + +‘I have seen him very ill before, but not so ill as he has been +tonight.’ + +‘What a Providence!’ said the landlady of the Dragon, ‘that you had the +prescriptions and the medicines with you, miss!’ + +‘They are intended for such an emergency. We never travel without them.’ + +‘Oh!’ thought the hostess, ‘then we are in the habit of travelling, and +of travelling together.’ + +She was so conscious of expressing this in her face, that meeting +the young lady’s eyes immediately afterwards, and being a very honest +hostess, she was rather confused. + +‘The gentleman--your grandpapa’--she resumed, after a short pause, +‘being so bent on having no assistance, must terrify you very much, +miss?’ + +‘I have been very much alarmed to-night. He--he is not my grandfather.’ + +‘Father, I should have said,’ returned the hostess, sensible of having +made an awkward mistake. + +‘Nor my father’ said the young lady. ‘Nor,’ she added, slightly smiling +with a quick perception of what the landlady was going to add, ‘Nor my +uncle. We are not related.’ + +‘Oh dear me!’ returned the landlady, still more embarrassed than before; +‘how could I be so very much mistaken; knowing, as anybody in their +proper senses might that when a gentleman is ill, he looks so much older +than he really is? That I should have called you “Miss,” too, ma’am!’ +But when she had proceeded thus far, she glanced involuntarily at the +third finger of the young lady’s left hand, and faltered again; for +there was no ring upon it. + +‘When I told you we were not related,’ said the other mildly, but not +without confusion on her own part, ‘I meant not in any way. Not even by +marriage. Did you call me, Martin?’ + +‘Call you?’ cried the old man, looking quickly up, and hurriedly drawing +beneath the coverlet the paper on which he had been writing. ‘No.’ + +She had moved a pace or two towards the bed, but stopped immediately, +and went no farther. + +‘No,’ he repeated, with a petulant emphasis. ‘Why do you ask me? If I +had called you, what need for such a question?’ + +‘It was the creaking of the sign outside, sir, I dare say,’ observed the +landlady; a suggestion by the way (as she felt a moment after she had +made it), not at all complimentary to the voice of the old gentleman. + +‘No matter what, ma’am,’ he rejoined: ‘it wasn’t I. Why how you stand +there, Mary, as if I had the plague! But they’re all afraid of me,’ he +added, leaning helplessly backward on his pillow; ‘even she! There is a +curse upon me. What else have I to look for?’ + +‘Oh dear, no. Oh no, I’m sure,’ said the good-tempered landlady, rising, +and going towards him. ‘Be of better cheer, sir. These are only sick +fancies.’ + +‘What are only sick fancies?’ he retorted. ‘What do you know about +fancies? Who told you about fancies? The old story! Fancies!’ + +‘Only see again there, how you take one up!’ said the mistress of the +Blue Dragon, with unimpaired good humour. ‘Dear heart alive, there is +no harm in the word, sir, if it is an old one. Folks in good health have +their fancies, too, and strange ones, every day.’ + +Harmless as this speech appeared to be, it acted on the traveller’s +distrust, like oil on fire. He raised his head up in the bed, and, +fixing on her two dark eyes whose brightness was exaggerated by the +paleness of his hollow cheeks, as they in turn, together with his +straggling locks of long grey hair, were rendered whiter by the tight +black velvet skullcap which he wore, he searched her face intently. + +‘Ah! you begin too soon,’ he said, in so low a voice that he seemed to +be thinking it, rather than addressing her. ‘But you lose no time. You +do your errand, and you earn your fee. Now, who may be your client?’ + +The landlady looked in great astonishment at her whom he called Mary, +and finding no rejoinder in the drooping face, looked back again at him. +At first she had recoiled involuntarily, supposing him disordered in +his mind; but the slow composure of his manner, and the settled purpose +announced in his strong features, and gathering, most of all, about his +puckered mouth, forbade the supposition. + +‘Come,’ he said, ‘tell me who is it? Being here, it is not very hard for +me to guess, you may suppose.’ + +‘Martin,’ interposed the young lady, laying her hand upon his arm; +‘reflect how short a time we have been in this house, and that even your +name is unknown here.’ + +‘Unless,’ he said, ‘you--’ He was evidently tempted to express a +suspicion of her having broken his confidence in favour of the landlady, +but either remembering her tender nursing, or being moved in some sort +by her face, he checked himself, and changing his uneasy posture in the +bed, was silent. + +‘There!’ said Mrs Lupin; for in that name the Blue Dragon was licensed +to furnish entertainment, both to man and beast. ‘Now, you will be well +again, sir. You forgot, for the moment, that there were none but friends +here.’ + +‘Oh!’ cried the old man, moaning impatiently, as he tossed one restless +arm upon the coverlet; ‘why do you talk to me of friends! Can you or +anybody teach me to know who are my friends, and who my enemies?’ + +‘At least,’ urged Mrs Lupin, gently, ‘this young lady is your friend, I +am sure.’ + +‘She has no temptation to be otherwise,’ cried the old man, like one +whose hope and confidence were utterly exhausted. ‘I suppose she is. +Heaven knows. There, let me try to sleep. Leave the candle where it is.’ + +As they retired from the bed, he drew forth the writing which had +occupied him so long, and holding it in the flame of the taper burnt +it to ashes. That done, he extinguished the light, and turning his face +away with a heavy sigh, drew the coverlet about his head, and lay quite +still. + +This destruction of the paper, both as being strangely inconsistent with +the labour he had devoted to it, and as involving considerable danger of +fire to the Dragon, occasioned Mrs Lupin not a little consternation. But +the young lady evincing no surprise, curiosity, or alarm, whispered her, +with many thanks for her solicitude and company, that she would remain +there some time longer; and that she begged her not to share her watch, +as she was well used to being alone, and would pass the time in reading. + +Mrs Lupin had her full share and dividend of that large capital of +curiosity which is inherited by her sex, and at another time it might +have been difficult so to impress this hint upon her as to induce her to +take it. But now, in sheer wonder and amazement at these mysteries, she +withdrew at once, and repairing straightway to her own little parlour +below stairs, sat down in her easy-chair with unnatural composure. +At this very crisis, a step was heard in the entry, and Mr Pecksniff, +looking sweetly over the half-door of the bar, and into the vista of +snug privacy beyond, murmured: + +‘Good evening, Mrs Lupin!’ + +‘Oh dear me, sir!’ she cried, advancing to receive him, ‘I am so very +glad you have come.’ + +‘And I am very glad I have come,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘if I can be of +service. I am very glad I have come. What is the matter, Mrs Lupin?’ + +‘A gentleman taken ill upon the road, has been so very bad upstairs, +sir,’ said the tearful hostess. + +‘A gentleman taken ill upon the road, has been so very bad upstairs, has +he?’ repeated Mr Pecksniff. ‘Well, well!’ + +Now there was nothing that one may call decidedly original in this +remark, nor can it be exactly said to have contained any wise precept +theretofore unknown to mankind, or to have opened any hidden source of +consolation; but Mr Pecksniff’s manner was so bland, and he nodded his +head so soothingly, and showed in everything such an affable sense of +his own excellence, that anybody would have been, as Mrs Lupin was, +comforted by the mere voice and presence of such a man; and, though he +had merely said ‘a verb must agree with its nominative case in number +and person, my good friend,’ or ‘eight times eight are sixty-four, my +worthy soul,’ must have felt deeply grateful to him for his humanity and +wisdom. + +‘And how,’ asked Mr Pecksniff, drawing off his gloves and warming his +hands before the fire, as benevolently as if they were somebody else’s, +not his; ‘and how is he now?’ + +‘He is better, and quite tranquil,’ answered Mrs Lupin. + +‘He is better, and quite tranquil,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Very well! Ve-ry +well!’ + +Here again, though the statement was Mrs Lupin’s and not Mr Pecksniff’s, +Mr Pecksniff made it his own and consoled her with it. It was not much +when Mrs Lupin said it, but it was a whole book when Mr Pecksniff said +it. ‘I observe,’ he seemed to say, ‘and through me, morality in general +remarks, that he is better and quite tranquil.’ + +‘There must be weighty matters on his mind, though,’ said the hostess, +shaking her head, ‘for he talks, sir, in the strangest way you ever +heard. He is far from easy in his thoughts, and wants some proper advice +from those whose goodness makes it worth his having.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘he is the sort of customer for me.’ But +though he said this in the plainest language, he didn’t speak a word. He +only shook his head; disparagingly of himself too. + +‘I am afraid, sir,’ continued the landlady, first looking round to +assure herself that there was nobody within hearing, and then looking +down upon the floor. ‘I am very much afraid, sir, that his conscience +is troubled by his not being related to--or--or even married to--a very +young lady--’ + +‘Mrs Lupin!’ said Mr Pecksniff, holding up his hand with something in +his manner as nearly approaching to severity as any expression of his, +mild being that he was, could ever do. ‘Person! young person?’ + +‘A very young person,’ said Mrs Lupin, curtseying and blushing; ‘--I beg +your pardon, sir, but I have been so hurried to-night, that I don’t know +what I say--who is with him now.’ + +‘Who is with him now,’ ruminated Mr Pecksniff, warming his back (as he +had warmed his hands) as if it were a widow’s back, or an orphan’s back, +or an enemy’s back, or a back that any less excellent man would have +suffered to be cold. ‘Oh dear me, dear me!’ + +‘At the same time I am bound to say, and I do say with all my heart,’ +observed the hostess, earnestly, ‘that her looks and manner almost +disarm suspicion.’ + +‘Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,’ said Mr Pecksniff gravely, ‘is very +natural.’ + +Touching which remark, let it be written down to their confusion, that +the enemies of this worthy man unblushingly maintained that he always +said of what was very bad, that it was very natural; and that he +unconsciously betrayed his own nature in doing so. + +‘Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,’ he repeated, ‘is very natural, and I have +no doubt correct. I will wait upon these travellers.’ + +With that he took off his great-coat, and having run his fingers through +his hair, thrust one hand gently in the bosom of his waist-coat and +meekly signed to her to lead the way. + +‘Shall I knock?’ asked Mrs Lupin, when they reached the chamber door. + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘enter if you please.’ + +They went in on tiptoe; or rather the hostess took that precaution for +Mr Pecksniff always walked softly. The old gentleman was still asleep, +and his young companion still sat reading by the fire. + +‘I am afraid,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pausing at the door, and giving +his head a melancholy roll, ‘I am afraid that this looks artful. I am +afraid, Mrs Lupin, do you know, that this looks very artful!’ + +As he finished this whisper, he advanced before the hostess; and at the +same time the young lady, hearing footsteps, rose. Mr Pecksniff glanced +at the volume she held, and whispered Mrs Lupin again; if possible, with +increased despondency. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, ‘it is a good book. I was fearful of that +beforehand. I am apprehensive that this is a very deep thing indeed!’ + +‘What gentleman is this?’ inquired the object of his virtuous doubts. + +‘Hush! don’t trouble yourself, ma’am,’ said Mr Pecksniff, as the +landlady was about to answer. ‘This young’--in spite of himself he +hesitated when “person” rose to his lips, and substituted another word: +‘this young stranger, Mrs Lupin, will excuse me for replying briefly, +that I reside in this village; it may be in an influential manner, +however, undeserved; and that I have been summoned here by you. I am +here, as I am everywhere, I hope, in sympathy for the sick and sorry.’ + +With these impressive words, Mr Pecksniff passed over to the bedside, +where, after patting the counterpane once or twice in a very solemn +manner, as if by that means he gained a clear insight into the patient’s +disorder, he took his seat in a large arm-chair, and in an attitude of +some thoughtfulness and much comfort, waited for his waking. Whatever +objection the young lady urged to Mrs Lupin went no further, for nothing +more was said to Mr Pecksniff, and Mr Pecksniff said nothing more to +anybody else. + +Full half an hour elapsed before the old man stirred, but at length he +turned himself in bed, and, though not yet awake, gave tokens that +his sleep was drawing to an end. By little and little he removed the +bed-clothes from about his head, and turned still more towards the side +where Mr Pecksniff sat. In course of time his eyes opened; and he +lay for a few moments as people newly roused sometimes will, gazing +indolently at his visitor, without any distinct consciousness of his +presence. + +There was nothing remarkable in these proceedings, except the influence +they worked on Mr Pecksniff, which could hardly have been surpassed by +the most marvellous of natural phenomena. Gradually his hands became +tightly clasped upon the elbows of the chair, his eyes dilated with +surprise, his mouth opened, his hair stood more erect upon his forehead +than its custom was, until, at length, when the old man rose in bed, +and stared at him with scarcely less emotion than he showed himself, the +Pecksniff doubts were all resolved, and he exclaimed aloud: + +‘You ARE Martin Chuzzlewit!’ + +His consternation of surprise was so genuine, that the old man, with all +the disposition that he clearly entertained to believe it assumed, was +convinced of its reality. + +‘I am Martin Chuzzlewit,’ he said, bitterly: ‘and Martin Chuzzlewit +wishes you had been hanged, before you had come here to disturb him in +his sleep. Why, I dreamed of this fellow!’ he said, lying down again, +and turning away his face, ‘before I knew that he was near me!’ + +‘My good cousin--’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘There! His very first words!’ cried the old man, shaking his grey head +to and fro upon the pillow, and throwing up his hands. ‘In his very +first words he asserts his relationship! I knew he would; they all do +it! Near or distant, blood or water, it’s all one. Ugh! What a calendar +of deceit, and lying, and false-witnessing, the sound of any word of +kindred opens before me!’ + +‘Pray do not be hasty, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ said Pecksniff, in a tone that +was at once in the sublimest degree compassionate and dispassionate; +for he had by this time recovered from his surprise, and was in full +possession of his virtuous self. ‘You will regret being hasty, I know +you will.’ + +‘You know!’ said Martin, contemptuously. + +‘Yes,’ retorted Mr Pecksniff. ‘Aye, aye, Mr Chuzzlewit; and don’t +imagine that I mean to court or flatter you; for nothing is further from +my intention. Neither, sir, need you entertain the least misgiving that +I shall repeat that obnoxious word which has given you so much offence +already. Why should I? What do I expect or want from you? There is +nothing in your possession that I know of, Mr Chuzzlewit, which is much +to be coveted for the happiness it brings you.’ + +‘That’s true enough,’ muttered the old man. + +‘Apart from that consideration,’ said Mr Pecksniff, watchful of the +effect he made, ‘it must be plain to you (I am sure) by this time, that +if I had wished to insinuate myself into your good opinion, I should +have been, of all things, careful not to address you as a relative; +knowing your humour, and being quite certain beforehand that I could not +have a worse letter of recommendation.’ + +Martin made not any verbal answer; but he as clearly implied though only +by a motion of his legs beneath the bed-clothes, that there was reason +in this, and that he could not dispute it, as if he had said as much in +good set terms. + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, keeping his hand in his waistcoat as though +he were ready, on the shortest notice, to produce his heart for +Martin Chuzzlewit’s inspection, ‘I came here to offer my services to +a stranger. I make no offer of them to you, because I know you would +distrust me if I did. But lying on that bed, sir, I regard you as a +stranger, and I have just that amount of interest in you which I hope I +should feel in any stranger, circumstanced as you are. Beyond that, I am +quite as indifferent to you, Mr Chuzzlewit, as you are to me.’ + +Having said which, Mr Pecksniff threw himself back in the easy-chair; +so radiant with ingenuous honesty, that Mrs Lupin almost wondered not to +see a stained-glass Glory, such as the Saint wore in the church, shining +about his head. + +A long pause succeeded. The old man, with increased restlessness, +changed his posture several times. Mrs Lupin and the young lady gazed +in silence at the counterpane. Mr Pecksniff toyed abstractedly with his +eye-glass, and kept his eyes shut, that he might ruminate the better. + +‘Eh?’ he said at last, opening them suddenly, and looking towards the +bed. ‘I beg your pardon. I thought you spoke. Mrs Lupin,’ he continued, +slowly rising ‘I am not aware that I can be of any service to you here. +The gentleman is better, and you are as good a nurse as he can have. +Eh?’ + +This last note of interrogation bore reference to another change +of posture on the old man’s part, which brought his face towards Mr +Pecksniff for the first time since he had turned away from him. + +‘If you desire to speak to me before I go, sir,’ continued that +gentleman, after another pause, ‘you may command my leisure; but I +must stipulate, in justice to myself, that you do so as to a stranger, +strictly as to a stranger.’ + +Now if Mr Pecksniff knew, from anything Martin Chuzzlewit had expressed +in gestures, that he wanted to speak to him, he could only have found it +out on some such principle as prevails in melodramas, and in virtue of +which the elderly farmer with the comic son always knows what the dumb +girl means when she takes refuge in his garden, and relates her personal +memoirs in incomprehensible pantomime. But without stopping to make any +inquiry on this point, Martin Chuzzlewit signed to his young companion +to withdraw, which she immediately did, along with the landlady leaving +him and Mr Pecksniff alone together. For some time they looked at each +other in silence; or rather the old man looked at Mr Pecksniff, and Mr +Pecksniff again closing his eyes on all outward objects, took an inward +survey of his own breast. That it amply repaid him for his trouble, +and afforded a delicious and enchanting prospect, was clear from the +expression of his face. + +‘You wish me to speak to you as to a total stranger,’ said the old man, +‘do you?’ + +Mr Pecksniff replied, by a shrug of his shoulders and an apparent +turning round of his eyes in their sockets before he opened them, that +he was still reduced to the necessity of entertaining that desire. + +‘You shall be gratified,’ said Martin. ‘Sir, I am a rich man. Not so +rich as some suppose, perhaps, but yet wealthy. I am not a miser sir, +though even that charge is made against me, as I hear, and currently +believed. I have no pleasure in hoarding. I have no pleasure in the +possession of money, The devil that we call by that name can give me +nothing but unhappiness.’ + +It would be no description of Mr Pecksniff’s gentleness of manner to +adopt the common parlance, and say that he looked at this moment as if +butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He rather looked as if any quantity +of butter might have been made out of him, by churning the milk of human +kindness, as it spouted upwards from his heart. + +‘For the same reason that I am not a hoarder of money,’ said the old +man, ‘I am not lavish of it. Some people find their gratification in +storing it up; and others theirs in parting with it; but I have no +gratification connected with the thing. Pain and bitterness are the only +goods it ever could procure for me. I hate it. It is a spectre walking +before me through the world, and making every social pleasure hideous.’ + +A thought arose in Pecksniff’s mind, which must have instantly mounted +to his face, or Martin Chuzzlewit would not have resumed as quickly and +as sternly as he did: + +‘You would advise me for my peace of mind, to get rid of this source of +misery, and transfer it to some one who could bear it better. Even you, +perhaps, would rid me of a burden under which I suffer so grievously. +But, kind stranger,’ said the old man, whose every feature darkened as +he spoke, ‘good Christian stranger, that is a main part of my trouble. +In other hands, I have known money do good; in other hands I have known +it triumphed in, and boasted of with reason, as the master-key to all +the brazen gates that close upon the paths to worldly honour, +fortune, and enjoyment. To what man or woman; to what worthy, honest, +incorruptible creature; shall I confide such a talisman, either now +or when I die? Do you know any such person? YOUR virtues are of course +inestimable, but can you tell me of any other living creature who will +bear the test of contact with myself?’ + +‘Of contact with yourself, sir?’ echoed Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Aye,’ returned the old man, ‘the test of contact with me--with me. You +have heard of him whose misery (the gratification of his own foolish +wish) was, that he turned every thing he touched into gold. The curse +of my existence, and the realisation of my own mad desire is that by the +golden standard which I bear about me, I am doomed to try the metal of +all other men, and find it false and hollow.’ + +Mr Pecksniff shook his head, and said, ‘You think so.’ + +‘Oh yes,’ cried the old man, ‘I think so! and in your telling me “I +think so,” I recognize the true unworldly ring of YOUR metal. I tell +you, man,’ he added, with increasing bitterness, ‘that I have gone, a +rich man, among people of all grades and kinds; relatives, friends, and +strangers; among people in whom, when I was poor, I had confidence, and +justly, for they never once deceived me then, or, to me, wronged each +other. But I have never found one nature, no, not one, in which, being +wealthy and alone, I was not forced to detect the latent corruption that +lay hid within it waiting for such as I to bring it forth. Treachery, +deceit, and low design; hatred of competitors, real or fancied, for my +favour; meanness, falsehood, baseness, and servility; or,’ and here +he looked closely in his cousin’s eyes, ‘or an assumption of honest +independence, almost worse than all; these are the beauties which my +wealth has brought to light. Brother against brother, child against +parent, friends treading on the faces of friends, this is the social +company by whom my way has been attended. There are stories told--they +may be true or false--of rich men who, in the garb of poverty, have +found out virtue and rewarded it. They were dolts and idiots for their +pains. They should have made the search in their own characters. They +should have shown themselves fit objects to be robbed and preyed upon +and plotted against and adulated by any knaves, who, but for joy, would +have spat upon their coffins when they died their dupes; and then their +search would have ended as mine has done, and they would be what I am.’ + +Mr Pecksniff, not at all knowing what it might be best to say in the +momentary pause which ensued upon these remarks, made an elaborate +demonstration of intending to deliver something very oracular indeed; +trusting to the certainty of the old man interrupting him, before he +should utter a word. Nor was he mistaken, for Martin Chuzzlewit having +taken breath, went on to say: + +‘Hear me to an end; judge what profit you are like to gain from any +repetition of this visit; and leave me. I have so corrupted and changed +the nature of all those who have ever attended on me, by breeding +avaricious plots and hopes within them; I have engendered such domestic +strife and discord, by tarrying even with members of my own family; I +have been such a lighted torch in peaceful homes, kindling up all the +inflammable gases and vapours in their moral atmosphere, which, but for +me, might have proved harmless to the end, that I have, I may say, fled +from all who knew me, and taking refuge in secret places have lived, of +late, the life of one who is hunted. The young girl whom you just now +saw--what! your eye lightens when I talk of her! You hate her already, +do you?’ + +‘Upon my word, sir!’ said Mr Pecksniff, laying his hand upon his breast, +and dropping his eyelids. + +‘I forgot,’ cried the old man, looking at him with a keenness which the +other seemed to feel, although he did not raise his eyes so as to see +it. ‘I ask your pardon. I forgot you were a stranger. For the moment +you reminded me of one Pecksniff, a cousin of mine. As I was saying--the +young girl whom you just now saw, is an orphan child, whom, with one +steady purpose, I have bred and educated, or, if you prefer the word, +adopted. For a year or more she has been my constant companion, and she +is my only one. I have taken, as she knows, a solemn oath never to +leave her sixpence when I die, but while I live I make her an annual +allowance; not extravagant in its amount and yet not stinted. There is +a compact between us that no term of affectionate cajolery shall ever be +addressed by either to the other, but that she shall call me always by +my Christian name; I her, by hers. She is bound to me in life by ties +of interest, and losing by my death, and having no expectation +disappointed, will mourn it, perhaps; though for that I care little. +This is the only kind of friend I have or will have. Judge from such +premises what a profitable hour you have spent in coming here, and leave +me, to return no more.’ + +With these words, the old man fell slowly back upon his pillow. Mr +Pecksniff as slowly rose, and, with a prefatory hem, began as follows: + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit.’ + +‘There. Go!’ interposed the other. ‘Enough of this. I am weary of you.’ + +‘I am sorry for that, sir,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff, ‘because I have a +duty to discharge, from which, depend upon it, I shall not shrink. No, +sir, I shall not shrink.’ + +It is a lamentable fact, that as Mr Pecksniff stood erect beside the +bed, in all the dignity of Goodness, and addressed him thus, the old man +cast an angry glance towards the candlestick, as if he were possessed +by a strong inclination to launch it at his cousin’s head. But he +constrained himself, and pointing with his finger to the door, informed +him that his road lay there. + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘I am aware of that. I am going. +But before I go, I crave your leave to speak, and more than that, Mr +Chuzzlewit, I must and will--yes indeed, I repeat it, must and will--be +heard. I am not surprised, sir, at anything you have told me tonight. +It is natural, very natural, and the greater part of it was known to +me before. I will not say,’ continued Mr Pecksniff, drawing out his +pocket-handkerchief, and winking with both eyes at once, as it were, +against his will, ‘I will not say that you are mistaken in me. While +you are in your present mood I would not say so for the world. I almost +wish, indeed, that I had a different nature, that I might repress even +this slight confession of weakness; which I cannot disguise from you; +which I feel is humiliating; but which you will have the goodness to +excuse. We will say, if you please,’ added Mr Pecksniff, with great +tenderness of manner, ‘that it arises from a cold in the head, or is +attributable to snuff, or smelling-salts, or onions, or anything but the +real cause.’ + +Here he paused for an instant, and concealed his face behind his +pocket-handkerchief. Then, smiling faintly, and holding the bed +furniture with one hand, he resumed: + +‘But, Mr Chuzzlewit, while I am forgetful of myself, I owe it to myself, +and to my character--aye, sir, and I HAVE a character which is very dear +to me, and will be the best inheritance of my two daughters--to tell +you, on behalf of another, that your conduct is wrong, unnatural, +indefensible, monstrous. And I tell you, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +towering on tiptoe among the curtains, as if he were literally rising +above all worldly considerations, and were fain to hold on tight, to +keep himself from darting skyward like a rocket, ‘I tell you without +fear or favour, that it will not do for you to be unmindful of your +grandson, young Martin, who has the strongest natural claim upon you. +It will not do, sir,’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, shaking his head. ‘You may +think it will do, but it won’t. You must provide for that young man; +you shall provide for him; you WILL provide for him. I believe,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, glancing at the pen-and-ink, ‘that in secret you have already +done so. Bless you for doing so. Bless you for doing right, sir. Bless +you for hating me. And good night!’ + +So saying, Mr Pecksniff waved his right hand with much solemnity, and +once more inserting it in his waistcoat, departed. There was emotion in +his manner, but his step was firm. Subject to human weaknesses, he was +upheld by conscience. + +Martin lay for some time, with an expression on his face of silent +wonder, not unmixed with rage; at length he muttered in a whisper: + +‘What does this mean? Can the false-hearted boy have chosen such a +tool as yonder fellow who has just gone out? Why not! He has conspired +against me, like the rest, and they are but birds of one feather. A new +plot; a new plot! Oh self, self, self! At every turn nothing but self!’ + +He fell to trifling, as he ceased to speak, with the ashes of the burnt +paper in the candlestick. He did so, at first, in pure abstraction, but +they presently became the subject of his thoughts. + +‘Another will made and destroyed,’ he said, ‘nothing determined on, +nothing done, and I might have died to-night! I plainly see to what foul +uses all this money will be put at last,’ he cried, almost writhing in +the bed; ‘after filling me with cares and miseries all my life, it will +perpetuate discord and bad passions when I am dead. So it always is. +What lawsuits grow out of the graves of rich men, every day; sowing +perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred, where there should be +nothing but love! Heaven help us, we have much to answer for! Oh self, +self, self! Every man for himself, and no creature for me!’ + +Universal self! Was there nothing of its shadow in these reflections, +and in the history of Martin Chuzzlewit, on his own showing? + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +FROM WHICH IT WILL APPEAR THAT IF UNION BE STRENGTH, AND FAMILY +AFFECTION BE PLEASANT TO CONTEMPLATE, THE CHUZZLEWITS WERE THE STRONGEST +AND MOST AGREEABLE FAMILY IN THE WORLD + + +That worthy man Mr Pecksniff having taken leave of his cousin in the +solemn terms recited in the last chapter, withdrew to his own home, and +remained there three whole days; not so much as going out for a walk +beyond the boundaries of his own garden, lest he should be hastily +summoned to the bedside of his penitent and remorseful relative, +whom, in his ample benevolence, he had made up his mind to forgive +unconditionally, and to love on any terms. But such was the obstinacy +and such the bitter nature of that stern old man, that no repentant +summons came; and the fourth day found Mr Pecksniff apparently much +farther from his Christian object than the first. + +During the whole of this interval, he haunted the Dragon at all times +and seasons in the day and night, and, returning good for evil evinced +the deepest solicitude in the progress of the obdurate invalid, in so +much that Mrs Lupin was fairly melted by his disinterested anxiety (for +he often particularly required her to take notice that he would do the +same by any stranger or pauper in the like condition), and shed many +tears of admiration and delight. + +Meantime, old Martin Chuzzlewit remained shut up in his own chamber, and +saw no person but his young companion, saving the hostess of the Blue +Dragon, who was, at certain times, admitted to his presence. So surely +as she came into the room, however, Martin feigned to fall asleep. It +was only when he and the young lady were alone, that he would utter a +word, even in answer to the simplest inquiry; though Mr Pecksniff +could make out, by hard listening at the door, that they two being left +together, he was talkative enough. + +It happened on the fourth evening, that Mr Pecksniff walking, as usual, +into the bar of the Dragon and finding no Mrs Lupin there, went straight +upstairs; purposing, in the fervour of his affectionate zeal, to apply +his ear once more to the keyhole, and quiet his mind by assuring himself +that the hard-hearted patient was going on well. It happened that Mr +Pecksniff, coming softly upon the dark passage into which a spiral ray +of light usually darted through the same keyhole, was astonished to find +no such ray visible; and it happened that Mr Pecksniff, when he had felt +his way to the chamber-door, stooping hurriedly down to ascertain by +personal inspection whether the jealousy of the old man had caused this +keyhole to be stopped on the inside, brought his head into such violent +contact with another head that he could not help uttering in an audible +voice the monosyllable ‘Oh!’ which was, as it were, sharply unscrewed +and jerked out of him by very anguish. It happened then, and lastly, +that Mr Pecksniff found himself immediately collared by something which +smelt like several damp umbrellas, a barrel of beer, a cask of warm +brandy-and-water, and a small parlour-full of stale tobacco smoke, +mixed; and was straightway led downstairs into the bar from which he +had lately come, where he found himself standing opposite to, and in +the grasp of, a perfectly strange gentleman of still stranger appearance +who, with his disengaged hand, rubbed his own head very hard, and looked +at him, Pecksniff, with an evil countenance. + +The gentleman was of that order of appearance which is currently termed +shabby-genteel, though in respect of his dress he can hardly be said to +have been in any extremities, as his fingers were a long way out of his +gloves, and the soles of his feet were at an inconvenient distance from +the upper leather of his boots. His nether garments were of a +bluish grey--violent in its colours once, but sobered now by age and +dinginess--and were so stretched and strained in a tough conflict +between his braces and his straps, that they appeared every moment in +danger of flying asunder at the knees. His coat, in colour blue and of +a military cut, was buttoned and frogged up to his chin. His cravat was, +in hue and pattern, like one of those mantles which hairdressers are +accustomed to wrap about their clients, during the progress of the +professional mysteries. His hat had arrived at such a pass that it would +have been hard to determine whether it was originally white or black. +But he wore a moustache--a shaggy moustache too; nothing in the meek and +merciful way, but quite in the fierce and scornful style; the regular +Satanic sort of thing--and he wore, besides, a vast quantity of +unbrushed hair. He was very dirty and very jaunty; very bold and very +mean; very swaggering and very slinking; very much like a man who might +have been something better, and unspeakably like a man who deserved to +be something worse. + +‘You were eaves-dropping at that door, you vagabond!’ said this +gentleman. + +Mr Pecksniff cast him off, as Saint George might have repudiated the +Dragon in that animal’s last moments, and said: + +‘Where is Mrs Lupin, I wonder! can the good woman possibly be aware that +there is a person here who--’ + +‘Stay!’ said the gentleman. ‘Wait a bit. She DOES know. What then?’ + +‘What then, sir?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘What then? Do you know, sir, +that I am the friend and relative of that sick gentleman? That I am his +protector, his guardian, his--’ + +‘Not his niece’s husband,’ interposed the stranger, ‘I’ll be sworn; for +he was there before you.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Pecksniff, with indignant surprise. ‘What do +you tell me, sir?’ + +‘Wait a bit!’ cried the other, ‘Perhaps you are a cousin--the cousin who +lives in this place?’ + +‘I AM the cousin who lives in this place,’ replied the man of worth. + +‘Your name is Pecksniff?’ said the gentleman. + +‘It is.’ + +‘I am proud to know you, and I ask your pardon,’ said the gentleman, +touching his hat, and subsequently diving behind his cravat for a +shirt-collar, which however he did not succeed in bringing to the +surface. ‘You behold in me, sir, one who has also an interest in that +gentleman upstairs. Wait a bit.’ + +As he said this, he touched the tip of his high nose, by way of +intimation that he would let Mr Pecksniff into a secret presently; and +pulling off his hat, began to search inside the crown among a mass of +crumpled documents and small pieces of what may be called the bark of +broken cigars; whence he presently selected the cover of an old letter, +begrimed with dirt and redolent of tobacco. + +‘Read that,’ he cried, giving it to Mr Pecksniff. + +‘This is addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire,’ said that gentleman. + +‘You know Chevy Slyme, Esquire, I believe?’ returned the stranger. + +Mr Pecksniff shrugged his shoulders as though he would say ‘I know there +is such a person, and I am sorry for it.’ + +‘Very good,’ remarked the gentleman. ‘That is my interest and business +here.’ With that he made another dive for his shirt-collar and brought +up a string. + +‘Now, this is very distressing, my friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking +his head and smiling composedly. ‘It is very distressing to me, to be +compelled to say that you are not the person you claim to be. I know Mr +Slyme, my friend; this will not do; honesty is the best policy you had +better not; you had indeed.’ + +‘Stop’ cried the gentleman, stretching forth his right arm, which was +so tightly wedged into his threadbare sleeve that it looked like a cloth +sausage. ‘Wait a bit!’ + +He paused to establish himself immediately in front of the fire with his +back towards it. Then gathering the skirts of his coat under his left +arm, and smoothing his moustache with his right thumb and forefinger, he +resumed: + +‘I understand your mistake, and I am not offended. Why? Because it’s +complimentary. You suppose I would set myself up for Chevy Slyme. +Sir, if there is a man on earth whom a gentleman would feel proud and +honoured to be mistaken for, that man is my friend Slyme. For he is, +without an exception, the highest-minded, the most independent-spirited, +most original, spiritual, classical, talented, the most thoroughly +Shakspearian, if not Miltonic, and at the same time the most +disgustingly-unappreciated dog I know. But, sir, I have not the vanity +to attempt to pass for Slyme. Any other man in the wide world, I am +equal to; but Slyme is, I frankly confess, a great many cuts above me. +Therefore you are wrong.’ + +‘I judged from this,’ said Mr Pecksniff, holding out the cover of the +letter. + +‘No doubt you did,’ returned the gentleman. ‘But, Mr Pecksniff, the +whole thing resolves itself into an instance of the peculiarities +of genius. Every man of true genius has his peculiarity. Sir, the +peculiarity of my friend Slyme is, that he is always waiting round the +corner. He is perpetually round the corner, sir. He is round the corner +at this instant. Now,’ said the gentleman, shaking his forefinger before +his nose, and planting his legs wider apart as he looked attentively in +Mr Pecksniff’s face, ‘that is a remarkably curious and interesting trait +in Mr Slyme’s character; and whenever Slyme’s life comes to be written, +that trait must be thoroughly worked out by his biographer or society +will not be satisfied. Observe me, society will not be satisfied!’ + +Mr Pecksniff coughed. + +‘Slyme’s biographer, sir, whoever he may be,’ resumed the gentleman, +‘must apply to me; or, if I am gone to that what’s-his-name from which +no thingumbob comes back, he must apply to my executors for leave to +search among my papers. I have taken a few notes in my poor way, of some +of that man’s proceedings--my adopted brother, sir,--which would amaze +you. He made use of an expression, sir, only on the fifteenth of last +month when he couldn’t meet a little bill and the other party wouldn’t +renew, which would have done honour to Napoleon Bonaparte in addressing +the French army.’ + +‘And pray,’ asked Mr Pecksniff, obviously not quite at his ease, ‘what +may be Mr Slyme’s business here, if I may be permitted to inquire, who +am compelled by a regard for my own character to disavow all interest in +his proceedings?’ + +‘In the first place,’ returned the gentleman, ‘you will permit me to +say, that I object to that remark, and that I strongly and indignantly +protest against it on behalf of my friend Slyme. In the next place, you +will give me leave to introduce myself. My name, sir, is Tigg. The name +of Montague Tigg will perhaps be familiar to you, in connection with the +most remarkable events of the Peninsular War?’ + +Mr Pecksniff gently shook his head. + +‘No matter,’ said the gentleman. ‘That man was my father, and I bear his +name. I am consequently proud--proud as Lucifer. Excuse me one moment. +I desire my friend Slyme to be present at the remainder of this +conference.’ + +With this announcement he hurried away to the outer door of the Blue +Dragon, and almost immediately returned with a companion shorter than +himself, who was wrapped in an old blue camlet cloak with a lining of +faded scarlet. His sharp features being much pinched and nipped by long +waiting in the cold, and his straggling red whiskers and frowzy hair +being more than usually dishevelled from the same cause, he certainly +looked rather unwholesome and uncomfortable than Shakspearian or +Miltonic. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Tigg, clapping one hand on the shoulder of his +prepossessing friend, and calling Mr Pecksniff’s attention to him with +the other, ‘you two are related; and relations never did agree, and +never will; which is a wise dispensation and an inevitable thing, or +there would be none but family parties, and everybody in the world +would bore everybody else to death. If you were on good terms, I should +consider you a most confoundedly unnatural pair; but standing +towards each other as you do, I took upon you as a couple of devilish +deep-thoughted fellows, who may be reasoned with to any extent.’ + +Here Mr Chevy Slyme, whose great abilities seemed one and all to point +towards the sneaking quarter of the moral compass, nudged his friend +stealthily with his elbow, and whispered in his ear. + +‘Chiv,’ said Mr Tigg aloud, in the high tone of one who was not to +be tampered with. ‘I shall come to that presently. I act upon my own +responsibility, or not at all. To the extent of such a trifling loan +as a crownpiece to a man of your talents, I look upon Mr Pecksniff +as certain;’ and seeing at this juncture that the expression of Mr +Pecksniff’s face by no means betokened that he shared this certainty, Mr +Tigg laid his finger on his nose again for that gentleman’s private +and especial behoof; calling upon him thereby to take notice that the +requisition of small loans was another instance of the peculiarities of +genius as developed in his friend Slyme; that he, Tigg, winked at the +same, because of the strong metaphysical interest which these weaknesses +possessed; and that in reference to his own personal advocacy of such +small advances, he merely consulted the humour of his friend, without +the least regard to his own advantage or necessities. + +‘Oh, Chiv, Chiv!’ added Mr Tigg, surveying his adopted brother with an +air of profound contemplation after dismissing this piece of pantomime. +‘You are, upon my life, a strange instance of the little frailties that +beset a mighty mind. If there had never been a telescope in the world, +I should have been quite certain from my observation of you, Chiv, +that there were spots on the sun! I wish I may die, if this isn’t the +queerest state of existence that we find ourselves forced into without +knowing why or wherefore, Mr Pecksniff! Well, never mind! Moralise as we +will, the world goes on. As Hamlet says, Hercules may lay about him with +his club in every possible direction, but he can’t prevent the cats from +making a most intolerable row on the roofs of the houses, or the +dogs from being shot in the hot weather if they run about the streets +unmuzzled. Life’s a riddle; a most infernally hard riddle to guess, Mr +Pecksniff. My own opinions, that like that celebrated conundrum, “Why’s +a man in jail like a man out of jail?” there’s no answer to it. Upon my +soul and body, it’s the queerest sort of thing altogether--but there’s +no use in talking about it. Ha! Ha!’ + +With which consolatory deduction from the gloomy premises recited, +Mr Tigg roused himself by a great effort, and proceeded in his former +strain. + +‘Now I’ll tell you what it is. I’m a most confoundedly soft-hearted +kind of fellow in my way, and I cannot stand by, and see you two blades +cutting each other’s throats when there’s nothing to be got by it. Mr +Pecksniff, you’re the cousin of the testator upstairs and we’re the +nephew--I say we, meaning Chiv. Perhaps in all essential points you are +more nearly related to him than we are. Very good. If so, so be it. But +you can’t get at him, neither can we. I give you my brightest word of +honour, sir, that I’ve been looking through that keyhole with short +intervals of rest, ever since nine o’clock this morning, in expectation +of receiving an answer to one of the most moderate and gentlemanly +applications for a little temporary assistance--only fifteen pounds, and +MY security--that the mind of man can conceive. In the meantime, sir, he +is perpetually closeted with, and pouring his whole confidence into the +bosom of, a stranger. Now I say decisively with regard to this state of +circumstances, that it won’t do; that it won’t act; that it can’t be; +and that it must not be suffered to continue.’ + +‘Every man,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘has a right, an undoubted right, (which +I, for one, would not call in question for any earthly consideration; oh +no!) to regulate his own proceedings by his own likings and dislikings, +supposing they are not immoral and not irreligious. I may feel in my +own breast, that Mr Chuzzlewit does not regard--me, for instance; say +me--with exactly that amount of Christian love which should subsist +between us. I may feel grieved and hurt at the circumstance; still I +may not rush to the conclusion that Mr Chuzzlewit is wholly without a +justification in all his coldnesses. Heaven forbid! Besides; how, Mr +Tigg,’ continued Pecksniff even more gravely and impressively than he +had spoken yet, ‘how could Mr Chuzzlewit be prevented from having these +peculiar and most extraordinary confidences of which you speak; the +existence of which I must admit; and which I cannot but deplore--for +his sake? Consider, my good sir--’ and here Mr Pecksniff eyed him +wistfully--‘how very much at random you are talking.’ + +‘Why, as to that,’ rejoined Tigg, ‘it certainly is a difficult +question.’ + +‘Undoubtedly it is a difficult question,’ Mr Pecksniff answered. As he +spoke he drew himself aloft, and seemed to grow more mindful, suddenly, +of the moral gulf between himself and the creature he addressed. +‘Undoubtedly it is a very difficult question. And I am far from feeling +sure that it is a question any one is authorized to discuss. Good +evening to you.’ + +‘You don’t know that the Spottletoes are here, I suppose?’ said Mr Tigg. + +‘What do you mean, sir? what Spottletoes?’ asked Pecksniff, stopping +abruptly on his way to the door. + +‘Mr and Mrs Spottletoe,’ said Chevy Slyme, Esquire, speaking aloud for +the first time, and speaking very sulkily; shambling with his legs the +while. ‘Spottletoe married my father’s brother’s child, didn’t he? +And Mrs Spottletoe is Chuzzlewit’s own niece, isn’t she? She was his +favourite once. You may well ask what Spottletoes.’ + +‘Now upon my sacred word!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, looking upwards. ‘This is +dreadful. The rapacity of these people is absolutely frightful!’ + +‘It’s not only the Spottletoes either, Tigg,’ said Slyme, looking at +that gentleman and speaking at Mr Pecksniff. ‘Anthony Chuzzlewit and his +son have got wind of it, and have come down this afternoon. I saw ‘em +not five minutes ago, when I was waiting round the corner.’ + +‘Oh, Mammon, Mammon!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, smiting his forehead. + +‘So there,’ said Slyme, regardless of the interruption, ‘are his brother +and another nephew for you, already.’ + +‘This is the whole thing, sir,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘this is the point and +purpose at which I was gradually arriving when my friend Slyme here, +with six words, hit it full. Mr Pecksniff, now that your cousin (and +Chiv’s uncle) has turned up, some steps must be taken to prevent his +disappearing again; and, if possible, to counteract the influence which +is exercised over him now, by this designing favourite. Everybody who +is interested feels it, sir. The whole family is pouring down to this +place. The time has come when individual jealousies and interests must +be forgotten for a time, sir, and union must be made against the +common enemy. When the common enemy is routed, you will all set up for +yourselves again; every lady and gentleman who has a part in the game, +will go in on their own account and bowl away, to the best of their +ability, at the testator’s wicket, and nobody will be in a worse +position than before. Think of it. Don’t commit yourself now. You’ll +find us at the Half Moon and Seven Stars in this village, at any time, +and open to any reasonable proposition. Hem! Chiv, my dear fellow, go +out and see what sort of a night it is.’ + +Mr Slyme lost no time in disappearing, and it is to be presumed in going +round the corner. Mr Tigg, planting his legs as wide apart as he could +be reasonably expected by the most sanguine man to keep them, shook his +head at Mr Pecksniff and smiled. + +‘We must not be too hard,’ he said, ‘upon the little eccentricities of +our friend Slyme. You saw him whisper me?’ + +Mr Pecksniff had seen him. + +‘You heard my answer, I think?’ + +Mr Pecksniff had heard it. + +‘Five shillings, eh?’ said Mr Tigg, thoughtfully. ‘Ah! what an +extraordinary fellow! Very moderate too!’ + +Mr Pecksniff made no answer. + +‘Five shillings!’ pursued Mr Tigg, musing; ‘and to be punctually repaid +next week; that’s the best of it. You heard that?’ + +Mr Pecksniff had not heard that. + +‘No! You surprise me!’ cried Tigg. ‘That’s the cream of the thing sir. I +never knew that man fail to redeem a promise, in my life. You’re not in +want of change, are you?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘thank you. Not at all.’ + +‘Just so,’ returned Mr Tigg. ‘If you had been, I’d have got it for you.’ +With that he began to whistle; but a dozen seconds had not elapsed when +he stopped short, and looking earnestly at Mr Pecksniff, said: + +‘Perhaps you’d rather not lend Slyme five shillings?’ + +‘I would much rather not,’ Mr Pecksniff rejoined. + +‘Egad!’ cried Tigg, gravely nodding his head as if some ground of +objection occurred to him at that moment for the first time, ‘it’s +very possible you may be right. Would you entertain the same sort of +objection to lending me five shillings now?’ + +‘Yes, I couldn’t do it, indeed,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Not even half-a-crown, perhaps?’ urged Mr Tigg. + +‘Not even half-a-crown.’ + +‘Why, then we come,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘to the ridiculously small amount of +eighteen pence. Ha! ha!’ + +‘And that,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘would be equally objectionable.’ + +On receipt of this assurance, Mr Tigg shook him heartily by both hands, +protesting with much earnestness, that he was one of the most consistent +and remarkable men he had ever met, and that he desired the honour +of his better acquaintance. He moreover observed that there were many +little characteristics about his friend Slyme, of which he could by no +means, as a man of strict honour, approve; but that he was prepared to +forgive him all these slight drawbacks, and much more, in consideration +of the great pleasure he himself had that day enjoyed in his social +intercourse with Mr Pecksniff, which had given him a far higher and more +enduring delight than the successful negotiation of any small loan on +the part of his friend could possibly have imparted. With which remarks +he would beg leave, he said, to wish Mr Pecksniff a very good evening. +And so he took himself off; as little abashed by his recent failure as +any gentleman would desire to be. + +The meditations of Mr Pecksniff that evening at the bar of the Dragon, +and that night in his own house, were very serious and grave indeed; the +more especially as the intelligence he had received from Messrs Tigg and +Slyme touching the arrival of other members of the family, were fully +confirmed on more particular inquiry. For the Spottletoes had actually +gone straight to the Dragon, where they were at that moment housed and +mounting guard, and where their appearance had occasioned such a vast +sensation that Mrs Lupin, scenting their errand before they had been +under her roof half an hour, carried the news herself with all possible +secrecy straight to Mr Pecksniff’s house; indeed it was her great +caution in doing so which occasioned her to miss that gentleman, who +entered at the front door of the Dragon just as she emerged from +the back one. Moreover, Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son Jonas were +economically quartered at the Half Moon and Seven Stars, which was an +obscure ale-house; and by the very next coach there came posting to the +scene of action, so many other affectionate members of the family (who +quarrelled with each other, inside and out, all the way down, to the +utter distraction of the coachman), that in less than four-and-twenty +hours the scanty tavern accommodation was at a premium, and all the +private lodgings in the place, amounting to full four beds and sofa, +rose cent per cent in the market. + +In a word, things came to that pass that nearly the whole family sat +down before the Blue Dragon, and formally invested it; and Martin +Chuzzlewit was in a state of siege. But he resisted bravely; refusing +to receive all letters, messages, and parcels; obstinately declining to +treat with anybody; and holding out no hope or promise of capitulation. +Meantime the family forces were perpetually encountering each other +in divers parts of the neighbourhood; and, as no one branch of the +Chuzzlewit tree had ever been known to agree with another within the +memory of man, there was such a skirmishing, and flouting, and snapping +off of heads, in the metaphorical sense of that expression; such a +bandying of words and calling of names; such an upturning of noses and +wrinkling of brows; such a formal interment of good feelings and violent +resurrection of ancient grievances; as had never been known in those +quiet parts since the earliest record of their civilized existence. + +At length, in utter despair and hopelessness, some few of the +belligerents began to speak to each other in only moderate terms of +mutual aggravation; and nearly all addressed themselves with a show of +tolerable decency to Mr Pecksniff, in recognition of his high character +and influential position. Thus, by little and little, they made common +cause of Martin Chuzzlewit’s obduracy, until it was agreed (if such a +word can be used in connection with the Chuzzlewits) that there should +be a general council and conference held at Mr Pecksniff’s house upon +a certain day at noon; which all members of the family who had brought +themselves within reach of the summons, were forthwith bidden and +invited, solemnly, to attend. + +If ever Mr Pecksniff wore an apostolic look, he wore it on this +memorable day. If ever his unruffled smile proclaimed the words, ‘I am +a messenger of peace!’ that was its mission now. If ever man combined +within himself all the mild qualities of the lamb with a considerable +touch of the dove, and not a dash of the crocodile, or the least +possible suggestion of the very mildest seasoning of the serpent, that +man was he. And, oh, the two Miss Pecksniffs! Oh, the serene expression +on the face of Charity, which seemed to say, ‘I know that all my family +have injured me beyond the possibility of reparation, but I forgive +them, for it is my duty so to do!’ And, oh, the gay simplicity of Mercy; +so charming, innocent, and infant-like, that if she had gone out +walking by herself, and it had been a little earlier in the season, the +robin-redbreasts might have covered her with leaves against her will, +believing her to be one of the sweet children in the wood, come out of +it, and issuing forth once more to look for blackberries in the young +freshness of her heart! What words can paint the Pecksniffs in that +trying hour? Oh, none; for words have naughty company among them, and +the Pecksniffs were all goodness. + +But when the company arrived! That was the time. When Mr Pecksniff, +rising from his seat at the table’s head, with a daughter on either +hand, received his guests in the best parlour and motioned them to +chairs, with eyes so overflowing and countenance so damp with gracious +perspiration, that he may be said to have been in a kind of moist +meekness! And the company; the jealous stony-hearted distrustful +company, who were all shut up in themselves, and had no faith in +anybody, and wouldn’t believe anything, and would no more allow +themselves to be softened or lulled asleep by the Pecksniffs than if +they had been so many hedgehogs or porcupines! + +First, there was Mr Spottletoe, who was so bald and had such big +whiskers, that he seemed to have stopped his hair, by the sudden +application of some powerful remedy, in the very act of falling off his +head, and to have fastened it irrevocably on his face. Then there was +Mrs Spottletoe, who being much too slim for her years, and of a poetical +constitution, was accustomed to inform her more intimate friends that +the said whiskers were ‘the lodestar of her existence;’ and who could +now, by reason of her strong affection for her uncle Chuzzlewit, and the +shock it gave her to be suspected of testamentary designs upon him, do +nothing but cry--except moan. Then there were Anthony Chuzzlewit, and +his son Jonas; the face of the old man so sharpened by the wariness and +cunning of his life, that it seemed to cut him a passage through the +crowded room, as he edged away behind the remotest chairs; while the son +had so well profited by the precept and example of the father, that he +looked a year or two the elder of the twain, as they stood winking their +red eyes, side by side, and whispering to each other softly. Then there +was the widow of a deceased brother of Mr Martin Chuzzlewit, who being +almost supernaturally disagreeable, and having a dreary face and a bony +figure and a masculine voice, was, in right of these qualities, what is +commonly called a strong-minded woman; and who, if she could, would have +established her claim to the title, and have shown herself, mentally +speaking, a perfect Samson, by shutting up her brother-in-law in a +private madhouse, until he proved his complete sanity by loving her very +much. Beside her sat her spinster daughters, three in number, and of +gentlemanly deportment, who had so mortified themselves with tight +stays, that their tempers were reduced to something less than their +waists, and sharp lacing was expressed in their very noses. Then there +was a young gentleman, grandnephew of Mr Martin Chuzzlewit, very dark +and very hairy, and apparently born for no particular purpose but to +save looking-glasses the trouble of reflecting more than just the first +idea and sketchy notion of a face, which had never been carried out. +Then there was a solitary female cousin who was remarkable for nothing +but being very deaf, and living by herself, and always having the +toothache. Then there was George Chuzzlewit, a gay bachelor cousin, +who claimed to be young but had been younger, and was inclined to +corpulency, and rather overfed himself; to that extent, indeed, that his +eyes were strained in their sockets, as if with constant surprise; and +he had such an obvious disposition to pimples, that the bright spots on +his cravat, the rich pattern on his waistcoat, and even his glittering +trinkets, seemed to have broken out upon him, and not to have come into +existence comfortably. Last of all there were present Mr Chevy Slyme and +his friend Tigg. And it is worthy of remark, that although each person +present disliked the other, mainly because he or she DID belong to the +family, they one and all concurred in hating Mr Tigg because he didn’t. + +Such was the pleasant little family circle now assembled in Mr +Pecksniff’s best parlour, agreeably prepared to fall foul of Mr +Pecksniff or anybody else who might venture to say anything whatever +upon any subject. + +‘This,’ said Mr Pecksniff, rising and looking round upon them with +folded hands, ‘does me good. It does my daughters good. We thank you for +assembling here. We are grateful to you with our whole hearts. It is a +blessed distinction that you have conferred upon us, and believe me’--it +is impossible to conceive how he smiled here--‘we shall not easily +forget it.’ + +‘I am sorry to interrupt you, Pecksniff,’ remarked Mr Spottletoe, with +his whiskers in a very portentous state; ‘but you are assuming too much +to yourself, sir. Who do you imagine has it in contemplation to confer a +distinction upon YOU, sir?’ + +A general murmur echoed this inquiry, and applauded it. + +‘If you are about to pursue the course with which you have begun, sir,’ +pursued Mr Spottletoe in a great heat, and giving a violent rap on +the table with his knuckles, ‘the sooner you desist, and this assembly +separates, the better. I am no stranger, sir, to your preposterous +desire to be regarded as the head of this family, but I can tell YOU, +sir--’ + +Oh yes, indeed! HE tell. HE! What? He was the head, was he? From the +strong-minded woman downwards everybody fell, that instant, upon Mr +Spottletoe, who after vainly attempting to be heard in silence was +fain to sit down again, folding his arms and shaking his head most +wrathfully, and giving Mrs Spottletoe to understand in dumb show, that +that scoundrel Pecksniff might go on for the present, but he would cut +in presently, and annihilate him. + +‘I am not sorry,’ said Mr Pecksniff in resumption of his address, ‘I am +really not sorry that this little incident has happened. It is good to +feel that we are met here without disguise. It is good to know that we +have no reserve before each other, but are appearing freely in our own +characters.’ + +Here, the eldest daughter of the strong-minded woman rose a little way +from her seat, and trembling violently from head to foot, more as it +seemed with passion than timidity, expressed a general hope that some +people WOULD appear in their own characters, if it were only for such +a proceeding having the attraction of novelty to recommend it; and that +when they (meaning the some people before mentioned) talked about their +relations, they would be careful to observe who was present in company +at the time; otherwise it might come round to those relations’ ears, in +a way they little expected; and as to red noses (she observed) she +had yet to learn that a red nose was any disgrace, inasmuch as people +neither made nor coloured their own noses, but had that feature provided +for them without being first consulted; though even upon that branch of +the subject she had great doubts whether certain noses were redder than +other noses, or indeed half as red as some. This remark being received +with a shrill titter by the two sisters of the speaker, Miss Charity +Pecksniff begged with much politeness to be informed whether any of +those very low observations were levelled at her; and receiving no more +explanatory answer than was conveyed in the adage ‘Those the cap fits, +let them wear it,’ immediately commenced a somewhat acrimonious and +personal retort, wherein she was much comforted and abetted by her +sister Mercy, who laughed at the same with great heartiness; indeed +far more naturally than life. And it being quite impossible that any +difference of opinion can take place among women without every woman who +is within hearing taking active part in it, the strong-minded lady and +her two daughters, and Mrs Spottletoe, and the deaf cousin (who was +not at all disqualified from joining in the dispute by reason of being +perfectly unacquainted with its merits), one and all plunged into the +quarrel directly. + +The two Miss Pecksniffs being a pretty good match for the three Miss +Chuzzlewits, and all five young ladies having, in the figurative +language of the day, a great amount of steam to dispose of, the +altercation would no doubt have been a long one but for the high valour +and prowess of the strong-minded woman, who, in right of her reputation +for powers of sarcasm, did so belabour and pummel Mrs Spottletoe with +taunting words that the poor lady, before the engagement was two minutes +old, had no refuge but in tears. These she shed so plentifully, and so +much to the agitation and grief of Mr Spottletoe, that that gentleman, +after holding his clenched fist close to Mr Pecksniff’s eyes, as if +it were some natural curiosity from the near inspection whereof he was +likely to derive high gratification and improvement, and after offering +(for no particular reason that anybody could discover) to kick Mr George +Chuzzlewit for, and in consideration of, the trifling sum of sixpence, +took his wife under his arm and indignantly withdrew. This diversion, by +distracting the attention of the combatants, put an end to the strife, +which, after breaking out afresh some twice or thrice in certain +inconsiderable spurts and dashes, died away in silence. + +It was then that Mr Pecksniff once more rose from his chair. It was then +that the two Miss Pecksniffs composed themselves to look as if there +were no such beings--not to say present, but in the whole compass of the +world--as the three Miss Chuzzlewits; while the three Miss Chuzzlewits +became equally unconscious of the existence of the two Miss Pecksniffs. + +‘It is to be lamented,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a forgiving recollection +of Mr Spottletoe’s fist, ‘that our friend should have withdrawn himself +so very hastily, though we have cause for mutual congratulation even in +that, since we are assured that he is not distrustful of us in regard +to anything we may say or do while he is absent. Now, that is very +soothing, is it not?’ + +‘Pecksniff,’ said Anthony, who had been watching the whole party with +peculiar keenness from the first--‘don’t you be a hypocrite.’ + +‘A what, my good sir?’ demanded Mr Pecksniff. + +‘A hypocrite.’ + +‘Charity, my dear,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘when I take my chamber +candlestick to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular in +praying for Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit; who has done me an injustice.’ + +This was said in a very bland voice, and aside, as being addressed to +his daughter’s private ear. With a cheerfulness of conscience, prompting +almost a sprightly demeanour, he then resumed: + +‘All our thoughts centring in our very dear but unkind relative, and he +being as it were beyond our reach, we are met to-day, really as if we +were a funeral party, except--a blessed exception--that there is no body +in the house.’ + +The strong-minded lady was not at all sure that this was a blessed +exception. Quite the contrary. + +‘Well, my dear madam!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Be that as it may, here we +are; and being here, we are to consider whether it is possible by any +justifiable means--’ + +‘Why, you know as well as I,’ said the strong-minded lady, ‘that any +means are justifiable in such a case, don’t you?’ + +‘Very good, my dear madam, very good; whether it is possible by ANY +means, we will say by ANY means, to open the eyes of our valued +relative to his present infatuation. Whether it is possible to make +him acquainted by any means with the real character and purpose of that +young female whose strange, whose very strange position, in reference +to himself’--here Mr Pecksniff sunk his voice to an impressive +whisper--‘really casts a shadow of disgrace and shame upon this family; +and who, we know’--here he raised his voice again--‘else why is she his +companion? harbours the very basest designs upon his weakness and his +property.’ + +In their strong feeling on this point, they, who agreed in nothing else, +all concurred as one mind. Good Heaven, that she should harbour designs +upon his property! The strong-minded lady was for poison, her three +daughters were for Bridewell and bread-and-water, the cousin with +the toothache advocated Botany Bay, the two Miss Pecksniffs suggested +flogging. Nobody but Mr Tigg, who, notwithstanding his extreme +shabbiness, was still understood to be in some sort a lady’s man, +in right of his upper lip and his frogs, indicated a doubt of the +justifiable nature of these measures; and he only ogled the three Miss +Chuzzlewits with the least admixture of banter in his admiration, as +though he would observe, ‘You are positively down upon her to too great +an extent, my sweet creatures, upon my soul you are!’ + +‘Now,’ said Mr Pecksniff, crossing his two forefingers in a manner which +was at once conciliatory and argumentative; ‘I will not, upon the one +hand, go so far as to say that she deserves all the inflictions which +have been so very forcibly and hilariously suggested;’ one of his +ornamental sentences; ‘nor will I, upon the other, on any account +compromise my common understanding as a man, by making the assertion +that she does not. What I would observe is, that I think some practical +means might be devised of inducing our respected, shall I say our +revered--?’ + +‘No!’ interposed the strong-minded woman in a loud voice. + +‘Then I will not,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘You are quite right, my +dear madam, and I appreciate and thank you for your discriminating +objection--our respected relative, to dispose himself to listen to the +promptings of nature, and not to the--’ + +‘Go on, Pa!’ cried Mercy. + +‘Why, the truth is, my dear,’ said Mr Pecksniff, smiling upon his +assembled kindred, ‘that I am at a loss for a word. The name of those +fabulous animals (pagan, I regret to say) who used to sing in the water, +has quite escaped me.’ + +Mr George Chuzzlewit suggested ‘swans.’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Not swans. Very like swans, too. Thank you.’ + +The nephew with the outline of a countenance, speaking for the first and +last time on that occasion, propounded ‘Oysters.’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with his own peculiar urbanity, ‘nor oysters. +But by no means unlike oysters; a very excellent idea; thank you, my +dear sir, very much. Wait! Sirens. Dear me! sirens, of course. I think, +I say, that means might be devised of disposing our respected relative +to listen to the promptings of nature, and not to the siren-like +delusions of art. Now we must not lose sight of the fact that our +esteemed friend has a grandson, to whom he was, until lately, very much +attached, and whom I could have wished to see here to-day, for I have a +real and deep regard for him. A fine young man, a very fine young man! +I would submit to you, whether we might not remove Mr Chuzzlewit’s +distrust of us, and vindicate our own disinterestedness by--’ + +‘If Mr George Chuzzlewit has anything to say to ME,’ interposed the +strong-minded woman, sternly, ‘I beg him to speak out like a man; and +not to look at me and my daughters as if he could eat us.’ + +‘As to looking, I have heard it said, Mrs Ned,’ returned Mr George, +angrily, ‘that a cat is free to contemplate a monarch; and therefore +I hope I have some right, having been born a member of this family, to +look at a person who only came into it by marriage. As to eating, I +beg to say, whatever bitterness your jealousies and disappointed +expectations may suggest to you, that I am not a cannibal, ma’am.’ + +‘I don’t know that!’ cried the strong-minded woman. + +‘At all events, if I was a cannibal,’ said Mr George Chuzzlewit, greatly +stimulated by this retort, ‘I think it would occur to me that a lady +who had outlived three husbands, and suffered so very little from their +loss, must be most uncommonly tough.’ + +The strong-minded woman immediately rose. + +‘And I will further add,’ said Mr George, nodding his head violently at +every second syllable; ‘naming no names, and therefore hurting nobody +but those whose consciences tell them they are alluded to, that I think +it would be much more decent and becoming, if those who hooked and +crooked themselves into this family by getting on the blind side of some +of its members before marriage, and manslaughtering them afterwards by +crowing over them to that strong pitch that they were glad to die, would +refrain from acting the part of vultures in regard to other members of +this family who are living. I think it would be full as well, if not +better, if those individuals would keep at home, contenting themselves +with what they have got (luckily for them) already; instead of hovering +about, and thrusting their fingers into, a family pie, which they +flavour much more than enough, I can tell them, when they are fifty +miles away.’ + +‘I might have been prepared for this!’ cried the strong-minded woman, +looking about her with a disdainful smile as she moved towards the door, +followed by her three daughters. ‘Indeed I was fully prepared for it +from the first. What else could I expect in such an atmosphere as this!’ + +‘Don’t direct your halfpay-officers’ gaze at me, ma’am, if you please,’ +interposed Miss Charity; ‘for I won’t bear it.’ + +This was a smart stab at a pension enjoyed by the strong-minded woman, +during her second widowhood and before her last coverture. It told +immensely. + +‘I passed from the memory of a grateful country, you very miserable +minx,’ said Mrs Ned, ‘when I entered this family; and I feel now, though +I did not feel then, that it served me right, and that I lost my claim +upon the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when I so degraded +myself. Now, my dears, if you’re quite ready, and have sufficiently +improved yourselves by taking to heart the genteel example of these two +young ladies, I think we’ll go. Mr Pecksniff, we are very much obliged +to you, really. We came to be entertained, and you have far surpassed +our utmost expectations, in the amusement you have provided for us. +Thank you. Good-bye!’ + +With such departing words, did this strong-minded female paralyse the +Pecksniffian energies; and so she swept out of the room, and out of +the house, attended by her daughters, who, as with one accord, elevated +their three noses in the air, and joined in a contemptuous titter. +As they passed the parlour window on the outside, they were seen to +counterfeit a perfect transport of delight among themselves; and +with this final blow and great discouragement for those within, they +vanished. + +Before Mr Pecksniff or any of his remaining visitors could offer a +remark, another figure passed this window, coming, at a great rate in +the opposite direction; and immediately afterwards, Mr Spottletoe burst +into the chamber. Compared with his present state of heat, he had gone +out a man of snow or ice. His head distilled such oil upon his whiskers, +that they were rich and clogged with unctuous drops; his face was +violently inflamed, his limbs trembled; and he gasped and strove for +breath. + +‘My good sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Oh yes!’ returned the other; ‘oh yes, certainly! Oh to be sure! Oh, of +course! You hear him? You hear him? all of you!’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ cried several voices. + +‘Oh nothing!’ cried Spottletoe, still gasping. ‘Nothing at all! It’s of +no consequence! Ask him! HE’ll tell you!’ + +‘I do not understand our friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking about him +in utter amazement. ‘I assure you that he is quite unintelligible to +me.’ + +‘Unintelligible, sir!’ cried the other. ‘Unintelligible! Do you mean +to say, sir, that you don’t know what has happened! That you haven’t +decoyed us here, and laid a plot and a plan against us! Will you venture +to say that you didn’t know Mr Chuzzlewit was going, sir, and that you +don’t know he’s gone, sir?’ + +‘Gone!’ was the general cry. + +‘Gone,’ echoed Mr Spottletoe. ‘Gone while we were sitting here. Gone. +Nobody knows where he’s gone. Oh, of course not! Nobody knew he was +going. Oh, of course not! The landlady thought up to the very last +moment that they were merely going for a ride; she had no other +suspicion. Oh, of course not! She’s not this fellow’s creature. Oh, of +course not!’ + +Adding to these exclamations a kind of ironical howl, and gazing upon +the company for one brief instant afterwards, in a sudden silence, the +irritated gentleman started off again at the same tremendous pace, and +was seen no more. + +It was in vain for Mr Pecksniff to assure them that this new and +opportune evasion of the family was at least as great a shock +and surprise to him as to anybody else. Of all the bullyings and +denunciations that were ever heaped on one unlucky head, none can +ever have exceeded in energy and heartiness those with which he was +complimented by each of his remaining relatives, singly, upon bidding +him farewell. + +The moral position taken by Mr Tigg was something quite tremendous; and +the deaf cousin, who had the complicated aggravation of seeing all the +proceedings and hearing nothing but the catastrophe, actually scraped +her shoes upon the scraper, and afterwards distributed impressions of +them all over the top step, in token that she shook the dust from her +feet before quitting that dissembling and perfidious mansion. + +Mr Pecksniff had, in short, but one comfort, and that was the knowledge +that all these his relations and friends had hated him to the very +utmost extent before; and that he, for his part, had not distributed +among them any more love than, with his ample capital in that respect, +he could comfortably afford to part with. This view of his affairs +yielded him great consolation; and the fact deserves to be noted, as +showing with what ease a good man may be consoled under circumstances of +failure and disappointment. + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +CONTAINING A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR PECKSNIFF’S NEW +PUPIL INTO THE BOSOM OF MR PECKSNIFF’S FAMILY. WITH ALL THE FESTIVITIES +HELD ON THAT OCCASION, AND THE GREAT ENJOYMENT OF MR PINCH + + +The best of architects and land surveyors kept a horse, in whom the +enemies already mentioned more than once in these pages pretended to +detect a fanciful resemblance to his master. Not in his outward +person, for he was a raw-boned, haggard horse, always on a much shorter +allowance of corn than Mr Pecksniff; but in his moral character, +wherein, said they, he was full of promise, but of no performance. +He was always in a manner, going to go, and never going. When at his +slowest rate of travelling he would sometimes lift up his legs so high, +and display such mighty action, that it was difficult to believe he was +doing less than fourteen miles an hour; and he was for ever so +perfectly satisfied with his own speed, and so little disconcerted by +opportunities of comparing himself with the fastest trotters, that the +illusion was the more difficult of resistance. He was a kind of animal +who infused into the breasts of strangers a lively sense of hope, and +possessed all those who knew him better with a grim despair. In what +respect, having these points of character, he might be fairly likened +to his master, that good man’s slanderers only can explain. But it is a +melancholy truth, and a deplorable instance of the uncharitableness of +the world, that they made the comparison. + +In this horse, and the hooded vehicle, whatever its proper name might +be, to which he was usually harnessed--it was more like a gig with a +tumour than anything else--all Mr Pinch’s thoughts and wishes centred, +one bright frosty morning; for with this gallant equipage he was about +to drive to Salisbury alone, there to meet with the new pupil, and +thence to bring him home in triumph. + +Blessings on thy simple heart, Tom Pinch, how proudly dost thou button +up that scanty coat, called by a sad misnomer, for these many years, +a ‘great’ one; and how thoroughly, as with thy cheerful voice thou +pleasantly adjurest Sam the hostler ‘not to let him go yet,’ dost thou +believe that quadruped desires to go, and would go if he might! Who +could repress a smile--of love for thee, Tom Pinch, and not in jest at +thy expense, for thou art poor enough already, Heaven knows--to think +that such a holiday as lies before thee should awaken that quick flow +and hurry of the spirits, in which thou settest down again, almost +untasted, on the kitchen window-sill, that great white mug (put by, by +thy own hands, last night, that breakfast might not hold thee late), and +layest yonder crust upon the seat beside thee, to be eaten on the road, +when thou art calmer in thy high rejoicing! Who, as thou drivest off, a +happy, man, and noddest with a grateful lovingness to Pecksniff in his +nightcap at his chamber-window, would not cry, ‘Heaven speed thee, Tom, +and send that thou wert going off for ever to some quiet home where thou +mightst live at peace, and sorrow should not touch thee!’ + +What better time for driving, riding, walking, moving through the air by +any means, than a fresh, frosty morning, when hope runs cheerily through +the veins with the brisk blood, and tingles in the frame from head to +foot! This was the glad commencement of a bracing day in early winter, +such as may put the languid summer season (speaking of it when it can’t +be had) to the blush, and shame the spring for being sometimes cold by +halves. The sheep-bells rang as clearly in the vigorous air, as if they +felt its wholesome influence like living creatures; the trees, in lieu +of leaves or blossoms, shed upon the ground a frosty rime that sparkled +as it fell, and might have been the dust of diamonds. So it was to Tom. +From cottage chimneys, smoke went streaming up high, high, as if the +earth had lost its grossness, being so fair, and must not be oppressed +by heavy vapour. The crust of ice on the else rippling brook was so +transparent, and so thin in texture, that the lively water might of its +own free will have stopped--in Tom’s glad mind it had--to look upon the +lovely morning. And lest the sun should break this charm too eagerly, +there moved between him and the ground, a mist like that which waits +upon the moon on summer nights--the very same to Tom--and wooed him to +dissolve it gently. + +Tom Pinch went on; not fast, but with a sense of rapid motion, which did +just as well; and as he went, all kinds of things occurred to keep him +happy. Thus when he came within sight of the turnpike, and was--oh a +long way off!--he saw the tollman’s wife, who had that moment checked a +waggon, run back into the little house again like mad, to say (she knew) +that Mr Pinch was coming up. And she was right, for when he drew within +hail of the gate, forth rushed the tollman’s children, shrieking in tiny +chorus, ‘Mr Pinch!’ to Tom’s intense delight. The very tollman, though +an ugly chap in general, and one whom folks were rather shy of handling, +came out himself to take the toll, and give him rough good morning; and +that with all this, and a glimpse of the family breakfast on a little +round table before the fire, the crust Tom Pinch had brought away with +him acquired as rich a flavour as though it had been cut from a fairy +loaf. + +But there was more than this. It was not only the married people and the +children who gave Tom Pinch a welcome as he passed. No, no. Sparkling +eyes and snowy breasts came hurriedly to many an upper casement as he +clattered by, and gave him back his greeting: not stinted either, but +sevenfold, good measure. They were all merry. They all laughed. And some +of the wickedest among them even kissed their hands as Tom looked back. +For who minded poor Mr Pinch? There was no harm in HIM. + +And now the morning grew so fair, and all things were so wide awake and +gay, that the sun seeming to say--Tom had no doubt he said--‘I can’t +stand it any longer; I must have a look,’ streamed out in radiant +majesty. The mist, too shy and gentle for such lusty company, fled off, +quite scared, before it; and as it swept away, the hills and mounds and +distant pasture lands, teeming with placid sheep and noisy crows, came +out as bright as though they were unrolled bran new for the occasion. In +compliment to which discovery, the brook stood still no longer, but ran +briskly off to bear the tidings to the water-mill, three miles away. + +Mr Pinch was jogging along, full of pleasant thoughts and cheerful +influences, when he saw, upon the path before him, going in the same +direction with himself, a traveller on foot, who walked with a light +quick step, and sang as he went--for certain in a very loud voice, but +not unmusically. He was a young fellow, of some five or six-and-twenty +perhaps, and was dressed in such a free and fly-away fashion, that the +long ends of his loose red neckcloth were streaming out behind him +quite as often as before; and the bunch of bright winter berries in the +buttonhole of his velveteen coat was as visible to Mr Pinch’s rearward +observation, as if he had worn that garment wrong side foremost. He +continued to sing with so much energy, that he did not hear the sound +of wheels until it was close behind him; when he turned a whimsical +face and a very merry pair of blue eyes on Mr Pinch, and checked himself +directly. + +‘Why, Mark?’ said Tom Pinch, stopping. ‘Who’d have thought of seeing you +here? Well! this is surprising!’ + +Mark touched his hat, and said, with a very sudden decrease of vivacity, +that he was going to Salisbury. + +‘And how spruce you are, too!’ said Mr Pinch, surveying him with great +pleasure. ‘Really, I didn’t think you were half such a tight-made +fellow, Mark!’ + +‘Thankee, Mr Pinch. Pretty well for that, I believe. It’s not my fault, +you know. With regard to being spruce, sir, that’s where it is, you +see.’ And here he looked particularly gloomy. + +‘Where what is?’ Mr Pinch demanded. + +‘Where the aggravation of it is. Any man may be in good spirits and good +temper when he’s well dressed. There an’t much credit in that. If I was +very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I had gained a +point, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘So you were singing just now, to bear up, as it were, against being +well dressed, eh, Mark?’ said Pinch. + +‘Your conversation’s always equal to print, sir,’ rejoined Mark, with a +broad grin. ‘That was it.’ + +‘Well!’ cried Pinch, ‘you are the strangest young man, Mark, I ever knew +in my life. I always thought so; but now I am quite certain of it. I am +going to Salisbury, too. Will you get in? I shall be very glad of your +company.’ + +The young fellow made his acknowledgments and accepted the offer; +stepping into the carriage directly, and seating himself on the very +edge of the seat with his body half out of it, to express his being +there on sufferance, and by the politeness of Mr Pinch. As they went +along, the conversation proceeded after this manner. + +‘I more than half believed, just now, seeing you so very smart,’ said +Pinch, ‘that you must be going to be married, Mark.’ + +‘Well, sir, I’ve thought of that, too,’ he replied. ‘There might be some +credit in being jolly with a wife, ‘specially if the children had the +measles and that, and was very fractious indeed. But I’m a’most afraid +to try it. I don’t see my way clear.’ + +‘You’re not very fond of anybody, perhaps?’ said Pinch. + +‘Not particular, sir, I think.’ + +‘But the way would be, you know, Mark, according to your views of +things,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘to marry somebody you didn’t like, and who was +very disagreeable.’ + +‘So it would, sir; but that might be carrying out a principle a little +too far, mightn’t it?’ + +‘Perhaps it might,’ said Mr Pinch. At which they both laughed gayly. + +‘Lord bless you, sir,’ said Mark, ‘you don’t half know me, though. I +don’t believe there ever was a man as could come out so strong under +circumstances that would make other men miserable, as I could, if I +could only get a chance. But I can’t get a chance. It’s my opinion +that nobody never will know half of what’s in me, unless something very +unexpected turns up. And I don’t see any prospect of that. I’m a-going +to leave the Dragon, sir.’ + +‘Going to leave the Dragon!’ cried Mr Pinch, looking at him with great +astonishment. ‘Why, Mark, you take my breath away!’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ he rejoined, looking straight before him and a long way off, +as men do sometimes when they cogitate profoundly. ‘What’s the use of my +stopping at the Dragon? It an’t at all the sort of place for ME. When +I left London (I’m a Kentish man by birth, though), and took that +situation here, I quite made up my mind that it was the dullest little +out-of-the-way corner in England, and that there would be some credit in +being jolly under such circumstances. But, Lord, there’s no dullness at +the Dragon! Skittles, cricket, quoits, nine-pins, comic songs, choruses, +company round the chimney corner every winter’s evening. Any man could +be jolly at the Dragon. There’s no credit in THAT.’ + +‘But if common report be true for once, Mark, as I think it is, being +able to confirm it by what I know myself,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘you are the +cause of half this merriment, and set it going.’ + +‘There may be something in that, too, sir,’ answered Mark. ‘But that’s +no consolation.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr Pinch, after a short silence, his usually subdued tone +being even now more subdued than ever. ‘I can hardly think enough of +what you tell me. Why, what will become of Mrs Lupin, Mark?’ + +Mark looked more fixedly before him, and further off still, as he +answered that he didn’t suppose it would be much of an object to her. +There were plenty of smart young fellows as would be glad of the place. +He knew a dozen himself. + +‘That’s probable enough,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘but I am not at all sure that +Mrs Lupin would be glad of them. Why, I always supposed that Mrs Lupin +and you would make a match of it, Mark; and so did every one, as far as +I know.’ + +‘I never,’ Mark replied, in some confusion, ‘said nothing as was in a +direct way courting-like to her, nor she to me, but I don’t know what I +mightn’t do one of these odd times, and what she mightn’t say in answer. +Well, sir, THAT wouldn’t suit.’ + +‘Not to be landlord of the Dragon, Mark?’ cried Mr Pinch. + +‘No, sir, certainly not,’ returned the other, withdrawing his gaze from +the horizon, and looking at his fellow-traveller. ‘Why that would be the +ruin of a man like me. I go and sit down comfortably for life, and no +man never finds me out. What would be the credit of the landlord of the +Dragon’s being jolly? Why, he couldn’t help it, if he tried.’ + +‘Does Mrs Lupin know you are going to leave her?’ Mr Pinch inquired. + +‘I haven’t broke it to her yet, sir, but I must. I’m looking out this +morning for something new and suitable,’ he said, nodding towards the +city. + +‘What kind of thing now?’ Mr Pinch demanded. + +‘I was thinking,’ Mark replied, ‘of something in the grave-digging +way.’ + +‘Good gracious, Mark?’ cried Mr Pinch. + +‘It’s a good damp, wormy sort of business, sir,’ said Mark, shaking his +head argumentatively, ‘and there might be some credit in being jolly, +with one’s mind in that pursuit, unless grave-diggers is usually given +that way; which would be a drawback. You don’t happen to know how that +is in general, do you, sir?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘I don’t indeed. I never thought upon the subject.’ + +‘In case of that not turning out as well as one could wish, you know,’ +said Mark, musing again, ‘there’s other businesses. Undertaking now. +That’s gloomy. There might be credit to be gained there. A broker’s man +in a poor neighbourhood wouldn’t be bad perhaps. A jailor sees a deal of +misery. A doctor’s man is in the very midst of murder. A bailiff’s an’t +a lively office nat’rally. Even a tax-gatherer must find his feelings +rather worked upon, at times. There’s lots of trades in which I should +have an opportunity, I think.’ + +Mr Pinch was so perfectly overwhelmed by these remarks that he could +do nothing but occasionally exchange a word or two on some indifferent +subject, and cast sidelong glances at the bright face of his odd friend +(who seemed quite unconscious of his observation), until they reached a +certain corner of the road, close upon the outskirts of the city, when +Mark said he would jump down there, if he pleased. + +‘But bless my soul, Mark,’ said Mr Pinch, who in the progress of +his observation just then made the discovery that the bosom of his +companion’s shirt was as much exposed as if it was Midsummer, and was +ruffled by every breath of air, ‘why don’t you wear a waistcoat?’ + +‘What’s the good of one, sir?’ asked Mark. + +‘Good of one?’ said Mr Pinch. ‘Why, to keep your chest warm.’ + +‘Lord love you, sir!’ cried Mark, ‘you don’t know me. My chest don’t +want no warming. Even if it did, what would no waistcoat bring it to? +Inflammation of the lungs, perhaps? Well, there’d be some credit in +being jolly, with a inflammation of the lungs.’ + +As Mr Pinch returned no other answer than such as was conveyed in his +breathing very hard, and opening his eyes very wide, and nodding his +head very much, Mark thanked him for his ride, and without troubling +him to stop, jumped lightly down. And away he fluttered, with his red +neckerchief, and his open coat, down a cross-lane; turning back from +time to time to nod to Mr Pinch, and looking one of the most careless, +good-humoured comical fellows in life. His late companion, with a +thoughtful face pursued his way to Salisbury. + +Mr Pinch had a shrewd notion that Salisbury was a very desperate sort of +place; an exceeding wild and dissipated city; and when he had put up the +horse, and given the hostler to understand that he would look in again +in the course of an hour or two to see him take his corn, he set forth +on a stroll about the streets with a vague and not unpleasant idea that +they teemed with all kinds of mystery and bedevilment. To one of +his quiet habits this little delusion was greatly assisted by the +circumstance of its being market-day, and the thoroughfares about the +market-place being filled with carts, horses, donkeys, baskets, waggons, +garden-stuff, meat, tripe, pies, poultry and huckster’s wares of every +opposite description and possible variety of character. Then there were +young farmers and old farmers with smock-frocks, brown great-coats, drab +great-coats, red worsted comforters, leather-leggings, wonderful shaped +hats, hunting-whips, and rough sticks, standing about in groups, or +talking noisily together on the tavern steps, or paying and receiving +huge amounts of greasy wealth, with the assistance of such bulky +pocket-books that when they were in their pockets it was apoplexy to +get them out, and when they were out it was spasms to get them in again. +Also there were farmers’ wives in beaver bonnets and red cloaks, riding +shaggy horses purged of all earthly passions, who went soberly into all +manner of places without desiring to know why, and who, if required, +would have stood stock still in a china shop, with a complete +dinner-service at each hoof. Also a great many dogs, who were strongly +interested in the state of the market and the bargains of their masters; +and a great confusion of tongues, both brute and human. + +Mr Pinch regarded everything exposed for sale with great delight, and +was particularly struck by the itinerant cutlery, which he considered +of the very keenest kind, insomuch that he purchased a pocket knife with +seven blades in it, and not a cut (as he afterwards found out) among +them. When he had exhausted the market-place, and watched the farmers +safe into the market dinner, he went back to look after the horse. +Having seen him eat unto his heart’s content he issued forth again, +to wander round the town and regale himself with the shop windows; +previously taking a long stare at the bank, and wondering in what +direction underground the caverns might be where they kept the money; +and turning to look back at one or two young men who passed him, whom +he knew to be articled to solicitors in the town; and who had a sort of +fearful interest in his eyes, as jolly dogs who knew a thing or two, and +kept it up tremendously. + +But the shops. First of all there were the jewellers’ shops, with all +the treasures of the earth displayed therein, and such large silver +watches hanging up in every pane of glass, that if they were anything +but first-rate goers it certainly was not because the works could +decently complain of want of room. In good sooth they were big enough, +and perhaps, as the saying is, ugly enough, to be the most correct of +all mechanical performers; in Mr Pinch’s eyes, however they were smaller +than Geneva ware; and when he saw one very bloated watch announced as a +repeater, gifted with the uncommon power of striking every quarter of an +hour inside the pocket of its happy owner, he almost wished that he were +rich enough to buy it. + +But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork, to +the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came +issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had +at school, long time ago, with ‘Master Pinch, Grove House Academy,’ +inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia +leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes neatly ranged +within--what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were +the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and +sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open; +tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the +impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and buy it! Here too +were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette, pointing like handposts +on the outskirts of great cities, to the rich stock of incident beyond; +and store of books, with many a grave portrait and time-honoured name, +whose matter he knew well, and would have given mines to have, in any +form, upon the narrow shell beside his bed at Mr Pecksniff’s. What a +heart-breaking shop it was! + +There was another; not quite so bad at first, but still a trying shop; +where children’s books were sold, and where poor Robinson Crusoe +stood alone in his might, with dog and hatchet, goat-skin cap and +fowling-pieces; calmly surveying Philip Quarn and the host of imitators +round him, and calling Mr Pinch to witness that he, of all the crowd, +impressed one solitary footprint on the shore of boyish memory, whereof +the tread of generations should not stir the lightest grain of sand. +And there too were the Persian tales, with flying chests and students of +enchanted books shut up for years in caverns; and there too was Abudah, +the merchant, with the terrible little old woman hobbling out of the box +in his bedroom; and there the mighty talisman, the rare Arabian Nights, +with Cassim Baba, divided by four, like the ghost of a dreadful sum, +hanging up, all gory, in the robbers’ cave. Which matchless wonders, +coming fast on Mr Pinch’s mind, did so rub up and chafe that wonderful +lamp within him, that when he turned his face towards the busy street, +a crowd of phantoms waited on his pleasure, and he lived again, with new +delight, the happy days before the Pecksniff era. + +He had less interest now in the chemists’ shops, with their great +glowing bottles (with smaller repositories of brightness in their very +stoppers); and in their agreeable compromises between medicine and +perfumery, in the shape of toothsome lozenges and virgin honey. Neither +had he the least regard (but he never had much) for the tailors’, where +the newest metropolitan waistcoat patterns were hanging up, which by +some strange transformation always looked amazing there, and never +appeared at all like the same thing anywhere else. But he stopped to +read the playbill at the theatre and surveyed the doorway with a kind +of awe, which was not diminished when a sallow gentleman with long dark +hair came out, and told a boy to run home to his lodgings and bring down +his broadsword. Mr Pinch stood rooted to the spot on hearing this, and +might have stood there until dark, but that the old cathedral bell began +to ring for vesper service, on which he tore himself away. + +Now, the organist’s assistant was a friend of Mr Pinch’s, which was a +good thing, for he too was a very quiet gentle soul, and had been, like +Tom, a kind of old-fashioned boy at school, though well liked by the +noisy fellow too. As good luck would have it (Tom always said he had +great good luck) the assistant chanced that very afternoon to be on duty +by himself, with no one in the dusty organ loft but Tom; so while he +played, Tom helped him with the stops; and finally, the service being +just over, Tom took the organ himself. It was then turning dark, and the +yellow light that streamed in through the ancient windows in the choir +was mingled with a murky red. As the grand tones resounded through +the church, they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every +ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart. Great +thoughts and hopes came crowding on his mind as the rich music rolled +upon the air and yet among them--something more grave and solemn in +their purpose, but the same--were all the images of that day, down to +its very lightest recollection of childhood. The feeling that the sounds +awakened, in the moment of their existence, seemed to include his whole +life and being; and as the surrounding realities of stone and wood +and glass grew dimmer in the darkness, these visions grew so much the +brighter that Tom might have forgotten the new pupil and the expectant +master, and have sat there pouring out his grateful heart till midnight, +but for a very earthy old verger insisting on locking up the cathedral +forthwith. So he took leave of his friend, with many thanks, groped his +way out, as well as he could, into the now lamp-lighted streets, and +hurried off to get his dinner. + +All the farmers being by this time jogging homewards, there was nobody +in the sanded parlour of the tavern where he had left the horse; so he +had his little table drawn out close before the fire, and fell to +work upon a well-cooked steak and smoking hot potatoes, with a strong +appreciation of their excellence, and a very keen sense of enjoyment. +Beside him, too, there stood a jug of most stupendous Wiltshire beer; +and the effect of the whole was so transcendent, that he was obliged +every now and then to lay down his knife and fork, rub his hands, and +think about it. By the time the cheese and celery came, Mr Pinch had +taken a book out of his pocket, and could afford to trifle with the +viands; now eating a little, now drinking a little, now reading a +little, and now stopping to wonder what sort of a young man the new +pupil would turn out to be. He had passed from this latter theme and was +deep in his book again, when the door opened, and another guest came in, +bringing with him such a quantity of cold air, that he positively seemed +at first to put the fire out. + +‘Very hard frost to-night, sir,’ said the newcomer, courteously +acknowledging Mr Pinch’s withdrawal of the little table, that he might +have place: ‘Don’t disturb yourself, I beg.’ + +Though he said this with a vast amount of consideration for Mr Pinch’s +comfort, he dragged one of the great leather-bottomed chairs to the +very centre of the hearth, notwithstanding; and sat down in front of the +fire, with a foot on each hob. + +‘My feet are quite numbed. Ah! Bitter cold to be sure.’ + +‘You have been in the air some considerable time, I dare say?’ said Mr +Pinch. + +‘All day. Outside a coach, too.’ + +‘That accounts for his making the room so cool,’ thought Mr Pinch. ‘Poor +fellow! How thoroughly chilled he must be!’ + +The stranger became thoughtful likewise, and sat for five or ten minutes +looking at the fire in silence. At length he rose and divested himself +of his shawl and great-coat, which (far different from Mr Pinch’s) was +a very warm and thick one; but he was not a whit more conversational out +of his great-coat than in it, for he sat down again in the same place +and attitude, and leaning back in his chair, began to bite his nails. He +was young--one-and-twenty, perhaps--and handsome; with a keen dark eye, +and a quickness of look and manner which made Tom sensible of a great +contrast in his own bearing, and caused him to feel even more shy than +usual. + +There was a clock in the room, which the stranger often turned to +look at. Tom made frequent reference to it also; partly from a nervous +sympathy with its taciturn companion; and partly because the new pupil +was to inquire for him at half after six, and the hands were getting +on towards that hour. Whenever the stranger caught him looking at this +clock, a kind of confusion came upon Tom as if he had been found out in +something; and it was a perception of his uneasiness which caused the +younger man to say, perhaps, with a smile: + +‘We both appear to be rather particular about the time. The fact is, I +have an engagement to meet a gentleman here.’ + +‘So have I,’ said Mr Pinch. + +‘At half-past six,’ said the stranger. + +‘At half-past six,’ said Tom in the very same breath; whereupon the +other looked at him with some surprise. + +‘The young gentleman, I expect,’ remarked Tom, timidly, ‘was to inquire +at that time for a person by the name of Pinch.’ + +‘Dear me!’ cried the other, jumping up. ‘And I have been keeping the +fire from you all this while! I had no idea you were Mr Pinch. I am the +Mr Martin for whom you were to inquire. Pray excuse me. How do you do? +Oh, do draw nearer, pray!’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Tom, ‘thank you. I am not at all cold, and you are; +and we have a cold ride before us. Well, if you wish it, I will. I--I am +very glad,’ said Tom, smiling with an embarrassed frankness peculiarly +his, and which was as plainly a confession of his own imperfections, and +an appeal to the kindness of the person he addressed, as if he had drawn +one up in simple language and committed it to paper: ‘I am very glad +indeed that you turn out to be the party I expected. I was thinking, but +a minute ago, that I could wish him to be like you.’ + +‘I am very glad to hear it,’ returned Martin, shaking hands with him +again; ‘for I assure you, I was thinking there could be no such luck as +Mr Pinch’s turning out like you.’ + +‘No, really!’ said Tom, with great pleasure. ‘Are you serious?’ + +‘Upon my word I am,’ replied his new acquaintance. ‘You and I will get +on excellently well, I know; which it’s no small relief to me to feel, +for to tell you the truth, I am not at all the sort of fellow who could +get on with everybody, and that’s the point on which I had the greatest +doubts. But they’re quite relieved now.--Do me the favour to ring the +bell, will you?’ + +Mr Pinch rose, and complied with great alacrity--the handle hung just +over Martin’s head, as he warmed himself--and listened with a smiling +face to what his friend went on to say. It was: + +‘If you like punch, you’ll allow me to order a glass apiece, as hot +as it can be made, that we may usher in our friendship in a becoming +manner. To let you into a secret, Mr Pinch, I never was so much in want +of something warm and cheering in my life; but I didn’t like to run the +chance of being found drinking it, without knowing what kind of person +you were; for first impressions, you know, often go a long way, and last +a long time.’ + +Mr Pinch assented, and the punch was ordered. In due course it came; hot +and strong. After drinking to each other in the steaming mixture, they +became quite confidential. + +‘I’m a sort of relation of Pecksniff’s, you know,’ said the young man. + +‘Indeed!’ cried Mr Pinch. + +‘Yes. My grandfather is his cousin, so he’s kith and kin to me, somehow, +if you can make that out. I can’t.’ + +‘Then Martin is your Christian name?’ said Mr Pinch, thoughtfully. ‘Oh!’ + +‘Of course it is,’ returned his friend: ‘I wish it was my surname for +my own is not a very pretty one, and it takes a long time to sign. +Chuzzlewit is my name.’ + +‘Dear me!’ cried Mr Pinch, with an involuntary start. + +‘You’re not surprised at my having two names, I suppose?’ returned the +other, setting his glass to his lips. ‘Most people have.’ + +‘Oh, no,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘not at all. Oh dear no! Well!’ And then +remembering that Mr Pecksniff had privately cautioned him to say nothing +in reference to the old gentleman of the same name who had lodged at +the Dragon, but to reserve all mention of that person for him, he had +no better means of hiding his confusion than by raising his own glass +to his mouth. They looked at each other out of their respective tumblers +for a few seconds, and then put them down empty. + +‘I told them in the stable to be ready for us ten minutes ago,’ said Mr +Pinch, glancing at the clock again. ‘Shall we go?’ + +‘If you please,’ returned the other. + +‘Would you like to drive?’ said Mr Pinch; his whole face beaming with a +consciousness of the splendour of his offer. ‘You shall, if you wish.’ + +‘Why, that depends, Mr Pinch,’ said Martin, laughing, ‘upon what sort +of a horse you have. Because if he’s a bad one, I would rather keep my +hands warm by holding them comfortably in my greatcoat pockets.’ + +He appeared to think this such a good joke, that Mr Pinch was quite sure +it must be a capital one. Accordingly, he laughed too, and was fully +persuaded that he enjoyed it very much. Then he settled his bill, and Mr +Chuzzlewit paid for the punch; and having wrapped themselves up, to the +extent of their respective means, they went out together to the front +door, where Mr Pecksniff’s property stopped the way. + +‘I won’t drive, thank you, Mr Pinch,’ said Martin, getting into the +sitter’s place. ‘By the bye, there’s a box of mine. Can we manage to +take it?’ + +‘Oh, certainly,’ said Tom. ‘Put it in, Dick, anywhere!’ + +It was not precisely of that convenient size which would admit of its +being squeezed into any odd corner, but Dick the hostler got it in +somehow, and Mr Chuzzlewit helped him. It was all on Mr Pinch’s side, +and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would encumber him; to +which Tom said, ‘Not at all;’ though it forced him into such an awkward +position, that he had much ado to see anything but his own knees. But it +is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the wisdom of the saying +was verified in this instance; for the cold air came from Mr Pinch’s +side of the carriage, and by interposing a perfect wall of box and +man between it and the new pupil, he shielded that young gentleman +effectually; which was a great comfort. + +It was a clear evening, with a bright moon. The whole landscape was +silvered by its light and by the hoar-frost; and everything looked +exquisitely beautiful. At first, the great serenity and peace through +which they travelled, disposed them both to silence; but in a very short +time the punch within them and the healthful air without, made them +loquacious, and they talked incessantly. When they were halfway home, +and stopped to give the horse some water, Martin (who was very generous +with his money) ordered another glass of punch, which they drank between +them, and which had not the effect of making them less conversational +than before. Their principal topic of discourse was naturally Mr +Pecksniff and his family; of whom, and of the great obligations they had +heaped upon him, Tom Pinch, with the tears standing in his eyes, drew +such a picture as would have inclined any one of common feeling +almost to revere them; and of which Mr Pecksniff had not the slightest +foresight or preconceived idea, or he certainly (being very humble) +would not have sent Tom Pinch to bring the pupil home. + +In this way they went on, and on, and on--in the language of the +story-books--until at last the village lights appeared before them, and +the church spire cast a long reflection on the graveyard grass; as if +it were a dial (alas, the truest in the world!) marking, whatever light +shone out of Heaven, the flight of days and weeks and years, by some new +shadow on that solemn ground. + +‘A pretty church!’ said Martin, observing that his companion slackened +the slack pace of the horse, as they approached. + +‘Is it not?’ cried Tom, with great pride. ‘There’s the sweetest little +organ there you ever heard. I play it for them.’ + +‘Indeed?’ said Martin. ‘It is hardly worth the trouble, I should think. +What do you get for that, now?’ + +‘Nothing,’ answered Tom. + +‘Well,’ returned his friend, ‘you ARE a very strange fellow!’ + +To which remark there succeeded a brief silence. + +‘When I say nothing,’ observed Mr Pinch, cheerfully, ‘I am wrong, and +don’t say what I mean, because I get a great deal of pleasure from it, +and the means of passing some of the happiest hours I know. It led to +something else the other day; but you will not care to hear about that I +dare say?’ + +‘Oh yes I shall. What?’ + +‘It led to my seeing,’ said Tom, in a lower voice, ‘one of the loveliest +and most beautiful faces you can possibly picture to yourself.’ + +‘And yet I am able to picture a beautiful one,’ said his friend, +thoughtfully, ‘or should be, if I have any memory.’ + +‘She came’ said Tom, laying his hand upon the other’s arm, ‘for the +first time very early in the morning, when it was hardly light; and when +I saw her, over my shoulder, standing just within the porch, I turned +quite cold, almost believing her to be a spirit. A moment’s reflection +got the better of that, of course, and fortunately it came to my relief +so soon, that I didn’t leave off playing.’ + +‘Why fortunately?’ + +‘Why? Because she stood there, listening. I had my spectacles on, and +saw her through the chinks in the curtains as plainly as I see you; and +she was beautiful. After a while she glided off, and I continued to play +until she was out of hearing.’ + +‘Why did you do that?’ + +‘Don’t you see?’ responded Tom. ‘Because she might suppose I hadn’t seen +her; and might return.’ + +‘And did she?’ + +‘Certainly she did. Next morning, and next evening too; but always when +there were no people about, and always alone. I rose earlier and sat +there later, that when she came, she might find the church door open, +and the organ playing, and might not be disappointed. She strolled that +way for some days, and always stayed to listen. But she is gone now, +and of all unlikely things in this wide world, it is perhaps the most +improbable that I shall ever look upon her face again.’ + +‘You don’t know anything more about her?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘And you never followed her when she went away?’ + +‘Why should I distress her by doing that?’ said Tom Pinch. ‘Is it likely +that she wanted my company? She came to hear the organ, not to see me; +and would you have had me scare her from a place she seemed to grow +quite fond of? Now, Heaven bless her!’ cried Tom, ‘to have given her but +a minute’s pleasure every day, I would have gone on playing the organ +at those times until I was an old man; quite contented if she sometimes +thought of a poor fellow like me, as a part of the music; and more than +recompensed if she ever mixed me up with anything she liked as well as +she liked that!’ + +The new pupil was clearly very much amazed by Mr Pinch’s weakness, and +would probably have told him so, and given him some good advice, but +for their opportune arrival at Mr Pecksniff’s door; the front door this +time, on account of the occasion being one of ceremony and rejoicing. +The same man was in waiting for the horse who had been adjured by Mr +Pinch in the morning not to yield to his rabid desire to start; +and after delivering the animal into his charge, and beseeching Mr +Chuzzlewit in a whisper never to reveal a syllable of what he had just +told him in the fullness of his heart, Tom led the pupil in, for instant +presentation. + +Mr Pecksniff had clearly not expected them for hours to come; for he was +surrounded by open books, and was glancing from volume to volume, with a +black lead-pencil in his mouth, and a pair of compasses in his hand, +at a vast number of mathematical diagrams, of such extraordinary shapes +that they looked like designs for fireworks. Neither had Miss Charity +expected them, for she was busied, with a capacious wicker basket before +her, in making impracticable nightcaps for the poor. Neither had Miss +Mercy expected them, for she was sitting upon her stool, tying on +the--oh good gracious!--the petticoat of a large doll that she was +dressing for a neighbour’s child--really, quite a grown-up doll, which +made it more confusing--and had its little bonnet dangling by the ribbon +from one of her fair curls, to which she had fastened it lest it should +be lost or sat upon. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to +conceive a family so thoroughly taken by surprise as the Pecksniffs +were, on this occasion. + +Bless my life!’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking up, and gradually exchanging +his abstracted face for one of joyful recognition. ‘Here already! +Martin, my dear boy, I am delighted to welcome you to my poor house!’ + +With this kind greeting, Mr Pecksniff fairly took him to his arms, and +patted him several times upon the back with his right hand the while, +as if to express that his feelings during the embrace were too much for +utterance. + +‘But here,’ he said, recovering, ‘are my daughters, Martin; my two only +children, whom (if you ever saw them) you have not beheld--ah, these sad +family divisions!--since you were infants together. Nay, my dears, why +blush at being detected in your everyday pursuits? We had prepared +to give you the reception of a visitor, Martin, in our little room of +state,’ said Mr Pecksniff, smiling, ‘but I like this better, I like this +better!’ + +Oh blessed star of Innocence, wherever you may be, how did you glitter +in your home of ether, when the two Miss Pecksniffs put forth each her +lily hand, and gave the same, with mantling cheeks, to Martin! How did +you twinkle, as if fluttering with sympathy, when Mercy, reminded of +the bonnet in her hair, hid her fair face and turned her head aside; the +while her gentle sister plucked it out, and smote her with a sister’s +soft reproof, upon her buxom shoulder! + +‘And how,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning round after the contemplation of +these passages, and taking Mr Pinch in a friendly manner by the elbow, +‘how has our friend used you, Martin?’ + +‘Very well indeed, sir. We are on the best terms, I assure you.’ + +‘Old Tom Pinch!’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking on him with affectionate +sadness. ‘Ah! It seems but yesterday that Thomas was a boy fresh from +a scholastic course. Yet years have passed, I think, since Thomas Pinch +and I first walked the world together!’ + +Mr Pinch could say nothing. He was too much moved. But he pressed his +master’s hand, and tried to thank him. + +‘And Thomas Pinch and I,’ said Mr Pecksniff, in a deeper voice, ‘will +walk it yet, in mutual faithfulness and friendship! And if it comes to +pass that either of us be run over in any of those busy crossings which +divide the streets of life, the other will convey him to the hospital in +Hope, and sit beside his bed in Bounty!’ + +‘Well, well, well!’ he added in a happier tone, as he shook Mr Pinch’s +elbow hard. ‘No more of this! Martin, my dear friend, that you may be at +home within these walls, let me show you how we live, and where. Come!’ + +With that he took up a lighted candle, and, attended by his young +relative, prepared to leave the room. At the door, he stopped. + +‘You’ll bear us company, Tom Pinch?’ + +Aye, cheerfully, though it had been to death, would Tom have followed +him; glad to lay down his life for such a man! + +‘This,’ said Mr Pecksniff, opening the door of an opposite parlour, ‘is +the little room of state, I mentioned to you. My girls have pride in it, +Martin! This,’ opening another door, ‘is the little chamber in which my +works (slight things at best) have been concocted. Portrait of myself +by Spiller. Bust by Spoker. The latter is considered a good likeness. +I seem to recognize something about the left-hand corner of the nose, +myself.’ + +Martin thought it was very like, but scarcely intellectual enough. Mr +Pecksniff observed that the same fault had been found with it before. It +was remarkable it should have struck his young relation too. He was glad +to see he had an eye for art. + +‘Various books you observe,’ said Mr Pecksniff, waving his hand towards +the wall, ‘connected with our pursuit. I have scribbled myself, but +have not yet published. Be careful how you come upstairs. This,’ opening +another door, ‘is my chamber. I read here when the family suppose I have +retired to rest. Sometimes I injure my health rather more than I can +quite justify to myself, by doing so; but art is long and time is short. +Every facility you see for jotting down crude notions, even here.’ + +These latter words were explained by his pointing to a small round table +on which were a lamp, divers sheets of paper, a piece of India rubber, +and a case of instruments; all put ready, in case an architectural idea +should come into Mr Pecksniff’s head in the night; in which event he +would instantly leap out of bed, and fix it for ever. + +Mr Pecksniff opened another door on the same floor, and shut it again, +all at once, as if it were a Blue Chamber. But before he had well done +so, he looked smilingly round, and said, ‘Why not?’ + +Martin couldn’t say why not, because he didn’t know anything at all +about it. So Mr Pecksniff answered himself, by throwing open the door, +and saying: + +‘My daughters’ room. A poor first-floor to us, but a bower to them. Very +neat. Very airy. Plants you observe; hyacinths; books again; birds.’ +These birds, by the bye, comprised, in all, one staggering old sparrow +without a tail, which had been borrowed expressly from the kitchen. +‘Such trifles as girls love are here. Nothing more. Those who seek +heartless splendour, would seek here in vain.’ + +With that he led them to the floor above. + +‘This,’ said Mr Pecksniff, throwing wide the door of the memorable +two-pair front; ‘is a room where some talent has been developed I +believe. This is a room in which an idea for a steeple occurred to me +that I may one day give to the world. We work here, my dear Martin. Some +architects have been bred in this room; a few, I think, Mr Pinch?’ + +Tom fully assented; and, what is more, fully believed it. + +‘You see,’ said Mr Pecksniff, passing the candle rapidly from roll to +roll of paper, ‘some traces of our doings here. Salisbury Cathedral +from the north. From the south. From the east. From the west. From the +south-east. From the nor’west. A bridge. An almshouse. A jail. A +church. A powder-magazine. A wine-cellar. A portico. A summer-house. An +ice-house. Plans, elevations, sections, every kind of thing. And this,’ +he added, having by this time reached another large chamber on the same +story, with four little beds in it, ‘this is your room, of which Mr +Pinch here is the quiet sharer. A southern aspect; a charming prospect; +Mr Pinch’s little library, you perceive; everything agreeable and +appropriate. If there is any additional comfort you would desire to have +here at anytime, pray mention it. Even to strangers, far less to you, my +dear Martin, there is no restriction on that point.’ + +It was undoubtedly true, and may be stated in corroboration of Mr +Pecksniff, that any pupil had the most liberal permission to mention +anything in this way that suggested itself to his fancy. Some young +gentlemen had gone on mentioning the very same thing for five years +without ever being stopped. + +‘The domestic assistants,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘sleep above; and that +is all.’ After which, and listening complacently as he went, to the +encomiums passed by his young friend on the arrangements generally, he +led the way to the parlour again. + +Here a great change had taken place; for festive preparations on +a rather extensive scale were already completed, and the two Miss +Pecksniffs were awaiting their return with hospitable looks. There were +two bottles of currant wine, white and red; a dish of sandwiches (very +long and very slim); another of apples; another of captain’s biscuits +(which are always a moist and jovial sort of viand); a plate of oranges +cut up small and gritty; with powdered sugar, and a highly geological +home-made cake. The magnitude of these preparations quite took away Tom +Pinch’s breath; for though the new pupils were usually let down softly, +as one may say, particularly in the wine department, which had so many +stages of declension, that sometimes a young gentleman was a whole +fortnight in getting to the pump; still this was a banquet; a sort of +Lord Mayor’s feast in private life; a something to think of, and hold on +by, afterwards. + +To this entertainment, which apart from its own intrinsic merits, had +the additional choice quality, that it was in strict keeping with the +night, being both light and cool, Mr Pecksniff besought the company to +do full justice. + +‘Martin,’ he said, ‘will seat himself between you two, my dears, and +Mr Pinch will come by me. Let us drink to our new inmate, and may we be +happy together! Martin, my dear friend, my love to you! Mr Pinch, if you +spare the bottle we shall quarrel.’ + +And trying (in his regard for the feelings of the rest) to look as if +the wine were not acid and didn’t make him wink, Mr Pecksniff did honour +to his own toast. + +‘This,’ he said, in allusion to the party, not the wine, ‘is a mingling +that repays one for much disappointment and vexation. Let us be merry.’ +Here he took a captain’s biscuit. ‘It is a poor heart that never +rejoices; and our hearts are not poor. No!’ + +With such stimulants to merriment did he beguile the time, and do the +honours of the table; while Mr Pinch, perhaps to assure himself that +what he saw and heard was holiday reality, and not a charming dream, ate +of everything, and in particular disposed of the slim sandwiches to a +surprising extent. Nor was he stinted in his draughts of wine; but on +the contrary, remembering Mr Pecksniff’s speech, attacked the bottle +with such vigour, that every time he filled his glass anew, Miss +Charity, despite her amiable resolves, could not repress a fixed and +stony glare, as if her eyes had rested on a ghost. Mr Pecksniff also +became thoughtful at those moments, not to say dejected; but as he +knew the vintage, it is very likely he may have been speculating on the +probable condition of Mr Pinch upon the morrow, and discussing within +himself the best remedies for colic. + +Martin and the young ladies were excellent friends already, and compared +recollections of their childish days, to their mutual liveliness and +entertainment. Miss Mercy laughed immensely at everything that was said; +and sometimes, after glancing at the happy face of Mr Pinch, was +seized with such fits of mirth as brought her to the very confines of +hysterics. But for these bursts of gaiety, her sister, in her better +sense, reproved her; observing, in an angry whisper, that it was far +from being a theme for jest; and that she had no patience with the +creature; though it generally ended in her laughing too--but much more +moderately--and saying that indeed it was a little too ridiculous and +intolerable to be serious about. + +At length it became high time to remember the first clause of that great +discovery made by the ancient philosopher, for securing health, riches, +and wisdom; the infallibility of which has been for generations verified +by the enormous fortunes constantly amassed by chimney-sweepers and +other persons who get up early and go to bed betimes. The young ladies +accordingly rose, and having taken leave of Mr Chuzzlewit with much +sweetness, and of their father with much duty and of Mr Pinch with +much condescension, retired to their bower. Mr Pecksniff insisted on +accompanying his young friend upstairs for personal superintendence of +his comforts; and taking him by the arm, conducted him once more to his +bedroom, followed by Mr Pinch, who bore the light. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, seating himself with folded arms on one of +the spare beds. ‘I don’t see any snuffers in that candlestick. Will you +oblige me by going down, and asking for a pair?’ + +Mr Pinch, only too happy to be useful, went off directly. + +‘You will excuse Thomas Pinch’s want of polish, Martin,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, with a smile of patronage and pity, as soon as he had left +the room. ‘He means well.’ + +‘He is a very good fellow, sir.’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Yes. Thomas Pinch means well. He is very +grateful. I have never regretted having befriended Thomas Pinch.’ + +‘I should think you never would, sir.’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘No. I hope not. Poor fellow, he is always +disposed to do his best; but he is not gifted. You will make him useful +to you, Martin, if you please. If Thomas has a fault, it is that he is +sometimes a little apt to forget his position. But that is soon checked. +Worthy soul! You will find him easy to manage. Good night!’ + +‘Good night, sir.’ + +By this time Mr Pinch had returned with the snuffers. + +‘And good night to YOU, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff. ‘And sound sleep to +you both. Bless you! Bless you!’ + +Invoking this benediction on the heads of his young friends with great +fervour, he withdrew to his own room; while they, being tired, soon fell +asleep. If Martin dreamed at all, some clue to the matter of his visions +may possibly be gathered from the after-pages of this history. Those +of Thomas Pinch were all of holidays, church organs, and seraphic +Pecksniffs. It was some time before Mr Pecksniff dreamed at all, or even +sought his pillow, as he sat for full two hours before the fire in his +own chamber, looking at the coals and thinking deeply. But he, too, +slept and dreamed at last. Thus in the quiet hours of the night, one +house shuts in as many incoherent and incongruous fancies as a madman’s +head. + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +COMPRISES, AMONG OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS, PECKSNIFFIAN AND +ARCHITECTURAL, AND EXACT RELATION OF THE PROGRESS MADE BY MR PINCH IN +THE CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE NEW PUPIL + + +It was morning; and the beautiful Aurora, of whom so much hath been +written, said, and sung, did, with her rosy fingers, nip and tweak Miss +Pecksniff’s nose. It was the frolicsome custom of the Goddess, in her +intercourse with the fair Cherry, so to do; or in more prosaic phrase, +the tip of that feature in the sweet girl’s countenance was always +very red at breakfast-time. For the most part, indeed, it wore, at that +season of the day, a scraped and frosty look, as if it had been rasped; +while a similar phenomenon developed itself in her humour, which was +then observed to be of a sharp and acid quality, as though an extra +lemon (figuratively speaking) had been squeezed into the nectar of her +disposition, and had rather damaged its flavour. + +This additional pungency on the part of the fair young creature led, on +ordinary occasions, to such slight consequences as the copious dilution +of Mr Pinch’s tea, or to his coming off uncommonly short in respect +of butter, or to other the like results. But on the morning after the +Installation Banquet, she suffered him to wander to and fro among the +eatables and drinkables, a perfectly free and unchecked man; so utterly +to Mr Pinch’s wonder and confusion, that like the wretched captive who +recovered his liberty in his old age, he could make but little use of +his enlargement, and fell into a strange kind of flutter for want of +some kind hand to scrape his bread, and cut him off in the article of +sugar with a lump, and pay him those other little attentions to which +he was accustomed. There was something almost awful, too, about the +self-possession of the new pupil; who ‘troubled’ Mr Pecksniff for the +loaf, and helped himself to a rasher of that gentleman’s own particular +and private bacon, with all the coolness in life. He even seemed to +think that he was doing quite a regular thing, and to expect that Mr +Pinch would follow his example, since he took occasion to observe of +that young man ‘that he didn’t get on’; a speech of so tremendous a +character, that Tom cast down his eyes involuntarily, and felt as if +he himself had committed some horrible deed and heinous breach of Mr +Pecksniff’s confidence. Indeed, the agony of having such an indiscreet +remark addressed to him before the assembled family, was breakfast +enough in itself, and would, without any other matter of reflection, +have settled Mr Pinch’s business and quenched his appetite, for one +meal, though he had been never so hungry. + +The young ladies, however, and Mr Pecksniff likewise, remained in +the very best of spirits in spite of these severe trials, though with +something of a mysterious understanding among themselves. When the meal +was nearly over, Mr Pecksniff smilingly explained the cause of their +common satisfaction. + +‘It is not often,’ he said, ‘Martin, that my daughters and I desert our +quiet home to pursue the giddy round of pleasures that revolves abroad. +But we think of doing so to-day.’ + +‘Indeed, sir!’ cried the new pupil. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tapping his left hand with a letter which +he held in his right. ‘I have a summons here to repair to London; +on professional business, my dear Martin; strictly on professional +business; and I promised my girls, long ago, that whenever that happened +again, they should accompany me. We shall go forth to-night by the +heavy coach--like the dove of old, my dear Martin--and it will be a week +before we again deposit our olive-branches in the passage. When I say +olive-branches,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, in explanation, ‘I mean, our +unpretending luggage.’ + +‘I hope the young ladies will enjoy their trip,’ said Martin. + +‘Oh! that I’m sure we shall!’ cried Mercy, clapping her hands. ‘Good +gracious, Cherry, my darling, the idea of London!’ + +‘Ardent child!’ said Mr Pecksniff, gazing on her in a dreamy way. ‘And +yet there is a melancholy sweetness in these youthful hopes! It is +pleasant to know that they never can be realised. I remember thinking +once myself, in the days of my childhood, that pickled onions grew on +trees, and that every elephant was born with an impregnable castle on +his back. I have not found the fact to be so; far from it; and yet those +visions have comforted me under circumstances of trial. Even when I have +had the anguish of discovering that I have nourished in my breast on +ostrich, and not a human pupil--even in that hour of agony, they have +soothed me.’ + +At this dread allusion to John Westlock, Mr Pinch precipitately choked +in his tea; for he had that very morning received a letter from him, as +Mr Pecksniff very well knew. + +‘You will take care, my dear Martin,’ said Mr Pecksniff, resuming his +former cheerfulness, ‘that the house does not run away in our absence. +We leave you in charge of everything. There is no mystery; all is free +and open. Unlike the young man in the Eastern tale--who is described as +a one-eyed almanac, if I am not mistaken, Mr Pinch?--’ + +‘A one-eyed calender, I think, sir,’ faltered Tom. + +‘They are pretty nearly the same thing, I believe,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +smiling compassionately; ‘or they used to be in my time. Unlike that +young man, my dear Martin, you are forbidden to enter no corner of this +house; but are requested to make yourself perfectly at home in every +part of it. You will be jovial, my dear Martin, and will kill the fatted +calf if you please!’ + +There was not the least objection, doubtless, to the young man’s +slaughtering and appropriating to his own use any calf, fat or lean, +that he might happen to find upon the premises; but as no such animal +chanced at that time to be grazing on Mr Pecksniff’s estate, this +request must be considered rather as a polite compliment that +a substantial hospitality. It was the finishing ornament of the +conversation; for when he had delivered it, Mr Pecksniff rose and led +the way to that hotbed of architectural genius, the two-pair front. + +‘Let me see,’ he said, searching among the papers, ‘how you can best +employ yourself, Martin, while I am absent. Suppose you were to give +me your idea of a monument to a Lord Mayor of London; or a tomb for a +sheriff; or your notion of a cow-house to be erected in a nobleman’s +park. Do you know, now,’ said Mr Pecksniff, folding his hands, and +looking at his young relation with an air of pensive interest, ‘that I +should very much like to see your notion of a cow-house?’ + +But Martin by no means appeared to relish this suggestion. + +‘A pump,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘is very chaste practice. I have found that +a lamp post is calculated to refine the mind and give it a classical +tendency. An ornamental turnpike has a remarkable effect upon the +imagination. What do you say to beginning with an ornamental turnpike?’ + +‘Whatever Mr Pecksniff pleased,’ said Martin, doubtfully. + +‘Stay,’ said that gentleman. ‘Come! as you’re ambitious, and are a very +neat draughtsman, you shall--ha ha!--you shall try your hand on these +proposals for a grammar-school; regulating your plan, of course, by the +printed particulars. Upon my word, now,’ said Mr Pecksniff, merrily, ‘I +shall be very curious to see what you make of the grammar-school. +Who knows but a young man of your taste might hit upon something, +impracticable and unlikely in itself, but which I could put into shape? +For it really is, my dear Martin, it really is in the finishing touches +alone, that great experience and long study in these matters tell. Ha, +ha, ha! Now it really will be,’ continued Mr Pecksniff, clapping his +young friend on the back in his droll humour, ‘an amusement to me, to +see what you make of the grammar-school.’ + +Martin readily undertook this task, and Mr Pecksniff forthwith proceeded +to entrust him with the materials necessary for its execution; dwelling +meanwhile on the magical effect of a few finishing touches from the hand +of a master; which, indeed, as some people said (and these were the +old enemies again!) was unquestionably very surprising, and almost +miraculous; as there were cases on record in which the masterly +introduction of an additional back window, or a kitchen door, or +half-a-dozen steps, or even a water spout, had made the design of a +pupil Mr Pecksniff’s own work, and had brought substantial rewards into +that gentleman’s pocket. But such is the magic of genius, which changes +all it handles into gold! + +‘When your mind requires to be refreshed by change of occupation,’ said +Mr Pecksniff, ‘Thomas Pinch will instruct you in the art of surveying +the back garden, or in ascertaining the dead level of the road between +this house and the finger-post, or in any other practical and pleasing +pursuit. There are a cart-load of loose bricks, and a score or two of +old flower-pots, in the back yard. If you could pile them up my dear +Martin, into any form which would remind me on my return say of St. +Peter’s at Rome, or the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople, it would +be at once improving to you and agreeable to my feelings. And now,’ said +Mr Pecksniff, in conclusion, ‘to drop, for the present, our professional +relations and advert to private matters, I shall be glad to talk with +you in my own room, while I pack up my portmanteau.’ + +Martin attended him; and they remained in secret conference together for +an hour or more; leaving Tom Pinch alone. When the young man returned, +he was very taciturn and dull, in which state he remained all day; so +that Tom, after trying him once or twice with indifferent conversation, +felt a delicacy in obtruding himself upon his thoughts, and said no +more. + +He would not have had leisure to say much, had his new friend been ever +so loquacious; for first of all Mr Pecksniff called him down to stand +upon the top of his portmanteau and represent ancient statues there, +until such time as it would consent to be locked; and then Miss Charity +called him to come and cord her trunk; and then Miss Mercy sent for him +to come and mend her box; and then he wrote the fullest possible cards +for all the luggage; and then he volunteered to carry it all downstairs; +and after that to see it safely carried on a couple of barrows to the +old finger-post at the end of the lane; and then to mind it till the +coach came up. In short, his day’s work would have been a pretty heavy +one for a porter, but his thorough good-will made nothing of it; and as +he sat upon the luggage at last, waiting for the Pecksniffs, escorted by +the new pupil, to come down the lane, his heart was light with the hope +of having pleased his benefactor. + +‘I was almost afraid,’ said Tom, taking a letter from his pocket and +wiping his face, for he was hot with bustling about though it was a cold +day, ‘that I shouldn’t have had time to write it, and that would have +been a thousand pities; postage from such a distance being a serious +consideration, when one’s not rich. She will be glad to see my hand, +poor girl, and to hear that Pecksniff is as kind as ever. I would have +asked John Westlock to call and see her, and tell her all about me by +word of mouth, but I was afraid he might speak against Pecksniff to her, +and make her uneasy. Besides, they are particular people where she is, +and it might have rendered her situation uncomfortable if she had had a +visit from a young man like John. Poor Ruth!’ + +Tom Pinch seemed a little disposed to be melancholy for half a minute or +so, but he found comfort very soon, and pursued his ruminations thus: + +‘I’m a nice man, I don’t think, as John used to say (John was a kind, +merry-hearted fellow; I wish he had liked Pecksniff better), to be +feeling low, on account of the distance between us, when I ought to +be thinking, instead, of my extraordinary good luck in having ever got +here. I must have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I am sure, +to have ever come across Pecksniff. And here have I fallen again into +my usual good luck with the new pupil! Such an affable, generous, free +fellow, as he is, I never saw. Why, we were companions directly! and he +a relation of Pecksniff’s too, and a clever, dashing youth who might cut +his way through the world as if it were a cheese! Here he comes while +the words are on my lips’ said Tom; ‘walking down the lane as if the +lane belonged to him.’ + +In truth, the new pupil, not at all disconcerted by the honour of having +Miss Mercy Pecksniff on his arm, or by the affectionate adieux of that +young lady, approached as Mr Pinch spoke, followed by Miss Charity and +Mr Pecksniff. As the coach appeared at the same moment, Tom lost no time +in entreating the gentleman last mentioned, to undertake the delivery of +his letter. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Pecksniff, glancing at the superscription. ‘For your +sister, Thomas. Yes, oh yes, it shall be delivered, Mr Pinch. Make your +mind easy upon that score. She shall certainly have it, Mr Pinch.’ + +He made the promise with so much condescension and patronage, that +Tom felt he had asked a great deal (this had not occurred to his mind +before), and thanked him earnestly. The Miss Pecksniffs, according to +a custom they had, were amused beyond description at the mention of +Mr Pinch’s sister. Oh the fright! The bare idea of a Miss Pinch! Good +heavens! + +Tom was greatly pleased to see them so merry, for he took it as a token +of their favour, and good-humoured regard. Therefore he laughed too and +rubbed his hands and wished them a pleasant journey and safe return, +and was quite brisk. Even when the coach had rolled away with the +olive-branches in the boot and the family of doves inside, he stood +waving his hand and bowing; so much gratified by the unusually courteous +demeanour of the young ladies, that he was quite regardless, for the +moment, of Martin Chuzzlewit, who stood leaning thoughtfully against +the finger-post, and who after disposing of his fair charge had hardly +lifted his eyes from the ground. + +The perfect silence which ensued upon the bustle and departure of the +coach, together with the sharp air of the wintry afternoon, roused them +both at the same time. They turned, as by mutual consent, and moved off +arm-in-arm. + +‘How melancholy you are!’ said Tom; ‘what is the matter?’ + +‘Nothing worth speaking of,’ said Martin. ‘Very little more than was +the matter yesterday, and much more, I hope, than will be the matter +to-morrow. I’m out of spirits, Pinch.’ + +‘Well,’ cried Tom, ‘now do you know I am in capital spirits today, and +scarcely ever felt more disposed to be good company. It was a very kind +thing in your predecessor, John, to write to me, was it not?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ said Martin carelessly; ‘I should have thought he would have +had enough to do to enjoy himself, without thinking of you, Pinch.’ + +‘Just what I felt to be so very likely,’ Tom rejoined; ‘but no, he keeps +his word, and says, “My dear Pinch, I often think of you,” and all sorts +of kind and considerate things of that description.’ + +‘He must be a devilish good-natured fellow,’ said Martin, somewhat +peevishly: ‘because he can’t mean that, you know.’ + +‘I don’t suppose he can, eh?’ said Tom, looking wistfully in his +companion’s face. ‘He says so to please me, you think?’ + +‘Why, is it likely,’ rejoined Martin, with greater earnestness, ‘that +a young man newly escaped from this kennel of a place, and fresh to all +the delights of being his own master in London, can have much leisure +or inclination to think favourably of anything or anybody he has left +behind him here? I put it to you, Pinch, is it natural?’ + +After a short reflection, Mr Pinch replied, in a more subdued tone, that +to be sure it was unreasonable to expect any such thing, and that he had +no doubt Martin knew best. + +‘Of course I know best,’ Martin observed. + +‘Yes, I feel that,’ said Mr Pinch mildly. ‘I said so.’ And when he had +made this rejoinder, they fell into a blank silence again, which lasted +until they reached home; by which time it was dark. + +Now, Miss Charity Pecksniff, in consideration of the inconvenience of +carrying them with her in the coach, and the impossibility of preserving +them by artificial means until the family’s return, had set forth, in a +couple of plates, the fragments of yesterday’s feast. In virtue of which +liberal arrangement, they had the happiness to find awaiting them in +the parlour two chaotic heaps of the remains of last night’s pleasure, +consisting of certain filmy bits of oranges, some mummied sandwiches, +various disrupted masses of the geological cake, and several entire +captain’s biscuits. That choice liquor in which to steep these dainties +might not be wanting, the remains of the two bottles of currant wine +had been poured together and corked with a curl-paper; so that every +material was at hand for making quite a heavy night of it. + +Martin Chuzzlewit beheld these roystering preparations with infinite +contempt, and stirring the fire into a blaze (to the great destruction +of Mr Pecksniff’s coals), sat moodily down before it, in the most +comfortable chair he could find. That he might the better squeeze +himself into the small corner that was left for him, Mr Pinch took up +his position on Miss Mercy Pecksniff’s stool, and setting his glass down +upon the hearthrug and putting his plate upon his knees, began to enjoy +himself. + +If Diogenes coming to life again could have rolled himself, tub and all, +into Mr Pecksniff’s parlour and could have seen Tom Pinch as he sat on +Mercy Pecksniff’s stool with his plate and glass before him he could +not have faced it out, though in his surliest mood, but must have +smiled good-temperedly. The perfect and entire satisfaction of Tom; his +surpassing appreciation of the husky sandwiches, which crumbled in his +mouth like saw-dust; the unspeakable relish with which he swallowed the +thin wine by drops, and smacked his lips, as though it were so rich and +generous that to lose an atom of its fruity flavour were a sin; the look +with which he paused sometimes, with his glass in his hand, proposing +silent toasts to himself; and the anxious shade that came upon his +contented face when, after wandering round the room, exulting in +its uninvaded snugness, his glance encountered the dull brow of his +companion; no cynic in the world, though in his hatred of its men a very +griffin, could have withstood these things in Thomas Pinch. + +Some men would have slapped him on the back, and pledged him in a bumper +of the currant wine, though it had been the sharpest vinegar--aye, and +liked its flavour too; some would have seized him by his honest hand, +and thanked him for the lesson that his simple nature taught them. Some +would have laughed with, and others would have laughed at him; of which +last class was Martin Chuzzlewit, who, unable to restrain himself, at +last laughed loud and long. + +‘That’s right,’ said Tom, nodding approvingly. ‘Cheer up! That’s +capital!’ + +At which encouragement young Martin laughed again; and said, as soon as +he had breath and gravity enough: + +‘I never saw such a fellow as you are, Pinch.’ + +‘Didn’t you though?’ said Tom. ‘Well, it’s very likely you do find me +strange, because I have hardly seen anything of the world, and you have +seen a good deal I dare say?’ + +‘Pretty well for my time of life,’ rejoined Martin, drawing his chair +still nearer to the fire, and spreading his feet out on the fender. +‘Deuce take it, I must talk openly to somebody. I’ll talk openly to you, +Pinch.’ + +‘Do!’ said Tom. ‘I shall take it as being very friendly of you,’ + +‘I’m not in your way, am I?’ inquired Martin, glancing down at Mr Pinch, +who was by this time looking at the fire over his leg. + +‘Not at all!’ cried Tom. + +‘You must know then, to make short of a long story,’ said Martin, +beginning with a kind of effort, as if the revelation were not +agreeable to him; ‘that I have been bred up from childhood with great +expectations, and have always been taught to believe that I should be, +one day, very rich. So I should have been, but for certain brief +reasons which I am going to tell you, and which have led to my being +disinherited.’ + +‘By your father?’ inquired Mr Pinch, with open eyes. + +‘By my grandfather. I have had no parents these many years. Scarcely +within my remembrance.’ + +‘Neither have I,’ said Tom, touching the young man’s hand with his own +and timidly withdrawing it again. ‘Dear me!’ + +‘Why, as to that, you know, Pinch,’ pursued the other, stirring the fire +again, and speaking in his rapid, off-hand way; ‘it’s all very right +and proper to be fond of parents when we have them, and to bear them in +remembrance after they’re dead, if you have ever known anything of them. +But as I never did know anything about mine personally, you know, why, I +can’t be expected to be very sentimental about ‘em. And I am not; that’s +the truth.’ + +Mr Pinch was just then looking thoughtfully at the bars. But on +his companion pausing in this place, he started, and said ‘Oh! of +course’--and composed himself to listen again. + +‘In a word,’ said Martin, ‘I have been bred and reared all my life by +this grandfather of whom I have just spoken. Now, he has a great many +good points--there is no doubt about that; I’ll not disguise the fact +from you--but he has two very great faults, which are the staple of his +bad side. In the first place, he has the most confirmed obstinacy of +character you ever met with in any human creature. In the second, he is +most abominably selfish.’ + +‘Is he indeed?’ cried Tom. + +‘In those two respects,’ returned the other, ‘there never was such a +man. I have often heard from those who know, that they have been, time +out of mind, the failings of our family; and I believe there’s some +truth in it. But I can’t say of my own knowledge. All I have to do, you +know, is to be very thankful that they haven’t descended to me, and, to +be very careful that I don’t contract ‘em.’ + +‘To be sure,’ said Mr Pinch. ‘Very proper.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ resumed Martin, stirring the fire once more, and drawing +his chair still closer to it, ‘his selfishness makes him exacting, +you see; and his obstinacy makes him resolute in his exactions. The +consequence is that he has always exacted a great deal from me in the +way of respect, and submission, and self-denial when his wishes were in +question, and so forth. I have borne a great deal from him, because I +have been under obligations to him (if one can ever be said to be under +obligations to one’s own grandfather), and because I have been really +attached to him; but we have had a great many quarrels for all that, for +I could not accommodate myself to his ways very often--not out of the +least reference to myself, you understand, but because--’ he stammered +here, and was rather at a loss. + +Mr Pinch being about the worst man in the world to help anybody out of a +difficulty of this sort, said nothing. + +‘Well! as you understand me,’ resumed Martin, quickly, ‘I needn’t hunt +for the precise expression I want. Now I come to the cream of my story, +and the occasion of my being here. I am in love, Pinch.’ + +Mr Pinch looked up into his face with increased interest. + +‘I say I am in love. I am in love with one of the most beautiful girls +the sun ever shone upon. But she is wholly and entirely dependent upon +the pleasure of my grandfather; and if he were to know that she favoured +my passion, she would lose her home and everything she possesses in the +world. There is nothing very selfish in THAT love, I think?’ + +‘Selfish!’ cried Tom. ‘You have acted nobly. To love her as I am sure +you do, and yet in consideration for her state of dependence, not even +to disclose--’ + +‘What are you talking about, Pinch?’ said Martin pettishly: ‘don’t +make yourself ridiculous, my good fellow! What do you mean by not +disclosing?’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ answered Tom. ‘I thought you meant that, or I +wouldn’t have said it.’ + +‘If I didn’t tell her I loved her, where would be the use of my being in +love?’ said Martin: ‘unless to keep myself in a perpetual state of worry +and vexation?’ + +‘That’s true,’ Tom answered. ‘Well! I can guess what SHE said when you +told her,’ he added, glancing at Martin’s handsome face. + +‘Why, not exactly, Pinch,’ he rejoined, with a slight frown; ‘because +she has some girlish notions about duty and gratitude, and all the rest +of it, which are rather hard to fathom; but in the main you are right. +Her heart was mine, I found.’ + +‘Just what I supposed,’ said Tom. ‘Quite natural!’ and, in his great +satisfaction, he took a long sip out of his wine-glass. + +‘Although I had conducted myself from the first with the utmost +circumspection,’ pursued Martin, ‘I had not managed matters so well but +that my grandfather, who is full of jealousy and distrust, suspected me +of loving her. He said nothing to her, but straightway attacked me +in private, and charged me with designing to corrupt the fidelity to +himself (there you observe his selfishness), of a young creature whom +he had trained and educated to be his only disinterested and faithful +companion, when he should have disposed of me in marriage to his heart’s +content. Upon that, I took fire immediately, and told him that with his +good leave I would dispose of myself in marriage, and would rather +not be knocked down by him or any other auctioneer to any bidder +whomsoever.’ + +Mr Pinch opened his eyes wider, and looked at the fire harder than he +had done yet. + +‘You may be sure,’ said Martin, ‘that this nettled him, and that he +began to be the very reverse of complimentary to myself. Interview +succeeded interview; words engendered words, as they always do; and the +upshot of it was, that I was to renounce her, or be renounced by him. +Now you must bear in mind, Pinch, that I am not only desperately fond +of her (for though she is poor, her beauty and intellect would reflect +great credit on anybody, I don’t care of what pretensions who might +become her husband), but that a chief ingredient in my composition is a +most determined--’ + +‘Obstinacy,’ suggested Tom in perfect good faith. But the suggestion was +not so well received as he had expected; for the young man immediately +rejoined, with some irritation, + +‘What a fellow you are, Pinch!’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Tom, ‘I thought you wanted a word.’ + +‘I didn’t want that word,’ he rejoined. ‘I told you obstinacy was no +part of my character, did I not? I was going to say, if you had given +me leave, that a chief ingredient in my composition is a most determined +firmness.’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Tom, screwing up his mouth, and nodding. ‘Yes, yes; I see!’ + +‘And being firm,’ pursued Martin, ‘of course I was not going to yield to +him, or give way by so much as the thousandth part of an inch.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Tom. + +‘On the contrary, the more he urged, the more I was determined to oppose +him.’ + +‘To be sure!’ said Tom. + +‘Very well,’ rejoined Martin, throwing himself back in his chair, with +a careless wave of both hands, as if the subject were quite settled, and +nothing more could be said about it--‘There is an end of the matter, and +here am I!’ + +Mr Pinch sat staring at the fire for some minutes with a puzzled look, +such as he might have assumed if some uncommonly difficult conundrum had +been proposed, which he found it impossible to guess. At length he said: + +‘Pecksniff, of course, you had known before?’ + +‘Only by name. No, I had never seen him, for my grandfather kept not +only himself but me, aloof from all his relations. But our separation +took place in a town in the adjoining country. From that place I came to +Salisbury, and there I saw Pecksniff’s advertisement, which I answered, +having always had some natural taste, I believe, in the matters to which +it referred, and thinking it might suit me. As soon as I found it to be +his, I was doubly bent on coming to him if possible, on account of his +being--’ + +‘Such an excellent man,’ interposed Tom, rubbing his hands: ‘so he is. +You were quite right.’ + +‘Why, not so much on that account, if the truth must be spoken,’ +returned Martin, ‘as because my grandfather has an inveterate dislike to +him, and after the old man’s arbitrary treatment of me, I had a natural +desire to run as directly counter to all his opinions as I could. Well! +As I said before, here I am. My engagement with the young lady I have +been telling you about is likely to be a tolerably long one; for neither +her prospects nor mine are very bright; and of course I shall not think +of marrying until I am well able to do so. It would never do, you know, +for me to be plunging myself into poverty and shabbiness and love in one +room up three pair of stairs, and all that sort of thing.’ + +‘To say nothing of her,’ remarked Tom Pinch, in a low voice. + +‘Exactly so,’ rejoined Martin, rising to warm his back, and leaning +against the chimney-piece. ‘To say nothing of her. At the same time, +of course it’s not very hard upon her to be obliged to yield to the +necessity of the case; first, because she loves me very much; and +secondly, because I have sacrificed a great deal on her account, and +might have done much better, you know.’ + +It was a very long time before Tom said ‘Certainly;’ so long, that he +might have taken a nap in the interval, but he did say it at last. + +‘Now, there is one odd coincidence connected with this love-story,’ said +Martin, ‘which brings it to an end. You remember what you told me last +night as we were coming here, about your pretty visitor in the church?’ + +‘Surely I do,’ said Tom, rising from his stool, and seating himself in +the chair from which the other had lately risen, that he might see his +face. ‘Undoubtedly.’ + +‘That was she.’ + +‘I knew what you were going to say,’ cried Tom, looking fixedly at him, +and speaking very softly. ‘You don’t tell me so?’ + +‘That was she,’ repeated the young man. ‘After what I have heard +from Pecksniff, I have no doubt that she came and went with my +grandfather.--Don’t you drink too much of that sour wine, or you’ll have +a fit of some sort, Pinch, I see.’ + +‘It is not very wholesome, I am afraid,’ said Tom, setting down the +empty glass he had for some time held. ‘So that was she, was it?’ + +Martin nodded assent; and adding, with a restless impatience, that if +he had been a few days earlier he would have seen her; and that now she +might be, for anything he knew, hundreds of miles away; threw himself, +after a few turns across the room, into a chair, and chafed like a +spoilt child. + +Tom Pinch’s heart was very tender, and he could not bear to see the +most indifferent person in distress; still less one who had awakened +an interest in him, and who regarded him (either in fact, or as he +supposed) with kindness, and in a spirit of lenient construction. +Whatever his own thoughts had been a few moments before--and to judge +from his face they must have been pretty serious--he dismissed them +instantly, and gave his young friend the best counsel and comfort that +occurred to him. + +‘All will be well in time,’ said Tom, ‘I have no doubt; and some trial +and adversity just now will only serve to make you more attached to each +other in better days. I have always read that the truth is so, and I +have a feeling within me, which tells me how natural and right it is +that it should be. That never ran smooth yet,’ said Tom, with a smile +which, despite the homeliness of his face, was pleasanter to see than +many a proud beauty’s brightest glance; ‘what never ran smooth yet, can +hardly be expected to change its character for us; so we must take it as +we find it, and fashion it into the very best shape we can, by patience +and good-humour. I have no power at all; I needn’t tell you that; but I +have an excellent will; and if I could ever be of use to you, in any way +whatever, how very glad I should be!’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Martin, shaking his hand. ‘You’re a good fellow, upon +my word, and speak very kindly. Of course you know,’ he added, after a +moment’s pause, as he drew his chair towards the fire again, ‘I should +not hesitate to avail myself of your services if you could help me at +all; but mercy on us!’--Here he rumpled his hair impatiently with his +hand, and looked at Tom as if he took it rather ill that he was not +somebody else--‘you might as well be a toasting-fork or a frying-pan, +Pinch, for any help you can render me.’ + +‘Except in the inclination,’ said Tom, gently. + +‘Oh! to be sure. I meant that, of course. If inclination went for +anything, I shouldn’t want help. I tell you what you may do, though, if +you will, and at the present moment too.’ + +‘What is that?’ demanded Tom. + +‘Read to me.’ + +‘I shall be delighted,’ cried Tom, catching up the candle with +enthusiasm. ‘Excuse my leaving you in the dark a moment, and I’ll fetch +a book directly. What will you like? Shakespeare?’ + +‘Aye!’ replied his friend, yawning and stretching himself. ‘He’ll do. I +am tired with the bustle of to-day, and the novelty of everything about +me; and in such a case, there’s no greater luxury in the world, I think, +than being read to sleep. You won’t mind my going to sleep, if I can?’ + +‘Not at all!’ cried Tom. + +‘Then begin as soon as you like. You needn’t leave off when you see +me getting drowsy (unless you feel tired), for it’s pleasant to wake +gradually to the sounds again. Did you ever try that?’ + +‘No, I never tried that,’ said Tom + +‘Well! You can, you know, one of these days when we’re both in the right +humour. Don’t mind leaving me in the dark. Look sharp!’ + +Mr Pinch lost no time in moving away; and in a minute or two returned +with one of the precious volumes from the shelf beside his bed. Martin +had in the meantime made himself as comfortable as circumstances would +permit, by constructing before the fire a temporary sofa of three chairs +with Mercy’s stool for a pillow, and lying down at full-length upon it. + +‘Don’t be too loud, please,’ he said to Pinch. + +‘No, no,’ said Tom. + +‘You’re sure you’re not cold’ + +‘Not at all!’ cried Tom. + +‘I am quite ready, then.’ + +Mr Pinch accordingly, after turning over the leaves of his book with as +much care as if they were living and highly cherished creatures, made +his own selection, and began to read. Before he had completed fifty +lines his friend was snoring. + +‘Poor fellow!’ said Tom, softly, as he stretched out his head to peep +at him over the backs of the chairs. ‘He is very young to have so much +trouble. How trustful and generous in him to bestow all this confidence +in me. And that was she, was it?’ + +But suddenly remembering their compact, he took up the poem at the place +where he had left off, and went on reading; always forgetting to snuff +the candle, until its wick looked like a mushroom. He gradually became +so much interested, that he quite forgot to replenish the fire; and was +only reminded of his neglect by Martin Chuzzlewit starting up after the +lapse of an hour or so, and crying with a shiver. + +‘Why, it’s nearly out, I declare! No wonder I dreamed of being frozen. +Do call for some coals. What a fellow you are, Pinch!’ + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +IN WHICH MR CHEVY SLYME ASSERTS THE INDEPENDENCE OF HIS SPIRIT, AND THE +BLUE DRAGON LOSES A LIMB + + +Martin began to work at the grammar-school next morning, with so much +vigour and expedition, that Mr Pinch had new reason to do homage to +the natural endowments of that young gentleman, and to acknowledge +his infinite superiority to himself. The new pupil received Tom’s +compliments very graciously; and having by this time conceived a real +regard for him, in his own peculiar way, predicted that they would +always be the very best of friends, and that neither of them, he was +certain (but particularly Tom), would ever have reason to regret the day +on which they became acquainted. Mr Pinch was delighted to hear him say +this, and felt so much flattered by his kind assurances of friendship +and protection, that he was at a loss how to express the pleasure they +afforded him. And indeed it may be observed of this friendship, such as +it was, that it had within it more likely materials of endurance than +many a sworn brotherhood that has been rich in promise; for so long as +the one party found a pleasure in patronizing, and the other in +being patronised (which was in the very essence of their respective +characters), it was of all possible events among the least probable, +that the twin demons, Envy and Pride, would ever arise between them. So +in very many cases of friendship, or what passes for it, the old axiom +is reversed, and like clings to unlike more than to like. + +They were both very busy on the afternoon succeeding the family’s +departure--Martin with the grammar-school, and Tom in balancing certain +receipts of rents, and deducting Mr Pecksniff’s commission from the +same; in which abstruse employment he was much distracted by a habit his +new friend had of whistling aloud while he was drawing--when they were +not a little startled by the unexpected obtrusion into that sanctuary of +genius, of a human head which, although a shaggy and somewhat alarming +head in appearance, smiled affably upon them from the doorway, in +a manner that was at once waggish, conciliatory, and expressive of +approbation. + +‘I am not industrious myself, gents both,’ said the head, ‘but I know +how to appreciate that quality in others. I wish I may turn grey +and ugly, if it isn’t in my opinion, next to genius, one of the very +charmingest qualities of the human mind. Upon my soul, I am grateful +to my friend Pecksniff for helping me to the contemplation of such +a delicious picture as you present. You remind me of Whittington, +afterwards thrice Lord Mayor of London. I give you my unsullied word of +honour, that you very strongly remind me of that historical character. +You are a pair of Whittingtons, gents, without the cat; which is a most +agreeable and blessed exception to me, for I am not attached to the +feline species. My name is Tigg; how do you do?’ + +Martin looked to Mr Pinch for an explanation; and Tom, who had never in +his life set eyes on Mr Tigg before, looked to that gentleman himself. + +‘Chevy Slyme?’ said Mr Tigg, interrogatively, and kissing his left hand +in token of friendship. ‘You will understand me when I say that I am the +accredited agent of Chevy Slyme; that I am the ambassador from the court +of Chiv? Ha ha!’ + +‘Heyday!’ asked Martin, starting at the mention of a name he knew. +‘Pray, what does he want with me?’ + +‘If your name is Pinch’--Mr Tigg began. + +‘It is not’ said Martin, checking himself. ‘That is Mr Pinch.’ + +‘If that is Mr Pinch,’ cried Tigg, kissing his hand again, and beginning +to follow his head into the room, ‘he will permit me to say that I +greatly esteem and respect his character, which has been most highly +commended to me by my friend Pecksniff; and that I deeply appreciate his +talent for the organ, notwithstanding that I do not, if I may use the +expression, grind myself. If that is Mr Pinch, I will venture to express +a hope that I see him well, and that he is suffering no inconvenience +from the easterly wind?’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Tom. ‘I am very well.’ + +‘That is a comfort,’ Mr Tigg rejoined. ‘Then,’ he added, shielding his +lips with the palm of his hand, and applying them close to Mr Pinch’s +ear, ‘I have come for the letter.’ + +‘For the letter,’ said Tom, aloud. ‘What letter?’ + +‘The letter,’ whispered Tigg in the same cautious manner as before, +‘which my friend Pecksniff addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire, and left +with you.’ + +‘He didn’t leave any letter with me,’ said Tom. + +‘Hush!’ cried the other. ‘It’s all the same thing, though not so +delicately done by my friend Pecksniff as I could have wished. The +money.’ + +‘The money!’ cried Tom quite scared. + +‘Exactly so,’ said Mr Tigg. With which he rapped Tom twice or thrice +upon the breast and nodded several times, as though he would say that he +saw they understood each other; that it was unnecessary to mention +the circumstance before a third person; and that he would take it as a +particular favour if Tom would slip the amount into his hand, as quietly +as possible. + +Mr Pinch, however, was so very much astounded by this (to him) +inexplicable deportment, that he at once openly declared there must be +some mistake, and that he had been entrusted with no commission whatever +having any reference to Mr Tigg or to his friend, either. Mr Tigg +received this declaration with a grave request that Mr Pinch would have +the goodness to make it again; and on Tom’s repeating it in a still more +emphatic and unmistakable manner, checked it off, sentence for sentence, +by nodding his head solemnly at the end of each. When it had come to +a close for the second time, Mr Tigg sat himself down in a chair and +addressed the young men as follows: + +‘Then I tell you what it is, gents both. There is at this present moment +in this very place, a perfect constellation of talent and genius, who is +involved, through what I cannot but designate as the culpable negligence +of my friend Pecksniff, in a situation as tremendous, perhaps, as the +social intercourse of the nineteenth century will readily admit +of. There is actually at this instant, at the Blue Dragon in this +village--an ale-house, observe; a common, paltry, low-minded, +clodhopping, pipe-smoking ale-house--an individual, of whom it may be +said, in the language of the Poet, that nobody but himself can in any +way come up to him; who is detained there for his bill. Ha! ha! For his +bill. I repeat it--for his bill. Now,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘we have heard +of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, I believe, and we have heard of the Court of +Requests, and the Star Chamber; but I fear the contradiction of no man +alive or dead, when I assert that my friend Chevy Slyme being held +in pawn for a bill, beats any amount of cockfighting with which I am +acquainted.’ + +Martin and Mr Pinch looked, first at each other, and afterwards at Mr +Tigg, who with his arms folded on his breast surveyed them, half in +despondency and half in bitterness. + +‘Don’t mistake me, gents both,’ he said, stretching forth his right +hand. ‘If it had been for anything but a bill, I could have borne it, +and could still have looked upon mankind with some feeling of respect; +but when such a man as my friend Slyme is detained for a score--a thing +in itself essentially mean; a low performance on a slate, or possibly +chalked upon the back of a door--I do feel that there is a screw of +such magnitude loose somewhere, that the whole framework of society +is shaken, and the very first principles of things can no longer be +trusted. In short, gents both,’ said Mr Tigg with a passionate flourish +of his hands and head, ‘when a man like Slyme is detained for such +a thing as a bill, I reject the superstitions of ages, and believe +nothing. I don’t even believe that I DON’T believe, curse me if I do!’ + +‘I am very sorry, I am sure,’ said Tom after a pause, ‘but Mr +Pecksniff said nothing to me about it, and I couldn’t act without his +instructions. Wouldn’t it be better, sir, if you were to go to--to +wherever you came from--yourself, and remit the money to your friend?’ + +‘How can that be done, when I am detained also?’ said Mr Tigg; ‘and when +moreover, owing to the astounding, and I must add, guilty negligence of +my friend Pecksniff, I have no money for coach-hire?’ + +Tom thought of reminding the gentleman (who, no doubt, in his agitation +had forgotten it) that there was a post-office in the land; and that +possibly if he wrote to some friend or agent for a remittance it might +not be lost upon the road; or at all events that the chance, however +desperate, was worth trusting to. But, as his good-nature presently +suggested to him certain reasons for abstaining from this hint, he +paused again, and then asked: + +‘Did you say, sir, that you were detained also?’ + +‘Come here,’ said Mr Tigg, rising. ‘You have no objection to my opening +this window for a moment?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ said Tom. + +‘Very good,’ said Mr Tigg, lifting the sash. ‘You see a fellow down +there in a red neckcloth and no waistcoat?’ + +‘Of course I do,’ cried Tom. ‘That’s Mark Tapley.’ + +‘Mark Tapley is it?’ said the gentleman. ‘Then Mark Tapley had not only +the great politeness to follow me to this house, but is waiting now, to +see me home again. And for that attention, sir,’ added Mr Tigg, stroking +his moustache, ‘I can tell you, that Mark Tapley had better in his +infancy have been fed to suffocation by Mrs Tapley, than preserved to +this time.’ + +Mr Pinch was not so dismayed by this terrible threat, but that he had +voice enough to call to Mark to come in, and upstairs; a summons which +he so speedily obeyed, that almost as soon as Tom and Mr Tigg had drawn +in their heads and closed the window again, he, the denounced, appeared +before them. + +‘Come here, Mark!’ said Mr Pinch. ‘Good gracious me! what’s the matter +between Mrs Lupin and this gentleman?’ + +‘What gentleman, sir?’ said Mark. ‘I don’t see no gentleman here sir, +excepting you and the new gentleman,’ to whom he made a rough kind of +bow--‘and there’s nothing wrong between Mrs Lupin and either of you, Mr +Pinch, I am sure.’ + +‘Nonsense, Mark!’ cried Tom. ‘You see Mr--’ + +‘Tigg,’ interposed that gentleman. ‘Wait a bit. I shall crush him soon. +All in good time!’ + +‘Oh HIM!’ rejoined Mark, with an air of careless defiance. ‘Yes, I see +HIM. I could see him a little better, if he’d shave himself, and get his +hair cut.’ + +Mr Tigg shook his head with a ferocious look, and smote himself once +upon the breast. + +‘It’s no use,’ said Mark. ‘If you knock ever so much in that quarter, +you’ll get no answer. I know better. There’s nothing there but padding; +and a greasy sort it is.’ + +‘Nay, Mark,’ urged Mr Pinch, interposing to prevent hostilities, ‘tell +me what I ask you. You’re not out of temper, I hope?’ + +‘Out of temper, sir!’ cried Mark, with a grin; ‘why no, sir. There’s +a little credit--not much--in being jolly, when such fellows as him is +a-going about like roaring lions; if there is any breed of lions, at +least, as is all roar and mane. What is there between him and Mrs Lupin, +sir? Why, there’s a score between him and Mrs Lupin. And I think Mrs +Lupin lets him and his friend off very easy in not charging ‘em double +prices for being a disgrace to the Dragon. That’s my opinion. I wouldn’t +have any such Peter the Wild Boy as him in my house, sir, not if I was +paid race-week prices for it. He’s enough to turn the very beer in +the casks sour with his looks; he is! So he would, if it had judgment +enough.’ + +‘You’re not answering my question, you know, Mark,’ observed Mr Pinch. + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t know as there’s much to answer further +than that. Him and his friend goes and stops at the Moon and Stars till +they’ve run a bill there; and then comes and stops with us and does the +same. The running of bills is common enough Mr Pinch; it an’t that as +we object to; it’s the ways of this chap. Nothing’s good enough for him; +all the women is dying for him he thinks, and is overpaid if he winks at +‘em; and all the men was made to be ordered about by him. This not being +aggravation enough, he says this morning to me, in his usual captivating +way, “We’re going to-night, my man.” “Are you, sir?” says I. “Perhaps +you’d like the bill got ready, sir?” “Oh no, my man,” he says; “you +needn’t mind that. I’ll give Pecksniff orders to see to that.” In reply +to which, the Dragon makes answer, “Thankee, sir, you’re very kind to +honour us so far, but as we don’t know any particular good of you, and +you don’t travel with luggage, and Mr Pecksniff an’t at home (which +perhaps you mayn’t happen to be aware of, sir), we should prefer +something more satisfactory;” and that’s where the matter stands. And I +ask,’ said Mr Tapley, pointing, in conclusion, to Mr Tigg, with his hat, +‘any lady or gentleman, possessing ordinary strength of mind, to say +whether he’s a disagreeable-looking chap or not!’ + +‘Let me inquire,’ said Martin, interposing between this candid speech +and the delivery of some blighting anathema by Mr Tigg, ‘what the amount +of this debt may be?’ + +‘In point of money, sir, very little,’ answered Mark. ‘Only just turned +of three pounds. But it an’t that; it’s the--’ + +‘Yes, yes, you told us so before,’ said Martin. ‘Pinch, a word with +you.’ + +‘What is it?’ asked Tom, retiring with him to a corner of the room. + +‘Why, simply--I am ashamed to say--that this Mr Slyme is a relation of +mine, of whom I never heard anything pleasant; and that I don’t want him +here just now, and think he would be cheaply got rid of, perhaps, for +three or four pounds. You haven’t enough money to pay this bill, I +suppose?’ + +Tom shook his head to an extent that left no doubt of his entire +sincerity. + +‘That’s unfortunate, for I am poor too; and in case you had had it, I’d +have borrowed it of you. But if we told this landlady we would see her +paid, I suppose that would answer the same purpose?’ + +‘Oh dear, yes!’ said Tom. ‘She knows me, bless you!’ + +‘Then let us go down at once and tell her so; for the sooner we are rid +of their company the better. As you have conducted the conversation with +this gentleman hitherto, perhaps you’ll tell him what we purpose doing; +will you?’ + +Mr Pinch, complying, at once imparted the intelligence to Mr Tigg, who +shook him warmly by the hand in return, assuring him that his faith in +anything and everything was again restored. It was not so much, he said, +for the temporary relief of this assistance that he prized it, as for +its vindication of the high principle that Nature’s Nobs felt with +Nature’s Nobs, and that true greatness of soul sympathized with true +greatness of soul, all the world over. It proved to him, he said, that +like him they admired genius, even when it was coupled with the alloy +occasionally visible in the metal of his friend Slyme; and on behalf +of that friend, he thanked them; as warmly and heartily as if the +cause were his own. Being cut short in these speeches by a general move +towards the stairs, he took possession at the street door of the lapel +of Mr Pinch’s coat, as a security against further interruption; and +entertained that gentleman with some highly improving discourse until +they reached the Dragon, whither they were closely followed by Mark and +the new pupil. + +The rosy hostess scarcely needed Mr Pinch’s word as a preliminary to +the release of her two visitors, of whom she was glad to be rid on +any terms; indeed, their brief detention had originated mainly with +Mr Tapley, who entertained a constitutional dislike to gentleman +out-at-elbows who flourished on false pretences; and had conceived a +particular aversion to Mr Tigg and his friend, as choice specimens of +the species. The business in hand thus easily settled, Mr Pinch and +Martin would have withdrawn immediately, but for the urgent entreaties +of Mr Tigg that they would allow him the honour of presenting them +to his friend Slyme, which were so very difficult of resistance that, +yielding partly to these persuasions and partly to their own curiosity, +they suffered themselves to be ushered into the presence of that +distinguished gentleman. + +He was brooding over the remains of yesterday’s decanter of brandy, and +was engaged in the thoughtful occupation of making a chain of rings on +the top of the table with the wet foot of his drinking-glass. Wretched +and forlorn as he looked, Mr Slyme had once been in his way, the +choicest of swaggerers; putting forth his pretensions boldly, as a +man of infinite taste and most undoubted promise. The stock-in-trade +requisite to set up an amateur in this department of business is very +slight, and easily got together; a trick of the nose and a curl of the +lip sufficient to compound a tolerable sneer, being ample provision for +any exigency. But, in an evil hour, this off-shoot of the Chuzzlewit +trunk, being lazy, and ill qualified for any regular pursuit and having +dissipated such means as he ever possessed, had formally established +himself as a professor of Taste for a livelihood; and finding, too late, +that something more than his old amount of qualifications was necessary +to sustain him in this calling, had quickly fallen to his present level, +where he retained nothing of his old self but his boastfulness and his +bile, and seemed to have no existence separate or apart from his friend +Tigg. And now so abject and so pitiful was he--at once so maudlin, +insolent, beggarly, and proud--that even his friend and parasite, +standing erect beside him, swelled into a Man by contrast. + +‘Chiv,’ said Mr Tigg, clapping him on the back, ‘my friend Pecksniff not +being at home, I have arranged our trifling piece of business with Mr +Pinch and friend. Mr Pinch and friend, Mr Chevy Slyme! Chiv, Mr Pinch +and friend!’ + +‘These are agreeable circumstances in which to be introduced to +strangers,’ said Chevy Slyme, turning his bloodshot eyes towards Tom +Pinch. ‘I am the most miserable man in the world, I believe!’ + +Tom begged he wouldn’t mention it; and finding him in this condition, +retired, after an awkward pause, followed by Martin. But Mr Tigg so +urgently conjured them, by coughs and signs, to remain in the shadow of +the door, that they stopped there. + +‘I swear,’ cried Mr Slyme, giving the table an imbecile blow with his +fist, and then feebly leaning his head upon his hand, while some drunken +drops oozed from his eyes, ‘that I am the wretchedest creature on +record. Society is in a conspiracy against me. I’m the most literary +man alive. I’m full of scholarship. I’m full of genius; I’m full of +information; I’m full of novel views on every subject; yet look at my +condition! I’m at this moment obliged to two strangers for a tavern +bill!’ + +Mr Tigg replenished his friend’s glass, pressed it into his hand, and +nodded an intimation to the visitors that they would see him in a better +aspect immediately. + +‘Obliged to two strangers for a tavern bill, eh!’ repeated Mr Slyme, +after a sulky application to his glass. ‘Very pretty! And crowds of +impostors, the while, becoming famous; men who are no more on a level +with me than--Tigg, I take you to witness that I am the most persecuted +hound on the face of the earth.’ + +With a whine, not unlike the cry of the animal he named, in its lowest +state of humiliation, he raised his glass to his mouth again. He found +some encouragement in it; for when he set it down he laughed scornfully. +Upon that Mr Tigg gesticulated to the visitors once more, and with great +expression, implying that now the time was come when they would see Chiv +in his greatness. + +‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Mr Slyme. ‘Obliged to two strangers for a tavern +bill! Yet I think I’ve a rich uncle, Tigg, who could buy up the uncles +of fifty strangers! Have I, or have I not? I come of a good family, +I believe! Do I, or do I not? I’m not a man of common capacity or +accomplishments, I think! Am I, or am I not?’ + +‘You are the American aloe of the human race, my dear Chiv,’ said Mr +Tigg, ‘which only blooms once in a hundred years!’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Mr Slyme again. ‘Obliged to two strangers for +a tavern bill! I obliged to two architect’s apprentices. Fellows who +measure earth with iron chains, and build houses like bricklayers. Give +me the names of those two apprentices. How dare they oblige me!’ + +Mr Tigg was quite lost in admiration of this noble trait in his friend’s +character; as he made known to Mr Pinch in a neat little ballet of +action, spontaneously invented for the purpose. + +‘I’ll let ‘em know, and I’ll let all men know,’ cried Chevy Slyme, +‘that I’m none of the mean, grovelling, tame characters they meet with +commonly. I have an independent spirit. I have a heart that swells in my +bosom. I have a soul that rises superior to base considerations.’ + +‘Oh Chiv, Chiv,’ murmured Mr Tigg, ‘you have a nobly independent nature, +Chiv!’ + +‘You go and do your duty, sir,’ said Mr Slyme, angrily, ‘and borrow +money for travelling expenses; and whoever you borrow it of, let ‘em +know that I possess a haughty spirit, and a proud spirit, and have +infernally finely-touched chords in my nature, which won’t brook +patronage. Do you hear? Tell ‘em I hate ‘em, and that that’s the way +I preserve my self-respect; and tell ‘em that no man ever respected +himself more than I do!’ + +He might have added that he hated two sorts of men; all those who did +him favours, and all those who were better off than himself; as in +either case their position was an insult to a man of his stupendous +merits. But he did not; for with the apt closing words above recited, Mr +Slyme; of too haughty a stomach to work, to beg, to borrow, or to steal; +yet mean enough to be worked or borrowed, begged or stolen for, by any +catspaw that would serve his turn; too insolent to lick the hand that +fed him in his need, yet cur enough to bite and tear it in the dark; +with these apt closing words Mr Slyme fell forward with his head upon +the table, and so declined into a sodden sleep. + +‘Was there ever,’ cried Mr Tigg, joining the young men at the door, +and shutting it carefully behind him, ‘such an independent spirit as is +possessed by that extraordinary creature? Was there ever such a Roman as +our friend Chiv? Was there ever a man of such a purely classical turn of +thought, and of such a toga-like simplicity of nature? Was there ever a +man with such a flow of eloquence? Might he not, gents both, I ask, have +sat upon a tripod in the ancient times, and prophesied to a perfectly +unlimited extent, if previously supplied with gin-and-water at the +public cost?’ + +Mr Pinch was about to contest this latter position with his usual +mildness, when, observing that his companion had already gone +downstairs, he prepared to follow him. + +‘You are not going, Mr Pinch?’ said Tigg. + +‘Thank you,’ answered Tom. ‘Yes. Don’t come down.’ + +‘Do you know that I should like one little word in private with you Mr +Pinch?’ said Tigg, following him. ‘One minute of your company in the +skittle-ground would very much relieve my mind. Might I beseech that +favour?’ + +‘Oh, certainly,’ replied Tom, ‘if you really wish it.’ So he accompanied +Mr Tigg to the retreat in question; on arriving at which place that +gentleman took from his hat what seemed to be the fossil remains of an +antediluvian pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes therewith. + +‘You have not beheld me this day,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘in a favourable +light.’ + +‘Don’t mention that,’ said Tom, ‘I beg.’ + +‘But you have NOT,’ cried Tigg. ‘I must persist in that opinion. If you +could have seen me, Mr Pinch, at the head of my regiment on the coast +of Africa, charging in the form of a hollow square, with the women and +children and the regimental plate-chest in the centre, you would not +have known me for the same man. You would have respected me, sir.’ + +Tom had certain ideas of his own upon the subject of glory; and +consequently he was not quite so much excited by this picture as Mr Tigg +could have desired. + +‘But no matter!’ said that gentleman. ‘The school-boy writing home to +his parents and describing the milk-and-water, said “This is indeed +weakness.” I repeat that assertion in reference to myself at the present +moment; and I ask your pardon. Sir, you have seen my friend Slyme?’ + +‘No doubt,’ said Mr Pinch. + +‘Sir, you have been impressed by my friend Slyme?’ + +‘Not very pleasantly, I must say,’ answered Tom, after a little +hesitation. + +‘I am grieved but not surprised,’ cried Mr Tigg, detaining him with both +hands, ‘to hear that you have come to that conclusion; for it is my own. +But, Mr Pinch, though I am a rough and thoughtless man, I can honour +Mind. I honour Mind in following my friend. To you of all men, Mr Pinch, +I have a right to make appeal on Mind’s behalf, when it has not the art +to push its fortune in the world. And so, sir--not for myself, who have +no claim upon you, but for my crushed, my sensitive and independent +friend, who has--I ask the loan of three half-crowns. I ask you for the +loan of three half-crowns, distinctly, and without a blush. I ask it, +almost as a right. And when I add that they will be returned by post, +this week, I feel that you will blame me for that sordid stipulation.’ + +Mr Pinch took from his pocket an old-fashioned red-leather purse with +a steel clasp, which had probably once belonged to his deceased +grandmother. It held one half-sovereign and no more. All Tom’s worldly +wealth until next quarter-day. + +‘Stay!’ cried Mr Tigg, who had watched this proceeding keenly. ‘I was +just about to say, that for the convenience of posting you had better +make it gold. Thank you. A general direction, I suppose, to Mr Pinch at +Mr Pecksniff’s--will that find you?’ + +‘That’ll find me,’ said Tom. ‘You had better put Esquire to Mr +Pecksniff’s name, if you please. Direct to me, you know, at Seth +Pecksniff’s, Esquire.’ + +‘At Seth Pecksniff’s, Esquire,’ repeated Mr Tigg, taking an exact note +of it with a stump of pencil. ‘We said this week, I believe?’ + +‘Yes; or Monday will do,’ observed Tom. + +‘No, no, I beg your pardon. Monday will NOT do,’ said Mr Tigg. ‘If we +stipulated for this week, Saturday is the latest day. Did we stipulate +for this week?’ + +‘Since you are so particular about it,’ said Tom, ‘I think we did.’ + +Mr Tigg added this condition to his memorandum; read the entry over to +himself with a severe frown; and that the transaction might be the more +correct and business-like, appended his initials to the whole. That +done, he assured Mr Pinch that everything was now perfectly regular; +and, after squeezing his hand with great fervour, departed. + +Tom entertained enough suspicion that Martin might possibly turn this +interview into a jest, to render him desirous to avoid the company of +that young gentleman for the present. With this view he took a few turns +up and down the skittle-ground, and did not re-enter the house until +Mr Tigg and his friend had quitted it, and the new pupil and Mark were +watching their departure from one of the windows. + +‘I was just a-saying, sir, that if one could live by it,’ observed Mark, +pointing after their late guests, ‘that would be the sort of service +for me. Waiting on such individuals as them would be better than +grave-digging, sir.’ + +‘And staying here would be better than either, Mark,’ replied Tom. ‘So +take my advice, and continue to swim easily in smooth water.’ + +‘It’s too late to take it now, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I have broke it to her, +sir. I am off to-morrow morning.’ + +‘Off!’ cried Mr Pinch, ‘where to?’ + +‘I shall go up to London, sir.’ + +‘What to be?’ asked Mr Pinch. + +‘Well! I don’t know yet, sir. Nothing turned up that day I opened my +mind to you, as was at all likely to suit me. All them trades I thought +of was a deal too jolly; there was no credit at all to be got in any +of ‘em. I must look for a private service, I suppose, sir. I might be +brought out strong, perhaps, in a serious family, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘Perhaps you might come out rather too strong for a serious family’s +taste, Mark.’ + +‘That’s possible, sir. If I could get into a wicked family, I might +do myself justice; but the difficulty is to make sure of one’s ground, +because a young man can’t very well advertise that he wants a place, and +wages an’t so much an object as a wicked sitivation; can he, sir?’ + +‘Why, no,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘I don’t think he can.’ + +‘An envious family,’ pursued Mark, with a thoughtful face; ‘or a +quarrelsome family, or a malicious family, or even a good out-and-out +mean family, would open a field of action as I might do something in. +The man as would have suited me of all other men was that old gentleman +as was took ill here, for he really was a trying customer. Howsever, I +must wait and see what turns up, sir; and hope for the worst.’ + +‘You are determined to go then?’ said Mr Pinch. + +‘My box is gone already, sir, by the waggon, and I’m going to walk on +to-morrow morning, and get a lift by the day coach when it overtakes me. +So I wish you good-bye, Mr Pinch--and you too, sir--and all good luck +and happiness!’ + +They both returned his greeting laughingly, and walked home arm-in-arm. +Mr Pinch imparting to his new friend, as they went, such further +particulars of Mark Tapley’s whimsical restlessness as the reader is +already acquainted with. + +In the meantime Mark, having a shrewd notion that his mistress was +in very low spirits, and that he could not exactly answer for the +consequences of any lengthened TETE-A-TETE in the bar, kept himself +obstinately out of her way all the afternoon and evening. In this piece +of generalship he was very much assisted by the great influx of company +into the taproom; for the news of his intention having gone abroad, +there was a perfect throng there all the evening, and much drinking of +healths and clinking of mugs. At length the house was closed for the +night; and there being now no help for it, Mark put the best face he +could upon the matter, and walked doggedly to the bar-door. + +‘If I look at her,’ said Mark to himself, ‘I’m done. I feel that I’m +a-going fast.’ + +‘You have come at last,’ said Mrs Lupin. + +Aye, Mark said: There he was. + +‘And you are determined to leave us, Mark?’ cried Mrs Lupin. + +‘Why, yes; I am,’ said Mark; keeping his eyes hard upon the floor. + +‘I thought,’ pursued the landlady, with a most engaging hesitation, +‘that you had been--fond--of the Dragon?’ + +‘So I am,’ said Mark. + +‘Then,’ pursued the hostess--and it really was not an unnatural +inquiry--‘why do you desert it?’ + +But as he gave no manner of answer to this question; not even on +its being repeated; Mrs Lupin put his money into his hand, and asked +him--not unkindly, quite the contrary--what he would take? + +It is proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood +cannot bear. Such a question as this, propounded in such a manner, at +such a time, and by such a person, proved (at least, as far as, Mark’s +flesh and blood were concerned) to be one of them. He looked up in spite +of himself directly; and having once looked up, there was no +looking down again; for of all the tight, plump, buxom, bright-eyed, +dimple-faced landladies that ever shone on earth, there stood before him +then, bodily in that bar, the very pink and pineapple. + +‘Why, I tell you what,’ said Mark, throwing off all his constraint in an +instant and seizing the hostess round the waist--at which she was not at +all alarmed, for she knew what a good young man he was--‘if I took what +I liked most, I should take you. If I only thought what was best for me, +I should take you. If I took what nineteen young fellows in twenty would +be glad to take, and would take at any price, I should take you. Yes, +I should,’ cried Mr Tapley, shaking his head expressively enough, and +looking (in a momentary state of forgetfulness) rather hard at the +hostess’s ripe lips. ‘And no man wouldn’t wonder if I did!’ + +Mrs Lupin said he amazed her. She was astonished how he could say such +things. She had never thought it of him. + +‘Why, I never thought if of myself till now!’ said Mark, raising his +eyebrows with a look of the merriest possible surprise. ‘I always +expected we should part, and never have no explanation; I meant to do it +when I come in here just now; but there’s something about you, as makes +a man sensible. Then let us have a word or two together; letting it be +understood beforehand,’ he added this in a grave tone, to prevent the +possibility of any mistake, ‘that I’m not a-going to make no love, you +know.’ + +There was for just one second a shade, though not by any means a dark +one, on the landlady’s open brow. But it passed off instantly, in a +laugh that came from her very heart. + +‘Oh, very good!’ she said; ‘if there is to be no love-making, you had +better take your arm away.’ + +‘Lord, why should I!’ cried Mark. ‘It’s quite innocent.’ + +‘Of course it’s innocent,’ returned the hostess, ‘or I shouldn’t allow +it.’ + +‘Very well!’ said Mark. ‘Then let it be.’ + +There was so much reason in this that the landlady laughed again, +suffered it to remain, and bade him say what he had to say, and be quick +about it. But he was an impudent fellow, she added. + +‘Ha ha! I almost think I am!’ cried Mark, ‘though I never thought so +before. Why, I can say anything to-night!’ + +‘Say what you’re going to say if you please, and be quick,’ returned the +landlady, ‘for I want to get to bed.’ + +‘Why, then, my dear good soul,’ said Mark, ‘and a kinder woman than you +are never drawed breath--let me see the man as says she did!--what would +be the likely consequence of us two being--’ + +‘Oh nonsense!’ cried Mrs Lupin. ‘Don’t talk about that any more.’ + +‘No, no, but it an’t nonsense,’ said Mark; ‘and I wish you’d attend. +What would be the likely consequence of us two being married? If I can’t +be content and comfortable in this here lively Dragon now, is it to be +looked for as I should be then? By no means. Very good. Then you, even +with your good humour, would be always on the fret and worrit, always +uncomfortable in your own mind, always a-thinking as you was getting too +old for my taste, always a-picturing me to yourself as being chained +up to the Dragon door, and wanting to break away. I don’t know that it +would be so,’ said Mark, ‘but I don’t know that it mightn’t be. I am a +roving sort of chap, I know. I’m fond of change. I’m always a-thinking +that with my good health and spirits it would be more creditable in me +to be jolly where there’s things a-going on to make one dismal. It may +be a mistake of mine you see, but nothing short of trying how it acts +will set it right. Then an’t it best that I should go; particular when +your free way has helped me out to say all this, and we can part as +good friends as we have ever been since first I entered this here noble +Dragon, which,’ said Mr Tapley in conclusion, ‘has my good word and my +good wish to the day of my death!’ + +The hostess sat quite silent for a little time, but she very soon put +both her hands in Mark’s and shook them heartily. + +‘For you are a good man,’ she said; looking into his face with a smile, +which was rather serious for her. ‘And I do believe have been a better +friend to me to-night than ever I have had in all my life.’ + +‘Oh! as to that, you know,’ said Mark, ‘that’s nonsense. But love my +heart alive!’ he added, looking at her in a sort of rapture, ‘if you ARE +that way disposed, what a lot of suitable husbands there is as you may +drive distracted!’ + +She laughed again at this compliment; and, once more shaking him by both +hands, and bidding him, if he should ever want a friend, to remember +her, turned gayly from the little bar and up the Dragon staircase. + +‘Humming a tune as she goes,’ said Mark, listening, ‘in case I should +think she’s at all put out, and should be made down-hearted. Come, +here’s some credit in being jolly, at last!’ + +With that piece of comfort, very ruefully uttered, he went, in anything +but a jolly manner, to bed. + +He rose early next morning, and was a-foot soon after sunrise. But it +was of no use; the whole place was up to see Mark Tapley off; the boys, +the dogs, the children, the old men, the busy people and the idlers; +there they were, all calling out ‘Good-b’ye, Mark,’ after their own +manner, and all sorry he was going. Somehow he had a kind of sense that +his old mistress was peeping from her chamber-window, but he couldn’t +make up his mind to look back. + +‘Good-b’ye one, good-b’ye all!’ cried Mark, waving his hat on the top +of his walking-stick, as he strode at a quick pace up the little street. +‘Hearty chaps them wheelwrights--hurrah! Here’s the butcher’s dog +a-coming out of the garden--down, old fellow! And Mr Pinch a-going to +his organ--good-b’ye, sir! And the terrier-bitch from over the way--hie, +then, lass! And children enough to hand down human natur to the latest +posterity--good-b’ye, boys and girls! There’s some credit in it now. I’m +a-coming out strong at last. These are the circumstances that would try +a ordinary mind; but I’m uncommon jolly. Not quite as jolly as I could +wish to be, but very near. Good-b’ye! good-b’ye!’ + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +ACCOMPANIES MR PECKSNIFF AND HIS CHARMING DAUGHTERS TO THE CITY OF +LONDON; AND RELATES WHAT FELL OUT UPON THEIR WAY THITHER + + +When Mr Pecksniff and the two young ladies got into the heavy coach at +the end of the lane, they found it empty, which was a great comfort; +particularly as the outside was quite full and the passengers looked +very frosty. For as Mr Pecksniff justly observed--when he and his +daughters had burrowed their feet deep in the straw, wrapped themselves +to the chin, and pulled up both windows--it is always satisfactory to +feel, in keen weather, that many other people are not as warm as +you are. And this, he said, was quite natural, and a very beautiful +arrangement; not confined to coaches, but extending itself into many +social ramifications. ‘For’ (he observed), ‘if every one were warm and +well-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with +which certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger. And if we were +no better off than anybody else, what would become of our sense of +gratitude; which,’ said Mr Pecksniff with tears in his eyes, as he shook +his fist at a beggar who wanted to get up behind, ‘is one of the holiest +feelings of our common nature.’ + +His children heard with becoming reverence these moral precepts from the +lips of their father, and signified their acquiescence in the same, by +smiles. That he might the better feed and cherish that sacred flame of +gratitude in his breast, Mr Pecksniff remarked that he would trouble +his eldest daughter, even in this early stage of their journey, for the +brandy-bottle. And from the narrow neck of that stone vessel he imbibed +a copious refreshment. + +‘What are we?’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘but coaches? Some of us are slow +coaches’-- + +‘Goodness, Pa!’ cried Charity. + +‘Some of us, I say,’ resumed her parent with increased emphasis, ‘are +slow coaches; some of us are fast coaches. Our passions are the horses; +and rampant animals too--!’ + +‘Really, Pa,’ cried both the daughters at once. ‘How very unpleasant.’ + +‘And rampant animals too’ repeated Mr Pecksniff with so much +determination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment a +sort of moral rampancy himself;’--and Virtue is the drag. We start from +The Mother’s Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel.’ + +When he had said this, Mr Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some further +refreshment. When he had done that, he corked the bottle tight, with the +air of a man who had effectually corked the subject also; and went to +sleep for three stages. + +The tendency of mankind when it falls asleep in coaches, is to wake up +cross; to find its legs in its way; and its corns an aggravation. +Mr Pecksniff not being exempt from the common lot of humanity found +himself, at the end of his nap, so decidedly the victim of these +infirmities, that he had an irresistible inclination to visit them upon +his daughters; which he had already begun to do in the shape of divers +random kicks, and other unexpected motions of his shoes, when the coach +stopped, and after a short delay the door was opened. + +‘Now mind,’ said a thin sharp voice in the dark. ‘I and my son go +inside, because the roof is full, but you agree only to charge us +outside prices. It’s quite understood that we won’t pay more. Is it?’ + +‘All right, sir,’ replied the guard. + +‘Is there anybody inside now?’ inquired the voice. + +‘Three passengers,’ returned the guard. + +‘Then I ask the three passengers to witness this bargain, if they will +be so good,’ said the voice. ‘My boy, I think we may safely get in.’ + +In pursuance of which opinion, two people took their seats in the +vehicle, which was solemnly licensed by Act of Parliament to carry any +six persons who could be got in at the door. + +‘That was lucky!’ whispered the old man, when they moved on again. ‘And +a great stroke of policy in you to observe it. He, he, he! We couldn’t +have gone outside. I should have died of the rheumatism!’ + +Whether it occurred to the dutiful son that he had in some degree +over-reached himself by contributing to the prolongation of his father’s +days; or whether the cold had effected his temper; is doubtful. But he +gave his father such a nudge in reply, that that good old gentleman +was taken with a cough which lasted for full five minutes without +intermission, and goaded Mr Pecksniff to that pitch of irritation, that +he said at last--and very suddenly: + +‘There is no room! There is really no room in this coach for any +gentleman with a cold in his head!’ + +‘Mine,’ said the old man, after a moment’s pause, ‘is upon my chest, +Pecksniff.’ + +The voice and manner, together, now that he spoke out; the composure of +the speaker; the presence of his son; and his knowledge of Mr Pecksniff; +afforded a clue to his identity which it was impossible to mistake. + +‘Hem! I thought,’ said Mr Pecksniff, returning to his usual mildness, +‘that I addressed a stranger. I find that I address a relative, Mr +Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son Mr Jonas--for they, my dear children, +are our travelling companions--will excuse me for an apparently harsh +remark. It is not MY desire to wound the feelings of any person with +whom I am connected in family bonds. I may be a Hypocrite,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, cuttingly; ‘but I am not a Brute.’ + +‘Pooh, pooh!’ said the old man. ‘What signifies that word, Pecksniff? +Hypocrite! why, we are all hypocrites. We were all hypocrites t’other +day. I am sure I felt that to be agreed upon among us, or I shouldn’t +have called you one. We should not have been there at all, if we had not +been hypocrites. The only difference between you and the rest was--shall +I tell you the difference between you and the rest now, Pecksniff?’ + +‘If you please, my good sir; if you please.’ + +‘Why, the annoying quality in YOU, is,’ said the old man, ‘that you +never have a confederate or partner in YOUR juggling; you would deceive +everybody, even those who practise the same art; and have a way with +you, as if you--he, he, he!--as if you really believed yourself. I’d +lay a handsome wager now,’ said the old man, ‘if I laid wagers, which +I don’t and never did, that you keep up appearances by a tacit +understanding, even before your own daughters here. Now I, when I have +a business scheme in hand, tell Jonas what it is, and we discuss it +openly. You’re not offended, Pecksniff?’ + +‘Offended, my good sir!’ cried that gentleman, as if he had received the +highest compliments that language could convey. + +‘Are you travelling to London, Mr Pecksniff?’ asked the son. + +‘Yes, Mr Jonas, we are travelling to London. We shall have the pleasure +of your company all the way, I trust?’ + +‘Oh! ecod, you had better ask father that,’ said Jonas. ‘I am not +a-going to commit myself.’ + +Mr Pecksniff was, as a matter of course, greatly entertained by this +retort. His mirth having subsided, Mr Jonas gave him to understand +that himself and parent were in fact travelling to their home in the +metropolis; and that, since the memorable day of the great family +gathering, they had been tarrying in that part of the country, watching +the sale of certain eligible investments, which they had had in their +copartnership eye when they came down; for it was their custom, Mr Jonas +said, whenever such a thing was practicable, to kill two birds with one +stone, and never to throw away sprats, but as bait for whales. When he +had communicated to Mr Pecksniff these pithy scraps of intelligence, +he said, ‘That if it was all the same to him, he would turn him over +to father, and have a chat with the gals;’ and in furtherance of +this polite scheme, he vacated his seat adjoining that gentleman, and +established himself in the opposite corner, next to the fair Miss Mercy. + +The education of Mr Jonas had been conducted from his cradle on the +strictest principles of the main chance. The very first word he learnt +to spell was ‘gain,’ and the second (when he got into two syllables), +‘money.’ But for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps by +his watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to have +been unexceptionable. One of these flaws was, that having been long +taught by his father to over-reach everybody, he had imperceptibly +acquired a love of over-reaching that venerable monitor himself. +The other, that from his early habits of considering everything as a +question of property, he had gradually come to look, with impatience, +on his parent as a certain amount of personal estate, which had no +right whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in that +particular description of iron safe which is commonly called a coffin, +and banked in the grave. + +‘Well, cousin!’ said Mr Jonas--‘Because we ARE cousins, you know, a few +times removed--so you’re going to London?’ + +Miss Mercy replied in the affirmative, pinching her sister’s arm at the +same time, and giggling excessively. + +‘Lots of beaux in London, cousin!’ said Mr Jonas, slightly advancing his +elbow. + +‘Indeed, sir!’ cried the young lady. ‘They won’t hurt us, sir, I dare +say.’ And having given him this answer with great demureness she was so +overcome by her own humour, that she was fain to stifle her merriment in +her sister’s shawl. + +‘Merry,’ cried that more prudent damsel, ‘really I am ashamed of you. +How can you go on so? You wild thing!’ At which Miss Merry only laughed +the more, of course. + +‘I saw a wildness in her eye, t’other day,’ said Mr Jonas, addressing +Charity. ‘But you’re the one to sit solemn! I say--You were regularly +prim, cousin!’ + +‘Oh! The old-fashioned fright!’ cried Merry, in a whisper. ‘Cherry my +dear, upon my word you must sit next him. I shall die outright if he +talks to me any more; I shall, positively!’ To prevent which fatal +consequence, the buoyant creature skipped out of her seat as she spoke, +and squeezed her sister into the place from which she had risen. + +‘Don’t mind crowding me,’ cried Mr Jonas. ‘I like to be crowded by gals. +Come a little closer, cousin.’ + +‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Charity. + +‘There’s that other one a-laughing again,’ said Mr Jonas; ‘she’s +a-laughing at my father, I shouldn’t wonder. If he puts on that old +flannel nightcap of his, I don’t know what she’ll do! Is that my father +a-snoring, Pecksniff?’ + +‘Yes, Mr Jonas.’ + +‘Tread upon his foot, will you be so good?’ said the young gentleman. +‘The foot next you’s the gouty one.’ + +Mr Pecksniff hesitating to perform this friendly office, Mr Jonas did it +himself; at the same time crying: + +‘Come, wake up, father, or you’ll be having the nightmare, and +screeching out, I know.--Do you ever have the nightmare, cousin?’ he +asked his neighbour, with characteristic gallantry, as he dropped his +voice again. + +‘Sometimes,’ answered Charity. ‘Not often.’ + +‘The other one,’ said Mr Jonas, after a pause. ‘Does SHE ever have the +nightmare?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Charity. ‘You had better ask her.’ + +‘She laughs so,’ said Jonas; ‘there’s no talking to her. Only hark how +she’s a-going on now! You’re the sensible one, cousin!’ + +‘Tut, tut!’ cried Charity. + +‘Oh! But you are! You know you are!’ + +‘Mercy is a little giddy,’ said Miss Charity. But she’ll sober down in +time.’ + +‘It’ll be a very long time, then, if she does at all,’ rejoined her +cousin. ‘Take a little more room.’ + +‘I am afraid of crowding you,’ said Charity. But she took it +notwithstanding; and after one or two remarks on the extreme heaviness +of the coach, and the number of places it stopped at, they fell into +a silence which remained unbroken by any member of the party until +supper-time. + +Although Mr Jonas conducted Charity to the hotel and sat himself beside +her at the board, it was pretty clear that he had an eye to ‘the other +one’ also, for he often glanced across at Mercy, and seemed to draw +comparisons between the personal appearance of the two, which were not +unfavourable to the superior plumpness of the younger sister. He allowed +himself no great leisure for this kind of observation, however, being +busily engaged with the supper, which, as he whispered in his fair +companion’s ear, was a contract business, and therefore the more she +ate, the better the bargain was. His father and Mr Pecksniff, probably +acting on the same wise principle, demolished everything that came +within their reach, and by that means acquired a greasy expression of +countenance, indicating contentment, if not repletion, which it was very +pleasant to contemplate. + +When they could eat no more, Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jonas subscribed for +two sixpenny-worths of hot brandy-and-water, which the latter gentleman +considered a more politic order than one shillingsworth; there being +a chance of their getting more spirit out of the innkeeper under this +arrangement than if it were all in one glass. Having swallowed his share +of the enlivening fluid, Mr Pecksniff, under pretence of going to see if +the coach were ready, went secretly to the bar, and had his own little +bottle filled, in order that he might refresh himself at leisure in the +dark coach without being observed. + +These arrangements concluded, and the coach being ready, they got into +their old places and jogged on again. But before he composed himself +for a nap, Mr Pecksniff delivered a kind of grace after meat, in these +words: + +‘The process of digestion, as I have been informed by anatomical +friends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature. I do not know +how it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me to know, +when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in motion the most +beautiful machinery with which we have any acquaintance. I really feel +at such times as if I was doing a public service. When I have wound +myself up, if I may employ such a term,’ said Mr Pecksniff with +exquisite tenderness, ‘and know that I am Going, I feel that in the +lesson afforded by the works within me, I am a Benefactor to my Kind!’ + +As nothing could be added to this, nothing was said; and Mr Pecksniff, +exulting, it may be presumed, in his moral utility, went to sleep again. + +The rest of the night wore away in the usual manner. Mr Pecksniff +and Old Anthony kept tumbling against each other and waking up much +terrified, or crushed their heads in opposite corners of the coach and +strangely tattooed the surface of their faces--Heaven knows how--in +their sleep. The coach stopped and went on, and went on and stopped, +times out of number. Passengers got up and passengers got down, and +fresh horses came and went and came again, with scarcely any interval +between each team as it seemed to those who were dozing, and with a gap +of a whole night between every one as it seemed to those who were broad +awake. At length they began to jolt and rumble over horribly uneven +stones, and Mr Pecksniff looking out of window said it was to-morrow +morning, and they were there. + +Very soon afterwards the coach stopped at the office in the city; and +the street in which it was situated was already in a bustle, that fully +bore out Mr Pecksniff’s words about its being morning, though for any +signs of day yet appearing in the sky it might have been midnight. There +was a dense fog too; as if it were a city in the clouds, which they had +been travelling to all night up a magic beanstalk; and there was a thick +crust upon the pavement like oilcake; which, one of the outsides (mad, +no doubt) said to another (his keeper, of course), was Snow. + +Taking a confused leave of Anthony and his son, and leaving the luggage +of himself and daughters at the office to be called for afterwards, Mr +Pecksniff, with one of the young ladies under each arm, dived across the +street, and then across other streets, and so up the queerest courts, +and down the strangest alleys and under the blindest archways, in a kind +of frenzy; now skipping over a kennel, now running for his life from a +coach and horses; now thinking he had lost his way, now thinking he had +found it; now in a state of the highest confidence, now despondent to +the last degree, but always in a great perspiration and flurry; until at +length they stopped in a kind of paved yard near the Monument. That is +to say, Mr Pecksniff told them so; for as to anything they could see +of the Monument, or anything else but the buildings close at hand, they +might as well have been playing blindman’s buff at Salisbury. + +Mr Pecksniff looked about him for a moment, and then knocked at the +door of a very dingy edifice, even among the choice collection of dingy +edifices at hand; on the front of which was a little oval board like +a tea-tray, with this inscription--‘Commercial Boarding-House: M. +Todgers.’ + +It seemed that M. Todgers was not up yet, for Mr Pecksniff knocked twice +and rang thrice, without making any impression on anything but a dog +over the way. At last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn with a rusty +noise, as if the weather had made the very fastenings hoarse, and a +small boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak of, and a very +dirty Wellington boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being surprised) +rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a shoe-brush, and said +nothing. + +‘Still a-bed my man?’ asked Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Still a-bed!’ replied the boy. ‘I wish they wos still a-bed. They’re +very noisy a-bed; all calling for their boots at once. I thought you +was the Paper, and wondered why you didn’t shove yourself through the +grating as usual. What do you want?’ + +Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to have +preferred this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner. +But Mr Pecksniff, without taking umbrage at his bearing put a card +in his hand, and bade him take that upstairs, and show them in the +meanwhile into a room where there was a fire. + +‘Or if there’s one in the eating parlour,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘I can +find it myself.’ So he led his daughters, without waiting for any +further introduction, into a room on the ground-floor, where a +table-cloth (rather a tight and scanty fit in reference to the table it +covered) was already spread for breakfast; displaying a mighty dish of +pink boiled beef; an instance of that particular style of loaf which +is known to housekeepers as a slack-baked, crummy quartern; a liberal +provision of cups and saucers; and the usual appendages. + +Inside the fender were some half-dozen pairs of shoes and boots, of +various sizes, just cleaned and turned with the soles upwards to dry; +and a pair of short black gaiters, on one of which was chalked--in +sport, it would appear, by some gentleman who had slipped down for the +purpose, pending his toilet, and gone up again--‘Jinkins’s Particular,’ +while the other exhibited a sketch in profile, claiming to be the +portrait of Jinkins himself. + +M. Todgers’s Commercial Boarding-House was a house of that sort which is +likely to be dark at any time; but that morning it was especially dark. +There was an odd smell in the passage, as if the concentrated essence of +all the dinners that had been cooked in the kitchen since the house was +built, lingered at the top of the kitchen stairs to that hour, and like +the Black Friar in Don Juan, ‘wouldn’t be driven away.’ In particular, +there was a sensation of cabbage; as if all the greens that had ever +been boiled there, were evergreens, and flourished in immortal strength. +The parlour was wainscoted, and communicated to strangers a magnetic +and instinctive consciousness of rats and mice. The staircase was very +gloomy and very broad, with balustrades so thick and heavy that they +would have served for a bridge. In a sombre corner on the first landing, +stood a gruff old giant of a clock, with a preposterous coronet of three +brass balls on his head; whom few had ever seen--none ever looked in the +face--and who seemed to continue his heavy tick for no other reason than +to warn heedless people from running into him accidentally. It had not +been papered or painted, hadn’t Todgers’s, within the memory of man. It +was very black, begrimed, and mouldy. And, at the top of the staircase, +was an old, disjointed, rickety, ill-favoured skylight, patched +and mended in all kinds of ways, which looked distrustfully down at +everything that passed below, and covered Todgers’s up as if it were a +sort of human cucumber-frame, and only people of a peculiar growth were +reared there. + +Mr Pecksniff and his fair daughters had not stood warming themselves at +the fire ten minutes, when the sound of feet was heard upon the stairs, +and the presiding deity of the establishment came hurrying in. + +M. Todgers was a lady, rather a bony and hard-featured lady, with a row +of curls in front of her head, shaped like little barrels of beer; +and on the top of it something made of net--you couldn’t call it a cap +exactly--which looked like a black cobweb. She had a little basket on +her arm, and in it a bunch of keys that jingled as she came. In her +other hand she bore a flaming tallow candle, which, after surveying Mr +Pecksniff for one instant by its light, she put down upon the table, to +the end that she might receive him with the greater cordiality. + +‘Mr Pecksniff!’ cried Mrs Todgers. ‘Welcome to London! Who would have +thought of such a visit as this, after so--dear, dear!--so many years! +How do you DO, Mr Pecksniff?’ + +‘As well as ever; and as glad to see you, as ever;’ Mr Pecksniff made +response. ‘Why, you are younger than you used to be!’ + +‘YOU are, I am sure!’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘You’re not a bit changed.’ + +‘What do you say to this?’ cried Mr Pecksniff, stretching out his hand +towards the young ladies. ‘Does this make me no older?’ + +‘Not your daughters!’ exclaimed the lady, raising her hands and clasping +them. ‘Oh, no, Mr Pecksniff! Your second, and her bridesmaid!’ + +Mr Pecksniff smiled complacently; shook his head; and said, ‘My +daughters, Mrs Todgers. Merely my daughters.’ + +‘Ah!’ sighed the good lady, ‘I must believe you, for now I look at ‘em +I think I should have known ‘em anywhere. My dear Miss Pecksniffs, how +happy your Pa has made me!’ + +She hugged them both; and being by this time overpowered by her feelings +or the inclemency of the morning, jerked a little pocket handkerchief +out of the little basket, and applied the same to her face. + +‘Now, my good madam,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘I know the rules of your +establishment, and that you only receive gentlemen boarders. But +it occurred to me, when I left home, that perhaps you would give my +daughters house room, and make an exception in their favour.’ + +‘Perhaps?’ cried Mrs Todgers ecstatically. ‘Perhaps?’ + +‘I may say then, that I was sure you would,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘I +know that you have a little room of your own, and that they can be +comfortable there, without appearing at the general table.’ + +‘Dear girls!’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘I must take that liberty once more.’ + +Mrs Todgers meant by this that she must embrace them once more, which +she accordingly did with great ardour. But the truth was that the house +being full with the exception of one bed, which would now be occupied +by Mr Pecksniff, she wanted time for consideration; and so much time too +(for it was a knotty point how to dispose of them), that even when +this second embrace was over, she stood for some moments gazing at the +sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out +of the other. + +‘I think I know how to arrange it,’ said Mrs Todgers, at length. ‘A sofa +bedstead in the little third room which opens from my own parlour.--Oh, +you dear girls!’ + +Thereupon she embraced them once more, observing that she could not +decide which was most like their poor mother (which was highly probable, +seeing that she had never beheld that lady), but that she rather thought +the youngest was; and then she said that as the gentlemen would be down +directly, and the ladies were fatigued with travelling, would they step +into her room at once? + +It was on the same floor; being, in fact, the back parlour; and had, +as Mrs Todgers said, the great advantage (in London) of not being +overlooked; as they would see when the fog cleared off. Nor was this +a vainglorious boast, for it commanded at a perspective of two feet, +a brown wall with a black cistern on the top. The sleeping apartment +designed for the young ladies was approached from this chamber by a +mightily convenient little door, which would only open when fallen +against by a strong person. It commanded from a similar point of sight +another angle of the wall, and another side of the cistern. ‘Not the +damp side,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘THAT is Mr Jinkins’s.’ + +In the first of these sanctuaries a fire was speedily kindled by the +youthful porter, who, whistling at his work in the absence of Mrs +Todgers (not to mention his sketching figures on his corduroys with +burnt firewood), and being afterwards taken by that lady in the fact, +was dismissed with a box on his ears. Having prepared breakfast for the +young ladies with her own hands, she withdrew to preside in the other +room; where the joke at Mr Jinkins’s expense seemed to be proceeding +rather noisily. + +‘I won’t ask you yet, my dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking in at the +door, ‘how you like London. Shall I?’ + +‘We haven’t seen much of it, Pa!’ cried Merry. + +‘Nothing, I hope,’ said Cherry. (Both very miserably.) + +‘Indeed,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘that’s true. We have our pleasure, and our +business too, before us. All in good time. All in good time!’ + +Whether Mr Pecksniff’s business in London was as strictly professional +as he had given his new pupil to understand, we shall see, to adopt that +worthy man’s phraseology, ‘all in good time.’ + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +TOWN AND TODGER’S + + +Surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet in the +world, such a singular sort of a place as Todgers’s. And surely London, +to judge from that part of it which hemmed Todgers’s round and hustled +it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar elbows into it, and +kept the air from it, and stood perpetually between it and the +light, was worthy of Todgers’s, and qualified to be on terms of close +relationship and alliance with hundreds and thousands of the odd family +to which Todgers’s belonged. + +You couldn’t walk about Todgers’s neighbourhood, as you could in any +other neighbourhood. You groped your way for an hour through lanes and +byways, and court-yards, and passages; and you never once emerged upon +anything that might be reasonably called a street. A kind of resigned +distraction came over the stranger as he trod those devious mazes, and, +giving himself up for lost, went in and out and round about and quietly +turned back again when he came to a dead wall or was stopped by an +iron railing, and felt that the means of escape might possibly present +themselves in their own good time, but that to anticipate them was +hopeless. Instances were known of people who, being asked to dine at +Todgers’s, had travelled round and round for a weary time, with its very +chimney-pots in view; and finding it, at last, impossible of attainment, +had gone home again with a gentle melancholy on their spirits, +tranquil and uncomplaining. Nobody had ever found Todgers’s on a verbal +direction, though given within a few minutes’ walk of it. Cautious +emigrants from Scotland or the North of England had been known to reach +it safely, by impressing a charity-boy, town-bred, and bringing him +along with them; or by clinging tenaciously to the postman; but these +were rare exceptions, and only went to prove the rule that Todgers’s was +in a labyrinth, whereof the mystery was known but to a chosen few. + +Several fruit-brokers had their marts near Todgers’s; and one of the +first impressions wrought upon the stranger’s senses was of oranges--of +damaged oranges--with blue and green bruises on them, festering in +boxes, or mouldering away in cellars. All day long, a stream of porters +from the wharves beside the river, each bearing on his back a bursting +chest of oranges, poured slowly through the narrow passages; while +underneath the archway by the public-house, the knots of those who +rested and regaled within, were piled from morning until night. Strange +solitary pumps were found near Todgers’s hiding themselves for the most +part in blind alleys, and keeping company with fire-ladders. There were +churches also by dozens, with many a ghostly little churchyard, all +overgrown with such straggling vegetation as springs up spontaneously +from damp, and graves, and rubbish. In some of these dingy +resting-places which bore much the same analogy to green churchyards, +as the pots of earth for mignonette and wall-flower in the windows +overlooking them did to rustic gardens, there were trees; tall trees; +still putting forth their leaves in each succeeding year, with such a +languishing remembrance of their kind (so one might fancy, looking on +their sickly boughs) as birds in cages have of theirs. Here, paralysed +old watchmen guarded the bodies of the dead at night, year after year, +until at last they joined that solemn brotherhood; and, saving that they +slept below the ground a sounder sleep than even they had ever known +above it, and were shut up in another kind of box, their condition can +hardly be said to have undergone any material change when they, in turn, +were watched themselves. + +Among the narrow thoroughfares at hand, there lingered, here and there, +an ancient doorway of carved oak, from which, of old, the sounds of +revelry and feasting often came; but now these mansions, only used +for storehouses, were dark and dull, and, being filled with wool, and +cotton, and the like--such heavy merchandise as stifles sound and stops +the throat of echo--had an air of palpable deadness about them which, +added to their silence and desertion, made them very grim. In like +manner, there were gloomy courtyards in these parts, into which few but +belated wayfarers ever strayed, and where vast bags and packs of goods, +upward or downward bound, were for ever dangling between heaven and +earth from lofty cranes There were more trucks near Todgers’s than +you would suppose whole city could ever need; not active trucks, but +a vagabond race, for ever lounging in the narrow lanes before +their masters’ doors and stopping up the pass; so that when a stray +hackney-coach or lumbering waggon came that way, they were the cause of +such an uproar as enlivened the whole neighbourhood, and made the bells +in the next churchtower vibrate again. In the throats and maws of dark +no-thoroughfares near Todgers’s, individual wine-merchants and wholesale +dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own; and, deep +among the foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and +burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be +heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in +tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains. + +To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret +existence near Todgers’s, would fill a goodly book; while a second +volume no less capacious might be devoted to an account of the quaint +old guests who frequented their dimly lighted parlours. These were, in +general, ancient inhabitants of that region; born, and bred there from +boyhood, who had long since become wheezy and asthmatical, and short of +breath, except in the article of story-telling; in which respect they +were still marvellously long-winded. These gentry were much opposed to +steam and all new-fangled ways, and held ballooning to be sinful, and +deplored the degeneracy of the times; which that particular member +of each little club who kept the keys of the nearest church, +professionally, always attributed to the prevalence of dissent and +irreligion; though the major part of the company inclined to the belief +that virtue went out with hair-powder, and that Old England’s greatness +had decayed amain with barbers. + +As to Todgers’s itself--speaking of it only as a house in that +neighbourhood, and making no reference to its merits as a commercial +boarding establishment--it was worthy to stand where it did. There was +one staircase-window in it, at the side of the house, on the ground +floor; which tradition said had not been opened for a hundred years at +least, and which, abutting on an always dirty lane, was so begrimed and +coated with a century’s mud, that no one pane of glass could possibly +fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty times. But the grand +mystery of Todgers’s was the cellarage, approachable only by a little +back door and a rusty grating; which cellarage within the memory of man +had had no connection with the house, but had always been the freehold +property of somebody else, and was reported to be full of wealth; though +in what shape--whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine, +or casks of gun-powder--was matter of profound uncertainty and supreme +indifference to Todgers’s and all its inmates. + +The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace +on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to +dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, +full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks. +Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at first from having +knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and after that, +was for the moment choked from having looked perforce, straight down the +kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze +at from the top of Todgers’s, well worth your seeing too. For first +and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops, +stretching far away, a long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and +turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair +erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him. +Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of +ships; a very forest. Gables, housetops, garret-windows, wilderness upon +wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once. + +After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this +crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as +it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or +no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings +seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and +whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going +on below. Others, of a crook-backed shape, appeared to be maliciously +holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and +baffle Todgers’s. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over +the way, became of paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank +in it, ridiculously disproportionate in its extent, when he retired. The +gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer’s pole had far more interest +for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while +the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was, +the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken +and expand a hundredfold, and after gazing round him, quite scared, he +turned into Todgers’s again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten +to one he told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn’t done so, he would +certainly have come into the street by the shortest cut; that is to say, +head-foremost. + +So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they retired with Mrs Todgers from +this place of espial, leaving the youthful porter to close the door +and follow them downstairs; who, being of a playful temperament, and +contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life, any +chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk +upon the parapet. + +It being the second day of their stay in London, the Miss Pecksniffs +and Mrs Todgers were by this time highly confidential, insomuch that the +last-named lady had already communicated the particulars of three early +disappointments of a tender nature; and had furthermore possessed her +young friends with a general summary of the life, conduct, and character +of Mr Todgers. Who, it seemed, had cut his matrimonial career rather +short, by unlawfully running away from his happiness, and establishing +himself in foreign countries as a bachelor. + +‘Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears,’ said +Mrs Todgers, ‘but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. You’d +hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?’ + +She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister, +which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a +dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage. + +‘It’s a speaking likeness!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs. + +‘It was considered so once,’ said Mrs Todgers, warming herself in a +gentlemanly manner at the fire; ‘but I hardly thought you would have +known it, my loves.’ + +They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in +the street, or seen it in a shop window, they would have cried ‘Good +gracious! Mrs Todgers!’ + +‘Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the +features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘The gravy alone, +is enough to add twenty years to one’s age, I do assure you.’ + +‘Lor’!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs. + +‘The anxiety of that one item, my dears,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘keeps the +mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human +nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. It’s +nothing to say a joint won’t yield--a whole animal wouldn’t yield--the +amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have +undergone in consequence,’ cried Mrs Todgers, raising her eyes and +shaking her head, ‘no one would believe!’ + +‘Just like Mr Pinch, Merry!’ said Charity. ‘We have always noticed it in +him, you remember?’ + +‘Yes, my dear,’ giggled Merry, ‘but we have never given it him, you +know.’ + +‘You, my dears, having to deal with your pa’s pupils who can’t help +themselves, are able to take your own way,’ said Mrs Todgers; ‘but in +a commercial establishment, where any gentleman may say any Saturday +evening, “Mrs Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the +cheese,” it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa +was kind enough,’ added the good lady, ‘to invite me to take a ride with +you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going to call upon +Miss Pinch. Any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now, +Miss Pecksniff?’ + +‘For goodness sake, Mrs Todgers,’ interposed the lively Merry, ‘don’t +call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!’ + +‘What a wicked girl you are!’ cried Mrs Todgers, embracing her with +great affection. ‘You are quite a quiz, I do declare! My dear Miss +Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister’s spirits must be to your pa and +self!’ + +‘He’s the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs Todgers, in +existence,’ resumed Merry: ‘quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest +frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you +to suppose what SHE is. I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know +I shall!’ cried the charming girl, ‘I never shall be able to keep my +countenance. The notion of a Miss Pinch presuming to exist at all is +sufficient to kill one, but to see her--oh my stars!’ + +Mrs Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love’s humour, and declared +she was quite afraid of her, that she was. She was so very severe. + +‘Who is severe?’ cried a voice at the door. ‘There is no such thing as +severity in our family, I hope!’ And then Mr Pecksniff peeped smilingly +into the room, and said, ‘May I come in, Mrs Todgers?’ + +Mrs Todgers almost screamed, for the little door of communication +between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a full +disclosure of the sofa bedstead in all its monstrous impropriety. But +she had the presence of mind to close this portal in the twinkling of an +eye; and having done so, said, though not without confusion, ‘Oh yes, Mr +Pecksniff, you can come in, if you please.’ + +‘How are we to-day,’ said Mr Pecksniff, jocosely, ‘and what are our +plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch’s sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor +Thomas Pinch!’ + +‘Are we ready,’ returned Mrs Todgers, nodding her head with mysterious +intelligence, ‘to send a favourable reply to Mr Jinkins’s round-robin? +That’s the first question, Mr Pecksniff.’ + +‘Why Mr Jinkins’s robin, my dear madam?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, putting one +arm round Mercy, and the other round Mrs Todgers, whom he seemed, in the +abstraction of the moment, to mistake for Charity. ‘Why Mr Jinkins’s?’ + +‘Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the +house,’ said Mrs Todgers, playfully. ‘That’s why, sir.’ + +‘Jinkins is a man of superior talents,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. ‘I have +conceived a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins’s desire to pay +polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of the friendly +feeling of Jinkins, Mrs Todgers.’ + +‘Well now,’ returned that lady, ‘having said so much, you must say the +rest, Mr Pecksniff; so tell the dear young ladies all about it.’ + +With these words she gently eluded Mr Pecksniff’s grasp, and took Miss +Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was impelled to this +proceeding solely by the irrepressible affection she had conceived for +that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to +say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in her face +for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may, +Mr Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purport and history +of the round-robin aforesaid, which was in brief, that the commercial +gentlemen who helped to make up the sum and substance of that noun of +multitude signifying many, called Todgers’s, desired the honour of their +presence at the general table, so long as they remained in the house, +and besought that they would grace the board at dinner-time next +day, the same being Sunday. He further said, that Mrs Todgers being a +consenting party to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to +accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the +while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat +and overthrow of Miss Pinch. + +Tom Pinch’s sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps +the wealthiest brass and copper founders’ family known to mankind. +They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere +outside, like the outside of a giant’s castle, struck terror into vulgar +minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate; with a +great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a +great lodge; which being close to the house, rather spoilt the look-out +certainly but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter +kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave +to pass, he rang a second great bell, responsive to whose note a great +footman appeared in due time at the great halldoor, with such great +tags upon his liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and +hooking himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment +which could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a blue-bottle +in a world of cobwebs. + +To this mansion Mr Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs +Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies +having been all performed, they were ushered into the house; and so, by +degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr +Pinch’s sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, +a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived +at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish +about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations +and friends. + +‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’ said the footman. He must have been +an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice +discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have +announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with +which he would have announced visitors to the cook. + +‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’ + +Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly +declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, +the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take +mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the +establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the +animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon +whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties +concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant. + +It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch’s sister +was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild +and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure--slight and short, +but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, +much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look +of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or +a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss +Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great +indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to +see. + +Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best +against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at +least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, +expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs Todgers, she leaned +on Mr Pecksniff’s arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable +to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion. + +‘Don’t be alarmed, Miss Pinch,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand +condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. ‘I have +called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, +Thomas Pinch. My name--compose yourself, Miss Pinch--is Pecksniff.’ + +The good man emphasised these words as though he would have said, ‘You +see in me, young person, the benefactor of your race; the patron of your +house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from +my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my +favour at present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no +pride, for I can afford to do without it!’ + +The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel truth. Her brother +writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and +how much more! As Mr Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and +dropped a tear upon his hand. + +‘Oh very well, Miss Pinch!’ thought the sharp pupil, ‘crying before +strangers, as if you didn’t like the situation!’ + +‘Thomas is well,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘and sends his love and this +letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever be distinguished in +our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing +to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?’ + +‘I know he has the will, sir,’ said Tom Pinch’s sister, ‘and I know how +kindly and considerately you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can +ever be grateful enough, as we very often say in writing to each +other. The young ladies too,’ she added, glancing gratefully at his two +daughters, ‘I know how much we owe to them.’ + +‘My dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: ‘Thomas’s +sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I think.’ + +‘We can’t take any merit to ourselves, papa!’ cried Cherry, as they +both apprised Tom Pinch’s sister, with a curtsey, that they would +feel obliged if she would keep her distance. ‘Mr Pinch’s being so well +provided for is owing to you alone, and we can only say how glad we are +to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be.’ + +‘Oh very well, Miss Pinch!’ thought the pupil again. ‘Got a grateful +brother, living on other people’s kindness!’ + +‘It was very kind of you,’ said Tom Pinch’s sister, with Tom’s own +simplicity and Tom’s own smile, ‘to come here; very kind indeed; though +how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you, +and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits +conferred, can scarcely think.’ + +‘Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper,’ murmured Mr Pecksniff. + +‘It makes me happy too,’ said Ruth Pinch, who now that her first +surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a +single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which +was the very moral and image of Tom; ‘very happy to think that you will +be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated here, and +how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being +cast upon my own resources. Dear me! So long as I heard that he was +happy, and he heard that I was,’ said Tom’s sister, ‘we could both bear, +without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than +ever we have had to endure, I am very certain.’ And if ever the plain +truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom’s sister spoke +it when she said that. + +‘Ah!’ cried Mr Pecksniff whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the +pupil; ‘certainly. And how do YOU do, my very interesting child?’ + +‘Quite well, I thank you, sir,’ replied that frosty innocent. + +‘A sweet face this, my dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning to his +daughters. ‘A charming manner!’ + +Both young ladies had been in ecstasies with the scion of a wealthy +house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents +might be supposed to lie) from the first. Mrs Todgers vowed that +anything one quarter so angelic she had never seen. ‘She wanted but +a pair of wings, a dear,’ said that good woman, ‘to be a young +syrup’--meaning, possibly, young sylph, or seraph. + +‘If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little +friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards, +‘and will say that I and my daughters--’ + +‘And Mrs Todgers, pa,’ said Merry. + +‘And Mrs Todgers, of London,’ added Mr Pecksniff; ‘that I, and my +daughters, and Mrs Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as our +object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother is a +young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very chaste +mansion, without adding my humble tribute, as an Architect, to +the correctness and elegance of the owner’s taste, and to his just +appreciation of that beautiful art to the cultivation of which I have +devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I +have sacrified a--a fortune--I shall be very much obliged to you.’ + +‘Missis’s compliments to Miss Pinch,’ said the footman, suddenly +appearing, and speaking in exactly the same key as before, ‘and begs to +know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘Here is the young man. HE will take the +card. With my compliments, if you please, young man. My dears, we are +interrupting the studies. Let us go.’ + +Some confusion was occasioned for an instant by Mrs Todgers’s +unstrapping her little flat hand-basket, and hurriedly entrusting the +‘young man’ with one of her own cards, which, in addition to +certain detailed information relative to the terms of the commercial +establishment, bore a foot-note to the effect that M. T. took that +opportunity of thanking those gentlemen who had honoured her with their +favours, and begged they would have the goodness, if satisfied with +the table, to recommend her to their friends. But Mr Pecksniff, with +admirable presence of mind, recovered this document, and buttoned it up +in his own pocket. + +Then he said to Miss Pinch--with more condescension and kindness than +ever, for it was desirable the footman should expressly understand that +they were not friends of hers, but patrons: + +‘Good morning. Good-bye. God bless you! You may depend upon my continued +protection of your brother Thomas. Keep your mind quite at ease, Miss +Pinch!’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Tom’s sister heartily; ‘a thousand times.’ + +‘Not at all,’ he retorted, patting her gently on the head. ‘Don’t +mention it. You will make me angry if you do. My sweet child’--to the +pupil--‘farewell! That fairy creature,’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking in +his pensive mood hard at the footman, as if he meant him, ‘has shed +a vision on my path, refulgent in its nature, and not easily to be +obliterated. My dears, are you ready?’ + +They were not quite ready yet, for they were still caressing the pupil. +But they tore themselves away at length; and sweeping past Miss Pinch +with each a haughty inclination of the head and a curtsey strangled in +its birth, flounced into the passage. + +The young man had rather a long job in showing them out; for Mr +Pecksniff’s delight in the tastefulness of the house was such that he +could not help often stopping (particularly when they were near the +parlour door) and giving it expression, in a loud voice and very learned +terms. Indeed, he delivered, between the study and the hall, a +familiar exposition of the whole science of architecture as applied to +dwelling-houses, and was yet in the freshness of his eloquence when they +reached the garden. + +‘If you look,’ said Mr Pecksniff, backing from the steps, with his head +on one side and his eyes half-shut that he might the better take in +the proportions of the exterior: ‘If you look, my dears, at the cornice +which supports the roof, and observe the airiness of its construction, +especially where it sweeps the southern angle of the building, you will +feel with me--How do you do, sir? I hope you’re well?’ + +Interrupting himself with these words, he very politely bowed to a +middle-aged gentleman at an upper window, to whom he spoke--not because +the gentleman could hear him (for he certainly could not), but as an +appropriate accompaniment to his salutation. + +‘I have no doubt, my dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, feigning to point out +other beauties with his hand, ‘that this is the proprietor. I should be +glad to know him. It might lead to something. Is he looking this way, +Charity?’ + +‘He is opening the window pa!’ + +‘Ha, ha!’ cried Mr Pecksniff softly. ‘All right! He has found I’m +professional. He heard me inside just now, I have no doubt. Don’t look! +With regard to the fluted pillars in the portico, my dears--’ + +‘Hallo!’ cried the gentleman. + +‘Sir, your servant!’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking off his hat. ‘I am proud +to make your acquaintance.’ + +‘Come off the grass, will you!’ roared the gentleman. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, doubtful of his having +heard aright. ‘Did you--?’ + +‘Come off the grass!’ repeated the gentleman, warmly. + +‘We are unwilling to intrude, sir,’ Mr Pecksniff smilingly began. + +‘But you ARE intruding,’ returned the other, ‘unwarrantably intruding. +Trespassing. You see a gravel walk, don’t you? What do you think it’s +meant for? Open the gate there! Show that party out!’ + +With that he clapped down the window again, and disappeared. + +Mr Pecksniff put on his hat, and walked with great deliberation and in +profound silence to the fly, gazing at the clouds as he went, with +great interest. After helping his daughters and Mrs Todgers into that +conveyance, he stood looking at it for some moments, as if he were not +quite certain whether it was a carriage or a temple; but having settled +this point in his mind, he got into his place, spread his hands out on +his knees, and smiled upon the three beholders. + +But his daughters, less tranquil-minded, burst into a torrent of +indignation. This came, they said, of cherishing such creatures as the +Pinches. This came of lowering themselves to their level. This came of +putting themselves in the humiliating position of seeming to know such +bold, audacious, cunning, dreadful girls as that. They had expected +this. They had predicted it to Mrs Todgers, as she (Todgers) could +depone, that very morning. To this, they added, that the owner of the +house, supposing them to be Miss Pinch’s friends, had acted, in +their opinion, quite correctly, and had done no more than, under such +circumstances, might reasonably have been expected. To that they added +(with a trifling inconsistency), that he was a brute and a bear; and +then they merged into a flood of tears, which swept away all wandering +epithets before it. + +Perhaps Miss Pinch was scarcely so much to blame in the matter as the +Seraph, who, immediately on the withdrawal of the visitors, had hastened +to report them at head-quarters, with a full account of their having +presumptuously charged her with the delivery of a message afterwards +consigned to the footman; which outrage, taken in conjunction with Mr +Pecksniff’s unobtrusive remarks on the establishment, might possibly +have had some share in their dismissal. Poor Miss Pinch, however, had to +bear the brunt of it with both parties; being so severely taken to task +by the Seraph’s mother for having such vulgar acquaintances, that +she was fain to retire to her own room in tears, which her natural +cheerfulness and submission, and the delight of having seen Mr +Pecksniff, and having received a letter from her brother, were at first +insufficient to repress. + +As to Mr Pecksniff, he told them in the fly, that a good action was its +own reward; and rather gave them to understand, that if he could have +been kicked in such a cause, he would have liked it all the better. But +this was no comfort to the young ladies, who scolded violently the whole +way back, and even exhibited, more than once, a keen desire to attack +the devoted Mrs Todgers; on whose personal appearance, but particularly +on whose offending card and hand-basket, they were secretly inclined to +lay the blame of half their failure. + +Todgers’s was in a great bustle that evening, partly owing to some +additional domestic preparations for the morrow, and partly to the +excitement always inseparable in that house from Saturday night, when +every gentleman’s linen arrived at a different hour in its own little +bundle, with his private account pinned on the outside. There was always +a great clinking of pattens downstairs, too, until midnight or so, on +Saturdays; together with a frequent gleaming of mysterious lights in +the area; much working at the pump; and a constant jangling of the iron +handle of the pail. Shrill altercations from time to time arose between +Mrs Todgers and unknown females in remote back kitchens; and sounds were +occasionally heard, indicative of small articles of iron mongery and +hardware being thrown at the boy. It was the custom of that youth on +Saturdays, to roll up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade +all parts of the house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he +was more strongly tempted on Saturdays than on other days (it being a +busy time), to make excursive bolts into the neighbouring alleys when he +answered the door, and there to play at leap-frog and other sports with +vagrant lads, until pursued and brought back by the hair of his head or +the lobe of his ear; thus he was quite a conspicuous feature among the +peculiar incidents of the last day in the week at Todgers’s. + +He was especially so on this particular Saturday evening, and honoured +the Miss Pecksniffs with a deal of notice; seldom passing the door +of Mrs Todgers’s private room, where they sat alone before the fire, +working by the light of a solitary candle, without putting in his head +and greeting them with some such compliments as, ‘There you are agin!’ +‘An’t it nice?’--and similar humorous attentions. + +‘I say,’ he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro, +‘young ladies, there’s soup to-morrow. She’s a-making it now. An’t she +a-putting in the water? Oh! not at all neither!’ + +In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again. + +‘I say! There’s fowls to-morrow. Not skinny ones. Oh no!’ + +Presently he called through the key-hole: + +‘There’s a fish to-morrow. Just come. Don’t eat none of him!’ And, with +this special warning, vanished again. + +By-and-bye, he returned to lay the cloth for supper; it having been +arranged between Mrs Todgers and the young ladies, that they should +partake of an exclusive veal-cutlet together in the privacy of that +apartment. He entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the +lighted candle into his mouth, and exhibiting his face in a state of +transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with his +professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, +by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron +already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned +at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching collation +would be of ‘rather a spicy sort.’ + +‘Will it be long, before it’s ready, Bailey?’ asked Mercy. + +‘No,’ said Bailey, ‘it IS cooked. When I come up, she was dodging among +the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of ‘em.’ + +But he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he +received a manual compliment on the head, which sent him staggering +against the wall; and Mrs Todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly +before him. + +‘Oh you little villain!’ said that lady. ‘Oh you bad, false boy!’ + +‘No worse than yerself,’ retorted Bailey, guarding his head, on a +principle invented by Mr Thomas Cribb. ‘Ah! Come now! Do that again, +will yer?’ + +‘He’s the most dreadful child,’ said Mrs Todgers, setting down the dish, +‘I ever had to deal with. The gentlemen spoil him to that extent, and +teach him such things, that I’m afraid nothing but hanging will ever do +him any good.’ + +‘Won’t it!’ cried Bailey. ‘Oh! Yes! Wot do you go a-lowerin the +table-beer for then, and destroying my constitooshun?’ + +‘Go downstairs, you vicious boy,’ said Mrs Todgers, holding the door +open. ‘Do you hear me? Go along!’ + +After two or three dexterous feints, he went, and was seen no more that +night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot water, and +much disturbed the two Miss Pecksniffs by squinting hideously behind +the back of the unconscious Mrs Todgers. Having done this justice to his +wounded feelings, he retired underground; where, in company with a swarm +of black beetles and a kitchen candle, he employed his faculties in +cleaning boots and brushing clothes until the night was far advanced. + +Benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young retainer but he +was known by a great variety of names. Benjamin, for instance, had been +converted into Uncle Ben, and that again had been corrupted into Uncle; +which, by an easy transition, had again passed into Barnwell, in memory +of the celebrated relative in that degree who was shot by his nephew +George, while meditating in his garden at Camberwell. The gentlemen at +Todgers’s had a merry habit, too, of bestowing upon him, for the time +being, the name of any notorious malefactor or minister; and sometimes +when current events were flat they even sought the pages of history for +these distinctions; as Mr Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the like. At the +period of which we write, he was generally known among the gentlemen as +Bailey junior; a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction, perhaps, +to Old Bailey; and possibly as involving the recollection of an +unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in +life, and has been immortalised in a ballad. + +The usual Sunday dinner-hour at Todgers’s was two o’clock--a suitable +time, it was considered for all parties; convenient to Mrs Todgers, on +account of the bakers; and convenient to the gentlemen with reference +to their afternoon engagements. But on the Sunday which was to introduce +the two Miss Pecksniffs to a full knowledge of Todgers’s and its +society, the dinner was postponed until five, in order that everything +might be as genteel as the occasion demanded. + +When the hour drew nigh, Bailey junior, testifying great excitement, +appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too large +for him, and in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such extraordinary +magnitude, that one of the gentlemen (remarkable for his ready wit) +called him ‘collars’ on the spot. At about a quarter before five, a +deputation, consisting of Mr Jinkins, and another gentleman, whose +name was Gander, knocked at the door of Mrs Todgers’s room, and, being +formally introduced to the two Miss Pecksniffs by their parent who was +in waiting, besought the honour of conducting them upstairs. + +The drawing-room at Todgers’s was out of the common style; so much so +indeed, that you would hardly have taken it to be a drawingroom, unless +you were told so by somebody who was in the secret. It was floor-clothed +all over; and the ceiling, including a great beam in the middle, +was papered. Besides the three little windows, with seats in them, +commanding the opposite archway, there was another window looking point +blank, without any compromise at all about it into Jinkins’s bedroom; +and high up, all along one side of the wall was a strip of panes of +glass, two-deep, giving light to the staircase. There were the oddest +closets possible, with little casements in them like eight-day clocks, +lurking in the wainscot and taking the shape of the stairs; and the very +door itself (which was painted black) had two great glass eyes in its +forehead, with an inquisitive green pupil in the middle of each. + +Here the gentlemen were all assembled. There was a general cry of ‘Hear, +hear!’ and ‘Bravo Jink!’ when Mr Jinkins appeared with Charity on his +arm; which became quite rapturous as Mr Gander followed, escorting +Mercy, and Mr Pecksniff brought up the rear with Mrs Todgers. + +Then the presentations took place. They included a gentleman of a +sporting turn, who propounded questions on jockey subjects to the +editors of Sunday papers, which were regarded by his friends as rather +stiff things to answer; and they included a gentleman of a theatrical +turn, who had once entertained serious thoughts of ‘coming out,’ but +had been kept in by the wickedness of human nature; and they included +a gentleman of a debating turn, who was strong at speech-making; and a +gentleman of a literary turn, who wrote squibs upon the rest, and +knew the weak side of everybody’s character but his own. There was a +gentleman of a vocal turn, and a gentleman of a smoking turn, and a +gentleman of a convivial turn; some of the gentlemen had a turn for +whist, and a large proportion of the gentlemen had a strong turn for +billiards and betting. They had all, it may be presumed, a turn for +business; being all commercially employed in one way or other; and +had, every one in his own way, a decided turn for pleasure to boot. Mr +Jinkins was of a fashionable turn; being a regular frequenter of the +Parks on Sundays, and knowing a great many carriages by sight. He spoke +mysteriously, too, of splendid women, and was suspected of having once +committed himself with a Countess. Mr Gander was of a witty turn being +indeed the gentleman who had originated the sally about ‘collars;’ which +sparkling pleasantry was now retailed from mouth to mouth, under the +title of Gander’s Last, and was received in all parts of the room with +great applause. Mr Jinkins it may be added, was much the oldest of +the party; being a fish-salesman’s book-keeper, aged forty. He was the +oldest boarder also; and in right of his double seniority, took the lead +in the house, as Mrs Todgers had already said. + +There was considerable delay in the production of dinner, and poor Mrs +Todgers, being reproached in confidence by Jinkins, slipped in and out, +at least twenty times to see about it; always coming back as though she +had no such thing upon her mind, and hadn’t been out at all. But there +was no hitch in the conversation nevertheless; for one gentleman, who +travelled in the perfumery line, exhibited an interesting nick-nack, +in the way of a remarkable cake of shaving soap which he had lately +met with in Germany; and the gentleman of a literary turn repeated (by +desire) some sarcastic stanzas he had recently produced on the freezing +of the tank at the back of the house. These amusements, with the +miscellaneous conversation arising out of them, passed the time +splendidly, until dinner was announced by Bailey junior in these terms: + +‘The wittles is up!’ + +On which notice they immediately descended to the banquet-hall; some of +the more facetious spirits in the rear taking down gentlemen as if they +were ladies, in imitation of the fortunate possessors of the two Miss +Pecksniffs. + +Mr Pecksniff said grace--a short and pious grace, involving a blessing +on the appetites of those present, and committing all persons who had +nothing to eat, to the care of Providence; whose business (so said the +grace, in effect) it clearly was, to look after them. This done, they +fell to with less ceremony than appetite; the table groaning beneath the +weight, not only of the delicacies whereof the Miss Pecksniffs had been +previously forewarned, but of boiled beef, roast veal, bacon, pies +and abundance of such heavy vegetables as are favourably known to +housekeepers for their satisfying qualities. Besides which, there were +bottles of stout, bottles of wine, bottles of ale, and divers other +strong drinks, native and foreign. + +All this was highly agreeable to the two Miss Pecksniffs, who were in +immense request; sitting one on either hand of Mr Jinkins at the bottom +of the table; and who were called upon to take wine with some new +admirer every minute. They had hardly ever felt so pleasant, and so full +of conversation, in their lives; Mercy, in particular, was uncommonly +brilliant, and said so many good things in the way of lively repartee +that she was looked upon as a prodigy. ‘In short,’ as that young lady +observed, ‘they felt now, indeed, that they were in London, and for the +first time too.’ + +Their young friend Bailey sympathized in these feelings to the +fullest extent, and, abating nothing of his patronage, gave them every +encouragement in his power; favouring them, when the general attention +was diverted from his proceedings, with many nods and winks and other +tokens of recognition, and occasionally touching his nose with a +corkscrew, as if to express the Bacchanalian character of the meeting. +In truth, perhaps even the spirits of the two Miss Pecksniffs, and the +hungry watchfulness of Mrs Todgers, were less worthy of note than the +proceedings of this remarkable boy, whom nothing disconcerted or put out +of his way. If any piece of crockery, a dish or otherwise, chanced to +slip through his hands (which happened once or twice), he let it go with +perfect good breeding, and never added to the painful emotions of the +company by exhibiting the least regret. Nor did he, by hurrying to and +fro, disturb the repose of the assembly, as many well-trained servants +do; on the contrary, feeling the hopelessness of waiting upon so large a +party, he left the gentlemen to help themselves to what they wanted, and +seldom stirred from behind Mr Jinkins’s chair, where, with his hands +in his pockets, and his legs planted pretty wide apart, he led the +laughter, and enjoyed the conversation. + +The dessert was splendid. No waiting either. The pudding-plates had been +washed in a little tub outside the door while cheese was on, and though +they were moist and warm with friction, still there they were again, +up to the mark, and true to time. Quarts of almonds; dozens of oranges; +pounds of raisins; stacks of biffins; soup-plates full of nuts.--Oh, +Todgers’s could do it when it chose! mind that. + +Then more wine came on; red wines and white wines; and a large china +bowl of punch, brewed by the gentleman of a convivial turn, who adjured +the Miss Pecksniffs not to be despondent on account of its dimensions, +as there were materials in the house for the decoction of half a dozen +more of the same size. Good gracious, how they laughed! How they coughed +when they sipped it, because it was so strong; and how they laughed +again when somebody vowed that but for its colour it might have been +mistaken, in regard of its innocuous qualities, for new milk! What a +shout of ‘No!’ burst from the gentlemen when they pathetically implored +Mr Jinkins to suffer them to qualify it with hot water; and how +blushingly, by little and little, did each of them drink her whole +glassful, down to its very dregs! + +Now comes the trying time. The sun, as Mr Jinkins says (gentlemanly +creature, Jinkins--never at a loss!), is about to leave the firmament. +‘Miss Pecksniff!’ says Mrs Todgers, softly, ‘will you--?’ ‘Oh dear, no +more, Mrs Todgers.’ Mrs Todgers rises; the two Miss Pecksniffs rise; all +rise. Miss Mercy Pecksniff looks downward for her scarf. Where is it? +Dear me, where CAN it be? Sweet girl, she has it on; not on her fair +neck, but loose upon her flowing figure. A dozen hands assist her. She +is all confusion. The youngest gentleman in company thirsts to murder +Jinkins. She skips and joins her sister at the door. Her sister has her +arm about the waist of Mrs Todgers. She winds her arm around her sister. +Diana, what a picture! The last things visible are a shape and a skip. +‘Gentlemen, let us drink the ladies!’ + +The enthusiasm is tremendous. The gentleman of a debating turn rises in +the midst, and suddenly lets loose a tide of eloquence which bears down +everything before it. He is reminded of a toast--a toast to which they +will respond. There is an individual present; he has him in his eye; to +whom they owe a debt of gratitude. He repeats it--a debt of gratitude. +Their rugged natures have been softened and ameliorated that day, by +the society of lovely woman. There is a gentleman in company whom two +accomplished and delightful females regard with veneration, as the +fountain of their existence. Yes, when yet the two Miss Pecksniffs +lisped in language scarce intelligible, they called that individual +‘Father!’ There is great applause. He gives them ‘Mr Pecksniff, and God +bless him!’ They all shake hands with Mr Pecksniff, as they drink the +toast. The youngest gentleman in company does so with a thrill; for he +feels that a mysterious influence pervades the man who claims that being +in the pink scarf for his daughter. + +What saith Mr Pecksniff in reply? Or rather let the question be, What +leaves he unsaid? Nothing. More punch is called for, and produced, and +drunk. Enthusiasm mounts still higher. Every man comes out freely in +his own character. The gentleman of a theatrical turn recites. The vocal +gentleman regales them with a song. Gander leaves the Gander of all +former feasts whole leagues behind. HE rises to propose a toast. It is, +The Father of Todgers’s. It is their common friend Jink--it is old +Jink, if he may call him by that familiar and endearing appellation. The +youngest gentleman in company utters a frantic negative. He won’t +have it--he can’t bear it--it mustn’t be. But his depth of feeling is +misunderstood. He is supposed to be a little elevated; and nobody heeds +him. + +Mr Jinkins thanks them from his heart. It is, by many degrees, the +proudest day in his humble career. When he looks around him on the +present occasion, he feels that he wants words in which to express +his gratitude. One thing he will say. He hopes it has been shown that +Todgers’s can be true to itself; and that, an opportunity arising, it +can come out quite as strong as its neighbours--perhaps stronger. He +reminds them, amidst thunders of encouragement, that they have heard of +a somewhat similar establishment in Cannon Street; and that they have +heard it praised. He wishes to draw no invidious comparisons; he would +be the last man to do it; but when that Cannon Street establishment +shall be able to produce such a combination of wit and beauty as has +graced that board that day, and shall be able to serve up (all things +considered) such a dinner as that of which they have just partaken, he +will be happy to talk to it. Until then, gentlemen, he will stick to +Todgers’s. + +More punch, more enthusiasm, more speeches. Everybody’s health is drunk, +saving the youngest gentleman’s in company. He sits apart, with his +elbow on the back of a vacant chair, and glares disdainfully at Jinkins. +Gander, in a convulsing speech, gives them the health of Bailey junior; +hiccups are heard; and a glass is broken. Mr Jinkins feels that it is +time to join the ladies. He proposes, as a final sentiment, Mrs Todgers. +She is worthy to be remembered separately. Hear, hear. So she is; no +doubt of it. They all find fault with her at other times; but every man +feels now, that he could die in her defence. + +They go upstairs, where they are not expected so soon; for Mrs Todgers +is asleep, Miss Charity is adjusting her hair, and Mercy, who has made +a sofa of one of the window-seats is in a gracefully recumbent attitude. +She is rising hastily, when Mr Jinkins implores her, for all their +sakes, not to stir; she looks too graceful and too lovely, he remarks, +to be disturbed. She laughs, and yields, and fans herself, and drops +her fan, and there is a rush to pick it up. Being now installed, by one +consent, as the beauty of the party, she is cruel and capricious, and +sends gentlemen on messages to other gentlemen, and forgets all about +them before they can return with the answer, and invents a thousand +tortures, rending their hearts to pieces. Bailey brings up the tea and +coffee. There is a small cluster of admirers round Charity; but they +are only those who cannot get near her sister. The youngest gentleman +in company is pale, but collected, and still sits apart; for his spirit +loves to hold communion with itself, and his soul recoils from noisy +revellers. She has a consciousness of his presence and adoration. +He sees it flashing sometimes in the corner of her eye. Have a care, +Jinkins, ere you provoke a desperate man to frenzy! + +Mr Pecksniff had followed his younger friends upstairs, and taken a +chair at the side of Mrs Todgers. He had also spilt a cup of coffee over +his legs without appearing to be aware of the circumstance; nor did he +seem to know that there was muffin on his knee. + +‘And how have they used you downstairs, sir?’ asked the hostess. + +‘Their conduct has been such, my dear madam,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘as I +can never think of without emotion, or remember without a tear. Oh, Mrs +Todgers!’ + +‘My goodness!’ exclaimed that lady. ‘How low you are in your spirits, +sir!’ + +‘I am a man, my dear madam,’ said Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears and +speaking with an imperfect articulation, ‘but I am also a father. I +am also a widower. My feelings, Mrs Todgers, will not consent to be +entirely smothered, like the young children in the Tower. They are grown +up, and the more I press the bolster on them, the more they look round +the corner of it.’ + +He suddenly became conscious of the bit of muffin, and stared at it +intently; shaking his head the while, in a forlorn and imbecile manner, +as if he regarded it as his evil genius, and mildly reproached it. + +‘She was beautiful, Mrs Todgers,’ he said, turning his glazed eye +again upon her, without the least preliminary notice. ‘She had a small +property.’ + +‘So I have heard,’ cried Mrs Todgers with great sympathy. + +‘Those are her daughters,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pointing out the young +ladies, with increased emotion. + +Mrs Todgers had no doubt about it. + +‘Mercy and Charity,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘Charity and Mercy. Not unholy +names, I hope?’ + +‘Mr Pecksniff!’ cried Mrs Todgers. ‘What a ghastly smile! Are you ill, +sir?’ + +He pressed his hand upon her arm, and answered in a solemn manner, and a +faint voice, ‘Chronic.’ + +‘Cholic?’ cried the frightened Mrs Todgers. + +‘Chron-ic,’ he repeated with some difficulty. ‘Chron-ic. A chronic +disorder. I have been its victim from childhood. It is carrying me to my +grave.’ + +‘Heaven forbid!’ cried Mrs Todgers. + +‘Yes, it is,’ said Mr Pecksniff, reckless with despair. ‘I am rather +glad of it, upon the whole. You are like her, Mrs Todgers.’ + +‘Don’t squeeze me so tight, pray, Mr Pecksniff. If any of the gentlemen +should notice us.’ + +‘For her sake,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Permit me--in honour of her memory. +For the sake of a voice from the tomb. You are VERY like her Mrs +Todgers! What a world this is!’ + +‘Ah! Indeed you may say that!’ cried Mrs Todgers. + +‘I’m afraid it is a vain and thoughtless world,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +overflowing with despondency. ‘These young people about us. Oh! what +sense have they of their responsibilities? None. Give me your other +hand, Mrs Todgers.’ + +The lady hesitated, and said ‘she didn’t like.’ + +‘Has a voice from the grave no influence?’ said Mr Pecksniff, with, +dismal tenderness. ‘This is irreligious! My dear creature.’ + +‘Hush!’ urged Mrs Todgers. ‘Really you mustn’t.’ + +‘It’s not me,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Don’t suppose it’s me; it’s the +voice; it’s her voice.’ + +Mrs Pecksniff deceased, must have had an unusually thick and husky voice +for a lady, and rather a stuttering voice, and to say the truth somewhat +of a drunken voice, if it had ever borne much resemblance to that in +which Mr Pecksniff spoke just then. But perhaps this was delusion on his +part. + +‘It has been a day of enjoyment, Mrs Todgers, but still it has been a +day of torture. It has reminded me of my loneliness. What am I in the +world?’ + +‘An excellent gentleman, Mr Pecksniff,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘There is consolation in that too,’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Am I?’ + +‘There is no better man living,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘I am sure.’ + +Mr Pecksniff smiled through his tears, and slightly shook his head. ‘You +are very good,’ he said, ‘thank you. It is a great happiness to me, Mrs +Todgers, to make young people happy. The happiness of my pupils is my +chief object. I dote upon ‘em. They dote upon me too--sometimes.’ + +‘Always,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘When they say they haven’t improved, ma’am,’ whispered Mr Pecksniff, +looking at her with profound mystery, and motioning to her to advance +her ear a little closer to his mouth. ‘When they say they haven’t +improved, ma’am, and the premium was too high, they lie! I shouldn’t +wish it to be mentioned; you will understand me; but I say to you as to +an old friend, they lie.’ + +‘Base wretches they must be!’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘Madam,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘you are right. I respect you for that +observation. A word in your ear. To Parents and Guardians. This is in +confidence, Mrs Todgers?’ + +‘The strictest, of course!’ cried that lady. + +‘To Parents and Guardians,’ repeated Mr Pecksniff. ‘An eligible +opportunity now offers, which unites the advantages of the best +practical architectural education with the comforts of a home, and the +constant association with some, who, however humble their sphere and +limited their capacity--observe!--are not unmindful of their moral +responsibilities.’ + +Mrs Todgers looked a little puzzled to know what this might mean, as +well she might; for it was, as the reader may perchance remember, Mr +Pecksniff’s usual form of advertisement when he wanted a pupil; and +seemed to have no particular reference, at present, to anything. But Mr +Pecksniff held up his finger as a caution to her not to interrupt him. + +‘Do you know any parent or guardian, Mrs Todgers,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +‘who desires to avail himself of such an opportunity for a young +gentleman? An orphan would be preferred. Do you know of any orphan with +three or four hundred pound?’ + +Mrs Todgers reflected, and shook her head. + +‘When you hear of an orphan with three or four hundred pound,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, ‘let that dear orphan’s friends apply, by letter post-paid, +to S. P., Post Office, Salisbury. I don’t know who he is exactly. Don’t +be alarmed, Mrs Todgers,’ said Mr Pecksniff, falling heavily against +her; ‘Chronic--chronic! Let’s have a little drop of something to drink.’ + +‘Bless my life, Miss Pecksniffs!’ cried Mrs Todgers, aloud, ‘your dear +pa’s took very poorly!’ + +Mr Pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising effort, as every +one turned hastily towards him; and standing on his feet, regarded the +assembly with a look of ineffable wisdom. Gradually it gave place to +a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland, almost to +sickliness. ‘Do not repine, my friends,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tenderly. +‘Do not weep for me. It is chronic.’ And with these words, after making +a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fireplace. + +The youngest gentleman in company had him out in a second. Yes, before a +hair upon his head was singed, he had him on the hearth-rug--her father! + +She was almost beside herself. So was her sister. Jinkins consoled them +both. They all consoled them. Everybody had something to say, except the +youngest gentleman in company, who with a noble self-devotion did the +heavy work, and held up Mr Pecksniff’s head without being taken notice +of by anybody. At last they gathered round, and agreed to carry him +upstairs to bed. The youngest gentleman in company was rebuked by +Jinkins for tearing Mr Pecksniff’s coat! Ha, ha! But no matter. + +They carried him upstairs, and crushed the youngest gentleman at every +step. His bedroom was at the top of the house, and it was a long way; +but they got him there in course of time. He asked them frequently +on the road for a little drop of something to drink. It seemed an +idiosyncrasy. The youngest gentleman in company proposed a draught of +water. Mr Pecksniff called him opprobious names for the suggestion. + +Jinkins and Gander took the rest upon themselves, and made him as +comfortable as they could, on the outside of his bed; and when he seemed +disposed to sleep, they left him. But before they had all gained the +bottom of the staircase, a vision of Mr Pecksniff, strangely attired, +was seen to flutter on the top landing. He desired to collect their +sentiments, it seemed, upon the nature of human life. + +‘My friends,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, looking over the banisters, ‘let us +improve our minds by mutual inquiry and discussion. Let us be moral. Let +us contemplate existence. Where is Jinkins?’ + +‘Here,’ cried that gentleman. ‘Go to bed again’ + +‘To bed!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Bed! ‘Tis the voice of the sluggard, I +hear him complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber again. If +any young orphan will repeat the remainder of that simple piece from +Doctor Watts’s collection, an eligible opportunity now offers.’ + +Nobody volunteered. + +‘This is very soothing,’ said Mr Pecksniff, after a pause. ‘Extremely +so. Cool and refreshing; particularly to the legs! The legs of the +human subject, my friends, are a beautiful production. Compare them with +wooden legs, and observe the difference between the anatomy of nature +and the anatomy of art. Do you know,’ said Mr Pecksniff, leaning over +the banisters, with an odd recollection of his familiar manner among +new pupils at home, ‘that I should very much like to see Mrs Todgers’s +notion of a wooden leg, if perfectly agreeable to herself!’ + +As it appeared impossible to entertain any reasonable hopes of him after +this speech, Mr Jinkins and Mr Gander went upstairs again, and once more +got him into bed. But they had not descended to the second floor before +he was out again; nor, when they had repeated the process, had they +descended the first flight, before he was out again. In a word, as often +as he was shut up in his own room, he darted out afresh, charged +with some new moral sentiment, which he continually repeated over the +banisters, with extraordinary relish, and an irrepressible desire for +the improvement of his fellow creatures that nothing could subdue. + +Under these circumstances, when they had got him into bed for the +thirtieth time or so, Mr Jinkins held him, while his companion went +downstairs in search of Bailey junior, with whom he presently returned. +That youth having been apprised of the service required of him, was in +great spirits, and brought up a stool, a candle, and his supper; to the +end that he might keep watch outside the bedroom door with tolerable +comfort. + +When he had completed his arrangements, they locked Mr Pecksniff in, +and left the key on the outside; charging the young page to listen +attentively for symptoms of an apoplectic nature, with which the patient +might be troubled, and, in case of any such presenting themselves, to +summon them without delay. To which Mr Bailey modestly replied that +‘he hoped he knowed wot o’clock it wos in gineral, and didn’t date his +letters to his friends from Todgers’s for nothing.’ + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +CONTAINING STRANGE MATTER, ON WHICH MANY EVENTS IN THIS HISTORY MAY, FOR +THEIR GOOD OR EVIL INFLUENCE, CHIEFLY DEPEND + + +But Mr Pecksniff came to town on business. Had he forgotten that? Was he +always taking his pleasure with Todgers’s jovial brood, unmindful of the +serious demands, whatever they might be, upon his calm consideration? +No. + +Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to +wait for time and tide. That tide which, taken at the flood, would lead +Seth Pecksniff on to fortune, was marked down in the table, and about to +flow. No idle Pecksniff lingered far inland, unmindful of the changes +of the stream; but there, upon the water’s edge, over his shoes already, +stood the worthy creature, prepared to wallow in the very mud, so that +it slid towards the quarter of his hope. + +The trustfulness of his two fair daughters was beautiful indeed. They +had that firm reliance on their parent’s nature, which taught them to +feel certain that in all he did he had his purpose straight and full +before him. And that its noble end and object was himself, which almost +of necessity included them, they knew. The devotion of these maids was +perfect. + +Their filial confidence was rendered the more touching, by their having +no knowledge of their parent’s real designs, in the present instance. +All that they knew of his proceedings was, that every morning, after +the early breakfast, he repaired to the post office and inquired for +letters. That task performed, his business for the day was over; and he +again relaxed, until the rising of another sun proclaimed the advent of +another post. + +This went on for four or five days. At length, one morning, Mr Pecksniff +returned with a breathless rapidity, strange to observe in him, at other +times so calm; and, seeking immediate speech with his daughters, shut +himself up with them in private conference for two whole hours. Of all +that passed in this period, only the following words of Mr Pecksniff’s +utterance are known: + +‘How he has come to change so very much (if it should turn out as I +expect, that he has), we needn’t stop to inquire. My dears, I have my +thoughts upon the subject, but I will not impart them. It is enough +that we will not be proud, resentful, or unforgiving. If he wants our +friendship he shall have it. We know our duty, I hope!’ + +That same day at noon, an old gentleman alighted from a hackney-coach at +the post-office, and, giving his name, inquired for a letter addressed +to himself, and directed to be left till called for. It had been lying +there some days. The superscription was in Mr Pecksniff’s hand, and it +was sealed with Mr Pecksniff’s seal. + +It was very short, containing indeed nothing more than an address +‘with Mr Pecksniff’s respectful, and (not withstanding what has +passed) sincerely affectionate regards.’ The old gentleman tore off the +direction--scattering the rest in fragments to the winds--and giving +it to the coachman, bade him drive as near that place as he could. In +pursuance of these instructions he was driven to the Monument; where he +again alighted, and dismissed the vehicle, and walked towards Todgers’s. + +Though the face, and form, and gait of this old man, and even his +grip of the stout stick on which he leaned, were all expressive of a +resolution not easily shaken, and a purpose (it matters little whether +right or wrong, just now) such as in other days might have survived +the rack, and had its strongest life in weakest death; still there were +grains of hesitation in his mind, which made him now avoid the house he +sought, and loiter to and fro in a gleam of sunlight, that brightened +the little churchyard hard by. There may have been, in the presence of +those idle heaps of dust among the busiest stir of life, something to +increase his wavering; but there he walked, awakening the echoes as he +paced up and down, until the church clock, striking the quarters for +the second time since he had been there, roused him from his meditation. +Shaking off his incertitude as the air parted with the sound of the +bells, he walked rapidly to the house, and knocked at the door. + +Mr Pecksniff was seated in the landlady’s little room, and his visitor +found him reading--by an accident; he apologised for it--an excellent +theological work. There were cake and wine upon a little table--by +another accident, for which he also apologised. Indeed he said, he +had given his visitor up, and was about to partake of that simple +refreshment with his children, when he knocked at the door. + +‘Your daughters are well?’ said old Martin, laying down his hat and +stick. + +Mr Pecksniff endeavoured to conceal his agitation as a father when he +answered Yes, they were. They were good girls, he said, very good. He +would not venture to recommend Mr Chuzzlewit to take the easy-chair, +or to keep out of the draught from the door. If he made any such +suggestion, he would expose himself, he feared, to most unjust +suspicion. He would, therefore, content himself with remarking that +there was an easy-chair in the room, and that the door was far from +being air-tight. This latter imperfection, he might perhaps venture to +add, was not uncommonly to be met with in old houses. + +The old man sat down in the easy-chair, and after a few moments’ +silence, said: + +‘In the first place, let me thank you for coming to London so promptly, +at my almost unexplained request; I need scarcely add, at my cost.’ + +‘At YOUR cost, my good sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, in a tone of great +surprise. + +‘It is not,’ said Martin, waving his hand impatiently, ‘my habit to put +my--well! my relatives--to any personal expense to gratify my caprices.’ + +‘Caprices, my good sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff + +‘That is scarcely the proper word either, in this instance,’ said the +old man. ‘No. You are right.’ + +Mr Pecksniff was inwardly very much relieved to hear it, though he +didn’t at all know why. + +‘You are right,’ repeated Martin. ‘It is not a caprice. It is built up +on reason, proof, and cool comparison. Caprices never are. Moreover, I +am not a capricious man. I never was.’ + +‘Most assuredly not,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘How do you know?’ returned the other quickly. ‘You are to begin to know +it now. You are to test and prove it, in time to come. You and yours are +to find that I can be constant, and am not to be diverted from my end. +Do you hear?’ + +‘Perfectly,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I very much regret,’ Martin resumed, looking steadily at him, and +speaking in a slow and measured tone; ‘I very much regret that you and +I held such a conversation together, as that which passed between us at +our last meeting. I very much regret that I laid open to you what were +then my thoughts of you, so freely as I did. The intentions that I bear +towards you now are of another kind; deserted by all in whom I have ever +trusted; hoodwinked and beset by all who should help and sustain me; +I fly to you for refuge. I confide in you to be my ally; to attach +yourself to me by ties of Interest and Expectation’--he laid great +stress upon these words, though Mr Pecksniff particularly begged him +not to mention it; ‘and to help me to visit the consequences of the very +worst species of meanness, dissimulation, and subtlety, on the right +heads.’ + +‘My noble sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, catching at his outstretched hand. +‘And YOU regret the having harboured unjust thoughts of me! YOU with +those grey hairs!’ + +‘Regrets,’ said Martin, ‘are the natural property of grey hairs; and +I enjoy, in common with all other men, at least my share of such +inheritance. And so enough of that. I regret having been severed from +you so long. If I had known you sooner, and sooner used you as you well +deserve, I might have been a happier man.’ + +Mr Pecksniff looked up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands in rapture. + +‘Your daughters,’ said Martin, after a short silence. ‘I don’t know +them. Are they like you?’ + +‘In the nose of my eldest and the chin of my youngest, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ +returned the widower, ‘their sainted parent (not myself, their mother) +lives again.’ + +‘I don’t mean in person,’ said the old man. ‘Morally, morally.’ + +‘’Tis not for me to say,’ retorted Mr Pecksniff with a gentle smile. ‘I +have done my best, sir.’ + +‘I could wish to see them,’ said Martin; ‘are they near at hand?’ + +They were, very near; for they had in fact been listening at the +door from the beginning of this conversation until now, when they +precipitately retired. Having wiped the signs of weakness from his eyes, +and so given them time to get upstairs, Mr Pecksniff opened the door, +and mildly cried in the passage, + +‘My own darlings, where are you?’ + +‘Here, my dear pa!’ replied the distant voice of Charity. + +‘Come down into the back parlour, if you please, my love,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, ‘and bring your sister with you.’ + +‘Yes, my dear pa,’ cried Merry; and down they came directly (being all +obedience), singing as they came. + +Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the two Miss Pecksniffs when +they found a stranger with their dear papa. Nothing could surpass their +mute amazement when he said, ‘My children, Mr Chuzzlewit!’ But when he +told them that Mr Chuzzlewit and he were friends, and that Mr Chuzzlewit +had said such kind and tender words as pierced his very heart, the two +Miss Pecksniffs cried with one accord, ‘Thank Heaven for this!’ and +fell upon the old man’s neck. And when they had embraced him with +such fervour of affection that no words can describe it, they grouped +themselves about his chair, and hung over him, as figuring to themselves +no earthly joy like that of ministering to his wants, and crowding into +the remainder of his life, the love they would have diffused over their +whole existence, from infancy, if he--dear obdurate!--had but consented +to receive the precious offering. + +The old man looked attentively from one to the other, and then at Mr +Pecksniff, several times. + +‘What,’ he asked of Mr Pecksniff, happening to catch his eye in its +descent; for until now it had been piously upraised, with something of +that expression which the poetry of ages has attributed to a domestic +bird, when breathing its last amid the ravages of an electric storm: +‘What are their names?’ + +Mr Pecksniff told him, and added, rather hastily; his caluminators +would have said, with a view to any testamentary thoughts that might be +flitting through old Martin’s mind; ‘Perhaps, my dears, you had better +write them down. Your humble autographs are of no value in themselves, +but affection may prize them.’ + +‘Affection,’ said the old man, ‘will expend itself on the living +originals. Do not trouble yourselves, my girls, I shall not so easily +forget you, Charity and Mercy, as to need such tokens of remembrance. +Cousin!’ + +‘Sir!’ said Mr Pecksniff, with alacrity. + +‘Do you never sit down?’ + +‘Why--yes--occasionally, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, who had been standing +all this time. + +‘Will you do so now?’ + +‘Can you ask me,’ returned Mr Pecksniff, slipping into a chair +immediately, ‘whether I will do anything that you desire?’ + +‘You talk confidently,’ said Martin, ‘and you mean well; but I fear you +don’t know what an old man’s humours are. You don’t know what it is to +be required to court his likings and dislikings; to adapt yourself to +his prejudices; to do his bidding, be it what it may; to bear with his +distrusts and jealousies; and always still be zealous in his service. +When I remember how numerous these failings are in me, and judge of +their occasional enormity by the injurious thoughts I lately entertained +of you, I hardly dare to claim you for my friend.’ + +‘My worthy sir,’ returned his relative, ‘how CAN you talk in such a +painful strain! What was more natural than that you should make one +slight mistake, when in all other respects you were so very correct, and +have had such reason--such very sad and undeniable reason--to judge of +every one about you in the worst light!’ + +‘True,’ replied the other. ‘You are very lenient with me.’ + +‘We always said, my girls and I,’ cried Mr Pecksniff with increasing +obsequiousness, ‘that while we mourned the heaviness of our misfortune +in being confounded with the base and mercenary, still we could not +wonder at it. My dears, you remember?’ + +Oh vividly! A thousand times! + +‘We uttered no complaint,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Occasionally we had the +presumption to console ourselves with the remark that Truth would in +the end prevail, and Virtue be triumphant; but not often. My loves, you +recollect?’ + +Recollect! Could he doubt it! Dearest pa, what strange unnecessary +questions! + +‘And when I saw you,’ resumed Mr Pecksniff, with still greater +deference, ‘in the little, unassuming village where we take the liberty +of dwelling, I said you were mistaken in me, my dear sir; that was all, +I think?’ + +‘No--not all,’ said Martin, who had been sitting with his hand upon his +brow for some time past, and now looked up again; ‘you said much more, +which, added to other circumstances that have come to my knowledge, +opened my eyes. You spoke to me, disinterestedly, on behalf of--I +needn’t name him. You know whom I mean.’ + +Trouble was expressed in Mr Pecksniff’s visage, as he pressed his hot +hands together, and replied, with humility, ‘Quite disinterestedly, sir, +I assure you.’ + +‘I know it,’ said old Martin, in his quiet way. ‘I am sure of it. I said +so. It was disinterested too, in you, to draw that herd of harpies +off from me, and be their victim yourself; most other men would have +suffered them to display themselves in all their rapacity, and would +have striven to rise, by contrast, in my estimation. You felt for me, +and drew them off, for which I owe you many thanks. Although I left the +place, I know what passed behind my back, you see!’ + +‘You amaze me, sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff; which was true enough. + +‘My knowledge of your proceedings,’ said the old man, does not stop at +this. You have a new inmate in your house.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined the architect, ‘I have.’ + +‘He must quit it’ said Martin. + +‘For--for yours?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, with a quavering mildness. + +‘For any shelter he can find,’ the old man answered. ‘He has deceived +you.’ + +‘I hope not’ said Mr Pecksniff, eagerly. ‘I trust not. I have been +extremely well disposed towards that young man. I hope it cannot be +shown that he has forfeited all claim to my protection. Deceit--deceit, +my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, would be final. I should hold myself bound, on +proof of deceit, to renounce him instantly.’ + +The old man glanced at both his fair supporters, but especially at +Miss Mercy, whom, indeed, he looked full in the face, with a greater +demonstration of interest than had yet appeared in his features. His +gaze again encountered Mr Pecksniff, as he said, composedly: + +‘Of course you know that he has made his matrimonial choice?’ + +‘Oh dear!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, rubbing his hair up very stiff upon +his head, and staring wildly at his daughters. ‘This is becoming +tremendous!’ + +‘You know the fact?’ repeated Martin + +‘Surely not without his grandfather’s consent and approbation my dear +sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Don’t tell me that. For the honour of human +nature, say you’re not about to tell me that!’ + +‘I thought he had suppressed it,’ said the old man. + +The indignation felt by Mr Pecksniff at this terrible disclosure, was +only to be equalled by the kindling anger of his daughters. What! Had +they taken to their hearth and home a secretly contracted serpent; a +crocodile, who had made a furtive offer of his hand; an imposition on +society; a bankrupt bachelor with no effects, trading with the spinster +world on false pretences! And oh, to think that he should have disobeyed +and practised on that sweet, that venerable gentleman, whose name +he bore; that kind and tender guardian; his more than father--to say +nothing at all of mother--horrible, horrible! To turn him out with +ignominy would be treatment much too good. Was there nothing else that +could be done to him? Had he incurred no legal pains and penalties? +Could it be that the statutes of the land were so remiss as to have +affixed no punishment to such delinquency? Monster; how basely had they +been deceived! + +‘I am glad to find you second me so warmly,’ said the old man holding up +his hand to stay the torrent of their wrath. ‘I will not deny that it +is a pleasure to me to find you so full of zeal. We will consider that +topic as disposed of.’ + +‘No, my dear sir,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, ‘not as disposed of, until I have +purged my house of this pollution.’ + +‘That will follow,’ said the old man, ‘in its own time. I look upon that +as done.’ + +‘You are very good, sir,’ answered Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand. ‘You +do me honour. You MAY look upon it as done, I assure you.’ + +‘There is another topic,’ said Martin, ‘on which I hope you will assist +me. You remember Mary, cousin?’ + +‘The young lady that I mentioned to you, my dears, as having interested +me so very much,’ remarked Mr Pecksniff. ‘Excuse my interrupting you, +sir.’ + +‘I told you her history?’ said the old man. + +‘Which I also mentioned, you will recollect, my dears,’ cried Mr +Pecksniff. ‘Silly girls, Mr Chuzzlewit--quite moved by it, they were!’ + +‘Why, look now!’ said Martin, evidently pleased; ‘I feared I should have +had to urge her case upon you, and ask you to regard her favourably for +my sake. But I find you have no jealousies! Well! You have no cause +for any, to be sure. She has nothing to gain from me, my dears, and she +knows it.’ + +The two Miss Pecksniffs murmured their approval of this wise +arrangement, and their cordial sympathy with its interesting object. + +‘If I could have anticipated what has come to pass between us four,’ +said the old man thoughfully; ‘but it is too late to think of that. You +would receive her courteously, young ladies, and be kind to her, if need +were?’ + +Where was the orphan whom the two Miss Pecksniffs would not have +cherished in their sisterly bosom! But when that orphan was commended to +their care by one on whom the dammed-up love of years was gushing forth, +what exhaustless stores of pure affection yearned to expend themselves +upon her! + +An interval ensued, during which Mr Chuzzlewit, in an absent frame of +mind, sat gazing at the ground, without uttering a word; and as it was +plain that he had no desire to be interrupted in his meditations, Mr +Pecksniff and his daughters were profoundly silent also. During the +whole of the foregoing dialogue, he had borne his part with a cold, +passionless promptitude, as though he had learned and painfully +rehearsed it all a hundred times. Even when his expressions were warmest +and his language most encouraging, he had retained the same manner, +without the least abatement. But now there was a keener brightness in +his eye, and more expression in his voice, as he said, awakening from +his thoughtful mood: + +‘You know what will be said of this? Have you reflected?’ + +‘Said of what, my dear sir?’ Mr Pecksniff asked. + +‘Of this new understanding between us.’ + +Mr Pecksniff looked benevolently sagacious, and at the same time far +above all earthly misconstruction, as he shook his head, and observed +that a great many things would be said of it, no doubt. + +‘A great many,’ rejoined the old man. ‘Some will say that I dote in my +old age; that illness has shaken me; that I have lost all strength of +mind, and have grown childish. You can bear that?’ + +Mr Pecksniff answered that it would be dreadfully hard to bear, but he +thought he could, if he made a great effort. + +‘Others will say--I speak of disappointed, angry people only--that you +have lied and fawned, and wormed yourself through dirty ways into my +favour; by such concessions and such crooked deeds, such meannesses and +vile endurances, as nothing could repay; no, not the legacy of half the +world we live in. You can bear that?’ + +Mr Pecksniff made reply that this would be also very hard to bear, as +reflecting, in some degree, on the discernment of Mr Chuzzlewit. Still +he had a modest confidence that he could sustain the calumny, with the +help of a good conscience, and that gentleman’s friendship. + +‘With the great mass of slanderers,’ said old Martin, leaning back in +his chair, ‘the tale, as I clearly foresee, will run thus: That to mark +my contempt for the rabble whom I despised, I chose from among them the +very worst, and made him do my will, and pampered and enriched him at +the cost of all the rest. That, after casting about for the means of a +punishment which should rankle in the bosoms of these kites the most, +and strike into their gall, I devised this scheme at a time when the +last link in the chain of grateful love and duty, that held me to +my race, was roughly snapped asunder; roughly, for I loved him well; +roughly, for I had ever put my trust in his affection; roughly, for that +he broke it when I loved him most--God help me!--and he without a pang +could throw me off, while I clung about his heart! Now,’ said the old +man, dismissing this passionate outburst as suddenly as he had yielded +to it, ‘is your mind made up to bear this likewise? Lay your account +with having it to bear, and put no trust in being set right by me.’ + +‘My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,’ cried Pecksniff in an ecstasy, ‘for such a man +as you have shown yourself to be this day; for a man so injured, yet so +very humane; for a man so--I am at a loss what precise term to use--yet +at the same time so remarkably--I don’t know how to express my meaning; +for such a man as I have described, I hope it is no presumption to say +that I, and I am sure I may add my children also (my dears, we perfectly +agree in this, I think?), would bear anything whatever!’ + +‘Enough,’ said Martin. ‘You can charge no consequences on me. When do +you retire home?’ + +‘Whenever you please, my dear sir. To-night if you desire it.’ + +‘I desire nothing,’ returned the old man, ‘that is unreasonable. Such a +request would be. Will you be ready to return at the end of this week?’ + +The very time of all others that Mr Pecksniff would have suggested if +it had been left to him to make his own choice. As to his daughters--the +words, ‘Let us be at home on Saturday, dear pa,’ were actually upon +their lips. + +‘Your expenses, cousin,’ said Martin, taking a folded slip of paper from +his pocketbook, ‘may possibly exceed that amount. If so, let me know the +balance that I owe you, when we next meet. It would be useless if I told +you where I live just now; indeed, I have no fixed abode. When I have, +you shall know it. You and your daughters may expect to see me +before long; in the meantime I need not tell you that we keep our own +confidence. What you will do when you get home is understood between us. +Give me no account of it at any time; and never refer to it in any way. +I ask that as a favour. I am commonly a man of few words, cousin; and +all that need be said just now is said, I think.’ + +‘One glass of wine--one morsel of this homely cake?’ cried Mr Pecksniff, +venturing to detain him. ‘My dears--!’ + +The sisters flew to wait upon him. + +‘Poor girls!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘You will excuse their agitation, my +dear sir. They are made up of feeling. A bad commodity to go through the +world with, Mr Chuzzlewit! My youngest daughter is almost as much of a +woman as my eldest, is she not, sir?’ + +‘Which IS the youngest?’ asked the old man. + +‘Mercy, by five years,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘We sometimes venture to +consider her rather a fine figure, sir. Speaking as an artist, I +may perhaps be permitted to suggest that its outline is graceful and +correct. I am naturally,’ said Mr Pecksniff, drying his hands upon his +handkerchief, and looking anxiously in his cousin’s face at almost every +word, ‘proud, if I may use the expression, to have a daughter who is +constructed on the best models.’ + +‘She seems to have a lively disposition,’ observed Martin. + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘That is quite remarkable. You have +defined her character, my dear sir, as correctly as if you had known her +from her birth. She HAS a lively disposition. I assure you, my dear sir, +that in our unpretending home her gaiety is delightful.’ + +‘No doubt,’ returned the old man. + +‘Charity, upon the other hand,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘is remarkable for +strong sense, and for rather a deep tone of sentiment, if the partiality +of a father may be excused in saying so. A wonderful affection between +them, my dear sir! Allow me to drink your health. Bless you!’ + +‘I little thought,’ retorted Martin, ‘but a month ago, that I should be +breaking bread and pouring wine with you. I drink to you.’ + +Not at all abashed by the extraordinary abruptness with which these +latter words were spoken, Mr Pecksniff thanked him devoutly. + +‘Now let me go,’ said Martin, putting down the wine when he had merely +touched it with his lips. ‘My dears, good morning!’ + +But this distant form of farewell was by no means tender enough for the +yearnings of the young ladies, who again embraced him with all their +hearts--with all their arms at any rate--to which parting caresses their +new-found friend submitted with a better grace than might have been +expected from one who, not a moment before, had pledged their parent in +such a very uncomfortable manner. These endearments terminated, he took +a hasty leave of Mr Pecksniff and withdrew, followed to the door by both +father and daughters, who stood there kissing their hands and beaming +with affection until he disappeared; though, by the way, he never once +looked back, after he had crossed the threshold. + +When they returned into the house, and were again alone in Mrs Todgers’s +room, the two young ladies exhibited an unusual amount of gaiety; +insomuch that they clapped their hands, and laughed, and looked with +roguish aspects and a bantering air upon their dear papa. This conduct +was so very unaccountable, that Mr Pecksniff (being singularly grave +himself) could scarcely choose but ask them what it meant; and took them +to task, in his gentle manner, for yielding to such light emotions. + +‘If it was possible to divine any cause for this merriment, even the +most remote,’ he said, ‘I should not reprove you. But when you can have +none whatever--oh, really, really!’ + +This admonition had so little effect on Mercy, that she was obliged to +hold her handkerchief before her rosy lips, and to throw herself back in +her chair, with every demonstration of extreme amusement; which want +of duty so offended Mr Pecksniff that he reproved her in set terms, +and gave her his parental advice to correct herself in solitude and +contemplation. But at that juncture they were disturbed by the sound of +voices in dispute; and as it proceeded from the next room, the subject +matter of the altercation quickly reached their ears. + +‘I don’t care that! Mrs Todgers,’ said the young gentleman who had been +the youngest gentleman in company on the day of the festival; ‘I don’t +care THAT, ma’am,’ said he, snapping his fingers, ‘for Jinkins. Don’t +suppose I do.’ + +‘I am quite certain you don’t, sir,’ replied Mrs Todgers. ‘You have +too independent a spirit, I know, to yield to anybody. And quite right. +There is no reason why you should give way to any gentleman. Everybody +must be well aware of that.’ + +‘I should think no more of admitting daylight into the fellow,’ said the +youngest gentleman, in a desperate voice, ‘than if he was a bulldog.’ + +Mrs Todgers did not stop to inquire whether, as a matter of principle, +there was any particular reason for admitting daylight even into a +bulldog, otherwise than by the natural channel of his eyes, but she +seemed to wring her hands, and she moaned. + +‘Let him be careful,’ said the youngest gentleman. ‘I give him warning. +No man shall step between me and the current of my vengeance. I know +a Cove--’ he used that familiar epithet in his agitation but corrected +himself by adding, ‘a gentleman of property, I mean--who practices with +a pair of pistols (fellows too) of his own. If I am driven to borrow +‘em, and to send at friend to Jinkins, a tragedy will get into the +papers. That’s all.’ + +Again Mrs Todgers moaned. + +‘I have borne this long enough,’ said the youngest gentleman but now +my soul rebels against it, and I won’t stand it any longer. I left home +originally, because I had that within me which wouldn’t be domineered +over by a sister; and do you think I’m going to be put down by HIM? No.’ + +‘It is very wrong in Mr Jinkins; I know it is perfectly inexcusable in +Mr Jinkins, if he intends it,’ observed Mrs Todgers + +‘If he intends it!’ cried the youngest gentleman. ‘Don’t he interrupt +and contradict me on every occasion? Does he ever fail to interpose +himself between me and anything or anybody that he sees I have set my +mind upon? Does he make a point of always pretending to forget me, +when he’s pouring out the beer? Does he make bragging remarks about his +razors, and insulting allusions to people who have no necessity to shave +more than once a week? But let him look out! He’ll find himself shaved, +pretty close, before long, and so I tell him.’ + +The young gentleman was mistaken in this closing sentence, inasmuch as +he never told it to Jinkins, but always to Mrs Todgers. + +‘However,’ he said, ‘these are not proper subjects for ladies’ ears. +All I’ve got to say to you, Mrs Todgers, is, a week’s notice from next +Saturday. The same house can’t contain that miscreant and me any longer. +If we get over the intermediate time without bloodshed, you may think +yourself pretty fortunate. I don’t myself expect we shall.’ + +‘Dear, dear!’ cried Mrs Todgers, ‘what would I have given to have +prevented this? To lose you, sir, would be like losing the house’s +right-hand. So popular as you are among the gentlemen; so generally +looked up to; and so much liked! I do hope you’ll think better of it; if +on nobody else’s account, on mine.’ + +‘There’s Jinkins,’ said the youngest gentleman, moodily. ‘Your +favourite. He’ll console you, and the gentlemen too, for the loss of +twenty such as me. I’m not understood in this house. I never have been.’ + +‘Don’t run away with that opinion, sir!’ cried Mrs Todgers, with a show +of honest indignation. ‘Don’t make such a charge as that against the +establishment, I must beg of you. It is not so bad as that comes to, +sir. Make any remark you please against the gentlemen, or against me; +but don’t say you’re not understood in this house.’ + +‘I’m not treated as if I was,’ said the youngest gentleman. + +‘There you make a great mistake, sir,’ returned Mrs Todgers, in the same +strain. ‘As many of the gentlemen and I have often said, you are too +sensitive. That’s where it is. You are of too susceptible a nature; it’s +in your spirit.’ + +The young gentleman coughed. + +‘And as,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘as to Mr Jinkins, I must beg of you, if we +ARE to part, to understand that I don’t abet Mr Jinkins by any means. +Far from it. I could wish that Mr Jinkins would take a lower tone in +this establishment, and would not be the means of raising differences +between me and gentlemen that I can much less bear to part with than I +could with Mr Jinkins. Mr Jinkins is not such a boarder, sir,’ added Mrs +Todgers, ‘that all considerations of private feeling and respect give +way before him. Quite the contrary, I assure you.’ + +The young gentleman was so much mollified by these and similar speeches +on the part of Mrs Todgers, that he and that lady gradually changed +positions; so that she became the injured party, and he was understood +to be the injurer; but in a complimentary, not in an offensive sense; +his cruel conduct being attributable to his exalted nature, and to that +alone. So, in the end, the young gentleman withdrew his notice, and +assured Mrs Todgers of his unalterable regard; and having done so, went +back to business. + +‘Goodness me, Miss Pecksniffs!’ cried that lady, as she came into the +back room, and sat wearily down, with her basket on her knees, and her +hands folded upon it, ‘what a trial of temper it is to keep a house like +this! You must have heard most of what has just passed. Now did you ever +hear the like?’ + +‘Never!’ said the two Miss Pecksniffs. + +‘Of all the ridiculous young fellows that ever I had to deal with,’ +resumed Mrs Todgers, ‘that is the most ridiculous and unreasonable. Mr +Jinkins is hard upon him sometimes, but not half as hard as he deserves. +To mention such a gentleman as Mr Jinkins in the same breath with +HIM--you know it’s too much! And yet he’s as jealous of him, bless you, +as if he was his equal.’ + +The young ladies were greatly entertained by Mrs Todgers’s account, +no less than with certain anecdotes illustrative of the youngest +gentleman’s character, which she went on to tell them. But Mr Pecksniff +looked quite stern and angry; and when she had concluded, said in a +solemn voice: + +‘Pray, Mrs Todgers, if I may inquire, what does that young gentleman +contribute towards the support of these premises?’ + +‘Why, sir, for what HE has, he pays about eighteen shillings a week!’ +said Mrs Todgers. + +‘Eighteen shillings a week!’ repeated Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Taking one week with another; as near that as possible,’ said Mrs +Todgers. + +Mr Pecksniff rose from his chair, folded his arms, looked at her, and +shook his head. + +‘And do you mean to say, ma’am--is it possible, Mrs Todgers--that for +such a miserable consideration as eighteen shillings a week, a female of +your understanding can so far demean herself as to wear a double face, +even for an instant?’ + +‘I am forced to keep things on the square if I can, sir,’ faltered +Mrs Todgers. ‘I must preserve peace among them, and keep my connection +together, if possible, Mr Pecksniff. The profit is very small.’ + +‘The profit!’ cried that gentleman, laying great stress upon the word. +‘The profit, Mrs Todgers! You amaze me!’ + +He was so severe, that Mrs Todgers shed tears. + +‘The profit!’ repeated Mr pecksniff. ‘The profit of dissimulation! To +worship the golden calf of Baal, for eighteen shillings a week!’ + +‘Don’t in your own goodness be too hard upon me, Mr Pecksniff,’ cried +Mrs Todgers, taking out her handkerchief. + +‘Oh Calf, Calf!’ cried Mr Pecksniff mournfully. ‘Oh, Baal, Baal! oh my +friend, Mrs Todgers! To barter away that precious jewel, self-esteem, +and cringe to any mortal creature--for eighteen shillings a week!’ + +He was so subdued and overcome by the reflection, that he immediately +took down his hat from its peg in the passage, and went out for a walk, +to compose his feelings. Anybody passing him in the street might have +known him for a good man at first sight; for his whole figure teemed +with a consciousness of the moral homily he had read to Mrs Todgers. + +Eighteen shillings a week! Just, most just, thy censure, upright +Pecksniff! Had it been for the sake of a ribbon, star, or garter; +sleeves of lawn, a great man’s smile, a seat in parliament, a tap upon +the shoulder from a courtly sword; a place, a party, or a thriving lie, +or eighteen thousand pounds, or even eighteen hundred;--but to worship +the golden calf for eighteen shillings a week! oh pitiful, pitiful! + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +WHEREIN A CERTAIN GENTLEMAN BECOMES PARTICULAR IN HIS ATTENTIONS TO A +CERTAIN LADY; AND MORE COMING EVENTS THAN ONE, CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE + + +The family were within two or three days of their departure from Mrs +Todgers’s, and the commercial gentlemen were to a man despondent and +not to be comforted, because of the approaching separation, when Bailey +junior, at the jocund time of noon, presented himself before Miss +Charity Pecksniff, then sitting with her sister in the banquet chamber, +hemming six new pocket-handkerchiefs for Mr Jinkins; and having +expressed a hope, preliminary and pious, that he might be blest, gave +her in his pleasant way to understand that a visitor attended to pay +his respects to her, and was at that moment waiting in the drawing-room. +Perhaps this last announcement showed in a more striking point of view +than many lengthened speeches could have done, the trustfulness and +faith of Bailey’s nature; since he had, in fact, last seen the visitor +on the door-mat, where, after signifying to him that he would do well to +go upstairs, he had left him to the guidance of his own sagacity. Hence +it was at least an even chance that the visitor was then wandering on +the roof of the house, or vainly seeking to extricate himself from the +maze of bedrooms; Todgers’s being precisely that kind of establishment +in which an unpiloted stranger is pretty sure to find himself in some +place where he least expects and least desires to be. + +‘A gentleman for me!’ cried Charity, pausing in her work; ‘my gracious, +Bailey!’ + +‘Ah!’ said Bailey. ‘It IS my gracious, an’t it? Wouldn’t I be gracious +neither, not if I wos him!’ + +The remark was rendered somewhat obscure in itself, by reason (as the +reader may have observed) of a redundancy of negatives; but accompanied +by action expressive of a faithful couple walking arm-in-arm towards +a parochial church, mutually exchanging looks of love, it clearly +signified this youth’s conviction that the caller’s purpose was of an +amorous tendency. Miss Charity affected to reprove so great a liberty; +but she could not help smiling. He was a strange boy, to be sure. There +was always some ground of probability and likelihood mingled with his +absurd behaviour. That was the best of it! + +‘But I don’t know any gentlemen, Bailey,’ said Miss Pecksniff. ‘I think +you must have made a mistake.’ + +Mr Bailey smiled at the extreme wildness of such a supposition, and +regarded the young ladies with unimpaired affability. + +‘My dear Merry,’ said Charity, ‘who CAN it be? Isn’t it odd? I have a +great mind not to go to him really. So very strange, you know!’ + +The younger sister plainly considered that this appeal had its origin in +the pride of being called upon and asked for; and that it was intended +as an assertion of superiority, and a retaliation upon her for having +captured the commercial gentlemen. Therefore, she replied, with great +affection and politeness, that it was, no doubt, very strange indeed; +and that she was totally at a loss to conceive what the ridiculous +person unknown could mean by it. + +‘Quite impossible to divine!’ said Charity, with some sharpness, ‘though +still, at the same time, you needn’t be angry, my dear.’ + +‘Thank you,’ retorted Merry, singing at her needle. ‘I am quite aware of +that, my love.’ + +‘I am afraid your head is turned, you silly thing,’ said Cherry. + +‘Do you know, my dear,’ said Merry, with engaging candour, ‘that I have +been afraid of that, myself, all along! So much incense and nonsense, +and all the rest of it, is enough to turn a stronger head than mine. +What a relief it must be to you, my dear, to be so very comfortable in +that respect, and not to be worried by those odious men! How do you do +it, Cherry?’ + +This artless inquiry might have led to turbulent results, but for the +strong emotions of delight evinced by Bailey junior, whose relish in the +turn the conversation had lately taken was so acute, that it impelled +and forced him to the instantaneous performance of a dancing step, +extremely difficult in its nature, and only to be achieved in a +moment of ecstasy, which is commonly called The Frog’s Hornpipe. A +manifestation so lively, brought to their immediate recollection the +great virtuous precept, ‘Keep up appearances whatever you do,’ in which +they had been educated. They forbore at once, and jointly signified to +Mr Bailey that if he should presume to practice that figure any more in +their presence, they would instantly acquaint Mrs Todgers with the fact, +and would demand his condign punishment, at the hands of that lady. The +young gentleman having expressed the bitterness of his contrition by +affecting to wipe away scalding tears with his apron, and afterwards +feigning to wring a vast amount of water from that garment, held the +door open while Miss Charity passed out; and so that damsel went in +state upstairs to receive her mysterious adorer. + +By some strange occurrence of favourable circumstances he had found out +the drawing-room, and was sitting there alone. + +‘Ah, cousin!’ he said. ‘Here I am, you see. You thought I was lost, I’ll +be bound. Well! how do you find yourself by this time?’ + +Miss Charity replied that she was quite well, and gave Mr Jonas +Chuzzlewit her hand. + +‘That’s right,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘and you’ve got over the fatigues of the +journey have you? I say. How’s the other one?’ + +‘My sister is very well, I believe,’ returned the young lady. ‘I have +not heard her complain of any indisposition, sir. Perhaps you would like +to see her, and ask her yourself?’ + +‘No, no cousin!’ said Mr Jonas, sitting down beside her on the +window-seat. ‘Don’t be in a hurry. There’s no occasion for that, you +know. What a cruel girl you are!’ + +‘It’s impossible for YOU to know,’ said Cherry, ‘whether I am or not.’ + +‘Well, perhaps it is,’ said Mr Jonas. ‘I say--Did you think I was lost? +You haven’t told me that.’ + +‘I didn’t think at all about it,’ answered Cherry. + +‘Didn’t you though?’ said Jonas, pondering upon this strange reply. ‘Did +the other one?’ + +‘I am sure it’s impossible for me to say what my sister may, or may not +have thought on such a subject,’ cried Cherry. ‘She never said anything +to me about it, one way or other.’ + +‘Didn’t she laugh about it?’ inquired Jonas. + +‘No. She didn’t even laugh about it,’ answered Charity. + +‘She’s a terrible one to laugh, an’t she?’ said Jonas, lowering his +voice. + +‘She is very lively,’ said Cherry. + +‘Liveliness is a pleasant thing--when it don’t lead to spending money. +An’t it?’ asked Mr Jonas. + +‘Very much so, indeed,’ said Cherry, with a demureness of manner that +gave a very disinterested character to her assent. + +‘Such liveliness as yours I mean, you know,’ observed Mr Jonas, as he +nudged her with his elbow. ‘I should have come to see you before, but I +didn’t know where you was. How quick you hurried off, that morning!’ + +‘I was amenable to my papa’s directions,’ said Miss Charity. + +‘I wish he had given me his direction,’ returned her cousin, ‘and then +I should have found you out before. Why, I shouldn’t have found you even +now, if I hadn’t met him in the street this morning. What a sleek, sly +chap he is! Just like a tomcat, an’t he?’ + +‘I must trouble you to have the goodness to speak more respectfully of +my papa, Mr Jonas,’ said Charity. ‘I can’t allow such a tone as that, +even in jest.’ + +‘Ecod, you may say what you like of MY father, then, and so I give you +leave,’ said Jonas. ‘I think it’s liquid aggravation that circulates +through his veins, and not regular blood. How old should you think my +father was, cousin?’ + +‘Old, no doubt,’ replied Miss Charity; ‘but a fine old gentleman.’ + +‘A fine old gentleman!’ repeated Jonas, giving the crown of his hat an +angry knock. ‘Ah! It’s time he was thinking of being drawn out a little +finer too. Why, he’s eighty!’ + +‘Is he, indeed?’ said the young lady. + +‘And ecod,’ cried Jonas, ‘now he’s gone so far without giving in, I +don’t see much to prevent his being ninety; no, nor even a hundred. Why, +a man with any feeling ought to be ashamed of being eighty, let alone +more. Where’s his religion, I should like to know, when he goes flying +in the face of the Bible like that? Threescore-and-ten’s the mark, and +no man with a conscience, and a proper sense of what’s expected of him, +has any business to live longer.’ + +Is any one surprised at Mr Jonas making such a reference to such a +book for such a purpose? Does any one doubt the old saw, that the Devil +(being a layman) quotes Scripture for his own ends? If he will take the +trouble to look about him, he may find a greater number of confirmations +of the fact in the occurrences of any single day, than the steam-gun can +discharge balls in a minute. + +‘But there’s enough of my father,’ said Jonas; ‘it’s of no use to go +putting one’s self out of the way by talking about HIM. I called to ask +you to come and take a walk, cousin, and see some of the sights; and +to come to our house afterwards, and have a bit of something. Pecksniff +will most likely look in in the evening, he says, and bring you home. +See, here’s his writing; I made him put it down this morning when he +told me he shouldn’t be back before I came here; in case you wouldn’t +believe me. There’s nothing like proof, is there? Ha, ha! I say--you’ll +bring the other one, you know!’ + +Miss Charity cast her eyes upon her father’s autograph, which merely +said--‘Go, my children, with your cousin. Let there be union among us +when it is possible;’ and after enough of hesitation to impart a proper +value to her consent, withdrew to prepare her sister and herself for the +excursion. She soon returned, accompanied by Miss Mercy, who was by +no means pleased to leave the brilliant triumphs of Todgers’s for the +society of Mr Jonas and his respected father. + +‘Aha!’ cried Jonas. ‘There you are, are you?’ + +‘Yes, fright,’ said Mercy, ‘here I am; and I would much rather be +anywhere else, I assure you.’ + +‘You don’t mean that,’ cried Mr Jonas. ‘You can’t, you know. It isn’t +possible.’ + +‘You can have what opinion you like, fright,’ retorted Mercy. ‘I am +content to keep mine; and mine is that you are a very unpleasant, +odious, disagreeable person.’ Here she laughed heartily, and seemed to +enjoy herself very much. + +‘Oh, you’re a sharp gal!’ said Mr Jonas. ‘She’s a regular teaser, an’t +she, cousin?’ + +Miss Charity replied in effect, that she was unable to say what the +habits and propensities of a regular teaser might be; and that even if +she possessed such information, it would ill become her to admit the +existence of any creature with such an unceremonious name in her family; +far less in the person of a beloved sister; ‘whatever,’ added Cherry +with an angry glance, ‘whatever her real nature may be.’ + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Merry, ‘the only observation I have to make is, +that if we don’t go out at once, I shall certainly take my bonnet off +again, and stay at home.’ + +This threat had the desired effect of preventing any farther +altercation, for Mr Jonas immediately proposed an adjournment, and +the same being carried unanimously, they departed from the house +straightway. On the doorstep, Mr Jonas gave an arm to each cousin; +which act of gallantry being observed by Bailey junior, from the garret +window, was by him saluted with a loud and violent fit of coughing, to +which paroxysm he was still the victim when they turned the corner. + +Mr Jonas inquired in the first instance if they were good walkers and +being answered, ‘Yes,’ submitted their pedestrian powers to a pretty +severe test; for he showed them as many sights, in the way of bridges, +churches, streets, outsides of theatres, and other free spectacles, +in that one forenoon, as most people see in a twelvemonth. It was +observable in this gentleman, that he had an insurmountable distaste to +the insides of buildings, and that he was perfectly acquainted with +the merits of all shows, in respect of which there was any charge for +admission, which it seemed were every one detestable, and of the very +lowest grade of merit. He was so thoroughly possessed with this opinion, +that when Miss Charity happened to mention the circumstance of their +having been twice or thrice to the theatre with Mr Jinkins and party, he +inquired, as a matter of course, ‘where the orders came from?’ and being +told that Mr Jinkins and party paid, was beyond description entertained, +observing that ‘they must be nice flats, certainly;’ and often in the +course of the walk, bursting out again into a perfect convulsion of +laughter at the surpassing silliness of those gentlemen, and (doubtless) +at his own superior wisdom. + +When they had been out for some hours and were thoroughly fatigued, it +being by that time twilight, Mr Jonas intimated that he would show them +one of the best pieces of fun with which he was acquainted. This joke +was of a practical kind, and its humour lay in taking a hackney-coach +to the extreme limits of possibility for a shilling. Happily it brought +them to the place where Mr Jonas dwelt, or the young ladies might have +rather missed the point and cream of the jest. + +The old-established firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son, Manchester +Warehousemen, and so forth, had its place of business in a very narrow +street somewhere behind the Post Office; where every house was in the +brightest summer morning very gloomy; and where light porters watered +the pavement, each before his own employer’s premises, in fantastic +patterns, in the dog-days; and where spruce gentlemen with their hands +in the pockets of symmetrical trousers, were always to be seen in +warm weather, contemplating their undeniable boots in dusty warehouse +doorways; which appeared to be the hardest work they did, except now and +then carrying pens behind their ears. A dim, dirty, smoky, tumble-down, +rotten old house it was, as anybody would desire to see; but there the +firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son transacted all their business and +their pleasure too, such as it was; for neither the young man nor the +old had any other residence, or any care or thought beyond its narrow +limits. + +Business, as may be readily supposed, was the main thing in this +establishment; insomuch indeed that it shouldered comfort out of +doors, and jostled the domestic arrangements at every turn. Thus in the +miserable bedrooms there were files of moth-eaten letters hanging up +against the walls; and linen rollers, and fragments of old patterns, +and odds and ends of spoiled goods, strewed upon the ground; while the +meagre bedsteads, washing-stands, and scraps of carpet, were huddled +away into corners as objects of secondary consideration, not to be +thought of but as disagreeable necessities, furnishing no profit, and +intruding on the one affair of life. The single sitting-room was on +the same principle, a chaos of boxes and old papers, and had more +counting-house stools in it than chairs; not to mention a great monster +of a desk straddling over the middle of the floor, and an iron safe +sunk into the wall above the fireplace. The solitary little table for +purposes of refection and social enjoyment, bore as fair a proportion +to the desk and other business furniture, as the graces and harmless +relaxations of life had ever done, in the persons of the old man and his +son, to their pursuit of wealth. It was meanly laid out now for dinner; +and in a chair before the fire sat Anthony himself, who rose to greet +his son and his fair cousins as they entered. + +An ancient proverb warns us that we should not expect to find old heads +upon young shoulders; to which it may be added that we seldom meet with +that unnatural combination, but we feel a strong desire to knock them +off; merely from an inherent love we have of seeing things in their +right places. It is not improbable that many men, in no wise choleric +by nature, felt this impulse rising up within them, when they first made +the acquaintance of Mr Jonas; but if they had known him more intimately +in his own house, and had sat with him at his own board, it would +assuredly have been paramount to all other considerations. + +‘Well, ghost!’ said Mr Jonas, dutifully addressing his parent by that +title. ‘Is dinner nearly ready?’ + +‘I should think it was,’ rejoined the old man. + +‘What’s the good of that?’ rejoined the son. ‘I should think it was. I +want to know.’ + +‘Ah! I don’t know for certain,’ said Anthony. + +‘You don’t know for certain,’ rejoined his son in a lower tone. ‘No. You +don’t know anything for certain, YOU don’t. Give me your candle here. I +want it for the gals.’ + +Anthony handed him a battered old office candlestick, with which Mr +Jonas preceded the young ladies to the nearest bedroom, where he left +them to take off their shawls and bonnets; and returning, occupied +himself in opening a bottle of wine, sharpening the carving-knife, and +muttering compliments to his father, until they and the dinner appeared +together. The repast consisted of a hot leg of mutton with greens and +potatoes; and the dishes having been set upon the table by a slipshod +old woman, they were left to enjoy it after their own manner. + +‘Bachelor’s Hall, you know, cousin,’ said Mr Jonas to Charity. ‘I +say--the other one will be having a laugh at this when she gets home, +won’t she? Here; you sit on the right side of me, and I’ll have her upon +the left. Other one, will you come here?’ + +‘You’re such a fright,’ replied Mercy, ‘that I know I shall have no +appetite if I sit so near you; but I suppose I must.’ + +‘An’t she lively?’ whispered Mr Jonas to the elder sister, with his +favourite elbow emphasis. + +‘Oh I really don’t know!’ replied Miss Pecksniff, tartly. ‘I am tired of +being asked such ridiculous questions.’ + +‘What’s that precious old father of mine about now?’ said Mr Jonas, +seeing that his parent was travelling up and down the room instead of +taking his seat at table. ‘What are you looking for?’ + +‘I’ve lost my glasses, Jonas,’ said old Anthony. + +‘Sit down without your glasses, can’t you?’ returned his son. ‘You don’t +eat or drink out of ‘em, I think; and where’s that sleepy-headed old +Chuffey got to! Now, stupid. Oh! you know your name, do you?’ + +It would seem that he didn’t, for he didn’t come until the father +called. As he spoke, the door of a small glass office, which was +partitioned off from the rest of the room, was slowly opened, and a +little blear-eyed, weazen-faced, ancient man came creeping out. He was +of a remote fashion, and dusty, like the rest of the furniture; he was +dressed in a decayed suit of black; with breeches garnished at the knees +with rusty wisps of ribbon, the very paupers of shoestrings; on the +lower portion of his spindle legs were dingy worsted stockings of the +same colour. He looked as if he had been put away and forgotten half a +century before, and somebody had just found him in a lumber-closet. + +Such as he was, he came slowly creeping on towards the table, until at +last he crept into the vacant chair, from which, as his dim faculties +became conscious of the presence of strangers, and those strangers +ladies, he rose again, apparently intending to make a bow. But he sat +down once more without having made it, and breathing on his shrivelled +hands to warm them, remained with his poor blue nose immovable above his +plate, looking at nothing, with eyes that saw nothing, and a face that +meant nothing. Take him in that state, and he was an embodiment of +nothing. Nothing else. + +‘Our clerk,’ said Mr Jonas, as host and master of the ceremonies: ‘Old +Chuffey.’ + +‘Is he deaf?’ inquired one of the young ladies. + +‘No, I don’t know that he is. He an’t deaf, is he, father?’ + +‘I never heard him say he was,’ replied the old man. + +‘Blind?’ inquired the young ladies. + +‘N--no. I never understood that he was at all blind,’ said Jonas, +carelessly. ‘You don’t consider him so, do you, father?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Anthony. + +‘What is he, then?’ + +‘Why, I’ll tell you what he is,’ said Mr Jonas, apart to the young +ladies, ‘he’s precious old, for one thing; and I an’t best pleased with +him for that, for I think my father must have caught it of him. He’s a +strange old chap, for another,’ he added in a louder voice, ‘and don’t +understand any one hardly, but HIM!’ He pointed to his honoured parent +with the carving-fork, in order that they might know whom he meant. + +‘How very strange!’ cried the sisters. + +‘Why, you see,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘he’s been addling his old brains with +figures and book-keeping all his life; and twenty years ago or so he +went and took a fever. All the time he was out of his head (which was +three weeks) he never left off casting up; and he got to so many million +at last that I don’t believe he’s ever been quite right since. We don’t +do much business now though, and he an’t a bad clerk.’ + +‘A very good one,’ said Anthony. + +‘Well! He an’t a dear one at all events,’ observed Jonas; ‘and he earns +his salt, which is enough for our look-out. I was telling you that he +hardly understands any one except my father; he always understands him, +though, and wakes up quite wonderful. He’s been used to his ways so +long, you see! Why, I’ve seen him play whist, with my father for a +partner; and a good rubber too; when he had no more notion what sort of +people he was playing against, than you have.’ + +‘Has he no appetite?’ asked Merry. + +‘Oh, yes,’ said Jonas, plying his own knife and fork very fast. ‘He +eats--when he’s helped. But he don’t care whether he waits a minute or +an hour, as long as father’s here; so when I’m at all sharp set, as I am +to-day, I come to him after I’ve taken the edge off my own hunger, you +know. Now, Chuffey, stupid, are you ready?’ + +Chuffey remained immovable. + +‘Always a perverse old file, he was,’ said Mr Jonas, coolly helping +himself to another slice. ‘Ask him, father.’ + +‘Are you ready for your dinner, Chuffey?’ asked the old man + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Chuffey, lighting up into a sentient human creature at +the first sound of the voice, so that it was at once a curious and quite +a moving sight to see him. ‘Yes, yes. Quite ready, Mr Chuzzlewit. Quite +ready, sir. All ready, all ready, all ready.’ With that he stopped, +smilingly, and listened for some further address; but being spoken to +no more, the light forsook his face by little and little, until he was +nothing again. + +‘He’ll be very disagreeable, mind,’ said Jonas, addressing his cousins +as he handed the old man’s portion to his father. ‘He always chokes +himself when it an’t broth. Look at him, now! Did you ever see a horse +with such a wall-eyed expression as he’s got? If it hadn’t been for the +joke of it I wouldn’t have let him come in to-day; but I thought he’d +amuse you.’ + +The poor old subject of this humane speech was, happily for himself, as +unconscious of its purport as of most other remarks that were made in +his presence. But the mutton being tough, and his gums weak, he quickly +verified the statement relative to his choking propensities, and +underwent so much in his attempts to dine, that Mr Jonas was infinitely +amused; protesting that he had seldom seen him better company in all +his life, and that he was enough to make a man split his sides with +laughing. Indeed, he went so far as to assure the sisters, that in this +point of view he considered Chuffey superior to his own father; which, +as he significantly added, was saying a great deal. + +It was strange enough that Anthony Chuzzlewit, himself so old a man, +should take a pleasure in these gibings of his estimable son at the +expense of the poor shadow at their table. But he did, unquestionably; +though not so much--to do him justice--with reference to their ancient +clerk, as in exultation at the sharpness of Jonas. For the same reason +that young man’s coarse allusions, even to himself, filled him with a +stealthy glee; causing him to rub his hands and chuckle covertly, as if +he said in his sleeve, ‘I taught him. I trained him. This is the heir of +my bringing-up. Sly, cunning, and covetous, he’ll not squander my money. +I worked for this; I hoped for this; it has been the great end and aim +of my life.’ + +What a noble end and aim it was to contemplate in the attainment truly! +But there be some who manufacture idols after the fashion of themselves, +and fail to worship them when they are made; charging their deformity on +outraged nature. Anthony was better than these at any rate. + +Chuffey boggled over his plate so long, that Mr Jonas, losing patience, +took it from him at last with his own hands, and requested his father +to signify to that venerable person that he had better ‘peg away at his +bread;’ which Anthony did. + +‘Aye, aye!’ cried the old man, brightening up as before, when this was +communicated to him in the same voice, ‘quite right, quite right. He’s +your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit! Bless him for a sharp lad! Bless him, bless +him!’ + +Mr Jonas considered this so particularly childish (perhaps with some +reason), that he only laughed the more, and told his cousins that he was +afraid one of these fine days, Chuffey would be the death of him. The +cloth was then removed, and the bottle of wine set upon the table, from +which Mr Jonas filled the young ladies’ glasses, calling on them not to +spare it, as they might be certain there was plenty more where that came +from. But he added with some haste after this sally that it was only his +joke, and they wouldn’t suppose him to be in earnest, he was sure. + +‘I shall drink,’ said Anthony, ‘to Pecksniff. Your father, my dears. A +clever man, Pecksniff. A wary man! A hypocrite, though, eh? A hypocrite, +girls, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Well, so he is. Now, among friends, he is. I +don’t think the worse of him for that, unless it is that he overdoes it. +You may overdo anything, my darlings. You may overdo even hypocrisy. Ask +Jonas!’ + +‘You can’t overdo taking care of yourself,’ observed that hopeful +gentleman with his mouth full. + +‘Do you hear that, my dears?’ cried Anthony, quite enraptured. ‘Wisdom, +wisdom! A good exception, Jonas. No. It’s not easy to overdo that.’ + +‘Except,’ whispered Mr Jonas to his favourite cousin, ‘except when one +lives too long. Ha, ha! Tell the other one that--I say!’ + +‘Good gracious me!’ said Cherry, in a petulant manner. ‘You can tell her +yourself, if you wish, can’t you?’ + +‘She seems to make such game of one,’ replied Mr Jonas. + +‘Then why need you trouble yourself about her?’ said Charity. ‘I am sure +she doesn’t trouble herself much about you.’ + +‘Don’t she though?’ asked Jonas. + +‘Good gracious me, need I tell you that she don’t?’ returned the young +lady. + +Mr Jonas made no verbal rejoinder, but he glanced at Mercy with an odd +expression in his face; and said THAT wouldn’t break his heart, she +might depend upon it. Then he looked on Charity with even greater favour +than before, and besought her, as his polite manner was, to ‘come a +little closer.’ + +‘There’s another thing that’s not easily overdone, father,’ remarked +Jonas, after a short silence. + +‘What’s that?’ asked the father; grinning already in anticipation. + +‘A bargain,’ said the son. ‘Here’s the rule for bargains--“Do other men, +for they would do you.” That’s the true business precept. All others are +counterfeits.’ + +The delighted father applauded this sentiment to the echo; and was so +much tickled by it, that he was at the pains of imparting the same to +his ancient clerk, who rubbed his hands, nodded his palsied head, winked +his watery eyes, and cried in his whistling tones, ‘Good! good! Your own +son, Mr Chuzzlewit’ with every feeble demonstration of delight that he +was capable of making. But this old man’s enthusiasm had the redeeming +quality of being felt in sympathy with the only creature to whom he was +linked by ties of long association, and by his present helplessness. And +if there had been anybody there, who cared to think about it, some dregs +of a better nature unawakened, might perhaps have been descried through +that very medium, melancholy though it was, yet lingering at the bottom +of the worn-out cask called Chuffey. + +As matters stood, nobody thought or said anything upon the subject; so +Chuffey fell back into a dark corner on one side of the fireplace, where +he always spent his evenings, and was neither seen nor heard again that +night; save once, when a cup of tea was given him, in which he was seen +to soak his bread mechanically. There was no reason to suppose that he +went to sleep at these seasons, or that he heard, or saw, or felt, or +thought. He remained, as it were, frozen up--if any term expressive of +such a vigorous process can be applied to him--until he was again thawed +for the moment by a word or touch from Anthony. + +Miss Charity made tea by desire of Mr Jonas, and felt and looked so +like the lady of the house that she was in the prettiest confusion +imaginable; the more so from Mr Jonas sitting close beside her, and +whispering a variety of admiring expressions in her ear. Miss Mercy, for +her part, felt the entertainment of the evening to be so distinctly +and exclusively theirs, that she silently deplored the commercial +gentlemen--at that moment, no doubt, wearying for her return--and yawned +over yesterday’s newspaper. As to Anthony, he went to sleep outright, so +Jonas and Cherry had a clear stage to themselves as long as they chose +to keep possession of it. + +When the tea-tray was taken away, as it was at last, Mr Jonas produced a +dirty pack of cards, and entertained the sisters with divers small feats +of dexterity: whereof the main purpose of every one was, that you were +to decoy somebody into laying a wager with you that you couldn’t do it; +and were then immediately to win and pocket his money. Mr Jonas +informed them that these accomplishments were in high vogue in the most +intellectual circles, and that large amounts were constantly changing +hands on such hazards. And it may be remarked that he fully believed +this; for there is a simplicity of cunning no less than a simplicity +of innocence; and in all matters where a lively faith in knavery and +meanness was required as the ground-work of belief, Mr Jonas was one of +the most credulous of men. His ignorance, which was stupendous, may be +taken into account, if the reader pleases, separately. + +This fine young man had all the inclination to be a profligate of the +first water, and only lacked the one good trait in the common catalogue +of debauched vices--open-handedness--to be a notable vagabond. But there +his griping and penurious habits stepped in; and as one poison will +sometimes neutralise another, when wholesome remedies would not avail, +so he was restrained by a bad passion from quaffing his full measure of +evil, when virtue might have sought to hold him back in vain. + +By the time he had unfolded all the peddling schemes he knew upon the +cards, it was growing late in the evening; and Mr Pecksniff not making +his appearance, the young ladies expressed a wish to return home. But +this, Mr Jonas, in his gallantry, would by no means allow, until they +had partaken of some bread and cheese and porter; and even then he was +excessively unwilling to allow them to depart; often beseeching Miss +Charity to come a little closer, or to stop a little longer, and +preferring many other complimentary petitions of that nature in his own +hospitable and earnest way. When all his efforts to detain them were +fruitless, he put on his hat and greatcoat preparatory to escorting them +to Todgers’s; remarking that he knew they would rather walk thither than +ride; and that for his part he was quite of their opinion. + +‘Good night,’ said Anthony. ‘Good night; remember me to--ha, ha, ha!--to +Pecksniff. Take care of your cousin, my dears; beware of Jonas; he’s a +dangerous fellow. Don’t quarrel for him, in any case!’ + +‘Oh, the creature!’ cried Mercy. ‘The idea of quarrelling for HIM! You +may take him, Cherry, my love, all to yourself. I make you a present of +my share.’ + +‘What! I’m a sour grape, am I, cousin?’ said Jonas. + +Miss Charity was more entertained by this repartee than one would have +supposed likely, considering its advanced age and simple character. But +in her sisterly affection she took Mr Jonas to task for leaning so very +hard upon a broken reed, and said that he must not be so cruel to poor +Merry any more, or she (Charity) would positively be obliged to hate +him. Mercy, who really had her share of good humour, only retorted with +a laugh; and they walked home in consequence without any angry passages +of words upon the way. Mr Jonas being in the middle, and having a cousin +on each arm, sometimes squeezed the wrong one; so tightly too, as to +cause her not a little inconvenience; but as he talked to Charity in +whispers the whole time, and paid her great attention, no doubt this was +an accidental circumstance. When they arrived at Todgers’s, and the door +was opened, Mercy broke hastily from them, and ran upstairs; but Charity +and Jonas lingered on the steps talking together for more than five +minutes; so, as Mrs Todgers observed next morning, to a third party, ‘It +was pretty clear what was going on THERE, and she was glad of it, for it +really was high time that Miss Pecksniff thought of settling.’ + +And now the day was coming on, when that bright vision which had burst +on Todgers’s so suddenly, and made a sunshine in the shady breast of +Jinkins, was to be seen no more; when it was to be packed, like a brown +paper parcel, or a fish-basket, or an oyster barrel or a fat gentleman, +or any other dull reality of life, in a stagecoach and carried down into +the country. + +‘Never, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,’ said Mrs Todgers, when they retired +to rest on the last night of their stay, ‘never have I seen an +establishment so perfectly broken-hearted as mine is at this present +moment of time. I don’t believe the gentlemen will be the gentlemen they +were, or anything like it--no, not for weeks to come. You have a great +deal to answer for, both of you.’ + +They modestly disclaimed any wilful agency in this disastrous state of +things, and regretted it very much. + +‘Your pious pa, too,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘There’s a loss! My dear Miss +Pecksniffs, your pa is a perfect missionary of peace and love.’ + +Entertaining an uncertainty as to the particular kind of love supposed +to be comprised in Mr Pecksniff’s mission, the young ladies received the +compliment rather coldly. + +‘If I dared,’ said Mrs Todgers, perceiving this, ‘to violate a +confidence which has been reposed in me, and to tell you why I must beg +of you to leave the little door between your room and mine open tonight, +I think you would be interested. But I mustn’t do it, for I promised Mr +Jinkins faithfully, that I would be as silent as the tomb.’ + +‘Dear Mrs Todgers! What can you mean?’ + +‘Why, then, my sweet Miss Pecksniffs,’ said the lady of the house; ‘my +own loves, if you will allow me the privilege of taking that freedom on +the eve of our separation, Mr Jinkins and the gentlemen have made up +a little musical party among themselves, and DO intend, in the dead of +this night, to perform a serenade upon the stairs outside the door. I +could have wished, I own,’ said Mrs Todgers, with her usual foresight, +‘that it had been fixed to take place an hour or two earlier; because +when gentlemen sit up late they drink, and when they drink they’re not +so musical, perhaps, as when they don’t. But this is the arrangement; +and I know you will be gratified, my dear Miss Pecksniffs, by such a +mark of their attention.’ + +The young ladies were at first so much excited by the news, that they +vowed they couldn’t think of going to bed until the serenade was over. +But half an hour of cool waiting so altered their opinion that they not +only went to bed, but fell asleep; and were, moreover, not ecstatically +charmed to be awakened some time afterwards by certain dulcet strains +breaking in upon the silent watches of the night. + +It was very affecting--very. Nothing more dismal could have been desired +by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head +mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took +anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into +a flute. He didn’t blow much out of it, but that was all the better. +If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous +combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would +have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in +that one chorus, ‘Go where glory waits thee!’ It was a requiem, a dirge, +a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is +sorrowful and hideous in sound. The flute of the youngest gentleman was +wild and fitful. It came and went in gusts, like the wind. For a long +time together he seemed to have left off, and when it was quite settled +by Mrs Todgers and the young ladies that, overcome by his feelings, he +had retired in tears, he unexpectedly turned up again at the very top of +the tune, gasping for breath. He was a tremendous performer. There was +no knowing where to have him; and exactly when you thought he was doing +nothing at all, then was he doing the very thing that ought to astonish +you most. + +There were several of these concerted pieces; perhaps two or three too +many, though that, as Mrs Todgers said, was a fault on the right side. +But even then, even at that solemn moment, when the thrilling sounds may +be presumed to have penetrated into the very depths of his nature, if he +had any depths, Jinkins couldn’t leave the youngest gentleman alone. He +asked him distinctly, before the second song began--as a personal favour +too, mark the villain in that--not to play. Yes; he said so; not to +play. The breathing of the youngest gentleman was heard through the +key-hole of the door. He DIDN’T play. What vent was a flute for the +passions swelling up within his breast? A trombone would have been a +world too mild. + +The serenade approached its close. Its crowning interest was at hand. +The gentleman of a literary turn had written a song on the departure of +the ladies, and adapted it to an old tune. They all joined, except +the youngest gentleman in company, who, for the reasons aforesaid, +maintained a fearful silence. The song (which was of a classical nature) +invoked the oracle of Apollo, and demanded to know what would become +of Todgers’s when CHARITY and MERCY were banished from its walls. The +oracle delivered no opinion particularly worth remembering, according +to the not infrequent practice of oracles from the earliest ages down to +the present time. In the absence of enlightenment on that subject, the +strain deserted it, and went on to show that the Miss Pecksniffs were +nearly related to Rule Britannia, and that if Great Britain hadn’t been +an island, there could have been no Miss Pecksniffs. And being now on a +nautical tack, it closed with this verse: + + ‘All hail to the vessel of Pecksniff the sire! + And favouring breezes to fan; + While Tritons flock round it, and proudly admire + The architect, artist, and man!’ + +As they presented this beautiful picture to the imagination, the +gentlemen gradually withdrew to bed to give the music the effect of +distance; and so it died away, and Todgers’s was left to its repose. + +Mr Bailey reserved his vocal offering until the morning, when he put +his head into the room as the young ladies were kneeling before their +trunks, packing up, and treated them to an imitation of the voice of +a young dog in trying circumstances; when that animal is supposed by +persons of a lively fancy, to relieve his feelings by calling for pen +and ink. + +‘Well, young ladies,’ said the youth, ‘so you’re a-going home, are you, +worse luck?’ + +‘Yes, Bailey, we’re going home,’ returned Mercy. + +‘An’t you a-going to leave none of ‘em a lock of your hair?’ inquired +the youth. ‘It’s real, an’t it?’ + +They laughed at this, and told him of course it was. + +‘Oh, is it of course, though?’ said Bailey. ‘I know better than that. +Hers an’t. Why, I see it hanging up once, on that nail by the winder. +Besides, I have gone behind her at dinner-time and pulled it; and she +never know’d. I say, young ladies, I’m a-going to leave. I an’t a-going +to stand being called names by her, no longer.’ + +Miss Mercy inquired what his plans for the future might be; in reply to +whom Mr Bailey intimated that he thought of going either into top-boots, +or into the army. + +‘Into the army!’ cried the young ladies, with a laugh. + +‘Ah!’ said Bailey, ‘why not? There’s a many drummers in the Tower. I’m +acquainted with ‘em. Don’t their country set a valley on ‘em, mind you! +Not at all!’ + +‘You’ll be shot, I see,’ observed Mercy. + +‘Well!’ cried Mr Bailey, ‘wot if I am? There’s something gamey in it, +young ladies, an’t there? I’d sooner be hit with a cannon-ball than a +rolling-pin, and she’s always a-catching up something of that sort, and +throwing it at me, when the gentlemans’ appetites is good. Wot,’ said +Mr Bailey, stung by the recollection of his wrongs, ‘wot, if they DO +consume the per-vishuns. It an’t MY fault, is it?’ + +‘Surely no one says it is,’ said Mercy. + +‘Don’t they though?’ retorted the youth. ‘No. Yes. Ah! oh! No one mayn’t +say it is! but some one knows it is. But I an’t a-going to have every +rise in prices wisited on me. I an’t a-going to be killed because +the markets is dear. I won’t stop. And therefore,’ added Mr Bailey, +relenting into a smile, ‘wotever you mean to give me, you’d better give +me all at once, becos if ever you come back agin, I shan’t be here; and +as to the other boy, HE won’t deserve nothing, I know.’ + +The young ladies, on behalf of Mr Pecksniff and themselves, acted +on this thoughtful advice; and in consideration of their private +friendship, presented Mr Bailey with a gratuity so liberal that he could +hardly do enough to show his gratitude; which found but an imperfect +vent, during the remainder of the day, in divers secret slaps upon his +pocket, and other such facetious pantomime. Nor was it confined to these +ebullitions; for besides crushing a bandbox, with a bonnet in it, he +seriously damaged Mr Pecksniff’s luggage, by ardently hauling it down +from the top of the house; and in short evinced, by every means in his +power, a lively sense of the favours he had received from that gentleman +and his family. + +Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jinkins came home to dinner arm-in-arm; for the +latter gentleman had made half-holiday on purpose; thus gaining an +immense advantage over the youngest gentleman and the rest, whose time, +as it perversely chanced, was all bespoke, until the evening. The bottle +of wine was Mr Pecksniff’s treat, and they were very sociable indeed; +though full of lamentations on the necessity of parting. While they were +in the midst of their enjoyment, old Anthony and his son were announced; +much to the surprise of Mr Pecksniff, and greatly to the discomfiture of +Jinkins. + +‘Come to say good-bye, you see,’ said Anthony, in a low voice, to Mr +Pecksniff, as they took their seats apart at the table, while the rest +conversed among themselves. ‘Where’s the use of a division between +you and me? We are the two halves of a pair of scissors, when apart, +Pecksniff; but together we are something. Eh?’ + +‘Unanimity, my good sir,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff, ‘is always delightful.’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ said the old man, ‘for there are some people +I would rather differ from than agree with. But you know my opinion of +you.’ + +Mr Pecksniff, still having ‘hypocrite’ in his mind, only replied by a +motion of his head, which was something between an affirmative bow, and +a negative shake. + +‘Complimentary,’ said Anthony. ‘Complimentary, upon my word. It was an +involuntary tribute to your abilities, even at the time; and it was not +a time to suggest compliments either. But we agreed in the coach, you +know, that we quite understood each other.’ + +‘Oh, quite!’ assented Mr Pecksniff, in a manner which implied that he +himself was misunderstood most cruelly, but would not complain. + +Anthony glanced at his son as he sat beside Miss Charity, and then at Mr +Pecksniff, and then at his son again, very many times. It happened that +Mr Pecksniff’s glances took a similar direction; but when he became +aware of it, he first cast down his eyes, and then closed them; as if he +were determined that the old man should read nothing there. + +‘Jonas is a shrewd lad,’ said the old man. + +‘He appears,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff in his most candid manner, ‘to be +very shrewd.’ + +‘And careful,’ said the old man. + +‘And careful, I have no doubt,’ returned Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Look ye!’ said Anthony in his ear. ‘I think he is sweet upon you +daughter.’ + +‘Tut, my good sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with his eyes still closed; +‘young people--young people--a kind of cousins, too--no more sweetness +than is in that, sir.’ + +‘Why, there is very little sweetness in that, according to our +experience,’ returned Anthony. ‘Isn’t there a trifle more here?’ + +‘Impossible to say,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff. ‘Quite impossible! You +surprise me.’ + +‘Yes, I know that,’ said the old man, drily. ‘It may last; I mean the +sweetness, not the surprise; and it may die off. Supposing it should +last, perhaps (you having feathered your nest pretty well, and I having +done the same), we might have a mutual interest in the matter.’ + +Mr Pecksniff, smiling gently, was about to speak, but Anthony stopped +him. + +‘I know what you are going to say. It’s quite unnecessary. You have +never thought of this for a moment; and in a point so nearly affecting +the happiness of your dear child, you couldn’t, as a tender father, +express an opinion; and so forth. Yes, quite right. And like you! But it +seems to me, my dear Pecksniff,’ added Anthony, laying his hand upon +his sleeve, ‘that if you and I kept up the joke of pretending not to see +this, one of us might possibly be placed in a position of disadvantage; +and as I am very unwilling to be that party myself, you will excuse my +taking the liberty of putting the matter beyond a doubt thus early; and +having it distinctly understood, as it is now, that we do see it, and do +know it. Thank you for your attention. We are now upon an equal footing; +which is agreeable to us both, I am sure.’ + +He rose as he spoke; and giving Mr Pecksniff a nod of intelligence, +moved away from him to where the young people were sitting; leaving that +good man somewhat puzzled and discomfited by such very plain dealing, +and not quite free from a sense of having been foiled in the exercise of +his familiar weapons. + +But the night-coach had a punctual character, and it was time to join +it at the office; which was so near at hand that they had already sent +their luggage and arranged to walk. Thither the whole party repaired, +therefore, after no more delay than sufficed for the equipment of the +Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers. They found the coach already at its +starting-place, and the horses in; there, too, were a large majority +of the commercial gentlemen, including the youngest, who was visibly +agitated, and in a state of deep mental dejection. + +Nothing could equal the distress of Mrs Todgers in parting from the +young ladies, except the strong emotions with which she bade adieu to Mr +Pecksniff. Never surely was a pocket-handkerchief taken in and out of +a flat reticule so often as Mrs Todgers’s was, as she stood upon the +pavement by the coach-door supported on either side by a commercial +gentleman; and by the sight of the coach-lamps caught such brief +snatches and glimpses of the good man’s face, as the constant +interposition of Mr Jinkins allowed. For Jinkins, to the last the +youngest gentleman’s rock a-head in life, stood upon the coachstep +talking to the ladies. Upon the other step was Mr Jonas, who maintained +that position in right of his cousinship; whereas the youngest +gentleman, who had been first upon the ground, was deep in the +booking-office among the black and red placards, and the portraits of +fast coaches, where he was ignominiously harassed by porters, and had to +contend and strive perpetually with heavy baggage. This false +position, combined with his nervous excitement, brought about the very +consummation and catastrophe of his miseries; for when in the moment of +parting he aimed a flower, a hothouse flower that had cost money, at the +fair hand of Mercy, it reached, instead, the coachman on the box, who +thanked him kindly, and stuck it in his buttonhole. + +They were off now; and Todgers’s was alone again. The two young ladies, +leaning back in their separate corners, resigned themselves to their +own regretful thoughts. But Mr Pecksniff, dismissing all ephemeral +considerations of social pleasure and enjoyment, concentrated his +meditations on the one great virtuous purpose before him, of casting +out that ingrate and deceiver, whose presence yet troubled his domestic +hearth, and was a sacrilege upon the altars of his household gods. + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +WILL BE SEEN IN THE LONG RUN, IF NOT IN THE SHORT ONE, TO CONCERN MR +PINCH AND OTHERS, NEARLY. MR PECKSNIFF ASSERTS THE DIGNITY OF OUTRAGED +VIRTUE. YOUNG MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT FORMS A DESPERATE RESOLUTION + + +Mr Pinch and Martin, little dreaming of the stormy weather that +impended, made themselves very comfortable in the Pecksniffian halls, +and improved their friendship daily. Martin’s facility, both of +invention and execution, being remarkable, the grammar-school proceeded +with great vigour; and Tom repeatedly declared, that if there were +anything like certainty in human affairs, or impartiality in human +judges, a design so new and full of merit could not fail to carry off +the first prize when the time of competition arrived. Without being +quite so sanguine himself, Martin had his hopeful anticipations too; and +they served to make him brisk and eager at his task. + +‘If I should turn out a great architect, Tom,’ said the new pupil one +day, as he stood at a little distance from his drawing, and eyed it with +much complacency, ‘I’ll tell you what should be one of the things I’d +build.’ + +‘Aye!’ cried Tom. ‘What?’ + +‘Why, your fortune.’ + +‘No!’ said Tom Pinch, quite as much delighted as if the thing were done. +‘Would you though? How kind of you to say so.’ + +‘I’d build it up, Tom,’ returned Martin, ‘on such a strong foundation, +that it should last your life--aye, and your children’s lives too, and +their children’s after them. I’d be your patron, Tom. I’d take you under +my protection. Let me see the man who should give the cold shoulder to +anybody I chose to protect and patronise, if I were at the top of the +tree, Tom!’ + +‘Now, I don’t think,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘upon my word, that I was ever more +gratified than by this. I really don’t.’ + +‘Oh! I mean what I say,’ retorted Martin, with a manner as free and easy +in its condescension to, not to say in its compassion for, the other, as +if he were already First Architect in ordinary to all the Crowned Heads +in Europe. ‘I’d do it. I’d provide for you.’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said Tom, shaking his head, ‘that I should be a mighty +awkward person to provide for.’ + +‘Pooh, pooh!’ rejoined Martin. ‘Never mind that. If I took it in my head +to say, “Pinch is a clever fellow; I approve of Pinch;” I should like +to know the man who would venture to put himself in opposition to me. +Besides, confound it, Tom, you could be useful to me in a hundred ways.’ + +‘If I were not useful in one or two, it shouldn’t be for want of +trying,’ said Tom. + +‘For instance,’ pursued Martin, after a short reflection, ‘you’d be a +capital fellow, now, to see that my ideas were properly carried out; and +to overlook the works in their progress before they were sufficiently +advanced to be very interesting to ME; and to take all that sort of +plain sailing. Then you’d be a splendid fellow to show people over my +studio, and to talk about Art to ‘em, when I couldn’t be bored myself, +and all that kind of thing. For it would be devilish creditable, Tom +(I’m quite in earnest, I give you my word), to have a man of your +information about one, instead of some ordinary blockhead. Oh, I’d take +care of you. You’d be useful, rely upon it!’ + +To say that Tom had no idea of playing first fiddle in any social +orchestra, but was always quite satisfied to be set down for the hundred +and fiftieth violin in the band, or thereabouts, is to express his +modesty in very inadequate terms. He was much delighted, therefore, by +these observations. + +‘I should be married to her then, Tom, of course,’ said Martin. + +What was that which checked Tom Pinch so suddenly, in the high flow +of his gladness; bringing the blood into his honest cheeks, and a +remorseful feeling to his honest heart, as if he were unworthy of his +friend’s regard? + +‘I should be married to her then,’ said Martin, looking with a smile +towards the light; ‘and we should have, I hope, children about us. +They’d be very fond of you, Tom.’ + +But not a word said Mr Pinch. The words he would have uttered died upon +his lips, and found a life more spiritual in self-denying thoughts. + +‘All the children hereabouts are fond of you, Tom, and mine would be, +of course,’ pursued Martin. ‘Perhaps I might name one of ‘em after +you. Tom, eh? Well, I don’t know. Tom’s not a bad name. Thomas Pinch +Chuzzlewit. T. P. C. on his pinafores--no objection to that, I should +say?’ + +Tom cleared his throat, and smiled. + +‘SHE would like you, Tom, I know,’ said Martin. + +‘Aye!’ cried Tom Pinch, faintly. + +‘I can tell exactly what she would think of you,’ said Martin leaning +his chin upon his hand, and looking through the window-glass as if he +read there what he said; ‘I know her so well. She would smile, Tom, +often at first when you spoke to her, or when she looked at you--merrily +too--but you wouldn’t mind that. A brighter smile you never saw.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Tom. ‘I wouldn’t mind that.’ + +‘She would be as tender with you, Tom,’ said Martin, ‘as if you were a +child yourself. So you are almost, in some things, an’t you, Tom?’ + +Mr Pinch nodded his entire assent. + +‘She would always be kind and good-humoured, and glad to see you,’ said +Martin; ‘and when she found out exactly what sort of fellow you were +(which she’d do very soon), she would pretend to give you little +commissions to execute, and to ask little services of you, which she +knew you were burning to render; so that when she really pleased you +most, she would try to make you think you most pleased her. She +would take to you uncommonly, Tom; and would understand you far more +delicately than I ever shall; and would often say, I know, that you were +a harmless, gentle, well-intentioned, good fellow.’ + +How silent Tom Pinch was! + +‘In honour of old time,’ said Martin, ‘and of her having heard you play +the organ in this damp little church down here--for nothing too--we will +have one in the house. I shall build an architectural music-room on a +plan of my own, and it’ll look rather knowing in a recess at one end. +There you shall play away, Tom, till you tire yourself; and, as you like +to do so in the dark, it shall BE dark; and many’s the summer evening +she and I will sit and listen to you, Tom; be sure of that!’ + +It may have required a stronger effort on Tom Pinch’s part to leave the +seat on which he sat, and shake his friend by both hands, with nothing +but serenity and grateful feeling painted on his face; it may have +required a stronger effort to perform this simple act with a pure heart, +than to achieve many and many a deed to which the doubtful trumpet blown +by Fame has lustily resounded. Doubtful, because from its long hovering +over scenes of violence, the smoke and steam of death have clogged the +keys of that brave instrument; and it is not always that its notes are +either true or tuneful. + +‘It’s a proof of the kindness of human nature,’ said Tom, +characteristically putting himself quite out of sight in the matter, +‘that everybody who comes here, as you have done, is more considerate +and affectionate to me than I should have any right to hope, if I were +the most sanguine creature in the world; or should have any power to +express, if I were the most eloquent. It really overpowers me. But trust +me,’ said Tom, ‘that I am not ungrateful--that I never forget--and that +if I can ever prove the truth of my words to you, I will.’ + +‘That’s all right,’ observed Martin, leaning back in his chair with a +hand in each pocket, and yawning drearily. ‘Very fine talking, Tom; +but I’m at Pecksniff’s, I remember, and perhaps a mile or so out of the +high-road to fortune just at this minute. So you’ve heard again this +morning from what’s his name, eh?’ + +‘Who may that be?’ asked Tom, seeming to enter a mild protest on behalf +of the dignity of an absent person. + +‘YOU know. What is it? Northkey.’ + +‘Westlock,’ rejoined Tom, in rather a louder tone than usual. + +‘Ah! to be sure,’ said Martin, ‘Westlock. I knew it was something +connected with a point of the compass and a door. Well! and what says +Westlock?’ + +‘Oh! he has come into his property,’ answered Tom, nodding his head, and +smiling. + +‘He’s a lucky dog,’ said Martin. ‘I wish it were mine instead. Is that +all the mystery you were to tell me?’ + +‘No,’ said Tom; ‘not all.’ + +‘What’s the rest?’ asked Martin. + +‘For the matter of that,’ said Tom, ‘it’s no mystery, and you won’t +think much of it; but it’s very pleasant to me. John always used to say +when he was here, “Mark my words, Pinch. When my father’s executors cash +up”--he used strange expressions now and then, but that was his way.’ + +‘Cash-up’s a very good expression,’ observed Martin, ‘when other people +don’t apply it to you. Well!--What a slow fellow you are, Pinch!’ + +‘Yes, I am I know,’ said Tom; ‘but you’ll make me nervous if you tell me +so. I’m afraid you have put me out a little now, for I forget what I was +going to say.’ + +‘When John’s father’s executors cashed up,’ said Martin impatiently. + +‘Oh yes, to be sure,’ cried Tom; ‘yes. “Then,” says John, “I’ll give you +a dinner, Pinch, and come down to Salisbury on purpose.” Now, when John +wrote the other day--the morning Pecksniff left, you know--he said his +business was on the point of being immediately settled, and as he was to +receive his money directly, when could I meet him at Salisbury? I wrote +and said, any day this week; and I told him besides, that there was a +new pupil here, and what a fine fellow you were, and what friends we +had become. Upon which John writes back this letter’--Tom produced +it--‘fixes to-morrow; sends his compliments to you; and begs that we +three may have the pleasure of dining together; not at the house where +you and I were, either; but at the very first hotel in the town. Read +what he says.’ + +‘Very well,’ said Martin, glancing over it with his customary coolness; +‘much obliged to him. I’m agreeable.’ + +Tom could have wished him to be a little more astonished, a little more +pleased, or in some form or other a little more interested in such a +great event. But he was perfectly self-possessed; and falling into his +favourite solace of whistling, took another turn at the grammar-school, +as if nothing at all had happened. + +Mr Pecksniff’s horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal, +only to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by some +person distinctly nominated for the time being to that high office by +himself, the two young men agreed to walk to Salisbury; and so, when the +time came, they set off on foot; which was, after all, a better mode of +travelling than in the gig, as the weather was very cold and very dry. + +Better! A rare strong, hearty, healthy walk--four statute miles an +hour--preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking, scraping, +creaking, villanous old gig? Why, the two things will not admit of +comparison. It is an insult to the walk, to set them side by side. Where +is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a man’s blood, unless +when, putting him in danger of his neck, it awakened in his veins and in +his ears, and all along his spine, a tingling heat, much more peculiar +than agreeable? When did a gig ever sharpen anybody’s wits and energies, +unless it was when the horse bolted, and, crashing madly down a steep +hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his desperate circumstances +suggested to the only gentleman left inside, some novel and unheard-of +mode of dropping out behind? Better than the gig! + +The air was cold, Tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would +it have been more genial in the gig? The blacksmith’s fire burned very +bright, and leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm; but would +it have been less tempting, looked at from the clammy cushions of a gig? +The wind blew keenly, nipping the features of the hardy wight who fought +his way along; blinding him with his own hair if he had enough to it, +and wintry dust if he hadn’t; stopping his breath as though he had been +soused in a cold bath; tearing aside his wrappings-up, and whistling in +the very marrow of his bones; but it would have done all this a hundred +times more fiercely to a man in a gig, wouldn’t it? A fig for gigs! + +Better than the gig! When were travellers by wheels and hoofs seen with +such red-hot cheeks as those? when were they so good-humouredly and +merrily bloused? when did their laughter ring upon the air, as they +turned them round, what time the stronger gusts came sweeping up; and, +facing round again as they passed by, dashed on, in such a glow of +ruddy health as nothing could keep pace with, but the high spirits it +engendered? Better than the gig! Why, here is a man in a gig coming +the same way now. Look at him as he passes his whip into his left hand, +chafes his numbed right fingers on his granite leg, and beats those +marble toes of his upon the foot-board. Ha, ha, ha! Who would exchange +this rapid hurry of the blood for yonder stagnant misery, though its +pace were twenty miles for one? + +Better than the gig! No man in a gig could have such interest in the +milestones. No man in a gig could see, or feel, or think, like merry +users of their legs. How, as the wind sweeps on, upon these breezy +downs, it tracks its flight in darkening ripples on the grass, and +smoothest shadows on the hills! Look round and round upon this bare +bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter’s day, how beautiful +the shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. The +loveliest things in life, Tom, are but shadows; and they come and go, +and change and fade away, as rapidly as these! + +Another mile, and then begins a fall of snow, making the crow, who skims +away so close above the ground to shirk the wind, a blot of ink upon the +landscape. But though it drives and drifts against them as they walk, +stiffening on their skirts, and freezing in the lashes of their eyes, +they wouldn’t have it fall more sparingly, no, not so much as by a +single flake, although they had to go a score of miles. And, lo! the +towers of the Old Cathedral rise before them, even now! and by-and-bye +they come into the sheltered streets, made strangely silent by their +white carpet; and so to the Inn for which they are bound; where they +present such flushed and burning faces to the cold waiter, and are so +brimful of vigour, that he almost feels assaulted by their presence; +and, having nothing to oppose to the attack (being fresh, or rather +stale, from the blazing fire in the coffee-room), is quite put out of +his pale countenance. + +A famous Inn! the hall a very grove of dead game, and dangling joints +of mutton; and in one corner an illustrious larder, with glass doors, +developing cold fowls and noble joints, and tarts wherein the raspberry +jam coyly withdrew itself, as such a precious creature should, behind a +lattice work of pastry. And behold, on the first floor, at the court-end +of the house, in a room with all the window-curtains drawn, a fire piled +half-way up the chimney, plates warming before it, wax candles gleaming +everywhere, and a table spread for three, with silver and glass enough +for thirty--John Westlock; not the old John of Pecksniff’s, but a proper +gentleman; looking another and a grander person, with the consciousness +of being his own master and having money in the bank; and yet in some +respects the old John too, for he seized Tom Pinch by both his hands the +instant he appeared, and fairly hugged him, in his cordial welcome. + +‘And this,’ said John, ‘is Mr Chuzzlewit. I am very glad to see +him!’--John had an off-hand manner of his own; so they shook hands +warmly, and were friends in no time. + +‘Stand off a moment, Tom,’ cried the old pupil, laying one hand on each +of Mr Pinch’s shoulders, and holding him out at arm’s length. ‘Let me +look at you! Just the same! Not a bit changed!’ + +‘Why, it’s not so very long ago, you know,’ said Tom Pinch, ‘after all.’ + +‘It seems an age to me,’ cried John, ‘and so it ought to seem to you, +you dog.’ And then he pushed Tom down into the easiest chair, and +clapped him on the back so heartily, and so like his old self in their +old bedroom at old Pecksniff’s that it was a toss-up with Tom Pinch +whether he should laugh or cry. Laughter won it; and they all three +laughed together. + +‘I have ordered everything for dinner, that we used to say we’d have, +Tom,’ observed John Westlock. + +‘No!’ said Tom Pinch. ‘Have you?’ + +‘Everything. Don’t laugh, if you can help it, before the waiters. I +couldn’t when I was ordering it. It’s like a dream.’ + +John was wrong there, because nobody ever dreamed such soup as was put +upon the table directly afterwards; or such fish; or such side-dishes; +or such a top and bottom; or such a course of birds and sweets; or +in short anything approaching the reality of that entertainment at +ten-and-sixpence a head, exclusive of wines. As to THEM, the man who can +dream such iced champagne, such claret, port, or sherry, had better go +to bed and stop there. + +But perhaps the finest feature of the banquet was, that nobody was half +so much amazed by everything as John himself, who in his high delight +was constantly bursting into fits of laughter, and then endeavouring +to appear preternaturally solemn, lest the waiters should conceive he +wasn’t used to it. Some of the things they brought him to carve, were +such outrageous practical jokes, though, that it was impossible to stand +it; and when Tom Pinch insisted, in spite of the deferential advice of +an attendant, not only on breaking down the outer wall of a raised pie +with a tablespoon, but on trying to eat it afterwards, John lost all +dignity, and sat behind the gorgeous dish-cover at the head of the +table, roaring to that extent that he was audible in the kitchen. Nor +had he the least objection to laugh at himself, as he demonstrated when +they had all three gathered round the fire and the dessert was on +the table; at which period the head waiter inquired with respectful +solicitude whether that port, being a light and tawny wine, was suited +to his taste, or whether he would wish to try a fruity port with greater +body. To this John gravely answered that he was well satisfied with what +he had, which he esteemed, as one might say, a pretty tidy vintage; +for which the waiter thanked him and withdrew. And then John told his +friends, with a broad grin, that he supposed it was all right, but he +didn’t know; and went off into a perfect shout. + +They were very merry and full of enjoyment the whole time, but not the +least pleasant part of the festival was when they all three sat about +the fire, cracking nuts, drinking wine and talking cheerfully. It +happened that Tom Pinch had a word to say to his friend the organist’s +assistant, and so deserted his warm corner for a few minutes at this +season, lest it should grow too late; leaving the other two young men +together. + +They drank his health in his absence, of course; and John Westlock took +that opportunity of saying, that he had never had even a peevish word +with Tom during the whole term of their residence in Mr Pecksniff’s +house. This naturally led him to dwell upon Tom’s character, and to hint +that Mr Pecksniff understood it pretty well. He only hinted this, and +very distantly; knowing that it pained Tom Pinch to have that gentleman +disparaged, and thinking it would be as well to leave the new pupil to +his own discoveries. + +‘Yes,’ said Martin. ‘It’s impossible to like Pinch better than I do, +or to do greater justice to his good qualities. He is the most willing +fellow I ever saw.’ + +‘He’s rather too willing,’ observed John, who was quick in observation. +‘It’s quite a fault in him.’ + +‘So it is,’ said Martin. ‘Very true. There was a fellow only a week or +so ago--a Mr Tigg--who borrowed all the money he had, on a promise to +repay it in a few days. It was but half a sovereign, to be sure; but +it’s well it was no more, for he’ll never see it again.’ + +‘Poor fellow!’ said John, who had been very attentive to these few +words. ‘Perhaps you have not had an opportunity of observing that, in +his own pecuniary transactions, Tom’s proud.’ + +‘You don’t say so! No, I haven’t. What do you mean? Won’t he borrow?’ + +John Westlock shook his head. + +‘That’s very odd,’ said Martin, setting down his empty glass. ‘He’s a +strange compound, to be sure.’ + +‘As to receiving money as a gift,’ resumed John Westlock; ‘I think he’d +die first.’ + +‘He’s made up of simplicity,’ said Martin. ‘Help yourself.’ + +‘You, however,’ pursued John, filling his own glass, and looking at his +companion with some curiosity, ‘who are older than the majority of Mr +Pecksniff’s assistants, and have evidently had much more experience, +understand him, I have no doubt, and see how liable he is to be imposed +upon.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Martin, stretching out his legs, and holding his wine +between his eye and the light. ‘Mr Pecksniff knows that too. So do his +daughters. Eh?’ + +John Westlock smiled, but made no answer. + +‘By the bye,’ said Martin, ‘that reminds me. What’s your opinion of +Pecksniff? How did he use you? What do you think of him now?--Coolly, +you know, when it’s all over?’ + +‘Ask Pinch,’ returned the old pupil. ‘He knows what my sentiments used +to be upon the subject. They are not changed, I assure you.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Martin, ‘I’d rather have them from you.’ + +‘But Pinch says they are unjust,’ urged John with a smile. + +‘Oh! well! Then I know what course they take beforehand,’ said Martin; +‘and, therefore, you can have no delicacy in speaking plainly. Don’t +mind me, I beg. I don’t like him I tell you frankly. I am with him +because it happens from particular circumstances to suit my convenience. +I have some ability, I believe, in that way; and the obligation, if any, +will most likely be on his side and not mine. At the lowest mark, the +balance will be even, and there’ll be no obligation at all. So you may +talk to me, as if I had no connection with him.’ + +‘If you press me to give my opinion--’ returned John Westlock. + +‘Yes, I do,’ said Martin. ‘You’ll oblige me.’ + +‘--I should say,’ resumed the other, ‘that he is the most consummate +scoundrel on the face of the earth.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Martin, as coolly as ever. ‘That’s rather strong.’ + +‘Not stronger than he deserves,’ said John; ‘and if he called upon me +to express my opinion of him to his face, I would do so in the very same +terms, without the least qualification. His treatment of Pinch is in +itself enough to justify them; but when I look back upon the five years +I passed in that house, and remember the hyprocrisy, the knavery, the +meannesses, the false pretences, the lip service of that fellow, and +his trading in saintly semblances for the very worst realities; when +I remember how often I was the witness of all this and how often I was +made a kind of party to it, by the fact of being there, with him for my +teacher; I swear to you that I almost despise myself.’ + +Martin drained his glass, and looked at the fire. + +‘I don’t mean to say that is a right feeling,’ pursued John Westlock +‘because it was no fault of mine; and I can quite understand--you for +instance, fully appreciating him, and yet being forced by circumstances +to remain there. I tell you simply what my feeling is; and even now, +when, as you say, it’s all over; and when I have the satisfaction of +knowing that he always hated me, and we always quarrelled, and I always +told him my mind; even now, I feel sorry that I didn’t yield to an +impulse I often had, as a boy, of running away from him and going +abroad.’ + +‘Why abroad?’ asked Martin, turning his eyes upon the speaker. + +‘In search,’ replied John Westlock, shrugging his shoulders, ‘of +the livelihood I couldn’t have earned at home. There would have been +something spirited in that. But, come! Fill your glass, and let us +forget him.’ + +‘As soon as you please,’ said Martin. ‘In reference to myself and my +connection with him, I have only to repeat what I said before. I have +taken my own way with him so far, and shall continue to do so, even more +than ever; for the fact is, to tell you the truth, that I believe he +looks to me to supply his defects, and couldn’t afford to lose me. I had +a notion of that in first going there. Your health!’ + +‘Thank you,’ returned young Westlock. ‘Yours. And may the new pupil turn +out as well as you can desire!’ + +‘What new pupil?’ + +‘The fortunate youth, born under an auspicious star,’ returned John +Westlock, laughing; ‘whose parents, or guardians, are destined to be +hooked by the advertisement. What! Don’t you know that he has advertised +again?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Oh, yes. I read it just before dinner in the old newspaper. I know it +to be his; having some reason to remember the style. Hush! Here’s Pinch. +Strange, is it not, that the more he likes Pecksniff (if he can like him +better than he does), the greater reason one has to like HIM? Not a word +more, or we shall spoil his whole enjoyment.’ + +Tom entered as the words were spoken, with a radiant smile upon his +face; and rubbing his hands, more from a sense of delight than because +he was cold (for he had been running fast), sat down in his warm corner +again, and was as happy as only Tom Pinch could be. There is no other +simile that will express his state of mind. + +‘And so,’ he said, when he had gazed at his friend for some time in +silent pleasure, ‘so you really are a gentleman at last, John. Well, to +be sure!’ + +‘Trying to be, Tom; trying to be,’ he rejoined good-humouredly. ‘There +is no saying what I may turn out, in time.’ + +‘I suppose you wouldn’t carry your own box to the mail now?’ said Tom +Pinch, smiling; ‘although you lost it altogether by not taking it.’ + +‘Wouldn’t I?’ retorted John. ‘That’s all you know about it, Pinch. +It must be a very heavy box that I wouldn’t carry to get away from +Pecksniff’s, Tom.’ + +‘There!’ cried Pinch, turning to Martin, ‘I told you so. The great fault +in his character is his injustice to Pecksniff. You mustn’t mind a word +he says on that subject. His prejudice is most extraordinary.’ + +‘The absence of anything like prejudice on Tom’s part, you know,’ said +John Westlock, laughing heartily, as he laid his hand on Mr Pinch’s +shoulder, ‘is perfectly wonderful. If one man ever had a profound +knowledge of another, and saw him in a true light, and in his own proper +colours, Tom has that knowledge of Mr Pecksniff.’ + +‘Why, of course I have,’ cried Tom. ‘That’s exactly what I have so often +said to you. If you knew him as well as I do--John, I’d give almost any +money to bring that about--you’d admire, respect, and reverence him. You +couldn’t help it. Oh, how you wounded his feelings when you went away!’ + +‘If I had known whereabout his feelings lay,’ retorted young Westlock, +‘I’d have done my best, Tom, with that end in view, you may depend upon +it. But as I couldn’t wound him in what he has not, and in what he knows +nothing of, except in his ability to probe them to the quick in other +people, I am afraid I can lay no claim to your compliment.’ + +Mr Pinch, being unwilling to protract a discussion which might possibly +corrupt Martin, forbore to say anything in reply to this speech; but +John Westlock, whom nothing short of an iron gag would have +silenced when Mr Pecksniff’s merits were once in question, continued +notwithstanding. + +‘HIS feelings! Oh, he’s a tender-hearted man. HIS feelings! Oh, he’s a +considerate, conscientious, self-examining, moral vagabond, he is! HIS +feelings! Oh!--what’s the matter, Tom?’ + +Mr Pinch was by this time erect upon the hearth-rug, buttoning his coat +with great energy. + +‘I can’t bear it,’ said Tom, shaking his head. ‘No. I really cannot. You +must excuse me, John. I have a great esteem and friendship for you; +I love you very much; and have been perfectly charmed and overjoyed +to-day, to find you just the same as ever; but I cannot listen to this.’ + +‘Why, it’s my old way, Tom; and you say yourself that you are glad to +find me unchanged.’ + +‘Not in this respect,’ said Tom Pinch. ‘You must excuse me, John. I +cannot, really; I will not. It’s very wrong; you should be more guarded +in your expressions. It was bad enough when you and I used to be alone +together, but under existing circumstances, I can’t endure it, really. +No. I cannot, indeed.’ + +‘You are quite right!’ exclaimed the other, exchanging looks with +Martin. ‘and I am quite wrong, Tom, I don’t know how the deuce we fell +on this unlucky theme. I beg your pardon with all my heart.’ + +‘You have a free and manly temper, I know,’ said Pinch; ‘and therefore, +your being so ungenerous in this one solitary instance, only grieves +me the more. It’s not my pardon you have to ask, John. You have done ME +nothing but kindnesses.’ + +‘Well! Pecksniff’s pardon then,’ said young Westlock. ‘Anything Tom, +or anybody. Pecksniff’s pardon--will that do? Here! let us drink +Pecksniff’s health!’ + +‘Thank you,’ cried Tom, shaking hands with him eagerly, and filling +a bumper. ‘Thank you; I’ll drink it with all my heart, John. Mr +Pecksniff’s health, and prosperity to him!’ + +John Westlock echoed the sentiment, or nearly so; for he drank Mr +Pecksniff’s health, and Something to him--but what, was not quite +audible. The general unanimity being then completely restored, they drew +their chairs closer round the fire, and conversed in perfect harmony and +enjoyment until bed-time. + +No slight circumstance, perhaps, could have better illustrated the +difference of character between John Westlock and Martin Chuzzlewit, +than the manner in which each of the young men contemplated Tom Pinch, +after the little rupture just described. There was a certain amount of +jocularity in the looks of both, no doubt, but there all resemblance +ceased. The old pupil could not do enough to show Tom how cordially he +felt towards him, and his friendly regard seemed of a graver and more +thoughtful kind than before. The new one, on the other hand, had no +impulse but to laugh at the recollection of Tom’s extreme absurdity; +and mingled with his amusement there was something slighting and +contemptuous, indicative, as it appeared, of his opinion that Mr Pinch +was much too far gone in simplicity to be admitted as the friend, on +serious and equal terms, of any rational man. + +John Westlock, who did nothing by halves, if he could help it, had +provided beds for his two guests in the hotel; and after a very happy +evening, they retired. Mr Pinch was sitting on the side of his bed with +his cravat and shoes off, ruminating on the manifold good qualities of +his old friend, when he was interrupted by a knock at his chamber door, +and the voice of John himself. + +‘You’re not asleep yet, are you, Tom?’ + +‘Bless you, no! not I. I was thinking of you,’ replied Tom, opening the +door. ‘Come in.’ + +‘I am not going to detail you,’ said John; ‘but I have forgotten all the +evening a little commission I took upon myself; and I am afraid I may +forget it again, if I fail to discharge it at once. You know a Mr Tigg, +Tom, I believe?’ + +‘Tigg!’ cried Tom. ‘Tigg! The gentleman who borrowed some money of me?’ + +‘Exactly,’ said John Westlock. ‘He begged me to present his compliments, +and to return it with many thanks. Here it is. I suppose it’s a good +one, but he is rather a doubtful kind of customer, Tom.’ + +Mr Pinch received the little piece of gold with a face whose brightness +might have shamed the metal; and said he had no fear about that. He +was glad, he added, to find Mr Tigg so prompt and honourable in his +dealings; very glad. + +‘Why, to tell you the truth, Tom,’ replied his friend, ‘he is not always +so. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll avoid him as much as you can, in +the event of your encountering him again. And by no means, Tom--pray +bear this in mind, for I am very serious--by no means lend him money any +more.’ + +‘Aye, aye!’ said Tom, with his eyes wide open. + +‘He is very far from being a reputable acquaintance,’ returned young +Westlock; ‘and the more you let him know you think so, the better for +you, Tom.’ + +‘I say, John,’ quoth Mr Pinch, as his countenance fell, and he shook +his head in a dejected manner. ‘I hope you are not getting into bad +company.’ + +‘No, no,’ he replied laughing. ‘Don’t be uneasy on that score.’ + +‘Oh, but I AM uneasy,’ said Tom Pinch; ‘I can’t help it, when I hear you +talking in that way. If Mr Tigg is what you describe him to be, you have +no business to know him, John. You may laugh, but I don’t consider it by +any means a laughing matter, I assure you.’ + +‘No, no,’ returned his friend, composing his features. ‘Quite right. It +is not, certainly.’ + +‘You know, John,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘your very good nature and kindness of +heart make you thoughtless, and you can’t be too careful on such a +point as this. Upon my word, if I thought you were falling among bad +companions, I should be quite wretched, for I know how difficult you +would find it to shake them off. I would much rather have lost this +money, John, than I would have had it back again on such terms.’ + +‘I tell you, my dear good old fellow,’ cried his friend, shaking him +to and fro with both hands, and smiling at him with a cheerful, open +countenance, that would have carried conviction to a mind much more +suspicious than Tom’s; ‘I tell you there is no danger.’ + +‘Well!’ cried Tom, ‘I am glad to hear it; I am overjoyed to hear it. I +am sure there is not, when you say so in that manner. You won’t take it +ill, John, that I said what I did just now!’ + +‘Ill!’ said the other, giving his hand a hearty squeeze; ‘why what +do you think I am made of? Mr Tigg and I are not on such an intimate +footing that you need be at all uneasy, I give you my solemn assurance +of that, Tom. You are quite comfortable now?’ + +‘Quite,’ said Tom. + +‘Then once more, good night!’ + +‘Good night!’ cried Tom; ‘and such pleasant dreams to you as should +attend the sleep of the best fellow in the world!’ + +‘--Except Pecksniff,’ said his friend, stopping at the door for a +moment, and looking gayly back. + +‘Except Pecksniff,’ answered Tom, with great gravity; ‘of course.’ + +And thus they parted for the night; John Westlock full of +light-heartedness and good humour, and poor Tom Pinch quite satisfied; +though still, as he turned over on his side in bed, he muttered to +himself, ‘I really do wish, for all that, though, that he wasn’t +acquainted with Mr Tigg.’ + +They breakfasted together very early next morning, for the two young +men desired to get back again in good season; and John Westlock was to +return to London by the coach that day. As he had some hours to spare, +he bore them company for three or four miles on their walk, and +only parted from them at last in sheer necessity. The parting was an +unusually hearty one, not only as between him and Tom Pinch, but on the +side of Martin also, who had found in the old pupil a very different +sort of person from the milksop he had prepared himself to expect. + +Young Westlock stopped upon a rising ground, when he had gone a little +distance, and looked back. They were walking at a brisk pace, and Tom +appeared to be talking earnestly. Martin had taken off his greatcoat, +the wind being now behind them, and carried it upon his arm. As he +looked, he saw Tom relieve him of it, after a faint resistance, and, +throwing it upon his own, encumber himself with the weight of both. This +trivial incident impressed the old pupil mightily, for he stood there, +gazing after them, until they were hidden from his view; when he +shook his head, as if he were troubled by some uneasy reflection, and +thoughtfully retraced his steps to Salisbury. + +In the meantime, Martin and Tom pursued their way, until they halted, +safe and sound, at Mr Pecksniff’s house, where a brief epistle from that +good gentleman to Mr Pinch announced the family’s return by that night’s +coach. As it would pass the corner of the lane at about six o’clock in +the morning, Mr Pecksniff requested that the gig might be in waiting at +the finger-post about that time, together with a cart for the luggage. +And to the end that he might be received with the greater honour, the +young men agreed to rise early, and be upon the spot themselves. + +It was the least cheerful day they had yet passed together. Martin +was out of spirits and out of humour, and took every opportunity of +comparing his condition and prospects with those of young Westlock; +much to his own disadvantage always. This mood of his depressed Tom; and +neither that morning’s parting, nor yesterday’s dinner, helped to mend +the matter. So the hours dragged on heavily enough; and they were glad +to go to bed early. + +They were not quite so glad to get up again at half-past four o’clock, +in all the shivering discomfort of a dark winter’s morning; but they +turned out punctually, and were at the finger-post full half-an-hour +before the appointed time. It was not by any means a lively morning, for +the sky was black and cloudy, and it rained hard; but Martin said there +was some satisfaction in seeing that brute of a horse (by this, he meant +Mr Pecksniff’s Arab steed) getting very wet; and that he rejoiced, on +his account, that it rained so fast. From this it may be inferred that +Martin’s spirits had not improved, as indeed they had not; for while he +and Mr Pinch stood waiting under a hedge, looking at the rain, the gig, +the cart, and its reeking driver, he did nothing but grumble; and, but +that it is indispensable to any dispute that there should be two parties +to it, he would certainly have picked a quarrel with Tom. + +At length the noise of wheels was faintly audible in the distance and +presently the coach came splashing through the mud and mire with one +miserable outside passenger crouching down among wet straw, under a +saturated umbrella; and the coachman, guard, and horses, in a fellowship +of dripping wretchedness. Immediately on its stopping, Mr Pecksniff let +down the window-glass and hailed Tom Pinch. + +‘Dear me, Mr Pinch! Is it possible that you are out upon this very +inclement morning?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ cried Tom, advancing eagerly, ‘Mr Chuzzlewit and I, sir.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking not so much at Martin as at the spot on +which he stood. ‘Oh! Indeed. Do me the favour to see to the trunks, if +you please, Mr Pinch.’ + +Then Mr Pecksniff descended, and helped his daughters to alight; but +neither he nor the young ladies took the slightest notice of Martin, +who had advanced to offer his assistance, but was repulsed by Mr +Pecksniff’s standing immediately before his person, with his back +towards him. In the same manner, and in profound silence, Mr Pecksniff +handed his daughters into the gig; and following himself and taking the +reins, drove off home. + +Lost in astonishment, Martin stood staring at the coach, and when the +coach had driven away, at Mr Pinch, and the luggage, until the cart +moved off too; when he said to Tom: + +‘Now will you have the goodness to tell me what THIS portends?’ + +‘What?’ asked Tom. + +‘This fellow’s behaviour. Mr Pecksniff’s, I mean. You saw it?’ + +‘No. Indeed I did not,’ cried Tom. ‘I was busy with the trunks.’ + +‘It is no matter,’ said Martin. ‘Come! Let us make haste back!’ And +without another word started off at such a pace, that Tom had some +difficulty in keeping up with him. + +He had no care where he went, but walked through little heaps of mud +and little pools of water with the utmost indifference; looking straight +before him, and sometimes laughing in a strange manner within himself. +Tom felt that anything he could say would only render him the more +obstinate, and therefore trusted to Mr Pecksniff’s manner when they +reached the house, to remove the mistaken impression under which he felt +convinced so great a favourite as the new pupil must unquestionably be +labouring. But he was not a little amazed himself, when they did reach +it, and entered the parlour where Mr Pecksniff was sitting alone +before the fire, drinking some hot tea, to find that instead of taking +favourable notice of his relative and keeping him, Mr Pinch, in the +background, he did exactly the reverse, and was so lavish in his +attentions to Tom, that Tom was thoroughly confounded. + +‘Take some tea, Mr Pinch--take some tea,’ said Pecksniff, stirring the +fire. ‘You must be very cold and damp. Pray take some tea, and come into +a warm place, Mr Pinch.’ + +Tom saw that Martin looked at Mr Pecksniff as though he could have +easily found it in his heart to give HIM an invitation to a very warm +place; but he was quite silent, and standing opposite that gentleman at +the table, regarded him attentively. + +‘Take a chair, Pinch,’ said Pecksniff. ‘Take a chair, if you please. How +have things gone on in our absence, Mr Pinch?’ + +‘You--you will be very much pleased with the grammar-school, sir,’ said +Tom. ‘It’s nearly finished.’ + +‘If you will have the goodness, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, waving his +hand and smiling, ‘we will not discuss anything connected with that +question at present. What have YOU been doing, Thomas, humph?’ + +Mr Pinch looked from master to pupil, and from pupil to master, and was +so perplexed and dismayed that he wanted presence of mind to answer +the question. In this awkward interval, Mr Pecksniff (who was perfectly +conscious of Martin’s gaze, though he had never once glanced towards +him) poked the fire very much, and when he couldn’t do that any more, +drank tea assiduously. + +‘Now, Mr Pecksniff,’ said Martin at last, in a very quiet voice, ‘if you +have sufficiently refreshed and recovered yourself, I shall be glad to +hear what you mean by this treatment of me.’ + +‘And what,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning his eyes on Tom Pinch, even more +placidly and gently than before, ‘what have YOU been doing, Thomas, +humph?’ + +When he had repeated this inquiry, he looked round the walls of the room +as if he were curious to see whether any nails had been left there by +accident in former times. + +Tom was almost at his wit’s end what to say between the two, and had +already made a gesture as if he would call Mr Pecksniff’s attention to +the gentleman who had last addressed him, when Martin saved him further +trouble, by doing so himself. + +‘Mr Pecksniff,’ he said, softly rapping the table twice or thrice, and +moving a step or two nearer, so that he could have touched him with his +hand; ‘you heard what I said just now. Do me the favour to reply, if you +please. I ask you’--he raised his voice a little here--‘what you mean by +this?’ + +‘I will talk to you, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff in a severe voice, as he +looked at him for the first time, ‘presently.’ + +‘You are very obliging,’ returned Martin; ‘presently will not do. I must +trouble you to talk to me at once.’ + +Mr Pecksniff made a feint of being deeply interested in his pocketbook, +but it shook in his hands; he trembled so. + +‘Now,’ retorted Martin, rapping the table again. ‘Now. Presently will +not do. Now!’ + +‘Do you threaten me, sir?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. + +Martin looked at him, and made no answer; but a curious observer +might have detected an ominous twitching at his mouth, and perhaps +an involuntary attraction of his right hand in the direction of Mr +Pecksniff’s cravat. + +‘I lament to be obliged to say, sir,’ resumed Mr Pecksniff, ‘that it +would be quite in keeping with your character if you did threaten me. +You have deceived me. You have imposed upon a nature which you knew to +be confiding and unsuspicious. You have obtained admission, sir,’ said +Mr Pecksniff, rising, ‘to this house, on perverted statements and on +false pretences.’ + +‘Go on,’ said Martin, with a scornful smile. ‘I understand you now. What +more?’ + +‘Thus much more, sir,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, trembling from head to foot, +and trying to rub his hands, as though he were only cold. ‘Thus much +more, if you force me to publish your shame before a third party, which +I was unwilling and indisposed to do. This lowly roof, sir, must not +be contaminated by the presence of one who has deceived, and cruelly +deceived, an honourable, beloved, venerated, and venerable gentleman; +and who wisely suppressed that deceit from me when he sought my +protection and favour, knowing that, humble as I am, I am an honest +man, seeking to do my duty in this carnal universe, and setting my face +against all vice and treachery. I weep for your depravity, sir,’ said +Mr Pecksniff; ‘I mourn over your corruption, I pity your voluntary +withdrawal of yourself from the flowery paths of purity and peace;’ here +he struck himself upon his breast, or moral garden; ‘but I cannot have +a leper and a serpent for an inmate. Go forth,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +stretching out his hand: ‘go forth, young man! Like all who know you, I +renounce you!’ + +With what intention Martin made a stride forward at these words, it is +impossible to say. It is enough to know that Tom Pinch caught him in +his arms, and that, at the same moment, Mr Pecksniff stepped back so +hastily, that he missed his footing, tumbled over a chair, and fell in +a sitting posture on the ground; where he remained without an effort +to get up again, with his head in a corner, perhaps considering it the +safest place. + +‘Let me go, Pinch!’ cried Martin, shaking him away. ‘Why do you hold me? +Do you think a blow could make him a more abject creature than he is? Do +you think that if I spat upon him, I could degrade him to a lower level +than his own? Look at him. Look at him, Pinch!’ + +Mr Pinch involuntarily did so. Mr Pecksniff sitting, as has been +already mentioned, on the carpet, with his head in an acute angle of the +wainscot, and all the damage and detriment of an uncomfortable journey +about him, was not exactly a model of all that is prepossessing and +dignified in man, certainly. Still he WAS Pecksniff; it was impossible +to deprive him of that unique and paramount appeal to Tom. And he +returned Tom’s glance, as if he would have said, ‘Aye, Mr Pinch, look at +me! Here I am! You know what the Poet says about an honest man; and an +honest man is one of the few great works that can be seen for nothing! +Look at me!’ + +‘I tell you,’ said Martin, ‘that as he lies there, disgraced, bought, +used; a cloth for dirty hands, a mat for dirty feet, a lying, fawning, +servile hound, he is the very last and worst among the vermin of the +world. And mark me, Pinch! The day will come--he knows it; see it +written on his face, while I speak!--when even you will find him out, +and will know him as I do, and as he knows I do. HE renounce ME! +Cast your eyes on the Renouncer, Pinch, and be the wiser for the +recollection!’ + +He pointed at him as he spoke, with unutterable contempt, and flinging +his hat upon his head, walked from the room and from the house. He went +so rapidly that he was already clear of the village, when he heard Tom +Pinch calling breathlessly after him in the distance. + +‘Well! what now?’ he said, when Tom came up. + +‘Dear, dear!’ cried Tom, ‘are you going?’ + +‘Going!’ he echoed. ‘Going!’ + +‘I didn’t so much mean that, as were you going now at once--in this bad +weather--on foot--without your clothes--with no money?’ cried Tom. + +‘Yes,’ he answered sternly, ‘I am.’ + +‘And where?’ cried Tom. ‘Oh where will you go?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do. I’ll go to America!’ + +‘No, no,’ cried Tom, in a kind of agony. ‘Don’t go there. Pray don’t. +Think better of it. Don’t be so dreadfully regardless of yourself. Don’t +go to America!’ + +‘My mind is made up,’ he said. ‘Your friend was right. I’ll go to +America. God bless you, Pinch!’ + +‘Take this!’ cried Tom, pressing a book upon him in great agitation. +‘I must make haste back, and can’t say anything I would. Heaven be with +you. Look at the leaf I have turned down. Good-bye, good-bye!’ + +The simple fellow wrung him by the hand, with tears stealing down his +cheeks; and they parted hurriedly upon their separate ways. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +SHOWING WHAT BECAME OF MARTIN AND HIS DESPARATE RESOLVE, AFTER HE LEFT +MR PECKSNIFF’S HOUSE; WHAT PERSONS HE ENCOUNTERED; WHAT ANXIETIES HE +SUFFERED; AND WHAT NEWS HE HEARD + + +Carrying Tom Pinch’s book quite unconsciously under his arm, and not +even buttoning his coat as a protection against the heavy rain, Martin +went doggedly forward at the same quick pace, until he had passed the +finger-post, and was on the high road to London. He slackened very +little in his speed even then, but he began to think, and look about +him, and to disengage his senses from the coil of angry passions which +hitherto had held them prisoner. + +It must be confessed that, at that moment, he had no very agreeable +employment either for his moral or his physical perceptions. The day was +dawning from a patch of watery light in the east, and sullen clouds +came driving up before it, from which the rain descended in a thick, wet +mist. It streamed from every twig and bramble in the hedge; made little +gullies in the path; ran down a hundred channels in the road; and +punched innumerable holes into the face of every pond and gutter. It +fell with an oozy, slushy sound among the grass; and made a muddy kennel +of every furrow in the ploughed fields. No living creature was anywhere +to be seen. The prospect could hardly have been more desolate if +animated nature had been dissolved in water, and poured down upon the +earth again in that form. + +The range of view within the solitary traveller was quite as cheerless +as the scene without. Friendless and penniless; incensed to the last +degree; deeply wounded in his pride and self-love; full of independent +schemes, and perfectly destitute of any means of realizing them; his +most vindictive enemy might have been satisfied with the extent of his +troubles. To add to his other miseries, he was by this time sensible of +being wet to the skin, and cold at his very heart. + +In this deplorable condition he remembered Mr Pinch’s book; more +because it was rather troublesome to carry, than from any hope of being +comforted by that parting gift. He looked at the dingy lettering on the +back, and finding it to be an odd volume of the ‘Bachelor of Salamanca,’ +in the French tongue, cursed Tom Pinch’s folly twenty times. He was on +the point of throwing it away, in his ill-humour and vexation, when he +bethought himself that Tom had referred him to a leaf, turned down; +and opening it at that place, that he might have additional cause +of complaint against him for supposing that any cold scrap of the +Bachelor’s wisdom could cheer him in such circumstances, found!-- + +Well, well! not much, but Tom’s all. The half-sovereign. He had wrapped +it hastily in a piece of paper, and pinned it to the leaf. These words +were scrawled in pencil on the inside: ‘I don’t want it indeed. I should +not know what to do with it if I had it.’ + +There are some falsehoods, Tom, on which men mount, as on bright wings, +towards Heaven. There are some truths, cold bitter taunting truths, +wherein your worldly scholars are very apt and punctual, which bind men +down to earth with leaden chains. Who would not rather have to fan him, +in his dying hour, the lightest feather of a falsehood such as thine, +than all the quills that have been plucked from the sharp porcupine, +reproachful truth, since time began! + +Martin felt keenly for himself, and he felt this good deed of Tom’s +keenly. After a few minutes it had the effect of raising his spirits, +and reminding him that he was not altogether destitute, as he had left +a fair stock of clothes behind him, and wore a gold hunting-watch in +his pocket. He found a curious gratification, too, in thinking what a +winning fellow he must be to have made such an impression on Tom; and in +reflecting how superior he was to Tom; and how much more likely to make +his way in the world. Animated by these thoughts, and strengthened in +his design of endeavouring to push his fortune in another country, he +resolved to get to London as a rallying-point, in the best way he could; +and to lose no time about it. + +He was ten good miles from the village made illustrious by being the +abiding-place of Mr Pecksniff, when he stopped to breakfast at a little +roadside alehouse; and resting upon a high-backed settle before the +fire, pulled off his coat, and hung it before the cheerful blaze to +dry. It was a very different place from the last tavern in which he +had regaled; boasting no greater extent of accommodation than the +brick-floored kitchen yielded; but the mind so soon accommodates itself +to the necessities of the body, that this poor waggoner’s house-of-call, +which he would have despised yesterday, became now quite a choice hotel; +while his dish of eggs and bacon, and his mug of beer, were not by +any means the coarse fare he had supposed, but fully bore out the +inscription on the window-shutter, which proclaimed those viands to be +‘Good entertainment for Travellers.’ + +He pushed away his empty plate; and with a second mug upon the hearth +before him, looked thoughtfully at the fire until his eyes ached. Then +he looked at the highly-coloured scripture pieces on the walls, in +little black frames like common shaving-glasses, and saw how the Wise +Men (with a strong family likeness among them) worshipped in a pink +manger; and how the Prodigal Son came home in red rags to a purple +father, and already feasted his imagination on a sea-green calf. Then he +glanced through the window at the falling rain, coming down aslant upon +the sign-post over against the house, and overflowing the horse-trough; +and then he looked at the fire again, and seemed to descry a double +distant London, retreating among the fragments of the burning wood. + +He had repeated this process in just the same order, many times, as +if it were a matter of necessity, when the sound of wheels called his +attention to the window out of its regular turn; and there he beheld a +kind of light van drawn by four horses, and laden, as well as he could +see (for it was covered in), with corn and straw. The driver, who +was alone, stopped at the door to water his team, and presently came +stamping and shaking the wet off his hat and coat, into the room where +Martin sat. + +He was a red-faced burly young fellow; smart in his way, and with a +good-humoured countenance. As he advanced towards the fire he touched +his shining forehead with the forefinger of his stiff leather glove, +by way of salutation; and said (rather unnecessarily) that it was an +uncommon wet day. + +‘Very wet,’ said Martin. + +‘I don’t know as ever I see a wetter.’ + +‘I never felt one,’ said Martin. + +The driver glanced at Martin’s soiled dress, and his damp shirt-sleeves, +and his coat hung up to dry; and said, after a pause, as he warmed his +hands: + +‘You have been caught in it, sir?’ + +‘Yes,’ was the short reply. + +‘Out riding, maybe?’ said the driver + +‘I should have been, if I owned a horse; but I don’t,’ returned Martin. + +‘That’s bad,’ said the driver. + +‘And may be worse,’ said Martin. + +Now the driver said ‘That’s bad,’ not so much because Martin didn’t own +a horse, as because he said he didn’t with all the reckless desperation +of his mood and circumstances, and so left a great deal to be inferred. +Martin put his hands in his pockets and whistled when he had retorted on +the driver; thus giving him to understand that he didn’t care a pin for +Fortune; that he was above pretending to be her favourite when he was +not; and that he snapped his fingers at her, the driver, and everybody +else. + +The driver looked at him stealthily for a minute or so; and in the +pauses of his warming whistled too. At length he asked, as he pointed +his thumb towards the road. + +‘Up or down?’ + +‘Which IS up?’ said Martin. + +‘London, of course,’ said the driver. + +‘Up then,’ said Martin. He tossed his head in a careless manner +afterwards, as if he would have added, ‘Now you know all about it.’ +put his hands deeper into his pockets; changed his tune, and whistled a +little louder. + +‘I’m going up,’ observed the driver; ‘Hounslow, ten miles this side +London.’ + +‘Are you?’ cried Martin, stopping short and looking at him. + +The driver sprinkled the fire with his wet hat until it hissed again and +answered, ‘Aye, to be sure he was.’ + +‘Why, then,’ said Martin, ‘I’ll be plain with you. You may suppose from +my dress that I have money to spare. I have not. All I can afford for +coach-hire is a crown, for I have but two. If you can take me for that, +and my waistcoat, or this silk handkerchief, do. If you can’t, leave it +alone.’ + +‘Short and sweet,’ remarked the driver. + +‘You want more?’ said Martin. ‘Then I haven’t got more, and I can’t get +it, so there’s an end of that.’ Whereupon he began to whistle again. + +‘I didn’t say I wanted more, did I?’ asked the driver, with something +like indignation. + +‘You didn’t say my offer was enough,’ rejoined Martin. + +‘Why, how could I, when you wouldn’t let me? In regard to the waistcoat, +I wouldn’t have a man’s waistcoat, much less a gentleman’s waistcoat, +on my mind, for no consideration; but the silk handkerchief’s another +thing; and if you was satisfied when we got to Hounslow, I shouldn’t +object to that as a gift.’ + +‘Is it a bargain, then?’ said Martin. + +‘Yes, it is,’ returned the other. + +‘Then finish this beer,’ said Martin, handing him the mug, and pulling +on his coat with great alacrity; ‘and let us be off as soon as you +like.’ + +In two minutes more he had paid his bill, which amounted to a shilling; +was lying at full length on a truss of straw, high and dry at the top +of the van, with the tilt a little open in front for the convenience of +talking to his new friend; and was moving along in the right direction +with a most satisfactory and encouraging briskness. + +The driver’s name, as he soon informed Martin, was William Simmons, +better known as Bill; and his spruce appearance was sufficiently +explained by his connection with a large stage-coaching establishment at +Hounslow, whither he was conveying his load from a farm belonging to +the concern in Wiltshire. He was frequently up and down the road on such +errands, he said, and to look after the sick and rest horses, of which +animals he had much to relate that occupied a long time in the +telling. He aspired to the dignity of the regular box, and expected +an appointment on the first vacancy. He was musical besides, and had +a little key-bugle in his pocket, on which, whenever the conversation +flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly +broke down in the second. + +‘Ah!’ said Bill, with a sigh, as he drew the back of his hand across +his lips, and put this instrument in his pocket, after screwing off the +mouth-piece to drain it; ‘Lummy Ned of the Light Salisbury, HE was the +one for musical talents. He WAS a guard. What you may call a Guard’an +Angel, was Ned.’ + +‘Is he dead?’ asked Martin. + +‘Dead!’ replied the other, with a contemptuous emphasis. ‘Not he. You +won’t catch Ned a-dying easy. No, no. He knows better than that.’ + +‘You spoke of him in the past tense,’ observed Martin, ‘so I supposed he +was no more. + +‘He’s no more in England,’ said Bill, ‘if that’s what you mean. He went +to the U-nited States.’ + +‘Did he?’ asked Martin, with sudden interest. ‘When?’ + +‘Five year ago, or then about,’ said Bill. ‘He had set up in the public +line here, and couldn’t meet his engagements, so he cut off to Liverpool +one day, without saying anything about it, and went and shipped himself +for the U-nited States.’ + +‘Well?’ said Martin. + +‘Well! as he landed there without a penny to bless himself with, of +course they wos very glad to see him in the U-nited States.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ asked Martin, with some scorn. + +‘What do I mean?’ said Bill. ‘Why, THAT. All men are alike in the +U-nited States, an’t they? It makes no odds whether a man has a thousand +pound, or nothing, there. Particular in New York, I’m told, where Ned +landed.’ + +‘New York, was it?’ asked Martin, thoughtfully. + +‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘New York. I know that, because he sent word home that +it brought Old York to his mind, quite vivid, in consequence of being so +exactly unlike it in every respect. I don’t understand what particular +business Ned turned his mind to, when he got there; but he wrote home +that him and his friends was always a-singing, Ale Columbia, and blowing +up the President, so I suppose it was something in the public line; or +free-and-easy way again. Anyhow, he made his fortune.’ + +‘No!’ cried Martin. + +‘Yes, he did,’ said Bill. ‘I know that, because he lost it all the day +after, in six-and-twenty banks as broke. He settled a lot of the notes +on his father, when it was ascertained that they was really stopped and +sent ‘em over with a dutiful letter. I know that, because they was +shown down our yard for the old gentleman’s benefit, that he might treat +himself with tobacco in the workus.’ + +‘He was a foolish fellow not to take care of his money when he had it,’ +said Martin, indignantly. + +‘There you’re right,’ said Bill, ‘especially as it was all in paper, and +he might have took care of it so very easy, by folding it up in a small +parcel.’ + +Martin said nothing in reply, but soon afterwards fell asleep, and +remained so for an hour or more. When he awoke, finding it had ceased +to rain, he took his seat beside the driver, and asked him several +questions; as how long had the fortunate guard of the Light Salisbury +been in crossing the Atlantic; at what time of the year had he sailed; +what was the name of the ship in which he made the voyage; how much had +he paid for passage-money; did he suffer greatly from sea-sickness? +and so forth. But on these points of detail his friend was possessed +of little or no information; either answering obviously at random or +acknowledging that he had never heard, or had forgotten; nor, although +he returned to the charge very often, could he obtain any useful +intelligence on these essential particulars. + +They jogged on all day, and stopped so often--now to refresh, now to +change their team of horses, now to exchange or bring away a set of +harness, now on one point of business, and now upon another, connected +with the coaching on that line of road--that it was midnight when they +reached Hounslow. A little short of the stables for which the van was +bound, Martin got down, paid his crown, and forced his silk handkerchief +upon his honest friend, notwithstanding the many protestations that he +didn’t wish to deprive him of it, with which he tried to give the lie to +his longing looks. That done, they parted company; and when the van had +driven into its own yard and the gates were closed, Martin stood in the +dark street, with a pretty strong sense of being shut out, alone, upon +the dreary world, without the key of it. + +But in this moment of despondency, and often afterwards, the +recollection of Mr Pecksniff operated as a cordial to him; awakening +in his breast an indignation that was very wholesome in nerving him to +obstinate endurance. Under the influence of this fiery dram he started +off for London without more ado. Arriving there in the middle of the +night, and not knowing where to find a tavern open, he was fain to +stroll about the streets and market-places until morning. + +He found himself, about an hour before dawn, in the humbler regions +of the Adelphi; and addressing himself to a man in a fur-cap, who was +taking down the shutters of an obscure public-house, informed him +that he was a stranger, and inquired if he could have a bed there. It +happened by good luck that he could. Though none of the gaudiest, it was +tolerably clean, and Martin felt very glad and grateful when he crept +into it, for warmth, rest, and forgetfulness. + +It was quite late in the afternoon when he awoke; and by the time he had +washed and dressed, and broken his fast, it was growing dusk again. This +was all the better, for it was now a matter of absolute necessity that +he should part with his watch to some obliging pawn-broker. He would +have waited until after dark for this purpose, though it had been the +longest day in the year, and he had begun it without a breakfast. + +He passed more Golden Balls than all the jugglers in Europe have juggled +with, in the course of their united performances, before he could +determine in favour of any particular shop where those symbols were +displayed. In the end he came back to one of the first he had seen, +and entering by a side-door in a court, where the three balls, with the +legend ‘Money Lent,’ were repeated in a ghastly transparency, passed +into one of a series of little closets, or private boxes, erected for +the accommodation of the more bashful and uninitiated customers. He +bolted himself in; pulled out his watch; and laid it on the counter. + +‘Upon my life and soul!’ said a low voice in the next box to the shopman +who was in treaty with him, ‘you must make it more; you must make it a +trifle more, you must indeed! You must dispense with one half-quarter +of an ounce in weighing out your pound of flesh, my best of friends, and +make it two-and-six.’ + +Martin drew back involuntarily, for he knew the voice at once. + +‘You’re always full of your chaff,’ said the shopman, rolling up the +article (which looked like a shirt) quite as a matter of course, and +nibbing his pen upon the counter. + +‘I shall never be full of my wheat,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘as long as I come +here. Ha, ha! Not bad! Make it two-and-six, my dear friend, positively +for this occasion only. Half-a-crown is a delightful coin. Two-and-six. +Going at two-and-six! For the last time at two-and-six!’ + +‘It’ll never be the last time till it’s quite worn out,’ rejoined the +shopman. ‘It’s grown yellow in the service as it is.’ + +‘Its master has grown yellow in the service, if you mean that, my +friend,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘in the patriotic service of an ungrateful +country. You are making it two-and-six, I think?’ + +‘I’m making it,’ returned the shopman, ‘what it always has been--two +shillings. Same name as usual, I suppose?’ + +‘Still the same name,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘my claim to the dormant peerage +not being yet established by the House of Lords.’ + +‘The old address?’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘I have removed my town establishment from +thirty-eight, Mayfair, to number fifteen-hundred-and-forty-two, Park +Lane.’ + +‘Come, I’m not going to put down that, you know,’ said the shopman with +a grin. + +‘You may put down what you please, my friend,’ quoth Mr Tigg. ‘The fact +is still the same. The apartments for the under-butler and the fifth +footman being of a most confounded low and vulgar kind at thirty-eight, +Mayfair, I have been compelled, in my regard for the feelings which do +them so much honour, to take on lease for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one +years, renewable at the option of the tenant, the elegant and commodious +family mansion, number fifteen-hundred-and-forty-two Park Lane. Make it +two-and-six, and come and see me!’ + +The shopman was so highly entertained by this piece of humour that Mr +Tigg himself could not repress some little show of exultation. It vented +itself, in part, in a desire to see how the occupant of the next +box received his pleasantry; to ascertain which he glanced round the +partition, and immediately, by the gaslight, recognized Martin. + +‘I wish I may die,’ said Mr Tigg, stretching out his body so far that +his head was as much in Martin’s little cell as Martin’s own head was, +‘but this is one of the most tremendous meetings in Ancient or Modern +History! How are you? What is the news from the agricultural districts? +How are our friends the P.’s? Ha, ha! David, pay particular attention to +this gentleman immediately, as a friend of mine, I beg.’ + +‘Here! Please to give me the most you can for this,’ said Martin, +handing the watch to the shopman. ‘I want money sorely.’ + +‘He wants money, sorely!’ cried Mr Tigg with excessive sympathy. ‘David, +will you have the goodness to do your very utmost for my friend, who +wants money sorely. You will deal with my friend as if he were myself. +A gold hunting-watch, David, engine-turned, capped and jewelled in +four holes, escape movement, horizontal lever, and warranted to perform +correctly, upon my personal reputation, who have observed it narrowly +for many years, under the most trying circumstances’--here he winked +at Martin, that he might understand this recommendation would have an +immense effect upon the shopman; ‘what do you say, David, to my friend? +Be very particular to deserve my custom and recommendation, David.’ + +‘I can lend you three pounds on this, if you like’ said the shopman to +Martin, confidentially. ‘It is very old-fashioned. I couldn’t say more.’ + +‘And devilish handsome, too,’ cried Mr Tigg. ‘Two-twelve-six for the +watch, and seven-and-six for personal regard. I am gratified; it may +be weakness, but I am. Three pounds will do. We take it. The name of my +friend is Smivey: Chicken Smivey, of Holborn, twenty-six-and-a-half B: +lodger.’ Here he winked at Martin again, to apprise him that all the +forms and ceremonies prescribed by law were now complied with, and +nothing remained but the receipt for the money. + +In point of fact, this proved to be the case, for Martin, who had no +resource but to take what was offered him, signified his acquiescence by +a nod of his head, and presently came out with the cash in his pocket. +He was joined in the entry by Mr Tigg, who warmly congratulated him, as +he took his arm and accompanied him into the street, on the successful +issue of the negotiation. + +‘As for my part in the same,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘don’t mention it. Don’t +compliment me, for I can’t bear it!’ + +‘I have no such intention, I assure you,’ retorted Martin, releasing his +arm and stopping. + +‘You oblige me very much’ said Mr Tigg. ‘Thank you.’ + +‘Now, sir,’ observed Martin, biting his lip, ‘this is a large town, and +we can easily find different ways in it. If you will show me which is +your way, I will take another.’ + +Mr Tigg was about to speak, but Martin interposed: + +‘I need scarcely tell you, after what you have just seen, that I +have nothing to bestow upon your friend Mr Slyme. And it is quite as +unnecessary for me to tell you that I don’t desire the honour of your +company.’ + +‘Stop’ cried Mr Tigg, holding out his hand. ‘Hold! There is a most +remarkably long-headed, flowing-bearded, and patriarchal proverb, which +observes that it is the duty of a man to be just before he is generous. +Be just now, and you can be generous presently. Do not confuse me with +the man Slyme. Do not distinguish the man Slyme as a friend of mine, for +he is no such thing. I have been compelled, sir, to abandon the party +whom you call Slyme. I have no knowledge of the party whom you call +Slyme. I am, sir,’ said Mr Tigg, striking himself upon the breast, +‘a premium tulip, of a very different growth and cultivation from the +cabbage Slyme, sir.’ + +‘It matters very little to me,’ said Martin coolly, ‘whether you have +set up as a vagabond on your own account, or are still trading on behalf +of Mr Slyme. I wish to hold no correspondence with you. In the devil’s +name, man’ said Martin, scarcely able, despite his vexation, to repress +a smile as Mr Tigg stood leaning his back against the shutters of a shop +window, adjusting his hair with great composure, ‘will you go one way or +other?’ + +‘You will allow me to remind you, sir,’ said Mr Tigg, with sudden +dignity, ‘that you--not I--that you--I say emphatically, YOU--have +reduced the proceedings of this evening to a cold and distant matter of +business, when I was disposed to place them on a friendly footing. +It being made a matter of business, sir, I beg to say that I expect +a trifle (which I shall bestow in charity) as commission upon the +pecuniary advance, in which I have rendered you my humble services. +After the terms in which you have addressed me, sir,’ concluded Mr +Tigg, ‘you will not insult me, if you please, by offering more than +half-a-crown.’ + +Martin drew that piece of money from his pocket, and tossed it towards +him. Mr Tigg caught it, looked at it to assure himself of its goodness, +spun it in the air after the manner of a pieman, and buttoned it up. +Finally, he raised his hat an inch or two from his head with a military +air, and, after pausing a moment with deep gravity, as to decide in +which direction he should go, and to what Earl or Marquis among his +friends he should give the preference in his next call, stuck his hands +in his skirt-pockets and swaggered round the corner. Martin took the +directly opposite course; and so, to his great content, they parted +company. + +It was with a bitter sense of humiliation that he cursed, again and +again, the mischance of having encountered this man in the pawnbroker’s +shop. The only comfort he had in the recollection was, Mr Tigg’s +voluntary avowal of a separation between himself and Slyme, that would +at least prevent his circumstances (so Martin argued) from being known +to any member of his family, the bare possibility of which filled him +with shame and wounded pride. Abstractedly there was greater reason, +perhaps, for supposing any declaration of Mr Tigg’s to be false, than +for attaching the least credence to it; but remembering the terms on +which the intimacy between that gentleman and his bosom friend had +subsisted, and the strong probability of Mr Tigg’s having established +an independent business of his own on Mr Slyme’s connection, it had a +reasonable appearance of probability; at all events, Martin hoped so; +and that went a long way. + +His first step, now that he had a supply of ready money for his present +necessities, was, to retain his bed at the public-house until further +notice, and to write a formal note to Tom Pinch (for he knew Pecksniff +would see it) requesting to have his clothes forwarded to London by +coach, with a direction to be left at the office until called for. These +measures taken, he passed the interval before the box arrived--three +days--in making inquiries relative to American vessels, at the offices +of various shipping-agents in the city; and in lingering about the docks +and wharves, with the faint hope of stumbling upon some engagement +for the voyage, as clerk or supercargo, or custodian of something or +somebody, which would enable him to procure a free passage. But +finding, soon, that no such means of employment were likely to present +themselves, and dreading the consequences of delay, he drew up a short +advertisement, stating what he wanted, and inserted it in the leading +newspapers. Pending the receipt of the twenty or thirty answers which +he vaguely expected, he reduced his wardrobe to the narrowest limits +consistent with decent respectability, and carried the overplus at +different times to the pawnbroker’s shop, for conversion into money. + +And it was strange, very strange, even to himself, to find how, by +quick though almost imperceptible degrees, he lost his delicacy and +self-respect, and gradually came to do that as a matter of course, +without the least compunction, which but a few short days before had +galled him to the quick. The first time he visited the pawnbroker’s, +he felt on his way there as if every person whom he passed suspected +whither he was going; and on his way back again, as if the whole human +tide he stemmed, knew well where he had come from. When did he care to +think of their discernment now! In his first wanderings up and down the +weary streets, he counterfeited the walk of one who had an object in +his view; but soon there came upon him the sauntering, slipshod gait of +listless idleness, and the lounging at street-corners, and plucking and +biting of stray bits of straw, and strolling up and down the same place, +and looking into the same shop-windows, with a miserable indifference, +fifty times a day. At first, he came out from his lodging with an uneasy +sense of being observed--even by those chance passers-by, on whom he had +never looked before, and hundreds to one would never see again--issuing +in the morning from a public-house; but now, in his comings-out and +goings-in he did not mind to lounge about the door, or to stand sunning +himself in careless thought beside the wooden stem, studded from head to +heel with pegs, on which the beer-pots dangled like so many boughs upon +a pewter-tree. And yet it took but five weeks to reach the lowest round +of this tall ladder! + +Oh, moralists, who treat of happiness and self-respect, innate in every +sphere of life, and shedding light on every grain of dust in God’s +highway, so smooth below your carriage-wheels, so rough beneath the +tread of naked feet, bethink yourselves in looking on the swift descent +of men who HAVE lived in their own esteem, that there are scores of +thousands breathing now, and breathing thick with painful toil, who in +that high respect have never lived at all, nor had a chance of life! Go +ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, +and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous +forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and +honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of +deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man’s neglect, and say can any +hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul’s +bright torch as fast as it is kindled! And, oh! ye Pharisees of the +nineteen hundredth year of Christian Knowledge, who soundingly appeal +to human nature, see that it be human first. Take heed it has not been +transformed, during your slumber and the sleep of generations, into the +nature of the Beasts! + +Five weeks! Of all the twenty or thirty answers, not one had come. His +money--even the additional stock he had raised from the disposal of his +spare clothes (and that was not much, for clothes, though dear to buy, +are cheap to pawn)--was fast diminishing. Yet what could he do? At times +an agony came over him in which he darted forth again, though he was +but newly home, and, returning to some place where he had been already +twenty times, made some new attempt to gain his end, but always +unsuccessfully. He was years and years too old for a cabin-boy, and +years upon years too inexperienced to be accepted as a common seaman. +His dress and manner, too, militated fatally against any such proposal +as the latter; and yet he was reduced to making it; for even if he could +have contemplated the being set down in America totally without money, +he had not enough left now for a steerage passage and the poorest +provisions upon the voyage. + +It is an illustration of a very common tendency in the mind of man, that +all this time he never once doubted, one may almost say the certainty +of doing great things in the New World, if he could only get there. +In proportion as he became more and more dejected by his present +circumstances, and the means of gaining America receded from his grasp, +the more he fretted himself with the conviction that that was the only +place in which he could hope to achieve any high end, and worried his +brain with the thought that men going there in the meanwhile might +anticipate him in the attainment of those objects which were dearest to +his heart. He often thought of John Westlock, and besides looking out +for him on all occasions, actually walked about London for three days +together for the express purpose of meeting with him. But although he +failed in this; and although he would not have scrupled to borrow money +of him; and although he believed that John would have lent it; yet still +he could not bring his mind to write to Pinch and inquire where he was +to be found. For although, as we have seen, he was fond of Tom after +his own fashion, he could not endure the thought (feeling so superior to +Tom) of making him the stepping-stone to his fortune, or being anything +to him but a patron; and his pride so revolted from the idea that it +restrained him even now. + +It might have yielded, however; and no doubt must have yielded soon, but +for a very strange and unlooked-for occurrence. + +The five weeks had quite run out, and he was in a truly desperate +plight, when one evening, having just returned to his lodging, and +being in the act of lighting his candle at the gas jet in the bar before +stalking moodily upstairs to his own room, his landlord called him by +his name. Now as he had never told it to the man, but had scrupulously +kept it to himself, he was not a little startled by this; and so plainly +showed his agitation that the landlord, to reassure him, said ‘it was +only a letter.’ + +‘A letter!’ cried Martin. + +‘For Mr Martin Chuzzlewit,’ said the landlord, reading the +superscription of one he held in his hand. ‘Noon. Chief office. Paid.’ + +Martin took it from him, thanked him, and walked upstairs. It was not +sealed, but pasted close; the handwriting was quite unknown to him. +He opened it and found enclosed, without any name, address, or other +inscription or explanation of any kind whatever, a Bank of England note +for Twenty Pounds. + +To say that he was perfectly stunned with astonishment and delight; that +he looked again and again at the note and the wrapper; that he hurried +below stairs to make quite certain that the note was a good note; and +then hurried up again to satisfy himself for the fiftieth time that +he had not overlooked some scrap of writing on the wrapper; that he +exhausted and bewildered himself with conjectures; and could make +nothing of it but that there the note was, and he was suddenly enriched; +would be only to relate so many matters of course to no purpose. The +final upshot of the business at that time was, that he resolved to treat +himself to a comfortable but frugal meal in his own chamber; and having +ordered a fire to be kindled, went out to purchase it forthwith. + +He bought some cold beef, and ham, and French bread, and butter, and +came back with his pockets pretty heavily laden. It was somewhat of +a damping circumstance to find the room full of smoke, which was +attributable to two causes; firstly, to the flue being naturally vicious +and a smoker; and secondly, to their having forgotten, in lighting the +fire, an odd sack or two and some trifles, which had been put up the +chimney to keep the rain out. They had already remedied this oversight, +however; and propped up the window-sash with a bundle of firewood to +keep it open; so that except in being rather inflammatory to the eyes +and choking to the lungs, the apartment was quite comfortable. + +Martin was in no vein to quarrel with it, if it had been in less +tolerable order, especially when a gleaming pint of porter was set upon +the table, and the servant-girl withdrew, bearing with her particular +instructions relative to the production of something hot when he should +ring the bell. The cold meat being wrapped in a playbill, Martin laid +the cloth by spreading that document on the little round table with the +print downwards, and arranging the collation upon it. The foot of the +bed, which was very close to the fire, answered for a sideboard; and +when he had completed these preparations, he squeezed an old arm-chair +into the warmest corner, and sat down to enjoy himself. + +He had begun to eat with great appetite, glancing round the room +meanwhile with a triumphant anticipation of quitting it for ever on the +morrow, when his attention was arrested by a stealthy footstep on the +stairs, and presently by a knock at his chamber door, which, although +it was a gentle knock enough, communicated such a start to the bundle of +firewood, that it instantly leaped out of window, and plunged into the +street. + +‘More coals, I suppose,’ said Martin. ‘Come in!’ + +‘It an’t a liberty, sir, though it seems so,’ rejoined a man’s voice. +‘Your servant, sir. Hope you’re pretty well, sir.’ + +Martin stared at the face that was bowing in the doorway, perfectly +remembering the features and expression, but quite forgetting to whom +they belonged. + +‘Tapley, sir,’ said his visitor. ‘Him as formerly lived at the Dragon, +sir, and was forced to leave in consequence of a want of jollity, sir.’ + +‘To be sure!’ cried Martin. ‘Why, how did you come here?’ + +‘Right through the passage, and up the stairs, sir,’ said Mark. + +‘How did you find me out, I mean?’ asked Martin. + +‘Why, sir,’ said Mark, ‘I’ve passed you once or twice in the street, if +I’m not mistaken; and when I was a-looking in at the beef-and-ham shop +just now, along with a hungry sweep, as was very much calculated to make +a man jolly, sir--I see you a-buying that.’ + +Martin reddened as he pointed to the table, and said, somewhat hastily: + +‘Well! What then?’ + +‘Why, then, sir,’ said Mark, ‘I made bold to foller; and as I told ‘em +downstairs that you expected me, I was let up.’ + +‘Are you charged with any message, that you told them you were +expected?’ inquired Martin. + +‘No, sir, I an’t,’ said Mark. ‘That was what you may call a pious fraud, +sir, that was.’ + +Martin cast an angry look at him; but there was something in the +fellow’s merry face, and in his manner--which with all its cheerfulness +was far from being obtrusive or familiar--that quite disarmed him. +He had lived a solitary life too, for many weeks, and the voice was +pleasant in his ear. + +‘Tapley,’ he said, ‘I’ll deal openly with you. From all I can judge and +from all I have heard of you through Pinch, you are not a likely kind of +fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or any other +offensive motive. Sit down. I’m glad to see you.’ + +‘Thankee, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I’d as lieve stand.’ + +‘If you don’t sit down,’ retorted Martin, ‘I’ll not talk to you.’ + +‘Very good, sir,’ observed Mark. ‘Your will’s a law, sir. Down it is;’ +and he sat down accordingly upon the bedstead. + +‘Help yourself,’ said Martin, handing him the only knife. + +‘Thankee, sir,’ rejoined Mark. ‘After you’ve done.’ + +‘If you don’t take it now, you’ll not have any,’ said Martin. + +‘Very good, sir,’ rejoined Mark. ‘That being your desire--now it is.’ +With which reply he gravely helped himself and went on eating. Martin +having done the like for a short time in silence, said abruptly: + +‘What are you doing in London?’ + +‘Nothing at all, sir,’ rejoined Mark. + +‘How’s that?’ asked Martin. + +‘I want a place,’ said Mark. + +‘I’m sorry for you,’ said Martin. + +‘--To attend upon a single gentleman,’ resumed Mark. ‘If from the +country the more desirable. Makeshifts would be preferred. Wages no +object.’ + +He said this so pointedly, that Martin stopped in his eating, and said: + +‘If you mean me--’ + +‘Yes, I do, sir,’ interposed Mark. + +‘Then you may judge from my style of living here, of my means of keeping +a man-servant. Besides, I am going to America immediately.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned Mark, quite unmoved by this intelligence ‘from all +that ever I heard about it, I should say America is a very likely sort +of place for me to be jolly in!’ + +Again Martin looked at him angrily; and again his anger melted away in +spite of himself. + +‘Lord bless you, sir,’ said Mark, ‘what is the use of us a-going round +and round, and hiding behind the corner, and dodging up and down, when +we can come straight to the point in six words? I’ve had my eye upon you +any time this fortnight. I see well enough there’s a screw loose in +your affairs. I know’d well enough the first time I see you down at the +Dragon that it must be so, sooner or later. Now, sir here am I, without +a sitiwation; without any want of wages for a year to come; for I saved +up (I didn’t mean to do it, but I couldn’t help it) at the Dragon--here +am I with a liking for what’s wentersome, and a liking for you, and +a wish to come out strong under circumstances as would keep other men +down; and will you take me, or will you leave me?’ + +‘How can I take you?’ cried Martin. + +‘When I say take,’ rejoined Mark, ‘I mean will you let me go? and when I +say will you let me go, I mean will you let me go along with you? for go +I will, somehow or another. Now that you’ve said America, I see clear at +once, that that’s the place for me to be jolly in. Therefore, if I don’t +pay my own passage in the ship you go in, sir, I’ll pay my own passage +in another. And mark my words, if I go alone it shall be, to carry out +the principle, in the rottenest, craziest, leakingest tub of a wessel +that a place can be got in for love or money. So if I’m lost upon the +way, sir, there’ll be a drowned man at your door--and always a-knocking +double knocks at it, too, or never trust me!’ + +‘This is mere folly,’ said Martin. + +‘Very good, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘I’m glad to hear it, because if you +don’t mean to let me go, you’ll be more comfortable, perhaps, on account +of thinking so. Therefore I contradict no gentleman. But all I say is, +that if I don’t emigrate to America in that case, in the beastliest old +cockle-shell as goes out of port, I’m--’ + +‘You don’t mean what you say, I’m sure,’ said Martin. + +‘Yes I do,’ cried Mark. + +‘I tell you I know better,’ rejoined Martin. + +‘Very good, sir,’ said Mark, with the same air of perfect satisfaction. +‘Let it stand that way at present, sir, and wait and see how it turns +out. Why, love my heart alive! the only doubt I have is, whether there’s +any credit in going with a gentleman like you, that’s as certain to make +his way there as a gimlet is to go through soft deal.’ + +This was touching Martin on his weak point, and having him at a great +advantage. He could not help thinking, either, what a brisk fellow this +Mark was, and how great a change he had wrought in the atmosphere of the +dismal little room already. + +‘Why, certainly, Mark,’ he said, ‘I have hopes of doing well there, or I +shouldn’t go. I may have the qualifications for doing well, perhaps.’ + +‘Of course you have, sir,’ returned Mark Tapley. ‘Everybody knows that.’ + +‘You see,’ said Martin, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking at +the fire, ‘ornamental architecture applied to domestic purposes, +can hardly fail to be in great request in that country; for men are +constantly changing their residences there, and moving further off; and +it’s clear they must have houses to live in.’ + +‘I should say, sir,’ observed Mark, ‘that that’s a state of things as +opens one of the jolliest look-outs for domestic architecture that ever +I heerd tell on.’ + +Martin glanced at him hastily, not feeling quite free from a suspicion +that this remark implied a doubt of the successful issue of his plans. +But Mr Tapley was eating the boiled beef and bread with such entire good +faith and singleness of purpose expressed in his visage that he could +not but be satisfied. Another doubt arose in his mind however, as this +one disappeared. He produced the blank cover in which the note had been +enclosed, and fixing his eyes on Mark as he put it in his hands, said: + +‘Now tell me the truth. Do you know anything about that?’ + +Mark turned it over and over; held it near his eyes; held it away from +him at arm’s length; held it with the superscription upwards and with +the superscription downwards; and shook his head with such a genuine +expression of astonishment at being asked the question, that Martin +said, as he took it from him again: + +‘No, I see you don’t. How should you! Though, indeed, your knowing about +it would not be more extraordinary than its being here. Come, Tapley,’ +he added, after a moment’s thought, ‘I’ll trust you with my history, +such as it is, and then you’ll see more clearly what sort of fortunes +you would link yourself to, if you followed me.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mark; ‘but afore you enter upon it +will you take me if I choose to go? Will you turn off me--Mark +Tapley--formerly of the Blue Dragon, as can be well recommended by Mr +Pinch, and as wants a gentleman of your strength of mind to look up to; +or will you, in climbing the ladder as you’re certain to get to the +top of, take me along with you at a respectful distance? Now, sir,’ +said Mark, ‘it’s of very little importance to you, I know, there’s the +difficulty; but it’s of very great importance to me, and will you be so +good as to consider of it?’ + +If this were meant as a second appeal to Martin’s weak side, founded on +his observation of the effect of the first, Mr Tapley was a skillful and +shrewd observer. Whether an intentional or an accidental shot, it +hit the mark fully for Martin, relenting more and more, said with a +condescension which was inexpressibly delicious to him, after his recent +humiliation: + +‘We’ll see about it, Tapley. You shall tell me in what disposition you +find yourself to-morrow.’ + +‘Then, sir,’ said Mark, rubbing his hands, ‘the job’s done. Go on, sir, +if you please. I’m all attention.’ + +Throwing himself back in his arm-chair, and looking at the fire, with +now and then a glance at Mark, who at such times nodded his head sagely, +to express his profound interest and attention. Martin ran over the +chief points in his history, to the same effect as he had related them, +weeks before, to Mr Pinch. But he adapted them, according to the best of +his judgment, to Mr Tapley’s comprehension; and with that view made as +light of his love affair as he could, and referred to it in very few +words. But here he reckoned without his host; for Mark’s interest was +keenest in this part of the business, and prompted him to ask sundry +questions in relation to it; for which he apologised as one in some +measure privileged to do so, from having seen (as Martin explained to +him) the young lady at the Blue Dragon. + +‘And a young lady as any gentleman ought to feel more proud of being in +love with,’ said Mark, energetically, ‘don’t draw breath.’ + +‘Aye! You saw her when she was not happy,’ said Martin, gazing at the +fire again. ‘If you had seen her in the old times, indeed--’ + +‘Why, she certainly was a little down-hearted, sir, and something paler +in her colour than I could have wished,’ said Mark, ‘but none the worse +in her looks for that. I think she seemed better, sir, after she come to +London.’ + +Martin withdrew his eyes from the fire; stared at Mark as if he thought +he had suddenly gone mad; and asked him what he meant. + +‘No offence intended, sir,’ urged Mark. ‘I don’t mean to say she was any +the happier without you; but I thought she was a-looking better, sir.’ + +‘Do you mean to tell me she has been in London?’ asked Martin, rising +hurriedly, and pushing back his chair. + +‘Of course I do,’ said Mark, rising too, in great amazement from the +bedstead. + +‘Do you mean to tell me she is in London now?’ + +‘Most likely, sir. I mean to say she was a week ago.’ + +‘And you know where?’ + +‘Yes!’ cried Mark. ‘What! Don’t you?’ + +‘My good fellow!’ exclaimed Martin, clutching him by both arms, ‘I have +never seen her since I left my grandfather’s house.’ + +‘Why, then!’ cried Mark, giving the little table such a blow with his +clenched fist that the slices of beef and ham danced upon it, while all +his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his forehead, and +never coming back again any more, ‘if I an’t your nat’ral born servant, +hired by Fate, there an’t such a thing in natur’ as a Blue Dragon. What! +when I was a-rambling up and down a old churchyard in the City, getting +myself into a jolly state, didn’t I see your grandfather a-toddling to +and fro for pretty nigh a mortal hour! Didn’t I watch him into Todgers’s +commercial boarding-house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his +hotel, and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I +had said so, afore I left the Dragon! Wasn’t the young lady a-sitting +with him then, and didn’t she fall a-laughing in a manner as was +beautiful to see! Didn’t your grandfather say, “Come back again next +week,” and didn’t I go next week; and didn’t he say that he couldn’t +make up his mind to trust nobody no more; and therefore wouldn’t engage +me, but at the same time stood something to drink as was handsome! Why,’ +cried Mr Tapley, with a comical mixture of delight and chagrin, ‘where’s +the credit of a man’s being jolly under such circumstances! Who could +help it, when things come about like this!’ + +For some moments Martin stood gazing at him, as if he really doubted the +evidence of his senses, and could not believe that Mark stood there, in +the body, before him. At length he asked him whether, if the young lady +were still in London, he thought he could contrive to deliver a letter +to her secretly. + +‘Do I think I can?’ cried Mark. ‘THINK I can? Here, sit down, sir. Write +it out, sir!’ + +With that he cleared the table by the summary process of tilting +everything upon it into the fireplace; snatched some writing materials +from the mantel-shelf; set Martin’s chair before them; forced him down +into it; dipped a pen into the ink; and put it in his hand. + +‘Cut away, sir!’ cried Mark. ‘Make it strong, sir. Let it be wery +pinted, sir. Do I think so? I should think so. Go to work, sir!’ + +Martin required no further adjuration, but went to work at a great rate; +while Mr Tapley, installing himself without any more formalities into +the functions of his valet and general attendant, divested himself +of his coat, and went on to clear the fireplace and arrange the room; +talking to himself in a low voice the whole time. + +‘Jolly sort of lodgings,’ said Mark, rubbing his nose with the knob at +the end of the fire-shovel, and looking round the poor chamber; ‘that’s +a comfort. The rain’s come through the roof too. That an’t bad. A lively +old bedstead, I’ll be bound; popilated by lots of wampires, no doubt. +Come! my spirits is a-getting up again. An uncommon ragged nightcap +this. A very good sign. We shall do yet! Here, Jane, my dear,’ calling +down the stairs, ‘bring up that there hot tumbler for my master as was +a-mixing when I come in. That’s right, sir,’ to Martin. ‘Go at it as if +you meant it, sir. Be very tender, sir, if you please. You can’t make it +too strong, sir!’ + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +IN WHICH MARTIN BIDS ADIEU TO THE LADY OF HIS LOVE; AND HONOURS AN +OBSCURE INDIVIDUAL WHOSE FORTUNE HE INTENDS TO MAKE BY COMMENDING HER TO +HIS PROTECTION + + +The letter being duly signed, sealed, and delivered, was handed to Mark +Tapley, for immediate conveyance if possible. And he succeeded so well +in his embassy as to be enabled to return that same night, just as the +house was closing, with the welcome intelligence that he had sent it +upstairs to the young lady, enclosed in a small manuscript of his +own, purporting to contain his further petition to be engaged in Mr +Chuzzlewit’s service; and that she had herself come down and told him, +in great haste and agitation, that she would meet the gentleman at +eight o’clock to-morrow morning in St. James’s Park. It was then agreed +between the new master and the new man, that Mark should be in waiting +near the hotel in good time, to escort the young lady to the place +of appointment; and when they had parted for the night with this +understanding, Martin took up his pen again; and before he went to bed +wrote another letter, whereof more will be seen presently. + +He was up before daybreak, and came upon the Park with the morning, +which was clad in the least engaging of the three hundred and sixty-five +dresses in the wardrobe of the year. It was raw, damp, dark, and dismal; +the clouds were as muddy as the ground; and the short perspective +of every street and avenue was closed up by the mist as by a filthy +curtain. + +‘Fine weather indeed,’ Martin bitterly soliloquised, ‘to be wandering +up and down here in, like a thief! Fine weather indeed, for a meeting of +lovers in the open air, and in a public walk! I need be departing, with +all speed, for another country; for I have come to a pretty pass in +this!’ + +He might perhaps have gone on to reflect that of all mornings in the +year, it was not the best calculated for a young lady’s coming forth +on such an errand, either. But he was stopped on the road to this +reflection, if his thoughts tended that way, by her appearance at a +short distance, on which he hurried forward to meet her. Her squire, +Mr Tapley, at the same time fell discreetly back, and surveyed the fog +above him with an appearance of attentive interest. + +‘My dear Martin,’ said Mary. + +‘My dear Mary,’ said Martin; and lovers are such a singular kind of +people that this is all they did say just then, though Martin took her +arm, and her hand too, and they paced up and down a short walk that was +least exposed to observation, half-a-dozen times. + +‘If you have changed at all, my love, since we parted,’ said Martin at +length, as he looked upon her with a proud delight, ‘it is only to be +more beautiful than ever!’ + +Had she been of the common metal of love-worn young ladies, she would +have denied this in her most interesting manner; and would have told him +that she knew she had become a perfect fright; or that she had wasted +away with weeping and anxiety; or that she was dwindling gently into an +early grave; or that her mental sufferings were unspeakable; or would, +either by tears or words, or a mixture of both, have furnished him with +some other information to that effect, and made him as miserable as +possible. But she had been reared up in a sterner school than the minds +of most young girls are formed in; she had had her nature strengthened +by the hands of hard endurance and necessity; had come out from her +young trials constant, self-denying, earnest, and devoted; had acquired +in her maidenhood--whether happily in the end, for herself or him, is +foreign to our present purpose to inquire--something of that nobler +quality of gentle hearts which is developed often by the sorrows and +struggles of matronly years, but often by their lessons only. Unspoiled, +unpampered in her joys or griefs; with frank and full, and deep +affection for the object of her early love; she saw in him one who for +her sake was an outcast from his home and fortune, and she had no +more idea of bestowing that love upon him in other than cheerful and +sustaining words, full of high hope and grateful trustfulness, than she +had of being unworthy of it, in her lightest thought or deed, for any +base temptation that the world could offer. + +‘What change is there in YOU, Martin,’ she replied; ‘for that concerns +me nearest? You look more anxious and more thoughtful than you used.’ + +‘Why, as to that, my love,’ said Martin as he drew her waist within his +arm, first looking round to see that there were no observers near, +and beholding Mr Tapley more intent than ever on the fog; ‘it would be +strange if I did not; for my life--especially of late--has been a hard +one.’ + +‘I know it must have been,’ she answered. ‘When have I forgotten to +think of it and you?’ + +‘Not often, I hope,’ said Martin. ‘Not often, I am sure. Not often, I +have some right to expect, Mary; for I have undergone a great deal of +vexation and privation, and I naturally look for that return, you know.’ + +‘A very, very poor return,’ she answered with a fainter smile. ‘But you +have it, and will have it always. You have paid a dear price for a poor +heart, Martin; but it is at least your own, and a true one.’ + +‘Of course I feel quite certain of that,’ said Martin, ‘or I shouldn’t +have put myself in my present position. And don’t say a poor heart, +Mary, for I say a rich one. Now, I am about to break a design to you, +dearest, which will startle you at first, but which is undertaken for +your sake. I am going,’ he added slowly, looking far into the deep +wonder of her bright dark eyes, ‘abroad.’ + +‘Abroad, Martin!’ + +‘Only to America. See now. How you droop directly!’ + +‘If I do, or, I hope I may say, if I did,’ she answered, raising her +head after a short silence, and looking once more into his face, ‘it was +for grief to think of what you are resolved to undergo for me. I would +not venture to dissuade you, Martin; but it is a long, long distance; +there is a wide ocean to be crossed; illness and want are sad calamities +in any place, but in a foreign country dreadful to endure. Have you +thought of all this?’ + +‘Thought of it!’ cried Martin, abating, in his fondness--and he WAS very +fond of her--hardly an iota of his usual impetuosity. ‘What am I to do? +It’s very well to say, “Have I thought of it?” my love; but you should +ask me in the same breath, have I thought of starving at home; have I +thought of doing porter’s work for a living; have I thought of holding +horses in the streets to earn my roll of bread from day to day? Come, +come,’ he added, in a gentler tone, ‘do not hang down your head, my +dear, for I need the encouragement that your sweet face alone can give +me. Why, that’s well! Now you are brave again.’ + +‘I am endeavouring to be,’ she answered, smiling through her tears. + +‘Endeavouring to be anything that’s good, and being it, is, with you, +all one. Don’t I know that of old?’ cried Martin, gayly. ‘So! That’s +famous! Now I can tell you all my plans as cheerfully as if you were my +little wife already, Mary.’ + +She hung more closely on his arm, and looking upwards in his face, bade +him speak on. + +‘You see,’ said Martin, playing with the little hand upon his wrist, +‘that my attempts to advance myself at home have been baffled and +rendered abortive. I will not say by whom, Mary, for that would give +pain to us both. But so it is. Have you heard him speak of late of any +relative of mine or his, called Pecksniff? Only tell me what I ask you, +no more.’ + +‘I have heard, to my surprise, that he is a better man than was +supposed.’ + +‘I thought so,’ interrupted Martin. + +‘And that it is likely we may come to know him, if not to visit and +reside with him and--I think--his daughters. He HAS daughters, has he, +love?’ + +‘A pair of them,’ Martin answered. ‘A precious pair! Gems of the first +water!’ + +‘Ah! You are jesting!’ + +‘There is a sort of jesting which is very much in earnest, and includes +some pretty serious disgust,’ said Martin. ‘I jest in reference to Mr +Pecksniff (at whose house I have been living as his assistant, and at +whose hands I have received insult and injury), in that vein. Whatever +betides, or however closely you may be brought into communication with +this family, never forget that, Mary; and never for an instant, +whatever appearances may seem to contradict me, lose sight of this +assurance--Pecksniff is a scoundrel.’ + +‘Indeed!’ + +‘In thought, and in deed, and in everything else. A scoundrel from the +topmost hair of his head, to the nethermost atom of his heel. Of his +daughters I will only say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, +they are dutiful young ladies, and take after their father closely. This +is a digression from the main point, and yet it brings me to what I was +going to say.’ + +He stopped to look into her eyes again, and seeing, in a hasty glance +over his shoulder, that there was no one near, and that Mark was still +intent upon the fog, not only looked at her lips, too, but kissed them +into the bargain. + +‘Now I am going to America, with great prospects of doing well, and of +returning home myself very soon; it may be to take you there for a few +years, but, at all events, to claim you for my wife; which, after such +trials, I should do with no fear of your still thinking it a duty to +cleave to him who will not suffer me to live (for this is true), if he +can help it, in my own land. How long I may be absent is, of course, +uncertain; but it shall not be very long. Trust me for that.’ + +‘In the meantime, dear Martin--’ + +‘That’s the very thing I am coming to. In the meantime you shall hear, +constantly, of all my goings-on. Thus.’ + +He paused to take from his pocket the letter he had written overnight, +and then resumed: + +‘In this fellow’s employment, and living in this fellow’s house (by +fellow, I mean Mr Pecksniff, of course), there is a certain person of +the name of Pinch. Don’t forget; a poor, strange, simple oddity, Mary; +but thoroughly honest and sincere; full of zeal; and with a cordial +regard for me. Which I mean to return one of these days, by setting him +up in life in some way or other.’ + +‘Your old kind nature, Martin!’ + +‘Oh!’ said Martin, ‘that’s not worth speaking of, my love. He’s very +grateful and desirous to serve me; and I am more than repaid. Now one +night I told this Pinch my history, and all about myself and you; in +which he was not a little interested, I can tell you, for he knows you! +Aye, you may look surprised--and the longer the better for it becomes +you--but you have heard him play the organ in the church of that village +before now; and he has seen you listening to his music; and has caught +his inspiration from you, too!’ + +‘Was HE the organist?’ cried Mary. ‘I thank him from my heart!’ + +‘Yes, he was,’ said Martin, ‘and is, and gets nothing for it either. +There never was such a simple fellow! Quite an infant! But a very good +sort of creature, I assure you.’ + +‘I am sure of that,’ she said with great earnestness. ‘He must be!’ + +‘Oh, yes, no doubt at all about it,’ rejoined Martin, in his usual +careless way. ‘He is. Well! It has occurred to me--but stay. If I read +you what I have written and intend sending to him by post to-night +it will explain itself. “My dear Tom Pinch.” That’s rather familiar +perhaps,’ said Martin, suddenly remembering that he was proud when they +had last met, ‘but I call him my dear Tom Pinch because he likes it, and +it pleases him.’ + +‘Very right, and very kind,’ said Mary. + +‘Exactly so!’ cried Martin. ‘It’s as well to be kind whenever one can; +and, as I said before, he really is an excellent fellow. “My dear Tom +Pinch--I address this under cover to Mrs Lupin, at the Blue Dragon, +and have begged her in a short note to deliver it to you without saying +anything about it elsewhere; and to do the same with all future letters +she may receive from me. My reason for so doing will be at once apparent +to you”--I don’t know that it will be, by the bye,’ said Martin, +breaking off, ‘for he’s slow of comprehension, poor fellow; but he’ll +find it out in time. My reason simply is, that I don’t want my letters +to be read by other people; and particularly by the scoundrel whom he +thinks an angel.’ + +‘Mr Pecksniff again?’ asked Mary. + +‘The same,’ said Martin ‘--will be at once apparent to you. I have +completed my arrangements for going to America; and you will be +surprised to hear that I am to be accompanied by Mark Tapley, upon whom +I have stumbled strangely in London, and who insists on putting himself +under my protection’--meaning, my love,’ said Martin, breaking off +again, ‘our friend in the rear, of course.’ + +She was delighted to hear this, and bestowed a kind glance upon Mark, +which he brought his eyes down from the fog to encounter and received +with immense satisfaction. She said in his hearing, too, that he was a +good soul and a merry creature, and would be faithful, she was certain; +commendations which Mr Tapley inwardly resolved to deserve, from such +lips, if he died for it. + +‘“Now, my dear Pinch,”’ resumed Martin, proceeding with his letter; ‘“I +am going to repose great trust in you, knowing that I may do so with +perfect reliance on your honour and secrecy, and having nobody else just +now to trust in.”’ + +‘I don’t think I would say that, Martin.’ + +‘Wouldn’t you? Well! I’ll take that out. It’s perfectly true, though.’ + +‘But it might seem ungracious, perhaps.’ + +‘Oh, I don’t mind Pinch,’ said Martin. ‘There’s no occasion to stand on +any ceremony with HIM. However, I’ll take it out, as you wish it, and +make the full stop at “secrecy.” Very well! “I shall not only”--this is +the letter again, you know.’ + +‘I understand.’ + +‘“I shall not only enclose my letters to the young lady of whom I have +told you, to your charge, to be forwarded as she may request; but I most +earnestly commit her, the young lady herself, to your care and regard, +in the event of your meeting in my absence. I have reason to think +that the probabilities of your encountering each other--perhaps very +frequently--are now neither remote nor few; and although in our position +you can do very little to lessen the uneasiness of hers, I trust to you +implicitly to do that much, and so deserve the confidence I have reposed +in you.” You see, my dear Mary,’ said Martin, ‘it will be a great +consolation to you to have anybody, no matter how simple, with whom you +can speak about ME; and the very first time you talk to Pinch, you’ll +feel at once that there is no more occasion for any embarrassment or +hesitation in talking to him, than if he were an old woman.’ + +‘However that may be,’ she returned, smiling, ‘he is your friend, and +that is enough.’ + +‘Oh, yes, he’s my friend,’ said Martin, ‘certainly. In fact, I have told +him in so many words that we’ll always take notice of him, and protect +him; and it’s a good trait in his character that he’s grateful--very +grateful indeed. You’ll like him of all things, my love, I know. You’ll +observe very much that’s comical and old-fashioned about Pinch, but you +needn’t mind laughing at him; for he’ll not care about it. He’ll rather +like it indeed!’ + +‘I don’t think I shall put that to the test, Martin.’ + +‘You won’t if you can help it, of course,’ he said, ‘but I think you’ll +find him a little too much for your gravity. However, that’s neither +here nor there, and it certainly is not the letter; which ends +thus: “Knowing that I need not impress the nature and extent of that +confidence upon you at any greater length, as it is already sufficiently +established in your mind, I will only say, in bidding you farewell and +looking forward to our next meeting, that I shall charge myself from +this time, through all changes for the better, with your advancement and +happiness, as if they were my own. You may rely upon that. And +always believe me, my dear Tom Pinch, faithfully your friend, Martin +Chuzzlewit. P.S.--I enclose the amount which you so kindly”--Oh,’ said +Martin, checking himself, and folding up the letter, ‘that’s nothing!’ + +At this crisis Mark Tapley interposed, with an apology for remarking +that the clock at the Horse Guards was striking. + +‘Which I shouldn’t have said nothing about, sir,’ added Mark, ‘if the +young lady hadn’t begged me to be particular in mentioning it.’ + +‘I did,’ said Mary. ‘Thank you. You are quite right. In another minute +I shall be ready to return. We have time for a very few words more, dear +Martin, and although I had much to say, it must remain unsaid until the +happy time of our next meeting. Heaven send it may come speedily and +prosperously! But I have no fear of that.’ + +‘Fear!’ cried Martin. ‘Why, who has? What are a few months? What is a +whole year? When I come gayly back, with a road through life hewn out +before me, then indeed, looking back upon this parting, it may seem +a dismal one. But now! I swear I wouldn’t have it happen under more +favourable auspices, if I could; for then I should be less inclined to +go, and less impressed with the necessity.’ + +‘Yes, yes. I feel that too. When do you go?’ + +‘To-night. We leave for Liverpool to-night. A vessel sails from that +port, as I hear, in three days. In a month, or less, we shall be there. +Why, what’s a month! How many months have flown by, since our last +parting!’ + +‘Long to look back upon,’ said Mary, echoing his cheerful tone, ‘but +nothing in their course!’ + +‘Nothing at all!’ cried Martin. ‘I shall have change of scene and change +of place; change of people, change of manners, change of cares and +hopes! Time will wear wings indeed! I can bear anything, so that I have +swift action, Mary.’ + +Was he thinking solely of her care for him, when he took so little heed +of her share in the separation; of her quiet monotonous endurance, +and her slow anxiety from day to day? Was there nothing jarring and +discordant even in his tone of courage, with this one note ‘self’ for +ever audible, however high the strain? Not in her ears. It had been +better otherwise, perhaps, but so it was. She heard the same bold spirit +which had flung away as dross all gain and profit for her sake, making +light of peril and privation that she might be calm and happy; and she +heard no more. That heart where self has found no place and raised no +throne, is slow to recognize its ugly presence when it looks upon it. +As one possessed of an evil spirit was held in old time to be alone +conscious of the lurking demon in the breasts of other men, so kindred +vices know each other in their hiding-places every day, when Virtue is +incredulous and blind. + +‘The quarter’s gone!’ cried Mr Tapley, in a voice of admonition. + +‘I shall be ready to return immediately,’ she said. ‘One thing, dear +Martin, I am bound to tell you. You entreated me a few minutes since +only to answer what you asked me in reference to one theme, but you +should and must know (otherwise I could not be at ease) that since +that separation of which I was the unhappy occasion, he has never once +uttered your name; has never coupled it, or any faint allusion to it, +with passion or reproach; and has never abated in his kindness to me.’ + +‘I thank him for that last act,’ said Martin, ‘and for nothing else. +Though on consideration I may thank him for his other forbearance also, +inasmuch as I neither expect nor desire that he will mention my name +again. He may once, perhaps--to couple it with reproach--in his will. +Let him, if he please! By the time it reaches me, he will be in his +grave; a satire on his own anger, God help him!’ + +‘Martin! If you would but sometimes, in some quiet hour; beside the +winter fire; in the summer air; when you hear gentle music, or think of +Death, or Home, or Childhood; if you would at such a season resolve to +think, but once a month, or even once a year, of him, or any one who +ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I know!’ + +‘If I believed that to be true, Mary,’ he replied, ‘I would resolve at +no such time to bear him in my mind; wishing to spare myself the shame +of such a weakness. I was not born to be the toy and puppet of any man, +far less his; to whose pleasure and caprice, in return for any good he +did me, my whole youth was sacrificed. It became between us two a fair +exchange--a barter--and no more; and there is no such balance against +me that I need throw in a mawkish forgiveness to poise the scale. He has +forbidden all mention of me to you, I know,’ he added hastily. ‘Come! +Has he not?’ + +‘That was long ago,’ she returned; ‘immediately after your parting; +before you had left the house. He has never done so since.’ + +‘He has never done so since because he has seen no occasion,’ said +Martin; ‘but that is of little consequence, one way or other. Let all +allusion to him between you and me be interdicted from this time forth. +And therefore, love’--he drew her quickly to him, for the time of +parting had now come--‘in the first letter that you write to me through +the Post Office, addressed to New York; and in all the others that you +send through Pinch; remember he has no existence, but has become to us +as one who is dead. Now, God bless you! This is a strange place for such +a meeting and such a parting; but our next meeting shall be in a better, +and our next and last parting in a worse.’ + +‘One other question, Martin, I must ask. Have you provided money for +this journey?’ + +‘Have I?’ cried Martin; it might have been in his pride; it might have +been in his desire to set her mind at ease: ‘Have I provided money? Why, +there’s a question for an emigrant’s wife! How could I move on land or +sea without it, love?’ + +‘I mean, enough.’ + +‘Enough! More than enough. Twenty times more than enough. A pocket-full. +Mark and I, for all essential ends, are quite as rich as if we had the +purse of Fortunatus in our baggage.’ + +‘The half-hour’s a-going!’ cried Mr Tapley. + +‘Good-bye a hundred times!’ cried Mary, in a trembling voice. + +But how cold the comfort in Good-bye! Mark Tapley knew it perfectly. +Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience, +perhaps from intuition. It is impossible to say; but however he knew +it, his knowledge instinctively suggested to him the wisest course of +proceeding that any man could have adopted under the circumstances. He +was taken with a violent fit of sneezing, and was obliged to turn his +head another way. In doing which, he, in a manner fenced and screened +the lovers into a corner by themselves. + +There was a short pause, but Mark had an undefined sensation that it was +a satisfactory one in its way. Then Mary, with her veil lowered, passed +him with a quick step, and beckoned him to follow. She stopped once more +before they lost that corner; looked back; and waved her hand to Martin. +He made a start towards them at the moment as if he had some other +farewell words to say; but she only hurried off the faster, and Mr +Tapley followed as in duty bound. + +When he rejoined Martin again in his own chamber, he found that +gentleman seated moodily before the dusty grate, with his two feet on +the fender, his two elbows on his knees, and his chin supported, in a +not very ornamental manner, on the palms of his hands. + +‘Well, Mark!’ + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mark, taking a long breath, ‘I see the young lady safe +home, and I feel pretty comfortable after it. She sent a lot of kind +words, sir, and this,’ handing him a ring, ‘for a parting keepsake.’ + +‘Diamonds!’ said Martin, kissing it--let us do him justice, it was for +her sake; not for theirs--and putting it on his little finger. ‘Splendid +diamonds! My grandfather is a singular character, Mark. He must have +given her this now.’ + +Mark Tapley knew as well that she had bought it, to the end that that +unconscious speaker might carry some article of sterling value with him +in his necessity; as he knew that it was day, and not night. Though he +had no more acquaintance of his own knowledge with the history of the +glittering trinket on Martin’s outspread finger, than Martin himself +had, he was as certain that in its purchase she had expended her whole +stock of hoarded money, as if he had seen it paid down coin by coin. Her +lover’s strange obtuseness in relation to this little incident, promptly +suggested to Mark’s mind its real cause and root; and from that moment +he had a clear and perfect insight into the one absorbing principle of +Martin’s character. + +‘She is worthy of the sacrifices I have made,’ said Martin, folding his +arms, and looking at the ashes in the stove, as if in resumption of some +former thoughts. ‘Well worthy of them. No riches’--here he stroked his +chin and mused--‘could have compensated for the loss of such a nature. +Not to mention that in gaining her affection I have followed the bent +of my own wishes, and baulked the selfish schemes of others who had +no right to form them. She is quite worthy--more than worthy--of the +sacrifices I have made. Yes, she is. No doubt of it.’ + +These ruminations might or might not have reached Mark Tapley; for +though they were by no means addressed to him, yet they were softly +uttered. In any case, he stood there, watching Martin with an +indescribable and most involved expression on his visage, until that +young man roused himself and looked towards him; when he turned away, +as being suddenly intent upon certain preparations for the journey, +and, without giving vent to any articulate sound, smiled with surpassing +ghastliness, and seemed by a twist of his features and a motion of his +lips, to release himself of this word: + +‘Jolly!’ + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +THE BURDEN WHEREOF, IS HAIL COLUMBIA! + + +A dark and dreary night; people nestling in their beds or circling +late about the fire; Want, colder than Charity, shivering at the street +corners; church-towers humming with the faint vibration of their own +tongues, but newly resting from the ghostly preachment ‘One!’ The earth +covered with a sable pall as for the burial of yesterday; the clumps of +dark trees, its giant plumes of funeral feathers, waving sadly to and +fro: all hushed, all noiseless, and in deep repose, save the swift +clouds that skim across the moon, and the cautious wind, as, creeping +after them upon the ground, it stops to listen, and goes rustling on, +and stops again, and follows, like a savage on the trail. + +Whither go the clouds and wind so eagerly? If, like guilty spirits, they +repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what +wild regions do the elements hold council, or where unbend in terrible +disport? + +Here! Free from that cramped prison called the earth, and out upon the +waste of waters. Here, roaring, raging, shrieking, howling, all night +long. Hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the coast of +that small island, sleeping, a thousand miles away, so quietly in the +midst of angry waves; and hither, to meet them, rush the blasts from +unknown desert places of the world. Here, in the fury of their unchecked +liberty, they storm and buffet with each other, until the sea, lashed +into passion like their own, leaps up, in ravings mightier than theirs, +and the whole scene is madness. + +On, on, on, over the countless miles of angry space roll the long +heaving billows. Mountains and caves are here, and yet are not; for +what is now the one, is now the other; then all is but a boiling heap of +rushing water. Pursuit, and flight, and mad return of wave on wave, and +savage struggle, ending in a spouting-up of foam that whitens the +black night; incessant change of place, and form, and hue; constancy in +nothing, but eternal strife; on, on, on, they roll, and darker grows the +night, and louder howls the wind, and more clamorous and fierce become +the million voices in the sea, when the wild cry goes forth upon the +storm ‘A ship!’ + +Onward she comes, in gallant combat with the elements, her tall masts +trembling, and her timbers starting on the strain; onward she comes, now +high upon the curling billows, now low down in the hollows of the sea, +as hiding for the moment from its fury; and every storm-voice in the air +and water cries more loudly yet, ‘A ship!’ + +Still she comes striving on; and at her boldness and the spreading cry, +the angry waves rise up above each other’s hoary heads to look; and +round about the vessel, far as the mariners on the decks can pierce into +the gloom, they press upon her, forcing each other down and starting up, +and rushing forward from afar, in dreadful curiosity. High over her +they break; and round her surge and roar; and giving place to others, +moaningly depart, and dash themselves to fragments in their baffled +anger. Still she comes onward bravely. And though the eager multitude +crowd thick and fast upon her all the night, and dawn of day discovers +the untiring train yet bearing down upon the ship in an eternity of +troubled water, onward she comes, with dim lights burning in her hull, +and people there, asleep; as if no deadly element were peering in at +every seam and chink, and no drowned seaman’s grave, with but a plank to +cover it, were yawning in the unfathomable depths below. + +Among these sleeping voyagers were Martin and Mark Tapley, who, rocked +into a heavy drowsiness by the unaccustomed motion, were as insensible +to the foul air in which they lay, as to the uproar without. It was +broad day when the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming +of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom +upwards in the course of the night. There was more reason in this too, +than in the roasting of eggs; for the first objects Mr Tapley recognized +when he opened his eyes were his own heels--looking down to him, as he +afterwards observed, from a nearly perpendicular elevation. + +‘Well!’ said Mark, getting himself into a sitting posture, after various +ineffectual struggles with the rolling of the ship. ‘This is the first +time as ever I stood on my head all night.’ + +‘You shouldn’t go to sleep upon the ground with your head to leeward +then,’ growled a man in one of the berths. + +‘With my head to WHERE?’ asked Mark. + +The man repeated his previous sentiment. + +‘No, I won’t another time,’ said Mark, ‘when I know whereabouts on the +map that country is. In the meanwhile I can give you a better piece of +advice. Don’t you nor any other friend of mine never go to sleep with +his head in a ship any more.’ + +The man gave a grunt of discontented acquiescence, turned over in his +berth, and drew his blanket over his head. + +‘--For,’ said Mr Tapley, pursuing the theme by way of soliloquy in a low +tone of voice; ‘the sea is as nonsensical a thing as any going. It never +knows what to do with itself. It hasn’t got no employment for its +mind, and is always in a state of vacancy. Like them Polar bears in the +wild-beast shows as is constantly a-nodding their heads from side to +side, it never CAN be quiet. Which is entirely owing to its uncommon +stupidity.’ + +‘Is that you, Mark?’ asked a faint voice from another berth. + +‘It’s as much of me as is left, sir, after a fortnight of this work,’ +Mr Tapley replied, ‘What with leading the life of a fly, ever since I’ve +been aboard--for I’ve been perpetually holding-on to something or other +in a upside-down position--what with that, sir, and putting a very +little into myself, and taking a good deal out of myself, there an’t too +much of me to swear by. How do you find yourself this morning, sir?’ + +‘Very miserable,’ said Martin, with a peevish groan. ‘Ugh. This is +wretched, indeed!’ + +‘Creditable,’ muttered Mark, pressing one hand upon his aching head and +looking round him with a rueful grin. ‘That’s the great comfort. It IS +creditable to keep up one’s spirits here. Virtue’s its own reward. So’s +jollity.’ + +Mark was so far right that unquestionably any man who retained his +cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and +fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, ‘THE SCREW,’ was solely indebted to +his own resources, and shipped his good humour, like his provisions, +without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, +stifling cabin, surrounded by berths all filled to overflowing with men, +women, and children, in various stages of sickness and misery, is not +the liveliest place of assembly at any time; but when it is so crowded +(as the steerage cabin of the Screw was, every passage out), that +mattresses and beds are heaped upon the floor, to the extinction of +everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to +operate not only as a pretty strong banner against amiability of temper, +but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours. Mark felt +this, as he sat looking about him; and his spirits rose proportionately. + +There were English people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch people +there; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby clothes; +and nearly all with their families of children. There were children of +all ages; from the baby at the breast, to the slattern-girl who was as +much a grown woman as her mother. Every kind of domestic suffering that +is bred in poverty, illness, banishment, sorrow, and long travel in bad +weather, was crammed into the little space; and yet was there infinitely +less of complaint and querulousness, and infinitely more of mutual +assistance and general kindness to be found in that unwholesome ark, +than in many brilliant ballrooms. + +Mark looked about him wistfully, and his face brightened as he looked. +Here an old grandmother was crooning over a sick child, and rocking it +to and fro, in arms hardly more wasted than its own young limbs; here a +poor woman with an infant in her lap, mended another little creature’s +clothes, and quieted another who was creeping up about her from their +scanty bed upon the floor. Here were old men awkwardly engaged in little +household offices, wherein they would have been ridiculous but for their +good-will and kind purpose; and here were swarthy fellows--giants in +their way--doing such little acts of tenderness for those about them, +as might have belonged to gentlest-hearted dwarfs. The very idiot in +the corner who sat mowing there, all day, had his faculty of imitation +roused by what he saw about him; and snapped his fingers to amuse a +crying child. + +‘Now, then,’ said Mark, nodding to a woman who was dressing her three +children at no great distance from him--and the grin upon his face had +by this time spread from ear to ear--‘Hand over one of them young ‘uns +according to custom.’ + +‘I wish you’d get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who +don’t belong to you,’ observed Martin, petulantly. + +‘All right,’ said Mark. ‘SHE’ll do that. It’s a fair division of labour, +sir. I wash her boys, and she makes our tea. I never COULD make tea, but +any one can wash a boy.’ + +The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness, +as well she might, for she had been covered every night with his +greatcoat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards and a rug. But +Martin, who seldom got up or looked about him, was quite incensed by the +folly of this speech, and expressed his dissatisfaction by an impatient +groan. + +‘So it is, certainly,’ said Mark, brushing the child’s hair as coolly as +if he had been born and bred a barber. + +‘What are you talking about, now?’ asked Martin. + +‘What you said,’ replied Mark; ‘or what you meant, when you gave that +there dismal vent to your feelings. I quite go along with it, sir. It IS +very hard upon her.’ + +‘What is?’ + +‘Making the voyage by herself along with these young impediments here, +and going such a way at such a time of the year to join her husband. +If you don’t want to be driven mad with yellow soap in your eye, young +man,’ said Mr Tapley to the second urchin, who was by this time under +his hands at the basin, ‘you’d better shut it.’ + +‘Where does she join her husband?’ asked Martin, yawning. + +‘Why, I’m very much afraid,’ said Mr Tapley, in a low voice, ‘that she +don’t know. I hope she mayn’t miss him. But she sent her last letter by +hand, and it don’t seem to have been very clearly understood between ‘em +without it, and if she don’t see him a-waving his pocket-handkerchief on +the shore, like a pictur out of a song-book, my opinion is, she’ll break +her heart.’ + +‘Why, how, in Folly’s name, does the woman come to be on board ship on +such a wild-goose venture!’ cried Martin. + +Mr Tapley glanced at him for a moment as he lay prostrate in his berth, +and then said, very quietly: + +‘Ah! How indeed! I can’t think! He’s been away from her for two year; +she’s been very poor and lonely in her own country; and has always been +a-looking forward to meeting him. It’s very strange she should be here. +Quite amazing! A little mad perhaps! There can’t be no other way of +accounting for it.’ + +Martin was too far gone in the lassitude of sea-sickness to make any +reply to these words, or even to attend to them as they were spoken. And +the subject of their discourse returning at this crisis with some hot +tea, effectually put a stop to any resumption of the theme by Mr Tapley; +who, when the meal was over and he had adjusted Martin’s bed, went up on +deck to wash the breakfast service, which consisted of two half-pint tin +mugs, and a shaving-pot of the same metal. + +It is due to Mark Tapley to state that he suffered at least as much from +sea-sickness as any man, woman, or child, on board; and that he had a +peculiar faculty of knocking himself about on the smallest provocation, +and losing his legs at every lurch of the ship. But resolved, in his +usual phrase, to ‘come out strong’ under disadvantageous circumstances, +he was the life and soul of the steerage, and made no more of stopping +in the middle of a facetious conversation to go away and be excessively +ill by himself, and afterwards come back in the very best and gayest of +tempers to resume it, than if such a course of proceeding had been the +commonest in the world. + +It cannot be said that as his illness wore off, his cheerfulness and +good nature increased, because they would hardly admit of augmentation; +but his usefulness among the weaker members of the party was much +enlarged; and at all times and seasons there he was exerting it. If +a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky, down Mark tumbled into the +cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms, or +half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or a basket, +or something animate or inanimate, that he thought would be the better +for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day +tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl +into the long-boat, or lie down upon the spare spars, and try to eat, +there, in the centre of the group, was Mr Tapley, handing about salt +beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the +children’s provisions with his pocketknife, for their greater ease and +comfort, or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some +roaring old song to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters +to their friends at home for people who couldn’t write, or cracking +jokes with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging, +half-drowned, from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or +other; but always doing something for the general entertainment. At +night, when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, and the driving +sparks that flew among the rigging, and the clouds of sails, seemed to +menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire, in case the elements +of air and water failed to compass her destruction; there, again, was Mr +Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up to his elbows, +doing all kinds of culinary offices; compounding the strangest dishes; +recognized by every one as an established authority; and helping all +parties to achieve something which, left to themselves, they never could +have done, and never would have dreamed of. In short, there never was a +more popular character than Mark Tapley became, on board that noble and +fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw; and he attained at last to +such a pitch of universal admiration, that he began to have grave doubts +within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any credit for being +jolly under such exciting circumstances. + +‘If this was going to last,’ said Tapley, ‘there’d be no great +difference as I can perceive, between the Screw and the Dragon. I +never am to get credit, I think. I begin to be afraid that the Fates is +determined to make the world easy to me.’ + +‘Well, Mark,’ said Martin, near whose berth he had ruminated to this +effect. ‘When will this be over?’ + +‘Another week, they say, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘will most likely bring +us into port. The ship’s a-going along at present, as sensible as a ship +can, sir; though I don’t mean to say as that’s any very high praise.’ + +‘I don’t think it is, indeed,’ groaned Martin. + +‘You’d feel all the better for it, sir, if you was to turn out,’ +observed Mark. + +‘And be seen by the ladies and gentlemen on the after-deck,’ returned +Martin, with a scronful emphasis upon the words, ‘mingling with the +beggarly crowd that are stowed away in this vile hole. I should be +greatly the better for that, no doubt.’ + +‘I’m thankful that I can’t say from my own experience what the feelings +of a gentleman may be,’ said Mark, ‘but I should have thought, sir, as a +gentleman would feel a deal more uncomfortable down here than up in the +fresh air, especially when the ladies and gentlemen in the after-cabin +know just as much about him as he does about them, and are likely to +trouble their heads about him in the same proportion. I should have +thought that, certainly.’ + +‘I tell you, then,’ rejoined Martin, ‘you would have thought wrong, and +do think wrong.’ + +‘Very likely, sir,’ said Mark, with imperturbable good temper. ‘I often +do.’ + +‘As to lying here,’ cried Martin, raising himself on his elbow, and +looking angrily at his follower. ‘Do you suppose it’s a pleasure to lie +here?’ + +‘All the madhouses in the world,’ said Mr Tapley, ‘couldn’t produce such +a maniac as the man must be who could think that.’ + +‘Then why are you forever goading and urging me to get up?’ asked +Martin, ‘I lie here because I don’t wish to be recognized, in the better +days to which I aspire, by any purse-proud citizen, as the man who came +over with him among the steerage passengers. I lie here because I wish +to conceal my circumstances and myself, and not to arrive in a new world +badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-stricken man. If I could have +afforded a passage in the after-cabin I should have held up my head with +the rest. As I couldn’t I hide it. Do you understand that?’ + +‘I am very sorry, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I didn’t know you took it so much to +heart as this comes to.’ + +‘Of course you didn’t know,’ returned his master. ‘How should you +know, unless I told you? It’s no trial to you, Mark, to make yourself +comfortable and to bustle about. It’s as natural for you to do so under +the circumstances as it is for me not to do so. Why, you don’t suppose +there is a living creature in this ship who can by possibility have half +so much to undergo on board of her as I have? Do you?’ he asked, sitting +upright in his berth and looking at Mark, with an expression of great +earnestness not unmixed with wonder. + +Mark twisted his face into a tight knot, and with his head very much +on one side, pondered upon this question as if he felt it an extremely +difficult one to answer. He was relieved from his embarrassment by +Martin himself, who said, as he stretched himself upon his back again +and resumed the book he had been reading: + +‘But what is the use of my putting such a case to you, when the very +essence of what I have been saying is, that you cannot by possibility +understand it! Make me a little brandy-and-water--cold and very +weak--and give me a biscuit, and tell your friend, who is a nearer +neighbour of ours than I could wish, to try and keep her children a +little quieter to-night than she did last night; that’s a good fellow.’ + +Mr Tapley set himself to obey these orders with great alacrity, and +pending their execution, it may be presumed his flagging spirits +revived; inasmuch as he several times observed, below his breath, that +in respect of its power of imparting a credit to jollity, the Screw +unquestionably had some decided advantages over the Dragon. He also +remarked that it was a high gratification to him to reflect that he +would carry its main excellence ashore with him, and have it constantly +beside him wherever he went; but what he meant by these consolatory +thoughts he did not explain. + +And now a general excitement began to prevail on board; and various +predictions relative to the precise day, and even the precise hour +at which they would reach New York, were freely broached. There was +infinitely more crowding on deck and looking over the ship’s side than +there had been before; and an epidemic broke out for packing up things +every morning, which required unpacking again every night. Those who had +any letters to deliver, or any friends to meet, or any settled plans of +going anywhere or doing anything, discussed their prospects a hundred +times a day; and as this class of passengers was very small, and the +number of those who had no prospects whatever was very large, there were +plenty of listeners and few talkers. Those who had been ill all along, +got well now, and those who had been well, got better. An American +gentleman in the after-cabin, who had been wrapped up in fur and oilskin +the whole passage, unexpectedly appeared in a very shiny, tall, black +hat, and constantly overhauled a very little valise of pale leather, +which contained his clothes, linen, brushes, shaving apparatus, books, +trinkets, and other baggage. He likewise stuck his hands deep into +his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as already +inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all tyrants, and can +never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be breathed by slaves. +An English gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from +a bank, with something in his possession belonging to its strong box +besides the key, grew eloquent upon the subject of the rights of man, +and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn constantly. In a word, one great +sensation pervaded the whole ship, and the soil of America lay close +before them; so close at last, that, upon a certain starlight night they +took a pilot on board, and within a few hours afterwards lay to until +the morning, awaiting the arrival of a steamboat in which the passengers +were to be conveyed ashore. + +Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying alongside +an hour or more--during which period her very firemen were objects of +hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been so many angels, +good or bad--took all her living freight aboard. Among them Mark, who +still had his friend and her three children under his close protection; +and Martin, who had once more dressed himself in his usual attire, but +wore a soiled, old cloak above his ordinary clothes, until such time as +he should separate for ever from his late companions. + +The steamer--which, with its machinery on deck, looked, as it worked its +long slim legs, like some enormously magnified insect or antediluvian +monster--dashed at great speed up a beautiful bay; and presently they +saw some heights, and islands, and a long, flat, straggling city. + +‘And this,’ said Mr Tapley, looking far ahead, ‘is the Land of Liberty, +is it? Very well. I’m agreeable. Any land will do for me, after so much +water!’ + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +MARTIN DISEMBARKS FROM THAT NOBLE AND FAST-SAILING LINE-OF-PACKET SHIP, +‘THE SCREW’, AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. +HE MAKES SOME ACQUAINTANCES, AND DINES AT A BOARDING-HOUSE. THE +PARTICULARS OF THOSE TRANSACTIONS + + +Some trifling excitement prevailed upon the very brink and margin of the +land of liberty; for an alderman had been elected the day before; +and Party Feeling naturally running rather high on such an exciting +occasion, the friends of the disappointed candidate had found it +necessary to assert the great principles of Purity of Election and +Freedom of opinion by breaking a few legs and arms, and furthermore +pursuing one obnoxious gentleman through the streets with the design of +hitting his nose. These good-humoured little outbursts of the popular +fancy were not in themselves sufficiently remarkable to create any great +stir, after the lapse of a whole night; but they found fresh life and +notoriety in the breath of the newsboys, who not only proclaimed them +with shrill yells in all the highways and byways of the town, upon the +wharves and among the shipping, but on the deck and down in the cabins +of the steamboat; which, before she touched the shore, was boarded and +overrun by a legion of those young citizens. + +‘Here’s this morning’s New York Sewer!’ cried one. ‘Here’s this +morning’s New York Stabber! Here’s the New York Family Spy! Here’s the +New York Private Listener! Here’s the New York Peeper! Here’s the New +York Plunderer! Here’s the New York Keyhole Reporter! Here’s the +New York Rowdy Journal! Here’s all the New York papers! Here’s full +particulars of the patriotic locofoco movement yesterday, in which +the whigs was so chawed up; and the last Alabama gouging case; and the +interesting Arkansas dooel with Bowie knives; and all the Political, +Commercial, and Fashionable News. Here they are! Here they are! Here’s +the papers, here’s the papers!’ + +‘Here’s the Sewer!’ cried another. ‘Here’s the New York Sewer! Here’s +some of the twelfth thousand of to-day’s Sewer, with the best accounts +of the markets, and all the shipping news, and four whole columns of +country correspondence, and a full account of the Ball at Mrs White’s +last night, where all the beauty and fashion of New York was assembled; +with the Sewer’s own particulars of the private lives of all the ladies +that was there! Here’s the Sewer! Here’s some of the twelfth thousand of +the New York Sewer! Here’s the Sewer’s exposure of the Wall Street +Gang, and the Sewer’s exposure of the Washington Gang, and the Sewer’s +exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by the +Secretary of State when he was eight years old; now communicated, at a +great expense, by his own nurse. Here’s the Sewer! Here’s the New York +Sewer, in its twelfth thousand, with a whole column of New Yorkers to be +shown up, and all their names printed! Here’s the Sewer’s article +upon the Judge that tried him, day afore yesterday, for libel, and the +Sewer’s tribute to the independent Jury that didn’t convict him, and the +Sewer’s account of what they might have expected if they had! Here’s +the Sewer, here’s the Sewer! Here’s the wide-awake Sewer; always on the +lookout; the leading Journal of the United States, now in its twelfth +thousand, and still a-printing off:--Here’s the New York Sewer!’ + +‘It is in such enlightened means,’ said a voice almost in Martin’s ear, +‘that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.’ + +Martin turned involuntarily, and saw, standing close at his side, a +sallow gentleman, with sunken cheeks, black hair, small twinkling eyes, +and a singular expression hovering about that region of his face, which +was not a frown, nor a leer, and yet might have been mistaken at the +first glance for either. Indeed it would have been difficult, on a much +closer acquaintance, to describe it in any more satisfactory terms than +as a mixed expression of vulgar cunning and conceit. This gentleman wore +a rather broad-brimmed hat for the greater wisdom of his appearance; and +had his arms folded for the greater impressiveness of his attitude. He +was somewhat shabbily dressed in a blue surtout reaching nearly to +his ankles, short loose trousers of the same colour, and a faded buff +waistcoat, through which a discoloured shirt-frill struggled to force +itself into notice, as asserting an equality of civil rights with +the other portions of his dress, and maintaining a declaration of +Independence on its own account. His feet, which were of unusually +large proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned +against, half sat upon, the steamboat’s bulwark; and his thick cane, +shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal +knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist. Thus +attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity, the +gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his right +eye simultaneously, and said, once more: + +‘It is in such enlightened means that the bubbling passions of my +country find a vent.’ + +As he looked at Martin, and nobody else was by, Martin inclined his +head, and said: + +‘You allude to--?’ + +‘To the Palladium of rational Liberty at home, sir, and the dread of +Foreign oppression abroad,’ returned the gentleman, as he pointed with +his cane to an uncommonly dirty newsboy with one eye. ‘To the Envy of +the world, sir, and the leaders of Human Civilization. Let me ask you +sir,’ he added, bringing the ferule of his stick heavily upon the deck +with the air of a man who must not be equivocated with, ‘how do you like +my Country?’ + +‘I am hardly prepared to answer that question yet,’ said Martin ‘seeing +that I have not been ashore.’ + +‘Well, I should expect you were not prepared, sir,’ said the gentleman, +‘to behold such signs of National Prosperity as those?’ + +He pointed to the vessels lying at the wharves; and then gave a vague +flourish with his stick, as if he would include the air and water, +generally, in this remark. + +‘Really,’ said Martin, ‘I don’t know. Yes. I think I was.’ + +The gentleman glanced at him with a knowing look, and said he liked his +policy. It was natural, he said, and it pleased him as a philosopher to +observe the prejudices of human nature. + +‘You have brought, I see, sir,’ he said, turning round towards Martin, +and resting his chin on the top of his stick, ‘the usual amount of +misery and poverty and ignorance and crime, to be located in the bosom +of the great Republic. Well, sir! let ‘em come on in shiploads from the +old country. When vessels are about to founder, the rats are said to +leave ‘em. There is considerable of truth, I find, in that remark.’ + +‘The old ship will keep afloat a year or two longer yet, perhaps,’ said +Martin with a smile, partly occasioned by what the gentleman said, +and partly by his manner of saying it, which was odd enough for he +emphasised all the small words and syllables in his discourse, and left +the others to take care of themselves; as if he thought the larger parts +of speech could be trusted alone, but the little ones required to be +constantly looked after. + +‘Hope is said by the poet, sir,’ observed the gentleman, ‘to be the +nurse of young Desire.’ + +Martin signified that he had heard of the cardinal virtue in question +serving occasionally in that domestic capacity. + +‘She will not rear her infant in the present instance, sir, you’ll +find,’ observed the gentleman. + +‘Time will show,’ said Martin. + +The gentleman nodded his head gravely; and said, ‘What is your name, +sir?’ + +Martin told him. + +‘How old are you, sir?’ + +Martin told him. + +‘What is your profession, sir?’ + +Martin told him that also. + +‘What is your destination, sir?’ inquired the gentleman. + +‘Really,’ said Martin laughing, ‘I can’t satisfy you in that particular, +for I don’t know it myself.’ + +‘Yes?’ said the gentleman. + +‘No,’ said Martin. + +The gentleman adjusted his cane under his left arm, and took a more +deliberate and complete survey of Martin than he had yet had leisure to +make. When he had completed his inspection, he put out his right hand, +shook Martin’s hand, and said: + +‘My name is Colonel Diver, sir. I am the Editor of the New York Rowdy +Journal.’ + +Martin received the communication with that degree of respect which an +announcement so distinguished appeared to demand. + +‘The New York Rowdy Journal, sir,’ resumed the colonel, ‘is, as I expect +you know, the organ of our aristocracy in this city.’ + +‘Oh! there IS an aristocracy here, then?’ said Martin. ‘Of what is it +composed?’ + +‘Of intelligence, sir,’ replied the colonel; ‘of intelligence and +virtue. And of their necessary consequence in this republic--dollars, +sir.’ + +Martin was very glad to hear this, feeling well assured that if +intelligence and virtue led, as a matter of course, to the acquisition +of dollars, he would speedily become a great capitalist. He was about +to express the gratification such news afforded him, when he was +interrupted by the captain of the ship, who came up at the moment to +shake hands with the colonel; and who, seeing a well-dressed stranger on +the deck (for Martin had thrown aside his cloak), shook hands with him +also. This was an unspeakable relief to Martin, who, in spite of the +acknowledged supremacy of Intelligence and virtue in that happy country, +would have been deeply mortified to appear before Colonel Diver in the +poor character of a steerage passenger. + +‘Well cap’en!’ said the colonel. + +‘Well colonel,’ cried the captain. ‘You’re looking most uncommon bright, +sir. I can hardly realise its being you, and that’s a fact.’ + +‘A good passage, cap’en?’ inquired the colonel, taking him aside, + +‘Well now! It was a pretty spanking run, sir,’ said, or rather sung, the +captain, who was a genuine New Englander; ‘considerin’ the weather.’ + +‘Yes?’ said the colonel. + +‘Well! It was, sir,’ said the captain. ‘I’ve just now sent a boy up to +your office with the passenger-list, colonel.’ + +‘You haven’t got another boy to spare, p’raps, cap’en?’ said the +colonel, in a tone almost amounting to severity. + +‘I guess there air a dozen if you want ‘em, colonel,’ said the captain. + +‘One moderate big ‘un could convey a dozen champagne, perhaps,’ observed +the colonel, musing, ‘to my office. You said a spanking run, I think?’ + +‘Well, so I did,’ was the reply. + +‘It’s very nigh, you know,’ observed the colonel. ‘I’m glad it was a +spanking run, cap’en. Don’t mind about quarts if you’re short of ‘em. +The boy can as well bring four-and-twenty pints, and travel twice as +once.--A first-rate spanker, cap’en, was it? Yes?’ + +‘A most e--tarnal spanker,’ said the skipper. + +‘I admire at your good fortun, cap’en. You might loan me a corkscrew at +the same time, and half-a-dozen glasses if you liked. However bad the +elements combine against my country’s noble packet-ship, the Screw, +sir,’ said the colonel, turning to Martin, and drawing a flourish on +the surface of the deck with his cane, ‘her passage either way is almost +certain to eventuate a spanker!’ + +The captain, who had the Sewer below at that moment, lunching +expensively in one cabin, while the amiable Stabber was drinking himself +into a state of blind madness in another, took a cordial leave of his +friend the colonel, and hurried away to dispatch the champagne; well +knowing (as it afterwards appeared) that if he failed to conciliate the +editor of the Rowdy Journal, that potentate would denounce him and his +ship in large capitals before he was a day older; and would probably +assault the memory of his mother also, who had not been dead more than +twenty years. The colonel being again left alone with Martin, checked +him as he was moving away, and offered in consideration of his being an +Englishman, to show him the town and to introduce him, if such were his +desire, to a genteel boarding-house. But before they entered on these +proceedings (he said), he would beseech the honour of his company at the +office of the Rowdy Journal, to partake of a bottle of champagne of his +own importation. + +All this was so extremely kind and hospitable, that Martin, though it +was quite early in the morning, readily acquiesced. So, instructing +Mark, who was deeply engaged with his friend and her three children, +that when he had done assisting them, and had cleared the baggage, +he was to wait for further orders at the Rowdy Journal Office, Martin +accompanied his new friend on shore. + +They made their way as they best could through the melancholy crowd of +emigrants upon the wharf, who, grouped about their beds and boxes, with +the bare ground below them and the bare sky above, might have fallen +from another planet, for anything they knew of the country; and walked +for some short distance along a busy street, bounded on one side by the +quays and shipping; and on the other by a long row of staring red-brick +storehouses and offices, ornamented with more black boards and white +letters, and more white boards and black letters, than Martin had ever +seen before, in fifty times the space. Presently they turned up a narrow +street, and presently into other narrow streets, until at last they +stopped before a house whereon was painted in great characters, ‘ROWDY +JOURNAL.’ + +The colonel, who had walked the whole way with one hand in his breast, +his head occasionally wagging from side to side, and his hat thrown back +upon his ears, like a man who was oppressed to inconvenience by a sense +of his own greatness, led the way up a dark and dirty flight of stairs +into a room of similar character, all littered and bestrewn with odds +and ends of newspapers and other crumpled fragments, both in proof and +manuscript. Behind a mangy old writing-table in this apartment sat a +figure with a stump of a pen in its mouth and a great pair of scissors +in its right hand, clipping and slicing at a file of Rowdy Journals; +and it was such a laughable figure that Martin had some difficulty in +preserving his gravity, though conscious of the close observation of +Colonel Diver. + +The individual who sat clipping and slicing as aforesaid at the Rowdy +Journals, was a small young gentleman of very juvenile appearance, and +unwholesomely pale in the face; partly, perhaps, from intense thought, +but partly, there is no doubt, from the excessive use of tobacco, which +he was at that moment chewing vigorously. He wore his shirt-collar +turned down over a black ribbon; and his lank hair, a fragile crop, was +not only smoothed and parted back from his brow, that none of the Poetry +of his aspect might be lost, but had, here and there, been grubbed up by +the roots; which accounted for his loftiest developments being somewhat +pimply. He had that order of nose on which the envy of mankind has +bestowed the appellation ‘snub,’ and it was very much turned up at the +end, as with a lofty scorn. Upon the upper lip of this young gentleman +were tokens of a sandy down; so very, very smooth and scant, that, +though encouraged to the utmost, it looked more like a recent trace of +gingerbread than the fair promise of a moustache; and this conjecture, +his apparently tender age went far to strengthen. He was intent upon +his work. Every time he snapped the great pair of scissors, he made +a corresponding motion with his jaws, which gave him a very terrible +appearance. + +Martin was not long in determining within himself that this must be +Colonel Diver’s son; the hope of the family, and future mainspring of +the Rowdy Journal. Indeed he had begun to say that he presumed this +was the colonel’s little boy, and that it was very pleasant to see +him playing at Editor in all the guilelessness of childhood, when the +colonel proudly interposed and said: + +‘My War Correspondent, sir--Mr Jefferson Brick!’ + +Martin could not help starting at this unexpected announcement, and the +consciousness of the irretrievable mistake he had nearly made. + +Mr Brick seemed pleased with the sensation he produced upon the +stranger, and shook hands with him, with an air of patronage designed +to reassure him, and to let him blow that there was no occasion to be +frightened, for he (Brick) wouldn’t hurt him. + +‘You have heard of Jefferson Brick, I see, sir,’ quoth the colonel, +with a smile. ‘England has heard of Jefferson Brick. Europe has heard of +Jefferson Brick. Let me see. When did you leave England, sir?’ + +‘Five weeks ago,’ said Martin. + +‘Five weeks ago,’ repeated the colonel, thoughtfully; as he took his +seat upon the table, and swung his legs. ‘Now let me ask you, sir which +of Mr Brick’s articles had become at that time the most obnoxious to the +British Parliament and the Court of Saint James’s?’ + +‘Upon my word,’ said Martin, ‘I--’ + +‘I have reason to know, sir,’ interrupted the colonel, ‘that the +aristocratic circles of your country quail before the name of Jefferson +Brick. I should like to be informed, sir, from your lips, which of his +sentiments has struck the deadliest blow--’ + +‘At the hundred heads of the Hydra of Corruption now grovelling in the +dust beneath the lance of Reason, and spouting up to the universal arch +above us, its sanguinary gore,’ said Mr Brick, putting on a little blue +cloth cap with a glazed front, and quoting his last article. + +‘The libation of freedom, Brick’--hinted the colonel. + +‘--Must sometimes be quaffed in blood, colonel,’ cried Brick. And when +he said ‘blood,’ he gave the great pair of scissors a sharp snap, as if +THEY said blood too, and were quite of his opinion. + +This done, they both looked at Martin, pausing for a reply. + +‘Upon my life,’ said Martin, who had by this time quite recovered his +usual coolness, ‘I can’t give you any satisfactory information about it; +for the truth is that I--’ + +‘Stop!’ cried the colonel, glancing sternly at his war correspondent and +giving his head one shake after every sentence. ‘That you never heard of +Jefferson Brick, sir. That you never read Jefferson Brick, sir. That +you never saw the Rowdy Journal, sir. That you never knew, sir, of its +mighty influence upon the cabinets of Europe. Yes?’ + +‘That’s what I was about to observe, certainly,’ said Martin. + +‘Keep cool, Jefferson,’ said the colonel gravely. ‘Don’t bust! oh you +Europeans! After that, let’s have a glass of wine!’ So saying, he got +down from the table, and produced, from a basket outside the door, a +bottle of champagne, and three glasses. + +‘Mr Jefferson Brick, sir,’ said the colonel, filling Martin’s glass +and his own, and pushing the bottle to that gentleman, ‘will give us a +sentiment.’ + +‘Well, sir!’ cried the war correspondent, ‘Since you have concluded to +call upon me, I will respond. I will give you, sir, The Rowdy Journal +and its brethren; the well of Truth, whose waters are black from being +composed of printers’ ink, but are quite clear enough for my country to +behold the shadow of her Destiny reflected in.’ + +‘Hear, hear!’ cried the colonel, with great complacency. ‘There are +flowery components, sir, in the language of my friend?’ + +‘Very much so, indeed,’ said Martin. + +‘There is to-day’s Rowdy, sir,’ observed the colonel, handing him a +paper. ‘You’ll find Jefferson Brick at his usual post in the van of +human civilization and moral purity.’ + +The colonel was by this time seated on the table again. Mr Brick also +took up a position on that same piece of furniture; and they fell to +drinking pretty hard. They often looked at Martin as he read the paper, +and then at each other. When he laid it down, which was not until they +had finished a second bottle, the colonel asked him what he thought of +it. + +‘Why, it’s horribly personal,’ said Martin. + +The colonel seemed much flattered by this remark; and said he hoped it +was. + +‘We are independent here, sir,’ said Mr Jefferson Brick. ‘We do as we +like.’ + +‘If I may judge from this specimen,’ returned Martin, ‘there must be a +few thousands here, rather the reverse of independent, who do as they +don’t like.’ + +‘Well! They yield to the popular mind of the Popular Instructor, sir,’ +said the colonel. ‘They rile up, sometimes; but in general we have a +hold upon our citizens, both in public and in private life, which is as +much one of the ennobling institutions of our happy country as--’ + +‘As nigger slavery itself,’ suggested Mr Brick. + +‘En--tirely so,’ remarked the colonel. + +‘Pray,’ said Martin, after some hesitation, ‘may I venture to ask, +with reference to a case I observe in this paper of yours, whether the +Popular Instructor often deals in--I am at a loss to express it without +giving you offence--in forgery? In forged letters, for instance,’ he +pursued, for the colonel was perfectly calm and quite at his ease, +‘solemnly purporting to have been written at recent periods by living +men?’ + +‘Well, sir!’ replied the colonel. ‘It does, now and then.’ + +‘And the popular instructed--what do they do?’ asked Martin. + +‘Buy ‘em:’ said the colonel. + +Mr Jefferson Brick expectorated and laughed; the former copiously, the +latter approvingly. + +‘Buy ‘em by hundreds of thousands,’ resumed the colonel. ‘We are a smart +people here, and can appreciate smartness.’ + +‘Is smartness American for forgery?’ asked Martin. + +‘Well!’ said the colonel, ‘I expect it’s American for a good many things +that you call by other names. But you can’t help yourself in Europe. We +can.’ + +‘And do, sometimes,’ thought Martin. ‘You help yourselves with very +little ceremony, too!’ + +‘At all events, whatever name we choose to employ,’ said the colonel, +stooping down to roll the third empty bottle into a corner after the +other two, ‘I suppose the art of forgery was not invented here sir?’ + +‘I suppose not,’ replied Martin. + +‘Nor any other kind of smartness I reckon?’ + +‘Invented! No, I presume not.’ + +‘Well!’ said the colonel; ‘then we got it all from the old country, and +the old country’s to blame for it, and not the new ‘un. There’s an end +of THAT. Now, if Mr Jefferson Brick and you will be so good as to clear, +I’ll come out last, and lock the door.’ + +Rightly interpreting this as the signal for their departure, Martin +walked downstairs after the war correspondent, who preceded him with +great majesty. The colonel following, they left the Rowdy Journal Office +and walked forth into the streets; Martin feeling doubtful whether +he ought to kick the colonel for having presumed to speak to him, +or whether it came within the bounds of possibility that he and his +establishment could be among the boasted usages of that regenerated +land. + +It was clear that Colonel Diver, in the security of his strong position, +and in his perfect understanding of the public sentiment, cared very +little what Martin or anybody else thought about him. His high-spiced +wares were made to sell, and they sold; and his thousands of readers +could as rationally charge their delight in filth upon him, as a glutton +can shift upon his cook the responsibility of his beastly excess. +Nothing would have delighted the colonel more than to be told that +no such man as he could walk in high success the streets of any other +country in the world; for that would only have been a logical assurance +to him of the correct adaptation of his labours to the prevailing taste, +and of his being strictly and peculiarly a national feature of America. + +They walked a mile or more along a handsome street which the colonel +said was called Broadway, and which Mr Jefferson Brick said ‘whipped the +universe.’ Turning, at length, into one of the numerous streets which +branched from this main thoroughfare, they stopped before a rather +mean-looking house with jalousie blinds to every window; a flight of +steps before the green street-door; a shining white ornament on the +rails on either side like a petrified pineapple, polished; a little +oblong plate of the same material over the knocker whereon the name of +‘Pawkins’ was engraved; and four accidental pigs looking down the area. + +The colonel knocked at this house with the air of a man who lived there; +and an Irish girl popped her head out of one of the top windows to see +who it was. Pending her journey downstairs, the pigs were joined by two +or three friends from the next street, in company with whom they lay +down sociably in the gutter. + +‘Is the major indoors?’ inquired the colonel, as he entered. + +‘Is it the master, sir?’ returned the girl, with a hesitation +which seemed to imply that they were rather flush of majors in that +establishment. + +‘The master!’ said Colonel Diver, stopping short and looking round at +his war correspondent. + +‘Oh! The depressing institutions of that British empire, colonel!’ said +Jefferson Brick. ‘Master!’ + +‘What’s the matter with the word?’ asked Martin. + +‘I should hope it was never heard in our country, sir; that’s all,’ said +Jefferson Brick; ‘except when it is used by some degraded Help, as new +to the blessings of our form of government, as this Help is. There are +no masters here.’ + +‘All “owners,” are they?’ said Martin. + +Mr Jefferson Brick followed in the Rowdy Journal’s footsteps without +returning any answer. Martin took the same course, thinking as he went, +that perhaps the free and independent citizens, who in their moral +elevation, owned the colonel for their master, might render better +homage to the goddess, Liberty, in nightly dreams upon the oven of a +Russian Serf. + +The colonel led the way into a room at the back of the house upon +the ground-floor, light, and of fair dimensions, but exquisitely +uncomfortable; having nothing in it but the four cold white walls and +ceiling, a mean carpet, a dreary waste of dining-table reaching from +end to end, and a bewildering collection of cane-bottomed chairs. In the +further region of this banqueting-hall was a stove, garnished on either +side with a great brass spittoon, and shaped in itself like three little +iron barrels set up on end in a fender, and joined together on the +principle of the Siamese Twins. Before it, swinging himself in a +rocking-chair, lounged a large gentleman with his hat on, who amused +himself by spitting alternately into the spittoon on the right hand of +the stove, and the spittoon on the left, and then working his way back +again in the same order. A negro lad in a soiled white jacket was busily +engaged in placing on the table two long rows of knives and forks, +relieved at intervals by jugs of water; and as he travelled down one +side of this festive board, he straightened with his dirty hands the +dirtier cloth, which was all askew, and had not been removed since +breakfast. The atmosphere of this room was rendered intensely hot and +stifling by the stove; but being further flavoured by a sickly gush +of soup from the kitchen, and by such remote suggestions of tobacco as +lingered within the brazen receptacles already mentioned, it became, to +a stranger’s senses, almost insupportable. + +The gentleman in the rocking-chair having his back towards them, and +being much engaged in his intellectual pastime, was not aware of their +approach until the colonel, walking up to the stove, contributed +his mite towards the support of the left-hand spittoon, just as the +major--for it was the major--bore down upon it. Major Pawkins then +reserved his fire, and looking upward, said, with a peculiar air of +quiet weariness, like a man who had been up all night--an air which +Martin had already observed both in the colonel and Mr Jefferson Brick-- + +‘Well, colonel!’ + +‘Here is a gentleman from England, major,’ the colonel replied, ‘who +has concluded to locate himself here if the amount of compensation suits +him.’ + +‘I am glad to see you, sir,’ observed the major, shaking hands with +Martin, and not moving a muscle of his face. ‘You are pretty bright, I +hope?’ + +‘Never better,’ said Martin. + +‘You are never likely to be,’ returned the major. ‘You will see the sun +shine HERE.’ + +‘I think I remember to have seen it shine at home sometimes,’ said +Martin, smiling. + +‘I think not,’ replied the major. He said so with a stoical indifference +certainly, but still in a tone of firmness which admitted of no further +dispute on that point. When he had thus settled the question, he put his +hat a little on one side for the greater convenience of scratching his +head, and saluted Mr Jefferson Brick with a lazy nod. + +Major Pawkins (a gentleman of Pennsylvanian origin) was distinguished by +a very large skull, and a great mass of yellow forehead; in deference +to which commodities it was currently held in bar-rooms and other such +places of resort that the major was a man of huge sagacity. He was +further to be known by a heavy eye and a dull slow manner; and for being +a man of that kind who--mentally speaking--requires a deal of room to +turn himself in. But, in trading on his stock of wisdom, he invariably +proceeded on the principle of putting all the goods he had (and more) +into his window; and that went a great way with his constituency of +admirers. It went a great way, perhaps, with Mr Jefferson Brick, who +took occasion to whisper in Martin’s ear: + +‘One of the most remarkable men in our country, sir!’ + +It must not be supposed, however, that the perpetual exhibition in the +market-place of all his stock-in-trade for sale or hire, was the major’s +sole claim to a very large share of sympathy and support. He was a great +politician; and the one article of his creed, in reference to all public +obligations involving the good faith and integrity of his country, was, +‘run a moist pen slick through everything, and start fresh.’ This +made him a patriot. In commercial affairs he was a bold speculator. +In plainer words he had a most distinguished genius for swindling, and +could start a bank, or negotiate a loan, or form a land-jobbing company +(entailing ruin, pestilence, and death, on hundreds of families), with +any gifted creature in the Union. This made him an admirable man of +business. He could hang about a bar-room, discussing the affairs of the +nation, for twelve hours together; and in that time could hold forth +with more intolerable dulness, chew more tobacco, smoke more tobacco, +drink more rum-toddy, mint-julep, gin-sling, and cocktail, than any +private gentleman of his acquaintance. This made him an orator and a +man of the people. In a word, the major was a rising character, and a +popular character, and was in a fair way to be sent by the popular party +to the State House of New York, if not in the end to Washington itself. +But as a man’s private prosperity does not always keep pace with his +patriotic devotion to public affairs; and as fraudulent transactions +have their downs as well as ups, the major was occasionally under a +cloud. Hence, just now Mrs Pawkins kept a boarding-house, and Major +Pawkins rather ‘loafed’ his time away than otherwise. + +‘You have come to visit our country, sir, at a season of great +commercial depression,’ said the major. + +‘At an alarming crisis,’ said the colonel. + +‘At a period of unprecedented stagnation,’ said Mr Jefferson Brick. + +‘I am sorry to hear that,’ returned Martin. ‘It’s not likely to last, I +hope?’ + +Martin knew nothing about America, or he would have known perfectly well +that if its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always +IS depressed, and always IS stagnated, and always IS at an alarming +crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body they are ready to make +oath upon the Evangelists at any hour of the day or night, that it +is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable +globe. + +‘It’s not likely to last, I hope?’ said Martin. + +‘Well!’ returned the major, ‘I expect we shall get along somehow, and +come right in the end.’ + +‘We are an elastic country,’ said the Rowdy Journal. + +‘We are a young lion,’ said Mr Jefferson Brick. + +‘We have revivifying and vigorous principles within ourselves,’ observed +the major. ‘Shall we drink a bitter afore dinner, colonel?’ + +The colonel assenting to this proposal with great alacrity, Major +Pawkins proposed an adjournment to a neighbouring bar-room, which, as he +observed, was ‘only in the next block.’ He then referred Martin to +Mrs Pawkins for all particulars connected with the rate of board and +lodging, and informed him that he would have the pleasure of seeing that +lady at dinner, which would soon be ready, as the dinner hour was two +o’clock, and it only wanted a quarter now. This reminded him that if the +bitter were to be taken at all, there was no time to lose; so he walked +off without more ado, and left them to follow if they thought proper. + +When the major rose from his rocking-chair before the stove, and so +disturbed the hot air and balmy whiff of soup which fanned their brows, +the odour of stale tobacco became so decidedly prevalent as to leave no +doubt of its proceeding mainly from that gentleman’s attire. Indeed, +as Martin walked behind him to the bar-room, he could not help thinking +that the great square major, in his listlessness and langour, looked +very much like a stale weed himself; such as might be hoed out of +the public garden, with great advantage to the decent growth of that +preserve, and tossed on some congenial dunghill. + +They encountered more weeds in the bar-room, some of whom (being thirsty +souls as well as dirty) were pretty stale in one sense, and pretty fresh +in another. Among them was a gentleman who, as Martin gathered from the +conversation that took place over the bitter, started that afternoon for +the Far West on a six months’ business tour, and who, as his outfit and +equipment for this journey, had just such another shiny hat and just +such another little pale valise as had composed the luggage of the +gentleman who came from England in the Screw. + +They were walking back very leisurely; Martin arm-in-arm with Mr +Jefferson Brick, and the major and the colonel side-by-side before them; +when, as they came within a house or two of the major’s residence, they +heard a bell ringing violently. The instant this sound struck upon their +ears, the colonel and the major darted off, dashed up the steps and in +at the street-door (which stood ajar) like lunatics; while Mr Jefferson +Brick, detaching his arm from Martin’s, made a precipitate dive in the +same direction, and vanished also. + +‘Good Heaven!’ thought Martin. ‘The premises are on fire! It was an +alarm bell!’ + +But there was no smoke to be seen, nor any flame, nor was there any +smell of fire. As Martin faltered on the pavement, three more gentlemen, +with horror and agitation depicted in their faces, came plunging wildly +round the street corner; jostled each other on the steps; struggled for +an instant; and rushed into the house, a confused heap of arms and +legs. Unable to bear it any longer, Martin followed. Even in his +rapid progress he was run down, thrust aside, and passed, by two more +gentlemen, stark mad, as it appeared, with fierce excitement. + +‘Where is it?’ cried Martin, breathlessly, to a negro whom he +encountered in the passage. + +‘In a eatin room, sa. Kernell, sa, him kep a seat ‘side himself, sa.’ + +‘A seat!’ cried Martin. + +‘For a dinnar, sa.’ + +Martin started at him for a moment, and burst into a hearty laugh; to +which the negro, out of his natural good humour and desire to please, so +heartily responded, that his teeth shone like a gleam of light. ‘You’re +the pleasantest fellow I have seen yet,’ said Martin clapping him on the +back, ‘and give me a better appetite than bitters.’ + +With this sentiment he walked into the dining-room and slipped into +a chair next the colonel, which that gentleman (by this time nearly +through his dinner) had turned down in reserve for him, with its back +against the table. + +It was a numerous company--eighteen or twenty perhaps. Of these some +five or six were ladies, who sat wedged together in a little phalanx by +themselves. All the knives and forks were working away at a rate that +was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to +eat his utmost in self-defence, as if a famine were expected to set in +before breakfast time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time +to assert the first law of nature. The poultry, which may perhaps be +considered to have formed the staple of the entertainment--for there was +a turkey at the top, a pair of ducks at the bottom, and two fowls in the +middle--disappeared as rapidly as if every bird had had the use of its +wings, and had flown in desperation down a human throat. The oysters, +stewed and pickled, leaped from their capacious reservoirs, and slid by +scores into the mouths of the assembly. The sharpest pickles vanished, +whole cucumbers at once, like sugar-plums, and no man winked his eye. +Great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before the sun. +It was a solemn and an awful thing to see. Dyspeptic individuals bolted +their food in wedges; feeding, not themselves, but broods of nightmares, +who were continually standing at livery within them. Spare men, with +lank and rigid cheeks, came out unsatisfied from the destruction of +heavy dishes, and glared with watchful eyes upon the pastry. What Mrs +Pawkins felt each day at dinner-time is hidden from all human knowledge. +But she had one comfort. It was very soon over. + +When the colonel had finished his dinner, which event took place while +Martin, who had sent his plate for some turkey, was waiting to begin, +he asked him what he thought of the boarders, who were from all parts of +the Union, and whether he would like to know any particulars concerning +them. + +‘Pray,’ said Martin, ‘who is that sickly little girl opposite, with the +tight round eyes? I don’t see anybody here, who looks like her mother, +or who seems to have charge of her.’ + +‘Do you mean the matron in blue, sir?’ asked the colonel, with emphasis. +‘That is Mrs Jefferson Brick, sir.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Martin, ‘I mean the little girl, like a doll; directly +opposite.’ + +‘Well, sir!’ cried the colonel. ‘THAT is Mrs Jefferson Brick.’ + +Martin glanced at the colonel’s face, but he was quite serious. + +‘Bless my soul! I suppose there will be a young Brick then, one of these +days?’ said Martin. + +‘There are two young Bricks already, sir,’ returned the colonel. + +The matron looked so uncommonly like a child herself, that Martin could +not help saying as much. ‘Yes, sir,’ returned the colonel, ‘but some +institutions develop human natur; others re--tard it.’ + +‘Jefferson Brick,’ he observed after a short silence, in commendation +of his correspondent, ‘is one of the most remarkable men in our country, +sir!’ + +This had passed almost in a whisper, for the distinguished gentleman +alluded to sat on Martin’s other hand. + +‘Pray, Mr Brick,’ said Martin, turning to him, and asking a question +more for conversation’s sake than from any feeling of interest in its +subject, ‘who is that;’ he was going to say ‘young’ but thought it +prudent to eschew the word--‘that very short gentleman yonder, with the +red nose?’ + +‘That is Pro--fessor Mullit, sir,’ replied Jefferson. + +‘May I ask what he is professor of?’ asked Martin. + +‘Of education, sir,’ said Jefferson Brick. + +‘A sort of schoolmaster, possibly?’ Martin ventured to observe. + +‘He is a man of fine moral elements, sir, and not commonly endowed,’ +said the war correspondent. ‘He felt it necessary, at the last election +for President, to repudiate and denounce his father, who voted on the +wrong interest. He has since written some powerful pamphlets, under +the signature of “Suturb,” or Brutus reversed. He is one of the most +remarkable men in our country, sir.’ + +‘There seem to be plenty of ‘em,’ thought Martin, ‘at any rate.’ + +Pursuing his inquiries Martin found that there were no fewer than four +majors present, two colonels, one general, and a captain, so that he +could not help thinking how strongly officered the American militia must +be; and wondering very much whether the officers commanded each other; +or if they did not, where on earth the privates came from. There seemed +to be no man there without a title; for those who had not attained to +military honours were either doctors, professors, or reverends. Three +very hard and disagreeable gentlemen were on missions from neighbouring +States; one on monetary affairs, one on political, one on sectarian. +Among the ladies, there were Mrs Pawkins, who was very straight, bony, +and silent; and a wiry-faced old damsel, who held strong sentiments +touching the rights of women, and had diffused the same in lectures; +but the rest were strangely devoid of individual traits of character, +insomuch that any one of them might have changed minds with the other, +and nobody would have found it out. These, by the way, were the only +members of the party who did not appear to be among the most remarkable +people in the country. + +Several of the gentlemen got up, one by one, and walked off as they +swallowed their last morsel; pausing generally by the stove for a minute +or so to refresh themselves at the brass spittoons. A few sedentary +characters, however, remained at table full a quarter of an hour, and +did not rise until the ladies rose, when all stood up. + +‘Where are they going?’ asked Martin, in the ear of Mr Jefferson Brick. + +‘To their bedrooms, sir.’ + +‘Is there no dessert, or other interval of conversation?’ asked Martin, +who was disposed to enjoy himself after his long voyage. + +‘We are a busy people here, sir, and have no time for that,’ was the +reply. + +So the ladies passed out in single file; Mr Jefferson Brick and such +other married gentlemen as were left, acknowledging the departure +of their other halves by a nod; and there was an end of THEM. Martin +thought this an uncomfortable custom, but he kept his opinion to himself +for the present, being anxious to hear, and inform himself by, the +conversation of the busy gentlemen, who now lounged about the stove as +if a great weight had been taken off their minds by the withdrawal of +the other sex; and who made a plentiful use of the spittoons and their +toothpicks. + +It was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part +of it may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes, +joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down +into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow +cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. +Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; +life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its +dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having +their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour +and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good +Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. +Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the +nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by +stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! +What is a flag to THEM! + +One who rides at all hazards of limb and life in the chase of a fox, +will prefer to ride recklessly at most times. So it was with these +gentlemen. He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled the +loudest, and who cared the least for decency. He was their champion who, +in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no stigma upon them +for the hot knavery of theirs. Thus, Martin learned in the five minutes’ +straggling talk about the stove, that to carry pistols into legislative +assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other such peaceful toys; to seize +opponents by the throat, as dogs or rats might do; to bluster, bully, +and overbear by personal assailment; were glowing deeds. Not thrusts and +stabs at Freedom, striking far deeper into her House of Life than any +sultan’s scimitar could reach; but rare incense on her altars, having a +grateful scent in patriotic nostrils, and curling upward to the seventh +heaven of Fame. + +Once or twice, when there was a pause, Martin asked such questions as +naturally occurred to him, being a stranger, about the national poets, +the theatre, literature, and the arts. But the information which these +gentlemen were in a condition to give him on such topics, did not extend +beyond the effusions of such master-spirits of the time as Colonel +Diver, Mr Jefferson Brick, and others; renowned, as it appeared, for +excellence in the achievement of a peculiar style of broadside essay +called ‘a screamer.’ + +‘We are a busy people, sir,’ said one of the captains, who was from the +West, ‘and have no time for reading mere notions. We don’t mind ‘em +if they come to us in newspapers along with almighty strong stuff of +another sort, but darn your books.’ + +Here the general, who appeared to grow quite faint at the bare thought +of reading anything which was neither mercantile nor political, and was +not in a newspaper, inquired ‘if any gentleman would drink some?’ Most +of the company, considering this a very choice and seasonable idea, +lounged out, one by one, to the bar-room in the next block. Thence +they probably went to their stores and counting-houses; thence to the +bar-room again, to talk once more of dollars, and enlarge their minds +with the perusal and discussion of screamers; and thence each man to +snore in the bosom of his own family. + +‘Which would seem,’ said Martin, pursuing the current of his own +thoughts, ‘to be the principal recreation they enjoy in common.’ With +that, he fell a-musing again on dollars, demagogues, and bar-rooms; +debating within himself whether busy people of this class were really +as busy as they claimed to be, or only had an inaptitude for social and +domestic pleasure. + +It was a difficult question to solve; and the mere fact of its being +strongly presented to his mind by all that he had seen and heard, was +not encouraging. He sat down at the deserted board, and becoming +more and more despondent, as he thought of all the uncertainties and +difficulties of his precarious situation, sighed heavily. + +Now, there had been at the dinner-table a middle-aged man with a dark +eye and a sunburnt face, who had attracted Martin’s attention by having +something very engaging and honest in the expression of his features; +but of whom he could learn nothing from either of his neighbours, who +seemed to consider him quite beneath their notice. He had taken no part +in the conversation round the stove, nor had he gone forth with the +rest; and now, when he heard Martin sigh for the third or fourth +time, he interposed with some casual remark, as if he desired, without +obtruding himself upon a stranger’s notice, to engage him in cheerful +conversation if he could. His motive was so obvious, and yet so +delicately expressed, that Martin felt really grateful to him, and +showed him so in the manner of his reply. + +‘I will not ask you,’ said this gentleman with a smile, as he rose and +moved towards him, ‘how you like my country, for I can quite anticipate +your feeling on that point. But, as I am an American, and consequently +bound to begin with a question, I’ll ask you how you like the colonel?’ + +‘You are so very frank,’ returned Martin, ‘that I have no hesitation in +saying I don’t like him at all. Though I must add that I am beholden to +him for his civility in bringing me here--and arranging for my stay, +on pretty reasonable terms, by the way,’ he added, remembering that the +colonel had whispered him to that effect, before going out. + +‘Not much beholden,’ said the stranger drily. ‘The colonel occasionally +boards packet-ships, I have heard, to glean the latest information +for his journal; and he occasionally brings strangers to board here, I +believe, with a view to the little percentage which attaches to those +good offices; and which the hostess deducts from his weekly bill. I +don’t offend you, I hope?’ he added, seeing that Martin reddened. + +‘My dear sir,’ returned Martin, as they shook hands, ‘how is that +possible! to tell you the truth, I--am--’ + +‘Yes?’ said the gentleman, sitting down beside him. + +‘I am rather at a loss, since I must speak plainly,’ said Martin, +getting the better of his hesitation, ‘to know how this colonel escapes +being beaten.’ + +‘Well! He has been beaten once or twice,’ remarked the gentleman +quietly. ‘He is one of a class of men, in whom our own Franklin, so +long ago as ten years before the close of the last century, foresaw +our danger and disgrace. Perhaps you don’t know that Franklin, in very +severe terms, published his opinion that those who were slandered +by such fellows as this colonel, having no sufficient remedy in the +administration of this country’s laws or in the decent and right-minded +feeling of its people, were justified in retorting on such public +nuisances by means of a stout cudgel?’ + +‘I was not aware of that,’ said Martin, ‘but I am very glad to know +it, and I think it worthy of his memory; especially’--here he hesitated +again. + +‘Go on,’ said the other, smiling as if he knew what stuck in Martin’s +throat. + +‘Especially,’ pursued Martin, ‘as I can already understand that it may +have required great courage, even in his time, to write freely on any +question which was not a party one in this very free country.’ + +‘Some courage, no doubt,’ returned his new friend. ‘Do you think it +would require any to do so, now?’ + +‘Indeed I think it would; and not a little,’ said Martin. + +‘You are right. So very right, that I believe no satirist could breathe +this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us to-morrow, +he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, +and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has +anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and +who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate +hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, +believe me. In some cases I could name to you, where a native writer +has ventured on the most harmless and good-humoured illustrations of +our vices or defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that in +a second edition the passage has been expunged, or altered, or explained +away, or patched into praise.’ + +‘And how has this been brought about?’ asked Martin, in dismay. + +‘Think of what you have seen and heard to-day, beginning with the +colonel,’ said his friend, ‘and ask yourself. How THEY came about, +is another question. Heaven forbid that they should be samples of the +intelligence and virtue of America, but they come uppermost, and in +great numbers, and too often represent it. Will you walk?’ + +There was a cordial candour in his manner, and an engaging confidence +that it would not be abused; a manly bearing on his own part, and a +simple reliance on the manly faith of a stranger; which Martin had +never seen before. He linked his arm readily in that of the American +gentleman, and they walked out together. + +It was perhaps to men like this, his new companion, that a traveller +of honoured name, who trod those shores now nearly forty years ago, and +woke upon that soil, as many have done since, to blots and stains upon +its high pretensions, which in the brightness of his distant dreams were +lost to view, appealed in these words-- + + ‘Oh, but for such, Columbia’s days were done; + Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun, + Crude at the surface, rotten at the core, + Her fruits would fall before her spring were o’er!’ + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +MARTIN ENLARGES HIS CIRCLE OF AQUAINTANCE; INCREASES HIS STOCK +OF WISDOM; AND HAS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY OF COMPARING HIS OWN +EXPERIENCES WITH THOSE OF LUMMY NED OF THE LIGHT SALISBURY, AS RELATED +BY HIS FRIEND MR WILLIAM SIMMONS + + +It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had either +forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no such person +in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that gentleman rose +before his mental vision, had dismissed it as something by no means of +a pressing nature, which might be attended to by-and-bye, and could wait +his perfect leisure. But, being now in the streets again, it occurred to +him as just coming within the bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley +might, in course of time, grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the +Rowdy Journal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they +could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this +piece of business off his mind. + +‘And speaking of business,’ said Martin, ‘may I ask, in order that I may +not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your occupation holds +you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor here?’ + +‘A visitor,’ replied his friend. ‘I was “raised” in the State of +Massachusetts, and reside there still. My home is in a quiet country +town. I am not often in these busy places; and my inclination to visit +them does not increase with our better acquaintance, I assure you.’ + +‘You have been abroad?’ asked Martin. + +‘Oh yes.’ + +‘And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever attached +to your home and native country,’ said Martin, eyeing him curiously. + +‘To my home--yes,’ rejoined his friend. ‘To my native country AS my +home--yes, also.’ + +‘You imply some reservation,’ said Martin. + +‘Well,’ returned his new friend, ‘if you ask me whether I came back here +with a greater relish for my country’s faults; with a greater fondness +for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars a day) to be her +friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of principles among +us in respect of public matters and of private dealings between man and +man, the advocacy of which, beyond the foul atmosphere of a criminal +trial, would disgrace your own old Bailey lawyers; why, then I answer +plainly, No.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend’s No, that +it sounded like an echo. + +‘If you ask me,’ his companion pursued, ‘whether I came back here better +satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides society into two +classes--whereof one, the great mass, asserts a spurious independence, +most miserably dependent for its mean existence on the disregard of +humanizing conventionalities of manner and social custom, so that the +coarser a man is, the more distinctly it shall appeal to his taste; +while the other, disgusted with the low standard thus set up and made +adaptable to everything, takes refuge among the graces and refinements +it can bring to bear on private life, and leaves the public weal to +such fortune as may betide it in the press and uproar of a general +scramble--then again I answer, No.’ + +And again Martin said ‘Oh!’ in the same odd way as before, being anxious +and disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public grounds, as +with reference to the fading prospects of domestic architecture. + +‘In a word,’ resumed the other, ‘I do not find and cannot believe and +therefore will not allow, that we are a model of wisdom, and an example +to the world, and the perfection of human reason, and a great deal more +to the same purpose, which you may hear any hour in the day; simply +because we began our political life with two inestimable advantages.’ + +‘What were they?’ asked Martin. + +‘One, that our history commenced at so late a period as to escape the +ages of bloodshed and cruelty through which other nations have passed; +and so had all the light of their probation, and none of its darkness. +The other, that we have a vast territory, and not--as yet--too many +people on it. These facts considered, we have done little enough, I +think.’ + +‘Education?’ suggested Martin, faintly. + +‘Pretty well on that head,’ said the other, shrugging his shoulders, +‘still no mighty matter to boast of; for old countries, and despotic +countries too, have done as much, if not more, and made less noise about +it. We shine out brightly in comparison with England, certainly; but +hers is a very extreme case. You complimented me on my frankness, you +know,’ he added, laughing. + +‘Oh! I am not at all astonished at your speaking thus openly when my +country is in question,’ returned Martin. ‘It is your plain-speaking in +reference to your own that surprises me.’ + +‘You will not find it a scarce quality here, I assure you, saving among +the Colonel Divers, and Jefferson Bricks, and Major Pawkinses; though +the best of us are something like the man in Goldsmith’s comedy, who +wouldn’t suffer anybody but himself to abuse his master. Come!’ he +added. ‘Let us talk of something else. You have come here on some design +of improving your fortune, I dare say; and I should grieve to put you +out of heart. I am some years older than you, besides; and may, on a few +trivial points, advise you, perhaps.’ + +There was not the least curiosity or impertinence in the manner of this +offer, which was open-hearted, unaffected, and good-natured. As it was +next to impossible that he should not have his confidence awakened by +a deportment so prepossessing and kind, Martin plainly stated what had +brought him into those parts, and even made the very difficult avowal +that he was poor. He did not say how poor, it must be admitted, rather +throwing off the declaration with an air which might have implied that +he had money enough for six months, instead of as many weeks; but poor +he said he was, and grateful he said he would be, for any counsel that +his friend would give him. + +It would not have been very difficult for any one to see; but it was +particularly easy for Martin, whose perceptions were sharpened by his +circumstances, to discern; that the stranger’s face grew infinitely +longer as the domestic-architecture project was developed. Nor, although +he made a great effort to be as encouraging as possible, could he +prevent his head from shaking once involuntarily, as if it said in the +vulgar tongue, upon its own account, ‘No go!’ But he spoke in a cheerful +tone, and said, that although there was no such opening as Martin +wished, in that city, he would make it matter of immediate consideration +and inquiry where one was most likely to exist; and then he made Martin +acquainted with his name, which was Bevan; and with his profession, +which was physic, though he seldom or never practiced; and with other +circumstances connected with himself and family, which fully occupied +the time, until they reached the Rowdy Journal Office. + +Mr Tapley appeared to be taking his ease on the landing of the first +floor; for sounds as of some gentleman established in that region +whistling ‘Rule Britannia’ with all his might and main, greeted their +ears before they reached the house. On ascending to the spot from +whence this music proceeded, they found him recumbent in the midst of a +fortification of luggage, apparently performing his national anthem +for the gratification of a grey-haired black man, who sat on one of the +outworks (a portmanteau), staring intently at Mark, while Mark, with +his head reclining on his hand, returned the compliment in a thoughtful +manner, and whistled all the time. He seemed to have recently dined, for +his knife, a casebottle, and certain broken meats in a handkerchief, lay +near at hand. He had employed a portion of his leisure in the decoration +of the Rowdy Journal door, whereon his own initials now appeared in +letters nearly half a foot long, together with the day of the month in +smaller type; the whole surrounded by an ornamental border, and looking +very fresh and bold. + +‘I was a’most afraid you was lost, sir!’ cried Mark, rising, and +stopping the tune at that point where Britons generally are supposed to +declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never-- + +‘Nothing gone wrong, I hope, sir?’ + +‘No, Mark. Where’s your friend?’ + +‘The mad woman, sir?’ said Mr Tapley. ‘Oh! she’s all right, sir.’ + +‘Did she find her husband?’ + +‘Yes, sir. Leastways she’s found his remains,’ said Mark, correcting +himself. + +‘The man’s not dead, I hope?’ + +‘Not altogether dead, sir,’ returned Mark; ‘but he’s had more fevers and +agues than is quite reconcilable with being alive. When she didn’t see +him a-waiting for her, I thought she’d have died herself, I did!’ + +‘Was he not here, then?’ + +‘HE wasn’t here. There was a feeble old shadow come a-creeping down at +last, as much like his substance when she know’d him, as your shadow +when it’s drawn out to its very finest and longest by the sun, is like +you. But it was his remains, there’s no doubt about that. She took on +with joy, poor thing, as much as if it had been all of him!’ + +‘Had he bought land?’ asked Mr Bevan. + +‘Ah! He’d bought land,’ said Mark, shaking his head, ‘and paid for it +too. Every sort of nateral advantage was connected with it, the agents +said; and there certainly was ONE, quite unlimited. No end to the +water!’ + +‘It’s a thing he couldn’t have done without, I suppose,’ observed +Martin, peevishly. + +‘Certainly not, sir. There it was, any way; always turned on, and no +water-rate. Independent of three or four slimy old rivers close by, +it varied on the farm from four to six foot deep in the dry season. +He couldn’t say how deep it was in the rainy time, for he never had +anything long enough to sound it with.’ + +‘Is this true?’ asked Martin of his companion. + +‘Extremely probable,’ he answered. ‘Some Mississippi or Missouri lot, I +dare say.’ + +‘However,’ pursued Mark, ‘he came from I-don’t-know-where-and-all, down +to New York here, to meet his wife and children; and they started off +again in a steamboat this blessed afternoon, as happy to be along with +each other as if they were going to Heaven. I should think they was, +pretty straight, if I may judge from the poor man’s looks.’ + +‘And may I ask,’ said Martin, glancing, but not with any displeasure, +from Mark to the negro, ‘who this gentleman is? Another friend of +yours?’ + +‘Why sir,’ returned Mark, taking him aside, and speaking confidentially +in his ear, ‘he’s a man of colour, sir!’ + +‘Do you take me for a blind man,’ asked Martin, somewhat impatiently, +‘that you think it necessary to tell me that, when his face is the +blackest that ever was seen?’ + +‘No, no; when I say a man of colour,’ returned Mark, ‘I mean that +he’s been one of them as there’s picters of in the shops. A man and a +brother, you know, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, favouring his master with a +significant indication of the figure so often represented in tracts and +cheap prints. + +‘A slave!’ cried Martin, in a whisper. + +‘Ah!’ said Mark in the same tone. ‘Nothing else. A slave. Why, when that +there man was young--don’t look at him while I’m a-telling it--he was +shot in the leg; gashed in the arm; scored in his live limbs, like +crimped fish; beaten out of shape; had his neck galled with an iron +collar, and wore iron rings upon his wrists and ankles. The marks are on +him to this day. When I was having my dinner just now, he stripped off +his coat, and took away my appetite.’ + +‘Is THIS true?’ asked Martin of his friend, who stood beside them. + +‘I have no reason to doubt it,’ he answered, shaking his head ‘It very +often is.’ + +‘Bless you,’ said Mark, ‘I know it is, from hearing his whole story. +That master died; so did his second master from having his head cut +open with a hatchet by another slave, who, when he’d done it, went and +drowned himself; then he got a better one; in years and years he saved +up a little money, and bought his freedom, which he got pretty cheap at +last, on account of his strength being nearly gone, and he being ill. +Then he come here. And now he’s a-saving up to treat himself, afore +he dies, to one small purchase--it’s nothing to speak of. Only his own +daughter; that’s all!’ cried Mr Tapley, becoming excited. ‘Liberty for +ever! Hurrah! Hail, Columbia!’ + +‘Hush!’ cried Martin, clapping his hand upon his mouth; ‘and don’t be an +idiot. What is he doing here?’ + +‘Waiting to take our luggage off upon a truck,’ said Mark. ‘He’d have +come for it by-and-bye, but I engaged him for a very reasonable charge +(out of my own pocket) to sit along with me and make me jolly; and I +am jolly; and if I was rich enough to contract with him to wait upon me +once a day, to be looked at, I’d never be anything else.’ + +The fact may cause a solemn impeachment of Mark’s veracity, but it must +be admitted nevertheless, that there was that in his face and manner at +the moment, which militated strongly against this emphatic declaration +of his state of mind. + +‘Lord love you, sir,’ he added, ‘they’re so fond of Liberty in this part +of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to market +with ‘em. They’ve such a passion for Liberty, that they can’t help +taking liberties with her. That’s what it’s owing to.’ + +‘Very well,’ said Martin, wishing to change the theme. ‘Having come to +that conclusion, Mark, perhaps you’ll attend to me. The place to which +the luggage is to go is printed on this card. Mrs Pawkins’s Boarding +House.’ + +‘Mrs Pawkins’s boarding-house,’ repeated Mark. ‘Now, Cicero.’ + +‘Is that his name?’ asked Martin + +‘That’s his name, sir,’ rejoined Mark. And the negro grinning assent +from under a leathern portmanteau, than which his own face was many +shades deeper, hobbled downstairs with his portion of their worldly +goods; Mark Tapley having already gone before with his share. + +Martin and his friend followed them to the door below, and were about +to pursue their walk, when the latter stopped, and asked, with some +hesitation, whether that young man was to be trusted? + +‘Mark! oh certainly! with anything.’ + +‘You don’t understand me--I think he had better go with us. He is an +honest fellow, and speaks his mind so very plainly.’ + +‘Why, the fact is,’ said Martin, smiling, ‘that being unaccustomed to a +free republic, he is used to do so.’ + +‘I think he had better go with us,’ returned the other. ‘He may get into +some trouble otherwise. This is not a slave State; but I am ashamed +to say that a spirit of Tolerance is not so common anywhere in +these latitudes as the form. We are not remarkable for behaving very +temperately to each other when we differ; but to strangers! no, I really +think he had better go with us.’ + +Martin called to him immediately to be of their party; so Cicero and the +truck went one way, and they three went another. + +They walked about the city for two or three hours; seeing it from the +best points of view, and pausing in the principal streets, and before +such public buildings as Mr Bevan pointed out. Night then coming +on apace, Martin proposed that they should adjourn to Mrs Pawkins’s +establishment for coffee; but in this he was overruled by his new +acquaintance, who seemed to have set his heart on carrying him, though +it were only for an hour, to the house of a friend of his who lived hard +by. Feeling (however disinclined he was, being weary) that it would be +in bad taste, and not very gracious, to object that he was unintroduced, +when this open-hearted gentleman was so ready to be his sponsor, +Martin--for once in his life, at all events--sacrificed his own will and +pleasure to the wishes of another, and consented with a fair grace. So +travelling had done him that much good, already. + +Mr Bevan knocked at the door of a very neat house of moderate size, from +the parlour windows of which, lights were shining brightly into the now +dark street. It was quickly opened by a man with such a thoroughly Irish +face, that it seemed as if he ought, as a matter of right and principle, +to be in rags, and could have no sort of business to be looking +cheerfully at anybody out of a whole suit of clothes. + +Commending Mark to the care of this phenomenon--for such he may be said +to have been in Martin’s eyes--Mr Bevan led the way into the room +which had shed its cheerfulness upon the street, to whose occupants he +introduced Mr Chuzzlewit as a gentleman from England, whose acquaintance +he had recently had the pleasure to make. They gave him welcome in all +courtesy and politeness; and in less than five minutes’ time he found +himself sitting very much at his ease by the fireside, and becoming +vastly well acquainted with the whole family. + +There were two young ladies--one eighteen; the other twenty--both very +slender, but very pretty; their mother, who looked, as Martin thought +much older and more faded than she ought to have looked; and their +grandmother, a little sharp-eyed, quick old woman, who seemed to have +got past that stage, and to have come all right again. Besides these, +there were the young ladies’ father, and the young ladies’ brother; the +first engaged in mercantile affairs; the second, a student at college; +both, in a certain cordiality of manner, like his own friend, and not +unlike him in face. Which was no great wonder, for it soon appeared that +he was their near relation. Martin could not help tracing the family +pedigree from the two young ladies, because they were foremost in his +thoughts; not only from being, as aforesaid, very pretty, but by reason +of their wearing miraculously small shoes, and the thinnest possible +silk stockings; the which their rocking-chairs developed to a +distracting extent. + +There is no doubt that it was a monstrous comfortable circumstance to be +sitting in a snug, well-furnished room, warmed by a cheerful fire, and +full of various pleasant decorations, including four small shoes, and +the like amount of silk stockings, and--yes, why not?--the feet and +legs therein enshrined. And there is no doubt that Martin was monstrous +well-disposed to regard his position in that light, after his recent +experience of the Screw, and of Mrs Pawkins’s boarding-house. The +consequence was that he made himself very agreeable indeed; and by +the time the tea and coffee arrived (with sweet preserves, and cunning +tea-cakes in its train), was in a highly genial state, and much esteemed +by the whole family. + +Another delightful circumstance turned up before the first cup of tea +was drunk. The whole family had been in England. There was a pleasant +thing! But Martin was not quite so glad of this, when he found that +they knew all the great dukes, lords, viscounts, marquesses, duchesses, +knights, and baronets, quite affectionately, and were beyond everything +interested in the least particular concerning them. However, when they +asked, after the wearer of this or that coronet, and said, ‘Was he quite +well?’ Martin answered, ‘Yes, oh yes. Never better;’ and when they said, +‘his lordship’s mother, the duchess, was she much changed?’ Martin said, +‘Oh dear no, they would know her anywhere, if they saw her to-morrow;’ +and so got on pretty well. In like manner when the young ladies +questioned him touching the Gold Fish in that Grecian fountain in such +and such a nobleman’s conservatory, and whether there were as many as +there used to be, he gravely reported, after mature consideration, that +there must be at least twice as many; and as to the exotics, ‘Oh! well! +it was of no use talking about THEM; they must be seen to be believed;’ +which improved state of circumstances reminded the family of the +splendour of that brilliant festival (comprehending the whole British +Peerage and Court Calendar) to which they were specially invited, and +which indeed had been partly given in their honour; and recollections +of what Mr Norris the father had said to the marquess, and of what Mrs +Norris the mother had said to the marchioness, and of what the marquess +and marchioness had both said, when they said that upon their words and +honours they wished Mr Norris the father and Mrs Norris the mother, and +the Misses Norris the daughters, and Mr Norris Junior, the son, would +only take up their permanent residence in England, and give them the +pleasure of their everlasting friendship, occupied a very considerable +time. + +Martin thought it rather stange, and in some sort inconsistent, that +during the whole of these narrations, and in the very meridian of their +enjoyment thereof, both Mr Norris the father, and Mr Norris Junior, +the son (who corresponded, every post, with four members of the English +Peerage), enlarged upon the inestimable advantage of having no such +arbitrary distinctions in that enlightened land, where there were no +noblemen but nature’s noblemen, and where all society was based on one +broad level of brotherly love and natural equality. Indeed, Mr Norris +the father gradually expanding into an oration on this swelling theme, +was becoming tedious, when Mr Bevan diverted his thoughts by happening +to make some causal inquiry relative to the occupier of the next house; +in reply to which, this same Mr Norris the father observed, that ‘that +person entertained religious opinions of which he couldn’t approve; and +therefore he hadn’t the honour of knowing the gentleman.’ Mrs Norris the +mother added another reason of her own, the same in effect, but varying +in words; to wit, that she believed the people were well enough in their +way, but they were not genteel. + +Another little trait came out, which impressed itself on Martin +forcibly. Mr Bevan told them about Mark and the negro, and then it +appeared that all the Norrises were abolitionists. It was a great relief +to hear this, and Martin was so much encouraged on finding himself in +such company, that he expressed his sympathy with the oppressed and +wretched blacks. Now, one of the young ladies--the prettiest and most +delicate--was mightily amused at the earnestness with which he spoke; +and on his craving leave to ask her why, was quite unable for a time to +speak for laughing. As soon however as she could, she told him that +the negroes were such a funny people, so excessively ludicrous in their +manners and appearance, that it was wholly impossible for those who knew +them well, to associate any serious ideas with such a very absurd part +of the creation. Mr Norris the father, and Mrs Norris the mother, and +Miss Norris the sister, and Mr Norris Junior the brother, and even Mrs +Norris Senior the grandmother, were all of this opinion, and laid +it down as an absolute matter of fact--as if there were nothing in +suffering and slavery, grim enough to cast a solemn air on any human +animal; though it were as ridiculous, physically, as the most +grotesque of apes, or morally, as the mildest Nimrod among tuft-hunting +republicans! + +‘In short,’ said Mr Norris the father, settling the question +comfortably, ‘there is a natural antipathy between the races.’ + +‘Extending,’ said Martin’s friend, in a low voice, ‘to the cruellest of +tortures, and the bargain and sale of unborn generations.’ + +Mr Norris the son said nothing, but he made a wry face, and dusted his +fingers as Hamlet might after getting rid of Yorick’s skull; just as +though he had that moment touched a negro, and some of the black had +come off upon his hands. + +In order that their talk might fall again into its former pleasant +channel, Martin dropped the subject, with a shrewd suspicion that it +would be a dangerous theme to revive under the best of circumstances; +and again addressed himself to the young ladies, who were very +gorgeously attired in very beautiful colours, and had every article of +dress on the same extensive scale as the little shoes and the thin silk +stockings. This suggested to him that they were great proficients in the +French fashions, which soon turned out to be the case, for though their +information appeared to be none of the newest, it was very extensive; +and the eldest sister in particular, who was distinguished by a talent +for metaphysics, the laws of hydraulic pressure, and the rights of human +kind, had a novel way of combining these acquirements and bringing them +to bear on any subject from Millinery to the Millennium, both inclusive, +which was at once improving and remarkable; so much so, in short, that +it was usually observed to reduce foreigners to a state of temporary +insanity in five minutes. + +Martin felt his reason going; and as a means of saving himself, besought +the other sister (seeing a piano in the room) to sing. With this request +she willingly complied; and a bravura concert, solely sustained by the +Misses Noriss, presently began. They sang in all languages--except their +own. German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss; but nothing +native; nothing so low as native. For, in this respect, languages are +like many other travellers--ordinary and commonplace enough at home, but +‘specially genteel abroad. + +There is little doubt that in course of time the Misses Norris would +have come to Hebrew, if they had not been interrupted by an announcement +from the Irishman, who, flinging open the door, cried in a loud voice-- + +‘Jiniral Fladdock!’ + +‘My!’ cried the sisters, desisting suddenly. ‘The general come back!’ + +As they made the exclamation, the general, attired in full uniform for a +ball, came darting in with such precipitancy that, hitching his boot +in the carpet, and getting his sword between his legs, he came down +headlong, and presented a curious little bald place on the crown of his +head to the eyes of the astonished company. Nor was this the worst of +it; for being rather corpulent and very tight, the general being down, +could not get up again, but lay there writhing and doing such things with +his boots, as there is no other instance of in military history. + +Of course there was an immediate rush to his assistance; and the general +was promptly raised. But his uniform was so fearfully and wonderfully +made, that he came up stiff and without a bend in him like a dead Clown, +and had no command whatever of himself until he was put quite flat upon +the soles of his feet, when he became animated as by a miracle, and +moving edgewise that he might go in a narrower compass and be in less +danger of fraying the gold lace on his epaulettes by brushing them +against anything, advanced with a smiling visage to salute the lady of +the house. + +To be sure, it would have been impossible for the family to testify +purer delight and joy than at this unlooked-for appearance of General +Fladdock! The general was as warmly received as if New York had been in +a state of siege and no other general was to be got for love or money. +He shook hands with the Norrises three times all round, and then +reviewed them from a little distance as a brave commander might, with +his ample cloak drawn forward over the right shoulder and thrown back +upon the left side to reveal his manly breast. + +‘And do I then,’ cried the general, ‘once again behold the choicest +spirits of my country!’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Norris the father. ‘Here we are, general.’ + +Then all the Norrises pressed round the general, inquiring how and where +he had been since the date of his letter, and how he had enjoyed himself +in foreign parts, and particularly and above all, to what extent he had +become acquainted with the great dukes, lords, viscounts, marquesses, +duchesses, knights, and baronets, in whom the people of those benighted +countries had delight. + +‘Well, then, don’t ask me,’ said the general, holding up his hand. ‘I +was among ‘em all the time, and have got public journals in my trunk +with my name printed’--he lowered his voice and was very impressive +here--‘among the fashionable news. But, oh, the conventionalities of +that a-mazing Europe!’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Mr Norris the father, giving his head a melancholy shake, +and looking towards Martin as though he would say, ‘I can’t deny it, +sir. I would if I could.’ + +‘The limited diffusion of a moral sense in that country!’ exclaimed the +general. ‘The absence of a moral dignity in man!’ + +‘Ah!’ sighed all the Norrises, quite overwhelmed with despondency. + +‘I couldn’t have realised it,’ pursued the general, ‘without being +located on the spot. Norris, your imagination is the imagination of a +strong man, but YOU couldn’t have realised it, without being located on +the spot!’ + +‘Never,’ said Mr Norris. + +‘The ex-clusiveness, the pride, the form, the ceremony,’ exclaimed the +general, emphasizing the article more vigorously at every repetition. +‘The artificial barriers set up between man and man; the division of the +human race into court cards and plain cards, of every denomination--into +clubs, diamonds, spades--anything but heart!’ + +‘Ah!’ cried the whole family. ‘Too true, general!’ + +‘But stay!’ cried Mr Norris the father, taking him by the arm. ‘Surely +you crossed in the Screw, general?’ + +‘Well! so I did,’ was the reply. + +‘Possible!’ cried the young ladies. ‘Only think!’ + +The general seemed at a loss to understand why his having come home +in the Screw should occasion such a sensation, nor did he seem at all +clearer on the subject when Mr Norris, introducing him to Martin, said: + +‘A fellow-passenger of yours, I think?’ + +‘Of mine?’ exclaimed the general; ‘No!’ + +He had never seen Martin, but Martin had seen him, and recognized him, +now that they stood face to face, as the gentleman who had stuck his +hands in his pockets towards the end of the voyage, and walked the deck +with his nostrils dilated. + +Everybody looked at Martin. There was no help for it. The truth must +out. + +‘I came over in the same ship as the general,’ said Martin, ‘but not in +the same cabin. It being necessary for me to observe strict economy, I +took my passage in the steerage.’ + +If the general had been carried up bodily to a loaded cannon, and +required to let it off that moment, he could not have been in a state +of greater consternation than when he heard these words. He, +Fladdock--Fladdock in full militia uniform, Fladdock the General, +Fladdock, the caressed of foreign noblemen--expected to know a fellow +who had come over in the steerage of line-of-packet ship, at the cost +of four pound ten! And meeting that fellow in the very sanctuary of New +York fashion, and nestling in the bosom of the New York aristocracy! He +almost laid his hand upon his sword. + +A death-like stillness fell upon the Norisses. If this story should get +wind, their country relation had, by his imprudence, for ever disgraced +them. They were the bright particular stars of an exalted New York +sphere. There were other fashionable spheres above them, and other +fashionable spheres below, and none of the stars in any one of these +spheres had anything to say to the stars in any other of these spheres. +But, through all the spheres it would go forth that the Norrises, +deceived by gentlemanly manners and appearances, had, falling from their +high estate, ‘received’ a dollarless and unknown man. O guardian eagle +of the pure Republic, had they lived for this! + +‘You will allow me,’ said Martin, after a terrible silence, ‘to take +my leave. I feel that I am the cause of at least as much embarrassment +here, as I have brought upon myself. But I am bound, before I go, to +exonerate this gentleman, who, in introducing me to such society, was +quite ignorant of my unworthiness, I assure you.’ + +With that he made his bow to the Norrises, and walked out like a man of +snow; very cool externally, but pretty hot within. + +‘Come, come,’ said Mr Norris the father, looking with a pale face on +the assembled circle as Martin closed the door, ‘the young man has this +night beheld a refinement of social manner, and an easy magnificence of +social decoration, to which he is a stranger in his own country. Let us +hope it may awake a moral sense within him.’ + +If that peculiarly transatlantic article, a moral sense--for, if native +statesmen, orators, and pamphleteers, are to be believed, America quite +monopolises the commodity--if that peculiarly transatlantic article be +supposed to include a benevolent love of all mankind, certainly Martin’s +would have borne, just then, a deal of waking. As he strode along +the street, with Mark at his heels, his immoral sense was in active +operation; prompting him to the utterance of some rather sanguinary +remarks, which it was well for his own credit that nobody overheard. +He had so far cooled down, however, that he had begun to laugh at the +recollection of these incidents, when he heard another step behind him, +and turning round encountered his friend Bevan, quite out of breath. + +He drew his arm through Martin’s, and entreating him to walk slowly, was +silent for some minutes. At length he said: + +‘I hope you exonerate me in another sense?’ + +‘How do you mean?’ asked Martin. + +‘I hope you acquit me of intending or foreseeing the termination of our +visit. But I scarcely need ask you that.’ + +‘Scarcely indeed,’ said Martin. ‘I am the more beholden to you for your +kindness, when I find what kind of stuff the good citizens here are made +of.’ + +‘I reckon,’ his friend returned, ‘that they are made of pretty much the +same stuff as other folks, if they would but own it, and not set up on +false pretences.’ + +‘In good faith, that’s true,’ said Martin. + +‘I dare say,’ resumed his friend, ‘you might have such a scene as that +in an English comedy, and not detect any gross improbability or anomaly +in the matter of it?’ + +‘Yes, indeed!’ + +‘Doubtless it is more ridiculous here than anywhere else,’ said his +companion; ‘but our professions are to blame for that. So far as I +myself am concerned, I may add that I was perfectly aware from the +first that you came over in the steerage, for I had seen the list of +passengers, and knew it did not comprise your name.’ + +‘I feel more obliged to you than before,’ said Martin. + +‘Norris is a very good fellow in his way,’ observed Mr Bevan. + +‘Is he?’ said Martin drily. + +‘Oh yes! there are a hundred good points about him. If you or anybody +else addressed him as another order of being, and sued to him IN FORMA +PAUPERIS, he would be all kindness and consideration.’ + +‘I needn’t have travelled three thousand miles from home to find such a +character as THAT,’ said Martin. Neither he nor his friend said anything +more on the way back; each appearing to find sufficient occupation in +his own thoughts. + +The tea, or the supper, or whatever else they called the evening meal, +was over when they reached the Major’s; but the cloth, ornamented with +a few additional smears and stains, was still upon the table. At one end +of the board Mrs Jefferson Brick and two other ladies were drinking +tea; out of the ordinary course, evidently, for they were bonneted +and shawled, and seemed to have just come home. By the light of three +flaring candles of different lengths, in as many candlesticks of +different patterns, the room showed to almost as little advantage as in +broad day. + +These ladies were all three talking together in a very loud tone when +Martin and his friend entered; but seeing those gentlemen, they stopped +directly, and became excessively genteel, not to say frosty. As they +went on to exchange some few remarks in whispers, the very water in the +teapot might have fallen twenty degrees in temperature beneath their +chilling coldness. + +‘Have you been to meeting, Mrs Brick?’ asked Martin’s friend, with +something of a roguish twinkle in his eye. + +‘To lecture, sir.’ + +‘I beg your pardon. I forgot. You don’t go to meeting, I think?’ + +Here the lady on the right of Mrs Brick gave a pious cough as much as to +say ‘I do!’--as, indeed, she did nearly every night in the week. + +‘A good discourse, ma’am?’ asked Mr Bevan, addressing this lady. + +The lady raised her eyes in a pious manner, and answered ‘Yes.’ She +had been much comforted by some good, strong, peppery doctrine, which +satisfactorily disposed of all her friends and acquaintances, and quite +settled their business. Her bonnet, too, had far outshone every bonnet +in the congregation; so she was tranquil on all accounts. + +‘What course of lectures are you attending now, ma’am?’ said Martin’s +friend, turning again to Mrs Brick. + +‘The Philosophy of the Soul, on Wednesdays.’ + +‘On Mondays?’ + +‘The Philosophy of Crime.’ + +‘On Fridays?’ + +‘The Philosophy of Vegetables.’ + +‘You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy of Government, my dear,’ +observed the third lady. + +‘No,’ said Mrs Brick. ‘That’s Tuesdays.’ + +‘So it is!’ cried the lady. ‘The Philosophy of Matter on Thursdays, of +course.’ + +‘You see, Mr Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed,’ said Bevan. + +‘Indeed you have reason to say so,’ answered Martin. ‘Between these very +grave pursuits abroad, and family duties at home, their time must be +pretty well engrossed.’ + +Martin stopped here, for he saw that the ladies regarded him with no +very great favour, though what he had done to deserve the disdainful +expression which appeared in their faces he was at a loss to divine. But +on their going upstairs to their bedrooms--which they very soon did--Mr +Bevan informed him that domestic drudgery was far beneath the exalted +range of these Philosophers, and that the chances were a hundred to one +that not one of the three could perform the easiest woman’s work for +herself, or make the simplest article of dress for any of her children. + +‘Though whether they might not be better employed with such blunt +instruments as knitting-needles than with these edge-tools,’ he said, +‘is another question; but I can answer for one thing--they don’t often +cut themselves. Devotions and lectures are our balls and concerts. They +go to these places of resort, as an escape from monotony; look at each +other’s clothes; and come home again.’ + +‘When you say “home,” do you mean a house like this?’ + +‘Very often. But I see you are tired to death, and will wish you good +night. We will discuss your projects in the morning. You cannot but +feel already that it is useless staying here, with any hope of advancing +them. You will have to go further.’ + +‘And to fare worse?’ said Martin, pursuing the old adage. + +‘Well, I hope not. But sufficient for the day, you know--good night’ + +They shook hands heartily and separated. As soon as Martin was left +alone, the excitement of novelty and change which had sustained him +through all the fatigues of the day, departed; and he felt so thoroughly +dejected and worn out, that he even lacked the energy to crawl upstairs +to bed. + +In twelve or fifteen hours, how great a change had fallen on his hopes +and sanguine plans! New and strange as he was to the ground on which he +stood, and to the air he breathed, he could not--recalling all that he +had crowded into that one day--but entertain a strong misgiving that his +enterprise was doomed. Rash and ill-considered as it had often looked on +shipboard, but had never seemed on shore, it wore a dismal aspect, now, +that frightened him. Whatever thoughts he called up to his aid, they +came upon him in depressing and discouraging shapes, and gave him no +relief. Even the diamonds on his finger sparkled with the brightness of +tears, and had no ray of hope in all their brilliant lustre. + +He continued to sit in gloomy rumination by the stove, unmindful of +the boarders who dropped in one by one from their stores and +counting-houses, or the neighbouring bar-rooms, and, after taking long +pulls from a great white waterjug upon the sideboard, and lingering with +a kind of hideous fascination near the brass spittoons, lounged heavily +to bed; until at length Mark Tapley came and shook him by the arm, +supposing him asleep. + +‘Mark!’ he cried, starting. + +‘All right, sir,’ said that cheerful follower, snuffing with his fingers +the candle he bore. ‘It ain’t a very large bed, your’n, sir; and a man +as wasn’t thirsty might drink, afore breakfast, all the water you’ve +got to wash in, and afterwards eat the towel. But you’ll sleep without +rocking to-night, sir.’ + +‘I feel as if the house were on the sea’ said Martin, staggering when he +rose; ‘and am utterly wretched.’ + +‘I’m as jolly as a sandboy, myself, sir,’ said Mark. ‘But, Lord, I have +reason to be! I ought to have been born here; that’s my opinion. Take +care how you go’--for they were now ascending the stairs. ‘You recollect +the gentleman aboard the Screw as had the very small trunk, sir?’ + +‘The valise? Yes.’ + +‘Well, sir, there’s been a delivery of clean clothes from the wash +to-night, and they’re put outside the bedroom doors here. If you take +notice as we go up, what a very few shirts there are, and what a many +fronts, you’ll penetrate the mystery of his packing.’ + +But Martin was too weary and despondent to take heed of anything, so +had no interest in this discovery. Mr Tapley, nothing dashed by his +indifference, conducted him to the top of the house, and into the +bed-chamber prepared for his reception; which was a very little narrow +room, with half a window in it; a bedstead like a chest without a lid; +two chairs; a piece of carpet, such as shoes are commonly tried upon +at a ready-made establishment in England; a little looking-glass nailed +against the wall; and a washing-table, with a jug and ewer, that might +have been mistaken for a milk-pot and slop-basin. + +‘I suppose they polish themselves with a dry cloth in this country,’ +said Mark. ‘They’ve certainly got a touch of the ‘phoby, sir.’ + +‘I wish you would pull off my boots for me,’ said Martin, dropping into +one of the chairs ‘I am quite knocked up--dead beat, Mark.’ + +‘You won’t say that to-morrow morning, sir,’ returned Mr Tapley; ‘nor +even to-night, sir, when you’ve made a trial of this.’ With which he +produced a very large tumbler, piled up to the brim with little blocks +of clear transparent ice, through which one or two thin slices of lemon, +and a golden liquid of delicious appearance, appealed from the still +depths below, to the loving eye of the spectator. + +‘What do you call this?’ said Martin. + +But Mr Tapley made no answer; merely plunging a reed into the +mixture--which caused a pleasant commotion among the pieces of ice--and +signifying by an expressive gesture that it was to be pumped up through +that agency by the enraptured drinker. + +Martin took the glass with an astonished look; applied his lips to the +reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more until the +goblet was drained to the last drop. + +‘There, sir!’ said Mark, taking it from him with a triumphant face; ‘if +ever you should happen to be dead beat again, when I ain’t in the +way, all you’ve got to do is to ask the nearest man to go and fetch a +cobbler.’ + +‘To go and fetch a cobbler?’ repeated Martin. + +‘This wonderful invention, sir,’ said Mark, tenderly patting the empty +glass, ‘is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler when you name it long; +cobbler, when you name it short. Now you’re equal to having your boots +took off, and are, in every particular worth mentioning, another man.’ + +Having delivered himself of this solemn preface, he brought the +bootjack. + +‘Mind! I am not going to relapse, Mark,’ said Martin; ‘but, good Heaven, +if we should be left in some wild part of this country without goods or +money!’ + +‘Well, sir!’ replied the imperturbable Tapley; ‘from what we’ve seen +already, I don’t know whether, under those circumstances, we shouldn’t +do better in the wild parts than in the tame ones.’ + +‘Oh, Tom Pinch, Tom Pinch!’ said Martin, in a thoughtful tone; ‘what +would I give to be again beside you, and able to hear your voice, though +it were even in the old bedroom at Pecksniff’s!’ + +‘Oh, Dragon, Dragon!’ echoed Mark, cheerfully, ‘if there warn’t any +water between you and me, and nothing faint-hearted-like in going back, +I don’t know that I mightn’t say the same. But here am I, Dragon, in +New York, America; and there are you in Wiltshire, Europe; and there’s a +fortune to make, Dragon, and a beautiful young lady to make it for; and +whenever you go to see the Monument, Dragon, you mustn’t give in on the +doorsteps, or you’ll never get up to the top!’ + +‘Wisely said, Mark,’ cried Martin. ‘We must look forward.’ + +‘In all the story-books as ever I read, sir, the people as looked +backward was turned into stones,’ replied Mark; ‘and my opinion always +was, that they brought it on themselves, and it served ‘em right. I wish +you good night, sir, and pleasant dreams!’ + +‘They must be of home, then,’ said Martin, as he lay down in bed. + +‘So I say, too,’ whispered Mark Tapley, when he was out of hearing and +in his own room; ‘for if there don’t come a time afore we’re well out of +this, when there’ll be a little more credit in keeping up one’s jollity, +I’m a United Statesman!’ + +Leaving them to blend and mingle in their sleep the shadows of objects +afar off, as they take fantastic shapes upon the wall in the dim light +of thought without control, be it the part of this slight chronicle--a +dream within a dream--as rapidly to change the scene, and cross the +ocean to the English shore. + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +DOES BUSINESS WITH THE HOUSE OF ANTHONY CHUZZLEWIT AND SON, FROM WHICH +ONE OF THE PARTNERS RETIRES UNEXPECTEDLY + + +Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to +a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, +step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from +the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance, would +seem to be the signal for instant confusion. As if, in the gap he had +left, the wedge of change were driven to the head, rending what was a +solid mass to fragments, things cemented and held together by the usages +of years, burst asunder in as many weeks. The mine which Time has slowly +dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock +before, becomes but sand and dust. + +Most men, at one time or other, have proved this in some degree. The +extent to which the natural laws of change asserted their supremacy +in that limited sphere of action which Martin had deserted, shall be +faithfully set down in these pages. + +‘What a cold spring it is!’ whimpered old Anthony, drawing near the +evening fire, ‘It was a warmer season, sure, when I was young!’ + +‘You needn’t go scorching your clothes into holes, whether it was or +not,’ observed the amiable Jonas, raising his eyes from yesterday’s +newspaper, ‘Broadcloth ain’t so cheap as that comes to.’ + +‘A good lad!’ cried the father, breathing on his cold hands, and feebly +chafing them against each other. ‘A prudent lad! He never delivered +himself up to the vanities of dress. No, no!’ + +‘I don’t know but I would, though, mind you, if I could do it for +nothing,’ said his son, as he resumed the paper. + +‘Ah!’ chuckled the old man. ‘IF, indeed!--But it’s very cold.’ + +‘Let the fire be!’ cried Mr Jonas, stopping his honoured parent’s hand +in the use of the poker. ‘Do you mean to come to want in your old age, +that you take to wasting now?’ + +‘There’s not time for that, Jonas,’ said the old man. + +‘Not time for what?’ bawled his heir. + +‘For me to come to want. I wish there was!’ + +‘You always were as selfish an old blade as need be,’ said Jonas in a +voice too low for him to hear, and looking at him with an angry frown. +‘You act up to your character. You wouldn’t mind coming to want, +wouldn’t you! I dare say you wouldn’t. And your own flesh and blood +might come to want too, might they, for anything you cared? Oh you +precious old flint!’ + +After this dutiful address he took his tea-cup in his hand--for that +meal was in progress, and the father and son and Chuffey were partakers +of it. Then, looking steadfastly at his father, and stopping now and +then to carry a spoonful of tea to his lips, he proceeded in the same +tone, thus: + +‘Want, indeed! You’re a nice old man to be talking of want at this time +of day. Beginning to talk of want, are you? Well, I declare! There isn’t +time? No, I should hope not. But you’d live to be a couple of hundred if +you could; and after all be discontented. I know you!’ + +The old man sighed, and still sat cowering before the fire. Mr Jonas +shook his Britannia-metal teaspoon at him, and taking a loftier +position, went on to argue the point on high moral grounds. + +‘If you’re in such a state of mind as that,’ he grumbled, but in the +same subdued key, ‘why don’t you make over your property? Buy an annuity +cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else +that watches the speculation. But no, that wouldn’t suit YOU. That would +be natural conduct to your own son, and you like to be unnatural, and to +keep him out of his rights. Why, I should be ashamed of myself if I was +you, and glad to hide my head in the what you may call it.’ + +Possibly this general phrase supplied the place of grave, or tomb, +or sepulchre, or cemetery, or mausoleum, or other such word which the +filial tenderness of Mr Jonas made him delicate of pronouncing. He +pursued the theme no further; for Chuffey, somehow discovering, from +his old corner by the fireside, that Anthony was in the attitude of a +listener, and that Jonas appeared to be speaking, suddenly cried out, +like one inspired: + +‘He is your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit. Your own son, sir!’ + +Old Chuffey little suspected what depth of application these words had, +or that, in the bitter satire which they bore, they might have sunk into +the old man’s very soul, could he have known what words here hanging on +his own son’s lips, or what was passing in his thoughts. But the voice +diverted the current of Anthony’s reflections, and roused him. + +‘Yes, yes, Chuffey, Jonas is a chip of the old block. It is a very +old block, now, Chuffey,’ said the old man, with a strange look of +discomposure. + +‘Precious old,’ assented Jonas + +‘No, no, no,’ said Chuffey. ‘No, Mr Chuzzlewit. Not old at all, sir.’ + +‘Oh! He’s worse than ever, you know!’ cried Jonas, quite disgusted. +‘Upon my soul, father, he’s getting too bad. Hold your tongue, will +you?’ + +‘He says you’re wrong!’ cried Anthony to the old clerk. + +‘Tut, tut!’ was Chuffey’s answer. ‘I know better. I say HE’S wrong. +I say HE’S wrong. He’s a boy. That’s what he is. So are you, Mr +Chuzzlewit--a kind of boy. Ha! ha! ha! You’re quite a boy to many I have +known; you’re a boy to me; you’re a boy to hundreds of us. Don’t mind +him!’ + +With which extraordinary speech--for in the case of Chuffey this was a +burst of eloquence without a parallel--the poor old shadow drew through +his palsied arm his master’s hand, and held it there, with his own +folded upon it, as if he would defend him. + +‘I grow deafer every day, Chuff,’ said Anthony, with as much softness of +manner, or, to describe it more correctly, with as little hardness as he +was capable of expressing. + +‘No, no,’ cried Chuffey. ‘No, you don’t. What if you did? I’ve been deaf +this twenty year.’ + +‘I grow blinder, too,’ said the old man, shaking his head. + +‘That’s a good sign!’ cried Chuffey. ‘Ha! ha! The best sign in the +world! You saw too well before.’ + +He patted Anthony upon the hand as one might comfort a child, and +drawing the old man’s arm still further through his own, shook his +trembling fingers towards the spot where Jonas sat, as though he would +wave him off. But, Anthony remaining quite still and silent, he relaxed +his hold by slow degrees and lapsed into his usual niche in the corner; +merely putting forth his hand at intervals and touching his old employer +gently on the coat, as with the design of assuring himself that he was +yet beside him. + +Mr Jonas was so very much amazed by these proceedings that he could do +nothing but stare at the two old men, until Chuffey had fallen into his +usual state, and Anthony had sunk into a doze; when he gave some vent +to his emotions by going close up to the former personage, and making as +though he would, in vulgar parlance, ‘punch his head.’ + +‘They’ve been carrying on this game,’ thought Jonas in a brown study, +‘for the last two or three weeks. I never saw my father take so much +notice of him as he has in that time. What! You’re legacy hunting, are +you, Mister Chuff? Eh?’ + +But Chuffey was as little conscious of the thought as of the bodily +advance of Mr Jonas’s clenched fist, which hovered fondly about his ear. +When he had scowled at him to his heart’s content, Jonas took the candle +from the table, and walking into the glass office, produced a bunch of +keys from his pocket. With one of these he opened a secret drawer in the +desk; peeping stealthily out, as he did so, to be certain that the two +old men were still before the fire. + +‘All as right as ever,’ said Jonas, propping the lid of the desk open +with his forehead, and unfolding a paper. ‘Here’s the will, Mister +Chuff. Thirty pound a year for your maintenance, old boy, and all the +rest to his only son, Jonas. You needn’t trouble yourself to be too +affectionate. You won’t get anything by it. What’s that?’ + +It WAS startling, certainly. A face on the other side of the glass +partition looking curiously in; and not at him but at the paper in his +hand. For the eyes were attentively cast down upon the writing, and were +swiftly raised when he cried out. Then they met his own, and were as the +eyes of Mr Pecksniff. + +Suffering the lid of the desk to fall with a loud noise, but not +forgetting even then to lock it, Jonas, pale and breathless, gazed upon +this phantom. It moved, opened the door, and walked in. + +‘What’s the matter?’ cried Jonas, falling back. ‘Who is it? Where do you +come from? What do you want?’ + +‘Matter!’ cried the voice of Mr Pecksniff, as Pecksniff in the flesh +smiled amiably upon him. ‘The matter, Mr Jonas!’ + +‘What are you prying and peering about here for?’ said Jonas, angrily. +‘What do you mean by coming up to town in this way, and taking one +unawares? It’s precious odd a man can’t read the--the newspaper--in his +own office without being startled out of his wits by people coming in +without notice. Why didn’t you knock at the door?’ + +‘So I did, Mr Jonas,’ answered Pecksniff, ‘but no one heard me. I was +curious,’ he added in his gentle way as he laid his hand upon the young +man’s shoulder, ‘to find out what part of the newspaper interested you +so much; but the glass was too dim and dirty.’ + +Jonas glanced in haste at the partition. Well. It wasn’t very clean. So +far he spoke the truth. + +‘Was it poetry now?’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking the forefinger of his +right hand with an air of cheerful banter. ‘Or was it politics? Or was +it the price of stock? The main chance, Mr Jonas, the main chance, I +suspect.’ + +‘You ain’t far from the truth,’ answered Jonas, recovering himself and +snuffing the candle; ‘but how the deuce do you come to be in London +again? Ecod! it’s enough to make a man stare, to see a fellow looking at +him all of a sudden, who he thought was sixty or seventy mile away.’ + +‘So it is,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘No doubt of it, my dear Mr Jonas. For +while the human mind is constituted as it is--’ + +‘Oh, bother the human mind,’ interrupted Jonas with impatience ‘what +have you come up for?’ + +‘A little matter of business,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘which has arisen +quite unexpectedly.’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Jonas, ‘is that all? Well. Here’s father in the next room. +Hallo father, here’s Pecksniff! He gets more addle-pated every day +he lives, I do believe,’ muttered Jonas, shaking his honoured parent +roundly. ‘Don’t I tell you Pecksniff’s here, stupid-head?’ + +The combined effects of the shaking and this loving remonstrance soon +awoke the old man, who gave Mr Pecksniff a chuckling welcome which was +attributable in part to his being glad to see that gentleman, and in +part to his unfading delight in the recollection of having called him a +hypocrite. As Mr Pecksniff had not yet taken tea (indeed he had, but an +hour before, arrived in London) the remains of the late collation, with +a rasher of bacon, were served up for his entertainment; and as Mr Jonas +had a business appointment in the next street, he stepped out to keep +it; promising to return before Mr Pecksniff could finish his repast. + +‘And now, my good sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff to Anthony; ‘now that we +are alone, pray tell me what I can do for you. I say alone, because I +believe that our dear friend Mr Chuffey is, metaphysically speaking, +a--shall I say a dummy?’ asked Mr Pecksniff with his sweetest smile, and +his head very much on one side. + +‘He neither hears us,’ replied Anthony, ‘nor sees us.’ + +‘Why, then,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘I will be bold to say, with the utmost +sympathy for his afflictions, and the greatest admiration of those +excellent qualities which do equal honour to his head and to his heart, +that he is what is playfully termed a dummy. You were going to observe, +my dear sir--?’ + +‘I was not going to make any observation that I know of,’ replied the +old man. + +‘I was,’ said Mr Pecksniff, mildly. + +‘Oh! YOU were? What was it?’ + +‘That I never,’ said Mr Pecksniff, previously rising to see that the +door was shut, and arranging his chair when he came back, so that it +could not be opened in the least without his immediately becoming aware +of the circumstance; ‘that I never in my life was so astonished as by +the receipt of your letter yesterday. That you should do me the honour +to wish to take counsel with me on any matter, amazed me; but that you +should desire to do so, to the exclusion even of Mr Jonas, showed an +amount of confidence in one to whom you had done a verbal injury--merely +a verbal injury, you were anxious to repair--which gratified, which +moved, which overcame me.’ + +He was always a glib speaker, but he delivered this short address very +glibly; having been at some pains to compose it outside the coach. + +Although he paused for a reply, and truly said that he was there at +Anthony’s request, the old man sat gazing at him in profound silence and +with a perfectly blank face. Nor did he seem to have the least desire or +impulse to pursue the conversation, though Mr Pecksniff looked towards +the door, and pulled out his watch, and gave him many other hints that +their time was short, and Jonas, if he kept his word, would soon return. +But the strangest incident in all this strange behaviour was, that of a +sudden, in a moment, so swiftly that it was impossible to trace how, +or to observe any process of change, his features fell into their old +expression, and he cried, striking his hand passionately upon the table +as if no interval at all had taken place: + +‘Will you hold your tongue, sir, and let me speak?’ + +Mr Pecksniff deferred to him with a submissive bow; and said within +himself, ‘I knew his hand was changed, and that his writing staggered. I +said so yesterday. Ahem! Dear me!’ + +‘Jonas is sweet upon your daughter, Pecksniff,’ said the old man, in his +usual tone. + +‘We spoke of that, if you remember, sir, at Mrs Todgers’s,’ replied the +courteous architect. + +‘You needn’t speak so loud,’ retorted Anthony. ‘I’m not so deaf as +that.’ + +Mr Pecksniff had certainly raised his voice pretty high; not so much +because he thought Anthony was deaf, as because he felt convinced that +his perceptive faculties were waxing dim; but this quick resentment of +his considerate behaviour greatly disconcerted him, and, not knowing +what tack to shape his course upon, he made another inclination of the +head, yet more submissive that the last. + +‘I have said,’ repeated the old man, ‘that Jonas is sweet upon your +daughter.’ + +‘A charming girl, sir,’ murmured Mr Pecksniff, seeing that he waited +for an answer. ‘A dear girl, Mr Chuzzlewit, though I say it, who should +not.’ + +‘You know better,’ cried the old man, advancing his weazen face at least +a yard, and starting forward in his chair to do it. ‘You lie! What, you +WILL be a hypocrite, will you?’ + +‘My good sir,’ Mr Pecksniff began. + +‘Don’t call me a good sir,’ retorted Anthony, ‘and don’t claim to be +one yourself. If your daughter was what you would have me believe, she +wouldn’t do for Jonas. Being what she is, I think she will. He might be +deceived in a wife. She might run riot, contract debts, and waste his +substance. Now when I am dead--’ + +His face altered so horribly as he said the word, that Mr Pecksniff +really was fain to look another way. + +‘--It will be worse for me to know of such doings, than if I was alive; +for to be tormented for getting that together, which even while I suffer +for its acquisition, is flung into the very kennels of the streets, +would be insupportable torture. No,’ said the old man, hoarsely, ‘let +that be saved at least; let there be something gained, and kept fast +hold of, when so much is lost.’ + +‘My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,’ said Pecksniff, ‘these are unwholesome fancies; +quite unnecessary, sir, quite uncalled for, I am sure. The truth is, my +dear sir, that you are not well!’ + +‘Not dying though!’ cried Anthony, with something like the snarl of a +wild animal. ‘Not yet! There are years of life in me. Why, look at him,’ +pointing to his feeble clerk. ‘Death has no right to leave him standing, +and to mow me down!’ + +Mr Pecksniff was so much afraid of the old man, and so completely taken +aback by the state in which he found him, that he had not even presence +of mind enough to call up a scrap of morality from the great storehouse +within his own breast. Therefore he stammered out that no doubt it was, +in fairness and decency, Mr Chuffey’s turn to expire; and that from +all he had heard of Mr Chuffey, and the little he had the pleasure of +knowing of that gentleman, personally, he felt convinced in his own +mind that he would see the propriety of expiring with as little delay as +possible. + +‘Come here!’ said the old man, beckoning him to draw nearer. ‘Jonas +will be my heir, Jonas will be rich, and a great catch for you. You know +that. Jonas is sweet upon your daughter.’ + +‘I know that too,’ thought Mr Pecksniff, ‘for you have said it often +enough.’ + +‘He might get more money than with her,’ said the old man, ‘but she +will help him to take care of what they have. She is not too young or +heedless, and comes of a good hard griping stock. But don’t you play +too fine a game. She only holds him by a thread; and if you draw it too +tight (I know his temper) it’ll snap. Bind him when he’s in the mood, +Pecksniff; bind him. You’re too deep. In your way of leading him on, +you’ll leave him miles behind. Bah, you man of oil, have I no eyes to +see how you have angled with him from the first?’ + +‘Now I wonder,’ thought Mr Pecksniff, looking at him with a wistful +face, ‘whether this is all he has to say?’ + +Old Anthony rubbed his hands and muttered to himself; complained again +that he was cold; drew his chair before the fire; and, sitting with his +back to Mr Pecksniff, and his chin sunk down upon his breast, was, in +another minute, quite regardless or forgetful of his presence. + +Uncouth and unsatisfactory as this short interview had been, it had +furnished Mr Pecksniff with a hint which, supposing nothing further +were imparted to him, repaid the journey up and home again. For the good +gentleman had never (for want of an opportunity) dived into the depths +of Mr Jonas’s nature; and any recipe for catching such a son-in-law +(much more one written on a leaf out of his own father’s book) was worth +the having. In order that he might lose no chance of improving so fair +an opportunity by allowing Anthony to fall asleep before he had finished +all he had to say, Mr Pecksniff, in the disposal of the refreshments on +the table, a work to which he now applied himself in earnest, resorted +to many ingenious contrivances for attracting his attention; such as +coughing, sneezing, clattering the teacups, sharpening the knives, +dropping the loaf, and so forth. But all in vain, for Mr Jonas returned, +and Anthony had said no more. + +‘What! My father asleep again?’ he cried, as he hung up his hat, and +cast a look at him. ‘Ah! and snoring. Only hear!’ + +‘He snores very deep,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Snores deep?’ repeated Jonas. ‘Yes; let him alone for that. He’ll snore +for six, at any time.’ + +‘Do you know, Mr Jonas,’ said Pecksniff, ‘that I think your father +is--don’t let me alarm you--breaking?’ + +‘Oh, is he though?’ replied Jonas, with a shake of the head which +expressed the closeness of his dutiful observation. ‘Ecod, you don’t +know how tough he is. He ain’t upon the move yet.’ + +‘It struck me that he was changed, both in his appearance and manner,’ +said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘That’s all you know about it,’ returned Jonas, seating himself with a +melancholy air. ‘He never was better than he is now. How are they all at +home? How’s Charity?’ + +‘Blooming, Mr Jonas, blooming.’ + +‘And the other one; how’s she?’ + +‘Volatile trifler!’ said Mr Pecksniff, fondly musing. ‘She is well, she +is well. Roving from parlour to bedroom, Mr Jonas, like a bee, skimming +from post to pillar, like the butterfly; dipping her young beak into our +currant wine, like the humming-bird! Ah! were she a little less giddy +than she is; and had she but the sterling qualities of Cherry, my young +friend!’ + +‘Is she so very giddy, then?’ asked Jonas. + +‘Well, well!’ said Mr Pecksniff, with great feeling; ‘let me not be hard +upon my child. Beside her sister Cherry she appears so. A strange noise +that, Mr Jonas!’ + +‘Something wrong in the clock, I suppose,’ said Jonas, glancing towards +it. ‘So the other one ain’t your favourite, ain’t she?’ + +The fond father was about to reply, and had already summoned into his +face a look of most intense sensibility, when the sound he had already +noticed was repeated. + +‘Upon my word, Mr Jonas, that is a very extraordinary clock,’ said +Pecksniff. + +It would have been, if it had made the noise which startled them; but +another kind of time-piece was fast running down, and from that the +sound proceeded. A scream from Chuffey, rendered a hundred times more +loud and formidable by his silent habits, made the house ring from roof +to cellar; and, looking round, they saw Anthony Chuzzlewit extended on +the floor, with the old clerk upon his knees beside him. + +He had fallen from his chair in a fit, and lay there, battling for each +gasp of breath, with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting in its +place, as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age, and sternly +pleading with Nature against his recovery. It was frightful to see how +the principle of life, shut up within his withered frame, fought like a +strong devil, mad to be released, and rent its ancient prison-house. +A young man in the fullness of his vigour, struggling with so much +strength of desperation, would have been a dismal sight; but an old, +old, shrunken body, endowed with preternatural might, and giving the lie +in every motion of its every limb and joint to its enfeebled aspect, was +a hideous spectacle indeed. + +They raised him up, and fetched a surgeon with all haste, who bled the +patient and applied some remedies; but the fits held him so long that +it was past midnight when they got him--quiet now, but quite unconscious +and exhausted--into bed. + +‘Don’t go,’ said Jonas, putting his ashy lips to Mr Pecksniff’s ear and +whispered across the bed. ‘It was a mercy you were present when he was +taken ill. Some one might have said it was my doing.’ + +‘YOUR doing!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I don’t know but they might,’ he replied, wiping the moisture from his +white face. ‘People say such things. How does he look now?’ + +Mr Pecksniff shook his head. + +‘I used to joke, you know,’ said. Jonas: ‘but I--I never wished him +dead. Do you think he’s very bad?’ + +‘The doctor said he was. You heard,’ was Mr Pecksniff’s answer. + +‘Ah! but he might say that to charge us more, in case of his getting +well’ said Jonas. ‘You mustn’t go away, Pecksniff. Now it’s come to +this, I wouldn’t be without a witness for a thousand pound.’ + +Chuffey said not a word, and heard not a word. He had sat himself down +in a chair at the bedside, and there he remained, motionless; except +that he sometimes bent his head over the pillow, and seemed to listen. +He never changed in this. Though once in the dreary night Mr Pecksniff, +having dozed, awoke with a confused impression that he had heard +him praying, and strangely mingling figures--not of speech, but +arithmetic--with his broken prayers. + +Jonas sat there, too, all night; not where his father could have seen +him, had his consciousness returned, but hiding, as it were, behind him, +and only reading how he looked, in Mr Pecksniff’s eyes. HE, the coarse +upstart, who had ruled the house so long--that craven cur, who was +afraid to move, and shook so, that his very shadow fluttered on the +wall! + +It was broad, bright, stirring day when, leaving the old clerk to watch +him, they went down to breakfast. People hurried up and down the street; +windows and doors were opened; thieves and beggars took their usual +posts; workmen bestirred themselves; tradesmen set forth their shops; +bailiffs and constables were on the watch; all kinds of human creatures +strove, in their several ways, as hard to live, as the one sick old +man who combated for every grain of sand in his fast-emptying glass, as +eagerly as if it were an empire. + +‘If anything happens Pecksniff,’ said Jonas, ‘you must promise me to +stop here till it’s all over. You shall see that I do what’s right.’ + +‘I know that you will do what’s right, Mr Jonas,’ said Pecksniff. + +‘Yes, yes, but I won’t be doubted. No one shall have it in his power to +say a syllable against me,’ he returned. ‘I know how people will talk. +Just as if he wasn’t old, or I had the secret of keeping him alive!’ + +Mr Pecksniff promised that he would remain, if circumstances should +render it, in his esteemed friend’s opinion, desirable; they were +finishing their meal in silence, when suddenly an apparition stood +before them, so ghastly to the view that Jonas shrieked aloud, and both +recoiled in horror. + +Old Anthony, dressed in his usual clothes, was in the room--beside the +table. He leaned upon the shoulder of his solitary friend; and on his +livid face, and on his horny hands, and in his glassy eyes, and traced +by an eternal finger in the very drops of sweat upon his brow, was one +word--Death. + +He spoke to them--in something of his own voice too, but sharpened and +made hollow, like a dead man’s face. What he would have said, God knows. +He seemed to utter words, but they were such as man had never heard. +And this was the most fearful circumstance of all, to see him standing +there, gabbling in an unearthly tongue. + +‘He’s better now,’ said Chuffey. ‘Better now. Let him sit in his old +chair, and he’ll be well again. I told him not to mind. I said so, +yesterday.’ + +They put him in his easy-chair, and wheeled it near the window; then, +swinging open the door, exposed him to the free current of morning air. +But not all the air that is, nor all the winds that ever blew ‘twixt +Heaven and Earth, could have brought new life to him. + +Plunge him to the throat in golden pieces now, and his heavy fingers +shall not close on one! + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +THE READER IS BROUGHT INTO COMMUNICATION WITH SOME PROFESSIONAL PERSONS, +AND SHEDS A TEAR OVER THE FILIAL PIETY OF GOOD MR JONAS + + +Mr Pecksniff was in a hackney cabriolet, for Jonas Chuzzlewit had said +‘Spare no expense.’ Mankind is evil in its thoughts and in its base +constructions, and Jonas was resolved it should not have an inch to +stretch into an ell against him. It never should be charged upon his +father’s son that he had grudged the money for his father’s funeral. +Hence, until the obsequies should be concluded, Jonas had taken for his +motto ‘Spend, and spare not!’ + +Mr Pecksniff had been to the undertaker, and was now upon his way to +another officer in the train of mourning--a female functionary, a nurse, +and watcher, and performer of nameless offices about the persons of the +dead--whom he had recommended. Her name, as Mr Pecksniff gathered from +a scrap of writing in his hand, was Gamp; her residence in Kingsgate +Street, High Holborn. So Mr Pecksniff, in a hackney cab, was rattling +over Holborn stones, in quest of Mrs Gamp. + +This lady lodged at a bird-fancier’s, next door but one to the +celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite to the original +cat’s-meat warehouse; the renown of which establishments was duly +heralded on their respective fronts. It was a little house, and this was +the more convenient; for Mrs Gamp being, in her highest walk of art, +a monthly nurse, or, as her sign-board boldly had it, ‘Midwife,’ and +lodging in the first-floor front, was easily assailable at night by +pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco-pipe; all much more +efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as +to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, +without making the smallest impression on the premises to which it was +addressed. + +It chanced on this particular occasion, that Mrs Gamp had been up all +the previous night, in attendance upon a ceremony to which the usage of +gossips has given that name which expresses, in two syllables, the curse +pronounced on Adam. It chanced that Mrs Gamp had not been regularly +engaged, but had been called in at a crisis, in consequence of her great +repute, to assist another professional lady with her advice; and thus it +happened that, all points of interest in the case being over, Mrs Gamp +had come home again to the bird-fancier’s and gone to bed. So when Mr +Pecksniff drove up in the hackney cab, Mrs Gamp’s curtains were drawn +close, and Mrs Gamp was fast asleep behind them. + +If the bird-fancier had been at home, as he ought to have been, there +would have been no great harm in this; but he was out, and his shop was +closed. The shutters were down certainly; and in every pane of glass +there was at least one tiny bird in a tiny bird-cage, twittering and +hopping his little ballet of despair, and knocking his head against the +roof; while one unhappy goldfinch who lived outside a red villa with +his name on the door, drew the water for his own drinking, and mutely +appealed to some good man to drop a farthing’s-worth of poison in it. +Still, the door was shut. Mr Pecksniff tried the latch, and shook it, +causing a cracked bell inside to ring most mournfully; but no one came. +The bird-fancier was an easy shaver also, and a fashionable hair-dresser +also, and perhaps he had been sent for, express, from the court end of +the town, to trim a lord, or cut and curl a lady; but however that +might be, there, upon his own ground, he was not; nor was there any more +distinct trace of him to assist the imagination of an inquirer, than +a professional print or emblem of his calling (much favoured in the +trade), representing a hair-dresser of easy manners curling a lady +of distinguished fashion, in the presence of a patent upright grand +pianoforte. + +Noting these circumstances, Mr Pecksniff, in the innocence of his heart, +applied himself to the knocker; but at the first double knock every +window in the street became alive with female heads; and before he could +repeat the performance whole troops of married ladies (some about to +trouble Mrs Gamp themselves very shortly) came flocking round the steps, +all crying out with one accord, and with uncommon interest, ‘Knock at +the winder, sir, knock at the winder. Lord bless you, don’t lose no more +time than you can help--knock at the winder!’ + +Acting upon this suggestion, and borrowing the driver’s whip for the +purpose, Mr Pecksniff soon made a commotion among the first floor +flower-pots, and roused Mrs Gamp, whose voice--to the great satisfaction +of the matrons--was heard to say, ‘I’m coming.’ + +‘He’s as pale as a muffin,’ said one lady, in allusion to Mr Pecksniff. + +‘So he ought to be, if he’s the feelings of a man,’ observed another. + +A third lady (with her arms folded) said she wished he had chosen any +other time for fetching Mrs Gamp, but it always happened so with HER. + +It gave Mr Pecksniff much uneasiness to find, from these remarks, that +he was supposed to have come to Mrs Gamp upon an errand touching--not +the close of life, but the other end. Mrs Gamp herself was under the +same impression, for, throwing open the window, she cried behind the +curtains, as she hastily attired herself-- + +‘Is it Mrs Perkins?’ + +‘No!’ returned Mr Pecksniff, sharply. ‘Nothing of the sort.’ + +‘What, Mr Whilks!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘Don’t say it’s you, Mr Whilks, and +that poor creetur Mrs Whilks with not even a pincushion ready. Don’t say +it’s you, Mr Whilks!’ + +‘It isn’t Mr Whilks,’ said Pecksniff. ‘I don’t know the man. Nothing +of the kind. A gentleman is dead; and some person being wanted in the +house, you have been recommended by Mr Mould the undertaker.’ + +As she was by this time in a condition to appear, Mrs Gamp, who had +a face for all occasions, looked out of the window with her mourning +countenance, and said she would be down directly. But the matrons took +it very ill that Mr Pecksniff’s mission was of so unimportant a kind; +and the lady with her arms folded rated him in good round terms, +signifying that she would be glad to know what he meant by terrifying +delicate females ‘with his corpses;’ and giving it as her opinion that +he was quite ugly enough to know better. The other ladies were not at +all behind-hand in expressing similar sentiments; and the children, of +whom some scores had now collected, hooted and defied Mr Pecksniff quite +savagely. So when Mrs Gamp appeared, the unoffending gentleman was glad +to hustle her with very little ceremony into the cabriolet, and drive +off, overwhelmed with popular execration. + +Mrs Gamp had a large bundle with her, a pair of pattens, and a species +of gig umbrella; the latter article in colour like a faded leaf, except +where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at +the top. She was much flurried by the haste she had made, and laboured +under the most erroneous views of cabriolets, which she appeared +to confound with mail-coaches or stage-wagons, inasmuch as she was +constantly endeavouring for the first half mile to force her luggage +through the little front window, and clamouring to the driver to ‘put +it in the boot.’ When she was disabused of this idea, her whole being +resolved itself into an absorbing anxiety about her pattens, with which +she played innumerable games at quoits on Mr Pecksniff’s legs. It was +not until they were close upon the house of mourning that she had enough +composure to observe-- + +‘And so the gentleman’s dead, sir! Ah! The more’s the pity.’ She didn’t +even know his name. ‘But it’s what we must all come to. It’s as certain +as being born, except that we can’t make our calculations as exact. Ah! +Poor dear!’ + +She was a fat old woman, this Mrs Gamp, with a husky voice and a moist +eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only showing +the white of it. Having very little neck, it cost her some trouble to +look over herself, if one may say so, at those to whom she talked. She +wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl +and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated articles of dress she +had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such occasions +as the present; for this at once expressed a decent amount of veneration +for the deceased, and invited the next of kin to present her with a +fresher suit of weeds; an appeal so frequently successful, that the very +fetch and ghost of Mrs Gamp, bonnet and all, might be seen hanging up, +any hour in the day, in at least a dozen of the second-hand clothes +shops about Holborn. The face of Mrs Gamp--the nose in particular--was +somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society +without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits. Like most persons who +have attained to great eminence in their profession, she took to hers +very kindly; insomuch that, setting aside her natural predilections as +a woman, she went to a lying-in or a laying-out with equal zest and +relish. + +‘Ah!’ repeated Mrs Gamp; for it was always a safe sentiment in cases of +mourning. ‘Ah dear! When Gamp was summoned to his long home, and I see +him a-lying in Guy’s Hospital with a penny-piece on each eye, and his +wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have fainted away. But +I bore up.’ + +If certain whispers current in the Kingsgate Street circles had any +truth in them, she had indeed borne up surprisingly; and had exerted +such uncommon fortitude as to dispose of Mr Gamp’s remains for the +benefit of science. But it should be added, in fairness, that this had +happened twenty years before; and that Mr and Mrs Gamp had long been +separated on the ground of incompatibility of temper in their drink. + +‘You have become indifferent since then, I suppose?’ said Mr Pecksniff. +‘Use is second nature, Mrs Gamp.’ + +‘You may well say second nater, sir,’ returned that lady. ‘One’s first +ways is to find sich things a trial to the feelings, and so is one’s +lasting custom. If it wasn’t for the nerve a little sip of liquor gives +me (I never was able to do more than taste it), I never could go through +with what I sometimes has to do. “Mrs Harris,” I says, at the very last +case as ever I acted in, which it was but a young person, “Mrs Harris,” + I says, “leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and don’t ask me to take +none, but let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged, and then I +will do what I’m engaged to do, according to the best of my ability.” + “Mrs Gamp,” she says, in answer, “if ever there was a sober creetur to +be got at eighteen pence a day for working people, and three and six for +gentlefolks--night watching,”’ said Mrs Gamp with emphasis, ‘“being a +extra charge--you are that inwallable person.” “Mrs Harris,” I says to +her, “don’t name the charge, for if I could afford to lay all my feller +creeturs out for nothink, I would gladly do it, sich is the love I bears +‘em. But what I always says to them as has the management of matters, +Mrs Harris”’--here she kept her eye on Mr Pecksniff--‘“be they gents or +be they ladies, is, don’t ask me whether I won’t take none, or whether I +will, but leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and let me put my lips +to it when I am so dispoged.”’ + +The conclusion of this affecting narrative brought them to the house. In +the passage they encountered Mr Mould the undertaker; a little elderly +gentleman, bald, and in a suit of black; with a notebook in his hand, +a massive gold watch-chain dangling from his fob, and a face in which a +queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction; so +that he looked as a man might, who, in the very act of smacking his lips +over choice old wine, tried to make believe it was physic. + +‘Well, Mrs Gamp, and how are YOU, Mrs Gamp?’ said this gentleman, in a +voice as soft as his step. + +‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir,’ dropping a curtsey. + +‘You’ll be very particular here, Mrs Gamp. This is not a common case, +Mrs Gamp. Let everything be very nice and comfortable, Mrs Gamp, if you +please,’ said the undertaker, shaking his head with a solemn air. + +‘It shall be, sir,’ she replied, curtseying again. ‘You knows me of old, +sir, I hope.’ + +‘I hope so, too, Mrs Gamp,’ said the undertaker, ‘and I think so also.’ +Mrs Gamp curtseyed again. ‘This is one of the most impressive cases, +sir,’ he continued, addressing Mr Pecksniff, ‘that I have seen in the +whole course of my professional experience.’ + +‘Indeed, Mr Mould!’ cried that gentleman. + +‘Such affectionate regret, sir, I never saw. There is no limitation, +there is positively NO limitation’--opening his eyes wide, and standing +on tiptoe--‘in point of expense! I have orders, sir, to put on my whole +establishment of mutes; and mutes come very dear, Mr Pecksniff; not to +mention their drink. To provide silver-plated handles of the very best +description, ornamented with angels’ heads from the most expensive +dies. To be perfectly profuse in feathers. In short, sir, to turn out +something absolutely gorgeous.’ + +‘My friend Mr Jonas is an excellent man,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I have seen a good deal of what is filial in my time, sir,’ retorted +Mould, ‘and what is unfilial too. It is our lot. We come into the +knowledge of those secrets. But anything so filial as this; anything so +honourable to human nature; so calculated to reconcile all of us to the +world we live in; never yet came under my observation. It only +proves, sir, what was so forcibly observed by the lamented theatrical +poet--buried at Stratford--that there is good in everything.’ + +‘It is very pleasant to hear you say so, Mr Mould,’ observed Pecksniff. + +‘You are very kind, sir. And what a man Mr Chuzzlewit was, sir! Ah! what +a man he was. You may talk of your lord mayors,’ said Mould, waving his +hand at the public in general, ‘your sheriffs, your common councilmen, +your trumpery; but show me a man in this city who is worthy to walk +in the shoes of the departed Mr Chuzzlewit. No, no,’ cried Mould, with +bitter sarcasm. ‘Hang ‘em up, hang ‘em up; sole ‘em and heel ‘em, and +have ‘em ready for his son against he’s old enough to wear ‘em; but +don’t try ‘em on yourselves, for they won’t fit you. We knew him,’ said +Mould, in the same biting vein, as he pocketed his note-book; ‘we +knew him, and are not to be caught with chaff. Mr Pecksniff, sir, good +morning.’ + +Mr Pecksniff returned the compliment; and Mould, sensible of having +distinguished himself, was going away with a brisk smile, when he +fortunately remembered the occasion. Quickly becoming depressed again, +he sighed; looked into the crown of his hat, as if for comfort; put it +on without finding any; and slowly departed. + +Mrs Gamp and Mr Pecksniff then ascended the staircase; and the former, +having been shown to the chamber in which all that remained of Anthony +Chuzzlewit lay covered up, with but one loving heart, and that a halting +one, to mourn it, left the latter free to enter the darkened room below, +and rejoin Mr Jonas, from whom he had now been absent nearly two hours. + +He found that example to bereaved sons, and pattern in the eyes of all +performers of funerals, musing over a fragment of writing-paper on the +desk, and scratching figures on it with a pen. The old man’s chair, and +hat, and walking-stick, were removed from their accustomed places, and +put out of sight; the window-blinds as yellow as November fogs, were +drawn down close; Jonas himself was so subdued, that he could scarcely +be heard to speak, and only seen to walk across the room. + +‘Pecksniff,’ he said, in a whisper, ‘you shall have the regulation of +it all, mind! You shall be able to tell anybody who talks about it that +everything was correctly and nicely done. There isn’t any one you’d like +to ask to the funeral, is there?’ + +‘No, Mr Jonas, I think not.’ + +‘Because if there is, you know,’ said Jonas, ‘ask him. We don’t want to +make a secret of it.’ + +‘No,’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, after a little reflection. ‘I am not +the less obliged to you on that account, Mr Jonas, for your liberal +hospitality; but there really is no one.’ + +‘Very well,’ said Jonas; ‘then you, and I, and Chuffey, and the doctor, +will be just a coachful. We’ll have the doctor, Pecksniff, because he +knows what was the matter with him, and that it couldn’t be helped.’ + +‘Where is our dear friend, Mr Chuffey?’ asked Pecksniff, looking round +the chamber, and winking both his eyes at once--for he was overcome by +his feelings. + +But here he was interrupted by Mrs Gamp, who, divested of her bonnet and +shawl, came sidling and bridling into the room; and with some sharpness +demanded a conference outside the door with Mr Pecksniff. + +‘You may say whatever you wish to say here, Mrs Gamp,’ said that +gentleman, shaking his head with a melancholy expression. + +‘It is not much as I have to say when people is a-mourning for the dead +and gone,’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘but what I have to say is TO the pint and +purpose, and no offence intended, must be so considered. I have been at +a many places in my time, gentlemen, and I hope I knows what my duties +is, and how the same should be performed; in course, if I did not, it +would be very strange, and very wrong in sich a gentleman as Mr Mould, +which has undertook the highest families in this land, and given every +satisfaction, so to recommend me as he does. I have seen a deal of +trouble my own self,’ said Mrs Gamp, laying greater and greater stress +upon her words, ‘and I can feel for them as has their feelings tried, +but I am not a Rooshan or a Prooshan, and consequently cannot suffer +Spies to be set over me.’ + +Before it was possible that an answer could be returned, Mrs Gamp, +growing redder in the face, went on to say: + +‘It is not a easy matter, gentlemen, to live when you are left a widder +woman; particular when your feelings works upon you to that extent that +you often find yourself a-going out on terms which is a certain loss, +and never can repay. But in whatever way you earns your bread, you may +have rules and regulations of your own which cannot be broke through. +Some people,’ said Mrs Gamp, again entrenching herself behind her +strong point, as if it were not assailable by human ingenuity, ‘may be +Rooshans, and others may be Prooshans; they are born so, and will please +themselves. Them which is of other naturs thinks different.’ + +‘If I understand this good lady,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning to Jonas, +‘Mr Chuffey is troublesome to her. Shall I fetch him down?’ + +‘Do,’ said Jonas. ‘I was going to tell you he was up there, when she +came in. I’d go myself and bring him down, only--only I’d rather you +went, if you don’t mind.’ + +Mr Pecksniff promptly departed, followed by Mrs Gamp, who, seeing that +he took a bottle and glass from the cupboard, and carried it in his +hand, was much softened. + +‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘that if it wasn’t for his own happiness, I +should no more mind him being there, poor dear, than if he was a +fly. But them as isn’t used to these things, thinks so much of ‘em +afterwards, that it’s a kindness to ‘em not to let ‘em have their wish. +And even,’ said Mrs Gamp, probably in reference to some flowers of +speech she had already strewn on Mr Chuffey, ‘even if one calls ‘em +names, it’s only done to rouse ‘em.’ + +Whatever epithets she had bestowed on the old clerk, they had not +roused HIM. He sat beside the bed, in the chair he had occupied all the +previous night, with his hands folded before him, and his head bowed +down; and neither looked up, on their entrance, nor gave any sign of +consciousness, until Mr Pecksniff took him by the arm, when he meekly +rose. + +‘Three score and ten,’ said Chuffey, ‘ought and carry seven. Some men +are so strong that they live to four score--four times ought’s an ought, +four times two’s an eight--eighty. Oh! why--why--why didn’t he live to +four times ought’s an ought, and four times two’s an eight, eighty?’ + +‘Ah! what a wale of grief!’ cried Mrs Gamp, possessing herself of the +bottle and glass. + +‘Why did he die before his poor old crazy servant?’ said Chuffey, +clasping his hands and looking up in anguish. ‘Take him from me, and +what remains?’ + +‘Mr Jonas,’ returned Pecksniff, ‘Mr Jonas, my good friend.’ + +‘I loved him,’ cried the old man, weeping. ‘He was good to me. We learnt +Tare and Tret together at school. I took him down once, six boys in the +arithmetic class. God forgive me! Had I the heart to take him down!’ + +‘Come, Mr Chuffey,’ said Pecksniff. ‘Come with me. Summon up your +fortitude, Mr Chuffey.’ + +‘Yes, I will,’ returned the old clerk. ‘Yes. I’ll sum up my forty--How +many times forty--Oh, Chuzzlewit and Son--Your own son Mr Chuzzlewit; +your own son, sir!’ + +He yielded to the hand that guided him, as he lapsed into this familiar +expression, and submitted to be led away. Mrs Gamp, with the bottle on +one knee, and the glass on the other, sat upon a stool, shaking her head +for a long time, until, in a moment of abstraction, she poured out +a dram of spirits, and raised it to her lips. It was succeeded by a +second, and by a third, and then her eyes--either in the sadness of +her reflections upon life and death, or in her admiration of the +liquor--were so turned up, as to be quite invisible. But she shook her +head still. + +Poor Chuffey was conducted to his accustomed corner, and there he +remained, silent and quiet, save at long intervals, when he would rise, +and walk about the room, and wring his hands, or raise some strange and +sudden cry. For a whole week they all three sat about the hearth and +never stirred abroad. Mr Pecksniff would have walked out in the evening +time, but Mr Jonas was so averse to his being absent for a minute, that +he abandoned the idea, and so, from morning until night, they brooded +together in the dark room, without relief or occupation. + +The weight of that which was stretched out, stiff and stark, in the +awful chamber above-stairs, so crushed and bore down Jonas, that he bent +beneath the load. During the whole long seven days and nights, he was +always oppressed and haunted by a dreadful sense of its presence in the +house. Did the door move, he looked towards it with a livid face and +starting eye, as if he fully believed that ghostly fingers clutched the +handle. Did the fire flicker in a draught of air, he glanced over his +shoulder, as almost dreading to behold some shrouded figure fanning and +flapping at it with its fearful dress. The lightest noise disturbed him; +and once, in the night, at the sound of a footstep overhead, he cried +out that the dead man was walking--tramp, tramp, tramp--about his +coffin. + +He lay at night upon a mattress on the floor of the sitting-room; his +own chamber having been assigned to Mrs Gamp; and Mr Pecksniff was +similarly accommodated. The howling of a dog before the house, filled +him with a terror he could not disguise. He avoided the reflection in +the opposite windows of the light that burned above, as though it had +been an angry eye. He often, in every night, rose up from his fitful +sleep, and looked and longed for dawn; all directions and arrangements, +even to the ordering of their daily meals, he abandoned to Mr Pecksniff. +That excellent gentleman, deeming that the mourner wanted comfort, and +that high feeding was likely to do him infinite service, availed himself +of these opportunities to such good purpose, that they kept quite a +dainty table during this melancholy season; with sweetbreads, stewed +kidneys, oysters, and other such light viands for supper every night; +over which, and sundry jorums of hot punch, Mr Pecksniff delivered such +moral reflections and spiritual consolation as might have converted a +Heathen--especially if he had had but an imperfect acquaintance with the +English tongue. + +Nor did Mr Pecksniff alone indulge in the creature comforts during +this sad time. Mrs Gamp proved to be very choice in her eating, and +repudiated hashed mutton with scorn. In her drinking too, she was very +punctual and particular, requiring a pint of mild porter at lunch, a +pint at dinner, half-a-pint as a species of stay or holdfast between +dinner and tea, and a pint of the celebrated staggering ale, or Real Old +Brighton Tipper, at supper; besides the bottle on the chimney-piece, +and such casual invitations to refresh herself with wine as the good +breeding of her employers might prompt them to offer. In like manner, Mr +Mould’s men found it necessary to drown their grief, like a young kitten +in the morning of its existence, for which reason they generally fuddled +themselves before they began to do anything, lest it should make head +and get the better of them. In short, the whole of that strange week was +a round of dismal joviality and grim enjoyment; and every one, except +poor Chuffey, who came within the shadow of Anthony Chuzzlewit’s grave, +feasted like a Ghoul. + +At length the day of the funeral, pious and truthful ceremony that it +was, arrived. Mr Mould, with a glass of generous port between his eye +and the light, leaned against the desk in the little glass office with +his gold watch in his unoccupied hand, and conversed with Mrs Gamp; two +mutes were at the house-door, looking as mournful as could be reasonably +expected of men with such a thriving job in hand; the whole of Mr +Mould’s establishment were on duty within the house or without; feathers +waved, horses snorted, silk and velvets fluttered; in a word, as Mr +Mould emphatically said, ‘Everything that money could do was done.’ + +‘And what can do more, Mrs Gamp?’ exclaimed the undertaker as he emptied +his glass and smacked his lips. + +‘Nothing in the world, sir.’ + +‘Nothing in the world,’ repeated Mr Mould. ‘You are right, Mrs Gamp. +Why do people spend more money’--here he filled his glass again--‘upon a +death, Mrs Gamp, than upon a birth? Come, that’s in your way; you ought +to know. How do you account for that now?’ + +‘Perhaps it is because an undertaker’s charges comes dearer than a +nurse’s charges, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp, tittering, and smoothing down her +new black dress with her hands. + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr Mould. ‘You have been breakfasting at somebody’s +expense this morning, Mrs Gamp.’ But seeing, by the aid of a little +shaving-glass which hung opposite, that he looked merry, he composed his +features and became sorrowful. + +‘Many’s the time that I’ve not breakfasted at my own expense along of +your recommending, sir; and many’s the time I hope to do the same in +time to come,’ said Mrs Gamp, with an apologetic curtsey. + +‘So be it,’ replied Mr Mould, ‘please Providence. No, Mrs Gamp; +I’ll tell you why it is. It’s because the laying out of money with a +well-conducted establishment, where the thing is performed upon the +very best scale, binds the broken heart, and sheds balm upon the wounded +spirit. Hearts want binding, and spirits want balming when people die; +not when people are born. Look at this gentleman to-day; look at him.’ + +‘An open-handed gentleman?’ cried Mrs Gamp, with enthusiasm. + +‘No, no,’ said the undertaker; ‘not an open-handed gentleman in general, +by any means. There you mistake him; but an afflicted gentleman, an +affectionate gentleman, who knows what it is in the power of money to +do, in giving him relief, and in testifying his love and veneration for +the departed. It can give him,’ said Mr Mould, waving his watch-chain +slowly round and round, so that he described one circle after every +item; ‘it can give him four horses to each vehicle; it can give him +velvet trappings; it can give him drivers in cloth cloaks and top-boots; +it can give him the plumage of the ostrich, dyed black; it can give him +any number of walking attendants, dressed in the first style of funeral +fashion, and carrying batons tipped with brass; it can give him a +handsome tomb; it can give him a place in Westminster Abbey itself, if +he choose to invest it in such a purchase. Oh! do not let us say that +gold is dross, when it can buy such things as these, Mrs Gamp.’ + +‘But what a blessing, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘that there are such as you, +to sell or let ‘em out on hire!’ + +‘Aye, Mrs Gamp, you are right,’ rejoined the undertaker. ‘We should +be an honoured calling. We do good by stealth, and blush to have it +mentioned in our little bills. How much consolation may I--even I,’ +cried Mr Mould, ‘have diffused among my fellow-creatures by means of my +four long-tailed prancers, never harnessed under ten pund ten!’ + +Mrs Gamp had begun to make a suitable reply, when she was interrupted +by the appearance of one of Mr Mould’s assistants--his chief mourner in +fact--an obese person, with his waistcoat in closer connection with his +legs than is quite reconcilable with the established ideas of grace; +with that cast of feature which is figuratively called a bottle nose; +and with a face covered all over with pimples. He had been a tender +plant once upon a time, but from constant blowing in the fat atmosphere +of funerals, had run to seed. + +‘Well, Tacker,’ said Mr Mould, ‘is all ready below?’ + +‘A beautiful show, sir,’ rejoined Tacker. ‘The horses are prouder and +fresher than ever I see ‘em; and toss their heads, they do, as if they +knowed how much their plumes cost. One, two, three, four,’ said Mr +Tacker, heaping that number of black cloaks upon his left arm. + +‘Is Tom there, with the cake and wine?’ asked Mr Mould. + +‘Ready to come in at a moment’s notice, sir,’ said Tacker. + +‘Then,’ rejoined Mr Mould, putting up his watch, and glancing at himself +in the little shaving-glass, that he might be sure his face had the +right expression on it; ‘then I think we may proceed to business. Give +me the paper of gloves, Tacker. Ah, what a man he was! Ah, Tacker, +Tacker, what a man he was!’ + +Mr Tacker, who from his great experience in the performance of funerals, +would have made an excellent pantomime actor, winked at Mrs Gamp without +at all disturbing the gravity of his countenance, and followed his +master into the next room. + +It was a great point with Mr Mould, and a part of his professional +tact, not to seem to know the doctor; though in reality they were near +neighbours, and very often, as in the present instance, worked together. +So he advanced to fit on his black kid gloves as if he had never seen +him in all his life; while the doctor, on his part, looked as distant +and unconscious as if he had heard and read of undertakers, and had +passed their shops, but had never before been brought into communication +with one. + +‘Gloves, eh?’ said the doctor. ‘Mr Pecksniff after you.’ + +‘I couldn’t think of it,’ returned Mr Pecksniff. + +‘You are very good,’ said the doctor, taking a pair. ‘Well, sir, as I +was saying--I was called up to attend that case at about half-past one +o’clock. Cake and wine, eh? Which is port? Thank you.’ + +Mr Pecksniff took some also. + +‘At about half-past one o’clock in the morning, sir,’ resumed the +doctor, ‘I was called up to attend that case. At the first pull of +the night-bell I turned out, threw up the window, and put out my head. +Cloak, eh? Don’t tie it too tight. That’ll do.’ + +Mr Pecksniff having been likewise inducted into a similar garment, the +doctor resumed. + +‘And put out my head--hat, eh? My good friend, that is not mine. Mr +Pecksniff, I beg your pardon, but I think we have unintentionally made +an exchange. Thank you. Well, sir, I was going to tell you--’ + +‘We are quite ready,’ interrupted Mould in a low voice. + +‘Ready, eh?’ said the doctor. ‘Very good, Mr Pecksniff, I’ll take an +opportunity of relating the rest in the coach. It’s rather curious. +Ready, eh? No rain, I hope?’ + +‘Quite fair, sir,’ returned Mould. + +‘I was afraid the ground would have been wet,’ said the doctor, ‘for +my glass fell yesterday. We may congratulate ourselves upon our good +fortune.’ But seeing by this time that Mr Jonas and Chuffey were going +out at the door, he put a white pocket-handkerchief to his face as if a +violent burst of grief had suddenly come upon him, and walked down side +by side with Mr Pecksniff. + +Mr Mould and his men had not exaggerated the grandeur of the +arrangements. They were splendid. The four hearse-horses, especially, +reared and pranced, and showed their highest action, as if they knew a +man was dead, and triumphed in it. ‘They break us, drive us, ride us; +ill-treat, abuse, and maim us for their pleasure--But they die; Hurrah, +they die!’ + +So through the narrow streets and winding city ways, went Anthony +Chuzzlewit’s funeral; Mr Jonas glancing stealthily out of the +coach-window now and then, to observe its effect upon the crowd; +Mr Mould as he walked along, listening with a sober pride to the +exclamations of the bystanders; the doctor whispering his story to Mr +Pecksniff, without appearing to come any nearer the end of it; and +poor old Chuffey sobbing unregarded in a corner. But he had greatly +scandalized Mr Mould at an early stage of the ceremony by carrying his +handkerchief in his hat in a perfectly informal manner, and wiping his +eyes with his knuckles. And as Mr Mould himself had said already, his +behaviour was indecent, and quite unworthy of such an occasion; and he +never ought to have been there. + +There he was, however; and in the churchyard there he was, also, +conducting himself in a no less unbecoming manner, and leaning for +support on Tacker, who plainly told him that he was fit for nothing +better than a walking funeral. But Chuffey, Heaven help him! heard no +sound but the echoes, lingering in his own heart, of a voice for ever +silent. + +‘I loved him,’ cried the old man, sinking down upon the grave when all +was done. ‘He was very good to me. Oh, my dear old friend and master!’ + +‘Come, come, Mr Chuffey,’ said the doctor, ‘this won’t do; it’s a clayey +soil, Mr Chuffey. You mustn’t, really.’ + +‘If it had been the commonest thing we do, and Mr Chuffey had been a +Bearer, gentlemen,’ said Mould, casting an imploring glance upon them, +as he helped to raise him, ‘he couldn’t have gone on worse than this.’ + +‘Be a man, Mr Chuffey,’ said Pecksniff. + +‘Be a gentleman, Mr Chuffey,’ said Mould. + +‘Upon my word, my good friend,’ murmured the doctor, in a tone of +stately reproof, as he stepped up to the old man’s side, ‘this is worse +than weakness. This is bad, selfish, very wrong, Mr Chuffey. You should +take example from others, my good sir. You forget that you were not +connected by ties of blood with our deceased friend; and that he had a +very near and very dear relation, Mr Chuffey.’ + +‘Aye, his own son!’ cried the old man, clasping his hands with +remarkable passion. ‘His own, own, only son!’ + +‘He’s not right in his head, you know,’ said Jonas, turning pale. +‘You’re not to mind anything he says. I shouldn’t wonder if he was +to talk some precious nonsense. But don’t you mind him, any of you. I +don’t. My father left him to my charge; and whatever he says or does, +that’s enough. I’ll take care of him.’ + +A hum of admiration rose from the mourners (including Mr Mould and his +merry men) at this new instance of magnanimity and kind feeling on the +part of Jonas. But Chuffey put it to the test no farther. He said not +a word more, and being left to himself for a little while, crept back +again to the coach. + +It has been said that Mr Jonas turned pale when the behaviour of the old +clerk attracted general attention; his discomposure, however, was but +momentary, and he soon recovered. But these were not the only changes +he had exhibited that day. The curious eyes of Mr Pecksniff had observed +that as soon as they left the house upon their mournful errand, he began +to mend; that as the ceremonies proceeded he gradually, by little and +little, recovered his old condition, his old looks, his old bearing, his +old agreeable characteristics of speech and manner, and became, in all +respects, his old pleasant self. And now that they were seated in the +coach on their return home; and more when they got there, and found the +windows open, the light and air admitted, and all traces of the late +event removed; he felt so well convinced that Jonas was again the Jonas +he had known a week ago, and not the Jonas of the intervening time, that +he voluntarily gave up his recently-acquired power without one faint +attempt to exercise it, and at once fell back into his former position +of mild and deferential guest. + +Mrs Gamp went home to the bird-fancier’s, and was knocked up again that +very night for a birth of twins; Mr Mould dined gayly in the bosom of +his family, and passed the evening facetiously at his club; the hearse, +after standing for a long time at the door of a roistering public-house, +repaired to its stables with the feathers inside and twelve red-nosed +undertakers on the roof, each holding on by a dingy peg, to which, in +times of state, a waving plume was fitted; the various trappings of +sorrow were carefully laid by in presses for the next hirer; the fiery +steeds were quenched and quiet in their stalls; the doctor got merry +with wine at a wedding-dinner, and forgot the middle of the story which +had no end to it; the pageant of a few short hours ago was written +nowhere half so legibly as in the undertaker’s books. + +Not in the churchyard? Not even there. The gates were closed; the night +was dark and wet; the rain fell silently, among the stagnant weeds and +nettles. One new mound was there which had not been there last night. +Time, burrowing like a mole below the ground, had marked his track by +throwing up another heap of earth. And that was all. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +IS A CHAPTER OF LOVE + + +‘Pecksniff,’ said Jonas, taking off his hat, to see that the black +crape band was all right; and finding that it was, putting it on again, +complacently; ‘what do you mean to give your daughters when they marry?’ + +‘My dear Mr Jonas,’ cried the affectionate parent, with an ingenuous +smile, ‘what a very singular inquiry!’ + +‘Now, don’t you mind whether it’s a singular inquiry or a plural one,’ +retorted Jonas, eyeing Mr Pecksniff with no great favour, ‘but answer +it, or let it alone. One or the other.’ + +‘Hum! The question, my dear friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, laying his hand +tenderly upon his kinsman’s knee, ‘is involved with many considerations. +What would I give them? Eh?’ + +‘Ah! what would you give ‘em?’ repeated Jonas. + +‘Why, that, ‘said Mr Pecksniff, ‘would naturally depend in a great +measure upon the kind of husbands they might choose, my dear young +friend.’ + +Mr Jonas was evidently disconcerted, and at a loss how to proceed. +It was a good answer. It seemed a deep one, but such is the wisdom of +simplicity!’ + +‘My standard for the merits I would require in a son-in-law,’ said Mr +Pecksniff, after a short silence, ‘is a high one. Forgive me, my dear Mr +Jonas,’ he added, greatly moved, ‘if I say that you have spoiled me, and +made it a fanciful one; an imaginative one; a prismatically tinged one, +if I may be permitted to call it so.’ + +‘What do you mean by that?’ growled Jonas, looking at him with increased +disfavour. + +‘Indeed, my dear friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘you may well inquire. +The heart is not always a royal mint, with patent machinery to work its +metal into current coin. Sometimes it throws it out in strange forms, +not easily recognized as coin at all. But it is sterling gold. It has at +least that merit. It is sterling gold.’ + +‘Is it?’ grumbled Jonas, with a doubtful shake of the head. + +‘Aye!’ said Mr Pecksniff, warming with his subject ‘it is. To be plain +with you, Mr Jonas, if I could find two such sons-in-law as you will one +day make to some deserving man, capable of appreciating a nature such as +yours, I would--forgetful of myself--bestow upon my daughters portions +reaching to the very utmost limit of my means.’ + +This was strong language, and it was earnestly delivered. But who can +wonder that such a man as Mr Pecksniff, after all he had seen and heard +of Mr Jonas, should be strong and earnest upon such a theme; a theme +that touched even the worldly lips of undertakers with the honey of +eloquence! + +Mr Jonas was silent, and looked thoughtfully at the landscape. For +they were seated on the outside of the coach, at the back, and were +travelling down into the country. He accompanied Mr Pecksniff home for a +few days’ change of air and scene after his recent trials. + +‘Well,’ he said, at last, with captivating bluntness, ‘suppose you got +one such son-in-law as me, what then?’ + +Mr Pecksniff regarded him at first with inexpressible surprise; then +gradually breaking into a sort of dejected vivacity, said: + +‘Then well I know whose husband he would be!’ + +‘Whose?’ asked Jonas, drily. + +‘My eldest girl’s, Mr Jonas,’ replied Pecksniff, with moistening eyes. +‘My dear Cherry’s; my staff, my scrip, my treasure, Mr Jonas. A hard +struggle, but it is in the nature of things! I must one day part with +her to a husband. I know it, my dear friend. I am prepared for it.’ + +‘Ecod! you’ve been prepared for that a pretty long time, I should +think,’ said Jonas. + +‘Many have sought to bear her from me,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘All have +failed. “I never will give my hand, papa”--those were her words--“unless +my heart is won.” She has not been quite so happy as she used to be, of +late. I don’t know why.’ + +Again Mr Jonas looked at the landscape; then at the coachman; then at +the luggage on the roof; finally at Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I suppose you’ll have to part with the other one, some of these days?’ +he observed, as he caught that gentleman’s eye. + +‘Probably,’ said the parent. ‘Years will tame down the wildness of my +foolish bird, and then it will be caged. But Cherry, Mr Jonas, Cherry--’ + +‘Oh, ah!’ interrupted Jonas. ‘Years have made her all right enough. +Nobody doubts that. But you haven’t answered what I asked you. Of +course, you’re not obliged to do it, you know, if you don’t like. You’re +the best judge.’ + +There was a warning sulkiness in the manner of this speech, which +admonished Mr Pecksniff that his dear friend was not to be trifled with +or fenced off, and that he must either return a straight-forward reply +to his question, or plainly give him to understand that he declined to +enlighten him upon the subject to which it referred. Mindful in this +dilemma of the caution old Anthony had given him almost with his +latest breath, he resolved to speak to the point, and so told Mr Jonas +(enlarging upon the communication as a proof of his great attachment and +confidence), that in the case he had put; to wit, in the event of such +a man as he proposing for his daughter’s hand, he would endow her with a +fortune of four thousand pounds. + +‘I should sadly pinch and cramp myself to do so,’ was his fatherly +remark; ‘but that would be my duty, and my conscience would reward me. +For myself, my conscience is my bank. I have a trifle invested there--a +mere trifle, Mr Jonas--but I prize it as a store of value, I assure +you.’ + +The good man’s enemies would have divided upon this question into two +parties. One would have asserted without scruple that if Mr Pecksniff’s +conscience were his bank, and he kept a running account there, he must +have overdrawn it beyond all mortal means of computation. The other +would have contended that it was a mere fictitious form; a perfectly +blank book; or one in which entries were only made with a peculiar kind +of invisible ink to become legible at some indefinite time; and that he +never troubled it at all. + +‘It would sadly pinch and cramp me, my dear friend,’ repeated Mr +Pecksniff, ‘but Providence--perhaps I may be permitted to say a special +Providence--has blessed my endeavours, and I could guarantee to make the +sacrifice.’ + +A question of philosophy arises here, whether Mr Pecksniff had or had +not good reason to say that he was specially patronized and encouraged +in his undertakings. All his life long he had been walking up and down +the narrow ways and by-places, with a hook in one hand and a crook in +the other, scraping all sorts of valuable odds and ends into his pouch. +Now, there being a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow, it +follows (so Mr Pecksniff, and only such admirable men, would have +reasoned), that there must also be a special Providence in the alighting +of the stone or stick, or other substance which is aimed at the sparrow. +And Mr Pecksniff’s hook, or crook, having invariably knocked the sparrow +on the head and brought him down, that gentleman may have been led to +consider himself as specially licensed to bag sparrows, and as being +specially seized and possessed of all the birds he had got together. +That many undertakings, national as well as individual--but especially +the former--are held to be specially brought to a glorious and +successful issue, which never could be so regarded on any other process +of reasoning, must be clear to all men. Therefore the precedents would +seem to show that Mr Pecksniff had (as things go) good argument for +what he said and might be permitted to say it, and did not say it +presumptuously, vainly, or arrogantly, but in a spirit of high faith and +great wisdom. + +Mr Jonas, not being much accustomed to perplex his mind with theories of +this nature, expressed no opinion on the subject. Nor did he receive +his companion’s announcement with one solitary syllable, good, bad, or +indifferent. He preserved this taciturnity for a quarter of an hour at +least, and during the whole of that time appeared to be steadily engaged +in subjecting some given amount to the operation of every known rule in +figures; adding to it, taking from it, multiplying it, reducing it by +long and short division; working it by the rule-of-three direct and +inversed; exchange or barter; practice; simple interest; compound +interest; and other means of arithmetical calculation. The result +of these labours appeared to be satisfactory, for when he did break +silence, it was as one who had arrived at some specific result, and +freed himself from a state of distressing uncertainty. + +‘Come, old Pecksniff!’--Such was his jocose address, as he slapped that +gentleman on the back, at the end of the stage--‘let’s have something!’ + +‘With all my heart,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Let’s treat the driver,’ cried Jonas. + +‘If you think it won’t hurt the man, or render him discontented with his +station--certainly,’ faltered Mr Pecksniff. + +Jonas only laughed at this, and getting down from the coach-top with +great alacrity, cut a cumbersome kind of caper in the road. After which, +he went into the public-house, and there ordered spirituous drink to +such an extent, that Mr Pecksniff had some doubts of his perfect sanity, +until Jonas set them quite at rest by saying, when the coach could wait +no longer: + +‘I’ve been standing treat for a whole week and more, and letting +you have all the delicacies of the season. YOU shall pay for this +Pecksniff.’ It was not a joke either, as Mr Pecksniff at first supposed; +for he went off to the coach without further ceremony, and left his +respected victim to settle the bill. + +But Mr Pecksniff was a man of meek endurance, and Mr Jonas was his +friend. Moreover, his regard for that gentleman was founded, as we know, +on pure esteem, and a knowledge of the excellence of his character. He +came out from the tavern with a smiling face, and even went so far as +to repeat the performance, on a less expensive scale, at the next +ale-house. There was a certain wildness in the spirits of Mr Jonas (not +usually a part of his character) which was far from being subdued +by these means, and, for the rest of the journey, he was so very +buoyant--it may be said, boisterous--that Mr Pecksniff had some +difficulty in keeping pace with him. + +They were not expected--oh dear, no! Mr Pecksniff had proposed in London +to give the girls a surprise, and had said he wouldn’t write a word to +prepare them on any account, in order that he and Mr Jonas might take +them unawares, and just see what they were doing, when they thought +their dear papa was miles and miles away. As a consequence of this +playful device, there was nobody to meet them at the finger-post, but +that was of small consequence, for they had come down by the day +coach, and Mr Pecksniff had only a carpetbag, while Mr Jonas had only +a portmanteau. They took the portmanteau between them, put the bag upon +it, and walked off up the lane without delay; Mr Pecksniff already going +on tiptoe as if, without this precaution, his fond children, being then +at a distance of a couple of miles or so, would have some filial sense +of his approach. + +It was a lovely evening in the spring-time of the year; and in the soft +stillness of the twilight, all nature was very calm and beautiful. The +day had been fine and warm; but at the coming on of night, the air grew +cool, and in the mellowing distance smoke was rising gently from the +cottage chimneys. There were a thousand pleasant scents diffused around, +from young leaves and fresh buds; the cuckoo had been singing all day +long, and was but just now hushed; the smell of earth newly-upturned, +first breath of hope to the first labourer after his garden withered, +was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish +good resolves, and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking +on the shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on +all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond. + +‘Precious dull,’ said Mr Jonas, looking about. ‘It’s enough to make a +man go melancholy mad.’ + +‘We shall have lights and a fire soon,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. + +‘We shall need ‘em by the time we get there,’ said Jonas. ‘Why the devil +don’t you talk? What are you thinking of?’ + +‘To tell you the truth, Mr Jonas,’ said Pecksniff with great solemnity, +‘my mind was running at that moment on our late dear friend, your +departed father.’ + +Mr Jonas immediately let his burden fall, and said, threatening him with +his hand: + +‘Drop that, Pecksniff!’ + +Mr Pecksniff not exactly knowing whether allusion was made to the +subject or the portmanteau, stared at his friend in unaffected surprise. + +‘Drop it, I say!’ cried Jonas, fiercely. ‘Do you hear? Drop it, now and +for ever. You had better, I give you notice!’ + +‘It was quite a mistake,’ urged Mr Pecksniff, very much dismayed; +‘though I admit it was foolish. I might have known it was a tender +string.’ + +‘Don’t talk to me about tender strings,’ said Jonas, wiping his forehead +with the cuff of his coat. ‘I’m not going to be crowed over by you, +because I don’t like dead company.’ + +Mr Pecksniff had got out the words ‘Crowed over, Mr Jonas!’ when that +young man, with a dark expression in his countenance, cut him short once +more: + +‘Mind!’ he said. ‘I won’t have it. I advise you not to revive the +subject, neither to me nor anybody else. You can take a hint, if you +choose as well as another man. There’s enough said about it. Come +along!’ + +Taking up his part of the load again, when he had said these words, +he hurried on so fast that Mr Pecksniff, at the other end of the +portmanteau, found himself dragged forward, in a very inconvenient and +ungraceful manner, to the great detriment of what is called by fancy +gentlemen ‘the bark’ upon his shins, which were most unmercifully bumped +against the hard leather and the iron buckles. In the course of a few +minutes, however, Mr Jonas relaxed his speed, and suffered his companion +to come up with him, and to bring the portmanteau into a tolerably +straight position. + +It was pretty clear that he regretted his late outbreak, and that he +mistrusted its effect on Mr Pecksniff; for as often as that gentleman +glanced towards Mr Jonas, he found Mr Jonas glancing at him, which was +a new source of embarrassment. It was but a short-lived one, though, for +Mr Jonas soon began to whistle, whereupon Mr Pecksniff, taking his cue +from his friend, began to hum a tune melodiously. + +‘Pretty nearly there, ain’t we?’ said Jonas, when this had lasted some +time. + +‘Close, my dear friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘What’ll they be doing, do you suppose?’ asked Jonas. + +‘Impossible to say,’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Giddy truants! They may be +away from home, perhaps. I was going to--he! he! he!--I was going to +propose,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘that we should enter by the back way, and +come upon them like a clap of thunder, Mr Jonas.’ + +It might not have been easy to decide in respect of which of their +manifold properties, Jonas, Mr Pecksniff, the carpet-bag, and the +portmanteau, could be likened to a clap of thunder. But Mr Jonas giving +his assent to this proposal, they stole round into the back yard, and +softly advanced towards the kitchen window, through which the mingled +light of fire and candle shone upon the darkening night. + +Truly Mr Pecksniff is blessed in his children--in one of them, at any +rate. The prudent Cherry--staff and scrip, and treasure of her doting +father--there she sits, at a little table white as driven snow, before +the kitchen fire, making up accounts! See the neat maiden, as with pen +in hand, and calculating look addressed towards the ceiling and bunch +of keys within a little basket at her side, she checks the housekeeping +expenditure! From flat-iron, dish-cover, and warming-pan; from pot and +kettle, face of brass footman, and black-leaded stove; bright glances +of approbation wink and glow upon her. The very onions dangling from the +beam, mantle and shine like cherubs’ cheeks. Something of the influence +of those vegetables sinks into Mr Pecksniff’s nature. He weeps. + +It is but for a moment, and he hides it from the observation of +his friend--very carefully--by a somewhat elaborate use of his +pocket-handkerchief, in fact; for he would not have his weakness known. + +‘Pleasant,’ he murmured, ‘pleasant to a father’s feelings! My dear girl! +Shall we let her know we are here, Mr Jonas?’ + +‘Why, I suppose you don’t mean to spend the evening in the stable, or +the coach-house,’ he returned. + +‘That, indeed, is not such hospitality as I would show to YOU, my +friend,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, pressing his hand. And then he took a long +breath, and tapping at the window, shouted with stentorian blandness: + +‘Boh!’ + +Cherry dropped her pen and screamed. But innocence is ever bold, or +should be. As they opened the door, the valiant girl exclaimed in a firm +voice, and with a presence of mind which even in that trying moment did +not desert her, ‘Who are you? What do you want? Speak! or I will call my +Pa.’ + +Mr Pecksniff held out his arms. She knew him instantly, and rushed into +his fond embrace. + +‘It was thoughtless of us, Mr Jonas, it was very thoughtless,’ said +Pecksniff, smoothing his daugther’s hair. ‘My darling, do you see that I +am not alone!’ + +Not she. She had seen nothing but her father until now. She saw Mr +Jonas now, though; and blushed, and hung her head down, as she gave him +welcome. + +But where was Merry? Mr Pecksniff didn’t ask the question in reproach, +but in a vein of mildness touched with a gentle sorrow. She was +upstairs, reading on the parlour couch. Ah! Domestic details had no +charms for HER. ‘But call her down,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a placid +resignation. ‘Call her down, my love.’ + +She was called and came, all flushed and tumbled from reposing on the +sofa; but none the worse for that. No, not at all. Rather the better, if +anything. + +‘Oh my goodness me!’ cried the arch girl, turning to her cousin when she +had kissed her father on both cheeks, and in her frolicsome nature had +bestowed a supernumerary salute upon the tip of his nose, ‘YOU here, +fright! Well, I’m very thankful that you won’t trouble ME much!’ + +‘What! you’re as lively as ever, are you?’ said Jonas. ‘Oh! You’re a +wicked one!’ + +‘There, go along!’ retorted Merry, pushing him away. ‘I’m sure I don’t +know what I shall ever do, if I have to see much of you. Go along, for +gracious’ sake!’ + +Mr Pecksniff striking in here, with a request that Mr Jonas would +immediately walk upstairs, he so far complied with the young lady’s +adjuration as to go at once. But though he had the fair Cherry on his +arm, he could not help looking back at her sister, and exchanging some +further dialogue of the same bantering description, as they all four +ascended to the parlour; where--for the young ladies happened, by good +fortune, to be a little later than usual that night--the tea-board was +at that moment being set out. + +Mr Pinch was not at home, so they had it all to themselves, and were +very snug and talkative, Jonas sitting between the two sisters, and +displaying his gallantry in that engaging manner which was peculiar +to him. It was a hard thing, Mr Pecksniff said, when tea was done, +and cleared away, to leave so pleasant a little party, but having some +important papers to examine in his own apartment, he must beg them to +excuse him for half an hour. With this apology he withdrew, singing +a careless strain as he went. He had not been gone five minutes, when +Merry, who had been sitting in the window, apart from Jonas and her +sister, burst into a half-smothered laugh, and skipped towards the door. + +‘Hallo!’ cried Jonas. ‘Don’t go.’ + +‘Oh, I dare say!’ rejoined Merry, looking back. ‘You’re very anxious I +should stay, fright, ain’t you?’ + +‘Yes, I am,’ said Jonas. ‘Upon my word I am. I want to speak to you.’ +But as she left the room notwithstanding, he ran out after her, +and brought her back, after a short struggle in the passage which +scandalized Miss Cherry very much. + +‘Upon my word, Merry,’ urged that young lady, ‘I wonder at you! There +are bounds even to absurdity, my dear.’ + +‘Thank you, my sweet,’ said Merry, pursing up her rosy Lips. ‘Much +obliged to it for its advice. Oh! do leave me alone, you monster, do!’ +This entreaty was wrung from her by a new proceeding on the part of +Mr Jonas, who pulled her down, all breathless as she was, into a seat +beside him on the sofa, having at the same time Miss Cherry upon the +other side. + +‘Now,’ said Jonas, clasping the waist of each; ‘I have got both arms +full, haven’t I?’ + +‘One of them will be black and blue to-morrow, if you don’t let me go,’ +cried the playful Merry. + +‘Ah! I don’t mind YOUR pinching,’ grinned Jonas, ‘a bit.’ + +‘Pinch him for me, Cherry, pray,’ said Mercy. ‘I never did hate anybody +so much as I hate this creature, I declare!’ + +‘No, no, don’t say that,’ urged Jonas, ‘and don’t pinch either, because +I want to be serious. I say--Cousin Charity--’ + +‘Well! what?’ she answered sharply. + +‘I want to have some sober talk,’ said Jonas; ‘I want to prevent any +mistakes, you know, and to put everything upon a pleasant understanding. +That’s desirable and proper, ain’t it?’ + +Neither of the sisters spoke a word. Mr Jonas paused and cleared his +throat, which was very dry. + +‘She’ll not believe what I am going to say, will she, cousin?’ said +Jonas, timidly squeezing Miss Charity. + +‘Really, Mr Jonas, I don’t know, until I hear what it is. It’s quite +impossible!’ + +‘Why, you see,’ said Jonas, ‘her way always being to make game of +people, I know she’ll laugh, or pretend to--I know that, beforehand. But +you can tell her I’m in earnest, cousin; can’t you? You’ll confess you +know, won’t you? You’ll be honourable, I’m sure,’ he added persuasively. + +No answer. His throat seemed to grow hotter and hotter, and to be more +and more difficult of control. + +‘You see, Cousin Charity,’ said Jonas, ‘nobody but you can tell her +what pains I took to get into her company when you were both at the +boarding-house in the city, because nobody’s so well aware of it, you +know. Nobody else can tell her how hard I tried to get to know you +better, in order that I might get to know her without seeming to wish +it; can they? I always asked you about her, and said where had she gone, +and when would she come, and how lively she was, and all that; didn’t I, +cousin? I know you’ll tell her so, if you haven’t told her so already, +and--and--I dare say you have, because I’m sure you’re honourable, ain’t +you?’ + +Still not a word. The right arm of Mr Jonas--the elder sister sat upon +his right--may have been sensible of some tumultuous throbbing which was +not within itself; but nothing else apprised him that his words had had +the least effect. + +‘Even if you kept it to yourself, and haven’t told her,’ resumed Jonas, +‘it don’t much matter, because you’ll bear honest witness now; won’t +you? We’ve been very good friends from the first; haven’t we? and of +course we shall be quite friends in future, and so I don’t mind speaking +before you a bit. Cousin Mercy, you’ve heard what I’ve been saying. +She’ll confirm it, every word; she must. Will you have me for your +husband? Eh?’ + +As he released his hold of Charity, to put this question with better +effect, she started up and hurried away to her own room, marking her +progress as she went by such a train of passionate and incoherent sound, +as nothing but a slighted woman in her anger could produce. + +‘Let me go away. Let me go after her,’ said Merry, pushing him off, +and giving him--to tell the truth--more than one sounding slap upon his +outstretched face. + +‘Not till you say yes. You haven’t told me. Will you have me for your +husband?’ + +‘No, I won’t. I can’t bear the sight of you. I have told you so a +hundred times. You are a fright. Besides, I always thought you liked my +sister best. We all thought so.’ + +‘But that wasn’t my fault,’ said Jonas. + +‘Yes it was; you know it was.’ + +‘Any trick is fair in love,’ said Jonas. ‘She may have thought I liked +her best, but you didn’t.’ + +‘I did!’ + +‘No, you didn’t. You never could have thought I liked her best, when you +were by.’ + +‘There’s no accounting for tastes,’ said Merry; ‘at least I didn’t mean +to say that. I don’t know what I mean. Let me go to her.’ + +‘Say “Yes,” and then I will.’ + +‘If I ever brought myself to say so, it should only be that I might hate +and tease you all my life.’ + +‘That’s as good,’ cried Jonas, ‘as saying it right out. It’s a bargain, +cousin. We’re a pair, if ever there was one.’ + +This gallant speech was succeeded by a confused noise of kissing and +slapping; and then the fair but much dishevelled Merry broke away, and +followed in the footsteps of her sister. + +Now whether Mr Pecksniff had been listening--which in one of his +character appears impossible; or divined almost by inspiration what the +matter was--which, in a man of his sagacity is far more probable; or +happened by sheer good fortune to find himself in exactly the +right place, at precisely the right time--which, under the special +guardianship in which he lived might very reasonably happen; it is quite +certain that at the moment when the sisters came together in their own +room, he appeared at the chamber door. And a marvellous contrast it +was--they so heated, noisy, and vehement; he so calm, so self-possessed, +so cool and full of peace, that not a hair upon his head was stirred. + +‘Children!’ said Mr Pecksniff, spreading out his hands in wonder, but +not before he had shut the door, and set his back against it. ‘Girls! +Daughters! What is this?’ + +‘The wretch; the apostate; the false, mean, odious villain; has before +my very face proposed to Mercy!’ was his eldest daughter’s answer. + +‘Who has proposed to Mercy!’ asked Mr Pecksniff. + +‘HE has. That thing, Jonas, downstairs.’ + +‘Jonas proposed to Mercy?’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Aye, aye! Indeed!’ + +‘Have you nothing else to say?’ cried Charity. ‘Am I to be driven mad, +papa? He has proposed to Mercy, not to me.’ + +‘Oh, fie! For shame!’ said Mr Pecksniff, gravely. ‘Oh, for shame! Can +the triumph of a sister move you to this terrible display, my child? Oh, +really this is very sad! I am sorry; I am surprised and hurt to see +you so. Mercy, my girl, bless you! See to her. Ah, envy, envy, what a +passion you are!’ + +Uttering this apostrophe in a tone full of grief and lamentation, Mr +Pecksniff left the room (taking care to shut the door behind him), +and walked downstairs into the parlour. There he found his intended +son-in-law, whom he seized by both hands. + +‘Jonas!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Jonas! the dearest wish of my heart is now +fulfilled!’ + +‘Very well; I’m glad to hear it,’ said Jonas. ‘That’ll do. I say! As +it ain’t the one you’re so fond of, you must come down with another +thousand, Pecksniff. You must make it up five. It’s worth that, to keep +your treasure to yourself, you know. You get off very cheap that way, +and haven’t a sacrifice to make.’ + +The grin with which he accompanied this, set off his other attractions +to such unspeakable advantage, that even Mr Pecksniff lost his presence +of mind for a moment, and looked at the young man as if he were quite +stupefied with wonder and admiration. But he quickly regained his +composure, and was in the very act of changing the subject, when a hasty +step was heard without, and Tom Pinch, in a state of great excitement, +came darting into the room. + +On seeing a stranger there, apparently engaged with Mr Pecksniff in +private conversation, Tom was very much abashed, though he still looked +as if he had something of great importance to communicate, which would +be a sufficient apology for his intrusion. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, ‘this is hardly decent. You will excuse my +saying that I think your conduct scarcely decent, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ replied Tom, ‘for not knocking at the door.’ + +‘Rather beg this gentleman’s pardon, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff. ‘I know +you; he does not.--My young man, Mr Jonas.’ + +The son-in-law that was to be gave him a slight nod--not actively +disdainful or contemptuous, only passively; for he was in a good humour. + +‘Could I speak a word with you, sir, if you please?’ said Tom. ‘It’s +rather pressing.’ + +‘It should be very pressing to justify this strange behaviour, Mr +Pinch,’ returned his master. ‘Excuse me for one moment, my dear friend. +Now, sir, what is the reason of this rough intrusion?’ + +‘I am very sorry, sir, I am sure,’ said Tom, standing, cap in hand, +before his patron in the passage; ‘and I know it must have a very rude +appearance--’ + +‘It HAS a very rude appearance, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘Yes, I feel that, sir; but the truth is, I was so surprised to see +them, and knew you would be too, that I ran home very fast indeed, and +really hadn’t enough command over myself to know what I was doing very +well. I was in the church just now, sir, touching the organ for my own +amusement, when I happened to look round, and saw a gentleman and lady +standing in the aisle listening. They seemed to be strangers, sir, as +well as I could make out in the dusk; and I thought I didn’t know +them; so presently I left off, and said, would they walk up into the +organ-loft, or take a seat? No, they said, they wouldn’t do that; but +they thanked me for the music they had heard. In fact,’ observed Tom, +blushing, ‘they said, “Delicious music!” at least, SHE did; and I am +sure that was a greater pleasure and honour to me than any compliment I +could have had. I--I--beg your pardon sir;’ he was all in a tremble, and +dropped his hat for the second time ‘but I--I’m rather flurried, and I +fear I’ve wandered from the point.’ + +‘If you will come back to it, Thomas,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with an icy +look, ‘I shall feel obliged.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Tom, ‘certainly. They had a posting carriage at the +porch, sir, and had stopped to hear the organ, they said. And then they +said--SHE said, I mean, “I believe you live with Mr Pecksniff, sir?” I +said I had that honour, and I took the liberty, sir,’ added Tom, raising +his eyes to his benefactor’s face, ‘of saying, as I always will and +must, with your permission, that I was under great obligations to you, +and never could express my sense of them sufficiently.’ + +‘That,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘was very, very wrong. Take your time, Mr +Pinch.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ cried Tom. ‘On that they asked me--she asked, I +mean--“Wasn’t there a bridle road to Mr Pecksniff’s house?”’ + +Mr Pecksniff suddenly became full of interest. + +‘“Without going by the Dragon?” When I said there was, and said how +happy I should be to show it ‘em, they sent the carriage on by the road, +and came with me across the meadows. I left ‘em at the turnstile to run +forward and tell you they were coming, and they’ll be here, sir, in--in +less than a minute’s time, I should say,’ added Tom, fetching his breath +with difficulty. + +‘Now, who,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pondering, ‘who may these people be?’ + +‘Bless my soul, sir!’ cried Tom, ‘I meant to mention that at first, I +thought I had. I knew them--her, I mean--directly. The gentleman who +was ill at the Dragon, sir, last winter; and the young lady who attended +him.’ + +Tom’s teeth chattered in his head, and he positively staggered with +amazement, at witnessing the extraordinary effect produced on Mr +Pecksniff by these simple words. The dread of losing the old man’s +favour almost as soon as they were reconciled, through the mere fact +of having Jonas in the house; the impossibility of dismissing Jonas, +or shutting him up, or tying him hand and foot and putting him in +the coal-cellar, without offending him beyond recall; the horrible +discordance prevailing in the establishment, and the impossibility of +reducing it to decent harmony with Charity in loud hysterics, Mercy in +the utmost disorder, Jonas in the parlour, and Martin Chuzzlewit and his +young charge upon the very doorsteps; the total hopelessness of being +able to disguise or feasibly explain this state of rampant confusion; +the sudden accumulation over his devoted head of every complicated +perplexity and entanglement for his extrication from which he had +trusted to time, good fortune, chance, and his own plotting, so filled +the entrapped architect with dismay, that if Tom could have been a +Gorgon staring at Mr Pecksniff, and Mr Pecksniff could have been a +Gorgon staring at Tom, they could not have horrified each other half so +much as in their own bewildered persons. + +‘Dear, dear!’ cried Tom, ‘what have I done? I hoped it would be a +pleasant surprise, sir. I thought you would like to know.’ + +But at that moment a loud knocking was heard at the hall door. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +MORE AMERICAN EXPERIENCES, MARTIN TAKES A PARTNER, AND MAKES A PURCHASE. +SOME ACCOUNT OF EDEN, AS IT APPEARED ON PAPER. ALSO OF THE BRITISH LION. +ALSO OF THE KIND OF SYMPATHY PROFESSED AND ENTERTAINED BY THE WATERTOAST +ASSOCIATION OF UNITED SYMPATHISERS + + +The knocking at Mr Pecksniff’s door, though loud enough, bore no +resemblance whatever to the noise of an American railway train at full +speed. It may be well to begin the present chapter with this frank +admission, lest the reader should imagine that the sounds now deafening +this history’s ears have any connection with the knocker on Mr +Pecksniff’s door, or with the great amount of agitation pretty equally +divided between that worthy man and Mr Pinch, of which its strong +performance was the cause. + +Mr Pecksniff’s house is more than a thousand leagues away; and again +this happy chronicle has Liberty and Moral Sensibility for its high +companions. Again it breathes the blessed air of Independence; again it +contemplates with pious awe that moral sense which renders unto Ceasar +nothing that is his; again inhales that sacred atmosphere which was +the life of him--oh noble patriot, with many followers!--who dreamed of +Freedom in a slave’s embrace, and waking sold her offspring and his own +in public markets. + +How the wheels clank and rattle, and the tram-road shakes, as the train +rushes on! And now the engine yells, as it were lashed and tortured like +a living labourer, and writhed in agony. A poor fancy; for steel and +iron are of infinitely greater account, in this commonwealth, than +flesh and blood. If the cunning work of man be urged beyond its power of +endurance, it has within it the elements of its own revenge; whereas +the wretched mechanism of the Divine Hand is dangerous with no such +property, but may be tampered with, and crushed, and broken, at the +driver’s pleasure. Look at that engine! It shall cost a man more dollars +in the way of penalty and fine, and satisfaction of the outraged law, +to deface in wantonness that senseless mass of metal, than to take the +lives of twenty human creatures! Thus the stars wink upon the bloody +stripes; and Liberty pulls down her cap upon her eyes, and owns +Oppression in its vilest aspect, for her sister. + +The engine-driver of the train whose noise awoke us to the present +chapter was certainly troubled with no such reflections as these; nor is +it very probable that his mind was disturbed by any reflections at all. +He leaned with folded arms and crossed legs against the side of the +carriage, smoking; and, except when he expressed, by a grunt as short as +his pipe, his approval of some particularly dexterous aim on the part of +his colleague, the fireman, who beguiled his leisure by throwing logs +of wood from the tender at the numerous stray cattle on the line, he +preserved a composure so immovable, and an indifference so complete, +that if the locomotive had been a sucking-pig, he could not have been +more perfectly indifferent to its doings. Notwithstanding the tranquil +state of this officer, and his unbroken peace of mind, the train was +proceeding with tolerable rapidity; and the rails being but poorly laid, +the jolts and bumps it met with in its progress were neither slight nor +few. + +There were three great caravans or cars attached. The ladies’ car, the +gentlemen’s car, and the car for negroes; the latter painted black, as +an appropriate compliment to its company. Martin and Mark Tapley were +in the first, as it was the most comfortable; and, being far from full, +received other gentlemen who, like them, were unblessed by the society +of ladies of their own. They were seated side by side, and were engaged +in earnest conversation. + +‘And so, Mark,’ said Martin, looking at him with an anxious expression, +‘and so you are glad we have left New York far behind us, are you?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I am. Precious glad.’ + +‘Were you not “jolly” there?’ asked Martin. + +‘On the contrairy, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘The jolliest week as ever I +spent in my life, was that there week at Pawkins’s.’ + +‘What do you think of our prospects?’ inquired Martin, with an air that +plainly said he had avoided the question for some time. + +‘Uncommon bright, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘Impossible for a place to have +a better name, sir, than the Walley of Eden. No man couldn’t think of +settling in a better place than the Walley of Eden. And I’m told,’ added +Mark, after a pause, ‘as there’s lots of serpents there, so we shall +come out, quite complete and reg’lar.’ + +So far from dwelling upon this agreeable piece of information with the +least dismay, Mark’s face grew radiant as he called it to mind; so very +radiant, that a stranger might have supposed he had all his life been +yearning for the society of serpents, and now hailed with delight the +approaching consummation of his fondest wishes. + +‘Who told you that?’ asked Martin, sternly. + +‘A military officer,’ said Mark. + +‘Confound you for a ridiculous fellow!’ cried Martin, laughing heartily +in spite of himself. ‘What military officer? You know they spring up in +every field.’ + +‘As thick as scarecrows in England, sir,’ interposed Mark, ‘which is a +sort of milita themselves, being entirely coat and wescoat, with a stick +inside. Ha, ha!--Don’t mind me, sir; it’s my way sometimes. I can’t help +being jolly. Why it was one of them inwading conquerors at Pawkins’s, as +told me. “Am I rightly informed,” he says--not exactly through his nose, +but as if he’d got a stoppage in it, very high up--“that you’re a-going +to the Walley of Eden?” “I heard some talk on it,” I told him. “Oh!” + says he, “if you should ever happen to go to bed there--you MAY, you +know,” he says, “in course of time as civilisation progresses--don’t +forget to take a axe with you.” I looks at him tolerable hard. “Fleas?” + says I. “And more,” says he. “Wampires?” says I. “And more,” says he. +“Musquitoes, perhaps?” says I. “And more,” says he. “What more?” says +I. “Snakes more,” says he; “rattle-snakes. You’re right to a certain +extent, stranger. There air some catawampous chawers in the small way +too, as graze upon a human pretty strong; but don’t mind THEM--they’re +company. It’s snakes,” he says, “as you’ll object to; and whenever you +wake and see one in a upright poster on your bed,” he says, “like a +corkscrew with the handle off a-sittin’ on its bottom ring, cut him +down, for he means wenom.”’ + +‘Why didn’t you tell me this before!’ cried Martin, with an expression +of face which set off the cheerfulness of Mark’s visage to great +advantage. + +‘I never thought on it, sir,’ said Mark. ‘It come in at one ear, and +went out at the other. But Lord love us, he was one of another Company, +I dare say, and only made up the story that we might go to his Eden, and +not the opposition one.’ + +‘There’s some probability in that,’ observed Martin. ‘I can honestly say +that I hope so, with all my heart.’ + +‘I’ve not a doubt about it, sir,’ returned Mark, who, full of the +inspiriting influence of the anecodote upon himself, had for the moment +forgotten its probable effect upon his master; ‘anyhow, we must live, +you know, sir.’ + +‘Live!’ cried Martin. ‘Yes, it’s easy to say live; but if we should +happen not to wake when rattlesnakes are making corkscrews of themselves +upon our beds, it may be not so easy to do it.’ + +‘And that’s a fact,’ said a voice so close in his ear that it tickled +him. ‘That’s dreadful true.’ + +Martin looked round, and found that a gentleman, on the seat behind, had +thrust his head between himself and Mark, and sat with his chin resting +on the back rail of their little bench, entertaining himself with their +conversation. He was as languid and listless in his looks as most of the +gentlemen they had seen; his cheeks were so hollow that he seemed to be +always sucking them in; and the sun had burnt him, not a wholesome red +or brown, but dirty yellow. He had bright dark eyes, which he kept half +closed; only peeping out of the corners, and even then with a glance +that seemed to say, ‘Now you won’t overreach me; you want to, but you +won’t.’ His arms rested carelessly on his knees as he leant forward; +in the palm of his left hand, as English rustics have their slice of +cheese, he had a cake of tobacco; in his right a penknife. He struck +into the dialogue with as little reserve as if he had been specially +called in, days before, to hear the arguments on both sides, and favour +them with his opinion; and he no more contemplated or cared for the +possibility of their not desiring the honour of his acquaintance or +interference in their private affairs than if he had been a bear or a +buffalo. + +‘That,’ he repeated, nodding condescendingly to Martin, as to an outer +barbarian and foreigner, ‘is dreadful true. Darn all manner of vermin.’ + +Martin could not help frowning for a moment, as if he were disposed to +insinuate that the gentleman had unconsciously ‘darned’ himself. But +remembering the wisdom of doing at Rome as Romans do, he smiled with the +pleasantest expression he could assume upon so short a notice. + +Their new friend said no more just then, being busily employed in +cutting a quid or plug from his cake of tobacco, and whistling softly to +himself the while. When he had shaped it to his liking, he took out his +old plug, and deposited the same on the back of the seat between Mark +and Martin, while he thrust the new one into the hollow of his cheek, +where it looked like a large walnut, or tolerable pippin. Finding it +quite satisfactory, he stuck the point of his knife into the old plug, +and holding it out for their inspection, remarked with the air of a man +who had not lived in vain, that it was ‘used up considerable.’ Then +he tossed it away; put his knife into one pocket and his tobacco into +another; rested his chin upon the rail as before; and approving of the +pattern on Martin’s waistcoat, reached out his hand to feel the texture +of that garment. + +‘What do you call this now?’ he asked. + +‘Upon my word’ said Martin, ‘I don’t know what it’s called.’ + +‘It’ll cost a dollar or more a yard, I reckon?’ + +‘I really don’t know.’ + +‘In my country,’ said the gentleman, ‘we know the cost of our own +pro-duce.’ + +Martin not discussing the question, there was a pause. + +‘Well!’ resumed their new friend, after staring at them intently during +the whole interval of silence; ‘how’s the unnat’ral old parent by this +time?’ + +Mr Tapley regarding this inquiry as only another version of the +impertinent English question, ‘How’s your mother?’ would have resented +it instantly, but for Martin’s prompt interposition. + +‘You mean the old country?’ he said. + +‘Ah!’ was the reply. ‘How’s she? Progressing back’ards, I expect, as +usual? Well! How’s Queen Victoria?’ + +‘In good health, I believe,’ said Martin. + +‘Queen Victoria won’t shake in her royal shoes at all, when she hears +to-morrow named,’ observed the stranger, ‘No.’ + +‘Not that I am aware of. Why should she?’ + +‘She won’t be taken with a cold chill, when she realises what is being +done in these diggings,’ said the stranger. ‘No.’ + +‘No,’ said Martin. ‘I think I could take my oath of that.’ + +The strange gentleman looked at him as if in pity for his ignorance or +prejudice, and said: + +‘Well, sir, I tell you this--there ain’t a engine with its biler +bust, in God A’mighty’s free U-nited States, so fixed, and nipped, +and frizzled to a most e-tarnal smash, as that young critter, in her +luxurious location in the Tower of London will be, when she reads the +next double-extra Watertoast Gazette.’ + +Several other gentlemen had left their seats and gathered round during +the foregoing dialogue. They were highly delighted with this speech. One +very lank gentleman, in a loose limp white cravat, long white waistcoat, +and a black great-coat, who seemed to be in authority among them, felt +called upon to acknowledge it. + +‘Hem! Mr La Fayette Kettle,’ he said, taking off his hat. + +There was a grave murmur of ‘Hush!’ + +‘Mr La Fayette Kettle! Sir!’ + +Mr Kettle bowed. + +‘In the name of this company, sir, and in the name of our common +country, and in the name of that righteous cause of holy sympathy in +which we are engaged, I thank you. I thank you, sir, in the name of +the Watertoast Sympathisers; and I thank you, sir, in the name of +the Watertoast Gazette; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the +star-spangled banner of the Great United States, for your eloquent and +categorical exposition. And if, sir,’ said the speaker, poking Martin +with the handle of his umbrella to bespeak his attention, for he was +listening to a whisper from Mark; ‘if, sir, in such a place, and at such +a time, I might venture to con-clude with a sentiment, glancing--however +slantin’dicularly--at the subject in hand, I would say, sir, may +the British Lion have his talons eradicated by the noble bill of the +American Eagle, and be taught to play upon the Irish Harp and the Scotch +Fiddle that music which is breathed in every empty shell that lies upon +the shores of green Co-lumbia!’ + +Here the lank gentleman sat down again, amidst a great sensation; and +every one looked very grave. + +‘General Choke,’ said Mr La Fayette Kettle, ‘you warm my heart; sir, you +warm my heart. But the British Lion is not unrepresented here, sir; and +I should be glad to hear his answer to those remarks.’ + +‘Upon my word,’ cried Martin, laughing, ‘since you do me the honour to +consider me his representative, I have only to say that I never heard +of Queen Victoria reading the What’s-his-name Gazette and that I should +scarcely think it probable.’ + +General Choke smiled upon the rest, and said, in patient and benignant +explanation: + +‘It is sent to her, sir. It is sent to her. Her mail.’ + +‘But if it is addressed to the Tower of London, it would hardly come to +hand, I fear,’ returned Martin; ‘for she don’t live there.’ + +‘The Queen of England, gentlemen,’ observed Mr Tapley, affecting the +greatest politeness, and regarding them with an immovable face, ‘usually +lives in the Mint to take care of the money. She HAS lodgings, in virtue +of her office, with the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House; but don’t often +occupy them, in consequence of the parlour chimney smoking.’ + +‘Mark,’ said Martin, ‘I shall be very much obliged to you if you’ll +have the goodness not to interfere with preposterous statements, however +jocose they may appear to you. I was merely remarking gentlemen--though +it’s a point of very little import--that the Queen of England does not +happen to live in the Tower of London.’ + +‘General!’ cried Mr La Fayette Kettle. ‘You hear?’ + +‘General!’ echoed several others. ‘General!’ + +‘Hush! Pray, silence!’ said General Choke, holding up his hand, and +speaking with a patient and complacent benevolence that was quite +touching. ‘I have always remarked it as a very extraordinary +circumstance, which I impute to the natur’ of British Institutions and +their tendency to suppress that popular inquiry and information which +air so widely diffused even in the trackless forests of this vast +Continent of the Western Ocean; that the knowledge of Britishers +themselves on such points is not to be compared with that possessed +by our intelligent and locomotive citizens. This is interesting, and +confirms my observation. When you say, sir,’ he continued, addressing +Martin, ‘that your Queen does not reside in the Tower of London, you +fall into an error, not uncommon to your countrymen, even when their +abilities and moral elements air such as to command respect. But, sir, +you air wrong. She DOES live there--’ + +‘When she is at the Court of Saint James’s,’ interposed Kettle. + +‘When she is at the Court of Saint James’s, of course,’ returned the +General, in the same benignant way; ‘for if her location was in Windsor +Pavilion it couldn’t be in London at the same time. Your Tower of +London, sir,’ pursued the General, smiling with a mild consciousness of +his knowledge, ‘is nat’rally your royal residence. Being located in +the immediate neighbourhood of your Parks, your Drives, your Triumphant +Arches, your Opera, and your Royal Almacks, it nat’rally suggests +itself as the place for holding a luxurious and thoughtless court. +And, consequently,’ said the General, ‘consequently, the court is held +there.’ + +‘Have you been in England?’ asked Martin. + +‘In print I have, sir,’ said the General, ‘not otherwise. We air a +reading people here, sir. You will meet with much information among us +that will surprise you, sir.’ + +‘I have not the least doubt of it,’ returned Martin. But here he was +interrupted by Mr La Fayette Kettle, who whispered in his ear: + +‘You know General Choke?’ + +‘No,’ returned Martin, in the same tone. + +‘You know what he is considered?’ + +‘One of the most remarkable men in the country?’ said Martin, at a +venture. + +‘That’s a fact,’ rejoined Kettle. ‘I was sure you must have heard of +him!’ + +‘I think,’ said Martin, addressing himself to the General again, ‘that +I have the pleasure of being the bearer of a letter of introduction to +you, sir. From Mr Bevan, of Massachusetts,’ he added, giving it to him. + +The General took it and read it attentively; now and then stopping to +glance at the two strangers. When he had finished the note, he came over +to Martin, sat down by him, and shook hands. + +‘Well!’ he said, ‘and you think of settling in Eden?’ + +‘Subject to your opinion, and the agent’s advice,’ replied Martin. ‘I am +told there is nothing to be done in the old towns.’ + +‘I can introduce you to the agent, sir,’ said the General. ‘I know him. +In fact, I am a member of the Eden Land Corporation myself.’ + +This was serious news to Martin, for his friend had laid great stress +upon the General’s having no connection, as he thought, with any land +company, and therefore being likely to give him disinterested advice. +The General explained that he had joined the Corporation only a few +weeks ago, and that no communication had passed between himself and Mr +Bevan since. + +‘We have very little to venture,’ said Martin anxiously--‘only a +few pounds--but it is our all. Now, do you think that for one of my +profession, this would be a speculation with any hope or chance in it?’ + +‘Well,’ observed the General, gravely, ‘if there wasn’t any hope or +chance in the speculation, it wouldn’t have engaged my dollars, I +opinionate.’ + +‘I don’t mean for the sellers,’ said Martin. ‘For the buyers--for the +buyers!’ + +‘For the buyers, sir?’ observed the General, in a most impressive +manner. ‘Well! you come from an old country; from a country, sir, that +has piled up golden calves as high as Babel, and worshipped ‘em for +ages. We are a new country, sir; man is in a more primeval state here, +sir; we have not the excuse of having lapsed in the slow course of time +into degenerate practices; we have no false gods; man, sir, here, is man +in all his dignity. We fought for that or nothing. Here am I, sir,’ +said the General, setting up his umbrella to represent himself, and a +villanous-looking umbrella it was; a very bad counter to stand for the +sterling coin of his benevolence, ‘here am I with grey hairs sir, and +a moral sense. Would I, with my principles, invest capital in this +speculation if I didn’t think it full of hopes and chances for my +brother man?’ + +Martin tried to look convinced, but he thought of New York, and found it +difficult. + +‘What are the Great United States for, sir,’ pursued the General ‘if not +for the regeneration of man? But it is nat’ral in you to make such an +enquerry, for you come from England, and you do not know my country.’ + +‘Then you think,’ said Martin, ‘that allowing for the hardships we are +prepared to undergo, there is a reasonable--Heaven knows we don’t expect +much--a reasonable opening in this place?’ + +‘A reasonable opening in Eden, sir! But see the agent, see the agent; +see the maps and plans, sir; and conclude to go or stay, according to +the natur’ of the settlement. Eden hadn’t need to go a-begging yet, +sir,’ remarked the General. + +‘It is an awful lovely place, sure-ly. And frightful wholesome, +likewise!’ said Mr Kettle, who had made himself a party to this +conversation as a matter of course. + +Martin felt that to dispute such testimony, for no better reason +than because he had his secret misgivings on the subject, would be +ungentlemanly and indecent. So he thanked the General for his promise to +put him in personal communication with the agent; and ‘concluded’ to see +that officer next morning. He then begged the General to inform him who +the Watertoast Sympathisers were, of whom he had spoken in addressing Mr +La Fayette Kettle, and on what grievances they bestowed their Sympathy. +To which the General, looking very serious, made answer, that he might +fully enlighten himself on those points to-morrow by attending a Great +Meeting of the Body, which would then be held at the town to which +they were travelling; ‘over which, sir,’ said the General, ‘my +fellow-citizens have called on me to preside.’ + +They came to their journey’s end late in the evening. Close to the +railway was an immense white edifice, like an ugly hospital, on which +was painted ‘NATIONAL HOTEL.’ There was a wooden gallery or verandah +in front, in which it was rather startling, when the train stopped, to +behold a great many pairs of boots and shoes, and the smoke of a +great many cigars, but no other evidences of human habitation. By slow +degrees, however, some heads and shoulders appeared, and connecting +themselves with the boots and shoes, led to the discovery that certain +gentlemen boarders, who had a fancy for putting their heels where the +gentlemen boarders in other countries usually put their heads, were +enjoying themselves after their own manner in the cool of the evening. + +There was a great bar-room in this hotel, and a great public room +in which the general table was being set out for supper. There were +interminable whitewashed staircases, long whitewashed galleries upstairs +and downstairs, scores of little whitewashed bedrooms, and a four-sided +verandah to every story in the house, which formed a large brick square +with an uncomfortable courtyard in the centre, where some clothes were +drying. Here and there, some yawning gentlemen lounged up and down with +their hands in their pockets; but within the house and without, wherever +half a dozen people were collected together, there, in their looks, +dress, morals, manners, habits, intellect, and conversation, were Mr +Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Major Pawkins, General Choke, and Mr +La Fayette Kettle, over, and over, and over again. They did the same +things; said the same things; judged all subjects by, and reduced all +subjects to, the same standard. Observing how they lived, and how they +were always in the enchanting company of each other, Martin even began +to comprehend their being the social, cheerful, winning, airy men they +were. + +At the sounding of a dismal gong, this pleasant company went trooping +down from all parts of the house to the public room; while from the +neighbouring stores other guests came flocking in, in shoals; for half +the town, married folks as well as single, resided at the National +Hotel. Tea, coffee, dried meats, tongue, ham, pickles, cake, toast, +preserves, and bread and butter, were swallowed with the usual ravaging +speed; and then, as before, the company dropped off by degrees, and +lounged away to the desk, the counter, or the bar-room. The ladies had a +smaller ordinary of their own, to which their husbands and brothers +were admitted if they chose; and in all other respects they enjoyed +themselves as at Pawkins’s. + +‘Now, Mark, my good fellow, said Martin, closing the door of his +little chamber, ‘we must hold a solemn council, for our fate is decided +to-morrow morning. You are determined to invest these savings of yours +in the common stock, are you?’ + +‘If I hadn’t been determined to make that wentur, sir,’ answered Mr +Tapley, ‘I shouldn’t have come.’ + +‘How much is there here, did you say’ asked Martin, holding up a little +bag. + +‘Thirty-seven pound ten and sixpence. The Savings’ Bank said so at +least. I never counted it. But THEY know, bless you!’ said Mark, with a +shake of the head expressive of his unbounded confidence in the wisdom +and arithmetic of those Institutions. + +‘The money we brought with us,’ said Martin, ‘is reduced to a few +shillings less than eight pounds.’ + +Mr Tapley smiled, and looked all manner of ways, that he might not be +supposed to attach any importance to this fact. + +‘Upon the ring--HER ring, Mark,’ said Martin, looking ruefully at his +empty finger-- + +‘Ah!’ sighed Mr Tapley. ‘Beg your pardon, sir.’ + +‘--We raised, in English money, fourteen pounds. So, even with that, +your share of the stock is still very much the larger of the two you +see. Now, Mark,’ said Martin, in his old way, just as he might have +spoken to Tom Pinch, ‘I have thought of a means of making this up +to you--more than making it up to you, I hope--and very materially +elevating your prospects in life.’ + +‘Oh! don’t talk of that, you know, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘I don’t want no +elevating, sir. I’m all right enough, sir, I am.’ + +‘No, but hear me,’ said Martin, ‘because this is very important to you, +and a great satisfaction to me. Mark, you shall be a partner in the +business; an equal partner with myself. I will put in, as my additional +capital, my professional knowledge and ability; and half the annual +profits, as long as it is carried on, shall be yours.’ + +Poor Martin! For ever building castles in the air. For ever, in his very +selfishness, forgetful of all but his own teeming hopes and sanguine +plans. Swelling, at that instant, with the consciousness of patronizing +and most munificently rewarding Mark! + +‘I don’t know, sir,’ Mark rejoined, much more sadly than his custom was, +though from a very different cause than Martin supposed, ‘what I can say +to this, in the way of thanking you. I’ll stand by you, sir, to the best +of my ability, and to the last. That’s all.’ + +‘We quite understand each other, my good fellow,’ said Martin rising in +self-approval and condescension. ‘We are no longer master and servant, +but friends and partners; and are mutually gratified. If we determine on +Eden, the business shall be commenced as soon as we get there. Under the +name,’ said Martin, who never hammered upon an idea that wasn’t red hot, +‘under the name of Chuzzlewit and Tapley.’ + +‘Lord love you, sir,’ cried Mark, ‘don’t have my name in it. I ain’t +acquainted with the business, sir. I must be Co., I must. I’ve often +thought,’ he added, in a low voice, ‘as I should like to know a Co.; but +I little thought as ever I should live to be one.’ + +‘You shall have your own way, Mark.’ + +‘Thank’ee, sir. If any country gentleman thereabouts, in the public way, +or otherwise, wanted such a thing as a skittle-ground made, I could take +that part of the bis’ness, sir.’ + +‘Against any architect in the States,’ said Martin. ‘Get a couple of +sherry-cobblers, Mark, and we’ll drink success to the firm.’ + +Either he forgot already (and often afterwards), that they were no +longer master and servant, or considered this kind of duty to be among +the legitimate functions of the Co. But Mark obeyed with his usual +alacrity; and before they parted for the night, it was agreed between +them that they should go together to the agent’s in the morning, but +that Martin should decide the Eden question, on his own sound judgment. +And Mark made no merit, even to himself in his jollity, of this +concession; perfectly well knowing that the matter would come to that in +the end, any way. + +The General was one of the party at the public table next day, and after +breakfast suggested that they should wait upon the agent without loss of +time. They, desiring nothing more, agreed; so off they all four +started for the office of the Eden Settlement, which was almost within +rifle-shot of the National Hotel. + +It was a small place--something like a turnpike. But a great deal of +land may be got into a dice-box, and why may not a whole territory be +bargained for in a shed? It was but a temporary office too; for the +Edeners were ‘going’ to build a superb establishment for the transaction +of their business, and had already got so far as to mark out the site. +Which is a great way in America. The office-door was wide open, and in +the doorway was the agent; no doubt a tremendous fellow to get through +his work, for he seemed to have no arrears, but was swinging backwards +and forwards in a rocking-chair, with one of his legs planted high up +against the door-post, and the other doubled up under him, as if he were +hatching his foot. + +He was a gaunt man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The +weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide +open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk +up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the +notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap +to his lips. If so, it never reached them. + +Two grey eyes lurked deep within this agent’s head, but one of them had +no sight in it, and stood stock still. With that side of his face he +seemed to listen to what the other side was doing. Thus each profile had +a distinct expression; and when the movable side was most in action, the +rigid one was in its coldest state of watchfulness. It was like +turning the man inside out, to pass to that view of his features in his +liveliest mood, and see how calculating and intent they were. + +Each long black hair upon his head hung down as straight as any plummet +line; but rumpled tufts were on the arches of his eyes, as if the crow +whose foot was deeply printed in the corners had pecked and torn them in +a savage recognition of his kindred nature as a bird of prey. + +Such was the man whom they now approached, and whom the General saluted +by the name of Scadder. + +‘Well, Gen’ral,’ he returned, ‘and how are you?’ + +‘Ac-tive and spry, sir, in my country’s service and the sympathetic +cause. Two gentlemen on business, Mr Scadder.’ + +He shook hands with each of them--nothing is done in America without +shaking hands--then went on rocking. + +‘I think I know what bis’ness you have brought these strangers here +upon, then, Gen’ral?’ + +‘Well, sir. I expect you may.’ + +‘You air a tongue-y person, Gen’ral. For you talk too much, and that’s +fact,’ said Scadder. ‘You speak a-larming well in public, but you didn’t +ought to go ahead so fast in private. Now!’ + +‘If I can realise your meaning, ride me on a rail!’ returned the +General, after pausing for consideration. + +‘You know we didn’t wish to sell the lots off right away to any loafer +as might bid,’ said Scadder; ‘but had con-cluded to reserve ‘em for +Aristocrats of Natur’. Yes!’ + +‘And they are here, sir!’ cried the General with warmth. ‘They are here, +sir!’ + +‘If they air here,’ returned the agent, in reproachful accents, ‘that’s +enough. But you didn’t ought to have your dander ris with ME, Gen’ral.’ + +The General whispered Martin that Scadder was the honestest fellow in +the world, and that he wouldn’t have given him offence designedly, for +ten thousand dollars. + +‘I do my duty; and I raise the dander of my feller critters, as I +wish to serve,’ said Scadder in a low voice, looking down the road +and rocking still. ‘They rile up rough, along of my objecting to their +selling Eden off too cheap. That’s human natur’! Well!’ + +‘Mr Scadder,’ said the General, assuming his oratorical deportment. +‘Sir! Here is my hand, and here my heart. I esteem you, sir, and ask +your pardon. These gentlemen air friends of mine, or I would not have +brought ‘em here, sir, being well aware, sir, that the lots at present +go entirely too cheap. But these air friends, sir; these air partick’ler +friends.’ + +Mr Scadder was so satisfied by this explanation, that he shook the +General warmly by the hand, and got out of the rocking-chair to do it. +He then invited the General’s particular friends to accompany him into +the office. As to the General, he observed, with his usual benevolence, +that being one of the company, he wouldn’t interfere in the transaction +on any account; so he appropriated the rocking-chair to himself, and +looked at the prospect, like a good Samaritan waiting for a traveller. + +‘Heyday!’ cried Martin, as his eye rested on a great plan which occupied +one whole side of the office. Indeed, the office had little else in it, +but some geological and botanical specimens, one or two rusty ledgers, a +homely desk, and a stool. ‘Heyday! what’s that?’ + +‘That’s Eden,’ said Scadder, picking his teeth with a sort of young +bayonet that flew out of his knife when he touched a spring. + +‘Why, I had no idea it was a city.’ + +‘Hadn’t you? Oh, it’s a city.’ + +A flourishing city, too! An architectural city! There were banks, +churches, cathedrals, market-places, factories, hotels, stores, +mansions, wharves; an exchange, a theatre; public buildings of all +kinds, down to the office of the Eden Stinger, a daily journal; all +faithfully depicted in the view before them. + +‘Dear me! It’s really a most important place!’ cried Martin turning +round. + +‘Oh! it’s very important,’ observed the agent. + +‘But, I am afraid,’ said Martin, glancing again at the Public Buildings, +‘that there’s nothing left for me to do.’ + +‘Well! it ain’t all built,’ replied the agent. ‘Not quite.’ + +This was a great relief. + +‘The market-place, now,’ said Martin. ‘Is that built?’ + +‘That?’ said the agent, sticking his toothpick into the weathercock on +the top. ‘Let me see. No; that ain’t built.’ + +‘Rather a good job to begin with--eh, Mark?’ whispered Martin nudging +him with his elbow. + +Mark, who, with a very stolid countenance had been eyeing the plan and +the agent by turns, merely rejoined ‘Uncommon!’ + +A dead silence ensued, Mr Scadder in some short recesses or vacations of +his toothpick, whistled a few bars of Yankee Doodle, and blew the dust +off the roof of the Theatre. + +‘I suppose,’ said Martin, feigning to look more narrowly at the plan, +but showing by his tremulous voice how much depended, in his mind, upon +the answer; ‘I suppose there are--several architects there?’ + +‘There ain’t a single one,’ said Scadder. + +‘Mark,’ whispered Martin, pulling him by the sleeve, ‘do you hear that? +But whose work is all this before us, then?’ he asked aloud. + +‘The soil being very fruitful, public buildings grows spontaneous, +perhaps,’ said Mark. + +He was on the agent’s dark side as he said it; but Scadder instantly +changed his place, and brought his active eye to bear upon him. + +‘Feel of my hands, young man,’ he said. + +‘What for?’ asked Mark, declining. + +‘Air they dirty, or air they clean, sir?’ said Scadder, holding them +out. + +In a physical point of view they were decidedly dirty. But it being +obvious that Mr Scadder offered them for examination in a figurative +sense, as emblems of his moral character, Martin hastened to pronounce +them pure as the driven snow. + +‘I entreat, Mark,’ he said, with some irritation, ‘that you will +not obtrude remarks of that nature, which, however harmless and +well-intentioned, are quite out of place, and cannot be expected to be +very agreeable to strangers. I am quite surprised.’ + +‘The Co.’s a-putting his foot in it already,’ thought Mark. ‘He must be +a sleeping partner--fast asleep and snoring--Co. must; I see.’ + +Mr Scadder said nothing, but he set his back against the plan, and +thrust his toothpick into the desk some twenty times; looking at Mark +all the while as if he were stabbing him in effigy. + +‘You haven’t said whose work it is,’ Martin ventured to observe at +length, in a tone of mild propitiation. + +‘Well, never mind whose work it is, or isn’t,’ said the agent sulkily. +‘No matter how it did eventuate. P’raps he cleared off, handsome, with a +heap of dollars; p’raps he wasn’t worth a cent. P’raps he was a loafin’ +rowdy; p’raps a ring-tailed roarer. Now!’ + +‘All your doing, Mark!’ said Martin. + +‘P’raps,’ pursued the agent, ‘them ain’t plants of Eden’s raising. No! +P’raps that desk and stool ain’t made from Eden lumber. No! P’raps no +end of squatters ain’t gone out there. No! P’raps there ain’t no such +location in the territoary of the Great U-nited States. Oh, no!’ + +‘I hope you’re satisfied with the success of your joke, Mark,’ said +Martin. + +But here, at a most opportune and happy time, the General interposed, +and called out to Scadder from the doorway to give his friends the +particulars of that little lot of fifty acres with the house upon it; +which, having belonged to the company formerly, had lately lapsed again +into their hands. + +‘You air a deal too open-handed, Gen’ral,’ was the answer. ‘It is a lot +as should be rose in price. It is.’ + +He grumblingly opened his books notwithstanding, and always keeping his +bright side towards Mark, no matter at what amount of inconvenience +to himself, displayed a certain leaf for their perusal. Martin read it +greedily, and then inquired: + +‘Now where upon the plan may this place be?’ + +‘Upon the plan?’ said Scadder. + +‘Yes.’ + +He turned towards it, and reflected for a short time, as if, having +been put upon his mettle, he was resolved to be particular to the +very minutest hair’s breadth of a shade. At length, after wheeling his +toothpick slowly round and round in the air, as if it were a carrier +pigeon just thrown up, he suddenly made a dart at the drawing, and +pierced the very centre of the main wharf, through and through. + +‘There!’ he said, leaving his knife quivering in the wall; ‘that’s where +it is!’ + +Martin glanced with sparkling eyes upon his Co., and his Co. saw that +the thing was done. + +The bargain was not concluded as easily as might have been expected +though, for Scadder was caustic and ill-humoured, and cast much +unnecessary opposition in the way; at one time requesting them to think +of it, and call again in a week or a fortnight; at another, predicting +that they wouldn’t like it; at another, offering to retract and let them +off, and muttering strong imprecations upon the folly of the General. +But the whole of the astoundingly small sum total of purchase-money--it +was only one hundred and fifty dollars, or something more than thirty +pounds of the capital brought by Co. into the architectural concern--was +ultimately paid down; and Martin’s head was two inches nearer the roof +of the little wooden office, with the consciousness of being a landed +proprietor in the thriving city of Eden. + +‘If it shouldn’t happen to fit,’ said Scadder, as he gave Martin the +necessary credentials on recepit of his money, ‘don’t blame me.’ + +‘No, no,’ he replied merrily. ‘We’ll not blame you. General, are you +going?’ + +‘I am at your service, sir; and I wish you,’ said the General, giving +him his hand with grave cordiality, ‘joy of your po-ssession. You air +now, sir, a denizen of the most powerful and highly-civilised dominion +that has ever graced the world; a do-minion, sir, where man is bound to +man in one vast bond of equal love and truth. May you, sir, be worthy of +your a-dopted country!’ + +Martin thanked him, and took leave of Mr Scadder; who had resumed his +post in the rocking-chair, immediately on the General’s rising from it, +and was once more swinging away as if he had never been disturbed. +Mark looked back several times as they went down the road towards the +National Hotel, but now his blighted profile was towards them, and +nothing but attentive thoughtfulness was written on it. Strangely +different to the other side! He was not a man much given to laughing, +and never laughed outright; but every line in the print of the crow’s +foot, and every little wiry vein in that division of his head, was +wrinkled up into a grin! The compound figure of Death and the Lady at +the top of the old ballad was not divided with a greater nicety, and +hadn’t halves more monstrously unlike each other, than the two profiles +of Zephaniah Scadder. + +The General posted along at a great rate, for the clock was on the +stroke of twelve; and at that hour precisely, the Great Meeting of +the Watertoast Sympathisers was to be holden in the public room of the +National Hotel. Being very curious to witness the demonstration, and +know what it was all about, Martin kept close to the General; and, +keeping closer than ever when they entered the Hall, got by that means +upon a little platform of tables at the upper end; where an armchair was +set for the General, and Mr La Fayette Kettle, as secretary, was making +a great display of some foolscap documents. Screamers, no doubt. + +‘Well, sir!’ he said, as he shook hands with Martin, ‘here is a +spectacle calc’lated to make the British Lion put his tail between his +legs, and howl with anguish, I expect!’ + +Martin certainly thought it possible that the British Lion might have +been rather out of his element in that Ark; but he kept the idea to +himself. The General was then voted to the chair, on the motion of a +pallid lad of the Jefferson Brick school; who forthwith set in for a +high-spiced speech, with a good deal about hearths and homes in it, and +unriveting the chains of Tyranny. + +Oh but it was a clincher for the British Lion, it was! The indignation +of the glowing young Columbian knew no bounds. If he could only have +been one of his own forefathers, he said, wouldn’t he have peppered +that same Lion, and been to him as another Brute Tamer with a wire whip, +teaching him lessons not easily forgotten. ‘Lion! (cried that young +Columbian) where is he? Who is he? What is he? Show him to me. Let me +have him here. Here!’ said the young Columbian, in a wrestling attitude, +‘upon this sacred altar. Here!’ cried the young Columbian, idealising +the dining-table, ‘upon ancestral ashes, cemented with the glorious +blood poured out like water on our native plains of Chickabiddy Lick! +Bring forth that Lion!’ said the young Columbian. ‘Alone, I dare him! I +taunt that Lion. I tell that Lion, that Freedom’s hand once twisted +in his mane, he rolls a corse before me, and the Eagles of the Great +Republic laugh ha, ha!’ + +When it was found that the Lion didn’t come, but kept out of the way; +that the young Columbian stood there, with folded arms, alone in his +glory; and consequently that the Eagles were no doubt laughing wildly on +the mountain tops; such cheers arose as might have shaken the hands upon +the Horse-Guards’ clock, and changed the very mean time of the day in +England’s capital. + +‘Who is this?’ Martin telegraphed to La Fayette. + +The Secretary wrote something, very gravely, on a piece of paper, +twisted it up, and had it passed to him from hand to hand. It was an +improvement on the old sentiment: ‘Perhaps as remarkable a man as any in +our country.’ + +This young Columbian was succeeded by another, to the full as eloquent +as he, who drew down storms of cheers. But both remarkable youths, +in their great excitement (for your true poetry can never stoop to +details), forgot to say with whom or what the Watertoasters sympathized, +and likewise why or wherefore they were sympathetic. Thus Martin +remained for a long time as completely in the dark as ever; until +at length a ray of light broke in upon him through the medium of the +Secretary, who, by reading the minutes of their past proceedings, +made the matter somewhat clearer. He then learned that the Watertoast +Association sympathized with a certain Public Man in Ireland, who held a +contest upon certain points with England; and that they did so, because +they didn’t love England at all--not by any means because they loved +Ireland much; being indeed horribly jealous and distrustful of its +people always, and only tolerating them because of their working hard, +which made them very useful; labour being held in greater indignity in +the simple republic than in any other country upon earth. This +rendered Martin curious to see what grounds of sympathy the Watertoast +Association put forth; nor was he long in suspense, for the General +rose to read a letter to the Public Man, which with his own hands he had +written. + +‘Thus,’ said the General, ‘thus, my friends and fellow-citizens, it +runs: + + +‘“SIR--I address you on behalf of the Watertoast Association of United +Sympathisers. It is founded, sir, in the great republic of America! and +now holds its breath, and swells the blue veins in its forehead nigh to +bursting, as it watches, sir, with feverish intensity and sympathetic +ardour, your noble efforts in the cause of Freedom.”’ + + +At the name of Freedom, and at every repetition of that name, all the +Sympathisers roared aloud; cheering with nine times nine, and nine times +over. + + +‘“In Freedom’s name, sir--holy Freedom--I address you. In Freedom’s +name, I send herewith a contribution to the funds of your society. +In Freedom’s name, sir, I advert with indignation and disgust to that +accursed animal, with gore-stained whiskers, whose rampant cruelty and +fiery lust have ever been a scourge, a torment to the world. The naked +visitors to Crusoe’s Island, sir; the flying wives of Peter Wilkins; the +fruit-smeared children of the tangled bush; nay, even the men of large +stature, anciently bred in the mining districts of Cornwall; alike +bear witness to its savage nature. Where, sir, are the Cormorans, +the Blunderbores, the Great Feefofums, named in History? All, all, +exterminated by its destroying hand. + +‘“I allude, sir, to the British Lion. + +‘“Devoted, mind and body, heart and soul, to Freedom, sir--to Freedom, +blessed solace to the snail upon the cellar-door, the oyster in his +pearly bed, the still mite in his home of cheese, the very winkle of +your country in his shelly lair--in her unsullied name, we offer you our +sympathy. Oh, sir, in this our cherished and our happy land, her fires +burn bright and clear and smokeless; once lighted up in yours, the lion +shall be roasted whole. + +‘“I am, sir, in Freedom’s name, + +‘“Your affectionate friend and faithful Sympathiser, + +‘“CYRUS CHOKE, + +‘“General, U.S.M.”’ + + +It happened that just as the General began to read this letter, the +railroad train arrived, bringing a new mail from England; and a packet +had been handed in to the Secretary, which during its perusal and +the frequent cheerings in homage to freedom, he had opened. Now, its +contents disturbed him very much, and the moment the General sat down, +he hurried to his side, and placed in his hand a letter and several +printed extracts from English newspapers; to which, in a state of +infinite excitement, he called his immediate attention. + +The General, being greatly heated by his own composition, was in a +fit state to receive any inflammable influence; but he had no sooner +possessed himself of the contents of these documents, than a change came +over his face, involving such a huge amount of choler and passion, that +the noisy concourse were silent in a moment, in very wonder at the sight +of him. + +‘My friends!’ cried the General, rising; ‘my friends and fellow +citizens, we have been mistaken in this man.’ + +‘In what man?’ was the cry. + +‘In this,’ panted the General, holding up the letter he had read aloud +a few minutes before. ‘I find that he has been, and is, the +advocate--consistent in it always too--of Nigger emancipation!’ + +If anything beneath the sky be real, those Sons of Freedom would have +pistolled, stabbed--in some way slain--that man by coward hands and +murderous violence, if he had stood among them at that time. The most +confiding of their own countrymen would not have wagered then--no, nor +would they ever peril--one dunghill straw, upon the life of any man in +such a strait. They tore the letter, cast the fragments in the air, trod +down the pieces as they fell; and yelled, and groaned, and hissed, till +they could cry no longer. + +‘I shall move,’ said the General, when he could make himself heard, +‘that the Watertoast Association of United Sympathisers be immediately +dissolved!’ + +Down with it! Away with it! Don’t hear of it! Burn its records! Pull the +room down! Blot it out of human memory! + +‘But, my fellow-countrymen!’ said the General, ‘the contributions. We +have funds. What is to be done with the funds?’ + +It was hastily resolved that a piece of plate should be presented to a +certain constitutional Judge, who had laid down from the Bench the noble +principle that it was lawful for any white mob to murder any black man; +and that another piece of plate, of similar value should be presented +to a certain Patriot, who had declared from his high place in the +Legislature, that he and his friends would hang without trial, any +Abolitionist who might pay them a visit. For the surplus, it was agreed +that it should be devoted to aiding the enforcement of those free and +equal laws, which render it incalculably more criminal and dangerous +to teach a negro to read and write than to roast him alive in a public +city. These points adjusted, the meeting broke up in great disorder, and +there was an end of the Watertoast Sympathy. + +As Martin ascended to his bedroom, his eye was attracted by the +Republican banner, which had been hoisted from the house-top in honour +of the occasion, and was fluttering before a window which he passed. + +‘Tut!’ said Martin. ‘You’re a gay flag in the distance. But let a man +be near enough to get the light upon the other side and see through you; +and you are but sorry fustian!’ + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + +FROM WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT MARTIN BECAME A LION OF HIS OWN ACCOUNT. +TOGETHER WITH THE REASON WHY + + +As soon as it was generally known in the National Hotel, that the young +Englishman, Mr Chuzzlewit, had purchased a ‘lo-cation’ in the Valley +of Eden, and intended to betake himself to that earthly Paradise by the +next steamboat, he became a popular character. Why this should be, or +how it had come to pass, Martin no more knew than Mrs Gamp, of Kingsgate +Street, High Holborn, did; but that he was for the time being the lion, +by popular election, of the Watertoast community, and that his society +was in rather inconvenient request there could be no kind of doubt. + +The first notification he received of this change in his position, was +the following epistle, written in a thin running hand--with here and +there a fat letter or two, to make the general effect more striking--on +a sheet of paper, ruled with blue lines. + + +‘NATIONAL HOTEL, + +‘MONDAY MORNING. + +‘Dear Sir--‘When I had the privillidge of being your fellow-traveller +in the cars, the day before yesterday, you offered some remarks upon the +subject of the tower of London, which (in common with my fellow-citizens +generally) I could wish to hear repeated to a public audience. + +‘As secretary to the Young Men’s Watertoast Association of this town, +I am requested to inform you that the Society will be proud to hear +you deliver a lecture upon the Tower of London, at their Hall to-morrow +evening, at seven o’clock; and as a large issue of quarter-dollar +tickets may be expected, your answer and consent by bearer will be +considered obliging. + +‘Dear Sir, + +‘Yours truly, + +‘LA FAYETTE KETTLE. + +‘The Honourable M. Chuzzlewit. + +‘P.S.--The Society would not be particular in limiting you to the Tower +of London. Permit me to suggest that any remarks upon the Elements of +Geology, or (if more convenient) upon the Writings of your talented and +witty countryman, the honourable Mr Miller, would be well received.’ + + +Very much aghast at this invitation, Martin wrote back, civilly +declining it; and had scarcely done so, when he received another letter. + + +‘No. 47, Bunker Hill Street, + +‘Monday Morning. + +‘(Private). + +‘Sir--I was raised in those interminable solitudes where our mighty +Mississippi (or Father of Waters) rolls his turbid flood. + +‘I am young, and ardent. For there is a poetry in wildness, and every +alligator basking in the slime is in himself an Epic, self-contained. I +aspirate for fame. It is my yearning and my thirst. + +‘Are you, sir, aware of any member of Congress in England, who would +undertake to pay my expenses to that country, and for six months after +my arrival? + +‘There is something within me which gives me the assurance that this +enlightened patronage would not be thrown away. In literature or art; +the bar, the pulpit, or the stage; in one or other, if not all, I feel +that I am certain to succeed. + +‘If too much engaged to write to any such yourself, please let me have +a list of three or four of those most likely to respond, and I will +address them through the Post Office. May I also ask you to favour me +with any critical observations that have ever presented themselves to +your reflective faculties, on “Cain, a Mystery,” by the Right Honourable +Lord Byron? + +‘I am, Sir, + +‘Yours (forgive me if I add, soaringly), + +‘PUTNAM SMIF + +‘P.S.--Address your answer to America Junior, Messrs. Hancock & Floby, +Dry Goods Store, as above.’ + + +Both of which letters, together with Martin’s reply to each, were, +according to a laudable custom, much tending to the promotion of +gentlemanly feeling and social confidence, published in the next number +of the Watertoast Gazette. + +He had scarcely got through this correspondence when Captain Kedgick, +the landlord, kindly came upstairs to see how he was getting on. The +Captain sat down upon the bed before he spoke; and finding it rather +hard, moved to the pillow. + +‘Well, sir!’ said the Captain, putting his hat a little more on one +side, for it was rather tight in the crown: ‘You’re quite a public man I +calc’late.’ + +‘So it seems,’ retorted Martin, who was very tired. + +‘Our citizens, sir,’ pursued the Captain, ‘intend to pay their respects +to you. You will have to hold a sort of le-vee, sir, while you’re here.’ + +‘Powers above!’ cried Martin, ‘I couldn’t do that, my good fellow!’ + +‘I reckon you MUST then,’ said the Captain. + +‘Must is not a pleasant word, Captain,’ urged Martin. + +‘Well! I didn’t fix the mother language, and I can’t unfix it,’ said the +Captain coolly; ‘else I’d make it pleasant. You must re-ceive. That’s +all.’ + +‘But why should I receive people who care as much for me as I care for +them?’ asked Martin. + +‘Well! because I have had a muniment put up in the bar,’ returned the +Captain. + +‘A what?’ cried Martin. + +‘A muniment,’ rejoined the Captain. + +Martin looked despairingly at Mark, who informed him that the +Captain meant a written notice that Mr Chuzzlewit would receive the +Watertoasters that day, at and after two o’clock which was in effect +then hanging in the bar, as Mark, from ocular inspection of the same, +could testify. + +‘You wouldn’t be unpop’lar, I know,’ said the Captain, paring his nails. +‘Our citizens an’t long of riling up, I tell you; and our Gazette could +flay you like a wild cat.’ + +Martin was going to be very wroth, but he thought better of it, and +said: + +‘In Heaven’s name let them come, then.’ + +‘Oh, THEY’ll come,’ returned the Captain. ‘I have seen the big room +fixed a’purpose, with my eyes.’ + +‘But will you,’ said Martin, seeing that the Captain was about to go; +‘will you at least tell me this? What do they want to see me for? what +have I done? and how do they happen to have such a sudden interest in +me?’ + +Captain Kedgick put a thumb and three fingers to each side of the +brim of his hat; lifted it a little way off his head; put it on again +carefully; passed one hand all down his face, beginning at the forehead +and ending at the chin; looked at Martin; then at Mark; then at Martin +again; winked, and walked out. + +‘Upon my life, now!’ said Martin, bringing his hand heavily upon the +table; ‘such a perfectly unaccountable fellow as that, I never saw. +Mark, what do you say to this?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned his partner, ‘my opinion is that we must have got +to the MOST remarkable man in the country at last. So I hope there’s an +end to the breed, sir.’ + +Although this made Martin laugh, it couldn’t keep off two o’clock. +Punctually, as the hour struck, Captain Kedgick returned to hand him +to the room of state; and he had no sooner got him safe there, than +he bawled down the staircase to his fellow-citizens below, that Mr +Chuzzlewit was ‘receiving.’ + +Up they came with a rush. Up they came until the room was full, and, +through the open door, a dismal perspective of more to come, was shown +upon the stairs. One after another, one after another, dozen after +dozen, score after score, more, more, more, up they came; all shaking +hands with Martin. Such varieties of hands, the thick, the thin, +the short, the long, the fat, the lean, the coarse, the fine; such +differences of temperature, the hot, the cold, the dry, the moist, +the flabby; such diversities of grasp, the tight, the loose, the +short-lived, and the lingering! Still up, up, up, more, more, more; and +ever and anon the Captain’s voice was heard above the crowd--‘There’s +more below! there’s more below. Now, gentlemen you that have been +introduced to Mr Chuzzlewit, will you clear gentlemen? Will you clear? +Will you be so good as clear, gentlemen, and make a little room for +more?’ + +Regardless of the Captain’s cries, they didn’t clear at all, but stood +there, bolt upright and staring. Two gentlemen connected with the +Watertoast Gazette had come express to get the matter for an article on +Martin. They had agreed to divide the labour. One of them took him below +the waistcoat. One above. Each stood directly in front of his subject +with his head a little on one side, intent on his department. If Martin +put one boot before the other, the lower gentleman was down upon him; +he rubbed a pimple on his nose, and the upper gentleman booked it. He +opened his mouth to speak, and the same gentleman was on one knee before +him, looking in at his teeth, with the nice scrutiny of a dentist. +Amateurs in the physiognomical and phrenological sciences roved about +him with watchful eyes and itching fingers, and sometimes one, more +daring than the rest, made a mad grasp at the back of his head, and +vanished in the crowd. They had him in all points of view: in front, in +profile, three-quarter face, and behind. Those who were not professional +or scientific, audibly exchanged opinions on his looks. New lights shone +in upon him, in respect of his nose. Contradictory rumours were abroad +on the subject of his hair. And still the Captain’s voice was heard--so +stifled by the concourse, that he seemed to speak from underneath a +feather-bed--exclaiming--‘Gentlemen, you that have been introduced to Mr +Chuzzlewit, WILL you clear?’ + +Even when they began to clear it was no better; for then a stream of +gentlemen, every one with a lady on each arm (exactly like the chorus +to the National Anthem when Royalty goes in state to the play), came +gliding in--every new group fresher than the last, and bent on staying +to the latest moment. If they spoke to him, which was not often, they +invariably asked the same questions, in the same tone; with no more +remorse, or delicacy, or consideration, than if he had been a figure of +stone, purchased, and paid for, and set up there for their delight. Even +when, in the slow course of time, these died off, it was as bad as ever, +if not worse; for then the boys grew bold, and came in as a class +of themselves, and did everything that the grown-up people had done. +Uncouth stragglers, too, appeared; men of a ghostly kind, who being in, +didn’t know how to get out again; insomuch that one silent gentleman +with glazed and fishy eyes and only one button on his waistcoat (which +was a very large metal one, and shone prodigiously), got behind the +door, and stood there, like a clock, long after everybody else was gone. + +Martin felt, from pure fatigue, and heat, and worry, as if he could have +fallen on the ground and willingly remained there, if they would but +have had the mercy to leave him alone. But as letters and messages, +threatening his public denouncement if he didn’t see the senders, poured +in like hail; and as more visitors came while he took his coffee by +himself; and as Mark, with all his vigilance, was unable to keep them +from the door; he resolved to go to bed--not that he felt at all sure +of bed being any protection, but that he might not leave a forlorn hope +untried. + +He had communicated this design to Mark, and was on the eve of escaping, +when the door was thrown open in a great hurry, and an elderly gentleman +entered; bringing with him a lady who certainly could not be considered +young--that was matter of fact; and probably could not be considered +handsome--but that was matter of opinion. She was very straight, very +tall, and not at all flexible in face or figure. On her head she wore a +great straw bonnet, with trimmings of the same, in which she looked as +if she had been thatched by an unskillful labourer; and in her hand she +held a most enormous fan. + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit, I believe?’ said the gentleman. + +‘That is my name.’ + +‘Sir,’ said the gentleman, ‘I am pressed for time.’ + +‘Thank God!’ thought Martin. + +‘I go back Toe my home, sir,’ pursued the gentleman, ‘by the return +train, which starts immediate. Start is not a word you use in your +country, sir.’ + +‘Oh yes, it is,’ said Martin. + +‘You air mistaken, sir,’ returned the gentleman, with great decision: +‘but we will not pursue the subject, lest it should awake your +preju--dice. Sir, Mrs Hominy.’ + +Martin bowed. + +‘Mrs Hominy, sir, is the lady of Major Hominy, one of our chicest +spirits; and belongs Toe one of our most aristocratic families. You air, +p’raps, acquainted, sir, with Mrs Hominy’s writings.’ + +Martin couldn’t say he was. + +‘You have much Toe learn, and Toe enjoy, sir,’ said the gentleman. +‘Mrs Hominy is going Toe stay until the end of the Fall, sir, with her +married daughter at the settlement of New Thermopylae, three days this +side of Eden. Any attention, sir, that you can show Toe Mrs Hominy +upon the journey, will be very grateful Toe the Major and our +fellow-citizens. Mrs Hominy, I wish you good night, ma’am, and a +pleasant pro-gress on your route!’ + +Martin could scarcely believe it; but he had gone, and Mrs Hominy was +drinking the milk. + +‘A’most used-up I am, I do declare!’ she observed. ‘The jolting in +the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and +sawyers.’ + +‘Snags and sawyers, ma’am?’ said Martin. + +‘Well, then, I do suppose you’ll hardly realise my meaning, sir,’ said +Mrs Hominy. ‘My! Only think! DO tell!’ + +It did not appear that these expressions, although they seemed to +conclude with an urgent entreaty, stood in need of any answer; for Mrs +Hominy, untying her bonnet-strings, observed that she would withdraw to +lay that article of dress aside, and would return immediately. + +‘Mark!’ said Martin. ‘Touch me, will you. Am I awake?’ + +‘Hominy is, sir,’ returned his partner--‘Broad awake! Just the sort of +woman, sir, as would be discovered with her eyes wide open, and her mind +a-working for her country’s good, at any hour of the day or night.’ + +They had no opportunity of saying more, for Mrs Hominy stalked in +again--very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood; and holding in +her clasped hands a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, perhaps a parting +gift from that choice spirit, the Major. She had laid aside her bonnet, +and now appeared in a highly aristocratic and classical cap, meeting +beneath her chin: a style of headdress so admirably adapted to her +countenance, that if the late Mr Grimaldi had appeared in the lappets of +Mrs Siddons, a more complete effect could not have been produced. + +Martin handed her to a chair. Her first words arrested him before he +could get back to his own seat. + +‘Pray, sir!’ said Mrs Hominy, ‘where do you hail from?’ + +‘I am afraid I am dull of comprehension,’ answered Martin, ‘being +extremely tired; but upon my word I don’t understand you.’ + +Mrs Hominy shook her head with a melancholy smile that said, not +inexpressively, ‘They corrupt even the language in that old country!’ +and added then, as coming down a step or two to meet his low capacity, +‘Where was you rose?’ + +‘Oh!’ said Martin ‘I was born in Kent.’ + +‘And how do you like our country, sir?’ asked Mrs Hominy. + +‘Very much indeed,’ said Martin, half asleep. ‘At least--that is--pretty +well, ma’am.’ + +‘Most strangers--and partick’larly Britishers--are much surprised by +what they see in the U-nited States,’ remarked Mrs Hominy. + +‘They have excellent reason to be so, ma’am,’ said Martin. ‘I never was +so much surprised in all my life.’ + +‘Our institutions make our people smart much, sir,’ Mrs Hominy remarked. + +‘The most short-sighted man could see that at a glance, with his naked +eye,’ said Martin. + +Mrs Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had a +pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase, +was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a +lady--although the door WAS open--to talk about a naked eye! + +A long interval elapsed before even she--woman of masculine and towering +intellect though she was--could call up fortitude enough to resume the +conversation. But Mrs Hominy was a traveller. Mrs Hominy was a writer +of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs Hominy had had her letters +from abroad, beginning ‘My ever dearest blank,’ and signed ‘The Mother +of the Modern Gracchi’ (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly +printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capitals, and +all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs Hominy had looked on foreign countries +with the eye of a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs +Hominy could talk (or write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs +Hominy at last came down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep, +she had it all her own way, and bruised him to her heart’s content. + +It is no great matter what Mrs Hominy said, save that she had learnt it +from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow countrymen, +who in their every word, avow themselves to be as senseless to the high +principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in +her legislative halls. Who are no more capable of feeling, or of caring +if they did feel, that by reducing their own country to the ebb of +honest men’s contempt, they put in hazard the rights of nations yet +unborn, and very progress of the human race, than are the swine who +wallow in their streets. Who think that crying out to other nations, +old in their iniquity, ‘We are no worse than you!’ (No worse!) is high +defence and ‘vantage-ground enough for that Republic, but yesterday let +loose upon her noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full +of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless to the sense, +that her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust. +Who, having by their ancestors declared and won their Independence, +because they would not bend the knee to certain Public vices and +corruptions, and would not abrogate the truth, run riot in the Bad, +and turn their backs upon the Good; and lying down contented with the +wretched boast that other Temples also are of glass, and stones which +batter theirs may be flung back; show themselves, in that alone, as +immeasurably behind the import of the trust they hold, and as unworthy +to possess it as if the sordid hucksterings of all their little +governments--each one a kingdom in its small depravity--were brought +into a heap for evidence against them. + +Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a terrible +oppression on his mind; an imperfect dream that he had murdered a +particular friend, and couldn’t get rid of the body. When his eyes +opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible +Hominy talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her +mental endowments to such an extent that the Major’s bitterest enemy, +hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart. +Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded +for supper; but sound it did most opportunely; and having stationed Mrs +Hominy at the upper end of the table he took refuge at the lower end +himself; whence, after a hasty meal he stole away, while the lady was +yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings. + +It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs Hominy’s freshness +next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into moral +philosophy at breakfast. Some little additional degree of asperity, +perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles +would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. She +sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another +Reception, yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories, and +answered imaginary objections, so that Martin really began to think he +must be dreaming, and speaking for two; she quoted interminable passages +from certain essays on government, written by herself; used the Major’s +pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which +she was determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short, +was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between +himself and his conscience, that in any new settlement it would be +absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the +general peace of society. + +In the meantime Mark was busy, from early in the morning until late +at night, in getting on board the steamboat such provisions, tools and +other necessaries, as they had been forewarned it would be wise to take. +The purchase of these things, and the settlement of their bill at the +National, reduced their finances to so low an ebb, that if the captain +had delayed his departure any longer, they would have been in almost as +bad a plight as the unfortunate poorer emigrants, who (seduced on board +by solemn advertisement) had been living on the lower deck a whole week, +and exhausting their miserable stock of provisions before the voyage +commenced. There they were, all huddled together with the engine and the +fires. Farmers who had never seen a plough; woodmen who had never used +an axe; builders who couldn’t make a box; cast out of their own land, +with not a hand to aid them: newly come into an unknown world, children +in helplessness, but men in wants--with younger children at their backs, +to live or die as it might happen! + +The morning came, and they would start at noon. Noon came, and they +would start at night. But nothing is eternal in this world; not even the +procrastination of an American skipper; and at night all was ready. + +Dispirited and weary to the last degree, but a greater lion than +ever (he had done nothing all the afternoon but answer letters from +strangers; half of them about nothing; half about borrowing money, and +all requiring an instantaneous reply), Martin walked down to the wharf, +through a concourse of people, with Mrs Hominy upon his arm; and went on +board. But Mark was bent on solving the riddle of this lionship, if he +could; and so, not without the risk of being left behind, ran back to +the hotel. + +Captain Kedgick was sitting in the colonnade, with a julep on his knee, +and a cigar in his mouth. He caught Mark’s eye, and said: + +‘Why, what the ‘Tarnal brings you here?’ + +‘I’ll tell you plainly what it is, Captain,’ said Mark. ‘I want to ask +you a question.’ + +‘A man may ASK a question, so he may,’ returned Kedgick; strongly +implying that another man might not answer a question, so he mightn’t. + +‘What have they been making so much of him for, now?’ said Mark, slyly. +‘Come!’ + +‘Our people like ex-citement,’ answered Kedgick, sucking his cigar. + +‘But how has he excited ‘em?’ asked Mark. + +The Captain looked at him as if he were half inclined to unburden his +mind of a capital joke. + +‘You air a-going?’ he said. + +‘Going!’ cried Mark. ‘Ain’t every moment precious?’ + +‘Our people like ex-citement,’ said the Captain, whispering. ‘He ain’t +like emigrants in gin’ral; and he excited ‘em along of this;’ he winked +and burst into a smothered laugh; ‘along of this. Scadder is a smart +man, and--and--nobody as goes to Eden ever comes back alive!’ + +The wharf was close at hand, and at that instant Mark could hear them +shouting out his name; could even hear Martin calling to him to make +haste, or they would be separated. It was too late to mend the matter, +or put any face upon it but the best. He gave the Captain a parting +benediction, and ran off like a race-horse. + +‘Mark! Mark!’ cried Martin. + +‘Here am I, sir!’ shouted Mark, suddenly replying from the edge of the +quay, and leaping at a bound on board. ‘Never was half so jolly, sir. +All right. Haul in! Go ahead!’ + +The sparks from the wood fire streamed upward from the two chimneys, as +if the vessel were a great firework just lighted; and they roared away +upon the dark water. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE + +MARTIN AND HIS PARTNER TAKE POSSESSION OF THEIR ESTATE. THE JOYFUL +OCCASION INVOLVES SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF EDEN + + +There happened to be on board the steamboat several gentlemen +passengers, of the same stamp as Martin’s New York friend Mr Bevan; and +in their society he was cheerful and happy. They released him as well +as they could from the intellectual entanglements of Mrs Hominy; +and exhibited, in all they said and did, so much good sense and high +feeling, that he could not like them too well. ‘If this were a republic +of Intellect and Worth,’ he said, ‘instead of vapouring and jobbing, +they would not want the levers to keep it in motion.’ + +‘Having good tools, and using bad ones,’ returned Mr Tapley, ‘would look +as if they was rather a poor sort of carpenters, sir, wouldn’t it?’ + +Martin nodded. ‘As if their work were infinitely above their powers and +purpose, Mark; and they botched it in consequence.’ + +‘The best on it is,’ said Mark, ‘that when they do happen to make a +decent stroke; such as better workmen, with no such opportunities, make +every day of their lives and think nothing of--they begin to sing out +so surprising loud. Take notice of my words, sir. If ever the defaulting +part of this here country pays its debts--along of finding that not +paying ‘em won’t do in a commercial point of view, you see, and is +inconvenient in its consequences--they’ll take such a shine out of it, +and make such bragging speeches, that a man might suppose no borrowed +money had ever been paid afore, since the world was first begun. That’s +the way they gammon each other, sir. Bless you, I know ‘em. Take notice +of my words, now!’ + +‘You seem to be growing profoundly sagacious!’ cried Martin, laughing. + +‘Whether that is,’ thought Mark, ‘because I’m a day’s journey nearer +Eden, and am brightening up afore I die, I can’t say. P’rhaps by the +time I get there I shall have growed into a prophet.’ + +He gave no utterance to these sentiments; but the excessive joviality +they inspired within him, and the merriment they brought upon his +shining face, were quite enough for Martin. Although he might sometimes +profess to make light of his partner’s inexhaustible cheerfulness, +and might sometimes, as in the case of Zephaniah Scadder, find him +too jocose a commentator, he was always sensible of the effect of his +example in rousing him to hopefulness and courage. Whether he were in +the humour to profit by it, mattered not a jot. It was contagious, and +he could not choose but be affected. + +At first they parted with some of their passengers once or twice a day, +and took in others to replace them. But by degrees, the towns upon their +route became more thinly scattered; and for many hours together they +would see no other habitations than the huts of the wood-cutters, where +the vessel stopped for fuel. Sky, wood, and water all the livelong day; +and heat that blistered everything it touched. + +On they toiled through great solitudes, where the trees upon the banks +grew thick and close; and floated in the stream; and held up shrivelled +arms from out the river’s depths; and slid down from the margin of the +land, half growing, half decaying, in the miry water. On through the +weary day and melancholy night; beneath the burning sun, and in the mist +and vapour of the evening; on, until return appeared impossible, and +restoration to their home a miserable dream. + +They had now but few people on board, and these few were as flat, as +dull, and stagnant, as the vegetation that oppressed their eyes. No +sound of cheerfulness or hope was heard; no pleasant talk beguiled +the tardy time; no little group made common cause against the full +depression of the scene. But that, at certain periods, they swallowed +food together from a common trough, it might have been old Charon’s +boat, conveying melancholy shades to judgment. + +At length they drew near New Thermopylae; where, that same evening, Mrs +Hominy would disembark. A gleam of comfort sunk into Martin’s bosom when +she told him this. Mark needed none; but he was not displeased. + +It was almost night when they came alongside the landing-place. A steep +bank with an hotel like a barn on the top of it; a wooden store or two; +and a few scattered sheds. + +‘You sleep here to-night, and go on in the morning, I suppose, ma’am?’ +said Martin. + +‘Where should I go on to?’ cried the mother of the modern Gracchi. + +‘To New Thermopylae.’ + +‘My! ain’t I there?’ said Mrs Hominy. + +Martin looked for it all round the darkening panorama; but he couldn’t +see it, and was obliged to say so. + +‘Why that’s it!’ cried Mrs Hominy, pointing to the sheds just mentioned. + +‘THAT!’ exclaimed Martin. + +‘Ah! that; and work it which way you will, it whips Eden,’ said Mrs +Hominy, nodding her head with great expression. + +The married Miss Hominy, who had come on board with her husband, gave to +this statement her most unqualified support, as did that gentleman also. +Martin gratefully declined their invitation to regale himself at their +house during the half hour of the vessel’s stay; and having escorted +Mrs Hominy and the red pocket-handkerchief (which was still on active +service) safely across the gangway, returned in a thoughtful mood to +watch the emigrants as they removed their goods ashore. + +Mark, as he stood beside him, glanced in his face from time to time; +anxious to discover what effect this dialogue had had upon him, and +not unwilling that his hopes should be dashed before they reached their +destination, so that the blow he feared might be broken in its fall. But +saving that he sometimes looked up quickly at the poor erections on the +hill, he gave him no clue to what was passing in his mind, until they +were again upon their way. + +‘Mark,’ he said then, ‘are there really none but ourselves on board this +boat who are bound for Eden?’ + +‘None at all, sir. Most of ‘em, as you know, have stopped short; and +the few that are left are going further on. What matters that! More room +there for us, sir.’ + +‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Martin. ‘But I was thinking--’ and there he +paused. + +‘Yes, sir?’ observed Mark. + +‘How odd it was that the people should have arranged to try their +fortune at a wretched hole like that, for instance, when there is such +a much better, and such a very different kind of place, near at hand, as +one may say.’ + +He spoke in a tone so very different from his usual confidence, and with +such an obvious dread of Mark’s reply, that the good-natured fellow was +full of pity. + +‘Why, you know, sir,’ said Mark, as gently as he could by any means +insinuate the observation, ‘we must guard against being too sanguine. +There’s no occasion for it, either, because we’re determined to make the +best of everything, after we know the worst of it. Ain’t we, sir?’ + +Martin looked at him, but answered not a word. + +‘Even Eden, you know, ain’t all built,’ said Mark. + +‘In the name of Heaven, man,’ cried Martin angrily, ‘don’t talk of Eden +in the same breath with that place. Are you mad? There--God forgive +me!--don’t think harshly of me for my temper!’ + +After that, he turned away, and walked to and fro upon the deck full two +hours. Nor did he speak again, except to say ‘Good night,’ until next +day; nor even then upon this subject, but on other topics quite foreign +to the purpose. + +As they proceeded further on their track, and came more and more towards +their journey’s end, the monotonous desolation of the scene increased to +that degree, that for any redeeming feature it presented to their eyes, +they might have entered, in the body, on the grim domains of Giant +Despair. A flat morass, bestrewn with fallen timber; a marsh on which +the good growth of the earth seemed to have been wrecked and cast away, +that from its decomposing ashes vile and ugly things might rise; where +the very trees took the aspect of huge weeds, begotten of the slime +from which they sprung, by the hot sun that burnt them up; where fatal +maladies, seeking whom they might infect, came forth at night in misty +shapes, and creeping out upon the water, hunted them like spectres until +day; where even the blessed sun, shining down on festering elements +of corruption and disease, became a horror; this was the realm of Hope +through which they moved. + +At last they stopped. At Eden too. The waters of the Deluge might have +left it but a week before; so choked with slime and matted growth was +the hideous swamp which bore that name. + +There being no depth of water close in shore, they landed from the +vessel’s boat, with all their goods beside them. There were a few +log-houses visible among the dark trees; the best, a cow-shed or a rude +stable; but for the wharves, the market-place, the public buildings-- + +‘Here comes an Edener,’ said Mark. ‘He’ll get us help to carry these +things up. Keep a good heart, sir. Hallo there!’ + +The man advanced toward them through the thickening gloom, very slowly; +leaning on a stick. As he drew nearer, they observed that he was pale +and worn, and that his anxious eyes were deeply sunken in his head. His +dress of homespun blue hung about him in rags; his feet and head were +bare. He sat down on a stump half-way, and beckoned them to come to him. +When they complied, he put his hand upon his side as if in pain, and +while he fetched his breath stared at them, wondering. + +‘Strangers!’ he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. + +‘The very same,’ said Mark. ‘How are you, sir?’ + +‘I’ve had the fever very bad,’ he answered faintly. ‘I haven’t stood +upright these many weeks. Those are your notions I see,’ pointing to +their property. + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Mark, ‘they are. You couldn’t recommend us some one as +would lend a hand to help carry ‘em up to the--to the town, could you, +sir?’ + +‘My eldest son would do it if he could,’ replied the man; ‘but today +he has his chill upon him, and is lying wrapped up in the blankets. My +youngest died last week.’ + +‘I’m sorry for it, governor, with all my heart,’ said Mark, shaking him +by the hand. ‘Don’t mind us. Come along with me, and I’ll give you an +arm back. The goods is safe enough, sir’--to Martin--‘there ain’t many +people about, to make away with ‘em. What a comfort that is!’ + +‘No,’ cried the man. ‘You must look for such folk here,’ knocking his +stick upon the ground, ‘or yonder in the bush, towards the north. We’ve +buried most of ‘em. The rest have gone away. Them that we have here, +don’t come out at night.’ + +‘The night air ain’t quite wholesome, I suppose?’ said Mark. + +‘It’s deadly poison,’ was the settler’s answer. + +Mark showed no more uneasiness than if it had been commended to him as +ambrosia; but he gave the man his arm, and as they went along explained +to him the nature of their purchase, and inquired where it lay. Close to +his own log-house, he said; so close that he had used their dwelling +as a store-house for some corn; they must excuse it that night, but he +would endeavour to get it taken out upon the morrow. He then gave them +to understand, as an additional scrap of local chit-chat, that he had +buried the last proprietor with his own hands; a piece of information +which Mark also received without the least abatement of his equanimity. + +In a word, he conducted them to a miserable cabin, rudely constructed +of the trunks of trees; the door of which had either fallen down or +been carried away long ago; and which was consequently open to the +wild landscape and the dark night. Saving for the little store he had +mentioned, it was perfectly bare of all furniture; but they had left a +chest upon the landing-place, and he gave them a rude torch in lieu +of candle. This latter acquisition Mark planted in the earth, and then +declaring that the mansion ‘looked quite comfortable,’ hurried +Martin off again to help bring up the chest. And all the way to the +landing-place and back, Mark talked incessantly; as if he would infuse +into his partner’s breast some faint belief that they had arrived under +the most auspicious and cheerful of all imaginable circumstances. + +But many a man who would have stood within a home dismantled, strong in +his passion and design of vengeance, has had the firmness of his +nature conquered by the razing of an air-built castle. When the log-hut +received them for the second time, Martin laid down upon the ground, and +wept aloud. + +‘Lord love you, sir!’ cried Mr Tapley, in great terror; ‘Don’t do that! +Don’t do that, sir! Anything but that! It never helped man, woman, or +child, over the lowest fence yet, sir, and it never will. Besides its +being of no use to you, it’s worse than of no use to me, for the least +sound of it will knock me flat down. I can’t stand up agin it, sir. +Anything but that!’ + +There is no doubt he spoke the truth, for the extraordinary alarm with +which he looked at Martin as he paused upon his knees before the chest, +in the act of unlocking it, to say these words, sufficiently confirmed +him. + +‘I ask your forgiveness a thousand times, my dear fellow,’ said Martin. +‘I couldn’t have helped it, if death had been the penalty.’ + +‘Ask my forgiveness!’ said Mark, with his accustomed cheerfulness, as he +proceeded to unpack the chest. ‘The head partner a-asking forgiveness of +Co., eh? There must be something wrong in the firm when that happens. I +must have the books inspected and the accounts gone over immediate. Here +we are. Everything in its proper place. Here’s the salt pork. Here’s the +biscuit. Here’s the whiskey. Uncommon good it smells too. Here’s the +tin pot. This tin pot’s a small fortun’ in itself! Here’s the blankets. +Here’s the axe. Who says we ain’t got a first-rate fit out? I feel as if +I was a cadet gone out to Indy, and my noble father was chairman of the +Board of Directors. Now, when I’ve got some water from the stream afore +the door and mixed the grog,’ cried Mark, running out to suit the action +to the word, ‘there’s a supper ready, comprising every delicacy of +the season. Here we are, sir, all complete. For what we are going to +receive, et cetrer. Lord bless you, sir, it’s very like a gipsy party!’ + +It was impossible not to take heart, in the company of such a man as +this. Martin sat upon the ground beside the box; took out his knife; and +ate and drank sturdily. + +‘Now you see,’ said Mark, when they had made a hearty meal; ‘with your +knife and mine, I sticks this blanket right afore the door. Or where, in +a state of high civilization, the door would be. And very neat it looks. +Then I stops the aperture below, by putting the chest agin it. And very +neat THAT looks. Then there’s your blanket, sir. Then here’s mine. And +what’s to hinder our passing a good night?’ + +For all his light-hearted speaking, it was long before he slept himself. +He wrapped his blanket round him, put the axe ready to his hand, and lay +across the threshold of the door; too anxious and too watchful to close +his eyes. The novelty of their dreary situation, the dread of some +rapacious animal or human enemy, the terrible uncertainty of their means +of subsistence, the apprehension of death, the immense distance and the +hosts of obstacles between themselves and England, were fruitful sources +of disquiet in the deep silence of the night. Though Martin would have +had him think otherwise, Mark felt that he was waking also, and a prey +to the same reflections. This was almost worse than all, for if he began +to brood over their miseries instead of trying to make head against them +there could be little doubt that such a state of mind would powerfully +assist the influence of the pestilent climate. Never had the light of +day been half so welcome to his eyes, as when awaking from a fitful +doze, Mark saw it shining through the blanket in the doorway. + +He stole out gently, for his companion was sleeping now; and having +refreshed himself by washing in the river, where it snowed before the +door, took a rough survey of the settlement. There were not above a +score of cabins in the whole; half of these appeared untenanted; all +were rotten and decayed. The most tottering, abject, and forlorn among +them was called, with great propriety, the Bank, and National Credit +Office. It had some feeble props about it, but was settling deep down in +the mud, past all recovery. + +Here and there an effort had been made to clear the land, and something +like a field had been marked out, where, among the stumps and ashes of +burnt trees, a scanty crop of Indian corn was growing. In some quarters, +a snake or zigzag fence had been begun, but in no instance had it been +completed; and the felled logs, half hidden in the soil, lay mouldering +away. Three or four meagre dogs, wasted and vexed with hunger; some +long-legged pigs, wandering away into the woods in search of food; some +children, nearly naked, gazing at him from the huts; were all the living +things he saw. A fetid vapour, hot and sickening as the breath of an +oven, rose up from the earth, and hung on everything around; and as his +foot-prints sunk into the marshy ground, a black ooze started forth to +blot them out. + +Their own land was mere forest. The trees had grown so think and close +that they shouldered one another out of their places, and the weakest, +forced into shapes of strange distortion, languished like cripples. +The best were stunted, from the pressure and the want of room; and high +about the stems of all grew long rank grass, dank weeds, and frowsy +underwood; not divisible into their separate kinds, but tangled all +together in a heap; a jungle deep and dark, with neither earth nor water +at its roots, but putrid matter, formed of the pulpy offal of the two, +and of their own corruption. + +He went down to the landing-place where they had left their goods last +night; and there he found some half-dozen men--wan and forlorn to look +at, but ready enough to assist--who helped him to carry them to the +log-house. They shook their heads in speaking of the settlement, and had +no comfort to give him. Those who had the means of going away had all +deserted it. They who were left had lost their wives, their children, +friends, or brothers there, and suffered much themselves. Most of +them were ill then; none were the men they had been once. They frankly +offered their assistance and advice, and, leaving him for that time, +went sadly off upon their several tasks. + +Martin was by this time stirring; but he had greatly changed, even in +one night. He was very pale and languid; he spoke of pains and weakness +in his limbs, and complained that his sight was dim, and his voice +feeble. Increasing in his own briskness as the prospect grew more and +more dismal, Mark brought away a door from one of the deserted houses, +and fitted it to their own habitation; then went back again for a rude +bench he had observed, with which he presently returned in triumph; +and having put this piece of furniture outside the house, arranged the +notable tin pot and other such movables upon it, that it might represent +a dresser or a sideboard. Greatly satisfied with this arrangement, he +next rolled their cask of flour into the house and set it up on end in +one corner, where it served for a side-table. No better dining-table +could be required than the chest, which he solemnly devoted to that +useful service thenceforth. Their blankets, clothes, and the like, he +hung on pegs and nails. And lastly, he brought forth a great placard +(which Martin in the exultation of his heart had prepared with his own +hands at the National Hotel) bearing the inscription, CHUZZLEWIT & CO., +ARCHITECTS AND SURVEYORS, which he displayed upon the most conspicuous +part of the premises, with as much gravity as if the thriving city of +Eden had a real existence, and they expected to be overwhelmed with +business. + +‘These here tools,’ said Mark, bringing forward Martin’s case of +instruments and sticking the compasses upright in a stump before the +door, ‘shall be set out in the open air to show that we come provided. +And now, if any gentleman wants a house built, he’d better give his +orders, afore we’re other ways bespoke.’ + +Considering the intense heat of the weather, this was not a bad +morning’s work; but without pausing for a moment, though he was +streaming at every pore, Mark vanished into the house again, and +presently reappeared with a hatchet; intent on performing some +impossibilities with that implement. + +‘Here’s ugly old tree in the way, sir,’ he observed, ‘which’ll be all +the better down. We can build the oven in the afternoon. There never was +such a handy spot for clay as Eden is. That’s convenient, anyhow.’ + +But Martin gave him no answer. He had sat the whole time with his head +upon his hands, gazing at the current as it rolled swiftly by; thinking, +perhaps, how fast it moved towards the open sea, the high road to the +home he never would behold again. + +Not even the vigorous strokes which Mark dealt at the tree awoke him +from his mournful meditation. Finding all his endeavours to rouse him of +no use, Mark stopped in his work and came towards him. + +‘Don’t give in, sir,’ said Mr Tapley. + +‘Oh, Mark,’ returned his friend, ‘what have I done in all my life that +has deserved this heavy fate?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘for the matter of that, everybody as is here +might say the same thing; many of ‘em with better reason p’raps than +you or me. Hold up, sir. Do something. Couldn’t you ease your mind, now, +don’t you think, by making some personal obserwations in a letter to +Scadder?’ + +‘No,’ said Martin, shaking his head sorrowfully: ‘I am past that.’ + +‘But if you’re past that already,’ returned Mark, ‘you must be ill, and +ought to be attended to.’ + +‘Don’t mind me,’ said Martin. ‘Do the best you can for yourself. You’ll +soon have only yourself to consider. And then God speed you home, and +forgive me for bringing you here! I am destined to die in this place. I +felt it the instant I set foot upon the shore. Sleeping or waking, Mark, +I dreamed it all last night.’ + +‘I said you must be ill,’ returned Mark, tenderly, ‘and now I’m sure of +it. A touch of fever and ague caught on these rivers, I dare say; but +bless you, THAT’S nothing. It’s only a seasoning, and we must all be +seasoned, one way or another. That’s religion that is, you know,’ said +Mark. + +He only sighed and shook his head. + +‘Wait half a minute,’ said Mark cheerily, ‘till I run up to one of our +neighbours and ask what’s best to be took, and borrow a little of it to +give you; and to-morrow you’ll find yourself as strong as ever again. I +won’t be gone a minute. Don’t give in while I’m away, whatever you do!’ + +Throwing down his hatchet, he sped away immediately, but stopped when he +had got a little distance, and looked back; then hurried on again. + +‘Now, Mr Tapley,’ said Mark, giving himself a tremendous blow in the +chest by way of reviver, ‘just you attend to what I’ve got to say. +Things is looking about as bad as they CAN look, young man. You’ll not +have such another opportunity for showing your jolly disposition, my +fine fellow, as long as you live. And therefore, Tapley, Now’s your time +to come out strong; or Never!’ + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR + +REPORTS PROGRESS IN CERTAIN HOMELY MATTERS OF LOVE, HATRED, JEALOUSY, +AND REVENGE + + +‘Hallo, Pecksniff!’ cried Mr Jonas from the parlour. ‘Isn’t somebody +a-going to open that precious old door of yours?’ + +‘Immediately, Mr Jonas. Immediately.’ + +‘Ecod,’ muttered the orphan, ‘not before it’s time neither. Whoever it +is, has knocked three times, and each one loud enough to wake the--’ he +had such a repugnance to the idea of waking the Dead, that he stopped +even then with the words upon his tongue, and said, instead, ‘the Seven +Sleepers.’ + +‘Immediately, Mr Jonas; immediately,’ repeated Pecksniff. ‘Thomas +Pinch’--he couldn’t make up his mind, in his great agitation, whether to +call Tom his dear friend or a villain, so he shook his fist at him +PRO TEM--‘go up to my daughters’ room, and tell them who is here. Say, +Silence. Silence! Do you hear me, sir? + +‘Directly, sir!’ cried Tom, departing, in a state of much amazement, on +his errand. + +‘You’ll--ha, ha, ha!--you’ll excuse me, Mr Jonas, if I close this door +a moment, will you?’ said Pecksniff. ‘This may be a professional call. +Indeed I am pretty sure it is. Thank you.’ Then Mr Pecksniff, gently +warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and +opened the street door; calmly appearing on the threshold, as if he +thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite +certain. + +Seeing a gentleman and lady before him, he started back in as much +confusion as a good man with a crystal conscience might betray in mere +surprise. Recognition came upon him the next moment, and he cried: + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit! Can I believe my eyes! My dear sir; my good sir! A +joyful hour, a happy hour indeed. Pray, my dear sir, walk in. You find +me in my garden-dress. You will excuse it, I know. It is an ancient +pursuit, gardening. Primitive, my dear sir. Or, if I am not mistaken, +Adam was the first of our calling. MY Eve, I grieve to say is no more, +sir; but’--here he pointed to his spade, and shook his head as if he +were not cheerful without an effort--‘but I do a little bit of Adam +still.’ + +He had by this time got them into the best parlour, where the portrait +by Spiller, and the bust by Spoker, were. + +‘My daughters,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘will be overjoyed. If I could feel +weary upon such a theme, I should have been worn out long ago, my dear +sir, by their constant anticipation of this happiness and their repeated +allusions to our meeting at Mrs Todgers’s. Their fair young friend, +too,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘whom they so desire to know and love--indeed +to know her, is to love--I hope I see her well. I hope in saying, +“Welcome to my humble roof!” I find some echo in her own sentiments. +If features are an index to the heart, I have no fears of that. An +extremely engaging expression of countenance, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear +sir--very much so!’ + +‘Mary,’ said the old man, ‘Mr Pecksniff flatters you. But flattery from +him is worth the having. He is not a dealer in it, and it comes from his +heart. We thought Mr--’ + +‘Pinch,’ said Mary. + +‘Mr Pinch would have arrived before us, Pecksniff.’ + +‘He did arrive before you, my dear sir,’ retorted Pecksniff, raising his +voice for the edification of Tom upon the stairs, ‘and was about, I dare +say, to tell me of your coming, when I begged him first to knock at my +daughters’ chamber, and inquire after Charity, my dear child, who is not +so well as I could wish. No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, answering their looks, +‘I am sorry to say, she is not. It is merely an hysterical affection; +nothing more, I am not uneasy. Mr Pinch! Thomas!’ exclaimed Pecksniff, +in his kindest accents. ‘Pray come in. I shall make no stranger of you. +Thomas is a friend of mine, of rather long-standing, Mr Chuzzlewit, you +must know.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ said Tom. ‘You introduce me very kindly, and speak of +me in terms of which I am very proud.’ + +‘Old Thomas!’ cried his master, pleasantly ‘God bless you!’ + +Tom reported that the young ladies would appear directly, and that +the best refreshments which the house afforded were even then in +preparation, under their joint superintendence. While he was speaking, +the old man looked at him intently, though with less harshness than was +common to him; nor did the mutual embarrassment of Tom and the +young lady, to whatever cause he attributed it, seem to escape his +observation. + +‘Pecksniff,’ he said after a pause, rising and taking him aside towards +the window, ‘I was much shocked on hearing of my brother’s death. We +had been strangers for many years. My only comfort is that he must +have lived the happier and better man for having associated no hopes or +schemes with me. Peace to his memory! We were play-fellows once; and it +would have been better for us both if we had died then.’ + +Finding him in this gentle mood, Mr Pecksniff began to see another way +out of his difficulties, besides the casting overboard of Jonas. + +‘That any man, my dear sir, could possibly be the happier for not +knowing you,’ he returned, ‘you will excuse my doubting. But that Mr +Anthony, in the evening of his life, was happier in the affection of his +excellent son--a pattern, my dear sir, a pattern to all sons--and in the +care of a distant relation who, however lowly in his means of serving +him, had no bounds to his inclination; I can inform you.’ + +‘How’s this?’ said the old man. ‘You are not a legatee?’ + +‘You don’t,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a melancholy pressure of his hand, +‘quite understand my nature yet, I find. No, sir, I am not a legatee. I +am proud to say I am not a legatee. I am proud to say that neither of my +children is a legatee. And yet, sir, I was with him at his own request. +HE understood me somewhat better, sir. He wrote and said, “I am sick. I +am sinking. Come to me!” I went to him. I sat beside his bed, sir, and +I stood beside his grave. Yes, at the risk of offending even you, I did +it, sir. Though the avowal should lead to our instant separation, and +to the severing of those tender ties between us which have recently been +formed, I make it. But I am not a legatee,’ said Mr Pecksniff, smiling +dispassionately; ‘and I never expected to be a legatee. I knew better!’ + +‘His son a pattern!’ cried old Martin. ‘How can you tell me that? My +brother had in his wealth the usual doom of wealth, and root of misery. +He carried his corrupting influence with him, go where he would; and +shed it round him, even on his hearth. It made of his own child a +greedy expectant, who measured every day and hour the lessening distance +between his father and the grave, and cursed his tardy progress on that +dismal road.’ + +‘No!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, boldly. ‘Not at all, sir!’ + +‘But I saw that shadow in his house,’ said Martin Chuzzlewit, ‘the last +time we met, and warned him of its presence. I know it when I see it, do +I not? I, who have lived within it all these years!’ + +‘I deny it,’ Mr Pecksniff answered, warmly. ‘I deny it altogether. That +bereaved young man is now in this house, sir, seeking in change of scene +the peace of mind he has lost. Shall I be backward in doing justice to +that young man, when even undertakers and coffin-makers have been moved +by the conduct he has exhibited; when even mutes have spoken in his +praise, and the medical man hasn’t known what to do with himself in +the excitement of his feelings! There is a person of the name of Gamp, +sir--Mrs Gamp--ask her. She saw Mr Jonas in a trying time. Ask HER, sir. +She is respectable, but not sentimental, and will state the fact. A line +addressed to Mrs Gamp, at the Bird Shop, Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, +London, will meet with every attention, I have no doubt. Let her be +examined, my good sir. Strike, but hear! Leap, Mr Chuzzlewit, but look! +Forgive me, my dear sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking both his hands, ‘if +I am warm; but I am honest, and must state the truth.’ + +In proof of the character he gave himself, Mr Pecksniff suffered tears +of honesty to ooze out of his eyes. + +The old man gazed at him for a moment with a look of wonder, repeating +to himself, ‘Here now! In this house!’ But he mastered his surprise, and +said, after a pause: + +‘Let me see him.’ + +‘In a friendly spirit, I hope?’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Forgive me, sir but +he is in the receipt of my humble hospitality.’ + +‘I said,’ replied the old man, ‘let me see him. If I were disposed to +regard him in any other than a friendly spirit, I should have said keep +us apart.’ + +‘Certainly, my dear sir. So you would. You are frankness itself, I know. +I will break this happiness to him,’ said Mr Pecksniff, as he left the +room, ‘if you will excuse me for a minute--gently.’ + +He paved the way to the disclosure so very gently, that a quarter of an +hour elapsed before he returned with Mr Jonas. In the meantime the young +ladies had made their appearance, and the table had been set out for the +refreshment of the travellers. + +Now, however well Mr Pecksniff, in his morality, had taught Jonas the +lesson of dutiful behaviour to his uncle, and however perfectly Jonas, +in the cunning of his nature, had learnt it, that young man’s bearing, +when presented to his father’s brother, was anything but manly or +engaging. Perhaps, indeed, so singular a mixture of defiance and +obsequiousness, of fear and hardihood, of dogged sullenness and an +attempt at enraging and propitiation, never was expressed in any one +human figure as in that of Jonas, when, having raised his downcast +eyes to Martin’s face, he let them fall again, and uneasily closing +and unclosing his hands without a moment’s intermission, stood swinging +himself from side to side, waiting to be addressed. + +‘Nephew,’ said the old man. ‘You have been a dutiful son, I hear.’ + +‘As dutiful as sons in general, I suppose,’ returned Jonas, looking up +and down once more. ‘I don’t brag to have been any better than other +sons; but I haven’t been any worse, I dare say.’ + +‘A pattern to all sons, I am told,’ said the old man, glancing towards +Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Ecod!’ said Jonas, looking up again for a moment, and shaking his head, +‘I’ve been as good a son as ever you were a brother. It’s the pot and +the kettle, if you come to that.’ + +‘You speak bitterly, in the violence of your regret,’ said Martin, after +a pause. ‘Give me your hand.’ + +Jonas did so, and was almost at his ease. ‘Pecksniff,’ he whispered, +as they drew their chairs about the table; ‘I gave him as good as he +brought, eh? He had better look at home, before he looks out of window, +I think?’ + +Mr Pecksniff only answered by a nudge of the elbow, which might either +be construed into an indignant remonstrance or a cordial assent; but +which, in any case, was an emphatic admonition to his chosen son-in-law +to be silent. He then proceeded to do the honours of the house with his +accustomed ease and amiability. + +But not even Mr Pecksniff’s guileless merriment could set such a +party at their ease, or reconcile materials so utterly discordant +and conflicting as those with which he had to deal. The unspeakable +jealously and hatred which that night’s explanation had sown in +Charity’s breast, was not to be so easily kept down; and more than +once it showed itself in such intensity, as seemed to render a full +disclosure of all the circumstances then and there, impossible to be +avoided. The beauteous Merry, too, with all the glory of her conquest +fresh upon her, so probed and lanced the rankling disappointment of her +sister by her capricious airs and thousand little trials of Mr Jonas’s +obedience, that she almost goaded her into a fit of madness, and obliged +her to retire from table in a burst of passion, hardly less vehement +than that to which she had abandoned herself in the first tumult of her +wrath. The constraint imposed upon the family by the presence among +them for the first time of Mary Graham (for by that name old Martin +Chuzzlewit had introduced her) did not at all improve this state of +things; gentle and quiet though her manner was. Mr Pecksniff’s situation +was peculiarly trying; for, what with having constantly to keep the +peace between his daughters; to maintain a reasonable show of affection +and unity in his household; to curb the growing ease and gaiety of +Jonas, which vented itself in sundry insolences towards Mr Pinch, and +an indefinable coarseness of manner in reference to Mary (they being the +two dependants); to make no mention at all of his having perpetually to +conciliate his rich old relative, and to smooth down, or explain +away, some of the ten thousand bad appearances and combinations of bad +appearances, by which they were surrounded on that unlucky evening--what +with having to do this, and it would be difficult to sum up how much +more, without the least relief or assistance from anybody, it may be +easily imagined that Mr Pecksniff had in his enjoyment something more +than that usual portion of alloy which is mixed up with the best of +men’s delights. Perhaps he had never in his life felt such relief as +when old Martin, looking at his watch, announced that it was time to go. + +‘We have rooms,’ he said, ‘at the Dragon, for the present. I have a +fancy for the evening walk. The nights are dark just now; perhaps Mr +Pinch would not object to light us home?’ + +‘My dear sir!’ cried Pecksniff, ‘I shall be delighted. Merry, my child, +the lantern.’ + +‘The lantern, if you please, my dear,’ said Martin; ‘but I couldn’t +think of taking your father out of doors to-night; and, to be brief, I +won’t.’ + +Mr Pecksniff already had his hat in his hand, but it was so emphatically +said that he paused. + +‘I take Mr Pinch, or go alone,’ said Martin. ‘Which shall it be?’ + +‘It shall be Thomas, sir,’ cried Pecksniff, ‘since you are so resolute +upon it. Thomas, my friend, be very careful, if you please.’ + +Tom was in some need of this injunction, for he felt so nervous, and +trembled to such a degree, that he found it difficult to hold the +lantern. How much more difficult when, at the old man’s bidding she drew +her hand through his--Tom Pinch’s--arm! + +‘And so, Mr Pinch,’ said Martin, on the way, ‘you are very comfortably +situated here; are you?’ + +Tom answered, with even more than his usual enthusiasm, that he was +under obligations to Mr Pecksniff which the devotion of a lifetime would +but imperfectly repay. + +‘How long have you known my nephew?’ asked Martin. + +‘Your nephew, sir?’ faltered Tom. + +‘Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit,’ said Mary. + +‘Oh dear, yes,’ cried Tom, greatly relieved, for his mind was running +upon Martin. ‘Certainly. I never spoke to him before to-night, sir!’ + +‘Perhaps half a lifetime will suffice for the acknowledgment of HIS +kindness,’ observed the old man. + +Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it +as a left-handed hit at his employer. So he was silent. Mary felt that +Mr Pinch was not remarkable for presence of mind, and that he could not +say too little under existing circumstances. So SHE was silent. The +old man, disgusted by what in his suspicious nature he considered a +shameless and fulsome puff of Mr Pecksniff, which was a part of Tom’s +hired service and in which he was determined to persevere, set him down +at once for a deceitful, servile, miserable fawner. So HE was silent. +And though they were all sufficiently uncomfortable, it is fair to say +that Martin was perhaps the most so; for he had felt kindly towards Tom +at first, and had been interested by his seeming simplicity. + +‘You’re like the rest,’ he thought, glancing at the face of the +unconscious Tom. ‘You had nearly imposed upon me, but you have lost +your labour. You are too zealous a toad-eater, and betray yourself, Mr +Pinch.’ + +During the whole remainder of the walk, not another word was spoken. +First among the meetings to which Tom had long looked forward with +a beating heart, it was memorable for nothing but embarrassment +and confusion. They parted at the Dragon door; and sighing as he +extinguished the candle in the lantern, Tom turned back again over the +gloomy fields. + +As he approached the first stile, which was in a lonely part, made very +dark by a plantation of young firs, a man slipped past him and went on +before. Coming to the stile he stopped, and took his seat upon it. +Tom was rather startled, and for a moment stood still, but he stepped +forward again immediately, and went close up to him. + +It was Jonas; swinging his legs to and fro, sucking the head of a stick, +and looking with a sneer at Tom. + +‘Good gracious me!’ cried Tom, ‘who would have thought of its being you! +You followed us, then?’ + +‘What’s that to you?’ said Jonas. ‘Go to the devil!’ + +‘You are not very civil, I think,’ remarked Tom. + +‘Civil enough for YOU,’ retorted Jonas. ‘Who are you?’ + +‘One who has as good a right to common consideration as another,’ said +Tom mildly. + +‘You’re a liar,’ said Jonas. ‘You haven’t a right to any consideration. +You haven’t a right to anything. You’re a pretty sort of fellow to talk +about your rights, upon my soul! Ha, ha!--Rights, too!’ + +‘If you proceed in this way,’ returned Tom, reddening, ‘you will oblige +me to talk about my wrongs. But I hope your joke is over.’ + +‘It’s the way with you curs,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘that when you know a man’s +in real earnest, you pretend to think he’s joking, so that you may turn +it off. But that won’t do with me. It’s too stale. Now just attend to me +for a bit, Mr Pitch, or Witch, or Stitch, or whatever your name is.’ + +‘My name is Pinch,’ observed Tom. ‘Have the goodness to call me by it.’ + +‘What! You mustn’t even be called out of your name, mustn’t you!’ cried +Jonas. ‘Pauper’ prentices are looking up, I think. Ecod, we manage ‘em a +little better in the city!’ + +‘Never mind what you do in the city,’ said Tom. ‘What have you got to +say to me?’ + +‘Just this, Mister Pinch,’ retorted Jonas, thrusting his face so close +to Tom’s that Tom was obliged to retreat a step. ‘I advise you to keep +your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to cut in where +you’re not wanted. I’ve heard something of you, my friend, and your +meek ways; and I recommend you to forget ‘em till I am married to one +of Pecksniff’s gals, and not to curry favour among my relations, but +to leave the course clear. You know, when curs won’t leave the course +clear, they’re whipped off; so this is kind advice. Do you understand? +Eh? Damme, who are you,’ cried Jonas, with increased contempt, ‘that +you should walk home with THEM, unless it was behind ‘em, like any other +servant out of livery?’ + +‘Come!’ cried Tom, ‘I see that you had better get off the stile, and let +me pursue my way home. Make room for me, if you please.’ + +‘Don’t think it!’ said Jonas, spreading out his legs. ‘Not till I +choose. And I don’t choose now. What! You’re afraid of my making you +split upon some of your babbling just now, are you, Sneak?’ + +‘I am not afraid of many things, I hope,’ said Tom; ‘and certainly not +of anything that you will do. I am not a tale-bearer, and I despise all +meanness. You quite mistake me. Ah!’ cried Tom, indignantly. ‘Is this +manly from one in your position to one in mine? Please to make room for +me to pass. The less I say, the better.’ + +‘The less you say!’ retorted Jonas, dangling his legs the more, and +taking no heed of this request. ‘You say very little, don’t you? Ecod, I +should like to know what goes on between you and a vagabond member of my +family. There’s very little in that too, I dare say!’ + +‘I know no vagabond member of your family,’ cried Tom, stoutly. + +‘You do!’ said Jonas. + +‘I don’t,’ said Tom. ‘Your uncle’s namesake, if you mean him, is no +vagabond. Any comparison between you and him’--Tom snapped his fingers +at him, for he was rising fast in wrath--‘is immeasurably to your +disadvantage.’ + +‘Oh indeed!’ sneered Jonas. ‘And what do you think of his deary--his +beggarly leavings, eh, Mister Pinch?’ + +‘I don’t mean to say another word, or stay here another instant,’ +replied Tom. + +‘As I told you before, you’re a liar,’ said Jonas, coolly. ‘You’ll stay +here till I give you leave to go. Now, keep where you are, will you?’ + +He flourished his stick over Tom’s head; but in a moment it was spinning +harmlessly in the air, and Jonas himself lay sprawling in the ditch. In +the momentary struggle for the stick, Tom had brought it into violent +contact with his opponent’s forehead; and the blood welled out profusely +from a deep cut on the temple. Tom was first apprised of this by seeing +that he pressed his handkerchief to the wounded part, and staggered as +he rose, being stunned. + +‘Are you hurt?’ said Tom. ‘I am very sorry. Lean on me for a moment. +You can do that without forgiving me, if you still bear me malice. But I +don’t know why; for I never offended you before we met on this spot.’ + +He made him no answer; not appearing at first to understand him, or even +to know that he was hurt, though he several times took his handkerchief +from the cut to look vacantly at the blood upon it. After one of these +examinations, he looked at Tom, and then there was an expression in +his features, which showed that he understood what had taken place, and +would remember it. + +Nothing more passed between them as they went home. Jonas kept a little +in advance, and Tom Pinch sadly followed, thinking of the grief which +the knowledge of this quarrel must occasion his excellent benefactor. +When Jonas knocked at the door, Tom’s heart beat high; higher when Miss +Mercy answered it, and seeing her wounded lover, shireked aloud; higher, +when he followed them into the family parlour; higher than at any other +time, when Jonas spoke. + +‘Don’t make a noise about it,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing worth mentioning. +I didn’t know the road; the night’s very dark; and just as I came up +with Mr Pinch’--he turned his face towards Tom, but not his eyes--‘I ran +against a tree. It’s only skin deep.’ + +‘Cold water, Merry, my child!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Brown paper! +Scissors! A piece of old linen! Charity, my dear, make a bandage. Bless +me, Mr Jonas!’ + +‘Oh, bother YOUR nonsense,’ returned the gracious son-in-law elect. ‘Be +of some use if you can. If you can’t, get out!’ + +Miss Charity, though called upon to lend her aid, sat upright in one +corner, with a smile upon her face, and didn’t move a finger. Though +Mercy laved the wound herself; and Mr Pecksniff held the patient’s head +between his two hands, as if without that assistance it must inevitably +come in half; and Tom Pinch, in his guilty agitation, shook a bottle of +Dutch Drops until they were nothing but English Froth, and in his other +hand sustained a formidable carving-knife, really intended to reduce the +swelling, but apparently designed for the ruthless infliction of another +wound as soon as that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least +assistance, nor uttered a word. But when Mr Jonas’s head was bound up, +and he had gone to bed, and everybody else had retired, and the house +was quiet, Mr Pinch, as he sat mournfully on his bedstead, ruminating, +heard a gentle tap at his door; and opening it, saw her, to his great +astonishment, standing before him with her finger on her lip. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ she whispered. ‘Dear Mr Pinch! Tell me the truth! You did +that? There was some quarrel between you, and you struck him? I am sure +of it!’ + +It was the first time she had ever spoken kindly to Tom, in all the many +years they had passed together. He was stupefied with amazement. + +‘Was it so, or not?’ she eagerly demanded. + +‘I was very much provoked,’ said Tom. + +‘Then it was?’ cried Charity, with sparkling eyes. + +‘Ye-yes. We had a struggle for the path,’ said Tom. ‘But I didn’t mean +to hurt him so much.’ + +‘Not so much!’ she repeated, clenching her hand and stamping her foot, +to Tom’s great wonder. ‘Don’t say that. It was brave of you. I honour +you for it. If you should ever quarrel again, don’t spare him for the +world, but beat him down and set your shoe upon him. Not a word of this +to anybody. Dear Mr Pinch, I am your friend from tonight. I am always +your friend from this time.’ + +She turned her flushed face upon Tom to confirm her words by its +kindling expression; and seizing his right hand, pressed it to her +breast, and kissed it. And there was nothing personal in this to render +it at all embarrassing, for even Tom, whose power of observation was by +no means remarkable, knew from the energy with which she did it that she +would have fondled any hand, no matter how bedaubed or dyed, that had +broken the head of Jonas Chuzzlewit. + +Tom went into his room, and went to bed, full of uncomfortable thoughts. +That there should be any such tremendous division in the family as he +knew must have taken place to convert Charity Pecksniff into his friend, +for any reason, but, above all, for that which was clearly the real one; +that Jonas, who had assailed him with such exceeding coarseness, should +have been sufficiently magnanimous to keep the secret of their quarrel; +and that any train of circumstances should have led to the commission of +an assault and battery by Thomas Pinch upon any man calling himself +the friend of Seth Pecksniff; were matters of such deep and painful +cogitation that he could not close his eyes. His own violence, in +particular, so preyed upon the generous mind of Tom, that coupling it +with the many former occasions on which he had given Mr Pecksniff pain +and anxiety (occasions of which that gentleman often reminded him), he +really began to regard himself as destined by a mysterious fate to be +the evil genius and bad angel of his patron. But he fell asleep at last, +and dreamed--new source of waking uneasiness--that he had betrayed his +trust, and run away with Mary Graham. + +It must be acknowledged that, asleep or awake, Tom’s position in +reference to this young lady was full of uneasiness. The more he saw +of her, the more he admired her beauty, her intelligence, the amiable +qualities that even won on the divided house of Pecksniff, and in a +few days restored, at all events, the semblance of harmony and kindness +between the angry sisters. When she spoke, Tom held his breath, so +eagerly he listened; when she sang, he sat like one entranced. She +touched his organ, and from that bright epoch even it, the old companion +of his happiest hours, incapable as he had thought of elevation, began a +new and deified existence. + +God’s love upon thy patience, Tom! Who, that had beheld thee, for three +summer weeks, poring through half the deadlong night over the jingling +anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back parlour, could +have missed the entrance to thy secret heart: albeit it was dimly known +to thee? Who that had seen the glow upon thy cheek when leaning down to +listen, after hours of labour, for the sound of one incorrigible note, +thou foundest that it had a voice at last, and wheezed out a flat +something, distantly akin to what it ought to be, would not have known +that it was destined for no common touch, but one that smote, though +gently as an angel’s hand, upon the deepest chord within thee! And if +a friendly glance--aye, even though it were as guileless as thine own, +Dear Tom--could have but pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in +a voice well tempered to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she +first sang to the altered instrument, and wondered at the change; +and thou, sitting apart at the open window, kept a glad silence and a +swelling heart--must not that glance have read perforce the dawning of a +story, Tom, that it were well for thee had never been begun! + +Tom Pinch’s situation was not made the less dangerous or difficult by +the fact of no one word passing between them in reference to Martin. +Honourably mindful of his promise, Tom gave her opportunities of all +kinds. Early and late he was in the church; in her favourite walks; in +the village, in the garden, in the meadows; and in any or all of these +places he might have spoken freely. But no; at all such times she +carefully avoided him, or never came in his way unaccompanied. It could +not be that she disliked or distrusted him, for by a thousand little +delicate means, too slight for any notice but his own, she singled +him out when others were present, and showed herself the very soul of +kindness. Could it be that she had broken with Martin, or had never +returned his affection, save in his own bold and heightened fancy? Tom’s +cheek grew red with self-reproach as he dismissed the thought. + +All this time old Martin came and went in his own strange manner, or sat +among the rest absorbed within himself, and holding little intercourse +with any one. Although he was unsocial, he was not willful in other +things, or troublesome, or morose; being never better pleased than +when they left him quite unnoticed at his book, and pursued their own +amusements in his presence, unreserved. It was impossible to discern in +whom he took an interest, or whether he had an interest in any of them. +Unless they spoke to him directly, he never showed that he had ears or +eyes for anything that passed. + +One day the lively Merry, sitting with downcast eyes under a shady tree +in the churchyard, whither she had retired after fatiguing herself by +the imposition of sundry trials on the temper of Mr Jonas, felt that +a new shadow came between her and the sun. Raising her eyes in the +expectation of seeing her betrothed, she was not a little surprised to +see old Martin instead. Her surprise was not diminished when he took his +seat upon the turf beside her, and opened a conversation thus: + +‘When are you to be married?’ + +‘Oh! dear Mr Chuzzlewit, my goodness me! I’m sure I don’t know. Not yet +awhile, I hope.’ + +‘You hope?’ said the old man. + +It was very gravely said, but she took it for banter, and giggled +excessively. + +‘Come!’ said the old man, with unusual kindness, ‘you are young, +good-looking, and I think good-natured! Frivolous you are, and love to +be, undoubtedly; but you must have some heart.’ + +‘I have not given it all away, I can tell you,’ said Merry, nodding her +head shrewdly, and plucking up the grass. + +‘Have you parted with any of it?’ + +She threw the grass about, and looked another way, but said nothing. + +Martin repeated his question. + +‘Lor, my dear Mr Chuzzlewit! really you must excuse me! How very odd you +are.’ + +‘If it be odd in me to desire to know whether you love the young man +whom I understand you are to marry, I AM very odd,’ said Martin. ‘For +that is certainly my wish.’ + +‘He’s such a monster, you know,’ said Merry, pouting. + +‘Then you don’t love him?’ returned the old man. ‘Is that your meaning?’ + +‘Why, my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, I’m sure I tell him a hundred times a day +that I hate him. You must have heard me tell him that.’ + +‘Often,’ said Martin. + +‘And so I do,’ cried Merry. ‘I do positively.’ + +‘Being at the same time engaged to marry him,’ observed the old man. + +‘Oh yes,’ said Merry. ‘But I told the wretch--my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, I +told him when he asked me--that if I ever did marry him, it should only +be that I might hate and tease him all my life.’ + +She had a suspicion that the old man regarded Jonas with anything but +favour, and intended these remarks to be extremely captivating. He did +not appear, however, to regard them in that light by any means; for when +he spoke again, it was in a tone of severity. + +‘Look about you,’ he said, pointing to the graves; ‘and remember that +from your bridal hour to the day which sees you brought as low as these, +and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against him. Think, and +speak, and act, for once, like an accountable creature. Is any control +put upon your inclinations? Are you forced into this match? Are you +insidiously advised or tempted to contract it, by any one? I will not +ask by whom; by any one?’ + +‘No,’ said Merry, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I don’t know that I am.’ + +‘Don’t know that you are! Are you?’ + +‘No,’ replied Merry. ‘Nobody ever said anything to me about it. If any +one had tried to make me have him, I wouldn’t have had him at all.’ + +‘I am told that he was at first supposed to be your sister’s admirer,’ +said Martin. + +‘Oh, good gracious! My dear Mr Chuzzlewit, it would be very hard to make +him, though he IS a monster, accountable for other people’s vanity,’ +said Merry. ‘And poor dear Cherry is the vainest darling!’ + +‘It was her mistake, then?’ + +‘I hope it was,’ cried Merry; ‘but, all along, the dear child has been +so dreadfully jealous, and SO cross, that, upon my word and honour, it’s +impossible to please her, and it’s of no use trying.’ + +‘Not forced, persuaded, or controlled,’ said Martin, thoughtfully. ‘And +that’s true, I see. There is one chance yet. You may have lapsed into +this engagement in very giddiness. It may have been the wanton act of a +light head. Is that so?’ + +‘My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,’ simpered Merry, ‘as to light-headedness, there +never was such a feather of a head as mine. It’s perfect balloon, I +declare! You never DID, you know!’ + +He waited quietly till she had finished, and then said, steadily +and slowly, and in a softened voice, as if he would still invite her +confidence: + +‘Have you any wish--or is there anything within your breast that +whispers you may form the wish, if you have time to think--to be +released from this engagement?’ + +Again Miss Merry pouted, and looked down, and plucked the grass, and +shrugged her shoulders. No. She didn’t know that she had. She was pretty +sure she hadn’t. Quite sure, she might say. She ‘didn’t mind it.’ + +‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ said Martin, ‘that your married life may +perhaps be miserable, full of bitterness, and most unhappy?’ + +Merry looked down again; and now she tore the grass up by the roots. + +‘My dear Mr Chuzzlewit, what shocking words! Of course, I shall quarrel +with him. I should quarrel with any husband. Married people always +quarrel, I believe. But as to being miserable, and bitter, and all those +dreadful things, you know, why I couldn’t be absolutely that, unless he +always had the best of it; and I mean to have the best of it myself. I +always do now,’ cried Merry, nodding her head and giggling very much; +‘for I make a perfect slave of the creature.’ + +‘Let it go on,’ said Martin, rising. ‘Let it go on! I sought to know +your mind, my dear, and you have shown it me. I wish you joy. Joy!’ he +repeated, looking full upon her, and pointing to the wicket-gate where +Jonas entered at the moment. And then, without waiting for his nephew, +he passed out at another gate, and went away. + +‘Oh, you terrible old man!’ cried the facetious Merry to herself. ‘What +a perfectly hideous monster to be wandering about churchyards in the +broad daylight, frightening people out of their wits! Don’t come here, +Griffin, or I’ll go away directly.’ + +Mr Jonas was the Griffin. He sat down upon the grass at her side, in +spite of this warning, and sulkily inquired: + +‘What’s my uncle been a-talking about?’ + +‘About you,’ rejoined Merry. ‘He says you’re not half good enough for +me.’ + +‘Oh, yes, I dare say! We all know that. He means to give you some +present worth having, I hope. Did he say anything that looked like it?’ + +‘THAT he didn’t!’ cried Merry, most decisively. + +‘A stingy old dog he is,’ said Jonas. ‘Well?’ + +‘Griffin!’ cried Miss Mercy, in counterfeit amazement; ‘what are you +doing, Griffin?’ + +‘Only giving you a squeeze,’ said the discomfited Jonas. ‘There’s no +harm in that, I suppose?’ + +‘But there is great deal of harm in it, if I don’t consider it +agreeable,’ returned his cousin. ‘Do go along, will you? You make me so +hot!’ + +Mr Jonas withdrew his arm, and for a moment looked at her more like a +murderer than a lover. But he cleared his brow by degrees, and broke +silence with: + +‘I say, Mel!’ + +‘What do you say, you vulgar thing--you low savage?’ cried his fair +betrothed. + +‘When is it to be? I can’t afford to go on dawdling about here half +my life, I needn’t tell you, and Pecksniff says that father’s being so +lately dead makes very little odds; for we can be married as quiet as we +please down here, and my being lonely is a good reason to the neighbours +for taking a wife home so soon, especially one that he knew. As to +crossbones (my uncle, I mean), he’s sure not to put a spoke in the +wheel, whatever we settle on, for he told Pecksniff only this morning, +that if YOU liked it he’d nothing at all to say. So, Mel,’ said Jonas, +venturing on another squeeze; ‘when shall it be?’ + +‘Upon my word!’ cried Merry. + +‘Upon my soul, if you like,’ said Jonas. ‘What do you say to next week, +now?’ + +‘To next week! If you had said next quarter, I should have wondered at +your impudence.’ + +‘But I didn’t say next quarter,’ retorted Jonas. ‘I said next week.’ + +‘Then, Griffin,’ cried Miss Merry, pushing him off, and rising. ‘I say +no! not next week. It shan’t be till I choose, and I may not choose it +to be for months. There!’ + +He glanced up at her from the ground, almost as darkly as he had looked +at Tom Pinch; but held his peace. + +‘No fright of a Griffin with a patch over his eye shall dictate to me or +have a voice in the matter,’ said Merry. ‘There!’ + +Still Mr Jonas held his peace. + +‘If it’s next month, that shall be the very earliest; but I won’t say +when it shall be till to-morrow; and if you don’t like that, it shall +never be at all,’ said Merry; ‘and if you follow me about and won’t +leave me alone, it shall never be at all. There! And if you don’t do +everything I order you to do, it shall never be at all. So don’t follow +me. There, Griffin!’ + +And with that, she skipped away, among the trees. + +‘Ecod, my lady!’ said Jonas, looking after her, and biting a piece +of straw, almost to powder; ‘you’ll catch it for this, when you ARE +married. It’s all very well now--it keeps one on, somehow, and you know +it--but I’ll pay you off scot and lot by-and-bye. This is a plaguey dull +sort of a place for a man to be sitting by himself in. I never could +abide a mouldy old churchyard.’ + +As he turned into the avenue himself, Miss Merry, who was far ahead, +happened to look back. + +‘Ah!’ said Jonas, with a sullen smile, and a nod that was not addressed +to her. ‘Make the most of it while it lasts. Get in your hay while the +sun shines. Take your own way as long as it’s in your power, my lady!’ + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE + +IS IN PART PROFESSIONAL, AND FURNISHES THE READER WITH SOME VALUABLE +HINTS IN RELATION TO THE MANAGEMENT OF A SICK CHAMBER + + +Mr Mould was surrounded by his household gods. He was enjoying the +sweets of domestic repose, and gazing on them with a calm delight. The +day being sultry, and the window open, the legs of Mr Mould were on the +window-seat, and his back reclined against the shutter. Over his shining +head a handkerchief was drawn, to guard his baldness from the flies. The +room was fragrant with the smell of punch, a tumbler of which grateful +compound stood upon a small round table, convenient to the hand of +Mr Mould; so deftly mixed that as his eye looked down into the cool +transparent drink, another eye, peering brightly from behind the crisp +lemon-peel, looked up at him, and twinkled like a star. + +Deep in the City, and within the ward of Cheap, stood Mr Mould’s +establishment. His Harem, or, in other words, the common sitting room +of Mrs Mould and family, was at the back, over the little counting-house +behind the shop; abutting on a churchyard small and shady. In this +domestic chamber Mr Mould now sat; gazing, a placid man, upon his punch +and home. If, for a moment at a time, he sought a wider prospect, whence +he might return with freshened zest to these enjoyments, his moist +glance wandered like a sunbeam through a rural screen of scarlet +runners, trained on strings before the window, and he looked down, with +an artist’s eye, upon the graves. + +The partner of his life, and daughters twain, were Mr Mould’s +companions. Plump as any partridge was each Miss Mould, and Mrs M. +was plumper than the two together. So round and chubby were their fair +proportions, that they might have been the bodies once belonging to the +angels’ faces in the shop below, grown up, with other heads attached +to make them mortal. Even their peachy cheeks were puffed out and +distended, as though they ought of right to be performing on celestial +trumpets. The bodiless cherubs in the shop, who were depicted as +constantly blowing those instruments for ever and ever without any +lungs, played, it is to be presumed, entirely by ear. + +Mr Mould looked lovingly at Mrs Mould, who sat hard by, and was a +helpmate to him in his punch as in all other things. Each seraph +daughter, too, enjoyed her share of his regards, and smiled upon him in +return. So bountiful were Mr Mould’s possessions, and so large his +stock in trade, that even there, within his household sanctuary, stood +a cumbrous press, whose mahogany maw was filled with shrouds, and +winding-sheets, and other furniture of funerals. But, though the Misses +Mould had been brought up, as one may say, beneath his eye, it had cast +no shadow on their timid infancy or blooming youth. Sporting behind +the scenes of death and burial from cradlehood, the Misses Mould knew +better. Hat-bands, to them, were but so many yards of silk or crape; the +final robe but such a quantity of linen. The Misses Mould could idealise +a player’s habit, or a court-lady’s petticoat, or even an act of +parliament. But they were not to be taken in by palls. They made them +sometimes. + +The premises of Mr Mould were hard of hearing to the boisterous noises +in the great main streets, and nestled in a quiet corner, where the City +strife became a drowsy hum, that sometimes rose and sometimes fell and +sometimes altogether ceased; suggesting to a thoughtful mind a stoppage +in Cheapside. The light came sparkling in among the scarlet runners, +as if the churchyard winked at Mr Mould, and said, ‘We understand +each other;’ and from the distant shop a pleasant sound arose of +coffin-making with a low melodious hammer, rat, tat, tat, tat, alike +promoting slumber and digestion. + +‘Quite the buzz of insects,’ said Mr Mould, closing his eyes in a +perfect luxury. ‘It puts one in mind of the sound of animated nature in +the agricultural districts. It’s exactly like the woodpecker tapping.’ + +‘The woodpecker tapping the hollow ELM tree,’ observed Mrs Mould, +adapting the words of the popular melody to the description of wood +commonly used in the trade. + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr Mould. ‘Not at all bad, my dear. We shall be glad +to hear from you again, Mrs M. Hollow elm tree, eh! Ha, ha! Very good +indeed. I’ve seen worse than that in the Sunday papers, my love.’ + +Mrs Mould, thus encouraged, took a little more of the punch, and handed +it to her daughters, who dutifully followed the example of their mother. + +‘Hollow ELM tree, eh?’ said Mr Mould, making a slight motion with his +legs in his enjoyment of the joke. ‘It’s beech in the song. Elm, eh? +Yes, to be sure. Ha, ha, ha! Upon my soul, that’s one of the best things +I know?’ He was so excessively tickled by the jest that he couldn’t +forget it, but repeated twenty times, ‘Elm, eh? Yes, to be sure. Elm, +of course. Ha, ha, ha! Upon my life, you know, that ought to be sent to +somebody who could make use of it. It’s one of the smartest things that +ever was said. Hollow ELM tree, eh? of course. Very hollow. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +Here a knock was heard at the room door. + +‘That’s Tacker, I know,’ said Mrs Mould, ‘by the wheezing he makes. Who +that hears him now, would suppose he’d ever had wind enough to carry the +feathers on his head! Come in, Tacker.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, ma’am,’ said Tacker, looking in a little way. ‘I +thought our Governor was here.’ + +‘Well! so he is,’ cried Mould. + +‘Oh! I didn’t see you, I’m sure,’ said Tacker, looking in a little +farther. ‘You wouldn’t be inclined to take a walking one of two, with +the plain wood and a tin plate, I suppose?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr Mould, ‘much too common. Nothing to say to +it.’ + +‘I told ‘em it was precious low,’ observed Mr Tacker. + +‘Tell ‘em to go somewhere else. We don’t do that style of business +here,’ said Mr Mould. ‘Like their impudence to propose it. Who is it?’ + +‘Why,’ returned Tacker, pausing, ‘that’s where it is, you see. It’s the +beadle’s son-in-law.’ + +‘The beadle’s son-in-law, eh?’ said Mould. ‘Well! I’ll do it if the +beadle follows in his cocked hat; not else. We carry it off that way, by +looking official, but it’ll be low enough, then. His cocked hat, mind!’ + +‘I’ll take care, sir,’ rejoined Tacker. ‘Oh! Mrs Gamp’s below, and wants +to speak to you.’ + +‘Tell Mrs Gamp to come upstairs,’ said Mould. ‘Now Mrs Gamp, what’s YOUR +news?’ + +The lady in question was by this time in the doorway, curtseying to +Mrs Mould. At the same moment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon the +breeze, as if a passing fairy had hiccoughed, and had previously been to +a wine-vaults. + +Mrs Gamp made no response to Mr Mould, but curtseyed to Mrs Mould again, +and held up her hands and eyes, as in a devout thanksgiving that she +looked so well. She was neatly, but not gaudily attired, in the +weeds she had worn when Mr Pecksniff had the pleasure of making her +acquaintance; and was perhaps the turning of a scale more snuffy. + +‘There are some happy creeturs,’ Mrs Gamp observed, ‘as time runs +back’ards with, and you are one, Mrs Mould; not that he need do nothing +except use you in his most owldacious way for years to come, I’m +sure; for young you are and will be. I says to Mrs Harris,’ Mrs Gamp +continued, ‘only t’other day; the last Monday evening fortnight as +ever dawned upon this Piljian’s Projiss of a mortal wale; I says to Mrs +Harris when she says to me, “Years and our trials, Mrs Gamp, sets marks +upon us all.”--“Say not the words, Mrs Harris, if you and me is to be +continual friends, for sech is not the case. Mrs Mould,” I says, making +so free, I will confess, as use the name,’ (she curtseyed here), ‘“is +one of them that goes agen the obserwation straight; and never, Mrs +Harris, whilst I’ve a drop of breath to draw, will I set by, and not +stand up, don’t think it.”--“I ast your pardon, ma’am,” says Mrs Harris, +“and I humbly grant your grace; for if ever a woman lived as would see +her feller creeturs into fits to serve her friends, well do I know that +woman’s name is Sairey Gamp.”’ + +At this point she was fain to stop for breath; and advantage may be +taken of the circumstance, to state that a fearful mystery surrounded +this lady of the name of Harris, whom no one in the circle of Mrs Gamp’s +acquaintance had ever seen; neither did any human being know her place +of residence, though Mrs Gamp appeared on her own showing to be in +constant communication with her. There were conflicting rumours on the +subject; but the prevalent opinion was that she was a phantom of Mrs +Gamp’s brain--as Messrs. Doe and Roe are fictions of the law--created +for the express purpose of holding visionary dialogues with her on all +manner of subjects, and invariably winding up with a compliment to the +excellence of her nature. + +‘And likeways what a pleasure,’ said Mrs Gamp, turning with a tearful +smile towards the daughters, ‘to see them two young ladies as I know’d +afore a tooth in their pretty heads was cut, and have many a day +seen--ah, the sweet creeturs!--playing at berryins down in the shop, and +follerin’ the order-book to its long home in the iron safe! But that’s +all past and over, Mr Mould;’ as she thus got in a carefully regulated +routine to that gentleman, she shook her head waggishly; ‘That’s all +past and over now, sir, an’t it?’ + +‘Changes, Mrs Gamp, changes!’ returned the undertaker. + +‘More changes too, to come, afore we’ve done with changes, sir,’ said +Mrs Gamp, nodding yet more waggishly than before. ‘Young ladies with +such faces thinks of something else besides berryins, don’t they, sir?’ + +‘I am sure I don’t know, Mrs Gamp,’ said Mould, with a chuckle--‘Not bad +in Mrs Gamp, my dear?’ + +‘Oh yes, you do know, sir!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘and so does Mrs Mould, +your ‘ansome pardner too, sir; and so do I, although the blessing of a +daughter was deniged me; which, if we had had one, Gamp would certainly +have drunk its little shoes right off its feet, as with our precious boy +he did, and arterward send the child a errand to sell his wooden leg for +any money it would fetch as matches in the rough, and bring it home +in liquor; which was truly done beyond his years, for ev’ry individgle +penny that child lost at toss or buy for kidney ones; and come home +arterwards quite bold, to break the news, and offering to drown himself +if sech would be a satisfaction to his parents.--Oh yes, you do know, +sir,’ said Mrs Gamp, wiping her eye with her shawl, and resuming the +thread of her discourse. ‘There’s something besides births and berryins +in the newspapers, an’t there, Mr Mould?’ + +Mr Mould winked at Mrs Mould, whom he had by this time taken on his +knee, and said: ‘No doubt. A good deal more, Mrs Gamp. Upon my life, Mrs +Gamp is very far from bad, my dear!’ + +‘There’s marryings, an’t there, sir?’ said Mrs Gamp, while both the +daughters blushed and tittered. ‘Bless their precious hearts, and well +they knows it! Well you know’d it too, and well did Mrs Mould, when you +was at their time of life! But my opinion is, you’re all of one age now. +For as to you and Mrs Mould, sir, ever having grandchildren--’ + +‘Oh! Fie, fie! Nonsense, Mrs Gamp,’ replied the undertaker. ‘Devilish +smart, though. Ca-pi-tal!’--this was in a whisper. ‘My dear’--aloud +again--‘Mrs Gamp can drink a glass of rum, I dare say. Sit down, Mrs +Gamp, sit down.’ + +Mrs Gamp took the chair that was nearest the door, and casting up her +eyes towards the ceiling, feigned to be wholly insensible to the fact of +a glass of rum being in preparation, until it was placed in her hand by +one of the young ladies, when she exhibited the greatest surprise. + +‘A thing,’ she said, ‘as hardly ever, Mrs Mould, occurs with me unless +it is when I am indispoged, and find my half a pint of porter settling +heavy on the chest. Mrs Harris often and often says to me, “Sairey +Gamp,” she says, “you raly do amaze me!” “Mrs Harris,” I says to her, +“why so? Give it a name, I beg.” “Telling the truth then, ma’am,” says +Mrs Harris, “and shaming him as shall be nameless betwixt you and me, +never did I think till I know’d you, as any woman could sick-nurse and +monthly likeways, on the little that you takes to drink.” “Mrs Harris,” + I says to her, “none on us knows what we can do till we tries; and +wunst, when me and Gamp kept ‘ouse, I thought so too. But now,” I says, +“my half a pint of porter fully satisfies; perwisin’, Mrs Harris, that +it is brought reg’lar, and draw’d mild. Whether I sicks or monthlies, +ma’am, I hope I does my duty, but I am but a poor woman, and I earns my +living hard; therefore I DO require it, which I makes confession, to be +brought reg’lar and draw’d mild.”’ + +The precise connection between these observations and the glass of rum, +did not appear; for Mrs Gamp proposing as a toast ‘The best of lucks +to all!’ took off the dram in quite a scientific manner, without any +further remarks. + +‘And what’s your news, Mrs Gamp?’ asked Mould again, as that lady wiped +her lips upon her shawl, and nibbled a corner off a soft biscuit, which +she appeared to carry in her pocket as a provision against contingent +drams. ‘How’s Mr Chuffey?’ + +‘Mr Chuffey, sir,’ she replied, ‘is jest as usual; he an’t no better and +he an’t no worse. I take it very kind in the gentleman to have wrote up +to you and said, “let Mrs Gamp take care of him till I come home;” but +ev’rythink he does is kind. There an’t a many like him. If there was, we +shouldn’t want no churches.’ + +‘What do you want to speak to me about, Mrs Gamp?’ said Mould, coming to +the point. + +‘Jest this, sir,’ Mrs Gamp returned, ‘with thanks to you for asking. +There IS a gent, sir, at the Bull in Holborn, as has been took ill +there, and is bad abed. They have a day nurse as was recommended from +Bartholomew’s; and well I knows her, Mr Mould, her name bein’ Mrs Prig, +the best of creeturs. But she is otherways engaged at night, and they +are in wants of night-watching; consequent she says to them, having +reposed the greatest friendliness in me for twenty year, “The soberest +person going, and the best of blessings in a sick room, is Mrs Gamp. +Send a boy to Kingsgate Street,” she says, “and snap her up at any +price, for Mrs Gamp is worth her weight and more in goldian guineas.” + My landlord brings the message down to me, and says, “bein’ in a light +place where you are, and this job promising so well, why not unite the +two?” “No, sir,” I says, “not unbeknown to Mr Mould, and therefore do +not think it. But I will go to Mr Mould,” I says, “and ast him, if you +like.”’ Here she looked sideways at the undertaker, and came to a stop. + +‘Night-watching, eh?’ said Mould, rubbing his chin. + +‘From eight o’clock till eight, sir. I will not deceive you,’ Mrs Gamp +rejoined. + +‘And then go back, eh?’ said would. + +‘Quite free, then, sir, to attend to Mr Chuffey. His ways bein’ quiet, +and his hours early, he’d be abed, sir, nearly all the time. I will not +deny,’ said Mrs Gamp with meekness, ‘that I am but a poor woman, and +that the money is a object; but do not let that act upon you, Mr Mould. +Rich folks may ride on camels, but it an’t so easy for ‘em to see out of +a needle’s eye. That is my comfort, and I hope I knows it.’ + +‘Well, Mrs Gamp,’ observed Mould, ‘I don’t see any particular objection +to your earning an honest penny under such circumstances. I should keep +it quiet, I think, Mrs Gamp. I wouldn’t mention it to Mr Chuzzlewit +on his return, for instance, unless it were necessary, or he asked you +pointblank.’ + +‘The very words was on my lips, sir,’ Mrs Gamp rejoined. ‘Suppoging +that the gent should die, I hope I might take the liberty of saying as I +know’d some one in the undertaking line, and yet give no offence to you, +sir?’ + +‘Certainly, Mrs Gamp,’ said Mould, with much condescension. ‘You may +casually remark, in such a case, that we do the thing pleasantly and in +a great variety of styles, and are generally considered to make it +as agreeable as possible to the feelings of the survivors. But don’t +obtrude it, don’t obtrude it. Easy, easy! My dear, you may as well give +Mrs Gamp a card or two, if you please.’ + +Mrs Gamp received them, and scenting no more rum in the wind (for the +bottle was locked up again) rose to take her departure. + +‘Wishing ev’ry happiness to this happy family,’ said Mrs Gamp ‘with +all my heart. Good arternoon, Mrs Mould! If I was Mr would I should be +jealous of you, ma’am; and I’m sure, if I was you, I should be jealous +of Mr Mould.’ + +‘Tut, tut! Bah, bah! Go along, Mrs Gamp!’ cried the delighted +undertaker. + +‘As to the young ladies,’ said Mrs Gamp, dropping a curtsey, ‘bless +their sweet looks--how they can ever reconsize it with their duties to +be so grown up with such young parents, it an’t for sech as me to give a +guess at.’ + +‘Nonsense, nonsense. Be off, Mrs Gamp!’ cried Mould. But in the height +of his gratification he actually pinched Mrs Mould as he said it. + +‘I’ll tell you what, my dear,’ he observed, when Mrs Gamp had at last +withdrawn and shut the door, ‘that’s a ve-ry shrewd woman. That’s a +woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life. +That’s a woman who observes and reflects in an uncommon manner. She’s +the sort of woman now,’ said Mould, drawing his silk handkerchief over +his head again, and composing himself for a nap ‘one would almost feel +disposed to bury for nothing; and do it neatly, too!’ + +Mrs Mould and her daughters fully concurred in these remarks; the +subject of which had by this time reached the street, where she +experienced so much inconvenience from the air, that she was obliged to +stand under an archway for a short time, to recover herself. Even +after this precaution, she walked so unsteadily as to attract the +compassionate regards of divers kind-hearted boys, who took the +liveliest interest in her disorder; and in their simple language bade +her be of good cheer, for she was ‘only a little screwed.’ + +Whatever she was, or whatever name the vocabulary of medical science +would have bestowed upon her malady, Mrs Gamp was perfectly acquainted +with the way home again; and arriving at the house of Anthony Chuzzlewit +& Son, lay down to rest. Remaining there until seven o’clock in the +evening, and then persuading poor old Chuffey to betake himself to +bed, she sallied forth upon her new engagement. First, she went to +her private lodgings in Kingsgate Street, for a bundle of robes and +wrappings comfortable in the night season; and then repaired to the Bull +in Holborn, which she reached as the clocks were striking eight. + +As she turned into the yard, she stopped; for the landlord, landlady, +and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together talking +earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just come or to +be just going away. The first words that struck upon Mrs Gamp’s ear +obviously bore reference to the patient; and it being expedient that all +good attendants should know as much as possible about the case on which +their skill is brought to bear, Mrs Gamp listened as a matter of duty. + +‘No better, then?’ observed the gentleman. + +‘Worse!’ said the landlord. + +‘Much worse,’ added the landlady. + +‘Oh! a deal badder,’ cried the chambermaid from the background, opening +her eyes very wide, and shaking her head. + +‘Poor fellow!’ said the gentleman, ‘I am sorry to hear it. The worst of +it is, that I have no idea what friends or relations he has, or where +they live, except that it certainly is not in London.’ + +The landlord looked at the landlady; the landlady looked at the +landlord; and the chambermaid remarked, hysterically, ‘that of all the +many wague directions she had ever seen or heerd of (and they wasn’t few +in an hotel), THAT was the waguest.’ + +‘The fact is, you see,’ pursued the gentleman, ‘as I told you yesterday +when you sent to me, I really know very little about him. We were +school-fellows together; but since that time I have only met him twice. +On both occasions I was in London for a boy’s holiday (having come up +for a week or so from Wiltshire), and lost sight of him again directly. +The letter bearing my name and address which you found upon his table, +and which led to your applying to me, is in answer, you will observe, +to one he wrote from this house the very day he was taken ill, making an +appointment with him at his own request. Here is his letter, if you wish +to see it.’ + +The landlord read it; the landlady looked over him. The chambermaid, in +the background, made out as much of it as she could, and invented the +rest; believing it all from that time forth as a positive piece of +evidence. + +‘He has very little luggage, you say?’ observed the gentleman, who was +no other than our old friend, John Westlock. + +‘Nothing but a portmanteau,’ said the landlord; ‘and very little in it.’ + +‘A few pounds in his purse, though?’ + +‘Yes. It’s sealed up, and in the cash-box. I made a memorandum of the +amount, which you’re welcome to see.’ + +‘Well!’ said John, ‘as the medical gentleman says the fever must take +its course, and nothing can be done just now beyond giving him his +drinks regularly and having him carefully attended to, nothing more +can be said that I know of, until he is in a condition to give us some +information. Can you suggest anything else?’ + +‘N-no,’ replied the landlord, ‘except--’ + +‘Except, who’s to pay, I suppose?’ said John. + +‘Why,’ hesitated the landlord, ‘it would be as well.’ + +‘Quite as well,’ said the landlady. + +‘Not forgetting to remember the servants,’ said the chambermaid in a +bland whisper. + +‘It is but reasonable, I fully admit,’ said John Westlock. ‘At all +events, you have the stock in hand to go upon for the present; and I +will readily undertake to pay the doctor and the nurses.’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘A rayal gentleman!’ + +She groaned her admiration so audibly, that they all turned round. Mrs +Gamp felt the necessity of advancing, bundle in hand, and introducing +herself. + +‘The night-nurse,’ she observed, ‘from Kingsgate Street, well beknown to +Mrs Prig the day-nurse, and the best of creeturs. How is the poor dear +gentleman to-night? If he an’t no better yet, still that is what must +be expected and prepared for. It an’t the fust time by a many score, +ma’am,’ dropping a curtsey to the landlady, ‘that Mrs Prig and me has +nussed together, turn and turn about, one off, one on. We knows each +other’s ways, and often gives relief when others fail. Our charges +is but low, sir’--Mrs Gamp addressed herself to John on this +head--‘considerin’ the nater of our painful dooty. If they wos made +accordin’ to our wishes, they would be easy paid.’ + +Regarding herself as having now delivered her inauguration address, Mrs +Gamp curtseyed all round, and signified her wish to be conducted to the +scene of her official duties. The chambermaid led her, through a variety +of intricate passages, to the top of the house; and pointing at length +to a solitary door at the end of a gallery, informed her that yonder was +the chamber where the patient lay. That done, she hurried off with all +the speed she could make. + +Mrs Gamp traversed the gallery in a great heat from having carried +her large bundle up so many stairs, and tapped at the door which was +immediately opened by Mrs Prig, bonneted and shawled and all impatience +to be gone. Mrs Prig was of the Gamp build, but not so fat; and her +voice was deeper and more like a man’s. She had also a beard. + +‘I began to think you warn’t a-coming!’ Mrs Prig observed, in some +displeasure. + +‘It shall be made good to-morrow night,’ said Mrs Gamp ‘Honorable. I had +to go and fetch my things.’ She had begun to make signs of inquiry in +reference to the position of the patient and his overhearing them--for +there was a screen before the door--when Mrs Prig settled that point +easily. + +‘Oh!’ she said aloud, ‘he’s quiet, but his wits is gone. It an’t no +matter wot you say.’ + +‘Anythin’ to tell afore you goes, my dear?’ asked Mrs Gamp, setting her +bundle down inside the door, and looking affectionately at her partner. + +‘The pickled salmon,’ Mrs Prig replied, ‘is quite delicious. I can +partlck’ler recommend it. Don’t have nothink to say to the cold meat, +for it tastes of the stable. The drinks is all good.’ + +Mrs Gamp expressed herself much gratified. + +‘The physic and them things is on the drawers and mankleshelf,’ said +Mrs Prig, cursorily. ‘He took his last slime draught at seven. The +easy-chair an’t soft enough. You’ll want his piller.’ + +Mrs Gamp thanked her for these hints, and giving her a friendly good +night, held the door open until she had disappeared at the other end +of the gallery. Having thus performed the hospitable duty of seeing her +safely off, she shut it, locked it on the inside, took up her bundle, +walked round the screen, and entered on her occupation of the sick +chamber. + +‘A little dull, but not so bad as might be,’ Mrs Gamp remarked. +‘I’m glad to see a parapidge, in case of fire, and lots of roofs and +chimley-pots to walk upon.’ + +It will be seen from these remarks that Mrs Gamp was looking out of +window. When she had exhausted the prospect, she tried the easy-chair, +which she indignantly declared was ‘harder than a brickbadge.’ Next +she pursued her researches among the physic-bottles, glasses, jugs, and +tea-cups; and when she had entirely satisfied her curiosity on all these +subjects of investigation, she untied her bonnet-strings and strolled up +to the bedside to take a look at the patient. + +A young man--dark and not ill-looking--with long black hair, that seemed +the blacker for the whiteness of the bed-clothes. His eyes were partly +open, and he never ceased to roll his head from side to side upon the +pillow, keeping his body almost quiet. He did not utter words; but +every now and then gave vent to an expression of impatience or fatigue, +sometimes of surprise; and still his restless head--oh, weary, weary +hour!--went to and fro without a moment’s intermission. + +Mrs Gamp solaced herself with a pinch of snuff, and stood looking at him +with her head inclined a little sideways, as a connoisseur might gaze +upon a doubtful work of art. By degrees, a horrible remembrance of one +branch of her calling took possession of the woman; and stooping down, +she pinned his wandering arms against his sides, to see how he would +look if laid out as a dead man. Her fingers itched to compose his limbs +in that last marble attitude. + +‘Ah!’ said Mrs Gamp, walking away from the bed, ‘he’d make a lovely +corpse.’ + +She now proceeded to unpack her bundle; lighted a candle with the aid +of a fire-box on the drawers; filled a small kettle, as a preliminary +to refreshing herself with a cup of tea in the course of the night; +laid what she called ‘a little bit of fire,’ for the same philanthropic +purpose; and also set forth a small tea-board, that nothing might be +wanting for her comfortable enjoyment. These preparations occupied so +long, that when they were brought to a conclusion it was high time to +think about supper; so she rang the bell and ordered it. + +‘I think, young woman,’ said Mrs Gamp to the assistant chambermaid, in a +tone expressive of weakness, ‘that I could pick a little bit of pickled +salmon, with a nice little sprig of fennel, and a sprinkling of white +pepper. I takes new bread, my dear, with just a little pat of fresh +butter, and a mossel of cheese. In case there should be such a thing +as a cowcumber in the ‘ouse, will you be so kind as bring it, for I’m +rather partial to ‘em, and they does a world of good in a sick room. If +they draws the Brighton Old Tipper here, I takes THAT ale at night, my +love, it bein’ considered wakeful by the doctors. And whatever you +do, young woman, don’t bring more than a shilling’s-worth of gin and +water-warm when I rings the bell a second time; for that is always my +allowance, and I never takes a drop beyond!’ + +Having preferred these moderate requests, Mrs Gamp observed that she +would stand at the door until the order was executed, to the end that +the patient might not be disturbed by her opening it a second time; and +therefore she would thank the young woman to ‘look sharp.’ + +A tray was brought with everything upon it, even to the cucumber and +Mrs Gamp accordingly sat down to eat and drink in high good humour. The +extent to which she availed herself of the vinegar, and supped up that +refreshing fluid with the blade of her knife, can scarcely be expressed +in narrative. + +‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Gamp, as she meditated over the warm shilling’s-worth, +‘what a blessed thing it is--living in a wale--to be contented! What a +blessed thing it is to make sick people happy in their beds, and never +mind one’s self as long as one can do a service! I don’t believe a finer +cowcumber was ever grow’d. I’m sure I never see one!’ + +She moralised in the same vein until her glass was empty, and then +administered the patient’s medicine, by the simple process of clutching +his windpipe to make him gasp, and immediately pouring it down his +throat. + +‘I a’most forgot the piller, I declare!’ said Mrs Gamp, drawing it away. +‘There! Now he’s comfortable as he can be, I’m sure! I must try to make +myself as much so as I can.’ + +With this view, she went about the construction of an extemporaneous bed +in the easy-chair, with the addition of the next easy one for her feet. +Having formed the best couch that the circumstances admitted of, she +took out of her bundle a yellow night-cap, of prodigious size, in shape +resembling a cabbage; which article of dress she fixed and tied on with +the utmost care, previously divesting herself of a row of bald old +curls that could scarcely be called false, they were so very innocent of +anything approaching to deception. From the same repository she brought +forth a night-jacket, in which she also attired herself. Finally, she +produced a watchman’s coat which she tied round her neck by the sleeves, +so that she become two people; and looked, behind, as if she were in the +act of being embraced by one of the old patrol. + +All these arrangements made, she lighted the rush-light, coiled herself +up on her couch, and went to sleep. Ghostly and dark the room became, +and full of lowering shadows. The distant noises in the streets were +gradually hushed; the house was quiet as a sepulchre; the dead of night +was coffined in the silent city. + +Oh, weary, weary hour! Oh, haggard mind, groping darkly through the +past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present; dragging +its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and revels, and scenes +of awful pomp; seeking but a moment’s rest among the long-forgotten +haunts of childhood, and the resorts of yesterday; and dimly finding +fear and horror everywhere! Oh, weary, weary hour! What were the +wanderings of Cain, to these! + +Still, without a moment’s interval, the burning head tossed to and fro. +Still, from time to time, fatigue, impatience, suffering, and surprise, +found utterance upon that rack, and plainly too, though never once in +words. At length, in the solemn hour of midnight, he began to talk; +waiting awfully for answers sometimes; as though invisible companions +were about his bed; and so replying to their speech and questioning +again. + +Mrs Gamp awoke, and sat up in her bed; presenting on the wall the shadow +of a gigantic night constable, struggling with a prisoner. + +‘Come! Hold your tongue!’ she cried, in sharp reproof. ‘Don’t make none +of that noise here.’ + +There was no alteration in the face, or in the incessant motion of the +head, but he talked on wildly. + +‘Ah!’ said Mrs Gamp, coming out of the chair with an impatient shiver; +‘I thought I was a-sleepin’ too pleasant to last! The devil’s in the +night, I think, it’s turned so chilly!’ + +‘Don’t drink so much!’ cried the sick man. ‘You’ll ruin us all. Don’t +you see how the fountain sinks? Look at the mark where the sparkling +water was just now!’ + +‘Sparkling water, indeed!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘I’ll have a sparkling cup o’ +tea, I think. I wish you’d hold your noise!’ + +He burst into a laugh, which, being prolonged, fell off into a dismal +wail. Checking himself, with fierce inconstancy he began to count--fast. + +‘One--two--three--four--five--six.’ + +“One, two, buckle my shoe,”’ said Mrs Gamp, who was now on her knees, +lighting the fire, “three, four, shut the door,”--I wish you’d shut +your mouth, young man--“five, six, picking up sticks.” If I’d got a few +handy, I should have the kettle boiling all the sooner.’ + +Awaiting this desirable consummation, she sat down so close to the +fender (which was a high one) that her nose rested upon it; and for some +time she drowsily amused herself by sliding that feature backwards and +forwards along the brass top, as far as she could, without changing her +position to do it. She maintained, all the while, a running commentary +upon the wanderings of the man in bed. + +‘That makes five hundred and twenty-one men, all dressed alike, and with +the same distortion on their faces, that have passed in at the window, +and out at the door,’ he cried, anxiously. ‘Look there! Five hundred and +twenty-two--twenty-three--twenty-four. Do you see them?’ + +‘Ah! I see ‘em,’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘all the whole kit of ‘em numbered like +hackney-coaches, an’t they?’ + +‘Touch me! Let me be sure of this. Touch me!’ + +‘You’ll take your next draught when I’ve made the kettle bile,’ retorted +Mrs Gamp, composedly, ‘and you’ll be touched then. You’ll be touched up, +too, if you don’t take it quiet.’ + +‘Five hundred and twenty-eight, five hundred and twenty-nine, five +hundred and thirty.--Look here!’ + +‘What’s the matter now?’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘They’re coming four abreast, each man with his arm entwined in the next +man’s, and his hand upon his shoulder. What’s that upon the arm of every +man, and on the flag?’ + +‘Spiders, p’raps,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Crape! Black crape! Good God! why do they wear it outside?’ + +‘Would you have ‘em carry black crape in their insides?’ Mrs Gamp +retorted. ‘Hold your noise, hold your noise.’ + +The fire beginning by this time to impart a grateful warmth, Mrs Gamp +became silent; gradually rubbed her nose more and more slowly along the +top of the fender; and fell into a heavy doze. She was awakened by the +room ringing (as she fancied) with a name she knew: + +‘Chuzzlewit!’ + +The sound was so distinct and real, and so full of agonised entreaty, +that Mrs Gamp jumped up in terror, and ran to the door. She expected to +find the passage filled with people, come to tell her that the house in +the city had taken fire. But the place was empty; not a soul was there. +She opened the window, and looked out. Dark, dull, dingy, and desolate +house-tops. As she passed to her seat again, she glanced at the patient. +Just the same; but silent. Mrs Gamp was so warm now, that she threw off +the watchman’s coat, and fanned herself. + +‘It seemed to make the wery bottles ring,’ she said. ‘What could I have +been a-dreaming of? That dratted Chuffey, I’ll be bound.’ + +The supposition was probable enough. At any rate, a pinch of snuff, and +the song of the steaming kettle, quite restored the tone of Mrs Gamp’s +nerves, which were none of the weakest. She brewed her tea; made some +buttered toast; and sat down at the tea-board, with her face to the +fire. + +When once again, in a tone more terrible than that which had vibrated in +her slumbering ear, these words were shrieked out: + +‘Chuzzlewit! Jonas! No!’ + +Mrs Gamp dropped the cup she was in the act of raising to her lips, and +turned round with a start that made the little tea-board leap. The cry +had come from the bed. + + +It was bright morning the next time Mrs Gamp looked out of the window, +and the sun was rising cheerfully. Lighter and lighter grew the sky, and +noisier the streets; and high into the summer air uprose the smoke of +newly kindled fires, until the busy day was broad awake. + +Mrs Prig relieved punctually, having passed a good night at her other +patient’s. Mr Westlock came at the same time, but he was not admitted, +the disorder being infectious. The doctor came too. The doctor shook +his head. It was all he could do, under the circumstances, and he did it +well. + +‘What sort of a night, nurse?’ + +‘Restless, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Talk much?’ + +‘Middling, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Nothing to the purpose, I suppose?’ + +‘Oh bless you, no, sir. Only jargon.’ + +‘Well!’ said the doctor, ‘we must keep him quiet; keep the room cool; +give him his draughts regularly; and see that he’s carefully looked to. +That’s all!’ + +‘And as long as Mrs Prig and me waits upon him, sir, no fear of that,’ +said Mrs Gamp. + +‘I suppose,’ observed Mrs Prig, when they had curtseyed the doctor out; +‘there’s nothin’ new?’ + +‘Nothin’ at all, my dear,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘He’s rather wearin’ in his +talk from making up a lot of names; elseways you needn’t mind him.’ + +‘Oh, I shan’t mind him,’ Mrs Prig returned. ‘I have somethin’ else to +think of.’ + +‘I pays my debts to-night, you know, my dear, and comes afore my time,’ +said Mrs Gamp. ‘But, Betsy Prig’--speaking with great feeling, and +laying her hand upon her arm--‘try the cowcumbers, God bless you!’ + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX + +AN UNEXPECTED MEETING, AND A PROMISING PROSPECT + + +The laws of sympathy between beards and birds, and the secret source +of that attraction which frequently impels a shaver of the one to be +a dealer in the other, are questions for the subtle reasoning of +scientific bodies; not the less so, because their investigation would +seem calculated to lead to no particular result. It is enough to know +that the artist who had the honour of entertaining Mrs Gamp as +his first-floor lodger, united the two pursuits of barbering and +bird-fancying; and that it was not an original idea of his, but one in +which he had, dispersed about the by-streets and suburbs of the town, a +host of rivals. + +The name of the householder was Paul Sweedlepipe. But he was commonly +called Poll Sweedlepipe; and was not uncommonly believed to have been so +christened, among his friends and neighbours. + +With the exception of the staircase, and his lodger’s private apartment, +Poll Sweedlepipe’s house was one great bird’s nest. Gamecocks resided in +the kitchen; pheasants wasted the brightness of their golden plumage on +the garret; bantams roosted in the cellar; owls had possession of the +bedroom; and specimens of all the smaller fry of birds chirrupped and +twittered in the shop. The staircase was sacred to rabbits. There in +hutches of all shapes and kinds, made from old packing-cases, boxes, +drawers, and tea-chests, they increased in a prodigious degree, and +contributed their share towards that complicated whiff which, quite +impartially, and without distinction of persons, saluted every nose that +was put into Sweedlepipe’s easy shaving-shop. + +Many noses found their way there, for all that, especially on Sunday +morning, before church-time. Even archbishops shave, or must be shaved, +on a Sunday, and beards WILL grow after twelve o’clock on Saturday +night, though it be upon the chins of base mechanics; who, not being +able to engage their valets by the quarter, hire them by the job, and +pay them--oh, the wickedness of copper coin!--in dirty pence. Poll +Sweedlepipe, the sinner, shaved all comers at a penny each, and cut the +hair of any customer for twopence; and being a lone unmarried man, and +having some connection in the bird line, Poll got on tolerably well. + +He was a little elderly man, with a clammy cold right hand, from which +even rabbits and birds could not remove the smell of shaving-soap. Poll +had something of the bird in his nature; not of the hawk or eagle, but +of the sparrow, that builds in chimney-stacks and inclines to human +company. He was not quarrelsome, though, like the sparrow; but peaceful, +like the dove. In his walk he strutted; and, in this respect, he bore +a faint resemblance to the pigeon, as well as in a certain prosiness of +speech, which might, in its monotony, be likened to the cooing of that +bird. He was very inquisitive; and when he stood at his shop-door in the +evening-tide, watching the neighbours, with his head on one side, and +his eye cocked knowingly, there was a dash of the raven in him. Yet +there was no more wickedness in Poll than in a robin. Happily, too, when +any of his ornithological properties were on the verge of going too +far, they were quenched, dissolved, melted down, and neutralised in +the barber; just as his bald head--otherwise, as the head of a shaved +magpie--lost itself in a wig of curly black ringlets, parted on one +side, and cut away almost to the crown, to indicate immense capacity of +intellect. + +Poll had a very small, shrill treble voice, which might have led +the wags of Kingsgate Street to insist the more upon his feminine +designation. He had a tender heart, too; for, when he had a good +commission to provide three or four score sparrows for a shooting-match, +he would observe, in a compassionate tone, how singular it was that +sparrows should have been made expressly for such purposes. The +question, whether men were made to shoot them, never entered into Poll’s +philosophy. + +Poll wore, in his sporting character, a velveteen coat, a great deal of +blue stocking, ankle boots, a neckerchief of some bright colour, and +a very tall hat. Pursuing his more quiet occupation of barber, he +generally subsided into an apron not over-clean, a flannel jacket, and +corduroy knee-shorts. It was in this latter costume, but with his apron +girded round his waist, as a token of his having shut up shop for +the night, that he closed the door one evening, some weeks after the +occurrences detailed in the last chapter, and stood upon the steps in +Kingsgate Street, listening until the little cracked bell within +should leave off ringing. For until it did--this was Mr Sweedlepipe’s +reflection--the place never seemed quiet enough to be left to itself. + +‘It’s the greediest little bell to ring,’ said Poll, ‘that ever was. But +it’s quiet at last.’ + +He rolled his apron up a little tighter as he said these words, and +hastened down the street. Just as he was turning into Holborn, he ran +against a young gentleman in a livery. This youth was bold, though +small, and with several lively expressions of displeasure, turned upon +him instantly. + +‘Now, STOO-PID!’ cried the young gentleman. ‘Can’t you look where you’re +a-going to--eh? Can’t you mind where you’re a-coming to--eh? What do you +think your eyes was made for--eh? Ah! Yes. Oh! Now then!’ + +The young gentleman pronounced the two last words in a very loud tone +and with frightful emphasis, as though they contained within themselves +the essence of the direst aggravation. But he had scarcely done so, when +his anger yielded to surprise, and he cried, in a milder tone: + +‘What! Polly!’ + +‘Why, it an’t you, sure!’ cried Poll. ‘It can’t be you!’ + +‘No. It an’t me,’ returned the youth. ‘It’s my son, my oldest one. He’s +a credit to his father, an’t he, Polly?’ With this delicate little +piece of banter, he halted on the pavement, and went round and round +in circles, for the better exhibition of his figure; rather to the +inconvenience of the passengers generally, who were not in an equal +state of spirits with himself. + +‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ said Poll. ‘What! You’ve left your old +place, then? Have you?’ + +‘Have I!’ returned his young friend, who had by this time stuck his +hands into the pockets of his white cord breeches, and was swaggering +along at the barber’s side. ‘D’ye know a pair of top-boots when you see +‘em, Polly?--look here!’ + +‘Beau-ti-ful’ cried Mr Sweedlepipe. + +‘D’ye know a slap-up sort of button, when you see it?’ said the youth. +‘Don’t look at mine, if you ain’t a judge, because these lions’ heads +was made for men of taste; not snobs.’ + +‘Beau-ti-ful!’ cried the barber again. ‘A grass-green frock-coat, too, +bound with gold; and a cockade in your hat!’ + +‘I should hope so,’ replied the youth. ‘Blow the cockade, though; for, +except that it don’t turn round, it’s like the wentilator that used to +be in the kitchen winder at Todgers’s. You ain’t seen the old lady’s +name in the Gazette, have you?’ + +‘No,’ returned the barber. ‘Is she a bankrupt?’ + +‘If she ain’t, she will be,’ retorted Bailey. ‘That bis’ness never can +be carried on without ME. Well! How are you?’ + +‘Oh! I’m pretty well,’ said Poll. ‘Are you living at this end of the +town, or were you coming to see me? Was that the bis’ness that brought +you to Holborn?’ + +‘I haven’t got no bis’ness in Holborn,’ returned Bailey, with some +displeasure. ‘All my bis’ness lays at the West End. I’ve got the right +sort of governor now. You can’t see his face for his whiskers, and can’t +see his whiskers for the dye upon ‘em. That’s a gentleman ain’t it? You +wouldn’t like a ride in a cab, would you? Why, it wouldn’t be safe to +offer it. You’d faint away, only to see me a-comin’ at a mild trot round +the corner.’ + +To convey a slight idea of the effect of this approach, Mr Bailey +counterfeited in his own person the action of a high-trotting horse and +threw up his head so high, in backing against a pump, that he shook his +hat off. + +‘Why, he’s own uncle to Capricorn,’ said Bailey, ‘and brother to +Cauliflower. He’s been through the winders of two chaney shops since +we’ve had him, and was sold for killin’ his missis. That’s a horse, I +hope?’ + +‘Ah! you’ll never want to buy any more red polls, now,’ observed Poll, +looking on his young friend with an air of melancholy. ‘You’ll never +want to buy any more red polls now, to hang up over the sink, will you?’ + +‘I should think not,’ replied Bailey. ‘Reether so. I wouldn’t have +nothin’ to say to any bird below a Peacock; and HE’d be wulgar. Well, +how are you?’ + +‘Oh! I’m pretty well,’ said Poll. He answered the question again because +Mr Bailey asked it again; Mr Bailey asked it again, because--accompanied +with a straddling action of the white cords, a bend of the knees, and a +striking forth of the top-boots--it was an easy horse-fleshy, turfy sort +of thing to do. + +‘Wot are you up to, old feller?’ added Mr Bailey, with the same graceful +rakishness. He was quite the man-about-town of the conversation, while +the easy-shaver was the child. + +‘Why, I am going to fetch my lodger home,’ said Paul. + +‘A woman!’ cried Mr Bailey, ‘for a twenty-pun’ note!’ + +The little barber hastened to explain that she was neither a young +woman, nor a handsome woman, but a nurse, who had been acting as a kind +of house-keeper to a gentleman for some weeks past, and left her place +that night, in consequence of being superseded by another and a more +legitimate house-keeper--to wit, the gentleman’s bride. + +‘He’s newly married, and he brings his young wife home to-night,’ said +the barber. ‘So I’m going to fetch my lodger away--Mr Chuzzlewit’s, +close behind the Post Office--and carry her box for her.’ + +‘Jonas Chuzzlewit’s?’ said Bailey. + +‘Ah!’ returned Paul: ‘that’s the name sure enough. Do you know him?’ + +‘Oh, no!’ cried Mr Bailey; ‘not at all. And I don’t know her! Not +neither! Why, they first kept company through me, a’most.’ + +‘Ah?’ said Paul. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Bailey, with a wink; ‘and she ain’t bad looking mind you. +But her sister was the best. SHE was the merry one. I often used to have +a bit of fun with her, in the hold times!’ + +Mr Bailey spoke as if he already had a leg and three-quarters in +the grave, and this had happened twenty or thirty years ago. Paul +Sweedlepipe, the meek, was so perfectly confounded by his precocious +self-possession, and his patronizing manner, as well as by his boots, +cockade, and livery, that a mist swam before his eyes, and he saw--not +the Bailey of acknowledged juvenility from Todgers’s Commercial +Boarding House, who had made his acquaintance within a twelvemonth, +by purchasing, at sundry times, small birds at twopence each--but a +highly-condensed embodiment of all the sporting grooms in London; an +abstract of all the stable-knowledge of the time; a something at a +high-pressure that must have had existence many years, and was fraught +with terrible experiences. And truly, though in the cloudy atmosphere +of Todgers’s, Mr Bailey’s genius had ever shone out brightly in this +particular respect, it now eclipsed both time and space, cheated +beholders of their senses, and worked on their belief in defiance of all +natural laws. He walked along the tangible and real stones of Holborn +Hill, an undersized boy; and yet he winked the winks, and thought the +thoughts, and did the deeds, and said the sayings of an ancient man. +There was an old principle within him, and a young surface without. He +became an inexplicable creature; a breeched and booted Sphinx. There was +no course open to the barber, but to go distracted himself, or to take +Bailey for granted; and he wisely chose the latter. + +Mr Bailey was good enough to continue to bear him company, and to +entertain him, as they went, with easy conversation on various sporting +topics; especially on the comparative merits, as a general principle, of +horses with white stockings, and horses without. In regard to the style +of tail to be preferred, Mr Bailey had opinions of his own, which he +explained, but begged they might by no means influence his friend’s, +as here he knew he had the misfortune to differ from some excellent +authorities. He treated Mr Sweedlepipe to a dram, compounded agreeably +to his own directions, which he informed him had been invented by a +member of the Jockey Club; and, as they were by this time near the +barber’s destination, he observed that, as he had an hour to spare, and +knew the parties, he would, if quite agreeable, be introduced to Mrs +Gamp. + +Paul knocked at Jonas Chuzzlewit’s; and, on the door being opened by +that lady, made the two distinguished persons known to one another. It +was a happy feature in Mrs Gamp’s twofold profession, that it gave her +an interest in everything that was young as well as in everything that +was old. She received Mr Bailey with much kindness. + +‘It’s very good, I’m sure, of you to come,’ she said to her landlord, +‘as well as bring so nice a friend. But I’m afraid that I must trouble +you so far as to step in, for the young couple has not yet made +appearance.’ + +‘They’re late, ain’t they?’ inquired her landlord, when she had +conducted them downstairs into the kitchen. + +‘Well, sir, considern’ the Wings of Love, they are,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +Mr Bailey inquired whether the Wings of Love had ever won a plate, or +could be backed to do anything remarkable; and being informed that it +was not a horse, but merely a poetical or figurative expression, evinced +considerable disgust. Mrs Gamp was so very much astonished by his +affable manners and great ease, that she was about to propound to her +landlord in a whisper the staggering inquiry, whether he was a man or +a boy, when Mr Sweedlepipe, anticipating her design, made a timely +diversion. + +‘He knows Mrs Chuzzlewit,’ said Paul aloud. + +‘There’s nothin’ he don’t know; that’s my opinion,’ observed Mrs Gamp. +‘All the wickedness of the world is Print to him.’ + +Mr Bailey received this as a compliment, and said, adjusting his cravat, +‘reether so.’ + +‘As you knows Mrs Chuzzlewit, you knows, p’raps, what her chris’en name +is?’ Mrs Gamp observed. + +‘Charity,’ said Bailey. + +‘That it ain’t!’ cried Mrs Gamp. + +‘Cherry, then,’ said Bailey. ‘Cherry’s short for it. It’s all the same.’ + +‘It don’t begin with a C at all,’ retorted Mrs Gamp, shaking her head. +‘It begins with a M.’ + +‘Whew!’ cried Mr Bailey, slapping a little cloud of pipe-clay out of his +left leg, ‘then he’s been and married the merry one!’ + +As these words were mysterious, Mrs Gamp called upon him to explain, +which Mr Bailey proceeded to do; that lady listening greedily to +everything he said. He was yet in the fullness of his narrative when the +sound of wheels, and a double knock at the street door, announced the +arrival of the newly married couple. Begging him to reserve what more he +had to say for her hearing on the way home, Mrs Gamp took up the candle, +and hurried away to receive and welcome the young mistress of the house. + +‘Wishing you appiness and joy with all my art,’ said Mrs Gamp, dropping +a curtsey as they entered the hall; ‘and you, too, sir. Your lady looks +a little tired with the journey, Mr Chuzzlewit, a pretty dear!’ + +‘She has bothered enough about it,’ grumbled Mr Jonas. ‘Now, show a +light, will you?’ + +‘This way, ma’am, if you please,’ said Mrs Gamp, going upstairs before +them. ‘Things has been made as comfortable as they could be, but there’s +many things you’ll have to alter your own self when you gets time +to look about you! Ah! sweet thing! But you don’t,’ added Mrs Gamp, +internally, ‘you don’t look much like a merry one, I must say!’ + +It was true; she did not. The death that had gone before the bridal +seemed to have left its shade upon the house. The air was heavy and +oppressive; the rooms were dark; a deep gloom filled up every chink and +corner. Upon the hearthstone, like a creature of ill omen, sat the aged +clerk, with his eyes fixed on some withered branches in the stove. He +rose and looked at her. + +‘So there you are, Mr Chuff,’ said Jonas carelessly, as he dusted his +boots; ‘still in the land of the living, eh?’ + +‘Still in the land of the living, sir,’ retorted Mrs Gamp. ‘And Mr +Chuffey may thank you for it, as many and many a time I’ve told him.’ + +Mr Jonas was not in the best of humours, for he merely said, as he +looked round, ‘We don’t want you any more, you know, Mrs Gamp.’ + +‘I’m a-going immediate, sir,’ returned the nurse; ‘unless there’s +nothink I can do for you, ma’am. Ain’t there,’ said Mrs Gamp, with +a look of great sweetness, and rummaging all the time in her pocket; +‘ain’t there nothink I can do for you, my little bird?’ + +‘No,’ said Merry, almost crying. ‘You had better go away, please!’ + +With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the +future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly +spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar +to her art; Mrs Gamp rummaged in her pocket again, and took from it a +printed card, whereon was an inscription copied from her signboard. + +‘Would you be so good, my darling dovey of a dear young married lady,’ +Mrs Gamp observed, in a low voice, ‘as put that somewheres where you can +keep it in your mind? I’m well beknown to many ladies, and it’s my card. +Gamp is my name, and Gamp my nater. Livin’ quite handy, I will make +so bold as call in now and then, and make inquiry how your health and +spirits is, my precious chick!’ + +And with innumerable leers, winks, coughs, nods, smiles, and curtseys, +all leading to the establishment of a mysterious and confidential +understanding between herself and the bride, Mrs Gamp, invoking a +blessing upon the house, leered, winked, coughed, nodded, smiled, and +curtseyed herself out of the room. + +‘But I will say, and I would if I was led a Martha to the Stakes for +it,’ Mrs Gamp remarked below stairs, in a whisper, ‘that she don’t look +much like a merry one at this present moment of time.’ + +‘Ah! wait till you hear her laugh!’ said Bailey. + +‘Hem!’ cried Mrs Gamp, in a kind of groan. ‘I will, child.’ + +They said no more in the house, for Mrs Gamp put on her bonnet, Mr +Sweedlepipe took up her box; and Mr Bailey accompanied them towards +Kingsgate Street; recounting to Mrs Gamp as they went along, the origin +and progress of his acquaintance with Mrs Chuzzlewit and her sister. It +was a pleasant instance of this youth’s precocity, that he fancied Mrs +Gamp had conceived a tenderness for him, and was much tickled by her +misplaced attachment. + +As the door closed heavily behind them, Mrs Jonas sat down in a chair, +and felt a strange chill creep upon her, whilst she looked about the +room. It was pretty much as she had known it, but appeared more dreary. +She had thought to see it brightened to receive her. + +‘It ain’t good enough for you, I suppose?’ said Jonas, watching her +looks. + +‘Why, it IS dull,’ said Merry, trying to be more herself. + +‘It’ll be duller before you’re done with it,’ retorted Jonas, ‘if you +give me any of your airs. You’re a nice article, to turn sulky on first +coming home! Ecod, you used to have life enough, when you could plague +me with it. The gal’s downstairs. Ring the bell for supper, while I take +my boots off!’ + +She roused herself from looking after him as he left the room, to do +what he had desired; when the old man Chuffey laid his hand softly on +her arm. + +‘You are not married?’ he said eagerly. ‘Not married?’ + +‘Yes. A month ago. Good Heaven, what is the matter?’ + +He answered nothing was the matter; and turned from her. But in her fear +and wonder, turning also, she saw him raise his trembling hands above +his head, and heard him say: + +‘Oh! woe, woe, woe, upon this wicked house!’ + +It was her welcome--HOME. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN + +SHOWING THAT OLD FRIENDS MAY NOT ONLY APPEAR WITH NEW FACES, BUT IN +FALSE COLOURS. THAT PEOPLE ARE PRONE TO BITE, AND THAT BITERS MAY +SOMETIMES BE BITTEN. + + +Mr Bailey, Junior--for the sporting character, whilom of general utility +at Todgers’s, had now regularly set up in life under that name, without +troubling himself to obtain from the legislature a direct licence in +the form of a Private Bill, which of all kinds and classes of bills +is without exception the most unreasonable in its charges--Mr Bailey, +Junior, just tall enough to be seen by an inquiring eye, gazing +indolently at society from beneath the apron of his master’s cab, drove +slowly up and down Pall Mall, about the hour of noon, in waiting for his +‘Governor.’ The horse of distinguished family, who had Capricorn for his +nephew, and Cauliflower for his brother, showed himself worthy of his +high relations by champing at the bit until his chest was white with +foam, and rearing like a horse in heraldry; the plated harness and the +patent leather glittered in the sun; pedestrians admired; Mr Bailey was +complacent, but unmoved. He seemed to say, ‘A barrow, good people, a +mere barrow; nothing to what we could do, if we chose!’ and on he went, +squaring his short green arms outside the apron, as if he were hooked on +to it by his armpits. + +Mr Bailey had a great opinion of Brother to Cauliflower, and estimated +his powers highly. But he never told him so. On the contrary, it was his +practice, in driving that animal, to assail him with disrespectful, +if not injurious, expressions, as, ‘Ah! would you!’ ‘Did you think +it, then?’ ‘Where are you going to now?’ ‘No, you won’t, my lad!’ and +similar fragmentary remarks. These being usually accompanied by a jerk +of the rein, or a crack of the whip, led to many trials of strength +between them, and to many contentions for the upper-hand, terminating, +now and then, in china-shops, and other unusual goals, as Mr Bailey had +already hinted to his friend Poll Sweedlepipe. + +On the present occasion Mr Bailey, being in spirits, was more than +commonly hard upon his charge; in consequence of which that fiery animal +confined himself almost entirely to his hind legs in displaying his +paces, and constantly got himself into positions with reference to the +cabriolet that very much amazed the passengers in the street. But Mr +Bailey, not at all disturbed, had still a shower of pleasantries to +bestow on any one who crossed his path; as, calling to a full-grown +coal-heaver in a wagon, who for a moment blocked the way, ‘Now, young +‘un, who trusted YOU with a cart?’ inquiring of elderly ladies who +wanted to cross, and ran back again, ‘Why they didn’t go to the +workhouse and get an order to be buried?’ tempting boys, with friendly +words, to get up behind, and immediately afterwards cutting them down; +and the like flashes of a cheerful humour, which he would occasionally +relieve by going round St. James’s Square at a hand gallop, and coming +slowly into Pall Mall by another entry, as if, in the interval, his pace +had been a perfect crawl. + +It was not until these amusements had been very often repeated, and the +apple-stall at the corner had sustained so many miraculous escapes as to +appear impregnable, that Mr Bailey was summoned to the door of a certain +house in Pall Mall, and turning short, obeyed the call and jumped out. +It was not until he had held the bridle for some minutes longer, every +jerk of Cauliflower’s brother’s head, and every twitch of Cauliflower’s +brother’s nostril, taking him off his legs in the meanwhile, that +two persons entered the vehicle, one of whom took the reins and drove +rapidly off. Nor was it until Mr Bailey had run after it some hundreds +of yards in vain, that he managed to lift his short leg into the iron +step, and finally to get his boots upon the little footboard behind. +Then, indeed, he became a sight to see; and--standing now on one foot +and now upon the other, now trying to look round the cab on this side, +now on that, and now endeavouring to peep over the top of it, as it went +dashing in among the carts and coaches--was from head to heel Newmarket. + +The appearance of Mr Bailey’s governor as he drove along fully justified +that enthusiastic youth’s description of him to the wondering Poll. He +had a world of jet-black shining hair upon his head, upon his cheeks, +upon his chin, upon his upper lip. His clothes, symmetrically made, were +of the newest fashion and the costliest kind. Flowers of gold and blue, +and green and blushing red, were on his waistcoat; precious chains +and jewels sparkled on his breast; his fingers, clogged with brilliant +rings, were as unwieldly as summer flies but newly rescued from a +honey-pot. The daylight mantled in his gleaming hat and boots as in +a polished glass. And yet, though changed his name, and changed his +outward surface, it was Tigg. Though turned and twisted upside down, +and inside out, as great men have been sometimes known to be; though +no longer Montague Tigg, but Tigg Montague; still it was Tigg; the same +Satanic, gallant, military Tigg. The brass was burnished, lacquered, +newly stamped; yet it was the true Tigg metal notwithstanding. + +Beside him sat a smiling gentleman, of less pretensions and of business +looks, whom he addressed as David. Surely not the David of the--how +shall it be phrased?--the triumvirate of golden balls? Not David, +tapster at the Lombards’ Arms? Yes. The very man. + +‘The secretary’s salary, David,’ said Mr Montague, ‘the office being +now established, is eight hundred pounds per annum, with his house-rent, +coals, and candles free. His five-and-twenty shares he holds, of course. +Is that enough?’ + +David smiled and nodded, and coughed behind a little locked portfolio +which he carried; with an air that proclaimed him to be the secretary in +question. + +‘If that’s enough,’ said Montague, ‘I will propose it at the Board +to-day, in my capacity as chairman.’ + +The secretary smiled again; laughed, indeed, this time; and said, +rubbing his nose slily with one end of the portfolio: + +‘It was a capital thought, wasn’t it?’ + +‘What was a capital thought, David?’ Mr Montague inquired. + +‘The Anglo-Bengalee,’ tittered the secretary. + +‘The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company is +rather a capital concern, I hope, David,’ said Montague. + +‘Capital indeed!’ cried the secretary, with another laugh--’ in one +sense.’ + +‘In the only important one,’ observed the chairman; ‘which is number +one, David.’ + +‘What,’ asked the secretary, bursting into another laugh, ‘what will be +the paid up capital, according to the next prospectus?’ + +‘A figure of two, and as many oughts after it as the printer can get +into the same line,’ replied his friend. ‘Ha, ha!’ + +At this they both laughed; the secretary so vehemently, that in kicking +up his feet, he kicked the apron open, and nearly started Cauliflower’s +brother into an oyster shop; not to mention Mr Bailey’s receiving such +a sudden swing, that he held on for a moment quite a young Fame, by one +strap and no legs. + +‘What a chap you are!’ exclaimed David admiringly, when this little +alarm had subsided. + +‘Say, genius, David, genius.’ + +‘Well, upon my soul, you ARE a genius then,’ said David. ‘I always knew +you had the gift of the gab, of course; but I never believed you were +half the man you are. How could I?’ + +‘I rise with circumstances, David. That’s a point of genius in itself,’ +said Tigg. ‘If you were to lose a hundred pound wager to me at +this minute David, and were to pay it (which is most confoundedly +improbable), I should rise, in a mental point of view, directly.’ + +It is due to Mr Tigg to say that he had really risen with his +opportunities; and, peculating on a grander scale, he had become a +grander man altogether. + +‘Ha, ha,’ cried the secretary, laying his hand, with growing +familiarity, upon the chairman’s arm. ‘When I look at you, and think of +your property in Bengal being--ha, ha, ha!--’ + +The half-expressed idea seemed no less ludicrous to Mr Tigg than to his +friend, for he laughed too, heartily. + +‘--Being,’ resumed David, ‘being amenable--your property in Bengal being +amenable--to all claims upon the company; when I look at you and think +of that, you might tickle me into fits by waving the feather of a pen at +me. Upon my soul you might!’ + +‘It a devilish fine property,’ said Tigg Montague, ‘to be amenable +to any claims. The preserve of tigers alone is worth a mint of money, +David.’ + +David could only reply in the intervals of his laughter, ‘Oh, what a +chap you are!’ and so continued to laugh, and hold his sides, and wipe +his eyes, for some time, without offering any other observation. + +‘A capital idea?’ said Tigg, returning after a time to his companion’s +first remark; ‘no doubt it was a capital idea. It was my idea.’ + +‘No, no. It was my idea,’ said David. ‘Hang it, let a man have some +credit. Didn’t I say to you that I’d saved a few pounds?--’ + +‘You said! Didn’t I say to you,’ interposed Tigg, ‘that I had come into +a few pounds?’ + +‘Certainly you did,’ returned David, warmly, ‘but that’s not the idea. +Who said, that if we put the money together we could furnish an office, +and make a show?’ + +‘And who said,’ retorted Mr Tigg, ‘that, provided we did it on a +sufficiently large scale, we could furnish an office and make a show, +without any money at all? Be rational, and just, and calm, and tell me +whose idea was that.’ + +‘Why, there,’ David was obliged to confess, ‘you had the advantage of +me, I admit. But I don’t put myself on a level with you. I only want a +little credit in the business.’ + +‘All the credit you deserve to have,’ said Tigg. + +‘The plain work of the company, David--figures, books, circulars, +advertisements, pen, ink, and paper, sealing-wax and wafers--is +admirably done by you. You are a first-rate groveller. I don’t dispute +it. But the ornamental department, David; the inventive and poetical +department--’ + +‘Is entirely yours,’ said his friend. ‘No question of it. But with such +a swell turnout as this, and all the handsome things you’ve got about +you, and the life you lead, I mean to say it’s a precious comfortable +department too.’ + +‘Does it gain the purpose? Is it Anglo-Bengalee?’ asked Tigg. + +‘Yes,’ said David. + +‘Could you undertake it yourself?’ demanded Tigg. + +‘No,’ said David. + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Tigg. ‘Then be contented with your station and +your profits, David, my fine fellow, and bless the day that made us +acquainted across the counter of our common uncle, for it was a golden +day to you.’ + +It will have been already gathered from the conversation of these +worthies, that they were embarked in an enterprise of some magnitude, in +which they addressed the public in general from the strong position of +having everything to gain and nothing at all to lose; and which, based +upon this great principle, was thriving pretty comfortably. + +The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company started +into existence one morning, not an Infant Institution, but a Grown-up +Company running alone at a great pace, and doing business right and +left: with a ‘branch’ in a first floor over a tailor’s at the west-end +of the town, and main offices in a new street in the City, comprising +the upper part of a spacious house resplendent in stucco and +plate-glass, with wire-blinds in all the windows, and ‘Anglo-Bengalee’ +worked into the pattern of every one of them. On the doorpost was +painted again in large letters, ‘offices of the Anglo-Bengalee +Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company,’ and on the door was a +large brass plate with the same inscription; always kept very bright, as +courting inquiry; staring the City out of countenance after office hours +on working days, and all day long on Sundays; and looking bolder than +the Bank. Within, the offices were newly plastered, newly painted, +newly papered, newly countered, newly floor-clothed, newly tabled, newly +chaired, newly fitted up in every way, with goods that were substantial +and expensive, and designed (like the company) to last. Business! Look +at the green ledgers with red backs, like strong cricket-balls beaten +flat; the court-guides directories, day-books, almanacks, letter-boxes, +weighing-machines for letters, rows of fire-buckets for dashing out a +conflagration in its first spark, and saving the immense wealth in notes +and bonds belonging to the company; look at the iron safes, the clock, +the office seal--in its capacious self, security for anything. Solidity! +Look at the massive blocks of marble in the chimney-pieces, and the +gorgeous parapet on the top of the house! Publicity! Why, Anglo-Bengalee +Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance company is painted on the very +coal-scuttles. It is repeated at every turn until the eyes are dazzled +with it, and the head is giddy. It is engraved upon the top of all the +letter paper, and it makes a scroll-work round the seal, and it shines +out of the porter’s buttons, and it is repeated twenty times in every +circular and public notice wherein one David Crimple, Esquire, Secretary +and resident Director, takes the liberty of inviting your attention +to the accompanying statement of the advantages offered by the +Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company; and fully +proves to you that any connection on your part with that establishment +must result in a perpetual Christmas Box and constantly increasing Bonus +to yourself, and that nobody can run any risk by the transaction except +the office, which, in its great liberality is pretty sure to lose. And +this, David Crimple, Esquire, submits to you (and the odds are heavy you +believe him), is the best guarantee that can reasonably be suggested by +the Board of Management for its permanence and stability. + +This gentleman’s name, by the way, had been originally Crimp; but as +the word was susceptible of an awkward construction and might be +misrepresented, he had altered it to Crimple. + +Lest with all these proofs and confirmations, any man should be +suspicious of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance +company; should doubt in tiger, cab, or person, Tigg Montague, Esquire, +(of Pall Mall and Bengal), or any other name in the imaginative List of +Directors; there was a porter on the premises--a wonderful creature, +in a vast red waistcoat and a short-tailed pepper-and-salt coat--who +carried more conviction to the minds of sceptics than the whole +establishment without him. No confidences existed between him and the +Directorship; nobody knew where he had served last; no character or +explanation had been given or required. No questions had been asked on +either side. This mysterious being, relying solely on his figure, had +applied for the situation, and had been instantly engaged on his own +terms. They were high; but he knew, doubtless, that no man could carry +such an extent of waistcoat as himself, and felt the full value of his +capacity to such an institution. When he sat upon a seat erected for him +in a corner of the office, with his glazed hat hanging on a peg over his +head, it was impossible to doubt the respectability of the concern. +It went on doubling itself with every square inch of his red waistcoat +until, like the problem of the nails in the horse’s shoes, the total +became enormous. People had been known to apply to effect an insurance +on their lives for a thousand pounds, and looking at him, to beg, before +the form of proposal was filled up, that it might be made two. And yet +he was not a giant. His coat was rather small than otherwise. The whole +charm was in his waistcoat. Respectability, competence, property in +Bengal or anywhere else, responsibility to any amount on the part of the +company that employed him, were all expressed in that one garment. + +Rival offices had endeavoured to lure him away; Lombard Street itself +had beckoned to him; rich companies had whispered ‘Be a Beadle!’ but he +still continued faithful to the Anglo-Bengalee. Whether he was a deep +rogue, or a stately simpleton, it was impossible to make out, but he +appeared to believe in the Anglo-Bengalee. He was grave with imaginary +cares of office; and having nothing whatever to do, and something less +to take care of, would look as if the pressure of his numerous duties, +and a sense of the treasure in the company’s strong-room, made him a +solemn and a thoughtful man. + +As the cabriolet drove up to the door, this officer appeared bare-headed +on the pavement, crying aloud ‘Room for the chairman, room for the +chairman, if you please!’ much to the admiration of the bystanders, +who, it is needless to say, had their attention directed to the +Anglo-Bengalee Company thenceforth, by that means. Mr Tigg leaped +gracefully out, followed by the Managing Director (who was by this time +very distant and respectful), and ascended the stairs, still preceded by +the porter, who cried as he went, ‘By your leave there! by your leave! +The Chairman of the Board, Gentle--MEN! In like manner, but in a still +more stentorian voice, he ushered the chairman through the public +office, where some humble clients were transacting business, into +an awful chamber, labelled Board-room; the door of which sanctuary +immediately closed, and screened the great capitalist from vulgar eyes. + +The board-room had a Turkey carpet in it, a sideboard, a portrait of +Tigg Montague, Esquire, as chairman; a very imposing chair of office, +garnished with an ivory hammer and a little hand-bell; and a long table, +set out at intervals with sheets of blotting-paper, foolscap, clean +pens, and inkstands. The chairman having taken his seat with great +solemnity, the secretary supported him on his right hand, and the porter +stood bolt upright behind them, forming a warm background of waistcoat. +This was the board: everything else being a light-hearted little +fiction. + +‘Bullamy!’ said Mr Tigg. + +‘Sir!’ replied the porter. + +‘Let the Medical Officer know, with my compliments, that I wish to see +him.’ + +Bullamy cleared his throat, and bustled out into the office, crying ‘The +Chairman of the Board wishes to see the Medical Officer. By your leave +there! By your leave!’ He soon returned with the gentleman in question; +and at both openings of the board-room door--at his coming in and at +his going out--simple clients were seen to stretch their necks and +stand upon their toes, thirsting to catch the slightest glimpse of that +mysterious chamber. + +‘Jobling, my dear friend!’ said Mr Tigg, ‘how are you? Bullamy, wait +outside. Crimple, don’t leave us. Jobling, my good fellow, I am glad to +see you.’ + +‘And how are you, Mr Montague, eh?’ said the Medical Officer, throwing +himself luxuriously into an easy-chair (they were all easy-chairs in the +board-room), and taking a handsome gold snuff-box from the pocket of his +black satin waistcoat. ‘How are you? A little worn with business, eh? If +so, rest. A little feverish from wine, humph? If so, water. Nothing +at all the matter, and quite comfortable? Then take some lunch. A very +wholesome thing at this time of day to strengthen the gastric juices +with lunch, Mr Montague.’ + +The Medical Officer (he was the same medical officer who had followed +poor old Anthony Chuzzlewit to the grave, and who had attended Mrs +Gamp’s patient at the Bull) smiled in saying these words; and casually +added, as he brushed some grains of snuff from his shirt-frill, ‘I +always take it myself about this time of day, do you know!’ + +‘Bullamy!’ said the Chairman, ringing the little bell. + +‘Sir!’ + +‘Lunch.’ + +‘Not on my account, I hope?’ said the doctor. ‘You are very good. Thank +you. I’m quite ashamed. Ha, ha! if I had been a sharp practitioner, +Mr Montague, I shouldn’t have mentioned it without a fee; for you may +depend upon it, my dear sir, that if you don’t make a point of taking +lunch, you’ll very soon come under my hands. Allow me to illustrate +this. In Mr Crimple’s leg--’ + +The resident Director gave an involuntary start, for the doctor, in the +heat of his demonstration, caught it up and laid it across his own, as +if he were going to take it off, then and there. + +‘In Mr Crimple’s leg, you’ll observe,’ pursued the doctor, turning back +his cuffs and spanning the limb with both hands, ‘where Mr Crimple’s +knee fits into the socket, here, there is--that is to say, between the +bone and the socket--a certain quantity of animal oil.’ + +‘What do you pick MY leg out for?’ said Mr Crimple, looking with +something of an anxious expression at his limb. ‘It’s the same with +other legs, ain’t it?’ + +‘Never you mind, my good sir,’ returned the doctor, shaking his head, +‘whether it is the same with other legs, or not the same.’ + +‘But I do mind,’ said David. + +‘I take a particular case, Mr Montague,’ returned the doctor, ‘as +illustrating my remark, you observe. In this portion of Mr Crimple’s +leg, sir, there is a certain amount of animal oil. In every one of Mr +Crimple’s joints, sir, there is more or less of the same deposit. Very +good. If Mr Crimple neglects his meals, or fails to take his proper +quantity of rest, that oil wanes, and becomes exhausted. What is the +consequence? Mr Crimple’s bones sink down into their sockets, sir, and +Mr Crimple becomes a weazen, puny, stunted, miserable man!’ + +The doctor let Mr Crimple’s leg fall suddenly, as if he were already in +that agreeable condition; turned down his wristbands again, and looked +triumphantly at the chairman. + +‘We know a few secrets of nature in our profession, sir,’ said the +doctor. ‘Of course we do. We study for that; we pass the Hall and the +College for that; and we take our station in society BY that. It’s +extraordinary how little is known on these subjects generally. Where +do you suppose, now’--the doctor closed one eye, as he leaned back +smilingly in his chair, and formed a triangle with his hands, of which +his two thumbs composed the base--‘where do you suppose Mr Crimple’s +stomach is?’ + +Mr Crimple, more agitated than before, clapped his hand immediately +below his waistcoat. + +‘Not at all,’ cried the doctor; ‘not at all. Quite a popular mistake! My +good sir, you’re altogether deceived.’ + +‘I feel it there, when it’s out of order; that’s all I know,’ said +Crimple. + +‘You think you do,’ replied the doctor; ‘but science knows better. There +was a patient of mine once,’ touching one of the many mourning rings +upon his fingers, and slightly bowing his head, ‘a gentleman who did +me the honour to make a very handsome mention of me in his will--“in +testimony,” as he was pleased to say, “of the unremitting zeal, talent, +and attention of my friend and medical attendant, John Jobling, Esquire, +M.R.C.S.,”--who was so overcome by the idea of having all his life +laboured under an erroneous view of the locality of this important +organ, that when I assured him on my professional reputation, he was +mistaken, he burst into tears, put out his hand, and said, “Jobling, +God bless you!” Immediately afterwards he became speechless, and was +ultimately buried at Brixton.’ + +‘By your leave there!’ cried Bullamy, without. ‘By your leave! +Refreshment for the Board-room!’ + +‘Ha!’ said the doctor, jocularly, as he rubbed his hands, and drew his +chair nearer to the table. ‘The true Life Assurance, Mr Montague. The +best Policy in the world, my dear sir. We should be provident, and eat +and drink whenever we can. Eh, Mr Crimple?’ + +The resident Director acquiesced rather sulkily, as if the gratification +of replenishing his stomach had been impaired by the unsettlement of his +preconceived opinions in reference to its situation. But the appearance +of the porter and under-porter with a tray covered with a snow-white +cloth, which, being thrown back, displayed a pair of cold roast fowls, +flanked by some potted meats and a cool salad, quickly restored his +good humour. It was enhanced still further by the arrival of a bottle +of excellent madeira, and another of champagne; and he soon attacked +the repast with an appetite scarcely inferior to that of the medical +officer. + +The lunch was handsomely served, with a profusion of rich glass plate, +and china; which seemed to denote that eating and drinking on a showy +scale formed no unimportant item in the business of the Anglo-Bengalee +Directorship. As it proceeded, the Medical Officer grew more and more +joyous and red-faced, insomuch that every mouthful he ate, and every +drop of wine he swallowed, seemed to impart new lustre to his eyes, and +to light up new sparks in his nose and forehead. + +In certain quarters of the City and its neighbourhood, Mr Jobling was, +as we have already seen in some measure, a very popular character. He +had a portentously sagacious chin, and a pompous voice, with a rich +huskiness in some of its tones that went directly to the heart, like a +ray of light shining through the ruddy medium of choice old burgundy. +His neckerchief and shirt-frill were ever of the whitest, his clothes of +the blackest and sleekest, his gold watch-chain of the heaviest, and +his seals of the largest. His boots, which were always of the brightest, +creaked as he walked. Perhaps he could shake his head, rub his hands, +or warm himself before a fire, better than any man alive; and he had a +peculiar way of smacking his lips and saying, ‘Ah!’ at intervals while +patients detailed their symptoms, which inspired great confidence. It +seemed to express, ‘I know what you’re going to say better than you do; +but go on, go on.’ As he talked on all occasions whether he had anything +to say or not, it was unanimously observed of him that he was ‘full of +anecdote;’ and his experience and profit from it were considered, for +the same reason, to be something much too extensive for description. His +female patients could never praise him too highly; and the coldest of +his male admirers would always say this for him to their friends, ‘that +whatever Jobling’s professional skill might be (and it could not be +denied that he had a very high reputation), he was one of the most +comfortable fellows you ever saw in your life!’ + +Jobling was for many reasons, and not last in the list because his +connection lay principally among tradesmen and their families, exactly +the sort of person whom the Anglo-Bengalee Company wanted for a medical +officer. But Jobling was far too knowing to connect himself with the +company in any closer ties than as a paid (and well paid) functionary, +or to allow his connection to be misunderstood abroad, if he could help +it. Hence he always stated the case to an inquiring patient, after this +manner: + +‘Why, my dear sir, with regard to the Anglo-Bengalee, my information, +you see, is limited; very limited. I am the medical officer, in +consideration of a certain monthly payment. The labourer is worthy of +his hire; BIS DAT QUI CITO DAT’--[‘classical scholar, Jobling!’ thinks +the patient, ‘well-read man!’)--‘and I receive it regularly. Therefore +I am bound, so far as my own knowledge goes, to speak well of the +establishment.’ [‘Nothing can be fairer than Jobling’s conduct,’ thinks +the patient, who has just paid Jobling’s bill himself.) ‘If you put +any question to me, my dear friend,’ says the doctor, ‘touching the +responsibility or capital of the company, there I am at fault; for I +have no head for figures, and not being a shareholder, am delicate of +showing any curiosity whatever on the subject. Delicacy--your +amiable lady will agree with me I am sure--should be one of the first +characteristics of a medical man.’ [‘Nothing can be finer or more +gentlemanly than Jobling’s feeling,’ thinks the patient.) ‘Very good, +my dear sir, so the matter stands. You don’t know Mr Montague? I’m sorry +for it. A remarkably handsome man, and quite the gentleman in every +respect. Property, I am told, in India. House and everything belonging +to him, beautiful. Costly furniture on the most elegant and lavish +scale. And pictures, which, even in an anatomical point of view, are +perfection. In case you should ever think of doing anything with the +company, I’ll pass you, you may depend upon it. I can conscientiously +report you a healthy subject. If I understand any man’s constitution, it +is yours; and this little indisposition has done him more good, +ma’am,’ says the doctor, turning to the patient’s wife, ‘than if he had +swallowed the contents of half the nonsensical bottles in my surgery. +For they ARE nonsense--to tell the honest truth, one half of them are +nonsense--compared with such a constitution as his!’ [‘Jobling is the +most friendly creature I ever met with in my life,’ thinks the patient; +‘and upon my word and honour, I’ll consider of it!’) + +‘Commission to you, doctor, on four new policies, and a loan this +morning, eh?’ said Crimple, looking, when they had finished lunch, over +some papers brought in by the porter. ‘Well done!’ + +‘Jobling, my dear friend,’ said Tigg, ‘long life to you.’ + +‘No, no. Nonsense. Upon my word I’ve no right to draw the commission,’ +said the doctor, ‘I haven’t really. It’s picking your pocket. I don’t +recommend anybody here. I only say what I know. My patients ask me what +I know, and I tell ‘em what I know. Nothing else. Caution is my weak +side, that’s the truth; and always was from a boy. That is,’ said the +doctor, filling his glass, ‘caution in behalf of other people. Whether I +would repose confidence in this company myself, if I had not been paying +money elsewhere for many years--that’s quite another question.’ + +He tried to look as if there were no doubt about it; but feeling that he +did it but indifferently, changed the theme and praised the wine. + +‘Talking of wine,’ said the doctor, ‘reminds me of one of the finest +glasses of light old port I ever drank in my life; and that was at a +funeral. You have not seen anything of--of THAT party, Mr Montague, have +you?’ handing him a card. + +‘He is not buried, I hope?’ said Tigg, as he took it. ‘The honour of his +company is not requested if he is.’ + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the doctor. ‘No; not quite. He was honourably +connected with that very occasion though.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tigg, smoothing his moustache, as he cast his eyes upon the +name. ‘I recollect. No. He has not been here.’ + +The words were on his lips, when Bullamy entered, and presented a card +to the Medical Officer. + +‘Talk of the what’s his name--’ observed the doctor rising. + +‘And he’s sure to appear, eh?’ said Tigg. + +‘Why, no, Mr Montague, no,’ returned the doctor. ‘We will not say that +in the present case, for this gentleman is very far from it.’ + +‘So much the better,’ retorted Tigg. ‘So much the more adaptable to the +Anglo-Bengalee. Bullamy, clear the table and take the things out by the +other door. Mr Crimple, business.’ + +‘Shall I introduce him?’ asked Jobling. + +‘I shall be eternally delighted,’ answered Tigg, kissing his hand and +smiling sweetly. + +The doctor disappeared into the outer office, and immediately returned +with Jonas Chuzzlewit. + +‘Mr Montague,’ said Jobling. ‘Allow me. My friend Mr Chuzzlewit. My dear +friend--our chairman. Now do you know,’ he added checking himself with +infinite policy, and looking round with a smile; ‘that’s a very singular +instance of the force of example. It really is a very remarkable +instance of the force of example. I say OUR chairman. Why do I say our +chairman? Because he is not MY chairman, you know. I have no connection +with the company, farther than giving them, for a certain fee and +reward, my poor opinion as a medical man, precisely as I may give it any +day to Jack Noakes or Tom Styles. Then why do I say our chairman? Simply +because I hear the phrase constantly repeated about me. Such is the +involuntary operation of the mental faculty in the imitative biped man. +Mr Crimple, I believe you never take snuff? Injudicious. You should.’ + +Pending these remarks on the part of the doctor, and the lengthened and +sonorous pinch with which he followed them up, Jonas took a seat at +the board; as ungainly a man as ever he has been within the reader’s +knowledge. It is too common with all of us, but it is especially in +the nature of a mean mind, to be overawed by fine clothes and fine +furniture. They had a very decided influence on Jonas. + +‘Now you two gentlemen have business to discuss, I know,’ said the +doctor, ‘and your time is precious. So is mine; for several lives are +waiting for me in the next room, and I have a round of visits to make +after--after I have taken ‘em. Having had the happiness to introduce you +to each other, I may go about my business. Good-bye. But allow me, Mr +Montague, before I go, to say this of my friend who sits beside you: +That gentleman has done more, sir,’ rapping his snuff-box solemnly, ‘to +reconcile me to human nature, than any man alive or dead. Good-bye!’ + +With these words Jobling bolted abruptly out of the room, and proceeded +in his own official department, to impress the lives in waiting with a +sense of his keen conscientiousness in the discharge of his duty, and +the great difficulty of getting into the Anglo-Bengalee; by feeling +their pulses, looking at their tongues, listening at their ribs, +poking them in the chest, and so forth; though, if he didn’t well know +beforehand that whatever kind of lives they were, the Anglo-Bengalee +would accept them readily, he was far from being the Jobling that his +friend considered him; and was not the original Jobling, but a spurious +imitation. + +Mr Crimple also departed on the business of the morning; and Jonas +Chuzzlewit and Tigg were left alone. + +‘I learn from our friend,’ said Tigg, drawing his chair towards Jonas +with a winning ease of manner, ‘that you have been thinking--’ + +‘Oh! Ecod then he’d no right to say so,’ cried Jonas, interrupting. +‘I didn’t tell HIM my thoughts. If he took it into his head that I was +coming here for such or such a purpose, why, that’s his lookout. I don’t +stand committed by that.’ + +Jonas said this offensively enough; for over and above the habitual +distrust of his character, it was in his nature to seek to revenge +himself on the fine clothes and the fine furniture, in exact proportion +as he had been unable to withstand their influence. + +‘If I come here to ask a question or two, and get a document or two to +consider of, I don’t bind myself to anything. Let’s understand that, you +know,’ said Jonas. + +‘My dear fellow!’ cried Tigg, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘I applaud +your frankness. If men like you and I speak openly at first, all +possible misunderstanding is avoided. Why should I disguise what you +know so well, but what the crowd never dream of? We companies are all +birds of prey; mere birds of prey. The only question is, whether in +serving our own turn, we can serve yours too; whether in double-lining +our own nest, we can put a single living into yours. Oh, you’re in our +secret. You’re behind the scenes. We’ll make a merit of dealing plainly +with you, when we know we can’t help it.’ + +It was remarked, on the first introduction of Mr Jonas into these pages, +that there is a simplicity of cunning no less than a simplicity of +innocence, and that in all matters involving a faith in knavery, he was +the most credulous of men. If Mr Tigg had preferred any claim to high +and honourable dealing, Jonas would have suspected him though he had +been a very model of probity; but when he gave utterance to Jonas’s own +thoughts of everything and everybody, Jonas began to feel that he was a +pleasant fellow, and one to be talked to freely. + +He changed his position in the chair, not for a less awkward, but for a +more boastful attitude; and smiling in his miserable conceit rejoined: + +‘You an’t a bad man of business, Mr Montague. You know how to set about +it, I WILL say.’ + +‘Tut, tut,’ said Tigg, nodding confidentially, and showing his white +teeth; ‘we are not children, Mr Chuzzlewit; we are grown men, I hope.’ + +Jonas assented, and said after a short silence, first spreading out his +legs, and sticking one arm akimbo to show how perfectly at home he was, + +‘The truth is--’ + +‘Don’t say, the truth,’ interposed Tigg, with another grin. ‘It’s so +like humbug.’ + +Greatly charmed by this, Jonas began again. + +‘The long and the short of it is--’ + +‘Better,’ muttered Tigg. ‘Much better!’ + +‘--That I didn’t consider myself very well used by one or two of the old +companies in some negotiations I have had with ‘em--once had, I mean. +They started objections they had no right to start, and put questions +they had no right to put, and carried things much too high for my +taste.’ + +As he made these observations he cast down his eyes, and looked +curiously at the carpet. Mr Tigg looked curiously at him. + +He made so long a pause, that Tigg came to the rescue, and said, in his +pleasantest manner: + +‘Take a glass of wine.’ + +‘No, no,’ returned Jonas, with a cunning shake of the head; ‘none of +that, thankee. No wine over business. All very well for you, but it +wouldn’t do for me.’ + +‘What an old hand you are, Mr Chuzzlewit!’ said Tigg, leaning back in +his chair, and leering at him through his half-shut eyes. + +Jonas shook his head again, as much as to say, ‘You’re right there;’ And +then resumed, jocosely: + +‘Not such an old hand, either, but that I’ve been and got married. +That’s rather green, you’ll say. Perhaps it is, especially as she’s +young. But one never knows what may happen to these women, so I’m +thinking of insuring her life. It is but fair, you know, that a man +should secure some consolation in case of meeting with such a loss.’ + +‘If anything can console him under such heart-breaking circumstances,’ +murmured Tigg, with his eyes shut up as before. + +‘Exactly,’ returned Jonas; ‘if anything can. Now, supposing I did it +here, I should do it cheap, I know, and easy, without bothering her +about it; which I’d much rather not do, for it’s just in a woman’s way +to take it into her head, if you talk to her about such things, that +she’s going to die directly.’ + +‘So it is,’ cried Tigg, kissing his hand in honour of the sex. ‘You’re +quite right. Sweet, silly, fluttering little simpletons!’ + +‘Well,’ said Jonas, ‘on that account, you know, and because offence +has been given me in other quarters, I wouldn’t mind patronizing this +Company. But I want to know what sort of security there is for the +Company’s going on. That’s the--’ + +‘Not the truth?’ cried Tigg, holding up his jewelled hand. ‘Don’t use +that Sunday School expression, please!’ + +‘The long and the short of it,’ said Jonas. ‘The long and the short of +it is, what’s the security?’ + +‘The paid-up capital, my dear sir,’ said Tigg, referring to some papers +on the table, ‘is, at this present moment--’ + +‘Oh! I understand all about paid-up capitals, you know,’ said Jonas. + +‘You do?’ cried Tigg, stopping short. + +‘I should hope so.’ + +He turned the papers down again, and moving nearer to him, said in his +ear: + +‘I know you do. I know you do. Look at me!’ + +It was not much in Jonas’s way to look straight at anybody; but thus +requested, he made shift to take a tolerable survey of the chairman’s +features. The chairman fell back a little, to give him the better +opportunity. + +‘You know me?’ he inquired, elevating his eyebrows. ‘You recollect? +You’ve seen me before?’ + +‘Why, I thought I remembered your face when I first came in,’ said +Jonas, gazing at it; ‘but I couldn’t call to mind where I had seen it. +No. I don’t remember, even now. Was it in the street?’ + +‘Was it in Pecksniff’s parlour?’ said Tigg + +‘In Pecksniff’s parlour!’ echoed Jonas, fetching a long breath. ‘You +don’t mean when--’ + +‘Yes,’ cried Tigg, ‘when there was a very charming and delightful little +family party, at which yourself and your respected father assisted.’ + +‘Well, never mind HIM,’ said Jonas. ‘He’s dead, and there’s no help for +it.’ + +‘Dead, is he!’ cried Tigg, ‘Venerable old gentleman, is he dead! You’re +very like him.’ + +Jonas received this compliment with anything but a good grace, perhaps +because of his own private sentiments in reference to the personal +appearance of his deceased parent; perhaps because he was not best +pleased to find that Montague and Tigg were one. That gentleman +perceived it, and tapping him familiarly on the sleeve, beckoned him +to the window. From this moment, Mr Montague’s jocularity and flow of +spirits were remarkable. + +‘Do you find me at all changed since that time?’ he asked. ‘Speak +plainly.’ + +Jonas looked hard at his waistcoat and jewels; and said ‘Rather, ecod!’ + +‘Was I at all seedy in those days?’ asked Montague. + +‘Precious seedy,’ said Jonas. + +Mr Montague pointed down into the street, where Bailey and the cab were +in attendance. + +‘Neat; perhaps dashing. Do you know whose it is?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Mine. Do you like this room?’ + +‘It must have cost a lot of money,’ said Jonas. + +‘You’re right. Mine too. Why don’t you’--he whispered this, and nudged +him in the side with his elbow--‘why don’t you take premiums, instead of +paying ‘em? That’s what a man like you should do. Join us!’ + +Jonas stared at him in amazement. + +‘Is that a crowded street?’ asked Montague, calling his attention to the +multitude without. + +‘Very,’ said Jonas, only glancing at it, and immediately afterwards +looking at him again. + +‘There are printed calculations,’ said his companion, ‘which will +tell you pretty nearly how many people will pass up and down that +thoroughfare in the course of a day. I can tell you how many of ‘em will +come in here, merely because they find this office here; knowing no more +about it than they do of the Pyramids. Ha, ha! Join us. You shall come +in cheap.’ + +Jonas looked at him harder and harder. + +‘I can tell you,’ said Tigg in his ear, ‘how many of ‘em will buy +annuities, effect insurances, bring us their money in a hundred shapes +and ways, force it upon us, trust us as if we were the Mint; yet know no +more about us than you do of that crossing-sweeper at the corner. Not so +much. Ha, ha!’ + +Jonas gradually broke into a smile. + +‘Yah!’ said Montague, giving him a pleasant thrust in the breast; +‘you’re too deep for us, you dog, or I wouldn’t have told you. Dine with +me to-morrow, in Pall Mall!’ + +‘I will’ said Jonas. + +‘Done!’ cried Montague. ‘Wait a bit. Take these papers with you and look +‘em over. See,’ he said, snatching some printed forms from the table. ‘B +is a little tradesman, clerk, parson, artist, author, any common thing +you like.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Jonas, looking greedily over his shoulder. ‘Well!’ + +‘B wants a loan. Say fifty or a hundred pound; perhaps more; no matter. +B proposes self and two securities. B is accepted. Two securities give +a bond. B assures his own life for double the amount, and brings two +friends’ lives also--just to patronize the office. Ha ha, ha! Is that a +good notion?’ + +‘Ecod, that’s a capital notion!’ cried Jonas. ‘But does he really do +it?’ + +‘Do it!’ repeated the chairman. ‘B’s hard up, my good fellow, and will +do anything. Don’t you see? It’s my idea.’ + +‘It does you honour. I’m blest if it don’t,’ said Jonas. + +‘I think it does,’ replied the chairman, ‘and I’m proud to hear you say +so. B pays the highest lawful interest--’ + +‘That an’t much,’ interrupted Jonas. + +‘Right! quite right!’ retorted Tigg. ‘And hard it is upon the part +of the law that it should be so confoundedly down upon us unfortunate +victims; when it takes such amazing good interest for itself from all +its clients. But charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. +Well! The law being hard upon us, we’re not exactly soft upon B; for +besides charging B the regular interest, we get B’s premium, and B’s +friends’ premiums, and we charge B for the bond, and, whether we accept +him or not, we charge B for “inquiries” (we keep a man, at a pound a +week, to make ‘em), and we charge B a trifle for the secretary; and in +short, my good fellow, we stick it into B, up hill and down dale, and +make a devilish comfortable little property out of him. Ha, ha, ha! I +drive B, in point of fact,’ said Tigg, pointing to the cabriolet, ‘and a +thoroughbred horse he is. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +Jonas enjoyed this joke very much indeed. It was quite in his peculiar +vein of humour. + +‘Then,’ said Tigg Montague, ‘we grant annuities on the very lowest and +most advantageous terms known in the money market; and the old ladies +and gentlemen down in the country buy ‘em. Ha, ha, ha! And we pay ‘em +too--perhaps. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +‘But there’s responsibility in that,’ said Jonas, looking doubtful. + +‘I take it all myself,’ said Tigg Montague. ‘Here I am responsible for +everything. The only responsible person in the establishment! Ha, +ha, ha! Then there are the Life Assurances without loans; the common +policies. Very profitable, very comfortable. Money down, you know; +repeated every year; capital fun!’ + +‘But when they begin to fall in,’ observed Jonas. ‘It’s all very well, +while the office is young, but when the policies begin to die--that’s +what I am thinking of.’ + +‘At the first start, my dear fellow,’ said Montague, ‘to show you how +correct your judgment is, we had a couple of unlucky deaths that brought +us down to a grand piano.’ + +‘Brought you down where?’ cried Jonas. + +‘I give you my sacred word of honour,’ said Tigg Montague, ‘that I +raised money on every other individual piece of property, and was left +alone in the world with a grand piano. And it was an upright-grand too, +so that I couldn’t even sit upon it. But, my dear fellow, we got over +it. We granted a great many new policies that week (liberal allowance +to solicitors, by the bye), and got over it in no time. Whenever they +should chance to fall in heavily, as you very justly observe they may, +one of these days; then--’ he finished the sentence in so low a whisper, +that only one disconnected word was audible, and that imperfectly. But +it sounded like ‘Bolt.’ + +‘Why, you’re as bold as brass!’ said Jonas, in the utmost admiration. + +‘A man can well afford to be as bold as brass, my good fellow, when he +gets gold in exchange!’ cried the chairman, with a laugh that shook him +from head to foot. ‘You’ll dine with me to-morrow?’ + +‘At what time?’ asked Jonas. + +‘Seven. Here’s my card. Take the documents. I see you’ll join us!’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ said Jonas. ‘There’s a good deal to be looked +into first.’ + +‘You shall look,’ said Montague, slapping him on the back, ‘into +anything and everything you please. But you’ll join us, I am convinced. +You were made for it. Bullamy!’ + +Obedient to the summons and the little bell, the waistcoat appeared. +Being charged to show Jonas out, it went before; and the voice within it +cried, as usual, ‘By your leave there, by your leave! Gentleman from the +board-room, by your leave!’ + +Mr Montague being left alone, pondered for some moments, and then said, +raising his voice: + +‘Is Nadgett in the office there?’ + +‘Here he is, sir.’ And he promptly entered; shutting the board-room door +after him, as carefully as if he were about to plot a murder. + +He was the man at a pound a week who made the inquiries. It was no +virtue or merit in Nadgett that he transacted all his Anglo-Bengalee +business secretly and in the closest confidence; for he was born to be +a secret. He was a short, dried-up, withered old man, who seemed to have +secreted his very blood; for nobody would have given him credit for the +possession of six ounces of it in his whole body. How he lived was a +secret; where he lived was a secret; and even what he was, was a secret. +In his musty old pocket-book he carried contradictory cards, in some of +which he called himself a coal-merchant, in others a wine-merchant, +in others a commission-agent, in others a collector, in others an +accountant; as if he really didn’t know the secret himself. He was +always keeping appointments in the City, and the other man never seemed +to come. He would sit on ‘Change for hours, looking at everybody who +walked in and out, and would do the like at Garraway’s, and in other +business coffee-rooms, in some of which he would be occasionally seen +drying a very damp pocket-handkerchief before the fire, and still +looking over his shoulder for the man who never appeared. He was +mildewed, threadbare, shabby; always had flue upon his legs and back; +and kept his linen so secretly buttoning up and wrapping over, that he +might have had none--perhaps he hadn’t. He carried one stained beaver +glove, which he dangled before him by the forefinger as he walked or +sat; but even its fellow was a secret. Some people said he had been a +bankrupt, others that he had gone an infant into an ancient Chancery +suit which was still depending, but it was all a secret. He carried bits +of sealing-wax and a hieroglyphical old copper seal in his pocket, and +often secretly indited letters in corner boxes of the trysting-places +before mentioned; but they never appeared to go to anybody, for he would +put them into a secret place in his coat, and deliver them to himself +weeks afterwards, very much to his own surprise, quite yellow. He was +that sort of man that if he had died worth a million of money, or had +died worth twopence halfpenny, everybody would have been perfectly +satisfied, and would have said it was just as they expected. And yet +he belonged to a class; a race peculiar to the City; who are secrets as +profound to one another, as they are to the rest of mankind. + +‘Mr Nadgett,’ said Montague, copying Jonas Chuzzlewit’s address upon a +piece of paper, from the card which was still lying on the table, ‘any +information about this name, I shall be glad to have myself. Don’t you +mind what it is. Any you can scrape together, bring me. Bring it to me, +Mr Nadgett.’ + +Nadgett put on his spectacles, and read the name attentively; then +looked at the chairman over his glasses, and bowed; then took them off, +and put them in their case; and then put the case in his pocket. When he +had done so, he looked, without his spectacles, at the paper as it lay +before him, and at the same time produced his pocket-book from somewhere +about the middle of his spine. Large as it was, it was very full of +documents, but he found a place for this one; and having clasped it +carefully, passed it by a kind of solemn legerdemain into the same +region as before. + +He withdrew with another bow and without a word; opening the door +no wider than was sufficient for his passage out; and shutting it as +carefully as before. The chairman of the board employed the rest of the +morning in affixing his sign-manual of gracious acceptance to various +new proposals of annuity-purchase and assurance. The Company was looking +up, for they flowed in gayly. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT + +MR MONTAGUE AT HOME. AND MR JONAS CHUZZLEWIT AT HOME + + +There were many powerful reasons for Jonas Chuzzlewit being strongly +prepossessed in favour of the scheme which its great originator had so +boldly laid open to him; but three among them stood prominently forward. +Firstly, there was money to be made by it. Secondly, the money had the +peculiar charm of being sagaciously obtained at other people’s cost. +Thirdly, it involved much outward show of homage and distinction: a +board being an awful institution in its own sphere, and a director a +mighty man. ‘To make a swingeing profit, have a lot of chaps to order +about, and get into regular good society by one and the same means, and +them so easy to one’s hand, ain’t such a bad look-out,’ thought +Jonas. The latter considerations were only second to his avarice; for, +conscious that there was nothing in his person, conduct, character, or +accomplishments, to command respect, he was greedy of power, and was, in +his heart, as much a tyrant as any laureled conqueror on record. + +But he determined to proceed with cunning and caution, and to be very +keen on his observation of the gentility of Mr Montague’s private +establishment. For it no more occurred to this shallow knave that +Montague wanted him to be so, or he wouldn’t have invited him while his +decision was yet in abeyance, than the possibility of that genius being +able to overreach him in any way, pierced through his self-deceit by the +inlet of a needle’s point. He had said, in the outset, that Jonas +was too sharp for him; and Jonas, who would have been sharp enough to +believe him in nothing else, though he had solemnly sworn it, believed +him in that, instantly. + +It was with a faltering hand, and yet with an imbecile attempt at a +swagger, that he knocked at his new friend’s door in Pall Mall when the +appointed hour arrived. Mr Bailey quickly answered to the summons. He +was not proud and was kindly disposed to take notice of Jonas; but Jonas +had forgotten him. + +‘Mr Montague at home?’ + +‘I should hope he wos at home, and waiting dinner, too,’ said Bailey, +with the ease of an old acquaintance. ‘Will you take your hat up along +with you, or leave it here?’ + +Mr Jonas preferred leaving it there. + +‘The hold name, I suppose?’ said Bailey, with a grin. + +Mr Jonas stared at him in mute indignation. + +‘What, don’t you remember hold mother Todgers’s?’ said Mr Bailey, with +his favourite action of the knees and boots. ‘Don’t you remember my +taking your name up to the young ladies, when you came a-courting there? +A reg’lar scaly old shop, warn’t it? Times is changed ain’t they. I say +how you’ve growed!’ + +Without pausing for any acknowledgement of this compliment, he ushered +the visitor upstairs, and having announced him, retired with a private +wink. + +The lower story of the house was occupied by a wealthy tradesman, but +Mr Montague had all the upper portion, and splendid lodging it was. The +room in which he received Jonas was a spacious and elegant apartment, +furnished with extreme magnificence; decorated with pictures, copies +from the antique in alabaster and marble, china vases, lofty mirrors, +crimson hangings of the richest silk, gilded carvings, luxurious +couches, glistening cabinets inlaid with precious woods; costly toys of +every sort in negligent abundance. The only guests besides Jonas +were the doctor, the resident Director, and two other gentlemen, whom +Montague presented in due form. + +‘My dear friend, I am delighted to see you. Jobling you know, I +believe?’ + +‘I think so,’ said the doctor pleasantly, as he stepped out of the +circle to shake hands. ‘I trust I have the honour. I hope so. My dear +sir, I see you well. Quite well? THAT’S well!’ + +‘Mr Wolf,’ said Montague, as soon as the doctor would allow him to +introduce the two others, ‘Mr Chuzzlewit. Mr Pip, Mr Chuzzlewit.’ + +Both gentlemen were exceedingly happy to have the honour of making Mr +Chuzzlewit’s acquaintance. The doctor drew Jonas a little apart, and +whispered behind his hand: + +‘Men of the world, my dear sir--men of the world. Hem! Mr Wolf--literary +character--you needn’t mention it--remarkably clever weekly paper--oh, +remarkably clever! Mr Pip--theatrical man--capital man to know--oh, +capital man!’ + +‘Well!’ said Wolf, folding his arms and resuming a conversation which +the arrival of Jonas had interrupted. ‘And what did Lord Nobley say to +that?’ + +‘Why,’ returned Pip, with an oath. ‘He didn’t know what to say. Same, +sir, if he wasn’t as mute as a poker. But you know what a good fellow +Nobley is!’ + +‘The best fellow in the world!’ cried Wolf. ‘It as only last week that +Nobley said to me, “By Gad, Wolf, I’ve got a living to bestow, and if +you had but been brought up at the University, strike me blind if I +wouldn’t have made a parson of you!”’ + +‘Just like him,’ said Pip with another oath. ‘And he’d have done it!’ + +‘Not a doubt of it,’ said Wolf. ‘But you were going to tell us--’ + +‘Oh, yes!’ cried Pip. ‘To be sure. So I was. At first he was dumb--sewn +up, dead, sir--but after a minute he said to the Duke, “Here’s Pip. +Ask Pip. Pip’s our mutual friend. Ask Pip. He knows.” “Damme!” said the +Duke, “I appeal to Pip then. Come, Pip. Bandy or not bandy? Speak out!” + “Bandy, your Grace, by the Lord Harry!” said I. “Ha, ha!” laughed the +Duke. “To be sure she is. Bravo, Pip. Well said Pip. I wish I may die +if you’re not a trump, Pip. Pop me down among your fashionable visitors +whenever I’m in town, Pip.” And so I do, to this day.’ + +The conclusion of this story gave immense satisfaction, which was in +no degree lessened by the announcement of dinner. Jonas repaired to the +dining room, along with his distinguished host, and took his seat at the +board between that individual and his friend the doctor. The rest fell +into their places like men who were well accustomed to the house; and +dinner was done full justice to, by all parties. + +It was a good a one as money (or credit, no matter which) could produce. +The dishes, wines, and fruits were of the choicest kind. Everything was +elegantly served. The plate was gorgeous. Mr Jonas was in the midst of +a calculation of the value of this item alone, when his host disturbed +him. + +‘A glass of wine?’ + +‘Oh!’ said Jonas, who had had several glasses already. ‘As much of that +as you like! It’s too good to refuse.’ + +‘Well said, Mr Chuzzlewit!’ cried Wolf. + +‘Tom Gag, upon my soul!’ said Pip. + +‘Positively, you know, that’s--ha, ha, ha!’ observed the doctor, laying +down his knife and fork for one instant, and then going to work again, +pell-mell--‘that’s epigrammatic; quite!’ + +‘You’re tolerably comfortable, I hope?’ said Tigg, apart to Jonas. + +‘Oh! You needn’t trouble your head about ME,’ he replied, ‘Famous!’ + +‘I thought it best not to have a party,’ said Tigg. ‘You feel that?’ + +‘Why, what do you call this?’ retorted Jonas. ‘You don’t mean to say you +do this every day, do you?’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ said Montague, shrugging his shoulders, ‘every day of +my life, when I dine at home. This is my common style. It was of no use +having anything uncommon for you. You’d have seen through it. “You’ll +have a party?” said Crimple. “No, I won’t,” I said, “he shall take us in +the rough!” + +‘And pretty smooth, too, ecod!’ said Jonas, glancing round the table. +‘This don’t cost a trifle.’ + +‘Why, to be candid with you, it does not,’ returned the other. ‘But I +like this sort of thing. It’s the way I spend my money.’ + +Jonas thrust his tongue into his cheek, and said, ‘Was it?’ + +‘When you join us, you won’t get rid of your share of the profits in the +same way?’ said Tigg. + +‘Quite different,’ retorted Jonas. + +‘Well, and you’re right,’ said Tigg, with friendly candour. ‘You +needn’t. It’s not necessary. One of a Company must do it to hold +the connection together; but, as I take a pleasure in it, that’s my +department. You don’t mind dining expensively at another man’s expense, +I hope?’ + +‘Not a bit,’ said Jonas. + +‘Then I hope you’ll often dine with me?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Jonas, ‘I don’t mind. On the contrary.’ + +‘And I’ll never attempt to talk business to you over wine, I take my +oath,’ said Tigg. ‘Oh deep, deep, deep of you this morning! I must tell +‘em that. They’re the very men to enjoy it. Pip, my good fellow, I’ve +a splendid little trait to tell you of my friend Chuzzlewit who is +the deepest dog I know; I give you my sacred word of honour he is the +deepest dog I know, Pip!’ + +Pip swore a frightful oath that he was sure of it already; and +the anecdote, being told, was received with loud applause, as an +incontestable proof of Mr Jonas’s greatness. Pip, in a natural spirit of +emulation, then related some instances of his own depth; and Wolf not +to be left behind-hand, recited the leading points of one or two vastly +humorous articles he was then preparing. These lucubrations being of +what he called ‘a warm complexion,’ were highly approved; and all the +company agreed that they were full of point. + +‘Men of the world, my dear sir,’ Jobling whispered to Jonas; ‘thorough +men of the world! To a professional person like myself it’s +quite refreshing to come into this kind of society. It’s not only +agreeable--and nothing CAN be more agreeable--but it’s philosophically +improving. It’s character, my dear sir; character!’ + +It is so pleasant to find real merit appreciated, whatever its +particular walk in life may be, that the general harmony of the company +was doubtless much promoted by their knowing that the two men of the +world were held in great esteem by the upper classes of society, and +by the gallant defenders of their country in the army and navy, but +particularly the former. The least of their stories had a colonel in it; +lords were as plentiful as oaths; and even the Blood Royal ran in the +muddy channel of their personal recollections. + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit didn’t know him, I’m afraid,’ said Wolf, in reference to +a certain personage of illustrious descent, who had previously figured +in a reminiscence. + +‘No,’ said Tigg. ‘But we must bring him into contact with this sort of +fellows.’ + +‘He was very fond of literature,’ observed Wolf. + +‘Was he?’ said Tigg. + +‘Oh, yes; he took my paper regularly for many years. Do you know he +said some good things now and then? He asked a certain Viscount, who’s +a friend of mine--Pip knows him--“What’s the editor’s name, what’s the +editor’s name?” “Wolf.” “Wolf, eh? Sharp biter, Wolf. We must keep the +Wolf from the door, as the proverb says.” It was very well. And being +complimentary, I printed it.’ + +‘But the Viscount’s the boy!’ cried Pip, who invented a new oath for +the introduction of everything he said. ‘The Viscount’s the boy! He came +into our place one night to take Her home; rather slued, but not much; +and said, “Where’s Pip? I want to see Pip. Produce Pip!”--“What’s the +row, my lord?”--“Shakspeare’s an infernal humbug, Pip! What’s the good +of Shakspeare, Pip? I never read him. What the devil is it all about, +Pip? There’s a lot of feet in Shakspeare’s verse, but there an’t any +legs worth mentioning in Shakspeare’s plays, are there, Pip? Juliet, +Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and all the rest of ‘em, whatever their names +are, might as well have no legs at all, for anything the audience know +about it, Pip. Why, in that respect they’re all Miss Biffins to the +audience, Pip. I’ll tell you what it is. What the people call dramatic +poetry is a collection of sermons. Do I go to the theatre to be +lectured? No, Pip. If I wanted that, I’d go to church. What’s the +legitimate object of the drama, Pip? Human nature. What are legs? Human +nature. Then let us have plenty of leg pieces, Pip, and I’ll stand by +you, my buck!” and I am proud to say,’ added Pip, ‘that he DID stand by +me, handsomely.’ + +The conversation now becoming general, Mr Jonas’s opinion was requested +on this subject; and as it was in full accordance with the sentiments of +Mr Pip, that gentleman was extremely gratified. Indeed, both himself and +Wolf had so much in common with Jonas, that they became very amicable; +and between their increasing friendship and the fumes of wine, Jonas +grew talkative. + +It does not follow in the case of such a person that the more talkative +he becomes, the more agreeable he is; on the contrary, his merits show +to most advantage, perhaps, in silence. Having no means, as he thought, +of putting himself on an equality with the rest, but by the assertion +of that depth and sharpness on which he had been complimented, Jonas +exhibited that faculty to the utmost; and was so deep and sharp that +he lost himself in his own profundity, and cut his fingers with his own +edge-tools. + +It was especially in his way and character to exhibit his quality at his +entertainer’s expense; and while he drank of his sparkling wines, and +partook of his monstrous profusion, to ridicule the extravagance which +had set such costly fare before him. Even at such a wanton board, and in +such more than doubtful company, this might have proved a disagreeable +experiment, but that Tigg and Crimple, studying to understand their man +thoroughly, gave him what license he chose: knowing that the more +he took, the better for their purpose. And thus while the blundering +cheat--gull that he was, for all his cunning--thought himself rolled +up hedgehog fashion, with his sharpest points towards them, he was, +in fact, betraying all his vulnerable parts to their unwinking +watchfulness. + +Whether the two gentlemen who contributed so much to the doctor’s +philosophical knowledge (by the way, the doctor slipped off quietly, +after swallowing his usual amount of wine) had had their cue distinctly +from the host, or took it from what they saw and heard, they acted +their parts very well. They solicited the honour of Jonas’s better +acquaintance; trusted that they would have the pleasure of introducing +him into that elevated society in which he was so well qualified to +shine; and informed him, in the most friendly manner that the advantages +of their respective establishments were entirely at his control. In a +word, they said ‘Be one of us!’ And Jonas said he was infinitely obliged +to them, and he would be; adding within himself, that so long as they +‘stood treat,’ there was nothing he would like better. + +After coffee, which was served in the drawing-room, there was a short +interval (mainly sustained by Pip and Wolf) of conversation; rather +highly spiced and strongly seasoned. When it flagged, Jonas took it up +and showed considerable humour in appraising the furniture; inquiring +whether such an article was paid for; what it had originally cost, and +the like. In all of this, he was, as he considered, desperately hard on +Montague, and very demonstrative of his own brilliant parts. + +Some Champagne Punch gave a new though temporary fillip to the +entertainments of the evening. For after leading to some noisy +proceedings, which were not intelligible, it ended in the unsteady +departure of the two gentlemen of the world, and the slumber of Mr Jonas +upon one of the sofas. + +As he could not be made to understand where he was, Mr Bailey received +orders to call a hackney-coach, and take him home; which that young +gentleman roused himself from an uneasy sleep in the hall to do. It +being now almost three o’clock in the morning. + +‘Is he hooked, do you think?’ whispered Crimple, as himself and partner +stood in a distant part of the room observing him as he lay. + +‘Aye!’ said Tigg, in the same tone. ‘With a strong iron, perhaps. Has +Nadgett been here to-night?’ + +‘Yes. I went out to him. Hearing you had company, he went away.’ + +‘Why did he do that?’ + +‘He said he would come back early in the morning, before you were out of +bed.’ + +‘Tell them to be sure and send him up to my bedside. Hush! Here’s the +boy! Now Mr Bailey, take this gentleman home, and see him safely in. +Hallo, here! Why Chuzzlewit, halloa!’ + +They got him upright with some difficulty, and assisted him downstairs, +where they put his hat upon his head, and tumbled him into the coach. +Mr Bailey, having shut him in, mounted the box beside the coachman, and +smoked his cigar with an air of particular satisfaction; the undertaking +in which he was engaged having a free and sporting character about it, +which was quite congenial to his taste. + +Arriving in due time at the house in the City, Mr Bailey jumped down, +and expressed the lively nature of his feelings in a knock the like of +which had probably not been heard in that quarter since the great fire +of London. Going out into the road to observe the effect of this feat, +he saw that a dim light, previously visible at an upper window, had been +already removed and was travelling downstairs. To obtain a foreknowledge +of the bearer of this taper, Mr Bailey skipped back to the door again, +and put his eye to the keyhole. + +It was the merry one herself. But sadly, strangely altered! So careworn +and dejected, so faltering and full of fear; so fallen, humbled, +broken; that to have seen her quiet in her coffin would have been a less +surprise. + +She set the light upon a bracket in the hall, and laid her hand upon her +heart; upon her eyes; upon her burning head. Then she came on towards +the door with such a wild and hurried step that Mr Bailey lost his +self-possession, and still had his eye where the keyhole had been, when +she opened it. + +‘Aha!’ said Mr Bailey, with an effort. ‘There you are, are you? What’s +the matter? Ain’t you well, though?’ + +In the midst of her astonishment as she recognized him in his altered +dress, so much of her old smile came back to her face that Bailey was +glad. But next moment he was sorry again, for he saw tears standing in +her poor dim eyes. + +‘Don’t be frightened,’ said Bailey. ‘There ain’t nothing the matter. +I’ve brought home Mr Chuzzlewit. He ain’t ill. He’s only a little +swipey, you know.’ Mr Bailey reeled in his boots, to express +intoxication. + +‘Have you come from Mrs Todgers’s?’ asked Merry, trembling. + +‘Todgers’s, bless you! No!’ cried Mr Bailey. ‘I haven’t got nothin, to +do with Todgers’s. I cut that connection long ago. He’s been a-dining +with my governor at the west-end. Didn’t you know he was a-coming to see +us?’ + +‘No,’ she said, faintly. + +‘Oh yes! We’re heavy swells too, and so I tell you. Don’t you come out, +a-catching cold in your head. I’ll wake him!’ Mr Bailey expressing in +his demeanour a perfect confidence that he could carry him in with ease, +if necessary, opened the coach door, let down the steps, and giving +Jonas a shake, cried ‘We’ve got home, my flower! Tumble up, then!’ + +He was so far recovered as to be able to respond to this appeal, and +to come stumbling out of the coach in a heap, to the great hazard of Mr +Bailey’s person. When he got upon the pavement, Mr Bailey first butted +at him in front, and then dexterously propped him up behind; and having +steadied him by these means, he assisted him into the house. + +‘You go up first with the light,’ said Bailey to Mr Jonas, ‘and we’ll +foller. Don’t tremble so. He won’t hurt you. When I’ve had a drop too +much, I’m full of good natur myself.’ + +She went on before; and her husband and Bailey, by dint of tumbling +over each other, and knocking themselves about, got at last into the +sitting-room above stairs, where Jonas staggered into a seat. + +‘There!’ said Mr Bailey. ‘He’s all right now. You ain’t got nothing to +cry for, bless you! He’s righter than a trivet!’ + +The ill-favoured brute, with dress awry, and sodden face, and rumpled +hair, sat blinking and drooping, and rolling his idiotic eyes about, +until, becoming conscious by degrees, he recognized his wife, and shook +his fist at her. + +‘Ah!’ cried Mr Bailey, squaring his arms with a sudden emotion. ‘What, +you’re wicious, are you? Would you though! You’d better not!’ + +‘Pray, go away!’ said Merry. ‘Bailey, my good boy, go home. Jonas!’ she +said; timidly laying her hand upon his shoulder, and bending her head +down over him. ‘Jonas!’ + +‘Look at her!’ cried Jonas, pushing her off with his extended arm. ‘Look +here! Look at her! Here’s a bargain for a man!’ + +‘Dear Jonas!’ + +‘Dear Devil!’ he replied, with a fierce gesture. ‘You’re a pretty clog +to be tied to a man for life, you mewling, white-faced cat! Get out of +my sight!’ + +‘I know you don’t mean it, Jonas. You wouldn’t say it if you were +sober.’ + +With affected gayety she gave Bailey a piece of money, and again +implored him to be gone. Her entreaty was so earnest, that the boy had +not the heart to stay there. But he stopped at the bottom of the stairs, +and listened. + +‘I wouldn’t say it if I was sober!’ retorted Jonas. ‘You know better. +Have I never said it when I was sober?’ + +‘Often, indeed!’ she answered through her tears. + +‘Hark ye!’ cried Jonas, stamping his foot upon the ground. ‘You made me +bear your pretty humours once, and ecod I’ll make you bear mine now. I +always promised myself I would. I married you that I might. I’ll know +who’s master, and who’s slave!’ + +‘Heaven knows I am obedient!’ said the sobbing girl. ‘Much more so than +I ever thought to be!’ + +Jonas laughed in his drunken exultation. ‘What! you’re finding it out, +are you! Patience, and you will in time! Griffins have claws, my girl. +There’s not a pretty slight you ever put upon me, nor a pretty trick you +ever played me, nor a pretty insolence you ever showed me, that I won’t +pay back a hundred-fold. What else did I marry you for? YOU, too!’ he +said, with coarse contempt. + +It might have softened him--indeed it might--to hear her turn a little +fragment of a song he used to say he liked; trying, with a heart so +full, to win him back. + +‘Oho!’ he said, ‘you’re deaf, are you? You don’t hear me, eh? So much +the better for you. I hate you. I hate myself, for having, been fool +enough to strap a pack upon my back for the pleasure of treading on it +whenever I choose. Why, things have opened to me, now, so that I might +marry almost where I liked. But I wouldn’t; I’d keep single. I ought to +be single, among the friends I know. Instead of that, here I am, tied +like a log to you. Pah! Why do you show your pale face when I come home? +Am I never to forget you?’ + +‘How late it is!’ she said cheerfully, opening the shutter after an +interval of silence. ‘Broad day, Jonas!’ + +‘Broad day or black night, what do I care!’ was the kind rejoinder. + +‘The night passed quickly, too. I don’t mind sitting up, at all.’ + +‘Sit up for me again, if you dare!’ growled Jonas. + +‘I was reading,’ she proceeded, ‘all night long. I began when you went +out, and read till you came home again. The strangest story, Jonas! And +true, the book says. I’ll tell it you to-morrow.’ + +‘True, was it?’ said Jonas, doggedly. + +‘So the book says.’ + +‘Was there anything in it, about a man’s being determined to conquer his +wife, break her spirit, bend her temper, crush all her humours like so +many nut-shells--kill her, for aught I know?’ said Jonas. + +‘No. Not a word,’ she answered quickly. + +‘Oh!’ he returned. ‘That’ll be a true story though, before long; for all +the book says nothing about it. It’s a lying book, I see. A fit book for +a lying reader. But you’re deaf. I forgot that.’ + +There was another interval of silence; and the boy was stealing away, +when he heard her footstep on the floor, and stopped. She went up to +him, as it seemed, and spoke lovingly; saying that she would defer to +him in everything and would consult his wishes and obey them, and they +might be very happy if he would be gentle with her. He answered with an +imprecation, and-- + +Not with a blow? Yes. Stern truth against the base-souled villain; with +a blow. + +No angry cries; no loud reproaches. Even her weeping and her sobs were +stifled by her clinging round him. She only said, repeating it in agony +of heart, how could he, could he, could he--and lost utterance in tears. + +Oh woman, God beloved in old Jerusalem! The best among us need deal +lightly with thy faults, if only for the punishment thy nature will +endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us, on the Day of Judgment! + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE + +IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE ARE PRECOCIOUS, OTHERS PROFESSIONAL, AND OTHERS +MYSTERIOUS; ALL IN THEIR SEVERAL WAYS + + +It may have been the restless remembrance of what he had seen and heard +overnight, or it may have been no deeper mental operation than the +discovery that he had nothing to do, which caused Mr Bailey, on the +following afternoon, to feel particularly disposed for agreeable +society, and prompted him to pay a visit to his friend Poll Sweedlepipe. + +On the little bell giving clamorous notice of a visitor’s approach (for +Mr Bailey came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much sound out of +the bell as possible), Poll Sweedlepipe desisted from the contemplation +of a favourite owl, and gave his young friend hearty welcome. + +‘Why, you look smarter by day,’ said Poll, ‘than you do by candle-light. +I never see such a tight young dasher.’ + +‘Reether so, Polly. How’s our fair friend, Sairah?’ + +‘Oh, she’s pretty well,’ said Poll. ‘She’s at home.’ + +‘There’s the remains of a fine woman about Sairah, Poll,’ observed Mr +Bailey, with genteel indifference. + +‘Oh!’ thought Poll, ‘he’s old. He must be very old!’ + +‘Too much crumb, you know,’ said Mr Bailey; ‘too fat, Poll. But there’s +many worse at her time of life.’ + +‘The very owl’s a-opening his eyes!’ thought Poll. ‘I don’t wonder at it +in a bird of his opinions.’ + +He happened to have been sharpening his razors, which were lying open +in a row, while a huge strop dangled from the wall. Glancing at these +preparations, Mr Bailey stroked his chin, and a thought appeared to +occur to him. + +‘Poll,’ he said, ‘I ain’t as neat as I could wish about the gills. Being +here, I may as well have a shave, and get trimmed close.’ + +The barber stood aghast; but Mr Bailey divested himself of his +neck-cloth, and sat down in the easy shaving chair with all the dignity +and confidence in life. There was no resisting his manner. The evidence +of sight and touch became as nothing. His chin was as smooth as a +new-laid egg or a scraped Dutch cheese; but Poll Sweedlepipe wouldn’t +have ventured to deny, on affidavit, that he had the beard of a Jewish +rabbi. + +‘Go WITH the grain, Poll, all round, please,’ said Mr Bailey, screwing +up his face for the reception of the lather. ‘You may do wot you like +with the bits of whisker. I don’t care for ‘em.’ + +The meek little barber stood gazing at him with the brush and soap-dish +in his hand, stirring them round and round in a ludicrous uncertainty, +as if he were disabled by some fascination from beginning. At last he +made a dash at Mr Bailey’s cheek. Then he stopped again, as if the +ghost of a beard had suddenly receded from his touch; but receiving mild +encouragement from Mr Bailey, in the form of an adjuration to ‘Go in and +win,’ he lathered him bountifully. Mr Bailey smiled through the suds in +his satisfaction. ‘Gently over the stones, Poll. Go a tip-toe over the +pimples!’ + +Poll Sweedlepipe obeyed, and scraped the lather off again with +particular care. Mr Bailey squinted at every successive dab, as it +was deposited on a cloth on his left shoulder, and seemed, with a +microscopic eye, to detect some bristles in it; for he murmured more +than once ‘Reether redder than I could wish, Poll.’ The operation being +concluded, Poll fell back and stared at him again, while Mr Bailey, +wiping his face on the jack-towel, remarked, ‘that arter late hours +nothing freshened up a man so much as a easy shave.’ + +He was in the act of tying his cravat at the glass, without his coat, +and Poll had wiped his razor, ready for the next customer, when Mrs +Gamp, coming downstairs, looked in at the shop-door to give the barber +neighbourly good day. Feeling for her unfortunate situation, in having +conceived a regard for himself which it was not in the nature of things +that he could return, Mr Bailey hastened to soothe her with words of +kindness. + +‘Hallo!’ he said, ‘Sairah! I needn’t ask you how you’ve been this long +time, for you’re in full bloom. All a-blowin and a-growin; ain’t she, +Polly?’ + +‘Why, drat the Bragian boldness of that boy!’ cried Mrs Gamp, though +not displeased. ‘What a imperent young sparrow it is! I wouldn’t be that +creetur’s mother not for fifty pound!’ + +Mr Bailey regarded this as a delicate confession of her attachment, +and a hint that no pecuniary gain could recompense her for its being +rendered hopeless. He felt flattered. Disinterested affection is always +flattering. + +‘Ah, dear!’ moaned Mrs Gamp, sinking into the shaving chair, ‘that there +blessed Bull, Mr Sweedlepipe, has done his wery best to conker me. Of +all the trying inwalieges in this walley of the shadder, that one beats +‘em black and blue.’ + +It was the practice of Mrs Gamp and her friends in the profession, to +say this of all the easy customers; as having at once the effect of +discouraging competitors for office, and accounting for the necessity of +high living on the part of the nurses. + +‘Talk of constitooshun!’ Mrs Gamp observed. ‘A person’s constitooshun +need be made of bricks to stand it. Mrs Harris jestly says to me, but +t’other day, “Oh! Sairey Gamp,” she says, “how is it done?” “Mrs Harris, +ma’am,” I says to her, “we gives no trust ourselves, and puts a deal +o’trust elsevere; these is our religious feelins, and we finds ‘em +answer.” “Sairey,” says Mrs Harris, “sech is life. Vich likeways is the +hend of all things!”’ + +The barber gave a soft murmur, as much as to say that Mrs Harris’s +remark, though perhaps not quite so intelligible as could be desired +from such an authority, did equal honour to her head and to her heart. + +‘And here,’ continued Mrs Gamp, ‘and here am I a-goin twenty mile in +distant, on as wentersome a chance as ever any one as monthlied ever +run, I do believe. Says Mrs Harris, with a woman’s and a mother’s +art a-beatin in her human breast, she says to me, “You’re not a-goin, +Sairey, Lord forgive you!” “Why am I not a-goin, Mrs Harris?” I replies. +“Mrs Gill,” I says, “wos never wrong with six; and is it likely, +ma’am--I ast you as a mother--that she will begin to be unreg’lar now? +Often and often have I heerd him say,” I says to Mrs Harris, meaning Mr +Gill, “that he would back his wife agen Moore’s almanack, to name the +very day and hour, for ninepence farden. IS it likely, ma’am,” I says, +“as she will fail this once?” Says Mrs Harris “No, ma’am, not in the +course of natur. But,” she says, the tears a-fillin in her eyes, “you +knows much betterer than me, with your experienge, how little puts us +out. A Punch’s show,” she says, “a chimbley sweep, a newfundlan dog, or +a drunkin man a-comin round the corner sharp may do it.” So it may, Mr +Sweedlepipes,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘there’s no deniging of it; and though my +books is clear for a full week, I takes a anxious art along with me, I +do assure you, sir.’ + +‘You’re so full of zeal, you see!’ said Poll. ‘You worrit yourself so.’ + +‘Worrit myself!’ cried Mrs Gamp, raising her hands and turning up her +eyes. ‘You speak truth in that, sir, if you never speaks no more ‘twixt +this and when two Sundays jines together. I feels the sufferins of other +people more than I feels my own, though no one mayn’t suppoge it. The +families I’ve had,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘if all was knowd and credit done +where credit’s doo, would take a week to chris’en at Saint Polge’s +fontin!’ + +‘Where’s the patient goin?’ asked Sweedlepipe. + +‘Into Har’fordshire, which is his native air. But native airs nor native +graces neither,’ Mrs Gamp observed, ‘won’t bring HIM round.’ + +‘So bad as that?’ inquired the wistful barber. ‘Indeed!’ + +Mrs Gamp shook her head mysteriously, and pursed up her lips. ‘There’s +fevers of the mind,’ she said, ‘as well as body. You may take your slime +drafts till you flies into the air with efferwescence; but you won’t +cure that.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the barber, opening his eyes, and putting on his raven +aspect; ‘Lor!’ + +‘No. You may make yourself as light as any gash balloon,’ said Mrs Gamp. +‘But talk, when you’re wrong in your head and when you’re in your sleep, +of certain things; and you’ll be heavy in your mind.’ + +‘Of what kind of things now?’ inquired Poll, greedily biting his nails +in his great interest. ‘Ghosts?’ + +Mrs Gamp, who perhaps had been already tempted further than she had +intended to go, by the barber’s stimulating curiosity, gave a sniff of +uncommon significance, and said, it didn’t signify. + +‘I’m a-goin down with my patient in the coach this arternoon,’ she +proceeded. ‘I’m a-goin to stop with him a day or so, till he gets a +country nuss (drat them country nusses, much the orkard hussies knows +about their bis’ness); and then I’m a-comin back; and that’s my trouble, +Mr Sweedlepipes. But I hope that everythink’ll only go on right and +comfortable as long as I’m away; perwisin which, as Mrs Harris says, Mrs +Gill is welcome to choose her own time; all times of the day and night +bein’ equally the same to me.’ + +During the progress of the foregoing remarks, which Mrs Gamp had +addressed exclusively to the barber, Mr Bailey had been tying his +cravat, getting on his coat, and making hideous faces at himself in the +glass. Being now personally addressed by Mrs Gamp, he turned round, and +mingled in the conversation. + +‘You ain’t been in the City, I suppose, sir, since we was all three +there together,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘at Mr Chuzzlewit’s?’ + +‘Yes, I have, Sairah. I was there last night.’ + +‘Last night!’ cried the barber. + +‘Yes, Poll, reether so. You can call it this morning, if you like to be +particular. He dined with us.’ + +‘Who does that young Limb mean by “hus?”’ said Mrs Gamp, with most +impatient emphasis. + +‘Me and my Governor, Sairah. He dined at our house. We wos very merry, +Sairah. So much so, that I was obliged to see him home in a hackney +coach at three o’clock in the morning.’ It was on the tip of the boy’s +tongue to relate what had followed; but remembering how easily it might +be carried to his master’s ears, and the repeated cautions he had had +from Mr Crimple ‘not to chatter,’ he checked himself; adding, only, ‘She +was sitting up, expecting him.’ + +‘And all things considered,’ said Mrs Gamp sharply, ‘she might have +know’d better than to go a-tirin herself out, by doin’ anythink of the +sort. Did they seem pretty pleasant together, sir?’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ answered Bailey, ‘pleasant enough.’ + +‘I’m glad on it,’ said Mrs Gamp, with a second sniff of significance. + +‘They haven’t been married so long,’ observed Poll, rubbing his hands, +‘that they need be anything but pleasant yet awhile.’ + +‘No,’ said Mrs Gamp, with a third significant signal. + +‘Especially,’ pursued the barber, ‘when the gentleman bears such a +character as you gave him.’ + +‘I speak; as I find, Mr Sweedlepipes,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Forbid it should +be otherways! But we never knows wot’s hidden in each other’s hearts; +and if we had glass winders there, we’d need keep the shetters up, some +on us, I do assure you!’ + +‘But you don’t mean to say--’ Poll Sweedlepipe began. + +‘No,’ said Mrs Gamp, cutting him very short, ‘I don’t. Don’t think I do. +The torters of the Imposition shouldn’t make me own I did. All I says +is,’ added the good woman, rising and folding her shawl about her, ‘that +the Bull’s a-waitin, and the precious moments is a-flyin’ fast.’ + +The little barber having in his eager curiosity a great desire to see +Mrs Gamp’s patient, proposed to Mr Bailey that they should accompany +her to the Bull, and witness the departure of the coach. That young +gentleman assenting, they all went out together. + +Arriving at the tavern, Mrs Gamp (who was full-dressed for the journey, +in her latest suit of mourning) left her friends to entertain +themselves in the yard, while she ascended to the sick room, where her +fellow-labourer Mrs Prig was dressing the invalid. + +He was so wasted, that it seemed as if his bones would rattle when they +moved him. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally large. He +lay back in the easy-chair like one more dead than living; and rolled +his languid eyes towards the door when Mrs Gamp appeared, as painfully +as if their weight alone were burdensome to move. + +‘And how are we by this time?’ Mrs Gamp observed. ‘We looks charming.’ + +‘We looks a deal charminger than we are, then,’ returned Mrs Prig, a +little chafed in her temper. ‘We got out of bed back’ards, I think, for +we’re as cross as two sticks. I never see sich a man. He wouldn’t have +been washed, if he’d had his own way.’ + +‘She put the soap in my mouth,’ said the unfortunate patient feebly. + +‘Couldn’t you keep it shut then?’ retorted Mrs Prig. ‘Who do you think’s +to wash one feater, and miss another, and wear one’s eyes out with all +manner of fine work of that description, for half-a-crown a day! If you +wants to be tittivated, you must pay accordin’.’ + +‘Oh dear me!’ cried the patient, ‘oh dear, dear!’ + +‘There!’ said Mrs Prig, ‘that’s the way he’s been a-conductin of +himself, Sarah, ever since I got him out of bed, if you’ll believe it.’ + +‘Instead of being grateful,’ Mrs Gamp observed, ‘for all our little +ways. Oh, fie for shame, sir, fie for shame!’ + +Here Mrs Prig seized the patient by the chin, and began to rasp his +unhappy head with a hair-brush. + +‘I suppose you don’t like that, neither!’ she observed, stopping to look +at him. + +It was just possible that he didn’t for the brush was a specimen of +the hardest kind of instrument producible by modern art; and his very +eyelids were red with the friction. Mrs Prig was gratified to observe +the correctness of her supposition, and said triumphantly ‘she know’d as +much.’ + +When his hair was smoothed down comfortably into his eyes, Mrs Prig and +Mrs Gamp put on his neckerchief; adjusting his shirt collar with great +nicety, so that the starched points should also invade those organs, and +afflict them with an artificial ophthalmia. His waistcoat and coat +were next arranged; and as every button was wrenched into a wrong +button-hole, and the order of his boots was reversed, he presented on +the whole rather a melancholy appearance. + +‘I don’t think it’s right,’ said the poor weak invalid. ‘I feel as if I +was in somebody else’s clothes. I’m all on one side; and you’ve made one +of my legs shorter than the other. There’s a bottle in my pocket too. +What do you make me sit upon a bottle for?’ + +‘Deuce take the man!’ cried Mrs Gamp, drawing it forth. ‘If he ain’t +been and got my night-bottle here. I made a little cupboard of his coat +when it hung behind the door, and quite forgot it, Betsey. You’ll find a +ingun or two, and a little tea and sugar in his t’other pocket, my dear, +if you’ll just be good enough to take ‘em out.’ + +Betsey produced the property in question, together with some other +articles of general chandlery; and Mrs Gamp transferred them to her own +pocket, which was a species of nankeen pannier. Refreshment then arrived +in the form of chops and strong ale for the ladies, and a basin of +beef-tea for the patient; which refection was barely at an end when John +Westlock appeared. + +‘Up and dressed!’ cried John, sitting down beside him. ‘That’s brave. +How do you feel?’ + +‘Much better. But very weak.’ + +‘No wonder. You have had a hard bout of it. But country air, and change +of scene,’ said John, ‘will make another man of you! Why, Mrs Gamp,’ +he added, laughing, as he kindly arranged the sick man’s garments, ‘you +have odd notions of a gentleman’s dress!’ + +‘Mr Lewsome an’t a easy gent to get into his clothes, sir,’ Mrs Gamp +replied with dignity; ‘as me and Betsey Prig can certify afore the Lord +Mayor and Uncommon Counsellors, if needful!’ + +John at that moment was standing close in front of the sick man, in the +act of releasing him from the torture of the collars before mentioned, +when he said in a whisper: + +‘Mr Westlock! I don’t wish to be overheard. I have something very +particular and strange to say to you; something that has been a dreadful +weight on my mind, through this long illness.’ + +Quick in all his motions, John was turning round to desire the women to +leave the room; when the sick man held him by the sleeve. + +‘Not now. I’ve not the strength. I’ve not the courage. May I tell it +when I have? May I write it, if I find that easier and better?’ + +‘May you!’ cried John. ‘Why, Lewsome, what is this!’ + +‘Don’t ask me what it is. It’s unnatural and cruel. Frightful to think +of. Frightful to tell. Frightful to know. Frightful to have helped in. +Let me kiss your hand for all your goodness to me. Be kinder still, and +don’t ask me what it is!’ + +At first, John gazed at him in great surprise; but remembering how very +much reduced he was, and how recently his brain had been on fire with +fever, believed that he was labouring under some imaginary horror or +despondent fancy. For farther information on this point, he took an +opportunity of drawing Mrs Gamp aside, while Betsey Prig was wrapping +him in cloaks and shawls, and asked her whether he was quite collected +in his mind. + +‘Oh bless you, no!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘He hates his nusses to this hour. +They always does it, sir. It’s a certain sign. If you could have heerd +the poor dear soul a-findin fault with me and Betsey Prig, not half an +hour ago, you would have wondered how it is we don’t get fretted to the +tomb.’ + +This almost confirmed John in his suspicion; so, not taking what had +passed into any serious account, he resumed his former cheerful manner, +and assisted by Mrs Gamp and Betsey Prig, conducted Lewsome downstairs +to the coach; just then upon the point of starting. Poll Sweedlepipe +was at the door with his arms tight folded and his eyes wide open, and +looked on with absorbing interest, while the sick man was slowly +moved into the vehicle. His bony hands and haggard face impressed Poll +wonderfully; and he informed Mr Bailey in confidence, that he wouldn’t +have missed seeing him for a pound. Mr Bailey, who was of a different +constitution, remarked that he would have stayed away for five +shillings. + +It was a troublesome matter to adjust Mrs Gamp’s luggage to her +satisfaction; for every package belonging to that lady had the +inconvenient property of requiring to be put in a boot by itself, and +to have no other luggage near it, on pain of actions at law for heavy +damages against the proprietors of the coach. The umbrella with the +circular patch was particularly hard to be got rid of, and several times +thrust out its battered brass nozzle from improper crevices and chinks, +to the great terror of the other passengers. Indeed, in her intense +anxiety to find a haven of refuge for this chattel, Mrs Gamp so often +moved it, in the course of five minutes, that it seemed not one umbrella +but fifty. At length it was lost, or said to be; and for the next five +minutes she was face to face with the coachman, go wherever he might, +protesting that it should be ‘made good,’ though she took the question +to the House of Commons. + +At last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and everything +else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of Poll and Mr +Bailey, dropped a curtsey to John Westlock, and parted as from a +cherished member of the sisterhood with Betsey Prig. + +‘Wishin you lots of sickness, my darlin creetur,’ Mrs Gamp observed, +‘and good places. It won’t be long, I hope, afore we works together, off +and on, again, Betsey; and may our next meetin’ be at a large family’s, +where they all takes it reg’lar, one from another, turn and turn about, +and has it business-like.’ + +‘I don’t care how soon it is,’ said Mrs Prig; ‘nor how many weeks it +lasts.’ + +Mrs Gamp with a reply in a congenial spirit was backing to the coach, +when she came in contact with a lady and gentleman who were passing +along the footway. + +‘Take care, take care here!’ cried the gentleman. ‘Halloo! My dear! Why, +it’s Mrs Gamp!’ + +‘What, Mr Mould!’ exclaimed the nurse. ‘And Mrs Mould! who would have +thought as we should ever have a meetin’ here, I’m sure!’ + +‘Going out of town, Mrs Gamp?’ cried Mould. ‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’ + +‘It IS unusual, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘But only for a day or two at most. +The gent,’ she whispered, ‘as I spoke about.’ + +‘What, in the coach!’ cried Mould. ‘The one you thought of recommending? +Very odd. My dear, this will interest you. The gentleman that Mrs Gamp +thought likely to suit us is in the coach, my love.’ + +Mrs Mould was greatly interested. + +‘Here, my dear. You can stand upon the door-step,’ said Mould, ‘and take +a look at him. Ha! There he is. Where’s my glass? Oh! all right. I’ve +got it. Do you see him, my dear?’ + +‘Quite plain,’ said Mrs Mould. + +‘Upon my life, you know, this is a very singular circumstance,’ said +Mould, quite delighted. ‘This is the sort of thing, my dear, I wouldn’t +have missed on any account. It tickles one. It’s interesting. It’s +almost a little play, you know. Ah! There he is! To be sure. Looks +poorly, Mrs M., don’t he?’ + +Mrs Mould assented. + +‘He’s coming our way, perhaps, after all,’ said Mould. ‘Who knows! I +feel as if I ought to show him some little attention, really. He don’t +seem a stranger to me. I’m very much inclined to move my hat, my dear.’ + +‘He’s looking hard this way,’ said Mrs Mould. + +‘Then I will!’ cried Mould. ‘How d’ye do, sir! I wish you good day. Ha! +He bows too. Very gentlemanly. Mrs Gamp has the cards in her pocket, I +have no doubt. This is very singular, my dear--and very pleasant. I am +not superstitious, but it really seems as if one was destined to pay him +those little melancholy civilities which belong to our peculiar line of +business. There can be no kind of objection to your kissing your hand to +him, my dear.’ + +Mrs Mould did so. + +‘Ha!’ said Mould. ‘He’s evidently gratified. Poor fellow! I am quite +glad you did it, my love. Bye bye, Mrs Gamp!’ waving his hand. ‘There he +goes; there he goes!’ + +So he did; for the coach rolled off as the words were spoken. Mr and Mrs +Mould, in high good humour, went their merry way. Mr Bailey retired +with Poll Sweedlepipe as soon as possible; but some little time +elapsed before he could remove his friend from the ground, owing to +the impression wrought upon the barber’s nerves by Mrs Prig, whom he +pronounced, in admiration of her beard, to be a woman of transcendent +charms. + +When the light cloud of bustle hanging round the coach was thus +dispersed, Nadgett was seen in the darkest box of the Bull coffee-room, +looking wistfully up at the clock--as if the man who never appeared were +a little behind his time. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY + +PROVES THAT CHANGES MAY BE RUNG IN THE BEST-REGULATED FAMILIES, AND THAT +MR PECKNIFF WAS A SPECIAL HAND AT A TRIPLE-BOB-MAJOR + + +As the surgeon’s first care after amputating a limb, is to take up the +arteries the cruel knife has severed, so it is the duty of this history, +which in its remorseless course has cut from the Pecksniffian trunk its +right arm, Mercy, to look to the parent stem, and see how in all its +various ramifications it got on without her. + +And first of Mr Pecksniff it may be observed, that having provided for +his youngest daughter that choicest of blessings, a tender and indulgent +husband; and having gratified the dearest wish of his parental heart by +establishing her in life so happily; he renewed his youth, and spreading +the plumage of his own bright conscience, felt himself equal to all +kinds of flights. It is customary with fathers in stage-plays, after +giving their daughters to the men of their hearts, to congratulate +themselves on having no other business on their hands but to die +immediately; though it is rarely found that they are in a hurry to do +it. Mr Pecksniff, being a father of a more sage and practical class, +appeared to think that his immediate business was to live; and having +deprived himself of one comfort, to surround himself with others. + +But however much inclined the good man was to be jocose and playful, and +in the garden of his fancy to disport himself (if one may say so) like +an architectural kitten, he had one impediment constantly opposed to +him. The gentle Cherry, stung by a sense of slight and injury, which +far from softening down or wearing out, rankled and festered in her +heart--the gentle Cherry was in flat rebellion. She waged fierce war +against her dear papa, she led her parent what is usually called, for +want of a better figure of speech, the life of a dog. But never did that +dog live, in kennel, stable-yard, or house, whose life was half as hard +as Mr Pecksniff’s with his gentle child. + +The father and daughter were sitting at their breakfast. Tom had +retired, and they were alone. Mr Pecksniff frowned at first; but having +cleared his brow, looked stealthily at his child. Her nose was very red +indeed, and screwed up tight, with hostile preparation. + +‘Cherry,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, ‘what is amiss between us? My child, why +are we disunited?’ + +Miss Pecksniff’s answer was scarcely a response to this gush of +affection, for it was simply, ‘Bother, Pa!’ + +‘Bother!’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, in a tone of anguish. + +‘Oh! ‘tis too late, Pa,’ said his daughter, calmly ‘to talk to me like +this. I know what it means, and what its value is.’ + +‘This is hard!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, addressing his breakfast-cup. ‘This +is very hard! She is my child. I carried her in my arms when she wore +shapeless worsted shoes--I might say, mufflers--many years ago!’ + +‘You needn’t taunt me with that, Pa,’ retorted Cherry, with a spiteful +look. ‘I am not so many years older than my sister, either, though she +IS married to your friend!’ + +‘Ah, human nature, human nature! Poor human nature!’ said Mr Pecksniff, +shaking his head at human nature, as if he didn’t belong to it. ‘To +think that this discord should arise from such a cause! oh dear, oh +dear!’ + +‘From such a cause indeed!’ cried Cherry. ‘State the real cause, Pa, or +I’ll state it myself. Mind! I will!’ + +Perhaps the energy with which she said this was infectious. However that +may be, Mr Pecksniff changed his tone and the expression of his face for +one of anger, if not downright violence, when he said: + +‘You will! you have. You did yesterday. You do always. You have no +decency; you make no secret of your temper; you have exposed yourself to +Mr Chuzzlewit a hundred times.’ + +‘Myself!’ cried Cherry, with a bitter smile. ‘Oh indeed! I don’t mind +that.’ + +‘Me, too, then,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +His daughter answered with a scornful laugh. + +‘And since we have come to an explanation, Charity,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +rolling his head portentously, ‘let me tell you that I won’t allow it. +None of your nonsense, Miss! I won’t permit it to be done.’ + +‘I shall do,’ said Charity, rocking her chair backwards and forwards, +and raising her voice to a high pitch, ‘I shall do, Pa, what I please +and what I have done. I am not going to be crushed in everything, depend +upon it. I’ve been more shamefully used than anybody ever was in +this world,’ here she began to cry and sob, ‘and may expect the worse +treatment from you, I know. But I don’t care for that. No, I don’t!’ + +Mr Pecksniff was made so desperate by the loud tone in which she spoke, +that, after looking about him in frantic uncertainty for some means of +softening it, he rose and shook her until the ornamental bow of hair +upon her head nodded like a plume. She was so very much astonished by +this assault, that it really had the desired effect. + +‘I’ll do it again!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, as he resumed his seat and +fetched his breath, ‘if you dare to talk in that loud manner. How do +you mean about being shamefully used? If Mr Jonas chose your sister in +preference to you, who could help it, I should wish to know? What have I +to do with it?’ + +‘Wasn’t I made a convenience of? Weren’t my feelings trifled with? +Didn’t he address himself to me first?’ sobbed Cherry, clasping her +hands; ‘and oh, good gracious, that I should live to be shook!’ + +‘You’ll live to be shaken again,’ returned her parent, ‘if you drive +me to that means of maintaining the decorum of this humble roof. You +surprise me. I wonder you have not more spirit. If Mr Jonas didn’t care +for you, how could you wish to have him?’ + +‘I wish to have him!’ exclaimed Cherry. ‘I wish to have him, Pa!’ + +‘Then what are you making all this piece of work for,’ retorted her +father, ‘if you didn’t wish to have him?’ + +‘Because I was treated with duplicity,’ said Cherry; ‘and because my own +sister and my own father conspired against me. I am not angry with HER,’ +said Cherry; looking much more angry than ever. ‘I pity her. I’m sorry +for her. I know the fate that’s in store for her, with that Wretch.’ + +‘Mr Jonas will survive your calling him a wretch, my child, I dare say,’ +said Mr Pecksniff, with returning resignation; ‘but call him what you +like and make an end of it.’ + +‘Not an end, Pa,’ said Charity. ‘No, not an end. That’s not the only +point on which we’re not agreed. I won’t submit to it. It’s better you +should know that at once. No; I won’t submit to it indeed, Pa! I am +not quite a fool, and I am not blind. All I have got to say is, I won’t +submit to it.’ + +Whatever she meant, she shook Mr Pecksniff now; for his lame attempt to +seem composed was melancholy in the last degree. His anger changed to +meekness, and his words were mild and fawning. + +‘My dear,’ he said; ‘if in the short excitement of an angry moment I +resorted to an unjustifiable means of suppressing a little outbreak +calculated to injure you as well as myself--it’s possible I may have +done so; perhaps I did--I ask your pardon. A father asking pardon of +his child,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘is, I believe, a spectacle to soften the +most rugged nature.’ + +But it didn’t at all soften Miss Pecksniff; perhaps because her nature +was not rugged enough. On the contrary, she persisted in saying, over +and over again, that she wasn’t quite a fool, and wasn’t blind, and +wouldn’t submit to it. + +‘You labour under some mistake, my child!’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘but +I will not ask you what it is; I don’t desire to know. No, pray!’ he +added, holding out his hand and colouring again, ‘let us avoid the +subject, my dear, whatever it is!’ + +‘It’s quite right that the subject should be avoided between us, +sir,’ said Cherry. ‘But I wish to be able to avoid it altogether, and +consequently must beg you to provide me with a home.’ + +Mr Pecksniff looked about the room, and said, ‘A home, my child!’ + +‘Another home, papa,’ said Cherry, with increasing stateliness ‘Place me +at Mrs Todgers’s or somewhere, on an independent footing; but I will not +live here, if such is to be the case.’ + +It is possible that Miss Pecksniff saw in Mrs Todgers’s a vision +of enthusiastic men, pining to fall in adoration at her feet. It is +possible that Mr Pecksniff, in his new-born juvenility, saw, in the +suggestion of that same establishment, an easy means of relieving +himself from an irksome charge in the way of temper and watchfulness. +It is undoubtedly a fact that in the attentive ears of Mr Pecksniff, the +proposition did not sound quite like the dismal knell of all his hopes. + +But he was a man of great feeling and acute sensibility; and he squeezed +his pocket-handkerchief against his eyes with both hands--as such men +always do, especially when they are observed. ‘One of my birds,’ Mr +Pecksniff said, ‘has left me for the stranger’s breast; the other would +take wing to Todgers’s! Well, well, what am I? I don’t know what I am, +exactly. Never mind!’ + +Even this remark, made more pathetic perhaps by his breaking down in +the middle of it, had no effect upon Charity. She was grim, rigid, and +inflexible. + +‘But I have ever,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘sacrificed my children’s +happiness to my own--I mean my own happiness to my children’s--and I +will not begin to regulate my life by other rules of conduct now. If you +can be happier at Mrs Todgers’s than in your father’s house, my dear, go +to Mrs Todgers’s! Do not think of me, my girl!’ said Mr Pecksniff with +emotion; ‘I shall get on pretty well, no doubt.’ + +Miss Charity, who knew he had a secret pleasure in the contemplation of +the proposed change, suppressed her own, and went on to negotiate the +terms. His views upon this subject were at first so very limited that +another difference, involving possibly another shaking, threatened to +ensue; but by degrees they came to something like an understanding, and +the storm blew over. Indeed, Miss Charity’s idea was so agreeable +to both, that it would have been strange if they had not come to an +amicable agreement. It was soon arranged between them that the project +should be tried, and that immediately; and that Cherry’s not being well, +and needing change of scene, and wishing to be near her sister, should +form the excuse for her departure to Mr Chuzzlewit and Mary, to both of +whom she had pleaded indisposition for some time past. These premises +agreed on, Mr Pecksniff gave her his blessing, with all the dignity of +a self-denying man who had made a hard sacrifice, but comforted himself +with the reflection that virtue is its own reward. Thus they were +reconciled for the first time since that not easily forgiven night, +when Mr Jonas, repudiating the elder, had confessed his passion for the +younger sister, and Mr Pecksniff had abetted him on moral grounds. + +But how happened it--in the name of an unexpected addition to that small +family, the Seven Wonders of the World, whatever and wherever they may +be, how happened it--that Mr Pecksniff and his daughter were about +to part? How happened it that their mutual relations were so greatly +altered? Why was Miss Pecksniff so clamorous to have it understood that +she was neither blind nor foolish, and she wouldn’t bear it? It is not +possible that Mr Pecksniff had any thoughts of marrying again; or that +his daughter, with the sharp eye of a single woman, fathomed his design! + +Let us inquire into this. + +Mr Pecksniff, as a man without reproach, from whom the breath of slander +passed like common breath from any other polished surface, could afford +to do what common men could not. He knew the purity of his own motives; +and when he had a motive worked at it as only a very good man (or a very +bad one) can. Did he set before himself any strong and palpable motives +for taking a second wife? Yes; and not one or two of them, but a +combination of very many. + +Old Martin Chuzzlewit had gradually undergone an important change. Even +upon the night when he made such an ill-timed arrival at Mr Pecksniff’s +house, he was comparatively subdued and easy to deal with. This Mr +Pecksniff attributed, at the time, to the effect his brother’s death had +had upon him. But from that hour his character seemed to have modified +by regular degrees, and to have softened down into a dull indifference +for almost every one but Mr Pecksniff. His looks were much the same as +ever, but his mind was singularly altered. It was not that this or that +passion stood out in brighter or in dimmer hues; but that the colour of +the whole man was faded. As one trait disappeared, no other trait sprung +up to take its place. His senses dwindled too. He was less keen of +sight; was deaf sometimes; took little notice of what passed before him; +and would be profoundly taciturn for days together. The process of this +alteration was so easy that almost as soon as it began to be observed +it was complete. But Mr Pecksniff saw it first, and having Anthony +Chuzzlewit fresh in his recollection, saw in his brother Martin the same +process of decay. + +To a gentleman of Mr Pecksniff’s tenderness, this was a very mournful +sight. He could not but foresee the probability of his respected +relative being made the victim of designing persons, and of his riches +falling into worthless hands. It gave him so much pain that he resolved +to secure the property to himself; to keep bad testamentary suitors at a +distance; to wall up the old gentleman, as it were, for his own use. By +little and little, therefore, he began to try whether Mr Chuzzlewit gave +any promise of becoming an instrument in his hands, and finding that he +did, and indeed that he was very supple in his plastic fingers, he made +it the business of his life--kind soul!--to establish an ascendancy over +him; and every little test he durst apply meeting with a success beyond +his hopes, he began to think he heard old Martin’s cash already chinking +in his own unworldly pockets. + +But when Mr Pecksniff pondered on this subject (as, in his zealous +way, he often did), and thought with an uplifted heart of the train of +circumstances which had delivered the old gentleman into his hands for +the confusion of evil-doers and the triumph of a righteous nature, he +always felt that Mary Graham was his stumbling-block. Let the old man +say what he would, Mr Pecksniff knew he had a strong affection for her. +He knew that he showed it in a thousand little ways; that he liked to +have her near him, and was never quite at ease when she was absent +long. That he had ever really sworn to leave her nothing in his will, Mr +Pecksniff greatly doubted. That even if he had, there were many ways by +which he could evade the oath and satisfy his conscience, Mr Pecksniff +knew. That her unprotected state was no light burden on the old man’s +mind, he also knew, for Mr Chuzzlewit had plainly told him so. ‘Then,’ +said Mr Pecksniff ‘what if I married her! What,’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, +sticking up his hair and glancing at his bust by Spoker; ‘what +if, making sure of his approval first--he is nearly imbecile, poor +gentleman--I married her!’ + +Mr Pecksniff had a lively sense of the Beautiful; especially in women. +His manner towards the sex was remarkable for its insinuating character. +It is recorded of him in another part of these pages, that he embraced +Mrs Todgers on the smallest provocation; and it was a way he had; it was +a part of the gentle placidity of his disposition. Before any thought of +matrimony was in his mind, he had bestowed on Mary many little tokens of +his spiritual admiration. They had been indignantly received, but that +was nothing. True, as the idea expanded within him, these had become +too ardent to escape the piercing eye of Cherry, who read his scheme at +once; but he had always felt the power of Mary’s charms. So Interest and +Inclination made a pair, and drew the curricle of Mr Pecksniff’s plan. + +As to any thought of revenging himself on young Martin for his insolent +expressions when they parted, and of shutting him out still more +effectually from any hope of reconciliation with his grandfather, Mr +Pecksniff was much too meek and forgiving to be suspected of harbouring +it. As to being refused by Mary, Mr Pecksniff was quite satisfied that +in her position she could never hold out if he and Mr Chuzzlewit were +both against her. As to consulting the wishes of her heart in such a +case, it formed no part of Mr Pecksniff’s moral code; for he knew what a +good man he was, and what a blessing he must be to anybody. His daughter +having broken the ice, and the murder being out between them, Mr +Pecksniff had now only to pursue his design as cleverly as he could, and +by the craftiest approaches. + +‘Well, my good sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, meeting old Martin in the +garden, for it was his habit to walk in and out by that way, as the +fancy took him; ‘and how is my dear friend this delicious morning?’ + +‘Do you mean me?’ asked the old man. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘one of his deaf days, I see. Could I mean any +one else, my dear sir?’ + +‘You might have meant Mary,’ said the old man. + +‘Indeed I might. Quite true. I might speak of her as a dear, dear +friend, I hope?’ observed Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I hope so,’ returned old Martin. ‘I think she deserves it.’ + +‘Think!’ cried Pecksniff, ‘think, Mr Chuzzlewit!’ + +‘You are speaking, I know,’ returned Martin, ‘but I don’t catch what you +say. Speak up!’ + +‘He’s getting deafer than a flint,’ said Pecksniff. ‘I was saying, my +dear sir, that I am afraid I must make up my mind to part with Cherry.’ + +‘What has SHE been doing?’ asked the old man. + +‘He puts the most ridiculous questions I ever heard!’ muttered Mr +Pecksniff. ‘He’s a child to-day.’ After which he added, in a mild roar: +‘She hasn’t been doing anything, my dear friend.’ + +‘What are you going to part with her for?’ demanded Martin. + +‘She hasn’t her health by any means,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘She misses +her sister, my dear sir; they doted on each other from the cradle. And I +think of giving her a run in London for a change. A good long run, sir, +if I find she likes it.’ + +‘Quite right,’ cried Martin. ‘It’s judicious.’ + +‘I am glad to hear you say so. I hope you mean to bear me company in +this dull part, while she’s away?’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I have no intention of removing from it,’ was Martin’s answer. + +‘Then why,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking the old man’s arm in his, and +walking slowly on; ‘Why, my good sir, can’t you come and stay with me? +I am sure I could surround you with more comforts--lowly as is my +Cot--than you can obtain at a village house of entertainment. And pardon +me, Mr Chuzzlewit, pardon me if I say that such a place as the Dragon, +however well-conducted (and, as far as I know, Mrs Lupin is one of the +worthiest creatures in this county), is hardly a home for Miss Graham.’ + +Martin mused a moment; and then said, as he shook him by the hand: + +‘No. You’re quite right; it is not.’ + +‘The very sight of skittles,’ Mr Pecksniff eloquently pursued, ‘is far +from being congenial to a delicate mind.’ + +‘It’s an amusement of the vulgar,’ said old Martin, ‘certainly.’ + +‘Of the very vulgar,’ Mr Pecksniff answered. ‘Then why not bring Miss +Graham here, sir? Here is the house. Here am I alone in it, for Thomas +Pinch I do not count as any one. Our lovely friend shall occupy my +daughter’s chamber; you shall choose your own; we shall not quarrel, I +hope!’ + +‘We are not likely to do that,’ said Martin. + +Mr Pecksniff pressed his hand. ‘We understand each other, my dear sir, +I see!--I can wind him,’ he thought, with exultation, ‘round my little +finger.’ + +‘You leave the recompense to me?’ said the old man, after a minute’s +silence. + +‘Oh! do not speak of recompense!’ cried Pecksniff. + +‘I say,’ repeated Martin, with a glimmer of his old obstinacy, ‘you +leave the recompense to me. Do you?’ + +‘Since you desire it, my good sir.’ + +‘I always desire it,’ said the old man. ‘You know I always desire it. I +wish to pay as I go, even when I buy of you. Not that I do not leave a +balance to be settled one day, Pecksniff.’ + +The architect was too much overcome to speak. He tried to drop a tear +upon his patron’s hand, but couldn’t find one in his dry distillery. + +‘May that day be very distant!’ was his pious exclamation. ‘Ah, sir! If +I could say how deep an interest I have in you and yours! I allude to +our beautiful young friend.’ + +‘True,’ he answered. ‘True. She need have some one interested in her. +I did her wrong to train her as I did. Orphan though she was, she would +have found some one to protect her whom she might have loved again. When +she was a child, I pleased myself with the thought that in gratifying my +whim of placing her between me and false-hearted knaves, I had done +her a kindness. Now she is a woman, I have no such comfort. She has no +protector but herself. I have put her at such odds with the world, that +any dog may bark or fawn upon her at his pleasure. Indeed she stands in +need of delicate consideration. Yes; indeed she does!’ + +‘If her position could be altered and defined, sir?’ Mr Pecksniff +hinted. + +‘How can that be done? Should I make a seamstress of her, or a +governess?’ + +‘Heaven forbid!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘My dear sir, there are other ways. +There are indeed. But I am much excited and embarrassed at present, and +would rather not pursue the subject. I scarcely know what I mean. Permit +me to resume it at another time.’ + +‘You are not unwell?’ asked Martin anxiously. + +‘No, no!’ cried Pecksniff. ‘No. Permit me to resume it at another time. +I’ll walk a little. Bless you!’ + +Old Martin blessed him in return, and squeezed his hand. As he turned +away, and slowly walked towards the house, Mr Pecksniff stood gazing +after him; being pretty well recovered from his late emotion, which, in +any other man, one might have thought had been assumed as a machinery +for feeling Martin’s pulse. The change in the old man found such a +slight expression in his figure, that Mr Pecksniff, looking after him, +could not help saying to himself: + +‘And I can wind him round my little finger! Only think!’ + +Old Martin happening to turn his head, saluted him affectionately. Mr +Pecksniff returned the gesture. + +‘Why, the time was,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘and not long ago, when he +wouldn’t look at me! How soothing is this change. Such is the delicate +texture of the human heart; so complicated is the process of its being +softened! Externally he looks the same, and I can wind him round my +little finger. Only think!’ + +In sober truth, there did appear to be nothing on which Mr Pecksniff +might not have ventured with Martin Chuzzlewit; for whatever Mr +Pecksniff said or did was right, and whatever he advised was done. +Martin had escaped so many snares from needy fortune-hunters, and had +withered in the shell of his suspicion and distrust for so many years, +but to become the good man’s tool and plaything. With the happiness of +this conviction painted on his face, the architect went forth upon his +morning walk. + +The summer weather in his bosom was reflected in the breast of Nature. +Through deep green vistas where the boughs arched overhead, and showed +the sunlight flashing in the beautiful perspective; through dewy fern +from which the startled hares leaped up, and fled at his approach; by +mantled pools, and fallen trees, and down in hollow places, rustling +among last year’s leaves whose scent woke memory of the past; the placid +Pecksniff strolled. By meadow gates and hedges fragrant with wild roses; +and by thatched-roof cottages whose inmates humbly bowed before him as +a man both good and wise; the worthy Pecksniff walked in tranquil +meditation. The bee passed onward, humming of the work he had to do; +the idle gnats for ever going round and round in one contracting and +expanding ring, yet always going on as fast as he, danced merrily before +him; the colour of the long grass came and went, as if the light clouds +made it timid as they floated through the distant air. The birds, +so many Pecksniff consciences, sang gayly upon every branch; and Mr +Pecksniff paid HIS homage to the day by ruminating on his projects as he +walked along. + +Chancing to trip, in his abstraction, over the spreading root of an old +tree, he raised his pious eyes to take a survey of the ground before +him. It startled him to see the embodied image of his thoughts not far +ahead. Mary herself. And alone. + +At first Mr Pecksniff stopped as if with the intention of avoiding +her; but his next impulse was to advance, which he did at a brisk pace; +caroling as he went so sweetly and with so much innocence that he only +wanted feathers and wings to be a bird. + +Hearing notes behind her, not belonging to the songsters of the grove, +she looked round. Mr Pecksniff kissed his hand, and was at her side +immediately. + +‘Communing with nature?’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘So am I.’ + +She said the morning was so beautiful that she had walked further than +she intended, and would return. Mr Pecksniff said it was exactly his +case, and he would return with her. + +‘Take my arm, sweet girl,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +Mary declined it, and walked so very fast that he remonstrated. ‘You +were loitering when I came upon you,’ Mr Pecksniff said. ‘Why be so +cruel as to hurry now? You would not shun me, would you?’ + +‘Yes, I would,’ she answered, turning her glowing cheek indignantly +upon him, ‘you know I would. Release me, Mr Pecksniff. Your touch is +disagreeable to me.’ + +His touch! What? That chaste patriarchal touch which Mrs Todgers--surely +a discreet lady--had endured, not only without complaint, but with +apparent satisfaction! This was positively wrong. Mr Pecksniff was sorry +to hear her say it. + +‘If you have not observed,’ said Mary, ‘that it is so, pray take +assurance from my lips, and do not, as you are a gentleman, continue to +offend me.’ + +‘Well, well!’ said Mr Pecksniff, mildly, ‘I feel that I might consider +this becoming in a daughter of my own, and why should I object to it +in one so beautiful! It’s harsh. It cuts me to the soul,’ said Mr +Pecksniff; ‘but I cannot quarrel with you, Mary.’ + +She tried to say she was sorry to hear it, but burst into tears. Mr +Pecksniff now repeated the Todgers performance on a comfortable scale, +as if he intended it to last some time; and in his disengaged hand, +catching hers, employed himself in separating the fingers with his own, +and sometimes kissing them, as he pursued the conversation thus: + +‘I am glad we met. I am very glad we met. I am able now to ease my +bosom of a heavy load, and speak to you in confidence. Mary,’ said Mr +Pecksniff in his tenderest tones, indeed they were so very tender that +he almost squeaked: ‘My soul! I love you!’ + +A fantastic thing, that maiden affectation! She made believe to shudder. + +‘I love you,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘my gentle life, with a devotion which +is quite surprising, even to myself. I did suppose that the sensation +was buried in the silent tomb of a lady, only second to you in qualities +of the mind and form; but I find I am mistaken.’ + +She tried to disengage her hand, but might as well have tried to free +herself from the embrace of an affectionate boa-constrictor; if anything +so wily may be brought into comparison with Pecksniff. + +‘Although I am a widower,’ said Mr Pecksniff, examining the rings upon +her fingers, and tracing the course of one delicate blue vein with his +fat thumb, ‘a widower with two daughters, still I am not encumbered, +my love. One of them, as you know, is married. The other, by her own +desire, but with a view, I will confess--why not?--to my altering my +condition, is about to leave her father’s house. I have a character, +I hope. People are pleased to speak well of me, I think. My person +and manner are not absolutely those of a monster, I trust. Ah! naughty +Hand!’ said Mr Pecksniff, apostrophizing the reluctant prize, ‘why did +you take me prisoner? Go, go!’ + +He slapped the hand to punish it; but relenting, folded it in his +waistcoat to comfort it again. + +‘Blessed in each other, and in the society of our venerable friend, my +darling,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘we shall be happy. When he is wafted to a +haven of rest, we will console each other. My pretty primrose, what do +you say?’ + +‘It is possible,’ Mary answered, in a hurried manner, ‘that I ought to +feel grateful for this mark of your confidence. I cannot say that I do, +but I am willing to suppose you may deserve my thanks. Take them; and +pray leave me, Mr Pecksniff.’ + +The good man smiled a greasy smile; and drew her closer to him. + +‘Pray, pray release me, Mr Pecksniff. I cannot listen to your proposal. +I cannot receive it. There are many to whom it may be acceptable, but it +is not so to me. As an act of kindness and an act of pity, leave me!’ + +Mr Pecksniff walked on with his arm round her waist, and her hand in +his, as contentedly as if they had been all in all to each other, and +were joined in the bonds of truest love. + +‘If you force me by your superior strength,’ said Mary, who finding that +good words had not the least effect upon him, made no further effort to +suppress her indignation; ‘if you force me by your superior strength +to accompany you back, and to be the subject of your insolence upon the +way, you cannot constrain the expression of my thoughts. I hold you in +the deepest abhorrence. I know your real nature and despise it.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr Pecksniff, sweetly. ‘No, no, no!’ + +‘By what arts or unhappy chances you have gained your influence over +Mr Chuzzlewit, I do not know,’ said Mary; ‘it may be strong enough to +soften even this, but he shall know of this, trust me, sir.’ + +Mr Pecksniff raised his heavy eyelids languidly, and let them fall +again. It was saying with perfect coolness, ‘Aye, aye! Indeed!’ + +‘Is it not enough,’ said Mary, ‘that you warp and change his nature, +adapt his every prejudice to your bad ends, and harden a heart naturally +kind by shutting out the truth and allowing none but false and distorted +views to reach it; is it not enough that you have the power of doing +this, and that you exercise it, but must you also be so coarse, so +cruel, and so cowardly to me?’ + +Still Mr Pecksniff led her calmly on, and looked as mild as any lamb +that ever pastured in the fields. + +‘Will nothing move you, sir?’ cried Mary. + +‘My dear,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, with a placid leer, ‘a habit of +self-examination, and the practice of--shall I say of virtue?’ + +‘Of hypocrisy,’ said Mary. + +‘No, no,’ resumed Mr Pecksniff, chafing the captive hand reproachfully, +‘of virtue--have enabled me to set such guards upon myself, that it +is really difficult to ruffle me. It is a curious fact, but it is +difficult, do you know, for any one to ruffle me. And did she think,’ +said Mr Pecksniff, with a playful tightening of his grasp ‘that SHE +could! How little did she know his heart!’ + +Little, indeed! Her mind was so strangely constituted that she would +have preferred the caresses of a toad, an adder, or a serpent--nay, the +hug of a bear--to the endearments of Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Come, come,’ said that good gentleman, ‘a word or two will set this +matter right, and establish a pleasant understanding between us. I am +not angry, my love.’ + +‘YOU angry!’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘I am not. I say so. Neither are you.’ + +There was a beating heart beneath his hand that told another story +though. + +‘I am sure you are not,’ said Mr Pecksniff: ‘and I will tell you why. +There are two Martin Chuzzlewits, my dear; and your carrying your anger +to one might have a serious effect--who knows!--upon the other. You +wouldn’t wish to hurt him, would you?’ + +She trembled violently, and looked at him with such a proud disdain that +he turned his eyes away. No doubt lest he should be offended with her in +spite of his better self. + +‘A passive quarrel, my love,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘may be changed into +an active one, remember. It would be sad to blight even a disinherited +young man in his already blighted prospects; but how easy to do it. +Ah, how easy! HAVE I influence with our venerable friend, do you think? +Well, perhaps I have. Perhaps I have.’ + +He raised his eyes to hers; and nodded with an air of banter that was +charming. + +‘No,’ he continued, thoughtfully. ‘Upon the whole, my sweet, if I were +you I’d keep my secret to myself. I am not at all sure--very far from +it--that it would surprise our friend in any way, for he and I have had +some conversation together only this morning, and he is anxious, very +anxious, to establish you in some more settled manner. But whether he +was surprised or not surprised, the consequence of your imparting +it might be the same. Martin junior might suffer severely. I’d have +compassion on Martin junior, do you know?’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a +persuasive smile. ‘Yes. He don’t deserve it, but I would.’ + +She wept so bitterly now, and was so much distressed, that he thought it +prudent to unclasp her waist, and hold her only by the hand. + +‘As to our own share in the precious little mystery,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +‘we will keep it to ourselves, and talk of it between ourselves, and +you shall think it over. You will consent, my love; you will consent, +I know. Whatever you may think; you will. I seem to remember to have +heard--I really don’t know where, or how’--he added, with bewitching +frankness, ‘that you and Martin junior, when you were children, had a +sort of childish fondness for each other. When we are married, you shall +have the satisfaction of thinking that it didn’t last to ruin him, but +passed away to do him good; for we’ll see then what we can do to put +some trifling help in Martin junior’s way. HAVE I any influence with our +venerable friend? Well! Perhaps I have. Perhaps I have.’ + +The outlet from the wood in which these tender passages occurred, was +close to Mr Pecksniff’s house. They were now so near it that he stopped, +and holding up her little finger, said in playful accents, as a parting +fancy: + +‘Shall I bite it?’ + +Receiving no reply he kissed it instead; and then stooping down, +inclined his flabby face to hers--he had a flabby face, although he +WAS a good man--and with a blessing, which from such a source was quite +enough to set her up in life, and prosper her from that time forth +permitted her to leave him. + +Gallantry in its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a +man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr +Pecksniff--perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere +grossnesses--certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that +he was left alone. On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk and reduced; +to be trying to hide himself within himself; and to be wretched at not +having the power to do it. His shoes looked too large; his sleeve looked +too long; his hair looked too limp; his features looked too mean; his +exposed throat looked as if a halter would have done it good. For a +minute or two, in fact, he was hot, and pale, and mean, and shy, and +slinking, and consequently not at all Pecksniffian. But after that, he +recovered himself, and went home with as beneficent an air as if he had +been the High Priest of the summer weather. + +‘I have arranged to go, Papa,’ said Charity, ‘to-morrow.’ + +‘So soon, my child!’ + +‘I can’t go too soon,’ said Charity, ‘under the circumstances. I have +written to Mrs Todgers to propose an arrangement, and have requested her +to meet me at the coach, at all events. You’ll be quite your own master +now, Mr Pinch!’ + +Mr Pecksniff had just gone out of the room, and Tom had just come into +it. + +‘My own master!’ repeated Tom. + +‘Yes, you’ll have nobody to interfere with you,’ said Charity. ‘At least +I hope you won’t. Hem! It’s a changing world.’ + +‘What! are YOU going to be married, Miss Pecksniff?’ asked Tom in great +surprise. + +‘Not exactly,’ faltered Cherry. ‘I haven’t made up my mind to be. I +believe I could be, if I chose, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘Of course you could!’ said Tom. And he said it in perfect good faith. +He believed it from the bottom of his heart. + +‘No,’ said Cherry, ‘I am not going to be married. Nobody is, that I know +of. Hem! But I am not going to live with Papa. I have my reasons, but +it’s all a secret. I shall always feel very kindly towards you, I assure +you, for the boldness you showed that night. As to you and me, Mr Pinch, +WE part the best friends possible!’ + +Tom thanked her for her confidence, and for her friendship, but there +was a mystery in the former which perfectly bewildered him. In his +extravagant devotion to the family, he had felt the loss of Merry more +than any one but those who knew that for all the slights he underwent he +thought his own demerits were to blame, could possibly have understood. +He had scarcely reconciled himself to that when here was Charity about +to leave them. She had grown up, as it were, under Tom’s eye. +The sisters were a part of Pecksniff, and a part of Tom; items in +Pecksniff’s goodness, and in Tom’s service. He couldn’t bear it; not two +hours’ sleep had Tom that night, through dwelling in his bed upon these +dreadful changes. + +When morning dawned he thought he must have dreamed this piece of +ambiguity; but no, on going downstairs he found them packing trunks +and cording boxes, and making other preparations for Miss Charity’s +departure, which lasted all day long. In good time for the evening +coach, Miss Charity deposited her housekeeping keys with much ceremony +upon the parlour table; took a gracious leave of all the house; and +quitted her paternal roof--a blessing for which the Pecksniffian servant +was observed by some profane persons to be particularly active in the +thanksgiving at church next Sunday. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE + +MR PINCH IS DISCHARGED OF A DUTY WHICH HE NEVER OWED TO ANYBODY, AND MR +PECKSNIFF DISCHARGES A DUTY WHICH HE OWES TO SOCIETY + + +The closing words of the last chapter lead naturally to the commencement +of this, its successor; for it has to do with a church. With the church, +so often mentioned heretofore, in which Tom Pinch played the organ for +nothing. + +One sultry afternoon, about a week after Miss Charity’s departure for +London, Mr Pecksniff being out walking by himself, took it into his head +to stray into the churchyard. As he was lingering among the tombstones, +endeavouring to extract an available sentiment or two from the +epitaphs--for he never lost an opportunity of making up a few moral +crackers, to be let off as occasion served--Tom Pinch began to practice. +Tom could run down to the church and do so whenever he had time to +spare; for it was a simple little organ, provided with wind by the +action of the musician’s feet; and he was independent, even of a +bellows-blower. Though if Tom had wanted one at any time, there was +not a man or boy in all the village, and away to the turnpike (tollman +included), but would have blown away for him till he was black in the +face. + +Mr Pecksniff had no objection to music; not the least. He was tolerant +of everything; he often said so. He considered it a vagabond kind of +trifling, in general, just suited to Tom’s capacity. But in regard +to Tom’s performance upon this same organ, he was remarkably lenient, +singularly amiable; for when Tom played it on Sundays, Mr Pecksniff +in his unbounded sympathy felt as if he played it himself, and were a +benefactor to the congregation. So whenever it was impossible to devise +any other means of taking the value of Tom’s wages out of him, Mr +Pecksniff gave him leave to cultivate this instrument. For which mark of +his consideration Tom was very grateful. + +The afternoon was remarkably warm, and Mr Pecksniff had been strolling +a long way. He had not what may be called a fine ear for music, but he +knew when it had a tranquilizing influence on his soul; and that was the +case now, for it sounded to him like a melodious snore. He approached +the church, and looking through the diamond lattice of a window near the +porch, saw Tom, with the curtains in the loft drawn back, playing away +with great expression and tenderness. + +The church had an inviting air of coolness. The old oak roof supported +by cross-beams, the hoary walls, the marble tablets, and the cracked +stone pavement, were refreshing to look at. There were leaves of ivy +tapping gently at the opposite windows; and the sun poured in through +only one; leaving the body of the church in tempting shade. But the +most tempting spot of all, was one red-curtained and soft-cushioned pew, +wherein the official dignitaries of the place (of whom Mr Pecksniff was +the head and chief) enshrined themselves on Sundays. Mr Pecksniff’s seat +was in the corner; a remarkably comfortable corner; where his very large +Prayer-Book was at that minute making the most of its quarto self upon +the desk. He determined to go in and rest. + +He entered very softly; in part because it was a church; in part because +his tread was always soft; in part because Tom played a solemn tune; in +part because he thought he would surprise him when he stopped. Unbolting +the door of the high pew of state, he glided in and shut it after him; +then sitting in his usual place, and stretching out his legs upon the +hassocks, he composed himself to listen to the music. + +It is an unaccountable circumstance that he should have felt drowsy +there, where the force of association might surely have been enough +to keep him wide awake; but he did. He had not been in the snug little +corner five minutes before he began to nod. He had not recovered himself +one minute before he began to nod again. In the very act of opening his +eyes indolently, he nodded again. In the very act of shutting them, he +nodded again. So he fell out of one nod into another until at last he +ceased to nod at all, and was as fast as the church itself. + +He had a consciousness of the organ, long after he fell asleep, though +as to its being an organ he had no more idea of that than he had of +its being a bull. After a while he began to have at intervals the same +dreamy impressions of voices; and awakening to an indolent curiosity +upon the subject, opened his eyes. + +He was so indolent, that after glancing at the hassocks and the pew, he +was already half-way off to sleep again, when it occurred to him that +there really were voices in the church; low voices, talking earnestly +hard by; while the echoes seemed to mutter responses. He roused himself, +and listened. + +Before he had listened half a dozen seconds, he became as broad awake as +ever he had been in all his life. With eyes, and ears, and mouth, +wide open, he moved himself a very little with the utmost caution, and +gathering the curtain in his hand, peeped out. + +Tom Pinch and Mary. Of course. He had recognized their voices, and +already knew the topic they discussed. Looking like the small end of a +guillotined man, with his chin on a level with the top of the pew, so +that he might duck down immediately in case of either of them turning +round, he listened. Listened with such concentrated eagerness, that his +very hair and shirt-collar stood bristling up to help him. + +‘No,’ cried Tom. ‘No letters have ever reached me, except that one from +New York. But don’t be uneasy on that account, for it’s very likely +they have gone away to some far-off place, where the posts are neither +regular nor frequent. He said in that very letter that it might be so, +even in that city to which they thought of travelling--Eden, you know.’ + +‘It is a great weight upon my mind,’ said Mary. + +‘Oh, but you mustn’t let it be,’ said Tom. ‘There’s a true saying that +nothing travels so fast as ill news; and if the slightest harm had +happened to Martin, you may be sure you would have heard of it long +ago. I have often wished to say this to you,’ Tom continued with an +embarrassment that became him very well, ‘but you have never given me an +opportunity.’ + +‘I have sometimes been almost afraid,’ said Mary, ‘that you might +suppose I hesitated to confide in you, Mr Pinch.’ + +‘No,’ Tom stammered, ‘I--I am not aware that I ever supposed that. I +am sure that if I have, I have checked the thought directly, as an +injustice to you. I feel the delicacy of your situation in having to +confide in me at all,’ said Tom, ‘but I would risk my life to save you +from one day’s uneasiness; indeed I would!’ + +Poor Tom! + +‘I have dreaded sometimes,’ Tom continued, ‘that I might have displeased +you by--by having the boldness to try and anticipate your wishes now and +then. At other times I have fancied that your kindness prompted you to +keep aloof from me.’ + +‘Indeed!’ + +‘It was very foolish; very presumptuous and ridiculous, to think +so,’ Tom pursued; ‘but I feared you might suppose it possible that +I--I--should admire you too much for my own peace; and so denied +yourself the slight assistance you would otherwise have accepted from +me. If such an idea has ever presented itself to you,’ faltered Tom, +‘pray dismiss it. I am easily made happy; and I shall live contented +here long after you and Martin have forgotten me. I am a poor, shy, +awkward creature; not at all a man of the world; and you should think no +more of me, bless you, than if I were an old friar!’ + +If friars bear such hearts as thine, Tom, let friars multiply; though +they have no such rule in all their stern arithmetic. + +‘Dear Mr Pinch!’ said Mary, giving him her hand; ‘I cannot tell you how +your kindness moves me. I have never wronged you by the lightest doubt, +and have never for an instant ceased to feel that you were all--much +more than all--that Martin found you. Without the silent care and +friendship I have experienced from you, my life here would have been +unhappy. But you have been a good angel to me; filling me with gratitude +of heart, hope, and courage.’ + +‘I am as little like an angel, I am afraid,’ replied Tom, shaking his +head, ‘as any stone cherubim among the grave-stones; and I don’t think +there are many real angels of THAT pattern. But I should like to know +(if you will tell me) why you have been so very silent about Martin.’ + +‘Because I have been afraid,’ said Mary, ‘of injuring you.’ + +‘Of injuring me!’ cried Tom. + +‘Of doing you an injury with your employer.’ + +The gentleman in question dived. + +‘With Pecksniff!’ rejoined Tom, with cheerful confidence. ‘Oh dear, he’d +never think of us! He’s the best of men. The more at ease you were, the +happier he would be. Oh dear, you needn’t be afraid of Pecksniff. He is +not a spy.’ + +Many a man in Mr Pecksniff’s place, if he could have dived through the +floor of the pew of state and come out at Calcutta or any inhabited +region on the other side of the earth, would have done it instantly. Mr +Pecksniff sat down upon a hassock, and listening more attentively than +ever, smiled. + +Mary seemed to have expressed some dissent in the meanwhile, for Tom +went on to say, with honest energy: + +‘Well, I don’t know how it is, but it always happens, whenever I express +myself in this way to anybody almost, that I find they won’t do justice +to Pecksniff. It is one of the most extraordinary circumstances that +ever came within my knowledge, but it is so. There’s John Westlock, who +used to be a pupil here, one of the best-hearted young men in the world, +in all other matters--I really believe John would have Pecksniff flogged +at the cart’s tail if he could. And John is not a solitary case, +for every pupil we have had in my time has gone away with the same +inveterate hatred of him. There was Mark Tapley, too, quite in another +station of life,’ said Tom; ‘the mockery he used to make of Pecksniff +when he was at the Dragon was shocking. Martin too: Martin was worse +than any of ‘em. But I forgot. He prepared you to dislike Pecksniff, of +course. So you came with a prejudice, you know, Miss Graham, and are not +a fair witness.’ + +Tom triumphed very much in this discovery, and rubbed his hands with +great satisfaction. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ said Mary, ‘you mistake him.’ + +‘No, no!’ cried Tom. ‘YOU mistake him. But,’ he added, with a rapid +change in his tone, ‘what is the matter? Miss Graham, what is the +matter?’ + +Mr Pecksniff brought up to the top of the pew, by slow degrees, his +hair, his forehead, his eyebrow, his eye. She was sitting on a bench +beside the door with her hands before her face; and Tom was bending over +her. + +‘What is the matter?’ cried Tom. ‘Have I said anything to hurt you? Has +any one said anything to hurt you? Don’t cry. Pray tell me what it is. +I cannot bear to see you so distressed. Mercy on us, I never was so +surprised and grieved in all my life!’ + +Mr Pecksniff kept his eye in the same place. He could have moved it now +for nothing short of a gimlet or a red-hot wire. + +‘I wouldn’t have told you, Mr Pinch,’ said Mary, ‘if I could have helped +it; but your delusion is so absorbing, and it is so necessary that we +should be upon our guard; that you should not be compromised; and to +that end that you should know by whom I am beset; that no alternative +is left me. I came here purposely to tell you, but I think I should +have wanted courage if you had not chanced to lead me so directly to the +object of my coming.’ + +Tom gazed at her steadfastly, and seemed to say, ‘What else?’ But he +said not a word. + +‘That person whom you think the best of men,’ said Mary, looking up, and +speaking with a quivering lip and flashing eye. + +‘Lord bless me!’ muttered Tom, staggering back. ‘Wait a moment. That +person whom I think the best of men! You mean Pecksniff, of course. +Yes, I see you mean Pecksniff. Good gracious me, don’t speak without +authority. What has he done? If he is not the best of men, what is he?’ + +‘The worst. The falsest, craftiest, meanest, cruellest, most +sordid, most shameless,’ said the trembling girl--trembling with her +indignation. + +Tom sat down on a seat, and clasped his hands. + +‘What is he,’ said Mary, ‘who receiving me in his house as his guest; +his unwilling guest; knowing my history, and how defenceless and alone +I am, presumes before his daughters to affront me so, that if I had a +brother but a child, who saw it, he would instinctively have helped me?’ + +‘He is a scoundrel!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘Whoever he may be, he is a +scoundrel.’ + +Mr Pecksniff dived again. + +‘What is he,’ said Mary, ‘who, when my only friend--a dear and kind one, +too--was in full health of mind, humbled himself before him, but was +spurned away (for he knew him then) like a dog. Who, in his forgiving +spirit, now that that friend is sunk into a failing state, can crawl +about him again, and use the influence he basely gains for every base +and wicked purpose, and not for one--not one--that’s true or good?’ + +‘I say he is a scoundrel!’ answered Tom. + +‘But what is he--oh, Mr Pinch, what IS he--who, thinking he could +compass these designs the better if I were his wife, assails me with the +coward’s argument that if I marry him, Martin, on whom I have brought so +much misfortune, shall be restored to something of his former hopes; and +if I do not, shall be plunged in deeper ruin? What is he who makes my +very constancy to one I love with all my heart a torture to myself and +wrong to him; who makes me, do what I will, the instrument to hurt a +head I would heap blessings on! What is he who, winding all these cruel +snares about me, explains their purpose to me, with a smooth tongue and +a smiling face, in the broad light of day; dragging me on, the while, in +his embrace, and holding to his lips a hand,’ pursued the agitated girl, +extending it, ‘which I would have struck off, if with it I could lose +the shame and degradation of his touch?’ + +‘I say,’ cried Tom, in great excitement, ‘he is a scoundrel and a +villain! I don’t care who he is, I say he is a double-dyed and most +intolerable villain!’ + +Covering her face with her hands again, as if the passion which had +sustained her through these disclosures lost itself in an overwhelming +sense of shame and grief, she abandoned herself to tears. + +Any sight of distress was sure to move the tenderness of Tom, but this +especially. Tears and sobs from her were arrows in his heart. He tried +to comfort her; sat down beside her; expended all his store of homely +eloquence; and spoke in words of praise and hope of Martin. Aye, though +he loved her from his soul with such a self-denying love as woman seldom +wins; he spoke from first to last of Martin. Not the wealth of the rich +Indies would have tempted Tom to shirk one mention of her lover’s name. + +When she was more composed, she impressed upon Tom that this man she +had described, was Pecksniff in his real colours; and word by word and +phrase by phrase, as well as she remembered it, related what had +passed between them in the wood: which was no doubt a source of high +gratification to that gentleman himself, who in his desire to see and +his dread of being seen, was constantly diving down into the state pew, +and coming up again like the intelligent householder in Punch’s Show, +who avoids being knocked on the head with a cudgel. When she had +concluded her account, and had besought Tom to be very distant and +unconscious in his manner towards her after this explanation, and had +thanked him very much, they parted on the alarm of footsteps in the +burial-ground; and Tom was left alone in the church again. + +And now the full agitation and misery of the disclosure came rushing +upon Tom indeed. The star of his whole life from boyhood had become, in +a moment, putrid vapour. It was not that Pecksniff, Tom’s Pecksniff, had +ceased to exist, but that he never had existed. In his death Tom would +have had the comfort of remembering what he used to be, but in this +discovery, he had the anguish of recollecting what he never was. For, +as Tom’s blindness in this matter had been total and not partial, so was +his restored sight. HIS Pecksniff could never have worked the wickedness +of which he had just now heard, but any other Pecksniff could; and the +Pecksniff who could do that could do anything, and no doubt had been +doing anything and everything except the right thing, all through his +career. From the lofty height on which poor Tom had placed his idol it +was tumbled down headlong, and + + Not all the king’s horses, nor all the king’s men, + Could have set Mr Pecksniff up again. + +Legions of Titans couldn’t have got him out of the mud; and serve him +right! But it was not he who suffered; it was Tom. His compass was +broken, his chart destroyed, his chronometer had stopped, his masts were +gone by the board; his anchor was adrift, ten thousand leagues away. + +Mr Pecksniff watched him with a lively interest, for he divined the +purpose of Tom’s ruminations, and was curious to see how he conducted +himself. For some time, Tom wandered up and down the aisle like a man +demented, stopping occasionally to lean against a pew and think it over; +then he stood staring at a blank old monument bordered tastefully with +skulls and cross-bones, as if it were the finest work of Art he had ever +seen, although at other times he held it in unspeakable contempt; then +he sat down; then walked to and fro again; then went wandering up into +the organ-loft, and touched the keys. But their minstrelsy was changed, +their music gone; and sounding one long melancholy chord, Tom drooped +his head upon his hands and gave it up as hopeless. + +‘I wouldn’t have cared,’ said Tom Pinch, rising from his stool and +looking down into the church as if he had been the Clergyman, ‘I +wouldn’t have cared for anything he might have done to Me, for I have +tried his patience often, and have lived upon his sufferance and have +never been the help to him that others could have been. I wouldn’t have +minded, Pecksniff,’ Tom continued, little thinking who heard him, ‘if +you had done Me any wrong; I could have found plenty of excuses for +that; and though you might have hurt me, could have still gone on +respecting you. But why did you ever fall so low as this in my esteem! +Oh Pecksniff, Pecksniff, there is nothing I would not have given, to +have had you deserve my old opinion of you; nothing!’ + +Mr Pecksniff sat upon the hassock pulling up his shirt-collar, while +Tom, touched to the quick, delivered this apostrophe. After a pause he +heard Tom coming down the stairs, jingling the church keys; and bringing +his eye to the top of the pew again, saw him go slowly out and lock the +door. + +Mr Pecksniff durst not issue from his place of concealment; for through +the windows of the church he saw Tom passing on among the graves, and +sometimes stopping at a stone, and leaning there as if he were a +mourner who had lost a friend. Even when he had left the churchyard, Mr +Pecksniff still remained shut up; not being at all secure but that in +his restless state of mind Tom might come wandering back. At length he +issued forth, and walked with a pleasant countenance into the vestry; +where he knew there was a window near the ground, by which he could +release himself by merely stepping out. + +He was in a curious frame of mind, Mr Pecksniff; being in no hurry to +go, but rather inclining to a dilatory trifling with the time, which +prompted him to open the vestry cupboard, and look at himself in the +parson’s little glass that hung within the door. Seeing that his hair +was rumpled, he took the liberty of borrowing the canonical brush and +arranging it. He also took the liberty of opening another cupboard; but +he shut it up again quickly, being rather startled by the sight of a +black and a white surplice dangling against the wall; which had very +much the appearance of two curates who had committed suicide by hanging +themselves. Remembering that he had seen in the first cupboard a +port-wine bottle and some biscuits, he peeped into it again, and helped +himself with much deliberation; cogitating all the time though, in +a very deep and weighty manner, as if his thoughts were otherwise +employed. + +He soon made up his mind, if it had ever been in doubt; and putting +back the bottle and biscuits, opened the casement. He got out into the +churchyard without any difficulty; shut the window after him; and walked +straight home. + +‘Is Mr Pinch indoors?’ asked Mr Pecksniff of his serving-maid. + +‘Just come in, sir.’ + +‘Just come in, eh?’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, cheerfully. ‘And gone +upstairs, I suppose?’ + +‘Yes sir. Gone upstairs. Shall I call him, sir?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘no. You needn’t call him, Jane. Thank you, +Jane. How are your relations, Jane?’ + +‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it. Let them know I asked about them, Jane. Is Mr +Chuzzlewit in the way, Jane?’ + +‘Yes, sir. He’s in the parlour, reading.’ + +‘He’s in the parlour, reading, is he, Jane?’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Very +well. Then I think I’ll go and see him, Jane.’ + +Never had Mr Pecksniff been beheld in a more pleasant humour! + +But when he walked into the parlour where the old man was engaged as +Jane had said; with pen and ink and paper on a table close at hand (for +Mr Pecksniff was always very particular to have him well supplied with +writing materials), he became less cheerful. He was not angry, he was +not vindictive, he was not cross, he was not moody, but he was grieved; +he was sorely grieved. As he sat down by the old man’s side, two +tears--not tears like those with which recording angels blot their +entries out, but drops so precious that they use them for their +ink--stole down his meritorious cheeks. + +‘What is the matter?’ asked old Martin. ‘Pecksniff, what ails you, man?’ + +‘I am sorry to interrupt you, my dear sir, and I am still more sorry for +the cause. My good, my worthy friend, I am deceived.’ + +‘You are deceived!’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, in an agony, ‘deceived in the tenderest +point. Cruelly deceived in that quarter, sir, in which I placed the most +unbounded confidence. Deceived, Mr Chuzzlewit, by Thomas Pinch.’ + +‘Oh! bad, bad, bad!’ said Martin, laying down his book. ‘Very bad! I +hope not. Are you certain?’ + +‘Certain, my good sir! My eyes and ears are witnesses. I wouldn’t have +believed it otherwise. I wouldn’t have believed it, Mr Chuzzlewit, if a +Fiery Serpent had proclaimed it from the top of Salisbury Cathedral. I +would have said,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, ‘that the Serpent lied. Such was +my faith in Thomas Pinch, that I would have cast the falsehood back into +the Serpent’s teeth, and would have taken Thomas to my heart. But I am +not a Serpent, sir, myself, I grieve to say, and no excuse or hope is +left me.’ + +Martin was greatly disturbed to see him so much agitated, and to hear +such unexpected news. He begged him to compose himself, and asked upon +what subject Mr Pinch’s treachery had been developed. + +‘That is almost the worst of all, sir,’ Mr Pecksniff answered, ‘on a +subject nearly concerning YOU. Oh! is it not enough,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +looking upward, ‘that these blows must fall on me, but must they also +hit my friends!’ + +‘You alarm me,’ cried the old man, changing colour. ‘I am not so strong +as I was. You terrify me, Pecksniff!’ + +‘Cheer up, my noble sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking courage, ‘and we +will do what is required of us. You shall know all, sir, and shall +be righted. But first excuse me, sir, excuse me. I have a duty to +discharge, which I owe to society.’ + +He rang the bell, and Jane appeared. ‘Send Mr Pinch here, if you please, +Jane.’ + +Tom came. Constrained and altered in his manner, downcast and dejected, +visibly confused; not liking to look Pecksniff in the face. + +The honest man bestowed a glance on Mr Chuzzlewit, as who should say +‘You see!’ and addressed himself to Tom in these terms: + +‘Mr Pinch, I have left the vestry-window unfastened. Will you do me the +favour to go and secure it; then bring the keys of the sacred edifice to +me!’ + +‘The vestry-window, sir?’ cried Tom. + +‘You understand me, Mr Pinch, I think,’ returned his patron. ‘Yes, Mr +Pinch, the vestry-window. I grieve to say that sleeping in the church +after a fatiguing ramble, I overheard just now some fragments,’ he +emphasised that word, ‘of a dialogue between two parties; and one of +them locking the church when he went out, I was obliged to leave +it myself by the vestry-window. Do me the favour to secure that +vestry-window, Mr Pinch, and then come back to me.’ + +No physiognomist that ever dwelt on earth could have construed Tom’s +face when he heard these words. Wonder was in it, and a mild look of +reproach, but certainly no fear or guilt, although a host of strong +emotions struggled to display themselves. He bowed, and without saying +one word, good or bad, withdrew. + +‘Pecksniff,’ cried Martin, in a tremble, ‘what does all this mean? You +are not going to do anything in haste, you may regret!’ + +‘No, my good sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, firmly, ‘No. But I have a duty to +discharge which I owe to society; and it shall be discharged, my friend, +at any cost!’ + +Oh, late-remembered, much-forgotten, mouthing, braggart duty, always +owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and wrath, when +will mankind begin to know thee! When will men acknowledge thee in thy +neglected cradle, and thy stunted youth, and not begin their recognition +in thy sinful manhood and thy desolate old age! Oh, ermined Judge whose +duty to society is, now, to doom the ragged criminal to punishment and +death, hadst thou never, Man, a duty to discharge in barring up the +hundred open gates that wooed him to the felon’s dock, and throwing but +ajar the portals to a decent life! Oh, prelate, prelate, whose duty to +society it is to mourn in melancholy phrase the sad degeneracy of these +bad times in which thy lot of honours has been cast, did nothing go +before thy elevation to the lofty seat, from which thou dealest out thy +homilies to other tarriers for dead men’s shoes, whose duty to society +has not begun! Oh! magistrate, so rare a country gentleman and brave a +squire, had you no duty to society, before the ricks were blazing and +the mob were mad; or did it spring up, armed and booted from the earth, +a corps of yeomanry full-grown! + +Mr Pecksniff’s duty to society could not be paid till Tom came back. The +interval which preceded the return of that young man, he occupied in a +close conference with his friend; so that when Tom did arrive, he found +the two quite ready to receive him. Mary was in her own room above, +whither Mr Pecksniff, always considerate, had besought old Martin to +entreat her to remain some half-hour longer, that her feelings might be +spared. + +When Tom came back, he found old Martin sitting by the window, and Mr +Pecksniff in an imposing attitude at the table. On one side of him was +his pocket-handkerchief; and on the other a little heap (a very little +heap) of gold and silver, and odd pence. Tom saw, at a glance, that it +was his own salary for the current quarter. + +‘Have you fastened the vestry-window, Mr Pinch?’ said Pecksniff. + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Thank you. Put down the keys if you please, Mr Pinch.’ + +Tom placed them on the table. He held the bunch by the key of the +organ-loft (though it was one of the smallest), and looked hard at it +as he laid it down. It had been an old, old friend of Tom’s; a kind +companion to him, many and many a day. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, shaking his head; ‘oh, Mr Pinch! I wonder +you can look me in the face!’ + +Tom did it though; and notwithstanding that he has been described as +stooping generally, he stood as upright then as man could stand. + +‘Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, taking up his handkerchief, as if he felt +that he should want it soon, ‘I will not dwell upon the past. I will +spare you, and I will spare myself, that pain at least.’ + +Tom’s was not a very bright eye, but it was a very expressive one when +he looked at Mr Pecksniff, and said: + +‘Thank you, sir. I am very glad you will not refer to the past.’ + +‘The present is enough,’ said Mr Pecksniff, dropping a penny, ‘and +the sooner THAT is past, the better. Mr Pinch, I will not dismiss +you without a word of explanation. Even such a course would be quite +justifiable under the circumstances; but it might wear an appearance of +hurry, and I will not do it; for I am,’ said Mr Pecksniff, knocking down +another penny, ‘perfectly self-possessed. Therefore I will say to you, +what I have already said to Mr Chuzzlewit.’ + +Tom glanced at the old gentleman, who nodded now and then as approving +of Mr Pecksniff’s sentences and sentiments, but interposed between them +in no other way. + +‘From fragments of a conversation which I overheard in the church, just +now, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, ‘between yourself and Miss Graham--I say +fragments, because I was slumbering at a considerable distance from you, +when I was roused by your voices--and from what I saw, I ascertained (I +would have given a great deal not to have ascertained, Mr Pinch) that +you, forgetful of all ties of duty and of honour, sir; regardless of the +sacred laws of hospitality, to which you were pledged as an inmate +of this house; have presumed to address Miss Graham with unreturned +professions of attachment and proposals of love.’ + +Tom looked at him steadily. + +‘Do you deny it, sir?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, dropping one pound two and +fourpence, and making a great business of picking it up again. + +‘No, sir,’ replied Tom. ‘I do not.’ + +‘You do not,’ said Mr Pecksniff, glancing at the old gentleman. ‘Oblige +me by counting this money, Mr Pinch, and putting your name to this +receipt. You do not?’ + +No, Tom did not. He scorned to deny it. He saw that Mr Pecksniff having +overheard his own disgrace, cared not a jot for sinking lower yet in his +contempt. He saw that he had devised this fiction as the readiest means +of getting rid of him at once, but that it must end in that any way. He +saw that Mr Pecksniff reckoned on his not denying it, because his doing +so and explaining would incense the old man more than ever against +Martin and against Mary; while Pecksniff himself would only have been +mistaken in his ‘fragments.’ Deny it! No. + +‘You find the amount correct, do you, Mr Pinch?’ said Pecksniff. + +‘Quite correct, sir,’ answered Tom. + +‘A person is waiting in the kitchen,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘to carry +your luggage wherever you please. We part, Mr Pinch, at once, and are +strangers from this time.’ + +Something without a name; compassion, sorrow, old tenderness, mistaken +gratitude, habit; none of these, and yet all of them; smote upon Tom’s +gentle heart at parting. There was no such soul as Pecksniff’s in +that carcase; and yet, though his speaking out had not involved the +compromise of one he loved, he couldn’t have denounced the very shape +and figure of the man. Not even then. + +‘I will not say,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears, ‘what a blow this +is. I will not say how much it tries me; how it works upon my nature; +how it grates upon my feelings. I do not care for that. I can endure as +well as another man. But what I have to hope, and what you have to hope, +Mr Pinch (otherwise a great responsibility rests upon you), is, that +this deception may not alter my ideas of humanity; that it may not +impair my freshness, or contract, if I may use the expression, my +Pinions. I hope it will not; I don’t think it will. It may be a comfort +to you, if not now, at some future time, to know that I shall endeavour +not to think the worse of my fellow-creatures in general, for what has +passed between us. Farewell!’ + +Tom had meant to spare him one little puncturation with a lancet, which +he had it in his power to administer, but he changed his mind on hearing +this, and said: + +‘I think you left something in the church, sir.’ + +‘Thank you, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff. ‘I am not aware that I did.’ + +‘This is your double eye-glass, I believe?’ said Tom. + +‘Oh!’ cried Pecksniff, with some degree of confusion. ‘I am obliged to +you. Put it down, if you please.’ + +‘I found it,’ said Tom, slowly--‘when I went to bolt the +vestry-window--in the pew.’ + +So he had. Mr Pecksniff had taken it off when he was bobbing up and +down, lest it should strike against the panelling; and had forgotten it. +Going back to the church with his mind full of having been watched, and +wondering very much from what part, Tom’s attention was caught by the +door of the state pew standing open. Looking into it he found the glass. +And thus he knew, and by returning it gave Mr Pecksniff the information +that he knew, where the listener had been; and that instead of +overhearing fragments of the conversation, he must have rejoiced in +every word of it. + +‘I am glad he’s gone,’ said Martin, drawing a long breath when Tom had +left the room. + +‘It IS a relief,’ assented Mr Pecksniff. ‘It is a great relief. But +having discharged--I hope with tolerable firmness--the duty which I owed +to society, I will now, my dear sir, if you will give me leave, retire +to shed a few tears in the back garden, as an humble individual.’ + +Tom went upstairs; cleared his shelf of books; packed them up with his +music and an old fiddle in his trunk; got out his clothes (they were not +so many that they made his head ache); put them on the top of his books; +and went into the workroom for his case of instruments. There was a +ragged stool there, with the horsehair all sticking out of the top like +a wig: a very Beast of a stool in itself; on which he had taken up his +daily seat, year after year, during the whole period of his service. +They had grown older and shabbier in company. Pupils had served their +time; seasons had come and gone. Tom and the worn-out stool had held +together through it all. That part of the room was traditionally called +‘Tom’s Corner.’ It had been assigned to him at first because of its +being situated in a strong draught, and a great way from the fire; and +he had occupied it ever since. There were portraits of him on the walls, +with all his weak points monstrously portrayed. Diabolical sentiments, +foreign to his character, were represented as issuing from his mouth in +fat balloons. Every pupil had added something, even unto fancy portraits +of his father with one eye, and of his mother with a disproportionate +nose, and especially of his sister; who always being presented as +extremely beautiful, made full amends to Tom for any other jokes. Under +less uncommon circumstances, it would have cut Tom to the heart to leave +these things and think that he saw them for the last time; but it didn’t +now. There was no Pecksniff; there never had been a Pecksniff; and all +his other griefs were swallowed up in that. + +So, when he returned into the bedroom, and, having fastened his box and +a carpet-bag, put on his walking gaiters, and his great-coat, and his +hat, and taken his stick in his hand, looked round it for the last time. +Early on summer mornings, and by the light of private candle-ends on +winter nights, he had read himself half blind in this same room. He had +tried in this same room to learn the fiddle under the bedclothes, but +yielding to objections from the other pupils, had reluctantly abandoned +the design. At any other time he would have parted from it with a pang, +thinking of all he had learned there, of the many hours he had passed +there; for the love of his very dreams. But there was no Pecksniff; +there never had been a Pecksniff, and the unreality of Pecksniff +extended itself to the chamber, in which, sitting on one particular +bed, the thing supposed to be that Great Abstraction had often preached +morality with such effect that Tom had felt a moisture in his eyes, +while hanging breathless on the words. + +The man engaged to bear his box--Tom knew him well: a Dragon man--came +stamping up the stairs, and made a roughish bow to Tom (to whom in +common times he would have nodded with a grin) as though he were aware +of what had happened, and wished him to perceive it made no difference +to HIM. It was clumsily done; he was a mere waterer of horses; but Tom +liked the man for it, and felt it more than going away. + +Tom would have helped him with the box, but he made no more of it, +though it was a heavy one, than an elephant would have made of a +castle; just swinging it on his back and bowling downstairs as if, being +naturally a heavy sort of fellow, he could carry a box infinitely better +than he could go alone. Tom took the carpet-bag, and went downstairs +along with him. At the outer door stood Jane, crying with all her might; +and on the steps was Mrs Lupin, sobbing bitterly, and putting out her +hand for Tom to shake. + +‘You’re coming to the Dragon, Mr Pinch?’ + +‘No,’ said Tom, ‘no. I shall walk to Salisbury to-night. I couldn’t stay +here. For goodness’ sake, don’t make me so unhappy, Mrs Lupin.’ + +‘But you’ll come to the Dragon, Mr Pinch. If it’s only for tonight. To +see me, you know; not as a traveller.’ + +‘God bless my soul!’ said Tom, wiping his eyes. ‘The kindness of people +is enough to break one’s heart! I mean to go to Salisbury to-night, my +dear good creature. If you’ll take care of my box for me till I write +for it, I shall consider it the greatest kindness you can do me.’ + +‘I wish,’ cried Mrs Lupin, ‘there were twenty boxes, Mr Pinch, that I +might have ‘em all.’ + +‘Thank’ee,’ said Tom. ‘It’s like you. Good-bye. Good-bye.’ + +There were several people, young and old, standing about the door, some +of whom cried with Mrs Lupin; while others tried to keep up a stout +heart, as Tom did; and others were absorbed in admiration of Mr +Pecksniff--a man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting +at a sheet of paper; and others were divided between that feeling and +sympathy with Tom. Mr Pecksniff had appeared on the top of the steps, +simultaneously with his old pupil, and while Tom was talking with Mrs +Lupin kept his hand stretched out, as though he said ‘Go forth!’ When +Tom went forth, and had turned the corner Mr Pecksniff shook his head, +shut his eyes, and heaving a deep sigh, shut the door. On which, the +best of Tom’s supporters said he must have done some dreadful deed, or +such a man as Mr Pecksniff never could have felt like that. If it had +been a common quarrel (they observed), he would have said something, but +when he didn’t, Mr Pinch must have shocked him dreadfully. + +Tom was out of hearing of their shrewd opinions, and plodded on as +steadily as he could go, until he came within sight of the turnpike +where the tollman’s family had cried out ‘Mr Pinch!’ that frosty +morning, when he went to meet young Martin. He had got through the +village, and this toll-bar was his last trial; but when the infant +toll-takers came screeching out, he had half a mind to run for it, and +make a bolt across the country. + +‘Why, deary Mr Pinch! oh, deary sir!’ cried the tollman’s wife. ‘What an +unlikely time for you to be a-going this way with a bag!’ + +‘I am going to Salisbury,’ said Tom. + +‘Why, goodness, where’s the gig, then?’ cried the tollman’s wife, +looking down the road, as if she thought Tom might have been upset +without observing it. + +‘I haven’t got it,’ said Tom. ‘I--’ he couldn’t evade it; he felt she +would have him in the next question, if he got over this one. ‘I have +left Mr Pecksniff.’ + +The tollman--a crusty customer, always smoking solitary pipes in a +Windsor chair, inside, set artfully between two little windows that +looked up and down the road, so that when he saw anything coming up he +might hug himself on having toll to take, and when he saw it going down, +might hug himself on having taken it--the tollman was out in an instant. + +‘Left Mr Pecksniff!’ cried the tollman. + +‘Yes,’ said Tom, ‘left him.’ + +The tollman looked at his wife, uncertain whether to ask her if she had +anything to suggest, or to order her to mind the children. Astonishment +making him surly, he preferred the latter, and sent her into the +toll-house with a flea in her ear. + +‘You left Mr Pecksniff!’ cried the tollman, folding his arms, and +spreading his legs. ‘I should as soon have thought of his head leaving +him.’ + +‘Aye!’ said Tom, ‘so should I, yesterday. Good night!’ + +If a heavy drove of oxen hadn’t come by immediately, the tollman would +have gone down to the village straight, to inquire into it. As +things turned out, he smoked another pipe, and took his wife into his +confidence. But their united sagacity could make nothing of it, and they +went to bed--metaphorically--in the dark. But several times that night, +when a waggon or other vehicle came through, and the driver asked +the tollkeeper ‘What news?’ he looked at the man by the light of his +lantern, to assure himself that he had an interest in the subject, and +then said, wrapping his watch-coat round his legs: + +‘You’ve heerd of Mr Pecksniff down yonder?’ + +‘Ah! sure-ly!’ + +‘And of his young man Mr Pinch, p’raps?’ + +‘Ah!’ + +‘They’ve parted.’ + +After every one of these disclosures, the tollman plunged into his +house again, and was seen no more, while the other side went on in great +amazement. + +But this was long after Tom was abed, and Tom was now with his face +towards Salisbury, doing his best to get there. The evening was +beautiful at first, but it became cloudy and dull at sunset, and the +rain fell heavily soon afterwards. For ten long miles he plodded on, wet +through, until at last the lights appeared, and he came into the welcome +precincts of the city. + +He went to the inn where he had waited for Martin, and briefly answering +their inquiries after Mr Pecksniff, ordered a bed. He had no heart for +tea or supper, meat or drink of any kind, but sat by himself before +an empty table in the public room while the bed was getting ready, +revolving in his mind all that had happened that eventful day, and +wondering what he could or should do for the future. It was a great +relief when the chambermaid came in, and said the bed was ready. + +It was a low four-poster, shelving downward in the centre like a trough, +and the room was crowded with impracticable tables and exploded chests +of drawers, full of damp linen. A graphic representation in oil of a +remarkably fat ox hung over the fireplace, and the portrait of some +former landlord (who might have been the ox’s brother, he was so like +him) stared roundly in, at the foot of the bed. A variety of queer +smells were partially quenched in the prevailing scent of very old +lavender; and the window had not been opened for such a long space of +time that it pleaded immemorial usage, and wouldn’t come open now. + +These were trifles in themselves, but they added to the strangeness of +the place, and did not induce Tom to forget his new position. Pecksniff +had gone out of the world--had never been in it--and it was as much +as Tom could do to say his prayers without him. But he felt happier +afterwards, and went to sleep, and dreamed about him as he Never Was. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO + +TREATS OF TODGER’S AGAIN; AND OF ANOTHER BLIGHTED PLANT BESIDES THE +PLANTS UPON THE LEADS + + +Early on the day next after that on which she bade adieu to the halls +of her youth and the scenes of her childhood, Miss Pecksniff, arriving +safely at the coach-office in London, was there received, and conducted +to her peaceful home beneath the shadow of the Monument, by Mrs Todgers. +M. Todgers looked a little worn by cares of gravy and other such +solicitudes arising out of her establishment, but displayed her usual +earnestness and warmth of manner. + +‘And how, my sweet Miss Pecksniff,’ said she, ‘how is your princely pa?’ + +Miss Pecksniff signified (in confidence) that he contemplated the +introduction of a princely ma; and repeated the sentiment that she +wasn’t blind, and wasn’t quite a fool, and wouldn’t bear it. + +Mrs Todgers was more shocked by the intelligence than any one could have +expected. She was quite bitter. She said there was no truth in man and +that the warmer he expressed himself, as a general principle, the falser +and more treacherous he was. She foresaw with astonishing clearness that +the object of Mr Pecksniff’s attachment was designing, worthless, and +wicked; and receiving from Charity the fullest confirmation of these +views, protested with tears in her eyes that she loved Miss Pecksniff +like a sister, and felt her injuries as if they were her own. + +‘Your real darling sister, I have not seen her more than once since her +marriage,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘and then I thought her looking poorly. My +sweet Miss Pecksniff, I always thought that you was to be the lady?’ + +‘Oh dear no!’ cried Cherry, shaking her head. ‘Oh no, Mrs Todgers. Thank +you. No! not for any consideration he could offer.’ + +‘I dare say you are right,’ said Mrs Todgers with a sigh. ‘I feared +it all along. But the misery we have had from that match, here among +ourselves, in this house, my dear Miss Pecksniff, nobody would believe.’ + +‘Lor, Mrs Todgers!’ + +‘Awful, awful!’ repeated Mrs Todgers, with strong emphasis. ‘You +recollect our youngest gentleman, my dear?’ + +‘Of course I do,’ said Cherry. + +‘You might have observed,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘how he used to watch your +sister; and that a kind of stony dumbness came over him whenever she was +in company?’ + +‘I am sure I never saw anything of the sort,’ said Cherry, in a peevish +manner. ‘What nonsense, Mrs Todgers!’ + +‘My dear,’ returned that lady in a hollow voice, ‘I have seen him again +and again, sitting over his pie at dinner, with his spoon a perfect +fixture in his mouth, looking at your sister. I have seen him standing +in a corner of our drawing-room, gazing at her, in such a lonely, +melancholy state, that he was more like a Pump than a man, and might +have drawed tears.’ + +‘I never saw it!’ cried Cherry; ‘that’s all I can say.’ + +‘But when the marriage took place,’ said Mrs Todgers, proceeding +with her subject, ‘when it was in the paper, and was read out here at +breakfast, I thought he had taken leave of his senses, I did indeed. +The violence of that young man, my dear Miss Pecksniff; the frightful +opinions he expressed upon the subject of self-destruction; the +extraordinary actions he performed with his tea; the clenching way in +which he bit his bread and butter; the manner in which he taunted Mr +Jinkins; all combined to form a picture never to be forgotten.’ + +‘It’s a pity he didn’t destroy himself, I think,’ observed Miss +Pecksniff. + +‘Himself!’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘it took another turn at night. He was for +destroying other people then. There was a little chaffing going on--I +hope you don’t consider that a low expression, Miss Pecksniff; it is +always in our gentlemen’s mouths--a little chaffing going on, my dear, +among ‘em, all in good nature, when suddenly he rose up, foaming with +his fury, and but for being held by three would have had Mr Jinkins’s +life with a bootjack.’ + +Miss Pecksniff’s face expressed supreme indifference. + +‘And now,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘now he is the meekest of men. You can +almost bring the tears into his eyes by looking at him. He sits with me +the whole day long on Sundays, talking in such a dismal way that I find +it next to impossible to keep my spirits up equal to the accommodation +of the boarders. His only comfort is in female society. He takes me +half-price to the play, to an extent which I sometimes fear is beyond +his means; and I see the tears a-standing in his eyes during the whole +performance--particularly if it is anything of a comic nature. The turn +I experienced only yesterday,’ said Mrs Todgers putting her hand to her +side, ‘when the house-maid threw his bedside carpet out of the window of +his room, while I was sitting here, no one can imagine. I thought it was +him, and that he had done it at last!’ + +The contempt with which Miss Charity received this pathetic account of +the state to which the youngest gentleman in company was reduced, +did not say much for her power of sympathising with that unfortunate +character. She treated it with great levity, and went on to inform +herself, then and afterwards, whether any other changes had occurred in +the commercial boarding-house. + +Mr Bailey was gone, and had been succeeded (such is the decay of human +greatness!) by an old woman whose name was reported to be Tamaroo--which +seemed an impossibility. Indeed it appeared in the fullness of time that +the jocular boarders had appropriated the word from an English ballad, +in which it is supposed to express the bold and fiery nature of a +certain hackney coachman; and that it was bestowed upon Mr Bailey’s +successor by reason of her having nothing fiery about her, except an +occasional attack of that fire which is called St. Anthony’s. This +ancient female had been engaged, in fulfillment of a vow, registered by +Mrs Todgers, that no more boys should darken the commercial doors; and +she was chiefly remarkable for a total absence of all comprehension upon +every subject whatever. She was a perfect Tomb for messages and small +parcels; and when dispatched to the Post Office with letters, had been +frequently seen endeavouring to insinuate them into casual chinks in +private doors, under the delusion that any door with a hole in it would +answer the purpose. She was a very little old woman, and always wore +a very coarse apron with a bib before and a loop behind, together +with bandages on her wrists, which appeared to be afflicted with an +everlasting sprain. She was on all occasions chary of opening the street +door, and ardent to shut it again; and she waited at table in a bonnet. + +This was the only great change over and above the change which had +fallen on the youngest gentleman. As for him, he more than corroborated +the account of Mrs Todgers; possessing greater sensibility than even +she had given him credit for. He entertained some terrible notions of +Destiny, among other matters, and talked much about people’s ‘Missions’; +upon which he seemed to have some private information not generally +attainable, as he knew it had been poor Merry’s mission to crush him +in the bud. He was very frail and tearful; for being aware that a +shepherd’s mission was to pipe to his flocks, and that a boatswain’s +mission was to pipe all hands, and that one man’s mission was to be a +paid piper, and another man’s mission was to pay the piper, so he had +got it into his head that his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye. +Which he did perpetually. + +He often informed Mrs Todgers that the sun had set upon him; that the +billows had rolled over him; that the car of Juggernaut had crushed him, +and also that the deadly Upas tree of Java had blighted him. His name +was Moddle. + +Towards this most unhappy Moddle, Miss Pecksniff conducted herself at +first with distant haughtiness, being in no humour to be entertained +with dirges in honour of her married sister. The poor young gentleman +was additionally crushed by this, and remonstrated with Mrs Todgers on +the subject. + +‘Even she turns from me, Mrs Todgers,’ said Moddle. + +‘Then why don’t you try and be a little bit more cheerful, sir?’ +retorted Mrs Todgers. + +‘Cheerful, Mrs Todgers! cheerful!’ cried the youngest gentleman; ‘when +she reminds me of days for ever fled, Mrs Todgers!’ + +‘Then you had better avoid her for a short time, if she does,’ said Mrs +Todgers, ‘and come to know her again, by degrees. That’s my advice.’ + +‘But I can’t avoid her,’ replied Moddle, ‘I haven’t strength of mind to +do it. Oh, Mrs Todgers, if you knew what a comfort her nose is to me!’ + +‘Her nose, sir!’ Mrs Todgers cried. + +‘Her profile, in general,’ said the youngest gentleman, ‘but +particularly her nose. It’s so like;’ here he yielded to a burst of +grief. ‘It’s so like hers who is Another’s, Mrs Todgers!’ + +The observant matron did not fail to report this conversation to +Charity, who laughed at the time, but treated Mr Moddle that very +evening with increased consideration, and presented her side face to him +as much as possible. Mr Moddle was not less sentimental than usual; +was rather more so, if anything; but he sat and stared at her with +glistening eyes, and seemed grateful. + +‘Well, sir!’ said the lady of the Boarding-House next day. ‘You held up +your head last night. You’re coming round, I think.’ + +‘Only because she’s so like her who is Another’s, Mrs Todgers,’ rejoined +the youth. ‘When she talks, and when she smiles, I think I’m looking on +HER brow again, Mrs Todgers.’ + +This was likewise carried to Charity, who talked and smiled next evening +in her most engaging manner, and rallying Mr Moddle on the lowness of +his spirits, challenged him to play a rubber at cribbage. Mr Moddle +taking up the gauntlet, they played several rubbers for sixpences, and +Charity won them all. This may have been partially attributable to the +gallantry of the youngest gentleman, but it was certainly referable to +the state of his feelings also; for his eyes being frequently dimmed by +tears, he thought that aces were tens, and knaves queens, which at times +occasioned some confusion in his play. + +On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs Todgers, sitting by, proposed +that instead of gambling they should play for ‘love,’ Mr Moddle was seen +to change colour. On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff’s +snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to bed; meaning to have +kissed her hand, but missing it. + +In short, Mr Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss +Pecksniff’s mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began +to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become +ultimately Mrs Moddle. He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was not +a very young lady) with rising prospects, and ‘almost’ enough to live +on. Really it looked very well. + +Besides--besides--he had been regarded as devoted to Merry. Merry had +joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a conquest. +He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken, better tempered, +better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage, could be made to +consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be shown off like a lamb +when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub! + +In the meantime the cribbage went on, and Mrs Todgers went off; for the +youngest gentleman, dropping her society, began to take Miss Pecksniff +to the play. He also began, as Mrs Todgers said, to slip home ‘in his +dinner-times,’ and to get away from ‘the office’ at unholy seasons; +and twice, as he informed Mrs Todgers himself, he received anonymous +letters, enclosing cards from Furniture Warehouses--clearly the act of +that ungentlemanly ruffian Jinkins; only he hadn’t evidence enough to +call him out upon. All of which, so Mrs Todgers told Miss Pecksniff, +spoke as plain English as the shining sun. + +‘My dear Miss Pecksniff, you may depend upon it,’ said Mrs Todgers, +‘that he is burning to propose.’ + +‘My goodness me, why don’t he then?’ cried Cherry. + +‘Men are so much more timid than we think ‘em, my dear,’ returned +Mrs Todgers. ‘They baulk themselves continually. I saw the words on +Todgers’s lips for months and months and months, before he said ‘em.’ + +Miss Pecksniff submitted that Todgers might not have been a fair +specimen. + +‘Oh yes, he was. Oh bless you, yes, my dear. I was very particular in +those days, I assure you,’ said Mrs Todgers, bridling. ‘No, no. You give +Mr Moddle a little encouragement, Miss Pecksniff, if you wish him to +speak; and he’ll speak fast enough, depend upon it.’ + +‘I am sure I don’t know what encouragement he would have, Mrs Todgers,’ +returned Charity. ‘He walks with me, and plays cards with me, and he +comes and sits alone with me.’ + +‘Quite right,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘That’s indispensable, my dear.’ + +‘And he sits very close to me.’ + +‘Also quite correct,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘And he looks at me.’ + +‘To be sure he does,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘And he has his arm upon the back of the chair or sofa, or whatever it +is--behind me, you know.’ + +‘I should think so,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘And then he begins to cry!’ + +Mrs Todgers admitted that he might do better than that; and might +undoubtedly profit by the recollection of the great Lord Nelson’s signal +at the battle of Trafalgar. Still, she said, he would come round, or, +not to mince the matter, would be brought round, if Miss Pecksniff took +up a decided position, and plainly showed him that it must be done. + +Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young lady +received Mr Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an air of +constraint; and gradually leading him to inquire, in a dejected manner, +why she was so changed, confessed to him that she felt it necessary for +their mutual peace and happiness to take a decided step. They had been +much together lately, she observed, much together, and had tasted the +sweets of a genuine reciprocity of sentiment. She never could forget +him, nor could she ever cease to think of him with feelings of the +liveliest friendship, but people had begun to talk, the thing had been +observed, and it was necessary that they should be nothing more to each +other, than any gentleman and lady in society usually are. She was glad +she had had the resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been +tried too far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though +she was weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped. + +Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin, and wept +abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his mission +to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on himself; and +that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had Miss Pecksniff +assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One. Miss Pecksniff +controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was goaded on to ask +whether she could be contented with a blighted heart; and it appearing +on further examination that she could be, plighted his dismal troth, +which was accepted and returned. + +He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation. Instead of being +triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to shed +before; and, sobbing, said: + +‘Oh! what a day this has been! I can’t go back to the office this +afternoon. Oh, what a trying day this has been! Good Gracious!’ + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE + +FURTHER PROCEEDINGS IN EDEN, AND A PROCEEDING OUT OF IT. MARTIN MAKES A +DISCOVERY OF SOME IMPORTANCE + + +From Mr Moddle to Eden is an easy and natural transition. Mr Moddle, +living in the atmosphere of Miss Pecksniff’s love, dwelt (if he had but +known it) in a terrestrial Paradise. The thriving city of Eden was +also a terrestrial Paradise, upon the showing of its proprietors. The +beautiful Miss Pecksniff might have been poetically described as a +something too good for man in his fallen and degraded state. That +was exactly the character of the thriving city of Eden, as poetically +heightened by Zephaniah Scadder, General Choke, and other worthies; part +and parcel of the talons of that great American Eagle, which is always +airing itself sky-high in purest aether, and never, no never, never, +tumbles down with draggled wings into the mud. + +When Mark Tapley, leaving Martin in the architectural and surveying +offices, had effectually strengthened and encouraged his own spirits +by the contemplation of their joint misfortunes, he proceeded, with +new cheerfulness, in search of help; congratulating himself, as he went +along, on the enviable position to which he had at last attained. + +‘I used to think, sometimes,’ said Mr Tapley, ‘as a desolate island +would suit me, but I should only have had myself to provide for there, +and being naturally a easy man to manage, there wouldn’t have been much +credit in THAT. Now here I’ve got my partner to take care on, and he’s +something like the sort of man for the purpose. I want a man as is +always a-sliding off his legs when he ought to be on ‘em. I want a +man as is so low down in the school of life that he’s always a-making +figures of one in his copy-book, and can’t get no further. I want a man +as is his own great coat and cloak, and is always a-wrapping himself up +in himself. And I have got him too,’ said Mr Tapley, after a moment’s +silence. ‘What a happiness!’ + +He paused to look round, uncertain to which of the log-houses he should +repair. + +‘I don’t know which to take,’ he observed; ‘that’s the truth. They’re +equally prepossessing outside, and equally commodious, no doubt, within; +being fitted up with every convenience that a Alligator, in a state of +natur’, could possibly require. Let me see! The citizen as turned out +last night, lives under water, in the right hand dog-kennel at the +corner. I don’t want to trouble him if I can help it, poor man, for +he is a melancholy object; a reg’lar Settler in every respect. There’s +house with a winder, but I am afraid of their being proud. I don’t know +whether a door ain’t too aristocratic; but here goes for the first one!’ + +He went up to the nearest cabin, and knocked with his hand. Being +desired to enter, he complied. + +‘Neighbour,’ said Mark; ‘for I AM a neighbour, though you don’t know me; +I’ve come a-begging. Hallo! hal--lo! Am I a-bed, and dreaming!’ + +He made this exclamation on hearing his own name pronounced, and finding +himself clasped about the skirts by two little boys, whose faces he had +often washed, and whose suppers he had often cooked, on board of that +noble and fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw. + +‘My eyes is wrong!’ said Mark. ‘I don’t believe ‘em. That ain’t my +fellow-passenger younder, a-nursing her little girl, who, I am sorry to +see, is so delicate; and that ain’t her husband as come to New York to +fetch her. Nor these,’ he added, looking down upon the boys, ‘ain’t them +two young shavers as was so familiar to me; though they are uncommon +like ‘em. That I must confess.’ + +The woman shed tears, in very joy to see him; the man shook both his +hands and would not let them go; the two boys hugged his legs; the sick +child in the mother’s arms stretched out her burning little fingers, and +muttered, in her hoarse, dry throat, his well-remembered name. + +It was the same family, sure enough. Altered by the salubrious air of +Eden. But the same. + +‘This is a new sort of a morning call,’ said Mark, drawing a long +breath. ‘It strikes one all of a heap. Wait a little bit! I’m a-coming +round fast. That’ll do! These gentlemen ain’t my friends. Are they on +the visiting list of the house?’ + +The inquiry referred to certain gaunt pigs, who had walked in after him, +and were much interested in the heels of the family. As they did not +belong to the mansion, they were expelled by the two little boys. + +‘I ain’t superstitious about toads,’ said Mark, looking round the room, +‘but if you could prevail upon the two or three I see in company, to +step out at the same time, my young friends, I think they’d find the +open air refreshing. Not that I at all object to ‘em. A very handsome +animal is a toad,’ said Mr Tapley, sitting down upon a stool; ‘very +spotted; very like a partickler style of old gentleman about the throat; +very bright-eyed, very cool, and very slippy. But one sees ‘em to the +best advantage out of doors perhaps.’ + +While pretending, with such talk as this, to be perfectly at his ease, +and to be the most indifferent and careless of men, Mark Tapley had +an eye on all around him. The wan and meagre aspect of the family, the +changed looks of the poor mother, the fevered child she held in her lap, +the air of great despondency and little hope on everything, were plain +to him, and made a deep impression on his mind. He saw it all as +clearly and as quickly, as with his bodily eyes he saw the rough shelves +supported by pegs driven between the logs, of which the house was made; +the flour-cask in the corner, serving also for a table; the blankets, +spades, and other articles against the walls; the damp that blotched the +ground; or the crop of vegetable rottenness in every crevice of the hut. + +‘How is it that you have come here?’ asked the man, when their first +expressions of surprise were over. + +‘Why, we come by the steamer last night,’ replied Mark. ‘Our intention +is to make our fortuns with punctuality and dispatch; and to retire upon +our property as soon as ever it’s realised. But how are you all? You’re +looking noble!’ + +‘We are but sickly now,’ said the poor woman, bending over her child. +‘But we shall do better when we are seasoned to the place.’ + +‘There are some here,’ thought Mark ‘whose seasoning will last for +ever.’ + +But he said cheerfully, ‘Do better! To be sure you will. We shall all +do better. What we’ve got to do is, to keep up our spirits, and be +neighbourly. We shall come all right in the end, never fear. That +reminds me, by the bye, that my partner’s all wrong just at present; +and that I looked in to beg for him. I wish you’d come and give me your +opinion of him, master.’ + +That must have been a very unreasonable request on the part of Mark +Tapley, with which, in their gratitude for his kind offices on board the +ship, they would not have complied instantly. The man rose to accompany +him without a moment’s delay. Before they went, Mark took the sick child +in his arms, and tried to comfort the mother; but the hand of death was +on it then, he saw. + +They found Martin in the house, lying wrapped up in his blanket on +the ground. He was, to all appearance, very ill indeed, and shook and +shivered horribly; not as people do from cold, but in a frightful +kind of spasm or convulsion, that racked his whole body. Mark’s friend +pronounced his disease an aggravated kind of fever, accompanied with +ague; which was very common in those parts, and which he predicted would +be worse to-morrow, and for many more to-morrows. He had had it himself +off and on, he said, for a couple of years or so; but he was thankful +that, while so many he had known had died about him, he had escaped with +life. + +‘And with not too much of that,’ thought Mark, surveying his emaciated +form. ‘Eden for ever!’ + +They had some medicine in their chest; and this man of sad experience +showed Mark how and when to administer it, and how he could best +alleviate the sufferings of Martin. His attentions did not stop there; +for he was backwards and forwards constantly, and rendered Mark +good service in all his brisk attempts to make their situation more +endurable. Hope or comfort for the future he could not bestow. The +season was a sickly one; the settlement a grave. His child died that +night; and Mark, keeping the secret from Martin, helped to bury it, +beneath a tree, next day. + +With all his various duties of attendance upon Martin (who became the +more exacting in his claims, the worse he grew), Mark worked out of +doors, early and late; and with the assistance of his friend and others, +laboured to do something with their land. Not that he had the least +strength of heart or hope, or steady purpose in so doing, beyond the +habitual cheerfulness of his disposition, and his amazing power of +self-sustainment; for within himself, he looked on their condition +as beyond all hope, and, in his own words, ‘came out strong’ in +consequence. + +‘As to coming out as strong as I could wish, sir,’ he confided to Martin +in a leisure moment; that is to say, one evening, while he was washing +the linen of the establishment, after a hard day’s work, ‘that I give +up. It’s a piece of good fortune as never is to happen to me, I see!’ + +‘Would you wish for circumstances stronger than these?’ Martin retorted +with a groan, from underneath his blanket. + +‘Why, only see how easy they might have been stronger, sir,’ said Mark, +‘if it wasn’t for the envy of that uncommon fortun of mine, which is +always after me, and tripping me up. The night we landed here, I thought +things did look pretty jolly. I won’t deny it. I thought they did look +pretty jolly.’ + +‘How do they look now?’ groaned Martin. + +‘Ah!’ said Mark, ‘Ah, to be sure. That’s the question. How do they look +now? On the very first morning of my going out, what do I do? Stumble +on a family I know, who are constantly assisting of us in all sorts of +ways, from that time to this! That won’t do, you know; that ain’t what +I’d a right to expect. If I had stumbled on a serpent and got bit; or +stumbled on a first-rate patriot, and got bowie-knifed, or stumbled on a +lot of Sympathisers with inverted shirt-collars, and got made a lion of; +I might have distinguished myself, and earned some credit. As it is, +the great object of my voyage is knocked on the head. So it would be, +wherever I went. How do you feel to-night, sir?’ + +‘Worse than ever,’ said poor Martin. + +‘That’s something,’ returned Mark, ‘but not enough. Nothing but being +very bad myself, and jolly to the last, will ever do me justice.’ + +‘In Heaven’s name, don’t talk of that,’ said Martin with a thrill of +terror. ‘What should I do, Mark, if you were taken ill!’ + +Mr Tapley’s spirits appeared to be stimulated by this remark, although +it was not a very flattering one. He proceeded with his washing in a +brighter mood; and observed ‘that his glass was arising.’ + +‘There’s one good thing in this place, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, scrubbing +away at the linen, ‘as disposes me to be jolly; and that is that it’s +a reg’lar little United States in itself. There’s two or three American +settlers left; and they coolly comes over one, even here, sir, as if it +was the wholesomest and loveliest spot in the world. But they’re like +the cock that went and hid himself to save his life, and was found out +by the noise he made. They can’t help crowing. They was born to do it, +and do it they must, whatever comes of it.’ + +Glancing from his work out at the door as he said these words, Mark’s +eyes encountered a lean person in a blue frock and a straw hat, with +a short black pipe in his mouth, and a great hickory stick studded all +over with knots, in his hand; who smoking and chewing as he came along, +and spitting frequently, recorded his progress by a train of decomposed +tobacco on the ground. + +‘Here’s one on ‘em,’ cried Mark, ‘Hannibal Chollop.’ + +‘Don’t let him in,’ said Martin, feebly. + +‘He won’t want any letting in,’ replied Mark. ‘He’ll come in, sir.’ +Which turned out to be quite true, for he did. His face was almost as +hard and knobby as his stick; and so were his hands. His head was like +an old black hearth-broom. He sat down on the chest with his hat on; +and crossing his legs and looking up at Mark, said, without removing his +pipe: + +‘Well, Mr Co.! and how do you git along, sir?’ + +It may be necessary to observe that Mr Tapley had gravely introduced +himself to all strangers, by that name. + +‘Pretty well, sir; pretty well,’ said Mark. + +‘If this ain’t Mr Chuzzlewit, ain’t it!’ exclaimed the visitor ‘How do +YOU git along, sir?’ + +Martin shook his head, and drew the blanket over it involuntarily; for +he felt that Hannibal was going to spit; and his eye, as the song says, +was upon him. + +‘You need not regard me, sir,’ observed Mr Chollop, complacently. ‘I am +fever-proof, and likewise agur.’ + +‘Mine was a more selfish motive,’ said Martin, looking out again. ‘I was +afraid you were going to--’ + +‘I can calc’late my distance, sir,’ returned Mr Chollop, ‘to an inch.’ + +With a proof of which happy faculty he immediately favoured him. + +‘I re-quire, sir,’ said Hannibal, ‘two foot clear in a circ’lar +di-rection, and can engage my-self toe keep within it. I HAVE gone ten +foot, in a circ’lar di-rection, but that was for a wager.’ + +‘I hope you won it, sir,’ said Mark. + +‘Well, sir, I realised the stakes,’ said Chollop. ‘Yes, sir.’ + +He was silent for a time, during which he was actively engaged in the +formation of a magic circle round the chest on which he sat. When it was +completed, he began to talk again. + +‘How do you like our country, sir?’ he inquired, looking at Martin. + +‘Not at all,’ was the invalid’s reply. + +Chollop continued to smoke without the least appearance of emotion, +until he felt disposed to speak again. That time at length arriving, he +took his pipe from his mouth, and said: + +‘I am not surprised to hear you say so. It re-quires An elevation, and +A preparation of the intellect. The mind of man must be prepared for +Freedom, Mr Co.’ + +He addressed himself to Mark; because he saw that Martin, who wished +him to go, being already half-mad with feverish irritation, which the +droning voice of this new horror rendered almost insupportable, had +closed his eyes, and turned on his uneasy bed. + +‘A little bodily preparation wouldn’t be amiss, either, would it, sir,’ +said Mark, ‘in the case of a blessed old swamp like this?’ + +‘Do you con-sider this a swamp, sir?’ inquired Chollop gravely. + +‘Why yes, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘I haven’t a doubt about it myself.’ + +‘The sentiment is quite Europian,’ said the major, ‘and does not +surprise me; what would your English millions say to such a swamp in +England, sir?’ + +‘They’d say it was an uncommon nasty one, I should think, said Mark; +‘and that they would rather be inoculated for fever in some other way.’ + +‘Europian!’ remarked Chollop, with sardonic pity. ‘Quite Europian!’ + +And there he sat. Silent and cool, as if the house were his; smoking +away like a factory chimney. + +Mr Chollop was, of course, one of the most remarkable men in the +country; but he really was a notorious person besides. He was usually +described by his friends, in the South and West, as ‘a splendid sample +of our na-tive raw material, sir,’ and was much esteemed for his +devotion to rational Liberty; for the better propagation whereof he +usually carried a brace of revolving pistols in his coat pocket, with +seven barrels a-piece. He also carried, amongst other trinkets, a +sword-stick, which he called his ‘Tickler.’ and a great knife, which +(for he was a man of a pleasant turn of humour) he called ‘Ripper,’ in +allusion to its usefulness as a means of ventilating the stomach of +any adversary in a close contest. He had used these weapons with +distinguished effect in several instances, all duly chronicled in the +newspapers; and was greatly beloved for the gallant manner in which +he had ‘jobbed out’ the eye of one gentleman, as he was in the act of +knocking at his own street-door. + +Mr Chollop was a man of a roving disposition; and, in any less advanced +community, might have been mistaken for a violent vagabond. But his fine +qualities being perfectly understood and appreciated in those regions +where his lot was cast, and where he had many kindred spirits to consort +with, he may be regarded as having been born under a fortunate star, +which is not always the case with a man so much before the age in which +he lives. Preferring, with a view to the gratification of his tickling +and ripping fancies, to dwell upon the outskirts of society, and in the +more remote towns and cities, he was in the habit of emigrating from +place to place, and establishing in each some business--usually a +newspaper--which he presently sold; for the most part closing the +bargain by challenging, stabbing, pistolling, or gouging the new editor, +before he had quite taken possession of the property. + +He had come to Eden on a speculation of this kind, but had abandoned it, +and was about to leave. He always introduced himself to strangers as +a worshipper of Freedom; was the consistent advocate of Lynch law, +and slavery; and invariably recommended, both in print and speech, +the ‘tarring and feathering’ of any unpopular person who differed from +himself. He called this ‘planting the standard of civilization in the +wilder gardens of My country.’ + +There is little doubt that Chollop would have planted this standard in +Eden at Mark’s expense, in return for his plainness of speech (for the +genuine Freedom is dumb, save when she vaunts herself), but for the +utter desolation and decay prevailing in the settlement, and his own +approaching departure from it. As it was, he contented himself with +showing Mark one of the revolving-pistols, and asking him what he +thought of that weapon. + +‘It ain’t long since I shot a man down with that, sir, in the State of +IllinOY,’ observed Chollop. + +‘Did you, indeed!’ said Mark, without the smallest agitation. ‘Very free +of you. And very independent!’ + +‘I shot him down, sir,’ pursued Chollop, ‘for asserting in the Spartan +Portico, a tri-weekly journal, that the ancient Athenians went a-head of +the present Locofoco Ticket.’ + +‘And what’s that?’ asked Mark. + +‘Europian not to know,’ said Chollop, smoking placidly. ‘Europian +quite!’ + +After a short devotion to the interests of the magic circle, he resumed +the conversation by observing: + +‘You won’t half feel yourself at home in Eden, now?’ + +‘No,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t.’ + +‘You miss the imposts of your country. You miss the house dues?’ +observed Chollop. + +‘And the houses--rather,’ said Mark. + +‘No window dues here, sir,’ observed Chollop. + +‘And no windows to put ‘em on,’ said Mark. + +‘No stakes, no dungeons, no blocks, no racks, no scaffolds, no +thumbscrews, no pikes, no pillories,’ said Chollop. + +‘Nothing but rewolwers and bowie-knives,’ returned Mark. ‘And what are +they? Not worth mentioning!’ + +The man who had met them on the night of their arrival came crawling up +at this juncture, and looked in at the door. + +‘Well, sir,’ said Chollop. ‘How do YOU git along?’ + +He had considerable difficulty in getting along at all, and said as much +in reply. + +‘Mr Co. And me, sir,’ observed Chollop, ‘are disputating a piece. He +ought to be slicked up pretty smart to disputate between the Old World +and the New, I do expect?’ + +‘Well!’ returned the miserable shadow. ‘So he had.’ + +‘I was merely observing, sir,’ said Mark, addressing this new visitor, +‘that I looked upon the city in which we have the honour to live, as +being swampy. What’s your sentiments?’ + +‘I opinionate it’s moist perhaps, at certain times,’ returned the man. + +‘But not as moist as England, sir?’ cried Chollop, with a fierce +expression in his face. + +‘Oh! Not as moist as England; let alone its Institutions,’ said the man. + +‘I should hope there ain’t a swamp in all Americay, as don’t whip THAT +small island into mush and molasses,’ observed Chollop, decisively. ‘You +bought slick, straight, and right away, of Scadder, sir?’ to Mark. + +He answered in the affirmative. Mr Chollop winked at the other citizen. + +‘Scadder is a smart man, sir? He is a rising man? He is a man as will +come up’ards, right side up, sir?’ Mr Chollop winked again at the other +citizen. + +‘He should have his right side very high up, if I had my way,’ said +Mark. ‘As high up as the top of a good tall gallows, perhaps.’ + +Mr Chollop was so delighted at the smartness of his excellent countryman +having been too much for the Britisher, and at the Britisher’s resenting +it, that he could contain himself no longer, and broke forth in a shout +of delight. But the strangest exposition of this ruling passion was +in the other--the pestilence-stricken, broken, miserable shadow of a +man--who derived so much entertainment from the circumstance that he +seemed to forget his own ruin in thinking of it, and laughed outright +when he said ‘that Scadder was a smart man, and had draw’d a lot of +British capital that way, as sure as sun-up.’ + +After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr Hannibal Chollop sat smoking and +improving the circle, without making any attempts either to converse or +to take leave; apparently labouring under the not uncommon delusion +that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert +another man’s house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was +a delicate attention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody +could ever tire. At last he rose. + +‘I am a-going easy,’ he observed. + +Mark entreated him to take particular care of himself. + +‘Afore I go,’ he said sternly, ‘I have got a leetle word to say to you. +You are darnation ‘cute, you are.’ + +Mark thanked him for the compliment. + +‘But you are much too ‘cute to last. I can’t con-ceive of any spotted +Painter in the bush, as ever was so riddled through and through as you +will be, I bet.’ + +‘What for?’ asked Mark. + +‘We must be cracked up, sir,’ retorted Chollop, in a tone of menace. +‘You are not now in A despotic land. We are a model to the airth, and +must be jist cracked-up, I tell you.’ + +‘What! I speak too free, do I?’ cried Mark. + +‘I have draw’d upon A man, and fired upon A man for less,’ said Chollop, +frowning. ‘I have know’d strong men obleeged to make themselves uncommon +skase for less. I have know’d men Lynched for less, and beaten into +punkin’-sarse for less, by an enlightened people. We are the intellect +and virtue of the airth, the cream of human natur’, and the flower +Of moral force. Our backs is easy ris. We must be cracked-up, or they +rises, and we snarls. We shows our teeth, I tell you, fierce. You’d +better crack us up, you had!’ + +After the delivery of this caution, Mr Chollop departed; with Ripper, +Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the shortest notice. + +‘Come out from under the blanket, sir,’ said Mark, ‘he’s gone. What’s +this!’ he added softly; kneeling down to look into his partner’s +face, and taking his hot hand. ‘What’s come of all that chattering and +swaggering? He’s wandering in his mind to-night, and don’t know me!’ + +Martin indeed was dangerously ill; very near his death. He lay in that +state many days, during which time Mark’s poor friends, regardless of +themselves, attended him. Mark, fatigued in mind and body; working +all the day and sitting up at night; worn with hard living and the +unaccustomed toil of his new life; surrounded by dismal and discouraging +circumstances of every kind; never complained or yielded in the least +degree. If ever he had thought Martin selfish or inconsiderate, or had +deemed him energetic only by fits and starts, and then too passive for +their desperate fortunes, he now forgot it all. He remembered nothing +but the better qualities of his fellow-wanderer, and was devoted to him, +heart and hand. + +Many weeks elapsed before Martin was strong enough to move about with +the help of a stick and Mark’s arm; and even then his recovery, for want +of wholesome air and proper nourishment, was very slow. He was yet in a +feeble and weak condition, when the misfourtune he had so much dreaded +fell upon them. Mark was taken ill. + +Mark fought against it; but the malady fought harder, and his efforts +were in vain. + +‘Floored for the present, sir,’ he said one morning, sinking back upon +his bed; ‘but jolly!’ + +Floored indeed, and by a heavy blow! As any one but Martin might have +known beforehand. + +If Mark’s friends had been kind to Martin (and they had been very), they +were twenty times kinder to Mark. And now it was Martin’s turn to work, +and sit beside the bed and watch, and listen through the long, long +nights, to every sound in the gloomy wilderness; and hear poor Mr +Tapley, in his wandering fancy, playing at skittles in the Dragon, +making love-remonstrances to Mrs Lupin, getting his sea-legs on board +the Screw, travelling with old Tom Pinch on English roads, and burning +stumps of trees in Eden, all at once. + +But whenever Martin gave him drink or medicine, or tended him in any +way, or came into the house returning from some drudgery without, the +patient Mr Tapley brightened up and cried: ‘I’m jolly, sir; ‘I’m jolly!’ + +Now, when Martin began to think of this, and to look at Mark as he lay +there; never reproaching him by so much as an expression of regret; +never murmuring; always striving to be manful and staunch; he began to +think, how was it that this man who had had so few advantages, was so +much better than he who had had so many? And attendance upon a sick bed, +but especially the sick bed of one whom we have been accustomed to see +in full activity and vigour, being a great breeder of reflection, he +began to ask himself in what they differed. + +He was assisted in coming to a conclusion on this head by the frequent +presence of Mark’s friend, their fellow-passenger across the ocean, +which suggested to him that in regard to having aided her, for example, +they had differed very much. Somehow he coupled Tom Pinch with this +train of reflection; and thinking that Tom would be very likely to have +struck up the same sort of acquaintance under similar circumstances, +began to think in what respects two people so extremely different were +like each other, and were unlike him. At first sight there was nothing +very distressing in these meditations, but they did undoubtedly distress +him for all that. + +Martin’s nature was a frank and generous one; but he had been bred up +in his grandfather’s house; and it will usually be found that the +meaner domestic vices propagate themselves to be their own antagonists. +Selfishness does this especially; so do suspicion, cunning, stealth, and +covetous propensities. Martin had unconsciously reasoned as a child, ‘My +guardian takes so much thought of himself, that unless I do the like by +MYself, I shall be forgotten.’ So he had grown selfish. + +But he had never known it. If any one had taxed him with the vice, he +would have indignantly repelled the accusation, and conceived himself +unworthily aspersed. He never would have known it, but that being newly +risen from a bed of dangerous sickness, to watch by such another couch, +he felt how nearly Self had dropped into the grave, and what a poor +dependent, miserable thing it was. + +It was natural for him to reflect--he had months to do it in--upon his +own escape, and Mark’s extremity. This led him to consider which of them +could be the better spared, and why? Then the curtain slowly rose a very +little way; and Self, Self, Self, was shown below. + +He asked himself, besides, when dreading Mark’s decease (as all men do +and must, at such a time), whether he had done his duty by him, and had +deserved and made a good response to his fidelity and zeal. No. Short +as their companionship had been, he felt in many, many instances, that +there was blame against himself; and still inquiring why, the curtain +slowly rose a little more, and Self, Self, Self, dilated on the scene. + +It was long before he fixed the knowledge of himself so firmly in his +mind that he could thoroughly discern the truth; but in the hideous +solitude of that most hideous place, with Hope so far removed, Ambition +quenched, and Death beside him rattling at the very door, reflection +came, as in a plague-beleaguered town; and so he felt and knew the +failing of his life, and saw distinctly what an ugly spot it was. + +Eden was a hard school to learn so hard a lesson in; but there were +teachers in the swamp and thicket, and the pestilential air, who had a +searching method of their own. + +He made a solemn resolution that when his strength returned he would not +dispute the point or resist the conviction, but would look upon it as an +established fact, that selfishness was in his breast, and must be rooted +out. He was so doubtful (and with justice) of his own character, that he +determined not to say one word of vain regret or good resolve to Mark, +but steadily to keep his purpose before his own eyes solely; and there +was not a jot of pride in this; nothing but humility and steadfastness; +the best armour he could wear. So low had Eden brought him down. So high +had Eden raised him up. + +After a long and lingering illness (in certain forlorn stages of which, +when too far gone to speak, he had feebly written ‘jolly!’ on a slate), +Mark showed some symptoms of returning health. They came and went, and +flickered for a time; but he began to mend at last decidedly; and after +that continued to improve from day to day. + +As soon as he was well enough to talk without fatigue, Martin consulted +him upon a project he had in his mind, and which a few months back he +would have carried into execution without troubling anybody’s head but +his own. + +‘Ours is a desperate case,’ said Martin. ‘Plainly. The place is +deserted; its failure must have become known; and selling what we have +bought to any one, for anything, is hopeless, even if it were honest. We +left home on a mad enterprise, and have failed. The only hope left +us, the only one end for which we have now to try, is to quit this +settlement for ever, and get back to England. Anyhow! by any means! only +to get back there, Mark.’ + +‘That’s all, sir,’ returned Mr Tapley, with a significant stress upon +the words; ‘only that!’ + +‘Now, upon this side of the water,’ said Martin, ‘we have but one friend +who can help us, and that is Mr Bevan.’ + +‘I thought of him when you was ill,’ said Mark. + +‘But for the time that would be lost, I would even write to my +grandfather,’ Martin went on to say, ‘and implore him for money to free +us from this trap into which we were so cruelly decoyed. Shall I try Mr +Bevan first?’ + +‘He’s a very pleasant sort of a gentleman,’ said Mark. ‘I think so.’ + +‘The few goods we brought here, and in which we spent our money, would +produce something if sold,’ resumed Martin; ‘and whatever they realise +shall be paid him instantly. But they can’t be sold here.’ + +‘There’s nobody but corpses to buy ‘em,’ said Mr Tapley, shaking his +head with a rueful air, ‘and pigs.’ + +‘Shall I tell him so, and only ask him for money enough to enable us by +the cheapest means to reach New York, or any port from which we may hope +to get a passage home, by serving in any capacity? Explaining to him +at the same time how I am connected, and that I will endeavour to +repay him, even through my grandfather, immediately on our arrival in +England?’ + +‘Why to be sure,’ said Mark: ‘he can only say no, and he may say yes. If +you don’t mind trying him, sir--’ + +‘Mind!’ exclaimed Martin. ‘I am to blame for coming here, and I would do +anything to get away. I grieve to think of the past. If I had taken your +opinion sooner, Mark, we never should have been here, I am certain.’ + +Mr Tapley was very much surprised at this admission, but protested, with +great vehemence, that they would have been there all the same; and that +he had set his heart upon coming to Eden, from the first word he had +ever heard of it. + +Martin then read him a letter to Mr Bevan, which he had already +prepared. It was frankly and ingenuously written, and described their +situation without the least concealment; plainly stated the miseries +they had undergone; and preferred their request in modest but +straightforward terms. Mark highly commended it; and they determined to +dispatch it by the next steamboat going the right way, that might call +to take in wood at Eden--where there was plenty of wood to spare. +Not knowing how to address Mr Bevan at his own place of abode, Martin +superscribed it to the care of the memorable Mr Norris of New York, +and wrote upon the cover an entreaty that it might be forwarded without +delay. + +More than a week elapsed before a boat appeared; but at length they were +awakened very early one morning by the high-pressure snorting of +the ‘Esau Slodge;’ named after one of the most remarkable men in the +country, who had been very eminent somewhere. Hurrying down to the +landing-place, they got it safe on board; and waiting anxiously to see +the boat depart, stopped up the gangway; an instance of neglect which +caused the ‘Capting’ of the Esau Slodge to ‘wish he might be sifted fine +as flour, and whittled small as chips; that if they didn’t come off that +there fixing right smart too, he’d spill ‘em in the drink;’ whereby the +Capting metaphorically said he’d throw them in the river. + +They were not likely to receive an answer for eight or ten weeks at the +earliest. In the meantime they devoted such strength as they had to +the attempted improvement of their land; to clearing some of it, and +preparing it for useful purposes. Monstrously defective as their farming +was, still it was better than their neighbours’; for Mark had some +practical knowledge of such matters, and Martin learned of him; whereas +the other settlers who remained upon the putrid swamp (a mere handful, +and those withered by disease), appeared to have wandered there with +the idea that husbandry was the natural gift of all mankind. They helped +each other after their own manner in these struggles, and in all others; +but they worked as hopelessly and sadly as a gang of convicts in a penal +settlement. + +Often at night when Mark and Martin were alone, and lying down to sleep, +they spoke of home, familiar places, houses, roads, and people whom they +knew; sometimes in the lively hope of seeing them again, and sometimes +with a sorrowful tranquillity, as if that hope were dead. It was a +source of great amazement to Mark Tapley to find, pervading all these +conversations, a singular alteration in Martin. + +‘I don’t know what to make of him,’ he thought one night, ‘he ain’t what +I supposed. He don’t think of himself half as much. I’ll try him again. +Asleep, sir?’ + +‘No, Mark.’ + +‘Thinking of home, sir?’ + +‘Yes, Mark.’ + +‘So was I, sir. I was wondering how Mr Pinch and Mr Pecksniff gets on +now.’ + +‘Poor Tom!’ said Martin, thoughtfully. + +‘Weak-minded man, sir,’ observed Mr Tapley. ‘Plays the organ for +nothing, sir. Takes no care of himself?’ + +‘I wish he took a little more, indeed,’ said Martin. ‘Though I don’t +know why I should. We shouldn’t like him half as well, perhaps.’ + +‘He gets put upon, sir,’ hinted Mark. + +‘Yes!’ said Martin, after a short silence. ‘I know that, Mark.’ + +He spoke so regretfully that his partner abandoned the theme, and was +silent for a short time until he had thought of another. + +‘Ah, sir!’ said Mark, with a sigh. ‘Dear me! You’ve ventured a good deal +for a young lady’s love!’ + +‘I tell you what. I’m not so sure of that, Mark,’ was the reply; so +hastily and energetically spoken, that Martin sat up in his bed to give +it. ‘I begin to be far from clear upon it. You may depend upon it she is +very unhappy. She has sacrificed her peace of mind; she has endangered +her interests very much; she can’t run away from those who are jealous +of her, and opposed to her, as I have done. She has to endure, Mark; to +endure without the possibility of action, poor girl! I begin to think +that she has more to bear than ever I had. Upon my soul I do!’ + +Mr Tapley opened his eyes wide in the dark; but did not interrupt. + +‘And I’ll tell you a secret, Mark,’ said Martin, ‘since we ARE upon this +subject. That ring--’ + +‘Which ring, sir?’ Mark inquired, opening his eyes still wider. + +‘That ring she gave me when we parted, Mark. She bought it; bought it; +knowing I was poor and proud (Heaven help me! Proud!) and wanted money.’ + +‘Who says so, sir?’ asked Mark. + +‘I say so. I know it. I thought of it, my good fellow, hundreds of +times, while you were lying ill. And like a beast, I took it from her +hand, and wore it on my own, and never dreamed of this even at the +moment when I parted with it, when some faint glimmering of the truth +might surely have possessed me! But it’s late,’ said Martin, checking +himself, ‘and you are weak and tired, I know. You only talk to cheer me +up. Good night! God bless you, Mark!’ + +‘God bless you, sir! But I’m reg’larly defrauded,’ thought Mr Tapley, +turning round with a happy face. ‘It’s a swindle. I never entered for +this sort of service. There’ll be no credit in being jolly with HIM!’ + +The time wore on, and other steamboats coming from the point on which +their hopes were fixed, arrived to take in wood; but still no answer +to the letter. Rain, heat, foul slime, and noxious vapour, with all the +ills and filthy things they bred, prevailed. The earth, the air, the +vegetation, and the water that they drank, all teemed with deadly +properties. Their fellow-passenger had lost two children long before; +and buried now her last. Such things are much too common to be widely +known or cared for. Smart citizens grow rich, and friendless victims +smart and die, and are forgotten. That is all. + +At last a boat came panting up the ugly river, and stopped at Eden. Mark +was waiting at the wood hut when it came, and had a letter handed to +him from on board. He bore it off to Martin. They looked at one another, +trembling. + +‘It feels heavy,’ faltered Martin. And opening it a little roll of +dollar-notes fell out upon the ground. + +What either of them said, or did, or felt, at first, neither of them +knew. All Mark could ever tell was, that he was at the river’s bank +again out of breath, before the boat had gone, inquiring when it would +retrace its track and put in there. + +The answer was, in ten or twelve days; notwithstanding which they began +to get their goods together and to tie them up that very night. When +this stage of excitement was passed, each of them believed (they found +this out, in talking of it afterwards) that he would surely die before +the boat returned. + +They lived, however, and it came, after the lapse of three long crawling +weeks. At sunrise, on an autumn day, they stood upon her deck. + +‘Courage! We shall meet again!’ cried Martin, waving his hand to two +thin figures on the bank. ‘In the Old World!’ + +‘Or in the next one,’ added Mark below his breath. ‘To see them standing +side by side, so quiet, is a’most the worst of all!’ + +They looked at one another as the vessel moved away, and then looked +backward at the spot from which it hurried fast. The log-house, with the +open door, and drooping trees about it; the stagnant morning mist, and +red sun, dimly seen beyond; the vapour rising up from land and river; +the quick stream making the loathsome banks it washed more flat and +dull; how often they returned in dreams! How often it was happiness to +wake and find them Shadows that had vanished! + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR + +IN WHICH THE TRAVELLERS MOVE HOMEWARD, AND ENCOUNTER SOME DISTINGUISHED +CHARACTERS UPON THE WAY + + +Among the passengers on board the steamboat, there was a faint gentleman +sitting on a low camp-stool, with his legs on a high barrel of flour, as +if he were looking at the prospect with his ankles, who attracted their +attention speedily. + +He had straight black hair, parted up the middle of his head and hanging +down upon his coat; a little fringe of hair upon his chin; wore no +neckcloth; a white hat; a suit of black, long in the sleeves and short +in the legs; soiled brown stockings and laced shoes. His complexion, +naturally muddy, was rendered muddier by too strict an economy of soap +and water; and the same observation will apply to the washable part +of his attire, which he might have changed with comfort to himself and +gratification to his friends. He was about five and thirty; was crushed +and jammed up in a heap, under the shade of a large green cotton +umbrella; and ruminated over his tobacco-plug like a cow. + +He was not singular, to be sure, in these respects; for every gentleman +on board appeared to have had a difference with his laundress and to +have left off washing himself in early youth. Every gentleman, too, +was perfectly stopped up with tight plugging, and was dislocated in +the greater part of his joints. But about this gentleman there was a +peculiar air of sagacity and wisdom, which convinced Martin that he was +no common character; and this turned out to be the case. + +‘How do you do sir?’ said a voice in Martin’s ear + +‘How do you do sir?’ said Martin. + +It was a tall thin gentleman who spoke to him, with a carpet-cap on, +and a long loose coat of green baize, ornamented about the pockets with +black velvet. + +‘You air from Europe, sir?’ + +‘I am,’ said Martin. + +‘You air fortunate, sir.’ + +Martin thought so too; but he soon discovered that the gentleman and he +attached different meanings to this remark. + +‘You air fortunate, sir, in having an opportunity of beholding our +Elijah Pogram, sir.’ + +‘Your Elijahpogram!’ said Martin, thinking it was all one word, and a +building of some sort. + +‘Yes sir.’ + +Martin tried to look as if he understood him, but he couldn’t make it +out. + +‘Yes, sir,’ repeated the gentleman, ‘our Elijah Pogram, sir, is, at this +minute, identically settin’ by the engine biler.’ + +The gentleman under the umbrella put his right forefinger to his +eyebrow, as if he were revolving schemes of state. + +‘That is Elijah Pogram, is it?’ said Martin. + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied the other. ‘That is Elijah Pogram.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Martin. ‘I am astonished.’ But he had not the least idea +who this Elijah Pogram was; having never heard the name in all his life. + +‘If the biler of this vessel was Toe bust, sir,’ said his new +acquaintance, ‘and Toe bust now, this would be a festival day in the +calendar of despotism; pretty nigh equallin’, sir, in its effects upon +the human race, our Fourth of glorious July. Yes, sir, that is the +Honourable Elijah Pogram, Member of Congress; one of the master-minds of +our country, sir. There is a brow, sir, there!’ + +‘Quite remarkable,’ said Martin. + +‘Yes, sir. Our own immortal Chiggle, sir, is said to have observed, +when he made the celebrated Pogram statter in marble, which rose so much +con-test and preju-dice in Europe, that the brow was more than mortal. +This was before the Pogram Defiance, and was, therefore, a pre-diction, +cruel smart.’ + +‘What is the Pogram Defiance?’ asked Martin, thinking, perhaps, it was +the sign of a public-house. + +‘An o-ration, sir,’ returned his friend. + +‘Oh! to be sure,’ cried Martin. ‘What am I thinking of! It defied--’ + +‘It defied the world, sir,’ said the other, gravely. ‘Defied the world +in general to com-pete with our country upon any hook; and devellop’d +our internal resources for making war upon the universal airth. You +would like to know Elijah Pogram, sir?’ + +‘If you please,’ said Martin. + +‘Mr Pogram,’ said the stranger--Mr Pogram having overheard every word of +the dialogue--‘this is a gentleman from Europe, sir; from England, sir. +But gen’rous ene-mies may meet upon the neutral sile of private life, I +think.’ + +The languid Mr Pogram shook hands with Martin, like a clock-work figure +that was just running down. But he made amends by chewing like one that +was just wound up. + +‘Mr Pogram,’ said the introducer, ‘is a public servant, sir. When +Congress is recessed, he makes himself acquainted with those free United +States, of which he is the gifted son.’ + +It occurred to Martin that if the Honourable Elijah Pogram had stayed at +home, and sent his shoes upon a tour, they would have answered the +same purpose; for they were the only part of him in a situation to see +anything. + +In course of time, however, Mr Pogram rose; and having ejected certain +plugging consequences which would have impeded his articulation, took up +a position where there was something to lean against, and began to talk +to Martin; shading himself with the green umbrella all the time. + +As he began with the words, ‘How do you like--?’ Martin took him up and +said: + +‘The country, I presume?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Elijah Pogram. A knot of passengers gathered round to +hear what followed; and Martin heard his friend say, as he whispered +to another friend, and rubbed his hands, ‘Pogram will smash him into +sky-blue fits, I know!’ + +‘Why,’ said Martin, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘I have learned by +experience, that you take an unfair advantage of a stranger, when you +ask that question. You don’t mean it to be answered, except in one way. +Now, I don’t choose to answer it in that way, for I cannot honestly +answer it in that way. And therefore, I would rather not answer it at +all.’ + +But Mr Pogram was going to make a great speech in the next session +about foreign relations, and was going to write strong articles on the +subject; and as he greatly favoured the free and independent custom (a +very harmless and agreeable one) of procuring information of any sort +in any kind of confidence, and afterwards perverting it publicly in any +manner that happened to suit him, he had determined to get at Martin’s +opinions somehow or other. For if he could have got nothing out of +him, he would have had to invent it for him, and that would have been +laborious. He made a mental note of his answer, and went in again. + +‘You are from Eden, sir? How did you like Eden?’ + +Martin said what he thought of that part of the country, in pretty +strong terms. + +‘It is strange,’ said Pogram, looking round upon the group, ‘this hatred +of our country, and her Institutions! This national antipathy is deeply +rooted in the British mind!’ + +‘Good Heaven, sir,’ cried Martin. ‘Is the Eden Land Corporation, with Mr +Scadder at its head, and all the misery it has worked, at its door, an +Institution of America? A part of any form of government that ever was +known or heard of?’ + +‘I con-sider the cause of this to be,’ said Pogram, looking round again +and taking himself up where Martin had interrupted him, ‘partly jealousy +and pre-judice, and partly the nat’ral unfitness of the British people +to appreciate the ex-alted Institutions of our native land. I expect, +sir,’ turning to Martin again, ‘that a gentleman named Chollop happened +in upon you during your lo-cation in the town of Eden?’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Martin; ‘but my friend can answer this better than I +can, for I was very ill at the time. Mark! The gentleman is speaking of +Mr Chollop.’ + +‘Oh. Yes, sir. Yes. I see him,’ observed Mark. + +‘A splendid example of our na-tive raw material, sir?’ said Pogram, +interrogatively. + +‘Indeed, sir!’ cried Mark. + +The Honourable Elijah Pogram glanced at his friends as though he would +have said, ‘Observe this! See what follows!’ and they rendered tribute +to the Pogram genius by a gentle murmur. + +‘Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man, quite fresh from Natur’s +mould!’ said Pogram, with enthusiasm. ‘He is a true-born child of this +free hemisphere! Verdant as the mountains of our country; bright and +flowing as our mineral Licks; unspiled by withering conventionalities +as air our broad and boundless Perearers! Rough he may be. So air +our Barrs. Wild he may be. So air our Buffalers. But he is a child of +Natur’, and a child of Freedom; and his boastful answer to the Despot +and the Tyrant is, that his bright home is in the Settin Sun.’ + +Part of this referred to Chollop, and part to a Western postmaster, who, +being a public defaulter not very long before (a character not at all +uncommon in America), had been removed from office; and on whose behalf +Mr Pogram (he voted for Pogram) had thundered the last sentence from +his seat in Congress, at the head of an unpopular President. It told +brilliantly; for the bystanders were delighted, and one of them said to +Martin, ‘that he guessed he had now seen something of the eloquential +aspect of our country, and was chawed up pritty small.’ + +Mr Pogram waited until his hearers were calm again, before he said to +Mark: + +‘You do not seem to coincide, sir?’ + +‘Why,’ said Mark, ‘I didn’t like him much; and that’s the truth, sir. I +thought he was a bully; and I didn’t admire his carryin’ them murderous +little persuaders, and being so ready to use ‘em.’ + +‘It’s singler!’ said Pogram, lifting his umbrella high enough to +look all round from under it. ‘It’s strange! You observe the settled +opposition to our Institutions which pervades the British mind!’ + +‘What an extraordinary people you are!’ cried Martin. ‘Are Mr Chollop +and the class he represents, an Institution here? Are pistols with +revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives, and such things, +Institutions on which you pride yourselves? Are bloody duels, brutal +combats, savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing in the streets, +your Institutions! Why, I shall hear next that Dishonour and Fraud are +among the Institutions of the great republic!’ + +The moment the words passed his lips, the Honourable Elijah Pogram +looked round again. + +‘This morbid hatred of our Institutions,’ he observed, ‘is quite a study +for the psychological observer. He’s alludin’ to Repudiation now!’ + +‘Oh! you may make anything an Institution if you like,’ said Martin, +laughing, ‘and I confess you had me there, for you certainly have made +that one. But the greater part of these things are one Institution with +us, and we call it by the generic name of Old Bailey!’ + +The bell being rung for dinner at this moment, everybody ran away +into the cabin, whither the Honourable Elijah Pogram fled with such +precipitation that he forgot his umbrella was up, and fixed it so +tightly in the cabin door that it could neither be let down nor got out. +For a minute or so this accident created a perfect rebellion among the +hungry passengers behind, who, seeing the dishes, and hearing the knives +and forks at work, well knew what would happen unless they got there +instantly, and were nearly mad; while several virtuous citizens at the +table were in deadly peril of choking themselves in their unnatural +efforts to get rid of all the meat before these others came. + +They carried the umbrella by storm, however, and rushed in at the +breach. The Honourable Elijah Pogram and Martin found themselves, after +a severe struggle, side by side, as they might have come together in the +pit of a London theatre; and for four whole minutes afterwards, Pogram +was snapping up great blocks of everything he could get hold of, like a +raven. When he had taken this unusually protracted dinner, he began +to talk to Martin; and begged him not to have the least delicacy in +speaking with perfect freedom to him, for he was a calm philosopher. +Which Martin was extremely glad to hear; for he had begun to speculate +on Elijah being a disciple of that other school of republican +philosophy, whose noble sentiments are carved with knives upon a pupil’s +body, and written, not with pen and ink, but tar and feathers. + +‘What do you think of my countrymen who are present, sir?’ inquired +Elijah Pogram. + +‘Oh! very pleasant,’ said Martin. + +They were a very pleasant party. No man had spoken a word; every one had +been intent, as usual, on his own private gorging; and the greater part +of the company were decidedly dirty feeders. + +The Honourable Elijah Pogram looked at Martin as if he thought ‘You +don’t mean that, I know!’ and he was soon confirmed in this opinion. + +Sitting opposite to them was a gentleman in a high state of tobacco, who +wore quite a little beard, composed of the overflowing of that weed, as +they had dried about his mouth and chin; so common an ornament that it +would scarcely have attracted Martin’s observation, but that this good +citizen, burning to assert his equality against all comers, sucked his +knife for some moments, and made a cut with it at the butter, just as +Martin was in the act of taking some. There was a juiciness about the +deed that might have sickened a scavenger. + +When Elijah Pogram (to whom this was an every-day incident) saw that +Martin put the plate away, and took no butter, he was quite delighted, +and said, + +‘Well! The morbid hatred of you British to the Institutions of our +country is as-TONishing!’ + +‘Upon my life!’ cried Martin, in his turn. ‘This is the most wonderful +community that ever existed. A man deliberately makes a hog of himself, +and THAT’S an Institution!’ + +‘We have no time to ac-quire forms, sir,’ said Elijah Pogram. + +‘Acquire!’ cried Martin. ‘But it’s not a question of acquiring anything. +It’s a question of losing the natural politeness of a savage, and that +instinctive good breeding which admonishes one man not to offend and +disgust another. Don’t you think that man over the way, for instance, +naturally knows better, but considers it a very fine and independent +thing to be a brute in small matters?’ + +‘He is a na-tive of our country, and is nat’rally bright and spry, of +course,’ said Mr Pogram. + +‘Now, observe what this comes to, Mr Pogram,’ pursued Martin. ‘The +mass of your countrymen begin by stubbornly neglecting little social +observances, which have nothing to do with gentility, custom, usage, +government, or country, but are acts of common, decent, natural, human +politeness. You abet them in this, by resenting all attacks upon their +social offences as if they were a beautiful national feature. From +disregarding small obligations they come in regular course to disregard +great ones; and so refuse to pay their debts. What they may do, or what +they may refuse to do next, I don’t know; but any man may see if he +will, that it will be something following in natural succession, and a +part of one great growth, which is rotten at the root.’ + +The mind of Mr Pogram was too philosophical to see this; so they went on +deck again, where, resuming his former post, he chewed until he was in a +lethargic state, amounting to insensibility. + +After a weary voyage of several days, they came again to that same wharf +where Mark had been so nearly left behind, on the night of starting for +Eden. Captain Kedgick, the landlord, was standing there, and was greatly +surprised to see them coming from the boat. + +‘Why, what the ‘tarnal!’ cried the Captain. ‘Well! I do admire at this, +I do!’ + +‘We can stay at your house until to-morrow, Captain, I suppose?’ said +Martin. + +‘I reckon you can stay there for a twelvemonth if you like,’ retorted +Kedgick coolly. ‘But our people won’t best like your coming back.’ + +‘Won’t like it, Captain Kedgick!’ said Martin. + +‘They did expect you was a-going to settle,’ Kedgick answered, as he +shook his head. ‘They’ve been took in, you can’t deny!’ + +‘What do you mean?’ cried Martin. + +‘You didn’t ought to have received ‘em,’ said the Captain. ‘No you +didn’t!’ + +‘My good friend,’ returned Martin, ‘did I want to receive them? Was +it any act of mine? Didn’t you tell me they would rile up, and that I +should be flayed like a wild cat--and threaten all kinds of vengeance, +if I didn’t receive them?’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ returned the Captain. ‘But when our people’s +frills is out, they’re starched up pretty stiff, I tell you!’ + +With that, he fell into the rear to walk with Mark, while Martin and +Elijah Pogram went on to the National. + +‘We’ve come back alive, you see!’ said Mark. + +‘It ain’t the thing I did expect,’ the Captain grumbled. ‘A man ain’t +got no right to be a public man, unless he meets the public views. Our +fashionable people wouldn’t have attended his le-vee, if they had know’d +it.’ + +Nothing mollified the Captain, who persisted in taking it very ill +that they had not both died in Eden. The boarders at the National felt +strongly on the subject too; but it happened by good fortune that they +had not much time to think about this grievance, for it was suddenly +determined to pounce upon the Honourable Elijah Pogram, and give HIM a +le-vee forthwith. + +As the general evening meal of the house was over before the arrival of +the boat, Martin, Mark, and Pogram were taking tea and fixings at the +public table by themselves, when the deputation entered to announce this +honour; consisting of six gentlemen boarders and a very shrill boy. + +‘Sir!’ said the spokesman. + +‘Mr Pogram!’ cried the shrill boy. + +The spokesman thus reminded of the shrill boy’s presence, introduced +him. ‘Doctor Ginery Dunkle, sir. A gentleman of great poetical elements. +He has recently jined us here, sir, and is an acquisition to us, sir, +I do assure you. Yes, sir. Mr Jodd, sir. Mr Izzard, sir. Mr Julius Bib, +sir.’ + +‘Julius Washington Merryweather Bib,’ said the gentleman himself TO +himself. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir. Excuse me. Mr Julius Washington Merryweather +Bib, sir; a gentleman in the lumber line, sir, and much esteemed. +Colonel Groper, sir. Pro-fessor Piper, sir. My own name, sir, is Oscar +Buffum.’ + +Each man took one slide forward as he was named; butted at the +Honourable Elijah Pogram with his head; shook hands, and slid back +again. The introductions being completed, the spokesman resumed. + +‘Sir!’ + +‘Mr Pogram!’ cried the shrill boy. + +‘Perhaps,’ said the spokesman, with a hopeless look, ‘you will be so +good, Dr. Ginery Dunkle, as to charge yourself with the execution of our +little office, sir?’ + +As there was nothing the shrill boy desired more, he immediately stepped +forward. + +‘Mr Pogram! Sir! A handful of your fellow-citizens, sir, hearing of your +arrival at the National Hotel, and feeling the patriotic character of +your public services, wish, sir, to have the gratification of beholding +you, and mixing with you, sir; and unbending with you, sir, in those +moments which--’ + +‘Air,’ suggested Buffum. + +‘Which air so peculiarly the lot, sir, of our great and happy country.’ + +‘Hear!’ cried Colonel Grouper, in a loud voice. ‘Good! Hear him! Good!’ + +‘And therefore, sir,’ pursued the Doctor, ‘they request; as A mark Of +their respect; the honour of your company at a little le-Vee, sir, in +the ladies’ ordinary, at eight o’clock.’ + +Mr Pogram bowed, and said: + +‘Fellow countrymen!’ + +‘Good!’ cried the Colonel. ‘Hear, him! Good!’ + +Mr Pogram bowed to the Colonel individually, and then resumed. + +‘Your approbation of My labours in the common cause goes to My heart. At +all times and in all places; in the ladies’ ordinary, My friends, and in +the Battle Field--’ + +‘Good, very good! Hear him! Hear him!’ said the Colonel. + +‘The name of Pogram will be proud to jine you. And may it, My friends, +be written on My tomb, “He was a member of the Congress of our common +country, and was ac-Tive in his trust.”’ + +‘The Com-mittee, sir,’ said the shrill boy, ‘will wait upon you at five +minutes afore eight. I take My leave, sir!’ + +Mr Pogram shook hands with him, and everybody else, once more; and when +they came back again at five minutes before eight, they said, one by +one, in a melancholy voice, ‘How do you do, sir?’ and shook hands with +Mr Pogram all over again, as if he had been abroad for a twelvemonth in +the meantime, and they met, now, at a funeral. + +But by this time Mr Pogram had freshened himself up, and had composed +his hair and features after the Pogram statue, so that any one with half +an eye might cry out, ‘There he is! as he delivered the Defiance!’ +The Committee were embellished also; and when they entered the ladies’ +ordinary in a body, there was much clapping of hands from ladies and +gentlemen, accompanied by cries of ‘Pogram! Pogram!’ and some standing +up on chairs to see him. + +The object of the popular caress looked round the room as he walked up +it, and smiled; at the same time observing to the shrill boy, that he +knew something of the beauty of the daughters of their common country, +but had never seen it in such lustre and perfection as at that moment. +Which the shrill boy put in the paper next day; to Elijah Pogram’s great +surprise. + +‘We will re-quest you, sir, if you please,’ said Buffum, laying hands on +Mr Pogram as if he were taking his measure for a coat, ‘to stand up with +your back agin the wall right in the furthest corner, that there may +be more room for our fellow citizens. If you could set your back right +slap agin that curtain-peg, sir, keeping your left leg everlastingly +behind the stove, we should be fixed quite slick.’ + +Mr Pogram did as he was told, and wedged himself into such a little +corner that the Pogram statue wouldn’t have known him. + +The entertainments of the evening then began. Gentlemen brought ladies +up, and brought themselves up, and brought each other up; and asked +Elijah Pogram what he thought of this political question, and what +he thought of that; and looked at him, and looked at one another, and +seemed very unhappy indeed. The ladies on the chairs looked at Elijah +Pogram through their glasses, and said audibly, ‘I wish he’d speak. +Why don’t he speak? Oh, do ask him to speak!’ And Elijah Pogram looked +sometimes at the ladies and sometimes elsewhere, delivering senatorial +opinions, as he was asked for them. But the great end and object of the +meeting seemed to be, not to let Elijah Pogram out of the corner on any +account; so there they kept him, hard and fast. + +A great bustle at the door, in the course of the evening, announced the +arrival of some remarkable person; and immediately afterwards an elderly +gentleman, much excited, was seen to precipitate himself upon the crowd, +and battle his way towards the Honourable Elijah Pogram. Martin, who had +found a snug place of observation in a distant corner, where he +stood with Mark beside him (for he did not so often forget him now +as formerly, though he still did sometimes), thought he knew this +gentleman, but had no doubt of it, when he cried as loud as he could, +with his eyes starting out of his head: + +‘Sir, Mrs Hominy!’ + +‘Lord bless that woman, Mark. She has turned up again!’ + +‘Here she comes, sir,’ answered Mr Tapley. ‘Pogram knows her. A public +character! Always got her eye upon her country, sir! If that there +lady’s husband is of my opinion, what a jolly old gentleman he must be!’ + +A lane was made; and Mrs Hominy, with the aristocratic stalk, the pocket +handkerchief, the clasped hands, and the classical cap, came slowly up +it, in a procession of one. Mr Pogram testified emotions of delight on +seeing her, and a general hush prevailed. For it was known that when +a woman like Mrs Hominy encountered a man like Pogram, something +interesting must be said. + +Their first salutations were exchanged in a voice too low to reach the +impatient ears of the throng; but they soon became audible, for Mrs +Hominy felt her position, and knew what was expected of her. + +Mrs H. was hard upon him at first; and put him through a rigid catechism +in reference to a certain vote he had given, which she had found it +necessary, as the mother of the modern Gracchi, to deprecate in a line +by itself, set up expressly for the purpose in German text. But Mr +Pogram evading it by a well-timed allusion to the star-spangled banner, +which, it appeared, had the remarkable peculiarity of flouting the +breeze whenever it was hoisted where the wind blew, she forgave him. +They now enlarged on certain questions of tariff, commercial treaty, +boundary, importation and exportation with great effect. And Mrs Hominy +not only talked, as the saying is, like a book, but actually did talk +her own books, word for word. + +‘My! what is this!’ cried Mrs Hominy, opening a little note which was +handed her by her excited gentleman-usher. ‘Do tell! oh, well, now! on’y +think!’ + +And then she read aloud, as follows: + +‘Two literary ladies present their compliments to the mother of the +modern Gracchi, and claim her kind introduction, as their talented +countrywoman, to the honourable (and distinguished) Elijah Pogram, whom +the two L. L.’s have often contemplated in the speaking marble of the +soul-subduing Chiggle. On a verbal intimation from the mother of the M. +G., that she will comply with the request of the two L. L.’s, they will +have the immediate pleasure of joining the galaxy assembled to do honour +to the patriotic conduct of a Pogram. It may be another bond of union +between the two L. L.’s and the mother of the M. G. to observe, that the +two L. L.’s are Transcendental.’ + +Mrs Hominy promptly rose, and proceeded to the door, whence she +returned, after a minute’s interval, with the two L. L.’s, whom she led, +through the lane in the crowd, with all that stateliness of deportment +which was so remarkably her own, up to the great Elijah Pogram. It was +(as the shrill boy cried out in an ecstasy) quite the Last Scene from +Coriolanus. One of the L. L.’s wore a brown wig of uncommon size. +Sticking on the forehead of the other, by invisible means, was a massive +cameo, in size and shape like the raspberry tart which is ordinarily +sold for a penny, representing on its front the Capitol at Washington. + +‘Miss Toppit, and Miss Codger!’ said Mrs Hominy. + +‘Codger’s the lady so often mentioned in the English newspapers I should +think, sir,’ whispered Mark. ‘The oldest inhabitant as never remembers +anything.’ + +‘To be presented to a Pogram,’ said Miss Codger, ‘by a Hominy, indeed, +a thrilling moment is it in its impressiveness on what we call our +feelings. But why we call them so, or why impressed they are, or if +impressed they are at all, or if at all we are, or if there really is, +oh gasping one! a Pogram or a Hominy, or any active principle to which +we give those titles, is a topic, Spirit searching, light abandoned, +much too vast to enter on, at this unlooked-for crisis.’ + +‘Mind and matter,’ said the lady in the wig, ‘glide swift into the +vortex of immensity. Howls the sublime, and softly sleeps the calm +Ideal, in the whispering chambers of Imagination. To hear it, sweet +it is. But then, outlaughs the stern philosopher, and saith to the +Grotesque, “What ho! arrest for me that Agency. Go, bring it here!” And +so the vision fadeth.’ + +After this, they both took Mr Pogram by the hand, and pressed it to +their lips, as a patriotic palm. That homage paid, the mother of the +modern Gracchi called for chairs, and the three literary ladies went to +work in earnest, to bring poor Pogram out, and make him show himself in +all his brilliant colours. + +How Pogram got out of his depth instantly, and how the three L. L.’s +were never in theirs, is a piece of history not worth recording. Suffice +it, that being all four out of their depths, and all unable to swim, +they splashed up words in all directions, and floundered about famously. +On the whole, it was considered to have been the severest mental +exercise ever heard in the National Hotel. Tears stood in the shrill +boy’s eyes several times; and the whole company observed that their +heads ached with the effort--as well they might. + +When it at last became necessary to release Elijah Pogram from the +corner, and the Committee saw him safely back again to the next room, +they were fervent in their admiration. + +‘Which,’ said Mr Buffum, ‘must have vent, or it will bust. Toe you, +Mr Pogram, I am grateful. Toe-wards you, sir, I am inspired with lofty +veneration, and with deep e-mo-tion. The sentiment Toe which I would +propose to give ex-pression, sir, is this: “May you ever be as firm, +sir, as your marble statter! May it ever be as great a terror Toe its +ene-mies as you.”’ + +There is some reason to suppose that it was rather terrible to its +friends; being a statue of the Elevated or Goblin School, in which the +Honourable Elijah Pogram was represented as in a very high wind, with +his hair all standing on end, and his nostrils blown wide open. But Mr +Pogram thanked his friend and countryman for the aspiration to which he +had given utterance, and the Committee, after another solemn shaking of +hands, retired to bed, except the Doctor; who immediately repaired to +the newspaper-office, and there wrote a short poem suggested by the +events of the evening, beginning with fourteen stars, and headed, ‘A +Fragment. Suggested by witnessing the Honourable Elijah Pogram engaged +in a philosophical disputation with three of Columbia’s fairest +daughters. By Doctor Ginery Dunkle. Of Troy.’ + +If Pogram was as glad to get to bed as Martin was, he must have been +well rewarded for his labours. They started off again next day (Martin +and Mark previously disposing of their goods to the storekeepers of whom +they had purchased them, for anything they would bring), and were fellow +travellers to within a short distance of New York. When Pogram was about +to leave them he grew thoughtful, and after pondering for some time, +took Martin aside. + +‘We air going to part, sir,’ said Pogram. + +‘Pray don’t distress yourself,’ said Martin; ‘we must bear it.’ + +‘It ain’t that, sir,’ returned Pogram, ‘not at all. But I should wish +you to accept a copy of My oration.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Martin, ‘you are very good. I shall be most happy.’ + +‘It ain’t quite that, sir, neither,’ resumed Pogram; ‘air you bold +enough to introduce a copy into your country?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Martin. ‘Why not?’ + +‘Its sentiments air strong, sir,’ hinted Pogram, darkly. + +‘That makes no difference,’ said Martin. ‘I’ll take a dozen if you +like.’ + +‘No, sir,’ retorted Pogram. ‘Not A dozen. That is more than I require. +If you are content to run the hazard, sir, here is one for your Lord +Chancellor,’ producing it, ‘and one for Your principal Secretary of +State. I should wish them to see it, sir, as expressing what my opinions +air. That they may not plead ignorance at a future time. But don’t get +into danger, sir, on my account!’ + +‘There is not the least danger, I assure you,’ said Martin. So he put +the pamphlets in his pocket, and they parted. + +Mr Bevan had written in his letter that, at a certain time, which fell +out happily just then, he would be at a certain hotel in the city, +anxiously expecting to see them. To this place they repaired without a +moment’s delay. They had the satisfaction of finding him within; and of +being received by their good friend, with his own warmth and heartiness. + +‘I am truly sorry and ashamed,’ said Martin, ‘to have begged of you. But +look at us. See what we are, and judge to what we are reduced!’ + +‘So far from claiming to have done you any service,’ returned the other, +‘I reproach myself with having been, unwittingly, the original cause +of your misfortunes. I no more supposed you would go to Eden on such +representations as you received; or, indeed, that you would do anything +but be dispossessed, by the readiest means, of your idea that fortunes +were so easily made here; than I thought of going to Eden myself.’ + +‘The fact is, I closed with the thing in a mad and sanguine manner,’ +said Martin, ‘and the less said about it the better for me. Mark, here, +hadn’t a voice in the matter.’ + +‘Well! but he hadn’t a voice in any other matter, had he?’ returned Mr +Bevan; laughing with an air that showed his understanding of Mark and +Martin too. + +‘Not a very powerful one, I am afraid,’ said Martin with a blush. ‘But +live and learn, Mr Bevan! Nearly die and learn; we learn the quicker.’ + +‘Now,’ said their friend, ‘about your plans. You mean to return home at +once?’ + +‘Oh, I think so,’ returned Martin hastily, for he turned pale at the +thought of any other suggestion. ‘That is your opinion too, I hope?’ + +‘Unquestionably. For I don’t know why you ever came here; though it’s +not such an unusual case, I am sorry to say, that we need go any farther +into that. You don’t know that the ship in which you came over with our +friend General Fladdock, is in port, of course?’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Martin. + +‘Yes. And is advertised to sail to-morrow.’ + +This was tempting news, but tantalising too; for Martin knew that his +getting any employment on board a ship of that class was hopeless. The +money in his pocket would not pay one-fourth of the sum he had already +borrowed, and if it had been enough for their passage-money, he could +hardly have resolved to spend it. He explained this to Mr Bevan, and +stated what their project was. + +‘Why, that’s as wild as Eden every bit,’ returned his friend. ‘You must +take your passage like a Christian; at least, as like a Christian as a +fore-cabin passenger can; and owe me a few more dollars than you intend. +If Mark will go down to the ship and see what passengers there are, +and finds that you can go in her without being actually suffocated, my +advice is, go! You and I will look about us in the meantime (we won’t +call at the Norris’s unless you like), and we will all three dine +together in the afternoon.’ + +Martin had nothing to express but gratitude, and so it was arranged. +But he went out of the room after Mark, and advised him to take their +passage in the Screw, though they lay upon the bare deck; which Mr +Tapley, who needed no entreaty on the subject readily promised to do. + +When he and Martin met again, and were alone, he was in high spirits, +and evidently had something to communicate, in which he gloried very +much. + +‘I’ve done Mr Bevan, sir,’ said Mark. + +‘Done Mr Bevan!’ repeated Martin. + +‘The cook of the Screw went and got married yesterday, sir,’ said Mr +Tapley. + +Martin looked at him for farther explanation. + +‘And when I got on board, and the word was passed that it was me,’ said +Mark, ‘the mate he comes and asks me whether I’d engage to take this +said cook’s place upon the passage home. “For you’re used to it,” he +says; “you were always a-cooking for everybody on your passage out.” + And so I was,’ said Mark, ‘although I never cooked before, I’ll take my +oath.’ + +‘What did you say?’ demanded Martin. + +‘Say!’ cried Mark. ‘That I’d take anything I could get. “If that’s +so,” says the mate, “why, bring a glass of rum;” which they brought +according. And my wages, sir,’ said Mark in high glee, ‘pays your +passage; and I’ve put the rolling-pin in your berth to take it (it’s +the easy one up in the corner); and there we are, Rule Britannia, and +Britons strike home!’ + +‘There never was such a good fellow as you are!’ cried Martin seizing +him by the hand. ‘But what do you mean by “doing” Mr Bevan, Mark?’ + +‘Why, don’t you see?’ said Mark. ‘We don’t tell him, you know. We take +his money, but we don’t spend it, and we don’t keep it. What we do is, +write him a little note, explaining this engagement, and roll it up, +and leave it at the bar, to be given to him after we are gone. Don’t you +see?’ + +Martin’s delight in this idea was not inferior to Mark’s. It was all +done as he proposed. They passed a cheerful evening; slept at the hotel; +left the letter as arranged; and went off to the ship betimes next +morning, with such light hearts as the weight of their past miseries +engendered. + +‘Good-bye! a hundred thousand times good-bye!’ said Martin to their +friend. ‘How shall I remember all your kindness! How shall I ever thank +you!’ + +‘If you ever become a rich man, or a powerful one,’ returned his friend, +‘you shall try to make your Government more careful of its subjects when +they roam abroad to live. Tell it what you know of emigration in your +own case, and impress upon it how much suffering may be prevented with a +little pains!’ + +Cheerily, lads, cheerily! Anchor weighed. Ship in full sail. Her sturdy +bowsprit pointing true to England. America a cloud upon the sea behind +them! + +‘Why, Cook! what are you thinking of so steadily?’ said Martin. + +‘Why, I was a-thinking, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘that if I was a painter +and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?’ + +‘Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.’ + +‘No,’ said Mark. ‘That wouldn’t do for me, sir. I should want to draw it +like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; +like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like a +ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees +it--’ + +‘And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its +faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!’ said Martin. ‘Well, +Mark. Let us hope so.’ + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE + +ARRIVING IN ENGLAND, MARTIN WITNESSES A CEREMONY, FROM WHICH HE DERIVES +THE CHEERING INFORMATION THAT HE HAS NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN IN HIS ABSENCE + + +It was mid-day, and high water in the English port for which the Screw +was bound, when, borne in gallantly upon the fullness of the tide, she +let go her anchor in the river. + +Bright as the scene was; fresh, and full of motion; airy, free, and +sparkling; it was nothing to the life and exultation in the breasts of +the two travellers, at sight of the old churches, roofs, and darkened +chimney stacks of Home. The distant roar that swelled up hoarsely from +the busy streets, was music in their ears; the lines of people gazing +from the wharves, were friends held dear; the canopy of smoke that +overhung the town was brighter and more beautiful to them than if the +richest silks of Persia had been waving in the air. And though the water +going on its glistening track, turned, ever and again, aside to dance +and sparkle round great ships, and heave them up; and leaped from off +the blades of oars, a shower of diving diamonds; and wantoned with +the idle boats, and swiftly passed, in many a sportive chase, through +obdurate old iron rings, set deep into the stone-work of the quays; +not even it was half so buoyant, and so restless, as their fluttering +hearts, when yearning to set foot, once more, on native ground. + +A year had passed since those same spires and roofs had faded from their +eyes. It seemed to them, a dozen years. Some trifling changes, here +and there, they called to mind; and wondered that they were so few and +slight. In health and fortune, prospect and resource, they came back +poorer men than they had gone away. But it was home. And though home is +a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, +or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. + +Being set ashore, with very little money in their pockets, and no +definite plan of operation in their heads, they sought out a cheap +tavern, where they regaled upon a smoking steak, and certain flowing +mugs of beer, as only men just landed from the sea can revel in +the generous dainties of the earth. When they had feasted, as two +grateful-tempered giants might have done, they stirred the fire, drew +back the glowing curtain from the window, and making each a sofa for +himself, by union of the great unwieldy chairs, gazed blissfully into +the street. + +Even the street was made a fairy street, by being half hidden in an +atmosphere of steak, and strong, stout, stand-up English beer. For on +the window-glass hung such a mist, that Mr Tapley was obliged to rise +and wipe it with his handkerchief, before the passengers appeared like +common mortals. And even then, a spiral little cloud went curling up +from their two glasses of hot grog, which nearly hid them from each +other. + +It was one of those unaccountable little rooms which are never seen +anywhere but in a tavern, and are supposed to have got into taverns by +reason of the facilities afforded to the architect for getting drunk +while engaged in their construction. It had more corners in it than the +brain of an obstinate man; was full of mad closets, into which nothing +could be put that was not specially invented and made for that purpose; +had mysterious shelvings and bulkheads, and indications of staircases in +the ceiling; and was elaborately provided with a bell that rung in +the room itself, about two feet from the handle, and had no connection +whatever with any other part of the establishment. It was a little +below the pavement, and abutted close upon it; so that passengers grated +against the window-panes with their buttons, and scraped it with their +baskets; and fearful boys suddenly coming between a thoughtful guest +and the light, derided him, or put out their tongues as if he were a +physician; or made white knobs on the ends of their noses by flattening +the same against the glass, and vanished awfully, like spectres. + +Martin and Mark sat looking at the people as they passed, debating every +now and then what their first step should be. + +‘We want to see Miss Mary, of course,’ said Mark. + +‘Of course,’ said Martin. ‘But I don’t know where she is. Not having had +the heart to write in our distress--you yourself thought silence most +advisable--and consequently, never having heard from her since we left +New York the first time, I don’t know where she is, my good fellow.’ + +‘My opinion is, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘that what we’ve got to do is to +travel straight to the Dragon. There’s no need for you to go there, +where you’re known, unless you like. You may stop ten mile short of it. +I’ll go on. Mrs Lupin will tell me all the news. Mr Pinch will give me +every information that we want; and right glad Mr Pinch will be to do +it. My proposal is: To set off walking this afternoon. To stop when we +are tired. To get a lift when we can. To walk when we can’t. To do it at +once, and do it cheap.’ + +‘Unless we do it cheap, we shall have some difficulty in doing it at +all,’ said Martin, pulling out the bank, and telling it over in his +hand. + +‘The greater reason for losing no time, sir,’ replied Mark. ‘Whereas, +when you’ve seen the young lady; and know what state of mind the old +gentleman’s in, and all about it; then you’ll know what to do next.’ + +‘No doubt,’ said Martin. ‘You are quite right.’ + +They were raising their glasses to their lips, when their hands stopped +midway, and their gaze was arrested by a figure which slowly, very +slowly, and reflectively, passed the window at that moment. + +Mr Pecksniff. Placid, calm, but proud. Honestly proud. Dressed with +peculiar care, smiling with even more than usual blandness, pondering +on the beauties of his art with a mild abstraction from all sordid +thoughts, and gently travelling across the disc, as if he were a figure +in a magic lantern. + +As Mr Pecksniff passed, a person coming in the opposite direction +stopped to look after him with great interest and respect, almost with +veneration; and the landlord bouncing out of the house, as if he had +seen him too, joined this person, and spoke to him, and shook his head +gravely, and looked after Mr Pecksniff likewise. + +Martin and Mark sat staring at each other, as if they could not believe +it; but there stood the landlord, and the other man still. In spite of +the indignation with which this glimpse of Mr Pecksniff had inspired +him, Martin could not help laughing heartily. Neither could Mark. + +‘We must inquire into this!’ said Martin. ‘Ask the landlord in, Mark.’ + +Mr Tapley retired for that purpose, and immediately returned with their +large-headed host in safe convoy. + +‘Pray, landlord!’ said Martin, ‘who is that gentleman who passed just +now, and whom you were looking after?’ + +The landlord poked the fire as if, in his desire to make the most of +his answer, he had become indifferent even to the price of coals; and +putting his hands in his pockets, said, after inflating himself to give +still further effect to his reply: + +‘That, gentlemen, is the great Mr Pecksniff! The celebrated architect, +gentlemen!’ + +He looked from one to the other while he said it, as if he were ready to +assist the first man who might be overcome by the intelligence. + +‘The great Mr Pecksniff, the celebrated architect, gentlemen.’ said the +landlord, ‘has come down here, to help to lay the first stone of a new +and splendid public building.’ + +‘Is it to be built from his designs?’ asked Martin. + +‘The great Mr Pecksniff, the celebrated architect, gentlemen,’ +returned the landlord, who seemed to have an unspeakable delight in +the repetition of these words, ‘carried off the First Premium, and will +erect the building.’ + +‘Who lays the stone?’ asked Martin. + +‘Our member has come down express,’ returned the landlord. ‘No scrubs +would do for no such a purpose. Nothing less would satisfy our Directors +than our member in the House of Commons, who is returned upon the +Gentlemanly Interest.’ + +‘Which interest is that?’ asked Martin. + +‘What, don’t you know!’ returned the landlord. + +It was quite clear the landlord didn’t. They always told him at election +time, that it was the Gentlemanly side, and he immediately put on his +top-boots, and voted for it. + +‘When does the ceremony take place?’ asked Martin. + +‘This day,’ replied the landlord. Then pulling out his watch, he added, +impressively, ‘almost this minute.’ + +Martin hastily inquired whether there was any possibility of getting +in to witness it; and finding that there would be no objection to the +admittance of any decent person, unless indeed the ground were full, +hurried off with Mark, as hard as they could go. + +They were fortunate enough to squeeze themselves into a famous corner on +the ground, where they could see all that passed, without much dread of +being beheld by Mr Pecksniff in return. They were not a minute too soon, +for as they were in the act of congratulating each other, a great noise +was heard at some distance, and everybody looked towards the gate. +Several ladies prepared their pocket handkerchiefs for waving; and a +stray teacher belonging to the charity school being much cheered by +mistake, was immensely groaned at when detected. + +‘Perhaps he has Tom Pinch with him,’ Martin whispered Mr Tapley. + +‘It would be rather too much of a treat for him, wouldn’t it, sir?’ +whispered Mr Tapley in return. + +There was no time to discuss the probabilities either way, for the +charity school, in clean linen, came filing in two and two, so much to +the self-approval of all the people present who didn’t subscribe to +it, that many of them shed tears. A band of music followed, led by +a conscientious drummer who never left off. Then came a great many +gentlemen with wands in their hands, and bows on their breasts, whose +share in the proceedings did not appear to be distinctly laid down, and +who trod upon each other, and blocked up the entry for a considerable +period. These were followed by the Mayor and Corporation, all clustering +round the member for the Gentlemanly Interest; who had the great Mr +Pecksniff, the celebrated architect on his right hand, and conversed +with him familiarly as they came along. Then the ladies waved their +handkerchiefs, and the gentlemen their hats, and the charity children +shrieked, and the member for the Gentlemanly Interest bowed. + +Silence being restored, the member for the Gentlemanly Interest rubbed +his hands, and wagged his head, and looked about him pleasantly; and +there was nothing this member did, at which some lady or other did not +burst into an ecstatic waving of her pocket handkerchief. When he looked +up at the stone, they said how graceful! when he peeped into the hole, +they said how condescending! when he chatted with the Mayor, they +said how easy! when he folded his arms they cried with one accord, how +statesman-like! + +Mr Pecksniff was observed too, closely. When he talked to the Mayor, +they said, Oh, really, what a courtly man he was! When he laid his +hand upon the mason’s shoulder, giving him directions, how pleasant his +demeanour to the working classes; just the sort of man who made their +toil a pleasure to them, poor dear souls! + +But now a silver trowel was brought; and when the member for the +Gentlemanly Interest, tucking up his coat-sleeve, did a little sleight +of hand with the mortar, the air was rent, so loud was the applause. +The workman-like manner in which he did it was amazing. No one could +conceive where such a gentlemanly creature could have picked the +knowledge up. + +When he had made a kind of dirt-pie under the direction of the mason, +they brought a little vase containing coins, the which the member +for the Gentlemanly Interest jingled, as if he were going to conjure. +Whereat they said how droll, how cheerful, what a flow of spirits! This +put into its place, an ancient scholar read the inscription, which +was in Latin; not in English; that would never do. It gave great +satisfaction; especially every time there was a good long substantive +in the third declension, ablative case, with an adjective to match; at +which periods the assembly became very tender, and were much affected. + +And now the stone was lowered down into its place, amidst the shouting +of the concourse. When it was firmly fixed, the member for the +Gentlemanly Interest struck upon it thrice with the handle of the +trowel, as if inquiring, with a touch of humour, whether anybody was at +home. Mr Pecksniff then unrolled his Plans (prodigious plans they were), +and people gathered round to look at and admire them. + +Martin, who had been fretting himself--quite unnecessarily, as Mark +thought--during the whole of these proceedings, could no longer restrain +his impatience; but stepping forward among several others, looked +straight over the shoulder of the unconscious Mr Pecksniff, at the +designs and plans he had unrolled. He returned to Mark, boiling with +rage. + +‘Why, what’s the matter, sir?’ cried Mark. + +‘Matter! This is MY building.’ + +‘Your building, sir!’ said Mark. + +‘My grammar-school. I invented it. I did it all. He has only put four +windows in, the villain, and spoilt it!’ + +Mark could hardly believe it at first, but being assured that it was +really so, actually held him to prevent his interference foolishly, +until his temporary heat was past. In the meantime, the member addressed +the company on the gratifying deed which he had just performed. + +He said that since he had sat in Parliament to represent the Gentlemanly +Interest of that town; and he might add, the Lady Interest, he hoped, +besides (pocket handkerchiefs); it had been his pleasant duty to come +among them, and to raise his voice on their behalf in Another Place +(pocket handkerchiefs and laughter), often. But he had never come among +them, and had never raised his voice, with half such pure, such deep, +such unalloyed delight, as now. ‘The present occasion,’ he said, ‘will +ever be memorable to me; not only for the reasons I have assigned, but +because it has afforded me an opportunity of becoming personally known +to a gentleman--’ + +Here he pointed the trowel at Mr Pecksniff, who was greeted with +vociferous cheering, and laid his hand upon his heart. + +‘To a gentleman who, I am happy to believe, will reap both distinction +and profit from this field; whose fame had previously penetrated to +me--as to whose ears has it not!--but whose intellectual countenance I +never had the distinguished honour to behold until this day, and whose +intellectual conversation I had never before the improving pleasure to +enjoy.’ + +Everybody seemed very glad of this, and applauded more than ever. + +‘But I hope my Honourable Friend,’ said the Gentlemanly member--of +course he added “if he will allow me to call him so,” and of course Mr +Pecksniff bowed--‘will give me many opportunities of cultivating the +knowledge of him; and that I may have the extraordinary gratification of +reflecting in after-time that I laid on this day two first stones, both +belonging to structures which shall last my life!’ + +Great cheering again. All this time, Martin was cursing Mr Pecksniff up +hill and down dale. + +‘My friends!’ said Mr Pecksniff, in reply. ‘My duty is to build, not +speak; to act, not talk; to deal with marble, stone, and brick; not +language. I am very much affected. God bless you!’ + +This address, pumped out apparently from Mr Pecksniff’s very heart, +brought the enthusiasm to its highest pitch. The pocket handkerchiefs +were waved again; the charity children were admonished to grow up +Pecksniffs, every boy among them; the Corporation, gentlemen with wands, +member for the Gentlemanly Interest, all cheered for Mr Pecksniff. Three +cheers for Mr Pecksniff! Three more for Mr Pecksniff! Three more for +Mr Pecksniff, gentlemen, if you please! One more, gentlemen, for Mr +Pecksniff, and let it be a good one to finish with! + +In short, Mr Pecksniff was supposed to have done a great work and was +very kindly, courteously, and generously rewarded. When the procession +moved away, and Martin and Mark were left almost alone upon the ground, +his merits and a desire to acknowledge them formed the common topic. He +was only second to the Gentlemanly member. + +‘Compare the fellow’s situation to-day with ours!’ said Martin bitterly. + +‘Lord bless you, sir!’ cried Mark, ‘what’s the use? Some architects are +clever at making foundations, and some architects are clever at building +on ‘em when they’re made. But it’ll all come right in the end, sir; +it’ll all come right!’ + +‘And in the meantime--’ began Martin. + +‘In the meantime, as you say, sir, we have a deal to do, and far to go. +So sharp’s the word, and Jolly!’ + +‘You are the best master in the world, Mark,’ said Martin, ‘and I will +not be a bad scholar if I can help it, I am resolved! So come! Best foot +foremost, old fellow!’ + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX + +TOM PINCH DEPARTS TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE. WHAT HE FINDS AT STARTING + + +Oh! What a different town Salisbury was in Tom Pinch’s eyes to be sure, +when the substantial Pecksniff of his heart melted away into an idle +dream! He possessed the same faith in the wonderful shops, the same +intensified appreciation of the mystery and wickedness of the place; +made the same exalted estimate of its wealth, population, and resources; +and yet it was not the old city nor anything like it. He walked into the +market while they were getting breakfast ready for him at the Inn; and +though it was the same market as of old, crowded by the same buyers and +sellers; brisk with the same business; noisy with the same confusion of +tongues and cluttering of fowls in coops; fair with the same display +of rolls of butter, newly made, set forth in linen cloths of dazzling +whiteness; green with the same fresh show of dewy vegetables; dainty +with the same array in higglers’ baskets of small shaving-glasses, +laces, braces, trouser-straps, and hardware; savoury with the same +unstinted show of delicate pigs’ feet, and pies made precious by the +pork that once had walked upon them; still it was strangely changed to +Tom. For, in the centre of the market-place, he missed a statue he +had set up there as in all other places of his personal resort; and it +looked cold and bare without that ornament. + +The change lay no deeper than this, for Tom was far from being sage +enough to know, that, having been disappointed in one man, it would have +been a strictly rational and eminently wise proceeding to have revenged +himself upon mankind in general, by mistrusting them one and all. Indeed +this piece of justice, though it is upheld by the authority of divers +profound poets and honourable men, bears a nearer resemblance to the +justice of that good Vizier in the Thousand-and-one Nights, who issues +orders for the destruction of all the Porters in Bagdad because one of +that unfortunate fraternity is supposed to have misconducted himself, +than to any logical, not to say Christian, system of conduct, known to +the world in later times. + +Tom had so long been used to steep the Pecksniff of his fancy in his +tea, and spread him out upon his toast, and take him as a relish with +his beer, that he made but a poor breakfast on the first morning after +his expulsion. Nor did he much improve his appetite for dinner by +seriously considering his own affairs, and taking counsel thereon with +his friend the organist’s assistant. + +The organist’s assistant gave it as his decided opinion that whatever +Tom did, he must go to London; for there was no place like it. Which +may be true in the main, though hardly, perhaps, in itself, a sufficient +reason for Tom’s going there. + +But Tom had thought of London before, and had coupled with it thoughts +of his sister, and of his old friend John Westlock, whose advice +he naturally felt disposed to seek in this important crisis of his +fortunes. To London, therefore, he resolved to go; and he went away to +the coach-office at once, to secure his place. The coach being already +full, he was obliged to postpone his departure until the next night; but +even this circumstance had its bright side as well as its dark one, for +though it threatened to reduce his poor purse with unexpected country +charges, it afforded him an opportunity of writing to Mrs Lupin and +appointing his box to be brought to the old finger-post at the old time; +which would enable him to take that treasure with him to the metropolis, +and save the expense of its carriage. ‘So,’ said Tom, comforting +himself, ‘it’s very nearly as broad as it’s long.’ + +And it cannot be denied that, when he had made up his mind to even this +extent, he felt an unaccustomed sense of freedom--a vague and indistinct +impression of holiday-making--which was very luxurious. He had his +moments of depression and anxiety, and they were, with good reason, +pretty numerous; but still, it was wonderfully pleasant to reflect that +he was his own master, and could plan and scheme for himself. It was +startling, thrilling, vast, difficult to understand; it was a stupendous +truth, teeming with responsibility and self-distrust; but in spite of +all his cares, it gave a curious relish to the viands at the Inn, and +interposed a dreamy haze between him and his prospects, in which they +sometimes showed to magical advantage. + +In this unsettled state of mind, Tom went once more to bed in the low +four-poster, to the same immovable surprise of the effigies of the +former landlord and the fat ox; and in this condition, passed the whole +of the succeeding day. When the coach came round at last with ‘London’ +blazoned in letters of gold upon the boot, it gave Tom such a turn, that +he was half disposed to run away. But he didn’t do it; for he took his +seat upon the box instead, and looking down upon the four greys, felt +as if he were another grey himself, or, at all events, a part of the +turn-out; and was quite confused by the novelty and splendour of his +situation. + +And really it might have confused a less modest man than Tom to find +himself sitting next that coachman; for of all the swells that ever +flourished a whip professionally, he might have been elected emperor. He +didn’t handle his gloves like another man, but put them on--even when he +was standing on the pavement, quite detached from the coach--as if the +four greys were, somehow or other, at the ends of the fingers. It was +the same with his hat. He did things with his hat, which nothing but an +unlimited knowledge of horses and the wildest freedom of the road, could +ever have made him perfect in. Valuable little parcels were brought to +him with particular instructions, and he pitched them into this hat, and +stuck it on again; as if the laws of gravity did not admit of such +an event as its being knocked off or blown off, and nothing like an +accident could befall it. The guard, too! Seventy breezy miles a day +were written in his very whiskers. His manners were a canter; his +conversation a round trot. He was a fast coach upon a down-hill turnpike +road; he was all pace. A waggon couldn’t have moved slowly, with that +guard and his key-bugle on the top of it. + +These were all foreshadowings of London, Tom thought, as he sat upon +the box, and looked about him. Such a coachman, and such a guard, never +could have existed between Salisbury and any other place. The coach +was none of your steady-going, yokel coaches, but a swaggering, rakish, +dissipated London coach; up all night, and lying by all day, and leading +a devil of a life. It cared no more for Salisbury than if it had been +a hamlet. It rattled noisily through the best streets, defied the +Cathedral, took the worst corners sharpest, went cutting in everywhere, +making everything get out of its way; and spun along the open +country-road, blowing a lively defiance out of its key-bugle, as its +last glad parting legacy. + +It was a charming evening. Mild and bright. And even with the weight +upon his mind which arose out of the immensity and uncertainty of +London, Tom could not resist the captivating sense of rapid motion +through the pleasant air. The four greys skimmed along, as if they liked +it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the +greys; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels +hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass work on the harness was an +orchestra of little bells; and thus, as they went clinking, jingling, +rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the +leaders’ coupling-reins to the handle of the hind boot, was one great +instrument of music. + +Yoho, past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages and barns, and people +going home from work. Yoho, past donkey-chaises, drawn aside into the +ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a bound upon +the little watercourse, and held by struggling carters close to the +five-barred gate, until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the +road. Yoho, by churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, +with rustic burial-grounds about them, where the graves are green, and +daisies sleep--for it is evening--on the bosoms of the dead. Yoho, past +streams, in which the cattle cool their feet, and where the rushes grow; +past paddock-fences, farms, and rick-yards; past last year’s stacks, +cut, slice by slice, away, and showing, in the waning light, like ruined +gables, old and brown. Yoho, down the pebbly dip, and through the merry +water-splash and up at a canter to the level road again. Yoho! Yoho! + +Was the box there, when they came up to the old finger-post? The box! +Was Mrs Lupin herself? Had she turned out magnificently as a hostess +should, in her own chaise-cart, and was she sitting in a mahogany chair, +driving her own horse Dragon (who ought to have been called Dumpling), +and looking lovely? Did the stage-coach pull up beside her, shaving her +very wheel, and even while the guard helped her man up with the trunk, +did he send the glad echoes of his bugle careering down the chimneys of +the distant Pecksniff, as if the coach expressed its exultation in the +rescue of Tom Pinch? + +‘This is kind indeed!’ said Tom, bending down to shake hands with her. +‘I didn’t mean to give you this trouble.’ + +‘Trouble, Mr Pinch!’ cried the hostess of the Dragon. + +‘Well! It’s a pleasure to you, I know,’ said Tom, squeezing her hand +heartily. ‘Is there any news?’ + +The hostess shook her head. + +‘Say you saw me,’ said Tom, ‘and that I was very bold and cheerful, and +not a bit down-hearted; and that I entreated her to be the same, for all +is certain to come right at last. Good-bye!’ + +‘You’ll write when you get settled, Mr Pinch?’ said Mrs Lupin. + +‘When I get settled!’ cried Tom, with an involuntary opening of his +eyes. ‘Oh, yes, I’ll write when I get settled. Perhaps I had better +write before, because I may find that it takes a little time to settle +myself; not having too much money, and having only one friend. I shall +give your love to the friend, by the way. You were always great with Mr +Westlock, you know. Good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye!’ said Mrs Lupin, hastily producing a basket with a long +bottle sticking out of it. ‘Take this. Good-bye!’ + +‘Do you want me to carry it to London for you?’ cried Tom. She was +already turning the chaise-cart round. + +‘No, no,’ said Mrs Lupin. ‘It’s only a little something for refreshment +on the road. Sit fast, Jack. Drive on, sir. All right! Good-bye!’ + +She was a quarter of a mile off, before Tom collected himself; and then +he was waving his hand lustily; and so was she. + +‘And that’s the last of the old finger-post,’ thought Tom, straining +his eyes, ‘where I have so often stood to see this very coach go by, +and where I have parted with so many companions! I used to compare this +coach to some great monster that appeared at certain times to bear my +friends away into the world. And now it’s bearing me away, to seek my +fortune, Heaven knows where and how!’ + +It made Tom melancholy to picture himself walking up the lane and back +to Pecksniff’s as of old; and being melancholy, he looked downwards at +the basket on his knee, which he had for the moment forgotten. + +‘She is the kindest and most considerate creature in the world,’ thought +Tom. ‘Now I KNOW that she particularly told that man of hers not to look +at me, on purpose to prevent my throwing him a shilling! I had it ready +for him all the time, and he never once looked towards me; whereas that +man naturally, (for I know him very well,) would have done nothing but +grin and stare. Upon my word, the kindness of people perfectly melts +me.’ + +Here he caught the coachman’s eye. The coachman winked. ‘Remarkable fine +woman for her time of life,’ said the coachman. + +‘I quite agree with you,’ returned Tom. ‘So she is.’ + +‘Finer than many a young ‘un, I mean to say,’ observed the coachman. +‘Eh?’ + +‘Than many a young one,’ Tom assented. + +‘I don’t care for ‘em myself when they’re too young,’ remarked the +coachman. + +This was a matter of taste, which Tom did not feel himself called upon +to discuss. + +‘You’ll seldom find ‘em possessing correct opinions about refreshment, +for instance, when they’re too young, you know,’ said the coachman; ‘a +woman must have arrived at maturity, before her mind’s equal to coming +provided with a basket like that.’ + +‘Perhaps you would like to know what it contains?’ said Tom, smiling. + +As the coachman only laughed, and as Tom was curious himself, he +unpacked it, and put the articles, one by one, upon the footboard. A +cold roast fowl, a packet of ham in slices, a crusty loaf, a piece of +cheese, a paper of biscuits, half a dozen apples, a knife, some butter, +a screw of salt, and a bottle of old sherry. There was a letter besides, +which Tom put in his pocket. + +The coachman was so earnest in his approval of Mrs Lupin’s provident +habits, and congratulated Torn so warmly on his good fortune, that Tom +felt it necessary, for the lady’s sake, to explain that the basket was +a strictly Platonic basket, and had merely been presented to him in the +way of friendship. When he had made the statement with perfect gravity; +for he felt it incumbent on him to disabuse the mind of this lax rover +of any incorrect impressions on the subject; he signified that he would +be happy to share the gifts with him, and proposed that they should +attack the basket in a spirit of good fellowship at any time in the +course of the night which the coachman’s experience and knowledge of the +road might suggest, as being best adapted to the purpose. From this time +they chatted so pleasantly together, that although Tom knew infinitely +more of unicorns than horses, the coachman informed his friend the guard +at the end of the next stage, ‘that rum as the box-seat looked, he was +as good a one to go, in pint of conversation, as ever he’d wish to sit +by.’ + +Yoho, among the gathering shades; making of no account the deep +reflections of the trees, but scampering on through light and darkness, +all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away, were quite +enough to travel by, and some to spare. Yoho, beside the village green, +where cricket-players linger yet, and every little indentation made in +the fresh grass by bat or wicket, ball or player’s foot, sheds out its +perfume on the night. Away with four fresh horses from the Bald-faced +Stag, where topers congregate about the door admiring; and the last +team with traces hanging loose, go roaming off towards the pond, until +observed and shouted after by a dozen throats, while volunteering boys +pursue them. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery +sparks, across the old stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy +road, and through the open gate, and far away, away, into the wold. +Yoho! + +Yoho, behind there, stop that bugle for a moment! Come creeping over to +the front, along the coach-roof, guard, and make one at this basket! Not +that we slacken in our pace the while, not we; we rather put the bits +of blood upon their metal, for the greater glory of the snack. Ah! It +is long since this bottle of old wine was brought into contact with the +mellow breath of night, you may depend, and rare good stuff it is to wet +a bugler’s whistle with. Only try it. Don’t be afraid of turning up your +finger, Bill, another pull! Now, take your breath, and try the bugle, +Bill. There’s music! There’s a tone!’ over the hills and far away,’ +indeed. Yoho! The skittish mare is all alive to-night. Yoho! Yoho! + +See the bright moon! High up before we know it; making the earth reflect +the objects on its breast like water. Hedges, trees, low cottages, +church steeples, blighted stumps and flourishing young slips, have +all grown vain upon the sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair +images till morning. The poplars yonder rustle that their quivering +leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling +does not become HIM; and he watches himself in his stout old burly +steadfastness, without the motion of a twig. The moss-grown gate, +ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed swings to and +fro before its glass, like some fantastic dowager; while our own ghostly +likeness travels on, Yoho! Yoho! through ditch and brake, upon the +ploughed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, +as if it were a phantom-Hunter. + +Clouds too! And a mist upon the Hollow! Not a dull fog that hides it, +but a light airy gauze-like mist, which in our eyes of modest admiration +gives a new charm to the beauties it is spread before; as real gauze has +done ere now, and would again, so please you, though we were the Pope. +Yoho! Why now we travel like the Moon herself. Hiding this minute in a +grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapour; emerging now upon our +broad clear course; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey +is a counter-part of hers. Yoho! A match against the Moon! + +The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when Day comes rushing up. Yoho! +Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous +street. Yoho, past market-gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, +terraces, and squares; past waggons, coaches, carts; past early workmen, +late stragglers, drunken men, and sober carriers of loads; past brick +and mortar in its every shape; and in among the rattling pavements, +where a jaunty-seat upon a coach is not so easy to preserve! Yoho, +down countless turnings, and through countless mazy ways, until an old +Innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down quite stunned and giddy, +is in London! + +‘Five minutes before the time, too!’ said the driver, as he received his +fee of Tom. + +‘Upon my word,’ said Tom, ‘I should not have minded very much, if we had +been five hours after it; for at this early hour I don’t know where to +go, or what to do with myself.’ + +‘Don’t they expect you then?’ inquired the driver. + +‘Who?’ said Tom. + +‘Why them,’ returned the driver. + +His mind was so clearly running on the assumption of Tom’s having come +to town to see an extensive circle of anxious relations and friends, +that it would have been pretty hard work to undeceive him. Tom did not +try. He cheerfully evaded the subject, and going into the Inn, fell fast +asleep before a fire in one of the public rooms opening from the yard. +When he awoke, the people in the house were all astir, so he washed and +dressed himself; to his great refreshment after the journey; and, it +being by that time eight o’clock, went forth at once to see his old +friend John. + +John Westlock lived in Furnival’s Inn, High Holborn, which was within a +quarter of an hour’s walk of Tom’s starting-point, but seemed a long way +off, by reason of his going two or three miles out of the straight road +to make a short cut. When at last he arrived outside John’s door, two +stories up, he stood faltering with his hand upon the knocker, and +trembled from head to foot. For he was rendered very nervous by the +thought of having to relate what had fallen out between himself and +Pecksniff; and he had a misgiving that John would exult fearfully in the +disclosure. + +‘But it must be made,’ thought Tom, ‘sooner or later; and I had better +get it over.’ + +Rat tat. + +‘I am afraid that’s not a London knock,’ thought Tom. ‘It didn’t sound +bold. Perhaps that’s the reason why nobody answers the door.’ + +It is quite certain that nobody came, and that Tom stood looking at the +knocker; wondering whereabouts in the neighbourhood a certain gentleman +resided, who was roaring out to somebody ‘Come in!’ with all his might. + +‘Bless my soul!’ thought Tom at last. ‘Perhaps he lives here, and is +calling to me. I never thought of that. Can I open the door from the +outside, I wonder. Yes, to be sure I can.’ + +To be sure he could, by turning the handle; and to be sure when he did +turn it the same voice came rushing out, crying ‘Why don’t you come +in? Come in, do you hear? What are you standing there for?’--quite +violently. + +Tom stepped from the little passage into the room from which these +sounds proceeded, and had barely caught a glimpse of a gentleman in a +dressing-gown and slippers (with his boots beside him ready to put on), +sitting at his breakfast with a newspaper in his hand, when the said +gentleman, at the imminent hazard of oversetting his tea-table, made a +plunge at Tom, and hugged him. + +‘Why, Tom, my boy!’ cried the gentleman. ‘Tom!’ + +‘How glad I am to see you, Mr Westlock!’ said Tom Pinch, shaking both +his hands, and trembling more than ever. ‘How kind you are!’ + +‘Mr Westlock!’ repeated John, ‘what do you mean by that, Pinch? You have +not forgotten my Christian name, I suppose?’ + +‘No, John, no. I have not forgotten,’ said Thomas Pinch. ‘Good gracious +me, how kind you are!’ + +‘I never saw such a fellow in all my life!’ cried John. ‘What do you +mean by saying THAT over and over again? What did you expect me to be, I +wonder! Here, sit down, Tom, and be a reasonable creature. How are you, +my boy? I am delighted to see you!’ + +‘And I am delighted to see YOU,’ said Tom. + +‘It’s mutual, of course,’ returned John. ‘It always was, I hope. If +I had known you had been coming, Tom, I would have had something for +breakfast. I would rather have such a surprise than the best breakfast +in the world, myself; but yours is another case, and I have no doubt you +are as hungry as a hunter. You must make out as well as you can, Tom, +and we’ll recompense ourselves at dinner-time. You take sugar, I know; +I recollect the sugar at Pecksniff’s. Ha, ha, ha! How IS Pecksniff? When +did you come to town? DO begin at something or other, Tom. There are +only scraps here, but they are not at all bad. Boar’s Head potted. Try +it, Tom. Make a beginning whatever you do. What an old Blade you are! I +am delighted to see you.’ + +While he delivered himself of these words in a state of great commotion, +John was constantly running backwards and forwards to and from the +closet, bringing out all sorts of things in pots, scooping extraordinary +quantities of tea out of the caddy, dropping French rolls into his +boots, pouring hot water over the butter, and making a variety of +similar mistakes without disconcerting himself in the least. + +‘There!’ said John, sitting down for the fiftieth time, and instantly +starting up again to make some other addition to the breakfast. ‘Now we +are as well off as we are likely to be till dinner. And now let us have +the news, Tom. Imprimis, how’s Pecksniff?’ + +‘I don’t know how he is,’ was Tom’s grave answer. + +John Westlock put the teapot down, and looked at him, in astonishment. + +‘I don’t know how he is,’ said Thomas Pinch; ‘and, saving that I wish +him no ill, I don’t care. I have left him, John. I have left him for +ever.’ + +‘Voluntarily?’ + +‘Why, no, for he dismissed me. But I had first found out that I was +mistaken in him; and I could not have remained with him under any +circumstances. I grieve to say that you were right in your estimate of +his character. It may be a ridiculous weakness, John, but it has been +very painful and bitter to me to find this out, I do assure you.’ + +Tom had no need to direct that appealing look towards his friend, in +mild and gentle deprecation of his answering with a laugh. John Westlock +would as soon have thought of striking him down upon the floor. + +‘It was all a dream of mine,’ said Tom, ‘and it is over. I’ll tell you +how it happened, at some other time. Bear with my folly, John. I do not, +just now, like to think or speak about it.’ + +‘I swear to you, Tom,’ returned his friend, with great earnestness of +manner, after remaining silent for a few moments, ‘that when I see, as +I do now, how deeply you feel this, I don’t know whether to be glad or +sorry that you have made the discovery at last. I reproach myself with +the thought that I ever jested on the subject; I ought to have known +better.’ + +‘My dear friend,’ said Tom, extending his hand, ‘it is very generous and +gallant in you to receive me and my disclosure in this spirit; it makes +me blush to think that I should have felt a moment’s uneasiness as I +came along. You can’t think what a weight is lifted off my mind,’ said +Tom, taking up his knife and fork again, and looking very cheerful. ‘I +shall punish the Boar’s Head dreadfully.’ + +The host, thus reminded of his duties, instantly betook himself to +piling up all kinds of irreconcilable and contradictory viands in Tom’s +plate, and a very capital breakfast Tom made, and very much the better +for it Tom felt. + +‘That’s all right,’ said John, after contemplating his visitor’s +proceedings with infinite satisfaction. ‘Now, about our plans. You are +going to stay with me, of course. Where’s your box?’ + +‘It’s at the Inn,’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t intend--’ + +‘Never mind what you didn’t intend,’ John Westlock interposed. ‘What you +DID intend is more to the purpose. You intended, in coming here, to ask +my advice, did you not, Tom?’ + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘And to take it when I gave it to you?’ + +‘Yes,’ rejoined Tom, smiling, ‘if it were good advice, which, being +yours, I have no doubt it will be.’ + +‘Very well. Then don’t be an obstinate old humbug in the outset, Tom, or +I shall shut up shop and dispense none of that invaluable commodity. You +are on a visit to me. I wish I had an organ for you, Tom!’ + +‘So do the gentlemen downstairs, and the gentlemen overhead I have no +doubt,’ was Tom’s reply. + +‘Let me see. In the first place, you will wish to see your sister this +morning,’ pursued his friend, ‘and of course you will like to go there +alone. I’ll walk part of the way with you; and see about a little +business of my own, and meet you here again in the afternoon. Put that +in your pocket, Tom. It’s only the key of the door. If you come home +first you’ll want it.’ + +‘Really,’ said Tom, ‘quartering one’s self upon a friend in this way--’ + +‘Why, there are two keys,’ interposed John Westlock. ‘I can’t open the +door with them both at once, can I? What a ridiculous fellow you are, +Tom? Nothing particular you’d like for dinner, is there?’ + +‘Oh dear no,’ said Tom. + +‘Very well, then you may as well leave it to me. Have a glass of cherry +brandy, Tom?’ + +‘Not a drop! What remarkable chambers these are!’ said Pinch ‘there’s +everything in ‘em!’ + +‘Bless your soul, Tom, nothing but a few little bachelor contrivances! +the sort of impromptu arrangements that might have suggested themselves +to Philip Quarll or Robinson Crusoe, that’s all. What do you say? Shall +we walk?’ + +‘By all means,’ cried Tom. ‘As soon as you like.’ + +Accordingly John Westlock took the French rolls out of his boots, and +put his boots on, and dressed himself; giving Tom the paper to read in +the meanwhile. When he returned, equipped for walking, he found Tom in a +brown study, with the paper in his hand. + +‘Dreaming, Tom?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘No. I have been looking over the advertising +sheet, thinking there might be something in it which would be likely +to suit me. But, as I often think, the strange thing seems to be that +nobody is suited. Here are all kinds of employers wanting all sorts of +servants, and all sorts of servants wanting all kinds of employers, and +they never seem to come together. Here is a gentleman in a public office +in a position of temporary difficulty, who wants to borrow five hundred +pounds; and in the very next advertisement here is another gentleman who +has got exactly that sum to lend. But he’ll never lend it to him, John, +you’ll find! Here is a lady possessing a moderate independence, who +wants to board and lodge with a quiet, cheerful family; and here is a +family describing themselves in those very words, “a quiet, cheerful +family,” who want exactly such a lady to come and live with them. But +she’ll never go, John! Neither do any of these single gentlemen who want +an airy bedroom, with the occasional use of a parlour, ever appear to +come to terms with these other people who live in a rural situation +remarkable for its bracing atmosphere, within five minutes’ walk of +the Royal Exchange. Even those letters of the alphabet who are always +running away from their friends and being entreated at the tops of +columns to come back, never DO come back, if we may judge from the +number of times they are asked to do it and don’t. It really seems,’ +said Tom, relinquishing the paper with a thoughtful sigh, ‘as if people +had the same gratification in printing their complaints as in making +them known by word of mouth; as if they found it a comfort and +consolation to proclaim “I want such and such a thing, and I can’t get +it, and I don’t expect I ever shall!”’ + +John Westlock laughed at the idea, and they went out together. So many +years had passed since Tom was last in London, and he had known so +little of it then, that his interest in all he saw was very great. He +was particularly anxious, among other notorious localities, to have +those streets pointed out to him which were appropriated to the +slaughter of countrymen; and was quite disappointed to find, after +half-an-hour’s walking, that he hadn’t had his pocket picked. But +on John Westlock’s inventing a pickpocket for his gratification, and +pointing out a highly respectable stranger as one of that fraternity, he +was much delighted. + +His friend accompanied him to within a short distance of Camberwell +and having put him beyond the possibility of mistaking the wealthy +brass-and-copper founder’s, left him to make his visit. Arriving before +the great bell-handle, Tom gave it a gentle pull. The porter appeared. + +‘Pray does Miss Pinch live here?’ said Tom. + +‘Miss Pinch is governess here,’ replied the porter. + +At the same time he looked at Tom from head to foot, as if he would have +said, ‘You are a nice man, YOU are; where did YOU come from?’ + +‘It’s the same young lady,’ said Tom. ‘It’s quite right. Is she at +home?’ + +‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ rejoined the porter. + +‘Do you think you could have the goodness to ascertain?’ said Tom. He +had quite a delicacy in offering the suggestion, for the possibility +of such a step did not appear to present itself to the porter’s mind at +all. + +The fact was that the porter in answering the gate-bell had, according +to usage, rung the house-bell (for it is as well to do these things in +the Baronial style while you are about it), and that there the functions +of his office had ceased. Being hired to open and shut the gate, and +not to explain himself to strangers, he left this little incident to be +developed by the footman with the tags, who, at this juncture, called +out from the door steps: + +‘Hollo, there! wot are you up to? This way, young man!’ + +‘Oh!’ said Tom, hurrying towards him. ‘I didn’t observe that there was +anybody else. Pray is Miss Pinch at home?’ + +‘She’s IN,’ replied the footman. As much as to say to Tom: ‘But if you +think she has anything to do with the proprietorship of this place you +had better abandon that idea.’ + +‘I wish to see her, if you please,’ said Tom. + +The footman, being a lively young man, happened to have his attention +caught at that moment by the flight of a pigeon, in which he took so +warm an interest that his gaze was rivetted on the bird until it was +quite out of sight. He then invited Tom to come in, and showed him into +a parlour. + +‘Hany neem?’ said the young man, pausing languidly at the door. + +It was a good thought; because without providing the stranger, in case +he should happen to be of a warm temper, with a sufficient excuse for +knocking him down, it implied this young man’s estimate of his quality, +and relieved his breast of the oppressive burden of rating him in secret +as a nameless and obscure individual. + +‘Say her brother, if you please,’ said Tom. + +‘Mother?’ drawled the footman. + +‘Brother,’ repeated Tom, slightly raising his voice. ‘And if you will +say, in the first instance, a gentleman, and then say her brother, +I shall be obliged to you, as she does not expect me or know I am in +London, and I do not wish to startle her.’ + +The young man’s interest in Tom’s observations had ceased long before +this time, but he kindly waited until now; when, shutting the door, he +withdrew. + +‘Dear me!’ said Tom. ‘This is very disrespectful and uncivil behaviour. +I hope these are new servants here, and that Ruth is very differently +treated.’ + +His cogitations were interrupted by the sound of voices in the adjoining +room. They seemed to be engaged in high dispute, or in indignant +reprimand of some offender; and gathering strength occasionally, broke +out into a perfect whirlwind. It was in one of these gusts, as it +appeared to Tom, that the footman announced him; for an abrupt and +unnatural calm took place, and then a dead silence. He was standing +before the window, wondering what domestic quarrel might have caused +these sounds, and hoping Ruth had nothing to do with it, when the door +opened, and his sister ran into his arms. + +‘Why, bless my soul!’ said Tom, looking at her with great pride, when +they had tenderly embraced each other, ‘how altered you are Ruth! I +should scarcely have known you, my love, if I had seen you anywhere +else, I declare! You are so improved,’ said Tom, with inexpressible +delight; ‘you are so womanly; you are so--positively, you know, you are +so handsome!’ + +‘If YOU think so Tom--’ + +‘Oh, but everybody must think so, you know,’ said Tom, gently smoothing +down her hair. ‘It’s matter of fact; not opinion. But what’s the +matter?’ said Tom, looking at her more intently, ‘how flushed you are! +and you have been crying.’ + +‘No, I have not, Tom.’ + +‘Nonsense,’ said her brother stoutly. ‘That’s a story. Don’t tell me! I +know better. What is it, dear? I’m not with Mr Pecksniff now. I am going +to try and settle myself in London; and if you are not happy here (as I +very much fear you are not, for I begin to think you have been deceiving +me with the kindest and most affectionate intention) you shall not +remain here.’ + +Oh! Tom’s blood was rising; mind that! Perhaps the Boar’s Head had +something to do with it, but certainly the footman had. So had the sight +of his pretty sister--a great deal to do with it. Tom could bear a good +deal himself, but he was proud of her, and pride is a sensitive thing. +He began to think, ‘there are more Pecksniffs than one, perhaps,’ and by +all the pins and needles that run up and down in angry veins, Tom was in +a most unusual tingle all at once! + +‘We will talk about it, Tom,’ said Ruth, giving him another kiss to +pacify him. ‘I am afraid I cannot stay here.’ + +‘Cannot!’ replied Tom. ‘Why then, you shall not, my love. Heyday! You +are not an object of charity! Upon my word!’ + +Tom was stopped in these exclamations by the footman, who brought a +message from his master, importing that he wished to speak with him +before he went, and with Miss Pinch also. + +‘Show the way,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll wait upon him at once.’ + +Accordingly they entered the adjoining room from which the noise of +altercation had proceeded; and there they found a middle-aged gentleman, +with a pompous voice and manner, and a middle-aged lady, with what may +be termed an excisable face, or one in which starch and vinegar were +decidedly employed. There was likewise present that eldest pupil of Miss +Pinch, whom Mrs Todgers, on a previous occasion, had called a syrup, and +who was now weeping and sobbing spitefully. + +‘My brother, sir,’ said Ruth Pinch, timidly presenting Tom. + +‘Oh!’ cried the gentleman, surveying Tom attentively. ‘You really are +Miss Pinch’s brother, I presume? You will excuse my asking. I don’t +observe any resemblance.’ + +‘Miss Pinch has a brother, I know,’ observed the lady. + +‘Miss Pinch is always talking about her brother, when she ought to be +engaged upon my education,’ sobbed the pupil. + +‘Sophia! Hold your tongue!’ observed the gentleman. ‘Sit down, if you +please,’ addressing Tom. + +Tom sat down, looking from one face to another, in mute surprise. + +‘Remain here, if you please, Miss Pinch,’ pursued the gentleman, looking +slightly over his shoulder. + +Tom interrupted him here, by rising to place a chair for his sister. +Having done which he sat down again. + +‘I am glad you chance to have called to see your sister to-day, sir,’ +resumed the brass-and-copper founder. ‘For although I do not approve, as +a principle, of any young person engaged in my family in the capacity +of a governess, receiving visitors, it happens in this case to be well +timed. I am sorry to inform you that we are not at all satisfied with +your sister.’ + +‘We are very much DISsatisfied with her,’ observed the lady. + +‘I’d never say another lesson to Miss Pinch if I was to be beat to death +for it!’ sobbed the pupil. + +‘Sophia!’ cried her father. ‘Hold your tongue!’ + +‘Will you allow me to inquire what your ground of dissatisfaction is?’ +asked Tom. + +‘Yes,’ said the gentleman, ‘I will. I don’t recognize it as a right; +but I will. Your sister has not the slightest innate power of commanding +respect. It has been a constant source of difference between us. +Although she has been in this family for some time, and although the +young lady who is now present has almost, as it were, grown up under +her tuition, that young lady has no respect for her. Miss Pinch has +been perfectly unable to command my daughter’s respect, or to win my +daughter’s confidence. Now,’ said the gentleman, allowing the palm of +his hand to fall gravely down upon the table: ‘I maintain that there is +something radically wrong in that! You, as her brother, may be disposed +to deny it--’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Tom. ‘I am not at all disposed to +deny it. I am sure that there is something radically wrong; radically +monstrous, in that.’ + +‘Good Heavens!’ cried the gentleman, looking round the room with +dignity, ‘what do I find to be the case! what results obtrude themselves +upon me as flowing from this weakness of character on the part of +Miss Pinch! What are my feelings as a father, when, after my desire +(repeatedly expressed to Miss Pinch, as I think she will not venture to +deny) that my daughter should be choice in her expressions, genteel in +her deportment, as becomes her station in life, and politely distant to +her inferiors in society, I find her, only this very morning, addressing +Miss Pinch herself as a beggar!’ + +‘A beggarly thing,’ observed the lady, in correction. + +‘Which is worse,’ said the gentleman, triumphantly; ‘which is worse. A +beggarly thing. A low, coarse, despicable expression!’ + +‘Most despicable,’ cried Tom. ‘I am glad to find that there is a just +appreciation of it here.’ + +‘So just, sir,’ said the gentleman, lowering his voice to be the more +impressive. ‘So just, that, but for my knowing Miss Pinch to be an +unprotected young person, an orphan, and without friends, I would, as +I assured Miss Pinch, upon my veracity and personal character, a few +minutes ago, I would have severed the connection between us at that +moment and from that time.’ + +‘Bless my soul, sir!’ cried Tom, rising from his seat; for he was now +unable to contain himself any longer; ‘don’t allow such considerations +as those to influence you, pray. They don’t exist, sir. She is not +unprotected. She is ready to depart this instant. Ruth, my dear, get +your bonnet on!’ + +‘Oh, a pretty family!’ cried the lady. ‘Oh, he’s her brother! There’s no +doubt about that!’ + +‘As little doubt, madam,’ said Tom, ‘as that the young lady yonder is +the child of your teaching, and not my sister’s. Ruth, my dear, get your +bonnet on!’ + +‘When you say, young man,’ interposed the brass-and-copper founder, +haughtily, ‘with that impertinence which is natural to you, and which I +therefore do not condescend to notice further, that the young lady, my +eldest daughter, has been educated by any one but Miss Pinch, you--I +needn’t proceed. You comprehend me fully. I have no doubt you are used +to it.’ + +‘Sir!’ cried Tom, after regarding him in silence for some little time. +‘If you do not understand what I mean, I will tell you. If you do +understand what I mean, I beg you not to repeat that mode of expressing +yourself in answer to it. My meaning is, that no man can expect his +children to respect what he degrades.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the gentleman. ‘Cant! cant! The common cant!’ + +‘The common story, sir!’ said Tom; ‘the story of a common mind. Your +governess cannot win the confidence and respect of your children, +forsooth! Let her begin by winning yours, and see what happens then.’ + +‘Miss Pinch is getting her bonnet on, I trust, my dear?’ said the +gentleman. + +‘I trust she is,’ said Tom, forestalling the reply. ‘I have no doubt +she is. In the meantime I address myself to you, sir. You made your +statement to me, sir; you required to see me for that purpose; and I +have a right to answer it. I am not loud or turbulent,’ said Tom, which +was quite true, ‘though I can scarcely say as much for you, in your +manner of addressing yourself to me. And I wish, on my sister’s behalf, +to state the simple truth.’ + +‘You may state anything you like, young man,’ returned the gentleman, +affecting to yawn. ‘My dear, Miss Pinch’s money.’ + +‘When you tell me,’ resumed Tom, who was not the less indignant for +keeping himself quiet, ‘that my sister has no innate power of commanding +the respect of your children, I must tell you it is not so; and that she +has. She is as well bred, as well taught, as well qualified by nature +to command respect, as any hirer of a governess you know. But when you +place her at a disadvantage in reference to every servant in your house, +how can you suppose, if you have the gift of common sense, that she is +not in a tenfold worse position in reference to your daughters?’ + +‘Pretty well! Upon my word,’ exclaimed the gentleman, ‘this is pretty +well!’ + +‘It is very ill, sir,’ said Tom. ‘It is very bad and mean, and wrong and +cruel. Respect! I believe young people are quick enough to observe and +imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no one else respects, +and everybody slights? And very partial they must grow--oh, very +partial!--to their studies, when they see to what a pass proficiency in +those same tasks has brought their governess! Respect! Put anything the +most deserving of respect before your daughters in the light in which +you place her, and you will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!’ + +‘You speak with extreme impertinence, young man,’ observed the +gentleman. + +‘I speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt +for such a course of treatment, and for all who practice it,’ said +Tom. ‘Why, how can you, as an honest gentleman, profess displeasure or +surprise at your daughter telling my sister she is something beggarly +and humble, when you are for ever telling her the same thing yourself in +fifty plain, outspeaking ways, though not in words; and when your very +porter and footman make the same delicate announcement to all comers? As +to your suspicion and distrust of her; even of her word; if she is not +above their reach, you have no right to employ her.’ + +‘No right!’ cried the brass-and-copper founder. + +‘Distinctly not,’ Tom answered. ‘If you imagine that the payment of an +annual sum of money gives it to you, you immensely exaggerate its power +and value. Your money is the least part of your bargain in such a case. +You may be punctual in that to half a second on the clock, and yet +be Bankrupt. I have nothing more to say,’ said Tom, much flushed and +flustered, now that it was over, ‘except to crave permission to stand in +your garden until my sister is ready.’ + +Not waiting to obtain it, Tom walked out. + +Before he had well begun to cool, his sister joined him. She was crying; +and Tom could not bear that any one about the house should see her doing +that. + +‘They will think you are sorry to go,’ said Tom. ‘You are not sorry to +go?’ + +‘No, Tom, no. I have been anxious to go for a very long time.’ + +‘Very well, then! Don’t cry!’ said Tom. + +‘I am so sorry for YOU, dear,’ sobbed Tom’s sister. + +‘But you ought to be glad on my account,’ said Tom. ‘I shall be twice as +happy with you for a companion. Hold up your head. There! Now we go +out as we ought. Not blustering, you know, but firm and confident in +ourselves.’ + +The idea of Tom and his sister blustering, under any circumstances, was +a splendid absurdity. But Tom was very far from feeling it to be so, +in his excitement; and passed out at the gate with such severe +determination written in his face that the porter hardly knew him again. + +It was not until they had walked some short distance, and Tom found +himself getting cooler and more collected, that he was quite restored to +himself by an inquiry from his sister, who said in her pleasant little +voice: + +‘Where are we going, Tom?’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Tom, stopping, ‘I don’t know.’ + +‘Don’t you--don’t you live anywhere, dear?’ asked Tom’s sister looking +wistfully in his face. + +‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Not at present. Not exactly. I only arrived this +morning. We must have some lodgings.’ + +He didn’t tell her that he had been going to stay with his friend John, +and could on no account think of billeting two inmates upon him, of whom +one was a young lady; for he knew that would make her uncomfortable, +and would cause her to regard herself as being an inconvenience to him. +Neither did he like to leave her anywhere while he called on John, and +told him of this change in his arrangements; for he was delicate of +seeming to encroach upon the generous and hospitable nature of his +friend. Therefore he said again, ‘We must have some lodgings, of +course;’ and said it as stoutly as if he had been a perfect Directory +and Guide-Book to all the lodgings in London. + +‘Where shall we go and look for ‘em?’ said Tom. ‘What do you think?’ + +Tom’s sister was not much wiser on such a topic than he was. So she +squeezed her little purse into his coat-pocket, and folding the little +hand with which she did so on the other little hand with which she +clasped his arm, said nothing. + +‘It ought to be a cheap neighbourhood,’ said Tom, ‘and not too far from +London. Let me see. Should you think Islington a good place?’ + +‘I should think it was an excellent place, Tom.’ + +‘It used to be called Merry Islington, once upon a time,’ said Tom. +‘Perhaps it’s merry now; if so, it’s all the better. Eh?’ + +‘If it’s not too dear,’ said Tom’s sister. + +‘Of course, if it’s not too dear,’ assented Tom. ‘Well, where IS +Islington? We can’t do better than go there, I should think. Let’s go.’ + +Tom’s sister would have gone anywhere with him; so they walked off, arm +in arm, as comfortably as possible. Finding, presently, that Islington +was not in that neighbourhood, Tom made inquiries respecting a public +conveyance thither; which they soon obtained. As they rode along they +were very full of conversation indeed, Tom relating what had happened +to him, and Tom’s sister relating what had happened to her, and both +finding a great deal more to say than time to say it in; for they had +only just begun to talk, in comparison with what they had to tell each +other, when they reached their journey’s end. + +‘Now,’ said Tom, ‘we must first look out for some very unpretending +streets, and then look out for bills in the windows.’ + +So they walked off again, quite as happily as if they had just stepped +out of a snug little house of their own, to look for lodgings on account +of somebody else. Tom’s simplicity was unabated, Heaven knows; but +now that he had somebody to rely upon him, he was stimulated to rely a +little more upon himself, and was, in his own opinion, quite a desperate +fellow. + +After roaming up and down for hours, looking at some scores of lodgings, +they began to find it rather fatiguing, especially as they saw none +which were at all adapted to their purpose. At length, however, in a +singular little old-fashioned house, up a blind street, they discovered +two small bedrooms and a triangular parlour, which promised to suit +them well enough. Their desiring to take possession immediately was a +suspicious circumstance, but even this was surmounted by the payment +of their first week’s rent, and a reference to John Westlock, Esquire, +Furnival’s Inn, High Holborn. + +Ah! It was a goodly sight, when this important point was settled, +to behold Tom and his sister trotting round to the baker’s, and the +butcher’s, and the grocer’s, with a kind of dreadful delight in the +unaccustomed cares of housekeeping; taking secret counsel together as +they gave their small orders, and distracted by the least suggestion +on the part of the shopkeeper! When they got back to the triangular +parlour, and Tom’s sister, bustling to and fro, busy about a thousand +pleasant nothings, stopped every now and then to give old Tom a kiss or +smile upon him, Tom rubbed his hands as if all Islington were his. + +It was late in the afternoon now, though, and high time for Tom to +keep his appointment. So, after agreeing with his sister that +in consideration of not having dined, they would venture on the +extravagance of chops for supper at nine, he walked out again to narrate +these marvellous occurrences to John. + +‘I am quite a family man all at once,’ thought Tom. ‘If I can only get +something to do, how comfortable Ruth and I may be! Ah, that if! +But it’s of no use to despond. I can but do that, when I have tried +everything and failed; and even then it won’t serve me much. Upon my +word,’ thought Tom, quickening his pace, ‘I don’t know what John will +think has become of me. He’ll begin to be afraid I have strayed into one +of those streets where the countrymen are murdered; and that I have been +made meat pies of, or some such horrible thing.’ + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN + +TOM PINCH, GOING ASTRAY, FINDS THAT HE IS NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THAT +PREDICAMENT. HE RETALIATES UPON A FALLEN FOE + + +Tom’s evil genius did not lead him into the dens of any of those +preparers of cannibalic pastry, who are represented in many standard +country legends as doing a lively retail business in the Metropolis; +nor did it mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers, pea and +thimble-riggers, duffers, touters, or any of those bloodless sharpers, +who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police. He fell into +conversation with no gentleman who took him into a public-house, where +there happened to be another gentleman who swore he had more money than +any gentleman, and very soon proved he had more money than one gentleman +by taking his away from him; neither did he fall into any other of +the numerous man-traps which are set up without notice, in the public +grounds of this city. But he lost his way. He very soon did that; and in +trying to find it again he lost it more and more. + +Now, Tom, in his guileless distrust of London, thought himself very +knowing in coming to the determination that he would not ask to be +directed to Furnival’s Inn, if he could help it; unless, indeed, he +should happen to find himself near the Mint, or the Bank of England; in +which case he would step in, and ask a civil question or two, confiding +in the perfect respectability of the concern. So on he went, looking up +all the streets he came near, and going up half of them; and thus, +by dint of not being true to Goswell Street, and filing off into +Aldermanbury, and bewildering himself in Barbican, and being constant to +the wrong point of the compass in London Wall, and then getting himself +crosswise into Thames Street, by an instinct that would have been +marvellous if he had had the least desire or reason to go there, he +found himself, at last, hard by the Monument. + +The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom as the +Man in the Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the lonely creature +who held himself aloof from all mankind in that pillar like some old +hermit was the very man of whom to ask his way. Cold, he might be; +little sympathy he had, perhaps, with human passion--the column seemed +too tall for that; but if Truth didn’t live in the base of the Monument, +notwithstanding Pope’s couplet about the outside of it, where in London +(thought Tom) was she likely to be found! + +Coming close below the pillar, it was a great encouragement to Tom to +find that the Man in the Monument had simple tastes; that stony +and artificial as his residence was, he still preserved some rustic +recollections; that he liked plants, hung up bird-cages, was not wholly +cut off from fresh groundsel, and kept young trees in tubs. The Man in +the Monument, himself, was sitting outside the door--his own door: the +Monument-door: what a grand idea!--and was actually yawning, as if there +were no Monument to stop his mouth, and give him a perpetual interest in +his own existence. + +Tom was advancing towards this remarkable creature, to inquire the way +to Furnival’s Inn, when two people came to see the Monument. They were a +gentleman and a lady; and the gentleman said, ‘How much a-piece?’ + +The Man in the Monument replied, ‘A Tanner.’ + +It seemed a low expression, compared with the Monument. + +The gentleman put a shilling into his hand, and the Man in the Monument +opened a dark little door. When the gentleman and lady had passed out of +view, he shut it again, and came slowly back to his chair. + +He sat down and laughed. + +‘They don’t know what a many steps there is!’ he said. ‘It’s worth twice +the money to stop here. Oh, my eye!’ + +The Man in the Monument was a Cynic; a worldly man! Tom couldn’t ask his +way of HIM. He was prepared to put no confidence in anything he said. + +‘My gracious!’ cried a well-known voice behind Mr Pinch. ‘Why, to be +sure it is!’ + +At the same time he was poked in the back by a parasol. Turning round +to inquire into this salute, he beheld the eldest daughter of his late +patron. + +‘Miss Pecksniff!’ said Tom. + +‘Why, my goodness, Mr Pinch!’ cried Cherry. ‘What are you doing here?’ + +‘I have rather wandered from my way,’ said Tom. ‘I--’ + +‘I hope you have run away,’ said Charity. ‘It would be quite spirited +and proper if you had, when my Papa so far forgets himself.’ + +‘I have left him,’ returned Tom. ‘But it was perfectly understood on +both sides. It was not done clandestinely.’ + +‘Is he married?’ asked Cherry, with a spasmodic shake of her chin. + +‘No, not yet,’ said Tom, colouring; ‘to tell you the truth, I don’t +think he is likely to be, if--if Miss Graham is the object of his +passion.’ + +‘Tcha, Mr Pinch!’ cried Charity, with sharp impatience, ‘you’re very +easily deceived. You don’t know the arts of which such a creature is +capable. Oh! it’s a wicked world.’ + +‘You are not married?’ Tom hinted, to divert the conversation. + +‘N--no!’ said Cherry, tracing out one particular paving-stone in +Monument Yard with the end of her parasol. ‘I--but really it’s quite +impossible to explain. Won’t you walk in?’ + +‘You live here, then?’ said Tom + +‘Yes,’ returned Miss Pecksniff, pointing with her parasol to Todgers’s; +‘I reside with this lady, AT PRESENT.’ + +The great stress on the two last words suggested to Tom that he was +expected to say something in reference to them. So he said. + +‘Only at present! Are you going home again soon?’ + +‘No, Mr Pinch,’ returned Charity. ‘No, thank you. No! A mother-in-law +who is younger than--I mean to say, who is as nearly as possible about +the same age as one’s self, would not quite suit my spirit. Not quite!’ +said Cherry, with a spiteful shiver. + +‘I thought from your saying “at present”’--Tom observed. + +‘Really, upon my word! I had no idea you would press me so very closely +on the subject, Mr Pinch,’ said Charity, blushing, ‘or I should not have +been so foolish as to allude to--oh really!--won’t you walk in?’ + +Tom mentioned, to excuse himself, that he had an appointment in +Furnival’s Inn, and that coming from Islington he had taken a few wrong +turnings, and arrived at the Monument instead. Miss Pecksniff simpered +very much when he asked her if she knew the way to Furnival’s Inn, and +at length found courage to reply. + +‘A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at least who is not exactly a +friend so much as a sort of acquaintance--Oh upon my word, I hardly +know what I say, Mr Pinch; you mustn’t suppose there is any engagement +between us; or at least if there is, that it is at all a settled thing +as yet--is going to Furnival’s Inn immediately, I believe upon a little +business, and I am sure he would be very glad to accompany you, so as +to prevent your going wrong again. You had better walk in. You will very +likely find my sister Merry here,’ she said with a curious toss of her +head, and anything but an agreeable smile. + +‘Then, I think, I’ll endeavour to find my way alone,’ said Tom, ‘for I +fear she would not be very glad to see me. That unfortunate occurrence, +in relation to which you and I had some amicable words together, in +private, is not likely to have impressed her with any friendly feeling +towards me. Though it really was not my fault.’ + +‘She has never heard of that, you may depend,’ said Cherry, gathering up +the corners of her mouth, and nodding at Tom. ‘I am far from sure that +she would bear you any mighty ill will for it, if she had.’ + +‘You don’t say so?’ cried Tom, who was really concerned by this +insinuation. + +‘I say nothing,’ said Charity. ‘If I had not already known what shocking +things treachery and deceit are in themselves, Mr Pinch, I might perhaps +have learnt it from the success they meet with--from the success they +meet with.’ Here she smiled as before. ‘But I don’t say anything. On the +contrary, I should scorn it. You had better walk in!’ + +There was something hidden here, which piqued Tom’s interest and +troubled his tender heart. When, in a moment’s irresolution, he looked +at Charity, he could not but observe a struggle in her face between +a sense of triumph and a sense of shame; nor could he but remark how, +meeting even his eyes, which she cared so little for, she turned away +her own, for all the splenetic defiance in her manner. + +An uneasy thought entered Tom’s head; a shadowy misgiving that the +altered relations between himself and Pecksniff were somehow to involve +an altered knowledge on his part of other people, and were to give him +an insight into much of which he had had no previous suspicion. And yet +he put no definite construction upon Charity’s proceedings. He certainly +had no idea that as he had been the audience and spectator of her +mortification, she grasped with eager delight at any opportunity of +reproaching her sister with his presence in HER far deeper misery; for +he knew nothing of it, and only pictured that sister as the same giddy, +careless, trivial creature she always had been, with the same slight +estimation of himself which she had never been at the least pains +to conceal. In short, he had merely a confused impression that Miss +Pecksniff was not quite sisterly or kind; and being curious to set it +right, accompanied her as she desired. + +The house-door being opened, she went in before Tom, requesting him to +follow her; and led the way to the parlour door. + +‘Oh, Merry!’ she said, looking in, ‘I am so glad you have not gone home. +Who do you think I have met in the street, and brought to see you! Mr +Pinch! There. Now you ARE surprised, I am sure!’ + +Not more surprised than Tom was, when he looked upon her. Not so much. +Not half so much. + +‘Mr Pinch has left Papa, my dear,’ said Cherry, ‘and his prospects are +quite flourishing. I have promised that Augustus, who is going that way, +shall escort him to the place he wants. Augustus, my child, where are +you?’ + +With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed her way out of the parlour, +calling on Augustus Moddle to appear; and left Tom Pinch alone with her +sister. + +If she had always been his kindest friend; if she had treated him +through all his servitude with such consideration as was never yet +received by struggling man; if she had lightened every moment of those +many years, and had ever spared and never wounded him; his honest heart +could not have swelled before her with a deeper pity, or a purer freedom +from all base remembrance than it did then. + +‘My gracious me! You are really the last person in the world I should +have thought of seeing, I am sure!’ + +Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had not +expected that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he should be +sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the same time +to hear her speaking in her old manner. The two things seemed quite +natural. + +‘I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me. I can’t think +what put it in your head. I never had much in seeing you. There was no +love lost between us, Mr Pinch, at any time, I think.’ + +Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy with the +ribbons as she spoke. Much too busy to be conscious of the work her +fingers did. + +‘We never quarrelled,’ said Tom.--Tom was right in that, for one person +can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can play at +chess, or fight a duel. ‘I hoped you would be glad to shake hands with +an old friend. Don’t let us rake up bygones,’ said Tom. ‘If I ever +offended you, forgive me.’ + +She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her hands; +spread them before her altered face, and burst into tears. + +‘Oh, Mr Pinch!’ she said, ‘although I never used you well, I did believe +your nature was forgiving. I did not think you could be cruel.’ + +She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom +could possibly have wished. But she seemed to be appealing to him +reproachfully, and he did not understand her. + +‘I seldom showed it--never--I know that. But I had that belief in you, +that if I had been asked to name the person in the world least likely to +retort upon me, I would have named you, confidently.’ + +‘Would have named me!’ Tom repeated. + +‘Yes,’ she said with energy, ‘and I have often thought so.’ + +After a moment’s reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside her. + +‘Do you believe,’ said Tom, ‘oh, can you think, that what I said just +now, I said with any but the true and plain intention which my words +professed? I mean it, in the spirit and the letter. If I ever offended +you, forgive me; I may have done so, many times. You never injured or +offended me. How, then, could I possibly retort, if even I were stern +and bad enough to wish to do it!’ + +After a little while she thanked him, through her tears and sobs, and +told him she had never been at once so sorry and so comforted, since she +left home. Still she wept bitterly; and it was the greater pain to Tom +to see her weeping, from her standing in especial need, just then, of +sympathy and tenderness. + +‘Come, come!’ said Tom, ‘you used to be as cheerful as the day was +long.’ + +‘Ah! used!’ she cried, in such a tone as rent Tom’s heart. + +‘And will be again,’ said Tom. + +‘No, never more. No, never, never more. If you should talk with old Mr +Chuzzlewit, at any time,’ she added, looking hurriedly into his face--‘I +sometimes thought he liked you, but suppressed it--will you promise me +to tell him that you saw me here, and that I said I bore in mind the +time we talked together in the churchyard?’ + +Tom promised that he would. + +‘Many times since then, when I have wished I had been carried there +before that day, I have recalled his words. I wish that he should know +how true they were, although the least acknowledgment to that effect has +never passed my lips and never will.’ + +Tom promised this, conditionally too. He did not tell her how improbable +it was that he and the old man would ever meet again, because he thought +it might disturb her more. + +‘If he should ever know this, through your means, dear Mr Pinch,’ said +Mercy, ‘tell him that I sent the message, not for myself, but that he +might be more forbearing and more patient, and more trustful to some +other person, in some other time of need. Tell him that if he could know +how my heart trembled in the balance that day, and what a very little +would have turned the scale, his own would bleed with pity for me.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Tom, ‘I will.’ + +‘When I appeared to him the most unworthy of his help, I was--I know I +was, for I have often, often, thought about it since--the most inclined +to yield to what he showed me. Oh! if he had relented but a little more; +if he had thrown himself in my way for but one other quarter of an hour; +if he had extended his compassion for a vain, unthinking, miserable +girl, in but the least degree; he might, and I believe he would, have +saved her! Tell him that I don’t blame him, but am grateful for the +effort that he made; but ask him for the love of God, and youth, and +in merciful consideration for the struggle which an ill-advised and +unwakened nature makes to hide the strength it thinks its weakness--ask +him never, never, to forget this, when he deals with one again!’ + +Although Tom did not hold the clue to her full meaning, he could guess +it pretty nearly. Touched to the quick, he took her hand and said, or +meant to say, some words of consolation. She felt and understood them, +whether they were spoken or no. He was not quite certain, afterwards, +but that she had tried to kneel down at his feet, and bless him. + +He found that he was not alone in the room when she had left it. Mrs +Todgers was there, shaking her head. Tom had never seen Mrs Todgers, it +is needless to say, but he had a perception of her being the lady of the +house; and he saw some genuine compassion in her eyes, that won his good +opinion. + +‘Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see,’ said Mrs Todgers. + +‘Yes,’ said Tom. + +‘And yet,’ quoth Mrs Todgers, shutting the door softly, ‘she hasn’t told +you what her troubles are, I’m certain.’ + +Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true. ‘Indeed,’ he +said, ‘she has not.’ + +‘And never would,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘if you saw her daily. She never +makes the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of explanation +or reproach. But I know,’ said Mrs Todgers, drawing in her breath, ‘I +know!’ + +Tom nodded sorrowfully, ‘So do I.’ + +‘I fully believe,’ said Mrs Todgers, taking her pocket-handkerchief +from the flat reticule, ‘that nobody can tell one half of what that poor +young creature has to undergo. But though she comes here, constantly, +to ease her poor full heart without his knowing it; and saying, “Mrs +Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think that I shall soon be dead,” sits +crying in my room until the fit is past; I know no more from her. And, +I believe,’ said Mrs Todgers, putting back her handkerchief again, ‘that +she considers me a good friend too.’ + +Mrs Todgers might have said her best friend. Commercial gentlemen and +gravy had tried Mrs Todgers’s temper; the main chance--it was such a +very small one in her case, that she might have been excused for looking +sharp after it, lest it should entirely vanish from her sight--had taken +a firm hold on Mrs Todgers’s attention. But in some odd nook in Mrs +Todgers’s breast, up a great many steps, and in a corner easy to be +overlooked, there was a secret door, with ‘Woman’ written on the spring, +which, at a touch from Mercy’s hand, had flown wide open, and admitted +her for shelter. + +When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers, and +the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps there may +be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs Todgers, which shall make thee +beautiful! + +She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom’s eyes; for he saw that she +was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the sordid +strivings of her life; that she might have been a very Venus in a minute +more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered with her friend. + +‘Mr Thomas Pinch!’ said Charity, performing the ceremony of introduction +with evident pride. ‘Mr Moddle. Where’s my sister?’ + +‘Gone, Miss Pecksniff,’ Mrs Todgers answered. ‘She had appointed to be +home.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Charity, looking at Tom. ‘Oh, dear me!’ + +‘She’s greatly altered since she’s been Anoth--since she’s been married, +Mrs Todgers!’ observed Moddle. + +‘My dear Augustus!’ said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice. ‘I verily +believe you have said that fifty thousand times, in my hearing. What a +Prose you are!’ + +This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which appeared to +originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by Miss Pecksniff. At any +rate, Mr Moddle was much slower in his responses than is customary +with young lovers, and exhibited a lowness of spirits which was quite +oppressive. + +He did not improve at all when Tom and he were in the streets, but +sighed so dismally that it was dreadful to hear him. As a means of +cheering him up, Tom told him that he wished him joy. + +‘Joy!’ cried Moddle. ‘Ha, ha!’ + +‘What an extraordinary young man!’ thought Tom. + +‘The Scorner has not set his seal upon you. YOU care what becomes of +you?’ said Moddle. + +Tom admitted that it was a subject in which he certainly felt some +interest. + +‘I don’t,’ said Mr Moddle. ‘The Elements may have me when they please. +I’m ready.’ + +Tom inferred from these, and other expressions of the same nature, that +he was jealous. Therefore he allowed him to take his own course; which +was such a gloomy one, that he felt a load removed from his mind when +they parted company at the gate of Furnival’s Inn. + +It was now a couple of hours past John Westlock’s dinner-time; and he +was walking up and down the room, quite anxious for Tom’s safety. The +table was spread; the wine was carefully decanted; and the dinner smelt +delicious. + +‘Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been? Your box is here. Get +your boots off instantly, and sit down!’ + +‘I am sorry to say I can’t stay, John,’ replied Tom Pinch, who was +breathless with the haste he had made in running up the stairs. + +‘Can’t stay!’ + +‘If you’ll go on with your dinner,’ said Tom, ‘I’ll tell you my reason +the while. I mustn’t eat myself, or I shall have no appetite for the +chops.’ + +‘There are no chops here, my food fellow.’ + +‘No. But there are at Islington,’ said Tom. + +John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed he would +not touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully. So Tom sat +down, and told him all; to which he listened with the greatest interest. + +He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to ask him +why he had taken these measures without communicating with him first. He +quite concurred in the expediency of Tom’s immediately returning to his +sister, as he knew so little of the place in which he had left her, and +good-humouredly proposed to ride back with him in a cab, in which he +might convey his box. Tom’s proposition that he should sup with them +that night, he flatly rejected, but made an appointment with him for the +morrow. ‘And now Tom,’ he said, as they rode along, ‘I have a question +to ask you to which I expect a manly and straightforward answer. Do you +want any money? I am pretty sure you do.’ + +‘I don’t indeed,’ said Tom. + +‘I believe you are deceiving me.’ + +‘No. With many thanks to you, I am quite in earnest,’ Tom replied. ‘My +sister has some money, and so have I. If I had nothing else, John, I +have a five-pound note, which that good creature, Mrs Lupin, of the +Dragon, handed up to me outside the coach, in a letter begging me to +borrow it; and then drove off as hard as she could go.’ + +‘And a blessing on every dimple in her handsome face, say I!’ cried +John, ‘though why you should give her the preference over me, I don’t +know. Never mind. I bide my time, Tom.’ + +‘And I hope you’ll continue to bide it,’ returned Tom, gayly. ‘For I +owe you more, already, in a hundred other ways, than I can ever hope to +pay.’ + +They parted at the door of Tom’s new residence. John Westlock, sitting +in the cab, and, catching a glimpse of a blooming little busy creature +darting out to kiss Tom and to help him with his box, would not have had +the least objection to change places with him. + +Well! she WAS a cheerful little thing; and had a quaint, bright +quietness about her that was infinitely pleasant. Surely she was the +best sauce for chops ever invented. The potatoes seemed to take a +pleasure in sending up their grateful steam before her; the froth upon +the pint of porter pouted to attract her notice. But it was all in vain. +She saw nothing but Tom. Tom was the first and last thing in the world. + +As she sat opposite to Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom’s pet tunes +upon the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never been so +happy in his life. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT + +SECRET SERVICE + + +In walking from the city with his sentimental friend, Tom Pinch had +looked into the face, and brushed against the threadbare sleeve, of Mr +Nadgett, man of mystery to the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and +Life Assurance Company. Mr Nadgett naturally passed away from Tom’s +remembrance as he passed out of his view; for he didn’t know him, and +had never heard his name. + +As there are a vast number of people in the huge metropolis of England +who rise up every morning not knowing where their heads will rest at +night, so there are a multitude who shooting arrows over houses as their +daily business, never know on whom they fall. Mr Nadgett might have +passed Tom Pinch ten thousand times; might even have been quite familiar +with his face, his name, pursuits, and character; yet never once have +dreamed that Tom had any interest in any act or mystery of his. Tom +might have done the like by him of course. But the same private man out +of all the men alive, was in the mind of each at the same moment; was +prominently connected though in a different manner, with the day’s +adventures of both; and formed, when they passed each other in the +street, the one absorbing topic of their thoughts. + +Why Tom had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his mind requires no explanation. Why Mr +Nadgett should have had Jonas Chuzzlewit in his, is quite another thing. + +But, somehow or other, that amiable and worthy orphan had become a part +of the mystery of Mr Nadgett’s existence. Mr Nadgett took an interest +in his lightest proceedings; and it never flagged or wavered. He watched +him in and out of the Assurance Office, where he was now formally +installed as a Director; he dogged his footsteps in the streets; he +stood listening when he talked; he sat in coffee-rooms entering his +name in the great pocket-book, over and over again; he wrote letters to +himself about him constantly; and, when he found them in his pocket, put +them in the fire, with such distrust and caution that he would bend down +to watch the crumpled tinder while it floated upwards, as if his mind +misgave him, that the mystery it had contained might come out at the +chimney-pot. + +And yet all this was quite a secret. Mr Nadgett kept it to himself, and +kept it close. Jonas had no more idea that Mr Nadgett’s eyes were fixed +on him, than he had that he was living under the daily inspection and +report of a whole order of Jesuits. Indeed Mr Nadgett’s eyes were seldom +fixed on any other objects than the ground, the clock, or the fire; but +every button on his coat might have been an eye, he saw so much. + +The secret manner of the man disarmed suspicion in this wise; +suggesting, not that he was watching any one, but that he thought +some other man was watching him. He went about so stealthily, and kept +himself so wrapped up in himself, that the whole object of his life +appeared to be, to avoid notice and preserve his own mystery. Jonas +sometimes saw him in the street, hovering in the outer office, waiting +at the door for the man who never came, or slinking off with his +immovable face and drooping head, and the one beaver glove dangling +before him; but he would as soon have thought of the cross upon the top +of St. Paul’s Cathedral taking note of what he did, or slowly winding +a great net about his feet, as of Nadgett’s being engaged in such an +occupation. + +Mr Nadgett made a mysterious change about this time in his mysterious +life: for whereas he had, until now, been first seen every morning +coming down Cornhill, so exactly like the Nadgett of the day before +as to occasion a popular belief that he never went to bed or took his +clothes off, he was now first seen in Holborn, coming out of Kingsgate +Street; and it was soon discovered that he actually went every morning +to a barber’s shop in that street to get shaved; and that the barber’s +name was Sweedlepipe. He seemed to make appointments with the man who +never came, to meet him at this barber’s; for he would frequently take +long spells of waiting in the shop, and would ask for pen and ink, and +pull out his pocket-book, and be very busy over it for an hour at a +time. Mrs Gamp and Mr Sweedlepipe had many deep discoursings on the +subject of this mysterious customer; but they usually agreed that he had +speculated too much and was keeping out of the way. + +He must have appointed the man who never kept his word, to meet him at +another new place too; for one day he was found, for the first time, +by the waiter at the Mourning Coach-Horse, the House-of-call for +Undertakers, down in the City there, making figures with a pipe-stem in +the sawdust of a clean spittoon; and declining to call for anything, on +the ground of expecting a gentleman presently. As the gentleman was not +honourable enough to keep his engagement, he came again next day, with +his pocket-book in such a state of distention that he was regarded in +the bar as a man of large property. After that, he repeated his visits +every day, and had so much writing to do, that he made nothing of +emptying a capacious leaden inkstand in two sittings. Although he never +talked much, still, by being there among the regular customers, he made +their acquaintance, and in course of time became quite intimate with Mr +Tacker, Mr Mould’s foreman; and even with Mr Mould himself, who openly +said he was a long-headed man, a dry one, a salt fish, a deep file, a +rasper; and made him the subject of many other flattering encomiums. + +At the same time, too, he told the people at the Assurance Office, in +his own mysterious way, that there was something wrong (secretly wrong, +of course) in his liver, and that he feared he must put himself +under the doctor’s hands. He was delivered over to Jobling upon this +representation; and though Jobling could not find out where his liver +was wrong, wrong Mr Nadgett said it was; observing that it was his +own liver, and he hoped he ought to know. Accordingly, he became Mr +Jobling’s patient; and detailing his symptoms in his slow and secret +way, was in and out of that gentleman’s room a dozen times a day. + +As he pursued all these occupations at once; and all steadily; and all +secretly; and never slackened in his watchfulness of everything that +Mr Jonas said and did, and left unsaid and undone; it is not improbable +that they were, secretly, essential parts of some great scheme which Mr +Nadgett had on foot. + +It was on the morning of this very day on which so much had happened to +Tom Pinch, that Nadgett suddenly appeared before Mr Montague’s house in +Pall Mall--he always made his appearance as if he had that moment come +up a trap--when the clocks were striking nine. He rang the bell in a +covert under-handed way, as though it were a treasonable act; and passed +in at the door, the moment it was opened wide enough to receive his +body. That done, he shut it immediately with his own hands. + +Mr Bailey, taking up his name without delay, returned with a request +that he would follow him into his master’s chamber. The chairman of the +Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Board was dressing, +and received him as a business person who was often backwards and +forwards, and was received at all times for his business’ sake. + +‘Well, Mr Nadgett?’ + +Mr Nadgett put his hat upon the ground and coughed. The boy having +withdrawn and shut the door, he went to it softly, examined the handle, +and returned to within a pace or two of the chair in which Mr Montague +sat. + +‘Any news, Mr Nadgett?’ + +‘I think we have some news at last, sir.’ + +‘I am happy to hear it. I began to fear you were off the scent, Mr +Nadgett.’ + +‘No, sir. It grows cold occasionally. It will sometimes. We can’t help +that.’ + +‘You are truth itself, Mr Nadgett. Do you report a great success?’ + +‘That depends upon your judgment and construction of it,’ was his +answer, as he put on his spectacles. + +‘What do you think of it yourself? Have you pleased yourself?’ + +Mr Nadgett rubbed his hands slowly, stroked his chin, looked round the +room, and said, ‘Yes, yes, I think it’s a good case. I am disposed to +think it’s a good case. Will you go into it at once?’ + +‘By all means.’ + +Mr Nadgett picked out a certain chair from among the rest, and having +planted it in a particular spot, as carefully as if he had been going to +vault over it, placed another chair in front of it; leaving room for his +own legs between them. He then sat down in chair number two, and laid +his pocket-book, very carefully, on chair number one. He then untied the +pocket-book, and hung the string over the back of chair number one. He +then drew both the chairs a little nearer Mr Montague, and opening +the pocket-book spread out its contents. Finally he selected a certain +memorandum from the rest, and held it out to his employer, who, during +the whole of these preliminary ceremonies, had been making violent +efforts to conceal his impatience. + +‘I wish you wouldn’t be so fond of making notes, my excellent friend,’ +said Tigg Montague with a ghastly smile. ‘I wish you would consent to +give me their purport by word of mouth.’ + +‘I don’t like word of mouth,’ said Mr Nadgett gravely. ‘We never know +who’s listening.’ + +Mr Montague was going to retort, when Nadgett handed him the paper, and +said, with quiet exultation in his tone, ‘We’ll begin at the beginning, +and take that one first, if you please, sir.’ + +The chairman cast his eyes upon it, coldly, and with a smile which did +not render any great homage to the slow and methodical habits of his +spy. But he had not read half-a-dozen lines when the expression of his +face began to change, and before he had finished the perusal of the +paper, it was full of grave and serious attention. + +‘Number Two,’ said Mr Nadgett, handing him another, and receiving back +the first. ‘Read Number Two, sir, if you please. There is more interest +as you go on.’ + +Tigg Montague leaned backward in his chair, and cast upon his emissary +such a look of vacant wonder (not unmingled with alarm), that Mr Nadgett +considered it necessary to repeat the request he had already twice +preferred; with the view to recalling his attention to the point in +hand. Profiting by the hint, Mr Montague went on with Number Two, and +afterwards with Numbers Three, and Four, and Five, and so on. + +These documents were all in Mr Nadgett’s writing, and were apparently a +series of memoranda, jotted down from time to time upon the backs of old +letters, or any scrap of paper that came first to hand. Loose straggling +scrawls they were, and of very uninviting exterior; but they had weighty +purpose in them, if the chairman’s face were any index to the character +of their contents. + +The progress of Mr Nadgett’s secret satisfaction arising out of the +effect they made, kept pace with the emotions of the reader. At first, +Mr Nadgett sat with his spectacles low down upon his nose, looking over +them at his employer, and nervously rubbing his hands. After a little +while, he changed his posture in his chair for one of greater ease, and +leisurely perused the next document he held ready as if an occasional +glance at his employer’s face were now enough and all occasion for +anxiety or doubt were gone. And finally he rose and looked out of the +window, where he stood with a triumphant air until Tigg Montague had +finished. + +‘And this is the last, Mr Nadgett!’ said that gentleman, drawing a long +breath. + +‘That, sir, is the last.’ + +‘You are a wonderful man, Mr Nadgett!’ + +‘I think it is a pretty good case,’ he returned as he gathered up his +papers. ‘It cost some trouble, sir.’ + +‘The trouble shall be well rewarded, Mr Nadgett.’ Nadgett bowed. ‘There +is a deeper impression of Somebody’s Hoof here, than I had expected, Mr +Nadgett. I may congratulate myself upon your being such a good hand at a +secret.’ + +‘Oh! nothing has an interest to me that’s not a secret,’ replied +Nadgett, as he tied the string about his pocket-book, and put it up. ‘It +always takes away any pleasure I may have had in this inquiry even to +make it known to you.’ + +‘A most invaluable constitution,’ Tigg retorted. ‘A great gift for a +gentleman employed as you are, Mr Nadgett. Much better than discretion; +though you possess that quality also in an eminent degree. I think I +heard a double knock. Will you put your head out of window, and tell me +whether there is anybody at the door?’ + +Mr Nadgett softly raised the sash, and peered out from the very corner, +as a man might who was looking down into a street from whence a brisk +discharge of musketry might be expected at any moment. Drawing in his +head with equal caution, he observed, not altering his voice or manner: + +‘Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit!’ + +‘I thought so,’ Tigg retorted. + +‘Shall I go?’ + +‘I think you had better. Stay though! No! remain here, Mr Nadgett, if +you please.’ + +It was remarkable how pale and flurried he had become in an instant. +There was nothing to account for it. His eye had fallen on his razors; +but what of them! + +Mr Chuzzlewit was announced. + +‘Show him up directly. Nadgett! don’t you leave us alone together. Mind +you don’t, now! By the Lord!’ he added in a whisper to himself: ‘We +don’t know what may happen.’ + +Saying this, he hurriedly took up a couple of hair-brushes, and began +to exercise them on his own head, as if his toilet had not been +interrupted. Mr Nadgett withdrew to the stove, in which there was a +small fire for the convenience of heating curling-irons; and +taking advantage of so favourable an opportunity for drying his +pocket-handkerchief, produced it without loss of time. There he stood, +during the whole interview, holding it before the bars, and sometimes, +but not often, glancing over his shoulder. + +‘My dear Chuzzlewit!’ cried Montague, as Jonas entered. ‘You rise with +the lark. Though you go to bed with the nightingale, you rise with the +lark. You have superhuman energy, my dear Chuzzlewit!’ + +‘Ecod!’ said Jonas, with an air of langour and ill-humour, as he took +a chair, ‘I should be very glad not to get up with the lark, if I could +help it. But I am a light sleeper; and it’s better to be up than lying +awake, counting the dismal old church-clocks, in bed.’ + +‘A light sleeper!’ cried his friend. ‘Now, what is a light sleeper? +I often hear the expression, but upon my life I have not the least +conception what a light sleeper is.’ + +‘Hallo!’ said Jonas, ‘Who’s that? Oh, old what’s-his-name: looking (as +usual) as if he wanted to skulk up the chimney.’ + +‘Ha, ha! I have no doubt he does.’ + +‘Well! He’s not wanted here, I suppose,’ said Jonas. ‘He may go, mayn’t +he?’ + +‘Oh, let him stay, let him stay!’ said Tigg. ‘He’s a mere piece of +furniture. He has been making his report, and is waiting for further +orders. He has been told,’ said Tigg, raising his voice, ‘not to lose +sight of certain friends of ours, or to think that he has done with them +by any means. He understands his business.’ + +‘He need,’ replied Jonas; ‘for of all the precious old dummies in +appearance that I ever saw, he’s about the worst. He’s afraid of me, I +think.’ + +‘It’s my belief,’ said Tigg, ‘that you are Poison to him. Nadgett! give +me that towel!’ + +He had as little occasion for a towel as Jonas had for a start. But +Nadgett brought it quickly; and, having lingered for a moment, fell back +upon his old post by the fire. + +‘You see, my dear fellow,’ resumed Tigg, ‘you are too--what’s the matter +with your lips? How white they are!’ + +‘I took some vinegar just now,’ said Jonas. ‘I had oysters for my +breakfast. Where are they white?’ he added, muttering an oath, and +rubbing them upon his handkerchief. ‘I don’t believe they ARE white.’ + +‘Now I look again, they are not,’ replied his friend. ‘They are coming +right again.’ + +‘Say what you were going to say,’ cried Jonas angrily, ‘and let my face +be! As long as I can show my teeth when I want to (and I can do that +pretty well), the colour of my lips is not material.’ + +‘Quite true,’ said Tigg. ‘I was only going to say that you are too quick +and active for our friend. He is too shy to cope with such a man as you, +but does his duty well. Oh, very well! But what is a light sleeper?’ + +‘Hang a light sleeper!’ exclaimed Jonas pettishly. + +‘No, no,’ interrupted Tigg. ‘No. We’ll not do that.’ + +‘A light sleeper ain’t a heavy one,’ said Jonas in his sulky way; ‘don’t +sleep much, and don’t sleep well, and don’t sleep sound.’ + +‘And dreams,’ said Tigg, ‘and cries out in an ugly manner; and when the +candle burns down in the night, is in an agony; and all that sort of +thing. I see!’ + +They were silent for a little time. Then Jonas spoke: + +‘Now we’ve done with child’s talk, I want to have a word with you. I +want to have a word with you before we meet up yonder to-day. I am not +satisfied with the state of affairs.’ + +‘Not satisfied!’ cried Tigg. ‘The money comes in well.’ + +‘The money comes in well enough,’ retorted Jonas, ‘but it don’t come +out well enough. It can’t be got at easily enough. I haven’t sufficient +power; it is all in your hands. Ecod! what with one of your by-laws, and +another of your by-laws, and your votes in this capacity, and your votes +in that capacity, and your official rights, and your individual rights, +and other people’s rights who are only you again, there are no rights +left for me. Everybody else’s rights are my wrongs. What’s the use of my +having a voice if it’s always drowned? I might as well be dumb, and +it would be much less aggravating. I’m not a-going to stand that, you +know.’ + +‘No!’ said Tigg in an insinuating tone. + +‘No!’ returned Jonas, ‘I’m not indeed. I’ll play old Gooseberry with the +office, and make you glad to buy me out at a good high figure, if you +try any of your tricks with me.’ + +‘I give you my honour--’ Montague began. + +‘Oh! confound your honour,’ interrupted Jonas, who became more coarse +and quarrelsome as the other remonstrated, which may have been a part of +Mr Montague’s intention; ‘I want a little more control over the money. +You may have all the honour, if you like; I’ll never bring you to book +for that. But I’m not a-going to stand it, as it is now. If you should +take it into your honourable head to go abroad with the bank, I don’t +see much to prevent you. Well! That won’t do. I’ve had some very good +dinners here, but they’d come too dear on such terms; and therefore, +that won’t do.’ + +‘I am unfortunate to find you in this humour,’ said Tigg, with a +remarkable kind of smile; ‘for I was going to propose to you--for your +own advantage; solely for your own advantage--that you should venture a +little more with us.’ + +‘Was you, by G--?’ said Jonas, with a short laugh. + +‘Yes. And to suggest,’ pursued Montague, ‘that surely you have friends; +indeed, I know you have; who would answer our purpose admirably, and +whom we should be delighted to receive.’ + +‘How kind of you! You’d be delighted to receive ‘em, would you?’ said +Jonas, bantering. + +‘I give you my sacred honour, quite transported. As your friends, +observe!’ + +‘Exactly,’ said Jonas; ‘as my friends, of course. You’ll be very much +delighted when you get ‘em, I have no doubt. And it’ll be all to my +advantage, won’t it?’ + +‘It will be very much to your advantage,’ answered Montague poising a +brush in each hand, and looking steadily upon him. ‘It will be very much +to your advantage, I assure you.’ + +‘And you can tell me how,’ said Jonas, ‘can’t you?’ + +‘SHALL I tell you how?’ returned the other. + +‘I think you had better,’ said Jonas. ‘Strange things have been done +in the Assurance way before now, by strange sorts of men, and I mean to +take care of myself.’ + +‘Chuzzlewit!’ replied Montague, leaning forward, with his arms upon his +knees, and looking full into his face. ‘Strange things have been done, +and are done every day; not only in our way, but in a variety of other +ways; and no one suspects them. But ours, as you say, my good friend, +is a strange way; and we strangely happen, sometimes, to come into the +knowledge of very strange events.’ + +He beckoned to Jonas to bring his chair nearer; and looking slightly +round, as if to remind him of the presence of Nadgett, whispered in his +ear. + +From red to white; from white to red again; from red to yellow; then to +a cold, dull, awful, sweat-bedabbled blue. In that short whisper, all +these changes fell upon the face of Jonas Chuzzlewit; and when at last +he laid his hand upon the whisperer’s mouth, appalled, lest any syllable +of what he said should reach the ears of the third person present, it +was as bloodless and as heavy as the hand of Death. + +He drew his chair away, and sat a spectacle of terror, misery, and +rage. He was afraid to speak, or look, or move, or sit still. Abject, +crouching, and miserable, he was a greater degradation to the form he +bore, than if he had been a loathsome wound from head to heel. + +His companion leisurely resumed his dressing, and completed it, glancing +sometimes with a smile at the transformation he had effected, but never +speaking once. + +‘You’ll not object,’ he said, when he was quite equipped, ‘to venture +further with us, Chuzzlewit, my friend?’ + +His pale lips faintly stammered out a ‘No.’ + +‘Well said! That’s like yourself. Do you know I was thinking yesterday +that your father-in-law, relying on your advice as a man of great +sagacity in money matters, as no doubt you are, would join us, if the +thing were well presented to him. He has money?’ + +‘Yes, he has money.’ + +‘Shall I leave Mr Pecksniff to you? Will you undertake for Mr +Pecksniff.’ + +‘I’ll try. I’ll do my best.’ + +‘A thousand thanks,’ replied the other, clapping him upon the shoulder. +‘Shall we walk downstairs? Mr Nadgett! Follow us, if you please.’ + +They went down in that order. Whatever Jonas felt in reference to +Montague; whatever sense he had of being caged, and barred, and trapped, +and having fallen down into a pit of deepest ruin; whatever thoughts +came crowding on his mind even at that early time, of one terrible +chance of escape, of one red glimmer in a sky of blackness; he no more +thought that the slinking figure half-a-dozen stairs behind him was +his pursuing Fate, than that the other figure at his side was his Good +Angel. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE + +CONTAINING SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE +PINCHES; WITH STRANGE NEWS FROM THE CITY, NARROWLY CONCERNING TOM + + +Pleasant little Ruth! Cheerful, tidy, bustling, quiet little Ruth! No +doll’s house ever yielded greater delight to its young mistress, than +little Ruth derived from her glorious dominion over the triangular +parlour and the two small bedrooms. + +To be Tom’s housekeeper. What dignity! Housekeeping, upon the commonest +terms, associated itself with elevated responsibilities of all sorts and +kinds; but housekeeping for Tom implied the utmost complication of +grave trusts and mighty charges. Well might she take the keys out of +the little chiffonier which held the tea and sugar; and out of the +two little damp cupboards down by the fireplace, where the very black +beetles got mouldy, and had the shine taken out of their backs by +envious mildew; and jingle them upon a ring before Tom’s eyes when he +came down to breakfast! Well might she, laughing musically, put them +up in that blessed little pocket of hers with a merry pride! For it was +such a grand novelty to be mistress of anything, that if she had been +the most relentless and despotic of all little housekeepers, she might +have pleaded just that much for her excuse, and have been honourably +acquitted. + +So far from being despotic, however, there was a coyness about her very +way of pouring out the tea, which Tom quite revelled in. And when +she asked him what he would like to have for dinner, and faltered +out ‘chops’ as a reasonably good suggestion after their last +night’s successful supper, Tom grew quite facetious, and rallied her +desperately. + +‘I don’t know, Tom,’ said his sister, blushing, ‘I am not quite +confident, but I think I could make a beef-steak pudding, if I tried, +Tom.’ + +‘In the whole catalogue of cookery, there is nothing I should like so +much as a beef-steak pudding!’ cried Tom, slapping his leg to give the +greater force to this reply. + +‘Yes, dear, that’s excellent! But if it should happen not to come quite +right the first time,’ his sister faltered; ‘if it should happen not +to be a pudding exactly, but should turn out a stew, or a soup, or +something of that sort, you’ll not be vexed, Tom, will you?’ + +The serious way in which she looked at Tom; the way in which Tom looked +at her; and the way in which she gradually broke into a merry laugh at +her own expense, would have enchanted you. + +‘Why,’ said Tom ‘this is capital. It gives us a new, and quite an +uncommon interest in the dinner. We put into a lottery for a beefsteak +pudding, and it is impossible to say what we may get. We may make some +wonderful discovery, perhaps, and produce such a dish as never was known +before.’ + +‘I shall not be at all surprised if we do, Tom,’ returned his sister, +still laughing merrily, ‘or if it should prove to be such a dish as we +shall not feel very anxious to produce again; but the meat must come out +of the saucepan at last, somehow or other, you know. We can’t cook it +into nothing at all; that’s a great comfort. So if you like to venture, +I will.’ + +‘I have not the least doubt,’ rejoined Tom, ‘that it will come out an +excellent pudding, or at all events, I am sure that I shall think it so. +There is naturally something so handy and brisk about you, Ruth, that +if you said you could make a bowl of faultless turtle soup, I should +believe you.’ + +And Tom was right. She was precisely that sort of person. Nobody ought +to have been able to resist her coaxing manner; and nobody had any +business to try. Yet she never seemed to know it was her manner at all. +That was the best of it. + +Well! she washed up the breakfast cups, chatting away the whole time, +and telling Tom all sorts of anecdotes about the brass-and-copper +founder; put everything in its place; made the room as neat as +herself;--you must not suppose its shape was half as neat as hers +though, or anything like it--and brushed Tom’s old hat round and +round and round again, until it was as sleek as Mr Pecksniff. Then she +discovered, all in a moment, that Tom’s shirt-collar was frayed at the +edge; and flying upstairs for a needle and thread, came flying down +again with her thimble on, and set it right with wonderful expertness; +never once sticking the needle into his face, although she was humming +his pet tune from first to last, and beating time with the fingers of +her left hand upon his neckcloth. She had no sooner done this, than off +she was again; and there she stood once more, as brisk and busy as a +bee, tying that compact little chin of hers into an equally compact +little bonnet; intent on bustling out to the butcher’s, without a +minute’s loss of time; and inviting Tom to come and see the steak cut, +with his own eyes. As to Tom, he was ready to go anywhere; so off they +trotted, arm-in-arm, as nimbly as you please; saying to each other what +a quiet street it was to lodge in, and how very cheap, and what an airy +situation. + +To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, and +give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was +agreeable, too--it really was--to see him cut it off, so smooth and +juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large +and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, +clearness of tone, skillful handling of the subject, fine shading. It +was the triumph of mind over matter; quite. + +Perhaps the greenest cabbage-leaf ever grown in a garden was wrapped +about this steak, before it was delivered over to Tom. But the butcher +had a sentiment for his business, and knew how to refine upon it. When +he saw Tom putting the cabbage-leaf into his pocket awkwardly, he begged +to be allowed to do it for him; ‘for meat,’ he said with some emotion, +‘must be humoured, not drove.’ + +Back they went to the lodgings again, after they had bought some eggs, +and flour, and such small matters; and Tom sat gravely down to write at +one end of the parlour table, while Ruth prepared to make the pudding at +the other end; for there was nobody in the house but an old woman (the +landlord being a mysterious sort of man, who went out early in the +morning, and was scarcely ever seen); and saving in mere household +drudgery, they waited on themselves. + +‘What are you writing, Tom?’ inquired his sister, laying her hand upon +his shoulder. + +‘Why, you see, my dear,’ said Tom, leaning back in his chair, and +looking up in her face, ‘I am very anxious, of course, to obtain some +suitable employment; and before Mr Westlock comes this afternoon, +I think I may as well prepare a little description of myself and my +qualifications; such as he could show to any friend of his.’ + +‘You had better do the same for me, Tom, also,’ said his sister, casting +down her eyes. ‘I should dearly like to keep house for you and take care +of you always, Tom; but we are not rich enough for that.’ + +‘We are not rich,’ returned Tom, ‘certainly; and we may be much poorer. +But we will not part if we can help it. No, no; we will make up our +minds Ruth, that unless we are so very unfortunate as to render me quite +sure that you would be better off away from me than with me, we will +battle it out together. I am certain we shall be happier if we can +battle it out together. Don’t you think we shall?’ + +‘Think, Tom!’ + +‘Oh, tut, tut!’ interposed Tom, tenderly. ‘You mustn’t cry.’ + +‘No, no; I won’t, Tom. But you can’t afford it, dear. You can’t, +indeed.’ + +‘We don’t know that,’ said Tom. ‘How are we to know that, yet awhile, +and without trying? Lord bless my soul!’--Tom’s energy became quite +grand--‘there is no knowing what may happen, if we try hard. And I am +sure we can live contentedly upon a very little--if we can only get it.’ + +‘Yes; that I am sure we can, Tom.’ + +‘Why, then,’ said Tom, ‘we must try for it. My friend, John Westlock, is +a capital fellow, and very shrewd and intelligent. I’ll take his advice. +We’ll talk it over with him--both of us together. You’ll like John very +much, when you come to know him, I am certain. Don’t cry, don’t cry. YOU +make a beef-steak pudding, indeed!’ said Tom, giving her a gentle push. +‘Why, you haven’t boldness enough for a dumpling!’ + +‘You WILL call it a pudding, Tom. Mind! I told you not!’ + +‘I may as well call it that, till it proves to be something else,’ said +Tom. ‘Oh, you are going to work in earnest, are you?’ + +Aye, aye! That she was. And in such pleasant earnest, moreover, that +Tom’s attention wandered from his writing every moment. First, she +tripped downstairs into the kitchen for the flour, then for the +pie-board, then for the eggs, then for the butter, then for a jug of +water, then for the rolling-pin, then for a pudding-basin, then for the +pepper, then for the salt; making a separate journey for everything, and +laughing every time she started off afresh. When all the materials were +collected she was horrified to find she had no apron on, and so ran +UPstairs by way of variety, to fetch it. She didn’t put it on upstairs, +but came dancing down with it in her hand; and being one of those little +women to whom an apron is a most becoming little vanity, it took +an immense time to arrange; having to be carefully smoothed down +beneath--Oh, heaven, what a wicked little stomacher!--and to be gathered +up into little plaits by the strings before it could be tied, and to +be tapped, rebuked, and wheedled, at the pockets, before it would set +right, which at last it did, and when it did--but never mind; this is +a sober chronicle. And then, there were her cuffs to be tucked up, for +fear of flour; and she had a little ring to pull off her finger, which +wouldn’t come off (foolish little ring!); and during the whole of these +preparations she looked demurely every now and then at Tom, from under +her dark eyelashes, as if they were all a part of the pudding, and +indispensable to its composition. + +For the life and soul of him, Tom could get no further in his +writing than, ‘A respectable young man, aged thirty-five,’ and this, +notwithstanding the show she made of being supernaturally quiet, and +going about on tiptoe, lest she should disturb him; which only served +as an additional means of distracting his attention, and keeping it upon +her. + +‘Tom,’ she said at last, in high glee. ‘Tom!’ + +‘What now?’ said Tom, repeating to himself, ‘aged thirty-five!’ + +‘Will you look here a moment, please?’ + +As if he hadn’t been looking all the time! + +‘I am going to begin, Tom. Don’t you wonder why I butter the inside of +the basin?’ said his busy little sister. + +‘Not more than you do, I dare say,’ replied Tom, laughing. ‘For I +believe you don’t know anything about it.’ + +‘What an infidel you are, Tom! How else do you think it would turn out +easily when it was done! For a civil-engineer and land-surveyor not to +know that! My goodness, Tom!’ + +It was wholly out of the question to try to write. Tom lined out +‘respectable young man, aged thirty-five;’ and sat looking on, pen in +hand, with one of the most loving smiles imaginable. + +Such a busy little woman as she was! So full of self-importance and +trying so hard not to smile, or seem uncertain about anything! It was a +perfect treat to Tom to see her with her brows knit, and her rosy lips +pursed up, kneading away at the crust, rolling it out, cutting it up +into strips, lining the basin with it, shaving it off fine round the +rim, chopping up the steak into small pieces, raining down pepper and +salt upon them, packing them into the basin, pouring in cold water for +gravy, and never venturing to steal a look in his direction, lest her +gravity should be disturbed; until, at last, the basin being quite full +and only wanting the top crust, she clapped her hands all covered with +paste and flour, at Tom, and burst out heartily into such a charming +little laugh of triumph, that the pudding need have had no other +seasoning to commend it to the taste of any reasonable man on earth. + +‘Where’s the pudding?’ said Tom. For he was cutting his jokes, Tom was. + +‘Where!’ she answered, holding it up with both hands. ‘Look at it!’ + +‘THAT a pudding!’ said Tom. + +‘It WILL be, you stupid fellow, when it’s covered in,’ returned his +sister. Tom still pretending to look incredulous, she gave him a tap on +the head with the rolling-pin, and still laughing merrily, had returned +to the composition of the top crust, when she started and turned very +red. Tom started, too, for following her eyes, he saw John Westlock in +the room. + +‘Why, my goodness, John! How did YOU come in?’ + +‘I beg pardon,’ said John--’ your sister’s pardon especially--but I met +an old lady at the street door, who requested me to enter here; and as +you didn’t hear me knock, and the door was open, I made bold to do so. +I hardly know,’ said John, with a smile, ‘why any of us should be +disconcerted at my having accidentally intruded upon such an agreeable +domestic occupation, so very agreeably and skillfully pursued; but I +must confess that I am. Tom, will you kindly come to my relief?’ + +‘Mr John Westlock,’ said Tom. ‘My sister.’ + +‘I hope that, as the sister of so old a friend,’ said John, laughing +‘you will have the goodness to detach your first impressions of me from +my unfortunate entrance.’ + +‘My sister is not indisposed perhaps to say the same to you on her own +behalf,’ retorted Tom. + +John said, of course, that this was quite unnecessary, for he had been +transfixed in silent admiration; and he held out his hand to Miss Pinch; +who couldn’t take it, however, by reason of the flour and paste upon her +own. This, which might seem calculated to increase the general confusion +and render matters worse, had in reality the best effect in the +world, for neither of them could help laughing; and so they both found +themselves on easy terms immediately. + +‘I am delighted to see you,’ said Tom. ‘Sit down.’ + +‘I can only think of sitting down on one condition,’ returned his +friend; ‘and that is, that your sister goes on with the pudding, as if +you were still alone.’ + +‘That I am sure she will,’ said Tom. ‘On one other condition, and that +is, that you stay and help us to eat it.’ + +Poor little Ruth was seized with a palpitation of the heart when Tom +committed this appalling indiscretion, for she felt that if the dish +turned out a failure, she never would be able to hold up her head +before John Westlock again. Quite unconscious of her state of mind, +John accepted the invitation with all imaginable heartiness; and after a +little more pleasantry concerning this same pudding, and the tremendous +expectations he made believe to entertain of it, she blushingly resumed +her occupation, and he took a chair. + +‘I am here much earlier than I intended, Tom; but I will tell you, what +brings me, and I think I can answer for your being glad to hear it. Is +that anything you wish to show me?’ + +‘Oh dear no!’ cried Tom, who had forgotten the blotted scrap of paper +in his hand, until this inquiry brought it to his recollection. ‘“A +respectable young man, aged thirty-five”--The beginning of a description +of myself. That’s all.’ + +‘I don’t think you will have occasion to finish it, Tom. But how is it +you never told me you had friends in London?’ + +Tom looked at his sister with all his might; and certainly his sister +looked with all her might at him. + +‘Friends in London!’ echoed Tom. + +‘Ah!’ said Westlock, ‘to be sure.’ + +‘Have YOU any friends in London, Ruth, my dear!’ asked Tom. + +‘No, Tom.’ + +‘I am very happy to hear that I have,’ said Tom, ‘but it’s news to me. I +never knew it. They must be capital people to keep a secret, John.’ + +‘You shall judge for yourself,’ returned the other. ‘Seriously, Tom, +here is the plain state of the case. As I was sitting at breakfast this +morning, there comes a knock at my door.’ + +‘On which you cried out, very loud, “Come in!”’ suggested Tom. + +‘So I did. And the person who knocked, not being a respectable young +man, aged thirty-five, from the country, came in when he was invited, +instead of standing gaping and staring about him on the landing. Well! +When he came in, I found he was a stranger; a grave, business-like, +sedate-looking, stranger. “Mr Westlock?” said he. “That is my name,” + said I. “The favour of a few words with you?” said he. “Pray be seated, +sir,” said I.’ + +Here John stopped for an instant, to glance towards the table, where +Tom’s sister, listening attentively, was still busy with the basin, +which by this time made a noble appearance. Then he resumed: + +‘The pudding having taken a chair, Tom--’ + +‘What!’ cried Tom. + +‘Having taken a chair.’ + +‘You said a pudding.’ + +‘No, no,’ replied John, colouring rather; ‘a chair. The idea of a +stranger coming into my rooms at half-past eight o’clock in the morning, +and taking a pudding! Having taken a chair, Tom, a chair--amazed me by +opening the conversation thus: “I believe you are acquainted, sir, with +Mr Thomas Pinch?” + +‘No!’ cried Tom. + +‘His very words, I assure you. I told him I was. Did I know where you +were at present residing? Yes. In London? Yes. He had casually heard, +in a roundabout way, that you had left your situation with Mr Pecksniff. +Was that the fact? Yes, it was. Did you want another? Yes, you did.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Tom, nodding his head. + +‘Just what I impressed upon him. You may rest assured that I set that +point beyond the possibility of any mistake, and gave him distinctly to +understand that he might make up his mind about it. Very well.’ + +“Then,” said he, “I think I can accommodate him.”’ + +Tom’s sister stopped short. + +‘Lord bless me!’ cried Tom. ‘Ruth, my dear, “think I can accommodate +him.”’ + +‘Of course I begged him,’ pursued John Westlock, glancing at Tom’s +sister, who was not less eager in her interest than Tom himself, ‘to +proceed, and said that I would undertake to see you immediately. He +replied that he had very little to say, being a man of few words, +but such as it was, it was to the purpose--and so, indeed, it turned +out--for he immediately went on to tell me that a friend of his was in +want of a kind of secretary and librarian; and that although the salary +was small, being only a hundred pounds a year, with neither board +nor lodging, still the duties were not heavy, and there the post was. +Vacant, and ready for your acceptance.’ + +‘Good gracious me!’ cried Tom; ‘a hundred pounds a year! My dear John! +Ruth, my love! A hundred pounds a year!’ + +‘But the strangest part of the story,’ resumed John Westlock, laying his +hand on Tom’s wrist, to bespeak his attention, and repress his ecstasies +for the moment; ‘the strangest part of the story, Miss Pinch, is this. I +don’t know this man from Adam; neither does this man know Tom.’ + +‘He can’t,’ said Tom, in great perplexity, ‘if he’s a Londoner. I don’t +know any one in London.’ + +‘And on my observing,’ John resumed, still keeping his hand upon Tom’s +wrist, ‘that I had no doubt he would excuse the freedom I took in +inquiring who directed him to me; how he came to know of the change +which had taken place in my friend’s position; and how he came to be +acquainted with my friend’s peculiar fitness for such an office as he +had described; he drily said that he was not at liberty to enter into +any explanations.’ + +‘Not at liberty to enter into any explanations!’ repeated Tom, drawing a +long breath. + +‘“I must be perfectly aware,” he said,’ John added, ‘“that to any person +who had ever been in Mr Pecksniff’s neighbourhood, Mr Thomas Pinch and +his acquirements were as well known as the Church steeple, or the Blue +Dragon.”’ + +‘The Blue Dragon!’ repeated Tom, staring alternately at his friend and +his sister. + +‘Aye, think of that! He spoke as familiarly of the Blue Dragon, I give +you my word, as if he had been Mark Tapley. I opened my eyes, I can +tell you, when he did so; but I could not fancy I had ever seen the man +before, although he said with a smile, “You know the Blue Dragon, Mr +Westlock; you kept it up there, once or twice, yourself.” Kept it up +there! So I did. You remember, Tom?’ + +Tom nodded with great significance, and, falling into a state of deeper +perplexity than before, observed that this was the most unaccountable +and extraordinary circumstance he had ever heard of in his life. + +‘Unaccountable?’ his friend repeated. ‘I became afraid of the man. +Though it was broad day, and bright sunshine, I was positively afraid +of him. I declare I half suspected him to be a supernatural visitor, +and not a mortal, until he took out a common-place description of +pocket-book, and handed me this card.’ + +‘Mr Fips,’ said Tom, reading it aloud. ‘Austin Friars. Austin Friars +sounds ghostly, John.’ + +‘Fips don’t, I think,’ was John’s reply. ‘But there he lives, Tom, and +there he expects us to call this morning. And now you know as much of +this strange incident as I do, upon my honour.’ + +Tom’s face, between his exultation in the hundred pounds a year, and +his wonder at this narration, was only to be equalled by the face of his +sister, on which there sat the very best expression of blooming surprise +that any painter could have wished to see. What the beef-steak pudding +would have come to, if it had not been by this time finished, astrology +itself could hardly determine. + +‘Tom,’ said Ruth, after a little hesitation, ‘perhaps Mr Westlock, in +his friendship for you, knows more of this than he chooses to tell.’ + +‘No, indeed!’ cried John, eagerly. ‘It is not so, I assure you. I wish +it were. I cannot take credit to myself, Miss Pinch, for any such thing. +All that I know, or, so far as I can judge, am likely to know, I have +told you.’ + +‘Couldn’t you know more, if you thought proper?’ said Ruth, scraping the +pie-board industriously. + +‘No,’ retorted John. ‘Indeed, no. It is very ungenerous in you to be so +suspicious of me when I repose implicit faith in you. I have unbounded +confidence in the pudding, Miss Pinch.’ + +She laughed at this, but they soon got back into a serious vein, and +discussed the subject with profound gravity. Whatever else was obscure +in the business, it appeared to be quite plain that Tom was offered a +salary of one hundred pounds a year; and this being the main point, the +surrounding obscurity rather set it off than otherwise. + +Tom, being in a great flutter, wished to start for Austin Friars +instantly, but they waited nearly an hour, by John’s advice, before they +departed. Tom made himself as spruce as he could before leaving home, +and when John Westlock, through the half-opened parlour door, had +glimpses of that brave little sister brushing the collar of his coat in +the passage, taking up loose stitches in his gloves and hovering lightly +about and about him, touching him up here and there in the height of +her quaint, little, old-fashioned tidiness, he called to mind the +fancy-portraits of her on the wall of the Pecksniffian workroom, and +decided with uncommon indignation that they were gross libels, and not +half pretty enough; though, as hath been mentioned in its place, the +artists always made those sketches beautiful, and he had drawn at least +a score of them with his own hands. + +‘Tom,’ he said, as they were walking along, ‘I begin to think you must +be somebody’s son.’ + +‘I suppose I am,’ Tom answered in his quiet way. + +‘But I mean somebody’s of consequence.’ + +‘Bless your heart,’ replied Tom, ‘my poor father was of no consequence, +nor my mother either.’ + +‘You remember them perfectly, then?’ + +‘Remember them? oh dear yes. My poor mother was the last. She died when +Ruth was a mere baby, and then we both became a charge upon the savings +of that good old grandmother I used to tell you of. You remember! Oh! +There’s nothing romantic in our history, John.’ + +‘Very well,’ said John in quiet despair. ‘Then there is no way of +accounting for my visitor of this morning. So we’ll not try, Tom.’ + +They did try, notwithstanding, and never left off trying until they +got to Austin Friars, where, in a very dark passage on the first floor, +oddly situated at the back of a house, across some leads, they found a +little blear-eyed glass door up in one corner, with Mr FIPS painted on +it in characters which were meant to be transparent. There was also a +wicked old sideboard hiding in the gloom hard by, meditating designs +upon the ribs of visitors; and an old mat, worn into lattice work, +which, being useless as a mat (even if anybody could have seen it, which +was impossible), had for many years directed its industry into another +channel, and regularly tripped up every one of Mr Fips’s clients. + +Mr Fips, hearing a violent concussion between a human hat and his office +door, was apprised, by the usual means of communication, that somebody +had come to call upon him, and giving that somebody admission, observed +that it was ‘rather dark.’ + +‘Dark indeed,’ John whispered in Tom Pinch’s ear. ‘Not a bad place to +dispose of a countryman in, I should think, Tom.’ + +Tom had been already turning over in his mind the possibility of their +having been tempted into that region to furnish forth a pie; but the +sight of Mr Fips, who was small and spare, and looked peaceable, and +wore black shorts and powder, dispelled his doubts. + +‘Walk in,’ said Mr Fips. + +They walked in. And a mighty yellow-jaundiced little office Mr Fips +had of it; with a great, black, sprawling splash upon the floor in one +corner, as if some old clerk had cut his throat there, years ago, and +had let out ink instead of blood. + +‘I have brought my friend Mr Pinch, sir,’ said John Westlock. + +‘Be pleased to sit,’ said Mr Fips. + +They occupied the two chairs, and Mr Fips took the office stool from the +stuffing whereof he drew forth a piece of horse-hair of immense length, +which he put into his mouth with a great appearance of appetite. + +He looked at Tom Pinch curiously, but with an entire freedom from any +such expression as could be reasonably construed into an unusual +display of interest. After a short silence, during which Mr Fips was +so perfectly unembarrassed as to render it manifest that he could have +broken it sooner without hesitation, if he had felt inclined to do so, +he asked if Mr Westlock had made his offer fully known to Mr Pinch. + +John answered in the affirmative. + +‘And you think it worth your while, sir, do you?’ Mr Fips inquired of +Tom. + +‘I think it a piece of great good fortune, sir,’ said Tom. ‘I am +exceedingly obliged to you for the offer.’ + +‘Not to me,’ said Mr Fips. ‘I act upon instructions.’ + +‘To your friend, sir, then,’ said Tom. ‘To the gentleman with whom I am +to engage, and whose confidence I shall endeavour to deserve. When he +knows me better, sir, I hope he will not lose his good opinion of me. +He will find me punctual and vigilant, and anxious to do what is right. +That I think I can answer for, and so,’ looking towards him, ‘can Mr +Westlock.’ + +‘Most assuredly,’ said John. + +Mr Fips appeared to have some little difficulty in resuming the +conversation. To relieve himself, he took up the wafer-stamp, and began +stamping capital F’s all over his legs. + +‘The fact is,’ said Mr Fips, ‘that my friend is not, at this present +moment, in town.’ + +Tom’s countenance fell; for he thought this equivalent to telling him +that his appearance did not answer; and that Fips must look out for +somebody else. + +‘When do you think he will be in town, sir?’ he asked. + +‘I can’t say; it’s impossible to tell. I really have no idea. But,’ said +Fips, taking off a very deep impression of the wafer-stamp upon the calf +of his left leg, and looking steadily at Tom, ‘I don’t know that it’s a +matter of much consequence.’ + +Poor Tom inclined his head deferentially, but appeared to doubt that. + +‘I say,’ repeated Mr Fips, ‘that I don’t know it’s a matter of much +consequence. The business lies entirely between yourself and me, Mr +Pinch. With reference to your duties, I can set you going; and with +reference to your salary, I can pay it. Weekly,’ said Mr Fips, putting +down the wafer-stamp, and looking at John Westlock and Tom Pinch by +turns, ‘weekly; in this office; at any time between the hours of four +and five o’clock in the afternoon.’ As Mr Fips said this, he made up his +face as if he were going to whistle. But he didn’t. + +‘You are very good,’ said Tom, whose countenance was now suffused with +pleasure; ‘and nothing can be more satisfactory or straightforward. My +attendance will be required--’ + +‘From half-past nine to four o’clock or so, I should say,’ interrupted +Mr Fips. ‘About that.’ + +‘I did not mean the hours of attendance,’ retorted Tom, ‘which are light +and easy, I am sure; but the place.’ + +‘Oh, the place! The place is in the Temple.’ + +Tom was delighted. + +‘Perhaps,’ said Mr Fips, ‘you would like to see the place?’ + +‘Oh, dear!’ cried Tom. ‘I shall only be too glad to consider myself +engaged, if you will allow me; without any further reference to the +place.’ + +‘You may consider yourself engaged, by all means,’ said Mr Fips; ‘you +couldn’t meet me at the Temple Gate in Fleet Street, in an hour from +this time, I suppose, could you?’ + +Certainly Tom could. + +‘Good,’ said Mr Fips, rising. ‘Then I will show you the place; and you +can begin your attendance to-morrow morning. In an hour, therefore, I +shall see you. You too, Mr Westlock? Very good. Take care how you go. +It’s rather dark.’ + +With this remark, which seemed superfluous, he shut them out upon +the staircase, and they groped their way into the street again. The +interview had done so little to remove the mystery in which Tom’s +new engagement was involved, and had done so much to thicken it, that +neither could help smiling at the puzzled looks of the other. They +agreed, however, that the introduction of Tom to his new office and +office companions could hardly fail to throw a light upon the subject; +and therefore postponed its further consideration until after the +fulfillment of the appointment they had made with Mr Fips. + +After looking at John Westlock’s chambers, and devoting a few spare +minutes to the Boar’s Head, they issued forth again to the place of +meeting. The time agreed upon had not quite come; but Mr Fips was +already at the Temple Gate, and expressed his satisfaction at their +punctuality. + +He led the way through sundry lanes and courts, into one more quiet and +more gloomy than the rest, and, singling out a certain house, ascended +a common staircase; taking from his pocket, as he went, a bunch of rusty +keys. Stopping before a door upon an upper story, which had nothing +but a yellow smear of paint where custom would have placed the +tenant’s name, he began to beat the dust out of one of these keys, very +deliberately, upon the great broad handrail of the balustrade. + +‘You had better have a little plug made,’ he said, looking round at Tom, +after blowing a shrill whistle into the barrel of the key. ‘It’s the +only way of preventing them from getting stopped up. You’ll find the +lock go the better, too, I dare say, for a little oil.’ + +Tom thanked him; but was too much occupied with his own speculations, +and John Westlock’s looks, to be very talkative. In the meantime Mr Fips +opened the door, which yielded to his hand very unwillingly, and with a +horribly discordant sound. He took the key out, when he had done so, and +gave it to Tom. + +‘Aye, aye!’ said Mr Fips. ‘The dust lies rather thick here.’ + +Truly, it did. Mr Fips might have gone so far as to say, very thick. +It had accumulated everywhere; lay deep on everything, and in one part, +where a ray of sun shone through a crevice in the shutter and struck +upon the opposite wall, it went twirling round and round, like a +gigantic squirrel-cage. + +Dust was the only thing in the place that had any motion about it. When +their conductor admitted the light freely, and lifting up the heavy +window-sash, let in the summer air, he showed the mouldering furniture, +discoloured wainscoting and ceiling, rusty stove, and ashy hearth, in +all their inert neglect. Close to the door there stood a candlestick, +with an extinguisher upon it; as if the last man who had been there +had paused, after securing a retreat, to take a parting look at +the dreariness he left behind, and then had shut out light and life +together, and closed the place up like a tomb. + +There were two rooms on that floor; and in the first or outer one a +narrow staircase, leading to two more above. These last were fitted +up as bed-chambers. Neither in them, nor in the rooms below, was any +scarcity of convenient furniture observable, although the fittings +were of a bygone fashion; but solitude and want of use seemed to have +rendered it unfit for any purposes of comfort, and to have given it a +grisly, haunted air. + +Movables of every kind lay strewn about, without the least attempt at +order, and were intermixed with boxes, hampers, and all sorts of lumber. +On all the floors were piles of books, to the amount, perhaps, of some +thousands of volumes: these, still in bales; those, wrapped in paper, +as they had been purchased; others scattered singly or in heaps; not one +upon the shelves which lined the walls. To these Mr Fips called Tom’s +attention. + +‘Before anything else can be done, we must have them put in order, +catalogued, and ranged upon the book-shelves, Mr Pinch. That will do to +begin with, I think, sir.’ + +Tom rubbed his hands in the pleasant anticipation of a task so congenial +to his taste, and said: + +‘An occupation full of interest for me, I assure you. It will occupy me, +perhaps, until Mr--’ + +‘Until Mr--’ repeated Fips; as much as to ask Tom what he was stopping +for. + +‘I forgot that you had not mentioned the gentleman’s name,’ said Tom. + +‘Oh!’ cried Mr Fips, pulling on his glove, ‘didn’t I? No, by-the-bye, +I don’t think I did. Ah! I dare say he’ll be here soon. You will get on +very well together, I have no doubt. I wish you success I am sure. You +won’t forget to shut the door? It’ll lock of itself if you slam it. +Half-past nine, you know. Let us say from half-past nine to four, or +half-past four, or thereabouts; one day, perhaps, a little earlier, +another day, perhaps, a little later, according as you feel disposed, +and as you arrange your work. Mr Fips, Austin Friars of course you’ll +remember? And you won’t forget to slam the door, if you please!’ + +He said all this in such a comfortable, easy manner, that Tom could only +rub his hands, and nod his head, and smile in acquiescence which he was +still doing, when Mr Fips walked coolly out. + +‘Why, he’s gone!’ cried Tom. + +‘And what’s more, Tom,’ said John Westlock, seating himself upon a pile +of books, and looking up at his astonished friend, ‘he is evidently not +coming back again; so here you are, installed. Under rather singular +circumstances, Tom!’ + +It was such an odd affair throughout, and Tom standing there among +the books with his hat in one hand and the key in the other, looked +so prodigiously confounded, that his friend could not help laughing +heartily. Tom himself was tickled; no less by the hilarity of his friend +than by the recollection of the sudden manner in which he had been +brought to a stop, in the very height of his urbane conference with +Mr Fips; so by degrees Tom burst out laughing too; and each making the +other laugh more, they fairly roared. + +When they had had their laugh out, which did not happen very soon, for +give John an inch that way and he was sure to take several ells, being +a jovial, good-tempered fellow, they looked about them more closely, +groping among the lumber for any stray means of enlightenment that might +turn up. But no scrap or shred of information could they find. The books +were marked with a variety of owner’s names, having, no doubt, been +bought at sales, and collected here and there at different times; but +whether any one of these names belonged to Tom’s employer, and, if so, +which of them, they had no means whatever of determining. It occurred to +John as a very bright thought to make inquiry at the steward’s office, +to whom the chambers belonged, or by whom they were held; but he came +back no wiser than he went, the answer being, ‘Mr Fips, of Austin +Friars.’ + +‘After all, Tom, I begin to think it lies no deeper than this. Fips +is an eccentric man; has some knowledge of Pecksniff; despises him, of +course; has heard or seen enough of you to know that you are the man he +wants; and engages you in his own whimsical manner.’ + +‘But why in his own whimsical manner?’ asked Tom. + +‘Oh! why does any man entertain his own whimsical taste? Why does Mr +Fips wear shorts and powder, and Mr Fips’s next-door neighbour boots and +a wig?’ + +Tom, being in that state of mind in which any explanation is a great +relief, adopted this last one (which indeed was quite as feasible as any +other) readily, and said he had no doubt of it. Nor was his faith at all +shaken by his having said exactly the same thing to each suggestion of +his friend’s in turn, and being perfectly ready to say it again if he +had any new solution to propose. + +As he had not, Tom drew down the window-sash, and folded the shutter; +and they left the rooms. He closed the door heavily, as Mr Fips had +desired him; tried it, found it all safe, and put the key in his pocket. + +They made a pretty wide circuit in going back to Islington, as they had +time to spare, and Tom was never tired of looking about him. It was well +he had John Westlock for his companion, for most people would have +been weary of his perpetual stoppages at shop-windows, and his frequent +dashes into the crowded carriage-way at the peril of his life, to get +the better view of church steeples, and other public buildings. But John +was charmed to see him so much interested, and every time Tom came back +with a beaming face from among the wheels of carts and hackney-coaches, +wholly unconscious of the personal congratulations addressed to him by +the drivers, John seemed to like him better than before. + +There was no flour on Ruth’s hands when she received them in the +triangular parlour, but there were pleasant smiles upon her face, and a +crowd of welcomes shining out of every smile, and gleaming in her bright +eyes. By the bye, how bright they were! Looking into them for but +a moment, when you took her hand, you saw, in each, such a capital +miniature of yourself, representing you as such a restless, flashing, +eager, brilliant little fellow-- + +Ah! if you could only have kept them for your own miniature! But, +wicked, roving, restless, too impartial eyes, it was enough for any one +to stand before them, and, straightway, there he danced and sparkled +quite as merrily as you! + +The table was already spread for dinner; and though it was spread with +nothing very choice in the way of glass or linen, and with green-handled +knives, and very mountebanks of two-pronged forks, which seemed to be +trying how far asunder they could possibly stretch their legs without +converting themselves into double the number of iron toothpicks, it +wanted neither damask, silver, gold, nor china; no, nor any other +garniture at all. There it was; and, being there, nothing else would +have done as well. + +The success of that initiative dish; that first experiment of hers in +cookery; was so entire, so unalloyed and perfect, that John Westlock and +Tom agreed she must have been studying the art in secret for a long time +past; and urged her to make a full confession of the fact. They were +exceedingly merry over this jest, and many smart things were said +concerning it; but John was not as fair in his behaviour as might +have been expected, for, after luring Tom Pinch on for a long time, +he suddenly went over to the enemy, and swore to everything his sister +said. However, as Tom observed the same night before going to bed, it +was only in joke, and John had always been famous for being polite +to ladies, even when he was quite a boy. Ruth said, ‘Oh! indeed!’ She +didn’t say anything else. + +It is astonishing how much three people may find to talk about. They +scarcely left off talking once. And it was not all lively chat which +occupied them; for when Tom related how he had seen Mr Pecksniff’s +daughters, and what a change had fallen on the younger, they were very +serious. + +John Westlock became quite absorbed in her fortunes; asking many +questions of Tom Pinch about her marriage, inquiring whether her husband +was the gentleman whom Tom had brought to dine with him at Salisbury; +in what degree of relationship they stood towards each other, being +different persons; and taking, in short, the greatest interest in the +subject. Tom then went into it, at full length; he told how Martin had +gone abroad, and had not been heard of for a long time; how Dragon Mark +had borne him company; how Mr Pecksniff had got the poor old doting +grandfather into his power; and how he basely sought the hand of Mary +Graham. But not a word said Tom of what lay hidden in his heart; his +heart, so deep, and true, and full of honour, and yet with so much room +for every gentle and unselfish thought; not a word. + +Tom, Tom! The man in all this world most confident in his sagacity and +shrewdness; the man in all this world most proud of his distrust of +other men, and having most to show in gold and silver as the gains +belonging to his creed; the meekest favourer of that wise doctrine, +Every man for himself, and God for us all (there being high wisdom in +the thought that the Eternal Majesty of Heaven ever was, or can be, on +the side of selfish lust and love!); shall never find, oh, never find, +be sure of that, the time come home to him, when all his wisdom is an +idiot’s folly, weighed against a simple heart! + +Well, well, Tom, it was simple too, though simple in a different way, to +be so eager touching that same theatre, of which John said, when tea was +done, he had the absolute command, so far as taking parties in without +the payment of a sixpence was concerned; and simpler yet, perhaps, never +to suspect that when he went in first, alone, he paid the money! Simple +in thee, dear Tom, to laugh and cry so heartily at such a sorry show, +so poorly shown; simple to be so happy and loquacious trudging home +with Ruth; simple to be so surprised to find that merry present of +a cookery-book awaiting her in the parlour next morning, with the +beef-steak-pudding-leaf turned down and blotted out. There! Let +the record stand! Thy quality of soul was simple, simple, quite +contemptible, Tom Pinch! + + + +CHAPTER FORTY + +THE PINCHES MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, AND HAVE FRESH OCCASION FOR +SURPRISE AND WONDER + + +There was a ghostly air about these uninhabited chambers in the Temple, +and attending every circumstance of Tom’s employment there, which had a +strange charm in it. Every morning when he shut his door at Islington, +he turned his face towards an atmosphere of unaccountable fascination, +as surely as he turned it to the London smoke; and from that moment it +thickened round and round him all day long, until the time arrived for +going home again, and leaving it, like a motionless cloud, behind. + +It seemed to Tom, every morning, that he approached this ghostly +mist, and became enveloped in it, by the easiest succession of degrees +imaginable. Passing from the roar and rattle of the streets into the +quiet court-yards of the Temple, was the first preparation. Every echo +of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old walls and +pavements, wanting language to relate the histories of the dim, dismal +rooms; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in forgotten +corners of the shut-up cellars, from whose lattices such mouldy sighs +came breathing forth as he went past; to whisper of dark bins of rare +old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old foundations of the Halls; +or mutter in a lower tone yet darker legends of the cross-legged +knights, whose marble effigies were in the church. With the first +planting of his foot upon the staircase of his dusty office, all these +mysteries increased; until, ascending step by step, as Tom ascended, +they attained their full growth in the solitary labours of the day. + +Every day brought one recurring, never-failing source of speculation. +This employer; would he come to-day, and what would he be like? For +Tom could not stop short at Mr Fips; he quite believed that Mr Fips had +spoken truly, when he said he acted for another; and what manner of man +that other was, became a full-blown flower of wonder in the garden of +Tom’s fancy, which never faded or got trodden down. + +At one time, he conceived that Mr Pecksniff, repenting of his falsehood, +might, by exertion of his influence with some third person have +devised these means of giving him employment. He found this idea so +insupportable after what had taken place between that good man and +himself, that he confided it to John Westlock on the very same day; +informing John that he would rather ply for hire as a porter, than fall +so low in his own esteem as to accept the smallest obligation from the +hands of Mr Pecksniff. But John assured him that he (Tom Pinch) was far +from doing justice to the character of Mr Pecksniff yet, if he supposed +that gentleman capable of performing a generous action; and that he +might make his mind quite easy on that head until he saw the sun turn +green and the moon black, and at the same time distinctly perceived with +the naked eye, twelve first-rate comets careering round those planets. +In which unusual state of things, he said (and not before), it might +become not absolutely lunatic to suspect Mr Pecksniff of anything +so monstrous. In short he laughed the idea down completely; and Tom, +abandoning it, was thrown upon his beam-ends again, for some other +solution. + +In the meantime Tom attended to his duties daily, and made considerable +progress with the books; which were already reduced to some sort of +order, and made a great appearance in his fairly-written catalogue. +During his business hours, he indulged himself occasionally with +snatches of reading; which were often, indeed, a necessary part of +his pursuit; and as he usually made bold to carry one of these goblin +volumes home at night (always bringing it back again next morning, in +case his strange employer should appear and ask what had become of it), +he led a happy, quiet, studious kind of life, after his own heart. + +But though the books were never so interesting, and never so full of +novelty to Tom, they could not so enchain him, in those mysterious +chambers, as to render him unconscious, for a moment, of the lightest +sound. Any footstep on the flags without set him listening attentively +and when it turned into that house, and came up, up, up the stairs, he +always thought with a beating heart, ‘Now I am coming face to face with +him at last!’ But no footstep ever passed the floor immediately below: +except his own. + +This mystery and loneliness engendered fancies in Tom’s mind, the folly +of which his common sense could readily discover, but which his common +sense was quite unable to keep away, notwithstanding; that quality being +with most of us, in such a case, like the old French Police--quick at +detection, but very weak as a preventive power. Misgivings, undefined, +absurd, inexplicable, that there was some one hiding in the inner +room--walking softly overhead, peeping in through the door-chink, doing +something stealthy, anywhere where he was not--came over him a +hundred times a day, making it pleasant to throw up the sash, and hold +communication even with the sparrows who had built in the roof and +water-spout, and were twittering about the windows all day long. + +He sat with the outer door wide open, at all times, that he might hear +the footsteps as they entered, and turned off into the chambers on the +lower floor. He formed odd prepossessions too, regarding strangers in +the streets; and would say within himself of such or such a man, who +struck him as having anything uncommon in his dress or aspect, ‘I +shouldn’t wonder, now, if that were he!’ But it never was. And though +he actually turned back and followed more than one of these suspected +individuals, in a singular belief that they were going to the place he +was then upon his way from, he never got any other satisfaction by it, +than the satisfaction of knowing it was not the case. + +Mr Fips, of Austin Friars, rather deepened than illumined the obscurity +of his position; for on the first occasion of Tom’s waiting on him to +receive his weekly pay, he said: + +‘Oh! by the bye, Mr Pinch, you needn’t mention it, if you please!’ + +Tom thought he was going to tell him a secret; so he said that he +wouldn’t on any account, and that Mr Fips might entirely depend upon +him. But as Mr Fips said ‘Very good,’ in reply, and nothing more, Tom +prompted him: + +‘Not on any account,’ repeated Tom. + +Mr Fips repeated: ‘Very good.’ + +‘You were going to say’--Tom hinted. + +‘Oh dear no!’ cried Fips. ‘Not at all.’ However, seeing Tom confused, he +added, ‘I mean that you needn’t mention any particulars about your place +of employment, to people generally. You’ll find it better not.’ + +‘I have not had the pleasure of seeing my employer yet, sir,’ observed +Tom, putting his week’s salary in his pocket. + +‘Haven’t you?’ said Fips. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have though.’ + +‘I should like to thank him, and to know that what I have done so far, +is done to his satisfaction,’ faltered Tom. + +‘Quite right,’ said Mr Fips, with a yawn. ‘Highly creditable. Very +proper.’ + +Tom hastily resolved to try him on another tack. + +‘I shall soon have finished with the books,’ he said. ‘I hope that will +not terminate my engagement, sir, or render me useless?’ + +‘Oh dear no!’ retorted Fips. ‘Plenty to do; plen-ty to do! Be careful +how you go. It’s rather dark.’ + +This was the very utmost extent of information Tom could ever get out of +HIM. So it was dark enough in all conscience; and if Mr Fips expressed +himself with a double meaning, he had good reason for doing so. + +But now a circumstance occurred, which helped to divert Tom’s thoughts +from even this mystery, and to divide them between it and a new channel, +which was a very Nile in itself. + +The way it came about was this. Having always been an early riser and +having now no organ to engage him in sweet converse every morning, +it was his habit to take a long walk before going to the Temple; and +naturally inclining, as a stranger, towards those parts of the town +which were conspicuous for the life and animation pervading them, he +became a great frequenter of the market-places, bridges, quays, and +especially the steam-boat wharves; for it was very lively and fresh +to see the people hurrying away upon their many schemes of business or +pleasure, and it made Tom glad to think that there was that much change +and freedom in the monotonous routine of city lives. + +In most of these morning excursions Ruth accompanied him. As their +landlord was always up and away at his business (whatever that might be, +no one seemed to know) at a very early hour, the habits of the people +of the house in which they lodged corresponded with their own. Thus they +had often finished their breakfast, and were out in the summer air, by +seven o’clock. After a two hours’ stroll they parted at some convenient +point; Tom going to the Temple, and his sister returning home, as +methodically as you please. + +Many and many a pleasant stroll they had in Covent Garden Market; +snuffing up the perfume of the fruits and flowers, wondering at the +magnificence of the pineapples and melons; catching glimpses down side +avenues, of rows and rows of old women, seated on inverted baskets, +shelling peas; looking unutterable things at the fat bundles of +asparagus with which the dainty shops were fortified as with a +breastwork; and, at the herbalist’s doors, gratefully inhaling scents +as of veal-stuffing yet uncooked, dreamily mixed up with capsicums, +brown-paper, seeds, even with hints of lusty snails and fine young curly +leeches. Many and many a pleasant stroll they had among the poultry +markets, where ducks and fowls, with necks unnaturally long, lay +stretched out in pairs, ready for cooking; where there were speckled +eggs in mossy baskets, white country sausages beyond impeachment by +surviving cat or dog, or horse or donkey; new cheeses to any wild +extent, live birds in coops and cages, looking much too big to be +natural, in consequence of those receptacles being much too little; +rabbits, alive and dead, innumerable. Many a pleasant stroll they +had among the cool, refreshing, silvery fish-stalls, with a kind of +moonlight effect about their stock-in-trade, excepting always for +the ruddy lobsters. Many a pleasant stroll among the waggon-loads of +fragrant hay, beneath which dogs and tired waggoners lay fast asleep, +oblivious of the pieman and the public-house. But never half so good a +stroll as down among the steamboats on a bright morning. + +There they lay, alongside of each other; hard and fast for ever, to all +appearance, but designing to get out somehow, and quite confident of +doing it; and in that faith shoals of passengers, and heaps of luggage, +were proceeding hurriedly on board. Little steam-boats dashed up and +down the stream incessantly. Tiers upon tiers of vessels, scores +of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails, splashing oars, gliding +row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken piles, with ugly lodgings for +the water-rat within their mud-discoloured nooks; church steeples, +warehouses, house-roofs, arches, bridges, men and women, children, +casks, cranes, boxes, horses, coaches, idlers, and hard-labourers; there +they were, all jumbled up together, any summer morning, far beyond Tom’s +power of separation. + +In the midst of all this turmoil there was an incessant roar from every +packet’s funnel, which quite expressed and carried out the uppermost +emotion of the scene. They all appeared to be perspiring and bothering +themselves, exactly as their passengers did; they never left off +fretting and chafing, in their own hoarse manner, once; but were always +panting out, without any stops, ‘Come along do make haste I’m very +nervous come along oh good gracious we shall never get there how late +you are do make haste I’m off directly come along!’ + +Even when they had left off, and had got safely out into the current, +on the smallest provocation they began again; for the bravest packet +of them all, being stopped by some entanglement in the river, would +immediately begin to fume and pant afresh, ‘oh here’s a stoppage what’s +the matter do go on there I’m in a hurry it’s done on purpose did you +ever oh my goodness DO go on here!’ and so, in a state of mind bordering +on distraction, would be last seen drifting slowly through the mist into +the summer light beyond, that made it red. + +Tom’s ship, however; or, at least, the packet-boat in which Tom and his +sister took the greatest interest on one particular occasion; was not +off yet, by any means; but was at the height of its disorder. The press +of passengers was very great; another steam-boat lay on each side of +her; the gangways were choked up; distracted women, obviously bound +for Gravesend, but turning a deaf ear to all representations that this +particular vessel was about to sail for Antwerp, persisted in secreting +baskets of refreshments behind bulk-heads, and water-casks, and under +seats; and very great confusion prevailed. + +It was so amusing, that Tom, with Ruth upon his arm, stood looking down +from the wharf, as nearly regardless as it was in the nature of flesh +and blood to be, of an elderly lady behind him, who had brought a large +umbrella with her, and didn’t know what to do with it. This tremendous +instrument had a hooked handle; and its vicinity was first made known +to him by a painful pressure on the windpipe, consequent upon its having +caught him round the throat. Soon after disengaging himself with perfect +good humour, he had a sensation of the ferule in his back; immediately +afterwards, of the hook entangling his ankles; then of the umbrella +generally, wandering about his hat, and flapping at it like a great +bird; and, lastly, of a poke or thrust below the ribs, which give him +such exceeding anguish, that he could not refrain from turning round to +offer a mild remonstrance. + +Upon his turning round, he found the owner of the umbrella struggling +on tip-toe, with a countenance expressive of violent animosity, to look +down upon the steam-boats; from which he inferred that she had attacked +him, standing in the front row, by design, and as her natural enemy. + +‘What a very ill-natured person you must be!’ said Tom. + +The lady cried out fiercely, ‘Where’s the pelisse!’--meaning the +constabulary--and went on to say, shaking the handle of the umbrella +at Tom, that but for them fellers never being in the way when they was +wanted, she’d have given him in charge, she would. + +‘If they greased their whiskers less, and minded the duties which +they’re paid so heavy for, a little more,’ she observed, ‘no one needn’t +be drove mad by scrouding so!’ + +She had been grievously knocked about, no doubt, for her bonnet was bent +into the shape of a cocked hat. Being a fat little woman, too, she was +in a state of great exhaustion and intense heat. Instead of pursuing the +altercation, therefore, Tom civilly inquired what boat she wanted to go +on board of? + +‘I suppose,’ returned the lady, ‘as nobody but yourself can want to look +at a steam package, without wanting to go a-boarding of it, can they! +Booby!’ + +‘Which one do you want to look at then?’ said Tom. ‘We’ll make room for +you if we can. Don’t be so ill-tempered.’ + +‘No blessed creetur as ever I was with in trying times,’ returned the +lady, somewhat softened, ‘and they’re a many in their numbers, ever +brought it as a charge again myself that I was anythin’ but mild and +equal in my spirits. Never mind a contradicting of me, if you seem +to feel it does you good, ma’am, I often says, for well you know that +Sairey may be trusted not to give it back again. But I will not denige +that I am worrited and wexed this day, and with good reagion, Lord +forbid!’ + +By this time, Mrs Gamp (for it was no other than that experienced +practitioner) had, with Tom’s assistance, squeezed and worked herself +into a small corner between Ruth and the rail; where, after breathing +very hard for some little time, and performing a short series of +dangerous evolutions with her umbrella, she managed to establish herself +pretty comfortably. + +‘And which of all them smoking monsters is the Ankworks boat, I wonder. +Goodness me!’ cried Mrs Gamp. + +‘What boat did you want?’ asked Ruth. + +‘The Ankworks package,’ Mrs Gamp replied. ‘I will not deceive you, my +sweet. Why should I?’ + +‘That is the Antwerp packet in the middle,’ said Ruth. + +‘And I wish it was in Jonadge’s belly, I do,’ cried Mrs Gamp; appearing +to confound the prophet with the whale in this miraculous aspiration. + +Ruth said nothing in reply; but, as Mrs Gamp, laying her chin against +the cool iron of the rail, continued to look intently at the Antwerp +boat, and every now and then to give a little groan, she inquired +whether any child of hers was going aboard that morning? Or perhaps her +husband, she said kindly. + +‘Which shows,’ said Mrs Gamp, casting up her eyes, ‘what a little way +you’ve travelled into this wale of life, my dear young creetur! As a +good friend of mine has frequent made remark to me, which her name, +my love, is Harris, Mrs Harris through the square and up the steps +a-turnin’ round by the tobacker shop, “Oh Sairey, Sairey, little do we +know wot lays afore us!” “Mrs Harris, ma’am,” I says, “not much, it’s +true, but more than you suppoge. Our calcilations, ma’am,” I says, +“respectin’ wot the number of a family will be, comes most times within +one, and oftener than you would suppoge, exact.” “Sairey,” says Mrs +Harris, in a awful way, “Tell me wot is my indiwidgle number.” “No, Mrs +Harris,” I says to her, “ex-cuge me, if you please. My own,” I says, +“has fallen out of three-pair backs, and had damp doorsteps settled +on their lungs, and one was turned up smilin’ in a bedstead unbeknown. +Therefore, ma’am,” I says, “seek not to proticipate, but take ‘em as +they come and as they go.” Mine,’ says Mrs Gamp, ‘mine is all gone, my +dear young chick. And as to husbands, there’s a wooden leg gone likeways +home to its account, which in its constancy of walkin’ into wine vaults, +and never comin’ out again ‘till fetched by force, was quite as weak as +flesh, if not weaker.’ + +When she had delivered this oration, Mrs Gamp leaned her chin upon the +cool iron again; and looking intently at the Antwerp packet, shook her +head and groaned. + +‘I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘I wouldn’t be a man and have such a think +upon my mind!--but nobody as owned the name of man, could do it!’ + +Tom and his sister glanced at each other; and Ruth, after a moment’s +hesitation, asked Mrs Gamp what troubled her so much. + +‘My dear,’ returned that lady, dropping her voice, ‘you are single, +ain’t you?’ + +Ruth laughed blushed, and said ‘Yes.’ + +‘Worse luck,’ proceeded Mrs Gamp, ‘for all parties! But others is +married, and in the marriage state; and there is a dear young creetur +a-comin’ down this mornin’ to that very package, which is no more fit to +trust herself to sea, than nothin’ is!’ + +She paused here to look over the deck of the packet in question, and on +the steps leading down to it, and on the gangways. Seeming to have +thus assured herself that the object of her commiseration had not yet +arrived, she raised her eyes gradually up to the top of the escape-pipe, +and indignantly apostrophised the vessel: + +‘Oh, drat you!’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella at it, ‘you’re a +nice spluttering nisy monster for a delicate young creetur to go and +be a passinger by; ain’t you! YOU never do no harm in that way, do +you? With your hammering, and roaring, and hissing, and lamp-iling, you +brute! Them Confugion steamers,’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella +again, ‘has done more to throw us out of our reg’lar work and bring +ewents on at times when nobody counted on ‘em (especially them +screeching railroad ones), than all the other frights that ever was +took. I have heerd of one young man, a guard upon a railway, only three +years opened--well does Mrs Harris know him, which indeed he is her own +relation by her sister’s marriage with a master sawyer--as is godfather +at this present time to six-and-twenty blessed little strangers, equally +unexpected, and all on ‘um named after the Ingeines as was the cause. +Ugh!’ said Mrs Gamp, resuming her apostrophe, ‘one might easy know you +was a man’s inwention, from your disregardlessness of the weakness of +our naturs, so one might, you brute!’ + +It would not have been unnatural to suppose, from the first part of Mrs +Gamp’s lamentations, that she was connected with the stage-coaching or +post-horsing trade. She had no means of judging of the effect of her +concluding remarks upon her young companion; for she interrupted herself +at this point, and exclaimed: + +‘There she identically goes! Poor sweet young creetur, there she goes, +like a lamb to the sacrifige! If there’s any illness when that wessel +gets to sea,’ said Mrs Gamp, prophetically, ‘it’s murder, and I’m the +witness for the persecution.’ + +She was so very earnest on the subject, that Tom’s sister (being as kind +as Tom himself) could not help saying something to her in reply. + +‘Pray, which is the lady,’ she inquired, ‘in whom you are so much +interested?’ + +‘There!’ groaned Mrs Gamp. ‘There she goes! A-crossin’ the little wooden +bridge at this minute. She’s a-slippin’ on a bit of orangepeel!’ tightly +clutching her umbrella. ‘What a turn it give me.’ + +‘Do you mean the lady who is with that man wrapped up from head to foot +in a large cloak, so that his face is almost hidden?’ + +‘Well he may hide it!’ Mrs Gamp replied. ‘He’s good call to be ashamed +of himself. Did you see him a-jerking of her wrist, then?’ + +‘He seems to be hasty with her, indeed.’ + +‘Now he’s a-taking of her down into the close cabin!’ said Mrs Gamp, +impatiently. ‘What’s the man about! The deuce is in him, I think. Why +can’t he leave her in the open air?’ + +He did not, whatever his reason was, but led her quickly down and +disappeared himself, without loosening his cloak, or pausing on the +crowded deck one moment longer than was necessary to clear their way to +that part of the vessel. + +Tom had not heard this little dialogue; for his attention had been +engaged in an unexpected manner. A hand upon his sleeve had caused +him to look round, just when Mrs Gamp concluded her apostrophe to the +steam-engine; and on his right arm, Ruth being on his left, he found +their landlord, to his great surprise. + +He was not so much surprised at the man’s being there, as at his having +got close to him so quietly and swiftly; for another person had been +at his elbow one instant before; and he had not in the meantime been +conscious of any change or pressure in the knot of people among whom he +stood. He and Ruth had frequently remarked how noiselessly this landlord +of theirs came into and went out of his own house; but Tom was not the +less amazed to see him at his elbow now. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Pinch,’ he said in his ear. ‘I am rather infirm, +and out of breath, and my eyes are not very good. I am not as young as I +was, sir. You don’t see a gentleman in a large cloak down yonder, with a +lady on his arm; a lady in a veil and a black shawl; do you?’ + +If HE did not, it was curious that in speaking he should have singled +out from all the crowd the very people whom he described; and should +have glanced hastily from them to Tom, as if he were burning to direct +his wandering eyes. + +‘A gentleman in a large cloak!’ said Tom, ‘and a lady in a black shawl! +Let me see!’ + +‘Yes, yes!’ replied the other, with keen impatience. ‘A gentleman +muffled up from head to foot--strangely muffled up for such a morning +as this--like an invalid, with his hand to his face at this minute, +perhaps. No, no, no! not there,’ he added, following Tom’s gaze; ‘the +other way; in that direction; down yonder.’ Again he indicated, but this +time in his hurry, with his outstretched finger, the very spot on which +the progress of these persons was checked at that moment. + +‘There are so many people, and so much motion, and so many objects,’ +said Tom, ‘that I find it difficult to--no, I really don’t see a +gentleman in a large cloak, and a lady in a black shawl. There’s a lady +in a red shawl over there!’ + +‘No, no, no!’ cried his landlord, pointing eagerly again, ‘not there. +The other way; the other way. Look at the cabin steps. To the left. They +must be near the cabin steps. Do you see the cabin steps? There’s the +bell ringing already! DO you see the steps?’ + +‘Stay!’ said Tom, ‘you’re right. Look! there they go now. Is that the +gentleman you mean? Descending at this minute, with the folds of a great +cloak trailing down after him?’ + +‘The very man!’ returned the other, not looking at what Tom pointed out, +however, but at Tom’s own face. ‘Will you do me a kindness, sir, a great +kindness? Will you put that letter in his hand? Only give him that! +He expects it. I am charged to do it by my employers, but I am late in +finding him, and, not being as young as I have been, should never be +able to make my way on board and off the deck again in time. Will you +pardon my boldness, and do me that great kindness?’ + +His hands shook, and his face bespoke the utmost interest and agitation, +as he pressed the letter upon Tom, and pointed to its destination, like +the Tempter in some grim old carving. + +To hesitate in the performance of a good-natured or compassionate office +was not in Tom’s way. He took the letter; whispered Ruth to wait till +he returned, which would be immediately; and ran down the steps with all +the expedition he could make. There were so many people going down, so +many others coming up, such heavy goods in course of transit to and +fro, such a ringing of bell, blowing-off of steam, and shouting of men’s +voices, that he had much ado to force his way, or keep in mind to which +boat he was going. But he reached the right one with good speed, and +going down the cabin-stairs immediately, described the object of his +search standing at the upper end of the saloon, with his back towards +him, reading some notice which was hung against the wall. As Tom +advanced to give him the letter, he started, hearing footsteps, and +turned round. + +What was Tom’s astonishment to find in him the man with whom he had had +the conflict in the field--poor Mercy’s husband. Jonas! + +Tom understood him to say, what the devil did he want; but it was not +easy to make out what he said; he spoke so indistinctly. + +‘I want nothing with you for myself,’ said Tom; ‘I was asked, a moment +since, to give you this letter. You were pointed out to me, but I didn’t +know you in your strange dress. Take it!’ + +He did so, opened it, and read the writing on the inside. The contents +were evidently very brief; not more perhaps than one line; but they +struck upon him like a stone from a sling. He reeled back as he read. + +His emotion was so different from any Tom had ever seen before that he +stopped involuntarily. Momentary as his state of indecision was, the +bell ceased while he stood there, and a hoarse voice calling down the +steps, inquired if there was any to go ashore? + +‘Yes,’ cried Jonas, ‘I--I am coming. Give me time. Where’s that woman! +Come back; come back here.’ + +He threw open another door as he spoke, and dragged, rather than led, +her forth. She was pale and frightened, and amazed to see her old +acquaintance; but had no time to speak, for they were making a great +stir above; and Jonas drew her rapidly towards the deck. + +‘Where are we going? What is the matter?’ + +‘We are going back,’ said Jonas. ‘I have changed my mind. I can’t go. +Don’t question me, or I shall be the death of you, or some one else. +Stop there! Stop! We’re for the shore. Do you hear? We’re for the +shore!’ + +He turned, even in the madness of his hurry, and scowling darkly back +at Tom, shook his clenched hand at him. There are not many human faces +capable of the expression with which he accompanied that gesture. + +He dragged her up, and Tom followed them. Across the deck, over the +side, along the crazy plank, and up the steps, he dragged her fiercely; +not bestowing any look on her, but gazing upwards all the while among +the faces on the wharf. Suddenly he turned again, and said to Tom with a +tremendous oath: + +‘Where is he?’ + +Before Tom, in his indignation and amazement, could return an answer to +a question he so little understood, a gentleman approached Tom behind, +and saluted Jonas Chuzzlewit by name. He has a gentleman of foreign +appearance, with a black moustache and whiskers; and addressed him with +a polite composure, strangely different from his own distracted and +desperate manner. + +‘Chuzzlewit, my good fellow!’ said the gentleman, raising his hat in +compliment to Mrs Chuzzlewit, ‘I ask your pardon twenty thousand times. +I am most unwilling to interfere between you and a domestic trip of this +nature (always so very charming and refreshing, I know, although I +have not the happiness to be a domestic man myself, which is the great +infelicity of my existence); but the beehive, my dear friend, the +beehive--will you introduce me?’ + +‘This is Mr Montague,’ said Jonas, whom the words appeared to choke. + +‘The most unhappy and most penitent of men, Mrs Chuzzlewit,’ pursued +that gentleman, ‘for having been the means of spoiling this excursion; +but as I tell my friend, the beehive, the beehive. You projected a short +little continental trip, my dear friend, of course?’ + +Jonas maintained a dogged silence. + +‘May I die,’ cried Montague, ‘but I am shocked! Upon my soul I am +shocked. But that confounded beehive of ours in the city must be +paramount to every other consideration, when there is honey to be made; +and that is my best excuse. Here is a very singular old female dropping +curtseys on my right,’ said Montague, breaking off in his discourse, +and looking at Mrs Gamp, ‘who is not a friend of mine. Does anybody know +her?’ + +‘Ah! Well they knows me, bless their precious hearts!’ said Mrs Gamp, +‘not forgettin’ your own merry one, sir, and long may it be so! Wishin’ +as every one’ (she delivered this in the form of a toast or sentiment) +‘was as merry, and as handsome-lookin’, as a little bird has whispered +me a certain gent is, which I will not name for fear I give offence +where none is doo! My precious lady,’ here she stopped short in her +merriment, for she had until now affected to be vastly entertained, +‘you’re too pale by half!’ + +‘YOU are here too, are you?’ muttered Jonas. ‘Ecod, there are enough of +you.’ + +‘I hope, sir,’ returned Mrs Gamp, dropping an indignant curtsey, ‘as no +bones is broke by me and Mrs Harris a-walkin’ down upon a public wharf. +Which was the very words she says to me (although they was the last +I ever had to speak) was these: “Sairey,” she says, “is it a public +wharf?” “Mrs Harris,” I makes answer, “can you doubt it? You have know’d +me now, ma’am, eight and thirty year; and did you ever know me go, or +wish to go, where I was not made welcome, say the words.” “No, Sairey,” + Mrs Harris says, “contrairy quite.” And well she knows it too. I am but +a poor woman, but I’ve been sought after, sir, though you may not think +it. I’ve been knocked up at all hours of the night, and warned out by +a many landlords, in consequence of being mistook for Fire. I goes out +workin’ for my bread, ‘tis true, but I maintains my independency, with +your kind leave, and which I will till death. I has my feelins as a +woman, sir, and I have been a mother likeways; but touch a pipkin as +belongs to me, or make the least remarks on what I eats or drinks, and +though you was the favouritest young for’ard hussy of a servant-gal as +ever come into a house, either you leaves the place, or me. My earnins +is not great, sir, but I will not be impoged upon. Bless the babe, and +save the mother, is my mortar, sir; but I makes so free as add to that, +Don’t try no impogician with the Nuss, for she will not abear it!’ + +Mrs Gamp concluded by drawing her shawl tightly over herself with both +hands, and, as usual, referring to Mrs Harris for full corroboration of +these particulars. She had that peculiar trembling of the head which, +in ladies of her excitable nature, may be taken as a sure indication +of their breaking out again very shortly; when Jonas made a timely +interposition. + +‘As you ARE here,’ he said, ‘you had better see to her, and take her +home. I am otherwise engaged.’ He said nothing more; but looked at +Montague as if to give him notice that he was ready to attend him. + +‘I am sorry to take you away,’ said Montague. + +Jonas gave him a sinister look, which long lived in Tom’s memory, and +which he often recalled afterwards. + +‘I am, upon my life,’ said Montague. ‘Why did you make it necessary?’ + +With the same dark glance as before, Jonas replied, after a moment’s +silence: + +‘The necessity is none of my making. You have brought it about +yourself.’ + +He said nothing more. He said even this as if he were bound, and in the +other’s power, but had a sullen and suppressed devil within him, which +he could not quite resist. His very gait, as they walked away together, +was like that of a fettered man; but, striving to work out at his +clenched hands, knitted brows, and fast-set lips, was the same +imprisoned devil still. + +They got into a handsome cabriolet which was waiting for them and drove +away. + +The whole of this extraordinary scene had passed so rapidly and the +tumult which prevailed around as so unconscious of any impression from +it, that, although Tom had been one of the chief actors, it was like +a dream. No one had noticed him after they had left the packet. He had +stood behind Jonas, and so near him, that he could not help hearing all +that passed. He had stood there, with his sister on his arm, expecting +and hoping to have an opportunity of explaining his strange share in +this yet stranger business. But Jonas had not raised his eyes from the +ground; no one else had even looked towards him; and before he could +resolve on any course of action, they were all gone. + +He gazed round for his landlord. But he had done that more than once +already, and no such man was to be seen. He was still pursuing this +search with his eyes, when he saw a hand beckoning to him from a +hackney-coach; and hurrying towards it, found it was Merry’s. She +addressed him hurriedly, but bent out of the window, that she might not +be overheard by her companion, Mrs Gamp. + +‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Good heaven, what is it? Why did he tell me +last night to prepare for a long journey, and why have you brought us +back like criminals? Dear Mr Pinch!’ she clasped her hands distractedly, +‘be merciful to us. Whatever this dreadful secret is, be merciful, and +God will bless you!’ + +‘If any power of mercy lay with me,’ cried Tom, ‘trust me, you shouldn’t +ask in vain. But I am far more ignorant and weak than you.’ + +She withdrew into the coach again, and he saw the hand waving towards +him for a moment; but whether in reproachfulness or incredulity or +misery, or grief, or sad adieu, or what else, he could not, being so +hurried, understand. SHE was gone now; and Ruth and he were left to walk +away, and wonder. + +Had Mr Nadgett appointed the man who never came, to meet him upon London +Bridge that morning? He was certainly looking over the parapet, and +down upon the steamboat-wharf at that moment. It could not have been +for pleasure; he never took pleasure. No. He must have had some business +there. + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-ONE + +MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND, ARRIVING AT A PLEASANT UNDERSTANDING, SET FORTH +UPON AN ENTERPRISE + + +The office of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance +Company being near at hand, and Mr Montague driving Jonas straight +there, they had very little way to go. But the journey might have been +one of several hours’ duration, without provoking a remark from either; +for it was clear that Jonas did not mean to break the silence which +prevailed between them, and that it was not, as yet, his dear friend’s +cue to tempt them into conversation. + +He had thrown aside his cloak, as having now no motive for concealment, +and with that garment huddled on his knees, sat as far removed from his +companion as the limited space in such a carriage would allow. There +was a striking difference in his manner, compared with what it had been, +within a few minutes, when Tom encountered him so unexpectedly on board +the packet, or when the ugly change had fallen on him in Mr Montague’s +dressing-room. He had the aspect of a man found out and held at bay; +of being baffled, hunted, and beset; but there was now a dawning and +increasing purpose in his face, which changed it very much. It was +gloomy, distrustful, lowering; pale with anger and defeat; it still was +humbled, abject, cowardly and mean; but, let the conflict go on as it +would, there was one strong purpose wrestling with every emotion of his +mind, and casting the whole series down as they arose. + +Not prepossessing in appearance at the best of times, it may be readily +supposed that he was not so now. He had left deep marks of his front +teeth in his nether lip; and those tokens of the agitation he had lately +undergone improved his looks as little as the heavy corrugations in his +forehead. But he was self-possessed now; unnaturally self-possessed, +indeed, as men quite otherwise than brave are known to be in desperate +extremities; and when the carriage stopped, he waited for no invitation, +but leapt hardily out, and went upstairs. + +The chairman followed him; and closing the board-room door as soon as +they had entered, threw himself upon a sofa. Jonas stood before the +window, looking down into the street; and leaned against the sash, +resting his head upon his arms. + +‘This is not handsome, Chuzzlewit!’ said Montague at length. ‘Not +handsome upon my soul!’ + +‘What would you have me do?’ he answered, looking round abruptly; ‘What +do you expect?’ + +‘Confidence, my good fellow. Some confidence!’ said Montague in an +injured tone. + +‘Ecod! You show great confidence in me,’ retorted Jonas. ‘Don’t you?’ + +‘Do I not?’ said his companion, raising his head, and looking at him, +but he had turned again. ‘Do I not? Have I not confided to you the easy +schemes I have formed for our advantage; OUR advantage, mind; not mine +alone; and what is my return? Attempted flight!’ + +‘How do you know that? Who said I meant to fly?’ + +‘Who said? Come, come. A foreign boat, my friend, an early hour, a +figure wrapped up for disguise! Who said? If you didn’t mean to jilt +me, why were you there? If you didn’t mean to jilt me, why did you come +back?’ + +‘I came back,’ said Jonas, ‘to avoid disturbance.’ + +‘You were wise,’ rejoined his friend. + +Jonas stood quite silent; still looking down into the street, and +resting his head upon his arms. + +‘Now, Chuzzlewit,’ said Montague, ‘notwithstanding what has passed I +will be plain with you. Are you attending to me there? I only see your +back.’ + +‘I hear you. Go on!’ + +‘I say that notwithstanding what has passed, I will be plain with you.’ + +‘You said that before. And I have told you once I heard you say it. Go +on.’ + +‘You are a little chafed, but I can make allowance for that, and am, +fortunately, myself in the very best of tempers. Now, let us see how +circumstances stand. A day or two ago, I mentioned to you, my dear +fellow, that I thought I had discovered--’ + +‘Will you hold your tongue?’ said Jonas, looking fiercely round, and +glancing at the door. + +‘Well, well!’ said Montague. ‘Judicious! Quite correct! My discoveries +being published, would be like many other men’s discoveries in this +honest world; of no further use to me. You see, Chuzzlewit, how +ingenuous and frank I am in showing you the weakness of my own position! +To return. I make, or think I make, a certain discovery which I take +an early opportunity of mentioning in your ear, in that spirit of +confidence which I really hoped did prevail between us, and was +reciprocated by you. Perhaps there is something in it; perhaps there is +nothing. I have my knowledge and opinion on the subject. You have yours. +We will not discuss the question. But, my good fellow, you have been +weak; what I wish to point out to you is, that you have been weak. I may +desire to turn this little incident to my account (indeed, I do--I’ll +not deny it), but my account does not lie in probing it, or using it +against you.’ + +‘What do you call using it against me?’ asked Jonas, who had not yet +changed his attitude. + +‘Oh!’ said Montague, with a laugh. ‘We’ll not enter into that.’ + +‘Using it to make a beggar of me. Is that the use you mean?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Ecod,’ muttered Jonas, bitterly. ‘That’s the use in which your account +DOES lie. You speak the truth there.’ + +‘I wish you to venture (it’s a very safe venture) a little more with +us, certainly, and to keep quiet,’ said Montague. ‘You promised me you +would; and you must. I say it plainly, Chuzzlewit, you MUST. Reason the +matter. If you don’t, my secret is worthless to me: and being so, it +may as well become the public property as mine; better, for I shall +gain some credit, bringing it to light. I want you, besides, to act as a +decoy in a case I have already told you of. You don’t mind that, I know. +You care nothing for the man (you care nothing for any man; you are +too sharp; so am I, I hope); and could bear any loss of his with +pious fortitude. Ha, ha, ha! You have tried to escape from the first +consequence. You cannot escape it, I assure you. I have shown you that +to-day. Now, I am not a moral man, you know. I am not the least in the +world affected by anything you may have done; by any little indiscretion +you may have committed; but I wish to profit by it if I can; and to a +man of your intelligence I make that free confession. I am not at all +singular in that infirmity. Everybody profits by the indiscretion of his +neighbour; and the people in the best repute, the most. Why do you give +me this trouble? It must come to a friendly agreement, or an unfriendly +crash. It must. If the former, you are very little hurt. If the +latter--well! you know best what is likely to happen then.’ + +Jonas left the window, and walked up close to him. He did not look +him in the face; it was not his habit to do that; but he kept his eyes +towards him--on his breast, or thereabouts--and was at great pains +to speak slowly and distinctly in reply. Just as a man in a state of +conscious drunkenness might be. + +‘Lying is of no use now,’ he said. ‘I DID think of getting away this +morning, and making better terms with you from a distance.’ + +‘To be sure! to be sure!’ replied Montague. ‘Nothing more natural. I +foresaw that, and provided against it. But I am afraid I am interrupting +you.’ + +‘How the devil,’ pursued Jonas, with a still greater effort, ‘you made +choice of your messenger, and where you found him, I’ll not ask you. I +owed him one good turn before to-day. If you are so careless of men in +general, as you said you were just now, you are quite indifferent to +what becomes of such a crop-tailed cur as that, and will leave me to +settle my account with him in my own manner.’ + +If he had raised his eyes to his companion’s face, he would have seen +that Montague was evidently unable to comprehend his meaning. But +continuing to stand before him, with his furtive gaze directed as +before, and pausing here only to moisten his dry lips with his tongue, +the fact was lost upon him. It might have struck a close observer that +this fixed and steady glance of Jonas’s was a part of the alteration +which had taken place in his demeanour. He kept it riveted on one spot, +with which his thoughts had manifestly nothing to do; like as a juggler +walking on a cord or wire to any dangerous end, holds some object in his +sight to steady him, and never wanders from it, lest he trip. + +Montague was quick in his rejoinder, though he made it at a venture. +There was no difference of opinion between him and his friend on THAT +point. Not the least. + +‘Your great discovery,’ Jonas proceeded, with a savage sneer that +got the better of him for the moment, ‘may be true, and may be false. +Whichever it is, I dare say I’m no worse than other men.’ + +‘Not a bit,’ said Tigg. ‘Not a bit. We’re all alike--or nearly so.’ + +‘I want to know this,’ Jonas went on to say; ‘is it your own? You’ll not +wonder at my asking the question.’ + +‘My own!’ repeated Montague. + +‘Aye!’ returned the other, gruffly. ‘Is it known to anybody else? Come! +Don’t waver about that.’ + +‘No!’ said Montague, without the smallest hesitation. ‘What would it be +worth, do you think, unless I had the keeping of it?’ + +Now, for the first time, Jonas looked at him. After a pause, he put out +his hand, and said, with a laugh: + +‘Come! make things easy to me, and I’m yours. I don’t know that I may +not be better off here, after all, than if I had gone away this morning. +But here I am, and here I’ll stay now. Take your oath!’ + +He cleared his throat, for he was speaking hoarsely and said in a +lighter tone: + +‘Shall I go to Pecksniff? When? Say when!’ + +‘Immediately!’ cried Montague. ‘He cannot be enticed too soon.’ + +‘Ecod!’ cried Jonas, with a wild laugh. ‘There’s some fun in catching +that old hypocrite. I hate him. Shall I go to-night?’ + +‘Aye! This,’ said Montague, ecstatically, ‘is like business! We +understand each other now! To-night, my good fellow, by all means.’ + +‘Come with me,’ cried Jonas. ‘We must make a dash; go down in state, and +carry documents, for he’s a deep file to deal with, and must be drawn +on with an artful hand, or he’ll not follow. I know him. As I can’t +take your lodgings or your dinners down, I must take you. Will you come +to-night?’ + +His friend appeared to hesitate; and neither to have anticipated this +proposal, nor to relish it very much. + +‘We can concert our plans upon the road,’ said Jonas. ‘We must not go +direct to him, but cross over from some other place, and turn out of our +way to see him. I may not want to introduce you, but I must have you on +the spot. I know the man, I tell you.’ + +‘But what if the man knows me?’ said Montague, shrugging his shoulders. + +‘He know!’ cried Jonas. ‘Don’t you run that risk with fifty men a day! +Would your father know you? Did I know you? Ecod! You were another +figure when I saw you first. Ha, ha, ha! I see the rents and patches +now! No false hair then, no black dye! You were another sort of joker +in those days, you were! You even spoke different then. You’ve acted +the gentleman so seriously since, that you’ve taken in yourself. If he +should know you, what does it matter? Such a change is a proof of your +success. You know that, or you would not have made yourself known to me. +Will you come?’ + +‘My good fellow,’ said Montague, still hesitating, ‘I can trust you +alone.’ + +‘Trust me! Ecod, you may trust me now, far enough. I’ll try to go away +no more--no more!’ He stopped, and added in a more sober tone, ‘I can’t +get on without you. Will you come?’ + +‘I will,’ said Montague, ‘if that’s your opinion.’ And they shook hands +upon it. + +The boisterous manner which Jonas had exhibited during the latter part +of this conversation, and which had gone on rapidly increasing with +almost every word he had spoken, from the time when he looked his +honourable friend in the face until now, did not now subside, but, +remaining at its height, abided by him. Most unusual with him at any +period; most inconsistent with his temper and constitution; especially +unnatural it would appear in one so darkly circumstanced; it abided by +him. It was not like the effect of wine, or any ardent drink, for he was +perfectly coherent. It even made him proof against the usual influence +of such means of excitement; for, although he drank deeply several times +that day, with no reserve or caution, he remained exactly the same man, +and his spirits neither rose nor fell in the least observable degree. + +Deciding, after some discussion, to travel at night, in order that the +day’s business might not be broken in upon, they took counsel together +in reference to the means. Mr Montague being of opinion that four horses +were advisable, at all events for the first stage, as throwing a great +deal of dust into people’s eyes, in more senses than one, a travelling +chariot and four lay under orders for nine o’clock. Jonas did not go +home; observing, that his being obliged to leave town on business in +so great a hurry, would be a good excuse for having turned back so +unexpectedly in the morning. So he wrote a note for his portmanteau, and +sent it by a messenger, who duly brought his luggage back, with a short +note from that other piece of luggage, his wife, expressive of her wish +to be allowed to come and see him for a moment. To this request he sent +for answer, ‘she had better;’ and one such threatening affirmative being +sufficient, in defiance of the English grammar, to express a negative, +she kept away. + +Mr Montague being much engaged in the course of the day, Jonas bestowed +his spirits chiefly on the doctor, with whom he lunched in the medical +officer’s own room. On his way thither, encountering Mr Nadgett in the +outer room, he bantered that stealthy gentleman on always appearing +anxious to avoid him, and inquired if he were afraid of him. Mr Nadgett +slyly answered, ‘No, but he believed it must be his way as he had been +charged with much the same kind of thing before.’ + +Mr Montague was listening to, or, to speak with greater elegance, he +overheard, this dialogue. As soon as Jonas was gone he beckoned Nadgett +to him with the feather of his pen, and whispered in his ear. + +‘Who gave him my letter this morning?’ + +‘My lodger, sir,’ said Nadgett, behind the palm of his hand. + +‘How came that about?’ + +‘I found him on the wharf, sir. Being so much hurried, and you not +arrived, it was necessary to do something. It fortunately occurred to +me, that if I gave it him myself I could be of no further use. I should +have been blown upon immediately.’ + +‘Mr Nadgett, you are a jewel,’ said Montague, patting him on the back. +‘What’s your lodger’s name?’ + +‘Pinch, sir. Thomas Pinch.’ + +Montague reflected for a little while, and then asked: + +‘From the country, do you know?’ + +‘From Wiltshire, sir, he told me.’ + +They parted without another word. To see Mr Nadgett’s bow when Montague +and he next met, and to see Mr Montague acknowledge it, anybody might +have undertaken to swear that they had never spoken to each other +confidentially in all their lives. + +In the meanwhile, Mr Jonas and the doctor made themselves very +comfortable upstairs, over a bottle of the old Madeira and some +sandwiches; for the doctor having been already invited to dine below at +six o’clock, preferred a light repast for lunch. It was advisable, he +said, in two points of view: First, as being healthy in itself. Secondly +as being the better preparation for dinner. + +‘And you are bound for all our sakes to take particular care of your +digestion, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear sir,’ said the doctor smacking his +lips after a glass of wine; ‘for depend upon it, it is worth preserving. +It must be in admirable condition, sir; perfect chronometer-work. +Otherwise your spirits could not be so remarkable. Your bosom’s lord +sits lightly on its throne, Mr Chuzzlewit, as what’s-his-name says in +the play. I wish he said it in a play which did anything like common +justice to our profession, by the bye. There is an apothecary in +that drama, sir, which is a low thing; vulgar, sir; out of nature +altogether.’ + +Mr Jobling pulled out his shirt-frill of fine linen, as though he would +have said, ‘This is what I call nature in a medical man, sir;’ and +looked at Jonas for an observation. + +Jonas not being in a condition to pursue the subject, took up a case of +lancets that was lying on the table, and opened it. + +‘Ah!’ said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, ‘I always take ‘em out +of my pocket before I eat. My pockets are rather tight. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +Jonas had opened one of the shining little instruments; and was +scrutinizing it with a look as sharp and eager as its own bright edge. + +‘Good steel, doctor. Good steel! Eh!’ + +‘Ye-es,’ replied the doctor, with the faltering modesty of ownership. +‘One might open a vein pretty dexterously with that, Mr Chuzzlewit.’ + +‘It has opened a good many in its time, I suppose?’ said Jonas looking +at it with a growing interest. + +‘Not a few, my dear sir, not a few. It has been engaged in a--in a +pretty good practice, I believe I may say,’ replied the doctor, coughing +as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that he couldn’t +help it. ‘In a pretty good practice,’ repeated the doctor, putting +another glass of wine to his lips. + +‘Now, could you cut a man’s throat with such a thing as this?’ demanded +Jonas. + +‘Oh certainly, certainly, if you took him in the right place,’ returned +the doctor. ‘It all depends upon that.’ + +‘Where you have your hand now, hey?’ cried Jonas, bending forward to +look at it. + +‘Yes,’ said the doctor; ‘that’s the jugular.’ + +Jonas, in his vivacity, made a sudden sawing in the air, so close behind +the doctor’s jugular that he turned quite red. Then Jonas (in the same +strange spirit of vivacity) burst into a loud discordant laugh. + +‘No, no,’ said the doctor, shaking his head; ‘edge tools, edge tools; +never play with ‘em. A very remarkable instance of the skillful use of +edge-tools, by the way, occurs to me at this moment. It was a case of +murder. I am afraid it was a case of murder, committed by a member of +our profession; it was so artistically done.’ + +‘Aye!’ said Jonas. ‘How was that?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned Jobling, ‘the thing lies in a nutshell. A certain +gentleman was found, one morning, in an obscure street, lying in +an angle of a doorway--I should rather say, leaning, in an upright +position, in the angle of a doorway, and supported consequently by the +doorway. Upon his waistcoat there was one solitary drop of blood. He was +dead and cold; and had been murdered, sir.’ + +‘Only one drop of blood!’ said Jonas. + +‘Sir, that man,’ replied the doctor, ‘had been stabbed to the heart. +Had been stabbed to the heart with such dexterity, sir, that he had +died instantly, and had bled internally. It was supposed that a +medical friend of his (to whom suspicion attached) had engaged him in +conversation on some pretence; had taken him, very likely, by the button +in a conversational manner; had examined his ground at leisure with +his other hand; had marked the exact spot; drawn out the instrument, +whatever it was, when he was quite prepared; and--’ + +‘And done the trick,’ suggested Jonas. + +‘Exactly so,’ replied the doctor. ‘It was quite an operation in its way, +and very neat. The medical friend never turned up; and, as I tell you, +he had the credit of it. Whether he did it or not I can’t say. +But, having had the honour to be called in with two or three of my +professional brethren on the occasion, and having assisted to make a +careful examination of the wound, I have no hesitation in saying that +it would have reflected credit on any medical man; and that in an +unprofessional person it could not but be considered, either as an +extraordinary work of art, or the result of a still more extraordinary, +happy, and favourable conjunction of circumstances.’ + +His hearer was so much interested in this case, that the doctor went +on to elucidate it with the assistance of his own finger and thumb and +waistcoat; and at Jonas’s request, he took the further trouble of going +into a corner of the room, and alternately representing the murdered +man and the murderer; which he did with great effect. The bottle being +emptied and the story done, Jonas was in precisely the same boisterous +and unusual state as when they had sat down. If, as Jobling theorized, +his good digestion were the cause, he must have been a very ostrich. + +At dinner it was just the same; and after dinner too; though wine was +drunk in abundance, and various rich meats eaten. At nine o’clock it was +still the same. There being a lamp in the carriage, he swore they would +take a pack of cards, and a bottle of wine; and with these things under +his cloak, went down to the door. + +‘Out of the way, Tom Thumb, and get to bed!’ + +This was the salutation he bestowed on Mr Bailey, who, booted and +wrapped up, stood at the carriage door to help him in. + +‘To bed, sir! I’m a-going, too,’ said Bailey. + +He alighted quickly, and walked back into the hall, where Montague was +lighting a cigar; conducting Mr Bailey with him, by the collar. + +‘You are not a-going to take this monkey of a boy, are you?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Montague. + +He gave the boy a shake, and threw him roughly aside. There was more of +his familiar self in the action, than in anything he had done that day; +but he broke out laughing immediately afterwards, and making a thrust +at the doctor with his hand, in imitation of his representation of the +medical friend, went out to the carriage again, and took his seat. His +companion followed immediately. Mr Bailey climbed into the rumble. ‘It +will be a stormy night!’ exclaimed the doctor, as they started. + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-TWO + +CONTINUATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND + + +The doctor’s prognostication in reference to the weather was speedily +verified. Although the weather was not a patient of his, and no third +party had required him to give an opinion on the case, the quick +fulfilment of his prophecy may be taken as an instance of his +professional tact; for, unless the threatening aspect of the night +had been perfectly plain and unmistakable, Mr Jobling would never have +compromised his reputation by delivering any sentiments on the subject. +He used this principle in Medicine with too much success to be unmindful +of it in his commonest transactions. + +It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows +listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when +they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely +travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning. +Lightning flashed and quivered on the black horizon even now; and hollow +murmurings were in the wind, as though it had been blowing where the +thunder rolled, and still was charged with its exhausted echoes. But the +storm, though gathering swiftly, had not yet come up; and the prevailing +stillness was the more solemn, from the dull intelligence that seemed to +hover in the air, of noise and conflict afar off. + +It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud which +shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that had been +heated in a furnace, and were growing cold. These had been advancing +steadily and slowly, but they were now motionless, or nearly so. As the +carriage clattered round the corners of the streets, it passed at every +one a knot of persons who had come there--many from their houses close +at hand, without hats--to look up at that quarter of the sky. And now a +very few large drops of rain began to fall, and thunder rumbled in the +distance. + +Jonas sat in a corner of the carriage with his bottle resting on his +knee, and gripped as tightly in his hand as if he would have ground its +neck to powder if he could. Instinctively attracted by the night, he +had laid aside the pack of cards upon the cushion; and with the same +involuntary impulse, so intelligible to both of them as not to occasion +a remark on either side, his companion had extinguished the lamp. The +front glasses were down; and they sat looking silently out upon the +gloomy scene before them. + +They were clear of London, or as clear of it as travellers can be whose +way lies on the Western Road, within a stage of that enormous city. +Occasionally they encountered a foot-passenger, hurrying to the nearest +place of shelter; or some unwieldy cart proceeding onward at a heavy +trot, with the same end in view. Little clusters of such vehicles were +gathered round the stable-yard or baiting-place of every wayside tavern; +while their drivers watched the weather from the doors and open windows, +or made merry within. Everywhere the people were disposed to bear each +other company rather than sit alone; so that groups of watchful faces +seemed to be looking out upon the night AND THEM, from almost every +house they passed. + +It may appear strange that this should have disturbed Jonas, or rendered +him uneasy; but it did. After muttering to himself, and often changing +his position, he drew up the blind on his side of the carriage, and +turned his shoulder sulkily towards it. But he neither looked at his +companion, nor broke the silence which prevailed between them, and which +had fallen so suddenly upon himself, by addressing a word to him. + +The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed; the rain poured down like +Heaven’s wrath. Surrounded at one moment by intolerable light, and +at the next by pitchy darkness, they still pressed forward on their +journey. Even when they arrived at the end of the stage, and might have +tarried, they did not; but ordered horses out immediately. Nor had this +any reference to some five minutes’ lull, which at that time seemed to +promise a cessation of the storm. They held their course as if they were +impelled and driven by its fury. Although they had not exchanged a dozen +words, and might have tarried very well, they seemed to feel, by joint +consent, that onward they must go. + +Louder and louder the deep thunder rolled, as through the myriad +halls of some vast temple in the sky; fiercer and brighter became the +lightning, more and more heavily the rain poured down. The horses (they +were travelling now with a single pair) plunged and started from the +rills of quivering fire that seemed to wind along the ground before +them; but there these two men sat, and forward they went as if they were +led on by an invisible attraction. + +The eye, partaking of the quickness of the flashing light, saw in its +every gleam a multitude of objects which it could not see at steady noon +in fifty times that period. Bells in steeples, with the rope and wheel +that moved them; ragged nests of birds in cornices and nooks; faces full +of consternation in the tilted waggons that came tearing past; their +frightened teams ringing out a warning which the thunder drowned; +harrows and ploughs left out in fields; miles upon miles of +hedge-divided country, with the distant fringe of trees as obvious as +the scarecrow in the bean-field close at hand; in a trembling, vivid, +flickering instant, everything was clear and plain; then came a flush +of red into the yellow light; a change to blue; a brightness so +intense that there was nothing else but light; and then the deepest and +profoundest darkness. + +The lightning being very crooked and very dazzling may have presented +or assisted a curious optical illusion, which suddenly rose before the +startled eyes of Montague in the carriage, and as rapidly disappeared. +He thought he saw Jonas with his hand lifted, and the bottle clenched in +it like a hammer, making as if he would aim a blow at his head. At the +same time he observed (or so believed) an expression in his face--a +combination of the unnatural excitement he had shown all day, with a +wild hatred and fear--which might have rendered a wolf a less terrible +companion. + +He uttered an involuntary exclamation, and called to the driver, who +brought his horses to a stop with all speed. + +It could hardly have been as he supposed, for although he had not taken +his eyes off his companion, and had not seen him move, he sat reclining +in his corner as before. + +‘What’s the matter?’ said Jonas. ‘Is that your general way of waking out +of your sleep?’ + +‘I could swear,’ returned the other, ‘that I have not closed my eyes!’ + +‘When you have sworn it,’ said Jonas, composedly, ‘we had better go on +again, if you have only stopped for that.’ + +He uncorked the bottle with the help of his teeth; and putting it to his +lips, took a long draught. + +‘I wish we had never started on this journey. This is not,’ said +Montague, recoiling instinctively, and speaking in a voice that betrayed +his agitation; ‘this is not a night to travel in.’ + +‘Ecod! you’re right there,’ returned Jonas, ‘and we shouldn’t be out +in it but for you. If you hadn’t kept me waiting all day, we might have +been at Salisbury by this time; snug abed and fast asleep. What are we +stopping for?’ + +His companion put his head out of window for a moment, and drawing it in +again, observed (as if that were his cause of anxiety), that the boy was +drenched to the skin. + +‘Serve him right,’ said Jonas. ‘I’m glad of it. What the devil are we +stopping for? Are you going to spread him out to dry?’ + +‘I have half a mind to take him inside,’ observed the other with some +hesitation. + +‘Oh! thankee!’ said Jonas. ‘We don’t want any damp boys here; especially +a young imp like him. Let him be where he is. He ain’t afraid of a +little thunder and lightning, I dare say; whoever else is. Go on, +driver. We had better have HIM inside perhaps,’ he muttered with a +laugh; ‘and the horses!’ + +‘Don’t go too fast,’ cried Montague to the postillion; ‘and take care +how you go. You were nearly in the ditch when I called to you.’ + +This was not true; and Jonas bluntly said so, as they moved forward +again. Montague took little or no heed of what he said, but repeated +that it was not a night for travelling, and showed himself, both then +and afterwards, unusually anxious. + +From this time Jonas recovered his former spirits, if such a term may be +employed to express the state in which he had left the city. He had his +bottle often at his mouth; roared out snatches of songs, without the +least regard to time or tune or voice, or anything but loud discordance; +and urged his silent friend to be merry with him. + +‘You’re the best company in the world, my good fellow,’ said Montague +with an effort, ‘and in general irresistible; but to-night--do you hear +it?’ + +‘Ecod! I hear and see it too,’ cried Jonas, shading his eyes, for the +moment, from the lightning which was flashing, not in any one direction, +but all around them. ‘What of that? It don’t change you, nor me, nor our +affairs. Chorus, chorus, + + It may lighten and storm, + Till it hunt the red worm + From the grass where the gibbet is driven; + But it can’t hurt the dead, + And it won’t save the head + That is doom’d to be rifled and riven. + +That must be a precious old song,’ he added with an oath, as he stopped +short in a kind of wonder at himself. ‘I haven’t heard it since I was +a boy, and how it comes into my head now, unless the lightning put it +there, I don’t know. “Can’t hurt the dead”! No, no. “And won’t save the +head”! No, no. No! Ha, ha, ha!’ + +His mirth was of such a savage and extraordinary character, and was, +in an inexplicable way, at once so suited to the night, and yet such +a coarse intrusion on its terrors, that his fellow-traveller, always +a coward, shrunk from him in positive fear. Instead of Jonas being his +tool and instrument, their places seemed to be reversed. But there was +reason for this too, Montague thought; since the sense of his debasement +might naturally inspire such a man with the wish to assert a noisy +independence, and in that licence to forget his real condition. Being +quick enough, in reference to such subjects of contemplation, he was not +long in taking this argument into account and giving it its full weight. +But still, he felt a vague sense of alarm, and was depressed and uneasy. + +He was certain he had not been asleep; but his eyes might have deceived +him; for, looking at Jonas now in any interval of darkness, he could +represent his figure to himself in any attitude his state of mind +suggested. On the other hand, he knew full well that Jonas had no +reason to love him; and even taking the piece of pantomime which had +so impressed his mind to be a real gesture, and not the working of +his fancy, the most that could be said of it was, that it was quite in +keeping with the rest of his diabolical fun, and had the same impotent +expression of truth in it. ‘If he could kill me with a wish,’ thought +the swindler, ‘I should not live long.’ + +He resolved that when he should have had his use of Jonas, he would +restrain him with an iron curb; in the meantime, that he could not do +better than leave him to take his own way, and preserve his own peculiar +description of good-humour, after his own uncommon manner. It was no +great sacrifice to bear with him; ‘for when all is got that can be got,’ +thought Montague, ‘I shall decamp across the water, and have the laugh +on my side--and the gains.’ + +Such were his reflections from hour to hour; his state of mind being one +in which the same thoughts constantly present themselves over and +over again in wearisome repetition; while Jonas, who appeared to have +dismissed reflection altogether, entertained himself as before. +They agreed that they would go to Salisbury, and would cross to Mr +Pecksniff’s in the morning; and at the prospect of deluding that worthy +gentleman, the spirits of his amiable son-in-law became more boisterous +than ever. + +As the night wore on, the thunder died away, but still rolled +gloomily and mournfully in the distance. The lightning too, though now +comparatively harmless, was yet bright and frequent. The rain was quite +as violent as it had ever been. + +It was their ill-fortune, at about the time of dawn and in the last +stage of their journey, to have a restive pair of horses. These animals +had been greatly terrified in their stable by the tempest; and coming +out into the dreary interval between night and morning, when the glare +of the lightning was yet unsubdued by day, and the various objects in +their view were presented in indistinct and exaggerated shapes which +they would not have worn by night, they gradually became less and less +capable of control; until, taking a sudden fright at something by the +roadside, they dashed off wildly down a steep hill, flung the driver +from his saddle, drew the carriage to the brink of a ditch, stumbled +headlong down, and threw it crashing over. + +The travellers had opened the carriage door, and had either jumped or +fallen out. Jonas was the first to stagger to his feet. He felt sick and +weak, and very giddy, and reeling to a five-barred gate, stood holding +by it; looking drowsily about as the whole landscape swam before his +eyes. But, by degrees, he grew more conscious, and presently observed +that Montague was lying senseless in the road, within a few feet of the +horses. + +In an instant, as if his own faint body were suddenly animated by a +demon, he ran to the horses’ heads; and pulling at their bridles with +all his force, set them struggling and plunging with such mad violence +as brought their hoofs at every effort nearer to the skull of the +prostrate man; and must have led in half a minute to his brains being +dashed out on the highway. + +As he did this, he fought and contended with them like a man possessed, +making them wilder by his cries. + +‘Whoop!’ cried Jonas. ‘Whoop! again! another! A little more, a little +more! Up, ye devils! Hillo!’ + +As he heard the driver, who had risen and was hurrying up, crying to him +to desist, his violence increased. + +‘Hiilo! Hillo!’ cried Jonas. + +‘For God’s sake!’ cried the driver. ‘The gentleman--in the road--he’ll +be killed!’ + +The same shouts and the same struggles were his only answer. But the man +darting in at the peril of his own life, saved Montague’s, by dragging +him through the mire and water out of the reach of present harm. That +done, he ran to Jonas; and with the aid of his knife they very shortly +disengaged the horses from the broken chariot, and got them, cut and +bleeding, on their legs again. The postillion and Jonas had now leisure +to look at each other, which they had not had yet. + +‘Presence of mind, presence of mind!’ cried Jonas, throwing up his hands +wildly. ‘What would you have done without me?’ + +‘The other gentleman would have done badly without ME,’ returned the +man, shaking his head. ‘You should have moved him first. I gave him up +for dead.’ + +‘Presence of mind, you croaker, presence of mind’ cried Jonas with a +harsh loud laugh. ‘Was he struck, do you think?’ + +They both turned to look at him. Jonas muttered something to himself, +when he saw him sitting up beneath the hedge, looking vacantly around. + +‘What’s the matter?’ asked Montague. ‘Is anybody hurt?’ + +‘Ecod!’ said Jonas, ‘it don’t seem so. There are no bones broken, after +all.’ + +They raised him, and he tried to walk. He was a good deal shaken, and +trembled very much. But with the exception of a few cuts and bruises +this was all the damage he had sustained. + +‘Cuts and bruises, eh?’ said Jonas. ‘We’ve all got them. Only cuts and +bruises, eh?’ + +‘I wouldn’t have given sixpence for the gentleman’s head in half-a-dozen +seconds more, for all he’s only cut and bruised,’ observed the post-boy. +‘If ever you’re in an accident of this sort again, sir; which I hope +you won’t be; never you pull at the bridle of a horse that’s down, when +there’s a man’s head in the way. That can’t be done twice without there +being a dead man in the case; it would have ended in that, this time, as +sure as ever you were born, if I hadn’t come up just when I did.’ + +Jonas replied by advising him with a curse to hold his tongue, and to go +somewhere, whither he was not very likely to go of his own accord. But +Montague, who had listened eagerly to every word, himself diverted the +subject, by exclaiming: ‘Where’s the boy?’ + +‘Ecod! I forgot that monkey,’ said Jonas. ‘What’s become of him?’ A very +brief search settled that question. The unfortunate Mr Bailey had been +thrown sheer over the hedge or the five-barred gate; and was lying in +the neighbouring field, to all appearance dead. + +‘When I said to-night, that I wished I had never started on this +journey,’ cried his master, ‘I knew it was an ill-fated one. Look at +this boy!’ + +‘Is that all?’ growled Jonas. ‘If you call THAT a sign of it--’ + +‘Why, what should I call a sign of it?’ asked Montague, hurriedly. ‘What +do you mean?’ + +‘I mean,’ said Jonas, stooping down over the body, ‘that I never heard +you were his father, or had any particular reason to care much about +him. Halloa. Hold up there!’ + +But the boy was past holding up, or being held up, or giving any other +sign of life than a faint and fitful beating of the heart. After some +discussion the driver mounted the horse which had been least injured, +and took the lad in his arms as well as he could; while Montague and +Jonas, leading the other horse, and carrying a trunk between them, +walked by his side towards Salisbury. + +‘You’d get there in a few minutes, and be able to send assistance to +meet us, if you went forward, post-boy,’ said Jonas. ‘Trot on!’ + +‘No, no,’ cried Montague; ‘we’ll keep together.’ + +‘Why, what a chicken you are! You are not afraid of being robbed; are +you?’ said Jonas. + +‘I am not afraid of anything,’ replied the other, whose looks and manner +were in flat contradiction to his words. ‘But we’ll keep together.’ + +‘You were mighty anxious about the boy, a minute ago,’ said Jonas. ‘I +suppose you know that he may die in the meantime?’ + +‘Aye, aye. I know. But we’ll keep together.’ + +As it was clear that he was not to be moved from this determination, +Jonas made no other rejoinder than such as his face expressed; and they +proceeded in company. They had three or four good miles to travel; and +the way was not made easier by the state of the road, the burden by +which they were embarrassed, or their own stiff and sore condition. +After a sufficiently long and painful walk, they arrived at the Inn; and +having knocked the people up (it being yet very early in the morning), +sent out messengers to see to the carriage and its contents, and roused +a surgeon from his bed to tend the chief sufferer. All the service he +could render, he rendered promptly and skillfully. But he gave it as +his opinion that the boy was labouring under a severe concussion of the +brain, and that Mr Bailey’s mortal course was run. + +If Montague’s strong interest in the announcement could have been +considered as unselfish in any degree, it might have been a redeeming +trait in a character that had no such lineaments to spare. But it was +not difficult to see that, for some unexpressed reason best appreciated +by himself, he attached a strange value to the company and presence of +this mere child. When, after receiving some assistance from the surgeon +himself, he retired to the bedroom prepared for him, and it was broad +day, his mind was still dwelling on this theme. + +‘I would rather have lost,’ he said, ‘a thousand pounds than lost the +boy just now. But I’ll return home alone. I am resolved upon that. +Chuzzlewit shall go forward first, and I will follow in my own time. +I’ll have no more of this,’ he added, wiping his damp forehead. +‘Twenty-four hours of this would turn my hair grey!’ + +After examining his chamber, and looking under the bed, and in the +cupboards, and even behind the curtains, with unusual caution (although +it was, as has been said, broad day), he double-locked the door by which +he had entered, and retired to rest. There was another door in the +room, but it was locked on the outer side; and with what place it +communicated, he knew not. + +His fears or evil conscience reproduced this door in all his dreams. He +dreamed that a dreadful secret was connected with it; a secret which he +knew, and yet did not know, for although he was heavily responsible +for it, and a party to it, he was harassed even in his vision by +a distracting uncertainty in reference to its import. Incoherently +entwined with this dream was another, which represented it as the +hiding-place of an enemy, a shadow, a phantom; and made it the business +of his life to keep the terrible creature closed up, and prevent it +from forcing its way in upon him. With this view Nadgett, and he, and a +strange man with a bloody smear upon his head (who told him that he +had been his playfellow, and told him, too, the real name of an old +schoolmate, forgotten until then), worked with iron plates and nails to +make the door secure; but though they worked never so hard, it was all +in vain, for the nails broke, or changed to soft twigs, or what was +worse, to worms, between their fingers; the wood of the door splintered +and crumbled, so that even nails would not remain in it; and the iron +plates curled up like hot paper. All this time the creature on the other +side--whether it was in the shape of man, or beast, he neither knew nor +sought to know--was gaining on them. But his greatest terror was when +the man with the bloody smear upon his head demanded of him if he knew +this creatures name, and said that he would whisper it. At this the +dreamer fell upon his knees, his whole blood thrilling with inexplicable +fear, and held his ears. But looking at the speaker’s lips, he saw that +they formed the utterance of the letter ‘J’; and crying out aloud that +the secret was discovered, and they were all lost, he awoke. + +Awoke to find Jonas standing at his bedside watching him. And that very +door wide open. + +As their eyes met, Jonas retreated a few paces, and Montague sprang out +of bed. + +‘Heyday!’ said Jonas. ‘You’re all alive this morning.’ + +‘Alive!’ the other stammered, as he pulled the bell-rope violently. +‘What are you doing here?’ + +‘It’s your room to be sure,’ said Jonas; ‘but I’m almost inclined to ask +you what YOU are doing here? My room is on the other side of that +door. No one told me last night not to open it. I thought it led into a +passage, and was coming out to order breakfast. There’s--there’s no bell +in my room.’ + +Montague had in the meantime admitted the man with his hot water and +boots, who hearing this, said, yes, there was; and passed into the +adjoining room to point it out, at the head of the bed. + +‘I couldn’t find it, then,’ said Jonas; ‘it’s all the same. Shall I +order breakfast?’ + +Montague answered in the affirmative. When Jonas had retired, whistling, +through his own room, he opened the door of communication, to take out +the key and fasten it on the inner side. But it was taken out already. + +He dragged a table against the door, and sat down to collect himself, as +if his dreams still had some influence upon his mind. + +‘An evil journey,’ he repeated several times. ‘An evil journey. But I’ll +travel home alone. I’ll have no more of this.’ + +His presentiment, or superstition, that it was an evil journey, did +not at all deter him from doing the evil for which the journey was +undertaken. With this in view, he dressed himself more carefully than +usual to make a favourable impression on Mr Pecksniff; and, reassured by +his own appearance, the beauty of the morning, and the flashing of +the wet boughs outside his window in the merry sunshine, was soon +sufficiently inspirited to swear a few round oaths, and hum the fag-end +of a song. + +But he still muttered to himself at intervals, for all that: ‘I’ll +travel home alone!’ + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-THREE + +HAS AN INFLUENCE ON THE FORTUNES OF SEVERAL PEOPLE. MR PECKSNIFF IS +EXHIBITED IN THE PLENITUDE OF POWER; AND WIELDS THE SAME WITH FORTITUDE +AND MAGNANIMITY + + +On the night of the storm, Mrs Lupin, hostess of the Blue Dragon, sat by +herself in her little bar. Her solitary condition, or the bad weather, +or both united, made Mrs Lupin thoughtful, not to say sorrowful. As she +sat with her chin upon her hand, looking out through a low back lattice, +rendered dim in the brightest day-time by clustering vine-leaves, she +shook her head very often, and said, ‘Dear me! Oh, dear, dear me!’ + +It was a melancholy time, even in the snugness of the Dragon bar. +The rich expanse of corn-field, pasture-land, green slope, and gentle +undulation, with its sparkling brooks, its many hedgerows, and its +clumps of beautiful trees, was black and dreary, from the diamond panes +of the lattice away to the far horizon, where the thunder seemed to roll +along the hills. The heavy rain beat down the tender branches of vine +and jessamine, and trampled on them in its fury; and when the lightning +gleamed it showed the tearful leaves shivering and cowering together at +the window, and tapping at it urgently, as if beseeching to be sheltered +from the dismal night. + +As a mark of her respect for the lightning, Mrs Lupin had removed her +candle to the chimney-piece. Her basket of needle-work stood unheeded +at her elbow; her supper, spread on a round table not far off, was +untasted; and the knives had been removed for fear of attraction. She +had sat for a long time with her chin upon her hand, saying to herself +at intervals, ‘Dear me! Ah, dear, dear me!’ + +She was on the eve of saying so, once more, when the latch of the +house-door (closed to keep the rain out), rattled on its well-worn +catch, and a traveller came in, who, shutting it after him, and walking +straight up to the half-door of the bar, said, rather gruffly: + +‘A pint of the best old beer here.’ + +He had some reason to be gruff, for if he had passed the day in a +waterfall, he could scarcely have been wetter than he was. He was +wrapped up to the eyes in a rough blue sailor’s coat, and had an +oil-skin hat on, from the capacious brim of which the rain fell +trickling down upon his breast, and back, and shoulders. Judging from a +certain liveliness of chin--he had so pulled down his hat, and pulled up +his collar, to defend himself from the weather, that she could only +see his chin, and even across that he drew the wet sleeve of his shaggy +coat, as she looked at him--Mrs Lupin set him down for a good-natured +fellow, too. + +‘A bad night!’ observed the hostess cheerfully. + +The traveller shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and said it was, +rather. + +‘There’s a fire in the kitchen,’ said Mrs Lupin, ‘and very good company +there. Hadn’t you better go and dry yourself?’ + +‘No, thankee,’ said the man, glancing towards the kitchen as he spoke; +he seemed to know the way. + +‘It’s enough to give you your death of cold,’ observed the hostess. + +‘I don’t take my death easy,’ returned the traveller; ‘or I should most +likely have took it afore to-night. Your health, ma’am!’ + +Mrs Lupin thanked him; but in the act of lifting the tankard to his +mouth, he changed his mind, and put it down again. Throwing his body +back, and looking about him stiffly, as a man does who is wrapped up, +and has his hat low down over his eyes, he said: + +‘What do you call this house? Not the Dragon, do you?’ + +Mrs Lupin complacently made answer, ‘Yes, the Dragon.’ + +‘Why, then, you’ve got a sort of a relation of mine here, ma’am,’ said +the traveller; ‘a young man of the name of Tapley. What! Mark, my boy!’ +apostrophizing the premises, ‘have I come upon you at last, old buck!’ + +This was touching Mrs Lupin on a tender point. She turned to trim +the candle on the chimney-piece, and said, with her back towards the +traveller: + +‘Nobody should be made more welcome at the Dragon, master, than any one +who brought me news of Mark. But it’s many and many a long day and month +since he left here and England. And whether he’s alive or dead, poor +fellow, Heaven above us only knows!’ + +She shook her head, and her voice trembled; her hand must have done so +too, for the light required a deal of trimming. + +‘Where did he go, ma’am?’ asked the traveller, in a gentler voice. + +‘He went,’ said Mrs Lupin, with increased distress, ‘to America. He was +always tender-hearted and kind, and perhaps at this moment may be lying +in prison under sentence of death, for taking pity on some miserable +black, and helping the poor runaway creetur to escape. How could he ever +go to America! Why didn’t he go to some of those countries where the +savages eat each other fairly, and give an equal chance to every one!’ + +Quite subdued by this time, Mrs Lupin sobbed, and was retiring to a +chair to give her grief free vent, when the traveller caught her in his +arms, and she uttered a glad cry of recognition. + +‘Yes, I will!’ cried Mark, ‘another--one more--twenty more! You +didn’t know me in that hat and coat? I thought you would have known me +anywheres! Ten more!’ + +‘So I should have known you, if I could have seen you; but I couldn’t, +and you spoke so gruff. I didn’t think you could speak gruff to me, +Mark, at first coming back.’ + +‘Fifteen more!’ said Mr Tapley. ‘How handsome and how young you look! +Six more! The last half-dozen warn’t a fair one, and must be done over +again. Lord bless you, what a treat it is to see you! One more! Well, I +never was so jolly. Just a few more, on account of there not being any +credit in it!’ + +When Mr Tapley stopped in these calculations in simple addition, he did +it, not because he was at all tired of the exercise, but because he was +out of breath. The pause reminded him of other duties. + +‘Mr Martin Chuzzlewit’s outside,’ he said. ‘I left him under the +cartshed, while I came on to see if there was anybody here. We want to +keep quiet to-night, till we know the news from you, and what it’s best +for us to do.’ + +‘There’s not a soul in the house, except the kitchen company,’ returned +the hostess. ‘If they were to know you had come back, Mark, they’d have +a bonfire in the street, late as it is.’ + +‘But they mustn’t know it to-night, my precious soul,’ said Mark; ‘so +have the house shut, and the kitchen fire made up; and when it’s all +ready, put a light in the winder, and we’ll come in. One more! I long +to hear about old friends. You’ll tell me all about ‘em, won’t you; Mr +Pinch, and the butcher’s dog down the street, and the terrier over the +way, and the wheelwright’s, and every one of ‘em. When I first caught +sight of the church to-night, I thought the steeple would have choked +me, I did. One more! Won’t you? Not a very little one to finish off +with?’ + +‘You have had plenty, I am sure,’ said the hostess. ‘Go along with your +foreign manners!’ + +‘That ain’t foreign, bless you!’ cried Mark. ‘Native as oysters, that +is! One more, because it’s native! As a mark of respect for the land we +live in! This don’t count as between you and me, you understand,’ said +Mr Tapley. ‘I ain’t a-kissing you now, you’ll observe. I have been among +the patriots; I’m a-kissin’ my country.’ + +It would have been very unreasonable to complain of the exhibition of +his patriotism with which he followed up this explanation, that it was +at all lukewarm or indifferent. When he had given full expression to his +nationality, he hurried off to Martin; while Mrs Lupin, in a state of +great agitation and excitement, prepared for their reception. + +The company soon came tumbling out; insisting to each other that the +Dragon clock was half an hour too fast, and that the thunder must have +affected it. Impatient, wet, and weary though they were, Martin and Mark +were overjoyed to see these old faces, and watched them with delighted +interest as they departed from the house, and passed close by them. + +‘There’s the old tailor, Mark!’ whispered Martin. + +‘There he goes, sir! A little bandier than he was, I think, sir, ain’t +he? His figure’s so far altered, as it seems to me, that you might wheel +a rather larger barrow between his legs as he walks, than you could have +done conveniently when we know’d him. There’s Sam a-coming out, sir.’ + +‘Ah, to be sure!’ cried Martin; ‘Sam, the hostler. I wonder whether that +horse of Pecksniff’s is alive still?’ + +‘Not a doubt on it, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘That’s a description of +animal, sir, as will go on in a bony way peculiar to himself for a long +time, and get into the newspapers at last under the title of “Sing’lar +Tenacity of Life in a Quadruped.” As if he had ever been alive in all +his life, worth mentioning! There’s the clerk, sir--wery drunk, as +usual.’ + +‘I see him!’ said Martin, laughing. ‘But, my life, how wet you are, +Mark!’ + +‘I am! What do you consider yourself, sir?’ + +‘Oh, not half as bad,’ said his fellow-traveller, with an air of great +vexation. ‘I told you not to keep on the windy side, Mark, but to let us +change and change about. The rain has been beating on you ever since it +began.’ + +‘You don’t know how it pleases me, sir,’ said Mark, after a short +silence, ‘if I may make so bold as say so, to hear you a-going on in +that there uncommon considerate way of yours; which I don’t mean to +attend to, never, but which, ever since that time when I was floored in +Eden, you have showed.’ + +‘Ah, Mark!’ sighed Martin, ‘the less we say of that the better. Do I see +the light yonder?’ + +‘That’s the light!’ cried Mark. ‘Lord bless her, what briskness she +possesses! Now for it, sir. Neat wines, good beds, and first-rate +entertainment for man or beast.’ + +The kitchen fire burnt clear and red, the table was spread out, the +kettle boiled; the slippers were there, the boot-jack too, sheets of +ham were there, cooking on the gridiron; half-a-dozen eggs were there, +poaching in the frying-pan; a plethoric cherry-brandy bottle was there, +winking at a foaming jug of beer upon the table; rare provisions were +there, dangling from the rafters as if you had only to open your mouth, +and something exquisitely ripe and good would be glad of the excuse for +tumbling into it. Mrs Lupin, who for their sakes had dislodged the +very cook, high priestess of the temple, with her own genial hands was +dressing their repast. + +It was impossible to help it--a ghost must have hugged her. The Atlantic +Ocean and the Red Sea being, in that respect, all one, Martin hugged +her instantly. Mr Tapley (as if the idea were quite novel, and had never +occurred to him before), followed, with much gravity, on the same side. + +‘Little did I ever think,’ said Mrs Lupin, adjusting her cap and +laughing heartily; yes, and blushing too; ‘often as I have said that Mr +Pecksniff’s young gentlemen were the life and soul of the Dragon, and +that without them it would be too dull to live in--little did I ever +think I am sure, that any one of them would ever make so free as you, Mr +Martin! And still less that I shouldn’t be angry with him, but should be +glad with all my heart to be the first to welcome him home from America, +with Mark Tapley for his--’ + +‘For his friend, Mrs Lupin,’ interposed Martin. + +‘For his friend,’ said the hostess, evidently gratified by this +distinction, but at the same time admonishing Mr Tapley with a fork +to remain at a respectful distance. ‘Little did I ever think that! But +still less, that I should ever have the changes to relate that I shall +have to tell you of, when you have done your supper!’ + +‘Good Heaven!’ cried Martin, changing colour, ‘what changes?’ + +‘SHE,’ said the hostess, ‘is quite well, and now at Mr Pecksniff’s. +Don’t be at all alarmed about her. She is everything you could wish. +It’s of no use mincing matters, or making secrets, is it?’ added Mrs +Lupin. ‘I know all about it, you see!’ + +‘My good creature,’ returned Martin, ‘you are exactly the person who +ought to know all about it. I am delighted to think you DO know about +that! But what changes do you hint at? Has any death occurred?’ + +‘No, no!’ said the hostess. ‘Not as bad as that. But I declare now that +I will not be drawn into saying another word till you have had your +supper. If you ask me fifty questions in the meantime, I won’t answer +one.’ + +She was so positive, that there was nothing for it but to get the supper +over as quickly as possible; and as they had been walking a great many +miles, and had fasted since the middle of the day, they did no great +violence to their own inclinations in falling on it tooth and nail. It +took rather longer to get through than might have been expected; for, +half-a-dozen times, when they thought they had finished, Mrs Lupin +exposed the fallacy of that impression triumphantly. But at last, in +the course of time and nature, they gave in. Then, sitting with +their slippered feet stretched out upon the kitchen hearth (which was +wonderfully comforting, for the night had grown by this time raw and +chilly), and looking with involuntary admiration at their dimpled, +buxom, blooming hostess, as the firelight sparkled in her eyes and +glimmered in her raven hair, they composed themselves to listen to her +news. + +Many were the exclamations of surprise which interrupted her, when she +told them of the separation between Mr Pecksniff and his daughters, and +between the same good gentleman and Mr Pinch. But these were nothing to +the indignant demonstrations of Martin, when she related, as the common +talk of the neighbourhood, what entire possession he had obtained +over the mind and person of old Mr Chuzzlewit, and what high honour he +designed for Mary. On receipt of this intelligence, Martin’s slippers +flew off in a twinkling, and he began pulling on his wet boots with that +indefinite intention of going somewhere instantly, and doing something +to somebody, which is the first safety-valve of a hot temper. + +‘He!’ said Martin, ‘smooth-tongued villain that he is! He! Give me that +other boot, Mark?’ + +‘Where was you a-thinking of going to, sir?’ inquired Mr Tapley drying +the sole at the fire, and looking coolly at it as he spoke, as if it +were a slice of toast. + +‘Where!’ repeated Martin. ‘You don’t suppose I am going to remain here, +do you?’ + +The imperturbable Mark confessed that he did. + +You do!’ retorted Martin angrily. ‘I am much obliged to you. What do you +take me for?’ + +‘I take you for what you are, sir,’ said Mark; ‘and, consequently, am +quite sure that whatever you do will be right and sensible. The boot, +sir.’ + +Martin darted an impatient look at him, without taking it, and walked +rapidly up and down the kitchen several times, with one boot and a +stocking on. But, mindful of his Eden resolution, he had already gained +many victories over himself when Mark was in the case, and he resolved +to conquer now. So he came back to the book-jack, laid his hand on +Mark’s shoulder to steady himself, pulled the boot off, picked up his +slippers, put them on, and sat down again. He could not help thrusting +his hands to the very bottom of his pockets, and muttering at intervals, +‘Pecksniff too! That fellow! Upon my soul! In-deed! What next?’ and so +forth; nor could he help occasionally shaking his fist at the chimney, +with a very threatening countenance; but this did not last long; and he +heard Mrs Lupin out, if not with composure, at all events in silence. + +‘As to Mr Pecksniff himself,’ observed the hostess in conclusion, +spreading out the skirts of her gown with both hands, and nodding +her head a great many times as she did so, ‘I don’t know what to +say. Somebody must have poisoned his mind, or influenced him in some +extraordinary way. I cannot believe that such a noble-spoken gentleman +would go and do wrong of his own accord!’ + +A noble-spoken gentleman! How many people are there in the world, who, +for no better reason, uphold their Pecksniffs to the last and abandon +virtuous men, when Pecksniffs breathe upon them! + +‘As to Mr Pinch,’ pursued the landlady, ‘if ever there was a dear, good, +pleasant, worthy soul alive, Pinch, and no other, is his name. But +how do we know that old Mr Chuzzlewit himself was not the cause of +difference arising between him and Mr Pecksniff? No one but themselves +can tell; for Mr Pinch has a proud spirit, though he has such a quiet +way; and when he left us, and was so sorry to go, he scorned to make his +story good, even to me.’ + +‘Poor old Tom!’ said Martin, in a tone that sounded like remorse. + +‘It’s a comfort to know,’ resumed the landlady, ‘that he has his sister +living with him, and is doing well. Only yesterday he sent me back, by +post, a little’--here the colour came into her cheeks--‘a little trifle +I was bold enough to lend him when he went away; saying, with many +thanks, that he had good employment, and didn’t want it. It was the same +note; he hadn’t broken it. I never thought I could have been so little +pleased to see a bank-note come back to me as I was to see that.’ + +‘Kindly said, and heartily!’ said Martin. ‘Is it not, Mark?’ + +‘She can’t say anything as does not possess them qualities,’ returned +Mr Tapley; ‘which as much belongs to the Dragon as its licence. And now +that we have got quite cool and fresh, to the subject again, sir; +what will you do? If you’re not proud, and can make up your mind to go +through with what you spoke of, coming along, that’s the course for +you to take. If you started wrong with your grandfather (which, you’ll +excuse my taking the liberty of saying, appears to have been the case), +up with you, sir, and tell him so, and make an appeal to his affections. +Don’t stand out. He’s a great deal older than you, and if he was hasty, +you was hasty too. Give way, sir, give way.’ + +The eloquence of Mr Tapley was not without its effect on Martin but he +still hesitated, and expressed his reason thus: + +‘That’s all very true, and perfectly correct, Mark; and if it were a +mere question of humbling myself before HIM, I would not consider it +twice. But don’t you see, that being wholly under this hypocrite’s +government, and having (if what we hear be true) no mind or will of his +own, I throw myself, in fact, not at his feet, but at the feet of +Mr Pecksniff? And when I am rejected and spurned away,’ said Martin, +turning crimson at the thought, ‘it is not by him; my own blood stirred +against me; but by Pecksniff--Pecksniff, Mark!’ + +‘Well, but we know beforehand,’ returned the politic Mr Tapley, ‘that +Pecksniff is a wagabond, a scoundrel, and a willain.’ + +‘A most pernicious villain!’ said Martin. + +‘A most pernicious willain. We know that beforehand, sir; and, +consequently, it’s no shame to be defeated by Pecksniff. Blow +Pecksniff!’ cried Mr Tapley, in the fervour of his eloquence. ‘Who’s he! +It’s not in the natur of Pecksniff to shame US, unless he agreed with +us, or done us a service; and, in case he offered any audacity of that +description, we could express our sentiments in the English language, +I hope. Pecksniff!’ repeated Mr Tapley, with ineffable disdain. ‘What’s +Pecksniff, who’s Pecksniff, where’s Pecksniff, that he’s to be so much +considered? We’re not a-calculating for ourselves;’ he laid uncommon +emphasis on the last syllable of that word, and looked full in Martin’s +face; ‘we’re making a effort for a young lady likewise as has undergone +her share; and whatever little hope we have, this here Pecksniff is not +to stand in its way, I expect. I never heard of any act of Parliament, +as was made by Pecksniff. Pecksniff! Why, I wouldn’t see the man myself; +I wouldn’t hear him; I wouldn’t choose to know he was in company. I’d +scrape my shoes on the scraper of the door, and call that Pecksniff, if +you liked; but I wouldn’t condescend no further.’ + +The amazement of Mrs Lupin, and indeed of Mr Tapley himself for that +matter, at this impassioned flow of language, was immense. But Martin, +after looking thoughtfully at the fire for a short time, said: + +‘You are right, Mark. Right or wrong, it shall be done. I’ll do it.’ + +‘One word more, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘Only think of him so far as not to +give him a handle against you. Don’t you do anything secret that he +can report before you get there. Don’t you even see Miss Mary in the +morning, but let this here dear friend of ours’--Mr Tapley bestowed a +smile upon the hostess--‘prepare her for what’s a-going to happen, and +carry any little message as may be agreeable. She knows how. Don’t you?’ +Mrs Lupin laughed and tossed her head. ‘Then you go in, bold and free as +a gentleman should. “I haven’t done nothing under-handed,” says you. “I +haven’t been skulking about the premises, here I am, for-give me, I ask +your pardon, God Bless You!”’ + +Martin smiled, but felt that it was good advice notwithstanding, and +resolved to act upon it. When they had ascertained from Mrs Lupin that +Pecksniff had already returned from the great ceremonial at which they +had beheld him in his glory; and when they had fully arranged the order +of their proceedings; they went to bed, intent upon the morrow. + +In pursuance of their project as agreed upon at this discussion, Mr +Tapley issued forth next morning, after breakfast, charged with a letter +from Martin to his grandfather, requesting leave to wait upon him for a +few minutes. And postponing as he went along the congratulations of his +numerous friends until a more convenient season, he soon arrived at Mr +Pecksniff’s house. At that gentleman’s door; with a face so immovable +that it would have been next to an impossibility for the most acute +physiognomist to determine what he was thinking about, or whether he was +thinking at all; he straightway knocked. + +A person of Mr Tapley’s observation could not long remain insensible +to the fact that Mr Pecksniff was making the end of his nose very +blunt against the glass of the parlour window, in an angular attempt to +discover who had knocked at the door. Nor was Mr Tapley slow to baffle +this movement on the part of the enemy, by perching himself on the +top step, and presenting the crown of his hat in that direction. But +possibly Mr Pecksniff had already seen him, for Mark soon heard his +shoes creaking, as he advanced to open the door with his own hands. + +Mr Pecksniff was as cheerful as ever, and sang a little song in the +passage. + +‘How d’ye do, sir?’ said Mark. + +‘Oh!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Tapley, I believe? The Prodigal returned! We +don’t want any beer, my friend.’ + +‘Thankee, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I couldn’t accommodate you if you did. A +letter, sir. Wait for an answer.’ + +‘For me?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘And an answer, eh?’ + +‘Not for you, I think, sir,’ said Mark, pointing out the direction. +‘Chuzzlewit, I believe the name is, sir.’ + +‘Oh!’ returned Mr Pecksniff. ‘Thank you. Yes. Who’s it from, my good +young man?’ + +‘The gentleman it comes from wrote his name inside, sir,’ returned Mr +Tapley with extreme politeness. ‘I see him a-signing of it at the end, +while I was a-waitin’.’ + +‘And he said he wanted an answer, did he?’ asked Mr Pecksniff in his +most persuasive manner. + +Mark replied in the affirmative. + +‘He shall have an answer. Certainly,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tearing the +letter into small pieces, as mildly as if that were the most flattering +attention a correspondent could receive. ‘Have the goodness to give him +that, with my compliments, if you please. Good morning!’ Whereupon he +handed Mark the scraps; retired, and shut the door. + +Mark thought it prudent to subdue his personal emotions, and return to +Martin at the Dragon. They were not unprepared for such a reception, +and suffered an hour or so to elapse before making another attempt. +When this interval had gone by, they returned to Mr Pecksniff’s house in +company. Martin knocked this time, while Mr Tapley prepared himself to +keep the door open with his foot and shoulder, when anybody came, and by +that means secure an enforced parley. But this precaution was needless, +for the servant-girl appeared almost immediately. Brushing quickly past +her as he had resolved in such a case to do, Martin (closely followed +by his faithful ally) opened the door of that parlour in which he knew +a visitor was most likely to be found; passed at once into the room; and +stood, without a word of notice or announcement, in the presence of his +grandfather. + +Mr Pecksniff also was in the room; and Mary. In the swift instant of +their mutual recognition, Martin saw the old man droop his grey head, +and hide his face in his hands. + +It smote him to the heart. In his most selfish and most careless day, +this lingering remnant of the old man’s ancient love, this buttress of a +ruined tower he had built up in the time gone by, with so much pride and +hope, would have caused a pang in Martin’s heart. But now, changed for +the better in his worst respect; looking through an altered medium on +his former friend, the guardian of his childhood, so broken and bowed +down; resentment, sullenness, self-confidence, and pride, were all swept +away, before the starting tears upon the withered cheeks. He could not +bear to see them. He could not bear to think they fell at sight of +him. He could not bear to view reflected in them, the reproachful and +irrevocable Past. + +He hurriedly advanced to seize the old man’s hand in his, when Mr +Pecksniff interposed himself between them. + +‘No, young man!’ said Mr Pecksniff, striking himself upon the breast, +and stretching out his other arm towards his guest as if it were a wing +to shelter him. ‘No, sir. None of that. Strike here, sir, here! Launch +your arrows at me, sir, if you’ll have the goodness; not at Him!’ + +‘Grandfather!’ cried Martin. ‘Hear me! I implore you, let me speak!’ + +‘Would you, sir? Would you?’ said Mr Pecksniff, dodging about, so as to +keep himself always between them. ‘Is it not enough, sir, that you come +into my house like a thief in the night, or I should rather say, for we +can never be too particular on the subject of Truth, like a thief in +the day-time; bringing your dissolute companions with you, to plant +themselves with their backs against the insides of parlour doors, and +prevent the entrance or issuing forth of any of my household’--Mark had +taken up this position, and held it quite unmoved--‘but would you also +strike at venerable Virtue? Would you? Know that it is not defenceless. +I will be its shield, young man. Assail me. Come on, sir. Fire away!’ + +‘Pecksniff,’ said the old man, in a feeble voice. ‘Calm yourself. Be +quiet.’ + +‘I can’t be calm,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, ‘and I won’t be quiet. My +benefactor and my friend! Shall even my house be no refuge for your +hoary pillow!’ + +‘Stand aside!’ said the old man, stretching out his hand; ‘and let me +see what it is I used to love so dearly.’ + +‘It is right that you should see it, my friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘It +is well that you should see it, my noble sir. It is desirable that you +should contemplate it in its true proportions. Behold it! There it is, +sir. There it is!’ + +Martin could hardly be a mortal man, and not express in his face +something of the anger and disdain with which Mr Pecksniff inspired him. +But beyond this he evinced no knowledge whatever of that gentleman’s +presence or existence. True, he had once, and that at first, glanced at +him involuntarily, and with supreme contempt; but for any other heed he +took of him, there might have been nothing in his place save empty air. + +As Mr Pecksniff withdrew from between them, agreeably to the wish just +now expressed (which he did during the delivery of the observations +last recorded), old Martin, who had taken Mary Graham’s hand in his, and +whispered kindly to her, as telling her she had no cause to be alarmed, +gently pushed her from him, behind his chair; and looked steadily at his +grandson. + +‘And that,’ he said, ‘is he. Ah! that is he! Say what you wish to say. +But come no nearer,’ + +‘His sense of justice is so fine,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘that he will +hear even him, although he knows beforehand that nothing can come of it. +Ingenuous mind!’ Mr Pecksniff did not address himself immediately to +any person in saying this, but assuming the position of the Chorus in a +Greek Tragedy, delivered his opinion as a commentary on the proceedings. + +‘Grandfather!’ said Martin, with great earnestness. ‘From a painful +journey, from a hard life, from a sick-bed, from privation and distress, +from gloom and disappointment, from almost hopelessness and despair, I +have come back to you.’ + +‘Rovers of this sort,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, as Chorus, ‘very commonly +come back when they find they don’t meet with the success they expected +in their marauding ravages.’ + +‘But for this faithful man,’ said Martin, turning towards Mark, ‘whom +I first knew in this place, and who went away with me voluntarily, as +a servant, but has been, throughout, my zealous and devoted friend; but +for him, I must have died abroad. Far from home, far from any help or +consolation; far from the probability even of my wretched fate being +ever known to any one who cared to hear it--oh, that you would let me +say, of being known to you!’ + +The old man looked at Mr Pecksniff. Mr Pecksniff looked at him. ‘Did +you speak, my worthy sir?’ said Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. The old man +answered in the negative. ‘I know what you thought,’ said Mr Pecksniff, +with another smile. ‘Let him go on my friend. The development of +self-interest in the human mind is always a curious study. Let him go +on, sir.’ + +‘Go on!’ observed the old man; in a mechanical obedience, it appeared, +to Mr Pecksniff’s suggestion. + +‘I have been so wretched and so poor,’ said Martin, ‘that I am indebted +to the charitable help of a stranger, in a land of strangers, for the +means of returning here. All this tells against me in your mind, I know. +I have given you cause to think I have been driven here wholly by want, +and have not been led on, in any degree, by affection or regret. When +I parted from you, Grandfather, I deserved that suspicion, but I do not +now. I do not now.’ + +The Chorus put its hand in its waistcoat, and smiled. ‘Let him go on, +my worthy sir,’ it said. ‘I know what you are thinking of, but don’t +express it prematurely.’ + +Old Martin raised his eyes to Mr Pecksniff’s face, and appearing to +derive renewed instruction from his looks and words, said, once again: + +‘Go on!’ + +‘I have little more to say,’ returned Martin. ‘And as I say it now, with +little or no hope, Grandfather; whatever dawn of hope I had on entering +the room; believe it to be true. At least, believe it to be true.’ + +‘Beautiful Truth!’ exclaimed the Chorus, looking upward. ‘How is your +name profaned by vicious persons! You don’t live in a well, my holy +principle, but on the lips of false mankind. It is hard to bear with +mankind, dear sir’--addressing the elder Mr Chuzzlewit; ‘but let us do +so meekly. It is our duty so to do. Let us be among the Few who do their +duty. If,’ pursued the Chorus, soaring up into a lofty flight, ‘as the +poet informs us, England expects Every man to do his duty, England is +the most sanguine country on the face of the earth, and will find itself +continually disappointed.’ + +‘Upon that subject,’ said Martin, looking calmly at the old man as +he spoke, but glancing once at Mary, whose face was now buried in her +hands, upon the back of his easy-chair; ‘upon that subject which first +occasioned a division between us, my mind and heart are incapable of +change. Whatever influence they have undergone, since that unhappy time, +has not been one to weaken but to strengthen me. I cannot profess sorrow +for that, nor irresolution in that, nor shame in that. Nor would you +wish me, I know. But that I might have trusted to your love, if I had +thrown myself manfully upon it; that I might have won you over with +ease, if I had been more yielding and more considerate; that I should +have best remembered myself in forgetting myself, and recollecting you; +reflection, solitude, and misery, have taught me. I came resolved to say +this, and to ask your forgiveness; not so much in hope for the future, +as in regret for the past; for all that I would ask of you is, that you +would aid me to live. Help me to get honest work to do, and I would do +it. My condition places me at the disadvantage of seeming to have only +my selfish ends to serve, but try if that be so or not. Try if I be +self-willed, obdurate, and haughty, as I was; or have been disciplined +in a rough school. Let the voice of nature and association plead between +us, Grandfather; and do not, for one fault, however thankless, quite +reject me!’ + +As he ceased, the grey head of the old man drooped again; and he +concealed his face behind his outspread fingers. + +‘My dear sir,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, bending over him, ‘you must not give +way to this. It is very natural, and very amiable, but you must not +allow the shameless conduct of one whom you long ago cast off, to move +you so far. Rouse yourself. Think,’ said Pecksniff, ‘think of Me, my +friend.’ + +‘I will,’ returned old Martin, looking up into his face. ‘You recall me +to myself. I will.’ + +‘Why, what,’ said Mr Pecksniff, sitting down beside him in a chair which +he drew up for the purpose, and tapping him playfully on the arm, ‘what +is the matter with my strong-minded compatriot, if I may venture to take +the liberty of calling him by that endearing expression? Shall I have +to scold my coadjutor, or to reason with an intellect like this? I think +not.’ + +‘No, no. There is no occasion,’ said the old man. ‘A momentary feeling. +Nothing more.’ + +‘Indignation,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, ‘WILL bring the scalding tear +into the honest eye, I know’--he wiped his own elaborately. ‘But we +have highest duties to perform than that. Rouse yourself, Mr Chuzzlewit. +Shall I give expression to your thoughts, my friend?’ + +‘Yes,’ said old Martin, leaning back in his chair, and looking at him, +half in vacancy and half in admiration, as if he were fascinated by +the man. ‘Speak for me, Pecksniff, Thank you. You are true to me. Thank +you!’ + +‘Do not unman me, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand vigorously, +‘or I shall be unequal to the task. It is not agreeable to my feelings, +my good sir, to address the person who is now before us, for when I +ejected him from this house, after hearing of his unnatural conduct from +your lips, I renounced communication with him for ever. But you desire +it; and that is sufficient. Young man! The door is immediately behind +the companion of your infamy. Blush if you can; begone without a blush, +if you can’t.’ + +Martin looked as steadily at his grandfather as if there had been a +dead silence all this time. The old man looked no less steadily at Mr +Pecksniff. + +‘When I ordered you to leave this house upon the last occasion of your +being dismissed from it with disgrace,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘when, +stung and stimulated beyond endurance by your shameless conduct to this +extraordinarily noble-minded individual, I exclaimed “Go forth!” I told +you that I wept for your depravity. Do not suppose that the tear which +stands in my eye at this moment, is shed for you. It is shed for him, +sir. It is shed for him.’ + +Here Mr Pecksniff, accidentally dropping the tear in question on a +bald part of Mr Chuzzlewit’s head, wiped the place with his +pocket-handkerchief, and begged pardon. + +‘It is shed for him, sir, whom you seek to make the victim of your +arts,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘whom you seek to plunder, to deceive, and to +mislead. It is shed in sympathy with him, and admiration of him; not in +pity for him, for happily he knows what you are. You shall not wrong +him further, sir, in any way,’ said Mr Pecksniff, quite transported with +enthusiasm, ‘while I have life. You may bestride my senseless corse, +sir. That is very likely. I can imagine a mind like yours deriving great +satisfaction from any measure of that kind. But while I continue to be +called upon to exist, sir, you must strike at him through me. Awe!’ said +Mr Pecksniff, shaking his head at Martin with indignant jocularity; ‘and +in such a cause you will find me, my young sir, an Ugly Customer!’ + +Still Martin looked steadily and mildly at his grandfather. ‘Will you +give me no answer,’ he said, at length, ‘not a word?’ + +‘You hear what has been said,’ replied the old man, without averting his +eyes from the face of Mr Pecksniff; who nodded encouragingly. + +‘I have not heard your voice. I have not heard your spirit,’ returned +Martin. + +‘Tell him again,’ said the old man, still gazing up in Mr Pecksniff’s +face. + +‘I only hear,’ replied Martin, strong in his purpose from the first, and +stronger in it as he felt how Pecksniff winced and shrunk beneath his +contempt; ‘I only hear what you say to me, grandfather.’ + +Perhaps it was well for Mr Pecksniff that his venerable friend found +in his (Mr Pecksniff’s) features an exclusive and engrossing object +of contemplation, for if his eyes had gone astray, and he had compared +young Martin’s bearing with that of his zealous defender, the latter +disinterested gentleman would scarcely have shown to greater advantage +than on the memorable afternoon when he took Tom Pinch’s last receipt +in full of all demands. One really might have thought there was some +quality in Mr Pecksniff--an emanation from the brightness and purity +within him perhaps--which set off and adorned his foes; they looked so +gallant and so manly beside him. + +‘Not a word?’ said Martin, for the second time. + +‘I remember that I have a word to say, Pecksniff,’ observed the old man. +‘But a word. You spoke of being indebted to the charitable help of some +stranger for the means of returning to England. Who is he? And what help +in money did he render you?’ + +Although he asked this question of Martin, he did not look towards him, +but kept his eyes on Mr Pecksniff as before. It appeared to have become +a habit with him, both in a literal and figurative sense, to look to Mr +Pecksniff alone. + +Martin took out his pencil, tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and +hastily wrote down the particulars of his debt to Mr Bevan. The old man +stretched out his hand for the paper, and took it; but his eyes did not +wander from Mr Pecksniff’s face. + +‘It would be a poor pride and a false humility,’ said Martin, in a +low voice, ‘to say, I do not wish that to be paid, or that I have any +present hope of being able to pay it. But I never felt my poverty so +deeply as I feel it now.’ + +‘Read it to me, Pecksniff,’ said the old man. + +Mr Pecksniff, after approaching the perusal of the paper as if it were a +manuscript confession of a murder, complied. + +‘I think, Pecksniff,’ said old Martin, ‘I could wish that to be +discharged. I should not like the lender, who was abroad, who had +no opportunity of making inquiry, and who did (as he thought) a kind +action, to suffer.’ + +‘An honourable sentiment, my dear sir. Your own entirely. But a +dangerous precedent,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘permit me to suggest.’ + +‘It shall not be a precedent,’ returned the old man. ‘It is the only +recognition of him. But we will talk of it again. You shall advise me. +There is nothing else?’ + +‘Nothing else,’ said Mr Pecksniff buoyantly, ‘but for you to recover +this intrusion--this cowardly and indefensible outrage on your +feelings--with all possible dispatch, and smile again.’ + +‘You have nothing more to say?’ inquired the old man, laying his hand +with unusual earnestness on Mr Pecksniff’s sleeve. + +Mr Pecksniff would not say what rose to his lips. For reproaches he +observed, were useless. + +‘You have nothing at all to urge? You are sure of that! If you have, no +matter what it is, speak freely. I will oppose nothing that you ask of +me,’ said the old man. + +The tears rose in such abundance to Mr Pecksniff’s eyes at this proof +of unlimited confidence on the part of his friend, that he was fain to +clasp the bridge of his nose convulsively before he could at all compose +himself. When he had the power of utterance again, he said with great +emotion, that he hoped he should live to deserve this; and added, that +he had no other observation whatever to make. + +For a few moments the old man sat looking at him, with that blank and +motionless expression which is not uncommon in the faces of those whose +faculties are on the wane, in age. But he rose up firmly too, and walked +towards the door, from which Mark withdrew to make way for him. + +The obsequious Mr Pecksniff proffered his arm. The old man took it. +Turning at the door, he said to Martin, waving him off with his hand, + +‘You have heard him. Go away. It is all over. Go!’ + +Mr Pecksniff murmured certain cheering expressions of sympathy and +encouragement as they retired; and Martin, awakening from the stupor +into which the closing portion of this scene had plunged him, to the +opportunity afforded by their departure, caught the innocent cause of +all in his embrace, and pressed her to his heart. + +‘Dear girl!’ said Martin. ‘He has not changed you. Why, what an impotent +and harmless knave the fellow is!’ + +‘You have restrained yourself so nobly! You have borne so much!’ + +‘Restrained myself!’ cried Martin, cheerfully. ‘You were by, and were +unchanged, I knew. What more advantage did I want? The sight of me was +such a bitterness to the dog, that I had my triumph in his being forced +to endure it. But tell me, love--for the few hasty words we can exchange +now are precious--what is this which has been rumoured to me? Is it true +that you are persecuted by this knave’s addresses?’ + +‘I was, dear Martin, and to some extent am now; but my chief source +of unhappiness has been anxiety for you. Why did you leave us in such +terrible suspense?’ + +‘Sickness, distance; the dread of hinting at our real condition, the +impossibility of concealing it except in perfect silence; the knowledge +that the truth would have pained you infinitely more than uncertainty +and doubt,’ said Martin, hurriedly; as indeed everything else was done +and said, in those few hurried moments, ‘were the causes of my writing +only once. But Pecksniff? You needn’t fear to tell me the whole tale; +for you saw me with him face to face, hearing him speak, and not taking +him by the throat; what is the history of his pursuit of you? Is it +known to my grandfather?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘And he assists him in it?’ + +‘No,’ she answered eagerly. + +‘Thank Heaven!’ cried Martin, ‘that it leaves his mind unclouded in that +one respect!’ + +‘I do not think,’ said Mary, ‘it was known to him at first. When +this man had sufficiently prepared his mind, he revealed it to him by +degrees. I think so, but I only know it from my own impression: now from +anything they told me. Then he spoke to me alone.’ + +‘My grandfather did?’ said Martin. + +‘Yes--spoke to me alone, and told me--’ + +‘What the hound had said,’ cried Martin. ‘Don’t repeat it.’ + +‘And said I knew well what qualities he possessed; that he was +moderately rich; in good repute; and high in his favour and confidence. +But seeing me very much distressed, he said that he would not control +or force my inclinations, but would content himself with telling me the +fact. He would not pain me by dwelling on it, or reverting to it; nor +has he ever done so since, but has truly kept his word.’ + +‘The man himself?--’ asked Martin. + +‘He has had few opportunities of pursuing his suit. I have never walked +out alone, or remained alone an instant in his presence. Dear Martin, I +must tell you,’ she continued, ‘that the kindness of your grandfather +to me remains unchanged. I am his companion still. An indescribable +tenderness and compassion seem to have mingled themselves with his old +regard; and if I were his only child, I could not have a gentler father. +What former fancy or old habit survives in this, when his heart has +turned so cold to you, is a mystery I cannot penetrate; but it has been, +and it is, a happiness to me, that I remained true to him; that if he +should wake from his delusion, even at the point of death, I am here, +love, to recall you to his thoughts.’ + +Martin looked with admiration on her glowing face, and pressed his lips +to hers. + +‘I have sometimes heard, and read,’ she said, ‘that those whose powers +had been enfeebled long ago, and whose lives had faded, as it were, into +a dream, have been known to rouse themselves before death, and inquire +for familiar faces once very dear to them; but forgotten, unrecognized, +hated even, in the meantime. Think, if with his old impressions of this +man, he should suddenly resume his former self, and find in him his only +friend!’ + +‘I would not urge you to abandon him, dearest,’ said Martin, ‘though I +could count the years we are to wear out asunder. But the influence this +fellow exercises over him has steadily increased, I fear.’ + +She could not help admitting that. Steadily, imperceptibly, and surely, +until it was paramount and supreme. She herself had none; and yet +he treated her with more affection than at any previous time. Martin +thought the inconsistency a part of his weakness and decay. + +‘Does the influence extend to fear?’ said Martin. ‘Is he timid of +asserting his own opinion in the presence of this infatuation? I fancied +so just now.’ + +‘I have thought so, often. Often when we are sitting alone, almost as +we used to do, and I have been reading a favourite book to him or he has +been talking quite cheerfully, I have observed that the entrance of +Mr Pecksniff has changed his whole demeanour. He has broken off +immediately, and become what you have seen to-day. When we first came +here he had his impetuous outbreaks, in which it was not easy for Mr +Pecksniff with his utmost plausibility to appease him. But these have +long since dwindled away. He defers to him in everything, and has no +opinion upon any question, but that which is forced upon him by this +treacherous man.’ + +Such was the account, rapidly furnished in whispers, and interrupted, +brief as it was, by many false alarms of Mr Pecksniff’s return; +which Martin received of his grandfather’s decline, and of that good +gentleman’s ascendancy. He heard of Tom Pinch too, and Jonas too, with +not a little about himself into the bargain; for though lovers are +remarkable for leaving a great deal unsaid on all occasions, and very +properly desiring to come back and say it, they are remarkable also for +a wonderful power of condensation, and can, in one way or other, give +utterance to more language--eloquent language--in any given short space +of time, than all the six hundred and fifty-eight members in the Commons +House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; +who are strong lovers no doubt, but of their country only, which makes +all the difference; for in a passion of that kind (which is not always +returned), it is the custom to use as many words as possible, and +express nothing whatever. + +A caution from Mr Tapley; a hasty interchange of farewells, and of +something else which the proverb says must not be told of afterwards; +a white hand held out to Mr Tapley himself, which he kissed with the +devotion of a knight-errant; more farewells, more something else’s; a +parting word from Martin that he would write from London and would do +great things there yet (Heaven knows what, but he quite believed it); +and Mark and he stood on the outside of the Pecksniffian halls. + +‘A short interview after such an absence!’ said Martin, sorrowfully. +‘But we are well out of the house. We might have placed ourselves in a +false position by remaining there, even so long, Mark.’ + +‘I don’t know about ourselves, sir,’ he returned; ‘but somebody else +would have got into a false position, if he had happened to come back +again, while we was there. I had the door all ready, sir. If Pecksniff +had showed his head, or had only so much as listened behind it, I would +have caught him like a walnut. He’s the sort of man,’ added Mr Tapley, +musing, ‘as would squeeze soft, I know.’ + +A person who was evidently going to Mr Pecksniff’s house, passed them at +this moment. He raised his eyes at the mention of the architect’s name; +and when he had gone on a few yards, stopped and gazed at them. Mr +Tapley, also, looked over his shoulder, and so did Martin; for the +stranger, as he passed, had looked very sharply at them. + +‘Who may that be, I wonder!’ said Martin. ‘The face seems familiar to +me, but I don’t know the man.’ + +‘He seems to have a amiable desire that his face should be tolerable +familiar to us,’ said Mr Tapley, ‘for he’s a-staring pretty hard. He’d +better not waste his beauty, for he ain’t got much to spare.’ + +Coming in sight of the Dragon, they saw a travelling carriage at the +door. + +‘And a Salisbury carriage, eh?’ said Mr Tapley. ‘That’s what he came in +depend upon it. What’s in the wind now? A new pupil, I shouldn’t wonder. +P’raps it’s a order for another grammar-school, of the same pattern as +the last.’ + +Before they could enter at the door, Mrs Lupin came running out; and +beckoning them to the carriage showed them a portmanteau with the name +of CHUZZLEWIT upon it. + +‘Miss Pecksniff’s husband that was,’ said the good woman to Martin. ‘I +didn’t know what terms you might be on, and was quite in a worry till +you came back.’ + +‘He and I have never interchanged a word yet,’ observed Martin; ‘and as +I have no wish to be better or worse acquainted with him, I will not put +myself in his way. We passed him on the road, I have no doubt. I am glad +he timed his coming as he did. Upon my word! Miss Pecksniff’s husband +travels gayly!’ + +‘A very fine-looking gentleman with him--in the best room now,’ +whispered Mrs Lupin, glancing up at the window as they went into the +house. ‘He has ordered everything that can be got for dinner; and has +the glossiest moustaches and whiskers ever you saw.’ + +‘Has he?’ cried Martin, ‘why then we’ll endeavour to avoid him too, in +the hope that our self-denial may be strong enough for the sacrifice. +It is only for a few hours,’ said Martin, dropping wearily into a chair +behind the little screen in the bar. ‘Our visit has met with no success, +my dear Mrs Lupin, and I must go to London.’ + +‘Dear, dear!’ cried the hostess. + +‘Yes, one foul wind no more makes a winter, than one swallow makes a +summer. I’ll try it again. Tom Pinch has succeeded. With his advice to +guide me, I may do the same. I took Tom under my protection once, God +save the mark!’ said Martin, with a melancholy smile; ‘and promised I +would make his fortune. Perhaps Tom will take me under HIS protection +now, and teach me how to earn my bread.’ + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR + +FURTHER CONTINUATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND + + +It was a special quality, among the many admirable qualities possessed +by Mr Pecksniff, that the more he was found out, the more hypocrisy he +practised. Let him be discomfited in one quarter, and he refreshed and +recompensed himself by carrying the war into another. If his workings +and windings were detected by A, so much the greater reason was there +for practicing without loss of time on B, if it were only to keep his +hand in. He had never been such a saintly and improving spectacle to all +about him, as after his detection by Thomas Pinch. He had scarcely ever +been at once so tender in his humanity, and so dignified and exalted in +his virtue, as when young Martin’s scorn was fresh and hot upon him. + +Having this large stock of superfluous sentiment and morality on hand +which must positively be cleared off at any sacrifice, Mr Pecksniff no +sooner heard his son-in-law announced, than he regarded him as a kind +of wholesale or general order, to be immediately executed. Descending, +therefore, swiftly to the parlour, and clasping the young man in +his arms, he exclaimed, with looks and gestures that denoted the +perturbation of his spirit: + +‘Jonas. My child--she is well! There is nothing the matter?’ + +‘What, you’re at it again, are you?’ replied his son-in-law. ‘Even with +me? Get away with you, will you?’ + +‘Tell me she is well then,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Tell me she is well my +boy!’ + +‘She’s well enough,’ retorted Jonas, disengaging himself. ‘There’s +nothing the matter with HER.’ + +‘There is nothing the matter with her!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, sitting down +in the nearest chair, and rubbing up his hair. ‘Fie upon my weakness! +I cannot help it, Jonas. Thank you. I am better now. How is my other +child; my eldest; my Cherrywerrychigo?’ said Mr Pecksniff, inventing a +playful little name for her, in the restored lightness of his heart. + +‘She’s much about the same as usual,’ returned Jonas. ‘She sticks +pretty close to the vinegar-bottle. You know she’s got a sweetheart, I +suppose?’ + +‘I have heard of it,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘from headquarters; from my +child herself I will not deny that it moved me to contemplate the loss +of my remaining daughter, Jonas--I am afraid we parents are selfish, I +am afraid we are--but it has ever been the study of my life to qualify +them for the domestic hearth; and it is a sphere which Cherry will +adorn.’ + +‘She need adorn some sphere or other,’ observed the son-in-law, for she +ain’t very ornamental in general.’ + +‘My girls are now provided for,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘They are now +happily provided for, and I have not laboured in vain!’ + +This is exactly what Mr Pecksniff would have said, if one of his +daughters had drawn a prize of thirty thousand pounds in the lottery, or +if the other had picked up a valuable purse in the street, which nobody +appeared to claim. In either of these cases he would have invoked a +patriarchal blessing on the fortunate head, with great solemnity, and +would have taken immense credit to himself, as having meant it from the +infant’s cradle. + +‘Suppose we talk about something else, now,’ observed Jonas, drily. +‘just for a change. Are you quite agreeable?’ + +‘Quite,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Ah, you wag, you naughty wag! You laugh at +poor old fond papa. Well! He deserves it. And he don’t mind it either, +for his feelings are their own reward. You have come to stay with me, +Jonas?’ + +‘No. I’ve got a friend with me,’ said Jonas. + +‘Bring your friend!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, in a gush of hospitality. +‘Bring any number of your friends!’ + +‘This ain’t the sort of man to be brought,’ said Jonas, contemptuously. +‘I think I see myself “bringing” him to your house, for a treat! +Thank’ee all the same; but he’s a little too near the top of the tree +for that, Pecksniff.’ + +The good man pricked up his ears; his interest was awakened. A position +near the top of the tree was greatness, virtue, goodness, sense, genius; +or, it should rather be said, a dispensation from all, and in itself +something immeasurably better than all; with Mr Pecksniff. A man who was +able to look down upon Mr Pecksniff could not be looked up at, by that +gentleman, with too great an amount of deference, or from a position of +too much humility. So it always is with great spirits. + +‘I’ll tell you what you may do, if you like,’ said Jonas; ‘you may come +and dine with us at the Dragon. We were forced to come down to Salisbury +last night, on some business, and I got him to bring me over here this +morning, in his carriage; at least, not his own carriage, for we had +a breakdown in the night, but one we hired instead; it’s all the same. +Mind what you’re about, you know. He’s not used to all sorts; he only +mixes with the best!’ + +‘Some young nobleman who has been borrowing money of you at good +interest, eh?’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his forefinger facetiously. ‘I +shall be delighted to know the gay sprig.’ + +‘Borrowing!’ echoed Jonas. ‘Borrowing! When you’re a twentieth part as +rich as he is, you may shut up shop! We should be pretty well off if we +could buy his furniture, and plate, and pictures, by clubbing together. +A likely man to borrow: Mr Montague! Why since I was lucky enough (come! +and I’ll say, sharp enough, too) to get a share in the Assurance office +that he’s President of, I’ve made--never mind what I’ve made,’ said +Jonas, seeming to recover all at once his usual caution. ‘You know me +pretty well, and I don’t blab about such things. But, Ecod, I’ve made a +trifle.’ + +‘Really, my dear Jonas,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, with much warmth, ‘a +gentleman like this should receive some attention. Would he like to +see the church? or if he has a taste for the fine arts--which I have no +doubt he has, from the description you give of his circumstances--I can +send him down a few portfolios. Salisbury Cathedral, my dear Jonas,’ +said Mr Pecksniff; the mention of the portfolios and his anxiety to +display himself to advantage, suggesting his usual phraseology in +that regard, ‘is an edifice replete with venerable associations, +and strikingly suggestive of the loftiest emotions. It is here we +contemplate the work of bygone ages. It is here we listen to the +swelling organ, as we stroll through the reverberating aisles. We have +drawings of this celebrated structure from the North, from the South, +from the East, from the West, from the South-East, from the Nor’West--’ + +During this digression, and indeed during the whole dialogue, Jonas had +been rocking on his chair, with his hands in his pockets and his head +thrown cunningly on one side. He looked at Mr Pecksniff now with such +shrewd meaning twinkling in his eyes, that Mr Pecksniff stopped, and +asked him what he was going to say. + +‘Ecod!’ he answered. ‘Pecksniff if I knew how you meant to leave your +money, I could put you in the way of doubling it in no time. It wouldn’t +be bad to keep a chance like this snug in the family. But you’re such a +deep one!’ + +‘Jonas!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, much affected, ‘I am not a diplomatical +character; my heart is in my hand. By far the greater part of the +inconsiderable savings I have accumulated in the course of--I hope--a +not dishonourable or useless career, is already given, devised, and +bequeathed (correct me, my dear Jonas, if I am technically wrong), with +expressions of confidence, which I will not repeat; and in securities +which it is unnecessary to mention to a person whom I cannot, whom +I will not, whom I need not, name.’ Here he gave the hand of his +son-in-law a fervent squeeze, as if he would have added, ‘God bless you; +be very careful of it when you get it!’ + +Mr Jonas only shook his head and laughed, and, seeming to think better +of what he had had in his mind, said, ‘No. He would keep his own +counsel.’ But as he observed that he would take a walk, Mr Pecksniff +insisted on accompanying him, remarking that he could leave a card for +Mr Montague, as they went along, by way of gentleman-usher to himself at +dinner-time. Which he did. + +In the course of their walk, Mr Jonas affected to maintain that close +reserve which had operated as a timely check upon him during the +foregoing dialogue. And as he made no attempt to conciliate Mr +Pecksniff, but, on the contrary, was more boorish and rude to him than +usual, that gentleman, so far from suspecting his real design, laid +himself out to be attacked with advantage. For it is in the nature of a +knave to think the tools with which he works indispensable to knavery; +and knowing what he would do himself in such a case, Mr Pecksniff +argued, ‘if this young man wanted anything of me for his own ends, he +would be polite and deferential.’ + +The more Jonas repelled him in his hints and inquiries, the more +solicitous, therefore, Mr Pecksniff became to be initiated into the +golden mysteries at which he had obscurely glanced. Why should there be +cold and worldly secrets, he observed, between relations? What was life +without confidence? If the chosen husband of his daughter, the man to +whom he had delivered her with so much pride and hope, such bounding +and such beaming joy; if he were not a green spot in the barren waste of +life, where was that oasis to be bound? + +Little did Mr Pecksniff think on what a very green spot he planted one +foot at that moment! Little did he foresee when he said, ‘All is but +dust!’ how very shortly he would come down with his own! + +Inch by inch, in his grudging and ill-conditioned way; sustained to the +life, for the hope of making Mr Pecksniff suffer in that tender place, +the pocket, where Jonas smarted so terribly himself, gave him an +additional and malicious interest in the wiles he was set on to +practise; inch by inch, and bit by bit, Jonas rather allowed the +dazzling prospects of the Anglo-Bengalee establishment to escape him, +than paraded them before his greedy listener. And in the same niggardly +spirit, he left Mr Pecksniff to infer, if he chose (which he DID choose, +of course), that a consciousness of not having any great natural gifts +of speech and manner himself, rendered him desirous to have the credit +of introducing to Mr Montague some one who was well endowed in those +respects, and so atone for his own deficiencies. Otherwise, he muttered +discontentedly, he would have seen his beloved father-in-law ‘far enough +off,’ before he would have taken him into his confidence. + +Primed in this artful manner, Mr Pecksniff presented himself at +dinner-time in such a state of suavity, benevolence, cheerfulness, +politeness, and cordiality, as even he had perhaps never attained +before. The frankness of the country gentleman, the refinement of +the artist, the good-humoured allowance of the man of the world; +philanthropy, forbearance, piety, toleration, all blended together in a +flexible adaptability to anything and everything; were expressed in Mr +Pecksniff, as he shook hands with the great speculator and capitalist. + +‘Welcome, respected sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘to our humble village! We +are a simple people; primitive clods, Mr Montague; but we can appreciate +the honour of your visit, as my dear son-in-law can testify. It is very +strange,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pressing his hand almost reverentially, +‘but I seem to know you. That towering forehead, my dear Jonas,’ said Mr +Pecksniff aside, ‘and those clustering masses of rich hair--I must have +seen you, my dear sir, in the sparkling throng.’ + +Nothing was more probable, they all agreed. + +‘I could have wished,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘to have had the honour of +introducing you to an elderly inmate of our house: to the uncle of our +friend. Mr Chuzzlewit, sir, would have been proud indeed to have taken +you by the hand.’ + +‘Is the gentleman here now?’ asked Montague, turning deeply red. ‘He +is,’ said Mr Pecksniff. + +‘You said nothing about that, Chuzzlewit.’ + +‘I didn’t suppose you’d care to hear of it,’ returned Jonas. ‘You +wouldn’t care to know him, I can promise you.’ + +‘Jonas! my dear Jonas!’ remonstrated Mr Pecksniff. ‘Really!’ + +‘Oh! it’s all very well for you to speak up for him,’ said Jonas. ‘You +have nailed him. You’ll get a fortune by him.’ + +‘Oho! Is the wind in that quarter?’ cried Montague. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ and +here they all laughed--especially Mr Pecksniff. + +‘No, no!’ said that gentleman, clapping his son-in-law playfully upon +the shoulder. ‘You must not believe all that my young relative says, +Mr Montague. You may believe him in official business, and trust him in +official business, but you must not attach importance to his flights of +fancy.’ + +‘Upon my life, Mr Pecksniff,’ cried Montague, ‘I attach the greatest +importance to that last observation of his. I trust and hope it’s true. +Money cannot be turned and turned again quickly enough in the ordinary +course, Mr Pecksniff. There is nothing like building our fortune on the +weaknesses of mankind.’ + +‘Oh fie! oh fie, for shame!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. But they all laughed +again--especially Mr Pecksniff. + +‘I give you my honour that WE do it,’ said Montague. + +‘Oh fie, fie!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘You are very pleasant. That I am +sure you don’t! That I am sure you don’t! How CAN you, you know?’ + +Again they all laughed in concert; and again Mr Pecksniff laughed +especially. + +This was very agreeable indeed. It was confidential, easy, +straight-forward; and still left Mr Pecksniff in the position of being +in a gentle way the Mentor of the party. The greatest achievements in +the article of cookery that the Dragon had ever performed, were set +before them; the oldest and best wines in the Dragon’s cellar saw the +light on that occasion; a thousand bubbles, indicative of the wealth and +station of Mr Montague in the depths of his pursuits, were constantly +rising to the surface of the conversation; and they were as frank and +merry as three honest men could be. Mr Pecksniff thought it a pity (he +said so) that Mr Montague should think lightly of mankind and their +weaknesses. He was anxious upon this subject; his mind ran upon it; in +one way or another he was constantly coming back to it; he must make +a convert of him, he said. And as often as Mr Montague repeated his +sentiment about building fortunes on the weaknesses of mankind, and +added frankly, ‘WE do it!’ just as often Mr Pecksniff repeated ‘Oh fie! +oh fie, for shame! I am sure you don’t. How CAN you, you know?’ laying a +greater stress each time on those last words. + +The frequent repetition of this playful inquiry on the part of Mr +Pecksniff, led at last to playful answers on the part of Mr Montague; +but after some little sharp-shooting on both sides, Mr Pecksniff became +grave, almost to tears; observing that if Mr Montague would give +him leave, he would drink the health of his young kinsman, Mr Jonas; +congratulating him upon the valuable and distinguished friendship he +had formed, but envying him, he would confess, his usefulness to his +fellow-creatures. For, if he understood the objects of that Institution +with which he was newly and advantageously connected--knowing them +but imperfectly--they were calculated to do Good; and for his (Mr +Pecksniff’s) part, if he could in any way promote them, he thought +he would be able to lay his head upon his pillow every night, with an +absolute certainty of going to sleep at once. + +The transition from this accidental remark (for it was quite accidental +and had fallen from Mr Pecksniff in the openness of his soul), to the +discussion of the subject as a matter of business, was easy. Books, +papers, statements, tables, calculations of various kinds, were soon +spread out before them; and as they were all framed with one object, +it is not surprising that they should all have tended to one end. But +still, whenever Montague enlarged upon the profits of the office, and +said that as long as there were gulls upon the wing it must succeed, Mr +Pecksniff mildly said ‘Oh fie!’--and might indeed have remonstrated +with him, but that he knew he was joking. Mr Pecksniff did know he was +joking; because he said so. + +There never had been before, and there never would be again, such +an opportunity for the investment of a considerable sum (the rate of +advantage increased in proportion to the amount invested), as at that +moment. The only time that had at all approached it, was the time when +Jonas had come into the concern; which made him ill-natured now, and +inclined him to pick out a doubt in this place, and a flaw in that, and +grumbling to advise Mr Pecksniff to think better of it. The sum which +would complete the proprietorship in this snug concern, was nearly equal +to Mr Pecksniff’s whole hoard; not counting Mr Chuzzlewit, that is to +say, whom he looked upon as money in the Bank, the possession of which +inclined him the more to make a dash with his own private sprats for +the capture of such a whale as Mr Montague described. The returns +began almost immediately, and were immense. The end of it was, that +Mr Pecksniff agreed to become the last partner and proprietor in the +Anglo-Bengalee, and made an appointment to dine with Mr Montague, at +Salisbury, on the next day but one, then and there to complete the +negotiation. + +It took so long to bring the subject to this head, that it was nearly +midnight when they parted. When Mr Pecksniff walked downstairs to the +door, he found Mrs Lupin standing there, looking out. + +‘Ah, my good friend!’ he said; ‘not a-bed yet! Contemplating the stars, +Mrs Lupin?’ + +‘It’s a beautiful starlight night, sir.’ + +‘A beautiful starlight night,’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking up. ‘Behold +the planets, how they shine! Behold the--those two persons who were here +this morning have left your house, I hope, Mrs Lupin?’ + +‘Yes, sir. They are gone.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Behold the wonders of the +firmament, Mrs Lupin! how glorious is the scene! When I look up at those +shining orbs, I think that each of them is winking to the other to +take notice of the vanity of men’s pursuits. My fellow-men!’ cried Mr +Pecksniff, shaking his head in pity; ‘you are much mistaken; my wormy +relatives, you are much deceived! The stars are perfectly contented (I +suppose so) in their several spheres. Why are not you? Oh! do not strive +and struggle to enrich yourselves, or to get the better of each other, +my deluded friends, but look up there, with me!’ + +Mrs Lupin shook her head, and heaved a sigh. It was very affecting. + +‘Look up there, with me!’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, stretching out +his hand; ‘With me, a humble individual who is also an insect like +yourselves. Can silver, gold, or precious stones, sparkle like those +constellations! I think not. Then do not thirst for silver, gold, or +precious stones; but look up there, with me!’ + +With those words, the good man patted Mrs Lupin’s hand between his own, +as if he would have added ‘think of this, my good woman!’ and walked +away in a sort of ecstasy or rapture, with his hat under his arm. + +Jonas sat in the attitude in which Mr Pecksniff had left him, gazing +moodily at his friend; who, surrounded by a heap of documents, was +writing something on an oblong slip of paper. + +‘You mean to wait at Salisbury over the day after to-morrow, do you, +then?’ said Jonas. + +‘You heard our appointment,’ returned Montague, without raising his +eyes. ‘In any case I should have waited to see after the boy.’ + +They appeared to have changed places again; Montague being in high +spirits; Jonas gloomy and lowering. + +‘You don’t want me, I suppose?’ said Jonas. + +‘I want you to put your name here,’ he returned, glancing at him with a +smile, ‘as soon as I have filled up the stamp. I may as well have your +note of hand for that extra capital. That’s all I want. If you wish +to go home, I can manage Mr Pecksniff now, alone. There is a perfect +understanding between us.’ + +Jonas sat scowling at him as he wrote, in silence. When he had +finished his writing, and had dried it on the blotting paper in his +travelling-desk; he looked up, and tossed the pen towards him. + +‘What, not a day’s grace, not a day’s trust, eh?’ said Jonas bitterly. +‘Not after the pains I have taken with to-night’s work?’ + +‘To night’s work was a part of our bargain,’ replied Montague; ‘and so +was this.’ + +‘You drive a hard bargain,’ said Jonas, advancing to the table. ‘You +know best. Give it here!’ + +Montague gave him the paper. After pausing as if he could not make up +his mind to put his name to it, Jonas dipped his pen hastily in the +nearest inkstand, and began to write. But he had scarcely marked the +paper when he started back, in a panic. + +‘Why, what the devil’s this?’ he said. ‘It’s bloody!’ + +He had dipped the pen, as another moment showed, into red ink. But he +attached a strange degree of importance to the mistake. He asked how it +had come there, who had brought it, why it had been brought; and looked +at Montague, at first, as if he thought he had put a trick upon him. +Even when he used a different pen, and the right ink, he made some +scratches on another paper first, as half believing they would turn red +also. + +‘Black enough, this time,’ he said, handing the note to Montague. +‘Good-bye.’ + +‘Going now! how do you mean to get away from here?’ + +‘I shall cross early in the morning to the high road, before you are out +of bed; and catch the day-coach, going up. Good-bye!’ + +‘You are in a hurry!’ + +‘I have something to do,’ said Jonas. ‘Good-bye!’ + +His friend looked after him as he went out, in surprise, which gradually +gave place to an air of satisfaction and relief. + +‘It happens all the better. It brings about what I wanted, without any +difficulty. I shall travel home alone.’ + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE + +IN WHICH TOM PINCH AND HIS SISTER TAKE A LITTLE PLEASURE; BUT QUITE IN A +DOMESTIC WAY, AND WITH NO CEREMONY ABOUT IT + + +Tom Pinch and his sister having to part, for the dispatch of the +morning’s business, immediately after the dispersion of the other actors +in the scene upon the wharf with which the reader has been already made +acquainted, had no opportunity of discussing the subject at that time. +But Tom, in his solitary office, and Ruth, in the triangular parlour, +thought about nothing else all day; and, when their hour of meeting in +the afternoon approached, they were very full of it, to be sure. + +There was a little plot between them, that Tom should always come out +of the Temple by one way; and that was past the fountain. Coming through +Fountain Court, he was just to glance down the steps leading into Garden +Court, and to look once all round him; and if Ruth had come to meet him, +there he would see her; not sauntering, you understand (on account of +the clerks), but coming briskly up, with the best little laugh upon her +face that ever played in opposition to the fountain, and beat it all to +nothing. For, fifty to one, Tom had been looking for her in the wrong +direction, and had quite given her up, while she had been tripping +towards him from the first; jingling that little reticule of hers (with +all the keys in it) to attract his wandering observation. + +Whether there was life enough left in the slow vegetation of Fountain +Court for the smoky shrubs to have any consciousness of the brightest +and purest-hearted little woman in the world, is a question for +gardeners, and those who are learned in the loves of plants. But, that +it was a good thing for that same paved yard to have such a delicate +little figure flitting through it; that it passed like a smile from the +grimy old houses, and the worn flagstones, and left them duller, darker, +sterner than before; there is no sort of doubt. The Temple fountain +might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful +maidenhood, that in her person stole on, sparkling, through the dry and +dusty channels of the Law; the chirping sparrows, bred in Temple +chinks and crannies, might have held their peace to listen to imaginary +skylarks, as so fresh a little creature passed; the dingy boughs, unused +to droop, otherwise than in their puny growth, might have bent down in +a kindred gracefulness to shed their benedictions on her graceful head; +old love letters, shut up in iron boxes in the neighbouring offices, and +made of no account among the heaps of family papers into which they had +strayed, and of which, in their degeneracy, they formed a part, might +have stirred and fluttered with a moment’s recollection of their ancient +tenderness, as she went lightly by. Anything might have happened that +did not happen, and never will, for the love of Ruth. + +Something happened, too, upon the afternoon of which the history treats. +Not for her love. Oh no! quite by accident, and without the least +reference to her at all. + +Either she was a little too soon, or Tom was a little too late--she was +so precise in general, that she timed it to half a minute--but no Tom +was there. Well! But was anybody else there, that she blushed so deeply, +after looking round, and tripped off down the steps with such unusual +expedition? + +Why, the fact is, that Mr Westlock was passing at that moment. The +Temple is a public thoroughfare; they may write up on the gates that it +is not, but so long as the gates are left open it is, and will be; and +Mr Westlock had as good a right to be there as anybody else. But why did +she run away, then? Not being ill dressed, for she was much too neat for +that, why did she run away? The brown hair that had fallen down beneath +her bonnet, and had one impertinent imp of a false flower clinging to +it, boastful of its licence before all men, THAT could not have been the +cause, for it looked charming. Oh! foolish, panting, frightened little +heart, why did she run away! + +Merrily the tiny fountain played, and merrily the dimples sparkled on +its sunny face. John Westlock hurried after her. Softly the whispering +water broke and fell; as roguishly the dimples twinkled, as he stole +upon her footsteps. + +Oh, foolish, panting, timid little heart, why did she feign to be +unconscious of his coming! Why wish herself so far away, yet be so +flutteringly happy there! + +‘I felt sure it was you,’ said John, when he overtook her in the +sanctuary of Garden Court. ‘I knew I couldn’t be mistaken.’ + +She was SO surprised. + +‘You are waiting for your brother,’ said John. ‘Let me bear you +company.’ + +So light was the touch of the coy little hand, that he glanced down to +assure himself he had it on his arm. But his glance, stopping for +an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first design, and went no +farther. + +They walked up and down three or four times, speaking about Tom and his +mysterious employment. Now that was a very natural and innocent subject, +surely. Then why, whenever Ruth lifted up her eyes, did she let them +fall again immediately, and seek the uncongenial pavement of the court? +They were not such eyes as shun the light; they were not such eyes +as require to be hoarded to enhance their value. They were much too +precious and too genuine to stand in need of arts like those. Somebody +must have been looking at them! + +They found out Tom, though, quickly enough. This pair of eyes descried +him in the distance, the moment he appeared. He was staring about him, +as usual, in all directions but the right one; and was as obstinate +in not looking towards them, as if he had intended it. As it was plain +that, being left to himself, he would walk away home, John Westlock +darted off to stop him. + +This made the approach of poor little Ruth, by herself, one of the +most embarrassing of circumstances. There was Tom, manifesting extreme +surprise (he had no presence of mind, that Tom, on small occasions); +there was John, making as light of it as he could, but explaining at the +same time with most unnecessary elaboration; and here was she, coming +towards them, with both of them looking at her, conscious of blushing to +a terrible extent, but trying to throw up her eyebrows carelessly, and +pout her rosy lips, as if she were the coolest and most unconcerned of +little women. + +Merrily the fountain plashed and plashed, until the dimples, merging +into one another, swelled into a general smile, that covered the whole +surface of the basin. + +‘What an extraordinary meeting!’ said Tom. ‘I should never have dreamed +of seeing you two together here.’ + +‘Quite accidental,’ John was heard to murmur. + +‘Exactly,’ cried Tom; ‘that’s what I mean, you know. If it wasn’t +accidental, there would be nothing remarkable in it.’ + +‘To be sure,’ said John. + +‘Such an out-of-the-way place for you to have met in,’ pursued Tom, +quite delighted. ‘Such an unlikely spot!’ + +John rather disputed that. On the contrary, he considered it a very +likely spot, indeed. He was constantly passing to and fro there, he +said. He shouldn’t wonder if it were to happen again. His only wonder +was, that it had never happened before. + +By this time Ruth had got round on the farther side of her brother, and +had taken his arm. She was squeezing it now, as much as to say ‘Are you +going to stop here all day, you dear, old, blundering Tom?’ + +Tom answered the squeeze as if it had been a speech. ‘John,’ he said, +‘if you’ll give my sister your arm, we’ll take her between us, and walk +on. I have a curious circumstance to relate to you. Our meeting could +not have happened better.’ + +Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples +twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh +against the basin’s rim, and vanished. + +‘Tom,’ said his friend, as they turned into the noisy street, ‘I have a +proposition to make. It is, that you and your sister--if she will so far +honour a poor bachelor’s dwelling--give me a great pleasure, and come +and dine with me.’ + +‘What, to-day?’ cried Tom. + +‘Yes, to-day. It’s close by, you know. Pray, Miss Pinch, insist upon it. +It will be very disinterested, for I have nothing to give you.’ + +‘Oh! you must not believe that, Ruth,’ said Tom. ‘He is the most +tremendous fellow, in his housekeeping, that I ever heard of, for a +single man. He ought to be Lord Mayor. Well! what do you say? Shall we +go?’ + +‘If you please, Tom,’ rejoined his dutiful little sister. + +‘But I mean,’ said Tom, regarding her with smiling admiration; ‘is there +anything you ought to wear, and haven’t got? I am sure I don’t know, +John; she may not be able to take her bonnet off, for anything I can +tell.’ + +There was a great deal of laughing at this, and there were divers +compliments from John Westlock--not compliments HE said at least (and +really he was right), but good, plain, honest truths, which no one could +deny. Ruth laughed, and all that, but she made no objection; so it was +an engagement. + +‘If I had known it a little sooner,’ said John, ‘I would have tried +another pudding. Not in rivalry; but merely to exalt that famous one. I +wouldn’t on any account have had it made with suet.’ + +‘Why not?’ asked Tom. + +‘Because that cookery-book advises suet,’ said John Westlock; ‘and ours +was made with flour and eggs.’ + +‘Oh good gracious!’ cried Tom. ‘Ours was made with flour and eggs, +was it? Ha, ha, ha! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs! Why +anybody knows better than that. I know better than that! Ha, ha, ha!’ + +It is unnecessary to say that Tom had been present at the making of the +pudding, and had been a devoted believer in it all through. But he was +so delighted to have this joke against his busy little sister and was +tickled to that degree at having found her out, that he stopped +in Temple Bar to laugh; and it was no more to Tom, that he was +anathematized and knocked about by the surly passengers, than it would +have been to a post; for he continued to exclaim with unabated good +humour, ‘flour and eggs! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs!’ +until John Westlock and his sister fairly ran away from him, and left +him to have his laugh out by himself; which he had, and then came +dodging across the crowded street to them, with such sweet temper and +tenderness (it was quite a tender joke of Tom’s) beaming in his face, +God bless it, that it might have purified the air, though Temple Bar had +been, as in the golden days gone by, embellished with a row of rotting +human heads. + +There are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and, for +the desolate fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising how well +they get on. John was very pathetic on the subject of his dreary life, +and the deplorable makeshifts and apologetic contrivances it involved, +but he really seemed to make himself pretty comfortable. His rooms were +the perfection of neatness and convenience at any rate; and if he were +anything but comfortable, the fault was certainly not theirs. + +He had no sooner ushered Tom and his sister into his best room (where +there was a beautiful little vase of fresh flowers on the table, all +ready for Ruth. Just as if he had expected her, Tom said), than, seizing +his hat, he bustled out again, in his most energetically bustling, way; +and presently came hurrying back, as they saw through the half-opened +door, attended by a fiery-faced matron attired in a crunched bonnet, +with particularly long strings to it hanging down her back; in +conjunction with whom he instantly began to lay the cloth for dinner, +polishing up the wine-glasses with his own hands, brightening the silver +top of the pepper-caster on his coat-sleeve, drawing corks and filling +decanters, with a skill and expedition that were quite dazzling. And +as if, in the course of this rubbing and polishing, he had rubbed an +enchanted lamp or a magic ring, obedient to which there were twenty +thousand supernatural slaves at least, suddenly there appeared a being +in a white waistcoat, carrying under his arm a napkin, and attended by +another being with an oblong box upon his head, from which a banquet, +piping hot, was taken out and set upon the table. + +Salmon, lamb, peas, innocent young potatoes, a cool salad, sliced +cucumber, a tender duckling, and a tart--all there. They all came at the +right time. Where they came from, didn’t appear; but the oblong box was +constantly going and coming, and making its arrival known to the man in +the white waistcoat by bumping modestly against the outside of the door; +for, after its first appearance, it entered the room no more. He +was never surprised, this man; he never seemed to wonder at the +extraordinary things he found in the box, but took them out with a face +expressive of a steady purpose and impenetrable character, and put +them on the table. He was a kind man; gentle in his manners, and much +interested in what they ate and drank. He was a learned man, and knew +the flavour of John Westlock’s private sauces, which he softly and +feelingly described, as he handed the little bottles round. He was a +grave man, and a noiseless; for dinner being done, and wine and fruit +arranged upon the board, he vanished, box and all, like something that +had never been. + +‘Didn’t I say he was a tremendous fellow in his housekeeping?’ cried +Tom. ‘Bless my soul! It’s wonderful.’ + +‘Ah, Miss Pinch,’ said John. ‘This is the bright side of the life we +lead in such a place. It would be a dismal life, indeed, if it didn’t +brighten up to-day’ + +‘Don’t believe a word he says,’ cried Tom. ‘He lives here like a +monarch, and wouldn’t change his mode of life for any consideration. He +only pretends to grumble.’ + +No, John really did not appear to pretend; for he was uncommonly earnest +in his desire to have it understood that he was as dull, solitary, and +uncomfortable on ordinary occasions as an unfortunate young man could, +in reason, be. It was a wretched life, he said, a miserable life. He +thought of getting rid of the chambers as soon as possible; and meant, +in fact, to put a bill up very shortly. + +‘Well’ said Tom Pinch, ‘I don’t know where you can go, John, to be more +comfortable. That’s all I can say. What do YOU say, Ruth?’ + +Ruth trifled with the cherries on her plate, and said that she thought +Mr Westlock ought to be quite happy, and that she had no doubt he was. + +Ah, foolish, panting, frightened little heart, how timidly she said it! + +‘But you are forgetting what you had to tell, Tom; what occurred this +morning,’ she added in the same breath. + +‘So I am,’ said Tom. ‘We have been so talkative on other topics that I +declare I have not had time to think of it. I’ll tell it you at once, +John, in case I should forget it altogether.’ + +On Tom’s relating what had passed upon the wharf, his friend was very +much surprised, and took such a great interest in the narrative as +Tom could not quite understand. He believed he knew the old lady whose +acquaintance they had made, he said; and that he might venture to say, +from their description of her, that her name was Gamp. But of what +nature the communication could have been which Tom had borne so +unexpectedly; why its delivery had been entrusted to him; how it +happened that the parties were involved together; and what secret lay +at the bottom of the whole affair; perplexed him very much. Tom had been +sure of his taking some interest in the matter; but was not prepared for +the strong interest he showed. It held John Westlock to the subject even +after Ruth had left the room; and evidently made him anxious to pursue +it further than as a mere subject of conversation. + +‘I shall remonstrate with my landlord, of course,’ said Tom; ‘though he +is a very singular secret sort of man, and not likely to afford me much +satisfaction; even if he knew what was in the letter.’ + +‘Which you may swear he did,’ John interposed. + +‘You think so?’ + +‘I am certain of it.’ + +‘Well!’ said Tom, ‘I shall remonstrate with him when I see him (he +goes in and out in a strange way, but I will try to catch him tomorrow +morning), on his having asked me to execute such an unpleasant +commission. And I have been thinking, John, that if I went down to +Mrs What’s-her-name’s in the City, where I was before, you know--Mrs +Todgers’s--to-morrow morning, I might find poor Mercy Pecksniff there, +perhaps, and be able to explain to her how I came to have any hand in +the business.’ + +‘You are perfectly right, Tom,’ returned his friend, after a short +interval of reflection. ‘You cannot do better. It is quite clear to me +that whatever the business is, there is little good in it; and it is so +desirable for you to disentangle yourself from any appearance of willful +connection with it, that I would counsel you to see her husband, if you +can, and wash your hands of it by a plain statement of the facts. I have +a misgiving that there is something dark at work here, Tom. I will tell +you why, at another time; when I have made an inquiry or two myself.’ + +All this sounded very mysterious to Tom Pinch. But as he knew he could +rely upon his friend, he resolved to follow this advice. + +Ah, but it would have been a good thing to have had a coat of +invisibility, wherein to have watched little Ruth, when she was left +to herself in John Westlock’s chambers, and John and her brother were +talking thus, over their wine! The gentle way in which she tried to get +up a little conversation with the fiery-faced matron in the crunched +bonnet, who was waiting to attend her; after making a desperate rally +in regard of her dress, and attiring herself in a washed-out yellow gown +with sprigs of the same upon it, so that it looked like a tesselated +work of pats of butter. That would have been pleasant. The grim and +griffin-like inflexibility with which the fiery-faced matron repelled +these engaging advances, as proceeding from a hostile and dangerous +power, who could have no business there, unless it were to deprive her +of a customer, or suggest what became of the self-consuming tea and +sugar, and other general trifles. That would have been agreeable. The +bashful, winning, glorious curiosity, with which little Ruth, when +fiery-face was gone, peeped into the books and nick-nacks that +were lying about, and had a particular interest in some delicate +paper-matches on the chimney-piece; wondering who could have made them. +That would have been worth seeing. The faltering hand with which she +tied those flowers together; with which, almost blushing at her own +fair self as imaged in the glass, she arranged them in her breast, and +looking at them with her head aside, now half resolved to take them out +again, now half resolved to leave them where they were. That would have +been delightful! + +John seemed to think it all delightful; for coming in with Tom to +tea, he took his seat beside her like a man enchanted. And when the +tea-service had been removed, and Tom, sitting down at the piano, became +absorbed in some of his old organ tunes, he was still beside her at the +open window, looking out upon the twilight. + +There is little enough to see in Furnival’s Inn. It is a shady, quiet +place, echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers who have business +there; and rather monotonous and gloomy on summer evenings. What gave it +such a charm to them, that they remained at the window as unconscious of +the flight of time as Tom himself, the dreamer, while the melodies which +had so often soothed his spirit were hovering again about him! What +power infused into the fading light, the gathering darkness; the stars +that here and there appeared; the evening air, the City’s hum and stir, +the very chiming of the old church clocks; such exquisite enthrallment, +that the divinest regions of the earth spread out before their eyes +could not have held them captive in a stronger chain? + +The shadows deepened, deepened, and the room became quite dark. Still +Tom’s fingers wandered over the keys of the piano, and still the window +had its pair of tenants. At length, her hand upon his shoulder, and her +breath upon his forehead, roused Tom from his reverie. + +‘Dear me!’ he cried, desisting with a start. ‘I am afraid I have been +very inconsiderate and unpolite.’ + +Tom little thought how much consideration and politeness he had shown! + +‘Sing something to us, my dear,’ said Tom, ‘let us hear your voice. +Come!’ + +John Westlock added his entreaties with such earnestness that a flinty +heart alone could have resisted them. Hers was not a flinty heart. Oh, +dear no! Quite another thing. + +So down she sat, and in a pleasant voice began to sing the ballads Tom +loved well. Old rhyming stories, with here and there a pause for a few +simple chords, such as a harper might have sounded in the ancient time +while looking upward for the current of some half-remembered legend; +words of old poets, wedded to such measures that the strain of music +might have been the poet’s breath, giving utterance and expression to +his thoughts; and now a melody so joyous and light-hearted, that the +singer seemed incapable of sadness, until in her inconstancy (oh wicked +little singer!) she relapsed, and broke the listeners’ hearts again; +these were the simple means she used to please them. And that these +simple means prevailed, and she DID please them, let the still darkened +chamber, and its long-deferred illumination witness. + +The candles came at last, and it was time for moving homeward. Cutting +paper carefully, and rolling it about the stalks of those same flowers, +occasioned some delay; but even this was done in time, and Ruth was +ready. + +‘Good night!’ said Tom. ‘A memorable and delightful visit, John! Good +night!’ + +John thought he would walk with them. + +‘No, no. Don’t!’ said Tom. ‘What nonsense! We can get home very well +alone. I couldn’t think of taking you out.’ + +But John said he would rather. + +‘Are you sure you would rather?’ said Tom. ‘I am afraid you only say so +out of politeness.’ + +John being quite sure, gave his arm to Ruth, and led her out. +Fiery-face, who was again in attendance, acknowledged her departure with +so cold a curtsey that it was hardly visible; and cut Tom, dead. + +Their host was bent on walking the whole distance, and would not listen +to Tom’s dissuasions. Happy time, happy walk, happy parting, happy +dreams! But there are some sweet day-dreams, so there are that put the +visions of the night to shame. + +Busily the Temple fountain murmured in the moonlight, while Ruth lay +sleeping, with her flowers beside her; and John Westlock sketched a +portrait--whose?--from memory. + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-SIX + +IN WHICH MISS PECKSNIFF MAKES LOVE, MR JONAS MAKES WRATH, MRS GAMP MAKES +TEA, AND MR CHUFFEY MAKES BUSINESS + + +On the next day’s official duties coming to a close, Tom hurried home +without losing any time by the way; and after dinner and a short rest +sallied out again, accompanied by Ruth, to pay his projected visit +to Todgers’s. Tom took Ruth with him, not only because it was a great +pleasure to him to have her for his companion whenever he could, but +because he wished her to cherish and comfort poor Merry; which she, for +her own part (having heard the wretched history of that young wife from +Tom), was all eagerness to do. + +‘She was so glad to see me,’ said Tom, ‘that I am sure she will be +glad to see you. Your sympathy is certain to be much more delicate and +acceptable than mine.’ + +‘I am very far from being certain of that, Tom,’ she replied; ‘and +indeed you do yourself an injustice. Indeed you do. But I hope she may +like me, Tom.’ + +‘Oh, she is sure to do that!’ cried Tom, confidently. + +‘What a number of friends I should have, if everybody was of your way of +thinking. Shouldn’t I, Tom, dear?’ said his little sister pinching him +upon the cheek. + +Tom laughed, and said that with reference to this particular case he had +no doubt at all of finding a disciple in Merry. ‘For you women,’ said +Tom, ‘you women, my dear, are so kind, and in your kindness have such +nice perception; you know so well how to be affectionate and full of +solicitude without appearing to be; your gentleness of feeling is like +your touch so light and easy, that the one enables you to deal with +wounds of the mind as tenderly as the other enables you to deal with +wounds of the body. You are such--’ + +‘My goodness, Tom!’ his sister interposed. ‘You ought to fall in love +immediately.’ + +Tom put this observation off good humouredly, but somewhat gravely too; +and they were soon very chatty again on some other subject. + +As they were passing through a street in the City, not very far from Mrs +Todgers’s place of residence, Ruth checked Tom before the window of +a large Upholstery and Furniture Warehouse, to call his attention to +something very magnificent and ingenious, displayed there to the best +advantage, for the admiration and temptation of the public. Tom had +hazarded some most erroneous and extravagantly wrong guess in relation +to the price of this article, and had joined his sister in laughing +heartily at his mistake, when he pressed her arm in his, and pointed to +two persons at a little distance, who were looking in at the same window +with a deep interest in the chests of drawers and tables. + +‘Hush!’ Tom whispered. ‘Miss Pecksniff, and the young gentleman to whom +she is going to be married.’ + +‘Why does he look as if he was going to be buried, Tom?’ inquired his +little sister. + +‘Why, he is naturally a dismal young gentleman, I believe,’ said Tom +‘but he is very civil and inoffensive.’ + +‘I suppose they are furnishing their house,’ whispered Ruth. + +‘Yes, I suppose they are,’ replied Tom. ‘We had better avoid speaking to +them.’ + +They could not very well avoid looking at them, however, especially +as some obstruction on the pavement, at a little distance, happened to +detain them where they were for a few moments. Miss Pecksniff had quite +the air of having taken the unhappy Moddle captive, and brought him +up to the contemplation of the furniture like a lamb to the altar. +He offered no resistance, but was perfectly resigned and quiet. The +melancholy depicted in the turn of his languishing head, and in his +dejected attitude, was extreme; and though there was a full-sized +four-post bedstead in the window, such a tear stood trembling in his eye +as seemed to blot it out. + +‘Augustus, my love,’ said Miss Pecksniff, ‘ask the price of the eight +rosewood chairs, and the loo table.’ + +‘Perhaps they are ordered already,’ said Augustus. ‘Perhaps they are +Another’s.’ + +‘They can make more like them, if they are,’ rejoined Miss Pecksniff. + +‘No, no, they can’t,’ said Moddle. ‘It’s impossible!’ + +He appeared, for the moment, to be quite overwhelmed and stupefied by +the prospect of his approaching happiness; but recovering, entered the +shop. He returned immediately, saying in a tone of despair + +‘Twenty-four pound ten!’ + +Miss Pecksniff, turning to receive this announcement, became conscious +of the observation of Tom Pinch and his sister. + +‘Oh, really!’ cried Miss Pecksniff, glancing about her, as if for some +convenient means of sinking into the earth. ‘Upon my word, I--there +never was such a--to think that one should be so very--Mr Augustus +Moddle, Miss Pinch!’ + +Miss Pecksniff was quite gracious to Miss Pinch in this triumphant +introduction; exceedingly gracious. She was more than gracious; she was +kind and cordial. Whether the recollection of the old service Tom had +rendered her in knocking Mr Jonas on the head had wrought this change in +her opinions; or whether her separation from her parent had reconciled +her to all human-kind, or to all that interesting portion of human-kind +which was not friendly to him; or whether the delight of having some new +female acquaintance to whom to communicate her interesting prospects was +paramount to every other consideration; cordial and kind Miss Pecksniff +was. And twice Miss Pecksniff kissed Miss Pinch upon the cheek. + +‘Augustus--Mr Pinch, you know. My dear girl!’ said Miss Pecksniff, +aside. ‘I never was so ashamed in my life.’ + +Ruth begged her not to think of it. + +‘I mind your brother less than anybody else,’ simpered Miss Pecksniff. +‘But the indelicacy of meeting any gentleman under such circumstances! +Augustus, my child, did you--’ + +Here Miss Pecksniff whispered in his ear. The suffering Moddle repeated: + +‘Twenty-four pound ten!’ + +‘Oh, you silly man! I don’t mean them,’ said Miss Pecksniff. ‘I am +speaking of the--’ + +Here she whispered him again. + +‘If it’s the same patterned chintz as that in the window; thirty-two, +twelve, six,’ said Moddle, with a sigh. ‘And very dear.’ + +Miss Pecksniff stopped him from giving any further explanation by laying +her hand upon his lips, and betraying a soft embarrassment. She then +asked Tom Pinch which way he was going. + +‘I was going to see if I could find your sister,’ answered Tom, ‘to whom +I wished to say a few words. We were going to Mrs Todgers’s, where I had +the pleasure of seeing her before.’ + +‘It’s of no use your going on, then,’ said Cherry, ‘for we have not +long left there; and I know she is not at home. But I’ll take you to my +sister’s house, if you please. Augustus--Mr Moddle, I mean--and myself, +are on our way to tea there, now. You needn’t think of HIM,’ she added, +nodding her head as she observed some hesitation on Tom’s part. ‘He is +not at home.’ + +‘Are you sure?’ asked Tom. + +‘Oh, I am quite sure of that. I don’t want any MORE revenge,’ said Miss +Pecksniff, expressively. ‘But, really, I must beg you two gentlemen to +walk on, and allow me to follow with Miss Pinch. My dear, I never was so +taken by surprise!’ + +In furtherance of this bashful arrangement, Moddle gave his arm to Tom; +and Miss Pecksniff linked her own in Ruth’s. + +‘Of course, my love,’ said Miss Pecksniff, ‘it would be useless for me +to disguise, after what you have seen, that I am about to be united to +the gentleman who is walking with your brother. It would be in vain +to conceal it. What do you think of him? Pray, let me have your candid +opinion.’ + +Ruth intimated that, as far as she could judge, he was a very eligible +swain. + +‘I am curious to know,’ said Miss Pecksniff, with loquacious frankness, +‘whether you have observed, or fancied, in this very short space of +time, that he is of a rather melancholy turn?’ + +‘So very short a time,’ Ruth pleaded. + +‘No, no; but don’t let that interfere with your answer,’ returned Miss +Pecksniff. ‘I am curious to hear what you say.’ + +Ruth acknowledged that he had impressed her at first sight as looking +‘rather low.’ + +‘No, really?’ said Miss Pecksniff. ‘Well! that is quite remarkable! +Everybody says the same. Mrs Todgers says the same; and Augustus informs +me that it is quite a joke among the gentlemen in the house. Indeed, but +for the positive commands I have laid upon him, I believe it would have +been the occasion of loaded fire-arms being resorted to more than once. +What do you think is the cause of his appearance of depression?’ + +Ruth thought of several things; such as his digestion, his tailor, his +mother, and the like. But hesitating to give utterance to any one of +them, she refrained from expressing an opinion. + +‘My dear,’ said Miss Pecksniff; ‘I shouldn’t wish it to be known, but I +don’t mind mentioning it to you, having known your brother for so many +years--I refused Augustus three times. He is of a most amiable and +sensitive nature, always ready to shed tears if you look at him, which +is extremely charming; and he has never recovered the effect of that +cruelty. For it WAS cruel,’ said Miss Pecksniff, with a self-conviction +candour that might have adorned the diadem of her own papa. ‘There is +no doubt of it. I look back upon my conduct now with blushes. I always +liked him. I felt that he was not to me what the crowd of young men who +had made proposals had been, but something very different. Then what +right had I to refuse him three times?’ + +‘It was a severe trial of his fidelity, no doubt,’ said Ruth. + +‘My dear,’ returned Miss Pecksniff. ‘It was wrong. But such is the +caprice and thoughtlessness of our sex! Let me be a warning to you. +Don’t try the feelings of any one who makes you an offer, as I have +tried the feelings of Augustus; but if you ever feel towards a person +as I really felt towards him, at the very time when I was driving him +to distraction, let that feeling find expression, if that person throws +himself at your feet, as Augustus Moddle did at mine. Think,’ said Miss +Pecksniff, ‘what my feelings would have been, if I had goaded him to +suicide, and it had got into the papers!’ + +Ruth observed that she would have been full of remorse, no doubt. + +‘Remorse!’ cried Miss Pecksniff, in a sort of snug and comfortable +penitence. ‘What my remorse is at this moment, even after making +reparation by accepting him, it would be impossible to tell you! Looking +back upon my giddy self, my dear, now that I am sobered down and +made thoughtful, by treading on the very brink of matrimony; and +contemplating myself as I was when I was like what you are now; I +shudder. I shudder. What is the consequence of my past conduct? Until +Augustus leads me to the altar he is not sure of me. I have blighted and +withered the affections of his heart to that extent that he is not sure +of me. I see that preying on his mind and feeding on his vitals. What +are the reproaches of my conscience, when I see this in the man I love!’ + +Ruth endeavoured to express some sense of her unbounded and flattering +confidence; and presumed that she was going to be married soon. + +‘Very soon indeed,’ returned Miss Pecksniff. ‘As soon as our house is +ready. We are furnishing now as fast as we can.’ + +In the same vein of confidence Miss Pecksniff ran through a general +inventory of the articles that were already bought with the articles +that remained to be purchased; what garments she intended to be married +in, and where the ceremony was to be performed; and gave Miss Pinch, in +short (as she told her), early and exclusive information on all points +of interest connected with the event. + +While this was going forward in the rear, Tom and Mr Moddle walked on, +arm in arm, in the front, in a state of profound silence, which Tom at +last broke; after thinking for a long time what he could say that should +refer to an indifferent topic, in respect of which he might rely, with +some degree of certainty, on Mr Moddle’s bosom being unruffled. + +‘I wonder,’ said Tom, ‘that in these crowded streets the foot-passengers +are not oftener run over.’ + +Mr Moddle, with a dark look, replied: + +‘The drivers won’t do it.’ + +‘Do you mean?’ Tom began-- + +‘That there are some men,’ interrupted Moddle, with a hollow laugh, ‘who +can’t get run over. They live a charmed life. Coal waggons recoil from +them, and even cabs refuse to run them down. Ah!’ said Augustus, marking +Tom’s astonishment. ‘There are such men. One of ‘em is a friend of +mine.’ + +‘Upon my word and honour,’ thought Tom, ‘this young gentleman is in +a state of mind which is very serious indeed!’ Abandoning all idea of +conversation, he did not venture to say another word, but he was careful +to keep a tight hold upon Augustus’s arm, lest he should fly into the +road, and making another and a more successful attempt, should get up a +private little Juggernaut before the eyes of his betrothed. Tom was +so afraid of his committing this rash act, that he had scarcely ever +experienced such mental relief as when they arrived in safety at Mrs +Jonas Chuzzlewit’s house. + +‘Walk up, pray, Mr Pinch,’ said Miss Pecksniff. For Tom halted, +irresolutely, at the door. + +‘I am doubtful whether I should be welcome,’ replied Tom, ‘or, I ought +rather to say, I have no doubt about it. I will send up a message, I +think.’ + +‘But what nonsense that is!’ returned Miss Pecksniff, speaking apart +to Tom. ‘He is not at home, I am certain. I know he is not; and Merry +hasn’t the least idea that you ever--’ + +‘No,’ interrupted Tom. ‘Nor would I have her know it, on any account. I +am not so proud of that scuffle, I assure you.’ + +‘Ah, but then you are so modest, you see,’ returned Miss Pecksniff, with +a smile. ‘But pray walk up. If you don’t wish her to know it, and do +wish to speak to her, pray walk up. Pray walk up, Miss Pinch. Don’t +stand here.’ + +Tom still hesitated for he felt that he was in an awkward position. But +Cherry passing him at this juncture, and leading his sister upstairs, +and the house-door being at the same time shut behind them, he followed +without quite knowing whether it was well or ill-judged so to do. + +‘Merry, my darling!’ said the fair Miss Pecksniff, opening the door of +the usual sitting-room. ‘Here are Mr Pinch and his sister come to see +you! I thought we should find you here, Mrs Todgers! How do you do, Mrs +Gamp? And how do you do, Mr Chuffey, though it’s of no use asking you +the question, I am well aware.’ + +Honouring each of these parties, as she severally addressed them, with +an acid smile, Miss Charity presented ‘Mr Moddle.’ + +‘I believe you have seen HIM before,’ she pleasantly observed. +‘Augustus, my sweet child, bring me a chair.’ + +The sweet child did as he was told; and was then about to retire into a +corner to mourn in secret, when Miss Charity, calling him in an audible +whisper a ‘little pet,’ gave him leave to come and sit beside her. It +is to be hoped, for the general cheerfulness of mankind, that such a +doleful little pet was never seen as Mr Moddle looked when he complied. +So despondent was his temper, that he showed no outward thrill of +ecstasy when Miss Pecksniff placed her lily hand in his, and concealed +this mark of her favour from the vulgar gaze by covering it with a +corner of her shawl. Indeed, he was infinitely more rueful then than +he had been before; and, sitting uncomfortably upright in his chair, +surveyed the company with watery eyes, which seemed to say, without +the aid of language, ‘Oh, good gracious! look here! Won’t some kind +Christian help me!’ + +But the ecstasies of Mrs Gamp were sufficient to have furnished forth +a score of young lovers; and they were chiefly awakened by the sight of +Tom Pinch and his sister. Mrs Gamp was a lady of that happy temperament +which can be ecstatic without any other stimulating cause than a general +desire to establish a large and profitable connection. She added daily +so many strings to her bow, that she made a perfect harp of it; and upon +that instrument she now began to perform an extemporaneous concerto. + +‘Why, goodness me!’ she said, ‘Mrs Chuzzlewit! To think as I should see +beneath this blessed ‘ouse, which well I know it, Miss Pecksniff, my +sweet young lady, to be a ‘ouse as there is not a many like, worse luck, +and wishin’ it were not so, which then this tearful walley would be +changed into a flowerin’ guardian, Mr Chuffey; to think as I should see +beneath this indiwidgle roof, identically comin’, Mr Pinch (I take the +liberty, though almost unbeknown), and do assure you of it, sir, the +smilinest and sweetest face as ever, Mrs Chuzzlewit, I see exceptin’ +yourn, my dear good lady, and YOUR good lady’s too, sir, Mr Moddle, if +I may make so bold as speak so plain of what is plain enough to them as +needn’t look through millstones, Mrs Todgers, to find out wot is wrote +upon the wall behind. Which no offence is meant, ladies and gentlemen; +none bein’ took, I hope. To think as I should see that smilinest and +sweetest face which me and another friend of mine, took notice of among +the packages down London Bridge, in this promiscous place, is a surprige +in-deed!’ + +Having contrived, in this happy manner, to invest every member of her +audience with an individual share and immediate personal interest in +her address, Mrs Gamp dropped several curtseys to Ruth, and smilingly +shaking her head a great many times, pursued the thread of her +discourse: + +‘Now, ain’t we rich in beauty this here joyful arternoon, I’m sure. I +knows a lady, which her name, I’ll not deceive you, Mrs Chuzzlewit, is +Harris, her husband’s brother bein’ six foot three, and marked with +a mad bull in Wellington boots upon his left arm, on account of his +precious mother havin’ been worrited by one into a shoemaker’s shop, +when in a sitiwation which blessed is the man as has his quiver full of +sech, as many times I’ve said to Gamp when words has roge betwixt us on +account of the expense--and often have I said to Mrs Harris, “Oh, Mrs +Harris, ma’am! your countenance is quite a angel’s!” Which, but +for Pimples, it would be. “No, Sairey Gamp,” says she, “you best of +hard-working and industrious creeturs as ever was underpaid at any +price, which underpaid you are, quite diff’rent. Harris had it done +afore marriage at ten and six,” she says, “and wore it faithful next his +heart till the colour run, when the money was declined to be give back, +and no arrangement could be come to. But he never said it was a angel’s, +Sairey, wotever he might have thought.” If Mrs Harris’s husband was +here now,’ said Mrs Gamp, looking round, and chuckling as she dropped +a general curtsey, ‘he’d speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife +would be the last to blame him! For if ever a woman lived as know’d not +wot it was to form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and had no +reagion give her by the best of husbands, Mrs Harris is that ev’nly +dispogician!’ + +With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped in +to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have any +engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr +Chuffey, who was seated in the same corner as of old, and shook him by +the shoulder. + +‘Rouge yourself, and look up! Come!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Here’s company, Mr +Chuffey.’ + +‘I am sorry for it,’ cried the old man, looking humbly round the room. +‘I know I’m in the way. I ask pardon, but I’ve nowhere else to go to. +Where is she?’ + +Merry went to him. + +‘Ah!’ said the old man, patting her on the check. ‘Here she is. Here she +is! She’s never hard on poor old Chuffey. Poor old Chuff!’ + +As she took her seat upon a low chair by the old man’s side, and put +herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom. It +was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint smile +trembling on her face. It was a speaking look, and Tom knew what it +said. ‘You see how misery has changed me. I can feel for a dependant +NOW, and set some value on his attachment.’ + +‘Aye, aye!’ cried Chuffey in a soothing tone. ‘Aye, aye, aye! Never mind +him. It’s hard to hear, but never mind him. He’ll die one day. There +are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year--three hundred and +sixty-six in leap year--and he may die on any one of ‘em.’ + +‘You’re a wearing old soul, and that’s the sacred truth,’ said Mrs Gamp, +contemplating him from a little distance with anything but favour, as he +continued to mutter to himself. ‘It’s a pity that you don’t know wot you +say, for you’d tire your own patience out if you did, and fret yourself +into a happy releage for all as knows you.’ + +‘His son,’ murmured the old man, lifting up his hand. ‘His son!’ + +‘Well, I’m sure!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘you’re a-settlin’ of it, Mr Chuffey. +To your satigefaction, sir, I hope. But I wouldn’t lay a new pincushion +on it myself, sir, though you ARE so well informed. Drat the old +creetur, he’s a-layin’ down the law tolerable confident, too! A deal he +knows of sons! or darters either! Suppose you was to favour us with some +remarks on twins, sir, WOULD you be so good!’ + +The bitter and indignant sarcasm which Mrs Gamp conveyed into these +taunts was altogether lost on the unconscious Chuffey, who appeared to +be as little cognizant of their delivery as of his having given Mrs +Gamp offence. But that high-minded woman being sensitively alive to any +invasion of her professional province, and imagining that Mr Chuffey had +given utterance to some prediction on the subject of sons, which ought +to have emanated in the first instance from herself as the only lawful +authority, or which should at least have been on no account proclaimed +without her sanction and concurrence, was not so easily appeased. She +continued to sidle at Mr Chuffey with looks of sharp hostility, and to +defy him with many other ironical remarks, uttered in that low key +which commonly denotes suppressed indignation; until the entrance of +the teaboard, and a request from Mrs Jonas that she would make tea at a +side-table for the party that had unexpectedly assembled, restored her +to herself. She smiled again, and entered on her ministration with her +own particular urbanity. + +‘And quite a family it is to make tea for,’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘and wot a +happiness to do it! My good young ‘ooman’--to the servant-girl--‘p’raps +somebody would like to try a new-laid egg or two, not biled too hard. +Likeways, a few rounds o’ buttered toast, first cuttin’ off the crust, +in consequence of tender teeth, and not too many of ‘em; which Gamp +himself, Mrs Chuzzlewit, at one blow, being in liquor, struck out four, +two single, and two double, as was took by Mrs Harris for a keepsake, +and is carried in her pocket at this present hour, along with two +cramp-bones, a bit o’ ginger, and a grater like a blessed infant’s shoe, +in tin, with a little heel to put the nutmeg in; as many times I’ve seen +and said, and used for candle when required, within the month.’ + +As the privileges of the side-table--besides including the small +prerogatives of sitting next the toast, and taking two cups of tea to +other people’s one, and always taking them at a crisis, that is to +say, before putting fresh water into the tea-pot, and after it had been +standing for some time--also comprehended a full view of the company, +and an opportunity of addressing them as from a rostrum, Mrs Gamp +discharged the functions entrusted to her with extreme good-humour and +affability. Sometimes resting her saucer on the palm of her outspread +hand, and supporting her elbow on the table, she stopped between her +sips of tea to favour the circle with a smile, a wink, a roll of the +head, or some other mark of notice; and at those periods her countenance +was lighted up with a degree of intelligence and vivacity, which it was +almost impossible to separate from the benignant influence of distilled +waters. + +But for Mrs Gamp, it would have been a curiously silent party. Miss +Pecksniff only spoke to her Augustus, and to him in whispers. Augustus +spoke to nobody, but sighed for every one, and occasionally gave himself +such a sounding slap upon the forehead as would make Mrs Todgers, who +was rather nervous, start in her chair with an involuntary exclamation. +Mrs Todgers was occupied in knitting, and seldom spoke. Poor Merry held +the hand of cheerful little Ruth between her own, and listening with +evident pleasure to all she said, but rarely speaking herself, sometimes +smiled, and sometimes kissed her on the cheek, and sometimes turned +aside to hide the tears that trembled in her eyes. Tom felt this change +in her so much, and was so glad to see how tenderly Ruth dealt with her, +and how she knew and answered to it, that he had not the heart to make +any movement towards their departure, although he had long since given +utterance to all he came to say. + +The old clerk, subsiding into his usual state, remained profoundly +silent, while the rest of the little assembly were thus occupied, intent +upon the dreams, whatever they might be, which hardly seemed to stir +the surface of his sluggish thoughts. The bent of these dull fancies +combining probably with the silent feasting that was going on about him, +and some struggling recollection of the last approach to revelry he had +witnessed, suggested a strange question to his mind. He looked round +upon a sudden, and said: + +‘Who’s lying dead upstairs?’ + +‘No one,’ said Merry, turning to him. ‘What is the matter? We are all +here.’ + +‘All here!’ cried the old man. ‘All here! Where is he then--my old +master, Mr Chuzzlewit, who had the only son? Where is he?’ + +‘Hush! Hush!’ said Merry, speaking kindly to him. ‘That happened long +ago. Don’t you recollect?’ + +‘Recollect!’ rejoined the old man, with a cry of grief. ‘As if I could +forget! As if I ever could forget!’ + +He put his hand up to his face for a moment; and then repeated turning +round exactly as before: + +‘Who’s lying dead upstairs?’ + +‘No one!’ said Merry. + +At first he gazed angrily upon her, as upon a stranger who endeavoured +to deceive him; but peering into her face, and seeing that it was indeed +she, he shook his head in sorrowful compassion. + +‘You think not. But they don’t tell you. No, no, poor thing! They don’t +tell you. Who are these, and why are they merry-making here, if there is +no one dead? Foul play! Go see who it is!’ + +She made a sign to them not to speak to him, which indeed they had +little inclination to do; and remained silent herself. So did he for +a short time; but then he repeated the same question with an eagerness +that had a peculiar terror in it. + +‘There’s some one dead,’ he said, ‘or dying; and I want to knows who it +is. Go see, go see! Where’s Jonas?’ + +‘In the country,’ she replied. + +The old man gazed at her as if he doubted what she said, or had not +heard her; and, rising from his chair, walked across the room and +upstairs, whispering as he went, ‘Foul play!’ They heard his footsteps +overhead, going up into that corner of the room in which the bed stood +(it was there old Anthony had died); and then they heard him coming down +again immediately. His fancy was not so strong or wild that it pictured +to him anything in the deserted bedchamber which was not there; for he +returned much calmer, and appeared to have satisfied himself. + +‘They don’t tell you,’ he said to Merry in his quavering voice, as +he sat down again, and patted her upon the head. ‘They don’t tell me +either; but I’ll watch, I’ll watch. They shall not hurt you; don’t be +frightened. When you have sat up watching, I have sat up watching too. +Aye, aye, I have!’ he piped out, clenching his weak, shrivelled hand. +‘Many a night I have been ready!’ + +He said this with such trembling gaps and pauses in his want of breath, +and said it in his jealous secrecy so closely in her ear, that little +or nothing of it was understood by the visitors. But they had heard +and seen enough of the old man to be disquieted, and to have left +their seats and gathered about him; thereby affording Mrs Gamp, +whose professional coolness was not so easily disturbed, an eligible +opportunity for concentrating the whole resources of her powerful mind +and appetite upon the toast and butter, tea and eggs. She had brought +them to bear upon those viands with such vigour that her face was in the +highest state of inflammation, when she now (there being nothing left to +eat or drink) saw fit to interpose. + +‘Why, highty tighty, sir!’ cried Mrs Gamp, ‘is these your manners? You +want a pitcher of cold water throw’d over you to bring you round; that’s +my belief, and if you was under Betsey Prig you’d have it, too, I do +assure you, Mr Chuffey. Spanish Flies is the only thing to draw this +nonsense out of you; and if anybody wanted to do you a kindness, they’d +clap a blister of ‘em on your head, and put a mustard poultige on your +back. ‘Who’s dead, indeed! It wouldn’t be no grievous loss if some one +was, I think!’ + +‘He’s quiet now, Mrs Gamp,’ said Merry. ‘Don’t disturb him.’ + +‘Oh, bother the old wictim, Mrs Chuzzlewit,’ replied that zealous lady, +‘I ain’t no patience with him. You give him his own way too much by +half. A worritin’ wexagious creetur!’ + +No doubt with the view of carrying out the precepts she enforced, and +‘bothering the old wictim’ in practice as well as in theory, Mrs Gamp +took him by the collar of his coat, and gave him some dozen or two of +hearty shakes backward and forward in his chair; that exercise being +considered by the disciples of the Prig school of nursing (who are very +numerous among professional ladies) as exceedingly conducive to repose, +and highly beneficial to the performance of the nervous functions. +Its effect in this instance was to render the patient so giddy and +addle-headed, that he could say nothing more; which Mrs Gamp regarded as +the triumph of her art. + +‘There!’ she said, loosening the old man’s cravat, in consequence of his +being rather black in the face, after this scientific treatment. ‘Now, +I hope, you’re easy in your mind. If you should turn at all faint we +can soon rewive you, sir, I promige you. Bite a person’s thumbs, or +turn their fingers the wrong way,’ said Mrs Gamp, smiling with the +consciousness of at once imparting pleasure and instruction to her +auditors, ‘and they comes to, wonderful, Lord bless you!’ + +As this excellent woman had been formerly entrusted with the care of Mr +Chuffey on a previous occasion, neither Mrs Jonas nor anybody else had +the resolution to interfere directly with her mode of treatment; +though all present (Tom Pinch and his sister especially) appeared to be +disposed to differ from her views. For such is the rash boldness of the +uninitiated, that they will frequently set up some monstrous abstract +principle, such as humanity, or tenderness, or the like idle folly, in +obstinate defiance of all precedent and usage; and will even venture to +maintain the same against the persons who have made the precedents +and established the usage, and who must therefore be the best and most +impartial judges of the subject. + +‘Ah, Mr Pinch!’ said Miss Pecksniff. ‘It all comes of this unfortunate +marriage. If my sister had not been so precipitate, and had not united +herself to a Wretch, there would have been no Mr Chuffey in the house.’ + +‘Hush!’ cried Tom. ‘She’ll hear you.’ + +‘I should be very sorry if she did hear me, Mr Pinch,’ said Cherry, +raising her voice a little; ‘for it is not in my nature to add to the +uneasiness of any person; far less of my own sister. I know what a +sister’s duties are, Mr Pinch, and I hope I always showed it in my +practice. Augustus, my dear child, find my pocket-handkerchief, and give +it to me.’ + +Augustus obeyed, and took Mrs Todgers aside to pour his griefs into her +friendly bosom. + +‘I am sure, Mr Pinch,’ said Charity, looking after her betrothed and +glancing at her sister, ‘that I ought to be very grateful for the +blessings I enjoy, and those which are yet in store for me. When I +contrast Augustus’--here she was modest and embarrased--‘who, I don’t +mind saying to you, is all softness, mildness, and devotion, with the +detestable man who is my sister’s husband; and when I think, Mr Pinch, +that in the dispensations of this world, our cases might have been +reversed; I have much to be thankful for, indeed, and much to make me +humble and contented.’ + +Contented she might have been, but humble she assuredly was not. Her +face and manner experienced something so widely different from humility, +that Tom could not help understanding and despising the base motives +that were working in her breast. He turned away, and said to Ruth, that +it was time for them to go. + +‘I will write to your husband,’ said Tom to Merry, ‘and explain to him, +as I would have done if I had met him here, that if he has sustained any +inconvenience through my means, it is not my fault; a postman not being +more innocent of the news he brings, than I was when I handed him that +letter.’ + +‘I thank you!’ said Merry. ‘It may do some good.’ + +She parted tenderly from Ruth, who with her brother was in the act of +leaving the room, when a key was heard in the lock of the door below, +and immediately afterwards a quick footstep in the passage. Tom stopped, +and looked at Merry. + +It was Jonas, she said timidly. + +‘I had better not meet him on the stairs, perhaps,’ said Tom, drawing +his sister’s arm through his, and coming back a step or two. ‘I’ll wait +for him here, a moment.’ + +He had scarcely said it when the door opened, and Jonas entered. His +wife came forward to receive him; but he put her aside with his hand, +and said in a surly tone: + +‘I didn’t know you’d got a party.’ + +As he looked, at the same time, either by accident or design, towards +Miss Pecksniff; and as Miss Pecksniff was only too delighted to quarrel +with him, she instantly resented it. + +‘Oh dear!’ she said, rising. ‘Pray don’t let us intrude upon your +domestic happiness! That would be a pity. We have taken tea here, sir, +in your absence; but if you will have the goodness to send us a note of +the expense, receipted, we shall be happy to pay it. Augustus, my love, +we will go, if you please. Mrs Todgers, unless you wish to remain here, +we shall be happy to take you with us. It would be a pity, indeed, to +spoil the bliss which this gentleman always brings with him, especially +into his own home.’ + +‘Charity! Charity!’ remonstrated her sister, in such a heartfelt tone +that she might have been imploring her to show the cardinal virtue whose +name she bore. + +‘Merry, my dear, I am much obliged to you for your advice,’ returned +Miss Pecksniff, with a stately scorn--by the way, she had not been +offered any--‘but I am not his slave--’ + +‘No, nor wouldn’t have been if you could,’ interrupted Jonas. ‘We know +all about it.’ + +‘WHAT did you say, sir?’ cried Miss Pecksniff, sharply. + +‘Didn’t you hear?’ retorted Jonas, lounging down upon a chair. ‘I am not +a-going to say it again. If you like to stay, you may stay. If you like +to go, you may go. But if you stay, please to be civil.’ + +‘Beast!’ cried Miss Pecksniff, sweeping past him. ‘Augustus! He is +beneath your notice!’ Augustus had been making some faint and sickly +demonstration of shaking his fist. ‘Come away, child,’ screamed Miss +Pecksniff, ‘I command you!’ + +The scream was elicited from her by Augustus manifesting an intention to +return and grapple with him. But Miss Pecksniff giving the fiery youth +a pull, and Mrs Todgers giving him a push they all three tumbled out +of the room together, to the music of Miss Pecksniff’s shrill +remonstrances. + +All this time Jonas had seen nothing of Tom and his sister; for they +were almost behind the door when he opened it, and he had sat down with +his back towards them, and had purposely kept his eyes upon the opposite +side of the street during his altercation with Miss Pecksniff, in order +that his seeming carelessness might increase the exasperation of that +wronged young damsel. His wife now faltered out that Tom had been +waiting to see him; and Tom advanced. + +The instant he presented himself, Jonas got up from his chair, and +swearing a great oath, caught it in his grasp, as if he would have +felled Tom to the ground with it. As he most unquestionably would have +done, but that his very passion and surprise made him irresolute, and +gave Tom, in his calmness, an opportunity of being heard. + +‘You have no cause to be violent, sir,’ said Tom. ‘Though what I wish to +say relates to your own affairs, I know nothing of them, and desire to +know nothing of them.’ + +Jonas was too enraged to speak. He held the door open; and stamping his +foot upon the ground, motioned Tom away. + +‘As you cannot suppose,’ said Tom, ‘that I am here with any view of +conciliating you or pleasing myself, I am quite indifferent to your +reception of me, or your dismissal of me. Hear what I have to say, if +you are not a madman! I gave you a letter the other day, when you were +about to go abroad.’ + +‘You Thief, you did!’ retorted Jonas. ‘I’ll pay you for the carriage of +it one day, and settle an old score besides. I will!’ + +‘Tut, tut,’ said Tom, ‘you needn’t waste words or threats. I wish you +to understand--plainly because I would rather keep clear of you and +everything that concerns you: not because I have the least apprehension +of your doing me any injury: which would be weak indeed--that I am no +party to the contents of that letter. That I know nothing of it. That I +was not even aware that it was to be delivered to you; and that I had it +from--’ + +‘By the Lord!’ cried Jonas, fiercely catching up the chair, ‘I’ll knock +your brains out, if you speak another word.’ + +Tom, nevertheless, persisting in his intention, and opening his lips to +speak again, Jonas set upon him like a savage; and in the quickness and +ferocity of his attack would have surely done him some grievous injury, +defenceless as he was, and embarrassed by having his frightened sister +clinging to his arm, if Merry had not run between them, crying to +Tom for the love of Heaven to leave the house. The agony of this poor +creature, the terror of his sister, the impossibility of making himself +audible, and the equal impossibility of bearing up against Mrs Gamp, who +threw herself upon him like a feather-bed, and forced him backwards down +the stairs by the mere oppression of her dead weight, prevailed. Tom +shook the dust of that house off his feet, without having mentioned +Nadgett’s name. + +If the name could have passed his lips; if Jonas, in the insolence of +his vile nature, had never roused him to do that old act of manliness, +for which (and not for his last offence) he hated him with such +malignity; if Jonas could have learned, as then he could and would have +learned, through Tom’s means, what unsuspected spy there was upon him; +he would have been saved from the commission of a Guilty Deed, then +drawing on towards its black accomplishment. But the fatality was of +his own working; the pit was of his own digging; the gloom that gathered +round him was the shadow of his own life. + +His wife had closed the door, and thrown herself before it, on the +ground, upon her knees. She held up her hands to him now, and besought +him not to be harsh with her, for she had interposed in fear of +bloodshed. + +‘So, so!’ said Jonas, looking down upon her, as he fetched his breath. +‘These are your friends, are they, when I am away? You plot and tamper +with this sort of people, do you?’ + +‘No, indeed! I have no knowledge of these secrets, and no clue to +their meaning. I have never seen him since I left home but once--but +twice--before to-day.’ + +‘Oh!’ sneered Jonas, catching at this correction. ‘But once, but twice, +eh? Which do you mean? Twice and once, perhaps. Three times! How many +more, you lying jade?’ + +As he made an angry motion with his hand, she shrunk down hastily. A +suggestive action! Full of a cruel truth! + +‘How many more times?’ he repeated. + +‘No more. The other morning, and to-day, and once besides.’ + +He was about to retort upon her, when the clock struck. He started +stopped, and listened; appearing to revert to some engagement, or to +some other subject, a secret within his own breast, recalled to him by +this record of the progress of the hours. + +‘Don’t lie there! Get up!’ + +Having helped her to rise, or rather hauled her up by the arm, he went +on to say: + +‘Listen to me, young lady; and don’t whine when you have no occasion, or +I may make some for you. If I find him in my house again, or find that +you have seen him in anybody else’s house, you’ll repent it. If you are +not deaf and dumb to everything that concerns me, unless you have my +leave to hear and speak, you’ll repent it. If you don’t obey exactly +what I order, you’ll repent it. Now, attend. What’s the time?’ + +‘It struck eight a minute ago.’ + +He looked towards her intently; and said, with a laboured distinctness, +as if he had got the words off by heart: + +‘I have been travelling day and night, and am tired. I have lost some +money, and that don’t improve me. Put my supper in the little off-room +below, and have the truckle-bed made. I shall sleep there to-night, and +maybe to-morrow night; and if I can sleep all day to-morrow, so much +the better, for I’ve got trouble to sleep off, if I can. Keep the house +quiet, and don’t call me. Mind! Don’t call me. Don’t let anybody call +me. Let me lie there.’ + +She said it should be done. Was that all? + +‘All what? You must be prying and questioning!’ he angrily retorted. +‘What more do you want to know?’ + +‘I want to know nothing, Jonas, but what you tell me. All hope of +confidence between us has long deserted me!’ + +‘Ecod, I should hope so!’ he muttered. + +‘But if you will tell me what you wish, I will be obedient and will +try to please you. I make no merit of that, for I have no friend in +my father or my sister, but am quite alone. I am very humble and +submissive. You told me you would break my spirit, and you have done so. +Do not break my heart too!’ + +She ventured, as she said these words, to lay her hand upon his +shoulder. He suffered it to rest there, in his exultation; and the whole +mean, abject, sordid, pitiful soul of the man, looked at her, for the +moment, through his wicked eyes. + +For the moment only; for, with the same hurried return to something +within himself, he bade her, in a surly tone, show her obedience by +executing his commands without delay. When she had withdrawn he paced +up and down the room several times; but always with his right hand +clenched, as if it held something; which it did not, being empty. When +he was tired of this, he threw himself into a chair, and thoughtfully +turned up the sleeve of his right arm, as if he were rather musing +about its strength than examining it; but, even then, he kept the hand +clenched. + +He was brooding in this chair, with his eyes cast down upon the ground, +when Mrs Gamp came in to tell him that the little room was ready. Not +being quite sure of her reception after interfering in the quarrel, Mrs +Gamp, as a means of interesting and propitiating her patron, affected a +deep solicitude in Mr Chuffey. + +‘How is he now, sir?’ she said. + +‘Who?’ cried Jonas, raising his head, and staring at her. + +‘To be sure!’ returned the matron with a smile and a curtsey. ‘What am I +thinking of! You wasn’t here, sir, when he was took so strange. I never +see a poor dear creetur took so strange in all my life, except a patient +much about the same age, as I once nussed, which his calling was the +custom-’us, and his name was Mrs Harris’s own father, as pleasant a +singer, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a Jew’s-harp +in the bass notes, that it took six men to hold at sech times, foaming +frightful.’ + +‘Chuffey, eh?’ said Jonas carelessly, seeing that she went up to the +old, clerk, and looked at him. ‘Ha!’ + +‘The creetur’s head’s so hot,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘that you might heat a +flat-iron at it. And no wonder I am sure, considerin’ the things he +said!’ + +‘Said!’ cried Jonas. ‘What did he say?’ + +Mrs Gamp laid her hand upon her heart, to put some check upon its +palpitations, and turning up her eyes replied in a faint voice: + +‘The awfulest things, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever I heerd! Which Mrs Harris’s +father never spoke a word when took so, some does and some don’t, except +sayin’ when he come round, “Where is Sairey Gamp?” But raly, sir, when +Mr Chuffey comes to ask who’s lyin’ dead upstairs, and--’ + +‘Who’s lying dead upstairs!’ repeated Jonas, standing aghast. + +Mrs Gamp nodded, made as if she were swallowing, and went on. + +‘Who’s lying dead upstairs; sech was his Bible language; and where was +Mr Chuzzlewit as had the only son; and when he goes upstairs a-looking +in the beds and wandering about the rooms, and comes down again +a-whisperin’ softly to his-self about foul play and that; it gives me +sech a turn, I don’t deny it, Mr Chuzzlewit, that I never could have kep +myself up but for a little drain o’ spirits, which I seldom touches, but +could always wish to know where to find, if so dispoged, never knowin’ +wot may happen next, the world bein’ so uncertain.’ + +‘Why, the old fool’s mad!’ cried Jonas, much disturbed. + +‘That’s my opinion, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘and I will not deceive you. I +believe as Mr Chuffey, sir, rekwires attention (if I may make so bold), +and should not have his liberty to wex and worrit your sweet lady as he +does.’ + +‘Why, who minds what he says?’ retorted Jonas. + +‘Still he is worritin’ sir,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘No one don’t mind him, but +he IS a ill conwenience.’ + +‘Ecod you’re right,’ said Jonas, looking doubtfully at the subject of +this conversation. ‘I have half a mind to shut him up.’ + +Mrs Gamp rubbed her hands, and smiled, and shook her head, and sniffed +expressively, as scenting a job. + +‘Could you--could you take care of such an idiot, now, in some spare +room upstairs?’ asked Jonas. + +‘Me and a friend of mine, one off, one on, could do it, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ +replied the nurse; ‘our charges not bein’ high, but wishin’ they was +lower, and allowance made considerin’ not strangers. Me and Betsey Prig, +sir, would undertake Mr Chuffey reasonable,’ said Mrs Gamp, looking at +him with her head on one side, as if he had been a piece of goods, for +which she was driving a bargain; ‘and give every satigefaction. Betsey +Prig has nussed a many lunacies, and well she knows their ways, +which puttin’ ‘em right close afore the fire, when fractious, is the +certainest and most compoging.’ + +While Mrs Gamp discoursed to this effect, Jonas was walking up and down +the room again, glancing covertly at the old clerk, as he did so. He now +made a stop, and said: + +‘I must look after him, I suppose, or I may have him doing some +mischief. What say you?’ + +‘Nothin’ more likely!’ Mrs Gamp replied. ‘As well I have experienged, I +do assure you, sir.’ + +‘Well! Look after him for the present, and--let me see--three days from +this time let the other woman come here, and we’ll see if we can make +a bargain of it. About nine or ten o’clock at night, say. Keep your eye +upon him in the meanwhile, and don’t talk about it. He’s as mad as a +March hare!’ + +‘Madder!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘A deal madder!’ + +‘See to him, then; take care that he does no harm; and recollect what I +have told you.’ + +Leaving Mrs Gamp in the act of repeating all she had been told, and +of producing in support of her memory and trustworthiness, many +commendations selected from among the most remarkable opinions of the +celebrated Mrs Harris, he descended to the little room prepared for him, +and pulling off his coat and his boots, put them outside the door before +he locked it. In locking it, he was careful so to adjust the key as to +baffle any curious person who might try to peep in through the key-hole; +and when he had taken these precautions, he sat down to his supper. + +‘Mr Chuff,’ he muttered, ‘it’ll be pretty easy to be even with YOU. It’s +of no use doing things by halves, and as long as I stop here, I’ll take +good care of you. When I’m off you may say what you please. But it’s +a d--d strange thing,’ he added, pushing away his untouched plate, and +striding moodily to and fro, ‘that his drivellings should have taken +this turn just now.’ + +After pacing the little room from end to end several times, he sat down +in another chair. + +‘I say just now, but for anything I know, he may have been carrying on +the same game all along. Old dog! He shall be gagged!’ + +He paced the room again in the same restless and unsteady way; and then +sat down upon the bedstead, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking +at the table. When he had looked at it for a long time, he remembered +his supper; and resuming the chair he had first occupied, began to eat +with great rapacity; not like a hungry man, but as if he were determined +to do it. He drank too, roundly; sometimes stopping in the middle of a +draught to walk, and change his seat and walk again, and dart back to +the table and fall to, in a ravenous hurry, as before. + +It was now growing dark. As the gloom of evening, deepening into +night, came on, another dark shade emerging from within him seemed to +overspread his face, and slowly change it. Slowly, slowly; darker and +darker; more and more haggard; creeping over him by little and little, +until it was black night within him and without. + +The room in which he had shut himself up, was on the ground floor, at +the back of the house. It was lighted by a dirty skylight, and had a +door in the wall, opening into a narrow covered passage or blind-alley, +very little frequented after five or six o’clock in the evening, and +not in much use as a thoroughfare at any hour. But it had an outlet in a +neighbouring street. + +The ground on which this chamber stood had, at one time, not within his +recollection, been a yard; and had been converted to its present purpose +for use as an office. But the occasion for it died with the man who +built it; and saving that it had sometimes served as an apology for a +spare bedroom, and that the old clerk had once held it (but that was +years ago) as his recognized apartment, it had been little troubled by +Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son. It was a blotched, stained, mouldering room, +like a vault; and there were water-pipes running through it, which at +unexpected times in the night, when other things were quiet, clicked and +gurgled suddenly, as if they were choking. + +The door into the court had not been open for a long, long time; but the +key had always hung in one place, and there it hung now. He was prepared +for its being rusty; for he had a little bottle of oil in his pocket and +the feather of a pen, with which he lubricated the key and the lock too, +carefully. All this while he had been without his coat, and had nothing +on his feet but his stockings. He now got softly into bed in the same +state, and tossed from side to side to tumble it. In his restless +condition that was easily done. + +When he arose, he took from his portmanteau, which he had caused to be +carried into that place when he came home, a pair of clumsy shoes, +and put them on his feet; also a pair of leather leggings, such +as countrymen are used to wear, with straps to fasten them to the +waistband. In these he dressed himself at leisure. Lastly, he took out +a common frock of coarse dark jean, which he drew over his own +under-clothing; and a felt hat--he had purposely left his own upstairs. +He then sat himself down by the door, with the key in his hand, waiting. + +He had no light; the time was dreary, long, and awful. The ringers were +practicing in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of the bells was +almost maddening. Curse the clamouring bells, they seemed to know that +he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a crowd of voices to +all the town! Would they never be still? + +They ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and terrible that +it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise. Footsteps in the court! +Two men. He fell back from the door on tiptoe, as if they could have +seen him through its wooden panels. + +They passed on, talking (he could make out) about a skeleton which had +been dug up yesterday, in some work of excavation near at hand, and was +supposed to be that of a murdered man. ‘So murder is not always found +out, you see,’ they said to one another as they turned the corner. + +Hush! + +He put the key into the lock, and turned it. The door resisted for a +while, but soon came stiffly open; mingling with the sense of fever in +his mouth, a taste of rust, and dust, and earth, and rotting wood. He +looked out; passed out; locked it after him. + +All was clear and quiet, as he fled away. + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN + +CONCLUSION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND + + +Did no men passing through the dim streets shrink without knowing why, +when he came stealing up behind them? As he glided on, had no child in +its sleep an indistinct perception of a guilty shadow falling on its +bed, that troubled its innocent rest? Did no dog howl, and strive to +break its rattling chain, that it might tear him; no burrowing rat, +scenting the work he had in hand, essay to gnaw a passage after him, +that it might hold a greedy revel at the feast of his providing? When he +looked back, across his shoulder, was it to see if his quick footsteps +still fell dry upon the dusty pavement, or were already moist and +clogged with the red mire that stained the naked feet of Cain! + +He shaped his course for the main western road, and soon reached it; +riding a part of the way, then alighting and walking on again. He +travelled for a considerable distance upon the roof of a stage-coach, +which came up while he was afoot; and when it turned out of his road, +bribed the driver of a return post-chaise to take him on with him; and +then made across the country at a run, and saved a mile or two before he +struck again into the road. At last, as his plan was, he came up with a +certain lumbering, slow, night-coach, which stopped wherever it could, +and was stopping then at a public-house, while the guard and coachman +ate and drank within. + +He bargained for a seat outside this coach, and took it. And he quitted +it no more until it was within a few miles of its destination, but +occupied the same place all night. + +All night! It is a common fancy that nature seems to sleep by night. It +is a false fancy, as who should know better than he? + +The fishes slumbered in the cold, bright, glistening streams and rivers, +perhaps; and the birds roosted on the branches of the trees; and in +their stalls and pastures beasts were quiet; and human creatures slept. +But what of that, when the solemn night was watching, when it never +winked, when its darkness watched no less than its light! The stately +trees, the moon and shining stars, the softly stirring wind, the +over-shadowed lane, the broad, bright countryside, they all kept watch. +There was not a blade of growing grass or corn, but watched; and the +quieter it was, the more intent and fixed its watch upon him seemed to +be. + +And yet he slept. Riding on among those sentinels of God, he slept, +and did not change the purpose of his journey. If he forgot it in his +troubled dreams, it came up steadily, and woke him. But it never woke +him to remorse, or to abandonment of his design. + +He dreamed at one time that he was lying calmly in his bed, thinking of +a moonlight night and the noise of wheels, when the old clerk put +his head in at the door, and beckoned him. At this signal he arose +immediately--being already dressed in the clothes he actually wore at +that time--and accompanied him into a strange city, where the names of +the streets were written on the walls in characters quite new to him; +which gave him no surprise or uneasiness, for he remembered in his dream +to have been there before. Although these streets were very precipitous, +insomuch that to get from one to another it was necessary to descend +great heights by ladders that were too short, and ropes that moved deep +bells, and swung and swayed as they were clung to, the danger gave him +little emotion beyond the first thrill of terror; his anxieties being +concentrated on his dress which was quite unfitted for some festival +that was about to be holden there, and in which he had come to take +a part. Already, great crowds began to fill the streets, and in +one direction myriads of people came rushing down an interminable +perspective, strewing flowers and making way for others on white horses, +when a terrible figure started from the throng, and cried out that it +was the Last Day for all the world. The cry being spread, there was a +wild hurrying on to Judgment; and the press became so great that he and +his companion (who was constantly changing, and was never the same man +two minutes together, though he never saw one man come or another go), +stood aside in a porch, fearfully surveying the multitude; in which +there were many faces that he knew, and many that he did not know, but +dreamed he did; when all at once a struggling head rose up among the +rest--livid and deadly, but the same as he had known it--and denounced +him as having appointed that direful day to happen. They closed +together. As he strove to free the hand in which he held a club, and +strike the blow he had so often thought of, he started to the knowledge +of his waking purpose and the rising of the sun. + +The sun was welcome to him. There were life and motion, and a world +astir, to divide the attention of Day. It was the eye of Night--of +wakeful, watchful, silent, and attentive Night, with so much leisure for +the observation of his wicked thoughts--that he dreaded most. There is +no glare in the night. Even Glory shows to small advantage in the night, +upon a crowded battle-field. How then shows Glory’s blood-relation, +bastard Murder! + +Aye! He made no compromise, and held no secret with himself now. Murder. +He had come to do it. + +‘Let me get down here’ he said + +‘Short of the town, eh!’ observed the coachman. + +‘I may get down where I please, I suppose?’ + +‘You got up to please yourself, and may get down to please yourself. It +won’t break our hearts to lose you, and it wouldn’t have broken ‘em if +we’d never found you. Be a little quicker. That’s all.’ + +The guard had alighted, and was waiting in the road to take his money. +In the jealousy and distrust of what he contemplated, he thought this +man looked at him with more than common curiosity. + +‘What are you staring at?’ said Jonas. + +‘Not at a handsome man,’ returned the guard. ‘If you want your fortune +told, I’ll tell you a bit of it. You won’t be drowned. That’s a +consolation for you.’ + +Before he could retort or turn away, the coachman put an end to the +dialogue by giving him a cut with his whip, and bidding him get out for a +surly dog. The guard jumped up to his seat at the same moment, and they +drove off, laughing; leaving him to stand in the road and shake his fist +at them. He was not displeased though, on second thoughts, to have +been taken for an ill-conditioned common country fellow; but rather +congratulated himself upon it as a proof that he was well disguised. + +Wandering into a copse by the road-side--but not in that place; two or +three miles off--he tore out from a fence a thick, hard, knotted stake; +and, sitting down beneath a hayrick, spent some time in shaping it, in +peeling off the bark, and fashioning its jagged head with his knife. + +The day passed on. Noon, afternoon, evening. Sunset. + +At that serene and peaceful time two men, riding in a gig, came out +of the city by a road not much frequented. It was the day on which Mr +Pecksniff had agreed to dine with Montague. He had kept his appointment, +and was now going home. His host was riding with him for a short +distance; meaning to return by a pleasant track, which Mr Pecksniff had +engaged to show him, through some fields. Jonas knew their plans. He had +hung about the inn-yard while they were at dinner and had heard their +orders given. + +They were loud and merry in their conversation, and might have been +heard at some distance; far above the sound of their carriage wheels +or horses’ hoofs. They came on noisily, to where a stile and footpath +indicated their point of separation. Here they stopped. + +‘It’s too soon. Much too soon,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘But this is the +place, my dear sir. Keep the path, and go straight through the little +wood you’ll come to. The path is narrower there, but you can’t miss it. +When shall I see you again? Soon I hope?’ + +‘I hope so,’ replied Montague. + +‘Good night!’ + +‘Good night. And a pleasant ride!’ + +So long as Mr Pecksniff was in sight, and turned his head at intervals +to salute him, Montague stood in the road smiling, and waving his hand. +But when his new partner had disappeared, and this show was no longer +necessary, he sat down on the stile with looks so altered, that he might +have grown ten years older in the meantime. + +He was flushed with wine, but not gay. His scheme had succeeded, but he +showed no triumph. The effort of sustaining his difficult part before +his late companion had fatigued him, perhaps, or it may be that the +evening whispered to his conscience, or it may be (as it HAS been) that +a shadowy veil was dropping round him, closing out all thoughts but the +presentiment and vague foreknowledge of impending doom. + +If there be fluids, as we know there are, which, conscious of a coming +wind, or rain, or frost, will shrink and strive to hide themselves in +their glass arteries; may not that subtle liquor of the blood perceive, +by properties within itself, that hands are raised to waste and spill +it; and in the veins of men run cold and dull as his did, in that hour! + +So cold, although the air was warm; so dull, although the sky was +bright; that he rose up shivering from his seat, and hastily resumed +his walk. He checked himself as hastily; undecided whether to pursue the +footpath, which was lonely and retired, or to go back by the road. + +He took the footpath. + +The glory of the departing sun was on his face. The music of the birds +was in his ears. Sweet wild flowers bloomed about him. Thatched roofs of +poor men’s homes were in the distance; and an old grey spire, surmounted +by a Cross, rose up between him and the coming night. + +He had never read the lesson which these things conveyed; he had ever +mocked and turned away from it; but, before going down into a hollow +place, he looked round, once, upon the evening prospect, sorrowfully. +Then he went down, down, down, into the dell. + +It brought him to the wood; a close, thick, shadowy wood, through which +the path went winding on, dwindling away into a slender sheep-track. He +paused before entering; for the stillness of this spot almost daunted +him. + +The last rays of the sun were shining in, aslant, making a path of +golden light along the stems and branches in its range, which, even as +he looked, began to die away, yielding gently to the twilight that came +creeping on. It was so very quiet that the soft and stealthy moss about +the trunks of some old trees, seemed to have grown out of the silence, +and to be its proper offspring. Those other trees which were subdued +by blasts of wind in winter time, had not quite tumbled down, but being +caught by others, lay all bare and scathed across their leafy arms, as +if unwilling to disturb the general repose by the crash of their fall. +Vistas of silence opened everywhere, into the heart and innermost +recesses of the wood; beginning with the likeness of an aisle, a +cloister, or a ruin open to the sky; then tangling off into a deep green +rustling mystery, through which gnarled trunks, and twisted boughs, and +ivy-covered stems, and trembling leaves, and bark-stripped bodies of old +trees stretched out at length, were faintly seen in beautiful confusion. + +As the sunlight died away, and evening fell upon the wood, he entered +it. Moving, here and there a bramble or a drooping bough which stretched +across his path, he slowly disappeared. At intervals a narrow opening +showed him passing on, or the sharp cracking of some tender branch +denoted where he went; then, he was seen or heard no more. + +Never more beheld by mortal eye or heard by mortal ear; one man +excepted. That man, parting the leaves and branches on the other side, +near where the path emerged again, came leaping out soon afterwards. + +What had he left within the wood, that he sprang out of it as if it were +a hell! + +The body of a murdered man. In one thick solitary spot, it lay among +the last year’s leaves of oak and beech, just as it had fallen headlong +down. Sopping and soaking in among the leaves that formed its pillow; +oozing down into the boggy ground, as if to cover itself from human +sight; forcing its way between and through the curling leaves, as if +those senseless things rejected and forswore it and were coiled up in +abhorrence; went a dark, dark stain that dyed the whole summer night +from earth to heaven. + +The doer of this deed came leaping from the wood so fiercely, that he +cast into the air a shower of fragments of young boughs, torn away +in his passage, and fell with violence upon the grass. But he quickly +gained his feet again, and keeping underneath a hedge with his body +bent, went running on towards the road. The road once reached, he fell +into a rapid walk, and set on toward London. + +And he was not sorry for what he had done. He was frightened when he +thought of it--when did he not think of it!--but he was not sorry. He +had had a terror and dread of the wood when he was in it; but being +out of it, and having committed the crime, his fears were now diverted, +strangely, to the dark room he had left shut up at home. He had a +greater horror, infinitely greater, of that room than of the wood. Now +that he was on his return to it, it seemed beyond comparison more dismal +and more dreadful than the wood. His hideous secret was shut up in the +room, and all its terrors were there; to his thinking it was not in the +wood at all. + +He walked on for ten miles; and then stopped at an ale-house for a +coach, which he knew would pass through, on its way to London, before +long; and which he also knew was not the coach he had travelled down by, +for it came from another place. He sat down outside the door here, on +a bench, beside a man who was smoking his pipe. Having called for some +beer, and drunk, he offered it to this companion, who thanked him, and +took a draught. He could not help thinking that, if the man had known +all, he might scarcely have relished drinking out of the same cup with +him. + +‘A fine night, master!’ said this person. ‘And a rare sunset.’ + +‘I didn’t see it,’ was his hasty answer. + +‘Didn’t see it?’ returned the man. + +‘How the devil could I see it, if I was asleep?’ + +‘Asleep! Aye, aye.’ The man appeared surprised by his unexpected +irritability, and saying no more, smoked his pipe in silence. They had +not sat very long, when there was a knocking within. + +‘What’s that?’ cried Jonas. + +‘Can’t say, I’m sure,’ replied the man. + +He made no further inquiry, for the last question had escaped him in +spite of himself. But he was thinking, at the moment, of the closed-up +room; of the possibility of their knocking at the door on some special +occasion; of their being alarmed at receiving no answer; of their +bursting it open; of their finding the room empty; of their fastening +the door into the court, and rendering it impossible for him to get into +the house without showing himself in the garb he wore, which would lead +to rumour, rumour to detection, detection to death. At that instant, as +if by some design and order of circumstances, the knocking had come. + +It still continued; like a warning echo of the dread reality he had +conjured up. As he could not sit and hear it, he paid for his beer and +walked on again. And having slunk about, in places unknown to him all +day; and being out at night, in a lonely road, in an unusual dress and +in that wandering and unsettled frame of mind; he stopped more than once +to look about him, hoping he might be in a dream. + +Still he was not sorry. No. He had hated the man too much, and had been +bent, too desperately and too long, on setting himself free. If the +thing could have come over again, he would have done it again. His +malignant and revengeful passions were not so easily laid. There was no +more penitence or remorse within him now than there had been while the +deed was brewing. + +Dread and fear were upon him, to an extent he had never counted on, and +could not manage in the least degree. He was so horribly afraid of that +infernal room at home. This made him, in a gloomy murderous, mad way, +not only fearful FOR himself, but OF himself; for being, as it were, a +part of the room: a something supposed to be there, yet missing from it: +he invested himself with its mysterious terrors; and when he pictured in +his mind the ugly chamber, false and quiet, false and quiet, through the +dark hours of two nights; and the tumbled bed, and he not in it, though +believed to be; he became in a manner his own ghost and phantom, and was +at once the haunting spirit and the haunted man. + +When the coach came up, which it soon did, he got a place outside and +was carried briskly onward towards home. Now, in taking his seat among +the people behind, who were chiefly country people, he conceived a fear +that they knew of the murder, and would tell him that the body had been +found; which, considering the time and place of the commission of the +crime, were events almost impossible to have happened yet, as he very +well knew. But although he did know it, and had therefore no reason +to regard their ignorance as anything but the natural sequence to +the facts, still this very ignorance of theirs encouraged him. So far +encouraged him, that he began to believe the body never would be found, +and began to speculate on that probability. Setting off from this point, +and measuring time by the rapid hurry of his guilty thoughts, and +what had gone before the bloodshed, and the troops of incoherent and +disordered images of which he was the constant prey; he came by +daylight to regard the murder as an old murder, and to think himself +comparatively safe because it had not been discovered yet. Yet! When the +sun which looked into the wood, and gilded with its rising light a dead +man’s lace, had seen that man alive, and sought to win him to a thought +of Heaven, on its going down last night! + +But here were London streets again. Hush! + +It was but five o’clock. He had time enough to reach his own house +unobserved, and before there were many people in the streets, if nothing +had happened so far, tending to his discovery. He slipped down from +the coach without troubling the driver to stop his horses; and hurrying +across the road, and in and out of every by-way that lay near his +course, at length approached his own dwelling. He used additional +caution in his immediate neighbourhood; halting first to look all +down the street before him; then gliding swiftly through that one, and +stopping to survey the next, and so on. + +The passage-way was empty when his murderer’s face looked into it. He +stole on, to the door on tiptoe, as if he dreaded to disturb his own +imaginary rest. + +He listened. Not a sound. As he turned the key with a trembling hand, +and pushed the door softly open with his knee, a monstrous fear beset +his mind. + +What if the murdered man were there before him! + +He cast a fearful glance all round. But there was nothing there. + +He went in, locked the door, drew the key through and through the dust +and damp in the fire-place to sully it again, and hung it up as of old. +He took off his disguise, tied it up in a bundle ready for carrying away +and sinking in the river before night, and locked it up in a cupboard. +These precautions taken, he undressed and went to bed. + +The raging thirst, the fire that burnt within him as he lay beneath the +clothes, the augmented horror of the room when they shut it out from his +view; the agony of listening, in which he paid enforced regard to every +sound, and thought the most unlikely one the prelude to that knocking +which should bring the news; the starts with which he left his couch, +and looking in the glass, imagined that his deed was broadly written +in his face, and lying down and burying himself once more beneath the +blankets, heard his own heart beating Murder, Murder, Murder, in the +bed; what words can paint tremendous truths like these! + +The morning advanced. There were footsteps in the house. He heard the +blinds drawn up, and shutters opened; and now and then a stealthy tread +outside his own door. He tried to call out, more than once, but his +mouth was dry as if it had been filled with sand. At last he sat up in +his bed, and cried: + +‘Who’s there?’ + +It was his wife. + +He asked her what it was o’clock? Nine. + +‘Did--did no one knock at my door yesterday?’ he faltered. ‘Something +disturbed me; but unless you had knocked the door down, you would have +got no notice from me.’ + +‘No one,’ she replied. That was well. He had waited, almost breathless, +for her answer. It was a relief to him, if anything could be. + +‘Mr Nadgett wanted to see you,’ she said, ‘but I told him you were +tired, and had requested not to be disturbed. He said it was of little +consequence, and went away. As I was opening my window to let in the +cool air, I saw him passing through the street this morning, very early; +but he hasn’t been again.’ + +Passing through the street that morning? Very early! Jonas trembled at +the thought of having had a narrow chance of seeing him himself; even +him, who had no object but to avoid people, and sneak on unobserved, and +keep his own secrets; and who saw nothing. + +He called to her to get his breakfast ready, and prepared to go +upstairs; attiring himself in the clothes he had taken off when he came +into that room, which had been, ever since, outside the door. In his +secret dread of meeting the household for the first time, after what he +had done, he lingered at the door on slight pretexts that they might see +him without looking in his face; and left it ajar while he dressed; and +called out to have the windows opened, and the pavement watered, that +they might become accustomed to his voice. Even when he had put off the +time, by one means or other, so that he had seen or spoken to them all, +he could not muster courage for a long while to go in among them, +but stood at his own door listening to the murmur of their distant +conversation. + +He could not stop there for ever, and so joined them. His last glance at +the glass had seen a tell-tale face, but that might have been because +of his anxious looking in it. He dared not look at them to see if they +observed him, but he thought them very silent. + +And whatsoever guard he kept upon himself, he could not help listening, +and showing that he listened. Whether he attended to their talk, or +tried to think of other things, or talked himself, or held his peace, or +resolutely counted the dull tickings of a hoarse clock at his back, he +always lapsed, as if a spell were on him, into eager listening. For +he knew it must come. And his present punishment, and torture and +distraction, were, to listen for its coming. + +Hush! + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT + +BEARS TIDINGS OF MARTIN AND OF MARK, AS WELL AS OF A THIRD PERSON NOT +QUITE UNKNOWN TO THE READER. EXHIBITS FILIAL PIETY IN AN UGLY ASPECT; +AND CASTS A DOUBTFUL RAY OF LIGHT UPON A VERY DARK PLACE + + +Tom Pinch and Ruth were sitting at their early breakfast, with the +window open, and a row of the freshest little plants ranged before it +on the inside by Ruth’s own hands; and Ruth had fastened a sprig of +geranium in Tom’s button-hole, to make him very smart and summer-like +for the day (it was obliged to be fastened in, or that dear old Tom +was certain to lose it); and people were crying flowers up and down the +street; and a blundering bee, who had got himself in between the +two sashes of the window, was bruising his head against the glass, +endeavouring to force himself out into the fine morning, and considering +himself enchanted because he couldn’t do it; and the morning was as fine +a morning as ever was seen; and the fragrant air was kissing Ruth and +rustling about Tom, as if it said, ‘how are you, my dears; I came all +this way on purpose to salute you;’ and it was one of those glad times +when we form, or ought to form, the wish that every one on earth were +able to be happy, and catching glimpses of the summer of the heart, to +feel the beauty of the summer of the year. + +It was even a pleasanter breakfast than usual; and it was always a +pleasant one. For little Ruth had now two pupils to attend, each three +times a week; and each two hours at a time; and besides this, she had +painted some screens and card-racks, and, unknown to Tom (was there ever +anything so delightful!), had walked into a certain shop which dealt +in such articles, after often peeping through the window; and had taken +courage to ask the Mistress of that shop whether she would buy them. And +the mistress had not only bought them, but had ordered more, and that +very morning Ruth had made confession of these facts to Tom, and had +handed him the money in a little purse she had worked expressly for the +purpose. They had been in a flutter about this, and perhaps had shed a +happy tear or two for anything the history knows to the contrary; but +it was all over now; and a brighter face than Tom’s, or a brighter face +than Ruth’s, the bright sun had not looked on since he went to bed last +night. + +‘My dear girl,’ said Tom, coming so abruptly on the subject, that he +interrupted himself in the act of cutting a slice of bread, and left +the knife sticking in the loaf, ‘what a queer fellow our landlord is! +I don’t believe he has been home once since he got me into that +unsatisfactory scrape. I begin to think he will never come home again. +What a mysterious life that man does lead, to be sure!’ + +‘Very strange. Is it not, Tom?’ + +‘Really,’ said Tom, ‘I hope it is only strange. I hope there may be +nothing wrong in it. Sometimes I begin to be doubtful of that. I must +have an explanation with him,’ said Tom, shaking his head as if this +were a most tremendous threat, ‘when I can catch him!’ + +A short double knock at the door put Tom’s menacing looks to flight, and +awakened an expression of surprise instead. + +‘Heyday!’ said Tom. ‘An early hour for visitors! It must be John, I +suppose.’ + +‘I--I--don’t think it was his knock, Tom,’ observed his little sister. + +‘No?’ said Tom. ‘It surely can’t be my employer suddenly arrived in +town; directed here by Mr Fips; and come for the key of the office. It’s +somebody inquiring for me, I declare! Come in, if you please!’ + +But when the person came in, Tom Pinch, instead of saying, ‘Did you +wish to speak with me, sir?’ or, ‘My name is Pinch, sir; what is your +business, may I ask?’ or addressing him in any such distant terms; cried +out, ‘Good gracious Heaven!’ and seized him by both hands, with the +liveliest manifestations of astonishment and pleasure. + +The visitor was not less moved than Tom himself, and they shook hands a +great many times, without another word being spoken on either side. Tom +was the first to find his voice. + +‘Mark Tapley, too!’ said Tom, running towards the door, and shaking +hands with somebody else. ‘My dear Mark, come in. How are you, Mark? He +don’t look a day older than he used to do at the Dragon. How ARE you, +Mark?’ + +‘Uncommonly jolly, sir, thank’ee,’ returned Mr Tapley, all smiles and +bows. ‘I hope I see you well, sir.’ + +‘Good gracious me!’ cried Tom, patting him tenderly on the back. ‘How +delightful it is to hear his old voice again! My dear Martin, sit down. +My sister, Martin. Mr Chuzzlewit, my love. Mark Tapley from the Dragon, +my dear. Good gracious me, what a surprise this is! Sit down. Lord, +bless me!’ + +Tom was in such a state of excitement that he couldn’t keep himself +still for a moment, but was constantly running between Mark and Martin, +shaking hands with them alternately, and presenting them over and over +again to his sister. + +‘I remember the day we parted, Martin, as well as if it were yesterday,’ +said Tom. ‘What a day it was! and what a passion you were in! And don’t +you remember my overtaking you in the road that morning, Mark, when I +was going to Salisbury in the gig to fetch him, and you were looking out +for a situation? And don’t you recollect the dinner we had at Salisbury, +Martin, with John Westlock, eh! Good gracious me! Ruth, my dear, +Mr Chuzzlewit. Mark Tapley, my love, from the Dragon. More cups and +saucers, if you please. Bless my soul, how glad I am to see you both!’ + +And then Tom (as John Westlock had done on his arrival) ran off to the +loaf to cut some bread and butter for them; and before he had spread a +single slice, remembered something else, and came running back again to +tell it; and then he shook hands with them again; and then he introduced +his sister again; and then he did everything he had done already all +over again; and nothing Tom could do, and nothing Tom could say, was +half sufficient to express his joy at their safe return. + +Mr Tapley was the first to resume his composure. In a very short space +of time he was discovered to have somehow installed himself in office as +waiter, or attendant upon the party; a fact which was first suggested to +them by his temporary absence in the kitchen, and speedy return with a +kettle of boiling water, from which he replenished the tea-pot with a +self-possession that was quite his own. + +‘Sit down, and take your breakfast, Mark,’ said Tom. ‘Make him sit down +and take his breakfast, Martin.’ + +‘Oh! I gave him up, long ago, as incorrigible,’ Martin replied. ‘He +takes his own way, Tom. You would excuse him, Miss Pinch, if you knew +his value.’ + +‘She knows it, bless you!’ said Tom. ‘I have told her all about Mark +Tapley. Have I not, Ruth?’ + +‘Yes, Tom.’ + +‘Not all,’ returned Martin, in a low voice. ‘The best of Mark Tapley is +only known to one man, Tom; and but for Mark he would hardly be alive to +tell it!’ + +‘Mark!’ said Tom Pinch energetically; ‘if you don’t sit down this +minute, I’ll swear at you!’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr Tapley, ‘sooner than you should do that, I’ll +com-ply. It’s a considerable invasion of a man’s jollity to be made so +partickler welcome, but a Werb is a word as signifies to be, to do, +or to suffer (which is all the grammar, and enough too, as ever I wos +taught); and if there’s a Werb alive, I’m it. For I’m always a-bein’, +sometimes a-doin’, and continually a-sufferin’.’ + +‘Not jolly yet?’ asked Tom, with a smile. + +‘Why, I was rather so, over the water, sir,’ returned Mr Tapley; ‘and +not entirely without credit. But Human Natur’ is in a conspiracy again’ +me; I can’t get on. I shall have to leave it in my will, sir, to be +wrote upon my tomb: “He was a man as might have come out strong if he +could have got a chance. But it was denied him.”’ + +Mr Tapley took this occasion of looking about him with a grin, and +subsequently attacking the breakfast, with an appetite not at all +expressive of blighted hopes, or insurmountable despondency. + +In the meanwhile, Martin drew his chair a little nearer to Tom and his +sister, and related to them what had passed at Mr Pecksniff’s +house; adding in few words a general summary of the distresses and +disappointments he had undergone since he left England. + +‘For your faithful stewardship in the trust I left with you, Tom,’ he +said, ‘and for all your goodness and disinterestedness, I can never +thank you enough. When I add Mary’s thanks to mine--’ + +Ah, Tom! The blood retreated from his cheeks, and came rushing back, so +violently, that it was pain to feel it; ease though, ease, compared with +the aching of his wounded heart. + +‘When I add Mary’s thanks to mine,’ said Martin, ‘I have made the only +poor acknowledgment it is in our power to offer; but if you knew how +much we feel, Tom, you would set some store by it, I am sure.’ + +And if they had known how much Tom felt--but that no human creature ever +knew--they would have set some store by him. Indeed they would. + +Tom changed the topic of discourse. He was sorry he could not pursue it, +as it gave Martin pleasure; but he was unable, at that moment. No drop +of envy or bitterness was in his soul; but he could not master the firm +utterance of her name. + +He inquired what Martin’s projects were. + +‘No longer to make your fortune, Tom,’ said Martin, ‘but to try to live. +I tried that once in London, Tom; and failed. If you will give me the +benefit of your advice and friendly counsel, I may succeed better under +your guidance. I will do anything Tom, anything, to gain a livelihood by +my own exertions. My hopes do not soar above that, now.’ + +High-hearted, noble Tom! Sorry to find the pride of his old companion +humbled, and to hear him speaking in this altered strain at once, at +once, he drove from his breast the inability to contend with its deep +emotions, and spoke out bravely. + +‘Your hopes do not soar above that!’ cried Tom. ‘Yes they do. How can +you talk so! They soar up to the time when you will be happy with her, +Martin. They soar up to the time when you will be able to claim her, +Martin. They soar up to the time when you will not be able to believe +that you were ever cast down in spirit, or poor in pocket, Martin. +Advice, and friendly counsel! Why, of course. But you shall have better +advice and counsel (though you cannot have more friendly) than mine. You +shall consult John Westlock. We’ll go there immediately. It is yet so +early that I shall have time to take you to his chambers before I go to +business; they are in my way; and I can leave you there, to talk +over your affairs with him. So come along. Come along. I am a man of +occupation now, you know,’ said Tom, with his pleasantest smile; ‘and +have no time to lose. Your hopes don’t soar higher than that? I dare +say they don’t. I know you, pretty well. They’ll be soaring out of sight +soon, Martin, and leaving all the rest of us leagues behind.’ + +‘Aye! But I may be a little changed,’ said Martin, ‘since you knew me +pretty well, Tom.’ + +‘What nonsense!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘Why should you be changed? You talk +as if you were an old man. I never heard such a fellow! Come to John +Westlock’s, come. Come along, Mark Tapley. It’s Mark’s doing, I have +no doubt; and it serves you right for having such a grumbler for your +companion.’ + +‘There’s no credit to be got through being jolly with YOU, Mr Pinch, +anyways,’ said Mark, with his face all wrinkled up with grins. ‘A parish +doctor might be jolly with you. There’s nothing short of goin’ to the +U-nited States for a second trip, as would make it at all creditable to +be jolly, arter seein’ you again!’ + +Tom laughed, and taking leave of his sister, hurried Mark and Martin out +into the street, and away to John Westlock’s by the nearest road; for +his hour of business was very near at hand, and he prided himself on +always being exact to his time. + +John Westlock was at home, but, strange to say, was rather embarrassed +to see them; and when Tom was about to go into the room where he +was breakfasting, said he had a stranger there. It appeared to be a +mysterious stranger, for John shut that door as he said it, and led them +into the next room. + +He was very much delighted, though, to see Mark Tapley; and received +Martin with his own frank courtesy. But Martin felt that he did not +inspire John Westlock with any unusual interest; and twice or +thrice observed that he looked at Tom Pinch doubtfully; not to say +compassionately. He thought, and blushed to think, that he knew the +cause of this. + +‘I apprehend you are engaged,’ said Martin, when Tom had announced the +purport of their visit. ‘If you will allow me to come again at your own +time, I shall be glad to do so.’ + +‘I AM engaged,’ replied John, with some reluctance; ‘but the matter on +which I am engaged is one, to say the truth, more immediately demanding +your knowledge than mine.’ + +‘Indeed!’ cried Martin. + +‘It relates to a member of your family, and is of a serious nature. If +you will have the kindness to remain here, it will be a satisfaction to +me to have it privately communicated to you, in order that you may judge +of its importance for yourself.’ + +‘And in the meantime,’ said Tom, ‘I must really take myself off, without +any further ceremony.’ + +‘Is your business so very particular,’ asked Martin, ‘that you cannot +remain with us for half an hour? I wish you could. What IS your +business, Tom?’ + +It was Tom’s turn to be embarrassed now; but he plainly said, after a +little hesitation: + +‘Why, I am not at liberty to say what it is, Martin; though I hope +soon to be in a condition to do so, and am aware of no other reason +to prevent my doing so now, than the request of my employer. It’s an +awkward position to be placed in,’ said Tom, with an uneasy sense of +seeming to doubt his friend, ‘as I feel every day; but I really cannot +help it, can I, John?’ + +John Westlock replied in the negative; and Martin, expressing himself +perfectly satisfied, begged them not to say another word; though he +could not help wondering very much what curious office Tom held, and why +he was so secret, and embarrassed, and unlike himself, in reference to +it. Nor could he help reverting to it, in his own mind, several times +after Tom went away, which he did as soon as this conversation was +ended, taking Mr Tapley with him, who, as he laughingly said, might +accompany him as far as Fleet Street without injury. + +‘And what do you mean to do, Mark?’ asked Tom, as they walked on +together. + +‘Mean to do, sir?’ returned Mr Tapley. + +‘Aye. What course of life do you mean to pursue?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mr Tapley. ‘The fact is, that I have been a-thinking +rather of the matrimonial line, sir.’ + +‘You don’t say so, Mark!’ cried Tom. + +‘Yes, sir. I’ve been a-turnin’ of it over.’ + +‘And who is the lady, Mark?’ + +‘The which, sir?’ said Mr Tapley. + +‘The lady. Come! You know what I said,’ replied Tom, laughing, ‘as well +as I do!’ + +Mr Tapley suppressed his own inclination to laugh; and with one of his +most whimsically-twisted looks, replied: + +‘You couldn’t guess, I suppose, Mr Pinch?’ + +‘How is it possible?’ said Tom. ‘I don’t know any of your flames, Mark. +Except Mrs Lupin, indeed.’ + +‘Well, sir!’ retorted Mr Tapley. ‘And supposing it was her!’ + +Tom stopping in the street to look at him, Mr Tapley for a moment +presented to his view an utterly stolid and expressionless face; a +perfect dead wall of countenance. But opening window after window in +it with astonishing rapidity, and lighting them all up as for a general +illumination, he repeated: + +‘Supposin’, for the sake of argument, as it was her, sir!’ + +‘Why I thought such a connection wouldn’t suit you, Mark, on any terms!’ +cried Tom. + +‘Well, sir! I used to think so myself, once,’ said Mark. ‘But I ain’t so +clear about it now. A dear, sweet creetur, sir!’ + +‘A dear, sweet creature? To be sure she is,’ cried Tom. ‘But she always +was a dear, sweet creature, was she not?’ + +‘WAS she not!’ assented Mr Tapley. + +‘Then why on earth didn’t you marry her at first, Mark, instead of +wandering abroad, and losing all this time, and leaving her alone by +herself, liable to be courted by other people?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ retorted Mr Tapley, in a spirit of unbounded confidence, +‘I’ll tell you how it come about. You know me, Mr Pinch, sir; there +ain’t a gentleman alive as knows me better. You’re acquainted with my +constitution, and you’re acquainted with my weakness. My constitution +is, to be jolly; and my weakness is, to wish to find a credit in it. +Wery good, sir. In this state of mind, I gets a notion in my head that +she looks on me with a eye of--with what you may call a favourable sort +of a eye in fact,’ said Mr Tapley, with modest hesitation. + +‘No doubt,’ replied Tom. ‘We knew that perfectly well when we spoke on +this subject long ago; before you left the Dragon.’ + +Mr Tapley nodded assent. ‘Well, sir! But bein’ at that time full of +hopeful wisions, I arrives at the conclusion that no credit is to be got +out of such a way of life as that, where everything agreeable would be +ready to one’s hand. Lookin’ on the bright side of human life in short, +one of my hopeful wisions is, that there’s a deal of misery awaitin’ for +me; in the midst of which I may come out tolerable strong, and be jolly +under circumstances as reflects some credit. I goes into the world, sir, +wery boyant, and I tries this. I goes aboard ship first, and wery soon +discovers (by the ease with which I’m jolly, mind you) as there’s no +credit to be got THERE. I might have took warning by this, and gave it +up; but I didn’t. I gets to the U-nited States; and then I DO begin, I +won’t deny it, to feel some little credit in sustaining my spirits. What +follows? Jest as I’m a-beginning to come out, and am a-treadin’ on the +werge, my master deceives me.’ + +‘Deceives you!’ cried Tom. + +‘Swindles me,’ retorted Mr Tapley with a beaming face. ‘Turns his back +on everything as made his service a creditable one, and leaves me high +and dry, without a leg to stand upon. In which state I returns home. +Wery good. Then all my hopeful wisions bein’ crushed; and findin’ that +there ain’t no credit for me nowhere; I abandons myself to despair, +and says, “Let me do that as has the least credit in it of all; marry a +dear, sweet creetur, as is wery fond of me; me bein’, at the same time, +wery fond of her; lead a happy life, and struggle no more again’ the +blight which settles on my prospects.”’ + +‘If your philosophy, Mark,’ said Tom, who laughed heartily at this +speech, ‘be the oddest I ever heard of, it is not the least wise. Mrs +Lupin has said “yes,” of course?’ + +‘Why, no, sir,’ replied Mr Tapley; ‘she hasn’t gone so far as that yet. +Which I attribute principally to my not havin’ asked her. But we was +wery agreeable together--comfortable, I may say--the night I come home. +It’s all right, sir.’ + +‘Well!’ said Tom, stopping at the Temple Gate. ‘I wish you joy, Mark, +with all my heart. I shall see you again to-day, I dare say. Good-bye +for the present.’ + +‘Good-bye, sir! Good-bye, Mr Pinch!’ he added by way of soliloquy, as +he stood looking after him. ‘Although you ARE a damper to a honourable +ambition. You little think it, but you was the first to dash my hopes. +Pecksniff would have built me up for life, but your sweet temper pulled +me down. Good-bye, Mr Pinch!’ + +While these confidences were interchanged between Tom Pinch and Mark, +Martin and John Westlock were very differently engaged. They were no +sooner left alone together than Martin said, with an effort he could not +disguise: + +‘Mr Westlock, we have met only once before, but you have known Tom a +long while, and that seems to render you familiar to me. I cannot +talk freely with you on any subject unless I relieve my mind of what +oppresses it just now. I see with pain that you so far mistrust me that +you think me likely to impose on Tom’s regardlessness of himself, or on +his kind nature, or some of his good qualities.’ + +‘I had no intention,’ replied John, ‘of conveying any such impression to +you, and am exceedingly sorry to have done so.’ + +‘But you entertain it?’ said Martin. + +‘You ask me so pointedly and directly,’ returned the other, ‘that I +cannot deny the having accustomed myself to regard you as one who, +not in wantonness but in mere thoughtlessness of character, did not +sufficiently consider his nature and did not quite treat it as it +deserves to be treated. It is much easier to slight than to appreciate +Tom Pinch.’ + +This was not said warmly, but was energetically spoken too; for there +was no subject in the world (but one) on which the speaker felt so +strongly. + +‘I grew into the knowledge of Tom,’ he pursued, ‘as I grew towards +manhood; and I have learned to love him as something, infinitely better +than myself. I did not think that you understood him when we met before. +I did not think that you greatly cared to understand him. The instances +of this which I observed in you were, like my opportunities for +observation, very trivial--and were very harmless, I dare say. But they +were not agreeable to me, and they forced themselves upon me; for I was +not upon the watch for them, believe me. You will say,’ added John, with +a smile, as he subsided into more of his accustomed manner, ‘that I am +not by any means agreeable to you. I can only assure you, in reply, that +I would not have originated this topic on any account.’ + +‘I originated it,’ said Martin; ‘and so far from having any complaint +to make against you, highly esteem the friendship you entertain for +Tom, and the very many proofs you have given him of it. Why should +I endeavour to conceal from you’--he coloured deeply though--‘that +I neither understood him nor cared to understand him when I was his +companion; and that I am very truly sorry for it now!’ + +It was so sincerely said, at once so modestly and manfully, that John +offered him his hand as if he had not done so before; and Martin giving +his in the same open spirit, all constraint between the young men +vanished. + +‘Now pray,’ said John, ‘when I tire your patience very much in what I +am going to say, recollect that it has an end to it, and that the end is +the point of the story.’ + +With this preface, he related all the circumstances connected with his +having presided over the illness and slow recovery of the patient at the +Bull; and tacked on to the skirts of that narrative Tom’s own account of +the business on the wharf. Martin was not a little puzzled when he came +to an end, for the two stories seemed to have no connection with each +other, and to leave him, as the phrase is, all abroad. + +‘If you will excuse me for one moment,’ said John, rising, ‘I will beg +you almost immediately to come into the next room.’ + +Upon that, he left Martin to himself, in a state of considerable +astonishment; and soon came back again to fulfil his promise. +Accompanying him into the next room, Martin found there a third person; +no doubt the stranger of whom his host had spoken when Tom Pinch +introduced him. + +He was a young man; with deep black hair and eyes. He was gaunt and +pale; and evidently had not long recovered from a severe illness. He +stood as Martin entered, but sat again at John’s desire. His eyes were +cast downward; and but for one glance at them both, half in humiliation +and half in entreaty, he kept them so, and sat quite still and silent. + +‘This person’s name is Lewsome,’ said John Westlock, ‘whom I have +mentioned to you as having been seized with an illness at the inn near +here, and undergone so much. He has had a very hard time of it, ever +since he began to recover; but, as you see, he is now doing well.’ + +As he did not move or speak, and John Westlock made a pause, Martin, not +knowing what to say, said that he was glad to hear it. + +‘The short statement that I wish you to hear from his own lips, Mr +Chuzzlewit,’ John pursued--looking attentively at him, and not at +Martin--‘he made to me for the first time yesterday, and repeated to me +this morning, without the least variation of any essential particular. I +have already told you that he informed me before he was removed from the +Inn, that he had a secret to disclose to me which lay heavy on his mind. +But, fluctuating between sickness and health and between his desire to +relieve himself of it, and his dread of involving himself by revealing +it, he has, until yesterday, avoided the disclosure. I never pressed +him for it (having no idea of its weight or import, or of my right to do +so), until within a few days past; when, understanding from him, on his +own voluntary avowal, in a letter from the country, that it related to a +person whose name was Jonas Chuzzlewit; and thinking that it might throw +some light on that little mystery which made Tom anxious now and then; I +urged the point upon him, and heard his statement, as you will now, +from his own lips. It is due to him to say, that in the apprehension +of death, he committed it to writing sometime since, and folded it in a +sealed paper, addressed to me; which he could not resolve, however, +to place of his own act in my hands. He has the paper in his breast, I +believe, at this moment.’ + +The young man touched it hastily; in corroboration of the fact. + +‘It will be well to leave that in our charge, perhaps,’ said John. ‘But +do not mind it now.’ + +As he said this, he held up his hand to bespeak Martin’s attention. It +was already fixed upon the man before him, who, after a short silence +said, in a low, weak, hollow voice: + +‘What relation was Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit, who--’ + +‘--Who died--to me?’ said Martin. ‘He was my grandfather’s brother.’ + +‘I fear he was made away with. Murdered!’ + +‘My God!’ said Martin. ‘By whom?’ + +The young man, Lewsome, looked up in his face, and casting down his eyes +again, replied: + +‘I fear, by me.’ + +‘By you?’ cried Martin. + +‘Not by my act, but I fear by my means.’ + +‘Speak out!’ said Martin, ‘and speak the truth.’ + +‘I fear this IS the truth.’ + +Martin was about to interrupt him again, but John Westlock saying +softly, ‘Let him tell his story in his own way,’ Lewsome went on thus: + +‘I have been bred a surgeon, and for the last few years have served a +general practitioner in the City, as his assistant. While I was in +his employment I became acquainted with Jonas Chuzzlewit. He is the +principal in this deed.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ demanded Martin, sternly. ‘Do you know he is the son +of the old man of whom you have spoken?’ + +‘I do,’ he answered. + +He remained silent for some moments, when he resumed at the point where +he had left off. + +‘I have reason to know it; for I have often heard him wish his old +father dead, and complain of his being wearisome to him, and a drag +upon him. He was in the habit of doing so, at a place of meeting we +had--three or four of us--at night. There was no good in the place you +may suppose, when you hear that he was the chief of the party. I wish I +had died myself, and never seen it!’ + +He stopped again; and again resumed as before. + +‘We met to drink and game; not for large sums, but for sums that were +large to us. He generally won. Whether or no, he lent money at interest +to those who lost; and in this way, though I think we all secretly hated +him, he came to be the master of us. To propitiate him we made a jest of +his father; it began with his debtors; I was one; and we used to toast +a quicker journey to the old man, and a swift inheritance to the young +one.’ + +He paused again. + +‘One night he came there in a very bad humour. He had been greatly +tried, he said, by the old man that day. He and I were alone together; +and he angrily told me, that the old man was in his second childhood; +that he was weak, imbecile, and drivelling; as unbearable to himself as +he was to other people; and that it would be a charity to put him out of +the way. He swore that he had often thought of mixing something with the +stuff he took for his cough, which should help him to die easily. People +were sometimes smothered who were bitten by mad dogs, he said; and why +not help these lingering old men out of their troubles too? He looked +full at me as he said so, and I looked full at him; but it went no +farther that night.’ + +He stopped once more, and was silent for so long an interval that John +Westlock said ‘Go on.’ Martin had never removed his eyes from his face, +but was so absorbed in horror and astonishment that he could not speak. + +‘It may have been a week after that, or it may have been less or +more--the matter was in my mind all the time, but I cannot recollect the +time, as I should any other period--when he spoke to me again. We were +alone then, too; being there before the usual hour of assembling. There +was no appointment between us; but I think I went there to meet him, and +I know he came there to meet me. He was there first. He was reading +a newspaper when I went in, and nodded to me without looking up, or +leaving off reading. I sat down opposite and close to him. He said, +immediately, that he wanted me to get him some of two sorts of drugs. +One that was instantaneous in its effect; of which he wanted very +little. One that was slow and not suspicious in appearance; of which he +wanted more. While he was speaking to me he still read the newspaper. He +said “Drugs,” and never used any other word. Neither did I.’ + +‘This all agrees with what I have heard before,’ observed John Westlock. + +‘I asked him what he wanted the drugs for? He said for no harm; to +physic cats; what did it matter to me? I was going out to a distant +colony (I had recently got the appointment, which, as Mr Westlock +knows, I have since lost by my sickness, and which was my only hope of +salvation from ruin), and what did it matter to me? He could get them +without my aid at half a hundred places, but not so easily as he could +get them of me. This was true. He might not want them at all, he said, +and he had no present idea of using them; but he wished to have them +by him. All this time he still read the newspaper. We talked about the +price. He was to forgive me a small debt--I was quite in his power--and +to pay me five pounds; and there the matter dropped, through others +coming in. But, next night, under exactly similar circumstances, I gave +him the drugs, on his saying I was a fool to think that he should ever +use them for any harm; and he gave me the money. We have never met +since. I only know that the poor old father died soon afterwards, just +as he would have died from this cause; and that I have undergone, and +suffer now, intolerable misery. Nothing’ he added, stretching out his +hands, ‘can paint my misery! It is well deserved, but nothing can paint +it.’ + +With that he hung his head, and said no more, wasted and wretched, he +was not a creature upon whom to heap reproaches that were unavailing. + +‘Let him remain at hand,’ said Martin, turning from him; ‘but out of +sight, in Heaven’s name!’ + +‘He will remain here,’ John whispered. ‘Come with me!’ Softly turning +the key upon him as they went out, he conducted Martin into the +adjoining room, in which they had been before. + +Martin was so amazed, so shocked, and confounded by what he had heard +that it was some time before he could reduce it to any order in his +mind, or could sufficiently comprehend the bearing of one part upon +another, to take in all the details at one view. When he, at length, had +the whole narrative clearly before him, John Westlock went on to point +out the great probability of the guilt of Jonas being known to other +people, who traded in it for their own benefit, and who were, by +such means, able to exert that control over him which Tom Pinch had +accidentally witnessed, and unconsciously assisted. This appeared so +plain, that they agreed upon it without difficulty; but instead of +deriving the least assistance from this source, they found that it +embarrassed them the more. + +They knew nothing of the real parties who possessed this power. The only +person before them was Tom’s landlord. They had no right to question +Tom’s landlord, even if they could find him, which, according to Tom’s +account, it would not be easy to do. And granting that they did question +him, and he answered (which was taking a good deal for granted), he had +only to say, with reference to the adventure on the wharf, that he had +been sent from such and such a place to summon Jonas back on urgent +business, and there was an end of it. + +Besides, there was the great difficulty and responsibility of moving at +all in the matter. Lewsome’s story might be false; in his wretched state +it might be greatly heightened by a diseased brain; or admitting it +to be entirely true, the old man might have died a natural death. Mr +Pecksniff had been there at the time; as Tom immediately remembered, +when he came back in the afternoon, and shared their counsels; and there +had been no secrecy about it. Martin’s grandfather was of right the +person to decide upon the course that should be taken; but to get at his +views would be impossible, for Mr Pecksniff’s views were certain to +be his. And the nature of Mr Pecksniff’s views in reference to his own +son-in-law might be easily reckoned upon. + +Apart from these considerations, Martin could not endure the thought +of seeming to grasp at this unnatural charge against his relative, and +using it as a stepping-stone to his grandfather’s favour. But that he +would seem to do so, if he presented himself before his grandfather in +Mr Pecksniff’s house again, for the purpose of declaring it; and that +Mr Pecksniff, of all men, would represent his conduct in that despicable +light, he perfectly well knew. On the other hand to be in possession of +such a statement, and take no measures of further inquiry in reference +to it, was tantamount to being a partner in the guilt it professed to +disclose. + +In a word, they were wholly unable to discover any outlet from this maze +of difficulty, which did not lie through some perplexed and entangled +thicket. And although Mr Tapley was promptly taken into their +confidence; and the fertile imagination of that gentleman suggested many +bold expedients, which, to do him justice, he was quite ready to carry +into instant operation on his own personal responsibility; still ‘bating +the general zeal of Mr Tapley’s nature, nothing was made particularly +clearer by these offers of service. + +It was in this position of affairs that Tom’s account of the strange +behaviour of the decayed clerk, on the night of the tea-party, became +of great moment, and finally convinced them that to arrive at a more +accurate knowledge of the workings of that old man’s mind and memory, +would be to take a most important stride in their pursuit of the truth. +So, having first satisfied themselves that no communication had ever +taken place between Lewsome and Mr Chuffey (which would have accounted +at once for any suspicions the latter might entertain), they unanimously +resolved that the old clerk was the man they wanted. + +But, like the unanimous resolution of a public meeting, which will +oftentimes declare that this or that grievance is not to be borne +a moment longer, which is nevertheless borne for a century or two +afterwards, without any modification, they only reached in this the +conclusion that they were all of one mind. For it was one thing to want +Mr Chuffey, and another thing to get at him; and to do that without +alarming him, or without alarming Jonas, or without being discomfited +by the difficulty of striking, in an instrument so out of tune and so +unused, the note they sought, was an end as far from their reach as +ever. + +The question then became, who of those about the old clerk had had most +influence with him that night? Tom said his young mistress clearly. +But Tom and all of them shrunk from the thought of entrapping her, +and making her the innocent means of bringing retribution on her cruel +husband. Was there nobody else? Why yes. In a very different way, Tom +said, he was influenced by Mrs Gamp, the nurse; who had once had the +control of him, as he understood, for some time. + +They caught at this immediately. Here was a new way out, developed in a +quarter until then overlooked. John Westlock knew Mrs Gamp; he had given +her employment; he was acquainted with her place of residence: for that +good lady had obligingly furnished him, at parting, with a pack of her +professional cards for general distribution. It was decided that Mrs +Gamp should be approached with caution, but approached without delay; +and that the depths of that discreet matron’s knowledge of Mr Chuffey, +and means of bringing them, or one of them, into communication with him, +should be carefully sounded. + +On this service, Martin and John Westlock determined to proceed that +night; waiting on Mrs Gamp first, at her lodgings; and taking their +chance of finding her in the repose of private life, or of having to +seek her out, elsewhere, in the exercise of her professional duties. Tom +returned home, that he might lose no opportunity of having an interview +with Nadgett, by being absent in the event of his reappearance. And Mr +Tapley remained (by his own particular desire) for the time being in +Furnival’s Inn, to look after Lewsome; who might safely have been left +to himself, however, for any thought he seemed to entertain of giving +them the slip. + +Before they parted on their several errands, they caused him to read +aloud, in the presence of them all, the paper which he had about him, +and the declaration he had attached to it, which was to the effect that +he had written it voluntarily, in the fear of death and in the torture +of his mind. And when he had done so, they all signed it, and taking it +from him, of his free will, locked it in a place of safety. + +Martin also wrote, by John’s advice, a letter to the trustees of the +famous Grammar School, boldly claiming the successful design as his, +and charging Mr Pecksniff with the fraud he had committed. In this +proceeding also, John was hotly interested; observing, with his usual +irreverance, that Mr Pecksniff had been a successful rascal all his +life through, and that it would be a lasting source of happiness to him +(John) if he could help to do him justice in the smallest particular. + +A busy day! But Martin had no lodgings yet; so when these matters were +disposed of, he excused himself from dining with John Westlock and was +fain to wander out alone, and look for some. He succeeded, after great +trouble, in engaging two garrets for himself and Mark, situated in a +court in the Strand, not far from Temple Bar. Their luggage, which was +waiting for them at a coach-office, he conveyed to this new place of +refuge; and it was with a glow of satisfaction, which as a selfish man +he never could have known and never had, that, thinking how much pains +and trouble he had saved Mark, and how pleased and astonished Mark would +be, he afterwards walked up and down, in the Temple, eating a meat-pie +for his dinner. + + + +CHAPTER FORTY-NINE + +IN WHICH MRS HARRIS ASSISTED BY A TEAPOT, IS THE CAUSE OF A DIVISION +BETWEEN FRIENDS + + +Mrs Gamp’s apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore, +metaphorically speaking, a robe of state. It was swept and garnished for +the reception of a visitor. That visitor was Betsey Prig; Mrs Prig, of +Bartlemy’s; or as some said Barklemy’s, or as some said Bardlemy’s; for +by all these endearing and familiar appellations, had the hospital of +Saint Bartholomew become a household word among the sisterhood which +Betsey Prig adorned. + +Mrs Gamp’s apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented mind, +a closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr Sweedlepipe’s may +have been, in the imagination of Mrs Gamp, a stately pile. If it were +not exactly that, to restless intellects, it at least comprised as much +accommodation as any person, not sanguine to insanity, could have looked +for in a room of its dimensions. For only keep the bedstead always in +your mind; and you were safe. That was the grand secret. Remembering the +bedstead, you might even stoop to look under the little round table +for anything you had dropped, without hurting yourself much against the +chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint Bartholomew, by +falling into the fire. + +Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an +unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture, by its size; which +was great. It was not a turn-up bedstead, nor yet a French bedstead, +nor yet a four-post bedstead, but what is poetically called a tent; the +sacking whereof was low and bulgy, insomuch that Mrs Gamp’s box would +not go under it, but stopped half-way, in a manner which, while it did +violence to the reason, likewise endangered the legs of a stranger. The +frame too, which would have supported the canopy and hangings if there +had been any, was ornamented with divers pippins carved in timber, +which on the slightest provocation, and frequently on none at all, came +tumbling down; harassing the peaceful guest with inexplicable terrors. + +The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great antiquity; +and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door, hung a scanty +curtain of blue check, which prevented the Zephyrs that were abroad in +Kingsgate Street, from visiting Mrs Gamp’s head too roughly. Some rusty +gowns and other articles of that lady’s wardrobe depended from the +posts; and these had so adapted themselves by long usage to her figure, +that more than one impatient husband coming in precipitately, at about +the time of twilight, had been for an instant stricken dumb by the +supposed discovery that Mrs Gamp had hanged herself. One gentleman, +coming on the usual hasty errand, had said indeed, that they looked like +guardian angels ‘watching of her in her sleep.’ But that, as Mrs Gamp +said, ‘was his first;’ and he never repeated the sentiment, though he +often repeated his visit. + +The chairs in Mrs Gamp’s apartment were extremely large and +broad-backed, which was more than a sufficient reason for there being +but two in number. They were both elbow-chairs, of ancient mahogany; and +were chiefly valuable for the slippery nature of their seats, which had +been originally horsehair, but were now covered with a shiny substance +of a bluish tint, from which the visitor began to slide away with a +dismayed countenance, immediately after sitting down. What Mrs Gamp +wanted in chairs she made up in bandboxes; of which she had a great +collection, devoted to the reception of various miscellaneous valuables, +which were not, however, as well protected as the good woman, by a +pleasant fiction, seemed to think; for, though every bandbox had a +carefully closed lid, not one among them had a bottom; owing to which +cause the property within was merely, as it were, extinguished. The +chest of drawers having been originally made to stand upon the top of +another chest, had a dwarfish, elfin look, alone; but in regard of its +security it had a great advantage over the bandboxes, for as all the +handles had been long ago pulled off, it was very difficult to get at +its contents. This indeed was only to be done by one or two devices; +either by tilting the whole structure forward until all the drawers fell +out together, or by opening them singly with knives, like oysters. + +Mrs Gamp stored all her household matters in a little cupboard by the +fire-place; beginning below the surface (as in nature) with the coals, +and mounting gradually upwards to the spirits, which, from motives of +delicacy, she kept in a teapot. The chimney-piece was ornamented with +a small almanack, marked here and there in Mrs Gamp’s own hand with a +memorandum of the date at which some lady was expected to fall due. It +was also embellished with three profiles: one, in colours, of Mrs Gamp +herself in early life; one, in bronze, of a lady in feathers, supposed +to be Mrs Harris, as she appeared when dressed for a ball; and one, in +black, of Mr Gamp, deceased. The last was a full length, in order +that the likeness might be rendered more obvious and forcible by the +introduction of the wooden leg. + +A pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a +pap-boat, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the refractory, +and lastly, Mrs Gamp’s umbrella, which as something of great price +and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation, completed the +decorations of the chimney-piece and adjacent wall. Towards these +objects Mrs Gamp raised her eyes in satisfaction when she had arranged +the tea-board, and had concluded her arrangements for the reception +of Betsey Prig, even unto the setting forth of two pounds of Newcastle +salmon, intensely pickled. + +‘There! Now drat you, Betsey, don’t be long!’ said Mrs Gamp, +apostrophizing her absent friend. ‘For I can’t abear to wait, I do +assure you. To wotever place I goes, I sticks to this one mortar, “I’m +easy pleased; it is but little as I wants; but I must have that little +of the best, and to the minute when the clock strikes, else we do not +part as I could wish, but bearin’ malice in our arts.”’ + +Her own preparations were of the best, for they comprehended a delicate +new loaf, a plate of fresh butter, a basin of fine white sugar, and +other arrangements on the same scale. Even the snuff with which she +now refreshed herself, was so choice in quality that she took a second +pinch. + +‘There’s the little bell a-ringing now,’ said Mrs Gamp, hurrying to +the stair-head and looking over. ‘Betsey Prig, my--why it’s that there +disapintin’ Sweedlepipes, I do believe.’ + +‘Yes, it’s me,’ said the barber in a faint voice; ‘I’ve just come in.’ + +‘You’re always a-comin’ in, I think,’ muttered Mrs Gamp to herself, +‘except wen you’re a-goin’ out. I ha’n’t no patience with that man!’ + +‘Mrs Gamp,’ said the barber. ‘I say! Mrs Gamp!’ + +‘Well,’ cried Mrs Gamp, impatiently, as she descended the stairs. ‘What +is it? Is the Thames a-fire, and cooking its own fish, Mr Sweedlepipes? +Why wot’s the man gone and been a-doin’ of to himself? He’s as white as +chalk!’ + +She added the latter clause of inquiry, when she got downstairs, and +found him seated in the shaving-chair, pale and disconsolate. + +‘You recollect,’ said Poll. ‘You recollect young--’ + +‘Not young Wilkins!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘Don’t say young Wilkins, wotever +you do. If young Wilkins’s wife is took--’ + +‘It isn’t anybody’s wife,’ exclaimed the little barber. ‘Bailey, young +Bailey!’ + +‘Why, wot do you mean to say that chit’s been a-doin’ of?’ retorted Mrs +Gamp, sharply. ‘Stuff and nonsense, Mrs Sweedlepipes!’ + +‘He hasn’t been a-doing anything!’ exclaimed poor Poll, quite desperate. +‘What do you catch me up so short for, when you see me put out to that +extent that I can hardly speak? He’ll never do anything again. He’s done +for. He’s killed. The first time I ever see that boy,’ said Poll, ‘I +charged him too much for a red-poll. I asked him three-halfpence for a +penny one, because I was afraid he’d beat me down. But he didn’t. +And now he’s dead; and if you was to crowd all the steam-engines and +electric fluids that ever was, into this shop, and set ‘em every one to +work their hardest, they couldn’t square the account, though it’s only a +ha’penny!’ + +Mr Sweedlepipe turned aside to the towel, and wiped his eyes with it. + +‘And what a clever boy he was!’ he said. ‘What a surprising young chap +he was! How he talked! and what a deal he know’d! Shaved in this very +chair he was; only for fun; it was all his fun; he was full of it. Ah! +to think that he’ll never be shaved in earnest! The birds might every +one have died, and welcome,’ cried the little barber, looking round him +at the cages, and again applying to the towel, ‘sooner than I’d have +heard this news!’ + +‘How did you ever come to hear it?’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘who told you?’ + +‘I went out,’ returned the little barber, ‘into the City, to meet a +sporting gent upon the Stock Exchange, that wanted a few slow pigeons to +practice at; and when I’d done with him, I went to get a little drop +of beer, and there I heard everybody a-talking about it. It’s in the +papers.’ + +‘You are in a nice state of confugion, Mr Sweedlepipes, you are!’ said +Mrs Gamp, shaking her head; ‘and my opinion is, as half-a-dudgeon fresh +young lively leeches on your temples, wouldn’t be too much to clear your +mind, which so I tell you. Wot were they a-talkin’ on, and wot was in +the papers?’ + +‘All about it!’ cried the barber. ‘What else do you suppose? Him and his +master were upset on a journey, and he was carried to Salisbury, and +was breathing his last when the account came away. He never spoke +afterwards. Not a single word. That’s the worst of it to me; but that +ain’t all. His master can’t be found. The other manager of their office +in the city, Crimple, David Crimple, has gone off with the money, and is +advertised for, with a reward, upon the walls. Mr Montague, poor young +Bailey’s master (what a boy he was!) is advertised for, too. Some say +he’s slipped off, to join his friend abroad; some say he mayn’t have got +away yet; and they’re looking for him high and low. Their office is a +smash; a swindle altogether. But what’s a Life Assurance office to a +Life! And what a Life Young Bailey’s was!’ + +‘He was born into a wale,’ said Mrs Gamp, with philosophical coolness. +‘and he lived in a wale; and he must take the consequences of sech a +sitiwation. But don’t you hear nothink of Mr Chuzzlewit in all this?’ + +‘No,’ said Poll, ‘nothing to speak of. His name wasn’t printed as one of +the board, though some people say it was just going to be. Some believe +he was took in, and some believe he was one of the takers-in; but +however that may be, they can’t prove nothing against him. This morning +he went up of his own accord afore the Lord Mayor or some of them City +big-wigs, and complained that he’d been swindled, and that these two +persons had gone off and cheated him, and that he had just found out +that Montague’s name wasn’t even Montague, but something else. And they +do say that he looked like Death, owing to his losses. But, Lord +forgive me,’ cried the barber, coming back again to the subject of +his individual grief, ‘what’s his looks to me! He might have died and +welcome, fifty times, and not been such a loss as Bailey!’ + +At this juncture the little bell rang, and the deep voice of Mrs Prig +struck into the conversation. + +‘Oh! You’re a-talkin’ about it, are you!’ observed that lady. ‘Well, I +hope you’ve got it over, for I ain’t interested in it myself.’ + +‘My precious Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘how late you are!’ + +The worthy Mrs Prig replied, with some asperity, ‘that if perwerse +people went off dead, when they was least expected, it warn’t no fault +of her’n.’ And further, ‘that it was quite aggrawation enough to be made +late when one was dropping for one’s tea, without hearing on it again.’ + +Mrs Gamp, deriving from this exhibition of repartee some clue to the +state of Mrs Prig’s feelings, instantly conducted her upstairs; deeming +that the sight of pickled salmon might work a softening change. + +But Betsey Prig expected pickled salmon. It was obvious that she did; +for her first words, after glancing at the table, were: + +‘I know’d she wouldn’t have a cowcumber!’ + +Mrs Gamp changed colour, and sat down upon the bedstead. + +‘Lord bless you, Betsey Prig, your words is true. I quite forgot it!’ + +Mrs Prig, looking steadfastly at her friend, put her hand in her +pocket, and with an air of surly triumph drew forth either the oldest of +lettuces or youngest of cabbages, but at any rate, a green vegetable of +an expansive nature, and of such magnificent proportions that she was +obliged to shut it up like an umbrella before she could pull it out. +She also produced a handful of mustard and cress, a trifle of the herb +called dandelion, three bunches of radishes, an onion rather larger than +an average turnip, three substantial slices of beetroot, and a short +prong or antler of celery; the whole of this garden-stuff having been +publicly exhibited, but a short time before, as a twopenny salad, and +purchased by Mrs Prig on condition that the vendor could get it all into +her pocket. Which had been happily accomplished, in High Holborn, to +the breathless interest of a hackney-coach stand. And she laid so little +stress on this surprising forethought, that she did not even smile, but +returning her pocket into its accustomed sphere, merely recommended +that these productions of nature should be sliced up, for immediate +consumption, in plenty of vinegar. + +‘And don’t go a-droppin’ none of your snuff in it,’ said Mrs Prig. +‘In gruel, barley-water, apple-tea, mutton-broth, and that, it don’t +signify. It stimulates a patient. But I don’t relish it myself.’ + +‘Why, Betsey Prig!’ cried Mrs Gamp, ‘how CAN you talk so!’ + +‘Why, ain’t your patients, wotever their diseases is, always asneezin’ +their wery heads off, along of your snuff?’ said Mrs Prig. + +‘And wot if they are!’ said Mrs Gamp + +‘Nothing if they are,’ said Mrs Prig. ‘But don’t deny it, Sairah.’ + +‘Who deniges of it?’ Mrs Gamp inquired. + +Mrs Prig returned no answer. + +‘WHO deniges of it, Betsey?’ Mrs Gamp inquired again. Then Mrs Gamp, by +reversing the question, imparted a deeper and more awful character of +solemnity to the same. ‘Betsey, who deniges of it?’ + +It was the nearest possible approach to a very decided difference of +opinion between these ladies; but Mrs Prig’s impatience for the meal +being greater at the moment than her impatience of contradiction, she +replied, for the present, ‘Nobody, if you don’t, Sairah,’ and prepared +herself for tea. For a quarrel can be taken up at any time, but a +limited quantity of salmon cannot. + +Her toilet was simple. She had merely to ‘chuck’ her bonnet and shawl +upon the bed; give her hair two pulls, one upon the right side and one +upon the left, as if she were ringing a couple of bells; and all was +done. The tea was already made, Mrs Gamp was not long over the salad, +and they were soon at the height of their repast. + +The temper of both parties was improved, for the time being, by the +enjoyments of the table. When the meal came to a termination (which it +was pretty long in doing), and Mrs Gamp having cleared away, produced +the teapot from the top shelf, simultaneously with a couple of +wine-glasses, they were quite amiable. + +‘Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, filling her own glass and passing the teapot, +‘I will now propoge a toast. My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig!’ + +‘Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp; I drink,’ said Mrs Prig, ‘with +love and tenderness.’ + +From this moment symptoms of inflammation began to lurk in the nose of +each lady; and perhaps, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, +in the temper also. + +‘Now, Sairah,’ said Mrs Prig, ‘joining business with pleasure, wot is +this case in which you wants me?’ + +Mrs Gamp betraying in her face some intention of returning an evasive +answer, Betsey added: + +‘IS it Mrs Harris?’ + +‘No, Betsey Prig, it ain’t,’ was Mrs Gamp’s reply. + +‘Well!’ said Mrs Prig, with a short laugh. ‘I’m glad of that, at any +rate.’ + +‘Why should you be glad of that, Betsey?’ Mrs Gamp retorted, warmly. +‘She is unbeknown to you except by hearsay, why should you be glad? If +you have anythink to say contrairy to the character of Mrs Harris, which +well I knows behind her back, afore her face, or anywheres, is not to be +impeaged, out with it, Betsey. I have know’d that sweetest and best of +women,’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her head, and shedding tears, ‘ever since +afore her First, which Mr Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped +his ears in a empty dog-kennel, and never took his hands away or come +out once till he was showed the baby, wen bein’ took with fits, the +doctor collared him and laid him on his back upon the airy stones, and +she was told to ease her mind, his owls was organs. And I have know’d +her, Betsey Prig, when he has hurt her feelin’ art by sayin’ of his +Ninth that it was one too many, if not two, while that dear innocent was +cooin’ in his face, which thrive it did though bandy, but I have never +know’d as you had occagion to be glad, Betsey, on accounts of Mrs Harris +not requiring you. Require she never will, depend upon it, for her +constant words in sickness is, and will be, “Send for Sairey?”’ + +During this touching address, Mrs Prig adroitly feigning to be the +victim of that absence of mind which has its origin in excessive +attention to one topic, helped herself from the teapot without appearing +to observe it. Mrs Gamp observed it, however, and came to a premature +close in consequence. + +‘Well, it ain’t her, it seems,’ said Mrs Prig, coldly; ‘who is it then?’ + +‘You have heerd me mention, Betsey,’ Mrs Gamp replied, after glancing in +an expressive and marked manner at the tea-pot, ‘a person as I took +care on at the time as you and me was pardners off and on, in that there +fever at the Bull?’ + +‘Old Snuffey,’ Mrs Prig observed. + +Sarah Gamp looked at her with an eye of fire, for she saw in this +mistake of Mrs Prig, another willful and malignant stab at that same +weakness or custom of hers, an ungenerous allusion to which, on the part +of Betsey, had first disturbed their harmony that evening. And she saw +it still more clearly, when, politely but firmly correcting that lady +by the distinct enunciation of the word ‘Chuffey,’ Mrs Prig received the +correction with a diabolical laugh. + +The best among us have their failings, and it must be conceded of Mrs +Prig, that if there were a blemish in the goodness of her disposition, +it was a habit she had of not bestowing all its sharp and acid +properties upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman would have +done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the service of her +friends. Highly pickled salmon, and lettuces chopped up in vinegar, +may, as viands possessing some acidity of their own, have encouraged and +increased this failing in Mrs Prig; and every application to the teapot +certainly did; for it was often remarked of her by her friends, that +she was most contradictory when most elevated. It is certain that her +countenance became about this time derisive and defiant, and that she +sat with her arms folded, and one eye shut up, in a somewhat offensive, +because obstrusively intelligent, manner. + +Mrs Gamp observing this, felt it the more necessary that Mrs Prig should +know her place, and be made sensible of her exact station in society, as +well as of her obligations to herself. She therefore assumed an air of +greater patronage and importance, as she went on to answer Mrs Prig a +little more in detail. + +‘Mr Chuffey, Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘is weak in his mind. Excuge me +if I makes remark, that he may neither be so weak as people thinks, nor +people may not think he is so weak as they pretends, and what I knows, +I knows; and what you don’t, you don’t; so do not ask me, Betsey. But Mr +Chuffey’s friends has made propojals for his bein’ took care on, and has +said to me, “Mrs Gamp, WILL you undertake it? We couldn’t think,” they +says, “of trusting him to nobody but you, for, Sairey, you are gold as +has passed the furnage. Will you undertake it, at your own price, day +and night, and by your own self?” “No,” I says, “I will not. Do not +reckon on it. There is,” I says, “but one creetur in the world as I would +undertake on sech terms, and her name is Harris. But,” I says, “I +am acquainted with a friend, whose name is Betsey Prig, that I can +recommend, and will assist me. Betsey,” I says, “is always to be trusted +under me, and will be guided as I could desire.”’ + +Here Mrs Prig, without any abatement of her offensive manner again +counterfeited abstraction of mind, and stretched out her hand to the +teapot. It was more than Mrs Gamp could bear. She stopped the hand of +Mrs Prig with her own, and said, with great feeling: + +‘No, Betsey! Drink fair, wotever you do!’ + +Mrs Prig, thus baffled, threw herself back in her chair, and closing the +same eye more emphatically, and folding her arms tighter, suffered her +head to roll slowly from side to side, while she surveyed her friend +with a contemptuous smile. + +Mrs Gamp resumed: + +‘Mrs Harris, Betsey--’ + +‘Bother Mrs Harris!’ said Betsey Prig. + +Mrs Gamp looked at her with amazement, incredulity, and indignation; +when Mrs Prig, shutting her eye still closer, and folding her arms still +tighter, uttered these memorable and tremendous words: + +‘I don’t believe there’s no sich a person!’ + +After the utterance of which expressions, she leaned forward, and +snapped her fingers once, twice, thrice; each time nearer to the face of +Mrs Gamp, and then rose to put on her bonnet, as one who felt that there +was now a gulf between them, which nothing could ever bridge across. + +The shock of this blow was so violent and sudden, that Mrs Gamp sat +staring at nothing with uplifted eyes, and her mouth open as if she +were gasping for breath, until Betsey Prig had put on her bonnet and +her shawl, and was gathering the latter about her throat. Then Mrs Gamp +rose--morally and physically rose--and denounced her. + +‘What!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘you bage creetur, have I know’d Mrs Harris five +and thirty year, to be told at last that there ain’t no sech a person +livin’! Have I stood her friend in all her troubles, great and small, +for it to come at last to sech a end as this, which her own sweet picter +hanging up afore you all the time, to shame your Bragian words! But well +you mayn’t believe there’s no sech a creetur, for she wouldn’t demean +herself to look at you, and often has she said, when I have made mention +of your name, which, to my sinful sorrow, I have done, “What, Sairey +Gamp! debage yourself to HER!” Go along with you!’ + +‘I’m a-goin’, ma’am, ain’t I?’ said Mrs Prig, stopping as she said it. + +‘You had better, ma’am,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Do you know who you’re talking to, ma’am?’ inquired her visitor. + +‘Aperiently,’ said Mrs Gamp, surveying her with scorn from head to foot, +‘to Betsey Prig. Aperiently so. I know her. No one better. Go along with +you!’ + +‘And YOU was a-goin’ to take me under you!’ cried Mrs Prig, surveying +Mrs Gamp from head to foot in her turn. ‘YOU was, was you? Oh, how kind! +Why, deuce take your imperence,’ said Mrs Prig, with a rapid change from +banter to ferocity, ‘what do you mean?’ + +‘Go along with you!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘I blush for you.’ + +‘You had better blush a little for yourself, while you ARE about it!’ +said Mrs Prig. ‘You and your Chuffeys! What, the poor old creetur isn’t +mad enough, isn’t he? Aha!’ + +‘He’d very soon be mad enough, if you had anything to do with him,’ said +Mrs Gamp. + +‘And that’s what I was wanted for, is it?’ cried Mrs Prig, triumphantly. +‘Yes. But you’ll find yourself deceived. I won’t go near him. We shall +see how you get on without me. I won’t have nothink to do with him.’ + +‘You never spoke a truer word than that!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Go along with +you!’ + +She was prevented from witnessing the actual retirement of Mrs Prig from +the room, notwithstanding the great desire she had expressed to behold +it, by that lady, in her angry withdrawal, coming into contact with the +bedstead, and bringing down the previously mentioned pippins; three or +four of which came rattling on the head of Mrs Gamp so smartly, that +when she recovered from this wooden shower-bath, Mrs Prig was gone. + +She had the satisfaction, however, of hearing the deep voice of Betsey, +proclaiming her injuries and her determination to have nothing to do +with Mr Chuffey, down the stairs, and along the passage, and even out in +Kingsgate Street. Likewise of seeing in her own apartment, in the place +of Mrs Prig, Mr Sweedlepipe and two gentlemen. + +‘Why, bless my life!’ exclaimed the little barber, ‘what’s amiss? The +noise you ladies have been making, Mrs Gamp! Why, these two gentlemen +have been standing on the stairs, outside the door, nearly all the time, +trying to make you hear, while you were pelting away, hammer and tongs! +It’ll be the death of the little bullfinch in the shop, that draws his +own water. In his fright, he’s been a-straining himself all to bits, +drawing more water than he could drink in a twelvemonth. He must have +thought it was Fire!’ + +Mrs Gamp had in the meanwhile sunk into her chair, from whence, turning +up her overflowing eyes, and clasping her hands, she delivered the +following lamentation: + +‘Oh, Mr Sweedlepipes, which Mr Westlock also, if my eyes do not deceive, +and a friend not havin’ the pleasure of bein’ beknown, wot I have took +from Betsey Prig this blessed night, no mortial creetur knows! If she +had abuged me, bein’ in liquor, which I thought I smelt her wen she +come, but could not so believe, not bein’ used myself’--Mrs Gamp, by the +way, was pretty far gone, and the fragrance of the teapot was strong in +the room--‘I could have bore it with a thankful art. But the words she +spoke of Mrs Harris, lambs could not forgive. No, Betsey!’ said Mrs +Gamp, in a violent burst of feeling, ‘nor worms forget!’ + +The little barber scratched his head, and shook it, and looked at the +teapot, and gradually got out of the room. John Westlock, taking a +chair, sat down on one side of Mrs Gamp. Martin, taking the foot of the +bed, supported her on the other. + +‘You wonder what we want, I daresay,’ observed John. ‘I’ll tell you +presently, when you have recovered. It’s not pressing, for a few minutes +or so. How do you find yourself? Better?’ + +Mrs Gamp shed more tears, shook her head and feebly pronounced Mrs +Harris’s name. + +‘Have a little--’ John was at a loss what to call it. + +‘Tea,’ suggested Martin. + +‘It ain’t tea,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Physic of some sort, I suppose,’ cried John. ‘Have a little.’ + +Mrs Gamp was prevailed upon to take a glassful. ‘On condition,’ she +passionately observed, ‘as Betsey never has another stroke of work from +me.’ + +‘Certainly not,’ said John. ‘She shall never help to nurse ME.’ + +‘To think,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘as she should ever have helped to nuss that +friend of yourn, and been so near of hearing things that--Ah!’ + +John looked at Martin. + +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That was a narrow escape, Mrs Gamp.’ + +‘Narrer, in-deed!’ she returned. ‘It was only my having the night, and +hearin’ of him in his wanderins; and her the day, that saved it. Wot +would she have said and done, if she had know’d what I know; that +perfeejus wretch! Yet, oh good gracious me!’ cried Mrs Gamp, trampling +on the floor, in the absence of Mrs Prig, ‘that I should hear from that +same woman’s lips what I have heerd her speak of Mrs Harris!’ + +‘Never mind,’ said John. ‘You know it is not true.’ + +‘Isn’t true!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘True! Don’t I know as that dear woman +is expecting of me at this minnit, Mr Westlock, and is a-lookin’ out of +window down the street, with little Tommy Harris in her arms, as calls +me his own Gammy, and truly calls, for bless the mottled little legs +of that there precious child (like Canterbury Brawn his own dear father +says, which so they are) his own I have been, ever since I found him, +Mr Westlock, with his small red worsted shoe a-gurglin’ in his throat, +where he had put it in his play, a chick, wile they was leavin’ of +him on the floor a-lookin’ for it through the ouse and him a-choakin’ +sweetly in the parlour! Oh, Betsey Prig, what wickedness you’ve showed +this night, but never shall you darken Sairey’s doors agen, you twining +serpiant!’ + +‘You were always so kind to her, too!’ said John, consolingly. + +‘That’s the cutting part. That’s where it hurts me, Mr Westlock,’ Mrs +Gamp replied; holding out her glass unconsciously, while Martin filled +it. + +‘Chosen to help you with Mr Lewsome!’ said John. ‘Chosen to help you +with Mr Chuffey!’ + +‘Chose once, but chose no more,’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘No pardnership with +Betsey Prig agen, sir!’ + +‘No, no,’ said John. ‘That would never do.’ + +‘I don’t know as it ever would have done, sir,’ Mrs Gamp replied, with +a solemnity peculiar to a certain stage of intoxication. ‘Now that the +marks,’ by which Mrs Gamp is supposed to have meant mask, ‘is off +that creetur’s face, I do not think it ever would have done. There +are reagions in families for keeping things a secret, Mr Westlock, and +havin’ only them about you as you knows you can repoge in. Who could +repoge in Betsey Prig, arter her words of Mrs Harris, setting in that +chair afore my eyes!’ + +‘Quite true,’ said John; ‘quite. I hope you have time to find another +assistant, Mrs Gamp?’ + +Between her indignation and the teapot, her powers of comprehending what +was said to her began to fail. She looked at John with tearful eyes, and +murmuring the well-remembered name which Mrs Prig had challenged--as if +it were a talisman against all earthly sorrows--seemed to wander in her +mind. + +‘I hope,’ repeated John, ‘that you have time to find another assistant?’ + +‘Which short it is, indeed,’ cried Mrs Gamp, turning up her languid +eyes, and clasping Mr Westlock’s wrist with matronly affection. +‘To-morrow evenin’, sir, I waits upon his friends. Mr Chuzzlewit apinted +it from nine to ten.’ + +‘From nine to ten,’ said John, with a significant glance at Martin. ‘and +then Mr Chuffey retires into safe keeping, does he?’ + +‘He needs to be kep safe, I do assure you,’ Mrs Gamp replied with a +mysterious air. ‘Other people besides me has had a happy deliverance +from Betsey Prig. I little know’d that woman. She’d have let it out!’ + +‘Let HIM out, you mean,’ said John. + +‘Do I!’ retorted Mrs Gamp. ‘Oh!’ + +The severely ironical character of this reply was strengthened by a very +slow nod, and a still slower drawing down of the corners of Mrs Gamp’s +mouth. She added with extreme stateliness of manner after indulging in a +short doze: + +‘But I am a-keepin’ of you gentlemen, and time is precious.’ + +Mingling with that delusion of the teapot which inspired her with +the belief that they wanted her to go somewhere immediately, a shrewd +avoidance of any further reference to the topics into which she had +lately strayed, Mrs Gamp rose; and putting away the teapot in its +accustomed place, and locking the cupboard with much gravity proceeded +to attire herself for a professional visit. + +This preparation was easily made, as it required nothing more than +the snuffy black bonnet, the snuffy black shawl, the pattens and +the indispensable umbrella, without which neither a lying-in nor a +laying-out could by any possibility be attempted. When Mrs Gamp had +invested herself with these appendages she returned to her chair, and +sitting down again, declared herself quite ready. + +‘It’s a ‘appiness to know as one can benefit the poor sweet creetur,’ +she observed, ‘I’m sure. It isn’t all as can. The torters Betsey Prig +inflicts is frightful!’ + +Closing her eyes as she made this remark, in the acuteness of her +commiseration for Betsey’s patients, she forgot to open them again until +she dropped a patten. Her nap was also broken at intervals like the +fabled slumbers of Friar Bacon, by the dropping of the other patten, +and of the umbrella. But when she had got rid of those incumbrances, her +sleep was peaceful. + +The two young men looked at each other, ludicrously enough; and Martin, +stifling his disposition to laugh, whispered in John Westlock’s ear, + +‘What shall we do now?’ + +‘Stay here,’ he replied. + +Mrs Gamp was heard to murmur ‘Mrs Harris’ in her sleep. + +‘Rely upon it,’ whispered John, looking cautiously towards her, ‘that +you shall question this old clerk, though you go as Mrs Harris herself. +We know quite enough to carry her our own way now, at all events; thanks +to this quarrel, which confirms the old saying that when rogues fall +out, honest people get what they want. Let Jonas Chuzzlewit look to +himself; and let her sleep as long as she likes. We shall gain our end +in good time.’ + + + +CHAPTER FIFTY + +SURPRISES TOM PINCH VERY MUCH, AND SHOWS HOW CERTAIN CONFIDENCES PASSED +BETWEEN HIM AND HIS SISTER + + +It was the next evening; and Tom and his sister were sitting together +before tea, talking, in their usual quiet way, about a great many +things, but not at all about Lewsome’s story or anything connected with +it; for John Westlock--really John, for so young a man, was one of the +most considerate fellows in the world--had particularly advised Tom not +to mention it to his sister just yet, in case it should disquiet her. +‘And I wouldn’t, Tom,’ he said, with a little hesitation, ‘I wouldn’t +have a shadow on her happy face, or an uneasy thought in her gentle +heart, for all the wealth and honours of the universe!’ Really John was +uncommonly kind; extraordinarily kind. If he had been her father, Tom +said, he could not have taken a greater interest in her. + +But although Tom and his sister were extremely conversational, they were +less lively, and less cheerful, than usual. Tom had no idea that this +originated with Ruth, but took it for granted that he was rather dull +himself. In truth he was; for the lightest cloud upon the Heaven of her +quiet mind, cast its shadow upon Tom. + +And there was a cloud on little Ruth that evening. Yes, indeed. When Tom +was looking in another direction, her bright eyes, stealing on towards +his face, would sparkle still more brightly than their custom was, and +then grow dim. When Tom was silent, looking out upon the summer weather, +she would sometimes make a hasty movement, as if she were about to throw +herself upon his neck; then check the impulse, and when he looked +round, show a laughing face, and speak to him very merrily; when she had +anything to give Tom, or had any excuse for coming near him, she would +flutter about him, and lay her bashful hand upon his shoulder, and not +be willing to withdraw it; and would show by all such means that there +was something on her heart which in her great love she longed to say to +him, but had not the courage to utter. + +So they were sitting, she with her work before her, but not working, and +Tom with his book beside him, but not reading, when Martin knocked +at the door. Anticipating who it was, Tom went to open it; and he and +Martin came back into the room together. Tom looked surprised, for in +answer to his cordial greeting Martin had hardly spoken a word. + +Ruth also saw that there was something strange in the manner of their +visitor, and raised her eyes inquiringly to Tom’s face, as if she were +seeking an explanation there. Tom shook his head, and made the same mute +appeal to Martin. + +Martin did not sit down but walked up to the window, and stood there +looking out. He turned round after a few moments to speak, but hastily +averted his head again, without doing so. + +‘What has happened, Martin?’ Tom anxiously inquired. ‘My dear fellow, +what bad news do you bring?’ + +‘Oh, Tom!’ replied Martin, in a tone of deep reproach. ‘To hear you +feign that interest in anything that happens to me, hurts me even more +than your ungenerous dealing.’ + +‘My ungenerous dealing! Martin! My--’ Tom could say no more. + +‘How could you, Tom, how could you suffer me to thank you so fervently +and sincerely for your friendship; and not tell me, like a man, that you +had deserted me! Was it true, Tom! Was it honest! Was it worthy of what +you used to be--of what I am sure you used to be--to tempt me, when you +had turned against me, into pouring out my heart! Oh, Tom!’ + +His tone was one of such strong injury and yet of so much grief for the +loss of a friend he had trusted in--it expressed such high past love +for Tom, and so much sorrow and compassion for his supposed +unworthiness--that Tom, for a moment, put his hand before his face, and +had no more power of justifying himself, than if he had been a monster +of deceit and falsehood. + +‘I protest, as I must die,’ said Martin, ‘that I grieve over the loss +of what I thought you; and have no anger in the recollection of my own +injuries. It is only at such a time, and after such a discovery, that we +know the full measure of our old regard for the subject of it. I swear, +little as I showed it--little as I know I showed it--that when I had the +least consideration for you, Tom, I loved you like a brother.’ + +Tom was composed by this time, and might have been the Spirit of Truth, +in a homely dress--it very often wears a homely dress, thank God!--when +he replied to him. + +‘Martin,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what is in your mind, or who has abused +it, or by what extraordinary means. But the means are false. There is +no truth whatever in the impression under which you labour. It is a +delusion from first to last; and I warn you that you will deeply regret +the wrong you do me. I can honestly say that I have been true to you, +and to myself. You will be very sorry for this. Indeed, you will be very +sorry for it, Martin.’ + +‘I AM sorry,’ returned Martin, shaking his head. ‘I think I never knew +what it was to be sorry in my heart, until now.’ + +‘At least,’ said Tom, ‘if I had always been what you charge me with +being now, and had never had a place in your regard, but had always been +despised by you, and had always deserved it, you should tell me in what +you have found me to be treacherous; and on what grounds you proceed. I +do not intreat you, therefore, to give me that satisfaction as a favour, +Martin, but I ask it of you as a right.’ + +‘My own eyes are my witnesses,’ returned Martin. ‘Am I to believe them?’ + +‘No,’ said Tom, calmly. ‘Not if they accuse me.’ + +‘Your own words. Your own manner,’ pursued Martin. ‘Am I to believe +THEM?’ + +‘No,’ replied Tom, calmly. ‘Not if they accuse me. But they never have +accused me. Whoever has perverted them to such a purpose, has wronged +me almost as cruelly’--his calmness rather failed him here--‘as you have +done.’ + +‘I came here,’ said Martin; ‘and I appeal to your good sister to hear +me--’ + +‘Not to her,’ interrupted Tom. ‘Pray, do not appeal to her. She will +never believe you.’ + +He drew her arm through his own, as he said it. + +‘I believe it, Tom!’ + +‘No, no,’ cried Tom, ‘of course not. I said so. Why, tut, tut, tut. What +a silly little thing you are!’ + +‘I never meant,’ said Martin, hastily, ‘to appeal to you against your +brother. Do not think me so unmanly and unkind. I merely appealed to you +to hear my declaration, that I came here for no purpose of reproach--I +have not one reproach to vent--but in deep regret. You could not know in +what bitterness of regret, unless you knew how often I have thought of +Tom; how long in almost hopeless circumstances, I have looked forward +to the better estimation of his friendship; and how steadfastly I have +believed and trusted in him.’ + +‘Tut, tut,’ said Tom, stopping her as she was about to speak. ‘He is +mistaken. He is deceived. Why should you mind? He is sure to be set +right at last.’ + +‘Heaven bless the day that sets me right!’ cried Martin, ‘if it could +ever come!’ + +‘Amen!’ said Tom. ‘And it will!’ + +Martin paused, and then said in a still milder voice: + +‘You have chosen for yourself, Tom, and will be relieved by our parting. +It is not an angry one. There is no anger on my side--’ + +‘There is none on mine,’ said Tom. + +‘--It is merely what you have brought about, and worked to bring about. +I say again, you have chosen for yourself. You have made the choice that +might have been expected in most people situated as you are, but which I +did not expect in you. For that, perhaps, I should blame my own judgment +more than you. There is wealth and favour worth having, on one side; and +there is the worthless friendship of an abandoned, struggling fellow, on +the other. You were free to make your election, and you made it; and the +choice was not difficult. But those who have not the courage to resist +such temptations, should have the courage to avow what they have yielded +to them; and I DO blame you for this, Tom: that you received me with a +show of warmth, encouraged me to be frank and plain-spoken, tempted me +to confide in you, and professed that you were able to be mine; when +you had sold yourself to others. I do not believe,’ said Martin, with +emotion--‘hear me say it from my heart--I CANNOT believe, Tom, now that +I am standing face to face with you, that it would have been in your +nature to do me any serious harm, even though I had not discovered, by +chance, in whose employment you were. But I should have encumbered you; +I should have led you into more double-dealing; I should have hazarded +your retaining the favour for which you have paid so high a price, +bartering away your former self; and it is best for both of us that I +have found out what you so much desired to keep secret.’ + +‘Be just,’ said Tom; who, had not removed his mild gaze from Martin’s +face since the commencement of this last address; ‘be just even in +your injustice, Martin. You forget. You have not yet told me what your +accusation is!’ + +‘Why should I?’ returned Martin, waving his hand, and moving towards +the door. ‘You could not know it the better for my dwelling on it, and +though it would be really none the worse, it might seem to me to be. +No, Tom. Bygones shall be bygones between us. I can take leave of you +at this moment, and in this place--in which you are so amiable and so +good--as heartily, if not as cheerfully, as ever I have done since we +first met. All good go with you, Tom!--I--’ + +‘You leave me so? You can leave me so, can you?’ said Tom. + +‘I--you--you have chosen for yourself, Tom! I--I hope it was a rash +choice,’ Martin faltered. ‘I think it was. I am sure it was! Good-bye!’ + +And he was gone. + +Tom led his little sister to her chair, and sat down in his own. He took +his book, and read, or seemed to read. Presently he said aloud, turning +a leaf as he spoke: ‘He will be very sorry for this.’ And a tear stole +down his face, and dropped upon the page. + +Ruth nestled down beside him on her knees, and clasped her arms about +his neck. + +‘No, Tom! No, no! Be comforted! Dear Tom!’ + +‘I am quite--comforted,’ said Tom. ‘It will be set right.’ + +‘Such a cruel, bad return!’ cried Ruth. + +‘No, no,’ said Tom. ‘He believes it. I cannot imagine why. But it will +be set right.’ + +More closely yet, she nestled down about him; and wept as if her heart +would break. + +‘Don’t. Don’t,’ said Tom. ‘Why do you hide your face, my dear!’ + +Then in a burst of tears, it all broke out at last. + +‘Oh Tom, dear Tom, I know your secret heart. I have found it out; you +couldn’t hide the truth from me. Why didn’t you tell me? I am sure I +could have made you happier, if you had! You love her, Tom, so dearly!’ + +Tom made a motion with his hand as if he would have put his sister +hurriedly away; but it clasped upon hers, and all his little history +was written in the action. All its pathetic eloquence was in the silent +touch. + +‘In spite of that,’ said Ruth, ‘you have been so faithful and so good, +dear; in spite of that, you have been so true and self-denying, and have +struggled with yourself; in spite of that, you have been so gentle, +and so kind, and even-tempered, that I have never seen you give a hasty +look, or heard you say one irritable word. In spite of all, you have +been so cruelly mistaken. Oh Tom, dear Tom, will THIS be set right too! +Will it, Tom? Will you always have this sorrow in your breast; you who +deserve to be so happy; or is there any hope?’ + +And still she hid her face from Tom, and clasped him round the neck, +and wept for him, and poured out all her woman’s heart and soul in the +relief and pain of this disclosure. + +It was not very long before she and Tom were sitting side by side, and +she was looking with an earnest quietness in Tom’s face. Then Tom spoke +to her thus, cheerily, though gravely: + +‘I am very glad, my dear, that this has passed between us. Not because +it assures me of your tender affection (for I was well assured of that +before), but because it relieves my mind of a great weight.’ + +Tom’s eyes glistened when he spoke of her affection; and he kissed her +on the cheek. + +‘My dear girl,’ said Tom; ‘with whatever feeling I regard her’--they +seemed to avoid the name by mutual consent--‘I have long ago--I am sure +I may say from the very first--looked upon it as a dream. As something +that might possibly have happened under very different circumstances, +but which can never be. Now, tell me. What would you have set right?’ + +She gave Tom such a significant little look, that he was obliged to take +it for an answer whether he would or no; and to go on. + +‘By her own choice and free consent, my love, she is betrothed to +Martin; and was, long before either of them knew of my existence. You +would have her betrothed to me?’ + +‘Yes,’ she said directly. + +‘Yes,’ rejoined Tom, ‘but that might be setting it wrong, instead of +right. Do you think,’ said Tom, with a grave smile, ‘that even if she +had never seen him, it is very likely she would have fallen in love with +Me?’ + +‘Why not, dear Tom?’ + +Tom shook his head, and smiled again. + +‘You think of me, Ruth,’ said Tom, ‘and it is very natural that you +should, as if I were a character in a book; and you make it a sort of +poetical justice that I should, by some impossible means or other, come, +at last, to marry the person I love. But there is a much higher justice +than poetical justice, my dear, and it does not order events upon the +same principle. Accordingly, people who read about heroes in books, and +choose to make heroes of themselves out of books, consider it a very +fine thing to be discontented and gloomy, and misanthropical, and +perhaps a little blasphemous, because they cannot have everything +ordered for their individual accommodation. Would you like me to become +one of that sort of people?’ + +‘No, Tom. But still I know,’ she added timidly, ‘that this is a sorrow +to you in your own better way.’ + +Tom thought of disputing the position. But it would have been mere +folly, and he gave it up. + +‘My dear,’ said Tom, ‘I will repay your affection with the Truth and all +the Truth. It is a sorrow to me. I have proved it to be so sometimes, +though I have always striven against it. But somebody who is precious to +you may die, and you may dream that you are in heaven with the departed +spirit, and you may find it a sorrow to wake to the life on earth, which +is no harder to be borne than when you fell asleep. It is sorrowful to +me to contemplate my dream which I always knew was a dream, even when +it first presented itself; but the realities about me are not to blame. +They are the same as they were. My sister, my sweet companion, who makes +this place so dear, is she less devoted to me, Ruth, than she would +have been, if this vision had never troubled me? My old friend John, who +might so easily have treated me with coldness and neglect, is he less +cordial to me? The world about me, is there less good in that? Are my +words to be harsh and my looks to be sour, and is my heart to grow cold, +because there has fallen in my way a good and beautiful creature, who +but for the selfish regret that I cannot call her my own, would, like +all other good and beautiful creatures, make me happier and better! +No, my dear sister. No,’ said Tom stoutly. ‘Remembering all my means of +happiness, I hardly dare to call this lurking something a sorrow; but +whatever name it may justly bear, I thank Heaven that it renders me more +sensible of affection and attachment, and softens me in fifty ways. Not +less happy. Not less happy, Ruth!’ + +She could not speak to him, but she loved him, as he well deserved. Even +as he deserved, she loved him. + +‘She will open Martin’s eyes,’ said Tom, with a glow of pride, ‘and that +(which is indeed wrong) will be set right. Nothing will persuade her, I +know, that I have betrayed him. It will be set right through her, and he +will be very sorry for it. Our secret, Ruth, is our own, and lives and +dies with us. I don’t believe I ever could have told it you,’ said Tom, +with a smile, ‘but how glad I am to think you have found it out!’ + +They had never taken such a pleasant walk as they took that night. Tom +told her all so freely and so simply, and was so desirous to return +her tenderness with his fullest confidence, that they prolonged it far +beyond their usual hour, and sat up late when they came home. And +when they parted for the night there was such a tranquil, beautiful +expression in Tom’s face, that she could not bear to shut it out, but +going back on tiptoe to his chamber-door, looked in and stood there till +he saw her, and then embracing him again, withdrew. And in her prayers +and in her sleep--good times to be remembered with such fervour, +Tom!--his name was uppermost. + +When he was left alone, Tom pondered very much on this discovery of +hers, and greatly wondered what had led her to it. ‘Because,’ thought +Tom, ‘I have been so very careful. It was foolish and unnecessary in +me, as I clearly see now, when I am so relieved by her knowing it; but I +have been so very careful to conceal it from her. Of course I knew that +she was intelligent and quick, and for that reason was more upon my +guard; but I was not in the least prepared for this. I am sure her +discovery has been sudden too. Dear me!’ said Tom. ‘It’s a most singular +instance of penetration!’ + +Tom could not get it out of his head. There it was, when his head was on +his pillow. + +‘How she trembled when she began to tell me she knew it!’ thought Tom, +recalling all the little incidents and circumstances; ‘and how her +face flushed! But that was natural! Oh, quite natural! That needs no +accounting for.’ + +Tom little thought how natural it was. Tom little knew that there was +that in Ruth’s own heart, but newly set there, which had helped her to +the reading of his mystery. Ah, Tom! He didn’t understand the whispers +of the Temple Fountain, though he passed it every day. + +Who so lively and cheerful as busy Ruth next morning! Her early tap at +Tom’s door, and her light foot outside, would have been music to him +though she had not spoken. But she said it was the brightest morning +ever seen; and so it was; and if it had been otherwise, she would have +made it so to Tom. + +She was ready with his neat breakfast when he went downstairs, and had +her bonnet ready for the early walk, and was so full of news, that Tom +was lost in wonder. She might have been up all night, collecting it for +his entertainment. There was Mr Nadgett not come home yet, and there was +bread down a penny a loaf, and there was twice as much strength in this +tea as in the last, and the milk-woman’s husband had come out of the +hospital cured, and the curly-headed child over the way had been lost +all yesterday, and she was going to make all sorts of preserves in a +desperate hurry, and there happened to be a saucepan in the house which +was the very saucepan for the purpose; and she knew all about the last +book Tom had brought home, all through, though it was a teaser to read; +and she had so much to tell him that she had finished breakfast first. +Then she had her little bonnet on, and the tea and sugar locked up, and +the keys in her reticule, and the flower, as usual, in Tom’s coat, and +was in all respects quite ready to accompany him, before Tom knew she +had begun to prepare. And in short, as Tom said, with a confidence in +his own assertion which amounted to a defiance of the public in general, +there never was such a little woman. + +She made Tom talkative. It was impossible to resist her. She put such +enticing questions to him; about books, and about dates of churches, +and about organs and about the Temple, and about all kinds of things. +Indeed, she lightened the way (and Tom’s heart with it) to that degree, +that the Temple looked quite blank and solitary when he parted from her +at the gate. + +‘No Mr Fips’s friend to-day, I suppose,’ thought Tom, as he ascended the +stairs. + +Not yet, at any rate, for the door was closed as usual, and Tom opened +it with his key. He had got the books into perfect order now, and +had mended the torn leaves, and had pasted up the broken backs, and +substituted neat labels for the worn-out letterings. It looked a +different place, it was so orderly and neat. Tom felt some pride in +comtemplating the change he had wrought, though there was no one to +approve or disapprove of it. + +He was at present occupied in making a fair copy of his draught of +the catalogue; on which, as there was no hurry, he was painfully +concentrating all the ingenious and laborious neatness he had ever +expended on map or plan in Mr Pecksniff’s workroom. It was a very marvel +of a catalogue; for Tom sometimes thought he was really getting his +money too easily, and he had determined within himself that this +document should take a little of his superfluous leisure out of him. + +So with pens and ruler, and compasses and india-rubber, and pencil, and +black ink, and red ink, Tom worked away all the morning. He thought a +good deal about Martin, and their interview of yesterday, and would have +been far easier in his mind if he could have resolved to confide it +to his friend John, and to have taken his opinion on the subject. +But besides that he knew what John’s boiling indignation would be, he +bethought himself that he was helping Martin now in a matter of great +moment, and that to deprive the latter of his assistance at such a +crisis of affairs, would be to inflict a serious injury upon him. + +‘So I’ll keep it to myself,’ said Tom, with a sigh. ‘I’ll keep it to +myself.’ + +And to work he went again, more assiduously than ever, with the pens, +and the ruler, and the india-rubber, and the pencils, and the red ink, +that he might forget it. + +He had laboured away another hour or more, when he heard a footstep in +the entry, down below. + +‘Ah!’ said Tom, looking towards the door; ‘time was, not long ago +either, when that would have set me wondering and expecting. But I have +left off now.’ + +The footstep came on, up the stairs. + +‘Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,’ said Tom, counting. ‘Now +you’ll stop. Nobody ever comes past the thirty-eighth stair.’ + +The person did, certainly, but only to take breath; for up the footstep +came again. Forty, forty-one, forty-two, and so on. + +The door stood open. As the tread advanced, Tom looked impatiently and +eagerly towards it. When a figure came upon the landing, and arriving +in the doorway, stopped and gazed at him, he rose up from his chair, and +half believed he saw a spirit. + +Old Martin Chuzzlewit! The same whom he had left at Mr Pecksniff’s, weak +and sinking! + +The same? No, not the same, for this old man, though old, was strong, +and leaned upon his stick with a vigorous hand, while with the other +he signed to Tom to make no noise. One glance at the resolute face, the +watchful eye, the vigorous hand upon the staff, the triumphant purpose +in the figure, and such a light broke in on Tom as blinded him. + +‘You have expected me,’ said Martin, ‘a long time.’ + +‘I was told that my employer would arrive soon,’ said Tom; ‘but--’ + +‘I know. You were ignorant who he was. It was my desire. I am glad it +has been so well observed. I intended to have been with you much sooner. +I thought the time had come. I thought I could know no more, and no +worse, of him, than I did on that day when I saw you last. But I was +wrong.’ + +He had by this time come up to Tom, and now he grasped his hand. + +‘I have lived in his house, Pinch, and had him fawning on me days and +weeks and months. You know it. I have suffered him to treat me like +his tool and instrument. You know it; you have seen me there. I have +undergone ten thousand times as much as I could have endured if I had +been the miserable weak old man he took me for. You know it. I have seen +him offer love to Mary. You know it; who better--who better, my true +heart! I have had his base soul bare before me, day by day, and have not +betrayed myself once. I never could have undergone such torture but for +looking forward to this time.’ + +He stopped, even in the passion of his speech--if that can be called +passion which was so resolute and steady--to press Tom’s hand again. +Then he said, in great excitement: + +‘Close the door, close the door. He will not be long after me, but +may come too soon. The time now drawing on,’ said the old man, +hurriedly--his eyes and whole face brightening as he spoke--‘will make +amends for all. I wouldn’t have him die or hang himself, for millions of +golden pieces! Close the door!’ + +Tom did so; hardly knowing yet whether he was awake or in a dream. + + + +CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE + +SHEDS NEW AND BRIGHTER LIGHT UPON THE VERY DARK PLACE; AND CONTAINS THE +SEQUEL OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND + + +The night had now come, when the old clerk was to be delivered over +to his keepers. In the midst of his guilty distractions, Jonas had not +forgotten it. + +It was a part of his guilty state of mind to remember it; for on his +persistence in the scheme depended one of his precautions for his own +safety. A hint, a word, from the old man, uttered at such a moment in +attentive ears, might fire the train of suspicion, and destroy him. His +watchfulness of every avenue by which the discovery of his guilt might +be approached, sharpened with his sense of the danger by which he was +encompassed. With murder on his soul, and its innumerable alarms and +terrors dragging at him night and day, he would have repeated the crime, +if he had seen a path of safety stretching out beyond. It was in his +punishment; it was in his guilty condition. The very deed which his +fears rendered insupportable, his fears would have impelled him to +commit again. + +But keeping the old man close, according to his design, would serve his +turn. His purpose was to escape, when the first alarm and wonder had +subsided; and when he could make the attempt without awakening instant +suspicion. In the meanwhile these women would keep him quiet; and if +the talking humour came upon him, would not be easily startled. He knew +their trade. + +Nor had he spoken idly when he said the old man should be gagged. He had +resolved to ensure his silence; and he looked to the end, not the means. +He had been rough and rude and cruel to the old man all his life; and +violence was natural to his mind in connection with him. ‘He shall be +gagged if he speaks, and pinioned if he writes,’ said Jonas, looking at +him; for they sat alone together. ‘He is mad enough for that; I’ll go +through with it!’ + +Hush! + +Still listening! To every sound. He had listened ever since, and it +had not come yet. The exposure of the Assurance office; the flight of +Crimple and Bullamy with the plunder, and among the rest, as he feared, +with his own bill, which he had not found in the pocket-book of the +murdered man, and which with Mr Pecksniff’s money had probably been +remitted to one or other of those trusty friends for safe deposit at the +banker’s; his immense losses, and peril of being still called to account +as a partner in the broken firm; all these things rose in his mind at +one time and always, but he could not contemplate them. He was aware of +their presence, and of the rage, discomfiture, and despair, they brought +along with them; but he thought--of his own controlling power and +direction he thought--of the one dread question only. When they would +find the body in the wood. + +He tried--he had never left off trying--not to forget it was there, for +that was impossible, but to forget to weary himself by drawing vivid +pictures of it in his fancy; by going softly about it and about it +among the leaves, approaching it nearer and nearer through a gap in the +boughs, and startling the very flies that were thickly sprinkled all +over it, like heaps of dried currants. His mind was fixed and fastened +on the discovery, for intelligence of which he listened intently to +every cry and shout; listened when any one came in or went out; watched +from the window the people who passed up and down the street; mistrusted +his own looks and words. And the more his thoughts were set upon the +discovery, the stronger was the fascination which attracted them to +the thing itself; lying alone in the wood. He was for ever showing and +presenting it, as it were, to every creature whom he saw. ‘Look here! +Do you know of this? Is it found? Do you suspect ME?’ If he had been +condemned to bear the body in his arms, and lay it down for recognition +at the feet of every one he met, it could not have been more constantly +with him, or a cause of more monotonous and dismal occupation than it +was in this state of his mind. + +Still he was not sorry. It was no contrition or remorse for what he had +done that moved him; it was nothing but alarm for his own security. The +vague consciousness he possessed of having wrecked his fortune in the +murderous venture, intensified his hatred and revenge, and made him set +the greater store by what he had gained The man was dead; nothing could +undo that. He felt a triumph yet, in the reflection. + +He had kept a jealous watch on Chuffey ever since the deed; seldom +leaving him but on compulsion, and then for as short intervals as +possible. They were alone together now. It was twilight, and the +appointed time drew near at hand. Jonas walked up and down the room. The +old man sat in his accustomed corner. + +The slightest circumstance was matter of disquiet to the murderer, and +he was made uneasy at this time by the absence of his wife, who had left +home early in the afternoon, and had not returned yet. No tenderness +for her was at the bottom of this; but he had a misgiving that she +might have been waylaid, and tempted into saying something that would +criminate him when the news came. For anything he knew, she might have +knocked at the door of his room, while he was away, and discovered his +plot. Confound her, it was like her pale face to be wandering up and +down the house! Where was she now? + +‘She went to her good friend, Mrs Todgers,’ said the old man, when he +asked the question with an angry oath. + +Aye! To be sure! Always stealing away into the company of that woman. +She was no friend of his. Who could tell what devil’s mischief they +might hatch together! Let her be fetched home directly. + +The old man, muttering some words softly, rose as if he would have gone +himself, but Jonas thrust him back into his chair with an impatient +imprecation, and sent a servant-girl to fetch her. When he had charged +her with her errand he walked to and fro again, and never stopped till +she came back, which she did pretty soon; the way being short, and the +woman having made good haste. + +Well! Where was she? Had she come? + +No. She had left there, full three hours. + +‘Left there! Alone?’ + +The messenger had not asked; taking that for granted. + +‘Curse you for a fool. Bring candles!’ + +She had scarcely left the room when the old clerk, who had been +unusually observant of him ever since he had asked about his wife, came +suddenly upon him. + +‘Give her up!’ cried the old man. ‘Come! Give her up to me! Tell me what +you have done with her. Quick! I have made no promises on that score. +Tell me what you have done with her.’ + +He laid his hands upon his collar as he spoke, and grasped it; tightly +too. + +‘You shall not leave me!’ cried the old man. ‘I am strong enough to cry +out to the neighbours, and I will, unless you give her up. Give her up +to me!’ + +Jonas was so dismayed and conscience-stricken, that he had not even +hardihood enough to unclench the old man’s hands with his own; but stood +looking at him as well as he could in the darkness, without moving a +finger. It was as much as he could do to ask him what he meant. + +‘I will know what you have done with her!’ retorted Chuffey. ‘If you +hurt a hair of her head, you shall answer it. Poor thing! Poor thing! +Where is she?’ + +‘Why, you old madman!’ said Jonas, in a low voice, and with trembling +lips. ‘What Bedlam fit has come upon you now?’ + +‘It is enough to make me mad, seeing what I have seen in this house!’ +cried Chuffey. ‘Where is my dear old master! Where is his only son that +I have nursed upon my knee, a child! Where is she, she who was the last; +she that I’ve seen pining day by day, and heard weeping in the dead of +night! She was the last, the last of all my friends! Heaven help me, she +was the very last!’ + +Seeing that the tears were stealing down his face, Jonas mustered +courage to unclench his hands, and push him off before he answered: + +‘Did you hear me ask for her? Did you hear me send for her? How can I +give you up what I haven’t got, idiot! Ecod, I’d give her up to you and +welcome, if I could; and a precious pair you’d be!’ + +‘If she has come to any harm,’ cried Chuffey, ‘mind! I’m old and silly; +but I have my memory sometimes; and if she has come to any harm--’ + +‘Devil take you,’ interrupted Jonas, but in a suppressed voice still; +‘what harm do you suppose she has come to? I know no more where she is +than you do; I wish I did. Wait till she comes home, and see; she can’t +be long. Will that content you?’ + +‘Mind!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘Not a hair of her head! not a hair of +her head ill-used! I won’t bear it. I--I--have borne it too long Jonas. +I am silent, but I--I--I can speak. I--I--I can speak--’ he stammered, +as he crept back to his chair, and turned a threatening, though a +feeble, look upon him. + +‘You can speak, can you!’ thought Jonas. ‘So, so, we’ll stop your +speaking. It’s well I knew of this in good time. Prevention is better +than cure.’ + +He had made a poor show of playing the bully and evincing a desire to +conciliate at the same time, but was so afraid of the old man that +great drops had started out upon his brow; and they stood there yet. His +unusual tone of voice and agitated manner had sufficiently expressed his +fear; but his face would have done so now, without that aid, as he again +walked to and fro, glancing at him by the candelight. + +He stopped at the window to think. An opposite shop was lighted up; and +the tradesman and a customer were reading some printed bill together +across the counter. The sight brought him back, instantly, to the +occupation he had forgotten. ‘Look here! Do you know of this? Is it +found? Do you suspect ME?’ + +A hand upon the door. ‘What’s that!’ + +‘A pleasant evenin’,’ said the voice of Mrs Gamp, ‘though warm, which, +bless you, Mr Chuzzlewit, we must expect when cowcumbers is three for +twopence. How does Mr Chuffey find his self to-night, sir?’ + +Mrs Gamp kept particularly close to the door in saying this, and +curtseyed more than usual. She did not appear to be quite so much at her +ease as she generally was. + +‘Get him to his room,’ said Jonas, walking up to her, and speaking in +her ear. ‘He has been raving to-night--stark mad. Don’t talk while he’s +here, but come down again.’ + +‘Poor sweet dear!’ cried Mrs Gamp, with uncommon tenderness. ‘He’s all +of a tremble.’ + +‘Well he may be,’ said Jonas, ‘after the mad fit he has had. Get him +upstairs.’ + +She was by this time assisting him to rise. + +‘There’s my blessed old chick!’ cried Mrs Gamp, in a tone that was at +once soothing and encouraging. ‘There’s my darlin’ Mr Chuffey! Now come +up to your own room, sir, and lay down on your bed a bit; for you’re +a-shakin’ all over, as if your precious jints was hung upon wires. +That’s a good creetur! Come with Sairey!’ + +‘Is she come home?’ inquired the old man. + +‘She’ll be here directly minit,’ returned Mrs Gamp. ‘Come with Sairey, +Mr Chuffey. Come with your own Sairey!’ + +The good woman had no reference to any female in the world in promising +this speedy advent of the person for whom Mr Chuffey inquired, but +merely threw it out as a means of pacifying the old man. It had its +effect, for he permitted her to lead him away; and they quitted the room +together. + +Jonas looked out of the window again. They were still reading the +printed paper in the shop opposite, and a third man had joined in the +perusal. What could it be, to interest them so?’ + +A dispute or discussion seemed to arise among them, for they all looked +up from their reading together, and one of the three, who had been +glancing over the shoulder of another, stepped back to explain or +illustrate some action by his gestures. + +Horror! How like the blow he had struck in the wood! + +It beat him from the window as if it had lighted on himself. As he +staggered into a chair, he thought of the change in Mrs Gamp exhibited +in her new-born tenderness to her charge. Was that because it was +found?--because she knew of it?--because she suspected him? + +‘Mr Chuffey is a-lyin’ down,’ said Mrs Gamp, returning, ‘and much good +may it do him, Mr Chuzzlewit, which harm it can’t and good it may; be +joyful!’ + +‘Sit down,’ said Jonas, hoarsely, ‘and let us get this business done. +Where is the other woman?’ + +‘The other person’s with him now,’ she answered. + +‘That’s right,’ said Jonas. ‘He is not fit to be left to himself. Why, +he fastened on me to-night; here, upon my coat; like a savage dog. Old +as he is, and feeble as he is usually, I had some trouble to shake him +off. You--Hush!--It’s nothing. You told me the other woman’s name. I +forget it.’ + +‘I mentioned Betsey Prig,’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘She is to be trusted, is she?’ + +‘That she ain’t!’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘nor have I brought her, Mr Chuzzlewit. +I’ve brought another, which engages to give every satigefaction.’ + +‘What is her name?’ asked Jonas. + +Mrs Gamp looked at him in an odd way without returning any answer, but +appeared to understand the question too. + +‘What is her name?’ repeated Jonas. + +‘Her name,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘is Harris.’ + +It was extraordinary how much effort it cost Mrs Gamp to pronounce the +name she was commonly so ready with. She made some three or four gasps +before she could get it out; and, when she had uttered it, pressed her +hand upon her side, and turned up her eyes, as if she were going to +faint away. But, knowing her to labour under a complication of internal +disorders, which rendered a few drops of spirits indispensable at +certain times to her existence, and which came on very strong when that +remedy was not at hand, Jonas merely supposed her to be the victim of +one of these attacks. + +‘Well!’ he said, hastily, for he felt how incapable he was of confining +his wandering attention to the subject. ‘You and she have arranged to +take care of him, have you?’ + +Mrs Gamp replied in the affirmative, and softly discharged herself of +her familiar phrase, ‘Turn and turn about; one off, one on.’ But +she spoke so tremulously that she felt called upon to add, ‘which +fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves this night!’ + +Jonas stopped to listen. Then said, hurriedly: + +‘We shall not quarrel about terms. Let them be the same as they were +before. Keep him close, and keep him quiet. He must be restrained. +He has got it in his head to-night that my wife’s dead, and has been +attacking me as if I had killed her. It’s--it’s common with mad people +to take the worst fancies of those they like best. Isn’t it?’ + +Mrs Gamp assented with a short groan. + +‘Keep him close, then, or in one of his fits he’ll be doing me a +mischief. And don’t trust him at any time; for when he seems most +rational, he’s wildest in his talk. But that you know already. Let me +see the other.’ + +‘The t’other person, sir?’ said Mrs Gamp. + +‘Aye! Go you to him and send the other. Quick! I’m busy.’ + +Mrs Gamp took two or three backward steps towards the door, and stopped +there. + +‘It is your wishes, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, in a sort of quavering +croak, ‘to see the t’other person. Is it?’ + +But the ghastly change in Jonas told her that the other person was +already seen. Before she could look round towards the door, she was put +aside by old Martin’s hand; and Chuffey and John Westlock entered with +him. + +‘Let no one leave the house,’ said Martin. ‘This man is my brother’s +son. Ill-met, ill-trained, ill-begotten. If he moves from the spot on +which he stands, or speaks a word above his breath to any person here, +open the window, and call for help!’ + +‘What right have you to give such directions in this house?’ asked Jonas +faintly. + +‘The right of your wrong-doing. Come in there!’ + +An irrepressible exclamation burst from the lips of Jonas, as Lewsome +entered at the door. It was not a groan, or a shriek, or a word, but was +wholly unlike any sound that had ever fallen on the ears of those who +heard it, while at the same time it was the most sharp and terrible +expression of what was working in his guilty breast, that nature could +have invented. + +He had done murder for this! He had girdled himself about with perils, +agonies of mind, innumerable fears, for this! He had hidden his secret +in the wood; pressed and stamped it down into the bloody ground; and +here it started up when least expected, miles upon miles away; known to +many; proclaiming itself from the lips of an old man who had renewed his +strength and vigour as by a miracle, to give it voice against him! + +He leaned his hand on the back of a chair, and looked at them. It was +in vain to try to do so scornfully, or with his usual insolence. He +required the chair for his support. But he made a struggle for it. + +‘I know that fellow,’ he said, fetching his breath at every word, and +pointing his trembling finger towards Lewsome. ‘He’s the greatest liar +alive. What’s his last tale? Ha, ha! You’re rare fellows, too! Why, that +uncle of mine is childish; he’s even a greater child than his brother, +my father, was, in his old age; or than Chuffey is. What the devil do +you mean,’ he added, looking fiercely at John Westlock and Mark Tapley +(the latter had entered with Lewsome), ‘by coming here, and bringing +two idiots and a knave with you to take my house by storm? Hallo, there! +Open the door! Turn these strangers out!’ + +‘I tell you what,’ cried Mr Tapley, coming forward, ‘if it wasn’t +for your name, I’d drag you through the streets of my own accord, and +single-handed I would! Ah, I would! Don’t try and look bold at me. +You can’t do it! Now go on, sir,’ this was to old Martin. ‘Bring the +murderin’ wagabond upon his knees! If he wants noise, he shall have +enough of it; for as sure as he’s a shiverin’ from head to foot I’ll +raise a uproar at this winder that shall bring half London in. Go on, +sir! Let him try me once, and see whether I’m a man of my word or not.’ + +With that, Mark folded his arms, and took his seat upon the +window-ledge, with an air of general preparation for anything, which +seemed to imply that he was equally ready to jump out himself, or to +throw Jonas out, upon receiving the slightest hint that it would be +agreeable to the company. + +Old Martin turned to Lewsome: + +‘This is the man,’ he said, extending his hand towards Jonas. ‘Is it?’ + +‘You need do no more than look at him to be sure of that, or of the +truth of what I have said,’ was the reply. ‘He is my witness.’ + +‘Oh, brother!’ cried old Martin, clasping his hands and lifting up his +eyes. ‘Oh, brother, brother! Were we strangers half our lives that you +might breed a wretch like this, and I make life a desert by withering +every flower that grew about me! Is it the natural end of your precepts +and mine, that this should be the creature of your rearing, training, +teaching, hoarding, striving for; and I the means of bringing him to +punishment, when nothing can repair the wasted past!’ + +He sat down upon a chair as he spoke, and turning away his face, was +silent for a few moments. Then with recovered energy he proceeded: + +‘But the accursed harvest of our mistaken lives shall be trodden down. +It is not too late for that. You are confronted with this man, you +monster there; not to be spared, but to be dealt with justly. Hear what +he says! Reply, be silent, contradict, repeat, defy, do what you please. +My course will be the same. Go on! And you,’ he said to Chuffey, ‘for +the love of your old friend, speak out, good fellow!’ + +‘I have been silent for his love!’ cried the old man. ‘He urged me to +it. He made me promise it upon his dying bed. I never would have spoken, +but for your finding out so much. I have thought about it ever since; +I couldn’t help that; and sometimes I have had it all before me in +a dream; but in the day-time, not in sleep. Is there such a kind of +dream?’ said Chuffey, looking anxiously in old Martin’s face. + +As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to his +voice, and smiled. + +‘Ah, aye!’ he cried. ‘He often spoke to me like that. We were at school +together, he and I. I couldn’t turn against his son, you know--his only +son, Mr Chuzzlewit!’ + +‘I would to Heaven you had been his son!’ said Martin. + +‘You speak so like my dear old master,’ cried the old man with a +childish delight, ‘that I almost think I hear him. I can hear you quite +as well as I used to hear him. It makes me young again. He never spoke +unkindly to me, and I always understood him. I could always see him too, +though my sight was dim. Well, well! He’s dead, he’s dead. He was very +good to me, my dear old master!’ + +He shook his head mournfully over the brother’s hand. At this moment +Mark, who had been glancing out of the window, left the room. + +‘I couldn’t turn against his only son, you know,’ said Chuffey. ‘He has +nearly driven me to do it sometimes; he very nearly did tonight. Ah!’ +cried the old man, with a sudden recollection of the cause. ‘Where is +she? She’s not come home!’ + +‘Do you mean his wife?’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘I have removed her. She is in my care, and will be spared the present +knowledge of what is passing here. She has known misery enough, without +that addition.’ + +Jonas heard this with a sinking heart. He knew that they were on his +heels, and felt that they were resolute to run him to destruction. Inch +by inch the ground beneath him was sliding from his feet; faster and +faster the encircling ruin contracted and contracted towards himself, +its wicked centre, until it should close in and crush him. + +And now he heard the voice of his accomplice stating to his face, +with every circumstance of time and place and incident; and openly +proclaiming, with no reserve, suppression, passion, or concealment; all +the truth. The truth, which nothing would keep down; which blood +would not smother, and earth would not hide; the truth, whose terrible +inspiration seemed to change dotards into strong men; and on whose +avenging wings, one whom he had supposed to be at the extremest corner +of the earth came swooping down upon him. + +He tried to deny it, but his tongue would not move. He conceived some +desperate thought of rushing away, and tearing through the streets; but +his limbs would as little answer to his will as his stark, stiff staring +face. All this time the voice went slowly on, denouncing him. It was as +if every drop of blood in the wood had found a voice to jeer him with. + +When it ceased, another voice took up the tale, but strangely; for the +old clerk, who had watched, and listened to the whole, and had wrung his +hands from time to time, as if he knew its truth and could confirm it, +broke in with these words: + +‘No, no, no! you’re wrong; you’re wrong--all wrong together! Have +patience, for the truth is only known to me!’ + +‘How can that be,’ said his old master’s brother, ‘after what you have +heard? Besides, you said just now, above-stairs, when I told you of the +accusation against him, that you knew he was his father’s murderer.’ + +‘Aye, yes! and so he was!’ cried Chuffey, wildly. ‘But not as you +suppose--not as you suppose. Stay! Give me a moment’s time. I have +it all here--all here! It was foul, foul, cruel, bad; but not as you +suppose. Stay, stay!’ + +He put his hands up to his head, as if it throbbed or pained him. After +looking about him in a wandering and vacant manner for some moments, his +eyes rested upon Jonas, when they kindled up with sudden recollection +and intelligence. + +‘Yes!’ cried old Chuffey, ‘yes! That’s how it was. It’s all upon me now. +He--he got up from his bed before he died, to be sure, to say that he +forgave him; and he came down with me into this room; and when he saw +him--his only son, the son he loved--his speech forsook him; he had +no speech for what he knew--and no one understood him except me. But I +did--I did!’ + +Old Martin regarded him in amazement; so did his companions. Mrs Gamp, +who had said nothing yet; but had kept two-thirds of herself behind the +door, ready for escape, and one-third in the room, ready for siding with +the strongest party; came a little further in and remarked, with a sob, +that Mr Chuffey was ‘the sweetest old creetur goin’.’ + +‘He bought the stuff,’ said Chuffey, stretching out his arm towards +Jonas while an unwonted fire shone in his eye, and lightened up his +face; ‘he bought the stuff, no doubt, as you have heard, and brought it +home. He mixed the stuff--look at him!--with some sweetmeat in a jar, +exactly as the medicine for his father’s cough was mixed, and put it +in a drawer; in that drawer yonder in the desk; he knows which drawer +I mean! He kept it there locked up. But his courage failed him or his +heart was touched--my God! I hope it was his heart! He was his only +son!--and he did not put it in the usual place, where my old master +would have taken it twenty times a day.’ + +The trembling figure of the old man shook with the strong emotions that +possessed him. But, with the same light in his eye, and with his arm +outstretched, and with his grey hair stirring on his head, he seemed to +grow in size, and was like a man inspired. Jonas shrunk from looking at +him, and cowered down into the chair by which he had held. It seemed as +if this tremendous Truth could make the dumb speak. + +‘I know it every word now!’ cried Chuffey. ‘Every word! He put it in +that drawer, as I have said. He went so often there, and was so secret, +that his father took notice of it; and when he was out, had it opened. +We were there together, and we found the mixture--Mr Chuzzlewit and I. +He took it into his possession, and made light of it at the time; but in +the night he came to my bedside, weeping, and told me that his own son +had it in his mind to poison him. “Oh, Chuff,” he said, “oh, dear old +Chuff! a voice came into my room to-night, and told me that this crime +began with me. It began when I taught him to be too covetous of what I +have to leave, and made the expectation of it his great business!” Those +were his words; aye, they are his very words! If he was a hard man now +and then, it was for his only son. He loved his only son, and he was +always good to me!’ + +Jonas listened with increased attention. Hope was breaking in upon him. + +‘“He shall not weary for my death, Chuff;” that was what he said next,’ +pursued the old clerk, as he wiped his eyes; ‘that was what he said +next, crying like a little child: “He shall not weary for my death, +Chuff. He shall have it now; he shall marry where he has a fancy, Chuff, +although it don’t please me; and you and I will go away and live upon a +little. I always loved him; perhaps he’ll love me then. It’s a dreadful +thing to have my own child thirsting for my death. But I might have +known it. I have sown, and I must reap. He shall believe that I am +taking this; and when I see that he is sorry, and has all he wants, I’ll +tell him that I found it out, and I’ll forgive him. He’ll make a better +man of his own son, and be a better man himself, perhaps, Chuff!”’ + +Poor Chuffey paused to dry his eyes again. Old Martin’s face was hidden +in his hands. Jonas listened still more keenly, and his breast heaved +like a swollen water, but with hope. With growing hope. + +‘My dear old master made believe next day,’ said Chuffey, ‘that he had +opened the drawer by mistake with a key from the bunch, which happened +to fit it (we had one made and hung upon it); and that he had been +surprised to find his fresh supply of cough medicine in such a place, +but supposed it had been put there in a hurry when the drawer stood +open. We burnt it; but his son believed that he was taking it--he knows +he did. Once Mr Chuzzlewit, to try him, took heart to say it had a +strange taste; and he got up directly, and went out.’ + +Jonas gave a short, dry cough; and, changing his position for an easier +one, folded his arms without looking at them, though they could now see +his face. + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit wrote to her father; I mean the father of the poor thing +who’s his wife,’ said Chuffey; ‘and got him to come up, intending to +hasten on the marriage. But his mind, like mine, went a little wrong +through grief, and then his heart broke. He sank and altered from the +time when he came to me in the night; and never held up his head again. +It was only a few days, but he had never changed so much in twice the +years. “Spare him, Chuff!” he said, before he died. They were the only +words he could speak. “Spare him, Chuff!” I promised him I would. I’ve +tried to do it. He’s his only son.’ + +On his recollection of the last scene in his old friend’s life, poor +Chuffey’s voice, which had grown weaker and weaker, quite deserted him. +Making a motion with his hand, as if he would have said that Anthony had +taken it, and had died with it in his, he retreated to the corner where +he usually concealed his sorrows; and was silent. + +Jonas could look at his company now, and vauntingly too. ‘Well!’ he +said, after a pause. ‘Are you satisfied? or have you any more of your +plots to broach? Why that fellow, Lewsome, can invent ‘em for you by the +score. Is this all? Have you nothing else?’ + +Old Martin looked at him steadily. + +‘Whether you are what you seemed to be at Pecksniff’s, or are something +else and a mountebank, I don’t know and I don’t care,’ said Jonas, +looking downward with a smile, ‘but I don’t want you here. You were here +so often when your brother was alive, and were always so fond of him +(your dear, dear brother, and you would have been cuffing one another +before this, ecod!), that I am not surprised at your being attached to +the place; but the place is not attached to you, and you can’t leave it +too soon, though you may leave it too late. And for my wife, old man, +send her home straight, or it will be the worse for her. Ha, ha! You +carry it with a high hand, too! But it isn’t hanging yet for a man to +keep a penn’orth of poison for his own purposes, and have it taken from +him by two old crazy jolter-heads who go and act a play about it. Ha, +ha! Do you see the door?’ + +His base triumph, struggling with his cowardice, and shame, and guilt, +was so detestable, that they turned away from him, as if he were some +obscene and filthy animal, repugnant to the sight. And here that last +black crime was busy with him too; working within him to his perdition. +But for that, the old clerk’s story might have touched him, though never +so lightly; but for that, the sudden removal of so great a load might +have brought about some wholesome change even in him. With that deed +done, however; with that unnecessary wasteful danger haunting him; +despair was in his very triumph and relief; wild, ungovernable, raging +despair, for the uselessness of the peril into which he had plunged; +despair that hardened him and maddened him, and set his teeth a-grinding +in a moment of his exultation. + +‘My good friend!’ said old Martin, laying his hand on Chuffey’s sleeve. +‘This is no place for you to remain in. Come with me.’ + +‘Just his old way!’ cried Chuffey, looking up into his face. ‘I almost +believe it’s Mr Chuzzlewit alive again. Yes! Take me with you! Stay, +though, stay.’ + +‘For what?’ asked old Martin. + +‘I can’t leave her, poor thing!’ said Chuffey. ‘She has been very good +to me. I can’t leave her, Mr Chuzzlewit. Thank you kindly. I’ll remain +here. I haven’t long to remain; it’s no great matter.’ + +As he meekly shook his poor, grey head, and thanked old Martin in these +words, Mrs Gamp, now entirely in the room, was affected to tears. + +‘The mercy as it is!’ she said, ‘as sech a dear, good, reverend creetur +never got into the clutches of Betsey Prig, which but for me he would +have done, undoubted; facts bein’ stubborn and not easy drove!’ + +‘You heard me speak to you just now, old man,’ said Jonas to his uncle. +‘I’ll have no more tampering with my people, man or woman. Do you see +the door?’ + +‘Do YOU see the door?’ returned the voice of Mark, coming from that +direction. ‘Look at it!’ + +He looked, and his gaze was nailed there. Fatal, ill-omened blighted +threshold, cursed by his father’s footsteps in his dying hour, cursed by +his young wife’s sorrowing tread, cursed by the daily shadow of the old +clerk’s figure, cursed by the crossing of his murderer’s feet--what men +were standing in the door way! + +Nadgett foremost. + +Hark! It came on, roaring like a sea! Hawkers burst into the street, +crying it up and down; windows were thrown open that the inhabitants +might hear it; people stopped to listen in the road and on the pavement; +the bells, the same bells, began to ring; tumbling over one another in a +dance of boisterous joy at the discovery (that was the sound they had in +his distempered thoughts), and making their airy play-ground rock. + +‘That is the man,’ said Nadgett. ‘By the window!’ + +Three others came in, laid hands upon him, and secured him. It was so +quickly done, that he had not lost sight of the informer’s face for an +instant when his wrists were manacled together. + +‘Murder,’ said Nadgett, looking round on the astonished group. ‘Let no +one interfere.’ + +The sounding street repeated Murder; barbarous and dreadful Murder. +Murder, Murder, Murder. Rolling on from house to house, and echoing from +stone to stone, until the voices died away into the distant hum, which +seemed to mutter the same word! + +They all stood silent: listening, and gazing in each other’s faces, as +the noise passed on. + +Old Martin was the first to speak. ‘What terrible history is this?’ he +demanded. + +‘Ask HIM,’ said Nadgett. ‘You’re his friend, sir. He can tell you, if he +will. He knows more of it than I do, though I know much.’ + +‘How do you know much?’ + +‘I have not been watching him so long for nothing,’ returned Nadgett. ‘I +never watched a man so close as I have watched him.’ + +Another of the phantom forms of this terrific Truth! Another of the many +shapes in which it started up about him, out of vacancy. This man, of +all men in the world, a spy upon him; this man, changing his identity; +casting off his shrinking, purblind, unobservant character, and +springing up into a watchful enemy! The dead man might have come out of +his grave, and not confounded and appalled him more. + +The game was up. The race was at an end; the rope was woven for his +neck. If, by a miracle, he could escape from this strait, he had but to +turn his face another way, no matter where, and there would rise some +new avenger front to front with him; some infant in an hour grown old, +or old man in an hour grown young, or blind man with his sight restored, +or deaf man with his hearing given him. There was no chance. He sank +down in a heap against the wall, and never hoped again from that moment. + +‘I am not his friend, although I have the honour to be his relative,’ +said Mr Chuzzlewit. ‘You may speak to me. Where have you watched, and +what have you seen?’ + +‘I have watched in many places,’ returned Nadgett, ‘night and day. I +have watched him lately, almost without rest or relief;’ his anxious +face and bloodshot eyes confirmed it. ‘I little thought to what my +watching was to lead. As little as he did when he slipped out in the +night, dressed in those clothes which he afterwards sunk in a bundle at +London Bridge!’ + +Jonas moved upon the ground like a man in bodily torture. He uttered a +suppressed groan, as if he had been wounded by some cruel weapon; and +plucked at the iron band upon his wrists, as though (his hands being +free) he would have torn himself. + +‘Steady, kinsman!’ said the chief officer of the party. ‘Don’t be +violent.’ + +‘Whom do you call kinsman?’ asked old Martin sternly. + +‘You,’ said the man, ‘among others.’ + +Martin turned his scrutinizing gaze upon him. He was sitting lazily +across a chair with his arms resting on the back; eating nuts, and +throwing the shells out of window as he cracked them, which he still +continued to do while speaking. + +‘Aye,’ he said, with a sulky nod. ‘You may deny your nephews till you +die; but Chevy Slyme is Chevy Slyme still, all the world over. Perhaps +even you may feel it some disgrace to your own blood to be employed in +this way. I’m to be bought off.’ + +‘At every turn!’ cried Martin. ‘Self, self, self. Every one among them +for himself!’ + +‘You had better save one or two among them the trouble then and be for +them as well as YOURself,’ replied his nephew. ‘Look here at me! Can you +see the man of your family who has more talent in his little finger than +all the rest in their united brains, dressed as a police officer without +being ashamed? I took up with this trade on purpose to shame you. I +didn’t think I should have to make a capture in the family, though.’ + +‘If your debauchery, and that of your chosen friends, has really brought +you to this level,’ returned the old man, ‘keep it. You are living +honestly, I hope, and that’s something.’ + +‘Don’t be hard upon my chosen friends,’ returned Slyme, ‘for they were +sometimes your chosen friends too. Don’t say you never employed my +friend Tigg, for I know better. We quarrelled upon it.’ + +‘I hired the fellow,’ retorted Mr Chuzzlewit, ‘and I paid him.’ + +‘It’s well you paid him,’ said his nephew, ‘for it would be too late to +do so now. He has given his receipt in full; or had it forced from him +rather.’ + +The old man looked at him as if he were curious to know what he meant, +but scorned to prolong the conversation. + +‘I have always expected that he and I would be brought together again in +the course of business,’ said Slyme, taking a fresh handful of nuts from +his pocket; ‘but I thought he would be wanted for some swindling job; it +never entered my head that I should hold a warrant for the apprehension +of his murderer.’ + +‘HIS murderer!’ cried Mr Chuzzlewit, looking from one to another. + +‘His or Mr Montague’s,’ said Nadgett. ‘They are the same, I am told. +I accuse him yonder of the murder of Mr Montague, who was found last +night, killed, in a wood. You will ask me why I accuse him as you have +already asked me how I know so much. I’ll tell you. It can’t remain a +secret long.’ + +The ruling passion of the man expressed itself even then, in the tone of +regret in which he deplored the approaching publicity of what he knew. + +‘I told you I had watched him,’ he proceeded. ‘I was instructed to do +so by Mr Montague, in whose employment I have been for some time. We had +our suspicions of him; and you know what they pointed at, for you have +been discussing it since we have been waiting here, outside the room. If +you care to hear, now it’s all over, in what our suspicions began, I’ll +tell you plainly: in a quarrel (it first came to our ears through a hint +of his own) between him and another office in which his father’s life +was insured, and which had so much doubt and distrust upon the subject, +that he compounded with them, and took half the money; and was glad to +do it. Bit by bit, I ferreted out more circumstances against him, and +not a few. It required a little patience, but it’s my calling. I found +the nurse--here she is to confirm me; I found the doctor, I found +the undertaker, I found the undertaker’s man. I found out how the old +gentleman there, Mr Chuffey, had behaved at the funeral; and I found out +what this man,’ touching Lewsome on the arm, ‘had talked about in his +fever. I found out how he conducted himself before his father’s death, +and how since and how at the time; and writing it all down, and putting +it carefully together, made case enough for Mr Montague to tax him +with the crime, which (as he himself believed until to-night) he had +committed. I was by when this was done. You see him now. He is only +worse than he was then.’ + +Oh, miserable, miserable fool! oh, insupportable, excruciating torture! +To find alive and active--a party to it all--the brain and right-hand +of the secret he had thought to crush! In whom, though he had walled the +murdered man up, by enchantment in a rock, the story would have lived +and walked abroad! He tried to stop his ears with his fettered arms, +that he might shut out the rest. + +As he crouched upon the floor, they drew away from him as if a +pestilence were in his breath. They fell off, one by one, from that part +of the room, leaving him alone upon the ground. Even those who had him +in their keeping shunned him, and (with the exception of Slyme, who was +still occupied with his nuts) kept apart. + +‘From that garret-window opposite,’ said Nadgett, pointing across the +narrow street, ‘I have watched this house and him for days and nights. +From that garret-window opposite I saw him return home, alone, from a +journey on which he had set out with Mr Montague. That was my token that +Mr Montague’s end was gained; and I might rest easy on my watch, though +I was not to leave it until he dismissed me. But, standing at the door +opposite, after dark that same night, I saw a countryman steal out of +this house, by a side-door in the court, who had never entered it. +I knew his walk, and that it was himself, disguised. I followed him +immediately. I lost him on the western road, still travelling westward.’ + +Jonas looked up at him for an instant, and muttered an oath. + +‘I could not comprehend what this meant,’ said Nadgett; ‘but, having +seen so much, I resolved to see it out, and through. And I did. +Learning, on inquiry at his house from his wife, that he was supposed +to be sleeping in the room from which I had seen him go out, and that he +had given strict orders not to be disturbed, I knew that he was +coming back; and for his coming back I watched. I kept my watch in +the street--in doorways, and such places--all that night; at the same +window, all next day; and when night came on again, in the street once +more. For I knew he would come back, as he had gone out, when this part +of the town was empty. He did. Early in the morning, the same countryman +came creeping, creeping, creeping home.’ + +‘Look sharp!’ interposed Slyme, who had now finished his nuts. ‘This is +quite irregular, Mr Nadgett.’ + +‘I kept at the window all day,’ said Nadgett, without heeding him. +‘I think I never closed my eyes. At night, I saw him come out with a +bundle. I followed him again. He went down the steps at London Bridge, +and sunk it in the river. I now began to entertain some serious fears, +and made a communication to the Police, which caused that bundle to +be--’ + +‘To be fished up,’ interrupted Slyme. ‘Be alive, Mr Nadgett.’ + +‘It contained the dress I had seen him wear,’ said Nadgett; ‘stained +with clay, and spotted with blood. Information of the murder was +received in town last night. The wearer of that dress is already +known to have been seen near the place; to have been lurking in that +neighbourhood; and to have alighted from a coach coming from that part +of the country, at a time exactly tallying with the very minute when +I saw him returning home. The warrant has been out, and these officers +have been with me, some hours. We chose our time; and seeing you come +in, and seeing this person at the window--’ + +‘Beckoned to him,’ said Mark, taking up the thread of the narrative, on +hearing this allusion to himself, ‘to open the door; which he did with a +deal of pleasure.’ + +‘That’s all at present,’ said Nadgett, putting up his great pocketbook, +which from mere habit he had produced when he began his revelation, and +had kept in his hand all the time; ‘but there is plenty more to come. +You asked me for the facts, so far I have related them, and need not +detain these gentlemen any longer. Are you ready, Mr Slyme?’ + +‘And something more,’ replied that worthy, rising. ‘If you walk round to +the office, we shall be there as soon as you. Tom! Get a coach!’ + +The officer to whom he spoke departed for that purpose. Old Martin +lingered for a few moments, as if he would have addressed some words +to Jonas; but looking round, and seeing him still seated on the floor, +rocking himself in a savage manner to and fro, took Chuffey’s arm, and +slowly followed Nadgett out. John Westlock and Mark Tapley accompanied +them. Mrs Gamp had tottered out first, for the better display of her +feelings, in a kind of walking swoon; for Mrs Gamp performed swoons of +different sorts, upon a moderate notice, as Mr Mould did Funerals. + +‘Ha!’ muttered Slyme, looking after them. ‘Upon my soul! As insensible +of being disgraced by having such a nephew as myself, in such a +situation, as he was of my being an honour and a credit to the family! +That’s the return I get for having humbled my spirit--such a spirit as +mine--to earn a livelihood, is it?’ + +He got up from his chair, and kicked it away indignantly. + +‘And such a livelihood too! When there are hundreds of men, not fit to +hold a candle to me, rolling in carriages and living on their fortunes. +Upon my soul it’s a nice world!’ + +His eyes encountered Jonas, who looked earnestly towards him, and moved +his lips as if he were whispering. + +‘Eh?’ said Slyme. + +Jonas glanced at the attendant whose back was towards him, and made a +clumsy motion with his bound hands towards the door. + +‘Humph!’ said Slyme, thoughtfully. ‘I couldn’t hope to disgrace him into +anything when you have shot so far ahead of me though. I forgot that.’ + +Jonas repeated the same look and gesture. + +‘Jack!’ said Slyme. + +‘Hallo!’ returned his man. + +‘Go down to the door, ready for the coach. Call out when it comes. I’d +rather have you there. Now then,’ he added, turning hastily to Jonas, +when the man was gone. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +Jonas essayed to rise. + +‘Stop a bit,’ said Slyme. ‘It’s not so easy when your wrists are tight +together. Now then! Up! What is it?’ + +‘Put your hand in my pocket. Here! The breast pocket, on the left!’ said +Jonas. + +He did so; and drew out a purse. + +‘There’s a hundred pound in it,’ said Jonas, whose words were almost +unintelligible; as his face, in its pallor and agony, was scarcely +human. + +Slyme looked at him; gave it into his hands; and shook his head. + +‘I can’t. I daren’t. I couldn’t if I dared. Those fellows below--’ + +‘Escape’s impossible,’ said Jonas. ‘I know it. One hundred pound for +only five minutes in the next room!’ + +‘What to do?’ he asked. + +The face of his prisoner as he advanced to whisper in his ear, made him +recoil involuntarily. But he stopped and listened to him. The words were +few, but his own face changed as he heard them. + +‘I have it about me,’ said Jonas, putting his hands to his throat, as +though whatever he referred to were hidden in his neckerchief. ‘How +should you know of it? How could you know? A hundred pound for only five +minutes in the next room! The time’s passing. Speak!’ + +‘It would be more--more creditable to the family,’ observed Slyme, with +trembling lips. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me half so much. Less would have +served your purpose. You might have kept it to yourself.’ + +‘A hundred pound for only five minutes in the next room! Speak!’ cried +Jonas, desperately. + +He took the purse. Jonas, with a wild unsteady step, retreated to the +door in the glass partition. + +‘Stop!’ cried Slyme, catching at his skirts. ‘I don’t know about this. +Yet it must end so at last. Are you guilty?’ + +‘Yes!’ said Jonas. + +‘Are the proofs as they were told just now?’ + +‘Yes!’ said Jonas. + +‘Will you--will you engage to say a--a Prayer, now, or something of that +sort?’ faltered Slyme. + +Jonas broke from him without replying, and closed the door between them. + +Slyme listened at the keyhole. After that, he crept away on tiptoe, as +far off as he could; and looked awfully towards the place. He was roused +by the arrival of the coach, and their letting down the steps. + +‘He’s getting a few things together,’ he said, leaning out of window, +and speaking to the two men below, who stood in the full light of a +street-lamp. ‘Keep your eye upon the back, one of you, for form’s sake.’ + +One of the men withdrew into the court. The other, seating himself self +on the steps of the coach, remained in conversation with Slyme at the +window who perhaps had risen to be his superior, in virtue of his old +propensity (one so much lauded by the murdered man) of being always +round the corner. A useful habit in his present calling. + +‘Where is he?’ asked the man. + +Slyme looked into the room for an instant and gave his head a jerk as +much as to say, ‘Close at hand. I see him.’ + +‘He’s booked,’ observed the man. + +‘Through,’ said Slyme. + +They looked at each other, and up and down the street. The man on +the coach-steps took his hat off, and put it on again, and whistled a +little. + +‘I say! He’s taking his time!’ he remonstrated. + +‘I allowed him five minutes,’ said Slyme. ‘Time’s more than up, though. +I’ll bring him down.’ + +He withdrew from the window accordingly, and walked on tiptoe to the +door in the partition. He listened. There was not a sound within. He set +the candles near it, that they might shine through the glass. + +It was not easy, he found, to make up his mind to the opening of +the door. But he flung it wide open suddenly, and with a noise; then +retreated. After peeping in and listening again, he entered. + +He started back as his eyes met those of Jonas, standing in an angle of +the wall, and staring at him. His neckerchief was off; his face was ashy +pale. + +‘You’re too soon,’ said Jonas, with an abject whimper. ‘I’ve not had +time. I have not been able to do it. I--five minutes more--two minutes +more!--only one!’ + +Slyme gave him no reply, but thrusting the purse upon him and forcing it +back into his pocket, called up his men. + +He whined, and cried, and cursed, and entreated them, and struggled, and +submitted, in the same breath, and had no power to stand. They got him +away and into the coach, where they put him on a seat; but he soon fell +moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and lay there. + +The two men were with him. Slyme being on the box with the driver; and +they let him lie. Happening to pass a fruiterer’s on their way; the door +of which was open, though the shop was by this time shut; one of them +remarked how faint the peaches smelled. + +The other assented at the moment, but presently stooped down in quick +alarm, and looked at the prisoner. + +‘Stop the coach! He has poisoned himself! The smell comes from this +bottle in his hand!’ + +The hand had shut upon it tight. With that rigidity of grasp with which +no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can clutch a +prize he has won. + +They dragged him out into the dark street; but jury, judge, and hangman, +could have done no more, and could do nothing now. Dead, dead, dead. + + + +CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO + +IN WHICH THE TABLES ARE TURNED, COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN + + +Old Martin’s cherished projects, so long hidden in his own breast, so +frequently in danger of abrupt disclosure through the bursting forth +of the indignation he had hoarded up during his residence with Mr +Pecksniff, were retarded, but not beyond a few hours, by the occurrences +just now related. Stunned, as he had been at first by the intelligence +conveyed to him through Tom Pinch and John Westlock, of the supposed +manner of his brother’s death; overwhelmed as he was by the subsequent +narratives of Chuffey and Nadgett, and the forging of that chain of +circumstances ending in the death of Jonas, of which catastrophe he was +immediately informed; scattered as his purposes and hopes were for the +moment, by the crowding in of all these incidents between him and his +end; still their very intensity and the tumult of their assemblage +nerved him to the rapid and unyielding execution of his scheme. In every +single circumstance, whether it were cruel, cowardly, or false, he +saw the flowering of the same pregnant seed. Self; grasping, eager, +narrow-ranging, overreaching self; with its long train of suspicions, +lusts, deceits, and all their growing consequences; was the root of the +vile tree. Mr Pecksniff had so presented his character before the old +man’s eyes, that he--the good, the tolerant, enduring Pecksniff--had +become the incarnation of all selfishness and treachery; and the more +odious the shapes in which those vices ranged themselves before him now, +the sterner consolation he had in his design of setting Mr Pecksniff +right and Mr Pecksniff’s victims too. + +To this work he brought, not only the energy and determination natural +to his character (which, as the reader may have observed in the +beginning of his or her acquaintance with this gentleman, was remarkable +for the strong development of those qualities), but all the forced and +unnaturally nurtured energy consequent upon their long suppression. And +these two tides of resolution setting into one and sweeping on, became +so strong and vigorous, that, to prevent themselves from being carried +away before it, Heaven knows where, was as much as John Westlock and +Mark Tapley together (though they were tolerably energetic too) could +manage to effect. + +He had sent for John Westlock immediately on his arrival; and John, +under the conduct of Tom Pinch, had waited on him. Having a lively +recollection of Mr Tapley, he had caused that gentleman’s attendance to +be secured, through John’s means, without delay; and thus, as we have +seen, they had all repaired together to the City. But his grandson he +had refused to see until to-morrow, when Mr Tapley was instructed to +summon him to the Temple at ten o’clock in the forenoon. Tom he would +not allow to be employed in anything, lest he should be wrongfully +suspected; but he was a party to all their proceedings, and was with +them until late at night--until after they knew of the death of Jonas; +when he went home to tell all these wonders to little Ruth, and to +prepare her for accompanying him to the Temple in the morning, agreeably +to Mr Chuzzlewit’s particular injunction. + +It was characteristic of old Martin, and his looking on to something +which he had distinctly before him, that he communicated to them nothing +of his intentions, beyond such hints of reprisal on Mr Pecksniff as they +gathered from the game he had played in that gentleman’s house, and the +brightening of his eyes whenever his name was mentioned. Even to John +Westlock, in whom he was evidently disposed to place great confidence +(which may indeed be said of every one of them), he gave no explanation +whatever. He merely requested him to return in the morning; and with +this for their utmost satisfaction, they left him, when the night was +far advanced, alone. + +The events of such a day might have worn out the body and spirit of +a much younger man than he, but he sat in deep and painful meditation +until the morning was bright. Nor did he even then seek any prolonged +repose, but merely slumbered in his chair, until seven o’clock, when Mr +Tapley had appointed to come to him by his desire; and came--as fresh +and clean and cheerful as the morning itself. + +‘You are punctual,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit, opening the door to him in reply +to his light knock, which had roused him instantly. + +‘My wishes, sir,’ replied Mr Tapley, whose mind would appear from the +context to have been running on the matrimonial service, ‘is to love, +honour, and obey. The clock’s a-striking now, sir.’ + +‘Come in!’ + +‘Thank’ee, sir,’ rejoined Mr Tapley, ‘what could I do for you first, +sir?’ + +‘You gave my message to Martin?’ said the old man, bending his eyes upon +him. + +‘I did, sir,’ returned Mark; ‘and you never see a gentleman more +surprised in all your born days than he was.’ + +‘What more did you tell him?’ Mr Chuzzlewit inquired. + +‘Why, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, smiling, ‘I should have liked to tell him a +deal more, but not being able, sir, I didn’t tell it him.’ + +‘You told him all you knew?’ + +‘But it was precious little, sir,’ retorted Mr Tapley. ‘There was very +little respectin’ you that I was able to tell him, sir. I only mentioned +my opinion that Mr Pecksniff would find himself deceived, sir, and +that you would find yourself deceived, and that he would find himself +deceived, sir.’ + +‘In what?’ asked Mr Chuzzlewit. + +‘Meaning him, sir?’ + +‘Meaning both him and me.’ + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mr Tapley. ‘In your old opinions of each other. As +to him, sir, and his opinions, I know he’s a altered man. I know it. +I know’d it long afore he spoke to you t’other day, and I must say it. +Nobody don’t know half as much of him as I do. Nobody can’t. There +was always a deal of good in him, but a little of it got crusted over, +somehow. I can’t say who rolled the paste of that ‘ere crust myself, +but--’ + +‘Go on,’ said Martin. ‘Why do you stop?’ + +‘But it--well! I beg your pardon, but I think it may have been you, sir. +Unintentional I think it may have been you. I don’t believe that neither +of you gave the other quite a fair chance. There! Now I’ve got rid on +it,’ said Mr Tapley in a fit of desperation: ‘I can’t go a-carryin’ it +about in my own mind, bustin’ myself with it; yesterday was quite long +enough. It’s out now. I can’t help it. I’m sorry for it. Don’t wisit on +him, sir, that’s all.’ + +It was clear that Mark expected to be ordered out immediately, and was +quite prepared to go. + +‘So you think,’ said Martin, ‘that his old faults are, in some degree, +of my creation, do you?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ retorted Mr Tapley, ‘I’m werry sorry, but I can’t unsay it. +It’s hardly fair of you, sir, to make a ignorant man conwict himself in +this way, but I DO think so. I am as respectful disposed to you, sir, as +a man can be; but I DO think so.’ + +The light of a faint smile seemed to break through the dull steadiness +of Martin’s face, as he looked attentively at him, without replying. + +‘Yet you are an ignorant man, you say,’ he observed after a long pause. + +‘Werry much so,’ Mr Tapley replied. + +‘And I a learned, well-instructed man, you think?’ + +‘Likewise wery much so,’ Mr Tapley answered. + +The old man, with his chin resting on his hand, paced the room twice or +thrice before he added: + +‘You have left him this morning?’ + +‘Come straight from him now, sir.’ + +‘For what does he suppose?’ + +‘He don’t know what to suppose, sir, no more than myself. I told him +jest wot passed yesterday, sir, and that you had said to me, “Can you be +here by seven in the morning?” and that you had said to him, through me, +“Can you be here by ten in the morning?” and that I had said “Yes” to +both. That’s all, sir.’ + +His frankness was so genuine that it plainly WAS all. + +‘Perhaps,’ said Martin, ‘he may think you are going to desert him, and +to serve me?’ + +‘I have served him in that sort of way, sir,’ replied Mark, without the +loss of any atom of his self-possession; ‘and we have been that sort of +companions in misfortune, that my opinion is, he don’t believe a word on +it. No more than you do, sir.’ + +‘Will you help me to dress, and get me some breakfast from the hotel?’ +asked Martin. + +‘With pleasure, sir,’ said Mark. + +‘And by-and-bye,’ said Martin, ‘remaining in the room, as I wish you to +do, will you attend to the door yonder--give admission to visitors, I +mean, when they knock?’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ said Mr Tapley. + +‘You will not find it necessary to express surprise at their +appearance,’ Martin suggested. + +‘Oh dear no, sir!’ said Mr Tapley, ‘not at all.’ + +Although he pledged himself to this with perfect confidence, he was in a +state of unbounded astonishment even now. Martin appeared to observe it, +and to have some sense of the ludicrous bearing of Mr Tapley under these +perplexing circumstances; for, in spite of the composure of his voice +and the gravity of his face, the same indistinct light flickered on the +latter several times. Mark bestirred himself, however, to execute the +offices with which he was entrusted; and soon lost all tendency to any +outward expression of his surprise, in the occupation of being brisk and +busy. + +But when he had put Mr Chuzzlewit’s clothes in good order for dressing, +and when that gentleman was dressed and sitting at his breakfast, +Mr Tapley’s feelings of wonder began to return upon him with great +violence; and, standing beside the old man with a napkin under his +arm (it was as natural and easy to joke to Mark to be a butler in the +Temple, as it had been to volunteer as cook on board the Screw), he +found it difficult to resist the temptation of casting sidelong glances +at him very often. Nay, he found it impossible; and accordingly yielded +to this impulse so often, that Martin caught him in the fact some fifty +times. The extraordinary things Mr Tapley did with his own face when +any of these detections occurred; the sudden occasions he had to rub +his eyes or his nose or his chin; the look of wisdom with which he +immediately plunged into the deepest thought, or became intensely +interested in the habits and customs of the flies upon the ceiling, or +the sparrows out of doors; or the overwhelming politeness with which +he endeavoured to hide his confusion by handing the muffin; may not +unreasonably be assumed to have exercised the utmost power of feature +that even Martin Chuzzlewit the elder possessed. + +But he sat perfectly quiet and took his breakfast at his leisure, or +made a show of doing so, for he scarcely ate or drank, and frequently +lapsed into long intervals of musing. When he had finished, Mark sat +down to his breakfast at the same table; and Mr Chuzzlewit, quite silent +still, walked up and down the room. + +Mark cleared away in due course, and set a chair out for him, in which, +as the time drew on towards ten o’clock, he took his seat, leaning his +hands upon his stick, and clenching them upon the handle, and resting +his chin on them again. All his impatience and abstraction of manner had +vanished now; and as he sat there, looking, with his keen eyes, steadily +towards the door, Mark could not help thinking what a firm, square, +powerful face it was; or exulting in the thought that Mr Pecksniff, +after playing a pretty long game of bowls with its owner, seemed to be +at last in a very fair way of coming in for a rubber or two. + +Mark’s uncertainty in respect of what was going to be done or said, and +by whom to whom, would have excited him in itself. But knowing for +a certainty besides, that young Martin was coming, and in a very few +minutes must arrive, he found it by no means easy to remain quiet and +silent. But, excepting that he occasionally coughed in a hollow and +unnatural manner to relieve himself, he behaved with great decorum +through the longest ten minutes he had ever known. + +A knock at the door. Mr Westlock. Mr Tapley, in admitting him, raised +his eyebrows to the highest possible pitch, implying thereby that he +considered himself in an unsatisfactory position. Mr Chuzzlewit received +him very courteously. + +Mark waited at the door for Tom Pinch and his sister, who were coming up +the stairs. The old man went to meet them; took their hands in his; +and kissed her on the cheek. As this looked promising, Mr Tapley smiled +benignantly. + +Mr Chuzzlewit had resumed his chair before young Martin, who was close +behind them, entered. The old man, scarcely looking at him, pointed to +a distant seat. This was less encouraging; and Mr Tapley’s spirits fell +again. + +He was quickly summoned to the door by another knock. He did not start, +or cry, or tumble down, at sight of Miss Graham and Mrs Lupin, but he +drew a very long breath, and came back perfectly resigned, looking on +them and on the rest with an expression which seemed to say that nothing +could surprise him any more; and that he was rather glad to have done +with that sensation for ever. + +The old man received Mary no less tenderly than he had received Tom +Pinch’s sister. A look of friendly recognition passed between himself +and Mrs Lupin, which implied the existence of a perfect understanding +between them. It engendered no astonishment in Mr Tapley; for, as he +afterwards observed, he had retired from the business, and sold off the +stock. + +Not the least curious feature in this assemblage was, that everybody +present was so much surprised and embarrassed by the sight of everybody +else, that nobody ventured to speak. Mr Chuzzlewit alone broke silence. + +‘Set the door open, Mark!’ he said; ‘and come here.’ + +Mark obeyed. + +The last appointed footstep sounded now upon the stairs. They all knew +it. It was Mr Pecksniff’s; and Mr Pecksniff was in a hurry too, for he +came bounding up with such uncommon expedition that he stumbled twice or +thrice. + +‘Where is my venerable friend?’ he cried upon the upper landing; and +then with open arms came darting in. + +Old Martin merely looked at him; but Mr Pecksniff started back as if he +had received the charge from an electric battery. + +‘My venerable friend is well?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. + +‘Quite well.’ + +It seemed to reassure the anxious inquirer. He clasped his hands and, +looking upwards with a pious joy, silently expressed his gratitude. +He then looked round on the assembled group, and shook his head +reproachfully. For such a man severely, quite severely. + +‘Oh, vermin!’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Oh, bloodsuckers! Is it not enough +that you have embittered the existence of an individual wholly +unparalleled in the biographical records of amiable persons, but must +you now, even now, when he has made his election, and reposed his trust +in a Numble, but at least sincere and disinterested relative; must +you now, vermin and swarmers (I regret to make use of these strong +expressions, my dear sir, but there are times when honest indignation +will not be controlled), must you now, vermin and swarmers (for I WILL +repeat it), take advantage of his unprotected state, assemble round +him from all quarters, as wolves and vultures, and other animals of +the feathered tribe assemble round--I will not say round carrion or a +carcass, for Mr Chuzzlewit is quite the contrary--but round their prey; +their prey; to rifle and despoil; gorging their voracious maws, and +staining their offensive beaks, with every description of carnivorous +enjoyment!’ + +As he stopped to fetch his breath, he waved them off, in a solemn +manner, with his hand. + +‘Horde of unnatural plunderers and robbers!’ he continued; ‘leave him! +leave him, I say! Begone! Abscond! You had better be off! Wander over +the face of the earth, young sirs, like vagabonds as you are, and do not +presume to remain in a spot which is hallowed by the grey hairs of the +patriarchal gentleman to whose tottering limbs I have the honour to act +as an unworthy, but I hope an unassuming, prop and staff. And you, my +tender sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, addressing himself in a tone of gentle +remonstrance to the old man, ‘how could you ever leave me, though even +for this short period! You have absented yourself, I do not doubt, upon +some act of kindness to me; bless you for it; but you must not do it; +you must not be so venturesome. I should really be angry with you if I +could, my friend!’ + +He advanced with outstretched arms to take the old man’s hand. But he +had not seen how the hand clasped and clutched the stick within its +grasp. As he came smiling on, and got within his reach, old Martin, with +his burning indignation crowded into one vehement burst, and flashing +out of every line and wrinkle in his face, rose up, and struck him down +upon the ground. + +With such a well-directed nervous blow, that down he went, as heavily +and true as if the charge of a Life-Guardsman had tumbled him out of a +saddle. And whether he was stunned by the shock, or only confused by the +wonder and novelty of this warm reception, he did not offer to get up +again; but lay there, looking about him with a disconcerted meekness +in his face so enormously ridiculous, that neither Mark Tapley nor John +Westlock could repress a smile, though both were actively interposing to +prevent a repetition of the blow; which the old man’s gleaming eyes and +vigorous attitude seemed to render one of the most probable events in +the world. + +‘Drag him away! Take him out of my reach!’ said Martin; ‘or I can’t help +it. The strong restraint I have put upon my hands has been enough to +palsy them. I am not master of myself while he is within their range. +Drag him away!’ + +Seeing that he still did not rise, Mr Tapley, without any compromise +about it, actually did drag him away, and stick him up on the floor, +with his back against the opposite wall. + +‘Hear me, rascal!’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. ‘I have summoned you here to +witness your own work. I have summoned you here to witness it, because +I know it will be gall and wormwood to you! I have summoned you here to +witness it, because I know the sight of everybody here must be a dagger +in your mean, false heart! What! do you know me as I am, at last!’ + +Mr Pecksniff had cause to stare at him, for the triumph in his face and +speech and figure was a sight to stare at. + +‘Look there!’ said the old man, pointing at him, and appealing to the +rest. ‘Look there! And then--come hither, my dear Martin--look here! +here! here!’ At every repetition of the word he pressed his grandson +closer to his breast. + +‘The passion I felt, Martin, when I dared not do this,’ he said, ‘was +in the blow I struck just now. Why did we ever part! How could we ever +part! How could you ever fly from me to him!’ + +Martin was about to answer, but he stopped him, and went on. + +‘The fault was mine no less than yours. Mark has told me so today, and +I have known it long; though not so long as I might have done. Mary, my +love, come here.’ + +As she trembled and was very pale, he sat her in his own chair, and +stood beside it with her hand in his; and Martin standing by him. + +‘The curse of our house,’ said the old man, looking kindly down upon +her, ‘has been the love of self; has ever been the love of self. How +often have I said so, when I never knew that I had wrought it upon +others.’ + +He drew one hand through Martin’s arm, and standing so, between them, +proceeded thus: + +‘You all know how I bred this orphan up, to tend me. None of you can +know by what degrees I have come to regard her as a daughter; for +she has won upon me, by her self-forgetfulness, her tenderness, her +patience, all the goodness of her nature, when Heaven is her witness +that I took but little pains to draw it forth. It blossomed without +cultivation, and it ripened without heat. I cannot find it in my heart +to say that I am sorry for it now, or yonder fellow might be holding up +his head.’ + +Mr Pecksniff put his hand into his waistcoat, and slightly shook that +part of him to which allusion had been made; as if to signify that it +was still uppermost. + +‘There is a kind of selfishness,’ said Martin--‘I have learned it in my +own experience of my own breast--which is constantly upon the watch for +selfishness in others; and holding others at a distance, by suspicions +and distrusts, wonders why they don’t approach, and don’t confide, and +calls that selfishness in them. Thus I once doubted those about me--not +without reason in the beginning--and thus I once doubted you, Martin.’ + +‘Not without reason,’ Martin answered, ‘either.’ + +‘Listen, hypocrite! Listen, smooth-tongued, servile, crawling knave!’ +said Martin. ‘Listen, you shallow dog. What! When I was seeking him, you +had already spread your nets; you were already fishing for him, were ye? +When I lay ill in this good woman’s house and your meek spirit pleaded +for my grandson, you had already caught him, had ye? Counting on the +restoration of the love you knew I bore him, you designed him for one +of your two daughters did ye? Or failing that, you traded in him as a +speculation which at any rate should blind me with the lustre of your +charity, and found a claim upon me! Why, even then I knew you, and I +told you so. Did I tell you that I knew you, even then?’ + +‘I am not angry, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, softly. ‘I can bear a great +deal from you. I will never contradict you, Mr Chuzzlewit.’ + +‘Observe!’ said Martin, looking round. ‘I put myself in that man’s +hands on terms as mean and base, and as degrading to himself, as I could +render them in words. I stated them at length to him, before his own +children, syllable by syllable, as coarsely as I could, and with as much +offence, and with as plain an exposition of my contempt, as words--not +looks and manner merely--could convey. If I had only called the angry +blood into his face, I would have wavered in my purpose. If I had only +stung him into being a man for a minute I would have abandoned it. If he +had offered me one word of remonstrance, in favour of the grandson whom +he supposed I had disinherited; if he had pleaded with me, though never +so faintly, against my appeal to him to abandon him to misery and +cast him from his house; I think I could have borne with him for ever +afterwards. But not a word, not a word. Pandering to the worst of human +passions was the office of his nature; and faithfully he did his work!’ + +‘I am not angry,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. ‘I am hurt, Mr Chuzzlewit; +wounded in my feelings; but I am not angry, my good sir.’ + +Mr Chuzzlewit resumed. + +‘Once resolved to try him, I was resolute to pursue the trial to the +end; but while I was bent on fathoming the depth of his duplicity, I +made a sacred compact with myself that I would give him credit on the +other side for any latent spark of goodness, honour, forbearance--any +virtue--that might glimmer in him. For first to last there has been no +such thing. Not once. He cannot say I have not given him opportunity. +He cannot say I have ever led him on. He cannot say I have not left +him freely to himself in all things; or that I have not been a passive +instrument in his hands, which he might have used for good as easily as +evil. Or if he can, he Lies! And that’s his nature, too.’ + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit,’ interrupted Pecksniff, shedding tears. ‘I am not angry, +sir. I cannot be angry with you. But did you never, my dear sir, +express a desire that the unnatural young man who by his wicked arts has +estranged your good opinion from me, for the time being; only for the +time being; that your grandson, Mr Chuzzlewit, should be dismissed my +house? Recollect yourself, my Christian friend.’ + +‘I have said so, have I not?’ retorted the old man, sternly. ‘I could +not tell how far your specious hypocrisy had deceived him, knave; and +knew no better way of opening his eyes than by presenting you before him +in your own servile character. Yes. I did express that desire. And you +leaped to meet it; and you met it; and turning in an instant on the +hand you had licked and beslavered, as only such hounds can, you +strengthened, and confirmed, and justified me in my scheme.’ + +Mr Pecksniff made a bow; a submissive, not to say a grovelling and an +abject bow. If he had been complimented on his practice of the loftiest +virtues, he never could have bowed as he bowed then. + +‘The wretched man who has been murdered,’ Mr Chuzzlewit went on to say; +‘then passing by the name of--’ + +‘Tigg,’ suggested Mark. + +‘Of Tigg; brought begging messages to me on behalf of a friend of his, +and an unworthy relative of mine; and finding him a man well enough +suited to my purpose, I employed him to glean some news of you, Martin, +for me. It was from him I learned that you had taken up your abode with +yonder fellow. It was he, who meeting you here in town, one evening--you +remember where?’ + +‘At the pawnbroker’s shop,’ said Martin. + +‘Yes; watched you to your lodging, and enabled me to send you a +bank-note.’ + +‘I little thought,’ said Martin, greatly moved, ‘that it had come from +you; I little thought that you were interested in my fate. If I had--’ + +‘If you had,’ returned the old man, sorrowfully, ‘you would have shown +less knowledge of me as I seemed to be, and as I really was. I hoped to +bring you back, Martin, penitent and humbled. I hoped to distress you +into coming back to me. Much as I loved you, I had that to acknowledge +which I could not reconcile it to myself to avow, then, unless you +made submission to me first. Thus it was I lost you. If I have had, +indirectly, any act or part in the fate of that unhappy man, by putting +means, however small, within his reach, Heaven forgive me! I might have +known, perhaps, that he would misuse money; that it was ill-bestowed +upon him; and that sown by his hands it could engender mischief only. +But I never thought of him at that time as having the disposition or +ability to be a serious impostor, or otherwise than as a thoughtless, +idle-humoured, dissipated spendthrift, sinning more against himself than +others, and frequenting low haunts and indulging vicious tastes, to his +own ruin only.’ + +‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, who had Mrs Lupin on his +arm by this time, quite agreeably; ‘if I may make so bold as say so, my +opinion is, as you was quite correct, and that he turned out perfectly +nat’ral for all that. There’s surprisin’ number of men sir, who as long +as they’ve only got their own shoes and stockings to depend upon, will +walk down hill, along the gutters quiet enough and by themselves, and +not do much harm. But set any on ‘em up with a coach and horses, sir; +and it’s wonderful what a knowledge of drivin’ he’ll show, and how he’ll +fill his wehicle with passengers, and start off in the middle of the +road, neck or nothing, to the Devil! Bless your heart, sir, there’s ever +so many Tiggs a-passin’ this here Temple-gate any hour in the day, that +only want a chance to turn out full-blown Montagues every one!’ + +‘Your ignorance, as you call it, Mark,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit, ‘is wiser +than some men’s enlightenment, and mine among them. You are right; not +for the first time to-day. Now hear me out, my dears. And hear me, you, +who, if what I have been told be accurately stated, are Bankrupt in +pocket no less than in good name! And when you have heard me, leave this +place, and poison my sight no more!’ + +Mr Pecksniff laid his hand upon his breast, and bowed again. + +‘The penance I have done in this house,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit, ‘has earned +this reflection with it constantly, above all others. That if it had +pleased Heaven to visit such infirmity on my old age as really had +reduced me to the state in which I feigned to be, I should have brought +its misery upon myself. Oh, you whose wealth, like mine, has been a +source of continual unhappiness, leading you to distrust the nearest and +dearest, and to dig yourself a living grave of suspicion and reserve; +take heed that, having cast off all whom you might have bound to you, +and tenderly, you do not become in your decay the instrument of such a +man as this, and waken in another world to the knowledge of such wrong +as would embitter Heaven itself, if wrong or you could ever reach it!’ + +And then he told them how he had sometimes thought, in the beginning, +that love might grow up between Mary and Martin; and how he had pleased +his fancy with the picture of observing it when it was new, and taking +them to task, apart, in counterfeited doubt, and then confessing to them +that it had been an object dear to his heart; and by his sympathy with +them, and generous provision for their young fortunes, establishing a +claim on their affection and regard which nothing should wither, and +which should surround his old age with means of happiness. How in the +first dawn of this design, and when the pleasure of such a scheme for +the happiness of others was new and indistinct within him, Martin had +come to tell him that he had already chosen for himself; knowing that +he, the old man, had some faint project on that head, but ignorant whom +it concerned. How it was little comfort to him to know that Martin +had chosen Her, because the grace of his design was lost, and because +finding that she had returned his love, he tortured himself with +the reflection that they, so young, to whom he had been so kind a +benefactor, were already like the world, and bent on their own selfish, +stealthy ends. How in the bitterness of this impression, and of his past +experience, he had reproached Martin so harshly (forgetting that he had +never invited his confidence on such a point, and confounding what +he had meant to do with what he had done), that high words sprung up +between them, and they separated in wrath. How he loved him still, and +hoped he would return. How on the night of his illness at the Dragon, +he had secretly written tenderly of him, and made him his heir, and +sanctioned his marriage with Mary; and how, after his interview with Mr +Pecksniff, he had distrusted him again, and burnt the paper to ashes, +and had lain down in his bed distracted by suspicions, doubts, and +regrets. + +And then he told them how, resolved to probe this Pecksniff, and to +prove the constancy and truth of Mary (to himself no less than +Martin), he had conceived and entered on his plan; and how, beneath her +gentleness and patience, he had softened more and more; still more and +more beneath the goodness and simplicity, the honour and the manly faith +of Tom. And when he spoke of Tom, he said God bless him; and the tears +were in his eyes; for he said that Tom, mistrusted and disliked by him +at first, had come like summer rain upon his heart; and had disposed it +to believe in better things. And Martin took him by the hand, and Mary +too, and John, his old friend, stoutly too; and Mark, and Mrs Lupin, +and his sister, little Ruth. And peace of mind, deep, tranquil peace of +mind, was in Tom’s heart. + +The old man then related how nobly Mr Pecksniff had performed the duty +in which he stood indebted to society, in the matter of Tom’s +dismissal; and how, having often heard disparagement of Mr Westlock from +Pecksniffian lips, and knowing him to be a friend to Tom, he had used, +through his confidential agent and solicitor, that little artifice which +had kept him in readiness to receive his unknown friend in London. And +he called on Mr Pecksniff (by the name of Scoundrel) to remember that +there again he had not trapped him to do evil, but that he had done it +of his own free will and agency; nay, that he had cautioned him against +it. And once again he called on Mr Pecksniff (by the name of Hang-dog) +to remember that when Martin coming home at last, an altered man, had +sued for the forgiveness which awaited him, he, Pecksniff, had rejected +him in language of his own, and had remorsely stepped in between him and +the least touch of natural tenderness. ‘For which,’ said the old man, +‘if the bending of my finger would remove a halter from your neck, I +wouldn’t bend it!’ + +‘Martin,’ he added, ‘your rival has not been a dangerous one, but Mrs +Lupin here has played duenna for some weeks; not so much to watch your +love as to watch her lover. For that Ghoul’--his fertility in finding +names for Mr Pecksniff was astonishing--‘would have crawled into her +daily walks otherwise, and polluted the fresh air. What’s this? Her hand +is trembling strangely. See if you can hold it.’ + +Hold it! If he clasped it half as tightly as he did her waist. Well, +well! + +But it was good in him that even then, in his high fortune and +happiness, with her lips nearly printed on his own, and her proud young +beauty in his close embrace, he had a hand still left to stretch out to +Tom Pinch. + +‘Oh, Tom! Dear Tom! I saw you, accidentally, coming here. Forgive me!’ + +‘Forgive!’ cried Tom. ‘I’ll never forgive you as long as I live, Martin, +if you say another syllable about it. Joy to you both! Joy, my dear +fellow, fifty thousand times.’ + +Joy! There is not a blessing on earth that Tom did not wish them. There +is not a blessing on earth that Tom would not have bestowed upon them, +if he could. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, stepping forward, ‘but yow was +mentionin’, just now, a lady of the name of Lupin, sir.’ + +‘I was,’ returned old Martin + +‘Yes, sir. It’s a pretty name, sir?’ + +‘A very good name,’ said Martin. + +‘It seems a’most a pity to change such a name into Tapley. Don’t it, +sir?’ said Mark. + +‘That depends upon the lady. What is HER opinion?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ said Mr Tapley, retiring, with a bow, towards the buxom +hostess, ‘her opinion is as the name ain’t a change for the better, but +the indiwidual may be, and, therefore, if nobody ain’t acquainted +with no jest cause or impediment, et cetrer, the Blue Dragon will be +con-werted into the Jolly Tapley. A sign of my own inwention, sir. Wery +new, conwivial, and expressive!’ + +The whole of these proceedings were so agreeable to Mr Pecksniff that +he stood with his eyes fixed upon the floor and his hands clasping one +another alternately, as if a host of penal sentences were being passed +upon him. Not only did his figure appear to have shrunk, but his +discomfiture seemed to have extended itself even to his dress. His +clothes seemed to have grown shabbier, his linen to have turned yellow, +his hair to have become lank and frowsy; his very boots looked villanous +and dim, as if their gloss had departed with his own. + +Feeling, rather than seeing, that the old man now pointed to the door, +he raised his eyes, picked up his hat, and thus addressed him: + +‘Mr Chuzzlewit, sir! you have partaken of my hospitality.’ + +‘And paid for it,’ he observed. + +‘Thank you. That savours,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking out his +pocket-handkerchief, ‘of your old familiar frankness. You have paid for +it. I was about to make the remark. You have deceived me, sir. Thank you +again. I am glad of it. To see you in the possession of your health and +faculties on any terms, is, in itself, a sufficient recompense. To have +been deceived implies a trusting nature. Mine is a trusting nature. I +am thankful for it. I would rather have a trusting nature, do you know, +sir, than a doubting one!’ + +Here Mr Pecksniff, with a sad smile, bowed, and wiped his eyes. + +‘There is hardly any person present, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ said Pecksniff, +‘by whom I have not been deceived. I have forgiven those persons on the +spot. That was my duty; and, of course, I have done it. Whether it was +worthy of you to partake of my hospitality, and to act the part you +did act in my house, that, sir, is a question which I leave to your own +conscience. And your conscience does not acquit you. No, sir, no!’ + +Pronouncing these last words in a loud and solemn voice, Mr Pecksniff +was not so absolutely lost in his own fervour as to be unmindful of the +expediency of getting a little nearer to the door. + +‘I have been struck this day,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘with a walking +stick (which I have every reason to believe has knobs upon it), on that +delicate and exquisite portion of the human anatomy--the brain. Several +blows have been inflicted, sir, without a walking-stick, upon that +tenderer portion of my frame--my heart. You have mentioned, sir, +my being bankrupt in my purse. Yes, sir, I am. By an unfortunate +speculation, combined with treachery, I find myself reduced to poverty; +at a time, sir, when the child of my bosom is widowed, and affliction +and disgrace are in my family.’ + +Here Mr Pecksniff wiped his eyes again, and gave himself two or three +little knocks upon the breast, as if he were answering two or three +other little knocks from within, given by the tinkling hammer of his +conscience, to express ‘Cheer up, my boy!’ + +‘I know the human mind, although I trust it. That is my weakness. Do I +not know, sir’--here he became exceedingly plaintive and was observed to +glance towards Tom Pinch--‘that my misfortunes bring this treatment on +me? Do I not know, sir, that but for them I never should have heard what +I have heard to-day? Do I not know that in the silence and the solitude +of night, a little voice will whisper in your ear, Mr Chuzzlewit, “This +was not well. This was not well, sir!” Think of this, sir (if you will +have the goodness), remote from the impulses of passion, and apart from +the specialities, if I may use that strong remark, of prejudice. And if +you ever contemplate the silent tomb, sir, which you will excuse me for +entertaining some doubt of your doing, after the conduct into which you +have allowed yourself to be betrayed this day; if you ever contemplate +the silent tomb sir, think of me. If you find yourself approaching to +the silent tomb, sir, think of me. If you should wish to have anything +inscribed upon your silent tomb, sir, let it be, that I--ah, my +remorseful sir! that I--the humble individual who has now the honour of +reproaching you, forgave you. That I forgave you when my injuries were +fresh, and when my bosom was newly wrung. It may be bitterness to you to +hear it now, sir, but you will live to seek a consolation in it. May you +find a consolation in it when you want it, sir! Good morning!’ + +With this sublime address, Mr Pecksniff departed. But the effect of +his departure was much impaired by his being immediately afterwards run +against, and nearly knocked down, by a monstrously excited little man in +velveteen shorts and a very tall hat; who came bursting up the stairs, +and straight into the chambers of Mr Chuzzlewit, as if he were deranged. + +‘Is there anybody here that knows him?’ cried the little man. ‘Is there +anybody here that knows him? Oh, my stars, is there anybody here that +knows him?’ + +They looked at each other for an explanation; but nobody knew anything +more than that here was an excited little man with a very tall hat on, +running in and out of the room as hard as he could go; making his single +pair of bright blue stockings appear at least a dozen; and constantly +repeating in a shrill voice, ‘IS there anybody here that knows him?’ + +‘If your brains is not turned topjy turjey, Mr Sweedlepipes!’ exclaimed +another voice, ‘hold that there nige of yourn, I beg you, sir.’ + +At the same time Mrs Gamp was seen in the doorway; out of breath from +coming up so many stairs, and panting fearfully; but dropping curtseys +to the last. + +‘Excuge the weakness of the man,’ said Mrs Gamp, eyeing Mr Sweedlepipe +with great indignation; ‘and well I might expect it, as I should have +know’d, and wishin’ he was drownded in the Thames afore I had brought +him here, which not a blessed hour ago he nearly shaved the noge off +from the father of as lovely a family as ever, Mr Chuzzlewit, was born +three sets of twins, and would have done it, only he see it a-goin’ in +the glass, and dodged the rager. And never, Mr Sweedlepipes, I do assure +you, sir, did I so well know what a misfortun it was to be acquainted +with you, as now I do, which so I say, sir, and I don’t deceive you!’ + +‘I ask your pardon, ladies and gentlemen all,’ cried the little barber, +taking off his hat, ‘and yours too, Mrs Gamp. But--but,’ he added this +half laughing and half crying, ‘IS there anybody here that knows him?’ + +As the barber said these words, a something in top-boots, with its head +bandaged up, staggered into the room, and began going round and round +and round, apparently under the impression that it was walking straight +forward. + +‘Look at him!’ cried the excited little barber. ‘Here he is! That’ll +soon wear off, and then he’ll be all right again. He’s no more dead than +I am. He’s all alive and hearty. Aint you, Bailey?’ + +‘R--r--reether so, Poll!’ replied that gentleman. + +‘Look here!’ cried the little barber, laughing and crying in the same +breath. ‘When I steady him he comes all right. There! He’s all right +now. Nothing’s the matter with him now, except that he’s a little shook +and rather giddy; is there, Bailey?’ + +‘R--r--reether shook, Poll--reether so!’ said Mr Bailey. ‘What, my +lovely Sairey! There you air!’ + +‘What a boy he is!’ cried the tender-hearted Poll, actually sobbing +over him. ‘I never see sech a boy! It’s all his fun. He’s full of it. +He shall go into the business along with me. I am determined he shall. +We’ll make it Sweedlepipe and Bailey. He shall have the sporting branch +(what a one he’ll be for the matches!) and me the shavin’. I’ll make +over the birds to him as soon as ever he’s well enough. He shall have +the little bullfinch in the shop, and all. He’s sech a boy! I ask your +pardon, ladies and gentlemen, but I thought there might be some one here +that know’d him!’ + +Mrs Gamp had observed, not without jealousy and scorn, that a favourable +impression appeared to exist in behalf of Mr Sweedlepipe and his +young friend; and that she had fallen rather into the background in +consequence. She now struggled to the front, therefore, and stated her +business. + +‘Which, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, ‘is well beknown to Mrs Harris as has +one sweet infant (though she DO not wish it known) in her own family by +the mother’s side, kep in spirits in a bottle; and that sweet babe she +see at Greenwich Fair, a-travelling in company with a pink-eyed lady, +Prooshan dwarf, and livin’ skelinton, which judge her feelings when the +barrel organ played, and she was showed her own dear sister’s child, the +same not bein’ expected from the outside picter, where it was painted +quite contrairy in a livin’ state, a many sizes larger, and performing +beautiful upon the Arp, which never did that dear child know or do; +since breathe it never did, to speak on in this wale! And Mrs Harris, Mr +Chuzzlewit, has knowed me many year, and can give you information that +the lady which is widdered can’t do better and may do worse, than let me +wait upon her, which I hope to do. Permittin’ the sweet faces as I see +afore me.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. ‘Is that your business? Was this good person +paid for the trouble we gave her?’ + +‘I paid her, sir,’ returned Mark Tapley; ‘liberal.’ + +‘The young man’s words is true,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘and thank you kindly.’ + +‘Then here we will close our acquaintance, Mrs Gamp,’ retorted Mr +Chuzzlewit. ‘And Mr Sweedlepipe--is that your name?’ + +‘That is my name, sir,’ replied Poll, accepting with a profusion of +gratitude, some chinking pieces which the old man slipped into his hand. + +‘Mr Sweedlepipe, take as much care of your lady-lodger as you can, and +give her a word or two of good advice now and then. Such,’ said old +Martin, looking gravely at the astonished Mrs Gamp, ‘as hinting at the +expediency of a little less liquor, and a little more humanity, and +a little less regard for herself, and a little more regard for her +patients, and perhaps a trifle of additional honesty. Or when Mrs Gamp +gets into trouble, Mr Sweedlepipe, it had better not be at a time when I +am near enough to the Old Bailey to volunteer myself as a witness to her +character. Endeavour to impress that upon her at your leisure, if you +please.’ + +Mrs Gamp clasped her hands, turned up her eyes until they were quite +invisible, threw back her bonnet for the admission of fresh air to her +heated brow; and in the act of saying faintly--‘Less liquor!--Sairey +Gamp--Bottle on the chimney-piece, and let me put my lips to it, when I +am so dispoged!’--fell into one of the walking swoons; in which pitiable +state she was conducted forth by Mr Sweedlepipe, who, between his two +patients, the swooning Mrs Gamp and the revolving Bailey, had enough to +do, poor fellow. + +The old man looked about him, with a smile, until his eyes rested on Tom +Pinch’s sister; when he smiled the more. + +‘We will all dine here together,’ he said; ‘and as you and Mary have +enough to talk of, Martin, you shall keep house for us until the +afternoon, with Mr and Mrs Tapley. I must see your lodgings in the +meanwhile, Tom.’ + +Tom was quite delighted. So was Ruth. She would go with them. + +‘Thank you, my love,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. ‘But I am afraid I must take +Tom a little out of the way, on business. Suppose you go on first, my +dear?’ + +Pretty little Ruth was equally delighted to do that. + +‘But not alone,’ said Martin, ‘not alone. Mr Westlock, I dare say, will +escort you.’ + +Why, of course he would: what else had Mr Westlock in his mind? How dull +these old men are! + +‘You are sure you have no engagement?’ he persisted. + +Engagement! As if he could have any engagement! + +So they went off arm-in-arm. When Tom and Mr Chuzzlewit went off +arm-in-arm a few minutes after them, the latter was still smiling; and +really, for a gentleman of his habits, in rather a knowing manner. + + + +CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE + +WHAT JOHN WESTLOCK SAID TO TOM PINCH’S SISTER; WHAT TOM PINCH’S SISTER +SAID TO JOHN WESTLOCK; WHAT TOM PINCH SAID TO BOTH OF THEM; AND HOW THEY +ALL PASSED THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY + + +Brilliantly the Temple Fountain sparkled in the sun, and laughingly +its liquid music played, and merrily the idle drops of water danced and +danced, and peeping out in sport among the trees, plunged lightly down +to hide themselves, as little Ruth and her companion came toward it. + +And why they came toward the Fountain at all is a mystery; for they had +no business there. It was not in their way. It was quite out of their +way. They had no more to do with the Fountain, bless you, than they had +with--with Love, or any out-of-the-way thing of that sort. + +It was all very well for Tom and his sister to make appointments by the +Fountain, but that was quite another affair. Because, of course, when +she had to wait a minute or two, it would have been very awkward for her +to have had to wait in any but a tolerably quiet spot; but that was as +quiet a spot, everything considered, as they could choose. But when she +had John Westlock to take care of her, and was going home with her arm +in his (home being in a different direction altogether), their coming +anywhere near that Fountain was quite extraordinary. + +However, there they found themselves. And another extraordinary part +of the matter was, that they seemed to have come there, by a silent +understanding. Yet when they got there, they were a little confused +by being there, which was the strangest part of all; because there is +nothing naturally confusing in a Fountain. We all know that. + +‘What a good old place it was!’ John said. With quite an earnest affection +for it. + +‘A pleasant place indeed,’ said little Ruth. ‘So shady!’ + +Oh wicked little Ruth! + +They came to a stop when John began to praise it. The day was exquisite; +and stopping at all, it was quite natural--nothing could be more +so--that they should glance down Garden Court; because Garden Court ends +in the Garden, and the Garden ends in the River, and that glimpse is +very bright and fresh and shining on a summer’s day. Then, oh, little +Ruth, why not look boldly at it! Why fit that tiny, precious, blessed +little foot into the cracked corner of an insensible old flagstone in +the pavement; and be so very anxious to adjust it to a nicety! + +If the Fiery-faced matron in the crunched bonnet could have seen them +as they walked away, how many years’ purchase might Fiery Face have been +disposed to take for her situation in Furnival’s Inn as laundress to Mr +Westlock! + +They went away, but not through London’s streets! Through some enchanted +city, where the pavements were of air; where all the rough sounds of +a stirring town were softened into gentle music; where everything +was happy; where there was no distance, and no time. There were two +good-tempered burly draymen letting down big butts of beer into a +cellar, somewhere; and when John helped her--almost lifted her--the +lightest, easiest, neatest thing you ever saw--across the rope, they +said he owed them a good turn for giving him the chance. Celestial +draymen! + +Green pastures in the summer tide, deep-littered straw yards in the +winter, no start of corn and clover, ever, to that noble horse who WOULD +dance on the pavement with a gig behind him, and who frightened her, and +made her clasp his arm with both hands (both hands meeting one upon the +another so endearingly!), and caused her to implore him to take +refuge in the pastry-cook’s, and afterwards to peep out at the door so +shrinkingly; and then, looking at him with those eyes, to ask him was +he sure--now was he sure--they might go safely on! Oh for a string of +rampant horses! For a lion, for a bear, for a mad bull, for anything to +bring the little hands together on his arm again! + +They talked, of course. They talked of Tom, and all these changes and +the attachment Mr Chuzzlewit had conceived for him, and the bright +prospects he had in such a friend, and a great deal more to the same +purpose. The more they talked, the more afraid this fluttering little +Ruth became of any pause; and sooner than have a pause she would say the +same things over again; and if she hadn’t courage or presence of mind +enough for that (to say the truth she very seldom had), she was ten +thousand times more charming and irresistible than she had been before. + +‘Martin will be married very soon now, I suppose?’ said John. + +She supposed he would. Never did a bewitching little woman suppose +anything in such a faint voice as Ruth supposed that. + +But seeing that another of those alarming pauses was approaching, she +remarked that he would have a beautiful wife. Didn’t Mr Westlock think +so? + +‘Ye--yes,’ said John, ‘oh, yes.’ + +She feared he was rather hard to please, he spoke so coldly. + +‘Rather say already pleased,’ said John. ‘I have scarcely seen her. I +had no care to see her. I had no eyes for HER, this morning.’ + +Oh, good gracious! + +It was well they had reached their destination. She never could have +gone any further. It would have been impossible to walk in such a +tremble. + +Tom had not come in. They entered the triangular parlour together, and +alone. Fiery Face, Fiery Face, how many years’ purchase NOW! + +She sat down on the little sofa, and untied her bonnet-strings. He sat +down by her side, and very near her; very, very near her. Oh rapid, +swelling, bursting little heart, you knew that it would come to this, +and hoped it would. Why beat so wildly, heart! + +‘Dear Ruth! Sweet Ruth! If I had loved you less, I could have told you +that I loved you, long ago. I have loved you from the first. There never +was a creature in the world more truly loved than you, dear Ruth, by +me!’ + +She clasped her little hands before her face. The gushing tears of joy, +and pride, and hope, and innocent affection, would not be restrained. +Fresh from her full young heart they came to answer him. + +‘My dear love! If this is--I almost dare to hope it is, now--not painful +or distressing to you, you make me happier than I can tell, or you +imagine. Darling Ruth! My own good, gentle, winning Ruth! I hope I know +the value of your heart, I hope I know the worth of your angel nature. +Let me try and show you that I do; and you will make me happier, Ruth--’ + +‘Not happier,’ she sobbed, ‘than you make me. No one can be happier, +John, than you make me!’ + +Fiery Face, provide yourself! The usual wages or the usual warning. It’s +all over, Fiery Face. We needn’t trouble you any further. + +The little hands could meet each other now, without a rampant horse +to urge them. There was no occasion for lions, bears, or mad bulls. It +could all be done, and infinitely better, without their assistance. +No burly drayman or big butts of beer, were wanted for apologies. No +apology at all was wanted. The soft light touch fell coyly, but quite +naturally, upon the lover’s shoulder; the delicate waist, the drooping +head, the blushing cheek, the beautiful eyes, the exquisite mouth +itself, were all as natural as possible. If all the horses in Araby had +run away at once, they couldn’t have improved upon it. + +They soon began to talk of Tom again. + +‘I hope he will be glad to hear of it!’ said John, with sparkling eyes. + +Ruth drew the little hands a little tighter when he said it, and looked +up seriously into his face. + +‘I am never to leave him, AM I, dear? I could never leave Tom. I am sure +you know that.’ + +‘Do you think I would ask you?’ he returned, with a--well! Never mind +with what. + +‘I am sure you never would,’ she answered, the bright tears standing in +her eyes. + +‘And I will swear it, Ruth, my darling, if you please. Leave Tom! That +would be a strange beginning. Leave Tom, dear! If Tom and we be not +inseparable, and Tom (God bless him) have not all honour and all love +in our home, my little wife, may that home never be! And that’s a strong +oath, Ruth.’ + +Shall it be recorded how she thanked him? Yes, it shall. In all +simplicity and innocence and purity of heart, yet with a timid, +graceful, half-determined hesitation, she set a little rosy seal upon +the vow, whose colour was reflected in her face, and flashed up to the +braiding of her dark brown hair. + +‘Tom will be so happy, and so proud, and glad,’ she said, clasping her +little hands. ‘But so surprised! I am sure he had never thought of such +a thing.’ + +Of course John asked her immediately--because you know they were in that +foolish state when great allowances must be made--when SHE had begun to +think of such a thing, and this made a little diversion in their talk; a +charming diversion to them, but not so interesting to us; at the end of +which, they came back to Tom again. + +‘Ah! dear Tom!’ said Ruth. ‘I suppose I ought to tell you everything +now. I should have no secrets from you. Should I, John, love?’ + +It is of no use saying how that preposterous John answered her, because +he answered in a manner which is untranslatable on paper though highly +satisfactory in itself. But what he conveyed was, No no no, sweet Ruth; +or something to that effect. + +Then she told him Tom’s great secret; not exactly saying how she had +found it out, but leaving him to understand it if he liked; and John was +sadly grieved to hear it, and was full of sympathy and sorrow. But they +would try, he said, only the more, on this account to make him happy, +and to beguile him with his favourite pursuits. And then, in all the +confidence of such a time, he told her how he had a capital opportunity +of establishing himself in his old profession in the country; and how he +had been thinking, in the event of that happiness coming upon him which +had actually come--there was another slight diversion here--how he had +been thinking that it would afford occupation to Tom, and enable them to +live together in the easiest manner, without any sense of dependence on +Tom’s part; and to be as happy as the day was long. And Ruth receiving +this with joy, they went on catering for Tom to that extent that they +had already purchased him a select library and built him an organ, on +which he was performing with the greatest satisfaction, when they heard +him knocking at the door. + +Though she longed to tell him what had happened, poor little Ruth was +greatly agitated by his arrival; the more so because she knew that Mr +Chuzzlewit was with him. So she said, all in a tremble: + +‘What shall I do, dear John! I can’t bear that he should hear it from +any one but me, and I could not tell him, unless we were alone.’ + +‘Do, my love,’ said John, ‘whatever is natural to you on the impulse of +the moment, and I am sure it will be right.’ + +He had hardly time to say thus much, and Ruth had hardly time to--just +to get a little farther off--upon the sofa, when Tom and Mr Chuzzlewit +came in. Mr Chuzzlewit came first, and Tom was a few seconds behind him. + +Now Ruth had hastily resolved that she would beckon Tom upstairs after +a short time, and would tell him in his little bedroom. But when she saw +his dear old face come in, her heart was so touched that she ran into +his arms, and laid her head down on his breast and sobbed out, ‘Bless +me, Tom! My dearest brother!’ + +Tom looked up, in surprise, and saw John Westlock close beside him, +holding out his hand. + +‘John!’ cried Tom. ‘John!’ + +‘Dear Tom,’ said his friend, ‘give me your hand. We are brothers, Tom.’ + +Tom wrung it with all his force, embraced his sister fervently, and put +her in John Westlock’s arms. + +‘Don’t speak to me, John. Heaven is very good to us. I--’ Tom could find +no further utterance, but left the room; and Ruth went after him. + +And when they came back, which they did by-and-bye, she looked more +beautiful, and Tom more good and true (if that were possible) than ever. +And though Tom could not speak upon the subject even now; being yet +too newly glad, he put both his hands in both of John’s with emphasis +sufficient for the best speech ever spoken. + +‘I am glad you chose to-day,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit to John; with the same +knowing smile as when they had left him. ‘I thought you would. I hoped +Tom and I lingered behind a discreet time. It’s so long since I had +any practical knowledge of these subjects, that I have been anxious, I +assure you.’ + +‘Your knowledge is still pretty accurate, sir,’ returned John, laughing, +‘if it led you to foresee what would happen to-day.’ + +‘Why, I am not sure, Mr Westlock,’ said the old man, ‘that any great +spirit of prophecy was needed, after seeing you and Ruth together. Come +hither, pretty one. See what Tom and I purchased this morning, while you +were dealing in exchange with that young merchant there.’ + +The old man’s way of seating her beside him, and humouring his voice as +if she were a child, was whimsical enough, but full of tenderness, and +not ill adapted, somehow, to little Ruth. + +‘See here!’ he said, taking a case from his pocket, ‘what a beautiful +necklace. Ah! How it glitters! Earrings, too, and bracelets, and a zone +for your waist. This set is yours, and Mary has another like it. Tom +couldn’t understand why I wanted two. What a short-sighted Tom! Earrings +and bracelets, and a zone for your waist! Ah! Beautiful! Let us see how +brave they look. Ask Mr Westlock to clasp them on.’ + +It was the prettiest thing to see her holding out her round, white arm; +and John (oh deep, deep John!) pretending that the bracelet was very +hard to fasten; it was the prettiest thing to see her girding on the +precious little zone, and yet obliged to have assistance because her +fingers were in such terrible perplexity; it was the prettiest thing +to see her so confused and bashful, with the smiles and blushes playing +brightly on her face, like the sparkling light upon the jewels; it was +the prettiest thing that you would see, in the common experiences of a +twelvemonth, rely upon it. + +‘The set of jewels and the wearer are so well matched,’ said the old +man, ‘that I don’t know which becomes the other most. Mr Westlock could +tell me, I have no doubt, but I’ll not ask him, for he is bribed. Health +to wear them, my dear, and happiness to make you forgetful of them, +except as a remembrance from a loving friend!’ + +He patted her upon the cheek, and said to Tom: + +‘I must play the part of a father here, Tom, also. There are not many +fathers who marry two such daughters on the same day; but we will +overlook the improbability for the gratification of an old man’s fancy. +I may claim that much indulgence,’ he added, ‘for I have gratified few +fancies enough in my life tending to the happiness of others, Heaven +knows!’ + +These various proceedings had occupied so much time, and they fell into +such a pleasant conversation now, that it was within a quarter of an +hour of the time appointed for dinner before any of them thought about +it. A hackney-coach soon carried them to the Temple, however; and there +they found everything prepared for their reception. + +Mr Tapley having been furnished with unlimited credentials relative to +the ordering of dinner, had so exerted himself for the honour of the +party, that a prodigious banquet was served, under the joint direction +of himself and his Intended. Mr Chuzzlewit would have had them of the +party, and Martin urgently seconded his wish, but Mark could by no means +be persuaded to sit down at table; observing, that in having the honour +of attending to their comforts, he felt himself, indeed, the landlord of +the Jolly Tapley, and could almost delude himself into the belief that +the entertainment was actually being held under the Jolly Tapley’s roof. + +For the better encouragement of himself in this fable, Mr Tapley took +it upon him to issue divers general directions to the waiters from the +hotel, relative to the disposal of the dishes and so forth; and as they +were usually in direct opposition to all precedent, and were always +issued in his most facetious form of thought and speech, they occasioned +great merriment among those attendants; in which Mr Tapley participated, +with an infinite enjoyment of his own humour. He likewise entertained +them with short anecdotes of his travels appropriate to the occasion; +and now and then with some comic passage or other between himself and +Mrs Lupin; so that explosive laughs were constantly issuing from the +side-board, and from the backs of chairs; and the head-waiter (who wore +powder, and knee-smalls, and was usually a grave man) got to be a bright +scarlet in the face, and broke his waistcoat-strings audibly. + +Young Martin sat at the head of the table, and Tom Pinch at the foot; +and if there were a genial face at that board, it was Tom’s. They all +took their tone from Tom. Everybody drank to him, everybody looked to +him, everybody thought of him, everybody loved him. If he so much as +laid down his knife and fork, somebody put out a hand to shake with him. +Martin and Mary had taken him aside before dinner, and spoken to him so +heartily of the time to come, laying such fervent stress upon the trust +they had in his completion of their felicity, by his society and closest +friendship, that Tom was positively moved to tears. He couldn’t bear it. +His heart was full, he said, of happiness. And so it was. Tom spoke the +honest truth. It was. Large as thy heart was, dear Tom Pinch, it had no +room that day for anything but happiness and sympathy! + +And there was Fips, old Fips of Austin Friars, present at the dinner, +and turning out to be the jolliest old dog that ever did violence to his +convivial sentiments by shutting himself up in a dark office. ‘Where is +he?’ said Fips, when he came in. And then he pounced on Tom, and told +him that he wanted to relieve himself of all his old constraint; and in +the first place shook him by one hand, and in the second place shook him +by the other, and in the third place nudged him in the waistcoat, and in +the fourth place said, ‘How are you?’ and in a great many other places +did a great many other things to show his friendliness and joy. And he +sang songs, did Fips; and made speeches, did Fips; and knocked off his +wine pretty handsomely, did Fips; and in short, he showed himself a +perfect Trump, did Fips, in all respects. + +But ah! the happiness of strolling home at night--obstinate little Ruth, +she wouldn’t hear of riding!--as they had done on that dear night, from +Furnival’s Inn! The happiness of being able to talk about it, and to +confide their happiness to each other! The happiness of stating all +their little plans to Tom, and seeing his bright face grow brighter as +they spoke! + +When they reached home, Tom left John and his sister in the parlour, and +went upstairs into his own room, under pretence of seeking a book. And +Tom actually winked to himself when he got upstairs; he thought it such +a deep thing to have done. + +‘They like to be by themselves, of course,’ said Tom; ‘and I came away +so naturally, that I have no doubt they are expecting me, every moment, +to return. That’s capital!’ + +But he had not sat reading very long, when he heard a tap at his door. + +‘May I come in?’ said John. + +‘Oh, surely!’ Tom replied. + +‘Don’t leave us, Tom. Don’t sit by yourself. We want to make you merry; +not melancholy.’ + +‘My dear friend,’ said Tom, with a cheerful smile. + +‘Brother, Tom. Brother.’ + +‘My dear brother,’ said Tom; ‘there is no danger of my being melancholy, +how can I be melancholy, when I know that you and Ruth are so blest in +each other! I think I can find my tongue tonight, John,’ he added, after +a moment’s pause. ‘But I never can tell you what unutterable joy this +day has given me. It would be unjust to you to speak of your having +chosen a portionless girl, for I feel that you know her worth; I am sure +you know her worth. Nor will it diminish in your estimation, John, which +money might.’ + +‘Which money would, Tom,’ he returned. ‘Her worth! Oh, who could see her +here, and not love her! Who could know her, Tom, and not honour her! Who +could ever stand possessed of such a heart as hers, and grow indifferent +to the treasure! Who could feel the rapture that I feel to-day, and love +as I love her, Tom, without knowing something of her worth! Your joy +unutterable! No, no, Tom. It’s mine, it’s mine. + +‘No, no, John,’ said Tom. ‘It’s mine, it’s mine.’ + +Their friendly contention was brought to a close by little Ruth herself, +who came peeping in at the door. And oh, the look, the glorious, +half-proud, half-timid look she gave Tom, when her lover drew her to his +side! As much as to say, ‘Yes, indeed, Tom, he will do it. But then he +has a right, you know. Because I AM fond of him, Tom.’ + +As to Tom, he was perfectly delighted. He could have sat and looked at +them, just as they were, for hours. + +‘I have told Tom, love, as we agreed, that we are not going to permit +him to run away, and that we cannot possibly allow it. The loss of one +person, and such a person as Tom, too, out of our small household of +three, is not to be endured; and so I have told him. Whether he is +considerate, or whether he is only selfish, I don’t know. But he needn’t +be considerate, for he is not the least restraint upon us. Is he, +dearest Ruth?’ + +Well! He really did not seem to be any particular restraint upon them. +Judging from what ensued. + +Was it folly in Tom to be so pleased by their remembrance of him at +such a time? Was their graceful love a folly, were their dear caresses +follies, was their lengthened parting folly? Was it folly in him to +watch her window from the street, and rate its scantiest gleam of light +above all diamonds; folly in her to breathe his name upon her knees, and +pour out her pure heart before that Being from whom such hearts and such +affections come? + +If these be follies, then Fiery Face go on and prosper! If they be not, +then Fiery Face avaunt! But set the crunched bonnet at some other single +gentleman, in any case, for one is lost to thee for ever! + + + +CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR + +GIVES THE AUTHOR GREAT CONCERN. FOR IT IS THE LAST IN THE BOOK + + +Todger’s was in high feather, and mighty preparations for a late +breakfast were astir in its commercial bowers. The blissful morning +had arrived when Miss Pecksniff was to be united in holy matrimony, to +Augustus. + +Miss Pecksniff was in a frame of mind equally becoming to herself and +the occasion. She was full of clemency and conciliation. She had laid +in several caldrons of live coals, and was prepared to heap them on the +heads of her enemies. She bore no spite nor malice in her heart. Not the +least. + +Quarrels, Miss Pecksniff said, were dreadful things in families; and +though she never could forgive her dear papa, she was willing to receive +her other relations. They had been separated, she observed, too long. +It was enough to call down a judgment upon the family. She believed the +death of Jonas WAS a judgment on them for their internal dissensions. +And Miss Pecksniff was confirmed in this belief, by the lightness with +which the visitation had fallen on herself. + +By way of doing sacrifice--not in triumph; not, of course, in triumph, +but in humiliation of spirit--this amiable young person wrote, +therefore, to her kinswoman of the strong mind, and informed her that +her nuptials would take place on such a day. That she had been much hurt +by the unnatural conduct of herself and daughters, and hoped they might +not have suffered in their consciences. That, being desirous to forgive +her enemies, and make her peace with the world before entering into the +most solemn of covenants with the most devoted of men, she now held out +the hand of friendship. That if the strong-minded women took that hand, +in the temper in which it was extended to her, she, Miss Pecksniff, +did invite her to be present at the ceremony of her marriage, and did +furthermore invite the three red-nosed spinsters, her daughters +(but Miss Pecksniff did not particularize their noses), to attend as +bridesmaids. + +The strong-minded women returned for answer, that herself and daughters +were, as regarded their consciences, in the enjoyment of robust health, +which she knew Miss Pecksniff would be glad to hear. That she had +received Miss Pecksniff’s note with unalloyed delight, because she +never had attached the least importance to the paltry and insignificant +jealousies with which herself and circle had been assailed; otherwise +than as she had found them, in the contemplation, a harmless source of +innocent mirth. That she would joyfully attend Miss Pecksniff’s bridal; +and that her three dear daughters would be happy to assist, on so +interesting, and SO VERY UNEXPECTED--which the strong-minded woman +underlined--SO VERY UNEXPECTED an occasion. + +On the receipt of this gracious reply, Miss Pecksniff extended her +forgiveness and her invitations to Mr and Mrs Spottletoe; to Mr George +Chuzzlewit the bachelor cousin; to the solitary female who usually had +the toothache; and to the hairy young gentleman with the outline of +a face; surviving remnants of the party that had once assembled in Mr +Pecksniff’s parlour. After which Miss Pecksniff remarked that there was +a sweetness in doing our duty, which neutralized the bitter in our cups. + +The wedding guests had not yet assembled, and indeed it was so early +that Miss Pecksniff herself was in the act of dressing at her leisure, +when a carriage stopped near the Monument; and Mark, dismounting from +the rumble, assisted Mr Chuzzlewit to alight. The carriage remained in +waiting; so did Mr Tapley. Mr Chuzzlewit betook himself to Todger’s. + +He was shown, by the degenerate successor of Mr Bailey, into the +dining-parlour; where--for his visit was expected--Mrs Todgers +immediately appeared. + +‘You are dressed, I see, for the wedding,’ he said. + +Mrs Todgers, who was greatly flurried by the preparations, replied in +the affirmative. + +‘It goes against my wishes to have it in progress just now, I assure +you, sir,’ said Mrs Todgers; ‘but Miss Pecksniff’s mind was set upon it, +and it really is time that Miss Pecksniff was married. That cannot be +denied, sir.’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit, ‘assuredly not. Her sister takes no part in +the proceedings?’ + +‘Oh, dear no, sir. Poor thing!’ said Mrs Todgers, shaking her head, and +dropping her voice. ‘Since she has known the worst, she has never left +my room; the next room.’ + +‘Is she prepared to see me?’ he inquired. + +‘Quite prepared, sir.’ + +‘Then let us lose no time.’ + +Mrs Todgers conducted him into the little back chamber commanding the +prospect of the cistern; and there, sadly different from when it had +first been her lodging, sat poor Merry, in mourning weeds. The room +looked very dark and sorrowful; and so did she; but she had one friend +beside her, faithful to the last. Old Chuffey. + +When Mr Chuzzlewit sat down at her side, she took his hand and put it +to her lips. She was in great grief. He too was agitated; for he had not +seen her since their parting in the churchyard. + +‘I judged you hastily,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘I fear I judged you +cruelly. Let me know that I have your forgiveness.’ + +She kissed his hand again; and retaining it in hers, thanked him in a +broken voice, for all his kindness to her since. + +‘Tom Pinch,’ said Martin, ‘has faithfully related to me all that you +desired him to convey; at a time when he deemed it very improbable that +he would ever have an opportunity of delivering your message. Believe +me, that if I ever deal again with an ill-advised and unawakened +nature, hiding the strength it thinks its weakness, I will have long and +merciful consideration for it.’ + +‘You had for me; even for me,’ she answered. ‘I quite believe it. I said +the words you have repeated, when my distress was very sharp and hard to +bear; I say them now for others; but I cannot urge them for myself. +You spoke to me after you had seen and watched me day by day. There +was great consideration in that. You might have spoken, perhaps, +more kindly; you might have tried to invite my confidence by greater +gentleness; but the end would have been the same.’ + +He shook his head in doubt, and not without some inward self-reproach. + +‘How can I hope,’ she said, ‘that your interposition would have +prevailed with me, when I know how obdurate I was! I never thought at +all; dear Mr Chuzzlewit, I never thought at all; I had no thought, +no heart, no care to find one; at that time. It has grown out of my +trouble. I have felt it in my trouble. I wouldn’t recall my trouble such +as it is and has been--and it is light in comparison with trials which +hundreds of good people suffer every day, I know--I wouldn’t recall +it to-morrow, if I could. It has been my friend, for without it no one +could have changed me; nothing could have changed me. Do not mistrust me +because of these tears; I cannot help them. I am grateful for it, in my +soul. Indeed I am!’ + +‘Indeed she is!’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘I believe it, sir.’ + +‘And so do I!’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. ‘Now, attend to me, my dear. Your +late husband’s estate, if not wasted by the confession of a large debt +to the broken office (which document, being useless to the runaways, +has been sent over to England by them; not so much for the sake of the +creditors as for the gratification of their dislike to him, whom they +suppose to be still living), will be seized upon by law; for it is not +exempt, as I learn, from the claims of those who have suffered by the +fraud in which he was engaged. Your father’s property was all, or nearly +all, embarked in the same transaction. If there be any left, it will be +seized on, in like manner. There is no home THERE.’ + +‘I couldn’t return to him,’ she said, with an instinctive reference to +his having forced her marriage on. ‘I could not return to him.’ + +‘I know it,’ Mr Chuzzlewit resumed; ‘and I am here because I know +it. Come with me! From all who are about me, you are certain (I +have ascertained it) of a generous welcome. But until your health is +re-established, and you are sufficiently composed to bear that welcome, +you shall have your abode in any quiet retreat of your own choosing, +near London; not so far removed but that this kind-hearted lady may +still visit you as often as she pleases. You have suffered much; but you +are young, and have a brighter and a better future stretching out before +you. Come with me. Your sister is careless of you, I know. She hurries +on and publishes her marriage, in a spirit which (to say no more of it) +is barely decent, is unsisterly, and bad. Leave the house before her +guests arrive. She means to give you pain. Spare her the offence, and +come with me!’ + +Mrs Todgers, though most unwilling to part with her, added her +persuasions. Even poor old Chuffey (of course included in the project) +added his. She hurriedly attired herself, and was ready to depart, when +Miss Pecksniff dashed into the room. + +Miss Pecksniff dashed in so suddenly, that she was placed in an +embarrassing position. For though she had completed her bridal toilette +as to her head, on which she wore a bridal bonnet with orange flowers, +she had not completed it as to her skirts, which displayed no choicer +decoration than a dimity bedgown. She had dashed in, in fact, about +half-way through, to console her sister, in her affliction, with a sight +of the aforesaid bonnet; and being quite unconscious of the presence of +a visitor, until she found Mr Chuzzlewit standing face to face with her, +her surprise was an uncomfortable one. + +‘So, young lady!’ said the old man, eyeing her with strong disfavour. +‘You are to be married to-day!’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Miss Pecksniff, modestly. ‘I am. I--my dress is +rather--really, Mrs Todgers!’ + +‘Your delicacy,’ said old Martin, ‘is troubled, I perceive. I am not +surprised to find it so. You have chosen the period of your marriage +unfortunately.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ retorted Cherry; very red and angry +in a moment; ‘but if you have anything to say on that subject, I must +beg to refer you to Augustus. You will scarcely think it manly, I hope, +to force an argument on me, when Augustus is at all times ready to +discuss it with you. I have nothing to do with any deceptions that may +have been practiced on my parent,’ said Miss Pecksniff, pointedly; ‘and +as I wish to be on good terms with everybody at such a time, I should +have been glad if you would have favoured us with your company at +breakfast. But I will not ask you as it is; seeing that you have been +prepossessed and set against me in another quarter. I hope I have my +natural affections for another quarter, and my natural pity for +another quarter; but I cannot always submit to be subservient to it, Mr +Chuzzlewit. That would be a little too much. I trust I have more respect +for myself, as well as for the man who claims me as his Bride.’ + +‘Your sister, meeting--as I think; not as she says, for she has said +nothing about it--with little consideration from you, is going away with +me,’ said Mr Chuzzlewit. + +‘I am very happy to find that she has some good fortune at last,’ +returned Miss Pecksniff, tossing her head. ‘I congratulate her, I +am sure. I am not surprised that this event should be painful to +her--painful to her--but I can’t help that, Mr Chuzzlewit. It’s not my +fault.’ + +‘Come, Miss Pecksniff!’ said the old man, quietly. ‘I should like to see +a better parting between you. I should like to see a better parting on +your side, in such circumstances. It would make me your friend. You may +want a friend one day or other.’ + +‘Every relation of life, Mr Chuzzlewit, begging your pardon; and every +friend in life,’ returned Miss Pecksniff, with dignity, ‘is now bound up +and cemented in Augustus. So long as Augustus is my own, I cannot want +a friend. When you speak of friends, sir, I must beg, once for all, to +refer you to Augustus. That is my impression of the religious ceremony +in which I am so soon to take a part at that altar to which Augustus +will conduct me. I bear no malice at any time, much less in a moment of +triumph, towards any one; much less towards my sister. On the contrary, +I congratulate her. If you didn’t hear me say so, I am not to blame. +And as I owe it to Augustus, to be punctual on an occasion when he may +naturally be supposed to be--to be impatient--really, Mrs Todgers!--I +must beg your leave, sir, to retire.’ + +After these words the bridal bonnet disappeared; with as much state as +the dimity bedgown left in it. + +Old Martin gave his arm to the younger sister without speaking; and led +her out. Mrs Todgers, with her holiday garments fluttering in the wind, +accompanied them to the carriage, clung round Merry’s neck at parting, +and ran back to her own dingy house, crying the whole way. She had +a lean, lank body, Mrs Todgers, but a well-conditioned soul within. +Perhaps the good Samaritan was lean and lank, and found it hard to live. +Who knows! + +Mr Chuzzlewit followed her so closely with his eyes, that, until she had +shut her own door, they did not encounter Mr Tapley’s face. + +‘Why, Mark!’ he said, as soon as he observed it, ‘what’s the matter?’ + +‘The wonderfulest ewent, sir!’ returned Mark, pumping at his voice in +a most laborious manner, and hardly able to articulate with all his +efforts. ‘A coincidence as never was equalled! I’m blessed if here ain’t +two old neighbours of ourn, sir!’ + +‘What neighbours?’ cried old Martin, looking out of window. ‘Where?’ + +‘I was a-walkin’ up and down not five yards from this spot,’ said Mr +Tapley, breathless, ‘and they come upon me like their own ghosts, as I +thought they was! It’s the wonderfulest ewent that ever happened. Bring +a feather, somebody, and knock me down with it!’ + +‘What do you mean!’ exclaimed old Martin, quite as much excited by +the spectacle of Mark’s excitement as that strange person was himself. +‘Neighbours, where?’ + +‘Here, sir!’ replied Mr Tapley. ‘Here in the city of London! Here upon +these very stones! Here they are, sir! Don’t I know ‘em? Lord love their +welcome faces, don’t I know ‘em!’ + +With which ejaculations Mr Tapley not only pointed to a decent-looking +man and woman standing by, but commenced embracing them alternately, +over and over again, in Monument Yard. + +‘Neighbours, WHERE? old Martin shouted; almost maddened by his +ineffectual efforts to get out at the coach-door. + +‘Neighbours in America! Neighbours in Eden!’ cried Mark. ‘Neighbours in +the swamp, neighbours in the bush, neighbours in the fever. Didn’t she +nurse us! Didn’t he help us! Shouldn’t we both have died without ‘em! +Haven’t they come a-strugglin’ back, without a single child for their +consolation! And talk to me of neighbours!’ + +Away he went again, in a perfectly wild state, hugging them, and +skipping round them, and cutting in between them, as if he were +performing some frantic and outlandish dance. + +Mr Chuzzlewit no sooner gathered who these people were, than he burst +open the coach-door somehow or other, and came tumbling out among them; +and as if the lunacy of Mr Tapley were contagious, he immediately began +to shake hands too, and exhibit every demonstration of the liveliest +joy. + +‘Get up, behind!’ he said. ‘Get up in the rumble. Come along with me! Go +you on the box, Mark. Home! Home!’ + +‘Home!’ cried Mr Tapley, seizing the old man’s hand in a burst of +enthusiasm. ‘Exactly my opinion, sir. Home for ever! Excuse the liberty, +sir, I can’t help it. Success to the Jolly Tapley! There’s nothin’ in +the house they shan’t have for the askin’ for, except a bill. Home to be +sure! Hurrah!’ + +Home they rolled accordingly, when he had got the old man in again, as +fast as they could go; Mark abating nothing of his fervour by the way, +by allowing it to vent itself as unrestrainedly as if he had been on +Salisbury Plain. + +And now the wedding party began to assemble at Todgers’s. Mr Jinkins, +the only boarder invited, was on the ground first. He wore a white +favour in his button-hole, and a bran new extra super double-milled blue +saxony dress coat (that was its description in the bill), with a variety +of tortuous embellishments about the pockets, invented by the artist +to do honour to the day. The miserable Augustus no longer felt strongly +even on the subject of Jinkins. He hadn’t strength of mind enough to do +it. ‘Let him come!’ he had said, in answer to Miss Pecksniff, when she +urged the point. ‘Let him come! He has ever been my rock ahead through +life. ‘Tis meet he should be there. Ha, ha! Oh, yes! let Jinkins come!’ + +Jinkins had come with all the pleasure in life, and there he was. For +some few minutes he had no companion but the breakfast, which was set +forth in the drawing-room, with unusual taste and ceremony. But Mrs +Todgers soon joined him; and the bachelor cousin, the hairy young +gentleman, and Mr and Mrs Spottletoe, arrived in quick succession. + +Mr Spottletoe honoured Jinkins with an encouraging bow. ‘Glad to know +you, sir,’ he said. ‘Give you joy!’ Under the impression that Jinkins +was the happy man. + +Mr Jinkins explained. He was merely doing the honours for his friend +Moddle, who had ceased to reside in the house, and had not yet arrived. + +‘Not arrived, sir!’ exclaimed Spottletoe, in a great heat. + +‘Not yet,’ said Mr Jinkins. + +‘Upon my soul!’ cried Spottletoe. ‘He begins well! Upon my life and +honour this young man begins well! But I should very much like to know +how it is that every one who comes into contact with this family is +guilty of some gross insult to it. Death! Not arrived yet. Not here to +receive us!’ + +The nephew with the outline of a countenance, suggested that perhaps he +had ordered a new pair of boots, and they hadn’t come home. + +‘Don’t talk to me of Boots, sir!’ retorted Spottletoe, with immense +indignation. ‘He is bound to come here in his slippers then; he is bound +to come here barefoot. Don’t offer such a wretched and evasive plea to +me on behalf of your friend, as Boots, sir.’ + +‘He is not MY friend,’ said the nephew. ‘I never saw him.’ + +‘Very well, sir,’ returned the fiery Spottletoe. ‘Then don’t talk to +me!’ + +The door was thrown open at this juncture, and Miss Pecksniff entered, +tottering, and supported by her three bridesmaids. The strong-minded +woman brought up the rear; having waited outside until now, for the +purpose of spoiling the effect. + +‘How do you do, ma’am!’ said Spottletoe to the strong-minded woman in a +tone of defiance. ‘I believe you see Mrs Spottletoe, ma’am?’ + +The strong-minded woman with an air of great interest in Mrs +Spottletoe’s health, regretted that she was not more easily seen. Nature +erring, in that lady’s case, upon the slim side. + +‘Mrs Spottletoe is at least more easily seen than the bridegroom, +ma’am,’ returned that lady’s husband. ‘That is, unless he has confined +his attentions to any particular part or branch of this family, which +would be quite in keeping with its usual proceedings.’ + +‘If you allude to me, sir--’ the strong-minded woman began. + +‘Pray,’ interposed Miss Pecksniff, ‘do not allow Augustus, at this awful +moment of his life and mine, to be the means of disturbing that harmony +which it is ever Augustus’s and my wish to maintain. Augustus has not +been introduced to any of my relations now present. He preferred not.’ + +‘Why, then, I venture to assert,’ cried Mr Spottletoe, ‘that the man who +aspires to join this family, and “prefers not” to be introduced to its +members, is an impertinent Puppy. That is my opinion of HIM!’ + +The strong-minded woman remarked with great suavity, that she was afraid +he must be. Her three daughters observed aloud that it was ‘Shameful!’ + +‘You do not know Augustus,’ said Miss Pecksniff, tearfully, ‘indeed you +do not know him. Augustus is all mildness and humility. Wait till you +see Augustus, and I am sure he will conciliate your affections.’ + +‘The question arises,’ said Spottletoe, folding his arms: ‘How long we +are to wait. I am not accustomed to wait; that’s the fact. And I want to +know how long we are expected to wait.’ + +‘Mrs Todgers!’ said Charity, ‘Mr Jinkins! I am afraid there must be some +mistake. I think Augustus must have gone straight to the Altar!’ + +As such a thing was possible, and the church was close at hand, Mr +Jinkins ran off to see, accompanied by Mr George Chuzzlewit the bachelor +cousin, who preferred anything to the aggravation of sitting near the +breakfast, without being able to eat it. But they came back with no +other tidings than a familiar message from the clerk, importing that if +they wanted to be married that morning they had better look sharp, as +the curate wasn’t going to wait there all day. + +The bride was now alarmed; seriously alarmed. Good Heavens, what could +have happened! Augustus! Dear Augustus! + +Mr Jinkins volunteered to take a cab, and seek him at the +newly-furnished house. The strong-minded woman administered comfort to +Miss Pecksniff. ‘It was a specimen of what she had to expect. It would +do her good. It would dispel the romance of the affair.’ The red-nosed +daughters also administered the kindest comfort. ‘Perhaps he’d come,’ +they said. The sketchy nephew hinted that he might have fallen off a +bridge. The wrath of Mr Spottletoe resisted all the entreaties of his +wife. Everybody spoke at once, and Miss Pecksniff, with clasped hands, +sought consolation everywhere and found it nowhere, when Jinkins, having +met the postman at the door, came back with a letter, which he put into +her hand. + +Miss Pecksniff opened it, uttered a piercing shriek, threw it down upon +the ground, and fainted away. + +They picked it up; and crowding round, and looking over one another’s +shoulders, read, in the words and dashes following, this communication: + + +‘OFF GRAVESEND. + +‘CLIPPER SCHOONER, CUPID + +‘Wednesday night + +‘EVER INJURED MISS PECKSNIFF--Ere this reaches you, the undersigned +will be--if not a corpse--on the way to Van Dieman’s Land. Send not in +pursuit. I never will be taken alive! + +‘The burden--300 tons per register--forgive, if in my distraction, +I allude to the ship--on my mind--has been truly dreadful. +Frequently--when you have sought to soothe my brow with kisses--has +self-destruction flashed across me. Frequently--incredible as it may +seem--have I abandoned the idea. + +‘I love another. She is Another’s. Everything appears to be somebody +else’s. Nothing in the world is mine--not even my Situation--which I +have forfeited--by my rash conduct--in running away. + +‘If you ever loved me, hear my last appeal! The last appeal of a +miserable and blighted exile. Forward the inclosed--it is the key of my +desk--to the office--by hand. Please address to Bobbs and Cholberry--I +mean to Chobbs and Bolberry--but my mind is totally unhinged. I left a +penknife--with a buckhorn handle--in your work-box. It will repay the +messenger. May it make him happier than ever it did me! + +‘Oh, Miss Pecksniff, why didn’t you leave me alone! Was it not cruel, +CRUEL! Oh, my goodness, have you not been a witness of my feelings--have +you not seen them flowing from my eyes--did you not, yourself, reproach +me with weeping more than usual on that dreadful night when last we +met--in that house--where I once was peaceful--though blighted--in the +society of Mrs Todgers! + +‘But it was written--in the Talmud--that you should involve yourself in +the inscrutable and gloomy Fate which it is my mission to accomplish, +and which wreathes itself--e’en now--about in temples. I will not +reproach, for I have wronged you. May the Furniture make some amends! + +‘Farewell! Be the proud bride of a ducal coronet, and forget me! +Long may it be before you know the anguish with which I now subscribe +myself--amid the tempestuous howlings of the--sailors, + +‘Unalterably, + +‘Never yours, + +‘AUGUSTUS.’ + + +They thought as little of Miss Pecksniff, while they greedily perused +this letter, as if she were the very last person on earth whom it +concerned. But Miss Pecksniff really had fainted away. The bitterness of +her mortification; the bitterness of having summoned witnesses, and +such witnesses, to behold it; the bitterness of knowing that the +strong-minded women and the red-nosed daughters towered triumphant in +this hour of their anticipated overthrow; was too much to be borne. Miss +Pecksniff had fainted away in earnest. + + +What sounds are these that fall so grandly on the ear! What darkening +room is this! + +And that mild figure seated at an organ, who is he! Ah Tom, dear Tom, +old friend! + +Thy head is prematurely grey, though Time has passed thee and our old +association, Tom. But, in those sounds with which it is thy wont to bear +the twilight company, the music of thy heart speaks out--the story of +thy life relates itself. + +Thy life is tranquil, calm, and happy, Tom. In the soft strain which +ever and again comes stealing back upon the ear, the memory of thine +old love may find a voice perhaps; but it is a pleasant, softened, +whispering memory, like that in which we sometimes hold the dead, and +does not pain or grieve thee, God be thanked. + +Touch the notes lightly, Tom, as lightly as thou wilt, but never will +thine hand fall half so lightly on that Instrument as on the head of +thine old tyrant brought down very, very low; and never will it make as +hollow a response to any touch of thine, as he does always. + +For a drunken, begging, squalid, letter-writing man, called Pecksniff, +with a shrewish daughter, haunts thee, Tom; and when he makes appeals to +thee for cash, reminds thee that he built thy fortunes better than his +own; and when he spends it, entertains the alehouse company with tales +of thine ingratitude and his munificence towards thee once upon a time; +and then he shows his elbows worn in holes, and puts his soleless +shoes up on a bench, and begs his auditors look there, while thou art +comfortably housed and clothed. All known to thee, and yet all borne +with, Tom! + +So, with a smile upon thy face, thou passest gently to another +measure--to a quicker and more joyful one--and little feet are used to +dance about thee at the sound, and bright young eyes to glance up +into thine. And there is one slight creature, Tom--her child; not +Ruth’s--whom thine eyes follow in the romp and dance; who, wondering +sometimes to see thee look so thoughtful, runs to climb up on thy knee, +and put her cheek to thine; who loves thee, Tom, above the rest, if that +can be; and falling sick once, chose thee for her nurse, and never knew +impatience, Tom, when thou wert by her side. + +Thou glidest, now, into a graver air; an air devoted to old friends and +bygone times; and in thy lingering touch upon the keys, and the rich +swelling of the mellow harmony, they rise before thee. The spirit of +that old man dead, who delighted to anticipate thy wants, and never +ceased to honour thee, is there, among the rest; repeating, with a face +composed and calm, the words he said to thee upon his bed, and blessing +thee! + +And coming from a garden, Tom, bestrewn with flowers by children’s +hands, thy sister, little Ruth, as light of foot and heart as in old +days, sits down beside thee. From the Present, and the Past, with which +she is so tenderly entwined in all thy thoughts, thy strain soars onward +to the Future. As it resounds within thee and without, the noble music, +rolling round ye both, shuts out the grosser prospect of an earthly +parting, and uplifts ye both to Heaven! + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT *** + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life And Adventures Of Martin +Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens + + +***** This file should be named 968-0.txt or 968-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/968/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #967] +Last Updated: September 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, + +containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, + +Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family + + +by Charles Dickens + + + + +AUTHOR’S PREFACE + + +This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of +the completed “Pickwick Papers.” There were, then, a good many cheap +Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now. + +Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard +of it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and +miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable example. +Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation +in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a +school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook, +was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, +or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, +the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole +round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although +schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might +naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to +flourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most +rotten round in the whole ladder. Traders in the avarice, indifference, +or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, +sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted +the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy +cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent +high-minded LAISSEZ-ALLER neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the +world. + +We hear sometimes of an action for damages against the unqualified +medical practitioner, who has deformed a broken limb in pretending to +heal it. But, what of the hundreds of thousands of minds that have been +deformed for ever by the incapable pettifoggers who have pretended to +form them! + +I make mention of the race, as of the Yorkshire schoolmasters, in the +past tense. Though it has not yet finally disappeared, it is dwindling +daily. A long day’s work remains to be done about us in the way of +education, Heaven knows; but great improvements and facilities towards +the attainment of a good one, have been furnished, of late years. + +I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear about Yorkshire schools +when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Rochester +Castle, with a head full of PARTRIDGE, STRAP, TOM PIPES, and SANCHO +PANZA; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up +at that time, and that they were somehow or other connected with a +suppurated abscess that some boy had come home with, in consequence of +his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with +an inky pen-knife. The impression made upon me, however made, never left +me. I was always curious about Yorkshire schools--fell, long afterwards +and at sundry times, into the way of hearing more about them--at last, +having an audience, resolved to write about them. + +With that intent I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, in +very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein. +As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those +gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the +author of the “Pickwick Papers,” I consulted with a professional friend +who had a Yorkshire connexion, and with whom I concerted a pious fraud. +He gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of my +travelling companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy +who had been left with a widowed mother who didn’t know what to do +with him; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy +compassion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a Yorkshire +school; I was the poor lady’s friend, travelling that way; and if +the recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his +neighbourhood, the writer would be very much obliged. + +I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood +the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to +deliver a letter until I came to a certain town which shall be nameless. +The person to whom it was addressed, was not at home; but he came down +at night, through the snow, to the inn where I was staying. It was after +dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a +warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table. + +I am afraid he is dead now. I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy, +broad-faced man; that we got acquainted directly; and that we talked +on all kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great +anxiety to avoid. “Was there any large school near?” I asked him, in +reference to the letter. “Oh yes,” he said; “there was a pratty big +‘un.” “Was it a good one?” I asked. “Ey!” he said, “it was as good as +anoother; that was a’ a matther of opinion”; and fell to looking at the +fire, staring round the room, and whistling a little. On my reverting to +some other topic that we had been discussing, he recovered immediately; +but, though I tried him again and again, I never approached the question +of the school, even if he were in the middle of a laugh, without +observing that his countenance fell, and that he became uncomfortable. +At last, when we had passed a couple of hours or so, very agreeably, he +suddenly took up his hat, and leaning over the table and looking me +full in the face, said, in a low voice: “Weel, Misther, we’ve been vara +pleasant toogather, and ar’ll spak’ my moind tiv’ee. Dinnot let the +weedur send her lattle boy to yan o’ our school-measthers, while there’s +a harse to hoold in a’ Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in. Ar +wouldn’t mak’ ill words amang my neeburs, and ar speak tiv’ee quiet +loike. But I’m dom’d if ar can gang to bed and not tellee, for weedur’s +sak’, to keep the lattle boy from a’ sike scoondrels while there’s a +harse to hoold in a’ Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in!” Repeating +these words with great heartiness, and with a solemnity on his jolly +face that made it look twice as large as before, he shook hands and went +away. I never saw him afterwards, but I sometimes imagine that I descry +a faint reflection of him in John Browdie. + +In reference to these gentry, I may here quote a few words from the +original preface to this book. + +“It has afforded the Author great amusement and satisfaction, during the +progress of this work, to learn, from country friends and from a variety +of ludicrous statements concerning himself in provincial newspapers, +that more than one Yorkshire schoolmaster lays claim to being the +original of Mr. Squeers. One worthy, he has reason to believe, has +actually consulted authorities learned in the law, as to his having good +grounds on which to rest an action for libel; another, has meditated a +journey to London, for the express purpose of committing an assault and +battery on his traducer; a third, perfectly remembers being waited on, +last January twelve-month, by two gentlemen, one of whom held him +in conversation while the other took his likeness; and, although Mr. +Squeers has but one eye, and he has two, and the published sketch does +not resemble him (whoever he may be) in any other respect, still he +and all his friends and neighbours know at once for whom it is meant, +because--the character is SO like him. + +“While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the compliment thus +conveyed to him, he ventures to suggest that these contentions may arise +from the fact, that Mr. Squeers is the representative of a class, and +not of an individual. Where imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidity, +are the stock in trade of a small body of men, and one is described +by these characteristics, all his fellows will recognise something +belonging to themselves, and each will have a misgiving that the +portrait is his own. + +“The Author’s object in calling public attention to the system would be +very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, +emphatically and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school are faint +and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept +down lest they should be deemed impossible. That there are, upon record, +trials at law in which damages have been sought as a poor recompense +for lasting agonies and disfigurements inflicted upon children by the +treatment of the master in these places, involving such offensive and +foul details of neglect, cruelty, and disease, as no writer of fiction +would have the boldness to imagine. And that, since he has been engaged +upon these Adventures, he has received, from private quarters far beyond +the reach of suspicion or distrust, accounts of atrocities, in the +perpetration of which upon neglected or repudiated children, these +schools have been the main instruments, very far exceeding any that +appear in these pages.” + +This comprises all I need say on the subject; except that if I had seen +occasion, I had resolved to reprint a few of these details of legal +proceedings, from certain old newspapers. + +One other quotation from the same Preface may serve to introduce a fact +that my readers may think curious. + +“To turn to a more pleasant subject, it may be right to say, that +there ARE two characters in this book which are drawn from life. It is +remarkable that what we call the world, which is so very credulous in +what professes to be true, is most incredulous in what professes to be +imaginary; and that, while, every day in real life, it will allow in one +man no blemishes, and in another no virtues, it will seldom admit a +very strongly-marked character, either good or bad, in a fictitious +narrative, to be within the limits of probability. But those who take an +interest in this tale, will be glad to learn that the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE +live; that their liberal charity, their singleness of heart, their +noble nature, and their unbounded benevolence, are no creations of the +Author’s brain; but are prompting every day (and oftenest by stealth) +some munificent and generous deed in that town of which they are the +pride and honour.” + +If I were to attempt to sum up the thousands of letters, from all sorts +of people in all sorts of latitudes and climates, which this unlucky +paragraph brought down upon me, I should get into an arithmetical +difficulty from which I could not easily extricate myself. Suffice it +to say, that I believe the applications for loans, gifts, and offices +of profit that I have been requested to forward to the originals of the +BROTHERS CHEERYBLE (with whom I never interchanged any communication +in my life) would have exhausted the combined patronage of all the Lord +Chancellors since the accession of the House of Brunswick, and would +have broken the Rest of the Bank of England. + +The Brothers are now dead. + +There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a +remark. If Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or agreeable, he +is not always intended to appear so. He is a young man of an impetuous +temper and of little or no experience; and I saw no reason why such a +hero should be lifted out of nature. + + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICHOLAS NICKLEBY *** + +CHAPTER 1 + +Introduces all the Rest + + +There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one +Mr. Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head +rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough +or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an +old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the +same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, +sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love. + +Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, may +perhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better +likened to two principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune is low +and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the mere pleasure +of the buffeting; and in one respect indeed this comparison would hold +good; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives’ Court will afterwards +send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of the lookers-on for the +means of regaling themselves, so Mr. Godfrey Nickleby and HIS partner, +the honeymoon being over, looked out wistfully into the world, relying +in no inconsiderable degree upon chance for the improvement of their +means. Mr. Nickleby’s income, at the period of his marriage, fluctuated +between sixty and eighty pounds PER ANNUM. + +There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even in London +(where Mr. Nickleby dwelt in those days) but few complaints prevail, of +the population being scanty. It is extraordinary how long a man may look +among the crowd without discovering the face of a friend, but it is no +less true. Mr. Nickleby looked, and looked, till his eyes became sore +as his heart, but no friend appeared; and when, growing tired of the +search, he turned his eyes homeward, he saw very little there to relieve +his weary vision. A painter who has gazed too long upon some glaring +colour, refreshes his dazzled sight by looking upon a darker and more +sombre tint; but everything that met Mr. Nickleby’s gaze wore so black +and gloomy a hue, that he would have been beyond description refreshed +by the very reverse of the contrast. + +At length, after five years, when Mrs. Nickleby had presented her husband +with a couple of sons, and that embarrassed gentleman, impressed with +the necessity of making some provision for his family, was seriously +revolving in his mind a little commercial speculation of insuring his +life next quarter-day, and then falling from the top of the Monument by +accident, there came, one morning, by the general post, a black-bordered +letter to inform him how his uncle, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and +had left him the bulk of his little property, amounting in all to five +thousand pounds sterling. + +As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his +lifetime, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been christened after +him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a morocco case, which, +as he had not too much to eat with it, seemed a kind of satire upon his +having been born without that useful article of plate in his mouth, +Mr. Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcely believe the tidings thus +conveyed to him. On examination, however, they turned out to be strictly +correct. The amiable old gentleman, it seemed, had intended to leave +the whole to the Royal Humane Society, and had indeed executed a will to +that effect; but the Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few +months before, to save the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a +weekly allowance of three shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of +very natural exasperation, revoked the bequest in a codicil, and left it +all to Mr. Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation, +not only against the society for saving the poor relation’s life, but +against the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved. + +With a portion of this property Mr. Godfrey Nickleby purchased a small +farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with his wife and +two children, to live upon the best interest he could get for the rest +of his money, and the little produce he could raise from his land. The +two prospered so well together that, when he died, some fifteen years +after this period, and some five after his wife, he was enabled to +leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, three thousand pounds in cash, and +to his youngest son, Nicholas, one thousand and the farm, which was as +small a landed estate as one would desire to see. + +These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at Exeter; +and, being accustomed to go home once a week, had often heard, from +their mother’s lips, long accounts of their father’s sufferings in his +days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle’s importance in his days +of affluence: which recitals produced a very different impression on +the two: for, while the younger, who was of a timid and retiring +disposition, gleaned from thence nothing but forewarnings to shun the +great world and attach himself to the quiet routine of a country life, +Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-repeated tale the two great +morals that riches are the only true source of happiness and power, and +that it is lawful and just to compass their acquisition by all means +short of felony. ‘And,’ reasoned Ralph with himself, ‘if no good came +of my uncle’s money when he was alive, a great deal of good came of it +after he was dead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving +it up for me, which is a highly virtuous purpose; and, going back to the +old gentleman, good DID come of it to him too, for he had the pleasure +of thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted +by all his family besides.’ And Ralph always wound up these mental +soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing like +money. + +Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties to rust, +even at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, this promising +lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; putting out at good +interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles, and gradually +extending his operations until they aspired to the copper coinage of +this realm, in which he speculated to considerable advantage. Nor did +he trouble his borrowers with abstract calculations of figures, or +references to ready-reckoners; his simple rule of interest being all +comprised in the one golden sentence, ‘two-pence for every half-penny,’ +which greatly simplified the accounts, and which, as a familiar precept, +more easily acquired and retained in the memory than any known rule +of arithmetic, cannot be too strongly recommended to the notice of +capitalists, both large and small, and more especially of money-brokers +and bill-discounters. Indeed, to do these gentlemen justice, many of +them are to this day in the frequent habit of adopting it, with eminent +success. + +In like manner, did young Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute and +intricate calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sums +in simple-interest can fail to have found most embarrassing, by +establishing the one general rule that all sums of principal and +interest should be paid on pocket-money day, that is to say, on +Saturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday, or on +the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, the same. +Indeed he argued, and with great show of reason, that it ought to be +rather more for one day than for five, inasmuch as the borrower might +in the former case be very fairly presumed to be in great extremity, +otherwise he would not borrow at all with such odds against him. This +fact is interesting, as illustrating the secret connection and sympathy +which always exist between great minds. Though Master Ralph Nickleby was +not at that time aware of it, the class of gentlemen before alluded to, +proceed on just the same principle in all their transactions. + +From what we have said of this young gentleman, and the natural +admiration the reader will immediately conceive of his character, it may +perhaps be inferred that he is to be the hero of the work which we shall +presently begin. To set this point at rest, for once and for ever, we +hasten to undeceive them, and stride to its commencement. + +On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, who had been some time +before placed in a mercantile house in London, applied himself +passionately to his old pursuit of money-getting, in which he speedily +became so buried and absorbed, that he quite forgot his brother for many +years; and if, at times, a recollection of his old playfellow broke +upon him through the haze in which he lived--for gold conjures up a mist +about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to +his feelings than the fumes of charcoal--it brought along with it a +companion thought, that if they were intimate he would want to borrow +money of him. So, Mr. Ralph Nickleby shrugged his shoulders, and said +things were better as they were. + +As for Nicholas, he lived a single man on the patrimonial estate until +he grew tired of living alone, and then he took to wife the daughter of +a neighbouring gentleman with a dower of one thousand pounds. This good +lady bore him two children, a son and a daughter, and when the son +was about nineteen, and the daughter fourteen, as near as we can +guess--impartial records of young ladies’ ages being, before the passing +of the new act, nowhere preserved in the registries of this country--Mr +Nickleby looked about him for the means of repairing his capital, now +sadly reduced by this increase in his family, and the expenses of their +education. + +‘Speculate with it,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Spec--u--late, my dear?’ said Mr. Nickleby, as though in doubt. + +‘Why not?’ asked Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Because, my dear, if we SHOULD lose it,’ rejoined Mr. Nickleby, who +was a slow and time-taking speaker, ‘if we SHOULD lose it, we shall no +longer be able to live, my dear.’ + +‘Fiddle,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘I am not altogether sure of that, my dear,’ said Mr. Nickleby. + +‘There’s Nicholas,’ pursued the lady, ‘quite a young man--it’s time he +was in the way of doing something for himself; and Kate too, poor girl, +without a penny in the world. Think of your brother! Would he be what he +is, if he hadn’t speculated?’ + +‘That’s true,’ replied Mr. Nickleby. ‘Very good, my dear. Yes. I WILL +speculate, my dear.’ + +Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of their +cards at first starting; gains MAY be great--and so may losses. The run +of luck went against Mr. Nickleby. A mania prevailed, a bubble burst, +four stock-brokers took villa residences at Florence, four hundred +nobodies were ruined, and among them Mr. Nickleby. + +‘The very house I live in,’ sighed the poor gentleman, ‘may be taken +from me tomorrow. Not an article of my old furniture, but will be sold +to strangers!’ + +The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his bed; +apparently resolved to keep that, at all events. + +‘Cheer up, sir!’ said the apothecary. + +‘You mustn’t let yourself be cast down, sir,’ said the nurse. + +‘Such things happen every day,’ remarked the lawyer. + +‘And it is very sinful to rebel against them,’ whispered the clergyman. + +‘And what no man with a family ought to do,’ added the neighbours. + +Mr. Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room, +embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns to +his languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow. They were +concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for he +babbled, for a long time, about the generosity and goodness of his +brother, and the merry old times when they were at school together. +This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them to One who never +deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and, smiling gently on +them, turned upon his face, and observed, that he thought he could fall +asleep. + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +Of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings, and +of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance + + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you would call +a merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special +pleader, nor a notary. He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less +could he lay any claim to the title of a professional gentleman; for it +would have been impossible to mention any recognised profession to which +he belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in Golden +Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door, had +another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left hand +door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant’s fist grasping a +fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word ‘Office,’ it was clear +that Mr. Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; +and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was +abundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of +half-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat +upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler’s pantry at the end +of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he answered the +bell. + +Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden +Square, it is not exactly in anybody’s way to or from anywhere. It is +one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone +down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first +and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and it +takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The +dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, and +bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about +the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, +when they give away the orders,--all live in Golden Square, or within a +street of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera +band reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and +the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head +of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of +shrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer’s night, windows +are thrown open, and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the +passer-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of +gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening’s silence; and +the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars, +and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the +supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands +are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver +involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries. + +This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of +business; but Mr. Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for +many years, and uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody round +about, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the reputation of being +immensely rich. The tradesmen held that he was a sort of lawyer, and +the other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; both +of which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about other +people’s affairs usually are, or need to be. + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready dressed +to walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue coat; a white +waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn over +them. The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as if +insisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button of +his spencer; and the latter garment was not made low enough to conceal +a long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which had +its beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr. Nickleby’s pocket, +and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the watch +itself, and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of +powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if +that were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his +countenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, and +in his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would +announce itself in spite of him. However this might be, there he was; +and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the +eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then, and +are consequently no business of ours just now. + +Mr. Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing +himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the +dirty window. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground +behind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and +frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, from +year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few +leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in +the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following +season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the weather +be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup +in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards ‘gardens’; it +is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are +pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original +brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of +turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles, +and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves +in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again: +the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper: +and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken +flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about--a prey to ‘blacks’ and +dirt. + +It was into a place of this kind that Mr. Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat +with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixed +his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in a +tub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rot +away piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but Mr +Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with far +greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have deigned +to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to a +little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerk +was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to +attend. + +In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which +he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), +and presented himself in Mr. Nickleby’s room. He was a tall man of middle +age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, +a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable +when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too +small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was +marvellous how he contrived to keep them on. + +‘Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?’ said Mr. Nickleby, in a sharp and +grating voice. + +‘Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the--’ Noggs was going to +add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted ‘regular +time.’ + +‘My watch has stopped,’ said Mr. Nickleby; ‘I don’t know from what +cause.’ + +‘Not wound up,’ said Noggs. + +‘Yes it is,’ said Mr. Nickleby. + +‘Over-wound then,’ rejoined Noggs. + +‘That can’t very well be,’ observed Mr. Nickleby. + +‘Must be,’ said Noggs. + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket; +‘perhaps it is.’ + +Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all +disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as he +rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grim +silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other: cracking the +joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all possible distortions. +The incessant performance of this routine on every occasion, and the +communication of a fixed and rigid look to his unaffected eye, so as to +make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody +to determine where or at what he was looking, were two among the +numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which struck an inexperienced +observer at first sight. + +‘I am going to the London Tavern this morning,’ said Mr. Nickleby. + +‘Public meeting?’ inquired Noggs. + +Mr. Nickleby nodded. ‘I expect a letter from the solicitor respecting +that mortgage of Ruddle’s. If it comes at all, it will be here by the +two o’clock delivery. I shall leave the city about that time and walk +to Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the way; if there are any +letters, come and meet me, and bring them with you.’ + +Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office bell. +The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly remained in a +stationary position. + +‘The bell,’ said Noggs, as though in explanation. ‘At home?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘To anybody?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘To the tax-gatherer?’ + +‘No! Let him call again.’ + +Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say ‘I thought so!’ +and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he presently +returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr. Bonney, a pale gentleman in a +violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all over +his head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely round his throat, +looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed +himself since. + +‘My dear Nickleby,’ said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which was +so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head, ‘there’s +not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker takes +the chair, and three members of Parliament are positively coming. I have +seen two of them safely out of bed. The third, who was at Crockford’s +all night, has just gone home to put a clean shirt on, and take a bottle +or two of soda water, and will certainly be with us, in time to address +the meeting. He is a little excited by last night, but never mind that; +he always speaks the stronger for it.’ + +‘It seems to promise pretty well,’ said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, whose +deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other man +of business. + +‘Pretty well!’ echoed Mr. Bonney. ‘It’s the finest idea that was ever +started. “United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking +and Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in five hundred +thousand shares of ten pounds each.” Why the very name will get the +shares up to a premium in ten days.’ + +‘And when they ARE at a premium,’ said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, smiling. + +‘When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man alive, +and how to back quietly out at the right time,’ said Mr. Bonney, slapping +the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. ‘By-the-bye, what a VERY +remarkable man that clerk of yours is.’ + +‘Yes, poor devil!’ replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. ‘Though Newman +Noggs kept his horses and hounds once.’ + +‘Ay, ay?’ said the other carelessly. + +‘Yes,’ continued Ralph, ‘and not many years ago either; but he +squandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and in +short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar. He took +to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came here to borrow +a pound, as in his better days I had--’ + +‘Done business with him,’ said Mr. Bonney with a meaning look. + +‘Just so,’ replied Ralph; ‘I couldn’t lend it, you know.’ + +‘Oh, of course not.’ + +‘But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, I +took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since. He is +a little mad, I think,’ said Mr. Nickleby, calling up a charitable look, +‘but he is useful enough, poor creature--useful enough.’ + +The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, being +utterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages of a +boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle, +that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially valuable +person in a place where much business was done, of which it was +desirable no mention should be made out of doors. The other gentleman +was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as they hurried into the +hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr. Nickleby forgot to +mention circumstances so unimportant. + +There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew up, +and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking across the road +under a press of paper, bearing gigantic announcements that a Public +Meeting would be holden at one o’clock precisely, to take into +consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of the +United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual +Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares +of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in fat black figures +of considerable size. Mr. Bonney elbowed his way briskly upstairs, +receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on +the landings to show the way; and, followed by Mr. Nickleby, dived into a +suite of apartments behind the great public room: in the second of which +was a business-looking table, and several business-looking people. + +‘Hear!’ cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr. Bonney presented +himself. ‘Chair, gentlemen, chair!’ + +The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr. Bonney +bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his fingers +through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman’s knock on the table +with a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried ‘Hear!’ and nodded +slightly to each other, as much as to say what spirited conduct that +was. Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish with agitation, tore into +the room, and throwing the door open with a crash, shouted ‘Sir Matthew +Pupker!’ + +The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and while they +were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two live +members of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling and bowing, +and looking so pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel how any +man could have the heart to vote against them. Sir Matthew Pupker +especially, who had a little round head with a flaxen wig on the top +of it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the wig threatened to +be jerked off, every instant. When these symptoms had in some degree +subsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir Matthew +Pupker, or the two other members, crowded round them in three little +groups, near one or other of which the gentlemen who were NOT on +speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stood +lingering, and smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope +of something turning up which might bring them into notice. All this +time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other members were relating to +their separate circles what the intentions of government were, about +taking up the bill; with a full account of what the government had said +in a whisper the last time they dined with it, and how the government +had been observed to wink when it said so; from which premises they were +at no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had one +object more at heart than another, that one object was the welfare and +advantage of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet +Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. + +Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a fair +division of the speechifying, the public in the large room were eyeing, +by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music Gallery. In +these amusements the greater portion of them had been occupied for a +couple of hours before, and as the most agreeable diversions pall upon +the taste on a too protracted enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now +began to hammer the floor with their boot-heels, and to express their +dissatisfaction by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions, +emanating from the people who had been there longest, naturally +proceeded from those who were nearest to the platform and furthest from +the policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight their way +through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desire +to do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began to drag +forth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near the +door; at the same time dealing out various smart and tingling blows with +their truncheons, after the manner of that ingenious actor, Mr. Punch: +whose brilliant example, both in the fashion of his weapons and their +use, this branch of the executive occasionally follows. + +Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shout +attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there poured +on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of gentlemen +with their hats off, all looking behind them, and uttering vociferous +cheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently explained when Sir Matthew +Pupker and the two other real members of Parliament came to the front, +amidst deafening shouts, and testified to each other in dumb motions +that they had never seen such a glorious sight as that, in the whole +course of their public career. + +At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir Matthew +Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse which lasted +five minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must be +his feelings on that great occasion, and what must be that occasion +in the eyes of the world, and what must be the intelligence of +his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be the wealth and +respectability of his honourable friends behind him, and lastly, what +must be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort, the +liberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such an +Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet +Baking and Punctual Delivery Company! + +Mr. Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; and +having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in +an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of the +gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species of bottle-holder +to the orators generally), and said he would read to them the first +resolution--‘That this meeting views with alarm and apprehension, +the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and its +neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys, as at present +constituted, wholly underserving the confidence of the public; and that +it deems the whole Muffin system alike prejudicial to the health and +morals of the people, and subversive of the best interests of a great +commercial and mercantile community.’ The honourable gentleman made a +speech which drew tears from the eyes of the ladies, and awakened the +liveliest emotions in every individual present. He had visited the +houses of the poor in the various districts of London, and had found +them destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which there +appeared too much reason to believe some of these indigent persons +did not taste from year’s end to year’s end. He had found that among +muffin-sellers there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy, +which he attributed to the debasing nature of their employment as at +present exercised; he had found the same vices among the poorer class of +people who ought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to +the despair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of that +nutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant in +intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a committee of +the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the +price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it +by bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that these +men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as ‘Snooks,’ +‘Walker,’ ‘Ferguson,’ ‘Is Murphy right?’ and many others. It was +this melancholy state of things that the Company proposed to correct; +firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffin +trading of every description; secondly, by themselves supplying the +public generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first +quality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill had +been introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir Matthew +Pupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it was the +supporters of this bill who would confer undying brightness and +splendour upon England, under the name of the United Metropolitan +Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company; +he would add, with a capital of Five Millions, in five hundred thousand +shares of ten pounds each. + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman having +moved that it be amended by the insertion of the words ‘and crumpet’ +after the word ‘muffin,’ whenever it occurred, it was carried +triumphantly. Only one man in the crowd cried ‘No!’ and he was promptly +taken into custody, and straightway borne off. + +The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of immediately +abolishing ‘all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders in muffins (or +crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or female, boys or +men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,’ was moved by a grievous gentleman +of semi-clerical appearance, who went at once into such deep pathetics, +that he knocked the first speaker clean out of the course in no time. +You might have heard a pin fall--a pin! a feather--as he described +the cruelties inflicted on muffin boys by their masters, which he +very wisely urged were in themselves a sufficient reason for the +establishment of that inestimable company. It seemed that the unhappy +youths were nightly turned out into the wet streets at the most +inclement periods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain--or +it might be hail or snow--for hours together, without shelter, food, +or warmth; and let the public never forget upon the latter point, that +while the muffins were provided with warm clothing and blankets, +the boys were wholly unprovided for, and left to their own miserable +resources. (Shame!) The honourable gentleman related one case of a +muffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous system +for no less than five years, at length fell a victim to a cold in the +head, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into a perspiration +and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but he +had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more +heart-rending and appalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of an +orphan muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney carriage, had +been removed to the hospital, had undergone the amputation of his +leg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing his occupation on +crutches. Fountain of justice, were these things to last! + +This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and this +was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The men shouted; +the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they were moist, +and waved them till they were dry; the excitement was tremendous; and +Mr. Nickleby whispered his friend that the shares were thenceforth at a +premium of five-and-twenty per cent. + +The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every +man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasm +have held up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplished +it. This done, the draft of the proposed petition was read at length: +and the petition said, as all petitions DO say, that the petitioners +were very humble, and the petitioned very honourable, and the object +very virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill ought to be passed +into a law at once, to the everlasting honour and glory of that most +honourable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled. + +Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford’s all night, and who +looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forward +to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour +of that petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he +meant to taunt the parliament if they rejected the bill; and to inform +them also, that he regretted his honourable friends had not inserted a +clause rendering the purchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon +all classes of the community, which he--opposing all half-measures, +and preferring to go the extreme animal--pledged himself to propose +and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, the +honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured +kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there +was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant +display of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman +quite into the shade. + +And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, there +came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent +temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can make, +breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth with such +fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the course whereof, +he told them how he would demand the extension of that great boon to his +native country; how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffin +laws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day when +crumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells should +ring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member, +with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which +increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the +speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and +established in the hearers’ minds that there was no speculation +so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United +Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual +Delivery Company. + +So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meeting +adjourned with acclamations, and Mr. Nickleby and the other directors +went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past one +o’clock; and to remunerate themselves for which trouble, (as the company +was yet in its infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man for +every such attendance. + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby receives Sad Tidings of his Brother, but bears up +nobly against the Intelligence communicated to him. The Reader is +informed how he liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, and how kindly +he proposed to make his Fortune at once + + +Having rendered his zealous assistance towards dispatching the lunch, +with all that promptitude and energy which are among the most important +qualities that men of business can possess, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a +cordial farewell of his fellow-speculators, and bent his steps westward +in unwonted good humour. As he passed St Paul’s he stepped aside into +a doorway to set his watch, and with his hand on the key and his eye +on the cathedral dial, was intent upon so doing, when a man suddenly +stopped before him. It was Newman Noggs. + +‘Ah! Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, looking up as he pursued his occupation. +‘The letter about the mortgage has come, has it? I thought it would.’ + +‘Wrong,’ replied Newman. + +‘What! and nobody called respecting it?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby, pausing. +Noggs shook his head. + +‘What HAS come, then?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby. + +‘I have,’ said Newman. + +‘What else?’ demanded the master, sternly. + +‘This,’ said Newman, drawing a sealed letter slowly from his pocket. +‘Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black border, woman’s hand, C. N. in the +corner.’ + +‘Black wax?’ said Mr. Nickleby, glancing at the letter. ‘I know something +of that hand, too. Newman, I shouldn’t be surprised if my brother were +dead.’ + +‘I don’t think you would,’ said Newman, quietly. + +‘Why not, sir?’ demanded Mr. Nickleby. + +‘You never are surprised,’ replied Newman, ‘that’s all.’ + +Mr. Nickleby snatched the letter from his assistant, and fixing a cold +look upon him, opened, read it, put it in his pocket, and having now hit +the time to a second, began winding up his watch. + +‘It is as I expected, Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, while he was thus +engaged. ‘He IS dead. Dear me! Well, that’s sudden thing. I shouldn’t +have thought it, really.’ With these touching expressions of sorrow, Mr +Nickleby replaced his watch in his fob, and, fitting on his gloves to a +nicety, turned upon his way, and walked slowly westward with his hands +behind him. + +‘Children alive?’ inquired Noggs, stepping up to him. + +‘Why, that’s the very thing,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, as though his +thoughts were about them at that moment. ‘They are both alive.’ + +‘Both!’ repeated Newman Noggs, in a low voice. + +‘And the widow, too,’ added Mr. Nickleby, ‘and all three in London, +confound them; all three here, Newman.’ + +Newman fell a little behind his master, and his face was curiously +twisted as by a spasm; but whether of paralysis, or grief, or inward +laughter, nobody but himself could possibly explain. The expression of +a man’s face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his +speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was +a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve. + +‘Go home!’ said Mr. Nickleby, after they had walked a few paces: looking +round at the clerk as if he were his dog. The words were scarcely +uttered when Newman darted across the road, slunk among the crowd, and +disappeared in an instant. + +‘Reasonable, certainly!’ muttered Mr. Nickleby to himself, as he walked +on, ‘very reasonable! My brother never did anything for me, and I never +expected it; the breath is no sooner out of his body than I am to be +looked to, as the support of a great hearty woman, and a grown boy and +girl. What are they to me! I never saw them.’ + +Full of these, and many other reflections of a similar kind, Mr. Nickleby +made the best of his way to the Strand, and, referring to his letter as +if to ascertain the number of the house he wanted, stopped at a private +door about half-way down that crowded thoroughfare. + +A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame +screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black +velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress coats with faces looking +out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young gentleman in a very +vermilion uniform, flourishing a sabre; and one of a literary character +with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six books, and a curtain. There +was, moreover, a touching representation of a young lady reading a +manuscript in an unfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a +large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs fore-shortened +to the size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were a +great many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out +of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms with an +embossed border. + +Mr. Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and gave +a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was answered by a +servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face. + +‘Is Mrs. Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply. + +‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’ + +Mr. Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus +corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she +was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular +staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted. + +‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Ralph. + +‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what a stupid +thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’ + +‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been +a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl. + +‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show the gentleman +where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock double knocks for the +second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when the bell’s broke, and +then it must be two single ones.’ + +‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg your pardon; +is that Mrs. La what’s-her-name?’ + +‘Creevy--La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed +over the banisters. + +‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ said Ralph. + +The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked +up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by +the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and +was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing +young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy’s apartment was the gilt frame +downstairs on a larger scale and something dirtier. + +‘Hem!’ said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk +mitten. ‘A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for +the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?’ + +‘You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, in his +usual blunt fashion. ‘I have no money to throw away on miniatures, +ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the +stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.’ + +Miss La Creevy coughed once more--this cough was to conceal her +disappointment--and said, ‘Oh, indeed!’ + +‘I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above +belongs to you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby. + +Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged +to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just +then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady +from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking. + +‘A widow, ma’am?’ said Ralph. + +‘Yes, she is a widow,’ replied the lady. + +‘A POOR widow, ma’am,’ said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that +little adjective which conveys so much. + +‘Well, I’m afraid she IS poor,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. + +‘I happen to know that she is, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Now, what business +has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma’am?’ + +‘Very true,’ replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this +implied compliment to the apartments. ‘Exceedingly true.’ + +‘I know her circumstances intimately, ma’am,’ said Ralph; ‘in fact, I +am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them +here, ma’am.’ + +‘I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary +obligations,’ said Miss La Creevy with another cough, ‘that the lady’s +family would--’ + +‘No they wouldn’t, ma’am,’ interrupted Ralph, hastily. ‘Don’t think it.’ + +‘If I am to understand that,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘the case wears a +very different appearance.’ + +‘You may understand it then, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘and make your +arrangements accordingly. I am the family, ma’am--at least, I believe +I am the only relation they have, and I think it right that you should +know I can’t support them in their extravagances. How long have they +taken these lodgings for?’ + +‘Only from week to week,’ replied Miss La Creevy. ‘Mrs. Nickleby paid the +first week in advance.’ + +‘Then you had better get them out at the end of it,’ said Ralph. +‘They can’t do better than go back to the country, ma’am; they are in +everybody’s way here.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands, ‘if Mrs. Nickleby +took the apartments without the means of paying for them, it was very +unbecoming a lady.’ + +‘Of course it was, ma’am,’ said Ralph. + +‘And naturally,’ continued Miss La Creevy, ‘I who am, AT +PRESENT--hem--an unprotected female, cannot afford to lose by the +apartments.’ + +‘Of course you can’t, ma’am,’ replied Ralph. + +‘Though at the same time,’ added Miss La Creevy, who was plainly +wavering between her good-nature and her interest, ‘I have nothing +whatever to say against the lady, who is extremely pleasant and affable, +though, poor thing, she seems terribly low in her spirits; nor against +the young people either, for nicer, or better-behaved young people +cannot be.’ + +‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, turning to the door, for these encomiums +on poverty irritated him; ‘I have done my duty, and perhaps more than I +ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying what I have.’ + +‘I am sure I am very much obliged to you at least, sir,’ said Miss La +Creevy in a gracious manner. ‘Would you do me the favour to look at a +few specimens of my portrait painting?’ + +‘You’re very good, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby, making off with great +speed; ‘but as I have a visit to pay upstairs, and my time is precious, +I really can’t.’ + +‘At any other time when you are passing, I shall be most happy,’ said +Miss La Creevy. ‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to take a card of +terms with you? Thank you--good-morning!’ + +‘Good-morning, ma’am,’ said Ralph, shutting the door abruptly after him +to prevent any further conversation. ‘Now for my sister-in-law. Bah!’ + +Climbing up another perpendicular flight, composed with great mechanical +ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, Mr. Ralph Nickleby stopped to +take breath on the landing, when he was overtaken by the handmaid, whom +the politeness of Miss La Creevy had dispatched to announce him, and +who had apparently been making a variety of unsuccessful attempts, since +their last interview, to wipe her dirty face clean, upon an apron much +dirtier. + +‘What name?’ said the girl. + +‘Nickleby,’ replied Ralph. + +‘Oh! Mrs. Nickleby,’ said the girl, throwing open the door, ‘here’s Mr +Nickleby.’ + +A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr. Ralph Nickleby entered, but appeared +incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant upon the arm of a slight +but very beautiful girl of about seventeen, who had been sitting by her. +A youth, who appeared a year or two older, stepped forward and saluted +Ralph as his uncle. + +‘Oh,’ growled Ralph, with an ill-favoured frown, ‘you are Nicholas, I +suppose?’ + +‘That is my name, sir,’ replied the youth. + +‘Put my hat down,’ said Ralph, imperiously. ‘Well, ma’am, how do you do? +You must bear up against sorrow, ma’am; I always do.’ + +‘Mine was no common loss!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, applying her handkerchief +to her eyes. + +‘It was no UNcommon loss, ma’am,’ returned Ralph, as he coolly +unbuttoned his spencer. ‘Husbands die every day, ma’am, and wives too.’ + +‘And brothers also, sir,’ said Nicholas, with a glance of indignation. + +‘Yes, sir, and puppies, and pug-dogs likewise,’ replied his uncle, +taking a chair. ‘You didn’t mention in your letter what my brother’s +complaint was, ma’am.’ + +‘The doctors could attribute it to no particular disease,’ said Mrs +Nickleby; shedding tears. ‘We have too much reason to fear that he died +of a broken heart.’ + +‘Pooh!’ said Ralph, ‘there’s no such thing. I can understand a man’s +dying of a broken neck, or suffering from a broken arm, or a broken +head, or a broken leg, or a broken nose; but a broken heart!--nonsense, +it’s the cant of the day. If a man can’t pay his debts, he dies of a +broken heart, and his widow’s a martyr.’ + +‘Some people, I believe, have no hearts to break,’ observed Nicholas, +quietly. + +‘How old is this boy, for God’s sake?’ inquired Ralph, wheeling back his +chair, and surveying his nephew from head to foot with intense scorn. + +‘Nicholas is very nearly nineteen,’ replied the widow. + +‘Nineteen, eh!’ said Ralph; ‘and what do you mean to do for your bread, +sir?’ + +‘Not to live upon my mother,’ replied Nicholas, his heart swelling as he +spoke. + +‘You’d have little enough to live upon, if you did,’ retorted the uncle, +eyeing him contemptuously. + +‘Whatever it be,’ said Nicholas, flushed with anger, ‘I shall not look +to you to make it more.’ + +‘Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself,’ remonstrated Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Dear Nicholas, pray,’ urged the young lady. + +‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘Upon my word! Fine beginnings, Mrs +Nickleby--fine beginnings!’ + +Mrs. Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas by a gesture +to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for +some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, +hard-featured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, +and ingenuous. The old man’s eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice +and cunning; the young man’s bright with the light of intelligence and +spirit. His figure was somewhat slight, but manly and well formed; and, +apart from all the grace of youth and comeliness, there was an emanation +from the warm young heart in his look and bearing which kept the old man +down. + +However striking such a contrast as this may be to lookers-on, none ever +feel it with half the keenness or acuteness of perfection with which it +strikes to the very soul of him whose inferiority it marks. It galled +Ralph to the heart’s core, and he hated Nicholas from that hour. + +The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph +withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling Nicholas +‘a boy.’ This word is much used as a term of reproach by elderly +gentlemen towards their juniors: probably with the view of deluding +society into the belief that if they could be young again, they wouldn’t +on any account. + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, impatiently, ‘the creditors have +administered, you tell me, and there’s nothing left for you?’ + +‘Nothing,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘And you spent what little money you had, in coming all the way to +London, to see what I could do for you?’ pursued Ralph. + +‘I hoped,’ faltered Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that you might have an opportunity of +doing something for your brother’s children. It was his dying wish that +I should appeal to you in their behalf.’ + +‘I don’t know how it is,’ muttered Ralph, walking up and down the room, +‘but whenever a man dies without any property of his own, he always +seems to think he has a right to dispose of other people’s. What is your +daughter fit for, ma’am?’ + +‘Kate has been well educated,’ sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Tell your uncle, my +dear, how far you went in French and extras.’ + +The poor girl was about to murmur something, when her uncle stopped her, +very unceremoniously. + +‘We must try and get you apprenticed at some boarding-school,’ said +Ralph. ‘You have not been brought up too delicately for that, I hope?’ + +‘No, indeed, uncle,’ replied the weeping girl. ‘I will try to do +anything that will gain me a home and bread.’ + +‘Well, well,’ said Ralph, a little softened, either by his niece’s +beauty or her distress (stretch a point, and say the latter). ‘You must +try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking or tambour-work +will come lighter. Have YOU ever done anything, sir?’ (turning to his +nephew.) + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas, bluntly. + +‘No, I thought not!’ said Ralph. ‘This is the way my brother brought up +his children, ma’am.’ + +‘Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poor father could +give him,’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby, ‘and he was thinking of--’ + +‘Of making something of him someday,’ said Ralph. ‘The old story; always +thinking, and never doing. If my brother had been a man of activity +and prudence, he might have left you a rich woman, ma’am: and if he had +turned his son into the world, as my father turned me, when I wasn’t as +old as that boy by a year and a half, he would have been in a situation +to help you, instead of being a burden upon you, and increasing your +distress. My brother was a thoughtless, inconsiderate man, Mrs. Nickleby, +and nobody, I am sure, can have better reason to feel that, than you.’ + +This appeal set the widow upon thinking that perhaps she might have made +a more successful venture with her one thousand pounds, and then she +began to reflect what a comfortable sum it would have been just then; +which dismal thoughts made her tears flow faster, and in the excess of +these griefs she (being a well-meaning woman enough, but weak withal) +fell first to deploring her hard fate, and then to remarking, with many +sobs, that to be sure she had been a slave to poor Nicholas, and had +often told him she might have married better (as indeed she had, very +often), and that she never knew in his lifetime how the money went, but +that if he had confided in her they might all have been better off that +day; with other bitter recollections common to most married ladies, +either during their coverture, or afterwards, or at both periods. Mrs +Nickleby concluded by lamenting that the dear departed had never deigned +to profit by her advice, save on one occasion; which was a strictly +veracious statement, inasmuch as he had only acted upon it once, and had +ruined himself in consequence. + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby heard all this with a half-smile; and when the widow +had finished, quietly took up the subject where it had been left before +the above outbreak. + +‘Are you willing to work, sir?’ he inquired, frowning on his nephew. + +‘Of course I am,’ replied Nicholas haughtily. + +‘Then see here, sir,’ said his uncle. ‘This caught my eye this morning, +and you may thank your stars for it.’ + +With this exordium, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a newspaper from his +pocket, and after unfolding it, and looking for a short time among the +advertisements, read as follows: + +‘“EDUCATION.--At Mr. Wackford Squeers’s Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the +delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, Youth +are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided +with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, +mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of +the globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, +fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. +Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet +unparalleled. Mr. Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till +four, at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. +Annual salary 5 pounds. A Master of Arts would be preferred.” + +‘There!’ said Ralph, folding the paper again. ‘Let him get that +situation, and his fortune is made.’ + +‘But he is not a Master of Arts,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘That,’ replied Ralph, ‘that, I think, can be got over.’ + +‘But the salary is so small, and it is such a long way off, uncle!’ +faltered Kate. + +‘Hush, Kate my dear,’ interposed Mrs. Nickleby; ‘your uncle must know +best.’ + +‘I say,’ repeated Ralph, tartly, ‘let him get that situation, and his +fortune is made. If he don’t like that, let him get one for himself. +Without friends, money, recommendation, or knowledge of business of any +kind, let him find honest employment in London, which will keep him in +shoe leather, and I’ll give him a thousand pounds. At least,’ said Mr +Ralph Nickleby, checking himself, ‘I would if I had it.’ + +‘Poor fellow!’ said the young lady. ‘Oh! uncle, must we be separated so +soon!’ + +‘Don’t tease your uncle with questions when he is thinking only for our +good, my love,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Nicholas, my dear, I wish you would +say something.’ + +‘Yes, mother, yes,’ said Nicholas, who had hitherto remained silent and +absorbed in thought. ‘If I am fortunate enough to be appointed to this +post, sir, for which I am so imperfectly qualified, what will become of +those I leave behind?’ + +‘Your mother and sister, sir,’ replied Ralph, ‘will be provided for, in +that case (not otherwise), by me, and placed in some sphere of life in +which they will be able to be independent. That will be my immediate +care; they will not remain as they are, one week after your departure, I +will undertake.’ + +‘Then,’ said Nicholas, starting gaily up, and wringing his uncle’s hand, +‘I am ready to do anything you wish me. Let us try our fortune with Mr +Squeers at once; he can but refuse.’ + +‘He won’t do that,’ said Ralph. ‘He will be glad to have you on my +recommendation. Make yourself of use to him, and you’ll rise to be a +partner in the establishment in no time. Bless me, only think! if he +were to die, why your fortune’s made at once.’ + +‘To be sure, I see it all,’ said poor Nicholas, delighted with a +thousand visionary ideas, that his good spirits and his inexperience +were conjuring up before him. ‘Or suppose some young nobleman who is +being educated at the Hall, were to take a fancy to me, and get his +father to appoint me his travelling tutor when he left, and when we +come back from the continent, procured me some handsome appointment. Eh! +uncle?’ + +‘Ah, to be sure!’ sneered Ralph. + +‘And who knows, but when he came to see me when I was settled (as he +would of course), he might fall in love with Kate, who would be keeping +my house, and--and marry her, eh! uncle? Who knows?’ + +‘Who, indeed!’ snarled Ralph. + +‘How happy we should be!’ cried Nicholas with enthusiasm. ‘The pain of +parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. Kate will be a beautiful +woman, and I so proud to hear them say so, and mother so happy to +be with us once again, and all these sad times forgotten, and--’ The +picture was too bright a one to bear, and Nicholas, fairly overpowered +by it, smiled faintly, and burst into tears. + +This simple family, born and bred in retirement, and wholly unacquainted +with what is called the world--a conventional phrase which, being +interpreted, often signifieth all the rascals in it--mingled their tears +together at the thought of their first separation; and, this first gush +of feeling over, were proceeding to dilate with all the buoyancy of +untried hope on the bright prospects before them, when Mr. Ralph Nickleby +suggested, that if they lost time, some more fortunate candidate +might deprive Nicholas of the stepping-stone to fortune which the +advertisement pointed out, and so undermine all their air-built castles. +This timely reminder effectually stopped the conversation. Nicholas, +having carefully copied the address of Mr. Squeers, the uncle and nephew +issued forth together in quest of that accomplished gentleman; Nicholas +firmly persuading himself that he had done his relative great injustice +in disliking him at first sight; and Mrs. Nickleby being at some pains to +inform her daughter that she was sure he was a much more kindly disposed +person than he seemed; which, Miss Nickleby dutifully remarked, he might +very easily be. + +To tell the truth, the good lady’s opinion had been not a little +influenced by her brother-in-law’s appeal to her better understanding, +and his implied compliment to her high deserts; and although she had +dearly loved her husband, and still doted on her children, he had struck +so successfully on one of those little jarring chords in the human heart +(Ralph was well acquainted with its worst weaknesses, though he knew +nothing of its best), that she had already begun seriously to consider +herself the amiable and suffering victim of her late husband’s +imprudence. + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of time) wait +upon Mr. Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire Schoolmaster + + +Snow Hill! What kind of place can the quiet townspeople who see the +words emblazoned, in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark +shading, on the north-country coaches, take Snow Hill to be? All +people have some undefined and shadowy notion of a place whose name is +frequently before their eyes, or often in their ears. What a vast number +of random ideas there must be perpetually floating about, regarding this +same Snow Hill. The name is such a good one. Snow Hill--Snow Hill too, +coupled with a Saracen’s Head: picturing to us by a double association +of ideas, something stern and rugged! A bleak desolate tract of country, +open to piercing blasts and fierce wintry storms--a dark, cold, gloomy +heath, lonely by day, and scarcely to be thought of by honest folks +at night--a place which solitary wayfarers shun, and where desperate +robbers congregate;--this, or something like this, should be the +prevalent notion of Snow Hill, in those remote and rustic parts, through +which the Saracen’s Head, like some grim apparition, rushes each day and +night with mysterious and ghost-like punctuality; holding its swift and +headlong course in all weathers, and seeming to bid defiance to the very +elements themselves. + +The reality is rather different, but by no means to be despised +notwithstanding. There, at the very core of London, in the heart of its +business and animation, in the midst of a whirl of noise and motion: +stemming as it were the giant currents of life that flow ceaselessly on +from different quarters, and meet beneath its walls: stands Newgate; and +in that crowded street on which it frowns so darkly--within a few feet +of the squalid tottering houses--upon the very spot on which the vendors +of soup and fish and damaged fruit are now plying their trades--scores +of human beings, amidst a roar of sounds to which even the tumult of a +great city is as nothing, four, six, or eight strong men at a time, have +been hurried violently and swiftly from the world, when the scene has +been rendered frightful with excess of human life; when curious eyes +have glared from casement and house-top, and wall and pillar; and +when, in the mass of white and upturned faces, the dying wretch, in his +all-comprehensive look of agony, has met not one--not one--that bore the +impress of pity or compassion. + +Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and +the Compter, and the bustle and noise of the city; and just on that +particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastward +seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney +cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident, is +the coach-yard of the Saracen’s Head Inn; its portal guarded by two +Saracens’ heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of +the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which +have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity; possibly +because this species of humour is now confined to St James’s parish, +where door knockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires +esteemed as convenient toothpicks. Whether this be the reason or not, +there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway. The inn +itself garnished with another Saracen’s Head, frowns upon you from the +top of the yard; while from the door of the hind boot of all the red +coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen’s Head, +with a twin expression to the large Saracens’ Heads below, so that the +general appearance of the pile is decidedly of the Saracenic order. + +When you walk up this yard, you will see the booking-office on your +left, and the tower of St Sepulchre’s church, darting abruptly up into +the sky, on your right, and a gallery of bedrooms on both sides. Just +before you, you will observe a long window with the words ‘coffee-room’ +legibly painted above it; and looking out of that window, you would have +seen in addition, if you had gone at the right time, Mr. Wackford Squeers +with his hands in his pockets. + +Mr. Squeers’s appearance was not prepossessing. He had but one eye, +and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. The eye he had, was +unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a greenish +grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street door. The blank +side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a +very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his +expression bordered closely on the villainous. His hair was very flat +and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low +protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse +manner. He was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the +middle size; he wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of +scholastic black; but his coat sleeves being a great deal too long, +and his trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in +his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at +finding himself so respectable. + +Mr. Squeers was standing in a box by one of the coffee-room fire-places, +fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms, and two +of extraordinary shapes and dimensions made to suit the angles of the +partition. In a corner of the seat, was a very small deal trunk, tied +round with a scanty piece of cord; and on the trunk was perched--his +lace-up half-boots and corduroy trousers dangling in the air--a +diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, and his hands +planted on his knees, who glanced timidly at the schoolmaster, from time +to time, with evident dread and apprehension. + +‘Half-past three,’ muttered Mr. Squeers, turning from the window, and +looking sulkily at the coffee-room clock. ‘There will be nobody here +today.’ + +Much vexed by this reflection, Mr. Squeers looked at the little boy to +see whether he was doing anything he could beat him for. As he happened +not to be doing anything at all, he merely boxed his ears, and told him +not to do it again. + +‘At Midsummer,’ muttered Mr. Squeers, resuming his complaint, ‘I took +down ten boys; ten twenties is two hundred pound. I go back at eight +o’clock tomorrow morning, and have got only three--three oughts is an +ought--three twos is six--sixty pound. What’s come of all the boys? +what’s parents got in their heads? what does it all mean?’ + +Here the little boy on the top of the trunk gave a violent sneeze. + +‘Halloa, sir!’ growled the schoolmaster, turning round. ‘What’s that, +sir?’ + +‘Nothing, please sir,’ replied the little boy. + +‘Nothing, sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Squeers. + +‘Please sir, I sneezed,’ rejoined the boy, trembling till the little +trunk shook under him. + +‘Oh! sneezed, did you?’ retorted Mr. Squeers. ‘Then what did you say +“nothing” for, sir?’ + +In default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a +couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry, wherefore Mr +Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of the face, +and knocked him on again with a blow on the other. + +‘Wait till I get you down into Yorkshire, my young gentleman,’ said Mr +Squeers, ‘and then I’ll give you the rest. Will you hold that noise, +sir?’ + +‘Ye--ye--yes,’ sobbed the little boy, rubbing his face very hard with +the Beggar’s Petition in printed calico. + +‘Then do so at once, sir,’ said Squeers. ‘Do you hear?’ + +As this admonition was accompanied with a threatening gesture, and +uttered with a savage aspect, the little boy rubbed his face harder, as +if to keep the tears back; and, beyond alternately sniffing and choking, +gave no further vent to his emotions. + +‘Mr. Squeers,’ said the waiter, looking in at this juncture; ‘here’s a +gentleman asking for you at the bar.’ + +‘Show the gentleman in, Richard,’ replied Mr. Squeers, in a soft voice. +‘Put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel, or I’ll +murder you when the gentleman goes.’ + +The schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these words in a fierce whisper, +when the stranger entered. Affecting not to see him, Mr. Squeers feigned +to be intent upon mending a pen, and offering benevolent advice to his +youthful pupil. + +‘My dear child,’ said Mr. Squeers, ‘all people have their trials. This +early trial of yours that is fit to make your little heart burst, and +your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is it? Nothing; +less than nothing. You are leaving your friends, but you will have a +father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeers. At the delightful +village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, where youth are +boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided +with all necessaries--’ + +‘It IS the gentleman,’ observed the stranger, stopping the schoolmaster +in the rehearsal of his advertisement. ‘Mr. Squeers, I believe, sir?’ + +‘The same, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers, with an assumption of extreme +surprise. + +‘The gentleman,’ said the stranger, ‘that advertised in the Times +newspaper?’ + +‘--Morning Post, Chronicle, Herald, and Advertiser, regarding the +Academy called Dotheboys Hall at the delightful village of Dotheboys, +near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire,’ added Mr. Squeers. ‘You come on +business, sir. I see by my young friends. How do you do, my little +gentleman? and how do you do, sir?’ With this salutation Mr. Squeers +patted the heads of two hollow-eyed, small-boned little boys, whom the +applicant had brought with him, and waited for further communications. + +‘I am in the oil and colour way. My name is Snawley, sir,’ said the +stranger. + +Squeers inclined his head as much as to say, ‘And a remarkably pretty +name, too.’ + +The stranger continued. ‘I have been thinking, Mr. Squeers, of placing my +two boys at your school.’ + +‘It is not for me to say so, sir,’ replied Mr. Squeers, ‘but I don’t +think you could possibly do a better thing.’ + +‘Hem!’ said the other. ‘Twenty pounds per annewum, I believe, Mr +Squeers?’ + +‘Guineas,’ rejoined the schoolmaster, with a persuasive smile. + +‘Pounds for two, I think, Mr. Squeers,’ said Mr. Snawley, solemnly. + +‘I don’t think it could be done, sir,’ replied Squeers, as if he had +never considered the proposition before. ‘Let me see; four fives is +twenty, double that, and deduct the--well, a pound either way shall not +stand betwixt us. You must recommend me to your connection, sir, and +make it up that way.’ + +‘They are not great eaters,’ said Mr. Snawley. + +‘Oh! that doesn’t matter at all,’ replied Squeers. ‘We don’t consider +the boys’ appetites at our establishment.’ This was strictly true; they +did not. + +‘Every wholesome luxury, sir, that Yorkshire can afford,’ continued +Squeers; ‘every beautiful moral that Mrs. Squeers can instil; every--in +short, every comfort of a home that a boy could wish for, will be +theirs, Mr. Snawley.’ + +‘I should wish their morals to be particularly attended to,’ said Mr +Snawley. + +‘I am glad of that, sir,’ replied the schoolmaster, drawing himself up. +‘They have come to the right shop for morals, sir.’ + +‘You are a moral man yourself,’ said Mr. Snawley. + +‘I rather believe I am, sir,’ replied Squeers. + +‘I have the satisfaction to know you are, sir,’ said Mr. Snawley. ‘I +asked one of your references, and he said you were pious.’ + +‘Well, sir, I hope I am a little in that line,’ replied Squeers. + +‘I hope I am also,’ rejoined the other. ‘Could I say a few words with +you in the next box?’ + +‘By all means,’ rejoined Squeers with a grin. ‘My dears, will you speak +to your new playfellow a minute or two? That is one of my boys, sir. +Belling his name is,--a Taunton boy that, sir.’ + +‘Is he, indeed?’ rejoined Mr. Snawley, looking at the poor little urchin +as if he were some extraordinary natural curiosity. + +‘He goes down with me tomorrow, sir,’ said Squeers. ‘That’s his luggage +that he is a sitting upon now. Each boy is required to bring, sir, two +suits of clothes, six shirts, six pair of stockings, two nightcaps, two +pocket-handkerchiefs, two pair of shoes, two hats, and a razor.’ + +‘A razor!’ exclaimed Mr. Snawley, as they walked into the next box. ‘What +for?’ + +‘To shave with,’ replied Squeers, in a slow and measured tone. + +There was not much in these three words, but there must have been +something in the manner in which they were said, to attract attention; +for the schoolmaster and his companion looked steadily at each other for +a few seconds, and then exchanged a very meaning smile. Snawley was a +sleek, flat-nosed man, clad in sombre garments, and long black gaiters, +and bearing in his countenance an expression of much mortification +and sanctity; so, his smiling without any obvious reason was the more +remarkable. + +‘Up to what age do you keep boys at your school then?’ he asked at +length. + +‘Just as long as their friends make the quarterly payments to my agent +in town, or until such time as they run away,’ replied Squeers. ‘Let +us understand each other; I see we may safely do so. What are these +boys;--natural children?’ + +‘No,’ rejoined Snawley, meeting the gaze of the schoolmaster’s one eye. +‘They ain’t.’ + +‘I thought they might be,’ said Squeers, coolly. ‘We have a good many of +them; that boy’s one.’ + +‘Him in the next box?’ said Snawley. + +Squeers nodded in the affirmative; his companion took another peep at +the little boy on the trunk, and, turning round again, looked as if he +were quite disappointed to see him so much like other boys, and said he +should hardly have thought it. + +‘He is,’ cried Squeers. ‘But about these boys of yours; you wanted to +speak to me?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Snawley. ‘The fact is, I am not their father, Mr. Squeers. +I’m only their father-in-law.’ + +‘Oh! Is that it?’ said the schoolmaster. ‘That explains it at once. I +was wondering what the devil you were going to send them to Yorkshire +for. Ha! ha! Oh, I understand now.’ + +‘You see I have married the mother,’ pursued Snawley; ‘it’s expensive +keeping boys at home, and as she has a little money in her own right, I +am afraid (women are so very foolish, Mr. Squeers) that she might be led +to squander it on them, which would be their ruin, you know.’ + +‘I see,’ returned Squeers, throwing himself back in his chair, and +waving his hand. + +‘And this,’ resumed Snawley, ‘has made me anxious to put them to some +school a good distance off, where there are no holidays--none of those +ill-judged coming home twice a year that unsettle children’s minds +so--and where they may rough it a little--you comprehend?’ + +‘The payments regular, and no questions asked,’ said Squeers, nodding +his head. + +‘That’s it, exactly,’ rejoined the other. ‘Morals strictly attended to, +though.’ + +‘Strictly,’ said Squeers. + +‘Not too much writing home allowed, I suppose?’ said the father-in-law, +hesitating. + +‘None, except a circular at Christmas, to say they never were so happy, +and hope they may never be sent for,’ rejoined Squeers. + +‘Nothing could be better,’ said the father-in-law, rubbing his hands. + +‘Then, as we understand each other,’ said Squeers, ‘will you allow me +to ask you whether you consider me a highly virtuous, exemplary, and +well-conducted man in private life; and whether, as a person whose +business it is to take charge of youth, you place the strongest +confidence in my unimpeachable integrity, liberality, religious +principles, and ability?’ + +‘Certainly I do,’ replied the father-in-law, reciprocating the +schoolmaster’s grin. + +‘Perhaps you won’t object to say that, if I make you a reference?’ + +‘Not the least in the world.’ + +‘That’s your sort!’ said Squeers, taking up a pen; ‘this is doing +business, and that’s what I like.’ + +Having entered Mr. Snawley’s address, the schoolmaster had next to +perform the still more agreeable office of entering the receipt of the +first quarter’s payment in advance, which he had scarcely completed, +when another voice was heard inquiring for Mr. Squeers. + +‘Here he is,’ replied the schoolmaster; ‘what is it?’ + +‘Only a matter of business, sir,’ said Ralph Nickleby, presenting +himself, closely followed by Nicholas. ‘There was an advertisement of +yours in the papers this morning?’ + +‘There was, sir. This way, if you please,’ said Squeers, who had by this +time got back to the box by the fire-place. ‘Won’t you be seated?’ + +‘Why, I think I will,’ replied Ralph, suiting the action to the word, +and placing his hat on the table before him. ‘This is my nephew, sir, Mr +Nicholas Nickleby.’ + +‘How do you do, sir?’ said Squeers. + +Nicholas bowed, said he was very well, and seemed very much astonished +at the outward appearance of the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall: as indeed +he was. + +‘Perhaps you recollect me?’ said Ralph, looking narrowly at the +schoolmaster. + +‘You paid me a small account at each of my half-yearly visits to town, +for some years, I think, sir,’ replied Squeers. + +‘I did,’ rejoined Ralph. + +‘For the parents of a boy named Dorker, who unfortunately--’ + +‘--unfortunately died at Dotheboys Hall,’ said Ralph, finishing the +sentence. + +‘I remember very well, sir,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Ah! Mrs. Squeers, sir, +was as partial to that lad as if he had been her own; the attention, +sir, that was bestowed upon that boy in his illness! Dry toast and +warm tea offered him every night and morning when he couldn’t swallow +anything--a candle in his bedroom on the very night he died--the best +dictionary sent up for him to lay his head upon--I don’t regret it +though. It is a pleasant thing to reflect that one did one’s duty by +him.’ + +Ralph smiled, as if he meant anything but smiling, and looked round at +the strangers present. + +‘These are only some pupils of mine,’ said Wackford Squeers, pointing +to the little boy on the trunk and the two little boys on the floor, +who had been staring at each other without uttering a word, and writhing +their bodies into most remarkable contortions, according to the custom +of little boys when they first become acquainted. ‘This gentleman, +sir, is a parent who is kind enough to compliment me upon the course +of education adopted at Dotheboys Hall, which is situated, sir, at the +delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, +where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished with +pocket-money--’ + +‘Yes, we know all about that, sir,’ interrupted Ralph, testily. ‘It’s in +the advertisement.’ + +‘You are very right, sir; it IS in the advertisement,’ replied Squeers. + +‘And in the matter of fact besides,’ interrupted Mr. Snawley. ‘I feel +bound to assure you, sir, and I am proud to have this opportunity OF +assuring you, that I consider Mr. Squeers a gentleman highly virtuous, +exemplary, well conducted, and--’ + +‘I make no doubt of it, sir,’ interrupted Ralph, checking the torrent of +recommendation; ‘no doubt of it at all. Suppose we come to business?’ + +‘With all my heart, sir,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘“Never postpone business,” + is the very first lesson we instil into our commercial pupils. Master +Belling, my dear, always remember that; do you hear?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ repeated Master Belling. + +‘He recollects what it is, does he?’ said Ralph. + +‘Tell the gentleman,’ said Squeers. + +‘“Never,”’ repeated Master Belling. + +‘Very good,’ said Squeers; ‘go on.’ + +‘Never,’ repeated Master Belling again. + +‘Very good indeed,’ said Squeers. ‘Yes.’ + +‘P,’ suggested Nicholas, good-naturedly. + +‘Perform--business!’ said Master Belling. ‘Never--perform--business!’ + +‘Very well, sir,’ said Squeers, darting a withering look at the culprit. +‘You and I will perform a little business on our private account +by-and-by.’ + +‘And just now,’ said Ralph, ‘we had better transact our own, perhaps.’ + +‘If you please,’ said Squeers. + +‘Well,’ resumed Ralph, ‘it’s brief enough; soon broached; and I hope +easily concluded. You have advertised for an able assistant, sir?’ + +‘Precisely so,’ said Squeers. + +‘And you really want one?’ + +‘Certainly,’ answered Squeers. + +‘Here he is!’ said Ralph. ‘My nephew Nicholas, hot from school, +with everything he learnt there, fermenting in his head, and nothing +fermenting in his pocket, is just the man you want.’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said Squeers, perplexed with such an application from a +youth of Nicholas’s figure, ‘I am afraid the young man won’t suit me.’ + +‘Yes, he will,’ said Ralph; ‘I know better. Don’t be cast down, sir; you +will be teaching all the young noblemen in Dotheboys Hall in less than a +week’s time, unless this gentleman is more obstinate than I take him to +be.’ + +‘I fear, sir,’ said Nicholas, addressing Mr. Squeers, ‘that you object to +my youth, and to my not being a Master of Arts?’ + +‘The absence of a college degree IS an objection,’ replied Squeers, +looking as grave as he could, and considerably puzzled, no less by the +contrast between the simplicity of the nephew and the worldly manner of +the uncle, than by the incomprehensible allusion to the young noblemen +under his tuition. + +‘Look here, sir,’ said Ralph; ‘I’ll put this matter in its true light in +two seconds.’ + +‘If you’ll have the goodness,’ rejoined Squeers. + +‘This is a boy, or a youth, or a lad, or a young man, or a hobbledehoy, +or whatever you like to call him, of eighteen or nineteen, or +thereabouts,’ said Ralph. + +‘That I see,’ observed the schoolmaster. + +‘So do I,’ said Mr. Snawley, thinking it as well to back his new friend +occasionally. + +‘His father is dead, he is wholly ignorant of the world, has no +resources whatever, and wants something to do,’ said Ralph. ‘I recommend +him to this splendid establishment of yours, as an opening which will +lead him to fortune if he turns it to proper account. Do you see that?’ + +‘Everybody must see that,’ replied Squeers, half imitating the sneer +with which the old gentleman was regarding his unconscious relative. + +‘I do, of course,’ said Nicholas, eagerly. + +‘He does, of course, you observe,’ said Ralph, in the same dry, hard +manner. ‘If any caprice of temper should induce him to cast aside this +golden opportunity before he has brought it to perfection, I consider +myself absolved from extending any assistance to his mother and sister. +Look at him, and think of the use he may be to you in half-a-dozen ways! +Now, the question is, whether, for some time to come at all events, he +won’t serve your purpose better than twenty of the kind of people +you would get under ordinary circumstances. Isn’t that a question for +consideration?’ + +‘Yes, it is,’ said Squeers, answering a nod of Ralph’s head with a nod +of his own. + +‘Good,’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Let me have two words with you.’ + +The two words were had apart; in a couple of minutes Mr. Wackford Squeers +announced that Mr. Nicholas Nickleby was, from that moment, thoroughly +nominated to, and installed in, the office of first assistant master at +Dotheboys Hall. + +‘Your uncle’s recommendation has done it, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Wackford +Squeers. + +Nicholas, overjoyed at his success, shook his uncle’s hand warmly, and +could almost have worshipped Squeers upon the spot. + +‘He is an odd-looking man,’ thought Nicholas. ‘What of that? Porson was +an odd-looking man, and so was Doctor Johnson; all these bookworms are.’ + +‘At eight o’clock tomorrow morning, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers, ‘the +coach starts. You must be here at a quarter before, as we take these +boys with us.’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘And your fare down, I have paid,’ growled Ralph. ‘So, you’ll have +nothing to do but keep yourself warm.’ + +Here was another instance of his uncle’s generosity! Nicholas felt his +unexpected kindness so much, that he could scarcely find words to thank +him; indeed, he had not found half enough, when they took leave of the +schoolmaster, and emerged from the Saracen’s Head gateway. + +‘I shall be here in the morning to see you fairly off,’ said Ralph. ‘No +skulking!’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Nicholas; ‘I never shall forget this +kindness.’ + +‘Take care you don’t,’ replied his uncle. ‘You had better go home now, +and pack up what you have got to pack. Do you think you could find your +way to Golden Square first?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Nicholas. ‘I can easily inquire.’ + +‘Leave these papers with my clerk, then,’ said Ralph, producing a small +parcel, ‘and tell him to wait till I come home.’ + +Nicholas cheerfully undertook the errand, and bidding his worthy +uncle an affectionate farewell, which that warm-hearted old gentleman +acknowledged by a growl, hastened away to execute his commission. + +He found Golden Square in due course; Mr. Noggs, who had stepped out +for a minute or so to the public-house, was opening the door with a +latch-key, as he reached the steps. + +‘What’s that?’ inquired Noggs, pointing to the parcel. + +‘Papers from my uncle,’ replied Nicholas; ‘and you’re to have the +goodness to wait till he comes home, if you please.’ + +‘Uncle!’ cried Noggs. + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said Nicholas in explanation. + +‘Come in,’ said Newman. + +Without another word he led Nicholas into the passage, and thence into +the official pantry at the end of it, where he thrust him into a chair, +and mounting upon his high stool, sat, with his arms hanging, straight +down by his sides, gazing fixedly upon him, as from a tower of +observation. + +‘There is no answer,’ said Nicholas, laying the parcel on a table beside +him. + +Newman said nothing, but folding his arms, and thrusting his head +forward so as to obtain a nearer view of Nicholas’s face, scanned his +features closely. + +‘No answer,’ said Nicholas, speaking very loud, under the impression +that Newman Noggs was deaf. + +Newman placed his hands upon his knees, and, without uttering a +syllable, continued the same close scrutiny of his companion’s face. + +This was such a very singular proceeding on the part of an utter +stranger, and his appearance was so extremely peculiar, that Nicholas, +who had a sufficiently keen sense of the ridiculous, could not refrain +from breaking into a smile as he inquired whether Mr. Noggs had any +commands for him. + +Noggs shook his head and sighed; upon which Nicholas rose, and remarking +that he required no rest, bade him good-morning. + +It was a great exertion for Newman Noggs, and nobody knows to this day +how he ever came to make it, the other party being wholly unknown to +him, but he drew a long breath and actually said, out loud, without once +stopping, that if the young gentleman did not object to tell, he should +like to know what his uncle was going to do for him. + +Nicholas had not the least objection in the world, but on the contrary +was rather pleased to have an opportunity of talking on the subject +which occupied his thoughts; so, he sat down again, and (his sanguine +imagination warming as he spoke) entered into a fervent and glowing +description of all the honours and advantages to be derived from his +appointment at that seat of learning, Dotheboys Hall. + +‘But, what’s the matter--are you ill?’ said Nicholas, suddenly breaking +off, as his companion, after throwing himself into a variety of +uncouth attitudes, thrust his hands under the stool, and cracked his +finger-joints as if he were snapping all the bones in his hands. + +Newman Noggs made no reply, but went on shrugging his shoulders and +cracking his finger-joints; smiling horribly all the time, and looking +steadfastly at nothing, out of the tops of his eyes, in a most ghastly +manner. + +At first, Nicholas thought the mysterious man was in a fit, but, on +further consideration, decided that he was in liquor, under which +circumstances he deemed it prudent to make off at once. He looked back +when he had got the street-door open. Newman Noggs was still indulging +in the same extraordinary gestures, and the cracking of his fingers +sounded louder that ever. + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Nicholas starts for Yorkshire. Of his Leave-taking and his +Fellow-Travellers, and what befell them on the Road + + +If tears dropped into a trunk were charms to preserve its owner from +sorrow and misfortune, Nicholas Nickleby would have commenced his +expedition under most happy auspices. There was so much to be done, and +so little time to do it in; so many kind words to be spoken, and such +bitter pain in the hearts in which they rose to impede their utterance; +that the little preparations for his journey were made mournfully +indeed. A hundred things which the anxious care of his mother and sister +deemed indispensable for his comfort, Nicholas insisted on leaving +behind, as they might prove of some after use, or might be convertible +into money if occasion required. A hundred affectionate contests on +such points as these, took place on the sad night which preceded his +departure; and, as the termination of every angerless dispute brought +them nearer and nearer to the close of their slight preparations, Kate +grew busier and busier, and wept more silently. + +The box was packed at last, and then there came supper, with some little +delicacy provided for the occasion, and as a set-off against the expense +of which, Kate and her mother had feigned to dine when Nicholas was out. +The poor lad nearly choked himself by attempting to partake of it, +and almost suffocated himself in affecting a jest or two, and forcing a +melancholy laugh. Thus, they lingered on till the hour of separating +for the night was long past; and then they found that they might as +well have given vent to their real feelings before, for they could not +suppress them, do what they would. So, they let them have their way, and +even that was a relief. + +Nicholas slept well till six next morning; dreamed of home, or of what +was home once--no matter which, for things that are changed or gone will +come back as they used to be, thank God! in sleep--and rose quite brisk +and gay. He wrote a few lines in pencil, to say the goodbye which he was +afraid to pronounce himself, and laying them, with half his scanty stock +of money, at his sister’s door, shouldered his box and crept softly +downstairs. + +‘Is that you, Hannah?’ cried a voice from Miss La Creevy’s sitting-room, +whence shone the light of a feeble candle. + +‘It is I, Miss La Creevy,’ said Nicholas, putting down the box and +looking in. + +‘Bless us!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy, starting and putting her hand to +her curl-papers. ‘You’re up very early, Mr. Nickleby.’ + +‘So are you,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘It’s the fine arts that bring me out of bed, Mr. Nickleby,’ returned the +lady. ‘I’m waiting for the light to carry out an idea.’ + +Miss La Creevy had got up early to put a fancy nose into a miniature of +an ugly little boy, destined for his grandmother in the country, who was +expected to bequeath him property if he was like the family. + +‘To carry out an idea,’ repeated Miss La Creevy; ‘and that’s the great +convenience of living in a thoroughfare like the Strand. When I want +a nose or an eye for any particular sitter, I have only to look out of +window and wait till I get one.’ + +‘Does it take long to get a nose, now?’ inquired Nicholas, smiling. + +‘Why, that depends in a great measure on the pattern,’ replied Miss La +Creevy. ‘Snubs and Romans are plentiful enough, and there are flats of +all sorts and sizes when there’s a meeting at Exeter Hall; but perfect +aquilines, I am sorry to say, are scarce, and we generally use them for +uniforms or public characters.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas. ‘If I should meet with any in my travels, I’ll +endeavour to sketch them for you.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say that you are really going all the way down into +Yorkshire this cold winter’s weather, Mr. Nickleby?’ said Miss La Creevy. +‘I heard something of it last night.’ + +‘I do, indeed,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Needs must, you know, when somebody +drives. Necessity is my driver, and that is only another name for the +same gentleman.’ + +‘Well, I am very sorry for it; that’s all I can say,’ said Miss La +Creevy; ‘as much on your mother’s and sister’s account as on yours. +Your sister is a very pretty young lady, Mr. Nickleby, and that is +an additional reason why she should have somebody to protect her. I +persuaded her to give me a sitting or two, for the street-door case. +‘Ah! she’ll make a sweet miniature.’ As Miss La Creevy spoke, she held +up an ivory countenance intersected with very perceptible sky-blue +veins, and regarded it with so much complacency, that Nicholas quite +envied her. + +‘If you ever have an opportunity of showing Kate some little kindness,’ +said Nicholas, presenting his hand, ‘I think you will.’ + +‘Depend upon that,’ said the good-natured miniature painter; ‘and God +bless you, Mr. Nickleby; and I wish you well.’ + +It was very little that Nicholas knew of the world, but he guessed +enough about its ways to think, that if he gave Miss La Creevy one +little kiss, perhaps she might not be the less kindly disposed towards +those he was leaving behind. So, he gave her three or four with a kind +of jocose gallantry, and Miss La Creevy evinced no greater symptoms of +displeasure than declaring, as she adjusted her yellow turban, that she +had never heard of such a thing, and couldn’t have believed it possible. + +Having terminated the unexpected interview in this satisfactory manner, +Nicholas hastily withdrew himself from the house. By the time he had +found a man to carry his box it was only seven o’clock, so he walked +slowly on, a little in advance of the porter, and very probably with not +half as light a heart in his breast as the man had, although he had no +waistcoat to cover it with, and had evidently, from the appearance of +his other garments, been spending the night in a stable, and taking his +breakfast at a pump. + +Regarding, with no small curiosity and interest, all the busy +preparations for the coming day which every street and almost every +house displayed; and thinking, now and then, that it seemed rather hard +that so many people of all ranks and stations could earn a livelihood in +London, and that he should be compelled to journey so far in search of +one; Nicholas speedily arrived at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. Having +dismissed his attendant, and seen the box safely deposited in the +coach-office, he looked into the coffee-room in search of Mr. Squeers. + +He found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with the three +little boys before noticed, and two others who had turned up by some +lucky chance since the interview of the previous day, ranged in a row on +the opposite seat. Mr. Squeers had before him a small measure of coffee, +a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but he was at that +moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys. + +‘This is twopenn’orth of milk, is it, waiter?’ said Mr. Squeers, looking +down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to get an +accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it. + +‘That’s twopenn’orth, sir,’ replied the waiter. + +‘What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in London!’ said Mr. Squeers, +with a sigh. ‘Just fill that mug up with lukewarm water, William, will +you?’ + +‘To the wery top, sir?’ inquired the waiter. ‘Why, the milk will be +drownded.’ + +‘Never you mind that,’ replied Mr. Squeers. ‘Serve it right for being so +dear. You ordered that thick bread and butter for three, did you?’ + +‘Coming directly, sir.’ + +‘You needn’t hurry yourself,’ said Squeers; ‘there’s plenty of time. +Conquer your passions, boys, and don’t be eager after vittles.’ As he +uttered this moral precept, Mr. Squeers took a large bite out of the cold +beef, and recognised Nicholas. + +‘Sit down, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers. ‘Here we are, a breakfasting you +see!’ + +Nicholas did NOT see that anybody was breakfasting, except Mr. Squeers; +but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful as he +could. + +‘Oh! that’s the milk and water, is it, William?’ said Squeers. ‘Very +good; don’t forget the bread and butter presently.’ + +At this fresh mention of the bread and butter, the five little boys +looked very eager, and followed the waiter out, with their eyes; +meanwhile Mr. Squeers tasted the milk and water. + +‘Ah!’ said that gentleman, smacking his lips, ‘here’s richness! Think of +the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this, +little boys. A shocking thing hunger, isn’t it, Mr. Nickleby?’ + +‘Very shocking, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘When I say number one,’ pursued Mr. Squeers, putting the mug before the +children, ‘the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take a drink; +and when I say number two, the boy next him will go in, and so till we +come to number five, which is the last boy. Are you ready?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ cried all the little boys with great eagerness. + +‘That’s right,’ said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast; +‘keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your appetites, my dears, +and you’ve conquered human natur. This is the way we inculcate strength +of mind, Mr. Nickleby,’ said the schoolmaster, turning to Nicholas, and +speaking with his mouth very full of beef and toast. + +Nicholas murmured something--he knew not what--in reply; and the little +boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which +had by this time arrived), and every morsel which Mr. Squeers took into +his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation. + +‘Thank God for a good breakfast,’ said Squeers, when he had finished. +‘Number one may take a drink.’ + +Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make +him wish for more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for number two, who +gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process +was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five. + +‘And now,’ said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for +three into as many portions as there were children, ‘you had better look +sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two, +and then every boy leaves off.’ + +Permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat +voraciously, and in desperate haste: while the schoolmaster (who was +in high good humour after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork, and +looked smilingly on. In a very short time, the horn was heard. + +‘I thought it wouldn’t be long,’ said Squeers, jumping up and producing +a little basket from under the seat; ‘put what you haven’t had time to +eat, in here, boys! You’ll want it on the road!’ + +Nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical +arrangements; but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the little +boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and their boxes had to +be brought out and put in, and Mr. Squeers’s luggage was to be seen +carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices were in his +department. He was in the full heat and bustle of concluding these +operations, when his uncle, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, accosted him. + +‘Oh! here you are, sir!’ said Ralph. ‘Here are your mother and sister, +sir.’ + +‘Where?’ cried Nicholas, looking hastily round. + +‘Here!’ replied his uncle. ‘Having too much money and nothing at all to +do with it, they were paying a hackney coach as I came up, sir.’ + +‘We were afraid of being too late to see him before he went away from +us,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, embracing her son, heedless of the unconcerned +lookers-on in the coach-yard. + +‘Very good, ma’am,’ returned Ralph, ‘you’re the best judge of course. I +merely said that you were paying a hackney coach. I never pay a hackney +coach, ma’am; I never hire one. I haven’t been in a hackney coach of my +own hiring, for thirty years, and I hope I shan’t be for thirty more, if +I live as long.’ + +‘I should never have forgiven myself if I had not seen him,’ said Mrs +Nickleby. ‘Poor dear boy--going away without his breakfast too, because +he feared to distress us!’ + +‘Mighty fine certainly,’ said Ralph, with great testiness. ‘When I first +went to business, ma’am, I took a penny loaf and a ha’porth of milk for +my breakfast as I walked to the city every morning; what do you say to +that, ma’am? Breakfast! Bah!’ + +‘Now, Nickleby,’ said Squeers, coming up at the moment buttoning his +greatcoat; ‘I think you’d better get up behind. I’m afraid of one of +them boys falling off and then there’s twenty pound a year gone.’ + +‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, touching her brother’s arm, ‘who is +that vulgar man?’ + +‘Eh!’ growled Ralph, whose quick ears had caught the inquiry. ‘Do you +wish to be introduced to Mr. Squeers, my dear?’ + +‘That the schoolmaster! No, uncle. Oh no!’ replied Kate, shrinking back. + +‘I’m sure I heard you say as much, my dear,’ retorted Ralph in his cold +sarcastic manner. ‘Mr. Squeers, here’s my niece: Nicholas’s sister!’ + +‘Very glad to make your acquaintance, miss,’ said Squeers, raising his +hat an inch or two. ‘I wish Mrs. Squeers took gals, and we had you for a +teacher. I don’t know, though, whether she mightn’t grow jealous if we +had. Ha! ha! ha!’ + +If the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall could have known what was passing +in his assistant’s breast at that moment, he would have discovered, with +some surprise, that he was as near being soundly pummelled as he had +ever been in his life. Kate Nickleby, having a quicker perception of her +brother’s emotions, led him gently aside, and thus prevented Mr. Squeers +from being impressed with the fact in a peculiarly disagreeable manner. + +‘My dear Nicholas,’ said the young lady, ‘who is this man? What kind of +place can it be that you are going to?’ + +‘I hardly know, Kate,’ replied Nicholas, pressing his sister’s hand. ‘I +suppose the Yorkshire folks are rather rough and uncultivated; that’s +all.’ + +‘But this person,’ urged Kate. + +‘Is my employer, or master, or whatever the proper name may be,’ replied +Nicholas quickly; ‘and I was an ass to take his coarseness ill. They are +looking this way, and it is time I was in my place. Bless you, love, +and goodbye! Mother, look forward to our meeting again someday! Uncle, +farewell! Thank you heartily for all you have done and all you mean to +do. Quite ready, sir!’ + +With these hasty adieux, Nicholas mounted nimbly to his seat, and waved +his hand as gallantly as if his heart went with it. + +At this moment, when the coachman and guard were comparing notes for the +last time before starting, on the subject of the way-bill; when porters +were screwing out the last reluctant sixpences, itinerant newsmen +making the last offer of a morning paper, and the horses giving the last +impatient rattle to their harness; Nicholas felt somebody pulling softly +at his leg. He looked down, and there stood Newman Noggs, who pushed up +into his hand a dirty letter. + +‘What’s this?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘Hush!’ rejoined Noggs, pointing to Mr. Ralph Nickleby, who was saying a +few earnest words to Squeers, a short distance off: ‘Take it. Read it. +Nobody knows. That’s all.’ + +‘Stop!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘No,’ replied Noggs. + +Nicholas cried stop, again, but Newman Noggs was gone. + +A minute’s bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the +vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard, +climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn, +a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below, and the hard features of Mr +Ralph Nickleby--and the coach was gone too, and rattling over the stones +of Smithfield. + +The little boys’ legs being too short to admit of their feet +resting upon anything as they sat, and the little boys’ bodies being +consequently in imminent hazard of being jerked off the coach, Nicholas +had enough to do over the stones to hold them on. Between the manual +exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon this task, he was not a +little relieved when the coach stopped at the Peacock at Islington. He +was still more relieved when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very +good-humoured face, and a very fresh colour, got up behind, and proposed +to take the other corner of the seat. + +‘If we put some of these youngsters in the middle,’ said the new-comer, +‘they’ll be safer in case of their going to sleep; eh?’ + +‘If you’ll have the goodness, sir,’ replied Squeers, ‘that’ll be the +very thing. Mr. Nickleby, take three of them boys between you and the +gentleman. Belling and the youngest Snawley can sit between me and the +guard. Three children,’ said Squeers, explaining to the stranger, ‘books +as two.’ + +‘I have not the least objection I am sure,’ said the fresh-coloured +gentleman; ‘I have a brother who wouldn’t object to book his six +children as two at any butcher’s or baker’s in the kingdom, I dare say. +Far from it.’ + +‘Six children, sir?’ exclaimed Squeers. + +‘Yes, and all boys,’ replied the stranger. + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers, in great haste, ‘catch hold of that basket. +Let me give you a card, sir, of an establishment where those six boys +can be brought up in an enlightened, liberal, and moral manner, with no +mistake at all about it, for twenty guineas a year each--twenty guineas, +sir--or I’d take all the boys together upon a average right through, and +say a hundred pound a year for the lot.’ + +‘Oh!’ said the gentleman, glancing at the card, ‘you are the Mr. Squeers +mentioned here, I presume?’ + +‘Yes, I am, sir,’ replied the worthy pedagogue; ‘Mr. Wackford Squeers is +my name, and I’m very far from being ashamed of it. These are some of my +boys, sir; that’s one of my assistants, sir--Mr. Nickleby, a gentleman’s +son, and a good scholar, mathematical, classical, and commercial. We +don’t do things by halves at our shop. All manner of learning my boys +take down, sir; the expense is never thought of; and they get paternal +treatment and washing in.’ + +‘Upon my word,’ said the gentleman, glancing at Nicholas with a +half-smile, and a more than half expression of surprise, ‘these are +advantages indeed.’ + +‘You may say that, sir,’ rejoined Squeers, thrusting his hands into his +great-coat pockets. ‘The most unexceptionable references are given +and required. I wouldn’t take a reference with any boy, that wasn’t +responsible for the payment of five pound five a quarter, no, not if you +went down on your knees, and asked me, with the tears running down your +face, to do it.’ + +‘Highly considerate,’ said the passenger. + +‘It’s my great aim and end to be considerate, sir,’ rejoined Squeers. +‘Snawley, junior, if you don’t leave off chattering your teeth, and +shaking with the cold, I’ll warm you with a severe thrashing in about +half a minute’s time.’ + +‘Sit fast here, genelmen,’ said the guard as he clambered up. + +‘All right behind there, Dick?’ cried the coachman. + +‘All right,’ was the reply. ‘Off she goes!’ And off she did go--if +coaches be feminine--amidst a loud flourish from the guard’s horn, +and the calm approval of all the judges of coaches and coach-horses +congregated at the Peacock, but more especially of the helpers, who +stood, with the cloths over their arms, watching the coach till it +disappeared, and then lounged admiringly stablewards, bestowing various +gruff encomiums on the beauty of the turn-out. + +When the guard (who was a stout old Yorkshireman) had blown himself +quite out of breath, he put the horn into a little tunnel of a basket +fastened to the coach-side for the purpose, and giving himself a +plentiful shower of blows on the chest and shoulders, observed it was +uncommon cold; after which, he demanded of every person separately +whether he was going right through, and if not, where he WAS going. +Satisfactory replies being made to these queries, he surmised that the +roads were pretty heavy arter that fall last night, and took the +liberty of asking whether any of them gentlemen carried a snuff-box. It +happening that nobody did, he remarked with a mysterious air that he had +heard a medical gentleman as went down to Grantham last week, say how +that snuff-taking was bad for the eyes; but for his part he had never +found it so, and what he said was, that everybody should speak as they +found. Nobody attempting to controvert this position, he took a small +brown-paper parcel out of his hat, and putting on a pair of horn +spectacles (the writing being crabbed) read the direction half-a-dozen +times over; having done which, he consigned the parcel to its old place, +put up his spectacles again, and stared at everybody in turn. After +this, he took another blow at the horn by way of refreshment; and, +having now exhausted his usual topics of conversation, folded his arms +as well as he could in so many coats, and falling into a solemn silence, +looked carelessly at the familiar objects which met his eye on every +side as the coach rolled on; the only things he seemed to care for, +being horses and droves of cattle, which he scrutinised with a critical +air as they were passed upon the road. + +The weather was intensely and bitterly cold; a great deal of snow fell +from time to time; and the wind was intolerably keen. Mr. Squeers got +down at almost every stage--to stretch his legs as he said--and as he +always came back from such excursions with a very red nose, and composed +himself to sleep directly, there is reason to suppose that he derived +great benefit from the process. The little pupils having been stimulated +with the remains of their breakfast, and further invigorated by sundry +small cups of a curious cordial carried by Mr. Squeers, which tasted very +like toast-and-water put into a brandy bottle by mistake, went to sleep, +woke, shivered, and cried, as their feelings prompted. Nicholas and +the good-tempered man found so many things to talk about, that between +conversing together, and cheering up the boys, the time passed with them +as rapidly as it could, under such adverse circumstances. + +So the day wore on. At Eton Slocomb there was a good coach dinner, of +which the box, the four front outsides, the one inside, Nicholas, the +good-tempered man, and Mr. Squeers, partook; while the five little boys +were put to thaw by the fire, and regaled with sandwiches. A stage or +two further on, the lamps were lighted, and a great to-do occasioned +by the taking up, at a roadside inn, of a very fastidious lady with an +infinite variety of cloaks and small parcels, who loudly lamented, for +the behoof of the outsides, the non-arrival of her own carriage which +was to have taken her on, and made the guard solemnly promise to stop +every green chariot he saw coming; which, as it was a dark night and he +was sitting with his face the other way, that officer undertook, with +many fervent asseverations, to do. Lastly, the fastidious lady, finding +there was a solitary gentleman inside, had a small lamp lighted which +she carried in reticule, and being after much trouble shut in, the +horses were put into a brisk canter and the coach was once more in rapid +motion. + +The night and the snow came on together, and dismal enough they were. +There was no sound to be heard but the howling of the wind; for the +noise of the wheels, and the tread of the horses’ feet, were rendered +inaudible by the thick coating of snow which covered the ground, and was +fast increasing every moment. The streets of Stamford were deserted as +they passed through the town; and its old churches rose, frowning and +dark, from the whitened ground. Twenty miles further on, two of the +front outside passengers, wisely availing themselves of their arrival at +one of the best inns in England, turned in, for the night, at the George +at Grantham. The remainder wrapped themselves more closely in their +coats and cloaks, and leaving the light and warmth of the town behind +them, pillowed themselves against the luggage, and prepared, with many +half-suppressed moans, again to encounter the piercing blast which swept +across the open country. + +They were little more than a stage out of Grantham, or about halfway +between it and Newark, when Nicholas, who had been asleep for a short +time, was suddenly roused by a violent jerk which nearly threw him from +his seat. Grasping the rail, he found that the coach had sunk greatly +on one side, though it was still dragged forward by the horses; and +while--confused by their plunging and the loud screams of the lady +inside--he hesitated, for an instant, whether to jump off or not, +the vehicle turned easily over, and relieved him from all further +uncertainty by flinging him into the road. + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +In which the Occurrence of the Accident mentioned in the last Chapter, +affords an Opportunity to a couple of Gentlemen to tell Stories against +each other + + +‘Wo ho!’ cried the guard, on his legs in a minute, and running to the +leaders’ heads. ‘Is there ony genelmen there as can len’ a hond here? +Keep quiet, dang ye! Wo ho!’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Nicholas, looking sleepily up. + +‘Matther mun, matter eneaf for one neight,’ replied the guard; ‘dang the +wall-eyed bay, he’s gane mad wi’ glory I think, carse t’coorch is over. +Here, can’t ye len’ a hond? Dom it, I’d ha’ dean it if all my boans were +brokken.’ + +‘Here!’ cried Nicholas, staggering to his feet, ‘I’m ready. I’m only a +little abroad, that’s all.’ + +‘Hoold ‘em toight,’ cried the guard, ‘while ar coot treaces. Hang on +tiv’em sumhoo. Well deane, my lod. That’s it. Let’em goa noo. Dang ‘em, +they’ll gang whoam fast eneaf!’ + +In truth, the animals were no sooner released than they trotted back, +with much deliberation, to the stable they had just left, which was +distant not a mile behind. + +‘Can you blo’ a harn?’ asked the guard, disengaging one of the +coach-lamps. + +‘I dare say I can,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Then just blo’ away into that ‘un as lies on the grund, fit to wakken +the deead, will’ee,’ said the man, ‘while I stop sum o’ this here +squealing inside. Cumin’, cumin’. Dean’t make that noise, wooman.’ + +As the man spoke, he proceeded to wrench open the uppermost door of the +coach, while Nicholas, seizing the horn, awoke the echoes far and wide +with one of the most extraordinary performances on that instrument ever +heard by mortal ears. It had its effect, however, not only in rousing +such of their fall, but in summoning assistance to their relief; for +lights gleamed in the distance, and people were already astir. + +In fact, a man on horseback galloped down, before the passengers were +well collected together; and a careful investigation being instituted, +it appeared that the lady inside had broken her lamp, and the gentleman +his head; that the two front outsides had escaped with black eyes; the +box with a bloody nose; the coachman with a contusion on the temple; +Mr. Squeers with a portmanteau bruise on his back; and the remaining +passengers without any injury at all--thanks to the softness of the +snow-drift in which they had been overturned. These facts were no +sooner thoroughly ascertained, than the lady gave several indications of +fainting, but being forewarned that if she did, she must be carried on +some gentleman’s shoulders to the nearest public-house, she prudently +thought better of it, and walked back with the rest. + +They found on reaching it, that it was a lonely place with no very great +accommodation in the way of apartments--that portion of its resources +being all comprised in one public room with a sanded floor, and a chair +or two. However, a large faggot and a plentiful supply of coals being +heaped upon the fire, the appearance of things was not long in mending; +and, by the time they had washed off all effaceable marks of the late +accident, the room was warm and light, which was a most agreeable +exchange for the cold and darkness out of doors. + +‘Well, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Squeers, insinuating himself into the warmest +corner, ‘you did very right to catch hold of them horses. I should have +done it myself if I had come to in time, but I am very glad you did it. +You did it very well; very well.’ + +‘So well,’ said the merry-faced gentleman, who did not seem to approve +very much of the patronising tone adopted by Squeers, ‘that if they had +not been firmly checked when they were, you would most probably have had +no brains left to teach with.’ + +This remark called up a discourse relative to the promptitude +Nicholas had displayed, and he was overwhelmed with compliments and +commendations. + +‘I am very glad to have escaped, of course,’ observed Squeers: ‘every +man is glad when he escapes from danger; but if any one of my charges +had been hurt--if I had been prevented from restoring any one of these +little boys to his parents whole and sound as I received him--what would +have been my feelings? Why the wheel a-top of my head would have been +far preferable to it.’ + +‘Are they all brothers, sir?’ inquired the lady who had carried the +‘Davy’ or safety-lamp. + +‘In one sense they are, ma’am,’ replied Squeers, diving into his +greatcoat pocket for cards. ‘They are all under the same parental and +affectionate treatment. Mrs. Squeers and myself are a mother and father +to every one of ‘em. Mr. Nickleby, hand the lady them cards, and offer +these to the gentleman. Perhaps they might know of some parents that +would be glad to avail themselves of the establishment.’ + +Expressing himself to this effect, Mr. Squeers, who lost no opportunity +of advertising gratuitously, placed his hands upon his knees, and looked +at the pupils with as much benignity as he could possibly affect, while +Nicholas, blushing with shame, handed round the cards as directed. + +‘I hope you suffer no inconvenience from the overturn, ma’am?’ said the +merry-faced gentleman, addressing the fastidious lady, as though he were +charitably desirous to change the subject. + +‘No bodily inconvenience,’ replied the lady. + +‘No mental inconvenience, I hope?’ + +‘The subject is a very painful one to my feelings, sir,’ replied the +lady with strong emotion; ‘and I beg you as a gentleman, not to refer to +it.’ + +‘Dear me,’ said the merry-faced gentleman, looking merrier still, ‘I +merely intended to inquire--’ + +‘I hope no inquiries will be made,’ said the lady, ‘or I shall be +compelled to throw myself on the protection of the other gentlemen. +Landlord, pray direct a boy to keep watch outside the door--and if +a green chariot passes in the direction of Grantham, to stop it +instantly.’ + +The people of the house were evidently overcome by this request, and +when the lady charged the boy to remember, as a means of identifying the +expected green chariot, that it would have a coachman with a gold-laced +hat on the box, and a footman, most probably in silk stockings, behind, +the attentions of the good woman of the inn were redoubled. Even the +box-passenger caught the infection, and growing wonderfully deferential, +immediately inquired whether there was not very good society in that +neighbourhood, to which the lady replied yes, there was: in a manner +which sufficiently implied that she moved at the very tiptop and summit +of it all. + +‘As the guard has gone on horseback to Grantham to get another coach,’ +said the good-tempered gentleman when they had been all sitting round +the fire, for some time, in silence, ‘and as he must be gone a couple +of hours at the very least, I propose a bowl of hot punch. What say you, +sir?’ + +This question was addressed to the broken-headed inside, who was a man +of very genteel appearance, dressed in mourning. He was not past the +middle age, but his hair was grey; it seemed to have been prematurely +turned by care or sorrow. He readily acceded to the proposal, and +appeared to be prepossessed by the frank good-nature of the individual +from whom it emanated. + +This latter personage took upon himself the office of tapster when the +punch was ready, and after dispensing it all round, led the conversation +to the antiquities of York, with which both he and the grey-haired +gentleman appeared to be well acquainted. When this topic flagged, he +turned with a smile to the grey-headed gentleman, and asked if he could +sing. + +‘I cannot indeed,’ replied gentleman, smiling in his turn. + +‘That’s a pity,’ said the owner of the good-humoured countenance. ‘Is +there nobody here who can sing a song to lighten the time?’ + +The passengers, one and all, protested that they could not; that they +wished they could; that they couldn’t remember the words of anything +without the book; and so forth. + +‘Perhaps the lady would not object,’ said the president with great +respect, and a merry twinkle in his eye. ‘Some little Italian thing out +of the last opera brought out in town, would be most acceptable I am +sure.’ + +As the lady condescended to make no reply, but tossed her head +contemptuously, and murmured some further expression of surprise +regarding the absence of the green chariot, one or two voices urged +upon the president himself, the propriety of making an attempt for the +general benefit. + +‘I would if I could,’ said he of the good-tempered face; ‘for I hold +that in this, as in all other cases where people who are strangers to +each other are thrown unexpectedly together, they should endeavour +to render themselves as pleasant, for the joint sake of the little +community, as possible.’ + +‘I wish the maxim were more generally acted on, in all cases,’ said the +grey-headed gentleman. + +‘I’m glad to hear it,’ returned the other. ‘Perhaps, as you can’t sing, +you’ll tell us a story?’ + +‘Nay. I should ask you.’ + +‘After you, I will, with pleasure.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said the grey-haired gentleman, smiling, ‘Well, let it be so. +I fear the turn of my thoughts is not calculated to lighten the time +you must pass here; but you have brought this upon yourselves, and shall +judge. We were speaking of York Minster just now. My story shall have +some reference to it. Let us call it + + +THE FIVE SISTERS OF YORK + + +After a murmur of approbation from the other passengers, during which +the fastidious lady drank a glass of punch unobserved, the grey-headed +gentleman thus went on: + +‘A great many years ago--for the fifteenth century was scarce two +years old at the time, and King Henry the Fourth sat upon the throne of +England--there dwelt, in the ancient city of York, five maiden sisters, +the subjects of my tale. + +‘These five sisters were all of surpassing beauty. The eldest was in her +twenty-third year, the second a year younger, the third a year younger +than the second, and the fourth a year younger than the third. They were +tall stately figures, with dark flashing eyes and hair of jet; dignity +and grace were in their every movement; and the fame of their great +beauty had spread through all the country round. + +‘But, if the four elder sisters were lovely, how beautiful was the +youngest, a fair creature of sixteen! The blushing tints in the soft +bloom on the fruit, or the delicate painting on the flower, are not more +exquisite than was the blending of the rose and lily in her gentle face, +or the deep blue of her eye. The vine, in all its elegant luxuriance, is +not more graceful than were the clusters of rich brown hair that sported +round her brow. + +‘If we all had hearts like those which beat so lightly in the bosoms of +the young and beautiful, what a heaven this earth would be! If, while +our bodies grow old and withered, our hearts could but retain their +early youth and freshness, of what avail would be our sorrows and +sufferings! But, the faint image of Eden which is stamped upon them in +childhood, chafes and rubs in our rough struggles with the world, +and soon wears away: too often to leave nothing but a mournful blank +remaining. + +‘The heart of this fair girl bounded with joy and gladness. Devoted +attachment to her sisters, and a fervent love of all beautiful things +in nature, were its pure affections. Her gleesome voice and merry laugh +were the sweetest music of their home. She was its very light and life. +The brightest flowers in the garden were reared by her; the caged +birds sang when they heard her voice, and pined when they missed its +sweetness. Alice, dear Alice; what living thing within the sphere of her +gentle witchery, could fail to love her! + +‘You may seek in vain, now, for the spot on which these sisters lived, +for their very names have passed away, and dusty antiquaries tell of +them as of a fable. But they dwelt in an old wooden house--old even in +those days--with overhanging gables and balconies of rudely-carved oak, +which stood within a pleasant orchard, and was surrounded by a rough +stone wall, whence a stout archer might have winged an arrow to St +Mary’s Abbey. The old abbey flourished then; and the five sisters, +living on its fair domains, paid yearly dues to the black monks of St +Benedict, to which fraternity it belonged. + +‘It was a bright and sunny morning in the pleasant time of summer, when +one of those black monks emerged from the abbey portal, and bent his +steps towards the house of the fair sisters. Heaven above was blue, and +earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in +the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees; the +lark soared high above the waving corn; and the deep buzz of insects +filled the air. Everything looked gay and smiling; but the holy man +walked gloomily on, with his eyes bent upon the ground. The beauty of +the earth is but a breath, and man is but a shadow. What sympathy should +a holy preacher have with either? + +‘With eyes bent upon the ground, then, or only raised enough to prevent +his stumbling over such obstacles as lay in his way, the religious man +moved slowly forward until he reached a small postern in the wall of the +sisters’ orchard, through which he passed, closing it behind him. The +noise of soft voices in conversation, and of merry laughter, fell upon +his ears ere he had advanced many paces; and raising his eyes higher +than was his humble wont, he descried, at no great distance, the five +sisters seated on the grass, with Alice in the centre: all busily plying +their customary task of embroidering. + +‘“Save you, fair daughters!” said the friar; and fair in truth they +were. Even a monk might have loved them as choice masterpieces of his +Maker’s hand. + +‘The sisters saluted the holy man with becoming reverence, and the +eldest motioned him to a mossy seat beside them. But the good friar +shook his head, and bumped himself down on a very hard stone,--at which, +no doubt, approving angels were gratified. + +‘“Ye were merry, daughters,” said the monk. + +‘“You know how light of heart sweet Alice is,” replied the eldest +sister, passing her fingers through the tresses of the smiling girl. + +‘“And what joy and cheerfulness it wakes up within us, to see all nature +beaming in brightness and sunshine, father,” added Alice, blushing +beneath the stern look of the recluse. + +‘The monk answered not, save by a grave inclination of the head, and the +sisters pursued their task in silence. + +‘“Still wasting the precious hours,” said the monk at length, turning to +the eldest sister as he spoke, “still wasting the precious hours on +this vain trifling. Alas, alas! that the few bubbles on the surface +of eternity--all that Heaven wills we should see of that dark deep +stream--should be so lightly scattered!” + +‘“Father,” urged the maiden, pausing, as did each of the others, in +her busy task, “we have prayed at matins, our daily alms have been +distributed at the gate, the sick peasants have been tended,--all our +morning tasks have been performed. I hope our occupation is a blameless +one?’ + +‘“See here,” said the friar, taking the frame from her hand, “an +intricate winding of gaudy colours, without purpose or object, unless +it be that one day it is destined for some vain ornament, to minister to +the pride of your frail and giddy sex. Day after day has been employed +upon this senseless task, and yet it is not half accomplished. The shade +of each departed day falls upon our graves, and the worm exults as he +beholds it, to know that we are hastening thither. Daughters, is there +no better way to pass the fleeting hours?” + +‘The four elder sisters cast down their eyes as if abashed by the holy +man’s reproof, but Alice raised hers, and bent them mildly on the friar. + +‘“Our dear mother,” said the maiden; “Heaven rest her soul!” + +‘“Amen!” cried the friar in a deep voice. + +‘“Our dear mother,” faltered the fair Alice, “was living when these long +tasks began, and bade us, when she should be no more, ply them in all +discretion and cheerfulness, in our leisure hours; she said that if in +harmless mirth and maidenly pursuits we passed those hours together, +they would prove the happiest and most peaceful of our lives, and that +if, in later times, we went forth into the world, and mingled with its +cares and trials--if, allured by its temptations and dazzled by its +glitter, we ever forgot that love and duty which should bind, in holy +ties, the children of one loved parent--a glance at the old work of our +common girlhood would awaken good thoughts of bygone days, and soften +our hearts to affection and love.” + +‘“Alice speaks truly, father,” said the elder sister, somewhat proudly. +And so saying she resumed her work, as did the others. + +‘It was a kind of sampler of large size, that each sister had before +her; the device was of a complex and intricate description, and +the pattern and colours of all five were the same. The sisters bent +gracefully over their work; the monk, resting his chin upon his hands, +looked from one to the other in silence. + +‘“How much better,” he said at length, “to shun all such thoughts and +chances, and, in the peaceful shelter of the church, devote your lives +to Heaven! Infancy, childhood, the prime of life, and old age, wither as +rapidly as they crowd upon each other. Think how human dust rolls onward +to the tomb, and turning your faces steadily towards that goal, avoid +the cloud which takes its rise among the pleasures of the world, and +cheats the senses of their votaries. The veil, daughters, the veil!” + +‘“Never, sisters,” cried Alice. “Barter not the light and air of heaven, +and the freshness of earth and all the beautiful things which breathe +upon it, for the cold cloister and the cell. Nature’s own blessings are +the proper goods of life, and we may share them sinlessly together. To +die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us die with life about us; when +our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm hearts be beating near; let our +last look be upon the bounds which God has set to his own bright skies, +and not on stone walls and bars of iron! Dear sisters, let us live and +die, if you list, in this green garden’s compass; only shun the gloom +and sadness of a cloister, and we shall be happy.” + +‘The tears fell fast from the maiden’s eyes as she closed her +impassioned appeal, and hid her face in the bosom of her sister. + +‘“Take comfort, Alice,” said the eldest, kissing her fair forehead. +“The veil shall never cast its shadow on thy young brow. How say you, +sisters? For yourselves you speak, and not for Alice, or for me.” + +‘The sisters, as with one accord, cried that their lot was cast +together, and that there were dwellings for peace and virtue beyond the +convent’s walls. + +‘“Father,” said the eldest lady, rising with dignity, “you hear our +final resolve. The same pious care which enriched the abbey of St +Mary, and left us, orphans, to its holy guardianship, directed that no +constraint should be imposed upon our inclinations, but that we should +be free to live according to our choice. Let us hear no more of this, +we pray you. Sisters, it is nearly noon. Let us take shelter until +evening!” With a reverence to the friar, the lady rose and walked +towards the house, hand in hand with Alice; the other sisters followed. + +‘The holy man, who had often urged the same point before, but had never +met with so direct a repulse, walked some little distance behind, with +his eyes bent upon the earth, and his lips moving AS IF in prayer. As +the sisters reached the porch, he quickened his pace, and called upon +them to stop. + +‘“Stay!” said the monk, raising his right hand in the air, and directing +an angry glance by turns at Alice and the eldest sister. “Stay, and +hear from me what these recollections are, which you would cherish above +eternity, and awaken--if in mercy they slumbered--by means of idle toys. +The memory of earthly things is charged, in after life, with bitter +disappointment, affliction, death; with dreary change and wasting +sorrow. The time will one day come, when a glance at those unmeaning +baubles will tear open deep wounds in the hearts of some among you, and +strike to your inmost souls. When that hour arrives--and, mark me, come +it will--turn from the world to which you clung, to the refuge which you +spurned. Find me the cell which shall be colder than the fire of mortals +grows, when dimmed by calamity and trial, and there weep for the dreams +of youth. These things are Heaven’s will, not mine,” said the friar, +subduing his voice as he looked round upon the shrinking girls. “The +Virgin’s blessing be upon you, daughters!” + +‘With these words he disappeared through the postern; and the sisters +hastening into the house were seen no more that day. + +‘But nature will smile though priests may frown, and next day the +sun shone brightly, and on the next, and the next again. And in the +morning’s glare, and the evening’s soft repose, the five sisters still +walked, or worked, or beguiled the time by cheerful conversation, in +their quiet orchard. + +‘Time passed away as a tale that is told; faster indeed than many tales +that are told, of which number I fear this may be one. The house of the +five sisters stood where it did, and the same trees cast their pleasant +shade upon the orchard grass. The sisters too were there, and lovely as +at first, but a change had come over their dwelling. Sometimes, there +was the clash of armour, and the gleaming of the moon on caps of steel; +and, at others, jaded coursers were spurred up to the gate, and a female +form glided hurriedly forth, as if eager to demand tidings of the weary +messenger. A goodly train of knights and ladies lodged one night within +the abbey walls, and next day rode away, with two of the fair sisters +among them. Then, horsemen began to come less frequently, and seemed to +bring bad tidings when they did, and at length they ceased to come at +all, and footsore peasants slunk to the gate after sunset, and did their +errand there, by stealth. Once, a vassal was dispatched in haste to the +abbey at dead of night, and when morning came, there were sounds of woe +and wailing in the sisters’ house; and after this, a mournful silence +fell upon it, and knight or lady, horse or armour, was seen about it no +more. + +‘There was a sullen darkness in the sky, and the sun had gone angrily +down, tinting the dull clouds with the last traces of his wrath, +when the same black monk walked slowly on, with folded arms, within a +stone’s-throw of the abbey. A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs; +and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness +that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though +foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in +fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with +crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten +in the rain. + +‘No longer were the friar’s eyes directed to the earth; they were cast +abroad, and roamed from point to point, as if the gloom and desolation +of the scene found a quick response in his own bosom. Again he paused +near the sisters’ house, and again he entered by the postern. + +‘But not again did his ear encounter the sound of laughter, or his eyes +rest upon the beautiful figures of the five sisters. All was silent and +deserted. The boughs of the trees were bent and broken, and the grass +had grown long and rank. No light feet had pressed it for many, many a +day. + +‘With the indifference or abstraction of one well accustomed to the +change, the monk glided into the house, and entered a low, dark room. +Four sisters sat there. Their black garments made their pale faces +whiter still, and time and sorrow had worked deep ravages. They were +stately yet; but the flush and pride of beauty were gone. + +‘And Alice--where was she? In Heaven. + +‘The monk--even the monk--could bear with some grief here; for it +was long since these sisters had met, and there were furrows in their +blanched faces which years could never plough. He took his seat in +silence, and motioned them to continue their speech. + +‘“They are here, sisters,” said the elder lady in a trembling voice. “I +have never borne to look upon them since, and now I blame myself for my +weakness. What is there in her memory that we should dread? To call up +our old days shall be a solemn pleasure yet.” + +‘She glanced at the monk as she spoke, and, opening a cabinet, brought +forth the five frames of work, completed long before. Her step was +firm, but her hand trembled as she produced the last one; and, when the +feelings of the other sisters gushed forth at sight of it, her pent-up +tears made way, and she sobbed “God bless her!” + +‘The monk rose and advanced towards them. “It was almost the last thing +she touched in health,” he said in a low voice. + +‘“It was,” cried the elder lady, weeping bitterly. + +‘The monk turned to the second sister. + +‘“The gallant youth who looked into thine eyes, and hung upon thy very +breath when first he saw thee intent upon this pastime, lies buried on +a plain whereof the turf is red with blood. Rusty fragments of armour, +once brightly burnished, lie rotting on the ground, and are as little +distinguishable for his, as are the bones that crumble in the mould!” + +‘The lady groaned, and wrung her hands. + +‘“The policy of courts,” he continued, turning to the two other sisters, +“drew ye from your peaceful home to scenes of revelry and splendour. +The same policy, and the restless ambition of--proud and fiery men, have +sent ye back, widowed maidens, and humbled outcasts. Do I speak truly?” + +‘The sobs of the two sisters were their only reply. + +‘“There is little need,” said the monk, with a meaning look, “to fritter +away the time in gewgaws which shall raise up the pale ghosts of hopes +of early years. Bury them, heap penance and mortification on their +heads, keep them down, and let the convent be their grave!” + +‘The sisters asked for three days to deliberate; and felt, that night, +as though the veil were indeed the fitting shroud for their dead joys. +But, morning came again, and though the boughs of the orchard trees +drooped and ran wild upon the ground, it was the same orchard still. The +grass was coarse and high, but there was yet the spot on which they had +so often sat together, when change and sorrow were but names. There was +every walk and nook which Alice had made glad; and in the minster nave +was one flat stone beneath which she slept in peace. + +‘And could they, remembering how her young heart had sickened at the +thought of cloistered walls, look upon her grave, in garbs which would +chill the very ashes within it? Could they bow down in prayer, and when +all Heaven turned to hear them, bring the dark shade of sadness on one +angel’s face? No. + +‘They sent abroad, to artists of great celebrity in those times, and +having obtained the church’s sanction to their work of piety, caused +to be executed, in five large compartments of richly stained glass, a +faithful copy of their old embroidery work. These were fitted into a +large window until that time bare of ornament; and when the sun shone +brightly, as she had so well loved to see it, the familiar patterns were +reflected in their original colours, and throwing a stream of brilliant +light upon the pavement, fell warmly on the name of Alice. + +‘For many hours in every day, the sisters paced slowly up and down the +nave, or knelt by the side of the flat broad stone. Only three were seen +in the customary place, after many years; then but two, and, for a long +time afterwards, but one solitary female bent with age. At length she +came no more, and the stone bore five plain Christian names. + +‘That stone has worn away and been replaced by others, and many +generations have come and gone since then. Time has softened down the +colours, but the same stream of light still falls upon the forgotten +tomb, of which no trace remains; and, to this day, the stranger is shown +in York Cathedral, an old window called the Five Sisters.’ + + +‘That’s a melancholy tale,’ said the merry-faced gentleman, emptying his +glass. + +‘It is a tale of life, and life is made up of such sorrows,’ returned +the other, courteously, but in a grave and sad tone of voice. + +‘There are shades in all good pictures, but there are lights too, if +we choose to contemplate them,’ said the gentleman with the merry face. +‘The youngest sister in your tale was always light-hearted.’ + +‘And died early,’ said the other, gently. + +‘She would have died earlier, perhaps, had she been less happy,’ said +the first speaker, with much feeling. ‘Do you think the sisters who +loved her so well, would have grieved the less if her life had been one +of gloom and sadness? If anything could soothe the first sharp pain of a +heavy loss, it would be--with me--the reflection, that those I mourned, +by being innocently happy here, and loving all about them, had prepared +themselves for a purer and happier world. The sun does not shine upon +this fair earth to meet frowning eyes, depend upon it.’ + +‘I believe you are right,’ said the gentleman who had told the story. + +‘Believe!’ retorted the other, ‘can anybody doubt it? Take any subject +of sorrowful regret, and see with how much pleasure it is associated. +The recollection of past pleasure may become pain--’ + +‘It does,’ interposed the other. + +‘Well; it does. To remember happiness which cannot be restored, is pain, +but of a softened kind. Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with +much that we deplore, and with many actions which we bitterly repent; +still in the most chequered life I firmly think there are so many little +rays of sunshine to look back upon, that I do not believe any mortal +(unless he had put himself without the pale of hope) would deliberately +drain a goblet of the waters of Lethe, if he had it in his power.’ + +‘Possibly you are correct in that belief,’ said the grey-haired +gentleman after a short reflection. ‘I am inclined to think you are.’ + +‘Why, then,’ replied the other, ‘the good in this state of existence +preponderates over the bad, let miscalled philosophers tell us what they +will. If our affections be tried, our affections are our consolation and +comfort; and memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between +this world and a better. But come! I’ll tell you a story of another +kind.’ + +After a very brief silence, the merry-faced gentleman sent round the +punch, and glancing slyly at the fastidious lady, who seemed desperately +apprehensive that he was going to relate something improper, began + + +THE BARON OF GROGZWIG + + +‘The Baron Von Koeldwethout, of Grogzwig in Germany, was as likely a +young baron as you would wish to see. I needn’t say that he lived in a +castle, because that’s of course; neither need I say that he lived in +an old castle; for what German baron ever lived in a new one? There were +many strange circumstances connected with this venerable building, among +which, not the least startling and mysterious were, that when the wind +blew, it rumbled in the chimneys, or even howled among the trees in the +neighbouring forest; and that when the moon shone, she found her way +through certain small loopholes in the wall, and actually made some +parts of the wide halls and galleries quite light, while she left others +in gloomy shadow. I believe that one of the baron’s ancestors, being +short of money, had inserted a dagger in a gentleman who called +one night to ask his way, and it WAS supposed that these miraculous +occurrences took place in consequence. And yet I hardly know how that +could have been, either, because the baron’s ancestor, who was an +amiable man, felt very sorry afterwards for having been so rash, and +laying violent hands upon a quantity of stone and timber which belonged +to a weaker baron, built a chapel as an apology, and so took a receipt +from Heaven, in full of all demands. + +‘Talking of the baron’s ancestor puts me in mind of the baron’s great +claims to respect, on the score of his pedigree. I am afraid to say, +I am sure, how many ancestors the baron had; but I know that he had a +great many more than any other man of his time; and I only wish that +he had lived in these latter days, that he might have had more. It is a +very hard thing upon the great men of past centuries, that they should +have come into the world so soon, because a man who was born three or +four hundred years ago, cannot reasonably be expected to have had as +many relations before him, as a man who is born now. The last man, +whoever he is--and he may be a cobbler or some low vulgar dog for aught +we know--will have a longer pedigree than the greatest nobleman now +alive; and I contend that this is not fair. + +‘Well, but the Baron Von Koeldwethout of Grogzwig! He was a fine swarthy +fellow, with dark hair and large moustachios, who rode a-hunting in +clothes of Lincoln green, with russet boots on his feet, and a bugle +slung over his shoulder like the guard of a long stage. When he blew +this bugle, four-and-twenty other gentlemen of inferior rank, in Lincoln +green a little coarser, and russet boots with a little thicker soles, +turned out directly: and away galloped the whole train, with spears in +their hands like lacquered area railings, to hunt down the boars, or +perhaps encounter a bear: in which latter case the baron killed him +first, and greased his whiskers with him afterwards. + +‘This was a merry life for the Baron of Grogzwig, and a merrier still +for the baron’s retainers, who drank Rhine wine every night till they +fell under the table, and then had the bottles on the floor, and called +for pipes. Never were such jolly, roystering, rollicking, merry-making +blades, as the jovial crew of Grogzwig. + +‘But the pleasures of the table, or the pleasures of under the table, +require a little variety; especially when the same five-and-twenty +people sit daily down to the same board, to discuss the same subjects, +and tell the same stories. The baron grew weary, and wanted excitement. +He took to quarrelling with his gentlemen, and tried kicking two or +three of them every day after dinner. This was a pleasant change at +first; but it became monotonous after a week or so, and the baron felt +quite out of sorts, and cast about, in despair, for some new amusement. + +‘One night, after a day’s sport in which he had outdone Nimrod or +Gillingwater, and slaughtered “another fine bear,” and brought him home +in triumph, the Baron Von Koeldwethout sat moodily at the head of his +table, eyeing the smoky roof of the hall with a discontented aspect. He +swallowed huge bumpers of wine, but the more he swallowed, the more +he frowned. The gentlemen who had been honoured with the dangerous +distinction of sitting on his right and left, imitated him to a miracle +in the drinking, and frowned at each other. + +‘“I will!” cried the baron suddenly, smiting the table with his right +hand, and twirling his moustache with his left. “Fill to the Lady of +Grogzwig!” + +‘The four-and-twenty Lincoln greens turned pale, with the exception of +their four-and-twenty noses, which were unchangeable. + +‘“I said to the Lady of Grogzwig,” repeated the baron, looking round the +board. + +‘“To the Lady of Grogzwig!” shouted the Lincoln greens; and down their +four-and-twenty throats went four-and-twenty imperial pints of such +rare old hock, that they smacked their eight-and-forty lips, and winked +again. + +‘“The fair daughter of the Baron Von Swillenhausen,” said Koeldwethout, +condescending to explain. “We will demand her in marriage of her father, +ere the sun goes down tomorrow. If he refuse our suit, we will cut off +his nose.” + +‘A hoarse murmur arose from the company; every man touched, first +the hilt of his sword, and then the tip of his nose, with appalling +significance. + +‘What a pleasant thing filial piety is to contemplate! If the daughter +of the Baron Von Swillenhausen had pleaded a preoccupied heart, or +fallen at her father’s feet and corned them in salt tears, or +only fainted away, and complimented the old gentleman in frantic +ejaculations, the odds are a hundred to one but Swillenhausen Castle +would have been turned out at window, or rather the baron turned out at +window, and the castle demolished. The damsel held her peace, however, +when an early messenger bore the request of Von Koeldwethout next +morning, and modestly retired to her chamber, from the casement of which +she watched the coming of the suitor and his retinue. She was no sooner +assured that the horseman with the large moustachios was her proffered +husband, than she hastened to her father’s presence, and expressed her +readiness to sacrifice herself to secure his peace. The venerable baron +caught his child to his arms, and shed a wink of joy. + +‘There was great feasting at the castle, that day. The four-and-twenty +Lincoln greens of Von Koeldwethout exchanged vows of eternal friendship +with twelve Lincoln greens of Von Swillenhausen, and promised the +old baron that they would drink his wine “Till all was blue”--meaning +probably until their whole countenances had acquired the same tint as +their noses. Everybody slapped everybody else’s back, when the time +for parting came; and the Baron Von Koeldwethout and his followers rode +gaily home. + +‘For six mortal weeks, the bears and boars had a holiday. The houses of +Koeldwethout and Swillenhausen were united; the spears rusted; and the +baron’s bugle grew hoarse for lack of blowing. + +‘Those were great times for the four-and-twenty; but, alas! their high +and palmy days had taken boots to themselves, and were already walking +off. + +‘“My dear,” said the baroness. + +‘“My love,” said the baron. + +‘“Those coarse, noisy men--” + +‘“Which, ma’am?” said the baron, starting. + +‘The baroness pointed, from the window at which they stood, to the +courtyard beneath, where the unconscious Lincoln greens were taking a +copious stirrup-cup, preparatory to issuing forth after a boar or two. + +‘“My hunting train, ma’am,” said the baron. + +‘“Disband them, love,” murmured the baroness. + +‘“Disband them!” cried the baron, in amazement. + +‘“To please me, love,” replied the baroness. + +‘“To please the devil, ma’am,” answered the baron. + +‘Whereupon the baroness uttered a great cry, and swooned away at the +baron’s feet. + +‘What could the baron do? He called for the lady’s maid, and roared +for the doctor; and then, rushing into the yard, kicked the two Lincoln +greens who were the most used to it, and cursing the others all round, +bade them go--but never mind where. I don’t know the German for it, or I +would put it delicately that way. + +‘It is not for me to say by what means, or by what degrees, some wives +manage to keep down some husbands as they do, although I may have +my private opinion on the subject, and may think that no Member of +Parliament ought to be married, inasmuch as three married members out of +every four, must vote according to their wives’ consciences (if there be +such things), and not according to their own. All I need say, just now, +is, that the Baroness Von Koeldwethout somehow or other acquired great +control over the Baron Von Koeldwethout, and that, little by little, and +bit by bit, and day by day, and year by year, the baron got the worst of +some disputed question, or was slyly unhorsed from some old hobby; +and that by the time he was a fat hearty fellow of forty-eight or +thereabouts, he had no feasting, no revelry, no hunting train, and no +hunting--nothing in short that he liked, or used to have; and that, +although he was as fierce as a lion, and as bold as brass, he was +decidedly snubbed and put down, by his own lady, in his own castle of +Grogzwig. + +‘Nor was this the whole extent of the baron’s misfortunes. About a year +after his nuptials, there came into the world a lusty young baron, +in whose honour a great many fireworks were let off, and a great many +dozens of wine drunk; but next year there came a young baroness, and +next year another young baron, and so on, every year, either a baron or +baroness (and one year both together), until the baron found himself +the father of a small family of twelve. Upon every one of these +anniversaries, the venerable Baroness Von Swillenhausen was nervously +sensitive for the well-being of her child the Baroness Von Koeldwethout; +and although it was not found that the good lady ever did anything +material towards contributing to her child’s recovery, still she made it +a point of duty to be as nervous as possible at the castle of Grogzwig, +and to divide her time between moral observations on the baron’s +housekeeping, and bewailing the hard lot of her unhappy daughter. And if +the Baron of Grogzwig, a little hurt and irritated at this, took heart, +and ventured to suggest that his wife was at least no worse off than the +wives of other barons, the Baroness Von Swillenhausen begged all +persons to take notice, that nobody but she, sympathised with her dear +daughter’s sufferings; upon which, her relations and friends remarked, +that to be sure she did cry a great deal more than her son-in-law, and +that if there were a hard-hearted brute alive, it was that Baron of +Grogzwig. + +‘The poor baron bore it all as long as he could, and when he could bear +it no longer lost his appetite and his spirits, and sat himself gloomily +and dejectedly down. But there were worse troubles yet in store for +him, and as they came on, his melancholy and sadness increased. Times +changed. He got into debt. The Grogzwig coffers ran low, though the +Swillenhausen family had looked upon them as inexhaustible; and just +when the baroness was on the point of making a thirteenth addition to +the family pedigree, Von Koeldwethout discovered that he had no means of +replenishing them. + +‘“I don’t see what is to be done,” said the baron. “I think I’ll kill +myself.” + +‘This was a bright idea. The baron took an old hunting-knife from a +cupboard hard by, and having sharpened it on his boot, made what boys +call “an offer” at his throat. + +‘“Hem!” said the baron, stopping short. “Perhaps it’s not sharp enough.” + +‘The baron sharpened it again, and made another offer, when his hand was +arrested by a loud screaming among the young barons and baronesses, who +had a nursery in an upstairs tower with iron bars outside the window, to +prevent their tumbling out into the moat. + +‘“If I had been a bachelor,” said the baron sighing, “I might have done +it fifty times over, without being interrupted. Hallo! Put a flask of +wine and the largest pipe in the little vaulted room behind the hall.” + +‘One of the domestics, in a very kind manner, executed the baron’s order +in the course of half an hour or so, and Von Koeldwethout being apprised +thereof, strode to the vaulted room, the walls of which, being of dark +shining wood, gleamed in the light of the blazing logs which were piled +upon the hearth. The bottle and pipe were ready, and, upon the whole, +the place looked very comfortable. + +‘“Leave the lamp,” said the baron. + +‘“Anything else, my lord?” inquired the domestic. + +‘“The room,” replied the baron. The domestic obeyed, and the baron +locked the door. + +‘“I’ll smoke a last pipe,” said the baron, “and then I’ll be off.” So, +putting the knife upon the table till he wanted it, and tossing off a +goodly measure of wine, the Lord of Grogzwig threw himself back in his +chair, stretched his legs out before the fire, and puffed away. + +‘He thought about a great many things--about his present troubles and +past days of bachelorship, and about the Lincoln greens, long since +dispersed up and down the country, no one knew whither: with the +exception of two who had been unfortunately beheaded, and four who had +killed themselves with drinking. His mind was running upon bears and +boars, when, in the process of draining his glass to the bottom, +he raised his eyes, and saw, for the first time and with unbounded +astonishment, that he was not alone. + +‘No, he was not; for, on the opposite side of the fire, there sat with +folded arms a wrinkled hideous figure, with deeply sunk and bloodshot +eyes, and an immensely long cadaverous face, shadowed by jagged and +matted locks of coarse black hair. He wore a kind of tunic of a dull +bluish colour, which, the baron observed, on regarding it attentively, +was clasped or ornamented down the front with coffin handles. His legs, +too, were encased in coffin plates as though in armour; and over his +left shoulder he wore a short dusky cloak, which seemed made of a +remnant of some pall. He took no notice of the baron, but was intently +eyeing the fire. + +‘“Halloa!” said the baron, stamping his foot to attract attention. + +‘“Halloa!” replied the stranger, moving his eyes towards the baron, but +not his face or himself “What now?” + +‘“What now!” replied the baron, nothing daunted by his hollow voice and +lustreless eyes. “I should ask that question. How did you get here?” + +‘“Through the door,” replied the figure. + +‘“What are you?” says the baron. + +‘“A man,” replied the figure. + +‘“I don’t believe it,” says the baron. + +‘“Disbelieve it then,” says the figure. + +‘“I will,” rejoined the baron. + +‘The figure looked at the bold Baron of Grogzwig for some time, and then +said familiarly, + +‘“There’s no coming over you, I see. I’m not a man!” + +‘“What are you then?” asked the baron. + +‘“A genius,” replied the figure. + +‘“You don’t look much like one,” returned the baron scornfully. + +‘“I am the Genius of Despair and Suicide,” said the apparition. “Now you +know me.” + +‘With these words the apparition turned towards the baron, as if +composing himself for a talk--and, what was very remarkable, was, that +he threw his cloak aside, and displaying a stake, which was run through +the centre of his body, pulled it out with a jerk, and laid it on the +table, as composedly as if it had been a walking-stick. + +‘“Now,” said the figure, glancing at the hunting-knife, “are you ready +for me?” + +‘“Not quite,” rejoined the baron; “I must finish this pipe first.” + +‘“Look sharp then,” said the figure. + +‘“You seem in a hurry,” said the baron. + +‘“Why, yes, I am,” answered the figure; “they’re doing a pretty brisk +business in my way, over in England and France just now, and my time is +a good deal taken up.” + +‘“Do you drink?” said the baron, touching the bottle with the bowl of +his pipe. + +‘“Nine times out of ten, and then very hard,” rejoined the figure, +drily. + +‘“Never in moderation?” asked the baron. + +‘“Never,” replied the figure, with a shudder, “that breeds +cheerfulness.” + +‘The baron took another look at his new friend, whom he thought an +uncommonly queer customer, and at length inquired whether he took +any active part in such little proceedings as that which he had in +contemplation. + +‘“No,” replied the figure evasively; “but I am always present.” + +‘“Just to see fair, I suppose?” said the baron. + +‘“Just that,” replied the figure, playing with his stake, and examining +the ferule. “Be as quick as you can, will you, for there’s a young +gentleman who is afflicted with too much money and leisure wanting me +now, I find.” + +‘“Going to kill himself because he has too much money!” exclaimed the +baron, quite tickled. “Ha! ha! that’s a good one.” (This was the first +time the baron had laughed for many a long day.) + +‘“I say,” expostulated the figure, looking very much scared; “don’t do +that again.” + +‘“Why not?” demanded the baron. + +‘“Because it gives me pain all over,” replied the figure. “Sigh as much +as you please: that does me good.” + +‘The baron sighed mechanically at the mention of the word; the figure, +brightening up again, handed him the hunting-knife with most winning +politeness. + +‘“It’s not a bad idea though,” said the baron, feeling the edge of the +weapon; “a man killing himself because he has too much money.” + +‘“Pooh!” said the apparition, petulantly, “no better than a man’s +killing himself because he has none or little.” + +‘Whether the genius unintentionally committed himself in saying this, +or whether he thought the baron’s mind was so thoroughly made up that it +didn’t matter what he said, I have no means of knowing. I only know that +the baron stopped his hand, all of a sudden, opened his eyes wide, and +looked as if quite a new light had come upon him for the first time. + +‘“Why, certainly,” said Von Koeldwethout, “nothing is too bad to be +retrieved.” + +‘“Except empty coffers,” cried the genius. + +‘“Well; but they may be one day filled again,” said the baron. + +‘“Scolding wives,” snarled the genius. + +‘“Oh! They may be made quiet,” said the baron. + +‘“Thirteen children,” shouted the genius. + +‘“Can’t all go wrong, surely,” said the baron. + +‘The genius was evidently growing very savage with the baron, for +holding these opinions all at once; but he tried to laugh it off, and +said if he would let him know when he had left off joking he should feel +obliged to him. + +‘“But I am not joking; I was never farther from it,” remonstrated the +baron. + +‘“Well, I am glad to hear that,” said the genius, looking very grim, +“because a joke, without any figure of speech, IS the death of me. Come! +Quit this dreary world at once.” + +‘“I don’t know,” said the baron, playing with the knife; “it’s a dreary +one certainly, but I don’t think yours is much better, for you have +not the appearance of being particularly comfortable. That puts me in +mind--what security have I, that I shall be any the better for going +out of the world after all!” he cried, starting up; “I never thought of +that.” + +‘“Dispatch,” cried the figure, gnashing his teeth. + +‘“Keep off!” said the baron. ‘I’ll brood over miseries no longer, but +put a good face on the matter, and try the fresh air and the bears +again; and if that don’t do, I’ll talk to the baroness soundly, and cut +the Von Swillenhausens dead.’ With this the baron fell into his chair, +and laughed so loud and boisterously, that the room rang with it. + +‘The figure fell back a pace or two, regarding the baron meanwhile with +a look of intense terror, and when he had ceased, caught up the stake, +plunged it violently into its body, uttered a frightful howl, and +disappeared. + +‘Von Koeldwethout never saw it again. Having once made up his mind +to action, he soon brought the baroness and the Von Swillenhausens to +reason, and died many years afterwards: not a rich man that I am aware +of, but certainly a happy one: leaving behind him a numerous family, +who had been carefully educated in bear and boar-hunting under his own +personal eye. And my advice to all men is, that if ever they become +hipped and melancholy from similar causes (as very many men do), they +look at both sides of the question, applying a magnifying-glass to the +best one; and if they still feel tempted to retire without leave, that +they smoke a large pipe and drink a full bottle first, and profit by the +laudable example of the Baron of Grogzwig.’ + + +‘The fresh coach is ready, ladies and gentlemen, if you please,’ said a +new driver, looking in. + +This intelligence caused the punch to be finished in a great hurry, +and prevented any discussion relative to the last story. Mr. Squeers was +observed to draw the grey-headed gentleman on one side, and to ask a +question with great apparent interest; it bore reference to the Five +Sisters of York, and was, in fact, an inquiry whether he could inform +him how much per annum the Yorkshire convents got in those days with +their boarders. + +The journey was then resumed. Nicholas fell asleep towards morning, and, +when he awoke, found, with great regret, that, during his nap, both the +Baron of Grogzwig and the grey-haired gentleman had got down and were +gone. The day dragged on uncomfortably enough. At about six o’clock that +night, he and Mr. Squeers, and the little boys, and their united luggage, +were all put down together at the George and New Inn, Greta Bridge. + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +Mr. and Mrs. Squeers at Home + + +Mr. Squeers, being safely landed, left Nicholas and the boys standing +with the luggage in the road, to amuse themselves by looking at the +coach as it changed horses, while he ran into the tavern and went +through the leg-stretching process at the bar. After some minutes, he +returned, with his legs thoroughly stretched, if the hue of his nose and +a short hiccup afforded any criterion; and at the same time there came +out of the yard a rusty pony-chaise, and a cart, driven by two labouring +men. + +‘Put the boys and the boxes into the cart,’ said Squeers, rubbing his +hands; ‘and this young man and me will go on in the chaise. Get in, +Nickleby.’ + +Nicholas obeyed. Mr. Squeers with some difficulty inducing the pony to +obey also, they started off, leaving the cart-load of infant misery to +follow at leisure. + +‘Are you cold, Nickleby?’ inquired Squeers, after they had travelled +some distance in silence. + +‘Rather, sir, I must say.’ + +‘Well, I don’t find fault with that,’ said Squeers; ‘it’s a long journey +this weather.’ + +‘Is it much farther to Dotheboys Hall, sir?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘About three mile from here,’ replied Squeers. ‘But you needn’t call it +a Hall down here.’ + +Nicholas coughed, as if he would like to know why. + +‘The fact is, it ain’t a Hall,’ observed Squeers drily. + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Nicholas, whom this piece of intelligence much +astonished. + +‘No,’ replied Squeers. ‘We call it a Hall up in London, because it +sounds better, but they don’t know it by that name in these parts. A man +may call his house an island if he likes; there’s no act of Parliament +against that, I believe?’ + +‘I believe not, sir,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +Squeers eyed his companion slyly, at the conclusion of this little +dialogue, and finding that he had grown thoughtful and appeared in +nowise disposed to volunteer any observations, contented himself with +lashing the pony until they reached their journey’s end. + +‘Jump out,’ said Squeers. ‘Hallo there! Come and put this horse up. Be +quick, will you!’ + +While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries, +Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking +house, one storey high, with a few straggling out-buildings behind, and +a barn and stable adjoining. After the lapse of a minute or two, the +noise of somebody unlocking the yard-gate was heard, and presently a +tall lean boy, with a lantern in his hand, issued forth. + +‘Is that you, Smike?’ cried Squeers. + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied the boy. + +‘Then why the devil didn’t you come before?’ + +‘Please, sir, I fell asleep over the fire,’ answered Smike, with +humility. + +‘Fire! what fire? Where’s there a fire?’ demanded the schoolmaster, +sharply. + +‘Only in the kitchen, sir,’ replied the boy. ‘Missus said as I was +sitting up, I might go in there for a warm.’ + +‘Your missus is a fool,’ retorted Squeers. ‘You’d have been a deuced +deal more wakeful in the cold, I’ll engage.’ + +By this time Mr. Squeers had dismounted; and after ordering the boy to +see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn’t any more corn that +night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front-door a minute while he went +round and let him in. + +A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding upon Nicholas +during the whole journey, thronged into his mind with redoubled +force when he was left alone. His great distance from home and the +impossibility of reaching it, except on foot, should he feel ever so +anxious to return, presented itself to him in most alarming colours; and +as he looked up at the dreary house and dark windows, and upon the wild +country round, covered with snow, he felt a depression of heart and +spirit which he had never experienced before. + +‘Now then!’ cried Squeers, poking his head out at the front-door. ‘Where +are you, Nickleby?’ + +‘Here, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Come in, then,’ said Squeers ‘the wind blows in, at this door, fit to +knock a man off his legs.’ + +Nicholas sighed, and hurried in. Mr. Squeers, having bolted the door to +keep it shut, ushered him into a small parlour scantily furnished with a +few chairs, a yellow map hung against the wall, and a couple of tables; +one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on the other, a +tutor’s assistant, a Murray’s grammar, half-a-dozen cards of terms, and +a worn letter directed to Wackford Squeers, Esquire, were arranged in +picturesque confusion. + +They had not been in this apartment a couple of minutes, when a female +bounced into the room, and, seizing Mr. Squeers by the throat, gave him +two loud kisses: one close after the other, like a postman’s knock. The +lady, who was of a large raw-boned figure, was about half a head taller +than Mr. Squeers, and was dressed in a dimity night-jacket; with her hair +in papers; she had also a dirty nightcap on, relieved by a yellow cotton +handkerchief which tied it under the chin. + +‘How is my Squeery?’ said this lady in a playful manner, and a very +hoarse voice. + +‘Quite well, my love,’ replied Squeers. ‘How’s the cows?’ + +‘All right, every one of’em,’ answered the lady. + +‘And the pigs?’ said Squeers. + +‘As well as they were when you went away.’ + +‘Come; that’s a blessing,’ said Squeers, pulling off his great-coat. +‘The boys are all as they were, I suppose?’ + +‘Oh, yes, they’re well enough,’ replied Mrs. Squeers, snappishly. ‘That +young Pitcher’s had a fever.’ + +‘No!’ exclaimed Squeers. ‘Damn that boy, he’s always at something of +that sort.’ + +‘Never was such a boy, I do believe,’ said Mrs. Squeers; ‘whatever he +has is always catching too. I say it’s obstinacy, and nothing shall ever +convince me that it isn’t. I’d beat it out of him; and I told you that, +six months ago.’ + +‘So you did, my love,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We’ll try what can be done.’ + +Pending these little endearments, Nicholas had stood, awkwardly enough, +in the middle of the room: not very well knowing whether he was expected +to retire into the passage, or to remain where he was. He was now +relieved from his perplexity by Mr. Squeers. + +‘This is the new young man, my dear,’ said that gentleman. + +‘Oh,’ replied Mrs. Squeers, nodding her head at Nicholas, and eyeing him +coldly from top to toe. + +‘He’ll take a meal with us tonight,’ said Squeers, ‘and go among the +boys tomorrow morning. You can give him a shake-down here, tonight, +can’t you?’ + +‘We must manage it somehow,’ replied the lady. ‘You don’t much mind how +you sleep, I suppose, sir?’ + +No, indeed,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I am not particular.’ + +‘That’s lucky,’ said Mrs. Squeers. And as the lady’s humour was +considered to lie chiefly in retort, Mr. Squeers laughed heartily, and +seemed to expect that Nicholas should do the same. + +After some further conversation between the master and mistress relative +to the success of Mr. Squeers’s trip and the people who had paid, and the +people who had made default in payment, a young servant girl brought in +a Yorkshire pie and some cold beef, which being set upon the table, the +boy Smike appeared with a jug of ale. + +Mr. Squeers was emptying his great-coat pockets of letters to different +boys, and other small documents, which he had brought down in them. The +boy glanced, with an anxious and timid expression, at the papers, as if +with a sickly hope that one among them might relate to him. The look was +a very painful one, and went to Nicholas’s heart at once; for it told a +long and very sad history. + +It induced him to consider the boy more attentively, and he was +surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments which +formed his dress. Although he could not have been less than eighteen or +nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, +such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most +absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his +attenuated frame. In order that the lower part of his legs might be in +perfect keeping with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of +boots, originally made for tops, which might have been once worn by some +stout farmer, but were now too patched and tattered for a beggar. Heaven +knows how long he had been there, but he still wore the same linen which +he had first taken down; for, round his neck, was a tattered child’s +frill, only half concealed by a coarse, man’s neckerchief. He was lame; +and as he feigned to be busy in arranging the table, glanced at the +letters with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless, that +Nicholas could hardly bear to watch him. + +‘What are you bothering about there, Smike?’ cried Mrs. Squeers; ‘let the +things alone, can’t you?’ + +‘Eh!’ said Squeers, looking up. ‘Oh! it’s you, is it?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied the youth, pressing his hands together, as though to +control, by force, the nervous wandering of his fingers. ‘Is there--’ + +‘Well!’ said Squeers. + +‘Have you--did anybody--has nothing been heard--about me?’ + +‘Devil a bit,’ replied Squeers testily. + +The lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his hand to his face, moved +towards the door. + +‘Not a word,’ resumed Squeers, ‘and never will be. Now, this is a pretty +sort of thing, isn’t it, that you should have been left here, all these +years, and no money paid after the first six--nor no notice taken, nor +no clue to be got who you belong to? It’s a pretty sort of thing that I +should have to feed a great fellow like you, and never hope to get one +penny for it, isn’t it?’ + +The boy put his hand to his head as if he were making an effort to +recollect something, and then, looking vacantly at his questioner, +gradually broke into a smile, and limped away. + +‘I’ll tell you what, Squeers,’ remarked his wife as the door closed, ‘I +think that young chap’s turning silly.’ + +‘I hope not,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘for he’s a handy fellow out of +doors, and worth his meat and drink, anyway. I should think he’d have +wit enough for us though, if he was. But come; let’s have supper, for I +am hungry and tired, and want to get to bed.’ + +This reminder brought in an exclusive steak for Mr. Squeers, who speedily +proceeded to do it ample justice. Nicholas drew up his chair, but his +appetite was effectually taken away. + +‘How’s the steak, Squeers?’ said Mrs. S. + +‘Tender as a lamb,’ replied Squeers. ‘Have a bit.’ + +‘I couldn’t eat a morsel,’ replied his wife. ‘What’ll the young man +take, my dear?’ + +‘Whatever he likes that’s present,’ rejoined Squeers, in a most unusual +burst of generosity. + +‘What do you say, Mr. Knuckleboy?’ inquired Mrs. Squeers. + +‘I’ll take a little of the pie, if you please,’ replied Nicholas. ‘A +very little, for I’m not hungry.’ + +Well, it’s a pity to cut the pie if you’re not hungry, isn’t it?’ said +Mrs. Squeers. ‘Will you try a bit of the beef?’ + +‘Whatever you please,’ replied Nicholas abstractedly; ‘it’s all the same +to me.’ + +Mrs. Squeers looked vastly gracious on receiving this reply; and nodding +to Squeers, as much as to say that she was glad to find the young man +knew his station, assisted Nicholas to a slice of meat with her own fair +hands. + +‘Ale, Squeery?’ inquired the lady, winking and frowning to give him to +understand that the question propounded, was, whether Nicholas should +have ale, and not whether he (Squeers) would take any. + +‘Certainly,’ said Squeers, re-telegraphing in the same manner. ‘A +glassful.’ + +So Nicholas had a glassful, and being occupied with his own reflections, +drank it, in happy innocence of all the foregone proceedings. + +‘Uncommon juicy steak that,’ said Squeers, as he laid down his knife and +fork, after plying it, in silence, for some time. + +‘It’s prime meat,’ rejoined his lady. ‘I bought a good large piece of it +myself on purpose for--’ + +‘For what!’ exclaimed Squeers hastily. ‘Not for the--’ + +‘No, no; not for them,’ rejoined Mrs. Squeers; ‘on purpose for you +against you came home. Lor! you didn’t think I could have made such a +mistake as that.’ + +‘Upon my word, my dear, I didn’t know what you were going to say,’ said +Squeers, who had turned pale. + +‘You needn’t make yourself uncomfortable,’ remarked his wife, laughing +heartily. ‘To think that I should be such a noddy! Well!’ + +This part of the conversation was rather unintelligible; but popular +rumour in the neighbourhood asserted that Mr. Squeers, being amiably +opposed to cruelty to animals, not unfrequently purchased for boy +consumption the bodies of horned cattle who had died a natural death; +possibly he was apprehensive of having unintentionally devoured some +choice morsel intended for the young gentlemen. + +Supper being over, and removed by a small servant girl with a hungry +eye, Mrs. Squeers retired to lock it up, and also to take into safe +custody the clothes of the five boys who had just arrived, and who were +half-way up the troublesome flight of steps which leads to death’s door, +in consequence of exposure to the cold. They were then regaled with +a light supper of porridge, and stowed away, side by side, in a small +bedstead, to warm each other, and dream of a substantial meal with +something hot after it, if their fancies set that way: which it is not +at all improbable they did. + +Mr. Squeers treated himself to a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, made +on the liberal half-and-half principle, allowing for the dissolution of +the sugar; and his amiable helpmate mixed Nicholas the ghost of a small +glassful of the same compound. This done, Mr. and Mrs. Squeers drew +close up to the fire, and sitting with their feet on the fender, talked +confidentially in whispers; while Nicholas, taking up the tutor’s +assistant, read the interesting legends in the miscellaneous questions, +and all the figures into the bargain, with as much thought or +consciousness of what he was doing, as if he had been in a magnetic +slumber. + +At length, Mr. Squeers yawned fearfully, and opined that it was high time +to go to bed; upon which signal, Mrs. Squeers and the girl dragged in a +small straw mattress and a couple of blankets, and arranged them into a +couch for Nicholas. + +‘We’ll put you into your regular bedroom tomorrow, Nickelby,’ said +Squeers. ‘Let me see! Who sleeps in Brooks’s bed, my dear?’ + +‘In Brooks’s,’ said Mrs. Squeers, pondering. ‘There’s Jennings, little +Bolder, Graymarsh, and what’s his name.’ + +‘So there is,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Yes! Brooks is full.’ + +‘Full!’ thought Nicholas. ‘I should think he was.’ + +‘There’s a place somewhere, I know,’ said Squeers; ‘but I can’t at this +moment call to mind where it is. However, we’ll have that all settled +tomorrow. Good-night, Nickleby. Seven o’clock in the morning, mind.’ + +‘I shall be ready, sir,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Good-night.’ + +‘I’ll come in myself and show you where the well is,’ said Squeers. +‘You’ll always find a little bit of soap in the kitchen window; that +belongs to you.’ + +Nicholas opened his eyes, but not his mouth; and Squeers was again going +away, when he once more turned back. + +‘I don’t know, I am sure,’ he said, ‘whose towel to put you on; but +if you’ll make shift with something tomorrow morning, Mrs. Squeers will +arrange that, in the course of the day. My dear, don’t forget.’ + +‘I’ll take care,’ replied Mrs. Squeers; ‘and mind YOU take care, young +man, and get first wash. The teacher ought always to have it; but they +get the better of him if they can.’ + +Mr. Squeers then nudged Mrs. Squeers to bring away the brandy bottle, lest +Nicholas should help himself in the night; and the lady having seized it +with great precipitation, they retired together. + +Nicholas, being left alone, took half-a-dozen turns up and down the room +in a condition of much agitation and excitement; but, growing gradually +calmer, sat himself down in a chair, and mentally resolved that, come +what come might, he would endeavour, for a time, to bear whatever +wretchedness might be in store for him, and that remembering the +helplessness of his mother and sister, he would give his uncle no +plea for deserting them in their need. Good resolutions seldom fail of +producing some good effect in the mind from which they spring. He grew +less desponding, and--so sanguine and buoyant is youth--even hoped that +affairs at Dotheboys Hall might yet prove better than they promised. + +He was preparing for bed, with something like renewed cheerfulness, +when a sealed letter fell from his coat pocket. In the hurry of leaving +London, it had escaped his attention, and had not occurred to him since, +but it at once brought back to him the recollection of the mysterious +behaviour of Newman Noggs. + +‘Dear me!’ said Nicholas; ‘what an extraordinary hand!’ + +It was directed to himself, was written upon very dirty paper, and in +such cramped and crippled writing as to be almost illegible. After great +difficulty and much puzzling, he contrived to read as follows:-- + +My dear young Man. + +I know the world. Your father did not, or he would not have done me a +kindness when there was no hope of return. You do not, or you would not +be bound on such a journey. + +If ever you want a shelter in London (don’t be angry at this, I once +thought I never should), they know where I live, at the sign of the +Crown, in Silver Street, Golden Square. It is at the corner of Silver +Street and James Street, with a bar door both ways. You can come at +night. Once, nobody was ashamed--never mind that. It’s all over. + +Excuse errors. I should forget how to wear a whole coat now. I have +forgotten all my old ways. My spelling may have gone with them. + +NEWMAN NOGGS. + +P.S. If you should go near Barnard Castle, there is good ale at the +King’s Head. Say you know me, and I am sure they will not charge you +for it. You may say Mr. Noggs there, for I was a gentleman then. I was +indeed. + + +It may be a very undignified circumstances to record, but after he had +folded this letter and placed it in his pocket-book, Nicholas Nickleby’s +eyes were dimmed with a moisture that might have been taken for tears. + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +Of the Internal Economy of Dotheboys Hall + + +A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather, is one of the +best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can devise. Perhaps it is +even a sweetener of dreams, for those which hovered over the rough couch +of Nicholas, and whispered their airy nothings in his ear, were of an +agreeable and happy kind. He was making his fortune very fast indeed, +when the faint glimmer of an expiring candle shone before his eyes, and +a voice he had no difficulty in recognising as part and parcel of Mr +Squeers, admonished him that it was time to rise. + +‘Past seven, Nickleby,’ said Mr. Squeers. + +‘Has morning come already?’ asked Nicholas, sitting up in bed. + +‘Ah! that has it,’ replied Squeers, ‘and ready iced too. Now, Nickleby, +come; tumble up, will you?’ + +Nicholas needed no further admonition, but ‘tumbled up’ at once, and +proceeded to dress himself by the light of the taper, which Mr. Squeers +carried in his hand. + +‘Here’s a pretty go,’ said that gentleman; ‘the pump’s froze.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas, not much interested in the intelligence. + +‘Yes,’ replied Squeers. ‘You can’t wash yourself this morning.’ + +‘Not wash myself!’ exclaimed Nicholas. + +‘No, not a bit of it,’ rejoined Squeers tartly. ‘So you must be content +with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the ice in the well, and +can get a bucketful out for the boys. Don’t stand staring at me, but do +look sharp, will you?’ + +Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his clothes. +Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew the candle out; when +the voice of his amiable consort was heard in the passage, demanding +admittance. + +‘Come in, my love,’ said Squeers. + +Mrs. Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night-jacket which +had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previous night, and +further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of some antiquity, which she +wore, with much ease and lightness, on the top of the nightcap before +mentioned. + +‘Drat the things,’ said the lady, opening the cupboard; ‘I can’t find +the school spoon anywhere.’ + +‘Never mind it, my dear,’ observed Squeers in a soothing manner; ‘it’s +of no consequence.’ + +‘No consequence, why how you talk!’ retorted Mrs. Squeers sharply; ‘isn’t +it brimstone morning?’ + +‘I forgot, my dear,’ rejoined Squeers; ‘yes, it certainly is. We purify +the boys’ bloods now and then, Nickleby.’ + +‘Purify fiddlesticks’ ends,’ said his lady. ‘Don’t think, young man, +that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone and molasses, just to +purify them; because if you think we carry on the business in that way, +you’ll find yourself mistaken, and so I tell you plainly.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Squeers frowning. ‘Hem!’ + +‘Oh! nonsense,’ rejoined Mrs. Squeers. ‘If the young man comes to be +a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don’t want any +foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone and treacle, partly +because if they hadn’t something or other in the way of medicine they’d +be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it +spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast and dinner. So, +it does them good and us good at the same time, and that’s fair enough +I’m sure.’ + +Having given this explanation, Mrs. Squeers put her head into the closet +and instituted a stricter search after the spoon, in which Mr. Squeers +assisted. A few words passed between them while they were thus engaged, +but as their voices were partially stifled by the cupboard, all that +Nicholas could distinguish was, that Mr. Squeers said what Mrs. Squeers +had said, was injudicious, and that Mrs. Squeers said what Mr. Squeers +said, was ‘stuff.’ + +A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it proving fruitless, +Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs. Squeers, and boxed by Mr. Squeers; +which course of treatment brightening his intellects, enabled him to +suggest that possibly Mrs. Squeers might have the spoon in her pocket, +as indeed turned out to be the case. As Mrs. Squeers had previously +protested, however, that she was quite certain she had not got it, +Smike received another box on the ear for presuming to contradict his +mistress, together with a promise of a sound thrashing if he were not +more respectful in future; so that he took nothing very advantageous by +his motion. + +‘A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby,’ said Squeers when his consort +had hurried away, pushing the drudge before her. + +‘Indeed, sir!’ observed Nicholas. + +‘I don’t know her equal,’ said Squeers; ‘I do not know her equal. That +woman, Nickleby, is always the same--always the same bustling, lively, +active, saving creetur that you see her now.’ + +Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agreeable domestic +prospect thus opened to him; but Squeers was, fortunately, too much +occupied with his own reflections to perceive it. + +‘It’s my way to say, when I am up in London,’ continued Squeers, ‘that +to them boys she is a mother. But she is more than a mother to them; +ten times more. She does things for them boys, Nickleby, that I don’t +believe half the mothers going, would do for their own sons.’ + +‘I should think they would not, sir,’ answered Nicholas. + +Now, the fact was, that both Mr. and Mrs. Squeers viewed the boys in the +light of their proper and natural enemies; or, in other words, they held +and considered that their business and profession was to get as much +from every boy as could by possibility be screwed out of him. On this +point they were both agreed, and behaved in unison accordingly. The +only difference between them was, that Mrs. Squeers waged war against +the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers covered his rascality, +even at home, with a spice of his habitual deceit; as if he really had +a notion of someday or other being able to take himself in, and persuade +his own mind that he was a very good fellow. + +‘But come,’ said Squeers, interrupting the progress of some thoughts to +this effect in the mind of his usher, ‘let’s go to the schoolroom; and +lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?’ + +Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting-jacket, +which he took down from a peg in the passage; and Squeers, arming +himself with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a door in the rear +of the house. + +‘There,’ said the schoolmaster as they stepped in together; ‘this is our +shop, Nickleby!’ + +It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to attract +attention, that, at first, Nicholas stared about him, really without +seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the place resolved itself +into a bare and dirty room, with a couple of windows, whereof a +tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old +copy-books and paper. There were a couple of long old rickety desks, cut +and notched, and inked, and damaged, in every possible way; two or three +forms; a detached desk for Squeers; and another for his assistant. The +ceiling was supported, like that of a barn, by cross-beams and rafters; +and the walls were so stained and discoloured, that it was impossible to +tell whether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash. + +But the pupils--the young noblemen! How the last faint traces of hope, +the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his efforts in +this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in dismay +around! Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the +countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys +of stunted growth, and others whose long meagre legs would hardly bear +their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together; there were +the bleared eye, the hare-lip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness +or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for +their offspring, or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of +infancy, had been one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There +were little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the +scowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with the light of +its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; +there were vicious-faced boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like +malefactors in a jail; and there were young creatures on whom the sins +of their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the mercenary +nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. With every +kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and +healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful passion +that can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to their core in +silence, what an incipient Hell was breeding here! + +And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features, +which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked +a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an +immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she +administered a large instalment to each boy in succession: using for +the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally +manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young +gentleman’s mouth considerably: they being all obliged, under heavy +corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. In +another corner, huddled together for companionship, were the little +boys who had arrived on the preceding night, three of them in very large +leather breeches, and two in old trousers, a something tighter fit than +drawers are usually worn; at no great distance from these was seated +the juvenile son and heir of Mr. Squeers--a striking likeness of his +father--kicking, with great vigour, under the hands of Smike, who +was fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore a most suspicious +resemblance to those which the least of the little boys had worn on +the journey down--as the little boy himself seemed to think, for he +was regarding the appropriation with a look of most rueful amazement. +Besides these, there was a long row of boys waiting, with countenances +of no pleasant anticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who +had just escaped from the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths +indicative of anything but satisfaction. The whole were attired in +such motley, ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been +irresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder, +and disease, with which they were associated. + +‘Now,’ said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane, which +made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, ‘is that +physicking over?’ + +‘Just over,’ said Mrs. Squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry, and +tapping the crown of his head with the wooden spoon to restore him. +‘Here, you Smike; take away now. Look sharp!’ + +Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs. Squeers having called up a +little boy with a curly head, and wiped her hands upon it, hurried out +after him into a species of wash-house, where there was a small fire and +a large kettle, together with a number of little wooden bowls which were +arranged upon a board. + +Into these bowls, Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the hungry servant, poured +a brown composition, which looked like diluted pincushions without +the covers, and was called porridge. A minute wedge of brown bread was +inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their porridge by means +of the bread, the boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their +breakfast; whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in a solemn voice, ‘For what we +have received, may the Lord make us truly thankful!’--and went away to +his own. + +Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for much the +same reason which induces some savages to swallow earth--lest they +should be inconveniently hungry when there is nothing to eat. Having +further disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to him in +virtue of his office, he sat himself down, to wait for school-time. + +He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all seemed to be. +There was none of the noise and clamour of a schoolroom; none of +its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. The children sat crouching and +shivering together, and seemed to lack the spirit to move about. The +only pupil who evinced the slightest tendency towards locomotion or +playfulness was Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to tread +upon the other boys’ toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits was +rather disagreeable than otherwise. + +After some half-hour’s delay, Mr. Squeers reappeared, and the boys took +their places and their books, of which latter commodity the average +might be about one to eight learners. A few minutes having elapsed, +during which Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a perfect +apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say every word +of their contents by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that +gentleman called up the first class. + +Obedient to this summons there ranged themselves in front of the +schoolmaster’s desk, half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, +one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye. + +‘This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy, Nickleby,’ +said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him. ‘We’ll get up a +Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then, where’s the first boy?’ + +‘Please, sir, he’s cleaning the back-parlour window,’ said the temporary +head of the philosophical class. + +‘So he is, to be sure,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We go upon the practical mode +of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, +verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a +casement. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. It’s +just the same principle as the use of the globes. Where’s the second +boy?’ + +‘Please, sir, he’s weeding the garden,’ replied a small voice. + +‘To be sure,’ said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. ‘So he is. B-o-t, +bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, +a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a +knowledge of plants, he goes and knows ‘em. That’s our system, Nickleby: +what do you think of it?’ + +‘It’s very useful one, at any rate,’ answered Nicholas. + +‘I believe you,’ rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of his +usher. ‘Third boy, what’s horse?’ + +‘A beast, sir,’ replied the boy. + +‘So it is,’ said Squeers. ‘Ain’t it, Nickleby?’ + +‘I believe there is no doubt of that, sir,’ answered Nicholas. + +‘Of course there isn’t,’ said Squeers. ‘A horse is a quadruped, and +quadruped’s Latin for beast, as everybody that’s gone through the +grammar knows, or else where’s the use of having grammars at all?’ + +‘Where, indeed!’ said Nicholas abstractedly. + +‘As you’re perfect in that,’ resumed Squeers, turning to the boy, ‘go +and look after MY horse, and rub him down well, or I’ll rub you down. +The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebody tells you +to leave off, for it’s washing-day tomorrow, and they want the coppers +filled.’ + +So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in +practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and +half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might think +of him by this time. + +‘That’s the way we do it, Nickleby,’ he said, after a pause. + +Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was scarcely +perceptible, and said he saw it was. + +‘And a very good way it is, too,’ said Squeers. ‘Now, just take them +fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you know, you +must begin to be useful. Idling about here won’t do.’ + +Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, either that +he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his assistant did +not say enough to him in praise of the establishment. The children were +arranged in a semicircle round the new master, and he was soon listening +to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of those stories of +engrossing interest which are to be found in the more antiquated +spelling-books. + +In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on. At one +o’clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites thoroughly +taken away by stir-about and potatoes, sat down in the kitchen to some +hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was graciously permitted to take his +portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it there in peace. After this, +there was another hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with +cold, and then school began again. + +It was Mr. Squeer’s custom to call the boys together, and make a sort of +report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis, regarding the +relations and friends he had seen, the news he had heard, the letters he +had brought down, the bills which had been paid, the accounts which had +been left unpaid, and so forth. This solemn proceeding always took place +in the afternoon of the day succeeding his return; perhaps, because the +boys acquired strength of mind from the suspense of the morning, or, +possibly, because Mr. Squeers himself acquired greater sternness and +inflexibility from certain warm potations in which he was wont to +indulge after his early dinner. Be this as it may, the boys were +recalled from house-window, garden, stable, and cow-yard, and the school +were assembled in full conclave, when Mr. Squeers, with a small bundle of +papers in his hand, and Mrs. S. following with a pair of canes, entered +the room and proclaimed silence. + +‘Let any boy speak a word without leave,’ said Mr. Squeers mildly, ‘and +I’ll take the skin off his back.’ + +This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a deathlike +silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which Mr. Squeers went on +to say: + +‘Boys, I’ve been to London, and have returned to my family and you, as +strong and well as ever.’ + +According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble cheers at +this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers! Sights of extra strength with +the chill on. + +‘I have seen the parents of some boys,’ continued Squeers, turning over +his papers, ‘and they’re so glad to hear how their sons are getting on, +that there’s no prospect at all of their going away, which of course is +a very pleasant thing to reflect upon, for all parties.’ + +Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers said this, but +the greater part of the young gentlemen having no particular parents to +speak of, were wholly uninterested in the thing one way or other. + +‘I have had disappointments to contend against,’ said Squeers, looking +very grim; ‘Bolder’s father was two pound ten short. Where is Bolder?’ + +‘Here he is, please sir,’ rejoined twenty officious voices. Boys are +very like men to be sure. + +‘Come here, Bolder,’ said Squeers. + +An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands, stepped from +his place to the master’s desk, and raised his eyes imploringly to +Squeers’s face; his own, quite white from the rapid beating of his +heart. + +‘Bolder,’ said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was considering, as +the saying goes, where to have him. ‘Bolder, if you father thinks that +because--why, what’s this, sir?’ + +As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy’s hand by the cuff of his jacket, +and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror and disgust. + +‘What do you call this, sir?’ demanded the schoolmaster, administering a +cut with the cane to expedite the reply. + +‘I can’t help it, indeed, sir,’ rejoined the boy, crying. ‘They will +come; it’s the dirty work I think, sir--at least I don’t know what it +is, sir, but it’s not my fault.’ + +‘Bolder,’ said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and moistening +the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane, ‘you’re an +incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrashing did you no good, +we must see what another will do towards beating it out of you.’ + +With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, Mr. Squeers +fell upon the boy and caned him soundly: not leaving off, indeed, until +his arm was tired out. + +‘There,’ said Squeers, when he had quite done; ‘rub away as hard as you +like, you won’t rub that off in a hurry. Oh! you won’t hold that noise, +won’t you? Put him out, Smike.’ + +The drudge knew better from long experience, than to hesitate about +obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a side-door, and Mr. Squeers +perched himself again on his own stool, supported by Mrs. Squeers, who +occupied another at his side. + +‘Now let us see,’ said Squeers. ‘A letter for Cobbey. Stand up, Cobbey.’ + +Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard while Squeers made a +mental abstract of the same. + +‘Oh!’ said Squeers: ‘Cobbey’s grandmother is dead, and his uncle John +has took to drinking, which is all the news his sister sends, except +eighteenpence, which will just pay for that broken square of glass. Mrs +Squeers, my dear, will you take the money?’ + +The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most business-like +air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as coolly as possible. + +‘Graymarsh,’ said Squeers, ‘he’s the next. Stand up, Graymarsh.’ + +Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the letter as +before. + +‘Graymarsh’s maternal aunt,’ said Squeers, when he had possessed himself +of the contents, ‘is very glad to hear he’s so well and happy, and sends +her respectful compliments to Mrs. Squeers, and thinks she must be an +angel. She likewise thinks Mr. Squeers is too good for this world; but +hopes he may long be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent +the two pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards +a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh will put his trust in Providence. +Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything to please Mr. and Mrs +Squeers, and look upon them as his only friends; and that he will love +Master Squeers; and not object to sleeping five in a bed, which no +Christian should. Ah!’ said Squeers, folding it up, ‘a delightful +letter. Very affecting indeed.’ + +It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh’s maternal aunt was +strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no other than his +maternal parent; Squeers, however, without alluding to this part of the +story (which would have sounded immoral before boys), proceeded with +the business by calling out ‘Mobbs,’ whereupon another boy rose, and +Graymarsh resumed his seat. + +‘Mobbs’s step-mother,’ said Squeers, ‘took to her bed on hearing that he +wouldn’t eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. She wishes to know, +by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he quarrels with +his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the +cow’s-liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it. +This was told her in the London newspapers--not by Mr. Squeers, for he is +too kind and too good to set anybody against anybody--and it has vexed +her so much, Mobbs can’t think. She is sorry to find he is discontented, +which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. Squeers will flog him into +a happier state of mind; with which view, she has also stopped his +halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knife with a +corkscrew in it to the Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for +him.’ + +‘A sulky state of feeling,’ said Squeers, after a terrible pause, during +which he had moistened the palm of his right hand again, ‘won’t do. +Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. Mobbs, come to me!’ + +Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation +of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired by the +side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have. + +Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of letters; +some enclosing money, which Mrs. Squeers ‘took care of;’ and others +referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and so forth, all of +which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and calculated +for nobody but young Squeers, who would appear indeed to have had most +accommodating limbs, since everything that came into the school fitted +him to a nicety. His head, in particular, must have been singularly +elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were alike to him. + +This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and +Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of the +boys in the school-room, which was very cold, and where a meal of bread +and cheese was served out shortly after dark. + +There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest +to the master’s desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, so depressed and +self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death could +have come upon him at that time, he would have been almost happy to meet +it. The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse +and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy +place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this state of +feeling; but when he recollected that, being there as an assistant, +he actually seemed--no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had +brought him to that pass--to be the aider and abettor of a system which +filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and +felt, for the moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present +situation must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head +again. + +But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution he had +formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. He had written to +his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of his journey, +and saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, and saying that little as +cheerfully, as he possibly could. He hoped that by remaining where he +was, he might do some good, even there; at all events, others depended +too much on his uncle’s favour, to admit of his awakening his wrath just +then. + +One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish considerations +arising out of his own position. This was the probable destination of +his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived him, and might he not consign +her to some miserable place where her youth and beauty would prove a far +greater curse than ugliness and decrepitude? To a caged man, bound hand +and foot, this was a terrible idea--but no, he thought, his mother was +by; there was the portrait-painter, too--simple enough, but still living +in the world, and of it. He was willing to believe that Ralph Nickleby +had conceived a personal dislike to himself. Having pretty good reason, +by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no great difficulty in arriving +at this conclusion, and tried to persuade himself that the feeling +extended no farther than between them. + +As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once encountered the +upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a +few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He +had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was +observed, shrunk back, as if expecting a blow. + +‘You need not fear me,’ said Nicholas kindly. ‘Are you cold?’ + +‘N-n-o.’ + +‘You are shivering.’ + +‘I am not cold,’ replied Smike quickly. ‘I am used to it.’ + +There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner, and he +was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help +exclaiming, ‘Poor fellow!’ + +If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a word. +But, now, he burst into tears. + +‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ he cried, covering his face with his cracked and +horny hands. ‘My heart will break. It will, it will.’ + +‘Hush!’ said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. ‘Be a man; you +are nearly one by years, God help you.’ + +‘By years!’ cried Smike. ‘Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of +them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now! +Where are they all!’ + +‘Whom do you speak of?’ inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the poor +half-witted creature to reason. ‘Tell me.’ + +‘My friends,’ he replied, ‘myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have +been!’ + +‘There is always hope,’ said Nicholas; he knew not what to say. + +‘No,’ rejoined the other, ‘no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that +died here?’ + +‘I was not here, you know,’ said Nicholas gently; ‘but what of him?’ + +‘Why,’ replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner’s side, ‘I +was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no more for +friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round +his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and talked to him; and +he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘What faces will smile on me when I die!’ cried his companion, +shivering. ‘Who will talk to me in those long nights! They cannot come +from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don’t know what it +is, and shouldn’t know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive +or dead. No hope, no hope!’ + +The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual +listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a +heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired; there was no +retirement there--followed--to his dirty and crowded dormitory. + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Of Miss Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr. Squeers; and of +various Matters and Persons connected no less with the Squeerses than +Nicholas Nickleby + + +When Mr. Squeers left the schoolroom for the night, he betook himself, as +has been before remarked, to his own fireside, which was situated--not +in the room in which Nicholas had supped on the night of his arrival, +but in a smaller apartment in the rear of the premises, where his lady +wife, his amiable son, and accomplished daughter, were in the full +enjoyment of each other’s society; Mrs. Squeers being engaged in the +matronly pursuit of stocking-darning; and the young lady and gentleman +being occupied in the adjustment of some youthful differences, by means +of a pugilistic contest across the table, which, on the approach of +their honoured parent, subsided into a noiseless exchange of kicks +beneath it. + +And, in this place, it may be as well to apprise the reader, that Miss +Fanny Squeers was in her three-and-twentieth year. If there be any one +grace or loveliness inseparable from that particular period of life, +Miss Squeers may be presumed to have been possessed of it, as there is +no reason to suppose that she was a solitary exception to an universal +rule. She was not tall like her mother, but short like her father; from +the former she inherited a voice of harsh quality; from the latter a +remarkable expression of the right eye, something akin to having none at +all. + +Miss Squeers had been spending a few days with a neighbouring friend, +and had only just returned to the parental roof. To this circumstance +may be referred, her having heard nothing of Nicholas, until Mr. Squeers +himself now made him the subject of conversation. + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Squeers, drawing up his chair, ‘what do you think +of him by this time?’ + +‘Think of who?’ inquired Mrs. Squeers; who (as she often remarked) was no +grammarian, thank Heaven. + +‘Of the young man--the new teacher--who else could I mean?’ + +‘Oh! that Knuckleboy,’ said Mrs. Squeers impatiently. ‘I hate him.’ + +‘What do you hate him for, my dear?’ asked Squeers. + +‘What’s that to you?’ retorted Mrs. Squeers. ‘If I hate him, that’s +enough, ain’t it?’ + +‘Quite enough for him, my dear, and a great deal too much I dare say, +if he knew it,’ replied Squeers in a pacific tone. ‘I only ask from +curiosity, my dear.’ + +‘Well, then, if you want to know,’ rejoined Mrs. Squeers, ‘I’ll tell you. +Because he’s a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-up-nosed peacock.’ + +Mrs. Squeers, when excited, was accustomed to use strong language, and, +moreover, to make use of a plurality of epithets, some of which were of +a figurative kind, as the word peacock, and furthermore the allusion +to Nicholas’s nose, which was not intended to be taken in its literal +sense, but rather to bear a latitude of construction according to the +fancy of the hearers. + +Neither were they meant to bear reference to each other, so much as to +the object on whom they were bestowed, as will be seen in the present +case: a peacock with a turned-up nose being a novelty in ornithology, +and a thing not commonly seen. + +‘Hem!’ said Squeers, as if in mild deprecation of this outbreak. ‘He is +cheap, my dear; the young man is very cheap.’ + +‘Not a bit of it,’ retorted Mrs. Squeers. + +‘Five pound a year,’ said Squeers. + +‘What of that; it’s dear if you don’t want him, isn’t it?’ replied his +wife. + +‘But we DO want him,’ urged Squeers. + +‘I don’t see that you want him any more than the dead,’ said +Mrs. Squeers. ‘Don’t tell me. You can put on the cards and in the +advertisements, “Education by Mr. Wackford Squeers and able assistants,” + without having any assistants, can’t you? Isn’t it done every day by all +the masters about? I’ve no patience with you.’ + +‘Haven’t you!’ said Squeers, sternly. ‘Now I’ll tell you what, Mrs +Squeers. In this matter of having a teacher, I’ll take my own way, if +you please. A slave driver in the West Indies is allowed a man under +him, to see that his blacks don’t run away, or get up a rebellion; and +I’ll have a man under me to do the same with OUR blacks, till such time +as little Wackford is able to take charge of the school.’ + +‘Am I to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?’ said +Wackford junior, suspending, in the excess of his delight, a vicious +kick which he was administering to his sister. + +‘You are, my son,’ replied Mr. Squeers, in a sentimental voice. + +‘Oh my eye, won’t I give it to the boys!’ exclaimed the interesting +child, grasping his father’s cane. ‘Oh, father, won’t I make ‘em squeak +again!’ + +It was a proud moment in Mr. Squeers’s life, when he witnessed that burst +of enthusiasm in his young child’s mind, and saw in it a foreshadowing +of his future eminence. He pressed a penny into his hand, and gave +vent to his feelings (as did his exemplary wife also), in a shout of +approving laughter. The infantine appeal to their common sympathies, +at once restored cheerfulness to the conversation, and harmony to the +company. + +‘He’s a nasty stuck-up monkey, that’s what I consider him,’ said Mrs +Squeers, reverting to Nicholas. + +‘Supposing he is,’ said Squeers, ‘he is as well stuck up in our +schoolroom as anywhere else, isn’t he?--especially as he don’t like it.’ + +‘Well,’ observed Mrs. Squeers, ‘there’s something in that. I hope it’ll +bring his pride down, and it shall be no fault of mine if it don’t.’ + +Now, a proud usher in a Yorkshire school was such a very extraordinary +and unaccountable thing to hear of,--any usher at all being a novelty; +but a proud one, a being of whose existence the wildest imagination +could never have dreamed--that Miss Squeers, who seldom troubled +herself with scholastic matters, inquired with much curiosity who this +Knuckleboy was, that gave himself such airs. + +‘Nickleby,’ said Squeers, spelling the name according to some eccentric +system which prevailed in his own mind; ‘your mother always calls things +and people by their wrong names.’ + +‘No matter for that,’ said Mrs. Squeers; ‘I see them with right eyes, +and that’s quite enough for me. I watched him when you were laying on +to little Bolder this afternoon. He looked as black as thunder, all the +while, and, one time, started up as if he had more than got it in his +mind to make a rush at you. I saw him, though he thought I didn’t.’ + +‘Never mind that, father,’ said Miss Squeers, as the head of the family +was about to reply. ‘Who is the man?’ + +‘Why, your father has got some nonsense in his head that he’s the son of +a poor gentleman that died the other day,’ said Mrs. Squeers. + +‘The son of a gentleman!’ + +‘Yes; but I don’t believe a word of it. If he’s a gentleman’s son at +all, he’s a fondling, that’s my opinion.’ + +‘Mrs. Squeers intended to say ‘foundling,’ but, as she frequently +remarked when she made any such mistake, it would be all the same a +hundred years hence; with which axiom of philosophy, indeed, she was in +the constant habit of consoling the boys when they laboured under more +than ordinary ill-usage. + +‘He’s nothing of the kind,’ said Squeers, in answer to the above remark, +‘for his father was married to his mother years before he was born, and +she is alive now. If he was, it would be no business of ours, for we +make a very good friend by having him here; and if he likes to learn the +boys anything besides minding them, I have no objection I am sure.’ + +‘I say again, I hate him worse than poison,’ said Mrs. Squeers +vehemently. + +‘If you dislike him, my dear,’ returned Squeers, ‘I don’t know anybody +who can show dislike better than you, and of course there’s no occasion, +with him, to take the trouble to hide it.’ + +‘I don’t intend to, I assure you,’ interposed Mrs. S. + +‘That’s right,’ said Squeers; ‘and if he has a touch of pride about him, +as I think he has, I don’t believe there’s woman in all England that can +bring anybody’s spirit down, as quick as you can, my love.’ + +Mrs. Squeers chuckled vastly on the receipt of these flattering +compliments, and said, she hoped she had tamed a high spirit or two in +her day. It is but due to her character to say, that in conjunction with +her estimable husband, she had broken many and many a one. + +Miss Fanny Squeers carefully treasured up this, and much more +conversation on the same subject, until she retired for the night, +when she questioned the hungry servant, minutely, regarding the outward +appearance and demeanour of Nicholas; to which queries the girl returned +such enthusiastic replies, coupled with so many laudatory remarks +touching his beautiful dark eyes, and his sweet smile, and his straight +legs--upon which last-named articles she laid particular stress; the +general run of legs at Dotheboys Hall being crooked--that Miss Squeers +was not long in arriving at the conclusion that the new usher must be +a very remarkable person, or, as she herself significantly phrased it, +‘something quite out of the common.’ And so Miss Squeers made up her +mind that she would take a personal observation of Nicholas the very +next day. + +In pursuance of this design, the young lady watched the opportunity of +her mother being engaged, and her father absent, and went accidentally +into the schoolroom to get a pen mended: where, seeing nobody but +Nicholas presiding over the boys, she blushed very deeply, and exhibited +great confusion. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ faltered Miss Squeers; ‘I thought my father was--or +might be--dear me, how very awkward!’ + +‘Mr. Squeers is out,’ said Nicholas, by no means overcome by the +apparition, unexpected though it was. + +‘Do you know will he be long, sir?’ asked Miss Squeers, with bashful +hesitation. + +‘He said about an hour,’ replied Nicholas--politely of course, but +without any indication of being stricken to the heart by Miss Squeers’s +charms. + +‘I never knew anything happen so cross,’ exclaimed the young lady. +‘Thank you! I am very sorry I intruded, I am sure. If I hadn’t thought +my father was here, I wouldn’t upon any account have--it is very +provoking--must look so very strange,’ murmured Miss Squeers, blushing +once more, and glancing, from the pen in her hand, to Nicholas at his +desk, and back again. + +‘If that is all you want,’ said Nicholas, pointing to the pen, and +smiling, in spite of himself, at the affected embarrassment of the +schoolmaster’s daughter, ‘perhaps I can supply his place.’ + +Miss Squeers glanced at the door, as if dubious of the propriety of +advancing any nearer to an utter stranger; then round the schoolroom, +as though in some measure reassured by the presence of forty boys; and +finally sidled up to Nicholas and delivered the pen into his hand, with +a most winning mixture of reserve and condescension. + +‘Shall it be a hard or a soft nib?’ inquired Nicholas, smiling to +prevent himself from laughing outright. + +‘He HAS a beautiful smile,’ thought Miss Squeers. + +‘Which did you say?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Dear me, I was thinking of something else for the moment, I declare,’ +replied Miss Squeers. ‘Oh! as soft as possible, if you please.’ With +which words, Miss Squeers sighed. It might be, to give Nicholas to +understand that her heart was soft, and that the pen was wanted to +match. + +Upon these instructions Nicholas made the pen; when he gave it to Miss +Squeers, Miss Squeers dropped it; and when he stooped to pick it up, +Miss Squeers stooped also, and they knocked their heads together; +whereat five-and-twenty little boys laughed aloud: being positively for +the first and only time that half-year. + +‘Very awkward of me,’ said Nicholas, opening the door for the young +lady’s retreat. + +‘Not at all, sir,’ replied Miss Squeers; ‘it was my fault. It was all my +foolish--a--a--good-morning!’ + +‘Goodbye,’ said Nicholas. ‘The next I make for you, I hope will be made +less clumsily. Take care! You are biting the nib off now.’ + +‘Really,’ said Miss Squeers; ‘so embarrassing that I scarcely know what +I--very sorry to give you so much trouble.’ + +‘Not the least trouble in the world,’ replied Nicholas, closing the +schoolroom door. + +‘I never saw such legs in the whole course of my life!’ said Miss +Squeers, as she walked away. + +In fact, Miss Squeers was in love with Nicholas Nickleby. + +To account for the rapidity with which this young lady had conceived a +passion for Nicholas, it may be necessary to state, that the friend +from whom she had so recently returned, was a miller’s daughter of +only eighteen, who had contracted herself unto the son of a small +corn-factor, resident in the nearest market town. Miss Squeers and the +miller’s daughter, being fast friends, had covenanted together some two +years before, according to a custom prevalent among young ladies, that +whoever was first engaged to be married, should straightway confide the +mighty secret to the bosom of the other, before communicating it to +any living soul, and bespeak her as bridesmaid without loss of time; in +fulfilment of which pledge the miller’s daughter, when her engagement +was formed, came out express, at eleven o’clock at night as the +corn-factor’s son made an offer of his hand and heart at twenty-five +minutes past ten by the Dutch clock in the kitchen, and rushed into Miss +Squeers’s bedroom with the gratifying intelligence. Now, Miss Squeers +being five years older, and out of her teens (which is also a great +matter), had, since, been more than commonly anxious to return the +compliment, and possess her friend with a similar secret; but, either +in consequence of finding it hard to please herself, or harder still to +please anybody else, had never had an opportunity so to do, inasmuch as +she had no such secret to disclose. The little interview with Nicholas +had no sooner passed, as above described, however, than Miss Squeers, +putting on her bonnet, made her way, with great precipitation, to +her friend’s house, and, upon a solemn renewal of divers old vows of +secrecy, revealed how that she was--not exactly engaged, but going to +be--to a gentleman’s son--(none of your corn-factors, but a gentleman’s +son of high descent)--who had come down as teacher to Dotheboys Hall, +under most mysterious and remarkable circumstances--indeed, as Miss +Squeers more than once hinted she had good reason to believe, induced, +by the fame of her many charms, to seek her out, and woo and win her. + +‘Isn’t it an extraordinary thing?’ said Miss Squeers, emphasising the +adjective strongly. + +‘Most extraordinary,’ replied the friend. ‘But what has he said to you?’ + +‘Don’t ask me what he said, my dear,’ rejoined Miss Squeers. ‘If you had +only seen his looks and smiles! I never was so overcome in all my life.’ + +‘Did he look in this way?’ inquired the miller’s daughter, +counterfeiting, as nearly as she could, a favourite leer of the +corn-factor. + +‘Very like that--only more genteel,’ replied Miss Squeers. + +‘Ah!’ said the friend, ‘then he means something, depend on it.’ + +Miss Squeers, having slight misgivings on the subject, was by no means +ill pleased to be confirmed by a competent authority; and discovering, +on further conversation and comparison of notes, a great many points +of resemblance between the behaviour of Nicholas, and that of the +corn-factor, grew so exceedingly confidential, that she intrusted her +friend with a vast number of things Nicholas had NOT said, which were +all so very complimentary as to be quite conclusive. Then, she dilated +on the fearful hardship of having a father and mother strenuously +opposed to her intended husband; on which unhappy circumstance she dwelt +at great length; for the friend’s father and mother were quite agreeable +to her being married, and the whole courtship was in consequence as flat +and common-place an affair as it was possible to imagine. + +‘How I should like to see him!’ exclaimed the friend. + +‘So you shall, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers. ‘I should consider myself +one of the most ungrateful creatures alive, if I denied you. I think +mother’s going away for two days to fetch some boys; and when she does, +I’ll ask you and John up to tea, and have him to meet you.’ + +This was a charming idea, and having fully discussed it, the friends +parted. + +It so fell out, that Mrs. Squeers’s journey, to some distance, to fetch +three new boys, and dun the relations of two old ones for the balance +of a small account, was fixed that very afternoon, for the next day but +one; and on the next day but one, Mrs. Squeers got up outside the coach, +as it stopped to change at Greta Bridge, taking with her a small bundle +containing something in a bottle, and some sandwiches, and carrying +besides a large white top-coat to wear in the night-time; with which +baggage she went her way. + +Whenever such opportunities as these occurred, it was Squeers’s custom +to drive over to the market town, every evening, on pretence of urgent +business, and stop till ten or eleven o’clock at a tavern he much +affected. As the party was not in his way, therefore, but rather +afforded a means of compromise with Miss Squeers, he readily yielded his +full assent thereunto, and willingly communicated to Nicholas that +he was expected to take his tea in the parlour that evening, at five +o’clock. + +To be sure Miss Squeers was in a desperate flutter as the time +approached, and to be sure she was dressed out to the best advantage: +with her hair--it had more than a tinge of red, and she wore it in a +crop--curled in five distinct rows, up to the very top of her head, and +arranged dexterously over the doubtful eye; to say nothing of the +blue sash which floated down her back, or the worked apron or the long +gloves, or the green gauze scarf worn over one shoulder and under the +other; or any of the numerous devices which were to be as so many arrows +to the heart of Nicholas. She had scarcely completed these arrangements +to her entire satisfaction, when the friend arrived with a whity-brown +parcel--flat and three-cornered--containing sundry small adornments +which were to be put on upstairs, and which the friend put on, talking +incessantly. When Miss Squeers had ‘done’ the friend’s hair, the friend +‘did’ Miss Squeers’s hair, throwing in some striking improvements in the +way of ringlets down the neck; and then, when they were both touched up +to their entire satisfaction, they went downstairs in full state with +the long gloves on, all ready for company. + +‘Where’s John, ‘Tilda?’ said Miss Squeers. + +‘Only gone home to clean himself,’ replied the friend. ‘He will be here +by the time the tea’s drawn.’ + +‘I do so palpitate,’ observed Miss Squeers. + +‘Ah! I know what it is,’ replied the friend. + +‘I have not been used to it, you know, ‘Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, +applying her hand to the left side of her sash. + +‘You’ll soon get the better of it, dear,’ rejoined the friend. While +they were talking thus, the hungry servant brought in the tea-things, +and, soon afterwards, somebody tapped at the room door. + +‘There he is!’ cried Miss Squeers. ‘Oh ‘Tilda!’ + +‘Hush!’ said ‘Tilda. ‘Hem! Say, come in.’ + +‘Come in,’ cried Miss Squeers faintly. And in walked Nicholas. + +‘Good-evening,’ said that young gentleman, all unconscious of his +conquest. ‘I understood from Mr. Squeers that--’ + +‘Oh yes; it’s all right,’ interposed Miss Squeers. ‘Father don’t tea +with us, but you won’t mind that, I dare say.’ (This was said archly.) + +Nicholas opened his eyes at this, but he turned the matter off very +coolly--not caring, particularly, about anything just then--and went +through the ceremony of introduction to the miller’s daughter with so +much grace, that that young lady was lost in admiration. + +‘We are only waiting for one more gentleman,’ said Miss Squeers, taking +off the teapot lid, and looking in, to see how the tea was getting on. + +It was matter of equal moment to Nicholas whether they were waiting for +one gentleman or twenty, so he received the intelligence with perfect +unconcern; and, being out of spirits, and not seeing any especial reason +why he should make himself agreeable, looked out of the window and +sighed involuntarily. + +As luck would have it, Miss Squeers’s friend was of a playful turn, and +hearing Nicholas sigh, she took it into her head to rally the lovers on +their lowness of spirits. + +‘But if it’s caused by my being here,’ said the young lady, ‘don’t mind +me a bit, for I’m quite as bad. You may go on just as you would if you +were alone.’ + +‘’Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, colouring up to the top row of curls, +‘I am ashamed of you;’ and here the two friends burst into a variety +of giggles, and glanced from time to time, over the tops of +their pocket-handkerchiefs, at Nicholas, who from a state of +unmixed astonishment, gradually fell into one of irrepressible +laughter--occasioned, partly by the bare notion of his being in love +with Miss Squeers, and partly by the preposterous appearance and +behaviour of the two girls. These two causes of merriment, taken +together, struck him as being so keenly ridiculous, that, despite his +miserable condition, he laughed till he was thoroughly exhausted. + +‘Well,’ thought Nicholas, ‘as I am here, and seem expected, for some +reason or other, to be amiable, it’s of no use looking like a goose. I +may as well accommodate myself to the company.’ + +We blush to tell it; but his youthful spirits and vivacity getting, +for the time, the better of his sad thoughts, he no sooner formed +this resolution than he saluted Miss Squeers and the friend with great +gallantry, and drawing a chair to the tea-table, began to make himself +more at home than in all probability an usher has ever done in his +employer’s house since ushers were first invented. + +The ladies were in the full delight of this altered behaviour on the +part of Mr. Nickleby, when the expected swain arrived, with his hair very +damp from recent washing, and a clean shirt, whereof the collar might +have belonged to some giant ancestor, forming, together with a white +waistcoat of similar dimensions, the chief ornament of his person. + +‘Well, John,’ said Miss Matilda Price (which, by-the-bye, was the name +of the miller’s daughter). + +‘Weel,’ said John with a grin that even the collar could not conceal. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ interposed Miss Squeers, hastening to do the +honours. ‘Mr. Nickleby--Mr. John Browdie.’ + +‘Servant, sir,’ said John, who was something over six feet high, with a +face and body rather above the due proportion than below it. + +‘Yours to command, sir,’ replied Nicholas, making fearful ravages on the +bread and butter. + +Mr. Browdie was not a gentleman of great conversational powers, so +he grinned twice more, and having now bestowed his customary mark +of recognition on every person in company, grinned at nothing in +particular, and helped himself to food. + +‘Old wooman awa’, bean’t she?’ said Mr. Browdie, with his mouth full. + +Miss Squeers nodded assent. + +Mr. Browdie gave a grin of special width, as if he thought that really +was something to laugh at, and went to work at the bread and butter with +increased vigour. It was quite a sight to behold how he and Nicholas +emptied the plate between them. + +‘Ye wean’t get bread and butther ev’ry neight, I expect, mun,’ said Mr +Browdie, after he had sat staring at Nicholas a long time over the empty +plate. + +Nicholas bit his lip, and coloured, but affected not to hear the remark. + +‘Ecod,’ said Mr. Browdie, laughing boisterously, ‘they dean’t put too +much intiv’em. Ye’ll be nowt but skeen and boans if you stop here long +eneaf. Ho! ho! ho!’ + +‘You are facetious, sir,’ said Nicholas, scornfully. + +‘Na; I dean’t know,’ replied Mr. Browdie, ‘but t’oother teacher, ‘cod +he wur a learn ‘un, he wur.’ The recollection of the last teacher’s +leanness seemed to afford Mr. Browdie the most exquisite delight, for he +laughed until he found it necessary to apply his coat-cuffs to his eyes. + +‘I don’t know whether your perceptions are quite keen enough, Mr +Browdie, to enable you to understand that your remarks are offensive,’ +said Nicholas in a towering passion, ‘but if they are, have the goodness +to--’ + +‘If you say another word, John,’ shrieked Miss Price, stopping her +admirer’s mouth as he was about to interrupt, ‘only half a word, I’ll +never forgive you, or speak to you again.’ + +‘Weel, my lass, I dean’t care aboot ‘un,’ said the corn-factor, +bestowing a hearty kiss on Miss Matilda; ‘let ‘un gang on, let ‘un gang +on.’ + +It now became Miss Squeers’s turn to intercede with Nicholas, which she +did with many symptoms of alarm and horror; the effect of the double +intercession was, that he and John Browdie shook hands across the table +with much gravity; and such was the imposing nature of the ceremonial, +that Miss Squeers was overcome and shed tears. + +‘What’s the matter, Fanny?’ said Miss Price. + +‘Nothing, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, sobbing. + +‘There never was any danger,’ said Miss Price, ‘was there, Mr. Nickleby?’ + +‘None at all,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Absurd.’ + +‘That’s right,’ whispered Miss Price, ‘say something kind to her, +and she’ll soon come round. Here! Shall John and I go into the little +kitchen, and come back presently?’ + +‘Not on any account,’ rejoined Nicholas, quite alarmed at the +proposition. ‘What on earth should you do that for?’ + +‘Well,’ said Miss Price, beckoning him aside, and speaking with some +degree of contempt--‘you ARE a one to keep company.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ said Nicholas; ‘I am not a one to keep company at +all--here at all events. I can’t make this out.’ + +‘No, nor I neither,’ rejoined Miss Price; ‘but men are always fickle, +and always were, and always will be; that I can make out, very easily.’ + +‘Fickle!’ cried Nicholas; ‘what do you suppose? You don’t mean to say +that you think--’ + +‘Oh no, I think nothing at all,’ retorted Miss Price, pettishly. +‘Look at her, dressed so beautiful and looking so well--really ALMOST +handsome. I am ashamed at you.’ + +‘My dear girl, what have I got to do with her dressing beautifully or +looking well?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘Come, don’t call me a dear girl,’ said Miss Price--smiling a little +though, for she was pretty, and a coquette too in her small way, and +Nicholas was good-looking, and she supposed him the property of somebody +else, which were all reasons why she should be gratified to think she +had made an impression on him,--‘or Fanny will be saying it’s my fault. +Come; we’re going to have a game at cards.’ Pronouncing these last words +aloud, she tripped away and rejoined the big Yorkshireman. + +This was wholly unintelligible to Nicholas, who had no other distinct +impression on his mind at the moment, than that Miss Squeers was an +ordinary-looking girl, and her friend Miss Price a pretty one; but he +had not time to enlighten himself by reflection, for the hearth being +by this time swept up, and the candle snuffed, they sat down to play +speculation. + +‘There are only four of us, ‘Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, looking slyly at +Nicholas; ‘so we had better go partners, two against two.’ + +‘What do you say, Mr. Nickleby?’ inquired Miss Price. + +‘With all the pleasure in life,’ replied Nicholas. And so saying, quite +unconscious of his heinous offence, he amalgamated into one common heap +those portions of a Dotheboys Hall card of terms, which represented his +own counters, and those allotted to Miss Price, respectively. + +‘Mr. Browdie,’ said Miss Squeers hysterically, ‘shall we make a bank +against them?’ + +The Yorkshireman assented--apparently quite overwhelmed by the new +usher’s impudence--and Miss Squeers darted a spiteful look at her +friend, and giggled convulsively. + +The deal fell to Nicholas, and the hand prospered. + +‘We intend to win everything,’ said he. + +‘’Tilda HAS won something she didn’t expect, I think, haven’t you, +dear?’ said Miss Squeers, maliciously. + +‘Only a dozen and eight, love,’ replied Miss Price, affecting to take +the question in a literal sense. + +‘How dull you are tonight!’ sneered Miss Squeers. + +‘No, indeed,’ replied Miss Price, ‘I am in excellent spirits. I was +thinking YOU seemed out of sorts.’ + +‘Me!’ cried Miss Squeers, biting her lips, and trembling with very +jealousy. ‘Oh no!’ + +‘That’s well,’ remarked Miss Price. ‘Your hair’s coming out of curl, +dear.’ + +‘Never mind me,’ tittered Miss Squeers; ‘you had better attend to your +partner.’ + +‘Thank you for reminding her,’ said Nicholas. ‘So she had.’ + +The Yorkshireman flattened his nose, once or twice, with his clenched +fist, as if to keep his hand in, till he had an opportunity of +exercising it upon the features of some other gentleman; and Miss +Squeers tossed her head with such indignation, that the gust of wind +raised by the multitudinous curls in motion, nearly blew the candle out. + +‘I never had such luck, really,’ exclaimed coquettish Miss Price, after +another hand or two. ‘It’s all along of you, Mr. Nickleby, I think. I +should like to have you for a partner always.’ + +‘I wish you had.’ + +‘You’ll have a bad wife, though, if you always win at cards,’ said Miss +Price. + +‘Not if your wish is gratified,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I am sure I shall +have a good one in that case.’ + +To see how Miss Squeers tossed her head, and the corn-factor flattened +his nose, while this conversation was carrying on! It would have been +worth a small annuity to have beheld that; let alone Miss Price’s +evident joy at making them jealous, and Nicholas Nickleby’s happy +unconsciousness of making anybody uncomfortable. + +‘We have all the talking to ourselves, it seems,’ said Nicholas, looking +good-humouredly round the table as he took up the cards for a fresh +deal. + +‘You do it so well,’ tittered Miss Squeers, ‘that it would be a pity to +interrupt, wouldn’t it, Mr. Browdie? He! he! he!’ + +‘Nay,’ said Nicholas, ‘we do it in default of having anybody else to +talk to.’ + +‘We’ll talk to you, you know, if you’ll say anything,’ said Miss Price. + +‘Thank you, ‘Tilda, dear,’ retorted Miss Squeers, majestically. + +‘Or you can talk to each other, if you don’t choose to talk to us,’ +said Miss Price, rallying her dear friend. ‘John, why don’t you say +something?’ + +‘Say summat?’ repeated the Yorkshireman. + +‘Ay, and not sit there so silent and glum.’ + +‘Weel, then!’ said the Yorkshireman, striking the table heavily with his +fist, ‘what I say’s this--Dang my boans and boddy, if I stan’ this ony +longer. Do ye gang whoam wi’ me, and do yon loight an’ toight young +whipster look sharp out for a brokken head, next time he cums under my +hond.’ + +‘Mercy on us, what’s all this?’ cried Miss Price, in affected +astonishment. + +‘Cum whoam, tell ‘e, cum whoam,’ replied the Yorkshireman, sternly. And +as he delivered the reply, Miss Squeers burst into a shower of tears; +arising in part from desperate vexation, and in part from an impotent +desire to lacerate somebody’s countenance with her fair finger-nails. + +This state of things had been brought about by divers means and +workings. Miss Squeers had brought it about, by aspiring to the high +state and condition of being matrimonially engaged, without good grounds +for so doing; Miss Price had brought it about, by indulging in three +motives of action: first, a desire to punish her friend for laying +claim to a rivalship in dignity, having no good title: secondly, the +gratification of her own vanity, in receiving the compliments of a smart +young man: and thirdly, a wish to convince the corn-factor of the great +danger he ran, in deferring the celebration of their expected nuptials; +while Nicholas had brought it about, by half an hour’s gaiety and +thoughtlessness, and a very sincere desire to avoid the imputation of +inclining at all to Miss Squeers. So the means employed, and the end +produced, were alike the most natural in the world; for young ladies +will look forward to being married, and will jostle each other in the +race to the altar, and will avail themselves of all opportunities of +displaying their own attractions to the best advantage, down to the very +end of time, as they have done from its beginning. + +‘Why, and here’s Fanny in tears now!’ exclaimed Miss Price, as if in +fresh amazement. ‘What can be the matter?’ + +‘Oh! you don’t know, miss, of course you don’t know. Pray don’t trouble +yourself to inquire,’ said Miss Squeers, producing that change of +countenance which children call making a face. + +‘Well, I’m sure!’ exclaimed Miss Price. + +‘And who cares whether you are sure or not, ma’am?’ retorted Miss +Squeers, making another face. + +‘You are monstrous polite, ma’am,’ said Miss Price. + +‘I shall not come to you to take lessons in the art, ma’am!’ retorted +Miss Squeers. + +‘You needn’t take the trouble to make yourself plainer than you +are, ma’am, however,’ rejoined Miss Price, ‘because that’s quite +unnecessary.’ + +Miss Squeers, in reply, turned very red, and thanked God that she +hadn’t got the bold faces of some people. Miss Price, in rejoinder, +congratulated herself upon not being possessed of the envious feeling of +other people; whereupon Miss Squeers made some general remark touching +the danger of associating with low persons; in which Miss Price entirely +coincided: observing that it was very true indeed, and she had thought +so a long time. + +‘’Tilda,’ exclaimed Miss Squeers with dignity, ‘I hate you.’ + +‘Ah! There’s no love lost between us, I assure you,’ said Miss Price, +tying her bonnet strings with a jerk. ‘You’ll cry your eyes out, when +I’m gone; you know you will.’ + +‘I scorn your words, Minx,’ said Miss Squeers. + +‘You pay me a great compliment when you say so,’ answered the miller’s +daughter, curtseying very low. ‘Wish you a very good-night, ma’am, and +pleasant dreams attend your sleep!’ + +With this parting benediction, Miss Price swept from the room, followed +by the huge Yorkshireman, who exchanged with Nicholas, at parting, that +peculiarly expressive scowl with which the cut-and-thrust counts, in +melodramatic performances, inform each other they will meet again. + +They were no sooner gone, than Miss Squeers fulfilled the prediction of +her quondam friend by giving vent to a most copious burst of tears, +and uttering various dismal lamentations and incoherent words. Nicholas +stood looking on for a few seconds, rather doubtful what to do, but +feeling uncertain whether the fit would end in his being embraced, +or scratched, and considering that either infliction would be equally +agreeable, he walked off very quietly while Miss Squeers was moaning in +her pocket-handkerchief. + +‘This is one consequence,’ thought Nicholas, when he had groped his way +to the dark sleeping-room, ‘of my cursed readiness to adapt myself +to any society in which chance carries me. If I had sat mute and +motionless, as I might have done, this would not have happened.’ + +He listened for a few minutes, but all was quiet. + +‘I was glad,’ he murmured, ‘to grasp at any relief from the sight of +this dreadful place, or the presence of its vile master. I have set +these people by the ears, and made two new enemies, where, Heaven knows, +I needed none. Well, it is a just punishment for having forgotten, even +for an hour, what is around me now!’ + +So saying, he felt his way among the throng of weary-hearted sleepers, +and crept into his poor bed. + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +How Mr. Ralph Nickleby provided for his Niece and Sister-in-Law + + +On the second morning after the departure of Nicholas for Yorkshire, +Kate Nickleby sat in a very faded chair raised upon a very dusty throne +in Miss La Creevy’s room, giving that lady a sitting for the portrait +upon which she was engaged; and towards the full perfection of which, +Miss La Creevy had had the street-door case brought upstairs, in +order that she might be the better able to infuse into the counterfeit +countenance of Miss Nickleby, a bright salmon flesh-tint which she had +originally hit upon while executing the miniature of a young officer +therein contained, and which bright salmon flesh-tint was considered, +by Miss La Creevy’s chief friends and patrons, to be quite a novelty in +art: as indeed it was. + +‘I think I have caught it now,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘The very shade! +This will be the sweetest portrait I have ever done, certainly.’ + +‘It will be your genius that makes it so, then, I am sure,’ replied +Kate, smiling. + +‘No, no, I won’t allow that, my dear,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. ‘It’s +a very nice subject--a very nice subject, indeed--though, of course, +something depends upon the mode of treatment.’ + +‘And not a little,’ observed Kate. + +‘Why, my dear, you are right there,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘in the main +you are right there; though I don’t allow that it is of such very great +importance in the present case. Ah! The difficulties of Art, my dear, +are great.’ + +‘They must be, I have no doubt,’ said Kate, humouring her good-natured +little friend. + +‘They are beyond anything you can form the faintest conception of,’ +replied Miss La Creevy. ‘What with bringing out eyes with all one’s +power, and keeping down noses with all one’s force, and adding to heads, +and taking away teeth altogether, you have no idea of the trouble one +little miniature is.’ + +‘The remuneration can scarcely repay you,’ said Kate. + +‘Why, it does not, and that’s the truth,’ answered Miss La Creevy; ‘and +then people are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine times out +of ten, there’s no pleasure in painting them. Sometimes they say, “Oh, +how very serious you have made me look, Miss La Creevy!” and at others, +“La, Miss La Creevy, how very smirking!” when the very essence of a +good portrait is, that it must be either serious or smirking, or it’s no +portrait at all.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Kate, laughing. + +‘Certainly, my dear; because the sitters are always either the one or +the other,’ replied Miss La Creevy. ‘Look at the Royal Academy! All +those beautiful shiny portraits of gentlemen in black velvet waistcoats, +with their fists doubled up on round tables, or marble slabs, are +serious, you know; and all the ladies who are playing with little +parasols, or little dogs, or little children--it’s the same rule in art, +only varying the objects--are smirking. In fact,’ said Miss La Creevy, +sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, ‘there are only two styles +of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk; and we always use the +serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk +for private ladies and gentlemen who don’t care so much about looking +clever.’ + +Kate seemed highly amused by this information, and Miss La Creevy went +on painting and talking, with immovable complacency. + +‘What a number of officers you seem to paint!’ said Kate, availing +herself of a pause in the discourse, and glancing round the room. + +‘Number of what, child?’ inquired Miss La Creevy, looking up from her +work. ‘Character portraits, oh yes--they’re not real military men, you +know.’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Bless your heart, of course not; only clerks and that, who hire a +uniform coat to be painted in, and send it here in a carpet bag. +Some artists,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘keep a red coat, and charge +seven-and-sixpence extra for hire and carmine; but I don’t do that +myself, for I don’t consider it legitimate.’ + +Drawing herself up, as though she plumed herself greatly upon not +resorting to these lures to catch sitters, Miss La Creevy applied +herself, more intently, to her task: only raising her head occasionally, +to look with unspeakable satisfaction at some touch she had just put +in: and now and then giving Miss Nickleby to understand what particular +feature she was at work upon, at the moment; ‘not,’ she expressly +observed, ‘that you should make it up for painting, my dear, but because +it’s our custom sometimes to tell sitters what part we are upon, in +order that if there’s any particular expression they want introduced, +they may throw it in, at the time, you know.’ + +‘And when,’ said Miss La Creevy, after a long silence, to wit, an +interval of full a minute and a half, ‘when do you expect to see your +uncle again?’ + +‘I scarcely know; I had expected to have seen him before now,’ replied +Kate. ‘Soon I hope, for this state of uncertainty is worse than +anything.’ + +‘I suppose he has money, hasn’t he?’ inquired Miss La Creevy. + +‘He is very rich, I have heard,’ rejoined Kate. ‘I don’t know that he +is, but I believe so.’ + +‘Ah, you may depend upon it he is, or he wouldn’t be so surly,’ +remarked Miss La Creevy, who was an odd little mixture of shrewdness and +simplicity. ‘When a man’s a bear, he is generally pretty independent.’ + +‘His manner is rough,’ said Kate. + +‘Rough!’ cried Miss La Creevy, ‘a porcupine’s a featherbed to him! I +never met with such a cross-grained old savage.’ + +‘It is only his manner, I believe,’ observed Kate, timidly; ‘he was +disappointed in early life, I think I have heard, or has had his temper +soured by some calamity. I should be sorry to think ill of him until I +knew he deserved it.’ + +‘Well; that’s very right and proper,’ observed the miniature painter, +‘and Heaven forbid that I should be the cause of your doing so! But, +now, mightn’t he, without feeling it himself, make you and your mama +some nice little allowance that would keep you both comfortable until +you were well married, and be a little fortune to her afterwards? What +would a hundred a year for instance, be to him?’ + +‘I don’t know what it would be to him,’ said Kate, with energy, ‘but it +would be that to me I would rather die than take.’ + +‘Heyday!’ cried Miss La Creevy. + +‘A dependence upon him,’ said Kate, ‘would embitter my whole life. I +should feel begging a far less degradation.’ + +‘Well!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy. ‘This of a relation whom you will not +hear an indifferent person speak ill of, my dear, sounds oddly enough, I +confess.’ + +‘I dare say it does,’ replied Kate, speaking more gently, ‘indeed I am +sure it must. I--I--only mean that with the feelings and recollection of +better times upon me, I could not bear to live on anybody’s bounty--not +his particularly, but anybody’s.’ + +Miss La Creevy looked slyly at her companion, as if she doubted whether +Ralph himself were not the subject of dislike, but seeing that her young +friend was distressed, made no remark. + +‘I only ask of him,’ continued Kate, whose tears fell while she spoke, +‘that he will move so little out of his way, in my behalf, as to +enable me by his recommendation--only by his recommendation--to earn, +literally, my bread and remain with my mother. Whether we shall ever +taste happiness again, depends upon the fortunes of my dear brother; +but if he will do this, and Nicholas only tells us that he is well and +cheerful, I shall be contented.’ + +As she ceased to speak, there was a rustling behind the screen +which stood between her and the door, and some person knocked at the +wainscot.’ + +‘Come in, whoever it is!’ cried Miss La Creevy. + +The person complied, and, coming forward at once, gave to view the form +and features of no less an individual than Mr. Ralph Nickleby himself. + +‘Your servant, ladies,’ said Ralph, looking sharply at them by turns. +‘You were talking so loud, that I was unable to make you hear.’ + +When the man of business had a more than commonly vicious snarl lurking +at his heart, he had a trick of almost concealing his eyes under their +thick and protruding brows, for an instant, and then displaying them in +their full keenness. As he did so now, and tried to keep down the smile +which parted his thin compressed lips, and puckered up the bad lines +about his mouth, they both felt certain that some part, if not the +whole, of their recent conversation, had been overheard. + +‘I called in, on my way upstairs, more than half expecting to find you +here,’ said Ralph, addressing his niece, and looking contemptuously at +the portrait. ‘Is that my niece’s portrait, ma’am?’ + +‘Yes it is, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Miss La Creevy, with a very sprightly +air, ‘and between you and me and the post, sir, it will be a very nice +portrait too, though I say it who am the painter.’ + +‘Don’t trouble yourself to show it to me, ma’am,’ cried Ralph, moving +away, ‘I have no eye for likenesses. Is it nearly finished?’ + +‘Why, yes,’ replied Miss La Creevy, considering with the pencil end of +her brush in her mouth. ‘Two sittings more will--’ + +‘Have them at once, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘She’ll have no time to idle +over fooleries after tomorrow. Work, ma’am, work; we must all work. Have +you let your lodgings, ma’am?’ + +‘I have not put a bill up yet, sir.’ + +‘Put it up at once, ma’am; they won’t want the rooms after this week, +or if they do, can’t pay for them. Now, my dear, if you’re ready, we’ll +lose no more time.’ + +With an assumption of kindness which sat worse upon him even than his +usual manner, Mr. Ralph Nickleby motioned to the young lady to precede +him, and bowing gravely to Miss La Creevy, closed the door and followed +upstairs, where Mrs. Nickleby received him with many expressions of +regard. Stopping them somewhat abruptly, Ralph waved his hand with an +impatient gesture, and proceeded to the object of his visit. + +‘I have found a situation for your daughter, ma’am,’ said Ralph. + +‘Well,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Now, I will say that that is only just +what I have expected of you. “Depend upon it,” I said to Kate, only +yesterday morning at breakfast, “that after your uncle has provided, in +that most ready manner, for Nicholas, he will not leave us until he has +done at least the same for you.” These were my very words, as near as I +remember. Kate, my dear, why don’t you thank your--’ + +‘Let me proceed, ma’am, pray,’ said Ralph, interrupting his +sister-in-law in the full torrent of her discourse. + +‘Kate, my love, let your uncle proceed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘I am most anxious that he should, mama,’ rejoined Kate. + +‘Well, my dear, if you are anxious that he should, you had better allow +your uncle to say what he has to say, without interruption,’ observed +Mrs. Nickleby, with many small nods and frowns. ‘Your uncle’s time is +very valuable, my dear; and however desirous you may be--and naturally +desirous, as I am sure any affectionate relations who have seen so +little of your uncle as we have, must naturally be to protract the +pleasure of having him among us, still, we are bound not to be selfish, +but to take into consideration the important nature of his occupations +in the city.’ + +‘I am very much obliged to you, ma’am,’ said Ralph with a scarcely +perceptible sneer. ‘An absence of business habits in this family leads, +apparently, to a great waste of words before business--when it does come +under consideration--is arrived at, at all.’ + +‘I fear it is so indeed,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby with a sigh. ‘Your poor +brother--’ + +‘My poor brother, ma’am,’ interposed Ralph tartly, ‘had no idea what +business was--was unacquainted, I verily believe, with the very meaning +of the word.’ + +‘I fear he was,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with her handkerchief to her eyes. +‘If it hadn’t been for me, I don’t know what would have become of him.’ + +What strange creatures we are! The slight bait so skilfully thrown out +by Ralph, on their first interview, was dangling on the hook yet. At +every small deprivation or discomfort which presented itself in the +course of the four-and-twenty hours to remind her of her straitened +and altered circumstances, peevish visions of her dower of one thousand +pounds had arisen before Mrs. Nickleby’s mind, until, at last, she had +come to persuade herself that of all her late husband’s creditors she +was the worst used and the most to be pitied. And yet, she had loved him +dearly for many years, and had no greater share of selfishness than is +the usual lot of mortals. Such is the irritability of sudden poverty. A +decent annuity would have restored her thoughts to their old train, at +once. + +‘Repining is of no use, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Of all fruitless errands, +sending a tear to look after a day that is gone is the most fruitless.’ + +‘So it is,’ sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. ‘So it is.’ + +‘As you feel so keenly, in your own purse and person, the consequences +of inattention to business, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘I am sure you will +impress upon your children the necessity of attaching themselves to it +early in life.’ + +‘Of course I must see that,’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Sad experience, you +know, brother-in-law.--Kate, my dear, put that down in the next letter +to Nicholas, or remind me to do it if I write.’ + +Ralph paused for a few moments, and seeing that he had now made pretty +sure of the mother, in case the daughter objected to his proposition, +went on to say: + +‘The situation that I have made interest to procure, ma’am, is +with--with a milliner and dressmaker, in short.’ + +‘A milliner!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘A milliner and dressmaker, ma’am,’ replied Ralph. ‘Dressmakers in +London, as I need not remind you, ma’am, who are so well acquainted with +all matters in the ordinary routine of life, make large fortunes, keep +equipages, and become persons of great wealth and fortune.’ + +Now, the first idea called up in Mrs. Nickleby’s mind by the words +milliner and dressmaker were connected with certain wicker baskets lined +with black oilskin, which she remembered to have seen carried to and +fro in the streets; but, as Ralph proceeded, these disappeared, and +were replaced by visions of large houses at the West end, neat private +carriages, and a banker’s book; all of which images succeeded each other +with such rapidity, that he had no sooner finished speaking, than +she nodded her head and said ‘Very true,’ with great appearance of +satisfaction. + +‘What your uncle says is very true, Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. +‘I recollect when your poor papa and I came to town after we were +married, that a young lady brought me home a chip cottage-bonnet, with +white and green trimming, and green persian lining, in her own carriage, +which drove up to the door full gallop;--at least, I am not quite +certain whether it was her own carriage or a hackney chariot, but I +remember very well that the horse dropped down dead as he was turning +round, and that your poor papa said he hadn’t had any corn for a +fortnight.’ + +This anecdote, so strikingly illustrative of the opulence of milliners, +was not received with any great demonstration of feeling, inasmuch as +Kate hung down her head while it was relating, and Ralph manifested very +intelligible symptoms of extreme impatience. + +‘The lady’s name,’ said Ralph, hastily striking in, ‘is +Mantalini--Madame Mantalini. I know her. She lives near Cavendish +Square. If your daughter is disposed to try after the situation, I’ll +take her there directly.’ + +‘Have you nothing to say to your uncle, my love?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘A great deal,’ replied Kate; ‘but not now. I would rather speak to him +when we are alone;--it will save his time if I thank him and say what I +wish to say to him, as we walk along.’ + +With these words, Kate hurried away, to hide the traces of emotion that +were stealing down her face, and to prepare herself for the walk, while +Mrs. Nickleby amused her brother-in-law by giving him, with many tears, a +detailed account of the dimensions of a rosewood cabinet piano they had +possessed in their days of affluence, together with a minute description +of eight drawing-room chairs, with turned legs and green chintz squabs +to match the curtains, which had cost two pounds fifteen shillings +apiece, and had gone at the sale for a mere nothing. + +These reminiscences were at length cut short by Kate’s return in her +walking dress, when Ralph, who had been fretting and fuming during the +whole time of her absence, lost no time, and used very little ceremony, +in descending into the street. + +‘Now,’ he said, taking her arm, ‘walk as fast as you can, and you’ll get +into the step that you’ll have to walk to business with, every morning.’ +So saying, he led Kate off, at a good round pace, towards Cavendish +Square. + +‘I am very much obliged to you, uncle,’ said the young lady, after they +had hurried on in silence for some time; ‘very.’ + +‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Ralph. ‘I hope you’ll do your duty.’ + +‘I will try to please, uncle,’ replied Kate: ‘indeed I--’ + +‘Don’t begin to cry,’ growled Ralph; ‘I hate crying.’ + +‘It’s very foolish, I know, uncle,’ began poor Kate. + +‘It is,’ replied Ralph, stopping her short, ‘and very affected besides. +Let me see no more of it.’ + +Perhaps this was not the best way to dry the tears of a young and +sensitive female, about to make her first entry on an entirely new scene +of life, among cold and uninterested strangers; but it had its effect +notwithstanding. Kate coloured deeply, breathed quickly for a few +moments, and then walked on with a firmer and more determined step. + +It was a curious contrast to see how the timid country girl shrunk +through the crowd that hurried up and down the streets, giving way to +the press of people, and clinging closely to Ralph as though she feared +to lose him in the throng; and how the stern and hard-featured man of +business went doggedly on, elbowing the passengers aside, and now and +then exchanging a gruff salutation with some passing acquaintance, who +turned to look back upon his pretty charge, with looks expressive of +surprise, and seemed to wonder at the ill-assorted companionship. But, +it would have been a stranger contrast still, to have read the hearts +that were beating side by side; to have laid bare the gentle innocence +of the one, and the rugged villainy of the other; to have hung upon the +guileless thoughts of the affectionate girl, and been amazed that, among +all the wily plots and calculations of the old man, there should not be +one word or figure denoting thought of death or of the grave. But so it +was; and stranger still--though this is a thing of every day--the warm +young heart palpitated with a thousand anxieties and apprehensions, +while that of the old worldly man lay rusting in its cell, beating only +as a piece of cunning mechanism, and yielding no one throb of hope, or +fear, or love, or care, for any living thing. + +‘Uncle,’ said Kate, when she judged they must be near their destination, +‘I must ask one question of you. I am to live at home?’ + +‘At home!’ replied Ralph; ‘where’s that?’ + +‘I mean with my mother--THE WIDOW,’ said Kate emphatically. + +‘You will live, to all intents and purposes, here,’ rejoined Ralph; ‘for +here you will take your meals, and here you will be from morning till +night--occasionally perhaps till morning again.’ + +‘But at night, I mean,’ said Kate; ‘I cannot leave her, uncle. I must +have some place that I can call a home; it will be wherever she is, you +know, and may be a very humble one.’ + +‘May be!’ said Ralph, walking faster, in the impatience provoked by the +remark; ‘must be, you mean. May be a humble one! Is the girl mad?’ + +‘The word slipped from my lips, I did not mean it indeed,’ urged Kate. + +‘I hope not,’ said Ralph. + +‘But my question, uncle; you have not answered it.’ + +‘Why, I anticipated something of the kind,’ said Ralph; ‘and--though I +object very strongly, mind--have provided against it. I spoke of you as +an out-of-door worker; so you will go to this home that may be humble, +every night.’ + +There was comfort in this. Kate poured forth many thanks for her uncle’s +consideration, which Ralph received as if he had deserved them all, and +they arrived without any further conversation at the dressmaker’s door, +which displayed a very large plate, with Madame Mantalini’s name and +occupation, and was approached by a handsome flight of steps. There was +a shop to the house, but it was let off to an importer of otto of roses. +Madame Mantalini’s shows-rooms were on the first-floor: a fact which was +notified to the nobility and gentry by the casual exhibition, near the +handsomely curtained windows, of two or three elegant bonnets of the +newest fashion, and some costly garments in the most approved taste. + +A liveried footman opened the door, and in reply to Ralph’s inquiry +whether Madame Mantalini was at home, ushered them, through a handsome +hall and up a spacious staircase, into the show saloon, which comprised +two spacious drawing-rooms, and exhibited an immense variety of superb +dresses and materials for dresses: some arranged on stands, others +laid carelessly on sofas, and others again, scattered over the carpet, +hanging on the cheval-glasses, or mingling, in some other way, with the +rich furniture of various descriptions, which was profusely displayed. + +They waited here a much longer time than was agreeable to Mr. Ralph +Nickleby, who eyed the gaudy frippery about him with very little +concern, and was at length about to pull the bell, when a gentleman +suddenly popped his head into the room, and, seeing somebody there, as +suddenly popped it out again. + +‘Here. Hollo!’ cried Ralph. ‘Who’s that?’ + +At the sound of Ralph’s voice, the head reappeared, and the mouth, +displaying a very long row of very white teeth, uttered in a mincing +tone the words, ‘Demmit. What, Nickleby! oh, demmit!’ Having uttered +which ejaculations, the gentleman advanced, and shook hands with Ralph, +with great warmth. He was dressed in a gorgeous morning gown, with +a waistcoat and Turkish trousers of the same pattern, a pink silk +neckerchief, and bright green slippers, and had a very copious +watch-chain wound round his body. Moreover, he had whiskers and a +moustache, both dyed black and gracefully curled. + +‘Demmit, you don’t mean to say you want me, do you, demmit?’ said this +gentleman, smiting Ralph on the shoulder. + +‘Not yet,’ said Ralph, sarcastically. + +‘Ha! ha! demmit,’ cried the gentleman; when, wheeling round to laugh +with greater elegance, he encountered Kate Nickleby, who was standing +near. + +‘My niece,’ said Ralph. + +‘I remember,’ said the gentleman, striking his nose with the knuckle +of his forefinger as a chastening for his forgetfulness. ‘Demmit, I +remember what you come for. Step this way, Nickleby; my dear, will you +follow me? Ha! ha! They all follow me, Nickleby; always did, demmit, +always.’ + +Giving loose to the playfulness of his imagination, after this fashion, +the gentleman led the way to a private sitting-room on the second floor, +scarcely less elegantly furnished than the apartment below, where the +presence of a silver coffee-pot, an egg-shell, and sloppy china for one, +seemed to show that he had just breakfasted. + +‘Sit down, my dear,’ said the gentleman: first staring Miss Nickleby out +of countenance, and then grinning in delight at the achievement. +‘This cursed high room takes one’s breath away. These infernal sky +parlours--I’m afraid I must move, Nickleby.’ + +‘I would, by all means,’ replied Ralph, looking bitterly round. + +‘What a demd rum fellow you are, Nickleby,’ said the gentleman, ‘the +demdest, longest-headed, queerest-tempered old coiner of gold and silver +ever was--demmit.’ + +Having complimented Ralph to this effect, the gentleman rang the bell, +and stared at Miss Nickleby until it was answered, when he left off to +bid the man desire his mistress to come directly; after which, he began +again, and left off no more until Madame Mantalini appeared. + +The dressmaker was a buxom person, handsomely dressed and rather +good-looking, but much older than the gentleman in the Turkish trousers, +whom she had wedded some six months before. His name was originally +Muntle; but it had been converted, by an easy transition, into +Mantalini: the lady rightly considering that an English appellation +would be of serious injury to the business. He had married on his +whiskers; upon which property he had previously subsisted, in a genteel +manner, for some years; and which he had recently improved, after +patient cultivation by the addition of a moustache, which promised +to secure him an easy independence: his share in the labours of +the business being at present confined to spending the money, and +occasionally, when that ran short, driving to Mr. Ralph Nickleby to +procure discount--at a percentage--for the customers’ bills. + +‘My life,’ said Mr. Mantalini, ‘what a demd devil of a time you have +been!’ + +‘I didn’t even know Mr. Nickleby was here, my love,’ said Madame +Mantalini. + +‘Then what a doubly demd infernal rascal that footman must be, my soul,’ +remonstrated Mr. Mantalini. + +‘My dear,’ said Madame, ‘that is entirely your fault.’ + +‘My fault, my heart’s joy?’ + +‘Certainly,’ returned the lady; ‘what can you expect, dearest, if you +will not correct the man?’ + +‘Correct the man, my soul’s delight!’ + +‘Yes; I am sure he wants speaking to, badly enough,’ said Madame, +pouting. + +‘Then do not vex itself,’ said Mr. Mantalini; ‘he shall be horse-whipped +till he cries out demnebly.’ With this promise Mr. Mantalini kissed +Madame Mantalini, and, after that performance, Madame Mantalini pulled +Mr. Mantalini playfully by the ear: which done, they descended to +business. + +‘Now, ma’am,’ said Ralph, who had looked on, at all this, with such +scorn as few men can express in looks, ‘this is my niece.’ + +‘Just so, Mr. Nickleby,’ replied Madame Mantalini, surveying Kate from +head to foot, and back again. ‘Can you speak French, child?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Kate, not daring to look up; for she felt that the +eyes of the odious man in the dressing-gown were directed towards her. + +‘Like a demd native?’ asked the husband. + +Miss Nickleby offered no reply to this inquiry, but turned her back upon +the questioner, as if addressing herself to make answer to what his wife +might demand. + +‘We keep twenty young women constantly employed in the establishment,’ +said Madame. + +‘Indeed, ma’am!’ replied Kate, timidly. + +‘Yes; and some of ‘em demd handsome, too,’ said the master. + +‘Mantalini!’ exclaimed his wife, in an awful voice. + +‘My senses’ idol!’ said Mantalini. + +‘Do you wish to break my heart?’ + +‘Not for twenty thousand hemispheres populated with--with--with little +ballet-dancers,’ replied Mantalini in a poetical strain. + +‘Then you will, if you persevere in that mode of speaking,’ said his +wife. ‘What can Mr. Nickleby think when he hears you?’ + +‘Oh! Nothing, ma’am, nothing,’ replied Ralph. ‘I know his amiable +nature, and yours,--mere little remarks that give a zest to your daily +intercourse--lovers’ quarrels that add sweetness to those domestic joys +which promise to last so long--that’s all; that’s all.’ + +If an iron door could be supposed to quarrel with its hinges, and to +make a firm resolution to open with slow obstinacy, and grind them to +powder in the process, it would emit a pleasanter sound in so doing, +than did these words in the rough and bitter voice in which they were +uttered by Ralph. Even Mr. Mantalini felt their influence, and turning +affrighted round, exclaimed: ‘What a demd horrid croaking!’ + +‘You will pay no attention, if you please, to what Mr. Mantalini says,’ +observed his wife, addressing Miss Nickleby. + +‘I do not, ma’am,’ said Kate, with quiet contempt. + +‘Mr. Mantalini knows nothing whatever about any of the young women,’ +continued Madame, looking at her husband, and speaking to Kate. ‘If he +has seen any of them, he must have seen them in the street, going to, or +returning from, their work, and not here. He was never even in the room. +I do not allow it. What hours of work have you been accustomed to?’ + +‘I have never yet been accustomed to work at all, ma’am,’ replied Kate, +in a low voice. + +‘For which reason she’ll work all the better now,’ said Ralph, putting +in a word, lest this confession should injure the negotiation. + +‘I hope so,’ returned Madame Mantalini; ‘our hours are from nine to +nine, with extra work when we’re very full of business, for which I +allow payment as overtime.’ + +Kate bowed her head, to intimate that she heard, and was satisfied. + +‘Your meals,’ continued Madame Mantalini, ‘that is, dinner and tea, you +will take here. I should think your wages would average from five to +seven shillings a week; but I can’t give you any certain information on +that point, until I see what you can do.’ + +Kate bowed her head again. + +‘If you’re ready to come,’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘you had better begin +on Monday morning at nine exactly, and Miss Knag the forewoman shall +then have directions to try you with some easy work at first. Is there +anything more, Mr. Nickleby?’ + +‘Nothing more, ma’am,’ replied Ralph, rising. + +‘Then I believe that’s all,’ said the lady. Having arrived at this +natural conclusion, she looked at the door, as if she wished to be +gone, but hesitated notwithstanding, as though unwilling to leave to Mr +Mantalini the sole honour of showing them downstairs. Ralph relieved +her from her perplexity by taking his departure without delay: Madame +Mantalini making many gracious inquiries why he never came to see them; +and Mr. Mantalini anathematising the stairs with great volubility as he +followed them down, in the hope of inducing Kate to look round,--a hope, +however, which was destined to remain ungratified. + +‘There!’ said Ralph when they got into the street; ‘now you’re provided +for.’ + +Kate was about to thank him again, but he stopped her. + +‘I had some idea,’ he said, ‘of providing for your mother in a pleasant +part of the country--(he had a presentation to some almshouses on the +borders of Cornwall, which had occurred to him more than once)--but as +you want to be together, I must do something else for her. She has a +little money?’ + +‘A very little,’ replied Kate. + +‘A little will go a long way if it’s used sparingly,’ said Ralph. ‘She +must see how long she can make it last, living rent free. You leave your +lodgings on Saturday?’ + +‘You told us to do so, uncle.’ + +‘Yes; there is a house empty that belongs to me, which I can put you +into till it is let, and then, if nothing else turns up, perhaps I shall +have another. You must live there.’ + +‘Is it far from here, sir?’ inquired Kate. + +‘Pretty well,’ said Ralph; ‘in another quarter of the town--at the East +end; but I’ll send my clerk down to you, at five o’clock on Saturday, to +take you there. Goodbye. You know your way? Straight on.’ + +Coldly shaking his niece’s hand, Ralph left her at the top of Regent +Street, and turned down a by-thoroughfare, intent on schemes of +money-getting. Kate walked sadly back to their lodgings in the Strand. + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +Newman Noggs inducts Mrs. and Miss Nickleby into their New Dwelling in +the City + + +Miss Nickleby’s reflections, as she wended her way homewards, were of +that desponding nature which the occurrences of the morning had been +sufficiently calculated to awaken. Her uncle’s was not a manner likely +to dispel any doubts or apprehensions she might have formed, in the +outset, neither was the glimpse she had had of Madame Mantalini’s +establishment by any means encouraging. It was with many gloomy +forebodings and misgivings, therefore, that she looked forward, with a +heavy heart, to the opening of her new career. + +If her mother’s consolations could have restored her to a pleasanter and +more enviable state of mind, there were abundance of them to produce the +effect. By the time Kate reached home, the good lady had called to mind +two authentic cases of milliners who had been possessed of considerable +property, though whether they had acquired it all in business, or had +had a capital to start with, or had been lucky and married to advantage, +she could not exactly remember. However, as she very logically remarked, +there must have been SOME young person in that way of business who had +made a fortune without having anything to begin with, and that being +taken for granted, why should not Kate do the same? Miss La Creevy, who +was a member of the little council, ventured to insinuate some doubts +relative to the probability of Miss Nickleby’s arriving at this happy +consummation in the compass of an ordinary lifetime; but the good lady +set that question entirely at rest, by informing them that she had a +presentiment on the subject--a species of second-sight with which she +had been in the habit of clenching every argument with the deceased +Mr. Nickleby, and, in nine cases and three-quarters out of every ten, +determining it the wrong way. + +‘I am afraid it is an unhealthy occupation,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘I +recollect getting three young milliners to sit to me, when I first began +to paint, and I remember that they were all very pale and sickly.’ + +‘Oh! that’s not a general rule by any means,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby; +‘for I remember, as well as if it was only yesterday, employing one that +I was particularly recommended to, to make me a scarlet cloak at the +time when scarlet cloaks were fashionable, and she had a very red +face--a very red face, indeed.’ + +‘Perhaps she drank,’ suggested Miss La Creevy. + +‘I don’t know how that may have been,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby: ‘but I +know she had a very red face, so your argument goes for nothing.’ + +In this manner, and with like powerful reasoning, did the worthy matron +meet every little objection that presented itself to the new scheme of +the morning. Happy Mrs. Nickleby! A project had but to be new, and it +came home to her mind, brightly varnished and gilded as a glittering +toy. + +This question disposed of, Kate communicated her uncle’s desire about +the empty house, to which Mrs. Nickleby assented with equal readiness, +characteristically remarking, that, on the fine evenings, it would be a +pleasant amusement for her to walk to the West end to fetch her daughter +home; and no less characteristically forgetting, that there were such +things as wet nights and bad weather to be encountered in almost every +week of the year. + +‘I shall be sorry--truly sorry to leave you, my kind friend,’ said Kate, +on whom the good feeling of the poor miniature painter had made a deep +impression. + +‘You shall not shake me off, for all that,’ replied Miss La Creevy, with +as much sprightliness as she could assume. ‘I shall see you very often, +and come and hear how you get on; and if, in all London, or all the wide +world besides, there is no other heart that takes an interest in your +welfare, there will be one little lonely woman that prays for it night +and day.’ + +With this, the poor soul, who had a heart big enough for Gog, the +guardian genius of London, and enough to spare for Magog to boot, after +making a great many extraordinary faces which would have secured her an +ample fortune, could she have transferred them to ivory or canvas, sat +down in a corner, and had what she termed ‘a real good cry.’ + +But no crying, or talking, or hoping, or fearing, could keep off the +dreaded Saturday afternoon, or Newman Noggs either; who, punctual to his +time, limped up to the door, and breathed a whiff of cordial gin through +the keyhole, exactly as such of the church clocks in the neighbourhood +as agreed among themselves about the time, struck five. Newman waited +for the last stroke, and then knocked. + +‘From Mr. Ralph Nickleby,’ said Newman, announcing his errand, when he +got upstairs, with all possible brevity. + +‘We shall be ready directly,’ said Kate. ‘We have not much to carry, but +I fear we must have a coach.’ + +‘I’ll get one,’ replied Newman. + +‘Indeed you shall not trouble yourself,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘I will,’ said Newman. + +‘I can’t suffer you to think of such a thing,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘You can’t help it,’ said Newman. + +‘Not help it!’ + +‘No; I thought of it as I came along; but didn’t get one, thinking you +mightn’t be ready. I think of a great many things. Nobody can prevent +that.’ + +‘Oh yes, I understand you, Mr. Noggs,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Our thoughts +are free, of course. Everybody’s thoughts are their own, clearly.’ + +‘They wouldn’t be, if some people had their way,’ muttered Newman. + +‘Well, no more they would, Mr. Noggs, and that’s very true,’ rejoined Mrs +Nickleby. ‘Some people to be sure are such--how’s your master?’ + +Newman darted a meaning glance at Kate, and replied with a strong +emphasis on the last word of his answer, that Mr. Ralph Nickleby was +well, and sent his LOVE. + +‘I am sure we are very much obliged to him,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Very,’ said Newman. ‘I’ll tell him so.’ + +It was no very easy matter to mistake Newman Noggs, after having once +seen him, and as Kate, attracted by the singularity of his manner (in +which on this occasion, however, there was something respectful and even +delicate, notwithstanding the abruptness of his speech), looked at him +more closely, she recollected having caught a passing glimpse of that +strange figure before. + +‘Excuse my curiosity,’ she said, ‘but did I not see you in the +coachyard, on the morning my brother went away to Yorkshire?’ + +Newman cast a wistful glance on Mrs. Nickleby and said ‘No,’ most +unblushingly. + +‘No!’ exclaimed Kate, ‘I should have said so anywhere.’ + +‘You’d have said wrong,’ rejoined Newman. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been +out for three weeks. I’ve had the gout.’ + +Newman was very, very far from having the appearance of a gouty subject, +and so Kate could not help thinking; but the conference was cut short by +Mrs. Nickleby’s insisting on having the door shut, lest Mr. Noggs should +take cold, and further persisting in sending the servant girl for a +coach, for fear he should bring on another attack of his disorder. To +both conditions, Newman was compelled to yield. Presently, the coach +came; and, after many sorrowful farewells, and a great deal of running +backwards and forwards across the pavement on the part of Miss La +Creevy, in the course of which the yellow turban came into violent +contact with sundry foot-passengers, it (that is to say the coach, +not the turban) went away again, with the two ladies and their luggage +inside; and Newman, despite all Mrs. Nickleby’s assurances that it would +be his death--on the box beside the driver. + +They went into the city, turning down by the river side; and, after a +long and very slow drive, the streets being crowded at that hour with +vehicles of every kind, stopped in front of a large old dingy house in +Thames Street: the door and windows of which were so bespattered with +mud, that it would have appeared to have been uninhabited for years. + +The door of this deserted mansion Newman opened with a key which he took +out of his hat--in which, by-the-bye, in consequence of the dilapidated +state of his pockets, he deposited everything, and would most +likely have carried his money if he had had any--and the coach being +discharged, he led the way into the interior of the mansion. + +Old, and gloomy, and black, in truth it was, and sullen and dark were +the rooms, once so bustling with life and enterprise. There was a +wharf behind, opening on the Thames. An empty dog-kennel, some bones of +animals, fragments of iron hoops, and staves of old casks, lay strewn +about, but no life was stirring there. It was a picture of cold, silent +decay. + +‘This house depresses and chills one,’ said Kate, ‘and seems as if some +blight had fallen on it. If I were superstitious, I should be almost +inclined to believe that some dreadful crime had been perpetrated within +these old walls, and that the place had never prospered since. How +frowning and how dark it looks!’ + +‘Lord, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, ‘don’t talk in that way, or +you’ll frighten me to death.’ + +‘It is only my foolish fancy, mama,’ said Kate, forcing a smile. + +‘Well, then, my love, I wish you would keep your foolish fancy to +yourself, and not wake up MY foolish fancy to keep it company,’ retorted +Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Why didn’t you think of all this before--you are so +careless--we might have asked Miss La Creevy to keep us company or +borrowed a dog, or a thousand things--but it always was the way, and +was just the same with your poor dear father. Unless I thought of +everything--’ This was Mrs. Nickleby’s usual commencement of a general +lamentation, running through a dozen or so of complicated sentences +addressed to nobody in particular, and into which she now launched until +her breath was exhausted. + +Newman appeared not to hear these remarks, but preceded them to a couple +of rooms on the first floor, which some kind of attempt had been made to +render habitable. In one, were a few chairs, a table, an old hearth-rug, +and some faded baize; and a fire was ready laid in the grate. In the +other stood an old tent bedstead, and a few scanty articles of chamber +furniture. + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, trying to be pleased, ‘now isn’t +this thoughtful and considerate of your uncle? Why, we should not have +had anything but the bed we bought yesterday, to lie down upon, if it +hadn’t been for his thoughtfulness!’ + +‘Very kind, indeed,’ replied Kate, looking round. + +Newman Noggs did not say that he had hunted up the old furniture they +saw, from attic and cellar; or that he had taken in the halfpennyworth +of milk for tea that stood upon a shelf, or filled the rusty kettle on +the hob, or collected the woodchips from the wharf, or begged the coals. +But the notion of Ralph Nickleby having directed it to be done, tickled +his fancy so much, that he could not refrain from cracking all his ten +fingers in succession: at which performance Mrs. Nickleby was rather +startled at first, but supposing it to be in some remote manner +connected with the gout, did not remark upon. + +‘We need detain you no longer, I think,’ said Kate. + +‘Is there nothing I can do?’ asked Newman. + +‘Nothing, thank you,’ rejoined Miss Nickleby. + +‘Perhaps, my dear, Mr. Noggs would like to drink our healths,’ said Mrs +Nickleby, fumbling in her reticule for some small coin. + +‘I think, mama,’ said Kate hesitating, and remarking Newman’s averted +face, ‘you would hurt his feelings if you offered it.’ + +Newman Noggs, bowing to the young lady more like a gentleman than +the miserable wretch he seemed, placed his hand upon his breast, and, +pausing for a moment, with the air of a man who struggles to speak but +is uncertain what to say, quitted the room. + +As the jarring echoes of the heavy house-door, closing on its latch, +reverberated dismally through the building, Kate felt half tempted to +call him back, and beg him to remain a little while; but she was ashamed +to own her fears, and Newman Noggs was on his road homewards. + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further course of +Miss Fanny Squeer’s Love, and to ascertain whether it ran smooth or +otherwise. + + +It was a fortunate circumstance for Miss Fanny Squeers, that when her +worthy papa returned home on the night of the small tea-party, he was +what the initiated term ‘too far gone’ to observe the numerous tokens +of extreme vexation of spirit which were plainly visible in her +countenance. Being, however, of a rather violent and quarrelsome mood in +his cups, it is not impossible that he might have fallen out with her, +either on this or some imaginary topic, if the young lady had not, with +a foresight and prudence highly commendable, kept a boy up, on purpose, +to bear the first brunt of the good gentleman’s anger; which, having +vented itself in a variety of kicks and cuffs, subsided sufficiently to +admit of his being persuaded to go to bed. Which he did with his boots +on, and an umbrella under his arm. + +The hungry servant attended Miss Squeers in her own room according +to custom, to curl her hair, perform the other little offices of her +toilet, and administer as much flattery as she could get up, for the +purpose; for Miss Squeers was quite lazy enough (and sufficiently vain +and frivolous withal) to have been a fine lady; and it was only the +arbitrary distinctions of rank and station which prevented her from +being one. + +‘How lovely your hair do curl tonight, miss!’ said the handmaiden. ‘I +declare if it isn’t a pity and a shame to brush it out!’ + +‘Hold your tongue!’ replied Miss Squeers wrathfully. + +Some considerable experience prevented the girl from being at all +surprised at any outbreak of ill-temper on the part of Miss Squeers. +Having a half-perception of what had occurred in the course of the +evening, she changed her mode of making herself agreeable, and proceeded +on the indirect tack. + +‘Well, I couldn’t help saying, miss, if you was to kill me for it,’ said +the attendant, ‘that I never see nobody look so vulgar as Miss Price +this night.’ + +Miss Squeers sighed, and composed herself to listen. + +‘I know it’s very wrong in me to say so, miss,’ continued the girl, +delighted to see the impression she was making, ‘Miss Price being a +friend of your’n, and all; but she do dress herself out so, and go on +in such a manner to get noticed, that--oh--well, if people only saw +themselves!’ + +‘What do you mean, Phib?’ asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little +glass, where, like most of us, she saw--not herself, but the reflection +of some pleasant image in her own brain. ‘How you talk!’ + +‘Talk, miss! It’s enough to make a Tom cat talk French grammar, only to +see how she tosses her head,’ replied the handmaid. + +‘She DOES toss her head,’ observed Miss Squeers, with an air of +abstraction. + +‘So vain, and so very--very plain,’ said the girl. + +‘Poor ‘Tilda!’ sighed Miss Squeers, compassionately. + +‘And always laying herself out so, to get to be admired,’ pursued the +servant. ‘Oh, dear! It’s positive indelicate.’ + +‘I can’t allow you to talk in that way, Phib,’ said Miss Squeers. +‘’Tilda’s friends are low people, and if she don’t know any better, it’s +their fault, and not hers.’ + +‘Well, but you know, miss,’ said Phoebe, for which name ‘Phib’ was +used as a patronising abbreviation, ‘if she was only to take copy by +a friend--oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, and would but set +herself right by you, what a nice young woman she might be in time!’ + +‘Phib,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, ‘it’s not proper +for me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make ‘Tilda look a coarse +improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me to listen to +them. I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at the same time, +I must say, that if ‘Tilda Price would take pattern by somebody--not me +particularly--’ + +‘Oh yes; you, miss,’ interposed Phib. + +‘Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,’ said Miss Squeers. ‘I must +say, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.’ + +‘So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,’ said the girl +mysteriously. + +‘What do you mean?’ demanded Miss Squeers. + +‘Never mind, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘I know what I know; that’s all.’ + +‘Phib,’ said Miss Squeers dramatically, ‘I insist upon your explaining +yourself. What is this dark mystery? Speak.’ + +‘Why, if you will have it, miss, it’s this,’ said the servant girl. ‘Mr +John Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn’t too far gone to do +it creditable, he’d be very glad to be off with Miss Price, and on with +Miss Squeers.’ + +‘Gracious heavens!’ exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with +great dignity. ‘What is this?’ + +‘Truth, ma’am, and nothing but truth,’ replied the artful Phib. + +‘What a situation!’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘on the brink of unconsciously +destroying the peace and happiness of my own ‘Tilda. What is the reason +that men fall in love with me, whether I like it or not, and desert +their chosen intendeds for my sake?’ + +‘Because they can’t help it, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘the reason’s +plain.’ (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.) + +‘Never let me hear of it again,’ retorted Miss Squeers. ‘Never! Do you +hear? ‘Tilda Price has faults--many faults--but I wish her well, and +above all I wish her married; for I think it highly desirable--most +desirable from the very nature of her failings--that she should be +married as soon as possible. No, Phib. Let her have Mr. Browdie. I may +pity HIM, poor fellow; but I have a great regard for ‘Tilda, and only +hope she may make a better wife than I think she will.’ + +With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed. + +Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble of +feelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the language. +Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts that what the miserable +serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying flattery, as did the girl +herself; yet the mere opportunity of venting a little ill-nature against +the offending Miss Price, and affecting to compassionate her weaknesses +and foibles, though only in the presence of a solitary dependant, was +almost as great a relief to her spleen as if the whole had been gospel +truth. Nay, more. We have such extraordinary powers of persuasion +when they are exerted over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite +high-minded and great after her noble renunciation of John Browdie’s +hand, and looked down upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness and +tranquillity, that had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffled feelings. + +This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing about a +reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door next day, and +the miller’s daughter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself to the +parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful to behold. + +‘Well, Fanny,’ said the miller’s daughter, ‘you see I have come to see +you, although we HAD some words last night.’ + +‘I pity your bad passions, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘but I bear no +malice. I am above it.’ + +‘Don’t be cross, Fanny,’ said Miss Price. ‘I have come to tell you +something that I know will please you.’ + +‘What may that be, ‘Tilda?’ demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up her lips, +and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water, could afford +her the slightest gleam of satisfaction. + +‘This,’ rejoined Miss Price. ‘After we left here last night John and I +had a dreadful quarrel.’ + +‘That doesn’t please me,’ said Miss Squeers--relaxing into a smile +though. + +‘Lor! I wouldn’t think so bad of you as to suppose it did,’ rejoined her +companion. ‘That’s not it.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. ‘Go on.’ + +‘After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see each +other any more,’ continued Miss Price, ‘we made it up, and this morning +John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the first time, +next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and I give you +notice to get your frock made.’ + +There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. The prospect of +the friend’s being married so soon was the gall, and the certainty of +her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was the honey. Upon +the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the bitter, so Miss +Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that she hoped ‘Tilda +might be happy, though at the same time she didn’t know, and would not +have her build too much upon it, for men were strange creatures, and +a great many married women were very miserable, and wished themselves +single again with all their hearts; to which condolences Miss Squeers +added others equally calculated to raise her friend’s spirits and +promote her cheerfulness of mind. + +‘But come now, Fanny,’ said Miss Price, ‘I want to have a word or two +with you about young Mr. Nickleby.’ + +‘He is nothing to me,’ interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical +symptoms. ‘I despise him too much!’ + +‘Oh, you don’t mean that, I am sure?’ replied her friend. ‘Confess, +Fanny; don’t you like him now?’ + +Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into +a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a wretched, +neglected, miserable castaway. + +‘I hate everybody,’ said Miss Squeers, ‘and I wish that everybody was +dead--that I do.’ + +‘Dear, dear,’ said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of +misanthropical sentiments. ‘You are not serious, I am sure.’ + +‘Yes, I am,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her +pocket-handkerchief and clenching her teeth. ‘And I wish I was dead too. +There!’ + +‘Oh! you’ll think very differently in another five minutes,’ said +Matilda. ‘How much better to take him into favour again, than to hurt +yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn’t it be much nicer, now, +to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-keeping, +love-making, pleasant sort of manner?’ + +‘I don’t know but what it would,’ sobbed Miss Squeers. ‘Oh! ‘Tilda, how +could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! I wouldn’t have believed +it of you, if anybody had told me.’ + +‘Heyday!’ exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. ‘One would suppose I had been +murdering somebody at least.’ + +‘Very nigh as bad,’ said Miss Squeers passionately. + +‘And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks to make +people civil to me,’ cried Miss Price. ‘Persons don’t make their own +faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other +people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.’ + +‘Hold your tongue,’ shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest tone; ‘or +you’ll make me slap you, ‘Tilda, and afterwards I should be sorry for +it!’ + +It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each young lady +was in some slight degree affected by the tone of her conversation, +and that a dash of personality was infused into the altercation, in +consequence. Indeed, the quarrel, from slight beginnings, rose to a +considerable height, and was assuming a very violent complexion, +when both parties, falling into a great passion of tears, exclaimed +simultaneously, that they had never thought of being spoken to in that +way: which exclamation, leading to a remonstrance, gradually brought +on an explanation: and the upshot was, that they fell into each other’s +arms and vowed eternal friendship; the occasion in question making the +fifty-second time of repeating the same impressive ceremony within a +twelvemonth. + +Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturally ensued +upon the number and nature of the garments which would be indispensable +for Miss Price’s entrance into the holy state of matrimony, when Miss +Squeers clearly showed that a great many more than the miller could, +or would, afford, were absolutely necessary, and could not decently +be dispensed with. The young lady then, by an easy digression, led +the discourse to her own wardrobe, and after recounting its principal +beauties at some length, took her friend upstairs to make inspection +thereof. The treasures of two drawers and a closet having been +displayed, and all the smaller articles tried on, it was time for Miss +Price to return home; and as she had been in raptures with all the +frocks, and had been stricken quite dumb with admiration of a new pink +scarf, Miss Squeers said in high good humour, that she would walk part +of the way with her, for the pleasure of her company; and off they went +together: Miss Squeers dilating, as they walked along, upon her father’s +accomplishments: and multiplying his income by ten, to give her friend +some faint notion of the vast importance and superiority of her family. + +It happened that that particular time, comprising the short daily +interval which was suffered to elapse between what was pleasantly called +the dinner of Mr. Squeers’s pupils, and their return to the pursuit of +useful knowledge, was precisely the hour when Nicholas was accustomed +to issue forth for a melancholy walk, and to brood, as he sauntered +listlessly through the village, upon his miserable lot. Miss Squeers +knew this perfectly well, but had perhaps forgotten it, for when she +caught sight of that young gentleman advancing towards them, she evinced +many symptoms of surprise and consternation, and assured her friend that +she ‘felt fit to drop into the earth.’ + +‘Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?’ asked Miss Price. ‘He don’t +see us yet.’ + +‘No, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘it is my duty to go through with +it, and I will!’ + +As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made a high moral +resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or two chokes and catchings +of breath, indicative of feelings at a high pressure, her friend made no +further remark, and they bore straight down upon Nicholas, who, walking +with his eyes bent upon the ground, was not aware of their approach +until they were close upon him; otherwise, he might, perhaps, have taken +shelter himself. + +‘Good-morning,’ said Nicholas, bowing and passing by. + +‘He is going,’ murmured Miss Squeers. ‘I shall choke, ‘Tilda.’ + +‘Come back, Mr. Nickleby, do!’ cried Miss Price, affecting alarm at her +friend’s threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish to hear what +Nicholas would say; ‘come back, Mr. Nickleby!’ + +Mr. Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, as he +inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him. + +‘Don’t stop to talk,’ urged Miss Price, hastily; ‘but support her on the +other side. How do you feel now, dear?’ + +‘Better,’ sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of a reddish brown +with a green veil attached, on Mr. Nickleby’s shoulder. ‘This foolish +faintness!’ + +‘Don’t call it foolish, dear,’ said Miss Price: her bright eye dancing +with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas; ‘you have no +reason to be ashamed of it. It’s those who are too proud to come round +again, without all this to-do, that ought to be ashamed.’ + +‘You are resolved to fix it upon me, I see,’ said Nicholas, smiling, +‘although I told you, last night, it was not my fault.’ + +‘There; he says it was not his fault, my dear,’ remarked the wicked Miss +Price. ‘Perhaps you were too jealous, or too hasty with him? He says it +was not his fault. You hear; I think that’s apology enough.’ + +‘You will not understand me,’ said Nicholas. ‘Pray dispense with this +jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to be the +subject or promoter of mirth just now.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ asked Miss Price, affecting amazement. + +‘Don’t ask him, ‘Tilda,’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘I forgive him.’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Nicholas, as the brown bonnet went down on his shoulder +again, ‘this is more serious than I supposed. Allow me! Will you have +the goodness to hear me speak?’ + +Here he raised up the brown bonnet, and regarding with most unfeigned +astonishment a look of tender reproach from Miss Squeers, shrunk back a +few paces to be out of the reach of the fair burden, and went on to say: + +‘I am very sorry--truly and sincerely sorry--for having been the +cause of any difference among you, last night. I reproach myself, most +bitterly, for having been so unfortunate as to cause the dissension +that occurred, although I did so, I assure you, most unwittingly and +heedlessly.’ + +‘Well; that’s not all you have got to say surely,’ exclaimed Miss Price +as Nicholas paused. + +‘I fear there is something more,’ stammered Nicholas with a half-smile, +and looking towards Miss Squeers, ‘it is a most awkward thing to +say--but--the very mention of such a supposition makes one look like a +puppy--still--may I ask if that lady supposes that I entertain any--in +short, does she think that I am in love with her?’ + +‘Delightful embarrassment,’ thought Miss Squeers, ‘I have brought him to +it, at last. Answer for me, dear,’ she whispered to her friend. + +‘Does she think so?’ rejoined Miss Price; ‘of course she does.’ + +‘She does!’ exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance as might +have been, for the moment, mistaken for rapture. + +‘Certainly,’ replied Miss Price + +‘If Mr. Nickleby has doubted that, ‘Tilda,’ said the blushing Miss +Squeers in soft accents, ‘he may set his mind at rest. His sentiments +are recipro--’ + +‘Stop,’ cried Nicholas hurriedly; ‘pray hear me. This is the grossest +and wildest delusion, the completest and most signal mistake, that ever +human being laboured under, or committed. I have scarcely seen the +young lady half-a-dozen times, but if I had seen her sixty times, or am +destined to see her sixty thousand, it would be, and will be, precisely +the same. I have not one thought, wish, or hope, connected with her, +unless it be--and I say this, not to hurt her feelings, but to impress +her with the real state of my own--unless it be the one object, dear to +my heart as life itself, of being one day able to turn my back upon +this accursed place, never to set foot in it again, or think of it--even +think of it--but with loathing and disgust.’ + +With this particularly plain and straightforward declaration, which +he made with all the vehemence that his indignant and excited feelings +could bring to bear upon it, Nicholas waiting to hear no more, +retreated. + +But poor Miss Squeers! Her anger, rage, and vexation; the rapid +succession of bitter and passionate feelings that whirled through her +mind; are not to be described. Refused! refused by a teacher, picked +up by advertisement, at an annual salary of five pounds payable at +indefinite periods, and ‘found’ in food and lodging like the very boys +themselves; and this too in the presence of a little chit of a miller’s +daughter of eighteen, who was going to be married, in three weeks’ time, +to a man who had gone down on his very knees to ask her. She could have +choked in right good earnest, at the thought of being so humbled. + +But, there was one thing clear in the midst of her mortification; and +that was, that she hated and detested Nicholas with all the narrowness +of mind and littleness of purpose worthy a descendant of the house of +Squeers. And there was one comfort too; and that was, that every hour in +every day she could wound his pride, and goad him with the infliction +of some slight, or insult, or deprivation, which could not but have some +effect on the most insensible person, and must be acutely felt by one so +sensitive as Nicholas. With these two reflections uppermost in her mind, +Miss Squeers made the best of the matter to her friend, by observing +that Mr. Nickleby was such an odd creature, and of such a violent temper, +that she feared she should be obliged to give him up; and parted from +her. + +And here it may be remarked, that Miss Squeers, having bestowed her +affections (or whatever it might be that, in the absence of anything +better, represented them) on Nicholas Nickleby, had never once seriously +contemplated the possibility of his being of a different opinion +from herself in the business. Miss Squeers reasoned that she was +prepossessing and beautiful, and that her father was master, and +Nicholas man, and that her father had saved money, and Nicholas had +none, all of which seemed to her conclusive arguments why the young man +should feel only too much honoured by her preference. She had not failed +to recollect, either, how much more agreeable she could render his +situation if she were his friend, and how much more disagreeable if she +were his enemy; and, doubtless, many less scrupulous young gentlemen +than Nicholas would have encouraged her extravagance had it been only +for this very obvious and intelligible reason. However, he had thought +proper to do otherwise, and Miss Squeers was outrageous. + +‘Let him see,’ said the irritated young lady, when she had regained her +own room, and eased her mind by committing an assault on Phib, ‘if I +don’t set mother against him a little more when she comes back!’ + +It was scarcely necessary to do this, but Miss Squeers was as good as +her word; and poor Nicholas, in addition to bad food, dirty lodging, +and the being compelled to witness one dull unvarying round of squalid +misery, was treated with every special indignity that malice could +suggest, or the most grasping cupidity put upon him. + +Nor was this all. There was another and deeper system of annoyance which +made his heart sink, and nearly drove him wild, by its injustice and +cruelty. + +The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas had spoken +kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to and fro, with an +ever-restless desire to serve or help him; anticipating such little +wants as his humble ability could supply, and content only to be near +him. He would sit beside him for hours, looking patiently into his face; +and a word would brighten up his care-worn visage, and call into it a +passing gleam, even of happiness. He was an altered being; he had an +object now; and that object was, to show his attachment to the only +person--that person a stranger--who had treated him, not to say with +kindness, but like a human creature. + +Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humour that could not be +vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgery would have been +nothing--Smike was well used to that. Buffetings inflicted without +cause, would have been equally a matter of course; for to them also +he had served a long and weary apprenticeship; but it was no sooner +observed that he had become attached to Nicholas, than stripes and +blows, stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night, were his only +portion. Squeers was jealous of the influence which his man had so soon +acquired, and his family hated him, and Smike paid for both. Nicholas +saw it, and ground his teeth at every repetition of the savage and +cowardly attack. + +He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys; and one night, as +he paced up and down the dismal schoolroom, his swollen heart almost +bursting to think that his protection and countenance should have +increased the misery of the wretched being whose peculiar destitution +had awakened his pity, he paused mechanically in a dark corner where sat +the object of his thoughts. + +The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with the traces of +recent tears still upon his face; vainly endeavouring to master some +task which a child of nine years old, possessed of ordinary powers, +could have conquered with ease, but which, to the addled brain of the +crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed and hopeless mystery. Yet there he +sat, patiently conning the page again and again, stimulated by no boyish +ambition, for he was the common jest and scoff even of the uncouth +objects that congregated about him, but inspired by the one eager desire +to please his solitary friend. + +Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder. + +‘I can’t do it,’ said the dejected creature, looking up with bitter +disappointment in every feature. ‘No, no.’ + +‘Do not try,’ replied Nicholas. + +The boy shook his head, and closing the book with a sigh, looked +vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm. He was weeping. + +‘Do not for God’s sake,’ said Nicholas, in an agitated voice; ‘I cannot +bear to see you.’ + +‘They are more hard with me than ever,’ sobbed the boy. + +‘I know it,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘They are.’ + +‘But for you,’ said the outcast, ‘I should die. They would kill me; they +would; I know they would.’ + +‘You will do better, poor fellow,’ replied Nicholas, shaking his head +mournfully, ‘when I am gone.’ + +‘Gone!’ cried the other, looking intently in his face. + +‘Softly!’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Yes.’ + +‘Are you going?’ demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper. + +‘I cannot say,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I was speaking more to my own +thoughts, than to you.’ + +‘Tell me,’ said the boy imploringly, ‘oh do tell me, WILL you go--WILL +you?’ + +‘I shall be driven to that at last!’ said Nicholas. ‘The world is before +me, after all.’ + +‘Tell me,’ urged Smike, ‘is the world as bad and dismal as this place?’ + +‘Heaven forbid,’ replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his own +thoughts; ‘its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.’ + +‘Should I ever meet you there?’ demanded the boy, speaking with unusual +wildness and volubility. + +‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him. + +‘No, no!’ said the other, clasping him by the hand. ‘Should I--should +I--tell me that again. Say I should be sure to find you.’ + +‘You would,’ replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention, ‘and I +would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I have done +here.’ + +The boy caught both the young man’s hands passionately in his, and, +hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken sounds which were +unintelligible. Squeers entered at the moment, and he shrunk back into +his old corner. + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +Nicholas varies the Monotony of Dothebys Hall by a most vigorous and +remarkable proceeding, which leads to Consequences of some Importance + + +The cold, feeble dawn of a January morning was stealing in at the +windows of the common sleeping-room, when Nicholas, raising himself on +his arm, looked among the prostrate forms which on every side surrounded +him, as though in search of some particular object. + +It needed a quick eye to detect, from among the huddled mass of +sleepers, the form of any given individual. As they lay closely packed +together, covered, for warmth’s sake, with their patched and ragged +clothes, little could be distinguished but the sharp outlines of pale +faces, over which the sombre light shed the same dull heavy colour; +with, here and there, a gaunt arm thrust forth: its thinness hidden by +no covering, but fully exposed to view, in all its shrunken ugliness. +There were some who, lying on their backs with upturned faces and +clenched hands, just visible in the leaden light, bore more the aspect +of dead bodies than of living creatures; and there were others coiled up +into strange and fantastic postures, such as might have been taken for +the uneasy efforts of pain to gain some temporary relief, rather than +the freaks of slumber. A few--and these were among the youngest of the +children--slept peacefully on, with smiles upon their faces, dreaming +perhaps of home; but ever and again a deep and heavy sigh, breaking the +stillness of the room, announced that some new sleeper had awakened to +the misery of another day; and, as morning took the place of night, the +smiles gradually faded away, with the friendly darkness which had given +them birth. + +Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth +in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which +lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the +world. + +Nicholas looked upon the sleepers; at first, with the air of one who +gazes upon a scene which, though familiar to him, has lost none of its +sorrowful effect in consequence; and, afterwards, with a more intense +and searching scrutiny, as a man would who missed something his eye was +accustomed to meet, and had expected to rest upon. He was still occupied +in this search, and had half risen from his bed in the eagerness of his +quest, when the voice of Squeers was heard, calling from the bottom of +the stairs. + +‘Now then,’ cried that gentleman, ‘are you going to sleep all day, up +there--’ + +‘You lazy hounds?’ added Mrs. Squeers, finishing the sentence, and +producing, at the same time, a sharp sound, like that which is +occasioned by the lacing of stays. + +‘We shall be down directly, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Down directly!’ said Squeers. ‘Ah! you had better be down directly, or +I’ll be down upon some of you in less. Where’s that Smike?’ + +Nicholas looked hurriedly round again, but made no answer. + +‘Smike!’ shouted Squeers. + +‘Do you want your head broke in a fresh place, Smike?’ demanded his +amiable lady in the same key. + +Still there was no reply, and still Nicholas stared about him, as did +the greater part of the boys, who were by this time roused. + +‘Confound his impudence!’ muttered Squeers, rapping the stair-rail +impatiently with his cane. ‘Nickleby!’ + +‘Well, sir.’ + +‘Send that obstinate scoundrel down; don’t you hear me calling?’ + +‘He is not here, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Don’t tell me a lie,’ retorted the schoolmaster. ‘He is.’ + +‘He is not,’ retorted Nicholas angrily, ‘don’t tell me one.’ + +‘We shall soon see that,’ said Mr. Squeers, rushing upstairs. ‘I’ll find +him, I warrant you.’ + +With which assurance, Mr. Squeers bounced into the dormitory, and, +swinging his cane in the air ready for a blow, darted into the corner +where the lean body of the drudge was usually stretched at night. The +cane descended harmlessly upon the ground. There was nobody there. + +‘What does this mean?’ said Squeers, turning round with a very pale +face. ‘Where have you hid him?’ + +‘I have seen nothing of him since last night,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Come,’ said Squeers, evidently frightened, though he endeavoured to +look otherwise, ‘you won’t save him this way. Where is he?’ + +‘At the bottom of the nearest pond for aught I know,’ rejoined Nicholas +in a low voice, and fixing his eyes full on the master’s face. + +‘Damn you, what do you mean by that?’ retorted Squeers in great +perturbation. Without waiting for a reply, he inquired of the boys +whether any one among them knew anything of their missing schoolmate. + +There was a general hum of anxious denial, in the midst of which, one +shrill voice was heard to say (as, indeed, everybody thought): + +‘Please, sir, I think Smike’s run away, sir.’ + +‘Ha!’ cried Squeers, turning sharp round. ‘Who said that?’ + +‘Tomkins, please sir,’ rejoined a chorus of voices. Mr. Squeers made +a plunge into the crowd, and at one dive, caught a very little boy, +habited still in his night-gear, and the perplexed expression of whose +countenance, as he was brought forward, seemed to intimate that he was +as yet uncertain whether he was about to be punished or rewarded for the +suggestion. He was not long in doubt. + +‘You think he has run away, do you, sir?’ demanded Squeers. + +‘Yes, please sir,’ replied the little boy. + +‘And what, sir,’ said Squeers, catching the little boy suddenly by +the arms and whisking up his drapery in a most dexterous manner, ‘what +reason have you to suppose that any boy would want to run away from this +establishment? Eh, sir?’ + +The child raised a dismal cry, by way of answer, and Mr. Squeers, +throwing himself into the most favourable attitude for exercising his +strength, beat him until the little urchin in his writhings actually +rolled out of his hands, when he mercifully allowed him to roll away, as +he best could. + +‘There,’ said Squeers. ‘Now if any other boy thinks Smike has run away, +I shall be glad to have a talk with him.’ + +There was, of course, a profound silence, during which Nicholas showed +his disgust as plainly as looks could show it. + +‘Well, Nickleby,’ said Squeers, eyeing him maliciously. ‘YOU think he +has run away, I suppose?’ + +‘I think it extremely likely,’ replied Nicholas, in a quiet manner. + +‘Oh, you do, do you?’ sneered Squeers. ‘Maybe you know he has?’ + +‘I know nothing of the kind.’ + +‘He didn’t tell you he was going, I suppose, did he?’ sneered Squeers. + +‘He did not,’ replied Nicholas; ‘I am very glad he did not, for it would +then have been my duty to have warned you in time.’ + +‘Which no doubt you would have been devilish sorry to do,’ said Squeers +in a taunting fashion. + +‘I should indeed,’ replied Nicholas. ‘You interpret my feelings with +great accuracy.’ + +Mrs. Squeers had listened to this conversation, from the bottom of +the stairs; but, now losing all patience, she hastily assumed her +night-jacket, and made her way to the scene of action. + +‘What’s all this here to-do?’ said the lady, as the boys fell off right +and left, to save her the trouble of clearing a passage with her brawny +arms. ‘What on earth are you a talking to him for, Squeery!’ + +‘Why, my dear,’ said Squeers, ‘the fact is, that Smike is not to be +found.’ + +‘Well, I know that,’ said the lady, ‘and where’s the wonder? If you +get a parcel of proud-stomached teachers that set the young dogs a +rebelling, what else can you look for? Now, young man, you just have the +kindness to take yourself off to the schoolroom, and take the boys off +with you, and don’t you stir out of there till you have leave given you, +or you and I may fall out in a way that’ll spoil your beauty, handsome +as you think yourself, and so I tell you.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas. + +‘Yes; and indeed and indeed again, Mister Jackanapes,’ said the excited +lady; ‘and I wouldn’t keep such as you in the house another hour, if I +had my way.’ + +‘Nor would you if I had mine,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Now, boys!’ + +‘Ah! Now, boys,’ said Mrs. Squeers, mimicking, as nearly as she could, +the voice and manner of the usher. ‘Follow your leader, boys, and take +pattern by Smike if you dare. See what he’ll get for himself, when he +is brought back; and, mind! I tell you that you shall have as bad, and +twice as bad, if you so much as open your mouths about him.’ + +‘If I catch him,’ said Squeers, ‘I’ll only stop short of flaying him +alive. I give you notice, boys.’ + +‘IF you catch him,’ retorted Mrs. Squeers, contemptuously; ‘you are sure +to; you can’t help it, if you go the right way to work. Come! Away with +you!’ + +With these words, Mrs. Squeers dismissed the boys, and after a little +light skirmishing with those in the rear who were pressing forward to +get out of the way, but were detained for a few moments by the throng +in front, succeeded in clearing the room, when she confronted her spouse +alone. + +‘He is off,’ said Mrs. Squeers. ‘The cow-house and stable are locked up, +so he can’t be there; and he’s not downstairs anywhere, for the girl has +looked. He must have gone York way, and by a public road too.’ + +‘Why must he?’ inquired Squeers. + +‘Stupid!’ said Mrs. Squeers angrily. ‘He hadn’t any money, had he?’ + +‘Never had a penny of his own in his whole life, that I know of,’ +replied Squeers. + +‘To be sure,’ rejoined Mrs. Squeers, ‘and he didn’t take anything to eat +with him; that I’ll answer for. Ha! ha! ha!’ + +‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed Squeers. + +‘Then, of course,’ said Mrs. S., ‘he must beg his way, and he could do +that, nowhere, but on the public road.’ + +‘That’s true,’ exclaimed Squeers, clapping his hands. + +‘True! Yes; but you would never have thought of it, for all that, if I +hadn’t said so,’ replied his wife. ‘Now, if you take the chaise and go +one road, and I borrow Swallow’s chaise, and go the other, what with +keeping our eyes open, and asking questions, one or other of us is +pretty certain to lay hold of him.’ + +The worthy lady’s plan was adopted and put in execution without a +moment’s delay. After a very hasty breakfast, and the prosecution of +some inquiries in the village, the result of which seemed to show that +he was on the right track, Squeers started forth in the pony-chaise, +intent upon discovery and vengeance. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Squeers, +arrayed in the white top-coat, and tied up in various shawls and +handkerchiefs, issued forth in another chaise and another direction, +taking with her a good-sized bludgeon, several odd pieces of strong +cord, and a stout labouring man: all provided and carried upon the +expedition, with the sole object of assisting in the capture, and (once +caught) insuring the safe custody of the unfortunate Smike. + +Nicholas remained behind, in a tumult of feeling, sensible that whatever +might be the upshot of the boy’s flight, nothing but painful and +deplorable consequences were likely to ensue from it. Death, from want +and exposure to the weather, was the best that could be expected from +the protracted wandering of so poor and helpless a creature, alone and +unfriended, through a country of which he was wholly ignorant. There was +little, perhaps, to choose between this fate and a return to the tender +mercies of the Yorkshire school; but the unhappy being had established a +hold upon his sympathy and compassion, which made his heart ache at the +prospect of the suffering he was destined to undergo. He lingered on, in +restless anxiety, picturing a thousand possibilities, until the evening +of next day, when Squeers returned, alone, and unsuccessful. + +‘No news of the scamp!’ said the schoolmaster, who had evidently been +stretching his legs, on the old principle, not a few times during the +journey. ‘I’ll have consolation for this out of somebody, Nickleby, if +Mrs. Squeers don’t hunt him down; so I give you warning.’ + +‘It is not in my power to console you, sir,’ said Nicholas. ‘It is +nothing to me.’ + +‘Isn’t it?’ said Squeers in a threatening manner. ‘We shall see!’ + +‘We shall,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Here’s the pony run right off his legs, and me obliged to come home +with a hack cob, that’ll cost fifteen shillings besides other expenses,’ +said Squeers; ‘who’s to pay for that, do you hear?’ + +Nicholas shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. + +‘I’ll have it out of somebody, I tell you,’ said Squeers, his usual +harsh crafty manner changed to open bullying ‘None of your whining +vapourings here, Mr. Puppy, but be off to your kennel, for it’s past your +bedtime! Come! Get out!’ + +Nicholas bit his lip and knit his hands involuntarily, for his +fingerends tingled to avenge the insult; but remembering that the +man was drunk, and that it could come to little but a noisy brawl, he +contented himself with darting a contemptuous look at the tyrant, and +walked, as majestically as he could, upstairs: not a little nettled, +however, to observe that Miss Squeers and Master Squeers, and the +servant girl, were enjoying the scene from a snug corner; the two +former indulging in many edifying remarks about the presumption of poor +upstarts, which occasioned a vast deal of laughter, in which even the +most miserable of all miserable servant girls joined: while Nicholas, +stung to the quick, drew over his head such bedclothes as he had, and +sternly resolved that the outstanding account between himself and +Mr. Squeers should be settled rather more speedily than the latter +anticipated. + +Another day came, and Nicholas was scarcely awake when he heard the +wheels of a chaise approaching the house. It stopped. The voice of Mrs +Squeers was heard, and in exultation, ordering a glass of spirits +for somebody, which was in itself a sufficient sign that something +extraordinary had happened. Nicholas hardly dared to look out of the +window; but he did so, and the very first object that met his eyes was +the wretched Smike: so bedabbled with mud and rain, so haggard and worn, +and wild, that, but for his garments being such as no scarecrow was ever +seen to wear, he might have been doubtful, even then, of his identity. + +‘Lift him out,’ said Squeers, after he had literally feasted his eyes, +in silence, upon the culprit. ‘Bring him in; bring him in!’ + +‘Take care,’ cried Mrs. Squeers, as her husband proffered his assistance. +‘We tied his legs under the apron and made’em fast to the chaise, to +prevent his giving us the slip again.’ + +With hands trembling with delight, Squeers unloosened the cord; and +Smike, to all appearance more dead than alive, was brought into the +house and securely locked up in a cellar, until such time as Mr. Squeers +should deem it expedient to operate upon him, in presence of the +assembled school. + +Upon a hasty consideration of the circumstances, it may be matter of +surprise to some persons, that Mr. and Mrs. Squeers should have taken so +much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which it was +their wont to complain so loudly; but their surprise will cease when +they are informed that the manifold services of the drudge, if performed +by anybody else, would have cost the establishment some ten or twelve +shillings per week in the shape of wages; and furthermore, that all +runaways were, as a matter of policy, made severe examples of, at +Dotheboys Hall, inasmuch as, in consequence of the limited extent of +its attractions, there was but little inducement, beyond the powerful +impulse of fear, for any pupil, provided with the usual number of legs +and the power of using them, to remain. + +The news that Smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran +like wild-fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on +tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, +until afternoon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner, +and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his +appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of +portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, +supple, wax-ended, and new,--in short, purchased that morning, expressly +for the occasion. + +‘Is every boy here?’ asked Squeers, in a tremendous voice. + +Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak, so Squeers +glared along the lines to assure himself; and every eye drooped, and +every head cowered down, as he did so. + +‘Each boy keep his place,’ said Squeers, administering his favourite +blow to the desk, and regarding with gloomy satisfaction the universal +start which it never failed to occasion. ‘Nickleby! to your desk, sir.’ + +It was remarked by more than one small observer, that there was a very +curious and unusual expression in the usher’s face; but he took his +seat, without opening his lips in reply. Squeers, casting a triumphant +glance at his assistant and a look of most comprehensive despotism on +the boys, left the room, and shortly afterwards returned, dragging +Smike by the collar--or rather by that fragment of his jacket which was +nearest the place where his collar would have been, had he boasted such +a decoration. + +In any other place, the appearance of the wretched, jaded, spiritless +object would have occasioned a murmur of compassion and remonstrance. It +had some effect, even there; for the lookers-on moved uneasily in their +seats; and a few of the boldest ventured to steal looks at each other, +expressive of indignation and pity. + +They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened on the +luckless Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in such cases, +whether he had anything to say for himself. + +‘Nothing, I suppose?’ said Squeers, with a diabolical grin. + +Smike glanced round, and his eye rested, for an instant, on Nicholas, +as if he had expected him to intercede; but his look was riveted on his +desk. + +‘Have you anything to say?’ demanded Squeers again: giving his right arm +two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness. ‘Stand a little +out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear; I’ve hardly got room enough.’ + +‘Spare me, sir!’ cried Smike. + +‘Oh! that’s all, is it?’ said Squeers. ‘Yes, I’ll flog you within an +inch of your life, and spare you that.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Mrs. Squeers, ‘that’s a good ‘un!’ + +‘I was driven to do it,’ said Smike faintly; and casting another +imploring look about him. + +‘Driven to do it, were you?’ said Squeers. ‘Oh! it wasn’t your fault; it +was mine, I suppose--eh?’ + +‘A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking +dog,’ exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike’s head under her arm, and +administering a cuff at every epithet; ‘what does he mean by that?’ + +‘Stand aside, my dear,’ replied Squeers. ‘We’ll try and find out.’ + +Mrs. Squeers, being out of breath with her exertions, complied. Squeers +caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his +body--he was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream of pain--it was +raised again, and again about to fall--when Nicholas Nickleby, suddenly +starting up, cried ‘Stop!’ in a voice that made the rafters ring. + +‘Who cried stop?’ said Squeers, turning savagely round. + +‘I,’ said Nicholas, stepping forward. ‘This must not go on.’ + +‘Must not go on!’ cried Squeers, almost in a shriek. + +‘No!’ thundered Nicholas. + +Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, Squeers +released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon +Nicholas with looks that were positively frightful. + +‘I say must not,’ repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted; ‘shall not. I will +prevent it.’ + +Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of his +head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him of +speech. + +‘You have disregarded all my quiet interference in the miserable lad’s +behalf,’ said Nicholas; ‘you have returned no answer to the letter in +which I begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be responsible +that he would remain quietly here. Don’t blame me for this public +interference. You have brought it upon yourself; not I.’ + +‘Sit down, beggar!’ screamed Squeers, almost beside himself with rage, +and seizing Smike as he spoke. + +‘Wretch,’ rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, ‘touch him at your peril! I will +not stand by, and see it done. My blood is up, and I have the strength +of ten such men as you. Look to yourself, for by Heaven I will not spare +you, if you drive me on!’ + +‘Stand back,’ cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon. + +‘I have a long series of insults to avenge,’ said Nicholas, flushed with +passion; ‘and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties +practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for if you +do raise the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon +your own head!’ + +He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath, +and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spat upon him, and struck +him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised +up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony +of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings +of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the +weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian +till he roared for mercy. + +The boys--with the exception of Master Squeers, who, coming to his +father’s assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear--moved not, hand or +foot; but Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail +of her partner’s coat, and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated +adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the +keyhole in expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very +beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower of inkstands +at the usher’s head, beat Nicholas to her heart’s content; animating +herself, at every blow, with the recollection of his having refused her +proffered love, and thus imparting additional strength to an arm which +(as she took after her mother in this respect) was, at no time, one of +the weakest. + +Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no more +than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired of the +noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides, he threw +all his remaining strength into half-a-dozen finishing cuts, and flung +Squeers from him with all the force he could muster. The violence of +his fall precipitated Mrs. Squeers completely over an adjacent form; and +Squeers striking his head against it in his descent, lay at his full +length on the ground, stunned and motionless. + +Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascertained, to +his thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was only stunned, and not dead +(upon which point he had had some unpleasant doubts at first), Nicholas +left his family to restore him, and retired to consider what course he +had better adopt. He looked anxiously round for Smike, as he left the +room, but he was nowhere to be seen. + +After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small +leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to oppose his +progress, marched boldly out by the front-door, and shortly afterwards, +struck into the road which led to Greta Bridge. + +When he had cooled sufficiently to be enabled to give his present +circumstances some little reflection, they did not appear in a very +encouraging light; he had only four shillings and a few pence in his +pocket, and was something more than two hundred and fifty miles +from London, whither he resolved to direct his steps, that he might +ascertain, among other things, what account of the morning’s proceedings +Mr. Squeers transmitted to his most affectionate uncle. + +Lifting up his eyes, as he arrived at the conclusion that there was no +remedy for this unfortunate state of things, he beheld a horseman coming +towards him, whom, on nearer approach, he discovered, to his infinite +chagrin, to be no other than Mr. John Browdie, who, clad in cords and +leather leggings, was urging his animal forward by means of a thick ash +stick, which seemed to have been recently cut from some stout sapling. + +‘I am in no mood for more noise and riot,’ thought Nicholas, ‘and yet, +do what I will, I shall have an altercation with this honest blockhead, +and perhaps a blow or two from yonder staff.’ + +In truth, there appeared some reason to expect that such a result would +follow from the encounter, for John Browdie no sooner saw Nicholas +advancing, than he reined in his horse by the footpath, and waited until +such time as he should come up; looking meanwhile, very sternly between +the horse’s ears, at Nicholas, as he came on at his leisure. + +‘Servant, young genelman,’ said John. + +‘Yours,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Weel; we ha’ met at last,’ observed John, making the stirrup ring under +a smart touch of the ash stick. + +‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, hesitating. ‘Come!’ he said, frankly, after a +moment’s pause, ‘we parted on no very good terms the last time we met; +it was my fault, I believe; but I had no intention of offending you, and +no idea that I was doing so. I was very sorry for it, afterwards. Will +you shake hands?’ + +‘Shake honds!’ cried the good-humoured Yorkshireman; ‘ah! that I weel;’ +at the same time, he bent down from the saddle, and gave Nicholas’s fist +a huge wrench: ‘but wa’at be the matther wi’ thy feace, mun? it be all +brokken loike.’ + +‘It is a cut,’ said Nicholas, turning scarlet as he spoke,--‘a blow; but +I returned it to the giver, and with good interest too.’ + +‘Noa, did ‘ee though?’ exclaimed John Browdie. ‘Well deane! I loike ‘un +for thot.’ + +‘The fact is,’ said Nicholas, not very well knowing how to make the +avowal, ‘the fact is, that I have been ill-treated.’ + +‘Noa!’ interposed John Browdie, in a tone of compassion; for he was a +giant in strength and stature, and Nicholas, very likely, in his eyes, +seemed a mere dwarf; ‘dean’t say thot.’ + +‘Yes, I have,’ replied Nicholas, ‘by that man Squeers, and I have beaten +him soundly, and am leaving this place in consequence.’ + +‘What!’ cried John Browdie, with such an ecstatic shout, that the horse +quite shied at it. ‘Beatten the schoolmeasther! Ho! ho! ho! Beatten the +schoolmeasther! who ever heard o’ the loike o’ that noo! Giv’ us thee +hond agean, yoongster. Beatten the schoolmeasther! Dang it, I loov’ thee +for’t.’ + +With these expressions of delight, John Browdie laughed and laughed +again--so loud that the echoes, far and wide, sent back nothing but +jovial peals of merriment--and shook Nicholas by the hand meanwhile, no +less heartily. When his mirth had subsided, he inquired what Nicholas +meant to do; on his informing him, to go straight to London, he shook +his head doubtfully, and inquired if he knew how much the coaches +charged to carry passengers so far. + +‘No, I do not,’ said Nicholas; ‘but it is of no great consequence to me, +for I intend walking.’ + +‘Gang awa’ to Lunnun afoot!’ cried John, in amazement. + +‘Every step of the way,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I should be many steps +further on by this time, and so goodbye!’ + +‘Nay noo,’ replied the honest countryman, reining in his impatient +horse, ‘stan’ still, tellee. Hoo much cash hast thee gotten?’ + +‘Not much,’ said Nicholas, colouring, ‘but I can make it enough. Where +there’s a will, there’s a way, you know.’ + +John Browdie made no verbal answer to this remark, but putting his hand +in his pocket, pulled out an old purse of solid leather, and insisted +that Nicholas should borrow from him whatever he required for his +present necessities. + +‘Dean’t be afeard, mun,’ he said; ‘tak’ eneaf to carry thee whoam. +Thee’lt pay me yan day, a’ warrant.’ + +Nicholas could by no means be prevailed upon to borrow more than a +sovereign, with which loan Mr. Browdie, after many entreaties that he +would accept of more (observing, with a touch of Yorkshire caution, that +if he didn’t spend it all, he could put the surplus by, till he had an +opportunity of remitting it carriage free), was fain to content himself. + +‘Tak’ that bit o’ timber to help thee on wi’, mun,’ he added, pressing +his stick on Nicholas, and giving his hand another squeeze; ‘keep a good +heart, and bless thee. Beatten the schoolmeasther! ‘Cod it’s the best +thing a’ve heerd this twonty year!’ + +So saying, and indulging, with more delicacy than might have been +expected from him, in another series of loud laughs, for the purpose of +avoiding the thanks which Nicholas poured forth, John Browdie set spurs +to his horse, and went off at a smart canter: looking back, from time to +time, as Nicholas stood gazing after him, and waving his hand cheerily, +as if to encourage him on his way. Nicholas watched the horse and rider +until they disappeared over the brow of a distant hill, and then set +forward on his journey. + +He did not travel far that afternoon, for by this time it was nearly +dark, and there had been a heavy fall of snow, which not only rendered +the way toilsome, but the track uncertain and difficult to find, after +daylight, save by experienced wayfarers. He lay, that night, at a +cottage, where beds were let at a cheap rate to the more humble class of +travellers; and, rising betimes next morning, made his way before night +to Boroughbridge. Passing through that town in search of some cheap +resting-place, he stumbled upon an empty barn within a couple of hundred +yards of the roadside; in a warm corner of which, he stretched his weary +limbs, and soon fell asleep. + +When he awoke next morning, and tried to recollect his dreams, which had +been all connected with his recent sojourn at Dotheboys Hall, he sat +up, rubbed his eyes and stared--not with the most composed countenance +possible--at some motionless object which seemed to be stationed within +a few yards in front of him. + +‘Strange!’ cried Nicholas; ‘can this be some lingering creation of the +visions that have scarcely left me! It cannot be real--and yet I--I am +awake! Smike!’ + +The form moved, rose, advanced, and dropped upon its knees at his feet. +It was Smike indeed. + +‘Why do you kneel to me?’ said Nicholas, hastily raising him. + +‘To go with you--anywhere--everywhere--to the world’s end--to the +churchyard grave,’ replied Smike, clinging to his hand. ‘Let me, oh do +let me. You are my home--my kind friend--take me with you, pray.’ + +‘I am a friend who can do little for you,’ said Nicholas, kindly. ‘How +came you here?’ + +He had followed him, it seemed; had never lost sight of him all the way; +had watched while he slept, and when he halted for refreshment; and +had feared to appear before, lest he should be sent back. He had not +intended to appear now, but Nicholas had awakened more suddenly than he +looked for, and he had had no time to conceal himself. + +‘Poor fellow!’ said Nicholas, ‘your hard fate denies you any friend but +one, and he is nearly as poor and helpless as yourself.’ + +‘May I--may I go with you?’ asked Smike, timidly. ‘I will be your +faithful hard-working servant, I will, indeed. I want no clothes,’ added +the poor creature, drawing his rags together; ‘these will do very well. +I only want to be near you.’ + +‘And you shall,’ cried Nicholas. ‘And the world shall deal by you as it +does by me, till one or both of us shall quit it for a better. Come!’ + +With these words, he strapped his burden on his shoulders, and, taking +his stick in one hand, extended the other to his delighted charge; and +so they passed out of the old barn, together. + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +Having the Misfortune to treat of none but Common People, is necessarily +of a Mean and Vulgar Character + + +In that quarter of London in which Golden Square is situated, there is +a bygone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of tall +meagre houses, which seem to have stared each other out of countenance +years ago. The very chimneys appear to have grown dismal and melancholy, +from having had nothing better to look at than the chimneys over the +way. Their tops are battered, and broken, and blackened with smoke; and, +here and there, some taller stack than the rest, inclining heavily to +one side, and toppling over the roof, seems to meditate taking revenge +for half a century’s neglect, by crushing the inhabitants of the garrets +beneath. + +The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither and +thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, +and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to understand, are +perfectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of their owners. Dingy, +ill-plumed, drowsy flutterers, sent, like many of the neighbouring +children, to get a livelihood in the streets, they hop, from stone to +stone, in forlorn search of some hidden eatable in the mud, and can +scarcely raise a crow among them. The only one with anything approaching +to a voice, is an aged bantam at the baker’s; and even he is hoarse, in +consequence of bad living in his last place. + +To judge from the size of the houses, they have been, at one time, +tenanted by persons of better condition than their present occupants; +but they are now let off, by the week, in floors or rooms, and every +door has almost as many plates or bell-handles as there are apartments +within. The windows are, for the same reason, sufficiently diversified +in appearance, being ornamented with every variety of common blind and +curtain that can easily be imagined; while every doorway is blocked up, +and rendered nearly impassable, by a motley collection of children and +porter pots of all sizes, from the baby in arms and the half-pint pot, +to the full-grown girl and half-gallon can. + +In the parlour of one of these houses, which was perhaps a thought +dirtier than any of its neighbours; which exhibited more bell-handles, +children, and porter pots, and caught in all its freshness the first +gust of the thick black smoke that poured forth, night and day, from a +large brewery hard by; hung a bill, announcing that there was yet one +room to let within its walls, though on what story the vacant room could +be--regard being had to the outward tokens of many lodgers which the +whole front displayed, from the mangle in the kitchen window to the +flower-pots on the parapet--it would have been beyond the power of a +calculating boy to discover. + +The common stairs of this mansion were bare and carpetless; but a +curious visitor who had to climb his way to the top, might have observed +that there were not wanting indications of the progressive poverty +of the inmates, although their rooms were shut. Thus, the first-floor +lodgers, being flush of furniture, kept an old mahogany table--real +mahogany--on the landing-place outside, which was only taken in, when +occasion required. On the second story, the spare furniture dwindled +down to a couple of old deal chairs, of which one, belonging to the +back-room, was shorn of a leg, and bottomless. The story above, +boasted no greater excess than a worm-eaten wash-tub; and the garret +landing-place displayed no costlier articles than two crippled pitchers, +and some broken blacking-bottles. + +It was on this garret landing-place that a hard-featured square-faced +man, elderly and shabby, stopped to unlock the door of the front attic, +into which, having surmounted the task of turning the rusty key in its +still more rusty wards, he walked with the air of legal owner. + +This person wore a wig of short, coarse, red hair, which he took off +with his hat, and hung upon a nail. Having adopted in its place a dirty +cotton nightcap, and groped about in the dark till he found a remnant of +candle, he knocked at the partition which divided the two garrets, and +inquired, in a loud voice, whether Mr. Noggs had a light. + +The sounds that came back were stifled by the lath and plaster, and it +seemed moreover as though the speaker had uttered them from the interior +of a mug or other drinking vessel; but they were in the voice of Newman, +and conveyed a reply in the affirmative. + +‘A nasty night, Mr. Noggs!’ said the man in the nightcap, stepping in to +light his candle. + +‘Does it rain?’ asked Newman. + +‘Does it?’ replied the other pettishly. ‘I am wet through.’ + +‘It doesn’t take much to wet you and me through, Mr. Crowl,’ said Newman, +laying his hand upon the lappel of his threadbare coat. + +‘Well; and that makes it the more vexatious,’ observed Mr. Crowl, in the +same pettish tone. + +Uttering a low querulous growl, the speaker, whose harsh countenance was +the very epitome of selfishness, raked the scanty fire nearly out of +the grate, and, emptying the glass which Noggs had pushed towards him, +inquired where he kept his coals. + +Newman Noggs pointed to the bottom of a cupboard, and Mr. Crowl, seizing +the shovel, threw on half the stock: which Noggs very deliberately took +off again, without saying a word. + +‘You have not turned saving, at this time of day, I hope?’ said Crowl. + +Newman pointed to the empty glass, as though it were a sufficient +refutation of the charge, and briefly said that he was going downstairs +to supper. + +‘To the Kenwigses?’ asked Crowl. + +Newman nodded assent. + +‘Think of that now!’ said Crowl. ‘If I didn’t--thinking that you +were certain not to go, because you said you wouldn’t--tell Kenwigs I +couldn’t come, and make up my mind to spend the evening with you!’ + +‘I was obliged to go,’ said Newman. ‘They would have me.’ + +‘Well; but what’s to become of me?’ urged the selfish man, who never +thought of anybody else. ‘It’s all your fault. I’ll tell you what--I’ll +sit by your fire till you come back again.’ + +Newman cast a despairing glance at his small store of fuel, but, not +having the courage to say no--a word which in all his life he never had +said at the right time, either to himself or anyone else--gave way to +the proposed arrangement. Mr. Crowl immediately went about making himself +as comfortable, with Newman Nogg’s means, as circumstances would admit +of his being made. + +The lodgers to whom Crowl had made allusion under the designation of +‘the Kenwigses,’ were the wife and olive branches of one Mr. Kenwigs, a +turner in ivory, who was looked upon as a person of some consideration +on the premises, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of the first floor, +comprising a suite of two rooms. Mrs. Kenwigs, too, was quite a lady in +her manners, and of a very genteel family, having an uncle who collected +a water-rate; besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little +girls went twice a week to a dancing school in the neighbourhood, and +had flaxen hair, tied with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails +down their backs; and wore little white trousers with frills round the +ankles--for all of which reasons, and many more equally valid but too +numerous to mention, Mrs. Kenwigs was considered a very desirable person +to know, and was the constant theme of all the gossips in the street, +and even three or four doors round the corner at both ends. + +It was the anniversary of that happy day on which the Church of England +as by law established, had bestowed Mrs. Kenwigs upon Mr. Kenwigs; and in +grateful commemoration of the same, Mrs. Kenwigs had invited a few select +friends to cards and a supper in the first floor, and had put on a new +gown to receive them in: which gown, being of a flaming colour and made +upon a juvenile principle, was so successful that Mr. Kenwigs said the +eight years of matrimony and the five children seemed all a dream, and +Mrs. Kenwigs younger and more blooming than on the very first Sunday he +had kept company with her. + +Beautiful as Mrs. Kenwigs looked when she was dressed though, and so +stately that you would have supposed she had a cook and housemaid +at least, and nothing to do but order them about, she had a world +of trouble with the preparations; more, indeed, than she, being of a +delicate and genteel constitution, could have sustained, had not the +pride of housewifery upheld her. At last, however, all the things that +had to be got together were got together, and all the things that had to +be got out of the way were got out of the way, and everything was ready, +and the collector himself having promised to come, fortune smiled upon +the occasion. + +The party was admirably selected. There were, first of all, Mr. Kenwigs +and Mrs. Kenwigs, and four olive Kenwigses who sat up to supper; firstly, +because it was but right that they should have a treat on such a day; +and secondly, because their going to bed, in presence of the company, +would have been inconvenient, not to say improper. Then, there was a +young lady who had made Mrs. Kenwigs’s dress, and who--it was the most +convenient thing in the world--living in the two-pair back, gave up her +bed to the baby, and got a little girl to watch it. Then, to match this +young lady, was a young man, who had known Mr. Kenwigs when he was a +bachelor, and was much esteemed by the ladies, as bearing the reputation +of a rake. To these were added a newly-married couple, who had visited +Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs in their courtship; and a sister of Mrs. Kenwigs’s, +who was quite a beauty; besides whom, there was another young man, +supposed to entertain honourable designs upon the lady last mentioned; +and Mr. Noggs, who was a genteel person to ask, because he had been a +gentleman once. There were also an elderly lady from the back-parlour, +and one more young lady, who, next to the collector, perhaps was the +great lion of the party, being the daughter of a theatrical fireman, who +‘went on’ in the pantomime, and had the greatest turn for the stage that +was ever known, being able to sing and recite in a manner that brought +the tears into Mrs. Kenwigs’s eyes. There was only one drawback upon +the pleasure of seeing such friends, and that was, that the lady in +the back-parlour, who was very fat, and turned of sixty, came in a +low book-muslin dress and short kid gloves, which so exasperated Mrs +Kenwigs, that that lady assured her visitors, in private, that if it +hadn’t happened that the supper was cooking at the back-parlour grate +at that moment, she certainly would have requested its representative to +withdraw. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘wouldn’t it be better to begin a round +game?’ + +‘Kenwigs, my dear,’ returned his wife, ‘I am surprised at you. Would you +begin without my uncle?’ + +‘I forgot the collector,’ said Kenwigs; ‘oh no, that would never do.’ + +‘He’s so particular,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, turning to the other married +lady, ‘that if we began without him, I should be out of his will for +ever.’ + +‘Dear!’ cried the married lady. + +‘You’ve no idea what he is,’ replied Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘and yet as good a +creature as ever breathed.’ + +‘The kindest-hearted man as ever was,’ said Kenwigs. + +‘It goes to his heart, I believe, to be forced to cut the water off, +when the people don’t pay,’ observed the bachelor friend, intending a +joke. + +‘George,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, solemnly, ‘none of that, if you please.’ + +‘It was only my joke,’ said the friend, abashed. + +‘George,’ rejoined Mr. Kenwigs, ‘a joke is a wery good thing--a wery +good thing--but when that joke is made at the expense of Mrs. Kenwigs’s +feelings, I set my face against it. A man in public life expects to +be sneered at--it is the fault of his elewated sitiwation, and not of +himself. Mrs. Kenwigs’s relation is a public man, and that he knows, +George, and that he can bear; but putting Mrs. Kenwigs out of the +question (if I COULD put Mrs. Kenwigs out of the question on such an +occasion as this), I have the honour to be connected with the collector +by marriage; and I cannot allow these remarks in my--’ Mr. Kenwigs was +going to say ‘house,’ but he rounded the sentence with ‘apartments’. + +At the conclusion of these observations, which drew forth evidences +of acute feeling from Mrs. Kenwigs, and had the intended effect of +impressing the company with a deep sense of the collector’s dignity, a +ring was heard at the bell. + +‘That’s him,’ whispered Mr. Kenwigs, greatly excited. ‘Morleena, my dear, +run down and let your uncle in, and kiss him directly you get the door +open. Hem! Let’s be talking.’ + +Adopting Mr. Kenwigs’s suggestion, the company spoke very loudly, to look +easy and unembarrassed; and almost as soon as they had begun to do so, +a short old gentleman in drabs and gaiters, with a face that might +have been carved out of LIGNUM VITAE, for anything that appeared to the +contrary, was led playfully in by Miss Morleena Kenwigs, regarding +whose uncommon Christian name it may be here remarked that it had been +invented and composed by Mrs. Kenwigs previous to her first lying-in, for +the special distinction of her eldest child, in case it should prove a +daughter. + +‘Oh, uncle, I am SO glad to see you,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, kissing the +collector affectionately on both cheeks. ‘So glad!’ + +‘Many happy returns of the day, my dear,’ replied the collector, +returning the compliment. + +Now, this was an interesting thing. Here was a collector of water-rates, +without his book, without his pen and ink, without his double knock, +without his intimidation, kissing--actually kissing--an agreeable +female, and leaving taxes, summonses, notices that he had called, or +announcements that he would never call again, for two quarters’ due, +wholly out of the question. It was pleasant to see how the company +looked on, quite absorbed in the sight, and to behold the nods and +winks with which they expressed their gratification at finding so much +humanity in a tax-gatherer. + +‘Where will you sit, uncle?’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, in the full glow of +family pride, which the appearance of her distinguished relation +occasioned. + +‘Anywheres, my dear,’ said the collector, ‘I am not particular.’ + +Not particular! What a meek collector! If he had been an author, who +knew his place, he couldn’t have been more humble. + +‘Mr. Lillyvick,’ said Kenwigs, addressing the collector, ‘some friends +here, sir, are very anxious for the honour of--thank you--Mr. and Mrs +Cutler, Mr. Lillyvick.’ + +‘Proud to know you, sir,’ said Mr. Cutler; ‘I’ve heerd of you very +often.’ These were not mere words of ceremony; for, Mr. Cutler, having +kept house in Mr. Lillyvick’s parish, had heard of him very often indeed. +His attention in calling had been quite extraordinary. + +‘George, you know, I think, Mr. Lillyvick,’ said Kenwigs; ‘lady from +downstairs--Mr. Lillyvick. Mr. Snewkes--Mr. Lillyvick. Miss Green--Mr +Lillyvick. Mr. Lillyvick--Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. +Very glad to make two public characters acquainted! Mrs. Kenwigs, my +dear, will you sort the counters?’ + +Mrs. Kenwigs, with the assistance of Newman Noggs, (who, as he performed +sundry little acts of kindness for the children, at all times and +seasons, was humoured in his request to be taken no notice of, and was +merely spoken about, in a whisper, as the decayed gentleman), did as he +was desired; and the greater part of the guests sat down to speculation, +while Newman himself, Mrs. Kenwigs, and Miss Petowker of the Theatre +Royal Drury Lane, looked after the supper-table. + +While the ladies were thus busying themselves, Mr. Lillyvick was intent +upon the game in progress, and as all should be fish that comes to a +water-collector’s net, the dear old gentleman was by no means scrupulous +in appropriating to himself the property of his neighbours, which, on +the contrary, he abstracted whenever an opportunity presented itself, +smiling good-humouredly all the while, and making so many condescending +speeches to the owners, that they were delighted with his amiability, +and thought in their hearts that he deserved to be Chancellor of the +Exchequer at least. + +After a great deal of trouble, and the administration of many slaps on +the head to the infant Kenwigses, whereof two of the most rebellious +were summarily banished, the cloth was laid with much elegance, and a +pair of boiled fowls, a large piece of pork, apple-pie, potatoes and +greens, were served; at sight of which, the worthy Mr. Lillyvick vented a +great many witticisms, and plucked up amazingly: to the immense delight +and satisfaction of the whole body of admirers. + +Very well and very fast the supper went off; no more serious +difficulties occurring, than those which arose from the incessant demand +for clean knives and forks; which made poor Mrs. Kenwigs wish, more +than once, that private society adopted the principle of schools, and +required that every guest should bring his own knife, fork, and spoon; +which doubtless would be a great accommodation in many cases, and to no +one more so than to the lady and gentleman of the house, especially +if the school principle were carried out to the full extent, and the +articles were expected, as a matter of delicacy, not to be taken away +again. + +Everybody having eaten everything, the table was cleared in a most +alarming hurry, and with great noise; and the spirits, whereat the eyes +of Newman Noggs glistened, being arranged in order, with water both hot +and cold, the party composed themselves for conviviality; Mr. Lillyvick +being stationed in a large armchair by the fireside, and the four little +Kenwigses disposed on a small form in front of the company with their +flaxen tails towards them, and their faces to the fire; an arrangement +which was no sooner perfected, than Mrs. Kenwigs was overpowered by the +feelings of a mother, and fell upon the left shoulder of Mr. Kenwigs +dissolved in tears. + +‘They are so beautiful!’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, sobbing. + +‘Oh, dear,’ said all the ladies, ‘so they are! it’s very natural you +should feel proud of that; but don’t give way, don’t.’ + +‘I can--not help it, and it don’t signify,’ sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘oh! +they’re too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!’ + +On hearing this alarming presentiment of their being doomed to an early +death in the flower of their infancy, all four little girls raised +a hideous cry, and burying their heads in their mother’s lap +simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated again; +Mrs. Kenwigs meanwhile clasping them alternately to her bosom, with +attitudes expressive of distraction, which Miss Petowker herself might +have copied. + +At length, the anxious mother permitted herself to be soothed into a +more tranquil state, and the little Kenwigses, being also composed, were +distributed among the company, to prevent the possibility of Mrs. Kenwigs +being again overcome by the blaze of their combined beauty. This done, +the ladies and gentlemen united in prophesying that they would live for +many, many years, and that there was no occasion at all for Mrs. Kenwigs +to distress herself; which, in good truth, there did not appear to be; +the loveliness of the children by no means justifying her apprehensions. + +‘This day eight year,’ said Mr. Kenwigs after a pause. ‘Dear me--ah!’ + +This reflection was echoed by all present, who said ‘Ah!’ first, and +‘dear me,’ afterwards. + +‘I was younger then,’ tittered Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘No,’ said the collector. + +‘Certainly not,’ added everybody. + +‘I remember my niece,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, surveying his audience with +a grave air; ‘I remember her, on that very afternoon, when she first +acknowledged to her mother a partiality for Kenwigs. “Mother,” she says, +“I love him.”’ + +‘“Adore him,” I said, uncle,’ interposed Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘“Love him,” I think, my dear,’ said the collector, firmly. + +‘Perhaps you are right, uncle,’ replied Mrs. Kenwigs, submissively. ‘I +thought it was “adore.”’ + +‘“Love,” my dear,’ retorted Mr. Lillyvick. ‘“Mother,” she says, “I love +him!” “What do I hear?” cries her mother; and instantly falls into +strong conwulsions.’ + +A general exclamation of astonishment burst from the company. + +‘Into strong conwulsions,’ repeated Mr. Lillyvick, regarding them with a +rigid look. ‘Kenwigs will excuse my saying, in the presence of friends, +that there was a very great objection to him, on the ground that he was +beneath the family, and would disgrace it. You remember, Kenwigs?’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied that gentleman, in no way displeased at the +reminiscence, inasmuch as it proved, beyond all doubt, what a high +family Mrs. Kenwigs came of. + +‘I shared in that feeling,’ said Mr. Lillyvick: ‘perhaps it was natural; +perhaps it wasn’t.’ + +A gentle murmur seemed to say, that, in one of Mr. Lillyvick’s station, +the objection was not only natural, but highly praiseworthy. + +‘I came round to him in time,’ said Mr. Lillyvick. ‘After they were +married, and there was no help for it, I was one of the first to say +that Kenwigs must be taken notice of. The family DID take notice of him, +in consequence, and on my representation; and I am bound to say--and +proud to say--that I have always found him a very honest, well-behaved, +upright, respectable sort of man. Kenwigs, shake hands.’ + +‘I am proud to do it, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘So am I, Kenwigs,’ rejoined Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘A very happy life I have led with your niece, sir,’ said Kenwigs. + +‘It would have been your own fault if you had not, sir,’ remarked Mr +Lillyvick. + +‘Morleena Kenwigs,’ cried her mother, at this crisis, much affected, +‘kiss your dear uncle!’ + +The young lady did as she was requested, and the three other little +girls were successively hoisted up to the collector’s countenance, and +subjected to the same process, which was afterwards repeated on them by +the majority of those present. + +‘Oh dear, Mrs. Kenwigs,’ said Miss Petowker, ‘while Mr. Noggs is making +that punch to drink happy returns in, do let Morleena go through that +figure dance before Mr. Lillyvick.’ + +‘No, no, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘it will only worry my uncle.’ + +‘It can’t worry him, I am sure,’ said Miss Petowker. ‘You will be very +much pleased, won’t you, sir?’ + +‘That I am sure I shall’ replied the collector, glancing at the +punch-mixer. + +‘Well then, I’ll tell you what,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘Morleena shall +do the steps, if uncle can persuade Miss Petowker to recite us the +Blood-Drinker’s Burial, afterwards.’ + +There was a great clapping of hands and stamping of feet, at this +proposition; the subject whereof, gently inclined her head several +times, in acknowledgment of the reception. + +‘You know,’ said Miss Petowker, reproachfully, ‘that I dislike doing +anything professional in private parties.’ + +‘Oh, but not here!’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. ‘We are all so very friendly and +pleasant, that you might as well be going through it in your own room; +besides, the occasion--’ + +‘I can’t resist that,’ interrupted Miss Petowker; ‘anything in my humble +power I shall be delighted to do.’ + +Mrs. Kenwigs and Miss Petowker had arranged a small PROGRAMME of the +entertainments between them, of which this was the prescribed order, +but they had settled to have a little pressing on both sides, because it +looked more natural. The company being all ready, Miss Petowker hummed +a tune, and Morleena danced a dance; having previously had the soles +of her shoes chalked, with as much care as if she were going on the +tight-rope. It was a very beautiful figure, comprising a great deal of +work for the arms, and was received with unbounded applause. + +‘If I was blessed with a--a child--’ said Miss Petowker, blushing, ‘of +such genius as that, I would have her out at the Opera instantly.’ + +Mrs. Kenwigs sighed, and looked at Mr. Kenwigs, who shook his head, and +observed that he was doubtful about it. + +‘Kenwigs is afraid,’ said Mrs. K. + +‘What of?’ inquired Miss Petowker, ‘not of her failing?’ + +‘Oh no,’ replied Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘but if she grew up what she is now,--only +think of the young dukes and marquises.’ + +‘Very right,’ said the collector. + +‘Still,’ submitted Miss Petowker, ‘if she took a proper pride in +herself, you know--’ + +‘There’s a good deal in that,’ observed Mrs. Kenwigs, looking at her +husband. + +‘I only know--’ faltered Miss Petowker,--‘it may be no rule to be +sure--but I have never found any inconvenience or unpleasantness of that +sort.’ + +Mr. Kenwigs, with becoming gallantry, said that settled the question at +once, and that he would take the subject into his serious consideration. +This being resolved upon, Miss Petowker was entreated to begin the +Blood-Drinker’s Burial; to which end, that young lady let down her back +hair, and taking up her position at the other end of the room, with the +bachelor friend posted in a corner, to rush out at the cue ‘in death +expire,’ and catch her in his arms when she died raving mad, went +through the performance with extraordinary spirit, and to the great +terror of the little Kenwigses, who were all but frightened into fits. + +The ecstasies consequent upon the effort had not yet subsided, and +Newman (who had not been thoroughly sober at so late an hour for a long +long time,) had not yet been able to put in a word of announcement, +that the punch was ready, when a hasty knock was heard at the room-door, +which elicited a shriek from Mrs. Kenwigs, who immediately divined that +the baby had fallen out of bed. + +‘Who is that?’ demanded Mr. Kenwigs, sharply. + +‘Don’t be alarmed, it’s only me,’ said Crowl, looking in, in his +nightcap. ‘The baby is very comfortable, for I peeped into the room as +I came down, and it’s fast asleep, and so is the girl; and I don’t think +the candle will set fire to the bed-curtain, unless a draught was to get +into the room--it’s Mr. Noggs that’s wanted.’ + +‘Me!’ cried Newman, much astonished. + +‘Why, it IS a queer hour, isn’t it?’ replied Crowl, who was not best +pleased at the prospect of losing his fire; ‘and they are queer-looking +people, too, all covered with rain and mud. Shall I tell them to go +away?’ + +‘No,’ said Newman, rising. ‘People? How many?’ + +‘Two,’ rejoined Crowl. + +‘Want me? By name?’ asked Newman. + +‘By name,’ replied Crowl. ‘Mr. Newman Noggs, as pat as need be.’ + +Newman reflected for a few seconds, and then hurried away, muttering +that he would be back directly. He was as good as his word; for, in an +exceedingly short time, he burst into the room, and seizing, without +a word of apology or explanation, a lighted candle and tumbler of hot +punch from the table, darted away like a madman. + +‘What the deuce is the matter with him?’ exclaimed Crowl, throwing the +door open. ‘Hark! Is there any noise above?’ + +The guests rose in great confusion, and, looking in each other’s faces +with much perplexity and some fear, stretched their necks forward, and +listened attentively. + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +Acquaints the Reader with the Cause and Origin of the Interruption +described in the last Chapter, and with some other Matters necessary to +be known + + +Newman Noggs scrambled in violent haste upstairs with the steaming +beverage, which he had so unceremoniously snatched from the table of Mr +Kenwigs, and indeed from the very grasp of the water-rate collector, who +was eyeing the contents of the tumbler, at the moment of its unexpected +abstraction, with lively marks of pleasure visible in his countenance. +He bore his prize straight to his own back-garret, where, footsore and +nearly shoeless, wet, dirty, jaded, and disfigured with every mark of +fatiguing travel, sat Nicholas and Smike, at once the cause and partner +of his toil; both perfectly worn out by their unwonted and protracted +exertion. + +Newman’s first act was to compel Nicholas, with gentle force, to swallow +half of the punch at a breath, nearly boiling as it was; and his next, +to pour the remainder down the throat of Smike, who, never having tasted +anything stronger than aperient medicine in his whole life, exhibited +various odd manifestations of surprise and delight, during the passage +of the liquor down his throat, and turned up his eyes most emphatically +when it was all gone. + +‘You are wet through,’ said Newman, passing his hand hastily over the +coat which Nicholas had thrown off; ‘and I--I--haven’t even a change,’ +he added, with a wistful glance at the shabby clothes he wore himself. + +‘I have dry clothes, or at least such as will serve my turn well, in +my bundle,’ replied Nicholas. ‘If you look so distressed to see me, you +will add to the pain I feel already, at being compelled, for one night, +to cast myself upon your slender means for aid and shelter.’ + +Newman did not look the less distressed to hear Nicholas talking in this +strain; but, upon his young friend grasping him heartily by the hand, +and assuring him that nothing but implicit confidence in the sincerity +of his professions, and kindness of feeling towards himself, would have +induced him, on any consideration, even to have made him acquainted +with his arrival in London, Mr. Noggs brightened up again, and went about +making such arrangements as were in his power for the comfort of his +visitors, with extreme alacrity. + +These were simple enough; poor Newman’s means halting at a very +considerable distance short of his inclinations; but, slight as they +were, they were not made without much bustling and running about. As +Nicholas had husbanded his scanty stock of money, so well that it was +not yet quite expended, a supper of bread and cheese, with some cold +beef from the cook’s shop, was soon placed upon the table; and these +viands being flanked by a bottle of spirits and a pot of porter, there +was no ground for apprehension on the score of hunger or thirst, at all +events. Such preparations as Newman had it in his power to make, for +the accommodation of his guests during the night, occupied no very great +time in completing; and as he had insisted, as an express preliminary, +that Nicholas should change his clothes, and that Smike should invest +himself in his solitary coat (which no entreaties would dissuade him +from stripping off for the purpose), the travellers partook of their +frugal fare, with more satisfaction than one of them at least had +derived from many a better meal. + +They then drew near the fire, which Newman Noggs had made up as well as +he could, after the inroads of Crowl upon the fuel; and Nicholas, who +had hitherto been restrained by the extreme anxiety of his friend +that he should refresh himself after his journey, now pressed him with +earnest questions concerning his mother and sister. + +‘Well,’ replied Newman, with his accustomed taciturnity; ‘both well.’ + +‘They are living in the city still?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘They are,’ said Newman. + +‘And my sister,’--added Nicholas. ‘Is she still engaged in the business +which she wrote to tell me she thought she should like so much?’ + +Newman opened his eyes rather wider than usual, but merely replied by +a gasp, which, according to the action of the head that accompanied +it, was interpreted by his friends as meaning yes or no. In the present +instance, the pantomime consisted of a nod, and not a shake; so Nicholas +took the answer as a favourable one. + +‘Now listen to me,’ said Nicholas, laying his hand on Newman’s shoulder. +‘Before I would make an effort to see them, I deemed it expedient to +come to you, lest, by gratifying my own selfish desire, I should inflict +an injury upon them which I can never repair. What has my uncle heard +from Yorkshire?’ + +Newman opened and shut his mouth, several times, as though he were +trying his utmost to speak, but could make nothing of it, and finally +fixed his eyes on Nicholas with a grim and ghastly stare. + +‘What has he heard?’ urged Nicholas, colouring. ‘You see that I am +prepared to hear the very worst that malice can have suggested. Why +should you conceal it from me? I must know it sooner or later; and what +purpose can be gained by trifling with the matter for a few minutes, +when half the time would put me in possession of all that has occurred? +Tell me at once, pray.’ + +‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Newman; ‘hear it tomorrow.’ + +‘What purpose would that answer?’ urged Nicholas. + +‘You would sleep the better,’ replied Newman. + +‘I should sleep the worse,’ answered Nicholas, impatiently. ‘Sleep! +Exhausted as I am, and standing in no common need of rest, I cannot hope +to close my eyes all night, unless you tell me everything.’ + +‘And if I should tell you everything,’ said Newman, hesitating. + +‘Why, then you may rouse my indignation or wound my pride,’ rejoined +Nicholas; ‘but you will not break my rest; for if the scene were acted +over again, I could take no other part than I have taken; and whatever +consequences may accrue to myself from it, I shall never regret doing as +I have done--never, if I starve or beg in consequence. What is a little +poverty or suffering, to the disgrace of the basest and most inhuman +cowardice! I tell you, if I had stood by, tamely and passively, I should +have hated myself, and merited the contempt of every man in existence. +The black-hearted scoundrel!’ + +With this gentle allusion to the absent Mr. Squeers, Nicholas repressed +his rising wrath, and relating to Newman exactly what had passed at +Dotheboys Hall, entreated him to speak out without more pressing. Thus +adjured, Mr. Noggs took, from an old trunk, a sheet of paper, which +appeared to have been scrawled over in great haste; and after sundry +extraordinary demonstrations of reluctance, delivered himself in the +following terms. + +‘My dear young man, you mustn’t give way to--this sort of thing +will never do, you know--as to getting on in the world, if you take +everybody’s part that’s ill-treated--Damn it, I am proud to hear of it; +and would have done it myself!’ + +Newman accompanied this very unusual outbreak with a violent blow upon +the table, as if, in the heat of the moment, he had mistaken it for the +chest or ribs of Mr. Wackford Squeers. Having, by this open declaration +of his feelings, quite precluded himself from offering Nicholas any +cautious worldly advice (which had been his first intention), Mr. Noggs +went straight to the point. + +‘The day before yesterday,’ said Newman, ‘your uncle received this +letter. I took a hasty copy of it, while he was out. Shall I read it?’ + +‘If you please,’ replied Nicholas. Newman Noggs accordingly read as +follows: + +‘DOTHEBOYS HALL, ‘THURSDAY MORNING. + +‘SIR, + +‘My pa requests me to write to you, the doctors considering it doubtful +whether he will ever recuvver the use of his legs which prevents his +holding a pen. + +‘We are in a state of mind beyond everything, and my pa is one mask of +brooses both blue and green likewise two forms are steepled in his Goar. +We were kimpelled to have him carried down into the kitchen where he now +lays. You will judge from this that he has been brought very low. + +‘When your nevew that you recommended for a teacher had done this to +my pa and jumped upon his body with his feet and also langwedge which +I will not pollewt my pen with describing, he assaulted my ma with +dreadful violence, dashed her to the earth, and drove her back comb +several inches into her head. A very little more and it must have +entered her skull. We have a medical certifiket that if it had, the +tortershell would have affected the brain. + +‘Me and my brother were then the victims of his feury since which we +have suffered very much which leads us to the arrowing belief that we +have received some injury in our insides, especially as no marks of +violence are visible externally. I am screaming out loud all the time +I write and so is my brother which takes off my attention rather and I +hope will excuse mistakes. + +‘The monster having sasiated his thirst for blood ran away, taking with +him a boy of desperate character that he had excited to rebellyon, and a +garnet ring belonging to my ma, and not having been apprehended by the +constables is supposed to have been took up by some stage-coach. My pa +begs that if he comes to you the ring may be returned, and that you will +let the thief and assassin go, as if we prosecuted him he would only be +transported, and if he is let go he is sure to be hung before long which +will save us trouble and be much more satisfactory. Hoping to hear from +you when convenient + +‘I remain ‘Yours and cetrer ‘FANNY SQUEERS. + +‘P.S. I pity his ignorance and despise him.’ + +A profound silence succeeded to the reading of this choice epistle, +during which Newman Noggs, as he folded it up, gazed with a kind of +grotesque pity at the boy of desperate character therein referred to; +who, having no more distinct perception of the matter in hand, than that +he had been the unfortunate cause of heaping trouble and falsehood +upon Nicholas, sat mute and dispirited, with a most woe-begone and +heart-stricken look. + +‘Mr. Noggs,’ said Nicholas, after a few moments’ reflection, ‘I must go +out at once.’ + +‘Go out!’ cried Newman. + +‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘to Golden Square. Nobody who knows me would +believe this story of the ring; but it may suit the purpose, or gratify +the hatred of Mr. Ralph Nickleby to feign to attach credence to it. It +is due--not to him, but to myself--that I should state the truth; and +moreover, I have a word or two to exchange with him, which will not keep +cool.’ + +‘They must,’ said Newman. + +‘They must not, indeed,’ rejoined Nicholas firmly, as he prepared to +leave the house. + +‘Hear me speak,’ said Newman, planting himself before his impetuous +young friend. ‘He is not there. He is away from town. He will not be +back for three days; and I know that letter will not be answered before +he returns.’ + +‘Are you sure of this?’ asked Nicholas, chafing violently, and pacing +the narrow room with rapid strides. + +‘Quite,’ rejoined Newman. ‘He had hardly read it when he was called +away. Its contents are known to nobody but himself and us.’ + +‘Are you certain?’ demanded Nicholas, precipitately; ‘not even to my +mother or sister? If I thought that they--I will go there--I must see +them. Which is the way? Where is it?’ + +‘Now, be advised by me,’ said Newman, speaking for the moment, in his +earnestness, like any other man--‘make no effort to see even them, till +he comes home. I know the man. Do not seem to have been tampering with +anybody. When he returns, go straight to him, and speak as boldly as you +like. Guessing at the real truth, he knows it as well as you or I. Trust +him for that.’ + +‘You mean well to me, and should know him better than I can,’ replied +Nicholas, after some consideration. ‘Well; let it be so.’ + +Newman, who had stood during the foregoing conversation with his back +planted against the door, ready to oppose any egress from the apartment +by force, if necessary, resumed his seat with much satisfaction; and +as the water in the kettle was by this time boiling, made a glassful +of spirits and water for Nicholas, and a cracked mug-full for the joint +accommodation of himself and Smike, of which the two partook in great +harmony, while Nicholas, leaning his head upon his hand, remained buried +in melancholy meditation. + +Meanwhile, the company below stairs, after listening attentively and +not hearing any noise which would justify them in interfering for +the gratification of their curiosity, returned to the chamber of the +Kenwigses, and employed themselves in hazarding a great variety of +conjectures relative to the cause of Mr. Noggs’ sudden disappearance and +detention. + +‘Lor, I’ll tell you what,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. ‘Suppose it should be an +express sent up to say that his property has all come back again!’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Kenwigs; ‘it’s not impossible. Perhaps, in that case, +we’d better send up and ask if he won’t take a little more punch.’ + +‘Kenwigs!’ said Mr. Lillyvick, in a loud voice, ‘I’m surprised at you.’ + +‘What’s the matter, sir?’ asked Mr. Kenwigs, with becoming submission to +the collector of water-rates. + +‘Making such a remark as that, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, angrily. ‘He +has had punch already, has he not, sir? I consider the way in which that +punch was cut off, if I may use the expression, highly disrespectful to +this company; scandalous, perfectly scandalous. It may be the custom to +allow such things in this house, but it’s not the kind of behaviour +that I’ve been used to see displayed, and so I don’t mind telling you, +Kenwigs. A gentleman has a glass of punch before him to which he is just +about to set his lips, when another gentleman comes and collars that +glass of punch, without a “with your leave”, or “by your leave”, and +carries that glass of punch away. This may be good manners--I dare say +it is--but I don’t understand it, that’s all; and what’s more, I don’t +care if I never do. It’s my way to speak my mind, Kenwigs, and that is +my mind; and if you don’t like it, it’s past my regular time for going +to bed, and I can find my way home without making it later.’ + +Here was an untoward event! The collector had sat swelling and fuming +in offended dignity for some minutes, and had now fairly burst out. The +great man--the rich relation--the unmarried uncle--who had it in his +power to make Morleena an heiress, and the very baby a legatee--was +offended. Gracious Powers, where was this to end! + +‘I am very sorry, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, humbly. + +‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry,’ retorted Mr. Lillyvick, with much +sharpness. ‘You should have prevented it, then.’ + +The company were quite paralysed by this domestic crash. The +back-parlour sat with her mouth wide open, staring vacantly at the +collector, in a stupor of dismay; the other guests were scarcely less +overpowered by the great man’s irritation. Mr. Kenwigs, not being skilful +in such matters, only fanned the flame in attempting to extinguish it. + +‘I didn’t think of it, I am sure, sir,’ said that gentleman. ‘I didn’t +suppose that such a little thing as a glass of punch would have put you +out of temper.’ + +‘Out of temper! What the devil do you mean by that piece of +impertinence, Mr. Kenwigs?’ said the collector. ‘Morleena, child--give me +my hat.’ + +‘Oh, you’re not going, Mr. Lillyvick, sir,’ interposed Miss Petowker, +with her most bewitching smile. + +But still Mr. Lillyvick, regardless of the siren, cried obdurately, +‘Morleena, my hat!’ upon the fourth repetition of which demand, Mrs +Kenwigs sunk back in her chair, with a cry that might have softened a +water-butt, not to say a water-collector; while the four little girls +(privately instructed to that effect) clasped their uncle’s drab shorts +in their arms, and prayed him, in imperfect English, to remain. + +‘Why should I stop here, my dears?’ said Mr. Lillyvick; ‘I’m not wanted +here.’ + +‘Oh, do not speak so cruelly, uncle,’ sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘unless you +wish to kill me.’ + +‘I shouldn’t wonder if some people were to say I did,’ replied Mr +Lillyvick, glancing angrily at Kenwigs. ‘Out of temper!’ + +‘Oh! I cannot bear to see him look so, at my husband,’ cried Mrs +Kenwigs. ‘It’s so dreadful in families. Oh!’ + +‘Mr. Lillyvick,’ said Kenwigs, ‘I hope, for the sake of your niece, that +you won’t object to be reconciled.’ + +The collector’s features relaxed, as the company added their entreaties +to those of his nephew-in-law. He gave up his hat, and held out his +hand. + +‘There, Kenwigs,’ said Mr. Lillyvick; ‘and let me tell you, at the same +time, to show you how much out of temper I was, that if I had gone away +without another word, it would have made no difference respecting that +pound or two which I shall leave among your children when I die.’ + +‘Morleena Kenwigs,’ cried her mother, in a torrent of affection. ‘Go +down upon your knees to your dear uncle, and beg him to love you all +his life through, for he’s more a angel than a man, and I’ve always said +so.’ + +Miss Morleena approaching to do homage, in compliance with this +injunction, was summarily caught up and kissed by Mr. Lillyvick; and +thereupon Mrs. Kenwigs darted forward and kissed the collector, and +an irrepressible murmur of applause broke from the company who had +witnessed his magnanimity. + +The worthy gentleman then became once more the life and soul of the +society; being again reinstated in his old post of lion, from which high +station the temporary distraction of their thoughts had for a moment +dispossessed him. Quadruped lions are said to be savage, only when they +are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite +for distinction remains unappeased. Mr. Lillyvick stood higher than ever; +for he had shown his power; hinted at his property and testamentary +intentions; gained great credit for disinterestedness and virtue; and, +in addition to all, was finally accommodated with a much larger tumbler +of punch than that which Newman Noggs had so feloniously made off with. + +‘I say! I beg everybody’s pardon for intruding again,’ said Crowl, +looking in at this happy juncture; ‘but what a queer business this is, +isn’t it? Noggs has lived in this house, now going on for five years, +and nobody has ever been to see him before, within the memory of the +oldest inhabitant.’ + +‘It’s a strange time of night to be called away, sir, certainly,’ said +the collector; ‘and the behaviour of Mr. Noggs himself, is, to say the +least of it, mysterious.’ + +‘Well, so it is,’ rejoined Crowl; ‘and I’ll tell you what’s more--I +think these two geniuses, whoever they are, have run away from +somewhere.’ + +‘What makes you think that, sir?’ demanded the collector, who seemed, by +a tacit understanding, to have been chosen and elected mouthpiece to +the company. ‘You have no reason to suppose that they have run away from +anywhere without paying the rates and taxes due, I hope?’ + +Mr. Crowl, with a look of some contempt, was about to enter a general +protest against the payment of rates or taxes, under any circumstances, +when he was checked by a timely whisper from Kenwigs, and several frowns +and winks from Mrs. K., which providentially stopped him. + +‘Why the fact is,’ said Crowl, who had been listening at Newman’s door +with all his might and main; ‘the fact is, that they have been talking +so loud, that they quite disturbed me in my room, and so I couldn’t +help catching a word here, and a word there; and all I heard, certainly +seemed to refer to their having bolted from some place or other. I don’t +wish to alarm Mrs. Kenwigs; but I hope they haven’t come from any jail or +hospital, and brought away a fever or some unpleasantness of that sort, +which might be catching for the children.’ + +Mrs. Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed all +the tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury +Lane, to restore her to anything like a state of calmness; not to +mention the assiduity of Mr. Kenwigs, who held a fat smelling-bottle to +his lady’s nose, until it became matter of some doubt whether the tears +which coursed down her face were the result of feelings or SAL VOLATILE. + +The ladies, having expressed their sympathy, singly and separately, +fell, according to custom, into a little chorus of soothing expressions, +among which, such condolences as ‘Poor dear!’--‘I should feel just the +same, if I was her’--‘To be sure, it’s a very trying thing’--and ‘Nobody +but a mother knows what a mother’s feelings is,’ were among the most +prominent, and most frequently repeated. In short, the opinion of the +company was so clearly manifested, that Mr. Kenwigs was on the point of +repairing to Mr. Noggs’s room, to demand an explanation, and had indeed +swallowed a preparatory glass of punch, with great inflexibility and +steadiness of purpose, when the attention of all present was diverted by +a new and terrible surprise. + +This was nothing less than the sudden pouring forth of a rapid +succession of the shrillest and most piercing screams, from an upper +story; and to all appearance from the very two-pair back, in which +the infant Kenwigs was at that moment enshrined. They were no sooner +audible, than Mrs. Kenwigs, opining that a strange cat had come in, and +sucked the baby’s breath while the girl was asleep, made for the door, +wringing her hands, and shrieking dismally; to the great consternation +and confusion of the company. + +‘Mr. Kenwigs, see what it is; make haste!’ cried the sister, laying +violent hands upon Mrs. Kenwigs, and holding her back by force. ‘Oh don’t +twist about so, dear, or I can never hold you.’ + +‘My baby, my blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed baby!’ screamed Mrs +Kenwigs, making every blessed louder than the last. ‘My own darling, +sweet, innocent Lillyvick--Oh let me go to him. Let me go-o-o-o!’ + +Pending the utterance of these frantic cries, and the wails and +lamentations of the four little girls, Mr. Kenwigs rushed upstairs to the +room whence the sounds proceeded; at the door of which, he encountered +Nicholas, with the child in his arms, who darted out with such violence, +that the anxious father was thrown down six stairs, and alighted on the +nearest landing-place, before he had found time to open his mouth to ask +what was the matter. + +‘Don’t be alarmed,’ cried Nicholas, running down; ‘here it is; it’s all +out, it’s all over; pray compose yourselves; there’s no harm done;’ +and with these, and a thousand other assurances, he delivered the baby +(whom, in his hurry, he had carried upside down), to Mrs. Kenwigs, and +ran back to assist Mr. Kenwigs, who was rubbing his head very hard, and +looking much bewildered by his tumble. + +Reassured by this cheering intelligence, the company in some degree +recovered from their fears, which had been productive of some most +singular instances of a total want of presence of mind; thus, the +bachelor friend had, for a long time, supported in his arms Mrs +Kenwigs’s sister, instead of Mrs. Kenwigs; and the worthy Mr. Lillyvick +had been actually seen, in the perturbation of his spirits, to kiss Miss +Petowker several times, behind the room-door, as calmly as if nothing +distressing were going forward. + +‘It is a mere nothing,’ said Nicholas, returning to Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘the +little girl, who was watching the child, being tired I suppose, fell +asleep, and set her hair on fire.’ + +‘Oh you malicious little wretch!’ cried Mrs. Kenwigs, impressively +shaking her forefinger at the small unfortunate, who might be thirteen +years old, and was looking on with a singed head and a frightened face. + +‘I heard her cries,’ continued Nicholas, ‘and ran down, in time to +prevent her setting fire to anything else. You may depend upon it that +the child is not hurt; for I took it off the bed myself, and brought it +here to convince you.’ + +This brief explanation over, the infant, who, as he was christened after +the collector! rejoiced in the names of Lillyvick Kenwigs, was partially +suffocated under the caresses of the audience, and squeezed to his +mother’s bosom, until he roared again. The attention of the company was +then directed, by a natural transition, to the little girl who had had +the audacity to burn her hair off, and who, after receiving sundry small +slaps and pushes from the more energetic of the ladies, was mercifully +sent home: the ninepence, with which she was to have been rewarded, +being escheated to the Kenwigs family. + +‘And whatever we are to say to you, sir,’ exclaimed Mrs. Kenwigs, +addressing young Lillyvick’s deliverer, ‘I am sure I don’t know.’ + +‘You need say nothing at all,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I have done nothing to +found any very strong claim upon your eloquence, I am sure.’ + +‘He might have been burnt to death, if it hadn’t been for you, sir,’ +simpered Miss Petowker. + +‘Not very likely, I think,’ replied Nicholas; ‘for there was abundance +of assistance here, which must have reached him before he had been in +any danger.’ + +‘You will let us drink your health, anyvays, sir!’ said Mr. Kenwigs +motioning towards the table. + +‘--In my absence, by all means,’ rejoined Nicholas, with a smile. +‘I have had a very fatiguing journey, and should be most indifferent +company--a far greater check upon your merriment, than a promoter of it, +even if I kept awake, which I think very doubtful. If you will allow +me, I’ll return to my friend, Mr. Noggs, who went upstairs again, when he +found nothing serious had occurred. Good-night.’ + +Excusing himself, in these terms, from joining in the festivities, +Nicholas took a most winning farewell of Mrs. Kenwigs and the other +ladies, and retired, after making a very extraordinary impression upon +the company. + +‘What a delightful young man!’ cried Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘Uncommon gentlemanly, really,’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘Don’t you think so, Mr +Lillyvick?’ + +‘Yes,’ said the collector, with a dubious shrug of his shoulders, ‘He is +gentlemanly, very gentlemanly--in appearance.’ + +‘I hope you don’t see anything against him, uncle?’ inquired Mrs +Kenwigs. + +‘No, my dear,’ replied the collector, ‘no. I trust he may not turn +out--well--no matter--my love to you, my dear, and long life to the +baby!’ + +‘Your namesake,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, with a sweet smile. + +‘And I hope a worthy namesake,’ observed Mr. Kenwigs, willing to +propitiate the collector. ‘I hope a baby as will never disgrace his +godfather, and as may be considered, in arter years, of a piece with the +Lillyvicks whose name he bears. I do say--and Mrs. Kenwigs is of the same +sentiment, and feels it as strong as I do--that I consider his being +called Lillyvick one of the greatest blessings and Honours of my +existence.’ + +‘THE greatest blessing, Kenwigs,’ murmured his lady. + +‘THE greatest blessing,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, correcting himself. ‘A +blessing that I hope, one of these days, I may be able to deserve.’ + +This was a politic stroke of the Kenwigses, because it made Mr. Lillyvick +the great head and fountain of the baby’s importance. The good gentleman +felt the delicacy and dexterity of the touch, and at once proposed the +health of the gentleman, name unknown, who had signalised himself, that +night, by his coolness and alacrity. + +‘Who, I don’t mind saying,’ observed Mr. Lillyvick, as a great +concession, ‘is a good-looking young man enough, with manners that I +hope his character may be equal to.’ + +‘He has a very nice face and style, really,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘He certainly has,’ added Miss Petowker. ‘There’s something in his +appearance quite--dear, dear, what’s that word again?’ + +‘What word?’ inquired Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘Why--dear me, how stupid I am,’ replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. +‘What do you call it, when Lords break off door-knockers and beat +policemen, and play at coaches with other people’s money, and all that +sort of thing?’ + +‘Aristocratic?’ suggested the collector. + +‘Ah! aristocratic,’ replied Miss Petowker; ‘something very aristocratic +about him, isn’t there?’ + +The gentleman held their peace, and smiled at each other, as who should +say, ‘Well! there’s no accounting for tastes;’ but the ladies resolved +unanimously that Nicholas had an aristocratic air; and nobody caring to +dispute the position, it was established triumphantly. + +The punch being, by this time, drunk out, and the little Kenwigses (who +had for some time previously held their little eyes open with their +little forefingers) becoming fractious, and requesting rather urgently +to be put to bed, the collector made a move by pulling out his watch, +and acquainting the company that it was nigh two o’clock; whereat some +of the guests were surprised and others shocked, and hats and bonnets +being groped for under the tables, and in course of time found, their +owners went away, after a vast deal of shaking of hands, and many +remarks how they had never spent such a delightful evening, and how +they marvelled to find it so late, expecting to have heard that it was +half-past ten at the very latest, and how they wished that Mr. and Mrs +Kenwigs had a wedding-day once a week, and how they wondered by what +hidden agency Mrs. Kenwigs could possibly have managed so well; and +a great deal more of the same kind. To all of which flattering +expressions, Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs replied, by thanking every lady and +gentleman, SERIATIM, for the favour of their company, and hoping they +might have enjoyed themselves only half as well as they said they had. + +As to Nicholas, quite unconscious of the impression he had produced, he +had long since fallen asleep, leaving Mr. Newman Noggs and Smike to empty +the spirit bottle between them; and this office they performed with +such extreme good-will, that Newman was equally at a loss to determine +whether he himself was quite sober, and whether he had ever seen any +gentleman so heavily, drowsily, and completely intoxicated as his new +acquaintance. + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +Nicholas seeks to employ himself in a New Capacity, and being +unsuccessful, accepts an engagement as Tutor in a Private Family + + +The first care of Nicholas, next morning, was, to look after some room +in which, until better times dawned upon him, he could contrive to +exist, without trenching upon the hospitality of Newman Noggs, who would +have slept upon the stairs with pleasure, so that his young friend was +accommodated. + +The vacant apartment to which the bill in the parlour window bore +reference, appeared, on inquiry, to be a small back-room on the second +floor, reclaimed from the leads, and overlooking a soot-bespeckled +prospect of tiles and chimney-pots. For the letting of this portion of +the house from week to week, on reasonable terms, the parlour lodger was +empowered to treat; he being deputed by the landlord to dispose of +the rooms as they became vacant, and to keep a sharp look-out that the +lodgers didn’t run away. As a means of securing the punctual discharge +of which last service he was permitted to live rent-free, lest he should +at any time be tempted to run away himself. + +Of this chamber, Nicholas became the tenant; and having hired a few +common articles of furniture from a neighbouring broker, and paid +the first week’s hire in advance, out of a small fund raised by the +conversion of some spare clothes into ready money, he sat himself down +to ruminate upon his prospects, which, like the prospect outside his +window, were sufficiently confined and dingy. As they by no means +improved on better acquaintance, and as familiarity breeds contempt, he +resolved to banish them from his thoughts by dint of hard walking. So, +taking up his hat, and leaving poor Smike to arrange and rearrange the +room with as much delight as if it had been the costliest palace, he +betook himself to the streets, and mingled with the crowd which thronged +them. + +Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere +unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means +follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a very +strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares. The unhappy +state of his own affairs was the one idea which occupied the brain of +Nicholas, walk as fast as he would; and when he tried to dislodge it by +speculating on the situation and prospects of the people who surrounded +him, he caught himself, in a few seconds, contrasting their condition +with his own, and gliding almost imperceptibly back into his old train +of thought again. + +Occupied in these reflections, as he was making his way along one of the +great public thoroughfares of London, he chanced to raise his eyes to +a blue board, whereon was inscribed, in characters of gold, ‘General +Agency Office; for places and situations of all kinds inquire within.’ +It was a shop-front, fitted up with a gauze blind and an inner door; +and in the window hung a long and tempting array of written placards, +announcing vacant places of every grade, from a secretary’s to a +foot-boy’s. + +Nicholas halted, instinctively, before this temple of promise, and ran +his eye over the capital-text openings in life which were so profusely +displayed. When he had completed his survey he walked on a little way, +and then back, and then on again; at length, after pausing irresolutely +several times before the door of the General Agency Office, he made up +his mind, and stepped in. + +He found himself in a little floor-clothed room, with a high desk railed +off in one corner, behind which sat a lean youth with cunning eyes and a +protruding chin, whose performances in capital-text darkened the window. +He had a thick ledger lying open before him, and with the fingers of his +right hand inserted between the leaves, and his eyes fixed on a very +fat old lady in a mob-cap--evidently the proprietress of the +establishment--who was airing herself at the fire, seemed to be only +waiting her directions to refer to some entries contained within its +rusty clasps. + +As there was a board outside, which acquainted the public that +servants-of-all-work were perpetually in waiting to be hired from ten +till four, Nicholas knew at once that some half-dozen strong young +women, each with pattens and an umbrella, who were sitting upon a form +in one corner, were in attendance for that purpose: especially as the +poor things looked anxious and weary. He was not quite so certain of the +callings and stations of two smart young ladies who were in conversation +with the fat lady before the fire, until--having sat himself down in a +corner, and remarked that he would wait until the other customers had +been served--the fat lady resumed the dialogue which his entrance had +interrupted. + +‘Cook, Tom,’ said the fat lady, still airing herself as aforesaid. + +‘Cook,’ said Tom, turning over some leaves of the ledger. ‘Well!’ + +‘Read out an easy place or two,’ said the fat lady. + +‘Pick out very light ones, if you please, young man,’ interposed a +genteel female, in shepherd’s-plaid boots, who appeared to be the +client. + +‘“Mrs. Marker,”’ said Tom, reading, ‘“Russell Place, Russell Square; +offers eighteen guineas; tea and sugar found. Two in family, and see +very little company. Five servants kept. No man. No followers.”’ + +‘Oh Lor!’ tittered the client. ‘THAT won’t do. Read another, young man, +will you?’ + +‘“Mrs. Wrymug,”’ said Tom, ‘“Pleasant Place, Finsbury. Wages, twelve +guineas. No tea, no sugar. Serious family--“’ + +‘Ah! you needn’t mind reading that,’ interrupted the client. + +‘“Three serious footmen,”’ said Tom, impressively. + +‘Three? did you say?’ asked the client in an altered tone. + +‘Three serious footmen,’ replied Tom. ‘“Cook, housemaid, and nursemaid; +each female servant required to join the Little Bethel Congregation +three times every Sunday--with a serious footman. If the cook is more +serious than the footman, she will be expected to improve the footman; +if the footman is more serious than the cook, he will be expected to +improve the cook.”’ + +‘I’ll take the address of that place,’ said the client; ‘I don’t know +but what it mightn’t suit me pretty well.’ + +‘Here’s another,’ remarked Tom, turning over the leaves. ‘“Family of Mr +Gallanbile, MP. Fifteen guineas, tea and sugar, and servants allowed +to see male cousins, if godly. Note. Cold dinner in the kitchen on the +Sabbath, Mr. Gallanbile being devoted to the Observance question. No +victuals whatever cooked on the Lord’s Day, with the exception of dinner +for Mr. and Mrs. Gallanbile, which, being a work of piety and necessity, +is exempted. Mr. Gallanbile dines late on the day of rest, in order to +prevent the sinfulness of the cook’s dressing herself.”’ + +‘I don’t think that’ll answer as well as the other,’ said the client, +after a little whispering with her friend. ‘I’ll take the other +direction, if you please, young man. I can but come back again, if it +don’t do.’ + +Tom made out the address, as requested, and the genteel client, +having satisfied the fat lady with a small fee, meanwhile, went away +accompanied by her friend. + +As Nicholas opened his mouth, to request the young man to turn to letter +S, and let him know what secretaryships remained undisposed of, there +came into the office an applicant, in whose favour he immediately +retired, and whose appearance both surprised and interested him. + +This was a young lady who could be scarcely eighteen, of very slight and +delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped, who, walking timidly up to the +desk, made an inquiry, in a very low tone of voice, relative to some +situation as governess, or companion to a lady. She raised her veil, for +an instant, while she preferred the inquiry, and disclosed a countenance +of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a cloud of sadness, which, in +one so young, was doubly remarkable. Having received a card of reference +to some person on the books, she made the usual acknowledgment, and +glided away. + +She was neatly, but very quietly attired; so much so, indeed, that it +seemed as though her dress, if it had been worn by one who imparted +fewer graces of her own to it, might have looked poor and shabby. Her +attendant--for she had one--was a red-faced, round-eyed, slovenly girl, +who, from a certain roughness about the bare arms that peeped from under +her draggled shawl, and the half-washed-out traces of smut and +blacklead which tattooed her countenance, was clearly of a kin with the +servants-of-all-work on the form: between whom and herself there had +passed various grins and glances, indicative of the freemasonry of the +craft. + +This girl followed her mistress; and, before Nicholas had recovered from +the first effects of his surprise and admiration, the young lady was +gone. It is not a matter of such complete and utter improbability as +some sober people may think, that he would have followed them out, +had he not been restrained by what passed between the fat lady and her +book-keeper. + +‘When is she coming again, Tom?’ asked the fat lady. + +‘Tomorrow morning,’ replied Tom, mending his pen. + +‘Where have you sent her to?’ asked the fat lady. + +‘Mrs. Clark’s,’ replied Tom. + +‘She’ll have a nice life of it, if she goes there,’ observed the fat +lady, taking a pinch of snuff from a tin box. + +Tom made no other reply than thrusting his tongue into his cheek, +and pointing the feather of his pen towards Nicholas--reminders which +elicited from the fat lady an inquiry, of ‘Now, sir, what can we do for +YOU?’ + +Nicholas briefly replied, that he wanted to know whether there was any +such post to be had, as secretary or amanuensis to a gentleman. + +‘Any such!’ rejoined the mistress; ‘a-dozen-such. An’t there, Tom?’ + +‘I should think so,’ answered that young gentleman; and as he said it, +he winked towards Nicholas, with a degree of familiarity which he, +no doubt, intended for a rather flattering compliment, but with which +Nicholas was most ungratefully disgusted. + +Upon reference to the book, it appeared that the dozen secretaryships +had dwindled down to one. Mr. Gregsbury, the great member of parliament, +of Manchester Buildings, Westminster, wanted a young man, to keep his +papers and correspondence in order; and Nicholas was exactly the sort of +young man that Mr. Gregsbury wanted. + +‘I don’t know what the terms are, as he said he’d settle them himself +with the party,’ observed the fat lady; ‘but they must be pretty good +ones, because he’s a member of parliament.’ + +Inexperienced as he was, Nicholas did not feel quite assured of the +force of this reasoning, or the justice of this conclusion; but without +troubling himself to question it, he took down the address, and resolved +to wait upon Mr. Gregsbury without delay. + +‘I don’t know what the number is,’ said Tom; ‘but Manchester Buildings +isn’t a large place; and if the worst comes to the worst it won’t take +you very long to knock at all the doors on both sides of the way till +you find him out. I say, what a good-looking gal that was, wasn’t she?’ + +‘What girl?’ demanded Nicholas, sternly. + +‘Oh yes. I know--what gal, eh?’ whispered Tom, shutting one eye, and +cocking his chin in the air. ‘You didn’t see her, you didn’t--I say, +don’t you wish you was me, when she comes tomorrow morning?’ + +Nicholas looked at the ugly clerk, as if he had a mind to reward his +admiration of the young lady by beating the ledger about his ears, +but he refrained, and strode haughtily out of the office; setting at +defiance, in his indignation, those ancient laws of chivalry, which not +only made it proper and lawful for all good knights to hear the praise +of the ladies to whom they were devoted, but rendered it incumbent upon +them to roam about the world, and knock at head all such matter-of-fact +and un-poetical characters, as declined to exalt, above all the earth, +damsels whom they had never chanced to look upon or hear of--as if that +were any excuse! + +Thinking no longer of his own misfortunes, but wondering what could +be those of the beautiful girl he had seen, Nicholas, with many wrong +turns, and many inquiries, and almost as many misdirections, bent his +steps towards the place whither he had been directed. + +Within the precincts of the ancient city of Westminster, and within +half a quarter of a mile of its ancient sanctuary, is a narrow and dirty +region, the sanctuary of the smaller members of Parliament in modern +days. It is all comprised in one street of gloomy lodging-houses, from +whose windows, in vacation-time, there frown long melancholy rows of +bills, which say, as plainly as did the countenances of their occupiers, +ranged on ministerial and opposition benches in the session which +slumbers with its fathers, ‘To Let’, ‘To Let’. In busier periods of the +year these bills disappear, and the houses swarm with legislators. There +are legislators in the parlours, in the first floor, in the second, in +the third, in the garrets; the small apartments reek with the breath of +deputations and delegates. In damp weather, the place is rendered close, +by the steams of moist acts of parliament and frouzy petitions; general +postmen grow faint as they enter its infected limits, and shabby figures +in quest of franks, flit restlessly to and fro like the troubled ghosts +of Complete Letter-writers departed. This is Manchester Buildings; and +here, at all hours of the night, may be heard the rattling of latch-keys +in their respective keyholes: with now and then--when a gust of wind +sweeping across the water which washes the Buildings’ feet, impels the +sound towards its entrance--the weak, shrill voice of some young member +practising tomorrow’s speech. All the livelong day, there is a grinding +of organs and clashing and clanging of little boxes of music; for +Manchester Buildings is an eel-pot, which has no outlet but its awkward +mouth--a case-bottle which has no thoroughfare, and a short and narrow +neck--and in this respect it may be typical of the fate of some few +among its more adventurous residents, who, after wriggling themselves +into Parliament by violent efforts and contortions, find that it, too, +is no thoroughfare for them; that, like Manchester Buildings, it leads +to nothing beyond itself; and that they are fain at last to back out, no +wiser, no richer, not one whit more famous, than they went in. + +Into Manchester Buildings Nicholas turned, with the address of the great +Mr. Gregsbury in his hand. As there was a stream of people pouring into +a shabby house not far from the entrance, he waited until they had made +their way in, and then making up to the servant, ventured to inquire if +he knew where Mr. Gregsbury lived. + +The servant was a very pale, shabby boy, who looked as if he had slept +underground from his infancy, as very likely he had. ‘Mr. Gregsbury?’ +said he; ‘Mr. Gregsbury lodges here. It’s all right. Come in!’ + +Nicholas thought he might as well get in while he could, so in he +walked; and he had no sooner done so, than the boy shut the door, and +made off. + +This was odd enough: but what was more embarrassing was, that all along +the passage, and all along the narrow stairs, blocking up the window, +and making the dark entry darker still, was a confused crowd of +persons with great importance depicted in their looks; who were, to all +appearance, waiting in silent expectation of some coming event. From +time to time, one man would whisper to his neighbour, or a little group +would whisper together, and then the whisperers would nod fiercely to +each other, or give their heads a relentless shake, as if they were bent +upon doing something very desperate, and were determined not to be put +off, whatever happened. + +As a few minutes elapsed without anything occurring to explain this +phenomenon, and as he felt his own position a peculiarly uncomfortable +one, Nicholas was on the point of seeking some information from the man +next him, when a sudden move was visible on the stairs, and a voice was +heard to cry, ‘Now, gentleman, have the goodness to walk up!’ + +So far from walking up, the gentlemen on the stairs began to walk down +with great alacrity, and to entreat, with extraordinary politeness, that +the gentlemen nearest the street would go first; the gentlemen nearest +the street retorted, with equal courtesy, that they couldn’t think of +such a thing on any account; but they did it, without thinking of it, +inasmuch as the other gentlemen pressing some half-dozen (among whom was +Nicholas) forward, and closing up behind, pushed them, not merely up the +stairs, but into the very sitting-room of Mr. Gregsbury, which they were +thus compelled to enter with most unseemly precipitation, and without +the means of retreat; the press behind them, more than filling the +apartment. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, ‘you are welcome. I am rejoiced to see +you.’ + +For a gentleman who was rejoiced to see a body of visitors, Mr. Gregsbury +looked as uncomfortable as might be; but perhaps this was occasioned by +senatorial gravity, and a statesmanlike habit of keeping his feelings +under control. He was a tough, burly, thick-headed gentleman, with a +loud voice, a pompous manner, a tolerable command of sentences with no +meaning in them, and, in short, every requisite for a very good member +indeed. + +‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, tossing a great bundle of papers +into a wicker basket at his feet, and throwing himself back in his chair +with his arms over the elbows, ‘you are dissatisfied with my conduct, I +see by the newspapers.’ + +‘Yes, Mr. Gregsbury, we are,’ said a plump old gentleman in a violent +heat, bursting out of the throng, and planting himself in the front. + +‘Do my eyes deceive me,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, looking towards the speaker, +‘or is that my old friend Pugstyles?’ + +‘I am that man, and no other, sir,’ replied the plump old gentleman. + +‘Give me your hand, my worthy friend,’ said Mr. Gregsbury. ‘Pugstyles, my +dear friend, I am very sorry to see you here.’ + +‘I am very sorry to be here, sir,’ said Mr. Pugstyles; ‘but your conduct, +Mr. Gregsbury, has rendered this deputation from your constituents +imperatively necessary.’ + +‘My conduct, Pugstyles,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, looking round upon the +deputation with gracious magnanimity--‘my conduct has been, and ever +will be, regulated by a sincere regard for the true and real interests +of this great and happy country. Whether I look at home, or abroad; +whether I behold the peaceful industrious communities of our island +home: her rivers covered with steamboats, her roads with locomotives, +her streets with cabs, her skies with balloons of a power and magnitude +hitherto unknown in the history of aeronautics in this or any other +nation--I say, whether I look merely at home, or, stretching my +eyes farther, contemplate the boundless prospect of conquest and +possession--achieved by British perseverance and British valour--which +is outspread before me, I clasp my hands, and turning my eyes to the +broad expanse above my head, exclaim, “Thank Heaven, I am a Briton!”’ + +The time had been, when this burst of enthusiasm would have been cheered +to the very echo; but now, the deputation received it with chilling +coldness. The general impression seemed to be, that as an explanation +of Mr. Gregsbury’s political conduct, it did not enter quite enough into +detail; and one gentleman in the rear did not scruple to remark aloud, +that, for his purpose, it savoured rather too much of a ‘gammon’ +tendency. + +‘The meaning of that term--gammon,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, ‘is unknown +to me. If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even +hyperbolical, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice of +the remark. I AM proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, +my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when +I call to mind her greatness and her glory.’ + +‘We wish, sir,’ remarked Mr. Pugstyles, calmly, ‘to ask you a few +questions.’ + +‘If you please, gentlemen; my time is yours--and my country’s--and my +country’s--’ said Mr. Gregsbury. + +This permission being conceded, Mr. Pugstyles put on his spectacles, and +referred to a written paper which he drew from his pocket; whereupon +nearly every other member of the deputation pulled a written paper from +HIS pocket, to check Mr. Pugstyles off, as he read the questions. + +This done, Mr. Pugstyles proceeded to business. + +‘Question number one.--Whether, sir, you did not give a voluntary pledge +previous to your election, that in event of your being returned, you +would immediately put down the practice of coughing and groaning in +the House of Commons. And whether you did not submit to be coughed and +groaned down in the very first debate of the session, and have since +made no effort to effect a reform in this respect? Whether you did not +also pledge yourself to astonish the government, and make them shrink in +their shoes? And whether you have astonished them, and made them shrink +in their shoes, or not?’ + +‘Go on to the next one, my dear Pugstyles,’ said Mr. Gregsbury. + +‘Have you any explanation to offer with reference to that question, +sir?’ asked Mr. Pugstyles. + +‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Gregsbury. + +The members of the deputation looked fiercely at each other, and +afterwards at the member. ‘Dear Pugstyles’ having taken a very long +stare at Mr. Gregsbury over the tops of his spectacles, resumed his list +of inquiries. + +‘Question number two.--Whether, sir, you did not likewise give a +voluntary pledge that you would support your colleague on every +occasion; and whether you did not, the night before last, desert him +and vote upon the other side, because the wife of a leader on that other +side had invited Mrs. Gregsbury to an evening party?’ + +‘Go on,’ said Mr. Gregsbury. + +‘Nothing to say on that, either, sir?’ asked the spokesman. + +‘Nothing whatever,’ replied Mr. Gregsbury. The deputation, who had +only seen him at canvassing or election time, were struck dumb by his +coolness. He didn’t appear like the same man; then he was all milk and +honey; now he was all starch and vinegar. But men ARE so different at +different times! + +‘Question number three--and last,’ said Mr. Pugstyles, emphatically. +‘Whether, sir, you did not state upon the hustings, that it was your +firm and determined intention to oppose everything proposed; to divide +the house upon every question, to move for returns on every subject, +to place a motion on the books every day, and, in short, in your own +memorable words, to play the very devil with everything and everybody?’ +With this comprehensive inquiry, Mr. Pugstyles folded up his list of +questions, as did all his backers. + +Mr. Gregsbury reflected, blew his nose, threw himself further back in +his chair, came forward again, leaning his elbows on the table, made a +triangle with his two thumbs and his two forefingers, and tapping his +nose with the apex thereof, replied (smiling as he said it), ‘I deny +everything.’ + +At this unexpected answer, a hoarse murmur arose from the deputation; +and the same gentleman who had expressed an opinion relative to the +gammoning nature of the introductory speech, again made a monosyllabic +demonstration, by growling out ‘Resign!’ Which growl being taken up by +his fellows, swelled into a very earnest and general remonstrance. + +‘I am requested, sir, to express a hope,’ said Mr. Pugstyles, with a +distant bow, ‘that on receiving a requisition to that effect from a +great majority of your constituents, you will not object at once to +resign your seat in favour of some candidate whom they think they can +better trust.’ + +To this, Mr. Gregsbury read the following reply, which, anticipating the +request, he had composed in the form of a letter, whereof copies had +been made to send round to the newspapers. + +‘MY DEAR MR PUGSTYLES, + +‘Next to the welfare of our beloved island--this great and free and +happy country, whose powers and resources are, I sincerely believe, +illimitable--I value that noble independence which is an Englishman’s +proudest boast, and which I fondly hope to bequeath to my children, +untarnished and unsullied. Actuated by no personal motives, but moved +only by high and great constitutional considerations; which I will not +attempt to explain, for they are really beneath the comprehension of +those who have not made themselves masters, as I have, of the intricate +and arduous study of politics; I would rather keep my seat, and intend +doing so. + +‘Will you do me the favour to present my compliments to the constituent +body, and acquaint them with this circumstance? + +‘With great esteem, ‘My dear Mr. Pugstyles, ‘&c.&c.’ + +‘Then you will not resign, under any circumstances?’ asked the +spokesman. + +Mr. Gregsbury smiled, and shook his head. + +‘Then, good-morning, sir,’ said Pugstyles, angrily. + +‘Heaven bless you!’ said Mr. Gregsbury. And the deputation, with many +growls and scowls, filed off as quickly as the narrowness of the +staircase would allow of their getting down. + +The last man being gone, Mr. Gregsbury rubbed his hands and chuckled, as +merry fellows will, when they think they have said or done a more than +commonly good thing; he was so engrossed in this self-congratulation, +that he did not observe that Nicholas had been left behind in the shadow +of the window-curtains, until that young gentleman, fearing he might +otherwise overhear some soliloquy intended to have no listeners, coughed +twice or thrice, to attract the member’s notice. + +‘What’s that?’ said Mr. Gregsbury, in sharp accents. + +Nicholas stepped forward, and bowed. + +‘What do you do here, sir?’ asked Mr. Gregsbury; ‘a spy upon my privacy! +A concealed voter! You have heard my answer, sir. Pray follow the +deputation.’ + +‘I should have done so, if I had belonged to it, but I do not,’ said +Nicholas. + +‘Then how came you here, sir?’ was the natural inquiry of Mr. Gregsbury, +MP. ‘And where the devil have you come from, sir?’ was the question +which followed it. + +‘I brought this card from the General Agency Office, sir,’ said +Nicholas, ‘wishing to offer myself as your secretary, and understanding +that you stood in need of one.’ + +‘That’s all you have come for, is it?’ said Mr. Gregsbury, eyeing him in +some doubt. + +Nicholas replied in the affirmative. + +‘You have no connection with any of those rascally papers have you?’ +said Mr. Gregsbury. ‘You didn’t get into the room, to hear what was going +forward, and put it in print, eh?’ + +‘I have no connection, I am sorry to say, with anything at present,’ +rejoined Nicholas,--politely enough, but quite at his ease. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Gregsbury. ‘How did you find your way up here, then?’ + +Nicholas related how he had been forced up by the deputation. + +‘That was the way, was it?’ said Mr. Gregsbury. ‘Sit down.’ + +Nicholas took a chair, and Mr. Gregsbury stared at him for a long time, +as if to make certain, before he asked any further questions, that there +were no objections to his outward appearance. + +‘You want to be my secretary, do you?’ he said at length. + +‘I wish to be employed in that capacity, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Gregsbury; ‘now what can you do?’ + +‘I suppose,’ replied Nicholas, smiling, ‘that I can do what usually +falls to the lot of other secretaries.’ + +‘What’s that?’ inquired Mr. Gregsbury. + +‘What is it?’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Ah! What is it?’ retorted the member, looking shrewdly at him, with his +head on one side. + +‘A secretary’s duties are rather difficult to define, perhaps,’ said +Nicholas, considering. ‘They include, I presume, correspondence?’ + +‘Good,’ interposed Mr. Gregsbury. + +‘The arrangement of papers and documents?’ + +‘Very good.’ + +‘Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and possibly, +sir,’ said Nicholas, with a half-smile, ‘the copying of your speech +for some public journal, when you have made one of more than usual +importance.’ + +‘Certainly,’ rejoined Mr. Gregsbury. ‘What else?’ + +‘Really,’ said Nicholas, after a moment’s reflection, ‘I am not able, at +this instant, to recapitulate any other duty of a secretary, beyond the +general one of making himself as agreeable and useful to his employer +as he can, consistently with his own respectability, and without +overstepping that line of duties which he undertakes to perform, and +which the designation of his office is usually understood to imply.’ + +Mr. Gregsbury looked fixedly at Nicholas for a short time, and then +glancing warily round the room, said in a suppressed voice: + +‘This is all very well, Mr--what is your name?’ + +‘Nickleby.’ + +‘This is all very well, Mr. Nickleby, and very proper, so far as it +goes--so far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. There are other +duties, Mr. Nickleby, which a secretary to a parliamentary gentleman must +never lose sight of. I should require to be crammed, sir.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ interposed Nicholas, doubtful whether he had heard +aright. + +‘--To be crammed, sir,’ repeated Mr. Gregsbury. + +‘May I beg your pardon again, if I inquire what you mean, sir?’ said +Nicholas. + +‘My meaning, sir, is perfectly plain,’ replied Mr. Gregsbury with a +solemn aspect. ‘My secretary would have to make himself master of the +foreign policy of the world, as it is mirrored in the newspapers; to run +his eye over all accounts of public meetings, all leading articles, +and accounts of the proceedings of public bodies; and to make notes +of anything which it appeared to him might be made a point of, in any +little speech upon the question of some petition lying on the table, or +anything of that kind. Do you understand?’ + +‘I think I do, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Then,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, ‘it would be necessary for him to make +himself acquainted, from day to day, with newspaper paragraphs on +passing events; such as “Mysterious disappearance, and supposed suicide +of a potboy,” or anything of that sort, upon which I might found a +question to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Then, he +would have to copy the question, and as much as I remembered of the +answer (including a little compliment about independence and good +sense); and to send the manuscript in a frank to the local paper, with +perhaps half-a-dozen lines of leader, to the effect, that I was always +to be found in my place in parliament, and never shrunk from the +responsible and arduous duties, and so forth. You see?’ + +Nicholas bowed. + +‘Besides which,’ continued Mr. Gregsbury, ‘I should expect him, now and +then, to go through a few figures in the printed tables, and to pick +out a few results, so that I might come out pretty well on timber duty +questions, and finance questions, and so on; and I should like him to +get up a few little arguments about the disastrous effects of a return +to cash payments and a metallic currency, with a touch now and then +about the exportation of bullion, and the Emperor of Russia, and bank +notes, and all that kind of thing, which it’s only necessary to talk +fluently about, because nobody understands it. Do you take me?’ + +‘I think I understand,’ said Nicholas. + +‘With regard to such questions as are not political,’ continued Mr +Gregsbury, warming; ‘and which one can’t be expected to care a curse +about, beyond the natural care of not allowing inferior people to be as +well off as ourselves--else where are our privileges?--I should wish +my secretary to get together a few little flourishing speeches, of a +patriotic cast. For instance, if any preposterous bill were brought +forward, for giving poor grubbing devils of authors a right to their own +property, I should like to say, that I for one would never consent to +opposing an insurmountable bar to the diffusion of literature among THE +PEOPLE,--you understand?--that the creations of the pocket, being man’s, +might belong to one man, or one family; but that the creations of the +brain, being God’s, ought as a matter of course to belong to the people +at large--and if I was pleasantly disposed, I should like to make a joke +about posterity, and say that those who wrote for posterity should be +content to be rewarded by the approbation OF posterity; it might take +with the house, and could never do me any harm, because posterity can’t +be expected to know anything about me or my jokes either--do you see?’ + +‘I see that, sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘You must always bear in mind, in such cases as this, where our +interests are not affected,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, ‘to put it very strong +about the people, because it comes out very well at election-time; and +you could be as funny as you liked about the authors; because I believe +the greater part of them live in lodgings, and are not voters. This is +a hasty outline of the chief things you’d have to do, except waiting in +the lobby every night, in case I forgot anything, and should want fresh +cramming; and, now and then, during great debates, sitting in the +front row of the gallery, and saying to the people about--‘You see that +gentleman, with his hand to his face, and his arm twisted round the +pillar--that’s Mr. Gregsbury--the celebrated Mr. Gregsbury,’--with any +other little eulogium that might strike you at the moment. And for +salary,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, winding up with great rapidity; for he was +out of breath--‘and for salary, I don’t mind saying at once in round +numbers, to prevent any dissatisfaction--though it’s more than I’ve been +accustomed to give--fifteen shillings a week, and find yourself. There!’ + +With this handsome offer, Mr. Gregsbury once more threw himself back in +his chair, and looked like a man who had been most profligately liberal, +but is determined not to repent of it notwithstanding. + +‘Fifteen shillings a week is not much,’ said Nicholas, mildly. + +‘Not much! Fifteen shillings a week not much, young man?’ cried Mr +Gregsbury. ‘Fifteen shillings a--’ + +‘Pray do not suppose that I quarrel with the sum, sir,’ replied +Nicholas; ‘for I am not ashamed to confess, that whatever it may be in +itself, to me it is a great deal. But the duties and responsibilities +make the recompense small, and they are so very heavy that I fear to +undertake them.’ + +‘Do you decline to undertake them, sir?’ inquired Mr. Gregsbury, with his +hand on the bell-rope. + +‘I fear they are too great for my powers, however good my will may be, +sir,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘That is as much as to say that you had rather not accept the place, +and that you consider fifteen shillings a week too little,’ said Mr +Gregsbury, ringing. ‘Do you decline it, sir?’ + +‘I have no alternative but to do so,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Door, Matthews!’ said Mr. Gregsbury, as the boy appeared. + +‘I am sorry I have troubled you unnecessarily, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘I am sorry you have,’ rejoined Mr. Gregsbury, turning his back upon him. +‘Door, Matthews!’ + +‘Good-morning, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Door, Matthews!’ cried Mr. Gregsbury. + +The boy beckoned Nicholas, and tumbling lazily downstairs before him, +opened the door, and ushered him into the street. With a sad and pensive +air, he retraced his steps homewards. + +Smike had scraped a meal together from the remnant of last night’s +supper, and was anxiously awaiting his return. The occurrences of the +morning had not improved Nicholas’s appetite, and, by him, the dinner +remained untasted. He was sitting in a thoughtful attitude, with the +plate which the poor fellow had assiduously filled with the choicest +morsels, untouched, by his side, when Newman Noggs looked into the room. + +‘Come back?’ asked Newman. + +‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, ‘tired to death: and, what is worse, might have +remained at home for all the good I have done.’ + +‘Couldn’t expect to do much in one morning,’ said Newman. + +‘Maybe so, but I am sanguine, and did expect,’ said Nicholas, ‘and am +proportionately disappointed.’ Saying which, he gave Newman an account +of his proceedings. + +‘If I could do anything,’ said Nicholas, ‘anything, however slight, +until Ralph Nickleby returns, and I have eased my mind by confronting +him, I should feel happier. I should think it no disgrace to work, +Heaven knows. Lying indolently here, like a half-tamed sullen beast, +distracts me.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Newman; ‘small things offer--they would pay the +rent, and more--but you wouldn’t like them; no, you could hardly be +expected to undergo it--no, no.’ + +‘What could I hardly be expected to undergo?’ asked Nicholas, raising +his eyes. ‘Show me, in this wide waste of London, any honest means by +which I could even defray the weekly hire of this poor room, and see if +I shrink from resorting to them! Undergo! I have undergone too much, +my friend, to feel pride or squeamishness now. Except--’ added Nicholas +hastily, after a short silence, ‘except such squeamishness as is common +honesty, and so much pride as constitutes self-respect. I see little +to choose, between assistant to a brutal pedagogue, and toad-eater to a +mean and ignorant upstart, be he member or no member.’ + +‘I hardly know whether I should tell you what I heard this morning, or +not,’ said Newman. + +‘Has it reference to what you said just now?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘It has.’ + +‘Then in Heaven’s name, my good friend, tell it me,’ said Nicholas. ‘For +God’s sake consider my deplorable condition; and, while I promise to +take no step without taking counsel with you, give me, at least, a vote +in my own behalf.’ + +Moved by this entreaty, Newman stammered forth a variety of most +unaccountable and entangled sentences, the upshot of which was, that +Mrs. Kenwigs had examined him, at great length that morning, touching +the origin of his acquaintance with, and the whole life, adventures, and +pedigree of, Nicholas; that Newman had parried these questions as +long as he could, but being, at length, hard pressed and driven into a +corner, had gone so far as to admit, that Nicholas was a tutor of +great accomplishments, involved in some misfortunes which he was not at +liberty to explain, and bearing the name of Johnson. That Mrs. Kenwigs, +impelled by gratitude, or ambition, or maternal pride, or maternal love, +or all four powerful motives conjointly, had taken secret conference +with Mr. Kenwigs, and had finally returned to propose that Mr. Johnson +should instruct the four Miss Kenwigses in the French language as spoken +by natives, at the weekly stipend of five shillings, current coin of +the realm; being at the rate of one shilling per week, per each Miss +Kenwigs, and one shilling over, until such time as the baby might be +able to take it out in grammar. + +‘Which, unless I am very much mistaken,’ observed Mrs. Kenwigs in making +the proposition, ‘will not be very long; for such clever children, Mr +Noggs, never were born into this world, I do believe.’ + +‘There,’ said Newman, ‘that’s all. It’s beneath you, I know; but I +thought that perhaps you might--’ + +‘Might!’ cried Nicholas, with great alacrity; ‘of course I shall. I +accept the offer at once. Tell the worthy mother so, without delay, my +dear fellow; and that I am ready to begin whenever she pleases.’ + +Newman hastened, with joyful steps, to inform Mrs. Kenwigs of his +friend’s acquiescence, and soon returning, brought back word that they +would be happy to see him in the first floor as soon as convenient; +that Mrs. Kenwigs had, upon the instant, sent out to secure a second-hand +French grammar and dialogues, which had long been fluttering in the +sixpenny box at the bookstall round the corner; and that the family, +highly excited at the prospect of this addition to their gentility, +wished the initiatory lesson to come off immediately. + +And here it may be observed, that Nicholas was not, in the ordinary +sense of the word, a young man of high spirit. He would resent an +affront to himself, or interpose to redress a wrong offered to another, +as boldly and freely as any knight that ever set lance in rest; but he +lacked that peculiar excess of coolness and great-minded selfishness, +which invariably distinguish gentlemen of high spirit. In truth, for our +own part, we are disposed to look upon such gentleman as being rather +incumbrances than otherwise in rising families: happening to be +acquainted with several whose spirit prevents their settling down to +any grovelling occupation, and only displays itself in a tendency to +cultivate moustachios, and look fierce; and although moustachios and +ferocity are both very pretty things in their way, and very much to be +commended, we confess to a desire to see them bred at the owner’s proper +cost, rather than at the expense of low-spirited people. + +Nicholas, therefore, not being a high-spirited young man according to +common parlance, and deeming it a greater degradation to borrow, for the +supply of his necessities, from Newman Noggs, than to teach French to +the little Kenwigses for five shillings a week, accepted the offer with +the alacrity already described, and betook himself to the first floor +with all convenient speed. + +Here, he was received by Mrs. Kenwigs with a genteel air, kindly intended +to assure him of her protection and support; and here, too, he found Mr +Lillyvick and Miss Petowker; the four Miss Kenwigses on their form of +audience; and the baby in a dwarf porter’s chair with a deal tray before +it, amusing himself with a toy horse without a head; the said horse +being composed of a small wooden cylinder, not unlike an Italian iron, +supported on four crooked pegs, and painted in ingenious resemblance of +red wafers set in blacking. + +‘How do you do, Mr. Johnson?’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. ‘Uncle--Mr. Johnson.’ + +‘How do you do, sir?’ said Mr. Lillyvick--rather sharply; for he had not +known what Nicholas was, on the previous night, and it was rather an +aggravating circumstance if a tax collector had been too polite to a +teacher. + +‘Mr. Johnson is engaged as private master to the children, uncle,’ said +Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘So you said just now, my dear,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘But I hope,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, drawing herself up, ‘that that will not +make them proud; but that they will bless their own good fortune, +which has born them superior to common people’s children. Do you hear, +Morleena?’ + +‘Yes, ma,’ replied Miss Kenwigs. + +‘And when you go out in the streets, or elsewhere, I desire that you +don’t boast of it to the other children,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘and that if +you must say anything about it, you don’t say no more than “We’ve got a +private master comes to teach us at home, but we ain’t proud, because ma +says it’s sinful.” Do you hear, Morleena?’ + +‘Yes, ma,’ replied Miss Kenwigs again. + +‘Then mind you recollect, and do as I tell you,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. +‘Shall Mr. Johnson begin, uncle?’ + +‘I am ready to hear, if Mr. Johnson is ready to commence, my dear,’ said +the collector, assuming the air of a profound critic. ‘What sort of +language do you consider French, sir?’ + +‘How do you mean?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Do you consider it a good language, sir?’ said the collector; ‘a pretty +language, a sensible language?’ + +‘A pretty language, certainly,’ replied Nicholas; ‘and as it has a name +for everything, and admits of elegant conversation about everything, I +presume it is a sensible one.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, doubtfully. ‘Do you call it a +cheerful language, now?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I should say it was, certainly.’ + +‘It’s very much changed since my time, then,’ said the collector, ‘very +much.’ + +‘Was it a dismal one in your time?’ asked Nicholas, scarcely able to +repress a smile. + +‘Very,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, with some vehemence of manner. ‘It’s the +war time that I speak of; the last war. It may be a cheerful language. +I should be sorry to contradict anybody; but I can only say that I’ve +heard the French prisoners, who were natives, and ought to know how to +speak it, talking in such a dismal manner, that it made one miserable to +hear them. Ay, that I have, fifty times, sir--fifty times!’ + +Mr. Lillyvick was waxing so cross, that Mrs. Kenwigs thought it expedient +to motion to Nicholas not to say anything; and it was not until Miss +Petowker had practised several blandishments, to soften the excellent +old gentleman, that he deigned to break silence by asking, + +‘What’s the water in French, sir?’ + +‘L’EAU,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Lillyvick, shaking his head mournfully, ‘I thought as +much. Lo, eh? I don’t think anything of that language--nothing at all.’ + +‘I suppose the children may begin, uncle?’ said Mrs. Kenwigs. + +‘Oh yes; they may begin, my dear,’ replied the collector, +discontentedly. ‘I have no wish to prevent them.’ + +This permission being conceded, the four Miss Kenwigses sat in a row, +with their tails all one way, and Morleena at the top: while Nicholas, +taking the book, began his preliminary explanations. Miss Petowker +and Mrs. Kenwigs looked on, in silent admiration, broken only by the +whispered assurances of the latter, that Morleena would have it all by +heart in no time; and Mr. Lillyvick regarded the group with frowning and +attentive eyes, lying in wait for something upon which he could open a +fresh discussion on the language. + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby + + +It was with a heavy heart, and many sad forebodings which no effort +could banish, that Kate Nickleby, on the morning appointed for the +commencement of her engagement with Madame Mantalini, left the city when +its clocks yet wanted a quarter of an hour of eight, and threaded her +way alone, amid the noise and bustle of the streets, towards the west +end of London. + +At this early hour many sickly girls, whose business, like that of the +poor worm, is to produce, with patient toil, the finery that bedecks +the thoughtless and luxurious, traverse our streets, making towards the +scene of their daily labour, and catching, as if by stealth, in their +hurried walk, the only gasp of wholesome air and glimpse of sunlight +which cheer their monotonous existence during the long train of hours +that make a working day. As she drew nigh to the more fashionable +quarter of the town, Kate marked many of this class as they passed by, +hurrying like herself to their painful occupation, and saw, in their +unhealthy looks and feeble gait, but too clear an evidence that her +misgivings were not wholly groundless. + +She arrived at Madame Mantalini’s some minutes before the appointed +hour, and after walking a few times up and down, in the hope that some +other female might arrive and spare her the embarrassment of stating her +business to the servant, knocked timidly at the door: which, after some +delay, was opened by the footman, who had been putting on his striped +jacket as he came upstairs, and was now intent on fastening his apron. + +‘Is Madame Mantalini in?’ faltered Kate. + +‘Not often out at this time, miss,’ replied the man in a tone which +rendered “Miss,” something more offensive than “My dear.” + +‘Can I see her?’ asked Kate. + +‘Eh?’ replied the man, holding the door in his hand, and honouring the +inquirer with a stare and a broad grin, ‘Lord, no.’ + +‘I came by her own appointment,’ said Kate; ‘I am--I am--to be employed +here.’ + +‘Oh! you should have rung the worker’s bell,’ said the footman, touching +the handle of one in the door-post. ‘Let me see, though, I forgot--Miss +Nickleby, is it?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Kate. + +‘You’re to walk upstairs then, please,’ said the man. ‘Madame Mantalini +wants to see you--this way--take care of these things on the floor.’ + +Cautioning her, in these terms, not to trip over a heterogeneous litter +of pastry-cook’s trays, lamps, waiters full of glasses, and piles of +rout seats which were strewn about the hall, plainly bespeaking a late +party on the previous night, the man led the way to the second story, +and ushered Kate into a back-room, communicating by folding-doors +with the apartment in which she had first seen the mistress of the +establishment. + +‘If you’ll wait here a minute,’ said the man, ‘I’ll tell her presently.’ +Having made this promise with much affability, he retired and left Kate +alone. + +There was not much to amuse in the room; of which the most attractive +feature was, a half-length portrait in oil, of Mr. Mantalini, whom the +artist had depicted scratching his head in an easy manner, and thus +displaying to advantage a diamond ring, the gift of Madame Mantalini +before her marriage. There was, however, the sound of voices in +conversation in the next room; and as the conversation was loud and the +partition thin, Kate could not help discovering that they belonged to Mr +and Mrs. Mantalini. + +‘If you will be odiously, demnebly, outr_i_geously jealous, my soul,’ said +Mr. Mantalini, ‘you will be very miserable--horrid miserable--demnition +miserable.’ And then, there was a sound as though Mr. Mantalini were +sipping his coffee. + +‘I AM miserable,’ returned Madame Mantalini, evidently pouting. + +‘Then you are an ungrateful, unworthy, demd unthankful little fairy,’ +said Mr. Mantalini. + +‘I am not,’ returned Madame, with a sob. + +‘Do not put itself out of humour,’ said Mr. Mantalini, breaking an egg. +‘It is a pretty, bewitching little demd countenance, and it should not +be out of humour, for it spoils its loveliness, and makes it cross and +gloomy like a frightful, naughty, demd hobgoblin.’ + +‘I am not to be brought round in that way, always,’ rejoined Madame, +sulkily. + +‘It shall be brought round in any way it likes best, and not brought +round at all if it likes that better,’ retorted Mr. Mantalini, with his +egg-spoon in his mouth. + +‘It’s very easy to talk,’ said Mrs. Mantalini. + +‘Not so easy when one is eating a demnition egg,’ replied Mr. Mantalini; +‘for the yolk runs down the waistcoat, and yolk of egg does not match +any waistcoat but a yellow waistcoat, demmit.’ + +‘You were flirting with her during the whole night,’ said Madame +Mantalini, apparently desirous to lead the conversation back to the +point from which it had strayed. + +‘No, no, my life.’ + +‘You were,’ said Madame; ‘I had my eye upon you all the time.’ + +‘Bless the little winking twinkling eye; was it on me all the time!’ +cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture. ‘Oh, demmit!’ + +‘And I say once more,’ resumed Madame, ‘that you ought not to waltz with +anybody but your own wife; and I will not bear it, Mantalini, if I take +poison first.’ + +‘She will not take poison and have horrid pains, will she?’ said +Mantalini; who, by the altered sound of his voice, seemed to have moved +his chair, and taken up his position nearer to his wife. ‘She will not +take poison, because she had a demd fine husband who might have married +two countesses and a dowager--’ + +‘Two countesses,’ interposed Madame. ‘You told me one before!’ + +‘Two!’ cried Mantalini. ‘Two demd fine women, real countesses and +splendid fortunes, demmit.’ + +‘And why didn’t you?’ asked Madame, playfully. + +‘Why didn’t I!’ replied her husband. ‘Had I not seen, at a morning +concert, the demdest little fascinator in all the world, and while that +little fascinator is my wife, may not all the countesses and dowagers in +England be--’ + +Mr. Mantalini did not finish the sentence, but he gave Madame Mantalini +a very loud kiss, which Madame Mantalini returned; after which, there +seemed to be some more kissing mixed up with the progress of the +breakfast. + +‘And what about the cash, my existence’s jewel?’ said Mantalini, when +these endearments ceased. ‘How much have we in hand?’ + +‘Very little indeed,’ replied Madame. + +‘We must have some more,’ said Mantalini; ‘we must have some discount +out of old Nickleby to carry on the war with, demmit.’ + +‘You can’t want any more just now,’ said Madame coaxingly. + +‘My life and soul,’ returned her husband, ‘there is a horse for sale +at Scrubbs’s, which it would be a sin and a crime to lose--going, my +senses’ joy, for nothing.’ + +‘For nothing,’ cried Madame, ‘I am glad of that.’ + +‘For actually nothing,’ replied Mantalini. ‘A hundred guineas down will +buy him; mane, and crest, and legs, and tail, all of the demdest beauty. +I will ride him in the park before the very chariots of the rejected +countesses. The demd old dowager will faint with grief and rage; the +other two will say “He is married, he has made away with himself, it +is a demd thing, it is all up!” They will hate each other demnebly, and +wish you dead and buried. Ha! ha! Demmit.’ + +Madame Mantalini’s prudence, if she had any, was not proof against these +triumphal pictures; after a little jingling of keys, she observed that +she would see what her desk contained, and rising for that purpose, +opened the folding-door, and walked into the room where Kate was seated. + +‘Dear me, child!’ exclaimed Madame Mantalini, recoiling in surprise. +‘How came you here?’ + +‘Child!’ cried Mantalini, hurrying in. ‘How came--eh!--oh--demmit, how +d’ye do?’ + +‘I have been waiting, here some time, ma’am,’ said Kate, addressing +Madame Mantalini. ‘The servant must have forgotten to let you know that +I was here, I think.’ + +‘You really must see to that man,’ said Madame, turning to her husband. +‘He forgets everything.’ + +‘I will twist his demd nose off his countenance for leaving such a very +pretty creature all alone by herself,’ said her husband. + +‘Mantalini,’ cried Madame, ‘you forget yourself.’ + +‘I don’t forget you, my soul, and never shall, and never can,’ said +Mantalini, kissing his wife’s hand, and grimacing aside, to Miss +Nickleby, who turned away. + +Appeased by this compliment, the lady of the business took some papers +from her desk which she handed over to Mr. Mantalini, who received them +with great delight. She then requested Kate to follow her, and after +several feints on the part of Mr. Mantalini to attract the young lady’s +attention, they went away: leaving that gentleman extended at full +length on the sofa, with his heels in the air and a newspaper in his +hand. + +Madame Mantalini led the way down a flight of stairs, and through a +passage, to a large room at the back of the premises where were a number +of young women employed in sewing, cutting out, making up, altering, and +various other processes known only to those who are cunning in the arts +of millinery and dressmaking. It was a close room with a skylight, and +as dull and quiet as a room need be. + +On Madame Mantalini calling aloud for Miss Knag, a short, bustling, +over-dressed female, full of importance, presented herself, and all the +young ladies suspending their operations for the moment, whispered +to each other sundry criticisms upon the make and texture of Miss +Nickleby’s dress, her complexion, cast of features, and personal +appearance, with as much good breeding as could have been displayed by +the very best society in a crowded ball-room. + +‘Oh, Miss Knag,’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘this is the young person I +spoke to you about.’ + +Miss Knag bestowed a reverential smile upon Madame Mantalini, which +she dexterously transformed into a gracious one for Kate, and said that +certainly, although it was a great deal of trouble to have young people +who were wholly unused to the business, still, she was sure the young +person would try to do her best--impressed with which conviction she +(Miss Knag) felt an interest in her, already. + +‘I think that, for the present at all events, it will be better for +Miss Nickleby to come into the show-room with you, and try things on for +people,’ said Madame Mantalini. ‘She will not be able for the present to +be of much use in any other way; and her appearance will--’ + +‘Suit very well with mine, Madame Mantalini,’ interrupted Miss Knag. ‘So +it will; and to be sure I might have known that you would not be long in +finding that out; for you have so much taste in all those matters, that +really, as I often say to the young ladies, I do not know how, when, or +where, you possibly could have acquired all you know--hem--Miss Nickleby +and I are quite a pair, Madame Mantalini, only I am a little darker than +Miss Nickleby, and--hem--I think my foot may be a little smaller. Miss +Nickleby, I am sure, will not be offended at my saying that, when she +hears that our family always have been celebrated for small feet ever +since--hem--ever since our family had any feet at all, indeed, I think. +I had an uncle once, Madame Mantalini, who lived in Cheltenham, and +had a most excellent business as a tobacconist--hem--who had such small +feet, that they were no bigger than those which are usually joined to +wooden legs--the most symmetrical feet, Madame Mantalini, that even you +can imagine.’ + +‘They must have had something of the appearance of club feet, Miss +Knag,’ said Madame. + +‘Well now, that is so like you,’ returned Miss Knag, ‘Ha! ha! ha! Of +club feet! Oh very good! As I often remark to the young ladies, “Well +I must say, and I do not care who knows it, of all the ready +humour--hem--I ever heard anywhere”--and I have heard a good deal; for +when my dear brother was alive (I kept house for him, Miss Nickleby), we +had to supper once a week two or three young men, highly celebrated +in those days for their humour, Madame Mantalini--“Of all the ready +humour,” I say to the young ladies, “I ever heard, Madame Mantalini’s +is the most remarkable--hem. It is so gentle, so sarcastic, and yet so +good-natured (as I was observing to Miss Simmonds only this morning), +that how, or when, or by what means she acquired it, is to me a mystery +indeed.”’ + +Here Miss Knag paused to take breath, and while she pauses it may be +observed--not that she was marvellously loquacious and marvellously +deferential to Madame Mantalini, since these are facts which require no +comment; but that every now and then, she was accustomed, in the torrent +of her discourse, to introduce a loud, shrill, clear ‘hem!’ the import +and meaning of which, was variously interpreted by her acquaintance; +some holding that Miss Knag dealt in exaggeration, and introduced the +monosyllable when any fresh invention was in course of coinage in her +brain; others, that when she wanted a word, she threw it in to gain +time, and prevent anybody else from striking into the conversation. It +may be further remarked, that Miss Knag still aimed at youth, although +she had shot beyond it, years ago; and that she was weak and vain, and +one of those people who are best described by the axiom, that you may +trust them as far as you can see them, and no farther. + +‘You’ll take care that Miss Nickleby understands her hours, and so +forth,’ said Madame Mantalini; ‘and so I’ll leave her with you. You’ll +not forget my directions, Miss Knag?’ + +Miss Knag of course replied, that to forget anything Madame Mantalini +had directed, was a moral impossibility; and that lady, dispensing a +general good-morning among her assistants, sailed away. + +‘Charming creature, isn’t she, Miss Nickleby?’ said Miss Knag, rubbing +her hands together. + +‘I have seen very little of her,’ said Kate. ‘I hardly know yet.’ + +‘Have you seen Mr. Mantalini?’ inquired Miss Knag. + +‘Yes; I have seen him twice.’ + +‘Isn’t HE a charming creature?’ + +‘Indeed he does not strike me as being so, by any means,’ replied Kate. + +‘No, my dear!’ cried Miss Knag, elevating her hands. ‘Why, goodness +gracious mercy, where’s your taste? Such a fine tall, full-whiskered +dashing gentlemanly man, with such teeth and hair, and--hem--well now, +you DO astonish me.’ + +‘I dare say I am very foolish,’ replied Kate, laying aside her bonnet; +‘but as my opinion is of very little importance to him or anyone else, +I do not regret having formed it, and shall be slow to change it, I +think.’ + +‘He is a very fine man, don’t you think so?’ asked one of the young +ladies. + +‘Indeed he may be, for anything I could say to the contrary,’ replied +Kate. + +‘And drives very beautiful horses, doesn’t he?’ inquired another. + +‘I dare say he may, but I never saw them,’ answered Kate. + +‘Never saw them!’ interposed Miss Knag. ‘Oh, well! There it is at +once you know; how can you possibly pronounce an opinion about a +gentleman--hem--if you don’t see him as he turns out altogether?’ + +There was so much of the world--even of the little world of the country +girl--in this idea of the old milliner, that Kate, who was anxious, for +every reason, to change the subject, made no further remark, and left +Miss Knag in possession of the field. + +After a short silence, during which most of the young people made a +closer inspection of Kate’s appearance, and compared notes respecting +it, one of them offered to help her off with her shawl, and the +offer being accepted, inquired whether she did not find black very +uncomfortable wear. + +‘I do indeed,’ replied Kate, with a bitter sigh. + +‘So dusty and hot,’ observed the same speaker, adjusting her dress for +her. + +Kate might have said, that mourning is sometimes the coldest wear which +mortals can assume; that it not only chills the breasts of those it +clothes, but extending its influence to summer friends, freezes up their +sources of good-will and kindness, and withering all the buds of promise +they once so liberally put forth, leaves nothing but bared and rotten +hearts exposed. There are few who have lost a friend or relative +constituting in life their sole dependence, who have not keenly felt +this chilling influence of their sable garb. She had felt it acutely, +and feeling it at the moment, could not quite restrain her tears. + +‘I am very sorry to have wounded you by my thoughtless speech,’ said +her companion. ‘I did not think of it. You are in mourning for some near +relation?’ + +‘For my father,’ answered Kate. + +‘For what relation, Miss Simmonds?’ asked Miss Knag, in an audible +voice. + +‘Her father,’ replied the other softly. + +‘Her father, eh?’ said Miss Knag, without the slightest depression of +her voice. ‘Ah! A long illness, Miss Simmonds?’ + +‘Hush,’ replied the girl; ‘I don’t know.’ + +‘Our misfortune was very sudden,’ said Kate, turning away, ‘or I might +perhaps, at a time like this, be enabled to support it better.’ + +There had existed not a little desire in the room, according to +invariable custom, when any new ‘young person’ came, to know who Kate +was, and what she was, and all about her; but, although it might +have been very naturally increased by her appearance and emotion, the +knowledge that it pained her to be questioned, was sufficient to repress +even this curiosity; and Miss Knag, finding it hopeless to attempt +extracting any further particulars just then, reluctantly commanded +silence, and bade the work proceed. + +In silence, then, the tasks were plied until half-past one, when a baked +leg of mutton, with potatoes to correspond, were served in the kitchen. +The meal over, and the young ladies having enjoyed the additional +relaxation of washing their hands, the work began again, and was again +performed in silence, until the noise of carriages rattling through the +streets, and of loud double knocks at doors, gave token that the day’s +work of the more fortunate members of society was proceeding in its +turn. + +One of these double knocks at Madame Mantalini’s door, announced +the equipage of some great lady--or rather rich one, for there is +occasionally a distinction between riches and greatness--who had come +with her daughter to approve of some court-dresses which had been a long +time preparing, and upon whom Kate was deputed to wait, accompanied by +Miss Knag, and officered of course by Madame Mantalini. + +Kate’s part in the pageant was humble enough, her duties being limited +to holding articles of costume until Miss Knag was ready to try them on, +and now and then tying a string, or fastening a hook-and-eye. She +might, not unreasonably, have supposed herself beneath the reach of any +arrogance, or bad humour; but it happened that the lady and daughter +were both out of temper that day, and the poor girl came in for +her share of their revilings. She was awkward--her hands were +cold--dirty--coarse--she could do nothing right; they wondered how +Madame Mantalini could have such people about her; requested they might +see some other young woman the next time they came; and so forth. + +So common an occurrence would be hardly deserving of mention, but for +its effect. Kate shed many bitter tears when these people were gone, +and felt, for the first time, humbled by her occupation. She had, it is +true, quailed at the prospect of drudgery and hard service; but she had +felt no degradation in working for her bread, until she found herself +exposed to insolence and pride. Philosophy would have taught her that +the degradation was on the side of those who had sunk so low as to +display such passions habitually, and without cause: but she was too +young for such consolation, and her honest feeling was hurt. May not the +complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its +rise in the fact of UNcommon people being below theirs? + +In such scenes and occupations the time wore on until nine o’clock, when +Kate, jaded and dispirited with the occurrences of the day, hastened +from the confinement of the workroom, to join her mother at the street +corner, and walk home:--the more sadly, from having to disguise her real +feelings, and feign to participate in all the sanguine visions of her +companion. + +‘Bless my soul, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘I’ve been thinking all day +what a delightful thing it would be for Madame Mantalini to take you +into partnership--such a likely thing too, you know! Why, your poor +dear papa’s cousin’s sister-in-law--a Miss Browndock--was taken into +partnership by a lady that kept a school at Hammersmith, and made her +fortune in no time at all. I forget, by-the-bye, whether that Miss +Browndock was the same lady that got the ten thousand pounds prize in +the lottery, but I think she was; indeed, now I come to think of it, I +am sure she was. “Mantalini and Nickleby”, how well it would sound!--and +if Nicholas has any good fortune, you might have Doctor Nickleby, the +head-master of Westminster School, living in the same street.’ + +‘Dear Nicholas!’ cried Kate, taking from her reticule her brother’s +letter from Dotheboys Hall. ‘In all our misfortunes, how happy it makes +me, mama, to hear he is doing well, and to find him writing in such +good spirits! It consoles me for all we may undergo, to think that he is +comfortable and happy.’ + +Poor Kate! she little thought how weak her consolation was, and how soon +she would be undeceived. + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +Miss Knag, after doting on Kate Nickleby for three whole Days, makes +up her Mind to hate her for evermore. The Causes which led Miss Knag to +form this Resolution + + +There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering, which, +having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them, are +disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but who +pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to rouse it. + +There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their +vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in +theirs; and hence it is that diseased sympathy and compassion are every +day expended on out-of-the-way objects, when only too many demands upon +the legitimate exercise of the same virtues in a healthy state, are +constantly within the sight and hearing of the most unobservant person +alive. In short, charity must have its romance, as the novelist or +playwright must have his. A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, +scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement; but dress him in +green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his +operations, from a thickly-peopled city, to a mountain road, and you +shall find in him the very soul of poetry and adventure. So it is with +the one great cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, +leads to, if it does not necessarily include, all the others. It must +have its romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life +there is in that romance, the better. + +The life to which poor Kate Nickleby was devoted, in consequence of the +unforeseen train of circumstances already developed in this narrative, +was a hard one; but lest the very dulness, unhealthy confinement, and +bodily fatigue, which made up its sum and substance, should deprive it +of any interest with the mass of the charitable and sympathetic, I would +rather keep Miss Nickleby herself in view just now, than chill them in +the outset, by a minute and lengthened description of the establishment +presided over by Madame Mantalini. + +‘Well, now, indeed, Madame Mantalini,’ said Miss Knag, as Kate was +taking her weary way homewards on the first night of her novitiate; +‘that Miss Nickleby is a very creditable young person--a very creditable +young person indeed--hem--upon my word, Madame Mantalini, it does very +extraordinary credit even to your discrimination that you should +have found such a very excellent, very well-behaved, very--hem--very +unassuming young woman to assist in the fitting on. I have seen some +young women when they had the opportunity of displaying before their +betters, behave in such a--oh, dear--well--but you’re always right, +Madame Mantalini, always; and as I very often tell the young ladies, +how you do contrive to be always right, when so many people are so often +wrong, is to me a mystery indeed.’ + +‘Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss Nickleby has +not done anything very remarkable today--that I am aware of, at least,’ +said Madame Mantalini in reply. + +‘Oh, dear!’ said Miss Knag; ‘but you must allow a great deal for +inexperience, you know.’ + +‘And youth?’ inquired Madame. + +‘Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,’ replied Miss Knag, +reddening; ‘because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn’t have--’ + +‘Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,’ suggested Madame. + +‘Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,’ rejoined +Miss Knag most complacently, ‘and that’s the fact, for you know what +one’s going to say, before it has time to rise to one’s lips. Oh, very +good! Ha, ha, ha!’ + +‘For myself,’ observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected +carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve, ‘I +consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my life.’ + +‘Poor dear thing,’ said Miss Knag, ‘it’s not her fault. If it was, we +might hope to cure it; but as it’s her misfortune, Madame Mantalini, +why really you know, as the man said about the blind horse, we ought to +respect it.’ + +‘Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,’ remarked Madame +Mantalini. ‘I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever met with.’ + +‘Ordinary!’ cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; ‘and +awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite love the +poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-looking, and twice +as awkward as she is, I should be only so much the more her friend, and +that’s the truth of it.’ + +In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate +Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short +conversation with her superior increased the favourable prepossession +to a most surprising extent; which was the more remarkable, as when she +first scanned that young lady’s face and figure, she had entertained +certain inward misgivings that they would never agree. + +‘But now,’ said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself in a +mirror at no great distance, ‘I love her--I quite love her--I declare I +do!’ + +Of such a highly disinterested quality was this devoted friendship, and +so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-nature, +that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate Nickleby, next +day, that she saw she would never do for the business, but that she need +not give herself the slightest uneasiness on this account, for that she +(Miss Knag), by increased exertions on her own part, would keep her as +much as possible in the background, and that all she would have to do, +would be to remain perfectly quiet before company, and to shrink from +attracting notice by every means in her power. This last suggestion was +so much in accordance with the timid girl’s own feelings and wishes, +that she readily promised implicit reliance on the excellent spinster’s +advice: without questioning, or indeed bestowing a moment’s reflection +upon, the motives that dictated it. + +‘I take quite a lively interest in you, my dear soul, upon my word,’ +said Miss Knag; ‘a sister’s interest, actually. It’s the most singular +circumstance I ever knew.’ + +Undoubtedly it was singular, that if Miss Knag did feel a strong +interest in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather have been the interest +of a maiden aunt or grandmother; that being the conclusion to which the +difference in their respective ages would have naturally tended. But +Miss Knag wore clothes of a very youthful pattern, and perhaps her +feelings took the same shape. + +‘Bless you!’ said Miss Knag, bestowing a kiss upon Kate at the +conclusion of the second day’s work, ‘how very awkward you have been all +day.’ + +‘I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more +painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me,’ sighed +Kate. + +‘No, no, I dare say not,’ rejoined Miss Knag, in a most uncommon flow of +good humour. ‘But how much better that you should know it at first, +and so be able to go on, straight and comfortable! Which way are you +walking, my love?’ + +‘Towards the city,’ replied Kate. + +‘The city!’ cried Miss Knag, regarding herself with great favour in the +glass as she tied her bonnet. ‘Goodness gracious me! now do you really +live in the city?’ + +‘Is it so very unusual for anybody to live there?’ asked Kate, half +smiling. + +‘I couldn’t have believed it possible that any young woman could have +lived there, under any circumstances whatever, for three days together,’ +replied Miss Knag. + +‘Reduced--I should say poor people,’ answered Kate, correcting herself +hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, ‘must live where they +can.’ + +‘Ah! very true, so they must; very proper indeed!’ rejoined Miss Knag +with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight +nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society; ‘and that’s +what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go away ill, one +after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen’s rather too damp for +‘em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are glad to sleep +anywhere! Heaven suits the back to the burden. What a nice thing it is +to think that it should be so, isn’t it?’ + +‘Very,’ replied Kate. + +‘I’ll walk with you part of the way, my dear,’ said Miss Knag, ‘for +you must go very near our house; and as it’s quite dark, and our last +servant went to the hospital a week ago, with St Anthony’s fire in her +face, I shall be glad of your company.’ + +Kate would willingly have excused herself from this flattering +companionship; but Miss Knag having adjusted her bonnet to her entire +satisfaction, took her arm with an air which plainly showed how much +she felt the compliment she was conferring, and they were in the street +before she could say another word. + +‘I fear,’ said Kate, hesitating, ‘that mama--my mother, I mean--is +waiting for me.’ + +‘You needn’t make the least apology, my dear,’ said Miss Knag, smiling +sweetly as she spoke; ‘I dare say she is a very respectable old person, +and I shall be quite--hem--quite pleased to know her.’ + +As poor Mrs. Nickleby was cooling--not her heels alone, but her limbs +generally at the street corner, Kate had no alternative but to make +her known to Miss Knag, who, doing the last new carriage customer +at second-hand, acknowledged the introduction with condescending +politeness. The three then walked away, arm in arm: with Miss Knag in +the middle, in a special state of amiability. + +‘I have taken such a fancy to your daughter, Mrs. Nickleby, you can’t +think,’ said Miss Knag, after she had proceeded a little distance in +dignified silence. + +‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘though it is nothing +new to me, that even strangers should like Kate.’ + +‘Hem!’ cried Miss Knag. + +‘You will like her better when you know how good she is,’ said Mrs +Nickleby. ‘It is a great blessing to me, in my misfortunes, to have a +child, who knows neither pride nor vanity, and whose bringing-up might +very well have excused a little of both at first. You don’t know what it +is to lose a husband, Miss Knag.’ + +As Miss Knag had never yet known what it was to gain one, it followed, +very nearly as a matter of course, that she didn’t know what it was to +lose one; so she said, in some haste, ‘No, indeed I don’t,’ and said it +with an air intending to signify that she should like to catch herself +marrying anybody--no, no, she knew better than that. + +‘Kate has improved even in this little time, I have no doubt,’ said Mrs +Nickleby, glancing proudly at her daughter. + +‘Oh! of course,’ said Miss Knag. + +‘And will improve still more,’ added Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘That she will, I’ll be bound,’ replied Miss Knag, squeezing Kate’s arm +in her own, to point the joke. + +‘She always was clever,’ said poor Mrs. Nickleby, brightening up, +‘always, from a baby. I recollect when she was only two years and a +half old, that a gentleman who used to visit very much at our house--Mr +Watkins, you know, Kate, my dear, that your poor papa went bail for, +who afterwards ran away to the United States, and sent us a pair of +snow shoes, with such an affectionate letter that it made your poor dear +father cry for a week. You remember the letter? In which he said that he +was very sorry he couldn’t repay the fifty pounds just then, because +his capital was all out at interest, and he was very busy making his +fortune, but that he didn’t forget you were his god-daughter, and he +should take it very unkind if we didn’t buy you a silver coral and put +it down to his old account? Dear me, yes, my dear, how stupid you are! +and spoke so affectionately of the old port wine that he used to drink a +bottle and a half of every time he came. You must remember, Kate?’ + +‘Yes, yes, mama; what of him?’ + +‘Why, that Mr. Watkins, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby slowly, as if she +were making a tremendous effort to recollect something of paramount +importance; ‘that Mr. Watkins--he wasn’t any relation, Miss Knag will +understand, to the Watkins who kept the Old Boar in the village; +by-the-bye, I don’t remember whether it was the Old Boar or the +George the Third, but it was one of the two, I know, and it’s much the +same--that Mr. Watkins said, when you were only two years and a half old, +that you were one of the most astonishing children he ever saw. He did +indeed, Miss Knag, and he wasn’t at all fond of children, and couldn’t +have had the slightest motive for doing it. I know it was he who said +so, because I recollect, as well as if it was only yesterday, +his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor dear papa the very moment +afterwards.’ + +Having quoted this extraordinary and most disinterested testimony to her +daughter’s excellence, Mrs. Nickleby stopped to breathe; and Miss Knag, +finding that the discourse was turning upon family greatness, lost no +time in striking in, with a small reminiscence on her own account. + +‘Don’t talk of lending money, Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Miss Knag, ‘or you’ll +drive me crazy, perfectly crazy. My mama--hem--was the most lovely and +beautiful creature, with the most striking and exquisite--hem--the most +exquisite nose that ever was put upon a human face, I do believe, Mrs +Nickleby (here Miss Knag rubbed her own nose sympathetically); the most +delightful and accomplished woman, perhaps, that ever was seen; but she +had that one failing of lending money, and carried it to such an extent +that she lent--hem--oh! thousands of pounds, all our little fortunes, +and what’s more, Mrs. Nickleby, I don’t think, if we were to live +till--till--hem--till the very end of time, that we should ever get them +back again. I don’t indeed.’ + +After concluding this effort of invention without being interrupted, +Miss Knag fell into many more recollections, no less interesting than +true, the full tide of which, Mrs. Nickleby in vain attempting to stem, +at length sailed smoothly down by adding an under-current of her own +recollections; and so both ladies went on talking together in perfect +contentment; the only difference between them being, that whereas Miss +Knag addressed herself to Kate, and talked very loud, Mrs. Nickleby kept +on in one unbroken monotonous flow, perfectly satisfied to be talking +and caring very little whether anybody listened or not. + +In this manner they walked on, very amicably, until they arrived at Miss +Knag’s brother’s, who was an ornamental stationer and small circulating +library keeper, in a by-street off Tottenham Court Road; and who let +out by the day, week, month, or year, the newest old novels, whereof +the titles were displayed in pen-and-ink characters on a sheet of +pasteboard, swinging at his door-post. As Miss Knag happened, at the +moment, to be in the middle of an account of her twenty-second offer +from a gentleman of large property, she insisted upon their all going in +to supper together; and in they went. + +‘Don’t go away, Mortimer,’ said Miss Knag as they entered the shop. +‘It’s only one of our young ladies and her mother. Mrs. and Miss +Nickleby.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mr. Mortimer Knag. ‘Ah!’ + +Having given utterance to these ejaculations with a very profound +and thoughtful air, Mr. Knag slowly snuffed two kitchen candles on the +counter, and two more in the window, and then snuffed himself from a box +in his waistcoat pocket. + +There was something very impressive in the ghostly air with which +all this was done; and as Mr. Knag was a tall lank gentleman of solemn +features, wearing spectacles, and garnished with much less hair than +a gentleman bordering on forty, or thereabouts, usually boasts, Mrs +Nickleby whispered her daughter that she thought he must be literary. + +‘Past ten,’ said Mr. Knag, consulting his watch. ‘Thomas, close the +warehouse.’ + +Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall as a shutter, and the warehouse was +a shop about the size of three hackney coaches. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Knag once more, heaving a deep sigh as he restored to its +parent shelf the book he had been reading. ‘Well--yes--I believe supper +is ready, sister.’ + +With another sigh Mr. Knag took up the kitchen candles from the counter, +and preceded the ladies with mournful steps to a back-parlour, where a +charwoman, employed in the absence of the sick servant, and remunerated +with certain eighteenpences to be deducted from her wages due, was +putting the supper out. + +‘Mrs. Blockson,’ said Miss Knag, reproachfully, ‘how very often I have +begged you not to come into the room with your bonnet on!’ + +‘I can’t help it, Miss Knag,’ said the charwoman, bridling up on the +shortest notice. ‘There’s been a deal o’cleaning to do in this house, +and if you don’t like it, I must trouble you to look out for somebody +else, for it don’t hardly pay me, and that’s the truth, if I was to be +hung this minute.’ + +‘I don’t want any remarks if YOU please,’ said Miss Knag, with a strong +emphasis on the personal pronoun. ‘Is there any fire downstairs for some +hot water presently?’ + +‘No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,’ replied the substitute; ‘and so I +won’t tell you no stories about it.’ + +‘Then why isn’t there?’ said Miss Knag. + +‘Because there arn’t no coals left out, and if I could make coals I +would, but as I can’t I won’t, and so I make bold to tell you, Mem,’ +replied Mrs. Blockson. + +‘Will you hold your tongue--female?’ said Mr. Mortimer Knag, plunging +violently into this dialogue. + +‘By your leave, Mr. Knag,’ retorted the charwoman, turning sharp round. +‘I’m only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting when and where +I’m spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female, sir, I should wish +to know what you considered yourself?’ + +‘A miserable wretch,’ exclaimed Mr. Knag, striking his forehead. ‘A +miserable wretch.’ + +‘I’m very glad to find that you don’t call yourself out of your name, +sir,’ said Mrs. Blockson; ‘and as I had two twin children the day before +yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley fell down a airy +and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it as a favour if +you’ll send nine shillings, for one week’s work, to my house, afore the +clock strikes ten tomorrow.’ + +With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with great +ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr. Knag, at the same moment, +flung himself into the ‘warehouse,’ and groaned aloud. + +‘What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby, +greatly disturbed by the sound. + +‘Is he ill?’ inquired Kate, really alarmed. + +‘Hush!’ replied Miss Knag; ‘a most melancholy history. He was once most +devotedly attached to--hem--to Madame Mantalini.’ + +‘Bless me!’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Yes,’ continued Miss Knag, ‘and received great encouragement too, +and confidently hoped to marry her. He has a most romantic heart, +Mrs. Nickleby, as indeed--hem--as indeed all our family have, and the +disappointment was a dreadful blow. He is a wonderfully accomplished +man--most extraordinarily accomplished--reads--hem--reads every novel +that comes out; I mean every novel that--hem--that has any fashion in +it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he +read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every +respect so much like the heroes--because of course he is conscious of +his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally--that he took to +scorning everything, and became a genius; and I am quite sure that he +is, at this very present moment, writing another book.’ + +‘Another book!’ repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for +somebody to say something. + +‘Yes,’ said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; ‘another book, in three +volumes post octavo. Of course it’s a great advantage to him, in all his +little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit of my--hem--of my +experience, because, of course, few authors who write about such things +can have such opportunities of knowing them as I have. He’s so wrapped +up in high life, that the least allusion to business or worldly +matters--like that woman just now, for instance--quite distracts him; +but, as I often say, I think his disappointment a great thing for him, +because if he hadn’t been disappointed he couldn’t have written about +blighted hopes and all that; and the fact is, if it hadn’t happened as +it has, I don’t believe his genius would ever have come out at all.’ + +How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under more +favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the gloomy +one was within ear-shot, and the fire wanted making up, her disclosures +stopped here. To judge from all appearances, and the difficulty of +making the water warm, the last servant could not have been much +accustomed to any other fire than St Anthony’s; but a little brandy and +water was made at last, and the guests, having been previously regaled +with cold leg of mutton and bread and cheese, soon afterwards took +leave; Kate amusing herself, all the way home, with the recollection of +her last glimpse of Mr. Mortimer Knag deeply abstracted in the shop; and +Mrs. Nickleby by debating within herself whether the dressmaking firm +would ultimately become ‘Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby’, or ‘Mantalini, +Nickleby, and Knag’. + +At this high point, Miss Knag’s friendship remained for three whole +days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini’s young ladies who had +never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on the fourth, +it received a check no less violent than sudden, which thus occurred. + +It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to marry a +young lady of no family in particular, came with the young lady, and the +young lady’s sister, to witness the ceremony of trying on two nuptial +bonnets which had been ordered the day before, and Madame Mantalini +announcing the fact, in a shrill treble, through the speaking-pipe, +which communicated with the workroom, Miss Knag darted hastily upstairs +with a bonnet in each hand, and presented herself in the show-room, in a +charming state of palpitation, intended to demonstrate her enthusiasm +in the cause. The bonnets were no sooner fairly on, than Miss Knag and +Madame Mantalini fell into convulsions of admiration. + +‘A most elegant appearance,’ said Madame Mantalini. + +‘I never saw anything so exquisite in all my life,’ said Miss Knag. + +Now, the old lord, who was a VERY old lord, said nothing, but mumbled +and chuckled in a state of great delight, no less with the nuptial +bonnets and their wearers, than with his own address in getting such a +fine woman for his wife; and the young lady, who was a very lively young +lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous condition, chased the old +lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and there kissed him, while Madame +Mantalini and the other young lady looked, discreetly, another way. + +But, pending the salutation, Miss Knag, who was tinged with curiosity, +stepped accidentally behind the glass, and encountered the lively young +lady’s eye just at the very moment when she kissed the old lord; upon +which the young lady, in a pouting manner, murmured something about ‘an +old thing,’ and ‘great impertinence,’ and finished by darting a look of +displeasure at Miss Knag, and smiling contemptuously. + +‘Madame Mantalini,’ said the young lady. + +‘Ma’am,’ said Madame Mantalini. + +‘Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yesterday.’ + +‘Oh yes, do,’ said the sister. + +‘Of all things in the world, Madame Mantalini,’ said the lord’s +intended, throwing herself languidly on a sofa, ‘I hate being waited +upon by frights or elderly persons. Let me always see that young +creature, I beg, whenever I come.’ + +‘By all means,’ said the old lord; ‘the lovely young creature, by all +means.’ + +‘Everybody is talking about her,’ said the young lady, in the same +careless manner; ‘and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty, must +positively see her.’ + +‘She IS universally admired,’ replied Madame Mantalini. ‘Miss Knag, send +up Miss Nickleby. You needn’t return.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?’ asked Miss +Knag, trembling. + +‘You needn’t return,’ repeated the superior, sharply. Miss Knag vanished +without another word, and in all reasonable time was replaced by Kate, +who took off the new bonnets and put on the old ones: blushing very much +to find that the old lord and the two young ladies were staring her out +of countenance all the time. + +‘Why, how you colour, child!’ said the lord’s chosen bride. + +‘She is not quite so accustomed to her business, as she will be in a +week or two,’ interposed Madame Mantalini with a gracious smile. + +‘I am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks, my +lord,’ said the intended. + +‘No, no, no,’ replied the old lord, ‘no, no, I’m going to be married, +and lead a new life. Ha, ha, ha! a new life, a new life! ha, ha, ha!’ + +It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going to +lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would not +last him much longer. The mere exertion of protracted chuckling reduced +him to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasping; it was some minutes +before he could find breath to remark that the girl was too pretty for a +milliner. + +‘I hope you don’t think good looks a disqualification for the business, +my lord,’ said Madame Mantalini, simpering. + +‘Not by any means,’ replied the old lord, ‘or you would have left it +long ago.’ + +‘You naughty creature,’ said the lively lady, poking the peer with her +parasol; ‘I won’t have you talk so. How dare you?’ + +This playful inquiry was accompanied with another poke, and another, +and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn’t give it up again, +which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some very pretty +sportiveness ensued. + +‘You will see that those little alterations are made, Madame Mantalini,’ +said the lady. ‘Nay, you bad man, you positively shall go first; I +wouldn’t leave you behind with that pretty girl, not for half a second. +I know you too well. Jane, my dear, let him go first, and we shall be +quite sure of him.’ + +The old lord, evidently much flattered by this suspicion, bestowed a +grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed; and, receiving another tap with +the parasol for his wickedness, tottered downstairs to the door, where +his sprightly body was hoisted into the carriage by two stout footmen. + +‘Foh!’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘how he ever gets into a carriage without +thinking of a hearse, I can’t think. There, take the things away, my +dear, take them away.’ + +Kate, who had remained during the whole scene with her eyes modestly +fixed upon the ground, was only too happy to avail herself of the +permission to retire, and hasten joyfully downstairs to Miss Knag’s +dominion. + +The circumstances of the little kingdom had greatly changed, however, +during the short period of her absence. In place of Miss Knag being +stationed in her accustomed seat, preserving all the dignity and +greatness of Madame Mantalini’s representative, that worthy soul was +reposing on a large box, bathed in tears, while three or four of the +young ladies in close attendance upon her, together with the presence +of hartshorn, vinegar, and other restoratives, would have borne ample +testimony, even without the derangement of the head-dress and front row +of curls, to her having fainted desperately. + +‘Bless me!’ said Kate, stepping hastily forward, ‘what is the matter?’ + +This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a relapse; and +several young ladies, darting angry looks at Kate, applied more vinegar +and hartshorn, and said it was ‘a shame.’ + +‘What is a shame?’ demanded Kate. ‘What is the matter? What has +happened? tell me.’ + +‘Matter!’ cried Miss Knag, coming, all at once, bolt upright, to the +great consternation of the assembled maidens; ‘matter! Fie upon you, you +nasty creature!’ + +‘Gracious!’ cried Kate, almost paralysed by the violence with which the +adjective had been jerked out from between Miss Knag’s closed teeth; +‘have I offended you?’ + +‘YOU offended me!’ retorted Miss Knag, ‘YOU! a chit, a child, an upstart +nobody! Oh, indeed! Ha, ha!’ + +Now, it was evident, as Miss Knag laughed, that something struck her as +being exceedingly funny; and as the young ladies took their tone from +Miss Knag--she being the chief--they all got up a laugh without +a moment’s delay, and nodded their heads a little, and smiled +sarcastically to each other, as much as to say how very good that was! + +‘Here she is,’ continued Miss Knag, getting off the box, and introducing +Kate with much ceremony and many low curtseys to the delighted throng; +‘here she is--everybody is talking about her--the belle, ladies--the +beauty, the--oh, you bold-faced thing!’ + +At this crisis, Miss Knag was unable to repress a virtuous shudder, +which immediately communicated itself to all the young ladies; after +which, Miss Knag laughed, and after that, cried. + +‘For fifteen years,’ exclaimed Miss Knag, sobbing in a most affecting +manner, ‘for fifteen years have I been the credit and ornament of this +room and the one upstairs. Thank God,’ said Miss Knag, stamping first +her right foot and then her left with remarkable energy, ‘I have never +in all that time, till now, been exposed to the arts, the vile arts, of +a creature, who disgraces us with all her proceedings, and makes proper +people blush for themselves. But I feel it, I do feel it, although I am +disgusted.’ + +Miss Knag here relapsed into softness, and the young ladies renewing +their attentions, murmured that she ought to be superior to such things, +and that for their part they despised them, and considered them beneath +their notice; in witness whereof, they called out, more emphatically +than before, that it was a shame, and that they felt so angry, they did, +they hardly knew what to do with themselves. + +‘Have I lived to this day to be called a fright!’ cried Miss Knag, +suddenly becoming convulsive, and making an effort to tear her front +off. + +‘Oh no, no,’ replied the chorus, ‘pray don’t say so; don’t now!’ + +‘Have I deserved to be called an elderly person?’ screamed Miss Knag, +wrestling with the supernumeraries. + +‘Don’t think of such things, dear,’ answered the chorus. + +‘I hate her,’ cried Miss Knag; ‘I detest and hate her. Never let her +speak to me again; never let anybody who is a friend of mine speak to +her; a slut, a hussy, an impudent artful hussy!’ Having denounced the +object of her wrath, in these terms, Miss Knag screamed once, hiccuped +thrice, gurgled in her throat several times, slumbered, shivered, woke, +came to, composed her head-dress, and declared herself quite well again. + +Poor Kate had regarded these proceedings, at first, in perfect +bewilderment. She had then turned red and pale by turns, and once +or twice essayed to speak; but, as the true motives of this altered +behaviour developed themselves, she retired a few paces, and looked +calmly on without deigning a reply. Nevertheless, although she walked +proudly to her seat, and turned her back upon the group of little +satellites who clustered round their ruling planet in the remotest +corner of the room, she gave way, in secret, to some such bitter tears +as would have gladdened Miss Knag’s inmost soul, if she could have seen +them fall. + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s, and of the Manner in +which the Company entertained themselves, before Dinner, at Dinner, and +after Dinner. + + +The bile and rancour of the worthy Miss Knag undergoing no diminution +during the remainder of the week, but rather augmenting with every +successive hour; and the honest ire of all the young ladies rising, or +seeming to rise, in exact proportion to the good spinster’s indignation, +and both waxing very hot every time Miss Nickleby was called upstairs; +it will be readily imagined that that young lady’s daily life was +none of the most cheerful or enviable kind. She hailed the arrival of +Saturday night, as a prisoner would a few delicious hours’ respite from +slow and wearing torture, and felt that the poor pittance for her first +week’s labour would have been dearly and hardly earned, had its amount +been trebled. + +When she joined her mother, as usual, at the street corner, she was not +a little surprised to find her in conversation with Mr. Ralph Nickleby; +but her surprise was soon redoubled, no less by the matter of their +conversation, than by the smoothed and altered manner of Mr. Nickleby +himself. + +‘Ah! my dear!’ said Ralph; ‘we were at that moment talking about you.’ + +‘Indeed!’ replied Kate, shrinking, though she scarce knew why, from her +uncle’s cold glistening eye. + +‘That instant,’ said Ralph. ‘I was coming to call for you, making sure +to catch you before you left; but your mother and I have been talking +over family affairs, and the time has slipped away so rapidly--’ + +‘Well, now, hasn’t it?’ interposed Mrs. Nickleby, quite insensible to the +sarcastic tone of Ralph’s last remark. ‘Upon my word, I couldn’t have +believed it possible, that such a--Kate, my dear, you’re to dine with +your uncle at half-past six o’clock tomorrow.’ + +Triumphing in having been the first to communicate this extraordinary +intelligence, Mrs. Nickleby nodded and smiled a great many times, to +impress its full magnificence on Kate’s wondering mind, and then flew +off, at an acute angle, to a committee of ways and means. + +‘Let me see,’ said the good lady. ‘Your black silk frock will be quite +dress enough, my dear, with that pretty little scarf, and a plain band +in your hair, and a pair of black silk stock--Dear, dear,’ cried Mrs +Nickleby, flying off at another angle, ‘if I had but those unfortunate +amethysts of mine--you recollect them, Kate, my love--how they used to +sparkle, you know--but your papa, your poor dear papa--ah! there +never was anything so cruelly sacrificed as those jewels were, never!’ +Overpowered by this agonising thought, Mrs. Nickleby shook her head, in a +melancholy manner, and applied her handkerchief to her eyes. + +I don’t want them, mama, indeed,’ said Kate. ‘Forget that you ever had +them.’ + +‘Lord, Kate, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby, pettishly, ‘how like a +child you talk! Four-and-twenty silver tea-spoons, brother-in-law, +two gravies, four salts, all the amethysts--necklace, brooch, and +ear-rings--all made away with, at the same time, and I saying, almost +on my bended knees, to that poor good soul, “Why don’t you do something, +Nicholas? Why don’t you make some arrangement?” I am sure that anybody +who was about us at that time, will do me the justice to own, that if +I said that once, I said it fifty times a day. Didn’t I, Kate, my dear? +Did I ever lose an opportunity of impressing it on your poor papa?’ + +‘No, no, mama, never,’ replied Kate. And to do Mrs. Nickleby justice, she +never had lost--and to do married ladies as a body justice, they seldom +do lose--any occasion of inculcating similar golden percepts, whose only +blemish is, the slight degree of vagueness and uncertainty in which they +are usually enveloped. + +‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with great fervour, ‘if my advice had been +taken at the beginning--Well, I have always done MY duty, and that’s +some comfort.’ + +When she had arrived at this reflection, Mrs. Nickleby sighed, rubbed her +hands, cast up her eyes, and finally assumed a look of meek composure; +thus importing that she was a persecuted saint, but that she wouldn’t +trouble her hearers by mentioning a circumstance which must be so +obvious to everybody. + +‘Now,’ said Ralph, with a smile, which, in common with all other tokens +of emotion, seemed to skulk under his face, rather than play boldly over +it--‘to return to the point from which we have strayed. I have a little +party of--of--gentlemen with whom I am connected in business just now, +at my house tomorrow; and your mother has promised that you shall +keep house for me. I am not much used to parties; but this is one of +business, and such fooleries are an important part of it sometimes. You +don’t mind obliging me?’ + +‘Mind!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. ‘My dear Kate, why--’ + +‘Pray,’ interrupted Ralph, motioning her to be silent. ‘I spoke to my +niece.’ + +‘I shall be very glad, of course, uncle,’ replied Kate; ‘but I am afraid +you will find me awkward and embarrassed.’ + +‘Oh no,’ said Ralph; ‘come when you like, in a hackney coach--I’ll pay +for it. Good-night--a--a--God bless you.’ + +The blessing seemed to stick in Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s throat, as if it +were not used to the thoroughfare, and didn’t know the way out. But it +got out somehow, though awkwardly enough; and having disposed of it, he +shook hands with his two relatives, and abruptly left them. + +‘What a very strongly marked countenance your uncle has!’ said Mrs +Nickleby, quite struck with his parting look. ‘I don’t see the slightest +resemblance to his poor brother.’ + +‘Mama!’ said Kate reprovingly. ‘To think of such a thing!’ + +‘No,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, musing. ‘There certainly is none. But it’s a +very honest face.’ + +The worthy matron made this remark with great emphasis and elocution, +as if it comprised no small quantity of ingenuity and research; and, +in truth, it was not unworthy of being classed among the extraordinary +discoveries of the age. Kate looked up hastily, and as hastily looked +down again. + +‘What has come over you, my dear, in the name of goodness?’ asked Mrs +Nickleby, when they had walked on, for some time, in silence. + +‘I was only thinking, mama,’ answered Kate. + +‘Thinking!’ repeated Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Ay, and indeed plenty to think +about, too. Your uncle has taken a strong fancy to you, that’s quite +clear; and if some extraordinary good fortune doesn’t come to you, after +this, I shall be a little surprised, that’s all.’ + +With this she launched out into sundry anecdotes of young ladies, who +had had thousand-pound notes given them in reticules, by eccentric +uncles; and of young ladies who had accidentally met amiable gentlemen +of enormous wealth at their uncles’ houses, and married them, after +short but ardent courtships; and Kate, listening first in apathy, and +afterwards in amusement, felt, as they walked home, something of her +mother’s sanguine complexion gradually awakening in her own bosom, and +began to think that her prospects might be brightening, and that better +days might be dawning upon them. Such is hope, Heaven’s own gift to +struggling mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the +skies, all things, both good and bad; as universal as death, and more +infectious than disease! + +The feeble winter’s sun--and winter’s suns in the city are very feeble +indeed--might have brightened up, as he shone through the dim windows +of the large old house, on witnessing the unusual sight which one +half-furnished room displayed. In a gloomy corner, where, for years, had +stood a silent dusty pile of merchandise, sheltering its colony of mice, +and frowning, a dull and lifeless mass, upon the panelled room, save +when, responding to the roll of heavy waggons in the street without, +it quaked with sturdy tremblings and caused the bright eyes of its tiny +citizens to grow brighter still with fear, and struck them motionless, +with attentive ear and palpitating heart, until the alarm had passed +away--in this dark corner, was arranged, with scrupulous care, all +Kate’s little finery for the day; each article of dress partaking of +that indescribable air of jauntiness and individuality which empty +garments--whether by association, or that they become moulded, as +it were, to the owner’s form--will take, in eyes accustomed to, or +picturing, the wearer’s smartness. In place of a bale of musty goods, +there lay the black silk dress: the neatest possible figure in itself. +The small shoes, with toes delicately turned out, stood upon the very +pressure of some old iron weight; and a pile of harsh discoloured +leather had unconsciously given place to the very same little pair +of black silk stockings, which had been the objects of Mrs. Nickleby’s +peculiar care. Rats and mice, and such small gear, had long ago been +starved, or had emigrated to better quarters: and, in their stead, +appeared gloves, bands, scarfs, hair-pins, and many other little +devices, almost as ingenious in their way as rats and mice themselves, +for the tantalisation of mankind. About and among them all, moved Kate +herself, not the least beautiful or unwonted relief to the stern, old, +gloomy building. + +In good time, or in bad time, as the reader likes to take it--for Mrs +Nickleby’s impatience went a great deal faster than the clocks at that +end of the town, and Kate was dressed to the very last hair-pin a full +hour and a half before it was at all necessary to begin to think about +it--in good time, or in bad time, the toilet was completed; and it being +at length the hour agreed upon for starting, the milkman fetched a coach +from the nearest stand, and Kate, with many adieux to her mother, and +many kind messages to Miss La Creevy, who was to come to tea, seated +herself in it, and went away in state, if ever anybody went away in +state in a hackney coach yet. And the coach, and the coachman, and the +horses, rattled, and jangled, and whipped, and cursed, and swore, and +tumbled on together, until they came to Golden Square. + +The coachman gave a tremendous double knock at the door, which was +opened long before he had done, as quickly as if there had been a man +behind it, with his hand tied to the latch. Kate, who had expected no +more uncommon appearance than Newman Noggs in a clean shirt, was not a +little astonished to see that the opener was a man in handsome livery, +and that there were two or three others in the hall. There was no doubt +about its being the right house, however, for there was the name upon +the door; so she accepted the laced coat-sleeve which was tendered her, +and entering the house, was ushered upstairs, into a back drawing-room, +where she was left alone. + +If she had been surprised at the apparition of the footman, she was +perfectly absorbed in amazement at the richness and splendour of the +furniture. The softest and most elegant carpets, the most exquisite +pictures, the costliest mirrors; articles of richest ornament, quite +dazzling from their beauty and perplexing from the prodigality with +which they were scattered around; encountered her on every side. The +very staircase nearly down to the hall-door, was crammed with beautiful +and luxurious things, as though the house were brimful of riches, which, +with a very trifling addition, would fairly run over into the street. + +Presently, she heard a series of loud double knocks at the street-door, +and after every knock some new voice in the next room; the tones of Mr +Ralph Nickleby were easily distinguishable at first, but by degrees +they merged into the general buzz of conversation, and all she could +ascertain was, that there were several gentlemen with no very musical +voices, who talked very loud, laughed very heartily, and swore more +than she would have thought quite necessary. But this was a question of +taste. + +At length, the door opened, and Ralph himself, divested of his boots, +and ceremoniously embellished with black silks and shoes, presented his +crafty face. + +‘I couldn’t see you before, my dear,’ he said, in a low tone, and +pointing, as he spoke, to the next room. ‘I was engaged in receiving +them. Now--shall I take you in?’ + +‘Pray, uncle,’ said Kate, a little flurried, as people much more +conversant with society often are, when they are about to enter a room +full of strangers, and have had time to think of it previously, ‘are +there any ladies here?’ + +‘No,’ said Ralph, shortly, ‘I don’t know any.’ + +‘Must I go in immediately?’ asked Kate, drawing back a little. + +‘As you please,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They are all +come, and dinner will be announced directly afterwards--that’s all.’ + +Kate would have entreated a few minutes’ respite, but reflecting that +her uncle might consider the payment of the hackney-coach fare a sort +of bargain for her punctuality, she suffered him to draw her arm through +his, and to lead her away. + +Seven or eight gentlemen were standing round the fire when they went in, +and, as they were talking very loud, were not aware of their entrance +until Mr. Ralph Nickleby, touching one on the coat-sleeve, said in a +harsh emphatic voice, as if to attract general attention-- + +‘Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, Miss Nickleby.’ + +The group dispersed, as if in great surprise, and the gentleman +addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the most +superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache, a +head of hair, and a young face. + +‘Eh!’ said the gentleman. ‘What--the--deyvle!’ + +With which broken ejaculations, he fixed his glass in his eye, and +stared at Miss Nickleby in great surprise. + +‘My niece, my lord,’ said Ralph. + +‘Then my ears did not deceive me, and it’s not wa-a-x work,’ said his +lordship. ‘How de do? I’m very happy.’ And then his lordship turned +to another superlative gentleman, something older, something stouter, +something redder in the face, and something longer upon town, and said +in a loud whisper that the girl was ‘deyvlish pitty.’ + +‘Introduce me, Nickleby,’ said this second gentleman, who was lounging +with his back to the fire, and both elbows on the chimneypiece. + +‘Sir Mulberry Hawk,’ said Ralph. + +‘Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby,’ said +Lord Frederick Verisopht. + +‘Don’t leave me out, Nickleby,’ cried a sharp-faced gentleman, who was +sitting on a low chair with a high back, reading the paper. + +‘Mr. Pyke,’ said Ralph. + +‘Nor me, Nickleby,’ cried a gentleman with a flushed face and a flash +air, from the elbow of Sir Mulberry Hawk. + +‘Mr. Pluck,’ said Ralph. Then wheeling about again, towards a gentleman +with the neck of a stork and the legs of no animal in particular, Ralph +introduced him as the Honourable Mr. Snobb; and a white-headed person +at the table as Colonel Chowser. The colonel was in conversation with +somebody, who appeared to be a make-weight, and was not introduced at +all. + +There were two circumstances which, in this early stage of the party, +struck home to Kate’s bosom, and brought the blood tingling to her face. +One was the flippant contempt with which the guests evidently regarded +her uncle, and the other, the easy insolence of their manner towards +herself. That the first symptom was very likely to lead to the +aggravation of the second, it needed no great penetration to foresee. +And here Mr. Ralph Nickleby had reckoned without his host; for however +fresh from the country a young lady (by nature) may be, and however +unacquainted with conventional behaviour, the chances are, that she will +have quite as strong an innate sense of the decencies and proprieties of +life as if she had run the gauntlet of a dozen London seasons--possibly +a stronger one, for such senses have been known to blunt in this +improving process. + +When Ralph had completed the ceremonial of introduction, he led his +blushing niece to a seat. As he did so, he glanced warily round as +though to assure himself of the impression which her unlooked-for +appearance had created. + +‘An unexpected playsure, Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick Verisopht, +taking his glass out of his right eye, where it had, until now, done +duty on Kate, and fixing it in his left, to bring it to bear on Ralph. + +‘Designed to surprise you, Lord Frederick,’ said Mr. Pluck. + +‘Not a bad idea,’ said his lordship, ‘and one that would almost warrant +the addition of an extra two and a half per cent.’ + +‘Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, in a thick coarse voice, ‘take the +hint, and tack it on the other five-and-twenty, or whatever it is, and +give me half for the advice.’ + +Sir Mulberry garnished this speech with a hoarse laugh, and terminated +it with a pleasant oath regarding Mr. Nickleby’s limbs, whereat Messrs +Pyke and Pluck laughed consumedly. + +These gentlemen had not yet quite recovered the jest, when dinner was +announced, and then they were thrown into fresh ecstasies by a similar +cause; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess of humour, shot dexterously +past Lord Frederick Verisopht who was about to lead Kate downstairs, and +drew her arm through his up to the elbow. + +‘No, damn it, Verisopht,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘fair play’s a jewel, and +Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter with our eyes ten minutes ago.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the honourable Mr. Snobb, ‘very good, very good.’ + +Rendered additionally witty by this applause, Sir Mulberry Hawk leered +upon his friends most facetiously, and led Kate downstairs with an +air of familiarity, which roused in her gentle breast such burning +indignation, as she felt it almost impossible to repress. Nor was the +intensity of these feelings at all diminished, when she found herself +placed at the top of the table, with Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord +Frederick Verisopht on either side. + +‘Oh, you’ve found your way into our neighbourhood, have you?’ said Sir +Mulberry as his lordship sat down. + +‘Of course,’ replied Lord Frederick, fixing his eyes on Miss Nickleby, +‘how can you a-ask me?’ + +‘Well, you attend to your dinner,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘and don’t mind +Miss Nickleby and me, for we shall prove very indifferent company, I +dare say.’ + +‘I wish you’d interfere here, Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick. + +‘What is the matter, my lord?’ demanded Ralph from the bottom of the +table, where he was supported by Messrs Pyke and Pluck. + +‘This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising your niece,’ said Lord Frederick. + +‘He has a tolerable share of everything that you lay claim to, my lord,’ +said Ralph with a sneer. + +‘’Gad, so he has,’ replied the young man; ‘deyvle take me if I know +which is master in my house, he or I.’ + +‘I know,’ muttered Ralph. + +‘I think I shall cut him off with a shilling,’ said the young nobleman, +jocosely. + +‘No, no, curse it,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘When you come to the +shilling--the last shilling--I’ll cut you fast enough; but till then, +I’ll never leave you--you may take your oath of it.’ + +This sally (which was strictly founded on fact) was received with a +general roar, above which, was plainly distinguishable the laughter +of Mr. Pyke and Mr. Pluck, who were, evidently, Sir Mulberry’s toads in +ordinary. Indeed, it was not difficult to see, that the majority of the +company preyed upon the unfortunate young lord, who, weak and silly as +he was, appeared by far the least vicious of the party. Sir Mulberry +Hawk was remarkable for his tact in ruining, by himself and his +creatures, young gentlemen of fortune--a genteel and elegant profession, +of which he had undoubtedly gained the head. With all the boldness of an +original genius, he had struck out an entirely new course of treatment +quite opposed to the usual method; his custom being, when he had gained +the ascendancy over those he took in hand, rather to keep them down +than to give them their own way; and to exercise his vivacity upon +them openly, and without reserve. Thus, he made them butts, in a double +sense, and while he emptied them with great address, caused them to ring +with sundry well-administered taps, for the diversion of society. + +The dinner was as remarkable for the splendour and completeness of its +appointments as the mansion itself, and the company were remarkable +for doing it ample justice, in which respect Messrs Pyke and Pluck +particularly signalised themselves; these two gentlemen eating of every +dish, and drinking of every bottle, with a capacity and perseverance +truly astonishing. They were remarkably fresh, too, notwithstanding +their great exertions: for, on the appearance of the dessert, they broke +out again, as if nothing serious had taken place since breakfast. + +‘Well,’ said Lord Frederick, sipping his first glass of port, ‘if this +is a discounting dinner, all I have to say is, deyvle take me, if it +wouldn’t be a good pla-an to get discount every day.’ + +‘You’ll have plenty of it, in your time,’ returned Sir Mulberry Hawk; +‘Nickleby will tell you that.’ + +‘What do you say, Nickleby?’ inquired the young man; ‘am I to be a good +customer?’ + +‘It depends entirely on circumstances, my lord,’ replied Ralph. + +‘On your lordship’s circumstances,’ interposed Colonel Chowser of the +Militia--and the race-courses. + +The gallant colonel glanced at Messrs Pyke and Pluck as if he thought +they ought to laugh at his joke; but those gentlemen, being only engaged +to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, were, to his signal discomfiture, as +grave as a pair of undertakers. To add to his defeat, Sir Mulberry, +considering any such efforts an invasion of his peculiar privilege, +eyed the offender steadily, through his glass, as if astonished at his +presumption, and audibly stated his impression that it was an ‘infernal +liberty,’ which being a hint to Lord Frederick, he put up HIS glass, +and surveyed the object of censure as if he were some extraordinary wild +animal then exhibiting for the first time. As a matter of course, Messrs +Pyke and Pluck stared at the individual whom Sir Mulberry Hawk stared +at; so, the poor colonel, to hide his confusion, was reduced to the +necessity of holding his port before his right eye and affecting to +scrutinise its colour with the most lively interest. + +All this while, Kate had sat as silently as she could, scarcely daring +to raise her eyes, lest they should encounter the admiring gaze of Lord +Frederick Verisopht, or, what was still more embarrassing, the bold +looks of his friend Sir Mulberry. The latter gentleman was obliging +enough to direct general attention towards her. + +‘Here is Miss Nickleby,’ observed Sir Mulberry, ‘wondering why the deuce +somebody doesn’t make love to her.’ + +‘No, indeed,’ said Kate, looking hastily up, ‘I--’ and then she stopped, +feeling it would have been better to have said nothing at all. + +‘I’ll hold any man fifty pounds,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘that Miss Nickleby +can’t look in my face, and tell me she wasn’t thinking so.’ + +‘Done!’ cried the noble gull. ‘Within ten minutes.’ + +‘Done!’ responded Sir Mulberry. The money was produced on both sides, +and the Honourable Mr. Snobb was elected to the double office of +stake-holder and time-keeper. + +‘Pray,’ said Kate, in great confusion, while these preliminaries were +in course of completion. ‘Pray do not make me the subject of any bets. +Uncle, I cannot really--’ + +‘Why not, my dear?’ replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however, +there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and +would rather that the proposition had not been broached. ‘It is done in +a moment; there is nothing in it. If the gentlemen insist on it--’ + +‘I don’t insist on it,’ said Sir Mulberry, with a loud laugh. ‘That is, +I by no means insist upon Miss Nickleby’s making the denial, for if she +does, I lose; but I shall be glad to see her bright eyes, especially as +she favours the mahogany so much.’ + +‘So she does, and it’s too ba-a-d of you, Miss Nickleby,’ said the noble +youth. + +‘Quite cruel,’ said Mr. Pyke. + +‘Horrid cruel,’ said Mr. Pluck. + +‘I don’t care if I do lose,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘for one tolerable look +at Miss Nickleby’s eyes is worth double the money.’ + +‘More,’ said Mr. Pyke. + +‘Far more,’ said Mr. Pluck. + +‘How goes the enemy, Snobb?’ asked Sir Mulberry Hawk. + +‘Four minutes gone.’ + +‘Bravo!’ + +‘Won’t you ma-ake one effort for me, Miss Nickleby?’ asked Lord +Frederick, after a short interval. + +‘You needn’t trouble yourself to inquire, my buck,’ said Sir Mulberry; +‘Miss Nickleby and I understand each other; she declares on my side, and +shows her taste. You haven’t a chance, old fellow. Time, Snobb?’ + +‘Eight minutes gone.’ + +‘Get the money ready,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘you’ll soon hand over.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Pyke. + +Mr. Pluck, who always came second, and topped his companion if he could, +screamed outright. + +The poor girl, who was so overwhelmed with confusion that she scarcely +knew what she did, had determined to remain perfectly quiet; but fearing +that by so doing she might seem to countenance Sir Mulberry’s boast, +which had been uttered with great coarseness and vulgarity of manner, +raised her eyes, and looked him in the face. There was something so +odious, so insolent, so repulsive in the look which met her, that, +without the power to stammer forth a syllable, she rose and hurried from +the room. She restrained her tears by a great effort until she was alone +upstairs, and then gave them vent. + +‘Capital!’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, putting the stakes in his pocket. + +‘That’s a girl of spirit, and we’ll drink her health.’ + +It is needless to say, that Pyke and Co. responded, with great warmth of +manner, to this proposal, or that the toast was drunk with many +little insinuations from the firm, relative to the completeness of Sir +Mulberry’s conquest. Ralph, who, while the attention of the other guests +was attracted to the principals in the preceding scene, had eyed them +like a wolf, appeared to breathe more freely now his niece was gone; the +decanters passing quickly round, he leaned back in his chair, and turned +his eyes from speaker to speaker, as they warmed with wine, with looks +that seemed to search their hearts, and lay bare, for his distempered +sport, every idle thought within them. + +Meanwhile Kate, left wholly to herself, had, in some degree, recovered +her composure. She had learnt from a female attendant, that her uncle +wished to see her before she left, and had also gleaned the satisfactory +intelligence, that the gentlemen would take coffee at table. The +prospect of seeing them no more, contributed greatly to calm her +agitation, and, taking up a book, she composed herself to read. + +She started sometimes, when the sudden opening of the dining-room door +let loose a wild shout of noisy revelry, and more than once rose in +great alarm, as a fancied footstep on the staircase impressed her +with the fear that some stray member of the party was returning +alone. Nothing occurring, however, to realise her apprehensions, she +endeavoured to fix her attention more closely on her book, in which +by degrees she became so much interested, that she had read on through +several chapters without heed of time or place, when she was terrified +by suddenly hearing her name pronounced by a man’s voice close at her +ear. + +The book fell from her hand. Lounging on an ottoman close beside her, +was Sir Mulberry Hawk, evidently the worse--if a man be a ruffian at +heart, he is never the better--for wine. + +‘What a delightful studiousness!’ said this accomplished gentleman. ‘Was +it real, now, or only to display the eyelashes?’ + +Kate, looking anxiously towards the door, made no reply. + +‘I have looked at ‘em for five minutes,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘Upon my +soul, they’re perfect. Why did I speak, and destroy such a pretty little +picture?’ + +‘Do me the favour to be silent now, sir,’ replied Kate. + +‘No, don’t,’ said Sir Mulberry, folding his crushed hat to lay his elbow +on, and bringing himself still closer to the young lady; ‘upon my life, +you oughtn’t to. Such a devoted slave of yours, Miss Nickleby--it’s an +infernal thing to treat him so harshly, upon my soul it is.’ + +‘I wish you to understand, sir,’ said Kate, trembling in spite of +herself, but speaking with great indignation, ‘that your behaviour +offends and disgusts me. If you have a spark of gentlemanly feeling +remaining, you will leave me.’ + +‘Now why,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘why will you keep up this appearance of +excessive rigour, my sweet creature? Now, be more natural--my dear Miss +Nickleby, be more natural--do.’ + +Kate hastily rose; but as she rose, Sir Mulberry caught her dress, and +forcibly detained her. + +‘Let me go, sir,’ she cried, her heart swelling with anger. ‘Do you +hear? Instantly--this moment.’ + +‘Sit down, sit down,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘I want to talk to you.’ + +‘Unhand me, sir, this instant,’ cried Kate. + +‘Not for the world,’ rejoined Sir Mulberry. Thus speaking, he leaned +over, as if to replace her in her chair; but the young lady, making a +violent effort to disengage herself, he lost his balance, and measured +his length upon the ground. As Kate sprung forward to leave the room, Mr +Ralph Nickleby appeared in the doorway, and confronted her. + +‘What is this?’ said Ralph. + +‘It is this, sir,’ replied Kate, violently agitated: ‘that beneath the +roof where I, a helpless girl, your dead brother’s child, should most +have found protection, I have been exposed to insult which should make +you shrink to look upon me. Let me pass you.’ + +Ralph DID shrink, as the indignant girl fixed her kindling eye upon him; +but he did not comply with her injunction, nevertheless: for he led her +to a distant seat, and returning, and approaching Sir Mulberry Hawk, who +had by this time risen, motioned towards the door. + +‘Your way lies there, sir,’ said Ralph, in a suppressed voice, that some +devil might have owned with pride. + +‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded his friend, fiercely. + +The swoln veins stood out like sinews on Ralph’s wrinkled forehead, and +the nerves about his mouth worked as though some unendurable emotion +wrung them; but he smiled disdainfully, and again pointed to the door. + +‘Do you know me, you old madman?’ asked Sir Mulberry. + +‘Well,’ said Ralph. The fashionable vagabond for the moment quite +quailed under the steady look of the older sinner, and walked towards +the door, muttering as he went. + +‘You wanted the lord, did you?’ he said, stopping short when he reached +the door, as if a new light had broken in upon him, and confronting +Ralph again. ‘Damme, I was in the way, was I?’ + +Ralph smiled again, but made no answer. + +‘Who brought him to you first?’ pursued Sir Mulberry; ‘and how, without +me, could you ever have wound him in your net as you have?’ + +‘The net is a large one, and rather full,’ said Ralph. ‘Take care that +it chokes nobody in the meshes.’ + +‘You would sell your flesh and blood for money; yourself, if you have +not already made a bargain with the devil,’ retorted the other. ‘Do you +mean to tell me that your pretty niece was not brought here as a decoy +for the drunken boy downstairs?’ + +Although this hurried dialogue was carried on in a suppressed tone on +both sides, Ralph looked involuntarily round to ascertain that Kate had +not moved her position so as to be within hearing. His adversary saw the +advantage he had gained, and followed it up. + +‘Do you mean to tell me,’ he asked again, ‘that it is not so? Do you +mean to say that if he had found his way up here instead of me, you +wouldn’t have been a little more blind, and a little more deaf, and a +little less flourishing, than you have been? Come, Nickleby, answer me +that.’ + +‘I tell you this,’ replied Ralph, ‘that if I brought her here, as a +matter of business--’ + +‘Ay, that’s the word,’ interposed Sir Mulberry, with a laugh. ‘You’re +coming to yourself again now.’ + +‘--As a matter of business,’ pursued Ralph, speaking slowly and firmly, +as a man who has made up his mind to say no more, ‘because I thought she +might make some impression on the silly youth you have taken in hand +and are lending good help to ruin, I knew--knowing him--that it would be +long before he outraged her girl’s feelings, and that unless he offended +by mere puppyism and emptiness, he would, with a little management, +respect the sex and conduct even of his usurer’s niece. But if I thought +to draw him on more gently by this device, I did not think of subjecting +the girl to the licentiousness and brutality of so old a hand as you. +And now we understand each other.’ + +‘Especially as there was nothing to be got by it--eh?’ sneered Sir +Mulberry. + +‘Exactly so,’ said Ralph. He had turned away, and looked over his +shoulder to make this last reply. The eyes of the two worthies met, +with an expression as if each rascal felt that there was no disguising +himself from the other; and Sir Mulberry Hawk shrugged his shoulders and +walked slowly out. + +His friend closed the door, and looked restlessly towards the spot where +his niece still remained in the attitude in which he had left her. She +had flung herself heavily upon the couch, and with her head drooping +over the cushion, and her face hidden in her hands, seemed to be still +weeping in an agony of shame and grief. + +Ralph would have walked into any poverty-stricken debtor’s house, and +pointed him out to a bailiff, though in attendance upon a young child’s +death-bed, without the smallest concern, because it would have been a +matter quite in the ordinary course of business, and the man would have +been an offender against his only code of morality. But, here was a +young girl, who had done no wrong save that of coming into the world +alive; who had patiently yielded to all his wishes; who had tried hard +to please him--above all, who didn’t owe him money--and he felt awkward +and nervous. + +Ralph took a chair at some distance; then, another chair a little +nearer; then, moved a little nearer still; then, nearer again, and +finally sat himself on the same sofa, and laid his hand on Kate’s arm. + +‘Hush, my dear!’ he said, as she drew it back, and her sobs burst out +afresh. ‘Hush, hush! Don’t mind it, now; don’t think of it.’ + +‘Oh, for pity’s sake, let me go home,’ cried Kate. ‘Let me leave this +house, and go home.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Ralph. ‘You shall. But you must dry your eyes first, +and compose yourself. Let me raise your head. There--there.’ + +‘Oh, uncle!’ exclaimed Kate, clasping her hands. ‘What have I done--what +have I done--that you should subject me to this? If I had wronged you in +thought, or word, or deed, it would have been most cruel to me, and the +memory of one you must have loved in some old time; but--’ + +‘Only listen to me for a moment,’ interrupted Ralph, seriously alarmed +by the violence of her emotions. ‘I didn’t know it would be so; it was +impossible for me to foresee it. I did all I could.--Come, let us walk +about. You are faint with the closeness of the room, and the heat of +these lamps. You will be better now, if you make the slightest effort.’ + +‘I will do anything,’ replied Kate, ‘if you will only send me home.’ + +‘Well, well, I will,’ said Ralph; ‘but you must get back your own looks; +for those you have, will frighten them, and nobody must know of this but +you and I. Now let us walk the other way. There. You look better even +now.’ + +With such encouragements as these, Ralph Nickleby walked to and fro, +with his niece leaning on his arm; actually trembling beneath her touch. + +In the same manner, when he judged it prudent to allow her to depart, he +supported her downstairs, after adjusting her shawl and performing such +little offices, most probably for the first time in his life. Across +the hall, and down the steps, Ralph led her too; nor did he withdraw his +hand until she was seated in the coach. + +As the door of the vehicle was roughly closed, a comb fell from Kate’s +hair, close at her uncle’s feet; and as he picked it up, and returned it +into her hand, the light from a neighbouring lamp shone upon her face. +The lock of hair that had escaped and curled loosely over her brow, the +traces of tears yet scarcely dry, the flushed cheek, the look of sorrow, +all fired some dormant train of recollection in the old man’s breast; +and the face of his dead brother seemed present before him, with the +very look it bore on some occasion of boyish grief, of which every +minutest circumstance flashed upon his mind, with the distinctness of a +scene of yesterday. + +Ralph Nickleby, who was proof against all appeals of blood +and kindred--who was steeled against every tale of sorrow and +distress--staggered while he looked, and went back into his house, as a +man who had seen a spirit from some world beyond the grave. + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Wherein Nicholas at length encounters his Uncle, to whom he expresses +his Sentiments with much Candour. His Resolution. + + +Little Miss La Creevy trotted briskly through divers streets at the +west end of the town, early on Monday morning--the day after the +dinner--charged with the important commission of acquainting Madame +Mantalini that Miss Nickleby was too unwell to attend that day, but +hoped to be enabled to resume her duties on the morrow. And as Miss La +Creevy walked along, revolving in her mind various genteel forms and +elegant turns of expression, with a view to the selection of the very +best in which to couch her communication, she cogitated a good deal upon +the probable causes of her young friend’s indisposition. + +‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘Her eyes were +decidedly red last night. She said she had a headache; headaches don’t +occasion red eyes. She must have been crying.’ + +Arriving at this conclusion, which, indeed, she had established to her +perfect satisfaction on the previous evening, Miss La Creevy went on +to consider--as she had done nearly all night--what new cause of +unhappiness her young friend could possibly have had. + +‘I can’t think of anything,’ said the little portrait painter. ‘Nothing +at all, unless it was the behaviour of that old bear. Cross to her, I +suppose? Unpleasant brute!’ + +Relieved by this expression of opinion, albeit it was vented upon empty +air, Miss La Creevy trotted on to Madame Mantalini’s; and being informed +that the governing power was not yet out of bed, requested an interview +with the second in command; whereupon Miss Knag appeared. + +‘So far as I am concerned,’ said Miss Knag, when the message had been +delivered, with many ornaments of speech; ‘I could spare Miss Nickleby +for evermore.’ + +‘Oh, indeed, ma’am!’ rejoined Miss La Creevy, highly offended. ‘But, +you see, you are not mistress of the business, and therefore it’s of no +great consequence.’ + +‘Very good, ma’am,’ said Miss Knag. ‘Have you any further commands for +me?’ + +‘No, I have not, ma’am,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. + +‘Then good-morning, ma’am,’ said Miss Knag. + +‘Good-morning to you, ma’am; and many obligations for your extreme +politeness and good breeding,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. + +Thus terminating the interview, during which both ladies had trembled +very much, and been marvellously polite--certain indications that they +were within an inch of a very desperate quarrel--Miss La Creevy bounced +out of the room, and into the street. + +‘I wonder who that is,’ said the queer little soul. ‘A nice person +to know, I should think! I wish I had the painting of her: I’D do her +justice.’ So, feeling quite satisfied that she had said a very cutting +thing at Miss Knag’s expense, Miss La Creevy had a hearty laugh, and +went home to breakfast in great good humour. + +Here was one of the advantages of having lived alone so long! The little +bustling, active, cheerful creature existed entirely within herself, +talked to herself, made a confidante of herself, was as sarcastic as she +could be, on people who offended her, by herself; pleased herself, and +did no harm. If she indulged in scandal, nobody’s reputation suffered; +and if she enjoyed a little bit of revenge, no living soul was one atom +the worse. One of the many to whom, from straitened circumstances, a +consequent inability to form the associations they would wish, and a +disinclination to mix with the society they could obtain, London is +as complete a solitude as the plains of Syria, the humble artist had +pursued her lonely, but contented way for many years; and, until the +peculiar misfortunes of the Nickleby family attracted her attention, +had made no friends, though brimful of the friendliest feelings to all +mankind. There are many warm hearts in the same solitary guise as poor +little Miss La Creevy’s. + +However, that’s neither here nor there, just now. She went home to +breakfast, and had scarcely caught the full flavour of her first sip of +tea, when the servant announced a gentleman, whereat Miss La Creevy, at +once imagining a new sitter transfixed by admiration at the street-door +case, was in unspeakable consternation at the presence of the +tea-things. + +‘Here, take ‘em away; run with ‘em into the bedroom; anywhere,’ said +Miss La Creevy. ‘Dear, dear; to think that I should be late on this +particular morning, of all others, after being ready for three weeks by +half-past eight o’clock, and not a soul coming near the place!’ + +‘Don’t let me put you out of the way,’ said a voice Miss La Creevy knew. +‘I told the servant not to mention my name, because I wished to surprise +you.’ + +‘Mr. Nicholas!’ cried Miss La Creevy, starting in great astonishment. +‘You have not forgotten me, I see,’ replied Nicholas, extending his +hand. + +‘Why, I think I should even have known you if I had met you in the +street,’ said Miss La Creevy, with a smile. ‘Hannah, another cup and +saucer. Now, I’ll tell you what, young man; I’ll trouble you not to +repeat the impertinence you were guilty of, on the morning you went +away.’ + +‘You would not be very angry, would you?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Wouldn’t I!’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘You had better try; that’s all!’ + +Nicholas, with becoming gallantry, immediately took Miss La Creevy at +her word, who uttered a faint scream and slapped his face; but it was +not a very hard slap, and that’s the truth. + +‘I never saw such a rude creature!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy. + +‘You told me to try,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Well; but I was speaking ironically,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. + +‘Oh! that’s another thing,’ said Nicholas; ‘you should have told me +that, too.’ + +‘I dare say you didn’t know, indeed!’ retorted Miss La Creevy. ‘But, now +I look at you again, you seem thinner than when I saw you last, and your +face is haggard and pale. And how come you to have left Yorkshire?’ + +She stopped here; for there was so much heart in her altered tone and +manner, that Nicholas was quite moved. + +‘I need look somewhat changed,’ he said, after a short silence; ‘for +I have undergone some suffering, both of mind and body, since I left +London. I have been very poor, too, and have even suffered from want.’ + +‘Good Heaven, Mr. Nicholas!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy, ‘what are you +telling me?’ + +‘Nothing which need distress you quite so much,’ answered Nicholas, with +a more sprightly air; ‘neither did I come here to bewail my lot, but +on matter more to the purpose. I wish to meet my uncle face to face. I +should tell you that first.’ + +‘Then all I have to say about that is,’ interposed Miss La Creevy, ‘that +I don’t envy you your taste; and that sitting in the same room with his +very boots, would put me out of humour for a fortnight.’ + +‘In the main,’ said Nicholas, ‘there may be no great difference of +opinion between you and me, so far; but you will understand, that I +desire to confront him, to justify myself, and to cast his duplicity and +malice in his throat.’ + +‘That’s quite another matter,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. ‘Heaven forgive +me; but I shouldn’t cry my eyes quite out of my head, if they choked +him. Well?’ + +‘To this end, I called upon him this morning,’ said Nicholas. ‘He only +returned to town on Saturday, and I knew nothing of his arrival until +late last night.’ + +‘And did you see him?’ asked Miss La Creevy. + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas. ‘He had gone out.’ + +‘Hah!’ said Miss La Creevy; ‘on some kind, charitable business, I dare +say.’ + +‘I have reason to believe,’ pursued Nicholas, ‘from what has been told +me, by a friend of mine who is acquainted with his movements, that he +intends seeing my mother and sister today, and giving them his version +of the occurrences that have befallen me. I will meet him there.’ + +‘That’s right,’ said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands. ‘And yet, I +don’t know,’ she added, ‘there is much to be thought of--others to be +considered.’ + +‘I have considered others,’ rejoined Nicholas; ‘but as honesty and +honour are both at issue, nothing shall deter me.’ + +‘You should know best,’ said Miss La Creevy. + +‘In this case I hope so,’ answered Nicholas. ‘And all I want you to do +for me, is, to prepare them for my coming. They think me a long way +off, and if I went wholly unexpected, I should frighten them. If you can +spare time to tell them that you have seen me, and that I shall be +with them in a quarter of an hour afterwards, you will do me a great +service.’ + +‘I wish I could do you, or any of you, a greater,’ said Miss La Creevy; +‘but the power to serve, is as seldom joined with the will, as the will +is with the power, I think.’ + +Talking on very fast and very much, Miss La Creevy finished her +breakfast with great expedition, put away the tea-caddy and hid the +key under the fender, resumed her bonnet, and, taking Nicholas’s arm, +sallied forth at once to the city. Nicholas left her near the door of +his mother’s house, and promised to return within a quarter of an hour. + +It so chanced that Ralph Nickleby, at length seeing fit, for his own +purposes, to communicate the atrocities of which Nicholas had been +guilty, had (instead of first proceeding to another quarter of the town +on business, as Newman Noggs supposed he would) gone straight to his +sister-in-law. Hence, when Miss La Creevy, admitted by a girl who was +cleaning the house, made her way to the sitting-room, she found Mrs +Nickleby and Kate in tears, and Ralph just concluding his statement of +his nephew’s misdemeanours. Kate beckoned her not to retire, and Miss La +Creevy took a seat in silence. + +‘You are here already, are you, my gentleman?’ thought the little woman. +‘Then he shall announce himself, and see what effect that has on you.’ + +‘This is pretty,’ said Ralph, folding up Miss Squeers’s note; ‘very +pretty. I recommend him--against all my previous conviction, for I +knew he would never do any good--to a man with whom, behaving himself +properly, he might have remained, in comfort, for years. What is the +result? Conduct for which he might hold up his hand at the Old Bailey.’ + +‘I never will believe it,’ said Kate, indignantly; ‘never. It is some +base conspiracy, which carries its own falsehood with it.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Ralph, ‘you wrong the worthy man. These are not +inventions. The man is assaulted, your brother is not to be found; this +boy, of whom they speak, goes with him--remember, remember.’ + +‘It is impossible,’ said Kate. ‘Nicholas!--and a thief too! Mama, how +can you sit and hear such statements?’ + +Poor Mrs. Nickleby, who had, at no time, been remarkable for the +possession of a very clear understanding, and who had been reduced +by the late changes in her affairs to a most complicated state of +perplexity, made no other reply to this earnest remonstrance than +exclaiming from behind a mass of pocket-handkerchief, that she never +could have believed it--thereby most ingeniously leaving her hearers to +suppose that she did believe it. + +‘It would be my duty, if he came in my way, to deliver him up to +justice,’ said Ralph, ‘my bounden duty; I should have no other course, +as a man of the world and a man of business, to pursue. And yet,’ said +Ralph, speaking in a very marked manner, and looking furtively, but +fixedly, at Kate, ‘and yet I would not. I would spare the feelings of +his--of his sister. And his mother of course,’ added Ralph, as though by +an afterthought, and with far less emphasis. + +Kate very well understood that this was held out as an additional +inducement to her to preserve the strictest silence regarding the events +of the preceding night. She looked involuntarily towards Ralph as he +ceased to speak, but he had turned his eyes another way, and seemed for +the moment quite unconscious of her presence. + +‘Everything,’ said Ralph, after a long silence, broken only by Mrs +Nickleby’s sobs, ‘everything combines to prove the truth of this letter, +if indeed there were any possibility of disputing it. Do innocent men +steal away from the sight of honest folks, and skulk in hiding-places, +like outlaws? Do innocent men inveigle nameless vagabonds, and prowl +with them about the country as idle robbers do? Assault, riot, theft, +what do you call these?’ + +‘A lie!’ cried a voice, as the door was dashed open, and Nicholas came +into the room. + +In the first moment of surprise, and possibly of alarm, Ralph rose from +his seat, and fell back a few paces, quite taken off his guard by this +unexpected apparition. In another moment, he stood, fixed and immovable +with folded arms, regarding his nephew with a scowl; while Kate and +Miss La Creevy threw themselves between the two, to prevent the personal +violence which the fierce excitement of Nicholas appeared to threaten. + +‘Dear Nicholas,’ cried his sister, clinging to him. ‘Be calm, +consider--’ + +‘Consider, Kate!’ cried Nicholas, clasping her hand so tight in the +tumult of his anger, that she could scarcely bear the pain. ‘When I +consider all, and think of what has passed, I need be made of iron to +stand before him.’ + +‘Or bronze,’ said Ralph, quietly; ‘there is not hardihood enough in +flesh and blood to face it out.’ + +‘Oh dear, dear!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that things should have come to +such a pass as this!’ + +‘Who speaks in a tone, as if I had done wrong, and brought disgrace on +them?’ said Nicholas, looking round. + +‘Your mother, sir,’ replied Ralph, motioning towards her. + +‘Whose ears have been poisoned by you,’ said Nicholas; ‘by you--who, +under pretence of deserving the thanks she poured upon you, heaped every +insult, wrong, and indignity upon my head. You, who sent me to a den +where sordid cruelty, worthy of yourself, runs wanton, and youthful +misery stalks precocious; where the lightness of childhood shrinks into +the heaviness of age, and its every promise blights, and withers as it +grows. I call Heaven to witness,’ said Nicholas, looking eagerly round, +‘that I have seen all this, and that he knows it.’ + +‘Refute these calumnies,’ said Kate, ‘and be more patient, so that you +may give them no advantage. Tell us what you really did, and show that +they are untrue.’ + +‘Of what do they--or of what does he--accuse me?’ said Nicholas. + +‘First, of attacking your master, and being within an ace of qualifying +yourself to be tried for murder,’ interposed Ralph. ‘I speak plainly, +young man, bluster as you will.’ + +‘I interfered,’ said Nicholas, ‘to save a miserable creature from the +vilest cruelty. In so doing, I inflicted such punishment upon a wretch +as he will not readily forget, though far less than he deserved from +me. If the same scene were renewed before me now, I would take the same +part; but I would strike harder and heavier, and brand him with such +marks as he should carry to his grave, go to it when he would.’ + +‘You hear?’ said Ralph, turning to Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Penitence, this!’ + +‘Oh dear me!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I don’t know what to think, I really +don’t.’ + +‘Do not speak just now, mama, I entreat you,’ said Kate. ‘Dear Nicholas, +I only tell you, that you may know what wickedness can prompt, but they +accuse you of--a ring is missing, and they dare to say that--’ + +‘The woman,’ said Nicholas, haughtily, ‘the wife of the fellow from whom +these charges come, dropped--as I suppose--a worthless ring among some +clothes of mine, early in the morning on which I left the house. At +least, I know that she was in the bedroom where they lay, struggling +with an unhappy child, and that I found it when I opened my bundle on +the road. I returned it, at once, by coach, and they have it now.’ + +‘I knew, I knew,’ said Kate, looking towards her uncle. ‘About this boy, +love, in whose company they say you left?’ + +‘The boy, a silly, helpless creature, from brutality and hard usage, is +with me now,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘You hear?’ said Ralph, appealing to the mother again, ‘everything +proved, even upon his own confession. Do you choose to restore that boy, +sir?’ + +‘No, I do not,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘You do not?’ sneered Ralph. + +‘No,’ repeated Nicholas, ‘not to the man with whom I found him. I would +that I knew on whom he has the claim of birth: I might wring something +from his sense of shame, if he were dead to every tie of nature.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Ralph. ‘Now, sir, will you hear a word or two from me?’ + +‘You can speak when and what you please,’ replied Nicholas, embracing +his sister. ‘I take little heed of what you say or threaten.’ + +‘Mighty well, sir,’ retorted Ralph; ‘but perhaps it may concern others, +who may think it worth their while to listen, and consider what I tell +them. I will address your mother, sir, who knows the world.’ + +‘Ah! and I only too dearly wish I didn’t,’ sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. + +There really was no necessity for the good lady to be much distressed +upon this particular head; the extent of her worldly knowledge being, to +say the least, very questionable; and so Ralph seemed to think, for he +smiled as she spoke. He then glanced steadily at her and Nicholas by +turns, as he delivered himself in these words: + +‘Of what I have done, or what I meant to do, for you, ma’am, and my +niece, I say not one syllable. I held out no promise, and leave you to +judge for yourself. I hold out no threat now, but I say that this boy, +headstrong, wilful and disorderly as he is, should not have one penny of +my money, or one crust of my bread, or one grasp of my hand, to save him +from the loftiest gallows in all Europe. I will not meet him, come where +he comes, or hear his name. I will not help him, or those who help him. +With a full knowledge of what he brought upon you by so doing, he has +come back in his selfish sloth, to be an aggravation of your wants, and +a burden upon his sister’s scanty wages. I regret to leave you, and more +to leave her, now, but I will not encourage this compound of meanness +and cruelty, and, as I will not ask you to renounce him, I see you no +more.’ + +If Ralph had not known and felt his power in wounding those he hated, +his glances at Nicholas would have shown it him, in all its force, as +he proceeded in the above address. Innocent as the young man was of all +wrong, every artful insinuation stung, every well-considered sarcasm cut +him to the quick; and when Ralph noted his pale face and quivering +lip, he hugged himself to mark how well he had chosen the taunts best +calculated to strike deep into a young and ardent spirit. + +‘I can’t help it,’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I know you have been very good +to us, and meant to do a good deal for my dear daughter. I am quite sure +of that; I know you did, and it was very kind of you, having her at your +house and all--and of course it would have been a great thing for her +and for me too. But I can’t, you know, brother-in-law, I can’t renounce +my own son, even if he has done all you say he has--it’s not possible; +I couldn’t do it; so we must go to rack and ruin, Kate, my dear. I can +bear it, I dare say.’ Pouring forth these and a perfectly wonderful +train of other disjointed expressions of regret, which no mortal power +but Mrs. Nickleby’s could ever have strung together, that lady wrung her +hands, and her tears fell faster. + +‘Why do you say “IF Nicholas has done what they say he has,” mama?’ +asked Kate, with honest anger. ‘You know he has not.’ + +‘I don’t know what to think, one way or other, my dear,’ said Mrs +Nickleby; ‘Nicholas is so violent, and your uncle has so much composure, +that I can only hear what he says, and not what Nicholas does. Never +mind, don’t let us talk any more about it. We can go to the Workhouse, +or the Refuge for the Destitute, or the Magdalen Hospital, I dare say; +and the sooner we go the better.’ With this extraordinary jumble of +charitable institutions, Mrs. Nickleby again gave way to her tears. + +‘Stay,’ said Nicholas, as Ralph turned to go. ‘You need not leave this +place, sir, for it will be relieved of my presence in one minute, and it +will be long, very long, before I darken these doors again.’ + +‘Nicholas,’ cried Kate, throwing herself on her brother’s shoulder, ‘do +not say so. My dear brother, you will break my heart. Mama, speak to +him. Do not mind her, Nicholas; she does not mean it, you should know +her better. Uncle, somebody, for Heaven’s sake speak to him.’ + +‘I never meant, Kate,’ said Nicholas, tenderly, ‘I never meant to stay +among you; think better of me than to suppose it possible. I may turn my +back on this town a few hours sooner than I intended, but what of that? +We shall not forget each other apart, and better days will come when we +shall part no more. Be a woman, Kate,’ he whispered, proudly, ‘and do +not make me one, while HE looks on.’ + +‘No, no, I will not,’ said Kate, eagerly, ‘but you will not leave us. +Oh! think of all the happy days we have had together, before these +terrible misfortunes came upon us; of all the comfort and happiness of +home, and the trials we have to bear now; of our having no protector +under all the slights and wrongs that poverty so much favours, and you +cannot leave us to bear them alone, without one hand to help us.’ + +‘You will be helped when I am away,’ replied Nicholas hurriedly. ‘I am +no help to you, no protector; I should bring you nothing but sorrow, and +want, and suffering. My own mother sees it, and her fondness and fears +for you, point to the course that I should take. And so all good angels +bless you, Kate, till I can carry you to some home of mine, where we may +revive the happiness denied to us now, and talk of these trials as of +things gone by. Do not keep me here, but let me go at once. There. Dear +girl--dear girl.’ + +The grasp which had detained him relaxed, and Kate swooned in his arms. +Nicholas stooped over her for a few seconds, and placing her gently in a +chair, confided her to their honest friend. + +‘I need not entreat your sympathy,’ he said, wringing her hand, ‘for I +know your nature. You will never forget them.’ + +He stepped up to Ralph, who remained in the same attitude which he had +preserved throughout the interview, and moved not a finger. + +‘Whatever step you take, sir,’ he said, in a voice inaudible beyond +themselves, ‘I shall keep a strict account of. I leave them to you, at +your desire. There will be a day of reckoning sooner or later, and it +will be a heavy one for you if they are wronged.’ + +Ralph did not allow a muscle of his face to indicate that he heard one +word of this parting address. He hardly knew that it was concluded, and +Mrs. Nickleby had scarcely made up her mind to detain her son by force if +necessary, when Nicholas was gone. + +As he hurried through the streets to his obscure lodging, seeking to +keep pace, as it were, with the rapidity of the thoughts which crowded +upon him, many doubts and hesitations arose in his mind, and almost +tempted him to return. But what would they gain by this? Supposing he +were to put Ralph Nickleby at defiance, and were even fortunate enough +to obtain some small employment, his being with them could only render +their present condition worse, and might greatly impair their future +prospects; for his mother had spoken of some new kindnesses towards Kate +which she had not denied. ‘No,’ thought Nicholas, ‘I have acted for the +best.’ + +But, before he had gone five hundred yards, some other and different +feeling would come upon him, and then he would lag again, and pulling +his hat over his eyes, give way to the melancholy reflections which +pressed thickly upon him. To have committed no fault, and yet to be so +entirely alone in the world; to be separated from the only persons he +loved, and to be proscribed like a criminal, when six months ago he had +been surrounded by every comfort, and looked up to, as the chief hope of +his family--this was hard to bear. He had not deserved it either. Well, +there was comfort in that; and poor Nicholas would brighten up again, +to be again depressed, as his quickly shifting thoughts presented every +variety of light and shade before him. + +Undergoing these alternations of hope and misgiving, which no one, +placed in a situation of ordinary trial, can fail to have experienced, +Nicholas at length reached his poor room, where, no longer borne up by +the excitement which had hitherto sustained him, but depressed by the +revulsion of feeling it left behind, he threw himself on the bed, and +turning his face to the wall, gave free vent to the emotions he had so +long stifled. + +He had not heard anybody enter, and was unconscious of the presence of +Smike, until, happening to raise his head, he saw him, standing at the +upper end of the room, looking wistfully towards him. He withdrew his +eyes when he saw that he was observed, and affected to be busied with +some scanty preparations for dinner. + +‘Well, Smike,’ said Nicholas, as cheerfully as he could speak, ‘let +me hear what new acquaintances you have made this morning, or what new +wonder you have found out, in the compass of this street and the next +one.’ + +‘No,’ said Smike, shaking his head mournfully; ‘I must talk of something +else today.’ + +‘Of what you like,’ replied Nicholas, good-humouredly. + +‘Of this,’ said Smike. ‘I know you are unhappy, and have got into great +trouble by bringing me away. I ought to have known that, and stopped +behind--I would, indeed, if I had thought it then. You--you--are not +rich; you have not enough for yourself, and I should not be here. You +grow,’ said the lad, laying his hand timidly on that of Nicholas, ‘you +grow thinner every day; your cheek is paler, and your eye more sunk. +Indeed I cannot bear to see you so, and think how I am burdening you. I +tried to go away today, but the thought of your kind face drew me back. +I could not leave you without a word.’ The poor fellow could say no +more, for his eyes filled with tears, and his voice was gone. + +‘The word which separates us,’ said Nicholas, grasping him heartily by +the shoulder, ‘shall never be said by me, for you are my only comfort +and stay. I would not lose you now, Smike, for all the world could give. +The thought of you has upheld me through all I have endured today, and +shall, through fifty times such trouble. Give me your hand. My heart is +linked to yours. We will journey from this place together, before the +week is out. What, if I am steeped in poverty? You lighten it, and we +will be poor together.’ + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +Madam Mantalini finds herself in a Situation of some Difficulty, and +Miss Nickleby finds herself in no Situation at all + + +The agitation she had undergone, rendered Kate Nickleby unable to resume +her duties at the dressmaker’s for three days, at the expiration of +which interval she betook herself at the accustomed hour, and with +languid steps, to the temple of fashion where Madame Mantalini reigned +paramount and supreme. + +The ill-will of Miss Knag had lost nothing of its virulence in +the interval. The young ladies still scrupulously shrunk from all +companionship with their denounced associate; and when that exemplary +female arrived a few minutes afterwards, she was at no pains to conceal +the displeasure with which she regarded Kate’s return. + +‘Upon my word!’ said Miss Knag, as the satellites flocked round, to +relieve her of her bonnet and shawl; ‘I should have thought some people +would have had spirit enough to stop away altogether, when they know +what an incumbrance their presence is to right-minded persons. But it’s +a queer world; oh! it’s a queer world!’ + +Miss Knag, having passed this comment on the world, in the tone in which +most people do pass comments on the world when they are out of temper, +that is to say, as if they by no means belonged to it, concluded +by heaving a sigh, wherewith she seemed meekly to compassionate the +wickedness of mankind. + +The attendants were not slow to echo the sigh, and Miss Knag was +apparently on the eve of favouring them with some further moral +reflections, when the voice of Madame Mantalini, conveyed through +the speaking-tube, ordered Miss Nickleby upstairs to assist in the +arrangement of the show-room; a distinction which caused Miss Knag to +toss her head so much, and bite her lips so hard, that her powers of +conversation were, for the time, annihilated. + +‘Well, Miss Nickleby, child,’ said Madame Mantalini, when Kate presented +herself; ‘are you quite well again?’ + +‘A great deal better, thank you,’ replied Kate. + +‘I wish I could say the same,’ remarked Madame Mantalini, seating +herself with an air of weariness. + +‘Are you ill?’ asked Kate. ‘I am very sorry for that.’ + +‘Not exactly ill, but worried, child--worried,’ rejoined Madame. + +‘I am still more sorry to hear that,’ said Kate, gently. ‘Bodily illness +is more easy to bear than mental.’ + +‘Ah! and it’s much easier to talk than to bear either,’ said Madame, +rubbing her nose with much irritability of manner. ‘There, get to your +work, child, and put the things in order, do.’ + +While Kate was wondering within herself what these symptoms of unusual +vexation portended, Mr. Mantalini put the tips of his whiskers, and, by +degrees, his head, through the half-opened door, and cried in a soft +voice-- + +‘Is my life and soul there?’ + +‘No,’ replied his wife. + +‘How can it say so, when it is blooming in the front room like a little +rose in a demnition flower-pot?’ urged Mantalini. ‘May its poppet come +in and talk?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Madame: ‘you know I never allow you here. Go +along!’ + +The poppet, however, encouraged perhaps by the relenting tone of this +reply, ventured to rebel, and, stealing into the room, made towards +Madame Mantalini on tiptoe, blowing her a kiss as he came along. + +‘Why will it vex itself, and twist its little face into bewitching +nutcrackers?’ said Mantalini, putting his left arm round the waist of +his life and soul, and drawing her towards him with his right. + +‘Oh! I can’t bear you,’ replied his wife. + +‘Not--eh, not bear ME!’ exclaimed Mantalini. ‘Fibs, fibs. It couldn’t +be. There’s not a woman alive, that could tell me such a thing to my +face--to my own face.’ Mr. Mantalini stroked his chin, as he said this, +and glanced complacently at an opposite mirror. + +‘Such destructive extravagance,’ reasoned his wife, in a low tone. + +‘All in its joy at having gained such a lovely creature, such a little +Venus, such a demd, enchanting, bewitching, engrossing, captivating +little Venus,’ said Mantalini. + +‘See what a situation you have placed me in!’ urged Madame. + +‘No harm will come, no harm shall come, to its own darling,’ rejoined +Mr. Mantalini. ‘It is all over; there will be nothing the matter; money +shall be got in; and if it don’t come in fast enough, old Nickleby shall +stump up again, or have his jugular separated if he dares to vex and +hurt the little--’ + +‘Hush!’ interposed Madame. ‘Don’t you see?’ + +Mr. Mantalini, who, in his eagerness to make up matters with his wife, +had overlooked, or feigned to overlook, Miss Nickleby hitherto, took +the hint, and laying his finger on his lip, sunk his voice still +lower. There was, then, a great deal of whispering, during which Madame +Mantalini appeared to make reference, more than once, to certain debts +incurred by Mr. Mantalini previous to her coverture; and also to an +unexpected outlay of money in payment of the aforesaid debts; and +furthermore, to certain agreeable weaknesses on that gentleman’s part, +such as gaming, wasting, idling, and a tendency to horse-flesh; each +of which matters of accusation Mr. Mantalini disposed of, by one kiss +or more, as its relative importance demanded. The upshot of it all +was, that Madame Mantalini was in raptures with him, and that they went +upstairs to breakfast. + +Kate busied herself in what she had to do, and was silently arranging +the various articles of decoration in the best taste she could display, +when she started to hear a strange man’s voice in the room, and started +again, to observe, on looking round, that a white hat, and a red +neckerchief, and a broad round face, and a large head, and part of a +green coat were in the room too. + +‘Don’t alarm yourself, miss,’ said the proprietor of these appearances. +‘I say; this here’s the mantie-making consarn, an’t it?’ + +‘Yes,’ rejoined Kate, greatly astonished. ‘What did you want?’ + +The stranger answered not; but, first looking back, as though to beckon +to some unseen person outside, came, very deliberately, into the room, +and was closely followed by a little man in brown, very much the worse +for wear, who brought with him a mingled fumigation of stale tobacco and +fresh onions. The clothes of this gentleman were much bespeckled with +flue; and his shoes, stockings, and nether garments, from his heels to +the waist buttons of his coat inclusive, were profusely embroidered with +splashes of mud, caught a fortnight previously--before the setting-in of +the fine weather. + +Kate’s very natural impression was, that these engaging individuals +had called with the view of possessing themselves, unlawfully, of +any portable articles that chanced to strike their fancy. She did not +attempt to disguise her apprehensions, and made a move towards the door. + +‘Wait a minnit,’ said the man in the green coat, closing it softly, and +standing with his back against it. ‘This is a unpleasant bisness. Vere’s +your govvernor?’ + +‘My what--did you say?’ asked Kate, trembling; for she thought +‘governor’ might be slang for watch or money. + +‘Mister Muntlehiney,’ said the man. ‘Wot’s come on him? Is he at home?’ + +‘He is above stairs, I believe,’ replied Kate, a little reassured by +this inquiry. ‘Do you want him?’ + +‘No,’ replied the visitor. ‘I don’t ezactly want him, if it’s made a +favour on. You can jist give him that ‘ere card, and tell him if he +wants to speak to ME, and save trouble, here I am; that’s all.’ + +With these words, the stranger put a thick square card into Kate’s hand, +and, turning to his friend, remarked, with an easy air, ‘that the rooms +was a good high pitch;’ to which the friend assented, adding, by way of +illustration, ‘that there was lots of room for a little boy to grow up +a man in either on ‘em, vithout much fear of his ever bringing his head +into contract vith the ceiling.’ + +After ringing the bell which would summon Madame Mantalini, Kate glanced +at the card, and saw that it displayed the name of ‘Scaley,’ together +with some other information to which she had not had time to refer, when +her attention was attracted by Mr. Scaley himself, who, walking up to one +of the cheval-glasses, gave it a hard poke in the centre with his stick, +as coolly as if it had been made of cast iron. + +‘Good plate this here, Tix,’ said Mr. Scaley to his friend. + +‘Ah!’ rejoined Mr. Tix, placing the marks of his four fingers, and a +duplicate impression of his thumb, on a piece of sky-blue silk; ‘and +this here article warn’t made for nothing, mind you.’ + +From the silk, Mr. Tix transferred his admiration to some elegant +articles of wearing apparel, while Mr. Scaley adjusted his neckcloth, +at leisure, before the glass, and afterwards, aided by its reflection, +proceeded to the minute consideration of a pimple on his chin; in which +absorbing occupation he was yet engaged, when Madame Mantalini, entering +the room, uttered an exclamation of surprise which roused him. + +‘Oh! Is this the missis?’ inquired Scaley. + +‘It is Madame Mantalini,’ said Kate. + +‘Then,’ said Mr. Scaley, producing a small document from his pocket and +unfolding it very slowly, ‘this is a writ of execution, and if it’s not +conwenient to settle we’ll go over the house at wunst, please, and take +the inwentory.’ + +Poor Madame Mantalini wrung her hands for grief, and rung the bell +for her husband; which done, she fell into a chair and a fainting fit, +simultaneously. The professional gentlemen, however, were not at all +discomposed by this event, for Mr. Scaley, leaning upon a stand on which +a handsome dress was displayed (so that his shoulders appeared above it, +in nearly the same manner as the shoulders of the lady for whom it was +designed would have done if she had had it on), pushed his hat on one +side and scratched his head with perfect unconcern, while his friend +Mr. Tix, taking that opportunity for a general survey of the apartment +preparatory to entering on business, stood with his inventory-book under +his arm and his hat in his hand, mentally occupied in putting a price +upon every object within his range of vision. + +Such was the posture of affairs when Mr. Mantalini hurried in; and as +that distinguished specimen had had a pretty extensive intercourse with +Mr. Scaley’s fraternity in his bachelor days, and was, besides, very +far from being taken by surprise on the present agitating occasion, he +merely shrugged his shoulders, thrust his hands down to the bottom of +his pockets, elevated his eyebrows, whistled a bar or two, swore an oath +or two, and, sitting astride upon a chair, put the best face upon the +matter with great composure and decency. + +‘What’s the demd total?’ was the first question he asked. + +‘Fifteen hundred and twenty-seven pound, four and ninepence ha’penny,’ +replied Mr. Scaley, without moving a limb. + +‘The halfpenny be demd,’ said Mr. Mantalini, impatiently. + +‘By all means if you vish it,’ retorted Mr. Scaley; ‘and the ninepence.’ + +‘It don’t matter to us if the fifteen hundred and twenty-seven pound +went along with it, that I know on,’ observed Mr. Tix. + +‘Not a button,’ said Scaley. + +‘Well,’ said the same gentleman, after a pause, ‘wot’s to be +done--anything? Is it only a small crack, or a out-and-out smash? A +break-up of the constitootion is it?--werry good. Then Mr. Tom Tix, +esk-vire, you must inform your angel wife and lovely family as you won’t +sleep at home for three nights to come, along of being in possession +here. Wot’s the good of the lady a fretting herself?’ continued Mr +Scaley, as Madame Mantalini sobbed. ‘A good half of wot’s here isn’t +paid for, I des-say, and wot a consolation oughtn’t that to be to her +feelings!’ + +With these remarks, combining great pleasantry with sound moral +encouragement under difficulties, Mr. Scaley proceeded to take the +inventory, in which delicate task he was materially assisted by the +uncommon tact and experience of Mr. Tix, the broker. + +‘My cup of happiness’s sweetener,’ said Mantalini, approaching his wife +with a penitent air; ‘will you listen to me for two minutes?’ + +‘Oh! don’t speak to me,’ replied his wife, sobbing. ‘You have ruined me, +and that’s enough.’ + +Mr. Mantalini, who had doubtless well considered his part, no sooner +heard these words pronounced in a tone of grief and severity, than he +recoiled several paces, assumed an expression of consuming mental agony, +rushed headlong from the room, and was, soon afterwards, heard to slam +the door of an upstairs dressing-room with great violence. + +‘Miss Nickleby,’ cried Madame Mantalini, when this sound met her +ear, ‘make haste, for Heaven’s sake, he will destroy himself! I spoke +unkindly to him, and he cannot bear it from me. Alfred, my darling +Alfred.’ + +With such exclamations, she hurried upstairs, followed by Kate who, +although she did not quite participate in the fond wife’s apprehensions, +was a little flurried, nevertheless. The dressing-room door being +hastily flung open, Mr. Mantalini was disclosed to view, with his +shirt-collar symmetrically thrown back: putting a fine edge to a +breakfast knife by means of his razor strop. + +‘Ah!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, ‘interrupted!’ and whisk went the breakfast +knife into Mr. Mantalini’s dressing-gown pocket, while Mr. Mantalini’s +eyes rolled wildly, and his hair floating in wild disorder, mingled with +his whiskers. + +‘Alfred,’ cried his wife, flinging her arms about him, ‘I didn’t mean to +say it, I didn’t mean to say it!’ + +‘Ruined!’ cried Mr. Mantalini. ‘Have I brought ruin upon the best and +purest creature that ever blessed a demnition vagabond! Demmit, let +me go.’ At this crisis of his ravings Mr. Mantalini made a pluck at the +breakfast knife, and being restrained by his wife’s grasp, attempted to +dash his head against the wall--taking very good care to be at least six +feet from it. + +‘Compose yourself, my own angel,’ said Madame. ‘It was nobody’s fault; +it was mine as much as yours, we shall do very well yet. Come, Alfred, +come.’ + +Mr. Mantalini did not think proper to come to, all at once; but, after +calling several times for poison, and requesting some lady or gentleman +to blow his brains out, gentler feelings came upon him, and he wept +pathetically. In this softened frame of mind he did not oppose the +capture of the knife--which, to tell the truth, he was rather glad to be +rid of, as an inconvenient and dangerous article for a skirt pocket--and +finally he suffered himself to be led away by his affectionate partner. + +After a delay of two or three hours, the young ladies were informed that +their services would be dispensed with until further notice, and at the +expiration of two days, the name of Mantalini appeared in the list of +bankrupts: Miss Nickleby received an intimation per post, on the same +morning, that the business would be, in future, carried on under +the name of Miss Knag, and that her assistance would no longer be +required--a piece of intelligence with which Mrs. Nickleby was no sooner +made acquainted, than that good lady declared she had expected it all +along and cited divers unknown occasions on which she had prophesied to +that precise effect. + +‘And I say again,’ remarked Mrs. Nickleby (who, it is scarcely necessary +to observe, had never said so before), ‘I say again, that a milliner’s +and dressmaker’s is the very last description of business, Kate, that +you should have thought of attaching yourself to. I don’t make it +a reproach to you, my love; but still I will say, that if you had +consulted your own mother--’ + +‘Well, well, mama,’ said Kate, mildly: ‘what would you recommend now?’ + +‘Recommend!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, ‘isn’t it obvious, my dear, that of all +occupations in this world for a young lady situated as you are, that +of companion to some amiable lady is the very thing for which your +education, and manners, and personal appearance, and everything else, +exactly qualify you? Did you never hear your poor dear papa speak of the +young lady who was the daughter of the old lady who boarded in the same +house that he boarded in once, when he was a bachelor--what was her name +again? I know it began with a B, and ended with g, but whether it was +Waters or--no, it couldn’t have been that, either; but whatever her name +was, don’t you know that that young lady went as companion to a married +lady who died soon afterwards, and that she married the husband, and had +one of the finest little boys that the medical man had ever seen--all +within eighteen months?’ + +Kate knew, perfectly well, that this torrent of favourable recollection +was occasioned by some opening, real or imaginary, which her mother had +discovered, in the companionship walk of life. She therefore waited, +very patiently, until all reminiscences and anecdotes, bearing or not +bearing upon the subject, had been exhausted, and at last ventured +to inquire what discovery had been made. The truth then came out. Mrs +Nickleby had, that morning, had a yesterday’s newspaper of the very +first respectability from the public-house where the porter came from; +and in this yesterday’s newspaper was an advertisement, couched in the +purest and most grammatical English, announcing that a married lady was +in want of a genteel young person as companion, and that the married +lady’s name and address were to be known, on application at a certain +library at the west end of the town, therein mentioned. + +‘And I say,’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby, laying the paper down in triumph, +‘that if your uncle don’t object, it’s well worth the trial.’ + +Kate was too sick at heart, after the rough jostling she had already had +with the world, and really cared too little at the moment what fate was +reserved for her, to make any objection. Mr. Ralph Nickleby offered none, +but, on the contrary, highly approved of the suggestion; neither did he +express any great surprise at Madame Mantalini’s sudden failure, indeed +it would have been strange if he had, inasmuch as it had been procured +and brought about chiefly by himself. So, the name and address were +obtained without loss of time, and Miss Nickleby and her mama went off +in quest of Mrs. Wititterly, of Cadogan Place, Sloane Street, that same +forenoon. + +Cadogan Place is the one slight bond that joins two great extremes; it +is the connecting link between the aristocratic pavements of Belgrave +Square, and the barbarism of Chelsea. It is in Sloane Street, but not of +it. The people in Cadogan Place look down upon Sloane Street, and think +Brompton low. They affect fashion too, and wonder where the New Road +is. Not that they claim to be on precisely the same footing as the high +folks of Belgrave Square and Grosvenor Place, but that they stand, with +reference to them, rather in the light of those illegitimate children of +the great who are content to boast of their connections, although their +connections disavow them. Wearing as much as they can of the airs +and semblances of loftiest rank, the people of Cadogan Place have the +realities of middle station. It is the conductor which communicates to +the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit, the shock of pride of +birth and rank, which it has not within itself, but derives from a +fountain-head beyond; or, like the ligament which unites the Siamese +twins, it contains something of the life and essence of two distinct +bodies, and yet belongs to neither. + +Upon this doubtful ground, lived Mrs. Wititterly, and at Mrs. Wititterly’s +door Kate Nickleby knocked with trembling hand. The door was opened by +a big footman with his head floured, or chalked, or painted in some way +(it didn’t look genuine powder), and the big footman, receiving the card +of introduction, gave it to a little page; so little, indeed, that his +body would not hold, in ordinary array, the number of small buttons +which are indispensable to a page’s costume, and they were consequently +obliged to be stuck on four abreast. This young gentleman took the card +upstairs on a salver, and pending his return, Kate and her mother were +shown into a dining-room of rather dirty and shabby aspect, and so +comfortably arranged as to be adapted to almost any purpose rather than +eating and drinking. + +Now, in the ordinary course of things, and according to all authentic +descriptions of high life, as set forth in books, Mrs. Wititterly ought +to have been in her BOUDOIR; but whether it was that Mr. Wititterly was +at that moment shaving himself in the BOUDOIR or what not, certain it +is that Mrs. Wititterly gave audience in the drawing-room, where was +everything proper and necessary, including curtains and furniture +coverings of a roseate hue, to shed a delicate bloom on Mrs. Wititterly’s +complexion, and a little dog to snap at strangers’ legs for Mrs +Wititterly’s amusement, and the afore-mentioned page, to hand chocolate +for Mrs. Wititterly’s refreshment. + +The lady had an air of sweet insipidity, and a face of engaging +paleness; there was a faded look about her, and about the furniture, and +about the house. She was reclining on a sofa in such a very unstudied +attitude, that she might have been taken for an actress all ready for +the first scene in a ballet, and only waiting for the drop curtain to go +up. + +‘Place chairs.’ + +The page placed them. + +‘Leave the room, Alphonse.’ + +The page left it; but if ever an Alphonse carried plain Bill in his face +and figure, that page was the boy. + +‘I have ventured to call, ma’am,’ said Kate, after a few seconds of +awkward silence, ‘from having seen your advertisement.’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Wititterly, ‘one of my people put it in the +paper--Yes.’ + +‘I thought, perhaps,’ said Kate, modestly, ‘that if you had not +already made a final choice, you would forgive my troubling you with an +application.’ + +‘Yes,’ drawled Mrs. Wititterly again. + +‘If you have already made a selection--’ + +‘Oh dear no,’ interrupted the lady, ‘I am not so easily suited. I really +don’t know what to say. You have never been a companion before, have +you?’ + +Mrs. Nickleby, who had been eagerly watching her opportunity, came +dexterously in, before Kate could reply. ‘Not to any stranger, ma’am,’ +said the good lady; ‘but she has been a companion to me for some years. +I am her mother, ma’am.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Wititterly, ‘I apprehend you.’ + +‘I assure you, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that I very little thought, +at one time, that it would be necessary for my daughter to go out into +the world at all, for her poor dear papa was an independent gentleman, +and would have been at this moment if he had but listened in time to my +constant entreaties and--’ + +‘Dear mama,’ said Kate, in a low voice. + +‘My dear Kate, if you will allow me to speak,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I +shall take the liberty of explaining to this lady--’ + +‘I think it is almost unnecessary, mama.’ + +And notwithstanding all the frowns and winks with which Mrs. Nickleby +intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the +business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and +for once Mrs. Nickleby was stopped upon the very brink of an oration. + +‘What are your accomplishments?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, with her eyes +shut. + +Kate blushed as she mentioned her principal acquirements, and Mrs +Nickleby checked them all off, one by one, on her fingers; having +calculated the number before she came out. Luckily the two calculations +agreed, so Mrs. Nickleby had no excuse for talking. + +‘You are a good temper?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, opening her eyes for an +instant, and shutting them again. + +‘I hope so,’ rejoined Kate. + +‘And have a highly respectable reference for everything, have you?’ + +Kate replied that she had, and laid her uncle’s card upon the table. + +‘Have the goodness to draw your chair a little nearer, and let me look +at you,’ said Mrs. Wititterly; ‘I am so very nearsighted that I can’t +quite discern your features.’ + +Kate complied, though not without some embarrassment, with this request, +and Mrs. Wititterly took a languid survey of her countenance, which +lasted some two or three minutes. + +‘I like your appearance,’ said that lady, ringing a little bell. +‘Alphonse, request your master to come here.’ + +The page disappeared on this errand, and after a short interval, during +which not a word was spoken on either side, opened the door for an +important gentleman of about eight-and-thirty, of rather plebeian +countenance, and with a very light head of hair, who leant over Mrs +Wititterly for a little time, and conversed with her in whispers. + +‘Oh!’ he said, turning round, ‘yes. This is a most important matter. Mrs +Wititterly is of a very excitable nature; very delicate, very fragile; a +hothouse plant, an exotic.’ + +‘Oh! Henry, my dear,’ interposed Mrs. Wititterly. + +‘You are, my love, you know you are; one breath--’ said Mr. W., blowing +an imaginary feather away. ‘Pho! you’re gone!’ + +The lady sighed. + +‘Your soul is too large for your body,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Your +intellect wears you out; all the medical men say so; you know that there +is not a physician who is not proud of being called in to you. What +is their unanimous declaration? “My dear doctor,” said I to Sir Tumley +Snuffim, in this very room, the very last time he came. “My dear doctor, +what is my wife’s complaint? Tell me all. I can bear it. Is it nerves?” + “My dear fellow,” he said, “be proud of that woman; make much of her; +she is an ornament to the fashionable world, and to you. Her complaint +is soul. It swells, expands, dilates--the blood fires, the pulse +quickens, the excitement increases--Whew!”’ Here Mr. Wititterly, who, in +the ardour of his description, had flourished his right hand to within +something less than an inch of Mrs. Nickleby’s bonnet, drew it hastily +back again, and blew his nose as fiercely as if it had been done by some +violent machinery. + +‘You make me out worse than I am, Henry,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a +faint smile. + +‘I do not, Julia, I do not,’ said Mr. W. ‘The society in which +you move--necessarily move, from your station, connection, and +endowments--is one vortex and whirlpool of the most frightful +excitement. Bless my heart and body, can I ever forget the night you +danced with the baronet’s nephew at the election ball, at Exeter! It was +tremendous.’ + +‘I always suffer for these triumphs afterwards,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. + +‘And for that very reason,’ rejoined her husband, ‘you must have a +companion, in whom there is great gentleness, great sweetness, excessive +sympathy, and perfect repose.’ + +Here, both Mr. and Mrs. Wititterly, who had talked rather at the Nicklebys +than to each other, left off speaking, and looked at their two hearers, +with an expression of countenance which seemed to say, ‘What do you +think of all this?’ + +‘Mrs. Wititterly,’ said her husband, addressing himself to Mrs. Nickleby, +‘is sought after and courted by glittering crowds and brilliant circles. +She is excited by the opera, the drama, the fine arts, the--the--the--’ + +‘The nobility, my love,’ interposed Mrs. Wititterly. + +‘The nobility, of course,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘And the military. She +forms and expresses an immense variety of opinions on an immense variety +of subjects. If some people in public life were acquainted with Mrs +Wititterly’s real opinion of them, they would not hold their heads, +perhaps, quite as high as they do.’ + +‘Hush, Henry,’ said the lady; ‘this is scarcely fair.’ + +‘I mention no names, Julia,’ replied Mr. Wititterly; ‘and nobody is +injured. I merely mention the circumstance to show that you are no +ordinary person, that there is a constant friction perpetually going +on between your mind and your body; and that you must be soothed and +tended. Now let me hear, dispassionately and calmly, what are this young +lady’s qualifications for the office.’ + +In obedience to this request, the qualifications were all gone through +again, with the addition of many interruptions and cross-questionings +from Mr. Wititterly. It was finally arranged that inquiries should be +made, and a decisive answer addressed to Miss Nickleby under cover +of her uncle, within two days. These conditions agreed upon, the page +showed them down as far as the staircase window; and the big footman, +relieving guard at that point, piloted them in perfect safety to the +street-door. + +‘They are very distinguished people, evidently,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, as +she took her daughter’s arm. ‘What a superior person Mrs. Wititterly is!’ + +‘Do you think so, mama?’ was all Kate’s reply. + +‘Why, who can help thinking so, Kate, my love?’ rejoined her mother. +‘She is pale though, and looks much exhausted. I hope she may not be +wearing herself out, but I am very much afraid.’ + +These considerations led the deep-sighted lady into a calculation of +the probable duration of Mrs. Wititterly’s life, and the chances of the +disconsolate widower bestowing his hand on her daughter. Before reaching +home, she had freed Mrs. Wititterly’s soul from all bodily restraint; +married Kate with great splendour at St George’s, Hanover Square; +and only left undecided the minor question, whether a splendid +French-polished mahogany bedstead should be erected for herself in the +two-pair back of the house in Cadogan Place, or in the three-pair front: +between which apartments she could not quite balance the advantages, and +therefore adjusted the question at last, by determining to leave it to +the decision of her son-in-law. + +The inquiries were made. The answer--not to Kate’s very great joy--was +favourable; and at the expiration of a week she betook herself, with all +her movables and valuables, to Mrs. Wititterly’s mansion, where for the +present we will leave her. + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth to seek his Fortune. He +encounters Mr. Vincent Crummles; and who he was, is herein made manifest + + +The whole capital which Nicholas found himself entitled to, either in +possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, after paying his rent +and settling with the broker from whom he had hired his poor furniture, +did not exceed, by more than a few halfpence, the sum of twenty +shillings. And yet he hailed the morning on which he had resolved +to quit London, with a light heart, and sprang from his bed with an +elasticity of spirit which is happily the lot of young persons, or the +world would never be stocked with old ones. + +It was a cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring. A few meagre shadows +flitted to and fro in the misty streets, and occasionally there loomed +through the dull vapour, the heavy outline of some hackney coach wending +homewards, which, drawing slowly nearer, rolled jangling by, scattering +the thin crust of frost from its whitened roof, and soon was lost again +in the cloud. At intervals were heard the tread of slipshod feet, and +the chilly cry of the poor sweep as he crept, shivering, to his early +toil; the heavy footfall of the official watcher of the night, pacing +slowly up and down and cursing the tardy hours that still intervened +between him and sleep; the rambling of ponderous carts and waggons; the +roll of the lighter vehicles which carried buyers and sellers to the +different markets; the sound of ineffectual knocking at the doors of +heavy sleepers--all these noises fell upon the ear from time to +time, but all seemed muffled by the fog, and to be rendered almost as +indistinct to the ear as was every object to the sight. The sluggish +darkness thickened as the day came on; and those who had the courage to +rise and peep at the gloomy street from their curtained windows, crept +back to bed again, and coiled themselves up to sleep. + +Before even these indications of approaching morning were rife in busy +London, Nicholas had made his way alone to the city, and stood beneath +the windows of his mother’s house. It was dull and bare to see, but it +had light and life for him; for there was at least one heart within +its old walls to which insult or dishonour would bring the same blood +rushing, that flowed in his own veins. + +He crossed the road, and raised his eyes to the window of the room where +he knew his sister slept. It was closed and dark. ‘Poor girl,’ thought +Nicholas, ‘she little thinks who lingers here!’ + +He looked again, and felt, for the moment, almost vexed that Kate was +not there to exchange one word at parting. ‘Good God!’ he thought, +suddenly correcting himself, ‘what a boy I am!’ + +‘It is better as it is,’ said Nicholas, after he had lounged on, a few +paces, and returned to the same spot. ‘When I left them before, and +could have said goodbye a thousand times if I had chosen, I spared them +the pain of leave-taking, and why not now?’ As he spoke, some fancied +motion of the curtain almost persuaded him, for the instant, that Kate +was at the window, and by one of those strange contradictions of feeling +which are common to us all, he shrunk involuntarily into a doorway, that +she might not see him. He smiled at his own weakness; said ‘God bless +them!’ and walked away with a lighter step. + +Smike was anxiously expecting him when he reached his old lodgings, and +so was Newman, who had expended a day’s income in a can of rum and milk +to prepare them for the journey. They had tied up the luggage, Smike +shouldered it, and away they went, with Newman Noggs in company; for he +had insisted on walking as far as he could with them, overnight. + +‘Which way?’ asked Newman, wistfully. + +‘To Kingston first,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘And where afterwards?’ asked Newman. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’ + +‘Because I scarcely know myself, good friend,’ rejoined Nicholas, laying +his hand upon his shoulder; ‘and if I did, I have neither plan nor +prospect yet, and might shift my quarters a hundred times before you +could possibly communicate with me.’ + +‘I am afraid you have some deep scheme in your head,’ said Newman, +doubtfully. + +‘So deep,’ replied his young friend, ‘that even I can’t fathom it. +Whatever I resolve upon, depend upon it I will write you soon.’ + +‘You won’t forget?’ said Newman. + +‘I am not very likely to,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘I have not so many +friends that I shall grow confused among the number, and forget my best +one.’ + +Occupied in such discourse, they walked on for a couple of hours, +as they might have done for a couple of days if Nicholas had not sat +himself down on a stone by the wayside, and resolutely declared his +intention of not moving another step until Newman Noggs turned back. +Having pleaded ineffectually first for another half-mile, and afterwards +for another quarter, Newman was fain to comply, and to shape his course +towards Golden Square, after interchanging many hearty and affectionate +farewells, and many times turning back to wave his hat to the two +wayfarers when they had become mere specks in the distance. + +‘Now listen to me, Smike,’ said Nicholas, as they trudged with stout +hearts onwards. ‘We are bound for Portsmouth.’ + +Smike nodded his head and smiled, but expressed no other emotion; for +whether they had been bound for Portsmouth or Port Royal would have been +alike to him, so they had been bound together. + +‘I don’t know much of these matters,’ resumed Nicholas; ‘but Portsmouth +is a seaport town, and if no other employment is to be obtained, I +should think we might get on board some ship. I am young and active, and +could be useful in many ways. So could you.’ + +‘I hope so,’ replied Smike. ‘When I was at that--you know where I mean?’ + +‘Yes, I know,’ said Nicholas. ‘You needn’t name the place.’ + +‘Well, when I was there,’ resumed Smike; his eyes sparkling at the +prospect of displaying his abilities; ‘I could milk a cow, and groom a +horse, with anybody.’ + +‘Ha!’ said Nicholas, gravely. ‘I am afraid they don’t keep many animals +of either kind on board ship, Smike, and even when they have horses, +that they are not very particular about rubbing them down; still you can +learn to do something else, you know. Where there’s a will, there’s a +way.’ + +‘And I am very willing,’ said Smike, brightening up again. + +‘God knows you are,’ rejoined Nicholas; ‘and if you fail, it shall go +hard but I’ll do enough for us both.’ + +‘Do we go all the way today?’ asked Smike, after a short silence. + +‘That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing legs,’ said +Nicholas, with a good-humoured smile. ‘No. Godalming is some thirty and +odd miles from London--as I found from a map I borrowed--and I purpose +to rest there. We must push on again tomorrow, for we are not rich +enough to loiter. Let me relieve you of that bundle! Come!’ + +‘No, no,’ rejoined Smike, falling back a few steps. ‘Don’t ask me to +give it up to you.’ + +‘Why not?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Let me do something for you, at least,’ said Smike. ‘You will never let +me serve you as I ought. You will never know how I think, day and night, +of ways to please you.’ + +‘You are a foolish fellow to say it, for I know it well, and see it, or +I should be a blind and senseless beast,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Let me ask +you a question while I think of it, and there is no one by,’ he added, +looking him steadily in the face. ‘Have you a good memory?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Smike, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘I think I had +once; but it’s all gone now--all gone.’ + +‘Why do you think you had once?’ asked Nicholas, turning quickly upon +him as though the answer in some way helped out the purport of his +question. + +‘Because I could remember, when I was a child,’ said Smike, ‘but that is +very, very long ago, or at least it seems so. I was always confused +and giddy at that place you took me from; and could never remember, +and sometimes couldn’t even understand, what they said to me. I--let me +see--let me see!’ + +‘You are wandering now,’ said Nicholas, touching him on the arm. + +‘No,’ replied his companion, with a vacant look ‘I was only thinking +how--’ He shivered involuntarily as he spoke. + +‘Think no more of that place, for it is all over,’ retorted Nicholas, +fixing his eyes full upon that of his companion, which was fast settling +into an unmeaning stupefied gaze, once habitual to him, and common even +then. ‘What of the first day you went to Yorkshire?’ + +‘Eh!’ cried the lad. + +‘That was before you began to lose your recollection, you know,’ said +Nicholas quietly. ‘Was the weather hot or cold?’ + +‘Wet,’ replied the boy. ‘Very wet. I have always said, when it has +rained hard, that it was like the night I came: and they used to crowd +round and laugh to see me cry when the rain fell heavily. It was like a +child, they said, and that made me think of it more. I turned cold all +over sometimes, for I could see myself as I was then, coming in at the +very same door.’ + +‘As you were then,’ repeated Nicholas, with assumed carelessness; ‘how +was that?’ + +‘Such a little creature,’ said Smike, ‘that they might have had pity and +mercy upon me, only to remember it.’ + +‘You didn’t find your way there, alone!’ remarked Nicholas. + +‘No,’ rejoined Smike, ‘oh no.’ + +‘Who was with you?’ + +‘A man--a dark, withered man. I have heard them say so, at the school, +and I remembered that before. I was glad to leave him, I was afraid of +him; but they made me more afraid of them, and used me harder too.’ + +‘Look at me,’ said Nicholas, wishing to attract his full attention. +‘There; don’t turn away. Do you remember no woman, no kind woman, who +hung over you once, and kissed your lips, and called you her child?’ + +‘No,’ said the poor creature, shaking his head, ‘no, never.’ + +‘Nor any house but that house in Yorkshire?’ + +‘No,’ rejoined the youth, with a melancholy look; ‘a room--I remember +I slept in a room, a large lonesome room at the top of a house, where +there was a trap-door in the ceiling. I have covered my head with the +clothes often, not to see it, for it frightened me: a young child with +no one near at night: and I used to wonder what was on the other side. +There was a clock too, an old clock, in one corner. I remember that. +I have never forgotten that room; for when I have terrible dreams, it +comes back, just as it was. I see things and people in it that I had +never seen then, but there is the room just as it used to be; THAT never +changes.’ + +‘Will you let me take the bundle now?’ asked Nicholas, abruptly changing +the theme. + +‘No,’ said Smike, ‘no. Come, let us walk on.’ + +He quickened his pace as he said this, apparently under the impression +that they had been standing still during the whole of the previous +dialogue. Nicholas marked him closely, and every word of this +conversation remained upon his memory. + +It was, by this time, within an hour of noon, and although a dense +vapour still enveloped the city they had left, as if the very breath of +its busy people hung over their schemes of gain and profit, and found +greater attraction there than in the quiet region above, in the open +country it was clear and fair. Occasionally, in some low spots they +came upon patches of mist which the sun had not yet driven from their +strongholds; but these were soon passed, and as they laboured up the +hills beyond, it was pleasant to look down, and see how the sluggish +mass rolled heavily off, before the cheering influence of day. A broad, +fine, honest sun lighted up the green pastures and dimpled water +with the semblance of summer, while it left the travellers all the +invigorating freshness of that early time of year. The ground seemed +elastic under their feet; the sheep-bells were music to their ears; and +exhilarated by exercise, and stimulated by hope, they pushed onward with +the strength of lions. + +The day wore on, and all these bright colours subsided, and assumed +a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time, or youthful +features by degrees resolving into the calm and serenity of age. But +they were scarcely less beautiful in their slow decline, than they had +been in their prime; for nature gives to every time and season some +beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to +the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy, that we +can scarcely mark their progress. + +To Godalming they came at last, and here they bargained for two humble +beds, and slept soundly. In the morning they were astir: though +not quite so early as the sun: and again afoot; if not with all the +freshness of yesterday, still, with enough of hope and spirit to bear +them cheerily on. + +It was a harder day’s journey than yesterday’s, for there were long and +weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal +easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated +perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that +perseverance will not gain the summit of at last. + +They walked upon the rim of the Devil’s Punch Bowl; and Smike listened +with greedy interest as Nicholas read the inscription upon the stone +which, reared upon that wild spot, tells of a murder committed there by +night. The grass on which they stood, had once been dyed with gore; +and the blood of the murdered man had run down, drop by drop, into +the hollow which gives the place its name. ‘The Devil’s Bowl,’ thought +Nicholas, as he looked into the void, ‘never held fitter liquor than +that!’ + +Onward they kept, with steady purpose, and entered at length upon a wide +and spacious tract of downs, with every variety of little hill and +plain to change their verdant surface. Here, there shot up, almost +perpendicularly, into the sky, a height so steep, as to be hardly +accessible to any but the sheep and goats that fed upon its sides, and +there, stood a mound of green, sloping and tapering off so delicately, +and merging so gently into the level ground, that you could scarce +define its limits. Hills swelling above each other; and undulations +shapely and uncouth, smooth and rugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown +negligently side by side, bounded the view in each direction; while +frequently, with unexpected noise, there uprose from the ground a +flight of crows, who, cawing and wheeling round the nearest hills, as if +uncertain of their course, suddenly poised themselves upon the wing and +skimmed down the long vista of some opening valley, with the speed of +light itself. + +By degrees, the prospect receded more and more on either hand, and as +they had been shut out from rich and extensive scenery, so they emerged +once again upon the open country. The knowledge that they were drawing +near their place of destination, gave them fresh courage to proceed; but +the way had been difficult, and they had loitered on the road, and Smike +was tired. Thus, twilight had already closed in, when they turned +off the path to the door of a roadside inn, yet twelve miles short of +Portsmouth. + +‘Twelve miles,’ said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick, and +looking doubtfully at Smike. + +‘Twelve long miles,’ repeated the landlord. + +‘Is it a good road?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘Very bad,’ said the landlord. As of course, being a landlord, he would +say. + +‘I want to get on,’ observed Nicholas, hesitating. ‘I scarcely know what +to do.’ + +‘Don’t let me influence you,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘I wouldn’t go on +if it was me.’ + +‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Nicholas, with the same uncertainty. + +‘Not if I knew when I was well off,’ said the landlord. And having said +it he pulled up his apron, put his hands into his pockets, and, taking +a step or two outside the door, looked down the dark road with an +assumption of great indifference. + +A glance at the toil-worn face of Smike determined Nicholas, so without +any further consideration he made up his mind to stay where he was. + +The landlord led them into the kitchen, and as there was a good fire he +remarked that it was very cold. If there had happened to be a bad one he +would have observed that it was very warm. + +‘What can you give us for supper?’ was Nicholas’s natural question. + +‘Why--what would you like?’ was the landlord’s no less natural answer. + +Nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat--poached eggs, +but there were no eggs--mutton chops, but there wasn’t a mutton chop +within three miles, though there had been more last week than they knew +what to do with, and would be an extraordinary supply the day after +tomorrow. + +‘Then,’ said Nicholas, ‘I must leave it entirely to you, as I would have +done, at first, if you had allowed me.’ + +‘Why, then I’ll tell you what,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘There’s a +gentleman in the parlour that’s ordered a hot beef-steak pudding and +potatoes, at nine. There’s more of it than he can manage, and I have +very little doubt that if I ask leave, you can sup with him. I’ll do +that, in a minute.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Nicholas, detaining him. ‘I would rather not. I--at +least--pshaw! why cannot I speak out? Here; you see that I am travelling +in a very humble manner, and have made my way hither on foot. It is more +than probable, I think, that the gentleman may not relish my company; +and although I am the dusty figure you see, I am too proud to thrust +myself into his.’ + +‘Lord love you,’ said the landlord, ‘it’s only Mr. Crummles; HE isn’t +particular.’ + +‘Is he not?’ asked Nicholas, on whose mind, to tell the truth, the +prospect of the savoury pudding was making some impression. + +‘Not he,’ replied the landlord. ‘He’ll like your way of talking, I know. +But we’ll soon see all about that. Just wait a minute.’ + +The landlord hurried into the parlour, without staying for further +permission, nor did Nicholas strive to prevent him: wisely considering +that supper, under the circumstances, was too serious a matter to be +trifled with. It was not long before the host returned, in a condition +of much excitement. + +‘All right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I knew he would. You’ll see +something rather worth seeing, in there. Ecod, how they are a-going of +it!’ + +There was no time to inquire to what this exclamation, which was +delivered in a very rapturous tone, referred; for he had already thrown +open the door of the room; into which Nicholas, followed by Smike with +the bundle on his shoulder (he carried it about with him as vigilantly +as if it had been a sack of gold), straightway repaired. + +Nicholas was prepared for something odd, but not for something quite so +odd as the sight he encountered. At the upper end of the room, were a +couple of boys, one of them very tall and the other very short, both +dressed as sailors--or at least as theatrical sailors, with belts, +buckles, pigtails, and pistols complete--fighting what is called in +play-bills a terrific combat, with two of those short broad-swords with +basket hilts which are commonly used at our minor theatres. The short +boy had gained a great advantage over the tall boy, who was reduced to +mortal strait, and both were overlooked by a large heavy man, perched +against the corner of a table, who emphatically adjured them to strike a +little more fire out of the swords, and they couldn’t fail to bring the +house down, on the very first night. + +‘Mr. Vincent Crummles,’ said the landlord with an air of great deference. +‘This is the young gentleman.’ + +Mr. Vincent Crummles received Nicholas with an inclination of the head, +something between the courtesy of a Roman emperor and the nod of a pot +companion; and bade the landlord shut the door and begone. + +‘There’s a picture,’ said Mr. Crummles, motioning Nicholas not to advance +and spoil it. ‘The little ‘un has him; if the big ‘un doesn’t knock +under, in three seconds, he’s a dead man. Do that again, boys.’ + +The two combatants went to work afresh, and chopped away until the +swords emitted a shower of sparks: to the great satisfaction of Mr +Crummles, who appeared to consider this a very great point indeed. The +engagement commenced with about two hundred chops administered by the +short sailor and the tall sailor alternately, without producing any +particular result, until the short sailor was chopped down on one knee; +but this was nothing to him, for he worked himself about on the one knee +with the assistance of his left hand, and fought most desperately until +the tall sailor chopped his sword out of his grasp. Now, the inference +was, that the short sailor, reduced to this extremity, would give in at +once and cry quarter, but, instead of that, he all of a sudden drew +a large pistol from his belt and presented it at the face of the tall +sailor, who was so overcome at this (not expecting it) that he let +the short sailor pick up his sword and begin again. Then, the chopping +recommenced, and a variety of fancy chops were administered on both +sides; such as chops dealt with the left hand, and under the leg, and +over the right shoulder, and over the left; and when the short sailor +made a vigorous cut at the tall sailor’s legs, which would have shaved +them clean off if it had taken effect, the tall sailor jumped over the +short sailor’s sword, wherefore to balance the matter, and make it all +fair, the tall sailor administered the same cut, and the short sailor +jumped over HIS sword. After this, there was a good deal of dodging +about, and hitching up of the inexpressibles in the absence of braces, +and then the short sailor (who was the moral character evidently, for he +always had the best of it) made a violent demonstration and closed with +the tall sailor, who, after a few unavailing struggles, went down, +and expired in great torture as the short sailor put his foot upon his +breast, and bored a hole in him through and through. + +‘That’ll be a double ENCORE if you take care, boys,’ said Mr. Crummles. +‘You had better get your wind now and change your clothes.’ + +Having addressed these words to the combatants, he saluted Nicholas, who +then observed that the face of Mr. Crummles was quite proportionate in +size to his body; that he had a very full under-lip, a hoarse voice, as +though he were in the habit of shouting very much, and very short +black hair, shaved off nearly to the crown of his head--to admit (as +he afterwards learnt) of his more easily wearing character wigs of any +shape or pattern. + +‘What did you think of that, sir?’ inquired Mr. Crummles. + +‘Very good, indeed--capital,’ answered Nicholas. + +‘You won’t see such boys as those very often, I think,’ said Mr +Crummles. + +Nicholas assented--observing that if they were a little better match-- + +‘Match!’ cried Mr. Crummles. + +‘I mean if they were a little more of a size,’ said Nicholas, explaining +himself. + +‘Size!’ repeated Mr. Crummles; ‘why, it’s the essence of the combat that +there should be a foot or two between them. How are you to get up the +sympathies of the audience in a legitimate manner, if there isn’t a +little man contending against a big one?--unless there’s at least five +to one, and we haven’t hands enough for that business in our company.’ + +‘I see,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon. That didn’t occur to me, +I confess.’ + +‘It’s the main point,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘I open at Portsmouth the day +after tomorrow. If you’re going there, look into the theatre, and see +how that’ll tell.’ + +Nicholas promised to do so, if he could, and drawing a chair near the +fire, fell into conversation with the manager at once. He was very +talkative and communicative, stimulated perhaps, not only by his natural +disposition, but by the spirits and water he sipped very plentifully, or +the snuff he took in large quantities from a piece of whitey-brown paper +in his waistcoat pocket. He laid open his affairs without the smallest +reserve, and descanted at some length upon the merits of his company, +and the acquirements of his family; of both of which, the two +broad-sword boys formed an honourable portion. There was to be +a gathering, it seemed, of the different ladies and gentlemen at +Portsmouth on the morrow, whither the father and sons were proceeding +(not for the regular season, but in the course of a wandering +speculation), after fulfilling an engagement at Guildford with the +greatest applause. + +‘You are going that way?’ asked the manager. + +‘Ye-yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes, I am.’ + +‘Do you know the town at all?’ inquired the manager, who seemed to +consider himself entitled to the same degree of confidence as he had +himself exhibited. + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Never there?’ + +‘Never.’ + +Mr. Vincent Crummles gave a short dry cough, as much as to say, ‘If you +won’t be communicative, you won’t;’ and took so many pinches of snuff +from the piece of paper, one after another, that Nicholas quite wondered +where it all went to. + +While he was thus engaged, Mr. Crummles looked, from time to time, with +great interest at Smike, with whom he had appeared considerably struck +from the first. He had now fallen asleep, and was nodding in his chair. + +‘Excuse my saying so,’ said the manager, leaning over to Nicholas, and +sinking his voice, ‘but what a capital countenance your friend has got!’ + +‘Poor fellow!’ said Nicholas, with a half-smile, ‘I wish it were a +little more plump, and less haggard.’ + +‘Plump!’ exclaimed the manager, quite horrified, ‘you’d spoil it for +ever.’ + +‘Do you think so?’ + +‘Think so, sir! Why, as he is now,’ said the manager, striking his knee +emphatically; ‘without a pad upon his body, and hardly a touch of paint +upon his face, he’d make such an actor for the starved business as was +never seen in this country. Only let him be tolerably well up in the +Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the slightest possible dab of red +on the tip of his nose, and he’d be certain of three rounds the moment +he put his head out of the practicable door in the front grooves O.P.’ + +‘You view him with a professional eye,’ said Nicholas, laughing. + +‘And well I may,’ rejoined the manager. ‘I never saw a young fellow so +regularly cut out for that line, since I’ve been in the profession. And +I played the heavy children when I was eighteen months old.’ + +The appearance of the beef-steak pudding, which came in simultaneously +with the junior Vincent Crummleses, turned the conversation to other +matters, and indeed, for a time, stopped it altogether. These two young +gentlemen wielded their knives and forks with scarcely less address than +their broad-swords, and as the whole party were quite as sharp set as +either class of weapons, there was no time for talking until the supper +had been disposed of. + +The Master Crummleses had no sooner swallowed the last procurable +morsel of food, than they evinced, by various half-suppressed yawns and +stretchings of their limbs, an obvious inclination to retire for the +night, which Smike had betrayed still more strongly: he having, in the +course of the meal, fallen asleep several times while in the very act of +eating. Nicholas therefore proposed that they should break up at +once, but the manager would by no means hear of it; vowing that he had +promised himself the pleasure of inviting his new acquaintance to +share a bowl of punch, and that if he declined, he should deem it very +unhandsome behaviour. + +‘Let them go,’ said Mr. Vincent Crummles, ‘and we’ll have it snugly and +cosily together by the fire.’ + +Nicholas was not much disposed to sleep--being in truth too anxious--so, +after a little demur, he accepted the offer, and having exchanged a +shake of the hand with the young Crummleses, and the manager having +on his part bestowed a most affectionate benediction on Smike, he sat +himself down opposite to that gentleman by the fireside to assist in +emptying the bowl, which soon afterwards appeared, steaming in a +manner which was quite exhilarating to behold, and sending forth a most +grateful and inviting fragrance. + +But, despite the punch and the manager, who told a variety of stories, +and smoked tobacco from a pipe, and inhaled it in the shape of snuff, +with a most astonishing power, Nicholas was absent and dispirited. His +thoughts were in his old home, and when they reverted to his present +condition, the uncertainty of the morrow cast a gloom upon him, which +his utmost efforts were unable to dispel. His attention wandered; +although he heard the manager’s voice, he was deaf to what he said; and +when Mr. Vincent Crummles concluded the history of some long adventure +with a loud laugh, and an inquiry what Nicholas would have done under +the same circumstances, he was obliged to make the best apology in his +power, and to confess his entire ignorance of all he had been talking +about. + +‘Why, so I saw,’ observed Mr. Crummles. ‘You’re uneasy in your mind. +What’s the matter?’ + +Nicholas could not refrain from smiling at the abruptness of the +question; but, thinking it scarcely worth while to parry it, owned that +he was under some apprehensions lest he might not succeed in the object +which had brought him to that part of the country. + +‘And what’s that?’ asked the manager. + +‘Getting something to do which will keep me and my poor fellow-traveller +in the common necessaries of life,’ said Nicholas. ‘That’s the truth. +You guessed it long ago, I dare say, so I may as well have the credit of +telling it you with a good grace.’ + +‘What’s to be got to do at Portsmouth more than anywhere else?’ asked Mr +Vincent Crummles, melting the sealing-wax on the stem of his pipe in the +candle, and rolling it out afresh with his little finger. + +‘There are many vessels leaving the port, I suppose,’ replied Nicholas. +‘I shall try for a berth in some ship or other. There is meat and drink +there at all events.’ + +‘Salt meat and new rum; pease-pudding and chaff-biscuits,’ said the +manager, taking a whiff at his pipe to keep it alight, and returning to +his work of embellishment. + +‘One may do worse than that,’ said Nicholas. ‘I can rough it, I believe, +as well as most young men of my age and previous habits.’ + +‘You need be able to,’ said the manager, ‘if you go on board ship; but +you won’t.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Because there’s not a skipper or mate that would think you worth your +salt, when he could get a practised hand,’ replied the manager; ‘and +they as plentiful there, as the oysters in the streets.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ asked Nicholas, alarmed by this prediction, and +the confident tone in which it had been uttered. ‘Men are not born able +seamen. They must be reared, I suppose?’ + +Mr. Vincent Crummles nodded his head. ‘They must; but not at your age, or +from young gentlemen like you.’ + +There was a pause. The countenance of Nicholas fell, and he gazed +ruefully at the fire. + +‘Does no other profession occur to you, which a young man of your figure +and address could take up easily, and see the world to advantage in?’ +asked the manager. + +‘No,’ said Nicholas, shaking his head. + +‘Why, then, I’ll tell you one,’ said Mr. Crummles, throwing his pipe into +the fire, and raising his voice. ‘The stage.’ + +‘The stage!’ cried Nicholas, in a voice almost as loud. + +‘The theatrical profession,’ said Mr. Vincent Crummles. ‘I am in the +theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the theatrical profession, +my children are in the theatrical profession. I had a dog that lived +and died in it from a puppy; and my chaise-pony goes on, in Timour the +Tartar. I’ll bring you out, and your friend too. Say the word. I want a +novelty.’ + +‘I don’t know anything about it,’ rejoined Nicholas, whose breath had +been almost taken away by this sudden proposal. ‘I never acted a part in +my life, except at school.’ + +‘There’s genteel comedy in your walk and manner, juvenile tragedy +in your eye, and touch-and-go farce in your laugh,’ said Mr. Vincent +Crummles. ‘You’ll do as well as if you had thought of nothing else but +the lamps, from your birth downwards.’ + +Nicholas thought of the small amount of small change that would remain +in his pocket after paying the tavern bill; and he hesitated. + +‘You can be useful to us in a hundred ways,’ said Mr. Crummles. +‘Think what capital bills a man of your education could write for the +shop-windows.’ + +‘Well, I think I could manage that department,’ said Nicholas. + +‘To be sure you could,’ replied Mr. Crummles. ‘“For further particulars +see small hand-bills”--we might have half a volume in every one of +‘em. Pieces too; why, you could write us a piece to bring out the whole +strength of the company, whenever we wanted one.’ + +‘I am not quite so confident about that,’ replied Nicholas. ‘But I dare +say I could scribble something now and then, that would suit you.’ + +‘We’ll have a new show-piece out directly,’ said the manager. ‘Let +me see--peculiar resources of this establishment--new and splendid +scenery--you must manage to introduce a real pump and two washing-tubs.’ + +‘Into the piece?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Yes,’ replied the manager. ‘I bought ‘em cheap, at a sale the other +day, and they’ll come in admirably. That’s the London plan. They look up +some dresses, and properties, and have a piece written to fit ‘em. Most +of the theatres keep an author on purpose.’ + +‘Indeed!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘Oh, yes,’ said the manager; ‘a common thing. It’ll look very well +in the bills in separate lines--Real pump!--Splendid tubs!--Great +attraction! You don’t happen to be anything of an artist, do you?’ + +‘That is not one of my accomplishments,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Ah! Then it can’t be helped,’ said the manager. ‘If you had been, +we might have had a large woodcut of the last scene for the posters, +showing the whole depth of the stage, with the pump and tubs in the +middle; but, however, if you’re not, it can’t be helped.’ + +‘What should I get for all this?’ inquired Nicholas, after a few +moments’ reflection. ‘Could I live by it?’ + +‘Live by it!’ said the manager. ‘Like a prince! With your own salary, +and your friend’s, and your writings, you’d make--ah! you’d make a pound +a week!’ + +‘You don’t say so!’ + +‘I do indeed, and if we had a run of good houses, nearly double the +money.’ + +Nicholas shrugged his shoulders; but sheer destitution was before him; +and if he could summon fortitude to undergo the extremes of want and +hardship, for what had he rescued his helpless charge if it were only to +bear as hard a fate as that from which he had wrested him? It was easy +to think of seventy miles as nothing, when he was in the same town with +the man who had treated him so ill and roused his bitterest thoughts; +but now, it seemed far enough. What if he went abroad, and his mother or +Kate were to die the while? + +Without more deliberation, he hastily declared that it was a bargain, +and gave Mr. Vincent Crummles his hand upon it. + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +Treats of the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummles, and of his Affairs, +Domestic and Theatrical + + +As Mr. Crummles had a strange four-legged animal in the inn stables, +which he called a pony, and a vehicle of unknown design, on which he +bestowed the appellation of a four-wheeled phaeton, Nicholas proceeded +on his journey next morning with greater ease than he had expected: the +manager and himself occupying the front seat: and the Master Crummleses +and Smike being packed together behind, in company with a wicker basket +defended from wet by a stout oilskin, in which were the broad-swords, +pistols, pigtails, nautical costumes, and other professional necessaries +of the aforesaid young gentlemen. + +The pony took his time upon the road, and--possibly in consequence +of his theatrical education--evinced, every now and then, a strong +inclination to lie down. However, Mr. Vincent Crummles kept him up pretty +well, by jerking the rein, and plying the whip; and when these means +failed, and the animal came to a stand, the elder Master Crummles got +out and kicked him. By dint of these encouragements, he was persuaded +to move from time to time, and they jogged on (as Mr. Crummles truly +observed) very comfortably for all parties. + +‘He’s a good pony at bottom,’ said Mr. Crummles, turning to Nicholas. + +He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not at top, seeing +that his coat was of the roughest and most ill-favoured kind. So, +Nicholas merely observed that he shouldn’t wonder if he was. + +‘Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone,’ said Mr. Crummles, +flicking him skilfully on the eyelid for old acquaintance’ sake. ‘He is +quite one of us. His mother was on the stage.’ + +‘Was she?’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘She ate apple-pie at a circus for upwards of fourteen years,’ said the +manager; ‘fired pistols, and went to bed in a nightcap; and, in short, +took the low comedy entirely. His father was a dancer.’ + +‘Was he at all distinguished?’ + +‘Not very,’ said the manager. ‘He was rather a low sort of pony. The +fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he never +quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama too, but too +broad--too broad. When the mother died, he took the port-wine business.’ + +‘The port-wine business!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘Drinking port-wine with the clown,’ said the manager; ‘but he was +greedy, and one night bit off the bowl of the glass, and choked himself, +so his vulgarity was the death of him at last.’ + +The descendant of this ill-starred animal requiring increased attention +from Mr. Crummles as he progressed in his day’s work, that gentleman had +very little time for conversation. Nicholas was thus left at leisure +to entertain himself with his own thoughts, until they arrived at the +drawbridge at Portsmouth, when Mr. Crummles pulled up. + +‘We’ll get down here,’ said the manager, ‘and the boys will take him +round to the stable, and call at my lodgings with the luggage. You had +better let yours be taken there, for the present.’ + +Thanking Mr. Vincent Crummles for his obliging offer, Nicholas jumped +out, and, giving Smike his arm, accompanied the manager up High Street +on their way to the theatre; feeling nervous and uncomfortable enough at +the prospect of an immediate introduction to a scene so new to him. + +They passed a great many bills, pasted against the walls and displayed +in windows, wherein the names of Mr. Vincent Crummles, Mrs. Vincent +Crummles, Master Crummles, Master P. Crummles, and Miss Crummles, were +printed in very large letters, and everything else in very small ones; +and, turning at length into an entry, in which was a strong smell of +orange-peel and lamp-oil, with an under-current of sawdust, groped their +way through a dark passage, and, descending a step or two, threaded a +little maze of canvas screens and paint pots, and emerged upon the stage +of the Portsmouth Theatre. + +‘Here we are,’ said Mr. Crummles. + +It was not very light, but Nicholas found himself close to the first +entrance on the prompt side, among bare walls, dusty scenes, mildewed +clouds, heavily daubed draperies, and dirty floors. He looked about him; +ceiling, pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of +every kind,--all looked coarse, cold, gloomy, and wretched. + +‘Is this a theatre?’ whispered Smike, in amazement; ‘I thought it was a +blaze of light and finery.’ + +‘Why, so it is,’ replied Nicholas, hardly less surprised; ‘but not by +day, Smike--not by day.’ + +The manager’s voice recalled him from a more careful inspection of the +building, to the opposite side of the proscenium, where, at a small +mahogany table with rickety legs and of an oblong shape, sat a stout, +portly female, apparently between forty and fifty, in a tarnished silk +cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings in her hand, and her hair +(of which she had a great quantity) braided in a large festoon over each +temple. + +‘Mr. Johnson,’ said the manager (for Nicholas had given the name +which Newman Noggs had bestowed upon him in his conversation with Mrs +Kenwigs), ‘let me introduce Mrs. Vincent Crummles.’ + +‘I am glad to see you, sir,’ said Mrs. Vincent Crummles, in a sepulchral +voice. ‘I am very glad to see you, and still more happy to hail you as a +promising member of our corps.’ + +The lady shook Nicholas by the hand as she addressed him in these terms; +he saw it was a large one, but had not expected quite such an iron grip +as that with which she honoured him. + +‘And this,’ said the lady, crossing to Smike, as tragic actresses cross +when they obey a stage direction, ‘and this is the other. You too, are +welcome, sir.’ + +‘He’ll do, I think, my dear?’ said the manager, taking a pinch of snuff. + +‘He is admirable,’ replied the lady. ‘An acquisition indeed.’ + +As Mrs. Vincent Crummles recrossed back to the table, there bounded on +to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white +frock with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandaled shoes, white +spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers; who turned a +pirouette, cut twice in the air, turned another pirouette, then, looking +off at the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches +of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful attitude of terror, as a +shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful +slide, and chattering his teeth, fiercely brandished a walking-stick. + +‘They are going through the Indian Savage and the Maiden,’ said Mrs +Crummles. + +‘Oh!’ said the manager, ‘the little ballet interlude. Very good, go on. +A little this way, if you please, Mr. Johnson. That’ll do. Now!’ + +The manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed, and the savage, +becoming ferocious, made a slide towards the maiden; but the maiden +avoided him in six twirls, and came down, at the end of the last one, +upon the very points of her toes. This seemed to make some impression +upon the savage; for, after a little more ferocity and chasing of the +maiden into corners, he began to relent, and stroked his face several +times with his right thumb and four fingers, thereby intimating that +he was struck with admiration of the maiden’s beauty. Acting upon the +impulse of this passion, he (the savage) began to hit himself severe +thumps in the chest, and to exhibit other indications of being +desperately in love, which being rather a prosy proceeding, was very +likely the cause of the maiden’s falling asleep; whether it was or +no, asleep she did fall, sound as a church, on a sloping bank, and the +savage perceiving it, leant his left ear on his left hand, and nodded +sideways, to intimate to all whom it might concern that she WAS asleep, +and no shamming. Being left to himself, the savage had a dance, all +alone. Just as he left off, the maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got off +the bank, and had a dance all alone too--such a dance that the savage +looked on in ecstasy all the while, and when it was done, plucked from +a neighbouring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small pickled +cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first wouldn’t have it, +but on the savage shedding tears relented. Then the savage jumped +for joy; then the maiden jumped for rapture at the sweet smell of +the pickled cabbage. Then the savage and the maiden danced violently +together, and, finally, the savage dropped down on one knee, and the +maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus concluding the ballet, +and leaving the spectators in a state of pleasing uncertainty, whether +she would ultimately marry the savage, or return to her friends. + +‘Very well indeed,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘bravo!’ + +‘Bravo!’ cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything. +‘Beautiful!’ + +‘This, sir,’ said Mr. Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward, +‘this is the infant phenomenon--Miss Ninetta Crummles.’ + +‘Your daughter?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘My daughter--my daughter,’ replied Mr. Vincent Crummles; ‘the idol of +every place we go into, sir. We have had complimentary letters about +this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in +England.’ + +‘I am not surprised at that,’ said Nicholas; ‘she must be quite a +natural genius.’ + +‘Quite a--!’ Mr. Crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough to +describe the infant phenomenon. ‘I’ll tell you what, sir,’ he said; +‘the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen, +sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother, +my dear.’ + +‘May I ask how old she is?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘You may, sir,’ replied Mr. Crummles, looking steadily in his +questioner’s face, as some men do when they have doubts about being +implicitly believed in what they are going to say. ‘She is ten years of +age, sir.’ + +‘Not more!’ + +‘Not a day.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Nicholas, ‘it’s extraordinary.’ + +It was; for the infant phenomenon, though of short stature, had a +comparatively aged countenance, and had moreover been precisely the +same age--not perhaps to the full extent of the memory of the oldest +inhabitant, but certainly for five good years. But she had been kept up +late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin-and-water +from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system +of training had produced in the infant phenomenon these additional +phenomena. + +While this short dialogue was going on, the gentleman who had enacted +the savage, came up, with his walking shoes on his feet, and his +slippers in his hand, to within a few paces, as if desirous to join in +the conversation. Deeming this a good opportunity, he put in his word. + +‘Talent there, sir!’ said the savage, nodding towards Miss Crummles. + +Nicholas assented. + +‘Ah!’ said the actor, setting his teeth together, and drawing in his +breath with a hissing sound, ‘she oughtn’t to be in the provinces, she +oughtn’t.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ asked the manager. + +‘I mean to say,’ replied the other, warmly, ‘that she is too good for +country boards, and that she ought to be in one of the large houses in +London, or nowhere; and I tell you more, without mincing the matter, +that if it wasn’t for envy and jealousy in some quarter that you know +of, she would be. Perhaps you’ll introduce me here, Mr. Crummles.’ + +‘Mr. Folair,’ said the manager, presenting him to Nicholas. + +‘Happy to know you, sir.’ Mr. Folair touched the brim of his hat with his +forefinger, and then shook hands. ‘A recruit, sir, I understand?’ + +‘An unworthy one,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Did you ever see such a set-out as that?’ whispered the actor, drawing +him away, as Crummles left them to speak to his wife. + +‘As what?’ + +Mr. Folair made a funny face from his pantomime collection, and pointed +over his shoulder. + +‘You don’t mean the infant phenomenon?’ + +‘Infant humbug, sir,’ replied Mr. Folair. ‘There isn’t a female child of +common sharpness in a charity school, that couldn’t do better than that. +She may thank her stars she was born a manager’s daughter.’ + +‘You seem to take it to heart,’ observed Nicholas, with a smile. + +‘Yes, by Jove, and well I may,’ said Mr. Folair, drawing his arm through +his, and walking him up and down the stage. ‘Isn’t it enough to make a +man crusty to see that little sprawler put up in the best business every +night, and actually keeping money out of the house, by being forced +down the people’s throats, while other people are passed over? Isn’t +it extraordinary to see a man’s confounded family conceit blinding him, +even to his own interest? Why I KNOW of fifteen and sixpence that came +to Southampton one night last month, to see me dance the Highland Fling; +and what’s the consequence? I’ve never been put up in it since--never +once--while the “infant phenomenon” has been grinning through artificial +flowers at five people and a baby in the pit, and two boys in the +gallery, every night.’ + +‘If I may judge from what I have seen of you,’ said Nicholas, ‘you must +be a valuable member of the company.’ + +‘Oh!’ replied Mr. Folair, beating his slippers together, to knock the +dust out; ‘I CAN come it pretty well--nobody better, perhaps, in my own +line--but having such business as one gets here, is like putting lead on +one’s feet instead of chalk, and dancing in fetters without the credit +of it. Holloa, old fellow, how are you?’ + +The gentleman addressed in these latter words was a dark-complexioned +man, inclining indeed to sallow, with long thick black hair, and very +evident inclinations (although he was close shaved) of a stiff beard, +and whiskers of the same deep shade. His age did not appear to exceed +thirty, though many at first sight would have considered him much older, +as his face was long, and very pale, from the constant application of +stage paint. He wore a checked shirt, an old green coat with new gilt +buttons, a neckerchief of broad red and green stripes, and full blue +trousers; he carried, too, a common ash walking-stick, apparently +more for show than use, as he flourished it about, with the hooked end +downwards, except when he raised it for a few seconds, and throwing +himself into a fencing attitude, made a pass or two at the side-scenes, +or at any other object, animate or inanimate, that chanced to afford him +a pretty good mark at the moment. + +‘Well, Tommy,’ said this gentleman, making a thrust at his friend, who +parried it dexterously with his slipper, ‘what’s the news?’ + +‘A new appearance, that’s all,’ replied Mr. Folair, looking at Nicholas. + +‘Do the honours, Tommy, do the honours,’ said the other gentleman, +tapping him reproachfully on the crown of the hat with his stick. + +‘This is Mr. Lenville, who does our first tragedy, Mr. Johnson,’ said the +pantomimist. + +‘Except when old bricks and mortar takes it into his head to do it +himself, you should add, Tommy,’ remarked Mr. Lenville. ‘You know who +bricks and mortar is, I suppose, sir?’ + +‘I do not, indeed,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘We call Crummles that, because his style of acting is rather in the +heavy and ponderous way,’ said Mr. Lenville. ‘I mustn’t be cracking jokes +though, for I’ve got a part of twelve lengths here, which I must be +up in tomorrow night, and I haven’t had time to look at it yet; I’m a +confounded quick study, that’s one comfort.’ + +Consoling himself with this reflection, Mr. Lenville drew from his coat +pocket a greasy and crumpled manuscript, and, having made another pass +at his friend, proceeded to walk to and fro, conning it to himself and +indulging occasionally in such appropriate action as his imagination and +the text suggested. + +A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place; +for besides Mr. Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim +young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers +and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic +countryman--a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and +staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the infant phenomenon, was +an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who +played the calm and virtuous old men; and paying especial court to Mrs +Crummles was another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who +played the irascible old men--those funny fellows who have nephews in +the army and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to +marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a roving-looking person in +a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps, +flourishing a dress cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great +vivacity for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so +young as he had been, and his figure was rather running to seed; but +there was an air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the +hero of swaggering comedy. There was, also, a little group of three or +four young men with lantern jaws and thick eyebrows, who were conversing +in one corner; but they seemed to be of secondary importance, and +laughed and talked together without attracting any attention. + +The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round the +rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss Snevellicci--who could +do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always played +some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit--glancing, from the +depths of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and affecting +to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting story to her friend Miss +Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was making up a ruff in the most +natural manner possible. There was Miss Belvawney--who seldom aspired +to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose, to +stand with one leg bent, and contemplate the audience, or to go in and +out after Mr. Crummles in stately tragedy--twisting up the ringlets of +the beautiful Miss Bravassa, who had once had her likeness taken ‘in +character’ by an engraver’s apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up +for sale in the pastry-cook’s window, and the greengrocer’s, and at the +circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the announce bills +came out for her annual night. There was Mrs. Lenville, in a very limp +bonnet and veil, decidedly in that way in which she would wish to be if +she truly loved Mr. Lenville; there was Miss Gazingi, with an imitation +ermine boa tied in a loose knot round her neck, flogging Mr. Crummles, +junior, with both ends, in fun. Lastly, there was Mrs. Grudden in a brown +cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who assisted Mrs. Crummles in her +domestic affairs, and took money at the doors, and dressed the ladies, +and swept the house, and held the prompt book when everybody else was on +for the last scene, and acted any kind of part on any emergency without +ever learning it, and was put down in the bills under any name or names +whatever, that occurred to Mr. Crummles as looking well in print. + +Mr. Folair having obligingly confided these particulars to Nicholas, left +him to mingle with his fellows; the work of personal introduction was +completed by Mr. Vincent Crummles, who publicly heralded the new actor as +a prodigy of genius and learning. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Miss Snevellicci, sidling towards Nicholas, +‘but did you ever play at Canterbury?’ + +‘I never did,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘I recollect meeting a gentleman at Canterbury,’ said Miss Snevellicci, +‘only for a few moments, for I was leaving the company as he joined it, +so like you that I felt almost certain it was the same.’ + +‘I see you now for the first time,’ rejoined Nicholas with all due +gallantry. ‘I am sure I never saw you before; I couldn’t have forgotten +it.’ + +‘Oh, I’m sure--it’s very flattering of you to say so,’ retorted Miss +Snevellicci with a graceful bend. ‘Now I look at you again, I see that +the gentleman at Canterbury hadn’t the same eyes as you--you’ll think me +very foolish for taking notice of such things, won’t you?’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Nicholas. ‘How can I feel otherwise than flattered by +your notice in any way?’ + +‘Oh! you men are such vain creatures!’ cried Miss Snevellicci. +Whereupon, she became charmingly confused, and, pulling out her +pocket-handkerchief from a faded pink silk reticule with a gilt clasp, +called to Miss Ledrook-- + +‘Led, my dear,’ said Miss Snevellicci. + +‘Well, what is the matter?’ said Miss Ledrook. + +‘It’s not the same.’ + +‘Not the same what?’ + +‘Canterbury--you know what I mean. Come here! I want to speak to you.’ + +But Miss Ledrook wouldn’t come to Miss Snevellicci, so Miss Snevellicci +was obliged to go to Miss Ledrook, which she did, in a skipping manner +that was quite fascinating; and Miss Ledrook evidently joked Miss +Snevellicci about being struck with Nicholas; for, after some playful +whispering, Miss Snevellicci hit Miss Ledrook very hard on the backs of +her hands, and retired up, in a state of pleasing confusion. + +‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Vincent Crummles, who had been writing +on a piece of paper, ‘we’ll call the Mortal Struggle tomorrow at ten; +everybody for the procession. Intrigue, and Ways and Means, you’re all +up in, so we shall only want one rehearsal. Everybody at ten, if you +please.’ + +‘Everybody at ten,’ repeated Mrs. Grudden, looking about her. + +‘On Monday morning we shall read a new piece,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘the +name’s not known yet, but everybody will have a good part. Mr. Johnson +will take care of that.’ + +‘Hallo!’ said Nicholas, starting. ‘I--’ + +‘On Monday morning,’ repeated Mr. Crummles, raising his voice, to drown +the unfortunate Mr. Johnson’s remonstrance; ‘that’ll do, ladies and +gentlemen.’ + +The ladies and gentlemen required no second notice to quit; and, in +a few minutes, the theatre was deserted, save by the Crummles family, +Nicholas, and Smike. + +‘Upon my word,’ said Nicholas, taking the manager aside, ‘I don’t think +I can be ready by Monday.’ + +‘Pooh, pooh,’ replied Mr. Crummles. + +‘But really I can’t,’ returned Nicholas; ‘my invention is not accustomed +to these demands, or possibly I might produce--’ + +‘Invention! what the devil’s that got to do with it!’ cried the manager +hastily. + +‘Everything, my dear sir.’ + +‘Nothing, my dear sir,’ retorted the manager, with evident impatience. +‘Do you understand French?’ + +‘Perfectly well.’ + +‘Very good,’ said the manager, opening the table drawer, and giving a +roll of paper from it to Nicholas. ‘There! Just turn that into English, +and put your name on the title-page. Damn me,’ said Mr. Crummles, +angrily, ‘if I haven’t often said that I wouldn’t have a man or woman in +my company that wasn’t master of the language, so that they might learn +it from the original, and play it in English, and save all this trouble +and expense.’ + +Nicholas smiled and pocketed the play. + +‘What are you going to do about your lodgings?’ said Mr. Crummles. + +Nicholas could not help thinking that, for the first week, it would be +an uncommon convenience to have a turn-up bedstead in the pit, but he +merely remarked that he had not turned his thoughts that way. + +‘Come home with me then,’ said Mr. Crummles, ‘and my boys shall go with +you after dinner, and show you the most likely place.’ + +The offer was not to be refused; Nicholas and Mr. Crummles gave Mrs +Crummles an arm each, and walked up the street in stately array. Smike, +the boys, and the phenomenon, went home by a shorter cut, and Mrs +Grudden remained behind to take some cold Irish stew and a pint of +porter in the box-office. + +Mrs. Crummles trod the pavement as if she were going to immediate +execution with an animating consciousness of innocence, and that heroic +fortitude which virtue alone inspires. Mr. Crummles, on the other hand, +assumed the look and gait of a hardened despot; but they both attracted +some notice from many of the passers-by, and when they heard a whisper +of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Crummles!’ or saw a little boy run back to stare them in +the face, the severe expression of their countenances relaxed, for they +felt it was popularity. + +Mr. Crummles lived in St Thomas’s Street, at the house of one Bulph, a +pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same +colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour +mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed +also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very +bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, in his +back yard. + +‘You are welcome,’ said Mrs. Crummles, turning round to Nicholas when +they reached the bow-windowed front room on the first floor. + +Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was unfeignedly glad to see the +cloth laid. + +‘We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,’ said Mrs. Crummles, +in the same charnel-house voice; ‘but such as our dinner is, we beg you +to partake of it.’ + +‘You are very good,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I shall do it ample justice.’ + +‘Vincent,’ said Mrs. Crummles, ‘what is the hour?’ + +‘Five minutes past dinner-time,’ said Mr. Crummles. + +Mrs. Crummles rang the bell. ‘Let the mutton and onion sauce appear.’ + +The slave who attended upon Mr. Bulph’s lodgers, disappeared, and after +a short interval reappeared with the festive banquet. Nicholas and the +infant phenomenon opposed each other at the pembroke-table, and Smike +and the master Crummleses dined on the sofa bedstead. + +‘Are they very theatrical people here?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Crummles, shaking his head, ‘far from it--far from it.’ + +‘I pity them,’ observed Mrs. Crummles. + +‘So do I,’ said Nicholas; ‘if they have no relish for theatrical +entertainments, properly conducted.’ + +‘Then they have none, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Crummles. ‘To the infant’s +benefit, last year, on which occasion she repeated three of her most +popular characters, and also appeared in the Fairy Porcupine, as +originally performed by her, there was a house of no more than four +pound twelve.’ + +‘Is it possible?’ cried Nicholas. + +‘And two pound of that was trust, pa,’ said the phenomenon. + +‘And two pound of that was trust,’ repeated Mr. Crummles. ‘Mrs. Crummles +herself has played to mere handfuls.’ + +‘But they are always a taking audience, Vincent,’ said the manager’s +wife. + +‘Most audiences are, when they have good acting--real good acting--the +regular thing,’ replied Mr. Crummles, forcibly. + +‘Do you give lessons, ma’am?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘I do,’ said Mrs. Crummles. + +‘There is no teaching here, I suppose?’ + +‘There has been,’ said Mrs. Crummles. ‘I have received pupils here. I +imparted tuition to the daughter of a dealer in ships’ provision; but +it afterwards appeared that she was insane when she first came to me. It +was very extraordinary that she should come, under such circumstances.’ + +Not feeling quite so sure of that, Nicholas thought it best to hold his +peace. + +‘Let me see,’ said the manager cogitating after dinner. ‘Would you like +some nice little part with the infant?’ + +‘You are very good,’ replied Nicholas hastily; ‘but I think perhaps it +would be better if I had somebody of my own size at first, in case I +should turn out awkward. I should feel more at home, perhaps.’ + +‘True,’ said the manager. ‘Perhaps you would. And you could play up to +the infant, in time, you know.’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied Nicholas: devoutly hoping that it would be a very +long time before he was honoured with this distinction. + +‘Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘You shall study +Romeo when you’ve done that piece--don’t forget to throw the pump +and tubs in by-the-bye--Juliet Miss Snevellicci, old Grudden the +nurse.--Yes, that’ll do very well. Rover too;--you might get up Rover +while you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler. You can easily +knock them off; one part helps the other so much. Here they are, cues +and all.’ + +With these hasty general directions Mr. Crummles thrust a number of +little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and bidding his +eldest son go with him and show where lodgings were to be had, shook him +by the hand, and wished him good night. + +There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in Portsmouth, and +no difficulty in finding some that are proportionate to very slender +finances; but the former were too good, and the latter too bad, and they +went into so many houses, and came out unsuited, that Nicholas seriously +began to think he should be obliged to ask permission to spend the night +in the theatre, after all. + +Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small rooms up three pair of +stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, at a tobacconist’s shop, on the +Common Hard: a dirty street leading down to the dockyard. These Nicholas +engaged, only too happy to have escaped any request for payment of a +week’s rent beforehand. + +‘There! Lay down our personal property, Smike,’ he said, after showing +young Crummles downstairs. ‘We have fallen upon strange times, and +Heaven only knows the end of them; but I am tired with the events of +these three days, and will postpone reflection till tomorrow--if I can.’ + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +Of the Great Bespeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first Appearance of +Nicholas upon any Stage + + +Nicholas was up betimes in the morning; but he had scarcely begun to +dress, notwithstanding, when he heard footsteps ascending the stairs, +and was presently saluted by the voices of Mr. Folair the pantomimist, +and Mr. Lenville, the tragedian. + +‘House, house, house!’ cried Mr. Folair. + +‘What, ho! within there,’ said Mr. Lenville, in a deep voice. + +‘Confound these fellows!’ thought Nicholas; ‘they have come to +breakfast, I suppose. I’ll open the door directly, if you’ll wait an +instant.’ + +The gentlemen entreated him not to hurry himself; and, to beguile the +interval, had a fencing bout with their walking-sticks on the very small +landing-place: to the unspeakable discomposure of all the other lodgers +downstairs. + +‘Here, come in,’ said Nicholas, when he had completed his toilet. ‘In +the name of all that’s horrible, don’t make that noise outside.’ + +‘An uncommon snug little box this,’ said Mr. Lenville, stepping into +the front room, and taking his hat off, before he could get in at all. +‘Pernicious snug.’ + +‘For a man at all particular in such matters, it might be a trifle +too snug,’ said Nicholas; ‘for, although it is, undoubtedly, a great +convenience to be able to reach anything you want from the ceiling or +the floor, or either side of the room, without having to move from your +chair, still these advantages can only be had in an apartment of the +most limited size.’ + +‘It isn’t a bit too confined for a single man,’ returned Mr. Lenville. +‘That reminds me,--my wife, Mr. Johnson,--I hope she’ll have some good +part in this piece of yours?’ + +‘I glanced at the French copy last night,’ said Nicholas. ‘It looks very +good, I think.’ + +‘What do you mean to do for me, old fellow?’ asked Mr. Lenville, poking +the struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards wiping it on +the skirt of his coat. ‘Anything in the gruff and grumble way?’ + +‘You turn your wife and child out of doors,’ said Nicholas; ‘and, in a +fit of rage and jealousy, stab your eldest son in the library.’ + +‘Do I though!’ exclaimed Mr. Lenville. ‘That’s very good business.’ + +‘After which,’ said Nicholas, ‘you are troubled with remorse till the +last act, and then you make up your mind to destroy yourself. But, just +as you are raising the pistol to your head, a clock strikes--ten.’ + +‘I see,’ cried Mr. Lenville. ‘Very good.’ + +‘You pause,’ said Nicholas; ‘you recollect to have heard a clock +strike ten in your infancy. The pistol falls from your hand--you are +overcome--you burst into tears, and become a virtuous and exemplary +character for ever afterwards.’ + +‘Capital!’ said Mr. Lenville: ‘that’s a sure card, a sure card. Get the +curtain down with a touch of nature like that, and it’ll be a triumphant +success.’ + +‘Is there anything good for me?’ inquired Mr. Folair, anxiously. + +‘Let me see,’ said Nicholas. ‘You play the faithful and attached +servant; you are turned out of doors with the wife and child.’ + +‘Always coupled with that infernal phenomenon,’ sighed Mr. Folair; +‘and we go into poor lodgings, where I won’t take any wages, and talk +sentiment, I suppose?’ + +‘Why--yes,’ replied Nicholas: ‘that is the course of the piece.’ + +‘I must have a dance of some kind, you know,’ said Mr. Folair. ‘You’ll +have to introduce one for the phenomenon, so you’d better make a PAS DE +DEUX, and save time.’ + +‘There’s nothing easier than that,’ said Mr. Lenville, observing the +disturbed looks of the young dramatist. + +‘Upon my word I don’t see how it’s to be done,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Why, isn’t it obvious?’ reasoned Mr. Lenville. ‘Gadzooks, who can help +seeing the way to do it?--you astonish me! You get the distressed lady, +and the little child, and the attached servant, into the poor lodgings, +don’t you?--Well, look here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair, and +buries her face in her pocket-handkerchief. “What makes you weep, mama?” + says the child. “Don’t weep, mama, or you’ll make me weep too!”--“And +me!” says the favourite servant, rubbing his eyes with his arm. “What +can we do to raise your spirits, dear mama?” says the little child. +“Ay, what CAN we do?” says the faithful servant. “Oh, Pierre!” says +the distressed lady; “would that I could shake off these painful +thoughts.”--“Try, ma’am, try,” says the faithful servant; “rouse +yourself, ma’am; be amused.”--“I will,” says the lady, “I will learn +to suffer with fortitude. Do you remember that dance, my honest friend, +which, in happier days, you practised with this sweet angel? It never +failed to calm my spirits then. Oh! let me see it once again before I +die!”--There it is--cue for the band, BEFORE I DIE,--and off they go. +That’s the regular thing; isn’t it, Tommy?’ + +‘That’s it,’ replied Mr. Folair. ‘The distressed lady, overpowered by old +recollections, faints at the end of the dance, and you close in with a +picture.’ + +Profiting by these and other lessons, which were the result of the +personal experience of the two actors, Nicholas willingly gave them the +best breakfast he could, and, when he at length got rid of them, applied +himself to his task: by no means displeased to find that it was so much +easier than he had at first supposed. He worked very hard all day, +and did not leave his room until the evening, when he went down to the +theatre, whither Smike had repaired before him to go on with another +gentleman as a general rebellion. + +Here all the people were so much changed, that he scarcely knew them. +False hair, false colour, false calves, false muscles--they had become +different beings. Mr. Lenville was a blooming warrior of most exquisite +proportions; Mr. Crummles, his large face shaded by a profusion of +black hair, a Highland outlaw of most majestic bearing; one of the +old gentlemen a jailer, and the other a venerable patriarch; the comic +countryman, a fighting-man of great valour, relieved by a touch of +humour; each of the Master Crummleses a prince in his own right; and the +low-spirited lover, a desponding captive. There was a gorgeous banquet +ready spread for the third act, consisting of two pasteboard vases, one +plate of biscuits, a black bottle, and a vinegar cruet; and, in short, +everything was on a scale of the utmost splendour and preparation. + +Nicholas was standing with his back to the curtain, now contemplating +the first scene, which was a Gothic archway, about two feet shorter +than Mr. Crummles, through which that gentleman was to make his first +entrance, and now listening to a couple of people who were cracking nuts +in the gallery, wondering whether they made the whole audience, when the +manager himself walked familiarly up and accosted him. + +‘Been in front tonight?’ said Mr. Crummles. + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas, ‘not yet. I am going to see the play.’ + +‘We’ve had a pretty good Let,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘Four front places in +the centre, and the whole of the stage-box.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Nicholas; ‘a family, I suppose?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Crummles, ‘yes. It’s an affecting thing. There are six +children, and they never come unless the phenomenon plays.’ + +It would have been difficult for any party, family, or otherwise, to +have visited the theatre on a night when the phenomenon did NOT play, +inasmuch as she always sustained one, and not uncommonly two or three, +characters, every night; but Nicholas, sympathising with the feelings of +a father, refrained from hinting at this trifling circumstance, and Mr +Crummles continued to talk, uninterrupted by him. + +‘Six,’ said that gentleman; ‘pa and ma eight, aunt nine, governess +ten, grandfather and grandmother twelve. Then, there’s the footman, who +stands outside, with a bag of oranges and a jug of toast-and-water, +and sees the play for nothing through the little pane of glass in the +box-door--it’s cheap at a guinea; they gain by taking a box.’ + +‘I wonder you allow so many,’ observed Nicholas. + +‘There’s no help for it,’ replied Mr. Crummles; ‘it’s always expected in +the country. If there are six children, six people come to hold them in +their laps. A family-box carries double always. Ring in the orchestra, +Grudden!’ + +That useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly afterwards the +tuning of three fiddles was heard. Which process having been protracted +as long as it was supposed that the patience of the audience could +possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, +being the signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra playing a +variety of popular airs, with involuntary variations. + +If Nicholas had been astonished at the alteration for the better which +the gentlemen displayed, the transformation of the ladies was still more +extraordinary. When, from a snug corner of the manager’s box, he beheld +Miss Snevellicci in all the glories of white muslin with a golden hem, +and Mrs. Crummles in all the dignity of the outlaw’s wife, and Miss +Bravassa in all the sweetness of Miss Snevellicci’s confidential friend, +and Miss Belvawney in the white silks of a page doing duty everywhere +and swearing to live and die in the service of everybody, he could +scarcely contain his admiration, which testified itself in great +applause, and the closest possible attention to the business of the +scene. The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, +people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, +as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of +what would ever come of it. An outlaw had been very successful in doing +something somewhere, and came home, in triumph, to the sound of shouts +and fiddles, to greet his wife--a lady of masculine mind, who talked +a good deal about her father’s bones, which it seemed were unburied, +though whether from a peculiar taste on the part of the old gentleman +himself, or the reprehensible neglect of his relations, did not appear. +This outlaw’s wife was, somehow or other, mixed up with a patriarch, +living in a castle a long way off, and this patriarch was the father +of several of the characters, but he didn’t exactly know which, and was +uncertain whether he had brought up the right ones in his castle, or the +wrong ones; he rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy, +relieved his mind with a banquet, during which solemnity somebody in +a cloak said ‘Beware!’ which somebody was known by nobody (except the +audience) to be the outlaw himself, who had come there, for reasons +unexplained, but possibly with an eye to the spoons. There was an +agreeable little surprise in the way of certain love passages between +the desponding captive and Miss Snevellicci, and the comic fighting-man +and Miss Bravassa; besides which, Mr. Lenville had several very tragic +scenes in the dark, while on throat-cutting expeditions, which were +all baffled by the skill and bravery of the comic fighting-man (who +overheard whatever was said all through the piece) and the intrepidity +of Miss Snevellicci, who adopted tights, and therein repaired to the +prison of her captive lover, with a small basket of refreshments and a +dark lantern. At last, it came out that the patriarch was the man +who had treated the bones of the outlaw’s father-in-law with so much +disrespect, for which cause and reason the outlaw’s wife repaired to +his castle to kill him, and so got into a dark room, where, after a good +deal of groping in the dark, everybody got hold of everybody else, and +took them for somebody besides, which occasioned a vast quantity of +confusion, with some pistolling, loss of life, and torchlight; after +which, the patriarch came forward, and observing, with a knowing look, +that he knew all about his children now, and would tell them when they +got inside, said that there could not be a more appropriate occasion +for marrying the young people than that; and therefore he joined their +hands, with the full consent of the indefatigable page, who (being the +only other person surviving) pointed with his cap into the clouds, and +his right hand to the ground; thereby invoking a blessing and giving the +cue for the curtain to come down, which it did, amidst general applause. + +‘What did you think of that?’ asked Mr. Crummles, when Nicholas went +round to the stage again. Mr. Crummles was very red and hot, for your +outlaws are desperate fellows to shout. + +‘I think it was very capital indeed,’ replied Nicholas; ‘Miss +Snevellicci in particular was uncommonly good.’ + +‘She’s a genius,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘quite a genius, that girl. +By-the-bye, I’ve been thinking of bringing out that piece of yours on +her bespeak night.’ + +‘When?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘The night of her bespeak. Her benefit night, when her friends and +patrons bespeak the play,’ said Mr. Crummles. + +‘Oh! I understand,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘You see,’ said Mr. Crummles, ‘it’s sure to go, on such an occasion, and +even if it should not work up quite as well as we expect, why it will be +her risk, you know, and not ours.’ + +‘Yours, you mean,’ said Nicholas. + +‘I said mine, didn’t I?’ returned Mr. Crummles. ‘Next Monday week. What +do you say? You’ll have done it, and are sure to be up in the lover’s +part, long before that time.’ + +‘I don’t know about “long before,”’ replied Nicholas; ‘but BY that time +I think I can undertake to be ready.’ + +‘Very good,’ pursued Mr. Crummles, ‘then we’ll call that settled. Now, +I want to ask you something else. There’s a little--what shall I call +it?--a little canvassing takes place on these occasions.’ + +‘Among the patrons, I suppose?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Among the patrons; and the fact is, that Snevellicci has had so many +bespeaks in this place, that she wants an attraction. She had a bespeak +when her mother-in-law died, and a bespeak when her uncle died; and +Mrs. Crummles and myself have had bespeaks on the anniversary of the +phenomenon’s birthday, and our wedding-day, and occasions of that +description, so that, in fact, there’s some difficulty in getting a good +one. Now, won’t you help this poor girl, Mr. Johnson?’ said Crummles, +sitting himself down on a drum, and taking a great pinch of snuff, as he +looked him steadily in the face. + +‘How do you mean?’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Don’t you think you could spare half an hour tomorrow morning, to call +with her at the houses of one or two of the principal people?’ murmured +the manager in a persuasive tone. + +‘Oh dear me,’ said Nicholas, with an air of very strong objection, ‘I +shouldn’t like to do that.’ + +‘The infant will accompany her,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘The moment it was +suggested to me, I gave permission for the infant to go. There will not +be the smallest impropriety--Miss Snevellicci, sir, is the very soul +of honour. It would be of material service--the gentleman from +London--author of the new piece--actor in the new piece--first +appearance on any boards--it would lead to a great bespeak, Mr. Johnson.’ + +‘I am very sorry to throw a damp upon the prospects of anybody, and +more especially a lady,’ replied Nicholas; ‘but really I must decidedly +object to making one of the canvassing party.’ + +‘What does Mr. Johnson say, Vincent?’ inquired a voice close to his ear; +and, looking round, he found Mrs. Crummles and Miss Snevellicci herself +standing behind him. + +‘He has some objection, my dear,’ replied Mr. Crummles, looking at +Nicholas. + +‘Objection!’ exclaimed Mrs. Crummles. ‘Can it be possible?’ + +‘Oh, I hope not!’ cried Miss Snevellicci. ‘You surely are not so +cruel--oh, dear me!--Well, I--to think of that now, after all one’s +looking forward to it!’ + +‘Mr. Johnson will not persist, my dear,’ said Mrs. Crummles. ‘Think better +of him than to suppose it. Gallantry, humanity, all the best feelings of +his nature, must be enlisted in this interesting cause.’ + +‘Which moves even a manager,’ said Mr. Crummles, smiling. + +‘And a manager’s wife,’ added Mrs. Crummles, in her accustomed tragedy +tones. ‘Come, come, you will relent, I know you will.’ + +‘It is not in my nature,’ said Nicholas, moved by these appeals, ‘to +resist any entreaty, unless it is to do something positively wrong; and, +beyond a feeling of pride, I know nothing which should prevent my doing +this. I know nobody here, and nobody knows me. So be it then. I yield.’ + +Miss Snevellicci was at once overwhelmed with blushes and expressions of +gratitude, of which latter commodity neither Mr. nor Mrs. Crummles was by +any means sparing. It was arranged that Nicholas should call upon her, +at her lodgings, at eleven next morning, and soon after they parted: +he to return home to his authorship: Miss Snevellicci to dress for the +after-piece: and the disinterested manager and his wife to discuss the +probable gains of the forthcoming bespeak, of which they were to have +two-thirds of the profits by solemn treaty of agreement. + +At the stipulated hour next morning, Nicholas repaired to the lodgings +of Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place called Lombard Street, at +the house of a tailor. A strong smell of ironing pervaded the little +passage; and the tailor’s daughter, who opened the door, appeared in +that flutter of spirits which is so often attendant upon the periodical +getting up of a family’s linen. + +‘Miss Snevellicci lives here, I believe?’ said Nicholas, when the door +was opened. + +The tailor’s daughter replied in the affirmative. + +‘Will you have the goodness to let her know that Mr. Johnson is here?’ +said Nicholas. + +‘Oh, if you please, you’re to come upstairs,’ replied the tailor’s +daughter, with a smile. + +Nicholas followed the young lady, and was shown into a small apartment +on the first floor, communicating with a back-room; in which, as he +judged from a certain half-subdued clinking sound, as of cups and +saucers, Miss Snevellicci was then taking her breakfast in bed. + +‘You’re to wait, if you please,’ said the tailor’s daughter, after a +short period of absence, during which the clinking in the back-room had +ceased, and been succeeded by whispering--‘She won’t be long.’ + +As she spoke, she pulled up the window-blind, and having by this means +(as she thought) diverted Mr. Johnson’s attention from the room to the +street, caught up some articles which were airing on the fender, and had +very much the appearance of stockings, and darted off. + +As there were not many objects of interest outside the window, Nicholas +looked about the room with more curiosity than he might otherwise have +bestowed upon it. On the sofa lay an old guitar, several thumbed +pieces of music, and a scattered litter of curl-papers; together with a +confused heap of play-bills, and a pair of soiled white satin shoes +with large blue rosettes. Hanging over the back of a chair was a +half-finished muslin apron with little pockets ornamented with red +ribbons, such as waiting-women wear on the stage, and (by consequence) +are never seen with anywhere else. In one corner stood the diminutive +pair of top-boots in which Miss Snevellicci was accustomed to enact the +little jockey, and, folded on a chair hard by, was a small parcel, which +bore a very suspicious resemblance to the companion smalls. + +But the most interesting object of all was, perhaps, the open scrapbook, +displayed in the midst of some theatrical duodecimos that were strewn +upon the table; and pasted into which scrapbook were various critical +notices of Miss Snevellicci’s acting, extracted from different +provincial journals, together with one poetic address in her honour, +commencing-- + + Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth + Thrice-gifted SNEVELLICCI came on earth, + To thrill us with her smile, her tear, her eye, + Sing, God of Love, and tell me quickly why. + +Besides this effusion, there were innumerable complimentary allusions, +also extracted from newspapers, such as--‘We observe from an +advertisement in another part of our paper of today, that the charming +and highly-talented Miss Snevellicci takes her benefit on Wednesday, +for which occasion she has put forth a bill of fare that might kindle +exhilaration in the breast of a misanthrope. In the confidence that our +fellow-townsmen have not lost that high appreciation of public utility +and private worth, for which they have long been so pre-eminently +distinguished, we predict that this charming actress will be greeted +with a bumper.’ ‘To Correspondents.--J.S. is misinformed when he +supposes that the highly-gifted and beautiful Miss Snevellicci, nightly +captivating all hearts at our pretty and commodious little theatre, +is NOT the same lady to whom the young gentleman of immense fortune, +residing within a hundred miles of the good city of York, lately made +honourable proposals. We have reason to know that Miss Snevellicci IS +the lady who was implicated in that mysterious and romantic affair, and +whose conduct on that occasion did no less honour to her head and heart, +than do her histrionic triumphs to her brilliant genius.’ A copious +assortment of such paragraphs as these, with long bills of benefits +all ending with ‘Come Early’, in large capitals, formed the principal +contents of Miss Snevellicci’s scrapbook. + +Nicholas had read a great many of these scraps, and was absorbed in a +circumstantial and melancholy account of the train of events which had +led to Miss Snevellicci’s spraining her ankle by slipping on a piece of +orange-peel flung by a monster in human form, (so the paper said,) upon +the stage at Winchester,--when that young lady herself, attired in the +coal-scuttle bonnet and walking-dress complete, tripped into the room, +with a thousand apologies for having detained him so long after the +appointed time. + +‘But really,’ said Miss Snevellicci, ‘my darling Led, who lives with me +here, was taken so very ill in the night that I thought she would have +expired in my arms.’ + +‘Such a fate is almost to be envied,’ returned Nicholas, ‘but I am very +sorry to hear it nevertheless.’ + +‘What a creature you are to flatter!’ said Miss Snevellicci, buttoning +her glove in much confusion. + +‘If it be flattery to admire your charms and accomplishments,’ rejoined +Nicholas, laying his hand upon the scrapbook, ‘you have better specimens +of it here.’ + +‘Oh you cruel creature, to read such things as those! I’m almost +ashamed to look you in the face afterwards, positively I am,’ said Miss +Snevellicci, seizing the book and putting it away in a closet. ‘How +careless of Led! How could she be so naughty!’ + +‘I thought you had kindly left it here, on purpose for me to read,’ said +Nicholas. And really it did seem possible. + +‘I wouldn’t have had you see it for the world!’ rejoined Miss +Snevellicci. ‘I never was so vexed--never! But she is such a careless +thing, there’s no trusting her.’ + +The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the phenomenon, +who had discreetly remained in the bedroom up to this moment, and now +presented herself, with much grace and lightness, bearing in her hand +a very little green parasol with a broad fringe border, and no handle. +After a few words of course, they sallied into the street. + +The phenomenon was rather a troublesome companion, for first the +right sandal came down, and then the left, and these mischances being +repaired, one leg of the little white trousers was discovered to be +longer than the other; besides these accidents, the green parasol +was dropped down an iron grating, and only fished up again with great +difficulty and by dint of much exertion. However, it was impossible to +scold her, as she was the manager’s daughter, so Nicholas took it all in +perfect good humour, and walked on, with Miss Snevellicci, arm-in-arm on +one side, and the offending infant on the other. + +The first house to which they bent their steps, was situated in +a terrace of respectable appearance. Miss Snevellicci’s modest +double-knock was answered by a foot-boy, who, in reply to her inquiry +whether Mrs. Curdle was at home, opened his eyes very wide, grinned very +much, and said he didn’t know, but he’d inquire. With this he +showed them into a parlour where he kept them waiting, until the two +women-servants had repaired thither, under false pretences, to see the +play-actors; and having compared notes with them in the passage, and +joined in a vast quantity of whispering and giggling, he at length went +upstairs with Miss Snevellicci’s name. + +Now, Mrs. Curdle was supposed, by those who were best informed on +such points, to possess quite the London taste in matters relating to +literature and the drama; and as to Mr. Curdle, he had written a pamphlet +of sixty-four pages, post octavo, on the character of the Nurse’s +deceased husband in Romeo and Juliet, with an inquiry whether he really +had been a ‘merry man’ in his lifetime, or whether it was merely his +widow’s affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. He +had likewise proved, that by altering the received mode of punctuation, +any one of Shakespeare’s plays could be made quite different, and the +sense completely changed; it is needless to say, therefore, that he was +a great critic, and a very profound and most original thinker. + +‘Well, Miss Snevellicci,’ said Mrs. Curdle, entering the parlour, ‘and +how do YOU do?’ + +Miss Snevellicci made a graceful obeisance, and hoped Mrs. Curdle was +well, as also Mr. Curdle, who at the same time appeared. Mrs. Curdle was +dressed in a morning wrapper, with a little cap stuck upon the top +of her head. Mr. Curdle wore a loose robe on his back, and his right +forefinger on his forehead after the portraits of Sterne, to whom +somebody or other had once said he bore a striking resemblance. + +‘I venture to call, for the purpose of asking whether you would put your +name to my bespeak, ma’am,’ said Miss Snevellicci, producing documents. + +‘Oh! I really don’t know what to say,’ replied Mrs. Curdle. ‘It’s not as +if the theatre was in its high and palmy days--you needn’t stand, Miss +Snevellicci--the drama is gone, perfectly gone.’ + +‘As an exquisite embodiment of the poet’s visions, and a realisation of +human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, +and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama +is gone, perfectly gone,’ said Mr. Curdle. + +‘What man is there, now living, who can present before us all those +changing and prismatic colours with which the character of Hamlet is +invested?’ exclaimed Mrs. Curdle. + +‘What man indeed--upon the stage,’ said Mr. Curdle, with a small +reservation in favour of himself. ‘Hamlet! Pooh! ridiculous! Hamlet is +gone, perfectly gone.’ + +Quite overcome by these dismal reflections, Mr. and Mrs. Curdle sighed, +and sat for some short time without speaking. At length, the lady, +turning to Miss Snevellicci, inquired what play she proposed to have. + +‘Quite a new one,’ said Miss Snevellicci, ‘of which this gentleman is +the author, and in which he plays; being his first appearance on any +stage. Mr. Johnson is the gentleman’s name.’ + +‘I hope you have preserved the unities, sir?’ said Mr. Curdle. + +‘The original piece is a French one,’ said Nicholas. ‘There is abundance +of incident, sprightly dialogue, strongly-marked characters--’ + +‘--All unavailing without a strict observance of the unities, sir,’ +returned Mr. Curdle. ‘The unities of the drama, before everything.’ + +‘Might I ask you,’ said Nicholas, hesitating between the respect he +ought to assume, and his love of the whimsical, ‘might I ask you what +the unities are?’ + +Mr. Curdle coughed and considered. ‘The unities, sir,’ he said, ‘are a +completeness--a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place +and time--a sort of a general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so +strong an expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as +I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have read +much upon the subject, and thought much. I find, running through the +performances of this child,’ said Mr. Curdle, turning to the phenomenon, +‘a unity of feeling, a breadth, a light and shade, a warmth of +colouring, a tone, a harmony, a glow, an artistical development +of original conceptions, which I look for, in vain, among older +performers--I don’t know whether I make myself understood?’ + +‘Perfectly,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Just so,’ said Mr. Curdle, pulling up his neckcloth. ‘That is my +definition of the unities of the drama.’ + +Mrs. Curdle had sat listening to this lucid explanation with great +complacency. It being finished, she inquired what Mr. Curdle thought, +about putting down their names. + +‘I don’t know, my dear; upon my word I don’t know,’ said Mr. Curdle. ‘If +we do, it must be distinctly understood that we do not pledge ourselves +to the quality of the performances. Let it go forth to the world, that +we do not give THEM the sanction of our names, but that we confer the +distinction merely upon Miss Snevellicci. That being clearly stated, I +take it to be, as it were, a duty, that we should extend our patronage +to a degraded stage, even for the sake of the associations with which +it is entwined. Have you got two-and-sixpence for half-a-crown, Miss +Snevellicci?’ said Mr. Curdle, turning over four of those pieces of +money. + +Miss Snevellicci felt in all the corners of the pink reticule, but there +was nothing in any of them. Nicholas murmured a jest about his being an +author, and thought it best not to go through the form of feeling in his +own pockets at all. + +‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Curdle; ‘twice four’s eight--four shillings +a-piece to the boxes, Miss Snevellicci, is exceedingly dear in the +present state of the drama--three half-crowns is seven-and-six; we shall +not differ about sixpence, I suppose? Sixpence will not part us, Miss +Snevellicci?’ + +Poor Miss Snevellicci took the three half-crowns, with many smiles and +bends, and Mrs. Curdle, adding several supplementary directions relative +to keeping the places for them, and dusting the seat, and sending two +clean bills as soon as they came out, rang the bell, as a signal for +breaking up the conference. + +‘Odd people those,’ said Nicholas, when they got clear of the house. + +‘I assure you,’ said Miss Snevellicci, taking his arm, ‘that I think +myself very lucky they did not owe all the money instead of being +sixpence short. Now, if you were to succeed, they would give people to +understand that they had always patronised you; and if you were to fail, +they would have been quite certain of that from the very beginning.’ + +At the next house they visited, they were in great glory; for, there, +resided the six children who were so enraptured with the public actions +of the phenomenon, and who, being called down from the nursery to be +treated with a private view of that young lady, proceeded to poke their +fingers into her eyes, and tread upon her toes, and show her many other +little attentions peculiar to their time of life. + +‘I shall certainly persuade Mr. Borum to take a private box,’ said the +lady of the house, after a most gracious reception. ‘I shall only +take two of the children, and will make up the rest of the party, of +gentlemen--your admirers, Miss Snevellicci. Augustus, you naughty boy, +leave the little girl alone.’ + +This was addressed to a young gentleman who was pinching the phenomenon +behind, apparently with a view of ascertaining whether she was real. + +‘I am sure you must be very tired,’ said the mama, turning to Miss +Snevellicci. ‘I cannot think of allowing you to go, without first taking +a glass of wine. Fie, Charlotte, I am ashamed of you! Miss Lane, my +dear, pray see to the children.’ + +Miss Lane was the governess, and this entreaty was rendered necessary by +the abrupt behaviour of the youngest Miss Borum, who, having filched the +phenomenon’s little green parasol, was now carrying it bodily off, while +the distracted infant looked helplessly on. + +‘I am sure, where you ever learnt to act as you do,’ said good-natured +Mrs. Borum, turning again to Miss Snevellicci, ‘I cannot understand +(Emma, don’t stare so); laughing in one piece, and crying in the next, +and so natural in all--oh, dear!’ + +‘I am very happy to hear you express so favourable an opinion,’ said +Miss Snevellicci. ‘It’s quite delightful to think you like it.’ + +‘Like it!’ cried Mrs. Borum. ‘Who can help liking it? I would go to the +play, twice a week if I could: I dote upon it--only you’re too affecting +sometimes. You do put me in such a state--into such fits of crying! +Goodness gracious me, Miss Lane, how can you let them torment that poor +child so!’ + +The phenomenon was really in a fair way of being torn limb from limb; +for two strong little boys, one holding on by each of her hands, were +dragging her in different directions as a trial of strength. However, +Miss Lane (who had herself been too much occupied in contemplating the +grown-up actors, to pay the necessary attention to these proceedings) +rescued the unhappy infant at this juncture, who, being recruited with +a glass of wine, was shortly afterwards taken away by her friends, after +sustaining no more serious damage than a flattening of the pink gauze +bonnet, and a rather extensive creasing of the white frock and trousers. + +It was a trying morning; for there were a great many calls to make, and +everybody wanted a different thing. Some wanted tragedies, and others +comedies; some objected to dancing; some wanted scarcely anything else. +Some thought the comic singer decidedly low, and others hoped he would +have more to do than he usually had. Some people wouldn’t promise to go, +because other people wouldn’t promise to go; and other people wouldn’t +go at all, because other people went. At length, and by little and +little, omitting something in this place, and adding something in +that, Miss Snevellicci pledged herself to a bill of fare which was +comprehensive enough, if it had no other merit (it included among other +trifles, four pieces, divers songs, a few combats, and several dances); +and they returned home, pretty well exhausted with the business of the +day. + +Nicholas worked away at the piece, which was speedily put into +rehearsal, and then worked away at his own part, which he studied with +great perseverance and acted--as the whole company said--to perfection. +And at length the great day arrived. The crier was sent round, in the +morning, to proclaim the entertainments with the sound of bell in all +the thoroughfares; and extra bills of three feet long by nine inches +wide, were dispersed in all directions, flung down all the areas, +thrust under all the knockers, and developed in all the shops. They were +placarded on all the walls too, though not with complete success, for an +illiterate person having undertaken this office during the indisposition +of the regular bill-sticker, a part were posted sideways, and the +remainder upside down. + +At half-past five, there was a rush of four people to the gallery-door; +at a quarter before six, there were at least a dozen; at six o’clock the +kicks were terrific; and when the elder Master Crummles opened the door, +he was obliged to run behind it for his life. Fifteen shillings were +taken by Mrs. Grudden in the first ten minutes. + +Behind the scenes, the same unwonted excitement prevailed. Miss +Snevellicci was in such a perspiration that the paint would scarcely +stay on her face. Mrs. Crummles was so nervous that she could hardly +remember her part. Miss Bravassa’s ringlets came out of curl with the +heat and anxiety; even Mr. Crummles himself kept peeping through the hole +in the curtain, and running back, every now and then, to announce that +another man had come into the pit. + +At last, the orchestra left off, and the curtain rose upon the new +piece. The first scene, in which there was nobody particular, passed +off calmly enough, but when Miss Snevellicci went on in the second, +accompanied by the phenomenon as child, what a roar of applause broke +out! The people in the Borum box rose as one man, waving their hats +and handkerchiefs, and uttering shouts of ‘Bravo!’ Mrs. Borum and the +governess cast wreaths upon the stage, of which, some fluttered into the +lamps, and one crowned the temples of a fat gentleman in the pit, who, +looking eagerly towards the scene, remained unconscious of the honour; +the tailor and his family kicked at the panels of the upper boxes +till they threatened to come out altogether; the very ginger-beer +boy remained transfixed in the centre of the house; a young officer, +supposed to entertain a passion for Miss Snevellicci, stuck his glass +in his eye as though to hide a tear. Again and again Miss Snevellicci +curtseyed lower and lower, and again and again the applause came down, +louder and louder. At length, when the phenomenon picked up one of the +smoking wreaths and put it on, sideways, over Miss Snevellicci’s eye, it +reached its climax, and the play proceeded. + +But when Nicholas came on for his crack scene with Mrs. Crummles, what +a clapping of hands there was! When Mrs. Crummles (who was his unworthy +mother), sneered, and called him ‘presumptuous boy,’ and he defied her, +what a tumult of applause came on! When he quarrelled with the other +gentleman about the young lady, and producing a case of pistols, said, +that if he WAS a gentleman, he would fight him in that drawing-room, +until the furniture was sprinkled with the blood of one, if not of +two--how boxes, pit, and gallery, joined in one most vigorous cheer! +When he called his mother names, because she wouldn’t give up the young +lady’s property, and she relenting, caused him to relent likewise, +and fall down on one knee and ask her blessing, how the ladies in the +audience sobbed! When he was hid behind the curtain in the dark, and the +wicked relation poked a sharp sword in every direction, save where his +legs were plainly visible, what a thrill of anxious fear ran through the +house! His air, his figure, his walk, his look, everything he said or +did, was the subject of commendation. There was a round of applause +every time he spoke. And when, at last, in the pump-and-tub scene, Mrs +Grudden lighted the blue fire, and all the unemployed members of the +company came in, and tumbled down in various directions--not because +that had anything to do with the plot, but in order to finish off with a +tableau--the audience (who had by this time increased considerably) gave +vent to such a shout of enthusiasm as had not been heard in those walls +for many and many a day. + +In short, the success both of new piece and new actor was complete, and +when Miss Snevellicci was called for at the end of the play, Nicholas +led her on, and divided the applause. + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +Concerning a young Lady from London, who joins the Company, and an +elderly Admirer who follows in her Train; with an affecting Ceremony +consequent on their Arrival + + +The new piece being a decided hit, was announced for every evening of +performance until further notice, and the evenings when the theatre was +closed, were reduced from three in the week to two. Nor were these the +only tokens of extraordinary success; for, on the succeeding Saturday, +Nicholas received, by favour of the indefatigable Mrs. Grudden, no less a +sum than thirty shillings; besides which substantial reward, he enjoyed +considerable fame and honour: having a presentation copy of Mr. Curdle’s +pamphlet forwarded to the theatre, with that gentleman’s own autograph +(in itself an inestimable treasure) on the fly-leaf, accompanied with +a note, containing many expressions of approval, and an unsolicited +assurance that Mr. Curdle would be very happy to read Shakespeare to him +for three hours every morning before breakfast during his stay in the +town. + +‘I’ve got another novelty, Johnson,’ said Mr. Crummles one morning in +great glee. + +‘What’s that?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘The pony?’ + +‘No, no, we never come to the pony till everything else has failed,’ +said Mr. Crummles. ‘I don’t think we shall come to the pony at all, this +season. No, no, not the pony.’ + +‘A boy phenomenon, perhaps?’ suggested Nicholas. + +‘There is only one phenomenon, sir,’ replied Mr. Crummles impressively, +‘and that’s a girl.’ + +‘Very true,’ said Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon. Then I don’t know what +it is, I am sure.’ + +‘What should you say to a young lady from London?’ inquired Mr. Crummles. +‘Miss So-and-so, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane?’ + +‘I should say she would look very well in the bills,’ said Nicholas. + +‘You’re about right there,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘and if you had said she +would look very well upon the stage too, you wouldn’t have been far out. +Look here; what do you think of this?’ + +With this inquiry Mr. Crummles unfolded a red poster, and a blue poster, +and a yellow poster, at the top of each of which public notification was +inscribed in enormous characters--‘First appearance of the unrivalled +Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane!’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Nicholas, ‘I know that lady.’ + +‘Then you are acquainted with as much talent as was ever compressed into +one young person’s body,’ retorted Mr. Crummles, rolling up the bills +again; ‘that is, talent of a certain sort--of a certain sort. “The Blood +Drinker,”’ added Mr. Crummles with a prophetic sigh, ‘“The Blood Drinker” + will die with that girl; and she’s the only sylph I ever saw, who could +stand upon one leg, and play the tambourine on her other knee, LIKE a +sylph.’ + +‘When does she come down?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘We expect her today,’ replied Mr. Crummles. ‘She is an old friend of Mrs +Crummles’s. Mrs. Crummles saw what she could do--always knew it from the +first. She taught her, indeed, nearly all she knows. Mrs. Crummles was +the original Blood Drinker.’ + +‘Was she, indeed?’ + +‘Yes. She was obliged to give it up though.’ + +‘Did it disagree with her?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Not so much with her, as with her audiences,’ replied Mr. Crummles. +‘Nobody could stand it. It was too tremendous. You don’t quite know what +Mrs. Crummles is yet.’ + +Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did. + +‘No, no, you don’t,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘you don’t, indeed. I don’t, and +that’s a fact. I don’t think her country will, till she is dead. Some +new proof of talent bursts from that astonishing woman every year of her +life. Look at her--mother of six children--three of ‘em alive, and all +upon the stage!’ + +‘Extraordinary!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘Ah! extraordinary indeed,’ rejoined Mr. Crummles, taking a complacent +pinch of snuff, and shaking his head gravely. ‘I pledge you my +professional word I didn’t even know she could dance, till her last +benefit, and then she played Juliet, and Helen Macgregor, and did the +skipping-rope hornpipe between the pieces. The very first time I saw +that admirable woman, Johnson,’ said Mr. Crummles, drawing a little +nearer, and speaking in the tone of confidential friendship, ‘she +stood upon her head on the butt-end of a spear, surrounded with blazing +fireworks.’ + +‘You astonish me!’ said Nicholas. + +‘SHE astonished ME!’ returned Mr. Crummles, with a very serious +countenance. ‘Such grace, coupled with such dignity! I adored her from +that moment!’ + +The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an abrupt +termination to Mr. Crummles’s eulogium. Almost immediately afterwards, +Master Percy Crummles entered with a letter, which had arrived by the +General Post, and was directed to his gracious mother; at sight of +the superscription whereof, Mrs. Crummles exclaimed, ‘From Henrietta +Petowker, I do declare!’ and instantly became absorbed in the contents. + +‘Is it--?’ inquired Mr. Crummles, hesitating. + +‘Oh, yes, it’s all right,’ replied Mrs. Crummles, anticipating the +question. ‘What an excellent thing for her, to be sure!’ + +‘It’s the best thing altogether, that I ever heard of, I think,’ said Mr +Crummles; and then Mr. Crummles, Mrs. Crummles, and Master Percy Crummles, +all fell to laughing violently. Nicholas left them to enjoy their mirth +together, and walked to his lodgings; wondering very much what mystery +connected with Miss Petowker could provoke such merriment, and pondering +still more on the extreme surprise with which that lady would regard his +sudden enlistment in a profession of which she was such a distinguished +and brilliant ornament. + +But, in this latter respect he was mistaken; for--whether Mr. Vincent +Crummles had paved the way, or Miss Petowker had some special reason for +treating him with even more than her usual amiability--their meeting at +the theatre next day was more like that of two dear friends who had been +inseparable from infancy, than a recognition passing between a lady +and gentleman who had only met some half-dozen times, and then by mere +chance. Nay, Miss Petowker even whispered that she had wholly dropped +the Kenwigses in her conversations with the manager’s family, and had +represented herself as having encountered Mr. Johnson in the very +first and most fashionable circles; and on Nicholas receiving this +intelligence with unfeigned surprise, she added, with a sweet glance, +that she had a claim on his good nature now, and might tax it before +long. + +Nicholas had the honour of playing in a slight piece with Miss Petowker +that night, and could not but observe that the warmth of her reception +was mainly attributable to a most persevering umbrella in the upper +boxes; he saw, too, that the enchanting actress cast many sweet looks +towards the quarter whence these sounds proceeded; and that every time +she did so, the umbrella broke out afresh. Once, he thought that a +peculiarly shaped hat in the same corner was not wholly unknown to him; +but, being occupied with his share of the stage business, he bestowed no +great attention upon this circumstance, and it had quite vanished from +his memory by the time he reached home. + +He had just sat down to supper with Smike, when one of the people of the +house came outside the door, and announced that a gentleman below stairs +wished to speak to Mr. Johnson. + +‘Well, if he does, you must tell him to come up; that’s all I know,’ +replied Nicholas. ‘One of our hungry brethren, I suppose, Smike.’ + +His fellow-lodger looked at the cold meat in silent calculation of the +quantity that would be left for dinner next day, and put back a slice he +had cut for himself, in order that the visitor’s encroachments might be +less formidable in their effects. + +‘It is not anybody who has been here before,’ said Nicholas, ‘for he +is tumbling up every stair. Come in, come in. In the name of wonder! Mr +Lillyvick?’ + +It was, indeed, the collector of water-rates who, regarding Nicholas +with a fixed look and immovable countenance, shook hands with +most portentous solemnity, and sat himself down in a seat by the +chimney-corner. + +‘Why, when did you come here?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘This morning, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘Oh! I see; then you were at the theatre tonight, and it was your umb--’ + +‘This umbrella,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, producing a fat green cotton one +with a battered ferrule. ‘What did you think of that performance?’ + +‘So far as I could judge, being on the stage,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I +thought it very agreeable.’ + +‘Agreeable!’ cried the collector. ‘I mean to say, sir, that it was +delicious.’ + +Mr. Lillyvick bent forward to pronounce the last word with greater +emphasis; and having done so, drew himself up, and frowned and nodded a +great many times. + +‘I say, delicious,’ repeated Mr. Lillyvick. ‘Absorbing, fairy-like, +toomultuous,’ and again Mr. Lillyvick drew himself up, and again he +frowned and nodded. + +‘Ah!’ said Nicholas, a little surprised at these symptoms of ecstatic +approbation. ‘Yes--she is a clever girl.’ + +‘She is a divinity,’ returned Mr. Lillyvick, giving a collector’s double +knock on the ground with the umbrella before-mentioned. ‘I have known +divine actresses before now, sir, I used to collect--at least I used +to CALL for--and very often call for--the water-rate at the house of +a divine actress, who lived in my beat for upwards of four year +but never--no, never, sir of all divine creatures, actresses or no +actresses, did I see a diviner one than is Henrietta Petowker.’ + +Nicholas had much ado to prevent himself from laughing; not trusting +himself to speak, he merely nodded in accordance with Mr. Lillyvick’s +nods, and remained silent. + +‘Let me speak a word with you in private,’ said Mr. Lillyvick. + +Nicholas looked good-humouredly at Smike, who, taking the hint, +disappeared. + +‘A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir,’ said Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘Is he?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘He is,’ rejoined the collector. ‘I have lived in the world for nigh +sixty year, and I ought to know what it is.’ + +‘You OUGHT to know, certainly,’ thought Nicholas; ‘but whether you do or +not, is another question.’ + +‘If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of money,’ said Mr +Lillyvick, ‘his sisters and brothers, and nephews and nieces, look TO +that money, and not to him; even if, by being a public character, he is +the head of the family, or, as it may be, the main from which all the +other little branches are turned on, they still wish him dead all the +while, and get low-spirited every time they see him looking in good +health, because they want to come into his little property. You see +that?’ + +‘Oh yes,’ replied Nicholas: ‘it’s very true, no doubt.’ + +‘The great reason for not being married,’ resumed Mr. Lillyvick, ‘is the +expense; that’s what’s kept me off, or else--Lord!’ said Mr. Lillyvick, +snapping his fingers, ‘I might have had fifty women.’ + +‘Fine women?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Fine women, sir!’ replied the collector; ‘ay! not so fine as Henrietta +Petowker, for she is an uncommon specimen, but such women as don’t +fall into every man’s way, I can tell you. Now suppose a man can get a +fortune IN a wife instead of with her--eh?’ + +‘Why, then, he’s a lucky fellow,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘That’s what I say,’ retorted the collector, patting him benignantly +on the side of the head with his umbrella; ‘just what I say. Henrietta +Petowker, the talented Henrietta Petowker has a fortune in herself, and +I am going to--’ + +‘To make her Mrs. Lillyvick?’ suggested Nicholas. + +‘No, sir, not to make her Mrs. Lillyvick,’ replied the collector. +‘Actresses, sir, always keep their maiden names--that’s the regular +thing--but I’m going to marry her; and the day after tomorrow, too.’ + +‘I congratulate you, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Thank you, sir,’ replied the collector, buttoning his waistcoat. ‘I +shall draw her salary, of course, and I hope after all that it’s nearly +as cheap to keep two as it is to keep one; that’s a consolation.’ + +‘Surely you don’t want any consolation at such a moment?’ observed +Nicholas. + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, shaking his head nervously: ‘no--of course +not.’ + +‘But how come you both here, if you’re going to be married, Mr +Lillyvick?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Why, that’s what I came to explain to you,’ replied the collector of +water-rate. ‘The fact is, we have thought it best to keep it secret from +the family.’ + +‘Family!’ said Nicholas. ‘What family?’ + +‘The Kenwigses of course,’ rejoined Mr. Lillyvick. ‘If my niece and the +children had known a word about it before I came away, they’d have gone +into fits at my feet, and never have come out of ‘em till I took an oath +not to marry anybody--or they’d have got out a commission of lunacy, or +some dreadful thing,’ said the collector, quite trembling as he spoke. + +‘To be sure,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes; they would have been jealous, no +doubt.’ + +‘To prevent which,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, ‘Henrietta Petowker (it +was settled between us) should come down here to her friends, the +Crummleses, under pretence of this engagement, and I should go down to +Guildford the day before, and join her on the coach there, which I did, +and we came down from Guildford yesterday together. Now, for fear you +should be writing to Mr. Noggs, and might say anything about us, we have +thought it best to let you into the secret. We shall be married from the +Crummleses’ lodgings, and shall be delighted to see you--either before +church or at breakfast-time, which you like. It won’t be expensive, +you know,’ said the collector, highly anxious to prevent any +misunderstanding on this point; ‘just muffins and coffee, with perhaps a +shrimp or something of that sort for a relish, you know.’ + +‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Oh, I shall be most +happy to come; it will give me the greatest pleasure. Where’s the lady +stopping--with Mrs. Crummles?’ + +‘Why, no,’ said the collector; ‘they couldn’t very well dispose of +her at night, and so she is staying with an acquaintance of hers, and +another young lady; they both belong to the theatre.’ + +‘Miss Snevellicci, I suppose?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Yes, that’s the name.’ + +‘And they’ll be bridesmaids, I presume?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Why,’ said the collector, with a rueful face, ‘they WILL have four +bridesmaids; I’m afraid they’ll make it rather theatrical.’ + +‘Oh no, not at all,’ replied Nicholas, with an awkward attempt to +convert a laugh into a cough. ‘Who may the four be? Miss Snevellicci of +course--Miss Ledrook--’ + +‘The--the phenomenon,’ groaned the collector. + +‘Ha, ha!’ cried Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon, I don’t know what I’m +laughing at--yes, that’ll be very pretty--the phenomenon--who else?’ + +‘Some young woman or other,’ replied the collector, rising; ‘some other +friend of Henrietta Petowker’s. Well, you’ll be careful not to say +anything about it, will you?’ + +‘You may safely depend upon me,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Won’t you take +anything to eat or drink?’ + +‘No,’ said the collector; ‘I haven’t any appetite. I should think it was +a very pleasant life, the married one, eh?’ + +‘I have not the least doubt of it,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Yes,’ said the collector; ‘certainly. Oh yes. No doubt. Good night.’ + +With these words, Mr. Lillyvick, whose manner had exhibited through the +whole of this interview a most extraordinary compound of precipitation, +hesitation, confidence and doubt, fondness, misgiving, meanness, and +self-importance, turned his back upon the room, and left Nicholas to +enjoy a laugh by himself if he felt so disposed. + +Without stopping to inquire whether the intervening day appeared to +Nicholas to consist of the usual number of hours of the ordinary length, +it may be remarked that, to the parties more directly interested in the +forthcoming ceremony, it passed with great rapidity, insomuch that when +Miss Petowker awoke on the succeeding morning in the chamber of Miss +Snevellicci, she declared that nothing should ever persuade her that +that really was the day which was to behold a change in her condition. + +‘I never will believe it,’ said Miss Petowker; ‘I cannot really. It’s +of no use talking, I never can make up my mind to go through with such a +trial!’ + +On hearing this, Miss Snevellicci and Miss Ledrook, who knew perfectly +well that their fair friend’s mind had been made up for three or four +years, at any period of which time she would have cheerfully undergone +the desperate trial now approaching if she could have found any +eligible gentleman disposed for the venture, began to preach comfort and +firmness, and to say how very proud she ought to feel that it was in her +power to confer lasting bliss on a deserving object, and how necessary +it was for the happiness of mankind in general that women should possess +fortitude and resignation on such occasions; and that although for their +parts they held true happiness to consist in a single life, which +they would not willingly exchange--no, not for any worldly +consideration--still (thank God), if ever the time SHOULD come, they +hoped they knew their duty too well to repine, but would the rather +submit with meekness and humility of spirit to a fate for which +Providence had clearly designed them with a view to the contentment and +reward of their fellow-creatures. + +‘I might feel it was a great blow,’ said Miss Snevellicci, ‘to break +up old associations and what-do-you-callems of that kind, but I would +submit, my dear, I would indeed.’ + +‘So would I,’ said Miss Ledrook; ‘I would rather court the yoke than +shun it. I have broken hearts before now, and I’m very sorry for it: for +it’s a terrible thing to reflect upon.’ + +‘It is indeed,’ said Miss Snevellicci. ‘Now Led, my dear, we must +positively get her ready, or we shall be too late, we shall indeed.’ + +This pious reasoning, and perhaps the fear of being too late, supported +the bride through the ceremony of robing, after which, strong tea and +brandy were administered in alternate doses as a means of strengthening +her feeble limbs and causing her to walk steadier. + +‘How do you feel now, my love?’ inquired Miss Snevellicci. + +‘Oh Lillyvick!’ cried the bride. ‘If you knew what I am undergoing for +you!’ + +‘Of course he knows it, love, and will never forget it,’ said Miss +Ledrook. + +‘Do you think he won’t?’ cried Miss Petowker, really showing great +capability for the stage. ‘Oh, do you think he won’t? Do you think +Lillyvick will always remember it--always, always, always?’ + +There is no knowing in what this burst of feeling might have ended, if +Miss Snevellicci had not at that moment proclaimed the arrival of the +fly, which so astounded the bride that she shook off divers alarming +symptoms which were coming on very strong, and running to the glass +adjusted her dress, and calmly declared that she was ready for the +sacrifice. + +She was accordingly supported into the coach, and there ‘kept up’ (as +Miss Snevellicci said) with perpetual sniffs of SAL VOLATILE and sips +of brandy and other gentle stimulants, until they reached the manager’s +door, which was already opened by the two Master Crummleses, who +wore white cockades, and were decorated with the choicest and most +resplendent waistcoats in the theatrical wardrobe. By the combined +exertions of these young gentlemen and the bridesmaids, assisted by the +coachman, Miss Petowker was at length supported in a condition of much +exhaustion to the first floor, where she no sooner encountered the +youthful bridegroom than she fainted with great decorum. + +‘Henrietta Petowker!’ said the collector; ‘cheer up, my lovely one.’ + +Miss Petowker grasped the collector’s hand, but emotion choked her +utterance. + +‘Is the sight of me so dreadful, Henrietta Petowker?’ said the +collector. + +‘Oh no, no, no,’ rejoined the bride; ‘but all the friends--the darling +friends--of my youthful days--to leave them all--it is such a shock!’ + +With such expressions of sorrow, Miss Petowker went on to enumerate the +dear friends of her youthful days one by one, and to call upon such of +them as were present to come and embrace her. This done, she remembered +that Mrs. Crummles had been more than a mother to her, and after that, +that Mr. Crummles had been more than a father to her, and after that, +that the Master Crummleses and Miss Ninetta Crummles had been more +than brothers and sisters to her. These various remembrances being each +accompanied with a series of hugs, occupied a long time, and they were +obliged to drive to church very fast, for fear they should be too late. + +The procession consisted of two flys; in the first of which were Miss +Bravassa (the fourth bridesmaid), Mrs. Crummles, the collector, and Mr +Folair, who had been chosen as his second on the occasion. In the other +were the bride, Mr. Crummles, Miss Snevellicci, Miss Ledrook, and the +phenomenon. The costumes were beautiful. The bridesmaids were quite +covered with artificial flowers, and the phenomenon, in particular, +was rendered almost invisible by the portable arbour in which she was +enshrined. Miss Ledrook, who was of a romantic turn, wore in her breast +the miniature of some field-officer unknown, which she had purchased, a +great bargain, not very long before; the other ladies displayed several +dazzling articles of imitative jewellery, almost equal to real, and Mrs +Crummles came out in a stern and gloomy majesty, which attracted the +admiration of all beholders. + +But, perhaps the appearance of Mr. Crummles was more striking and +appropriate than that of any member of the party. This gentleman, who +personated the bride’s father, had, in pursuance of a happy and original +conception, ‘made up’ for the part by arraying himself in a theatrical +wig, of a style and pattern commonly known as a brown George, and +moreover assuming a snuff-coloured suit, of the previous century, with +grey silk stockings, and buckles to his shoes. The better to support +his assumed character he had determined to be greatly overcome, and, +consequently, when they entered the church, the sobs of the affectionate +parent were so heart-rending that the pew-opener suggested the propriety +of his retiring to the vestry, and comforting himself with a glass of +water before the ceremony began. + +The procession up the aisle was beautiful. The bride, with the four +bridesmaids, forming a group previously arranged and rehearsed; the +collector, followed by his second, imitating his walk and gestures to +the indescribable amusement of some theatrical friends in the gallery; +Mr. Crummles, with an infirm and feeble gait; Mrs. Crummles advancing with +that stage walk, which consists of a stride and a stop alternately--it +was the completest thing ever witnessed. The ceremony was very quickly +disposed of, and all parties present having signed the register (for +which purpose, when it came to his turn, Mr. Crummles carefully wiped and +put on an immense pair of spectacles), they went back to breakfast in +high spirits. And here they found Nicholas awaiting their arrival. + +‘Now then,’ said Crummles, who had been assisting Mrs. Grudden in the +preparations, which were on a more extensive scale than was quite +agreeable to the collector. ‘Breakfast, breakfast.’ + +No second invitation was required. The company crowded and squeezed +themselves at the table as well as they could, and fell to, immediately: +Miss Petowker blushing very much when anybody was looking, and eating +very much when anybody was NOT looking; and Mr. Lillyvick going to work +as though with the cool resolve, that since the good things must be paid +for by him, he would leave as little as possible for the Crummleses to +eat up afterwards. + +‘It’s very soon done, sir, isn’t it?’ inquired Mr. Folair of the +collector, leaning over the table to address him. + +‘What is soon done, sir?’ returned Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘The tying up--the fixing oneself with a wife,’ replied Mr. Folair. ‘It +don’t take long, does it?’ + +‘No, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, colouring. ‘It does not take long. And +what then, sir?’ + +‘Oh! nothing,’ said the actor. ‘It don’t take a man long to hang +himself, either, eh? ha, ha!’ + +Mr. Lillyvick laid down his knife and fork, and looked round the table +with indignant astonishment. + +‘To hang himself!’ repeated Mr. Lillyvick. + +A profound silence came upon all, for Mr. Lillyvick was dignified beyond +expression. + +‘To hang himself!’ cried Mr. Lillyvick again. ‘Is any parallel attempted +to be drawn in this company between matrimony and hanging?’ + +‘The noose, you know,’ said Mr. Folair, a little crest-fallen. + +‘The noose, sir?’ retorted Mr. Lillyvick. ‘Does any man dare to speak to +me of a noose, and Henrietta Pe--’ + +‘Lillyvick,’ suggested Mr. Crummles. + +‘--And Henrietta Lillyvick in the same breath?’ said the collector. ‘In +this house, in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Crummles, who have brought +up a talented and virtuous family, to be blessings and phenomenons, and +what not, are we to hear talk of nooses?’ + +‘Folair,’ said Mr. Crummles, deeming it a matter of decency to be +affected by this allusion to himself and partner, ‘I’m astonished at +you.’ + +‘What are you going on in this way at me for?’ urged the unfortunate +actor. ‘What have I done?’ + +‘Done, sir!’ cried Mr. Lillyvick, ‘aimed a blow at the whole framework of +society--’ + +‘And the best and tenderest feelings,’ added Crummles, relapsing into +the old man. + +‘And the highest and most estimable of social ties,’ said the collector. +‘Noose! As if one was caught, trapped into the married state, pinned by +the leg, instead of going into it of one’s own accord and glorying in +the act!’ + +‘I didn’t mean to make it out, that you were caught and trapped, and +pinned by the leg,’ replied the actor. ‘I’m sorry for it; I can’t say +any more.’ + +‘So you ought to be, sir,’ returned Mr. Lillyvick; ‘and I am glad to hear +that you have enough of feeling left to be so.’ + +The quarrel appearing to terminate with this reply, Mrs. Lillyvick +considered that the fittest occasion (the attention of the company being +no longer distracted) to burst into tears, and require the assistance of +all four bridesmaids, which was immediately rendered, though not without +some confusion, for the room being small and the table-cloth long, a +whole detachment of plates were swept off the board at the very first +move. Regardless of this circumstance, however, Mrs. Lillyvick refused +to be comforted until the belligerents had passed their words that the +dispute should be carried no further, which, after a sufficient show of +reluctance, they did, and from that time Mr. Folair sat in moody silence, +contenting himself with pinching Nicholas’s leg when anything was said, +and so expressing his contempt both for the speaker and the sentiments +to which he gave utterance. + +There were a great number of speeches made; some by Nicholas, and some +by Crummles, and some by the collector; two by the Master Crummleses in +returning thanks for themselves, and one by the phenomenon on behalf +of the bridesmaids, at which Mrs. Crummles shed tears. There was some +singing, too, from Miss Ledrook and Miss Bravassa, and very likely there +might have been more, if the fly-driver, who stopped to drive the happy +pair to the spot where they proposed to take steamboat to Ryde, had +not sent in a peremptory message intimating, that if they didn’t come +directly he should infallibly demand eighteen-pence over and above his +agreement. + +This desperate threat effectually broke up the party. After a most +pathetic leave-taking, Mr. Lillyvick and his bride departed for Ryde, +where they were to spend the next two days in profound retirement, and +whither they were accompanied by the infant, who had been appointed +travelling bridesmaid on Mr. Lillyvick’s express stipulation: as the +steamboat people, deceived by her size, would (he had previously +ascertained) transport her at half-price. + +As there was no performance that night, Mr. Crummles declared his +intention of keeping it up till everything to drink was disposed of; but +Nicholas having to play Romeo for the first time on the ensuing evening, +contrived to slip away in the midst of a temporary confusion, occasioned +by the unexpected development of strong symptoms of inebriety in the +conduct of Mrs. Grudden. + +To this act of desertion he was led, not only by his own inclinations, +but by his anxiety on account of Smike, who, having to sustain the +character of the Apothecary, had been as yet wholly unable to get any +more of the part into his head than the general idea that he was very +hungry, which--perhaps from old recollections--he had acquired with +great aptitude. + +‘I don’t know what’s to be done, Smike,’ said Nicholas, laying down the +book. ‘I am afraid you can’t learn it, my poor fellow.’ + +‘I am afraid not,’ said Smike, shaking his head. ‘I think if you--but +that would give you so much trouble.’ + +‘What?’ inquired Nicholas. ‘Never mind me.’ + +‘I think,’ said Smike, ‘if you were to keep saying it to me in little +bits, over and over again, I should be able to recollect it from hearing +you.’ + +‘Do you think so?’ exclaimed Nicholas. ‘Well said. Let us see who tires +first. Not I, Smike, trust me. Now then. Who calls so loud?’ + +‘“Who calls so loud?”’ said Smike. + +‘“Who calls so loud?”’ repeated Nicholas. + +‘“Who calls so loud?”’ cried Smike. + +Thus they continued to ask each other who called so loud, over and +over again; and when Smike had that by heart Nicholas went to another +sentence, and then to two at a time, and then to three, and so on, until +at midnight poor Smike found to his unspeakable joy that he really began +to remember something about the text. + +Early in the morning they went to it again, and Smike, rendered more +confident by the progress he had already made, got on faster and with +better heart. As soon as he began to acquire the words pretty freely, +Nicholas showed him how he must come in with both hands spread out upon +his stomach, and how he must occasionally rub it, in compliance with the +established form by which people on the stage always denote that they +want something to eat. After the morning’s rehearsal they went to work +again, nor did they stop, except for a hasty dinner, until it was time +to repair to the theatre at night. + +Never had master a more anxious, humble, docile pupil. Never had pupil a +more patient, unwearying, considerate, kindhearted master. + +As soon as they were dressed, and at every interval when he was not upon +the stage, Nicholas renewed his instructions. They prospered well. The +Romeo was received with hearty plaudits and unbounded favour, and Smike +was pronounced unanimously, alike by audience and actors, the very +prince and prodigy of Apothecaries. + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +Is fraught with some Danger to Miss Nickleby’s Peace of Mind + + +The place was a handsome suite of private apartments in Regent Street; +the time was three o’clock in the afternoon to the dull and plodding, +and the first hour of morning to the gay and spirited; the persons were +Lord Frederick Verisopht, and his friend Sir Mulberry Hawk. + +These distinguished gentlemen were reclining listlessly on a couple +of sofas, with a table between them, on which were scattered in rich +confusion the materials of an untasted breakfast. Newspapers lay strewn +about the room, but these, like the meal, were neglected and unnoticed; +not, however, because any flow of conversation prevented the attractions +of the journals from being called into request, for not a word was +exchanged between the two, nor was any sound uttered, save when one, +in tossing about to find an easier resting-place for his aching head, +uttered an exclamation of impatience, and seemed for a moment to +communicate a new restlessness to his companion. + +These appearances would in themselves have furnished a pretty strong +clue to the extent of the debauch of the previous night, even if there +had not been other indications of the amusements in which it had been +passed. A couple of billiard balls, all mud and dirt, two battered hats, +a champagne bottle with a soiled glove twisted round the neck, to allow +of its being grasped more surely in its capacity of an offensive +weapon; a broken cane; a card-case without the top; an empty purse; a +watch-guard snapped asunder; a handful of silver, mingled with fragments +of half-smoked cigars, and their stale and crumbled ashes;--these, and +many other tokens of riot and disorder, hinted very intelligibly at the +nature of last night’s gentlemanly frolics. + +Lord Frederick Verisopht was the first to speak. Dropping his slippered +foot on the ground, and, yawning heavily, he struggled into a sitting +posture, and turned his dull languid eyes towards his friend, to whom he +called in a drowsy voice. + +‘Hallo!’ replied Sir Mulberry, turning round. + +‘Are we going to lie here all da-a-y?’ said the lord. + +‘I don’t know that we’re fit for anything else,’ replied Sir Mulberry; +‘yet awhile, at least. I haven’t a grain of life in me this morning.’ + +‘Life!’ cried Lord Verisopht. ‘I feel as if there would be nothing so +snug and comfortable as to die at once.’ + +‘Then why don’t you die?’ said Sir Mulberry. + +With which inquiry he turned his face away, and seemed to occupy himself +in an attempt to fall asleep. + +His hopeful friend and pupil drew a chair to the breakfast-table, and +essayed to eat; but, finding that impossible, lounged to the window, +then loitered up and down the room with his hand to his fevered head, +and finally threw himself again on his sofa, and roused his friend once +more. + +‘What the devil’s the matter?’ groaned Sir Mulberry, sitting upright on +the couch. + +Although Sir Mulberry said this with sufficient ill-humour, he did +not seem to feel himself quite at liberty to remain silent; for, after +stretching himself very often, and declaring with a shiver that it +was ‘infernal cold,’ he made an experiment at the breakfast-table, and +proving more successful in it than his less-seasoned friend, remained +there. + +‘Suppose,’ said Sir Mulberry, pausing with a morsel on the point of his +fork, ‘suppose we go back to the subject of little Nickleby, eh?’ + +‘Which little Nickleby; the money-lender or the ga-a-l?’ asked Lord +Verisopht. + +‘You take me, I see,’ replied Sir Mulberry. ‘The girl, of course.’ + +‘You promised me you’d find her out,’ said Lord Verisopht. + +‘So I did,’ rejoined his friend; ‘but I have thought further of the +matter since then. You distrust me in the business--you shall find her +out yourself.’ + +‘Na-ay,’ remonstrated Lord Verisopht. + +‘But I say yes,’ returned his friend. ‘You shall find her out yourself. +Don’t think that I mean, when you can--I know as well as you that if I +did, you could never get sight of her without me. No. I say you shall +find her out--SHALL--and I’ll put you in the way.’ + +‘Now, curse me, if you ain’t a real, deyvlish, downright, thorough-paced +friend,’ said the young lord, on whom this speech had produced a most +reviving effect. + +‘I’ll tell you how,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘She was at that dinner as a +bait for you.’ + +‘No!’ cried the young lord. ‘What the dey--’ + +‘As a bait for you,’ repeated his friend; ‘old Nickleby told me so +himself.’ + +‘What a fine old cock it is!’ exclaimed Lord Verisopht; ‘a noble +rascal!’ + +‘Yes,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘he knew she was a smart little creature--’ + +‘Smart!’ interposed the young lord. ‘Upon my soul, Hawk, she’s a perfect +beauty--a--a picture, a statue, a--a--upon my soul she is!’ + +‘Well,’ replied Sir Mulberry, shrugging his shoulders and manifesting an +indifference, whether he felt it or not; ‘that’s a matter of taste; if +mine doesn’t agree with yours, so much the better.’ + +‘Confound it!’ reasoned the lord, ‘you were thick enough with her that +day, anyhow. I could hardly get in a word.’ + +‘Well enough for once, well enough for once,’ replied Sir Mulberry; ‘but +not worth the trouble of being agreeable to again. If you seriously +want to follow up the niece, tell the uncle that you must know where she +lives and how she lives, and with whom, or you are no longer a customer +of his. He’ll tell you fast enough.’ + +‘Why didn’t you say this before?’ asked Lord Verisopht, ‘instead of +letting me go on burning, consuming, dragging out a miserable existence +for an a-age!’ + +‘I didn’t know it, in the first place,’ answered Sir Mulberry +carelessly; ‘and in the second, I didn’t believe you were so very much +in earnest.’ + +Now, the truth was, that in the interval which had elapsed since the +dinner at Ralph Nickleby’s, Sir Mulberry Hawk had been furtively trying +by every means in his power to discover whence Kate had so suddenly +appeared, and whither she had disappeared. Unassisted by Ralph, however, +with whom he had held no communication since their angry parting on that +occasion, all his efforts were wholly unavailing, and he had therefore +arrived at the determination of communicating to the young lord the +substance of the admission he had gleaned from that worthy. To this he +was impelled by various considerations; among which the certainty of +knowing whatever the weak young man knew was decidedly not the least, +as the desire of encountering the usurer’s niece again, and using his +utmost arts to reduce her pride, and revenge himself for her contempt, +was uppermost in his thoughts. It was a politic course of proceeding, +and one which could not fail to redound to his advantage in every point +of view, since the very circumstance of his having extorted from Ralph +Nickleby his real design in introducing his niece to such society, +coupled with his extreme disinterestedness in communicating it so freely +to his friend, could not but advance his interests in that quarter, +and greatly facilitate the passage of coin (pretty frequent and speedy +already) from the pockets of Lord Frederick Verisopht to those of Sir +Mulberry Hawk. + +Thus reasoned Sir Mulberry, and in pursuance of this reasoning he +and his friend soon afterwards repaired to Ralph Nickleby’s, there to +execute a plan of operations concerted by Sir Mulberry himself, avowedly +to promote his friend’s object, and really to attain his own. + +They found Ralph at home, and alone. As he led them into the +drawing-room, the recollection of the scene which had taken place there +seemed to occur to him, for he cast a curious look at Sir Mulberry, who +bestowed upon it no other acknowledgment than a careless smile. + +They had a short conference upon some money matters then in progress, +which were scarcely disposed of when the lordly dupe (in pursuance of +his friend’s instructions) requested with some embarrassment to speak to +Ralph alone. + +‘Alone, eh?’ cried Sir Mulberry, affecting surprise. ‘Oh, very good. +I’ll walk into the next room here. Don’t keep me long, that’s all.’ + +So saying, Sir Mulberry took up his hat, and humming a fragment of +a song disappeared through the door of communication between the two +drawing-rooms, and closed it after him. + +‘Now, my lord,’ said Ralph, ‘what is it?’ + +‘Nickleby,’ said his client, throwing himself along the sofa on which +he had been previously seated, so as to bring his lips nearer to the old +man’s ear, ‘what a pretty creature your niece is!’ + +‘Is she, my lord?’ replied Ralph. ‘Maybe--maybe--I don’t trouble my head +with such matters.’ + +‘You know she’s a deyvlish fine girl,’ said the client. ‘You must know +that, Nickleby. Come, don’t deny that.’ + +‘Yes, I believe she is considered so,’ replied Ralph. ‘Indeed, I know +she is. If I did not, you are an authority on such points, and your +taste, my lord--on all points, indeed--is undeniable.’ + +Nobody but the young man to whom these words were addressed could have +been deaf to the sneering tone in which they were spoken, or blind to +the look of contempt by which they were accompanied. But Lord Frederick +Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary. + +‘Well,’ he said, ‘p’raps you’re a little right, and p’raps you’re a +little wrong--a little of both, Nickleby. I want to know where this +beauty lives, that I may have another peep at her, Nickleby.’ + +‘Really--’ Ralph began in his usual tones. + +‘Don’t talk so loud,’ cried the other, achieving the great point of his +lesson to a miracle. ‘I don’t want Hawk to hear.’ + +‘You know he is your rival, do you?’ said Ralph, looking sharply at him. + +‘He always is, d-a-amn him,’ replied the client; ‘and I want to steal +a march upon him. Ha, ha, ha! He’ll cut up so rough, Nickleby, at our +talking together without him. Where does she live, Nickleby, that’s all? +Only tell me where she lives, Nickleby.’ + +‘He bites,’ thought Ralph. ‘He bites.’ + +‘Eh, Nickleby, eh?’ pursued the client. ‘Where does she live?’ + +‘Really, my lord,’ said Ralph, rubbing his hands slowly over each other, +‘I must think before I tell you.’ + +‘No, not a bit of it, Nickleby; you mustn’t think at all,’ replied +Verisopht. ‘Where is it?’ + +‘No good can come of your knowing,’ replied Ralph. ‘She has been +virtuously and well brought up; to be sure she is handsome, poor, +unprotected! Poor girl, poor girl.’ + +Ralph ran over this brief summary of Kate’s condition as if it were +merely passing through his own mind, and he had no intention to speak +aloud; but the shrewd sly look which he directed at his companion as he +delivered it, gave this poor assumption the lie. + +‘I tell you I only want to see her,’ cried his client. ‘A ma-an may look +at a pretty woman without harm, mayn’t he? Now, where DOES she live? +You know you’re making a fortune out of me, Nickleby, and upon my soul +nobody shall ever take me to anybody else, if you only tell me this.’ + +‘As you promise that, my lord,’ said Ralph, with feigned reluctance, +‘and as I am most anxious to oblige you, and as there’s no harm in +it--no harm--I’ll tell you. But you had better keep it to yourself, my +lord; strictly to yourself.’ Ralph pointed to the adjoining room as he +spoke, and nodded expressively. + +The young lord, feigning to be equally impressed with the necessity of +this precaution, Ralph disclosed the present address and occupation of +his niece, observing that from what he heard of the family they appeared +very ambitious to have distinguished acquaintances, and that a lord +could, doubtless, introduce himself with great ease, if he felt +disposed. + +‘Your object being only to see her again,’ said Ralph, ‘you could effect +it at any time you chose by that means.’ + +Lord Verisopht acknowledged the hint with a great many squeezes of +Ralph’s hard, horny hand, and whispering that they would now do well to +close the conversation, called to Sir Mulberry Hawk that he might come +back. + +‘I thought you had gone to sleep,’ said Sir Mulberry, reappearing with +an ill-tempered air. + +‘Sorry to detain you,’ replied the gull; ‘but Nickleby has been so +ama-azingly funny that I couldn’t tear myself away.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Ralph; ‘it was all his lordship. You know what a witty, +humorous, elegant, accomplished man Lord Frederick is. Mind the step, my +lord--Sir Mulberry, pray give way.’ + +With such courtesies as these, and many low bows, and the same cold +sneer upon his face all the while, Ralph busied himself in showing his +visitors downstairs, and otherwise than by the slightest possible motion +about the corners of his mouth, returned no show of answer to the look +of admiration with which Sir Mulberry Hawk seemed to compliment him on +being such an accomplished and most consummate scoundrel. + +There had been a ring at the bell a few minutes before, which was +answered by Newman Noggs just as they reached the hall. In the ordinary +course of business Newman would have either admitted the new-comer in +silence, or have requested him or her to stand aside while the gentlemen +passed out. But he no sooner saw who it was, than as if for some private +reason of his own, he boldly departed from the established custom of +Ralph’s mansion in business hours, and looking towards the respectable +trio who were approaching, cried in a loud and sonorous voice, ‘Mrs +Nickleby!’ + +‘Mrs. Nickleby!’ cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, as his friend looked back, and +stared him in the face. + +It was, indeed, that well-intentioned lady, who, having received an +offer for the empty house in the city directed to the landlord, had +brought it post-haste to Mr. Nickleby without delay. + +‘Nobody YOU know,’ said Ralph. ‘Step into the office, my--my--dear. I’ll +be with you directly.’ + +‘Nobody I know!’ cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, advancing to the astonished +lady. ‘Is this Mrs. Nickleby--the mother of Miss Nickleby--the delightful +creature that I had the happiness of meeting in this house the very last +time I dined here? But no;’ said Sir Mulberry, stopping short. ‘No, it +can’t be. There is the same cast of features, the same indescribable air +of--But no; no. This lady is too young for that.’ + +‘I think you can tell the gentleman, brother-in-law, if it concerns +him to know,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, acknowledging the compliment with a +graceful bend, ‘that Kate Nickleby is my daughter.’ + +‘Her daughter, my lord!’ cried Sir Mulberry, turning to his friend. +‘This lady’s daughter, my lord.’ + +‘My lord!’ thought Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Well, I never did--’ + +‘This, then, my lord,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘is the lady to whose obliging +marriage we owe so much happiness. This lady is the mother of sweet +Miss Nickleby. Do you observe the extraordinary likeness, my lord? +Nickleby--introduce us.’ + +Ralph did so, in a kind of desperation. + +‘Upon my soul, it’s a most delightful thing,’ said Lord Frederick, +pressing forward. ‘How de do?’ + +Mrs. Nickleby was too much flurried by these uncommonly kind salutations, +and her regrets at not having on her other bonnet, to make any immediate +reply, so she merely continued to bend and smile, and betray great +agitation. + +‘A--and how is Miss Nickleby?’ said Lord Frederick. ‘Well, I hope?’ + +‘She is quite well, I’m obliged to you, my lord,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, +recovering. ‘Quite well. She wasn’t well for some days after that day +she dined here, and I can’t help thinking, that she caught cold in that +hackney coach coming home. Hackney coaches, my lord, are such nasty +things, that it’s almost better to walk at any time, for although I +believe a hackney coachman can be transported for life, if he has a +broken window, still they are so reckless, that they nearly all have +broken windows. I once had a swelled face for six weeks, my lord, from +riding in a hackney coach--I think it was a hackney coach,’ said Mrs +Nickleby reflecting, ‘though I’m not quite certain whether it wasn’t +a chariot; at all events I know it was a dark green, with a very long +number, beginning with a nought and ending with a nine--no, beginning +with a nine, and ending with a nought, that was it, and of course the +stamp-office people would know at once whether it was a coach or a +chariot if any inquiries were made there--however that was, there it +was with a broken window and there was I for six weeks with a swelled +face--I think that was the very same hackney coach, that we found out +afterwards, had the top open all the time, and we should never even have +known it, if they hadn’t charged us a shilling an hour extra for having +it open, which it seems is the law, or was then, and a most shameful law +it appears to be--I don’t understand the subject, but I should say the +Corn Laws could be nothing to THAT act of Parliament.’ + +Having pretty well run herself out by this time, Mrs. Nickleby stopped as +suddenly as she had started off; and repeated that Kate was quite well. +‘Indeed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I don’t think she ever was better, since +she had the hooping-cough, scarlet-fever, and measles, all at the same +time, and that’s the fact.’ + +‘Is that letter for me?’ growled Ralph, pointing to the little packet +Mrs. Nickleby held in her hand. + +‘For you, brother-in-law,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, ‘and I walked all the +way up here on purpose to give it you.’ + +‘All the way up here!’ cried Sir Mulberry, seizing upon the chance +of discovering where Mrs. Nickleby had come from. ‘What a confounded +distance! How far do you call it now?’ + +‘How far do I call it?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Let me see. It’s just a mile +from our door to the Old Bailey.’ + +‘No, no. Not so much as that,’ urged Sir Mulberry. + +‘Oh! It is indeed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I appeal to his lordship.’ + +‘I should decidedly say it was a mile,’ remarked Lord Frederick, with a +solemn aspect. + +‘It must be; it can’t be a yard less,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘All down +Newgate Street, all down Cheapside, all up Lombard Street, down +Gracechurch Street, and along Thames Street, as far as Spigwiffin’s +Wharf. Oh! It’s a mile.’ + +‘Yes, on second thoughts I should say it was,’ replied Sir Mulberry. +‘But you don’t surely mean to walk all the way back?’ + +‘Oh, no,’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I shall go back in an omnibus. I +didn’t travel about in omnibuses, when my poor dear Nicholas was alive, +brother-in-law. But as it is, you know--’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ replied Ralph impatiently, ‘and you had better get back +before dark.’ + +‘Thank you, brother-in-law, so I had,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I think I +had better say goodbye, at once.’ + +‘Not stop and--rest?’ said Ralph, who seldom offered refreshments unless +something was to be got by it. + +‘Oh dear me no,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, glancing at the dial. + +‘Lord Frederick,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘we are going Mrs. Nickleby’s way. +We’ll see her safe to the omnibus?’ + +‘By all means. Ye-es.’ + +‘Oh! I really couldn’t think of it!’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +But Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Verisopht were peremptory in their +politeness, and leaving Ralph, who seemed to think, not unwisely, that +he looked less ridiculous as a mere spectator, than he would have done +if he had taken any part in these proceedings, they quitted the house +with Mrs. Nickleby between them; that good lady in a perfect ecstasy +of satisfaction, no less with the attentions shown her by two titled +gentlemen, than with the conviction that Kate might now pick and choose, +at least between two large fortunes, and most unexceptionable husbands. + +As she was carried away for the moment by an irresistible train of +thought, all connected with her daughter’s future greatness, Sir +Mulberry Hawk and his friend exchanged glances over the top of the +bonnet which the poor lady so much regretted not having left at home, +and proceeded to dilate with great rapture, but much respect on the +manifold perfections of Miss Nickleby. + +‘What a delight, what a comfort, what a happiness, this amiable +creature must be to you,’ said Sir Mulberry, throwing into his voice an +indication of the warmest feeling. + +‘She is indeed, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby; ‘she is the +sweetest-tempered, kindest-hearted creature--and so clever!’ + +‘She looks clayver,’ said Lord Verisopht, with the air of a judge of +cleverness. + +‘I assure you she is, my lord,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby. ‘When she was +at school in Devonshire, she was universally allowed to be beyond all +exception the very cleverest girl there, and there were a great many +very clever ones too, and that’s the truth--twenty-five young ladies, +fifty guineas a year without the et-ceteras, both the Miss Dowdles the +most accomplished, elegant, fascinating creatures--Oh dear me!’ said Mrs +Nickleby, ‘I never shall forget what pleasure she used to give me +and her poor dear papa, when she was at that school, never--such a +delightful letter every half-year, telling us that she was the first +pupil in the whole establishment, and had made more progress than +anybody else! I can scarcely bear to think of it even now. The girls +wrote all the letters themselves,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, ‘and the +writing-master touched them up afterwards with a magnifying glass and +a silver pen; at least I think they wrote them, though Kate was never +quite certain about that, because she didn’t know the handwriting of +hers again; but anyway, I know it was a circular which they all copied, +and of course it was a very gratifying thing--very gratifying.’ + +With similar recollections Mrs. Nickleby beguiled the tediousness of the +way, until they reached the omnibus, which the extreme politeness of +her new friends would not allow them to leave until it actually started, +when they took their hats, as Mrs. Nickleby solemnly assured her hearers +on many subsequent occasions, ‘completely off,’ and kissed their +straw-coloured kid gloves till they were no longer visible. + +Mrs. Nickleby leant back in the furthest corner of the conveyance, +and, closing her eyes, resigned herself to a host of most pleasing +meditations. Kate had never said a word about having met either of +these gentlemen; ‘that,’ she thought, ‘argues that she is strongly +prepossessed in favour of one of them.’ Then the question arose, which +one could it be. The lord was the youngest, and his title was certainly +the grandest; still Kate was not the girl to be swayed by such +considerations as these. ‘I will never put any constraint upon her +inclinations,’ said Mrs. Nickleby to herself; ‘but upon my word I +think there’s no comparison between his lordship and Sir Mulberry--Sir +Mulberry is such an attentive gentlemanly creature, so much manner, +such a fine man, and has so much to say for himself. I hope it’s Sir +Mulberry--I think it must be Sir Mulberry!’ And then her thoughts flew +back to her old predictions, and the number of times she had said, that +Kate with no fortune would marry better than other people’s daughters +with thousands; and, as she pictured with the brightness of a mother’s +fancy all the beauty and grace of the poor girl who had struggled so +cheerfully with her new life of hardship and trial, her heart grew too +full, and the tears trickled down her face. + +Meanwhile, Ralph walked to and fro in his little back-office, troubled +in mind by what had just occurred. To say that Ralph loved or cared +for--in the most ordinary acceptation of those terms--any one of God’s +creatures, would be the wildest fiction. Still, there had somehow stolen +upon him from time to time a thought of his niece which was tinged +with compassion and pity; breaking through the dull cloud of dislike or +indifference which darkened men and women in his eyes, there was, in her +case, the faintest gleam of light--a most feeble and sickly ray at the +best of times--but there it was, and it showed the poor girl in a better +and purer aspect than any in which he had looked on human nature yet. + +‘I wish,’ thought Ralph, ‘I had never done this. And yet it will +keep this boy to me, while there is money to be made. Selling a +girl--throwing her in the way of temptation, and insult, and coarse +speech. Nearly two thousand pounds profit from him already though. +Pshaw! match-making mothers do the same thing every day.’ + +He sat down, and told the chances, for and against, on his fingers. + +‘If I had not put them in the right track today,’ thought Ralph, ‘this +foolish woman would have done so. Well. If her daughter is as true to +herself as she should be from what I have seen, what harm ensues? A +little teasing, a little humbling, a few tears. Yes,’ said Ralph, aloud, +as he locked his iron safe. ‘She must take her chance. She must take her +chance.’ + + + +CHAPTER 27 + +Mrs. Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, whose +Affection and Interest are beyond all Bounds + + +Mrs. Nickleby had not felt so proud and important for many a day, as +when, on reaching home, she gave herself wholly up to the pleasant +visions which had accompanied her on her way thither. Lady Mulberry +Hawk--that was the prevalent idea. Lady Mulberry Hawk!--On Tuesday last, +at St George’s, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop +of Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North Wales, to +Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby, Esquire, of +Devonshire. ‘Upon my word!’ cried Mrs. Nicholas Nickleby, ‘it sounds very +well.’ + +Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivities, to the +perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine mother pictured to +her imagination a long train of honours and distinctions which could +not fail to accompany Kate in her new and brilliant sphere. She would be +presented at court, of course. On the anniversary of her birthday, which +was upon the nineteenth of July [‘at ten minutes past three o’clock in +the morning,’ thought Mrs. Nickleby in a parenthesis, ‘for I recollect +asking what o’clock it was’), Sir Mulberry would give a great feast to +all his tenants, and would return them three and a half per cent on the +amount of their last half-year’s rent, as would be fully described and +recorded in the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight +and admiration of all the readers thereof. Kate’s picture, too, would be +in at least half-a-dozen of the annuals, and on the opposite page would +appear, in delicate type, ‘Lines on contemplating the Portrait of Lady +Mulberry Hawk. By Sir Dingleby Dabber.’ Perhaps some one annual, of more +comprehensive design than its fellows, might even contain a portrait +of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines by the father of Sir +Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come to pass. Less interesting +portraits had appeared. As this thought occurred to the good lady, her +countenance unconsciously assumed that compound expression of simpering +and sleepiness which, being common to all such portraits, is perhaps one +reason why they are always so charming and agreeable. + +With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs. Nickleby occupy +the whole evening after her accidental introduction to Ralph’s titled +friends; and dreams, no less prophetic and equally promising, haunted +her sleep that night. She was preparing for her frugal dinner next day, +still occupied with the same ideas--a little softened down perhaps by +sleep and daylight--when the girl who attended her, partly for company, +and partly to assist in the household affairs, rushed into the room in +unwonted agitation, and announced that two gentlemen were waiting in the +passage for permission to walk upstairs. + +‘Bless my heart!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, hastily arranging her cap and +front, ‘if it should be--dear me, standing in the passage all this +time--why don’t you go and ask them to walk up, you stupid thing?’ + +While the girl was gone on this errand, Mrs. Nickleby hastily swept into +a cupboard all vestiges of eating and drinking; which she had scarcely +done, and seated herself with looks as collected as she could assume, +when two gentlemen, both perfect strangers, presented themselves. + +‘How do you DO?’ said one gentleman, laying great stress on the last +word of the inquiry. + +‘HOW do you do?’ said the other gentleman, altering the emphasis, as if +to give variety to the salutation. + +Mrs. Nickleby curtseyed and smiled, and curtseyed again, and remarked, +rubbing her hands as she did so, that she hadn’t the--really--the honour +to-- + +‘To know us,’ said the first gentleman. ‘The loss has been ours, Mrs +Nickleby. Has the loss been ours, Pyke?’ + +‘It has, Pluck,’ answered the other gentleman. + +‘We have regretted it very often, I believe, Pyke?’ said the first +gentleman. + +‘Very often, Pluck,’ answered the second. + +‘But now,’ said the first gentleman, ‘now we have the happiness we +have pined and languished for. Have we pined and languished for this +happiness, Pyke, or have we not?’ + +‘You know we have, Pluck,’ said Pyke, reproachfully. + +‘You hear him, ma’am?’ said Mr. Pluck, looking round; ‘you hear +the unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke--that reminds +me,--formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilised +society. Pyke--Mrs. Nickleby.’ + +Mr. Pyke laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed low. + +‘Whether I shall introduce myself with the same formality,’ said Mr +Pluck--‘whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or whether +I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly introduced, is +competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs. Nickleby, that my name is +Pluck; whether I shall claim your acquaintance on the plain ground of +the strong interest I take in your welfare, or whether I shall make +myself known to you as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk--these, Mrs +Nickleby, are considerations which I leave to you to determine.’ + +‘Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk’s requires no better introduction to +me,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, graciously. + +‘It is delightful to hear you say so,’ said Mr. Pluck, drawing a chair +close to Mrs. Nickleby, and sitting himself down. ‘It is refreshing +to know that you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mulberry, in such high +esteem. A word in your ear, Mrs. Nickleby. When Sir Mulberry knows it, he +will be a happy man--I say, Mrs. Nickleby, a happy man. Pyke, be seated.’ + +‘MY good opinion,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, and the poor lady exulted in the +idea that she was marvellously sly,--‘my good opinion can be of very +little consequence to a gentleman like Sir Mulberry.’ + +‘Of little consequence!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck. ‘Pyke, of what consequence +to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is the good opinion of Mrs. Nickleby?’ + +‘Of what consequence?’ echoed Pyke. + +‘Ay,’ repeated Pluck; ‘is it of the greatest consequence?’ + +‘Of the very greatest consequence,’ replied Pyke. + +‘Mrs. Nickleby cannot be ignorant,’ said Mr. Pluck, ‘of the immense +impression which that sweet girl has--’ + +‘Pluck!’ said his friend, ‘beware!’ + +‘Pyke is right,’ muttered Mr. Pluck, after a short pause; ‘I was not to +mention it. Pyke is very right. Thank you, Pyke.’ + +‘Well now, really,’ thought Mrs. Nickleby within herself. ‘Such delicacy +as that, I never saw!’ + +Mr. Pluck, after feigning to be in a condition of great embarrassment +for some minutes, resumed the conversation by entreating Mrs. Nickleby +to take no heed of what he had inadvertently said--to consider him +imprudent, rash, injudicious. The only stipulation he would make in his +own favour was, that she should give him credit for the best intentions. + +‘But when,’ said Mr. Pluck, ‘when I see so much sweetness and beauty on +the one hand, and so much ardour and devotion on the other, I--pardon +me, Pyke, I didn’t intend to resume that theme. Change the subject, +Pyke.’ + +‘We promised Sir Mulberry and Lord Frederick,’ said Pyke, ‘that we’d +call this morning and inquire whether you took any cold last night.’ + +‘Not the least in the world last night, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, +‘with many thanks to his lordship and Sir Mulberry for doing me the +honour to inquire; not the least--which is the more singular, as I +really am very subject to colds, indeed--very subject. I had a cold +once,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I think it was in the year eighteen hundred +and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine, and--yes, eighteen +hundred and seventeen, that I thought I never should get rid of; +actually and seriously, that I thought I never should get rid of. I +was only cured at last by a remedy that I don’t know whether you ever +happened to hear of, Mr. Pluck. You have a gallon of water as hot as +you can possibly bear it, with a pound of salt, and sixpen’orth of the +finest bran, and sit with your head in it for twenty minutes every night +just before going to bed; at least, I don’t mean your head--your feet. +It’s a most extraordinary cure--a most extraordinary cure. I used it +for the first time, I recollect, the day after Christmas Day, and by the +middle of April following the cold was gone. It seems quite a miracle +when you come to think of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of +September.’ + +‘What an afflicting calamity!’ said Mr. Pyke. + +‘Perfectly horrid!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck. + +‘But it’s worth the pain of hearing, only to know that Mrs. Nickleby +recovered it, isn’t it, Pluck?’ cried Mr. Pyke. + +‘That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling interest,’ +replied Mr. Pluck. + +‘But come,’ said Pyke, as if suddenly recollecting himself; ‘we must +not forget our mission in the pleasure of this interview. We come on a +mission, Mrs. Nickleby.’ + +‘On a mission,’ exclaimed that good lady, to whose mind a definite +proposal of marriage for Kate at once presented itself in lively +colours. + +‘From Sir Mulberry,’ replied Pyke. ‘You must be very dull here.’ + +‘Rather dull, I confess,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘We bring the compliments of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand +entreaties that you’ll take a seat in a private box at the play +tonight,’ said Mr. Pluck. + +‘Oh dear!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I never go out at all, never.’ + +‘And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs. Nickleby, why you should go +out tonight,’ retorted Mr. Pluck. ‘Pyke, entreat Mrs. Nickleby.’ + +‘Oh, pray do,’ said Pyke. + +‘You positively must,’ urged Pluck. + +‘You are very kind,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, hesitating; ‘but--’ + +‘There’s not a but in the case, my dear Mrs. Nickleby,’ remonstrated Mr +Pluck; ‘not such a word in the vocabulary. Your brother-in-law joins us, +Lord Frederick joins us, Sir Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins us--a refusal +is out of the question. Sir Mulberry sends a carriage for you--twenty +minutes before seven to the moment--you’ll not be so cruel as to +disappoint the whole party, Mrs. Nickleby?’ + +‘You are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to say,’ replied +the worthy lady. + +‘Say nothing; not a word, not a word, my dearest madam,’ urged Mr. Pluck. +‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said that excellent gentleman, lowering his voice, +‘there is the most trifling, the most excusable breach of confidence +in what I am about to say; and yet if my friend Pyke there overheard +it--such is that man’s delicate sense of honour, Mrs. Nickleby--he’d have +me out before dinner-time.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike Pyke, who had +walked to the window; and Mr. Pluck, squeezing her hand, went on: + +‘Your daughter has made a conquest--a conquest on which I may +congratulate you. Sir Mulberry, my dear ma’am, Sir Mulberry is her +devoted slave. Hem!’ + +‘Hah!’ cried Mr. Pyke at this juncture, snatching something from the +chimney-piece with a theatrical air. ‘What is this! what do I behold!’ + +‘What DO you behold, my dear fellow?’ asked Mr. Pluck. + +‘It is the face, the countenance, the expression,’ cried Mr. Pyke, +falling into his chair with a miniature in his hand; ‘feebly +portrayed, imperfectly caught, but still THE face, THE countenance, THE +expression.’ + +‘I recognise it at this distance!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck in a fit of +enthusiasm. ‘Is it not, my dear madam, the faint similitude of--’ + +‘It is my daughter’s portrait,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with great pride. And +so it was. And little Miss La Creevy had brought it home for inspection +only two nights before. + +Mr. Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his conjecture, +than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of the divine +original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the picture a +thousand times, while Mr. Pluck pressed Mrs. Nickleby’s hand to his heart, +and congratulated her on the possession of such a daughter, with so much +earnestness and affection, that the tears stood, or seemed to stand, +in his eyes. Poor Mrs. Nickleby, who had listened in a state of enviable +complacency at first, became at length quite overpowered by these tokens +of regard for, and attachment to, the family; and even the servant +girl, who had peeped in at the door, remained rooted to the spot in +astonishment at the ecstasies of the two friendly visitors. + +By degrees these raptures subsided, and Mrs. Nickleby went on to +entertain her guests with a lament over her fallen fortunes, and a +picturesque account of her old house in the country: comprising a full +description of the different apartments, not forgetting the little +store-room, and a lively recollection of how many steps you went down to +get into the garden, and which way you turned when you came out at the +parlour door, and what capital fixtures there were in the kitchen. This +last reflection naturally conducted her into the wash-house, where she +stumbled upon the brewing utensils, among which she might have wandered +for an hour, if the mere mention of those implements had not, by an +association of ideas, instantly reminded Mr. Pyke that he was ‘amazing +thirsty.’ + +‘And I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Pyke; ‘if you’ll send round to the +public-house for a pot of milk half-and-half, positively and actually +I’ll drink it.’ + +And positively and actually Mr. Pyke DID drink it, and Mr. Pluck +helped him, while Mrs. Nickleby looked on in divided admiration of the +condescension of the two, and the aptitude with which they accommodated +themselves to the pewter-pot; in explanation of which seeming marvel it +may be here observed, that gentlemen who, like Messrs Pyke and Pluck, +live upon their wits (or not so much, perhaps, upon the presence +of their own wits as upon the absence of wits in other people) are +occasionally reduced to very narrow shifts and straits, and are at such +periods accustomed to regale themselves in a very simple and primitive +manner. + +‘At twenty minutes before seven, then,’ said Mr. Pyke, rising, ‘the coach +will be here. One more look--one little look--at that sweet face. Ah! +here it is. Unmoved, unchanged!’ This, by the way, was a very +remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many changes of +expression--‘Oh, Pluck! Pluck!’ + +Mr. Pluck made no other reply than kissing Mrs. Nickleby’s hand with a +great show of feeling and attachment; Mr. Pyke having done the same, both +gentlemen hastily withdrew. + +Mrs. Nickleby was commonly in the habit of giving herself credit for a +pretty tolerable share of penetration and acuteness, but she had never +felt so satisfied with her own sharp-sightedness as she did that day. +She had found it all out the night before. She had never seen Sir +Mulberry and Kate together--never even heard Sir Mulberry’s name--and +yet hadn’t she said to herself from the very first, that she saw how the +case stood? and what a triumph it was, for there was now no doubt +about it. If these flattering attentions to herself were not sufficient +proofs, Sir Mulberry’s confidential friend had suffered the secret +to escape him in so many words. ‘I am quite in love with that dear Mr +Pluck, I declare I am,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst of this good +fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom she could confide +it. Once or twice she almost resolved to walk straight to Miss La +Creevy’s and tell it all to her. ‘But I don’t know,’ thought Mrs +Nickleby; ‘she is a very worthy person, but I am afraid too much beneath +Sir Mulberry’s station for us to make a companion of. Poor thing!’ +Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected the idea of taking the +little portrait painter into her confidence, and contented herself +with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes of preferment to the +servant girl, who received these obscure hints of dawning greatness with +much veneration and respect. + +Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney +coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman, whose legs, +although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere abstract legs, +have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy. It was quite +exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with which he banged the door +and jumped up behind after Mrs. Nickleby was in; and as that good lady +was perfectly unconscious that he applied the gold-headed end of his +long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed most disrespectfully to the +coachman over her very head, she sat in a state of much stiffness and +dignity, not a little proud of her position. + +At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and +there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her box; +and so polite were they, that Mr. Pyke threatened with many oaths to +‘smifligate’ a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled +in her way--to the great terror of Mrs. Nickleby, who, conjecturing +more from Mr. Pyke’s excitement than any previous acquaintance with the +etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in +the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest +something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr. Pyke confined himself +to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their box with no more +serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same +pugnacious gentleman to ‘smash’ the assistant box-keeper for happening +to mistake the number. + +Mrs. Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the curtain of the box in +an armchair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord Verisopht arrived, arrayed from +the crowns of their heads to the tips of their gloves, and from the +tips of their gloves to the toes of their boots, in the most elegant and +costly manner. Sir Mulberry was a little hoarser than on the previous +day, and Lord Verisopht looked rather sleepy and queer; from which +tokens, as well as from the circumstance of their both being to a +trifling extent unsteady upon their legs, Mrs. Nickleby justly concluded +that they had taken dinner. + +‘We have been--we have been--toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs +Nickleby,’ whispered Sir Mulberry, sitting down behind her. + +‘Oh, ho!’ thought that knowing lady; ‘wine in, truth out.--You are very +kind, Sir Mulberry.’ + +‘No, no upon my soul!’ replied Sir Mulberry Hawk. ‘It’s you that’s kind, +upon my soul it is. It was so kind of you to come tonight.’ + +‘So very kind of you to invite me, you mean, Sir Mulberry,’ replied Mrs +Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodigiously sly. + +‘I am so anxious to know you, so anxious to cultivate your good opinion, +so desirous that there should be a delicious kind of harmonious family +understanding between us,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘that you mustn’t think +I’m disinterested in what I do. I’m infernal selfish; I am--upon my soul +I am.’ + +‘I am sure you can’t be selfish, Sir Mulberry!’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. +‘You have much too open and generous a countenance for that.’ + +‘What an extraordinary observer you are!’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk. + +‘Oh no, indeed, I don’t see very far into things, Sir Mulberry,’ replied +Mrs. Nickleby, in a tone of voice which left the baronet to infer that +she saw very far indeed. + +‘I am quite afraid of you,’ said the baronet. ‘Upon my soul,’ repeated +Sir Mulberry, looking round to his companions; ‘I am afraid of Mrs +Nickleby. She is so immensely sharp.’ + +Messrs Pyke and Pluck shook their heads mysteriously, and observed +together that they had found that out long ago; upon which Mrs. Nickleby +tittered, and Sir Mulberry laughed, and Pyke and Pluck roared. + +‘But where’s my brother-in-law, Sir Mulberry?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I +shouldn’t be here without him. I hope he’s coming.’ + +‘Pyke,’ said Sir Mulberry, taking out his toothpick and lolling back in +his chair, as if he were too lazy to invent a reply to this question. +‘Where’s Ralph Nickleby?’ + +‘Pluck,’ said Pyke, imitating the baronet’s action, and turning the lie +over to his friend, ‘where’s Ralph Nickleby?’ + +Mr. Pluck was about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle caused +by a party entering the next box seemed to attract the attention of all +four gentlemen, who exchanged glances of much meaning. The new party +beginning to converse together, Sir Mulberry suddenly assumed the +character of a most attentive listener, and implored his friends not to +breathe--not to breathe. + +‘Why not?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘What is the matter?’ + +‘Hush!’ replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm. ‘Lord +Frederick, do you recognise the tones of that voice?’ + +‘Deyvle take me if I didn’t think it was the voice of Miss Nickleby.’ + +‘Lor, my lord!’ cried Miss Nickleby’s mama, thrusting her head round the +curtain. ‘Why actually--Kate, my dear, Kate.’ + +‘YOU here, mama! Is it possible!’ + +‘Possible, my dear? Yes.’ + +‘Why who--who on earth is that you have with you, mama?’ said Kate, +shrinking back as she caught sight of a man smiling and kissing his +hand. + +‘Who do you suppose, my dear?’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, bending towards Mrs +Wititterly, and speaking a little louder for that lady’s edification. +‘There’s Mr. Pyke, Mr. Pluck, Sir Mulberry Hawk, and Lord Frederick +Verisopht.’ + +‘Gracious Heaven!’ thought Kate hurriedly. ‘How comes she in such +society?’ + +Now, Kate thought thus SO hurriedly, and the surprise was so great, and +moreover brought back so forcibly the recollection of what had passed at +Ralph’s delectable dinner, that she turned extremely pale and appeared +greatly agitated, which symptoms being observed by Mrs. Nickleby, were +at once set down by that acute lady as being caused and occasioned by +violent love. But, although she was in no small degree delighted by +this discovery, which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of +perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate’s behalf; and +accordingly, with a vast quantity of trepidation, she quitted her own +box to hasten into that of Mrs. Wititterly. Mrs. Wititterly, keenly +alive to the glory of having a lord and a baronet among her visiting +acquaintance, lost no time in signing to Mr. Wititterly to open the door, +and thus it was that in less than thirty seconds Mrs. Nickleby’s party +had made an irruption into Mrs. Wititterly’s box, which it filled to the +very door, there being in fact only room for Messrs Pyke and Pluck to +get in their heads and waistcoats. + +‘My dear Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, kissing her daughter affectionately. +‘How ill you looked a moment ago! You quite frightened me, I declare!’ + +‘It was mere fancy, mama,--the--the--reflection of the lights perhaps,’ +replied Kate, glancing nervously round, and finding it impossible to +whisper any caution or explanation. + +‘Don’t you see Sir Mulberry Hawk, my dear?’ + +Kate bowed slightly, and biting her lip turned her head towards the +stage. + +But Sir Mulberry Hawk was not to be so easily repulsed, for he advanced +with extended hand; and Mrs. Nickleby officiously informing Kate of this +circumstance, she was obliged to extend her own. Sir Mulberry detained +it while he murmured a profusion of compliments, which Kate, remembering +what had passed between them, rightly considered as so many aggravations +of the insult he had already put upon her. Then followed the recognition +of Lord Verisopht, and then the greeting of Mr. Pyke, and then that of Mr +Pluck, and finally, to complete the young lady’s mortification, she +was compelled at Mrs. Wititterly’s request to perform the ceremony +of introducing the odious persons, whom she regarded with the utmost +indignation and abhorrence. + +‘Mrs. Wititterly is delighted,’ said Mr. Wititterly, rubbing his hands; +‘delighted, my lord, I am sure, with this opportunity of contracting an +acquaintance which, I trust, my lord, we shall improve. Julia, my dear, +you must not allow yourself to be too much excited, you must not. +Indeed you must not. Mrs. Wititterly is of a most excitable nature, Sir +Mulberry. The snuff of a candle, the wick of a lamp, the bloom on a +peach, the down on a butterfly. You might blow her away, my lord; you +might blow her away.’ + +Sir Mulberry seemed to think that it would be a great convenience if the +lady could be blown away. He said, however, that the delight was mutual, +and Lord Verisopht added that it was mutual, whereupon Messrs Pyke and +Pluck were heard to murmur from the distance that it was very mutual +indeed. + +‘I take an interest, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a faint smile, +‘such an interest in the drama.’ + +‘Ye--es. It’s very interesting,’ replied Lord Verisopht. + +‘I’m always ill after Shakespeare,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I scarcely +exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after a tragedy, +my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.’ + +‘Ye--es!’ replied Lord Verisopht. ‘He was a clayver man.’ + +‘Do you know, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, after a long silence, ‘I +find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been to +that dear little dull house he was born in! Were you ever there, my +lord?’ + +‘No, nayver,’ replied Verisopht. + +‘Then really you ought to go, my lord,’ returned Mrs. Wititterly, in very +languid and drawling accents. ‘I don’t know how it is, but after you’ve +seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or +other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one.’ + +‘Ye--es!’ replied Lord Verisopht, ‘I shall certainly go there.’ + +‘Julia, my life,’ interposed Mr. Wititterly, ‘you are deceiving his +lordship--unintentionally, my lord, she is deceiving you. It is +your poetical temperament, my dear--your ethereal soul--your fervid +imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement. +There is nothing in the place, my dear--nothing, nothing.’ + +‘I think there must be something in the place,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, who +had been listening in silence; ‘for, soon after I was married, I went +to Stratford with my poor dear Mr. Nickleby, in a post-chaise +from Birmingham--was it a post-chaise though?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, +considering; ‘yes, it must have been a post-chaise, because I recollect +remarking at the time that the driver had a green shade over his +left eye;--in a post-chaise from Birmingham, and after we had seen +Shakespeare’s tomb and birthplace, we went back to the inn there, where +we slept that night, and I recollect that all night long I dreamt of +nothing but a black gentleman, at full length, in plaster-of-Paris, +with a lay-down collar tied with two tassels, leaning against a post +and thinking; and when I woke in the morning and described him to Mr +Nickleby, he said it was Shakespeare just as he had been when he was +alive, which was very curious indeed. Stratford--Stratford,’ continued +Mrs. Nickleby, considering. ‘Yes, I am positive about that, because I +recollect I was in the family way with my son Nicholas at the time, +and I had been very much frightened by an Italian image boy that very +morning. In fact, it was quite a mercy, ma’am,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, in +a whisper to Mrs. Wititterly, ‘that my son didn’t turn out to be a +Shakespeare, and what a dreadful thing that would have been!’ + +When Mrs. Nickleby had brought this interesting anecdote to a close, +Pyke and Pluck, ever zealous in their patron’s cause, proposed the +adjournment of a detachment of the party into the next box; and with so +much skill were the preliminaries adjusted, that Kate, despite all +she could say or do to the contrary, had no alternative but to suffer +herself to be led away by Sir Mulberry Hawk. Her mother and Mr. Pluck +accompanied them, but the worthy lady, pluming herself upon her +discretion, took particular care not so much as to look at her daughter +during the whole evening, and to seem wholly absorbed in the jokes and +conversation of Mr. Pluck, who, having been appointed sentry over Mrs +Nickleby for that especial purpose, neglected, on his side, no possible +opportunity of engrossing her attention. + +Lord Frederick Verisopht remained in the next box to be talked to by Mrs +Wititterly, and Mr. Pyke was in attendance to throw in a word or two when +necessary. As to Mr. Wititterly, he was sufficiently busy in the body of +the house, informing such of his friends and acquaintance as happened +to be there, that those two gentlemen upstairs, whom they had seen +in conversation with Mrs. W., were the distinguished Lord Frederick +Verisopht and his most intimate friend, the gay Sir Mulberry Hawk--a +communication which inflamed several respectable house-keepers with the +utmost jealousy and rage, and reduced sixteen unmarried daughters to the +very brink of despair. + +The evening came to an end at last, but Kate had yet to be handed +downstairs by the detested Sir Mulberry; and so skilfully were the +manoeuvres of Messrs Pyke and Pluck conducted, that she and the baronet +were the last of the party, and were even--without an appearance of +effort or design--left at some little distance behind. + +‘Don’t hurry, don’t hurry,’ said Sir Mulberry, as Kate hastened on, and +attempted to release her arm. + +She made no reply, but still pressed forward. + +‘Nay, then--’ coolly observed Sir Mulberry, stopping her outright. + +‘You had best not seek to detain me, sir!’ said Kate, angrily. + +‘And why not?’ retorted Sir Mulberry. ‘My dear creature, now why do you +keep up this show of displeasure?’ + +‘SHOW!’ repeated Kate, indignantly. ‘How dare you presume to speak to +me, sir--to address me--to come into my presence?’ + +‘You look prettier in a passion, Miss Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, +stooping down, the better to see her face. + +‘I hold you in the bitterest detestation and contempt, sir,’ said Kate. +‘If you find any attraction in looks of disgust and aversion, you--let +me rejoin my friends, sir, instantly. Whatever considerations may have +withheld me thus far, I will disregard them all, and take a course that +even YOU might feel, if you do not immediately suffer me to proceed.’ + +Sir Mulberry smiled, and still looking in her face and retaining her +arm, walked towards the door. + +‘If no regard for my sex or helpless situation will induce you to desist +from this coarse and unmanly persecution,’ said Kate, scarcely knowing, +in the tumult of her passions, what she said,--‘I have a brother who +will resent it dearly, one day.’ + +‘Upon my soul!’ exclaimed Sir Mulberry, as though quietly communing with +himself; passing his arm round her waist as he spoke, ‘she looks more +beautiful, and I like her better in this mood, than when her eyes are +cast down, and she is in perfect repose!’ + +How Kate reached the lobby where her friends were waiting she never +knew, but she hurried across it without at all regarding them, and +disengaged herself suddenly from her companion, sprang into the coach, +and throwing herself into its darkest corner burst into tears. + +Messrs Pyke and Pluck, knowing their cue, at once threw the party into +great commotion by shouting for the carriages, and getting up a violent +quarrel with sundry inoffensive bystanders; in the midst of which tumult +they put the affrighted Mrs. Nickleby in her chariot, and having got her +safely off, turned their thoughts to Mrs. Wititterly, whose attention +also they had now effectually distracted from the young lady, by +throwing her into a state of the utmost bewilderment and consternation. +At length, the conveyance in which she had come rolled off too with its +load, and the four worthies, being left alone under the portico, enjoyed +a hearty laugh together. + +‘There,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning to his noble friend. ‘Didn’t I tell +you last night that if we could find where they were going by bribing a +servant through my fellow, and then established ourselves close by with +the mother, these people’s honour would be our own? Why here it is, done +in four-and-twenty hours.’ + +‘Ye--es,’ replied the dupe. ‘But I have been tied to the old woman all +ni-ight.’ + +‘Hear him,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning to his two friends. ‘Hear this +discontented grumbler. Isn’t it enough to make a man swear never to help +him in his plots and schemes again? Isn’t it an infernal shame?’ + +Pyke asked Pluck whether it was not an infernal shame, and Pluck asked +Pyke; but neither answered. + +‘Isn’t it the truth?’ demanded Verisopht. ‘Wasn’t it so?’ + +‘Wasn’t it so!’ repeated Sir Mulberry. ‘How would you have had it? How +could we have got a general invitation at first sight--come when you +like, go when you like, stop as long as you like, do what you like--if +you, the lord, had not made yourself agreeable to the foolish mistress +of the house? Do I care for this girl, except as your friend? Haven’t I +been sounding your praises in her ears, and bearing her pretty sulks and +peevishness all night for you? What sort of stuff do you think I’m made +of? Would I do this for every man? Don’t I deserve even gratitude in +return?’ + +‘You’re a deyvlish good fellow,’ said the poor young lord, taking his +friend’s arm. ‘Upon my life you’re a deyvlish good fellow, Hawk.’ + +‘And I have done right, have I?’ demanded Sir Mulberry. + +‘Quite ri-ght.’ + +‘And like a poor, silly, good-natured, friendly dog as I am, eh?’ + +‘Ye--es, ye--es; like a friend,’ replied the other. + +‘Well then,’ replied Sir Mulberry, ‘I’m satisfied. And now let’s go and +have our revenge on the German baron and the Frenchman, who cleaned you +out so handsomely last night.’ + +With these words the friendly creature took his companion’s arm and led +him away, turning half round as he did so, and bestowing a wink and +a contemptuous smile on Messrs Pyke and Pluck, who, cramming their +handkerchiefs into their mouths to denote their silent enjoyment of +the whole proceedings, followed their patron and his victim at a little +distance. + + + +CHAPTER 28 + +Miss Nickleby, rendered desperate by the Persecution of Sir Mulberry +Hawk, and the Complicated Difficulties and Distresses which surround +her, appeals, as a last resource, to her Uncle for Protection + + +The ensuing morning brought reflection with it, as morning usually +does; but widely different was the train of thought it awakened in the +different persons who had been so unexpectedly brought together on the +preceding evening, by the active agency of Messrs Pyke and Pluck. + +The reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk--if such a term can be applied to +the thoughts of the systematic and calculating man of dissipation, whose +joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are all of self, and who would seem +to retain nothing of the intellectual faculty but the power to debase +himself, and to degrade the very nature whose outward semblance he +wears--the reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk turned upon Kate Nickleby, +and were, in brief, that she was undoubtedly handsome; that her coyness +MUST be easily conquerable by a man of his address and experience, and +that the pursuit was one which could not fail to redound to his credit, +and greatly to enhance his reputation with the world. And lest this last +consideration--no mean or secondary one with Sir Mulberry--should sound +strangely in the ears of some, let it be remembered that most men live +in a world of their own, and that in that limited circle alone are they +ambitious for distinction and applause. Sir Mulberry’s world was peopled +with profligates, and he acted accordingly. + +Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most +extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It +is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief +actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the +world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they +do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take +place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement. + +The reflections of Mrs. Nickleby were of the proudest and most complacent +kind; and under the influence of her very agreeable delusion she +straightway sat down and indited a long letter to Kate, in which she +expressed her entire approval of the admirable choice she had made, and +extolled Sir Mulberry to the skies; asserting, for the more complete +satisfaction of her daughter’s feelings, that he was precisely the +individual whom she (Mrs. Nickleby) would have chosen for her son-in-law, +if she had had the picking and choosing from all mankind. The good lady +then, with the preliminary observation that she might be fairly supposed +not to have lived in the world so long without knowing its ways, +communicated a great many subtle precepts applicable to the state of +courtship, and confirmed in their wisdom by her own personal experience. +Above all things she commended a strict maidenly reserve, as being +not only a very laudable thing in itself, but as tending materially +to strengthen and increase a lover’s ardour. ‘And I never,’ added Mrs +Nickleby, ‘was more delighted in my life than to observe last night, +my dear, that your good sense had already told you this.’ With which +sentiment, and various hints of the pleasure she derived from the +knowledge that her daughter inherited so large an instalment of her own +excellent sense and discretion (to nearly the full measure of which she +might hope, with care, to succeed in time), Mrs. Nickleby concluded a +very long and rather illegible letter. + +Poor Kate was well-nigh distracted on the receipt of four +closely-written and closely-crossed sides of congratulation on the very +subject which had prevented her closing her eyes all night, and kept her +weeping and watching in her chamber; still worse and more trying was the +necessity of rendering herself agreeable to Mrs. Wititterly, who, being +in low spirits after the fatigue of the preceding night, of course +expected her companion (else wherefore had she board and salary?) to be +in the best spirits possible. As to Mr. Wititterly, he went about all day +in a tremor of delight at having shaken hands with a lord, and having +actually asked him to come and see him in his own house. The lord +himself, not being troubled to any inconvenient extent with the power +of thinking, regaled himself with the conversation of Messrs Pyke and +Pluck, who sharpened their wit by a plentiful indulgence in various +costly stimulants at his expense. + +It was four in the afternoon--that is, the vulgar afternoon of the sun +and the clock--and Mrs. Wititterly reclined, according to custom, on the +drawing-room sofa, while Kate read aloud a new novel in three volumes, +entitled ‘The Lady Flabella,’ which Alphonse the doubtful had procured +from the library that very morning. And it was a production admirably +suited to a lady labouring under Mrs. Wititterly’s complaint, seeing that +there was not a line in it, from beginning to end, which could, by the +most remote contingency, awaken the smallest excitement in any person +breathing. + +Kate read on. + +‘“Cherizette,” said the Lady Flabella, inserting her mouse-like feet +in the blue satin slippers, which had unwittingly occasioned the +half-playful half-angry altercation between herself and the youthful +Colonel Befillaire, in the Duke of Mincefenille’s SALON DE DANSE on the +previous night. “CHERIZETTE, MA CHERE, DONNEZ-MOI DE L’EAU-DE-COLOGNE, +S’IL VOUS PLAIT, MON ENFANT.” + +‘“MERCIE--thank you,” said the Lady Flabella, as the lively but devoted +Cherizette plentifully besprinkled with the fragrant compound the Lady +Flabella’s MOUCHOIR of finest cambric, edged with richest lace, and +emblazoned at the four corners with the Flabella crest, and gorgeous +heraldic bearings of that noble family. “MERCIE--that will do.” + +‘At this instant, while the Lady Flabella yet inhaled that +delicious fragrance by holding the MOUCHOIR to her exquisite, but +thoughtfully-chiselled nose, the door of the BOUDOIR (artfully concealed +by rich hangings of silken damask, the hue of Italy’s firmament) was +thrown open, and with noiseless tread two VALETS-DE-CHAMBRE, clad in +sumptuous liveries of peach-blossom and gold, advanced into the room +followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE--silk stockings--who, while they +remained at some distance making the most graceful obeisances, advanced +to the feet of his lovely mistress, and dropping on one knee presented, +on a golden salver gorgeously chased, a scented BILLET. + +‘The Lady Flabella, with an agitation she could not repress, hastily +tore off the ENVELOPE and broke the scented seal. It WAS from +Befillaire--the young, the slim, the low-voiced--HER OWN Befillaire.’ + +‘Oh, charming!’ interrupted Kate’s patroness, who was sometimes taken +literary. ‘Poetic, really. Read that description again, Miss Nickleby.’ + +Kate complied. + +‘Sweet, indeed!’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a sigh. ‘So voluptuous, is it +not--so soft?’ + +‘Yes, I think it is,’ replied Kate, gently; ‘very soft.’ + +‘Close the book, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I can hear +nothing more today; I should be sorry to disturb the impression of that +sweet description. Close the book.’ + +Kate complied, not unwillingly; and, as she did so, Mrs. Wititterly +raising her glass with a languid hand, remarked, that she looked pale. + +‘It was the fright of that--that noise and confusion last night,’ said +Kate. + +‘How very odd!’ exclaimed Mrs. Wititterly, with a look of surprise. And +certainly, when one comes to think of it, it WAS very odd that anything +should have disturbed a companion. A steam-engine, or other ingenious +piece of mechanism out of order, would have been nothing to it. + +‘How did you come to know Lord Frederick, and those other delightful +creatures, child?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, still eyeing Kate through her +glass. + +‘I met them at my uncle’s,’ said Kate, vexed to feel that she was +colouring deeply, but unable to keep down the blood which rushed to her +face whenever she thought of that man. + +‘Have you known them long?’ + +‘No,’ rejoined Kate. ‘Not long.’ + +‘I was very glad of the opportunity which that respectable person, your +mother, gave us of being known to them,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a lofty +manner. ‘Some friends of ours were on the very point of introducing us, +which makes it quite remarkable.’ + +This was said lest Miss Nickleby should grow conceited on the honour +and dignity of having known four great people (for Pyke and Pluck were +included among the delightful creatures), whom Mrs. Wititterly did not +know. But as the circumstance had made no impression one way or other +upon Kate’s mind, the force of the observation was quite lost upon her. + +‘They asked permission to call,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I gave it them of +course.’ + +‘Do you expect them today?’ Kate ventured to inquire. + +Mrs. Wititterly’s answer was lost in the noise of a tremendous rapping at +the street-door, and before it had ceased to vibrate, there drove up a +handsome cabriolet, out of which leaped Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend +Lord Verisopht. + +‘They are here now,’ said Kate, rising and hurrying away. + +‘Miss Nickleby!’ cried Mrs. Wititterly, perfectly aghast at a companion’s +attempting to quit the room, without her permission first had and +obtained. ‘Pray don’t think of going.’ + +‘You are very good!’ replied Kate. ‘But--’ + +‘For goodness’ sake, don’t agitate me by making me speak so much,’ said +Mrs. Wititterly, with great sharpness. ‘Dear me, Miss Nickleby, I beg--’ + +It was in vain for Kate to protest that she was unwell, for the +footsteps of the knockers, whoever they were, were already on the +stairs. She resumed her seat, and had scarcely done so, when the +doubtful page darted into the room and announced, Mr. Pyke, and Mr. Pluck, +and Lord Verisopht, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, all at one burst. + +‘The most extraordinary thing in the world,’ said Mr. Pluck, saluting +both ladies with the utmost cordiality; ‘the most extraordinary thing. +As Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove up to the door, Pyke and I had +that instant knocked.’ + +‘That instant knocked,’ said Pyke. + +‘No matter how you came, so that you are here,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, +who, by dint of lying on the same sofa for three years and a half, had +got up quite a little pantomime of graceful attitudes, and now threw +herself into the most striking of the whole series, to astonish the +visitors. ‘I am delighted, I am sure.’ + +‘And how is Miss Nickleby?’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, accosting Kate, in +a low voice--not so low, however, but that it reached the ears of Mrs +Wititterly. + +‘Why, she complains of suffering from the fright of last night,’ said +the lady. ‘I am sure I don’t wonder at it, for my nerves are quite torn +to pieces.’ + +‘And yet you look,’ observed Sir Mulberry, turning round; ‘and yet you +look--’ + +‘Beyond everything,’ said Mr. Pyke, coming to his patron’s assistance. Of +course Mr. Pluck said the same. + +‘I am afraid Sir Mulberry is a flatterer, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, +turning to that young gentleman, who had been sucking the head of his +cane in silence, and staring at Kate. + +‘Oh, deyvlish!’ replied Verisopht. Having given utterance to which +remarkable sentiment, he occupied himself as before. + +‘Neither does Miss Nickleby look the worse,’ said Sir Mulberry, bending +his bold gaze upon her. ‘She was always handsome, but upon my soul, +ma’am, you seem to have imparted some of your own good looks to her +besides.’ + +To judge from the glow which suffused the poor girl’s countenance after +this speech, Mrs. Wititterly might, with some show of reason, have been +supposed to have imparted to it some of that artificial bloom which +decorated her own. Mrs. Wititterly admitted, though not with the best +grace in the world, that Kate DID look pretty. She began to think, too, +that Sir Mulberry was not quite so agreeable a creature as she had +at first supposed him; for, although a skilful flatterer is a most +delightful companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste +becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people. + +‘Pyke,’ said the watchful Mr. Pluck, observing the effect which the +praise of Miss Nickleby had produced. + +‘Well, Pluck,’ said Pyke. + +‘Is there anybody,’ demanded Mr. Pluck, mysteriously, ‘anybody you know, +that Mrs. Wititterly’s profile reminds you of?’ + +‘Reminds me of!’ answered Pyke. ‘Of course there is.’ + +‘Who do you mean?’ said Pluck, in the same mysterious manner. ‘The D. of +B.?’ + +‘The C. of B.,’ replied Pyke, with the faintest trace of a grin +lingering in his countenance. ‘The beautiful sister is the countess; not +the duchess.’ + +‘True,’ said Pluck, ‘the C. of B. The resemblance is wonderful!’ + +‘Perfectly startling,’ said Mr. Pyke. + +Here was a state of things! Mrs. Wititterly was declared, upon the +testimony of two veracious and competent witnesses, to be the very +picture of a countess! This was one of the consequences of getting into +good society. Why, she might have moved among grovelling people for +twenty years, and never heard of it. How could she, indeed? what did +THEY know about countesses? + +The two gentlemen having, by the greediness with which this little +bait was swallowed, tested the extent of Mrs. Wititterly’s appetite for +adulation, proceeded to administer that commodity in very large doses, +thus affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an opportunity of pestering Miss +Nickleby with questions and remarks, to which she was absolutely obliged +to make some reply. Meanwhile, Lord Verisopht enjoyed unmolested the +full flavour of the gold knob at the top of his cane, as he would have +done to the end of the interview if Mr. Wititterly had not come home, and +caused the conversation to turn to his favourite topic. + +‘My lord,’ said Mr. Wititterly, ‘I am delighted--honoured--proud. Be +seated again, my lord, pray. I am proud, indeed--most proud.’ + +It was to the secret annoyance of his wife that Mr. Wititterly said all +this, for, although she was bursting with pride and arrogance, she would +have had the illustrious guests believe that their visit was quite a +common occurrence, and that they had lords and baronets to see them +every day in the week. But Mr. Wititterly’s feelings were beyond the +power of suppression. + +‘It is an honour, indeed!’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Julia, my soul, you will +suffer for this tomorrow.’ + +‘Suffer!’ cried Lord Verisopht. + +‘The reaction, my lord, the reaction,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘This violent +strain upon the nervous system over, my lord, what ensues? A sinking, a +depression, a lowness, a lassitude, a debility. My lord, if Sir Tumley +Snuffim was to see that delicate creature at this moment, he would +not give a--a--THIS for her life.’ In illustration of which remark, Mr +Wititterly took a pinch of snuff from his box, and jerked it lightly +into the air as an emblem of instability. + +‘Not THAT,’ said Mr. Wititterly, looking about him with a serious +countenance. ‘Sir Tumley Snuffim would not give that for Mrs +Wititterly’s existence.’ + +Mr. Wititterly told this with a kind of sober exultation, as if it were +no trifling distinction for a man to have a wife in such a desperate +state, and Mrs. Wititterly sighed and looked on, as if she felt the +honour, but had determined to bear it as meekly as might be. + +‘Mrs. Wititterly,’ said her husband, ‘is Sir Tumley Snuffim’s favourite +patient. I believe I may venture to say, that Mrs. Wititterly is the +first person who took the new medicine which is supposed to have +destroyed a family at Kensington Gravel Pits. I believe she was. If I am +wrong, Julia, my dear, you will correct me.’ + +‘I believe I was,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a faint voice. + +As there appeared to be some doubt in the mind of his patron how he +could best join in this conversation, the indefatigable Mr. Pyke threw +himself into the breach, and, by way of saying something to the point, +inquired--with reference to the aforesaid medicine--whether it was nice. + +‘No, sir, it was not. It had not even that recommendation,’ said Mr. W. + +‘Mrs. Wititterly is quite a martyr,’ observed Pyke, with a complimentary +bow. + +‘I THINK I am,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, smiling. + +‘I think you are, my dear Julia,’ replied her husband, in a tone which +seemed to say that he was not vain, but still must insist upon their +privileges. ‘If anybody, my lord,’ added Mr. Wititterly, wheeling +round to the nobleman, ‘will produce to me a greater martyr than Mrs +Wititterly, all I can say is, that I shall be glad to see that martyr, +whether male or female--that’s all, my lord.’ + +Pyke and Pluck promptly remarked that certainly nothing could be fairer +than that; and the call having been by this time protracted to a very +great length, they obeyed Sir Mulberry’s look, and rose to go. This +brought Sir Mulberry himself and Lord Verisopht on their legs also. +Many protestations of friendship, and expressions anticipative of the +pleasure which must inevitably flow from so happy an acquaintance, were +exchanged, and the visitors departed, with renewed assurances that at +all times and seasons the mansion of the Wititterlys would be honoured +by receiving them beneath its roof. + +That they came at all times and seasons--that they dined there one day, +supped the next, dined again on the next, and were constantly to and +fro on all--that they made parties to visit public places, and met by +accident at lounges--that upon all these occasions Miss Nickleby was +exposed to the constant and unremitting persecution of Sir Mulberry +Hawk, who now began to feel his character, even in the estimation of his +two dependants, involved in the successful reduction of her pride--that +she had no intervals of peace or rest, except at those hours when she +could sit in her solitary room, and weep over the trials of the day--all +these were consequences naturally flowing from the well-laid plans of +Sir Mulberry, and their able execution by the auxiliaries, Pyke and +Pluck. + +And thus for a fortnight matters went on. That any but the weakest and +silliest of people could have seen in one interview that Lord Verisopht, +though he was a lord, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, though he was a baronet, +were not persons accustomed to be the best possible companions, and were +certainly not calculated by habits, manners, tastes, or conversation, to +shine with any very great lustre in the society of ladies, need scarcely +be remarked. But with Mrs. Wititterly the two titles were all sufficient; +coarseness became humour, vulgarity softened itself down into the most +charming eccentricity; insolence took the guise of an easy absence of +reserve, attainable only by those who had had the good fortune to mix +with high folks. + +If the mistress put such a construction upon the behaviour of her new +friends, what could the companion urge against them? If they accustomed +themselves to very little restraint before the lady of the house, with +how much more freedom could they address her paid dependent! Nor was +even this the worst. As the odious Sir Mulberry Hawk attached himself +to Kate with less and less of disguise, Mrs. Wititterly began to grow +jealous of the superior attractions of Miss Nickleby. If this feeling +had led to her banishment from the drawing-room when such company was +there, Kate would have been only too happy and willing that it should +have existed, but unfortunately for her she possessed that native +grace and true gentility of manner, and those thousand nameless +accomplishments which give to female society its greatest charm; if +these be valuable anywhere, they were especially so where the lady of +the house was a mere animated doll. The consequence was, that Kate had +the double mortification of being an indispensable part of the circle +when Sir Mulberry and his friends were there, and of being exposed, on +that very account, to all Mrs. Wititterly’s ill-humours and caprices when +they were gone. She became utterly and completely miserable. + +Mrs. Wititterly had never thrown off the mask with regard to Sir +Mulberry, but when she was more than usually out of temper, attributed +the circumstance, as ladies sometimes do, to nervous indisposition. +However, as the dreadful idea that Lord Verisopht also was somewhat +taken with Kate, and that she, Mrs. Wititterly, was quite a secondary +person, dawned upon that lady’s mind and gradually developed itself, +she became possessed with a large quantity of highly proper and most +virtuous indignation, and felt it her duty, as a married lady and a +moral member of society, to mention the circumstance to ‘the young +person’ without delay. + +Accordingly Mrs. Wititterly broke ground next morning, during a pause in +the novel-reading. + +‘Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, ‘I wish to speak to you very +gravely. I am sorry to have to do it, upon my word I am very sorry, but +you leave me no alternative, Miss Nickleby.’ Here Mrs. Wititterly tossed +her head--not passionately, only virtuously--and remarked, with some +appearance of excitement, that she feared that palpitation of the heart +was coming on again. + +‘Your behaviour, Miss Nickleby,’ resumed the lady, ‘is very far from +pleasing me--very far. I am very anxious indeed that you should do well, +but you may depend upon it, Miss Nickleby, you will not, if you go on as +you do.’ + +‘Ma’am!’ exclaimed Kate, proudly. + +‘Don’t agitate me by speaking in that way, Miss Nickleby, don’t,’ said +Mrs. Wititterly, with some violence, ‘or you’ll compel me to ring the +bell.’ + +Kate looked at her, but said nothing. + +‘You needn’t suppose,’ resumed Mrs. Wititterly, ‘that your looking at me +in that way, Miss Nickleby, will prevent my saying what I am going +to say, which I feel to be a religious duty. You needn’t direct your +glances towards me,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a sudden burst of spite; +‘I am not Sir Mulberry, no, nor Lord Frederick Verisopht, Miss Nickleby, +nor am I Mr. Pyke, nor Mr. Pluck either.’ + +Kate looked at her again, but less steadily than before; and resting her +elbow on the table, covered her eyes with her hand. + +‘If such things had been done when I was a young girl,’ said Mrs +Wititterly (this, by the way, must have been some little time before), +‘I don’t suppose anybody would have believed it.’ + +‘I don’t think they would,’ murmured Kate. ‘I do not think anybody would +believe, without actually knowing it, what I seem doomed to undergo!’ + +‘Don’t talk to me of being doomed to undergo, Miss Nickleby, if you +please,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a shrillness of tone quite surprising +in so great an invalid. ‘I will not be answered, Miss Nickleby. I am not +accustomed to be answered, nor will I permit it for an instant. Do +you hear?’ she added, waiting with some apparent inconsistency FOR an +answer. + +‘I do hear you, ma’am,’ replied Kate, ‘with surprise--with greater +surprise than I can express.’ + +‘I have always considered you a particularly well-behaved young person +for your station in life,’ said Mrs. Wititterly; ‘and as you are a person +of healthy appearance, and neat in your dress and so forth, I have taken +an interest in you, as I do still, considering that I owe a sort of duty +to that respectable old female, your mother. For these reasons, Miss +Nickleby, I must tell you once for all, and begging you to mind what I +say, that I must insist upon your immediately altering your very forward +behaviour to the gentlemen who visit at this house. It really is not +becoming,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, closing her chaste eyes as she spoke; +‘it is improper--quite improper.’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Kate, looking upwards and clasping her hands; ‘is not this, +is not this, too cruel, too hard to bear! Is it not enough that I should +have suffered as I have, night and day; that I should almost have sunk +in my own estimation from very shame of having been brought into contact +with such people; but must I also be exposed to this unjust and most +unfounded charge!’ + +‘You will have the goodness to recollect, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs +Wititterly, ‘that when you use such terms as “unjust”, and “unfounded”, +you charge me, in effect, with stating that which is untrue.’ + +‘I do,’ said Kate with honest indignation. ‘Whether you make this +accusation of yourself, or at the prompting of others, is alike to me. I +say it IS vilely, grossly, wilfully untrue. Is it possible!’ cried Kate, +‘that anyone of my own sex can have sat by, and not have seen the misery +these men have caused me? Is it possible that you, ma’am, can have been +present, and failed to mark the insulting freedom that their every look +bespoke? Is it possible that you can have avoided seeing, that these +libertines, in their utter disrespect for you, and utter disregard +of all gentlemanly behaviour, and almost of decency, have had but one +object in introducing themselves here, and that the furtherance of their +designs upon a friendless, helpless girl, who, without this humiliating +confession, might have hoped to receive from one so much her senior +something like womanly aid and sympathy? I do not--I cannot believe it!’ + +If poor Kate had possessed the slightest knowledge of the world, she +certainly would not have ventured, even in the excitement into which she +had been lashed, upon such an injudicious speech as this. Its effect +was precisely what a more experienced observer would have foreseen. +Mrs. Wititterly received the attack upon her veracity with exemplary +calmness, and listened with the most heroic fortitude to Kate’s account +of her own sufferings. But allusion being made to her being held in +disregard by the gentlemen, she evinced violent emotion, and this blow +was no sooner followed up by the remark concerning her seniority, than +she fell back upon the sofa, uttering dismal screams. + +‘What is the matter?’ cried Mr. Wititterly, bouncing into the room. +‘Heavens, what do I see? Julia! Julia! look up, my life, look up!’ + +But Julia looked down most perseveringly, and screamed still louder; so +Mr. Wititterly rang the bell, and danced in a frenzied manner round +the sofa on which Mrs. Wititterly lay; uttering perpetual cries for Sir +Tumley Snuffim, and never once leaving off to ask for any explanation of +the scene before him. + +‘Run for Sir Tumley,’ cried Mr. Wititterly, menacing the page with both +fists. ‘I knew it, Miss Nickleby,’ he said, looking round with an air of +melancholy triumph, ‘that society has been too much for her. This is all +soul, you know, every bit of it.’ With this assurance Mr. Wititterly took +up the prostrate form of Mrs. Wititterly, and carried her bodily off to +bed. + +Kate waited until Sir Tumley Snuffim had paid his visit and looked in +with a report, that, through the special interposition of a merciful +Providence (thus spake Sir Tumley), Mrs. Wititterly had gone to sleep. +She then hastily attired herself for walking, and leaving word that she +should return within a couple of hours, hurried away towards her uncle’s +house. + +It had been a good day with Ralph Nickleby--quite a lucky day; and as he +walked to and fro in his little back-room with his hands clasped behind +him, adding up in his own mind all the sums that had been, or would be, +netted from the business done since morning, his mouth was drawn into a +hard stern smile; while the firmness of the lines and curves that made +it up, as well as the cunning glance of his cold, bright eye, seemed to +tell, that if any resolution or cunning would increase the profits, they +would not fail to be excited for the purpose. + +‘Very good!’ said Ralph, in allusion, no doubt, to some proceeding of +the day. ‘He defies the usurer, does he? Well, we shall see. “Honesty is +the best policy,” is it? We’ll try that too.’ + +He stopped, and then walked on again. + +‘He is content,’ said Ralph, relaxing into a smile, ‘to set his known +character and conduct against the power of money--dross, as he calls it. +Why, what a dull blockhead this fellow must be! Dross to, dross! Who’s +that?’ + +‘Me,’ said Newman Noggs, looking in. ‘Your niece.’ + +‘What of her?’ asked Ralph sharply. + +‘She’s here.’ + +‘Here!’ + +Newman jerked his head towards his little room, to signify that she was +waiting there. + +‘What does she want?’ asked Ralph. + +‘I don’t know,’ rejoined Newman. ‘Shall I ask?’ he added quickly. + +‘No,’ replied Ralph. ‘Show her in! Stay.’ He hastily put away a +padlocked cash-box that was on the table, and substituted in its stead +an empty purse. ‘There,’ said Ralph. ‘NOW she may come in.’ + +Newman, with a grim smile at this manoeuvre, beckoned the young lady to +advance, and having placed a chair for her, retired; looking stealthily +over his shoulder at Ralph as he limped slowly out. + +‘Well,’ said Ralph, roughly enough; but still with something more of +kindness in his manner than he would have exhibited towards anybody +else. ‘Well, my--dear. What now?’ + +Kate raised her eyes, which were filled with tears; and with an effort +to master her emotion strove to speak, but in vain. So drooping her head +again, she remained silent. Her face was hidden from his view, but Ralph +could see that she was weeping. + +‘I can guess the cause of this!’ thought Ralph, after looking at her +for some time in silence. ‘I can--I can--guess the cause. Well! Well!’ +thought Ralph--for the moment quite disconcerted, as he watched the +anguish of his beautiful niece. ‘Where is the harm? only a few tears; +and it’s an excellent lesson for her, an excellent lesson.’ + +‘What is the matter?’ asked Ralph, drawing a chair opposite, and sitting +down. + +He was rather taken aback by the sudden firmness with which Kate looked +up and answered him. + +‘The matter which brings me to you, sir,’ she said, ‘is one which should +call the blood up into your cheeks, and make you burn to hear, as it +does me to tell. I have been wronged; my feelings have been outraged, +insulted, wounded past all healing, and by your friends.’ + +‘Friends!’ cried Ralph, sternly. ‘I have no friends, girl.’ + +‘By the men I saw here, then,’ returned Kate, quickly. ‘If they were no +friends of yours, and you knew what they were,--oh, the more shame on +you, uncle, for bringing me among them. To have subjected me to what +I was exposed to here, through any misplaced confidence or imperfect +knowledge of your guests, would have required some strong excuse; but +if you did it--as I now believe you did--knowing them well, it was most +dastardly and cruel.’ + +Ralph drew back in utter amazement at this plain speaking, and regarded +Kate with the sternest look. But she met his gaze proudly and firmly, +and although her face was very pale, it looked more noble and handsome, +lighted up as it was, than it had ever appeared before. + +‘There is some of that boy’s blood in you, I see,’ said Ralph, speaking +in his harshest tones, as something in the flashing eye reminded him of +Nicholas at their last meeting. + +‘I hope there is!’ replied Kate. ‘I should be proud to know it. I am +young, uncle, and all the difficulties and miseries of my situation have +kept it down, but I have been roused today beyond all endurance, and +come what may, I WILL NOT, as I am your brother’s child, bear these +insults longer.’ + +‘What insults, girl?’ demanded Ralph, sharply. + +‘Remember what took place here, and ask yourself,’ replied Kate, +colouring deeply. ‘Uncle, you must--I am sure you will--release me from +such vile and degrading companionship as I am exposed to now. I do not +mean,’ said Kate, hurrying to the old man, and laying her arm upon his +shoulder; ‘I do not mean to be angry and violent--I beg your pardon if +I have seemed so, dear uncle,--but you do not know what I have suffered, +you do not indeed. You cannot tell what the heart of a young girl +is--I have no right to expect you should; but when I tell you that I am +wretched, and that my heart is breaking, I am sure you will help me. I +am sure, I am sure you will!’ + +Ralph looked at her for an instant; then turned away his head, and beat +his foot nervously upon the ground. + +‘I have gone on day after day,’ said Kate, bending over him, and timidly +placing her little hand in his, ‘in the hope that this persecution would +cease; I have gone on day after day, compelled to assume the appearance +of cheerfulness, when I was most unhappy. I have had no counsellor, no +adviser, no one to protect me. Mama supposes that these are honourable +men, rich and distinguished, and how CAN I--how can I undeceive +her--when she is so happy in these little delusions, which are the only +happiness she has? The lady with whom you placed me, is not the person +to whom I could confide matters of so much delicacy, and I have come at +last to you, the only friend I have at hand--almost the only friend I +have at all--to entreat and implore you to assist me.’ + +‘How can I assist you, child?’ said Ralph, rising from his chair, and +pacing up and down the room in his old attitude. + +‘You have influence with one of these men, I KNOW,’ rejoined Kate, +emphatically. ‘Would not a word from you induce them to desist from this +unmanly course?’ + +‘No,’ said Ralph, suddenly turning; ‘at least--that--I can’t say it, if +it would.’ + +‘Can’t say it!’ + +‘No,’ said Ralph, coming to a dead stop, and clasping his hands more +tightly behind him. ‘I can’t say it.’ + +Kate fell back a step or two, and looked at him, as if in doubt whether +she had heard aright. + +‘We are connected in business,’ said Ralph, poising himself alternately +on his toes and heels, and looking coolly in his niece’s face, ‘in +business, and I can’t afford to offend them. What is it after all? We +have all our trials, and this is one of yours. Some girls would be proud +to have such gallants at their feet.’ + +‘Proud!’ cried Kate. + +‘I don’t say,’ rejoined Ralph, raising his forefinger, ‘but that you do +right to despise them; no, you show your good sense in that, as indeed +I knew from the first you would. Well. In all other respects you are +comfortably bestowed. It’s not much to bear. If this young lord does dog +your footsteps, and whisper his drivelling inanities in your ears, what +of it? It’s a dishonourable passion. So be it; it won’t last long. Some +other novelty will spring up one day, and you will be released. In the +mean time--’ + +‘In the mean time,’ interrupted Kate, with becoming pride and +indignation, ‘I am to be the scorn of my own sex, and the toy of the +other; justly condemned by all women of right feeling, and despised by +all honest and honourable men; sunken in my own esteem, and degraded in +every eye that looks upon me. No, not if I work my fingers to the bone, +not if I am driven to the roughest and hardest labour. Do not mistake +me. I will not disgrace your recommendation. I will remain in the house +in which it placed me, until I am entitled to leave it by the terms of +my engagement; though, mind, I see these men no more. When I quit it, I +will hide myself from them and you, and, striving to support my mother +by hard service, I will live, at least, in peace, and trust in God to +help me.’ + +With these words, she waved her hand, and quitted the room, leaving +Ralph Nickleby motionless as a statue. + +The surprise with which Kate, as she closed the room-door, beheld, close +beside it, Newman Noggs standing bolt upright in a little niche in the +wall like some scarecrow or Guy Faux laid up in winter quarters, almost +occasioned her to call aloud. But, Newman laying his finger upon his +lips, she had the presence of mind to refrain. + +‘Don’t,’ said Newman, gliding out of his recess, and accompanying +her across the hall. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ Two very large tears, +by-the-bye, were running down Newman’s face as he spoke. + +‘I see how it is,’ said poor Noggs, drawing from his pocket what seemed +to be a very old duster, and wiping Kate’s eyes with it, as gently as if +she were an infant. ‘You’re giving way now. Yes, yes, very good; that’s +right, I like that. It was right not to give way before him. Yes, yes! +Ha, ha, ha! Oh, yes. Poor thing!’ + +With these disjointed exclamations, Newman wiped his own eyes with the +afore-mentioned duster, and, limping to the street-door, opened it to +let her out. + +‘Don’t cry any more,’ whispered Newman. ‘I shall see you soon. Ha! ha! +ha! And so shall somebody else too. Yes, yes. Ho! ho!’ + +‘God bless you,’ answered Kate, hurrying out, ‘God bless you.’ + +‘Same to you,’ rejoined Newman, opening the door again a little way to +say so. ‘Ha, ha, ha! Ho! ho! ho!’ + +And Newman Noggs opened the door once again to nod cheerfully, and +laugh--and shut it, to shake his head mournfully, and cry. + +Ralph remained in the same attitude till he heard the noise of the +closing door, when he shrugged his shoulders, and after a few turns +about the room--hasty at first, but gradually becoming slower, as he +relapsed into himself--sat down before his desk. + +It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted down, +but not solved;--although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment for his +conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although his libertine +clients had done precisely what he had expected, precisely what he most +wished, and precisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he +hated them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul. + +‘Ugh!’ said Ralph, scowling round, and shaking his clenched hand as the +faces of the two profligates rose up before his mind; ‘you shall pay for +this. Oh! you shall pay for this!’ + +As the usurer turned for consolation to his books and papers, a +performance was going on outside his office door, which would have +occasioned him no small surprise, if he could by any means have become +acquainted with it. + +Newman Noggs was the sole actor. He stood at a little distance from the +door, with his face towards it; and with the sleeves of his coat +turned back at the wrists, was occupied in bestowing the most vigorous, +scientific, and straightforward blows upon the empty air. + +At first sight, this would have appeared merely a wise precaution in +a man of sedentary habits, with the view of opening the chest and +strengthening the muscles of the arms. But the intense eagerness and +joy depicted in the face of Newman Noggs, which was suffused with +perspiration; the surprising energy with which he directed a constant +succession of blows towards a particular panel about five feet eight +from the ground, and still worked away in the most untiring and +persevering manner, would have sufficiently explained to the attentive +observer, that his imagination was thrashing, to within an inch of his +life, his body’s most active employer, Mr. Ralph Nickleby. + + + +CHAPTER 29 + +Of the Proceedings of Nicholas, and certain Internal Divisions in the +Company of Mr. Vincent Crummles + + +The unexpected success and favour with which his experiment at +Portsmouth had been received, induced Mr. Crummles to prolong his stay in +that town for a fortnight beyond the period he had originally assigned +for the duration of his visit, during which time Nicholas personated a +vast variety of characters with undiminished success, and attracted so +many people to the theatre who had never been seen there before, that +a benefit was considered by the manager a very promising speculation. +Nicholas assenting to the terms proposed, the benefit was had, and by it +he realised no less a sum than twenty pounds. + +Possessed of this unexpected wealth, his first act was to enclose +to honest John Browdie the amount of his friendly loan, which he +accompanied with many expressions of gratitude and esteem, and many +cordial wishes for his matrimonial happiness. To Newman Noggs he +forwarded one half of the sum he had realised, entreating him to take +an opportunity of handing it to Kate in secret, and conveying to her the +warmest assurances of his love and affection. He made no mention of the +way in which he had employed himself; merely informing Newman that +a letter addressed to him under his assumed name at the Post Office, +Portsmouth, would readily find him, and entreating that worthy friend to +write full particulars of the situation of his mother and sister, and +an account of all the grand things that Ralph Nickleby had done for them +since his departure from London. + +‘You are out of spirits,’ said Smike, on the night after the letter had +been dispatched. + +‘Not I!’ rejoined Nicholas, with assumed gaiety, for the confession +would have made the boy miserable all night; ‘I was thinking about my +sister, Smike.’ + +‘Sister!’ + +‘Ay.’ + +‘Is she like you?’ inquired Smike. + +‘Why, so they say,’ replied Nicholas, laughing, ‘only a great deal +handsomer.’ + +‘She must be VERY beautiful,’ said Smike, after thinking a little while +with his hands folded together, and his eyes bent upon his friend. + +‘Anybody who didn’t know you as well as I do, my dear fellow, would say +you were an accomplished courtier,’ said Nicholas. + +‘I don’t even know what that is,’ replied Smike, shaking his head. +‘Shall I ever see your sister?’ + +‘To be sure,’ cried Nicholas; ‘we shall all be together one of these +days--when we are rich, Smike.’ + +‘How is it that you, who are so kind and good to me, have nobody to be +kind to you?’ asked Smike. ‘I cannot make that out.’ + +‘Why, it is a long story,’ replied Nicholas, ‘and one you would +have some difficulty in comprehending, I fear. I have an enemy--you +understand what that is?’ + +‘Oh, yes, I understand that,’ said Smike. + +‘Well, it is owing to him,’ returned Nicholas. ‘He is rich, and not so +easily punished as YOUR old enemy, Mr. Squeers. He is my uncle, but he is +a villain, and has done me wrong.’ + +‘Has he though?’ asked Smike, bending eagerly forward. ‘What is his +name? Tell me his name.’ + +‘Ralph--Ralph Nickleby.’ + +‘Ralph Nickleby,’ repeated Smike. ‘Ralph. I’ll get that name by heart.’ + +He had muttered it over to himself some twenty times, when a loud knock +at the door disturbed him from his occupation. Before he could open it, +Mr. Folair, the pantomimist, thrust in his head. + +Mr. Folair’s head was usually decorated with a very round hat, unusually +high in the crown, and curled up quite tight in the brims. On the +present occasion he wore it very much on one side, with the back part +forward in consequence of its being the least rusty; round his neck he +wore a flaming red worsted comforter, whereof the straggling ends peeped +out beneath his threadbare Newmarket coat, which was very tight and +buttoned all the way up. He carried in his hand one very dirty glove, +and a cheap dress cane with a glass handle; in short, his whole +appearance was unusually dashing, and demonstrated a far more scrupulous +attention to his toilet than he was in the habit of bestowing upon it. + +‘Good-evening, sir,’ said Mr. Folair, taking off the tall hat, and +running his fingers through his hair. ‘I bring a communication. Hem!’ + +‘From whom and what about?’ inquired Nicholas. ‘You are unusually +mysterious tonight.’ + +‘Cold, perhaps,’ returned Mr. Folair; ‘cold, perhaps. That is the fault +of my position--not of myself, Mr. Johnson. My position as a mutual +friend requires it, sir.’ Mr. Folair paused with a most impressive look, +and diving into the hat before noticed, drew from thence a small piece +of whity-brown paper curiously folded, whence he brought forth a note +which it had served to keep clean, and handing it over to Nicholas, +said-- + +‘Have the goodness to read that, sir.’ + +Nicholas, in a state of much amazement, took the note and broke the +seal, glancing at Mr. Folair as he did so, who, knitting his brow and +pursing up his mouth with great dignity, was sitting with his eyes +steadily fixed upon the ceiling. + +It was directed to blank Johnson, Esq., by favour of Augustus Folair, +Esq.; and the astonishment of Nicholas was in no degree lessened, when +he found it to be couched in the following laconic terms:-- + +“Mr. Lenville presents his kind regards to Mr. Johnson, and will feel +obliged if he will inform him at what hour tomorrow morning it will be +most convenient to him to meet Mr. L. at the Theatre, for the purpose of +having his nose pulled in the presence of the company. + +“Mr. Lenville requests Mr. Johnson not to neglect making an appointment, +as he has invited two or three professional friends to witness the +ceremony, and cannot disappoint them upon any account whatever. + +“PORTSMOUTH, TUESDAY NIGHT.” + +Indignant as he was at this impertinence, there was something so +exquisitely absurd in such a cartel of defiance, that Nicholas was +obliged to bite his lip and read the note over two or three times before +he could muster sufficient gravity and sternness to address the hostile +messenger, who had not taken his eyes from the ceiling, nor altered the +expression of his face in the slightest degree. + +‘Do you know the contents of this note, sir?’ he asked, at length. + +‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Folair, looking round for an instant, and immediately +carrying his eyes back again to the ceiling. + +‘And how dare you bring it here, sir?’ asked Nicholas, tearing it into +very little pieces, and jerking it in a shower towards the messenger. +‘Had you no fear of being kicked downstairs, sir?’ + +Mr. Folair turned his head--now ornamented with several fragments of the +note--towards Nicholas, and with the same imperturbable dignity, briefly +replied ‘No.’ + +‘Then,’ said Nicholas, taking up the tall hat and tossing it towards the +door, ‘you had better follow that article of your dress, sir, or you +may find yourself very disagreeably deceived, and that within a dozen +seconds.’ + +‘I say, Johnson,’ remonstrated Mr. Folair, suddenly losing all his +dignity, ‘none of that, you know. No tricks with a gentleman’s +wardrobe.’ + +‘Leave the room,’ returned Nicholas. ‘How could you presume to come here +on such an errand, you scoundrel?’ + +‘Pooh! pooh!’ said Mr. Folair, unwinding his comforter, and gradually +getting himself out of it. ‘There--that’s enough.’ + +‘Enough!’ cried Nicholas, advancing towards him. ‘Take yourself off, +sir.’ + +‘Pooh! pooh! I tell you,’ returned Mr. Folair, waving his hand in +deprecation of any further wrath; ‘I wasn’t in earnest. I only brought +it in joke.’ + +‘You had better be careful how you indulge in such jokes again,’ +said Nicholas, ‘or you may find an allusion to pulling noses rather a +dangerous reminder for the subject of your facetiousness. Was it written +in joke, too, pray?’ + +‘No, no, that’s the best of it,’ returned the actor; ‘right down +earnest--honour bright.’ + +Nicholas could not repress a smile at the odd figure before him, which, +at all times more calculated to provoke mirth than anger, was especially +so at that moment, when with one knee upon the ground, Mr. Folair twirled +his old hat round upon his hand, and affected the extremest agony lest +any of the nap should have been knocked off--an ornament which it is +almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted for many months. + +‘Come, sir,’ said Nicholas, laughing in spite of himself. ‘Have the +goodness to explain.’ + +‘Why, I’ll tell you how it is,’ said Mr. Folair, sitting himself down +in a chair with great coolness. ‘Since you came here Lenville has done +nothing but second business, and, instead of having a reception every +night as he used to have, they have let him come on as if he was +nobody.’ + +‘What do you mean by a reception?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Jupiter!’ exclaimed Mr. Folair, ‘what an unsophisticated shepherd you +are, Johnson! Why, applause from the house when you first come on. So he +has gone on night after night, never getting a hand, and you getting a +couple of rounds at least, and sometimes three, till at length he got +quite desperate, and had half a mind last night to play Tybalt with a +real sword, and pink you--not dangerously, but just enough to lay you up +for a month or two.’ + +‘Very considerate,’ remarked Nicholas. + +‘Yes, I think it was under the circumstances; his professional +reputation being at stake,’ said Mr. Folair, quite seriously. ‘But his +heart failed him, and he cast about for some other way of annoying +you, and making himself popular at the same time--for that’s the point. +Notoriety, notoriety, is the thing. Bless you, if he had pinked you,’ +said Mr. Folair, stopping to make a calculation in his mind, ‘it would +have been worth--ah, it would have been worth eight or ten shillings a +week to him. All the town would have come to see the actor who nearly +killed a man by mistake; I shouldn’t wonder if it had got him an +engagement in London. However, he was obliged to try some other mode of +getting popular, and this one occurred to him. It’s a clever idea, really. +If you had shown the white feather, and let him pull your nose, he’d +have got it into the paper; if you had sworn the peace against him, it +would have been in the paper too, and he’d have been just as much talked +about as you--don’t you see?’ + +‘Oh, certainly,’ rejoined Nicholas; ‘but suppose I were to turn the +tables, and pull HIS nose, what then? Would that make his fortune?’ + +‘Why, I don’t think it would,’ replied Mr. Folair, scratching his head, +‘because there wouldn’t be any romance about it, and he wouldn’t be +favourably known. To tell you the truth though, he didn’t calculate much +upon that, for you’re always so mild-spoken, and are so popular among +the women, that we didn’t suspect you of showing fight. If you did, +however, he has a way of getting out of it easily, depend upon that.’ + +‘Has he?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘We will try, tomorrow morning. In the +meantime, you can give whatever account of our interview you like best. +Good-night.’ + +As Mr. Folair was pretty well known among his fellow-actors for a man who +delighted in mischief, and was by no means scrupulous, Nicholas had not +much doubt but that he had secretly prompted the tragedian in the course +he had taken, and, moreover, that he would have carried his mission with +a very high hand if he had not been disconcerted by the very unexpected +demonstrations with which it had been received. It was not worth his +while to be serious with him, however, so he dismissed the pantomimist, +with a gentle hint that if he offended again it would be under +the penalty of a broken head; and Mr. Folair, taking the caution in +exceedingly good part, walked away to confer with his principal, +and give such an account of his proceedings as he might think best +calculated to carry on the joke. + +He had no doubt reported that Nicholas was in a state of extreme bodily +fear; for when that young gentleman walked with much deliberation down +to the theatre next morning at the usual hour, he found all the company +assembled in evident expectation, and Mr. Lenville, with his severest +stage face, sitting majestically on a table, whistling defiance. + +Now the ladies were on the side of Nicholas, and the gentlemen (being +jealous) were on the side of the disappointed tragedian; so that the +latter formed a little group about the redoubtable Mr. Lenville, and the +former looked on at a little distance in some trepidation and anxiety. +On Nicholas stopping to salute them, Mr. Lenville laughed a scornful +laugh, and made some general remark touching the natural history of +puppies. + +‘Oh!’ said Nicholas, looking quietly round, ‘are you there?’ + +‘Slave!’ returned Mr. Lenville, flourishing his right arm, and +approaching Nicholas with a theatrical stride. But somehow he appeared +just at that moment a little startled, as if Nicholas did not look quite +so frightened as he had expected, and came all at once to an awkward +halt, at which the assembled ladies burst into a shrill laugh. + +‘Object of my scorn and hatred!’ said Mr. Lenville, ‘I hold ye in +contempt.’ + +Nicholas laughed in very unexpected enjoyment of this performance; and +the ladies, by way of encouragement, laughed louder than before; whereat +Mr. Lenville assumed his bitterest smile, and expressed his opinion that +they were ‘minions’. + +‘But they shall not protect ye!’ said the tragedian, taking an upward +look at Nicholas, beginning at his boots and ending at the crown of his +head, and then a downward one, beginning at the crown of his head, +and ending at his boots--which two looks, as everybody knows, express +defiance on the stage. ‘They shall not protect ye--boy!’ + +Thus speaking, Mr. Lenville folded his arms, and treated Nicholas to that +expression of face with which, in melodramatic performances, he was in +the habit of regarding the tyrannical kings when they said, ‘Away +with him to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat;’ and which, +accompanied with a little jingling of fetters, had been known to produce +great effects in its time. + +Whether it was the absence of the fetters or not, it made no very deep +impression on Mr. Lenville’s adversary, however, but rather seemed to +increase the good-humour expressed in his countenance; in which stage of +the contest, one or two gentlemen, who had come out expressly to witness +the pulling of Nicholas’s nose, grew impatient, murmuring that if it +were to be done at all it had better be done at once, and that if Mr +Lenville didn’t mean to do it he had better say so, and not keep them +waiting there. Thus urged, the tragedian adjusted the cuff of his right +coat sleeve for the performance of the operation, and walked in a very +stately manner up to Nicholas, who suffered him to approach to within +the requisite distance, and then, without the smallest discomposure, +knocked him down. + +Before the discomfited tragedian could raise his head from the boards, +Mrs. Lenville (who, as has been before hinted, was in an interesting +state) rushed from the rear rank of ladies, and uttering a piercing +scream threw herself upon the body. + +‘Do you see this, monster? Do you see THIS?’ cried Mr. Lenville, sitting +up, and pointing to his prostrate lady, who was holding him very tight +round the waist. + +‘Come,’ said Nicholas, nodding his head, ‘apologise for the insolent +note you wrote to me last night, and waste no more time in talking.’ + +‘Never!’ cried Mr. Lenville. + +‘Yes--yes--yes!’ screamed his wife. ‘For my sake--for mine, +Lenville--forego all idle forms, unless you would see me a blighted +corse at your feet.’ + +‘This is affecting!’ said Mr. Lenville, looking round him, and drawing +the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘The ties of nature are strong. +The weak husband and the father--the father that is yet to be--relents. +I apologise.’ + +‘Humbly and submissively?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Humbly and submissively,’ returned the tragedian, scowling upwards. +‘But only to save her,--for a time will come--’ + +‘Very good,’ said Nicholas; ‘I hope Mrs. Lenville may have a good one; +and when it does come, and you are a father, you shall retract it if you +have the courage. There. Be careful, sir, to what lengths your jealousy +carries you another time; and be careful, also, before you venture +too far, to ascertain your rival’s temper.’ With this parting advice +Nicholas picked up Mr. Lenville’s ash stick which had flown out of his +hand, and breaking it in half, threw him the pieces and withdrew, bowing +slightly to the spectators as he walked out. + +The profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that night, and the +people who had been most anxious to have his nose pulled in the morning, +embraced occasions of taking him aside, and telling him with great +feeling, how very friendly they took it that he should have treated that +Lenville so properly, who was a most unbearable fellow, and on whom they +had all, by a remarkable coincidence, at one time or other contemplated +the infliction of condign punishment, which they had only been +restrained from administering by considerations of mercy; indeed, to +judge from the invariable termination of all these stories, there never +was such a charitable and kind-hearted set of people as the male members +of Mr. Crummles’s company. + +Nicholas bore his triumph, as he had his success in the little world of +the theatre, with the utmost moderation and good humour. The crestfallen +Mr. Lenville made an expiring effort to obtain revenge by sending a +boy into the gallery to hiss, but he fell a sacrifice to popular +indignation, and was promptly turned out without having his money back. + +‘Well, Smike,’ said Nicholas when the first piece was over, and he had +almost finished dressing to go home, ‘is there any letter yet?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Smike, ‘I got this one from the post-office.’ + +‘From Newman Noggs,’ said Nicholas, casting his eye upon the cramped +direction; ‘it’s no easy matter to make his writing out. Let me see--let +me see.’ + +By dint of poring over the letter for half an hour, he contrived to make +himself master of the contents, which were certainly not of a nature +to set his mind at ease. Newman took upon himself to send back the ten +pounds, observing that he had ascertained that neither Mrs. Nickleby nor +Kate was in actual want of money at the moment, and that a time might +shortly come when Nicholas might want it more. He entreated him not to +be alarmed at what he was about to say;--there was no bad news--they +were in good health--but he thought circumstances might occur, or were +occurring, which would render it absolutely necessary that Kate should +have her brother’s protection, and if so, Newman said, he would write to +him to that effect, either by the next post or the next but one. + +Nicholas read this passage very often, and the more he thought of it +the more he began to fear some treachery upon the part of Ralph. Once +or twice he felt tempted to repair to London at all hazards without an +hour’s delay, but a little reflection assured him that if such a step +were necessary, Newman would have spoken out and told him so at once. + +‘At all events I should prepare them here for the possibility of my +going away suddenly,’ said Nicholas; ‘I should lose no time in doing +that.’ As the thought occurred to him, he took up his hat and hurried to +the green-room. + +‘Well, Mr. Johnson,’ said Mrs. Crummles, who was seated there in full +regal costume, with the phenomenon as the Maiden in her maternal arms, +‘next week for Ryde, then for Winchester, then for--’ + +‘I have some reason to fear,’ interrupted Nicholas, ‘that before you +leave here my career with you will have closed.’ + +‘Closed!’ cried Mrs. Crummles, raising her hands in astonishment. + +‘Closed!’ cried Miss Snevellicci, trembling so much in her tights that +she actually laid her hand upon the shoulder of the manageress for +support. + +‘Why he don’t mean to say he’s going!’ exclaimed Mrs. Grudden, making her +way towards Mrs. Crummles. ‘Hoity toity! Nonsense.’ + +The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and moreover excitable, +raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney and Miss Bravassa actually shed +tears. Even the male performers stopped in their conversation, and +echoed the word ‘Going!’ although some among them (and they had been +the loudest in their congratulations that day) winked at each other +as though they would not be sorry to lose such a favoured rival; an +opinion, indeed, which the honest Mr. Folair, who was ready dressed for +the savage, openly stated in so many words to a demon with whom he was +sharing a pot of porter. + +Nicholas briefly said that he feared it would be so, although he could +not yet speak with any degree of certainty; and getting away as soon as +he could, went home to con Newman’s letter once more, and speculate upon +it afresh. + +How trifling all that had been occupying his time and thoughts for many +weeks seemed to him during that sleepless night, and how constantly and +incessantly present to his imagination was the one idea that Kate in the +midst of some great trouble and distress might even then be looking--and +vainly too--for him! + + + +CHAPTER 30 + +Festivities are held in honour of Nicholas, who suddenly withdraws +himself from the Society of Mr. Vincent Crummles and his Theatrical +Companions + + +Mr. Vincent Crummles was no sooner acquainted with the public +announcement which Nicholas had made relative to the probability of +his shortly ceasing to be a member of the company, than he evinced many +tokens of grief and consternation; and, in the extremity of his despair, +even held out certain vague promises of a speedy improvement not only in +the amount of his regular salary, but also in the contingent emoluments +appertaining to his authorship. Finding Nicholas bent upon quitting the +society--for he had now determined that, even if no further tidings came +from Newman, he would, at all hazards, ease his mind by repairing to +London and ascertaining the exact position of his sister--Mr. Crummles +was fain to content himself by calculating the chances of his coming +back again, and taking prompt and energetic measures to make the most of +him before he went away. + +‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Crummles, taking off his outlaw’s wig, the better +to arrive at a cool-headed view of the whole case. ‘Let me see. This is +Wednesday night. We’ll have posters out the first thing in the morning, +announcing positively your last appearance for tomorrow.’ + +‘But perhaps it may not be my last appearance, you know,’ said Nicholas. +‘Unless I am summoned away, I should be sorry to inconvenience you by +leaving before the end of the week.’ + +‘So much the better,’ returned Mr. Crummles. ‘We can have positively +your last appearance, on Thursday--re-engagement for one night more, on +Friday--and, yielding to the wishes of numerous influential patrons, who +were disappointed in obtaining seats, on Saturday. That ought to bring +three very decent houses.’ + +‘Then I am to make three last appearances, am I?’ inquired Nicholas, +smiling. + +‘Yes,’ rejoined the manager, scratching his head with an air of some +vexation; ‘three is not enough, and it’s very bungling and irregular +not to have more, but if we can’t help it we can’t, so there’s no use +in talking. A novelty would be very desirable. You couldn’t sing a comic +song on the pony’s back, could you?’ + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I couldn’t indeed.’ + +‘It has drawn money before now,’ said Mr. Crummles, with a look of +disappointment. ‘What do you think of a brilliant display of fireworks?’ + +‘That it would be rather expensive,’ replied Nicholas, drily. + +‘Eighteen-pence would do it,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘You on the top of +a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an attitude; “Farewell!” on a +transparency behind; and nine people at the wings with a squib in each +hand--all the dozen and a half going off at once--it would be very +grand--awful from the front, quite awful.’ + +As Nicholas appeared by no means impressed with the solemnity of the +proposed effect, but, on the contrary, received the proposition in a +most irreverent manner, and laughed at it very heartily, Mr. Crummles +abandoned the project in its birth, and gloomily observed that they +must make up the best bill they could with combats and hornpipes, and so +stick to the legitimate drama. + +For the purpose of carrying this object into instant execution, the +manager at once repaired to a small dressing-room, adjacent, where +Mrs. Crummles was then occupied in exchanging the habiliments of +a melodramatic empress for the ordinary attire of matrons in the +nineteenth century. And with the assistance of this lady, and the +accomplished Mrs. Grudden (who had quite a genius for making out bills, +being a great hand at throwing in the notes of admiration, and knowing +from long experience exactly where the largest capitals ought to go), he +seriously applied himself to the composition of the poster. + +‘Heigho!’ sighed Nicholas, as he threw himself back in the prompter’s +chair, after telegraphing the needful directions to Smike, who had been +playing a meagre tailor in the interlude, with one skirt to his coat, +and a little pocket-handkerchief with a large hole in it, and a woollen +nightcap, and a red nose, and other distinctive marks peculiar to +tailors on the stage. ‘Heigho! I wish all this were over.’ + +‘Over, Mr. Johnson!’ repeated a female voice behind him, in a kind of +plaintive surprise. + +‘It was an ungallant speech, certainly,’ said Nicholas, looking up to +see who the speaker was, and recognising Miss Snevellicci. ‘I would not +have made it if I had known you had been within hearing.’ + +‘What a dear that Mr. Digby is!’ said Miss Snevellicci, as the tailor +went off on the opposite side, at the end of the piece, with great +applause. (Smike’s theatrical name was Digby.) + +‘I’ll tell him presently, for his gratification, that you said so,’ +returned Nicholas. + +‘Oh you naughty thing!’ rejoined Miss Snevellicci. ‘I don’t know though, +that I should much mind HIS knowing my opinion of him; with some other +people, indeed, it might be--’ Here Miss Snevellicci stopped, as though +waiting to be questioned, but no questioning came, for Nicholas was +thinking about more serious matters. + +‘How kind it is of you,’ resumed Miss Snevellicci, after a short +silence, ‘to sit waiting here for him night after night, night after +night, no matter how tired you are; and taking so much pains with him, +and doing it all with as much delight and readiness as if you were +coining gold by it!’ + +‘He well deserves all the kindness I can show him, and a great deal +more,’ said Nicholas. ‘He is the most grateful, single-hearted, +affectionate creature that ever breathed.’ + +‘So odd, too,’ remarked Miss Snevellicci, ‘isn’t he?’ + +‘God help him, and those who have made him so; he is indeed,’ rejoined +Nicholas, shaking his head. + +‘He is such a devilish close chap,’ said Mr. Folair, who had come up a +little before, and now joined in the conversation. ‘Nobody can ever get +anything out of him.’ + +‘What SHOULD they get out of him?’ asked Nicholas, turning round with +some abruptness. + +‘Zooks! what a fire-eater you are, Johnson!’ returned Mr. Folair, pulling +up the heel of his dancing shoe. ‘I’m only talking of the natural +curiosity of the people here, to know what he has been about all his +life.’ + +‘Poor fellow! it is pretty plain, I should think, that he has not the +intellect to have been about anything of much importance to them or +anybody else,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Ay,’ rejoined the actor, contemplating the effect of his face in a lamp +reflector, ‘but that involves the whole question, you know.’ + +‘What question?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Why, the who he is and what he is, and how you two, who are so +different, came to be such close companions,’ replied Mr. Folair, +delighted with the opportunity of saying something disagreeable. ‘That’s +in everybody’s mouth.’ + +‘The “everybody” of the theatre, I suppose?’ said Nicholas, +contemptuously. + +‘In it and out of it too,’ replied the actor. ‘Why, you know, Lenville +says--’ + +‘I thought I had silenced him effectually,’ interrupted Nicholas, +reddening. + +‘Perhaps you have,’ rejoined the immovable Mr. Folair; ‘if you have, he +said this before he was silenced: Lenville says that you’re a regular +stick of an actor, and that it’s only the mystery about you that has +caused you to go down with the people here, and that Crummles keeps +it up for his own sake; though Lenville says he don’t believe there’s +anything at all in it, except your having got into a scrape and run away +from somewhere, for doing something or other.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Nicholas, forcing a smile. + +‘That’s a part of what he says,’ added Mr. Folair. ‘I mention it as the +friend of both parties, and in strict confidence. I don’t agree with +him, you know. He says he takes Digby to be more knave than fool; and +old Fluggers, who does the heavy business you know, HE says that when he +delivered messages at Covent Garden the season before last, there used +to be a pickpocket hovering about the coach-stand who had exactly the +face of Digby; though, as he very properly says, Digby may not be the +same, but only his brother, or some near relation.’ + +‘Oh!’ cried Nicholas again. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Folair, with undisturbed calmness, ‘that’s what they say. +I thought I’d tell you, because really you ought to know. Oh! here’s +this blessed phenomenon at last. Ugh, you little imposition, I should +like to--quite ready, my darling,--humbug--Ring up, Mrs. G., and let the +favourite wake ‘em.’ + +Uttering in a loud voice such of the latter allusions as were +complimentary to the unconscious phenomenon, and giving the rest in a +confidential ‘aside’ to Nicholas, Mr. Folair followed the ascent of +the curtain with his eyes, regarded with a sneer the reception of Miss +Crummles as the Maiden, and, falling back a step or two to advance with +the better effect, uttered a preliminary howl, and ‘went on’ chattering +his teeth and brandishing his tin tomahawk as the Indian Savage. + +‘So these are some of the stories they invent about us, and bandy from +mouth to mouth!’ thought Nicholas. ‘If a man would commit an inexpiable +offence against any society, large or small, let him be successful. They +will forgive him any crime but that.’ + +‘You surely don’t mind what that malicious creature says, Mr. Johnson?’ +observed Miss Snevellicci in her most winning tones. + +‘Not I,’ replied Nicholas. ‘If I were going to remain here, I might +think it worth my while to embroil myself. As it is, let them talk till +they are hoarse. But here,’ added Nicholas, as Smike approached, ‘here +comes the subject of a portion of their good-nature, so let he and I say +good night together.’ + +‘No, I will not let either of you say anything of the kind,’ returned +Miss Snevellicci. ‘You must come home and see mama, who only came to +Portsmouth today, and is dying to behold you. Led, my dear, persuade Mr +Johnson.’ + +‘Oh, I’m sure,’ returned Miss Ledrook, with considerable vivacity, ‘if +YOU can’t persuade him--’ Miss Ledrook said no more, but intimated, by +a dexterous playfulness, that if Miss Snevellicci couldn’t persuade him, +nobody could. + +‘Mr. and Mrs. Lillyvick have taken lodgings in our house, and share our +sitting-room for the present,’ said Miss Snevellicci. ‘Won’t that induce +you?’ + +‘Surely,’ returned Nicholas, ‘I can require no possible inducement +beyond your invitation.’ + +‘Oh no! I dare say,’ rejoined Miss Snevellicci. And Miss Ledrook said, +‘Upon my word!’ Upon which Miss Snevellicci said that Miss Ledrook was a +giddy thing; and Miss Ledrook said that Miss Snevellicci needn’t colour +up quite so much; and Miss Snevellicci beat Miss Ledrook, and Miss +Ledrook beat Miss Snevellicci. + +‘Come,’ said Miss Ledrook, ‘it’s high time we were there, or we shall +have poor Mrs. Snevellicci thinking that you have run away with her +daughter, Mr. Johnson; and then we should have a pretty to-do.’ + +‘My dear Led,’ remonstrated Miss Snevellicci, ‘how you do talk!’ + +Miss Ledrook made no answer, but taking Smike’s arm in hers, left her +friend and Nicholas to follow at their pleasure; which it pleased them, +or rather pleased Nicholas, who had no great fancy for a TETE-A-TETE +under the circumstances, to do at once. + +There were not wanting matters of conversation when they reached the +street, for it turned out that Miss Snevellicci had a small basket to +carry home, and Miss Ledrook a small bandbox, both containing such minor +articles of theatrical costume as the lady performers usually carried to +and fro every evening. Nicholas would insist upon carrying the basket, +and Miss Snevellicci would insist upon carrying it herself, which +gave rise to a struggle, in which Nicholas captured the basket and +the bandbox likewise. Then Nicholas said, that he wondered what could +possibly be inside the basket, and attempted to peep in, whereat Miss +Snevellicci screamed, and declared that if she thought he had seen, +she was sure she should faint away. This declaration was followed by a +similar attempt on the bandbox, and similar demonstrations on the part +of Miss Ledrook, and then both ladies vowed that they wouldn’t move a +step further until Nicholas had promised that he wouldn’t offer to peep +again. At last Nicholas pledged himself to betray no further curiosity, +and they walked on: both ladies giggling very much, and declaring +that they never had seen such a wicked creature in all their born +days--never. + +Lightening the way with such pleasantry as this, they arrived at the +tailor’s house in no time; and here they made quite a little party, +there being present besides Mr. Lillyvick and Mrs. Lillyvick, not only +Miss Snevellicci’s mama, but her papa also. And an uncommonly fine man +Miss Snevellicci’s papa was, with a hook nose, and a white forehead, and +curly black hair, and high cheek bones, and altogether quite a handsome +face, only a little pimply as though with drinking. He had a very +broad chest had Miss Snevellicci’s papa, and he wore a threadbare blue +dress-coat buttoned with gilt buttons tight across it; and he no sooner +saw Nicholas come into the room, than he whipped the two forefingers of +his right hand in between the two centre buttons, and sticking his other +arm gracefully a-kimbo seemed to say, ‘Now, here I am, my buck, and what +have you got to say to me?’ + +Such was, and in such an attitude sat Miss Snevellicci’s papa, who had +been in the profession ever since he had first played the ten-year-old +imps in the Christmas pantomimes; who could sing a little, dance a +little, fence a little, act a little, and do everything a little, but +not much; who had been sometimes in the ballet, and sometimes in the +chorus, at every theatre in London; who was always selected in virtue +of his figure to play the military visitors and the speechless noblemen; +who always wore a smart dress, and came on arm-in-arm with a smart lady +in short petticoats,--and always did it too with such an air that people +in the pit had been several times known to cry out ‘Bravo!’ under the +impression that he was somebody. Such was Miss Snevellicci’s papa, upon +whom some envious persons cast the imputation that he occasionally beat +Miss Snevellicci’s mama, who was still a dancer, with a neat little +figure and some remains of good looks; and who now sat, as she +danced,--being rather too old for the full glare of the foot-lights,--in +the background. + +To these good people Nicholas was presented with much formality. The +introduction being completed, Miss Snevellicci’s papa (who was scented +with rum-and-water) said that he was delighted to make the acquaintance +of a gentleman so highly talented; and furthermore remarked, that there +hadn’t been such a hit made--no, not since the first appearance of his +friend Mr. Glavormelly, at the Coburg. + +‘You have seen him, sir?’ said Miss Snevellicci’s papa. + +‘No, really I never did,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘You never saw my friend Glavormelly, sir!’ said Miss Snevellicci’s +papa. ‘Then you have never seen acting yet. If he had lived--’ + +‘Oh, he is dead, is he?’ interrupted Nicholas. + +‘He is,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘but he isn’t in Westminster Abbey, more’s +the shame. He was a--. Well, no matter. He is gone to that bourne from +whence no traveller returns. I hope he is appreciated THERE.’ + +So saying Miss Snevellicci’s papa rubbed the tip of his nose with a very +yellow silk handkerchief, and gave the company to understand that these +recollections overcame him. + +‘Well, Mr. Lillyvick,’ said Nicholas, ‘and how are you?’ + +‘Quite well, sir,’ replied the collector. ‘There is nothing like the +married state, sir, depend upon it.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Nicholas, laughing. + +‘Ah! nothing like it, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick solemnly. ‘How do you +think,’ whispered the collector, drawing him aside, ‘how do you think +she looks tonight?’ + +‘As handsome as ever,’ replied Nicholas, glancing at the late Miss +Petowker. + +‘Why, there’s air about her, sir,’ whispered the collector, ‘that I +never saw in anybody. Look at her now she moves to put the kettle on. +There! Isn’t it fascination, sir?’ + +‘You’re a lucky man,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ rejoined the collector. ‘No. Do you think I am though, +eh? Perhaps I may be, perhaps I may be. I say, I couldn’t have done much +better if I had been a young man, could I? You couldn’t have done much +better yourself, could you--eh--could you?’ With such inquires, and +many more such, Mr. Lillyvick jerked his elbow into Nicholas’s side, and +chuckled till his face became quite purple in the attempt to keep down +his satisfaction. + +By this time the cloth had been laid under the joint superintendence of +all the ladies, upon two tables put together, one being high and narrow, +and the other low and broad. There were oysters at the top, sausages +at the bottom, a pair of snuffers in the centre, and baked potatoes +wherever it was most convenient to put them. Two additional chairs were +brought in from the bedroom: Miss Snevellicci sat at the head of the +table, and Mr. Lillyvick at the foot; and Nicholas had not only +the honour of sitting next Miss Snevellicci, but of having Miss +Snevellicci’s mama on his right hand, and Miss Snevellicci’s papa over +the way. In short, he was the hero of the feast; and when the table was +cleared and something warm introduced, Miss Snevellicci’s papa got up +and proposed his health in a speech containing such affecting allusions +to his coming departure, that Miss Snevellicci wept, and was compelled +to retire into the bedroom. + +‘Hush! Don’t take any notice of it,’ said Miss Ledrook, peeping in from +the bedroom. ‘Say, when she comes back, that she exerts herself too +much.’ + +Miss Ledrook eked out this speech with so many mysterious nods and +frowns before she shut the door again, that a profound silence came upon +all the company, during which Miss Snevellicci’s papa looked very +big indeed--several sizes larger than life--at everybody in turn, but +particularly at Nicholas, and kept on perpetually emptying his tumbler +and filling it again, until the ladies returned in a cluster, with Miss +Snevellicci among them. + +‘You needn’t alarm yourself a bit, Mr. Snevellicci,’ said Mrs. Lillyvick. +‘She is only a little weak and nervous; she has been so ever since the +morning.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘that’s all, is it?’ + +‘Oh yes, that’s all. Don’t make a fuss about it,’ cried all the ladies +together. + +Now this was not exactly the kind of reply suited to Mr. Snevellicci’s +importance as a man and a father, so he picked out the unfortunate Mrs +Snevellicci, and asked her what the devil she meant by talking to him in +that way. + +‘Dear me, my dear!’ said Mrs. Snevellicci. + +‘Don’t call me your dear, ma’am,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘if you please.’ + +‘Pray, pa, don’t,’ interposed Miss Snevellicci. + +‘Don’t what, my child?’ + +‘Talk in that way.’ + +‘Why not?’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I hope you don’t suppose there’s +anybody here who is to prevent my talking as I like?’ + +‘Nobody wants to, pa,’ rejoined his daughter. + +‘Nobody would if they did want to,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I am not +ashamed of myself, Snevellicci is my name; I’m to be found in Broad +Court, Bow Street, when I’m in town. If I’m not at home, let any man +ask for me at the stage-door. Damme, they know me at the stage-door +I suppose. Most men have seen my portrait at the cigar shop round the +corner. I’ve been mentioned in the newspapers before now, haven’t I? +Talk! I’ll tell you what; if I found out that any man had been tampering +with the affections of my daughter, I wouldn’t talk. I’d astonish him +without talking; that’s my way.’ + +So saying, Mr. Snevellicci struck the palm of his left hand three smart +blows with his clenched fist; pulled a phantom nose with his right thumb +and forefinger, and swallowed another glassful at a draught. ‘That’s my +way,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci. + +Most public characters have their failings; and the truth is that Mr +Snevellicci was a little addicted to drinking; or, if the whole truth +must be told, that he was scarcely ever sober. He knew in his cups three +distinct stages of intoxication,--the dignified--the quarrelsome--the +amorous. When professionally engaged he never got beyond the dignified; +in private circles he went through all three, passing from one to +another with a rapidity of transition often rather perplexing to those +who had not the honour of his acquaintance. + +Thus Mr. Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he +smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited +symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed ‘The ladies! Bless their hearts!’ in +a most vivacious manner. + +‘I love ‘em,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, looking round the table, ‘I love ‘em, +every one.’ + +‘Not every one,’ reasoned Mr. Lillyvick, mildly. + +‘Yes, every one,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci. + +‘That would include the married ladies, you know,’ said Mr. Lillyvick. + +‘I love them too, sir,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. + +The collector looked into the surrounding faces with an aspect of grave +astonishment, seeming to say, ‘This is a nice man!’ and appeared a +little surprised that Mrs. Lillyvick’s manner yielded no evidences of +horror and indignation. + +‘One good turn deserves another,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I love them +and they love me.’ And as if this avowal were not made in sufficient +disregard and defiance of all moral obligations, what did Mr. Snevellicci +do? He winked--winked openly and undisguisedly; winked with his right +eye--upon Henrietta Lillyvick! + +The collector fell back in his chair in the intensity of his +astonishment. If anybody had winked at her as Henrietta Petowker, it +would have been indecorous in the last degree; but as Mrs. Lillyvick! +While he thought of it in a cold perspiration, and wondered whether +it was possible that he could be dreaming, Mr. Snevellicci repeated the +wink, and drinking to Mrs. Lillyvick in dumb show, actually blew her a +kiss! Mr. Lillyvick left his chair, walked straight up to the other +end of the table, and fell upon him--literally fell upon +him--instantaneously. Mr. Lillyvick was no light weight, and consequently +when he fell upon Mr. Snevellicci, Mr. Snevellicci fell under the table. +Mr. Lillyvick followed him, and the ladies screamed. + +‘What is the matter with the men! Are they mad?’ cried Nicholas, diving +under the table, dragging up the collector by main force, and thrusting +him, all doubled up, into a chair, as if he had been a stuffed figure. +‘What do you mean to do? What do you want to do? What is the matter with +you?’ + +While Nicholas raised up the collector, Smike had performed the same +office for Mr. Snevellicci, who now regarded his late adversary in tipsy +amazement. + +‘Look here, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, pointing to his astonished +wife, ‘here is purity and elegance combined, whose feelings have been +outraged--violated, sir!’ + +‘Lor, what nonsense he talks!’ exclaimed Mrs. Lillyvick in answer to the +inquiring look of Nicholas. ‘Nobody has said anything to me.’ + +‘Said, Henrietta!’ cried the collector. ‘Didn’t I see him--’ Mr +Lillyvick couldn’t bring himself to utter the word, but he counterfeited +the motion of the eye. + +‘Well!’ cried Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose nobody is ever to look at +me? A pretty thing to be married indeed, if that was law!’ + +‘You didn’t mind it?’ cried the collector. + +‘Mind it!’ repeated Mrs. Lillyvick contemptuously. ‘You ought to go down +on your knees and beg everybody’s pardon, that you ought.’ + +‘Pardon, my dear?’ said the dismayed collector. + +‘Yes, and mine first,’ replied Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose I ain’t +the best judge of what’s proper and what’s improper?’ + +‘To be sure,’ cried all the ladies. ‘Do you suppose WE shouldn’t be the +first to speak, if there was anything that ought to be taken notice of?’ + +‘Do you suppose THEY don’t know, sir?’ said Miss Snevellicci’s papa, +pulling up his collar, and muttering something about a punching of +heads, and being only withheld by considerations of age. With which Miss +Snevellicci’s papa looked steadily and sternly at Mr. Lillyvick for some +seconds, and then rising deliberately from his chair, kissed the ladies +all round, beginning with Mrs. Lillyvick. + +The unhappy collector looked piteously at his wife, as if to see whether +there was any one trait of Miss Petowker left in Mrs. Lillyvick, and +finding too surely that there was not, begged pardon of all the company +with great humility, and sat down such a crest-fallen, dispirited, +disenchanted man, that despite all his selfishness and dotage, he was +quite an object of compassion. + +Miss Snevellicci’s papa being greatly exalted by this triumph, and +incontestable proof of his popularity with the fair sex, quickly grew +convivial, not to say uproarious; volunteering more than one song of +no inconsiderable length, and regaling the social circle between-whiles +with recollections of divers splendid women who had been supposed to +entertain a passion for himself, several of whom he toasted by name, +taking occasion to remark at the same time that if he had been a little +more alive to his own interest, he might have been rolling at that +moment in his chariot-and-four. These reminiscences appeared to awaken +no very torturing pangs in the breast of Mrs. Snevellicci, who was +sufficiently occupied in descanting to Nicholas upon the manifold +accomplishments and merits of her daughter. Nor was the young lady +herself at all behind-hand in displaying her choicest allurements; but +these, heightened as they were by the artifices of Miss Ledrook, had no +effect whatever in increasing the attentions of Nicholas, who, with the +precedent of Miss Squeers still fresh in his memory, steadily resisted +every fascination, and placed so strict a guard upon his behaviour that +when he had taken his leave the ladies were unanimous in pronouncing him +quite a monster of insensibility. + +Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were +informed, in all the colours of the rainbow, and in letters afflicted +with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how that Mr. Johnson +would have the honour of making his last appearance that evening, and +how that an early application for places was requested, in consequence +of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances,--it being +a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established +beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a +theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never +get into it. + +Nicholas was somewhat at a loss, on entering the theatre at night, +to account for the unusual perturbation and excitement visible in the +countenances of all the company, but he was not long in doubt as to the +cause, for before he could make any inquiry respecting it Mr. Crummles +approached, and in an agitated tone of voice, informed him that there +was a London manager in the boxes. + +‘It’s the phenomenon, depend upon it, sir,’ said Crummles, dragging +Nicholas to the little hole in the curtain that he might look through at +the London manager. ‘I have not the smallest doubt it’s the fame of the +phenomenon--that’s the man; him in the great-coat and no shirt-collar. +She shall have ten pound a week, Johnson; she shall not appear on the +London boards for a farthing less. They shan’t engage her either, unless +they engage Mrs. Crummles too--twenty pound a week for the pair; or I’ll +tell you what, I’ll throw in myself and the two boys, and they shall +have the family for thirty. I can’t say fairer than that. They must take +us all, if none of us will go without the others. That’s the way some of +the London people do, and it always answers. Thirty pound a week--it’s +too cheap, Johnson. It’s dirt cheap.’ + +Nicholas replied, that it certainly was; and Mr. Vincent Crummles taking +several huge pinches of snuff to compose his feelings, hurried away to +tell Mrs. Crummles that he had quite settled the only terms that could be +accepted, and had resolved not to abate one single farthing. + +When everybody was dressed and the curtain went up, the excitement +occasioned by the presence of the London manager increased a +thousand-fold. Everybody happened to know that the London manager had +come down specially to witness his or her own performance, and all were +in a flutter of anxiety and expectation. Some of those who were not +on in the first scene, hurried to the wings, and there stretched their +necks to have a peep at him; others stole up into the two little private +boxes over the stage-doors, and from that position reconnoitred the +London manager. Once the London manager was seen to smile--he smiled +at the comic countryman’s pretending to catch a blue-bottle, while Mrs +Crummles was making her greatest effect. ‘Very good, my fine fellow,’ +said Mr. Crummles, shaking his fist at the comic countryman when he came +off, ‘you leave this company next Saturday night.’ + +In the same way, everybody who was on the stage beheld no audience but +one individual; everybody played to the London manager. When Mr. Lenville +in a sudden burst of passion called the emperor a miscreant, and then +biting his glove, said, ‘But I must dissemble,’ instead of looking +gloomily at the boards and so waiting for his cue, as is proper in such +cases, he kept his eye fixed upon the London manager. When Miss Bravassa +sang her song at her lover, who according to custom stood ready to shake +hands with her between the verses, they looked, not at each other, but +at the London manager. Mr. Crummles died point blank at him; and when the +two guards came in to take the body off after a very hard death, it was +seen to open its eyes and glance at the London manager. At length the +London manager was discovered to be asleep, and shortly after that +he woke up and went away, whereupon all the company fell foul of the +unhappy comic countryman, declaring that his buffoonery was the sole +cause; and Mr. Crummles said, that he had put up with it a long time, but +that he really couldn’t stand it any longer, and therefore would feel +obliged by his looking out for another engagement. + +All this was the occasion of much amusement to Nicholas, whose only +feeling upon the subject was one of sincere satisfaction that the great +man went away before he appeared. He went through his part in the +two last pieces as briskly as he could, and having been received with +unbounded favour and unprecedented applause--so said the bills for next +day, which had been printed an hour or two before--he took Smike’s arm +and walked home to bed. + +With the post next morning came a letter from Newman Noggs, very inky, +very short, very dirty, very small, and very mysterious, urging Nicholas +to return to London instantly; not to lose an instant; to be there that +night if possible. + +‘I will,’ said Nicholas. ‘Heaven knows I have remained here for the +best, and sorely against my own will; but even now I may have dallied +too long. What can have happened? Smike, my good fellow, here--take my +purse. Put our things together, and pay what little debts we owe--quick, +and we shall be in time for the morning coach. I will only tell them +that we are going, and will return to you immediately.’ + +So saying, he took his hat, and hurrying away to the lodgings of Mr +Crummles, applied his hand to the knocker with such hearty good-will, +that he awakened that gentleman, who was still in bed, and caused Mr +Bulph the pilot to take his morning’s pipe very nearly out of his mouth +in the extremity of his surprise. + +The door being opened, Nicholas ran upstairs without any ceremony, and +bursting into the darkened sitting-room on the one-pair front, found +that the two Master Crummleses had sprung out of the sofa-bedstead and +were putting on their clothes with great rapidity, under the impression +that it was the middle of the night, and the next house was on fire. + +Before he could undeceive them, Mr. Crummles came down in a flannel gown +and nightcap; and to him Nicholas briefly explained that circumstances +had occurred which rendered it necessary for him to repair to London +immediately. + +‘So goodbye,’ said Nicholas; ‘goodbye, goodbye.’ + +He was half-way downstairs before Mr. Crummles had sufficiently recovered +his surprise to gasp out something about the posters. + +‘I can’t help it,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Set whatever I may have earned +this week against them, or if that will not repay you, say at once what +will. Quick, quick.’ + +‘We’ll cry quits about that,’ returned Crummles. ‘But can’t we have one +last night more?’ + +‘Not an hour--not a minute,’ replied Nicholas, impatiently. + +‘Won’t you stop to say something to Mrs. Crummles?’ asked the manager, +following him down to the door. + +‘I couldn’t stop if it were to prolong my life a score of years,’ +rejoined Nicholas. ‘Here, take my hand, and with it my hearty +thanks.--Oh! that I should have been fooling here!’ + +Accompanying these words with an impatient stamp upon the ground, he +tore himself from the manager’s detaining grasp, and darting rapidly +down the street was out of sight in an instant. + +‘Dear me, dear me,’ said Mr. Crummles, looking wistfully towards the +point at which he had just disappeared; ‘if he only acted like that, +what a deal of money he’d draw! He should have kept upon this circuit; +he’d have been very useful to me. But he don’t know what’s good for him. +He is an impetuous youth. Young men are rash, very rash.’ + +Mr. Crummles being in a moralising mood, might possibly have moralised +for some minutes longer if he had not mechanically put his hand towards +his waistcoat pocket, where he was accustomed to keep his snuff. The +absence of any pocket at all in the usual direction, suddenly recalled +to his recollection the fact that he had no waistcoat on; and this +leading him to a contemplation of the extreme scantiness of his +attire, he shut the door abruptly, and retired upstairs with great +precipitation. + +Smike had made good speed while Nicholas was absent, and with his help +everything was soon ready for their departure. They scarcely stopped to +take a morsel of breakfast, and in less than half an hour arrived at the +coach-office: quite out of breath with the haste they had made to reach +it in time. There were yet a few minutes to spare, so, having secured +the places, Nicholas hurried into a slopseller’s hard by, and bought +Smike a great-coat. It would have been rather large for a substantial +yeoman, but the shopman averring (and with considerable truth) that +it was a most uncommon fit, Nicholas would have purchased it in his +impatience if it had been twice the size. + +As they hurried up to the coach, which was now in the open street and +all ready for starting, Nicholas was not a little astonished to find +himself suddenly clutched in a close and violent embrace, which nearly +took him off his legs; nor was his amazement at all lessened by hearing +the voice of Mr. Crummles exclaim, ‘It is he--my friend, my friend!’ + +‘Bless my heart,’ cried Nicholas, struggling in the manager’s arms, +‘what are you about?’ + +The manager made no reply, but strained him to his breast again, +exclaiming as he did so, ‘Farewell, my noble, my lion-hearted boy!’ + +In fact, Mr. Crummles, who could never lose any opportunity for +professional display, had turned out for the express purpose of taking a +public farewell of Nicholas; and to render it the more imposing, he was +now, to that young gentleman’s most profound annoyance, inflicting upon +him a rapid succession of stage embraces, which, as everybody knows, are +performed by the embracer’s laying his or her chin on the shoulder of +the object of affection, and looking over it. This Mr. Crummles did in +the highest style of melodrama, pouring forth at the same time all +the most dismal forms of farewell he could think of, out of the stock +pieces. Nor was this all, for the elder Master Crummles was going +through a similar ceremony with Smike; while Master Percy Crummles, with +a very little second-hand camlet cloak, worn theatrically over his left +shoulder, stood by, in the attitude of an attendant officer, waiting to +convey the two victims to the scaffold. + +The lookers-on laughed very heartily, and as it was as well to put a +good face upon the matter, Nicholas laughed too when he had succeeded +in disengaging himself; and rescuing the astonished Smike, climbed up +to the coach roof after him, and kissed his hand in honour of the absent +Mrs. Crummles as they rolled away. + + + +CHAPTER 31 + +Of Ralph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise Precautions, the +success or failure of which will appear in the Sequel + + +In blissful unconsciousness that his nephew was hastening at the utmost +speed of four good horses towards his sphere of action, and that every +passing minute diminished the distance between them, Ralph Nickleby sat +that morning occupied in his customary avocations, and yet unable to +prevent his thoughts wandering from time to time back to the interview +which had taken place between himself and his niece on the previous +day. At such intervals, after a few moments of abstraction, Ralph +would mutter some peevish interjection, and apply himself with renewed +steadiness of purpose to the ledger before him, but again and again the +same train of thought came back despite all his efforts to prevent it, +confusing him in his calculations, and utterly distracting his attention +from the figures over which he bent. At length Ralph laid down his pen, +and threw himself back in his chair as though he had made up his mind to +allow the obtrusive current of reflection to take its own course, and, +by giving it full scope, to rid himself of it effectually. + +‘I am not a man to be moved by a pretty face,’ muttered Ralph sternly. +‘There is a grinning skull beneath it, and men like me who look and work +below the surface see that, and not its delicate covering. And yet +I almost like the girl, or should if she had been less proudly and +squeamishly brought up. If the boy were drowned or hanged, and the +mother dead, this house should be her home. I wish they were, with all +my soul.’ + +Notwithstanding the deadly hatred which Ralph felt towards Nicholas, +and the bitter contempt with which he sneered at poor Mrs +Nickleby--notwithstanding the baseness with which he had behaved, and +was then behaving, and would behave again if his interest prompted +him, towards Kate herself--still there was, strange though it may seem, +something humanising and even gentle in his thoughts at that moment. He +thought of what his home might be if Kate were there; he placed her in +the empty chair, looked upon her, heard her speak; he felt again upon +his arm the gentle pressure of the trembling hand; he strewed his +costly rooms with the hundred silent tokens of feminine presence and +occupation; he came back again to the cold fireside and the silent +dreary splendour; and in that one glimpse of a better nature, born as +it was in selfish thoughts, the rich man felt himself friendless, +childless, and alone. Gold, for the instant, lost its lustre in his +eyes, for there were countless treasures of the heart which it could +never purchase. + +A very slight circumstance was sufficient to banish such reflections +from the mind of such a man. As Ralph looked vacantly out across the +yard towards the window of the other office, he became suddenly aware of +the earnest observation of Newman Noggs, who, with his red nose almost +touching the glass, feigned to be mending a pen with a rusty fragment of +a knife, but was in reality staring at his employer with a countenance +of the closest and most eager scrutiny. + +Ralph exchanged his dreamy posture for his accustomed business attitude: +the face of Newman disappeared, and the train of thought took to flight, +all simultaneously, and in an instant. + +After a few minutes, Ralph rang his bell. Newman answered the summons, +and Ralph raised his eyes stealthily to his face, as if he almost feared +to read there, a knowledge of his recent thoughts. + +There was not the smallest speculation, however, in the countenance of +Newman Noggs. If it be possible to imagine a man, with two eyes in his +head, and both wide open, looking in no direction whatever, and seeing +nothing, Newman appeared to be that man while Ralph Nickleby regarded +him. + +‘How now?’ growled Ralph. + +‘Oh!’ said Newman, throwing some intelligence into his eyes all at +once, and dropping them on his master, ‘I thought you rang.’ With which +laconic remark Newman turned round and hobbled away. + +‘Stop!’ said Ralph. + +Newman stopped; not at all disconcerted. + +‘I did ring.’ + +‘I knew you did.’ + +‘Then why do you offer to go if you know that?’ + +‘I thought you rang to say you didn’t ring,’ replied Newman. ‘You often +do.’ + +‘How dare you pry, and peer, and stare at me, sirrah?’ demanded Ralph. + +‘Stare!’ cried Newman, ‘at YOU! Ha, ha!’ which was all the explanation +Newman deigned to offer. + +‘Be careful, sir,’ said Ralph, looking steadily at him. ‘Let me have no +drunken fooling here. Do you see this parcel?’ + +‘It’s big enough,’ rejoined Newman. + +‘Carry it into the city; to Cross, in Broad Street, and leave it +there--quick. Do you hear?’ + +Newman gave a dogged kind of nod to express an affirmative reply, and, +leaving the room for a few seconds, returned with his hat. Having made +various ineffective attempts to fit the parcel (which was some two feet +square) into the crown thereof, Newman took it under his arm, and +after putting on his fingerless gloves with great precision and nicety, +keeping his eyes fixed upon Mr. Ralph Nickleby all the time, he adjusted +his hat upon his head with as much care, real or pretended, as if it +were a bran-new one of the most expensive quality, and at last departed +on his errand. + +He executed his commission with great promptitude and dispatch, only +calling at one public-house for half a minute, and even that might be +said to be in his way, for he went in at one door and came out at the +other; but as he returned and had got so far homewards as the Strand, +Newman began to loiter with the uncertain air of a man who has not quite +made up his mind whether to halt or go straight forwards. After a +very short consideration, the former inclination prevailed, and making +towards the point he had had in his mind, Newman knocked a modest double +knock, or rather a nervous single one, at Miss La Creevy’s door. + +It was opened by a strange servant, on whom the odd figure of the +visitor did not appear to make the most favourable impression possible, +inasmuch as she no sooner saw him than she very nearly closed it, and +placing herself in the narrow gap, inquired what he wanted. But Newman +merely uttering the monosyllable ‘Noggs,’ as if it were some cabalistic +word, at sound of which bolts would fly back and doors open, pushed +briskly past and gained the door of Miss La Creevy’s sitting-room, +before the astonished servant could offer any opposition. + +‘Walk in if you please,’ said Miss La Creevy in reply to the sound of +Newman’s knuckles; and in he walked accordingly. + +‘Bless us!’ cried Miss La Creevy, starting as Newman bolted in; ‘what +did you want, sir?’ + +‘You have forgotten me,’ said Newman, with an inclination of the head. +‘I wonder at that. That nobody should remember me who knew me in other +days, is natural enough; but there are few people who, seeing me once, +forget me NOW.’ He glanced, as he spoke, at his shabby clothes and +paralytic limb, and slightly shook his head. + +‘I did forget you, I declare,’ said Miss La Creevy, rising to receive +Newman, who met her half-way, ‘and I am ashamed of myself for doing so; +for you are a kind, good creature, Mr. Noggs. Sit down and tell me all +about Miss Nickleby. Poor dear thing! I haven’t seen her for this many a +week.’ + +‘How’s that?’ asked Newman. + +‘Why, the truth is, Mr. Noggs,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘that I have been +out on a visit--the first visit I have made for fifteen years.’ + +‘That is a long time,’ said Newman, sadly. + +‘So it is a very long time to look back upon in years, though, somehow +or other, thank Heaven, the solitary days roll away peacefully and +happily enough,’ replied the miniature painter. ‘I have a brother, Mr +Noggs--the only relation I have--and all that time I never saw him once. +Not that we ever quarrelled, but he was apprenticed down in the country, +and he got married there; and new ties and affections springing up about +him, he forgot a poor little woman like me, as it was very reasonable +he should, you know. Don’t suppose that I complain about that, because I +always said to myself, “It is very natural; poor dear John is making his +way in the world, and has a wife to tell his cares and troubles to, and +children now to play about him, so God bless him and them, and send we +may all meet together one day where we shall part no more.” But what +do you think, Mr. Noggs,’ said the miniature painter, brightening up and +clapping her hands, ‘of that very same brother coming up to London at +last, and never resting till he found me out; what do you think of his +coming here and sitting down in that very chair, and crying like a child +because he was so glad to see me--what do you think of his insisting on +taking me down all the way into the country to his own house (quite a +sumptuous place, Mr. Noggs, with a large garden and I don’t know how many +fields, and a man in livery waiting at table, and cows and horses and +pigs and I don’t know what besides), and making me stay a whole month, +and pressing me to stop there all my life--yes, all my life--and so did +his wife, and so did the children--and there were four of them, and one, +the eldest girl of all, they--they had named her after me eight good +years before, they had indeed. I never was so happy; in all my life I +never was!’ The worthy soul hid her face in her handkerchief, and sobbed +aloud; for it was the first opportunity she had had of unburdening her +heart, and it would have its way. + +‘But bless my life,’ said Miss La Creevy, wiping her eyes after a short +pause, and cramming her handkerchief into her pocket with great bustle +and dispatch; ‘what a foolish creature I must seem to you, Mr. Noggs! I +shouldn’t have said anything about it, only I wanted to explain to you +how it was I hadn’t seen Miss Nickleby.’ + +‘Have you seen the old lady?’ asked Newman. + +‘You mean Mrs. Nickleby?’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘Then I tell you what, Mr +Noggs, if you want to keep in the good books in that quarter, you had +better not call her the old lady any more, for I suspect she wouldn’t be +best pleased to hear you. Yes, I went there the night before last, but +she was quite on the high ropes about something, and was so grand and +mysterious, that I couldn’t make anything of her: so, to tell you the +truth, I took it into my head to be grand too, and came away in state. I +thought she would have come round again before this, but she hasn’t been +here.’ + +‘About Miss Nickleby--’ said Newman. + +‘Why, she was here twice while I was away,’ returned Miss La Creevy. ‘I +was afraid she mightn’t like to have me calling on her among those great +folks in what’s-its-name Place, so I thought I’d wait a day or two, and +if I didn’t see her, write.’ + +‘Ah!’ exclaimed Newman, cracking his fingers. + +‘However, I want to hear all the news about them from you,’ said Miss La +Creevy. ‘How is the old rough and tough monster of Golden Square? Well, +of course; such people always are. I don’t mean how is he in health, but +how is he going on: how is he behaving himself?’ + +‘Damn him!’ cried Newman, dashing his cherished hat on the floor; ‘like +a false hound.’ + +‘Gracious, Mr. Noggs, you quite terrify me!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy, +turning pale. + +‘I should have spoilt his features yesterday afternoon if I could have +afforded it,’ said Newman, moving restlessly about, and shaking his fist +at a portrait of Mr. Canning over the mantelpiece. ‘I was very near it. +I was obliged to put my hands in my pockets, and keep ‘em there very +tight. I shall do it some day in that little back-parlour, I know I +shall. I should have done it before now, if I hadn’t been afraid of +making bad worse. I shall double-lock myself in with him and have it out +before I die, I’m quite certain of it.’ + +‘I shall scream if you don’t compose yourself, Mr. Noggs,’ said Miss La +Creevy; ‘I’m sure I shan’t be able to help it.’ + +‘Never mind,’ rejoined Newman, darting violently to and fro. ‘He’s +coming up tonight: I wrote to tell him. He little thinks I know; he +little thinks I care. Cunning scoundrel! he don’t think that. Not +he, not he. Never mind, I’ll thwart him--I, Newman Noggs. Ho, ho, the +rascal!’ + +Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs jerked +himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a +human being: now sparring at the little miniatures on the wall, and +now giving himself violent thumps on the head, as if to heighten the +delusion, until he sank down in his former seat quite breathless and +exhausted. + +‘There,’ said Newman, picking up his hat; ‘that’s done me good. Now I’m +better, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ + +It took some little time to reassure Miss La Creevy, who had been almost +frightened out of her senses by this remarkable demonstration; but that +done, Newman faithfully related all that had passed in the interview +between Kate and her uncle, prefacing his narrative with a statement +of his previous suspicions on the subject, and his reasons for forming +them; and concluding with a communication of the step he had taken in +secretly writing to Nicholas. + +Though little Miss La Creevy’s indignation was not so singularly +displayed as Newman’s, it was scarcely inferior in violence and +intensity. Indeed, if Ralph Nickleby had happened to make his appearance +in the room at that moment, there is some doubt whether he would not +have found Miss La Creevy a more dangerous opponent than even Newman +Noggs himself. + +‘God forgive me for saying so,’ said Miss La Creevy, as a wind-up to all +her expressions of anger, ‘but I really feel as if I could stick this +into him with pleasure.’ + +It was not a very awful weapon that Miss La Creevy held, it being in +fact nothing more nor less than a black-lead pencil; but discovering her +mistake, the little portrait painter exchanged it for a mother-of-pearl +fruit knife, wherewith, in proof of her desperate thoughts, she made a +lunge as she spoke, which would have scarcely disturbed the crumb of a +half-quartern loaf. + +‘She won’t stop where she is after tonight,’ said Newman. ‘That’s a +comfort.’ + +‘Stop!’ cried Miss La Creevy, ‘she should have left there, weeks ago.’ + +‘--If we had known of this,’ rejoined Newman. ‘But we didn’t. Nobody +could properly interfere but her mother or brother. The mother’s +weak--poor thing--weak. The dear young man will be here tonight.’ + +‘Heart alive!’ cried Miss La Creevy. ‘He will do something desperate, Mr +Noggs, if you tell him all at once.’ + +Newman left off rubbing his hands, and assumed a thoughtful look. + +‘Depend upon it,’ said Miss La Creevy, earnestly, ‘if you are not very +careful in breaking out the truth to him, he will do some violence upon +his uncle or one of these men that will bring some terrible calamity +upon his own head, and grief and sorrow to us all.’ + +‘I never thought of that,’ rejoined Newman, his countenance falling more +and more. ‘I came to ask you to receive his sister in case he brought +her here, but--’ + +‘But this is a matter of much greater importance,’ interrupted Miss La +Creevy; ‘that you might have been sure of before you came, but the end +of this, nobody can foresee, unless you are very guarded and careful.’ + +‘What CAN I do?’ cried Newman, scratching his head with an air of great +vexation and perplexity. ‘If he was to talk of pistoling ‘em all, I +should be obliged to say, “Certainly--serve ‘em right.”’ + +Miss La Creevy could not suppress a small shriek on hearing this, and +instantly set about extorting a solemn pledge from Newman that he would +use his utmost endeavours to pacify the wrath of Nicholas; which, after +some demur, was conceded. They then consulted together on the safest and +surest mode of communicating to him the circumstances which had rendered +his presence necessary. + +‘He must have time to cool before he can possibly do anything,’ said +Miss La Creevy. ‘That is of the greatest consequence. He must not be +told until late at night.’ + +‘But he’ll be in town between six and seven this evening,’ replied +Newman. ‘I can’t keep it from him when he asks me.’ + +‘Then you must go out, Mr. Noggs,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘You can easily +have been kept away by business, and must not return till nearly +midnight.’ + +‘Then he will come straight here,’ retorted Newman. + +‘So I suppose,’ observed Miss La Creevy; ‘but he won’t find me at home, +for I’ll go straight to the city the instant you leave me, make up +matters with Mrs. Nickleby, and take her away to the theatre, so that he +may not even know where his sister lives.’ + +Upon further discussion, this appeared the safest and most feasible mode +of proceeding that could possibly be adopted. Therefore it was finally +determined that matters should be so arranged, and Newman, after +listening to many supplementary cautions and entreaties, took his leave +of Miss La Creevy and trudged back to Golden Square; ruminating as +he went upon a vast number of possibilities and impossibilities which +crowded upon his brain, and arose out of the conversation that had just +terminated. + + + +CHAPTER 32 + +Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and some remarkable +Proceedings to which it gives rise + + +‘London at last!’ cried Nicholas, throwing back his greatcoat and +rousing Smike from a long nap. ‘It seemed to me as though we should +never reach it.’ + +‘And yet you came along at a tidy pace too,’ observed the coachman, +looking over his shoulder at Nicholas with no very pleasant expression +of countenance. + +‘Ay, I know that,’ was the reply; ‘but I have been very anxious to be at +my journey’s end, and that makes the way seem long.’ + +‘Well,’ remarked the coachman, ‘if the way seemed long with such cattle +as you’ve sat behind, you MUST have been most uncommon anxious;’ and +so saying, he let out his whip-lash and touched up a little boy on the +calves of his legs by way of emphasis. + +They rattled on through the noisy, bustling, crowded street of London, +now displaying long double rows of brightly-burning lamps, dotted here +and there with the chemists’ glaring lights, and illuminated besides +with the brilliant flood that streamed from the windows of the shops, +where sparkling jewellery, silks and velvets of the richest colours, +the most inviting delicacies, and most sumptuous articles of luxurious +ornament, succeeded each other in rich and glittering profusion. Streams +of people apparently without end poured on and on, jostling each other +in the crowd and hurrying forward, scarcely seeming to notice the riches +that surrounded them on every side; while vehicles of all shapes and +makes, mingled up together in one moving mass, like running water, lent +their ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult. + +As they dashed by the quickly-changing and ever-varying objects, it was +curious to observe in what a strange procession they passed before the +eye. Emporiums of splendid dresses, the materials brought from every +quarter of the world; tempting stores of everything to stimulate and +pamper the sated appetite and give new relish to the oft-repeated feast; +vessels of burnished gold and silver, wrought into every exquisite form +of vase, and dish, and goblet; guns, swords, pistols, and patent engines +of destruction; screws and irons for the crooked, clothes for the +newly-born, drugs for the sick, coffins for the dead, and churchyards +for the buried--all these jumbled each with the other and flocking side +by side, seemed to flit by in motley dance like the fantastic groups of +the old Dutch painter, and with the same stern moral for the unheeding +restless crowd. + +Nor were there wanting objects in the crowd itself to give new point +and purpose to the shifting scene. The rags of the squalid ballad-singer +fluttered in the rich light that showed the goldsmith’s treasures, pale +and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food, +hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet +of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures +stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India. There +was a christening party at the largest coffin-maker’s and a funeral +hatchment had stopped some great improvements in the bravest mansion. +Life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; +repletion and starvation laid them down together. + +But it was London; and the old country lady inside, who had put her head +out of the coach-window a mile or two this side Kingston, and cried out +to the driver that she was sure he must have passed it and forgotten to +set her down, was satisfied at last. + +Nicholas engaged beds for himself and Smike at the inn where the coach +stopped, and repaired, without the delay of another moment, to the +lodgings of Newman Noggs; for his anxiety and impatience had increased +with every succeeding minute, and were almost beyond control. + +There was a fire in Newman’s garret; and a candle had been left burning; +the floor was cleanly swept, the room was as comfortably arranged as +such a room could be, and meat and drink were placed in order upon the +table. Everything bespoke the affectionate care and attention of Newman +Noggs, but Newman himself was not there. + +‘Do you know what time he will be home?’ inquired Nicholas, tapping at +the door of Newman’s front neighbour. + +‘Ah, Mr. Johnson!’ said Crowl, presenting himself. ‘Welcome, sir. How +well you’re looking! I never could have believed--’ + +‘Pardon me,’ interposed Nicholas. ‘My question--I am extremely anxious +to know.’ + +‘Why, he has a troublesome affair of business,’ replied Crowl, ‘and will +not be home before twelve o’clock. He was very unwilling to go, I can +tell you, but there was no help for it. However, he left word that you +were to make yourself comfortable till he came back, and that I was to +entertain you, which I shall be very glad to do.’ + +In proof of his extreme readiness to exert himself for the general +entertainment, Mr. Crowl drew a chair to the table as he spoke, and +helping himself plentifully to the cold meat, invited Nicholas and Smike +to follow his example. + +Disappointed and uneasy, Nicholas could touch no food, so, after he had +seen Smike comfortably established at the table, he walked out (despite +a great many dissuasions uttered by Mr. Crowl with his mouth full), and +left Smike to detain Newman in case he returned first. + +As Miss La Creevy had anticipated, Nicholas betook himself straight to +her house. Finding her from home, he debated within himself for some +time whether he should go to his mother’s residence, and so compromise +her with Ralph Nickleby. Fully persuaded, however, that Newman would not +have solicited him to return unless there was some strong reason which +required his presence at home, he resolved to go there, and hastened +eastwards with all speed. + +Mrs. Nickleby would not be at home, the girl said, until past twelve, or +later. She believed Miss Nickleby was well, but she didn’t live at home +now, nor did she come home except very seldom. She couldn’t say where +she was stopping, but it was not at Madame Mantalini’s. She was sure of +that. + +With his heart beating violently, and apprehending he knew not what +disaster, Nicholas returned to where he had left Smike. Newman had not +been home. He wouldn’t be, till twelve o’clock; there was no chance of +it. Was there no possibility of sending to fetch him if it were only for +an instant, or forwarding to him one line of writing to which he might +return a verbal reply? That was quite impracticable. He was not at +Golden Square, and probably had been sent to execute some commission at +a distance. + +Nicholas tried to remain quietly where he was, but he felt so nervous +and excited that he could not sit still. He seemed to be losing time +unless he was moving. It was an absurd fancy, he knew, but he was wholly +unable to resist it. So, he took up his hat and rambled out again. + +He strolled westward this time, pacing the long streets with hurried +footsteps, and agitated by a thousand misgivings and apprehensions +which he could not overcome. He passed into Hyde Park, now silent and +deserted, and increased his rate of walking as if in the hope of leaving +his thoughts behind. They crowded upon him more thickly, however, now +there were no passing objects to attract his attention; and the one idea +was always uppermost, that some stroke of ill-fortune must have occurred +so calamitous in its nature that all were fearful of disclosing it to +him. The old question arose again and again--What could it be? Nicholas +walked till he was weary, but was not one bit the wiser; and indeed he +came out of the Park at last a great deal more confused and perplexed +than when he went in. + +He had taken scarcely anything to eat or drink since early in the +morning, and felt quite worn out and exhausted. As he returned +languidly towards the point from which he had started, along one of the +thoroughfares which lie between Park Lane and Bond Street, he passed a +handsome hotel, before which he stopped mechanically. + +‘An expensive place, I dare say,’ thought Nicholas; ‘but a pint of wine +and a biscuit are no great debauch wherever they are had. And yet I +don’t know.’ + +He walked on a few steps, but looking wistfully down the long vista of +gas-lamps before him, and thinking how long it would take to reach the +end of it and being besides in that kind of mood in which a man is most +disposed to yield to his first impulse--and being, besides, strongly +attracted to the hotel, in part by curiosity, and in part by some +odd mixture of feelings which he would have been troubled to +define--Nicholas turned back again, and walked into the coffee-room. + +It was very handsomely furnished. The walls were ornamented with the +choicest specimens of French paper, enriched with a gilded cornice of +elegant design. The floor was covered with a rich carpet; and two superb +mirrors, one above the chimneypiece and one at the opposite end of the +room reaching from floor to ceiling, multiplied the other beauties and +added new ones of their own to enhance the general effect. There was +a rather noisy party of four gentlemen in a box by the fire-place, and +only two other persons present--both elderly gentlemen, and both alone. + +Observing all this in the first comprehensive glance with which a +stranger surveys a place that is new to him, Nicholas sat himself down +in the box next to the noisy party, with his back towards them, and +postponing his order for a pint of claret until such time as the waiter +and one of the elderly gentlemen should have settled a disputed +question relative to the price of an item in the bill of fare, took up a +newspaper and began to read. + +He had not read twenty lines, and was in truth himself dozing, when he +was startled by the mention of his sister’s name. ‘Little Kate Nickleby’ +were the words that caught his ear. He raised his head in amazement, and +as he did so, saw by the reflection in the opposite glass, that two of +the party behind him had risen and were standing before the fire. ‘It +must have come from one of them,’ thought Nicholas. He waited to hear +more with a countenance of some indignation, for the tone of speech had +been anything but respectful, and the appearance of the individual whom +he presumed to have been the speaker was coarse and swaggering. + +This person--so Nicholas observed in the same glance at the mirror which +had enabled him to see his face--was standing with his back to the fire +conversing with a younger man, who stood with his back to the company, +wore his hat, and was adjusting his shirt-collar by the aid of the +glass. They spoke in whispers, now and then bursting into a loud laugh, +but Nicholas could catch no repetition of the words, nor anything +sounding at all like the words, which had attracted his attention. + +At length the two resumed their seats, and more wine being ordered, the +party grew louder in their mirth. Still there was no reference made to +anybody with whom he was acquainted, and Nicholas became persuaded +that his excited fancy had either imagined the sounds altogether, or +converted some other words into the name which had been so much in his +thoughts. + +‘It is remarkable too,’ thought Nicholas: ‘if it had been “Kate” or +“Kate Nickleby,” I should not have been so much surprised: but “little +Kate Nickleby!”’ + +The wine coming at the moment prevented his finishing the sentence. He +swallowed a glassful and took up the paper again. At that instant-- + +‘Little Kate Nickleby!’ cried the voice behind him. + +‘I was right,’ muttered Nicholas as the paper fell from his hand. ‘And +it was the man I supposed.’ + +‘As there was a proper objection to drinking her in heel-taps,’ said the +voice, ‘we’ll give her the first glass in the new magnum. Little Kate +Nickleby!’ + +‘Little Kate Nickleby,’ cried the other three. And the glasses were set +down empty. + +Keenly alive to the tone and manner of this slight and careless mention +of his sister’s name in a public place, Nicholas fired at once; but he +kept himself quiet by a great effort, and did not even turn his head. + +‘The jade!’ said the same voice which had spoken before. ‘She’s a true +Nickleby--a worthy imitator of her old uncle Ralph--she hangs back to be +more sought after--so does he; nothing to be got out of Ralph unless you +follow him up, and then the money comes doubly welcome, and the bargain +doubly hard, for you’re impatient and he isn’t. Oh! infernal cunning.’ + +‘Infernal cunning,’ echoed two voices. + +Nicholas was in a perfect agony as the two elderly gentlemen opposite, +rose one after the other and went away, lest they should be the means of +his losing one word of what was said. But the conversation was suspended +as they withdrew, and resumed with even greater freedom when they had +left the room. + +‘I am afraid,’ said the younger gentleman, ‘that the old woman has grown +jea-a-lous, and locked her up. Upon my soul it looks like it.’ + +‘If they quarrel and little Nickleby goes home to her mother, so much +the better,’ said the first. ‘I can do anything with the old lady. +She’ll believe anything I tell her.’ + +‘Egad that’s true,’ returned the other voice. ‘Ha, ha, ha! Poor deyvle!’ + +The laugh was taken up by the two voices which always came in together, +and became general at Mrs. Nickleby’s expense. Nicholas turned burning +hot with rage, but he commanded himself for the moment, and waited to +hear more. + +What he heard need not be repeated here. Suffice it that as the wine +went round he heard enough to acquaint him with the characters and +designs of those whose conversation he overhead; to possess him with the +full extent of Ralph’s villainy, and the real reason of his own presence +being required in London. He heard all this and more. He heard his +sister’s sufferings derided, and her virtuous conduct jeered at and +brutally misconstrued; he heard her name bandied from mouth to mouth, +and herself made the subject of coarse and insolent wagers, free speech, +and licentious jesting. + +The man who had spoken first, led the conversation, and indeed almost +engrossed it, being only stimulated from time to time by some slight +observation from one or other of his companions. To him then Nicholas +addressed himself when he was sufficiently composed to stand before the +party, and force the words from his parched and scorching throat. + +‘Let me have a word with you, sir,’ said Nicholas. + +‘With me, sir?’ retorted Sir Mulberry Hawk, eyeing him in disdainful +surprise. + +‘I said with you,’ replied Nicholas, speaking with great difficulty, for +his passion choked him. + +‘A mysterious stranger, upon my soul!’ exclaimed Sir Mulberry, raising +his wine-glass to his lips, and looking round upon his friends. + +‘Will you step apart with me for a few minutes, or do you refuse?’ said +Nicholas sternly. + +Sir Mulberry merely paused in the act of drinking, and bade him either +name his business or leave the table. + +Nicholas drew a card from his pocket, and threw it before him. + +‘There, sir,’ said Nicholas; ‘my business you will guess.’ + +A momentary expression of astonishment, not unmixed with some confusion, +appeared in the face of Sir Mulberry as he read the name; but he subdued +it in an instant, and tossing the card to Lord Verisopht, who sat +opposite, drew a toothpick from a glass before him, and very leisurely +applied it to his mouth. + +‘Your name and address?’ said Nicholas, turning paler as his passion +kindled. + +‘I shall give you neither,’ replied Sir Mulberry. + +‘If there is a gentleman in this party,’ said Nicholas, looking round +and scarcely able to make his white lips form the words, ‘he will +acquaint me with the name and residence of this man.’ + +There was a dead silence. + +‘I am the brother of the young lady who has been the subject of +conversation here,’ said Nicholas. ‘I denounce this person as a liar, +and impeach him as a coward. If he has a friend here, he will save him +the disgrace of the paltry attempt to conceal his name--and utterly +useless one--for I will find it out, nor leave him until I have.’ + +Sir Mulberry looked at him contemptuously, and, addressing his +companions, said-- + +‘Let the fellow talk, I have nothing serious to say to boys of his +station; and his pretty sister shall save him a broken head, if he talks +till midnight.’ + +‘You are a base and spiritless scoundrel!’ said Nicholas, ‘and shall be +proclaimed so to the world. I WILL know you; I will follow you home if +you walk the streets till morning.’ + +Sir Mulberry’s hand involuntarily closed upon the decanter, and he +seemed for an instant about to launch it at the head of his challenger. +But he only filled his glass, and laughed in derision. + +Nicholas sat himself down, directly opposite to the party, and, +summoning the waiter, paid his bill. + +‘Do you know that person’s name?’ he inquired of the man in an audible +voice; pointing out Sir Mulberry as he put the question. + +Sir Mulberry laughed again, and the two voices which had always spoken +together, echoed the laugh; but rather feebly. + +‘That gentleman, sir?’ replied the waiter, who, no doubt, knew his cue, +and answered with just as little respect, and just as much impertinence +as he could safely show: ‘no, sir, I do not, sir.’ + +‘Here, you sir,’ cried Sir Mulberry, as the man was retiring; ‘do you +know THAT person’s name?’ + +‘Name, sir? No, sir.’ + +‘Then you’ll find it there,’ said Sir Mulberry, throwing Nicholas’s card +towards him; ‘and when you have made yourself master of it, put that +piece of pasteboard in the fire--do you hear me?’ + +The man grinned, and, looking doubtfully at Nicholas, compromised the +matter by sticking the card in the chimney-glass. Having done this, he +retired. + +Nicholas folded his arms, and biting his lip, sat perfectly quiet; +sufficiently expressing by his manner, however, a firm determination to +carry his threat of following Sir Mulberry home, into steady execution. + +It was evident from the tone in which the younger member of the party +appeared to remonstrate with his friend, that he objected to this course +of proceeding, and urged him to comply with the request which Nicholas +had made. Sir Mulberry, however, who was not quite sober, and who was +in a sullen and dogged state of obstinacy, soon silenced the +representations of his weak young friend, and further seemed--as if to +save himself from a repetition of them--to insist on being left alone. +However this might have been, the young gentleman and the two who had +always spoken together, actually rose to go after a short interval, and +presently retired, leaving their friend alone with Nicholas. + +It will be very readily supposed that to one in the condition of +Nicholas, the minutes appeared to move with leaden wings indeed, and +that their progress did not seem the more rapid from the monotonous +ticking of a French clock, or the shrill sound of its little bell which +told the quarters. But there he sat; and in his old seat on the opposite +side of the room reclined Sir Mulberry Hawk, with his legs upon the +cushion, and his handkerchief thrown negligently over his knees: +finishing his magnum of claret with the utmost coolness and +indifference. + +Thus they remained in perfect silence for upwards of an hour--Nicholas +would have thought for three hours at least, but that the little +bell had only gone four times. Twice or thrice he looked angrily and +impatiently round; but there was Sir Mulberry in the same attitude, +putting his glass to his lips from time to time, and looking vacantly +at the wall, as if he were wholly ignorant of the presence of any living +person. + +At length he yawned, stretched himself, and rose; walked coolly to the +glass, and having surveyed himself therein, turned round and honoured +Nicholas with a long and contemptuous stare. Nicholas stared again with +right good-will; Sir Mulberry shrugged his shoulders, smiled slightly, +rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to help him on with his greatcoat. + +The man did so, and held the door open. + +‘Don’t wait,’ said Sir Mulberry; and they were alone again. + +Sir Mulberry took several turns up and down the room, whistling +carelessly all the time; stopped to finish the last glass of claret +which he had poured out a few minutes before, walked again, put on his +hat, adjusted it by the glass, drew on his gloves, and, at last, walked +slowly out. Nicholas, who had been fuming and chafing until he was +nearly wild, darted from his seat, and followed him: so closely, that +before the door had swung upon its hinges after Sir Mulberry’s passing +out, they stood side by side in the street together. + +There was a private cabriolet in waiting; the groom opened the apron, +and jumped out to the horse’s head. + +‘Will you make yourself known to me?’ asked Nicholas in a suppressed +voice. + +‘No,’ replied the other fiercely, and confirming the refusal with an +oath. ‘No.’ + +‘If you trust to your horse’s speed, you will find yourself mistaken,’ +said Nicholas. ‘I will accompany you. By Heaven I will, if I hang on to +the foot-board.’ + +‘You shall be horsewhipped if you do,’ returned Sir Mulberry. + +‘You are a villain,’ said Nicholas. + +‘You are an errand-boy for aught I know,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk. + +‘I am the son of a country gentleman,’ returned Nicholas, ‘your equal in +birth and education, and your superior I trust in everything besides. +I tell you again, Miss Nickleby is my sister. Will you or will you not +answer for your unmanly and brutal conduct?’ + +‘To a proper champion--yes. To you--no,’ returned Sir Mulberry, taking +the reins in his hand. ‘Stand out of the way, dog. William, let go her +head.’ + +‘You had better not,’ cried Nicholas, springing on the step as Sir +Mulberry jumped in, and catching at the reins. ‘He has no command over +the horse, mind. You shall not go--you shall not, I swear--till you have +told me who you are.’ + +The groom hesitated, for the mare, who was a high-spirited animal and +thorough-bred, plunged so violently that he could scarcely hold her. + +‘Leave go, I tell you!’ thundered his master. + +The man obeyed. The animal reared and plunged as though it would dash +the carriage into a thousand pieces, but Nicholas, blind to all sense +of danger, and conscious of nothing but his fury, still maintained his +place and his hold upon the reins. + +‘Will you unclasp your hand?’ + +‘Will you tell me who you are?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘No!’ + +In less time than the quickest tongue could tell it, these words were +exchanged, and Sir Mulberry shortening his whip, applied it furiously +to the head and shoulders of Nicholas. It was broken in the struggle; +Nicholas gained the heavy handle, and with it laid open one side of his +antagonist’s face from the eye to the lip. He saw the gash; knew that +the mare had darted off at a wild mad gallop; a hundred lights danced in +his eyes, and he felt himself flung violently upon the ground. + +He was giddy and sick, but staggered to his feet directly, roused by the +loud shouts of the men who were tearing up the street, and screaming to +those ahead to clear the way. He was conscious of a torrent of people +rushing quickly by--looking up, could discern the cabriolet whirled +along the foot-pavement with frightful rapidity--then heard a loud cry, +the smashing of some heavy body, and the breaking of glass--and then the +crowd closed in in the distance, and he could see or hear no more. + +The general attention had been entirely directed from himself to the +person in the carriage, and he was quite alone. Rightly judging that +under such circumstances it would be madness to follow, he turned down a +bye-street in search of the nearest coach-stand, finding after a minute +or two that he was reeling like a drunken man, and aware for the first +time of a stream of blood that was trickling down his face and breast. + + + +CHAPTER 33 + +In which Mr. Ralph Nickleby is relieved, by a very expeditious Process, +from all Commerce with his Relations + + +Smike and Newman Noggs, who in his impatience had returned home long +before the time agreed upon, sat before the fire, listening anxiously +to every footstep on the stairs, and the slightest sound that stirred +within the house, for the approach of Nicholas. Time had worn on, and +it was growing late. He had promised to be back in an hour; and his +prolonged absence began to excite considerable alarm in the minds of +both, as was abundantly testified by the blank looks they cast upon each +other at every new disappointment. + +At length a coach was heard to stop, and Newman ran out to light +Nicholas up the stairs. Beholding him in the trim described at +the conclusion of the last chapter, he stood aghast in wonder and +consternation. + +‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Nicholas, hurrying him back into the room. +‘There is no harm done, beyond what a basin of water can repair.’ + +‘No harm!’ cried Newman, passing his hands hastily over the back and +arms of Nicholas, as if to assure himself that he had broken no bones. +‘What have you been doing?’ + +‘I know all,’ interrupted Nicholas; ‘I have heard a part, and guessed +the rest. But before I remove one jot of these stains, I must hear the +whole from you. You see I am collected. My resolution is taken. Now, my +good friend, speak out; for the time for any palliation or concealment +is past, and nothing will avail Ralph Nickleby now.’ + +‘Your dress is torn in several places; you walk lame, and I am sure you +are suffering pain,’ said Newman. ‘Let me see to your hurts first.’ + +‘I have no hurts to see to, beyond a little soreness and stiffness +that will soon pass off,’ said Nicholas, seating himself with some +difficulty. ‘But if I had fractured every limb, and still preserved my +senses, you should not bandage one till you had told me what I have the +right to know. Come,’ said Nicholas, giving his hand to Noggs. ‘You had +a sister of your own, you told me once, who died before you fell into +misfortune. Now think of her, and tell me, Newman.’ + +‘Yes, I will, I will,’ said Noggs. ‘I’ll tell you the whole truth.’ + +Newman did so. Nicholas nodded his head from time to time, as it +corroborated the particulars he had already gleaned; but he fixed his +eyes upon the fire, and did not look round once. + +His recital ended, Newman insisted upon his young friend’s stripping off +his coat and allowing whatever injuries he had received to be properly +tended. Nicholas, after some opposition, at length consented, and, while +some pretty severe bruises on his arms and shoulders were being rubbed +with oil and vinegar, and various other efficacious remedies which +Newman borrowed from the different lodgers, related in what manner they +had been received. The recital made a strong impression on the warm +imagination of Newman; for when Nicholas came to the violent part of the +quarrel, he rubbed so hard, as to occasion him the most exquisite pain, +which he would not have exhibited, however, for the world, it being +perfectly clear that, for the moment, Newman was operating on Sir +Mulberry Hawk, and had quite lost sight of his real patient. + +This martyrdom over, Nicholas arranged with Newman that while he was +otherwise occupied next morning, arrangements should be made for his +mother’s immediately quitting her present residence, and also for +dispatching Miss La Creevy to break the intelligence to her. He then +wrapped himself in Smike’s greatcoat, and repaired to the inn where they +were to pass the night, and where (after writing a few lines to Ralph, +the delivery of which was to be intrusted to Newman next day), he +endeavoured to obtain the repose of which he stood so much in need. + +Drunken men, they say, may roll down precipices, and be quite +unconscious of any serious personal inconvenience when their reason +returns. The remark may possibly apply to injuries received in other +kinds of violent excitement: certain it is, that although Nicholas +experienced some pain on first awakening next morning, he sprung out of +bed as the clock struck seven, with very little difficulty, and was soon +as much on the alert as if nothing had occurred. + +Merely looking into Smike’s room, and telling him that Newman Noggs +would call for him very shortly, Nicholas descended into the street, +and calling a hackney coach, bade the man drive to Mrs. Wititterly’s, +according to the direction which Newman had given him on the previous +night. + +It wanted a quarter to eight when they reached Cadogan Place. Nicholas +began to fear that no one might be stirring at that early hour, when he +was relieved by the sight of a female servant, employed in cleaning the +door-steps. By this functionary he was referred to the doubtful page, +who appeared with dishevelled hair and a very warm and glossy face, as +of a page who had just got out of bed. + +By this young gentleman he was informed that Miss Nickleby was then +taking her morning’s walk in the gardens before the house. On the +question being propounded whether he could go and find her, the page +desponded and thought not; but being stimulated with a shilling, the +page grew sanguine and thought he could. + +‘Say to Miss Nickleby that her brother is here, and in great haste to +see her,’ said Nicholas. + +The plated buttons disappeared with an alacrity most unusual to them, +and Nicholas paced the room in a state of feverish agitation which made +the delay even of a minute insupportable. He soon heard a light footstep +which he well knew, and before he could advance to meet her, Kate had +fallen on his neck and burst into tears. + +‘My darling girl,’ said Nicholas as he embraced her. ‘How pale you are!’ + +‘I have been so unhappy here, dear brother,’ sobbed poor Kate; ‘so very, +very miserable. Do not leave me here, dear Nicholas, or I shall die of a +broken heart.’ + +‘I will leave you nowhere,’ answered Nicholas--‘never again, Kate,’ he +cried, moved in spite of himself as he folded her to his heart. ‘Tell +me that I acted for the best. Tell me that we parted because I feared to +bring misfortune on your head; that it was a trial to me no less than to +yourself, and that if I did wrong it was in ignorance of the world and +unknowingly.’ + +‘Why should I tell you what we know so well?’ returned Kate soothingly. +‘Nicholas--dear Nicholas--how can you give way thus?’ + +‘It is such bitter reproach to me to know what you have undergone,’ +returned her brother; ‘to see you so much altered, and yet so kind and +patient--God!’ cried Nicholas, clenching his fist and suddenly changing +his tone and manner, ‘it sets my whole blood on fire again. You must +leave here with me directly; you should not have slept here last night, +but that I knew all this too late. To whom can I speak, before we drive +away?’ + +This question was most opportunely put, for at that instant Mr +Wititterly walked in, and to him Kate introduced her brother, who at +once announced his purpose, and the impossibility of deferring it. + +‘The quarter’s notice,’ said Mr. Wititterly, with the gravity of a man on +the right side, ‘is not yet half expired. Therefore--’ + +‘Therefore,’ interposed Nicholas, ‘the quarter’s salary must be lost, +sir. You will excuse this extreme haste, but circumstances require that +I should immediately remove my sister, and I have not a moment’s time to +lose. Whatever she brought here I will send for, if you will allow me, +in the course of the day.’ + +Mr. Wititterly bowed, but offered no opposition to Kate’s immediate +departure; with which, indeed, he was rather gratified than otherwise, +Sir Tumley Snuffim having given it as his opinion, that she rather +disagreed with Mrs. Wititterly’s constitution. + +‘With regard to the trifle of salary that is due,’ said Mr. Wititterly, +‘I will’--here he was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing--‘I +will--owe it to Miss Nickleby.’ + +Mr. Wititterly, it should be observed, was accustomed to owe small +accounts, and to leave them owing. All men have some little pleasant way +of their own; and this was Mr. Wititterly’s. + +‘If you please,’ said Nicholas. And once more offering a hurried apology +for so sudden a departure, he hurried Kate into the vehicle, and bade +the man drive with all speed into the city. + +To the city they went accordingly, with all the speed the hackney coach +could make; and as the horses happened to live at Whitechapel and to be +in the habit of taking their breakfast there, when they breakfasted +at all, they performed the journey with greater expedition than could +reasonably have been expected. + +Nicholas sent Kate upstairs a few minutes before him, that his +unlooked-for appearance might not alarm his mother, and when the way had +been paved, presented himself with much duty and affection. Newman had +not been idle, for there was a little cart at the door, and the effects +were hurrying out already. + +Now, Mrs. Nickleby was not the sort of person to be told anything in +a hurry, or rather to comprehend anything of peculiar delicacy or +importance on a short notice. Wherefore, although the good lady had been +subjected to a full hour’s preparation by little Miss La Creevy, and was +now addressed in most lucid terms both by Nicholas and his sister, she +was in a state of singular bewilderment and confusion, and could by no +means be made to comprehend the necessity of such hurried proceedings. + +‘Why don’t you ask your uncle, my dear Nicholas, what he can possibly +mean by it?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘My dear mother,’ returned Nicholas, ‘the time for talking has gone +by. There is but one step to take, and that is to cast him off with the +scorn and indignation he deserves. Your own honour and good name demand +that, after the discovery of his vile proceedings, you should not be +beholden to him one hour, even for the shelter of these bare walls.’ + +‘To be sure,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, crying bitterly, ‘he is a brute, a +monster; and the walls are very bare, and want painting too, and I have +had this ceiling whitewashed at the expense of eighteen-pence, which is +a very distressing thing, considering that it is so much gone into your +uncle’s pocket. I never could have believed it--never.’ + +‘Nor I, nor anybody else,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Lord bless my life!’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby. ‘To think that that Sir +Mulberry Hawk should be such an abandoned wretch as Miss La Creevy says +he is, Nicholas, my dear; when I was congratulating myself every day on +his being an admirer of our dear Kate’s, and thinking what a thing it +would be for the family if he was to become connected with us, and use +his interest to get you some profitable government place. There are +very good places to be got about the court, I know; for a friend of ours +(Miss Cropley, at Exeter, my dear Kate, you recollect), he had one, and +I know that it was the chief part of his duty to wear silk stockings, +and a bag wig like a black watch-pocket; and to think that it should +come to this after all--oh, dear, dear, it’s enough to kill one, that it +is!’ With which expressions of sorrow, Mrs. Nickleby gave fresh vent to +her grief, and wept piteously. + +As Nicholas and his sister were by this time compelled to superintend +the removal of the few articles of furniture, Miss La Creevy devoted +herself to the consolation of the matron, and observed with great +kindness of manner that she must really make an effort, and cheer up. + +‘Oh I dare say, Miss La Creevy,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, with a petulance +not unnatural in her unhappy circumstances, ‘it’s very easy to say cheer +up, but if you had as many occasions to cheer up as I have had--and +there,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, stopping short. ‘Think of Mr. Pyke and Mr +Pluck, two of the most perfect gentlemen that ever lived, what am I too +say to them--what can I say to them? Why, if I was to say to them, “I’m +told your friend Sir Mulberry is a base wretch,” they’d laugh at me.’ + +‘They will laugh no more at us, I take it,’ said Nicholas, advancing. +‘Come, mother, there is a coach at the door, and until Monday, at all +events, we will return to our old quarters.’ + +‘--Where everything is ready, and a hearty welcome into the bargain,’ +added Miss La Creevy. ‘Now, let me go with you downstairs.’ + +But Mrs. Nickleby was not to be so easily moved, for first she insisted +on going upstairs to see that nothing had been left, and then on going +downstairs to see that everything had been taken away; and when she was +getting into the coach she had a vision of a forgotten coffee-pot on the +back-kitchen hob, and after she was shut in, a dismal recollection of +a green umbrella behind some unknown door. At last Nicholas, in a +condition of absolute despair, ordered the coachman to drive away, +and in the unexpected jerk of a sudden starting, Mrs. Nickleby lost a +shilling among the straw, which fortunately confined her attention to +the coach until it was too late to remember anything else. + +Having seen everything safely out, discharged the servant, and locked +the door, Nicholas jumped into a cabriolet and drove to a bye place near +Golden Square where he had appointed to meet Noggs; and so quickly had +everything been done, that it was barely half-past nine when he reached +the place of meeting. + +‘Here is the letter for Ralph,’ said Nicholas, ‘and here the key. When +you come to me this evening, not a word of last night. Ill news travels +fast, and they will know it soon enough. Have you heard if he was much +hurt?’ + +Newman shook his head. + +‘I will ascertain that myself without loss of time,’ said Nicholas. + +‘You had better take some rest,’ returned Newman. ‘You are fevered and +ill.’ + +Nicholas waved his hand carelessly, and concealing the indisposition he +really felt, now that the excitement which had sustained him was over, +took a hurried farewell of Newman Noggs, and left him. + +Newman was not three minutes’ walk from Golden Square, but in the course +of that three minutes he took the letter out of his hat and put it in +again twenty times at least. First the front, then the back, then the +sides, then the superscription, then the seal, were objects of Newman’s +admiration. Then he held it at arm’s length as if to take in the whole +at one delicious survey, and then he rubbed his hands in a perfect +ecstasy with his commission. + +He reached the office, hung his hat on its accustomed peg, laid the +letter and key upon the desk, and waited impatiently until Ralph +Nickleby should appear. After a few minutes, the well-known creaking of +his boots was heard on the stairs, and then the bell rung. + +‘Has the post come in?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Any other letters?’ + +‘One.’ Newman eyed him closely, and laid it on the desk. + +‘What’s this?’ asked Ralph, taking up the key. + +‘Left with the letter;--a boy brought them--quarter of an hour ago, or +less.’ + +Ralph glanced at the direction, opened the letter, and read as +follows:-- + +‘You are known to me now. There are no reproaches I could heap upon your +head which would carry with them one thousandth part of the grovelling +shame that this assurance will awaken even in your breast. + +‘Your brother’s widow and her orphan child spurn the shelter of your +roof, and shun you with disgust and loathing. Your kindred renounce you, +for they know no shame but the ties of blood which bind them in name +with you. + +‘You are an old man, and I leave you to the grave. May every +recollection of your life cling to your false heart, and cast their +darkness on your death-bed.’ + +Ralph Nickleby read this letter twice, and frowning heavily, fell into +a fit of musing; the paper fluttered from his hand and dropped upon the +floor, but he clasped his fingers, as if he held it still. + +Suddenly, he started from his seat, and thrusting it all crumpled into +his pocket, turned furiously to Newman Noggs, as though to ask him +why he lingered. But Newman stood unmoved, with his back towards him, +following up, with the worn and blackened stump of an old pen, some +figures in an Interest-table which was pasted against the wall, and +apparently quite abstracted from every other object. + + + +CHAPTER 34 + +Wherein Mr. Ralph Nickleby is visited by Persons with whom the Reader has +been already made acquainted + + +‘What a demnition long time you have kept me ringing at this confounded +old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to +throw a strong man into blue convulsions, upon my life and soul, oh +demmit,’--said Mr. Mantalini to Newman Noggs, scraping his boots, as he +spoke, on Ralph Nickleby’s scraper. + +‘I didn’t hear the bell more than once,’ replied Newman. + +‘Then you are most immensely and outr-i-geously deaf,’ said Mr +Mantalini, ‘as deaf as a demnition post.’ + +Mr. Mantalini had got by this time into the passage, and was making his +way to the door of Ralph’s office with very little ceremony, when Newman +interposed his body; and hinting that Mr. Nickleby was unwilling to be +disturbed, inquired whether the client’s business was of a pressing +nature. + +‘It is most demnebly particular,’ said Mr. Mantalini. ‘It is to melt some +scraps of dirty paper into bright, shining, chinking, tinkling, demd +mint sauce.’ + +Newman uttered a significant grunt, and taking Mr. Mantalini’s proffered +card, limped with it into his master’s office. As he thrust his head in +at the door, he saw that Ralph had resumed the thoughtful posture into +which he had fallen after perusing his nephew’s letter, and that he +seemed to have been reading it again, as he once more held it open in +his hand. The glance was but momentary, for Ralph, being disturbed, +turned to demand the cause of the interruption. + +As Newman stated it, the cause himself swaggered into the room, and +grasping Ralph’s horny hand with uncommon affection, vowed that he had +never seen him looking so well in all his life. + +‘There is quite a bloom upon your demd countenance,’ said Mr. Mantalini, +seating himself unbidden, and arranging his hair and whiskers. ‘You look +quite juvenile and jolly, demmit!’ + +‘We are alone,’ returned Ralph, tartly. ‘What do you want with me?’ + +‘Good!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, displaying his teeth. ‘What did I want! Yes. +Ha, ha! Very good. WHAT did I want. Ha, ha. Oh dem!’ + +‘What DO you want, man?’ demanded Ralph, sternly. + +‘Demnition discount,’ returned Mr. Mantalini, with a grin, and shaking +his head waggishly. + +‘Money is scarce,’ said Ralph. + +‘Demd scarce, or I shouldn’t want it,’ interrupted Mr. Mantalini. + +‘The times are bad, and one scarcely knows whom to trust,’ continued +Ralph. ‘I don’t want to do business just now, in fact I would rather +not; but as you are a friend--how many bills have you there?’ + +‘Two,’ returned Mr. Mantalini. + +‘What is the gross amount?’ + +‘Demd trifling--five-and-seventy.’ + +‘And the dates?’ + +‘Two months, and four.’ + +‘I’ll do them for you--mind, for YOU; I wouldn’t for many people--for +five-and-twenty pounds,’ said Ralph, deliberately. + +‘Oh demmit!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, whose face lengthened considerably at +this handsome proposal. + +‘Why, that leaves you fifty,’ retorted Ralph. ‘What would you have? Let +me see the names.’ + +‘You are so demd hard, Nickleby,’ remonstrated Mr. Mantalini. + +‘Let me see the names,’ replied Ralph, impatiently extending his hand +for the bills. ‘Well! They are not sure, but they are safe enough. Do +you consent to the terms, and will you take the money? I don’t want you +to do so. I would rather you didn’t.’ + +‘Demmit, Nickleby, can’t you--’ began Mr. Mantalini. + +‘No,’ replied Ralph, interrupting him. ‘I can’t. Will you take the +money--down, mind; no delay, no going into the city and pretending to +negotiate with some other party who has no existence, and never had. Is +it a bargain, or is it not?’ + +Ralph pushed some papers from him as he spoke, and carelessly rattled +his cash-box, as though by mere accident. The sound was too much for Mr +Mantalini. He closed the bargain directly it reached his ears, and Ralph +told the money out upon the table. + +He had scarcely done so, and Mr. Mantalini had not yet gathered it all +up, when a ring was heard at the bell, and immediately afterwards Newman +ushered in no less a person than Madame Mantalini, at sight of whom Mr +Mantalini evinced considerable discomposure, and swept the cash into his +pocket with remarkable alacrity. + +‘Oh, you ARE here,’ said Madame Mantalini, tossing her head. + +‘Yes, my life and soul, I am,’ replied her husband, dropping on his +knees, and pouncing with kitten-like playfulness upon a stray sovereign. +‘I am here, my soul’s delight, upon Tom Tiddler’s ground, picking up the +demnition gold and silver.’ + +‘I am ashamed of you,’ said Madame Mantalini, with much indignation. + +‘Ashamed--of ME, my joy? It knows it is talking demd charming sweetness, +but naughty fibs,’ returned Mr. Mantalini. ‘It knows it is not ashamed of +its own popolorum tibby.’ + +Whatever were the circumstances which had led to such a result, +it certainly appeared as though the popolorum tibby had rather +miscalculated, for the nonce, the extent of his lady’s affection. Madame +Mantalini only looked scornful in reply; and, turning to Ralph, begged +him to excuse her intrusion. + +‘Which is entirely attributable,’ said Madame, ‘to the gross misconduct +and most improper behaviour of Mr. Mantalini.’ + +‘Of me, my essential juice of pineapple!’ + +‘Of you,’ returned his wife. ‘But I will not allow it. I will not submit +to be ruined by the extravagance and profligacy of any man. I call Mr +Nickleby to witness the course I intend to pursue with you.’ + +‘Pray don’t call me to witness anything, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Settle it +between yourselves, settle it between yourselves.’ + +‘No, but I must beg you as a favour,’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘to hear +me give him notice of what it is my fixed intention to do--my fixed +intention, sir,’ repeated Madame Mantalini, darting an angry look at her +husband. + +‘Will she call me “Sir”?’ cried Mantalini. ‘Me who dote upon her with +the demdest ardour! She, who coils her fascinations round me like a pure +angelic rattlesnake! It will be all up with my feelings; she will throw +me into a demd state.’ + +‘Don’t talk of feelings, sir,’ rejoined Madame Mantalini, seating +herself, and turning her back upon him. ‘You don’t consider mine.’ + +‘I do not consider yours, my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini. + +‘No,’ replied his wife. + +And notwithstanding various blandishments on the part of Mr. Mantalini, +Madame Mantalini still said no, and said it too with such determined and +resolute ill-temper, that Mr. Mantalini was clearly taken aback. + +‘His extravagance, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Madame Mantalini, addressing +herself to Ralph, who leant against his easy-chair with his hands behind +him, and regarded the amiable couple with a smile of the supremest and +most unmitigated contempt,--‘his extravagance is beyond all bounds.’ + +‘I should scarcely have supposed it,’ answered Ralph, sarcastically. + +‘I assure you, Mr. Nickleby, however, that it is,’ returned Madame +Mantalini. ‘It makes me miserable! I am under constant apprehensions, +and in constant difficulty. And even this,’ said Madame Mantalini, +wiping her eyes, ‘is not the worst. He took some papers of value out of +my desk this morning without asking my permission.’ + +Mr. Mantalini groaned slightly, and buttoned his trousers pocket. + +‘I am obliged,’ continued Madame Mantalini, ‘since our late misfortunes, +to pay Miss Knag a great deal of money for having her name in the +business, and I really cannot afford to encourage him in all his +wastefulness. As I have no doubt that he came straight here, Mr +Nickleby, to convert the papers I have spoken of, into money, and as you +have assisted us very often before, and are very much connected with us +in this kind of matters, I wish you to know the determination at which +his conduct has compelled me to arrive.’ + +Mr. Mantalini groaned once more from behind his wife’s bonnet, and +fitting a sovereign into one of his eyes, winked with the other at +Ralph. Having achieved this performance with great dexterity, he whipped +the coin into his pocket, and groaned again with increased penitence. + +‘I have made up my mind,’ said Madame Mantalini, as tokens of impatience +manifested themselves in Ralph’s countenance, ‘to allowance him.’ + +‘To do that, my joy?’ inquired Mr. Mantalini, who did not seem to have +caught the words. + +‘To put him,’ said Madame Mantalini, looking at Ralph, and prudently +abstaining from the slightest glance at her husband, lest his many +graces should induce her to falter in her resolution, ‘to put him upon a +fixed allowance; and I say that if he has a hundred and twenty pounds +a year for his clothes and pocket-money, he may consider himself a very +fortunate man.’ + +Mr. Mantalini waited, with much decorum, to hear the amount of the +proposed stipend, but when it reached his ears, he cast his hat and cane +upon the floor, and drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, gave vent to +his feelings in a dismal moan. + +‘Demnition!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, suddenly skipping out of his chair, +and as suddenly skipping into it again, to the great discomposure of his +lady’s nerves. ‘But no. It is a demd horrid dream. It is not reality. +No!’ + +Comforting himself with this assurance, Mr. Mantalini closed his eyes and +waited patiently till such time as he should wake up. + +‘A very judicious arrangement,’ observed Ralph with a sneer, ‘if your +husband will keep within it, ma’am--as no doubt he will.’ + +‘Demmit!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini, opening his eyes at the sound of +Ralph’s voice, ‘it is a horrid reality. She is sitting there before me. +There is the graceful outline of her form; it cannot be mistaken--there +is nothing like it. The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the +dowager’s was a demd outline. Why is she so excruciatingly beautiful +that I cannot be angry with her, even now?’ + +‘You have brought it upon yourself, Alfred,’ returned Madame +Mantalini--still reproachfully, but in a softened tone. + +‘I am a demd villain!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, smiting himself on the head. +‘I will fill my pockets with change for a sovereign in halfpence and +drown myself in the Thames; but I will not be angry with her, even then, +for I will put a note in the twopenny-post as I go along, to tell her +where the body is. She will be a lovely widow. I shall be a body. Some +handsome women will cry; she will laugh demnebly.’ + +‘Alfred, you cruel, cruel creature,’ said Madame Mantalini, sobbing at +the dreadful picture. + +‘She calls me cruel--me--me--who for her sake will become a demd, damp, +moist, unpleasant body!’ exclaimed Mr. Mantalini. + +‘You know it almost breaks my heart, even to hear you talk of such a +thing,’ replied Madame Mantalini. + +‘Can I live to be mistrusted?’ cried her husband. ‘Have I cut my heart +into a demd extraordinary number of little pieces, and given them +all away, one after another, to the same little engrossing demnition +captivater, and can I live to be suspected by her? Demmit, no I can’t.’ + +‘Ask Mr. Nickleby whether the sum I have mentioned is not a proper one,’ +reasoned Madame Mantalini. + +‘I don’t want any sum,’ replied her disconsolate husband; ‘I shall +require no demd allowance. I will be a body.’ + +On this repetition of Mr. Mantalini’s fatal threat, Madame Mantalini +wrung her hands, and implored the interference of Ralph Nickleby; and +after a great quantity of tears and talking, and several attempts on +the part of Mr. Mantalini to reach the door, preparatory to straightway +committing violence upon himself, that gentleman was prevailed upon, +with difficulty, to promise that he wouldn’t be a body. This great point +attained, Madame Mantalini argued the question of the allowance, and Mr +Mantalini did the same, taking occasion to show that he could live with +uncommon satisfaction upon bread and water, and go clad in rags, but +that he could not support existence with the additional burden of +being mistrusted by the object of his most devoted and disinterested +affection. This brought fresh tears into Madame Mantalini’s eyes, which +having just begun to open to some few of the demerits of Mr. Mantalini, +were only open a very little way, and could be easily closed again. The +result was, that without quite giving up the allowance question, Madame +Mantalini, postponed its further consideration; and Ralph saw, clearly +enough, that Mr. Mantalini had gained a fresh lease of his easy life, and +that, for some time longer at all events, his degradation and downfall +were postponed. + +‘But it will come soon enough,’ thought Ralph; ‘all love--bah! that I +should use the cant of boys and girls--is fleeting enough; though that +which has its sole root in the admiration of a whiskered face like that +of yonder baboon, perhaps lasts the longest, as it originates in the +greater blindness and is fed by vanity. Meantime the fools bring grist +to my mill, so let them live out their day, and the longer it is, the +better.’ + +These agreeable reflections occurred to Ralph Nickleby, as sundry small +caresses and endearments, supposed to be unseen, were exchanged between +the objects of his thoughts. + +‘If you have nothing more to say, my dear, to Mr. Nickleby,’ said Madame +Mantalini, ‘we will take our leaves. I am sure we have detained him much +too long already.’ + +Mr. Mantalini answered, in the first instance, by tapping Madame +Mantalini several times on the nose, and then, by remarking in words +that he had nothing more to say. + +‘Demmit! I have, though,’ he added almost immediately, drawing Ralph +into a corner. ‘Here’s an affair about your friend Sir Mulberry. Such a +demd extraordinary out-of-the-way kind of thing as never was--eh?’ + +‘What do you mean?’ asked Ralph. + +‘Don’t you know, demmit?’ asked Mr. Mantalini. + +‘I see by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last night, +and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger,’ answered +Ralph with great composure; ‘but I see nothing extraordinary in +that--accidents are not miraculous events, when men live hard, and drive +after dinner.’ + +‘Whew!’ cried Mr. Mantalini in a long shrill whistle. ‘Then don’t you +know how it was?’ + +‘Not unless it was as I have just supposed,’ replied Ralph, shrugging +his shoulders carelessly, as if to give his questioner to understand +that he had no curiosity upon the subject. + +‘Demmit, you amaze me,’ cried Mantalini. + +Ralph shrugged his shoulders again, as if it were no great feat to amaze +Mr. Mantalini, and cast a wistful glance at the face of Newman Noggs, +which had several times appeared behind a couple of panes of glass in +the room door; it being a part of Newman’s duty, when unimportant people +called, to make various feints of supposing that the bell had rung for +him to show them out: by way of a gentle hint to such visitors that it +was time to go. + +‘Don’t you know,’ said Mr. Mantalini, taking Ralph by the button, ‘that +it wasn’t an accident at all, but a demd, furious, manslaughtering +attack made upon him by your nephew?’ + +‘What!’ snarled Ralph, clenching his fists and turning a livid white. + +‘Demmit, Nickleby, you’re as great a tiger as he is,’ said Mantalini, +alarmed at these demonstrations. + +‘Go on,’ cried Ralph. ‘Tell me what you mean. What is this story? Who +told you? Speak,’ growled Ralph. ‘Do you hear me?’ + +‘’Gad, Nickleby,’ said Mr. Mantalini, retreating towards his wife, ‘what +a demneble fierce old evil genius you are! You’re enough to frighten the +life and soul out of her little delicious wits--flying all at once into +such a blazing, ravaging, raging passion as never was, demmit!’ + +‘Pshaw,’ rejoined Ralph, forcing a smile. ‘It is but manner.’ + +‘It is a demd uncomfortable, private-madhouse-sort of a manner,’ said Mr +Mantalini, picking up his cane. + +Ralph affected to smile, and once more inquired from whom Mr. Mantalini +had derived his information. + +‘From Pyke; and a demd, fine, pleasant, gentlemanly dog it is,’ replied +Mantalini. ‘Demnition pleasant, and a tip-top sawyer.’ + +‘And what said he?’ asked Ralph, knitting his brows. + +‘That it happened this way--that your nephew met him at a coffeehouse, +fell upon him with the most demneble ferocity, followed him to his cab, +swore he would ride home with him, if he rode upon the horse’s back or +hooked himself on to the horse’s tail; smashed his countenance, which +is a demd fine countenance in its natural state; frightened the horse, +pitched out Sir Mulberry and himself, and--’ + +‘And was killed?’ interposed Ralph with gleaming eyes. ‘Was he? Is he +dead?’ + +Mantalini shook his head. + +‘Ugh,’ said Ralph, turning away. ‘Then he has done nothing. Stay,’ +he added, looking round again. ‘He broke a leg or an arm, or put his +shoulder out, or fractured his collar-bone, or ground a rib or two? His +neck was saved for the halter, but he got some painful and slow-healing +injury for his trouble? Did he? You must have heard that, at least.’ + +‘No,’ rejoined Mantalini, shaking his head again. ‘Unless he was dashed +into such little pieces that they blew away, he wasn’t hurt, for he went +off as quiet and comfortable as--as--as demnition,’ said Mr. Mantalini, +rather at a loss for a simile. + +‘And what,’ said Ralph, hesitating a little, ‘what was the cause of +quarrel?’ + +‘You are the demdest, knowing hand,’ replied Mr. Mantalini, in an +admiring tone, ‘the cunningest, rummest, superlativest old fox--oh +dem!--to pretend now not to know that it was the little bright-eyed +niece--the softest, sweetest, prettiest--’ + +‘Alfred!’ interposed Madame Mantalini. + +‘She is always right,’ rejoined Mr. Mantalini soothingly, ‘and when she +says it is time to go, it is time, and go she shall; and when she walks +along the streets with her own tulip, the women shall say, with envy, +she has got a demd fine husband; and the men shall say with rapture, +he has got a demd fine wife; and they shall both be right and neither +wrong, upon my life and soul--oh demmit!’ + +With which remarks, and many more, no less intellectual and to the +purpose, Mr. Mantalini kissed the fingers of his gloves to Ralph +Nickleby, and drawing his lady’s arm through his, led her mincingly +away. + +‘So, so,’ muttered Ralph, dropping into his chair; ‘this devil is loose +again, and thwarting me, as he was born to do, at every turn. He told +me once there should be a day of reckoning between us, sooner or later. +I’ll make him a true prophet, for it shall surely come.’ + +‘Are you at home?’ asked Newman, suddenly popping in his head. + +‘No,’ replied Ralph, with equal abruptness. + +Newman withdrew his head, but thrust it in again. + +‘You’re quite sure you’re not at home, are you?’ said Newman. + +‘What does the idiot mean?’ cried Ralph, testily. + +‘He has been waiting nearly ever since they first came in, and may have +heard your voice--that’s all,’ said Newman, rubbing his hands. + +‘Who has?’ demanded Ralph, wrought by the intelligence he had just +heard, and his clerk’s provoking coolness, to an intense pitch of +irritation. + +The necessity of a reply was superseded by the unlooked-for entrance +of a third party--the individual in question--who, bringing his one +eye (for he had but one) to bear on Ralph Nickleby, made a great many +shambling bows, and sat himself down in an armchair, with his hands on +his knees, and his short black trousers drawn up so high in the legs by +the exertion of seating himself, that they scarcely reached below the +tops of his Wellington boots. + +‘Why, this IS a surprise!’ said Ralph, bending his gaze upon the +visitor, and half smiling as he scrutinised him attentively; ‘I should +know your face, Mr. Squeers.’ + +‘Ah!’ replied that worthy, ‘and you’d have know’d it better, sir, if +it hadn’t been for all that I’ve been a-going through. Just lift that +little boy off the tall stool in the back-office, and tell him to come +in here, will you, my man?’ said Squeers, addressing himself to Newman. +‘Oh, he’s lifted his-self off. My son, sir, little Wackford. What do you +think of him, sir, for a specimen of the Dotheboys Hall feeding? Ain’t +he fit to bust out of his clothes, and start the seams, and make the +very buttons fly off with his fatness? Here’s flesh!’ cried Squeers, +turning the boy about, and indenting the plumpest parts of his figure +with divers pokes and punches, to the great discomposure of his son +and heir. ‘Here’s firmness, here’s solidness! Why you can hardly get up +enough of him between your finger and thumb to pinch him anywheres.’ + +In however good condition Master Squeers might have been, he certainly +did not present this remarkable compactness of person, for on his +father’s closing his finger and thumb in illustration of his remark, +he uttered a sharp cry, and rubbed the place in the most natural manner +possible. + +‘Well,’ remarked Squeers, a little disconcerted, ‘I had him there; but +that’s because we breakfasted early this morning, and he hasn’t had his +lunch yet. Why you couldn’t shut a bit of him in a door, when he’s had +his dinner. Look at them tears, sir,’ said Squeers, with a triumphant +air, as Master Wackford wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, +‘there’s oiliness!’ + +‘He looks well, indeed,’ returned Ralph, who, for some purposes of his +own, seemed desirous to conciliate the schoolmaster. ‘But how is Mrs +Squeers, and how are you?’ + +‘Mrs. Squeers, sir,’ replied the proprietor of Dotheboys, ‘is as she +always is--a mother to them lads, and a blessing, and a comfort, and +a joy to all them as knows her. One of our boys--gorging his-self with +vittles, and then turning in; that’s their way--got a abscess on him +last week. To see how she operated upon him with a pen-knife! Oh Lor!’ +said Squeers, heaving a sigh, and nodding his head a great many times, +‘what a member of society that woman is!’ + +Mr. Squeers indulged in a retrospective look, for some quarter of a +minute, as if this allusion to his lady’s excellences had naturally +led his mind to the peaceful village of Dotheboys near Greta Bridge +in Yorkshire; and then looked at Ralph, as if waiting for him to say +something. + +‘Have you quite recovered that scoundrel’s attack?’ asked Ralph. + +‘I’ve only just done it, if I’ve done it now,’ replied Squeers. ‘I was +one blessed bruise, sir,’ said Squeers, touching first the roots of his +hair, and then the toes of his boots, ‘from HERE to THERE. Vinegar and +brown paper, vinegar and brown paper, from morning to night. I suppose +there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper stuck upon me, from +first to last. As I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all +over, you might have thought I was a large brown-paper parcel, chock +full of nothing but groans. Did I groan loud, Wackford, or did I groan +soft?’ asked Mr. Squeers, appealing to his son. + +‘Loud,’ replied Wackford. + +‘Was the boys sorry to see me in such a dreadful condition, Wackford, or +was they glad?’ asked Mr. Squeers, in a sentimental manner. + +‘Gl--’ + +‘Eh?’ cried Squeers, turning sharp round. + +‘Sorry,’ rejoined his son. + +‘Oh!’ said Squeers, catching him a smart box on the ear. ‘Then take +your hands out of your pockets, and don’t stammer when you’re asked a +question. Hold your noise, sir, in a gentleman’s office, or I’ll run +away from my family and never come back any more; and then what would +become of all them precious and forlorn lads as would be let loose on +the world, without their best friend at their elbers?’ + +‘Were you obliged to have medical attendance?’ inquired Ralph. + +‘Ay, was I,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and a precious bill the medical +attendant brought in too; but I paid it though.’ + +Ralph elevated his eyebrows in a manner which might be expressive of +either sympathy or astonishment--just as the beholder was pleased to +take it. + +‘Yes, I paid it, every farthing,’ replied Squeers, who seemed to know +the man he had to deal with, too well to suppose that any blinking of +the question would induce him to subscribe towards the expenses; ‘I +wasn’t out of pocket by it after all, either.’ + +‘No!’ said Ralph. + +‘Not a halfpenny,’ replied Squeers. ‘The fact is, we have only one extra +with our boys, and that is for doctors when required--and not then, +unless we’re sure of our customers. Do you see?’ + +‘I understand,’ said Ralph. + +‘Very good,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Then, after my bill was run up, we +picked out five little boys (sons of small tradesmen, as was sure pay) +that had never had the scarlet fever, and we sent one to a cottage where +they’d got it, and he took it, and then we put the four others to sleep +with him, and THEY took it, and then the doctor came and attended ‘em +once all round, and we divided my total among ‘em, and added it on to +their little bills, and the parents paid it. Ha! ha! ha!’ + +‘And a good plan too,’ said Ralph, eyeing the schoolmaster stealthily. + +‘I believe you,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We always do it. Why, when Mrs +Squeers was brought to bed with little Wackford here, we ran the +hooping-cough through half-a-dozen boys, and charged her expenses among +‘em, monthly nurse included. Ha! ha! ha!’ + +Ralph never laughed, but on this occasion he produced the nearest +approach to it that he could, and waiting until Mr. Squeers had enjoyed +the professional joke to his heart’s content, inquired what had brought +him to town. + +‘Some bothering law business,’ replied Squeers, scratching his head, +‘connected with an action, for what they call neglect of a boy. I don’t +know what they would have. He had as good grazing, that boy had, as +there is about us.’ + +Ralph looked as if he did not quite understand the observation. + +‘Grazing,’ said Squeers, raising his voice, under the impression that as +Ralph failed to comprehend him, he must be deaf. ‘When a boy gets weak +and ill and don’t relish his meals, we give him a change of diet--turn +him out, for an hour or so every day, into a neighbour’s turnip field, +or sometimes, if it’s a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of +carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an’t +better land in the country than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he +goes and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his friends +brings a lawsuit against ME! Now, you’d hardly suppose,’ added Squeers, +moving in his chair with the impatience of an ill-used man, ‘that +people’s ingratitude would carry them quite as far as that; would you?’ + +‘A hard case, indeed,’ observed Ralph. + +‘You don’t say more than the truth when you say that,’ replied Squeers. +‘I don’t suppose there’s a man going, as possesses the fondness for +youth that I do. There’s youth to the amount of eight hundred pound a +year at Dotheboys Hall at this present time. I’d take sixteen hundred +pound worth if I could get ‘em, and be as fond of every individual +twenty pound among ‘em as nothing should equal it!’ + +‘Are you stopping at your old quarters?’ asked Ralph. + +‘Yes, we are at the Saracen,’ replied Squeers, ‘and as it don’t want +very long to the end of the half-year, we shall continney to stop there +till I’ve collected the money, and some new boys too, I hope. I’ve +brought little Wackford up, on purpose to show to parents and +guardians. I shall put him in the advertisement, this time. Look at that +boy--himself a pupil. Why he’s a miracle of high feeding, that boy is!’ + +‘I should like to have a word with you,’ said Ralph, who had both +spoken and listened mechanically for some time, and seemed to have been +thinking. + +‘As many words as you like, sir,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘Wackford, you go +and play in the back office, and don’t move about too much or you’ll get +thin, and that won’t do. You haven’t got such a thing as twopence, Mr +Nickleby, have you?’ said Squeers, rattling a bunch of keys in his coat +pocket, and muttering something about its being all silver. + +‘I--think I have,’ said Ralph, very slowly, and producing, after much +rummaging in an old drawer, a penny, a halfpenny, and two farthings. + +‘Thankee,’ said Squeers, bestowing it upon his son. ‘Here! You go and +buy a tart--Mr. Nickleby’s man will show you where--and mind you buy a +rich one. Pastry,’ added Squeers, closing the door on Master Wackford, +‘makes his flesh shine a good deal, and parents thinks that a healthy +sign.’ + +With this explanation, and a peculiarly knowing look to eke it out, +Mr. Squeers moved his chair so as to bring himself opposite to Ralph +Nickleby at no great distance off; and having planted it to his entire +satisfaction, sat down. + +‘Attend to me,’ said Ralph, bending forward a little. + +Squeers nodded. + +‘I am not to suppose,’ said Ralph, ‘that you are dolt enough to forgive +or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or +the exposure which accompanied it?’ + +‘Devil a bit,’ replied Squeers, tartly. + +‘Or to lose an opportunity of repaying it with interest, if you could +get one?’ said Ralph. + +‘Show me one, and try,’ rejoined Squeers. + +‘Some such object it was, that induced you to call on me?’ said Ralph, +raising his eyes to the schoolmaster’s face. + +‘N-n-no, I don’t know that,’ replied Squeers. ‘I thought that if it +was in your power to make me, besides the trifle of money you sent, any +compensation--’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Ralph, interrupting him. ‘You needn’t go on.’ + +After a long pause, during which Ralph appeared absorbed in +contemplation, he again broke silence by asking: + +‘Who is this boy that he took with him?’ + +Squeers stated his name. + +‘Was he young or old, healthy or sickly, tractable or rebellious? Speak +out, man,’ retorted Ralph. + +‘Why, he wasn’t young,’ answered Squeers; ‘that is, not young for a boy, +you know.’ + +‘That is, he was not a boy at all, I suppose?’ interrupted Ralph. + +‘Well,’ returned Squeers, briskly, as if he felt relieved by the +suggestion, ‘he might have been nigh twenty. He wouldn’t seem so old, +though, to them as didn’t know him, for he was a little wanting here,’ +touching his forehead; ‘nobody at home, you know, if you knocked ever so +often.’ + +‘And you DID knock pretty often, I dare say?’ muttered Ralph. + +‘Pretty well,’ returned Squeers with a grin. + +‘When you wrote to acknowledge the receipt of this trifle of money as +you call it,’ said Ralph, ‘you told me his friends had deserted him long +ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to tell you who he +was. Is that the truth?’ + +‘It is, worse luck!’ replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy and +familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the less +reserve. ‘It’s fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book, since a +strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and left him +there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in advance. He +might have been five or six year old at that time--not more.’ + +‘What more do you know about him?’ demanded Ralph. + +‘Devilish little, I’m sorry to say,’ replied Squeers. ‘The money was +paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped. He had given an +address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the point, of +course nobody knowed anything about him. So I kept the lad out of--out +of--’ + +‘Charity?’ suggested Ralph drily. + +‘Charity, to be sure,’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘and when he +begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of +a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and +aggeravating part of the whole affair is,’ said Squeers, dropping his +voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, ‘that some questions +have been asked about him at last--not of me, but, in a roundabout kind +of way, of people in our village. So, that just when I might have had +all arrears paid up, perhaps, and perhaps--who knows? such things have +happened in our business before--a present besides for putting him out +to a farmer, or sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to +disgrace his parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our +boys are--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don’t collar him in open +day, and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.’ + +‘We will both cry quits with him before long,’ said Ralph, laying his +hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster. + +‘Quits!’ echoed Squeers. ‘Ah! and I should like to leave a small balance +in his favour, to be settled when he can. I only wish Mrs. Squeers could +catch hold of him. Bless her heart! She’d murder him, Mr. Nickleby--she +would, as soon as eat her dinner.’ + +‘We will talk of this again,’ said Ralph. ‘I must have time to think of +it. To wound him through his own affections and fancies--. If I could +strike him through this boy--’ + +‘Strike him how you like, sir,’ interrupted Squeers, ‘only hit him hard +enough, that’s all--and with that, I’ll say good-morning. Here!--just +chuck that little boy’s hat off that corner peg, and lift him off the +stool will you?’ + +Bawling these requests to Newman Noggs, Mr. Squeers betook himself to the +little back-office, and fitted on his child’s hat with parental anxiety, +while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on +his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a broad stare. + +‘He’s a fine boy, an’t he?’ said Squeers, throwing his head a little +on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate the +proportions of little Wackford. + +‘Very,’ said Newman. + +‘Pretty well swelled out, an’t he?’ pursued Squeers. ‘He has the fatness +of twenty boys, he has.’ + +‘Ah!’ replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of Squeers, +‘he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more! He’s got it all. God help that +others. Ha! ha! Oh Lord!’ + +Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon his +desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity. + +‘Why, what does the man mean?’ cried Squeers, colouring. ‘Is he drunk?’ + +Newman made no reply. + +‘Is he mad?’ said Squeers. + +But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his +own; so, Mr. Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both drunk +AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his hopeful son +away. + +In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a struggling +and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of Nicholas +augmented. It might be, that to atone for the weakness of inclining to +any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other more intensely +than before; but such had been the course of his feelings. And now, +to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her in the worst and most +repulsive colours, to know that she was taught to hate and despise +him: to feel that there was infection in his touch, and taint in his +companionship--to know all this, and to know that the mover of it all +was that same boyish poor relation who had twitted him in their very +first interview, and openly bearded and braved him since, wrought his +quiet and stealthy malignity to such a pitch, that there was scarcely +anything he would not have hazarded to gratify it, if he could have seen +his way to some immediate retaliation. + +But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although he +cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working on the +one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and business that +came with it, night found him at last, still harping on the same theme, +and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections. + +‘When my brother was such as he,’ said Ralph, ‘the first comparisons +were drawn between us--always in my disfavour. HE was open, liberal, +gallant, gay; I a crafty hunks of cold and stagnant blood, with no +passion but love of saving, and no spirit beyond a thirst for gain. I +recollected it well when I first saw this whipster; but I remember it +better now.’ + +He had been occupied in tearing Nicholas’s letter into atoms; and as he +spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower about him. + +‘Recollections like these,’ pursued Ralph, with a bitter smile, ‘flock +upon me--when I resign myself to them--in crowds, and from countless +quarters. As a portion of the world affect to despise the power of +money, I must try and show them what it is.’ + +And being, by this time, in a pleasant frame of mind for slumber, Ralph +Nickleby went to bed. + + + +CHAPTER 35 + +Smike becomes known to Mrs. Nickleby and Kate. Nicholas also meets with +new Acquaintances. Brighter Days seem to dawn upon the Family + + +Having established his mother and sister in the apartments of the +kind-hearted miniature painter, and ascertained that Sir Mulberry Hawk +was in no danger of losing his life, Nicholas turned his thoughts to +poor Smike, who, after breakfasting with Newman Noggs, had remained, in +a disconsolate state, at that worthy creature’s lodgings, waiting, with +much anxiety, for further intelligence of his protector. + +‘As he will be one of our own little household, wherever we live, +or whatever fortune is in reserve for us,’ thought Nicholas, ‘I must +present the poor fellow in due form. They will be kind to him for his +own sake, and if not (on that account solely) to the full extent I could +wish, they will stretch a point, I am sure, for mine.’ + +Nicholas said ‘they’, but his misgivings were confined to one person. +He was sure of Kate, but he knew his mother’s peculiarities, and was +not quite so certain that Smike would find favour in the eyes of Mrs +Nickleby. + +‘However,’ thought Nicholas as he departed on his benevolent errand; +‘she cannot fail to become attached to him, when she knows what a +devoted creature he is, and as she must quickly make the discovery, his +probation will be a short one.’ + +‘I was afraid,’ said Smike, overjoyed to see his friend again, ‘that you +had fallen into some fresh trouble; the time seemed so long, at last, +that I almost feared you were lost.’ + +‘Lost!’ replied Nicholas gaily. ‘You will not be rid of me so easily, +I promise you. I shall rise to the surface many thousand times yet, +and the harder the thrust that pushes me down, the more quickly I shall +rebound, Smike. But come; my errand here is to take you home.’ + +‘Home!’ faltered Smike, drawing timidly back. + +‘Ay,’ rejoined Nicholas, taking his arm. ‘Why not?’ + +‘I had such hopes once,’ said Smike; ‘day and night, day and night, +for many years. I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away with +grief, but now--’ + +‘And what now?’ asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face. ‘What now, +old friend?’ + +‘I could not part from you to go to any home on earth,’ replied Smike, +pressing his hand; ‘except one, except one. I shall never be an old man; +and if your hand placed me in the grave, and I could think, before I +died, that you would come and look upon it sometimes with one of your +kind smiles, and in the summer weather, when everything was alive--not +dead like me--I could go to that home almost without a tear.’ + +‘Why do you talk thus, poor boy, if your life is a happy one with me?’ +said Nicholas. + +‘Because I should change; not those about me. And if they forgot me, +I should never know it,’ replied Smike. ‘In the churchyard we are all +alike, but here there are none like me. I am a poor creature, but I know +that.’ + +‘You are a foolish, silly creature,’ said Nicholas cheerfully. ‘If +that is what you mean, I grant you that. Why, here’s a dismal face for +ladies’ company!--my pretty sister too, whom you have so often asked me +about. Is this your Yorkshire gallantry? For shame! for shame!’ + +Smike brightened up and smiled. + +‘When I talk of home,’ pursued Nicholas, ‘I talk of mine--which is yours +of course. If it were defined by any particular four walls and a roof, +God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say whereabouts it lay; +but that is not what I mean. When I speak of home, I speak of the place +where--in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and +if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the +same good name notwithstanding. And now, for what is my present home, +which, however alarming your expectations may be, will neither terrify +you by its extent nor its magnificence!’ + +So saying, Nicholas took his companion by the arm, and saying a great +deal more to the same purpose, and pointing out various things to amuse +and interest him as they went along, led the way to Miss La Creevy’s +house. + +‘And this, Kate,’ said Nicholas, entering the room where his sister sat +alone, ‘is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow-traveller whom I +prepared you to receive.’ + +Poor Smike was bashful, and awkward, and frightened enough, at first, +but Kate advanced towards him so kindly, and said, in such a sweet +voice, how anxious she had been to see him after all her brother +had told her, and how much she had to thank him for having comforted +Nicholas so greatly in their very trying reverses, that he began to be +very doubtful whether he should shed tears or not, and became still more +flurried. However, he managed to say, in a broken voice, that Nicholas +was his only friend, and that he would lay down his life to help him; +and Kate, although she was so kind and considerate, seemed to be so +wholly unconscious of his distress and embarrassment, that he recovered +almost immediately and felt quite at home. + +Then, Miss La Creevy came in; and to her Smike had to be presented also. +And Miss La Creevy was very kind too, and wonderfully talkative: not to +Smike, for that would have made him uneasy at first, but to Nicholas and +his sister. Then, after a time, she would speak to Smike himself now and +then, asking him whether he was a judge of likenesses, and whether he +thought that picture in the corner was like herself, and whether he +didn’t think it would have looked better if she had made herself ten +years younger, and whether he didn’t think, as a matter of general +observation, that young ladies looked better not only in pictures, but +out of them too, than old ones; with many more small jokes and facetious +remarks, which were delivered with such good-humour and merriment, that +Smike thought, within himself, she was the nicest lady he had ever seen; +even nicer than Mrs. Grudden, of Mr. Vincent Crummles’s theatre; and she +was a nice lady too, and talked, perhaps more, but certainly louder, +than Miss La Creevy. + +At length the door opened again, and a lady in mourning came in; and +Nicholas kissing the lady in mourning affectionately, and calling her +his mother, led her towards the chair from which Smike had risen when +she entered the room. + +‘You are always kind-hearted, and anxious to help the oppressed, my dear +mother,’ said Nicholas, ‘so you will be favourably disposed towards him, +I know.’ + +‘I am sure, my dear Nicholas,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, looking very hard +at her new friend, and bending to him with something more of majesty +than the occasion seemed to require: ‘I am sure any friend of yours +has, as indeed he naturally ought to have, and must have, of course, you +know, a great claim upon me, and of course, it is a very great pleasure +to me to be introduced to anybody you take an interest in. There can be +no doubt about that; none at all; not the least in the world,’ said Mrs +Nickleby. ‘At the same time I must say, Nicholas, my dear, as I used +to say to your poor dear papa, when he WOULD bring gentlemen home to +dinner, and there was nothing in the house, that if he had come the +day before yesterday--no, I don’t mean the day before yesterday now; +I should have said, perhaps, the year before last--we should have been +better able to entertain him.’ + +With which remarks, Mrs. Nickleby turned to her daughter, and inquired, +in an audible whisper, whether the gentleman was going to stop all +night. + +‘Because, if he is, Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I don’t see that +it’s possible for him to sleep anywhere, and that’s the truth.’ + +Kate stepped gracefully forward, and without any show of annoyance or +irritation, breathed a few words into her mother’s ear. + +‘La, Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, shrinking back, ‘how you do +tickle one! Of course, I understand THAT, my love, without your telling +me; and I said the same to Nicholas, and I AM very much pleased. You +didn’t tell me, Nicholas, my dear,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, turning round +with an air of less reserve than she had before assumed, ‘what your +friend’s name is.’ + +‘His name, mother,’ replied Nicholas, ‘is Smike.’ + +The effect of this communication was by no means anticipated; but the +name was no sooner pronounced, than Mrs. Nickleby dropped upon a chair, +and burst into a fit of crying. + +‘What is the matter?’ exclaimed Nicholas, running to support her. + +‘It’s so like Pyke,’ cried Mrs. Nickleby; ‘so exactly like Pyke. Oh! +don’t speak to me--I shall be better presently.’ + +And after exhibiting every symptom of slow suffocation in all its +stages, and drinking about a tea-spoonful of water from a full tumbler, +and spilling the remainder, Mrs. Nickleby WAS better, and remarked, with +a feeble smile, that she was very foolish, she knew. + +‘It’s a weakness in our family,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘so, of course, +I can’t be blamed for it. Your grandmama, Kate, was exactly the +same--precisely. The least excitement, the slightest surprise--she +fainted away directly. I have heard her say, often and often, that when +she was a young lady, and before she was married, she was turning +a corner into Oxford Street one day, when she ran against her own +hairdresser, who, it seems, was escaping from a bear;--the mere +suddenness of the encounter made her faint away directly. Wait, though,’ +added Mrs. Nickleby, pausing to consider. ‘Let me be sure I’m right. Was +it her hairdresser who had escaped from a bear, or was it a bear who had +escaped from her hairdresser’s? I declare I can’t remember just now, but +the hairdresser was a very handsome man, I know, and quite a gentleman +in his manners; so that it has nothing to do with the point of the +story.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby having fallen imperceptibly into one of her retrospective +moods, improved in temper from that moment, and glided, by an easy +change of the conversation occasionally, into various other anecdotes, +no less remarkable for their strict application to the subject in hand. + +‘Mr. Smike is from Yorkshire, Nicholas, my dear?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, +after dinner, and when she had been silent for some time. + +‘Certainly, mother,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I see you have not forgotten his +melancholy history.’ + +‘O dear no,’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Ah! melancholy, indeed. You don’t +happen, Mr. Smike, ever to have dined with the Grimbles of Grimble Hall, +somewhere in the North Riding, do you?’ said the good lady, addressing +herself to him. ‘A very proud man, Sir Thomas Grimble, with six grown-up +and most lovely daughters, and the finest park in the county.’ + +‘My dear mother,’ reasoned Nicholas, ‘do you suppose that the +unfortunate outcast of a Yorkshire school was likely to receive many +cards of invitation from the nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood?’ + +‘Really, my dear, I don’t know why it should be so very extraordinary,’ +said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I know that when I was at school, I always went at +least twice every half-year to the Hawkinses at Taunton Vale, and they +are much richer than the Grimbles, and connected with them in marriage; +so you see it’s not so very unlikely, after all.’ + +Having put down Nicholas in this triumphant manner, Mrs. Nickleby was +suddenly seized with a forgetfulness of Smike’s real name, and an +irresistible tendency to call him Mr. Slammons; which circumstance she +attributed to the remarkable similarity of the two names in point of +sound both beginning with an S, and moreover being spelt with an M. But +whatever doubt there might be on this point, there was none as to his +being a most excellent listener; which circumstance had considerable +influence in placing them on the very best terms, and inducing Mrs +Nickleby to express the highest opinion of his general deportment and +disposition. + +Thus, the little circle remained, on the most amicable and agreeable +footing, until the Monday morning, when Nicholas withdrew himself from +it for a short time, seriously to reflect upon the state of his affairs, +and to determine, if he could, upon some course of life, which would +enable him to support those who were so entirely dependent upon his +exertions. + +Mr. Crummles occurred to him more than once; but although Kate was +acquainted with the whole history of his connection with that gentleman, +his mother was not; and he foresaw a thousand fretful objections, on +her part, to his seeking a livelihood upon the stage. There were graver +reasons, too, against his returning to that mode of life. Independently +of those arising out of its spare and precarious earnings, and his own +internal conviction that he could never hope to aspire to any great +distinction, even as a provincial actor, how could he carry his sister +from town to town, and place to place, and debar her from any other +associates than those with whom he would be compelled, almost without +distinction, to mingle? ‘It won’t do,’ said Nicholas, shaking his head; +‘I must try something else.’ + +It was much easier to make this resolution than to carry it into effect. +With no greater experience of the world than he had acquired for himself +in his short trials; with a sufficient share of headlong rashness and +precipitation (qualities not altogether unnatural at his time of life); +with a very slender stock of money, and a still more scanty stock +of friends; what could he do? ‘Egad!’ said Nicholas, ‘I’ll try that +Register Office again.’ + +He smiled at himself as he walked away with a quick step; for, an +instant before, he had been internally blaming his own precipitation. +He did not laugh himself out of the intention, however, for on he went: +picturing to himself, as he approached the place, all kinds of splendid +possibilities, and impossibilities too, for that matter, and thinking +himself, perhaps with good reason, very fortunate to be endowed with so +buoyant and sanguine a temperament. + +The office looked just the same as when he had left it last, and, +indeed, with one or two exceptions, there seemed to be the very same +placards in the window that he had seen before. There were the same +unimpeachable masters and mistresses in want of virtuous servants, +and the same virtuous servants in want of unimpeachable masters and +mistresses, and the same magnificent estates for the investment of +capital, and the same enormous quantities of capital to be invested in +estates, and, in short, the same opportunities of all sorts for people +who wanted to make their fortunes. And a most extraordinary proof it +was of the national prosperity, that people had not been found to avail +themselves of such advantages long ago. + +As Nicholas stopped to look in at the window, an old gentleman happened +to stop too; and Nicholas, carrying his eye along the window-panes from +left to right in search of some capital-text placard which should be +applicable to his own case, caught sight of this old gentleman’s figure, +and instinctively withdrew his eyes from the window, to observe the same +more closely. + +He was a sturdy old fellow in a broad-skirted blue coat, made pretty +large, to fit easily, and with no particular waist; his bulky legs +clothed in drab breeches and high gaiters, and his head protected by +a low-crowned broad-brimmed white hat, such as a wealthy grazier might +wear. He wore his coat buttoned; and his dimpled double chin rested +in the folds of a white neckerchief--not one of your stiff-starched +apoplectic cravats, but a good, easy, old-fashioned white neckcloth that +a man might go to bed in and be none the worse for. But what principally +attracted the attention of Nicholas was the old gentleman’s eye,--never +was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry, happy eye, as that. And +there he stood, looking a little upward, with one hand thrust into the +breast of his coat, and the other playing with his old-fashioned gold +watch-chain: his head thrown a little on one side, and his hat a little +more on one side than his head, (but that was evidently accident; not +his ordinary way of wearing it,) with such a pleasant smile playing +about his mouth, and such a comical expression of mingled slyness, +simplicity, kind-heartedness, and good-humour, lighting up his jolly +old face, that Nicholas would have been content to have stood there +and looked at him until evening, and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that +there was such a thing as a soured mind or a crabbed countenance to be +met with in the whole wide world. + +But, even a very remote approach to this gratification was not to +be made, for although he seemed quite unconscious of having been the +subject of observation, he looked casually at Nicholas; and the latter, +fearful of giving offence, resumed his scrutiny of the window instantly. + +Still, the old gentleman stood there, glancing from placard to placard, +and Nicholas could not forbear raising his eyes to his face again. +Grafted upon the quaintness and oddity of his appearance, was something +so indescribably engaging, and bespeaking so much worth, and there were +so many little lights hovering about the corners of his mouth and eyes, +that it was not a mere amusement, but a positive pleasure and delight to +look at him. + +This being the case, it is no wonder that the old man caught Nicholas +in the fact, more than once. At such times, Nicholas coloured and looked +embarrassed: for the truth is, that he had begun to wonder whether the +stranger could, by any possibility, be looking for a clerk or secretary; +and thinking this, he felt as if the old gentleman must know it. + +Long as all this takes to tell, it was not more than a couple of minutes +in passing. As the stranger was moving away, Nicholas caught his eye +again, and, in the awkwardness of the moment, stammered out an apology. + +‘No offence. Oh no offence!’ said the old man. + +This was said in such a hearty tone, and the voice was so exactly what +it should have been from such a speaker, and there was such a cordiality +in the manner, that Nicholas was emboldened to speak again. + +‘A great many opportunities here, sir,’ he said, half smiling as he +motioned towards the window. + +‘A great many people willing and anxious to be employed have seriously +thought so very often, I dare say,’ replied the old man. ‘Poor fellows, +poor fellows!’ + +He moved away as he said this; but seeing that Nicholas was about to +speak, good-naturedly slackened his pace, as if he were unwilling to +cut him short. After a little of that hesitation which may be sometimes +observed between two people in the street who have exchanged a nod, +and are both uncertain whether they shall turn back and speak, or not, +Nicholas found himself at the old man’s side. + +‘You were about to speak, young gentleman; what were you going to say?’ + +‘Merely that I almost hoped--I mean to say, thought--you had some object +in consulting those advertisements,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Ay, ay? what object now--what object?’ returned the old man, looking +slyly at Nicholas. ‘Did you think I wanted a situation now--eh? Did you +think I did?’ + +Nicholas shook his head. + +‘Ha! ha!’ laughed the old gentleman, rubbing his hands and wrists as +if he were washing them. ‘A very natural thought, at all events, after +seeing me gazing at those bills. I thought the same of you, at first; +upon my word I did.’ + +‘If you had thought so at last, too, sir, you would not have been far +from the truth,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Eh?’ cried the old man, surveying him from head to foot. ‘What! Dear +me! No, no. Well-behaved young gentleman reduced to such a necessity! No +no, no no.’ + +Nicholas bowed, and bidding him good-morning, turned upon his heel. + +‘Stay,’ said the old man, beckoning him into a bye street, where they +could converse with less interruption. ‘What d’ye mean, eh?’ + +‘Merely that your kind face and manner--both so unlike any I have ever +seen--tempted me into an avowal, which, to any other stranger in this +wilderness of London, I should not have dreamt of making,’ returned +Nicholas. + +‘Wilderness! Yes, it is, it is. Good! It IS a wilderness,’ said the old +man with much animation. ‘It was a wilderness to me once. I came here +barefoot. I have never forgotten it. Thank God!’ and he raised his hat +from his head, and looked very grave. + +‘What’s the matter? What is it? How did it all come about?’ said the old +man, laying his hand on the shoulder of Nicholas, and walking him up the +street. ‘You’re--Eh?’ laying his finger on the sleeve of his black coat. +‘Who’s it for, eh?’ + +‘My father,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Ah!’ said the old gentleman quickly. ‘Bad thing for a young man to lose +his father. Widowed mother, perhaps?’ + +Nicholas sighed. + +‘Brothers and sisters too? Eh?’ + +‘One sister,’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘Poor thing, poor thing! You are a scholar too, I dare say?’ said the +old man, looking wistfully into the face of the young one. + +‘I have been tolerably well educated,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Fine thing,’ said the old gentleman, ‘education a great thing: a very +great thing! I never had any. I admire it the more in others. A very +fine thing. Yes, yes. Tell me more of your history. Let me hear it all. +No impertinent curiosity--no, no, no.’ + +There was something so earnest and guileless in the way in which +all this was said, and such a complete disregard of all conventional +restraints and coldnesses, that Nicholas could not resist it. Among +men who have any sound and sterling qualities, there is nothing so +contagious as pure openness of heart. Nicholas took the infection +instantly, and ran over the main points of his little history without +reserve: merely suppressing names, and touching as lightly as possible +upon his uncle’s treatment of Kate. The old man listened with great +attention, and when he had concluded, drew his arm eagerly through his +own. + +‘Don’t say another word. Not another word’ said he. ‘Come along with me. +We mustn’t lose a minute.’ + +So saying, the old gentleman dragged him back into Oxford Street, and +hailing an omnibus on its way to the city, pushed Nicholas in before +him, and followed himself. + +As he appeared in a most extraordinary condition of restless excitement, +and whenever Nicholas offered to speak, immediately interposed with: +‘Don’t say another word, my dear sir, on any account--not another word,’ +the young man thought it better to attempt no further interruption. +Into the city they journeyed accordingly, without interchanging any +conversation; and the farther they went, the more Nicholas wondered what +the end of the adventure could possibly be. + +The old gentleman got out, with great alacrity, when they reached +the Bank, and once more taking Nicholas by the arm, hurried him along +Threadneedle Street, and through some lanes and passages on the right, +until they, at length, emerged in a quiet shady little square. Into the +oldest and cleanest-looking house of business in the square, he led the +way. The only inscription on the door-post was ‘Cheeryble, Brothers;’ +but from a hasty glance at the directions of some packages which were +lying about, Nicholas supposed that the brothers Cheeryble were German +merchants. + +Passing through a warehouse which presented every indication of a +thriving business, Mr. Cheeryble (for such Nicholas supposed him to +be, from the respect which had been shown him by the warehousemen +and porters whom they passed) led him into a little partitioned-off +counting-house like a large glass case, in which counting-house there +sat--as free from dust and blemish as if he had been fixed into the +glass case before the top was put on, and had never come out since--a +fat, elderly, large-faced clerk, with silver spectacles and a powdered +head. + +‘Is my brother in his room, Tim?’ said Mr. Cheeryble, with no less +kindness of manner than he had shown to Nicholas. + +‘Yes, he is, sir,’ replied the fat clerk, turning his spectacle-glasses +towards his principal, and his eyes towards Nicholas, ‘but Mr. Trimmers +is with him.’ + +‘Ay! And what has he come about, Tim?’ said Mr. Cheeryble. + +‘He is getting up a subscription for the widow and family of a man who +was killed in the East India Docks this morning, sir,’ rejoined Tim. +‘Smashed, sir, by a cask of sugar.’ + +‘He is a good creature,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, with great earnestness. ‘He +is a kind soul. I am very much obliged to Trimmers. Trimmers is one of +the best friends we have. He makes a thousand cases known to us that we +should never discover of ourselves. I am VERY much obliged to Trimmers.’ +Saying which, Mr. Cheeryble rubbed his hands with infinite delight, and +Mr. Trimmers happening to pass the door that instant, on his way out, +shot out after him and caught him by the hand. + +‘I owe you a thousand thanks, Trimmers, ten thousand thanks. I take it +very friendly of you, very friendly indeed,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, dragging +him into a corner to get out of hearing. ‘How many children are there, +and what has my brother Ned given, Trimmers?’ + +‘There are six children,’ replied the gentleman, ‘and your brother has +given us twenty pounds.’ + +‘My brother Ned is a good fellow, and you’re a good fellow too, +Trimmers,’ said the old man, shaking him by both hands with trembling +eagerness. ‘Put me down for another twenty--or--stop a minute, stop a +minute. We mustn’t look ostentatious; put me down ten pound, and Tim +Linkinwater ten pound. A cheque for twenty pound for Mr. Trimmers, Tim. +God bless you, Trimmers--and come and dine with us some day this week; +you’ll always find a knife and fork, and we shall be delighted. Now, my +dear sir--cheque from Mr. Linkinwater, Tim. Smashed by a cask of sugar, +and six poor children--oh dear, dear, dear!’ + +Talking on in this strain, as fast as he could, to prevent any friendly +remonstrances from the collector of the subscription on the large amount +of his donation, Mr. Cheeryble led Nicholas, equally astonished and +affected by what he had seen and heard in this short space, to the +half-opened door of another room. + +‘Brother Ned,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, tapping with his knuckles, and +stooping to listen, ‘are you busy, my dear brother, or can you spare +time for a word or two with me?’ + +‘Brother Charles, my dear fellow,’ replied a voice from the inside, so +like in its tones to that which had just spoken, that Nicholas started, +and almost thought it was the same, ‘don’t ask me such a question, but +come in directly.’ + +They went in, without further parley. What was the amazement of Nicholas +when his conductor advanced, and exchanged a warm greeting with another +old gentleman, the very type and model of himself--the same face, the +same figure, the same coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, the same breeches +and gaiters--nay, there was the very same white hat hanging against the +wall! + +As they shook each other by the hand: the face of each lighted up by +beaming looks of affection, which would have been most delightful to +behold in infants, and which, in men so old, was inexpressibly touching: +Nicholas could observe that the last old gentleman was something stouter +than his brother; this, and a slight additional shade of clumsiness in +his gait and stature, formed the only perceptible difference between +them. Nobody could have doubted their being twin brothers. + +‘Brother Ned,’ said Nicholas’s friend, closing the room-door, ‘here is a +young friend of mine whom we must assist. We must make proper inquiries +into his statements, in justice to him as well as to ourselves, and if +they are confirmed--as I feel assured they will be--we must assist him, +we must assist him, brother Ned.’ + +‘It is enough, my dear brother, that you say we should,’ returned the +other. ‘When you say that, no further inquiries are needed. He SHALL be +assisted. What are his necessities, and what does he require? Where is +Tim Linkinwater? Let us have him here.’ + +Both the brothers, it may be here remarked, had a very emphatic and +earnest delivery; both had lost nearly the same teeth, which imparted +the same peculiarity to their speech; and both spoke as if, besides +possessing the utmost serenity of mind that the kindliest and most +unsuspecting nature could bestow, they had, in collecting the plums from +Fortune’s choicest pudding, retained a few for present use, and kept +them in their mouths. + +‘Where is Tim Linkinwater?’ said brother Ned. + +‘Stop, stop, stop!’ said brother Charles, taking the other aside. ‘I’ve +a plan, my dear brother, I’ve a plan. Tim is getting old, and Tim has +been a faithful servant, brother Ned; and I don’t think pensioning Tim’s +mother and sister, and buying a little tomb for the family when his poor +brother died, was a sufficient recompense for his faithful services.’ + +‘No, no, no,’ replied the other. ‘Certainly not. Not half enough, not +half.’ + +‘If we could lighten Tim’s duties,’ said the old gentleman, ‘and prevail +upon him to go into the country, now and then, and sleep in the fresh +air, besides, two or three times a week (which he could, if he began +business an hour later in the morning), old Tim Linkinwater would grow +young again in time; and he’s three good years our senior now. Old Tim +Linkinwater young again! Eh, brother Ned, eh? Why, I recollect old Tim +Linkinwater quite a little boy, don’t you? Ha, ha, ha! Poor Tim, poor +Tim!’ + +And the fine old fellows laughed pleasantly together: each with a tear +of regard for old Tim Linkinwater standing in his eye. + +‘But hear this first--hear this first, brother Ned,’ said the old man, +hastily, placing two chairs, one on each side of Nicholas: ‘I’ll tell it +you myself, brother Ned, because the young gentleman is modest, and is +a scholar, Ned, and I shouldn’t feel it right that he should tell us +his story over and over again as if he was a beggar, or as if we doubted +him. No, no no.’ + +‘No, no, no,’ returned the other, nodding his head gravely. ‘Very right, +my dear brother, very right.’ + +‘He will tell me I’m wrong, if I make a mistake,’ said Nicholas’s +friend. ‘But whether I do or not, you’ll be very much affected, brother +Ned, remembering the time when we were two friendless lads, and earned +our first shilling in this great city.’ + +The twins pressed each other’s hands in silence; and in his own homely +manner, brother Charles related the particulars he had heard from +Nicholas. The conversation which ensued was a long one, and when it was +over, a secret conference of almost equal duration took place between +brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater in another room. It is no disparagement +to Nicholas to say, that before he had been closeted with the two +brothers ten minutes, he could only wave his hand at every fresh +expression of kindness and sympathy, and sob like a little child. + +At length brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater came back together, when Tim +instantly walked up to Nicholas and whispered in his ear in a very brief +sentence (for Tim was ordinarily a man of few words), that he had taken +down the address in the Strand, and would call upon him that evening, +at eight. Having done which, Tim wiped his spectacles and put them on, +preparatory to hearing what more the brothers Cheeryble had got to say. + +‘Tim,’ said brother Charles, ‘you understand that we have an intention +of taking this young gentleman into the counting-house?’ + +Brother Ned remarked that Tim was aware of that intention, and quite +approved of it; and Tim having nodded, and said he did, drew himself up +and looked particularly fat, and very important. After which, there was +a profound silence. + +‘I’m not coming an hour later in the morning, you know,’ said Tim, +breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute. ‘I’m not going to +sleep in the fresh air; no, nor I’m not going into the country either. A +pretty thing at this time of day, certainly. Pho!’ + +‘Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater,’ said brother Charles, looking at +him without the faintest spark of anger, and with a countenance radiant +with attachment to the old clerk. ‘Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater, +what do you mean, sir?’ + +‘It’s forty-four year,’ said Tim, making a calculation in the air with +his pen, and drawing an imaginary line before he cast it up, ‘forty-four +year, next May, since I first kept the books of Cheeryble, Brothers. +I’ve opened the safe every morning all that time (Sundays excepted) as +the clock struck nine, and gone over the house every night at half-past +ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then twenty minutes before +twelve) to see the doors fastened, and the fires out. I’ve never slept +out of the back-attic one single night. There’s the same mignonette box +in the middle of the window, and the same four flower-pots, two on each +side, that I brought with me when I first came. There an’t--I’ve said it +again and again, and I’ll maintain it--there an’t such a square as this +in the world. I KNOW there an’t,’ said Tim, with sudden energy, and +looking sternly about him. ‘Not one. For business or pleasure, in +summer-time or winter--I don’t care which--there’s nothing like it. +There’s not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway. +There’s not such a view in England as the view out of my window; I’ve +seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know something +about it. I have slept in that room,’ added Tim, sinking his voice a +little, ‘for four-and-forty year; and if it wasn’t inconvenient, and +didn’t interfere with business, I should request leave to die there.’ + +‘Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?’ roared the +twins by one impulse, and blowing their old noses violently. + +‘That’s what I’ve got to say, Mr. Edwin and Mr. Charles,’ said Tim, +squaring his shoulders again. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve talked +about superannuating me; but, if you please, we’ll make it the last, and +drop the subject for evermore.’ + +With these words, Tim Linkinwater stalked out, and shut himself up +in his glass case, with the air of a man who had had his say, and was +thoroughly resolved not to be put down. + +The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times +without speaking. + +‘He must be done something with, brother Ned,’ said the other, warmly; +‘we must disregard his old scruples; they can’t be tolerated, or borne. +He must be made a partner, brother Ned; and if he won’t submit to it +peaceably, we must have recourse to violence.’ + +‘Quite right,’ replied brother Ned, nodding his head as a man thoroughly +determined; ‘quite right, my dear brother. If he won’t listen to reason, +we must do it against his will, and show him that we are determined to +exert our authority. We must quarrel with him, brother Charles.’ + +‘We must. We certainly must have a quarrel with Tim Linkinwater,’ said +the other. ‘But in the meantime, my dear brother, we are keeping our +young friend; and the poor lady and her daughter will be anxious for his +return. So let us say goodbye for the present, and--there, there--take +care of that box, my dear sir--and--no, no, not a word now; but be +careful of the crossings and--’ + +And with any disjointed and unconnected words which would prevent +Nicholas from pouring forth his thanks, the brothers hurried him +out: shaking hands with him all the way, and affecting very +unsuccessfully--they were poor hands at deception!--to be wholly +unconscious of the feelings that completely mastered him. + +Nicholas’s heart was too full to allow of his turning into the street +until he had recovered some composure. When he at last glided out of the +dark doorway corner in which he had been compelled to halt, he caught +a glimpse of the twins stealthily peeping in at one corner of the glass +case, evidently undecided whether they should follow up their late +attack without delay, or for the present postpone laying further siege +to the inflexible Tim Linkinwater. + +To recount all the delight and wonder which the circumstances just +detailed awakened at Miss La Creevy’s, and all the things that were +done, said, thought, expected, hoped, and prophesied in consequence, +is beside the present course and purpose of these adventures. It is +sufficient to state, in brief, that Mr. Timothy Linkinwater arrived, +punctual to his appointment; that, oddity as he was, and jealous, as +he was bound to be, of the proper exercise of his employers’ most +comprehensive liberality, he reported strongly and warmly in favour of +Nicholas; and that, next day, he was appointed to the vacant stool in +the counting-house of Cheeryble, Brothers, with a present salary of one +hundred and twenty pounds a year. + +‘And I think, my dear brother,’ said Nicholas’s first friend, ‘that +if we were to let them that little cottage at Bow which is empty, at +something under the usual rent, now? Eh, brother Ned?’ + +‘For nothing at all,’ said brother Ned. ‘We are rich, and should be +ashamed to touch the rent under such circumstances as these. Where is +Tim Linkinwater?--for nothing at all, my dear brother, for nothing at +all.’ + +‘Perhaps it would be better to say something, brother Ned,’ suggested +the other, mildly; ‘it would help to preserve habits of frugality, you +know, and remove any painful sense of overwhelming obligations. We might +say fifteen pound, or twenty pound, and if it was punctually paid, make +it up to them in some other way. And I might secretly advance a small +loan towards a little furniture, and you might secretly advance another +small loan, brother Ned; and if we find them doing well--as we shall; +there’s no fear, no fear--we can change the loans into gifts. Carefully, +brother Ned, and by degrees, and without pressing upon them too much; +what do you say now, brother?’ + +Brother Ned gave his hand upon it, and not only said it should be done, +but had it done too; and, in one short week, Nicholas took possession of +the stool, and Mrs. Nickleby and Kate took possession of the house, and +all was hope, bustle, and light-heartedness. + +There surely never was such a week of discoveries and surprises as +the first week of that cottage. Every night when Nicholas came home, +something new had been found out. One day it was a grapevine, and +another day it was a boiler, and another day it was the key of the +front-parlour closet at the bottom of the water-butt, and so on through +a hundred items. Then, this room was embellished with a muslin curtain, +and that room was rendered quite elegant by a window-blind, and such +improvements were made, as no one would have supposed possible. Then +there was Miss La Creevy, who had come out in the omnibus to stop a day +or two and help, and who was perpetually losing a very small brown-paper +parcel of tin tacks and a very large hammer, and running about with +her sleeves tucked up at the wrists, and falling off pairs of steps and +hurting herself very much--and Mrs. Nickleby, who talked incessantly, and +did something now and then, but not often--and Kate, who busied herself +noiselessly everywhere, and was pleased with everything--and Smike, who +made the garden a perfect wonder to look upon--and Nicholas, who helped +and encouraged them every one--all the peace and cheerfulness of home +restored, with such new zest imparted to every frugal pleasure, and such +delight to every hour of meeting, as misfortune and separation alone +could give! + +In short, the poor Nicklebys were social and happy; while the rich +Nickleby was alone and miserable. + + + +CHAPTER 36 + +Private and confidential; relating to Family Matters. Showing how Mr +Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and how Mrs. Kenwigs was as well as +could be expected + + +It might have been seven o’clock in the evening, and it was growing dark +in the narrow streets near Golden Square, when Mr. Kenwigs sent out for +a pair of the cheapest white kid gloves--those at fourteen-pence--and +selecting the strongest, which happened to be the right-hand one, walked +downstairs with an air of pomp and much excitement, and proceeded to +muffle the knob of the street-door knocker therein. Having executed this +task with great nicety, Mr. Kenwigs pulled the door to, after him, and +just stepped across the road to try the effect from the opposite side +of the street. Satisfied that nothing could possibly look better in its +way, Mr. Kenwigs then stepped back again, and calling through the keyhole +to Morleena to open the door, vanished into the house, and was seen no +longer. + +Now, considered as an abstract circumstance, there was no more obvious +cause or reason why Mr. Kenwigs should take the trouble of muffling this +particular knocker, than there would have been for his muffling the +knocker of any nobleman or gentleman resident ten miles off; because, +for the greater convenience of the numerous lodgers, the street-door +always stood wide open, and the knocker was never used at all. The first +floor, the second floor, and the third floor, had each a bell of its +own. As to the attics, no one ever called on them; if anybody wanted +the parlours, they were close at hand, and all he had to do was to walk +straight into them; while the kitchen had a separate entrance down the +area steps. As a question of mere necessity and usefulness, therefore, +this muffling of the knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible. + +But knockers may be muffled for other purposes than those of mere +utilitarianism, as, in the present instance, was clearly shown. There +are certain polite forms and ceremonies which must be observed in +civilised life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism. No +genteel lady was ever yet confined--indeed, no genteel confinement +can possibly take place--without the accompanying symbol of a muffled +knocker. Mrs. Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to gentility; Mrs +Kenwigs was confined. And, therefore, Mr. Kenwigs tied up the silent +knocker on the premises in a white kid glove. + +‘I’m not quite certain neither,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, arranging his +shirt-collar, and walking slowly upstairs, ‘whether, as it’s a boy, I +won’t have it in the papers.’ + +Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it was +likely to create in the neighbourhood, Mr. Kenwigs betook himself to the +sitting-room, where various extremely diminutive articles of clothing +were airing on a horse before the fire, and Mr. Lumbey, the doctor, was +dandling the baby--that is, the old baby--not the new one. + +‘It’s a fine boy, Mr. Kenwigs,’ said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor. + +‘You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?’ returned Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘It’s the finest boy I ever saw in all my life,’ said the doctor. ‘I +never saw such a baby.’ + +It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer +to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, +that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last. + +‘I ne--ver saw such a baby,’ said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor. + +‘Morleena was a fine baby,’ remarked Mr. Kenwigs; as if this were rather +an attack, by implication, upon the family. + +‘They were all fine babies,’ said Mr. Lumbey. And Mr. Lumbey went on +nursing the baby with a thoughtful look. Whether he was considering +under what head he could best charge the nursing in the bill, was best +known to himself. + +During this short conversation, Miss Morleena, as the eldest of +the family, and natural representative of her mother during her +indisposition, had been hustling and slapping the three younger Miss +Kenwigses, without intermission; which considerate and affectionate +conduct brought tears into the eyes of Mr. Kenwigs, and caused him to +declare that, in understanding and behaviour, that child was a woman. + +‘She will be a treasure to the man she marries, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, +half aside; ‘I think she’ll marry above her station, Mr. Lumbey.’ + +‘I shouldn’t wonder at all,’ replied the doctor. + +‘You never see her dance, sir, did you?’ asked Mr. Kenwigs. + +The doctor shook his head. + +‘Ay!’ said Mr. Kenwigs, as though he pitied him from his heart, ‘then you +don’t know what she’s capable of.’ + +All this time there had been a great whisking in and out of the other +room; the door had been opened and shut very softly about twenty times +a minute (for it was necessary to keep Mrs. Kenwigs quiet); and the baby +had been exhibited to a score or two of deputations from a select body +of female friends, who had assembled in the passage, and about the +street-door, to discuss the event in all its bearings. Indeed, the +excitement extended itself over the whole street, and groups of ladies +might be seen standing at the doors, (some in the interesting condition +in which Mrs. Kenwigs had last appeared in public,) relating their +experiences of similar occurrences. Some few acquired great credit from +having prophesied, the day before yesterday, exactly when it would come +to pass; others, again, related, how that they guessed what it was, +directly they saw Mr. Kenwigs turn pale and run up the street as hard as +ever he could go. Some said one thing, and some another; but all talked +together, and all agreed upon two points: first, that it was very +meritorious and highly praiseworthy in Mrs. Kenwigs to do as she had +done: and secondly, that there never was such a skilful and scientific +doctor as that Dr Lumbey. + +In the midst of this general hubbub, Dr Lumbey sat in the first-floor +front, as before related, nursing the deposed baby, and talking to Mr +Kenwigs. He was a stout bluff-looking gentleman, with no shirt-collar to +speak of, and a beard that had been growing since yesterday morning; for +Dr Lumbey was popular, and the neighbourhood was prolific; and there +had been no less than three other knockers muffled, one after the other +within the last forty-eight hours. + +‘Well, Mr. Kenwigs,’ said Dr Lumbey, ‘this makes six. You’ll have a fine +family in time, sir.’ + +‘I think six is almost enough, sir,’ returned Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘Pooh! pooh!’ said the doctor. ‘Nonsense! not half enough.’ + +With this, the doctor laughed; but he didn’t laugh half as much as a +married friend of Mrs. Kenwigs’s, who had just come in from the sick +chamber to report progress, and take a small sip of brandy-and-water: +and who seemed to consider it one of the best jokes ever launched upon +society. + +‘They’re not altogether dependent upon good fortune, neither,’ said +Mr. Kenwigs, taking his second daughter on his knee; ‘they have +expectations.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor. + +‘And very good ones too, I believe, haven’t they?’ asked the married +lady. + +‘Why, ma’am,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘it’s not exactly for me to say what they +may be, or what they may not be. It’s not for me to boast of any family +with which I have the honour to be connected; at the same time, Mrs +Kenwigs’s is--I should say,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, abruptly, and raising +his voice as he spoke, ‘that my children might come into a matter of a +hundred pound apiece, perhaps. Perhaps more, but certainly that.’ + +‘And a very pretty little fortune,’ said the married lady. + +‘There are some relations of Mrs. Kenwigs’s,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, taking a +pinch of snuff from the doctor’s box, and then sneezing very hard, for +he wasn’t used to it, ‘that might leave their hundred pound apiece to +ten people, and yet not go begging when they had done it.’ + +‘Ah! I know who you mean,’ observed the married lady, nodding her head. + +‘I made mention of no names, and I wish to make mention of no names,’ +said Mr. Kenwigs, with a portentous look. ‘Many of my friends have met a +relation of Mrs. Kenwigs’s in this very room, as would do honour to any +company; that’s all.’ + +‘I’ve met him,’ said the married lady, with a glance towards Dr Lumbey. + +‘It’s naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a father, to see such +a man as that, a kissing and taking notice of my children,’ pursued Mr +Kenwigs. ‘It’s naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a man, to +know that man. It will be naterally very gratifying to my feelings as a +husband, to make that man acquainted with this ewent.’ + +Having delivered his sentiments in this form of words, Mr. Kenwigs +arranged his second daughter’s flaxen tail, and bade her be a good girl +and mind what her sister, Morleena, said. + +‘That girl grows more like her mother every day,’ said Mr. Lumbey, +suddenly stricken with an enthusiastic admiration of Morleena. + +‘There!’ rejoined the married lady. ‘What I always say; what I always +did say! She’s the very picter of her.’ Having thus directed the general +attention to the young lady in question, the married lady embraced the +opportunity of taking another sip of the brandy-and-water--and a pretty +long sip too. + +‘Yes! there is a likeness,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, after some reflection. ‘But +such a woman as Mrs. Kenwigs was, afore she was married! Good gracious, +such a woman!’ + +Mr. Lumbey shook his head with great solemnity, as though to imply that +he supposed she must have been rather a dazzler. + +‘Talk of fairies!’ cried Mr. Kenwigs ‘I never see anybody so light to be +alive, never. Such manners too; so playful, and yet so sewerely proper! +As for her figure! It isn’t generally known,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, dropping +his voice; ‘but her figure was such, at that time, that the sign of the +Britannia, over in the Holloway Road, was painted from it!’ + +‘But only see what it is now,’ urged the married lady. ‘Does SHE look +like the mother of six?’ + +‘Quite ridiculous,’ cried the doctor. + +‘She looks a deal more like her own daughter,’ said the married lady. + +‘So she does,’ assented Mr. Lumbey. ‘A great deal more.’ + +Mr. Kenwigs was about to make some further observations, most probably in +confirmation of this opinion, when another married lady, who had looked +in to keep up Mrs. Kenwigs’s spirits, and help to clear off anything in +the eating and drinking way that might be going about, put in her head +to announce that she had just been down to answer the bell, and that +there was a gentleman at the door who wanted to see Mr. Kenwigs ‘most +particular.’ + +Shadowy visions of his distinguished relation flitted through the brain +of Mr. Kenwigs, as this message was delivered; and under their influence, +he dispatched Morleena to show the gentleman up straightway. + +‘Why, I do declare,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, standing opposite the door so as +to get the earliest glimpse of the visitor, as he came upstairs, ‘it’s +Mr. Johnson! How do you find yourself, sir?’ + +Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old pupils all round, intrusted a large +parcel of toys to the guardianship of Morleena, bowed to the doctor +and the married ladies, and inquired after Mrs. Kenwigs in a tone of +interest, which went to the very heart and soul of the nurse, who had +come in to warm some mysterious compound, in a little saucepan over the +fire. + +‘I ought to make a hundred apologies to you for calling at such a +season,’ said Nicholas, ‘but I was not aware of it until I had rung the +bell, and my time is so fully occupied now, that I feared it might be +some days before I could possibly come again.’ + +‘No time like the present, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘The sitiwation of Mrs +Kenwigs, sir, is no obstacle to a little conversation between you and +me, I hope?’ + +‘You are very good,’ said Nicholas. + +At this juncture, proclamation was made by another married lady, that +the baby had begun to eat like anything; whereupon the two married +ladies, already mentioned, rushed tumultuously into the bedroom to +behold him in the act. + +‘The fact is,’ resumed Nicholas, ‘that before I left the country, where +I have been for some time past, I undertook to deliver a message to +you.’ + +‘Ay, ay?’ said Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘And I have been,’ added Nicholas, ‘already in town for some days, +without having had an opportunity of doing so.’ + +‘It’s no matter, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘I dare say it’s none the +worse for keeping cold. Message from the country!’ said Mr. Kenwigs, +ruminating; ‘that’s curious. I don’t know anybody in the country.’ + +‘Miss Petowker,’ suggested Nicholas. + +‘Oh! from her, is it?’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘Oh dear, yes. Ah! Mrs. Kenwigs +will be glad to hear from her. Henrietta Petowker, eh? How odd things +come about, now! That you should have met her in the country! Well!’ + +Hearing this mention of their old friend’s name, the four Miss Kenwigses +gathered round Nicholas, open eyed and mouthed, to hear more. Mr. Kenwigs +looked a little curious too, but quite comfortable and unsuspecting. + +‘The message relates to family matters,’ said Nicholas, hesitating. + +‘Oh, never mind,’ said Kenwigs, glancing at Mr. Lumbey, who, having +rashly taken charge of little Lillyvick, found nobody disposed to +relieve him of his precious burden. ‘All friends here.’ + +Nicholas hemmed once or twice, and seemed to have some difficulty in +proceeding. + +‘At Portsmouth, Henrietta Petowker is,’ observed Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘Mr. Lillyvick is there.’ + +Mr. Kenwigs turned pale, but he recovered, and said, THAT was an odd +coincidence also. + +‘The message is from him,’ said Nicholas. + +Mr. Kenwigs appeared to revive. He knew that his niece was in a delicate +state, and had, no doubt, sent word that they were to forward full +particulars. Yes. That was very kind of him; so like him too! + +‘He desired me to give his kindest love,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Very much obliged to him, I’m sure. Your great-uncle, Lillyvick, my +dears!’ interposed Mr. Kenwigs, condescendingly explaining it to the +children. + +‘His kindest love,’ resumed Nicholas; ‘and to say that he had no time to +write, but that he was married to Miss Petowker.’ + +Mr. Kenwigs started from his seat with a petrified stare, caught his +second daughter by her flaxen tail, and covered his face with his +pocket-handkerchief. Morleena fell, all stiff and rigid, into the baby’s +chair, as she had seen her mother fall when she fainted away, and the +two remaining little Kenwigses shrieked in affright. + +‘My children, my defrauded, swindled infants!’ cried Mr. Kenwigs, pulling +so hard, in his vehemence, at the flaxen tail of his second daughter, +that he lifted her up on tiptoe, and kept her, for some seconds, in that +attitude. ‘Villain, ass, traitor!’ + +‘Drat the man!’ cried the nurse, looking angrily around. ‘What does he +mean by making that noise here?’ + +‘Silence, woman!’ said Mr. Kenwigs, fiercely. + +‘I won’t be silent,’ returned the nurse. ‘Be silent yourself, you +wretch. Have you no regard for your baby?’ + +‘No!’ returned Mr. Kenwigs. + +‘More shame for you,’ retorted the nurse. ‘Ugh! you unnatural monster.’ + +‘Let him die,’ cried Mr. Kenwigs, in the torrent of his wrath. ‘Let him +die! He has no expectations, no property to come into. We want no babies +here,’ said Mr. Kenwigs recklessly. ‘Take ‘em away, take ‘em away to the +Fondling!’ + +With these awful remarks, Mr. Kenwigs sat himself down in a chair, and +defied the nurse, who made the best of her way into the adjoining room, +and returned with a stream of matrons: declaring that Mr. Kenwigs had +spoken blasphemy against his family, and must be raving mad. + +Appearances were certainly not in Mr. Kenwigs’s favour, for the exertion +of speaking with so much vehemence, and yet in such a tone as should +prevent his lamentations reaching the ears of Mrs. Kenwigs, had made him +very black in the face; besides which, the excitement of the occasion, +and an unwonted indulgence in various strong cordials to celebrate it, +had swollen and dilated his features to a most unusual extent. But, +Nicholas and the doctor--who had been passive at first, doubting very +much whether Mr. Kenwigs could be in earnest--interfering to explain the +immediate cause of his condition, the indignation of the matrons was +changed to pity, and they implored him, with much feeling, to go quietly +to bed. + +‘The attention,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, looking around with a plaintive air, +‘the attention that I’ve shown to that man! The hyseters he has eat, and +the pints of ale he has drank, in this house--!’ + +‘It’s very trying, and very hard to bear, we know,’ said one of the +married ladies; ‘but think of your dear darling wife.’ + +‘Oh yes, and what she’s been a undergoing of, only this day,’ cried a +great many voices. ‘There’s a good man, do.’ + +‘The presents that have been made to him,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, reverting +to his calamity, ‘the pipes, the snuff-boxes--a pair of india-rubber +goloshes, that cost six-and-six--’ + +‘Ah! it won’t bear thinking of, indeed,’ cried the matrons generally; +‘but it’ll all come home to him, never fear.’ + +Mr. Kenwigs looked darkly upon the ladies, as if he would prefer its all +coming home to HIM, as there was nothing to be got by it; but he said +nothing, and resting his head upon his hand, subsided into a kind of +doze. + +Then, the matrons again expatiated on the expediency of taking the good +gentleman to bed; observing that he would be better tomorrow, and that +they knew what was the wear and tear of some men’s minds when their +wives were taken as Mrs. Kenwigs had been that day, and that it did him +great credit, and there was nothing to be ashamed of in it; far from it; +they liked to see it, they did, for it showed a good heart. And one lady +observed, as a case bearing upon the present, that her husband was often +quite light-headed from anxiety on similar occasions, and that once, +when her little Johnny was born, it was nearly a week before he came to +himself again, during the whole of which time he did nothing but cry ‘Is +it a boy, is it a boy?’ in a manner which went to the hearts of all his +hearers. + +At length, Morleena (who quite forgot she had fainted, when she +found she was not noticed) announced that a chamber was ready for her +afflicted parent; and Mr. Kenwigs, having partially smothered his four +daughters in the closeness of his embrace, accepted the doctor’s arm on +one side, and the support of Nicholas on the other, and was conducted +upstairs to a bedroom which been secured for the occasion. + +Having seen him sound asleep, and heard him snore most satisfactorily, +and having further presided over the distribution of the toys, to the +perfect contentment of all the little Kenwigses, Nicholas took his +leave. The matrons dropped off one by one, with the exception of six +or eight particular friends, who had determined to stop all night; the +lights in the houses gradually disappeared; the last bulletin was issued +that Mrs. Kenwigs was as well as could be expected; and the whole family +were left to their repose. + + + +CHAPTER 37 + +Nicholas finds further Favour in the Eyes of the brothers Cheeryble and +Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. The brothers give a Banquet on a great Annual +Occasion. Nicholas, on returning Home from it, receives a mysterious and +important Disclosure from the Lips of Mrs. Nickleby + + +The square in which the counting-house of the brothers Cheeryble +was situated, although it might not wholly realise the very sanguine +expectations which a stranger would be disposed to form on hearing +the fervent encomiums bestowed upon it by Tim Linkinwater, was, +nevertheless, a sufficiently desirable nook in the heart of a busy town +like London, and one which occupied a high place in the affectionate +remembrances of several grave persons domiciled in the neighbourhood, +whose recollections, however, dated from a much more recent period, +and whose attachment to the spot was far less absorbing, than were the +recollections and attachment of the enthusiastic Tim. + +And let not those whose eyes have been accustomed to the aristocratic +gravity of Grosvenor Square and Hanover Square, the dowager barrenness +and frigidity of Fitzroy Square, or the gravel walks and garden seats +of the Squares of Russell and Euston, suppose that the affections of +Tim Linkinwater, or the inferior lovers of this particular locality, had +been awakened and kept alive by any refreshing associations with leaves, +however dingy, or grass, however bare and thin. The city square has no +enclosure, save the lamp-post in the middle: and no grass, but the +weeds which spring up round its base. It is a quiet, little-frequented, +retired spot, favourable to melancholy and contemplation, and +appointments of long-waiting; and up and down its every side the +Appointed saunters idly by the hour together wakening the echoes with +the monotonous sound of his footsteps on the smooth worn stones, and +counting, first the windows, and then the very bricks of the tall silent +houses that hem him round about. In winter-time, the snow will linger +there, long after it has melted from the busy streets and highways. The +summer’s sun holds it in some respect, and while he darts his cheerful +rays sparingly into the square, keeps his fiery heat and glare for +noisier and less-imposing precincts. It is so quiet, that you can +almost hear the ticking of your own watch when you stop to cool in +its refreshing atmosphere. There is a distant hum--of coaches, not of +insects--but no other sound disturbs the stillness of the square. The +ticket porter leans idly against the post at the corner: comfortably +warm, but not hot, although the day is broiling. His white apron flaps +languidly in the air, his head gradually droops upon his breast, he +takes very long winks with both eyes at once; even he is unable to +withstand the soporific influence of the place, and is gradually falling +asleep. But now, he starts into full wakefulness, recoils a step or two, +and gazes out before him with eager wildness in his eye. Is it a job, or +a boy at marbles? Does he see a ghost, or hear an organ? No; sight +more unwonted still--there is a butterfly in the square--a real, live +butterfly! astray from flowers and sweets, and fluttering among the iron +heads of the dusty area railings. + +But if there were not many matters immediately without the doors of +Cheeryble Brothers, to engage the attention or distract the thoughts of +the young clerk, there were not a few within, to interest and amuse him. +There was scarcely an object in the place, animate or inanimate, which +did not partake in some degree of the scrupulous method and punctuality +of Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. Punctual as the counting-house dial, which he +maintained to be the best time-keeper in London next after the clock +of some old, hidden, unknown church hard by, (for Tim held the fabled +goodness of that at the Horse Guards to be a pleasant fiction, invented +by jealous West-enders,) the old clerk performed the minutest actions +of the day, and arranged the minutest articles in the little room, in a +precise and regular order, which could not have been exceeded if it had +actually been a real glass case, fitted with the choicest curiosities. +Paper, pens, ink, ruler, sealing-wax, wafers, pounce-box, string-box, +fire-box, Tim’s hat, Tim’s scrupulously-folded gloves, Tim’s other +coat--looking precisely like a back view of himself as it hung against +the wall--all had their accustomed inches of space. Except the clock, +there was not such an accurate and unimpeachable instrument in existence +as the little thermometer which hung behind the door. There was not a +bird of such methodical and business-like habits in all the world, as +the blind blackbird, who dreamed and dozed away his days in a large +snug cage, and had lost his voice, from old age, years before Tim first +bought him. There was not such an eventful story in the whole range +of anecdote, as Tim could tell concerning the acquisition of that very +bird; how, compassionating his starved and suffering condition, he had +purchased him, with the view of humanely terminating his wretched life; +how he determined to wait three days and see whether the bird revived; +how, before half the time was out, the bird did revive; and how he +went on reviving and picking up his appetite and good looks until he +gradually became what--‘what you see him now, sir,’--Tim would say, +glancing proudly at the cage. And with that, Tim would utter a melodious +chirrup, and cry ‘Dick;’ and Dick, who, for any sign of life he had +previously given, might have been a wooden or stuffed representation of +a blackbird indifferently executed, would come to the side of the cage +in three small jumps, and, thrusting his bill between the bars, turn his +sightless head towards his old master--and at that moment it would be +very difficult to determine which of the two was the happier, the bird +or Tim Linkinwater. + +Nor was this all. Everything gave back, besides, some reflection of the +kindly spirit of the brothers. The warehousemen and porters were such +sturdy, jolly fellows, that it was a treat to see them. Among the +shipping announcements and steam-packet lists which decorated the +counting-house wall, were designs for almshouses, statements of +charities, and plans for new hospitals. A blunderbuss and two swords +hung above the chimney-piece, for the terror of evil-doers, but the +blunderbuss was rusty and shattered, and the swords were broken and +edgeless. Elsewhere, their open display in such a condition would have +realised a smile; but, there, it seemed as though even violent and +offensive weapons partook of the reigning influence, and became emblems +of mercy and forbearance. + +Such thoughts as these occurred to Nicholas very strongly, on the +morning when he first took possession of the vacant stool, and looked +about him, more freely and at ease, than he had before enjoyed an +opportunity of doing. Perhaps they encouraged and stimulated him to +exertion, for, during the next two weeks, all his spare hours, late at +night and early in the morning, were incessantly devoted to acquiring +the mysteries of book-keeping and some other forms of mercantile +account. To these, he applied himself with such steadiness and +perseverance that, although he brought no greater amount of previous +knowledge to the subject than certain dim recollections of two or three +very long sums entered into a ciphering-book at school, and relieved for +parental inspection by the effigy of a fat swan tastefully flourished +by the writing-master’s own hand, he found himself, at the end of a +fortnight, in a condition to report his proficiency to Mr. Linkinwater, +and to claim his promise that he, Nicholas Nickleby, should now be +allowed to assist him in his graver labours. + +It was a sight to behold Tim Linkinwater slowly bring out a massive +ledger and day-book, and, after turning them over and over, and +affectionately dusting their backs and sides, open the leaves here and +there, and cast his eyes, half mournfully, half proudly, upon the fair +and unblotted entries. + +‘Four-and-forty year, next May!’ said Tim. ‘Many new ledgers since then. +Four-and-forty year!’ + +Tim closed the book again. + +‘Come, come,’ said Nicholas, ‘I am all impatience to begin.’ + +Tim Linkinwater shook his head with an air of mild reproof. Mr. Nickleby +was not sufficiently impressed with the deep and awful nature of his +undertaking. Suppose there should be any mistake--any scratching out! + +Young men are adventurous. It is extraordinary what they will rush upon, +sometimes. Without even taking the precaution of sitting himself down +upon his stool, but standing leisurely at the desk, and with a smile +upon his face--actually a smile--there was no mistake about it; Mr +Linkinwater often mentioned it afterwards--Nicholas dipped his pen +into the inkstand before him, and plunged into the books of Cheeryble +Brothers! + +Tim Linkinwater turned pale, and tilting up his stool on the two legs +nearest Nicholas, looked over his shoulder in breathless anxiety. +Brother Charles and brother Ned entered the counting-house together; but +Tim Linkinwater, without looking round, impatiently waved his hand as a +caution that profound silence must be observed, and followed the nib of +the inexperienced pen with strained and eager eyes. + +The brothers looked on with smiling faces, but Tim Linkinwater smiled +not, nor moved for some minutes. At length, he drew a long slow breath, +and still maintaining his position on the tilted stool, glanced at +brother Charles, secretly pointed with the feather of his pen towards +Nicholas, and nodded his head in a grave and resolute manner, plainly +signifying ‘He’ll do.’ + +Brother Charles nodded again, and exchanged a laughing look with brother +Ned; but, just then, Nicholas stopped to refer to some other page, +and Tim Linkinwater, unable to contain his satisfaction any longer, +descended from his stool, and caught him rapturously by the hand. + +‘He has done it!’ said Tim, looking round at his employers and shaking +his head triumphantly. ‘His capital B’s and D’s are exactly like mine; +he dots all his small i’s and crosses every t as he writes it. There +an’t such a young man as this in all London,’ said Tim, clapping +Nicholas on the back; ‘not one. Don’t tell me! The city can’t produce +his equal. I challenge the city to do it!’ + +With this casting down of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck the desk +such a blow with his clenched fist, that the old blackbird tumbled off +his perch with the start it gave him, and actually uttered a feeble +croak, in the extremity of his astonishment. + +‘Well said, Tim--well said, Tim Linkinwater!’ cried brother Charles, +scarcely less pleased than Tim himself, and clapping his hands gently +as he spoke. ‘I knew our young friend would take great pains, and I was +quite certain he would succeed, in no time. Didn’t I say so, brother +Ned?’ + +‘You did, my dear brother; certainly, my dear brother, you said so, and +you were quite right,’ replied Ned. ‘Quite right. Tim Linkinwater is +excited, but he is justly excited, properly excited. Tim is a fine +fellow. Tim Linkinwater, sir--you’re a fine fellow.’ + +‘Here’s a pleasant thing to think of!’ said Tim, wholly regardless of +this address to himself, and raising his spectacles from the ledger to +the brothers. ‘Here’s a pleasant thing. Do you suppose I haven’t often +thought of what would become of these books when I was gone? Do you +suppose I haven’t often thought that things might go on irregular and +untidy here, after I was taken away? But now,’ said Tim, extending his +forefinger towards Nicholas, ‘now, when I’ve shown him a little more, +I’m satisfied. The business will go on, when I’m dead, as well as it did +when I was alive--just the same--and I shall have the satisfaction of +knowing that there never were such books--never were such books! No, nor +never will be such books--as the books of Cheeryble Brothers.’ + +Having thus expressed his sentiments, Mr. Linkinwater gave vent to +a short laugh, indicative of defiance to the cities of London and +Westminster, and, turning again to his desk, quietly carried seventy-six +from the last column he had added up, and went on with his work. + +‘Tim Linkinwater, sir,’ said brother Charles; ‘give me your hand, sir. +This is your birthday. How dare you talk about anything else till you +have been wished many happy returns of the day, Tim Linkinwater? God +bless you, Tim! God bless you!’ + +‘My dear brother,’ said the other, seizing Tim’s disengaged fist, ‘Tim +Linkinwater looks ten years younger than he did on his last birthday.’ + +‘Brother Ned, my dear boy,’ returned the other old fellow, ‘I believe +that Tim Linkinwater was born a hundred and fifty years old, and +is gradually coming down to five-and-twenty; for he’s younger every +birthday than he was the year before.’ + +‘So he is, brother Charles, so he is,’ replied brother Ned. ‘There’s not +a doubt about it.’ + +‘Remember, Tim,’ said brother Charles, ‘that we dine at half-past five +today instead of two o’clock; we always depart from our usual custom on +this anniversary, as you very well know, Tim Linkinwater. Mr. Nickleby, +my dear sir, you will make one. Tim Linkinwater, give me your snuff-box +as a remembrance to brother Charles and myself of an attached and +faithful rascal, and take that, in exchange, as a feeble mark of our +respect and esteem, and don’t open it until you go to bed, and never +say another word upon the subject, or I’ll kill the blackbird. A dog! He +should have had a golden cage half-a-dozen years ago, if it would have +made him or his master a bit the happier. Now, brother Ned, my dear +fellow, I’m ready. At half-past five, remember, Mr. Nickleby! Tim +Linkinwater, sir, take care of Mr. Nickleby at half-past five. Now, +brother Ned.’ + +Chattering away thus, according to custom, to prevent the possibility +of any thanks or acknowledgment being expressed on the other side, the +twins trotted off, arm-in-arm; having endowed Tim Linkinwater with a +costly gold snuff-box, enclosing a bank note worth more than its value +ten times told. + +At a quarter past five o’clock, punctual to the minute, arrived, +according to annual usage, Tim Linkinwater’s sister; and a great to-do +there was, between Tim Linkinwater’s sister and the old housekeeper, +respecting Tim Linkinwater’s sister’s cap, which had been dispatched, +per boy, from the house of the family where Tim Linkinwater’s sister +boarded, and had not yet come to hand: notwithstanding that it had +been packed up in a bandbox, and the bandbox in a handkerchief, and the +handkerchief tied on to the boy’s arm; and notwithstanding, too, that +the place of its consignment had been duly set forth, at full length, +on the back of an old letter, and the boy enjoined, under pain of divers +horrible penalties, the full extent of which the eye of man could not +foresee, to deliver the same with all possible speed, and not to loiter +by the way. Tim Linkinwater’s sister lamented; the housekeeper condoled; +and both kept thrusting their heads out of the second-floor window to +see if the boy was ‘coming’--which would have been highly satisfactory, +and, upon the whole, tantamount to his being come, as the distance to +the corner was not quite five yards--when, all of a sudden, and when he +was least expected, the messenger, carrying the bandbox with elaborate +caution, appeared in an exactly opposite direction, puffing and panting +for breath, and flushed with recent exercise; as well he might be; for +he had taken the air, in the first instance, behind a hackney coach that +went to Camberwell, and had followed two Punches afterwards and had seen +the Stilts home to their own door. The cap was all safe, however--that +was one comfort--and it was no use scolding him--that was another; +so the boy went upon his way rejoicing, and Tim Linkinwater’s sister +presented herself to the company below-stairs, just five minutes after +the half-hour had struck by Tim Linkinwater’s own infallible clock. + +The company consisted of the brothers Cheeryble, Tim Linkinwater, a +ruddy-faced white-headed friend of Tim’s (who was a superannuated bank +clerk), and Nicholas, who was presented to Tim Linkinwater’s sister with +much gravity and solemnity. The party being now completed, brother Ned +rang for dinner, and, dinner being shortly afterwards announced, led +Tim Linkinwater’s sister into the next room, where it was set forth with +great preparation. Then, brother Ned took the head of the table, and +brother Charles the foot; and Tim Linkinwater’s sister sat on the left +hand of brother Ned, and Tim Linkinwater himself on his right: and an +ancient butler of apoplectic appearance, and with very short legs, took +up his position at the back of brother Ned’s armchair, and, waving his +right arm preparatory to taking off the covers with a flourish, stood +bolt upright and motionless. + +‘For these and all other blessings, brother Charles,’ said Ned. + +‘Lord, make us truly thankful, brother Ned,’ said Charles. + +Whereupon the apoplectic butler whisked off the top of the soup tureen, +and shot, all at once, into a state of violent activity. + +There was abundance of conversation, and little fear of its ever +flagging, for the good-humour of the glorious old twins drew +everybody out, and Tim Linkinwater’s sister went off into a long and +circumstantial account of Tim Linkinwater’s infancy, immediately after +the very first glass of champagne--taking care to premise that she was +very much Tim’s junior, and had only become acquainted with the facts +from their being preserved and handed down in the family. This history +concluded, brother Ned related how that, exactly thirty-five years ago, +Tim Linkinwater was suspected to have received a love-letter, and how +that vague information had been brought to the counting-house of his +having been seen walking down Cheapside with an uncommonly handsome +spinster; at which there was a roar of laughter, and Tim Linkinwater +being charged with blushing, and called upon to explain, denied that the +accusation was true; and further, that there would have been any harm in +it if it had been; which last position occasioned the superannuated bank +clerk to laugh tremendously, and to declare that it was the very best +thing he had ever heard in his life, and that Tim Linkinwater might say +a great many things before he said anything which would beat THAT. + +There was one little ceremony peculiar to the day, both the matter and +manner of which made a very strong impression upon Nicholas. The cloth +having been removed and the decanters sent round for the first time, a +profound silence succeeded, and in the cheerful faces of the brothers +there appeared an expression, not of absolute melancholy, but of quiet +thoughtfulness very unusual at a festive table. As Nicholas, struck +by this sudden alteration, was wondering what it could portend, the +brothers rose together, and the one at the top of the table leaning +forward towards the other, and speaking in a low voice as if he were +addressing him individually, said: + +‘Brother Charles, my dear fellow, there is another association connected +with this day which must never be forgotten, and never can be forgotten, +by you and me. This day, which brought into the world a most faithful +and excellent and exemplary fellow, took from it the kindest and very +best of parents, the very best of parents to us both. I wish that +she could have seen us in our prosperity, and shared it, and had the +happiness of knowing how dearly we loved her in it, as we did when we +were two poor boys; but that was not to be. My dear brother--The Memory +of our Mother.’ + +‘Good Lord!’ thought Nicholas, ‘and there are scores of people of their +own station, knowing all this, and twenty thousand times more, who +wouldn’t ask these men to dinner because they eat with their knives and +never went to school!’ + +But there was no time to moralise, for the joviality again became very +brisk, and the decanter of port being nearly out, brother Ned pulled the +bell, which was instantly answered by the apoplectic butler. + +‘David,’ said brother Ned. + +‘Sir,’ replied the butler. + +‘A magnum of the double-diamond, David, to drink the health of Mr +Linkinwater.’ + +Instantly, by a feat of dexterity, which was the admiration of all the +company, and had been, annually, for some years past, the apoplectic +butler, bringing his left hand from behind the small of his back, +produced the bottle with the corkscrew already inserted; uncorked it at +a jerk; and placed the magnum and the cork before his master with the +dignity of conscious cleverness. + +‘Ha!’ said brother Ned, first examining the cork and afterwards filling +his glass, while the old butler looked complacently and amiably on, as +if it were all his own property, but the company were quite welcome to +make free with it, ‘this looks well, David.’ + +‘It ought to, sir,’ replied David. ‘You’d be troubled to find such a +glass of wine as is our double-diamond, and that Mr. Linkinwater knows +very well. That was laid down when Mr. Linkinwater first come: that wine +was, gentlemen.’ + +‘Nay, David, nay,’ interposed brother Charles. + +‘I wrote the entry in the cellar-book myself, sir, if you please,’ said +David, in the tone of a man, quite confident in the strength of his +facts. ‘Mr. Linkinwater had only been here twenty year, sir, when that +pipe of double-diamond was laid down.’ + +‘David is quite right, quite right, brother Charles,’ said Ned: ‘are the +people here, David?’ + +‘Outside the door, sir,’ replied the butler. + +‘Show ‘em in, David, show ‘em in.’ + +At this bidding, the older butler placed before his master a small tray +of clean glasses, and opening the door admitted the jolly porters and +warehousemen whom Nicholas had seen below. They were four in all, and as +they came in, bowing, and grinning, and blushing, the housekeeper, and +cook, and housemaid, brought up the rear. + +‘Seven,’ said brother Ned, filling a corresponding number of glasses +with the double-diamond, ‘and David, eight. There! Now, you’re all of +you to drink the health of your best friend Mr. Timothy Linkinwater, and +wish him health and long life and many happy returns of this day, both +for his own sake and that of your old masters, who consider him an +inestimable treasure. Tim Linkinwater, sir, your health. Devil take you, +Tim Linkinwater, sir, God bless you.’ + +With this singular contradiction of terms, brother Ned gave Tim +Linkinwater a slap on the back, which made him look, for the moment, +almost as apoplectic as the butler: and tossed off the contents of his +glass in a twinkling. + +The toast was scarcely drunk with all honour to Tim Linkinwater, when +the sturdiest and jolliest subordinate elbowed himself a little +in advance of his fellows, and exhibiting a very hot and flushed +countenance, pulled a single lock of grey hair in the middle of his +forehead as a respectful salute to the company, and delivered himself +as follows--rubbing the palms of his hands very hard on a blue cotton +handkerchief as he did so: + +‘We’re allowed to take a liberty once a year, gen’lemen, and if you +please we’ll take it now; there being no time like the present, and no +two birds in the hand worth one in the bush, as is well known--leastways +in a contrairy sense, which the meaning is the same. (A pause--the +butler unconvinced.) What we mean to say is, that there never +was (looking at the butler)--such--(looking at the cook) +noble--excellent--(looking everywhere and seeing nobody) free, +generous-spirited masters as them as has treated us so handsome +this day. And here’s thanking of ‘em for all their goodness as is so +constancy a diffusing of itself over everywhere, and wishing they may +live long and die happy!’ + +When the foregoing speech was over--and it might have been much more +elegant and much less to the purpose--the whole body of subordinates +under command of the apoplectic butler gave three soft cheers; which, to +that gentleman’s great indignation, were not very regular, inasmuch as +the women persisted in giving an immense number of little shrill hurrahs +among themselves, in utter disregard of the time. This done, they +withdrew; shortly afterwards, Tim Linkinwater’s sister withdrew; in +reasonable time after that, the sitting was broken up for tea and +coffee, and a round game of cards. + +At half-past ten--late hours for the square--there appeared a little +tray of sandwiches and a bowl of bishop, which bishop coming on the top +of the double-diamond, and other excitements, had such an effect +upon Tim Linkinwater, that he drew Nicholas aside, and gave him to +understand, confidentially, that it was quite true about the uncommonly +handsome spinster, and that she was to the full as good-looking as she +had been described--more so, indeed--but that she was in too much of a +hurry to change her condition, and consequently, while Tim was courting +her and thinking of changing his, got married to somebody else. ‘After +all, I dare say it was my fault,’ said Tim. ‘I’ll show you a print +I have got upstairs, one of these days. It cost me five-and-twenty +shillings. I bought it soon after we were cool to each other. Don’t +mention it, but it’s the most extraordinary accidental likeness you ever +saw--her very portrait, sir!’ + +By this time it was past eleven o’clock; and Tim Linkinwater’s sister +declaring that she ought to have been at home a full hour ago, a coach +was procured, into which she was handed with great ceremony by brother +Ned, while brother Charles imparted the fullest directions to the +coachman, and besides paying the man a shilling over and above his fare, +in order that he might take the utmost care of the lady, all but choked +him with a glass of spirits of uncommon strength, and then nearly +knocked all the breath out of his body in his energetic endeavours to +knock it in again. + +At length the coach rumbled off, and Tim Linkinwater’s sister being now +fairly on her way home, Nicholas and Tim Linkinwater’s friend took +their leaves together, and left old Tim and the worthy brothers to their +repose. + +As Nicholas had some distance to walk, it was considerably past midnight +by the time he reached home, where he found his mother and Smike sitting +up to receive him. It was long after their usual hour of retiring, and +they had expected him, at the very latest, two hours ago; but the time +had not hung heavily on their hands, for Mrs. Nickleby had entertained +Smike with a genealogical account of her family by the mother’s side, +comprising biographical sketches of the principal members, and Smike had +sat wondering what it was all about, and whether it was learnt from +a book, or said out of Mrs. Nickleby’s own head; so that they got on +together very pleasantly. + +Nicholas could not go to bed without expatiating on the excellences and +munificence of the brothers Cheeryble, and relating the great success +which had attended his efforts that day. But before he had said a dozen +words, Mrs. Nickleby, with many sly winks and nods, observed, that she +was sure Mr. Smike must be quite tired out, and that she positively must +insist on his not sitting up a minute longer. + +‘A most biddable creature he is, to be sure,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, when +Smike had wished them good-night and left the room. ‘I know you’ll +excuse me, Nicholas, my dear, but I don’t like to do this before a third +person; indeed, before a young man it would not be quite proper, though +really, after all, I don’t know what harm there is in it, except that +to be sure it’s not a very becoming thing, though some people say it is +very much so, and really I don’t know why it should not be, if it’s +well got up, and the borders are small-plaited; of course, a good deal +depends upon that.’ + +With which preface, Mrs. Nickleby took her nightcap from between the +leaves of a very large prayer-book where it had been folded up small, +and proceeded to tie it on: talking away in her usual discursive manner, +all the time. + +‘People may say what they like,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, ‘but there’s +a great deal of comfort in a nightcap, as I’m sure you would confess, +Nicholas my dear, if you would only have strings to yours, and wear it +like a Christian, instead of sticking it upon the very top of your head +like a blue-coat boy. You needn’t think it an unmanly or quizzical thing +to be particular about your nightcap, for I have often heard your poor +dear papa, and the Reverend Mr. What’s-his-name, who used to read prayers +in that old church with the curious little steeple that the weathercock +was blown off the night week before you were born,--I have often heard +them say, that the young men at college are uncommonly particular about +their nightcaps, and that the Oxford nightcaps are quite celebrated +for their strength and goodness; so much so, indeed, that the young men +never dream of going to bed without ‘em, and I believe it’s admitted on +all hands that THEY know what’s good, and don’t coddle themselves.’ + +Nicholas laughed, and entering no further into the subject of this +lengthened harangue, reverted to the pleasant tone of the little +birthday party. And as Mrs. Nickleby instantly became very curious +respecting it, and made a great number of inquiries touching what they +had had for dinner, and how it was put on table, and whether it was +overdone or underdone, and who was there, and what ‘the Mr. Cherrybles’ +said, and what Nicholas said, and what the Mr. Cherrybles said when he +said that; Nicholas described the festivities at full length, and also +the occurrences of the morning. + +‘Late as it is,’ said Nicholas, ‘I am almost selfish enough to wish +that Kate had been up to hear all this. I was all impatience, as I came +along, to tell her.’ + +‘Why, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, putting her feet upon the fender, and +drawing her chair close to it, as if settling herself for a long +talk. ‘Kate has been in bed--oh! a couple of hours--and I’m very glad, +Nicholas my dear, that I prevailed upon her not to sit up, for I wished +very much to have an opportunity of saying a few words to you. I am +naturally anxious about it, and of course it’s a very delightful and +consoling thing to have a grown-up son that one can put confidence in, +and advise with; indeed I don’t know any use there would be in having +sons at all, unless people could put confidence in them.’ + +Nicholas stopped in the middle of a sleepy yawn, as his mother began to +speak: and looked at her with fixed attention. + +‘There was a lady in our neighbourhood,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘speaking +of sons puts me in mind of it--a lady in our neighbourhood when we lived +near Dawlish, I think her name was Rogers; indeed I am sure it was if it +wasn’t Murphy, which is the only doubt I have--’ + +‘Is it about her, mother, that you wished to speak to me?’ said Nicholas +quietly. + +‘About HER!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Good gracious, Nicholas, my dear, how +CAN you be so ridiculous! But that was always the way with your poor +dear papa,--just his way--always wandering, never able to fix his +thoughts on any one subject for two minutes together. I think I see him +now!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, wiping her eyes, ‘looking at me while I was +talking to him about his affairs, just as if his ideas were in a state +of perfect conglomeration! Anybody who had come in upon us suddenly, +would have supposed I was confusing and distracting him instead of +making things plainer; upon my word they would.’ + +‘I am very sorry, mother, that I should inherit this unfortunate +slowness of apprehension,’ said Nicholas, kindly; ‘but I’ll do my best +to understand you, if you’ll only go straight on: indeed I will.’ + +‘Your poor pa!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, pondering. ‘He never knew, till it +was too late, what I would have had him do!’ + +This was undoubtedly the case, inasmuch as the deceased Mr. Nickleby had +not arrived at the knowledge when he died. Neither had Mrs. Nickleby +herself; which is, in some sort, an explanation of the circumstance. + +‘However,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, drying her tears, ‘this has nothing to +do--certainly nothing whatever to do--with the gentleman in the next +house.’ + +‘I should suppose that the gentleman in the next house has as little to +do with us,’ returned Nicholas. + +‘There can be no doubt,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that he IS a gentleman, +and has the manners of a gentleman, and the appearance of a gentleman, +although he does wear smalls and grey worsted stockings. That may +be eccentricity, or he may be proud of his legs. I don’t see why he +shouldn’t be. The Prince Regent was proud of his legs, and so was Daniel +Lambert, who was also a fat man; HE was proud of his legs. So was Miss +Biffin: she was--no,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, correcting, herself, ‘I think +she had only toes, but the principle is the same.’ + +Nicholas looked on, quite amazed at the introduction of this new theme. +Which seemed just what Mrs. Nickleby had expected him to be. + +‘You may well be surprised, Nicholas, my dear,’ she said, ‘I am sure I +was. It came upon me like a flash of fire, and almost froze my blood. +The bottom of his garden joins the bottom of ours, and of course I had +several times seen him sitting among the scarlet-beans in his little +arbour, or working at his little hot-beds. I used to think he stared +rather, but I didn’t take any particular notice of that, as we were +newcomers, and he might be curious to see what we were like. But when he +began to throw his cucumbers over our wall--’ + +‘To throw his cucumbers over our wall!’ repeated Nicholas, in great +astonishment. + +‘Yes, Nicholas, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby in a very serious tone; +‘his cucumbers over our wall. And vegetable marrows likewise.’ + +‘Confound his impudence!’ said Nicholas, firing immediately. ‘What does +he mean by that?’ + +‘I don’t think he means it impertinently at all,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘What!’ said Nicholas, ‘cucumbers and vegetable marrows flying at the +heads of the family as they walk in their own garden, and not meant +impertinently! Why, mother--’ + +Nicholas stopped short; for there was an indescribable expression of +placid triumph, mingled with a modest confusion, lingering between +the borders of Mrs. Nickleby’s nightcap, which arrested his attention +suddenly. + +‘He must be a very weak, and foolish, and inconsiderate man,’ said +Mrs. Nickleby; ‘blamable indeed--at least I suppose other people would +consider him so; of course I can’t be expected to express any opinion on +that point, especially after always defending your poor dear papa when +other people blamed him for making proposals to me; and to be sure there +can be no doubt that he has taken a very singular way of showing it. +Still at the same time, his attentions are--that is, as far as it goes, +and to a certain extent of course--a flattering sort of thing; and +although I should never dream of marrying again with a dear girl like +Kate still unsettled in life--’ + +‘Surely, mother, such an idea never entered your brain for an instant?’ +said Nicholas. + +‘Bless my heart, Nicholas my dear,’ returned his mother in a peevish +tone, ‘isn’t that precisely what I am saying, if you would only let me +speak? Of course, I never gave it a second thought, and I am surprised +and astonished that you should suppose me capable of such a thing. All +I say is, what step is the best to take, so as to reject these advances +civilly and delicately, and without hurting his feelings too much, +and driving him to despair, or anything of that kind? My goodness me!’ +exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby, with a half-simper, ‘suppose he was to go doing +anything rash to himself. Could I ever be happy again, Nicholas?’ + +Despite his vexation and concern, Nicholas could scarcely help smiling, +as he rejoined, ‘Now, do you think, mother, that such a result would be +likely to ensue from the most cruel repulse?’ + +‘Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby; ‘really, +I don’t know. I am sure there was a case in the day before yesterday’s +paper, extracted from one of the French newspapers, about a journeyman +shoemaker who was jealous of a young girl in an adjoining +village, because she wouldn’t shut herself up in an air-tight +three-pair-of-stairs, and charcoal herself to death with him; and who +went and hid himself in a wood with a sharp-pointed knife, and rushed +out, as she was passing by with a few friends, and killed himself first, +and then all the friends, and then her--no, killed all the friends +first, and then herself, and then HIMself--which it is quite frightful +to think of. Somehow or other,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, after a momentary +pause, ‘they always ARE journeyman shoemakers who do these things in +France, according to the papers. I don’t know how it is--something in +the leather, I suppose.’ + +‘But this man, who is not a shoemaker--what has he done, mother, what +has he said?’ inquired Nicholas, fretted almost beyond endurance, but +looking nearly as resigned and patient as Mrs. Nickleby herself. ‘You +know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into +a formal declaration of attachment.’ + +‘My dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, tossing her head and looking at the +ashes in the grate, ‘he has done and said all sorts of things.’ + +‘Is there no mistake on your part?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Mistake!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Lord, Nicholas my dear, do you suppose I +don’t know when a man’s in earnest?’ + +‘Well, well!’ muttered Nicholas. + +‘Every time I go to the window,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘he kisses one hand, +and lays the other upon his heart--of course it’s very foolish of him +to do so, and I dare say you’ll say it’s very wrong, but he does it very +respectfully--very respectfully indeed--and very tenderly, extremely +tenderly. So far, he deserves the greatest credit; there can be no doubt +about that. Then, there are the presents which come pouring over the +wall every day, and very fine they certainly are, very fine; we had one +of the cucumbers at dinner yesterday, and think of pickling the rest +for next winter. And last evening,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, with increased +confusion, ‘he called gently over the wall, as I was walking in the +garden, and proposed marriage, and an elopement. His voice is as clear +as a bell or a musical glass--very like a musical glass indeed--but of +course I didn’t listen to it. Then, the question is, Nicholas my dear, +what am I to do?’ + +‘Does Kate know of this?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘I have not said a word about it yet,’ answered his mother. + +‘Then, for Heaven’s sake,’ rejoined Nicholas, rising, ‘do not, for it +would make her very unhappy. And with regard to what you should do, my +dear mother, do what your good sense and feeling, and respect for my +father’s memory, would prompt. There are a thousand ways in which you +can show your dislike of these preposterous and doting attentions. If +you act as decidedly as you ought and they are still continued, and +to your annoyance, I can speedily put a stop to them. But I should not +interfere in a matter so ridiculous, and attach importance to it, until +you have vindicated yourself. Most women can do that, but especially +one of your age and condition, in circumstances like these, which are +unworthy of a serious thought. I would not shame you by seeming to +take them to heart, or treat them earnestly for an instant. Absurd old +idiot!’ + +So saying, Nicholas kissed his mother, and bade her good-night, and they +retired to their respective chambers. + +To do Mrs. Nickleby justice, her attachment to her children would have +prevented her seriously contemplating a second marriage, even if she +could have so far conquered her recollections of her late husband as to +have any strong inclinations that way. But, although there was no evil +and little real selfishness in Mrs. Nickleby’s heart, she had a weak head +and a vain one; and there was something so flattering in being sought +(and vainly sought) in marriage at this time of day, that she could +not dismiss the passion of the unknown gentleman quite so summarily or +lightly as Nicholas appeared to deem becoming. + +‘As to its being preposterous, and doting, and ridiculous,’ thought Mrs +Nickleby, communing with herself in her own room, ‘I don’t see that, +at all. It’s hopeless on his part, certainly; but why he should be an +absurd old idiot, I confess I don’t see. He is not to be supposed to +know it’s hopeless. Poor fellow! He is to be pitied, I think!’ + +Having made these reflections, Mrs. Nickleby looked in her little +dressing-glass, and walking backward a few steps from it, tried +to remember who it was who used to say that when Nicholas was +one-and-twenty he would have more the appearance of her brother than her +son. Not being able to call the authority to mind, she extinguished +her candle, and drew up the window-blind to admit the light of morning, +which had, by this time, begun to dawn. + +‘It’s a bad light to distinguish objects in,’ murmured Mrs. Nickleby, +peering into the garden, ‘and my eyes are not very good--I was +short-sighted from a child--but, upon my word, I think there’s another +large vegetable marrow sticking, at this moment, on the broken glass +bottles at the top of the wall!’ + + + +CHAPTER 38 + +Comprises certain Particulars arising out of a Visit of Condolence, +which may prove important hereafter. Smike unexpectedly encounters a +very old Friend, who invites him to his House, and will take no Denial + + +Quite unconscious of the demonstrations of their amorous neighbour, or +their effects upon the susceptible bosom of her mama, Kate Nickleby +had, by this time, begun to enjoy a settled feeling of tranquillity and +happiness, to which, even in occasional and transitory glimpses, she +had long been a stranger. Living under the same roof with the beloved +brother from whom she had been so suddenly and hardly separated: with +a mind at ease, and free from any persecutions which could call a blush +into her cheek, or a pang into her heart, she seemed to have passed into +a new state of being. Her former cheerfulness was restored, her step +regained its elasticity and lightness, the colour which had forsaken +her cheek visited it once again, and Kate Nickleby looked more beautiful +than ever. + +Such was the result to which Miss La Creevy’s ruminations and +observations led her, when the cottage had been, as she emphatically +said, ‘thoroughly got to rights, from the chimney-pots to the +street-door scraper,’ and the busy little woman had at length a moment’s +time to think about its inmates. + +‘Which I declare I haven’t had since I first came down here,’ said +Miss La Creevy; ‘for I have thought of nothing but hammers, nails, +screwdrivers, and gimlets, morning, noon, and night.’ + +‘You never bestowed one thought upon yourself, I believe,’ returned +Kate, smiling. + +‘Upon my word, my dear, when there are so many pleasanter things +to think of, I should be a goose if I did,’ said Miss La Creevy. +‘By-the-bye, I HAVE thought of somebody too. Do you know, that I observe +a great change in one of this family--a very extraordinary change?’ + +‘In whom?’ asked Kate, anxiously. ‘Not in--’ + +‘Not in your brother, my dear,’ returned Miss La Creevy, anticipating +the close of the sentence, ‘for he is always the same affectionate +good-natured clever creature, with a spice of the--I won’t say who--in +him when there’s any occasion, that he was when I first knew you. No. +Smike, as he WILL be called, poor fellow! for he won’t hear of a MR +before his name, is greatly altered, even in this short time.’ + +‘How?’ asked Kate. ‘Not in health?’ + +‘N--n--o; perhaps not in health exactly,’ said Miss La Creevy, pausing +to consider, ‘although he is a worn and feeble creature, and has that +in his face which it would wring my heart to see in yours. No; not in +health.’ + +‘How then?’ + +‘I scarcely know,’ said the miniature painter. ‘But I have watched him, +and he has brought the tears into my eyes many times. It is not a very +difficult matter to do that, certainly, for I am easily melted; still I +think these came with good cause and reason. I am sure that since he has +been here, he has grown, from some strong cause, more conscious of his +weak intellect. He feels it more. It gives him greater pain to know that +he wanders sometimes, and cannot understand very simple things. I have +watched him when you have not been by, my dear, sit brooding by himself, +with such a look of pain as I could scarcely bear to see, and then get +up and leave the room: so sorrowfully, and in such dejection, that +I cannot tell you how it has hurt me. Not three weeks ago, he was a +light-hearted busy creature, overjoyed to be in a bustle, and as +happy as the day was long. Now, he is another being--the same willing, +harmless, faithful, loving creature--but the same in nothing else.’ + +‘Surely this will all pass off,’ said Kate. ‘Poor fellow!’ + +‘I hope,’ returned her little friend, with a gravity very unusual in +her, ‘it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, it may. However,’ +said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into the cheerful, chattering tone, which +was habitual to her, ‘I have said my say, and a very long say it is, and +a very wrong say too, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I shall cheer him up +tonight, at all events, for if he is to be my squire all the way to the +Strand, I shall talk on, and on, and on, and never leave off, till I +have roused him into a laugh at something. So the sooner he goes, the +better for him, and the sooner I go, the better for me, I am sure, or +else I shall have my maid gallivanting with somebody who may rob the +house--though what there is to take away, besides tables and chairs, +I don’t know, except the miniatures: and he is a clever thief who can +dispose of them to any great advantage, for I can’t, I know, and that’s +the honest truth.’ + +So saying, little Miss La Creevy hid her face in a very flat bonnet, and +herself in a very big shawl; and fixing herself tightly into the latter, +by means of a large pin, declared that the omnibus might come as soon as +it pleased, for she was quite ready. + +But there was still Mrs. Nickleby to take leave of; and long before that +good lady had concluded some reminiscences bearing upon, and appropriate +to, the occasion, the omnibus arrived. This put Miss La Creevy in a +great bustle, in consequence whereof, as she secretly rewarded the +servant girl with eighteen-pence behind the street-door, she pulled +out of her reticule ten-pennyworth of halfpence, which rolled into all +possible corners of the passage, and occupied some considerable time +in the picking up. This ceremony had, of course, to be succeeded by a +second kissing of Kate and Mrs. Nickleby, and a gathering together of the +little basket and the brown-paper parcel, during which proceedings, ‘the +omnibus,’ as Miss La Creevy protested, ‘swore so dreadfully, that it was +quite awful to hear it.’ At length and at last, it made a feint of going +away, and then Miss La Creevy darted out, and darted in, apologising +with great volubility to all the passengers, and declaring that she +wouldn’t purposely have kept them waiting on any account whatever. While +she was looking about for a convenient seat, the conductor pushed Smike +in, and cried that it was all right--though it wasn’t--and away went the +huge vehicle, with the noise of half-a-dozen brewers’ drays at least. + +Leaving it to pursue its journey at the pleasure of the conductor +aforementioned, who lounged gracefully on his little shelf behind, +smoking an odoriferous cigar; and leaving it to stop, or go on, or +gallop, or crawl, as that gentleman deemed expedient and advisable; this +narrative may embrace the opportunity of ascertaining the condition of +Sir Mulberry Hawk, and to what extent he had, by this time, recovered +from the injuries consequent on being flung violently from his +cabriolet, under the circumstances already detailed. + +With a shattered limb, a body severely bruised, a face disfigured by +half-healed scars, and pallid from the exhaustion of recent pain and +fever, Sir Mulberry Hawk lay stretched upon his back, on the couch to +which he was doomed to be a prisoner for some weeks yet to come. Mr. Pyke +and Mr. Pluck sat drinking hard in the next room, now and then varying +the monotonous murmurs of their conversation with a half-smothered +laugh, while the young lord--the only member of the party who was not +thoroughly irredeemable, and who really had a kind heart--sat beside his +Mentor, with a cigar in his mouth, and read to him, by the light of a +lamp, such scraps of intelligence from a paper of the day, as were most +likely to yield him interest or amusement. + +‘Curse those hounds!’ said the invalid, turning his head impatiently +towards the adjoining room; ‘will nothing stop their infernal throats?’ + +Messrs Pyke and Pluck heard the exclamation, and stopped immediately: +winking to each other as they did so, and filling their glasses to the +brim, as some recompense for the deprivation of speech. + +‘Damn!’ muttered the sick man between his teeth, and writhing +impatiently in his bed. ‘Isn’t this mattress hard enough, and the room +dull enough, and pain bad enough, but THEY must torture me? What’s the +time?’ + +‘Half-past eight,’ replied his friend. + +‘Here, draw the table nearer, and let us have the cards again,’ said Sir +Mulberry. ‘More piquet. Come.’ + +It was curious to see how eagerly the sick man, debarred from any change +of position save the mere turning of his head from side to side, watched +every motion of his friend in the progress of the game; and with what +eagerness and interest he played, and yet how warily and coolly. His +address and skill were more than twenty times a match for his adversary, +who could make little head against them, even when fortune favoured him +with good cards, which was not often the case. Sir Mulberry won every +game; and when his companion threw down the cards, and refused to play +any longer, thrust forth his wasted arm and caught up the stakes with a +boastful oath, and the same hoarse laugh, though considerably lowered in +tone, that had resounded in Ralph Nickleby’s dining-room, months before. + +While he was thus occupied, his man appeared, to announce that Mr. Ralph +Nickleby was below, and wished to know how he was, tonight. + +‘Better,’ said Sir Mulberry, impatiently. + +‘Mr. Nickleby wishes to know, sir--’ + +‘I tell you, better,’ replied Sir Mulberry, striking his hand upon the +table. + +The man hesitated for a moment or two, and then said that Mr. Nickleby +had requested permission to see Sir Mulberry Hawk, if it was not +inconvenient. + +‘It IS inconvenient. I can’t see him. I can’t see anybody,’ said his +master, more violently than before. ‘You know that, you blockhead.’ + +‘I am very sorry, sir,’ returned the man. ‘But Mr. Nickleby pressed so +much, sir--’ + +The fact was, that Ralph Nickleby had bribed the man, who, being anxious +to earn his money with a view to future favours, held the door in his +hand, and ventured to linger still. + +‘Did he say whether he had any business to speak about?’ inquired Sir +Mulberry, after a little impatient consideration. + +‘No, sir. He said he wished to see you, sir. Particularly, Mr. Nickleby +said, sir.’ + +‘Tell him to come up. Here,’ cried Sir Mulberry, calling the man back, +as he passed his hand over his disfigured face, ‘move that lamp, and +put it on the stand behind me. Wheel that table away, and place a chair +there--further off. Leave it so.’ + +The man obeyed these directions as if he quite comprehended the motive +with which they were dictated, and left the room. Lord Frederick +Verisopht, remarking that he would look in presently, strolled into the +adjoining apartment, and closed the folding door behind him. + +Then was heard a subdued footstep on the stairs; and Ralph Nickleby, hat +in hand, crept softly into the room, with his body bent forward as if in +profound respect, and his eyes fixed upon the face of his worthy client. + +‘Well, Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry, motioning him to the chair by the +couch side, and waving his hand in assumed carelessness, ‘I have had a +bad accident, you see.’ + +‘I see,’ rejoined Ralph, with the same steady gaze. ‘Bad, indeed! I +should not have known you, Sir Mulberry. Dear, dear! This IS bad.’ + +Ralph’s manner was one of profound humility and respect; and the low +tone of voice was that, which the gentlest consideration for a sick man +would have taught a visitor to assume. But the expression of his face, +Sir Mulberry’s being averted, was in extraordinary contrast; and as +he stood, in his usual attitude, calmly looking on the prostrate form +before him, all that part of his features which was not cast into shadow +by his protruding and contracted brows, bore the impress of a sarcastic +smile. + +‘Sit down,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning towards him, as though by a +violent effort. ‘Am I a sight, that you stand gazing there?’ + +As he turned his face, Ralph recoiled a step or two, and making as +though he were irresistibly impelled to express astonishment, but was +determined not to do so, sat down with well-acted confusion. + +‘I have inquired at the door, Sir Mulberry, every day,’ said Ralph, +‘twice a day, indeed, at first--and tonight, presuming upon old +acquaintance, and past transactions by which we have mutually benefited +in some degree, I could not resist soliciting admission to your chamber. +Have you--have you suffered much?’ said Ralph, bending forward, and +allowing the same harsh smile to gather upon his face, as the other +closed his eyes. + +‘More than enough to please me, and less than enough to please some +broken-down hacks that you and I know of, and who lay their ruin between +us, I dare say,’ returned Sir Mulberry, tossing his arm restlessly upon +the coverlet. + +Ralph shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of the intense irritation +with which this had been said; for there was an aggravating, cold +distinctness in his speech and manner which so grated on the sick man +that he could scarcely endure it. + +‘And what is it in these “past transactions,” that brought you here +tonight?’ asked Sir Mulberry. + +‘Nothing,’ replied Ralph. ‘There are some bills of my lord’s which need +renewal; but let them be till you are well. I--I--came,’ said Ralph, +speaking more slowly, and with harsher emphasis, ‘I came to say how +grieved I am that any relative of mine, although disowned by me, should +have inflicted such punishment on you as--’ + +‘Punishment!’ interposed Sir Mulberry. + +‘I know it has been a severe one,’ said Ralph, wilfully mistaking the +meaning of the interruption, ‘and that has made me the more anxious to +tell you that I disown this vagabond--that I acknowledge him as no kin +of mine--and that I leave him to take his deserts from you, and +every man besides. You may wring his neck if you please. I shall not +interfere.’ + +‘This story that they tell me here, has got abroad then, has it?’ asked +Sir Mulberry, clenching his hands and teeth. + +‘Noised in all directions,’ replied Ralph. ‘Every club and gaming-room +has rung with it. There has been a good song made about it, as I am +told,’ said Ralph, looking eagerly at his questioner. ‘I have not heard +it myself, not being in the way of such things, but I have been told +it’s even printed--for private circulation--but that’s all over town, of +course.’ + +‘It’s a lie!’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘I tell you it’s all a lie. The mare +took fright.’ + +‘They SAY he frightened her,’ observed Ralph, in the same unmoved and +quiet manner. ‘Some say he frightened you, but THAT’S a lie, I know. I +have said that boldly--oh, a score of times! I am a peaceable man, but I +can’t hear folks tell that of you. No, no.’ + +When Sir Mulberry found coherent words to utter, Ralph bent forward +with his hand to his ear, and a face as calm as if its every line of +sternness had been cast in iron. + +‘When I am off this cursed bed,’ said the invalid, actually striking at +his broken leg in the ecstasy of his passion, ‘I’ll have such revenge as +never man had yet. By God, I will. Accident favouring him, he has marked +me for a week or two, but I’ll put a mark on him that he shall carry +to his grave. I’ll slit his nose and ears, flog him, maim him for life. +I’ll do more than that; I’ll drag that pattern of chastity, that pink of +prudery, the delicate sister, through--’ + +It might have been that even Ralph’s cold blood tingled in his cheeks +at that moment. It might have been that Sir Mulberry remembered, that, +knave and usurer as he was, he must, in some early time of infancy, have +twined his arm about her father’s neck. He stopped, and menacing with +his hand, confirmed the unuttered threat with a tremendous oath. + +‘It is a galling thing,’ said Ralph, after a short term of silence, +during which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, ‘to think that the man +about town, the rake, the ROUE, the rook of twenty seasons should be +brought to this pass by a mere boy!’ + +Sir Mulberry darted a wrathful look at him, but Ralph’s eyes were bent +upon the ground, and his face wore no other expression than one of +thoughtfulness. + +‘A raw, slight stripling,’ continued Ralph, ‘against a man whose very +weight might crush him; to say nothing of his skill in--I am right, I +think,’ said Ralph, raising his eyes, ‘you WERE a patron of the ring +once, were you not?’ + +The sick man made an impatient gesture, which Ralph chose to consider as +one of acquiescence. + +‘Ha!’ he said, ‘I thought so. That was before I knew you, but I was +pretty sure I couldn’t be mistaken. He is light and active, I suppose. +But those were slight advantages compared with yours. Luck, luck! These +hang-dog outcasts have it.’ + +‘He’ll need the most he has, when I am well again,’ said Sir Mulberry +Hawk, ‘let him fly where he will.’ + +‘Oh!’ returned Ralph quickly, ‘he doesn’t dream of that. He is here, +good sir, waiting your pleasure, here in London, walking the streets +at noonday; carrying it off jauntily; looking for you, I swear,’ said +Ralph, his face darkening, and his own hatred getting the upper hand +of him, for the first time, as this gay picture of Nicholas presented +itself; ‘if we were only citizens of a country where it could be safely +done, I’d give good money to have him stabbed to the heart and rolled +into the kennel for the dogs to tear.’ + +As Ralph, somewhat to the surprise of his old client, vented this +little piece of sound family feeling, and took up his hat preparatory to +departing, Lord Frederick Verisopht looked in. + +‘Why what in the deyvle’s name, Hawk, have you and Nickleby been talking +about?’ said the young man. ‘I neyver heard such an insufferable riot. +Croak, croak, croak. Bow, wow, wow. What has it all been about?’ + +‘Sir Mulberry has been angry, my Lord,’ said Ralph, looking towards the +couch. + +‘Not about money, I hope? Nothing has gone wrong in business, has it, +Nickleby?’ + +‘No, my Lord, no,’ returned Ralph. ‘On that point we always agree. Sir +Mulberry has been calling to mind the cause of--’ + +There was neither necessity nor opportunity for Ralph to proceed; for +Sir Mulberry took up the theme, and vented his threats and oaths against +Nicholas, almost as ferociously as before. + +Ralph, who was no common observer, was surprised to see that as this +tirade proceeded, the manner of Lord Frederick Verisopht, who at the +commencement had been twirling his whiskers with a most dandified +and listless air, underwent a complete alteration. He was still more +surprised when, Sir Mulberry ceasing to speak, the young lord angrily, +and almost unaffectedly, requested never to have the subject renewed in +his presence. + +‘Mind that, Hawk!’ he added, with unusual energy. ‘I never will be a +party to, or permit, if I can help it, a cowardly attack upon this young +fellow.’ + +‘Cowardly!’ interrupted his friend. + +‘Ye-es,’ said the other, turning full upon him. ‘If you had told him +who you were; if you had given him your card, and found out, afterwards, +that his station or character prevented your fighting him, it would have +been bad enough then; upon my soul it would have been bad enough then. +As it is, you did wrong. I did wrong too, not to interfere, and I +am sorry for it. What happened to you afterwards, was as much the +consequence of accident as design, and more your fault than his; and it +shall not, with my knowledge, be cruelly visited upon him, it shall not +indeed.’ + +With this emphatic repetition of his concluding words, the young lord +turned upon his heel; but before he had reached the adjoining room he +turned back again, and said, with even greater vehemence than he had +displayed before, + +‘I do believe, now; upon my honour I do believe, that the sister is as +virtuous and modest a young lady as she is a handsome one; and of the +brother, I say this, that he acted as her brother should, and in a manly +and spirited manner. And I only wish, with all my heart and soul, that +any one of us came out of this matter half as well as he does.’ + +So saying, Lord Frederick Verisopht walked out of the room, leaving +Ralph Nickleby and Sir Mulberry in most unpleasant astonishment. + +‘Is this your pupil?’ asked Ralph, softly, ‘or has he come fresh from +some country parson?’ + +‘Green fools take these fits sometimes,’ replied Sir Mulberry Hawk, +biting his lip, and pointing to the door. ‘Leave him to me.’ + +Ralph exchanged a familiar look with his old acquaintance; for they had +suddenly grown confidential again in this alarming surprise; and took +his way home, thoughtfully and slowly. + +While these things were being said and done, and long before they were +concluded, the omnibus had disgorged Miss La Creevy and her escort, and +they had arrived at her own door. Now, the good-nature of the little +miniature painter would by no means allow of Smike’s walking back again, +until he had been previously refreshed with just a sip of something +comfortable and a mixed biscuit or so; and Smike, entertaining no +objection either to the sip of something comfortable, or the mixed +biscuit, but, considering on the contrary that they would be a very +pleasant preparation for a walk to Bow, it fell out that he delayed much +longer than he originally intended, and that it was some half-hour after +dusk when he set forth on his journey home. + +There was no likelihood of his losing his way, for it lay quite straight +before him, and he had walked into town with Nicholas, and back alone, +almost every day. So, Miss La Creevy and he shook hands with mutual +confidence, and, being charged with more kind remembrances to Mrs. and +Miss Nickleby, Smike started off. + +At the foot of Ludgate Hill, he turned a little out of the road to +satisfy his curiosity by having a look at Newgate. After staring up at +the sombre walls, from the opposite side of the way, with great care +and dread for some minutes, he turned back again into the old track, and +walked briskly through the city; stopping now and then to gaze in at the +window of some particularly attractive shop, then running for a little +way, then stopping again, and so on, as any other country lad might do. + +He had been gazing for a long time through a jeweller’s window, wishing +he could take some of the beautiful trinkets home as a present, and +imagining what delight they would afford if he could, when the clocks +struck three-quarters past eight; roused by the sound, he hurried on at +a very quick pace, and was crossing the corner of a by-street when he +felt himself violently brought to, with a jerk so sudden that he was +obliged to cling to a lamp-post to save himself from falling. At the +same moment, a small boy clung tight round his leg, and a shrill cry of +‘Here he is, father! Hooray!’ vibrated in his ears. + +Smike knew that voice too well. He cast his despairing eyes downward +towards the form from which it had proceeded, and, shuddering from head +to foot, looked round. Mr. Squeers had hooked him in the coat collar with +the handle of his umbrella, and was hanging on at the other end with all +his might and main. The cry of triumph proceeded from Master Wackford, +who, regardless of all his kicks and struggles, clung to him with the +tenacity of a bull-dog! + +One glance showed him this; and in that one glance the terrified +creature became utterly powerless and unable to utter a sound. + +‘Here’s a go!’ cried Mr. Squeers, gradually coming hand-over-hand down +the umbrella, and only unhooking it when he had got tight hold of the +victim’s collar. ‘Here’s a delicious go! Wackford, my boy, call up one +of them coaches.’ + +‘A coach, father!’ cried little Wackford. + +‘Yes, a coach, sir,’ replied Squeers, feasting his eyes upon the +countenance of Smike. ‘Damn the expense. Let’s have him in a coach.’ + +‘What’s he been a doing of?’ asked a labourer with a hod of bricks, +against whom and a fellow-labourer Mr. Squeers had backed, on the first +jerk of the umbrella. + +‘Everything!’ replied Mr. Squeers, looking fixedly at his old pupil in +a sort of rapturous trance. ‘Everything--running away, sir--joining in +bloodthirsty attacks upon his master--there’s nothing that’s bad that he +hasn’t done. Oh, what a delicious go is this here, good Lord!’ + +The man looked from Squeers to Smike; but such mental faculties as the +poor fellow possessed, had utterly deserted him. The coach came up; +Master Wackford entered; Squeers pushed in his prize, and following +close at his heels, pulled up the glasses. The coachman mounted his +box and drove slowly off, leaving the two bricklayers, and an old +apple-woman, and a town-made little boy returning from an evening +school, who had been the only witnesses of the scene, to meditate upon +it at their leisure. + +Mr. Squeers sat himself down on the opposite seat to the unfortunate +Smike, and, planting his hands firmly on his knees, looked at him for +some five minutes, when, seeming to recover from his trance, he uttered +a loud laugh, and slapped his old pupil’s face several times--taking the +right and left sides alternately. + +‘It isn’t a dream!’ said Squeers. ‘That’s real flesh and blood! I know +the feel of it!’ and being quite assured of his good fortune by these +experiments, Mr. Squeers administered a few boxes on the ear, lest the +entertainments should seem to partake of sameness, and laughed louder +and longer at every one. + +‘Your mother will be fit to jump out of her skin, my boy, when she hears +of this,’ said Squeers to his son. + +‘Oh, won’t she though, father?’ replied Master Wackford. + +‘To think,’ said Squeers, ‘that you and me should be turning out of a +street, and come upon him at the very nick; and that I should have him +tight, at only one cast of the umbrella, as if I had hooked him with a +grappling-iron! Ha, ha!’ + +‘Didn’t I catch hold of his leg, neither, father?’ said little Wackford. + +‘You did; like a good ‘un, my boy,’ said Mr. Squeers, patting his son’s +head, ‘and you shall have the best button-over jacket and waistcoat +that the next new boy brings down, as a reward of merit. Mind that. You +always keep on in the same path, and do them things that you see your +father do, and when you die you’ll go right slap to Heaven and no +questions asked.’ + +Improving the occasion in these words, Mr. Squeers patted his son’s head +again, and then patted Smike’s--but harder; and inquired in a bantering +tone how he found himself by this time. + +‘I must go home,’ replied Smike, looking wildly round. + +‘To be sure you must. You’re about right there,’ replied Mr. Squeers. +‘You’ll go home very soon, you will. You’ll find yourself at the +peaceful village of Dotheboys, in Yorkshire, in something under a week’s +time, my young friend; and the next time you get away from there, I +give you leave to keep away. Where’s the clothes you run off in, you +ungrateful robber?’ said Mr. Squeers, in a severe voice. + +Smike glanced at the neat attire which the care of Nicholas had provided +for him; and wrung his hands. + +‘Do you know that I could hang you up, outside of the Old Bailey, for +making away with them articles of property?’ said Squeers. ‘Do you know +that it’s a hanging matter--and I an’t quite certain whether it an’t +an anatomy one besides--to walk off with up’ards of the valley of five +pound from a dwelling-house? Eh? Do you know that? What do you suppose +was the worth of them clothes you had? Do you know that that Wellington +boot you wore, cost eight-and-twenty shillings when it was a pair, and +the shoe seven-and-six? But you came to the right shop for mercy when +you came to me, and thank your stars that it IS me as has got to serve +you with the article.’ + +Anybody not in Mr. Squeers’s confidence would have supposed that he was +quite out of the article in question, instead of having a large stock +on hand ready for all comers; nor would the opinion of sceptical persons +have undergone much alteration when he followed up the remark by poking +Smike in the chest with the ferrule of his umbrella, and dealing a smart +shower of blows, with the ribs of the same instrument, upon his head and +shoulders. + +‘I never threshed a boy in a hackney coach before,’ said Mr. Squeers, +when he stopped to rest. ‘There’s inconveniency in it, but the novelty +gives it a sort of relish, too!’ + +Poor Smike! He warded off the blows, as well as he could, and now shrunk +into a corner of the coach, with his head resting on his hands, and his +elbows on his knees; he was stunned and stupefied, and had no more idea +that any act of his, would enable him to escape from the all-powerful +Squeers, now that he had no friend to speak to or to advise with, than +he had had in all the weary years of his Yorkshire life which preceded +the arrival of Nicholas. + +The journey seemed endless; street after street was entered and left +behind; and still they went jolting on. At last Mr. Squeers began to +thrust his head out of the widow every half-minute, and to bawl a +variety of directions to the coachman; and after passing, with some +difficulty, through several mean streets which the appearance of the +houses and the bad state of the road denoted to have been recently +built, Mr. Squeers suddenly tugged at the check string with all his +might, and cried, ‘Stop!’ + +‘What are you pulling a man’s arm off for?’ said the coachman looking +angrily down. + +‘That’s the house,’ replied Squeers. ‘The second of them four little +houses, one story high, with the green shutters. There’s brass plate on +the door, with the name of Snawley.’ + +‘Couldn’t you say that without wrenching a man’s limbs off his body?’ +inquired the coachman. + +‘No!’ bawled Mr. Squeers. ‘Say another word, and I’ll summons you for +having a broken winder. Stop!’ + +Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr. Snawley’s door. +Mr. Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and sanctified gentleman +who confided two sons (in law) to the parental care of Mr. Squeers, as +narrated in the fourth chapter of this history. Mr. Snawley’s house was +on the extreme borders of some new settlements adjoining Somers Town, +and Mr. Squeers had taken lodgings therein for a short time, as his stay +was longer than usual, and the Saracen, having experience of Master +Wackford’s appetite, had declined to receive him on any other terms than +as a full-grown customer. + +‘Here we are!’ said Squeers, hurrying Smike into the little parlour, +where Mr. Snawley and his wife were taking a lobster supper. ‘Here’s the +vagrant--the felon--the rebel--the monster of unthankfulness.’ + +‘What! The boy that run away!’ cried Snawley, resting his knife and fork +upright on the table, and opening his eyes to their full width. + +‘The very boy’, said Squeers, putting his fist close to Smike’s nose, +and drawing it away again, and repeating the process several times, with +a vicious aspect. ‘If there wasn’t a lady present, I’d fetch him such +a--: never mind, I’ll owe it him.’ + +And here Mr. Squeers related how, and in what manner, and when and where, +he had picked up the runaway. + +‘It’s clear that there has been a Providence in it, sir,’ said Mr +Snawley, casting down his eyes with an air of humility, and elevating +his fork, with a bit of lobster on the top of it, towards the ceiling. + +‘Providence is against him, no doubt,’ replied Mr. Squeers, scratching +his nose. ‘Of course; that was to be expected. Anybody might have known +that.’ + +‘Hard-heartedness and evil-doing will never prosper, sir,’ said Mr +Snawley. + +‘Never was such a thing known,’ rejoined Squeers, taking a little roll +of notes from his pocket-book, to see that they were all safe. + +‘I have been, Mr. Snawley,’ said Mr. Squeers, when he had satisfied +himself upon this point, ‘I have been that chap’s benefactor, feeder, +teacher, and clother. I have been that chap’s classical, commercial, +mathematical, philosophical, and trigonomical friend. My son--my only +son, Wackford--has been his brother; Mrs. Squeers has been his mother, +grandmother, aunt,--ah! and I may say uncle too, all in one. She never +cottoned to anybody, except them two engaging and delightful boys of +yours, as she cottoned to this chap. What’s my return? What’s come of +my milk of human kindness? It turns into curds and whey when I look at +him.’ + +‘Well it may, sir,’ said Mrs. Snawley. ‘Oh! Well it may, sir.’ + +‘Where has he been all this time?’ inquired Snawley. ‘Has he been living +with--?’ + +‘Ah, sir!’ interposed Squeers, confronting him again. ‘Have you been a +living with that there devilish Nickleby, sir?’ + +But no threats or cuffs could elicit from Smike one word of reply to +this question; for he had internally resolved that he would rather +perish in the wretched prison to which he was again about to be +consigned, than utter one syllable which could involve his first and +true friend. He had already called to mind the strict injunctions of +secrecy as to his past life, which Nicholas had laid upon him when they +travelled from Yorkshire; and a confused and perplexed idea that his +benefactor might have committed some terrible crime in bringing him +away, which would render him liable to heavy punishment if detected, +had contributed, in some degree, to reduce him to his present state of +apathy and terror. + +Such were the thoughts--if to visions so imperfect and undefined as +those which wandered through his enfeebled brain, the term can be +applied--which were present to the mind of Smike, and rendered him deaf +alike to intimidation and persuasion. Finding every effort useless, Mr +Squeers conducted him to a little back room up-stairs, where he was to +pass the night; and, taking the precaution of removing his shoes, and +coat and waistcoat, and also of locking the door on the outside, lest +he should muster up sufficient energy to make an attempt at escape, that +worthy gentleman left him to his meditations. + +What those meditations were, and how the poor creature’s heart sunk +within him when he thought--when did he, for a moment, cease to +think?--of his late home, and the dear friends and familiar faces with +which it was associated, cannot be told. To prepare the mind for such +a heavy sleep, its growth must be stopped by rigour and cruelty in +childhood; there must be years of misery and suffering, lightened by no +ray of hope; the chords of the heart, which beat a quick response to the +voice of gentleness and affection, must have rusted and broken in their +secret places, and bear the lingering echo of no old word of love or +kindness. Gloomy, indeed, must have been the short day, and dull the +long, long twilight, preceding such a night of intellect as his. + +There were voices which would have roused him, even then; but their +welcome tones could not penetrate there; and he crept to bed the same +listless, hopeless, blighted creature, that Nicholas had first found him +at the Yorkshire school. + + + +CHAPTER 39 + +In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very opportunely and to +some Purpose + + +The night, fraught with so much bitterness to one poor soul, had given +place to a bright and cloudless summer morning, when a north-country +mail-coach traversed, with cheerful noise, the yet silent streets +of Islington, and, giving brisk note of its approach with the lively +winding of the guard’s horn, clattered onward to its halting-place hard +by the Post Office. + +The only outside passenger was a burly, honest-looking countryman on +the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, +appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, as to be quite insensible to all +the bustle of getting out the bags and parcels, until one of the coach +windows being let sharply down, he looked round, and encountered a +pretty female face which was just then thrust out. + +‘See there, lass!’ bawled the countryman, pointing towards the object of +his admiration. ‘There be Paul’s Church. ‘Ecod, he be a soizable ‘un, he +be.’ + +‘Goodness, John! I shouldn’t have thought it could have been half the +size. What a monster!’ + +‘Monsther!--Ye’re aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs. Browdie,’ said the +countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down in his huge top-coat; +‘and wa’at dost thee tak yon place to be noo--thot’un owor the wa’? Ye’d +never coom near it ‘gin you thried for twolve moonths. It’s na’ but a +Poast Office! Ho! ho! They need to charge for dooble-latthers. A Poast +Office! Wa’at dost thee think o’ thot? ‘Ecod, if thot’s on’y a Poast +Office, I’d loike to see where the Lord Mayor o’ Lunnun lives.’ + +So saying, John Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and +tapping Mrs. Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in, +burst into a boisterous fit of laughter. + +‘Weel!’ said John. ‘Dang my bootuns if she bean’t asleep agean!’ + +‘She’s been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a +minute or two now and then,’ replied John Browdie’s choice, ‘and I was +very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!’ + +The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in +shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to +guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which +ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened, for +two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the vehicle +from which the lady’s snores now proceeded, presented an appearance +sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles than those of +John Browdie’s ruddy face. + +‘Hollo!’ cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil. ‘Coom, +wakken oop, will ‘ee?’ + +After several burrowings into the old corner, and many exclamations of +impatience and fatigue, the figure struggled into a sitting posture; and +there, under a mass of crumpled beaver, and surrounded by a semicircle +of blue curl-papers, were the delicate features of Miss Fanny Squeers. + +‘Oh, ‘Tilda!’ cried Miss Squeers, ‘how you have been kicking of me +through this blessed night!’ + +‘Well, I do like that,’ replied her friend, laughing, ‘when you have had +nearly the whole coach to yourself.’ + +‘Don’t deny it, ‘Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, impressively, ‘because you +have, and it’s no use to go attempting to say you haven’t. You mightn’t +have known it in your sleep, ‘Tilda, but I haven’t closed my eyes for a +single wink, and so I THINK I am to be believed.’ + +With which reply, Miss Squeers adjusted the bonnet and veil, which +nothing but supernatural interference and an utter suspension of +nature’s laws could have reduced to any shape or form; and evidently +flattering herself that it looked uncommonly neat, brushed off the +sandwich-crumbs and bits of biscuit which had accumulated in her lap, +and availing herself of John Browdie’s proffered arm, descended from the +coach. + +‘Noo,’ said John, when a hackney coach had been called, and the ladies +and the luggage hurried in, ‘gang to the Sarah’s Head, mun.’ + +‘To the VERE?’ cried the coachman. + +‘Lawk, Mr. Browdie!’ interrupted Miss Squeers. ‘The idea! Saracen’s +Head.’ + +‘Sure-ly,’ said John, ‘I know’d it was something aboot Sarah’s Son’s +Head. Dost thou know thot?’ + +‘Oh, ah! I know that,’ replied the coachman gruffly, as he banged the +door. + +‘’Tilda, dear, really,’ remonstrated Miss Squeers, ‘we shall be taken +for I don’t know what.’ + +‘Let them tak’ us as they foind us,’ said John Browdie; ‘we dean’t come +to Lunnun to do nought but ‘joy oursel, do we?’ + +‘I hope not, Mr. Browdie,’ replied Miss Squeers, looking singularly +dismal. + +‘Well, then,’ said John, ‘it’s no matther. I’ve only been a married man +fower days, ‘account of poor old feyther deein, and puttin’ it off. Here +be a weddin’ party--broide and broide’s-maid, and the groom--if a mun +dean’t ‘joy himsel noo, when ought he, hey? Drat it all, thot’s what I +want to know.’ + +So, in order that he might begin to enjoy himself at once, and lose no +time, Mr. Browdie gave his wife a hearty kiss, and succeeded in wresting +another from Miss Squeers, after a maidenly resistance of scratching and +struggling on the part of that young lady, which was not quite over when +they reached the Saracen’s Head. + +Here, the party straightway retired to rest; the refreshment of sleep +being necessary after so long a journey; and here they met again +about noon, to a substantial breakfast, spread by direction of Mr. John +Browdie, in a small private room upstairs commanding an uninterrupted +view of the stables. + +To have seen Miss Squeers now, divested of the brown beaver, the green +veil, and the blue curl-papers, and arrayed in all the virgin splendour +of a white frock and spencer, with a white muslin bonnet, and an +imitative damask rose in full bloom on the inside thereof--her luxuriant +crop of hair arranged in curls so tight that it was impossible they +could come out by any accident, and her bonnet-cap trimmed with little +damask roses, which might be supposed to be so many promising scions of +the big rose--to have seen all this, and to have seen the broad +damask belt, matching both the family rose and the little roses, which +encircled her slender waist, and by a happy ingenuity took off from the +shortness of the spencer behind,--to have beheld all this, and to have +taken further into account the coral bracelets (rather short of beads, +and with a very visible black string) which clasped her wrists, and the +coral necklace which rested on her neck, supporting, outside her frock, +a lonely cornelian heart, typical of her own disengaged affections--to +have contemplated all these mute but expressive appeals to the purest +feelings of our nature, might have thawed the frost of age, and added +new and inextinguishable fuel to the fire of youth. + +The waiter was touched. Waiter as he was, he had human passions and +feelings, and he looked very hard at Miss Squeers as he handed the +muffins. + +‘Is my pa in, do you know?’ asked Miss Squeers with dignity. + +‘Beg your pardon, miss?’ + +‘My pa,’ repeated Miss Squeers; ‘is he in?’ + +‘In where, miss?’ + +‘In here--in the house!’ replied Miss Squeers. ‘My pa--Mr. Wackford +Squeers--he’s stopping here. Is he at home?’ + +‘I didn’t know there was any gen’l’man of that name in the house, miss’ +replied the waiter. ‘There may be, in the coffee-room.’ + +MAY BE. Very pretty this, indeed! Here was Miss Squeers, who had been +depending, all the way to London, upon showing her friends how much +at home she would be, and how much respectful notice her name and +connections would excite, told that her father MIGHT be there! ‘As if he +was a feller!’ observed Miss Squeers, with emphatic indignation. + +‘Ye’d betther inquire, mun,’ said John Browdie. ‘An’ hond up another +pigeon-pie, will ‘ee? Dang the chap,’ muttered John, looking into the +empty dish as the waiter retired; ‘does he ca’ this a pie--three yoong +pigeons and a troifling matther o’ steak, and a crust so loight that you +doant know when it’s in your mooth and when it’s gane? I wonder hoo many +pies goes to a breakfast!’ + +After a short interval, which John Browdie employed upon the ham and +a cold round of beef, the waiter returned with another pie, and the +information that Mr. Squeers was not stopping in the house, but that he +came there every day and that directly he arrived, he should be shown +upstairs. With this, he retired; and he had not retired two minutes, +when he returned with Mr. Squeers and his hopeful son. + +‘Why, who’d have thought of this?’ said Mr. Squeers, when he had saluted +the party and received some private family intelligence from his +daughter. + +‘Who, indeed, pa!’ replied that young lady, spitefully. ‘But you see +‘Tilda IS married at last.’ + +‘And I stond threat for a soight o’ Lunnun, schoolmeasther,’ said John, +vigorously attacking the pie. + +‘One of them things that young men do when they get married,’ returned +Squeers; ‘and as runs through with their money like nothing at all! How +much better wouldn’t it be now, to save it up for the eddication of +any little boys, for instance! They come on you,’ said Mr. Squeers in a +moralising way, ‘before you’re aware of it; mine did upon me.’ + +‘Will ‘ee pick a bit?’ said John. + +‘I won’t myself,’ returned Squeers; ‘but if you’ll just let little +Wackford tuck into something fat, I’ll be obliged to you. Give it him in +his fingers, else the waiter charges it on, and there’s lot of profit on +this sort of vittles without that. If you hear the waiter coming, sir, +shove it in your pocket and look out of the window, d’ye hear?’ + +‘I’m awake, father,’ replied the dutiful Wackford. + +‘Well,’ said Squeers, turning to his daughter, ‘it’s your turn to be +married next. You must make haste.’ + +‘Oh, I’m in no hurry,’ said Miss Squeers, very sharply. + +‘No, Fanny?’ cried her old friend with some archness. + +‘No, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I can +wait.’ + +‘So can the young men, it seems, Fanny,’ observed Mrs. Browdie. + +‘They an’t draw’d into it by ME, ‘Tilda,’ retorted Miss Squeers. + +‘No,’ returned her friend; ‘that’s exceedingly true.’ + +The sarcastic tone of this reply might have provoked a rather +acrimonious retort from Miss Squeers, who, besides being of a +constitutionally vicious temper--aggravated, just now, by travel and +recent jolting--was somewhat irritated by old recollections and the +failure of her own designs upon Mr. Browdie; and the acrimonious retort +might have led to a great many other retorts, which might have led to +Heaven knows what, if the subject of conversation had not been, at that +precise moment, accidentally changed by Mr. Squeers himself + +‘What do you think?’ said that gentleman; ‘who do you suppose we have +laid hands on, Wackford and me?’ + +‘Pa! not Mr--?’ Miss Squeers was unable to finish the sentence, but Mrs +Browdie did it for her, and added, ‘Nickleby?’ + +‘No,’ said Squeers. ‘But next door to him though.’ + +‘You can’t mean Smike?’ cried Miss Squeers, clapping her hands. + +‘Yes, I can though,’ rejoined her father. ‘I’ve got him, hard and fast.’ + +‘Wa’at!’ exclaimed John Browdie, pushing away his plate. ‘Got that +poor--dom’d scoondrel? Where?’ + +‘Why, in the top back room, at my lodging,’ replied Squeers, ‘with him +on one side, and the key on the other.’ + +‘At thy loodgin’! Thee’st gotten him at thy loodgin’? Ho! ho! The +schoolmeasther agin all England. Give us thee hond, mun; I’m darned but +I must shak thee by the hond for thot.--Gotten him at thy loodgin’?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Squeers, staggering in his chair under the congratulatory +blow on the chest which the stout Yorkshireman dealt him; ‘thankee. +Don’t do it again. You mean it kindly, I know, but it hurts rather. Yes, +there he is. That’s not so bad, is it?’ + +‘Ba’ad!’ repeated John Browdie. ‘It’s eneaf to scare a mun to hear tell +on.’ + +‘I thought it would surprise you a bit,’ said Squeers, rubbing his +hands. ‘It was pretty neatly done, and pretty quick too.’ + +‘Hoo wor it?’ inquired John, sitting down close to him. ‘Tell us all +aboot it, mun; coom, quick!’ + +Although he could not keep pace with John Browdie’s impatience, Mr +Squeers related the lucky chance by which Smike had fallen into his +hands, as quickly as he could, and, except when he was interrupted by +the admiring remarks of his auditors, paused not in the recital until he +had brought it to an end. + +‘For fear he should give me the slip, by any chance,’ observed Squeers, +when he had finished, looking very cunning, ‘I’ve taken three outsides +for tomorrow morning--for Wackford and him and me--and have arranged to +leave the accounts and the new boys to the agent, don’t you see? So it’s +very lucky you come today, or you’d have missed us; and as it is, unless +you could come and tea with me tonight, we shan’t see anything more of +you before we go away.’ + +‘Dean’t say anoother wurd,’ returned the Yorkshireman, shaking him by +the hand. ‘We’d coom, if it was twonty mile.’ + +‘No, would you though?’ returned Mr. Squeers, who had not expected quite +such a ready acceptance of his invitation, or he would have considered +twice before he gave it. + +John Browdie’s only reply was another squeeze of the hand, and an +assurance that they would not begin to see London till tomorrow, so that +they might be at Mr. Snawley’s at six o’clock without fail; and after +some further conversation, Mr. Squeers and his son departed. + +During the remainder of the day, Mr. Browdie was in a very odd and +excitable state; bursting occasionally into an explosion of laughter, +and then taking up his hat and running into the coach-yard to have it +out by himself. He was very restless too, constantly walking in and out, +and snapping his fingers, and dancing scraps of uncouth country dances, +and, in short, conducting himself in such a very extraordinary manner, +that Miss Squeers opined he was going mad, and, begging her dear ‘Tilda +not to distress herself, communicated her suspicions in so many words. +Mrs. Browdie, however, without discovering any great alarm, observed that +she had seen him so once before, and that although he was almost sure to +be ill after it, it would not be anything very serious, and therefore he +was better left alone. + +The result proved her to be perfectly correct for, while they were all +sitting in Mr. Snawley’s parlour that night, and just as it was beginning +to get dusk, John Browdie was taken so ill, and seized with such an +alarming dizziness in the head, that the whole company were thrown into +the utmost consternation. His good lady, indeed, was the only person +present, who retained presence of mind enough to observe that if he +were allowed to lie down on Mr. Squeers’s bed for an hour or so, and left +entirely to himself, he would be sure to recover again almost as quickly +as he had been taken ill. Nobody could refuse to try the effect of so +reasonable a proposal, before sending for a surgeon. Accordingly, John +was supported upstairs, with great difficulty; being a monstrous weight, +and regularly tumbling down two steps every time they hoisted him up +three; and, being laid on the bed, was left in charge of his wife, who, +after a short interval, reappeared in the parlour, with the gratifying +intelligence that he had fallen fast asleep. + +Now, the fact was, that at that particular moment, John Browdie was +sitting on the bed with the reddest face ever seen, cramming the corner +of the pillow into his mouth, to prevent his roaring out loud with +laughter. He had no sooner succeeded in suppressing this emotion, than +he slipped off his shoes, and creeping to the adjoining room where the +prisoner was confined, turned the key, which was on the outside, and +darting in, covered Smike’s mouth with his huge hand before he could +utter a sound. + +‘Ods-bobs, dost thee not know me, mun?’ whispered the Yorkshireman to +the bewildered lad. ‘Browdie. Chap as met thee efther schoolmeasther was +banged?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ cried Smike. ‘Oh! help me.’ + +‘Help thee!’ replied John, stopping his mouth again, the instant he +had said this much. ‘Thee didn’t need help, if thee warn’t as silly +yoongster as ever draw’d breath. Wa’at did ‘ee come here for, then?’ + +‘He brought me; oh! he brought me,’ cried Smike. + +‘Brout thee!’ replied John. ‘Why didn’t ‘ee punch his head, or lay +theeself doon and kick, and squeal out for the pollis? I’d ha’ licked +a doozen such as him when I was yoong as thee. But thee be’est a poor +broken-doon chap,’ said John, sadly, ‘and God forgi’ me for bragging +ower yan o’ his weakest creeturs!’ + +Smike opened his mouth to speak, but John Browdie stopped him. + +‘Stan’ still,’ said the Yorkshireman, ‘and doant’ee speak a morsel o’ +talk till I tell’ee.’ + +With this caution, John Browdie shook his head significantly, and +drawing a screwdriver from his pocket, took off the box of the lock in +a very deliberate and workmanlike manner, and laid it, together with the +implement, on the floor. + +‘See thot?’ said John ‘Thot be thy doin’. Noo, coot awa’!’ + +Smike looked vacantly at him, as if unable to comprehend his meaning. + +‘I say, coot awa’,’ repeated John, hastily. ‘Dost thee know where thee +livest? Thee dost? Weel. Are yon thy clothes, or schoolmeasther’s?’ + +‘Mine,’ replied Smike, as the Yorkshireman hurried him to the adjoining +room, and pointed out a pair of shoes and a coat which were lying on a +chair. + +‘On wi’ ‘em,’ said John, forcing the wrong arm into the wrong sleeve, +and winding the tails of the coat round the fugitive’s neck. ‘Noo, +foller me, and when thee get’st ootside door, turn to the right, and +they wean’t see thee pass.’ + +‘But--but--he’ll hear me shut the door,’ replied Smike, trembling from +head to foot. + +‘Then dean’t shut it at all,’ retorted John Browdie. ‘Dang it, thee +bean’t afeard o’ schoolmeasther’s takkin cold, I hope?’ + +‘N-no,’ said Smike, his teeth chattering in his head. ‘But he brought me +back before, and will again. He will, he will indeed.’ + +‘He wull, he wull!’ replied John impatiently. ‘He wean’t, he wean’t. +Look’ee! I wont to do this neighbourly loike, and let them think thee’s +gotten awa’ o’ theeself, but if he cooms oot o’ thot parlour awhiles +theer’t clearing off, he mun’ have mercy on his oun boans, for I wean’t. +If he foinds it oot, soon efther, I’ll put ‘un on a wrong scent, I +warrant ‘ee. But if thee keep’st a good hart, thee’lt be at whoam afore +they know thee’st gotten off. Coom!’ + +Smike, who comprehended just enough of this to know it was intended +as encouragement, prepared to follow with tottering steps, when John +whispered in his ear. + +‘Thee’lt just tell yoong Measther that I’m sploiced to ‘Tilly Price, and +to be heerd on at the Saracen by latther, and that I bean’t jealous of +‘un--dang it, I’m loike to boost when I think o’ that neight! ‘Cod, I +think I see ‘un now, a powderin’ awa’ at the thin bread an’ butther!’ + +It was rather a ticklish recollection for John just then, for he was +within an ace of breaking out into a loud guffaw. Restraining himself, +however, just in time, by a great effort, he glided downstairs, hauling +Smike behind him; and placing himself close to the parlour door, to +confront the first person that might come out, signed to him to make +off. + +Having got so far, Smike needed no second bidding. Opening the +house-door gently, and casting a look of mingled gratitude and terror +at his deliverer, he took the direction which had been indicated to him, +and sped away like the wind. + +The Yorkshireman remained on his post for a few minutes, but, finding +that there was no pause in the conversation inside, crept back again +unheard, and stood, listening over the stair-rail, for a full hour. +Everything remaining perfectly quiet, he got into Mr. Squeers’s bed, once +more, and drawing the clothes over his head, laughed till he was nearly +smothered. + +If there could only have been somebody by, to see how the bedclothes +shook, and to see the Yorkshireman’s great red face and round head +appear above the sheets, every now and then, like some jovial monster +coming to the surface to breathe, and once more dive down convulsed with +the laughter which came bursting forth afresh--that somebody would have +been scarcely less amused than John Browdie himself. + + + +CHAPTER 40 + +In which Nicholas falls in Love. He employs a Mediator, whose +Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, excepting in one +solitary Particular + + +Once more out of the clutches of his old persecutor, it needed no fresh +stimulation to call forth the utmost energy and exertion that Smike was +capable of summoning to his aid. Without pausing for a moment to reflect +upon the course he was taking, or the probability of its leading him +homewards or the reverse, he fled away with surprising swiftness and +constancy of purpose, borne upon such wings as only Fear can wear, and +impelled by imaginary shouts in the well remembered voice of Squeers, +who, with a host of pursuers, seemed to the poor fellow’s disordered +senses to press hard upon his track; now left at a greater distance +in the rear, and now gaining faster and faster upon him, as the +alternations of hope and terror agitated him by turns. Long after he had +become assured that these sounds were but the creation of his excited +brain, he still held on, at a pace which even weakness and exhaustion +could scarcely retard. It was not until the darkness and quiet of a +country road, recalled him to a sense of external objects, and the +starry sky, above, warned him of the rapid flight of time, that, covered +with dust and panting for breath, he stopped to listen and look about +him. + +All was still and silent. A glare of light in the distance, casting a +warm glow upon the sky, marked where the huge city lay. Solitary fields, +divided by hedges and ditches, through many of which he had crashed and +scrambled in his flight, skirted the road, both by the way he had come +and upon the opposite side. It was late now. They could scarcely trace +him by such paths as he had taken, and if he could hope to regain his +own dwelling, it must surely be at such a time as that, and under cover +of the darkness. This, by degrees, became pretty plain, even to the mind +of Smike. He had, at first, entertained some vague and childish idea of +travelling into the country for ten or a dozen miles, and then returning +homewards by a wide circuit, which should keep him clear of London--so +great was his apprehension of traversing the streets alone, lest +he should again encounter his dreaded enemy--but, yielding to the +conviction which these thoughts inspired, he turned back, and taking the +open road, though not without many fears and misgivings, made for London +again, with scarcely less speed of foot than that with which he had left +the temporary abode of Mr. Squeers. + +By the time he re-entered it, at the western extremity, the greater part +of the shops were closed. Of the throngs of people who had been tempted +abroad after the heat of the day, but few remained in the streets, and +they were lounging home. But of these he asked his way from time to +time, and by dint of repeated inquiries, he at length reached the +dwelling of Newman Noggs. + +All that evening, Newman had been hunting and searching in byways and +corners for the very person who now knocked at his door, while Nicholas +had been pursuing the same inquiry in other directions. He was sitting, +with a melancholy air, at his poor supper, when Smike’s timorous and +uncertain knock reached his ears. Alive to every sound, in his anxious +and expectant state, Newman hurried downstairs, and, uttering a cry of +joyful surprise, dragged the welcome visitor into the passage and up the +stairs, and said not a word until he had him safe in his own garret +and the door was shut behind them, when he mixed a great mug-full of +gin-and-water, and holding it to Smike’s mouth, as one might hold a bowl +of medicine to the lips of a refractory child, commanded him to drain it +to the last drop. + +Newman looked uncommonly blank when he found that Smike did little more +than put his lips to the precious mixture; he was in the act of raising +the mug to his own mouth with a deep sigh of compassion for his poor +friend’s weakness, when Smike, beginning to relate the adventures which +had befallen him, arrested him half-way, and he stood listening, with +the mug in his hand. + +It was odd enough to see the change that came over Newman as Smike +proceeded. At first he stood, rubbing his lips with the back of his +hand, as a preparatory ceremony towards composing himself for a draught; +then, at the mention of Squeers, he took the mug under his arm, and +opening his eyes very wide, looked on, in the utmost astonishment. When +Smike came to the assault upon himself in the hackney coach, he hastily +deposited the mug upon the table, and limped up and down the room in a +state of the greatest excitement, stopping himself with a jerk, every +now and then, as if to listen more attentively. When John Browdie came +to be spoken of, he dropped, by slow and gradual degrees, into a chair, +and rubbing his hands upon his knees--quicker and quicker as the story +reached its climax--burst, at last, into a laugh composed of one +loud sonorous ‘Ha! ha!’ having given vent to which, his countenance +immediately fell again as he inquired, with the utmost anxiety, whether +it was probable that John Browdie and Squeers had come to blows. + +‘No! I think not,’ replied Smike. ‘I don’t think he could have missed me +till I had got quite away.’ + +Newman scratched his head with a shout of great disappointment, and +once more lifting up the mug, applied himself to the contents; smiling +meanwhile, over the rim, with a grim and ghastly smile at Smike. + +‘You shall stay here,’ said Newman; ‘you’re tired--fagged. I’ll tell +them you’re come back. They have been half mad about you. Mr. Nicholas--’ + +‘God bless him!’ cried Smike. + +‘Amen!’ returned Newman. ‘He hasn’t had a minute’s rest or peace; no +more has the old lady, nor Miss Nickleby.’ + +‘No, no. Has SHE thought about me?’ said Smike. ‘Has she though? oh, has +she, has she? Don’t tell me so if she has not.’ + +‘She has,’ cried Newman. ‘She is as noble-hearted as she is beautiful.’ + +‘Yes, yes!’ cried Smike. ‘Well said!’ + +‘So mild and gentle,’ said Newman. + +‘Yes, yes!’ cried Smike, with increasing eagerness. + +‘And yet with such a true and gallant spirit,’ pursued Newman. + +He was going on, in his enthusiasm, when, chancing to look at his +companion, he saw that he had covered his face with his hands, and that +tears were stealing out between his fingers. + +A moment before, the boy’s eyes were sparkling with unwonted fire, and +every feature had been lighted up with an excitement which made him +appear, for the moment, quite a different being. + +‘Well, well,’ muttered Newman, as if he were a little puzzled. ‘It has +touched ME, more than once, to think such a nature should have been +exposed to such trials; this poor fellow--yes, yes,--he feels that +too--it softens him--makes him think of his former misery. Hah! That’s +it? Yes, that’s--hum!’ + +It was by no means clear, from the tone of these broken reflections, +that Newman Noggs considered them as explaining, at all satisfactorily, +the emotion which had suggested them. He sat, in a musing attitude, for +some time, regarding Smike occasionally with an anxious and doubtful +glance, which sufficiently showed that he was not very remotely +connected with his thoughts. + +At length he repeated his proposition that Smike should remain where he +was for that night, and that he (Noggs) should straightway repair to the +cottage to relieve the suspense of the family. But, as Smike would +not hear of this--pleading his anxiety to see his friends again--they +eventually sallied forth together; and the night being, by this time, +far advanced, and Smike being, besides, so footsore that he could hardly +crawl along, it was within an hour of sunrise when they reached their +destination. + +At the first sound of their voices outside the house, Nicholas, who had +passed a sleepless night, devising schemes for the recovery of his lost +charge, started from his bed, and joyfully admitted them. There was so +much noisy conversation, and congratulation, and indignation, that the +remainder of the family were soon awakened, and Smike received a warm +and cordial welcome, not only from Kate, but from Mrs. Nickleby also, who +assured him of her future favour and regard, and was so obliging as to +relate, for his entertainment and that of the assembled circle, a most +remarkable account extracted from some work the name of which she had +never known, of a miraculous escape from some prison, but what one she +couldn’t remember, effected by an officer whose name she had forgotten, +confined for some crime which she didn’t clearly recollect. + +At first Nicholas was disposed to give his uncle credit for some portion +of this bold attempt (which had so nearly proved successful) to carry +off Smike; but on more mature consideration, he was inclined to +think that the full merit of it rested with Mr. Squeers. Determined to +ascertain, if he could, through John Browdie, how the case really stood, +he betook himself to his daily occupation: meditating, as he went, on +a great variety of schemes for the punishment of the Yorkshire +schoolmaster, all of which had their foundation in the strictest +principles of retributive justice, and had but the one drawback of being +wholly impracticable. + +‘A fine morning, Mr. Linkinwater!’ said Nicholas, entering the office. + +‘Ah!’ replied Tim, ‘talk of the country, indeed! What do you think of +this, now, for a day--a London day--eh?’ + +‘It’s a little clearer out of town,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Clearer!’ echoed Tim Linkinwater. ‘You should see it from my bedroom +window.’ + +‘You should see it from MINE,’ replied Nicholas, with a smile. + +‘Pooh! pooh!’ said Tim Linkinwater, ‘don’t tell me. Country!’ (Bow was +quite a rustic place to Tim.) ‘Nonsense! What can you get in the country +but new-laid eggs and flowers? I can buy new-laid eggs in Leadenhall +Market, any morning before breakfast; and as to flowers, it’s worth a +run upstairs to smell my mignonette, or to see the double wallflower in +the back-attic window, at No. 6, in the court.’ + +‘There is a double wallflower at No. 6, in the court, is there?’ said +Nicholas. + +‘Yes, is there!’ replied Tim, ‘and planted in a cracked jug, without a +spout. There were hyacinths there, this last spring, blossoming, in--but +you’ll laugh at that, of course.’ + +‘At what?’ + +‘At their blossoming in old blacking-bottles,’ said Tim. + +‘Not I, indeed,’ returned Nicholas. + +Tim looked wistfully at him, for a moment, as if he were encouraged +by the tone of this reply to be more communicative on the subject; and +sticking behind his ear, a pen that he had been making, and shutting up +his knife with a smart click, said, + +‘They belong to a sickly bedridden hump-backed boy, and seem to be the +only pleasure, Mr. Nickleby, of his sad existence. How many years is it,’ +said Tim, pondering, ‘since I first noticed him, quite a little child, +dragging himself about on a pair of tiny crutches? Well! Well! Not many; +but though they would appear nothing, if I thought of other things, they +seem a long, long time, when I think of him. It is a sad thing,’ said +Tim, breaking off, ‘to see a little deformed child sitting apart from +other children, who are active and merry, watching the games he is +denied the power to share in. He made my heart ache very often.’ + +‘It is a good heart,’ said Nicholas, ‘that disentangles itself from the +close avocations of every day, to heed such things. You were saying--’ + +‘That the flowers belonged to this poor boy,’ said Tim; ‘that’s all. +When it is fine weather, and he can crawl out of bed, he draws a chair +close to the window, and sits there, looking at them and arranging +them, all day long. He used to nod, at first, and then we came to speak. +Formerly, when I called to him of a morning, and asked him how he was, +he would smile, and say, “Better!” but now he shakes his head, and only +bends more closely over his old plants. It must be dull to watch the +dark housetops and the flying clouds, for so many months; but he is very +patient.’ + +‘Is there nobody in the house to cheer or help him?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘His father lives there, I believe,’ replied Tim, ‘and other people too; +but no one seems to care much for the poor sickly cripple. I have asked +him, very often, if I can do nothing for him; his answer is always the +same. “Nothing.” His voice is growing weak of late, but I can SEE that +he makes the old reply. He can’t leave his bed now, so they have moved +it close beside the window, and there he lies, all day: now looking at +the sky, and now at his flowers, which he still makes shift to trim and +water, with his own thin hands. At night, when he sees my candle, he +draws back his curtain, and leaves it so, till I am in bed. It seems +such company to him to know that I am there, that I often sit at my +window for an hour or more, that he may see I am still awake; and +sometimes I get up in the night to look at the dull melancholy light in +his little room, and wonder whether he is awake or sleeping. + +‘The night will not be long coming,’ said Tim, ‘when he will sleep, and +never wake again on earth. We have never so much as shaken hands in all +our lives; and yet I shall miss him like an old friend. Are there any +country flowers that could interest me like these, do you think? Or +do you suppose that the withering of a hundred kinds of the choicest +flowers that blow, called by the hardest Latin names that were ever +invented, would give me one fraction of the pain that I shall feel when +these old jugs and bottles are swept away as lumber? Country!’ cried +Tim, with a contemptuous emphasis; ‘don’t you know that I couldn’t have +such a court under my bedroom window, anywhere, but in London?’ + +With which inquiry, Tim turned his back, and pretending to be absorbed +in his accounts, took an opportunity of hastily wiping his eyes when he +supposed Nicholas was looking another way. + +Whether it was that Tim’s accounts were more than usually intricate that +morning, or whether it was that his habitual serenity had been a little +disturbed by these recollections, it so happened that when Nicholas +returned from executing some commission, and inquired whether Mr. Charles +Cheeryble was alone in his room, Tim promptly, and without the smallest +hesitation, replied in the affirmative, although somebody had passed +into the room not ten minutes before, and Tim took especial and +particular pride in preventing any intrusion on either of the brothers +when they were engaged with any visitor whatever. + +‘I’ll take this letter to him at once,’ said Nicholas, ‘if that’s the +case.’ And with that, he walked to the room and knocked at the door. + +No answer. + +Another knock, and still no answer. + +‘He can’t be here,’ thought Nicholas. ‘I’ll lay it on his table.’ + +So, Nicholas opened the door and walked in; and very quickly he +turned to walk out again, when he saw, to his great astonishment and +discomfiture, a young lady upon her knees at Mr. Cheeryble’s feet, and Mr +Cheeryble beseeching her to rise, and entreating a third person, who +had the appearance of the young lady’s female attendant, to add her +persuasions to his to induce her to do so. + +Nicholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was precipitately +retiring, when the young lady, turning her head a little, presented +to his view the features of the lovely girl whom he had seen at the +register-office on his first visit long before. Glancing from her to the +attendant, he recognised the same clumsy servant who had accompanied +her then; and between his admiration of the young lady’s beauty, and +the confusion and surprise of this unexpected recognition, he stood +stock-still, in such a bewildered state of surprise and embarrassment +that, for the moment, he was quite bereft of the power either to speak +or move. + +‘My dear ma’am--my dear young lady,’ cried brother Charles in violent +agitation, ‘pray don’t--not another word, I beseech and entreat you! I +implore you--I beg of you--to rise. We--we--are not alone.’ + +As he spoke, he raised the young lady, who staggered to a chair and +swooned away. + +‘She has fainted, sir,’ said Nicholas, darting eagerly forward. + +‘Poor dear, poor dear!’ cried brother Charles ‘Where is my brother Ned? +Ned, my dear brother, come here pray.’ + +‘Brother Charles, my dear fellow,’ replied his brother, hurrying into +the room, ‘what is the--ah! what--’ + +‘Hush! hush!--not a word for your life, brother Ned,’ returned the +other. ‘Ring for the housekeeper, my dear brother--call Tim Linkinwater! +Here, Tim Linkinwater, sir--Mr. Nickleby, my dear sir, leave the room, I +beg and beseech of you.’ + +‘I think she is better now,’ said Nicholas, who had been watching the +patient so eagerly, that he had not heard the request. + +‘Poor bird!’ cried brother Charles, gently taking her hand in his, and +laying her head upon his arm. ‘Brother Ned, my dear fellow, you will be +surprised, I know, to witness this, in business hours; but--’ here he +was again reminded of the presence of Nicholas, and shaking him by +the hand, earnestly requested him to leave the room, and to send Tim +Linkinwater without an instant’s delay. + +Nicholas immediately withdrew and, on his way to the counting-house, met +both the old housekeeper and Tim Linkinwater, jostling each other in the +passage, and hurrying to the scene of action with extraordinary speed. +Without waiting to hear his message, Tim Linkinwater darted into the +room, and presently afterwards Nicholas heard the door shut and locked +on the inside. + +He had abundance of time to ruminate on this discovery, for Tim +Linkinwater was absent during the greater part of an hour, during the +whole of which time Nicholas thought of nothing but the young lady, and +her exceeding beauty, and what could possibly have brought her there, +and why they made such a mystery of it. The more he thought of all this, +the more it perplexed him, and the more anxious he became to know who +and what she was. ‘I should have known her among ten thousand,’ thought +Nicholas. And with that he walked up and down the room, and recalling +her face and figure (of which he had a peculiarly vivid remembrance), +discarded all other subjects of reflection and dwelt upon that alone. + +At length Tim Linkinwater came back--provokingly cool, and with papers +in his hand, and a pen in his mouth, as if nothing had happened. + +‘Is she quite recovered?’ said Nicholas, impetuously. + +‘Who?’ returned Tim Linkinwater. + +‘Who!’ repeated Nicholas. ‘The young lady.’ + +‘What do you make, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Tim, taking his pen out of his +mouth, ‘what do you make of four hundred and twenty-seven times three +thousand two hundred and thirty-eight?’ + +‘Nay,’ returned Nicholas, ‘what do you make of my question first? I +asked you--’ + +‘About the young lady,’ said Tim Linkinwater, putting on his spectacles. +‘To be sure. Yes. Oh! she’s very well.’ + +‘Very well, is she?’ returned Nicholas. + +‘Very well,’ replied Mr. Linkinwater, gravely. + +‘Will she be able to go home today?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘She’s gone,’ said Tim. + +‘Gone!’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘I hope she has not far to go?’ said Nicholas, looking earnestly at the +other. + +‘Ay,’ replied the immovable Tim, ‘I hope she hasn’t.’ + +Nicholas hazarded one or two further remarks, but it was evident that +Tim Linkinwater had his own reasons for evading the subject, and that +he was determined to afford no further information respecting the fair +unknown, who had awakened so much curiosity in the breast of his young +friend. Nothing daunted by this repulse, Nicholas returned to the charge +next day, emboldened by the circumstance of Mr. Linkinwater being in +a very talkative and communicative mood; but, directly he resumed the +theme, Tim relapsed into a state of most provoking taciturnity, and from +answering in monosyllables, came to returning no answers at all, save +such as were to be inferred from several grave nods and shrugs, which +only served to whet that appetite for intelligence in Nicholas, which +had already attained a most unreasonable height. + +Foiled in these attempts, he was fain to content himself with watching +for the young lady’s next visit, but here again he was disappointed. +Day after day passed, and she did not return. He looked eagerly at the +superscription of all the notes and letters, but there was not one among +them which he could fancy to be in her handwriting. On two or three +occasions he was employed on business which took him to a distance, and +had formerly been transacted by Tim Linkinwater. Nicholas could not help +suspecting that, for some reason or other, he was sent out of the way +on purpose, and that the young lady was there in his absence. Nothing +transpired, however, to confirm this suspicion, and Tim could not be +entrapped into any confession or admission tending to support it in the +smallest degree. + +Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the +growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries. ‘Out +of sight, out of mind,’ is well enough as a proverb applicable to cases +of friendship, though absence is not always necessary to hollowness +of heart, even between friends, and truth and honesty, like precious +stones, are perhaps most easily imitated at a distance, when the +counterfeits often pass for real. Love, however, is very materially +assisted by a warm and active imagination: which has a long memory, and +will thrive, for a considerable time, on very slight and sparing +food. Thus it is, that it often attains its most luxuriant growth in +separation and under circumstances of the utmost difficulty; and thus it +was, that Nicholas, thinking of nothing but the unknown young lady, from +day to day and from hour to hour, began, at last, to think that he was +very desperately in love with her, and that never was such an ill-used +and persecuted lover as he. + +Still, though he loved and languished after the most orthodox models, +and was only deterred from making a confidante of Kate by the slight +considerations of having never, in all his life, spoken to the object +of his passion, and having never set eyes upon her, except on two +occasions, on both of which she had come and gone like a flash of +lightning--or, as Nicholas himself said, in the numerous conversations +he held with himself, like a vision of youth and beauty much too bright +to last--his ardour and devotion remained without its reward. The young +lady appeared no more; so there was a great deal of love wasted (enough +indeed to have set up half-a-dozen young gentlemen, as times go, with +the utmost decency), and nobody was a bit the wiser for it; not even +Nicholas himself, who, on the contrary, became more dull, sentimental, +and lackadaisical, every day. + +While matters were in this state, the failure of a correspondent of +the brothers Cheeryble, in Germany, imposed upon Tim Linkinwater and +Nicholas the necessity of going through some very long and complicated +accounts, extending over a considerable space of time. To get through +them with the greater dispatch, Tim Linkinwater proposed that they +should remain at the counting-house, for a week or so, until ten o’clock +at night; to this, as nothing damped the zeal of Nicholas in the +service of his kind patrons--not even romance, which has seldom business +habits--he cheerfully assented. On the very first night of these later +hours, at nine exactly, there came: not the young lady herself, but her +servant, who, being closeted with brother Charles for some time, went +away, and returned next night at the same hour, and on the next, and on +the next again. + +These repeated visits inflamed the curiosity of Nicholas to the very +highest pitch. Tantalised and excited, beyond all bearing, and unable +to fathom the mystery without neglecting his duty, he confided the whole +secret to Newman Noggs, imploring him to be on the watch next night; +to follow the girl home; to set on foot such inquiries relative to +the name, condition, and history of her mistress, as he could, without +exciting suspicion; and to report the result to him with the least +possible delay. + +Beyond all measure proud of this commission, Newman Noggs took up his +post, in the square, on the following evening, a full hour before the +needful time, and planting himself behind the pump and pulling his hat +over his eyes, began his watch with an elaborate appearance of mystery, +admirably calculated to excite the suspicion of all beholders. Indeed, +divers servant girls who came to draw water, and sundry little boys who +stopped to drink at the ladle, were almost scared out of their senses, +by the apparition of Newman Noggs looking stealthily round the +pump, with nothing of him visible but his face, and that wearing the +expression of a meditative Ogre. + +Punctual to her time, the messenger came again, and, after an interview +of rather longer duration than usual, departed. Newman had made two +appointments with Nicholas: one for the next evening, conditional on his +success: and one the next night following, which was to be kept under +all circumstances. The first night he was not at the place of meeting (a +certain tavern about half-way between the city and Golden Square), but +on the second night he was there before Nicholas, and received him with +open arms. + +‘It’s all right,’ whispered Newman. ‘Sit down. Sit down, there’s a dear +young man, and let me tell you all about it.’ + +Nicholas needed no second invitation, and eagerly inquired what was the +news. + +‘There’s a great deal of news,’ said Newman, in a flutter of exultation. +‘It’s all right. Don’t be anxious. I don’t know where to begin. Never +mind that. Keep up your spirits. It’s all right.’ + +‘Well?’ said Nicholas eagerly. ‘Yes?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Newman. ‘That’s it.’ + +‘What’s it?’ said Nicholas. ‘The name--the name, my dear fellow!’ + +‘The name’s Bobster,’ replied Newman. + +‘Bobster!’ repeated Nicholas, indignantly. + +‘That’s the name,’ said Newman. ‘I remember it by lobster.’ + +‘Bobster!’ repeated Nicholas, more emphatically than before. ‘That must +be the servant’s name.’ + +‘No, it an’t,’ said Newman, shaking his head with great positiveness. +‘Miss Cecilia Bobster.’ + +‘Cecilia, eh?’ returned Nicholas, muttering the two names together +over and over again in every variety of tone, to try the effect. ‘Well, +Cecilia is a pretty name.’ + +‘Very. And a pretty creature too,’ said Newman. + +‘Who?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Miss Bobster.’ + +‘Why, where have you seen her?’ demanded Nicholas. + +‘Never mind, my dear boy,’ retorted Noggs, clapping him on the shoulder. +‘I HAVE seen her. You shall see her. I’ve managed it all.’ + +‘My dear Newman,’ cried Nicholas, grasping his hand, ‘are you serious?’ + +‘I am,’ replied Newman. ‘I mean it all. Every word. You shall see her +tomorrow night. She consents to hear you speak for yourself. I persuaded +her. She is all affability, goodness, sweetness, and beauty.’ + +‘I know she is; I know she must be, Newman!’ said Nicholas, wringing his +hand. + +‘You are right,’ returned Newman. + +‘Where does she live?’ cried Nicholas. ‘What have you learnt of her +history? Has she a father--mother--any brothers--sisters? What did she +say? How came you to see her? Was she not very much surprised? Did you +say how passionately I have longed to speak to her? Did you tell her +where I had seen her? Did you tell her how, and when, and where, and how +long, and how often, I have thought of that sweet face which came upon +me in my bitterest distress like a glimpse of some better world--did +you, Newman--did you?’ + +Poor Noggs literally gasped for breath as this flood of questions rushed +upon him, and moved spasmodically in his chair at every fresh inquiry, +staring at Nicholas meanwhile with a most ludicrous expression of +perplexity. + +‘No,’ said Newman, ‘I didn’t tell her that.’ + +‘Didn’t tell her which?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘About the glimpse of the better world,’ said Newman. ‘I didn’t tell her +who you were, either, or where you’d seen her. I said you loved her to +distraction.’ + +‘That’s true, Newman,’ replied Nicholas, with his characteristic +vehemence. ‘Heaven knows I do!’ + +‘I said too, that you had admired her for a long time in secret,’ said +Newman. + +‘Yes, yes. What did she say to that?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Blushed,’ said Newman. + +‘To be sure. Of course she would,’ said Nicholas approvingly. Newman +then went on to say, that the young lady was an only child, that her +mother was dead, that she resided with her father, and that she had been +induced to allow her lover a secret interview, at the intercession of +her servant, who had great influence with her. He further related how it +required much moving and great eloquence to bring the young lady to this +pass; how it was expressly understood that she merely afforded Nicholas +an opportunity of declaring his passion; and how she by no means pledged +herself to be favourably impressed with his attentions. The mystery of +her visits to the brothers Cheeryble remained wholly unexplained, for +Newman had not alluded to them, either in his preliminary conversations +with the servant or his subsequent interview with the mistress, merely +remarking that he had been instructed to watch the girl home and plead +his young friend’s cause, and not saying how far he had followed her, +or from what point. But Newman hinted that from what had fallen from the +confidante, he had been led to suspect that the young lady led a very +miserable and unhappy life, under the strict control of her only parent, +who was of a violent and brutal temper; a circumstance which he thought +might in some degree account, both for her having sought the protection +and friendship of the brothers, and her suffering herself to be +prevailed upon to grant the promised interview. The last he held to be a +very logical deduction from the premises, inasmuch as it was but natural +to suppose that a young lady, whose present condition was so unenviable, +would be more than commonly desirous to change it. + +It appeared, on further questioning--for it was only by a very long and +arduous process that all this could be got out of Newman Noggs--that +Newman, in explanation of his shabby appearance, had represented himself +as being, for certain wise and indispensable purposes connected with +that intrigue, in disguise; and, being questioned how he had come to +exceed his commission so far as to procure an interview, he responded, +that the lady appearing willing to grant it, he considered himself +bound, both in duty and gallantry, to avail himself of such a golden +means of enabling Nicholas to prosecute his addresses. After these and +all possible questions had been asked and answered twenty times over, +they parted, undertaking to meet on the following night at half-past +ten, for the purpose of fulfilling the appointment; which was for eleven +o’clock. + +‘Things come about very strangely!’ thought Nicholas, as he walked +home. ‘I never contemplated anything of this kind; never dreamt of the +possibility of it. To know something of the life of one in whom I felt +such interest; to see her in the street, to pass the house in which she +lived, to meet her sometimes in her walks, to hope that a day might +come when I might be in a condition to tell her of my love, this was +the utmost extent of my thoughts. Now, however--but I should be a fool, +indeed, to repine at my own good fortune!’ + +Still, Nicholas was dissatisfied; and there was more in the +dissatisfaction than mere revulsion of feeling. He was angry with the +young lady for being so easily won, ‘because,’ reasoned Nicholas, ‘it is +not as if she knew it was I, but it might have been anybody,’--which was +certainly not pleasant. The next moment, he was angry with himself for +entertaining such thoughts, arguing that nothing but goodness could +dwell in such a temple, and that the behaviour of the brothers +sufficiently showed the estimation in which they held her. ‘The fact +is, she’s a mystery altogether,’ said Nicholas. This was not more +satisfactory than his previous course of reflection, and only drove him +out upon a new sea of speculation and conjecture, where he tossed and +tumbled, in great discomfort of mind, until the clock struck ten, and +the hour of meeting drew nigh. + +Nicholas had dressed himself with great care, and even Newman Noggs had +trimmed himself up a little; his coat presenting the phenomenon of +two consecutive buttons, and the supplementary pins being inserted at +tolerably regular intervals. He wore his hat, too, in the newest +taste, with a pocket-handkerchief in the crown, and a twisted end of it +straggling out behind after the fashion of a pigtail, though he could +scarcely lay claim to the ingenuity of inventing this latter decoration, +inasmuch as he was utterly unconscious of it: being in a nervous and +excited condition which rendered him quite insensible to everything but +the great object of the expedition. + +They traversed the streets in profound silence; and after walking at a +round pace for some distance, arrived in one, of a gloomy appearance and +very little frequented, near the Edgeware Road. + +‘Number twelve,’ said Newman. + +‘Oh!’ replied Nicholas, looking about him. + +‘Good street?’ said Newman. + +‘Yes,’ returned Nicholas. ‘Rather dull.’ + +Newman made no answer to this remark, but, halting abruptly, planted +Nicholas with his back to some area railings, and gave him to understand +that he was to wait there, without moving hand or foot, until it was +satisfactorily ascertained that the coast was clear. This done, Noggs +limped away with great alacrity; looking over his shoulder every +instant, to make quite certain that Nicholas was obeying his directions; +and, ascending the steps of a house some half-dozen doors off, was lost +to view. + +After a short delay, he reappeared, and limping back again, halted +midway, and beckoned Nicholas to follow him. + +‘Well?’ said Nicholas, advancing towards him on tiptoe. + +‘All right,’ replied Newman, in high glee. ‘All ready; nobody at home. +Couldn’t be better. Ha! ha!’ + +With this fortifying assurance, he stole past a street-door, on which +Nicholas caught a glimpse of a brass plate, with ‘BOBSTER,’ in very +large letters; and, stopping at the area-gate, which was open, signed to +his young friend to descend. + +‘What the devil!’ cried Nicholas, drawing back. ‘Are we to sneak into +the kitchen, as if we came after the forks?’ + +‘Hush!’ replied Newman. ‘Old Bobster--ferocious Turk. He’d kill ‘em +all--box the young lady’s ears--he does--often.’ + +‘What!’ cried Nicholas, in high wrath, ‘do you mean to tell me that any +man would dare to box the ears of such a--’ + +He had no time to sing the praises of his mistress, just then, for +Newman gave him a gentle push which had nearly precipitated him to the +bottom of the area steps. Thinking it best to take the hint in good +part, Nicholas descended, without further remonstrance, but with a +countenance bespeaking anything rather than the hope and rapture of a +passionate lover. Newman followed--he would have followed head first, +but for the timely assistance of Nicholas--and, taking his hand, led him +through a stone passage, profoundly dark, into a back-kitchen or cellar, +of the blackest and most pitchy obscurity, where they stopped. + +‘Well!’ said Nicholas, in a discontented whisper, ‘this is not all, I +suppose, is it?’ + +‘No, no,’ rejoined Noggs; ‘they’ll be here directly. It’s all right.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Nicholas. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it, I +confess.’ + +They exchanged no further words, and there Nicholas stood, listening to +the loud breathing of Newman Noggs, and imagining that his nose seemed +to glow like a red-hot coal, even in the midst of the darkness which +enshrouded them. Suddenly the sound of cautious footsteps attracted his +ear, and directly afterwards a female voice inquired if the gentleman +was there. + +‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, turning towards the corner from which the voice +proceeded. ‘Who is that?’ + +‘Only me, sir,’ replied the voice. ‘Now if you please, ma’am.’ + +A gleam of light shone into the place, and presently the servant girl +appeared, bearing a light, and followed by her young mistress, who +seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty and confusion. + +At sight of the young lady, Nicholas started and changed colour; his +heart beat violently, and he stood rooted to the spot. At that instant, +and almost simultaneously with her arrival and that of the candle, there +was heard a loud and furious knocking at the street-door, which caused +Newman Noggs to jump up, with great agility, from a beer-barrel on which +he had been seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, and with a face of +ashy paleness, ‘Bobster, by the Lord!’ + +The young lady shrieked, the attendant wrung her hands, Nicholas gazed +from one to the other in apparent stupefaction, and Newman hurried to +and fro, thrusting his hands into all his pockets successively, and +drawing out the linings of every one in the excess of his irresolution. +It was but a moment, but the confusion crowded into that one moment no +imagination can exaggerate. + +‘Leave the house, for Heaven’s sake! We have done wrong, we deserve it +all,’ cried the young lady. ‘Leave the house, or I am ruined and undone +for ever.’ + +‘Will you hear me say but one word?’ cried Nicholas. ‘Only one. I will +not detain you. Will you hear me say one word, in explanation of this +mischance?’ + +But Nicholas might as well have spoken to the wind, for the young lady, +with distracted looks, hurried up the stairs. He would have followed +her, but Newman, twisting his hand in his coat collar, dragged him +towards the passage by which they had entered. + +‘Let me go, Newman, in the Devil’s name!’ cried Nicholas. ‘I must speak +to her. I will! I will not leave this house without.’ + +‘Reputation--character--violence--consider,’ said Newman, clinging round +him with both arms, and hurrying him away. ‘Let them open the door. +We’ll go, as we came, directly it’s shut. Come. This way. Here.’ + +Overpowered by the remonstrances of Newman, and the tears and prayers +of the girl, and the tremendous knocking above, which had never ceased, +Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried off; and, precisely as Mr. Bobster +made his entrance by the street-door, he and Noggs made their exit by +the area-gate. + +They hurried away, through several streets, without stopping or +speaking. At last, they halted and confronted each other with blank and +rueful faces. + +‘Never mind,’ said Newman, gasping for breath. ‘Don’t be cast down. It’s +all right. More fortunate next time. It couldn’t be helped. I did MY +part.’ + +‘Excellently,’ replied Nicholas, taking his hand. ‘Excellently, and like +the true and zealous friend you are. Only--mind, I am not disappointed, +Newman, and feel just as much indebted to you--only IT WAS THE WRONG +LADY.’ + +‘Eh?’ cried Newman Noggs. ‘Taken in by the servant?’ + +‘Newman, Newman,’ said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder: ‘it +was the wrong servant too.’ + +Newman’s under-jaw dropped, and he gazed at Nicholas, with his sound eye +fixed fast and motionless in his head. + +‘Don’t take it to heart,’ said Nicholas; ‘it’s of no consequence; you +see I don’t care about it; you followed the wrong person, that’s all.’ + +That WAS all. Whether Newman Noggs had looked round the pump, in a +slanting direction, so long, that his sight became impaired; or whether, +finding that there was time to spare, he had recruited himself with a +few drops of something stronger than the pump could yield--by whatsoever +means it had come to pass, this was his mistake. And Nicholas went home +to brood upon it, and to meditate upon the charms of the unknown young +lady, now as far beyond his reach as ever. + + + +CHAPTER 41 + +Containing some Romantic Passages between Mrs. Nickleby and the Gentleman +in the Small-clothes next Door + + +Ever since her last momentous conversation with her son, Mrs. Nickleby +had begun to display unusual care in the adornment of her person, +gradually superadding to those staid and matronly habiliments, +which had, up to that time, formed her ordinary attire, a variety of +embellishments and decorations, slight perhaps in themselves, but, +taken together, and considered with reference to the subject of +her disclosure, of no mean importance. Even her black dress assumed +something of a deadly-lively air from the jaunty style in which it was +worn; and, eked out as its lingering attractions were; by a prudent +disposal, here and there, of certain juvenile ornaments of little or no +value, which had, for that reason alone, escaped the general wreck and +been permitted to slumber peacefully in odd corners of old drawers and +boxes where daylight seldom shone, her mourning garments assumed quite +a new character. From being the outward tokens of respect and sorrow for +the dead, they became converted into signals of very slaughterous and +killing designs upon the living. + +Mrs. Nickleby might have been stimulated to this proceeding by a lofty +sense of duty, and impulses of unquestionable excellence. She might, by +this time, have become impressed with the sinfulness of long indulgence +in unavailing woe, or the necessity of setting a proper example of +neatness and decorum to her blooming daughter. Considerations of duty +and responsibility apart, the change might have taken its rise in +feelings of the purest and most disinterested charity. The gentleman +next door had been vilified by Nicholas; rudely stigmatised as a dotard +and an idiot; and for these attacks upon his understanding, Mrs. Nickleby +was, in some sort, accountable. She might have felt that it was the act +of a good Christian to show by all means in her power, that the abused +gentleman was neither the one nor the other. And what better means could +she adopt, towards so virtuous and laudable an end, than proving to +all men, in her own person, that his passion was the most rational and +reasonable in the world, and just the very result, of all others, which +discreet and thinking persons might have foreseen, from her incautiously +displaying her matured charms, without reserve, under the very eye, as +it were, of an ardent and too-susceptible man? + +‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, gravely shaking her head; ‘if Nicholas knew +what his poor dear papa suffered before we were engaged, when I used to +hate him, he would have a little more feeling. Shall I ever forget the +morning I looked scornfully at him when he offered to carry my parasol? +Or that night, when I frowned at him? It was a mercy he didn’t emigrate. +It very nearly drove him to it.’ + +Whether the deceased might not have been better off if he had emigrated +in his bachelor days, was a question which his relict did not stop to +consider; for Kate entered the room, with her workbox, in this stage of +her reflections; and a much slighter interruption, or no interruption at +all, would have diverted Mrs. Nickleby’s thoughts into a new channel at +any time. + +‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘I don’t know how it is, but a fine +warm summer day like this, with the birds singing in every direction, +always puts me in mind of roast pig, with sage and onion sauce, and made +gravy.’ + +‘That’s a curious association of ideas, is it not, mama?’ + +‘Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Roast pig; +let me see. On the day five weeks after you were christened, we had a +roast--no, that couldn’t have been a pig, either, because I recollect +there were a pair of them to carve, and your poor papa and I could +never have thought of sitting down to two pigs--they must have been +partridges. Roast pig! I hardly think we ever could have had one, now +I come to remember, for your papa could never bear the sight of them +in the shops, and used to say that they always put him in mind of very +little babies, only the pigs had much fairer complexions; and he had a +horror of little babies, too, because he couldn’t very well afford any +increase to his family, and had a natural dislike to the subject. It’s +very odd now, what can have put that in my head! I recollect dining +once at Mrs. Bevan’s, in that broad street round the corner by the +coachmaker’s, where the tipsy man fell through the cellar-flap of an +empty house nearly a week before the quarter-day, and wasn’t found till +the new tenant went in--and we had roast pig there. It must be that, I +think, that reminds me of it, especially as there was a little bird in +the room that would keep on singing all the time of dinner--at least, +not a little bird, for it was a parrot, and he didn’t sing exactly, for +he talked and swore dreadfully: but I think it must be that. Indeed I am +sure it must. Shouldn’t you say so, my dear?’ + +‘I should say there was not a doubt about it, mama,’ returned Kate, with +a cheerful smile. + +‘No; but DO you think so, Kate?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with as much gravity +as if it were a question of the most imminent and thrilling interest. +‘If you don’t, say so at once, you know; because it’s just as well to be +correct, particularly on a point of this kind, which is very curious and +worth settling while one thinks about it.’ + +Kate laughingly replied that she was quite convinced; and as her mama +still appeared undetermined whether it was not absolutely essential that +the subject should be renewed, proposed that they should take their +work into the summer-house, and enjoy the beauty of the afternoon. +Mrs. Nickleby readily assented, and to the summer-house they repaired, +without further discussion. + +‘Well, I will say,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, as she took her seat, ‘that +there never was such a good creature as Smike. Upon my word, the pains +he has taken in putting this little arbour to rights, and training the +sweetest flowers about it, are beyond anything I could have--I wish he +wouldn’t put ALL the gravel on your side, Kate, my dear, though, and +leave nothing but mould for me.’ + +‘Dear mama,’ returned Kate, hastily, ‘take this seat--do--to oblige me, +mama.’ + +‘No, indeed, my dear. I shall keep my own side,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. +‘Well! I declare!’ + +Kate looked up inquiringly. + +‘If he hasn’t been,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘and got, from somewhere or +other, a couple of roots of those flowers that I said I was so fond of, +the other night, and asked you if you were not--no, that YOU said YOU +were so fond of, the other night, and asked me if I wasn’t--it’s the +same thing. Now, upon my word, I take that as very kind and attentive +indeed! I don’t see,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, looking narrowly about her, +‘any of them on my side, but I suppose they grow best near the gravel. +You may depend upon it they do, Kate, and that’s the reason they are all +near you, and he has put the gravel there, because it’s the sunny side. +Upon my word, that’s very clever now! I shouldn’t have had half as much +thought myself!’ + +‘Mama,’ said Kate, bending over her work so that her face was almost +hidden, ‘before you were married--’ + +‘Dear me, Kate,’ interrupted Mrs. Nickleby, ‘what in the name of goodness +graciousness makes you fly off to the time before I was married, when +I’m talking to you about his thoughtfulness and attention to me? You +don’t seem to take the smallest interest in the garden.’ + +‘Oh! mama,’ said Kate, raising her face again, ‘you know I do.’ + +‘Well then, my dear, why don’t you praise the neatness and prettiness +with which it’s kept?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘How very odd you are, Kate!’ + +‘I do praise it, mama,’ answered Kate, gently. ‘Poor fellow!’ + +‘I scarcely ever hear you, my dear,’ retorted Mrs. Nickleby; ‘that’s all +I’ve got to say.’ By this time the good lady had been a long while upon +one topic, so she fell at once into her daughter’s little trap, if trap +it were, and inquired what she had been going to say. + +‘About what, mama?’ said Kate, who had apparently quite forgotten her +diversion. + +‘Lor, Kate, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘why, you’re asleep or +stupid! About the time before I was married.’ + +‘Oh yes!’ said Kate, ‘I remember. I was going to ask, mama, before you +were married, had you many suitors?’ + +‘Suitors, my dear!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful +complacency. ‘First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.’ + +‘Mama!’ returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance. + +‘I had indeed, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘not including your poor +papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same +dancing school, and who WOULD send gold watches and bracelets to +our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who +afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a +convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I don’t +know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally +choked himself, and the government pardoned him. Then there was young +Lukin,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, beginning with her left thumb and checking +off the names on her fingers--‘Mogley--Tipslark--Cabbery--Smifser--’ + +Having now reached her little finger, Mrs. Nickleby was carrying the +account over to the other hand, when a loud ‘Hem!’ which appeared to +come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself and +her daughter a violent start. + +‘Mama! what was that?’ said Kate, in a low tone of voice. + +‘Upon my word, my dear,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, considerably startled, +‘unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house, I don’t know +what it could possibly--’ + +‘A--hem!’ cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary +clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the +echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must +have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face. + +‘I understand it now, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, laying her hand on +Kate’s; ‘don’t be alarmed, my love, it’s not directed to you, and is not +intended to frighten anybody. Let us give everybody their due, Kate; I +am bound to say that.’ + +So saying, Mrs. Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her +daughter’s hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell +something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank +Heaven; and wouldn’t do it. + +‘What do you mean, mama?’ demanded Kate, in evident surprise. + +‘Don’t be flurried, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, looking towards +the garden-wall, ‘for you see I’m not, and if it would be excusable +in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would--under all the +circumstances--be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate--not at all.’ + +‘It seems designed to attract our attention, mama,’ said Kate. + +‘It is designed to attract our attention, my dear; at least,’ rejoined +Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her daughter’s hand more +blandly than before, ‘to attract the attention of one of us. Hem! you +needn’t be at all uneasy, my dear.’ + +Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for +further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an +elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel, +with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the +former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen +to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it +descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs. Nickleby’s feet. + +This remarkable appearance was succeeded by another of a precisely +similar description; then a fine vegetable marrow, of unusually large +dimensions, was seen to whirl aloft, and come toppling down; then, +several cucumbers shot up together; and, finally, the air was darkened +by a shower of onions, turnip-radishes, and other small vegetables, +which fell rolling and scattering, and bumping about, in all directions. + +As Kate rose from her seat, in some alarm, and caught her mother’s hand +to run with her into the house, she felt herself rather retarded than +assisted in her intention; and following the direction of Mrs. Nickleby’s +eyes, was quite terrified by the apparition of an old black velvet cap, +which, by slow degrees, as if its wearer were ascending a ladder or pair +of steps, rose above the wall dividing their garden from that of the +next cottage, (which, like their own, was a detached building,) and was +gradually followed by a very large head, and an old face, in which were +a pair of most extraordinary grey eyes: very wild, very wide open, and +rolling in their sockets, with a dull, languishing, leering look, most +ugly to behold. + +‘Mama!’ cried Kate, really terrified for the moment, ‘why do you stop, +why do you lose an instant? Mama, pray come in!’ + +‘Kate, my dear,’ returned her mother, still holding back, ‘how can you +be so foolish? I’m ashamed of you. How do you suppose you are ever to +get through life, if you’re such a coward as this? What do you want, +sir?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, addressing the intruder with a sort of +simpering displeasure. ‘How dare you look into this garden?’ + +‘Queen of my soul,’ replied the stranger, folding his hands together, +‘this goblet sip!’ + +‘Nonsense, sir,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Kate, my love, pray be quiet.’ + +‘Won’t you sip the goblet?’ urged the stranger, with his head +imploringly on one side, and his right hand on his breast. ‘Oh, do sip +the goblet!’ + +‘I shall not consent to do anything of the kind, sir,’ said Mrs +Nickleby. ‘Pray, begone.’ + +‘Why is it,’ said the old gentleman, coming up a step higher, and +leaning his elbows on the wall, with as much complacency as if he were +looking out of window, ‘why is it that beauty is always obdurate, +even when admiration is as honourable and respectful as mine?’ Here he +smiled, kissed his hand, and made several low bows. ‘Is it owing to the +bees, who, when the honey season is over, and they are supposed to +have been killed with brimstone, in reality fly to Barbary and lull the +captive Moors to sleep with their drowsy songs? Or is it,’ he added, +dropping his voice almost to a whisper, ‘in consequence of the statue +at Charing Cross having been lately seen, on the Stock Exchange +at midnight, walking arm-in-arm with the Pump from Aldgate, in a +riding-habit?’ + +‘Mama,’ murmured Kate, ‘do you hear him?’ + +‘Hush, my dear!’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, in the same tone of voice, ‘he +is very polite, and I think that was a quotation from the poets. Pray, +don’t worry me so--you’ll pinch my arm black and blue. Go away, sir!’ + +‘Quite away?’ said the gentleman, with a languishing look. ‘Oh! quite +away?’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘certainly. You have no business here. +This is private property, sir; you ought to know that.’ + +‘I do know,’ said the old gentleman, laying his finger on his nose, with +an air of familiarity, most reprehensible, ‘that this is a sacred and +enchanted spot, where the most divine charms’--here he kissed his hand +and bowed again--‘waft mellifluousness over the neighbours’ gardens, and +force the fruit and vegetables into premature existence. That fact I am +acquainted with. But will you permit me, fairest creature, to ask +you one question, in the absence of the planet Venus, who has gone +on business to the Horse Guards, and would otherwise--jealous of your +superior charms--interpose between us?’ + +‘Kate,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, turning to her daughter, ‘it’s very +awkward, positively. I really don’t know what to say to this gentleman. +One ought to be civil, you know.’ + +‘Dear mama,’ rejoined Kate, ‘don’t say a word to him, but let us run +away as fast as we can, and shut ourselves up till Nicholas comes home.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby looked very grand, not to say contemptuous, at this +humiliating proposal; and, turning to the old gentleman, who had watched +them during these whispers with absorbing eagerness, said: + +‘If you will conduct yourself, sir, like the gentleman I should +imagine you to be, from your language and--and--appearance, (quite the +counterpart of your grandpapa, Kate, my dear, in his best days,) and +will put your question to me in plain words, I will answer it.’ + +If Mrs. Nickleby’s excellent papa had borne, in his best days, a +resemblance to the neighbour now looking over the wall, he must have +been, to say the least, a very queer-looking old gentleman in his +prime. Perhaps Kate thought so, for she ventured to glance at his living +portrait with some attention, as he took off his black velvet cap, +and, exhibiting a perfectly bald head, made a long series of bows, each +accompanied with a fresh kiss of the hand. After exhausting himself, +to all appearance, with this fatiguing performance, he covered his head +once more, pulled the cap very carefully over the tips of his ears, and +resuming his former attitude, said, + +‘The question is--’ + +Here he broke off to look round in every direction, and satisfy himself +beyond all doubt that there were no listeners near. Assured that there +were not, he tapped his nose several times, accompanying the action with +a cunning look, as though congratulating himself on his caution; and +stretching out his neck, said in a loud whisper, + +‘Are you a princess?’ + +‘You are mocking me, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, making a feint of +retreating towards the house. + +‘No, but are you?’ said the old gentleman. + +‘You know I am not, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury?’ inquired +the old gentleman with great anxiety, ‘or to the Pope of Rome? Or the +Speaker of the House of Commons? Forgive me, if I am wrong, but I was +told you were niece to the Commissioners of Paving, and daughter-in-law +to the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council, which would account for +your relationship to all three.’ + +‘Whoever has spread such reports, sir,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, with some +warmth, ‘has taken great liberties with my name, and one which I am sure +my son Nicholas, if he was aware of it, would not allow for an instant. +The idea!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, ‘niece to the +Commissioners of Paving!’ + +‘Pray, mama, come away!’ whispered Kate. + +‘“Pray mama!” Nonsense, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, angrily, ‘but that’s +just the way. If they had said I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what +would you care? But I have no sympathy,’ whimpered Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I +don’t expect it, that’s one thing.’ + +‘Tears!’ cried the old gentleman, with such an energetic jump, that +he fell down two or three steps and grated his chin against the +wall. ‘Catch the crystal globules--catch ‘em--bottle ‘em up--cork ‘em +tight--put sealing wax on the top--seal ‘em with a cupid--label ‘em +“Best quality”--and stow ‘em away in the fourteen binn, with a bar of +iron on the top to keep the thunder off!’ + +Issuing these commands, as if there were a dozen attendants all actively +engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap inside out, put it +on with great dignity so as to obscure his right eye and three-fourths +of his nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked very fiercely at a +sparrow hard by, till the bird flew away, when he put his cap in his +pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and addressed himself with +respectful demeanour to Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Beautiful madam,’ such were his words, ‘if I have made any mistake with +regard to your family or connections, I humbly beseech you to pardon me. +If I supposed you to be related to Foreign Powers or Native Boards, +it is because you have a manner, a carriage, a dignity, which you will +excuse my saying that none but yourself (with the single exception +perhaps of the tragic muse, when playing extemporaneously on the barrel +organ before the East India Company) can parallel. I am not a youth, +ma’am, as you see; and although beings like you can never grow old, I +venture to presume that we are fitted for each other.’ + +‘Really, Kate, my love!’ said Mrs. Nickleby faintly, and looking another +way. + +‘I have estates, ma’am,’ said the old gentleman, flourishing his right +hand negligently, as if he made very light of such matters, and speaking +very fast; ‘jewels, lighthouses, fish-ponds, a whalery of my own in the +North Sea, and several oyster-beds of great profit in the Pacific Ocean. +If you will have the kindness to step down to the Royal Exchange and +to take the cocked-hat off the stoutest beadle’s head, you will find my +card in the lining of the crown, wrapped up in a piece of blue paper. My +walking-stick is also to be seen on application to the chaplain of +the House of Commons, who is strictly forbidden to take any money for +showing it. I have enemies about me, ma’am,’ he looked towards his house +and spoke very low, ‘who attack me on all occasions, and wish to secure +my property. If you bless me with your hand and heart, you can apply to +the Lord Chancellor or call out the military if necessary--sending my +toothpick to the commander-in-chief will be sufficient--and so clear the +house of them before the ceremony is performed. After that, love, bliss +and rapture; rapture, love and bliss. Be mine, be mine!’ + +Repeating these last words with great rapture and enthusiasm, the old +gentleman put on his black velvet cap again, and looking up into the +sky in a hasty manner, said something that was not quite intelligible +concerning a balloon he expected, and which was rather after its time. + +‘Be mine, be mine!’ repeated the old gentleman. + +‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I have hardly the power to speak; +but it is necessary for the happiness of all parties that this matter +should be set at rest for ever.’ + +‘Surely there is no necessity for you to say one word, mama?’ reasoned +Kate. + +‘You will allow me, my dear, if you please, to judge for myself,’ said +Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Be mine, be mine!’ cried the old gentleman. + +‘It can scarcely be expected, sir,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, fixing her eyes +modestly on the ground, ‘that I should tell a stranger whether I feel +flattered and obliged by such proposals, or not. They certainly are made +under very singular circumstances; still at the same time, as far as +it goes, and to a certain extent of course’ (Mrs. Nickleby’s customary +qualification), ‘they must be gratifying and agreeable to one’s +feelings.’ + +‘Be mine, be mine,’ cried the old gentleman. ‘Gog and Magog, Gog and +Magog. Be mine, be mine!’ + +‘It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,’ resumed Mrs. Nickleby, with +perfect seriousness--‘and I’m sure you’ll see the propriety of taking +an answer and going away--that I have made up my mind to remain a widow, +and to devote myself to my children. You may not suppose I am the mother +of two children--indeed many people have doubted it, and said that +nothing on earth could ever make ‘em believe it possible--but it is the +case, and they are both grown up. We shall be very glad to have you for +a neighbour--very glad; delighted, I’m sure--but in any other character +it’s quite impossible, quite. As to my being young enough to marry +again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn’t think +of it for an instant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would, +and I never will. It’s a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, +and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is +the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I +shall always give.’ + +These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to +Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. Towards their conclusion, the +suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of inattention, and Mrs. Nickleby +had scarcely finished speaking, when, to the great terror both of that +lady and her daughter, he suddenly flung off his coat, and springing on +the top of the wall, threw himself into an attitude which displayed his +small-clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded +by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with +increased vehemence. + +While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it with +a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide stealthily and +swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit of a fly, and then +to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old gentleman’s ankles. +This done, the companion hand appeared, and clasped the other ankle. + +Thus encumbered the old gentleman lifted his legs awkwardly once or +twice, as if they were very clumsy and imperfect pieces of machinery, +and then looking down on his own side of the wall, burst into a loud +laugh. + +‘It’s you, is it?’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Yes, it’s me,’ replied a gruff voice. + +‘How’s the Emperor of Tartary?’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Oh! he’s much the same as usual,’ was the reply. ‘No better and no +worse.’ + +‘The young Prince of China,’ said the old gentleman, with much interest. +‘Is he reconciled to his father-in-law, the great potato salesman?’ + +‘No,’ answered the gruff voice; ‘and he says he never will be, that’s +more.’ + +‘If that’s the case,’ observed the old gentleman, ‘perhaps I’d better +come down.’ + +‘Well,’ said the man on the other side, ‘I think you had, perhaps.’ + +One of the hands being then cautiously unclasped, the old gentleman +dropped into a sitting posture, and was looking round to smile and bow +to Mrs. Nickleby, when he disappeared with some precipitation, as if his +legs had been pulled from below. + +Very much relieved by his disappearance, Kate was turning to speak +to her mama, when the dirty hands again became visible, and were +immediately followed by the figure of a coarse squat man, who ascended +by the steps which had been recently occupied by their singular +neighbour. + +‘Beg your pardon, ladies,’ said this new comer, grinning and touching +his hat. ‘Has he been making love to either of you?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Kate. + +‘Ah!’ rejoined the man, taking his handkerchief out of his hat and +wiping his face, ‘he always will, you know. Nothing will prevent his +making love.’ + +‘I need not ask you if he is out of his mind, poor creature,’ said Kate. + +‘Why no,’ replied the man, looking into his hat, throwing his +handkerchief in at one dab, and putting it on again. ‘That’s pretty +plain, that is.’ + +‘Has he been long so?’ asked Kate. + +‘A long while.’ + +‘And is there no hope for him?’ said Kate, compassionately + +‘Not a bit, and don’t deserve to be,’ replied the keeper. ‘He’s a deal +pleasanter without his senses than with ‘em. He was the cruellest, +wickedest, out-and-outerest old flint that ever drawed breath.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Kate. + +‘By George!’ replied the keeper, shaking his head so emphatically that +he was obliged to frown to keep his hat on. ‘I never come across such a +vagabond, and my mate says the same. Broke his poor wife’s heart, turned +his daughters out of doors, drove his sons into the streets; it was a +blessing he went mad at last, through evil tempers, and covetousness, +and selfishness, and guzzling, and drinking, or he’d have drove many +others so. Hope for HIM, an old rip! There isn’t too much hope going, +but I’ll bet a crown that what there is, is saved for more deserving +chaps than him, anyhow.’ + +With which confession of his faith, the keeper shook his head again, as +much as to say that nothing short of this would do, if things were to +go on at all; and touching his hat sulkily--not that he was in an ill +humour, but that his subject ruffled him--descended the ladder, and took +it away. + +During this conversation, Mrs. Nickleby had regarded the man with a +severe and steadfast look. She now heaved a profound sigh, and pursing +up her lips, shook her head in a slow and doubtful manner. + +‘Poor creature!’ said Kate. + +‘Ah! poor indeed!’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. ‘It’s shameful that such +things should be allowed. Shameful!’ + +‘How can they be helped, mama?’ said Kate, mournfully. ‘The infirmities +of nature--’ + +‘Nature!’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘What! Do YOU suppose this poor gentleman +is out of his mind?’ + +‘Can anybody who sees him entertain any other opinion, mama?’ + +‘Why then, I just tell you this, Kate,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that, he +is nothing of the kind, and I am surprised you can be so imposed +upon. It’s some plot of these people to possess themselves of his +property--didn’t he say so himself? He may be a little odd and flighty, +perhaps, many of us are that; but downright mad! and express himself as +he does, respectfully, and in quite poetical language, and making offers +with so much thought, and care, and prudence--not as if he ran into the +streets, and went down upon his knees to the first chit of a girl he +met, as a madman would! No, no, Kate, there’s a great deal too much +method in HIS madness; depend upon that, my dear.’ + + + +CHAPTER 42 + +Illustrative of the convivial Sentiment, that the best of Friends must +sometimes part + + +The pavement of Snow Hill had been baking and frying all day in the +heat, and the twain Saracens’ heads guarding the entrance to the +hostelry of whose name and sign they are the duplicate presentments, +looked--or seemed, in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by, to +look--more vicious than usual, after blistering and scorching in the +sun, when, in one of the inn’s smallest sitting-rooms, through whose +open window there rose, in a palpable steam, wholesome exhalations from +reeking coach-horses, the usual furniture of a tea-table was displayed +in neat and inviting order, flanked by large joints of roast and boiled, +a tongue, a pigeon pie, a cold fowl, a tankard of ale, and other little +matters of the like kind, which, in degenerate towns and cities, are +generally understood to belong more particularly to solid lunches, +stage-coach dinners, or unusually substantial breakfasts. + +Mr. John Browdie, with his hands in his pockets, hovered restlessly about +these delicacies, stopping occasionally to whisk the flies out of the +sugar-basin with his wife’s pocket-handkerchief, or to dip a teaspoon in +the milk-pot and carry it to his mouth, or to cut off a little knob of +crust, and a little corner of meat, and swallow them at two gulps like a +couple of pills. After every one of these flirtations with the eatables, +he pulled out his watch, and declared with an earnestness quite pathetic +that he couldn’t undertake to hold out two minutes longer. + +‘Tilly!’ said John to his lady, who was reclining half awake and half +asleep upon a sofa. + +‘Well, John!’ + +‘Well, John!’ retorted her husband, impatiently. ‘Dost thou feel +hoongry, lass?’ + +‘Not very,’ said Mrs. Browdie. + +‘Not vary!’ repeated John, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hear her +say not vary, and us dining at three, and loonching off pasthry thot +aggravates a mon ‘stead of pacifying him! Not vary!’ + +‘Here’s a gen’l’man for you, sir,’ said the waiter, looking in. + +‘A wa’at for me?’ cried John, as though he thought it must be a letter, +or a parcel. + +‘A gen’l’man, sir.’ + +‘Stars and garthers, chap!’ said John, ‘wa’at dost thou coom and say +thot for? In wi’ ‘un.’ + +‘Are you at home, sir?’ + +‘At whoam!’ cried John, ‘I wish I wur; I’d ha tea’d two hour ago. Why, I +told t’oother chap to look sharp ootside door, and tell ‘un d’rectly he +coom, thot we war faint wi’ hoonger. In wi’ ‘un. Aha! Thee hond, Misther +Nickleby. This is nigh to be the proodest day o’ my life, sir. Hoo be +all wi’ ye? Ding! But, I’m glod o’ this!’ + +Quite forgetting even his hunger in the heartiness of his salutation, +John Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand again and again, slapping +his palm with great violence between each shake, to add warmth to the +reception. + +‘Ah! there she be,’ said John, observing the look which Nicholas +directed towards his wife. ‘There she be--we shan’t quarrel about her +noo--eh? Ecod, when I think o’ thot--but thou want’st soom’at to eat. +Fall to, mun, fall to, and for wa’at we’re aboot to receive--’ + +No doubt the grace was properly finished, but nothing more was heard, +for John had already begun to play such a knife and fork, that his +speech was, for the time, gone. + +‘I shall take the usual licence, Mr. Browdie,’ said Nicholas, as he +placed a chair for the bride. + +‘Tak’ whatever thou like’st,’ said John, ‘and when a’s gane, ca’ for +more.’ + +Without stopping to explain, Nicholas kissed the blushing Mrs. Browdie, +and handed her to her seat. + +‘I say,’ said John, rather astounded for the moment, ‘mak’ theeself +quite at whoam, will ‘ee?’ + +‘You may depend upon that,’ replied Nicholas; ‘on one condition.’ + +‘And wa’at may thot be?’ asked John. + +‘That you make me a godfather the very first time you have occasion for +one.’ + +‘Eh! d’ye hear thot?’ cried John, laying down his knife and fork. ‘A +godfeyther! Ha! ha! ha! Tilly--hear till ‘un--a godfeyther! Divn’t say +a word more, ye’ll never beat thot. Occasion for ‘un--a godfeyther! Ha! +ha! ha!’ + +Never was man so tickled with a respectable old joke, as John Browdie +was with this. He chuckled, roared, half suffocated himself by laughing +large pieces of beef into his windpipe, roared again, persisted in +eating at the same time, got red in the face and black in the forehead, +coughed, cried, got better, went off again laughing inwardly, got worse, +choked, had his back thumped, stamped about, frightened his wife, and +at last recovered in a state of the last exhaustion and with the water +streaming from his eyes, but still faintly ejaculating, ‘A godfeyther--a +godfeyther, Tilly!’ in a tone bespeaking an exquisite relish of the +sally, which no suffering could diminish. + +‘You remember the night of our first tea-drinking?’ said Nicholas. + +‘Shall I e’er forget it, mun?’ replied John Browdie. + +‘He was a desperate fellow that night though, was he not, Mrs. Browdie?’ +said Nicholas. ‘Quite a monster!’ + +‘If you had only heard him as we were going home, Mr. Nickleby, you’d +have said so indeed,’ returned the bride. ‘I never was so frightened in +all my life.’ + +‘Coom, coom,’ said John, with a broad grin; ‘thou know’st betther than +thot, Tilly.’ + +‘So I was,’ replied Mrs. Browdie. ‘I almost made up my mind never to +speak to you again.’ + +‘A’most!’ said John, with a broader grin than the last. ‘A’most made up +her mind! And she wur coaxin’, and coaxin’, and wheedlin’, and wheedlin’ +a’ the blessed wa’. “Wa’at didst thou let yon chap mak’ oop tiv’ee for?” + says I. “I deedn’t, John,” says she, a squeedgin my arm. “You deedn’t?” + says I. “Noa,” says she, a squeedgin of me agean.’ + +‘Lor, John!’ interposed his pretty wife, colouring very much. ‘How can +you talk such nonsense? As if I should have dreamt of such a thing!’ + +‘I dinnot know whether thou’d ever dreamt of it, though I think that’s +loike eneaf, mind,’ retorted John; ‘but thou didst it. “Ye’re a feeckle, +changeable weathercock, lass,” says I. “Not feeckle, John,” says she. +“Yes,” says I, “feeckle, dom’d feeckle. Dinnot tell me thou bean’t, +efther yon chap at schoolmeasther’s,” says I. “Him!” says she, quite +screeching. “Ah! him!” says I. “Why, John,” says she--and she coom a +deal closer and squeedged a deal harder than she’d deane afore--“dost +thou think it’s nat’ral noo, that having such a proper mun as thou +to keep company wi’, I’d ever tak’ opp wi’ such a leetle scanty +whipper-snapper as yon?” she says. Ha! ha! ha! She said whipper-snapper! +“Ecod!” I says, “efther thot, neame the day, and let’s have it ower!” + Ha! ha! ha!’ + +Nicholas laughed very heartily at this story, both on account of its +telling against himself, and his being desirous to spare the blushes of +Mrs. Browdie, whose protestations were drowned in peals of laughter from +her husband. His good-nature soon put her at her ease; and although she +still denied the charge, she laughed so heartily at it, that Nicholas +had the satisfaction of feeling assured that in all essential respects +it was strictly true. + +‘This is the second time,’ said Nicholas, ‘that we have ever taken a +meal together, and only third I have ever seen you; and yet it really +seems to me as if I were among old friends.’ + +‘Weel!’ observed the Yorkshireman, ‘so I say.’ + +‘And I am sure I do,’ added his young wife. + +‘I have the best reason to be impressed with the feeling, mind,’ said +Nicholas; ‘for if it had not been for your kindness of heart, my good +friend, when I had no right or reason to expect it, I know not what +might have become of me or what plight I should have been in by this +time.’ + +‘Talk aboot soom’at else,’ replied John, gruffly, ‘and dinnot bother.’ + +‘It must be a new song to the same tune then,’ said Nicholas, smiling. +‘I told you in my letter that I deeply felt and admired your sympathy +with that poor lad, whom you released at the risk of involving yourself +in trouble and difficulty; but I can never tell you how grateful he and +I, and others whom you don’t know, are to you for taking pity on him.’ + +‘Ecod!’ rejoined John Browdie, drawing up his chair; ‘and I can never +tell YOU hoo gratful soom folks that we do know would be loikewise, if +THEY know’d I had takken pity on him.’ + +‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mrs. Browdie, ‘what a state I was in that night!’ + +‘Were they at all disposed to give you credit for assisting in the +escape?’ inquired Nicholas of John Browdie. + +‘Not a bit,’ replied the Yorkshireman, extending his mouth from ear +to ear. ‘There I lay, snoog in schoolmeasther’s bed long efther it was +dark, and nobody coom nigh the pleace. “Weel!” thinks I, “he’s got a +pretty good start, and if he bean’t whoam by noo, he never will be; so +you may coom as quick as you loike, and foind us reddy”--that is, you +know, schoolmeasther might coom.’ + +‘I understand,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Presently,’ resumed John, ‘he DID coom. I heerd door shut doonstairs, +and him a warking, oop in the daark. “Slow and steddy,” I says to +myself, “tak’ your time, sir--no hurry.” He cooms to the door, turns the +key--turns the key when there warn’t nothing to hoold the lock--and ca’s +oot “Hallo, there!”--“Yes,” thinks I, “you may do thot agean, and +not wakken anybody, sir.” “Hallo, there,” he says, and then he stops. +“Thou’d betther not aggravate me,” says schoolmeasther, efther a little +time. “I’ll brak’ every boan in your boddy, Smike,” he says, efther +another little time. Then all of a soodden, he sings oot for a loight, +and when it cooms--ecod, such a hoorly-boorly! “Wa’at’s the matter?” + says I. “He’s gane,” says he,--stark mad wi’ vengeance. “Have you heerd +nought?” “Ees,” says I, “I heerd street-door shut, no time at a’ ago. +I heerd a person run doon there” (pointing t’other wa’--eh?) “Help!” he +cries. “I’ll help you,” says I; and off we set--the wrong wa’! Ho! ho! +ho!’ + +‘Did you go far?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘Far!’ replied John; ‘I run him clean off his legs in quarther of an +hoor. To see old schoolmeasther wi’out his hat, skimming along oop to +his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling into +ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi’ his one eye looking sharp out for +the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him spattered wi’ mud +all ower, face and all! I tho’t I should ha’ dropped doon, and killed +myself wi’ laughing.’ + +John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he communicated +the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst into peals of +laughter, which were renewed again and again, until they could laugh no +longer. + +‘He’s a bad ‘un,’ said John, wiping his eyes; ‘a very bad ‘un, is +schoolmeasther.’ + +‘I can’t bear the sight of him, John,’ said his wife. + +‘Coom,’ retorted John, ‘thot’s tidy in you, thot is. If it wa’nt along +o’ you, we shouldn’t know nought aboot ‘un. Thou know’d ‘un first, +Tilly, didn’t thou?’ + +‘I couldn’t help knowing Fanny Squeers, John,’ returned his wife; ‘she +was an old playmate of mine, you know.’ + +‘Weel,’ replied John, ‘dean’t I say so, lass? It’s best to be +neighbourly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I say is, +dean’t quarrel if ‘ee can help it. Dinnot think so, Mr. Nickleby?’ + +‘Certainly,’ returned Nicholas; ‘and you acted upon that principle when +I meet you on horseback on the road, after our memorable evening.’ + +‘Sure-ly,’ said John. ‘Wa’at I say, I stick by.’ + +‘And that’s a fine thing to do, and manly too,’ said Nicholas, ‘though +it’s not exactly what we understand by “coming Yorkshire over us” in +London. Miss Squeers is stopping with you, you said in your note.’ + +‘Yes,’ replied John, ‘Tilly’s bridesmaid; and a queer bridesmaid she be, +too. She wean’t be a bride in a hurry, I reckon.’ + +‘For shame, John,’ said Mrs. Browdie; with an acute perception of the +joke though, being a bride herself. + +‘The groom will be a blessed mun,’ said John, his eyes twinkling at the +idea. ‘He’ll be in luck, he will.’ + +‘You see, Mr. Nickleby,’ said his wife, ‘that it was in consequence of +her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because we +thought that it wouldn’t be pleasant for you to meet, after what has +passed.’ + +‘Unquestionably. You were quite right in that,’ said Nicholas, +interrupting. + +‘Especially,’ observed Mrs. Browdie, looking very sly, ‘after what we +know about past and gone love matters.’ + +‘We know, indeed!’ said Nicholas, shaking his head. ‘You behaved rather +wickedly there, I suspect.’ + +‘O’ course she did,’ said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger +through one of his wife’s pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of +her. ‘She wur always as skittish and full o’ tricks as a--’ + +‘Well, as a what?’ said his wife. + +‘As a woman,’ returned John. ‘Ding! But I dinnot know ought else that +cooms near it.’ + +‘You were speaking about Miss Squeers,’ said Nicholas, with the view of +stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass between Mr +and Mrs. Browdie, and which rendered the position of a third party in +some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way +than otherwise. + +‘Oh yes,’ rejoined Mrs. Browdie. ‘John ha’ done. John fixed tonight, +because she had settled that she would go and drink tea with her father. +And to make quite sure of there being nothing amiss, and of your being +quite alone with us, he settled to go out there and fetch her home.’ + +‘That was a very good arrangement,’ said Nicholas, ‘though I am sorry to +be the occasion of so much trouble.’ + +‘Not the least in the world,’ returned Mrs. Browdie; ‘for we have +looked forward to see you--John and I have--with the greatest possible +pleasure. Do you know, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Browdie, with her archest +smile, ‘that I really think Fanny Squeers was very fond of you?’ + +‘I am very much obliged to her,’ said Nicholas; ‘but upon my word, I +never aspired to making any impression upon her virgin heart.’ + +‘How you talk!’ tittered Mrs. Browdie. ‘No, but do you know that +really--seriously now and without any joking--I was given to understand +by Fanny herself, that you had made an offer to her, and that you two +were going to be engaged quite solemn and regular.’ + +‘Was you, ma’am--was you?’ cried a shrill female voice, ‘was you given +to understand that I--I--was going to be engaged to an assassinating +thief that shed the gore of my pa? Do you--do you think, ma’am--that I +was very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, as I couldn’t condescend to +touch with kitchen tongs, without blacking and crocking myself by the +contract? Do you, ma’am--do you? Oh! base and degrading ‘Tilda!’ + +With these reproaches Miss Squeers flung the door wide open, and +disclosed to the eyes of the astonished Browdies and Nicholas, not only +her own symmetrical form, arrayed in the chaste white garments before +described (a little dirtier), but the form of her brother and father, +the pair of Wackfords. + +‘This is the hend, is it?’ continued Miss Squeers, who, being excited, +aspirated her h’s strongly; ‘this is the hend, is it, of all my +forbearance and friendship for that double-faced thing--that viper, +that--that--mermaid?’ (Miss Squeers hesitated a long time for this +last epithet, and brought it out triumphantly at last, as if it quite +clinched the business.) ‘This is the hend, is it, of all my bearing with +her deceitfulness, her lowness, her falseness, her laying herself out to +catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way which made me blush for +my--for my--’ + +‘Gender,’ suggested Mr. Squeers, regarding the spectators with a +malevolent eye--literally A malevolent eye. + +‘Yes,’ said Miss Squeers; ‘but I thank my stars that my ma is of the +same--’ + +‘Hear, hear!’ remarked Mr. Squeers; ‘and I wish she was here to have a +scratch at this company.’ + +‘This is the hend, is it,’ said Miss Squeers, tossing her head, and +looking contemptuously at the floor, ‘of my taking notice of that +rubbishing creature, and demeaning myself to patronise her?’ + +‘Oh, come,’ rejoined Mrs. Browdie, disregarding all the endeavours of +her spouse to restrain her, and forcing herself into a front row, ‘don’t +talk such nonsense as that.’ + +‘Have I not patronised you, ma’am?’ demanded Miss Squeers. + +‘No,’ returned Mrs. Browdie. + +‘I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,’ said Miss Squeers, +haughtily, ‘for that countenance is a stranger to everything but +hignominiousness and red-faced boldness.’ + +‘I say,’ interposed John Browdie, nettled by these accumulated attacks +on his wife, ‘dra’ it mild, dra’ it mild.’ + +‘You, Mr. Browdie,’ said Miss Squeers, taking him up very quickly, ‘I +pity. I have no feeling for you, sir, but one of unliquidated pity.’ + +‘Oh!’ said John. + +‘No,’ said Miss Squeers, looking sideways at her parent, ‘although I AM +a queer bridesmaid, and SHAN’T be a bride in a hurry, and although my +husband WILL be in luck, I entertain no sentiments towards you, sir, but +sentiments of pity.’ + +Here Miss Squeers looked sideways at her father again, who looked +sideways at her, as much as to say, ‘There you had him.’ + +‘I know what you’ve got to go through,’ said Miss Squeers, shaking her +curls violently. ‘I know what life is before you, and if you was my +bitterest and deadliest enemy, I could wish you nothing worse.’ + +‘Couldn’t you wish to be married to him yourself, if that was the case?’ +inquired Mrs. Browdie, with great suavity of manner. + +‘Oh, ma’am, how witty you are,’ retorted Miss Squeers with a low curtsy, +‘almost as witty, ma’am, as you are clever. How very clever it was in +you, ma’am, to choose a time when I had gone to tea with my pa, and +was sure not to come back without being fetched! What a pity you never +thought that other people might be as clever as yourself and spoil your +plans!’ + +‘You won’t vex me, child, with such airs as these,’ said the late Miss +Price, assuming the matron. + +‘Don’t MISSIS me, ma’am, if you please,’ returned Miss Squeers, sharply. +‘I’ll not bear it. Is THIS the hend--’ + +‘Dang it a’,’ cried John Browdie, impatiently. ‘Say thee say out, Fanny, +and mak’ sure it’s the end, and dinnot ask nobody whether it is or not.’ + +‘Thanking you for your advice which was not required, Mr. Browdie,’ +returned Miss Squeers, with laborious politeness, ‘have the goodness not +to presume to meddle with my Christian name. Even my pity shall never +make me forget what’s due to myself, Mr. Browdie. ‘Tilda,’ said Miss +Squeers, with such a sudden accession of violence that John started in +his boots, ‘I throw you off for ever, miss. I abandon you. I renounce +you. I wouldn’t,’ cried Miss Squeers in a solemn voice, ‘have a child +named ‘Tilda, not to save it from its grave.’ + +‘As for the matther o’ that,’ observed John, ‘it’ll be time eneaf to +think aboot neaming of it when it cooms.’ + +‘John!’ interposed his wife, ‘don’t tease her.’ + +‘Oh! Tease, indeed!’ cried Miss Squeers, bridling up. ‘Tease, indeed! +He, he! Tease, too! No, don’t tease her. Consider her feelings, pray!’ + +‘If it’s fated that listeners are never to hear any good of themselves,’ +said Mrs. Browdie, ‘I can’t help it, and I am very sorry for it. But I +will say, Fanny, that times out of number I have spoken so kindly of you +behind your back, that even you could have found no fault with what I +said.’ + +‘Oh, I dare say not, ma’am!’ cried Miss Squeers, with another curtsy. +‘Best thanks to you for your goodness, and begging and praying you not +to be hard upon me another time!’ + +‘I don’t know,’ resumed Mrs. Browdie, ‘that I have said anything very bad +of you, even now. At all events, what I did say was quite true; but if I +have, I am very sorry for it, and I beg your pardon. You have said much +worse of me, scores of times, Fanny; but I have never borne any malice +to you, and I hope you’ll not bear any to me.’ + +Miss Squeers made no more direct reply than surveying her former friend +from top to toe, and elevating her nose in the air with ineffable +disdain. But some indistinct allusions to a ‘puss,’ and a ‘minx,’ and a +‘contemptible creature,’ escaped her; and this, together with a severe +biting of the lips, great difficulty in swallowing, and very frequent +comings and goings of breath, seemed to imply that feelings were +swelling in Miss Squeers’s bosom too great for utterance. + +While the foregoing conversation was proceeding, Master Wackford, +finding himself unnoticed, and feeling his preponderating inclinations +strong upon him, had by little and little sidled up to the table and +attacked the food with such slight skirmishing as drawing his fingers +round and round the inside of the plates, and afterwards sucking them +with infinite relish; picking the bread, and dragging the pieces over +the surface of the butter; pocketing lumps of sugar, pretending all +the time to be absorbed in thought; and so forth. Finding that no +interference was attempted with these small liberties, he gradually +mounted to greater, and, after helping himself to a moderately good cold +collation, was, by this time, deep in the pie. + +Nothing of this had been unobserved by Mr. Squeers, who, so long as the +attention of the company was fixed upon other objects, hugged himself to +think that his son and heir should be fattening at the enemy’s expense. +But there being now an appearance of a temporary calm, in which the +proceedings of little Wackford could scarcely fail to be observed, +he feigned to be aware of the circumstance for the first time, and +inflicted upon the face of that young gentleman a slap that made the +very tea-cups ring. + +‘Eating!’ cried Mr. Squeers, ‘of what his father’s enemies has left! It’s +fit to go and poison you, you unnat’ral boy.’ + +‘It wean’t hurt him,’ said John, apparently very much relieved by the +prospect of having a man in the quarrel; ‘let’ un eat. I wish the whole +school was here. I’d give’em soom’at to stay their unfort’nate stomachs +wi’, if I spent the last penny I had!’ + +Squeers scowled at him with the worst and most malicious expression of +which his face was capable--it was a face of remarkable capability, too, +in that way--and shook his fist stealthily. + +‘Coom, coom, schoolmeasther,’ said John, ‘dinnot make a fool o’ thyself; +for if I was to sheake mine--only once--thou’d fa’ doon wi’ the wind o’ +it.’ + +‘It was you, was it,’ returned Squeers, ‘that helped off my runaway boy? +It was you, was it?’ + +‘Me!’ returned John, in a loud tone. ‘Yes, it wa’ me, coom; wa’at o’ +that? It wa’ me. Noo then!’ + +‘You hear him say he did it, my child!’ said Squeers, appealing to his +daughter. ‘You hear him say he did it!’ + +‘Did it!’ cried John. ‘I’ll tell ‘ee more; hear this, too. If thou’d +got another roonaway boy, I’d do it agean. If thou’d got twonty roonaway +boys, I’d do it twonty times ower, and twonty more to thot; and I +tell thee more,’ said John, ‘noo my blood is oop, that thou’rt an old +ra’ascal; and that it’s weel for thou, thou be’est an old ‘un, or I’d +ha’ poonded thee to flour when thou told an honest mun hoo thou’d licked +that poor chap in t’ coorch.’ + +‘An honest man!’ cried Squeers, with a sneer. + +‘Ah! an honest man,’ replied John; ‘honest in ought but ever putting +legs under seame table wi’ such as thou.’ + +‘Scandal!’ said Squeers, exultingly. ‘Two witnesses to it; Wackford +knows the nature of an oath, he does; we shall have you there, sir. +Rascal, eh?’ Mr. Squeers took out his pocketbook and made a note of it. +‘Very good. I should say that was worth full twenty pound at the next +assizes, without the honesty, sir.’ + +‘’Soizes,’ cried John, ‘thou’d betther not talk to me o’ ‘Soizes. +Yorkshire schools have been shown up at ‘Soizes afore noo, mun, and it’s +a ticklish soobjact to revive, I can tell ye.’ + +Mr. Squeers shook his head in a threatening manner, looking very white +with passion; and taking his daughter’s arm, and dragging little +Wackford by the hand, retreated towards the door. + +‘As for you,’ said Squeers, turning round and addressing Nicholas, +who, as he had caused him to smart pretty soundly on a former occasion, +purposely abstained from taking any part in the discussion, ‘see if I +ain’t down upon you before long. You’ll go a kidnapping of boys, will +you? Take care their fathers don’t turn up--mark that--take care their +fathers don’t turn up, and send ‘em back to me to do as I like with, in +spite of you.’ + +‘I am not afraid of that,’ replied Nicholas, shrugging his shoulders +contemptuously, and turning away. + +‘Ain’t you!’ retorted Squeers, with a diabolical look. ‘Now then, come +along.’ + +‘I leave such society, with my pa, for Hever,’ said Miss Squeers, +looking contemptuously and loftily round. ‘I am defiled by breathing +the air with such creatures. Poor Mr. Browdie! He! he! he! I do pity him, +that I do; he’s so deluded. He! he! he!--Artful and designing ‘Tilda!’ + +With this sudden relapse into the sternest and most majestic wrath, Miss +Squeers swept from the room; and having sustained her dignity until the +last possible moment, was heard to sob and scream and struggle in the +passage. + +John Browdie remained standing behind the table, looking from his wife +to Nicholas, and back again, with his mouth wide open, until his hand +accidentally fell upon the tankard of ale, when he took it up, and +having obscured his features therewith for some time, drew a long +breath, handed it over to Nicholas, and rang the bell. + +‘Here, waither,’ said John, briskly. ‘Look alive here. Tak’ these things +awa’, and let’s have soomat broiled for sooper--vary comfortable and +plenty o’ it--at ten o’clock. Bring soom brandy and soom wather, and a +pair o’ slippers--the largest pair in the house--and be quick aboot it. +Dash ma wig!’ said John, rubbing his hands, ‘there’s no ganging oot to +neeght, noo, to fetch anybody whoam, and ecod, we’ll begin to spend the +evening in airnest.’ + + + +CHAPTER 43 + +Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various People +together + + +The storm had long given place to a calm the most profound, and the +evening was pretty far advanced--indeed supper was over, and the +process of digestion proceeding as favourably as, under the influence of +complete tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and a moderate allowance +of brandy-and-water, most wise men conversant with the anatomy and +functions of the human frame will consider that it ought to have +proceeded, when the three friends, or as one might say, both in a civil +and religious sense, and with proper deference and regard to the holy +state of matrimony, the two friends, (Mr. and Mrs. Browdie counting as +no more than one,) were startled by the noise of loud and angry +threatenings below stairs, which presently attained so high a pitch, +and were conveyed besides in language so towering, sanguinary, and +ferocious, that it could hardly have been surpassed, if there had +actually been a Saracen’s head then present in the establishment, +supported on the shoulders and surmounting the trunk of a real, live, +furious, and most unappeasable Saracen. + +This turmoil, instead of quickly subsiding after the first outburst, +(as turmoils not unfrequently do, whether in taverns, legislative +assemblies, or elsewhere,) into a mere grumbling and growling squabble, +increased every moment; and although the whole din appeared to be +raised by but one pair of lungs, yet that one pair was of so powerful +a quality, and repeated such words as ‘scoundrel,’ ‘rascal,’ ‘insolent +puppy,’ and a variety of expletives no less flattering to the party +addressed, with such great relish and strength of tone, that a dozen +voices raised in concert under any ordinary circumstances would have +made far less uproar and created much smaller consternation. + +‘Why, what’s the matter?’ said Nicholas, moving hastily towards the +door. + +John Browdie was striding in the same direction when Mrs. Browdie turned +pale, and, leaning back in her chair, requested him with a faint voice +to take notice, that if he ran into any danger it was her intention to +fall into hysterics immediately, and that the consequences might be more +serious than he thought for. John looked rather disconcerted by this +intelligence, though there was a lurking grin on his face at the same +time; but, being quite unable to keep out of the fray, he compromised +the matter by tucking his wife’s arm under his own, and, thus +accompanied, following Nicholas downstairs with all speed. + +The passage outside the coffee-room door was the scene of disturbance, +and here were congregated the coffee-room customers and waiters, +together with two or three coachmen and helpers from the yard. These had +hastily assembled round a young man who from his appearance might have +been a year or two older than Nicholas, and who, besides having given +utterance to the defiances just now described, seemed to have proceeded +to even greater lengths in his indignation, inasmuch as his feet had no +other covering than a pair of stockings, while a couple of slippers lay +at no great distance from the head of a prostrate figure in an opposite +corner, who bore the appearance of having been shot into his present +retreat by means of a kick, and complimented by having the slippers +flung about his ears afterwards. + +The coffee-room customers, and the waiters, and the coachmen, and the +helpers--not to mention a barmaid who was looking on from behind an +open sash window--seemed at that moment, if a spectator might judge from +their winks, nods, and muttered exclamations, strongly disposed to take +part against the young gentleman in the stockings. Observing this, and +that the young gentleman was nearly of his own age and had in nothing +the appearance of an habitual brawler, Nicholas, impelled by such +feelings as will influence young men sometimes, felt a very strong +disposition to side with the weaker party, and so thrust himself at once +into the centre of the group, and in a more emphatic tone, perhaps, than +circumstances might seem to warrant, demanded what all that noise was +about. + +‘Hallo!’ said one of the men from the yard, ‘this is somebody in +disguise, this is.’ + +‘Room for the eldest son of the Emperor of Roosher, gen’l’men!’ cried +another fellow. + +Disregarding these sallies, which were uncommonly well received, as +sallies at the expense of the best-dressed persons in a crowd usually +are, Nicholas glanced carelessly round, and addressing the young +gentleman, who had by this time picked up his slippers and thrust his +feet into them, repeated his inquiries with a courteous air. + +‘A mere nothing!’ he replied. + +At this a murmur was raised by the lookers-on, and some of the boldest +cried, ‘Oh, indeed!--Wasn’t it though?--Nothing, eh?--He called that +nothing, did he? Lucky for him if he found it nothing.’ These and many +other expressions of ironical disapprobation having been exhausted, two +or three of the out-of-door fellows began to hustle Nicholas and the +young gentleman who had made the noise: stumbling against them by +accident, and treading on their toes, and so forth. But this being a +round game, and one not necessarily limited to three or four players, +was open to John Browdie too, who, bursting into the little crowd--to +the great terror of his wife--and falling about in all directions, +now to the right, now to the left, now forwards, now backwards, and +accidentally driving his elbow through the hat of the tallest helper, +who had been particularly active, speedily caused the odds to wear a +very different appearance; while more than one stout fellow limped away +to a respectful distance, anathematising with tears in his eyes the +heavy tread and ponderous feet of the burly Yorkshireman. + +‘Let me see him do it again,’ said he who had been kicked into the +corner, rising as he spoke, apparently more from the fear of John +Browdie’s inadvertently treading upon him, than from any desire to place +himself on equal terms with his late adversary. ‘Let me see him do it +again. That’s all.’ + +‘Let me hear you make those remarks again,’ said the young man, ‘and +I’ll knock that head of yours in among the wine-glasses behind you +there.’ + +Here a waiter who had been rubbing his hands in excessive enjoyment +of the scene, so long as only the breaking of heads was in question, +adjured the spectators with great earnestness to fetch the police, +declaring that otherwise murder would be surely done, and that he was +responsible for all the glass and china on the premises. + +‘No one need trouble himself to stir,’ said the young gentleman, ‘I am +going to remain in the house all night, and shall be found here in the +morning if there is any assault to answer for.’ + +‘What did you strike him for?’ asked one of the bystanders. + +‘Ah! what did you strike him for?’ demanded the others. + +The unpopular gentleman looked coolly round, and addressing himself to +Nicholas, said: + +‘You inquired just now what was the matter here. The matter is simply +this. Yonder person, who was drinking with a friend in the coffee-room +when I took my seat there for half an hour before going to bed, (for I +have just come off a journey, and preferred stopping here tonight, to +going home at this hour, where I was not expected until tomorrow,) chose +to express himself in very disrespectful, and insolently familiar +terms, of a young lady, whom I recognised from his description and other +circumstances, and whom I have the honour to know. As he spoke loud +enough to be overheard by the other guests who were present, I informed +him most civilly that he was mistaken in his conjectures, which were +of an offensive nature, and requested him to forbear. He did so for a +little time, but as he chose to renew his conversation when leaving the +room, in a more offensive strain than before, I could not refrain +from making after him, and facilitating his departure by a kick, which +reduced him to the posture in which you saw him just now. I am the +best judge of my own affairs, I take it,’ said the young man, who had +certainly not quite recovered from his recent heat; ‘if anybody here +thinks proper to make this quarrel his own, I have not the smallest +earthly objection, I do assure him.’ + +Of all possible courses of proceeding under the circumstances detailed, +there was certainly not one which, in his then state of mind, could +have appeared more laudable to Nicholas than this. There were not many +subjects of dispute which at that moment could have come home to his +own breast more powerfully, for having the unknown uppermost in his +thoughts, it naturally occurred to him that he would have done just the +same if any audacious gossiper durst have presumed in his hearing to +speak lightly of her. Influenced by these considerations, he espoused +the young gentleman’s quarrel with great warmth, protesting that he had +done quite right, and that he respected him for it; which John Browdie +(albeit not quite clear as to the merits) immediately protested too, +with not inferior vehemence. + +‘Let him take care, that’s all,’ said the defeated party, who was being +rubbed down by a waiter, after his recent fall on the dusty boards. ‘He +don’t knock me about for nothing, I can tell him that. A pretty state of +things, if a man isn’t to admire a handsome girl without being beat to +pieces for it!’ + +This reflection appeared to have great weight with the young lady in +the bar, who (adjusting her cap as she spoke, and glancing at a mirror) +declared that it would be a very pretty state of things indeed; and that +if people were to be punished for actions so innocent and natural as +that, there would be more people to be knocked down than there would +be people to knock them down, and that she wondered what the gentleman +meant by it, that she did. + +‘My dear girl,’ said the young gentleman in a low voice, advancing +towards the sash window. + +‘Nonsense, sir!’ replied the young lady sharply, smiling though as she +turned aside, and biting her lip, (whereat Mrs. Browdie, who was still +standing on the stairs, glanced at her with disdain, and called to her +husband to come away). + +‘No, but listen to me,’ said the young man. ‘If admiration of a pretty +face were criminal, I should be the most hopeless person alive, for I +cannot resist one. It has the most extraordinary effect upon me, checks +and controls me in the most furious and obstinate mood. You see what an +effect yours has had upon me already.’ + +‘Oh, that’s very pretty,’ replied the young lady, tossing her head, +‘but--’ + +‘Yes, I know it’s very pretty,’ said the young man, looking with an air +of admiration in the barmaid’s face; ‘I said so, you know, just this +moment. But beauty should be spoken of respectfully--respectfully, and +in proper terms, and with a becoming sense of its worth and excellence, +whereas this fellow has no more notion--’ + +The young lady interrupted the conversation at this point, by thrusting +her head out of the bar-window, and inquiring of the waiter in a shrill +voice whether that young man who had been knocked down was going to +stand in the passage all night, or whether the entrance was to be left +clear for other people. The waiters taking the hint, and communicating +it to the hostlers, were not slow to change their tone too, and the +result was, that the unfortunate victim was bundled out in a twinkling. + +‘I am sure I have seen that fellow before,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Indeed!’ replied his new acquaintance. + +‘I am certain of it,’ said Nicholas, pausing to reflect. ‘Where can I +have--stop!--yes, to be sure--he belongs to a register-office up at the +west end of the town. I knew I recollected the face.’ + +It was, indeed, Tom, the ugly clerk. + +‘That’s odd enough!’ said Nicholas, ruminating upon the strange manner +in which the register-office seemed to start up and stare him in the +face every now and then, and when he least expected it. + +‘I am much obliged to you for your kind advocacy of my cause when it +most needed an advocate,’ said the young man, laughing, and drawing a +card from his pocket. ‘Perhaps you’ll do me the favour to let me know +where I can thank you.’ + +Nicholas took the card, and glancing at it involuntarily as he returned +the compliment, evinced very great surprise. + +‘Mr. Frank Cheeryble!’ said Nicholas. ‘Surely not the nephew of Cheeryble +Brothers, who is expected tomorrow!’ + +‘I don’t usually call myself the nephew of the firm,’ returned Mr. Frank, +good-humouredly; ‘but of the two excellent individuals who compose it, +I am proud to say I AM the nephew. And you, I see, are Mr. Nickleby, of +whom I have heard so much! This is a most unexpected meeting, but not +the less welcome, I assure you.’ + +Nicholas responded to these compliments with others of the same kind, +and they shook hands warmly. Then he introduced John Browdie, who had +remained in a state of great admiration ever since the young lady in +the bar had been so skilfully won over to the right side. Then Mrs. John +Browdie was introduced, and finally they all went upstairs together +and spent the next half-hour with great satisfaction and mutual +entertainment; Mrs. John Browdie beginning the conversation by +declaring that of all the made-up things she ever saw, that young woman +below-stairs was the vainest and the plainest. + +This Mr. Frank Cheeryble, although, to judge from what had recently taken +place, a hot-headed young man (which is not an absolute miracle and +phenomenon in nature), was a sprightly, good-humoured, pleasant fellow, +with much both in his countenance and disposition that reminded Nicholas +very strongly of the kind-hearted brothers. His manner was as unaffected +as theirs, and his demeanour full of that heartiness which, to most +people who have anything generous in their composition, is peculiarly +prepossessing. Add to this, that he was good-looking and intelligent, +had a plentiful share of vivacity, was extremely cheerful, and +accommodated himself in five minutes’ time to all John Browdie’s +oddities with as much ease as if he had known him from a boy; and it +will be a source of no great wonder that, when they parted for the +night, he had produced a most favourable impression, not only upon the +worthy Yorkshireman and his wife, but upon Nicholas also, who, revolving +all these things in his mind as he made the best of his way home, +arrived at the conclusion that he had laid the foundation of a most +agreeable and desirable acquaintance. + +‘But it’s a most extraordinary thing about that register-office fellow!’ +thought Nicholas. ‘Is it likely that this nephew can know anything about +that beautiful girl? When Tim Linkinwater gave me to understand the +other day that he was coming to take a share in the business here, he +said he had been superintending it in Germany for four years, and that +during the last six months he had been engaged in establishing an agency +in the north of England. That’s four years and a half--four years and a +half. She can’t be more than seventeen--say eighteen at the outside. She +was quite a child when he went away, then. I should say he knew nothing +about her and had never seen her, so HE can give me no information. At +all events,’ thought Nicholas, coming to the real point in his mind, +‘there can be no danger of any prior occupation of her affections in +that quarter; that’s quite clear.’ + +Is selfishness a necessary ingredient in the composition of that passion +called love, or does it deserve all the fine things which poets, in the +exercise of their undoubted vocation, have said of it? There are, no +doubt, authenticated instances of gentlemen having given up ladies +and ladies having given up gentlemen to meritorious rivals, under +circumstances of great high-mindedness; but is it quite established +that the majority of such ladies and gentlemen have not made a virtue of +necessity, and nobly resigned what was beyond their reach; as a private +soldier might register a vow never to accept the order of the Garter, or +a poor curate of great piety and learning, but of no family--save a very +large family of children--might renounce a bishopric? + +Here was Nicholas Nickleby, who would have scorned the thought of +counting how the chances stood of his rising in favour or fortune with +the brothers Cheeryble, now that their nephew had returned, already deep +in calculations whether that same nephew was likely to rival him in the +affections of the fair unknown--discussing the matter with himself too, +as gravely as if, with that one exception, it were all settled; and +recurring to the subject again and again, and feeling quite indignant +and ill-used at the notion of anybody else making love to one with +whom he had never exchanged a word in all his life. To be sure, he +exaggerated rather than depreciated the merits of his new acquaintance; +but still he took it as a kind of personal offence that he should have +any merits at all--in the eyes of this particular young lady, that is; +for elsewhere he was quite welcome to have as many as he pleased. There +was undoubted selfishness in all this, and yet Nicholas was of a most +free and generous nature, with as few mean or sordid thoughts, perhaps, +as ever fell to the lot of any man; and there is no reason to suppose +that, being in love, he felt and thought differently from other people +in the like sublime condition. + +He did not stop to set on foot an inquiry into his train of thought or +state of feeling, however; but went thinking on all the way home, +and continued to dream on in the same strain all night. For, having +satisfied himself that Frank Cheeryble could have no knowledge of, or +acquaintance with, the mysterious young lady, it began to occur to him +that even he himself might never see her again; upon which hypothesis he +built up a very ingenious succession of tormenting ideas which answered +his purpose even better than the vision of Mr. Frank Cheeryble, and +tantalised and worried him, waking and sleeping. + +Notwithstanding all that has been said and sung to the contrary, +there is no well-established case of morning having either deferred +or hastened its approach by the term of an hour or so for the mere +gratification of a splenetic feeling against some unoffending lover: +the sun having, in the discharge of his public duty, as the books +of precedent report, invariably risen according to the almanacs, and +without suffering himself to be swayed by any private considerations. +So, morning came as usual, and with it business-hours, and with them Mr +Frank Cheeryble, and with him a long train of smiles and welcomes from +the worthy brothers, and a more grave and clerk-like, but scarcely less +hearty reception from Mr. Timothy Linkinwater. + +‘That Mr. Frank and Mr. Nickleby should have met last night,’ said +Tim Linkinwater, getting slowly off his stool, and looking round the +counting-house with his back planted against the desk, as was his custom +when he had anything very particular to say: ‘that those two young men +should have met last night in that manner is, I say, a coincidence, a +remarkable coincidence. Why, I don’t believe now,’ added Tim, taking off +his spectacles, and smiling as with gentle pride, ‘that there’s such a +place in all the world for coincidences as London is!’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ said Mr. Frank; ‘but--’ + +‘Don’t know about it, Mr. Francis!’ interrupted Tim, with an obstinate +air. ‘Well, but let us know. If there is any better place for such +things, where is it? Is it in Europe? No, that it isn’t. Is it in Asia? +Why, of course it’s not. Is it in Africa? Not a bit of it. Is it in +America? YOU know better than that, at all events. Well, then,’ said +Tim, folding his arms resolutely, ‘where is it?’ + +‘I was not about to dispute the point, Tim,’ said young Cheeryble, +laughing. ‘I am not such a heretic as that. All I was going to say was, +that I hold myself under an obligation to the coincidence, that’s all.’ + +‘Oh! if you don’t dispute it,’ said Tim, quite satisfied, ‘that’s +another thing. I’ll tell you what though. I wish you had. I wish you +or anybody would. I would so put that man down,’ said Tim, tapping the +forefinger of his left hand emphatically with his spectacles, ‘so put +that man down by argument--’ + +It was quite impossible to find language to express the degree of mental +prostration to which such an adventurous wight would be reduced in the +keen encounter with Tim Linkinwater, so Tim gave up the rest of his +declaration in pure lack of words, and mounted his stool again. + +‘We may consider ourselves, brother Ned,’ said Charles, after he had +patted Tim Linkinwater approvingly on the back, ‘very fortunate in +having two such young men about us as our nephew Frank and Mr. Nickleby. +It should be a source of great satisfaction and pleasure to us.’ + +‘Certainly, Charles, certainly,’ returned the other. + +‘Of Tim,’ added brother Ned, ‘I say nothing whatever, because Tim is +a mere child--an infant--a nobody that we never think of or take into +account at all. Tim, you villain, what do you say to that, sir?’ + +‘I am jealous of both of ‘em,’ said Tim, ‘and mean to look out for +another situation; so provide yourselves, gentlemen, if you please.’ + +Tim thought this such an exquisite, unparalleled, and most extraordinary +joke, that he laid his pen upon the inkstand, and rather tumbling off +his stool than getting down with his usual deliberation, laughed till he +was quite faint, shaking his head all the time so that little particles +of powder flew palpably about the office. Nor were the brothers at all +behind-hand, for they laughed almost as heartily at the ludicrous idea +of any voluntary separation between themselves and old Tim. Nicholas +and Mr. Frank laughed quite boisterously, perhaps to conceal some other +emotion awakened by this little incident, (and so, indeed, did the three +old fellows after the first burst,) so perhaps there was as much keen +enjoyment and relish in that laugh, altogether, as the politest assembly +ever derived from the most poignant witticism uttered at any one +person’s expense. + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said brother Charles, calling him aside, and taking him +kindly by the hand, ‘I--I--am anxious, my dear sir, to see that you are +properly and comfortably settled in the cottage. We cannot allow those +who serve us well to labour under any privation or discomfort that it is +in our power to remove. I wish, too, to see your mother and sister: to +know them, Mr. Nickleby, and have an opportunity of relieving their minds +by assuring them that any trifling service we have been able to do +them is a great deal more than repaid by the zeal and ardour you +display.--Not a word, my dear sir, I beg. Tomorrow is Sunday. I shall +make bold to come out at teatime, and take the chance of finding you at +home; if you are not, you know, or the ladies should feel a delicacy in +being intruded on, and would rather not be known to me just now, why +I can come again another time, any other time would do for me. Let it +remain upon that understanding. Brother Ned, my dear fellow, let me have +a word with you this way.’ + +The twins went out of the office arm-in-arm, and Nicholas, who saw in +this act of kindness, and many others of which he had been the subject +that morning, only so many delicate renewals on the arrival of their +nephew of the kind assurance which the brothers had given him in his +absence, could scarcely feel sufficient admiration and gratitude for +such extraordinary consideration. + +The intelligence that they were to have a visitor--and such a +visitor--next day, awakened in the breast of Mrs. Nickleby mingled +feelings of exultation and regret; for whereas on the one hand she +hailed it as an omen of her speedy restoration to good society and the +almost-forgotten pleasures of morning calls and evening tea-drinkings, +she could not, on the other, but reflect with bitterness of spirit on +the absence of a silver teapot with an ivory knob on the lid, and a +milk-jug to match, which had been the pride of her heart in days of +yore, and had been kept from year’s end to year’s end wrapped up in +wash-leather on a certain top shelf which now presented itself in lively +colours to her sorrowing imagination. + +‘I wonder who’s got that spice-box,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, shaking her +head. ‘It used to stand in the left-hand corner, next but two to the +pickled onions. You remember that spice-box, Kate?’ + +‘Perfectly well, mama.’ + +‘I shouldn’t think you did, Kate,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, in a severe +manner, ‘talking about it in that cold and unfeeling way! If there +is any one thing that vexes me in these losses more than the losses +themselves, I do protest and declare,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, rubbing her +nose with an impassioned air, ‘that it is to have people about me who +take things with such provoking calmness.’ + +‘My dear mama,’ said Kate, stealing her arm round her mother’s neck, +‘why do you say what I know you cannot seriously mean or think, or why +be angry with me for being happy and content? You and Nicholas are left +to me, we are together once again, and what regard can I have for a few +trifling things of which we never feel the want? When I have seen all +the misery and desolation that death can bring, and known the lonesome +feeling of being solitary and alone in crowds, and all the agony of +separation in grief and poverty when we most needed comfort and support +from each other, can you wonder that I look upon this as a place of such +delicious quiet and rest, that with you beside me I have nothing to +wish for or regret? There was a time, and not long since, when all +the comforts of our old home did come back upon me, I own, very +often--oftener than you would think perhaps--but I affected to care +nothing for them, in the hope that you would so be brought to regret +them the less. I was not insensible, indeed. I might have felt happier +if I had been. Dear mama,’ said Kate, in great agitation, ‘I know no +difference between this home and that in which we were all so happy +for so many years, except that the kindest and gentlest heart that ever +ached on earth has passed in peace to heaven.’ + +‘Kate my dear, Kate,’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, folding her in her arms. + +‘I have so often thought,’ sobbed Kate, ‘of all his kind words--of the +last time he looked into my little room, as he passed upstairs to bed, +and said “God bless you, darling.” There was a paleness in his face, +mama--the broken heart--I know it was--I little thought so--then--’ + +A gush of tears came to her relief, and Kate laid her head upon her +mother’s breast, and wept like a little child. + +It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when the +heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate +feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and +irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our better thoughts and +sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold +some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom +we dearly loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may those patient +angels hover above us, watching for the spell which is so seldom +uttered, and so soon forgotten! + +Poor Mrs. Nickleby, accustomed to give ready utterance to whatever +came uppermost in her mind, had never conceived the possibility of her +daughter’s dwelling upon these thoughts in secret, the more especially +as no hard trial or querulous reproach had ever drawn them from her. But +now, when the happiness of all that Nicholas had just told them, and +of their new and peaceful life, brought these recollections so strongly +upon Kate that she could not suppress them, Mrs. Nickleby began to have +a glimmering that she had been rather thoughtless now and then, and was +conscious of something like self-reproach as she embraced her daughter, +and yielded to the emotions which such a conversation naturally +awakened. + +There was a mighty bustle that night, and a vast quantity of preparation +for the expected visitor, and a very large nosegay was brought from a +gardener’s hard by, and cut up into a number of very small ones, with +which Mrs. Nickleby would have garnished the little sitting-room, in +a style that certainly could not have failed to attract anybody’s +attention, if Kate had not offered to spare her the trouble, and +arranged them in the prettiest and neatest manner possible. If the +cottage ever looked pretty, it must have been on such a bright and +sunshiny day as the next day was. But Smike’s pride in the garden, +or Mrs. Nickleby’s in the condition of the furniture, or Kate’s in +everything, was nothing to the pride with which Nicholas looked at Kate +herself; and surely the costliest mansion in all England might have +found in her beautiful face and graceful form its most exquisite and +peerless ornament. + +About six o’clock in the afternoon Mrs. Nickleby was thrown into a great +flutter of spirits by the long-expected knock at the door, nor was this +flutter at all composed by the audible tread of two pair of boots in the +passage, which Mrs. Nickleby augured, in a breathless state, must be ‘the +two Mr. Cheerybles;’ as it certainly was, though not the two Mrs. Nickleby +expected, because it was Mr. Charles Cheeryble, and his nephew, Mr. Frank, +who made a thousand apologies for his intrusion, which Mrs. Nickleby +(having tea-spoons enough and to spare for all) most graciously +received. Nor did the appearance of this unexpected visitor occasion +the least embarrassment, (save in Kate, and that only to the extent of +a blush or two at first,) for the old gentleman was so kind and cordial, +and the young gentleman imitated him in this respect so well, that the +usual stiffness and formality of a first meeting showed no signs of +appearing, and Kate really more than once detected herself in the very +act of wondering when it was going to begin. + +At the tea-table there was plenty of conversation on a great variety of +subjects, nor were there wanting jocose matters of discussion, such as +they were; for young Mr. Cheeryble’s recent stay in Germany happening to +be alluded to, old Mr. Cheeryble informed the company that the aforesaid +young Mr. Cheeryble was suspected to have fallen deeply in love with +the daughter of a certain German burgomaster. This accusation young +Mr. Cheeryble most indignantly repelled, upon which Mrs. Nickleby slyly +remarked, that she suspected, from the very warmth of the denial, there +must be something in it. Young Mr. Cheeryble then earnestly entreated old +Mr. Cheeryble to confess that it was all a jest, which old Mr. Cheeryble +at last did, young Mr. Cheeryble being so much in earnest about it, +that--as Mrs. Nickleby said many thousand times afterwards in recalling +the scene--he ‘quite coloured,’ which she rightly considered a memorable +circumstance, and one worthy of remark, young men not being as a class +remarkable for modesty or self-denial, especially when there is a lady +in the case, when, if they colour at all, it is rather their practice to +colour the story, and not themselves. + +After tea there was a walk in the garden, and the evening being very +fine they strolled out at the garden-gate into some lanes and bye-roads, +and sauntered up and down until it grew quite dark. The time seemed to +pass very quickly with all the party. Kate went first, leaning upon +her brother’s arm, and talking with him and Mr. Frank Cheeryble; and +Mrs. Nickleby and the elder gentleman followed at a short distance, the +kindness of the good merchant, his interest in the welfare of Nicholas, +and his admiration of Kate, so operating upon the good lady’s feelings, +that the usual current of her speech was confined within very narrow +and circumscribed limits. Smike (who, if he had ever been an object of +interest in his life, had been one that day) accompanied them, joining +sometimes one group and sometimes the other, as brother Charles, laying +his hand upon his shoulder, bade him walk with him, or Nicholas, looking +smilingly round, beckoned him to come and talk with the old friend who +understood him best, and who could win a smile into his careworn face +when none else could. + +Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of +a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal +virtues--faith and hope. This was the pride which swelled Mrs. Nickleby’s +heart that night, and this it was which left upon her face, glistening +in the light when they returned home, traces of the most grateful tears +she had ever shed. + +There was a quiet mirth about the little supper, which harmonised +exactly with this tone of feeling, and at length the two gentlemen +took their leave. There was one circumstance in the leave-taking which +occasioned a vast deal of smiling and pleasantry, and that was, that Mr +Frank Cheeryble offered his hand to Kate twice over, quite forgetting +that he had bade her adieu already. This was held by the elder Mr +Cheeryble to be a convincing proof that he was thinking of his German +flame, and the jest occasioned immense laughter. So easy is it to move +light hearts. + +In short, it was a day of serene and tranquil happiness; and as we +all have some bright day--many of us, let us hope, among a crowd of +others--to which we revert with particular delight, so this one was +often looked back to afterwards, as holding a conspicuous place in the +calendar of those who shared it. + +Was there one exception, and that one he who needed to have been most +happy? + +Who was that who, in the silence of his own chamber, sunk upon his knees +to pray as his first friend had taught him, and folding his hands and +stretching them wildly in the air, fell upon his face in a passion of +bitter grief? + + + +CHAPTER 44 + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby cuts an old Acquaintance. It would also appear from +the Contents hereof, that a Joke, even between Husband and Wife, may be +sometimes carried too far + + +There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching +themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of +the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day +towards this end, affect nevertheless--even to themselves--a high tone +of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the depravity of +the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, +or rather--for walking implies, at least, an erect position and the +bearing of a man--that ever crawled and crept through life by its +dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the +events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with +Heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour. +Whether this is a gratuitous (the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood +and trickery of such men’s lives, or whether they really hope to cheat +Heaven itself, and lay up treasure in the next world by the same process +which has enabled them to lay up treasure in this--not to question +how it is, so it is. And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain +autobiographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to prove +serviceable, in the one respect of sparing the recording Angel some time +and labour. + +Ralph Nickleby was not a man of this stamp. Stern, unyielding, dogged, +and impenetrable, Ralph cared for nothing in life, or beyond it, save +the gratification of two passions, avarice, the first and predominant +appetite of his nature, and hatred, the second. Affecting to consider +himself but a type of all humanity, he was at little pains to conceal +his true character from the world in general, and in his own heart he +exulted over and cherished every bad design as it had birth. The only +scriptural admonition that Ralph Nickleby heeded, in the letter, was +‘know thyself.’ He knew himself well, and choosing to imagine that all +mankind were cast in the same mould, hated them; for, though no man +hates himself, the coldest among us having too much self-love for that, +yet most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will +be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human +nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant +samples. + +But the present business of these adventures is with Ralph himself, who +stood regarding Newman Noggs with a heavy frown, while that worthy took +off his fingerless gloves, and spreading them carefully on the palm of +his left hand, and flattening them with his right to take the creases +out, proceeded to roll them up with an absent air as if he were utterly +regardless of all things else, in the deep interest of the ceremonial. + +‘Gone out of town!’ said Ralph, slowly. ‘A mistake of yours. Go back +again.’ + +‘No mistake,’ returned Newman. ‘Not even going; gone.’ + +‘Has he turned girl or baby?’ muttered Ralph, with a fretful gesture. + +‘I don’t know,’ said Newman, ‘but he’s gone.’ + +The repetition of the word ‘gone’ seemed to afford Newman Noggs +inexpressible delight, in proportion as it annoyed Ralph Nickleby. He +uttered the word with a full round emphasis, dwelling upon it as long +as he decently could, and when he could hold out no longer without +attracting observation, stood gasping it to himself as if even that were +a satisfaction. + +‘And WHERE has he gone?’ said Ralph. + +‘France,’ replied Newman. ‘Danger of another attack of erysipelas--a +worse attack--in the head. So the doctors ordered him off. And he’s +gone.’ + +‘And Lord Frederick--?’ began Ralph. + +‘He’s gone too,’ replied Newman. + +‘And he carries his drubbing with him, does he?’ said Ralph, turning +away; ‘pockets his bruises, and sneaks off without the retaliation of a +word, or seeking the smallest reparation!’ + +‘He’s too ill,’ said Newman. + +‘Too ill!’ repeated Ralph. ‘Why I would have it if I were dying; in that +case I should only be the more determined to have it, and that without +delay--I mean if I were he. But he’s too ill! Poor Sir Mulberry! Too +ill!’ + +Uttering these words with supreme contempt and great irritation of +manner, Ralph signed hastily to Newman to leave the room; and throwing +himself into his chair, beat his foot impatiently upon the ground. + +‘There is some spell about that boy,’ said Ralph, grinding his teeth. +‘Circumstances conspire to help him. Talk of fortune’s favours! What is +even money to such Devil’s luck as this?’ + +He thrust his hands impatiently into his pockets, but notwithstanding +his previous reflection there was some consolation there, for his face +relaxed a little; and although there was still a deep frown upon the +contracted brow, it was one of calculation, and not of disappointment. + +‘This Hawk will come back, however,’ muttered Ralph; ‘and if I know the +man (and I should by this time) his wrath will have lost nothing of its +violence in the meanwhile. Obliged to live in retirement--the +monotony of a sick-room to a man of his habits--no life--no drink--no +play--nothing that he likes and lives by. He is not likely to forget +his obligations to the cause of all this. Few men would; but he of all +others? No, no!’ + +He smiled and shook his head, and resting his chin upon his hand, fell a +musing, and smiled again. After a time he rose and rang the bell. + +‘That Mr. Squeers; has he been here?’ said Ralph. + +‘He was here last night. I left him here when I went home,’ returned +Newman. + +‘I know that, fool, do I not?’ said Ralph, irascibly. ‘Has he been here +since? Was he here this morning?’ + +‘No,’ bawled Newman, in a very loud key. + +‘If he comes while I am out--he is pretty sure to be here by nine +tonight--let him wait. And if there’s another man with him, as there +will be--perhaps,’ said Ralph, checking himself, ‘let him wait too.’ + +‘Let ‘em both wait?’ said Newman. + +‘Ay,’ replied Ralph, turning upon him with an angry look. ‘Help me on +with this spencer, and don’t repeat after me, like a croaking parrot.’ + +‘I wish I was a parrot,’ Newman, sulkily. + +‘I wish you were,’ rejoined Ralph, drawing his spencer on; ‘I’d have +wrung your neck long ago.’ + +Newman returned no answer to this compliment, but looked over Ralph’s +shoulder for an instant, (he was adjusting the collar of the spencer +behind, just then,) as if he were strongly disposed to tweak him by the +nose. Meeting Ralph’s eye, however, he suddenly recalled his wandering +fingers, and rubbed his own red nose with a vehemence quite astonishing. + +Bestowing no further notice upon his eccentric follower than a +threatening look, and an admonition to be careful and make no mistake, +Ralph took his hat and gloves, and walked out. + +He appeared to have a very extraordinary and miscellaneous connection, +and very odd calls he made, some at great rich houses, and some at small +poor ones, but all upon one subject: money. His face was a talisman to +the porters and servants of his more dashing clients, and procured him +ready admission, though he trudged on foot, and others, who were denied, +rattled to the door in carriages. Here he was all softness and cringing +civility; his step so light, that it scarcely produced a sound upon +the thick carpets; his voice so soft that it was not audible beyond the +person to whom it was addressed. But in the poorer habitations Ralph +was another man; his boots creaked upon the passage floor as he walked +boldly in; his voice was harsh and loud as he demanded the money that +was overdue; his threats were coarse and angry. With another class of +customers, Ralph was again another man. These were attorneys of more +than doubtful reputation, who helped him to new business, or raised +fresh profits upon old. With them Ralph was familiar and jocose, +humorous upon the topics of the day, and especially pleasant upon +bankruptcies and pecuniary difficulties that made good for trade. In +short, it would have been difficult to have recognised the same man +under these various aspects, but for the bulky leather case full of +bills and notes which he drew from his pocket at every house, and the +constant repetition of the same complaint, (varied only in tone and +style of delivery,) that the world thought him rich, and that perhaps +he might be if he had his own; but there was no getting money in when it +was once out, either principal or interest, and it was a hard matter to +live; even to live from day to day. + +It was evening before a long round of such visits (interrupted only by +a scanty dinner at an eating-house) terminated at Pimlico, and Ralph +walked along St James’s Park, on his way home. + +There were some deep schemes in his head, as the puckered brow and +firmly-set mouth would have abundantly testified, even if they had been +unaccompanied by a complete indifference to, or unconsciousness of, the +objects about him. So complete was his abstraction, however, that +Ralph, usually as quick-sighted as any man, did not observe that he was +followed by a shambling figure, which at one time stole behind him with +noiseless footsteps, at another crept a few paces before him, and at +another glided along by his side; at all times regarding him with an eye +so keen, and a look so eager and attentive, that it was more like the +expression of an intrusive face in some powerful picture or strongly +marked dream, than the scrutiny even of a most interested and anxious +observer. + +The sky had been lowering and dark for some time, and the commencement +of a violent storm of rain drove Ralph for shelter to a tree. He was +leaning against it with folded arms, still buried in thought, when, +happening to raise his eyes, he suddenly met those of a man who, +creeping round the trunk, peered into his face with a searching look. +There was something in the usurer’s expression at the moment, which the +man appeared to remember well, for it decided him; and stepping close up +to Ralph, he pronounced his name. + +Astonished for the moment, Ralph fell back a couple of paces and +surveyed him from head to foot. A spare, dark, withered man, of about +his own age, with a stooping body, and a very sinister face rendered +more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply sunburnt, and +thick black eyebrows, blacker in contrast with the perfect whiteness of +his hair; roughly clothed in shabby garments, of a strange and uncouth +make; and having about him an indefinable manner of depression and +degradation--this, for a moment, was all he saw. But he looked again, +and the face and person seemed gradually to grow less strange; to change +as he looked, to subside and soften into lineaments that were familiar, +until at last they resolved themselves, as if by some strange optical +illusion, into those of one whom he had known for many years, and +forgotten and lost sight of for nearly as many more. + +The man saw that the recognition was mutual, and beckoning to Ralph to +take his former place under the tree, and not to stand in the falling +rain, of which, in his first surprise, he had been quite regardless, +addressed him in a hoarse, faint tone. + +‘You would hardly have known me from my voice, I suppose, Mr. Nickleby?’ +he said. + +‘No,’ returned Ralph, bending a severe look upon him. ‘Though there is +something in that, that I remember now.’ + +‘There is little in me that you can call to mind as having been there +eight years ago, I dare say?’ observed the other. + +‘Quite enough,’ said Ralph, carelessly, and averting his face. ‘More +than enough.’ + +‘If I had remained in doubt about YOU, Mr. Nickleby,’ said the other, +‘this reception, and YOUR manner, would have decided me very soon.’ + +‘Did you expect any other?’ asked Ralph, sharply. + +‘No!’ said the man. + +‘You were right,’ retorted Ralph; ‘and as you feel no surprise, need +express none.’ + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said the man, bluntly, after a brief pause, during which +he had seemed to struggle with an inclination to answer him by some +reproach, ‘will you hear a few words that I have to say?’ + +‘I am obliged to wait here till the rain holds a little,’ said Ralph, +looking abroad. ‘If you talk, sir, I shall not put my fingers in my +ears, though your talking may have as much effect as if I did.’ + +‘I was once in your confidence--’ thus his companion began. Ralph looked +round, and smiled involuntarily. + +‘Well,’ said the other, ‘as much in your confidence as you ever chose to +let anybody be.’ + +‘Ah!’ rejoined Ralph, folding his arms; ‘that’s another thing, quite +another thing.’ + +‘Don’t let us play upon words, Mr. Nickleby, in the name of humanity.’ + +‘Of what?’ said Ralph. + +‘Of humanity,’ replied the other, sternly. ‘I am hungry and in want. If +the change that you must see in me after so long an absence--must see, +for I, upon whom it has come by slow and hard degrees, see it and know +it well--will not move you to pity, let the knowledge that bread; not +the daily bread of the Lord’s Prayer, which, as it is offered up in +cities like this, is understood to include half the luxuries of the +world for the rich, and just as much coarse food as will support life +for the poor--not that, but bread, a crust of dry hard bread, is beyond +my reach today--let that have some weight with you, if nothing else +has.’ + +‘If this is the usual form in which you beg, sir,’ said Ralph, ‘you have +studied your part well; but if you will take advice from one who knows +something of the world and its ways, I should recommend a lower tone; a +little lower tone, or you stand a fair chance of being starved in good +earnest.’ + +As he said this, Ralph clenched his left wrist tightly with his right +hand, and inclining his head a little on one side and dropping his chin +upon his breast, looked at him whom he addressed with a frowning, sullen +face. The very picture of a man whom nothing could move or soften. + +‘Yesterday was my first day in London,’ said the old man, glancing at +his travel-stained dress and worn shoes. + +‘It would have been better for you, I think, if it had been your last +also,’ replied Ralph. + +‘I have been seeking you these two days, where I thought you were most +likely to be found,’ resumed the other more humbly, ‘and I met you here +at last, when I had almost given up the hope of encountering you, Mr +Nickleby.’ + +He seemed to wait for some reply, but Ralph giving him none, he +continued: + +‘I am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and +as destitute and helpless as a child of six.’ + +‘I am sixty years old, too,’ replied Ralph, ‘and am neither destitute +nor helpless. Work. Don’t make fine play-acting speeches about bread, +but earn it.’ + +‘How?’ cried the other. ‘Where? Show me the means. Will you give them to +me--will you?’ + +‘I did once,’ replied Ralph, composedly; ‘you scarcely need ask me +whether I will again.’ + +‘It’s twenty years ago, or more,’ said the man, in a suppressed voice, +‘since you and I fell out. You remember that? I claimed a share in the +profits of some business I brought to you, and, as I persisted, you +arrested me for an old advance of ten pounds, odd shillings, including +interest at fifty per cent, or so.’ + +‘I remember something of it,’ replied Ralph, carelessly. ‘What then?’ + +‘That didn’t part us,’ said the man. ‘I made submission, being on the +wrong side of the bolts and bars; and as you were not the made man then +that you are now, you were glad enough to take back a clerk who wasn’t +over nice, and who knew something of the trade you drove.’ + +‘You begged and prayed, and I consented,’ returned Ralph. ‘That was kind +of me. Perhaps I did want you. I forget. I should think I did, or you +would have begged in vain. You were useful; not too honest, not too +delicate, not too nice of hand or heart; but useful.’ + +‘Useful, indeed!’ said the man. ‘Come. You had pinched and ground me +down for some years before that, but I had served you faithfully up to +that time, in spite of all your dog’s usage. Had I?’ + +Ralph made no reply. + +‘Had I?’ said the man again. + +‘You had had your wages,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘and had done your work. We +stood on equal ground so far, and could both cry quits.’ + +‘Then, but not afterwards,’ said the other. + +‘Not afterwards, certainly, nor even then, for (as you have just said) +you owed me money, and do still,’ replied Ralph. + +‘That’s not all,’ said the man, eagerly. ‘That’s not all. Mark that. I +didn’t forget that old sore, trust me. Partly in remembrance of that, +and partly in the hope of making money someday by the scheme, I took +advantage of my position about you, and possessed myself of a hold upon +you, which you would give half of all you have to know, and never can +know but through me. I left you--long after that time, remember--and, +for some poor trickery that came within the law, but was nothing to what +you money-makers daily practise just outside its bounds, was sent away +a convict for seven years. I have returned what you see me. Now, Mr +Nickleby,’ said the man, with a strange mixture of humility and sense of +power, ‘what help and assistance will you give me; what bribe, to speak +out plainly? My expectations are not monstrous, but I must live, and to +live I must eat and drink. Money is on your side, and hunger and thirst +on mine. You may drive an easy bargain.’ + +‘Is that all?’ said Ralph, still eyeing his companion with the same +steady look, and moving nothing but his lips. + +‘It depends on you, Mr. Nickleby, whether that’s all or not,’ was the +rejoinder. + +‘Why then, harkye, Mr--, I don’t know by what name I am to call you,’ +said Ralph. + +‘By my old one, if you like.’ + +‘Why then, harkye, Mr. Brooker,’ said Ralph, in his harshest accents, +‘and don’t expect to draw another speech from me. Harkye, sir. I know +you of old for a ready scoundrel, but you never had a stout heart; and +hard work, with (maybe) chains upon those legs of yours, and shorter +food than when I “pinched” and “ground” you, has blunted your wits, or +you would not come with such a tale as this to me. You a hold upon me! +Keep it, or publish it to the world, if you like.’ + +‘I can’t do that,’ interposed Brooker. ‘That wouldn’t serve me.’ + +‘Wouldn’t it?’ said Ralph. ‘It will serve you as much as bringing it to +me, I promise you. To be plain with you, I am a careful man, and know my +affairs thoroughly. I know the world, and the world knows me. Whatever +you gleaned, or heard, or saw, when you served me, the world knows and +magnifies already. You could tell it nothing that would surprise it, +unless, indeed, it redounded to my credit or honour, and then it would +scout you for a liar. And yet I don’t find business slack, or clients +scrupulous. Quite the contrary. I am reviled or threatened every day by +one man or another,’ said Ralph; ‘but things roll on just the same, and +I don’t grow poorer either.’ + +‘I neither revile nor threaten,’ rejoined the man. ‘I can tell you of +what you have lost by my act, what I only can restore, and what, if I +die without restoring, dies with me, and never can be regained.’ + +‘I tell my money pretty accurately, and generally keep it in my own +custody,’ said Ralph. ‘I look sharply after most men that I deal with, +and most of all I looked sharply after you. You are welcome to all you +have kept from me.’ + +‘Are those of your own name dear to you?’ said the man emphatically. ‘If +they are--’ + +‘They are not,’ returned Ralph, exasperated at this perseverance, and +the thought of Nicholas, which the last question awakened. ‘They are +not. If you had come as a common beggar, I might have thrown a sixpence +to you in remembrance of the clever knave you used to be; but since you +try to palm these stale tricks upon one you might have known better, +I’ll not part with a halfpenny--nor would I to save you from rotting. +And remember this, ‘scape-gallows,’ said Ralph, menacing him with +his hand, ‘that if we meet again, and you so much as notice me by one +begging gesture, you shall see the inside of a jail once more, and +tighten this hold upon me in intervals of the hard labour that vagabonds +are put to. There’s my answer to your trash. Take it.’ + +With a disdainful scowl at the object of his anger, who met his eye +but uttered not a word, Ralph walked away at his usual pace, without +manifesting the slightest curiosity to see what became of his late +companion, or indeed once looking behind him. The man remained on the +same spot with his eyes fixed upon his retreating figure until it was +lost to view, and then drawing his arm about his chest, as if the damp +and lack of food struck coldly to him, lingered with slouching steps by +the wayside, and begged of those who passed along. + +Ralph, in no-wise moved by what had lately passed, further than as he +had already expressed himself, walked deliberately on, and turning out +of the Park and leaving Golden Square on his right, took his way through +some streets at the west end of the town until he arrived in that +particular one in which stood the residence of Madame Mantalini. The +name of that lady no longer appeared on the flaming door-plate, that of +Miss Knag being substituted in its stead; but the bonnets and dresses +were still dimly visible in the first-floor windows by the decaying +light of a summer’s evening, and excepting this ostensible alteration in +the proprietorship, the establishment wore its old appearance. + +‘Humph!’ muttered Ralph, drawing his hand across his mouth with a +connoisseur-like air, and surveying the house from top to bottom; ‘these +people look pretty well. They can’t last long; but if I know of their +going in good time, I am safe, and a fair profit too. I must keep them +closely in view; that’s all.’ + +So, nodding his head very complacently, Ralph was leaving the spot, when +his quick ear caught the sound of a confused noise and hubbub of voices, +mingled with a great running up and down stairs, in the very house +which had been the subject of his scrutiny; and while he was hesitating +whether to knock at the door or listen at the keyhole a little longer, a +female servant of Madame Mantalini’s (whom he had often seen) opened +it abruptly and bounced out, with her blue cap-ribbons streaming in the +air. + +‘Hallo here. Stop!’ cried Ralph. ‘What’s the matter? Here am I. Didn’t +you hear me knock?’ + +‘Oh! Mr. Nickleby, sir,’ said the girl. ‘Go up, for the love of Gracious. +Master’s been and done it again.’ + +‘Done what?’ said Ralph, tartly; ‘what d’ye mean?’ + +‘I knew he would if he was drove to it,’ cried the girl. ‘I said so all +along.’ + +‘Come here, you silly wench,’ said Ralph, catching her by the wrist; +‘and don’t carry family matters to the neighbours, destroying the credit +of the establishment. Come here; do you hear me, girl?’ + +Without any further expostulation, he led or rather pulled the +frightened handmaid into the house, and shut the door; then bidding her +walk upstairs before him, followed without more ceremony. + +Guided by the noise of a great many voices all talking together, and +passing the girl in his impatience, before they had ascended many steps, +Ralph quickly reached the private sitting-room, when he was rather +amazed by the confused and inexplicable scene in which he suddenly found +himself. + +There were all the young-lady workers, some with bonnets and some +without, in various attitudes expressive of alarm and consternation; +some gathered round Madame Mantalini, who was in tears upon one chair; +and others round Miss Knag, who was in opposition tears upon another; +and others round Mr. Mantalini, who was perhaps the most striking figure +in the whole group, for Mr. Mantalini’s legs were extended at full length +upon the floor, and his head and shoulders were supported by a very +tall footman, who didn’t seem to know what to do with them, and Mr +Mantalini’s eyes were closed, and his face was pale and his hair was +comparatively straight, and his whiskers and moustache were limp, and +his teeth were clenched, and he had a little bottle in his right hand, +and a little tea-spoon in his left; and his hands, arms, legs, and +shoulders, were all stiff and powerless. And yet Madame Mantalini was +not weeping upon the body, but was scolding violently upon her chair; +and all this amidst a clamour of tongues perfectly deafening, and which +really appeared to have driven the unfortunate footman to the utmost +verge of distraction. + +‘What is the matter here?’ said Ralph, pressing forward. + +At this inquiry, the clamour was increased twenty-fold, and an +astounding string of such shrill contradictions as ‘He’s poisoned +himself’--‘He hasn’t’--‘Send for a doctor’--‘Don’t’--‘He’s dying’--‘He +isn’t, he’s only pretending’--with various other cries, poured forth +with bewildering volubility, until Madame Mantalini was seen to address +herself to Ralph, when female curiosity to know what she would say, +prevailed, and, as if by general consent, a dead silence, unbroken by a +single whisper, instantaneously succeeded. + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said Madame Mantalini; ‘by what chance you came here, I +don’t know.’ + +Here a gurgling voice was heard to ejaculate, as part of the wanderings +of a sick man, the words ‘Demnition sweetness!’ but nobody heeded +them except the footman, who, being startled to hear such awful tones +proceeding, as it were, from between his very fingers, dropped his +master’s head upon the floor with a pretty loud crash, and then, without +an effort to lift it up, gazed upon the bystanders, as if he had done +something rather clever than otherwise. + +‘I will, however,’ continued Madame Mantalini, drying her eyes, and +speaking with great indignation, ‘say before you, and before everybody +here, for the first time, and once for all, that I never will supply +that man’s extravagances and viciousness again. I have been a dupe and a +fool to him long enough. In future, he shall support himself if he +can, and then he may spend what money he pleases, upon whom and how he +pleases; but it shall not be mine, and therefore you had better pause +before you trust him further.’ + +Thereupon Madame Mantalini, quite unmoved by some most pathetic +lamentations on the part of her husband, that the apothecary had not +mixed the prussic acid strong enough, and that he must take another +bottle or two to finish the work he had in hand, entered into a +catalogue of that amiable gentleman’s gallantries, deceptions, +extravagances, and infidelities (especially the last), winding up with +a protest against being supposed to entertain the smallest remnant +of regard for him; and adducing, in proof of the altered state of her +affections, the circumstance of his having poisoned himself in private +no less than six times within the last fortnight, and her not having +once interfered by word or deed to save his life. + +‘And I insist on being separated and left to myself,’ said Madame +Mantalini, sobbing. ‘If he dares to refuse me a separation, I’ll have +one in law--I can--and I hope this will be a warning to all girls who +have seen this disgraceful exhibition.’ + +Miss Knag, who was unquestionably the oldest girl in company, said with +great solemnity, that it would be a warning to HER, and so did the +young ladies generally, with the exception of one or two who appeared to +entertain some doubts whether such whispers could do wrong. + +‘Why do you say all this before so many listeners?’ said Ralph, in a low +voice. ‘You know you are not in earnest.’ + +‘I AM in earnest,’ replied Madame Mantalini, aloud, and retreating +towards Miss Knag. + +‘Well, but consider,’ reasoned Ralph, who had a great interest in the +matter. ‘It would be well to reflect. A married woman has no property.’ + +‘Not a solitary single individual dem, my soul,’ and Mr. Mantalini, +raising himself upon his elbow. + +‘I am quite aware of that,’ retorted Madame Mantalini, tossing her head; +‘and I have none. The business, the stock, this house, and everything in +it, all belong to Miss Knag.’ + +‘That’s quite true, Madame Mantalini,’ said Miss Knag, with whom her +late employer had secretly come to an amicable understanding on this +point. ‘Very true, indeed, Madame Mantalini--hem--very true. And I never +was more glad in all my life, that I had strength of mind to resist +matrimonial offers, no matter how advantageous, than I am when I think +of my present position as compared with your most unfortunate and most +undeserved one, Madame Mantalini.’ + +‘Demmit!’ cried Mr. Mantalini, turning his head towards his wife. ‘Will +it not slap and pinch the envious dowager, that dares to reflect upon +its own delicious?’ + +But the day of Mr. Mantalini’s blandishments had departed. ‘Miss +Knag, sir,’ said his wife, ‘is my particular friend;’ and although Mr +Mantalini leered till his eyes seemed in danger of never coming back to +their right places again, Madame Mantalini showed no signs of softening. + +To do the excellent Miss Knag justice, she had been mainly instrumental +in bringing about this altered state of things, for, finding by daily +experience, that there was no chance of the business thriving, or even +continuing to exist, while Mr. Mantalini had any hand in the expenditure, +and having now a considerable interest in its well-doing, she had +sedulously applied herself to the investigation of some little matters +connected with that gentleman’s private character, which she had so well +elucidated, and artfully imparted to Madame Mantalini, as to open her +eyes more effectually than the closest and most philosophical reasoning +could have done in a series of years. To which end, the accidental +discovery by Miss Knag of some tender correspondence, in which Madame +Mantalini was described as ‘old’ and ‘ordinary,’ had most providentially +contributed. + +However, notwithstanding her firmness, Madame Mantalini wept very +piteously; and as she leant upon Miss Knag, and signed towards the door, +that young lady and all the other young ladies with sympathising faces, +proceeded to bear her out. + +‘Nickleby,’ said Mr. Mantalini in tears, ‘you have been made a witness +to this demnition cruelty, on the part of the demdest enslaver and +captivator that never was, oh dem! I forgive that woman.’ + +‘Forgive!’ repeated Madame Mantalini, angrily. + +‘I do forgive her, Nickleby,’ said Mr. Mantalini. ‘You will blame me, the +world will blame me, the women will blame me; everybody will laugh, +and scoff, and smile, and grin most demnebly. They will say, “She had a +blessing. She did not know it. He was too weak; he was too good; he was +a dem’d fine fellow, but he loved too strong; he could not bear her to +be cross, and call him wicked names. It was a dem’d case, there never +was a demder.” But I forgive her.’ + +With this affecting speech Mr. Mantalini fell down again very flat, and +lay to all appearance without sense or motion, until all the females +had left the room, when he came cautiously into a sitting posture, and +confronted Ralph with a very blank face, and the little bottle still in +one hand and the tea-spoon in the other. + +‘You may put away those fooleries now, and live by your wits again,’ +said Ralph, coolly putting on his hat. + +‘Demmit, Nickleby, you’re not serious?’ + +‘I seldom joke,’ said Ralph. ‘Good-night.’ + +‘No, but Nickleby--’ said Mantalini. + +‘I am wrong, perhaps,’ rejoined Ralph. ‘I hope so. You should know best. +Good-night.’ + +Affecting not to hear his entreaties that he would stay and advise with +him, Ralph left the crest-fallen Mr. Mantalini to his meditations, and +left the house quietly. + +‘Oho!’ he said, ‘sets the wind that way so soon? Half knave and half +fool, and detected in both characters? I think your day is over, sir.’ + +As he said this, he made some memorandum in his pocket-book in which Mr +Mantalini’s name figured conspicuously, and finding by his watch that it +was between nine and ten o’clock, made all speed home. + +‘Are they here?’ was the first question he asked of Newman. + +Newman nodded. ‘Been here half an hour.’ + +‘Two of them? One a fat sleek man?’ + +‘Ay,’ said Newman. ‘In your room now.’ + +‘Good,’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Get me a coach.’ + +‘A coach! What, you--going to--eh?’ stammered Newman. + +Ralph angrily repeated his orders, and Noggs, who might well have been +excused for wondering at such an unusual and extraordinary circumstance +(for he had never seen Ralph in a coach in his life) departed on his +errand, and presently returned with the conveyance. + +Into it went Mr. Squeers, and Ralph, and the third man, whom Newman Noggs +had never seen. Newman stood upon the door-step to see them off, not +troubling himself to wonder where or upon what business they were going, +until he chanced by mere accident to hear Ralph name the address whither +the coachman was to drive. + +Quick as lightning and in a state of the most extreme wonder, Newman +darted into his little office for his hat, and limped after the coach +as if with the intention of getting up behind; but in this design he +was balked, for it had too much the start of him and was soon hopelessly +ahead, leaving him gaping in the empty street. + +‘I don’t know though,’ said Noggs, stopping for breath, ‘any good that +I could have done by going too. He would have seen me if I had. Drive +THERE! What can come of this? If I had only known it yesterday I could +have told--drive there! There’s mischief in it. There must be.’ + +His reflections were interrupted by a grey-haired man of a very +remarkable, though far from prepossessing appearance, who, coming +stealthily towards him, solicited relief. + +Newman, still cogitating deeply, turned away; but the man followed him, +and pressed him with such a tale of misery that Newman (who might have +been considered a hopeless person to beg from, and who had little enough +to give) looked into his hat for some halfpence which he usually kept +screwed up, when he had any, in a corner of his pocket-handkerchief. + +While he was busily untwisting the knot with his teeth, the man said +something which attracted his attention; whatever that something was, it +led to something else, and in the end he and Newman walked away side by +side--the strange man talking earnestly, and Newman listening. + + + +CHAPTER 45 + +Containing Matter of a surprising Kind + + +‘As we gang awa’ fra’ Lunnun tomorrow neeght, and as I dinnot know that +I was e’er so happy in a’ my days, Misther Nickleby, Ding! but I WILL +tak’ anoother glass to our next merry meeting!’ + +So said John Browdie, rubbing his hands with great joyousness, and +looking round him with a ruddy shining face, quite in keeping with the +declaration. + +The time at which John found himself in this enviable condition was the +same evening to which the last chapter bore reference; the place was +the cottage; and the assembled company were Nicholas, Mrs. Nickleby, Mrs +Browdie, Kate Nickleby, and Smike. + +A very merry party they had been. Mrs. Nickleby, knowing of her son’s +obligations to the honest Yorkshireman, had, after some demur, yielded +her consent to Mr. and Mrs. Browdie being invited out to tea; in the +way of which arrangement, there were at first sundry difficulties and +obstacles, arising out of her not having had an opportunity of ‘calling’ +upon Mrs. Browdie first; for although Mrs. Nickleby very often observed +with much complacency (as most punctilious people do), that she had not +an atom of pride or formality about her, still she was a great stickler +for dignity and ceremonies; and as it was manifest that, until a call +had been made, she could not be (politely speaking, and according to the +laws of society) even cognisant of the fact of Mrs. Browdie’s existence, +she felt her situation to be one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty. + +‘The call MUST originate with me, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that’s +indispensable. The fact is, my dear, that it’s necessary there should +be a sort of condescension on my part, and that I should show this +young person that I am willing to take notice of her. There’s a very +respectable-looking young man,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, after a short +consideration, ‘who is conductor to one of the omnibuses that go by +here, and who wears a glazed hat--your sister and I have noticed him +very often--he has a wart upon his nose, Kate, you know, exactly like a +gentleman’s servant.’ + +‘Have all gentlemen’s servants warts upon their noses, mother?’ asked +Nicholas. + +‘Nicholas, my dear, how very absurd you are,’ returned his mother; ‘of +course I mean that his glazed hat looks like a gentleman’s servant, and +not the wart upon his nose; though even that is not so ridiculous as it +may seem to you, for we had a footboy once, who had not only a wart, but +a wen also, and a very large wen too, and he demanded to have his wages +raised in consequence, because he found it came very expensive. Let me +see, what was I--oh yes, I know. The best way that I can think of would +be to send a card, and my compliments, (I’ve no doubt he’d take ‘em for +a pot of porter,) by this young man, to the Saracen with Two Necks. If +the waiter took him for a gentleman’s servant, so much the better. Then +all Mrs. Browdie would have to do would be to send her card back by the +carrier (he could easily come with a double knock), and there’s an end +of it.’ + +‘My dear mother,’ said Nicholas, ‘I don’t suppose such unsophisticated +people as these ever had a card of their own, or ever will have.’ + +‘Oh that, indeed, Nicholas, my dear,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that’s +another thing. If you put it upon that ground, why, of course, I have +no more to say, than that I have no doubt they are very good sort of +persons, and that I have no kind of objection to their coming here to +tea if they like, and shall make a point of being very civil to them if +they do.’ + +The point being thus effectually set at rest, and Mrs. Nickleby duly +placed in the patronising and mildly-condescending position which became +her rank and matrimonial years, Mr. and Mrs. Browdie were invited and +came; and as they were very deferential to Mrs. Nickleby, and seemed +to have a becoming appreciation of her greatness, and were very much +pleased with everything, the good lady had more than once given Kate +to understand, in a whisper, that she thought they were the very +best-meaning people she had ever seen, and perfectly well behaved. + +And thus it came to pass, that John Browdie declared, in the parlour +after supper, to wit, and twenty minutes before eleven o’clock p.m., +that he had never been so happy in all his days. + +Nor was Mrs. Browdie much behind her husband in this respect, for that +young matron, whose rustic beauty contrasted very prettily with the +more delicate loveliness of Kate, and without suffering by the contrast +either, for each served as it were to set off and decorate the other, +could not sufficiently admire the gentle and winning manners of the +young lady, or the engaging affability of the elder one. Then Kate had +the art of turning the conversation to subjects upon which the country +girl, bashful at first in strange company, could feel herself at +home; and if Mrs. Nickleby was not quite so felicitous at times in the +selection of topics of discourse, or if she did seem, as Mrs. Browdie +expressed it, ‘rather high in her notions,’ still nothing could be +kinder, and that she took considerable interest in the young couple was +manifest from the very long lectures on housewifery with which she +was so obliging as to entertain Mrs. Browdie’s private ear, which +were illustrated by various references to the domestic economy of the +cottage, in which (those duties falling exclusively upon Kate) the good +lady had about as much share, either in theory or practice, as any one +of the statues of the Twelve Apostles which embellish the exterior of St +Paul’s Cathedral. + +‘Mr. Browdie,’ said Kate, addressing his young wife, ‘is the +best-humoured, the kindest and heartiest creature I ever saw. If I were +oppressed with I don’t know how many cares, it would make me happy only +to look at him.’ + +‘He does seem indeed, upon my word, a most excellent creature, Kate,’ +said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘most excellent. And I am sure that at all times it +will give me pleasure--really pleasure now--to have you, Mrs. Browdie, +to see me in this plain and homely manner. We make no display,’ said Mrs +Nickleby, with an air which seemed to insinuate that they could make a +vast deal if they were so disposed; ‘no fuss, no preparation; I wouldn’t +allow it. I said, “Kate, my dear, you will only make Mrs. Browdie feel +uncomfortable, and how very foolish and inconsiderate that would be!”’ + +‘I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, ma’am,’ returned Mrs. Browdie, +gratefully. ‘It’s nearly eleven o’clock, John. I am afraid we are +keeping you up very late, ma’am.’ + +‘Late!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, with a sharp thin laugh, and one little +cough at the end, like a note of admiration expressed. ‘This is quite +early for us. We used to keep such hours! Twelve, one, two, three +o’clock was nothing to us. Balls, dinners, card-parties! Never were such +rakes as the people about where we used to live. I often think now, I +am sure, that how we ever could go through with it is quite astonishing, +and that is just the evil of having a large connection and being a great +deal sought after, which I would recommend all young married people +steadily to resist; though of course, and it’s perfectly clear, and a +very happy thing too, I think, that very few young married people can +be exposed to such temptations. There was one family in particular, +that used to live about a mile from us--not straight down the road, but +turning sharp off to the left by the turnpike where the Plymouth mail +ran over the donkey--that were quite extraordinary people for giving +the most extravagant parties, with artificial flowers and champagne, and +variegated lamps, and, in short, every delicacy of eating and drinking +that the most singular epicure could possibly require. I don’t think +that there ever were such people as those Peltiroguses. You remember the +Peltiroguses, Kate?’ + +Kate saw that for the ease and comfort of the visitors it was high time +to stay this flood of recollection, so answered that she entertained of +the Peltiroguses a most vivid and distinct remembrance; and then said +that Mr. Browdie had half promised, early in the evening, that he would +sing a Yorkshire song, and that she was most impatient that he should +redeem his promise, because she was sure it would afford her mama more +amusement and pleasure than it was possible to express. + +Mrs. Nickleby confirming her daughter with the best possible grace--for +there was patronage in that too, and a kind of implication that she had +a discerning taste in such matters, and was something of a critic--John +Browdie proceeded to consider the words of some north-country ditty, and +to take his wife’s recollection respecting the same. This done, he made +divers ungainly movements in his chair, and singling out one particular +fly on the ceiling from the other flies there asleep, fixed his eyes +upon him, and began to roar a meek sentiment (supposed to be uttered +by a gentle swain fast pining away with love and despair) in a voice of +thunder. + +At the end of the first verse, as though some person without had +waited until then to make himself audible, was heard a loud and violent +knocking at the street-door; so loud and so violent, indeed, that the +ladies started as by one accord, and John Browdie stopped. + +‘It must be some mistake,’ said Nicholas, carelessly. ‘We know nobody +who would come here at this hour.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby surmised, however, that perhaps the counting-house was +burnt down, or perhaps ‘the Mr. Cheerybles’ had sent to take Nicholas +into partnership (which certainly appeared highly probable at that time +of night), or perhaps Mr. Linkinwater had run away with the property, or +perhaps Miss La Creevy was taken in, or perhaps-- + +But a hasty exclamation from Kate stopped her abruptly in her +conjectures, and Ralph Nickleby walked into the room. + +‘Stay,’ said Ralph, as Nicholas rose, and Kate, making her way towards +him, threw herself upon his arm. ‘Before that boy says a word, hear me.’ + +Nicholas bit his lip and shook his head in a threatening manner, but +appeared for the moment unable to articulate a syllable. Kate clung +closer to his arm, Smike retreated behind them, and John Browdie, +who had heard of Ralph, and appeared to have no great difficulty in +recognising him, stepped between the old man and his young friend, as +if with the intention of preventing either of them from advancing a step +further. + +‘Hear me, I say,’ said Ralph, ‘and not him.’ + +‘Say what thou’st gotten to say then, sir,’ retorted John; ‘and tak’ +care thou dinnot put up angry bluid which thou’dst betther try to +quiet.’ + +‘I should know YOU,’ said Ralph, ‘by your tongue; and HIM’ (pointing to +Smike) ‘by his looks.’ + +‘Don’t speak to him,’ said Nicholas, recovering his voice. ‘I will not +have it. I will not hear him. I do not know that man. I cannot breathe +the air that he corrupts. His presence is an insult to my sister. It is +shame to see him. I will not bear it.’ + +‘Stand!’ cried John, laying his heavy hand upon his chest. + +‘Then let him instantly retire,’ said Nicholas, struggling. ‘I am not +going to lay hands upon him, but he shall withdraw. I will not have him +here. John, John Browdie, is this my house, am I a child? If he stands +there,’ cried Nicholas, burning with fury, ‘looking so calmly upon those +who know his black and dastardly heart, he’ll drive me mad.’ + +To all these exclamations John Browdie answered not a word, but he +retained his hold upon Nicholas; and when he was silent again, spoke. + +‘There’s more to say and hear than thou think’st for,’ said John. ‘I +tell’ee I ha’ gotten scent o’ thot already. Wa’at be that shadow +ootside door there? Noo, schoolmeasther, show thyself, mun; dinnot be +sheame-feaced. Noo, auld gen’l’man, let’s have schoolmeasther, coom.’ + +Hearing this adjuration, Mr. Squeers, who had been lingering in the +passage until such time as it should be expedient for him to enter and +he could appear with effect, was fain to present himself in a somewhat +undignified and sneaking way; at which John Browdie laughed with such +keen and heartfelt delight, that even Kate, in all the pain, anxiety, +and surprise of the scene, and though the tears were in her eyes, felt a +disposition to join him. + +‘Have you done enjoying yourself, sir?’ said Ralph, at length. + +‘Pratty nigh for the prasant time, sir,’ replied John. + +‘I can wait,’ said Ralph. ‘Take your own time, pray.’ + +Ralph waited until there was a perfect silence, and then turning to Mrs +Nickleby, but directing an eager glance at Kate, as if more anxious to +watch his effect upon her, said: + +‘Now, ma’am, listen to me. I don’t imagine that you were a party to a +very fine tirade of words sent me by that boy of yours, because I don’t +believe that under his control, you have the slightest will of your own, +or that your advice, your opinion, your wants, your wishes, anything +which in nature and reason (or of what use is your great experience?) +ought to weigh with him, has the slightest influence or weight whatever, +or is taken for a moment into account.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby shook her head and sighed, as if there were a good deal in +that, certainly. + +‘For this reason,’ resumed Ralph, ‘I address myself to you, ma’am. For +this reason, partly, and partly because I do not wish to be disgraced by +the acts of a vicious stripling whom I was obliged to disown, and who, +afterwards, in his boyish majesty, feigns to--ha! ha!--to disown ME, I +present myself here tonight. I have another motive in coming: a motive +of humanity. I come here,’ said Ralph, looking round with a biting and +triumphant smile, and gloating and dwelling upon the words as if he +were loath to lose the pleasure of saying them, ‘to restore a parent his +child. Ay, sir,’ he continued, bending eagerly forward, and addressing +Nicholas, as he marked the change of his countenance, ‘to restore a +parent his child; his son, sir; trepanned, waylaid, and guarded at every +turn by you, with the base design of robbing him some day of any little +wretched pittance of which he might become possessed.’ + +‘In that, you know you lie,’ said Nicholas, proudly. + +‘In this, I know I speak the truth. I have his father here,’ retorted +Ralph. + +‘Here!’ sneered Squeers, stepping forward. ‘Do you hear that? Here! +Didn’t I tell you to be careful that his father didn’t turn up and send +him back to me? Why, his father’s my friend; he’s to come back to me +directly, he is. Now, what do you say--eh!--now--come--what do you say +to that--an’t you sorry you took so much trouble for nothing? an’t you? +an’t you?’ + +‘You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,’ said Nicholas, +looking quietly away, ‘and may talk in acknowledgment of them as much +as you please. You’ll talk a long time before you rub them out, Mr +Squeers.’ + +The estimable gentleman last named cast a hasty look at the table, as if +he were prompted by this retort to throw a jug or bottle at the head of +Nicholas, but he was interrupted in this design (if such design he had) +by Ralph, who, touching him on the elbow, bade him tell the father that +he might now appear and claim his son. + +This being purely a labour of love, Mr. Squeers readily complied, +and leaving the room for the purpose, almost immediately returned, +supporting a sleek personage with an oily face, who, bursting from him, +and giving to view the form and face of Mr. Snawley, made straight up +to Smike, and tucking that poor fellow’s head under his arm in a most +uncouth and awkward embrace, elevated his broad-brimmed hat at arm’s +length in the air as a token of devout thanksgiving, exclaiming, +meanwhile, ‘How little did I think of this here joyful meeting, when I +saw him last! Oh, how little did I think it!’ + +‘Be composed, sir,’ said Ralph, with a gruff expression of sympathy, +‘you have got him now.’ + +‘Got him! Oh, haven’t I got him! Have I got him, though?’ cried Mr +Snawley, scarcely able to believe it. ‘Yes, here he is, flesh and blood, +flesh and blood.’ + +‘Vary little flesh,’ said John Browdie. + +Mr. Snawley was too much occupied by his parental feelings to notice this +remark; and, to assure himself more completely of the restoration of his +child, tucked his head under his arm again, and kept it there. + +‘What was it,’ said Snawley, ‘that made me take such a strong interest +in him, when that worthy instructor of youth brought him to my house? +What was it that made me burn all over with a wish to chastise him +severely for cutting away from his best friends, his pastors and +masters?’ + +‘It was parental instinct, sir,’ observed Squeers. + +‘That’s what it was, sir,’ rejoined Snawley; ‘the elevated feeling, the +feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of the +field and birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and tom-cats, +which sometimes devour their offspring. My heart yearned towards him. I +could have--I don’t know what I couldn’t have done to him in the anger +of a father.’ + +‘It only shows what Natur is, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers. ‘She’s rum ‘un, is +Natur.’ + +‘She is a holy thing, sir,’ remarked Snawley. + +‘I believe you,’ added Mr. Squeers, with a moral sigh. ‘I should like +to know how we should ever get on without her. Natur,’ said Mr. Squeers, +solemnly, ‘is more easier conceived than described. Oh what a blessed +thing, sir, to be in a state of natur!’ + +Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had been quite +stupefied with amazement, while Nicholas had looked keenly from Snawley +to Squeers, and from Squeers to Ralph, divided between his feelings of +disgust, doubt, and surprise. At this juncture, Smike escaping from his +father fled to Nicholas, and implored him, in most moving terms, never +to give him up, but to let him live and die beside him. + +‘If you are this boy’s father,’ said Nicholas, ‘look at the wreck he is, +and tell me that you purpose to send him back to that loathsome den from +which I brought him.’ + +‘Scandal again!’ cried Squeers. ‘Recollect, you an’t worth powder and +shot, but I’ll be even with you one way or another.’ + +‘Stop,’ interposed Ralph, as Snawley was about to speak. ‘Let us +cut this matter short, and not bandy words here with hare-brained +profligates. This is your son, as you can prove. And you, Mr. Squeers, +you know this boy to be the same that was with you for so many years +under the name of Smike. Do you?’ + +‘Do I!’ returned Squeers. ‘Don’t I?’ + +‘Good,’ said Ralph; ‘a very few words will be sufficient here. You had a +son by your first wife, Mr. Snawley?’ + +‘I had,’ replied that person, ‘and there he stands.’ + +‘We’ll show that presently,’ said Ralph. ‘You and your wife were +separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when he was a year old. +You received a communication from her, when you had lived apart a year +or two, that the boy was dead; and you believed it?’ + +‘Of course I did!’ returned Snawley. ‘Oh the joy of--’ + +‘Be rational, sir, pray,’ said Ralph. ‘This is business, and +transports interfere with it. This wife died a year and a half ago, or +thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was housekeeper +in a family. Is that the case?’ + +‘That’s the case,’ replied Snawley. + +‘Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about +this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in your +name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days +since?’ + +‘Just so,’ said Snawley. ‘Correct in every particular, sir.’ + +‘And this confession,’ resumed Ralph, ‘is to the effect that his +death was an invention of hers to wound you--was a part of a system +of annoyance, in short, which you seem to have adopted towards each +other--that the boy lived, but was of weak and imperfect intellect--that +she sent him by a trusty hand to a cheap school in Yorkshire--that she +had paid for his education for some years, and then, being poor, and +going a long way off, gradually deserted him, for which she prayed +forgiveness?’ + +Snawley nodded his head, and wiped his eyes; the first slightly, the +last violently. + +‘The school was Mr. Squeers’s,’ continued Ralph; ‘the boy was left there +in the name of Smike; every description was fully given, dates tally +exactly with Mr. Squeers’s books, Mr. Squeers is lodging with you at this +time; you have two other boys at his school: you communicated the whole +discovery to him, he brought you to me as the person who had recommended +to him the kidnapper of his child; and I brought you here. Is that so?’ + +‘You talk like a good book, sir, that’s got nothing in its inside but +what’s the truth,’ replied Snawley. + +‘This is your pocket-book,’ said Ralph, producing one from his coat; +‘the certificates of your first marriage and of the boy’s birth, and +your wife’s two letters, and every other paper that can support these +statements directly or by implication, are here, are they?’ + +‘Every one of ‘em, sir.’ + +‘And you don’t object to their being looked at here, so that these +people may be convinced of your power to substantiate your claim at once +in law and reason, and you may resume your control over your own son +without more delay. Do I understand you?’ + +‘I couldn’t have understood myself better, sir.’ + +‘There, then,’ said Ralph, tossing the pocket-book upon the table. ‘Let +them see them if they like; and as those are the original papers, I +should recommend you to stand near while they are being examined, or you +may chance to lose some.’ + +With these words Ralph sat down unbidden, and compressing his lips, +which were for the moment slightly parted by a smile, folded his arms, +and looked for the first time at his nephew. + +Nicholas, stung by the concluding taunt, darted an indignant glance at +him; but commanding himself as well as he could, entered upon a close +examination of the documents, at which John Browdie assisted. There was +nothing about them which could be called in question. The certificates +were regularly signed as extracts from the parish books, the first +letter had a genuine appearance of having been written and preserved +for some years, the handwriting of the second tallied with it exactly, +(making proper allowance for its having been written by a person in +extremity,) and there were several other corroboratory scraps of entries +and memoranda which it was equally difficult to question. + +‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, who had been looking anxiously over his +shoulder, ‘can this be really the case? Is this statement true?’ + +‘I fear it is,’ answered Nicholas. ‘What say you, John?’ + +John scratched his head and shook it, but said nothing at all. + +‘You will observe, ma’am,’ said Ralph, addressing himself to Mrs +Nickleby, ‘that this boy being a minor and not of strong mind, we might +have come here tonight, armed with the powers of the law, and backed by +a troop of its myrmidons. I should have done so, ma’am, unquestionably, +but for my regard for the feelings of yourself, and your daughter.’ + +‘You have shown your regard for HER feelings well,’ said Nicholas, +drawing his sister towards him. + +‘Thank you,’ replied Ralph. ‘Your praise, sir, is commendation, indeed.’ + +‘Well,’ said Squeers, ‘what’s to be done? Them hackney-coach horses will +catch cold if we don’t think of moving; there’s one of ‘em a sneezing +now, so that he blows the street door right open. What’s the order of +the day? Is Master Snawley to come along with us?’ + +‘No, no, no,’ replied Smike, drawing back, and clinging to Nicholas. + +‘No. Pray, no. I will not go from you with him. No, no.’ + +‘This is a cruel thing,’ said Snawley, looking to his friends for +support. ‘Do parents bring children into the world for this?’ + +‘Do parents bring children into the world for THOT?’ said John Browdie +bluntly, pointing, as he spoke, to Squeers. + +‘Never you mind,’ retorted that gentleman, tapping his nose derisively. + +‘Never I mind!’ said John, ‘no, nor never nobody mind, say’st thou, +schoolmeasther. It’s nobody’s minding that keeps sike men as thou +afloat. Noo then, where be’est thou coomin’ to? Dang it, dinnot coom +treadin’ ower me, mun.’ + +Suiting the action to the word, John Browdie just jerked his elbow +into the chest of Mr. Squeers who was advancing upon Smike; with so much +dexterity that the schoolmaster reeled and staggered back upon Ralph +Nickleby, and being unable to recover his balance, knocked that +gentleman off his chair, and stumbled heavily upon him. + +This accidental circumstance was the signal for some very decisive +proceedings. In the midst of a great noise, occasioned by the prayers +and entreaties of Smike, the cries and exclamations of the women, and +the vehemence of the men, demonstrations were made of carrying off the +lost son by violence. Squeers had actually begun to haul him out, when +Nicholas (who, until then, had been evidently undecided how to act) +took him by the collar, and shaking him so that such teeth as he had, +chattered in his head, politely escorted him to the room-door, and +thrusting him into the passage, shut it upon him. + +‘Now,’ said Nicholas to the other two, ‘have the goodness to follow your +friend.’ + +‘I want my son,’ said Snawley. + +‘Your son,’ replied Nicholas, ‘chooses for himself. He chooses to remain +here, and he shall.’ + +‘You won’t give him up?’ said Snawley. + +‘I would not give him up against his will, to be the victim of such +brutality as that to which you would consign him,’ replied Nicholas, ‘if +he were a dog or a rat.’ + +‘Knock that Nickleby down with a candlestick,’ cried Mr. Squeers, through +the keyhole, ‘and bring out my hat, somebody, will you, unless he wants +to steal it.’ + +‘I am very sorry, indeed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, who, with Mrs. Browdie, had +stood crying and biting her fingers in a corner, while Kate (very pale, +but perfectly quiet) had kept as near her brother as she could. ‘I am +very sorry, indeed, for all this. I really don’t know what would be best +to do, and that’s the truth. Nicholas ought to be the best judge, and I +hope he is. Of course, it’s a hard thing to have to keep other people’s +children, though young Mr. Snawley is certainly as useful and willing +as it’s possible for anybody to be; but, if it could be settled in any +friendly manner--if old Mr. Snawley, for instance, would settle to pay +something certain for his board and lodging, and some fair arrangement +was come to, so that we undertook to have fish twice a week, and a +pudding twice, or a dumpling, or something of that sort--I do think that +it might be very satisfactory and pleasant for all parties.’ + +This compromise, which was proposed with abundance of tears and sighs, +not exactly meeting the point at issue, nobody took any notice of it; +and poor Mrs. Nickleby accordingly proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Browdie +upon the advantages of such a scheme, and the unhappy results flowing, +on all occasions, from her not being attended to when she proffered her +advice. + +‘You, sir,’ said Snawley, addressing the terrified Smike, ‘are an +unnatural, ungrateful, unlovable boy. You won’t let me love you when I +want to. Won’t you come home, won’t you?’ + +‘No, no, no,’ cried Smike, shrinking back. + +‘He never loved nobody,’ bawled Squeers, through the keyhole. ‘He +never loved me; he never loved Wackford, who is next door but one to +a cherubim. How can you expect that he’ll love his father? He’ll never +love his father, he won’t. He don’t know what it is to have a father. He +don’t understand it. It an’t in him.’ + +Mr. Snawley looked steadfastly at his son for a full minute, and then +covering his eyes with his hand, and once more raising his hat in the +air, appeared deeply occupied in deploring his black ingratitude. Then +drawing his arm across his eyes, he picked up Mr. Squeers’s hat, and +taking it under one arm, and his own under the other, walked slowly and +sadly out. + +‘Your romance, sir,’ said Ralph, lingering for a moment, ‘is destroyed, +I take it. No unknown; no persecuted descendant of a man of high degree; +but the weak, imbecile son of a poor, petty tradesman. We shall see how +your sympathy melts before plain matter of fact.’ + +‘You shall,’ said Nicholas, motioning towards the door. + +‘And trust me, sir,’ added Ralph, ‘that I never supposed you would give +him up tonight. Pride, obstinacy, reputation for fine feeling, were all +against it. These must be brought down, sir, lowered, crushed, as they +shall be soon. The protracted and wearing anxiety and expense of the law +in its most oppressive form, its torture from hour to hour, its weary +days and sleepless nights, with these I’ll prove you, and break your +haughty spirit, strong as you deem it now. And when you make this house +a hell, and visit these trials upon yonder wretched object (as you will; +I know you), and those who think you now a young-fledged hero, we’ll +go into old accounts between us two, and see who stands the debtor, and +comes out best at last, even before the world.’ + +Ralph Nickleby withdrew. But Mr. Squeers, who had heard a portion of this +closing address, and was by this time wound up to a pitch of impotent +malignity almost unprecedented, could not refrain from returning to the +parlour door, and actually cutting some dozen capers with various wry +faces and hideous grimaces, expressive of his triumphant confidence in +the downfall and defeat of Nicholas. + +Having concluded this war-dance, in which his short trousers and large +boots had borne a very conspicuous figure, Mr. Squeers followed his +friends, and the family were left to meditate upon recent occurrences. + + + +CHAPTER 46 + +Throws some Light upon Nicholas’s Love; but whether for Good or Evil the +Reader must determine + + +After an anxious consideration of the painful and embarrassing position +in which he was placed, Nicholas decided that he ought to lose no time +in frankly stating it to the kind brothers. Availing himself of the +first opportunity of being alone with Mr. Charles Cheeryble at the close +of next day, he accordingly related Smike’s little history, and modestly +but firmly expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under +such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the +extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding +the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his +father might seem, and would doubtless be represented as, a thing so +repulsive and unnatural, as to render those who countenanced him in it, +fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence. + +‘So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,’ said +Nicholas, ‘that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature +does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of +affection for him, and surely she can never err.’ + +‘My dear sir,’ replied brother Charles, ‘you fall into the very common +mistake of charging upon Nature, matters with which she has not the +smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men +talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural +while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent’s care, +who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, +presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act +is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of +happiness, of consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the +only friend he has ever had--which is yourself. If Nature, in such a +case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompting which urged +him towards his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an +idiot.’ + +Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, +and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, +made no reply. + +‘The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at +every turn,’ said brother Charles. ‘Parents who never showed their love, +complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who +never showed their duty, complain of want of natural feeling in their +parents; law-makers who find both so miserable that their affections +have never had enough of life’s sun to develop them, are loud in their +moralisings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of +nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, +are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but like other beautiful +works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that +they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp +their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left +untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be +brought to consider this, and remembering natural obligations a little +more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.’ + +After this, brother Charles, who had talked himself into a great heat, +stopped to cool a little, and then continued: + +‘I dare say you are surprised, my dear sir, that I have listened to +your recital with so little astonishment. That is easily explained. Your +uncle has been here this morning.’ + +Nicholas coloured, and drew back a step or two. + +‘Yes,’ said the old gentleman, tapping his desk emphatically, ‘here, in +this room. He would listen neither to reason, feeling, nor justice. But +brother Ned was hard upon him; brother Ned, sir, might have melted a +paving-stone.’ + +‘He came to--’ said Nicholas. + +‘To complain of you,’ returned brother Charles, ‘to poison our ears with +calumnies and falsehoods; but he came on a fruitless errand, and went +away with some wholesome truths in his ear besides. Brother Ned, my dear +Mr. Nickleby--brother Ned, sir, is a perfect lion. So is Tim Linkinwater; +Tim is quite a lion. We had Tim in to face him at first, and Tim was at +him, sir, before you could say “Jack Robinson.”’ + +‘How can I ever thank you for all the deep obligations you impose upon +me every day?’ said Nicholas. + +‘By keeping silence upon the subject, my dear sir,’ returned brother +Charles. ‘You shall be righted. At least you shall not be wronged. +Nobody belonging to you shall be wronged. They shall not hurt a hair of +your head, or the boy’s head, or your mother’s head, or your sister’s +head. I have said it, brother Ned has said it, Tim Linkinwater has said +it. We have all said it, and we’ll all do it. I have seen the father--if +he is the father--and I suppose he must be. He is a barbarian and a +hypocrite, Mr. Nickleby. I told him, “You are a barbarian, sir.” I did. +I said, “You’re a barbarian, sir.” And I’m glad of it, I am VERY glad I +told him he was a barbarian, very glad indeed!’ + +By this time brother Charles was in such a very warm state of +indignation, that Nicholas thought he might venture to put in a word, +but the moment he essayed to do so, Mr. Cheeryble laid his hand softly +upon his arm, and pointed to a chair. + +‘The subject is at an end for the present,’ said the old gentleman, +wiping his face. ‘Don’t revive it by a single word. I am going to speak +upon another subject, a confidential subject, Mr. Nickleby. We must be +cool again, we must be cool.’ + +After two or three turns across the room he resumed his seat, and +drawing his chair nearer to that on which Nicholas was seated, said: + +‘I am about to employ you, my dear sir, on a confidential and delicate +mission.’ + +‘You might employ many a more able messenger, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘but +a more trustworthy or zealous one, I may be bold to say, you could not +find.’ + +‘Of that I am well assured,’ returned brother Charles, ‘well assured. +You will give me credit for thinking so, when I tell you that the object +of this mission is a young lady.’ + +‘A young lady, sir!’ cried Nicholas, quite trembling for the moment with +his eagerness to hear more. + +‘A very beautiful young lady,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, gravely. + +‘Pray go on, sir,’ returned Nicholas. + +‘I am thinking how to do so,’ said brother Charles; sadly, as it +seemed to his young friend, and with an expression allied to pain. ‘You +accidentally saw a young lady in this room one morning, my dear sir, in +a fainting fit. Do you remember? Perhaps you have forgotten.’ + +‘Oh no,’ replied Nicholas, hurriedly. ‘I--I--remember it very well +indeed.’ + +‘SHE is the lady I speak of,’ said brother Charles. Like the famous +parrot, Nicholas thought a great deal, but was unable to utter a word. + +‘She is the daughter,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, ‘of a lady who, when she was a +beautiful girl herself, and I was very many years younger, I--it seems +a strange word for me to utter now--I loved very dearly. You will smile, +perhaps, to hear a grey-headed man talk about such things. You will not +offend me, for when I was as young as you, I dare say I should have done +the same.’ + +‘I have no such inclination, indeed,’ said Nicholas. + +‘My dear brother Ned,’ continued Mr. Cheeryble, ‘was to have married her +sister, but she died. She is dead too now, and has been for many years. +She married her choice; and I wish I could add that her after-life was +as happy as God knows I ever prayed it might be!’ + +A short silence intervened, which Nicholas made no effort to break. + +‘If trial and calamity had fallen as lightly on his head, as in the +deepest truth of my own heart I ever hoped (for her sake) it would, his +life would have been one of peace and happiness,’ said the old gentleman +calmly. ‘It will be enough to say that this was not the case; that +she was not happy; that they fell into complicated distresses and +difficulties; that she came, twelve months before her death, to appeal +to my old friendship; sadly changed, sadly altered, broken-spirited from +suffering and ill-usage, and almost broken-hearted. He readily availed +himself of the money which, to give her but one hour’s peace of mind, +I would have poured out as freely as water--nay, he often sent her back +for more--and yet even while he squandered it, he made the very success +of these, her applications to me, the groundwork of cruel taunts and +jeers, protesting that he knew she thought with bitter remorse of the +choice she had made, that she had married him from motives of interest +and vanity (he was a gay young man with great friends about him when +she chose him for her husband), and venting in short upon her, by every +unjust and unkind means, the bitterness of that ruin and disappointment +which had been brought about by his profligacy alone. In those times +this young lady was a mere child. I never saw her again until that +morning when you saw her also, but my nephew, Frank--’ + +Nicholas started, and indistinctly apologising for the interruption, +begged his patron to proceed. + +‘--My nephew, Frank, I say,’ resumed Mr. Cheeryble, ‘encountered her by +accident, and lost sight of her almost in a minute afterwards, within +two days after he returned to England. Her father lay in some secret +place to avoid his creditors, reduced, between sickness and poverty, to +the verge of death, and she, a child,--we might almost think, if we did +not know the wisdom of all Heaven’s decrees--who should have blessed a +better man, was steadily braving privation, degradation, and everything +most terrible to such a young and delicate creature’s heart, for the +purpose of supporting him. She was attended, sir,’ said brother Charles, +‘in these reverses, by one faithful creature, who had been, in old +times, a poor kitchen wench in the family, who was then their solitary +servant, but who might have been, for the truth and fidelity of her +heart--who might have been--ah! the wife of Tim Linkinwater himself, +sir!’ + +Pursuing this encomium upon the poor follower with such energy and +relish as no words can describe, brother Charles leant back in his +chair, and delivered the remainder of his relation with greater +composure. + +It was in substance this: That proudly resisting all offers of permanent +aid and support from her late mother’s friends, because they were made +conditional upon her quitting the wretched man, her father, who had no +friends left, and shrinking with instinctive delicacy from appealing +in their behalf to that true and noble heart which he hated, and +had, through its greatest and purest goodness, deeply wronged by +misconstruction and ill report, this young girl had struggled alone and +unassisted to maintain him by the labour of her hands. That through the +utmost depths of poverty and affliction she had toiled, never turning +aside for an instant from her task, never wearied by the petulant gloom +of a sick man sustained by no consoling recollections of the past or +hopes of the future; never repining for the comforts she had rejected, +or bewailing the hard lot she had voluntarily incurred. That every +little accomplishment she had acquired in happier days had been put into +requisition for this purpose, and directed to this one end. That for +two long years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the +needle, the pencil, and the pen, and submitting, as a daily governess, +to such caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too often +love to inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such capacities, +as though in jealousy of the superior intelligence which they are +necessitated to employ,--indignities, in ninety-nine cases out of +every hundred, heaped upon persons immeasurably and incalculably their +betters, but outweighing in comparison any that the most heartless +blackleg would put upon his groom--that for two long years, by dint +of labouring in all these capacities and wearying in none, she had not +succeeded in the sole aim and object of her life, but that, overwhelmed +by accumulated difficulties and disappointments, she had been compelled +to seek out her mother’s old friend, and, with a bursting heart, to +confide in him at last. + +‘If I had been poor,’ said brother Charles, with sparkling eyes; ‘if +I had been poor, Mr. Nickleby, my dear sir, which thank God I am not, +I would have denied myself (of course anybody would under such +circumstances) the commonest necessaries of life, to help her. As it is, +the task is a difficult one. If her father were dead, nothing could +be easier, for then she should share and cheer the happiest home that +brother Ned and I could have, as if she were our child or sister. But +he is still alive. Nobody can help him; that has been tried a thousand +times; he was not abandoned by all without good cause, I know.’ + +‘Cannot she be persuaded to--’ Nicholas hesitated when he had got thus +far. + +‘To leave him?’ said brother Charles. ‘Who could entreat a child +to desert her parent? Such entreaties, limited to her seeing him +occasionally, have been urged upon her--not by me--but always with the +same result.’ + +‘Is he kind to her?’ said Nicholas. ‘Does he requite her affection?’ + +‘True kindness, considerate self-denying kindness, is not in his +nature,’ returned Mr. Cheeryble. ‘Such kindness as he knows, he regards +her with, I believe. The mother was a gentle, loving, confiding +creature, and although he wounded her from their marriage till her death +as cruelly and wantonly as ever man did, she never ceased to love him. +She commended him on her death-bed to her child’s care. Her child has +never forgotten it, and never will.’ + +‘Have you no influence over him?’ asked Nicholas. + +‘I, my dear sir! The last man in the world. Such are his jealousy and +hatred of me, that if he knew his daughter had opened her heart to me, +he would render her life miserable with his reproaches; although--this +is the inconsistency and selfishness of his character--although if he +knew that every penny she had came from me, he would not relinquish one +personal desire that the most reckless expenditure of her scanty stock +could gratify.’ + +‘An unnatural scoundrel!’ said Nicholas, indignantly. + +‘We will use no harsh terms,’ said brother Charles, in a gentle voice; +‘but accommodate ourselves to the circumstances in which this young lady +is placed. Such assistance as I have prevailed upon her to accept, +I have been obliged, at her own earnest request, to dole out in the +smallest portions, lest he, finding how easily money was procured, +should squander it even more lightly than he is accustomed to do. She +has come to and fro, to and fro, secretly and by night, to take even +this; and I cannot bear that things should go on in this way, Mr +Nickleby, I really cannot bear it.’ + +Then it came out by little and little, how that the twins had been +revolving in their good old heads manifold plans and schemes for helping +this young lady in the most delicate and considerate way, and so that +her father should not suspect the source whence the aid was derived; and +how they had at last come to the conclusion, that the best course would +be to make a feint of purchasing her little drawings and ornamental work +at a high price, and keeping up a constant demand for the same. For +the furtherance of which end and object it was necessary that somebody +should represent the dealer in such commodities, and after great +deliberation they had pitched upon Nicholas to support this character. + +‘He knows me,’ said brother Charles, ‘and he knows my brother Ned. +Neither of us would do. Frank is a very good fellow--a very fine +fellow--but we are afraid that he might be a little flighty and +thoughtless in such a delicate matter, and that he might, perhaps--that +he might, in short, be too susceptible (for she is a beautiful creature, +sir; just what her poor mother was), and falling in love with her before +he knew well his own mind, carry pain and sorrow into that innocent +breast, which we would be the humble instruments of gradually making +happy. He took an extraordinary interest in her fortunes when he first +happened to encounter her; and we gather from the inquiries we have made +of him, that it was she in whose behalf he made that turmoil which led +to your first acquaintance.’ + +Nicholas stammered out that he had before suspected the possibility +of such a thing; and in explanation of its having occurred to him, +described when and where he had seen the young lady himself. + +‘Well; then you see,’ continued brother Charles, ‘that HE wouldn’t +do. Tim Linkinwater is out of the question; for Tim, sir, is such a +tremendous fellow, that he could never contain himself, but would go +to loggerheads with the father before he had been in the place five +minutes. You don’t know what Tim is, sir, when he is aroused by anything +that appeals to his feelings very strongly; then he is terrific, sir, +is Tim Linkinwater, absolutely terrific. Now, in you we can repose the +strictest confidence; in you we have seen--or at least I have seen, +and that’s the same thing, for there’s no difference between me and my +brother Ned, except that he is the finest creature that ever lived, +and that there is not, and never will be, anybody like him in all the +world--in you we have seen domestic virtues and affections, and delicacy +of feeling, which exactly qualify you for such an office. And you are +the man, sir.’ + +‘The young lady, sir,’ said Nicholas, who felt so embarrassed that he +had no small difficulty in saying anything at all--‘Does--is--is she a +party to this innocent deceit?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ returned Mr. Cheeryble; ‘at least she knows you come from us; +she does NOT know, however, but that we shall dispose of these little +productions that you’ll purchase from time to time; and, perhaps, if +you did it very well (that is, VERY well indeed), perhaps she might be +brought to believe that we--that we made a profit of them. Eh? Eh?’ + +In this guileless and most kind simplicity, brother Charles was so +happy, and in this possibility of the young lady being led to think that +she was under no obligation to him, he evidently felt so sanguine and +had so much delight, that Nicholas would not breathe a doubt upon the +subject. + +All this time, however, there hovered upon the tip of his tongue a +confession that the very same objections which Mr. Cheeryble had stated +to the employment of his nephew in this commission applied with at least +equal force and validity to himself, and a hundred times had he been +upon the point of avowing the real state of his feelings, and entreating +to be released from it. But as often, treading upon the heels of this +impulse, came another which urged him to refrain, and to keep his secret +to his own breast. ‘Why should I,’ thought Nicholas, ‘why should I throw +difficulties in the way of this benevolent and high-minded design? What +if I do love and reverence this good and lovely creature. Should I not +appear a most arrogant and shallow coxcomb if I gravely represented that +there was any danger of her falling in love with me? Besides, have I +no confidence in myself? Am I not now bound in honour to repress these +thoughts? Has not this excellent man a right to my best and heartiest +services, and should any considerations of self deter me from rendering +them?’ + +Asking himself such questions as these, Nicholas mentally answered +with great emphasis ‘No!’ and persuading himself that he was a most +conscientious and glorious martyr, nobly resolved to do what, if he had +examined his own heart a little more carefully, he would have found he +could not resist. Such is the sleight of hand by which we juggle +with ourselves, and change our very weaknesses into stanch and most +magnanimous virtues! + +Mr. Cheeryble, being of course wholly unsuspicious that such reflections +were presenting themselves to his young friend, proceeded to give him +the needful credentials and directions for his first visit, which was +to be made next morning; and all preliminaries being arranged, and the +strictest secrecy enjoined, Nicholas walked home for the night very +thoughtfully indeed. + +The place to which Mr. Cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean and +not over-cleanly houses, situated within ‘the Rules’ of the King’s +Bench Prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the obelisk in St +George’s Fields. The Rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, +and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money +to pay large fees, from which their creditors do NOT derive any benefit, +are permitted to reside by the wise provisions of the same enlightened +laws which leave the debtor who can raise no money to starve in jail, +without the food, clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided +for felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes that can disgrace +humanity. There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant +operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as +that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial +eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, +without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets. + +To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr. Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas +directed his steps, without much troubling his head with such matters +as these; and at this row of houses--after traversing a very dirty +and dusty suburb, of which minor theatricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, +spring vans, greengrocery, and brokers’ shops, appeared to compose +the main and most prominent features--he at length arrived with a +palpitating heart. There were small gardens in front which, being wholly +neglected in all other respects, served as little pens for the dust to +collect in, until the wind came round the corner and blew it down the +road. Opening the rickety gate which, dangling on its broken hinges +before one of these, half admitted and half repulsed the visitor, +Nicholas knocked at the street door with a faltering hand. + +It was in truth a shabby house outside, with very dim parlour windows +and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtains dangling +across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings. Neither, when the +door was opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward promise, +as there was faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the +passage; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking +hard in the front parlour (though it was not yet noon), while the lady +of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments +of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlour, as if in preparation +for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to +engage it. + +Nicholas had ample time to make these observations while the little boy, +who went on errands for the lodgers, clattered down the kitchen stairs +and was heard to scream, as in some remote cellar, for Miss Bray’s +servant, who, presently appearing and requesting him to follow her, +caused him to evince greater symptoms of nervousness and disorder than +so natural a consequence of his having inquired for that young lady +would seem calculated to occasion. + +Upstairs he went, however, and into a front room he was shown, and +there, seated at a little table by the window, on which were drawing +materials with which she was occupied, sat the beautiful girl who had +so engrossed his thoughts, and who, surrounded by all the new and strong +interest which Nicholas attached to her story, seemed now, in his eyes, +a thousand times more beautiful than he had ever yet supposed her. + +But how the graces and elegancies which she had dispersed about the +poorly-furnished room went to the heart of Nicholas! Flowers, plants, +birds, the harp, the old piano whose notes had sounded so much sweeter +in bygone times; how many struggles had it cost her to keep these two +last links of that broken chain which bound her yet to home! With every +slender ornament, the occupation of her leisure hours, replete with that +graceful charm which lingers in every little tasteful work of woman’s +hands, how much patient endurance and how many gentle affections were +entwined! He felt as though the smile of Heaven were on the little +chamber; as though the beautiful devotion of so young and weak a +creature had shed a ray of its own on the inanimate things around, +and made them beautiful as itself; as though the halo with which old +painters surround the bright angels of a sinless world played about a +being akin in spirit to them, and its light were visibly before him. + +And yet Nicholas was in the Rules of the King’s Bench Prison! If he +had been in Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, and the scene +a stately terrace! But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and +whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it; so, perhaps, he +had no need of compunction for thinking as he did. + +It is not to be supposed that he took in everything at one glance, for +he had as yet been unconscious of the presence of a sick man propped up +with pillows in an easy-chair, who, moving restlessly and impatiently in +his seat, attracted his attention. + +He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so emaciated as to appear much older. +His features presented the remains of a handsome countenance, but one +in which the embers of strong and impetuous passions were easier to be +traced than any expression which would have rendered a far plainer face +much more prepossessing. His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and +body literally worn to the bone, but there was something of the old fire +in the large sunken eye notwithstanding, and it seemed to kindle afresh +as he struck a thick stick, with which he seemed to have supported +himself in his seat, impatiently on the floor twice or thrice, and +called his daughter by her name. + +‘Madeline, who is this? What does anybody want here? Who told a stranger +we could be seen? What is it?’ + +‘I believe--’ the young lady began, as she inclined her head with an air +of some confusion, in reply to the salutation of Nicholas. + +‘You always believe,’ returned her father, petulantly. ‘What is it?’ + +By this time Nicholas had recovered sufficient presence of mind to speak +for himself, so he said (as it had been agreed he should say) that he +had called about a pair of hand-screens, and some painted velvet for an +ottoman, both of which were required to be of the most elegant design +possible, neither time nor expense being of the smallest consideration. +He had also to pay for the two drawings, with many thanks, and, +advancing to the little table, he laid upon it a bank note, folded in an +envelope and sealed. + +‘See that the money is right, Madeline,’ said the father. ‘Open the +paper, my dear.’ + +‘It’s quite right, papa, I’m sure.’ + +‘Here!’ said Mr. Bray, putting out his hand, and opening and shutting +his bony fingers with irritable impatience. ‘Let me see. What are you +talking about, Madeline? You’re sure? How can you be sure of any such +thing? Five pounds--well, is THAT right?’ + +‘Quite,’ said Madeline, bending over him. She was so busily employed in +arranging the pillows that Nicholas could not see her face, but as she +stooped he thought he saw a tear fall. + +‘Ring the bell, ring the bell,’ said the sick man, with the same nervous +eagerness, and motioning towards it with such a quivering hand that the +bank note rustled in the air. ‘Tell her to get it changed, to get me a +newspaper, to buy me some grapes, another bottle of the wine that I had +last week--and--and--I forget half I want just now, but she can go out +again. Let her get those first, those first. Now, Madeline, my love, +quick, quick! Good God, how slow you are!’ + +‘He remembers nothing that SHE wants!’ thought Nicholas. Perhaps +something of what he thought was expressed in his countenance, for the +sick man, turning towards him with great asperity, demanded to know if +he waited for a receipt. + +‘It is no matter at all,’ said Nicholas. + +‘No matter! what do you mean, sir?’ was the tart rejoinder. ‘No matter! +Do you think you bring your paltry money here as a favour or a gift; +or as a matter of business, and in return for value received? D--n you, +sir, because you can’t appreciate the time and taste which are bestowed +upon the goods you deal in, do you think you give your money away? Do +you know that you are talking to a gentleman, sir, who at one time +could have bought up fifty such men as you and all you have? What do you +mean?’ + +‘I merely mean that as I shall have many dealings with this lady, if +she will kindly allow me, I will not trouble her with such forms,’ said +Nicholas. + +‘Then I mean, if you please, that we’ll have as many forms as we can, +returned the father. ‘My daughter, sir, requires no kindness from you +or anybody else. Have the goodness to confine your dealings strictly to +trade and business, and not to travel beyond it. Every petty tradesman +is to begin to pity her now, is he? Upon my soul! Very pretty. Madeline, +my dear, give him a receipt; and mind you always do so.’ + +While she was feigning to write it, and Nicholas was ruminating upon the +extraordinary but by no means uncommon character thus presented to his +observation, the invalid, who appeared at times to suffer great bodily +pain, sank back in his chair and moaned out a feeble complaint that the +girl had been gone an hour, and that everybody conspired to goad him. + +‘When,’ said Nicholas, as he took the piece of paper, ‘when shall I call +again?’ + +This was addressed to the daughter, but the father answered immediately. + +‘When you’re requested to call, sir, and not before. Don’t worry and +persecute. Madeline, my dear, when is this person to call again?’ + +‘Oh, not for a long time, not for three or four weeks; it is not +necessary, indeed; I can do without,’ said the young lady, with great +eagerness. + +‘Why, how are we to do without?’ urged her father, not speaking above +his breath. ‘Three or four weeks, Madeline! Three or four weeks!’ + +‘Then sooner, sooner, if you please,’ said the young lady, turning to +Nicholas. + +‘Three or four weeks!’ muttered the father. ‘Madeline, what on earth--do +nothing for three or four weeks!’ + +‘It is a long time, ma’am,’ said Nicholas. + +‘YOU think so, do you?’ retorted the father, angrily. ‘If I chose to +beg, sir, and stoop to ask assistance from people I despise, three or +four months would not be a long time; three or four years would not be a +long time. Understand, sir, that is if I chose to be dependent; but as I +don’t, you may call in a week.’ + +Nicholas bowed low to the young lady and retired, pondering upon Mr +Bray’s ideas of independence, and devoutly hoping that there might +be few such independent spirits as he mingling with the baser clay of +humanity. + +He heard a light footstep above him as he descended the stairs, and +looking round saw that the young lady was standing there, and glancing +timidly towards him, seemed to hesitate whether she should call him back +or no. The best way of settling the question was to turn back at once, +which Nicholas did. + +‘I don’t know whether I do right in asking you, sir,’ said Madeline, +hurriedly, ‘but pray, pray, do not mention to my poor mother’s dear +friends what has passed here today. He has suffered much, and is worse +this morning. I beg you, sir, as a boon, a favour to myself.’ + +‘You have but to hint a wish,’ returned Nicholas fervently, ‘and I would +hazard my life to gratify it.’ + +‘You speak hastily, sir.’ + +‘Truly and sincerely,’ rejoined Nicholas, his lips trembling as he +formed the words, ‘if ever man spoke truly yet. I am not skilled in +disguising my feelings, and if I were, I could not hide my heart from +you. Dear madam, as I know your history, and feel as men and angels must +who hear and see such things, I do entreat you to believe that I would +die to serve you.’ + +The young lady turned away her head, and was plainly weeping. + +‘Forgive me,’ said Nicholas, with respectful earnestness, ‘if I seem to +say too much, or to presume upon the confidence which has been intrusted +to me. But I could not leave you as if my interest and sympathy expired +with the commission of the day. I am your faithful servant, humbly +devoted to you from this hour, devoted in strict truth and honour to him +who sent me here, and in pure integrity of heart, and distant respect +for you. If I meant more or less than this, I should be unworthy his +regard, and false to the very nature that prompts the honest words I +utter.’ + +She waved her hand, entreating him to be gone, but answered not a word. +Nicholas could say no more, and silently withdrew. And thus ended his +first interview with Madeline Bray. + + + +CHAPTER 47 + +Mr. Ralph Nickleby has some confidential Intercourse with another old +Friend. They concert between them a Project, which promises well for +both + + +‘There go the three-quarters past!’ muttered Newman Noggs, listening +to the chimes of some neighbouring church ‘and my dinner time’s two. He +does it on purpose. He makes a point of it. It’s just like him.’ + +It was in his own little den of an office and on the top of his official +stool that Newman thus soliloquised; and the soliloquy referred, as +Newman’s grumbling soliloquies usually did, to Ralph Nickleby. + +‘I don’t believe he ever had an appetite,’ said Newman, ‘except for +pounds, shillings, and pence, and with them he’s as greedy as a wolf. I +should like to have him compelled to swallow one of every English coin. +The penny would be an awkward morsel--but the crown--ha! ha!’ + +His good-humour being in some degree restored by the vision of Ralph +Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five-shilling piece, Newman slowly +brought forth from his desk one of those portable bottles, currently +known as pocket-pistols, and shaking the same close to his ear so as to +produce a rippling sound very cool and pleasant to listen to, suffered +his features to relax, and took a gurgling drink, which relaxed them +still more. Replacing the cork, he smacked his lips twice or thrice with +an air of great relish, and, the taste of the liquor having by this time +evaporated, recurred to his grievance again. + +‘Five minutes to three,’ growled Newman; ‘it can’t want more by this +time; and I had my breakfast at eight o’clock, and SUCH a breakfast! +and my right dinner-time two! And I might have a nice little bit of hot +roast meat spoiling at home all this time--how does HE know I haven’t? +“Don’t go till I come back,” “Don’t go till I come back,” day after day. +What do you always go out at my dinner-time for then--eh? Don’t you know +it’s nothing but aggravation--eh?’ + +These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were addressed to +nothing but empty air. The recital of his wrongs, however, seemed to +have the effect of making Newman Noggs desperate; for he flattened his +old hat upon his head, and drawing on the everlasting gloves, declared +with great vehemence, that come what might, he would go to dinner that +very minute. + +Carrying this resolution into instant effect, he had advanced as far as +the passage, when the sound of the latch-key in the street door caused +him to make a precipitate retreat into his own office again. + +‘Here he is,’ growled Newman, ‘and somebody with him. Now it’ll be “Stop +till this gentleman’s gone.” But I won’t. That’s flat.’ + +So saying, Newman slipped into a tall empty closet which opened with two +half doors, and shut himself up; intending to slip out directly Ralph +was safe inside his own room. + +‘Noggs!’ cried Ralph, ‘where is that fellow, Noggs?’ + +But not a word said Newman. + +‘The dog has gone to his dinner, though I told him not,’ muttered Ralph, +looking into the office, and pulling out his watch. ‘Humph!’ You had +better come in here, Gride. My man’s out, and the sun is hot upon my +room. This is cool and in the shade, if you don’t mind roughing it.’ + +‘Not at all, Mr. Nickleby, oh not at all! All places are alike to me, +sir. Ah! very nice indeed. Oh! very nice!’ + +The parson who made this reply was a little old man, of about seventy or +seventy-five years of age, of a very lean figure, much bent and slightly +twisted. He wore a grey coat with a very narrow collar, an old-fashioned +waistcoat of ribbed black silk, and such scanty trousers as displayed +his shrunken spindle-shanks in their full ugliness. The only articles of +display or ornament in his dress were a steel watch-chain to which +were attached some large gold seals; and a black ribbon into which, in +compliance with an old fashion scarcely ever observed in these days, +his grey hair was gathered behind. His nose and chin were sharp and +prominent, his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, his face +was shrivelled and yellow, save where the cheeks were streaked with +the colour of a dry winter apple; and where his beard had been, there +lingered yet a few grey tufts which seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to +denote the badness of the soil from which they sprung. The whole air and +attitude of the form was one of stealthy cat-like obsequiousness; +the whole expression of the face was concentrated in a wrinkled leer, +compounded of cunning, lecherousness, slyness, and avarice. + +Such was old Arthur Gride, in whose face there was not a wrinkle, in +whose dress there was not one spare fold or plait, but expressed +the most covetous and griping penury, and sufficiently indicated his +belonging to that class of which Ralph Nickleby was a member. Such was +old Arthur Gride, as he sat in a low chair looking up into the face of +Ralph Nickleby, who, lounging upon the tall office stool, with his arms +upon his knees, looked down into his; a match for him on whatever errand +he had come. + +‘And how have you been?’ said Gride, feigning great interest in Ralph’s +state of health. ‘I haven’t seen you for--oh! not for--’ + +‘Not for a long time,’ said Ralph, with a peculiar smile, importing +that he very well knew it was not on a mere visit of compliment that his +friend had come. ‘It was a narrow chance that you saw me now, for I had +only just come up to the door as you turned the corner.’ + +‘I am very lucky,’ observed Gride. + +‘So men say,’ replied Ralph, drily. + +The older money-lender wagged his chin and smiled, but he originated no +new remark, and they sat for some little time without speaking. Each was +looking out to take the other at a disadvantage. + +‘Come, Gride,’ said Ralph, at length; ‘what’s in the wind today?’ + +‘Aha! you’re a bold man, Mr. Nickleby,’ cried the other, apparently very +much relieved by Ralph’s leading the way to business. ‘Oh dear, dear, +what a bold man you are!’ + +‘Why, you have a sleek and slinking way with you that makes me seem so +by contrast,’ returned Ralph. ‘I don’t know but that yours may answer +better, but I want the patience for it.’ + +‘You were born a genius, Mr. Nickleby,’ said old Arthur. ‘Deep, deep, +deep. Ah!’ + +‘Deep enough,’ retorted Ralph, ‘to know that I shall need all the depth +I have, when men like you begin to compliment. You know I have stood by +when you fawned and flattered other people, and I remember pretty well +what THAT always led to.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. ‘So you do, so you do, +no doubt. Not a man knows it better. Well, it’s a pleasant thing now to +think that you remember old times. Oh dear!’ + +‘Now then,’ said Ralph, composedly; ‘what’s in the wind, I ask again? +What is it?’ + +‘See that now!’ cried the other. ‘He can’t even keep from business while +we’re chatting over bygones. Oh dear, dear, what a man it is!’ + +‘WHICH of the bygones do you want to revive?’ said Ralph. ‘One of them, +I know, or you wouldn’t talk about them.’ + +‘He suspects even me!’ cried old Arthur, holding up his hands. ‘Even +me! Oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What a man it is! Mr +Nickleby against all the world. There’s nobody like him. A giant among +pigmies, a giant, a giant!’ + +Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this +strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as +the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter. + +‘I must humour him though,’ cried old Arthur; ‘he must have his way--a +wilful man, as the Scotch say--well, well, they’re a wise people, the +Scotch. He will talk about business, and won’t give away his time for +nothing. He’s very right. Time is money, time is money.’ + +‘He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,’ said Ralph. +‘Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by +it. Time IS money! Yes, and time costs money; it’s rather an expensive +article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.’ + +In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again +chuckled, and again ejaculated ‘What a man it is!’ which done, he +dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph’s high stool, and looking +upwards into his immovable face, said, + +‘What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was--that I +was--going to be married?’ + +‘I should tell you,’ replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, ‘that +for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn’t the +first time and wouldn’t be the last; that I wasn’t surprised and wasn’t +to be taken in.’ + +‘Then I tell you seriously that I am,’ said old Arthur. + +‘And I tell you seriously,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘what I told you this +minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There’s a liquorish devilry in your +face. What is this?’ + +‘I wouldn’t deceive YOU, you know,’ whined Arthur Gride; ‘I couldn’t do +it, I should be mad to try. I, I, to deceive Mr. Nickleby! The pigmy to +impose upon the giant. I ask again--he, he, he!--what should you say to +me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?’ + +‘To some old hag?’ said Ralph. + +‘No, No,’ cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an +ecstasy. ‘Wrong, wrong again. Mr. Nickleby for once at fault; out, quite +out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not +nineteen. Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe and ruddy lips that to look at +is to long to kiss, beautiful clustering hair that one’s fingers itch to +play with, such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily, +thinking of twining his arm about it, little feet that tread so lightly +they hardly seem to walk upon the ground--to marry all this, sir, +this--hey, hey!’ + +‘This is something more than common drivelling,’ said Ralph, after +listening with a curled lip to the old sinner’s raptures. ‘The girl’s +name?’ + +‘Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!’ exclaimed old Arthur. ‘He +knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all +turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name--is there +nobody within hearing?’ + +‘Why, who the devil should there be?’ retorted Ralph, testily. + +‘I didn’t know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the +stairs,’ said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully +reclosing it; ‘or but that your man might have come back and might have +been listening outside. Clerks and servants have a trick of listening, +and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr. Noggs--’ + +‘Curse Mr. Noggs,’ said Ralph, sharply, ‘and go on with what you have to +say.’ + +‘Curse Mr. Noggs, by all means,’ rejoined old Arthur; ‘I am sure I have +not the least objection to that. Her name is--’ + +‘Well,’ said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur’s pausing +again ‘what is it?’ + +‘Madeline Bray.’ + +Whatever reasons there might have been--and Arthur Gride appeared to +have anticipated some--for the mention of this name producing an effect +upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon him, he +permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the name several +times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it before. + +‘Bray,’ said Ralph. ‘Bray--there was young Bray of--no, he never had a +daughter.’ + +‘You remember Bray?’ rejoined Arthur Gride. + +‘No,’ said Ralph, looking vacantly at him. + +‘Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill?’ + +‘If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection +by such a trait as that,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I shall +confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever known.’ + +‘Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,’ said old +Arthur. ‘You can’t have forgotten Bray. Both of us did business with +him. Why, he owes you money!’ + +‘Oh HIM!’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It’s HIS daughter, +is it?’ + +Naturally as this was said, it was not said so naturally but that a +kindred spirit like old Arthur Gride might have discerned a design upon +the part of Ralph to lead him on to much more explicit statements and +explanations than he would have volunteered, or that Ralph could in all +likelihood have obtained by any other means. Old Arthur, however, was so +intent upon his own designs, that he suffered himself to be overreached, +and had no suspicion but that his good friend was in earnest. + +‘I knew you couldn’t forget him, when you came to think for a moment,’ +he said. + +‘You were right,’ answered Ralph. ‘But old Arthur Gride and matrimony +is a most anomalous conjunction of words; old Arthur Gride and dark +eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to look at is to long to kiss, and +clustering hair that he wants to play with, and waists that he wants to +span, and little feet that don’t tread upon anything--old Arthur Gride +and such things as these is more monstrous still; but old Arthur Gride +marrying the daughter of a ruined “dashing man” in the Rules of the +Bench, is the most monstrous and incredible of all. Plainly, friend +Arthur Gride, if you want any help from me in this business (which of +course you do, or you would not be here), speak out, and to the purpose. +And, above all, don’t talk to me of its turning to my advantage, for I +know it must turn to yours also, and to a good round tune too, or you +would have no finger in such a pie as this.’ + +There was enough acerbity and sarcasm not only in the matter of Ralph’s +speech, but in the tone of voice in which he uttered it, and the looks +with which he eked it out, to have fired even the ancient usurer’s +cold blood and flushed even his withered cheek. But he gave vent to no +demonstration of anger, contenting himself with exclaiming as before, +‘What a man it is!’ and rolling his head from side to side, as if in +unrestrained enjoyment of his freedom and drollery. Clearly observing, +however, from the expression in Ralph’s features, that he had best +come to the point as speedily as might be, he composed himself for +more serious business, and entered upon the pith and marrow of his +negotiation. + +First, he dwelt upon the fact that Madeline Bray was devoted to the +support and maintenance, and was a slave to every wish, of her only +parent, who had no other friend on earth; to which Ralph rejoined that +he had heard something of the kind before, and that if she had known a +little more of the world, she wouldn’t have been such a fool. + +Secondly, he enlarged upon the character of her father, arguing, that +even taking it for granted that he loved her in return with the utmost +affection of which he was capable, yet he loved himself a great deal +better; which Ralph said it was quite unnecessary to say anything more +about, as that was very natural, and probable enough. + +And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a delicate and +beautiful creature, and that he had really a hankering to have her for +his wife. To this Ralph deigned no other rejoinder than a harsh smile, +and a glance at the shrivelled old creature before him, which were, +however, sufficiently expressive. + +‘Now,’ said Gride, ‘for the little plan I have in my mind to bring +this about; because, I haven’t offered myself even to the father yet, I +should have told you. But that you have gathered already? Ah! oh dear, +oh dear, what an edged tool you are!’ + +‘Don’t play with me then,’ said Ralph impatiently. ‘You know the +proverb.’ + +‘A reply always on the tip of his tongue!’ cried old Arthur, raising his +hands and eyes in admiration. ‘He is always prepared! Oh dear, what a +blessing to have such a ready wit, and so much ready money to back it!’ +Then, suddenly changing his tone, he went on: ‘I have been backwards and +forwards to Bray’s lodgings several times within the last six months. +It is just half a year since I first saw this delicate morsel, and, oh +dear, what a delicate morsel it is! But that is neither here nor there. +I am his detaining creditor for seventeen hundred pounds!’ + +‘You talk as if you were the only detaining creditor,’ said Ralph, +pulling out his pocket-book. ‘I am another for nine hundred and +seventy-five pounds four and threepence.’ + +‘The only other, Mr. Nickleby,’ said old Arthur, eagerly. ‘The only +other. Nobody else went to the expense of lodging a detainer, trusting +to our holding him fast enough, I warrant you. We both fell into the +same snare; oh dear, what a pitfall it was; it almost ruined me! And +lent him our money upon bills, with only one name besides his own, which +to be sure everybody supposed to be a good one, and was as negotiable +as money, but which turned out you know how. Just as we should have come +upon him, he died insolvent. Ah! it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss +did!’ + +‘Go on with your scheme,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s of no use raising the cry of +our trade just now; there’s nobody to hear us!’ + +‘It’s always as well to talk that way,’ returned old Arthur, with a +chuckle, ‘whether there’s anybody to hear us or not. Practice makes +perfect, you know. Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son-in-law, +upon one simple condition that the moment I am fast married he shall be +quietly released, and have an allowance to live just t’other side the +water like a gentleman (he can’t live long, for I have asked his +doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one of the Heart and it +is impossible), and if all the advantages of this condition are properly +stated and dwelt upon to him, do you think he could resist me? And if +he could not resist ME, do you think his daughter could resist HIM? +Shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride--pretty Mrs. Arthur Gride--a +tit-bit--a dainty chick--shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride in a +week, a month, a day--any time I chose to name?’ + +‘Go on,’ said Ralph, nodding his head deliberately, and speaking in +a tone whose studied coldness presented a strange contrast to the +rapturous squeak to which his friend had gradually mounted. ‘Go on. You +didn’t come here to ask me that.’ + +‘Oh dear, how you talk!’ cried old Arthur, edging himself closer still +to Ralph. ‘Of course I didn’t, I don’t pretend I did! I came to ask what +you would take from me, if I prospered with the father, for this debt of +yours. Five shillings in the pound, six and-eightpence, ten shillings? I +WOULD go as far as ten for such a friend as you, we have always been on +such good terms, but you won’t be so hard upon me as that, I know. Now, +will you?’ + +‘There’s something more to be told,’ said Ralph, as stony and immovable +as ever. + +‘Yes, yes, there is, but you won’t give me time,’ returned Arthur Gride. +‘I want a backer in this matter; one who can talk, and urge, and press a +point, which you can do as no man can. I can’t do that, for I am a poor, +timid, nervous creature. Now, if you get a good composition for this +debt, which you long ago gave up for lost, you’ll stand my friend, and +help me. Won’t you?’ + +‘There’s something more,’ said Ralph. + +‘No, no, indeed,’ cried Arthur Gride. + +‘Yes, yes, indeed. I tell you yes,’ said Ralph. + +‘Oh!’ returned old Arthur feigning to be suddenly enlightened. ‘You mean +something more, as concerns myself and my intention. Ay, surely, surely. +Shall I mention that?’ + +‘I think you had better,’ rejoined Ralph, drily. + +‘I didn’t like to trouble you with that, because I supposed your +interest would cease with your own concern in the affair,’ said Arthur +Gride. ‘That’s kind of you to ask. Oh dear, how very kind of you! Why, +supposing I had a knowledge of some property--some little property--very +little--to which this pretty chick was entitled; which nobody does or +can know of at this time, but which her husband could sweep into his +pouch, if he knew as much as I do, would that account for--’ + +‘For the whole proceeding,’ rejoined Ralph, abruptly. ‘Now, let me turn +this matter over, and consider what I ought to have if I should help you +to success.’ + +‘But don’t be hard,’ cried old Arthur, raising his hands with an +imploring gesture, and speaking, in a tremulous voice. ‘Don’t be too +hard upon me. It’s a very small property, it is indeed. Say the ten +shillings, and we’ll close the bargain. It’s more than I ought to give, +but you’re so kind--shall we say the ten? Do now, do.’ + +Ralph took no notice of these supplications, but sat for three or four +minutes in a brown study, looking thoughtfully at the person from whom +they proceeded. After sufficient cogitation he broke silence, and +it certainly could not be objected that he used any needless +circumlocution, or failed to speak directly to the purpose. + +‘If you married this girl without me,’ said Ralph, ‘you must pay my debt +in full, because you couldn’t set her father free otherwise. It’s plain, +then, that I must have the whole amount, clear of all deduction or +incumbrance, or I should lose from being honoured with your confidence, +instead of gaining by it. That’s the first article of the treaty. For +the second, I shall stipulate that for my trouble in negotiation and +persuasion, and helping you to this fortune, I have five hundred pounds. +That’s very little, because you have the ripe lips, and the clustering +hair, and what not, all to yourself. For the third and last article, I +require that you execute a bond to me, this day, binding yourself in the +payment of these two sums, before noon of the day of your marriage with +Madeline Bray. You have told me I can urge and press a point. I press +this one, and will take nothing less than these terms. Accept them if +you like. If not, marry her without me if you can. I shall still get my +debt.’ + +To all entreaties, protestations, and offers of compromise between his +own proposals and those which Arthur Gride had first suggested, Ralph +was deaf as an adder. He would enter into no further discussion of the +subject, and while old Arthur dilated upon the enormity of his demands +and proposed modifications of them, approaching by degrees nearer and +nearer to the terms he resisted, sat perfectly mute, looking with an +air of quiet abstraction over the entries and papers in his pocket-book. +Finding that it was impossible to make any impression upon his staunch +friend, Arthur Gride, who had prepared himself for some such result +before he came, consented with a heavy heart to the proposed treaty, and +upon the spot filled up the bond required (Ralph kept such instruments +handy), after exacting the condition that Mr. Nickleby should accompany +him to Bray’s lodgings that very hour, and open the negotiation at once, +should circumstances appear auspicious and favourable to their designs. + +In pursuance of this last understanding the worthy gentlemen went out +together shortly afterwards, and Newman Noggs emerged, bottle in hand, +from the cupboard, out of the upper door of which, at the imminent risk +of detection, he had more than once thrust his red nose when such parts +of the subject were under discussion as interested him most. + +‘I have no appetite now,’ said Newman, putting the flask in his pocket. +‘I’ve had MY dinner.’ + +Having delivered this observation in a very grievous and doleful +tone, Newman reached the door in one long limp, and came back again in +another. + +‘I don’t know who she may be, or what she may be,’ he said: ‘but I pity +her with all my heart and soul; and I can’t help her, nor can I any of +the people against whom a hundred tricks, but none so vile as this, are +plotted every day! Well, that adds to my pain, but not to theirs. The +thing is no worse because I know it, and it tortures me as well as +them. Gride and Nickleby! Good pair for a curricle. Oh roguery! roguery! +roguery!’ + +With these reflections, and a very hard knock on the crown of his +unfortunate hat at each repetition of the last word, Newman Noggs, +whose brain was a little muddled by so much of the contents of +the pocket-pistol as had found their way there during his recent +concealment, went forth to seek such consolation as might be derivable +from the beef and greens of some cheap eating-house. + +Meanwhile the two plotters had betaken themselves to the same house +whither Nicholas had repaired for the first time but a few mornings +before, and having obtained access to Mr. Bray, and found his daughter +from home, had by a train of the most masterly approaches that Ralph’s +utmost skill could frame, at length laid open the real object of their +visit. + +‘There he sits, Mr. Bray,’ said Ralph, as the invalid, not yet recovered +from his surprise, reclined in his chair, looking alternately at him +and Arthur Gride. ‘What if he has had the ill-fortune to be one cause +of your detention in this place? I have been another; men must live; you +are too much a man of the world not to see that in its true light. We +offer the best reparation in our power. Reparation! Here is an offer +of marriage, that many a titled father would leap at, for his child. Mr +Arthur Gride, with the fortune of a prince. Think what a haul it is!’ + +‘My daughter, sir,’ returned Bray, haughtily, ‘as I have brought her +up, would be a rich recompense for the largest fortune that a man could +bestow in exchange for her hand.’ + +‘Precisely what I told you,’ said the artful Ralph, turning to his +friend, old Arthur. ‘Precisely what made me consider the thing so fair +and easy. There is no obligation on either side. You have money, and +Miss Madeline has beauty and worth. She has youth, you have money. +She has not money, you have not youth. Tit for tat, quits, a match of +Heaven’s own making!’ + +‘Matches are made in Heaven, they say,’ added Arthur Gride, leering +hideously at the father-in-law he wanted. ‘If we are married, it will be +destiny, according to that.’ + +‘Then think, Mr. Bray,’ said Ralph, hastily substituting for this +argument considerations more nearly allied to earth, ‘think what a stake +is involved in the acceptance or rejection of these proposals of my +friend.’ + +‘How can I accept or reject,’ interrupted Mr. Bray, with an irritable +consciousness that it really rested with him to decide. ‘It is for my +daughter to accept or reject; it is for my daughter. You know that.’ + +‘True,’ said Ralph, emphatically; ‘but you have still the power to +advise; to state the reasons for and against; to hint a wish.’ + +‘To hint a wish, sir!’ returned the debtor, proud and mean by turns, and +selfish at all times. ‘I am her father, am I not? Why should I hint, and +beat about the bush? Do you suppose, like her mother’s friends and my +enemies--a curse upon them all!--that there is anything in what she has +done for me but duty, sir, but duty? Or do you think that my having been +unfortunate is a sufficient reason why our relative positions should +be changed, and that she should command and I should obey? Hint a wish, +too! Perhaps you think, because you see me in this place and +scarcely able to leave this chair without assistance, that I am some +broken-spirited dependent creature, without the courage or power to do +what I may think best for my own child. Still the power to hint a wish! +I hope so!’ + +‘Pardon me,’ returned Ralph, who thoroughly knew his man, and had taken +his ground accordingly; ‘you do not hear me out. I was about to say that +your hinting a wish, even hinting a wish, would surely be equivalent to +commanding.’ + +‘Why, of course it would,’ retorted Mr. Bray, in an exasperated tone. ‘If +you don’t happen to have heard of the time, sir, I tell you that there +was a time, when I carried every point in triumph against her mother’s +whole family, although they had power and wealth on their side, by my +will alone.’ + +‘Still,’ rejoined Ralph, as mildly as his nature would allow him, ‘you +have not heard me out. You are a man yet qualified to shine in society, +with many years of life before you; that is, if you lived in freer air, +and under brighter skies, and chose your own companions. Gaiety is +your element, you have shone in it before. Fashion and freedom for you. +France, and an annuity that would support you there in luxury, would +give you a new lease of life, would transfer you to a new existence. The +town rang with your expensive pleasures once, and you could blaze up +on a new scene again, profiting by experience, and living a little at +others’ cost, instead of letting others live at yours. What is there on +the reverse side of the picture? What is there? I don’t know which is +the nearest churchyard, but a gravestone there, wherever it is, and a +date, perhaps two years hence, perhaps twenty. That’s all.’ + +Mr. Bray rested his elbow on the arm of his chair, and shaded his face +with his hand. + +‘I speak plainly,’ said Ralph, sitting down beside him, ‘because I feel +strongly. It’s my interest that you should marry your daughter to my +friend Gride, because then he sees me paid--in part, that is. I don’t +disguise it. I acknowledge it openly. But what interest have you in +recommending her to such a step? Keep that in view. She might object, +remonstrate, shed tears, talk of his being too old, and plead that her +life would be rendered miserable. But what is it now?’ + +Several slight gestures on the part of the invalid showed that these +arguments were no more lost upon him, than the smallest iota of his +demeanour was upon Ralph. + +‘What is it now, I say,’ pursued the wily usurer, ‘or what has it a +chance of being? If you died, indeed, the people you hate would make her +happy. But can you bear the thought of that?’ + +‘No!’ returned Bray, urged by a vindictive impulse he could not repress. + +‘I should imagine not, indeed!’ said Ralph, quietly. ‘If she profits +by anybody’s death,’ this was said in a lower tone, ‘let it be by her +husband’s. Don’t let her have to look back to yours, as the event from +which to date a happier life. Where is the objection? Let me hear it +stated. What is it? That her suitor is an old man? Why, how often do men +of family and fortune, who haven’t your excuse, but have all the means +and superfluities of life within their reach, how often do they marry +their daughters to old men, or (worse still) to young men without heads +or hearts, to tickle some idle vanity, strengthen some family interest, +or secure some seat in Parliament! Judge for her, sir, judge for her. +You must know best, and she will live to thank you.’ + +‘Hush! hush!’ cried Mr. Bray, suddenly starting up, and covering Ralph’s +mouth with his trembling hand. ‘I hear her at the door!’ + +There was a gleam of conscience in the shame and terror of this hasty +action, which, in one short moment, tore the thin covering of sophistry +from the cruel design, and laid it bare in all its meanness and +heartless deformity. The father fell into his chair pale and trembling; +Arthur Gride plucked and fumbled at his hat, and durst not raise his +eyes from the floor; even Ralph crouched for the moment like a beaten +hound, cowed by the presence of one young innocent girl! + +The effect was almost as brief as sudden. Ralph was the first to recover +himself, and observing Madeline’s looks of alarm, entreated the poor +girl to be composed, assuring her that there was no cause for fear. + +‘A sudden spasm,’ said Ralph, glancing at Mr. Bray. ‘He is quite well +now.’ + +It might have moved a very hard and worldly heart to see the young and +beautiful creature, whose certain misery they had been contriving but +a minute before, throw her arms about her father’s neck, and pour forth +words of tender sympathy and love, the sweetest a father’s ear can know, +or child’s lips form. But Ralph looked coldly on; and Arthur Gride, +whose bleared eyes gloated only over the outward beauties, and were +blind to the spirit which reigned within, evinced--a fantastic kind of +warmth certainly, but not exactly that kind of warmth of feeling which +the contemplation of virtue usually inspires. + +‘Madeline,’ said her father, gently disengaging himself, ‘it was +nothing.’ + +‘But you had that spasm yesterday, and it is terrible to see you in such +pain. Can I do nothing for you?’ + +‘Nothing just now. Here are two gentlemen, Madeline, one of whom you +have seen before. She used to say,’ added Mr. Bray, addressing Arthur +Gride, ‘that the sight of you always made me worse. That was natural, +knowing what she did, and only what she did, of our connection and its +results. Well, well. Perhaps she may change her mind on that point; +girls have leave to change their minds, you know. You are very tired, my +dear.’ + +‘I am not, indeed.’ + +‘Indeed you are. You do too much.’ + +‘I wish I could do more.’ + +‘I know you do, but you overtask your strength. This wretched life, my +love, of daily labour and fatigue, is more than you can bear, I am sure +it is. Poor Madeline!’ + +With these and many more kind words, Mr. Bray drew his daughter to him +and kissed her cheek affectionately. Ralph, watching him sharply and +closely in the meantime, made his way towards the door, and signed to +Gride to follow him. + +‘You will communicate with us again?’ said Ralph. + +‘Yes, yes,’ returned Mr. Bray, hastily thrusting his daughter aside. ‘In +a week. Give me a week.’ + +‘One week,’ said Ralph, turning to his companion, ‘from today. +Good-morning. Miss Madeline, I kiss your hand.’ + +‘We will shake hands, Gride,’ said Mr. Bray, extending his, as old Arthur +bowed. ‘You mean well, no doubt. I am bound to say so now. If I owed you +money, that was not your fault. Madeline, my love, your hand here.’ + +‘Oh dear! If the young lady would condescent! Only the tips of her +fingers,’ said Arthur, hesitating and half retreating. + +Madeline shrunk involuntarily from the goblin figure, but she placed the +tips of her fingers in his hand and instantly withdrew them. After an +ineffectual clutch, intended to detain and carry them to his lips, +old Arthur gave his own fingers a mumbling kiss, and with many amorous +distortions of visage went in pursuit of his friend, who was by this +time in the street. + +‘What does he say, what does he say? What does the giant say to the +pigmy?’ inquired Arthur Gride, hobbling up to Ralph. + +‘What does the pigmy say to the giant?’ rejoined Ralph, elevating his +eyebrows and looking down upon his questioner. + +‘He doesn’t know what to say,’ replied Arthur Gride. ‘He hopes and +fears. But is she not a dainty morsel?’ + +‘I have no great taste for beauty,’ growled Ralph. + +‘But I have,’ rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. ‘Oh dear! How handsome +her eyes looked when she was stooping over him! Such long lashes, such +delicate fringe! She--she--looked at me so soft.’ + +‘Not over-lovingly, I think,’ said Ralph. ‘Did she?’ + +‘No, you think not?’ replied old Arthur. ‘But don’t you think it can be +brought about? Don’t you think it can?’ + +Ralph looked at him with a contemptuous frown, and replied with a sneer, +and between his teeth: + +‘Did you mark his telling her she was tired and did too much, and +overtasked her strength?’ + +‘Ay, ay. What of it?’ + +‘When do you think he ever told her that before? The life is more than +she can bear. Yes, yes. He’ll change it for her.’ + +‘D’ye think it’s done?’ inquired old Arthur, peering into his +companion’s face with half-closed eyes. + +‘I am sure it’s done,’ said Ralph. ‘He is trying to deceive himself, +even before our eyes, already. He is making believe that he thinks +of her good and not his own. He is acting a virtuous part, and so +considerate and affectionate, sir, that the daughter scarcely knew him. +I saw a tear of surprise in her eye. There’ll be a few more tears of +surprise there before long, though of a different kind. Oh! we may wait +with confidence for this day week.’ + + + +CHAPTER 48 + +Being for the Benefit of Mr. Vincent Crummles, and positively his last +Appearance on this Stage + + +It was with a very sad and heavy heart, oppressed by many painful ideas, +that Nicholas retraced his steps eastward and betook himself to the +counting-house of Cheeryble Brothers. Whatever the idle hopes he had +suffered himself to entertain, whatever the pleasant visions which had +sprung up in his mind and grouped themselves round the fair image of +Madeline Bray, they were now dispelled, and not a vestige of their +gaiety and brightness remained. + +It would be a poor compliment to Nicholas’s better nature, and one which +he was very far from deserving, to insinuate that the solution, and such +a solution, of the mystery which had seemed to surround Madeline Bray, +when he was ignorant even of her name, had damped his ardour or cooled +the fervour of his admiration. If he had regarded her before, with +such a passion as young men attracted by mere beauty and elegance may +entertain, he was now conscious of much deeper and stronger feelings. +But, reverence for the truth and purity of her heart, respect for the +helplessness and loneliness of her situation, sympathy with the trials +of one so young and fair and admiration of her great and noble spirit, +all seemed to raise her far above his reach, and, while they imparted +new depth and dignity to his love, to whisper that it was hopeless. + +‘I will keep my word, as I have pledged it to her,’ said Nicholas, +manfully. ‘This is no common trust that I have to discharge, and I will +perform the double duty that is imposed upon me most scrupulously and +strictly. My secret feelings deserve no consideration in such a case as +this, and they shall have none.’ + +Still, there were the secret feelings in existence just the same, and in +secret Nicholas rather encouraged them than otherwise; reasoning (if +he reasoned at all) that there they could do no harm to anybody but +himself, and that if he kept them to himself from a sense of duty, he +had an additional right to entertain himself with them as a reward for +his heroism. + +All these thoughts, coupled with what he had seen that morning and the +anticipation of his next visit, rendered him a very dull and abstracted +companion; so much so, indeed, that Tim Linkinwater suspected he must +have made the mistake of a figure somewhere, which was preying upon his +mind, and seriously conjured him, if such were the case, to make a clean +breast and scratch it out, rather than have his whole life embittered by +the tortures of remorse. + +But in reply to these considerate representations, and many others both +from Tim and Mr. Frank, Nicholas could only be brought to state that +he was never merrier in his life; and so went on all day, and so went +towards home at night, still turning over and over again the same +subjects, thinking over and over again the same things, and arriving +over and over again at the same conclusions. + +In this pensive, wayward, and uncertain state, people are apt to lounge +and loiter without knowing why, to read placards on the walls with great +attention and without the smallest idea of one word of their contents, +and to stare most earnestly through shop-windows at things which they +don’t see. It was thus that Nicholas found himself poring with the +utmost interest over a large play-bill hanging outside a Minor Theatre +which he had to pass on his way home, and reading a list of the actors +and actresses who had promised to do honour to some approaching benefit, +with as much gravity as if it had been a catalogue of the names of those +ladies and gentlemen who stood highest upon the Book of Fate, and he had +been looking anxiously for his own. He glanced at the top of the bill, +with a smile at his own dulness, as he prepared to resume his walk, and +there saw announced, in large letters with a large space between each +of them, ‘Positively the last appearance of Mr. Vincent Crummles of +Provincial Celebrity!!!’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Nicholas, turning back again. ‘It can’t be.’ + +But there it was. In one line by itself was an announcement of the first +night of a new melodrama; in another line by itself was an announcement +of the last six nights of an old one; a third line was devoted to the +re-engagement of the unrivalled African Knife-swallower, who had kindly +suffered himself to be prevailed upon to forego his country engagements +for one week longer; a fourth line announced that Mr. Snittle Timberry, +having recovered from his late severe indisposition, would have the +honour of appearing that evening; a fifth line said that there were +‘Cheers, Tears, and Laughter!’ every night; a sixth, that that was +positively the last appearance of Mr. Vincent Crummles of Provincial +Celebrity. + +‘Surely it must be the same man,’ thought Nicholas. ‘There can’t be two +Vincent Crummleses.’ + +The better to settle this question he referred to the bill again, and +finding that there was a Baron in the first piece, and that Roberto (his +son) was enacted by one Master Crummles, and Spaletro (his nephew) by +one Master Percy Crummles--THEIR last appearances--and that, incidental +to the piece, was a characteristic dance by the characters, and a +castanet pas seul by the Infant Phenomenon--HER last appearance--he no +longer entertained any doubt; and presenting himself at the stage-door, +and sending in a scrap of paper with ‘Mr. Johnson’ written thereon in +pencil, was presently conducted by a Robber, with a very large belt and +buckle round his waist, and very large leather gauntlets on his hands, +into the presence of his former manager. + +Mr. Crummles was unfeignedly glad to see him, and starting up from before +a small dressing-glass, with one very bushy eyebrow stuck on crooked +over his left eye, and the fellow eyebrow and the calf of one of his +legs in his hand, embraced him cordially; at the same time observing, +that it would do Mrs. Crummles’s heart good to bid him goodbye before +they went. + +‘You were always a favourite of hers, Johnson,’ said Crummles, ‘always +were from the first. I was quite easy in my mind about you from that +first day you dined with us. One that Mrs. Crummles took a fancy to, was +sure to turn out right. Ah! Johnson, what a woman that is!’ + +‘I am sincerely obliged to her for her kindness in this and all other +respects,’ said Nicholas. ‘But where are you going, that you talk about +bidding goodbye?’ + +‘Haven’t you seen it in the papers?’ said Crummles, with some dignity. + +‘No,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘I wonder at that,’ said the manager. ‘It was among the varieties. I had +the paragraph here somewhere--but I don’t know--oh, yes, here it is.’ + +So saying, Mr. Crummles, after pretending that he thought he must have +lost it, produced a square inch of newspaper from the pocket of the +pantaloons he wore in private life (which, together with the plain +clothes of several other gentlemen, lay scattered about on a kind of +dresser in the room), and gave it to Nicholas to read: + +‘The talented Vincent Crummles, long favourably known to fame as a +country manager and actor of no ordinary pretensions, is about to cross +the Atlantic on a histrionic expedition. Crummles is to be accompanied, +we hear, by his lady and gifted family. We know no man superior to +Crummles in his particular line of character, or one who, whether as a +public or private individual, could carry with him the best wishes of a +larger circle of friends. Crummles is certain to succeed.’ + +‘Here’s another bit,’ said Mr. Crummles, handing over a still smaller +scrap. ‘This is from the notices to correspondents, this one.’ + +Nicholas read it aloud. ‘“Philo-Dramaticus. Crummles, the country +manager and actor, cannot be more than forty-three, or forty-four +years of age. Crummles is NOT a Prussian, having been born at Chelsea.” + Humph!’ said Nicholas, ‘that’s an odd paragraph.’ + +‘Very,’ returned Crummles, scratching the side of his nose, and looking +at Nicholas with an assumption of great unconcern. ‘I can’t think who +puts these things in. I didn’t.’ + +Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr. Crummles shook his head twice or +thrice with profound gravity, and remarking, that he could not for the +life of him imagine how the newspapers found out the things they did, +folded up the extracts and put them in his pocket again. + +‘I am astonished to hear this news,’ said Nicholas. ‘Going to America! +You had no such thing in contemplation when I was with you.’ + +‘No,’ replied Crummles, ‘I hadn’t then. The fact is that Mrs +Crummles--most extraordinary woman, Johnson.’ Here he broke off and +whispered something in his ear. + +‘Oh!’ said Nicholas, smiling. ‘The prospect of an addition to your +family?’ + +‘The seventh addition, Johnson,’ returned Mr. Crummles, solemnly. ‘I +thought such a child as the Phenomenon must have been a closer; but it +seems we are to have another. She is a very remarkable woman.’ + +‘I congratulate you,’ said Nicholas, ‘and I hope this may prove a +phenomenon too.’ + +‘Why, it’s pretty sure to be something uncommon, I suppose,’ rejoined +Mr. Crummles. ‘The talent of the other three is principally in combat and +serious pantomime. I should like this one to have a turn for juvenile +tragedy; I understand they want something of that sort in America very +much. However, we must take it as it comes. Perhaps it may have a genius +for the tight-rope. It may have any sort of genius, in short, if it +takes after its mother, Johnson, for she is an universal genius; but, +whatever its genius is, that genius shall be developed.’ + +Expressing himself after these terms, Mr. Crummles put on his other +eyebrow, and the calves of his legs, and then put on his legs, which +were of a yellowish flesh-colour, and rather soiled about the knees, +from frequent going down upon those joints, in curses, prayers, last +struggles, and other strong passages. + +While the ex-manager completed his toilet, he informed Nicholas that as +he should have a fair start in America from the proceeds of a tolerably +good engagement which he had been fortunate enough to obtain, and as +he and Mrs. Crummles could scarcely hope to act for ever (not being +immortal, except in the breath of Fame and in a figurative sense) he had +made up his mind to settle there permanently, in the hope of acquiring +some land of his own which would support them in their old age, and +which they could afterwards bequeath to their children. Nicholas, having +highly commended the resolution, Mr. Crummles went on to impart such +further intelligence relative to their mutual friends as he thought +might prove interesting; informing Nicholas, among other things, that +Miss Snevellicci was happily married to an affluent young wax-chandler +who had supplied the theatre with candles, and that Mr. Lillyvick didn’t +dare to say his soul was his own, such was the tyrannical sway of Mrs +Lillyvick, who reigned paramount and supreme. + +Nicholas responded to this confidence on the part of Mr. Crummles, by +confiding to him his own name, situation, and prospects, and informing +him, in as few general words as he could, of the circumstances which +had led to their first acquaintance. After congratulating him with great +heartiness on the improved state of his fortunes, Mr. Crummles gave him +to understand that next morning he and his were to start for Liverpool, +where the vessel lay which was to carry them from the shores of England, +and that if Nicholas wished to take a last adieu of Mrs. Crummles, he +must repair with him that night to a farewell supper, given in honour of +the family at a neighbouring tavern; at which Mr. Snittle Timberry would +preside, while the honours of the vice-chair would be sustained by the +African Swallower. + +The room being by this time very warm and somewhat crowded, in +consequence of the influx of four gentlemen, who had just killed +each other in the piece under representation, Nicholas accepted +the invitation, and promised to return at the conclusion of the +performances; preferring the cool air and twilight out of doors to the +mingled perfume of gas, orange-peel, and gunpowder, which pervaded the +hot and glaring theatre. + +He availed himself of this interval to buy a silver snuff-box--the best +his funds would afford--as a token of remembrance for Mr. Crummles, +and having purchased besides a pair of ear-rings for Mrs. Crummles, a +necklace for the Phenomenon, and a flaming shirt-pin for each of the +young gentlemen, he refreshed himself with a walk, and returning a +little after the appointed time, found the lights out, the theatre +empty, the curtain raised for the night, and Mr. Crummles walking up and +down the stage expecting his arrival. + +‘Timberry won’t be long,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘He played the audience out +tonight. He does a faithful black in the last piece, and it takes him a +little longer to wash himself.’ + +‘A very unpleasant line of character, I should think?’ said Nicholas. + +‘No, I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Crummles; ‘it comes off easily enough, +and there’s only the face and neck. We had a first-tragedy man in our +company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black himself all +over. But that’s feeling a part and going into it as if you meant it; it +isn’t usual; more’s the pity.’ + +Mr. Snittle Timberry now appeared, arm-in-arm with the African Swallower, +and, being introduced to Nicholas, raised his hat half a foot, and said +he was proud to know him. The Swallower said the same, and looked and +spoke remarkably like an Irishman. + +‘I see by the bills that you have been ill, sir,’ said Nicholas to Mr +Timberry. ‘I hope you are none the worse for your exertions tonight?’ + +Mr. Timberry, in reply, shook his head with a gloomy air, tapped his +chest several times with great significancy, and drawing his cloak more +closely about him, said, ‘But no matter, no matter. Come!’ + +It is observable that when people upon the stage are in any strait +involving the very last extremity of weakness and exhaustion, they +invariably perform feats of strength requiring great ingenuity and +muscular power. Thus, a wounded prince or bandit chief, who is bleeding +to death and too faint to move, except to the softest music (and then +only upon his hands and knees), shall be seen to approach a cottage +door for aid in such a series of writhings and twistings, and with +such curlings up of the legs, and such rollings over and over, and such +gettings up and tumblings down again, as could never be achieved save +by a very strong man skilled in posture-making. And so natural did this +sort of performance come to Mr. Snittle Timberry, that on their way out +of the theatre and towards the tavern where the supper was to be holden, +he testified the severity of his recent indisposition and its wasting +effects upon the nervous system, by a series of gymnastic performances +which were the admiration of all witnesses. + +‘Why this is indeed a joy I had not looked for!’ said Mrs. Crummles, when +Nicholas was presented. + +‘Nor I,’ replied Nicholas. ‘It is by a mere chance that I have this +opportunity of seeing you, although I would have made a great exertion +to have availed myself of it.’ + +‘Here is one whom you know,’ said Mrs. Crummles, thrusting forward the +Phenomenon in a blue gauze frock, extensively flounced, and trousers +of the same; ‘and here another--and another,’ presenting the Master +Crummleses. ‘And how is your friend, the faithful Digby?’ + +‘Digby!’ said Nicholas, forgetting at the instant that this had been +Smike’s theatrical name. ‘Oh yes. He’s quite--what am I saying?--he is +very far from well.’ + +‘How!’ exclaimed Mrs. Crummles, with a tragic recoil. + +‘I fear,’ said Nicholas, shaking his head, and making an attempt to +smile, ‘that your better-half would be more struck with him now than +ever.’ + +‘What mean you?’ rejoined Mrs. Crummles, in her most popular manner. +‘Whence comes this altered tone?’ + +‘I mean that a dastardly enemy of mine has struck at me through him, and +that while he thinks to torture me, he inflicts on him such agonies of +terror and suspense as--You will excuse me, I am sure,’ said Nicholas, +checking himself. ‘I should never speak of this, and never do, except to +those who know the facts, but for a moment I forgot myself.’ + +With this hasty apology Nicholas stooped down to salute the Phenomenon, +and changed the subject; inwardly cursing his precipitation, and very +much wondering what Mrs. Crummles must think of so sudden an explosion. + +That lady seemed to think very little about it, for the supper being by +this time on table, she gave her hand to Nicholas and repaired with a +stately step to the left hand of Mr. Snittle Timberry. Nicholas had the +honour to support her, and Mr. Crummles was placed upon the chairman’s +right; the Phenomenon and the Master Crummleses sustained the vice. + +The company amounted in number to some twenty-five or thirty, being +composed of such members of the theatrical profession, then engaged or +disengaged in London, as were numbered among the most intimate friends +of Mr. and Mrs. Crummles. The ladies and gentlemen were pretty equally +balanced; the expenses of the entertainment being defrayed by the +latter, each of whom had the privilege of inviting one of the former as +his guest. + +It was upon the whole a very distinguished party, for independently of +the lesser theatrical lights who clustered on this occasion round +Mr. Snittle Timberry, there was a literary gentleman present who had +dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as +they had come out--some of them faster than they had come out--and who +WAS a literary gentleman in consequence. + +This gentleman sat on the left hand of Nicholas, to whom he was +introduced by his friend the African Swallower, from the bottom of the +table, with a high eulogium upon his fame and reputation. + +‘I am happy to know a gentleman of such great distinction,’ said +Nicholas, politely. + +‘Sir,’ replied the wit, ‘you’re very welcome, I’m sure. The honour is +reciprocal, sir, as I usually say when I dramatise a book. Did you ever +hear a definition of fame, sir?’ + +‘I have heard several,’ replied Nicholas, with a smile. ‘What is yours?’ + +‘When I dramatise a book, sir,’ said the literary gentleman, ‘THAT’S +fame. For its author.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘That’s fame, sir,’ said the literary gentleman. + +‘So Richard Turpin, Tom King, and Jerry Abershaw have handed down to +fame the names of those on whom they committed their most impudent +robberies?’ said Nicholas. + +‘I don’t know anything about that, sir,’ answered the literary +gentleman. + +‘Shakespeare dramatised stories which had previously appeared in print, +it is true,’ observed Nicholas. + +‘Meaning Bill, sir?’ said the literary gentleman. ‘So he did. Bill +was an adapter, certainly, so he was--and very well he adapted +too--considering.’ + +‘I was about to say,’ rejoined Nicholas, ‘that Shakespeare derived some +of his plots from old tales and legends in general circulation; but it +seems to me, that some of the gentlemen of your craft, at the present +day, have shot very far beyond him--’ + +‘You’re quite right, sir,’ interrupted the literary gentleman, leaning +back in his chair and exercising his toothpick. ‘Human intellect, sir, +has progressed since his time, is progressing, will progress.’ + +‘Shot beyond him, I mean,’ resumed Nicholas, ‘in quite another +respect, for, whereas he brought within the magic circle of his genius, +traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and turned familiar +things into constellations which should enlighten the world for ages, +you drag within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects not at all +adapted to the purposes of the stage, and debase as he exalted. For +instance, you take the uncompleted books of living authors, fresh from +their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers +and capacities of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, +finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely vamp up ideas not yet +worked out by their original projector, but which have doubtless cost +him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights; by a comparison of +incidents and dialogue, down to the very last word he may have written +a fortnight before, do your utmost to anticipate his plot--all this +without his permission, and against his will; and then, to crown the +whole proceeding, publish in some mean pamphlet, an unmeaning farrago of +garbled extracts from his work, to which your name as author, with the +honourable distinction annexed, of having perpetrated a hundred other +outrages of the same description. Now, show me the distinction between +such pilfering as this, and picking a man’s pocket in the street: +unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature has a regard for +pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men’s brains, except when they are +knocked out by violence, to take care of themselves.’ + +‘Men must live, sir,’ said the literary gentleman, shrugging his +shoulders. + +‘That would be an equally fair plea in both cases,’ replied Nicholas; +‘but if you put it upon that ground, I have nothing more to say, than, +that if I were a writer of books, and you a thirsty dramatist, I would +rather pay your tavern score for six months, large as it might be, than +have a niche in the Temple of Fame with you for the humblest corner of +my pedestal, through six hundred generations.’ + +The conversation threatened to take a somewhat angry tone when it had +arrived thus far, but Mrs. Crummles opportunely interposed to prevent +its leading to any violent outbreak, by making some inquiries of the +literary gentleman relative to the plots of the six new pieces which he +had written by contract to introduce the African Knife-swallower in +his various unrivalled performances. This speedily engaged him in an +animated conversation with that lady, in the interest of which, all +recollection of his recent discussion with Nicholas very quickly +evaporated. + +The board being now clear of the more substantial articles of food, +and punch, wine, and spirits being placed upon it and handed about, the +guests, who had been previously conversing in little groups of three +or four, gradually fell off into a dead silence, while the majority of +those present glanced from time to time at Mr. Snittle Timberry, and +the bolder spirits did not even hesitate to strike the table with their +knuckles, and plainly intimate their expectations, by uttering such +encouragements as ‘Now, Tim,’ ‘Wake up, Mr. Chairman,’ ‘All charged, sir, +and waiting for a toast,’ and so forth. + +To these remonstrances Mr. Timberry deigned no other rejoinder than +striking his chest and gasping for breath, and giving many other +indications of being still the victim of indisposition--for a man +must not make himself too cheap either on the stage or off--while +Mr. Crummles, who knew full well that he would be the subject of the +forthcoming toast, sat gracefully in his chair with his arm thrown +carelessly over the back, and now and then lifted his glass to his mouth +and drank a little punch, with the same air with which he was accustomed +to take long draughts of nothing, out of the pasteboard goblets in +banquet scenes. + +At length Mr. Snittle Timberry rose in the most approved attitude, with +one hand in the breast of his waistcoat and the other on the nearest +snuff-box, and having been received with great enthusiasm, proposed, +with abundance of quotations, his friend Mr. Vincent Crummles: ending a +pretty long speech by extending his right hand on one side and his left +on the other, and severally calling upon Mr. and Mrs. Crummles to grasp +the same. This done, Mr. Vincent Crummles returned thanks, and that done, +the African Swallower proposed Mrs. Vincent Crummles, in affecting terms. +Then were heard loud moans and sobs from Mrs. Crummles and the ladies, +despite of which that heroic woman insisted upon returning thanks +herself, which she did, in a manner and in a speech which has never been +surpassed and seldom equalled. It then became the duty of Mr. Snittle +Timberry to give the young Crummleses, which he did; after which +Mr. Vincent Crummles, as their father, addressed the company in a +supplementary speech, enlarging on their virtues, amiabilities, and +excellences, and wishing that they were the sons and daughter of every +lady and gentleman present. These solemnities having been succeeded by +a decent interval, enlivened by musical and other entertainments, +Mr. Crummles proposed that ornament of the profession, the African +Swallower, his very dear friend, if he would allow him to call him so; +which liberty (there being no particular reason why he should not allow +it) the African Swallower graciously permitted. The literary gentleman +was then about to be drunk, but it being discovered that he had been +drunk for some time in another acceptation of the term, and was then +asleep on the stairs, the intention was abandoned, and the honour +transferred to the ladies. Finally, after a very long sitting, Mr +Snittle Timberry vacated the chair, and the company with many adieux and +embraces dispersed. + +Nicholas waited to the last to give his little presents. When he had +said goodbye all round and came to Mr. Crummles, he could not but mark +the difference between their present separation and their parting at +Portsmouth. Not a jot of his theatrical manner remained; he put out his +hand with an air which, if he could have summoned it at will, would have +made him the best actor of his day in homely parts, and when Nicholas +shook it with the warmth he honestly felt, appeared thoroughly melted. + +‘We were a very happy little company, Johnson,’ said poor Crummles. ‘You +and I never had a word. I shall be very glad tomorrow morning to think +that I saw you again, but now I almost wish you hadn’t come.’ + +Nicholas was about to return a cheerful reply, when he was greatly +disconcerted by the sudden apparition of Mrs. Grudden, who it seemed had +declined to attend the supper in order that she might rise earlier in +the morning, and who now burst out of an adjoining bedroom, habited in +very extraordinary white robes; and throwing her arms about his neck, +hugged him with great affection. + +‘What! Are you going too?’ said Nicholas, submitting with as good a +grace as if she had been the finest young creature in the world. + +‘Going?’ returned Mrs. Grudden. ‘Lord ha’ mercy, what do you think they’d +do without me?’ + +Nicholas submitted to another hug with even a better grace than before, +if that were possible, and waving his hat as cheerfully as he could, +took farewell of the Vincent Crummleses. + + + +CHAPTER 49 + +Chronicles the further Proceedings of the Nickleby Family, and the +Sequel of the Adventure of the Gentleman in the Small-clothes + + +While Nicholas, absorbed in the one engrossing subject of interest which +had recently opened upon him, occupied his leisure hours with thoughts +of Madeline Bray, and in execution of the commissions which the anxiety +of brother Charles in her behalf imposed upon him, saw her again and +again, and each time with greater danger to his peace of mind and a more +weakening effect upon the lofty resolutions he had formed, Mrs. Nickleby +and Kate continued to live in peace and quiet, agitated by no other +cares than those which were connected with certain harassing proceedings +taken by Mr. Snawley for the recovery of his son, and their anxiety for +Smike himself, whose health, long upon the wane, began to be so much +affected by apprehension and uncertainty as sometimes to occasion both +them and Nicholas considerable uneasiness, and even alarm. + +It was no complaint or murmur on the part of the poor fellow himself +that thus disturbed them. Ever eager to be employed in such slight +services as he could render, and always anxious to repay his benefactors +with cheerful and happy looks, less friendly eyes might have seen in him +no cause for any misgiving. But there were times, and often too, when +the sunken eye was too bright, the hollow cheek too flushed, the breath +too thick and heavy in its course, the frame too feeble and exhausted, +to escape their regard and notice. + +There is a dread disease which so prepares its victim, as it were, for +death; which so refines it of its grosser aspect, and throws around +familiar looks unearthly indications of the coming change; a dread +disease, in which the struggle between soul and body is so gradual, +quiet, and solemn, and the result so sure, that day by day, and grain by +grain, the mortal part wastes and withers away, so that the spirit grows +light and sanguine with its lightening load, and, feeling immortality at +hand, deems it but a new term of mortal life; a disease in which death +and life are so strangely blended, that death takes the glow and hue +of life, and life the gaunt and grisly form of death; a disease which +medicine never cured, wealth never warded off, or poverty could boast +exemption from; which sometimes moves in giant strides, and sometimes at +a tardy sluggish pace, but, slow or quick, is ever sure and certain. + +It was with some faint reference in his own mind to this disorder, +though he would by no means admit it, even to himself, that Nicholas had +already carried his faithful companion to a physician of great repute. +There was no cause for immediate alarm, he said. There were no present +symptoms which could be deemed conclusive. The constitution had been +greatly tried and injured in childhood, but still it MIGHT not be--and +that was all. + +But he seemed to grow no worse, and, as it was not difficult to find a +reason for these symptoms of illness in the shock and agitation he had +recently undergone, Nicholas comforted himself with the hope that his +poor friend would soon recover. This hope his mother and sister shared +with him; and as the object of their joint solicitude seemed to have +no uneasiness or despondency for himself, but each day answered with a +quiet smile that he felt better than he had upon the day before, their +fears abated, and the general happiness was by degrees restored. + +Many and many a time in after years did Nicholas look back to this +period of his life, and tread again the humble quiet homely scenes that +rose up as of old before him. Many and many a time, in the twilight of a +summer evening, or beside the flickering winter’s fire--but not so often +or so sadly then--would his thoughts wander back to these old days, and +dwell with a pleasant sorrow upon every slight remembrance which they +brought crowding home. The little room in which they had so often sat +long after it was dark, figuring such happy futures; Kate’s cheerful +voice and merry laugh; how, if she were from home, they used to sit and +watch for her return scarcely breaking silence but to say how dull it +seemed without her; the glee with which poor Smike would start from the +darkened corner where he used to sit, and hurry to admit her, and the +tears they often saw upon his face, half wondering to see them too, and +he so pleased and happy; every little incident, and even slight words +and looks of those old days little heeded then, but well remembered when +busy cares and trials were quite forgotten, came fresh and thick before +him many and many a time, and, rustling above the dusty growth of years, +came back green boughs of yesterday. + +But there were other persons associated with these recollections, and +many changes came about before they had being. A necessary reflection +for the purposes of these adventures, which at once subside into their +accustomed train, and shunning all flighty anticipations or wayward +wanderings, pursue their steady and decorous course. + +If the brothers Cheeryble, as they found Nicholas worthy of trust and +confidence, bestowed upon him every day some new and substantial mark +of kindness, they were not less mindful of those who depended on him. +Various little presents to Mrs. Nickleby, always of the very things +they most required, tended in no slight degree to the improvement and +embellishment of the cottage. Kate’s little store of trinkets became +quite dazzling; and for company! If brother Charles and brother Ned +failed to look in for at least a few minutes every Sunday, or one +evening in the week, there was Mr. Tim Linkinwater (who had never made +half-a-dozen other acquaintances in all his life, and who took such +delight in his new friends as no words can express) constantly coming +and going in his evening walks, and stopping to rest; while Mr. Frank +Cheeryble happened, by some strange conjunction of circumstances, to be +passing the door on some business or other at least three nights in the +week. + +‘He is the most attentive young man I ever saw, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby +to her daughter one evening, when this last-named gentleman had been the +subject of the worthy lady’s eulogium for some time, and Kate had sat +perfectly silent. + +‘Attentive, mama!’ rejoined Kate. + +‘Bless my heart, Kate!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, with her wonted suddenness, +‘what a colour you have got; why, you’re quite flushed!’ + +‘Oh, mama! what strange things you fancy!’ + +‘It wasn’t fancy, Kate, my dear, I’m certain of that,’ returned her +mother. ‘However, it’s gone now at any rate, so it don’t much matter +whether it was or not. What was it we were talking about? Oh! Mr. Frank. +I never saw such attention in MY life, never.’ + +‘Surely you are not serious,’ returned Kate, colouring again; and this +time beyond all dispute. + +‘Not serious!’ returned Mrs. Nickleby; ‘why shouldn’t I be serious? +I’m sure I never was more serious. I will say that his politeness and +attention to me is one of the most becoming, gratifying, pleasant +things I have seen for a very long time. You don’t often meet with such +behaviour in young men, and it strikes one more when one does meet with +it.’ + +‘Oh! attention to YOU, mama,’ rejoined Kate quickly--‘oh yes.’ + +‘Dear me, Kate,’ retorted Mrs. Nickleby, ‘what an extraordinary girl you +are! Was it likely I should be talking of his attention to anybody else? +I declare I’m quite sorry to think he should be in love with a German +lady, that I am.’ + +‘He said very positively that it was no such thing, mama,’ returned +Kate. ‘Don’t you remember his saying so that very first night he came +here? Besides,’ she added, in a more gentle tone, ‘why should WE be +sorry if it is the case? What is it to us, mama?’ + +‘Nothing to US, Kate, perhaps,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, emphatically; ‘but +something to ME, I confess. I like English people to be thorough English +people, and not half English and half I don’t know what. I shall tell +him point-blank next time he comes, that I wish he would marry one of +his own country-women; and see what he says to that.’ + +‘Pray don’t think of such a thing, mama,’ returned Kate, hastily; ‘not +for the world. Consider. How very--’ + +‘Well, my dear, how very what?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, opening her eyes in +great astonishment. + +Before Kate had returned any reply, a queer little double knock +announced that Miss La Creevy had called to see them; and when Miss La +Creevy presented herself, Mrs. Nickleby, though strongly disposed to be +argumentative on the previous question, forgot all about it in a gush +of supposes about the coach she had come by; supposing that the man who +drove must have been either the man in the shirt-sleeves or the man with +the black eye; that whoever he was, he hadn’t found that parasol she +left inside last week; that no doubt they had stopped a long while at +the Halfway House, coming down; or that perhaps being full, they had +come straight on; and, lastly, that they, surely, must have passed +Nicholas on the road. + +‘I saw nothing of him,’ answered Miss La Creevy; ‘but I saw that dear +old soul Mr. Linkinwater.’ + +‘Taking his evening walk, and coming on to rest here, before he turns +back to the city, I’ll be bound!’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘I should think he was,’ returned Miss La Creevy; ‘especially as young +Mr. Cheeryble was with him.’ + +‘Surely that is no reason why Mr. Linkinwater should be coming here,’ +said Kate. + +‘Why I think it is, my dear,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘For a young man, Mr +Frank is not a very great walker; and I observe that he generally falls +tired, and requires a good long rest, when he has come as far as this. +But where is my friend?’ said the little woman, looking about, after +having glanced slyly at Kate. ‘He has not been run away with again, has +he?’ + +‘Ah! where is Mr. Smike?’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘he was here this instant.’ + +Upon further inquiry, it turned out, to the good lady’s unbounded +astonishment, that Smike had, that moment, gone upstairs to bed. + +‘Well now,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘he is the strangest creature! Last +Tuesday--was it Tuesday? Yes, to be sure it was; you recollect, Kate, my +dear, the very last time young Mr. Cheeryble was here--last Tuesday night +he went off in just the same strange way, at the very moment the knock +came to the door. It cannot be that he don’t like company, because he is +always fond of people who are fond of Nicholas, and I am sure young Mr +Cheeryble is. And the strangest thing is, that he does not go to bed; +therefore it cannot be because he is tired. I know he doesn’t go to bed, +because my room is the next one, and when I went upstairs last Tuesday, +hours after him, I found that he had not even taken his shoes off; and +he had no candle, so he must have sat moping in the dark all the time. +Now, upon my word,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘when I come to think of it, +that’s very extraordinary!’ + +As the hearers did not echo this sentiment, but remained profoundly +silent, either as not knowing what to say, or as being unwilling to +interrupt, Mrs. Nickleby pursued the thread of her discourse after her +own fashion. + +‘I hope,’ said that lady, ‘that this unaccountable conduct may not be +the beginning of his taking to his bed and living there all his life, +like the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury, or the Cock-lane Ghost, or some of +those extraordinary creatures. One of them had some connection with +our family. I forget, without looking back to some old letters I have +upstairs, whether it was my great-grandfather who went to school with +the Cock-lane Ghost, or the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury who went to school +with my grandmother. Miss La Creevy, you know, of course. Which was it +that didn’t mind what the clergyman said? The Cock-lane Ghost or the +Thirsty Woman of Tutbury?’ + +‘The Cock-lane Ghost, I believe.’ + +‘Then I have no doubt,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that it was with him my +great-grandfather went to school; for I know the master of his school +was a dissenter, and that would, in a great measure, account for the +Cock-lane Ghost’s behaving in such an improper manner to the clergyman +when he grew up. Ah! Train up a Ghost--child, I mean--’ + +Any further reflections on this fruitful theme were abruptly cut short +by the arrival of Tim Linkinwater and Mr. Frank Cheeryble; in the hurry +of receiving whom, Mrs. Nickleby speedily lost sight of everything else. + +‘I am so sorry Nicholas is not at home,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Kate, my +dear, you must be both Nicholas and yourself.’ + +‘Miss Nickleby need be but herself,’ said Frank. ‘I--if I may venture to +say so--oppose all change in her.’ + +‘Then at all events she shall press you to stay,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby. +‘Mr. Linkinwater says ten minutes, but I cannot let you go so soon; +Nicholas would be very much vexed, I am sure. Kate, my dear!’ + +In obedience to a great number of nods, and winks, and frowns of extra +significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors would remain; +but it was observable that she addressed them exclusively to Tim +Linkinwater; and there was, besides, a certain embarrassment in her +manner, which, although it was as far from impairing its graceful +character as the tinge it communicated to her cheek was from diminishing +her beauty, was obvious at a glance even to Mrs. Nickleby. Not being of +a very speculative character, however, save under circumstances when her +speculations could be put into words and uttered aloud, that discreet +matron attributed the emotion to the circumstance of her daughter’s +not happening to have her best frock on: ‘though I never saw her look +better, certainly,’ she reflected at the same time. Having settled the +question in this way, and being most complacently satisfied that in +this, and in all other instances, her conjecture could not fail to be +the right one, Mrs. Nickleby dismissed it from her thoughts, and inwardly +congratulated herself on being so shrewd and knowing. + +Nicholas did not come home nor did Smike reappear; but neither +circumstance, to say the truth, had any great effect upon the little +party, who were all in the best humour possible. Indeed, there sprung up +quite a flirtation between Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater, who said +a thousand jocose and facetious things, and became, by degrees, quite +gallant, not to say tender. Little Miss La Creevy, on her part, was in +high spirits, and rallied Tim on having remained a bachelor all his life +with so much success, that Tim was actually induced to declare, that +if he could get anybody to have him, he didn’t know but what he might +change his condition even yet. Miss La Creevy earnestly recommended a +lady she knew, who would exactly suit Mr. Linkinwater, and had a very +comfortable property of her own; but this latter qualification had very +little effect upon Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be +no object with him, but that true worth and cheerfulness of disposition +were what a man should look for in a wife, and that if he had these, he +could find money enough for the moderate wants of both. This avowal was +considered so honourable to Tim, that neither Mrs. Nickleby nor Miss La +Creevy could sufficiently extol it; and stimulated by their praises, +Tim launched out into several other declarations also manifesting the +disinterestedness of his heart, and a great devotion to the fair sex: +which were received with no less approbation. This was done and said +with a comical mixture of jest and earnest, and, leading to a great +amount of laughter, made them very merry indeed. + +Kate was commonly the life and soul of the conversation at home; but she +was more silent than usual upon this occasion (perhaps because Tim and +Miss La Creevy engrossed so much of it), and, keeping aloof from the +talkers, sat at the window watching the shadows as the evening closed +in, and enjoying the quiet beauty of the night, which seemed to have +scarcely less attractions to Frank, who first lingered near, and then +sat down beside, her. No doubt, there are a great many things to be said +appropriate to a summer evening, and no doubt they are best said in a +low voice, as being most suitable to the peace and serenity of the hour; +long pauses, too, at times, and then an earnest word or so, and then +another interval of silence which, somehow, does not seem like silence +either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or +drooping of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, +with a disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to +confuse hours with minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, +as many lovely lips can clearly testify. Neither is there the slightest +reason why Mrs. Nickleby should have expressed surprise when, candles +being at length brought in, Kate’s bright eyes were unable to bear the +light which obliged her to avert her face, and even to leave the room +for some short time; because, when one has sat in the dark so long, +candles ARE dazzling, and nothing can be more strictly natural than that +such results should be produced, as all well-informed young people know. +For that matter, old people know it too, or did know it once, but they +forget these things sometimes, and more’s the pity. + +The good lady’s surprise, however, did not end here. It was greatly +increased when it was discovered that Kate had not the least appetite +for supper: a discovery so alarming that there is no knowing in what +unaccountable efforts of oratory Mrs. Nickleby’s apprehensions might have +been vented, if the general attention had not been attracted, at the +moment, by a very strange and uncommon noise, proceeding, as the pale +and trembling servant girl affirmed, and as everybody’s sense of hearing +seemed to affirm also, ‘right down’ the chimney of the adjoining room. + +It being quite plain to the comprehension of all present that, however +extraordinary and improbable it might appear, the noise did nevertheless +proceed from the chimney in question; and the noise (which was a strange +compound of various shuffling, sliding, rumbling, and struggling sounds, +all muffled by the chimney) still continuing, Frank Cheeryble caught +up a candle, and Tim Linkinwater the tongs, and they would have very +quickly ascertained the cause of this disturbance if Mrs. Nickleby +had not been taken very faint, and declined being left behind, on any +account. This produced a short remonstrance, which terminated in their +all proceeding to the troubled chamber in a body, excepting only Miss La +Creevy, who, as the servant girl volunteered a confession of having been +subject to fits in her infancy, remained with her to give the alarm and +apply restoratives, in case of extremity. + +Advancing to the door of the mysterious apartment, they were not +a little surprised to hear a human voice, chanting with a highly +elaborated expression of melancholy, and in tones of suffocation which +a human voice might have produced from under five or six feather-beds +of the best quality, the once popular air of ‘Has she then failed in +her truth, the beautiful maid I adore?’ Nor, on bursting into the room +without demanding a parley, was their astonishment lessened by the +discovery that these romantic sounds certainly proceeded from the throat +of some man up the chimney, of whom nothing was visible but a pair of +legs, which were dangling above the grate; apparently feeling, with +extreme anxiety, for the top bar whereon to effect a landing. + +A sight so unusual and unbusiness-like as this, completely paralysed +Tim Linkinwater, who, after one or two gentle pinches at the stranger’s +ankles, which were productive of no effect, stood clapping the tongs +together, as if he were sharpening them for another assault, and did +nothing else. + +‘This must be some drunken fellow,’ said Frank. ‘No thief would announce +his presence thus.’ + +As he said this, with great indignation, he raised the candle to obtain +a better view of the legs, and was darting forward to pull them down +with very little ceremony, when Mrs. Nickleby, clasping her hands, +uttered a sharp sound, something between a scream and an exclamation, +and demanded to know whether the mysterious limbs were not clad in +small-clothes and grey worsted stockings, or whether her eyes had +deceived her. + +‘Yes,’ cried Frank, looking a little closer. ‘Small-clothes certainly, +and--and--rough grey stockings, too. Do you know him, ma’am?’ + +‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, deliberately sitting herself down +in a chair with that sort of desperate resignation which seemed to imply +that now matters had come to a crisis, and all disguise was useless, +‘you will have the goodness, my love, to explain precisely how this +matter stands. I have given him no encouragement--none whatever--not the +least in the world. You know that, my dear, perfectly well. He was very +respectful, exceedingly respectful, when he declared, as you were a +witness to; still at the same time, if I am to be persecuted in this +way, if vegetable what’s-his-names and all kinds of garden-stuff are +to strew my path out of doors, and gentlemen are to come choking up our +chimneys at home, I really don’t know--upon my word I do NOT know--what +is to become of me. It’s a very hard case--harder than anything I was +ever exposed to, before I married your poor dear papa, though I suffered +a good deal of annoyance then--but that, of course, I expected, and made +up my mind for. When I was not nearly so old as you, my dear, there +was a young gentleman who sat next us at church, who used, almost every +Sunday, to cut my name in large letters in the front of his pew while +the sermon was going on. It was gratifying, of course, naturally so, +but still it was an annoyance, because the pew was in a very conspicuous +place, and he was several times publicly taken out by the beadle for +doing it. But that was nothing to this. This is a great deal worse, and +a great deal more embarrassing. I would rather, Kate, my dear,’ said +Mrs. Nickleby, with great solemnity, and an effusion of tears: ‘I would +rather, I declare, have been a pig-faced lady, than be exposed to such a +life as this!’ + +Frank Cheeryble and Tim Linkinwater looked, in irrepressible +astonishment, first at each other and then at Kate, who felt that some +explanation was necessary, but who, between her terror at the apparition +of the legs, her fear lest their owner should be smothered, and her +anxiety to give the least ridiculous solution of the mystery that it was +capable of bearing, was quite unable to utter a single word. + +‘He gives me great pain,’ continued Mrs. Nickleby, drying her eyes, +‘great pain; but don’t hurt a hair of his head, I beg. On no account +hurt a hair of his head.’ + +It would not, under existing circumstances, have been quite so easy to +hurt a hair of the gentleman’s head as Mrs. Nickleby seemed to imagine, +inasmuch as that part of his person was some feet up the chimney, which +was by no means a wide one. But, as all this time he had never left off +singing about the bankruptcy of the beautiful maid in respect of truth, +and now began not only to croak very feebly, but to kick with great +violence as if respiration became a task of difficulty, Frank Cheeryble, +without further hesitation, pulled at the shorts and worsteds with +such heartiness as to bring him floundering into the room with greater +precipitation than he had quite calculated upon. + +‘Oh! yes, yes,’ said Kate, directly the whole figure of this singular +visitor appeared in this abrupt manner. ‘I know who it is. Pray don’t be +rough with him. Is he hurt? I hope not. Oh, pray see if he is hurt.’ + +‘He is not, I assure you,’ replied Frank, handling the object of his +surprise, after this appeal, with sudden tenderness and respect. ‘He is +not hurt in the least.’ + +‘Don’t let him come any nearer,’ said Kate, retiring as far as she +could. + +‘Oh, no, he shall not,’ rejoined Frank. ‘You see I have him secure here. +But may I ask you what this means, and whether you expected this old +gentleman?’ + +‘Oh, no,’ said Kate, ‘of course not; but he--mama does not think so, I +believe--but he is a mad gentleman who has escaped from the next house, +and must have found an opportunity of secreting himself here.’ + +‘Kate,’ interposed Mrs. Nickleby with severe dignity, ‘I am surprised at +you.’ + +‘Dear mama,’ Kate gently remonstrated. + +‘I am surprised at you,’ repeated Mrs. Nickleby; ‘upon my word, Kate, +I am quite astonished that you should join the persecutors of this +unfortunate gentleman, when you know very well that they have the basest +designs upon his property, and that that is the whole secret of it. It +would be much kinder of you, Kate, to ask Mr. Linkinwater or Mr. Cheeryble +to interfere in his behalf, and see him righted. You ought not to allow +your feelings to influence you; it’s not right, very far from it. What +should my feelings be, do you suppose? If anybody ought to be indignant, +who is it? I, of course, and very properly so. Still, at the same time, +I wouldn’t commit such an injustice for the world. No,’ continued Mrs +Nickleby, drawing herself up, and looking another way with a kind of +bashful stateliness; ‘this gentleman will understand me when I tell him +that I repeat the answer I gave him the other day; that I always will +repeat it, though I do believe him to be sincere when I find him placing +himself in such dreadful situations on my account; and that I request +him to have the goodness to go away directly, or it will be impossible +to keep his behaviour a secret from my son Nicholas. I am obliged to +him, very much obliged to him, but I cannot listen to his addresses for +a moment. It’s quite impossible.’ + +While this address was in course of delivery, the old gentleman, with +his nose and cheeks embellished with large patches of soot, sat upon the +ground with his arms folded, eyeing the spectators in profound silence, +and with a very majestic demeanour. He did not appear to take the +smallest notice of what Mrs. Nickleby said, but when she ceased to +speak he honoured her with a long stare, and inquired if she had quite +finished. + +‘I have nothing more to say,’ replied that lady modestly. ‘I really +cannot say anything more.’ + +‘Very good,’ said the old gentleman, raising his voice, ‘then bring in +the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.’ + +Nobody executing this order, the old gentleman, after a short pause, +raised his voice again and demanded a thunder sandwich. This article not +being forthcoming either, he requested to be served with a fricassee of +boot-tops and goldfish sauce, and then laughing heartily, gratified his +hearers with a very long, very loud, and most melodious bellow. + +But still Mrs. Nickleby, in reply to the significant looks of all about +her, shook her head as though to assure them that she saw nothing +whatever in all this, unless, indeed, it were a slight degree of +eccentricity. She might have remained impressed with these opinions +down to the latest moment of her life, but for a slight train of +circumstances, which, trivial as they were, altered the whole complexion +of the case. + +It happened that Miss La Creevy, finding her patient in no very +threatening condition, and being strongly impelled by curiosity to see +what was going forward, bustled into the room while the old gentleman +was in the very act of bellowing. It happened, too, that the instant the +old gentleman saw her, he stopped short, skipped suddenly on his feet, +and fell to kissing his hand violently: a change of demeanour which +almost terrified the little portrait painter out of her senses, and +caused her to retreat behind Tim Linkinwater with the utmost expedition. + +‘Aha!’ cried the old gentleman, folding his hands, and squeezing them +with great force against each other. ‘I see her now; I see her now! My +love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty. She is come at last--at +last--and all is gas and gaiters!’ + +Mrs. Nickleby looked rather disconcerted for a moment, but immediately +recovering, nodded to Miss La Creevy and the other spectators several +times, and frowned, and smiled gravely, giving them to understand that +she saw where the mistake was, and would set it all to rights in a +minute or two. + +‘She is come!’ said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon his heart. +‘Cormoran and Blunderbore! She is come! All the wealth I have is hers +if she will take me for her slave. Where are grace, beauty, and +blandishments, like those? In the Empress of Madagascar? No. In the +Queen of Diamonds? No. In Mrs. Rowland, who every morning bathes in +Kalydor for nothing? No. Melt all these down into one, with the three +Graces, the nine Muses, and fourteen biscuit-bakers’ daughters from +Oxford Street, and make a woman half as lovely. Pho! I defy you.’ + +After uttering this rhapsody, the old gentleman snapped his fingers +twenty or thirty times, and then subsided into an ecstatic contemplation +of Miss La Creevy’s charms. This affording Mrs. Nickleby a favourable +opportunity of explanation, she went about it straight. + +‘I am sure,’ said the worthy lady, with a prefatory cough, ‘that it’s a +great relief, under such trying circumstances as these, to have anybody +else mistaken for me--a very great relief; and it’s a circumstance that +never occurred before, although I have several times been mistaken for +my daughter Kate. I have no doubt the people were very foolish, and +perhaps ought to have known better, but still they did take me for +her, and of course that was no fault of mine, and it would be very +hard indeed if I was to be made responsible for it. However, in this +instance, of course, I must feel that I should do exceedingly wrong if +I suffered anybody--especially anybody that I am under great obligations +to--to be made uncomfortable on my account. And therefore I think it my +duty to tell that gentleman that he is mistaken, that I am the lady +who he was told by some impertinent person was niece to the Council of +Paving-stones, and that I do beg and entreat of him to go quietly away, +if it’s only for,’ here Mrs. Nickleby simpered and hesitated, ‘for MY +sake.’ + +It might have been expected that the old gentleman would have been +penetrated to the heart by the delicacy and condescension of this +appeal, and that he would at least have returned a courteous and +suitable reply. What, then, was the shock which Mrs. Nickleby received, +when, accosting HER in the most unmistakable manner, he replied in a +loud and sonourous voice: ‘Avaunt! Cat!’ + +‘Sir!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, in a faint tone. + +‘Cat!’ repeated the old gentleman. ‘Puss, Kit, Tit, Grimalkin, Tabby, +Brindle! Whoosh!’ with which last sound, uttered in a hissing manner +between his teeth, the old gentleman swung his arms violently round and +round, and at the same time alternately advanced on Mrs. Nickleby, and +retreated from her, in that species of savage dance with which boys on +market-days may be seen to frighten pigs, sheep, and other animals, when +they give out obstinate indications of turning down a wrong street. + +Mrs. Nickleby wasted no words, but uttered an exclamation of horror and +surprise, and immediately fainted away. + +‘I’ll attend to mama,’ said Kate, hastily; ‘I am not at all frightened. +But pray take him away: pray take him away!’ + +Frank was not at all confident of his power of complying with this +request, until he bethought himself of the stratagem of sending Miss La +Creevy on a few paces in advance, and urging the old gentleman to +follow her. It succeeded to a miracle; and he went away in a rapture of +admiration, strongly guarded by Tim Linkinwater on one side, and Frank +himself on the other. + +‘Kate,’ murmured Mrs. Nickleby, reviving when the coast was clear, ‘is he +gone?’ + +She was assured that he was. + +‘I shall never forgive myself, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Never! That +gentleman has lost his senses, and I am the unhappy cause.’ + +‘YOU the cause!’ said Kate, greatly astonished. + +‘I, my love,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, with a desperate calmness. ‘You saw +what he was the other day; you see what he is now. I told your brother, +weeks and weeks ago, Kate, that I hoped a disappointment might not be +too much for him. You see what a wreck he is. Making allowance for +his being a little flighty, you know how rationally, and sensibly, and +honourably he talked, when we saw him in the garden. You have heard the +dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of this night, and the manner in +which he has gone on with that poor unfortunate little old maid. Can +anybody doubt how all this has been brought about?’ + +‘I should scarcely think they could,’ said Kate mildly. + +‘I should scarcely think so, either,’ rejoined her mother. ‘Well! if +I am the unfortunate cause of this, I have the satisfaction of knowing +that I am not to blame. I told Nicholas, I said to him, “Nicholas, my +dear, we should be very careful how we proceed.” He would scarcely hear +me. If the matter had only been properly taken up at first, as I wished +it to be! But you are both of you so like your poor papa. However, I +have MY consolation, and that should be enough for me!’ + +Washing her hands, thus, of all responsibility under this head, past, +present, or to come, Mrs. Nickleby kindly added that she hoped her +children might never have greater cause to reproach themselves than she +had, and prepared herself to receive the escort, who soon returned with +the intelligence that the old gentleman was safely housed, and that +they found his custodians, who had been making merry with some friends, +wholly ignorant of his absence. + +Quiet being again restored, a delicious half-hour--so Frank called it, +in the course of subsequent conversation with Tim Linkinwater as they +were walking home--was spent in conversation, and Tim’s watch at length +apprising him that it was high time to depart, the ladies were left +alone, though not without many offers on the part of Frank to remain +until Nicholas arrived, no matter what hour of the night it might be, +if, after the late neighbourly irruption, they entertained the least +fear of being left to themselves. As their freedom from all further +apprehension, however, left no pretext for his insisting on mounting +guard, he was obliged to abandon the citadel, and to retire with the +trusty Tim. + +Nearly three hours of silence passed away. Kate blushed to find, when +Nicholas returned, how long she had been sitting alone, occupied with +her own thoughts. + +‘I really thought it had not been half an hour,’ she said. + +‘They must have been pleasant thoughts, Kate,’ rejoined Nicholas gaily, +‘to make time pass away like that. What were they now?’ + +Kate was confused; she toyed with some trifle on the table, looked up +and smiled, looked down and dropped a tear. + +‘Why, Kate,’ said Nicholas, drawing his sister towards him and kissing +her, ‘let me see your face. No? Ah! that was but a glimpse; that’s +scarcely fair. A longer look than that, Kate. Come--and I’ll read your +thoughts for you.’ + +There was something in this proposition, albeit it was said without the +slightest consciousness or application, which so alarmed his sister, +that Nicholas laughingly changed the subject to domestic matters, and +thus gathered, by degrees, as they left the room and went upstairs +together, how lonely Smike had been all night--and by very slow +degrees, too; for on this subject also, Kate seemed to speak with some +reluctance. + +‘Poor fellow,’ said Nicholas, tapping gently at his door, ‘what can be +the cause of all this?’ + +Kate was hanging on her brother’s arm. The door being quickly opened, +she had not time to disengage herself, before Smike, very pale and +haggard, and completely dressed, confronted them. + +‘And have you not been to bed?’ said Nicholas. + +‘N--n--no,’ was the reply. + +Nicholas gently detained his sister, who made an effort to retire; and +asked, ‘Why not?’ + +‘I could not sleep,’ said Smike, grasping the hand which his friend +extended to him. + +‘You are not well?’ rejoined Nicholas. + +‘I am better, indeed. A great deal better,’ said Smike quickly. + +‘Then why do you give way to these fits of melancholy?’ inquired +Nicholas, in his kindest manner; ‘or why not tell us the cause? You grow +a different creature, Smike.’ + +‘I do; I know I do,’ he replied. ‘I will tell you the reason one day, +but not now. I hate myself for this; you are all so good and kind. But I +cannot help it. My heart is very full; you do not know how full it is.’ + +He wrung Nicholas’s hand before he released it; and glancing, for a +moment, at the brother and sister as they stood together, as if there +were something in their strong affection which touched him very deeply, +withdrew into his chamber, and was soon the only watcher under that +quiet roof. + + + +CHAPTER 50 + +Involves a serious Catastrophe + + +The little race-course at Hampton was in the full tide and height of +its gaiety; the day as dazzling as day could be; the sun high in the +cloudless sky, and shining in its fullest splendour. Every gaudy colour +that fluttered in the air from carriage seat and garish tent top, shone +out in its gaudiest hues. Old dingy flags grew new again, faded gilding +was re-burnished, stained rotten canvas looked a snowy white, the very +beggars’ rags were freshened up, and sentiment quite forgot its charity +in its fervent admiration of poverty so picturesque. + +It was one of those scenes of life and animation, caught in its very +brightest and freshest moments, which can scarcely fail to please; +for if the eye be tired of show and glare, or the ear be weary with a +ceaseless round of noise, the one may repose, turn almost where it +will, on eager, happy, and expectant faces, and the other deaden +all consciousness of more annoying sounds in those of mirth and +exhilaration. Even the sunburnt faces of gypsy children, half naked +though they be, suggest a drop of comfort. It is a pleasant thing to see +that the sun has been there; to know that the air and light are on them +every day; to feel that they ARE children, and lead children’s lives; +that if their pillows be damp, it is with the dews of Heaven, and not +with tears; that the limbs of their girls are free, and that they are +not crippled by distortions, imposing an unnatural and horrible penance +upon their sex; that their lives are spent, from day to day, at least +among the waving trees, and not in the midst of dreadful engines which +make young children old before they know what childhood is, and give +them the exhaustion and infirmity of age, without, like age, the +privilege to die. God send that old nursery tales were true, and that +gypsies stole such children by the score! + +The great race of the day had just been run; and the close lines of +people, on either side of the course, suddenly breaking up and pouring +into it, imparted a new liveliness to the scene, which was again all +busy movement. Some hurried eagerly to catch a glimpse of the winning +horse; others darted to and fro, searching, no less eagerly, for the +carriages they had left in quest of better stations. Here, a little knot +gathered round a pea and thimble table to watch the plucking of some +unhappy greenhorn; and there, another proprietor with his confederates +in various disguises--one man in spectacles; another, with an eyeglass +and a stylish hat; a third, dressed as a farmer well to do in the world, +with his top-coat over his arm and his flash notes in a large leathern +pocket-book; and all with heavy-handled whips to represent most innocent +country fellows who had trotted there on horseback--sought, by loud and +noisy talk and pretended play, to entrap some unwary customer, while the +gentlemen confederates (of more villainous aspect still, in clean linen +and good clothes), betrayed their close interest in the concern by +the anxious furtive glance they cast on all new comers. These would be +hanging on the outskirts of a wide circle of people assembled round some +itinerant juggler, opposed, in his turn, by a noisy band of music, +or the classic game of ‘Ring the Bull,’ while ventriloquists holding +dialogues with wooden dolls, and fortune-telling women smothering the +cries of real babies, divided with them, and many more, the general +attention of the company. Drinking-tents were full, glasses began to +clink in carriages, hampers to be unpacked, tempting provisions to be +set forth, knives and forks to rattle, champagne corks to fly, eyes to +brighten that were not dull before, and pickpockets to count their gains +during the last heat. The attention so recently strained on one object +of interest, was now divided among a hundred; and look where you would, +there was a motley assemblage of feasting, laughing, talking, begging, +gambling, and mummery. + +Of the gambling-booths there was a plentiful show, flourishing in all +the splendour of carpeted ground, striped hangings, crimson cloth, +pinnacled roofs, geranium pots, and livery servants. There were the +Stranger’s club-house, the Athenaeum club-house, the Hampton club-house, +the St James’s club-house, and half a mile of club-houses to play IN; +and there were ROUGE-ET-NOIR, French hazard, and other games to play AT. +It is into one of these booths that our story takes its way. + +Fitted up with three tables for the purposes of play, and crowded with +players and lookers on, it was, although the largest place of the kind +upon the course, intensely hot, notwithstanding that a portion of the +canvas roof was rolled back to admit more air, and there were two doors +for a free passage in and out. Excepting one or two men who, each with a +long roll of half-crowns, chequered with a few stray sovereigns, in +his left hand, staked their money at every roll of the ball with a +business-like sedateness which showed that they were used to it, and had +been playing all day, and most probably all the day before, there was +no very distinctive character about the players, who were chiefly young +men, apparently attracted by curiosity, or staking small sums as part +of the amusement of the day, with no very great interest in winning or +losing. There were two persons present, however, who, as peculiarly good +specimens of a class, deserve a passing notice. + +Of these, one was a man of six or eight and fifty, who sat on a chair +near one of the entrances of the booth, with his hands folded on the +top of his stick, and his chin appearing above them. He was a tall, fat, +long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a light green coat, which +made his body look still longer than it was. He wore, besides, drab +breeches and gaiters, a white neckerchief, and a broad-brimmed white +hat. Amid all the buzzing noise of the games, and the perpetual passing +in and out of the people, he seemed perfectly calm and abstracted, +without the smallest particle of excitement in his composition. He +exhibited no indication of weariness, nor, to a casual observer, of +interest either. There he sat, quite still and collected. Sometimes, but +very rarely, he nodded to some passing face, or beckoned to a waiter to +obey a call from one of the tables. The next instant he subsided into +his old state. He might have been some profoundly deaf old gentleman, +who had come in to take a rest, or he might have been patiently waiting +for a friend, without the least consciousness of anybody’s presence, or +fixed in a trance, or under the influence of opium. People turned round +and looked at him; he made no gesture, caught nobody’s eye, let them +pass away, and others come on and be succeeded by others, and took no +notice. When he did move, it seemed wonderful how he could have seen +anything to occasion it. And so, in truth, it was. But there was not a +face that passed in or out, which this man failed to see; not a gesture +at any one of the three tables that was lost upon him; not a word, +spoken by the bankers, but reached his ear; not a winner or loser he +could not have marked. And he was the proprietor of the place. + +The other presided over the ROUGE-ET-NOIR table. He was probably some +ten years younger, and was a plump, paunchy, sturdy-looking fellow, with +his under-lip a little pursed, from a habit of counting money inwardly +as he paid it, but with no decidedly bad expression in his face, which +was rather an honest and jolly one than otherwise. He wore no coat, +the weather being hot, and stood behind the table with a huge mound of +crowns and half-crowns before him, and a cash-box for notes. This game +was constantly playing. Perhaps twenty people would be staking at the +same time. This man had to roll the ball, to watch the stakes as they +were laid down, to gather them off the colour which lost, to pay those +who won, to do it all with the utmost dispatch, to roll the ball again, +and to keep this game perpetually alive. He did it all with a rapidity +absolutely marvellous; never hesitating, never making a mistake, never +stopping, and never ceasing to repeat such unconnected phrases as +the following, which, partly from habit, and partly to have something +appropriate and business-like to say, he constantly poured out with the +same monotonous emphasis, and in nearly the same order, all day long: + +‘Rooge-a-nore from Paris! Gentlemen, make your game and back your +own opinions--any time while the ball rolls--rooge-a-nore from Paris, +gentlemen, it’s a French game, gentlemen, I brought it over myself, I +did indeed!--Rooge-a-nore from Paris--black wins--black--stop a minute, +sir, and I’ll pay you, directly--two there, half a pound there, three +there--and one there--gentlemen, the ball’s a rolling--any time, sir, +while the ball rolls!--The beauty of this game is, that you can double +your stakes or put down your money, gentlemen, any time while the ball +rolls--black again--black wins--I never saw such a thing--I never did, +in all my life, upon my word I never did; if any gentleman had +been backing the black in the last five minutes he must have won +five-and-forty pound in four rolls of the ball, he must indeed. +Gentlemen, we’ve port, sherry, cigars, and most excellent champagne. +Here, wai-ter, bring a bottle of champagne, and let’s have a dozen or +fifteen cigars here--and let’s be comfortable, gentlemen--and bring some +clean glasses--any time while the ball rolls!--I lost one hundred and +thirty-seven pound yesterday, gentlemen, at one roll of the ball, I +did indeed!--how do you do, sir?’ (recognising some knowing gentleman +without any halt or change of voice, and giving a wink so slight that +it seems an accident), ‘will you take a glass of sherry, sir?--here, +wai-ter! bring a clean glass, and hand the sherry to this gentleman--and +hand it round, will you, waiter?--this is the rooge-a-nore from Paris, +gentlemen--any time while the ball rolls!--gentlemen, make your game, +and back your own opinions--it’s the rooge-a-nore from Paris--quite a +new game, I brought it over myself, I did indeed--gentlemen, the ball’s +a-rolling!’ + +This officer was busily plying his vocation when half-a-dozen persons +sauntered through the booth, to whom, but without stopping either in his +speech or work, he bowed respectfully; at the same time directing, by +a look, the attention of a man beside him to the tallest figure in the +group, in recognition of whom the proprietor pulled off his hat. This +was Sir Mulberry Hawk, with whom were his friend and pupil, and a small +train of gentlemanly-dressed men, of characters more doubtful than +obscure. + +The proprietor, in a low voice, bade Sir Mulberry good-day. Sir +Mulberry, in the same tone, bade the proprietor go to the devil, and +turned to speak with his friends. + +There was evidently an irritable consciousness about him that he was an +object of curiosity, on this first occasion of showing himself in public +after the accident that had befallen him; and it was easy to perceive +that he appeared on the race-course, that day, more in the hope of +meeting with a great many people who knew him, and so getting over as +much as possible of the annoyance at once, than with any purpose of +enjoying the sport. There yet remained a slight scar upon his face, +and whenever he was recognised, as he was almost every minute by people +sauntering in and out, he made a restless effort to conceal it with his +glove; showing how keenly he felt the disgrace he had undergone. + +‘Ah! Hawk,’ said one very sprucely-dressed personage in a Newmarket +coat, a choice neckerchief, and all other accessories of the most +unexceptionable kind. ‘How d’ye do, old fellow?’ + +This was a rival trainer of young noblemen and gentlemen, and the person +of all others whom Sir Mulberry most hated and dreaded to meet. They +shook hands with excessive cordiality. + +‘And how are you now, old fellow, hey?’ + +‘Quite well, quite well,’ said Sir Mulberry. + +‘That’s right,’ said the other. ‘How d’ye do, Verisopht? He’s a little +pulled down, our friend here. Rather out of condition still, hey?’ + +It should be observed that the gentleman had very white teeth, and that +when there was no excuse for laughing, he generally finished with the +same monosyllable, which he uttered so as to display them. + +‘He’s in very good condition; there’s nothing the matter with him,’ said +the young man carelessly. + +‘Upon my soul I’m glad to hear it,’ rejoined the other. ‘Have you just +returned from Brussels?’ + +‘We only reached town late last night,’ said Lord Frederick. Sir +Mulberry turned away to speak to one of his own party, and feigned not +to hear. + +‘Now, upon my life,’ said the friend, affecting to speak in a whisper, +‘it’s an uncommonly bold and game thing in Hawk to show himself so soon. +I say it advisedly; there’s a vast deal of courage in it. You see he has +just rusticated long enough to excite curiosity, and not long enough for +men to have forgotten that deuced unpleasant--by-the-bye--you know the +rights of the affair, of course? Why did you never give those confounded +papers the lie? I seldom read the papers, but I looked in the papers for +that, and may I be--’ + +‘Look in the papers,’ interrupted Sir Mulberry, turning suddenly round, +‘tomorrow--no, next day, will you?’ + +‘Upon my life, my dear fellow, I seldom or never read the papers,’ said +the other, shrugging his shoulders, ‘but I will, at your recommendation. +What shall I look for?’ + +‘Good day,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning abruptly on his heel, and drawing +his pupil with him. Falling, again, into the loitering, careless pace at +which they had entered, they lounged out, arm in arm. + +‘I won’t give him a case of murder to read,’ muttered Sir Mulberry with +an oath; ‘but it shall be something very near it if whipcord cuts and +bludgeons bruise.’ + +His companion said nothing, but there was something in his manner which +galled Sir Mulberry to add, with nearly as much ferocity as if his +friend had been Nicholas himself: + +‘I sent Jenkins to old Nickleby before eight o’clock this morning. He’s +a staunch one; he was back with me before the messenger. I had it all +from him in the first five minutes. I know where this hound is to be met +with; time and place both. But there’s no need to talk; tomorrow will +soon be here.’ + +‘And wha-at’s to be done tomorrow?’ inquired Lord Frederick. + +Sir Mulberry Hawk honoured him with an angry glance, but condescended +to return no verbal answer to this inquiry. Both walked sullenly on, as +though their thoughts were busily occupied, until they were quite clear +of the crowd, and almost alone, when Sir Mulberry wheeled round to +return. + +‘Stop,’ said his companion, ‘I want to speak to you in earnest. Don’t +turn back. Let us walk here, a few minutes.’ + +‘What have you to say to me, that you could not say yonder as well as +here?’ returned his Mentor, disengaging his arm. + +‘Hawk,’ rejoined the other, ‘tell me; I must know.’ + +‘MUST know,’ interrupted the other disdainfully. ‘Whew! Go on. If you +must know, of course there’s no escape for me. Must know!’ + +‘Must ask then,’ returned Lord Frederick, ‘and must press you for a +plain and straightforward answer. Is what you have just said only a +mere whim of the moment, occasioned by your being out of humour and +irritated, or is it your serious intention, and one that you have +actually contemplated?’ + +‘Why, don’t you remember what passed on the subject one night, when I +was laid up with a broken limb?’ said Sir Mulberry, with a sneer. + +‘Perfectly well.’ + +‘Then take that for an answer, in the devil’s name,’ replied Sir +Mulberry, ‘and ask me for no other.’ + +Such was the ascendancy he had acquired over his dupe, and such the +latter’s general habit of submission, that, for the moment, the young +man seemed half afraid to pursue the subject. He soon overcame this +feeling, however, if it had restrained him at all, and retorted angrily: + +‘If I remember what passed at the time you speak of, I expressed a +strong opinion on this subject, and said that, with my knowledge or +consent, you never should do what you threaten now.’ + +‘Will you prevent me?’ asked Sir Mulberry, with a laugh. + +‘Ye-es, if I can,’ returned the other, promptly. + +‘A very proper saving clause, that last,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘and one +you stand in need of. Oh! look to your own business, and leave me to +look to mine.’ + +‘This IS mine,’ retorted Lord Frederick. ‘I make it mine; I will make it +mine. It’s mine already. I am more compromised than I should be, as it +is.’ + +‘Do as you please, and what you please, for yourself,’ said Sir +Mulberry, affecting an easy good-humour. ‘Surely that must content +you! Do nothing for me; that’s all. I advise no man to interfere in +proceedings that I choose to take. I am sure you know me better than +to do so. The fact is, I see, you mean to offer me advice. It is well +meant, I have no doubt, but I reject it. Now, if you please, we will +return to the carriage. I find no entertainment here, but quite the +reverse. If we prolong this conversation, we might quarrel, which would +be no proof of wisdom in either you or me.’ + +With this rejoinder, and waiting for no further discussion, Sir Mulberry +Hawk yawned, and very leisurely turned back. + +There was not a little tact and knowledge of the young lord’s +disposition in this mode of treating him. Sir Mulberry clearly saw that +if his dominion were to last, it must be established now. He knew that +the moment he became violent, the young man would become violent too. +He had, many times, been enabled to strengthen his influence, when +any circumstance had occurred to weaken it, by adopting this cool and +laconic style; and he trusted to it now, with very little doubt of its +entire success. + +But while he did this, and wore the most careless and indifferent +deportment that his practised arts enabled him to assume, he inwardly +resolved, not only to visit all the mortification of being compelled to +suppress his feelings, with additional severity upon Nicholas, but also +to make the young lord pay dearly for it, one day, in some shape or +other. So long as he had been a passive instrument in his hands, Sir +Mulberry had regarded him with no other feeling than contempt; but, now +that he presumed to avow opinions in opposition to his, and even to turn +upon him with a lofty tone and an air of superiority, he began to hate +him. Conscious that, in the vilest and most worthless sense of the term, +he was dependent upon the weak young lord, Sir Mulberry could the less +brook humiliation at his hands; and when he began to dislike him he +measured his dislike--as men often do--by the extent of the injuries he +had inflicted upon its object. When it is remembered that Sir Mulberry +Hawk had plundered, duped, deceived, and fooled his pupil in every +possible way, it will not be wondered at, that, beginning to hate him, +he began to hate him cordially. + +On the other hand, the young lord having thought--which he very seldom +did about anything--and seriously too, upon the affair with Nicholas, +and the circumstances which led to it, had arrived at a manly and +honest conclusion. Sir Mulberry’s coarse and insulting behaviour on +the occasion in question had produced a deep impression on his mind; a +strong suspicion of his having led him on to pursue Miss Nickleby for +purposes of his own, had been lurking there for some time; he was really +ashamed of his share in the transaction, and deeply mortified by the +misgiving that he had been gulled. He had had sufficient leisure to +reflect upon these things, during their late retirement; and, at times, +when his careless and indolent nature would permit, had availed himself +of the opportunity. Slight circumstances, too, had occurred to increase +his suspicion. It wanted but a very slight circumstance to kindle his +wrath against Sir Mulberry. This his disdainful and insolent tone in +their recent conversation (the only one they had held upon the subject +since the period to which Sir Mulberry referred), effected. + +Thus they rejoined their friends: each with causes of dislike against +the other rankling in his breast: and the young man haunted, besides, +with thoughts of the vindictive retaliation which was threatened against +Nicholas, and the determination to prevent it by some strong step, if +possible. But this was not all. Sir Mulberry, conceiving that he had +silenced him effectually, could not suppress his triumph, or forbear +from following up what he conceived to be his advantage. Mr. Pyke was +there, and Mr. Pluck was there, and Colonel Chowser, and other gentlemen +of the same caste, and it was a great point for Sir Mulberry to show +them that he had not lost his influence. At first, the young lord +contented himself with a silent determination to take measures for +withdrawing himself from the connection immediately. By degrees, he grew +more angry, and was exasperated by jests and familiarities which, a few +hours before, would have been a source of amusement to him. This did not +serve him; for, at such bantering or retort as suited the company, he +was no match for Sir Mulberry. Still, no violent rupture took place. +They returned to town; Messrs Pyke and Pluck and other gentlemen +frequently protesting, on the way thither, that Sir Mulberry had never +been in such tiptop spirits in all his life. + +They dined together, sumptuously. The wine flowed freely, as indeed +it had done all day. Sir Mulberry drank to recompense himself for his +recent abstinence; the young lord, to drown his indignation; and the +remainder of the party, because the wine was of the best and they had +nothing to pay. It was nearly midnight when they rushed out, wild, +burning with wine, their blood boiling, and their brains on fire, to the +gaming-table. + +Here, they encountered another party, mad like themselves. The +excitement of play, hot rooms, and glaring lights was not calculated to +allay the fever of the time. In that giddy whirl of noise and confusion, +the men were delirious. Who thought of money, ruin, or the morrow, in +the savage intoxication of the moment? More wine was called for, glass +after glass was drained, their parched and scalding mouths were cracked +with thirst. Down poured the wine like oil on blazing fire. And still +the riot went on. The debauchery gained its height; glasses were dashed +upon the floor by hands that could not carry them to lips; oaths were +shouted out by lips which could scarcely form the words to vent them +in; drunken losers cursed and roared; some mounted on the tables, waving +bottles above their heads and bidding defiance to the rest; some danced, +some sang, some tore the cards and raved. Tumult and frenzy reigned +supreme; when a noise arose that drowned all others, and two men, +seizing each other by the throat, struggled into the middle of the room. + +A dozen voices, until now unheard, called aloud to part them. Those who +had kept themselves cool, to win, and who earned their living in such +scenes, threw themselves upon the combatants, and, forcing them asunder, +dragged them some space apart. + +‘Let me go!’ cried Sir Mulberry, in a thick hoarse voice; ‘he struck +me! Do you hear? I say, he struck me. Have I a friend here? Who is this? +Westwood. Do you hear me say he struck me?’ + +‘I hear, I hear,’ replied one of those who held him. ‘Come away for +tonight!’ + +‘I will not, by G--,’ he replied. ‘A dozen men about us saw the blow.’ + +‘Tomorrow will be ample time,’ said the friend. + +‘It will not be ample time!’ cried Sir Mulberry. ‘Tonight, at once, +here!’ His passion was so great, that he could not articulate, but stood +clenching his fist, tearing his hair, and stamping upon the ground. + +‘What is this, my lord?’ said one of those who surrounded him. ‘Have +blows passed?’ + +‘ONE blow has,’ was the panting reply. ‘I struck him. I proclaim it +to all here! I struck him, and he knows why. I say, with him, let this +quarrel be adjusted now. Captain Adams,’ said the young lord, looking +hurriedly about him, and addressing one of those who had interposed, +‘let me speak with you, I beg.’ + +The person addressed stepped forward, and taking the young man’s arm, +they retired together, followed shortly afterwards by Sir Mulberry and +his friend. + +It was a profligate haunt of the worst repute, and not a place in which +such an affair was likely to awaken any sympathy for either party, or +to call forth any further remonstrance or interposition. Elsewhere, its +further progress would have been instantly prevented, and time allowed +for sober and cool reflection; but not there. Disturbed in their orgies, +the party broke up; some reeled away with looks of tipsy gravity; others +withdrew noisily discussing what had just occurred; the gentlemen of +honour who lived upon their winnings remarked to each other, as they +went out, that Hawk was a good shot; and those who had been most noisy, +fell fast asleep upon the sofas, and thought no more about it. + +Meanwhile, the two seconds, as they may be called now, after a long +conference, each with his principal, met together in another room. Both +utterly heartless, both men upon town, both thoroughly initiated in its +worst vices, both deeply in debt, both fallen from some higher estate, +both addicted to every depravity for which society can find some genteel +name and plead its most depraving conventionalities as an excuse, they +were naturally gentlemen of most unblemished honour themselves, and of +great nicety concerning the honour of other people. + +These two gentlemen were unusually cheerful just now; for the affair was +pretty certain to make some noise, and could scarcely fail to enhance +their reputations. + +‘This is an awkward affair, Adams,’ said Mr. Westwood, drawing himself +up. + +‘Very,’ returned the captain; ‘a blow has been struck, and there is but +one course, OF course.’ + +‘No apology, I suppose?’ said Mr. Westwood. + +‘Not a syllable, sir, from my man, if we talk till doomsday,’ returned +the captain. ‘The original cause of dispute, I understand, was some +girl or other, to whom your principal applied certain terms, which +Lord Frederick, defending the girl, repelled. But this led to a +long recrimination upon a great many sore subjects, charges, and +counter-charges. Sir Mulberry was sarcastic; Lord Frederick was excited, +and struck him in the heat of provocation, and under circumstances of +great aggravation. That blow, unless there is a full retraction on the +part of Sir Mulberry, Lord Frederick is ready to justify.’ + +‘There is no more to be said,’ returned the other, ‘but to settle the +hour and the place of meeting. It’s a responsibility; but there is a +strong feeling to have it over. Do you object to say at sunrise?’ + +‘Sharp work,’ replied the captain, referring to his watch; ‘however, as +this seems to have been a long time breeding, and negotiation is only a +waste of words, no.’ + +‘Something may possibly be said, out of doors, after what passed in the +other room, which renders it desirable that we should be off without +delay, and quite clear of town,’ said Mr. Westwood. ‘What do you say to +one of the meadows opposite Twickenham, by the river-side?’ + +The captain saw no objection. + +‘Shall we join company in the avenue of trees which leads from Petersham +to Ham House, and settle the exact spot when we arrive there?’ said Mr +Westwood. + +To this the captain also assented. After a few other preliminaries, +equally brief, and having settled the road each party should take to +avoid suspicion, they separated. + +‘We shall just have comfortable time, my lord,’ said the captain, when +he had communicated the arrangements, ‘to call at my rooms for a case of +pistols, and then jog coolly down. If you will allow me to dismiss your +servant, we’ll take my cab; for yours, perhaps, might be recognised.’ + +What a contrast, when they reached the street, to the scene they had +just left! It was already daybreak. For the flaring yellow light within, +was substituted the clear, bright, glorious morning; for a hot, close +atmosphere, tainted with the smell of expiring lamps, and reeking with +the steams of riot and dissipation, the free, fresh, wholesome air. But +to the fevered head on which that cool air blew, it seemed to come laden +with remorse for time misspent and countless opportunities neglected. +With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts +hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and +shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous +thing. + +‘Shivering?’ said the captain. ‘You are cold.’ + +‘Rather.’ + +‘It does strike cool, coming out of those hot rooms. Wrap that cloak +about you. So, so; now we’re off.’ + +They rattled through the quiet streets, made their call at the captain’s +lodgings, cleared the town, and emerged upon the open road, without +hindrance or molestation. + +Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, everything looked very beautiful; the +young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them before, though he had +passed the same objects a thousand times. There was a peace and serenity +upon them all, strangely at variance with the bewilderment and confusion +of his own half-sobered thoughts, and yet impressive and welcome. He had +no fear upon his mind; but, as he looked about him, he had less anger; +and though all old delusions, relative to his worthless late companion, +were now cleared away, he rather wished he had never known him than +thought of its having come to this. + +The past night, the day before, and many other days and nights beside, +all mingled themselves up in one unintelligible and senseless whirl; he +could not separate the transactions of one time from those of another. +Now, the noise of the wheels resolved itself into some wild tune in +which he could recognise scraps of airs he knew; now, there was nothing +in his ears but a stunning and bewildering sound, like rushing water. +But his companion rallied him on being so silent, and they talked and +laughed boisterously. When they stopped, he was a little surprised to +find himself in the act of smoking; but, on reflection, he remembered +when and where he had taken the cigar. + +They stopped at the avenue gate and alighted, leaving the carriage to +the care of the servant, who was a smart fellow, and nearly as well +accustomed to such proceedings as his master. Sir Mulberry and his +friend were already there. All four walked in profound silence up the +aisle of stately elm trees, which, meeting far above their heads, formed +a long green perspective of Gothic arches, terminating, like some old +ruin, in the open sky. + +After a pause, and a brief conference between the seconds, they, at +length, turned to the right, and taking a track across a little meadow, +passed Ham House and came into some fields beyond. In one of these, they +stopped. The ground was measured, some usual forms gone through, the two +principals were placed front to front at the distance agreed upon, and +Sir Mulberry turned his face towards his young adversary for the first +time. He was very pale, his eyes were bloodshot, his dress disordered, +and his hair dishevelled. For the face, it expressed nothing but violent +and evil passions. He shaded his eyes with his hand; grazed at his +opponent, steadfastly, for a few moments; and, then taking the weapon +which was tendered to him, bent his eyes upon that, and looked up no +more until the word was given, when he instantly fired. + +The two shots were fired, as nearly as possible, at the same instant. In +that instant, the young lord turned his head sharply round, fixed upon +his adversary a ghastly stare, and without a groan or stagger, fell down +dead. + +‘He’s gone!’ cried Westwood, who, with the other second, had run up to +the body, and fallen on one knee beside it. + +‘His blood on his own head,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘He brought this upon +himself, and forced it upon me.’ + +‘Captain Adams,’ cried Westwood, hastily, ‘I call you to witness that +this was fairly done. Hawk, we have not a moment to lose. We must leave +this place immediately, push for Brighton, and cross to France with all +speed. This has been a bad business, and may be worse, if we delay +a moment. Adams, consult your own safety, and don’t remain here; the +living before the dead; goodbye!’ + +With these words, he seized Sir Mulberry by the arm, and hurried him +away. Captain Adams--only pausing to convince himself, beyond all +question, of the fatal result--sped off in the same direction, to +concert measures with his servant for removing the body, and securing +his own safety likewise. + +So died Lord Frederick Verisopht, by the hand which he had loaded with +gifts, and clasped a thousand times; by the act of him, but for whom, +and others like him, he might have lived a happy man, and died with +children’s faces round his bed. + +The sun came proudly up in all his majesty, the noble river ran its +winding course, the leaves quivered and rustled in the air, the birds +poured their cheerful songs from every tree, the short-lived butterfly +fluttered its little wings; all the light and life of day came on; and, +amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every blade bore twenty +tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned +upwards to the sky. + + + +CHAPTER 51 + +The Project of Mr. Ralph Nickleby and his Friend approaching a successful +Issue, becomes unexpectedly known to another Party, not admitted into +their Confidence + + +In an old house, dismal dark and dusty, which seemed to have withered, +like himself, and to have grown yellow and shrivelled in hoarding him +from the light of day, as he had in hoarding his money, lived Arthur +Gride. Meagre old chairs and tables, of spare and bony make, and hard +and cold as misers’ hearts, were ranged, in grim array, against the +gloomy walls; attenuated presses, grown lank and lantern-jawed in +guarding the treasures they enclosed, and tottering, as though from +constant fear and dread of thieves, shrunk up in dark corners, whence +they cast no shadows on the ground, and seemed to hide and cower from +observation. A tall grim clock upon the stairs, with long lean hands and +famished face, ticked in cautious whispers; and when it struck the time, +in thin and piping sounds, like an old man’s voice, rattled, as if it +were pinched with hunger. + +No fireside couch was there, to invite repose and comfort. Elbow-chairs +there were, but they looked uneasy in their minds, cocked their arms +suspiciously and timidly, and kept upon their guard. Others, were +fantastically grim and gaunt, as having drawn themselves up to their +utmost height, and put on their fiercest looks to stare all comers out +of countenance. Others, again, knocked up against their neighbours, or +leant for support against the wall--somewhat ostentatiously, as if to +call all men to witness that they were not worth the taking. The dark +square lumbering bedsteads seemed built for restless dreams; the musty +hangings seemed to creep in scanty folds together, whispering among +themselves, when rustled by the wind, their trembling knowledge of the +tempting wares that lurked within the dark and tight-locked closets. + +From out the most spare and hungry room in all this spare and hungry +house there came, one morning, the tremulous tones of old Gride’s voice, +as it feebly chirruped forth the fag end of some forgotten song, of +which the burden ran: + + Ta--ran--tan--too, + Throw the old shoe, + And may the wedding be lucky! + +which he repeated, in the same shrill quavering notes, again and again, +until a violent fit of coughing obliged him to desist, and to pursue in +silence, the occupation upon which he was engaged. + +This occupation was, to take down from the shelves of a worm-eaten +wardrobe a quantity of frouzy garments, one by one; to subject each to +a careful and minute inspection by holding it up against the light, and +after folding it with great exactness, to lay it on one or other of +two little heaps beside him. He never took two articles of clothing out +together, but always brought them forth, singly, and never failed to +shut the wardrobe door, and turn the key, between each visit to its +shelves. + +‘The snuff-coloured suit,’ said Arthur Gride, surveying a threadbare +coat. ‘Did I look well in snuff-colour? Let me think.’ + +The result of his cogitations appeared to be unfavourable, for he folded +the garment once more, laid it aside, and mounted on a chair to get down +another, chirping while he did so: + + Young, loving, and fair, + Oh what happiness there! + The wedding is sure to be lucky! + +‘They always put in “young,”’ said old Arthur, ‘but songs are only +written for the sake of rhyme, and this is a silly one that the poor +country-people sang, when I was a little boy. Though stop--young is +quite right too--it means the bride--yes. He, he, he! It means the +bride. Oh dear, that’s good. That’s very good. And true besides, quite +true!’ + +In the satisfaction of this discovery, he went over the verse again, +with increased expression, and a shake or two here and there. He then +resumed his employment. + +‘The bottle-green,’ said old Arthur; ‘the bottle-green was a famous +suit to wear, and I bought it very cheap at a pawnbroker’s, and there +was--he, he, he!--a tarnished shilling in the waistcoat pocket. To think +that the pawnbroker shouldn’t have known there was a shilling in it! I +knew it! I felt it when I was examining the quality. Oh, what a dull dog +of a pawnbroker! It was a lucky suit too, this bottle-green. The very +day I put it on first, old Lord Mallowford was burnt to death in +his bed, and all the post-obits fell in. I’ll be married in the +bottle-green. Peg. Peg Sliderskew--I’ll wear the bottle-green!’ + +This call, loudly repeated twice or thrice at the room-door, brought +into the apartment a short, thin, weasen, blear-eyed old woman, +palsy-stricken and hideously ugly, who, wiping her shrivelled face upon +her dirty apron, inquired, in that subdued tone in which deaf people +commonly speak: + +‘Was that you a calling, or only the clock a striking? My hearing gets +so bad, I never know which is which; but when I hear a noise, I know it +must be one of you, because nothing else never stirs in the house.’ + +‘Me, Peg, me,’ said Arthur Gride, tapping himself on the breast to +render the reply more intelligible. + +‘You, eh?’ returned Peg. ‘And what do YOU want?’ + +‘I’ll be married in the bottle-green,’ cried Arthur Gride. + +‘It’s a deal too good to be married in, master,’ rejoined Peg, after +a short inspection of the suit. ‘Haven’t you got anything worse than +this?’ + +‘Nothing that’ll do,’ replied old Arthur. + +‘Why not do?’ retorted Peg. ‘Why don’t you wear your every-day clothes, +like a man--eh?’ + +‘They an’t becoming enough, Peg,’ returned her master. + +‘Not what enough?’ said Peg. + +‘Becoming.’ + +‘Becoming what?’ said Peg, sharply. ‘Not becoming too old to wear?’ + +Arthur Gride muttered an imprecation on his housekeeper’s deafness, as +he roared in her ear: + +‘Not smart enough! I want to look as well as I can.’ + +‘Look?’ cried Peg. ‘If she’s as handsome as you say she is, she won’t +look much at you, master, take your oath of that; and as to how you look +yourself--pepper-and-salt, bottle-green, sky-blue, or tartan-plaid will +make no difference in you.’ + +With which consolatory assurance, Peg Sliderskew gathered up the chosen +suit, and folding her skinny arms upon the bundle, stood, mouthing, and +grinning, and blinking her watery eyes, like an uncouth figure in some +monstrous piece of carving. + +‘You’re in a funny humour, an’t you, Peg?’ said Arthur, with not the +best possible grace. + +‘Why, isn’t it enough to make me?’ rejoined the old woman. ‘I shall, +soon enough, be put out, though, if anybody tries to domineer it over +me: and so I give you notice, master. Nobody shall be put over Peg +Sliderskew’s head, after so many years; you know that, and so I needn’t +tell you! That won’t do for me--no, no, nor for you. Try that once, and +come to ruin--ruin--ruin!’ + +‘Oh dear, dear, I shall never try it,’ said Arthur Gride, appalled by +the mention of the word, ‘not for the world. It would be very easy to +ruin me; we must be very careful; more saving than ever, with another +mouth to feed. Only we--we mustn’t let her lose her good looks, Peg, +because I like to see ‘em.’ + +‘Take care you don’t find good looks come expensive,’ returned Peg, +shaking her forefinger. + +‘But she can earn money herself, Peg,’ said Arthur Gride, eagerly +watching what effect his communication produced upon the old woman’s +countenance: ‘she can draw, paint, work all manner of pretty things for +ornamenting stools and chairs: slippers, Peg, watch-guards, hair-chains, +and a thousand little dainty trifles that I couldn’t give you half the +names of. Then she can play the piano, (and, what’s more, she’s got +one), and sing like a little bird. She’ll be very cheap to dress and +keep, Peg; don’t you think she will?’ + +‘If you don’t let her make a fool of you, she may,’ returned Peg. + +‘A fool of ME!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Trust your old master not to be +fooled by pretty faces, Peg; no, no, no--nor by ugly ones neither, Mrs +Sliderskew,’ he softly added by way of soliloquy. + +‘You’re a saying something you don’t want me to hear,’ said Peg; ‘I know +you are.’ + +‘Oh dear! the devil’s in this woman,’ muttered Arthur; adding with an +ugly leer, ‘I said I trusted everything to you, Peg. That was all.’ + +‘You do that, master, and all your cares are over,’ said Peg +approvingly. + +‘WHEN I do that, Peg Sliderskew,’ thought Arthur Gride, ‘they will be.’ + +Although he thought this very distinctly, he durst not move his lips +lest the old woman should detect him. He even seemed half afraid that +she might have read his thoughts; for he leered coaxingly upon her, as +he said aloud: + +‘Take up all loose stitches in the bottle-green with the best black +silk. Have a skein of the best, and some new buttons for the coat, +and--this is a good idea, Peg, and one you’ll like, I know--as I have +never given her anything yet, and girls like such attentions, you shall +polish up a sparking necklace that I have got upstairs, and I’ll give +it her upon the wedding morning--clasp it round her charming little neck +myself--and take it away again next day. He, he, he! I’ll lock it up for +her, Peg, and lose it. Who’ll be made the fool of there, I wonder, to +begin with--eh, Peg?’ + +Mrs. Sliderskew appeared to approve highly of this ingenious scheme, and +expressed her satisfaction by various rackings and twitchings of +her head and body, which by no means enhanced her charms. These she +prolonged until she had hobbled to the door, when she exchanged them +for a sour malignant look, and twisting her under-jaw from side to side, +muttered hearty curses upon the future Mrs. Gride, as she crept slowly +down the stairs, and paused for breath at nearly every one. + +‘She’s half a witch, I think,’ said Arthur Gride, when he found himself +again alone. ‘But she’s very frugal, and she’s very deaf. Her living +costs me next to nothing; and it’s no use her listening at keyholes; for +she can’t hear. She’s a charming woman--for the purpose; a most discreet +old housekeeper, and worth her weight in--copper.’ + +Having extolled the merits of his domestic in these high terms, old +Arthur went back to the burden of his song. The suit destined to grace +his approaching nuptials being now selected, he replaced the others with +no less care than he had displayed in drawing them from the musty nooks +where they had silently reposed for many years. + +Startled by a ring at the door, he hastily concluded this operation, and +locked the press; but there was no need for any particular hurry, as the +discreet Peg seldom knew the bell was rung unless she happened to cast +her dim eyes upwards, and to see it shaking against the kitchen ceiling. +After a short delay, however, Peg tottered in, followed by Newman Noggs. + +‘Ah! Mr. Noggs!’ cried Arthur Gride, rubbing his hands. ‘My good friend, +Mr. Noggs, what news do you bring for me?’ + +Newman, with a steadfast and immovable aspect, and his fixed eye very +fixed indeed, replied, suiting the action to the word, ‘A letter. From +Mr. Nickleby. Bearer waits.’ + +‘Won’t you take a--a--’ + +Newman looked up, and smacked his lips. + +‘--A chair?’ said Arthur Gride. + +‘No,’ replied Newman. ‘Thankee.’ + +Arthur opened the letter with trembling hands, and devoured its contents +with the utmost greediness; chuckling rapturously over it, and reading +it several times, before he could take it from before his eyes. So +many times did he peruse and re-peruse it, that Newman considered it +expedient to remind him of his presence. + +‘Answer,’ said Newman. ‘Bearer waits.’ + +‘True,’ replied old Arthur. ‘Yes--yes; I almost forgot, I do declare.’ + +‘I thought you were forgetting,’ said Newman. + +‘Quite right to remind me, Mr. Noggs. Oh, very right indeed,’ said +Arthur. ‘Yes. I’ll write a line. I’m--I’m--rather flurried, Mr. Noggs. +The news is--’ + +‘Bad?’ interrupted Newman. + +‘No, Mr. Noggs, thank you; good, good. The very best of news. Sit down. +I’ll get the pen and ink, and write a line in answer. I’ll not detain +you long. I know you’re a treasure to your master, Mr. Noggs. He speaks +of you in such terms, sometimes, that, oh dear! you’d be astonished. I +may say that I do too, and always did. I always say the same of you.’ + +‘That’s “Curse Mr. Noggs with all my heart!” then, if you do,’ thought +Newman, as Gride hurried out. + +The letter had fallen on the ground. Looking carefully about him for an +instant, Newman, impelled by curiosity to know the result of the design +he had overheard from his office closet, caught it up and rapidly read +as follows: + + +‘GRIDE. + +‘I saw Bray again this morning, and proposed the day after tomorrow (as +you suggested) for the marriage. There is no objection on his part, and +all days are alike to his daughter. We will go together, and you must be +with me by seven in the morning. I need not tell you to be punctual. + +‘Make no further visits to the girl in the meantime. You have been +there, of late, much oftener than you should. She does not languish for +you, and it might have been dangerous. Restrain your youthful ardour for +eight-and-forty hours, and leave her to the father. You only undo what +he does, and does well. + +‘Yours, + +‘RALPH NICKLEBY.’ + + +A footstep was heard without. Newman dropped the letter on the same spot +again, pressed it with his foot to prevent its fluttering away, regained +his seat in a single stride, and looked as vacant and unconscious as +ever mortal looked. Arthur Gride, after peering nervously about him, +spied it on the ground, picked it up, and sitting down to write, glanced +at Newman Noggs, who was staring at the wall with an intensity so +remarkable, that Arthur was quite alarmed. + +‘Do you see anything particular, Mr. Noggs?’ said Arthur, trying to +follow the direction of Newman’s eyes--which was an impossibility, and a +thing no man had ever done. + +‘Only a cobweb,’ replied Newman. + +‘Oh! is that all?’ + +‘No,’ said Newman. ‘There’s a fly in it.’ + +‘There are a good many cobwebs here,’ observed Arthur Gride. + +‘So there are in our place,’ returned Newman; ‘and flies too.’ + +Newman appeared to derive great entertainment from this repartee, and +to the great discomposure of Arthur Gride’s nerves, produced a series of +sharp cracks from his finger-joints, resembling the noise of a distant +discharge of small artillery. Arthur succeeded in finishing his reply +to Ralph’s note, nevertheless, and at length handed it over to the +eccentric messenger for delivery. + +‘That’s it, Mr. Noggs,’ said Gride. + +Newman gave a nod, put it in his hat, and was shuffling away, when +Gride, whose doting delight knew no bounds, beckoned him back again, and +said, in a shrill whisper, and with a grin which puckered up his whole +face, and almost obscured his eyes: + +‘Will you--will you take a little drop of something--just a taste?’ + +In good fellowship (if Arthur Gride had been capable of it) Newman would +not have drunk with him one bubble of the richest wine that was ever +made; but to see what he would be at, and to punish him as much as he +could, he accepted the offer immediately. + +Arthur Gride, therefore, again applied himself to the press, and from a +shelf laden with tall Flemish drinking-glasses, and quaint bottles: +some with necks like so many storks, and others with square Dutch-built +bodies and short fat apoplectic throats: took down one dusty bottle of +promising appearance, and two glasses of curiously small size. + +‘You never tasted this,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s EAU-D’OR--golden water. I +like it on account of its name. It’s a delicious name. Water of gold, +golden water! O dear me, it seems quite a sin to drink it!’ + +As his courage appeared to be fast failing him, and he trifled with the +stopper in a manner which threatened the dismissal of the bottle to its +old place, Newman took up one of the little glasses, and clinked it, +twice or thrice, against the bottle, as a gentle reminder that he +had not been helped yet. With a deep sigh, Arthur Gride slowly filled +it--though not to the brim--and then filled his own. + +‘Stop, stop; don’t drink it yet,’ he said, laying his hand on Newman’s; +‘it was given to me, twenty years ago, and when I take a little taste, +which is ve--ry seldom, I like to think of it beforehand, and tease +myself. We’ll drink a toast. Shall we drink a toast, Mr. Noggs?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Newman, eyeing his little glass impatiently. ‘Look sharp. +Bearer waits.’ + +‘Why, then, I’ll tell you what,’ tittered Arthur, ‘we’ll drink--he, he, +he!--we’ll drink a lady.’ + +‘THE ladies?’ said Newman. + +‘No, no, Mr. Noggs,’ replied Gride, arresting his hand, ‘A lady. You +wonder to hear me say A lady. I know you do, I know you do. Here’s +little Madeline. That’s the toast. Mr. Noggs. Little Madeline!’ + +‘Madeline!’ said Newman; inwardly adding, ‘and God help her!’ + +The rapidity and unconcern with which Newman dismissed his portion of +the golden water, had a great effect upon the old man, who sat upright +in his chair, and gazed at him, open-mouthed, as if the sight had taken +away his breath. Quite unmoved, however, Newman left him to sip his own +at leisure, or to pour it back again into the bottle, if he chose, +and departed; after greatly outraging the dignity of Peg Sliderskew +by brushing past her, in the passage, without a word of apology or +recognition. + +Mr. Gride and his housekeeper, immediately on being left alone, resolved +themselves into a committee of ways and means, and discussed the +arrangements which should be made for the reception of the young bride. +As they were, like some other committees, extremely dull and prolix in +debate, this history may pursue the footsteps of Newman Noggs; thereby +combining advantage with necessity; for it would have been necessary +to do so under any circumstances, and necessity has no law, as all the +world knows. + +‘You’ve been a long time,’ said Ralph, when Newman returned. + +‘HE was a long time,’ replied Newman. + +‘Bah!’ cried Ralph impatiently. ‘Give me his note, if he gave you one: +his message, if he didn’t. And don’t go away. I want a word with you, +sir.’ + +Newman handed in the note, and looked very virtuous and innocent while +his employer broke the seal, and glanced his eye over it. + +‘He’ll be sure to come,’ muttered Ralph, as he tore it to pieces; ‘why +of course, I know he’ll be sure to come. What need to say that? Noggs! +Pray, sir, what man was that, with whom I saw you in the street last +night?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Newman. + +‘You had better refresh your memory, sir,’ said Ralph, with a +threatening look. + +‘I tell you,’ returned Newman boldly, ‘that I don’t know. He came here +twice, and asked for you. You were out. He came again. You packed him +off, yourself. He gave the name of Brooker.’ + +‘I know he did,’ said Ralph; ‘what then?’ + +‘What then? Why, then he lurked about and dogged me in the street. He +follows me, night after night, and urges me to bring him face to face +with you; as he says he has been once, and not long ago either. He +wants to see you face to face, he says, and you’ll soon hear him out, he +warrants.’ + +‘And what say you to that?’ inquired Ralph, looking keenly at his +drudge. + +‘That it’s no business of mine, and I won’t. I told him he might catch +you in the street, if that was all he wanted, but no! that wouldn’t do. +You wouldn’t hear a word there, he said. He must have you alone in a +room with the door locked, where he could speak without fear, and you’d +soon change your tone, and hear him patiently.’ + +‘An audacious dog!’ Ralph muttered. + +‘That’s all I know,’ said Newman. ‘I say again, I don’t know what man +he is. I don’t believe he knows himself. You have seen him; perhaps YOU +do.’ + +‘I think I do,’ replied Ralph. + +‘Well,’ retored Newman, sulkily, ‘don’t expect me to know him too; +that’s all. You’ll ask me, next, why I never told you this before. What +would you say, if I was to tell you all that people say of you? What +do you call me when I sometimes do? “Brute, ass!” and snap at me like a +dragon.’ + +This was true enough; though the question which Newman anticipated, was, +in fact, upon Ralph’s lips at the moment. + +‘He is an idle ruffian,’ said Ralph; ‘a vagabond from beyond the sea +where he travelled for his crimes; a felon let loose to run his neck +into the halter; a swindler, who has the audacity to try his schemes on +me who know him well. The next time he tampers with you, hand him over +to the police, for attempting to extort money by lies and threats,--d’ye +hear?--and leave the rest to me. He shall cool his heels in jail a +little time, and I’ll be bound he looks for other folks to fleece, when +he comes out. You mind what I say, do you?’ + +‘I hear,’ said Newman. + +‘Do it then,’ returned Ralph, ‘and I’ll reward you. Now, you may go.’ + +Newman readily availed himself of the permission, and, shutting himself +up in his little office, remained there, in very serious cogitation, +all day. When he was released at night, he proceeded, with all the +expedition he could use, to the city, and took up his old position +behind the pump, to watch for Nicholas. For Newman Noggs was proud in +his way, and could not bear to appear as his friend, before the brothers +Cheeryble, in the shabby and degraded state to which he was reduced. + +He had not occupied this position many minutes, when he was rejoiced to +see Nicholas approaching, and darted out from his ambuscade to meet him. +Nicholas, on his part, was no less pleased to encounter his friend, whom +he had not seen for some time; so, their greeting was a warm one. + +‘I was thinking of you, at that moment,’ said Nicholas. + +‘That’s right,’ rejoined Newman, ‘and I of you. I couldn’t help coming +up, tonight. I say, I think I am going to find out something.’ + +‘And what may that be?’ returned Nicholas, smiling at this odd +communication. + +‘I don’t know what it may be, I don’t know what it may not be,’ said +Newman; ‘it’s some secret in which your uncle is concerned, but +what, I’ve not yet been able to discover, although I have my strong +suspicions. I’ll not hint ‘em now, in case you should be disappointed.’ + +‘I disappointed!’ cried Nicholas; ‘am I interested?’ + +‘I think you are,’ replied Newman. ‘I have a crotchet in my head that it +must be so. I have found out a man, who plainly knows more than he cares +to tell at once. And he has already dropped such hints to me as puzzle +me--I say, as puzzle me,’ said Newman, scratching his red nose into +a state of violent inflammation, and staring at Nicholas with all his +might and main meanwhile. + +Admiring what could have wound his friend up to such a pitch of mystery, +Nicholas endeavoured, by a series of questions, to elucidate the cause; +but in vain. Newman could not be drawn into any more explicit statement +than a repetition of the perplexities he had already thrown out, and +a confused oration, showing, How it was necessary to use the utmost +caution; how the lynx-eyed Ralph had already seen him in company with +his unknown correspondent; and how he had baffled the said Ralph by +extreme guardedness of manner and ingenuity of speech; having prepared +himself for such a contingency from the first. + +Remembering his companion’s propensity,--of which his nose, indeed, +perpetually warned all beholders like a beacon,--Nicholas had drawn him +into a sequestered tavern. Here, they fell to reviewing the origin and +progress of their acquaintance, as men sometimes do, and tracing out the +little events by which it was most strongly marked, came at last to Miss +Cecilia Bobster. + +‘And that reminds me,’ said Newman, ‘that you never told me the young +lady’s real name.’ + +‘Madeline!’ said Nicholas. + +‘Madeline!’ cried Newman. ‘What Madeline? Her other name. Say her other +name.’ + +‘Bray,’ said Nicholas, in great astonishment. + +‘It’s the same!’ cried Newman. ‘Sad story! Can you stand idly by, and +let that unnatural marriage take place without one attempt to save her?’ + +‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Nicholas, starting up; ‘marriage! are you +mad?’ + +‘Are you? Is she? Are you blind, deaf, senseless, dead?’ said Newman. +‘Do you know that within one day, by means of your uncle Ralph, she will +be married to a man as bad as he, and worse, if worse there is? Do you +know that, within one day, she will be sacrificed, as sure as you stand +there alive, to a hoary wretch--a devil born and bred, and grey in +devils’ ways?’ + +‘Be careful what you say,’ replied Nicholas. ‘For Heaven’s sake be +careful! I am left here alone, and those who could stretch out a hand to +rescue her are far away. What is it that you mean?’ + +‘I never heard her name,’ said Newman, choking with his energy. ‘Why +didn’t you tell me? How was I to know? We might, at least, have had some +time to think!’ + +‘What is it that you mean?’ cried Nicholas. + +It was not an easy task to arrive at this information; but, after a +great quantity of extraordinary pantomime, which in no way assisted it, +Nicholas, who was almost as wild as Newman Noggs himself, forced the +latter down upon his seat and held him down until he began his tale. + +Rage, astonishment, indignation, and a storm of passions, rushed through +the listener’s heart, as the plot was laid bare. He no sooner understood +it all, than with a face of ashy paleness, and trembling in every limb, +he darted from the house. + +‘Stop him!’ cried Newman, bolting out in pursuit. ‘He’ll be doing +something desperate; he’ll murder somebody. Hallo! there, stop him. Stop +thief! stop thief!’ + + + +CHAPTER 52 + +Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his Spirits +again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence of the +Kenwigses and Lillyvicks + + +Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any hazard, +and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger, attracted by the +cry of ‘Stop thief,’ might lay violent hands upon his person, and +place him in a disagreeable predicament from which he might have some +difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his pace, +and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him: which he did, in so +breathless a condition, that it seemed impossible he could have held out +for a minute longer. + +‘I will go straight to Bray’s,’ said Nicholas. ‘I will see this man. +If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a spark of +consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless as she is, I +will awaken it.’ + +‘You will not,’ replied Newman. ‘You will not, indeed.’ + +‘Then,’ said Nicholas, pressing onward, ‘I will act upon my first +impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.’ + +‘By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,’ said Newman. + +‘I’ll drag him from it,’ cried Nicholas. + +‘Tut, tut,’ said Noggs. ‘Be yourself.’ + +‘You are the best of friends to me, Newman,’ rejoined Nicholas after a +pause, and taking his hand as he spoke. ‘I have made head against many +trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved in this +one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know not how to +act.’ + +In truth, it did seem a hopeless case. It was impossible to make any use +of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he lay concealed +in the closet. The mere circumstance of the compact between Ralph +Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage, or render Bray +averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the existence of some +such understanding, doubtless suspected it. What had been hinted with +reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been put, with sufficient +obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from Newman Noggs, and obscured +still further by the smoke of his pocket-pistol, it became wholly +unintelligible, and involved in utter darkness. + +‘There seems no ray of hope,’ said Nicholas. + +‘The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration, +for thought,’ said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look +anxiously in his friend’s face. ‘Where are the brothers?’ + +‘Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to come.’ + +‘Is there no way of communicating with them? No way of getting one of +them here by tomorrow night?’ + +‘Impossible!’ said Nicholas, ‘the sea is between us and them. With the +fairest winds that ever blew, to go and return would take three days and +nights.’ + +‘Their nephew,’ said Newman, ‘their old clerk.’ + +‘What could either do, that I cannot?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘With +reference to them, especially, I am enjoined to the strictest silence on +this subject. What right have I to betray the confidence reposed in me, +when nothing but a miracle can prevent this sacrifice?’ + +‘Think,’ urged Newman. ‘Is there no way?’ + +‘There is none,’ said Nicholas, in utter dejection. ‘Not one. The father +urges, the daughter consents. These demons have her in their toils; +legal right, might, power, money, and every influence are on their side. +How can I hope to save her?’ + +‘Hope to the last!’ said Newman, clapping him on the back. ‘Always hope; +that’s a dear boy. Never leave off hoping; it don’t answer. Do you mind +me, Nick? It don’t answer. Don’t leave a stone unturned. It’s always +something, to know you’ve done the most you could. But, don’t leave off +hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. Hope, hope, to the last!’ + +Nicholas needed encouragement. The suddenness with which intelligence of +the two usurers’ plans had come upon him, the little time which remained +for exertion, the probability, almost amounting to certainty itself, +that a few hours would place Madeline Bray for ever beyond his reach, +consign her to unspeakable misery, and perhaps to an untimely death; all +this quite stunned and overwhelmed him. Every hope connected with her +that he had suffered himself to form, or had entertained unconsciously, +seemed to fall at his feet, withered and dead. Every charm with which +his memory or imagination had surrounded her, presented itself before +him, only to heighten his anguish and add new bitterness to his despair. +Every feeling of sympathy for her forlorn condition, and of admiration +for her heroism and fortitude, aggravated the indignation which shook +him in every limb, and swelled his heart almost to bursting. + +But, if Nicholas’s own heart embarrassed him, Newman’s came to his +relief. There was so much earnestness in his remonstrance, and such +sincerity and fervour in his manner, odd and ludicrous as it always was, +that it imparted to Nicholas new firmness, and enabled him to say, after +he had walked on for some little way in silence: + +‘You read me a good lesson, Newman, and I will profit by it. One step, +at least, I may take--am bound to take indeed--and to that I will apply +myself tomorrow.’ + +‘What is that?’ asked Noggs wistfully. ‘Not to threaten Ralph? Not to +see the father?’ + +‘To see the daughter, Newman,’ replied Nicholas. ‘To do what, after all, +is the utmost that the brothers could do, if they were here, as Heaven +send they were! To reason with her upon this hideous union, to point out +to her all the horrors to which she is hastening; rashly, it may be, and +without due reflection. To entreat her, at least, to pause. She can have +had no counsellor for her good. Perhaps even I may move her so far yet, +though it is the eleventh hour, and she upon the very brink of ruin.’ + +‘Bravely spoken!’ said Newman. ‘Well done, well done! Yes. Very good.’ + +‘And I do declare,’ cried Nicholas, with honest enthusiasm, ‘that in +this effort I am influenced by no selfish or personal considerations, +but by pity for her, and detestation and abhorrence of this scheme; and +that I would do the same, were there twenty rivals in the field, and I +the last and least favoured of them all.’ + +‘You would, I believe,’ said Newman. ‘But where are you hurrying now?’ + +‘Homewards,’ answered Nicholas. ‘Do you come with me, or I shall say +good-night?’ + +‘I’ll come a little way, if you will but walk: not run,’ said Noggs. + +‘I cannot walk tonight, Newman,’ returned Nicholas, hurriedly. ‘I must +move rapidly, or I could not draw my breath. I’ll tell you what I’ve +said and done tomorrow.’ + +Without waiting for a reply, he darted off at a rapid pace, and, +plunging into the crowds which thronged the street, was quickly lost to +view. + +‘He’s a violent youth at times,’ said Newman, looking after him; ‘and +yet I like him for it. There’s cause enough now, or the deuce is in it. +Hope! I SAID hope, I think! Ralph Nickleby and Gride with their heads +together! And hope for the opposite party! Ho! ho!’ + +It was with a very melancholy laugh that Newman Noggs concluded this +soliloquy; and it was with a very melancholy shake of the head, and a +very rueful countenance, that he turned about, and went plodding on his +way. + +This, under ordinary circumstances, would have been to some small tavern +or dram-shop; that being his way, in more senses than one. But, Newman +was too much interested, and too anxious, to betake himself even to +this resource, and so, with many desponding and dismal reflections, went +straight home. + +It had come to pass, that afternoon, that Miss Morleena Kenwigs had +received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from Westminster +Bridge, unto the Eel-pie Island at Twickenham: there to make merry upon +a cold collation, bottled beer, shrub, and shrimps, and to dance in the +open air to the music of a locomotive band, conveyed thither for the +purpose: the steamer being specially engaged by a dancing-master of +extensive connection for the accommodation of his numerous pupils, +and the pupils displaying their appreciation of the dancing-master’s +services, by purchasing themselves, and inducing their friends to do the +like, divers light-blue tickets, entitling them to join the expedition. +Of these light-blue tickets, one had been presented by an ambitious +neighbour to Miss Morleena Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her +daughters; and Mrs. Kenwigs, rightly deeming that the honour of the +family was involved in Miss Morleena’s making the most splendid +appearance possible on so short a notice, and testifying to the +dancing-master that there were other dancing-masters besides him, and to +all fathers and mothers present that other people’s children could learn +to be genteel besides theirs, had fainted away twice under the magnitude +of her preparations, but, upheld by a determination to sustain the +family name or perish in the attempt, was still hard at work when Newman +Noggs came home. + +Now, between the italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of trousers, +the trimming of frocks, the faintings and the comings-to again, +incidental to the occasion, Mrs. Kenwigs had been so entirely occupied, +that she had not observed, until within half an hour before, that the +flaxen tails of Miss Morleena’s hair were, in a manner, run to seed; and +that, unless she were put under the hands of a skilful hairdresser, she +never could achieve that signal triumph over the daughters of all other +people, anything less than which would be tantamount to defeat. This +discovery drove Mrs. Kenwigs to despair; for the hairdresser lived three +streets and eight dangerous crossings off; Morleena could not be trusted +to go there alone, even if such a proceeding were strictly proper: +of which Mrs. Kenwigs had her doubts; Mr. Kenwigs had not returned from +business; and there was nobody to take her. So, Mrs. Kenwigs first +slapped Miss Kenwigs for being the cause of her vexation, and then shed +tears. + +‘You ungrateful child!’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘after I have gone through +what I have, this night, for your good.’ + +‘I can’t help it, ma,’ replied Morleena, also in tears; ‘my hair WILL +grow.’ + +‘Don’t talk to me, you naughty thing!’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘don’t! Even if +I was to trust you by yourself and you were to escape being run over, +I know you’d run in to Laura Chopkins,’ who was the daughter of the +ambitious neighbour, ‘and tell her what you’re going to wear tomorrow, +I know you would. You’ve no proper pride in yourself, and are not to be +trusted out of sight for an instant.’ + +Deploring the evil-mindedness of her eldest daughter in these terms, Mrs +Kenwigs distilled fresh drops of vexation from her eyes, and declared +that she did believe there never was anybody so tried as she was. +Thereupon, Morleena Kenwigs wept afresh, and they bemoaned themselves +together. + +Matters were at this point, as Newman Noggs was heard to limp past the +door on his way upstairs; when Mrs. Kenwigs, gaining new hope from the +sound of his footsteps, hastily removed from her countenance as many +traces of her late emotion as were effaceable on so short a notice: and +presenting herself before him, and representing their dilemma, entreated +that he would escort Morleena to the hairdresser’s shop. + +‘I wouldn’t ask you, Mr. Noggs,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘if I didn’t know what +a good, kind-hearted creature you are; no, not for worlds. I am a weak +constitution, Mr. Noggs, but my spirit would no more let me ask a favour +where I thought there was a chance of its being refused, than it would +let me submit to see my children trampled down and trod upon, by envy +and lowness!’ + +Newman was too good-natured not to have consented, even without this +avowal of confidence on the part of Mrs. Kenwigs. Accordingly, a very few +minutes had elapsed, when he and Miss Morleena were on their way to the +hairdresser’s. + +It was not exactly a hairdresser’s; that is to say, people of a coarse +and vulgar turn of mind might have called it a barber’s; for they not +only cut and curled ladies elegantly, and children carefully, but shaved +gentlemen easily. Still, it was a highly genteel establishment--quite +first-rate in fact--and there were displayed in the window, besides +other elegancies, waxen busts of a light lady and a dark gentleman which +were the admiration of the whole neighbourhood. Indeed, some ladies +had gone so far as to assert, that the dark gentleman was actually +a portrait of the spirted young proprietor; and the great similarity +between their head-dresses--both wore very glossy hair, with a narrow +walk straight down the middle, and a profusion of flat circular curls +on both sides--encouraged the idea. The better informed among the sex, +however, made light of this assertion, for however willing they were +(and they were very willing) to do full justice to the handsome face +and figure of the proprietor, they held the countenance of the dark +gentleman in the window to be an exquisite and abstract idea of +masculine beauty, realised sometimes, perhaps, among angels and military +men, but very rarely embodied to gladden the eyes of mortals. + +It was to this establishment that Newman Noggs led Miss Kenwigs in +safety. The proprietor, knowing that Miss Kenwigs had three sisters, +each with two flaxen tails, and all good for sixpence apiece, once a +month at least, promptly deserted an old gentleman whom he had just +lathered for shaving, and handing him over to the journeyman, (who was +not very popular among the ladies, by reason of his obesity and middle +age,) waited on the young lady himself. + +Just as this change had been effected, there presented himself for +shaving, a big, burly, good-humoured coal-heaver with a pipe in his +mouth, who, drawing his hand across his chin, requested to know when a +shaver would be disengaged. + +The journeyman, to whom this question was put, looked doubtfully at +the young proprietor, and the young proprietor looked scornfully at the +coal-heaver: observing at the same time: + +‘You won’t get shaved here, my man.’ + +‘Why not?’ said the coal-heaver. + +‘We don’t shave gentlemen in your line,’ remarked the young proprietor. + +‘Why, I see you a shaving of a baker, when I was a looking through the +winder, last week,’ said the coal-heaver. + +‘It’s necessary to draw the line somewheres, my fine feller,’ replied +the principal. ‘We draw the line there. We can’t go beyond bakers. If we +was to get any lower than bakers, our customers would desert us, and +we might shut up shop. You must try some other establishment, sir. We +couldn’t do it here.’ + +The applicant stared; grinned at Newman Noggs, who appeared highly +entertained; looked slightly round the shop, as if in depreciation of +the pomatum pots and other articles of stock; took his pipe out of his +mouth and gave a very loud whistle; and then put it in again, and walked +out. + +The old gentleman who had just been lathered, and who was sitting in a +melancholy manner with his face turned towards the wall, appeared quite +unconscious of this incident, and to be insensible to everything around +him in the depth of a reverie--a very mournful one, to judge from the +sighs he occasionally vented--in which he was absorbed. Affected by this +example, the proprietor began to clip Miss Kenwigs, the journeyman to +scrape the old gentleman, and Newman Noggs to read last Sunday’s paper, +all three in silence: when Miss Kenwigs uttered a shrill little scream, +and Newman, raising his eyes, saw that it had been elicited by the +circumstance of the old gentleman turning his head, and disclosing the +features of Mr. Lillyvick the collector. + +The features of Mr. Lillyvick they were, but strangely altered. If ever +an old gentleman had made a point of appearing in public, shaved close +and clean, that old gentleman was Mr. Lillyvick. If ever a collector had +borne himself like a collector, and assumed, before all men, a solemn +and portentous dignity as if he had the world on his books and it was +all two quarters in arrear, that collector was Mr. Lillyvick. And +now, there he sat, with the remains of a beard at least a week old +encumbering his chin; a soiled and crumpled shirt-frill crouching, as +it were, upon his breast, instead of standing boldly out; a demeanour so +abashed and drooping, so despondent, and expressive of such humiliation, +grief, and shame; that if the souls of forty unsubstantial housekeepers, +all of whom had had their water cut off for non-payment of the rate, +could have been concentrated in one body, that one body could hardly +have expressed such mortification and defeat as were now expressed in +the person of Mr. Lillyvick the collector. + +Newman Noggs uttered his name, and Mr. Lillyvick groaned: then coughed to +hide it. But the groan was a full-sized groan, and the cough was but a +wheeze. + +‘Is anything the matter?’ said Newman Noggs. + +‘Matter, sir!’ cried Mr. Lillyvick. ‘The plug of life is dry, sir, and +but the mud is left.’ + +This speech--the style of which Newman attributed to Mr. Lillyvick’s +recent association with theatrical characters--not being quite +explanatory, Newman looked as if he were about to ask another question, +when Mr. Lillyvick prevented him by shaking his hand mournfully, and then +waving his own. + +‘Let me be shaved!’ said Mr. Lillyvick. ‘It shall be done before +Morleena; it IS Morleena, isn’t it?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Newman. + +‘Kenwigses have got a boy, haven’t they?’ inquired the collector. + +Again Newman said ‘Yes.’ + +‘Is it a nice boy?’ demanded the collector. + +‘It ain’t a very nasty one,’ returned Newman, rather embarrassed by the +question. + +‘Susan Kenwigs used to say,’ observed the collector, ‘that if ever she +had another boy, she hoped it might be like me. Is this one like me, Mr +Noggs?’ + +This was a puzzling inquiry; but Newman evaded it, by replying to Mr +Lillyvick, that he thought the baby might possibly come like him in +time. + +‘I should be glad to have somebody like me, somehow,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, +‘before I die.’ + +‘You don’t mean to do that, yet awhile?’ said Newman. + +Unto which Mr. Lillyvick replied in a solemn voice, ‘Let me be shaved!’ +and again consigning himself to the hands of the journeyman, said no +more. + +This was remarkable behaviour. So remarkable did it seem to Miss +Morleena, that that young lady, at the imminent hazard of having her ear +sliced off, had not been able to forbear looking round, some score of +times, during the foregoing colloquy. Of her, however, Mr. Lillyvick took +no notice: rather striving (so, at least, it seemed to Newman Noggs) to +evade her observation, and to shrink into himself whenever he attracted +her regards. Newman wondered very much what could have occasioned this +altered behaviour on the part of the collector; but, philosophically +reflecting that he would most likely know, sooner or later, and that +he could perfectly afford to wait, he was very little disturbed by the +singularity of the old gentleman’s deportment. + +The cutting and curling being at last concluded, the old gentleman, who +had been some time waiting, rose to go, and, walking out with Newman +and his charge, took Newman’s arm, and proceeded for some time without +making any observation. Newman, who in power of taciturnity was excelled +by few people, made no attempt to break silence; and so they went +on, until they had very nearly reached Miss Morleena’s home, when Mr +Lillyvick said: + +‘Were the Kenwigses very much overpowered, Mr. Noggs, by that news?’ + +‘What news?’ returned Newman. + +‘That about--my--being--’ + +‘Married?’ suggested Newman. + +‘Ah!’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, with another groan; this time not even +disguised by a wheeze. + +‘It made ma cry when she knew it,’ interposed Miss Morleena, ‘but we +kept it from her for a long time; and pa was very low in his spirits, +but he is better now; and I was very ill, but I am better too.’ + +‘Would you give your great-uncle Lillyvick a kiss if he was to ask you, +Morleena?’ said the collector, with some hesitation. + +‘Yes; uncle Lillyvick, I would,’ returned Miss Morleena, with the energy +of both her parents combined; ‘but not aunt Lillyvick. She’s not an aunt +of mine, and I’ll never call her one.’ + +Immediately upon the utterance of these words, Mr. Lillyvick caught Miss +Morleena up in his arms, and kissed her; and, being by this time at the +door of the house where Mr. Kenwigs lodged (which, as has been before +mentioned, usually stood wide open), he walked straight up into Mr +Kenwigs’s sitting-room, and put Miss Morleena down in the midst. Mr. and +Mrs. Kenwigs were at supper. At sight of their perjured relative, Mrs +Kenwigs turned faint and pale, and Mr. Kenwigs rose majestically. + +‘Kenwigs,’ said the collector, ‘shake hands.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘the time has been, when I was proud to shake +hands with such a man as that man as now surweys me. The time has been, +sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘when a wisit from that man has excited in me and +my family’s boozums sensations both nateral and awakening. But, now, I +look upon that man with emotions totally surpassing everythink, and I +ask myself where is his Honour, where is his straight-for’ardness, and +where is his human natur?’ + +‘Susan Kenwigs,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, turning humbly to his niece, ‘don’t +you say anything to me?’ + +‘She is not equal to it, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, striking the table +emphatically. ‘What with the nursing of a healthy babby, and the +reflections upon your cruel conduct, four pints of malt liquor a day is +hardly able to sustain her.’ + +‘I am glad,’ said the poor collector meekly, ‘that the baby is a healthy +one. I am very glad of that.’ + +This was touching the Kenwigses on their tenderest point. Mrs. Kenwigs +instantly burst into tears, and Mr. Kenwigs evinced great emotion. + +‘My pleasantest feeling, all the time that child was expected,’ said Mr +Kenwigs, mournfully, ‘was a thinking, “If it’s a boy, as I hope it may +be; for I have heard its uncle Lillyvick say again and again he would +prefer our having a boy next, if it’s a boy, what will his uncle +Lillyvick say? What will he like him to be called? Will he be Peter, or +Alexander, or Pompey, or Diorgeenes, or what will he be?” And now when +I look at him; a precious, unconscious, helpless infant, with no use +in his little arms but to tear his little cap, and no use in his little +legs but to kick his little self--when I see him a lying on his mother’s +lap, cooing and cooing, and, in his innocent state, almost a choking +hisself with his little fist--when I see him such a infant as he is, and +think that that uncle Lillyvick, as was once a-going to be so fond of +him, has withdrawed himself away, such a feeling of wengeance comes over +me as no language can depicter, and I feel as if even that holy babe was +a telling me to hate him.’ + +This affecting picture moved Mrs. Kenwigs deeply. After several imperfect +words, which vainly attempted to struggle to the surface, but were +drowned and washed away by the strong tide of her tears, she spake. + +‘Uncle,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘to think that you should have turned your +back upon me and my dear children, and upon Kenwigs which is the author +of their being--you who was once so kind and affectionate, and who, if +anybody had told us such a thing of, we should have withered with scorn +like lightning--you that little Lillyvick, our first and earliest boy, +was named after at the very altar! Oh gracious!’ + +‘Was it money that we cared for?’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘Was it property that +we ever thought of?’ + +‘No,’ cried Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘I scorn it.’ + +‘So do I,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘and always did.’ + +‘My feelings have been lancerated,’ said Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘my heart has been +torn asunder with anguish, I have been thrown back in my confinement, +my unoffending infant has been rendered uncomfortable and fractious, +Morleena has pined herself away to nothing; all this I forget and +forgive, and with you, uncle, I never can quarrel. But never ask me to +receive HER, never do it, uncle. For I will not, I will not, I won’t, I +won’t, I won’t!’ + +‘Susan, my dear,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, ‘consider your child.’ + +‘Yes,’ shrieked Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘I will consider my child! I will consider +my child! My own child, that no uncles can deprive me of; my own hated, +despised, deserted, cut-off little child.’ And, here, the emotions of +Mrs. Kenwigs became so violent, that Mr. Kenwigs was fain to administer +hartshorn internally, and vinegar externally, and to destroy a staylace, +four petticoat strings, and several small buttons. + +Newman had been a silent spectator of this scene; for Mr. Lillyvick had +signed to him not to withdraw, and Mr. Kenwigs had further solicited +his presence by a nod of invitation. When Mrs. Kenwigs had been, in some +degree, restored, and Newman, as a person possessed of some influence +with her, had remonstrated and begged her to compose herself, Mr +Lillyvick said in a faltering voice: + +‘I never shall ask anybody here to receive my--I needn’t mention the +word; you know what I mean. Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was a week she +eloped with a half-pay captain!’ + +Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs started together. + +‘Eloped with a half-pay captain,’ repeated Mr. Lillyvick, ‘basely and +falsely eloped with a half-pay captain. With a bottle-nosed captain that +any man might have considered himself safe from. It was in this room,’ +said Mr. Lillyvick, looking sternly round, ‘that I first see Henrietta +Petowker. It is in this room that I turn her off, for ever.’ + +This declaration completely changed the whole posture of affairs. +Mrs. Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman’s neck, bitterly +reproaching herself for her late harshness, and exclaiming, if she had +suffered, what must his sufferings have been! Mr. Kenwigs grasped +his hand, and vowed eternal friendship and remorse. Mrs. Kenwigs was +horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her +bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile as +Henrietta Petowker. Mr. Kenwigs argued that she must have been bad indeed +not to have improved by so long a contemplation of Mrs. Kenwigs’s virtue. +Mrs. Kenwigs remembered that Mr. Kenwigs had often said that he was +not quite satisfied of the propriety of Miss Petowker’s conduct, and +wondered how it was that she could have been blinded by such a wretch. +Mr. Kenwigs remembered that he had had his suspicions, but did not wonder +why Mrs. Kenwigs had not had hers, as she was all chastity, purity, and +truth, and Henrietta all baseness, falsehood, and deceit. And Mr. and +Mrs. Kenwigs both said, with strong feelings and tears of sympathy, that +everything happened for the best; and conjured the good collector not to +give way to unavailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society +of those affectionate relations whose arms and hearts were ever open to +him. + +‘Out of affection and regard for you, Susan and Kenwigs,’ said Mr +Lillyvick, ‘and not out of revenge and spite against her, for she is +below it, I shall, tomorrow morning, settle upon your children, and make +payable to the survivors of them when they come of age of marry, that +money that I once meant to leave ‘em in my will. The deed shall be +executed tomorrow, and Mr. Noggs shall be one of the witnesses. He hears +me promise this, and he shall see it done.’ + +Overpowered by this noble and generous offer, Mr. Kenwigs, Mrs. Kenwigs, +and Miss Morleena Kenwigs, all began to sob together; and the noise of +their sobbing, communicating itself to the next room, where the children +lay a-bed, and causing them to cry too, Mr. Kenwigs rushed wildly in, +and bringing them out in his arms, by two and two, tumbled them down in +their nightcaps and gowns at the feet of Mr. Lillyvick, and called upon +them to thank and bless him. + +‘And now,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene had ensued and +the children were cleared away again, ‘give me some supper. This took +place twenty mile from town. I came up this morning, and have being +lingering about all day, without being able to make up my mind to come +and see you. I humoured her in everything, she had her own way, she +did just as she pleased, and now she has done this. There was twelve +teaspoons and twenty-four pound in sovereigns--I missed them first--it’s +a trial--I feel I shall never be able to knock a double knock again, +when I go my rounds--don’t say anything more about it, please--the +spoons were worth--never mind--never mind!’ + +With such muttered outpourings as these, the old gentleman shed a few +tears; but, they got him into the elbow-chair, and prevailed upon him, +without much pressing, to make a hearty supper, and by the time he had +finished his first pipe, and disposed of half-a-dozen glasses out of a +crown bowl of punch, ordered by Mr. Kenwigs, in celebration of his return +to the bosom of his family, he seemed, though still very humble, quite +resigned to his fate, and rather relieved than otherwise by the flight +of his wife. + +‘When I see that man,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs +Kenwigs’s waist: his other hand supporting his pipe (which made him wink +and cough very much, for he was no smoker): and his eyes on Morleena, +who sat upon her uncle’s knee, ‘when I see that man as mingling, once +again, in the spear which he adorns, and see his affections deweloping +themselves in legitimate sitiwations, I feel that his nature is as +elewated and expanded, as his standing afore society as a public +character is unimpeached, and the woices of my infant children purvided +for in life, seem to whisper to me softly, “This is an ewent at which +Evins itself looks down!”’ + + + +CHAPTER 53 + +Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr. Ralph +Nickleby and Mr. Arthur Gride + + +With that settled resolution, and steadiness of purpose to which extreme +circumstances so often give birth, acting upon far less excitable and +more sluggish temperaments than that which was the lot of Madeline +Bray’s admirer, Nicholas started, at dawn of day, from the restless +couch which no sleep had visited on the previous night, and prepared +to make that last appeal, by whose slight and fragile thread her only +remaining hope of escape depended. + +Although, to restless and ardent minds, morning may be the fitting +season for exertion and activity, it is not always at that time that +hope is strongest or the spirit most sanguine and buoyant. In trying +and doubtful positions, youth, custom, a steady contemplation of +the difficulties which surround us, and a familiarity with them, +imperceptibly diminish our apprehensions and beget comparative +indifference, if not a vague and reckless confidence in some relief, +the means or nature of which we care not to foresee. But when we come, +fresh, upon such things in the morning, with that dark and silent gap +between us and yesterday; with every link in the brittle chain of +hope, to rivet afresh; our hot enthusiasm subdued, and cool calm reason +substituted in its stead; doubt and misgiving revive. As the traveller +sees farthest by day, and becomes aware of rugged mountains and +trackless plains which the friendly darkness had shrouded from his sight +and mind together, so, the wayfarer in the toilsome path of human life +sees, with each returning sun, some new obstacle to surmount, some new +height to be attained. Distances stretch out before him which, last +night, were scarcely taken into account, and the light which gilds +all nature with its cheerful beams, seems but to shine upon the weary +obstacles that yet lie strewn between him and the grave. + +So thought Nicholas, when, with the impatience natural to a situation +like his, he softly left the house, and, feeling as though to remain in +bed were to lose most precious time, and to be up and stirring were +in some way to promote the end he had in view, wandered into London; +perfectly well knowing that for hours to come he could not obtain speech +with Madeline, and could do nothing but wish the intervening time away. + +And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round on +the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day, everything +appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency. Last night, the +sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful creature, to such +a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing too monstrous to +succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident he felt that some +interposition must save her from his clutches. But now, when he thought +how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying +round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering +on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and +sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of +those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each +night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon +race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or +the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking, +not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched +and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one +town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the +noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to +drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and +never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands +urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very +cradles’ heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest +bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of +life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they +would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could +scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he +or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice, +misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year +to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or +redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the +one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that +there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not +form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one +small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount. + +But youth is not prone to contemplate the darkest side of a picture +it can shift at will. By dint of reflecting on what he had to do, and +reviving the train of thought which night had interrupted, Nicholas +gradually summoned up his utmost energy, and when the morning was +sufficiently advanced for his purpose, had no thought but that of using +it to the best advantage. A hasty breakfast taken, and such affairs of +business as required prompt attention disposed of, he directed his steps +to the residence of Madeline Bray: whither he lost no time in arriving. + +It had occurred to him that, very possibly, the young lady might be +denied, although to him she never had been; and he was still pondering +upon the surest method of obtaining access to her in that case, +when, coming to the door of the house, he found it had been left +ajar--probably by the last person who had gone out. The occasion was +not one upon which to observe the nicest ceremony; therefore, availing +himself of this advantage, Nicholas walked gently upstairs and knocked +at the door of the room into which he had been accustomed to be shown. +Receiving permission to enter, from some person on the other side, he +opened the door and walked in. + +Bray and his daughter were sitting there alone. It was nearly three +weeks since he had seen her last, but there was a change in the lovely +girl before him which told Nicholas, in startling terms, how much mental +suffering had been compressed into that short time. There are no words +which can express, nothing with which can be compared, the perfect +pallor, the clear transparent whiteness, of the beautiful face which +turned towards him when he entered. Her hair was a rich deep brown, +but shading that face, and straying upon a neck that rivalled it in +whiteness, it seemed by the strong contrast raven black. Something of +wildness and restlessness there was in the dark eye, but there was the +same patient look, the same expression of gentle mournfulness which he +well remembered, and no trace of a single tear. Most beautiful--more +beautiful, perhaps, than ever--there was something in her face which +quite unmanned him, and appeared far more touching than the wildest +agony of grief. It was not merely calm and composed, but fixed and +rigid, as though the violent effort which had summoned that composure +beneath her father’s eye, while it mastered all other thoughts, had +prevented even the momentary expression they had communicated to the +features from subsiding, and had fastened it there, as an evidence of +its triumph. + +The father sat opposite to her; not looking directly in her face, but +glancing at her, as he talked with a gay air which ill disguised +the anxiety of his thoughts. The drawing materials were not on their +accustomed table, nor were any of the other tokens of her usual +occupations to be seen. The little vases which Nicholas had always +seen filled with fresh flowers were empty, or supplied only with a few +withered stalks and leaves. The bird was silent. The cloth that covered +his cage at night was not removed. His mistress had forgotten him. + +There are times when, the mind being painfully alive to receive +impressions, a great deal may be noted at a glance. This was one, for +Nicholas had but glanced round him when he was recognised by Mr. Bray, +who said impatiently: + +‘Now, sir, what do you want? Name your errand here, quickly, if you +please, for my daughter and I are busily engaged with other and more +important matters than those you come about. Come, sir, address yourself +to your business at once.’ + +Nicholas could very well discern that the irritability and impatience of +this speech were assumed, and that Bray, in his heart, was rejoiced at +any interruption which promised to engage the attention of his daughter. +He bent his eyes involuntarily upon the father as he spoke, and marked +his uneasiness; for he coloured and turned his head away. + +The device, however, so far as it was a device for causing Madeline +to interfere, was successful. She rose, and advancing towards Nicholas +paused half-way, and stretched out her hand as expecting a letter. + +‘Madeline,’ said her father impatiently, ‘my love, what are you doing?’ + +‘Miss Bray expects an inclosure perhaps,’ said Nicholas, speaking very +distinctly, and with an emphasis she could scarcely misunderstand. ‘My +employer is absent from England, or I should have brought a letter with +me. I hope she will give me time--a little time. I ask a very little +time.’ + +‘If that is all you come about, sir,’ said Mr. Bray, ‘you may make +yourself easy on that head. Madeline, my dear, I didn’t know this person +was in your debt?’ + +‘A--a trifle, I believe,’ returned Madeline, faintly. + +‘I suppose you think now,’ said Bray, wheeling his chair round and +confronting Nicholas, ‘that, but for such pitiful sums as you bring +here, because my daughter has chosen to employ her time as she has, we +should starve?’ + +‘I have not thought about it,’ returned Nicholas. + +‘You have not thought about it!’ sneered the invalid. ‘You know you HAVE +thought about it, and have thought that, and think so every time you +come here. Do you suppose, young man, that I don’t know what little +purse-proud tradesmen are, when, through some fortunate circumstances, +they get the upper hand for a brief day--or think they get the upper +hand--of a gentleman?’ + +‘My business,’ said Nicholas respectfully, ‘is with a lady.’ + +‘With a gentleman’s daughter, sir,’ returned the sick man, ‘and the +pettifogging spirit is the same. But perhaps you bring ORDERS, eh? Have +you any fresh ORDERS for my daughter, sir?’ + +Nicholas understood the tone of triumph in which this interrogatory was +put; but remembering the necessity of supporting his assumed character, +produced a scrap of paper purporting to contain a list of some subjects +for drawings which his employer desired to have executed; and with which +he had prepared himself in case of any such contingency. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Bray. ‘These are the orders, are they?’ + +‘Since you insist upon the term, sir, yes,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Then you may tell your master,’ said Bray, tossing the paper back +again, with an exulting smile, ‘that my daughter, Miss Madeline Bray, +condescends to employ herself no longer in such labours as these; that +she is not at his beck and call, as he supposes her to be; that we don’t +live upon his money, as he flatters himself we do; that he may give +whatever he owes us, to the first beggar that passes his shop, or add it +to his own profits next time he calculates them; and that he may go to +the devil for me. That’s my acknowledgment of his orders, sir!’ + +‘And this is the independence of a man who sells his daughter as he has +sold that weeping girl!’ thought Nicholas. + +The father was too much absorbed with his own exultation to mark the +look of scorn which, for an instant, Nicholas could not have suppressed +had he been upon the rack. ‘There,’ he continued, after a short +silence, ‘you have your message and can retire--unless you have any +further--ha!--any further orders.’ + +‘I have none,’ said Nicholas; ‘nor, in the consideration of the station +you once held, have I used that or any other word which, however +harmless in itself, could be supposed to imply authority on my part or +dependence on yours. I have no orders, but I have fears--fears that I +will express, chafe as you may--fears that you may be consigning that +young lady to something worse than supporting you by the labour of her +hands, had she worked herself dead. These are my fears, and these fears +I found upon your own demeanour. Your conscience will tell you, sir, +whether I construe it well or not.’ + +‘For Heaven’s sake!’ cried Madeline, interposing in alarm between them. +‘Remember, sir, he is ill.’ + +‘Ill!’ cried the invalid, gasping and catching for breath. ‘Ill! Ill! I +am bearded and bullied by a shop-boy, and she beseeches him to pity me +and remember I am ill!’ + +He fell into a paroxysm of his disorder, so violent that for a few +moments Nicholas was alarmed for his life; but finding that he began to +recover, he withdrew, after signifying by a gesture to the young lady +that he had something important to communicate, and would wait for her +outside the room. He could hear that the sick man came gradually, but +slowly, to himself, and that without any reference to what had just +occurred, as though he had no distinct recollection of it as yet, he +requested to be left alone. + +‘Oh!’ thought Nicholas, ‘that this slender chance might not be lost, +and that I might prevail, if it were but for one week’s time and +reconsideration!’ + +‘You are charged with some commission to me, sir,’ said Madeline, +presenting herself in great agitation. ‘Do not press it now, I beg and +pray you. The day after tomorrow; come here then.’ + +‘It will be too late--too late for what I have to say,’ rejoined +Nicholas, ‘and you will not be here. Oh, madam, if you have but one +thought of him who sent me here, but one last lingering care for your +own peace of mind and heart, I do for God’s sake urge you to give me a +hearing.’ + +She attempted to pass him, but Nicholas gently detained her. + +‘A hearing,’ said Nicholas. ‘I ask you but to hear me: not me alone, but +him for whom I speak, who is far away and does not know your danger. In +the name of Heaven hear me!’ + +The poor attendant, with her eyes swollen and red with weeping, stood +by; and to her Nicholas appealed in such passionate terms that she +opened a side-door, and, supporting her mistress into an adjoining room, +beckoned Nicholas to follow them. + +‘Leave me, sir, pray,’ said the young lady. + +‘I cannot, will not leave you thus,’ returned Nicholas. ‘I have a duty +to discharge; and, either here, or in the room from which we have just +now come, at whatever risk or hazard to Mr. Bray, I must beseech you to +contemplate again the fearful course to which you have been impelled.’ + +‘What course is this you speak of, and impelled by whom, sir?’ demanded +the young lady, with an effort to speak proudly. + +‘I speak of this marriage,’ returned Nicholas, ‘of this marriage, fixed +for tomorrow, by one who never faltered in a bad purpose, or lent his +aid to any good design; of this marriage, the history of which is known +to me, better, far better, than it is to you. I know what web is wound +about you. I know what men they are from whom these schemes have come. +You are betrayed and sold for money; for gold, whose every coin is +rusted with tears, if not red with the blood of ruined men, who have +fallen desperately by their own mad hands.’ + +‘You say you have a duty to discharge,’ said Madeline, ‘and so have I. +And with the help of Heaven I will perform it.’ + +‘Say rather with the help of devils,’ replied Nicholas, ‘with the help +of men, one of them your destined husband, who are--’ + +‘I must not hear this,’ cried the young lady, striving to repress a +shudder, occasioned, as it seemed, even by this slight allusion to +Arthur Gride. ‘This evil, if evil it be, has been of my own seeking. I +am impelled to this course by no one, but follow it of my own free will. +You see I am not constrained or forced. Report this,’ said Madeline, +‘to my dear friend and benefactor, and, taking with you my prayers and +thanks for him and for yourself, leave me for ever!’ + +‘Not until I have besought you, with all the earnestness and fervour by +which I am animated,’ cried Nicholas, ‘to postpone this marriage for one +short week. Not until I have besought you to think more deeply than you +can have done, influenced as you are, upon the step you are about to +take. Although you cannot be fully conscious of the villainy of this man +to whom you are about to give your hand, some of his deeds you know. You +have heard him speak, and have looked upon his face. Reflect, reflect, +before it is too late, on the mockery of plighting to him at the altar, +faith in which your heart can have no share--of uttering solemn words, +against which nature and reason must rebel--of the degradation of +yourself in your own esteem, which must ensue, and must be aggravated +every day, as his detested character opens upon you more and more. +Shrink from the loathsome companionship of this wretch as you would from +corruption and disease. Suffer toil and labour if you will, but shun +him, shun him, and be happy. For, believe me, I speak the truth; the +most abject poverty, the most wretched condition of human life, with a +pure and upright mind, would be happiness to that which you must undergo +as the wife of such a man as this!’ + +Long before Nicholas ceased to speak, the young lady buried her face in +her hands, and gave her tears free way. In a voice at first inarticulate +with emotion, but gradually recovering strength as she proceeded, she +answered him: + +‘I will not disguise from you, sir--though perhaps I ought--that I have +undergone great pain of mind, and have been nearly broken-hearted since +I saw you last. I do NOT love this gentleman. The difference between our +ages, tastes, and habits, forbids it. This he knows, and knowing, still +offers me his hand. By accepting it, and by that step alone, I can +release my father who is dying in this place; prolong his life, perhaps, +for many years; restore him to comfort--I may almost call it affluence; +and relieve a generous man from the burden of assisting one, by whom, +I grieve to say, his noble heart is little understood. Do not think so +poorly of me as to believe that I feign a love I do not feel. Do not +report so ill of me, for THAT I could not bear. If I cannot, in reason +or in nature, love the man who pays this price for my poor hand, I can +discharge the duties of a wife: I can be all he seeks in me, and will. +He is content to take me as I am. I have passed my word, and should +rejoice, not weep, that it is so. I do. The interest you take in one so +friendless and forlorn as I, the delicacy with which you have discharged +your trust, the faith you have kept with me, have my warmest thanks: +and, while I make this last feeble acknowledgment, move me to tears, +as you see. But I do not repent, nor am I unhappy. I am happy in the +prospect of all I can achieve so easily. I shall be more so when I look +back upon it, and all is done, I know.’ + +‘Your tears fall faster as you talk of happiness,’ said Nicholas, ‘and +you shun the contemplation of that dark future which must be laden +with so much misery to you. Defer this marriage for a week. For but one +week!’ + +‘He was talking, when you came upon us just now, with such smiles as I +remember to have seen of old, and have not seen for many and many a day, +of the freedom that was to come tomorrow,’ said Madeline, with momentary +firmness, ‘of the welcome change, the fresh air: all the new scenes and +objects that would bring fresh life to his exhausted frame. His eye grew +bright, and his face lightened at the thought. I will not defer it for +an hour.’ + +‘These are but tricks and wiles to urge you on,’ cried Nicholas. + +‘I’ll hear no more,’ said Madeline, hurriedly; ‘I have heard too +much--more than I should--already. What I have said to you, sir, I have +said as to that dear friend to whom I trust in you honourably to repeat +it. Some time hence, when I am more composed and reconciled to my new +mode of life, if I should live so long, I will write to him. Meantime, +all holy angels shower blessings on his head, and prosper and preserve +him.’ + +She was hurrying past Nicholas, when he threw himself before her, and +implored her to think, but once again, upon the fate to which she was +precipitately hastening. + +‘There is no retreat,’ said Nicholas, in an agony of supplication; ‘no +withdrawing! All regret will be unavailing, and deep and bitter it must +be. What can I say, that will induce you to pause at this last moment? +What can I do to save you?’ + +‘Nothing,’ she incoherently replied. ‘This is the hardest trial I have +had. Have mercy on me, sir, I beseech, and do not pierce my heart with +such appeals as these. I--I hear him calling. I--I--must not, will not, +remain here for another instant.’ + +‘If this were a plot,’ said Nicholas, with the same violent rapidity +with which she spoke, ‘a plot, not yet laid bare by me, but which, with +time, I might unravel; if you were (not knowing it) entitled to fortune +of your own, which, being recovered, would do all that this marriage can +accomplish, would you not retract?’ + +‘No, no, no! It is impossible; it is a child’s tale. Time would bring +his death. He is calling again!’ + +‘It may be the last time we shall ever meet on earth,’ said Nicholas, +‘it may be better for me that we should never meet more.’ + +‘For both, for both,’ replied Madeline, not heeding what she said. ‘The +time will come when to recall the memory of this one interview might +drive me mad. Be sure to tell them, that you left me calm and happy. And +God be with you, sir, and my grateful heart and blessing!’ + +She was gone. Nicholas, staggering from the house, thought of the +hurried scene which had just closed upon him, as if it were the phantom +of some wild, unquiet dream. The day wore on; at night, having been +enabled in some measure to collect his thoughts, he issued forth again. + +That night, being the last of Arthur Gride’s bachelorship, found him in +tiptop spirits and great glee. The bottle-green suit had been brushed, +ready for the morrow. Peg Sliderskew had rendered the accounts of her +past housekeeping; the eighteen-pence had been rigidly accounted for +(she was never trusted with a larger sum at once, and the accounts were +not usually balanced more than twice a day); every preparation had +been made for the coming festival; and Arthur might have sat down and +contemplated his approaching happiness, but that he preferred sitting +down and contemplating the entries in a dirty old vellum-book with rusty +clasps. + +‘Well-a-day!’ he chuckled, as sinking on his knees before a strong +chest screwed down to the floor, he thrust in his arm nearly up to the +shoulder, and slowly drew forth this greasy volume. ‘Well-a-day now, +this is all my library, but it’s one of the most entertaining books that +were ever written! It’s a delightful book, and all true and real--that’s +the best of it--true as the Bank of England, and real as its gold and +silver. Written by Arthur Gride. He, he, he! None of your storybook +writers will ever make as good a book as this, I warrant me. It’s +composed for private circulation, for my own particular reading, and +nobody else’s. He, he, he!’ + +Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur carried his precious volume to the +table, and, adjusting it upon a dusty desk, put on his spectacles, and +began to pore among the leaves. + +‘It’s a large sum to Mr. Nickleby,’ he said, in a dolorous voice. +‘Debt to be paid in full, nine hundred and seventy-five, four, three. +Additional sum as per bond, five hundred pound. One thousand, four +hundred and seventy-five pounds, four shillings, and threepence, +tomorrow at twelve o’clock. On the other side, though, there’s the PER +CONTRA, by means of this pretty chick. But, again, there’s the question +whether I mightn’t have brought all this about, myself. “Faint heart +never won fair lady.” Why was my heart so faint? Why didn’t I boldly +open it to Bray myself, and save one thousand four hundred and +seventy-five, four, three?’ + +These reflections depressed the old usurer so much, as to wring a feeble +groan or two from his breast, and cause him to declare, with uplifted +hands, that he would die in a workhouse. Remembering on further +cogitation, however, that under any circumstances he must have paid, or +handsomely compounded for, Ralph’s debt, and being by no means confident +that he would have succeeded had he undertaken his enterprise alone, he +regained his equanimity, and chattered and mowed over more satisfactory +items, until the entrance of Peg Sliderskew interrupted him. + +‘Aha, Peg!’ said Arthur, ‘what is it? What is it now, Peg?’ + +‘It’s the fowl,’ replied Peg, holding up a plate containing a little, a +very little one. Quite a phenomenon of a fowl. So very small and skinny. + +‘A beautiful bird!’ said Arthur, after inquiring the price, and finding +it proportionate to the size. ‘With a rasher of ham, and an egg made +into sauce, and potatoes, and greens, and an apple pudding, Peg, and a +little bit of cheese, we shall have a dinner for an emperor. There’ll +only be she and me--and you, Peg, when we’ve done.’ + +‘Don’t you complain of the expense afterwards,’ said Mrs. Sliderskew, +sulkily. + +‘I am afraid we must live expensively for the first week,’ returned +Arthur, with a groan, ‘and then we must make up for it. I won’t eat more +than I can help, and I know you love your old master too much to eat +more than YOU can help, don’t you, Peg?’ + +‘Don’t I what?’ said Peg. + +‘Love your old master too much--’ + +‘No, not a bit too much,’ said Peg. + +‘Oh, dear, I wish the devil had this woman!’ cried Arthur: ‘love him too +much to eat more than you can help at his expense.’ + +‘At his what?’ said Peg. + +‘Oh dear! she can never hear the most important word, and hears all the +others!’ whined Gride. ‘At his expense--you catamaran!’ + +The last-mentioned tribute to the charms of Mrs. Sliderskew being uttered +in a whisper, that lady assented to the general proposition by a harsh +growl, which was accompanied by a ring at the street-door. + +‘There’s the bell,’ said Arthur. + +‘Ay, ay; I know that,’ rejoined Peg. + +‘Then why don’t you go?’ bawled Arthur. + +‘Go where?’ retorted Peg. ‘I ain’t doing any harm here, am I?’ + +Arthur Gride in reply repeated the word ‘bell’ as loud as he could roar; +and, his meaning being rendered further intelligible to Mrs. Sliderskew’s +dull sense of hearing by pantomime expressive of ringing at a +street-door, Peg hobbled out, after sharply demanding why he hadn’t said +there was a ring before, instead of talking about all manner of things +that had nothing to do with it, and keeping her half-pint of beer +waiting on the steps. + +‘There’s a change come over you, Mrs. Peg,’ said Arthur, following her +out with his eyes. ‘What it means I don’t quite know; but, if it lasts, +we shan’t agree together long I see. You are turning crazy, I think. If +you are, you must take yourself off, Mrs. Peg--or be taken off. All’s one +to me.’ Turning over the leaves of his book as he muttered this, he soon +lighted upon something which attracted his attention, and forgot Peg +Sliderskew and everything else in the engrossing interest of its pages. + +The room had no other light than that which it derived from a dim and +dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, being still further obscured by a +dark shade, cast its feeble rays over a very little space, and left all +beyond in heavy shadow. This lamp the money-lender had drawn so close to +him, that there was only room between it and himself for the book over +which he bent; and as he sat, with his elbows on the desk, and his sharp +cheek-bones resting on his hands, it only served to bring out his ugly +features in strong relief, together with the little table at which he +sat, and to shroud all the rest of the chamber in a deep sullen gloom. +Raising his eyes, and looking vacantly into this gloom as he made some +mental calculation, Arthur Gride suddenly met the fixed gaze of a man. + +‘Thieves! thieves!’ shrieked the usurer, starting up and folding his +book to his breast. ‘Robbers! Murder!’ + +‘What is the matter?’ said the form, advancing. + +‘Keep off!’ cried the trembling wretch. ‘Is it a man or a--a--’ + +‘For what do you take me, if not for a man?’ was the inquiry. + +‘Yes, yes,’ cried Arthur Gride, shading his eyes with his hand, ‘it is a +man, and not a spirit. It is a man. Robbers! robbers!’ + +‘For what are these cries raised? Unless indeed you know me, and have +some purpose in your brain?’ said the stranger, coming close up to him. +‘I am no thief.’ + +‘What then, and how come you here?’ cried Gride, somewhat reassured, but +still retreating from his visitor: ‘what is your name, and what do you +want?’ + +‘My name you need not know,’ was the reply. ‘I came here, because I was +shown the way by your servant. I have addressed you twice or thrice, but +you were too profoundly engaged with your book to hear me, and I have +been silently waiting until you should be less abstracted. What I want +I will tell you, when you can summon up courage enough to hear and +understand me.’ + +Arthur Gride, venturing to regard his visitor more attentively, and +perceiving that he was a young man of good mien and bearing, returned to +his seat, and muttering that there were bad characters about, and +that this, with former attempts upon his house, had made him nervous, +requested his visitor to sit down. This, however, he declined. + +‘Good God! I don’t stand up to have you at an advantage,’ said Nicholas +(for Nicholas it was), as he observed a gesture of alarm on the part of +Gride. ‘Listen to me. You are to be married tomorrow morning.’ + +‘N--n--no,’ rejoined Gride. ‘Who said I was? How do you know that?’ + +‘No matter how,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I know it. The young lady who is +to give you her hand hates and despises you. Her blood runs cold at the +mention of your name; the vulture and the lamb, the rat and the dove, +could not be worse matched than you and she. You see I know her.’ + +Gride looked at him as if he were petrified with astonishment, but did +not speak; perhaps lacking the power. + +‘You and another man, Ralph Nickleby by name, have hatched this plot +between you,’ pursued Nicholas. ‘You pay him for his share in bringing +about this sale of Madeline Bray. You do. A lie is trembling on your +lips, I see.’ + +He paused; but, Arthur making no reply, resumed again. + +‘You pay yourself by defrauding her. How or by what means--for I scorn +to sully her cause by falsehood or deceit--I do not know; at present I +do not know, but I am not alone or single-handed in this business. If +the energy of man can compass the discovery of your fraud and treachery +before your death; if wealth, revenge, and just hatred, can hunt and +track you through your windings; you will yet be called to a dear +account for this. We are on the scent already; judge you, who know what +we do not, when we shall have you down!’ + +He paused again, and still Arthur Gride glared upon him in silence. + +‘If you were a man to whom I could appeal with any hope of touching +his compassion or humanity,’ said Nicholas, ‘I would urge upon you to +remember the helplessness, the innocence, the youth, of this lady; her +worth and beauty, her filial excellence, and last, and more than all, +as concerning you more nearly, the appeal she has made to your mercy and +your manly feeling. But, I take the only ground that can be taken with +men like you, and ask what money will buy you off. Remember the danger +to which you are exposed. You see I know enough to know much more with +very little help. Bate some expected gain for the risk you save, and say +what is your price.’ + +Old Arthur Gride moved his lips, but they only formed an ugly smile and +were motionless again. + +‘You think,’ said Nicholas, ‘that the price would not be paid. Miss Bray +has wealthy friends who would coin their very hearts to save her in such +a strait as this. Name your price, defer these nuptials for but a few +days, and see whether those I speak of, shrink from the payment. Do you +hear me?’ + +When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride’s impression was, that Ralph Nickleby +had betrayed him; but, as he proceeded, he felt convinced that however +he had come by the knowledge he possessed, the part he acted was a +genuine one, and that with Ralph he had no concern. All he seemed to +know, for certain, was, that he, Gride, paid Ralph’s debt; but that, +to anybody who knew the circumstances of Bray’s detention--even to Bray +himself, on Ralph’s own statement--must be perfectly notorious. As to +the fraud on Madeline herself, his visitor knew so little about its +nature or extent, that it might be a lucky guess, or a hap-hazard +accusation. Whether or no, he had clearly no key to the mystery, and +could not hurt him who kept it close within his own breast. The +allusion to friends, and the offer of money, Gride held to be mere empty +vapouring, for purposes of delay. ‘And even if money were to be had,’ +thought Arthur Gride, as he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with +passion at his boldness and audacity, ‘I’d have that dainty chick for my +wife, and cheat YOU of her, young smooth-face!’ + +Long habit of weighing and noting well what clients said, and nicely +balancing chances in his mind and calculating odds to their faces, +without the least appearance of being so engaged, had rendered Gride +quick in forming conclusions, and arriving, from puzzling, intricate, +and often contradictory premises, at very cunning deductions. Hence +it was that, as Nicholas went on, he followed him closely with his own +constructions, and, when he ceased to speak, was as well prepared as if +he had deliberated for a fortnight. + +‘I hear you,’ he cried, starting from his seat, casting back the +fastenings of the window-shutters, and throwing up the sash. ‘Help here! +Help! Help!’ + +‘What are you doing?’ said Nicholas, seizing him by the arm. + +‘I’ll cry robbers, thieves, murder, alarm the neighbourhood, struggle +with you, let loose some blood, and swear you came to rob me, if +you don’t quit my house,’ replied Gride, drawing in his head with a +frightful grin, ‘I will!’ + +‘Wretch!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘YOU’LL bring your threats here, will you?’ said Gride, whom jealousy +of Nicholas and a sense of his own triumph had converted into a perfect +fiend. ‘You, the disappointed lover? Oh dear! He! he! he! But you shan’t +have her, nor she you. She’s my wife, my doting little wife. Do you +think she’ll miss you? Do you think she’ll weep? I shall like to see her +weep, I shan’t mind it. She looks prettier in tears.’ + +‘Villain!’ said Nicholas, choking with his rage. + +‘One minute more,’ cried Arthur Gride, ‘and I’ll rouse the street with +such screams, as, if they were raised by anybody else, should wake me +even in the arms of pretty Madeline.’ + +‘You hound!’ said Nicholas. ‘If you were but a younger man--’ + +‘Oh yes!’ sneered Arthur Gride, ‘If I was but a younger man it wouldn’t +be so bad; but for me, so old and ugly! To be jilted by little Madeline +for me!’ + +‘Hear me,’ said Nicholas, ‘and be thankful I have enough command over +myself not to fling you into the street, which no aid could prevent my +doing if I once grappled with you. I have been no lover of this lady’s. +No contract or engagement, no word of love, has ever passed between us. +She does not even know my name.’ + +‘I’ll ask it for all that. I’ll beg it of her with kisses,’ said Arthur +Gride. ‘Yes, and she’ll tell me, and pay them back, and we’ll laugh +together, and hug ourselves, and be very merry, when we think of the +poor youth that wanted to have her, but couldn’t because she was bespoke +by me!’ + +This taunt brought such an expression into the face of Nicholas, that +Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it to be the forerunner of his putting +his threat of throwing him into the street in immediate execution; for +he thrust his head out of the window, and holding tight on with both +hands, raised a pretty brisk alarm. Not thinking it necessary to abide +the issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent to an indignant defiance, +and stalked from the room and from the house. Arthur Gride watched him +across the street, and then, drawing in his head, fastened the window as +before, and sat down to take breath. + +‘If she ever turns pettish or ill-humoured, I’ll taunt her with that +spark,’ he said, when he had recovered. ‘She’ll little think I know +about him; and, if I manage it well, I can break her spirit by this +means and have her under my thumb. I’m glad nobody came. I didn’t call +too loud. The audacity to enter my house, and open upon me! But I shall +have a very good triumph tomorrow, and he’ll be gnawing his fingers off: +perhaps drown himself or cut his throat! I shouldn’t wonder! That would +make it quite complete, that would: quite.’ + +When he had become restored to his usual condition by these and other +comments on his approaching triumph, Arthur Gride put away his book, +and, having locked the chest with great caution, descended into the +kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew to bed, and scold her for having afforded +such ready admission to a stranger. + +The unconscious Peg, however, not being able to comprehend the offence +of which she had been guilty, he summoned her to hold the light, while +he made a tour of the fastenings, and secured the street-door with his +own hands. + +‘Top bolt,’ muttered Arthur, fastening as he spoke, ‘bottom bolt, chain, +bar, double lock, and key out to put under my pillow! So, if any more +rejected admirers come, they may come through the keyhole. And now I’ll +go to sleep till half-past five, when I must get up to be married, Peg!’ + +With that, he jocularly tapped Mrs. Sliderskew under the chin, and +appeared, for the moment, inclined to celebrate the close of his +bachelor days by imprinting a kiss on her shrivelled lips. Thinking +better of it, however, he gave her chin another tap, in lieu of that +warmer familiarity, and stole away to bed. + + + +CHAPTER 54 + +The Crisis of the Project and its Result + + +There are not many men who lie abed too late, or oversleep themselves, +on their wedding morning. A legend there is of somebody remarkable for +absence of mind, who opened his eyes upon the day which was to give him +a young wife, and forgetting all about the matter, rated his servants +for providing him with such fine clothes as had been prepared for the +festival. There is also a legend of a young gentleman, who, not having +before his eyes the fear of the canons of the church for such cases made +and provided, conceived a passion for his grandmother. Both cases are of +a singular and special kind and it is very doubtful whether either +can be considered as a precedent likely to be extensively followed by +succeeding generations. + +Arthur Gride had enrobed himself in his marriage garments of +bottle-green, a full hour before Mrs. Sliderskew, shaking off her +more heavy slumbers, knocked at his chamber door; and he had hobbled +downstairs in full array and smacked his lips over a scanty taste of his +favourite cordial, ere that delicate piece of antiquity enlightened the +kitchen with her presence. + +‘Faugh!’ said Peg, grubbing, in the discharge of her domestic functions, +among a scanty heap of ashes in the rusty grate. ‘Wedding indeed! A +precious wedding! He wants somebody better than his old Peg to take care +of him, does he? And what has he said to me, many and many a time, to +keep me content with short food, small wages, and little fire? “My will, +Peg! my will!” says he: “I’m a bachelor--no friends--no relations, Peg.” + Lies! And now he’s to bring home a new mistress, a baby-faced chit of a +girl! If he wanted a wife, the fool, why couldn’t he have one suitable +to his age, and that knew his ways? She won’t come in MY way, he says. +No, that she won’t, but you little think why, Arthur boy!’ + +While Mrs. Sliderskew, influenced possibly by some lingering feelings +of disappointment and personal slight, occasioned by her old master’s +preference for another, was giving loose to these grumblings below +stairs, Arthur Gride was cogitating in the parlour upon what had taken +place last night. + +‘I can’t think how he can have picked up what he knows,’ said Arthur, +‘unless I have committed myself--let something drop at Bray’s, for +instance--which has been overheard. Perhaps I may. I shouldn’t be +surprised if that was it. Mr. Nickleby was often angry at my talking to +him before we got outside the door. I mustn’t tell him that part of +the business, or he’ll put me out of sorts, and make me nervous for the +day.’ + +Ralph was universally looked up to, and recognised among his fellows as +a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding character +and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he was actually +afraid of him. Cringing and cowardly to the core by nature, Arthur Gride +humbled himself in the dust before Ralph Nickleby, and, even when they +had not this stake in common, would have licked his shoes and crawled +upon the ground before him rather than venture to return him word +for word, or retort upon him in any other spirit than one of the most +slavish and abject sycophancy. + +To Ralph Nickleby’s, Arthur Gride now betook himself according to +appointment; and to Ralph Nickleby he related how, last night, some +young blustering blade, whom he had never seen, forced his way into his +house, and tried to frighten him from the proposed nuptials. Told, in +short, what Nicholas had said and done, with the slight reservation upon +which he had determined. + +‘Well, and what then?’ said Ralph. + +‘Oh! nothing more,’ rejoined Gride. + +‘He tried to frighten you,’ said Ralph, ‘and you WERE frightened I +suppose; is that it?’ + +‘I frightened HIM by crying thieves and murder,’ replied Gride. ‘Once +I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I had more than half a mind to +swear he uttered threats, and demanded my life or my money.’ + +‘Oho!’ said Ralph, eyeing him askew. ‘Jealous too!’ + +‘Dear now, see that!’ cried Arthur, rubbing his hands and affecting to +laugh. + +‘Why do you make those grimaces, man?’ said Ralph; ‘you ARE jealous--and +with good cause I think.’ + +‘No, no, no; not with good cause, hey? You don’t think with good cause, +do you?’ cried Arthur, faltering. ‘Do you though, hey?’ + +‘Why, how stands the fact?’ returned Ralph. ‘Here is an old man about +to be forced in marriage upon a girl; and to this old man there comes a +handsome young fellow--you said he was handsome, didn’t you?’ + +‘No!’ snarled Arthur Gride. + +‘Oh!’ rejoined Ralph, ‘I thought you did. Well! Handsome or not +handsome, to this old man there comes a young fellow who casts all +manner of fierce defiances in his teeth--gums I should rather say--and +tells him in plain terms that his mistress hates him. What does he do +that for? Philanthropy’s sake?’ + +‘Not for love of the lady,’ replied Gride, ‘for he said that no word of +love--his very words--had ever passed between ‘em.’ + +‘He said!’ repeated Ralph, contemptuously. ‘But I like him for one +thing, and that is, his giving you this fair warning to keep your--what +is it?--Tit-tit or dainty chick--which?--under lock and key. Be careful, +Gride, be careful. It’s a triumph, too, to tear her away from a gallant +young rival: a great triumph for an old man! It only remains to keep her +safe when you have her--that’s all.’ + +‘What a man it is!’ cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity of +his torture, to be highly amused. And then he added, anxiously, ‘Yes; to +keep her safe, that’s all. And that isn’t much, is it?’ + +‘Much!’ said Ralph, with a sneer. ‘Why, everybody knows what easy things +to understand and to control, women are. But come, it’s very nearly time +for you to be made happy. You’ll pay the bond now, I suppose, to save us +trouble afterwards.’ + +‘Oh what a man you are!’ croaked Arthur. + +‘Why not?’ said Ralph. ‘Nobody will pay you interest for the money, I +suppose, between this and twelve o’clock; will they?’ + +‘But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,’ returned +Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness he could throw +into his face. + +‘Besides which,’ said Ralph, suffering his lip to curl into a smile, +‘you haven’t the money about you, and you weren’t prepared for this, or +you’d have brought it with you; and there’s nobody you’d so much like to +accommodate as me. I see. We trust each other in about an equal degree. +Are you ready?’ + +Gride, who had done nothing but grin, and nod, and chatter, during this +last speech of Ralph’s, answered in the affirmative; and, producing from +his hat a couple of large white favours, pinned one on his breast, and +with considerable difficulty induced his friend to do the like. Thus +accoutred, they got into a hired coach which Ralph had in waiting, and +drove to the residence of the fair and most wretched bride. + +Gride, whose spirits and courage had gradually failed him more and more +as they approached nearer and nearer to the house, was utterly dismayed +and cowed by the mournful silence which pervaded it. The face of the +poor servant girl, the only person they saw, was disfigured with tears +and want of sleep. There was nobody to receive or welcome them; and they +stole upstairs into the usual sitting-room, more like two burglars than +the bridegroom and his friend. + +‘One would think,’ said Ralph, speaking, in spite of himself, in a low +and subdued voice, ‘that there was a funeral going on here, and not a +wedding.’ + +‘He, he!’ tittered his friend, ‘you are so--so very funny!’ + +‘I need be,’ remarked Ralph, drily, ‘for this is rather dull and +chilling. Look a little brisker, man, and not so hangdog like!’ + +‘Yes, yes, I will,’ said Gride. ‘But--but--you don’t think she’s coming +just yet, do you?’ + +‘Why, I suppose she’ll not come till she is obliged,’ returned Ralph, +looking at his watch, ‘and she has a good half-hour to spare yet. Curb +your impatience.’ + +‘I--I--am not impatient,’ stammered Arthur. ‘I wouldn’t be hard with +her for the world. Oh dear, dear, not on any account. Let her take her +time--her own time. Her time shall be ours by all means.’ + +While Ralph bent upon his trembling friend a keen look, which showed +that he perfectly understood the reason of this great consideration and +regard, a footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Bray himself came into +the room on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with a cautious gesture, as +if there were some sick person near, who must not be disturbed. + +‘Hush!’ he said, in a low voice. ‘She was very ill last night. I thought +she would have broken her heart. She is dressed, and crying bitterly in +her own room; but she’s better, and quite quiet. That’s everything!’ + +‘She is ready, is she?’ said Ralph. + +‘Quite ready,’ returned the father. + +‘And not likely to delay us by any young-lady weaknesses--fainting, or +so forth?’ said Ralph. + +‘She may be safely trusted now,’ returned Bray. ‘I have been talking to +her this morning. Here! Come a little this way.’ + +He drew Ralph Nickleby to the further end of the room, and pointed +towards Gride, who sat huddled together in a corner, fumbling nervously +with the buttons of his coat, and exhibiting a face, of which every +skulking and base expression was sharpened and aggravated to the utmost +by his anxiety and trepidation. + +‘Look at that man,’ whispered Bray, emphatically. ‘This seems a cruel +thing, after all.’ + +‘What seems a cruel thing?’ inquired Ralph, with as much stolidity of +face, as if he really were in utter ignorance of the other’s meaning. + +‘This marriage,’ answered Bray. ‘Don’t ask me what. You know as well as +I do.’ + +Ralph shrugged his shoulders, in silent deprecation of Bray’s +impatience, and elevated his eyebrows, and pursed his lips, as men do +when they are prepared with a sufficient answer to some remark, but wait +for a more favourable opportunity of advancing it, or think it scarcely +worth while to answer their adversary at all. + +‘Look at him. Does it not seem cruel?’ said Bray. + +‘No!’ replied Ralph, boldly. + +‘I say it does,’ retorted Bray, with a show of much irritation. ‘It is a +cruel thing, by all that’s bad and treacherous!’ + +When men are about to commit, or to sanction the commission of some +injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object +either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at +the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those +who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above +works, and is very comfortable. To do Ralph Nickleby justice, he seldom +practised this sort of dissimulation; but he understood those who +did, and therefore suffered Bray to say, again and again, with great +vehemence, that they were jointly doing a very cruel thing, before he +again offered to interpose a word. + +‘You see what a dry, shrivelled, withered old chip it is,’ returned +Ralph, when the other was at length silent. ‘If he were younger, it +might be cruel, but as it is--harkee, Mr. Bray, he’ll die soon, and leave +her a rich young widow! Miss Madeline consults your tastes this time; +let her consult her own next.’ + +‘True, true,’ said Bray, biting his nails, and plainly very ill at ease. +‘I couldn’t do anything better for her than advise her to accept these +proposals, could I? Now, I ask you, Nickleby, as a man of the world; +could I?’ + +‘Surely not,’ answered Ralph. ‘I tell you what, sir; there are a hundred +fathers, within a circuit of five miles from this place; well off; good, +rich, substantial men; who would gladly give their daughters, and their +own ears with them, to that very man yonder, ape and mummy as he looks.’ + +‘So there are!’ exclaimed Bray, eagerly catching at anything which +seemed a justification of himself. ‘And so I told her, both last night +and today.’ + +‘You told her truth,’ said Ralph, ‘and did well to do so; though I +must say, at the same time, that if I had a daughter, and my freedom, +pleasure, nay, my very health and life, depended on her taking a husband +whom I pointed out, I should hope it would not be necessary to advance +any other arguments to induce her to consent to my wishes.’ + +Bray looked at Ralph as if to see whether he spoke in earnest, and +having nodded twice or thrice in unqualified assent to what had fallen +from him, said: + +‘I must go upstairs for a few minutes, to finish dressing. When I come +down, I’ll bring Madeline with me. Do you know, I had a very strange +dream last night, which I have not remembered till this instant. I +dreamt that it was this morning, and you and I had been talking as we +have been this minute; that I went upstairs, for the very purpose +for which I am going now; and that as I stretched out my hand to take +Madeline’s, and lead her down, the floor sunk with me, and after falling +from such an indescribable and tremendous height as the imagination +scarcely conceives, except in dreams, I alighted in a grave.’ + +‘And you awoke, and found you were lying on your back, or with your head +hanging over the bedside, or suffering some pain from indigestion?’ said +Ralph. ‘Pshaw, Mr. Bray! Do as I do (you will have the opportunity, now +that a constant round of pleasure and enjoyment opens upon you), and, +occupying yourself a little more by day, have no time to think of what +you dream by night.’ + +Ralph followed him, with a steady look, to the door; and, turning to the +bridegroom, when they were again alone, said, + +‘Mark my words, Gride, you won’t have to pay HIS annuity very long. You +have the devil’s luck in bargains, always. If he is not booked to make +the long voyage before many months are past and gone, I wear an orange +for a head!’ + +To this prophecy, so agreeable to his ears, Arthur returned no answer +than a cackle of great delight. Ralph, throwing himself into a chair, +they both sat waiting in profound silence. Ralph was thinking, with a +sneer upon his lips, on the altered manner of Bray that day, and +how soon their fellowship in a bad design had lowered his pride and +established a familiarity between them, when his attentive ear caught +the rustling of a female dress upon the stairs, and the footstep of a +man. + +‘Wake up,’ he said, stamping his foot impatiently upon the ground, ‘and +be something like life, man, will you? They are here. Urge those dry old +bones of yours this way. Quick, man, quick!’ + +Gride shambled forward, and stood, leering and bowing, close by Ralph’s +side, when the door opened and there entered in haste--not Bray and his +daughter, but Nicholas and his sister Kate. + +If some tremendous apparition from the world of shadows had suddenly +presented itself before him, Ralph Nickleby could not have been more +thunder-stricken than he was by this surprise. His hands fell powerless +by his side, he reeled back; and with open mouth, and a face of +ashy paleness, stood gazing at them in speechless rage: his eyes so +prominent, and his face so convulsed and changed by the passions which +raged within him, that it would have been difficult to recognise in him +the same stern, composed, hard-featured man he had been not a minute +ago. + +‘The man that came to me last night,’ whispered Gride, plucking at his +elbow. ‘The man that came to me last night!’ + +‘I see,’ muttered Ralph, ‘I know! I might have guessed as much before. +Across my every path, at every turn, go where I will, do what I may, he +comes!’ + +The absence of all colour from the face; the dilated nostril; the +quivering of the lips which, though set firmly against each other, would +not be still; showed what emotions were struggling for the mastery +with Nicholas. But he kept them down, and gently pressing Kate’s arm +to reassure her, stood erect and undaunted, front to front with his +unworthy relative. + +As the brother and sister stood side by side, with a gallant bearing +which became them well, a close likeness between them was apparent, +which many, had they only seen them apart, might have failed to remark. +The air, carriage, and very look and expression of the brother were all +reflected in the sister, but softened and refined to the nicest limit +of feminine delicacy and attraction. More striking still was some +indefinable resemblance, in the face of Ralph, to both. While they had +never looked more handsome, nor he more ugly; while they had never held +themselves more proudly, nor he shrunk half so low; there never had been +a time when this resemblance was so perceptible, or when all the worst +characteristics of a face rendered coarse and harsh by evil thoughts +were half so manifest as now. + +‘Away!’ was the first word he could utter as he literally gnashed his +teeth. ‘Away! What brings you here? Liar, scoundrel, dastard, thief!’ + +‘I come here,’ said Nicholas in a low deep voice, ‘to save your victim +if I can. Liar and scoundrel you are, in every action of your life; +theft is your trade; and double dastard you must be, or you were not +here today. Hard words will not move me, nor would hard blows. Here I +stand, and will, till I have done my errand.’ + +‘Girl!’ said Ralph, ‘retire! We can use force to him, but I would not +hurt you if I could help it. Retire, you weak and silly wench, and leave +this dog to be dealt with as he deserves.’ + +‘I will not retire,’ cried Kate, with flashing eyes and the red blood +mantling in her cheeks. ‘You will do him no hurt that he will not repay. +You may use force with me; I think you will, for I AM a girl, and that +would well become you. But if I have a girl’s weakness, I have a woman’s +heart, and it is not you who in a cause like this can turn that from its +purpose.’ + +‘And what may your purpose be, most lofty lady?’ said Ralph. + +‘To offer to the unhappy subject of your treachery, at this last +moment,’ replied Nicholas, ‘a refuge and a home. If the near prospect +of such a husband as you have provided will not prevail upon her, I hope +she may be moved by the prayers and entreaties of one of her own sex. +At all events they shall be tried. I myself, avowing to her father from +whom I come and by whom I am commissioned, will render it an act of +greater baseness, meanness, and cruelty in him if he still dares to +force this marriage on. Here I wait to see him and his daughter. For +this I came and brought my sister even into your presence. Our purpose +is not to see or speak with you; therefore to you we stoop to say no +more.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Ralph. ‘You persist in remaining here, ma’am, do you?’ + +His niece’s bosom heaved with the indignant excitement into which he had +lashed her, but she gave him no reply. + +‘Now, Gride, see here,’ said Ralph. ‘This fellow--I grieve to say my +brother’s son: a reprobate and profligate, stained with every mean +and selfish crime--this fellow, coming here today to disturb a solemn +ceremony, and knowing that the consequence of his presenting himself in +another man’s house at such a time, and persisting in remaining there, +must be his being kicked into the streets and dragged through them like +the vagabond he is--this fellow, mark you, brings with him his sister +as a protection, thinking we would not expose a silly girl to the +degradation and indignity which is no novelty to him; and, even after +I have warned her of what must ensue, he still keeps her by him, as +you see, and clings to her apron-strings like a cowardly boy to his +mother’s. Is not this a pretty fellow to talk as big as you have heard +him now?’ + +‘And as I heard him last night,’ said Arthur Gride; ‘as I heard him last +night when he sneaked into my house, and--he! he! he!--very soon sneaked +out again, when I nearly frightened him to death. And HE wanting to +marry Miss Madeline too! Oh dear! Is there anything else he’d like? +Anything else we can do for him, besides giving her up? Would he like +his debts paid and his house furnished, and a few bank notes for shaving +paper if he shaves at all? He! he! he!’ + +‘You will remain, girl, will you?’ said Ralph, turning upon Kate again, +‘to be hauled downstairs like a drunken drab, as I swear you shall if +you stop here? No answer! Thank your brother for what follows. Gride, +call down Bray--and not his daughter. Let them keep her above.’ + +‘If you value your head,’ said Nicholas, taking up a position before the +door, and speaking in the same low voice in which he had spoken before, +and with no more outward passion than he had before displayed; ‘stay +where you are!’ + +‘Mind me, and not him, and call down Bray,’ said Ralph. + +‘Mind yourself rather than either of us, and stay where you are!’ said +Nicholas. + +‘Will you call down Bray?’ cried Ralph. + +‘Remember that you come near me at your peril,’ said Nicholas. + +Gride hesitated. Ralph being, by this time, as furious as a baffled +tiger, made for the door, and, attempting to pass Kate, clasped her arm +roughly with his hand. Nicholas, with his eyes darting fire, seized him +by the collar. At that moment, a heavy body fell with great violence +on the floor above, and, in an instant afterwards, was heard a most +appalling and terrific scream. + +They all stood still, and gazed upon each other. Scream succeeded +scream; a heavy pattering of feet succeeded; and many shrill voices +clamouring together were heard to cry, ‘He is dead!’ + +‘Stand off!’ cried Nicholas, letting loose all the passion he had +restrained till now; ‘if this is what I scarcely dare to hope it is, you +are caught, villains, in your own toils.’ + +He burst from the room, and, darting upstairs to the quarter from whence +the noise proceeded, forced his way through a crowd of persons who quite +filled a small bed-chamber, and found Bray lying on the floor quite +dead; his daughter clinging to the body. + +‘How did this happen?’ he cried, looking wildly about him. + +Several voices answered together, that he had been observed, through +the half-opened door, reclining in a strange and uneasy position upon a +chair; that he had been spoken to several times, and not answering, was +supposed to be asleep, until some person going in and shaking him by the +arm, he fell heavily to the ground and was discovered to be dead. + +‘Who is the owner of this house?’ said Nicholas, hastily. + +An elderly woman was pointed out to him; and to her he said, as he knelt +down and gently unwound Madeline’s arms from the lifeless mass round +which they were entwined: ‘I represent this lady’s nearest friends, as +her servant here knows, and must remove her from this dreadful scene. +This is my sister to whose charge you confide her. My name and address +are upon that card, and you shall receive from me all necessary +directions for the arrangements that must be made. Stand aside, every +one of you, and give me room and air for God’s sake!’ + +The people fell back, scarce wondering more at what had just occurred, +than at the excitement and impetuosity of him who spoke. Nicholas, +taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore her from the chamber and +downstairs into the room he had just quitted, followed by his sister and +the faithful servant, whom he charged to procure a coach directly, while +he and Kate bent over their beautiful charge and endeavoured, but in +vain, to restore her to animation. The girl performed her office with +such expedition, that in a very few minutes the coach was ready. + +Ralph Nickleby and Gride, stunned and paralysed by the awful event +which had so suddenly overthrown their schemes (it would not otherwise, +perhaps, have made much impression on them), and carried away by the +extraordinary energy and precipitation of Nicholas, which bore down +all before him, looked on at these proceedings like men in a dream +or trance. It was not until every preparation was made for Madeline’s +immediate removal that Ralph broke silence by declaring she should not +be taken away. + +‘Who says so?’ cried Nicholas, rising from his knee and confronting +them, but still retaining Madeline’s lifeless hand in his. + +‘I!’ answered Ralph, hoarsely. + +‘Hush, hush!’ cried the terrified Gride, catching him by the arm again. +‘Hear what he says.’ + +‘Ay!’ said Nicholas, extending his disengaged hand in the air, ‘hear +what he says. That both your debts are paid in the one great debt of +nature. That the bond, due today at twelve, is now waste paper. That +your contemplated fraud shall be discovered yet. That your schemes are +known to man, and overthrown by Heaven. Wretches, that he defies you +both to do your worst.’ + +‘This man,’ said Ralph, in a voice scarcely intelligible, ‘this man +claims his wife, and he shall have her.’ + +‘That man claims what is not his, and he should not have her if he were +fifty men, with fifty more to back him,’ said Nicholas. + +‘Who shall prevent him?’ + +‘I will.’ + +‘By what right I should like to know,’ said Ralph. ‘By what right I +ask?’ + +‘By this right. That, knowing what I do, you dare not tempt me further,’ +said Nicholas, ‘and by this better right; that those I serve, and with +whom you would have done me base wrong and injury, are her nearest and +her dearest friends. In their name I bear her hence. Give way!’ + +‘One word!’ cried Ralph, foaming at the mouth. + +‘Not one,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I will not hear of one--save this. Look to +yourself, and heed this warning that I give you! Your day is past, and +night is comin’ on.’ + +‘My curse, my bitter, deadly curse, upon you, boy!’ + +‘Whence will curses come at your command? Or what avails a curse or +blessing from a man like you? I tell you, that misfortune and discovery +are thickening about your head; that the structures you have raised, +through all your ill-spent life, are crumbling into dust; that your path +is beset with spies; that this very day, ten thousand pounds of your +hoarded wealth have gone in one great crash!’ + +‘’Tis false!’ cried Ralph, shrinking back. + +‘’Tis true, and you shall find it so. I have no more words to waste. +Stand from the door. Kate, do you go first. Lay not a hand on her, or on +that woman, or on me, or so much a brush their garments as they pass you +by!--You let them pass, and he blocks the door again!’ + +Arthur Gride happened to be in the doorway, but whether intentionally +or from confusion was not quite apparent. Nicholas swung him away, with +such violence as to cause him to spin round the room until he was caught +by a sharp angle of the wall, and there knocked down; and then taking +his beautiful burden in his arms rushed out. No one cared to stop him, +if any were so disposed. Making his way through a mob of people, whom a +report of the circumstances had attracted round the house, and carrying +Madeline, in his excitement, as easily as if she were an infant, he +reached the coach in which Kate and the girl were already waiting, and, +confiding his charge to them, jumped up beside the coachman and bade him +drive away. + + + +CHAPTER 55 + +Of Family Matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointments, and Sorrows + + +Although Mrs. Nickleby had been made acquainted by her son and daughter +with every circumstance of Madeline Bray’s history which was known to +them; although the responsible situation in which Nicholas stood had +been carefully explained to her, and she had been prepared, even for +the possible contingency of having to receive the young lady in her +own house, improbable as such a result had appeared only a few minutes +before it came about, still, Mrs. Nickleby, from the moment when this +confidence was first reposed in her, late on the previous evening, had +remained in an unsatisfactory and profoundly mystified state, from which +no explanations or arguments could relieve her, and which every fresh +soliloquy and reflection only aggravated more and more. + +‘Bless my heart, Kate!’ so the good lady argued; ‘if the Mr. Cheerybles +don’t want this young lady to be married, why don’t they file a bill +against the Lord Chancellor, make her a Chancery ward, and shut her +up in the Fleet prison for safety?--I have read of such things in the +newspapers a hundred times. Or, if they are so very fond of her as +Nicholas says they are, why don’t they marry her themselves--one of them +I mean? And even supposing they don’t want her to be married, and don’t +want to marry her themselves, why in the name of wonder should Nicholas +go about the world, forbidding people’s banns?’ + +‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ said Kate, gently. + +‘Well I am sure, Kate, my dear, you’re very polite!’ replied Mrs +Nickleby. ‘I have been married myself I hope, and I have seen other +people married. Not understand, indeed!’ + +‘I know you have had great experience, dear mama,’ said Kate; ‘I mean +that perhaps you don’t quite understand all the circumstances in this +instance. We have stated them awkwardly, I dare say.’ + +‘That I dare say you have,’ retorted her mother, briskly. ‘That’s very +likely. I am not to be held accountable for that; though, at the same +time, as the circumstances speak for themselves, I shall take the +liberty, my love, of saying that I do understand them, and perfectly +well too; whatever you and Nicholas may choose to think to the contrary. +Why is such a great fuss made because this Miss Magdalen is going to +marry somebody who is older than herself? Your poor papa was older than +I was, four years and a half older. Jane Dibabs--the Dibabses lived in +the beautiful little thatched white house one story high, covered all +over with ivy and creeping plants, with an exquisite little porch with +twining honysuckles and all sorts of things: where the earwigs used +to fall into one’s tea on a summer evening, and always fell upon their +backs and kicked dreadfully, and where the frogs used to get into the +rushlight shades when one stopped all night, and sit up and look through +the little holes like Christians--Jane Dibabs, SHE married a man who was +a great deal older than herself, and WOULD marry him, notwithstanding +all that could be said to the contrary, and she was so fond of him that +nothing was ever equal to it. There was no fuss made about Jane Dibabs, +and her husband was a most honourable and excellent man, and everybody +spoke well of him. Then why should there by any fuss about this +Magdalen?’ + +‘Her husband is much older; he is not her own choice; his character is +the very reverse of that which you have just described. Don’t you see a +broad destinction between the two cases?’ said Kate. + +To this, Mrs. Nickleby only replied that she durst say she was very +stupid, indeed she had no doubt she was, for her own children almost as +much as told her so, every day of her life; to be sure she was a little +older than they, and perhaps some foolish people might think she ought +reasonably to know best. However, no doubt she was wrong; of course she +was; she always was, she couldn’t be right, she couldn’t be expected +to be; so she had better not expose herself any more; and to all Kate’s +conciliations and concessions for an hour ensuing, the good lady gave no +other replies than Oh, certainly, why did they ask HER?, HER opinion +was of no consequence, it didn’t matter what SHE said, with many other +rejoinders of the same class. + +In this frame of mind (expressed, when she had become too resigned +for speech, by nods of the head, upliftings of the eyes, and little +beginnings of groans, converted, as they attracted attention, into short +coughs), Mrs. Nickleby remained until Nicholas and Kate returned with the +object of their solicitude; when, having by this time asserted her own +importance, and becoming besides interested in the trials of one +so young and beautiful, she not only displayed the utmost zeal and +solicitude, but took great credit to herself for recommending the course +of procedure which her son had adopted: frequently declaring, with an +expressive look, that it was very fortunate things were AS they were: +and hinting, that but for great encouragement and wisdom on her own +part, they never could have been brought to that pass. + +Not to strain the question whether Mrs. Nickleby had or had not any great +hand in bringing matters about, it is unquestionable that she had strong +ground for exultation. The brothers, on their return, bestowed such +commendations on Nicholas for the part he had taken, and evinced so +much joy at the altered state of events and the recovery of their young +friend from trials so great and dangers so threatening, that, as she +more than once informed her daughter, she now considered the fortunes of +the family ‘as good as’ made. Mr. Charles Cheeryble, indeed, Mrs. Nickleby +positively asserted, had, in the first transports of his surprise and +delight, ‘as good as’ said so. Without precisely explaining what this +qualification meant, she subsided, whenever she mentioned the subject, +into such a mysterious and important state, and had such visions of +wealth and dignity in perspective, that (vague and clouded though they +were) she was, at such times, almost as happy as if she had really been +permanently provided for, on a scale of great splendour. + +The sudden and terrible shock she had received, combined with the great +affliction and anxiety of mind which she had, for a long time, endured, +proved too much for Madeline’s strength. Recovering from the state of +stupefaction into which the sudden death of her father happily plunged +her, she only exchanged that condition for one of dangerous and active +illness. When the delicate physical powers which have been sustained +by an unnatural strain upon the mental energies and a resolute +determination not to yield, at last give way, their degree of +prostration is usually proportionate to the strength of the effort which +has previously upheld them. Thus it was that the illness which fell +on Madeline was of no slight or temporary nature, but one which, for a +time, threatened her reason, and--scarcely worse--her life itself. + +Who, slowly recovering from a disorder so severe and dangerous, could +be insensible to the unremitting attentions of such a nurse as gentle, +tender, earnest Kate? On whom could the sweet soft voice, the light +step, the delicate hand, the quiet, cheerful, noiseless discharge of +those thousand little offices of kindness and relief which we feel so +deeply when we are ill, and forget so lightly when we are well--on whom +could they make so deep an impression as on a young heart stored with +every pure and true affection that women cherish; almost a stranger to +the endearments and devotion of its own sex, save as it learnt them from +itself; and rendered, by calamity and suffering, keenly susceptible of +the sympathy so long unknown and so long sought in vain? What wonder +that days became as years in knitting them together! What wonder, +if with every hour of returning health, there came some stronger and +sweeter recognition of the praises which Kate, when they recalled old +scenes--they seemed old now, and to have been acted years ago--would +lavish on her brother! Where would have been the wonder, even, if those +praises had found a quick response in the breast of Madeline, and if, +with the image of Nicholas so constantly recurring in the features of +his sister that she could scarcely separate the two, she had sometimes +found it equally difficult to assign to each the feelings they had first +inspired, and had imperceptibly mingled with her gratitude to Nicholas, +some of that warmer feeling which she had assigned to Kate? + +‘My dear,’ Mrs. Nickleby would say, coming into the room with an +elaborate caution, calculated to discompose the nerves of an invalid +rather more than the entry of a horse-soldier at full gallop; ‘how do +you find yourself tonight? I hope you are better.’ + +‘Almost well, mama,’ Kate would reply, laying down her work, and taking +Madeline’s hand in hers. + +‘Kate!’ Mrs. Nickleby would say, reprovingly, ‘don’t talk so loud’ (the +worthy lady herself talking in a whisper that would have made the blood +of the stoutest man run cold in his veins). + +Kate would take this reproof very quietly, and Mrs. Nickleby, making +every board creak and every thread rustle as she moved stealthily about, +would add: + +‘My son Nicholas has just come home, and I have come, according to +custom, my dear, to know, from your own lips, exactly how you are; for +he won’t take my account, and never will.’ + +‘He is later than usual to-night,’ perhaps Madeline would reply. ‘Nearly +half an hour.’ + +‘Well, I never saw such people in all my life as you are, for time, up +here!’ Mrs. Nickleby would exclaim in great astonishment; ‘I declare I +never did! I had not the least idea that Nicholas was after his time, +not the smallest. Mr. Nickleby used to say--your poor papa, I am speaking +of, Kate my dear--used to say, that appetite was the best clock in the +world, but you have no appetite, my dear Miss Bray, I wish you had, and +upon my word I really think you ought to take something that would give +you one. I am sure I don’t know, but I have heard that two or three +dozen native lobsters give an appetite, though that comes to the same +thing after all, for I suppose you must have an appetite before you can +take ‘em. If I said lobsters, I meant oysters, but of course it’s all +the same, though really how you came to know about Nicholas--’ + +‘We happened to be just talking about him, mama; that was it.’ + +‘You never seem to me to be talking about anything else, Kate, and upon +my word I am quite surprised at your being so very thoughtless. You +can find subjects enough to talk about sometimes, and when you know how +important it is to keep up Miss Bray’s spirits, and interest her, and +all that, it really is quite extraordinary to me what can induce you to +keep on prose, prose, prose, din, din, din, everlastingly, upon the same +theme. You are a very kind nurse, Kate, and a very good one, and I know +you mean very well; but I will say this--that if it wasn’t for me, I +really don’t know what would become of Miss Bray’s spirits, and so I +tell the doctor every day. He says he wonders how I sustain my own, and +I am sure I very often wonder myself how I can contrive to keep up as I +do. Of course it’s an exertion, but still, when I know how much +depends upon me in this house, I am obliged to make it. There’s nothing +praiseworthy in that, but it’s necessary, and I do it.’ + +With that, Mrs. Nickleby would draw up a chair, and for some +three-quarters of an hour run through a great variety of distracting +topics in the most distracting manner possible; tearing herself away, +at length, on the plea that she must now go and amuse Nicholas while +he took his supper. After a preliminary raising of his spirits with the +information that she considered the patient decidedly worse, she would +further cheer him up by relating how dull, listless, and low-spirited +Miss Bray was, because Kate foolishly talked about nothing else but him +and family matters. When she had made Nicholas thoroughly comfortable +with these and other inspiriting remarks, she would discourse at length +on the arduous duties she had performed that day; and, sometimes, be +moved to tears in wondering how, if anything were to happen to herself, +the family would ever get on without her. + +At other times, when Nicholas came home at night, he would be +accompanied by Mr. Frank Cheeryble, who was commissioned by the brothers +to inquire how Madeline was that evening. On such occasions (and they +were of very frequent occurrence), Mrs. Nickleby deemed it of particular +importance that she should have her wits about her; for, from certain +signs and tokens which had attracted her attention, she shrewdly +suspected that Mr. Frank, interested as his uncles were in Madeline, came +quite as much to see Kate as to inquire after her; the more especially +as the brothers were in constant communication with the medical man, +came backwards and forwards very frequently themselves, and received a +full report from Nicholas every morning. These were proud times for Mrs +Nickleby; never was anybody half so discreet and sage as she, or half +so mysterious withal; and never were there such cunning generalship, and +such unfathomable designs, as she brought to bear upon Mr. Frank, with +the view of ascertaining whether her suspicions were well founded: +and if so, of tantalising him into taking her into his confidence and +throwing himself upon her merciful consideration. Extensive was the +artillery, heavy and light, which Mrs. Nickleby brought into play for the +furtherance of these great schemes; various and opposite the means which +she employed to bring about the end she had in view. At one time, she +was all cordiality and ease; at another, all stiffness and frigidity. +Now, she would seem to open her whole heart to her unhappy victim; the +next time they met, she would receive him with the most distant and +studious reserve, as if a new light had broken in upon her, and, +guessing his intentions, she had resolved to check them in the bud; as +if she felt it her bounden duty to act with Spartan firmness, and at +once and for ever to discourage hopes which never could be realised. +At other times, when Nicholas was not there to overhear, and Kate was +upstairs busily tending her sick friend, the worthy lady would throw out +dark hints of an intention to send her daughter to France for three or +four years, or to Scotland for the improvement of her health impaired by +her late fatigues, or to America on a visit, or anywhere that threatened +a long and tedious separation. Nay, she even went so far as to hint, +obscurely, at an attachment entertained for her daughter by the son of +an old neighbour of theirs, one Horatio Peltirogus (a young gentleman +who might have been, at that time, four years old, or thereabouts), +and to represent it, indeed, as almost a settled thing between the +families--only waiting for her daughter’s final decision, to come off +with the sanction of the church, and to the unspeakable happiness and +content of all parties. + +It was in the full pride and glory of having sprung this last mine one +night with extraordinary success, that Mrs. Nickleby took the opportunity +of being left alone with her son before retiring to rest, to sound him +on the subject which so occupied her thoughts: not doubting that they +could have but one opinion respecting it. To this end, she approached +the question with divers laudatory and appropriate remarks touching the +general amiability of Mr. Frank Cheeryble. + +‘You are quite right, mother,’ said Nicholas, ‘quite right. He is a fine +fellow.’ + +‘Good-looking, too,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Decidedly good-looking,’ answered Nicholas. + +‘What may you call his nose, now, my dear?’ pursued Mrs. Nickleby, +wishing to interest Nicholas in the subject to the utmost. + +‘Call it?’ repeated Nicholas. + +‘Ah!’ returned his mother, ‘what style of nose? What order of +architecture, if one may say so. I am not very learned in noses. Do you +call it a Roman or a Grecian?’ + +‘Upon my word, mother,’ said Nicholas, laughing, ‘as well as I remember, +I should call it a kind of Composite, or mixed nose. But I have no +very strong recollection on the subject. If it will afford you any +gratification, I’ll observe it more closely, and let you know.’ + +‘I wish you would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with an earnest look. + +‘Very well,’ returned Nicholas. ‘I will.’ + +Nicholas returned to the perusal of the book he had been reading, when +the dialogue had gone thus far. Mrs. Nickleby, after stopping a little +for consideration, resumed. + +‘He is very much attached to you, Nicholas, my dear.’ + +Nicholas laughingly said, as he closed his book, that he was glad to +hear it, and observed that his mother seemed deep in their new friend’s +confidence already. + +‘Hem!’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I don’t know about that, my dear, but I think +it is very necessary that somebody should be in his confidence; highly +necessary.’ + +Elated by a look of curiosity from her son, and the consciousness of +possessing a great secret, all to herself, Mrs. Nickleby went on with +great animation: + +‘I am sure, my dear Nicholas, how you can have failed to notice it, is, +to me, quite extraordinary; though I don’t know why I should say that, +either, because, of course, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent, +there is a great deal in this sort of thing, especially in this early +stage, which, however clear it may be to females, can scarcely be +expected to be so evident to men. I don’t say that I have any particular +penetration in such matters. I may have; those about me should know +best about that, and perhaps do know. Upon that point I shall express no +opinion, it wouldn’t become me to do so, it’s quite out of the question, +quite.’ + +Nicholas snuffed the candles, put his hands in his pockets, and, leaning +back in his chair, assumed a look of patient suffering and melancholy +resignation. + +‘I think it my duty, Nicholas, my dear,’ resumed his mother, ‘to tell +you what I know: not only because you have a right to know it too, and +to know everything that happens in this family, but because you have it +in your power to promote and assist the thing very much; and there is +no doubt that the sooner one can come to a clear understanding on such +subjects, it is always better, every way. There are a great many things +you might do; such as taking a walk in the garden sometimes, or sitting +upstairs in your own room for a little while, or making believe to fall +asleep occasionally, or pretending that you recollected some business, +and going out for an hour or so, and taking Mr. Smike with you. These +seem very slight things, and I dare say you will be amused at my making +them of so much importance; at the same time, my dear, I can assure you +(and you’ll find this out, Nicholas, for yourself one of these days, +if you ever fall in love with anybody; as I trust and hope you will, +provided she is respectable and well conducted, and of course you’d +never dream of falling in love with anybody who was not), I say, I can +assure you that a great deal more depends upon these little things than +you would suppose possible. If your poor papa was alive, he would tell +you how much depended on the parties being left alone. Of course, you +are not to go out of the room as if you meant it and did it on purpose, +but as if it was quite an accident, and to come back again in the same +way. If you cough in the passage before you open the door, or whistle +carelessly, or hum a tune, or something of that sort, to let them know +you’re coming, it’s always better; because, of course, though it’s not +only natural but perfectly correct and proper under the circumstances, +still it is very confusing if you interrupt young people when they +are--when they are sitting on the sofa, and--and all that sort of thing: +which is very nonsensical, perhaps, but still they will do it.’ + +The profound astonishment with which her son regarded her during this +long address, gradually increasing as it approached its climax in no +way discomposed Mrs. Nickleby, but rather exalted her opinion of her own +cleverness; therefore, merely stopping to remark, with much complacency, +that she had fully expected him to be surprised, she entered on a vast +quantity of circumstantial evidence of a particularly incoherent and +perplexing kind; the upshot of which was, to establish, beyond the +possibility of doubt, that Mr. Frank Cheeryble had fallen desperately in +love with Kate. + +‘With whom?’ cried Nicholas. + +Mrs. Nickleby repeated, with Kate. + +‘What! OUR Kate! My sister!’ + +‘Lord, Nicholas!’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘whose Kate should it be, if +not ours; or what should I care about it, or take any interest in it +for, if it was anybody but your sister?’ + +‘Dear mother,’ said Nicholas, ‘surely it can’t be!’ + +‘Very good, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, with great confidence. ‘Wait +and see.’ + +Nicholas had never, until that moment, bestowed a thought upon +the remote possibility of such an occurrence as that which was now +communicated to him; for, besides that he had been much from home of +late and closely occupied with other matters, his own jealous fears had +prompted the suspicion that some secret interest in Madeline, akin to +that which he felt himself, occasioned those visits of Frank Cheeryble +which had recently become so frequent. Even now, although he knew that +the observation of an anxious mother was much more likely to be correct +in such a case than his own, and although she reminded him of many +little circumstances which, taken together, were certainly susceptible +of the construction she triumphantly put upon them, he was not quite +convinced but that they arose from mere good-natured thoughtless +gallantry, which would have dictated the same conduct towards any +other girl who was young and pleasing. At all events, he hoped so, and +therefore tried to believe it. + +‘I am very much disturbed by what you tell me,’ said Nicholas, after a +little reflection, ‘though I yet hope you may be mistaken.’ + +‘I don’t understand why you should hope so,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I +confess; but you may depend upon it I am not.’ + +‘What of Kate?’ inquired Nicholas. + +‘Why that, my dear,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘is just the point upon +which I am not yet satisfied. During this sickness, she has been +constantly at Madeline’s bedside--never were two people so fond of each +other as they have grown--and to tell you the truth, Nicholas, I have +rather kept her away now and then, because I think it’s a good plan, and +urges a young man on. He doesn’t get too sure, you know.’ + +She said this with such a mingling of high delight and +self-congratulation, that it was inexpressibly painful to Nicholas to +dash her hopes; but he felt that there was only one honourable course +before him, and that he was bound to take it. + +‘Dear mother,’ he said kindly, ‘don’t you see that if there were really +any serious inclination on the part of Mr. Frank towards Kate, and we +suffered ourselves for a moment to encourage it, we should be acting a +most dishonourable and ungrateful part? I ask you if you don’t see it, +but I need not say that I know you don’t, or you would have been more +strictly on your guard. Let me explain my meaning to you. Remember how +poor we are.’ + +Mrs. Nickleby shook her head, and said, through her tears, that poverty +was not a crime. + +‘No,’ said Nicholas, ‘and for that reason poverty should engender an +honest pride, that it may not lead and tempt us to unworthy actions, and +that we may preserve the self-respect which a hewer of wood and drawer +of water may maintain, and does better in maintaining than a monarch in +preserving his. Think what we owe to these two brothers: remember what +they have done, and what they do every day for us with a generosity +and delicacy for which the devotion of our whole lives would be a most +imperfect and inadequate return. What kind of return would that be which +would be comprised in our permitting their nephew, their only relative, +whom they regard as a son, and for whom it would be mere childishness to +suppose they have not formed plans suitably adapted to the education he +has had, and the fortune he will inherit--in our permitting him to marry +a portionless girl: so closely connected with us, that the irresistible +inference must be, that he was entrapped by a plot; that it was a +deliberate scheme, and a speculation amongst us three? Bring the matter +clearly before yourself, mother. Now, how would you feel, if they were +married, and the brothers, coming here on one of those kind errands +which bring them here so often, you had to break out to them the truth? +Would you be at ease, and feel that you had played an open part?’ + +Poor Mrs. Nickleby, crying more and more, murmured that of course Mr +Frank would ask the consent of his uncles first. + +‘Why, to be sure, that would place HIM in a better situation with them,’ +said Nicholas, ‘but we should still be open to the same suspicions; the +distance between us would still be as great; the advantages to be gained +would still be as manifest as now. We may be reckoning without our host +in all this,’ he added more cheerfully, ‘and I trust, and almost believe +we are. If it be otherwise, I have that confidence in Kate that I know +she will feel as I do--and in you, dear mother, to be assured that after +a little consideration you will do the same.’ + +After many more representations and entreaties, Nicholas obtained a +promise from Mrs. Nickleby that she would try all she could to think +as he did; and that if Mr. Frank persevered in his attentions she would +endeavour to discourage them, or, at the least, would render him no +countenance or assistance. He determined to forbear mentioning the +subject to Kate until he was quite convinced that there existed a real +necessity for his doing so; and resolved to assure himself, as well +as he could by close personal observation, of the exact position of +affairs. This was a very wise resolution, but he was prevented from +putting it in practice by a new source of anxiety and uneasiness. + +Smike became alarmingly ill; so reduced and exhausted that he could +scarcely move from room to room without assistance; and so worn and +emaciated, that it was painful to look upon him. Nicholas was warned, +by the same medical authority to whom he had at first appealed, that the +last chance and hope of his life depended on his being instantly removed +from London. That part of Devonshire in which Nicholas had been +himself bred was named as the most favourable spot; but this advice was +cautiously coupled with the information, that whoever accompanied +him thither must be prepared for the worst; for every token of rapid +consumption had appeared, and he might never return alive. + +The kind brothers, who were acquainted with the poor creature’s sad +history, dispatched old Tim to be present at this consultation. That +same morning, Nicholas was summoned by brother Charles into his private +room, and thus addressed: + +‘My dear sir, no time must be lost. This lad shall not die, if such +human means as we can use can save his life; neither shall he die alone, +and in a strange place. Remove him tomorrow morning, see that he has +every comfort that his situation requires, and don’t leave him; don’t +leave him, my dear sir, until you know that there is no longer any +immediate danger. It would be hard, indeed, to part you now. No, no, no! +Tim shall wait upon you tonight, sir; Tim shall wait upon you tonight +with a parting word or two. Brother Ned, my dear fellow, Mr. Nickleby +waits to shake hands and say goodbye; Mr. Nickleby won’t be long gone; +this poor chap will soon get better, very soon get better; and then +he’ll find out some nice homely country-people to leave him with, and +will go backwards and forwards sometimes--backwards and forwards you +know, Ned. And there’s no cause to be downhearted, for he’ll very soon +get better, very soon. Won’t he, won’t he, Ned?’ + +What Tim Linkinwater said, or what he brought with him that night, needs +not to be told. Next morning Nicholas and his feeble companion began +their journey. + +And who but one--and that one he who, but for those who crowded +round him then, had never met a look of kindness, or known a word +of pity--could tell what agony of mind, what blighted thoughts, what +unavailing sorrow, were involved in that sad parting? + +‘See,’ cried Nicholas eagerly, as he looked from the coach window, ‘they +are at the corner of the lane still! And now there’s Kate, poor +Kate, whom you said you couldn’t bear to say goodbye to, waving her +handkerchief. Don’t go without one gesture of farewell to Kate!’ + +‘I cannot make it!’ cried his trembling companion, falling back in his +seat and covering his eyes. ‘Do you see her now? Is she there still?’ + +‘Yes, yes!’ said Nicholas earnestly. ‘There! She waves her hand again! I +have answered it for you--and now they are out of sight. Do not give way +so bitterly, dear friend, don’t. You will meet them all again.’ + +He whom he thus encouraged, raised his withered hands and clasped them +fervently together. + +‘In heaven. I humbly pray to God in heaven.’ + +It sounded like the prayer of a broken heart. + + + +CHAPTER 56 + +Ralph Nickleby, baffled by his Nephew in his late Design, hatches a +Scheme of Retaliation which Accident suggests to him, and takes into his +Counsels a tried Auxiliary + + +The course which these adventures shape out for themselves, and +imperatively call upon the historian to observe, now demands that they +should revert to the point they attained previously to the commencement +of the last chapter, when Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride were left +together in the house where death had so suddenly reared his dark and +heavy banner. + +With clenched hands, and teeth ground together so firm and tight that +no locking of the jaws could have fixed and riveted them more securely, +Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the attitude in which he had last +addressed his nephew: breathing heavily, but as rigid and motionless +in other respects as if he had been a brazen statue. After a time, he +began, by slow degrees, as a man rousing himself from heavy slumber, to +relax. For a moment he shook his clasped fist towards the door by which +Nicholas had disappeared; and then thrusting it into his breast, as +if to repress by force even this show of passion, turned round and +confronted the less hardy usurer, who had not yet risen from the ground. + +The cowering wretch, who still shook in every limb, and whose few grey +hairs trembled and quivered on his head with abject dismay, tottered to +his feet as he met Ralph’s eye, and, shielding his face with both hands, +protested, while he crept towards the door, that it was no fault of his. + +‘Who said it was, man?’ returned Ralph, in a suppressed voice. ‘Who said +it was?’ + +‘You looked as if you thought I was to blame,’ said Gride, timidly. + +‘Pshaw!’ Ralph muttered, forcing a laugh. ‘I blame him for not living an +hour longer. One hour longer would have been long enough. I blame no one +else.’ + +‘N--n--no one else?’ said Gride. + +‘Not for this mischance,’ replied Ralph. ‘I have an old score to clear +with that young fellow who has carried off your mistress; but that has +nothing to do with his blustering just now, for we should soon have been +quit of him, but for this cursed accident.’ + +There was something so unnatural in the calmness with which Ralph +Nickleby spoke, when coupled with his face, the expression of the +features, to which every nerve and muscle, as it twitched and throbbed +with a spasm whose workings no effort could conceal, gave, every +instant, some new and frightful aspect--there was something so unnatural +and ghastly in the contrast between his harsh, slow, steady voice (only +altered by a certain halting of the breath which made him pause between +almost every word like a drunken man bent upon speaking plainly), +and these evidences of the most intense and violent passion, and the +struggle he made to keep them under; that if the dead body which lay +above had stood, instead of him, before the cowering Gride, it could +scarcely have presented a spectacle which would have terrified him more. + +‘The coach,’ said Ralph after a time, during which he had struggled like +some strong man against a fit. ‘We came in a coach. Is it waiting?’ + +Gride gladly availed himself of the pretext for going to the window to +see. Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other way, tore at his shirt +with the hand which he had thrust into his breast, and muttered in a +hoarse whisper: + +‘Ten thousand pounds! He said ten thousand! The precise sum paid in but +yesterday for the two mortgages, and which would have gone out again, at +heavy interest, tomorrow. If that house has failed, and he the first to +bring the news!--Is the coach there?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Gride, startled by the fierce tone of the inquiry. +‘It’s here. Dear, dear, what a fiery man you are!’ + +‘Come here,’ said Ralph, beckoning to him. ‘We mustn’t make a show of +being disturbed. We’ll go down arm in arm.’ + +‘But you pinch me black and blue,’ urged Gride. + +Ralph let him go impatiently, and descending the stairs with his usual +firm and heavy tread, got into the coach. Arthur Gride followed. After +looking doubtfully at Ralph when the man asked where he was to drive, +and finding that he remained silent, and expressed no wish upon the +subject, Arthur mentioned his own house, and thither they proceeded. + +On their way, Ralph sat in the furthest corner with folded arms, and +uttered not a word. With his chin sunk upon his breast, and his downcast +eyes quite hidden by the contraction of his knotted brows, he might +have been asleep for any sign of consciousness he gave until the coach +stopped, when he raised his head, and glancing through the window, +inquired what place that was. + +‘My house,’ answered the disconsolate Gride, affected perhaps by its +loneliness. ‘Oh dear! my house.’ + +‘True,’ said Ralph ‘I have not observed the way we came. I should like a +glass of water. You have that in the house, I suppose?’ + +‘You shall have a glass of--of anything you like,’ answered Gride, with +a groan. ‘It’s no use knocking, coachman. Ring the bell!’ + +The man rang, and rang, and rang again; then, knocked until the street +re-echoed with the sounds; then, listened at the keyhole of the door. +Nobody came. The house was silent as the grave. + +‘How’s this?’ said Ralph impatiently. + +‘Peg is so very deaf,’ answered Gride with a look of anxiety and alarm. +‘Oh dear! Ring again, coachman. She SEES the bell.’ + +Again the man rang and knocked, and knocked and rang again. Some of the +neighbours threw up their windows, and called across the street to each +other that old Gride’s housekeeper must have dropped down dead. Others +collected round the coach, and gave vent to various surmises; some held +that she had fallen asleep; some, that she had burnt herself to death; +some, that she had got drunk; and one very fat man that she had seen +something to eat which had frightened her so much (not being used to +it) that she had fallen into a fit. This last suggestion particularly +delighted the bystanders, who cheered it rather uproariously, and were, +with some difficulty, deterred from dropping down the area and breaking +open the kitchen door to ascertain the fact. Nor was this all. Rumours +having gone abroad that Arthur was to be married that morning, very +particular inquiries were made after the bride, who was held by the +majority to be disguised in the person of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, which gave +rise to much jocose indignation at the public appearance of a bride in +boots and pantaloons, and called forth a great many hoots and groans. +At length, the two money-lenders obtained shelter in a house next door, +and, being accommodated with a ladder, clambered over the wall of the +back-yard--which was not a high one--and descended in safety on the +other side. + +‘I am almost afraid to go in, I declare,’ said Arthur, turning to Ralph +when they were alone. ‘Suppose she should be murdered. Lying with her +brains knocked out by a poker, eh?’ + +‘Suppose she were,’ said Ralph. ‘I tell you, I wish such things were +more common than they are, and more easily done. You may stare and +shiver. I do!’ + +He applied himself to a pump in the yard; and, having taken a deep +draught of water and flung a quantity on his head and face, regained his +accustomed manner and led the way into the house: Gride following close +at his heels. + +It was the same dark place as ever: every room dismal and silent as it +was wont to be, and every ghostly article of furniture in its customary +place. The iron heart of the grim old clock, undisturbed by all the +noise without, still beat heavily within its dusty case; the tottering +presses slunk from the sight, as usual, in their melancholy corners; +the echoes of footsteps returned the same dreary sound; the long-legged +spider paused in his nimble run, and, scared by the sight of men in that +his dull domain, hung motionless on the wall, counterfeiting death until +they should have passed him by. + +From cellar to garret went the two usurers, opening every creaking door +and looking into every deserted room. But no Peg was there. At +last, they sat them down in the apartment which Arthur Gride usually +inhabited, to rest after their search. + +‘The hag is out, on some preparation for your wedding festivities, I +suppose,’ said Ralph, preparing to depart. ‘See here! I destroy the +bond; we shall never need it now.’ + +Gride, who had been peering narrowly about the room, fell, at that +moment, upon his knees before a large chest, and uttered a terrible +yell. + +‘How now?’ said Ralph, looking sternly round. + +‘Robbed! robbed!’ screamed Arthur Gride. + +‘Robbed! of money?’ + +‘No, no, no. Worse! far worse!’ + +‘Of what then?’ demanded Ralph. + +‘Worse than money, worse than money!’ cried the old man, casting the +papers out of the chest, like some beast tearing up the earth. ‘She had +better have stolen money--all my money--I haven’t much! She had better +have made me a beggar than have done this!’ + +‘Done what?’ said Ralph. ‘Done what, you devil’s dotard?’ + +Still Gride made no answer, but tore and scratched among the papers, and +yelled and screeched like a fiend in torment. + +‘There is something missing, you say,’ said Ralph, shaking him furiously +by the collar. ‘What is it?’ + +‘Papers, deeds. I am a ruined man. Lost, lost! I am robbed, I am ruined! +She saw me reading it--reading it of late--I did very often--She watched +me, saw me put it in the box that fitted into this, the box is gone, she +has stolen it. Damnation seize her, she has robbed me!’ + +‘Of WHAT?’ cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared to break, for +his eyes flashed and his frame trembled with agitation as he clutched +Gride by his bony arm. ‘Of what?’ + +‘She don’t know what it is; she can’t read!’ shrieked Gride, not heeding +the inquiry. ‘There’s only one way in which money can be made of it, and +that is by taking it to her. Somebody will read it for her, and tell her +what to do. She and her accomplice will get money for it and be let off +besides; they’ll make a merit of it--say they found it--knew it--and be +evidence against me. The only person it will fall upon is me, me, me!’ + +‘Patience!’ said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeing him with +a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently to denote that he +had some hidden purpose in what he was about to say. ‘Hear reason. +She can’t have been gone long. I’ll call the police. Do you but give +information of what she has stolen, and they’ll lay hands upon her, +trust me. Here! Help!’ + +‘No, no, no!’ screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph’s mouth. +‘I can’t, I daren’t.’ + +‘Help! help!’ cried Ralph. + +‘No, no, no!’ shrieked the other, stamping on the ground with the energy +of a madman. ‘I tell you no. I daren’t, I daren’t!’ + +‘Daren’t make this robbery public?’ said Ralph. + +‘No!’ rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. ‘Hush! Hush! Not a word of +this; not a word must be said. I am undone. Whichever way I turn, I am +undone. I am betrayed. I shall be given up. I shall die in Newgate!’ + +With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in which +fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-stricken wretch +gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it had softened down into +a low despairing moan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over +such papers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss. +With very little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and, +greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling them +there was nothing the matter, got into the coach, and was driven to his +own home. + +A letter lay on his table. He let it lie there for some time, as if he +had not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turned deadly +pale. + +‘The worst has happened,’ he said; ‘the house has failed. I see. The +rumour was abroad in the city last night, and reached the ears of those +merchants. Well, well!’ + +He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again. + +‘Ten thousand pounds! And only lying there for a day--for one day! How +many anxious years, how many pinching days and sleepless nights, before +I scraped together that ten thousand pounds!--Ten thousand pounds! How +many proud painted dames would have fawned and smiled, and how many +spendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed me in +their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into twenty! While +I ground, and pinched, and used these needy borrowers for my pleasure +and profit, what smooth-tongued speeches, and courteous looks, and civil +letters, they would have given me! The cant of the lying world is, +that men like me compass our riches by dissimulation and treachery: +by fawning, cringing, and stooping. Why, how many lies, what mean and +abject evasions, what humbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my +money, would spurn me aside as they do their betters every day, would +that ten thousand pounds have brought me in! Grant that I had doubled +it--made cent. per cent.--for every sovereign told another--there would +not be one piece of money in all the heap which wouldn’t represent ten +thousand mean and paltry lies, told, not by the money-lender, oh no! +but by the money-borrowers, your liberal, thoughtless, generous, dashing +folks, who wouldn’t be so mean as save a sixpence for the world!’ + +Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of his +regrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continued to +pace the room. There was less and less of resolution in his manner as +his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length, dropping into his +elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly that they creaked again, he +said: + +‘The time has been when nothing could have moved me like the loss of +this great sum. Nothing. For births, deaths, marriages, and all +the events which are of interest to most men, have (unless they are +connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. But now, I +swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If he had +brought it about,--I almost feel as if he had,--I couldn’t hate him +more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow--let me +but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the scale--and I can +bear it.’ + +His meditations were long and deep. They terminated in his dispatching +a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr. Squeers at the Saracen’s Head, with +instructions to inquire whether he had arrived in town, and, if so, to +wait an answer. Newman brought back the information that Mr. Squeers had +come by mail that morning, and had received the letter in bed; but +that he sent his duty, and word that he would get up and wait upon Mr +Nickleby directly. + +The interval between the delivery of this message, and the arrival of Mr +Squeers, was very short; but, before he came, Ralph had suppressed every +sign of emotion, and once more regained the hard, immovable, inflexible +manner which was habitual to him, and to which, perhaps, was ascribable +no small part of the influence which, over many men of no very strong +prejudices on the score of morality, he could exert, almost at will. + +‘Well, Mr. Squeers,’ he said, welcoming that worthy with his accustomed +smile, of which a sharp look and a thoughtful frown were part and +parcel: ‘how do YOU do?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers, ‘I’m pretty well. So’s the family, and so’s +the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the school, +and rather puts ‘em off their feed. But it’s a ill wind as blows no good +to nobody; that’s what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. A +wisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality. Mortality itself, sir, is a +wisitation. The world is chock full of wisitations; and if a boy repines +at a wisitation and makes you uncomfortable with his noise, he must have +his head punched. That’s going according to the Scripter, that is.’ + +‘Mr. Squeers,’ said Ralph, drily. + +‘Sir.’ + +‘We’ll avoid these precious morsels of morality if you please, and talk +of business.’ + +‘With all my heart, sir,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and first let me say--’ + +‘First let ME say, if you please.--Noggs!’ + +Newman presented himself when the summons had been twice or thrice +repeated, and asked if his master called. + +‘I did. Go to your dinner. And go at once. Do you hear?’ + +‘It an’t time,’ said Newman, doggedly. + +‘My time is yours, and I say it is,’ returned Ralph. + +‘You alter it every day,’ said Newman. ‘It isn’t fair.’ + +‘You don’t keep many cooks, and can easily apologise to them for the +trouble,’ retorted Ralph. ‘Begone, sir!’ + +Ralph not only issued this order in his most peremptory manner, but, +under pretence of fetching some papers from the little office, saw +it obeyed, and, when Newman had left the house, chained the door, to +prevent the possibility of his returning secretly, by means of his +latch-key. + +‘I have reason to suspect that fellow,’ said Ralph, when he returned +to his own office. ‘Therefore, until I have thought of the shortest and +least troublesome way of ruining him, I hold it best to keep him at a +distance.’ + +‘It wouldn’t take much to ruin him, I should think,’ said Squeers, with +a grin. + +‘Perhaps not,’ answered Ralph. ‘Nor to ruin a great many people whom I +know. You were going to say--?’ + +Ralph’s summary and matter-of-course way of holding up this example, +and throwing out the hint that followed it, had evidently an effect (as +doubtless it was designed to have) upon Mr. Squeers, who said, after a +little hesitation and in a much more subdued tone: + +‘Why, what I was a-going to say, sir, is, that this here business +regarding of that ungrateful and hard-hearted chap, Snawley senior, +puts me out of my way, and occasions a inconveniency quite unparalleled, +besides, as I may say, making, for whole weeks together, Mrs. Squeers a +perfect widder. It’s a pleasure to me to act with you, of course.’ + +‘Of course,’ said Ralph, drily. + +‘Yes, I say of course,’ resumed Mr. Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘but at +the same time, when one comes, as I do now, better than two hundred +and fifty mile to take a afferdavid, it does put a man out a good deal, +letting alone the risk.’ + +‘And where may the risk be, Mr. Squeers?’ said Ralph. + +‘I said, letting alone the risk,’ replied Squeers, evasively. + +‘And I said, where was the risk?’ + +‘I wasn’t complaining, you know, Mr. Nickleby,’ pleaded Squeers. ‘Upon my +word I never see such a--’ + +‘I ask you where is the risk?’ repeated Ralph, emphatically. + +‘Where the risk?’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees still harder. +‘Why, it an’t necessary to mention. Certain subjects is best awoided. +Oh, you know what risk I mean.’ + +‘How often have I told you,’ said Ralph, ‘and how often am I to tell +you, that you run no risk? What have you sworn, or what are you asked to +swear, but that at such and such a time a boy was left with you in the +name of Smike; that he was at your school for a given number of years, +was lost under such and such circumstances, is now found, and has been +identified by you in such and such keeping? This is all true; is it +not?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Squeers, ‘that’s all true.’ + +‘Well, then,’ said Ralph, ‘what risk do you run? Who swears to a lie but +Snawley; a man whom I have paid much less than I have you?’ + +‘He certainly did it cheap, did Snawley,’ observed Squeers. + +‘He did it cheap!’ retorted Ralph, testily; ‘yes, and he did it well, +and carries it off with a hypocritical face and a sanctified air, but +you! Risk! What do you mean by risk? The certificates are all genuine, +Snawley HAD another son, he HAS been married twice, his first wife IS +dead, none but her ghost could tell that she didn’t write that letter, +none but Snawley himself can tell that this is not his son, and that his +son is food for worms! The only perjury is Snawley’s, and I fancy he is +pretty well used to it. Where’s your risk?’ + +‘Why, you know,’ said Squeers, fidgeting in his chair, ‘if you come to +that, I might say where’s yours?’ + +‘You might say where’s mine!’ returned Ralph; ‘you may say where’s mine. +I don’t appear in the business, neither do you. All Snawley’s interest +is to stick well to the story he has told; and all his risk is, to +depart from it in the least. Talk of YOUR risk in the conspiracy!’ + +‘I say,’ remonstrated Squeers, looking uneasily round: ‘don’t call it +that! Just as a favour, don’t.’ + +‘Call it what you like,’ said Ralph, irritably, ‘but attend to me. This +tale was originally fabricated as a means of annoyance against one who +hurt your trade and half cudgelled you to death, and to enable you to +obtain repossession of a half-dead drudge, whom you wished to regain, +because, while you wreaked your vengeance on him for his share in the +business, you knew that the knowledge that he was again in your power +would be the best punishment you could inflict upon your enemy. Is that +so, Mr. Squeers?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the determination +which Ralph displayed to make everything tell against him, and by his +stern unyielding manner, ‘in a measure it was.’ + +‘What does that mean?’ said Ralph. + +‘Why, in a measure means,’ returned Squeers, ‘as it may be, that it +wasn’t all on my account, because you had some old grudge to satisfy, +too.’ + +‘If I had not had,’ said Ralph, in no way abashed by the reminder, ‘do +you think I should have helped you?’ + +‘Why no, I don’t suppose you would,’ Squeers replied. ‘I only wanted +that point to be all square and straight between us.’ + +‘How can it ever be otherwise?’ retorted Ralph. ‘Except that the account +is against me, for I spend money to gratify my hatred, and you pocket +it, and gratify yours at the same time. You are, at least, as avaricious +as you are revengeful. So am I. Which is best off? You, who win money +and revenge, at the same time and by the same process, and who are, at +all events, sure of money, if not of revenge; or I, who am only sure of +spending money in any case, and can but win bare revenge at last?’ + +As Mr. Squeers could only answer this proposition by shrugs and smiles, +Ralph bade him be silent, and thankful that he was so well off; and +then, fixing his eyes steadily upon him, proceeded to say: + +First, that Nicholas had thwarted him in a plan he had formed for the +disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, and had, in the confusion +attendant on her father’s sudden death, secured that lady himself, and +borne her off in triumph. + +Secondly, that by some will or settlement--certainly by some instrument +in writing, which must contain the young lady’s name, and could be, +therefore, easily selected from others, if access to the place where it +was deposited were once secured--she was entitled to property which, +if the existence of this deed ever became known to her, would make her +husband (and Ralph represented that Nicholas was certain to marry her) a +rich and prosperous man, and most formidable enemy. + +Thirdly, that this deed had been, with others, stolen from one who had +himself obtained or concealed it fraudulently, and who feared to take +any steps for its recovery; and that he (Ralph) knew the thief. + +To all this Mr. Squeers listened, with greedy ears that devoured every +syllable, and with his one eye and his mouth wide open: marvelling for +what special reason he was honoured with so much of Ralph’s confidence, +and to what it all tended. + +‘Now,’ said Ralph, leaning forward, and placing his hand on Squeers’s +arm, ‘hear the design which I have conceived, and which I must--I say, +must, if I can ripen it--have carried into execution. No advantage can +be reaped from this deed, whatever it is, save by the girl herself, or +her husband; and the possession of this deed by one or other of them +is indispensable to any advantage being gained. THAT I have discovered +beyond the possibility of doubt. I want that deed brought here, that +I may give the man who brings it fifty pounds in gold, and burn it to +ashes before his face.’ + +Mr. Squeers, after following with his eye the action of Ralph’s hand +towards the fire-place as if he were at that moment consuming the paper, +drew a long breath, and said: + +‘Yes; but who’s to bring it?’ + +‘Nobody, perhaps, for much is to be done before it can be got at,’ said +Ralph. ‘But if anybody--you!’ + +Mr. Squeers’s first tokens of consternation, and his flat relinquishment +of the task, would have staggered most men, if they had not immediately +occasioned an utter abandonment of the proposition. On Ralph they +produced not the slightest effect. Resuming, when the schoolmaster had +quite talked himself out of breath, as coolly as if he had never been +interrupted, Ralph proceeded to expatiate on such features of the case +as he deemed it most advisable to lay the greatest stress on. + +These were, the age, decrepitude, and weakness of Mrs. Sliderskew; the +great improbability of her having any accomplice or even acquaintance: +taking into account her secluded habits, and her long residence in such +a house as Gride’s; the strong reason there was to suppose that the +robbery was not the result of a concerted plan: otherwise she would have +watched an opportunity of carrying off a sum of money; the difficulty +she would be placed in when she began to think on what she had done, and +found herself encumbered with documents of whose nature she was utterly +ignorant; and the comparative ease with which somebody, with a full +knowledge of her position, obtaining access to her, and working on her +fears, if necessary, might worm himself into her confidence and obtain, +under one pretence or another, free possession of the deed. To these +were added such considerations as the constant residence of Mr. Squeers +at a long distance from London, which rendered his association with Mrs +Sliderskew a mere masquerading frolic, in which nobody was likely to +recognise him, either at the time or afterwards; the impossibility of +Ralph’s undertaking the task himself, he being already known to her by +sight; and various comments on the uncommon tact and experience of Mr +Squeers: which would make his overreaching one old woman a mere matter +of child’s play and amusement. In addition to these influences and +persuasions, Ralph drew, with his utmost skill and power, a vivid +picture of the defeat which Nicholas would sustain, should they +succeed, in linking himself to a beggar, where he expected to wed an +heiress--glanced at the immeasurable importance it must be to a man +situated as Squeers, to preserve such a friend as himself--dwelt on a +long train of benefits, conferred since their first acquaintance, when +he had reported favourably of his treatment of a sickly boy who had died +under his hands (and whose death was very convenient to Ralph and his +clients, but this he did NOT say), and finally hinted that the fifty +pounds might be increased to seventy-five, or, in the event of very +great success, even to a hundred. + +These arguments at length concluded, Mr. Squeers crossed his legs, +uncrossed them, scratched his head, rubbed his eye, examined the palms +of his hands, and bit his nails, and after exhibiting many other signs +of restlessness and indecision, asked ‘whether one hundred pound was the +highest that Mr. Nickleby could go.’ Being answered in the affirmative, +he became restless again, and, after some thought, and an unsuccessful +inquiry ‘whether he couldn’t go another fifty,’ said he supposed he must +try and do the most he could for a friend: which was always his maxim, +and therefore he undertook the job. + +‘But how are you to get at the woman?’ he said; ‘that’s what it is as +puzzles me.’ + +‘I may not get at her at all,’ replied Ralph, ‘but I’ll try. I have +hunted people in this city, before now, who have been better hid than +she; and I know quarters in which a guinea or two, carefully spent, will +often solve darker riddles than this. Ay, and keep them close too, if +need be! I hear my man ringing at the door. We may as well part. You had +better not come to and fro, but wait till you hear from me.’ + +‘Good!’ returned Squeers. ‘I say! If you shouldn’t find her out, you’ll +pay expenses at the Saracen, and something for loss of time?’ + +‘Well,’ said Ralph, testily; ‘yes! You have nothing more to say?’ + +Squeers shaking his head, Ralph accompanied him to the streetdoor, and +audibly wondering, for the edification of Newman, why it was fastened +as if it were night, let him in and Squeers out, and returned to his own +room. + +‘Now!’ he muttered, ‘come what come may, for the present I am firm and +unshaken. Let me but retrieve this one small portion of my loss and +disgrace; let me but defeat him in this one hope, dear to his heart as +I know it must be; let me but do this; and it shall be the first link in +such a chain which I will wind about him, as never man forged yet.’ + + + +CHAPTER 57 + +How Ralph Nickleby’s Auxiliary went about his Work, and how he prospered +with it + + +It was a dark, wet, gloomy night in autumn, when in an upper room of a +mean house situated in an obscure street, or rather court, near Lambeth, +there sat, all alone, a one-eyed man grotesquely habited, either +for lack of better garments or for purposes of disguise, in a loose +greatcoat, with arms half as long again as his own, and a capacity of +breadth and length which would have admitted of his winding himself +in it, head and all, with the utmost ease, and without any risk of +straining the old and greasy material of which it was composed. + +So attired, and in a place so far removed from his usual haunts and +occupations, and so very poor and wretched in its character, perhaps Mrs +Squeers herself would have had some difficulty in recognising her lord: +quickened though her natural sagacity doubtless would have been by the +affectionate yearnings and impulses of a tender wife. But Mrs. Squeers’s +lord it was; and in a tolerably disconsolate mood Mrs. Squeers’s lord +appeared to be, as, helping himself from a black bottle which stood on +the table beside him, he cast round the chamber a look, in which very +slight regard for the objects within view was plainly mingled with some +regretful and impatient recollection of distant scenes and persons. + +There were, certainly, no particular attractions, either in the room +over which the glance of Mr. Squeers so discontentedly wandered, or in +the narrow street into which it might have penetrated, if he had thought +fit to approach the window. The attic chamber in which he sat was +bare and mean; the bedstead, and such few other articles of necessary +furniture as it contained, were of the commonest description, in a most +crazy state, and of a most uninviting appearance. The street was muddy, +dirty, and deserted. Having but one outlet, it was traversed by few but +the inhabitants at any time; and the night being one of those on which +most people are glad to be within doors, it now presented no other signs +of life than the dull glimmering of poor candles from the dirty windows, +and few sounds but the pattering of the rain, and occasionally the heavy +closing of some creaking door. + +Mr. Squeers continued to look disconsolately about him, and to listen +to these noises in profound silence, broken only by the rustling of his +large coat, as he now and then moved his arm to raise his glass to +his lips. Mr. Squeers continued to do this for some time, until the +increasing gloom warned him to snuff the candle. Seeming to be slightly +roused by this exertion, he raised his eye to the ceiling, and fixing it +upon some uncouth and fantastic figures, traced upon it by the wet and +damp which had penetrated through the roof, broke into the following +soliloquy: + +‘Well, this is a pretty go, is this here! An uncommon pretty go! Here +have I been, a matter of how many weeks--hard upon six--a follering up +this here blessed old dowager petty larcenerer,’--Mr. Squeers delivered +himself of this epithet with great difficulty and effort,--‘and +Dotheboys Hall a-running itself regularly to seed the while! That’s the +worst of ever being in with a owdacious chap like that old Nickleby. You +never know when he’s done with you, and if you’re in for a penny, you’re +in for a pound.’ + +This remark, perhaps, reminded Mr. Squeers that he was in for a hundred +pound at any rate. His countenance relaxed, and he raised his glass to +his mouth with an air of greater enjoyment of its contents than he had +before evinced. + +‘I never see,’ soliloquised Mr. Squeers in continuation, ‘I never see +nor come across such a file as that old Nickleby. Never! He’s out of +everybody’s depth, he is. He’s what you may call a rasper, is Nickleby. +To see how sly and cunning he grubbed on, day after day, a-worming and +plodding and tracing and turning and twining of hisself about, till he +found out where this precious Mrs. Peg was hid, and cleared the ground +for me to work upon. Creeping and crawling and gliding, like a ugly, +old, bright-eyed, stagnation-blooded adder! Ah! He’d have made a good +‘un in our line, but it would have been too limited for him; his genius +would have busted all bonds, and coming over every obstacle, broke down +all before it, till it erected itself into a monneyment of--Well, I’ll +think of the rest, and say it when conwenient.’ + +Making a halt in his reflections at this place, Mr. Squeers again put his +glass to his lips, and drawing a dirty letter from his pocket, proceeded +to con over its contents with the air of a man who had read it very +often, and now refreshed his memory rather in the absence of better +amusement than for any specific information. + +‘The pigs is well,’ said Mr. Squeers, ‘the cows is well, and the boys is +bobbish. Young Sprouter has been a-winking, has he? I’ll wink him when +I get back. “Cobbey would persist in sniffing while he was a-eating his +dinner, and said that the beef was so strong it made him.”--Very good, +Cobbey, we’ll see if we can’t make you sniff a little without beef. +“Pitcher was took with another fever,”--of course he was--“and being +fetched by his friends, died the day after he got home,”--of course he +did, and out of aggravation; it’s part of a deep-laid system. There an’t +another chap in the school but that boy as would have died exactly at +the end of the quarter: taking it out of me to the very last, and then +carrying his spite to the utmost extremity. “The juniorest Palmer said +he wished he was in Heaven.” I really don’t know, I do NOT know what’s +to be done with that young fellow; he’s always a-wishing something +horrid. He said once, he wished he was a donkey, because then he +wouldn’t have a father as didn’t love him! Pretty wicious that for a +child of six!’ + +Mr. Squeers was so much moved by the contemplation of this hardened +nature in one so young, that he angrily put up the letter, and sought, +in a new train of ideas, a subject of consolation. + +‘It’s a long time to have been a-lingering in London,’ he said; ‘and +this is a precious hole to come and live in, even if it has been only +for a week or so. Still, one hundred pound is five boys, and five boys +takes a whole year to pay one hundred pounds, and there’s their keep to +be substracted, besides. There’s nothing lost, neither, by one’s being +here; because the boys’ money comes in just the same as if I was at +home, and Mrs. Squeers she keeps them in order. There’ll be some lost +time to make up, of course. There’ll be an arrear of flogging as’ll have +to be gone through: still, a couple of days makes that all right, and +one don’t mind a little extra work for one hundred pound. It’s pretty +nigh the time to wait upon the old woman. From what she said last night, +I suspect that if I’m to succeed at all, I shall succeed tonight; so +I’ll have half a glass more, to wish myself success, and put myself in +spirits. Mrs. Squeers, my dear, your health!’ + +Leering with his one eye as if the lady to whom he drank had been +actually present, Mr. Squeers--in his enthusiasm, no doubt--poured out +a full glass, and emptied it; and as the liquor was raw spirits, and he +had applied himself to the same bottle more than once already, it is not +surprising that he found himself, by this time, in an extremely cheerful +state, and quite enough excited for his purpose. + +What this purpose was soon appeared; for, after a few turns about the +room to steady himself, he took the bottle under his arm and the glass +in his hand, and blowing out the candle as if he purposed being gone +some time, stole out upon the staircase, and creeping softly to a door +opposite his own, tapped gently at it. + +‘But what’s the use of tapping?’ he said, ‘She’ll never hear. I suppose +she isn’t doing anything very particular; and if she is, it don’t much +matter, that I see.’ + +With this brief preface, Mr. Squeers applied his hand to the latch of the +door, and thrusting his head into a garret far more deplorable than +that he had just left, and seeing that there was nobody there but an old +woman, who was bending over a wretched fire (for although the weather +was still warm, the evening was chilly), walked in, and tapped her on +the shoulder. + +‘Well, my Slider,’ said Mr. Squeers, jocularly. + +‘Is that you?’ inquired Peg. + +‘Ah! it’s me, and me’s the first person singular, nominative case, +agreeing with the verb “it’s”, and governed by Squeers understood, as a +acorn, a hour; but when the h is sounded, the a only is to be used, as +a and, a art, a ighway,’ replied Mr. Squeers, quoting at random from the +grammar. ‘At least, if it isn’t, you don’t know any better, and if it +is, I’ve done it accidentally.’ + +Delivering this reply in his accustomed tone of voice, in which of +course it was inaudible to Peg, Mr. Squeers drew a stool to the fire, and +placing himself over against her, and the bottle and glass on the floor +between them, roared out again, very loud, + +‘Well, my Slider!’ + +‘I hear you,’ said Peg, receiving him very graciously. + +‘I’ve come according to promise,’ roared Squeers. + +‘So they used to say in that part of the country I come from,’ observed +Peg, complacently, ‘but I think oil’s better.’ + +‘Better than what?’ roared Squeers, adding some rather strong language +in an undertone. + +‘No,’ said Peg, ‘of course not.’ + +‘I never saw such a monster as you are!’ muttered Squeers, looking as +amiable as he possibly could the while; for Peg’s eye was upon him, +and she was chuckling fearfully, as though in delight at having made a +choice repartee, ‘Do you see this? This is a bottle.’ + +‘I see it,’ answered Peg. + +‘Well, and do you see THIS?’ bawled Squeers. ‘This is a glass.’ Peg saw +that too. + +‘See here, then,’ said Squeers, accompanying his remarks with +appropriate action, ‘I fill the glass from the bottle, and I say “Your +health, Slider,” and empty it; then I rinse it genteelly with a little +drop, which I’m forced to throw into the fire--hallo! we shall have the +chimbley alight next--fill it again, and hand it over to you.’ + +‘YOUR health,’ said Peg. + +‘She understands that, anyways,’ muttered Squeers, watching Mrs +Sliderskew as she dispatched her portion, and choked and gasped in a +most awful manner after so doing. ‘Now then, let’s have a talk. How’s +the rheumatics?’ + +Mrs. Sliderskew, with much blinking and chuckling, and with looks +expressive of her strong admiration of Mr. Squeers, his person, manners, +and conversation, replied that the rheumatics were better. + +‘What’s the reason,’ said Mr. Squeers, deriving fresh facetiousness from +the bottle; ‘what’s the reason of rheumatics? What do they mean? What do +people have’em for--eh?’ + +Mrs. Sliderskew didn’t know, but suggested that it was possibly because +they couldn’t help it. + +‘Measles, rheumatics, hooping-cough, fevers, agers, and lumbagers,’ said +Mr. Squeers, ‘is all philosophy together; that’s what it is. The heavenly +bodies is philosophy, and the earthly bodies is philosophy. If there’s a +screw loose in a heavenly body, that’s philosophy; and if there’s +screw loose in a earthly body, that’s philosophy too; or it may be that +sometimes there’s a little metaphysics in it, but that’s not often. +Philosophy’s the chap for me. If a parent asks a question in the +classical, commercial, or mathematical line, says I, gravely, “Why, sir, +in the first place, are you a philosopher?”--“No, Mr. Squeers,” he says, +“I an’t.” “Then, sir,” says I, “I am sorry for you, for I shan’t be +able to explain it.” Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was a +philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I’m one.’ + +Saying this, and a great deal more, with tipsy profundity and a +serio-comic air, and keeping his eye all the time on Mrs. Sliderskew, who +was unable to hear one word, Mr. Squeers concluded by helping himself and +passing the bottle: to which Peg did becoming reverence. + +‘That’s the time of day!’ said Mr. Squeers. ‘You look twenty pound ten +better than you did.’ + +Again Mrs. Sliderskew chuckled, but modesty forbade her assenting +verbally to the compliment. + +‘Twenty pound ten better,’ repeated Mr. Squeers, ‘than you did that day +when I first introduced myself. Don’t you know?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Peg, shaking her head, ‘but you frightened me that day.’ + +‘Did I?’ said Squeers; ‘well, it was rather a startling thing for a +stranger to come and recommend himself by saying that he knew all about +you, and what your name was, and why you were living so quiet here, and +what you had boned, and who you boned it from, wasn’t it?’ + +Peg nodded her head in strong assent. + +‘But I know everything that happens in that way, you see,’ continued +Squeers. ‘Nothing takes place, of that kind, that I an’t up to +entirely. I’m a sort of a lawyer, Slider, of first-rate standing, and +understanding too; I’m the intimate friend and confidential adwiser +of pretty nigh every man, woman, and child that gets themselves into +difficulties by being too nimble with their fingers, I’m--’ + +Mr. Squeers’s catalogue of his own merits and accomplishments, which +was partly the result of a concerted plan between himself and Ralph +Nickleby, and flowed, in part, from the black bottle, was here +interrupted by Mrs. Sliderskew. + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ she cried, folding her arms and wagging her head; ‘and so +he wasn’t married after all, wasn’t he. Not married after all?’ + +‘No,’ replied Squeers, ‘that he wasn’t!’ + +‘And a young lover come and carried off the bride, eh?’ said Peg. + +‘From under his very nose,’ replied Squeers; ‘and I’m told the young +chap cut up rough besides, and broke the winders, and forced him to +swaller his wedding favour which nearly choked him.’ + +‘Tell me all about it again,’ cried Peg, with a malicious relish of her +old master’s defeat, which made her natural hideousness something quite +fearful; ‘let’s hear it all again, beginning at the beginning now, as +if you’d never told me. Let’s have it every word--now--now--beginning at +the very first, you know, when he went to the house that morning!’ + +Mr. Squeers, plying Mrs. Sliderskew freely with the liquor, and sustaining +himself under the exertion of speaking so loud by frequent applications +to it himself, complied with this request by describing the discomfiture +of Arthur Gride, with such improvements on the truth as happened to +occur to him, and the ingenious invention and application of which +had been very instrumental in recommending him to her notice in the +beginning of their acquaintance. Mrs. Sliderskew was in an ecstasy of +delight, rolling her head about, drawing up her skinny shoulders, and +wrinkling her cadaverous face into so many and such complicated forms of +ugliness, as awakened the unbounded astonishment and disgust even of Mr +Squeers. + +‘He’s a treacherous old goat,’ said Peg, ‘and cozened me with cunning +tricks and lying promises, but never mind. I’m even with him. I’m even +with him.’ + +‘More than even, Slider,’ returned Squeers; ‘you’d have been even with +him if he’d got married; but with the disappointment besides, you’re +a long way ahead. Out of sight, Slider, quite out of sight. And that +reminds me,’ he added, handing her the glass, ‘if you want me to give +you my opinion of them deeds, and tell you what you’d better keep and +what you’d better burn, why, now’s your time, Slider.’ + +‘There an’t no hurry for that,’ said Peg, with several knowing looks and +winks. + +‘Oh! very well!’ observed Squeers, ‘it don’t matter to me; you asked +me, you know. I shouldn’t charge you nothing, being a friend. You’re the +best judge of course. But you’re a bold woman, Slider.’ + +‘How do you mean, bold?’ said Peg. + +‘Why, I only mean that if it was me, I wouldn’t keep papers as might +hang me, littering about when they might be turned into money--them as +wasn’t useful made away with, and them as was, laid by somewheres, safe; +that’s all,’ returned Squeers; ‘but everybody’s the best judge of their +own affairs. All I say is, Slider, I wouldn’t do it.’ + +‘Come,’ said Peg, ‘then you shall see ‘em.’ + +‘I don’t want to see ‘em,’ replied Squeers, affecting to be out of +humour; ‘don’t talk as if it was a treat. Show ‘em to somebody else, and +take their advice.’ + +Mr. Squeers would, very likely, have carried on the farce of being +offended a little longer, if Mrs. Sliderskew, in her anxiety to restore +herself to her former high position in his good graces, had not become +so extremely affectionate that he stood at some risk of being smothered +by her caresses. Repressing, with as good a grace as possible, these +little familiarities--for which, there is reason to believe, the black +bottle was at least as much to blame as any constitutional infirmity on +the part of Mrs. Sliderskew--he protested that he had only been joking: +and, in proof of his unimpaired good-humour, that he was ready to +examine the deeds at once, if, by so doing, he could afford any +satisfaction or relief of mind to his fair friend. + +‘And now you’re up, my Slider,’ bawled Squeers, as she rose to fetch +them, ‘bolt the door.’ + +Peg trotted to the door, and after fumbling at the bolt, crept to the +other end of the room, and from beneath the coals which filled the +bottom of the cupboard, drew forth a small deal box. Having placed this +on the floor at Squeers’s feet, she brought, from under the pillow of +her bed, a small key, with which she signed to that gentleman to open +it. Mr. Squeers, who had eagerly followed her every motion, lost no time +in obeying this hint: and, throwing back the lid, gazed with rapture on +the documents which lay within. + +‘Now you see,’ said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside him, and +staying his impatient hand; ‘what’s of no use we’ll burn; what we can +get any money by, we’ll keep; and if there’s any we could get him into +trouble by, and fret and waste away his heart to shreds, those we’ll +take particular care of; for that’s what I want to do, and what I hoped +to do when I left him.’ + +‘I thought,’ said Squeers, ‘that you didn’t bear him any particular +good-will. But, I say, why didn’t you take some money besides?’ + +‘Some what?’ asked Peg. + +‘Some money,’ roared Squeers. ‘I do believe the woman hears me, and +wants to make me break a wessel, so that she may have the pleasure of +nursing me. Some money, Slider, money!’ + +‘Why, what a man you are to ask!’ cried Peg, with some contempt. ‘If I +had taken money from Arthur Gride, he’d have scoured the whole earth to +find me--aye, and he’d have smelt it out, and raked it up, somehow, if +I had buried it at the bottom of the deepest well in England. No, no! +I knew better than that. I took what I thought his secrets were hid in: +and them he couldn’t afford to make public, let’em be worth ever so much +money. He’s an old dog; a sly, old, cunning, thankless dog! He first +starved, and then tricked me; and if I could I’d kill him.’ + +‘All right, and very laudable,’ said Squeers. ‘But, first and foremost, +Slider, burn the box. You should never keep things as may lead to +discovery. Always mind that. So while you pull it to pieces (which you +can easily do, for it’s very old and rickety) and burn it in little +bits, I’ll look over the papers and tell you what they are.’ + +Peg, expressing her acquiescence in this arrangement, Mr. Squeers turned +the box bottom upwards, and tumbling the contents upon the floor, handed +it to her; the destruction of the box being an extemporary device for +engaging her attention, in case it should prove desirable to distract it +from his own proceedings. + +‘There!’ said Squeers; ‘you poke the pieces between the bars, and make +up a good fire, and I’ll read the while. Let me see, let me see.’ And +taking the candle down beside him, Mr. Squeers, with great eagerness +and a cunning grin overspreading his face, entered upon his task of +examination. + +If the old woman had not been very deaf, she must have heard, when she +last went to the door, the breathing of two persons close behind it: and +if those two persons had been unacquainted with her infirmity, they must +probably have chosen that moment either for presenting themselves or +taking to flight. But, knowing with whom they had to deal, they remained +quite still, and now, not only appeared unobserved at the door--which +was not bolted, for the bolt had no hasp--but warily, and with noiseless +footsteps, advanced into the room. + +As they stole farther and farther in by slight and scarcely perceptible +degrees, and with such caution that they scarcely seemed to breathe, the +old hag and Squeers little dreaming of any such invasion, and utterly +unconscious of there being any soul near but themselves, were busily +occupied with their tasks. The old woman, with her wrinkled face close +to the bars of the stove, puffing at the dull embers which had not yet +caught the wood; Squeers stooping down to the candle, which brought out +the full ugliness of his face, as the light of the fire did that of his +companion; both intently engaged, and wearing faces of exultation which +contrasted strongly with the anxious looks of those behind, who took +advantage of the slightest sound to cover their advance, and, almost +before they had moved an inch, and all was silent, stopped again. This, +with the large bare room, damp walls, and flickering doubtful light, +combined to form a scene which the most careless and indifferent +spectator (could any have been present) could scarcely have failed to +derive some interest from, and would not readily have forgotten. + +Of the stealthy comers, Frank Cheeryble was one, and Newman Noggs +the other. Newman had caught up, by the rusty nozzle, an old pair of +bellows, which were just undergoing a flourish in the air preparatory +to a descent upon the head of Mr. Squeers, when Frank, with an earnest +gesture, stayed his arm, and, taking another step in advance, came so +close behind the schoolmaster that, by leaning slightly forward, he +could plainly distinguish the writing which he held up to his eye. + +Mr. Squeers, not being remarkably erudite, appeared to be considerably +puzzled by this first prize, which was in an engrossing hand, and not +very legible except to a practised eye. Having tried it by reading from +left to right, and from right to left, and finding it equally clear both +ways, he turned it upside down with no better success. + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ chuckled Peg, who, on her knees before the fire, was +feeding it with fragments of the box, and grinning in most devilish +exultation. ‘What’s that writing about, eh?’ + +‘Nothing particular,’ replied Squeers, tossing it towards her. ‘It’s +only an old lease, as well as I can make out. Throw it in the fire.’ + +Mrs. Sliderskew complied, and inquired what the next one was. + +‘This,’ said Squeers, ‘is a bundle of overdue acceptances and renewed +bills of six or eight young gentlemen, but they’re all MPs, so it’s of +no use to anybody. Throw it in the fire!’ Peg did as she was bidden, and +waited for the next. + +‘This,’ said Squeers, ‘seems to be some deed of sale of the right of +presentation to the rectory of Purechurch, in the valley of Cashup. Take +care of that, Slider, literally for God’s sake. It’ll fetch its price at +the Auction Mart.’ + +‘What’s the next?’ inquired Peg. + +‘Why, this,’ said Squeers, ‘seems, from the two letters that’s with it, +to be a bond from a curate down in the country, to pay half a year’s +wages of forty pound for borrowing twenty. Take care of that, for if he +don’t pay it, his bishop will very soon be down upon him. We know what +the camel and the needle’s eye means; no man as can’t live upon his +income, whatever it is, must expect to go to heaven at any price. It’s +very odd; I don’t see anything like it yet.’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ said Peg. + +‘Nothing,’ replied Squeers, ‘only I’m looking for--’ + +Newman raised the bellows again. Once more, Frank, by a rapid motion of +his arm, unaccompanied by any noise, checked him in his purpose. + +‘Here you are,’ said Squeers, ‘bonds--take care of them. Warrant of +attorney--take care of that. Two cognovits--take care of them. Lease and +release--burn that. Ah! “Madeline Bray--come of age or marry--the said +Madeline”--here, burn THAT!’ + +Eagerly throwing towards the old woman a parchment that he caught up for +the purpose, Squeers, as she turned her head, thrust into the breast of +his large coat, the deed in which these words had caught his eye, and +burst into a shout of triumph. + +‘I’ve got it!’ said Squeers. ‘I’ve got it! Hurrah! The plan was a good +one, though the chance was desperate, and the day’s our own at last!’ + +Peg demanded what he laughed at, but no answer was returned. Newman’s +arm could no longer be restrained; the bellows, descending heavily and +with unerring aim on the very centre of Mr. Squeers’s head, felled him to +the floor, and stretched him on it flat and senseless. + + + +CHAPTER 58 + +In which one Scene of this History is closed + + +Dividing the distance into two days’ journey, in order that his charge +might sustain the less exhaustion and fatigue from travelling so far, +Nicholas, at the end of the second day from their leaving home, found +himself within a very few miles of the spot where the happiest years +of his life had been passed, and which, while it filled his mind with +pleasant and peaceful thoughts, brought back many painful and vivid +recollections of the circumstances in which he and his had wandered +forth from their old home, cast upon the rough world and the mercy of +strangers. + +It needed no such reflections as those which the memory of old days, +and wanderings among scenes where our childhood has been passed, usually +awaken in the most insensible minds, to soften the heart of Nicholas, +and render him more than usually mindful of his drooping friend. By +night and day, at all times and seasons: always watchful, attentive, and +solicitous, and never varying in the discharge of his self-imposed duty +to one so friendless and helpless as he whose sands of life were now +fast running out and dwindling rapidly away: he was ever at his side. He +never left him. To encourage and animate him, administer to his wants, +support and cheer him to the utmost of his power, was now his constant +and unceasing occupation. + +They procured a humble lodging in a small farmhouse, surrounded by +meadows where Nicholas had often revelled when a child with a troop of +merry schoolfellows; and here they took up their rest. + +At first, Smike was strong enough to walk about, for short distances +at a time, with no other support or aid than that which Nicholas could +afford him. At this time, nothing appeared to interest him so much as +visiting those places which had been most familiar to his friend in +bygone days. Yielding to this fancy, and pleased to find that its +indulgence beguiled the sick boy of many tedious hours, and never failed +to afford him matter for thought and conversation afterwards, Nicholas +made such spots the scenes of their daily rambles: driving him from +place to place in a little pony-chair, and supporting him on his arm +while they walked slowly among these old haunts, or lingered in the +sunlight to take long parting looks of those which were most quiet and +beautiful. + +It was on such occasions as these, that Nicholas, yielding almost +unconsciously to the interest of old associations, would point out some +tree that he had climbed, a hundred times, to peep at the young birds in +their nest; and the branch from which he used to shout to little Kate, +who stood below terrified at the height he had gained, and yet urging +him higher still by the intensity of her admiration. There was the +old house too, which they would pass every day, looking up at the tiny +window through which the sun used to stream in and wake him on the +summer mornings--they were all summer mornings then--and climbing up +the garden-wall and looking over, Nicholas could see the very rose-bush +which had come, a present to Kate, from some little lover, and she had +planted with her own hands. There were the hedgerows where the brother +and sister had so often gathered wild flowers together, and the green +fields and shady paths where they had so often strayed. There was not +a lane, or brook, or copse, or cottage near, with which some childish +event was not entwined, and back it came upon the mind--as events of +childhood do--nothing in itself: perhaps a word, a laugh, a look, some +slight distress, a passing thought or fear: and yet more strongly and +distinctly marked, and better remembered, than the hardest trials or +severest sorrows of a year ago. + +One of these expeditions led them through the churchyard where was his +father’s grave. ‘Even here,’ said Nicholas softly, ‘we used to loiter +before we knew what death was, and when we little thought whose ashes +would rest beneath; and, wondering at the silence, sit down to rest +and speak below our breath. Once, Kate was lost, and after an hour of +fruitless search, they found her, fast asleep, under that tree which +shades my father’s grave. He was very fond of her, and said when he took +her up in his arms, still sleeping, that whenever he died he would wish +to be buried where his dear little child had laid her head. You see his +wish was not forgotten.’ + +Nothing more passed at the time, but that night, as Nicholas sat beside +his bed, Smike started from what had seemed to be a slumber, and laying +his hand in his, prayed, as the tears coursed down his face, that he +would make him one solemn promise. + +‘What is that?’ said Nicholas, kindly. ‘If I can redeem it, or hope to +do so, you know I will.’ + +‘I am sure you will,’ was the reply. ‘Promise me that when I die, I +shall be buried near--as near as they can make my grave--to the tree we +saw today.’ + +Nicholas gave the promise; he had few words to give it in, but they were +solemn and earnest. His poor friend kept his hand in his, and turned as +if to sleep. But there were stifled sobs; and the hand was pressed +more than once, or twice, or thrice, before he sank to rest, and slowly +loosed his hold. + +In a fortnight’s time, he became too ill to move about. Once or twice, +Nicholas drove him out, propped up with pillows; but the motion of the +chaise was painful to him, and brought on fits of fainting, which, in +his weakened state, were dangerous. There was an old couch in the house, +which was his favourite resting-place by day; and when the sun shone, +and the weather was warm, Nicholas had this wheeled into a little +orchard which was close at hand, and his charge being well wrapped +up and carried out to it, they used to sit there sometimes for hours +together. + +It was on one of these occasions that a circumstance took place, which +Nicholas, at the time, thoroughly believed to be the mere delusion of an +imagination affected by disease; but which he had, afterwards, too good +reason to know was of real and actual occurrence. + +He had brought Smike out in his arms--poor fellow! a child might have +carried him then--to see the sunset, and, having arranged his couch, had +taken his seat beside it. He had been watching the whole of the night +before, and being greatly fatigued both in mind and body, gradually fell +asleep. + +He could not have closed his eyes five minutes, when he was awakened by +a scream, and starting up in that kind of terror which affects a person +suddenly roused, saw, to his great astonishment, that his charge had +struggled into a sitting posture, and with eyes almost starting from +their sockets, cold dew standing on his forehead, and in a fit of +trembling which quite convulsed his frame, was calling to him for help. + +‘Good Heaven, what is this?’ said Nicholas, bending over him. ‘Be calm; +you have been dreaming.’ + +‘No, no, no!’ cried Smike, clinging to him. ‘Hold me tight. Don’t let me +go. There, there. Behind the tree!’ + +Nicholas followed his eyes, which were directed to some distance behind +the chair from which he himself had just risen. But, there was nothing +there. + +‘This is nothing but your fancy,’ he said, as he strove to compose him; +‘nothing else, indeed.’ + +‘I know better. I saw as plain as I see now,’ was the answer. ‘Oh! say +you’ll keep me with you. Swear you won’t leave me for an instant!’ + +‘Do I ever leave you?’ returned Nicholas. ‘Lie down again--there! You +see I’m here. Now, tell me; what was it?’ + +‘Do you remember,’ said Smike, in a low voice, and glancing fearfully +round, ‘do you remember my telling you of the man who first took me to +the school?’ + +‘Yes, surely.’ + +‘I raised my eyes, just now, towards that tree--that one with the thick +trunk--and there, with his eyes fixed on me, he stood!’ + +‘Only reflect for one moment,’ said Nicholas; ‘granting, for an instant, +that it’s likely he is alive and wandering about a lonely place like +this, so far removed from the public road, do you think that at this +distance of time you could possibly know that man again?’ + +‘Anywhere--in any dress,’ returned Smike; ‘but, just now, he stood +leaning upon his stick and looking at me, exactly as I told you I +remembered him. He was dusty with walking, and poorly dressed--I think +his clothes were ragged--but directly I saw him, the wet night, his face +when he left me, the parlour I was left in, and the people that were +there, all seemed to come back together. When he knew I saw him, he +looked frightened; for he started, and shrunk away. I have thought of +him by day, and dreamt of him by night. He looked in my sleep, when I +was quite a little child, and has looked in my sleep ever since, as he +did just now.’ + +Nicholas endeavoured, by every persuasion and argument he could think +of, to convince the terrified creature that his imagination had deceived +him, and that this close resemblance between the creation of his dreams +and the man he supposed he had seen was but a proof of it; but all in +vain. When he could persuade him to remain, for a few moments, in the +care of the people to whom the house belonged, he instituted a strict +inquiry whether any stranger had been seen, and searched himself +behind the tree, and through the orchard, and upon the land immediately +adjoining, and in every place near, where it was possible for a man +to lie concealed; but all in vain. Satisfied that he was right in his +original conjecture, he applied himself to calming the fears of Smike, +which, after some time, he partially succeeded in doing, though not in +removing the impression upon his mind; for he still declared, again and +again, in the most solemn and fervid manner, that he had positively seen +what he had described, and that nothing could ever remove his conviction +of its reality. + +And now, Nicholas began to see that hope was gone, and that, upon the +partner of his poverty, and the sharer of his better fortune, the world +was closing fast. There was little pain, little uneasiness, but there +was no rallying, no effort, no struggle for life. He was worn and wasted +to the last degree; his voice had sunk so low, that he could scarce be +heard to speak. Nature was thoroughly exhausted, and he had lain him +down to die. + +On a fine, mild autumn day, when all was tranquil and at peace: when the +soft sweet air crept in at the open window of the quiet room, and not a +sound was heard but the gentle rustling of the leaves: Nicholas sat in +his old place by the bedside, and knew that the time was nearly come. +So very still it was, that, every now and then, he bent down his ear to +listen for the breathing of him who lay asleep, as if to assure himself +that life was still there, and that he had not fallen into that deep +slumber from which on earth there is no waking. + +While he was thus employed, the closed eyes opened, and on the pale face +there came a placid smile. + +‘That’s well!’ said Nicholas. ‘The sleep has done you good.’ + +‘I have had such pleasant dreams,’ was the answer. ‘Such pleasant, happy +dreams!’ + +‘Of what?’ said Nicholas. + +The dying boy turned towards him, and, putting his arm about his neck, +made answer, ‘I shall soon be there!’ + +After a short silence, he spoke again. + +‘I am not afraid to die,’ he said. ‘I am quite contented. I almost think +that if I could rise from this bed quite well I would not wish to do +so, now. You have so often told me we shall meet again--so very often +lately, and now I feel the truth of that so strongly--that I can even +bear to part from you.’ + +The trembling voice and tearful eye, and the closer grasp of the +arm which accompanied these latter words, showed how they filled the +speaker’s heart; nor were there wanting indications of how deeply they +had touched the heart of him to whom they were addressed. + +‘You say well,’ returned Nicholas at length, ‘and comfort me very much, +dear fellow. Let me hear you say you are happy, if you can.’ + +‘I must tell you something, first. I should not have a secret from you. +You would not blame me, at a time like this, I know.’ + +‘I blame you!’ exclaimed Nicholas. + +‘I am sure you would not. You asked me why I was so changed, and--and +sat so much alone. Shall I tell you why?’ + +‘Not if it pains you,’ said Nicholas. ‘I only asked that I might make +you happier, if I could.’ + +‘I know. I felt that, at the time.’ He drew his friend closer to him. +‘You will forgive me; I could not help it, but though I would have +died to make her happy, it broke my heart to see--I know he loves her +dearly--Oh! who could find that out so soon as I?’ + +The words which followed were feebly and faintly uttered, and broken by +long pauses; but, from them, Nicholas learnt, for the first time, that +the dying boy, with all the ardour of a nature concentrated on one +absorbing, hopeless, secret passion, loved his sister Kate. + +He had procured a lock of her hair, which hung at his breast, folded +in one or two slight ribbons she had worn. He prayed that, when he was +dead, Nicholas would take it off, so that no eyes but his might see it, +and that when he was laid in his coffin and about to be placed in the +earth, he would hang it round his neck again, that it might rest with +him in the grave. + +Upon his knees Nicholas gave him this pledge, and promised again that +he should rest in the spot he had pointed out. They embraced, and kissed +each other on the cheek. + +‘Now,’ he murmured, ‘I am happy.’ + +He fell into a light slumber, and waking smiled as before; then, spoke +of beautiful gardens, which he said stretched out before him, and were +filled with figures of men, women, and many children, all with light +upon their faces; then, whispered that it was Eden--and so died. + + + +CHAPTER 59 + +The Plots begin to fail, and Doubts and Dangers to disturb the Plotter + + +Ralph sat alone, in the solitary room where he was accustomed to take +his meals, and to sit of nights when no profitable occupation called +him abroad. Before him was an untasted breakfast, and near to where his +fingers beat restlessly upon the table, lay his watch. It was long past +the time at which, for many years, he had put it in his pocket and gone +with measured steps downstairs to the business of the day, but he took +as little heed of its monotonous warning, as of the meat and drink +before him, and remained with his head resting on one hand, and his eyes +fixed moodily on the ground. + +This departure from his regular and constant habit, in one so regular +and unvarying in all that appertained to the daily pursuit of riches, +would almost of itself have told that the usurer was not well. That he +laboured under some mental or bodily indisposition, and that it was one +of no slight kind so to affect a man like him, was sufficiently shown by +his haggard face, jaded air, and hollow languid eyes: which he raised +at last with a start and a hasty glance around him, as one who suddenly +awakes from sleep, and cannot immediately recognise the place in which +he finds himself. + +‘What is this,’ he said, ‘that hangs over me, and I cannot shake off? I +have never pampered myself, and should not be ill. I have never moped, +and pined, and yielded to fancies; but what CAN a man do without rest?’ + +He pressed his hand upon his forehead. + +‘Night after night comes and goes, and I have no rest. If I sleep, what +rest is that which is disturbed by constant dreams of the same detested +faces crowding round me--of the same detested people, in every variety +of action, mingling with all I say and do, and always to my defeat? +Waking, what rest have I, constantly haunted by this heavy shadow of--I +know not what--which is its worst character? I must have rest. One +night’s unbroken rest, and I should be a man again.’ + +Pushing the table from him while he spoke, as though he loathed the +sight of food, he encountered the watch: the hands of which were almost +upon noon. + +‘This is strange!’ he said; ‘noon, and Noggs not here! What drunken +brawl keeps him away? I would give something now--something in money +even after that dreadful loss--if he had stabbed a man in a tavern +scuffle, or broken into a house, or picked a pocket, or done anything +that would send him abroad with an iron ring upon his leg, and rid me of +him. Better still, if I could throw temptation in his way, and lure him +on to rob me. He should be welcome to what he took, so I brought the law +upon him; for he is a traitor, I swear! How, or when, or where, I don’t +know, though I suspect.’ + +After waiting for another half-hour, he dispatched the woman who kept +his house to Newman’s lodging, to inquire if he were ill, and why he had +not come or sent. She brought back answer that he had not been home all +night, and that no one could tell her anything about him. + +‘But there is a gentleman, sir,’ she said, ‘below, who was standing at +the door when I came in, and he says--’ + +‘What says he?’ demanded Ralph, turning angrily upon her. ‘I told you I +would see nobody.’ + +‘He says,’ replied the woman, abashed by his harshness, ‘that he comes +on very particular business which admits of no excuse; and I thought +perhaps it might be about--’ + +‘About what, in the devil’s name?’ said Ralph. ‘You spy and speculate on +people’s business with me, do you?’ + +‘Dear, no, sir! I saw you were anxious, and thought it might be about Mr +Noggs; that’s all.’ + +‘Saw I was anxious!’ muttered Ralph; ‘they all watch me, now. Where is +this person? You did not say I was not down yet, I hope?’ + +The woman replied that he was in the little office, and that she had +said her master was engaged, but she would take the message. + +‘Well,’ said Ralph, ‘I’ll see him. Go you to your kitchen, and keep +there. Do you mind me?’ + +Glad to be released, the woman quickly disappeared. Collecting himself, +and assuming as much of his accustomed manner as his utmost resolution +could summon, Ralph descended the stairs. After pausing for a few +moments, with his hand upon the lock, he entered Newman’s room, and +confronted Mr. Charles Cheeryble. + +Of all men alive, this was one of the last he would have wished to meet +at any time; but, now that he recognised in him only the patron +and protector of Nicholas, he would rather have seen a spectre. One +beneficial effect, however, the encounter had upon him. It instantly +roused all his dormant energies; rekindled in his breast the passions +that, for many years, had found an improving home there; called up all +his wrath, hatred, and malice; restored the sneer to his lip, and the +scowl to his brow; and made him again, in all outward appearance, the +same Ralph Nickleby whom so many had bitter cause to remember. + +‘Humph!’ said Ralph, pausing at the door. ‘This is an unexpected favour, +sir.’ + +‘And an unwelcome one,’ said brother Charles; ‘an unwelcome one, I +know.’ + +‘Men say you are truth itself, sir,’ replied Ralph. ‘You speak truth +now, at all events, and I’ll not contradict you. The favour is, at +least, as unwelcome as it is unexpected. I can scarcely say more.’ + +‘Plainly, sir--’ began brother Charles. + +‘Plainly, sir,’ interrupted Ralph, ‘I wish this conference to be a short +one, and to end where it begins. I guess the subject upon which you are +about to speak, and I’ll not hear you. You like plainness, I believe; +there it is. Here is the door as you see. Our way lies in very different +directions. Take yours, I beg of you, and leave me to pursue mine in +quiet.’ + +‘In quiet!’ repeated brother Charles mildly, and looking at him with +more of pity than reproach. ‘To pursue HIS way in quiet!’ + +‘You will scarcely remain in my house, I presume, sir, against my will,’ +said Ralph; ‘or you can scarcely hope to make an impression upon a +man who closes his ears to all that you can say, and is firmly and +resolutely determined not to hear you.’ + +‘Mr. Nickleby, sir,’ returned brother Charles: no less mildly than +before, but firmly too: ‘I come here against my will, sorely and +grievously against my will. I have never been in this house before; and, +to speak my mind, sir, I don’t feel at home or easy in it, and have no +wish ever to be here again. You do not guess the subject on which I come +to speak to you; you do not indeed. I am sure of that, or your manner +would be a very different one.’ + +Ralph glanced keenly at him, but the clear eye and open countenance of +the honest old merchant underwent no change of expression, and met his +look without reserve. + +‘Shall I go on?’ said Mr. Cheeryble. + +‘Oh, by all means, if you please,’ returned Ralph drily. ‘Here are walls +to speak to, sir, a desk, and two stools: most attentive auditors, and +certain not to interrupt you. Go on, I beg; make my house yours, and +perhaps by the time I return from my walk, you will have finished what +you have to say, and will yield me up possession again.’ + +So saying, he buttoned his coat, and turning into the passage, took down +his hat. The old gentleman followed, and was about to speak, when Ralph +waved him off impatiently, and said: + +‘Not a word. I tell you, sir, not a word. Virtuous as you are, you are +not an angel yet, to appear in men’s houses whether they will or no, and +pour your speech into unwilling ears. Preach to the walls I tell you; +not to me!’ + +‘I am no angel, Heaven knows,’ returned brother Charles, shaking his +head, ‘but an erring and imperfect man; nevertheless, there is +one quality which all men have, in common with the angels, blessed +opportunities of exercising, if they will; mercy. It is an errand of +mercy that brings me here. Pray let me discharge it.’ + +‘I show no mercy,’ retorted Ralph with a triumphant smile, ‘and I +ask none. Seek no mercy from me, sir, in behalf of the fellow who has +imposed upon your childish credulity, but let him expect the worst that +I can do.’ + +‘HE ask mercy at your hands!’ exclaimed the old merchant warmly; ‘ask it +at his, sir; ask it at his. If you will not hear me now, when you may, +hear me when you must, or anticipate what I would say, and take measures +to prevent our ever meeting again. Your nephew is a noble lad, sir, an +honest, noble lad. What you are, Mr. Nickleby, I will not say; but what +you have done, I know. Now, sir, when you go about the business in which +you have been recently engaged, and find it difficult of pursuing, come +to me and my brother Ned, and Tim Linkinwater, sir, and we’ll explain +it for you--and come soon, or it may be too late, and you may have it +explained with a little more roughness, and a little less delicacy--and +never forget, sir, that I came here this morning, in mercy to you, and +am still ready to talk to you in the same spirit.’ + +With these words, uttered with great emphasis and emotion, brother +Charles put on his broad-brimmed hat, and, passing Ralph Nickleby +without any other remark, trotted nimbly into the street. Ralph looked +after him, but neither moved nor spoke for some time: when he broke what +almost seemed the silence of stupefaction, by a scornful laugh. + +‘This,’ he said, ‘from its wildness, should be another of those dreams +that have so broken my rest of late. In mercy to me! Pho! The old +simpleton has gone mad.’ + +Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemptuous manner, +it was plain that, the more Ralph pondered, the more ill at ease he +became, and the more he laboured under some vague anxiety and alarm, +which increased as the time passed on and no tidings of Newman Noggs +arrived. After waiting until late in the afternoon, tortured by various +apprehensions and misgivings, and the recollection of the warning which +his nephew had given him when they last met: the further confirmation of +which now presented itself in one shape of probability, now in another, +and haunted him perpetually: he left home, and, scarcely knowing why, +save that he was in a suspicious and agitated mood, betook himself to +Snawley’s house. His wife presented herself; and, of her, Ralph inquired +whether her husband was at home. + +‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘he is not indeed, and I don’t think he will be +at home for a very long time; that’s more.’ + +‘Do you know who I am?’ asked Ralph. + +‘Oh yes, I know you very well; too well, perhaps, and perhaps he does +too, and sorry am I that I should have to say it.’ + +‘Tell him that I saw him through the window-blind above, as I crossed +the road just now, and that I would speak to him on business,’ said +Ralph. ‘Do you hear?’ + +‘I hear,’ rejoined Mrs. Snawley, taking no further notice of the request. + +‘I knew this woman was a hypocrite, in the way of psalms and Scripture +phrases,’ said Ralph, passing quietly by, ‘but I never knew she drank +before.’ + +‘Stop! You don’t come in here,’ said Mr. Snawley’s better-half, +interposing her person, which was a robust one, in the doorway. ‘You +have said more than enough to him on business, before now. I always told +him what dealing with you and working out your schemes would come to. +It was either you or the schoolmaster--one of you, or the two between +you--that got the forged letter done; remember that! That wasn’t his +doing, so don’t lay it at his door.’ + +‘Hold your tongue, you Jezebel,’ said Ralph, looking fearfully round. + +‘Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, Mr. Nickleby,’ +retorted the dame. ‘Take care that other people know when to hold +theirs.’ + +‘You jade,’ said Ralph, ‘if your husband has been idiot enough to trust +you with his secrets, keep them; keep them, she-devil that you are!’ + +‘Not so much his secrets as other people’s secrets, perhaps,’ retorted +the woman; ‘not so much his secrets as yours. None of your black looks +at me! You’ll want ‘em all, perhaps, for another time. You had better +keep ‘em.’ + +‘Will you,’ said Ralph, suppressing his passion as well as he could, +and clutching her tightly by the wrist; ‘will you go to your husband and +tell him that I know he is at home, and that I must see him? And +will you tell me what it is that you and he mean by this new style of +behaviour?’ + +‘No,’ replied the woman, violently disengaging herself, ‘I’ll do +neither.’ + +‘You set me at defiance, do you?’ said Ralph. + +‘Yes,’ was the answer. I do.’ + +For an instant Ralph had his hand raised, as though he were about to +strike her; but, checking himself, and nodding his head and muttering as +though to assure her he would not forget this, walked away. + +Thence, he went straight to the inn which Mr. Squeers frequented, and +inquired when he had been there last; in the vague hope that, successful +or unsuccessful, he might, by this time, have returned from his mission +and be able to assure him that all was safe. But Mr. Squeers had not been +there for ten days, and all that the people could tell about him was, +that he had left his luggage and his bill. + +Disturbed by a thousand fears and surmises, and bent upon ascertaining +whether Squeers had any suspicion of Snawley, or was, in any way, a +party to this altered behaviour, Ralph determined to hazard the +extreme step of inquiring for him at the Lambeth lodging, and having an +interview with him even there. Bent upon this purpose, and in that mood +in which delay is insupportable, he repaired at once to the place; and +being, by description, perfectly acquainted with the situation of his +room, crept upstairs and knocked gently at the door. + +Not one, nor two, nor three, nor yet a dozen knocks, served to convince +Ralph, against his wish, that there was nobody inside. He reasoned that +he might be asleep; and, listening, almost persuaded himself that he +could hear him breathe. Even when he was satisfied that he could not be +there, he sat patiently on a broken stair and waited; arguing, that he +had gone out upon some slight errand, and must soon return. + +Many feet came up the creaking stairs; and the step of some seemed to +his listening ear so like that of the man for whom he waited, that Ralph +often stood up to be ready to address him when he reached the top; but, +one by one, each person turned off into some room short of the place +where he was stationed: and at every such disappointment he felt quite +chilled and lonely. + +At length he felt it was hopeless to remain, and going downstairs again, +inquired of one of the lodgers if he knew anything of Mr. Squeers’s +movements--mentioning that worthy by an assumed name which had been +agreed upon between them. By this lodger he was referred to another, and +by him to someone else, from whom he learnt, that, late on the previous +night, he had gone out hastily with two men, who had shortly afterwards +returned for the old woman who lived on the same floor; and that, +although the circumstance had attracted the attention of the informant, +he had not spoken to them at the time, nor made any inquiry afterwards. + +This possessed him with the idea that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had been +apprehended for the robbery, and that Mr. Squeers, being with her at the +time, had been apprehended also, on suspicion of being a confederate. If +this were so, the fact must be known to Gride; and to Gride’s house he +directed his steps; now thoroughly alarmed, and fearful that there were +indeed plots afoot, tending to his discomfiture and ruin. + +Arrived at the usurer’s house, he found the windows close shut, the +dingy blinds drawn down; all was silent, melancholy, and deserted. But +this was its usual aspect. He knocked--gently at first--then loud and +vigorously. Nobody came. He wrote a few words in pencil on a card, and +having thrust it under the door was going away, when a noise above, as +though a window-sash were stealthily raised, caught his ear, and looking +up he could just discern the face of Gride himself, cautiously peering +over the house parapet from the window of the garret. Seeing who was +below, he drew it in again; not so quickly, however, but that Ralph let +him know he was observed, and called to him to come down. + +The call being repeated, Gride looked out again, so cautiously that no +part of the old man’s body was visible. The sharp features and white +hair appearing alone, above the parapet, looked like a severed head +garnishing the wall. + +‘Hush!’ he cried. ‘Go away, go away!’ + +‘Come down,’ said Ralph, beckoning him. + +‘Go a--way!’ squeaked Gride, shaking his head in a sort of ecstasy of +impatience. ‘Don’t speak to me, don’t knock, don’t call attention to the +house, but go away.’ + +‘I’ll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbours up in arms,’ said +Ralph, ‘if you don’t tell me what you mean by lurking there, you whining +cur.’ + +‘I can’t hear what you say--don’t talk to me--it isn’t safe--go away--go +away!’ returned Gride. + +‘Come down, I say. Will you come down?’ said Ralph fiercely. + +‘No--o--o--oo,’ snarled Gride. He drew in his head; and Ralph, left +standing in the street, could hear the sash closed, as gently and +carefully as it had been opened. + +‘How is this,’ said he, ‘that they all fall from me, and shun me like +the plague, these men who have licked the dust from my feet? IS my +day past, and is this indeed the coming on of night? I’ll know what it +means! I will, at any cost. I am firmer and more myself, just now, than +I have been these many days.’ + +Turning from the door, which, in the first transport of his rage, he had +meditated battering upon until Gride’s very fears should impel him +to open it, he turned his face towards the city, and working his way +steadily through the crowd which was pouring from it (it was by this +time between five and six o’clock in the afternoon) went straight to the +house of business of the brothers Cheeryble, and putting his head into +the glass case, found Tim Linkinwater alone. + +‘My name’s Nickleby,’ said Ralph. + +‘I know it,’ replied Tim, surveying him through his spectacles. + +‘Which of your firm was it who called on me this morning?’ demanded +Ralph. + +‘Mr. Charles.’ + +‘Then, tell Mr. Charles I want to see him.’ + +‘You shall see,’ said Tim, getting off his stool with great agility, +‘you shall see, not only Mr. Charles, but Mr. Ned likewise.’ + +Tim stopped, looked steadily and severely at Ralph, nodded his head +once, in a curt manner which seemed to say there was a little more +behind, and vanished. After a short interval, he returned, and, ushering +Ralph into the presence of the two brothers, remained in the room +himself. + +‘I want to speak to you, who spoke to me this morning,’ said Ralph, +pointing out with his finger the man whom he addressed. + +‘I have no secrets from my brother Ned, or from Tim Linkinwater,’ +observed brother Charles quietly. + +‘I have,’ said Ralph. + +‘Mr. Nickleby, sir,’ said brother Ned, ‘the matter upon which my brother +Charles called upon you this morning is one which is already perfectly +well known to us three, and to others besides, and must unhappily +soon become known to a great many more. He waited upon you, sir, this +morning, alone, as a matter of delicacy and consideration. We feel, now, +that further delicacy and consideration would be misplaced; and, if we +confer together, it must be as we are or not at all.’ + +‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Ralph with a curl of the lip, ‘talking in +riddles would seem to be the peculiar forte of you two, and I suppose +your clerk, like a prudent man, has studied the art also with a view to +your good graces. Talk in company, gentlemen, in God’s name. I’ll humour +you.’ + +‘Humour!’ cried Tim Linkinwater, suddenly growing very red in the face. +‘He’ll humour us! He’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers! Do you hear that? Do +you hear him? DO you hear him say he’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers?’ + +‘Tim,’ said Charles and Ned together, ‘pray, Tim, pray now, don’t.’ + +Tim, taking the hint, stifled his indignation as well as he could, +and suffered it to escape through his spectacles, with the additional +safety-valve of a short hysterical laugh now and then, which seemed to +relieve him mightily. + +‘As nobody bids me to a seat,’ said Ralph, looking round, ‘I’ll take +one, for I am fatigued with walking. And now, if you please, gentlemen, +I wish to know--I demand to know; I have the right--what you have to +say to me, which justifies such a tone as you have assumed, and that +underhand interference in my affairs which, I have reason to suppose, +you have been practising. I tell you plainly, gentlemen, that little as +I care for the opinion of the world (as the slang goes), I don’t choose +to submit quietly to slander and malice. Whether you suffer yourselves +to be imposed upon too easily, or wilfully make yourselves parties to +it, the result to me is the same. In either case, you can’t expect from +a plain man like myself much consideration or forbearance.’ + +So coolly and deliberately was this said, that nine men out of ten, +ignorant of the circumstances, would have supposed Ralph to be really +an injured man. There he sat, with folded arms; paler than usual, +certainly, and sufficiently ill-favoured, but quite collected--far more +so than the brothers or the exasperated Tim--and ready to face out the +worst. + +‘Very well, sir,’ said brother Charles. ‘Very well. Brother Ned, will +you ring the bell?’ + +‘Charles, my dear fellow! stop one instant,’ returned the other. ‘It +will be better for Mr. Nickleby and for our object that he should remain +silent, if he can, till we have said what we have to say. I wish him to +understand that.’ + +‘Quite right, quite right,’ said brother Charles. + +Ralph smiled, but made no reply. The bell was rung; the room-door +opened; a man came in, with a halting walk; and, looking round, Ralph’s +eyes met those of Newman Noggs. From that moment, his heart began to +fail him. + +‘This is a good beginning,’ he said bitterly. ‘Oh! this is a good +beginning. You are candid, honest, open-hearted, fair-dealing men! I +always knew the real worth of such characters as yours! To tamper with a +fellow like this, who would sell his soul (if he had one) for drink, and +whose every word is a lie. What men are safe if this is done? Oh, it’s a +good beginning!’ + +‘I WILL speak,’ cried Newman, standing on tiptoe to look over +Tim’s head, who had interposed to prevent him. ‘Hallo, you sir--old +Nickleby!--what do you mean when you talk of “a fellow like this”? Who +made me “a fellow like this”? If I would sell my soul for drink, why +wasn’t I a thief, swindler, housebreaker, area sneak, robber of pence +out of the trays of blind men’s dogs, rather than your drudge and +packhorse? If my every word was a lie, why wasn’t I a pet and favourite +of yours? Lie! When did I ever cringe and fawn to you. Tell me that! +I served you faithfully. I did more work, because I was poor, and took +more hard words from you because I despised you and them, than any +man you could have got from the parish workhouse. I did. I served you +because I was proud; because I was a lonely man with you, and there were +no other drudges to see my degradation; and because nobody knew, better +than you, that I was a ruined man: that I hadn’t always been what I +am: and that I might have been better off, if I hadn’t been a fool and +fallen into the hands of you and others who were knaves. Do you deny +that?’ + +‘Gently,’ reasoned Tim; ‘you said you wouldn’t.’ + +‘I said I wouldn’t!’ cried Newman, thrusting him aside, and moving his +hand as Tim moved, so as to keep him at arm’s length; ‘don’t tell me! +Here, you Nickleby! Don’t pretend not to mind me; it won’t do; I know +better. You were talking of tampering, just now. Who tampered with +Yorkshire schoolmasters, and, while they sent the drudge out, that he +shouldn’t overhear, forgot that such great caution might render him +suspicious, and that he might watch his master out at nights, and might +set other eyes to watch the schoolmaster? Who tampered with a selfish +father, urging him to sell his daughter to old Arthur Gride, and +tampered with Gride too, and did so in the little office, WITH A CLOSET +IN THE ROOM?’ + +Ralph had put a great command upon himself; but he could not have +suppressed a slight start, if he had been certain to be beheaded for it +next moment. + +‘Aha!’ cried Newman, ‘you mind me now, do you? What first set this fag +to be jealous of his master’s actions, and to feel that, if he hadn’t +crossed him when he might, he would have been as bad as he, or worse? +That master’s cruel treatment of his own flesh and blood, and vile +designs upon a young girl who interested even his broken-down, drunken, +miserable hack, and made him linger in his service, in the hope of doing +her some good (as, thank God, he had done others once or twice before), +when he would, otherwise, have relieved his feelings by pummelling his +master soundly, and then going to the Devil. He would--mark that; and +mark this--that I’m here now, because these gentlemen thought it best. +When I sought them out (as I did; there was no tampering with me), +I told them I wanted help to find you out, to trace you down, to go +through with what I had begun, to help the right; and that when I had +done it, I’d burst into your room and tell you all, face to face, man +to man, and like a man. Now I’ve said my say, and let anybody else say +theirs, and fire away!’ + +With this concluding sentiment, Newman Noggs, who had been perpetually +sitting down and getting up again all through his speech, which he had +delivered in a series of jerks; and who was, from the violent exercise +and the excitement combined, in a state of most intense and fiery heat; +became, without passing through any intermediate stage, stiff, upright, +and motionless, and so remained, staring at Ralph Nickleby with all his +might and main. + +Ralph looked at him for an instant, and for an instant only; then, waved +his hand, and beating the ground with his foot, said in a choking voice: + +‘Go on, gentlemen, go on! I’m patient, you see. There’s law to be had, +there’s law. I shall call you to an account for this. Take care what you +say; I shall make you prove it.’ + +‘The proof is ready,’ returned brother Charles, ‘quite ready to our +hands. The man Snawley, last night, made a confession.’ + +‘Who may “the man Snawley” be,’ returned Ralph, ‘and what may his +“confession” have to do with my affairs?’ + +To this inquiry, put with a dogged inflexibility of manner, the old +gentleman returned no answer, but went on to say, that to show him how +much they were in earnest, it would be necessary to tell him, not only +what accusations were made against him, but what proof of them they +had, and how that proof had been acquired. This laying open of the whole +question brought up brother Ned, Tim Linkinwater, and Newman Noggs, all +three at once; who, after a vast deal of talking together, and a scene +of great confusion, laid before Ralph, in distinct terms, the following +statement. + +That, Newman, having been solemnly assured by one not then producible +that Smike was not the son of Snawley, and this person having offered to +make oath to that effect, if necessary, they had by this communication +been first led to doubt the claim set up, which they would otherwise +have seen no reason to dispute, supported as it was by evidence which +they had no power of disproving. That, once suspecting the existence of +a conspiracy, they had no difficulty in tracing back its origin to the +malice of Ralph, and the vindictiveness and avarice of Squeers. That, +suspicion and proof being two very different things, they had been +advised by a lawyer, eminent for his sagacity and acuteness in such +practice, to resist the proceedings taken on the other side for the +recovery of the youth as slowly and artfully as possible, and meanwhile +to beset Snawley (with whom it was clear the main falsehood must rest); +to lead him, if possible, into contradictory and conflicting statements; +to harass him by all available means; and so to practise on his fears, +and regard for his own safety, as to induce him to divulge the whole +scheme, and to give up his employer and whomsoever else he could +implicate. That, all this had been skilfully done; but that Snawley, +who was well practised in the arts of low cunning and intrigue, +had successfully baffled all their attempts, until an unexpected +circumstance had brought him, last night, upon his knees. + +It thus arose. When Newman Noggs reported that Squeers was again in +town, and that an interview of such secrecy had taken place between him +and Ralph that he had been sent out of the house, plainly lest he should +overhear a word, a watch was set upon the schoolmaster, in the hope +that something might be discovered which would throw some light upon +the suspected plot. It being found, however, that he held no further +communication with Ralph, nor any with Snawley, and lived quite alone, +they were completely at fault; the watch was withdrawn, and they would +have observed his motions no longer, if it had not happened that, +one night, Newman stumbled unobserved on him and Ralph in the street +together. Following them, he discovered, to his surprise, that they +repaired to various low lodging-houses, and taverns kept by broken +gamblers, to more than one of whom Ralph was known, and that they were +in pursuit--so he found by inquiries when they had left--of an +old woman, whose description exactly tallied with that of deaf Mrs +Sliderskew. Affairs now appearing to assume a more serious complexion, +the watch was renewed with increased vigilance; an officer was procured, +who took up his abode in the same tavern with Squeers: and by him and +Frank Cheeryble the footsteps of the unconscious schoolmaster were +dogged, until he was safely housed in the lodging at Lambeth. Mr. Squeers +having shifted his lodging, the officer shifted his, and lying concealed +in the same street, and, indeed, in the opposite house, soon found that +Mr. Squeers and Mrs. Sliderskew were in constant communication. + +In this state of things, Arthur Gride was appealed to. The robbery, +partly owing to the inquisitiveness of the neighbours, and partly to +his own grief and rage, had, long ago, become known; but he positively +refused to give his sanction or yield any assistance to the old woman’s +capture, and was seized with such a panic at the idea of being called +upon to give evidence against her, that he shut himself up close in his +house, and refused to hold communication with anybody. Upon this, the +pursuers took counsel together, and, coming so near the truth as to +arrive at the conclusion that Gride and Ralph, with Squeers for their +instrument, were negotiating for the recovery of some of the stolen +papers which would not bear the light, and might possibly explain the +hints relative to Madeline which Newman had overheard, resolved that Mrs +Sliderskew should be taken into custody before she had parted with +them: and Squeers too, if anything suspicious could be attached to +him. Accordingly, a search-warrant being procured, and all prepared, Mr +Squeers’s window was watched, until his light was put out, and the time +arrived when, as had been previously ascertained, he usually visited +Mrs. Sliderskew. This done, Frank Cheeryble and Newman stole upstairs to +listen to their discourse, and to give the signal to the officer at the +most favourable time. At what an opportune moment they arrived, how +they listened, and what they heard, is already known to the reader. Mr +Squeers, still half stunned, was hurried off with a stolen deed in his +possession, and Mrs. Sliderskew was apprehended likewise. The information +being promptly carried to Snawley that Squeers was in custody--he was +not told for what--that worthy, first extorting a promise that he should +be kept harmless, declared the whole tale concerning Smike to be a +fiction and forgery, and implicated Ralph Nickleby to the fullest +extent. As to Mr. Squeers, he had, that morning, undergone a private +examination before a magistrate; and, being unable to account +satisfactorily for his possession of the deed or his companionship with +Mrs. Sliderskew, had been, with her, remanded for a week. + +All these discoveries were now related to Ralph, circumstantially, and +in detail. Whatever impression they secretly produced, he suffered no +sign of emotion to escape him, but sat perfectly still, not raising his +frowning eyes from the ground, and covering his mouth with his hand. +When the narrative was concluded; he raised his head hastily, as if +about to speak, but on brother Charles resuming, fell into his old +attitude again. + +‘I told you this morning,’ said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon +his brother’s shoulder, ‘that I came to you in mercy. How far you may be +implicated in this last transaction, or how far the person who is now +in custody may criminate you, you best know. But, justice must take its +course against the parties implicated in the plot against this poor, +unoffending, injured lad. It is not in my power, or in the power of my +brother Ned, to save you from the consequences. The utmost we can do is, +to warn you in time, and to give you an opportunity of escaping them. We +would not have an old man like you disgraced and punished by your near +relation; nor would we have him forget, like you, all ties of blood +and nature. We entreat you--brother Ned, you join me, I know, in this +entreaty, and so, Tim Linkinwater, do you, although you pretend to be an +obstinate dog, sir, and sit there frowning as if you didn’t--we entreat +you to retire from London, to take shelter in some place where you will +be safe from the consequences of these wicked designs, and where you may +have time, sir, to atone for them, and to become a better man.’ + +‘And do you think,’ returned Ralph, rising, ‘and do you think, you will +so easily crush ME? Do you think that a hundred well-arranged plans, or +a hundred suborned witnesses, or a hundred false curs at my heels, or a +hundred canting speeches full of oily words, will move me? I thank you +for disclosing your schemes, which I am now prepared for. You have not +the man to deal with that you think; try me! and remember that I +spit upon your fair words and false dealings, and dare you--provoke +you--taunt you--to do to me the very worst you can!’ + +Thus they parted, for that time; but the worst had not come yet. + + + +CHAPTER 60 + +The Dangers thicken, and the Worst is told + + +Instead of going home, Ralph threw himself into the first street +cabriolet he could find, and, directing the driver towards the +police-office of the district in which Mr. Squeers’s misfortunes had +occurred, alighted at a short distance from it, and, discharging the +man, went the rest of his way thither on foot. Inquiring for the object +of his solicitude, he learnt that he had timed his visit well; for Mr +Squeers was, in fact, at that moment waiting for a hackney coach he had +ordered, and in which he purposed proceeding to his week’s retirement, +like a gentleman. + +Demanding speech with the prisoner, he was ushered into a kind of +waiting-room in which, by reason of his scholastic profession and +superior respectability, Mr. Squeers had been permitted to pass the day. +Here, by the light of a guttering and blackened candle, he could barely +discern the schoolmaster, fast asleep on a bench in a remote corner. +An empty glass stood on a table before him, which, with his somnolent +condition and a very strong smell of brandy and water, forewarned +the visitor that Mr. Squeers had been seeking, in creature comforts, a +temporary forgetfulness of his unpleasant situation. + +It was not a very easy matter to rouse him: so lethargic and heavy were +his slumbers. Regaining his faculties by slow and faint glimmerings, he +at length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow face, a very +red nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of which was +considerably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief, spotted with +blood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under his chin: stared +ruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings found a vent in this +pithy sentence: + +‘I say, young fellow, you’ve been and done it now; you have!’ + +‘What’s the matter with your head?’ asked Ralph. + +‘Why, your man, your informing kidnapping man, has been and broke it,’ +rejoined Squeers sulkily; ‘that’s what’s the matter with it. You’ve come +at last, have you?’ + +‘Why have you not sent to me?’ said Ralph. ‘How could I come till I knew +what had befallen you?’ + +‘My family!’ hiccuped Mr. Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling: ‘my +daughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-coming out +strong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private life, and the +pride and ornament of a doting willage--here’s a shock for my family! +The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their sun is gone down +into the ocean wave!’ + +‘You have been drinking,’ said Ralph, ‘and have not yet slept yourself +sober.’ + +‘I haven’t been drinking YOUR health, my codger,’ replied Mr. Squeers; +‘so you have nothing to do with that.’ + +Ralph suppressed the indignation which the schoolmaster’s altered and +insolent manner awakened, and asked again why he had not sent to him. + +‘What should I get by sending to you?’ returned Squeers. ‘To be known to +be in with you wouldn’t do me a deal of good, and they won’t take bail +till they know something more of the case, so here am I hard and fast: +and there are you, loose and comfortable.’ + +‘And so must you be in a few days,’ retorted Ralph, with affected +good-humour. ‘They can’t hurt you, man.’ + +‘Why, I suppose they can’t do much to me, if I explain how it was that I +got into the good company of that there ca-daverous old Slider,’ replied +Squeers viciously, ‘who I wish was dead and buried, and resurrected and +dissected, and hung upon wires in a anatomical museum, before ever I’d +had anything to do with her. This is what him with the powdered head +says this morning, in so many words: “Prisoner! As you have been found +in company with this woman; as you were detected in possession of +this document; as you were engaged with her in fraudulently destroying +others, and can give no satisfactory account of yourself; I shall remand +you for a week, in order that inquiries may be made, and evidence got. +And meanwhile I can’t take any bail for your appearance.” Well then, +what I say now is, that I CAN give a satisfactory account of myself; +I can hand in the card of my establishment and say, “I am the Wackford +Squeers as is therein named, sir. I am the man as is guaranteed, +by unimpeachable references, to be a out-and-outer in morals and +uprightness of principle. Whatever is wrong in this business is no fault +of mine. I had no evil design in it, sir. I was not aware that anything +was wrong. I was merely employed by a friend, my friend Mr. Ralph +Nickleby, of Golden Square. Send for him, sir, and ask him what he has +to say; he’s the man; not me!”’ + +‘What document was it that you had?’ asked Ralph, evading, for the +moment, the point just raised. + +‘What document? Why, THE document,’ replied Squeers. ‘The Madeline +What’s-her-name one. It was a will; that’s what it was.’ + +‘Of what nature, whose will, when dated, how benefiting her, to what +extent?’ asked Ralph hurriedly. + +‘A will in her favour; that’s all I know,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and that’s +more than you’d have known, if you’d had them bellows on your head. It’s +all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you had +let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been a +heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, inside +of my great-coat.’ + +‘Beaten at every point!’ muttered Ralph. + +‘Ah!’ sighed Squeers, who, between the brandy and water and his broken +head, wandered strangely, ‘at the delightful village of Dotheboys near +Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, +furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed +in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, +astronomy, trigonometry--this is a altered state of trigonomics, this +is! A double 1--all, everything--a cobbler’s weapon. U-p-up, adjective, +not down. S-q-u-double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, a educator of +youth. Total, all up with Squeers!’ + +His running on, in this way, had afforded Ralph an opportunity of +recovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested to him +the necessity of removing, as far as possible, the schoolmaster’s +misgivings, and leading him to believe that his safety and best policy +lay in the preservation of a rigid silence. + +‘I tell you, once again,’ he said, ‘they can’t hurt you. You shall have +an action for false imprisonment, and make a profit of this, yet. We +will devise a story for you that should carry you through twenty times +such a trivial scrape as this; and if they want security in a thousand +pounds for your reappearance in case you should be called upon, you +shall have it. All you have to do is, to keep back the truth. You’re a +little fuddled tonight, and may not be able to see this as clearly as +you would at another time; but this is what you must do, and you’ll need +all your senses about you; for a slip might be awkward.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Squeers, who had looked cunningly at him, with his head stuck +on one side, like an old raven. ‘That’s what I’m to do, is it? Now then, +just you hear a word or two from me. I an’t a-going to have any stories +made for me, and I an’t a-going to stick to any. If I find matters going +again me, I shall expect you to take your share, and I’ll take care you +do. You never said anything about danger. I never bargained for being +brought into such a plight as this, and I don’t mean to take it as quiet +as you think. I let you lead me on, from one thing to another, because +we had been mixed up together in a certain sort of a way, and if you had +liked to be ill-natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, and +if you liked to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way. +Well; if all goes right now, that’s quite correct, and I don’t mind it; +but if anything goes wrong, then times are altered, and I shall just say +and do whatever I think may serve me most, and take advice from nobody. +My moral influence with them lads,’ added Mr. Squeers, with deeper +gravity, ‘is a tottering to its basis. The images of Mrs. Squeers, my +daughter, and my son Wackford, all short of vittles, is perpetually +before me; every other consideration melts away and vanishes, in front +of these; the only number in all arithmetic that I know of, as a husband +and a father, is number one, under this here most fatal go!’ + +How long Mr. Squeers might have declaimed, or how stormy a discussion his +declamation might have led to, nobody knows. Being interrupted, at this +point, by the arrival of the coach and an attendant who was to bear +him company, he perched his hat with great dignity on the top of the +handkerchief that bound his head; and, thrusting one hand in his pocket, +and taking the attendant’s arm with the other, suffered himself to be +led forth. + +‘As I supposed from his not sending!’ thought Ralph. ‘This fellow, I +plainly see through all his tipsy fooling, has made up his mind to turn +upon me. I am so beset and hemmed in, that they are not only all struck +with fear, but, like the beasts in the fable, have their fling at me +now, though time was, and no longer ago than yesterday too, when they +were all civility and compliance. But they shall not move me. I’ll not +give way. I will not budge one inch!’ + +He went home, and was glad to find his housekeeper complaining of +illness, that he might have an excuse for being alone and sending her +away to where she lived: which was hard by. Then, he sat down by the +light of a single candle, and began to think, for the first time, on all +that had taken place that day. + +He had neither eaten nor drunk since last night, and, in addition to the +anxiety of mind he had undergone, had been travelling about, from place +to place almost incessantly, for many hours. He felt sick and exhausted, +but could taste nothing save a glass of water, and continued to sit with +his head upon his hand; not resting nor thinking, but laboriously +trying to do both, and feeling that every sense but one of weariness and +desolation, was for the time benumbed. + +It was nearly ten o’clock when he heard a knocking at the door, and +still sat quiet as before, as if he could not even bring his thoughts to +bear upon that. It had been often repeated, and he had, several times, +heard a voice outside, saying there was a light in the window (meaning, +as he knew, his own candle), before he could rouse himself and go +downstairs. + +‘Mr. Nickleby, there is terrible news for you, and I am sent to beg you +will come with me directly,’ said a voice he seemed to recognise. He +held his hand above his eyes, and, looking out, saw Tim Linkinwater on +the steps. + +‘Come where?’ demanded Ralph. + +‘To our house, where you came this morning. I have a coach here.’ + +‘Why should I go there?’ said Ralph. + +‘Don’t ask me why, but pray come with me.’ + +‘Another edition of today!’ returned Ralph, making as though he would +shut the door. + +‘No, no!’ cried Tim, catching him by the arm and speaking most +earnestly; ‘it is only that you may hear something that has occurred: +something very dreadful, Mr. Nickleby, which concerns you nearly. Do you +think I would tell you so or come to you like this, if it were not the +case?’ + +Ralph looked at him more closely. Seeing that he was indeed greatly +excited, he faltered, and could not tell what to say or think. + +‘You had better hear this now, than at any other time,’ said Tim; ‘it +may have some influence with you. For Heaven’s sake come!’ + +Perhaps, at, another time, Ralph’s obstinacy and dislike would have +been proof against any appeal from such a quarter, however emphatically +urged; but now, after a moment’s hesitation, he went into the hall for +his hat, and returning, got into the coach without speaking a word. + +Tim well remembered afterwards, and often said, that as Ralph Nickleby +went into the house for this purpose, he saw him, by the light of the +candle which he had set down upon a chair, reel and stagger like a +drunken man. He well remembered, too, that when he had placed his foot +upon the coach-steps, he turned round and looked upon him with a face so +ashy pale and so very wild and vacant that it made him shudder, and for +the moment almost afraid to follow. People were fond of saying that +he had some dark presentiment upon him then, but his emotion might, +perhaps, with greater show of reason, be referred to what he had +undergone that day. + +A profound silence was observed during the ride. Arrived at their place +of destination, Ralph followed his conductor into the house, and into a +room where the two brothers were. He was so astounded, not to say awed, +by something of a mute compassion for himself which was visible in their +manner and in that of the old clerk, that he could scarcely speak. + +Having taken a seat, however, he contrived to say, though in broken +words, ‘What--what have you to say to me--more than has been said +already?’ + +The room was old and large, very imperfectly lighted, and terminated in +a bay window, about which hung some heavy drapery. Casting his eyes in +this direction as he spoke, he thought he made out the dusky figure of +a man. He was confirmed in this impression by seeing that the object +moved, as if uneasy under his scrutiny. + +‘Who’s that yonder?’ he said. + +‘One who has conveyed to us, within these two hours, the intelligence +which caused our sending to you,’ replied brother Charles. ‘Let him be, +sir, let him be for the present.’ + +‘More riddles!’ said Ralph, faintly. ‘Well, sir?’ + +In turning his face towards the brothers he was obliged to avert it from +the window; but, before either of them could speak, he had looked round +again. It was evident that he was rendered restless and uncomfortable by +the presence of the unseen person; for he repeated this action several +times, and at length, as if in a nervous state which rendered him +positively unable to turn away from the place, sat so as to have it +opposite him, muttering as an excuse that he could not bear the light. + +The brothers conferred apart for a short time: their manner showing +that they were agitated. Ralph glanced at them twice or thrice, and +ultimately said, with a great effort to recover his self-possession, +‘Now, what is this? If I am brought from home at this time of night, let +it be for something. What have you got to tell me?’ After a short pause, +he added, ‘Is my niece dead?’ + +He had struck upon a key which rendered the task of commencement an +easier one. Brother Charles turned, and said that it was a death of +which they had to tell him, but that his niece was well. + +‘You don’t mean to tell me,’ said Ralph, as his eyes brightened, ‘that +her brother’s dead? No, that’s too good. I’d not believe it, if you told +me so. It would be too welcome news to be true.’ + +‘Shame on you, you hardened and unnatural man,’ cried the other brother, +warmly. ‘Prepare yourself for intelligence which, if you have any human +feeling in your breast, will make even you shrink and tremble. What if +we tell you that a poor unfortunate boy: a child in everything but never +having known one of those tender endearments, or one of those lightsome +hours which make our childhood a time to be remembered like a happy +dream through all our after life: a warm-hearted, harmless, affectionate +creature, who never offended you, or did you wrong, but on whom you have +vented the malice and hatred you have conceived for your nephew, and +whom you have made an instrument for wreaking your bad passions upon +him: what if we tell you that, sinking under your persecution, sir, and +the misery and ill-usage of a life short in years but long in suffering, +this poor creature has gone to tell his sad tale where, for your part in +it, you must surely answer?’ + +‘If you tell me,’ said Ralph; ‘if you tell me that he is dead, I forgive +you all else. If you tell me that he is dead, I am in your debt and +bound to you for life. He is! I see it in your faces. Who triumphs now? +Is this your dreadful news; this your terrible intelligence? You see +how it moves me. You did well to send. I would have travelled a hundred +miles afoot, through mud, mire, and darkness, to hear this news just at +this time.’ + +Even then, moved as he was by this savage joy, Ralph could see in the +faces of the two brothers, mingling with their look of disgust and +horror, something of that indefinable compassion for himself which he +had noticed before. + +‘And HE brought you the intelligence, did he?’ said Ralph, pointing +with his finger towards the recess already mentioned; ‘and sat there, +no doubt, to see me prostrated and overwhelmed by it! Ha, ha, ha! But I +tell him that I’ll be a sharp thorn in his side for many a long day to +come; and I tell you two, again, that you don’t know him yet; and that +you’ll rue the day you took compassion on the vagabond.’ + +‘You take me for your nephew,’ said a hollow voice; ‘it would be better +for you, and for me too, if I were he indeed.’ + +The figure that he had seen so dimly, rose, and came slowly down. He +started back, for he found that he confronted--not Nicholas, as he had +supposed, but Brooker. + +Ralph had no reason, that he knew, to fear this man; he had never feared +him before; but the pallor which had been observed in his face when he +issued forth that night, came upon him again. He was seen to tremble, +and his voice changed as he said, keeping his eyes upon him, + +‘What does this fellow here? Do you know he is a convict, a felon, a +common thief?’ + +‘Hear what he has to tell you. Oh, Mr. Nickleby, hear what he has to +tell you, be he what he may!’ cried the brothers, with such emphatic +earnestness, that Ralph turned to them in wonder. They pointed to +Brooker. Ralph again gazed at him: as it seemed mechanically. + +‘That boy,’ said the man, ‘that these gentlemen have been talking of--’ + +‘That boy,’ repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him. + +‘Whom I saw, stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now in his +grave--’ + +‘Who is now in his grave,’ echoed Ralph, like one who talks in his +sleep. + +The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together: + +‘--Was your only son, so help me God in heaven!’ + +In the midst of a dead silence, Ralph sat down, pressing his two hands +upon his temples. He removed them, after a minute, and never was there +seen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such a ghastly +face as he then disclosed. He looked at Brooker, who was by this time +standing at a short distance from him; but did not say one word, or make +the slightest sound or gesture. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the man, ‘I offer no excuses for myself. I am long +past that. If, in telling you how this has happened, I tell you that I +was harshly used, and perhaps driven out of my real nature, I do it only +as a necessary part of my story, and not to shield myself. I am a guilty +man.’ + +He stopped, as if to recollect, and looking away from Ralph, and +addressing himself to the brothers, proceeded in a subdued and humble +tone: + +‘Among those who once had dealings with this man, gentlemen--that’s from +twenty to five-and-twenty years ago--there was one: a rough fox-hunting, +hard-drinking gentleman, who had run through his own fortune, and wanted +to squander away that of his sister: they were both orphans, and she +lived with him and managed his house. I don’t know whether it was, +originally, to back his influence and try to over-persuade the young +woman or not, but he,’ pointing, to Ralph, ‘used to go down to the house +in Leicestershire pretty often, and stop there many days at a time. They +had had a great many dealings together, and he may have gone on some +of those, or to patch up his client’s affairs, which were in a ruinous +state; of course he went for profit. The gentlewoman was not a girl, +but she was, I have heard say, handsome, and entitled to a pretty large +property. In course of time, he married her. The same love of gain +which led him to contract this marriage, led to its being kept strictly +private; for a clause in her father’s will declared that if she married +without her brother’s consent, the property, in which she had only some +life interest while she remained single, should pass away altogether to +another branch of the family. The brother would give no consent that the +sister didn’t buy, and pay for handsomely; Mr. Nickleby would consent to +no such sacrifice; and so they went on, keeping their marriage secret, +and waiting for him to break his neck or die of a fever. He did neither, +and meanwhile the result of this private marriage was a son. The child +was put out to nurse, a long way off; his mother never saw him but once +or twice, and then by stealth; and his father--so eagerly did he thirst +after the money which seemed to come almost within his grasp now, +for his brother-in-law was very ill, and breaking more and more every +day--never went near him, to avoid raising any suspicion. The brother +lingered on; Mr. Nickleby’s wife constantly urged him to avow their +marriage; he peremptorily refused. She remained alone in a dull country +house: seeing little or no company but riotous, drunken sportsmen. +He lived in London and clung to his business. Angry quarrels and +recriminations took place, and when they had been married nearly seven +years, and were within a few weeks of the time when the brother’s death +would have adjusted all, she eloped with a younger man, and left him.’ + +Here he paused, but Ralph did not stir, and the brothers signed to him +to proceed. + +‘It was then that I became acquainted with these circumstances from his +own lips. They were no secrets then; for the brother, and others, knew +them; but they were communicated to me, not on this account, but because +I was wanted. He followed the fugitives. Some said to make money of his +wife’s shame, but, I believe, to take some violent revenge, for that was +as much his character as the other; perhaps more. He didn’t find them, +and she died not long after. I don’t know whether he began to think he +might like the child, or whether he wished to make sure that it should +never fall into its mother’s hands; but, before he went, he intrusted me +with the charge of bringing it home. And I did so.’ + +He went on, from this point, in a still more humble tone, and spoke in a +very low voice; pointing to Ralph as he resumed. + +‘He had used me ill--cruelly--I reminded him in what, not long ago when +I met him in the street--and I hated him. I brought the child home to +his own house, and lodged him in the front garret. Neglect had made him +very sickly, and I was obliged to call in a doctor, who said he must be +removed for change of air, or he would die. I think that first put it in +my head. I did it then. He was gone six weeks, and when he came back, I +told him--with every circumstance well planned and proved; nobody could +have suspected me--that the child was dead and buried. He might have +been disappointed in some intention he had formed, or he might have had +some natural affection, but he WAS grieved at THAT, and I was confirmed +in my design of opening up the secret one day, and making it a means of +getting money from him. I had heard, like most other men, of Yorkshire +schools. I took the child to one kept by a man named Squeers, and left +it there. I gave him the name of Smike. Year by year, I paid twenty +pounds a-year for him for six years; never breathing the secret all the +time; for I had left his father’s service after more hard usage, and +quarrelled with him again. I was sent away from this country. I have +been away nearly eight years. Directly I came home again, I travelled +down into Yorkshire, and, skulking in the village of an evening-time, +made inquiries about the boys at the school, and found that this one, +whom I had placed there, had run away with a young man bearing the name +of his own father. I sought his father out in London, and hinting at +what I could tell him, tried for a little money to support life; but he +repulsed me with threats. I then found out his clerk, and, going on +from little to little, and showing him that there were good reasons for +communicating with me, learnt what was going on; and it was I who told +him that the boy was no son of the man who claimed to be his father. All +this time I had never seen the boy. At length, I heard from this same +source that he was very ill, and where he was. I travelled down there, +that I might recall myself, if possible, to his recollection and confirm +my story. I came upon him unexpectedly; but before I could speak he knew +me--he had good cause to remember me, poor lad!--and I would have sworn +to him if I had met him in the Indies. I knew the piteous face I had +seen in the little child. After a few days’ indecision, I applied to the +young gentleman in whose care he was, and I found that he was dead. He +knows how quickly he recognised me again, how often he had described +me and my leaving him at the school, and how he told him of a garret +he recollected: which is the one I have spoken of, and in his father’s +house to this day. This is my story. I demand to be brought face to face +with the schoolmaster, and put to any possible proof of any part of it, +and I will show that it’s too true, and that I have this guilt upon my +soul.’ + +‘Unhappy man!’ said the brothers. ‘What reparation can you make for +this?’ + +‘None, gentlemen, none! I have none to make, and nothing to hope now. I +am old in years, and older still in misery and care. This confession can +bring nothing upon me but new suffering and punishment; but I make it, +and will abide by it whatever comes. I have been made the instrument of +working out this dreadful retribution upon the head of a man who, in +the hot pursuit of his bad ends, has persecuted and hunted down his own +child to death. It must descend upon me too. I know it must fall. My +reparation comes too late; and, neither in this world nor in the next, +can I have hope again!’ + +He had hardly spoken, when the lamp, which stood upon the table close +to where Ralph was seated, and which was the only one in the room, was +thrown to the ground, and left them in darkness. There was some trifling +confusion in obtaining another light; the interval was a mere nothing; +but when the light appeared, Ralph Nickleby was gone. + +The good brothers and Tim Linkinwater occupied some time in discussing +the probability of his return; and, when it became apparent that he +would not come back, they hesitated whether or no to send after him. +At length, remembering how strangely and silently he had sat in one +immovable position during the interview, and thinking he might possibly +be ill, they determined, although it was now very late, to send to his +house on some pretence. Finding an excuse in the presence of Brooker, +whom they knew not how to dispose of without consulting his wishes, they +concluded to act upon this resolution before going to bed. + + + +CHAPTER 61 + +Wherein Nicholas and his Sister forfeit the good Opinion of all worldly +and prudent People + + +On the next morning after Brooker’s disclosure had been made, Nicholas +returned home. The meeting between him and those whom he had left there +was not without strong emotion on both sides; for they had been informed +by his letters of what had occurred: and, besides that his griefs +were theirs, they mourned with him the death of one whose forlorn and +helpless state had first established a claim upon their compassion, +and whose truth of heart and grateful earnest nature had, every day, +endeared him to them more and more. + +‘I am sure,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, wiping her eyes, and sobbing bitterly, +‘I have lost the best, the most zealous, and most attentive creature +that has ever been a companion to me in my life--putting you, my dear +Nicholas, and Kate, and your poor papa, and that well-behaved nurse who +ran away with the linen and the twelve small forks, out of the question, +of course. Of all the tractable, equal-tempered, attached, and faithful +beings that ever lived, I believe he was the most so. To look round upon +the garden, now, that he took so much pride in, or to go into his room +and see it filled with so many of those little contrivances for our +comfort that he was so fond of making, and made so well, and so little +thought he would leave unfinished--I can’t bear it, I cannot really. Ah! +This is a great trial to me, a great trial. It will be comfort to you, +my dear Nicholas, to the end of your life, to recollect how kind +and good you always were to him--so it will be to me, to think what +excellent terms we were always upon, and how fond he always was of me, +poor fellow! It was very natural you should have been attached to him, +my dear--very--and of course you were, and are very much cut up by this. +I am sure it’s only necessary to look at you and see how changed +you are, to see that; but nobody knows what my feelings are--nobody +can--it’s quite impossible!’ + +While Mrs. Nickleby, with the utmost sincerity, gave vent to her sorrows +after her own peculiar fashion of considering herself foremost, she +was not the only one who indulged such feelings. Kate, although well +accustomed to forget herself when others were to be considered, could +not repress her grief; Madeline was scarcely less moved than she; and +poor, hearty, honest little Miss La Creevy, who had come upon one of her +visits while Nicholas was away, and had done nothing, since the sad news +arrived, but console and cheer them all, no sooner beheld him coming +in at the door, than she sat herself down upon the stairs, and bursting +into a flood of tears, refused for a long time to be comforted. + +‘It hurts me so,’ cried the poor body, ‘to see him come back alone. I +can’t help thinking what he must have suffered himself. I wouldn’t mind +so much if he gave way a little more; but he bears it so manfully.’ + +‘Why, so I should,’ said Nicholas, ‘should I not?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ replied the little woman, ‘and bless you for a good +creature! but this does seem at first to a simple soul like me--I know +it’s wrong to say so, and I shall be sorry for it presently--this does +seem such a poor reward for all you have done.’ + +‘Nay,’ said Nicholas gently, ‘what better reward could I have, than +the knowledge that his last days were peaceful and happy, and the +recollection that I was his constant companion, and was not prevented, +as I might have been by a hundred circumstances, from being beside him?’ + +‘To be sure,’ sobbed Miss La Creevy; ‘it’s very true, and I’m an +ungrateful, impious, wicked little fool, I know.’ + +With that, the good soul fell to crying afresh, and, endeavouring to +recover herself, tried to laugh. The laugh and the cry, meeting each +other thus abruptly, had a struggle for the mastery; the result was, +that it was a drawn battle, and Miss La Creevy went into hysterics. + +Waiting until they were all tolerably quiet and composed again, +Nicholas, who stood in need of some rest after his long journey, retired +to his own room, and throwing himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed, +fell into a sound sleep. When he awoke, he found Kate sitting by his +bedside, who, seeing that he had opened his eyes, stooped down to kiss +him. + +‘I came to tell you how glad I am to see you home again.’ + +‘But I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, Kate.’ + +‘We have been wearying so for your return,’ said Kate, ‘mama and I, +and--and Madeline.’ + +‘You said in your last letter that she was quite well,’ said Nicholas, +rather hastily, and colouring as he spoke. ‘Has nothing been said, since +I have been away, about any future arrangements that the brothers have +in contemplation for her?’ + +‘Oh, not a word,’ replied Kate. ‘I can’t think of parting from her +without sorrow; and surely, Nicholas, YOU don’t wish it!’ + +Nicholas coloured again, and, sitting down beside his sister on a little +couch near the window, said: + +‘No, Kate, no, I do not. I might strive to disguise my real feelings +from anybody but you; but I will tell you that--briefly and plainly, +Kate--that I love her.’ + +Kate’s eyes brightened, and she was going to make some reply, when +Nicholas laid his hand upon her arm, and went on: + +‘Nobody must know this but you. She, last of all.’ + +‘Dear Nicholas!’ + +‘Last of all; never, though never is a long day. Sometimes, I try to +think that the time may come when I may honestly tell her this; but it +is so far off; in such distant perspective, so many years must elapse +before it comes, and when it does come (if ever) I shall be so +unlike what I am now, and shall have so outlived my days of youth and +romance--though not, I am sure, of love for her--that even I feel how +visionary all such hopes must be, and try to crush them rudely myself, +and have the pain over, rather than suffer time to wither them, and keep +the disappointment in store. No, Kate! Since I have been absent, I +have had, in that poor fellow who is gone, perpetually before my eyes, +another instance of the munificent liberality of these noble brothers. +As far as in me lies, I will deserve it, and if I have wavered in +my bounden duty to them before, I am now determined to discharge it +rigidly, and to put further delays and temptations beyond my reach.’ + +‘Before you say another word, dear Nicholas,’ said Kate, turning pale, +‘you must hear what I have to tell you. I came on purpose, but I had not +the courage. What you say now, gives me new heart.’ She faltered, and +burst into tears. + +There was that in her manner which prepared Nicholas for what was +coming. Kate tried to speak, but her tears prevented her. + +‘Come, you foolish girl,’ said Nicholas; ‘why, Kate, Kate, be a woman! I +think I know what you would tell me. It concerns Mr. Frank, does it not?’ + +Kate sunk her head upon his shoulder, and sobbed out ‘Yes.’ + +‘And he has offered you his hand, perhaps, since I have been away,’ said +Nicholas; ‘is that it? Yes. Well, well; it is not so difficult, you see, +to tell me, after all. He offered you his hand?’ + +‘Which I refused,’ said Kate. + +‘Yes; and why?’ + +‘I told him,’ she said, in a trembling voice, ‘all that I have since +found you told mama; and while I could not conceal from him, and cannot +from you, that--that it was a pang and a great trial, I did so firmly, +and begged him not to see me any more.’ + +‘That’s my own brave Kate!’ said Nicholas, pressing her to his breast. +‘I knew you would.’ + +‘He tried to alter my resolution,’ said Kate, ‘and declared that, be my +decision what it might, he would not only inform his uncles of the +step he had taken, but would communicate it to you also, directly you +returned. I am afraid,’ she added, her momentary composure forsaking +her, ‘I am afraid I may not have said, strongly enough, how deeply I +felt such disinterested love, and how earnestly I prayed for his future +happiness. If you do talk together, I should--I should like him to know +that.’ + +‘And did you suppose, Kate, when you had made this sacrifice to what +you knew was right and honourable, that I should shrink from mine?’ said +Nicholas tenderly. + +‘Oh no! not if your position had been the same, but--’ + +‘But it is the same,’ interrupted Nicholas. ‘Madeline is not the near +relation of our benefactors, but she is closely bound to them by ties as +dear; and I was first intrusted with her history, specially because they +reposed unbounded confidence in me, and believed that I was as true as +steel. How base would it be of me to take advantage of the circumstances +which placed her here, or of the slight service I was happily able to +render her, and to seek to engage her affections when the result must +be, if I succeeded, that the brothers would be disappointed in their +darling wish of establishing her as their own child, and that I must +seem to hope to build my fortunes on their compassion for the young +creature whom I had so meanly and unworthily entrapped: turning her very +gratitude and warmth of heart to my own purpose and account, and trading +in her misfortunes! I, too, whose duty, and pride, and pleasure, Kate, +it is to have other claims upon me which I will never forget; and who +have the means of a comfortable and happy life already, and have no +right to look beyond it! I have determined to remove this weight from my +mind. I doubt whether I have not done wrong, even now; and today I +will, without reserve or equivocation, disclose my real reasons to Mr +Cherryble, and implore him to take immediate measures for removing this +young lady to the shelter of some other roof.’ + +‘Today? so very soon?’ + +‘I have thought of this for weeks, and why should I postpone it? If the +scene through which I have just passed has taught me to reflect, and has +awakened me to a more anxious and careful sense of duty, why should I +wait until the impression has cooled? You would not dissuade me, Kate; +now would you?’ + +‘You may grow rich, you know,’ said Kate. + +‘I may grow rich!’ repeated Nicholas, with a mournful smile, ‘ay, and +I may grow old! But rich or poor, or old or young, we shall ever be the +same to each other, and in that our comfort lies. What if we have but +one home? It can never be a solitary one to you and me. What if we were +to remain so true to these first impressions as to form no others? It is +but one more link to the strong chain that binds us together. It seems +but yesterday that we were playfellows, Kate, and it will seem but +tomorrow when we are staid old people, looking back to these cares as we +look back, now, to those of our childish days: and recollecting with a +melancholy pleasure that the time was, when they could move us. Perhaps +then, when we are quaint old folks and talk of the times when our step +was lighter and our hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the +trials that so endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that +current, down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly. And +having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us--as +young as you and I are now, Kate--may come to us for sympathy, and pour +distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel enough for, +into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother and his maiden +sister.’ + +Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but they +were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when he had +ceased to speak. + +‘Am I not right, Kate?’ he said, after a short silence. + +‘Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I +have acted as you would have had me.’ + +‘You don’t regret?’ + +‘N--n--no,’ said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground with +her little foot. ‘I don’t regret having done what was honourable +and right, of course; but I do regret that this should have ever +happened--at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I--I don’t know +what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has agitated me very +much.’ + +It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand pounds +at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the owner of the +blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its utmost farthing, in +perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her happiness. But all he +could do was to comfort and console her by kind words; and words they +were of such love and kindness, and cheerful encouragement, that poor +Kate threw her arms about his neck, and declared she would weep no more. + +‘What man,’ thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards, +to the brothers’ house, ‘would not be sufficiently rewarded for any +sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate’s, which, +but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all +praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such +a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is +always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good +bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose +is pretty nearly the same.’ + +Checking thoughts so little adapted to the business on which he was +bound, by such self-reproofs as this and many others no less sturdy, he +proceeded on his way and presented himself before Tim Linkinwater. + +‘Ah! Mr. Nickleby!’ cried Tim, ‘God bless you! how d’ye do? Well? Say +you’re quite well and never better. Do now.’ + +‘Quite,’ said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands. + +‘Ah!’ said Tim, ‘you look tired though, now I come to look at you. Hark! +there he is, d’ye hear him? That was Dick, the blackbird. He hasn’t been +himself since you’ve been gone. He’d never get on without you, now; he +takes as naturally to you as he does to me.’ + +‘Dick is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he thinks I +am half so well worthy of his notice as you,’ replied Nicholas. + +‘Why, I’ll tell you what, sir,’ said Tim, standing in his favourite +attitude and pointing to the cage with the feather of his pen, ‘it’s a +very extraordinary thing about that bird, that the only people he ever +takes the smallest notice of, are Mr. Charles, and Mr. Ned, and you, and +me.’ + +Here, Tim stopped and glanced anxiously at Nicholas; then unexpectedly +catching his eye repeated, ‘And you and me, sir, and you and me.’ And +then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, squeezing his hand, said, ‘I am +a bad one at putting off anything I am interested in. I didn’t mean to +ask you, but I should like to hear a few particulars about that poor +boy. Did he mention Cheeryble Brothers at all?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘many and many a time.’ + +‘That was right of him,’ returned Tim, wiping his eyes; ‘that was very +right of him.’ + +‘And he mentioned your name a score of times,’ said Nicholas, ‘and often +bade me carry back his love to Mr. Linkinwater.’ + +‘No, no, did he though?’ rejoined Tim, sobbing outright. ‘Poor fellow! +I wish we could have had him buried in town. There isn’t such a +burying-ground in all London as that little one on the other side of the +square--there are counting-houses all round it, and if you go in there, +on a fine day, you can see the books and safes through the open windows. +And he sent his love to me, did he? I didn’t expect he would have +thought of me. Poor fellow, poor fellow! His love too!’ + +Tim was so completely overcome by this little mark of recollection, that +he was quite unequal to any more conversation at the moment. Nicholas +therefore slipped quietly out, and went to brother Charles’s room. + +If he had previously sustained his firmness and fortitude, it had been +by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm welcome, +the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of the good old +man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle could prevent his showing +it. + +‘Come, come, my dear sir,’ said the benevolent merchant; ‘we must not +be cast down; no, no. We must learn to bear misfortune, and we must +remember that there are many sources of consolation even in death. +Every day that this poor lad had lived, he must have been less and +less qualified for the world, and more and more unhappy in is own +deficiencies. It is better as it is, my dear sir. Yes, yes, yes, it’s +better as it is.’ + +‘I have thought of all that, sir,’ replied Nicholas, clearing his +throat. ‘I feel it, I assure you.’ + +‘Yes, that’s well,’ replied Mr. Cheeryble, who, in the midst of all his +comforting, was quite as much taken aback as honest old Tim; ‘that’s +well. Where is my brother Ned? Tim Linkinwater, sir, where is my brother +Ned?’ + +‘Gone out with Mr. Trimmers, about getting that unfortunate man into the +hospital, and sending a nurse to his children,’ said Tim. + +‘My brother Ned is a fine fellow, a great fellow!’ exclaimed brother +Charles as he shut the door and returned to Nicholas. ‘He will be +overjoyed to see you, my dear sir. We have been speaking of you every +day.’ + +‘To tell you the truth, sir, I am glad to find you alone,’ said +Nicholas, with some natural hesitation; ‘for I am anxious to say +something to you. Can you spare me a very few minutes?’ + +‘Surely, surely,’ returned brother Charles, looking at him with an +anxious countenance. ‘Say on, my dear sir, say on.’ + +‘I scarcely know how, or where, to begin,’ said Nicholas. ‘If ever one +mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and reverence for another: +with such attachment as would make the hardest service in his behalf a +pleasure and delight: with such grateful recollections as must rouse the +utmost zeal and fidelity of his nature: those are the feelings which I +should entertain for you, and do, from my heart and soul, believe me!’ + +‘I do believe you,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘and I am happy in +the belief. I have never doubted it; I never shall. I am sure I never +shall.’ + +‘Your telling me that so kindly,’ said Nicholas, ‘emboldens me to +proceed. When you first took me into your confidence, and dispatched me +on those missions to Miss Bray, I should have told you that I had seen +her long before; that her beauty had made an impression upon me which I +could not efface; and that I had fruitlessly endeavoured to trace her, +and become acquainted with her history. I did not tell you so, because +I vainly thought I could conquer my weaker feelings, and render every +consideration subservient to my duty to you.’ + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said brother Charles, ‘you did not violate the confidence +I placed in you, or take an unworthy advantage of it. I am sure you did +not.’ + +‘I did not,’ said Nicholas, firmly. ‘Although I found that the necessity +for self-command and restraint became every day more imperious, and the +difficulty greater, I never, for one instant, spoke or looked but as I +would have done had you been by. I never, for one moment, deserted my +trust, nor have I to this instant. But I find that constant association +and companionship with this sweet girl is fatal to my peace of mind, and +may prove destructive to the resolutions I made in the beginning, and up +to this time have faithfully kept. In short, sir, I cannot trust myself, +and I implore and beseech you to remove this young lady from under the +charge of my mother and sister without delay. I know that to anyone but +myself--to you, who consider the immeasurable distance between me and +this young lady, who is now your ward, and the object of your peculiar +care--my loving her, even in thought, must appear the height of rashness +and presumption. I know it is so. But who can see her as I have seen, +who can know what her life has been, and not love her? I have no excuse +but that; and as I cannot fly from this temptation, and cannot repress +this passion, with its object constantly before me, what can I do but +pray and beseech you to remove it, and to leave me to forget her?’ + +‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said the old man, after a short silence, ‘you can do no +more. I was wrong to expose a young man like you to this trial. I might +have foreseen what would happen. Thank you, sir, thank you. Madeline +shall be removed.’ + +‘If you would grant me one favour, dear sir, and suffer her to remember +me with esteem, by never revealing to her this confession--’ + +‘I will take care,’ said Mr. Cheeryble. ‘And now, is this all you have to +tell me?’ + +‘No!’ returned Nicholas, meeting his eye, ‘it is not.’ + +‘I know the rest,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, apparently very much relieved by +this prompt reply. ‘When did it come to your knowledge?’ + +‘When I reached home this morning.’ + +‘You felt it your duty immediately to come to me, and tell me what your +sister no doubt acquainted you with?’ + +‘I did,’ said Nicholas, ‘though I could have wished to have spoken to Mr +Frank first.’ + +‘Frank was with me last night,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘You have +done well, Mr. Nickleby--very well, sir--and I thank you again.’ + +Upon this head, Nicholas requested permission to add a few words. He +ventured to hope that nothing he had said would lead to the estrangement +of Kate and Madeline, who had formed an attachment for each other, any +interruption of which would, he knew, be attended with great pain to +them, and, most of all, with remorse and pain to him, as its unhappy +cause. When these things were all forgotten, he hoped that Frank and he +might still be warm friends, and that no word or thought of his humble +home, or of her who was well contented to remain there and share his +quiet fortunes, would ever again disturb the harmony between them. He +recounted, as nearly as he could, what had passed between himself +and Kate that morning: speaking of her with such warmth of pride and +affection, and dwelling so cheerfully upon the confidence they had of +overcoming any selfish regrets and living contented and happy in each +other’s love, that few could have heard him unmoved. More moved +himself than he had been yet, he expressed in a few hurried words--as +expressive, perhaps, as the most eloquent phrases--his devotion to the +brothers, and his hope that he might live and die in their service. + +To all this, brother Charles listened in profound silence, and with his +chair so turned from Nicholas that his face could not be seen. He +had not spoken either, in his accustomed manner, but with a certain +stiffness and embarrassment very foreign to it. Nicholas feared he had +offended him. He said, ‘No, no, he had done quite right,’ but that was +all. + +‘Frank is a heedless, foolish fellow,’ he said, after Nicholas had +paused for some time; ‘a very heedless, foolish fellow. I will take care +that this is brought to a close without delay. Let us say no more upon +the subject; it’s a very painful one to me. Come to me in half an hour; +I have strange things to tell you, my dear sir, and your uncle has +appointed this afternoon for your waiting upon him with me.’ + +‘Waiting upon him! With you, sir!’ cried Nicholas. + +‘Ay, with me,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘Return to me in half an hour, +and I’ll tell you more.’ + +Nicholas waited upon him at the time mentioned, and then learnt all +that had taken place on the previous day, and all that was known of the +appointment Ralph had made with the brothers; which was for that night; +and for the better understanding of which it will be requisite to +return and follow his own footsteps from the house of the twin brothers. +Therefore, we leave Nicholas somewhat reassured by the restored kindness +of their manner towards him, and yet sensible that it was different from +what it had been (though he scarcely knew in what respect): so he was +full of uneasiness, uncertainty, and disquiet. + + + +CHAPTER 62 + +Ralph makes one last Appointment--and keeps it + + +Creeping from the house, and slinking off like a thief; groping with his +hands, when first he got into the street, as if he were a blind man; and +looking often over his shoulder while he hurried away, as though he were +followed in imagination or reality by someone anxious to question or +detain him; Ralph Nickleby left the city behind him, and took the road +to his own home. + +The night was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds, furiously +and fast, before it. There was one black, gloomy mass that seemed +to follow him: not hurrying in the wild chase with the others, but +lingering sullenly behind, and gliding darkly and stealthily on. He +often looked back at this, and, more than once, stopped to let it pass +over; but, somehow, when he went forward again, it was still behind him, +coming mournfully and slowly up, like a shadowy funeral train. + +He had to pass a poor, mean burial-ground--a dismal place, raised a +few feet above the level of the street, and parted from it by a low +parapet-wall and an iron railing; a rank, unwholesome, rotten spot, +where the very grass and weeds seemed, in their frouzy growth, to tell +that they had sprung from paupers’ bodies, and had struck their roots in +the graves of men, sodden, while alive, in steaming courts and drunken +hungry dens. And here, in truth, they lay, parted from the living by a +little earth and a board or two--lay thick and close--corrupting in body +as they had in mind--a dense and squalid crowd. Here they lay, cheek by +jowl with life: no deeper down than the feet of the throng that passed +there every day, and piled high as their throats. Here they lay, a +grisly family, all these dear departed brothers and sisters of the ruddy +clergyman who did his task so speedily when they were hidden in the +ground! + +As he passed here, Ralph called to mind that he had been one of a jury, +long before, on the body of a man who had cut his throat; and that he +was buried in this place. He could not tell how he came to recollect it +now, when he had so often passed and never thought about him, or how it +was that he felt an interest in the circumstance; but he did both; and +stopping, and clasping the iron railings with his hands, looked eagerly +in, wondering which might be his grave. + +While he was thus engaged, there came towards him, with noise of shouts +and singing, some fellows full of drink, followed by others, who were +remonstrating with them and urging them to go home in quiet. They were +in high good-humour; and one of them, a little, weazen, hump-backed +man, began to dance. He was a grotesque, fantastic figure, and the few +bystanders laughed. Ralph himself was moved to mirth, and echoed the +laugh of one who stood near and who looked round in his face. When they +had passed on, and he was left alone again, he resumed his speculation +with a new kind of interest; for he recollected that the last person who +had seen the suicide alive, had left him very merry, and he remembered +how strange he and the other jurors had thought that at the time. + +He could not fix upon the spot among such a heap of graves, but he +conjured up a strong and vivid idea of the man himself, and how he +looked, and what had led him to do it; all of which he recalled with +ease. By dint of dwelling upon this theme, he carried the impression +with him when he went away; as he remembered, when a child, to have had +frequently before him the figure of some goblin he had once seen chalked +upon a door. But as he drew nearer and nearer home he forgot it again, +and began to think how very dull and solitary the house would be inside. + +This feeling became so strong at last, that when he reached his own +door, he could hardly make up his mind to turn the key and open it. When +he had done that, and gone into the passage, he felt as though to shut +it again would be to shut out the world. But he let it go, and it closed +with a loud noise. There was no light. How very dreary, cold, and still +it was! + +Shivering from head to foot, he made his way upstairs into the room +where he had been last disturbed. He had made a kind of compact with +himself that he would not think of what had happened until he got home. +He was at home now, and suffered himself to consider it. + +His own child, his own child! He never doubted the tale; he felt it was +true; knew it as well, now, as if he had been privy to it all along. His +own child! And dead too. Dying beside Nicholas, loving him, and looking +upon him as something like an angel. That was the worst! + +They had all turned from him and deserted him in his very first need. +Even money could not buy them now; everything must come out, and +everybody must know all. Here was the young lord dead, his companion +abroad and beyond his reach, ten thousand pounds gone at one blow, his +plot with Gride overset at the very moment of triumph, his after-schemes +discovered, himself in danger, the object of his persecution and +Nicholas’s love, his own wretched boy; everything crumbled and fallen +upon him, and he beaten down beneath the ruins and grovelling in the +dust. + +If he had known his child to be alive; if no deceit had been ever +practised, and he had grown up beneath his eye; he might have been a +careless, indifferent, rough, harsh father--like enough--he felt that; +but the thought would come that he might have been otherwise, and that +his son might have been a comfort to him, and they two happy together. +He began to think now, that his supposed death and his wife’s flight had +had some share in making him the morose, hard man he was. He seemed to +remember a time when he was not quite so rough and obdurate; and almost +thought that he had first hated Nicholas because he was young and +gallant, and perhaps like the stripling who had brought dishonour and +loss of fortune on his head. + +But one tender thought, or one of natural regret, in his whirlwind of +passion and remorse, was as a drop of calm water in a stormy maddened +sea. His hatred of Nicholas had been fed upon his own defeat, nourished +on his interference with his schemes, fattened upon his old defiance +and success. There were reasons for its increase; it had grown and +strengthened gradually. Now it attained a height which was sheer wild +lunacy. That his, of all others, should have been the hands to rescue +his miserable child; that he should have been his protector and faithful +friend; that he should have shown him that love and tenderness which, +from the wretched moment of his birth, he had never known; that he +should have taught him to hate his own parent and execrate his very +name; that he should now know and feel all this, and triumph in the +recollection; was gall and madness to the usurer’s heart. The dead +boy’s love for Nicholas, and the attachment of Nicholas to him, was +insupportable agony. The picture of his deathbed, with Nicholas at his +side, tending and supporting him, and he breathing out his thanks, and +expiring in his arms, when he would have had them mortal enemies and +hating each other to the last, drove him frantic. He gnashed his teeth +and smote the air, and looking wildly round, with eyes which gleamed +through the darkness, cried aloud: + +‘I am trampled down and ruined. The wretch told me true. The night has +come! Is there no way to rob them of further triumph, and spurn their +mercy and compassion? Is there no devil to help me?’ + +Swiftly, there glided again into his brain the figure he had raised that +night. It seemed to lie before him. The head was covered now. So it +was when he first saw it. The rigid, upturned, marble feet too, he +remembered well. Then came before him the pale and trembling relatives +who had told their tale upon the inquest--the shrieks of women--the +silent dread of men--the consternation and disquiet--the victory +achieved by that heap of clay, which, with one motion of its hand, had +let out the life and made this stir among them-- + +He spoke no more; but, after a pause, softly groped his way out of +the room, and up the echoing stairs--up to the top--to the front +garret--where he closed the door behind him, and remained. + +It was a mere lumber-room now, but it yet contained an old dismantled +bedstead; the one on which his son had slept; for no other had ever been +there. He avoided it hastily, and sat down as far from it as he could. + +The weakened glare of the lights in the street below, shining through +the window which had no blind or curtain to intercept it, was enough to +show the character of the room, though not sufficient fully to reveal +the various articles of lumber, old corded trunks and broken furniture, +which were scattered about. It had a shelving roof; high in one part, +and at another descending almost to the floor. It was towards the +highest part that Ralph directed his eyes; and upon it he kept them +fixed steadily for some minutes, when he rose, and dragging thither an +old chest upon which he had been seated, mounted on it, and felt along +the wall above his head with both hands. At length, they touched a large +iron hook, firmly driven into one of the beams. + +At that moment, he was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door below. +After a little hesitation he opened the window, and demanded who it was. + +‘I want Mr. Nickleby,’ replied a voice. + +‘What with him?’ + +‘That’s not Mr. Nickleby’s voice, surely?’ was the rejoinder. + +It was not like it; but it was Ralph who spoke, and so he said. + +The voice made answer that the twin brothers wished to know whether the +man whom he had seen that night was to be detained; and that although it +was now midnight they had sent, in their anxiety to do right. + +‘Yes,’ cried Ralph, ‘detain him till tomorrow; then let them bring him +here--him and my nephew--and come themselves, and be sure that I will be +ready to receive them.’ + +‘At what hour?’ asked the voice. + +‘At any hour,’ replied Ralph fiercely. ‘In the afternoon, tell them. At +any hour, at any minute. All times will be alike to me.’ + +He listened to the man’s retreating footsteps until the sound had +passed, and then, gazing up into the sky, saw, or thought he saw, the +same black cloud that had seemed to follow him home, and which now +appeared to hover directly above the house. + +‘I know its meaning now,’ he muttered, ‘and the restless nights, the +dreams, and why I have quailed of late. All pointed to this. Oh! if men +by selling their own souls could ride rampant for a term, for how short +a term would I barter mine tonight!’ + +The sound of a deep bell came along the wind. One. + +‘Lie on!’ cried the usurer, ‘with your iron tongue! Ring merrily for +births that make expectants writhe, and marriages that are made in hell, +and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn already! Call men +to prayers who are godly because not found out, and ring chimes for the +coming in of every year that brings this cursed world nearer to its end. +No bell or book for me! Throw me on a dunghill, and let me rot there, to +infect the air!’ + +With a wild look around, in which frenzy, hatred, and despair were +horribly mingled, he shook his clenched hand at the sky above him, which +was still dark and threatening, and closed the window. + +The rain and hail pattered against the glass; the chimneys quaked and +rocked; the crazy casement rattled with the wind, as though an impatient +hand inside were striving to burst it open. But no hand was there, and +it opened no more. + + +‘How’s this?’ cried one. ‘The gentleman say they can’t make anybody +hear, and have been trying these two hours.’ + +‘And yet he came home last night,’ said another; ‘for he spoke to +somebody out of that window upstairs.’ + +They were a little knot of men, and, the window being mentioned, went +out into the road to look up at it. This occasioned their observing that +the house was still close shut, as the housekeeper had said she had left +it on the previous night, and led to a great many suggestions: which +terminated in two or three of the boldest getting round to the back, and +so entering by a window, while the others remained outside, in impatient +expectation. + +They looked into all the rooms below: opening the shutters as they went, +to admit the fading light: and still finding nobody, and everything +quiet and in its place, doubted whether they should go farther. One man, +however, remarking that they had not yet been into the garret, and that +it was there he had been last seen, they agreed to look there too, and +went up softly; for the mystery and silence made them timid. + +After they had stood for an instant, on the landing, eyeing each other, +he who had proposed their carrying the search so far, turned the handle +of the door, and, pushing it open, looked through the chink, and fell +back directly. + +‘It’s very odd,’ he whispered, ‘he’s hiding behind the door! Look!’ + +They pressed forward to see; but one among them thrusting the others +aside with a loud exclamation, drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and +dashing into the room, cut down the body. + +He had torn a rope from one of the old trunks, and hung himself on an +iron hook immediately below the trap-door in the ceiling--in the very +place to which the eyes of his son, a lonely, desolate, little creature, +had so often been directed in childish terror, fourteen years before. + + + +CHAPTER 63 + +The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for themselves and +others. Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for himself + + +Some weeks had passed, and the first shock of these events had subsided. +Madeline had been removed; Frank had been absent; and Nicholas and Kate +had begun to try in good earnest to stifle their own regrets, and to +live for each other and for their mother--who, poor lady, could in +nowise be reconciled to this dull and altered state of affairs--when +there came one evening, per favour of Mr. Linkinwater, an invitation from +the brothers to dinner on the next day but one: comprehending, not only +Mrs. Nickleby, Kate, and Nicholas, but little Miss La Creevy, who was +most particularly mentioned. + +‘Now, my dears,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, when they had rendered becoming +honour to the bidding, and Tim had taken his departure, ‘what does THIS +mean?’ + +‘What do YOU mean, mother?’ asked Nicholas, smiling. + +‘I say, my dear,’ rejoined that lady, with a face of unfathomable +mystery, ‘what does this invitation to dinner mean? What is its +intention and object?’ + +‘I conclude it means, that on such a day we are to eat and drink in +their house, and that its intent and object is to confer pleasure upon +us,’ said Nicholas. + +‘And that’s all you conclude it is, my dear?’ + +‘I have not yet arrived at anything deeper, mother.’ + +‘Then I’ll just tell you one thing,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, you’ll find +yourself a little surprised; that’s all. You may depend upon it that +this means something besides dinner.’ + +‘Tea and supper, perhaps,’ suggested Nicholas. + +‘I wouldn’t be absurd, my dear, if I were you,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, +in a lofty manner, ‘because it’s not by any means becoming, and doesn’t +suit you at all. What I mean to say is, that the Mr. Cheerybles don’t ask +us to dinner with all this ceremony for nothing. Never mind; wait and +see. You won’t believe anything I say, of course. It’s much better to +wait; a great deal better; it’s satisfactory to all parties, and there +can be no disputing. All I say is, remember what I say now, and when I +say I said so, don’t say I didn’t.’ + +With this stipulation, Mrs. Nickleby, who was troubled, night and day, +with a vision of a hot messenger tearing up to the door to announce that +Nicholas had been taken into partnership, quitted that branch of the +subject, and entered upon a new one. + +‘It’s a very extraordinary thing,’ she said, ‘a most extraordinary +thing, that they should have invited Miss La Creevy. It quite astonishes +me, upon my word it does. Of course it’s very pleasant that she should +be invited, very pleasant, and I have no doubt that she’ll conduct +herself extremely well; she always does. It’s very gratifying to think +that we should have been the means of introducing her into such society, +and I’m quite glad of it--quite rejoiced--for she certainly is an +exceedingly well-behaved and good-natured little person. I could wish +that some friend would mention to her how very badly she has her cap +trimmed, and what very preposterous bows those are, but of course that’s +impossible, and if she likes to make a fright of herself, no doubt she +has a perfect right to do so. We never see ourselves--never do, and +never did--and I suppose we never shall.’ + +This moral reflection reminding her of the necessity of being peculiarly +smart on the occasion, so as to counterbalance Miss La Creevy, and be +herself an effectual set-off and atonement, led Mrs. Nickleby into a +consultation with her daughter relative to certain ribbons, gloves, and +trimmings: which, being a complicated question, and one of paramount +importance, soon routed the previous one, and put it to flight. + +The great day arriving, the good lady put herself under Kate’s hands an +hour or so after breakfast, and, dressing by easy stages, completed +her toilette in sufficient time to allow of her daughter’s making hers, +which was very simple, and not very long, though so satisfactory that +she had never appeared more charming or looked more lovely. Miss La +Creevy, too, arrived with two bandboxes (whereof the bottoms fell out as +they were handed from the coach) and something in a newspaper, which a +gentleman had sat upon, coming down, and which was obliged to be ironed +again, before it was fit for service. At last, everybody was dressed, +including Nicholas, who had come home to fetch them, and they went away +in a coach sent by the brothers for the purpose: Mrs. Nickleby wondering +very much what they would have for dinner, and cross-examining Nicholas +as to the extent of his discoveries in the morning; whether he had smelt +anything cooking at all like turtle, and if not, what he had smelt; and +diversifying the conversation with reminiscences of dinners to which she +had gone some twenty years ago, concerning which she particularised not +only the dishes but the guests, in whom her hearers did not feel a very +absorbing interest, as not one of them had ever chanced to hear their +names before. + +The old butler received them with profound respect and many smiles, +and ushered them into the drawing-room, where they were received by +the brothers with so much cordiality and kindness that Mrs. Nickleby was +quite in a flutter, and had scarcely presence of mind enough, even to +patronise Miss La Creevy. Kate was still more affected by the reception: +for, knowing that the brothers were acquainted with all that had passed +between her and Frank, she felt her position a most delicate and trying +one, and was trembling on the arm of Nicholas, when Mr. Charles took her +in his, and led her to another part of the room. + +‘Have you seen Madeline, my dear,’ he said, ‘since she left your house?’ + +‘No, sir!’ replied Kate. ‘Not once.’ + +‘And not heard from her, eh? Not heard from her?’ + +‘I have only had one letter,’ rejoined Kate, gently. ‘I thought she +would not have forgotten me quite so soon.’ + +‘Ah,’ said the old man, patting her on the head, and speaking as +affectionately as if she had been his favourite child. ‘Poor dear! what +do you think of this, brother Ned? Madeline has only written to her +once, only once, Ned, and she didn’t think she would have forgotten her +quite so soon, Ned.’ + +‘Oh! sad, sad; very sad!’ said Ned. + +The brothers interchanged a glance, and looking at Kate for a little +time without speaking, shook hands, and nodded as if they were +congratulating each other on something very delightful. + +‘Well, well,’ said brother Charles, ‘go into that room, my dear--that +door yonder--and see if there’s not a letter for you from her. I think +there’s one upon the table. You needn’t hurry back, my love, if there +is, for we don’t dine just yet, and there’s plenty of time. Plenty of +time.’ + +Kate retired as she was directed. Brother Charles, having followed her +graceful figure with his eyes, turned to Mrs. Nickleby, and said: + +‘We took the liberty of naming one hour before the real dinner-time, +ma’am, because we had a little business to speak about, which would +occupy the interval. Ned, my dear fellow, will you mention what we +agreed upon? Mr. Nickleby, sir, have the goodness to follow me.’ + +Without any further explanation, Mrs. Nickleby, Miss La Creevy, and +brother Ned, were left alone together, and Nicholas followed brother +Charles into his private room; where, to his great astonishment, he +encountered Frank, whom he supposed to be abroad. + +‘Young men,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, ‘shake hands!’ + +‘I need no bidding to do that,’ said Nicholas, extending his. + +‘Nor I,’ rejoined Frank, as he clasped it heartily. + +The old gentleman thought that two handsomer or finer young fellows +could scarcely stand side by side than those on whom he looked with so +much pleasure. Suffering his eyes to rest upon them, for a short time in +silence, he said, while he seated himself at his desk: + +‘I wish to see you friends--close and firm friends--and if I thought +you otherwise, I should hesitate in what I am about to say. Frank, look +here! Mr. Nickleby, will you come on the other side?’ + +The young men stepped up on either hand of brother Charles, who produced +a paper from his desk, and unfolded it. + +‘This,’ he said, ‘is a copy of the will of Madeline’s maternal +grandfather, bequeathing her the sum of twelve thousand pounds, payable +either upon her coming of age or marrying. It would appear that this +gentleman, angry with her (his only relation) because she would not put +herself under his protection, and detach herself from the society of her +father, in compliance with his repeated overtures, made a will leaving +this property (which was all he possessed) to a charitable institution. +He would seem to have repented this determination, however, for three +weeks afterwards, and in the same month, he executed this. By some +fraud, it was abstracted immediately after his decease, and the +other--the only will found--was proved and administered. Friendly +negotiations, which have only just now terminated, have been proceeding +since this instrument came into our hands, and, as there is no doubt +of its authenticity, and the witnesses have been discovered (after some +trouble), the money has been refunded. Madeline has therefore obtained +her right, and is, or will be, when either of the contingencies which I +have mentioned has arisen, mistress of this fortune. You understand me?’ + +Frank replied in the affirmative. Nicholas, who could not trust himself +to speak lest his voice should be heard to falter, bowed his head. + +‘Now, Frank,’ said the old gentleman, ‘you were the immediate means +of recovering this deed. The fortune is but a small one; but we love +Madeline; and such as it is, we would rather see you allied to her with +that, than to any other girl we know who has three times the money. Will +you become a suitor to her for her hand?’ + +‘No, sir. I interested myself in the recovery of that instrument, +believing that her hand was already pledged to one who has a thousand +times the claims upon her gratitude, and, if I mistake not, upon her +heart, that I or any other man can ever urge. In this it seems I judged +hastily.’ + +‘As you always do, sir,’ cried brother Charles, utterly forgetting his +assumed dignity, ‘as you always do. How dare you think, Frank, that we +would have you marry for money, when youth, beauty, and every amiable +virtue and excellence were to be had for love? How dared you, Frank, go +and make love to Mr. Nickleby’s sister without telling us first what you +meant to do, and letting us speak for you?’ + +‘I hardly dared to hope--’ + +‘You hardly dared to hope! Then, so much the greater reason for having +our assistance! Mr. Nickleby, sir, Frank, although he judged hastily, +judged, for once, correctly. Madeline’s heart IS occupied. Give me +your hand, sir; it is occupied by you, and worthily and naturally. This +fortune is destined to be yours, but you have a greater fortune in her, +sir, than you would have in money were it forty times told. She chooses +you, Mr. Nickleby. She chooses as we, her dearest friends, would have her +choose. Frank chooses as we would have HIM choose. He should have your +sister’s little hand, sir, if she had refused it a score of times; ay, +he should, and he shall! You acted nobly, not knowing our sentiments, +but now you know them, sir, you must do as you are bid. What! You are +the children of a worthy gentleman! The time was, sir, when my dear +brother Ned and I were two poor simple-hearted boys, wandering, almost +barefoot, to seek our fortunes: are we changed in anything but years +and worldly circumstances since that time? No, God forbid! Oh, Ned, Ned, +Ned, what a happy day this is for you and me! If our poor mother had +only lived to see us now, Ned, how proud it would have made her dear +heart at last!’ + +Thus apostrophised, brother Ned, who had entered with Mrs. Nickleby, and +who had been before unobserved by the young men, darted forward, and +fairly hugged brother Charles in his arms. + +‘Bring in my little Kate,’ said the latter, after a short silence. +‘Bring her in, Ned. Let me see Kate, let me kiss her. I have a right +to do so now; I was very near it when she first came; I have often +been very near it. Ah! Did you find the letter, my bird? Did you find +Madeline herself, waiting for you and expecting you? Did you find that +she had not quite forgotten her friend and nurse and sweet companion? +Why, this is almost the best of all!’ + +‘Come, come,’ said Ned, ‘Frank will be jealous, and we shall have some +cutting of throats before dinner.’ + +‘Then let him take her away, Ned, let him take her away. Madeline’s in +the next room. Let all the lovers get out of the way, and talk among +themselves, if they’ve anything to say. Turn ‘em out, Ned, every one!’ + +Brother Charles began the clearance by leading the blushing girl to the +door, and dismissing her with a kiss. Frank was not very slow to follow, +and Nicholas had disappeared first of all. So there only remained Mrs +Nickleby and Miss La Creevy, who were both sobbing heartily; the two +brothers; and Tim Linkinwater, who now came in to shake hands with +everybody: his round face all radiant and beaming with smiles. + +‘Well, Tim Linkinwater, sir,’ said brother Charles, who was always +spokesman, ‘now the young folks are happy, sir.’ + +‘You didn’t keep ‘em in suspense as long as you said you would, though,’ +returned Tim, archly. ‘Why, Mr. Nickleby and Mr. Frank were to have +been in your room for I don’t know how long; and I don’t know what you +weren’t to have told them before you came out with the truth.’ + +‘Now, did you ever know such a villain as this, Ned?’ said the old +gentleman; ‘did you ever know such a villain as Tim Linkinwater? +He accusing me of being impatient, and he the very man who has been +wearying us morning, noon, and night, and torturing us for leave to go +and tell ‘em what was in store, before our plans were half complete, or +we had arranged a single thing. A treacherous dog!’ + +‘So he is, brother Charles,’ returned Ned; ‘Tim is a treacherous dog. +Tim is not to be trusted. Tim is a wild young fellow. He wants gravity +and steadiness; he must sow his wild oats, and then perhaps he’ll become +in time a respectable member of society.’ + +This being one of the standing jokes between the old fellows and Tim, +they all three laughed very heartily, and might have laughed much +longer, but that the brothers, seeing that Mrs. Nickleby was labouring to +express her feelings, and was really overwhelmed by the happiness of the +time, took her between them, and led her from the room under pretence of +having to consult her on some most important arrangements. + +Now, Tim and Miss La Creevy had met very often, and had always been +very chatty and pleasant together--had always been great friends--and +consequently it was the most natural thing in the world that Tim, +finding that she still sobbed, should endeavour to console her. As Miss +La Creevy sat on a large old-fashioned window-seat, where there was +ample room for two, it was also natural that Tim should sit down beside +her; and as to Tim’s being unusually spruce and particular in his attire +that day, why it was a high festival and a great occasion, and that was +the most natural thing of all. + +Tim sat down beside Miss La Creevy, and, crossing one leg over the other +so that his foot--he had very comely feet and happened to be wearing +the neatest shoes and black silk stockings possible--should come easily +within the range of her eye, said in a soothing way: + +‘Don’t cry!’ + +‘I must,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. + +‘No, don’t,’ said Tim. ‘Please don’t; pray don’t.’ + +‘I am so happy!’ sobbed the little woman. + +‘Then laugh,’ said Tim. ‘Do laugh.’ + +What in the world Tim was doing with his arm, it is impossible to +conjecture, but he knocked his elbow against that part of the window +which was quite on the other side of Miss La Creevy; and it is clear +that it could have no business there. + +‘Do laugh,’ said Tim, ‘or I’ll cry.’ + +‘Why should you cry?’ asked Miss La Creevy, smiling. + +‘Because I’m happy too,’ said Tim. ‘We are both happy, and I should like +to do as you do.’ + +Surely, there never was a man who fidgeted as Tim must have done then; +for he knocked the window again--almost in the same place--and Miss La +Creevy said she was sure he’d break it. + +‘I knew,’ said Tim, ‘that you would be pleased with this scene.’ + +‘It was very thoughtful and kind to remember me,’ returned Miss La +Creevy. ‘Nothing could have delighted me half so much.’ + +Why on earth should Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater have said all +this in a whisper? It was no secret. And why should Tim Linkinwater have +looked so hard at Miss La Creevy, and why should Miss La Creevy have +looked so hard at the ground? + +‘It’s a pleasant thing,’ said Tim, ‘to people like us, who have passed +all our lives in the world alone, to see young folks that we are fond +of, brought together with so many years of happiness before them.’ + +‘Ah!’ cried the little woman with all her heart, ‘that it is!’ + +‘Although,’ pursued Tim ‘although it makes one feel quite solitary and +cast away. Now don’t it?’ + +Miss La Creevy said she didn’t know. And why should she say she didn’t +know? Because she must have known whether it did or not. + +‘It’s almost enough to make us get married after all, isn’t it?’ said +Tim. + +‘Oh, nonsense!’ replied Miss La Creevy, laughing. ‘We are too old.’ + +‘Not a bit,’ said Tim; ‘we are too old to be single. Why shouldn’t we +both be married, instead of sitting through the long winter evenings by +our solitary firesides? Why shouldn’t we make one fireside of it, and +marry each other?’ + +‘Oh, Mr. Linkinwater, you’re joking!’ + +‘No, no, I’m not. I’m not indeed,’ said Tim. ‘I will, if you will. Do, +my dear!’ + +‘It would make people laugh so.’ + +‘Let ‘em laugh,’ cried Tim stoutly; ‘we have good tempers I know, and +we’ll laugh too. Why, what hearty laughs we have had since we’ve known +each other!’ + +‘So we have,’ cried Miss La Creevy--giving way a little, as Tim +thought. + +‘It has been the happiest time in all my life; at least, away from the +counting-house and Cheeryble Brothers,’ said Tim. ‘Do, my dear! Now say +you will.’ + +‘No, no, we mustn’t think of it,’ returned Miss La Creevy. ‘What would +the brothers say?’ + +‘Why, God bless your soul!’ cried Tim, innocently, ‘you don’t suppose I +should think of such a thing without their knowing it! Why they left us +here on purpose.’ + +‘I can never look ‘em in the face again!’ exclaimed Miss La Creevy, +faintly. + +‘Come,’ said Tim, ‘let’s be a comfortable couple. We shall live in the +old house here, where I have been for four-and-forty year; we shall go +to the old church, where I’ve been, every Sunday morning, all through +that time; we shall have all my old friends about us--Dick, the archway, +the pump, the flower-pots, and Mr. Frank’s children, and Mr. Nickleby’s +children, that we shall seem like grandfather and grandmother to. Let’s +be a comfortable couple, and take care of each other! And if we should +get deaf, or lame, or blind, or bed-ridden, how glad we shall be that we +have somebody we are fond of, always to talk to and sit with! Let’s be a +comfortable couple. Now, do, my dear!’ + +Five minutes after this honest and straightforward speech, little Miss +La Creevy and Tim were talking as pleasantly as if they had been married +for a score of years, and had never once quarrelled all the time; and +five minutes after that, when Miss La Creevy had bustled out to see if +her eyes were red and put her hair to rights, Tim moved with a stately +step towards the drawing-room, exclaiming as he went, ‘There an’t such +another woman in all London! I KNOW there an’t!’ + +By this time, the apoplectic butler was nearly in fits, in consequence +of the unheard-of postponement of dinner. Nicholas, who had been engaged +in a manner in which every reader may imagine for himself or herself, +was hurrying downstairs in obedience to his angry summons, when he +encountered a new surprise. + +On his way down, he overtook, in one of the passages, a stranger +genteelly dressed in black, who was also moving towards the dining-room. +As he was rather lame, and walked slowly, Nicholas lingered behind, and +was following him step by step, wondering who he was, when he suddenly +turned round and caught him by both hands. + +‘Newman Noggs!’ cried Nicholas joyfully + +‘Ah! Newman, your own Newman, your own old faithful Newman! My dear boy, +my dear Nick, I give you joy--health, happiness, every blessing! I can’t +bear it--it’s too much, my dear boy--it makes a child of me!’ + +‘Where have you been?’ said Nicholas. ‘What have you been doing? How +often have I inquired for you, and been told that I should hear before +long!’ + +‘I know, I know!’ returned Newman. ‘They wanted all the happiness to +come together. I’ve been helping ‘em. I--I--look at me, Nick, look at +me!’ + +‘You would never let ME do that,’ said Nicholas in a tone of gentle +reproach. + +‘I didn’t mind what I was, then. I shouldn’t have had the heart to put +on gentleman’s clothes. They would have reminded me of old times and +made me miserable. I am another man now, Nick. My dear boy, I can’t +speak. Don’t say anything to me. Don’t think the worse of me for these +tears. You don’t know what I feel today; you can’t, and never will!’ + +They walked in to dinner arm-in-arm, and sat down side by side. + +Never was such a dinner as that, since the world began. There was the +superannuated bank clerk, Tim Linkinwater’s friend; and there was +the chubby old lady, Tim Linkinwater’s sister; and there was so much +attention from Tim Linkinwater’s sister to Miss La Creevy, and +there were so many jokes from the superannuated bank clerk, and Tim +Linkinwater himself was in such tiptop spirits, and little Miss La +Creevy was in such a comical state, that of themselves they would +have composed the pleasantest party conceivable. Then, there was Mrs +Nickleby, so grand and complacent; Madeline and Kate, so blushing and +beautiful; Nicholas and Frank, so devoted and proud; and all four so +silently and tremblingly happy; there was Newman so subdued yet +so overjoyed, and there were the twin brothers so delighted and +interchanging such looks, that the old servant stood transfixed behind +his master’s chair, and felt his eyes grow dim as they wandered round +the table. + +When the first novelty of the meeting had worn off, and they began truly +to feel how happy they were, the conversation became more general, and +the harmony and pleasure if possible increased. The brothers were in a +perfect ecstasy; and their insisting on saluting the ladies all +round, before they would permit them to retire, gave occasion to the +superannuated bank clerk to say so many good things, that he quite +outshone himself, and was looked upon as a prodigy of humour. + +‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, taking her daughter aside, as soon +as they got upstairs, ‘you don’t really mean to tell me that this is +actually true about Miss La Creevy and Mr. Linkinwater?’ + +‘Indeed it is, mama.’ + +‘Why, I never heard such a thing in my life!’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby. + +‘Mr. Linkinwater is a most excellent creature,’ reasoned Kate, ‘and, for +his age, quite young still.’ + +‘For HIS age, my dear!’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘yes; nobody says +anything against him, except that I think he is the weakest and most +foolish man I ever knew. It’s HER age I speak of. That he should have +gone and offered himself to a woman who must be--ah, half as old again +as I am--and that she should have dared to accept him! It don’t signify, +Kate; I’m disgusted with her!’ + +Shaking her head very emphatically indeed, Mrs. Nickleby swept away; +and all the evening, in the midst of the merriment and enjoyment that +ensued, and in which with that exception she freely participated, +conducted herself towards Miss La Creevy in a stately and distant +manner, designed to mark her sense of the impropriety of her +conduct, and to signify her extreme and cutting disapprobation of the +misdemeanour she had so flagrantly committed. + + + +CHAPTER 64 + +An old Acquaintance is recognised under melancholy Circumstances, and +Dotheboys Hall breaks up for ever + + +Nicholas was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless it is shared +by the friends of adverse and less fortunate days. Surrounded by every +fascination of love and hope, his warm heart yearned towards plain +John Browdie. He remembered their first meeting with a smile, and their +second with a tear; saw poor Smike once again with the bundle on +his shoulder trudging patiently by his side; and heard the honest +Yorkshireman’s rough words of encouragement as he left them on their +road to London. + +Madeline and he sat down, very many times, jointly to produce a letter +which should acquaint John at full length with his altered fortunes, +and assure him of his friendship and gratitude. It so happened, however, +that the letter could never be written. Although they applied themselves +to it with the best intentions in the world, it chanced that they always +fell to talking about something else, and when Nicholas tried it by +himself, he found it impossible to write one-half of what he wished to +say, or to pen anything, indeed, which on reperusal did not appear cold +and unsatisfactory compared with what he had in his mind. At last, after +going on thus from day to day, and reproaching himself more and more, +he resolved (the more readily as Madeline strongly urged him) to make a +hasty trip into Yorkshire, and present himself before Mr. and Mrs. Browdie +without a word of notice. + +Thus it was that between seven and eight o’clock one evening, he and +Kate found themselves in the Saracen’s Head booking-office, securing +a place to Greta Bridge by the next morning’s coach. They had to go +westward, to procure some little necessaries for his journey, and, as it +was a fine night, they agreed to walk there, and ride home. + +The place they had just been in called up so many recollections, and +Kate had so many anecdotes of Madeline, and Nicholas so many anecdotes +of Frank, and each was so interested in what the other said, and both +were so happy and confiding, and had so much to talk about, that it was +not until they had plunged for a full half-hour into that labyrinth of +streets which lies between Seven Dials and Soho, without emerging into +any large thoroughfare, that Nicholas began to think it just possible +they might have lost their way. + +The possibility was soon converted into a certainty; for, on looking +about, and walking first to one end of the street and then to the other, +he could find no landmark he could recognise, and was fain to turn back +again in quest of some place at which he could seek a direction. + +It was a by-street, and there was nobody about, or in the few wretched +shops they passed. Making towards a faint gleam of light which streamed +across the pavement from a cellar, Nicholas was about to descend two or +three steps so as to render himself visible to those below and make his +inquiry, when he was arrested by a loud noise of scolding in a woman’s +voice. + +‘Oh come away!’ said Kate, ‘they are quarrelling. You’ll be hurt.’ + +‘Wait one instant, Kate. Let us hear if there’s anything the matter,’ +returned her brother. ‘Hush!’ + +‘You nasty, idle, vicious, good-for-nothing brute,’ cried the woman, +stamping on the ground, ‘why don’t you turn the mangle?’ + +‘So I am, my life and soul!’ replied the man’s voice. ‘I am always +turning. I am perpetually turning, like a demd old horse in a demnition +mill. My life is one demd horrid grind!’ + +‘Then why don’t you go and list for a soldier?’ retorted the woman; +‘you’re welcome to.’ + +‘For a soldier!’ cried the man. ‘For a soldier! Would his joy and +gladness see him in a coarse red coat with a little tail? Would she hear +of his being slapped and beat by drummers demnebly? Would she have him +fire off real guns, and have his hair cut, and his whiskers shaved, and +his eyes turned right and left, and his trousers pipeclayed?’ + +‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, ‘you don’t know who that is. It’s Mr +Mantalini I am confident.’ + +‘Do make sure! Peep at him while I ask the way,’ said Nicholas. ‘Come +down a step or two. Come!’ + +Drawing her after him, Nicholas crept down the steps and looked into +a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-baskets and clothes, +stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old patched +pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat, +and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous +dye--there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female--not +the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern--and +grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle, whose creaking +noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost to deafen +him--there was the graceful, elegant, fascinating, and once dashing +Mantalini. + +‘Oh you false traitor!’ cried the lady, threatening personal violence on +Mr. Mantalini’s face. + +‘False! Oh dem! Now my soul, my gentle, captivating, bewitching, and +most demnebly enslaving chick-a-biddy, be calm,’ said Mr. Mantalini, +humbly. + +‘I won’t!’ screamed the woman. ‘I’ll tear your eyes out!’ + +‘Oh! What a demd savage lamb!’ cried Mr. Mantalini. + +‘You’re never to be trusted,’ screamed the woman; ‘you were out all day +yesterday, and gallivanting somewhere I know. You know you were! Isn’t +it enough that I paid two pound fourteen for you, and took you out of +prison and let you live here like a gentleman, but must you go on like +this: breaking my heart besides?’ + +‘I will never break its heart, I will be a good boy, and never do so any +more; I will never be naughty again; I beg its little pardon,’ said +Mr. Mantalini, dropping the handle of the mangle, and folding his palms +together; ‘it is all up with its handsome friend! He has gone to the +demnition bow-wows. It will have pity? It will not scratch and claw, but +pet and comfort? Oh, demmit!’ + +Very little affected, to judge from her action, by this tender appeal, +the lady was on the point of returning some angry reply, when Nicholas, +raising his voice, asked his way to Piccadilly. + +Mr. Mantalini turned round, caught sight of Kate, and, without another +word, leapt at one bound into a bed which stood behind the door, and +drew the counterpane over his face: kicking meanwhile convulsively. + +‘Demmit,’ he cried, in a suffocating voice, ‘it’s little Nickleby! Shut +the door, put out the candle, turn me up in the bedstead! Oh, dem, dem, +dem!’ + +The woman looked, first at Nicholas, and then at Mr. Mantalini, as +if uncertain on whom to visit this extraordinary behaviour; but Mr +Mantalini happening by ill-luck to thrust his nose from under the +bedclothes, in his anxiety to ascertain whether the visitors were gone, +she suddenly, and with a dexterity which could only have been acquired +by long practice, flung a pretty heavy clothes-basket at him, with so +good an aim that he kicked more violently than before, though without +venturing to make any effort to disengage his head, which was quite +extinguished. Thinking this a favourable opportunity for departing +before any of the torrent of her wrath discharged itself upon him, +Nicholas hurried Kate off, and left the unfortunate subject of this +unexpected recognition to explain his conduct as he best could. + +The next morning he began his journey. It was now cold, winter weather: +forcibly recalling to his mind under what circumstances he had first +travelled that road, and how many vicissitudes and changes he had +since undergone. He was alone inside the greater part of the way, and +sometimes, when he had fallen into a doze, and, rousing himself, looked +out of the window, and recognised some place which he well remembered as +having passed, either on his journey down, or in the long walk back +with poor Smike, he could hardly believe but that all which had since +happened had been a dream, and that they were still plodding wearily on +towards London, with the world before them. + +To render these recollections the more vivid, it came on to snow as +night set in; and, passing through Stamford and Grantham, and by the +little alehouse where he had heard the story of the bold Baron of +Grogzwig, everything looked as if he had seen it but yesterday, and +not even a flake of the white crust on the roofs had melted away. +Encouraging the train of ideas which flocked upon him, he could almost +persuade himself that he sat again outside the coach, with Squeers and +the boys; that he heard their voices in the air; and that he felt again, +but with a mingled sensation of pain and pleasure now, that old sinking +of the heart, and longing after home. While he was yet yielding himself +up to these fancies he fell asleep, and, dreaming of Madeline, forgot +them. + +He slept at the inn at Greta Bridge on the night of his arrival, and, +rising at a very early hour next morning, walked to the market town, and +inquired for John Browdie’s house. John lived in the outskirts, now he +was a family man; and as everbody knew him, Nicholas had no difficulty +in finding a boy who undertook to guide him to his residence. + +Dismissing his guide at the gate, and in his impatience not even +stopping to admire the thriving look of cottage or garden either, +Nicholas made his way to the kitchen door, and knocked lustily with his +stick. + +‘Halloa!’ cried a voice inside. ‘Wa’et be the matther noo? Be the toon +a-fire? Ding, but thou mak’st noise eneaf!’ + +With these words, John Browdie opened the door himself, and opening his +eyes too to their utmost width, cried, as he clapped his hands together, +and burst into a hearty roar: + +‘Ecod, it be the godfeyther, it be the godfeyther! Tilly, here be +Misther Nickleby. Gi’ us thee hond, mun. Coom awa’, coom awa’. In wi +‘un, doon beside the fire; tak’ a soop o’ thot. Dinnot say a word till +thou’st droonk it a’! Oop wi’ it, mun. Ding! but I’m reeght glod to see +thee.’ + +Adapting his action to his text, John dragged Nicholas into the kitchen, +forced him down upon a huge settle beside a blazing fire, poured out +from an enormous bottle about a quarter of a pint of spirits, thrust it +into his hand, opened his mouth and threw back his head as a sign to +him to drink it instantly, and stood with a broad grin of welcome +overspreading his great red face like a jolly giant. + +‘I might ha’ knowa’d,’ said John, ‘that nobody but thou would ha’ +coom wi’ sike a knock as you. Thot was the wa’ thou knocked at +schoolmeasther’s door, eh? Ha, ha, ha! But I say; wa’at be a’ this aboot +schoolmeasther?’ + +‘You know it then?’ said Nicholas. + +‘They were talking aboot it, doon toon, last neeght,’ replied John, ‘but +neane on ‘em seemed quite to un’erstan’ it, loike.’ + +‘After various shiftings and delays,’ said Nicholas, ‘he has been +sentenced to be transported for seven years, for being in the unlawful +possession of a stolen will; and, after that, he has to suffer the +consequence of a conspiracy.’ + +‘Whew!’ cried John, ‘a conspiracy! Soom’at in the pooder-plot wa’? Eh? +Soom’at in the Guy Faux line?’ + +‘No, no, no, a conspiracy connected with his school; I’ll explain it +presently.’ + +‘Thot’s reeght!’ said John, ‘explain it arter breakfast, not noo, for +thou be’est hoongry, and so am I; and Tilly she mun’ be at the bottom o’ +a’ explanations, for she says thot’s the mutual confidence. Ha, ha, ha! +Ecod, it’s a room start, is the mutual confidence!’ + +The entrance of Mrs. Browdie, with a smart cap on, and very many +apologies for their having been detected in the act of breakfasting in +the kitchen, stopped John in his discussion of this grave subject, and +hastened the breakfast: which, being composed of vast mounds of toast, +new-laid eggs, boiled ham, Yorkshire pie, and other cold substantials +(of which heavy relays were constantly appearing from another kitchen +under the direction of a very plump servant), was admirably adapted +to the cold bleak morning, and received the utmost justice from all +parties. At last, it came to a close; and the fire which had been +lighted in the best parlour having by this time burnt up, they adjourned +thither, to hear what Nicholas had to tell. + +Nicholas told them all, and never was there a story which awakened so +many emotions in the breasts of two eager listeners. At one time, honest +John groaned in sympathy, and at another roared with joy; at one time +he vowed to go up to London on purpose to get a sight of the brothers +Cheeryble; and, at another, swore that Tim Linkinwater should receive +such a ham by coach, and carriage free, as mortal knife had never +carved. When Nicholas began to describe Madeline, he sat with his mouth +wide open, nudging Mrs. Browdie from time to time, and exclaiming under +his breath that she must be ‘raa’ther a tidy sart,’ and when he heard +at last that his young friend had come down purposely to communicate his +good fortune, and to convey to him all those assurances of friendship +which he could not state with sufficient warmth in writing--that the +only object of his journey was to share his happiness with them, and +to tell them that when he was married they must come up to see him, +and that Madeline insisted on it as well as he--John could hold out no +longer, but after looking indignantly at his wife, and demanding to +know what she was whimpering for, drew his coat sleeve over his eyes and +blubbered outright. + +‘Tell’ee wa’at though,’ said John seriously, when a great deal had been +said on both sides, ‘to return to schoolmeasther. If this news aboot ‘un +has reached school today, the old ‘ooman wean’t have a whole boan in her +boddy, nor Fanny neither.’ + +‘Oh, John!’ cried Mrs. Browdie. + +‘Ah! and Oh, John agean,’ replied the Yorkshireman. ‘I dinnot know what +they lads mightn’t do. When it first got aboot that schoolmeasther was +in trouble, some feythers and moothers sent and took their young chaps +awa’. If them as is left, should know waat’s coom tiv’un, there’ll be +sike a revolution and rebel!--Ding! But I think they’ll a’ gang daft, +and spill bluid like wather!’ + +In fact, John Browdie’s apprehensions were so strong that he determined +to ride over to the school without delay, and invited Nicholas to +accompany him, which, however, he declined, pleading that his presence +might perhaps aggravate the bitterness of their adversity. + +‘Thot’s true!’ said John; ‘I should ne’er ha’ thought o’ thot.’ + +‘I must return tomorrow,’ said Nicholas, ‘but I mean to dine with you +today, and if Mrs. Browdie can give me a bed--’ + +‘Bed!’ cried John, ‘I wish thou couldst sleep in fower beds at once. +Ecod, thou shouldst have ‘em a’. Bide till I coom back; on’y bide till I +coom back, and ecod we’ll make a day of it.’ + +Giving his wife a hearty kiss, and Nicholas a no less hearty shake of +the hand, John mounted his horse and rode off: leaving Mrs. Browdie to +apply herself to hospitable preparations, and his young friend to stroll +about the neighbourhood, and revisit spots which were rendered familiar +to him by many a miserable association. + +John cantered away, and arriving at Dotheboys Hall, tied his horse to a +gate and made his way to the schoolroom door, which he found locked on +the inside. A tremendous noise and riot arose from within, and, applying +his eye to a convenient crevice in the wall, he did not remain long in +ignorance of its meaning. + +The news of Mr. Squeers’s downfall had reached Dotheboys; that was quite +clear. To all appearance, it had very recently become known to the young +gentlemen; for the rebellion had just broken out. + +It was one of the brimstone-and-treacle mornings, and Mrs. Squeers +had entered school according to custom with the large bowl and spoon, +followed by Miss Squeers and the amiable Wackford: who, during his +father’s absence, had taken upon him such minor branches of the +executive as kicking the pupils with his nailed boots, pulling the hair +of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in aggravating places, +and rendering himself, in various similar ways, a great comfort and +happiness to his mother. Their entrance, whether by premeditation or +a simultaneous impulse, was the signal of revolt. While one detachment +rushed to the door and locked it, and another mounted on the desks and +forms, the stoutest (and consequently the newest) boy seized the cane, +and confronting Mrs. Squeers with a stern countenance, snatched off her +cap and beaver bonnet, put them on his own head, armed himself with the +wooden spoon, and bade her, on pain of death, go down upon her knees and +take a dose directly. Before that estimable lady could recover herself, +or offer the slightest retaliation, she was forced into a kneeling +posture by a crowd of shouting tormentors, and compelled to swallow a +spoonful of the odious mixture, rendered more than usually savoury by +the immersion in the bowl of Master Wackford’s head, whose ducking +was intrusted to another rebel. The success of this first achievement +prompted the malicious crowd, whose faces were clustered together in +every variety of lank and half-starved ugliness, to further acts of +outrage. The leader was insisting upon Mrs. Squeers repeating her dose, +Master Squeers was undergoing another dip in the treacle, and a violent +assault had been commenced on Miss Squeers, when John Browdie, bursting +open the door with a vigorous kick, rushed to the rescue. The shouts, +screams, groans, hoots, and clapping of hands, suddenly ceased, and a +dead silence ensued. + +‘Ye be noice chaps,’ said John, looking steadily round. ‘What’s to do +here, thou yoong dogs?’ + +‘Squeers is in prison, and we are going to run away!’ cried a score of +shrill voices. ‘We won’t stop, we won’t stop!’ + +‘Weel then, dinnot stop,’ replied John; ‘who waants thee to stop? Roon +awa’ loike men, but dinnot hurt the women.’ + +‘Hurrah!’ cried the shrill voices, more shrilly still. + +‘Hurrah?’ repeated John. ‘Weel, hurrah loike men too. Noo then, look +out. Hip--hip,--hip--hurrah!’ + +‘Hurrah!’ cried the voices. + +‘Hurrah! Agean;’ said John. ‘Looder still.’ + +The boys obeyed. + +‘Anoother!’ said John. ‘Dinnot be afeared on it. Let’s have a good ‘un!’ + +‘Hurrah!’ + +‘Noo then,’ said John, ‘let’s have yan more to end wi’, and then +coot off as quick as you loike. Tak’a good breath noo--Squeers be in +jail--the school’s brokken oop--it’s a’ ower--past and gane--think o’ +thot, and let it be a hearty ‘un! Hurrah!’ + +Such a cheer arose as the walls of Dotheboys Hall had never echoed +before, and were destined never to respond to again. When the sound had +died away, the school was empty; and of the busy noisy crowd which had +peopled it but five minutes before, not one remained. + +‘Very well, Mr. Browdie!’ said Miss Squeers, hot and flushed from the +recent encounter, but vixenish to the last; ‘you’ve been and excited our +boys to run away. Now see if we don’t pay you out for that, sir! If +my pa IS unfortunate and trod down by henemies, we’re not going to be +basely crowed and conquered over by you and ‘Tilda.’ + +‘Noa!’ replied John bluntly, ‘thou bean’t. Tak’ thy oath o’ thot. Think +betther o’ us, Fanny. I tell ‘ee both, that I’m glod the auld man has +been caught out at last--dom’d glod--but ye’ll sooffer eneaf wi’out any +crowin’ fra’ me, and I be not the mun to crow, nor be Tilly the lass, +so I tell ‘ee flat. More than thot, I tell ‘ee noo, that if thou need’st +friends to help thee awa’ from this place--dinnot turn up thy nose, +Fanny, thou may’st--thou’lt foind Tilly and I wi’ a thout o’ old times +aboot us, ready to lend thee a hond. And when I say thot, dinnot think +I be asheamed of waa’t I’ve deane, for I say again, Hurrah! and dom the +schoolmeasther. There!’ + +His parting words concluded, John Browdie strode heavily out, remounted +his nag, put him once more into a smart canter, and, carolling lustily +forth some fragments of an old song, to which the horse’s hoofs rang a +merry accompaniment, sped back to his pretty wife and to Nicholas. + +For some days afterwards, the neighbouring country was overrun with +boys, who, the report went, had been secretly furnished by Mr. and Mrs +Browdie, not only with a hearty meal of bread and meat, but with sundry +shillings and sixpences to help them on their way. To this rumour John +always returned a stout denial, which he accompanied, however, with a +lurking grin, that rendered the suspicious doubtful, and fully confirmed +all previous believers. + +There were a few timid young children, who, miserable as they had been, +and many as were the tears they had shed in the wretched school, still +knew no other home, and had formed for it a sort of attachment, which +made them weep when the bolder spirits fled, and cling to it as a +refuge. Of these, some were found crying under hedges and in such +places, frightened at the solitude. One had a dead bird in a little +cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and when his poor favourite +died, lost courage, and lay down beside him. Another was discovered in a +yard hard by the school, sleeping with a dog, who bit at those who came +to remove him, and licked the sleeping child’s pale face. + +They were taken back, and some other stragglers were recovered, but +by degrees they were claimed, or lost again; and, in course of time, +Dotheboys Hall and its last breaking-up began to be forgotten by the +neighbours, or to be only spoken of as among the things that had been. + + + +CHAPTER 65 + +Conclusion + + +When her term of mourning had expired, Madeline gave her hand and +fortune to Nicholas; and, on the same day and at the same time, Kate +became Mrs. Frank Cheeryble. It was expected that Tim Linkinwater and +Miss La Creevy would have made a third couple on the occasion, but +they declined, and two or three weeks afterwards went out together one +morning before breakfast, and, coming back with merry faces, were found +to have been quietly married that day. + +The money which Nicholas acquired in right of his wife he invested in +the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had become a partner. +Before many years elapsed, the business began to be carried on in the +names of ‘Cheeryble and Nickleby,’ so that Mrs. Nickleby’s prophetic +anticipations were realised at last. + +The twin brothers retired. Who needs to be told that THEY were happy? +They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and lived but +to increase it. + +Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreaty and brow-beating, to +accept a share in the house; but he could never be prevailed upon to +suffer the publication of his name as a partner, and always persisted in +the punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly duties. + +He and his wife lived in the old house, and occupied the very bedchamber +in which he had slept for four-and-forty years. As his wife grew older, +she became even a more cheerful and light-hearted little creature; and +it was a common saying among their friends, that it was impossible +to say which looked the happier, Tim as he sat calmly smiling in his +elbow-chair on one side of the fire, or his brisk little wife chatting +and laughing, and constantly bustling in and out of hers, on the other. + +Dick, the blackbird, was removed from the counting-house and promoted +to a warm corner in the common sitting-room. Beneath his cage hung two +miniatures, of Mrs. Linkinwater’s execution; one representing herself, +and the other Tim; and both smiling very hard at all beholders. Tim’s +head being powdered like a twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied with +great nicety, strangers detected a close resemblance to him at the first +glance, and this leading them to suspect that the other must be his +wife, and emboldening them to say so without scruple, Mrs. Linkinwater +grew very proud of these achievements in time, and considered them +among the most successful likenesses she had ever painted. Tim had +the profoundest faith in them, likewise; for on this, as on all +other subjects, they held but one opinion; and if ever there were a +‘comfortable couple’ in the world, it was Mr. and Mrs. Linkinwater. + +Ralph, having died intestate, and having no relations but those with +whom he had lived in such enmity, they would have become in legal course +his heirs. But they could not bear the thought of growing rich on money +so acquired, and felt as though they could never hope to prosper with +it. They made no claim to his wealth; and the riches for which he had +toiled all his days, and burdened his soul with so many evil deeds, were +swept at last into the coffers of the state, and no man was the better +or the happier for them. + +Arthur Gride was tried for the unlawful possession of the will, which +he had either procured to be stolen, or had dishonestly acquired and +retained by other means as bad. By dint of an ingenious counsel, and +a legal flaw, he escaped; but only to undergo a worse punishment; +for, some years afterwards, his house was broken open in the night by +robbers, tempted by the rumours of his great wealth, and he was found +murdered in his bed. + +Mrs. Sliderskew went beyond the seas at nearly the same time as Mr +Squeers, and in the course of nature never returned. Brooker died +penitent. Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for some years, courted and +caressed, and in high repute as a fine dashing fellow. Ultimately, +returning to this country, he was thrown into jail for debt, and there +perished miserably, as such high spirits generally do. + +The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperous +merchant, was to buy his father’s old house. As time crept on, and there +came gradually about him a group of lovely children, it was altered and +enlarged; but none of the old rooms were ever pulled down, no old tree +was ever rooted up, nothing with which there was any association of +bygone times was ever removed or changed. + +Within a stone’s throw was another retreat, enlivened by children’s +pleasant voices too; and here was Kate, with many new cares and +occupations, and many new faces courting her sweet smile (and one so +like her own, that to her mother she seemed a child again), the same +true gentle creature, the same fond sister, the same in the love of all +about her, as in her girlish days. + +Mrs. Nickleby lived, sometimes with her daughter, and sometimes with her +son, accompanying one or other of them to London at those periods when +the cares of business obliged both families to reside there, and always +preserving a great appearance of dignity, and relating her experiences +(especially on points connected with the management and bringing-up of +children) with much solemnity and importance. It was a very long time +before she could be induced to receive Mrs. Linkinwater into favour, and +it is even doubtful whether she ever thoroughly forgave her. + +There was one grey-haired, quiet, harmless gentleman, who, winter and +summer, lived in a little cottage hard by Nicholas’s house, and, when +he was not there, assumed the superintendence of affairs. His chief +pleasure and delight was in the children, with whom he was a child +himself, and master of the revels. The little people could do nothing +without dear Newman Noggs. + +The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave, and trodden by feet +so small and light, that not a daisy drooped its head beneath their +pressure. Through all the spring and summertime, garlands of fresh +flowers, wreathed by infant hands, rested on the stone; and, when the +children came to change them lest they should wither and be pleasant +to him no longer, their eyes filled with tears, and they spoke low and +softly of their poor dead cousin. + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICHOLAS NICKLEBY *** + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas +Nickleby, by Charles Dickens + + +***** This file should be named 967-0.txt or 967-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/967/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Oliver_Twist.txt b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Oliver_Twist.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b01e929 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/Oliver_Twist.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19184 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Oliver Twist + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: November, 1996 [eBook #730] +[Most recently updated: January 27, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Peggy Gaugy and Leigh Little. HTML version by Al Haines + + +Oliver Twist + +OR +THE PARISH BOY’S PROGRESS + +by Charles Dickens + + +Contents + +I TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE + CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH +II TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST’S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD +III RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH + WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE +IV OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY + INTO PUBLIC LIFE +V OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE + FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER’S + BUSINESS +VI OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO + ACTION, AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM +VII OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY +VIII OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE + SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN +IX CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD + GENTLEMAN, AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS +X OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS + NEW ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. + BEING A SHORT, BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER, IN THIS HISTORY +XI TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A + SLIGHT SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE +XII IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS + BEFORE. AND IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD + GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS. +XIII SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT + READER, CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE + RELATED, APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY +XIV COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER’S STAY AT MR. + BROWNLOW’S, WITH THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. + GRIMWIG UTTERED CONCERNING HIM, WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND +XV SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND + MISS NANCY WERE +XVI RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED + BY NANCY +XVII OLIVER’S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN + TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION +XVIII HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS + REPUTABLE FRIENDS +XIX IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON +XX WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES +XXI THE EXPEDITION +XXII THE BURGLARY +XXIII WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION + BETWEEN MR. BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE + MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS +XXIV TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE + FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY +XXV WHEREIN THIS HISTORY REVERTS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY +XXVI IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND + MANY THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND + PERFORMED +XXVII ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH + DESERTED A LADY, MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY +XXVIII LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES +XXIX HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE, TO + WHICH OLIVER RESORTED +XXX RELATES WHAT OLIVER’S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM +XXXI INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION +XXXII OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS +XXXIII WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A + SUDDEN CHECK +XXXIV CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG + GENTLEMAN WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE + WHICH HAPPENED TO OLIVER +XXXV CONTAINING THE UNSATISFACTORY RESULT OF OLIVER’S ADVENTURE; + AND A CONVERSATION OF SOME IMPORTANCE BETWEEN HARRY MAYLIE AND + ROSE +XXXVI IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN + ITS PLACE, BUT IT SHOULD BE READ NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL + TO THE LAST, AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME + ARRIVES +XXXVII IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN + MATRIMONIAL CASES +XXXVIII CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. + BUMBLE, AND MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW +XXXIX INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS + ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR + WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER +XL A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAMBER +XLI CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE + MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE +XLII AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER’S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF + GENIUS, BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS +XLIII WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE +XLIV THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE + MAYLIE. SHE FAILS. +XLV NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION +XLVI THE APPOINTMENT KEPT +XLVII FATAL CONSEQUENCES +XLVIII THE FLIGHT OF SIKES +XLIX MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND + THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT +L THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE +LI AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND + COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF + SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY +LII FAGIN’S LAST NIGHT ALIVE +LIII AND LAST + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLIVER TWIST *** + + CHAPTER I. +TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE +CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH + + +Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons +it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will +assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, +great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on +a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as +it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of +the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is +prefixed to the head of this chapter. + +For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and +trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable +doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which +case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never +have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of +pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the +most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the +literature of any age or country. + +Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a +workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance +that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this +particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could +by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable +difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of +respiration,—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered +necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a +little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and +the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now, if, +during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful +grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of +profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been +killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old +woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; +and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and +Nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after a +few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to +the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been +imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could +reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been +possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer +space of time than three minutes and a quarter. + +As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his +lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron +bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly +from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, +“Let me see the child, and die.” + +The surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: +giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. As the +young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed’s head, said, with +more kindness than might have been expected of him: + +“Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.” + +“Lor bless her dear heart, no!” interposed the nurse, hastily +depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which +she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction. + +“Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have, sir, +and had thirteen children of her own, and all on ’em dead except two, +and them in the wurkus with me, she’ll know better than to take on in +that way, bless her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother, +there’s a dear young lamb do.” + +Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother’s prospects failed +in producing its due effect. The patient shook her head, and stretched +out her hand towards the child. + +The surgeon deposited it in her arms. She imprinted her cold white lips +passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed +wildly round; shuddered; fell back—and died. They chafed her breast, +hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. They talked of +hope and comfort. They had been strangers too long. + +“It’s all over, Mrs. Thingummy!” said the surgeon at last. + +“Ah, poor dear, so it is!” said the nurse, picking up the cork of the +green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to +take up the child. “Poor dear!” + +“You needn’t mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,” said +the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation. “It’s very +likely it _will_ be troublesome. Give it a little gruel if it is.” He +put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, +added, “She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?” + +“She was brought here last night,” replied the old woman, “by the +overseer’s order. She was found lying in the street. She had walked +some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came +from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.” + +The surgeon leaned over the body, and raised the left hand. “The old +story,” he said, shaking his head: “no wedding-ring, I see. Ah! +Good-night!” + +The medical gentleman walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once +more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair +before the fire, and proceeded to dress the infant. + +What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist +was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only +covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it +would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him +his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the old +calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged +and ticketed, and fell into his place at once—a parish child—the orphan +of a workhouse—the humble, half-starved drudge—to be cuffed and +buffeted through the world—despised by all, and pitied by none. + +Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, +left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he +would have cried the louder. + + + + + CHAPTER II. +TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST’S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD + + +For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic +course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The +hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported +by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish +authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether +there was no female then domiciled in “the house” who was in a +situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of +which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with +humility, that there was not. Upon this, the parish authorities +magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be “farmed,” +or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse +some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders +against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the +inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental +superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and +for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week. +Sevenpence-halfpenny’s worth per week is a good round diet for a child; +a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to +overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was +a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; +and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. +So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own +use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter +allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the +lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great +experimental philosopher. + +Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a +great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who +demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw +a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and +rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, +four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable +bait of air. Unfortunately for the experimental philosophy of the +female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a +similar result usually attended the operation of _her_ system; for at +the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest +possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen +in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want +and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by +accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was +usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers +it had never known in this. + +Occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting inquest +upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up a bedstead, +or inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a +washing—though the latter accident was very scarce, anything +approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm—the jury +would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the +parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a +remonstrance. But these impertinences were speedily checked by the +evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of +whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was +very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever +the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional. Besides, the board +made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the +day before, to say they were going. The children were neat and clean to +behold, when _they_ went; and what more would the people have! + +It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any +very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. Oliver Twist’s ninth birthday +found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and +decidedly small in circumference. But nature or inheritance had +implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver’s breast. It had had plenty of +room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and +perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth +birth-day at all. Be this as it may, however, it was his ninth +birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal-cellar with a select party +of two other young gentleman, who, after participating with him in a +sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be +hungry, when Mrs. Mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly +startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble, the beadle, striving to undo +the wicket of the garden-gate. + +“Goodness gracious! Is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?” said Mrs. Mann, +thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy. +“(Susan, take Oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash ’em +directly.)—My heart alive! Mr. Bumble, how glad I am to see you, +sure-ly!” + +Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of +responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit, he gave +the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon it a kick +which could have emanated from no leg but a beadle’s. + +“Lor, only think,” said Mrs. Mann, running out,—for the three boys had +been removed by this time,—“only think of that! That I should have +forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on account of them +dear children! Walk in sir; walk in, pray, Mr. Bumble, do, sir.” + +Although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that might have +softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means mollified the +beadle. + +“Do you think this respectful or proper conduct, Mrs. Mann,” inquired +Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane, “to keep the parish officers a waiting +at your garden-gate, when they come here upon porochial business with +the porochial orphans? Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I may +say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?” + +“I’m sure Mr. Bumble, that I was only a telling one or two of the dear +children as is so fond of you, that it was you a coming,” replied Mrs. +Mann with great humility. + +Mr. Bumble had a great idea of his oratorical powers and his +importance. He had displayed the one, and vindicated the other. He +relaxed. + +“Well, well, Mrs. Mann,” he replied in a calmer tone; “it may be as you +say; it may be. Lead the way in, Mrs. Mann, for I come on business, and +have something to say.” + +Mrs. Mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor; +placed a seat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and +cane on the table before him. Mr. Bumble wiped from his forehead the +perspiration which his walk had engendered, glanced complacently at the +cocked hat, and smiled. Yes, he smiled. Beadles are but men: and Mr. +Bumble smiled. + +“Now don’t you be offended at what I’m a going to say,” observed Mrs. +Mann, with captivating sweetness. “You’ve had a long walk, you know, or +I wouldn’t mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, +Mr. Bumble?” + +“Not a drop. Nor a drop,” said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a +dignified, but placid manner. + +“I think you will,” said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the +refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. “Just a leetle drop, +with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.” + +Mr. Bumble coughed. + +“Now, just a leetle drop,” said Mrs. Mann persuasively. + +“What is it?” inquired the beadle. + +“Why, it’s what I’m obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put +into the blessed infants’ Daffy, when they ain’t well, Mr. Bumble,” +replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a +bottle and glass. “It’s gin. I’ll not deceive you, Mr. B. It’s gin.” + +“Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?” inquired Bumble, following +with his eyes the interesting process of mixing. + +“Ah, bless ’em, that I do, dear as it is,” replied the nurse. “I +couldn’t see ’em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.” + +“No”; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; “no, you could not. You are a humane +woman, Mrs. Mann.” (Here she set down the glass.) “I shall take a early +opportunity of mentioning it to the board, Mrs. Mann.” (He drew it +towards him.) “You feel as a mother, Mrs. Mann.” (He stirred the +gin-and-water.) “I—I drink your health with cheerfulness, Mrs. Mann”; +and he swallowed half of it. + +“And now about business,” said the beadle, taking out a leathern +pocket-book. “The child that was half-baptized Oliver Twist, is nine +year old to-day.” + +“Bless him!” interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming her left eye with the +corner of her apron. + +“And notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was +afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most +superlative, and, I may say, supernat’ral exertions on the part of this +parish,” said Bumble, “we have never been able to discover who is his +father, or what was his mother’s settlement, name, or condition.” + +Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment; but added, after a moment’s +reflection, “How comes he to have any name at all, then?” + +The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, “I inwented it.” + +“You, Mr. Bumble!” + +“I, Mrs. Mann. We name our fondlings in alphabetical order. The last +was a S,—Swubble, I named him. This was a T,—Twist, I named _him_. The +next one comes will be Unwin, and the next Vilkins. I have got names +ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it +again, when we come to Z.” + +“Why, you’re quite a literary character, sir!” said Mrs. Mann. + +“Well, well,” said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment; +“perhaps I may be. Perhaps I may be, Mrs. Mann.” He finished the +gin-and-water, and added, “Oliver being now too old to remain here, the +board have determined to have him back into the house. I have come out +myself to take him there. So let me see him at once.” + +“I’ll fetch him directly,” said Mrs. Mann, leaving the room for that +purpose. Oliver, having had by this time as much of the outer coat of +dirt which encrusted his face and hands, removed, as could be scrubbed +off in one washing, was led into the room by his benevolent +protectress. + +“Make a bow to the gentleman, Oliver,” said Mrs. Mann. + +Oliver made a bow, which was divided between the beadle on the chair, +and the cocked hat on the table. + +“Will you go along with me, Oliver?” said Mr. Bumble, in a majestic +voice. + +Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great +readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of Mrs. Mann, who had +got behind the beadle’s chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a +furious countenance. He took the hint at once, for the fist had been +too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his +recollection. + +“Will she go with me?” inquired poor Oliver. + +“No, she can’t,” replied Mr. Bumble. “But she’ll come and see you +sometimes.” + +This was no very great consolation to the child. Young as he was, +however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at +going away. It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears +into his eyes. Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you +want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally indeed. Mrs. Mann gave him +a thousand embraces, and what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece +of bread and butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got to the +workhouse. With the slice of bread in his hand, and the little +brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by Mr. +Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never +lighted the gloom of his infant years. And yet he burst into an agony +of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him. Wretched as +were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were +the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness in +the great wide world, sank into the child’s heart for the first time. + +Mr. Bumble walked on with long strides; little Oliver, firmly grasping +his gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every +quarter of a mile whether they were “nearly there.” To these +interrogations Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for +the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had +by this time evaporated; and he was once again a beadle. + +Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an +hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of +bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old +woman, returned; and, telling him it was a board night, informed him +that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith. + +Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, +Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite +certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think about +the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with +his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively: +and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large white-washed +room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table. At +the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the +rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face. + +“Bow to the board,” said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears +that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, +fortunately bowed to that. + +“What’s your name, boy?” said the gentleman in the high chair. + +Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him +tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him +cry. These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating +voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. +Which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him quite +at his ease. + +“Boy,” said the gentleman in the high chair, “listen to me. You know +you’re an orphan, I suppose?” + +“What’s that, sir?” inquired poor Oliver. + +“The boy _is_ a fool—I thought he was,” said the gentleman in the white +waistcoat. + +“Hush!” said the gentleman who had spoken first. “You know you’ve got +no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don’t +you?” + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, weeping bitterly. + +“What are you crying for?” inquired the gentleman in the white +waistcoat. And to be sure it was very extraordinary. What _could_ the +boy be crying for? + +“I hope you say your prayers every night,” said another gentleman in a +gruff voice; “and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of +you—like a Christian.” + +“Yes, sir,” stammered the boy. The gentleman who spoke last was +unconsciously right. It would have been very like a Christian, and a +marvellously good Christian too, if Oliver had prayed for the people +who fed and took care of _him_. But he hadn’t, because nobody had +taught him. + +“Well! You have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,” +said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair. + +“So you’ll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o’clock,” added +the surly one in the white waistcoat. + +For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process +of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and +was then hurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he +sobbed himself to sleep. What a novel illustration of the tender laws +of England! They let the paupers go to sleep! + +Poor Oliver! He little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy +unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very day +arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence +over all his future fortunes. But they had. And this was it: + +The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and +when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out +at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor +people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the +poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public +breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and +mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. “Oho!” said the +board, looking very knowing; “we are the fellows to set this to rights; +we’ll stop it all, in no time.” So, they established the rule, that all +poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, +not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a +quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the +water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a +corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and +issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and +half a roll of Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane +regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary +to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in +consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors’ Commons; and, +instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had +theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a +bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under +these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, +if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were +long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was +inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened +people. + +For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was +in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in consequence of +the increase in the undertaker’s bill, and the necessity of taking in +the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their +wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two’s gruel. But the number of +workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were +in ecstasies. + +The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a +copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the +purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at +mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and +no more—except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two +ounces and a quarter of bread besides. + +The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their +spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this +operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large +as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager +eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was +composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers +most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of +gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent +appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of +slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and +wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn’t +been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small +cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another +basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to +eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of +tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed +him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the +master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to +Oliver Twist. + +The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his +cook’s uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants +ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long +grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys +whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors +nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless +with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin +and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: + +“Please, sir, I want some more.” + +The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in +stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then +clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with +wonder; the boys with fear. + +“What!” said the master at length, in a faint voice. + +“Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “I want some more.” + +The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him +in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. + +The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into +the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high +chair, said, + +“Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for +more!” + +There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance. + +“For _more_!” said Mr. Limbkins. “Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer +me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had +eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?” + +“He did, sir,” replied Bumble. + +“That boy will be hung,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. “I +know that boy will be hung.” + +Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman’s opinion. An animated +discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and +a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a +reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the +hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were +offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, +business, or calling. + +“I never was more convinced of anything in my life,” said the gentleman +in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill +next morning: “I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than +I am that that boy will come to be hung.” + +As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated +gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this +narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint +just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination +or no. + + + + + CHAPTER III. +RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH WOULD NOT +HAVE BEEN A SINECURE + + +For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of +asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and +solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of +the board. It appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose, +that, if he had entertained a becoming feeling of respect for the +prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have +established that sage individual’s prophetic character, once and for +ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the +wall, and attaching himself to the other. To the performance of this +feat, however, there was one obstacle: namely, that +pocket-handkerchiefs being decided articles of luxury, had been, for +all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the +express order of the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and +pronounced under their hands and seals. There was a still greater +obstacle in Oliver’s youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly all +day; and, when the long, dismal night came on, spread his little hands +before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, +tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and tremble, and +drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even its +cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which +surrounded him. + +Let it not be supposed by the enemies of “the system,” that, during the +period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied the benefit of +exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious +consolation. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was +allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a +stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching +cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated +applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other +day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a +public warning and example. And so far from being denied the advantages +of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every +evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console +his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special +clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they +entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be +guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist: whom the supplication +distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection +of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory +of the very Devil himself. + +It chanced one morning, while Oliver’s affairs were in this auspicious +and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way +down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means +of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become +rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield’s most sanguine estimate of his finances +could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; +and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately +cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his +eyes encountered the bill on the gate. + +“Wo—o!” said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey. + +The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, +whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when +he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was +laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward. + +Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but +more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow +on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a +donkey’s. Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp +wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and +by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the +head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these +arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill. + +The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with +his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound +sentiments in the board-room. Having witnessed the little dispute +between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that +person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that Mr. Gamfield +was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield +smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five pounds was just the +sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was +encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse +was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing +for register stoves. So, he spelt the bill through again, from +beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, +accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat. + +“This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to ’prentis,” said Mr. +Gamfield. + +“Ay, my man,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a +condescending smile. “What of him?” + +“If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a +good ’spectable chimbley-sweepin’ bisness,” said Mr. Gamfield, “I wants +a ’prentis, and I am ready to take him.” + +“Walk in,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. Mr. Gamfield +having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, +and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his +absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room +where Oliver had first seen him. + +“It’s a nasty trade,” said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated +his wish. + +“Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,” said another +gentleman. + +“That’s acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley +to make ’em come down again,” said Gamfield; “that’s all smoke, and no +blaze; vereas smoke ain’t o’ no use at all in making a boy come down, +for it only sinds him to sleep, and that’s wot he likes. Boys is wery +obstinit, and wery lazy, Gen’l’men, and there’s nothink like a good hot +blaze to make ’em come down vith a run. It’s humane too, gen’l’men, +acause, even if they’ve stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet +makes ’em struggle to hextricate theirselves.” + +The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this +explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from Mr. +Limbkins. The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a +few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words “saving of +expenditure,” “looked well in the accounts,” “have a printed report +published,” were alone audible. These only chanced to be heard, indeed, +or account of their being very frequently repeated with great emphasis. + +At length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having +resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said: + +“We have considered your proposition, and we don’t approve of it.” + +“Not at all,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. + +“Decidedly not,” added the other members. + +As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of +having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him +that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into +their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their +proceedings. It was very unlike their general mode of doing business, +if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the +rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the +table. + +“So you won’t let me have him, gen’l’men?” said Mr. Gamfield, pausing +near the door. + +“No,” replied Mr. Limbkins; “at least, as it’s a nasty business, we +think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered.” + +Mr. Gamfield’s countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he +returned to the table, and said, + +“What’ll you give, gen’l’men? Come! Don’t be too hard on a poor man. +What’ll you give?” + +“I should say, three pound ten was plenty,” said Mr. Limbkins. + +“Ten shillings too much,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. + +“Come!” said Gamfield; “say four pound, gen’l’men. Say four pound, and +you’ve got rid of him for good and all. There!” + +“Three pound ten,” repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly. + +“Come! I’ll split the diff’erence, gen’l’men,” urged Gamfield. “Three +pound fifteen.” + +“Not a farthing more,” was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins. + +“You’re desperate hard upon me, gen’l’men,” said Gamfield, wavering. + +“Pooh! pooh! nonsense!” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. +“He’d be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium. Take him, you silly +fellow! He’s just the boy for you. He wants the stick, now and then: +it’ll do him good; and his board needn’t come very expensive, for he +hasn’t been overfed since he was born. Ha! ha! ha!” + +Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, +observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself. +The bargain was made. Mr. Bumble, was at once instructed that Oliver +Twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for +signature and approval, that very afternoon. + +In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessive +astonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself +into a clean shirt. He had hardly achieved this very unusual gymnastic +performance, when Mr. Bumble brought him, with his own hands, a basin +of gruel, and the holiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of +bread. At this tremendous sight, Oliver began to cry very piteously: +thinking, not unnaturally, that the board must have determined to kill +him for some useful purpose, or they never would have begun to fatten +him up in that way. + +“Don’t make your eyes red, Oliver, but eat your food and be thankful,” +said Mr. Bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity. “You’re a going to +be made a ’prentice of, Oliver.” + +“A prentice, sir!” said the child, trembling. + +“Yes, Oliver,” said Mr. Bumble. “The kind and blessed gentleman which +is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have none of your own: are +a going to “prentice” you: and to set you up in life, and make a man of +you: although the expense to the parish is three pound ten!—three pound +ten, Oliver!—seventy shillins—one hundred and forty sixpences!—and all +for a naughty orphan which nobody can’t love.” + +As Mr. Bumble paused to take breath, after delivering this address in +an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child’s face, and he +sobbed bitterly. + +“Come,” said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying +to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; +“Come, Oliver! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don’t +cry into your gruel; that’s a very foolish action, Oliver.” It +certainly was, for there was quite enough water in it already. + +On their way to the magistrate, Mr. Bumble instructed Oliver that all +he would have to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the +gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like +it very much indeed; both of which injunctions Oliver promised to obey: +the rather as Mr. Bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in +either particular, there was no telling what would be done to him. When +they arrived at the office, he was shut up in a little room by himself, +and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there, until he came back to fetch +him. + +There the boy remained, with a palpitating heart, for half an hour. At +the expiration of which time Mr. Bumble thrust in his head, unadorned +with the cocked hat, and said aloud: + +“Now, Oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman.” As Mr. Bumble said this, +he put on a grim and threatening look, and added, in a low voice, “Mind +what I told you, you young rascal!” + +Oliver stared innocently in Mr. Bumble’s face at this somewhat +contradictory style of address; but that gentleman prevented his +offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once into an adjoining +room: the door of which was open. It was a large room, with a great +window. Behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one +of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with +the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of +parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of +the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, +on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were +lounging about. + +The old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off, over the +little bit of parchment; and there was a short pause, after Oliver had +been stationed by Mr. Bumble in front of the desk. + +“This is the boy, your worship,” said Mr. Bumble. + +The old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised his head for a +moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by the sleeve; whereupon, +the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up. + +“Oh, is this the boy?” said the old gentleman. + +“This is him, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble. “Bow to the magistrate, my +dear.” + +Oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance. He had been +wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates’ powder, whether all +boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards +from thenceforth on that account. + +“Well,” said the old gentleman, “I suppose he’s fond of +chimney-sweeping?” + +“He doats on it, your worship,” replied Bumble; giving Oliver a sly +pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn’t. + +“And he _will_ be a sweep, will he?” inquired the old gentleman. + +“If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he’d run away +simultaneous, your worship,” replied Bumble. + +“And this man that’s to be his master—you, sir—you’ll treat him well, +and feed him, and do all that sort of thing, will you?” said the old +gentleman. + +“When I says I will, I means I will,” replied Mr. Gamfield doggedly. + +“You’re a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest, +open-hearted man,” said the old gentleman: turning his spectacles in +the direction of the candidate for Oliver’s premium, whose villainous +countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty. But the +magistrate was half blind and half childish, so he couldn’t reasonably +be expected to discern what other people did. + +“I hope I am, sir,” said Mr. Gamfield, with an ugly leer. + +“I have no doubt you are, my friend,” replied the old gentleman: fixing +his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking about him for the +inkstand. + +It was the critical moment of Oliver’s fate. If the inkstand had been +where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen +into it, and signed the indentures, and Oliver would have been +straightway hurried off. But, as it chanced to be immediately under his +nose, it followed, as a matter of course, that he looked all over his +desk for it, without finding it; and happening in the course of his +search to look straight before him, his gaze encountered the pale and +terrified face of Oliver Twist: who, despite all the admonitory looks +and pinches of Bumble, was regarding the repulsive countenance of his +future master, with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too +palpable to be mistaken, even by a half-blind magistrate. + +The old gentleman stopped, laid down his pen, and looked from Oliver to +Mr. Limbkins; who attempted to take snuff with a cheerful and +unconcerned aspect. + +“My boy!” said the old gentleman, “you look pale and alarmed. What is +the matter?” + +“Stand a little away from him, Beadle,” said the other magistrate: +laying aside the paper, and leaning forward with an expression of +interest. “Now, boy, tell us what’s the matter: don’t be afraid.” + +Oliver fell on his knees, and clasping his hands together, prayed that +they would order him back to the dark room—that they would starve +him—beat him—kill him if they pleased—rather than send him away with +that dreadful man. + +“Well!” said Mr. Bumble, raising his hands and eyes with most +impressive solemnity. “Well! of all the artful and designing orphans +that ever I see, Oliver, you are one of the most bare-facedest.” + +“Hold your tongue, Beadle,” said the second old gentleman, when Mr. +Bumble had given vent to this compound adjective. + +“I beg your worship’s pardon,” said Mr. Bumble, incredulous of having +heard aright. “Did your worship speak to me?” + +“Yes. Hold your tongue.” + +Mr. Bumble was stupefied with astonishment. A beadle ordered to hold +his tongue! A moral revolution! + +The old gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles looked at his +companion, he nodded significantly. + +“We refuse to sanction these indentures,” said the old gentleman: +tossing aside the piece of parchment as he spoke. + +“I hope,” stammered Mr. Limbkins: “I hope the magistrates will not form +the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper +conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.” + +“The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the +matter,” said the second old gentleman sharply. “Take the boy back to +the workhouse, and treat him kindly. He seems to want it.” + +That same evening, the gentleman in the white waistcoat most positively +and decidedly affirmed, not only that Oliver would be hung, but that he +would be drawn and quartered into the bargain. Mr. Bumble shook his +head with gloomy mystery, and said he wished he might come to good; +whereunto Mr. Gamfield replied, that he wished he might come to him; +which, although he agreed with the beadle in most matters, would seem +to be a wish of a totally opposite description. + +The next morning, the public were once informed that Oliver Twist was +again To Let, and that five pounds would be paid to anybody who would +take possession of him. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. +OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PUBLIC +LIFE + + +In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, +either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the +young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to +sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took +counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in +some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This +suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done +with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to +death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his +brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty +generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman +of that class. The more the case presented itself to the board, in this +point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; +so, they came to the conclusion that the only way of providing for +Oliver effectually, was to send him to sea without delay. + +Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries, +with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a +cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to +communicate the result of his mission; when he encountered at the gate, +no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker. + +Mr. Sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit +of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, +and shoes to answer. His features were not naturally intended to wear a +smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional +jocosity. His step was elastic, and his face betokened inward +pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble, and shook him cordially by +the hand. + +“I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr. +Bumble,” said the undertaker. + +“You’ll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,” said the beadle, as he +thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the +undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. “I +say you’ll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,” repeated Mr. Bumble, +tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his +cane. + +“Think so?” said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half +disputed the probability of the event. “The prices allowed by the board +are very small, Mr. Bumble.” + +“So are the coffins,” replied the beadle: with precisely as near an +approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in. + +Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; +and laughed a long time without cessation. “Well, well, Mr. Bumble,” he +said at length, “there’s no denying that, since the new system of +feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more +shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble. +Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron +handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.” + +“Well, well,” said Mr. Bumble, “every trade has its drawbacks. A fair +profit is, of course, allowable.” + +“Of course, of course,” replied the undertaker; “and if I don’t get a +profit upon this or that particular article, why, I make it up in the +long-run, you see—he! he! he!” + +“Just so,” said Mr. Bumble. + +“Though I must say,” continued the undertaker, resuming the current of +observations which the beadle had interrupted: “though I must say, Mr. +Bumble, that I have to contend against one very great disadvantage: +which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest. The people who +have been better off, and have paid rates for many years, are the first +to sink when they come into the house; and let me tell you, Mr. Bumble, +that three or four inches over one’s calculation makes a great hole in +one’s profits: especially when one has a family to provide for, sir.” + +As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an +ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a +reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it +advisable to change the subject. Oliver Twist being uppermost in his +mind, he made him his theme. + +“By the bye,” said Mr. Bumble, “you don’t know anybody who wants a boy, +do you? A porochial ’prentis, who is at present a dead-weight; a +millstone, as I may say, round the porochial throat? Liberal terms, Mr. +Sowerberry, liberal terms?” As Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his cane to +the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words “five +pounds”: which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of gigantic size. + +“Gadso!” said the undertaker: taking Mr. Bumble by the gilt-edged +lappel of his official coat; “that’s just the very thing I wanted to +speak to you about. You know—dear me, what a very elegant button this +is, Mr. Bumble! I never noticed it before.” + +“Yes, I think it rather pretty,” said the beadle, glancing proudly +downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat. “The +die is the same as the porochial seal—the Good Samaritan healing the +sick and bruised man. The board presented it to me on Newyear’s +morning, Mr. Sowerberry. I put it on, I remember, for the first time, +to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman, who died in a doorway +at midnight.” + +“I recollect,” said the undertaker. “The jury brought it in, ‘Died from +exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of life,’ +didn’t they?” + +Mr. Bumble nodded. + +“And they made it a special verdict, I think,” said the undertaker, “by +adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had—” + +“Tush! Foolery!” interposed the beadle. “If the board attended to all +the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they’d have enough to do.” + +“Very true,” said the undertaker; “they would indeed.” + +“Juries,” said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont +when working into a passion: “juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling +wretches.” + +“So they are,” said the undertaker. + +“They haven’t no more philosophy nor political economy about ’em than +that,” said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously. + +“No more they have,” acquiesced the undertaker. + +“I despise ’em,” said the beadle, growing very red in the face. + +“So do I,” rejoined the undertaker. + +“And I only wish we’d a jury of the independent sort, in the house for +a week or two,” said the beadle; “the rules and regulations of the +board would soon bring their spirit down for ’em.” + +“Let ’em alone for that,” replied the undertaker. So saying, he smiled, +approvingly: to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish officer. + +Mr Bumble lifted off his cocked hat; took a handkerchief from the +inside of the crown; wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his +rage had engendered; fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the +undertaker, said in a calmer voice: + +“Well; what about the boy?” + +“Oh!” replied the undertaker; “why, you know, Mr. Bumble, I pay a good +deal towards the poor’s rates.” + +“Hem!” said Mr. Bumble. “Well?” + +“Well,” replied the undertaker, “I was thinking that if I pay so much +towards ’em, I’ve a right to get as much out of ’em as I can, Mr. +Bumble; and so—I think I’ll take the boy myself.” + +Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the +building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; +and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening “upon +liking”—a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that +if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out +of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for +a term of years, to do what he likes with. + +When little Oliver was taken before “the gentlemen” that evening; and +informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a +coffin-maker’s; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever +came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be +drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so +little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened +young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith. + +Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the +world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror +at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they +were rather out, in this particular instance. The simple fact was, that +Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too +much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state of +brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received. He +heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having had +his luggage put into his hand—which was not very difficult to carry, +inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper +parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep—he pulled his cap +over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble’s coat +cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering. + +For some time, Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; +for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should: +and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by +the skirts of Mr. Bumble’s coat as they blew open, and disclosed to +great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As +they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it +expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for +inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and +becoming air of gracious patronage. + +“Oliver!” said Mr. Bumble. + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. + +“Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.” + +Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of +his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them +when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon +him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. +The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. +Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble’s he covered his face with +both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and +bony fingers. + +“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little +charge a look of intense malignity. “Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest, +and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the—” + +“No, no, sir,” sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the +well-known cane; “no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I +will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so—so—” + +“So what?” inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. + +“So lonely, sir! So very lonely!” cried the child. “Everybody hates me. +Oh! sir, don’t, don’t pray be cross to me!” The child beat his hand +upon his heart; and looked in his companion’s face, with tears of real +agony. + +Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver’s piteous and helpless look, with some +astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky +manner; and after muttering something about “that troublesome cough,” +bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his +hand, he walked on with him in silence. + +The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was +making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate +dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. + +“Aha!” said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in +the middle of a word; “is that you, Bumble?” + +“No one else, Mr. Sowerberry,” replied the beadle. “Here! I’ve brought +the boy.” Oliver made a bow. + +“Oh! that’s the boy, is it?” said the undertaker: raising the candle +above his head, to get a better view of Oliver. “Mrs. Sowerberry, will +you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?” + +Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and +presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish +countenance. + +“My dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, “this is the boy from +the workhouse that I told you of.” Oliver bowed again. + +“Dear me!” said the undertaker’s wife, “he’s very small.” + +“Why, he _is_ rather small,” replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as +if it were his fault that he was no bigger; “he is small. There’s no +denying it. But he’ll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry—he’ll grow.” + +“Ah! I dare say he will,” replied the lady pettishly, “on our victuals +and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they +always cost more to keep, than they’re worth. However, men always think +they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o’ bones.” With this, +the undertaker’s wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a +steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the +ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated “kitchen”; wherein sat a +slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very +much out of repair. + +“Here, Charlotte,” said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, +“give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He +hasn’t come home since the morning, so he may go without ’em. I dare +say the boy isn’t too dainty to eat ’em—are you, boy?” + +Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was +trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a +plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. + +I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall +within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen +Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. +I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver +tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only +one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the +Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. + +“Well,” said the undertaker’s wife, when Oliver had finished his +supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful +auguries of his future appetite: “have you done?” + +There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the +affirmative. + +“Then come with me,” said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty +lamp, and leading the way upstairs; “your bed’s under the counter. You +don’t mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn’t much +matter whether you do or don’t, for you can’t sleep anywhere else. +Come; don’t keep me here all night!” + +Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress. + + + + + CHAPTER V. +OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST +TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER’S BUSINESS + + +Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker’s shop, set the lamp +down on a workman’s bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling +of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be +at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which +stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a +cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the +direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see +some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. +Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm +boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like +high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. +Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black +cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was +ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff +neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by +four black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and +hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The +recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, +looked like a grave. + +Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was +alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the +best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no +friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent +separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and +well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart. + +But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept +into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be +lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the +tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep +bell to soothe him in his sleep. + +Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of +the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was +repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times. +When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began. + +“Open the door, will yer?” cried the voice which belonged to the legs +which had kicked at the door. + +“I will, directly, sir,” replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning +the key. + +“I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?” said the voice through the +key-hole. + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“How old are yer?” inquired the voice. + +“Ten, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Then I’ll whop yer when I get in,” said the voice; “you just see if I +don’t, that’s all, my work’us brat!” and having made this obliging +promise, the voice began to whistle. + +Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very +expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the +smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would +redeem his pledge, most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a +trembling hand, and opened the door. + +For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, +and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had +addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm +himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post +in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut +into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then +consumed with great dexterity. + +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver at length: seeing that no other +visitor made his appearance; “did you knock?” + +“I kicked,” replied the charity-boy. + +“Did you want a coffin, sir?” inquired Oliver, innocently. + +At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver +would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that +way. + +“Yer don’t know who I am, I suppose, Work’us?” said the charity-boy, in +continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with +edifying gravity. + +“No, sir,” rejoined Oliver. + +“I’m Mister Noah Claypole,” said the charity-boy, “and you’re under me. +Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!” With this, Mr. +Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a +dignified air, which did him great credit. It is difficult for a +large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy +countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more +especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red +nose and yellow smalls. + +Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in +his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a +small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the +day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who having consoled him with the +assurance that “he’d catch it,” condescended to help him. Mr. +Sowerberry came down soon after. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry +appeared. Oliver having “caught it,” in fulfilment of Noah’s +prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast. + +“Come near the fire, Noah,” said Charlotte. “I saved a nice little bit +of bacon for you from master’s breakfast. Oliver, shut that door at +Mister Noah’s back, and take them bits that I’ve put out on the cover +of the bread-pan. There’s your tea; take it away to that box, and drink +it there, and make haste, for they’ll want you to mind the shop. D’ye +hear?” + +“D’ye hear, Work’us?” said Noah Claypole. + +“Lor, Noah!” said Charlotte, “what a rum creature you are! Why don’t +you let the boy alone?” + +“Let him alone!” said Noah. “Why everybody lets him alone enough, for +the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever +interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty +well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!” + +“Oh, you queer soul!” said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in +which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully +at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest +corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially +reserved for him. + +Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was +he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, +who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a +drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of +twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the +neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public +streets, with the ignominious epithets of “leathers,” “charity,” and +the like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that fortune +had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could +point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This +affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful +thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same +amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest +charity-boy. + +Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker’s some three weeks or a +month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry—the shop being shut up—were taking their +supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after several +deferential glances at his wife, said, + +“My dear—” He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up, +with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short. + +“Well,” said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply. + +“Nothing, my dear, nothing,” said Mr. Sowerberry. + +“Ugh, you brute!” said Mrs. Sowerberry. + +“Not at all, my dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry humbly. “I thought you +didn’t want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say—” + +“Oh, don’t tell me what you were going to say,” interposed Mrs. +Sowerberry. “I am nobody; don’t consult me, pray. _I_ don’t want to +intrude upon your secrets.” As Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an +hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences. + +“But, my dear,” said Sowerberry, “I want to ask your advice.” + +“No, no, don’t ask mine,” replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting +manner: “ask somebody else’s.” Here, there was another hysterical +laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common +and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very +effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging, as a special +favour, to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to +hear. After a short duration, the permission was most graciously +conceded. + +“It’s only about young Twist, my dear,” said Mr. Sowerberry. “A very +good-looking boy, that, my dear.” + +“He need be, for he eats enough,” observed the lady. + +“There’s an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,” resumed Mr. +Sowerberry, “which is very interesting. He would make a delightful +mute, my love.” + +Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable +wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it and, without allowing time for +any observation on the good lady’s part, proceeded. + +“I don’t mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but +only for children’s practice. It would be very new to have a mute in +proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it, it would have a superb +effect.” + +Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, +was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been +compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances, +she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious +suggestion had not presented itself to her husband’s mind before? Mr. +Sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his +proposition; it was speedily determined, therefore, that Oliver should +be at once initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this +view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of +his services being required. + +The occasion was not long in coming. Half an hour after breakfast next +morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop; and supporting his cane against +the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book: from which he +selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to Sowerberry. + +“Aha!” said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; +“an order for a coffin, eh?” + +“For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,” replied Mr. +Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book: which, like +himself, was very corpulent. + +“Bayton,” said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. +Bumble. “I never heard the name before.” + +Bumble shook his head, as he replied, “Obstinate people, Mr. +Sowerberry; very obstinate. Proud, too, I’m afraid, sir.” + +“Proud, eh?” exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. “Come, that’s too +much.” + +“Oh, it’s sickening,” replied the beadle. “Antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!” + +“So it is,” acquiesced the undertaker. + +“We only heard of the family the night before last,” said the beadle; +“and we shouldn’t have known anything about them, then, only a woman +who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial +committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was +very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his ’prentice (which is a very +clever lad) sent ’em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.” + +“Ah, there’s promptness,” said the undertaker. + +“Promptness, indeed!” replied the beadle. “But what’s the consequence; +what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband +sends back word that the medicine won’t suit his wife’s complaint, and +so she shan’t take it—says she shan’t take it, sir! Good, strong, +wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish +labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week before—sent ’em for nothing, +with a blackin’-bottle in,—and he sends back word that she shan’t take +it, sir!” + +As the atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble’s mind in full force, he +struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with +indignation. + +“Well,” said the undertaker, “I ne—ver—did—” + +“Never did, sir!” ejaculated the beadle. “No, nor nobody never did; but +now she’s dead, we’ve got to bury her; and that’s the direction; and +the sooner it’s done, the better.” + +Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a +fever of parochial excitement; and flounced out of the shop. + +“Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you!” +said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the +street. + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of +sight, during the interview; and who was shaking from head to foot at +the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble’s voice. He needn’t +have taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble’s glance, however; for +that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white +waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the +undertaker had got Oliver upon trial the subject was better avoided, +until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all +danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be +thus effectually and legally overcome. + +“Well,” said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, “the sooner this job is +done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your cap, +and come with me.” Oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his +professional mission. + +They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely +inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street +more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused +to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses +on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by +people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have +sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the +squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies +half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements +had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only +the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become insecure +from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by +huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the +road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the +nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards +which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their +positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human +body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy. The very rats, which here and +there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine. + +There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver +and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark +passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the +undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs. Stumbling +against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles. + +It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker +at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the +apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in; Oliver followed +him. + +There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically, +over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the +cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged +children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, +there lay upon the ground, something covered with an old blanket. +Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes toward the place, and crept +involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the +boy felt that it was a corpse. + +The man’s face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly; +his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman’s face was wrinkled; her two +remaining teeth protruded over her under lip; and her eyes were bright +and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man. They +seemed so like the rats he had seen outside. + +“Nobody shall go near her,” said the man, starting fiercely up, as the +undertaker approached the recess. “Keep back! Damn you, keep back, if +you’ve a life to lose!” + +“Nonsense, my good man,” said the undertaker, who was pretty well used +to misery in all its shapes. “Nonsense!” + +“I tell you,” said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping furiously +on the floor,—“I tell you I won’t have her put into the ground. She +couldn’t rest there. The worms would worry her—not eat her—she is so +worn away.” + +The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a tape +from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. + +“Ah!” said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at +the feet of the dead woman; “kneel down, kneel down—kneel round her, +every one of you, and mark my words! I say she was starved to death. I +never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then her +bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor +candle; she died in the dark—in the dark! She couldn’t even see her +children’s faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged +for her in the streets: and they sent me to prison. When I came back, +she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they +starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it! They +starved her!” He twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud scream, +rolled grovelling upon the floor: his eyes fixed, and the foam covering +his lips. + +The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had +hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that +passed, menaced them into silence. Having unloosened the cravat of the +man who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the +undertaker. + +“She was my daughter,” said the old woman, nodding her head in the +direction of the corpse; and speaking with an idiotic leer, more +ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. “Lord, Lord! +Well, it _is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman +then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there: so cold and +stiff! Lord, Lord!—to think of it; it’s as good as a play—as good as a +play!” + +As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, +the undertaker turned to go away. + +“Stop, stop!” said the old woman in a loud whisper. “Will she be buried +to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? I laid her out; and I must walk, +you know. Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter +cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind; send +some bread—only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some +bread, dear?” she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker’s coat, as +he once more moved towards the door. + +“Yes, yes,” said the undertaker, “of course. Anything you like!” He +disengaged himself from the old woman’s grasp; and, drawing Oliver +after him, hurried away. + +The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a +half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble +himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode; where +Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the +workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been +thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; and the bare coffin +having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, +and carried into the street. + +“Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady!” whispered +Sowerberry in the old woman’s ear; “we are rather late; and it won’t +do, to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,—as quick as you +like!” + +Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden; and the +two mourners kept as near them, as they could. Mr. Bumble and +Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs +were not so long as his master’s, ran by the side. + +There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had +anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the +churchyard in which the nettles grew, and where the parish graves were +made, the clergyman had not arrived; and the clerk, who was sitting by +the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it +might be an hour or so, before he came. So, they put the bier on the +brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp +clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys whom the +spectacle had attracted into the churchyard played a noisy game at +hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by +jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and +Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, +and read the paper. + +At length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble, +and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave. +Immediately afterwards, the clergyman appeared: putting on his surplice +as he came along. Mr. Bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up +appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the +burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his +surplice to the clerk, and walked away again. + +“Now, Bill!” said Sowerberry to the grave-digger. “Fill up!” + +It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full, that the +uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger +shovelled in the earth; stamped it loosely down with his feet: +shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys, who +murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon. + +“Come, my good fellow!” said Bumble, tapping the man on the back. “They +want to shut up the yard.” + +The man who had never once moved, since he had taken his station by the +grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had +addressed him, walked forward for a few paces; and fell down in a +swoon. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss +of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off), to pay him any +attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him; and when he came +to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed +on their different ways. + +“Well, Oliver,” said Sowerberry, as they walked home, “how do you like +it?” + +“Pretty well, thank you, sir” replied Oliver, with considerable +hesitation. “Not very much, sir.” + +“Ah, you’ll get used to it in time, Oliver,” said Sowerberry. “Nothing +when you _are_ used to it, my boy.” + +Oliver wondered, in his own mind, whether it had taken a very long time +to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it. But he thought it better not to ask +the question; and walked back to the shop: thinking over all he had +seen and heard. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. +OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION, AND +RATHER ASTONISHES HIM + + +The month’s trial over, Oliver was formally apprenticed. It was a nice +sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were +looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, Oliver acquired a great +deal of experience. The success of Mr. Sowerberry’s ingenious +speculation, exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. The oldest +inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so +prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful +processions which little Oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to +his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the +mothers in the town. As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his +adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity +of demeanour and full command of nerve which was essential to a +finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the +beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded +people bear their trials and losses. + +For instance; when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of some rich +old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of nephews +and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous +illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most +public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need +be—quite cheerful and contented—conversing together with as much +freedom and gaiety, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb +them. Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic +calmness. Wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far +from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to +render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable, +too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during +the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached +home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. All +this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with +great admiration. + +That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good +people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm +with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for +many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and +ill-treatment of Noah Claypole: who used him far worse than before, now +that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the +black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in +the muffin-cap and leathers. Charlotte treated him ill, because Noah +did; and Mrs. Sowerberry was his decided enemy, because Mr. Sowerberry +was disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and +a glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as +comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by mistake, in +the grain department of a brewery. + +And now, I come to a very important passage in Oliver’s history; for I +have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, +but which indirectly produced a material change in all his future +prospects and proceedings. + +One day, Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual +dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton—a pound and a half +of the worst end of the neck—when Charlotte being called out of the +way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole, being +hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a +worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young Oliver Twist. + +Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the +table-cloth; and pulled Oliver’s hair; and twitched his ears; and +expressed his opinion that he was a “sneak”; and furthermore announced +his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable +event should take place; and entered upon various topics of petty +annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was. +But, making Oliver cry, Noah attempted to be more facetious still; and +in his attempt, did what many sometimes do to this day, when they want +to be funny. He got rather personal. + +“Work’us,” said Noah, “how’s your mother?” + +“She’s dead,” replied Oliver; “don’t you say anything about her to me!” + +Oliver’s colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there +was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Mr. Claypole +thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. +Under this impression he returned to the charge. + +“What did she die of, Work’us?” said Noah. + +“Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me,” replied Oliver: +more as if he were talking to himself, than answering Noah. “I think I +know what it must be to die of that!” + +“Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, Work’us,” said Noah, as a tear +rolled down Oliver’s cheek. “What’s set you a snivelling now?” + +“Not _you_,” replied Oliver, sharply. “There; that’s enough. Don’t say +anything more to me about her; you’d better not!” + +“Better not!” exclaimed Noah. “Well! Better not! Work’us, don’t be +impudent. _Your_ mother, too! She was a nice ’un she was. Oh, Lor!” And +here, Noah nodded his head expressively; and curled up as much of his +small red nose as muscular action could collect together, for the +occasion. + +“Yer know, Work’us,” continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver’s silence, +and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity: of all tones the most +annoying: “Yer know, Work’us, it can’t be helped now; and of course yer +couldn’t help it then; and I am very sorry for it; and I’m sure we all +are, and pity yer very much. But yer must know, Work’us, yer mother was +a regular right-down bad ’un.” + +“What did you say?” inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly. + +“A regular right-down bad ’un, Work’us,” replied Noah, coolly. “And +it’s a great deal better, Work’us, that she died when she did, or else +she’d have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung; +which is more likely than either, isn’t it?” + +Crimson with fury, Oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table; +seized Noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till +his teeth chattered in his head; and collecting his whole force into +one heavy blow, felled him to the ground. + +A minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet child, mild, dejected +creature that harsh treatment had made him. But his spirit was roused +at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. +His breast heaved; his attitude was erect; his eye bright and vivid; +his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly +tormentor who now lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an +energy he had never known before. + +“He’ll murder me!” blubbered Noah. “Charlotte! missis! Here’s the new +boy a murdering of me! Help! help! Oliver’s gone mad! Char—lotte!” + +Noah’s shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a +louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen +by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was +quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human +life, to come further down. + +“Oh, you little wretch!” screamed Charlotte: seizing Oliver with her +utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man +in particularly good training. “Oh, you little un-grate-ful, +mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!” And between every syllable, Charlotte +gave Oliver a blow with all her might: accompanying it with a scream, +for the benefit of society. + +Charlotte’s fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not +be effectual in calming Oliver’s wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into +the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she +scratched his face with the other. In this favourable position of +affairs, Noah rose from the ground, and pommelled him behind. + +This was rather too violent exercise to last long. When they were all +wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver, +struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and +there locked him up. This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sunk into a +chair, and burst into tears. + +“Bless her, she’s going off!” said Charlotte. “A glass of water, Noah, +dear. Make haste!” + +“Oh! Charlotte,” said Mrs. Sowerberry: speaking as well as she could, +through a deficiency of breath, and a sufficiency of cold water, which +Noah had poured over her head and shoulders. “Oh! Charlotte, what a +mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds!” + +“Ah! mercy indeed, ma’am,” was the reply. “I only hope this’ll teach +master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born +to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! He was +all but killed, ma’am, when I come in.” + +“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Sowerberry: looking piteously on the +charity-boy. + +Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level +with the crown of Oliver’s head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his +wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed +some affecting tears and sniffs. + +“What’s to be done!” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. “Your master’s not at +home; there’s not a man in the house, and he’ll kick that door down in +ten minutes.” Oliver’s vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in +question, rendered this occurance highly probable. + +“Dear, dear! I don’t know, ma’am,” said Charlotte, “unless we send for +the police-officers.” + +“Or the millingtary,” suggested Mr. Claypole. + +“No, no,” said Mrs. Sowerberry: bethinking herself of Oliver’s old +friend. “Run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly, +and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap! Make haste! You can hold +a knife to that black eye, as you run along. It’ll keep the swelling +down.” + +Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; +and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a +charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his +head, and a clasp-knife at his eye. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. +OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY + + +Noah Claypole ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused +not once for breath, until he reached the workhouse-gate. Having rested +here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an +imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket; and +presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that +even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of +times, started back in astonishment. + +“Why, what’s the matter with the boy!” said the old pauper. + +“Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!” cried Noah, with well-affected dismay: and in +tones so loud and agitated, that they not only caught the ear of Mr. +Bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much +that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,—which is a very +curious and remarkable circumstance: as showing that even a beadle, +acted upon a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a +momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of +personal dignity. + +“Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!” said Noah: “Oliver, sir,—Oliver has—” + +“What? What?” interposed Mr. Bumble: with a gleam of pleasure in his +metallic eyes. “Not run away; he hasn’t run away, has he, Noah?” + +“No, sir, no. Not run away, sir, but he’s turned wicious,” replied +Noah. “He tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder +Charlotte; and then missis. Oh! what dreadful pain it is! Such agony, +please, sir!” And here, Noah writhed and twisted his body into an +extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to +understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, +he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was +at that moment suffering the acutest torture. + +When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralysed +Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his +dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and when he observed a +gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in +his lamentations than ever: rightly conceiving it highly expedient to +attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman +aforesaid. + +The gentleman’s notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked +three paces, when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young +cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with +something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so +designated, an involuntary process? + +“It’s a poor boy from the free-school, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble, “who +has been nearly murdered—all but murdered, sir,—by young Twist.” + +“By Jove!” exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping +short. “I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first, +that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!” + +“He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,” said +Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness. + +“And his missis,” interposed Mr. Claypole. + +“And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?” added Mr. Bumble. + +“No! he’s out, or he would have murdered him,” replied Noah. “He said +he wanted to.” + +“Ah! Said he wanted to, did he, my boy?” inquired the gentleman in the +white waistcoat. + +“Yes, sir,” replied Noah. “And please, sir, missis wants to know +whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog +him—’cause master’s out.” + +“Certainly, my boy; certainly,” said the gentleman in the white +waistcoat: smiling benignly, and patting Noah’s head, which was about +three inches higher than his own. “You’re a good boy—a very good boy. +Here’s a penny for you. Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry’s with your +cane, and see what’s best to be done. Don’t spare him, Bumble.” + +“No, I will not, sir,” replied the beadle. And the cocked hat and cane +having been, by this time, adjusted to their owner’s satisfaction, Mr. +Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the +undertaker’s shop. + +Here the position of affairs had not at all improved. Sowerberry had +not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick, with undiminished +vigour, at the cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity as related by +Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature, that Mr. +Bumble judged it prudent to parley, before opening the door. With this +view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude; and, then, +applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone: + +“Oliver!” + +“Come; you let me out!” replied Oliver, from the inside. + +“Do you know this here voice, Oliver?” said Mr. Bumble. + +“Yes,” replied Oliver. + +“Ain’t you afraid of it, sir? Ain’t you a-trembling while I speak, +sir?” said Mr. Bumble. + +“No!” replied Oliver, boldly. + +An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was +in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little. He +stepped back from the keyhole; drew himself up to his full height; and +looked from one to another of the three bystanders, in mute +astonishment. + +“Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad,” said Mrs. Sowerberry. + +“No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.” + +“It’s not Madness, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of +deep meditation. “It’s Meat.” + +“What?” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. + +“Meat, ma’am, meat,” replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. “You’ve +over-fed him, ma’am. You’ve raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, +ma’am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs. +Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have +paupers to do with soul or spirit? It’s quite enough that we let ’em +have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma’am, this would +never have happened.” + +“Dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to +the kitchen ceiling: “this comes of being liberal!” + +The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver, had consisted of a profuse +bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else +would eat; so there was a great deal of meekness and self-devotion in +her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble’s heavy accusation. Of +which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent, in thought, word, or +deed. + +“Ah!” said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth +again; “the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to +leave him in the cellar for a day or so, till he’s a little starved +down; and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through the +apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family. Excitable natures, Mrs. +Sowerberry! Both the nurse and doctor said, that that mother of his +made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed +any well-disposed woman, weeks before.” + +At this point of Mr. Bumble’s discourse, Oliver, just hearing enough to +know that some allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced +kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible. +Sowerberry returned at this juncture. Oliver’s offence having been +explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best +calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a +twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out, by the collar. + +Oliver’s clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face +was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead. +The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled +out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite +undismayed. + +“Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain’t you?” said Sowerberry; giving +Oliver a shake, and a box on the ear. + +“He called my mother names,” replied Oliver. + +“Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?” said Mrs. +Sowerberry. “She deserved what he said, and worse.” + +“She didn’t” said Oliver. + +“She did,” said Mrs. Sowerberry. + +“It’s a lie!” said Oliver. + +Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears. + +This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry no alternative. If he had +hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be +quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, +according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a +brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of +a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital +within the limits of this chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far as +his power went—it was not very extensive—kindly disposed towards the +boy; perhaps, because it was his interest to be so; perhaps, because +his wife disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no +resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. +Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble’s subsequent application of +the parochial cane, rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day, he was +shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of +bread; and at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks +outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his +mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of +Noah and Charlotte, ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed. + +It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the +gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings +which the day’s treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a +mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he +had borne the lash without a cry: for he felt that pride swelling in +his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they +had roasted him alive. But now, when there were none to see or hear +him, he fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his +hands, wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few +so young may ever have cause to pour out before him! + +For a long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The +candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. Having +gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the +fastenings of the door, and looked abroad. + +It was a cold, dark night. The stars seemed, to the boy’s eyes, farther +from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind; +and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground, looked +sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the +door. Having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie +up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat +himself down upon a bench, to wait for morning. + +With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the +shutters, Oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look +around—one moment’s pause of hesitation—he had closed it behind him, +and was in the open street. + +He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. + +He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up +the hill. He took the same route; and arriving at a footpath across the +fields: which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the +road; struck into it, and walked quickly on. + +Along this same footpath, Oliver well-remembered he had trotted beside +Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. +His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly +when he bethought himself of this; and he half resolved to turn back. +He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by +doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of +his being seen; so he walked on. + +He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmates stirring +at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. A child +was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his pale +face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions. Oliver +felt glad to see him, before he went; for, though younger than himself, +he had been his little friend and playmate. They had been beaten, and +starved, and shut up together, many and many a time. + +“Hush, Dick!” said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his +thin arm between the rails to greet him. “Is any one up?” + +“Nobody but me,” replied the child. + +“You musn’t say you saw me, Dick,” said Oliver. “I am running away. +They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune, some +long way off. I don’t know where. How pale you are!” + +“I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,” replied the child with a +faint smile. “I am very glad to see you, dear; but don’t stop, don’t +stop!” + +“Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b’ye to you,” replied Oliver. “I shall +see you again, Dick. I know I shall! You will be well and happy!” + +“I hope so,” replied the child. “After I am dead, but not before. I +know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of +Heaven, and Angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. +Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his +little arms round Oliver’s neck. “Good-b’ye, dear! God bless you!” + +The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that +Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles +and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never +once forgot it. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. +OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF +YOUNG GENTLEMAN + + +Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and once more +gained the high-road. It was eight o’clock now. Though he was nearly +five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by +turns, till noon: fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. Then +he sat down to rest by the side of the milestone, and began to think, +for the first time, where he had better go and try to live. + +The stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, an +intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London. The +name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy’s mind. + +London!—that great place!—nobody—not even Mr. Bumble—could ever find +him there! He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say +that no lad of spirit need want in London; and that there were ways of +living in that vast city, which those who had been bred up in country +parts had no idea of. It was the very place for a homeless boy, who +must die in the streets unless some one helped him. As these things +passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked +forward. + +He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four +miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could +hope to reach his place of destination. As this consideration forced +itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his +means of getting there. He had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and +two pairs of stockings, in his bundle. He had a penny too—a gift of +Sowerberry’s after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more +than ordinarily well—in his pocket. “A clean shirt,” thought Oliver, +“is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; +and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles’ walk +in winter time.” But Oliver’s thoughts, like those of most other +people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his +difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of +surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular +purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and +trudged on. + +Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing +but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water, which he +begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. When the night came, he +turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined +to lie there, till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind +moaned dismally over the empty fields: and he was cold and hungry, and +more alone than he had ever felt before. Being very tired with his +walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles. + +He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so hungry that +he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf, in the very +first village through which he passed. He had walked no more than +twelve miles, when night closed in again. His feet were sore, and his +legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. Another night passed in +the bleak damp air, made him worse; when he set forward on his journey +next morning he could hardly crawl along. + +He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and +then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took +any notice of him: and even those told him to wait till they got to the +top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a +halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way, +but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When +the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets +again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn’t deserve +anything; and the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust +behind. + +In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all +persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent to +jail. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to get out of +those villages with all possible expedition. In others, he would stand +about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed: a +proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady’s ordering one of +the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out of +the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. If he +begged at a farmer’s house, ten to one but they threatened to set the +dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about +the beadle—which brought Oliver’s heart into his mouth,—very often the +only thing he had there, for many hours together. + +In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a +benevolent old lady, Oliver’s troubles would have been shortened by the +very same process which had put an end to his mother’s; in other words, +he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon the king’s highway. But +the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, +who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part +of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little +she could afford—and more—with such kind and gentle words, and such +tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver’s +soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone. + +Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver +limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were +closed; the street was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business +of the day. The sun was rising in all its splendid beauty; but the +light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation, +as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step. + +By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were drawn up; +and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver +for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried +by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he +came there. He had no heart to beg. And there he sat. + +He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at the great +number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet was a tavern, +large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed +through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do, with +ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a whole week of courage and +determination beyond his years to accomplish: when he was roused by +observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes +before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the +opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but the +boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long, that +Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the +boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said, + +“Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?” + +The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his +own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that Oliver had even +seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as +dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the +airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather +bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of +his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment—and +would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of +every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it +back to its old place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly +to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get +his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of +thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he +kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young +gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the +bluchers. + +“Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?” said this strange young gentleman to +Oliver. + +“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver: the tears standing in his +eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way. I have been walking these +seven days.” + +“Walking for sivin days!” said the young gentleman. “Oh, I see. Beak’s +order, eh? But,” he added, noticing Oliver’s look of surprise, “I +suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.” + +Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird’s mouth +described by the term in question. + +“My eyes, how green!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Why, a beak’s a +madgst’rate; and when you walk by a beak’s order, it’s not straight +forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin. Was you +never on the mill?” + +“What mill?” inquired Oliver. + +“What mill! Why, _the_ mill—the mill as takes up so little room that +it’ll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when the wind’s +low with people, than when it’s high; acos then they can’t get workmen. +But come,” said the young gentleman; “you want grub, and you shall have +it. I’m at low-water-mark myself—only one bob and a magpie; but, as far +as it goes, I’ll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There! +Now then! Morrice!” + +Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent +chandler’s shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham +and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, “a fourpenny +bran!” the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust, by the +ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a +portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein. Taking the bread under +his arm, the young gentlman turned into a small public-house, and led +the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer +was brought in, by direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, +falling to, at his new friend’s bidding, made a long and hearty meal, +during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time +with great attention. + +“Going to London?” said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length +concluded. + +“Yes.” + +“Got any lodgings?” + +“No.” + +“Money?” + +“No.” + +The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as far as +the big coat-sleeves would let them go. + +“Do you live in London?” inquired Oliver. + +“Yes. I do, when I’m at home,” replied the boy. “I suppose you want +some place to sleep in to-night, don’t you?” + +“I do, indeed,” answered Oliver. “I have not slept under a roof since I +left the country.” + +“Don’t fret your eyelids on that score,” said the young gentleman. +“I’ve got to be in London to-night; and I know a ’spectable old +gentleman as lives there, wot’ll give you lodgings for nothink, and +never ask for the change—that is, if any genelman he knows interduces +you. And don’t he know me? Oh, no! Not in the least! By no means. +Certainly not!” + +The young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments +of discourse were playfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did +so. + +This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted; +especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance that the +old gentleman referred to, would doubtless provide Oliver with a +comfortable place, without loss of time. This led to a more friendly +and confidential dialogue; from which Oliver discovered that his +friend’s name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet and +protege of the elderly gentleman before mentioned. + +Mr. Dawkin’s appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the +comforts which his patron’s interest obtained for those whom he took +under his protection; but, as he had a rather flightly and dissolute +mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate +friends he was better known by the sobriquet of “The Artful Dodger,” +Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and careless turn, the +moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon +him. Under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good +opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found +the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to +decline the honour of his farther acquaintance. + +As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it +was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. +They crossed from the Angel into St. John’s Road; struck down the small +street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through Exmouth +Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the +workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of +Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into +Saffron Hill the Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, +directing Oliver to follow close at his heels. + +Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of +his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either +side of the way, as he passed along. A dirtier or more wretched place +he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air +was impregnated with filthy odours. + +There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade +appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were +crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. The +sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the +place, were the public-houses; and in them, the lowest orders of Irish +were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here +and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of +houses, where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth; +and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were +cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed +or harmless errands. + +Oliver was just considering whether he hadn’t better run away, when +they reached the bottom of the hill. His conductor, catching him by the +arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field Lane; and drawing him +into the passage, closed it behind them. + +“Now, then!” cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the +Dodger. + +“Plummy and slam!” was the reply. + +This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the +light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the +passage; and a man’s face peeped out, from where a balustrade of the +old kitchen staircase had been broken away. + +“There’s two on you,” said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, +and shielding his eyes with his hand. “Who’s the t’other one?” + +“A new pal,” replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward. + +“Where did he come from?” + +“Greenland. Is Fagin upstairs?” + +“Yes, he’s a sortin’ the wipes. Up with you!” The candle was drawn +back, and the face disappeared. + +Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly +grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and +broken stairs: which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition +that showed he was well acquainted with them. + +He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him. + +The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and +dirt. There was a deal table before the fire: upon which were a candle, +stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf and +butter, and a plate. In a frying-pan, which was on the fire, and which +was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; +and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very +old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was +obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy +flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his +attention between the frying-pan and the clothes-horse, over which a +great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging. Several rough beds +made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor. Seated round +the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking +long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men. +These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to +the Jew; and then turned round and grinned at Oliver. So did the Jew +himself, toasting-fork in hand. + +“This is him, Fagin,” said Jack Dawkins; “my friend Oliver Twist.” + +The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him by the +hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. +Upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came round him, and shook +both his hands very hard—especially the one in which he held his little +bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for +him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in +order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of +emptying them, himself, when he went to bed. These civilities would +probably be extended much farther, but for a liberal exercise of the +Jew’s toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate +youths who offered them. + +“We are very glad to see you, Oliver, very,” said the Jew. “Dodger, +take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah, +you’re a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear. There are a +good many of ’em, ain’t there? We’ve just looked ’em out, ready for the +wash; that’s all, Oliver; that’s all. Ha! ha! ha!” + +The latter part of this speech, was hailed by a boisterous shout from +all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman. In the midst of +which they went to supper. + +Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot +gin-and-water: telling him he must drink it off directly, because +another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired. +Immediately afterwards he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the +sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. +CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN, +AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS + + +It was late next morning when Oliver awoke, from a sound, long sleep. +There was no other person in the room but the old Jew, who was boiling +some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to +himself as he stirred it round and round, with an iron spoon. He would +stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below: +and when he had satisfied himself, he would go on whistling and +stirring again, as before. + +Although Oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly +awake. There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you +dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half +conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in +five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in +perfect unconsciousness. At such time, a mortal knows just enough of +what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception of its +mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, +when freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate. + +Oliver was precisely in this condition. He saw the Jew with his +half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognised the sound of +the spoon grating against the saucepan’s sides: and yet the self-same +senses were mentally engaged, at the same time, in busy action with +almost everybody he had ever known. + +When the coffee was done, the Jew drew the saucepan to the hob. +Standing, then in an irresolute attitude for a few minutes, as if he +did not well know how to employ himself, he turned round and looked at +Oliver, and called him by his name. He did not answer, and was to all +appearances asleep. + +After satisfying himself upon this head, the Jew stepped gently to the +door: which he fastened. He then drew forth: as it seemed to Oliver, +from some trap in the floor: a small box, which he placed carefully on +the table. His eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in. +Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a +magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels. + +“Aha!” said the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every +feature with a hideous grin. “Clever dogs! Clever dogs! Staunch to the +last! Never told the old parson where they were. Never poached upon old +Fagin! And why should they? It wouldn’t have loosened the knot, or kept +the drop up, a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows! Fine fellows!” + +With these, and other muttered reflections of the like nature, the Jew +once more deposited the watch in its place of safety. At least half a +dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and surveyed +with equal pleasure; besides rings, brooches, bracelets, and other +articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials, and costly +workmanship, that Oliver had no idea, even of their names. + +Having replaced these trinkets, the Jew took out another: so small that +it lay in the palm of his hand. There seemed to be some very minute +inscription on it; for the Jew laid it flat upon the table, and shading +it with his hand, pored over it, long and earnestly. At length he put +it down, as if despairing of success; and, leaning back in his chair, +muttered: + +“What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead +men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it’s a fine thing for the +trade! Five of ’em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or +turn white-livered!” + +As the Jew uttered these words, his bright dark eyes, which had been +staring vacantly before him, fell on Oliver’s face; the boy’s eyes were +fixed on his in mute curiousity; and although the recognition was only +for an instant—for the briefest space of time that can possibly be +conceived—it was enough to show the old man that he had been observed. + +He closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on +a bread knife which was on the table, started furiously up. He trembled +very much though; for, even in his terror, Oliver could see that the +knife quivered in the air. + +“What’s that?” said the Jew. “What do you watch me for? Why are you +awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick—quick! for your life.” + +“I wasn’t able to sleep any longer, sir,” replied Oliver, meekly. “I am +very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir.” + +“You were not awake an hour ago?” said the Jew, scowling fiercely on +the boy. + +“No! No, indeed!” replied Oliver. + +“Are you sure?” cried the Jew: with a still fiercer look than before: +and a threatening attitude. + +“Upon my word I was not, sir,” replied Oliver, earnestly. “I was not, +indeed, sir.” + +“Tush, tush, my dear!” said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner, +and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; as if to +induce the belief that he had caught it up, in mere sport. “Of course I +know that, my dear. I only tried to frighten you. You’re a brave boy. +Ha! ha! you’re a brave boy, Oliver.” The Jew rubbed his hands with a +chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding. + +“Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?” said the Jew, laying +his hand upon it after a short pause. + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Ah!” said the Jew, turning rather pale. “They—they’re mine, Oliver; my +little property. All I have to live upon, in my old age. The folks call +me a miser, my dear. Only a miser; that’s all.” + +Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in +such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps +his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of +money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he +might get up. + +“Certainly, my dear, certainly,” replied the old gentleman. “Stay. +There’s a pitcher of water in the corner by the door. Bring it here; +and I’ll give you a basin to wash in, my dear.” + +Oliver got up; walked across the room; and stooped for an instant to +raise the pitcher. When he turned his head, the box was gone. + +He had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy, by emptying +the basin out of the window, agreeably to the Jew’s directions, when +the Dodger returned: accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom +Oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally +introduced to him as Charley Bates. The four sat down, to breakfast, on +the coffee, and some hot rolls and ham which the Dodger had brought +home in the crown of his hat. + +“Well,” said the Jew, glancing slyly at Oliver, and addressing himself +to the Dodger, “I hope you’ve been at work this morning, my dears?” + +“Hard,” replied the Dodger. + +“As nails,” added Charley Bates. + +“Good boys, good boys!” said the Jew. “What have you got, Dodger?” + +“A couple of pocket-books,” replied that young gentlman. + +“Lined?” inquired the Jew, with eagerness. + +“Pretty well,” replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books; one +green, and the other red. + +“Not so heavy as they might be,” said the Jew, after looking at the +insides carefully; “but very neat and nicely made. Ingenious workman, +ain’t he, Oliver?” + +“Very indeed, sir,” said Oliver. At which Mr. Charles Bates laughed +uproariously; very much to the amazement of Oliver, who saw nothing to +laugh at, in anything that had passed. + +“And what have you got, my dear?” said Fagin to Charley Bates. + +“Wipes,” replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four +pocket-handkerchiefs. + +“Well,” said the Jew, inspecting them closely; “they’re very good ones, +very. You haven’t marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall +be picked out with a needle, and we’ll teach Oliver how to do it. Shall +us, Oliver, eh? Ha! ha! ha!” + +“If you please, sir,” said Oliver. + +“You’d like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley +Bates, wouldn’t you, my dear?” said the Jew. + +“Very much, indeed, if you’ll teach me, sir,” replied Oliver. + +Master Bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that +he burst into another laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was +drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly +terminated in his premature suffocation. + +“He is so jolly green!” said Charley when he recovered, as an apology +to the company for his unpolite behaviour. + +The Dodger said nothing, but he smoothed Oliver’s hair over his eyes, +and said he’d know better, by and by; upon which the old gentleman, +observing Oliver’s colour mounting, changed the subject by asking +whether there had been much of a crowd at the execution that morning? +This made him wonder more and more; for it was plain from the replies +of the two boys that they had both been there; and Oliver naturally +wondered how they could possibly have found time to be so very +industrious. + +When the breakfast was cleared away; the merry old gentlman and the two +boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in +this way. The merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of +his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat +pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond +pin in his shirt: buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his +spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the +room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen +walk about the streets any hour in the day. Sometimes he stopped at the +fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was +staring with all his might into shop-windows. At such times, he would +look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping +all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn’t lost anything, in such a +very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran +down his face. All this time, the two boys followed him closely about: +getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round, that +it was impossible to follow their motions. At last, the Dodger trod +upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidently, while Charley Bates +stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from +him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, +watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the +spectacle-case. If the old gentlman felt a hand in any one of his +pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the game began all over +again. + +When this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young +ladies called to see the young gentleman; one of whom was named Bet, +and the other Nancy. They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly +turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. +They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of +colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. Being +remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, Oliver thought them +very nice girls indeed. As there is no doubt they were. + +The visitors stopped a long time. Spirits were produced, in consequence +of one of the young ladies complaining of a coldness in her inside; and +the conversation took a very convivial and improving turn. At length, +Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof. +This, it occurred to Oliver, must be French for going out; for directly +afterwards, the Dodger, and Charley, and the two young ladies, went +away together, having been kindly furnished by the amiable old Jew with +money to spend. + +“There, my dear,” said Fagin. “That’s a pleasant life, isn’t it? They +have gone out for the day.” + +“Have they done work, sir?” inquired Oliver. + +“Yes,” said the Jew; “that is, unless they should unexpectedly come +across any, when they are out; and they won’t neglect it, if they do, +my dear, depend upon it. Make ’em your models, my dear. Make ’em your +models,” tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his +words; “do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all +matters—especially the Dodger’s, my dear. He’ll be a great man himself, +and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him.—Is my +handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?” said the Jew, stopping +short. + +“Yes, sir,” said Oliver. + +“See if you can take it out, without my feeling it; as you saw them do, +when we were at play this morning.” + +Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen +the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with +the other. + +“Is it gone?” cried the Jew. + +“Here it is, sir,” said Oliver, showing it in his hand. + +“You’re a clever boy, my dear,” said the playful old gentleman, patting +Oliver on the head approvingly. “I never saw a sharper lad. Here’s a +shilling for you. If you go on, in this way, you’ll be the greatest man +of the time. And now come here, and I’ll show you how to take the marks +out of the handkerchiefs.” + +Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman’s pocket in play, had to +do with his chances of being a great man. But, thinking that the Jew, +being so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to +the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study. + + + + + CHAPTER X. +OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS NEW +ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. BEING A SHORT, +BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER, IN THIS HISTORY + + +For many days, Oliver remained in the Jew’s room, picking the marks out +of the pocket-handkerchief, (of which a great number were brought +home,) and sometimes taking part in the game already described: which +the two boys and the Jew played, regularly, every morning. At length, +he began to languish for fresh air, and took many occasions of +earnestly entreating the old gentleman to allow him to go out to work +with his two companions. + +Oliver was rendered the more anxious to be actively employed, by what +he had seen of the stern morality of the old gentleman’s character. +Whenever the Dodger or Charley Bates came home at night, empty-handed, +he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy +habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by +sending them supperless to bed. On one occasion, indeed, he even went +so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs; but this was +carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent. + +At length, one morning, Oliver obtained the permission he had so +eagerly sought. There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon, for two +or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre. Perhaps these +were reasons for the old gentleman’s giving his assent; but, whether +they were or no, he told Oliver he might go, and placed him under the +joint guardianship of Charley Bates, and his friend the Dodger. + +The three boys sallied out; the Dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up, +and his hat cocked, as usual; Master Bates sauntering along with his +hands in his pockets; and Oliver between them, wondering where they +were going, and what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in, +first. + +The pace at which they went, was such a very lazy, ill-looking saunter, +that Oliver soon began to think his companions were going to deceive +the old gentleman, by not going to work at all. The Dodger had a +vicious propensity, too, of pulling the caps from the heads of small +boys and tossing them down areas; while Charley Bates exhibited some +very loose notions concerning the rights of property, by pilfering +divers apples and onions from the stalls at the kennel sides, and +thrusting them into pockets which were so surprisingly capacious, that +they seemed to undermine his whole suit of clothes in every direction. +These things looked so bad, that Oliver was on the point of declaring +his intention of seeking his way back, in the best way he could; when +his thoughts were suddenly directed into another channel, by a very +mysterious change of behaviour on the part of the Dodger. + +They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open +square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some strange perversion +of terms, “The Green”: when the Dodger made a sudden stop; and, laying +his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with the +greatest caution and circumspection. + +“What’s the matter?” demanded Oliver. + +“Hush!” replied the Dodger. “Do you see that old cove at the +book-stall?” + +“The old gentleman over the way?” said Oliver. “Yes, I see him.” + +“He’ll do,” said the Dodger. + +“A prime plant,” observed Master Charley Bates. + +Oliver looked from one to the other, with the greatest surprise; but he +was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked +stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman +towards whom his attention had been directed. Oliver walked a few paces +after them; and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood +looking on in silent amazement. + +The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a +powdered head and gold spectacles. He was dressed in a bottle-green +coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a +smart bamboo cane under his arm. He had taken up a book from the stall, +and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his +elbow-chair, in his own study. It is very possible that he fancied +himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he +saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, +anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through: +turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at +the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest +interest and eagerness. + +What was Oliver’s horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking +on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the +Dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman’s pocket, and draw from +thence a handkerchief! To see him hand the same to Charley Bates; and +finally to behold them, both running away round the corner at full +speed! + +In an instant the whole mystery of the hankerchiefs, and the watches, +and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy’s mind. + +He stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through all his +veins from terror, that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then, +confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he +did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground. + +This was all done in a minute’s space. In the very instant when Oliver +began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and +missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. Seeing the boy scudding +away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the +depredator; and shouting “Stop thief!” with all his might, made off +after him, book in hand. + +But the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the +hue-and-cry. The Dodger and Master Bates, unwilling to attract public +attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the +very first doorway round the corner. They no sooner heard the cry, and +saw Oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they +issued forth with great promptitude; and, shouting “Stop thief!” too, +joined in the pursuit like good citizens. + +Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not +theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that +self-preservation is the first law of nature. If he had been, perhaps +he would have been prepared for this. Not being prepared, however, it +alarmed him the more; so away he went like the wind, with the old +gentleman and the two boys roaring and shouting behind him. + +“Stop thief! Stop thief!” There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman +leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down +his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy +his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the +child his battledore. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, +slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as +they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: +and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound. + +“Stop thief! Stop thief!” The cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and +the crowd accumulate at every turning. Away they fly, splashing through +the mud, and rattling along the pavements: up go the windows, out run +the people, onward bear the mob, a whole audience desert Punch in the +very thickest of the plot, and, joining the rushing throng, swell the +shout, and lend fresh vigour to the cry, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” + +“Stop thief! Stop thief!” There is a passion FOR _hunting_ _something_ +deeply implanted in the human breast. One wretched breathless child, +panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large +drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to +make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, and gain +upon him every instant, they hail his decreasing strength with joy. +“Stop thief!” Ay, stop him for God’s sake, were it only in mercy! + +Stopped at last! A clever blow. He is down upon the pavement; and the +crowd eagerly gather round him: each new comer, jostling and struggling +with the others to catch a glimpse. “Stand aside!” “Give him a little +air!” “Nonsense! he don’t deserve it.” “Where’s the gentleman?” “Here +his is, coming down the street.” “Make room there for the gentleman!” +“Is this the boy, sir!” “Yes.” + +Oliver lay, covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth, +looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when +the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by +the foremost of the pursuers. + +“Yes,” said the gentleman, “I am afraid it is the boy.” + +“Afraid!” murmured the crowd. “That’s a good ’un!” + +“Poor fellow!” said the gentleman, “he has hurt himself.” + +“_I_ did that, sir,” said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; +“and preciously I cut my knuckle agin’ his mouth. I stopped him, sir.” + +The fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his +pains; but, the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of +dislike, look anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away +himself: which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and +thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is +generally the last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made +his way through the crowd, and seized Oliver by the collar. + +“Come, get up,” said the man, roughly. + +“It wasn’t me indeed, sir. Indeed, indeed, it was two other boys,” said +Oliver, clasping his hands passionately, and looking round. “They are +here somewhere.” + +“Oh no, they ain’t,” said the officer. He meant this to be ironical, +but it was true besides; for the Dodger and Charley Bates had filed off +down the first convenient court they came to. + +“Come, get up!” + +“Don’t hurt him,” said the old gentleman, compassionately. + +“Oh no, I won’t hurt him,” replied the officer, tearing his jacket half +off his back, in proof thereof. “Come, I know you; it won’t do. Will +you stand upon your legs, you young devil?” + +Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his +feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar, at +a rapid pace. The gentleman walked on with them by the officer’s side; +and as many of the crowd as could achieve the feat, got a little ahead, +and stared back at Oliver from time to time. The boys shouted in +triumph; and on they went. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. +TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A SLIGHT +SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE + + +The offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the +immediate neighborhood of, a very notorious metropolitan police office. +The crowd had only the satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two +or three streets, and down a place called Mutton Hill, when he was led +beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of +summary justice, by the back way. It was a small paved yard into which +they turned; and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of +whiskers on his face, and a bunch of keys in his hand. + +“What’s the matter now?” said the man carelessly. + +“A young fogle-hunter,” replied the man who had Oliver in charge. + +“Are you the party that’s been robbed, sir?” inquired the man with the +keys. + +“Yes, I am,” replied the old gentleman; “but I am not sure that this +boy actually took the handkerchief. I—I would rather not press the +case.” + +“Must go before the magistrate now, sir,” replied the man. “His worship +will be disengaged in half a minute. Now, young gallows!” + +This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he +unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. Here he was +searched; and nothing being found upon him, locked up. + +This cell was in shape and size something like an area cellar, only not +so light. It was most intolerably dirty; for it was Monday morning; and +it had been tenanted by six drunken people, who had been locked up, +elsewhere, since Saturday night. But this is little. In our +station-houses, men and women are every night confined on the most +trivial charges—the word is worth noting—in dungeons, compared with +which, those in Newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried, +found guilty, and under sentence of death, are palaces. Let any one who +doubts this, compare the two. + +The old gentleman looked almost as rueful as Oliver when the key grated +in the lock. He turned with a sigh to the book, which had been the +innocent cause of all this disturbance. + +“There is something in that boy’s face,” said the old gentleman to +himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of +the book, in a thoughtful manner; “something that touches and interests +me. _Can_ he be innocent? He looked like—Bye the bye,” exclaimed the +old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky, +“Bless my soul!—where have I seen something like that look before?” + +After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same +meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, +retiring into a corner, called up before his mind’s eye a vast +amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many +years. “No,” said the old gentleman, shaking his head; “it must be +imagination.” + +He wandered over them again. He had called them into view, and it was +not easy to replace the shroud that had so long concealed them. There +were the faces of friends, and foes, and of many that had been almost +strangers peering intrusively from the crowd; there were the faces of +young and blooming girls that were now old women; there were faces that +the grave had changed and closed upon, but which the mind, superior to +its power, still dressed in their old freshness and beauty, calling +back the lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the smile, the beaming +of the soul through its mask of clay, and whispering of beauty beyond +the tomb, changed but to be heightened, and taken from earth only to be +set up as a light, to shed a soft and gentle glow upon the path to +Heaven. + +But the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which Oliver’s +features bore a trace. So, he heaved a sigh over the recollections he +awakened; and being, happily for himself, an absent old gentleman, +buried them again in the pages of the musty book. + +He was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man +with the keys to follow him into the office. He closed his book +hastily; and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the +renowned Mr. Fang. + +The office was a front parlour, with a panelled wall. Mr. Fang sat +behind a bar, at the upper end; and on one side the door was a sort of +wooden pen in which poor little Oliver was already deposited; trembling +very much at the awfulness of the scene. + +Mr. Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with +no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and +sides of his head. His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were +really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good +for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for +libel, and have recovered heavy damages. + +The old gentleman bowed respectfully; and advancing to the magistrate’s +desk, said, suiting the action to the word, “That is my name and +address, sir.” He then withdrew a pace or two; and, with another polite +and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to be questioned. + +Now, it so happened that Mr. Fang was at that moment perusing a leading +article in a newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent +decision of his, and commending him, for the three hundred and fiftieth +time, to the special and particular notice of the Secretary of State +for the Home Department. He was out of temper; and he looked up with an +angry scowl. + +“Who are you?” said Mr. Fang. + +The old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card. + +“Officer!” said Mr. Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the +newspaper. “Who is this fellow?” + +“My name, sir,” said the old gentleman, speaking _like_ a gentleman, +“my name, sir, is Brownlow. Permit me to inquire the name of the +magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a +respectable person, under the protection of the bench.” Saying this, +Mr. Brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person +who would afford him the required information. + +“Officer!” said Mr. Fang, throwing the paper on one side, “what’s this +fellow charged with?” + +“He’s not charged at all, your worship,” replied the officer. “He +appears against this boy, your worship.” + +His worship knew this perfectly well; but it was a good annoyance, and +a safe one. + +“Appears against the boy, does he?” said Mr. Fang, surveying Mr. +Brownlow contemptuously from head to foot. “Swear him!” + +“Before I am sworn, I must beg to say one word,” said Mr. Brownlow; +“and that is, that I really never, without actual experience, could +have believed—” + +“Hold your tongue, sir!” said Mr. Fang, peremptorily. + +“I will not, sir!” replied the old gentleman. + +“Hold your tongue this instant, or I’ll have you turned out of the +office!” said Mr. Fang. “You’re an insolent impertinent fellow. How +dare you bully a magistrate!” + +“What!” exclaimed the old gentleman, reddening. + +“Swear this person!” said Fang to the clerk. “I’ll not hear another +word. Swear him.” + +Mr. Brownlow’s indignation was greatly roused; but reflecting perhaps, +that he might only injure the boy by giving vent to it, he suppressed +his feelings and submitted to be sworn at once. + +“Now,” said Fang, “what’s the charge against this boy? What have you +got to say, sir?” + +“I was standing at a bookstall—” Mr. Brownlow began. + +“Hold your tongue, sir,” said Mr. Fang. “Policeman! Where’s the +policeman? Here, swear this policeman. Now, policeman, what is this?” + +The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the +charge; how he had searched Oliver, and found nothing on his person; +and how that was all he knew about it. + +“Are there any witnesses?” inquired Mr. Fang. + +“None, your worship,” replied the policeman. + +Mr. Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the +prosecutor, said in a towering passion. + +“Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or +do you not? You have been sworn. Now, if you stand there, refusing to +give evidence, I’ll punish you for disrespect to the bench; I will, +by—” + +By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed +very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy +book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being +heard—accidently, of course. + +With many interruptions, and repeated insults, Mr. Brownlow contrived +to state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he +had run after the boy because he had saw him running away; and +expressing his hope that, if the magistrate should believe him, +although not actually the thief, to be connected with the thieves, he +would deal as leniently with him as justice would allow. + +“He has been hurt already,” said the old gentleman in conclusion. “And +I fear,” he added, with great energy, looking towards the bar, “I +really fear that he is ill.” + +“Oh! yes, I dare say!” said Mr. Fang, with a sneer. “Come, none of your +tricks here, you young vagabond; they won’t do. What’s your name?” + +Oliver tried to reply but his tongue failed him. He was deadly pale; +and the whole place seemed turning round and round. + +“What’s your name, you hardened scoundrel?” demanded Mr. Fang. +“Officer, what’s his name?” + +This was addressed to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who +was standing by the bar. He bent over Oliver, and repeated the inquiry; +but finding him really incapable of understanding the question; and +knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the magistrate the +more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded a guess. + +“He says his name’s Tom White, your worship,” said the kind-hearted +thief-taker. + +“Oh, he won’t speak out, won’t he?” said Fang. “Very well, very well. +Where does he live?” + +“Where he can, your worship,” replied the officer; again pretending to +receive Oliver’s answer. + +“Has he any parents?” inquired Mr. Fang. + +“He says they died in his infancy, your worship,” replied the officer: +hazarding the usual reply. + +At this point of the inquiry, Oliver raised his head; and, looking +round with imploring eyes, murmured a feeble prayer for a draught of +water. + +“Stuff and nonsense!” said Mr. Fang: “don’t try to make a fool of me.” + +“I think he really is ill, your worship,” remonstrated the officer. + +“I know better,” said Mr. Fang. + +“Take care of him, officer,” said the old gentleman, raising his hands +instinctively; “he’ll fall down.” + +“Stand away, officer,” cried Fang; “let him, if he likes.” + +Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in +a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one +dared to stir. + +“I knew he was shamming,” said Fang, as if this were incontestable +proof of the fact. “Let him lie there; he’ll soon be tired of that.” + +“How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?” inquired the clerk in +a low voice. + +“Summarily,” replied Mr. Fang. “He stands committed for three +months—hard labour of course. Clear the office.” + +The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were +preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man +of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed +hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench. + +“Stop, stop! don’t take him away! For Heaven’s sake stop a moment!” +cried the new comer, breathless with haste. + +Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a +summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the +character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty’s subjects, especially of +the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough fantastic +tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are +closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily +press.[Footnote: Or were virtually, then.] Mr. Fang was consequently +not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in such +irreverent disorder. + +“What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office!” cried +Mr. Fang. + +“I _will_ speak,” cried the man; “I will not be turned out. I saw it +all. I keep the book-stall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put +down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You must not refuse, sir.” + +The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was +growing rather too serious to be hushed up. + +“Swear the man,” growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. “Now, man, +what have you got to say?” + +“This,” said the man: “I saw three boys: two others and the prisoner +here: loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman +was reading. The robbery was committed by another boy. I saw it done; +and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it.” +Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall +keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact +circumstances of the robbery. + +“Why didn’t you come here before?” said Fang, after a pause. + +“I hadn’t a soul to mind the shop,” replied the man. “Everybody who +could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody +till five minutes ago; and I’ve run here all the way.” + +“The prosecutor was reading, was he?” inquired Fang, after another +pause. + +“Yes,” replied the man. “The very book he has in his hand.” + +“Oh, that book, eh?” said Fang. “Is it paid for?” + +“No, it is not,” replied the man, with a smile. + +“Dear me, I forgot all about it!” exclaimed the absent old gentleman, +innocently. + +“A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!” said Fang, with +a comical effort to look humane. “I consider, sir, that you have +obtained possession of that book, under very suspicious and +disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate +that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a +lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is +discharged. Clear the office!” + +“D—n me!” cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had +kept down so long, “d—n me! I’ll—” + +“Clear the office!” said the magistrate. “Officers, do you hear? Clear +the office!” + +The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed +out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a +perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard; and his +passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on +the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with +water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole +frame. + +“Poor boy, poor boy!” said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. “Call a +coach, somebody, pray. Directly!” + +A coach was obtained, and Oliver having been carefully laid on the +seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other. + +“May I accompany you?” said the book-stall keeper, looking in. + +“Bless me, yes, my dear sir,” said Mr. Brownlow quickly. “I forgot you. +Dear, dear! I have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor fellow! +There’s no time to lose.” + +The book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. +IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN +WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL +FRIENDS. + + +The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which +Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the +Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at +Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady +street near Pentonville. Here, a bed was prepared, without loss of +time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and +comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and +solicitude that knew no bounds. + +But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of +his new friends. The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and +many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy +bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The worm +does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow +creeping fire upon the living frame. + +Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have +been a long and troubled dream. Feebly raising himself in the bed, with +his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around. + +“What room is this? Where have I been brought to?” said Oliver. “This +is not the place I went to sleep in.” + +He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak; +but they were overheard at once. The curtain at the bed’s head was +hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely +dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which +she had been sitting at needle-work. + +“Hush, my dear,” said the old lady softly. “You must be very quiet, or +you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,—as bad as bad could +be, pretty nigh. Lie down again; there’s a dear!” With those words, the +old lady very gently placed Oliver’s head upon the pillow; and, +smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving +in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in +hers, and drawing it round his neck. + +“Save us!” said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. “What a grateful +little dear it is. Pretty creetur! What would his mother feel if she +had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!” + +“Perhaps she does see me,” whispered Oliver, folding his hands +together; “perhaps she has sat by me. I almost feel as if she had.” + +“That was the fever, my dear,” said the old lady mildly. + +“I suppose it was,” replied Oliver, “because heaven is a long way off; +and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor +boy. But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; +for she was very ill herself before she died. She can’t know anything +about me though,” added Oliver after a moment’s silence. “If she had +seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always +looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.” + +The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her +spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were +part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver +to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very +quiet, or he would be ill again. + +So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the +kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he +was completely exhausted with what he had already said. He soon fell +into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a +candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with +a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his +pulse, and said he was a great deal better. + +“You _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?” said the +gentleman. + +“Yes, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Yes, I know you are,” said the gentleman: “You’re hungry too, an’t +you?” + +“No, sir,” answered Oliver. + +“Hem!” said the gentleman. “No, I know you’re not. He is not hungry, +Mrs. Bedwin,” said the gentleman: looking very wise. + +The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to +say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. The doctor +appeared much of the same opinion himself. + +“You feel sleepy, don’t you, my dear?” said the doctor. + +“No, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“No,” said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. “You’re +not sleepy. Nor thirsty. Are you?” + +“Yes, sir, rather thirsty,” answered Oliver. + +“Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin,” said the doctor. “It’s very natural +that he should be thirsty. You may give him a little tea, ma’am, and +some dry toast without any butter. Don’t keep him too warm, ma’am; but +be careful that you don’t let him be too cold; will you have the +goodness?” + +The old lady dropped a curtsey. The doctor, after tasting the cool +stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away: his +boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went +downstairs. + +Oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly +twelve o’clock. The old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly +afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just +come: bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a +large nightcap. Putting the latter on her head and the former on the +table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up +with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series +of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings +forward, and divers moans and chokings. These, however, had no worse +effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep +again. + +And thus the night crept slowly on. Oliver lay awake for some time, +counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the +rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid +eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. The darkness and +the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into +the boy’s mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many +days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his +awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently +prayed to Heaven. + +Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent +suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain +to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the +struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its +anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the +past! + +It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt +cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He +belonged to the world again. + +In three days’ time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped +up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs. Bedwin had +him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper’s room, which +belonged to her. Having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old +lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable +delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most +violently. + +“Never mind me, my dear,” said the old lady; “I’m only having a regular +good cry. There; it’s all over now; and I’m quite comfortable.” + +“You’re very, very kind to me, ma’am,” said Oliver. + +“Well, never you mind that, my dear,” said the old lady; “that’s got +nothing to do with your broth; and it’s full time you had it; for the +doctor says Mr. Brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we +must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he’ll +be pleased.” And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming up, +in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth: strong enough, Oliver +thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation +strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest +computation. + +“Are you fond of pictures, dear?” inquired the old lady, seeing that +Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung +against the wall; just opposite his chair. + +“I don’t quite know, ma’am,” said Oliver, without taking his eyes from +the canvas; “I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful, +mild face that lady’s is!” + +“Ah!” said the old lady, “painters always make ladies out prettier than +they are, or they wouldn’t get any custom, child. The man that invented +the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never +succeed; it’s a deal too honest. A deal,” said the old lady, laughing +very heartily at her own acuteness. + +“Is—is that a likeness, ma’am?” said Oliver. + +“Yes,” said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth; +“that’s a portrait.” + +“Whose, ma’am?” asked Oliver. + +“Why, really, my dear, I don’t know,” answered the old lady in a +good-humoured manner. “It’s not a likeness of anybody that you or I +know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear.” + +“It is so pretty,” replied Oliver. + +“Why, sure you’re not afraid of it?” said the old lady: observing in +great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the +painting. + +“Oh no, no,” returned Oliver quickly; “but the eyes look so sorrowful; +and where I sit, they seem fixed upon me. It makes my heart beat,” +added Oliver in a low voice, “as if it was alive, and wanted to speak +to me, but couldn’t.” + +“Lord save us!” exclaimed the old lady, starting; “don’t talk in that +way, child. You’re weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel +your chair round to the other side; and then you won’t see it. There!” +said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; “you don’t see it +now, at all events.” + +Oliver _did_ see it in his mind’s eye as distinctly as if he had not +altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind +old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and Mrs. Bedwin, +satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of +toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a +preparation. Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition. He +had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at +the door. “Come in,” said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow. + +Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no +sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands +behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at +Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd +contortions. Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and +made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his +benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again; +and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow’s heart, +being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane +disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic +process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a +condition to explain. + +“Poor boy, poor boy!” said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat. “I’m +rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin. I’m afraid I have caught +cold.” + +“I hope not, sir,” said Mrs. Bedwin. “Everything you have had, has been +well aired, sir.” + +“I don’t know, Bedwin. I don’t know,” said Mr. Brownlow; “I rather +think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind +that. How do you feel, my dear?” + +“Very happy, sir,” replied Oliver. “And very grateful indeed, sir, for +your goodness to me.” + +“Good boy,” said Mr. Brownlow, stoutly. “Have you given him any +nourishment, Bedwin? Any slops, eh?” + +“He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,” replied Mrs. +Bedwin: drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the +last word: to intimate that between slops, and broth well compounded, +there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever. + +“Ugh!” said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; “a couple of glasses +of port wine would have done him a great deal more good. Wouldn’t they, +Tom White, eh?” + +“My name is Oliver, sir,” replied the little invalid: with a look of +great astonishment. + +“Oliver,” said Mr. Brownlow; “Oliver what? Oliver White, eh?” + +“No, sir, Twist, Oliver Twist.” + +“Queer name!” said the old gentleman. “What made you tell the +magistrate your name was White?” + +“I never told him so, sir,” returned Oliver in amazement. + +This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked +somewhat sternly in Oliver’s face. It was impossible to doubt him; +there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments. + +“Some mistake,” said Mr. Brownlow. But, although his motive for looking +steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the resemblance +between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly, +that he could not withdraw his gaze. + +“I hope you are not angry with me, sir?” said Oliver, raising his eyes +beseechingly. + +“No, no,” replied the old gentleman. “Why! what’s this? Bedwin, look +there!” + +As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over Oliver’s head, and +then to the boy’s face. There was its living copy. The eyes, the head, +the mouth; every feature was the same. The expression was, for the +instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with +startling accuracy! + +Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being +strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away. A +weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of +relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils +of the Merry Old Gentleman; and of recording— + +That when the Dodger, and his accomplished friend Master Bates, joined +in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver’s heels, in consequence +of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow’s personal +property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very +laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the +freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the +first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so, I need +hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt +them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great +a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own +preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code +of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid +down as the main-springs of all Nature’s deeds and actions: the said +philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady’s proceedings to +matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment +to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight +any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling. For, +these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by +universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and +weaknesses of her sex. + +If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of +the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate +predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a +foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when +the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for +their home by the shortest possible cut. Although I do not mean to +assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages, +to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being +rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and +discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the +pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I +do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable +practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories, +to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every +possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect +themselves. Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and +you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the +amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the +distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher +concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, +and impartial view of his own particular case. + +It was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through +a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured +to halt beneath a low and dark archway. Having remained silent here, +just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an +exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an +uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and +rolled thereon in a transport of mirth. + +“What’s the matter?” inquired the Dodger. + +“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Charley Bates. + +“Hold your noise,” remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round. +“Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?” + +“I can’t help it,” said Charley, “I can’t help it! To see him splitting +away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up +again’ the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron as +well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter +him—oh, my eye!” The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented the +scene before him in too strong colours. As he arrived at this +apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than +before. + +“What’ll Fagin say?” inquired the Dodger; taking advantage of the next +interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the +question. + +“What?” repeated Charley Bates. + +“Ah, what?” said the Dodger. + +“Why, what should he say?” inquired Charley: stopping rather suddenly +in his merriment; for the Dodger’s manner was impressive. “What should +he say?” + +Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat, +scratched his head, and nodded thrice. + +“What do you mean?” said Charley. + +“Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn’t, and high +cockolorum,” said the Dodger: with a slight sneer on his intellectual +countenance. + +This was explanatory, but not satisfactory. Master Bates felt it so; +and again said, “What do you mean?” + +The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering +the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue +into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in +a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down +the court. Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance. + +The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes after the +occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old gentleman as he +sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his hand; a +pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the trivet. There was a +rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking +sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the +door, and listened. + +“Why, how’s this?” muttered the Jew: changing countenance; “only two of +’em? Where’s the third? They can’t have got into trouble. Hark!” + +The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing. The door was +slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered, closing it +behind them. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. +SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER, +CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED, APPERTAINING +TO THIS HISTORY + + +“Where’s Oliver?” said the Jew, rising with a menacing look. “Where’s +the boy?” + +The young thieves eyed their preceptor as if they were alarmed at his +violence; and looked uneasily at each other. But they made no reply. + +“What’s become of the boy?” said the Jew, seizing the Dodger tightly by +the collar, and threatening him with horrid imprecations. “Speak out, +or I’ll throttle you!” + +Mr. Fagin looked so very much in earnest, that Charley Bates, who +deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who +conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to be +throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud, +well-sustained, and continuous roar—something between a mad bull and a +speaking trumpet. + +“Will you speak?” thundered the Jew: shaking the Dodger so much that +his keeping in the big coat at all, seemed perfectly miraculous. + +“Why, the traps have got him, and that’s all about it,” said the +Dodger, sullenly. “Come, let go o’ me, will you!” And, swinging +himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the +Jew’s hands, the Dodger snatched up the toasting fork, and made a pass +at the merry old gentleman’s waistcoat; which, if it had taken effect, +would have let a little more merriment out than could have been easily +replaced. + +The Jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could +have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and, +seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant’s head. But +Charley Bates, at this moment, calling his attention by a perfectly +terrific howl, he suddenly altered its destination, and flung it full +at that young gentleman. + +“Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!” growled a deep voice. “Who +pitched that ’ere at me? It’s well it’s the beer, and not the pot, as +hit me, or I’d have settled somebody. I might have know’d, as nobody +but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to +throw away any drink but water—and not that, unless he done the River +Company every quarter. Wot’s it all about, Fagin? D—me, if my +neck-handkercher an’t lined with beer! Come in, you sneaking warmint; +wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master! +Come in!” + +The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of +about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab +breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed +a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;—the kind of legs, +which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete +state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a brown hat on +his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the +long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he +spoke. He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance +with a beard of three days’ growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which +displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently +damaged by a blow. + +“Come in, d’ye hear?” growled this engaging ruffian. + +A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty +different places, skulked into the room. + +“Why didn’t you come in afore?” said the man. “You’re getting too proud +to own me afore company, are you? Lie down!” + +This command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the animal to the +other end of the room. He appeared well used to it, however; for he +coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound, +and winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty times in a minute, +appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment. + +“What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, +in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?” said the man, seating himself deliberately. +“I wonder they don’t murder you! I would if I was them. If I’d been +your ’prentice, I’d have done it long ago, and—no, I couldn’t have sold +you afterwards, for you’re fit for nothing but keeping as a curiousity +of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I suppose they don’t blow glass +bottles large enough.” + +“Hush! hush! Mr. Sikes,” said the Jew, trembling; “don’t speak so +loud!” + +“None of your mistering,” replied the ruffian; “you always mean +mischief when you come that. You know my name: out with it! I shan’t +disgrace it when the time comes.” + +“Well, well, then—Bill Sikes,” said the Jew, with abject humility. “You +seem out of humour, Bill.” + +“Perhaps I am,” replied Sikes; “I should think you was rather out of +sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots +about, as you do when you blab and—” + +“Are you mad?” said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and +pointing towards the boys. + +Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left +ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb +show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly. He then, in cant +terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, +but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here, +demanded a glass of liquor. + +“And mind you don’t poison it,” said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the +table. + +This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer +with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard, +he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish +(at all events) to improve upon the distiller’s ingenuity not very far +from the old gentleman’s merry heart. + +After swallowing two of three glasses of spirits, Mr. Sikes +condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious +act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner of Oliver’s +capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and +improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger appeared most advisable +under the circumstances. + +“I’m afraid,” said the Jew, “that he may say something which will get +us into trouble.” + +“That’s very likely,” returned Sikes with a malicious grin. “You’re +blowed upon, Fagin.” + +“And I’m afraid, you see,” added the Jew, speaking as if he had not +noticed the interruption; and regarding the other closely as he did +so,—“I’m afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with a +good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than it +would for me, my dear.” + +The man started, and turned round upon the Jew. But the old gentleman’s +shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes were vacantly +staring on the opposite wall. + +There was a long pause. Every member of the respectable coterie +appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the dog, who by +a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an +attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter +in the streets when he went out. + +“Somebody must find out wot’s been done at the office,” said Mr. Sikes +in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in. + +The Jew nodded assent. + +“If he hasn’t peached, and is committed, there’s no fear till he comes +out again,” said Mr. Sikes, “and then he must be taken care on. You +must get hold of him somehow.” + +Again the Jew nodded. + +The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but, +unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being +adopted. This was, that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin, and +Mr. William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and +deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office on any ground or +pretext whatever. + +How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of +uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to +guess. It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject, however; +for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver had seen on +a former occasion, caused the conversation to flow afresh. + +“The very thing!” said the Jew. “Bet will go; won’t you, my dear?” + +“Wheres?” inquired the young lady. + +“Only just up to the office, my dear,” said the Jew coaxingly. + +It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm +that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and +earnest desire to be “blessed” if she would; a polite and delicate +evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been +possessed of that natural good breeding which cannot bear to inflict +upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and pointed refusal. + +The Jew’s countenance fell. He turned from this young lady, who was +gaily, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and +yellow curl-papers, to the other female. + +“Nancy, my dear,” said the Jew in a soothing manner, “what do _you_ +say?” + +“That it won’t do; so it’s no use a-trying it on, Fagin,” replied +Nancy. + +“What do you mean by that?” said Mr. Sikes, looking up in a surly +manner. + +“What I say, Bill,” replied the lady collectedly. + +“Why, you’re just the very person for it,” reasoned Mr. Sikes: “nobody +about here knows anything of you.” + +“And as I don’t want ’em to, neither,” replied Nancy in the same +composed manner, “it’s rather more no than yes with me, Bill.” + +“She’ll go, Fagin,” said Sikes. + +“No, she won’t, Fagin,” said Nancy. + +“Yes, she will, Fagin,” said Sikes. + +And Mr. Sikes was right. By dint of alternate threats, promises, and +bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake +the commission. She was not, indeed, withheld by the same +considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently removed +into the neighborhood of Field Lane from the remote but genteel suburb +of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being +recognised by any of her numerous acquaintances. + +Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and her +curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet,—both articles of dress +being provided from the Jew’s inexhaustible stock,—Miss Nancy prepared +to issue forth on her errand. + +“Stop a minute, my dear,” said the Jew, producing, a little covered +basket. “Carry that in one hand. It looks more respectable, my dear.” + +“Give her a door-key to carry in her t’other one, Fagin,” said Sikes; +“it looks real and genivine like.” + +“Yes, yes, my dear, so it does,” said the Jew, hanging a large +street-door key on the forefinger of the young lady’s right hand. + +“There; very good! Very good indeed, my dear!” said the Jew, rubbing +his hands. + +“Oh, my brother! My poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!” +exclaimed Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket +and the street-door key in an agony of distress. “What has become of +him! Where have they taken him to! Oh, do have pity, and tell me what’s +been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do, gentlemen, if you please, +gentlemen!” + +Having uttered those words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone: +to the immeasurable delight of her hearers: Miss Nancy paused, winked +to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared. + +“Ah, she’s a clever girl, my dears,” said the Jew, turning round to his +young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute admonition +to them to follow the bright example they had just beheld. + +“She’s a honour to her sex,” said Mr. Sikes, filling his glass, and +smiting the table with his enormous fist. “Here’s her health, and +wishing they was all like her!” + +While these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on the +accomplished Nancy, that young lady made the best of her way to the +police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural timidity +consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she +arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards. + +Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the +cell-doors, and listened. There was no sound within: so she coughed and +listened again. Still there was no reply: so she spoke. + +“Nolly, dear?” murmured Nancy in a gentle voice; “Nolly?” + +There was nobody inside but a miserable shoeless criminal, who had been +taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence against society +having been clearly proved, had been very properly committed by Mr. +Fang to the House of Correction for one month; with the appropriate and +amusing remark that since he had so much breath to spare, it would be +more wholesomely expended on the treadmill than in a musical +instrument. He made no answer: being occupied mentally bewailing the +loss of the flute, which had been confiscated for the use of the +county: so Nancy passed on to the next cell, and knocked there. + +“Well!” cried a faint and feeble voice. + +“Is there a little boy here?” inquired Nancy, with a preliminary sob. + +“No,” replied the voice; “God forbid.” + +This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for _not_ +playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and +doing nothing for his livelihood. In the next cell was another man, who +was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without license; +thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the +Stamp-office. + +But, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of Oliver, or +knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in +the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and +lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt and efficient use of +the street-door key and the little basket, demanded her own dear +brother. + +“I haven’t got him, my dear,” said the old man. + +“Where is he?” screamed Nancy, in a distracted manner. + +“Why, the gentleman’s got him,” replied the officer. + +“What gentleman! Oh, gracious heavens! What gentleman?” exclaimed +Nancy. + +In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the +deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office, +and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to +have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the +prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own +residence: of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that it +was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in +the directions to the coachman. + +In a dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty, the agonised young woman +staggered to the gate, and then, exchanging her faltering walk for a +swift run, returned by the most devious and complicated route she could +think of, to the domicile of the Jew. + +Mr. Bill Sikes no sooner heard the account of the expedition delivered, +than he very hastily called up the white dog, and, putting on his hat, +expeditiously departed: without devoting any time to the formality of +wishing the company good-morning. + +“We must know where he is, my dears; he must be found,” said the Jew +greatly excited. “Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring +home some news of him! Nancy, my dear, I must have him found. I trust +to you, my dear,—to you and the Artful for everything! Stay, stay,” +added the Jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; “there’s money, +my dears. I shall shut up this shop to-night. You’ll know where to find +me! Don’t stop here a minute. Not an instant, my dears!” + +With these words, he pushed them from the room: and carefully +double-locking and barring the door behind them, drew from its place of +concealment the box which he had unintentionally disclosed to Oliver. +Then, he hastily proceeded to dispose the watches and jewellery beneath +his clothing. + +A rap at the door startled him in this occupation. “Who’s there?” he +cried in a shrill tone. + +“Me!” replied the voice of the Dodger, through the key-hole. + +“What now?” cried the Jew impatiently. + +“Is he to be kidnapped to the other ken, Nancy says?” inquired the +Dodger. + +“Yes,” replied the Jew, “wherever she lays hands on him. Find him, find +him out, that’s all. I shall know what to do next; never fear.” + +The boy murmured a reply of intelligence: and hurried downstairs after +his companions. + +“He has not peached so far,” said the Jew as he pursued his occupation. +“If he means to blab us among his new friends, we may stop his mouth +yet.” + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. +COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER’S STAY AT MR. BROWNLOW’S, WITH +THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. GRIMWIG UTTERED CONCERNING HIM, +WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND + + +Oliver soon recovering from the fainting-fit into which Mr. Brownlow’s +abrupt exclamation had thrown him, the subject of the picture was +carefully avoided, both by the old gentleman and Mrs. Bedwin, in the +conversation that ensued: which indeed bore no reference to Oliver’s +history or prospects, but was confined to such topics as might amuse +without exciting him. He was still too weak to get up to breakfast; +but, when he came down into the housekeeper’s room next day, his first +act was to cast an eager glance at the wall, in the hope of again +looking on the face of the beautiful lady. His expectations were +disappointed, however, for the picture had been removed. + +“Ah!” said the housekeeper, watching the direction of Oliver’s eyes. +“It is gone, you see.” + +“I see it is ma’am,” replied Oliver. “Why have they taken it away?” + +“It has been taken down, child, because Mr. Brownlow said, that as it +seemed to worry you, perhaps it might prevent your getting well, you +know,” rejoined the old lady. + +“Oh, no, indeed. It didn’t worry me, ma’am,” said Oliver. “I liked to +see it. I quite loved it.” + +“Well, well!” said the old lady, good-humouredly; “you get well as fast +as ever you can, dear, and it shall be hung up again. There! I promise +you that! Now, let us talk about something else.” + +This was all the information Oliver could obtain about the picture at +that time. As the old lady had been so kind to him in his illness, he +endeavoured to think no more of the subject just then; so he listened +attentively to a great many stories she told him, about an amiable and +handsome daughter of hers, who was married to an amiable and handsome +man, and lived in the country; and about a son, who was clerk to a +merchant in the West Indies; and who was, also, such a good young man, +and wrote such dutiful letters home four times a-year, that it brought +the tears into her eyes to talk about them. When the old lady had +expatiated, a long time, on the excellences of her children, and the +merits of her kind good husband besides, who had been dead and gone, +poor dear soul! just six-and-twenty years, it was time to have tea. +After tea she began to teach Oliver cribbage: which he learnt as +quickly as she could teach: and at which game they played, with great +interest and gravity, until it was time for the invalid to have some +warm wine and water, with a slice of dry toast, and then to go cosily +to bed. + +They were happy days, those of Oliver’s recovery. Everything was so +quiet, and neat, and orderly; everybody so kind and gentle; that after +the noise and turbulence in the midst of which he had always lived, it +seemed like Heaven itself. He was no sooner strong enough to put his +clothes on, properly, than Mr. Brownlow caused a complete new suit, and +a new cap, and a new pair of shoes, to be provided for him. As Oliver +was told that he might do what he liked with the old clothes, he gave +them to a servant who had been very kind to him, and asked her to sell +them to a Jew, and keep the money for herself. This she very readily +did; and, as Oliver looked out of the parlour window, and saw the Jew +roll them up in his bag and walk away, he felt quite delighted to think +that they were safely gone, and that there was now no possible danger +of his ever being able to wear them again. They were sad rags, to tell +the truth; and Oliver had never had a new suit before. + +One evening, about a week after the affair of the picture, as he was +sitting talking to Mrs. Bedwin, there came a message down from Mr. +Brownlow, that if Oliver Twist felt pretty well, he should like to see +him in his study, and talk to him a little while. + +“Bless us, and save us! Wash your hands, and let me part your hair +nicely for you, child,” said Mrs. Bedwin. “Dear heart alive! If we had +known he would have asked for you, we would have put you a clean collar +on, and made you as smart as sixpence!” + +Oliver did as the old lady bade him; and, although she lamented +grievously, meanwhile, that there was not even time to crimp the little +frill that bordered his shirt-collar; he looked so delicate and +handsome, despite that important personal advantage, that she went so +far as to say: looking at him with great complacency from head to foot, +that she really didn’t think it would have been possible, on the +longest notice, to have made much difference in him for the better. + +Thus encouraged, Oliver tapped at the study door. On Mr. Brownlow +calling to him to come in, he found himself in a little back room, +quite full of books, with a window, looking into some pleasant little +gardens. There was a table drawn up before the window, at which Mr. +Brownlow was seated reading. When he saw Oliver, he pushed the book +away from him, and told him to come near the table, and sit down. +Oliver complied; marvelling where the people could be found to read +such a great number of books as seemed to be written to make the world +wiser. Which is still a marvel to more experienced people than Oliver +Twist, every day of their lives. + +“There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?” said Mr. +Brownlow, observing the curiosity with which Oliver surveyed the +shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. + +“A great number, sir,” replied Oliver. “I never saw so many.” + +“You shall read them, if you behave well,” said the old gentleman +kindly; “and you will like that, better than looking at the +outsides,—that is, some cases; because there are books of which the +backs and covers are by far the best parts.” + +“I suppose they are those heavy ones, sir,” said Oliver, pointing to +some large quartos, with a good deal of gilding about the binding. + +“Not always those,” said the old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head, +and smiling as he did so; “there are other equally heavy ones, though +of a much smaller size. How should you like to grow up a clever man, +and write books, eh?” + +“I think I would rather read them, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“What! wouldn’t you like to be a book-writer?” said the old gentleman. + +Oliver considered a little while; and at last said, he should think it +would be a much better thing to be a book-seller; upon which the old +gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing. +Which Oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it +was. + +“Well, well,” said the old gentleman, composing his features. “Don’t be +afraid! We won’t make an author of you, while there’s an honest trade +to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.” + +“Thank you, sir,” said Oliver. At the earnest manner of his reply, the +old gentleman laughed again; and said something about a curious +instinct, which Oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention +to. + +“Now,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the +same time in a much more serious manner, than Oliver had ever known him +assume yet, “I want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what I am +going to say. I shall talk to you without any reserve; because I am +sure you are well able to understand me, as many older persons would +be.” + +“Oh, don’t tell you are going to send me away, sir, pray!” exclaimed +Oliver, alarmed at the serious tone of the old gentleman’s +commencement! “Don’t turn me out of doors to wander in the streets +again. Let me stay here, and be a servant. Don’t send me back to the +wretched place I came from. Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!” + +“My dear child,” said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of +Oliver’s sudden appeal; “you need not be afraid of my deserting you, +unless you give me cause.” + +“I never, never will, sir,” interposed Oliver. + +“I hope not,” rejoined the old gentleman. “I do not think you ever +will. I have been deceived, before, in the objects whom I have +endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you, +nevertheless; and I am more interested in your behalf than I can well +account for, even to myself. The persons on whom I have bestowed my +dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and +delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my +heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. Deep +affliction has but strengthened and refined them.” + +As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to +his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwards: +Oliver sat quite still. + +“Well, well!” said the old gentleman at length, in a more cheerful +tone, “I only say this, because you have a young heart; and knowing +that I have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful, +perhaps, not to wound me again. You say you are an orphan, without a +friend in the world; all the inquiries I have been able to make, +confirm the statement. Let me hear your story; where you come from; who +brought you up; and how you got into the company in which I found you. +Speak the truth, and you shall not be friendless while I live.” + +Oliver’s sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; when he was on +the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the +farm, and carried to the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a peculiarly +impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door: and the +servant, running upstairs, announced Mr. Grimwig. + +“Is he coming up?” inquired Mr. Brownlow. + +“Yes, sir,” replied the servant. “He asked if there were any muffins in +the house; and, when I told him yes, he said he had come to tea.” + +Mr. Brownlow smiled; and, turning to Oliver, said that Mr. Grimwig was +an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in +his manners; for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason +to know. + +“Shall I go downstairs, sir?” inquired Oliver. + +“No,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “I would rather you remained here.” + +At this moment, there walked into the room: supporting himself by a +thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was +dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and +gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with +green. A very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat; +and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end, +dangled loosely below it. The ends of his white neckerchief were +twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; the variety of shapes +into which his countenance was twisted, defy description. He had a +manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking +out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly +reminded the beholder of a parrot. In this attitude, he fixed himself, +the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of +orange-peel at arm’s length, exclaimed, in a growling, discontented +voice. + +“Look here! do you see this! Isn’t it a most wonderful and +extraordinary thing that I can’t call at a man’s house but I find a +piece of this poor surgeon’s friend on the staircase? I’ve been lamed +with orange-peel once, and I know orange-peel will be my death, or I’ll +be content to eat my own head, sir!” + +This was the handsome offer with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed +nearly every assertion he made; and it was the more singular in his +case, because, even admitting for the sake of argument, the possibility +of scientific improvements being brought to that pass which will enable +a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed, +Mr. Grimwig’s head was such a particularly large one, that the most +sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get +through it at a sitting—to put entirely out of the question, a very +thick coating of powder. + +“I’ll eat my head, sir,” repeated Mr. Grimwig, striking his stick upon +the ground. “Hallo! what’s that!” looking at Oliver, and retreating a +pace or two. + +“This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,” said Mr. +Brownlow. + +Oliver bowed. + +“You don’t mean to say that’s the boy who had the fever, I hope?” said +Mr. Grimwig, recoiling a little more. “Wait a minute! Don’t speak! +Stop—” continued Mr. Grimwig, abruptly, losing all dread of the fever +in his triumph at the discovery; “that’s the boy who had the orange! If +that’s not the boy, sir, who had the orange, and threw this bit of peel +upon the staircase, I’ll eat my head, and his too.” + +“No, no, he has not had one,” said Mr. Brownlow, laughing. “Come! Put +down your hat; and speak to my young friend.” + +“I feel strongly on this subject, sir,” said the irritable old +gentleman, drawing off his gloves. “There’s always more or less +orange-peel on the pavement in our street; and I _know_ it’s put there +by the surgeon’s boy at the corner. A young woman stumbled over a bit +last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up I +saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light. +‘Don’t go to him,’ I called out of the window, ‘he’s an assassin! A +man-trap!’ So he is. If he is not—” Here the irascible old gentleman +gave a great knock on the ground with his stick; which was always +understood, by his friends, to imply the customary offer, whenever it +was not expressed in words. Then, still keeping his stick in his hand, +he sat down; and, opening a double eye-glass, which he wore attached to +a broad black riband, took a view of Oliver: who, seeing that he was +the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again. + +“That’s the boy, is it?” said Mr. Grimwig, at length. + +“That’s the boy,” replied Mr. Brownlow. + +“How are you, boy?” said Mr. Grimwig. + +“A great deal better, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver. + +Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about +to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step downstairs and tell +Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea; which, as he did not half like the +visitor’s manner, he was very happy to do. + +“He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?” inquired Mr. Brownlow. + +“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Grimwig, pettishly. + +“Don’t know?” + +“No. I don’t know. I never see any difference in boys. I only knew two +sort of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.” + +“And which is Oliver?” + +“Mealy. I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy; a fine boy, they call +him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; +with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of +his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a +wolf. I know him! The wretch!” + +“Come,” said Mr. Brownlow, “these are not the characteristics of young +Oliver Twist; so he needn’t excite your wrath.” + +“They are not,” replied Mr. Grimwig. “He may have worse.” + +Here, Mr. Brownlow coughed impatiently; which appeared to afford Mr. +Grimwig the most exquisite delight. + +“He may have worse, I say,” repeated Mr. Grimwig. “Where does he come +from! Who is he? What is he? He has had a fever. What of that? Fevers +are not peculiar to good people; are they? Bad people have fevers +sometimes; haven’t they, eh? I knew a man who was hung in Jamaica for +murdering his master. He had had a fever six times; he wasn’t +recommended to mercy on that account. Pooh! nonsense!” + +Now, the fact was, that in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr. +Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver’s appearance and +manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for +contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the +orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to +him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the +first, to oppose his friend. When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no one +point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer; and that he +had postponed any investigation into Oliver’s previous history until he +thought the boy was strong enough to hear it; Mr. Grimwig chuckled +maliciously. And he demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper was +in the habit of counting the plate at night; because if she didn’t find +a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would be +content to—and so forth. + +All this, Mr. Brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous +gentleman: knowing his friend’s peculiarities, bore with great good +humour; as Mr. Grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his +entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and +Oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than +he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman’s presence. + +“And when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of +the life and adventures of Oliver Twist?” asked Grimwig of Mr. +Brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal; looking sideways at Oliver, as +he resumed his subject. + +“To-morrow morning,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I would rather he was alone +with me at the time. Come up to me to-morrow morning at ten o’clock, my +dear.” + +“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver. He answered with some hesitation, because +he was confused by Mr. Grimwig’s looking so hard at him. + +“I’ll tell you what,” whispered that gentleman to Mr. Brownlow; “he +won’t come up to you to-morrow morning. I saw him hesitate. He is +deceiving you, my good friend.” + +“I’ll swear he is not,” replied Mr. Brownlow, warmly. + +“If he is not,” said Mr. Grimwig, “I’ll—” and down went the stick. + +“I’ll answer for that boy’s truth with my life!” said Mr. Brownlow, +knocking the table. + +“And I for his falsehood with my head!” rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking +the table also. + +“We shall see,” said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger. + +“We will,” replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; “we will.” + +As fate would have it, Mrs. Bedwin chanced to bring in, at this moment, +a small parcel of books, which Mr. Brownlow had that morning purchased +of the identical bookstall-keeper, who has already figured in this +history; having laid them on the table, she prepared to leave the room. + +“Stop the boy, Mrs. Bedwin!” said Mr. Brownlow; “there is something to +go back.” + +“He has gone, sir,” replied Mrs. Bedwin. + +“Call after him,” said Mr. Brownlow; “it’s particular. He is a poor +man, and they are not paid for. There are some books to be taken back, +too.” + +The street-door was opened. Oliver ran one way; and the girl ran +another; and Mrs. Bedwin stood on the step and screamed for the boy; +but there was no boy in sight. Oliver and the girl returned, in a +breathless state, to report that there were no tidings of him. + +“Dear me, I am very sorry for that,” exclaimed Mr. Brownlow; “I +particularly wished those books to be returned to-night.” + +“Send Oliver with them,” said Mr. Grimwig, with an ironical smile; “he +will be sure to deliver them safely, you know.” + +“Yes; do let me take them, if you please, sir,” said Oliver. “I’ll run +all the way, sir.” + +The old gentleman was just going to say that Oliver should not go out +on any account; when a most malicious cough from Mr. Grimwig determined +him that he should; and that, by his prompt discharge of the +commission, he should prove to him the injustice of his suspicions: on +this head at least: at once. + +“You _shall_ go, my dear,” said the old gentleman. “The books are on a +chair by my table. Fetch them down.” + +Oliver, delighted to be of use, brought down the books under his arm in +a great bustle; and waited, cap in hand, to hear what message he was to +take. + +“You are to say,” said Mr. Brownlow, glancing steadily at Grimwig; “you +are to say that you have brought those books back; and that you have +come to pay the four pound ten I owe him. This is a five-pound note, so +you will have to bring me back, ten shillings change.” + +“I won’t be ten minutes, sir,” said Oliver, eagerly. Having buttoned up +the bank-note in his jacket pocket, and placed the books carefully +under his arm, he made a respectful bow, and left the room. Mrs. Bedwin +followed him to the street-door, giving him many directions about the +nearest way, and the name of the bookseller, and the name of the +street: all of which Oliver said he clearly understood. Having +superadded many injunctions to be sure and not take cold, the old lady +at length permitted him to depart. + +“Bless his sweet face!” said the old lady, looking after him. “I can’t +bear, somehow, to let him go out of my sight.” + +At this moment, Oliver looked gaily round, and nodded before he turned +the corner. The old lady smilingly returned his salutation, and, +closing the door, went back to her own room. + +“Let me see; he’ll be back in twenty minutes, at the longest,” said Mr. +Brownlow, pulling out his watch, and placing it on the table. “It will +be dark by that time.” + +“Oh! you really expect him to come back, do you?” inquired Mr. Grimwig. + +“Don’t you?” asked Mr. Brownlow, smiling. + +The spirit of contradiction was strong in Mr. Grimwig’s breast, at the +moment; and it was rendered stronger by his friend’s confident smile. + +“No,” he said, smiting the table with his fist, “I do not. The boy has +a new suit of clothes on his back, a set of valuable books under his +arm, and a five-pound note in his pocket. He’ll join his old friends +the thieves, and laugh at you. If ever that boy returns to this house, +sir, I’ll eat my head.” + +With these words he drew his chair closer to the table; and there the +two friends sat, in silent expectation, with the watch between them. + +It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the importance we attach to our +own judgments, and the pride with which we put forth our most rash and +hasty conclusions, that, although Mr. Grimwig was not by any means a +bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see +his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly +and strongly hope at that moment, that Oliver Twist might not come +back. + +It grew so dark, that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely +discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in +silence, with the watch between them. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. +SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY +WERE + + +In the obscure parlour of a low public-house, in the filthiest part of +Little Saffron Hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring gas-light +burnt all day in the winter-time; and where no ray of sun ever shone in +the summer: there sat, brooding over a little pewter measure and a +small glass, strongly impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man in a +velveteen coat, drab shorts, half-boots and stockings, whom even by +that dim light no experienced agent of the police would have hesitated +to recognise as Mr. William Sikes. At his feet, sat a white-coated, +red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, alternately, in winking at his +master with both eyes at the same time; and in licking a large, fresh +cut on one side of his mouth, which appeared to be the result of some +recent conflict. + +“Keep quiet, you warmint! Keep quiet!” said Mr. Sikes, suddenly +breaking silence. Whether his meditations were so intense as to be +disturbed by the dog’s winking, or whether his feelings were so wrought +upon by his reflections that they required all the relief derivable +from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for +argument and consideration. Whatever was the cause, the effect was a +kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously. + +Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by +their masters; but Mr. Sikes’s dog, having faults of temper in common +with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a +powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth +in one of the half-boots. Having given in a hearty shake, he retired, +growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr. +Sikes levelled at his head. + +“You would, would you?” said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and +deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew +from his pocket. “Come here, you born devil! Come here! D’ye hear?” + +The dog no doubt heard; because Mr. Sikes spoke in the very harshest +key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some +unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he +was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping +the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a wild +beast. + +This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on +his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously. The dog jumped +from right to left, and from left to right; snapping, growling, and +barking; the man thrust and swore, and struck and blasphemed; and the +struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other; when, the +door suddenly opening, the dog darted out: leaving Bill Sikes with the +poker and the clasp-knife in his hands. + +There must always be two parties to a quarrel, says the old adage. Mr. +Sikes, being disappointed of the dog’s participation, at once +transferred his share in the quarrel to the new comer. + +“What the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?” said Sikes, +with a fierce gesture. + +“I didn’t know, my dear, I didn’t know,” replied Fagin, humbly; for the +Jew was the new comer. + +“Didn’t know, you white-livered thief!” growled Sikes. “Couldn’t you +hear the noise?” + +“Not a sound of it, as I’m a living man, Bill,” replied the Jew. + +“Oh no! You hear nothing, you don’t,” retorted Sikes with a fierce +sneer. “Sneaking in and out, so as nobody hears how you come or go! I +wish you had been the dog, Fagin, half a minute ago.” + +“Why?” inquired the Jew with a forced smile. + +“Cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as +haven’t half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,” +replied Sikes, shutting up the knife with a very expressive look; +“that’s why.” + +The Jew rubbed his hands; and, sitting down at the table, affected to +laugh at the pleasantry of his friend. He was obviously very ill at +ease, however. + +“Grin away,” said Sikes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with +savage contempt; “grin away. You’ll never have the laugh at me, though, +unless it’s behind a nightcap. I’ve got the upper hand over you, Fagin; +and, d—me, I’ll keep it. There! If I go, you go; so take care of me.” + +“Well, well, my dear,” said the Jew, “I know all that; we—we—have a +mutual interest, Bill,—a mutual interest.” + +“Humph,” said Sikes, as if he thought the interest lay rather more on +the Jew’s side than on his. “Well, what have you got to say to me?” + +“It’s all passed safe through the melting-pot,” replied Fagin, “and +this is your share. It’s rather more than it ought to be, my dear; but +as I know you’ll do me a good turn another time, and—” + +“Stow that gammon,” interposed the robber, impatiently. “Where is it? +Hand over!” + +“Yes, yes, Bill; give me time, give me time,” replied the Jew, +soothingly. “Here it is! All safe!” As he spoke, he drew forth an old +cotton handkerchief from his breast; and untying a large knot in one +corner, produced a small brown-paper packet. Sikes, snatching it from +him, hastily opened it; and proceeded to count the sovereigns it +contained. + +“This is all, is it?” inquired Sikes. + +“All,” replied the Jew. + +“You haven’t opened the parcel and swallowed one or two as you come +along, have you?” inquired Sikes, suspiciously. “Don’t put on an +injured look at the question; you’ve done it many a time. Jerk the +tinkler.” + +These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell. +It was answered by another Jew: younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile +and repulsive in appearance. + +Bill Sikes merely pointed to the empty measure. The Jew, perfectly +understanding the hint, retired to fill it: previously exchanging a +remarkable look with Fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant, as if +in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply; so slightly that the +action would have been almost imperceptible to an observant third +person. It was lost upon Sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie +the boot-lace which the dog had torn. Possibly, if he had observed the +brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no +good to him. + +“Is anybody here, Barney?” inquired Fagin; speaking, now that +Sikes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground. + +“Dot a shoul,” replied Barney; whose words: whether they came from the +heart or not: made their way through the nose. + +“Nobody?” inquired Fagin, in a tone of surprise: which perhaps might +mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth. + +“Dobody but Biss Dadsy,” replied Barney. + +“Nancy!” exclaimed Sikes. “Where? Strike me blind, if I don’t honour +that ’ere girl, for her native talents.” + +“She’s bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,” replied Barney. + +“Send her here,” said Sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor. “Send her +here.” + +Barney looked timidly at Fagin, as if for permission; the Jew remaining +silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired; and +presently returned, ushering in Nancy; who was decorated with the +bonnet, apron, basket, and street-door key, complete. + +“You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?” inquired Sikes, proffering the +glass. + +“Yes, I am, Bill,” replied the young lady, disposing of its contents; +“and tired enough of it I am, too. The young brat’s been ill and +confined to the crib; and—” + +“Ah, Nancy, dear!” said Fagin, looking up. + +Now, whether a peculiar contraction of the Jew’s red eye-brows, and a +half closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned Miss Nancy that she was +disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance. +The fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she +suddenly checked herself, and with several gracious smiles upon Mr. +Sikes, turned the conversation to other matters. In about ten minutes’ +time, Mr. Fagin was seized with a fit of coughing; upon which Nancy +pulled her shawl over her shoulders, and declared it was time to go. +Mr. Sikes, finding that he was walking a short part of her way himself, +expressed his intention of accompanying her; they went away together, +followed, at a little distant, by the dog, who slunk out of a back-yard +as soon as his master was out of sight. + +The Jew thrust his head out of the room door when Sikes had left it; +looked after him as he walked up the dark passage; shook his clenched +fist; muttered a deep curse; and then, with a horrible grin, reseated +himself at the table; where he was soon deeply absorbed in the +interesting pages of the Hue-and-Cry. + +Meanwhile, Oliver Twist, little dreaming that he was within so very +short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the +book-stall. When he got into Clerkenwell, he accidently turned down a +by-street which was not exactly in his way; but not discovering his +mistake until he had got half-way down it, and knowing it must lead in +the right direction, he did not think it worth while to turn back; and +so marched on, as quickly as he could, with the books under his arm. + +He was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to +feel; and how much he would give for only one look at poor little Dick, +who, starved and beaten, might be weeping bitterly at that very moment; +when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud. “Oh, my +dear brother!” And he had hardly looked up, to see what the matter was, +when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his +neck. + +“Don’t,” cried Oliver, struggling. “Let go of me. Who is it? What are +you stopping me for?” + +The only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from +the young woman who had embraced him; and who had a little basket and a +street-door key in her hand. + +“Oh my gracious!” said the young woman, “I have found him! Oh! Oliver! +Oliver! Oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your +account! Come home, dear, come. Oh, I’ve found him. Thank gracious +goodness heavins, I’ve found him!” With these incoherent exclamations, +the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully +hysterical, that a couple of women who came up at the moment asked a +butcher’s boy with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was +also looking on, whether he didn’t think he had better run for the +doctor. To which, the butcher’s boy: who appeared of a lounging, not to +say indolent disposition: replied, that he thought not. + +“Oh, no, no, never mind,” said the young woman, grasping Oliver’s hand; +“I’m better now. Come home directly, you cruel boy! Come!” + +“Oh, ma’am,” replied the young woman, “he ran away, near a month ago, +from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people; and went +and joined a set of thieves and bad characters; and almost broke his +mother’s heart.” + +“Young wretch!” said one woman. + +“Go home, do, you little brute,” said the other. + +“I am not,” replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. “I don’t know her. I +haven’t any sister, or father and mother either. I’m an orphan; I live +at Pentonville.” + +“Only hear him, how he braves it out!” cried the young woman. + +“Why, it’s Nancy!” exclaimed Oliver; who now saw her face for the first +time; and started back, in irrepressible astonishment. + +“You see he knows me!” cried Nancy, appealing to the bystanders. “He +can’t help himself. Make him come home, there’s good people, or he’ll +kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!” + +“What the devil’s this?” said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with +a white dog at his heels; “young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother, +you young dog! Come home directly.” + +“I don’t belong to them. I don’t know them. Help! help!” cried Oliver, +struggling in the man’s powerful grasp. + +“Help!” repeated the man. “Yes; I’ll help you, you young rascal! What +books are these? You’ve been a stealing ’em, have you? Give ’em here.” +With these words, the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck +him on the head. + +“That’s right!” cried a looker-on, from a garret-window. “That’s the +only way of bringing him to his senses!” + +“To be sure!” cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look +at the garret-window. + +“It’ll do him good!” said the two women. + +“And he shall have it, too!” rejoined the man, administering another +blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar. “Come on, you young villain! +Here, Bull’s-eye, mind him, boy! Mind him!” + +Weak with recent illness; stupified by the blows and the suddenness of +the attack; terrified by the fierce growling of the dog, and the +brutality of the man; overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders +that he really was the hardened little wretch he was described to be; +what could one poor child do! Darkness had set in; it was a low +neighborhood; no help was near; resistance was useless. In another +moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts, and was +forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to +give utterance to, unintelligible. It was of little moment, indeed, +whether they were intelligible or no; for there was nobody to care for +them, had they been ever so plain. + + +The gas-lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the +open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if +there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat, +perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. +RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY + + +The narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated in a large open +space; scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other +indications of a cattle-market. Sikes slackened his pace when they +reached this spot: the girl being quite unable to support any longer, +the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked. Turning to Oliver, he +roughly commanded him to take hold of Nancy’s hand. + +“Do you hear?” growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round. + +They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers. + +Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail. He +held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers. + +“Give me the other,” said Sikes, seizing Oliver’s unoccupied hand. +“Here, Bull’s-Eye!” + +The dog looked up, and growled. + +“See here, boy!” said Sikes, putting his other hand to Oliver’s throat; +“if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him! D’ye mind!” + +The dog growled again; and licking his lips, eyed Oliver as if he were +anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without delay. + +“He’s as willing as a Christian, strike me blind if he isn’t!” said +Sikes, regarding the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval. +“Now, you know what you’ve got to expect, master, so call away as quick +as you like; the dog will soon stop that game. Get on, young’un!” + +Bull’s-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment of this unusually +endearing form of speech; and, giving vent to another admonitory growl +for the benefit of Oliver, led the way onward. + +It was Smithfield that they were crossing, although it might have been +Grosvenor Square, for anything Oliver knew to the contrary. The night +was dark and foggy. The lights in the shops could scarecely struggle +through the heavy mist, which thickened every moment and shrouded the +streets and houses in gloom; rendering the strange place still stranger +in Oliver’s eyes; and making his uncertainty the more dismal and +depressing. + +They had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell struck the +hour. With its first stroke, his two conductors stopped, and turned +their heads in the direction whence the sound proceeded. + +“Eight o’clock, Bill,” said Nancy, when the bell ceased. + +“What’s the good of telling me that; I can hear it, can’t I!” replied +Sikes. + +“I wonder whether _they_ can hear it,” said Nancy. + +“Of course they can,” replied Sikes. “It was Bartlemy time when I was +shopped; and there warn’t a penny trumpet in the fair, as I couldn’t +hear the squeaking on. Arter I was locked up for the night, the row and +din outside made the thundering old jail so silent, that I could almost +have beat my brains out against the iron plates of the door.” + +“Poor fellow!” said Nancy, who still had her face turned towards the +quarter in which the bell had sounded. “Oh, Bill, such fine young chaps +as them!” + +“Yes; that’s all you women think of,” answered Sikes. “Fine young +chaps! Well, they’re as good as dead, so it don’t much matter.” + +With this consolation, Mr. Sikes appeared to repress a rising tendency +to jealousy, and, clasping Oliver’s wrist more firmly, told him to step +out again. + +“Wait a minute!” said the girl: “I wouldn’t hurry by, if it was you +that was coming out to be hung, the next time eight o’clock struck, +Bill. I’d walk round and round the place till I dropped, if the snow +was on the ground, and I hadn’t a shawl to cover me.” + +“And what good would that do?” inquired the unsentimental Mr. Sikes. +“Unless you could pitch over a file and twenty yards of good stout +rope, you might as well be walking fifty mile off, or not walking at +all, for all the good it would do me. Come on, and don’t stand +preaching there.” + +The girl burst into a laugh; drew her shawl more closely round her; and +they walked away. But Oliver felt her hand tremble, and, looking up in +her face as they passed a gas-lamp, saw that it had turned a deadly +white. + +They walked on, by little-frequented and dirty ways, for a full +half-hour: meeting very few people, and those appearing from their +looks to hold much the same position in society as Mr. Sikes himself. +At length they turned into a very filthy narrow street, nearly full of +old-clothes shops; the dog running forward, as if conscious that there +was no further occasion for his keeping on guard, stopped before the +door of a shop that was closed and apparently untenanted; the house was +in a ruinous condition, and on the door was nailed a board, intimating +that it was to let: which looked as if it had hung there for many +years. + +“All right,” cried Sikes, glancing cautiously about. + +Nancy stooped below the shutters, and Oliver heard the sound of a bell. +They crossed to the opposite side of the street, and stood for a few +moments under a lamp. A noise, as if a sash window were gently raised, +was heard; and soon afterwards the door softly opened. Mr. Sikes then +seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony; and +all three were quickly inside the house. + +The passage was perfectly dark. They waited, while the person who had +let them in, chained and barred the door. + +“Anybody here?” inquired Sikes. + +“No,” replied a voice, which Oliver thought he had heard before. + +“Is the old ’un here?” asked the robber. + +“Yes,” replied the voice, “and precious down in the mouth he has been. +Won’t he be glad to see you? Oh, no!” + +The style of this reply, as well as the voice which delivered it, +seemed familiar to Oliver’s ears: but it was impossible to distinguish +even the form of the speaker in the darkness. + +“Let’s have a glim,” said Sikes, “or we shall go breaking our necks, or +treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do!” + +“Stand still a moment, and I’ll get you one,” replied the voice. The +receding footsteps of the speaker were heard; and, in another minute, +the form of Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, appeared. He +bore in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft +stick. + +The young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of +recognition upon Oliver than a humourous grin; but, turning away, +beckoned the visitors to follow him down a flight of stairs. They +crossed an empty kitchen; and, opening the door of a low +earthy-smelling room, which seemed to have been built in a small +back-yard, were received with a shout of laughter. + +“Oh, my wig, my wig!” cried Master Charles Bates, from whose lungs the +laughter had proceeded: “here he is! oh, cry, here he is! Oh, Fagin, +look at him! Fagin, do look at him! I can’t bear it; it is such a jolly +game, I can’t bear it. Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.” + +With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself +flat on the floor: and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an +ectasy of facetious joy. Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the +cleft stick from the Dodger; and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round +and round; while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number +of low bows to the bewildered boy. The Artful, meantime, who was of a +rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it +interfered with business, rifled Oliver’s pockets with steady +assiduity. + +“Look at his togs, Fagin!” said Charley, putting the light so close to +his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. “Look at his togs! +Superfine cloth, and the heavy swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game! And +his books, too! Nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!” + +“Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” said the Jew, bowing +with mock humility. “The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear, +for fear you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn’t you write, my +dear, and say you were coming? We’d have got something warm for +supper.” + +At his, Master Bates roared again: so loud, that Fagin himself relaxed, +and even the Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound +note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally of the discovery +awakened his merriment. + +“Hallo, what’s that?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew +seized the note. “That’s mine, Fagin.” + +“No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. “Mine, Bill, mine. You shall have the +books.” + +“If that ain’t mine!” said Bill Sikes, putting on his hat with a +determined air; “mine and Nancy’s that is; I’ll take the boy back +again.” + +The Jew started. Oliver started too, though from a very different +cause; for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being +taken back. + +“Come! Hand over, will you?” said Sikes. + +“This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?” inquired the +Jew. + +“Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “hand over, I tell you! Do you +think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time +but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as +gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, +give it here!” + +With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between +the Jew’s finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly in the face, +folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief. + +“That’s for our share of the trouble,” said Sikes; “and not half +enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you’re fond of reading. If +you ain’t, sell ’em.” + +“They’re very pretty,” said Charley Bates: who, with sundry grimaces, +had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; “beautiful +writing, isn’t is, Oliver?” At sight of the dismayed look with which +Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a +lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ectasy, more +boisterous than the first. + +“They belong to the old gentleman,” said Oliver, wringing his hands; +“to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had +me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them back; +send him back the books and money. Keep me here all my life long; but +pray, pray send them back. He’ll think I stole them; the old lady: all +of them who were so kind to me: will think I stole them. Oh, do have +mercy upon me, and send them back!” + +With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate +grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew’s feet; and beat his hands +together, in perfect desperation. + +“The boy’s right,” remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting +his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. “You’re right, Oliver, you’re +right; they _will_ think you have stolen ’em. Ha! ha!” chuckled the +Jew, rubbing his hands, “it couldn’t have happened better, if we had +chosen our time!” + +“Of course it couldn’t,” replied Sikes; “I know’d that, directly I see +him coming through Clerkenwell, with the books under his arm. It’s all +right enough. They’re soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn’t have +taken him in at all; and they’ll ask no questions after him, fear they +should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. He’s safe +enough.” + +Oliver had looked from one to the other, while these words were being +spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarecely understand what +passed; but when Bill Sikes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet, +and tore wildly from the room: uttering shrieks for help, which made +the bare old house echo to the roof. + +“Keep back the dog, Bill!” cried Nancy, springing before the door, and +closing it, as the Jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit. “Keep +back the dog; he’ll tear the boy to pieces.” + +“Serve him right!” cried Sikes, struggling to disengage himself from +the girl’s grasp. “Stand off from me, or I’ll split your head against +the wall.” + +“I don’t care for that, Bill, I don’t care for that,” screamed the +girl, struggling violently with the man, “the child shan’t be torn down +by the dog, unless you kill me first.” + +“Shan’t he!” said Sikes, setting his teeth. “I’ll soon do that, if you +don’t keep off.” + +The housebreaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the +room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among +them. + +“What’s the matter here!” said Fagin, looking round. + +“The girl’s gone mad, I think,” replied Sikes, savagely. + +“No, she hasn’t,” said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle; +“no, she hasn’t, Fagin; don’t think it.” + +“Then keep quiet, will you?” said the Jew, with a threatening look. + +“No, I won’t do that, neither,” replied Nancy, speaking very loud. +“Come! What do you think of that?” + +Mr. Fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs +of that particular species of humanity to which Nancy belonged, to feel +tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any +conversation with her, at present. With the view of diverting the +attention of the company, he turned to Oliver. + +“So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?” said the Jew, taking up +a jagged and knotted club which lay in a corner of the fireplace; “eh?” + +Oliver made no reply. But he watched the Jew’s motions, and breathed +quickly. + +“Wanted to get assistance; called for the police; did you?” sneered the +Jew, catching the boy by the arm. “We’ll cure you of that, my young +master.” + +The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver’s shoulders with the club; and +was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushing forward, wrested it +from his hand. She flung it into the fire, with a force that brought +some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room. + +“I won’t stand by and see it done, Fagin,” cried the girl. “You’ve got +the boy, and what more would you have?—Let him be—let him be—or I shall +put that mark on some of you, that will bring me to the gallows before +my time.” + +The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this +threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clenched, looked +alternately at the Jew and the other robber: her face quite colourless +from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself. + +“Why, Nancy!” said the Jew, in a soothing tone; after a pause, during +which he and Mr. Sikes had stared at one another in a disconcerted +manner; “you,—you’re more clever than ever to-night. Ha! ha! my dear, +you are acting beautifully.” + +“Am I!” said the girl. “Take care I don’t overdo it. You will be the +worse for it, Fagin, if I do; and so I tell you in good time to keep +clear of me.” + +There is something about a roused woman: especially if she add to all +her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and +despair; which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be +hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss +Nancy’s rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a +glance, half imploring and half cowardly, at Sikes: as if to hint that +he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue. + +Mr. Sikes, thus mutely appealed to; and possibly feeling his personal +pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of Miss Nancy +to reason; gave utterance to about a couple of score of curses and +threats, the rapid production of which reflected great credit on the +fertility of his invention. As they produced no visible effect on the +object against whom they were discharged, however, he resorted to more +tangible arguments. + +“What do you mean by this?” said Sikes; backing the inquiry with a very +common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features: +which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand +times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a +disorder as measles: “what do you mean by it? Burn my body! Do you know +who you are, and what you are?” + +“Oh, yes, I know all about it,” replied the girl, laughing +hysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poor +assumption of indifference. + +“Well, then, keep quiet,” rejoined Sikes, with a growl like that he was +accustomed to use when addressing his dog, “or I’ll quiet you for a +good long time to come.” + +The girl laughed again: even less composedly than before; and, darting +a hasty look at Sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the +blood came. + +“You’re a nice one,” added Sikes, as he surveyed her with a +contemptuous air, “to take up the humane and gen—teel side! A pretty +subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!” + +“God Almighty help me, I am!” cried the girl passionately; “and I wish +I had been struck dead in the street, or had changed places with them +we passed so near to-night, before I had lent a hand in bringing him +here. He’s a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad, from this night +forth. Isn’t that enough for the old wretch, without blows?” + +“Come, come, Sikes,” said the Jew appealing to him in a remonstratory +tone, and motioning towards the boys, who were eagerly attentive to all +that passed; “we must have civil words; civil words, Bill.” + +“Civil words!” cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see. +“Civil words, you villain! Yes, you deserve ’em from me. I thieved for +you when I was a child not half as old as this!” pointing to Oliver. “I +have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years +since. Don’t you know it? Speak out! Don’t you know it?” + +“Well, well,” replied the Jew, with an attempt at pacification; “and, +if you have, it’s your living!” + +“Aye, it is!” returned the girl; not speaking, but pouring out the +words in one continuous and vehement scream. “It is my living; and the +cold, wet, dirty streets are my home; and you’re the wretch that drove +me to them long ago, and that’ll keep me there, day and night, day and +night, till I die!” + +“I shall do you a mischief!” interposed the Jew, goaded by these +reproaches; “a mischief worse than that, if you say much more!” + +The girl said nothing more; but, tearing her hair and dress in a +transport of passion, made such a rush at the Jew as would probably +have left signal marks of her revenge upon him, had not her wrists been +seized by Sikes at the right moment; upon which, she made a few +ineffectual struggles, and fainted. + +“She’s all right now,” said Sikes, laying her down in a corner. “She’s +uncommon strong in the arms, when she’s up in this way.” + +The Jew wiped his forehead: and smiled, as if it were a relief to have +the disturbance over; but neither he, nor Sikes, nor the dog, nor the +boys, seemed to consider it in any other light than a common occurance +incidental to business. + +“It’s the worst of having to do with women,” said the Jew, replacing +his club; “but they’re clever, and we can’t get on, in our line, +without ’em. Charley, show Oliver to bed.” + +“I suppose he’d better not wear his best clothes tomorrow, Fagin, had +he?” inquired Charley Bates. + +“Certainly not,” replied the Jew, reciprocating the grin with which +Charley put the question. + +Master Bates, apparently much delighted with his commission, took the +cleft stick: and led Oliver into an adjacent kitchen, where there were +two or three of the beds on which he had slept before; and here, with +many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, he produced the identical old +suit of clothes which Oliver had so much congratulated himself upon +leaving off at Mr. Brownlow’s; and the accidental display of which, to +Fagin, by the Jew who purchased them, had been the very first clue +received, of his whereabout. + +“Put off the smart ones,” said Charley, “and I’ll give ’em to Fagin to +take care of. What fun it is!” + +Poor Oliver unwillingly complied. Master Bates rolling up the new +clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving Oliver in the +dark, and locking the door behind him. + +The noise of Charley’s laughter, and the voice of Miss Betsy, who +opportunely arrived to throw water over her friend, and perform other +feminine offices for the promotion of her recovery, might have kept +many people awake under more happy circumstances than those in which +Oliver was placed. But he was sick and weary; and he soon fell sound +asleep. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. +OLIVER’S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON +TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION + + +It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to +present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as +the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. The hero sinks +upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the +next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience +with a comic song. We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the +grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in +danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the +other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest +pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the +great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny +chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of +places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, +carolling perpetually. + +Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would +seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well-spread +boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are +not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of +passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference. The actors in the +mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt +impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of +mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous. + +As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, +are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many +considered as the great art of authorship: an author’s skill in his +craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the +dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter: +this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed +unnecessary. If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the +part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver +Twist was born; the reader taking it for granted that there are good +and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be +invited to proceed upon such an expedition. + +Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked +with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the High Street. He was +in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood; his cocked hat and coat were +dazzling in the morning sun; he clutched his cane with the vigorous +tenacity of health and power. Mr. Bumble always carried his head high; +but this morning it was higher than usual. There was an abstraction in +his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant +stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle’s mind, too great for +utterance. + +Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and +others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along. He merely +returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in +his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended +the infant paupers with parochial care. + +“Drat that beadle!” said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at +the garden-gate. “If it isn’t him at this time in the morning! Lauk, +Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you! Well, dear me, it _is_ a +pleasure, this is! Come into the parlour, sir, please.” + +The first sentence was addressed to Susan; and the exclamations of +delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble: as the good lady unlocked the +garden-gate: and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the +house. + +“Mrs. Mann,” said Mr. Bumble; not sitting upon, or dropping himself +into a seat, as any common jackanapes would: but letting himself +gradually and slowly down into a chair; “Mrs. Mann, ma’am, good +morning.” + +“Well, and good morning to _you_, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann, with many +smiles; “and hoping you find yourself well, sir!” + +“So-so, Mrs. Mann,” replied the beadle. “A porochial life is not a bed +of roses, Mrs. Mann.” + +“Ah, that it isn’t indeed, Mr. Bumble,” rejoined the lady. And all the +infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, +if they had heard it. + +“A porochial life, ma’am,” continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table +with his cane, “is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood; but +all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution.” + +Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her +hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed. + +“Ah! You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!” said the beadle. + +Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again: evidently to the +satisfaction of the public character: who, repressing a complacent +smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, + +“Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.” + +“Lauk, Mr. Bumble!” cried Mrs. Mann, starting back. + +“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach. I and two +paupers, Mrs. Mann! A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement; +and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to dispose to the matter +before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell. + +And I very much question,” added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, +“whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong +box before they have done with me.” + +“Oh! you mustn’t be too hard upon them, sir,” said Mrs. Mann, +coaxingly. + +“The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma’am,” +replied Mr. Bumble; “and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they +come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have +only themselves to thank.” + +There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing +manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. +Mann appeared quite awed by them. At length she said, + +“You’re going by coach, sir? I thought it was always usual to send them +paupers in carts.” + +“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle. “We put the sick +paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking +cold.” + +“Oh!” said Mrs. Mann. + +“The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,” +said Mr. Bumble. “They are both in a very low state, and we find it +would come two pound cheaper to move ’em than to bury ’em—that is, if +we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to +do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha! ha! ha!” + +When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered +the cocked hat; and he became grave. + +“We are forgetting business, ma’am,” said the beadle; “here is your +porochial stipend for the month.” + +Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his +pocket-book; and requested a receipt: which Mrs. Mann wrote. + +“It’s very much blotted, sir,” said the farmer of infants; “but it’s +formal enough, I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir, I am very much +obliged to you, I’m sure.” + +Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann’s curtsey; +and inquired how the children were. + +“Bless their dear little hearts!” said Mrs. Mann with emotion, “they’re +as well as can be, the dears! Of course, except the two that died last +week. And little Dick.” + +“Isn’t that boy no better?” inquired Mr. Bumble. + +Mrs. Mann shook her head. + +“He’s a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,” +said Mr. Bumble angrily. “Where is he?” + +“I’ll bring him to you in one minute, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann. “Here, +you Dick!” + +After some calling, Dick was discovered. Having had his face put under +the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann’s gown, he was led into the awful +presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle. + +The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large +and bright. The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung +loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away, like +those of an old man. + +Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble’s +glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor; and dreading even +to hear the beadle’s voice. + +“Can’t you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?” said Mrs. Mann. + +The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble. + +“What’s the matter with you, porochial Dick?” inquired Mr. Bumble, with +well-timed jocularity. + +“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly. + +“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very +much at Mr. Bumble’s humour. + +“You want for nothing, I’m sure.” + +“I should like—” faltered the child. + +“Hey-day!” interposed Mrs. Mann, “I suppose you’re going to say that +you _do_ want for something, now? Why, you little wretch—” + +“Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show +of authority. “Like what, sir, eh?” + +“I should like,” faltered the child, “if somebody that can write, would +put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and +seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground.” + +“Why, what does the boy mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the +earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression: +accustomed as he was to such things. “What do you mean, sir?” + +“I should like,” said the child, “to leave my dear love to poor Oliver +Twist; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to +think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help +him. And I should like to tell him,” said the child pressing his small +hands together, and speaking with great fervour, “that I was glad to +die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, +and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, +or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both +children there together.” + +Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with +indescribable astonishment; and, turning to his companion, said, +“They’re all in one story, Mrs. Mann. That out-dacious Oliver had +demogalized them all!” + +“I couldn’t have believed it, sir” said Mrs Mann, holding up her hands, +and looking malignantly at Dick. “I never see such a hardened little +wretch!” + +“Take him away, ma’am!” said Mr. Bumble imperiously. “This must be +stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.” + +“I hope the gentleman will understand that it isn’t my fault, sir?” +said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically. + +“They shall understand that, ma’am; they shall be acquainted with the +true state of the case,” said Mr. Bumble. “There; take him away, I +can’t bear the sight on him.” + +Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar. Mr. +Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off, to prepare for his journey. + +At six o’clock next morning, Mr. Bumble: having exchanged his cocked +hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great-coat with a +cape to it: took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by +the criminals whose settlement was disputed; with whom, in due course +of time, he arrived in London. + +He experienced no other crosses on the way, than those which originated +in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in +shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, Mr. Bumble +declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel +quite uncomfortable; although he had a great-coat on. + +Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble +sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped; and took a +temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter. Putting a glass +of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the +fire; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of +discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper. + +The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble’s eye rested, was the +following advertisement. + +“FIVE GUINEAS REWARD + + +“Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on +Thursday evening last, from his home, at Pentonville; and has not since +been heard of. The above reward will be paid to any person who will +give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said Oliver +Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which +the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested.” + +And then followed a full description of Oliver’s dress, person, +appearance, and disappearance: with the name and address of Mr. +Brownlow at full length. + +Mr. Bumble opened his eyes; read the advertisement, slowly and +carefully, three several times; and in something more than five minutes +was on his way to Pentonville: having actually, in his excitement, left +the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted. + +“Is Mr. Brownlow at home?” inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened +the door. + +To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon, but rather evasive +reply of “I don’t know; where do you come from?” + +Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver’s name, in explanation of his +errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, +hastened into the passage in a breathless state. + +“Come in, come in,” said the old lady: “I knew we should hear of him. +Poor dear! I knew we should! I was certain of it. Bless his heart! I +said so all along.” + +Having heard this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour +again; and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears. The girl, who +was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs meanwhile; and now +returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her immediately: +which he did. + +He was shown into the little back study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his +friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them. The latter +gentleman at once burst into the exclamation: + +“A beadle. A parish beadle, or I’ll eat my head.” + +“Pray don’t interrupt just now,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Take a seat, will +you?” + +Mr. Bumble sat himself down; quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. +Grimwig’s manner. Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp, so as to obtain an +uninterrupted view of the beadle’s countenance; and said, with a little +impatience, + +“Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement?” + +“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bumble. + +“And you ARE a beadle, are you not?” inquired Mr. Grimwig. + +“I am a porochial beadle, gentlemen,” rejoined Mr. Bumble proudly. + +“Of course,” observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend, “I knew he was. +A beadle all over!” + +Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and +resumed: + +“Do you know where this poor boy is now?” + +“No more than nobody,” replied Mr. Bumble. + +“Well, what _do_ you know of him?” inquired the old gentleman. “Speak +out, my friend, if you have anything to say. What _do_ you know of +him?” + +“You don’t happen to know any good of him, do you?” said Mr. Grimwig, +caustically; after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble’s features. + +Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with +portentous solemnity. + +“You see?” said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly at Mr. Brownlow. + +Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble’s pursed-up +countenance; and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding +Oliver, in as few words as possible. + +Mr. Bumble put down his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms; +inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments’ +reflection, commenced his story. + +It would be tedious if given in the beadle’s words: occupying, as it +did, some twenty minutes in the telling; but the sum and substance of +it was, that Oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents. +That he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than +treachery, ingratitude, and malice. That he had terminated his brief +career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly +attack on an unoffending lad, and running away in the night-time from +his master’s house. In proof of his really being the person he +represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had +brought to town. Folding his arms again, he then awaited Mr. Brownlow’s +observations. + +“I fear it is all too true,” said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after +looking over the papers. “This is not much for your intelligence; but I +would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favourable +to the boy.” + +It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this +information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have +imparted a very different colouring to his little history. It was too +late to do it now, however; so he shook his head gravely, and, +pocketing the five guineas, withdrew. + +Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes; evidently so +much disturbed by the beadle’s tale, that even Mr. Grimwig forbore to +vex him further. + +At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently. + +“Mrs. Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; “that +boy, Oliver, is an imposter.” + +“It can’t be, sir. It cannot be,” said the old lady energetically. + +“I tell you he is,” retorted the old gentleman. “What do you mean by +can’t be? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and +he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life.” + +“I never will believe it, sir,” replied the old lady, firmly. “Never!” + +“You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying +story-books,” growled Mr. Grimwig. “I knew it all along. Why didn’t you +take my advise in the beginning; you would if he hadn’t had a fever, I +suppose, eh? He was interesting, wasn’t he? Interesting! Bah!” And Mr. +Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. + +“He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,” retorted Mrs. Bedwin, +indignantly. “I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty +years; and people who can’t say the same, shouldn’t say anything about +them. That’s my opinion!” + +This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor. As it extorted +nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, +and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was +stopped by Mr. Brownlow. + +“Silence!” said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from +feeling. “Never let me hear the boy’s name again. I rang to tell you +that. Never. Never, on any pretence, mind! You may leave the room, Mrs. +Bedwin. Remember! I am in earnest.” + +There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow’s that night. + +Oliver’s heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends; it +was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it +might have broken outright. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. +HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE +FRIENDS + + +About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to +pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of +reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude; of +which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary +extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious +friends; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so +much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagin +laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and +cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished +with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young +lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel +circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing +a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be +hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal +his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that +the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in +question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of +certain evidence for the crown: which, if it were not precisely true, +was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few +select friends. Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable +picture of the discomforts of hanging; and, with great friendliness and +politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never +be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation. + +Little Oliver’s blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew’s words, and +imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. That it was +possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the +guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and +that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or +over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by +the Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, +when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that +gentleman and Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some +foregone conspiracy of the kind. As he glanced timidly up, and met the +Jew’s searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs +were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman. + +The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said, that +if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they +would be very good friends yet. Then, taking his hat, and covering +himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the +room-door behind him. + +And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many +subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and +left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts. Which, +never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must +long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed. + +After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked; +and he was at liberty to wander about the house. + +It was a very dirty place. The rooms upstairs had great high wooden +chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the +ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were +ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded +that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to +better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and +dreary as it looked now. + +Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; +and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would +scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With +these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living +thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from +room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the +street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain +there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys +returned. + +In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars +which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which +was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which +made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows. There +was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; +and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours +together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and +crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. +Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the +parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; +and as the window of Oliver’s observatory was nailed down, and dimmed +with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make +out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any +attempt to be seen or heard,—which he had as much chance of being, as +if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul’s Cathedral. + +One afternoon, the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that +evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to +evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do him +justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him); and, with +this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in +his toilet, straightway. + +Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful; too happy to have some +faces, however bad, to look upon; too desirous to conciliate those +about him when he could honestly do so; to throw any objection in the +way of this proposal. So he at once expressed his readiness; and, +kneeling on the floor, while the Dodger sat upon the table so that he +could take his foot in his laps, he applied himself to a process which +Mr. Dawkins designated as “japanning his trotter-cases.” The phrase, +rendered into plain English, signifieth, cleaning his boots. + +Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational +animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy +attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and +having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of +having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to +disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco +that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer +that mollified his thoughts; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, +with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature. +He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief +space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sign, said, +half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates: + +“What a pity it is he isn’t a prig!” + +“Ah!” said Master Charles Bates; “he don’t know what’s good for him.” + +The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe: as did Charley Bates. +They both smoked, for some seconds, in silence. + +“I suppose you don’t even know what a prig is?” said the Dodger +mournfully. + +“I think I know that,” replied Oliver, looking up. “It’s a the—; you’re +one, are you not?” inquired Oliver, checking himself. + +“I am,” replied the Dodger. “I’d scorn to be anything else.” Mr. +Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock, after delivering this sentiment, +and looked at Master Bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged +by his saying anything to the contrary. + +“I am,” repeated the Dodger. “So’s Charley. So’s Fagin. So’s Sikes. +So’s Nancy. So’s Bet. So we all are, down to the dog. And he’s the +downiest one of the lot!” + +“And the least given to peaching,” added Charley Bates. + +“He wouldn’t so much as bark in a witness-box, for fear of committing +himself; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without +wittles for a fortnight,” said the Dodger. + +“Not a bit of it,” observed Charley. + +“He’s a rum dog. Don’t he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs +or sings when he’s in company!” pursued the Dodger. “Won’t he growl at +all, when he hears a fiddle playing! And don’t he hate other dogs as +ain’t of his breed! Oh, no!” + +“He’s an out-and-out Christian,” said Charley. + +This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal’s abilities, but it +was an appropriate remark in another sense, if Master Bates had only +known it; for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to +be out-and-out Christians, between whom, and Mr. Sikes’ dog, there +exist strong and singular points of resemblance. + +“Well, well,” said the Dodger, recurring to the point from which they +had strayed: with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced +all his proceedings. “This hasn’t got anything to do with young Green +here.” + +“No more it has,” said Charley. “Why don’t you put yourself under +Fagin, Oliver?” + +“And make your fortun’ out of hand?” added the Dodger, with a grin. + +“And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel: as I +mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the +forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week,” said Charley Bates. + +“I don’t like it,” rejoined Oliver, timidly; “I wish they would let me +go. I—I—would rather go.” + +“And Fagin would _rather_ not!” rejoined Charley. + +Oliver knew this too well; but thinking it might be dangerous to +express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his +boot-cleaning. + +“Go!” exclaimed the Dodger. “Why, where’s your spirit? Don’t you take +any pride out of yourself? Would you go and be dependent on your +friends?” + +“Oh, blow that!” said Master Bates: drawing two or three silk +handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard, +“that’s too mean; that is.” + +“_I_ couldn’t do it,” said the Dodger, with an air of haughty disgust. + +“You can leave your friends, though,” said Oliver with a half smile; +“and let them be punished for what you did.” + +“That,” rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, “That was all out +of consideration for Fagin, ’cause the traps know that we work +together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn’t made our +lucky; that was the move, wasn’t it, Charley?” + +Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection +of Oliver’s flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was +inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and +down into his throat: and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping, +about five minutes long. + +“Look here!” said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and +halfpence. “Here’s a jolly life! What’s the odds where it comes from? +Here, catch hold; there’s plenty more where they were took from. You +won’t, won’t you? Oh, you precious flat!” + +“It’s naughty, ain’t it, Oliver?” inquired Charley Bates. “He’ll come +to be scragged, won’t he?” + +“I don’t know what that means,” replied Oliver. + +“Something in this way, old feller,” said Charly. As he said it, Master +Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect in the +air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound +through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic +representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing. + +“That’s what it means,” said Charley. “Look how he stares, Jack! I +never did see such prime company as that ’ere boy; he’ll be the death +of me, I know he will.” Master Charley Bates, having laughed heartily +again, resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes. + +“You’ve been brought up bad,” said the Dodger, surveying his boots with +much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them. “Fagin will make +something of you, though, or you’ll be the first he ever had that +turned out unprofitable. You’d better begin at once; for you’ll come to +the trade long before you think of it; and you’re only losing time, +Oliver.” + +Master Bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his +own: which, being exhausted, he and his friend Mr. Dawkins launched +into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the +life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to Oliver that the +best thing he could do, would be to secure Fagin’s favour without more +delay, by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it. + +“And always put this in your pipe, Nolly,” said the Dodger, as the Jew +was heard unlocking the door above, “if you don’t take fogels and +tickers—” + +“What’s the good of talking in that way?” interposed Master Bates; “he +don’t know what you mean.” + +“If you don’t take pocket-handkechers and watches,” said the Dodger, +reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver’s capacity, “some +other cove will; so that the coves that lose ’em will be all the worse, +and you’ll be all the worse, too, and nobody half a ha’p’orth the +better, except the chaps wot gets them—and you’ve just as good a right +to them as they have.” + +“To be sure, to be sure!” said the Jew, who had entered unseen by +Oliver. “It all lies in a nutshell my dear; in a nutshell, take the +Dodger’s word for it. Ha! ha! ha! He understands the catechism of his +trade.” + +The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together, as he corroborated the +Dodger’s reasoning in these terms; and chuckled with delight at his +pupil’s proficiency. + +The conversation proceeded no farther at this time, for the Jew had +returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy, and a gentleman whom Oliver +had never seen before, but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom +Chitling; and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few +gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance. + +Mr. Chitling was older in years than the Dodger: having perhaps +numbered eighteen winters; but there was a degree of deference in his +deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that +he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority in point of genius +and professional aquirements. He had small twinkling eyes, and a +pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy +fustian trousers, and an apron. His wardrobe was, in truth, rather out +of repair; but he excused himself to the company by stating that his +“time” was only out an hour before; and that, in consequence of having +worn the regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow +any attention on his private clothes. Mr. Chitling added, with strong +marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder +was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there +was no remedy against the County. The same remark he considered to +apply to the regulation mode of cutting the hair: which he held to be +decidedly unlawful. Mr. Chitling wound up his observations by stating +that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long +hard-working days; and that he “wished he might be busted if he warn’t +as dry as a lime-basket.” + +“Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?” inquired the +Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the +table. + +“I—I—don’t know, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Who’s that?” inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at +Oliver. + +“A young friend of mine, my dear,” replied the Jew. + +“He’s in luck, then,” said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagin. +“Never mind where I came from, young ’un; you’ll find your way there, +soon enough, I’ll bet a crown!” + +At this sally, the boys laughed. After some more jokes on the same +subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagin; and withdrew. + +After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they drew +their chairs towards the fire; and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and +sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most calculated to +interest his hearers. These were, the great advantages of the trade, +the proficiency of the Dodger, the amiability of Charley Bates, and the +liberality of the Jew himself. At length these subjects displayed signs +of being thoroughly exhausted; and Mr. Chitling did the same: for the +house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. Miss Betsy +accordingly withdrew; and left the party to their repose. + +From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone; but was placed in almost +constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with +the Jew every day: whether for their own improvement or Oliver’s, Mr. +Fagin best knew. At other times the old man would tell them stories of +robberies he had committed in his younger days: mixed up with so much +that was droll and curious, that Oliver could not help laughing +heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better +feelings. + +In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having prepared +his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the +companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was +now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would +blacken it, and change its hue for ever. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. +IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON + + +It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew: buttoning his +great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up +over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face: +emerged from his den. He paused on the step as the door was locked and +chained behind him; and having listened while the boys made all secure, +and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down +the street as quickly as he could. + +The house to which Oliver had been conveyed, was in the neighborhood of +Whitechapel. The Jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the +street; and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road, and struck +off in the direction of the Spitalfields. + +The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the +streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and +clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a +being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping +beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man +seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and +darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of +some rich offal for a meal. + +He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he +reached Bethnal Green; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he soon +became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in +that close and densely-populated quarter. + +The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be +at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or the +intricacies of the way. He hurried through several alleys and streets, +and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the +farther end. At the door of a house in this street, he knocked; having +exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it, he walked +upstairs. + +A dog growled as he touched the handle of a room-door; and a man’s +voice demanded who was there. + +“Only me, Bill; only me, my dear,” said the Jew looking in. + +“Bring in your body then,” said Sikes. “Lie down, you stupid brute! +Don’t you know the devil when he’s got a great-coat on?” + +Apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin’s outer +garment; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a +chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen: wagging his +tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his +nature to be. + +“Well!” said Sikes. + +“Well, my dear,” replied the Jew.—“Ah! Nancy.” + +The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to +imply a doubt of its reception; for Mr. Fagin and his young friend had +not met, since she had interfered in behalf of Oliver. All doubts upon +the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady’s +behaviour. She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and +bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold +night, and no mistake. + +“It is cold, Nancy dear,” said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands +over the fire. “It seems to go right through one,” added the old man, +touching his side. + +“It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart,” said +Mr. Sikes. “Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make +haste! It’s enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase +shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave.” + +Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were +many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were +filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes pouring out a glass of +brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. + +“Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill,” replied the Jew, putting down the +glass after just setting his lips to it. + +“What! You’re afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?” +inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. “Ugh!” + +With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw +the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony +to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. + +The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second +glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a +restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly +furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to +induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and +with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three +heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a “life-preserver” that +hung over the chimney-piece. + +“There,” said Sikes, smacking his lips. “Now I’m ready.” + +“For business?” inquired the Jew. + +“For business,” replied Sikes; “so say what you’ve got to say.” + +“About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?” said the Jew, drawing his chair +forward, and speaking in a very low voice. + +“Yes. Wot about it?” inquired Sikes. + +“Ah! you know what I mean, my dear,” said the Jew. “He knows what I +mean, Nancy; don’t he?” + +“No, he don’t,” sneered Mr. Sikes. “Or he won’t, and that’s the same +thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don’t sit +there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you +warn’t the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d’ye mean?” + +“Hush, Bill, hush!” said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop +this burst of indignation; “somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody +will hear us.” + +“Let ’em hear!” said Sikes; “I don’t care.” But as Mr. Sikes _did_ +care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and +grew calmer. + +“There, there,” said the Jew, coaxingly. “It was only my caution, +nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to +be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done? Such plate, my dear, such +plate!” said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in +a rapture of anticipation. + +“Not at all,” replied Sikes coldly. + +“Not to be done at all!” echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. + +“No, not at all,” rejoined Sikes. “At least it can’t be a put-up job, +as we expected.” + +“Then it hasn’t been properly gone about,” said the Jew, turning pale +with anger. “Don’t tell me!” + +“But I will tell you,” retorted Sikes. “Who are you that’s not to be +told? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for +a fortnight, and he can’t get one of the servants in line.” + +“Do you mean to tell me, Bill,” said the Jew: softening as the other +grew heated: “that neither of the two men in the house can be got +over?” + +“Yes, I do mean to tell you so,” replied Sikes. “The old lady has had +’em these twenty years; and if you were to give ’em five hundred pound, +they wouldn’t be in it.” + +“But do you mean to say, my dear,” remonstrated the Jew, “that the +women can’t be got over?” + +“Not a bit of it,” replied Sikes. + +“Not by flash Toby Crackit?” said the Jew incredulously. “Think what +women are, Bill,” + +“No; not even by flash Toby Crackit,” replied Sikes. “He says he’s worn +sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he’s been +loitering down there, and it’s all of no use.” + +“He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my +dear,” said the Jew. + +“So he did,” rejoined Sikes, “and they warn’t of no more use than the +other plant.” + +The Jew looked blank at this information. After ruminating for some +minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said, +with a deep sigh, that if flash Toby Crackit reported aright, he feared +the game was up. + +“And yet,” said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, “it’s a +sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon +it.” + +“So it is,” said Mr. Sikes. “Worse luck!” + +A long silence ensued; during which the Jew was plunged in deep +thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy +perfectly demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively from time to time. +Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her +eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed. + +“Fagin,” said Sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed; +“is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it’s safely done from the +outside?” + +“Yes,” said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself. + +“Is it a bargain?” inquired Sikes. + +“Yes, my dear, yes,” rejoined the Jew; his eyes glistening, and every +muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the inquiry had +awakened. + +“Then,” said Sikes, thrusting aside the Jew’s hand, with some disdain, +“let it come off as soon as you like. Toby and me were over the +garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and +shutters. The crib’s barred up at night like a jail; but there’s one +part we can crack, safe and softly.” + +“Which is that, Bill?” asked the Jew eagerly. + +“Why,” whispered Sikes, “as you cross the lawn—” + +“Yes?” said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost +starting out of it. + +“Umph!” cried Sikes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her +head, looked suddenly round, and pointed for an instant to the Jew’s +face. “Never mind which part it is. You can’t do it without me, I know; +but it’s best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.” + +“As you like, my dear, as you like” replied the Jew. “Is there no help +wanted, but yours and Toby’s?” + +“None,” said Sikes. “Cept a centre-bit and a boy. The first we’ve both +got; the second you must find us.” + +“A boy!” exclaimed the Jew. “Oh! then it’s a panel, eh?” + +“Never mind wot it is!” replied Sikes. “I want a boy, and he musn’t be +a big ’un. Lord!” said Mr. Sikes, reflectively, “if I’d only got that +young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper’s! He kept him small on purpose, +and let him out by the job. But the father gets lagged; and then the +Juvenile Delinquent Society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade +where he was earning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time +makes a ’prentice of him. And so they go on,” said Mr. Sikes, his wrath +rising with the recollection of his wrongs, “so they go on; and, if +they’d got money enough (which it’s a Providence they haven’t,) we +shouldn’t have half a dozen boys left in the whole trade, in a year or +two.” + +“No more we should,” acquiesced the Jew, who had been considering +during this speech, and had only caught the last sentence. “Bill!” + +“What now?” inquired Sikes. + +The Jew nodded his head towards Nancy, who was still gazing at the +fire; and intimated, by a sign, that he would have her told to leave +the room. Sikes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought +the precaution unnecessary; but complied, nevertheless, by requesting +Miss Nancy to fetch him a jug of beer. + +“You don’t want any beer,” said Nancy, folding her arms, and retaining +her seat very composedly. + +“I tell you I do!” replied Sikes. + +“Nonsense,” rejoined the girl coolly, “Go on, Fagin. I know what he’s +going to say, Bill; he needn’t mind me.” + +The Jew still hesitated. Sikes looked from one to the other in some +surprise. + +“Why, you don’t mind the old girl, do you, Fagin?” he asked at length. +“You’ve known her long enough to trust her, or the Devil’s in it. She +ain’t one to blab. Are you Nancy?” + +“_I_ should think not!” replied the young lady: drawing her chair up to +the table, and putting her elbows upon it. + +“No, no, my dear, I know you’re not,” said the Jew; “but—” and again +the old man paused. + +“But wot?” inquired Sikes. + +“I didn’t know whether she mightn’t p’r’aps be out of sorts, you know, +my dear, as she was the other night,” replied the Jew. + +At this confession, Miss Nancy burst into a loud laugh; and, swallowing +a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst +into sundry exclamations of “Keep the game a-going!” “Never say die!” +and the like. These seemed to have the effect of re-assuring both +gentlemen; for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and +resumed his seat: as did Mr. Sikes likewise. + +“Now, Fagin,” said Nancy with a laugh. “Tell Bill at once, about +Oliver!” + +“Ha! you’re a clever one, my dear: the sharpest girl I ever saw!” said +the Jew, patting her on the neck. “It _was_ about Oliver I was going to +speak, sure enough. Ha! ha! ha!” + +“What about him?” demanded Sikes. + +“He’s the boy for you, my dear,” replied the Jew in a hoarse whisper; +laying his finger on the side of his nose, and grinning frightfully. + +“He!” exclaimed Sikes. + +“Have him, Bill!” said Nancy. “I would, if I was in your place. He +mayn’t be so much up, as any of the others; but that’s not what you +want, if he’s only to open a door for you. Depend upon it he’s a safe +one, Bill.” + +“I know he is,” rejoined Fagin. “He’s been in good training these last +few weeks, and it’s time he began to work for his bread. Besides, the +others are all too big.” + +“Well, he is just the size I want,” said Mr. Sikes, ruminating. + +“And will do everything you want, Bill, my dear,” interposed the Jew; +“he can’t help himself. That is, if you frighten him enough.” + +“Frighten him!” echoed Sikes. “It’ll be no sham frightening, mind you. +If there’s anything queer about him when we once get into the work; in +for a penny, in for a pound. You won’t see him alive again, Fagin. +Think of that, before you send him. Mark my words!” said the robber, +poising a crowbar, which he had drawn from under the bedstead. + +“I’ve thought of it all,” said the Jew with energy. “I’ve—I’ve had my +eye upon him, my dears, close—close. Once let him feel that he is one +of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief; and +he’s ours! Ours for his life. Oho! It couldn’t have come about better!” +The old man crossed his arms upon his breast; and, drawing his head and +shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy. + +“Ours!” said Sikes. “Yours, you mean.” + +“Perhaps I do, my dear,” said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle. “Mine, if +you like, Bill.” + +“And wot,” said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, “wot +makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know +there are fifty boys snoozing about Common Garden every night, as you +might pick and choose from?” + +“Because they’re of no use to me, my dear,” replied the Jew, with some +confusion, “not worth the taking. Their looks convict ’em when they get +into trouble, and I lose ’em all. With this boy, properly managed, my +dears, I could do what I couldn’t with twenty of them. Besides,” said +the Jew, recovering his self-possession, “he has us now if he could +only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in the same boat with us. +Never mind how he came there; it’s quite enough for my power over him +that he was in a robbery; that’s all I want. Now, how much better this +is, than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way—which +would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.” + +“When is it to be done?” asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent +exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust with +which he received Fagin’s affectation of humanity. + +“Ah, to be sure,” said the Jew; “when is it to be done, Bill?” + +“I planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow,” rejoined Sikes in a +surly voice, “if he heerd nothing from me to the contrairy.” + +“Good,” said the Jew; “there’s no moon.” + +“No,” rejoined Sikes. + +“It’s all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?” asked the Jew. + +Sikes nodded. + +“And about—” + +“Oh, ah, it’s all planned,” rejoined Sikes, interrupting him. “Never +mind particulars. You’d better bring the boy here to-morrow night. I +shall get off the stone an hour arter daybreak. Then you hold your +tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that’s all you’ll have to +do.” + +After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was +decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew’s next evening when the +night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her; Fagin craftily +observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would +be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in +his behalf, than anybody else. It was also solemnly arranged that poor +Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be +unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sikes; +and further, that the said Sikes should deal with him as he thought +fit; and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or +evil that might be necessary to visit him: it being understood that, to +render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by +Mr. Sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and +corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash +Toby Crackit. + +These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded to drink brandy at a +furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner; +yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song, +mingled with wild execrations. At length, in a fit of professional +enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of housebreaking tools: +which he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for the purpose of +explaining the nature and properties of the various implements it +contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, than he +fell over the box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell. + +“Good-night, Nancy,” said the Jew, muffling himself up as before. + +“Good-night.” + +Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly. There was no +flinching about the girl. She was as true and earnest in the matter as +Toby Crackit himself could be. + +The Jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the +prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while her back was turned, groped +downstairs. + +“Always the way!” muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homeward. +“The worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call +up some long-forgotten feeling; and, the best of them is, that it never +lasts. Ha! ha! The man against the child, for a bag of gold!” + +Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, Mr. Fagin wended +his way, through mud and mire, to his gloomy abode: where the Dodger +was sitting up, impatiently awaiting his return. + +“Is Oliver a-bed? I want to speak to him,” was his first remark as they +descended the stairs. + +“Hours ago,” replied the Dodger, throwing open a door. “Here he is!” + +The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale +with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he +looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in +the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle +spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the +world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed. + +“Not now,” said the Jew, turning softly away. “To-morrow. To-morrow.” + + + + + CHAPTER XX. +WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES + + +When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal surprised to find +that a new pair of shoes, with strong thick soles, had been placed at +his bedside; and that his old shoes had been removed. At first, he was +pleased with the discovery: hoping that it might be the forerunner of +his release; but such thoughts were quickly dispelled, on his sitting +down to breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and +manner which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the +residence of Bill Sikes that night. + +“To—to—stop there, sir?” asked Oliver, anxiously. + +“No, no, my dear. Not to stop there,” replied the Jew. “We shouldn’t +like to lose you. Don’t be afraid, Oliver, you shall come back to us +again. Ha! ha! ha! We won’t be so cruel as to send you away, my dear. +Oh no, no!” + +The old man, who was stooping over the fire toasting a piece of bread, +looked round as he bantered Oliver thus; and chuckled as if to show +that he knew he would still be very glad to get away if he could. + +“I suppose,” said the Jew, fixing his eyes on Oliver, “you want to know +what you’re going to Bill’s for—-eh, my dear?” + +Oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old thief had been +reading his thoughts; but boldly said, Yes, he did want to know. + +“Why, do you think?” inquired Fagin, parrying the question. + +“Indeed I don’t know, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Bah!” said the Jew, turning away with a disappointed countenance from +a close perusal of the boy’s face. “Wait till Bill tells you, then.” + +The Jew seemed much vexed by Oliver’s not expressing any greater +curiosity on the subject; but the truth is, that, although Oliver felt +very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest cunning of +Fagin’s looks, and his own speculations, to make any further inquiries +just then. He had no other opportunity: for the Jew remained very surly +and silent till night: when he prepared to go abroad. + +“You may burn a candle,” said the Jew, putting one upon the table. “And +here’s a book for you to read, till they come to fetch you. +Good-night!” + +“Good-night!” replied Oliver, softly. + +The Jew walked to the door: looking over his shoulder at the boy as he +went. Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name. + +Oliver looked up; the Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to +light it. He did so; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the table, +saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering and +contracted brows, from the dark end of the room. + +“Take heed, Oliver! take heed!” said the old man, shaking his right +hand before him in a warning manner. “He’s a rough man, and thinks +nothing of blood when his own is up. Whatever falls out, say nothing; +and do what he bids you. Mind!” Placing a strong emphasis on the last +word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a +ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the room. + +Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and +pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words he had just heard. The +more he thought of the Jew’s admonition, the more he was at a loss to +divine its real purpose and meaning. + +He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, +which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; +and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been +selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, +until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged. He +was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where +he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely. He remained +lost in thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed +the candle, and, taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, +began to read. + +He turned over the leaves. Carelessly at first; but, lighting on a +passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the +volume. It was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals; +and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. Here, he read of +dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret murders that +had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies hidden from the eye +of man in deep pits and wells: which would not keep them down, deep as +they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so +maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had +confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. +Here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, +had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, +to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs +quail, to think of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, +that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon +them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow +murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. + +In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. +Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such +deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved +for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, +and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from +his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a +poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it +might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in +the midst of wickedness and guilt. + +He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in +his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. + +“What’s that!” he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure +standing by the door. “Who’s there?” + +“Me. Only me,” replied a tremulous voice. + +Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. +It was Nancy. + +“Put down the light,” said the girl, turning away her head. “It hurts +my eyes.” + +Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. +The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and +wrung her hands; but made no reply. + +“God forgive me!” she cried after a while, “I never thought of this.” + +“Has anything happened?” asked Oliver. “Can I help you? I will if I +can. I will, indeed.” + +She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a +gurgling sound, gasped for breath. + +“Nancy!” cried Oliver, “What is it?” + +The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; +and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered +with cold. + +Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, +for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, +and looked round. + +“I don’t know what comes over me sometimes,” said she, affecting to +busy herself in arranging her dress; “it’s this damp dirty room, I +think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?” + +“Am I to go with you?” asked Oliver. + +“Yes. I have come from Bill,” replied the girl. “You are to go with +me.” + +“What for?” asked Oliver, recoiling. + +“What for?” echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, +the moment they encountered the boy’s face. “Oh! For no harm.” + +“I don’t believe it,” said Oliver: who had watched her closely. + +“Have it your own way,” rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. “For no +good, then.” + +Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl’s better +feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion +for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted across his mind +that it was barely eleven o’clock; and that many people were still in +the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his +tale. As the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, +somewhat hastily, that he was ready. + +Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his +companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a +look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what +had been passing in his thoughts. + +“Hush!” said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as +she looked cautiously round. “You can’t help yourself. I have tried +hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If +ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time.” + +Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with +great surprise. She seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was +white and agitated; and she trembled with very earnestness. + +“I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do +now,” continued the girl aloud; “for those who would have fetched you, +if I had not, would have been far more rough than me. I have promised +for your being quiet and silent; if you are not, you will only do harm +to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. See here! I have borne +all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it.” + +She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms; and +continued, with great rapidity: + +“Remember this! And don’t let me suffer more for you, just now. If I +could help you, I would; but I have not the power. They don’t mean to +harm you; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours. Hush! Every +word from you is a blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste! Your +hand!” + +She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, +blowing out the light, drew him after her up the stairs. The door was +opened, quickly, by some one shrouded in the darkness, and was as +quickly closed, when they had passed out. A hackney-cabriolet was in +waiting; with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing +Oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew the curtains close. +The driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, +without the delay of an instant. + +The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into +his ear, the warnings and assurances she had already imparted. All was +so quick and hurried, that he had scarcely time to recollect where he +was, or how he came there, when the carriage stopped at the house to +which the Jew’s steps had been directed on the previous evening. + +For one brief moment, Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty +street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips. But the girl’s voice was +in his ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her, that +he had not the heart to utter it. While he hesitated, the opportunity +was gone; he was already in the house, and the door was shut. + +“This way,” said the girl, releasing her hold for the first time. +“Bill!” + +“Hallo!” replied Sikes: appearing at the head of the stairs, with a +candle. “Oh! That’s the time of day. Come on!” + +This was a very strong expression of approbation, an uncommonly hearty +welcome, from a person of Mr. Sikes’ temperament. Nancy, appearing much +gratified thereby, saluted him cordially. + +“Bull’s-eye’s gone home with Tom,” observed Sikes, as he lighted them +up. “He’d have been in the way.” + +“That’s right,” rejoined Nancy. + +“So you’ve got the kid,” said Sikes when they had all reached the room: +closing the door as he spoke. + +“Yes, here he is,” replied Nancy. + +“Did he come quiet?” inquired Sikes. + +“Like a lamb,” rejoined Nancy. + +“I’m glad to hear it,” said Sikes, looking grimly at Oliver; “for the +sake of his young carcase: as would otherways have suffered for it. +Come here, young ’un; and let me read you a lectur’, which is as well +got over at once.” + +Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sikes pulled off Oliver’s cap and +threw it into a corner; and then, taking him by the shoulder, sat +himself down by the table, and stood the boy in front of him. + +“Now, first: do you know wot this is?” inquired Sikes, taking up a +pocket-pistol which lay on the table. + +Oliver replied in the affirmative. + +“Well, then, look here,” continued Sikes. “This is powder; that ’ere’s +a bullet; and this is a little bit of a old hat for waddin’.” + +Oliver murmured his comprehension of the different bodies referred to; +and Mr. Sikes proceeded to load the pistol, with great nicety and +deliberation. + +“Now it’s loaded,” said Mr. Sikes, when he had finished. + +“Yes, I see it is, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“Well,” said the robber, grasping Oliver’s wrist, and putting the +barrel so close to his temple that they touched; at which moment the +boy could not repress a start; “if you speak a word when you’re out +o’doors with me, except when I speak to you, that loading will be in +your head without notice. So, if you _do_ make up your mind to speak +without leave, say your prayers first.” + +Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning, to increase +its effect, Mr. Sikes continued. + +“As near as I know, there isn’t anybody as would be asking very +partickler arter you, if you _was_ disposed of; so I needn’t take this +devil-and-all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn’t for +your own good. D’ye hear me?” + +“The short and the long of what you mean,” said Nancy: speaking very +emphatically, and slightly frowning at Oliver as if to bespeak his +serious attention to her words: “is, that if you’re crossed by him in +this job you have on hand, you’ll prevent his ever telling tales +afterwards, by shooting him through the head, and will take your chance +of swinging for it, as you do for a great many other things in the way +of business, every month of your life.” + +“That’s it!” observed Mr. Sikes, approvingly; “women can always put +things in fewest words.—Except when it’s blowing up; and then they +lengthens it out. And now that he’s thoroughly up to it, let’s have +some supper, and get a snooze before starting.” + +In pursuance of this request, Nancy quickly laid the cloth; +disappearing for a few minutes, she presently returned with a pot of +porter and a dish of sheep’s heads: which gave occasion to several +pleasant witticisms on the part of Mr. Sikes, founded upon the singular +coincidence of “jemmies” being a can name, common to them, and also to +an ingenious implement much used in his profession. Indeed, the worthy +gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being on +active service, was in great spirits and good humour; in proof whereof, +it may be here remarked, that he humourously drank all the beer at a +draught, and did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than +four-score oaths during the whole progress of the meal. + +Supper being ended—it may be easily conceived that Oliver had no great +appetite for it—Mr. Sikes disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits +and water, and threw himself on the bed; ordering Nancy, with many +imprecations in case of failure, to call him at five precisely. Oliver +stretched himself in his clothes, by command of the same authority, on +a mattress upon the floor; and the girl, mending the fire, sat before +it, in readiness to rouse them at the appointed time. + +For a long time Oliver lay awake, thinking it not impossible that Nancy +might seek that opportunity of whispering some further advice; but the +girl sat brooding over the fire, without moving, save now and then to +trim the light. Weary with watching and anxiety, he at length fell +asleep. + +When he awoke, the table was covered with tea-things, and Sikes was +thrusting various articles into the pockets of his great-coat, which +hung over the back of a chair. Nancy was busily engaged in preparing +breakfast. It was not yet daylight; for the candle was still burning, +and it was quite dark outside. A sharp rain, too, was beating against +the window-panes; and the sky looked black and cloudy. + +“Now, then!” growled Sikes, as Oliver started up; “half-past five! Look +sharp, or you’ll get no breakfast; for it’s late as it is.” + +Oliver was not long in making his toilet; having taken some breakfast, +he replied to a surly inquiry from Sikes, by saying that he was quite +ready. + +Nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a handkerchief to tie +round his throat; Sikes gave him a large rough cape to button over his +shoulders. Thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, who, merely +pausing to show him with a menacing gesture that he had that same +pistol in a side-pocket of his great-coat, clasped it firmly in his, +and, exchanging a farewell with Nancy, led him away. + +Oliver turned, for an instant, when they reached the door, in the hope +of meeting a look from the girl. But she had resumed her old seat in +front of the fire, and sat, perfectly motionless before it. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. +THE EXPEDITION + + +It was a cheerless morning when they got into the street; blowing and +raining hard; and the clouds looking dull and stormy. The night had +been very wet: large pools of water had collected in the road: and the +kennels were overflowing. There was a faint glimmering of the coming +day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the +scene: the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street +lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the +wet house-tops, and dreary streets. There appeared to be nobody +stirring in that quarter of the town; the windows of the houses were +all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were +noiseless and empty. + +By the time they had turned into the Bethnal Green Road, the day had +fairly begun to break. Many of the lamps were already extinguished; a +few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards London; now and +then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by: the driver +bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner +who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his +arriving at the office, a quarter of a minute after his time. The +public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open. By +degrees, other shops began to be unclosed, and a few scattered people +were met with. Then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their +work; then, men and women with fish-baskets on their heads; +donkey-carts laden with vegetables; chaise-carts filled with live-stock +or whole carcasses of meat; milk-women with pails; an unbroken +concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern +suburbs of the town. As they approached the City, the noise and traffic +gradually increased; when they threaded the streets between Shoreditch +and Smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle. It was +as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again, and the busy +morning of half the London population had begun. + +Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury square, +Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican: thence into +Long Lane, and so into Smithfield; from which latter place arose a +tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement. + +It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with +filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking +bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest +upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre +of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into +the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the +gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. +Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and +vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the +whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of +the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, +the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; +the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every +public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and +yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every +corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty +figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the +throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite +confounded the senses. + +Mr. Sikes, dragging Oliver after him, elbowed his way through the +thickest of the crowd, and bestowed very little attention on the +numerous sights and sounds, which so astonished the boy. He nodded, +twice or thrice, to a passing friend; and, resisting as many +invitations to take a morning dram, pressed steadily onward, until they +were clear of the turmoil, and had made their way through Hosier Lane +into Holborn. + +“Now, young ’un!” said Sikes, looking up at the clock of St. Andrew’s +Church, “hard upon seven! you must step out. Come, don’t lag behind +already, Lazy-legs!” + +Mr. Sikes accompanied this speech with a jerk at his little companion’s +wrist; Oliver, quickening his pace into a kind of trot between a fast +walk and a run, kept up with the rapid strides of the house-breaker as +well as he could. + +They held their course at this rate, until they had passed Hyde Park +corner, and were on their way to Kensington: when Sikes relaxed his +pace, until an empty cart which was at some little distance behind, +came up. Seeing “Hounslow” written on it, he asked the driver with as +much civility as he could assume, if he would give them a lift as far +as Isleworth. + +“Jump up,” said the man. “Is that your boy?” + +“Yes; he’s my boy,” replied Sikes, looking hard at Oliver, and putting +his hand abstractedly into the pocket where the pistol was. + +“Your father walks rather too quick for you, don’t he, my man?” +inquired the driver: seeing that Oliver was out of breath. + +“Not a bit of it,” replied Sikes, interposing. “He’s used to it. Here, +take hold of my hand, Ned. In with you!” + +Thus addressing Oliver, he helped him into the cart; and the driver, +pointing to a heap of sacks, told him to lie down there, and rest +himself. + +As they passed the different mile-stones, Oliver wondered, more and +more, where his companion meant to take him. Kensington, Hammersmith, +Chiswick, Kew Bridge, Brentford, were all passed; and yet they went on +as steadily as if they had only just begun their journey. At length, +they came to a public-house called the Coach and Horses; a little way +beyond which, another road appeared to run off. And here, the cart +stopped. + +Sikes dismounted with great precipitation, holding Oliver by the hand +all the while; and lifting him down directly, bestowed a furious look +upon him, and rapped the side-pocket with his fist, in a significant +manner. + +“Good-bye, boy,” said the man. + +“He’s sulky,” replied Sikes, giving him a shake; “he’s sulky. A young +dog! Don’t mind him.” + +“Not I!” rejoined the other, getting into his cart. “It’s a fine day, +after all.” And he drove away. + +Sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling Oliver he +might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his +journey. + +They turned round to the left, a short way past the public-house; and +then, taking a right-hand road, walked on for a long time: passing many +large gardens and gentlemen’s houses on both sides of the way, and +stopping for nothing but a little beer, until they reached a town. Here +against the wall of a house, Oliver saw written up in pretty large +letters, “Hampton.” They lingered about, in the fields, for some hours. +At length they came back into the town; and, turning into an old +public-house with a defaced sign-board, ordered some dinner by the +kitchen fire. + +The kitchen was an old, low-roofed room; with a great beam across the +middle of the ceiling, and benches, with high backs to them, by the +fire; on which were seated several rough men in smock-frocks, drinking +and smoking. They took no notice of Oliver; and very little of Sikes; +and, as Sikes took very little notice of them, he and his young comrade +sat in a corner by themselves, without being much troubled by their +company. + +They had some cold meat for dinner, and sat so long after it, while Mr. +Sikes indulged himself with three or four pipes, that Oliver began to +feel quite certain they were not going any further. Being much tired +with the walk, and getting up so early, he dozed a little at first; +then, quite overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the tobacco, fell +asleep. + +It was quite dark when he was awakened by a push from Sikes. Rousing +himself sufficiently to sit up and look about him, he found that worthy +in close fellowship and communication with a labouring man, over a pint +of ale. + +“So, you’re going on to Lower Halliford, are you?” inquired Sikes. + +“Yes, I am,” replied the man, who seemed a little the worse—or better, +as the case might be—for drinking; “and not slow about it neither. My +horse hasn’t got a load behind him going back, as he had coming up in +the mornin’; and he won’t be long a-doing of it. Here’s luck to him. +Ecod! he’s a good ’un!” + +“Could you give my boy and me a lift as far as there?” demanded Sikes, +pushing the ale towards his new friend. + +“If you’re going directly, I can,” replied the man, looking out of the +pot. “Are you going to Halliford?” + +“Going on to Shepperton,” replied Sikes. + +“I’m your man, as far as I go,” replied the other. “Is all paid, +Becky?” + +“Yes, the other gentleman’s paid,” replied the girl. + +“I say!” said the man, with tipsy gravity; “that won’t do, you know.” + +“Why not?” rejoined Sikes. “You’re a-going to accommodate us, and wot’s +to prevent my standing treat for a pint or so, in return?” + +The stranger reflected upon this argument, with a very profound face; +having done so, he seized Sikes by the hand: and declared he was a real +good fellow. To which Mr. Sikes replied, he was joking; as, if he had +been sober, there would have been strong reason to suppose he was. + +After the exchange of a few more compliments, they bade the company +good-night, and went out; the girl gathering up the pots and glasses as +they did so, and lounging out to the door, with her hands full, to see +the party start. + +The horse, whose health had been drunk in his absence, was standing +outside: ready harnessed to the cart. Oliver and Sikes got in without +any further ceremony; and the man to whom he belonged, having lingered +for a minute or two “to bear him up,” and to defy the hostler and the +world to produce his equal, mounted also. Then, the hostler was told to +give the horse his head; and, his head being given him, he made a very +unpleasant use of it: tossing it into the air with great disdain, and +running into the parlour windows over the way; after performing those +feats, and supporting himself for a short time on his hind-legs, he +started off at great speed, and rattled out of the town right +gallantly. + +The night was very dark. A damp mist rose from the river, and the +marshy ground about; and spread itself over the dreary fields. It was +piercing cold, too; all was gloomy and black. Not a word was spoken; +for the driver had grown sleepy; and Sikes was in no mood to lead him +into conversation. Oliver sat huddled together, in a corner of the +cart; bewildered with alarm and apprehension; and figuring strange +objects in the gaunt trees, whose branches waved grimly to and fro, as +if in some fantastic joy at the desolation of the scene. + +As they passed Sunbury Church, the clock struck seven. There was a +light in the ferry-house window opposite: which streamed across the +road, and threw into more sombre shadow a dark yew-tree with graves +beneath it. There was a dull sound of falling water not far off; and +the leaves of the old tree stirred gently in the night wind. It seemed +like quiet music for the repose of the dead. + +Sunbury was passed through, and they came again into the lonely road. +Two or three miles more, and the cart stopped. Sikes alighted, took +Oliver by the hand, and they once again walked on. + +They turned into no house at Shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; +but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, through gloomy lanes +and over cold open wastes, until they came within sight of the lights +of a town at no great distance. On looking intently forward, Oliver saw +that the water was just below them, and that they were coming to the +foot of a bridge. + +Sikes kept straight on, until they were close upon the bridge; then +turned suddenly down a bank upon the left. + +“The water!” thought Oliver, turning sick with fear. “He has brought me +to this lonely place to murder me!” + +He was about to throw himself on the ground, and make one struggle for +his young life, when he saw that they stood before a solitary house: +all ruinous and decayed. There was a window on each side of the +dilapidated entrance; and one story above; but no light was visible. +The house was dark, dismantled: and, to all appearance, uninhabited. + +Sikes, with Oliver’s hand still in his, softly approached the low +porch, and raised the latch. The door yielded to the pressure, and they +passed in together. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. +THE BURGLARY + + +“Hallo!” cried a loud, hoarse voice, as soon as they set foot in the +passage. + +“Don’t make such a row,” said Sikes, bolting the door. “Show a glim, +Toby.” + +“Aha! my pal!” cried the same voice. “A glim, Barney, a glim! Show the +gentleman in, Barney; wake up first, if convenient.” + +The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the +person he addressed, to rouse him from his slumbers: for the noise of a +wooden body, falling violently, was heard; and then an indistinct +muttering, as of a man between sleep and awake. + +“Do you hear?” cried the same voice. “There’s Bill Sikes in the passage +with nobody to do the civil to him; and you sleeping there, as if you +took laudanum with your meals, and nothing stronger. Are you any +fresher now, or do you want the iron candlestick to wake you +thoroughly?” + +A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the +room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on +the right hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same +individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the +infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at +the public-house on Saffron Hill. + +“Bister Sikes!” exclaimed Barney, with real or counterfeit joy; “cub +id, sir; cub id.” + +“Here! you get on first,” said Sikes, putting Oliver in front of him. +“Quicker! or I shall tread upon your heels.” + +Muttering a curse upon his tardiness, Sikes pushed Oliver before him; +and they entered a low dark room with a smoky fire, two or three broken +chairs, a table, and a very old couch: on which, with his legs much +higher than his head, a man was reposing at full length, smoking a long +clay pipe. He was dressed in a smartly-cut snuff-coloured coat, with +large brass buttons; an orange neckerchief; a coarse, staring, +shawl-pattern waistcoat; and drab breeches. Mr. Crackit (for he it was) +had no very great quantity of hair, either upon his head or face; but +what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew +curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, +ornamented with large common rings. He was a trifle above the middle +size, and apparently rather weak in the legs; but this circumstance by +no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he +contemplated, in their elevated situation, with lively satisfaction. + +“Bill, my boy!” said this figure, turning his head towards the door, +“I’m glad to see you. I was almost afraid you’d given it up: in which +case I should have made a personal wentur. Hallo!” + +Uttering this exclamation in a tone of great surprise, as his eyes +rested on Oliver, Mr. Toby Crackit brought himself into a sitting +posture, and demanded who that was. + +“The boy. Only the boy!” replied Sikes, drawing a chair towards the +fire. + +“Wud of Bister Fagid’s lads,” exclaimed Barney, with a grin. + +“Fagin’s, eh!” exclaimed Toby, looking at Oliver. “Wot an inwalable boy +that’ll make, for the old ladies’ pockets in chapels! His mug is a +fortin’ to him.” + +“There—there’s enough of that,” interposed Sikes, impatiently; and +stooping over his recumbant friend, he whispered a few words in his +ear: at which Mr. Crackit laughed immensely, and honoured Oliver with a +long stare of astonishment. + +“Now,” said Sikes, as he resumed his seat, “if you’ll give us something +to eat and drink while we’re waiting, you’ll put some heart in us; or +in me, at all events. Sit down by the fire, younker, and rest yourself; +for you’ll have to go out with us again to-night, though not very far +off.” + +Oliver looked at Sikes, in mute and timid wonder; and drawing a stool +to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarecely knowing +where he was, or what was passing around him. + +“Here,” said Toby, as the young Jew placed some fragments of food, and +a bottle upon the table, “Success to the crack!” He rose to honour the +toast; and, carefully depositing his empty pipe in a corner, advanced +to the table, filled a glass with spirits, and drank off its contents. +Mr. Sikes did the same. + +“A drain for the boy,” said Toby, half-filling a wine-glass. “Down with +it, innocence.” + +“Indeed,” said Oliver, looking piteously up into the man’s face; +“indeed, I—” + +“Down with it!” echoed Toby. “Do you think I don’t know what’s good for +you? Tell him to drink it, Bill.” + +“He had better!” said Sikes clapping his hand upon his pocket. “Burn my +body, if he isn’t more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers. Drink +it, you perwerse imp; drink it!” + +Frightened by the menacing gestures of the two men, Oliver hastily +swallowed the contents of the glass, and immediately fell into a +violent fit of coughing: which delighted Toby Crackit and Barney, and +even drew a smile from the surly Mr. Sikes. + +This done, and Sikes having satisfied his appetite (Oliver could eat +nothing but a small crust of bread which they made him swallow), the +two men laid themselves down on chairs for a short nap. Oliver retained +his stool by the fire; Barney wrapped in a blanket, stretched himself +on the floor: close outside the fender. + +They slept, or appeared to sleep, for some time; nobody stirring but +Barney, who rose once or twice to throw coals on the fire. Oliver fell +into a heavy doze: imagining himself straying along the gloomy lanes, +or wandering about the dark churchyard, or retracing some one or other +of the scenes of the past day: when he was roused by Toby Crackit +jumping up and declaring it was half-past one. + +In an instant, the other two were on their legs, and all were actively +engaged in busy preparation. Sikes and his companion enveloped their +necks and chins in large dark shawls, and drew on their great-coats; +Barney, opening a cupboard, brought forth several articles, which he +hastily crammed into the pockets. + +“Barkers for me, Barney,” said Toby Crackit. + +“Here they are,” replied Barney, producing a pair of pistols. “You +loaded them yourself.” + +“All right!” replied Toby, stowing them away. “The persuaders?” + +“I’ve got ’em,” replied Sikes. + +“Crape, keys, centre-bits, darkies—nothing forgotten?” inquired Toby: +fastening a small crowbar to a loop inside the skirt of his coat. + +“All right,” rejoined his companion. “Bring them bits of timber, +Barney. That’s the time of day.” + +With these words, he took a thick stick from Barney’s hands, who, +having delivered another to Toby, busied himself in fastening on +Oliver’s cape. + +“Now then!” said Sikes, holding out his hand. + +Oliver: who was completely stupified by the unwonted exercise, and the +air, and the drink which had been forced upon him: put his hand +mechanically into that which Sikes extended for the purpose. + +“Take his other hand, Toby,” said Sikes. “Look out, Barney.” + +The man went to the door, and returned to announce that all was quiet. +The two robbers issued forth with Oliver between them. Barney, having +made all fast, rolled himself up as before, and was soon asleep again. + +It was now intensely dark. The fog was much heavier than it had been in +the early part of the night; and the atmosphere was so damp, that, +although no rain fell, Oliver’s hair and eyebrows, within a few minutes +after leaving the house, had become stiff with the half-frozen moisture +that was floating about. They crossed the bridge, and kept on towards +the lights which he had seen before. They were at no great distance +off; and, as they walked pretty briskly, they soon arrived at Chertsey. + +“Slap through the town,” whispered Sikes; “there’ll be nobody in the +way, to-night, to see us.” + +Toby acquiesced; and they hurried through the main street of the little +town, which at that late hour was wholly deserted. A dim light shone at +intervals from some bed-room window; and the hoarse barking of dogs +occasionally broke the silence of the night. But there was nobody +abroad. They had cleared the town, as the church-bell struck two. + +Quickening their pace, they turned up a road upon the left hand. After +walking about a quarter of a mile, they stopped before a detached house +surrounded by a wall: to the top of which, Toby Crackit, scarcely +pausing to take breath, climbed in a twinkling. + +“The boy next,” said Toby. “Hoist him up; I’ll catch hold of him.” + +Before Oliver had time to look round, Sikes had caught him under the +arms; and in three or four seconds he and Toby were lying on the grass +on the other side. Sikes followed directly. And they stole cautiously +towards the house. + +And now, for the first time, Oliver, well-nigh mad with grief and +terror, saw that housebreaking and robbery, if not murder, were the +objects of the expedition. He clasped his hands together, and +involuntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror. A mist came +before his eyes; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face; his limbs +failed him; and he sank upon his knees. + +“Get up!” murmured Sikes, trembling with rage, and drawing the pistol +from his pocket; “Get up, or I’ll strew your brains upon the grass.” + +“Oh! for God’s sake let me go!” cried Oliver; “let me run away and die +in the fields. I will never come near London; never, never! Oh! pray +have mercy on me, and do not make me steal. For the love of all the +bright Angels that rest in Heaven, have mercy upon me!” + +The man to whom this appeal was made, swore a dreadful oath, and had +cocked the pistol, when Toby, striking it from his grasp, placed his +hand upon the boy’s mouth, and dragged him to the house. + +“Hush!” cried the man; “it won’t answer here. Say another word, and +I’ll do your business myself with a crack on the head. That makes no +noise, and is quite as certain, and more genteel. Here, Bill, wrench +the shutter open. He’s game enough now, I’ll engage. I’ve seen older +hands of his age took the same way, for a minute or two, on a cold +night.” + +Sikes, invoking terrific imprecations upon Fagin’s head for sending +Oliver on such an errand, plied the crowbar vigorously, but with little +noise. After some delay, and some assistance from Toby, the shutter to +which he had referred, swung open on its hinges. + +It was a little lattice window, about five feet and a half above the +ground, at the back of the house: which belonged to a scullery, or +small brewing-place, at the end of the passage. The aperture was so +small, that the inmates had probably not thought it worth while to +defend it more securely; but it was large enough to admit a boy of +Oliver’s size, nevertheless. A very brief exercise of Mr. Sike’s art, +sufficed to overcome the fastening of the lattice; and it soon stood +wide open also. + +“Now listen, you young limb,” whispered Sikes, drawing a dark lantern +from his pocket, and throwing the glare full on Oliver’s face; “I’m a +going to put you through there. Take this light; go softly up the steps +straight afore you, and along the little hall, to the street door; +unfasten it, and let us in.” + +“There’s a bolt at the top, you won’t be able to reach,” interposed +Toby. “Stand upon one of the hall chairs. There are three there, Bill, +with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on ’em: which is the +old lady’s arms.” + +“Keep quiet, can’t you?” replied Sikes, with a threatening look. “The +room-door is open, is it?” + +“Wide,” replied Toby, after peeping in to satisfy himself. “The game of +that is, that they always leave it open with a catch, so that the dog, +who’s got a bed in here, may walk up and down the passage when he feels +wakeful. Ha! ha! Barney ’ticed him away to-night. So neat!” + +Although Mr. Crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed +without noise, Sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get +to work. Toby complied, by first producing his lantern, and placing it +on the ground; then by planting himself firmly with his head against +the wall beneath the window, and his hands upon his knees, so as to +make a step of his back. This was no sooner done, than Sikes, mounting +upon him, put Oliver gently through the window with his feet first; +and, without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the +floor inside. + +“Take this lantern,” said Sikes, looking into the room. “You see the +stairs afore you?” + +Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, “Yes.” Sikes, pointing to the +street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice +that he was within shot all the way; and that if he faltered, he would +fall dead that instant. + +“It’s done in a minute,” said Sikes, in the same low whisper. “Directly +I leave go of you, do your work. Hark!” + +“What’s that?” whispered the other man. + +They listened intently. + +“Nothing,” said Sikes, releasing his hold of Oliver. “Now!” + +In the short time he had had to collect his senses, the boy had firmly +resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one +effort to dart upstairs from the hall, and alarm the family. Filled +with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily. + +“Come back!” suddenly cried Sikes aloud. “Back! back!” + +Scared by the sudden breaking of the dead stillness of the place, and +by a loud cry which followed it, Oliver let his lantern fall, and knew +not whether to advance or fly. + +The cry was repeated—a light appeared—a vision of two terrified +half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes—a +flash—a loud noise—a smoke—a crash somewhere, but where he knew +not,—and he staggered back. + +Sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he was up again, and had him +by the collar before the smoke had cleared away. He fired his own +pistol after the men, who were already retreating; and dragged the boy +up. + +“Clasp your arm tighter,” said Sikes, as he drew him through the +window. “Give me a shawl here. They’ve hit him. Quick! How the boy +bleeds!” + +Then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of +fire-arms, and the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried +over uneven ground at a rapid pace. And then, the noises grew confused +in the distance; and a cold deadly feeling crept over the boy’s heart; +and he saw or heard no more. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. +WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR. +BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON +SOME POINTS + + +The night was bitter cold. The snow lay on the ground, frozen into a +hard thick crust, so that only the heaps that had drifted into byways +and corners were affected by the sharp wind that howled abroad: which, +as if expending increased fury on such prey as it found, caught it +savagely up in clouds, and, whirling it into a thousand misty eddies, +scattered it in air. Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for +the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank God +they were at home; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him +down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare +streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, +can hardly open them in a more bitter world. + +Such was the aspect of out-of-doors affairs, when Mrs. Corney, the +matron of the workhouse to which our readers have been already +introduced as the birthplace of Oliver Twist, sat herself down before a +cheerful fire in her own little room, and glanced, with no small degree +of complacency, at a small round table: on which stood a tray of +corresponding size, furnished with all necessary materials for the most +grateful meal that matrons enjoy. In fact, Mrs. Corney was about to +solace herself with a cup of tea. As she glanced from the table to the +fireplace, where the smallest of all possible kettles was singing a +small song in a small voice, her inward satisfaction evidently +increased,—so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Corney smiled. + +“Well!” said the matron, leaning her elbow on the table, and looking +reflectively at the fire; “I’m sure we have all on us a great deal to +be grateful for! A great deal, if we did but know it. Ah!” + +Mrs. Corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental +blindness of those paupers who did not know it; and thrusting a silver +spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin +tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea. + +How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds! The +black teapot, being very small and easily filled, ran over while Mrs. +Corney was moralising; and the water slightly scalded Mrs. Corney’s +hand. + +“Drat the pot!” said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on +the hob; “a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups! What +use is it of, to anybody! Except,” said Mrs. Corney, pausing, “except +to a poor desolate creature like me. Oh dear!” + +With these words, the matron dropped into her chair, and, once more +resting her elbow on the table, thought of her solitary fate. The small +teapot, and the single cup, had awakened in her mind sad recollections +of Mr. Corney (who had not been dead more than five-and-twenty years); +and she was overpowered. + +“I shall never get another!” said Mrs. Corney, pettishly; “I shall +never get another—like him.” + +Whether this remark bore reference to the husband, or the teapot, is +uncertain. It might have been the latter; for Mrs. Corney looked at it +as she spoke; and took it up afterwards. She had just tasted her first +cup, when she was disturbed by a soft tap at the room-door. + +“Oh, come in with you!” said Mrs. Corney, sharply. “Some of the old +women dying, I suppose. They always die when I’m at meals. Don’t stand +there, letting the cold air in, don’t. What’s amiss now, eh?” + +“Nothing, ma’am, nothing,” replied a man’s voice. + +“Dear me!” exclaimed the matron, in a much sweeter tone, “is that Mr. +Bumble?” + +“At your service, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble, who had been stopping +outside to rub his shoes clean, and to shake the snow off his coat; and +who now made his appearance, bearing the cocked hat in one hand and a +bundle in the other. “Shall I shut the door, ma’am?” + +The lady modestly hesitated to reply, lest there should be any +impropriety in holding an interview with Mr. Bumble, with closed doors. +Mr. Bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold +himself, shut it without permission. + +“Hard weather, Mr. Bumble,” said the matron. + +“Hard, indeed, ma’am,” replied the beadle. “Anti-porochial weather +this, ma’am. We have given away, Mrs. Corney, we have given away a +matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half, this very +blessed afternoon; and yet them paupers are not contented.” + +“Of course not. When would they be, Mr. Bumble?” said the matron, +sipping her tea. + +“When, indeed, ma’am!” rejoined Mr. Bumble. “Why here’s one man that, +in consideration of his wife and large family, has a quartern loaf and +a good pound of cheese, full weight. Is he grateful, ma’am? Is he +grateful? Not a copper farthing’s worth of it! What does he do, ma’am, +but ask for a few coals; if it’s only a pocket handkerchief full, he +says! Coals! What would he do with coals? Toast his cheese with ’em and +then come back for more. That’s the way with these people, ma’am; give +’em a apron full of coals to-day, and they’ll come back for another, +the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.” + +The matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible +simile; and the beadle went on. + +“I never,” said Mr. Bumble, “see anything like the pitch it’s got to. +The day afore yesterday, a man—you have been a married woman, ma’am, +and I may mention it to you—a man, with hardly a rag upon his back +(here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer’s door +when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be +relieved, Mrs. Corney. As he wouldn’t go away, and shocked the company +very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a +pint of oatmeal. ‘My heart!’ says the ungrateful villain, ‘what’s the +use of _this_ to me? You might as well give me a pair of iron +spectacles!’ ‘Very good,’ says our overseer, taking ’em away again, +‘you won’t get anything else here.’ ‘Then I’ll die in the streets!’ +says the vagrant. ‘Oh no, you won’t,’ says our overseer.” + +“Ha! ha! That was very good! So like Mr. Grannett, wasn’t it?” +interposed the matron. “Well, Mr. Bumble?” + +“Well, ma’am,” rejoined the beadle, “he went away; and he _did_ die in +the streets. There’s a obstinate pauper for you!” + +“It beats anything I could have believed,” observed the matron +emphatically. “But don’t you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing, +any way, Mr. Bumble? You’re a gentleman of experience, and ought to +know. Come.” + +“Mrs. Corney,” said the beadle, smiling as men smile who are conscious +of superior information, “out-of-door relief, properly managed: +properly managed, ma’am: is the porochial safeguard. The great +principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what +they don’t want; and then they get tired of coming.” + +“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Corney. “Well, that is a good one, too!” + +“Yes. Betwixt you and me, ma’am,” returned Mr. Bumble, “that’s the +great principle; and that’s the reason why, if you look at any cases +that get into them owdacious newspapers, you’ll always observe that +sick families have been relieved with slices of cheese. That’s the rule +now, Mrs. Corney, all over the country. But, however,” said the beadle, +stopping to unpack his bundle, “these are official secrets, ma’am; not +to be spoken of; except, as I may say, among the porochial officers, +such as ourselves. This is the port wine, ma’am, that the board ordered +for the infirmary; real, fresh, genuine port wine; only out of the cask +this forenoon; clear as a bell, and no sediment!” + +Having held the first bottle up to the light, and shaken it well to +test its excellence, Mr. Bumble placed them both on top of a chest of +drawers; folded the handkerchief in which they had been wrapped; put it +carefully in his pocket; and took up his hat, as if to go. + +“You’ll have a very cold walk, Mr. Bumble,” said the matron. + +“It blows, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble, turning up his coat-collar, +“enough to cut one’s ears off.” + +The matron looked, from the little kettle, to the beadle, who was +moving towards the door; and as the beadle coughed, preparatory to +bidding her good-night, bashfully inquired whether—whether he wouldn’t +take a cup of tea? + +Mr. Bumble instantaneously turned back his collar again; laid his hat +and stick upon a chair; and drew another chair up to the table. As he +slowly seated himself, he looked at the lady. She fixed her eyes upon +the little teapot. Mr. Bumble coughed again, and slightly smiled. + +Mrs. Corney rose to get another cup and saucer from the closet. As she +sat down, her eyes once again encountered those of the gallant beadle; +she coloured, and applied herself to the task of making his tea. Again +Mr. Bumble coughed—louder this time than he had coughed yet. + +“Sweet? Mr. Bumble?” inquired the matron, taking up the sugar-basin. + +“Very sweet, indeed, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble. He fixed his eyes on +Mrs. Corney as he said this; and if ever a beadle looked tender, Mr. +Bumble was that beadle at that moment. + +The tea was made, and handed in silence. Mr. Bumble, having spread a +handkerchief over his knees to prevent the crumbs from sullying the +splendour of his shorts, began to eat and drink; varying these +amusements, occasionally, by fetching a deep sigh; which, however, had +no injurious effect upon his appetite, but, on the contrary, rather +seemed to facilitate his operations in the tea and toast department. + +“You have a cat, ma’am, I see,” said Mr. Bumble, glancing at one who, +in the centre of her family, was basking before the fire; “and kittens +too, I declare!” + +“I am so fond of them, Mr. Bumble, you can’t think,” replied the +matron. “They’re _so_ happy, _so_ frolicsome, and _so_ cheerful, that +they are quite companions for me.” + +“Very nice animals, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble, approvingly; “so very +domestic.” + +“Oh, yes!” rejoined the matron with enthusiasm; “so fond of their home +too, that it’s quite a pleasure, I’m sure.” + +“Mrs. Corney, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time +with his teaspoon, “I mean to say this, ma’am; that any cat, or kitten, +that could live with you, ma’am, and _not_ be fond of its home, must be +a ass, ma’am.” + +“Oh, Mr. Bumble!” remonstrated Mrs. Corney. + +“It’s of no use disguising facts, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble, slowly +flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him +doubly impressive; “I would drown it myself, with pleasure.” + +“Then you’re a cruel man,” said the matron vivaciously, as she held out +her hand for the beadle’s cup; “and a very hard-hearted man besides.” + +“Hard-hearted, ma’am?” said Mr. Bumble. “Hard?” Mr. Bumble resigned his +cup without another word; squeezed Mrs. Corney’s little finger as she +took it; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, +gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther +from the fire. + +It was a round table; and as Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble had been +sitting opposite each other, with no great space between them, and +fronting the fire, it will be seen that Mr. Bumble, in receding from +the fire, and still keeping at the table, increased the distance +between himself and Mrs. Corney; which proceeding, some prudent readers +will doubtless be disposed to admire, and to consider an act of great +heroism on Mr. Bumble’s part: he being in some sort tempted by time, +place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, +which however well they may become the lips of the light and +thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the +land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other +great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the +stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known) should be +the sternest and most inflexible among them all. + +Whatever were Mr. Bumble’s intentions, however (and no doubt they were +of the best): it unfortunately happened, as has been twice before +remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently Mr. Bumble, +moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the +distance between himself and the matron; and, continuing to travel +round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close +to that in which the matron was seated. + +Indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, Mr. Bumble +stopped. + +Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have +been scorched by the fire; and if to the left, she must have fallen +into Mr. Bumble’s arms; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt +foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where she was, +and handed Mr. Bumble another cup of tea. + +“Hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?” said Mr. Bumble, stirring his tea, and +looking up into the matron’s face; “are _you_ hard-hearted, Mrs. +Corney?” + +“Dear me!” exclaimed the matron, “what a very curious question from a +single man. What can you want to know for, Mr. Bumble?” + +The beadle drank his tea to the last drop; finished a piece of toast; +whisked the crumbs off his knees; wiped his lips; and deliberately +kissed the matron. + +“Mr. Bumble!” cried that discreet lady in a whisper; for the fright was +so great, that she had quite lost her voice, “Mr. Bumble, I shall +scream!” Mr. Bumble made no reply; but in a slow and dignified manner, +put his arm round the matron’s waist. + +As the lady had stated her intention of screaming, of course she would +have screamed at this additional boldness, but that the exertion was +rendered unnecessary by a hasty knocking at the door: which was no +sooner heard, than Mr. Bumble darted, with much agility, to the wine +bottles, and began dusting them with great violence: while the matron +sharply demanded who was there. + +It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy +of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that +her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. + +“If you please, mistress,” said a withered old female pauper, hideously +ugly: putting her head in at the door, “Old Sally is a-going fast.” + +“Well, what’s that to me?” angrily demanded the matron. “I can’t keep +her alive, can I?” + +“No, no, mistress,” replied the old woman, “nobody can; she’s far +beyond the reach of help. I’ve seen a many people die; little babes and +great strong men; and I know when death’s a-coming, well enough. But +she’s troubled in her mind: and when the fits are not on her,—and +that’s not often, for she is dying very hard,—she says she has got +something to tell, which you must hear. She’ll never die quiet till you +come, mistress.” + +At this intelligence, the worthy Mrs. Corney muttered a variety of +invectives against old women who couldn’t even die without purposely +annoying their betters; and, muffling herself in a thick shawl which +she hastily caught up, briefly requested Mr. Bumble to stay till she +came back, lest anything particular should occur. Bidding the messenger +walk fast, and not be all night hobbling up the stairs, she followed +her from the room with a very ill grace, scolding all the way. + +Mr. Bumble’s conduct on being left to himself, was rather inexplicable. +He opened the closet, counted the teaspoons, weighed the sugar-tongs, +closely inspected a silver milk-pot to ascertain that it was of the +genuine metal, and, having satisfied his curiosity on these points, put +on his cocked hat corner-wise, and danced with much gravity four +distinct times round the table. + +Having gone through this very extraordinary performance, he took off +the cocked hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his +back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact +inventory of the furniture. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. +TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE FOUND OF +IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY + + +It was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the +matron’s room. Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy; +her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque +shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature’s hand. + +Alas! How few of Nature’s faces are left alone to gladden us with their +beauty! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change +them as they change hearts; and it is only when those passions sleep, +and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, +and leave Heaven’s surface clear. It is a common thing for the +countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to +subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and +settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they +grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by +the coffin’s side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth. + +The old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs, muttering +some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at +length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, +and remained behind to follow as she might: while the more nimble +superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay. + +It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. +There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish +apothecary’s apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick +out of a quill. + +“Cold night, Mrs. Corney,” said this young gentleman, as the matron +entered. + +“Very cold, indeed, sir,” replied the mistress, in her most civil +tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke. + +“You should get better coals out of your contractors,” said the +apothecary’s deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the +rusty poker; “these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.” + +“They’re the board’s choosing, sir,” returned the matron. “The least +they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard +enough.” + +The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman. + +“Oh!” said the young man, turning his face towards the bed, as if he +had previously quite forgotten the patient, “it’s all U.P. there, Mrs. +Corney.” + +“It is, is it, sir?” asked the matron. + +“If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised,” said the +apothecary’s apprentice, intent upon the toothpick’s point. “It’s a +break-up of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?” + +The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the +affirmative. + +“Then perhaps she’ll go off in that way, if you don’t make a row,” said +the young man. “Put the light on the floor. She won’t see it there.” + +The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to +intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she +resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time +returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped +herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed. + +The apothecary’s apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the +toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it +for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished +Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. + +When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from +the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to +catch the heat. The flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled +faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position, +they began to converse in a low voice. + +“Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?” inquired the +messenger. + +“Not a word,” replied the other. “She plucked and tore at her arms for +a little time; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off. She +hasn’t much strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet. I ain’t so +weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance; no, no!” + +“Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?” demanded +the first. + +“I tried to get it down,” rejoined the other. “But her teeth were tight +set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do +to get it back again. So I drank it; and it did me good!” + +Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, +the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily. + +“I mind the time,” said the first speaker, “when she would have done +the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.” + +“Ay, that she would,” rejoined the other; “she had a merry heart. A +many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as +waxwork. My old eyes have seen them—ay, and those old hands touched +them too; for I have helped her, scores of times.” + +Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature +shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, +brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook +a few grains into the outstretched palm of her companion, and a few +more into her own. While they were thus employed, the matron, who had +been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from her +stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to +wait? + +“Not long, mistress,” replied the second woman, looking up into her +face. “We have none of us long to wait for Death. Patience, patience! +He’ll be here soon enough for us all.” + +“Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!” said the matron sternly. “You, +Martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?” + +“Often,” answered the first woman. + +“But will never be again,” added the second one; “that is, she’ll never +wake again but once—and mind, mistress, that won’t be for long!” + +“Long or short,” said the matron, snappishly, “she won’t find me here +when she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for +nothing. It’s no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house +die, and I won’t—that’s more. Mind that, you impudent old harridans. If +you make a fool of me again, I’ll soon cure you, I warrant you!” + +She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned +towards the bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised +herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them. + +“Who’s that?” she cried, in a hollow voice. + +“Hush, hush!” said one of the women, stooping over her. “Lie down, lie +down!” + +“I’ll never lie down again alive!” said the woman, struggling. “I +_will_ tell her! Come here! Nearer! Let me whisper in your ear.” + +She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the +bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of +the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners. + +“Turn them away,” said the woman, drowsily; “make haste! make haste!” + +The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous +lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best +friends; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would never +leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed the +door, and returned to the bedside. On being excluded, the old ladies +changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old Sally was +drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition to a +moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was labouring +under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been +privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy +old ladies themselves. + +“Now listen to me,” said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great +effort to revive one latent spark of energy. “In this very room—in this +very bed—I once nursed a pretty young creetur’, that was brought into +the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking, and all soiled +with dust and blood. She gave birth to a boy, and died. Let me +think—what was the year again!” + +“Never mind the year,” said the impatient auditor; “what about her?” + +“Ay,” murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, +“what about her?—what about—I know!” she cried, jumping fiercely up: +her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her head—“I robbed her, so +I did! She wasn’t cold—I tell you she wasn’t cold, when I stole it!” + +“Stole what, for God’s sake?” cried the matron, with a gesture as if +she would call for help. + +“_It_!” replied the woman, laying her hand over the other’s mouth. “The +only thing she had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to +eat; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. It was gold, I +tell you! Rich gold, that might have saved her life!” + +“Gold!” echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell +back. “Go on, go on—yes—what of it? Who was the mother? When was it?” + +“She charged me to keep it safe,” replied the woman with a groan, “and +trusted me as the only woman about her. I stole it in my heart when she +first showed it me hanging round her neck; and the child’s death, +perhaps, is on me besides! They would have treated him better, if they +had known it all!” + +“Known what?” asked the other. “Speak!” + +“The boy grew so like his mother,” said the woman, rambling on, and not +heeding the question, “that I could never forget it when I saw his +face. Poor girl! poor girl! She was so young, too! Such a gentle lamb! +Wait; there’s more to tell. I have not told you all, have I?” + +“No, no,” replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as +they came more faintly from the dying woman. “Be quick, or it may be +too late!” + +“The mother,” said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; +“the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in +my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come +when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother +named. ‘And oh, kind Heaven!’ she said, folding her thin hands +together, ‘whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in +this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child, +abandoned to its mercy!’” + +“The boy’s name?” demanded the matron. + +“They _called_ him Oliver,” replied the woman, feebly. “The gold I +stole was—” + +“Yes, yes—what?” cried the other. + +She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew +back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a +sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered +some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed. + + +“Stone dead!” said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the +door was opened. + +“And nothing to tell, after all,” rejoined the matron, walking +carelessly away. + +The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the +preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left +alone, hovering about the body. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. +WHEREIN THIS HISTORY REVERTS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY + + +While these things were passing in the country workhouse, Mr. Fagin sat +in the old den—the same from which Oliver had been removed by the +girl—brooding over a dull, smoky fire. He held a pair of bellows upon +his knee, with which he had apparently been endeavouring to rouse it +into more cheerful action; but he had fallen into deep thought; and +with his arms folded on them, and his chin resting on his thumbs, fixed +his eyes, abstractedly, on the rusty bars. + +At a table behind him sat the Artful Dodger, Master Charles Bates, and +Mr. Chitling: all intent upon a game of whist; the Artful taking dummy +against Master Bates and Mr. Chitling. The countenance of the +first-named gentleman, peculiarly intelligent at all times, acquired +great additional interest from his close observance of the game, and +his attentive perusal of Mr. Chitling’s hand; upon which, from time to +time, as occasion served, he bestowed a variety of earnest glances: +wisely regulating his own play by the result of his observations upon +his neighbour’s cards. It being a cold night, the Dodger wore his hat, +as, indeed, was often his custom within doors. He also sustained a clay +pipe between his teeth, which he only removed for a brief space when he +deemed it necessary to apply for refreshment to a quart pot upon the +table, which stood ready filled with gin-and-water for the +accommodation of the company. + +Master Bates was also attentive to the play; but being of a more +excitable nature than his accomplished friend, it was observable that +he more frequently applied himself to the gin-and-water, and moreover +indulged in many jests and irrelevant remarks, all highly unbecoming a +scientific rubber. Indeed, the Artful, presuming upon their close +attachment, more than once took occasion to reason gravely with his +companion upon these improprieties; all of which remonstrances, Master +Bates received in extremely good part; merely requesting his friend to +be “blowed,” or to insert his head in a sack, or replying with some +other neatly-turned witticism of a similar kind, the happy application +of which, excited considerable admiration in the mind of Mr. Chitling. +It was remarkable that the latter gentleman and his partner invariably +lost; and that the circumstance, so far from angering Master Bates, +appeared to afford him the highest amusement, inasmuch as he laughed +most uproariously at the end of every deal, and protested that he had +never seen such a jolly game in all his born days. + +“That’s two doubles and the rub,” said Mr. Chitling, with a very long +face, as he drew half-a-crown from his waistcoat-pocket. “I never see +such a feller as you, Jack; you win everything. Even when we’ve good +cards, Charley and I can’t make nothing of ’em.” + +Either the master or the manner of this remark, which was made very +ruefully, delighted Charley Bates so much, that his consequent shout of +laughter roused the Jew from his reverie, and induced him to inquire +what was the matter. + +“Matter, Fagin!” cried Charley. “I wish you had watched the play. Tommy +Chitling hasn’t won a point; and I went partners with him against the +Artfull and dumb.” + +“Ay, ay!” said the Jew, with a grin, which sufficiently demonstrated +that he was at no loss to understand the reason. “Try ’em again, Tom; +try ’em again.” + +“No more of it for me, thank ’ee, Fagin,” replied Mr. Chitling; “I’ve +had enough. That ’ere Dodger has such a run of luck that there’s no +standing again’ him.” + +“Ha! ha! my dear,” replied the Jew, “you must get up very early in the +morning, to win against the Dodger.” + +“Morning!” said Charley Bates; “you must put your boots on over-night, +and have a telescope at each eye, and a opera-glass between your +shoulders, if you want to come over him.” + +Mr. Dawkins received these handsome compliments with much philosophy, +and offered to cut any gentleman in company, for the first +picture-card, at a shilling at a time. Nobody accepting the challenge, +and his pipe being by this time smoked out, he proceeded to amuse +himself by sketching a ground-plan of Newgate on the table with the +piece of chalk which had served him in lieu of counters; whistling, +meantime, with peculiar shrillness. + +“How precious dull you are, Tommy!” said the Dodger, stopping short +when there had been a long silence; and addressing Mr. Chitling. “What +do you think he’s thinking of, Fagin?” + +“How should I know, my dear?” replied the Jew, looking round as he +plied the bellows. “About his losses, maybe; or the little retirement +in the country that he’s just left, eh? Ha! ha! Is that it, my dear?” + +“Not a bit of it,” replied the Dodger, stopping the subject of +discourse as Mr. Chitling was about to reply. “What do _you_ say, +Charley?” + +“_I_ should say,” replied Master Bates, with a grin, “that he was +uncommon sweet upon Betsy. See how he’s a-blushing! Oh, my eye! here’s +a merry-go-rounder! Tommy Chitling’s in love! Oh, Fagin, Fagin! what a +spree!” + +Thoroughly overpowered with the notion of Mr. Chitling being the victim +of the tender passion, Master Bates threw himself back in his chair +with such violence, that he lost his balance, and pitched over upon the +floor; where (the accident abating nothing of his merriment) he lay at +full length until his laugh was over, when he resumed his former +position, and began another laugh. + +“Never mind him, my dear,” said the Jew, winking at Mr. Dawkins, and +giving Master Bates a reproving tap with the nozzle of the bellows. +“Betsy’s a fine girl. Stick up to her, Tom. Stick up to her.” + +“What I mean to say, Fagin,” replied Mr. Chitling, very red in the +face, “is, that that isn’t anything to anybody here.” + +“No more it is,” replied the Jew; “Charley will talk. Don’t mind him, +my dear; don’t mind him. Betsy’s a fine girl. Do as she bids you, Tom, +and you will make your fortune.” + +“So I _do_ do as she bids me,” replied Mr. Chitling; “I shouldn’t have +been milled, if it hadn’t been for her advice. But it turned out a good +job for you; didn’t it, Fagin! And what’s six weeks of it? It must +come, some time or another, and why not in the winter time when you +don’t want to go out a-walking so much; eh, Fagin?” + +“Ah, to be sure, my dear,” replied the Jew. + +“You wouldn’t mind it again, Tom, would you,” asked the Dodger, winking +upon Charley and the Jew, “if Bet was all right?” + +“I mean to say that I shouldn’t,” replied Tom, angrily. “There, now. +Ah! Who’ll say as much as that, I should like to know; eh, Fagin?” + +“Nobody, my dear,” replied the Jew; “not a soul, Tom. I don’t know one +of ’em that would do it besides you; not one of ’em, my dear.” + +“I might have got clear off, if I’d split upon her; mightn’t I, Fagin?” +angrily pursued the poor half-witted dupe. “A word from me would have +done it; wouldn’t it, Fagin?” + +“To be sure it would, my dear,” replied the Jew. + +“But I didn’t blab it; did I, Fagin?” demanded Tom, pouring question +upon question with great volubility. + +“No, no, to be sure,” replied the Jew; “you were too stout-hearted for +that. A deal too stout, my dear!” + +“Perhaps I was,” rejoined Tom, looking round; “and if I was, what’s to +laugh at, in that; eh, Fagin?” + +The Jew, perceiving that Mr. Chitling was considerably roused, hastened +to assure him that nobody was laughing; and to prove the gravity of the +company, appealed to Master Bates, the principal offender. But, +unfortunately, Charley, in opening his mouth to reply that he was never +more serious in his life, was unable to prevent the escape of such a +violent roar, that the abused Mr. Chitling, without any preliminary +ceremonies, rushed across the room and aimed a blow at the offender; +who, being skilful in evading pursuit, ducked to avoid it, and chose +his time so well that it lighted on the chest of the merry old +gentleman, and caused him to stagger to the wall, where he stood +panting for breath, while Mr. Chitling looked on in intense dismay. + +“Hark!” cried the Dodger at this moment, “I heard the tinkler.” +Catching up the light, he crept softly upstairs. + +The bell was rung again, with some impatience, while the party were in +darkness. After a short pause, the Dodger reappeared, and whispered +Fagin mysteriously. + +“What!” cried the Jew, “alone?” + +The Dodger nodded in the affirmative, and, shading the flame of the +candle with his hand, gave Charley Bates a private intimation, in dumb +show, that he had better not be funny just then. Having performed this +friendly office, he fixed his eyes on the Jew’s face, and awaited his +directions. + +The old man bit his yellow fingers, and meditated for some seconds; his +face working with agitation the while, as if he dreaded something, and +feared to know the worst. At length he raised his head. + +“Where is he?” he asked. + +The Dodger pointed to the floor above, and made a gesture, as if to +leave the room. + +“Yes,” said the Jew, answering the mute inquiry; “bring him down. Hush! +Quiet, Charley! Gently, Tom! Scarce, scarce!” + +This brief direction to Charley Bates, and his recent antagonist, was +softly and immediately obeyed. There was no sound of their whereabout, +when the Dodger descended the stairs, bearing the light in his hand, +and followed by a man in a coarse smock-frock; who, after casting a +hurried glance round the room, pulled off a large wrapper which had +concealed the lower portion of his face, and disclosed: all haggard, +unwashed, and unshorn: the features of flash Toby Crackit. + +“How are you, Faguey?” said this worthy, nodding to the Jew. “Pop that +shawl away in my castor, Dodger, so that I may know where to find it +when I cut; that’s the time of day! You’ll be a fine young cracksman +afore the old file now.” + +With these words he pulled up the smock-frock; and, winding it round +his middle, drew a chair to the fire, and placed his feet upon the hob. + +“See there, Faguey,” he said, pointing disconsolately to his top boots; +“not a drop of Day and Martin since you know when; not a bubble of +blacking, by Jove! But don’t look at me in that way, man. All in good +time. I can’t talk about business till I’ve eat and drank; so produce +the sustainance, and let’s have a quiet fill-out for the first time +these three days!” + +The Jew motioned to the Dodger to place what eatables there were, upon +the table; and, seating himself opposite the housebreaker, waited his +leisure. + +To judge from appearances, Toby was by no means in a hurry to open the +conversation. At first, the Jew contented himself with patiently +watching his countenance, as if to gain from its expression some clue +to the intelligence he brought; but in vain. + +He looked tired and worn, but there was the same complacent repose upon +his features that they always wore: and through dirt, and beard, and +whisker, there still shone, unimpaired, the self-satisfied smirk of +flash Toby Crackit. Then the Jew, in an agony of impatience, watched +every morsel he put into his mouth; pacing up and down the room, +meanwhile, in irrepressible excitement. It was all of no use. Toby +continued to eat with the utmost outward indifference, until he could +eat no more; then, ordering the Dodger out, he closed the door, mixed a +glass of spirits and water, and composed himself for talking. + +“First and foremost, Faguey,” said Toby. + +“Yes, yes!” interposed the Jew, drawing up his chair. + +Mr. Crackit stopped to take a draught of spirits and water, and to +declare that the gin was excellent; then placing his feet against the +low mantelpiece, so as to bring his boots to about the level of his +eye, he quietly resumed. + +“First and foremost, Faguey,” said the housebreaker, “how’s Bill?” + +“What!” screamed the Jew, starting from his seat. + +“Why, you don’t mean to say—” began Toby, turning pale. + +“Mean!” cried the Jew, stamping furiously on the ground. “Where are +they? Sikes and the boy! Where are they? Where have they been? Where +are they hiding? Why have they not been here?” + +“The crack failed,” said Toby faintly. + +“I know it,” replied the Jew, tearing a newspaper from his pocket and +pointing to it. “What more?” + +“They fired and hit the boy. We cut over the fields at the back, with +him between us—straight as the crow flies—through hedge and ditch. They +gave chase. Damme! the whole country was awake, and the dogs upon us.” + +“The boy!” + +“Bill had him on his back, and scudded like the wind. We stopped to +take him between us; his head hung down, and he was cold. They were +close upon our heels; every man for himself, and each from the gallows! +We parted company, and left the youngster lying in a ditch. Alive or +dead, that’s all I know about him.” + +The Jew stopped to hear no more; but uttering a loud yell, and twining +his hands in his hair, rushed from the room, and from the house. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. +IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND MANY +THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED + + +The old man had gained the street corner, before he began to recover +the effect of Toby Crackit’s intelligence. He had relaxed nothing of +his unusual speed; but was still pressing onward, in the same wild and +disordered manner, when the sudden dashing past of a carriage: and a +boisterous cry from the foot passengers, who saw his danger: drove him +back upon the pavement. Avoiding, as much as was possible, all the main +streets, and skulking only through the by-ways and alleys, he at length +emerged on Snow Hill. Here he walked even faster than before; nor did +he linger until he had again turned into a court; when, as if conscious +that he was now in his proper element, he fell into his usual shuffling +pace, and seemed to breathe more freely. + +Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, opens, upon +the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley, +leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge +bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, of all sizes and patterns; +for here reside the traders who purchase them from pick-pockets. +Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the +windows or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves, within, are +piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its +barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. +It is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: +visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, +who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they +come. Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, +display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief; here, stores of +old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and +linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars. + +It was into this place that the Jew turned. He was well known to the +sallow denizens of the lane; for such of them as were on the look-out +to buy or sell, nodded, familiarly, as he passed along. He replied to +their salutations in the same way; but bestowed no closer recognition +until he reached the further end of the alley; when he stopped, to +address a salesman of small stature, who had squeezed as much of his +person into a child’s chair as the chair would hold, and was smoking a +pipe at his warehouse door. + +“Why, the sight of you, Mr. Fagin, would cure the hoptalmy!” said this +respectable trader, in acknowledgment of the Jew’s inquiry after his +health. + +“The neighbourhood was a little too hot, Lively,” said Fagin, elevating +his eyebrows, and crossing his hands upon his shoulders. + +“Well, I’ve heerd that complaint of it, once or twice before,” replied +the trader; “but it soon cools down again; don’t you find it so?” + +Fagin nodded in the affirmative. Pointing in the direction of Saffron +Hill, he inquired whether any one was up yonder to-night. + +“At the Cripples?” inquired the man. + +The Jew nodded. + +“Let me see,” pursued the merchant, reflecting. “Yes, there’s some +half-dozen of ’em gone in, that I knows. I don’t think your friend’s +there.” + +“Sikes is not, I suppose?” inquired the Jew, with a disappointed +countenance. + +“_Non istwentus_, as the lawyers say,” replied the little man, shaking +his head, and looking amazingly sly. “Have you got anything in my line +to-night?” + +“Nothing to-night,” said the Jew, turning away. + +“Are you going up to the Cripples, Fagin?” cried the little man, +calling after him. “Stop! I don’t mind if I have a drop there with +you!” + +But as the Jew, looking back, waved his hand to intimate that he +preferred being alone; and, moreover, as the little man could not very +easily disengage himself from the chair; the sign of the Cripples was, +for a time, bereft of the advantage of Mr. Lively’s presence. By the +time he had got upon his legs, the Jew had disappeared; so Mr. Lively, +after ineffectually standing on tiptoe, in the hope of catching sight +of him, again forced himself into the little chair, and, exchanging a +shake of the head with a lady in the opposite shop, in which doubt and +mistrust were plainly mingled, resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour. + +The Three Cripples, or rather the Cripples; which was the sign by which +the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons: was the +public-house in which Mr. Sikes and his dog have already figured. +Merely making a sign to a man at the bar, Fagin walked straight +upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softly insinuating +himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about: shading his eyes with +his hand, as if in search of some particular person. + +The room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of which was +prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtains of faded +red, from being visible outside. The ceiling was blackened, to prevent +its colour from being injured by the flaring of the lamps; and the +place was so full of dense tobacco smoke, that at first it was scarcely +possible to discern anything more. By degrees, however, as some of it +cleared away through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused +as the noises that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye +grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware +of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a +long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman with a hammer of +office in his hand; while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, +and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a +jingling piano in a remote corner. + +As Fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, running over +the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of order for a +song; which having subsided, a young lady proceeded to entertain the +company with a ballad in four verses, between each of which the +accompanyist played the melody all through, as loud as he could. When +this was over, the chairman gave a sentiment, after which, the +professional gentleman on the chairman’s right and left volunteered a +duet, and sang it, with great applause. + +It was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently from +among the group. There was the chairman himself, (the landlord of the +house,) a coarse, rough, heavy built fellow, who, while the songs were +proceeding, rolled his eyes hither and thither, and, seeming to give +himself up to joviality, had an eye for everything that was done, and +an ear for everything that was said—and sharp ones, too. Near him were +the singers: receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments +of the company, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen proffered +glasses of spirits and water, tendered by their more boisterous +admirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice in almost +every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by their very +repulsiveness. Cunning, ferocity, and drunkeness in all its stages, +were there, in their strongest aspect; and women: some with the last +lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked: +others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and +presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere +girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed +the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture. + +Fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from face to face +while these proceedings were in progress; but apparently without +meeting that of which he was in search. Succeeding, at length, in +catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, he beckoned to him +slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he had entered it. + +“What can I do for you, Mr. Fagin?” inquired the man, as he followed +him out to the landing. “Won’t you join us? They’ll be delighted, every +one of ’em.” + +The Jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, “Is _he_ +here?” + +“No,” replied the man. + +“And no news of Barney?” inquired Fagin. + +“None,” replied the landlord of the Cripples; for it was he. “He won’t +stir till it’s all safe. Depend on it, they’re on the scent down there; +and that if he moved, he’d blow upon the thing at once. He’s all right +enough, Barney is, else I should have heard of him. I’ll pound it, that +Barney’s managing properly. Let him alone for that.” + +“Will _he_ be here to-night?” asked the Jew, laying the same emphasis +on the pronoun as before. + +“Monks, do you mean?” inquired the landlord, hesitating. + +“Hush!” said the Jew. “Yes.” + +“Certain,” replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob; “I +expected him here before now. If you’ll wait ten minutes, he’ll be—” + +“No, no,” said the Jew, hastily; as though, however desirous he might +be to see the person in question, he was nevertheless relieved by his +absence. “Tell him I came here to see him; and that he must come to me +to-night. No, say to-morrow. As he is not here, to-morrow will be time +enough.” + +“Good!” said the man. “Nothing more?” + +“Not a word now,” said the Jew, descending the stairs. + +“I say,” said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in a +hoarse whisper; “what a time this would be for a sell! I’ve got Phil +Barker here: so drunk, that a boy might take him!” + +“Ah! But it’s not Phil Barker’s time,” said the Jew, looking up. “Phil +has something more to do, before we can afford to part with him; so go +back to the company, my dear, and tell them to lead merry lives—_while +they last_. Ha! ha! ha!” + +The landlord reciprocated the old man’s laugh; and returned to his +guests. The Jew was no sooner alone, than his countenance resumed its +former expression of anxiety and thought. After a brief reflection, he +called a hack-cabriolet, and bade the man drive towards Bethnal Green. +He dismissed him within some quarter of a mile of Mr. Sikes’s +residence, and performed the short remainder of the distance, on foot. + +“Now,” muttered the Jew, as he knocked at the door, “if there is any +deep play here, I shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning as you +are.” + +She was in her room, the woman said. Fagin crept softly upstairs, and +entered it without any previous ceremony. The girl was alone; lying +with her head upon the table, and her hair straggling over it. + +“She has been drinking,” thought the Jew, cooly, “or perhaps she is +only miserable.” + +The old man turned to close the door, as he made this reflection; the +noise thus occasioned, roused the girl. She eyed his crafty face +narrowly, as she inquired to his recital of Toby Crackit’s story. When +it was concluded, she sank into her former attitude, but spoke not a +word. She pushed the candle impatiently away; and once or twice as she +feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon the ground; but +this was all. + +During the silence, the Jew looked restlessly about the room, as if to +assure himself that there were no appearances of Sikes having covertly +returned. Apparently satisfied with his inspection, he coughed twice or +thrice, and made as many efforts to open a conversation; but the girl +heeded him no more than if he had been made of stone. At length he made +another attempt; and rubbing his hands together, said, in his most +conciliatory tone, + +“And where should you think Bill was now, my dear?” + +The girl moaned out some half intelligible reply, that she could not +tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her, to be +crying. + +“And the boy, too,” said the Jew, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse +of her face. “Poor leetle child! Left in a ditch, Nance; only think!” + +“The child,” said the girl, suddenly looking up, “is better where he +is, than among us; and if no harm comes to Bill from it, I hope he lies +dead in the ditch and that his young bones may rot there.” + +“What!” cried the Jew, in amazement. + +“Ay, I do,” returned the girl, meeting his gaze. “I shall be glad to +have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst is over. I can’t +bear to have him about me. The sight of him turns me against myself, +and all of you.” + +“Pooh!” said the Jew, scornfully. “You’re drunk.” + +“Am I?” cried the girl bitterly. “It’s no fault of yours, if I am not! +You’d never have me anything else, if you had your will, except +now;—the humour doesn’t suit you, doesn’t it?” + +“No!” rejoined the Jew, furiously. “It does not.” + +“Change it, then!” responded the girl, with a laugh. + +“Change it!” exclaimed the Jew, exasperated beyond all bounds by his +companion’s unexpected obstinacy, and the vexation of the night, “I +_will_ change it! Listen to me, you drab. Listen to me, who with six +words, can strangle Sikes as surely as if I had his bull’s throat +between my fingers now. If he comes back, and leaves the boy behind +him; if he gets off free, and dead or alive, fails to restore him to +me; murder him yourself if you would have him escape Jack Ketch. And do +it the moment he sets foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too +late!” + +“What is all this?” cried the girl involuntarily. + +“What is it?” pursued Fagin, mad with rage. “When the boy’s worth +hundreds of pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threw me in the way +of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang that I could +whistle away the lives of! And me bound, too, to a born devil that only +wants the will, and has the power to, to—” + +Panting for breath, the old man stammered for a word; and in that +instant checked the torrent of his wrath, and changed his whole +demeanour. A moment before, his clenched hands had grasped the air; his +eyes had dilated; and his face grown livid with passion; but now, he +shrunk into a chair, and, cowering together, trembled with the +apprehension of having himself disclosed some hidden villainy. After a +short silence, he ventured to look round at his companion. He appeared +somewhat reassured, on beholding her in the same listless attitude from +which he had first roused her. + +“Nancy, dear!” croaked the Jew, in his usual voice. “Did you mind me, +dear?” + +“Don’t worry me now, Fagin!” replied the girl, raising her head +languidly. “If Bill has not done it this time, he will another. He has +done many a good job for you, and will do many more when he can; and +when he can’t he won’t; so no more about that.” + +“Regarding this boy, my dear?” said the Jew, rubbing the palms of his +hands nervously together. + +“The boy must take his chance with the rest,” interrupted Nancy, +hastily; “and I say again, I hope he is dead, and out of harm’s way, +and out of yours,—that is, if Bill comes to no harm. And if Toby got +clear off, Bill’s pretty sure to be safe; for Bill’s worth two of Toby +any time.” + +“And about what I was saying, my dear?” observed the Jew, keeping his +glistening eye steadily upon her. + +“You must say it all over again, if it’s anything you want me to do,” +rejoined Nancy; “and if it is, you had better wait till to-morrow. You +put me up for a minute; but now I’m stupid again.” + +Fagin put several other questions: all with the same drift of +ascertaining whether the girl had profited by his unguarded hints; but, +she answered them so readily, and was withal so utterly unmoved by his +searching looks, that his original impression of her being more than a +trifle in liquor, was confirmed. Nancy, indeed, was not exempt from a +failing which was very common among the Jew’s female pupils; and in +which, in their tenderer years, they were rather encouraged than +checked. Her disordered appearance, and a wholesale perfume of Geneva +which pervaded the apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of +the justice of the Jew’s supposition; and when, after indulging in the +temporary display of violence above described, she subsided, first into +dullness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings: under the +influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the next gave +utterance to various exclamations of “Never say die!” and divers +calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds so long as a +lady or gentleman was happy, Mr. Fagin, who had had considerable +experience of such matters in his time, saw, with great satisfaction, +that she was very far gone indeed. + +Having eased his mind by this discovery; and having accomplished his +twofold object of imparting to the girl what he had, that night, heard, +and of ascertaining, with his own eyes, that Sikes had not returned, +Mr. Fagin again turned his face homeward: leaving his young friend +asleep, with her head upon the table. + +It was within an hour of midnight. The weather being dark, and piercing +cold, he had no great temptation to loiter. The sharp wind that scoured +the streets, seemed to have cleared them of passengers, as of dust and +mud, for few people were abroad, and they were to all appearance +hastening fast home. It blew from the right quarter for the Jew, +however, and straight before it he went: trembling, and shivering, as +every fresh gust drove him rudely on his way. + +He had reached the corner of his own street, and was already fumbling +in his pocket for the door-key, when a dark figure emerged from a +projecting entrance which lay in deep shadow, and, crossing the road, +glided up to him unperceived. + +“Fagin!” whispered a voice close to his ear. + +“Ah!” said the Jew, turning quickly round, “is that—” + +“Yes!” interrupted the stranger. “I have been lingering here these two +hours. Where the devil have you been?” + +“On your business, my dear,” replied the Jew, glancing uneasily at his +companion, and slackening his pace as he spoke. “On your business all +night.” + +“Oh, of course!” said the stranger, with a sneer. “Well; and what’s +come of it?” + +“Nothing good,” said the Jew. + +“Nothing bad, I hope?” said the stranger, stopping short, and turning a +startled look on his companion. + +The Jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when the stranger, +interrupting him, motioned to the house, before which they had by this +time arrived: remarking, that he had better say what he had got to say, +under cover: for his blood was chilled with standing about so long, and +the wind blew through him. + +Fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself from taking +home a visitor at that unseasonable hour; and, indeed, muttered +something about having no fire; but his companion repeating his request +in a peremptory manner, he unlocked the door, and requested him to +close it softly, while he got a light. + +“It’s as dark as the grave,” said the man, groping forward a few steps. +“Make haste!” + +“Shut the door,” whispered Fagin from the end of the passage. As he +spoke, it closed with a loud noise. + +“That wasn’t my doing,” said the other man, feeling his way. “The wind +blew it to, or it shut of its own accord: one or the other. Look sharp +with the light, or I shall knock my brains out against something in +this confounded hole.” + +Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs. After a short absence, +he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that Toby +Crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that the boys were in +the front one. Beckoning the man to follow him, he led the way +upstairs. + +“We can say the few words we’ve got to say in here, my dear,” said the +Jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; “and as there are holes +in the shutters, and we never show lights to our neighbours, we’ll set +the candle on the stairs. There!” + +With those words, the Jew, stooping down, placed the candle on an upper +flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door. This done, he led +the way into the apartment; which was destitute of all movables save a +broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which +stood behind the door. Upon this piece of furniture, the stranger sat +himself with the air of a weary man; and the Jew, drawing up the +arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face. It was not quite dark; the +door was partially open; and the candle outside, threw a feeble +reflection on the opposite wall. + +They conversed for some time in whispers. Though nothing of the +conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointed words here and +there, a listener might easily have perceived that Fagin appeared to be +defending himself against some remarks of the stranger; and that the +latter was in a state of considerable irritation. They might have been +talking, thus, for a quarter of an hour or more, when Monks—by which +name the Jew had designated the strange man several times in the course +of their colloquy—said, raising his voice a little, + +“I tell you again, it was badly planned. Why not have kept him here +among the rest, and made a sneaking, snivelling pickpocket of him at +once?” + +“Only hear him!” exclaimed the Jew, shrugging his shoulders. + +“Why, do you mean to say you couldn’t have done it, if you had chosen?” +demanded Monks, sternly. “Haven’t you done it, with other boys, scores +of times? If you had had patience for a twelvemonth, at most, couldn’t +you have got him convicted, and sent safely out of the kingdom; perhaps +for life?” + +“Whose turn would that have served, my dear?” inquired the Jew humbly. + +“Mine,” replied Monks. + +“But not mine,” said the Jew, submissively. “He might have become of +use to me. When there are two parties to a bargain, it is only +reasonable that the interests of both should be consulted; is it, my +good friend?” + +“What then?” demanded Monks. + +“I saw it was not easy to train him to the business,” replied the Jew; +“he was not like other boys in the same circumstances.” + +“Curse him, no!” muttered the man, “or he would have been a thief, long +ago.” + +“I had no hold upon him to make him worse,” pursued the Jew, anxiously +watching the countenance of his companion. “His hand was not in. I had +nothing to frighten him with; which we always must have in the +beginning, or we labour in vain. What could I do? Send him out with the +Dodger and Charley? We had enough of that, at first, my dear; I +trembled for us all.” + +“_That_ was not my doing,” observed Monks. + +“No, no, my dear!” renewed the Jew. “And I don’t quarrel with it now; +because, if it had never happened, you might never have clapped eyes on +the boy to notice him, and so led to the discovery that it was him you +were looking for. Well! I got him back for you by means of the girl; +and then _she_ begins to favour him.” + +“Throttle the girl!” said Monks, impatiently. + +“Why, we can’t afford to do that just now, my dear,” replied the Jew, +smiling; “and, besides, that sort of thing is not in our way; or, one +of these days, I might be glad to have it done. I know what these girls +are, Monks, well. As soon as the boy begins to harden, she’ll care no +more for him, than for a block of wood. You want him made a thief. If +he is alive, I can make him one from this time; and, if—if—” said the +Jew, drawing nearer to the other,—“it’s not likely, mind,—but if the +worst comes to the worst, and he is dead—” + +“It’s no fault of mine if he is!” interposed the other man, with a look +of terror, and clasping the Jew’s arm with trembling hands. “Mind that. +Fagin! I had no hand in it. Anything but his death, I told you from the +first. I won’t shed blood; it’s always found out, and haunts a man +besides. If they shot him dead, I was not the cause; do you hear me? +Fire this infernal den! What’s that?” + +“What!” cried the Jew, grasping the coward round the body, with both +arms, as he sprung to his feet. “Where?” + +“Yonder!” replied the man, glaring at the opposite wall. “The shadow! I +saw the shadow of a woman, in a cloak and bonnet, pass along the +wainscot like a breath!” + +The Jew released his hold, and they rushed tumultuously from the room. +The candle, wasted by the draught, was standing where it had been +placed. It showed them only the empty staircase, and their own white +faces. They listened intently: a profound silence reigned throughout +the house. + +“It’s your fancy,” said the Jew, taking up the light and turning to his +companion. + +“I’ll swear I saw it!” replied Monks, trembling. “It was bending +forward when I saw it first; and when I spoke, it darted away.” + +The Jew glanced contemptuously at the pale face of his associate, and, +telling him he could follow, if he pleased, ascended the stairs. They +looked into all the rooms; they were cold, bare, and empty. They +descended into the passage, and thence into the cellars below. The +green damp hung upon the low walls; the tracks of the snail and slug +glistened in the light of the candle; but all was still as death. + +“What do you think now?” said the Jew, when they had regained the +passage. “Besides ourselves, there’s not a creature in the house except +Toby and the boys; and they’re safe enough. See here!” + +As a proof of the fact, the Jew drew forth two keys from his pocket; +and explained, that when he first went downstairs, he had locked them +in, to prevent any intrusion on the conference. + +This accumulated testimony effectually staggered Mr. Monks. His +protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they +proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and, now, he +gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have +been his excited imagination. He declined any renewal of the +conversation, however, for that night: suddenly remembering that it was +past one o’clock. And so the amiable couple parted. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. +ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY, +MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY + + +As it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so +mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and +the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as +it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less +become his station, or his gallantry to involve in the same neglect a +lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and +affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming +from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of +whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words—trusting +that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence +for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is +delegated—hastens to pay them that respect which their position +demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their +exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at +his hands. Towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in +this place, a dissertation touching the divine right of beadles, and +elucidative of the position, that a beadle can do no wrong: which could +not fail to have been both pleasurable and profitable to the +right-minded reader but which he is unfortunately compelled, by want of +time and space, to postpone to some more convenient and fitting +opportunity; on the arrival of which, he will be prepared to show, that +a beadle properly constituted: that is to say, a parochial beadle, +attached to a parochial workhouse, and attending in his official +capacity the parochial church: is, in right and virtue of his office, +possessed of all the excellences and best qualities of humanity; and +that to none of those excellences, can mere companies’ beadles, or +court-of-law beadles, or even chapel-of-ease beadles (save the last, +and they in a very lowly and inferior degree), lay the remotest +sustainable claim. + +Mr. Bumble had re-counted the teaspoons, re-weighed the sugar-tongs, +made a closer inspection of the milk-pot, and ascertained to a nicety +the exact condition of the furniture, down to the very horse-hair seats +of the chairs; and had repeated each process full half a dozen times; +before he began to think that it was time for Mrs. Corney to return. +Thinking begets thinking; as there were no sounds of Mrs. Corney’s +approach, it occured to Mr. Bumble that it would be an innocent and +virtuous way of spending the time, if he were further to allay his +curiousity by a cursory glance at the interior of Mrs. Corney’s chest +of drawers. + +Having listened at the keyhole, to assure himself that nobody was +approaching the chamber, Mr. Bumble, beginning at the bottom, proceeded +to make himself acquainted with the contents of the three long drawers: +which, being filled with various garments of good fashion and texture, +carefully preserved between two layers of old newspapers, speckled with +dried lavender: seemed to yield him exceeding satisfaction. Arriving, +in course of time, at the right-hand corner drawer (in which was the +key), and beholding therein a small padlocked box, which, being shaken, +gave forth a pleasant sound, as of the chinking of coin, Mr. Bumble +returned with a stately walk to the fireplace; and, resuming his old +attitude, said, with a grave and determined air, “I’ll do it!” He +followed up this remarkable declaration, by shaking his head in a +waggish manner for ten minutes, as though he were remonstrating with +himself for being such a pleasant dog; and then, he took a view of his +legs in profile, with much seeming pleasure and interest. + +He was still placidly engaged in this latter survey, when Mrs. Corney, +hurrying into the room, threw herself, in a breathless state, on a +chair by the fireside, and covering her eyes with one hand, placed the +other over her heart, and gasped for breath. + +“Mrs. Corney,” said Mr. Bumble, stooping over the matron, “what is +this, ma’am? Has anything happened, ma’am? Pray answer me: I’m on—on—” +Mr. Bumble, in his alarm, could not immediately think of the word +“tenterhooks,” so he said “broken bottles.” + +“Oh, Mr. Bumble!” cried the lady, “I have been so dreadfully put out!” + +“Put out, ma’am!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble; “who has dared to—? I know!” +said Mr. Bumble, checking himself, with native majesty, “this is them +wicious paupers!” + +“It’s dreadful to think of!” said the lady, shuddering. + +“Then _don’t_ think of it, ma’am,” rejoined Mr. Bumble. + +“I can’t help it,” whimpered the lady. + +“Then take something, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble soothingly. “A little of +the wine?” + +“Not for the world!” replied Mrs. Corney. “I couldn’t,—oh! The top +shelf in the right-hand corner—oh!” Uttering these words, the good lady +pointed, distractedly, to the cupboard, and underwent a convulsion from +internal spasms. Mr. Bumble rushed to the closet; and, snatching a pint +green-glass bottle from the shelf thus incoherently indicated, filled a +tea-cup with its contents, and held it to the lady’s lips. + +“I’m better now,” said Mrs. Corney, falling back, after drinking half +of it. + +Mr. Bumble raised his eyes piously to the ceiling in thankfulness; and, +bringing them down again to the brim of the cup, lifted it to his nose. + +“Peppermint,” exclaimed Mrs. Corney, in a faint voice, smiling gently +on the beadle as she spoke. “Try it! There’s a little—a little +something else in it.” + +Mr. Bumble tasted the medicine with a doubtful look; smacked his lips; +took another taste; and put the cup down empty. + +“It’s very comforting,” said Mrs. Corney. + +“Very much so indeed, ma’am,” said the beadle. As he spoke, he drew a +chair beside the matron, and tenderly inquired what had happened to +distress her. + +“Nothing,” replied Mrs. Corney. “I am a foolish, excitable, weak +creetur.” + +“Not weak, ma’am,” retorted Mr. Bumble, drawing his chair a little +closer. “Are you a weak creetur, Mrs. Corney?” + +“We are all weak creeturs,” said Mrs. Corney, laying down a general +principle. + +“So we are,” said the beadle. + +Nothing was said on either side, for a minute or two afterwards. By the +expiration of that time, Mr. Bumble had illustrated the position by +removing his left arm from the back of Mrs. Corney’s chair, where it +had previously rested, to Mrs. Corney’s apron-string, round which it +gradually became entwined. + +“We are all weak creeturs,” said Mr. Bumble. + +Mrs. Corney sighed. + +“Don’t sigh, Mrs. Corney,” said Mr. Bumble. + +“I can’t help it,” said Mrs. Corney. And she sighed again. + +“This is a very comfortable room, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble looking +round. “Another room, and this, ma’am, would be a complete thing.” + +“It would be too much for one,” murmured the lady. + +“But not for two, ma’am,” rejoined Mr. Bumble, in soft accents. “Eh, +Mrs. Corney?” + +Mrs. Corney drooped her head, when the beadle said this; the beadle +drooped his, to get a view of Mrs. Corney’s face. Mrs. Corney, with +great propriety, turned her head away, and released her hand to get at +her pocket-handkerchief; but insensibly replaced it in that of Mr. +Bumble. + +“The board allows you coals, don’t they, Mrs. Corney?” inquired the +beadle, affectionately pressing her hand. + +“And candles,” replied Mrs. Corney, slightly returning the pressure. + +“Coals, candles, and house-rent free,” said Mr. Bumble. “Oh, Mrs. +Corney, what an Angel you are!” + +The lady was not proof against this burst of feeling. She sank into Mr. +Bumble’s arms; and that gentleman in his agitation, imprinted a +passionate kiss upon her chaste nose. + +“Such porochial perfection!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, rapturously. “You +know that Mr. Slout is worse to-night, my fascinator?” + +“Yes,” replied Mrs. Corney, bashfully. + +“He can’t live a week, the doctor says,” pursued Mr. Bumble. “He is the +master of this establishment; his death will cause a wacancy; that +wacancy must be filled up. Oh, Mrs. Corney, what a prospect this opens! +What a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings!” + +Mrs. Corney sobbed. + +“The little word?” said Mr. Bumble, bending over the bashful beauty. +“The one little, little, little word, my blessed Corney?” + +“Ye—ye—yes!” sighed out the matron. + +“One more,” pursued the beadle; “compose your darling feelings for only +one more. When is it to come off?” + +Mrs. Corney twice essayed to speak: and twice failed. At length +summoning up courage, she threw her arms around Mr. Bumble’s neck, and +said, it might be as soon as ever he pleased, and that he was “a +irresistible duck.” + +Matters being thus amicably and satisfactorily arranged, the contract +was solemnly ratified in another teacupful of the peppermint mixture; +which was rendered the more necessary, by the flutter and agitation of +the lady’s spirits. While it was being disposed of, she acquainted Mr. +Bumble with the old woman’s decease. + +“Very good,” said that gentleman, sipping his peppermint; “I’ll call at +Sowerberry’s as I go home, and tell him to send to-morrow morning. Was +it that as frightened you, love?” + +“It wasn’t anything particular, dear,” said the lady evasively. + +“It must have been something, love,” urged Mr. Bumble. “Won’t you tell +your own B.?” + +“Not now,” rejoined the lady; “one of these days. After we’re married, +dear.” + +“After we’re married!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble. “It wasn’t any impudence +from any of them male paupers as—” + +“No, no, love!” interposed the lady, hastily. + +“If I thought it was,” continued Mr. Bumble; “if I thought as any one +of ’em had dared to lift his wulgar eyes to that lovely countenance—” + +“They wouldn’t have dared to do it, love,” responded the lady. + +“They had better not!” said Mr. Bumble, clenching his fist. “Let me see +any man, porochial or extra-porochial, as would presume to do it; and I +can tell him that he wouldn’t do it a second time!” + +Unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might have seemed +no very high compliment to the lady’s charms; but, as Mr. Bumble +accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, she was much touched +with this proof of his devotion, and protested, with great admiration, +that he was indeed a dove. + +The dove then turned up his coat-collar, and put on his cocked hat; +and, having exchanged a long and affectionate embrace with his future +partner, once again braved the cold wind of the night: merely pausing, +for a few minutes, in the male paupers’ ward, to abuse them a little, +with the view of satisfying himself that he could fill the office of +workhouse-master with needful acerbity. Assured of his qualifications, +Mr. Bumble left the building with a light heart, and bright visions of +his future promotion: which served to occupy his mind until he reached +the shop of the undertaker. + +Now, Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry having gone out to tea and supper: and +Noah Claypole not being at any time disposed to take upon himself a +greater amount of physical exertion than is necessary to a convenient +performance of the two functions of eating and drinking, the shop was +not closed, although it was past the usual hour of shutting-up. Mr. +Bumble tapped with his cane on the counter several times; but, +attracting no attention, and beholding a light shining through the +glass-window of the little parlour at the back of the shop, he made +bold to peep in and see what was going forward; and when he saw what +was going forward, he was not a little surprised. + +The cloth was laid for supper; the table was covered with bread and +butter, plates and glasses; a porter-pot and a wine-bottle. At the +upper end of the table, Mr. Noah Claypole lolled negligently in an +easy-chair, with his legs thrown over one of the arms: an open +clasp-knife in one hand, and a mass of buttered bread in the other. +Close beside him stood Charlotte, opening oysters from a barrel: which +Mr. Claypole condescended to swallow, with remarkable avidity. A more +than ordinary redness in the region of the young gentleman’s nose, and +a kind of fixed wink in his right eye, denoted that he was in a slight +degree intoxicated; these symptoms were confirmed by the intense relish +with which he took his oysters, for which nothing but a strong +appreciation of their cooling properties, in cases of internal fever, +could have sufficiently accounted. + +“Here’s a delicious fat one, Noah, dear!” said Charlotte; “try him, do; +only this one.” + +“What a delicious thing is a oyster!” remarked Mr. Claypole, after he +had swallowed it. “What a pity it is, a number of ’em should ever make +you feel uncomfortable; isn’t it, Charlotte?” + +“It’s quite a cruelty,” said Charlotte. + +“So it is,” acquiesced Mr. Claypole. “An’t yer fond of oysters?” + +“Not overmuch,” replied Charlotte. “I like to see you eat ’em, Noah +dear, better than eating ’em myself.” + +“Lor!” said Noah, reflectively; “how queer!” + +“Have another,” said Charlotte. “Here’s one with such a beautiful, +delicate beard!” + +“I can’t manage any more,” said Noah. “I’m very sorry. Come here, +Charlotte, and I’ll kiss yer.” + +“What!” said Mr. Bumble, bursting into the room. “Say that again, sir.” + +Charlotte uttered a scream, and hid her face in her apron. Mr. +Claypole, without making any further change in his position than +suffering his legs to reach the ground, gazed at the beadle in drunken +terror. + +“Say it again, you wile, owdacious fellow!” said Mr. Bumble. “How dare +you mention such a thing, sir? And how dare you encourage him, you +insolent minx? Kiss her!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, in strong indignation. +“Faugh!” + +“I didn’t mean to do it!” said Noah, blubbering. “She’s always +a-kissing of me, whether I like it, or not.” + +“Oh, Noah,” cried Charlotte, reproachfully. + +“Yer are; yer know yer are!” retorted Noah. “She’s always a-doin’ of +it, Mr. Bumble, sir; she chucks me under the chin, please, sir; and +makes all manner of love!” + +“Silence!” cried Mr. Bumble, sternly. “Take yourself downstairs, ma’am. +Noah, you shut up the shop; say another word till your master comes +home, at your peril; and, when he does come home, tell him that Mr. +Bumble said he was to send a old woman’s shell after breakfast +to-morrow morning. Do you hear sir? Kissing!” cried Mr. Bumble, holding +up his hands. “The sin and wickedness of the lower orders in this +porochial district is frightful! If Parliament don’t take their +abominable courses under consideration, this country’s ruined, and the +character of the peasantry gone for ever!” With these words, the beadle +strode, with a lofty and gloomy air, from the undertaker’s premises. + +And now that we have accompanied him so far on his road home, and have +made all necessary preparations for the old woman’s funeral, let us set +on foot a few inquires after young Oliver Twist, and ascertain whether +he be still lying in the ditch where Toby Crackit left him. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. +LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES + + +“Wolves tear your throats!” muttered Sikes, grinding his teeth. “I wish +I was among some of you; you’d howl the hoarser for it.” + +As Sikes growled forth this imprecation, with the most desperate +ferocity that his desperate nature was capable of, he rested the body +of the wounded boy across his bended knee; and turned his head, for an +instant, to look back at his pursuers. + +There was little to be made out, in the mist and darkness; but the loud +shouting of men vibrated through the air, and the barking of the +neighbouring dogs, roused by the sound of the alarm bell, resounded in +every direction. + +“Stop, you white-livered hound!” cried the robber, shouting after Toby +Crackit, who, making the best use of his long legs, was already ahead. +“Stop!” + +The repetition of the word, brought Toby to a dead stand-still. For he +was not quite satisfied that he was beyond the range of pistol-shot; +and Sikes was in no mood to be played with. + +“Bear a hand with the boy,” cried Sikes, beckoning furiously to his +confederate. “Come back!” + +Toby made a show of returning; but ventured, in a low voice, broken for +want of breath, to intimate considerable reluctance as he came slowly +along. + +“Quicker!” cried Sikes, laying the boy in a dry ditch at his feet, and +drawing a pistol from his pocket. “Don’t play booty with me.” + +At this moment the noise grew louder. Sikes, again looking round, could +discern that the men who had given chase were already climbing the gate +of the field in which he stood; and that a couple of dogs were some +paces in advance of them. + +“It’s all up, Bill!” cried Toby; “drop the kid, and show ’em your +heels.” With this parting advice, Mr. Crackit, preferring the chance of +being shot by his friend, to the certainty of being taken by his +enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed. Sikes +clenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrate form +of Oliver, the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled; ran along +the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention of those +behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for a second, before +another hedge which met it at right angles; and whirling his pistol +high into the air, cleared it at a bound, and was gone. + +“Ho, ho, there!” cried a tremulous voice in the rear. “Pincher! +Neptune! Come here, come here!” + +The dogs, who, in common with their masters, seemed to have no +particular relish for the sport in which they were engaged, readily +answered to the command. Three men, who had by this time advanced some +distance into the field, stopped to take counsel together. + +“My advice, or, leastways, I should say, my _orders_, is,” said the +fattest man of the party, “that we ’mediately go home again.” + +“I am agreeable to anything which is agreeable to Mr. Giles,” said a +shorter man; who was by no means of a slim figure, and who was very +pale in the face, and very polite: as frightened men frequently are. + +“I shouldn’t wish to appear ill-mannered, gentlemen,” said the third, +who had called the dogs back, “Mr. Giles ought to know.” + +“Certainly,” replied the shorter man; “and whatever Mr. Giles says, it +isn’t our place to contradict him. No, no, I know my sitiwation! Thank +my stars, I know my sitiwation.” To tell the truth, the little man +_did_ seem to know his situation, and to know perfectly well that it +was by no means a desirable one; for his teeth chattered in his head as +he spoke. + +“You are afraid, Brittles,” said Mr. Giles. + +“I an’t,” said Brittles. + +“You are,” said Giles. + +“You’re a falsehood, Mr. Giles,” said Brittles. + +“You’re a lie, Brittles,” said Mr. Giles. + +Now, these four retorts arose from Mr. Giles’s taunt; and Mr. Giles’s +taunt had arisen from his indignation at having the responsibility of +going home again, imposed upon himself under cover of a compliment. The +third man brought the dispute to a close, most philosophically. + +“I’ll tell you what it is, gentlemen,” said he, “we’re all afraid.” + +“Speak for yourself, sir,” said Mr. Giles, who was the palest of the +party. + +“So I do,” replied the man. “It’s natural and proper to be afraid, +under such circumstances. I am.” + +“So am I,” said Brittles; “only there’s no call to tell a man he is, so +bounceably.” + +These frank admissions softened Mr. Giles, who at once owned that _he_ +was afraid; upon which, they all three faced about, and ran back again +with the completest unanimity, until Mr. Giles (who had the shortest +wind of the party, as was encumbered with a pitchfork) most handsomely +insisted on stopping, to make an apology for his hastiness of speech. + +“But it’s wonderful,” said Mr. Giles, when he had explained, “what a +man will do, when his blood is up. I should have committed murder—I +know I should—if we’d caught one of them rascals.” + +As the other two were impressed with a similar presentiment; and as +their blood, like his, had all gone down again; some speculation ensued +upon the cause of this sudden change in their temperament. + +“I know what it was,” said Mr. Giles; “it was the gate.” + +“I shouldn’t wonder if it was,” exclaimed Brittles, catching at the +idea. + +“You may depend upon it,” said Giles, “that that gate stopped the flow +of the excitement. I felt all mine suddenly going away, as I was +climbing over it.” + +By a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visited with the +same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment. It was quite obvious, +therefore, that it was the gate; especially as there was no doubt +regarding the time at which the change had taken place, because all +three remembered that they had come in sight of the robbers at the +instant of its occurance. + +This dialogue was held between the two men who had surprised the +burglars, and a travelling tinker who had been sleeping in an outhouse, +and who had been roused, together with his two mongrel curs, to join in +the pursuit. Mr. Giles acted in the double capacity of butler and +steward to the old lady of the mansion; Brittles was a lad of all-work: +who, having entered her service a mere child, was treated as a +promising young boy still, though he was something past thirty. + +Encouraging each other with such converse as this; but, keeping very +close together, notwithstanding, and looking apprehensively round, +whenever a fresh gust rattled through the boughs; the three men hurried +back to a tree, behind which they had left their lantern, lest its +light should inform the thieves in what direction to fire. Catching up +the light, they made the best of their way home, at a good round trot; +and long after their dusky forms had ceased to be discernible, the +light might have been seen twinkling and dancing in the distance, like +some exhalation of the damp and gloomy atmosphere through which it was +swiftly borne. + +The air grew colder, as day came slowly on; and the mist rolled along +the ground like a dense cloud of smoke. The grass was wet; the +pathways, and low places, were all mire and water; the damp breath of +an unwholesome wind went languidly by, with a hollow moaning. Still, +Oliver lay motionless and insensible on the spot where Sikes had left +him. + +Morning drew on apace. The air become more sharp and piercing, as its +first dull hue—the death of night, rather than the birth of +day—glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and +terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually +resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and +fast, and pattered noisily among the leafless bushes. But, Oliver felt +it not, as it beat against him; for he still lay stretched, helpless +and unconscious, on his bed of clay. + +At length, a low cry of pain broke the stillness that prevailed; and +uttering it, the boy awoke. His left arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, +hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage was saturated with +blood. He was so weak, that he could scarcely raise himself into a +sitting posture; when he had done so, he looked feebly round for help, +and groaned with pain. Trembling in every joint, from cold and +exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright; but, shuddering from +head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground. + +After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long +plunged, Oliver: urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which +seemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die: got upon +his feet, and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and he staggered to +and fro like a drunken man. But he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his +head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew +not whither. + +And now, hosts of bewildering and confused ideas came crowding on his +mind. He seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit, who were +angrily disputing—for the very words they said, sounded in his ears; +and when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some +violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was +talking to them. Then, he was alone with Sikes, plodding on as on the +previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber’s +grasp upon his wrist. Suddenly, he started back at the report of +firearms; there rose into the air, loud cries and shouts; lights +gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand +bore him hurriedly away. Through all these rapid visions, there ran an +undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented +him incessantly. + +Thus he staggered on, creeping, almost mechanically, between the bars +of gates, or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he +reached a road. Here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused +him. + +He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, +which perhaps he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have +compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, +to die near human beings, than in the lonely open fields. He summoned +up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps +towards it. + +As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling come over him that he had +seen it before. He remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and +aspect of the building seemed familiar to him. + +That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last +night, and prayed the two men’s mercy. It was the very house they had +attempted to rob. + +Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, +for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of +flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand: and if he were in full +possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, +whither could he fly? He pushed against the garden-gate; it was +unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn; +climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength +failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little +portico. + +It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker, +were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the +night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen. Not that it was Mr. +Giles’s habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: +towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty +affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of +his superior position in society. But, death, fires, and burglary, make +all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the +kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his +right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the +robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, +who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. + +“It was about half-past two,” said Mr. Giles, “or I wouldn’t swear that +it mightn’t have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, +turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned +round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him +to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise.” + +At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the +housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, +who pretended not to hear. + +“—Heerd a noise,” continued Mr. Giles. “I says, at first, ‘This is +illusion’; and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the +noise again, distinct.” + +“What sort of a noise?” asked the cook. + +“A kind of a busting noise,” replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. + +“More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater,” +suggested Brittles. + +“It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir,” rejoined Mr. Giles; “but, at this +time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes”; continued +Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, “sat up in bed; and listened.” + +The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated “Lor!” and drew their +chairs closer together. + +“I heerd it now, quite apparent,” resumed Mr. Giles. “‘Somebody,’ I +says, ‘is forcing of a door, or window; what’s to be done? I’ll call up +that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; +or his throat,’ I says, ‘may be cut from his right ear to his left, +without his ever knowing it.’” + +Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the +speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face +expressive of the most unmitigated horror. + +“I tossed off the clothes,” said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, +and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, “got softly out of +bed; drew on a pair of—” + +“Ladies present, Mr. Giles,” murmured the tinker. + +“—Of _shoes_, sir,” said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great +emphasis on the word; “seized the loaded pistol that always goes +upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room. +‘Brittles,’ I says, when I had woke him, ‘don’t be frightened!’” + +“So you did,” observed Brittles, in a low voice. + +“‘We’re dead men, I think, Brittles,’ I says,” continued Giles; “‘but +don’t be frightened.’” + +“_Was_ he frightened?” asked the cook. + +“Not a bit of it,” replied Mr. Giles. “He was as firm—ah! pretty near +as firm as I was.” + +“I should have died at once, I’m sure, if it had been me,” observed the +housemaid. + +“You’re a woman,” retorted Brittles, plucking up a little. + +“Brittles is right,” said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; +“from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a +dark lantern that was standing on Brittle’s hob, and groped our way +downstairs in the pitch dark,—as it might be so.” + +Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes +shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he +started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried +back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed. + +“It was a knock,” said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity. “Open the +door, somebody.” + +Nobody moved. + +“It seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such a time in +the morning,” said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded +him, and looking very blank himself; “but the door must be opened. Do +you hear, somebody?” + +Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles; but that young man, being +naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that +the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he +tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the +tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the +question. + +“If Brittles would rather open the door, in the presence of witnesses,” +said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, “I am ready to make one.” + +“So am I,” said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he had fallen +asleep. + +Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat +re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that +it was now broad day, took their way upstairs; with the dogs in front. +The two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear. By +the advice of Mr. Giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any +evil-disposed person outside, that they were strong in numbers; and by +a master-stoke of policy, originating in the brain of the same +ingenious gentleman, the dogs’ tails were well pinched, in the hall, to +make them bark savagely. + +These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the +tinker’s arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and +gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, +peeping timorously over each other’s shoulders, beheld no more +formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and +exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their +compassion. + +“A boy!” exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly, pushing the tinker into the +background. “What’s the matter with the—eh?—Why—Brittles—look +here—don’t you know?” + +Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, +than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and +one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the +hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof. + +“Here he is!” bawled Giles, calling in a state of great excitement, up +the staircase; “here’s one of the thieves, ma’am! Here’s a thief, miss! +Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss; and Brittles held the light.” + +“—In a lantern, miss,” cried Brittles, applying one hand to the side of +his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better. + +The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligence that Mr. +Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in +endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be +hanged. In the midst of all this noise and commotion, there was heard a +sweet female voice, which quelled it in an instant. + +“Giles!” whispered the voice from the stair-head. + +“I’m here, miss,” replied Mr. Giles. “Don’t be frightened, miss; I +ain’t much injured. He didn’t make a very desperate resistance, miss! I +was soon too many for him.” + +“Hush!” replied the young lady; “you frighten my aunt as much as the +thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?” + +“Wounded desperate, miss,” replied Giles, with indescribable +complacency. + +“He looks as if he was a-going, miss,” bawled Brittles, in the same +manner as before. “Wouldn’t you like to come and look at him, miss, in +case he should?” + +“Hush, pray; there’s a good man!” rejoined the lady. “Wait quietly only +one instant, while I speak to aunt.” + +With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped +away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was +to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles’s room; and that +Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to +Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a +constable and doctor. + +“But won’t you take one look at him, first, miss?” asked Mr. Giles, +with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he +had skilfully brought down. “Not one little peep, miss?” + +“Not now, for the world,” replied the young lady. “Poor fellow! Oh! +treat him kindly, Giles for my sake!” + +The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a +glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then, +bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and +solicitude of a woman. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. +HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE, TO WHICH +OLIVER RESORTED + + +In a handsome room: though its furniture had rather the air of +old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance: there sat two ladies at +a well-spread breakfast-table. Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous care +in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them. He had taken his +station some half-way between the side-board and the breakfast-table; +and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his head thrown back, +and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and +his right hand thrust into his waist-coat, while his left hung down by +his side, grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very +agreeable sense of his own merits and importance. + +Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the high-backed +oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright than she. Dressed +with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaint mixture of by-gone +costume, with some slight concessions to the prevailing taste, which +rather served to point the old style pleasantly than to impair its +effect, she sat, in a stately manner, with her hands folded on the +table before her. Her eyes (and age had dimmed but little of their +brightness) were attentively upon her young companion. + +The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; +at that age, when, if ever angels be for God’s good purposes enthroned +in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in +such as hers. + +She was not past seventeen. Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould; so +mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her +element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. The very +intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye, and was stamped upon her +noble head, seemed scarcely of her age, or of the world; and yet the +changing expression of sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights +that played about the face, and left no shadow there; above all, the +smile, the cheerful, happy smile, were made for Home, and fireside +peace and happiness. + +She was busily engaged in the little offices of the table. Chancing to +raise her eyes as the elder lady was regarding her, she playfully put +back her hair, which was simply braided on her forehead; and threw into +her beaming look, such an expression of affection and artless +loveliness, that blessed spirits might have smiled to look upon her. + +“And Brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?” asked the old +lady, after a pause. + +“An hour and twelve minutes, ma’am,” replied Mr. Giles, referring to a +silver watch, which he drew forth by a black ribbon. + +“He is always slow,” remarked the old lady. + +“Brittles always was a slow boy, ma’am,” replied the attendant. And +seeing, by the bye, that Brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of +thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a +fast one. + +“He gets worse instead of better, I think,” said the elder lady. + +“It is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any other +boys,” said the young lady, smiling. + +Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a +respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate: out +of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door: +and who, getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process, +burst into the room, and nearly overturned Mr. Giles and the +breakfast-table together. + +“I never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed the fat gentleman. “My dear +Mrs. Maylie—bless my soul—in the silence of the night, too—I _never_ +heard of such a thing!” + +With these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shook hands +with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found +themselves. + +“You ought to be dead; positively dead with the fright,” said the fat +gentleman. “Why didn’t you send? Bless me, my man should have come in a +minute; and so would I; and my assistant would have been delighted; or +anybody, I’m sure, under such circumstances. Dear, dear! So unexpected! +In the silence of the night, too!” + +The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having +been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the +established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact +business at noon, and to make an appointment, by post, a day or two +previous. + +“And you, Miss Rose,” said the doctor, turning to the young lady, “I—” + +“Oh! very much so, indeed,” said Rose, interrupting him; “but there is +a poor creature upstairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.” + +“Ah! to be sure,” replied the doctor, “so there is. That was your +handiwork, Giles, I understand.” + +Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights, +blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour. + +“Honour, eh?” said the doctor; “well, I don’t know; perhaps it’s as +honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit your man at +twelve paces. Fancy that he fired in the air, and you’ve fought a duel, +Giles.” + +Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust +attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was +not for the like of him to judge about that; but he rather thought it +was no joke to the opposite party. + +“Gad, that’s true!” said the doctor. “Where is he? Show me the way. +I’ll look in again, as I come down, Mrs. Maylie. That’s the little +window that he got in at, eh? Well, I couldn’t have believed it!” + +Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles upstairs; and while he is +going upstairs, the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne, a +surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles +round as “the doctor,” had grown fat, more from good-humour than from +good living: and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old +bachelor, as will be found in five times that space, by any explorer +alive. + +The doctor was absent, much longer than either he or the ladies had +anticipated. A large flat box was fetched out of the gig; and a bedroom +bell was rung very often; and the servants ran up and down stairs +perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concluded that something +important was going on above. At length he returned; and in reply to an +anxious inquiry after his patient; looked very mysterious, and closed +the door, carefully. + +“This is a very extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maylie,” said the doctor, +standing with his back to the door, as if to keep it shut. + +“He is not in danger, I hope?” said the old lady. + +“Why, that would _not_ be an extraordinary thing, under the +circumstances,” replied the doctor; “though I don’t think he is. Have +you seen the thief?” + +“No,” rejoined the old lady. + +“Nor heard anything about him?” + +“No.” + +“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” interposed Mr. Giles; “but I was going to +tell you about him when Doctor Losberne came in.” + +The fact was, that Mr. Giles had not, at first, been able to bring his +mind to the avowal, that he had only shot a boy. Such commendations had +been bestowed upon his bravery, that he could not, for the life of him, +help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes; during +which he had flourished, in the very zenith of a brief reputation for +undaunted courage. + +“Rose wished to see the man,” said Mrs. Maylie, “but I wouldn’t hear of +it.” + +“Humph!” rejoined the doctor. “There is nothing very alarming in his +appearance. Have you any objection to see him in my presence?” + +“If it be necessary,” replied the old lady, “certainly not.” + +“Then I think it is necessary,” said the doctor; “at all events, I am +quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you +postponed it. He is perfectly quiet and comfortable now. Allow me—Miss +Rose, will you permit me? Not the slightest fear, I pledge you my +honour!” + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. +RELATES WHAT OLIVER’S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM + + +With many loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised +in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady’s arm +through one of his; and offering his disengaged hand to Mrs. Maylie, +led them, with much ceremony and stateliness, upstairs. + +“Now,” said the doctor, in a whisper, as he softly turned the handle of +a bedroom-door, “let us hear what you think of him. He has not been +shaved very recently, but he don’t look at all ferocious +notwithstanding. Stop, though! Let me first see that he is in visiting +order.” + +Stepping before them, he looked into the room. Motioning them to +advance, he closed the door when they had entered; and gently drew back +the curtains of the bed. Upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged +ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child: worn with +pain and exhaustion, and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm, bound +and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast; his head reclined upon +the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed +over the pillow. + +The honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on, for a +minute or so, in silence. Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the +younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the +bedside, gathered Oliver’s hair from his face. As she stooped over him, +her tears fell upon his forehead. + +The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity +and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection +he had never known. Thus, a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of +water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a +familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes +that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some +brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have +awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall. + +“What can this mean?” exclaimed the elder lady. “This poor child can +never have been the pupil of robbers!” + +“Vice,” said the surgeon, replacing the curtain, “takes up her abode in +many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine +her?” + +“But at so early an age!” urged Rose. + +“My dear young lady,” rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his +head; “crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered +alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.” + +“But, can you—oh! can you really believe that this delicate boy has +been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?” said +Rose. + +The surgeon shook his head, in a manner which intimated that he feared +it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the +patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment. + +“But even if he has been wicked,” pursued Rose, “think how young he is; +think that he may never have known a mother’s love, or the comfort of a +home; that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven +him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for +mercy’s sake, think of this, before you let them drag this sick child +to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of +amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want +of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done +so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor +child, have pity upon him before it is too late!” + +“My dear love,” said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to +her bosom, “do you think I would harm a hair of his head?” + +“Oh, no!” replied Rose, eagerly. + +“No, surely,” said the old lady; “my days are drawing to their close: +and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others! What can I do to +save him, sir?” + +“Let me think, ma’am,” said the doctor; “let me think.” + +Mr. Losberne thrust his hands into his pockets, and took several turns +up and down the room; often stopping, and balancing himself on his +toes, and frowning frightfully. After various exclamations of “I’ve got +it now” and “no, I haven’t,” and as many renewals of the walking and +frowning, he at length made a dead halt, and spoke as follows: + +“I think if you give me a full and unlimited commission to bully Giles, +and that little boy, Brittles, I can manage it. Giles is a faithful +fellow and an old servant, I know; but you can make it up to him in a +thousand ways, and reward him for being such a good shot besides. You +don’t object to that?” + +“Unless there is some other way of preserving the child,” replied Mrs. +Maylie. + +“There is no other,” said the doctor. “No other, take my word for it.” + +“Then my aunt invests you with full power,” said Rose, smiling through +her tears; “but pray don’t be harder upon the poor fellows than is +indispensably necessary.” + +“You seem to think,” retorted the doctor, “that everybody is disposed +to be hard-hearted to-day, except yourself, Miss Rose. I only hope, for +the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as +vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow +who appeals to your compassion; and I wish I were a young fellow, that +I might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for +doing so, as the present.” + +“You are as great a boy as poor Brittles himself,” returned Rose, +blushing. + +“Well,” said the doctor, laughing heartily, “that is no very difficult +matter. But to return to this boy. The great point of our agreement is +yet to come. He will wake in an hour or so, I dare say; and although I +have told that thick-headed constable-fellow downstairs that he musn’t +be moved or spoken to, on peril of his life, I think we may converse +with him without danger. Now I make this stipulation—that I shall +examine him in your presence, and that, if, from what he says, we +judge, and I can show to the satisfaction of your cool reason, that he +is a real and thorough bad one (which is more than possible), he shall +be left to his fate, without any farther interference on my part, at +all events.” + +“Oh no, aunt!” entreated Rose. + +“Oh yes, aunt!” said the doctor. “Is is a bargain?” + +“He cannot be hardened in vice,” said Rose; “It is impossible.” + +“Very good,” retorted the doctor; “then so much the more reason for +acceding to my proposition.” + +Finally the treaty was entered into; and the parties thereunto sat down +to wait, with some impatience, until Oliver should awake. + +The patience of the two ladies was destined to undergo a longer trial +than Mr. Losberne had led them to expect; for hour after hour passed +on, and still Oliver slumbered heavily. It was evening, indeed, before +the kind-hearted doctor brought them the intelligence, that he was at +length sufficiently restored to be spoken to. The boy was very ill, he +said, and weak from the loss of blood; but his mind was so troubled +with anxiety to disclose something, that he deemed it better to give +him the opportunity, than to insist upon his remaining quiet until next +morning: which he should otherwise have done. + +The conference was a long one. Oliver told them all his simple history, +and was often compelled to stop, by pain and want of strength. It was a +solemn thing, to hear, in the darkened room, the feeble voice of the +sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which +hard men had brought upon him. Oh! if when we oppress and grind our +fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of +human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it +is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance +on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep +testimony of dead men’s voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride +shut out; where would be the injury and injustice, the suffering, +misery, cruelty, and wrong, that each day’s life brings with it! + +Oliver’s pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night; and loveliness +and virtue watched him as he slept. He felt calm and happy, and could +have died without a murmur. + +The momentous interview was no sooner concluded, and Oliver composed to +rest again, than the doctor, after wiping his eyes, and condemning them +for being weak all at once, betook himself downstairs to open upon Mr. +Giles. And finding nobody about the parlours, it occurred to him, that +he could perhaps originate the proceedings with better effect in the +kitchen; so into the kitchen he went. + +There were assembled, in that lower house of the domestic parliament, +the women-servants, Mr. Brittles, Mr. Giles, the tinker (who had +received a special invitation to regale himself for the remainder of +the day, in consideration of his services), and the constable. The +latter gentleman had a large staff, a large head, large features, and +large half-boots; and he looked as if he had been taking a +proportionate allowance of ale—as indeed he had. + +The adventures of the previous night were still under discussion; for +Mr. Giles was expatiating upon his presence of mind, when the doctor +entered; Mr. Brittles, with a mug of ale in his hand, was corroborating +everything, before his superior said it. + +“Sit still!” said the doctor, waving his hand. + +“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Giles. “Misses wished some ale to be given +out, sir; and as I felt no ways inclined for my own little room, sir, +and was disposed for company, I am taking mine among ’em here.” + +Brittles headed a low murmur, by which the ladies and gentlemen +generally were understood to express the gratification they derived +from Mr. Giles’s condescension. Mr. Giles looked round with a +patronising air, as much as to say that so long as they behaved +properly, he would never desert them. + +“How is the patient to-night, sir?” asked Giles. + +“So-so”; returned the doctor. “I am afraid you have got yourself into a +scrape there, Mr. Giles.” + +“I hope you don’t mean to say, sir,” said Mr. Giles, trembling, “that +he’s going to die. If I thought it, I should never be happy again. I +wouldn’t cut a boy off: no, not even Brittles here; not for all the +plate in the county, sir.” + +“That’s not the point,” said the doctor, mysteriously. “Mr. Giles, are +you a Protestant?” + +“Yes, sir, I hope so,” faltered Mr. Giles, who had turned very pale. + +“And what are _you_, boy?” said the doctor, turning sharply upon +Brittles. + +“Lord bless me, sir!” replied Brittles, starting violently; “I’m the +same as Mr. Giles, sir.” + +“Then tell me this,” said the doctor, “both of you, both of you! Are +you going to take upon yourselves to swear, that that boy upstairs is +the boy that was put through the little window last night? Out with it! +Come! We are prepared for you!” + +The doctor, who was universally considered one of the best-tempered +creatures on earth, made this demand in such a dreadful tone of anger, +that Giles and Brittles, who were considerably muddled by ale and +excitement, stared at each other in a state of stupefaction. + +“Pay attention to the reply, constable, will you?” said the doctor, +shaking his forefinger with great solemnity of manner, and tapping the +bridge of his nose with it, to bespeak the exercise of that worthy’s +utmost acuteness. “Something may come of this before long.” + +The constable looked as wise as he could, and took up his staff of +office: which had been reclining indolently in the chimney-corner. + +“It’s a simple question of identity, you will observe,” said the +doctor. + +“That’s what it is, sir,” replied the constable, coughing with great +violence; for he had finished his ale in a hurry, and some of it had +gone the wrong way. + +“Here’s the house broken into,” said the doctor, “and a couple of men +catch one moment’s glimpse of a boy, in the midst of gunpowder smoke, +and in all the distraction of alarm and darkness. Here’s a boy comes to +that very same house, next morning, and because he happens to have his +arm tied up, these men lay violent hands upon him—by doing which, they +place his life in great danger—and swear he is the thief. Now, the +question is, whether these men are justified by the fact; if not, in +what situation do they place themselves?” + +The constable nodded profoundly. He said, if that wasn’t law, he would +be glad to know what was. + +“I ask you again,” thundered the doctor, “are you, on your solemn +oaths, able to identify that boy?” + +Brittles looked doubtfully at Mr. Giles; Mr. Giles looked doubtfully at +Brittles; the constable put his hand behind his ear, to catch the +reply; the two women and the tinker leaned forward to listen; the +doctor glanced keenly round; when a ring was heard at the gate, and at +the same moment, the sound of wheels. + +“It’s the runners!” cried Brittles, to all appearance much relieved. + +“The what?” exclaimed the doctor, aghast in his turn. + +“The Bow Street officers, sir,” replied Brittles, taking up a candle; +“me and Mr. Giles sent for ’em this morning.” + +“What?” cried the doctor. + +“Yes,” replied Brittles; “I sent a message up by the coachman, and I +only wonder they weren’t here before, sir.” + +“You did, did you? Then confound your—slow coaches down here; that’s +all,” said the doctor, walking away. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. +INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION + + +“Who’s that?” inquired Brittles, opening the door a little way, with +the chain up, and peeping out, shading the candle with his hand. + +“Open the door,” replied a man outside; “it’s the officers from Bow +Street, as was sent to to-day.” + +Much comforted by this assurance, Brittles opened the door to its full +width, and confronted a portly man in a great-coat; who walked in, +without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on the mat, as coolly +as if he lived there. + +“Just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young man?” said +the officer; “he’s in the gig, a-minding the prad. Have you got a coach +’us here, that you could put it up in, for five or ten minutes?” + +Brittles replying in the affirmative, and pointing out the building, +the portly man stepped back to the garden-gate, and helped his +companion to put up the gig: while Brittles lighted them, in a state of +great admiration. This done, they returned to the house, and, being +shown into a parlour, took off their great-coats and hats, and showed +like what they were. + +The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle +height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; +half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. The other was a +red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured +countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose. + +“Tell your governor that Blathers and Duff is here, will you?” said the +stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of handcuffs on +the table. “Oh! Good-evening, master. Can I have a word or two with you +in private, if you please?” + +This was addressed to Mr. Losberne, who now made his appearance; that +gentleman, motioning Brittles to retire, brought in the two ladies, and +shut the door. + +“This is the lady of the house,” said Mr. Losberne, motioning towards +Mrs. Maylie. + +Mr. Blathers made a bow. Being desired to sit down, he put his hat on +the floor, and taking a chair, motioned to Duff to do the same. The +latter gentleman, who did not appear quite so much accustomed to good +society, or quite so much at his ease in it—one of the two—seated +himself, after undergoing several muscular affections of the limbs, and +the head of his stick into his mouth, with some embarrassment. + +“Now, with regard to this here robbery, master,” said Blathers. “What +are the circumstances?” + +Mr. Losberne, who appeared desirous of gaining time, recounted them at +great length, and with much circumlocution. Messrs. Blathers and Duff +looked very knowing meanwhile, and occasionally exchanged a nod. + +“I can’t say, for certain, till I see the work, of course,” said +Blathers; “but my opinion at once is,—I don’t mind committing myself to +that extent,—that this wasn’t done by a yokel; eh, Duff?” + +“Certainly not,” replied Duff. + +“And, translating the word yokel for the benefit of the ladies, I +apprehend your meaning to be, that this attempt was not made by a +countryman?” said Mr. Losberne, with a smile. + +“That’s it, master,” replied Blathers. “This is all about the robbery, +is it?” + +“All,” replied the doctor. + +“Now, what is this, about this here boy that the servants are a-talking +on?” said Blathers. + +“Nothing at all,” replied the doctor. “One of the frightened servants +chose to take it into his head, that he had something to do with this +attempt to break into the house; but it’s nonsense: sheer absurdity.” + +“Wery easy disposed of, if it is,” remarked Duff. + +“What he says is quite correct,” observed Blathers, nodding his head in +a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the handcuffs, as if +they were a pair of castanets. “Who is the boy? What account does he +give of himself? Where did he come from? He didn’t drop out of the +clouds, did he, master?” + +“Of course not,” replied the doctor, with a nervous glance at the two +ladies. “I know his whole history: but we can talk about that +presently. You would like, first, to see the place where the thieves +made their attempt, I suppose?” + +“Certainly,” rejoined Mr. Blathers. “We had better inspect the premises +first, and examine the servants afterwards. That’s the usual way of +doing business.” + +Lights were then procured; and Messrs. Blathers and Duff, attended by +the native constable, Brittles, Giles, and everybody else in short, +went into the little room at the end of the passage and looked out at +the window; and afterwards went round by way of the lawn, and looked in +at the window; and after that, had a candle handed out to inspect the +shutter with; and after that, a lantern to trace the footsteps with; +and after that, a pitchfork to poke the bushes with. This done, amidst +the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again; and Mr. +Giles and Brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of +their share in the previous night’s adventures: which they performed +some six times over: contradicting each other, in not more than one +important respect, the first time, and in not more than a dozen the +last. This consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the +room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for +secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest +point in medicine, would be mere child’s play. + +Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy +state; and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on, with anxious faces. + +“Upon my word,” he said, making a halt, after a great number of very +rapid turns, “I hardly know what to do.” + +“Surely,” said Rose, “the poor child’s story, faithfully repeated to +these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him.” + +“I doubt it, my dear young lady,” said the doctor, shaking his head. “I +don’t think it would exonerate him, either with them, or with legal +functionaries of a higher grade. What is he, after all, they would say? +A runaway. Judged by mere worldly considerations and probabilities, his +story is a very doubtful one.” + +“You believe it, surely?” interrupted Rose. + +“_I_ believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps I may be an old fool for +doing so,” rejoined the doctor; “but I don’t think it is exactly the +tale for a practical police-officer, nevertheless.” + +“Why not?” demanded Rose. + +“Because, my pretty cross-examiner,” replied the doctor: “because, +viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can +only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well. +Confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and +will take nothing for granted. On his own showing, you see, he has been +the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a +police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman’s pocket; he has +been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman’s house, to a place +which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he +has not the remotest idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who +seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and +is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very +moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing +that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a +blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on purpose +to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don’t you see all this?” + +“I see it, of course,” replied Rose, smiling at the doctor’s +impetuosity; “but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the +poor child.” + +“No,” replied the doctor; “of course not! Bless the bright eyes of your +sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any +question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to +them.” + +Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his +hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even +greater rapidity than before. + +“The more I think of it,” said the doctor, “the more I see that it will +occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in +possession of the boy’s real story. I am certain it will not be +believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the +dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will +be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan +of rescuing him from misery.” + +“Oh! what is to be done?” cried Rose. “Dear, dear! why did they send +for these people?” + +“Why, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. “I would not have had them here, +for the world.” + +“All I know is,” said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind +of desperate calmness, “that we must try and carry it off with a bold +face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy +has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be +talked to any more; that’s one comfort. We must make the best of it; +and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!” + +“Well, master,” said Blathers, entering the room followed by his +colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. “This +warn’t a put-up thing.” + +“And what the devil’s a put-up thing?” demanded the doctor, +impatiently. + +“We call it a put-up robbery, ladies,” said Blathers, turning to them, +as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor’s, +“when the servants is in it.” + +“Nobody suspected them, in this case,” said Mrs. Maylie. + +“Wery likely not, ma’am,” replied Blathers; “but they might have been +in it, for all that.” + +“More likely on that wery account,” said Duff. + +“We find it was a town hand,” said Blathers, continuing his report; +“for the style of work is first-rate.” + +“Wery pretty indeed it is,” remarked Duff, in an undertone. + +“There was two of ’em in it,” continued Blathers; “and they had a boy +with ’em; that’s plain from the size of the window. That’s all to be +said at present. We’ll see this lad that you’ve got upstairs at once, +if you please.” + +“Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?” said +the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred +to him. + +“Oh! to be sure!” exclaimed Rose, eagerly. “You shall have it +immediately, if you will.” + +“Why, thank you, miss!” said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across +his mouth; “it’s dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that’s handy, +miss; don’t put yourself out of the way, on our accounts.” + +“What shall it be?” asked the doctor, following the young lady to the +sideboard. + +“A little drop of spirits, master, if it’s all the same,” replied +Blathers. “It’s a cold ride from London, ma’am; and I always find that +spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.” + +This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who +received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the +doctor slipped out of the room. + +“Ah!” said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but +grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: +and placing it in front of his chest; “I have seen a good many pieces +of business like this, in my time, ladies.” + +“That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers,” said Mr. +Duff, assisting his colleague’s memory. + +“That was something in this way, warn’t it?” rejoined Mr. Blathers; +“that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was.” + +“You always gave that to him” replied Duff. “It was the Family Pet, I +tell you. Conkey hadn’t any more to do with it than I had.” + +“Get out!” retorted Mr. Blathers; “I know better. Do you mind that time +when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a start that was! +Better than any novel-book _I_ ever see!” + +“What was that?” inquired Rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of +good-humour in the unwelcome visitors. + +“It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down +upon,” said Blathers. “This here Conkey Chickweed—” + +“Conkey means Nosey, ma’am,” interposed Duff. + +“Of course the lady knows that, don’t she?” demanded Mr. Blathers. +“Always interrupting, you are, partner! This here Conkey Chickweed, +miss, kept a public-house over Battlebridge way, and he had a cellar, +where a good many young lords went to see cock-fighting, and +badger-drawing, and that; and a wery intellectual manner the sports was +conducted in, for I’ve seen ’em off’en. He warn’t one of the family, at +that time; and one night he was robbed of three hundred and +twenty-seven guineas in a canvas bag, that was stole out of his bedroom +in the dead of night, by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, +who had concealed himself under the bed, and after committing the +robbery, jumped slap out of window: which was only a story high. He was +wery quick about it. But Conkey was quick, too; for he fired a +blunderbuss arter him, and roused the neighbourhood. They set up a +hue-and-cry, directly, and when they came to look about ’em, found that +Conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood, all the way +to some palings a good distance off; and there they lost ’em. However, +he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the name of Mr. +Chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the Gazette among the other +bankrupts; and all manner of benefits and subscriptions, and I don’t +know what all, was got up for the poor man, who was in a wery low state +of mind about his loss, and went up and down the streets, for three or +four days, a pulling his hair off in such a desperate manner that many +people was afraid he might be going to make away with himself. One day +he came up to the office, all in a hurry, and had a private interview +with the magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and +orders Jem Spyers in (Jem was a active officer), and tells him to go +and assist Mr. Chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house. +‘I see him, Spyers,’ said Chickweed, ‘pass my house yesterday morning,’ +‘Why didn’t you up, and collar him!’ says Spyers. ‘I was so struck all +of a heap, that you might have fractured my skull with a toothpick,’ +says the poor man; ‘but we’re sure to have him; for between ten and +eleven o’clock at night he passed again.’ Spyers no sooner heard this, +than he put some clean linen and a comb, in his pocket, in case he +should have to stop a day or two; and away he goes, and sets himself +down at one of the public-house windows behind the little red curtain, +with his hat on, all ready to bolt out, at a moment’s notice. He was +smoking his pipe here, late at night, when all of a sudden Chickweed +roars out, ‘Here he is! Stop thief! Murder!’ Jem Spyers dashes out; and +there he sees Chickweed, a-tearing down the street full cry. Away goes +Spyers; on goes Chickweed; round turns the people; everybody roars out, +‘Thieves!’ and Chickweed himself keeps on shouting, all the time, like +mad. Spyers loses sight of him a minute as he turns a corner; shoots +round; sees a little crowd; dives in; ‘Which is the man?’ ‘D—me!’ says +Chickweed, ‘I’ve lost him again!’ It was a remarkable occurrence, but +he warn’t to be seen nowhere, so they went back to the public-house. +Next morning, Spyers took his old place, and looked out, from behind +the curtain, for a tall man with a black patch over his eye, till his +own two eyes ached again. At last, he couldn’t help shutting ’em, to +ease ’em a minute; and the very moment he did so, he hears Chickweed +a-roaring out, ‘Here he is!’ Off he starts once more, with Chickweed +half-way down the street ahead of him; and after twice as long a run as +the yesterday’s one, the man’s lost again! This was done, once or twice +more, till one-half the neighbours gave out that Mr. Chickweed had been +robbed by the devil, who was playing tricks with him arterwards; and +the other half, that poor Mr. Chickweed had gone mad with grief.” + +“What did Jem Spyers say?” inquired the doctor; who had returned to the +room shortly after the commencement of the story. + +“Jem Spyers,” resumed the officer, “for a long time said nothing at +all, and listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he +understood his business. But, one morning, he walked into the bar, and +taking out his snuffbox, says ‘Chickweed, I’ve found out who done this +here robbery.’ ‘Have you?’ said Chickweed. ‘Oh, my dear Spyers, only +let me have wengeance, and I shall die contented! Oh, my dear Spyers, +where is the villain!’ ‘Come!’ said Spyers, offering him a pinch of +snuff, ‘none of that gammon! You did it yourself.’ So he had; and a +good bit of money he had made by it, too; and nobody would never have +found it out, if he hadn’t been so precious anxious to keep up +appearances!” said Mr. Blathers, putting down his wine-glass, and +clinking the handcuffs together. + +“Very curious, indeed,” observed the doctor. “Now, if you please, you +can walk upstairs.” + +“If _you_ please, sir,” returned Mr. Blathers. Closely following Mr. +Losberne, the two officers ascended to Oliver’s bedroom; Mr. Giles +preceding the party, with a lighted candle. + +Oliver had been dozing; but looked worse, and was more feverish than he +had appeared yet. Being assisted by the doctor, he managed to sit up in +bed for a minute or so; and looked at the strangers without at all +understanding what was going forward—in fact, without seeming to +recollect where he was, or what had been passing. + +“This,” said Mr. Losberne, speaking softly, but with great vehemence +notwithstanding, “this is the lad, who, being accidently wounded by a +spring-gun in some boyish trespass on Mr. What-d’ ye-call-him’s +grounds, at the back here, comes to the house for assistance this +morning, and is immediately laid hold of and maltreated, by that +ingenious gentleman with the candle in his hand: who has placed his +life in considerable danger, as I can professionally certify.” + +Messrs. Blathers and Duff looked at Mr. Giles, as he was thus +recommended to their notice. The bewildered butler gazed from them +towards Oliver, and from Oliver towards Mr. Losberne, with a most +ludicrous mixture of fear and perplexity. + +“You don’t mean to deny that, I suppose?” said the doctor, laying +Oliver gently down again. + +“It was all done for the—for the best, sir,” answered Giles. “I am sure +I thought it was the boy, or I wouldn’t have meddled with him. I am not +of an inhuman disposition, sir.” + +“Thought it was what boy?” inquired the senior officer. + +“The housebreaker’s boy, sir!” replied Giles. “They—they certainly had +a boy.” + +“Well? Do you think so now?” inquired Blathers. + +“Think what, now?” replied Giles, looking vacantly at his questioner. + +“Think it’s the same boy, Stupid-head?” rejoined Blathers, impatiently. + +“I don’t know; I really don’t know,” said Giles, with a rueful +countenance. “I couldn’t swear to him.” + +“What do you think?” asked Mr. Blathers. + +“I don’t know what to think,” replied poor Giles. “I don’t think it is +the boy; indeed, I’m almost certain that it isn’t. You know it can’t +be.” + +“Has this man been a-drinking, sir?” inquired Blathers, turning to the +doctor. + +“What a precious muddle-headed chap you are!” said Duff, addressing Mr. +Giles, with supreme contempt. + +Mr. Losberne had been feeling the patient’s pulse during this short +dialogue; but he now rose from the chair by the bedside, and remarked, +that if the officers had any doubts upon the subject, they would +perhaps like to step into the next room, and have Brittles before them. + +Acting upon this suggestion, they adjourned to a neighbouring +apartment, where Mr. Brittles, being called in, involved himself and +his respected superior in such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions +and impossibilities, as tended to throw no particular light on +anything, but the fact of his own strong mystification; except, indeed, +his declarations that he shouldn’t know the real boy, if he were put +before him that instant; that he had only taken Oliver to be he, +because Mr. Giles had said he was; and that Mr. Giles had, five minutes +previously, admitted in the kitchen, that he began to be very much +afraid he had been a little too hasty. + +Among other ingenious surmises, the question was then raised, whether +Mr. Giles had really hit anybody; and upon examination of the fellow +pistol to that which he had fired, it turned out to have no more +destructive loading than gunpowder and brown paper: a discovery which +made a considerable impression on everybody but the doctor, who had +drawn the ball about ten minutes before. Upon no one, however, did it +make a greater impression than on Mr. Giles himself; who, after +labouring, for some hours, under the fear of having mortally wounded a +fellow-creature, eagerly caught at this new idea, and favoured it to +the utmost. Finally, the officers, without troubling themselves very +much about Oliver, left the Chertsey constable in the house, and took +up their rest for that night in the town; promising to return the next +morning. + +With the next morning, there came a rumour, that two men and a boy were +in the cage at Kingston, who had been apprehended over night under +suspicious circumstances; and to Kingston Messrs. Blathers and Duff +journeyed accordingly. The suspicious circumstances, however, resolving +themselves, on investigation, into the one fact, that they had been +discovered sleeping under a haystack; which, although a great crime, is +only punishable by imprisonment, and is, in the merciful eye of the +English law, and its comprehensive love of all the King’s subjects, +held to be no satisfactory proof, in the absence of all other evidence, +that the sleeper, or sleepers, have committed burglary accompanied with +violence, and have therefore rendered themselves liable to the +punishment of death; Messrs. Blathers and Duff came back again, as wise +as they went. + +In short, after some more examination, and a great deal more +conversation, a neighbouring magistrate was readily induced to take the +joint bail of Mrs. Maylie and Mr. Losberne for Oliver’s appearance if +he should ever be called upon; and Blathers and Duff, being rewarded +with a couple of guineas, returned to town with divided opinions on the +subject of their expedition: the latter gentleman on a mature +consideration of all the circumstances, inclining to the belief that +the burglarious attempt had originated with the Family Pet; and the +former being equally disposed to concede the full merit of it to the +great Mr. Conkey Chickweed. + +Meanwhile, Oliver gradually throve and prospered under the united care +of Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted Mr. Losberne. If fervent +prayers, gushing from hearts overcharged with gratitude, be heard in +heaven—and if they be not, what prayers are!—the blessings which the +orphan child called down upon them, sunk into their souls, diffusing +peace and happiness. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. +OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS + + +Oliver’s ailings were neither slight nor few. In addition to the pain +and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold +had brought on fever and ague: which hung about him for many weeks, and +reduced him sadly. But, at length, he began, by slow degrees, to get +better, and to be able to say sometimes, in a few tearful words, how +deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies, and how ardently +he hoped that when he grew strong and well again, he could do something +to show his gratitude; only something, which would let them see the +love and duty with which his breast was full; something, however +slight, which would prove to them that their gentle kindness had not +been cast away; but that the poor boy whom their charity had rescued +from misery, or death, was eager to serve them with his whole heart and +soul. + +“Poor fellow!” said Rose, when Oliver had been one day feebly +endeavouring to utter the words of thankfulness that rose to his pale +lips; “you shall have many opportunities of serving us, if you will. We +are going into the country, and my aunt intends that you shall +accompany us. The quiet place, the pure air, and all the pleasure and +beauties of spring, will restore you in a few days. We will employ you +in a hundred ways, when you can bear the trouble.” + +“The trouble!” cried Oliver. “Oh! dear lady, if I could but work for +you; if I could only give you pleasure by watering your flowers, or +watching your birds, or running up and down the whole day long, to make +you happy; what would I give to do it!” + +“You shall give nothing at all,” said Miss Maylie, smiling; “for, as I +told you before, we shall employ you in a hundred ways; and if you only +take half the trouble to please us, that you promise now, you will make +me very happy indeed.” + +“Happy, ma’am!” cried Oliver; “how kind of you to say so!” + +“You will make me happier than I can tell you,” replied the young lady. +“To think that my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing +any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an +unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness +and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, +would delight me, more than you can well imagine. Do you understand +me?” she inquired, watching Oliver’s thoughtful face. + +“Oh yes, ma’am, yes!” replied Oliver eagerly; “but I was thinking that +I am ungrateful now.” + +“To whom?” inquired the young lady. + +“To the kind gentleman, and the dear old nurse, who took so much care +of me before,” rejoined Oliver. “If they knew how happy I am, they +would be pleased, I am sure.” + +“I am sure they would,” rejoined Oliver’s benefactress; “and Mr. +Losberne has already been kind enough to promise that when you are well +enough to bear the journey, he will carry you to see them.” + +“Has he, ma’am?” cried Oliver, his face brightening with pleasure. “I +don’t know what I shall do for joy when I see their kind faces once +again!” + +In a short time Oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the +fatigue of this expedition. One morning he and Mr. Losberne set out, +accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to Mrs. Maylie. When +they came to Chertsey Bridge, Oliver turned very pale, and uttered a +loud exclamation. + +“What’s the matter with the boy?” cried the doctor, as usual, all in a +bustle. “Do you see anything—hear anything—feel anything—eh?” + +“That, sir,” cried Oliver, pointing out of the carriage window. “That +house!” + +“Yes; well, what of it? Stop coachman. Pull up here,” cried the doctor. +“What of the house, my man; eh?” + +“The thieves—the house they took me to!” whispered Oliver. + +“The devil it is!” cried the doctor. “Hallo, there! let me out!” + +But, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled +out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the +deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman. + +“Halloa?” said a little ugly hump-backed man: opening the door so +suddenly, that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, +nearly fell forward into the passage. “What’s the matter here?” + +“Matter!” exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment’s +reflection. “A good deal. Robbery is the matter.” + +“There’ll be Murder the matter, too,” replied the hump-backed man, +coolly, “if you don’t take your hands off. Do you hear me?” + +“I hear you,” said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake. + +“Where’s—confound the fellow, what’s his rascally name—Sikes; that’s +it. Where’s Sikes, you thief?” + +The hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and +indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor’s +grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths, and retired into the +house. Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed +into the parlour, without a word of parley. + +He looked anxiously round; not an article of furniture; not a vestige +of anything, animate or inanimate; not even the position of the +cupboards; answered Oliver’s description! + +“Now!” said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, “what do +you mean by coming into my house, in this violent way? Do you want to +rob me, or to murder me? Which is it?” + +“Did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, +you ridiculous old vampire?” said the irritable doctor. + +“What do you want, then?” demanded the hunchback. “Will you take +yourself off, before I do you a mischief? Curse you!” + +“As soon as I think proper,” said Mr. Losberne, looking into the other +parlour; which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to +Oliver’s account of it. “I shall find you out, some day, my friend.” + +“Will you?” sneered the ill-favoured cripple. “If you ever want me, I’m +here. I haven’t lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty +years, to be scared by you. You shall pay for this; you shall pay for +this.” And so saying, the mis-shapen little demon set up a yell, and +danced upon the ground, as if wild with rage. + +“Stupid enough, this,” muttered the doctor to himself; “the boy must +have made a mistake. Here! Put that in your pocket, and shut yourself +up again.” With these words he flung the hunchback a piece of money, +and returned to the carriage. + +The man followed to the chariot door, uttering the wildest imprecations +and curses all the way; but as Mr. Losberne turned to speak to the +driver, he looked into the carriage, and eyed Oliver for an instant +with a glance so sharp and fierce and at the same time so furious and +vindictive, that, waking or sleeping, he could not forget it for months +afterwards. He continued to utter the most fearful imprecations, until +the driver had resumed his seat; and when they were once more on their +way, they could see him some distance behind: beating his feet upon the +ground, and tearing his hair, in transports of real or pretended rage. + +“I am an ass!” said the doctor, after a long silence. “Did you know +that before, Oliver?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Then don’t forget it another time.” + +“An ass,” said the doctor again, after a further silence of some +minutes. “Even if it had been the right place, and the right fellows +had been there, what could I have done, single-handed? And if I had had +assistance, I see no good that I should have done, except leading to my +own exposure, and an unavoidable statement of the manner in which I +have hushed up this business. That would have served me right, though. +I am always involving myself in some scrape or other, by acting on +impulse. It might have done me good.” + +Now, the fact was that the excellent doctor had never acted upon +anything but impulse all through his life, and it was no bad compliment +to the nature of the impulses which governed him, that so far from +being involved in any peculiar troubles or misfortunes, he had the +warmest respect and esteem of all who knew him. If the truth must be +told, he was a little out of temper, for a minute or two, at being +disappointed in procuring corroborative evidence of Oliver’s story on +the very first occasion on which he had a chance of obtaining any. He +soon came round again, however; and finding that Oliver’s replies to +his questions, were still as straightforward and consistent, and still +delivered with as much apparent sincerity and truth, as they had ever +been, he made up his mind to attach full credence to them, from that +time forth. + +As Oliver knew the name of the street in which Mr. Brownlow resided, +they were enabled to drive straight thither. When the coach turned into +it, his heart beat so violently, that he could scarcely draw his +breath. + +“Now, my boy, which house is it?” inquired Mr. Losberne. + +“That! That!” replied Oliver, pointing eagerly out of the window. “The +white house. Oh! make haste! Pray make haste! I feel as if I should +die: it makes me tremble so.” + +“Come, come!” said the good doctor, patting him on the shoulder. “You +will see them directly, and they will be overjoyed to find you safe and +well.” + +“Oh! I hope so!” cried Oliver. “They were so good to me; so very, very +good to me.” + +The coach rolled on. It stopped. No; that was the wrong house; the next +door. It went on a few paces, and stopped again. Oliver looked up at +the windows, with tears of happy expectation coursing down his face. + +Alas! the white house was empty, and there was a bill in the window. +“To Let.” + +“Knock at the next door,” cried Mr. Losberne, taking Oliver’s arm in +his. “What has become of Mr. Brownlow, who used to live in the +adjoining house, do you know?” + +The servant did not know; but would go and inquire. She presently +returned, and said, that Mr. Brownlow had sold off his goods, and gone +to the West Indies, six weeks before. Oliver clasped his hands, and +sank feebly backward. + +“Has his housekeeper gone too?” inquired Mr. Losberne, after a moment’s +pause. + +“Yes, sir”; replied the servant. “The old gentleman, the housekeeper, +and a gentleman who was a friend of Mr. Brownlow’s, all went together.” + +“Then turn towards home again,” said Mr. Losberne to the driver; “and +don’t stop to bait the horses, till you get out of this confounded +London!” + +“The book-stall keeper, sir?” said Oliver. “I know the way there. See +him, pray, sir! Do see him!” + +“My poor boy, this is disappointment enough for one day,” said the +doctor. “Quite enough for both of us. If we go to the book-stall +keeper’s, we shall certainly find that he is dead, or has set his house +on fire, or run away. No; home again straight!” And in obedience to the +doctor’s impulse, home they went. + +This bitter disappointment caused Oliver much sorrow and grief, even in +the midst of his happiness; for he had pleased himself, many times +during his illness, with thinking of all that Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. +Bedwin would say to him: and what delight it would be to tell them how +many long days and nights he had passed in reflecting on what they had +done for him, and in bewailing his cruel separation from them. The hope +of eventually clearing himself with them, too, and explaining how he +had been forced away, had buoyed him up, and sustained him, under many +of his recent trials; and now, the idea that they should have gone so +far, and carried with them the belief that he was an impostor and a +robber—a belief which might remain uncontradicted to his dying day—was +almost more than he could bear. + +The circumstance occasioned no alteration, however, in the behaviour of +his benefactors. After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather +had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young +leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house +at Chertsey, for some months. + +Sending the plate, which had so excited Fagin’s cupidity, to the +banker’s; and leaving Giles and another servant in care of the house, +they departed to a cottage at some distance in the country, and took +Oliver with them. + +Who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace of mind and soft +tranquillity, the sickly boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green +hills and rich woods, of an inland village! Who can tell how scenes of +peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close +and noisy places, and carry their own freshness, deep into their jaded +hearts! Men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives +of toil, and who have never wished for change; men, to whom custom has +indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick +and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even +they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at +last for one short glimpse of Nature’s face; and, carried far from the +scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once +into a new state of being. Crawling forth, from day to day, to some +green sunny spot, they have had such memories wakened up within them by +the sight of the sky, and hill and plain, and glistening water, that a +foretaste of heaven itself has soothed their quick decline, and they +have sunk into their tombs, as peacefully as the sun whose setting they +watched from their lonely chamber window but a few hours before, faded +from their dim and feeble sight! The memories which peaceful country +scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. +Their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the +graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts, and bear down before +it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the +least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having +held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which +calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride +and worldliness beneath it. + +It was a lovely spot to which they repaired. Oliver, whose days had +been spent among squalid crowds, and in the midst of noise and +brawling, seemed to enter on a new existence there. The rose and +honeysuckle clung to the cottage walls; the ivy crept round the trunks +of the trees; and the garden-flowers perfumed the air with delicious +odours. Hard by, was a little churchyard; not crowded with tall +unsightly gravestones, but full of humble mounds, covered with fresh +turf and moss: beneath which, the old people of the village lay at +rest. Oliver often wandered here; and, thinking of the wretched grave +in which his mother lay, would sometimes sit him down and sob unseen; +but, when he raised his eyes to the deep sky overhead, he would cease +to think of her as lying in the ground, and would weep for her, sadly, +but without pain. + +It was a happy time. The days were peaceful and serene; the nights +brought with them neither fear nor care; no languishing in a wretched +prison, or associating with wretched men; nothing but pleasant and +happy thoughts. Every morning he went to a white-headed old gentleman, +who lived near the little church: who taught him to read better, and to +write: and who spoke so kindly, and took such pains, that Oliver could +never try enough to please him. Then, he would walk with Mrs. Maylie +and Rose, and hear them talk of books; or perhaps sit near them, in +some shady place, and listen whilst the young lady read: which he could +have done, until it grew too dark to see the letters. Then, he had his +own lesson for the next day to prepare; and at this, he would work +hard, in a little room which looked into the garden, till evening came +slowly on, when the ladies would walk out again, and he with them: +listening with such pleasure to all they said: and so happy if they +wanted a flower that he could climb to reach, or had forgotten anything +he could run to fetch: that he could never be quick enough about it. +When it became quite dark, and they returned home, the young lady would +sit down to the piano, and play some pleasant air, or sing, in a low +and gentle voice, some old song which it pleased her aunt to hear. +There would be no candles lighted at such times as these; and Oliver +would sit by one of the windows, listening to the sweet music, in a +perfect rapture. + +And when Sunday came, how differently the day was spent, from any way +in which he had ever spent it yet! and how happily too; like all the +other days in that most happy time! There was the little church, in the +morning, with the green leaves fluttering at the windows: the birds +singing without: and the sweet-smelling air stealing in at the low +porch, and filling the homely building with its fragrance. The poor +people were so neat and clean, and knelt so reverently in prayer, that +it seemed a pleasure, not a tedious duty, their assembling there +together; and though the singing might be rude, it was real, and +sounded more musical (to Oliver’s ears at least) than any he had ever +heard in church before. Then, there were the walks as usual, and many +calls at the clean houses of the labouring men; and at night, Oliver +read a chapter or two from the Bible, which he had been studying all +the week, and in the performance of which duty he felt more proud and +pleased, than if he had been the clergyman himself. + +In the morning, Oliver would be a-foot by six o’clock, roaming the +fields, and plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild +flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took +great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the +embellishment of the breakfast-table. There was fresh groundsel, too, +for Miss Maylie’s birds, with which Oliver, who had been studying the +subject under the able tuition of the village clerk, would decorate the +cages, in the most approved taste. When the birds were made all spruce +and smart for the day, there was usually some little commission of +charity to execute in the village; or, failing that, there was rare +cricket-playing, sometimes, on the green; or, failing that, there was +always something to do in the garden, or about the plants, to which +Oliver (who had studied this science also, under the same master, who +was a gardener by trade,) applied himself with hearty good-will, until +Miss Rose made her appearance: when there were a thousand commendations +to be bestowed on all he had done. + +So three months glided away; three months which, in the life of the +most blessed and favoured of mortals, might have been unmingled +happiness, and which, in Oliver’s were true felicity. With the purest +and most amiable generosity on one side; and the truest, warmest, +soul-felt gratitude on the other; it is no wonder that, by the end of +that short time, Oliver Twist had become completely domesticated with +the old lady and her niece, and that the fervent attachment of his +young and sensitive heart, was repaid by their pride in, and attachment +to, himself. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. +WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN +CHECK + + +Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came. If the village had been +beautiful at first it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its +richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the +earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and +stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted +open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant +shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, +which lay stretched beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of +brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime +and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing. + +Still, the same quiet life went on at the little cottage, and the same +cheerful serenity prevailed among its inmates. Oliver had long since +grown stout and healthy; but health or sickness made no difference in +his warm feelings of a great many people. He was still the same gentle, +attached, affectionate creature that he had been when pain and +suffering had wasted his strength, and when he was dependent for every +slight attention, and comfort on those who tended him. + +One beautiful night, when they had taken a longer walk than was +customary with them: for the day had been unusually warm, and there was +a brilliant moon, and a light wind had sprung up, which was unusually +refreshing. Rose had been in high spirits, too, and they had walked on, +in merry conversation, until they had far exceeded their ordinary +bounds. Mrs. Maylie being fatigued, they returned more slowly home. The +young lady merely throwing off her simple bonnet, sat down to the piano +as usual. After running abstractedly over the keys for a few minutes, +she fell into a low and very solemn air; and as she played it, they +heard a sound as if she were weeping. + +“Rose, my dear!” said the elder lady. + +Rose made no reply, but played a little quicker, as though the words +had roused her from some painful thoughts. + +“Rose, my love!” cried Mrs. Maylie, rising hastily, and bending over +her. “What is this? In tears! My dear child, what distresses you?” + +“Nothing, aunt; nothing,” replied the young lady. “I don’t know what it +is; I can’t describe it; but I feel—” + +“Not ill, my love?” interposed Mrs. Maylie. + +“No, no! Oh, not ill!” replied Rose: shuddering as though some deadly +chillness were passing over her, while she spoke; “I shall be better +presently. Close the window, pray!” + +Oliver hastened to comply with her request. The young lady, making an +effort to recover her cheerfulness, strove to play some livelier tune; +but her fingers dropped powerless over the keys. Covering her face with +her hands, she sank upon a sofa, and gave vent to the tears which she +was now unable to repress. + +“My child!” said the elderly lady, folding her arms about her, “I never +saw you so before.” + +“I would not alarm you if I could avoid it,” rejoined Rose; “but indeed +I have tried very hard, and cannot help this. I fear I _am_ ill, aunt.” + +She was, indeed; for, when candles were brought, they saw that in the +very short time which had elapsed since their return home, the hue of +her countenance had changed to a marble whiteness. Its expression had +lost nothing of its beauty; but it was changed; and there was an +anxious haggard look about the gentle face, which it had never worn +before. Another minute, and it was suffused with a crimson flush: and a +heavy wildness came over the soft blue eye. Again this disappeared, +like the shadow thrown by a passing cloud; and she was once more deadly +pale. + +Oliver, who watched the old lady anxiously, observed that she was +alarmed by these appearances; and so in truth, was he; but seeing that +she affected to make light of them, he endeavoured to do the same, and +they so far succeeded, that when Rose was persuaded by her aunt to +retire for the night, she was in better spirits; and appeared even in +better health: assuring them that she felt certain she should rise in +the morning, quite well. + +“I hope,” said Oliver, when Mrs. Maylie returned, “that nothing is the +matter? She don’t look well to-night, but—” + +The old lady motioned to him not to speak; and sitting herself down in +a dark corner of the room, remained silent for some time. At length, +she said, in a trembling voice: + +“I hope not, Oliver. I have been very happy with her for some years: +too happy, perhaps. It may be time that I should meet with some +misfortune; but I hope it is not this.” + +“What?” inquired Oliver. + +“The heavy blow,” said the old lady, “of losing the dear girl who has +so long been my comfort and happiness.” + +“Oh! God forbid!” exclaimed Oliver, hastily. + +“Amen to that, my child!” said the old lady, wringing her hands. + +“Surely there is no danger of anything so dreadful?” said Oliver. “Two +hours ago, she was quite well.” + +“She is very ill now,” rejoined Mrs. Maylies; “and will be worse, I am +sure. My dear, dear Rose! Oh, what shall I do without her!” + +She gave way to such great grief, that Oliver, suppressing his own +emotion, ventured to remonstrate with her; and to beg, earnestly, that, +for the sake of the dear young lady herself, she would be more calm. + +“And consider, ma’am,” said Oliver, as the tears forced themselves into +his eyes, despite of his efforts to the contrary. “Oh! consider how +young and good she is, and what pleasure and comfort she gives to all +about her. I am sure—certain—quite certain—that, for your sake, who are +so good yourself; and for her own; and for the sake of all she makes so +happy; she will not die. Heaven will never let her die so young.” + +“Hush!” said Mrs. Maylie, laying her hand on Oliver’s head. “You think +like a child, poor boy. But you teach me my duty, notwithstanding. I +had forgotten it for a moment, Oliver, but I hope I may be pardoned, +for I am old, and have seen enough of illness and death to know the +agony of separation from the objects of our love. I have seen enough, +too, to know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared +to those that love them; but this should give us comfort in our sorrow; +for Heaven is just; and such things teach us, impressively, that there +is a brighter world than this; and that the passage to it is speedy. +God’s will be done! I love her; and He knows how well!” + +Oliver was surprised to see that as Mrs. Maylie said these words, she +checked her lamentations as though by one effort; and drawing herself +up as she spoke, became composed and firm. He was still more astonished +to find that this firmness lasted; and that, under all the care and +watching which ensued, Mrs. Maylie was ever ready and collected: +performing all the duties which had devolved upon her, steadily, and, +to all external appearances, even cheerfully. But he was young, and did +not know what strong minds are capable of, under trying circumstances. +How should he, when their possessors so seldom know themselves? + +An anxious night ensued. When morning came, Mrs. Maylie’s predictions +were but too well verified. Rose was in the first stage of a high and +dangerous fever. + +“We must be active, Oliver, and not give way to useless grief,” said +Mrs. Maylie, laying her finger on her lip, as she looked steadily into +his face; “this letter must be sent, with all possible expedition, to +Mr. Losberne. It must be carried to the market-town: which is not more +than four miles off, by the footpath across the field: and thence +dispatched, by an express on horseback, straight to Chertsey. The +people at the inn will undertake to do this: and I can trust to you to +see it done, I know.” + +Oliver could make no reply, but looked his anxiety to be gone at once. + +“Here is another letter,” said Mrs. Maylie, pausing to reflect; “but +whether to send it now, or wait until I see how Rose goes on, I +scarcely know. I would not forward it, unless I feared the worst.” + +“Is it for Chertsey, too, ma’am?” inquired Oliver; impatient to execute +his commission, and holding out his trembling hand for the letter. + +“No,” replied the old lady, giving it to him mechanically. Oliver +glanced at it, and saw that it was directed to Harry Maylie, Esquire, +at some great lord’s house in the country; where, he could not make +out. + +“Shall it go, ma’am?” asked Oliver, looking up, impatiently. + +“I think not,” replied Mrs. Maylie, taking it back. “I will wait until +to-morrow.” + +With these words, she gave Oliver her purse, and he started off, +without more delay, at the greatest speed he could muster. + +Swiftly he ran across the fields, and down the little lanes which +sometimes divided them: now almost hidden by the high corn on either +side, and now emerging on an open field, where the mowers and haymakers +were busy at their work: nor did he stop once, save now and then, for a +few seconds, to recover breath, until he came, in a great heat, and +covered with dust, on the little market-place of the market-town. + +Here he paused, and looked about for the inn. There were a white bank, +and a red brewery, and a yellow town-hall; and in one corner there was +a large house, with all the wood about it painted green: before which +was the sign of “The George.” To this he hastened, as soon as it caught +his eye. + +He spoke to a postboy who was dozing under the gateway; and who, after +hearing what he wanted, referred him to the ostler; who after hearing +all he had to say again, referred him to the landlord; who was a tall +gentleman in a blue neckcloth, a white hat, drab breeches, and boots +with tops to match, leaning against a pump by the stable-door, picking +his teeth with a silver toothpick. + +This gentleman walked with much deliberation into the bar to make out +the bill: which took a long time making out: and after it was ready, +and paid, a horse had to be saddled, and a man to be dressed, which +took up ten good minutes more. Meanwhile Oliver was in such a desperate +state of impatience and anxiety, that he felt as if he could have +jumped upon the horse himself, and galloped away, full tear, to the +next stage. At length, all was ready; and the little parcel having been +handed up, with many injunctions and entreaties for its speedy +delivery, the man set spurs to his horse, and rattling over the uneven +paving of the market-place, was out of the town, and galloping along +the turnpike-road, in a couple of minutes. + +As it was something to feel certain that assistance was sent for, and +that no time had been lost, Oliver hurried up the inn-yard, with a +somewhat lighter heart. He was turning out of the gateway when he +accidently stumbled against a tall man wrapped in a cloak, who was at +that moment coming out of the inn door. + +“Hah!” cried the man, fixing his eyes on Oliver, and suddenly +recoiling. “What the devil’s this?” + +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver; “I was in a great hurry to get +home, and didn’t see you were coming.” + +“Death!” muttered the man to himself, glaring at the boy with his large +dark eyes. “Who would have thought it! Grind him to ashes! He’d start +up from a stone coffin, to come in my way!” + +“I am sorry,” stammered Oliver, confused by the strange man’s wild +look. “I hope I have not hurt you!” + +“Rot you!” murmured the man, in a horrible passion; between his +clenched teeth; “if I had only had the courage to say the word, I might +have been free of you in a night. Curses on your head, and black death +on your heart, you imp! What are you doing here?” + +The man shook his fist, as he uttered these words incoherently. He +advanced towards Oliver, as if with the intention of aiming a blow at +him, but fell violently on the ground: writhing and foaming, in a fit. + +Oliver gazed, for a moment, at the struggles of the madman (for such he +supposed him to be); and then darted into the house for help. Having +seen him safely carried into the hotel, he turned his face homewards, +running as fast as he could, to make up for lost time: and recalling +with a great deal of astonishment and some fear, the extraordinary +behaviour of the person from whom he had just parted. + +The circumstance did not dwell in his recollection long, however: for +when he reached the cottage, there was enough to occupy his mind, and +to drive all considerations of self completely from his memory. + +Rose Maylie had rapidly grown worse; before mid-night she was +delirious. A medical practitioner, who resided on the spot, was in +constant attendance upon her; and after first seeing the patient, he +had taken Mrs. Maylie aside, and pronounced her disorder to be one of a +most alarming nature. “In fact,” he said, “it would be little short of +a miracle, if she recovered.” + +How often did Oliver start from his bed that night, and stealing out, +with noiseless footstep, to the staircase, listen for the slightest +sound from the sick chamber! How often did a tremble shake his frame, +and cold drops of terror start upon his brow, when a sudden trampling +of feet caused him to fear that something too dreadful to think of, had +even then occurred! And what had been the fervency of all the prayers +he had ever muttered, compared with those he poured forth, now, in the +agony and passion of his supplication for the life and health of the +gentle creature, who was tottering on the deep grave’s verge! + +Oh! the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by +while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance! Oh! +the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat +violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they +conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety _to be doing something_ to +relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to +alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of +our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what +reflections or endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, +allay them! + +Morning came; and the little cottage was lonely and still. People spoke +in whispers; anxious faces appeared at the gate, from time to time; +women and children went away in tears. All the livelong day, and for +hours after it had grown dark, Oliver paced softly up and down the +garden, raising his eyes every instant to the sick chamber, and +shuddering to see the darkened window, looking as if death lay +stretched inside. Late that night, Mr. Losberne arrived. “It is hard,” +said the good doctor, turning away as he spoke; “so young; so much +beloved; but there is very little hope.” + +Another morning. The sun shone brightly; as brightly as if it looked +upon no misery or care; and, with every leaf and flower in full bloom +about her; with life, and health, and sounds and sights of joy, +surrounding her on every side: the fair young creature lay, wasting +fast. Oliver crept away to the old churchyard, and sitting down on one +of the green mounds, wept and prayed for her, in silence. + +There was such peace and beauty in the scene; so much of brightness and +mirth in the sunny landscape; such blithesome music in the songs of the +summer birds; such freedom in the rapid flight of the rook, careering +overhead; so much of life and joyousness in all; that, when the boy +raised his aching eyes, and looked about, the thought instinctively +occurred to him, that this was not a time for death; that Rose could +surely never die when humbler things were all so glad and gay; that +graves were for cold and cheerless winter: not for sunlight and +fragrance. He almost thought that shrouds were for the old and +shrunken; and that they never wrapped the young and graceful form in +their ghastly folds. + +A knell from the church bell broke harshly on these youthful thoughts. +Another! Again! It was tolling for the funeral service. A group of +humble mourners entered the gate: wearing white favours; for the corpse +was young. They stood uncovered by a grave; and there was a mother—a +mother once—among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and +the birds sang on. + +Oliver turned homeward, thinking on the many kindnesses he had received +from the young lady, and wishing that the time could come again, that +he might never cease showing her how grateful and attached he was. He +had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of +thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundred +little occasions rose up before him, on which he fancied he might have +been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been. We need be +careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to +some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so +little done—of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might +have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is +unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, +in time. + +When he reached home Mrs. Maylie was sitting in the little parlour. +Oliver’s heart sank at sight of her; for she had never left the bedside +of her niece; and he trembled to think what change could have driven +her away. He learnt that she had fallen into a deep sleep, from which +she would waken, either to recovery and life, or to bid them farewell, +and die. + +They sat, listening, and afraid to speak, for hours. The untasted meal +was removed, with looks which showed that their thoughts were +elsewhere, they watched the sun as he sank lower and lower, and, at +length, cast over sky and earth those brilliant hues which herald his +departure. Their quick ears caught the sound of an approaching +footstep. They both involuntarily darted to the door, as Mr. Losberne +entered. + +“What of Rose?” cried the old lady. “Tell me at once! I can bear it; +anything but suspense! Oh, tell me! in the name of Heaven!” + +“You must compose yourself,” said the doctor supporting her. “Be calm, +my dear ma’am, pray.” + +“Let me go, in God’s name! My dear child! She is dead! She is dying!” + +“No!” cried the doctor, passionately. “As He is good and merciful, she +will live to bless us all, for years to come.” + +The lady fell upon her knees, and tried to fold her hands together; but +the energy which had supported her so long, fled up to Heaven with her +first thanksgiving; and she sank into the friendly arms which were +extended to receive her. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. +CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN +WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE WHICH HAPPENED TO +OLIVER + + +It was almost too much happiness to bear. Oliver felt stunned and +stupefied by the unexpected intelligence; he could not weep, or speak, +or rest. He had scarcely the power of understanding anything that had +passed, until, after a long ramble in the quiet evening air, a burst of +tears came to his relief, and he seemed to awaken, all at once, to a +full sense of the joyful change that had occurred, and the almost +insupportable load of anguish which had been taken from his breast. + +The night was fast closing in, when he returned homeward: laden with +flowers which he had culled, with peculiar care, for the adornment of +the sick chamber. As he walked briskly along the road, he heard behind +him, the noise of some vehicle, approaching at a furious pace. Looking +round, he saw that it was a post-chaise, driven at great speed; and as +the horses were galloping, and the road was narrow, he stood leaning +against a gate until it should have passed him. + +As it dashed on, Oliver caught a glimpse of a man in a white nightcap, +whose face seemed familiar to him, although his view was so brief that +he could not identify the person. In another second or two, the +nightcap was thrust out of the chaise-window, and a stentorian voice +bellowed to the driver to stop: which he did, as soon as he could pull +up his horses. Then, the nightcap once again appeared: and the same +voice called Oliver by his name. + +“Here!” cried the voice. “Oliver, what’s the news? Miss Rose! Master +O-li-ver!” + +“Is it you, Giles?” cried Oliver, running up to the chaise-door. + +Giles popped out his nightcap again, preparatory to making some reply, +when he was suddenly pulled back by a young gentleman who occupied the +other corner of the chaise, and who eagerly demanded what was the news. + +“In a word!” cried the gentleman, “Better or worse?” + +“Better—much better!” replied Oliver, hastily. + +“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed the gentleman. “You are sure?” + +“Quite, sir,” replied Oliver. “The change took place only a few hours +ago; and Mr. Losberne says, that all danger is at an end.” + +The gentleman said not another word, but, opening the chaise-door, +leaped out, and taking Oliver hurriedly by the arm, led him aside. + +“You are quite certain? There is no possibility of any mistake on your +part, my boy, is there?” demanded the gentleman in a tremulous voice. +“Do not deceive me, by awakening hopes that are not to be fulfilled.” + +“I would not for the world, sir,” replied Oliver. “Indeed you may +believe me. Mr. Losberne’s words were, that she would live to bless us +all for many years to come. I heard him say so.” + +The tears stood in Oliver’s eyes as he recalled the scene which was the +beginning of so much happiness; and the gentleman turned his face away, +and remained silent, for some minutes. Oliver thought he heard him sob, +more than once; but he feared to interrupt him by any fresh remark—for +he could well guess what his feelings were—and so stood apart, feigning +to be occupied with his nosegay. + +All this time, Mr. Giles, with the white nightcap on, had been sitting +on the steps of the chaise, supporting an elbow on each knee, and +wiping his eyes with a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief dotted with +white spots. That the honest fellow had not been feigning emotion, was +abundantly demonstrated by the very red eyes with which he regarded the +young gentleman, when he turned round and addressed him. + +“I think you had better go on to my mother’s in the chaise, Giles,” +said he. “I would rather walk slowly on, so as to gain a little time +before I see her. You can say I am coming.” + +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Harry,” said Giles: giving a final polish to +his ruffled countenance with the handkerchief; “but if you would leave +the postboy to say that, I should be very much obliged to you. It +wouldn’t be proper for the maids to see me in this state, sir; I should +never have any more authority with them if they did.” + +“Well,” rejoined Harry Maylie, smiling, “you can do as you like. Let +him go on with the luggage, if you wish it, and do you follow with us. +Only first exchange that nightcap for some more appropriate covering, +or we shall be taken for madmen.” + +Mr. Giles, reminded of his unbecoming costume, snatched off and +pocketed his nightcap; and substituted a hat, of grave and sober shape, +which he took out of the chaise. This done, the postboy drove off; +Giles, Mr. Maylie, and Oliver, followed at their leisure. + +As they walked along, Oliver glanced from time to time with much +interest and curiosity at the new comer. He seemed about +five-and-twenty years of age, and was of the middle height; his +countenance was frank and handsome; and his demeanor easy and +prepossessing. Notwithstanding the difference between youth and age, he +bore so strong a likeness to the old lady, that Oliver would have had +no great difficulty in imagining their relationship, if he had not +already spoken of her as his mother. + +Mrs. Maylie was anxiously waiting to receive her son when he reached +the cottage. The meeting did not take place without great emotion on +both sides. + +“Mother!” whispered the young man; “why did you not write before?” + +“I did,” replied Mrs. Maylie; “but, on reflection, I determined to keep +back the letter until I had heard Mr. Losberne’s opinion.” + +“But why,” said the young man, “why run the chance of that occurring +which so nearly happened? If Rose had—I cannot utter that word now—if +this illness had terminated differently, how could you ever have +forgiven yourself! How could I ever have know happiness again!” + +“If that _had_ been the case, Harry,” said Mrs. Maylie, “I fear your +happiness would have been effectually blighted, and that your arrival +here, a day sooner or a day later, would have been of very, very little +import.” + +“And who can wonder if it be so, mother?” rejoined the young man; “or +why should I say, _if_?—It is—it is—you know it, mother—you must know +it!” + +“I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can +offer,” said Mrs. Maylie; “I know that the devotion and affection of +her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and +lasting. If I did not feel this, and know, besides, that a changed +behaviour in one she loved would break her heart, I should not feel my +task so difficult of performance, or have to encounter so many +struggles in my own bosom, when I take what seems to me to be the +strict line of duty.” + +“This is unkind, mother,” said Harry. “Do you still suppose that I am a +boy ignorant of my own mind, and mistaking the impulses of my own +soul?” + +“I think, my dear son,” returned Mrs. Maylie, laying her hand upon his +shoulder, “that youth has many generous impulses which do not last; and +that among them are some, which, being gratified, become only the more +fleeting. Above all, I think” said the lady, fixing her eyes on her +son’s face, “that if an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitious man marry a +wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no +fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and +upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the +world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against +him: he may, no matter how generous and good his nature, one day repent +of the connection he formed in early life. And she may have the pain of +knowing that he does so.” + +“Mother,” said the young man, impatiently, “he would be a selfish +brute, unworthy alike of the name of man and of the woman you describe, +who acted thus.” + +“You think so now, Harry,” replied his mother. + +“And ever will!” said the young man. “The mental agony I have suffered, +during the last two days, wrings from me the avowal to you of a passion +which, as you well know, is not one of yesterday, nor one I have +lightly formed. On Rose, sweet, gentle girl! my heart is set, as firmly +as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no +hope in life, beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you +take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind. +Mother, think better of this, and of me, and do not disregard the +happiness of which you seem to think so little.” + +“Harry,” said Mrs. Maylie, “it is because I think so much of warm and +sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded. But we +have said enough, and more than enough, on this matter, just now.” + +“Let it rest with Rose, then,” interposed Harry. “You will not press +these overstrained opinions of yours, so far, as to throw any obstacle +in my way?” + +“I will not,” rejoined Mrs. Maylie; “but I would have you consider—” + +“I _have_ considered!” was the impatient reply; “Mother, I have +considered, years and years. I have considered, ever since I have been +capable of serious reflection. My feelings remain unchanged, as they +ever will; and why should I suffer the pain of a delay in giving them +vent, which can be productive of no earthly good? No! Before I leave +this place, Rose shall hear me.” + +“She shall,” said Mrs. Maylie. + +“There is something in your manner, which would almost imply that she +will hear me coldly, mother,” said the young man. + +“Not coldly,” rejoined the old lady; “far from it.” + +“How then?” urged the young man. “She has formed no other attachment?” + +“No, indeed,” replied his mother; “you have, or I mistake, too strong a +hold on her affections already. What I would say,” resumed the old +lady, stopping her son as he was about to speak, “is this. Before you +stake your all on this chance; before you suffer yourself to be carried +to the highest point of hope; reflect for a few moments, my dear child, +on Rose’s history, and consider what effect the knowledge of her +doubtful birth may have on her decision: devoted as she is to us, with +all the intensity of her noble mind, and with that perfect sacrifice of +self which, in all matters, great or trifling, has always been her +characteristic.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“That I leave you to discover,” replied Mrs. Maylie. “I must go back to +her. God bless you!” + +“I shall see you again to-night?” said the young man, eagerly. + +“By and by,” replied the lady; “when I leave Rose.” + +“You will tell her I am here?” said Harry. + +“Of course,” replied Mrs. Maylie. + +“And say how anxious I have been, and how much I have suffered, and how +I long to see her. You will not refuse to do this, mother?” + +“No,” said the old lady; “I will tell her all.” And pressing her son’s +hand, affectionately, she hastened from the room. + +Mr. Losberne and Oliver had remained at another end of the apartment +while this hurried conversation was proceeding. The former now held out +his hand to Harry Maylie; and hearty salutations were exchanged between +them. The doctor then communicated, in reply to multifarious questions +from his young friend, a precise account of his patient’s situation; +which was quite as consolatory and full of promise, as Oliver’s +statement had encouraged him to hope; and to the whole of which, Mr. +Giles, who affected to be busy about the luggage, listened with greedy +ears. + +“Have you shot anything particular, lately, Giles?” inquired the +doctor, when he had concluded. + +“Nothing particular, sir,” replied Mr. Giles, colouring up to the eyes. + +“Nor catching any thieves, nor identifying any house-breakers?” said +the doctor. + +“None at all, sir,” replied Mr. Giles, with much gravity. + +“Well,” said the doctor, “I am sorry to hear it, because you do that +sort of thing admirably. Pray, how is Brittles?” + +“The boy is very well, sir,” said Mr. Giles, recovering his usual tone +of patronage; “and sends his respectful duty, sir.” + +“That’s well,” said the doctor. “Seeing you here, reminds me, Mr. +Giles, that on the day before that on which I was called away so +hurriedly, I executed, at the request of your good mistress, a small +commission in your favour. Just step into this corner a moment, will +you?” + +Mr. Giles walked into the corner with much importance, and some wonder, +and was honoured with a short whispering conference with the doctor, on +the termination of which, he made a great many bows, and retired with +steps of unusual stateliness. The subject matter of this conference was +not disclosed in the parlour, but the kitchen was speedily enlightened +concerning it; for Mr. Giles walked straight thither, and having called +for a mug of ale, announced, with an air of majesty, which was highly +effective, that it had pleased his mistress, in consideration of his +gallant behaviour on the occasion of that attempted robbery, to +deposit, in the local savings-bank, the sum of five-and-twenty pounds, +for his sole use and benefit. At this, the two women-servants lifted up +their hands and eyes, and supposed that Mr. Giles, pulling out his +shirt-frill, replied, “No, no”; and that if they observed that he was +at all haughty to his inferiors, he would thank them to tell him so. +And then he made a great many other remarks, no less illustrative of +his humility, which were received with equal favour and applause, and +were, withal, as original and as much to the purpose, as the remarks of +great men commonly are. + +Above stairs, the remainder of the evening passed cheerfully away; for +the doctor was in high spirits; and however fatigued or thoughtful +Harry Maylie might have been at first, he was not proof against the +worthy gentleman’s good humour, which displayed itself in a great +variety of sallies and professional recollections, and an abundance of +small jokes, which struck Oliver as being the drollest things he had +ever heard, and caused him to laugh proportionately; to the evident +satisfaction of the doctor, who laughed immoderately at himself, and +made Harry laugh almost as heartily, by the very force of sympathy. So, +they were as pleasant a party as, under the circumstances, they could +well have been; and it was late before they retired, with light and +thankful hearts, to take that rest of which, after the doubt and +suspense they had recently undergone, they stood much in need. + +Oliver rose next morning, in better heart, and went about his usual +occupations, with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many +days. The birds were once more hung out, to sing, in their old places; +and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found, were once more +gathered to gladden Rose with their beauty. The melancholy which had +seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang, for days past, over +every object, beautiful as all were, was dispelled by magic. The dew +seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves; the air to rustle +among them with a sweeter music; and the sky itself to look more blue +and bright. Such is the influence which the condition of our own +thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects. Men +who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and +gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from +their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and +need a clearer vision. + +It is worthy of remark, and Oliver did not fail to note it at the time, +that his morning expeditions were no longer made alone. Harry Maylie, +after the very first morning when he met Oliver coming laden home, was +seized with such a passion for flowers, and displayed such a taste in +their arrangement, as left his young companion far behind. If Oliver +were behindhand in these respects, he knew where the best were to be +found; and morning after morning they scoured the country together, and +brought home the fairest that blossomed. The window of the young lady’s +chamber was opened now; for she loved to feel the rich summer air +stream in, and revive her with its freshness; but there always stood in +water, just inside the lattice, one particular little bunch, which was +made up with great care, every morning. Oliver could not help noticing +that the withered flowers were never thrown away, although the little +vase was regularly replenished; nor, could he help observing, that +whenever the doctor came into the garden, he invariably cast his eyes +up to that particular corner, and nodded his head most expressively, as +he set forth on his morning’s walk. Pending these observations, the +days were flying by; and Rose was rapidly recovering. + +Nor did Oliver’s time hang heavy on his hands, although the young lady +had not yet left her chamber, and there were no evening walks, save now +and then, for a short distance, with Mrs. Maylie. He applied himself, +with redoubled assiduity, to the instructions of the white-headed old +gentleman, and laboured so hard that his quick progress surprised even +himself. It was while he was engaged in this pursuit, that he was +greatly startled and distressed by a most unexpected occurrence. + +The little room in which he was accustomed to sit, when busy at his +books, was on the ground-floor, at the back of the house. It was quite +a cottage-room, with a lattice-window: around which were clusters of +jessamine and honeysuckle, that crept over the casement, and filled the +place with their delicious perfume. It looked into a garden, whence a +wicket-gate opened into a small paddock; all beyond, was fine +meadow-land and wood. There was no other dwelling near, in that +direction; and the prospect it commanded was very extensive. + +One beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning +to settle upon the earth, Oliver sat at this window, intent upon his +books. He had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had +been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, it is +no disparagement to the authors, whoever they may have been, to say, +that gradually and by slow degrees, he fell asleep. + +There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it +holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things +about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an +overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter +inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called +sleep, this is it; and yet, we have a consciousness of all that is +going on about us, and, if we dream at such a time, words which are +really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate +themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and +imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost +matter of impossibility to separate the two. Nor is this, the most +striking phenomenon incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted +fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, +yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before +us, will be influenced and materially influenced, by the _mere silent +presence_ of some external object; which may not have been near us when +we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking +consciousness. + +Oliver knew, perfectly well, that he was in his own little room; that +his books were lying on the table before him; that the sweet air was +stirring among the creeping plants outside. And yet he was asleep. +Suddenly, the scene changed; the air became close and confined; and he +thought, with a glow of terror, that he was in the Jew’s house again. +There sat the hideous old man, in his accustomed corner, pointing at +him, and whispering to another man, with his face averted, who sat +beside him. + +“Hush, my dear!” he thought he heard the Jew say; “it is he, sure +enough. Come away.” + +“He!” the other man seemed to answer; “could I mistake him, think you? +If a crowd of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact shape, and +he stood amongst them, there is something that would tell me how to +point him out. If you buried him fifty feet deep, and took me across +his grave, I fancy I should know, if there wasn’t a mark above it, that +he lay buried there?” + +The man seemed to say this, with such dreadful hatred, that Oliver +awoke with the fear, and started up. + +Good Heaven! what was that, which sent the blood tingling to his heart, +and deprived him of his voice, and of power to move! There—there—at the +window—close before him—so close, that he could have almost touched him +before he started back: with his eyes peering into the room, and +meeting his: there stood the Jew! And beside him, white with rage or +fear, or both, were the scowling features of the man who had accosted +him in the inn-yard. + +It was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before his eyes; and they +were gone. But they had recognised him, and he them; and their look was +as firmly impressed upon his memory, as if it had been deeply carved in +stone, and set before him from his birth. He stood transfixed for a +moment; then, leaping from the window into the garden, called loudly +for help. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV. +CONTAINING THE UNSATISFACTORY RESULT OF OLIVER’S ADVENTURE; AND A +CONVERSATION OF SOME IMPORTANCE BETWEEN HARRY MAYLIE AND ROSE + + +When the inmates of the house, attracted by Oliver’s cries, hurried to +the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, +pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely +able to articulate the words, “The Jew! the Jew!” + +Mr. Giles was at a loss to comprehend what this outcry meant; but Harry +Maylie, whose perceptions were something quicker, and who had heard +Oliver’s history from his mother, understood it at once. + +“What direction did he take?” he asked, catching up a heavy stick which +was standing in a corner. + +“That,” replied Oliver, pointing out the course the man had taken; “I +missed them in an instant.” + +“Then, they are in the ditch!” said Harry. “Follow! And keep as near +me, as you can.” So saying, he sprang over the hedge, and darted off +with a speed which rendered it matter of exceeding difficulty for the +others to keep near him. + +Giles followed as well as he could; and Oliver followed too; and in the +course of a minute or two, Mr. Losberne, who had been out walking, and +just then returned, tumbled over the hedge after them, and picking +himself up with more agility than he could have been supposed to +possess, struck into the same course at no contemptible speed, shouting +all the while, most prodigiously, to know what was the matter. + +On they all went; nor stopped they once to breathe, until the leader, +striking off into an angle of the field indicated by Oliver, began to +search, narrowly, the ditch and hedge adjoining; which afforded time +for the remainder of the party to come up; and for Oliver to +communicate to Mr. Losberne the circumstances that had led to so +vigorous a pursuit. + +The search was all in vain. There were not even the traces of recent +footsteps, to be seen. They stood now, on the summit of a little hill, +commanding the open fields in every direction for three or four miles. +There was the village in the hollow on the left; but, in order to gain +that, after pursuing the track Oliver had pointed out, the men must +have made a circuit of open ground, which it was impossible they could +have accomplished in so short a time. A thick wood skirted the +meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that +covert for the same reason. + +“It must have been a dream, Oliver,” said Harry Maylie. + +“Oh no, indeed, sir,” replied Oliver, shuddering at the very +recollection of the old wretch’s countenance; “I saw him too plainly +for that. I saw them both, as plainly as I see you now.” + +“Who was the other?” inquired Harry and Mr. Losberne, together. + +“The very same man I told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the +inn,” said Oliver. “We had our eyes fixed full upon each other; and I +could swear to him.” + +“They took this way?” demanded Harry: “are you sure?” + +“As I am that the men were at the window,” replied Oliver, pointing +down, as he spoke, to the hedge which divided the cottage-garden from +the meadow. “The tall man leaped over, just there; and the Jew, running +a few paces to the right, crept through that gap.” + +The two gentlemen watched Oliver’s earnest face, as he spoke, and +looking from him to each other, seemed to feel satisfied of the +accuracy of what he said. Still, in no direction were there any +appearances of the trampling of men in hurried flight. The grass was +long; but it was trodden down nowhere, save where their own feet had +crushed it. The sides and brinks of the ditches were of damp clay; but +in no one place could they discern the print of men’s shoes, or the +slightest mark which would indicate that any feet had pressed the +ground for hours before. + +“This is strange!” said Harry. + +“Strange?” echoed the doctor. “Blathers and Duff, themselves, could +make nothing of it.” + +Notwithstanding the evidently useless nature of their search, they did +not desist until the coming on of night rendered its further +prosecution hopeless; and even then, they gave it up with reluctance. +Giles was dispatched to the different ale-houses in the village, +furnished with the best description Oliver could give of the appearance +and dress of the strangers. Of these, the Jew was, at all events, +sufficiently remarkable to be remembered, supposing he had been seen +drinking, or loitering about; but Giles returned without any +intelligence, calculated to dispel or lessen the mystery. + +On the next day, fresh search was made, and the inquiries renewed; but +with no better success. On the day following, Oliver and Mr. Maylie +repaired to the market-town, in the hope of seeing or hearing something +of the men there; but this effort was equally fruitless. After a few +days, the affair began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when +wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself. + +Meanwhile, Rose was rapidly recovering. She had left her room: was able +to go out; and mixing once more with the family, carried joy into the +hearts of all. + +But, although this happy change had a visible effect on the little +circle; and although cheerful voices and merry laughter were once more +heard in the cottage; there was at times, an unwonted restraint upon +some there: even upon Rose herself: which Oliver could not fail to +remark. Mrs. Maylie and her son were often closeted together for a long +time; and more than once Rose appeared with traces of tears upon her +face. After Mr. Losberne had fixed a day for his departure to Chertsey, +these symptoms increased; and it became evident that something was in +progress which affected the peace of the young lady, and of somebody +else besides. + +At length, one morning, when Rose was alone in the breakfast-parlour, +Harry Maylie entered; and, with some hesitation, begged permission to +speak with her for a few moments. + +“A few—a very few—will suffice, Rose,” said the young man, drawing his +chair towards her. “What I shall have to say, has already presented +itself to your mind; the most cherished hopes of my heart are not +unknown to you, though from my lips you have not heard them stated.” + +Rose had been very pale from the moment of his entrance; but that might +have been the effect of her recent illness. She merely bowed; and +bending over some plants that stood near, waited in silence for him to +proceed. + +“I—I—ought to have left here, before,” said Harry. + +“You should, indeed,” replied Rose. “Forgive me for saying so, but I +wish you had.” + +“I was brought here, by the most dreadful and agonising of all +apprehensions,” said the young man; “the fear of losing the one dear +being on whom my every wish and hope are fixed. You had been dying; +trembling between earth and heaven. We know that when the young, the +beautiful, and good, are visited with sickness, their pure spirits +insensibly turn towards their bright home of lasting rest; we know, +Heaven help us! that the best and fairest of our kind, too often fade +in blooming.” + +There were tears in the eyes of the gentle girl, as these words were +spoken; and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and +glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as +though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred +naturally, with the loveliest things in nature. + +“A creature,” continued the young man, passionately, “a creature as +fair and innocent of guile as one of God’s own angels, fluttered +between life and death. Oh! who could hope, when the distant world to +which she was akin, half opened to her view, that she would return to +the sorrow and calamity of this! Rose, Rose, to know that you were +passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above, casts +upon the earth; to have no hope that you would be spared to those who +linger here; hardly to know a reason why you should be; to feel that +you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many of the fairest and +the best have winged their early flight; and yet to pray, amid all +these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved +you—these were distractions almost too great to bear. They were mine, +by day and night; and with them, came such a rushing torrent of fears, +and apprehensions, and selfish regrets, lest you should die, and never +know how devotedly I loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in +its course. You recovered. Day by day, and almost hour by hour, some +drop of health came back, and mingling with the spent and feeble stream +of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a +high and rushing tide. I have watched you change almost from death, to +life, with eyes that turned blind with their eagerness and deep +affection. Do not tell me that you wish I had lost this; for it has +softened my heart to all mankind.” + +“I did not mean that,” said Rose, weeping; “I only wish you had left +here, that you might have turned to high and noble pursuits again; to +pursuits well worthy of you.” + +“There is no pursuit more worthy of me: more worthy of the highest +nature that exists: than the struggle to win such a heart as yours,” +said the young man, taking her hand. “Rose, my own dear Rose! For +years—for years—I have loved you; hoping to win my way to fame, and +then come proudly home and tell you it had been pursued only for you to +share; thinking, in my daydreams, how I would remind you, in that happy +moment, of the many silent tokens I had given of a boy’s attachment, +and claim your hand, as in redemption of some old mute contract that +had been sealed between us! That time has not arrived; but here, with +not fame won, and no young vision realised, I offer you the heart so +long your own, and stake my all upon the words with which you greet the +offer.” + +“Your behaviour has ever been kind and noble.” said Rose, mastering the +emotions by which she was agitated. “As you believe that I am not +insensible or ungrateful, so hear my answer.” + +“It is, that I may endeavour to deserve you; it is, dear Rose?” + +“It is,” replied Rose, “that you must endeavour to forget me; not as +your old and dearly-attached companion, for that would wound me deeply; +but, as the object of your love. Look into the world; think how many +hearts you would be proud to gain, are there. Confide some other +passion to me, if you will; I will be the truest, warmest, and most +faithful friend you have.” + +There was a pause, during which, Rose, who had covered her face with +one hand, gave free vent to her tears. Harry still retained the other. + +“And your reasons, Rose,” he said, at length, in a low voice; “your +reasons for this decision?” + +“You have a right to know them,” rejoined Rose. “You can say nothing to +alter my resolution. It is a duty that I must perform. I owe it, alike +to others, and to myself.” + +“To yourself?” + +“Yes, Harry. I owe it to myself, that I, a friendless, portionless, +girl, with a blight upon my name, should not give your friends reason +to suspect that I had sordidly yielded to your first passion, and +fastened myself, a clog, on all your hopes and projects. I owe it to +you and yours, to prevent you from opposing, in the warmth of your +generous nature, this great obstacle to your progress in the world.” + +“If your inclinations chime with your sense of duty—” Harry began. + +“They do not,” replied Rose, colouring deeply. + +“Then you return my love?” said Harry. “Say but that, dear Rose; say +but that; and soften the bitterness of this hard disappointment!” + +“If I could have done so, without doing heavy wrong to him I loved,” +rejoined Rose, “I could have—” + +“Have received this declaration very differently?” said Harry. “Do not +conceal that from me, at least, Rose.” + +“I could,” said Rose. “Stay!” she added, disengaging her hand, “why +should we prolong this painful interview? Most painful to me, and yet +productive of lasting happiness, notwithstanding; for it _will_ be +happiness to know that I once held the high place in your regard which +I now occupy, and every triumph you achieve in life will animate me +with new fortitude and firmness. Farewell, Harry! As we have met +to-day, we meet no more; but in other relations than those in which +this conversation have placed us, we may be long and happily entwined; +and may every blessing that the prayers of a true and earnest heart can +call down from the source of all truth and sincerity, cheer and prosper +you!” + +“Another word, Rose,” said Harry. “Your reason in your own words. From +your own lips, let me hear it!” + +“The prospect before you,” answered Rose, firmly, “is a brilliant one. +All the honours to which great talents and powerful connections can +help men in public life, are in store for you. But those connections +are proud; and I will neither mingle with such as may hold in scorn the +mother who gave me life; nor bring disgrace or failure on the son of +her who has so well supplied that mother’s place. In a word,” said the +young lady, turning away, as her temporary firmness forsook her, “there +is a stain upon my name, which the world visits on innocent heads. I +will carry it into no blood but my own; and the reproach shall rest +alone on me.” + +“One word more, Rose. Dearest Rose! one more!” cried Harry, throwing +himself before her. “If I had been less—less fortunate, the world would +call it—if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny—if I had +been poor, sick, helpless—would you have turned from me then? Or has my +probable advancement to riches and honour, given this scruple birth?” + +“Do not press me to reply,” answered Rose. “The question does not +arise, and never will. It is unfair, almost unkind, to urge it.” + +“If your answer be what I almost dare to hope it is,” retorted Harry, +“it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the +path before me. It is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance +of a few brief words, for one who loves you beyond all else. Oh, Rose: +in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment; in the name of all I +have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo; answer me this +one question!” + +“Then, if your lot had been differently cast,” rejoined Rose; “if you +had been even a little, but not so far, above me; if I could have been +a help and comfort to you in any humble scene of peace and retirement, +and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds; I +should have been spared this trial. I have every reason to be happy, +very happy, now; but then, Harry, I own I should have been happier.” + +Busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl, long ago, crowded +into the mind of Rose, while making this avowal; but they brought tears +with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered; and they +relieved her. + +“I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,” said +Rose, extending her hand. “I must leave you now, indeed.” + +“I ask one promise,” said Harry. “Once, and only once more,—say within +a year, but it may be much sooner,—I may speak to you again on this +subject, for the last time.” + +“Not to press me to alter my right determination,” replied Rose, with a +melancholy smile; “it will be useless.” + +“No,” said Harry; “to hear you repeat it, if you will—finally repeat +it! I will lay at your feet, whatever of station of fortune I may +possess; and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not +seek, by word or act, to change it.” + +“Then let it be so,” rejoined Rose; “it is but one pang the more, and +by that time I may be enabled to bear it better.” + +She extended her hand again. But the young man caught her to his bosom; +and imprinting one kiss on her beautiful forehead, hurried from the +room. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. +IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN ITS +PLACE, BUT IT SHOULD BE READ NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST, +AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME ARRIVES + + +“And so you are resolved to be my travelling companion this morning; +eh?” said the doctor, as Harry Maylie joined him and Oliver at the +breakfast-table. “Why, you are not in the same mind or intention two +half-hours together!” + +“You will tell me a different tale one of these days,” said Harry, +colouring without any perceptible reason. + +“I hope I may have good cause to do so,” replied Mr. Losberne; “though +I confess I don’t think I shall. But yesterday morning you had made up +your mind, in a great hurry, to stay here, and to accompany your +mother, like a dutiful son, to the sea-side. Before noon, you announce +that you are going to do me the honour of accompanying me as far as I +go, on your road to London. And at night, you urge me, with great +mystery, to start before the ladies are stirring; the consequence of +which is, that young Oliver here is pinned down to his breakfast when +he ought to be ranging the meadows after botanical phenomena of all +kinds. Too bad, isn’t it, Oliver?” + +“I should have been very sorry not to have been at home when you and +Mr. Maylie went away, sir,” rejoined Oliver. + +“That’s a fine fellow,” said the doctor; “you shall come and see me +when you return. But, to speak seriously, Harry; has any communication +from the great nobs produced this sudden anxiety on your part to be +gone?” + +“The great nobs,” replied Harry, “under which designation, I presume, +you include my most stately uncle, have not communicated with me at +all, since I have been here; nor, at this time of the year, is it +likely that anything would occur to render necessary my immediate +attendance among them.” + +“Well,” said the doctor, “you are a queer fellow. But of course they +will get you into parliament at the election before Christmas, and +these sudden shiftings and changes are no bad preparation for political +life. There’s something in that. Good training is always desirable, +whether the race be for place, cup, or sweepstakes.” + +Harry Maylie looked as if he could have followed up this short dialogue +by one or two remarks that would have staggered the doctor not a +little; but he contented himself with saying, “We shall see,” and +pursued the subject no farther. The post-chaise drove up to the door +shortly afterwards; and Giles coming in for the luggage, the good +doctor bustled out, to see it packed. + +“Oliver,” said Harry Maylie, in a low voice, “let me speak a word with +you.” + +Oliver walked into the window-recess to which Mr. Maylie beckoned him; +much surprised at the mixture of sadness and boisterous spirits, which +his whole behaviour displayed. + +“You can write well now?” said Harry, laying his hand upon his arm. + +“I hope so, sir,” replied Oliver. + +“I shall not be at home again, perhaps for some time; I wish you would +write to me—say once a fort-night: every alternate Monday: to the +General Post Office in London. Will you?” + +“Oh! certainly, sir; I shall be proud to do it,” exclaimed Oliver, +greatly delighted with the commission. + +“I should like to know how—how my mother and Miss Maylie are,” said the +young man; “and you can fill up a sheet by telling me what walks you +take, and what you talk about, and whether she—they, I mean—seem happy +and quite well. You understand me?” + +“Oh! quite, sir, quite,” replied Oliver. + +“I would rather you did not mention it to them,” said Harry, hurrying +over his words; “because it might make my mother anxious to write to me +oftener, and it is a trouble and worry to her. Let it be a secret +between you and me; and mind you tell me everything! I depend upon +you.” + +Oliver, quite elated and honoured by a sense of his importance, +faithfully promised to be secret and explicit in his communications. +Mr. Maylie took leave of him, with many assurances of his regard and +protection. + +The doctor was in the chaise; Giles (who, it had been arranged, should +be left behind) held the door open in his hand; and the women-servants +were in the garden, looking on. Harry cast one slight glance at the +latticed window, and jumped into the carriage. + +“Drive on!” he cried, “hard, fast, full gallop! Nothing short of flying +will keep pace with me, to-day.” + +“Halloa!” cried the doctor, letting down the front glass in a great +hurry, and shouting to the postillion; “something very short of flying +will keep pace with _me_. Do you hear?” + +Jingling and clattering, till distance rendered its noise inaudible, +and its rapid progress only perceptible to the eye, the vehicle wound +its way along the road, almost hidden in a cloud of dust: now wholly +disappearing, and now becoming visible again, as intervening objects, +or the intricacies of the way, permitted. It was not until even the +dusty cloud was no longer to be seen, that the gazers dispersed. + +And there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed upon the spot +where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away; +for, behind the white curtain which had shrouded her from view when +Harry raised his eyes towards the window, sat Rose herself. + +“He seems in high spirits and happy,” she said, at length. “I feared +for a time he might be otherwise. I was mistaken. I am very, very +glad.” + +Tears are signs of gladness as well as grief; but those which coursed +down Rose’s face, as she sat pensively at the window, still gazing in +the same direction, seemed to tell more of sorrow than of joy. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII. +IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN +MATRIMONIAL CASES + + +Mr. Bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, with his eyes moodily fixed on +the cheerless grate, whence, as it was summer time, no brighter gleam +proceeded, than the reflection of certain sickly rays of the sun, which +were sent back from its cold and shining surface. A paper fly-cage +dangled from the ceiling, to which he occasionally raised his eyes in +gloomy thought; and, as the heedless insects hovered round the gaudy +net-work, Mr. Bumble would heave a deep sigh, while a more gloomy +shadow overspread his countenance. Mr. Bumble was meditating; it might +be that the insects brought to mind, some painful passage in his own +past life. + +Nor was Mr. Bumble’s gloom the only thing calculated to awaken a +pleasing melancholy in the bosom of a spectator. There were not wanting +other appearances, and those closely connected with his own person, +which announced that a great change had taken place in the position of +his affairs. The laced coat, and the cocked hat; where were they? He +still wore knee-breeches, and dark cotton stockings on his nether +limbs; but they were not _the_ breeches. The coat was wide-skirted; and +in that respect like _the_ coat, but, oh how different! The mighty +cocked hat was replaced by a modest round one. Mr. Bumble was no longer +a beadle. + +There are some promotions in life, which, independent of the more +substantial rewards they offer, require peculiar value and dignity from +the coats and waistcoats connected with them. A field-marshal has his +uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a counsellor his silk gown; a beadle +his cocked hat. Strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat +and lace; what are they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too, +sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people +imagine. + +Mr. Bumble had married Mrs. Corney, and was master of the workhouse. +Another beadle had come into power. On him the cocked hat, gold-laced +coat, and staff, had all three descended. + +“And to-morrow two months it was done!” said Mr. Bumble, with a sigh. +“It seems a age.” + +Mr. Bumble might have meant that he had concentrated a whole existence +of happiness into the short space of eight weeks; but the sigh—there +was a vast deal of meaning in the sigh. + +“I sold myself,” said Mr. Bumble, pursuing the same train of relection, +“for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a milk-pot; with a small +quantity of second-hand furniture, and twenty pound in money. I went +very reasonable. Cheap, dirt cheap!” + +“Cheap!” cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble’s ear: “you would have been +dear at any price; and dear enough I paid for you, Lord above knows +that!” + +Mr. Bumble turned, and encountered the face of his interesting consort, +who, imperfectly comprehending the few words she had overheard of his +complaint, had hazarded the foregoing remark at a venture. + +“Mrs. Bumble, ma’am!” said Mr. Bumble, with a sentimental sternness. + +“Well!” cried the lady. + +“Have the goodness to look at me,” said Mr. Bumble, fixing his eyes +upon her. + +“If she stands such a eye as that,” said Mr. Bumble to himself, “she +can stand anything. It is a eye I never knew to fail with paupers. If +it fails with her, my power is gone.” + +Whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to quell +paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high condition; or +whether the late Mrs. Corney was particularly proof against eagle +glances; are matters of opinion. The matter of fact, is, that the +matron was in no way overpowered by Mr. Bumble’s scowl, but, on the +contrary, treated it with great disdain, and even raised a laugh +thereat, which sounded as though it were genuine. + +On hearing this most unexpected sound, Mr. Bumble looked, first +incredulous, and afterwards amazed. He then relapsed into his former +state; nor did he rouse himself until his attention was again awakened +by the voice of his partner. + +“Are you going to sit snoring there, all day?” inquired Mrs. Bumble. + +“I am going to sit here, as long as I think proper, ma’am,” rejoined +Mr. Bumble; “and although I was _not_ snoring, I shall snore, gape, +sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me; such being my +prerogative.” + +“_Your_ prerogative!” sneered Mrs. Bumble, with ineffable contempt. + +“I said the word, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble. “The prerogative of a man is +to command.” + +“And what’s the prerogative of a woman, in the name of Goodness?” cried +the relict of Mr. Corney deceased. + +“To obey, ma’am,” thundered Mr. Bumble. “Your late unfortunate husband +should have taught it you; and then, perhaps, he might have been alive +now. I wish he was, poor man!” + +Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance, that the decisive moment had now +arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or +other, must necessarily be final and conclusive, no sooner heard this +allusion to the dead and gone, than she dropped into a chair, and with +a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a +paroxysm of tears. + +But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble’s soul; +his heart was waterproof. Like washable beaver hats that improve with +rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more vigorous, by showers of +tears, which, being tokens of weakness, and so far tacit admissions of +his own power, pleased and exalted him. He eyed his good lady with +looks of great satisfaction, and begged, in an encouraging manner, that +she should cry her hardest: the exercise being looked upon, by the +faculty, as strongly conducive to health. + +“It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and +softens down the temper,” said Mr. Bumble. “So cry away.” + +As he discharged himself of this pleasantry, Mr. Bumble took his hat +from a peg, and putting it on, rather rakishly, on one side, as a man +might, who felt he had asserted his superiority in a becoming manner, +thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered towards the door, with +much ease and waggishness depicted in his whole appearance. + +Now, Mrs. Corney that was, had tried the tears, because they were less +troublesome than a manual assault; but, she was quite prepared to make +trial of the latter mode of proceeding, as Mr. Bumble was not long in +discovering. + +The first proof he experienced of the fact, was conveyed in a hollow +sound, immediately succeeded by the sudden flying off of his hat to the +opposite end of the room. This preliminary proceeding laying bare his +head, the expert lady, clasping him tightly round the throat with one +hand, inflicted a shower of blows (dealt with singular vigour and +dexterity) upon it with the other. This done, she created a little +variety by scratching his face, and tearing his hair; and, having, by +this time, inflicted as much punishment as she deemed necessary for the +offence, she pushed him over a chair, which was luckily well situated +for the purpose: and defied him to talk about his prerogative again, if +he dared. + +“Get up!” said Mrs. Bumble, in a voice of command. “And take yourself +away from here, unless you want me to do something desperate.” + +Mr. Bumble rose with a very rueful countenance: wondering much what +something desperate might be. Picking up his hat, he looked towards the +door. + +“Are you going?” demanded Mrs. Bumble. + +“Certainly, my dear, certainly,” rejoined Mr. Bumble, making a quicker +motion towards the door. “I didn’t intend to—I’m going, my dear! You +are so very violent, that really I—” + +At this instant, Mrs. Bumble stepped hastily forward to replace the +carpet, which had been kicked up in the scuffle. Mr. Bumble immediately +darted out of the room, without bestowing another thought on his +unfinished sentence: leaving the late Mrs. Corney in full possession of +the field. + +Mr. Bumble was fairly taken by surprise, and fairly beaten. He had a +decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable pleasure +from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently, was (it is +needless to say) a coward. This is by no means a disparagement to his +character; for many official personages, who are held in high respect +and admiration, are the victims of similar infirmities. The remark is +made, indeed, rather in his favour than otherwise, and with a view of +impressing the reader with a just sense of his qualifications for +office. + +But, the measure of his degradation was not yet full. After making a +tour of the house, and thinking, for the first time, that the poor-laws +really were too hard on people; and that men who ran away from their +wives, leaving them chargeable to the parish, ought, in justice to be +visited with no punishment at all, but rather rewarded as meritorious +individuals who had suffered much; Mr. Bumble came to a room where some +of the female paupers were usually employed in washing the parish +linen: when the sound of voices in conversation, now proceeded. + +“Hem!” said Mr. Bumble, summoning up all his native dignity. “These +women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative. Hallo! hallo +there! What do you mean by this noise, you hussies?” + +With these words, Mr. Bumble opened the door, and walked in with a very +fierce and angry manner: which was at once exchanged for a most +humiliated and cowering air, as his eyes unexpectedly rested on the +form of his lady wife. + +“My dear,” said Mr. Bumble, “I didn’t know you were here.” + +“Didn’t know I was here!” repeated Mrs. Bumble. “What do _you_ do +here?” + +“I thought they were talking rather too much to be doing their work +properly, my dear,” replied Mr. Bumble: glancing distractedly at a +couple of old women at the wash-tub, who were comparing notes of +admiration at the workhouse-master’s humility. + +“_You_ thought they were talking too much?” said Mrs. Bumble. “What +business is it of yours?” + +“Why, my dear—” urged Mr. Bumble submissively. + +“What business is it of yours?” demanded Mrs. Bumble, again. + +“It’s very true, you’re matron here, my dear,” submitted Mr. Bumble; +“but I thought you mightn’t be in the way just then.” + +“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Bumble,” returned his lady. “We don’t want any +of your interference. You’re a great deal too fond of poking your nose +into things that don’t concern you, making everybody in the house +laugh, the moment your back is turned, and making yourself look like a +fool every hour in the day. Be off; come!” + +Mr. Bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings, the delight of the two +old paupers, who were tittering together most rapturously, hesitated +for an instant. Mrs. Bumble, whose patience brooked no delay, caught up +a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards the door, ordered him +instantly to depart, on pain of receiving the contents upon his portly +person. + +What could Mr. Bumble do? He looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; +and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a +shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight. It wanted but this. He was +degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very +paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to +the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. + +“All in two months!” said Mr. Bumble, filled with dismal thoughts. “Two +months! No more than two months ago, I was not only my own master, but +everybody else’s, so far as the porochial workhouse was concerned, and +now!—” + +It was too much. Mr. Bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened the +gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie); and +walked, distractedly, into the street. + +He walked up one street, and down another, until exercise had abated +the first passion of his grief; and then the revulsion of feeling made +him thirsty. He passed a great many public-houses; but, at length +paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as he gathered from a +hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save by one solitary +customer. It began to rain, heavily, at the moment. This determined +him. Mr. Bumble stepped in; and ordering something to drink, as he +passed the bar, entered the apartment into which he had looked from the +street. + +The man who was seated there, was tall and dark, and wore a large +cloak. He had the air of a stranger; and seemed, by a certain +haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his dress, to +have travelled some distance. He eyed Bumble askance, as he entered, +but scarcely deigned to nod his head in acknowledgment of his +salutation. + +Mr. Bumble had quite dignity enough for two; supposing even that the +stranger had been more familiar: so he drank his gin-and-water in +silence, and read the paper with great show of pomp and circumstance. + +It so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men fall +into company under such circumstances: that Mr. Bumble felt, every now +and then, a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a +look at the stranger: and that whenever he did so, he withdrew his +eyes, in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment +stealing a look at him. Mr. Bumble’s awkwardness was enhanced by the +very remarkable expression of the stranger’s eye, which was keen and +bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike +anything he had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold. + +When they had encountered each other’s glance several times in this +way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence. + +“Were you looking for me,” he said, “when you peered in at the window?” + +“Not that I am aware of, unless you’re Mr.—” Here Mr. Bumble stopped +short; for he was curious to know the stranger’s name, and thought in +his impatience, he might supply the blank. + +“I see you were not,” said the stranger; an expression of quiet sarcasm +playing about his mouth; “or you have known my name. You don’t know it. +I would recommend you not to ask for it.” + +“I meant no harm, young man,” observed Mr. Bumble, majestically. + +“And have done none,” said the stranger. + +Another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again broken +by the stranger. + +“I have seen you before, I think?” said he. “You were differently +dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the street, but I should +know you again. You were beadle here, once; were you not?” + +“I was,” said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; “porochial beadle.” + +“Just so,” rejoined the other, nodding his head. “It was in that +character I saw you. What are you now?” + +“Master of the workhouse,” rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and +impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might +otherwise assume. “Master of the workhouse, young man!” + +“You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, I +doubt not?” resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble’s +eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question. + +“Don’t scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well, you see.” + +“I suppose, a married man,” replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with +his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident +perplexity, “is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can, +than a single one. Porochial officers are not so well paid that they +can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a +civil and proper manner.” + +The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had +not mistaken his man; then rang the bell. + +“Fill this glass again,” he said, handing Mr. Bumble’s empty tumbler to +the landlord. “Let it be strong and hot. You like it so, I suppose?” + +“Not too strong,” replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough. + +“You understand what that means, landlord!” said the stranger, drily. + +The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a +steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water into Mr. +Bumble’s eyes. + +“Now listen to me,” said the stranger, after closing the door and +window. “I came down to this place, to-day, to find you out; and, by +one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends +sometimes, you walked into the very room I was sitting in, while you +were uppermost in my mind. I want some information from you. I don’t +ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is. Put up that, to begin +with.” + +As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his +companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money +should be heard without. When Mr. Bumble had scrupulously examined the +coins, to see that they were genuine, and had put them up, with much +satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on: + +“Carry your memory back—let me see—twelve years, last winter.” + +“It’s a long time,” said Mr. Bumble. “Very good. I’ve done it.” + +“The scene, the workhouse.” + +“Good!” + +“And the time, night.” + +“Yes.” + +“And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable +drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied to +themselves—gave birth to puling children for the parish to rear; and +hid their shame, rot ’em in the grave!” + +“The lying-in room, I suppose?” said Mr. Bumble, not quite following +the stranger’s excited description. + +“Yes,” said the stranger. “A boy was born there.” + +“A many boys,” observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head, despondingly. + +“A murrain on the young devils!” cried the stranger; “I speak of one; a +meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a +coffin-maker—I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in +it—and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed.” + +“Why, you mean Oliver! Young Twist!” said Mr. Bumble; “I remember him, +of course. There wasn’t a obstinater young rascal—” + +“It’s not of him I want to hear; I’ve heard enough of him,” said the +stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject +of poor Oliver’s vices. “It’s of a woman; the hag that nursed his +mother. Where is she?” + +“Where is she?” said Mr. Bumble, whom the gin-and-water had rendered +facetious. “It would be hard to tell. There’s no midwifery there, +whichever place she’s gone to; so I suppose she’s out of employment, +anyway.” + +“What do you mean?” demanded the stranger, sternly. + +“That she died last winter,” rejoined Mr. Bumble. + +The man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information, and +although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time afterwards, his +gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and he seemed lost in +thought. For some time, he appeared doubtful whether he ought to be +relieved or disappointed by the intelligence; but at length he breathed +more freely; and withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great +matter. With that he rose, as if to depart. + +But Mr. Bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an +opportunity was opened, for the lucrative disposal of some secret in +the possession of his better half. He well remembered the night of old +Sally’s death, which the occurrences of that day had given him good +reason to recollect, as the occasion on which he had proposed to Mrs. +Corney; and although that lady had never confided to him the disclosure +of which she had been the solitary witness, he had heard enough to know +that it related to something that had occurred in the old woman’s +attendance, as workhouse nurse, upon the young mother of Oliver Twist. +Hastily calling this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, +with an air of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old +harridan shortly before she died; and that she could, as he had reason +to believe, throw some light on the subject of his inquiry. + +“How can I find her?” said the stranger, thrown off his guard; and +plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were aroused +afresh by the intelligence. + +“Only through me,” rejoined Mr. Bumble. + +“When?” cried the stranger, hastily. + +“To-morrow,” rejoined Bumble. + +“At nine in the evening,” said the stranger, producing a scrap of +paper, and writing down upon it, an obscure address by the water-side, +in characters that betrayed his agitation; “at nine in the evening, +bring her to me there. I needn’t tell you to be secret. It’s your +interest.” + +With these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to pay for +the liquor that had been drunk. Shortly remarking that their roads were +different, he departed, without more ceremony than an emphatic +repetition of the hour of appointment for the following night. + +On glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed that it +contained no name. The stranger had not gone far, so he made after him +to ask it. + +“What do you want?” cried the man, turning quickly round, as Bumble +touched him on the arm. “Following me?” + +“Only to ask a question,” said the other, pointing to the scrap of +paper. “What name am I to ask for?” + +“Monks!” rejoined the man; and strode hastily away. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII. +CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE, AND +MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW + + +It was a dull, close, overcast summer evening. The clouds, which had +been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of +vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a +violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the +main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered +little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half, +or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering upon +the river. + +They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might, +perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the +rain, and sheltering them from observation. The husband carried a +lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few +paces in front, as though—the way being dirty—to give his wife the +benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. They went on, in profound +silence; every now and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned +his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, +discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of +walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards +their place of destination. + +This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long +been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under +various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on +plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere hovels: some, hastily +built with loose bricks: others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled +together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for +the most part, within a few feet of the river’s bank. A few leaky boats +drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: +and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to +indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some +avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless +condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by, +without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed +there, rather for the preservation of appearances, than with any view +to their being actually employed. + +In the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river, which its +upper stories overhung; stood a large building, formerly used as a +manufactory of some kind. It had, in its day, probably furnished +employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements. But it had +long since gone to ruin. The rat, the worm, and the action of the damp, +had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable +portion of the building had already sunk down into the water; while the +remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a +favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and involving +itself in the same fate. + +It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused, as +the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain +commenced pouring violently down. + +“The place should be somewhere here,” said Bumble, consulting a scrap +of paper he held in his hand. + +“Halloa there!” cried a voice from above. + +Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man +looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story. + +“Stand still, a minute,” cried the voice; “I’ll be with you directly.” +With which the head disappeared, and the door closed. + +“Is that the man?” asked Mr. Bumble’s good lady. + +Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative. + +“Then, mind what I told you,” said the matron: “and be careful to say +as little as you can, or you’ll betray us at once.” + +Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was +apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of +proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was +prevented by the appearance of Monks: who opened a small door, near +which they stood, and beckoned them inwards. + +“Come in!” he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground. +“Don’t keep me here!” + +The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without any +other invitation. Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind, +followed: obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that +remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic. + +“What the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?” said +Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the +door behind them. + +“We—we were only cooling ourselves,” stammered Bumble, looking +apprehensively about him. + +“Cooling yourselves!” retorted Monks. “Not all the rain that ever fell, +or ever will fall, will put as much of hell’s fire out, as a man can +carry about with him. You won’t cool yourself so easily; don’t think +it!” + +With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron, and +bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was +fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground. + +“This is the woman, is it?” demanded Monks. + +“Hem! That is the woman,” replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife’s +caution. + +“You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?” said the matron, +interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching look of Monks. + +“I know they will always keep _one_ till it’s found out,” said Monks. + +“And what may that be?” asked the matron. + +“The loss of their own good name,” replied Monks. “So, by the same +rule, if a woman’s a party to a secret that might hang or transport +her, I’m not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not I! Do you +understand, mistress?” + +“No,” rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke. + +“Of course you don’t!” said Monks. “How should you?” + +Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two +companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened +across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the +roof. He was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder, +leading to another floor of warehouses above: when a bright flash of +lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, +which shook the crazy building to its centre. + +“Hear it!” he cried, shrinking back. “Hear it! Rolling and crashing on +as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding +from it. I hate the sound!” + +He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands +suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr. +Bumble, that it was much distorted and discoloured. + +“These fits come over me, now and then,” said Monks, observing his +alarm; “and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don’t mind me now; it’s +all over for this once.” + +Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing the +window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which +hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy +beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim light upon an old table and +three chairs that were placed beneath it. + +“Now,” said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, “the +sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The woman know what +it is, does she?” + +The question was addressed to Bumble; but his wife anticipated the +reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it. + +“He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died; +and that she told you something—” + +“About the mother of the boy you named,” replied the matron +interrupting him. “Yes.” + +“The first question is, of what nature was her communication?” said +Monks. + +“That’s the second,” observed the woman with much deliberation. “The +first is, what may the communication be worth?” + +“Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?” +asked Monks. + +“Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,” answered Mrs. Bumble: who did +not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify. + +“Humph!” said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry; +“there may be money’s worth to get, eh?” + +“Perhaps there may,” was the composed reply. + +“Something that was taken from her,” said Monks. “Something that she +wore. Something that—” + +“You had better bid,” interrupted Mrs. Bumble. “I have heard enough, +already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to talk to.” + +Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any +greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened +to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes: which he +directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in undisguised +astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded, +what sum was required for the disclosure. + +“What’s it worth to you?” asked the woman, as collectedly as before. + +“It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,” replied Monks. “Speak +out, and let me know which.” + +“Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty +pounds in gold,” said the woman; “and I’ll tell you all I know. Not +before.” + +“Five-and-twenty pounds!” exclaimed Monks, drawing back. + +“I spoke as plainly as I could,” replied Mrs. Bumble. “It’s not a large +sum, either.” + +“Not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when it’s +told!” cried Monks impatiently; “and which has been lying dead for +twelve years past or more!” + +“Such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their value +in course of time,” answered the matron, still preserving the resolute +indifference she had assumed. “As to lying dead, there are those who +will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for +anything you or I know, who will tell strange tales at last!” + +“What if I pay it for nothing?” asked Monks, hesitating. + +“You can easily take it away again,” replied the matron. “I am but a +woman; alone here; and unprotected.” + +“Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,” submitted Mr. Bumble, +in a voice tremulous with fear: “_I_ am here, my dear. And besides,” +said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, “Mr. Monks is too +much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons. Mr. +Monks is aware that I am not a young man, my dear, and also that I am a +little run to seed, as I may say; but he has heerd: I say I have no +doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my dear: that I am a very determined +officer, with very uncommon strength, if I’m once roused. I only want a +little rousing; that’s all.” + +As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his lantern +with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the alarmed +expression of every feature, that he _did_ want a little rousing, and +not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration: unless, +indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for +the purpose. + +“You are a fool,” said Mrs. Bumble, in reply; “and had better hold your +tongue.” + +“He had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can’t speak in a +lower tone,” said Monks, grimly. “So! He’s your husband, eh?” + +“He my husband!” tittered the matron, parrying the question. + +“I thought as much, when you came in,” rejoined Monks, marking the +angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke. “So much +the better; I have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when I +find that there’s only one will between them. I’m in earnest. See +here!” + +He thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas bag, told +out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to the +woman. + +“Now,” he said, “gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder, +which I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let’s +hear your story.” + +The thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and break +almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising his face from +the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should say. The +faces of the three nearly touched, as the two men leant over the small +table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant forward to +render her whisper audible. The sickly rays of the suspended lantern +falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety of +their countenances: which, encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness, +looked ghastly in the extreme. + +“When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,” the matron began, +“she and I were alone.” + +“Was there no one by?” asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper; “No +sick wretch or idiot in some other bed? No one who could hear, and +might, by possibility, understand?” + +“Not a soul,” replied the woman; “we were alone. _I_ stood alone beside +the body when death came over it.” + +“Good,” said Monks, regarding her attentively. “Go on.” + +“She spoke of a young creature,” resumed the matron, “who had brought a +child into the world some years before; not merely in the same room, +but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.” + +“Ay?” said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder, +“Blood! How things come about!” + +“The child was the one you named to him last night,” said the matron, +nodding carelessly towards her husband; “the mother this nurse had +robbed.” + +“In life?” asked Monks. + +“In death,” replied the woman, with something like a shudder. “She +stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the +dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the +infant’s sake.” + +“She sold it,” cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; “did she sell it? +Where? When? To whom? How long before?” + +“As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,” said +the matron, “she fell back and died.” + +“Without saying more?” cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very +suppression, seemed only the more furious. “It’s a lie! I’ll not be +played with. She said more. I’ll tear the life out of you both, but +I’ll know what it was.” + +“She didn’t utter another word,” said the woman, to all appearance +unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man’s +violence; “but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which +was partly closed; and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the +hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.” + +“Which contained—” interposed Monks, stretching forward. + +“Nothing,” replied the woman; “it was a pawnbroker’s duplicate.” + +“For what?” demanded Monks. + +“In good time I’ll tell you.” said the woman. “I judge that she had +kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better +account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together +money to pay the pawnbroker’s interest year by year, and prevent its +running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be +redeemed. Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the +scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand. The time was out in +two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and so +redeemed the pledge.” + +“Where is it now?” asked Monks quickly. + +“_There_,” replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of it, she +hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for +a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling +hands. It contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of +hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring. + +“It has the word ‘Agnes’ engraved on the inside,” said the woman. + +“There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date; +which is within a year before the child was born. I found out that.” + +“And this is all?” said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the +contents of the little packet. + +“All,” replied the woman. + +Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the +story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty +pounds back again; and now he took courage to wipe the perspiration +which had been trickling over his nose, unchecked, during the whole of +the previous dialogue. + +“I know nothing of the story, beyond what I can guess at,” said his +wife addressing Monks, after a short silence; “and I want to know +nothing; for it’s safer not. But I may ask you two questions, may I?” + +“You may ask,” said Monks, with some show of surprise; “but whether I +answer or not is another question.” + +“—Which makes three,” observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of +facetiousness. + +“Is that what you expected to get from me?” demanded the matron. + +“It is,” replied Monks. “The other question?” + +“What do you propose to do with it? Can it be used against me?” + +“Never,” rejoined Monks; “nor against me either. See here! But don’t +move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.” + +With these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an +iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened +close at Mr. Bumble’s feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several +paces backward, with great precipitation. + +“Look down,” said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. “Don’t +fear me. I could have let you down, quietly enough, when you were +seated over it, if that had been my game.” + +Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even Mr. Bumble +himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same. The turbid +water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all +other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against +the green and slimy piles. There had once been a water-mill beneath; +the tide foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments +of machinery that yet remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new +impulse, when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted +to stem its headlong course. + +“If you flung a man’s body down there, where would it be to-morrow +morning?” said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well. + +“Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,” replied +Bumble, recoiling at the thought. + +Monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had hurriedly +thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had formed a part of +some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it into the stream. It +fell straight, and true as a die; clove the water with a scarcely +audible splash; and was gone. + +The three looking into each other’s faces, seemed to breathe more +freely. + +“There!” said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back +into its former position. “If the sea ever gives up its dead, as books +say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash +among it. We have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant +party.” + +“By all means,” observed Mr. Bumble, with great alacrity. + +“You’ll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?” said Monks, with a +threatening look. “I am not afraid of your wife.” + +“You may depend upon me, young man,” answered Mr. Bumble, bowing +himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessive politeness. “On +everybody’s account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr. Monks.” + +“I am glad, for your sake, to hear it,” remarked Monks. “Light your +lantern! And get away from here as fast as you can.” + +It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or Mr. +Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder, would +infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below. He lighted his +lantern from that which Monks had detached from the rope, and now +carried in his hand; and making no effort to prolong the discourse, +descended in silence, followed by his wife. Monks brought up the rear, +after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other +sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the +rushing of the water. + +They traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for Monks +started at every shadow; and Mr. Bumble, holding his lantern a foot +above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with a +marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking +nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. The gate at which they had +entered, was softly unfastened and opened by Monks; merely exchanging a +nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple emerged into +the wet and darkness outside. + +They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an +invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been +hidden somewhere below. Bidding him go first, and bear the light, he +returned to the chamber he had just quitted. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX. +INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY +ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR WORTHY HEADS +TOGETHER + + +On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned +in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as +therein narrated, Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily +growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was. + +The room in which Mr. Sikes propounded this question, was not one of +those he had tenanted, previous to the Chertsey expedition, although it +was in the same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great +distance from his former lodgings. It was not, in appearance, so +desirable a habitation as his old quarters: being a mean and +badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size; lighted only by one +small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and dirty +lane. Nor were there wanting other indications of the good gentleman’s +having gone down in the world of late: for a great scarcity of +furniture, and total absence of comfort, together with the +disappearance of all such small moveables as spare clothes and linen, +bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while the meagre and attenuated +condition of Mr. Sikes himself would have fully confirmed these +symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration. + +The housebreaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white great-coat, +by way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree +improved by the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled +nightcap, and a stiff, black beard of a week’s growth. The dog sat at +the bedside: now eyeing his master with a wistful look, and now +pricking his ears, and uttering a low growl as some noise in the +street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted his attention. +Seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat which +formed a portion of the robber’s ordinary dress, was a female: so pale +and reduced with watching and privation, that there would have been +considerable difficulty in recognising her as the same Nancy who has +already figured in this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to +Mr. Sikes’s question. + +“Not long gone seven,” said the girl. “How do you feel to-night, Bill?” + +“As weak as water,” replied Mr. Sikes, with an imprecation on his eyes +and limbs. “Here; lend us a hand, and let me get off this thundering +bed anyhow.” + +Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes’s temper; for, as the girl raised +him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her +awkwardness, and struck her. + +“Whining are you?” said Sikes. “Come! Don’t stand snivelling there. If +you can’t do anything better than that, cut off altogether. D’ye hear +me?” + +“I hear you,” replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing a +laugh. “What fancy have you got in your head now?” + +“Oh! you’ve thought better of it, have you?” growled Sikes, marking the +tear which trembled in her eye. “All the better for you, you have.” + +“Why, you don’t mean to say, you’d be hard upon me to-night, Bill,” +said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder. + +“No!” cried Mr. Sikes. “Why not?” + +“Such a number of nights,” said the girl, with a touch of woman’s +tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even +to her voice: “such a number of nights as I’ve been patient with you, +nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the +first that I’ve seen you like yourself; you wouldn’t have served me as +you did just now, if you’d thought of that, would you? Come, come; say +you wouldn’t.” + +“Well, then,” rejoined Mr. Sikes, “I wouldn’t. Why, damme, now, the +girls’s whining again!” + +“It’s nothing,” said the girl, throwing herself into a chair. “Don’t +you seem to mind me. It’ll soon be over.” + +“What’ll be over?” demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage voice. “What foolery +are you up to, now, again? Get up and bustle about, and don’t come over +me with your woman’s nonsense.” + +At any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was +delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being really +weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and +fainted, before Mr. Sikes could get out a few of the appropriate oaths +with which, on similar occasions, he was accustomed to garnish his +threats. Not knowing, very well, what to do, in this uncommon +emergency; for Miss Nancy’s hysterics were usually of that violent kind +which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance; +Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment +wholly ineffectual, called for assistance. + +“What’s the matter here, my dear?” said Fagin, looking in. + +“Lend a hand to the girl, can’t you?” replied Sikes impatiently. “Don’t +stand chattering and grinning at me!” + +With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to the girl’s +assistance, while Mr. John Dawkins (otherwise the Artful Dodger), who +had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily deposited on +the floor a bundle with which he was laden; and snatching a bottle from +the grasp of Master Charles Bates who came close at his heels, uncorked +it in a twinkling with his teeth, and poured a portion of its contents +down the patient’s throat: previously taking a taste, himself, to +prevent mistakes. + +“Give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, Charley,” said Mr. +Dawkins; “and you slap her hands, Fagin, while Bill undoes the +petticuts.” + +These united restoratives, administered with great energy: especially +that department consigned to Master Bates, who appeared to consider his +share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not +long in producing the desired effect. The girl gradually recovered her +senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon +the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to confront the new comers, in some +astonishment at their unlooked-for appearance. + +“Why, what evil wind has blowed you here?” he asked Fagin. + +“No evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good; and +I’ve brought something good with me, that you’ll be glad to see. +Dodger, my dear, open the bundle; and give Bill the little trifles that +we spent all our money on, this morning.” + +In compliance with Mr. Fagin’s request, the Artful untied this bundle, +which was of large size, and formed of an old table-cloth; and handed +the articles it contained, one by one, to Charley Bates: who placed +them on the table, with various encomiums on their rarity and +excellence. + +“Sitch a rabbit pie, Bill,” exclaimed that young gentleman, disclosing +to view a huge pasty; “sitch delicate creeturs, with sitch tender +limbs, Bill, that the wery bones melt in your mouth, and there’s no +occasion to pick ’em; half a pound of seven and six-penny green, so +precious strong that if you mix it with biling water, it’ll go nigh to +blow the lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and a half of moist sugar that +the niggers didn’t work at all at, afore they got it up to sitch a +pitch of goodness,—oh no! Two half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; +piece of double Glo’ster; and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort +you ever lushed!” + +Uttering this last panegyric, Master Bates produced, from one of his +extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while +Mr. Dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw +spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down his +throat without a moment’s hesitation. + +“Ah!” said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. “You’ll +do, Bill; you’ll do now.” + +“Do!” exclaimed Mr. Sikes; “I might have been done for, twenty times +over, afore you’d have done anything to help me. What do you mean by +leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted +wagabond?” + +“Only hear him, boys!” said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. “And us +come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.” + +“The things is well enough in their way,” observed Mr. Sikes: a little +soothed as he glanced over the table; “but what have you got to say for +yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, +blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this +mortal time, than if I was that ’ere dog.—Drive him down, Charley!” + +“I never see such a jolly dog as that,” cried Master Bates, doing as he +was desired. “Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market! He’d +make his fortun’ on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma +besides.” + +“Hold your din,” cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still +growling angrily. “What have you got to say for yourself, you withered +old fence, eh?” + +“I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,” replied +the Jew. + +“And what about the other fortnight?” demanded Sikes. “What about the +other fortnight that you’ve left me lying here, like a sick rat in his +hole?” + +“I couldn’t help it, Bill. I can’t go into a long explanation before +company; but I couldn’t help it, upon my honour.” + +“Upon your what?” growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. “Here! Cut me +off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out +of my mouth, or it’ll choke me dead.” + +“Don’t be out of temper, my dear,” urged Fagin, submissively. “I have +never forgot you, Bill; never once.” + +“No! I’ll pound it that you han’t,” replied Sikes, with a bitter grin. +“You’ve been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I have laid +shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and Bill was to do +that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: +and was quite poor enough for your work. If it hadn’t been for the +girl, I might have died.” + +“There now, Bill,” remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word. +“If it hadn’t been for the girl! Who but poor ould Fagin was the means +of your having such a handy girl about you?” + +“He says true enough there!” said Nancy, coming hastily forward. “Let +him be; let him be.” + +Nancy’s appearance gave a new turn to the conversation; for the boys, +receiving a sly wink from the wary old Jew, began to ply her with +liquor: of which, however, she took very sparingly; while Fagin, +assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought Mr. Sikes into a +better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant +banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough +jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit-bottle, he +condescended to make. + +“It’s all very well,” said Mr. Sikes; “but I must have some blunt from +you to-night.” + +“I haven’t a piece of coin about me,” replied the Jew. + +“Then you’ve got lots at home,” retorted Sikes; “and I must have some +from there.” + +“Lots!” cried Fagin, holding up is hands. “I haven’t so much as would—” + +“I don’t know how much you’ve got, and I dare say you hardly know +yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,” said Sikes; +“but I must have some to-night; and that’s flat.” + +“Well, well,” said Fagin, with a sigh, “I’ll send the Artful round +presently.” + +“You won’t do nothing of the kind,” rejoined Mr. Sikes. “The Artful’s a +deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get +dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you +put him up to it. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all +sure; and I’ll lie down and have a snooze while she’s gone.” + +After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the +amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four +and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would +only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; Mr. Sikes sullenly +remarking that if he couldn’t get any more he must accompany him home; +with the Dodger and Master Bates put the eatables in the cupboard. The +Jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, +attended by Nancy and the boys: Mr. Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself +on the bed, and composing himself to sleep away the time until the +young lady’s return. + +In due course, they arrived at Fagin’s abode, where they found Toby +Crackit and Mr. Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at cribbage, +which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and +with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the amusement of his +young friends. Mr. Crackit, apparently somewhat ashamed at being found +relaxing himself with a gentleman so much his inferior in station and +mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring after Sikes, took up his hat +to go. + +“Has nobody been, Toby?” asked Fagin. + +“Not a living leg,” answered Mr. Crackit, pulling up his collar; “it’s +been as dull as swipes. You ought to stand something handsome, Fagin, +to recompense me for keeping house so long. Damme, I’m as flat as a +juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as Newgate, if I hadn’t +had the good natur’ to amuse this youngster. Horrid dull, I’m blessed +if I an’t!” + +With these and other ejaculations of the same kind, Mr. Toby Crackit +swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket with +a haughty air, as though such small pieces of silver were wholly +beneath the consideration of a man of his figure; this done, he +swaggered out of the room, with so much elegance and gentility, that +Mr. Chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs and boots +till they were out of sight, assured the company that he considered his +acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview, and that he +didn’t value his losses the snap of his little finger. + +“Wot a rum chap you are, Tom!” said Master Bates, highly amused by this +declaration. + +“Not a bit of it,” replied Mr. Chitling. “Am I, Fagin?” + +“A very clever fellow, my dear,” said Fagin, patting him on the +shoulder, and winking to his other pupils. + +“And Mr. Crackit is a heavy swell; an’t he, Fagin?” asked Tom. + +“No doubt at all of that, my dear.” + +“And it is a creditable thing to have his acquaintance; an’t it, +Fagin?” pursued Tom. + +“Very much so, indeed, my dear. They’re only jealous, Tom, because he +won’t give it to them.” + +“Ah!” cried Tom, triumphantly, “that’s where it is! He has cleaned me +out. But I can go and earn some more, when I like; can’t I, Fagin?” + +“To be sure you can, and the sooner you go the better, Tom; so make up +your loss at once, and don’t lose any more time. Dodger! Charley! It’s +time you were on the lay. Come! It’s near ten, and nothing done yet.” + +In obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to Nancy, took up their +hats, and left the room; the Dodger and his vivacious friend indulging, +as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of Mr. Chitling; in +whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was nothing very +conspicuous or peculiar: inasmuch as there are a great number of +spirited young bloods upon town, who pay a much higher price than Mr. +Chitling for being seen in good society: and a great number of fine +gentlemen (composing the good society aforesaid) who established their +reputation upon very much the same footing as flash Toby Crackit. + +“Now,” said Fagin, when they had left the room, “I’ll go and get you +that cash, Nancy. This is only the key of a little cupboard where I +keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear. I never lock up my money, +for I’ve got none to lock up, my dear—ha! ha! ha!—none to lock up. It’s +a poor trade, Nancy, and no thanks; but I’m fond of seeing the young +people about me; and I bear it all, I bear it all. Hush!” he said, +hastily concealing the key in his breast; “who’s that? Listen!” + +The girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded, appeared +in no way interested in the arrival: or to care whether the person, +whoever he was, came or went: until the murmur of a man’s voice reached +her ears. The instant she caught the sound, she tore off her bonnet and +shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust them under the table. +The Jew, turning round immediately afterwards, she muttered a complaint +of the heat: in a tone of languor that contrasted, very remarkably, +with the extreme haste and violence of this action: which, however, had +been unobserved by Fagin, who had his back towards her at the time. + +“Bah!” he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption; “it’s the +man I expected before; he’s coming downstairs. Not a word about the +money while he’s here, Nance. He won’t stop long. Not ten minutes, my +dear.” + +Laying his skinny forefinger upon his lip, the Jew carried a candle to +the door, as a man’s step was heard upon the stairs without. He reached +it, at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily into the +room, was close upon the girl before he observed her. + +It was Monks. + +“Only one of my young people,” said Fagin, observing that Monks drew +back, on beholding a stranger. “Don’t move, Nancy.” + +The girl drew closer to the table, and glancing at Monks with an air of +careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards Fagin, she +stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if +there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly +have believed the two looks to have proceeded from the same person. + +“Any news?” inquired Fagin. + +“Great.” + +“And—and—good?” asked Fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex the +other man by being too sanguine. + +“Not bad, any way,” replied Monks with a smile. “I have been prompt +enough this time. Let me have a word with you.” + +The girl drew closer to the table, and made no offer to leave the room, +although she could see that Monks was pointing to her. The Jew: perhaps +fearing she might say something aloud about the money, if he +endeavoured to get rid of her: pointed upward, and took Monks out of +the room. + +“Not that infernal hole we were in before,” she could hear the man say +as they went upstairs. Fagin laughed; and making some reply which did +not reach her, seemed, by the creaking of the boards, to lead his +companion to the second story. + +Before the sound of their footsteps had ceased to echo through the +house, the girl had slipped off her shoes; and drawing her gown loosely +over her head, and muffling her arms in it, stood at the door, +listening with breathless interest. The moment the noise ceased, she +glided from the room; ascended the stairs with incredible softness and +silence; and was lost in the gloom above. + +The room remained deserted for a quarter of an hour or more; the girl +glided back with the same unearthly tread; and, immediately afterwards, +the two men were heard descending. Monks went at once into the street; +and the Jew crawled upstairs again for the money. When he returned, the +girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if preparing to be gone. + +“Why, Nance!” exclaimed the Jew, starting back as he put down the +candle, “how pale you are!” + +“Pale!” echoed the girl, shading her eyes with her hands, as if to look +steadily at him. + +“Quite horrible. What have you been doing to yourself?” + +“Nothing that I know of, except sitting in this close place for I don’t +know how long and all,” replied the girl carelessly. “Come! Let me get +back; that’s a dear.” + +With a sigh for every piece of money, Fagin told the amount into her +hand. They parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a +“good-night.” + +When the girl got into the open street, she sat down upon a doorstep; +and seemed, for a few moments, wholly bewildered and unable to pursue +her way. Suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in a direction quite +opposite to that in which Sikes was awaiting her returned, quickened +her pace, until it gradually resolved into a violent run. After +completely exhausting herself, she stopped to take breath: and, as if +suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring her inability to do +something she was bent upon, wrung her hands, and burst into tears. + +It might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full +hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying with +nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to recover +lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current of her own +thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left the +housebreaker. + +If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr. Sikes, +he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the +money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of +satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the +slumbers which her arrival had interrupted. + +It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so +much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal +had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his +temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical +upon her behaviour and deportment. That she had all the abstracted and +nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous +step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would +have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin, who would most probably have +taken the alarm at once; but Mr. Sikes lacking the niceties of +discrimination, and being troubled with no more subtle misgivings than +those which resolve themselves into a dogged roughness of behaviour +towards everybody; and being, furthermore, in an unusually amiable +condition, as has been already observed; saw nothing unusual in her +demeanor, and indeed, troubled himself so little about her, that, had +her agitation been far more perceptible than it was, it would have been +very unlikely to have awakened his suspicions. + +As that day closed in, the girl’s excitement increased; and, when night +came on, and she sat by, watching until the housebreaker should drink +himself asleep, there was an unusual paleness in her cheek, and a fire +in her eye, that even Sikes observed with astonishment. + +Mr. Sikes being weak from the fever, was lying in bed, taking hot water +with his gin to render it less inflammatory; and had pushed his glass +towards Nancy to be replenished for the third or fourth time, when +these symptoms first struck him. + +“Why, burn my body!” said the man, raising himself on his hands as he +stared the girl in the face. “You look like a corpse come to life +again. What’s the matter?” + +“Matter!” replied the girl. “Nothing. What do you look at me so hard +for?” + +“What foolery is this?” demanded Sikes, grasping her by the arm, and +shaking her roughly. “What is it? What do you mean? What are you +thinking of?” + +“Of many things, Bill,” replied the girl, shivering, and as she did so, +pressing her hands upon her eyes. “But, Lord! What odds in that?” + +The tone of forced gaiety in which the last words were spoken, seemed +to produce a deeper impression on Sikes than the wild and rigid look +which had preceded them. + +“I tell you wot it is,” said Sikes; “if you haven’t caught the fever, +and got it comin’ on, now, there’s something more than usual in the +wind, and something dangerous too. You’re not a-going to—. No, damme! +you wouldn’t do that!” + +“Do what?” asked the girl. + +“There ain’t,” said Sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering the +words to himself; “there ain’t a stauncher-hearted gal going, or I’d +have cut her throat three months ago. She’s got the fever coming on; +that’s it.” + +Fortifying himself with this assurance, Sikes drained the glass to the +bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic. The +girl jumped up, with great alacrity; poured it quickly out, but with +her back towards him; and held the vessel to his lips, while he drank +off the contents. + +“Now,” said the robber, “come and sit aside of me, and put on your own +face; or I’ll alter it so, that you won’t know it agin when you do want +it.” + +The girl obeyed. Sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the +pillow: turning his eyes upon her face. They closed; opened again; +closed once more; again opened. He shifted his position restlessly; +and, after dozing again, and again, for two or three minutes, and as +often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about +him, was suddenly stricken, as it were, while in the very attitude of +rising, into a deep and heavy sleep. The grasp of his hand relaxed; the +upraised arm fell languidly by his side; and he lay like one in a +profound trance. + +“The laudanum has taken effect at last,” murmured the girl, as she rose +from the bedside. “I may be too late, even now.” + +She hastily dressed herself in her bonnet and shawl: looking fearfully +round, from time to time, as if, despite the sleeping draught, she +expected every moment to feel the pressure of Sikes’s heavy hand upon +her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the +robber’s lips; and then opening and closing the room-door with +noiseless touch, hurried from the house. + +A watchman was crying half-past nine, down a dark passage through which +she had to pass, in gaining the main thoroughfare. + +“Has it long gone the half-hour?” asked the girl. + +“It’ll strike the hour in another quarter,” said the man: raising his +lantern to her face. + +“And I cannot get there in less than an hour or more,” muttered Nancy: +brushing swiftly past him, and gliding rapidly down the street. + +Many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues +through which she tracked her way, in making from Spitalfields towards +the West-End of London. The clock struck ten, increasing her +impatience. She tore along the narrow pavement: elbowing the passengers +from side to side; and darting almost under the horses’ heads, crossed +crowded streets, where clusters of persons were eagerly watching their +opportunity to do the like. + +“The woman is mad!” said the people, turning to look after her as she +rushed away. + +When she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town, the streets were +comparatively deserted; and here her headlong progress excited a still +greater curiosity in the stragglers whom she hurried past. Some +quickened their pace behind, as though to see whither she was hastening +at such an unusual rate; and a few made head upon her, and looked back, +surprised at her undiminished speed; but they fell off one by one; and +when she neared her place of destination, she was alone. + +It was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near Hyde Park. As +the brilliant light of the lamp which burnt before its door, guided her +to the spot, the clock struck eleven. She had loitered for a few paces +as though irresolute, and making up her mind to advance; but the sound +determined her, and she stepped into the hall. The porter’s seat was +vacant. She looked round with an air of incertitude, and advanced +towards the stairs. + +“Now, young woman!” said a smartly-dressed female, looking out from a +door behind her, “who do you want here?” + +“A lady who is stopping in this house,” answered the girl. + +“A lady!” was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look. “What lady?” + +“Miss Maylie,” said Nancy. + +The young woman, who had by this time, noted her appearance, replied +only by a look of virtuous disdain; and summoned a man to answer her. +To him, Nancy repeated her request. + +“What name am I to say?” asked the waiter. + +“It’s of no use saying any,” replied Nancy. + +“Nor business?” said the man. + +“No, nor that neither,” rejoined the girl. “I must see the lady.” + +“Come!” said the man, pushing her towards the door. “None of this. Take +yourself off.” + +“I shall be carried out if I go!” said the girl violently; “and I can +make that a job that two of you won’t like to do. Isn’t there anybody +here,” she said, looking round, “that will see a simple message carried +for a poor wretch like me?” + +This appeal produced an effect on a good-tempered-faced man-cook, who +with some of the other servants was looking on, and who stepped forward +to interfere. + +“Take it up for her, Joe; can’t you?” said this person. + +“What’s the good?” replied the man. “You don’t suppose the young lady +will see such as her; do you?” + +This allusion to Nancy’s doubtful character, raised a vast quantity of +chaste wrath in the bosoms of four housemaids, who remarked, with great +fervour, that the creature was a disgrace to her sex; and strongly +advocated her being thrown, ruthlessly, into the kennel. + +“Do what you like with me,” said the girl, turning to the men again; +“but do what I ask you first, and I ask you to give this message for +God Almighty’s sake.” + +The soft-hearted cook added his intercession, and the result was that +the man who had first appeared undertook its delivery. + +“What’s it to be?” said the man, with one foot on the stairs. + +“That a young woman earnestly asks to speak to Miss Maylie alone,” said +Nancy; “and that if the lady will only hear the first word she has to +say, she will know whether to hear her business, or to have her turned +out of doors as an impostor.” + +“I say,” said the man, “you’re coming it strong!” + +“You give the message,” said the girl firmly; “and let me hear the +answer.” + +The man ran upstairs. Nancy remained, pale and almost breathless, +listening with quivering lip to the very audible expressions of scorn, +of which the chaste housemaids were very prolific; and of which they +became still more so, when the man returned, and said the young woman +was to walk upstairs. + +“It’s no good being proper in this world,” said the first housemaid. + +“Brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire,” said the +second. + +The third contented herself with wondering “what ladies was made of”; +and the fourth took the first in a quartette of “Shameful!” with which +the Dianas concluded. + +Regardless of all this: for she had weightier matters at heart: Nancy +followed the man, with trembling limbs, to a small ante-chamber, +lighted by a lamp from the ceiling. Here he left her, and retired. + + + + + CHAPTER XL. +A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAMBER + + +The girl’s life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most +noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the +woman’s original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light +step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, +and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another +moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, +and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with +whom she had sought this interview. + +But struggling with these better feelings was pride,—the vice of the +lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and +self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the +fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the +jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,—even +this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the +womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but which alone connected +her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so +many, many traces when a very child. + +She raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which +presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then, bending +them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as +she said: + +“It’s a hard matter to get to see you, lady. If I had taken offence, +and gone away, as many would have done, you’d have been sorry for it +one day, and not without reason either.” + +“I am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,” replied Rose. +“Do not think of that. Tell me why you wished to see me. I am the +person you inquired for.” + +The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the +absence of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the girl +completely by surprise, and she burst into tears. + +“Oh, lady, lady!” she said, clasping her hands passionately before her +face, “if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me,—there +would—there would!” + +“Sit down,” said Rose, earnestly. “If you are in poverty or affliction +I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can,—I shall indeed. Sit +down.” + +“Let me stand, lady,” said the girl, still weeping, “and do not speak +to me so kindly till you know me better. It is growing late. Is—is—that +door shut?” + +“Yes,” said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance +in case she should require it. “Why?” + +“Because,” said the girl, “I am about to put my life and the lives of +others in your hands. I am the girl that dragged little Oliver back to +old Fagin’s on the night he went out from the house in Pentonville.” + +“You!” said Rose Maylie. + +“I, lady!” replied the girl. “I am the infamous creature you have heard +of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from the first moment +I can recollect my eyes and senses opening on London streets have known +any better life, or kinder words than they have given me, so help me +God! Do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady. I am younger than you +would think, to look at me, but I am well used to it. The poorest women +fall back, as I make my way along the crowded pavement.” + +“What dreadful things are these!” said Rose, involuntarily falling from +her strange companion. + +“Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,” cried the girl, “that you +had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you +were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, +and—and—something worse than all—as I have been from my cradle. I may +use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be +my deathbed.” + +“I pity you!” said Rose, in a broken voice. “It wrings my heart to hear +you!” + +“Heaven bless you for your goodness!” rejoined the girl. “If you knew +what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed. But I have stolen away +from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to +tell you what I have overheard. Do you know a man named Monks?” + +“No,” said Rose. + +“He knows you,” replied the girl; “and knew you were here, for it was +by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.” + +“I never heard the name,” said Rose. + +“Then he goes by some other amongst us,” rejoined the girl, “which I +more than thought before. Some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put +into your house on the night of the robbery, I—suspecting this +man—listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark. +I found out, from what I heard, that Monks—the man I asked you about, +you know—” + +“Yes,” said Rose, “I understand.” + +“—That Monks,” pursued the girl, “had seen him accidently with two of +our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be +the same child that he was watching for, though I couldn’t make out +why. A bargain was struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got back he +should have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a +thief, which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.” + +“For what purpose?” asked Rose. + +“He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened, in the hope of +finding out,” said the girl; “and there are not many people besides me +that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. But I +did; and I saw him no more till last night.” + +“And what occurred then?” + +“I’ll tell you, lady. Last night he came again. Again they went +upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray +me, again listened at the door. The first words I heard Monks say were +these: ‘So the only proofs of the boy’s identity lie at the bottom of +the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is +rotting in her coffin.’ They laughed, and talked of his success in +doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild, +said that though he had got the young devil’s money safely now, he’d +rather have had it the other way; for, what a game it would have been +to have brought down the boast of the father’s will, by driving him +through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital +felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit +of him besides.” + +“What is all this!” said Rose. + +“The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,” replied the girl. +“Then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to +yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy’s life +without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn’t, +he’d be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he +took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. ‘In +short, Fagin,’ he says, ‘Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as +I’ll contrive for my young brother, Oliver.’” + +“His brother!” exclaimed Rose. + +“Those were his words,” said Nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had +scarcely ceased to do, since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes +haunted her perpetually. “And more. When he spoke of you and the other +lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against +him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said +there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds +of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who +your two-legged spaniel was.” + +“You do not mean,” said Rose, turning very pale, “to tell me that this +was said in earnest?” + +“He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,” replied the +girl, shaking her head. “He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I +know many who do worse things; but I’d rather listen to them all a +dozen times, than to that Monks once. It is growing late, and I have to +reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. +I must get back quickly.” + +“But what can I do?” said Rose. “To what use can I turn this +communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to +companions you paint in such terrible colors? If you repeat this +information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the +next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an +hour’s delay.” + +“I wish to go back,” said the girl. “I must go back, because—how can I +tell such things to an innocent lady like you?—because among the men I +have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that +I can’t leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading +now.” + +“Your having interfered in this dear boy’s behalf before,” said Rose; +“your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; +your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your +evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you +might yet be reclaimed. Oh!” said the earnest girl, folding her hands +as the tears coursed down her face, “do not turn a deaf ear to the +entreaties of one of your own sex; the first—the first, I do believe, +who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear +my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.” + +“Lady,” cried the girl, sinking on her knees, “dear, sweet, angel lady, +you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and +if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of +sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!” + +“It is never too late,” said Rose, “for penitence and atonement.” + +“It is,” cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; “I cannot leave +him now! I could not be his death.” + +“Why should you be?” asked Rose. + +“Nothing could save him,” cried the girl. “If I told others what I have +told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is +the boldest, and has been so cruel!” + +“Is it possible,” cried Rose, “that for such a man as this, you can +resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is +madness.” + +“I don’t know what it is,” answered the girl; “I only know that it is +so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and +wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God’s wrath for the +wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through +every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew +that I was to die by his hand at last.” + +“What am I to do?” said Rose. “I should not let you depart from me +thus.” + +“You should, lady, and I know you will,” rejoined the girl, rising. +“You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, +and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.” + +“Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?” said Rose. +“This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, +benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?” + +“You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a +secret, and advise you what to do,” rejoined the girl. + +“But where can I find you again when it is necessary?” asked Rose. “I +do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will +you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?” + +“Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and +come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I +shall not be watched or followed?” asked the girl. + +“I promise you solemnly,” answered Rose. + +“Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,” said +the girl without hesitation, “I will walk on London Bridge if I am +alive.” + +“Stay another moment,” interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly +towards the door. “Think once again on your own condition, and the +opportunity you have of escaping from it. You have a claim on me: not +only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost +almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and +to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can +take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is +there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left, +to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!” + +“When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,” replied the +girl steadily, “give away your hearts, love will carry you all +lengths—even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, +everything, to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but +the coffinlid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital +nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place +that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to +cure us? Pity us, lady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman +left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort +and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.” + +“You will,” said Rose, after a pause, “take some money from me, which +may enable you to live without dishonesty—at all events until we meet +again?” + +“Not a penny,” replied the girl, waving her hand. + +“Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,” said +Rose, stepping gently forward. “I wish to serve you indeed.” + +“You would serve me best, lady,” replied the girl, wringing her hands, +“if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think +of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be +something not to die in the hell in which I have lived. God bless you, +sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought +shame on mine!” + +Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; +while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which +had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank +into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts. + + + + + CHAPTER XLI. +CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE +MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE + + +Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty. While +she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in +which Oliver’s history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the +confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, +had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl. Her words and manner +had touched Rose Maylie’s heart; and, mingled with her love for her +young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was +her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope. + +They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing +for some weeks to a distant part of the coast. It was now midnight of +the first day. What course of action could she determine upon, which +could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? Or how could she postpone +the journey without exciting suspicion? + +Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but +Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman’s +impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first +explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of +Oliver’s recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her +representations in the girl’s behalf could be seconded by no +experienced person. These were all reasons for the greatest caution and +most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose +first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy +doctor on the subject. As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if +she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the +same reason. Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance +from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, +and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when—the tears rose to +her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection—he might have by this +time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away. + +Disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course +and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive +consideration presented itself to her mind; Rose passed a sleepless and +anxious night. After more communing with herself next day, she arrived +at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry. + +“If it be painful to him,” she thought, “to come back here, how painful +it will be to me! But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may +come himself, and studiously abstain from meeting me—he did when he +went away. I hardly thought he would; but it was better for us both.” +And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the very +paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep. + +She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and +had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without +writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the +streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such +breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new +cause of alarm. + +“What makes you look so flurried?” asked Rose, advancing to meet him. + +“I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,” replied the boy. +“Oh dear! To think that I should see him at last, and you should be +able to know that I have told you the truth!” + +“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose, +soothing him. “But what is this?—of whom do you speak?” + +“I have seen the gentleman,” replied Oliver, scarcely able to +articulate, “the gentleman who was so good to me—Mr. Brownlow, that we +have so often talked about.” + +“Where?” asked Rose. + +“Getting out of a coach,” replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight, +“and going into a house. I didn’t speak to him—I couldn’t speak to him, +for he didn’t see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go up +to him. But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said +he did. Look here,” said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, “here it is; +here’s where he lives—I’m going there directly! Oh, dear me, dear me! +What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!” + +With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many +other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was +Craven Street, in the Strand. She very soon determined upon turning the +discovery to account. + +“Quick!” she said. “Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to +go with me. I will take you there directly, without a minute’s loss of +time. I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and +be ready as soon as you are.” + +Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five +minutes they were on their way to Craven Street. When they arrived +there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the +old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant, +requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business. The servant +soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him +into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman +of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat. At no great distance +from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and +gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting +with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin +propped thereupon. + +“Dear me,” said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising +with great politeness, “I beg your pardon, young lady—I imagined it was +some importunate person who—I beg you will excuse me. Be seated, pray.” + +“Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?” said Rose, glancing from the other +gentleman to the one who had spoken. + +“That is my name,” said the old gentleman. “This is my friend, Mr. +Grimwig. Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?” + +“I believe,” interposed Miss Maylie, “that at this period of our +interview, I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away. If +I am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which I +wish to speak to you.” + +Mr. Brownlow inclined his head. Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very +stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and +dropped into it again. + +“I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,” said Rose, naturally +embarrassed; “but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a +very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure you will take an interest +in hearing of him again.” + +“Indeed!” said Mr. Brownlow. + +“Oliver Twist you knew him as,” replied Rose. + +The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been +affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with +a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his +features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged +in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed +so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into +his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long +deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, +but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach. + +Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not +expressed in the same eccentric manner. He drew his chair nearer to +Miss Maylie’s, and said, + +“Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the +question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which +nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce +any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once +induced to entertain of that poor child, in Heaven’s name put me in +possession of it.” + +“A bad one! I’ll eat my head if he is not a bad one,” growled Mr. +Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle +of his face. + +“He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,” said Rose, +colouring; “and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his +years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do +honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.” + +“I’m only sixty-one,” said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face. “And, +as the devil’s in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least, I +don’t see the application of that remark.” + +“Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow; “he does not +mean what he says.” + +“Yes, he does,” growled Mr. Grimwig. + +“No, he does not,” said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he +spoke. + +“He’ll eat his head, if he doesn’t,” growled Mr. Grimwig. + +“He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,” said Mr. +Brownlow. + +“And he’d uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,” responded Mr. +Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor. + +Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and +afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom. + +“Now, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow, “to return to the subject in +which your humanity is so much interested. Will you let me know what +intelligence you have of this poor child: allowing me to promise that I +exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since I +have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had +imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob +me, has been considerably shaken.” + +Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a +few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr. +Brownlow’s house; reserving Nancy’s information for that gentleman’s +private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow, +for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former +benefactor and friend. + +“Thank God!” said the old gentleman. “This is great happiness to me, +great happiness. But you have not told me where he is now, Miss Maylie. +You must pardon my finding fault with you,—but why not have brought +him?” + +“He is waiting in a coach at the door,” replied Rose. + +“At this door!” cried the old gentleman. With which he hurried out of +the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach, +without another word. + +When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head, +and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot, +described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and +the table; sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution, +he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a +dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without +the slightest preface. + +“Hush!” he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual +proceeding. “Don’t be afraid. I’m old enough to be your grandfather. +You’re a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!” + +In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former +seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig +received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had +been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver’s behalf, +Rose Maylie would have been well repaid. + +“There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,” said +Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell. “Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.” + +The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and +dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders. + +“Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, rather +testily. + +“Well, that I do, sir,” replied the old lady. “People’s eyes, at my +time of life, don’t improve with age, sir.” + +“I could have told you that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow; “but put on your +glasses, and see if you can’t find out what you were wanted for, will +you?” + +The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But +Oliver’s patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to +his first impulse, he sprang into her arms. + +“God be good to me!” cried the old lady, embracing him; “it is my +innocent boy!” + +“My dear old nurse!” cried Oliver. + +“He would come back—I knew he would,” said the old lady, holding him in +her arms. “How well he looks, and how like a gentleman’s son he is +dressed again! Where have you been, this long, long while? Ah! the same +sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have +never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, +side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I +was a lightsome young creature.” Running on thus, and now holding +Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and +passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and +wept upon his neck by turns. + +Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led +the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration +of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise +and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in +her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman +considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold +solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an +early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged +that he should call at the hotel at eight o’clock that evening, and +that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all +that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver +returned home. + +Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor’s wrath. +Nancy’s history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a +shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the +first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; +and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the +assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first +outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment’s +consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in +part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was +himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and +representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his +hotbrained purpose. + +“Then what the devil is to be done?” said the impetuous doctor, when +they had rejoined the two ladies. “Are we to pass a vote of thanks to +all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred +pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some +slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?” + +“Not exactly that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; “but we must +proceed gently and with great care.” + +“Gentleness and care,” exclaimed the doctor. “I’d send them one and all +to—” + +“Never mind where,” interposed Mr. Brownlow. “But reflect whether +sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.” + +“What object?” asked the doctor. + +“Simply, the discovery of Oliver’s parentage, and regaining for him the +inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently +deprived.” + +“Ah!” said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; +“I almost forgot that.” + +“You see,” pursued Mr. Brownlow; “placing this poor girl entirely out +of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these +scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should +we bring about?” + +“Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,” suggested the +doctor, “and transporting the rest.” + +“Very good,” replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; “but no doubt they will +bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step +in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very +Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest—or at least to +Oliver’s, which is the same thing.” + +“How?” inquired the doctor. + +“Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in +getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, +Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by +catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he +were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far +as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in +any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely +that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to +prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth +would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, +be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.” + +“Then,” said the doctor impetuously, “I put it to you again, whether +you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be +considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest +intentions, but really—” + +“Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,” said Mr. +Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. “The promise +shall be kept. I don’t think it will, in the slightest degree, +interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any +precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to +ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the +understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; +or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an +account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us +to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is +Tuesday. I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly +quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.” + +Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving +a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course +occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very +strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman’s proposition was carried +unanimously. + +“I should like,” he said, “to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig. He +is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material +assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted +the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of +course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, +you must determine for yourselves.” + +“I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in +mine,” said the doctor. + +“We must put it to the vote,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “who may he be?” + +“That lady’s son, and this young lady’s—very old friend,” said the +doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an +expressive glance at her niece. + +Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this +motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and Harry Maylie and +Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee. + +“We stay in town, of course,” said Mrs. Maylie, “while there remains +the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of +success. I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the +object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I am content to +remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that +any hope remains.” + +“Good!” rejoined Mr. Brownlow. “And as I see on the faces about me, a +disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not in the way to +corroborate Oliver’s tale, and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me +stipulate that I shall be asked no questions until such time as I may +deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story. Believe +me, I make this request with good reason, for I might otherwise excite +hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and +disappointments already quite numerous enough. Come! Supper has been +announced, and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will +have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company, +and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the +world.” + +With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs. Maylie, and +escorted her into the supper-room. Mr. Losberne followed, leading Rose; +and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII. +AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER’S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF GENIUS, +BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS + + +Upon the night when Nancy, having lulled Mr. Sikes to sleep, hurried on +her self-imposed mission to Rose Maylie, there advanced towards London, +by the Great North Road, two persons, upon whom it is expedient that +this history should bestow some attention. + +They were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better described as +a male and female: for the former was one of those long-limbed, +knock-kneed, shambling, bony people, to whom it is difficult to assign +any precise age,—looking as they do, when they are yet boys, like +undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like overgrown boys. The +woman was young, but of a robust and hardy make, as she need have been +to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back. +Her companion was not encumbered with much luggage, as there merely +dangled from a stick which he carried over his shoulder, a small parcel +wrapped in a common handkerchief, and apparently light enough. This +circumstance, added to the length of his legs, which were of unusual +extent, enabled him with much ease to keep some half-dozen paces in +advance of his companion, to whom he occasionally turned with an +impatient jerk of the head: as if reproaching her tardiness, and urging +her to greater exertion. + +Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any +object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a wider +passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town, until +they passed through Highgate archway; when the foremost traveller +stopped and called impatiently to his companion, + +“Come on, can’t yer? What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.” + +“It’s a heavy load, I can tell you,” said the female, coming up, almost +breathless with fatigue. + +“Heavy! What are yer talking about? What are yer made for?” rejoined +the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the +other shoulder. “Oh, there yer are, resting again! Well, if yer ain’t +enough to tire anybody’s patience out, I don’t know what is!” + +“Is it much farther?” asked the woman, resting herself against a bank, +and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face. + +“Much farther! Yer as good as there,” said the long-legged tramper, +pointing out before him. “Look there! Those are the lights of London.” + +“They’re a good two mile off, at least,” said the woman despondingly. + +“Never mind whether they’re two mile off, or twenty,” said Noah +Claypole; for he it was; “but get up and come on, or I’ll kick yer, and +so I give yer notice.” + +As Noah’s red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road +while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, +the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his +side. + +“Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?” she asked, after they +had walked a few hundred yards. + +“How should I know?” replied Noah, whose temper had been considerably +impaired by walking. + +“Near, I hope,” said Charlotte. + +“No, not near,” replied Mr. Claypole. “There! Not near; so don’t think +it.” + +“Why not?” + +“When I tell yer that I don’t mean to do a thing, that’s enough, +without any why or because either,” replied Mr. Claypole with dignity. + +“Well, you needn’t be so cross,” said his companion. + +“A pretty thing it would be, wouldn’t it to go and stop at the very +first public-house outside the town, so that Sowerberry, if he come up +after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back in a cart +with handcuffs on,” said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone. “No! I shall +go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can find, and not stop +till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I can set eyes on. +Cod, yer may thanks yer stars I’ve got a head; for if we hadn’t gone, +at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country, yer’d +have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady. And serve yer +right for being a fool.” + +“I know I ain’t as cunning as you are,” replied Charlotte; “but don’t +put all the blame on me, and say I should have been locked up. You +would have been if I had been, any way.” + +“Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,” said Mr. +Claypole. + +“I took it for you, Noah, dear,” rejoined Charlotte. + +“Did I keep it?” asked Mr. Claypole. + +“No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you +are,” said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm +through his. + +This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr. Claypole’s habit to +repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be +observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte +to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be +found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his +innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of +escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture, into no explanation of +his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together. + +In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on, without +halting, until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he wisely +judged, from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles, that +London began in earnest. Just pausing to observe which appeared the +most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he +crossed into Saint John’s Road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of +the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between Gray’s Inn Lane and +Smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst +that improvement has left in the midst of London. + +Through these streets, Noah Claypole walked, dragging Charlotte after +him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole +external character of some small public-house; now jogging on again, as +some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his +purpose. At length, he stopped in front of one, more humble in +appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and, having crossed +over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement, graciously announced +his intention of putting up there, for the night. + +“So give us the bundle,” said Noah, unstrapping it from the woman’s +shoulders, and slinging it over his own; “and don’t yer speak, except +when yer spoke to. What’s the name of the house—t-h-r—three what?” + +“Cripples,” said Charlotte. + +“Three Cripples,” repeated Noah, “and a very good sign too. Now, then! +Keep close at my heels, and come along.” With these injunctions, he +pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and entered the house, +followed by his companion. + +There was nobody in the bar but a young Jew, who, with his two elbows +on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper. He stared very hard at +Noah, and Noah stared very hard at him. + +If Noah had been attired in his charity-boy’s dress, there might have +been some reason for the Jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he had +discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over his +leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance exciting +so much attention in a public-house. + +“Is this the Three Cripples?” asked Noah. + +“That is the dabe of this ’ouse,” replied the Jew. + +“A gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country, +recommended us here,” said Noah, nudging Charlotte, perhaps to call her +attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect, and +perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise. “We want to sleep here +to-night.” + +“I’b dot certaid you cad,” said Barney, who was the attendant sprite; +“but I’ll idquire.” + +“Show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of beer +while yer inquiring, will yer?” said Noah. + +Barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and setting +the required viands before them; having done which, he informed the +travellers that they could be lodged that night, and left the amiable +couple to their refreshment. + +Now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some steps +lower, so that any person connected with the house, undrawing a small +curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the wall of the +last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring, could not only +look down upon any guests in the back-room without any great hazard of +being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between +which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but +could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable +distinctness, their subject of conversation. The landlord of the house +had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, +and Barney had only just returned from making the communication above +related, when Fagin, in the course of his evening’s business, came into +the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils. + +“Hush!” said Barney: “stradegers id the next roob.” + +“Strangers!” repeated the old man in a whisper. + +“Ah! Ad rub uds too,” added Barney. “Frob the cuttry, but subthig in +your way, or I’b bistaked.” + +Fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest. + +Mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass, +from which secret post he could see Mr. Claypole taking cold beef from +the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering homeopathic doses +of both to Charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating and drinking at his +pleasure. + +“Aha!” he whispered, looking round to Barney, “I like that fellow’s +looks. He’d be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl already. +Don’t make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me hear ’em +talk—let me hear ’em.” + +He again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to the +partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look upon his +face, that might have appertained to some old goblin. + +“So I mean to be a gentleman,” said Mr. Claypole, kicking out his legs, +and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which Fagin had +arrived too late to hear. “No more jolly old coffins, Charlotte, but a +gentleman’s life for me: and, if yer like, yer shall be a lady.” + +“I should like that well enough, dear,” replied Charlotte; “but tills +ain’t to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off after it.” + +“Tills be blowed!” said Mr. Claypole; “there’s more things besides +tills to be emptied.” + +“What do you mean?” asked his companion. + +“Pockets, women’s ridicules, houses, mail-coaches, banks!” said Mr. +Claypole, rising with the porter. + +“But you can’t do all that, dear,” said Charlotte. + +“I shall look out to get into company with them as can,” replied Noah. +“They’ll be able to make us useful some way or another. Why, you +yourself are worth fifty women; I never see such a precious sly and +deceitful creetur as yer can be when I let yer.” + +“Lor, how nice it is to hear yer say so!” exclaimed Charlotte, +imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face. + +“There, that’ll do: don’t yer be too affectionate, in case I’m cross +with yer,” said Noah, disengaging himself with great gravity. “I should +like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of ’em, and +follering ’em about, unbeknown to themselves. That would suit me, if +there was good profit; and if we could only get in with some gentleman +of this sort, I say it would be cheap at that twenty-pound note you’ve +got,—especially as we don’t very well know how to get rid of it +ourselves.” + +After expressing this opinion, Mr. Claypole looked into the porter-pot +with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its contents, +nodded condescendingly to Charlotte, and took a draught, wherewith he +appeared greatly refreshed. He was meditating another, when the sudden +opening of the door, and the appearance of a stranger, interrupted him. + +The stranger was Mr. Fagin. And very amiable he looked, and a very low +bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the nearest +table, ordered something to drink of the grinning Barney. + +“A pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,” said Fagin, +rubbing his hands. “From the country, I see, sir?” + +“How do yer see that?” asked Noah Claypole. + +“We have not so much dust as that in London,” replied Fagin, pointing +from Noah’s shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two +bundles. + +“Yer a sharp feller,” said Noah. “Ha! ha! only hear that, Charlotte!” + +“Why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,” replied the Jew, +sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; “and that’s the truth.” + +Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his +right forefinger,—a gesture which Noah attempted to imitate, though not +with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large +enough for the purpose. However, Mr. Fagin seemed to interpret the +endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put +about the liquor which Barney reappeared with, in a very friendly +manner. + +“Good stuff that,” observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips. + +“Dear!” said Fagin. “A man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, +or a woman’s reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a bank, if he +drinks it regularly.” + +Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he +fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte with a +countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror. + +“Don’t mind me, my dear,” said Fagin, drawing his chair closer. “Ha! +ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. It was very +lucky it was only me.” + +“I didn’t take it,” stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his legs +like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could +under his chair; “it was all her doing; yer’ve got it now, Charlotte, +yer know yer have.” + +“No matter who’s got it, or who did it, my dear,” replied Fagin, +glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk’s eye at the girl and the two +bundles. “I’m in that way myself, and I like you for it.” + +“In what way?” asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering. + +“In that way of business,” rejoined Fagin; “and so are the people of +the house. You’ve hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe +here as you could be. There is not a safer place in all this town than +is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so. And I have taken a +fancy to you and the young woman; so I’ve said the word, and you may +make your minds easy.” + +Noah Claypole’s mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but +his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into +various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled +fear and suspicion. + +“I’ll tell you more,” said Fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by +dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. “I have got a friend +that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right +way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think +will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others.” + +“Yer speak as if yer were in earnest,” replied Noah. + +“What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?” inquired Fagin, +shrugging his shoulders. “Here! Let me have a word with you outside.” + +“There’s no occasion to trouble ourselves to move,” said Noah, getting +his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. “She’ll take the luggage +upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles.” + +This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed +without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off +with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out. + +“She’s kept tolerably well under, ain’t she?” he asked as he resumed +his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. + +“Quite perfect,” rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re +a genius, my dear.” + +“Why, I suppose if I wasn’t, I shouldn’t be here,” replied Noah. “But, +I say, she’ll be back if yer lose time.” + +“Now, what do you think?” said Fagin. “If you was to like my friend, +could you do better than join him?” + +“Is he in a good way of business; that’s where it is!” responded Noah, +winking one of his little eyes. + +“The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best +society in the profession.” + +“Regular town-maders?” asked Mr. Claypole. + +“Not a countryman among ’em; and I don’t think he’d take you, even on +my recommendation, if he didn’t run rather short of assistants just +now,” replied Fagin. + +“Should I have to hand over?” said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. + +“It couldn’t possibly be done without,” replied Fagin, in a most +decided manner. + +“Twenty pound, though—it’s a lot of money!” + +“Not when it’s in a note you can’t get rid of,” retorted Fagin. “Number +and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It’s not +worth much to him. It’ll have to go abroad, and he couldn’t sell it for +a great deal in the market.” + +“When could I see him?” asked Noah doubtfully. + +“To-morrow morning.” + +“Where?” + +“Here.” + +“Um!” said Noah. “What’s the wages?” + +“Live like a gentleman—board and lodging, pipes and spirits free—half +of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns,” replied Mr. +Fagin. + +Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least +comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he +been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected +that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new +acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely +things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought +that would suit him. + +“But, yer see,” observed Noah, “as she will be able to do a good deal, +I should like to take something very light.” + +“A little fancy work?” suggested Fagin. + +“Ah! something of that sort,” replied Noah. “What do you think would +suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very +dangerous, you know. That’s the sort of thing!” + +“I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my +dear,” said Fagin. “My friend wants somebody who would do that well, +very much.” + +“Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn’t mind turning my hand to it +sometimes,” rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; “but it wouldn’t pay by +itself, you know.” + +“That’s true!” observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. +“No, it might not.” + +“What do you think, then?” asked Noah, anxiously regarding him. +“Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not +much more risk than being at home.” + +“What do you think of the old ladies?” asked Fagin. “There’s a good +deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running +round the corner.” + +“Don’t they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?” asked Noah, +shaking his head. “I don’t think that would answer my purpose. Ain’t +there any other line open?” + +“Stop!” said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah’s knee. “The kinchin lay.” + +“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Claypole. + +“The kinchins, my dear,” said Fagin, “is the young children that’s sent +on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay +is just to take their money away—they’ve always got it ready in their +hands,—then knock ’em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if +there were nothing else the matter but a child fallen down and hurt +itself. Ha! ha! ha!” + +“Ha! ha!” roared Mr. Claypole, kicking up his legs in an ecstasy. +“Lord, that’s the very thing!” + +“To be sure it is,” replied Fagin; “and you can have a few good beats +chalked out in Camden Town, and Battle Bridge, and neighborhoods like +that, where they’re always going errands; and you can upset as many +kinchins as you want, any hour in the day. Ha! ha! ha!” + +With this, Fagin poked Mr. Claypole in the side, and they joined in a +burst of laughter both long and loud. + +“Well, that’s all right!” said Noah, when he had recovered himself, and +Charlotte had returned. “What time to-morrow shall we say?” + +“Will ten do?” asked Fagin, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded assent, +“What name shall I tell my good friend.” + +“Mr. Bolter,” replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such +emergency. “Mr. Morris Bolter. This is Mrs. Bolter.” + +“Mrs. Bolter’s humble servant,” said Fagin, bowing with grotesque +politeness. “I hope I shall know her better very shortly.” + +“Do you hear the gentleman, Charlotte?” thundered Mr. Claypole. + +“Yes, Noah, dear!” replied Mrs. Bolter, extending her hand. + +“She calls me Noah, as a sort of fond way of talking,” said Mr. Morris +Bolter, late Claypole, turning to Fagin. “You understand?” + +“Oh yes, I understand—perfectly,” replied Fagin, telling the truth for +once. “Good-night! Good-night!” + +With many adieus and good wishes, Mr. Fagin went his way. Noah +Claypole, bespeaking his good lady’s attention, proceeded to enlighten +her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness +and air of superiority, becoming, not only a member of the sterner sex, +but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on +the kinchin lay, in London and its vicinity. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIII. +WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE + + +“And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?” asked Mr. +Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into +between them, he had removed next day to Fagin’s house. “Cod, I thought +as much last night!” + +“Every man’s his own friend, my dear,” replied Fagin, with his most +insinuating grin. “He hasn’t as good a one as himself anywhere.” + +“Except sometimes,” replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of +the world. “Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.” + +“Don’t believe that,” said Fagin. “When a man’s his own enemy, it’s +only because he’s too much his own friend; not because he’s careful for +everybody but himself. Pooh! pooh! There ain’t such a thing in nature.” + +“There oughn’t to be, if there is,” replied Mr. Bolter. + +“That stands to reason. Some conjurers say that number three is the +magic number, and some say number seven. It’s neither, my friend, +neither. It’s number one.” + +“Ha! ha!” cried Mr. Bolter. “Number one for ever.” + +“In a little community like ours, my dear,” said Fagin, who felt it +necessary to qualify this position, “we have a general number one, +without considering me too as the same, and all the other young +people.” + +“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter. + +“You see,” pursued Fagin, affecting to disregard this interruption, “we +are so mixed up together, and identified in our interests, that it must +be so. For instance, it’s your object to take care of number +one—meaning yourself.” + +“Certainly,” replied Mr. Bolter. “Yer about right there.” + +“Well! You can’t take care of yourself, number one, without taking care +of me, number one.” + +“Number two, you mean,” said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with +the quality of selfishness. + +“No, I don’t!” retorted Fagin. “I’m of the same importance to you, as +you are to yourself.” + +“I say,” interrupted Mr. Bolter, “yer a very nice man, and I’m very +fond of yer; but we ain’t quite so thick together, as all that comes +to.” + +“Only think,” said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out +his hands; “only consider. You’ve done what’s a very pretty thing, and +what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the +cravat round your throat, that’s so very easily tied and so very +difficult to unloose—in plain English, the halter!” + +Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief, as if he felt it +inconveniently tight; and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not +in substance. + +“The gallows,” continued Fagin, “the gallows, my dear, is an ugly +finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has +stopped many a bold fellow’s career on the broad highway. To keep in +the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with +you.” + +“Of course it is,” replied Mr. Bolter. “What do yer talk about such +things for?” + +“Only to show you my meaning clearly,” said the Jew, raising his +eyebrows. “To be able to do that, you depend upon me. To keep my little +business all snug, I depend upon you. The first is your number one, the +second my number one. The more you value your number one, the more +careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what I told you at +first—that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do +so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.” + +“That’s true,” rejoined Mr. Bolter, thoughtfully. “Oh! yer a cunning +old codger!” + +Mr. Fagin saw, with delight, that this tribute to his powers was no +mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a +sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should +entertain in the outset of their acquaintance. To strengthen an +impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by +acquainting him, in some detail, with the magnitude and extent of his +operations; blending truth and fiction together, as best served his +purpose; and bringing both to bear, with so much art, that Mr. Bolter’s +respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with +a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken. + +“It’s this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under +heavy losses,” said Fagin. “My best hand was taken from me, yesterday +morning.” + +“You don’t mean to say he died?” cried Mr. Bolter. + +“No, no,” replied Fagin, “not so bad as that. Not quite so bad.” + +“What, I suppose he was—” + +“Wanted,” interposed Fagin. “Yes, he was wanted.” + +“Very particular?” inquired Mr. Bolter. + +“No,” replied Fagin, “not very. He was charged with attempting to pick +a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,—his own, my dear, +his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. They +remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner. Ah! he +was worth fifty boxes, and I’d give the price of as many to have him +back. You should have known the Dodger, my dear; you should have known +the Dodger.” + +“Well, but I shall know him, I hope; don’t yer think so?” said Mr. +Bolter. + +“I’m doubtful about it,” replied Fagin, with a sigh. “If they don’t get +any fresh evidence, it’ll only be a summary conviction, and we shall +have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it’s a case +of lagging. They know what a clever lad he is; he’ll be a lifer. +They’ll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer.” + +“What do you mean by lagging and a lifer?” demanded Mr. Bolter. “What’s +the good of talking in that way to me; why don’t yer speak so as I can +understand yer?” + +Fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into the +vulgar tongue; and, being interpreted, Mr. Bolter would have been +informed that they represented that combination of words, +“transportation for life,” when the dialogue was cut short by the entry +of Master Bates, with his hands in his breeches-pockets, and his face +twisted into a look of semi-comical woe. + +“It’s all up, Fagin,” said Charley, when he and his new companion had +been made known to each other. + +“What do you mean?” + +“They’ve found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more’s a +coming to ’dentify him; and the Artful’s booked for a passage out,” +replied Master Bates. “I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and +a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. To +think of Jack Dawkins—lummy Jack—the Dodger—the Artful Dodger—going +abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! I never thought he’d +a done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. Oh, why +didn’t he rob some rich old gentleman of all his walables, and go out +as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor +glory!” + +With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master +Bates sat himself on the nearest chair with an aspect of chagrin and +despondency. + +“What do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for!” +exclaimed Fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil. “Wasn’t he always +the top-sawyer among you all! Is there one of you that could touch him +or come near him on any scent! Eh?” + +“Not one,” replied Master Bates, in a voice rendered husky by regret; +“not one.” + +“Then what do you talk of?” replied Fagin angrily; “what are you +blubbering for?” + +“’Cause it isn’t on the rec-ord, is it?” said Charley, chafed into +perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets; +“’cause it can’t come out in the ’dictment; ’cause nobody will never +know half of what he was. How will he stand in the Newgate Calendar? +P’raps not be there at all. Oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!” + +“Ha! ha!” cried Fagin, extending his right hand, and turning to Mr. +Bolter in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the +palsy; “see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear. Ain’t +it beautiful?” + +Mr. Bolter nodded assent, and Fagin, after contemplating the grief of +Charley Bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to +that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder. + +“Never mind, Charley,” said Fagin soothingly; “it’ll come out, it’ll be +sure to come out. They’ll all know what a clever fellow he was; he’ll +show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers. Think how +young he is too! What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged at his time +of life!” + +“Well, it is a honour that is!” said Charley, a little consoled. + +“He shall have all he wants,” continued the Jew. “He shall be kept in +the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman. Like a gentleman! With his +beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he +can’t spend it.” + +“No, shall he though?” cried Charley Bates. + +“Ay, that he shall,” replied Fagin, “and we’ll have a big-wig, Charley: +one that’s got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; +and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we’ll read +it all in the papers—‘Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the court +was convulsed’—eh, Charley, eh?” + +“Ha! ha!” laughed Master Bates, “what a lark that would be, wouldn’t +it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother ’em wouldn’t he?” + +“Would!” cried Fagin. “He shall—he will!” + +“Ah, to be sure, so he will,” repeated Charley, rubbing his hands. + +“I think I see him now,” cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his +pupil. + +“So do I,” cried Charley Bates. “Ha! ha! ha! so do I. I see it all +afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin. What a game! What a regular game! +All the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and Jack Dawkins addressing of +’em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge’s own son making +a speech arter dinner—ha! ha! ha!” + +In fact, Mr. Fagin had so well humoured his young friend’s eccentric +disposition, that Master Bates, who had at first been disposed to +consider the imprisoned Dodger rather in the light of a victim, now +looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and +exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time +when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of +displaying his abilities. + +“We must know how he gets on to-day, by some handy means or other,” +said Fagin. “Let me think.” + +“Shall I go?” asked Charley. + +“Not for the world,” replied Fagin. “Are you mad, my dear, stark mad, +that you’d walk into the very place where—No, Charley, no. One is +enough to lose at a time.” + +“You don’t mean to go yourself, I suppose?” said Charley with a +humorous leer. + +“That wouldn’t quite fit,” replied Fagin shaking his head. + +“Then why don’t you send this new cove?” asked Master Bates, laying his +hand on Noah’s arm. “Nobody knows him.” + +“Why, if he didn’t mind—” observed Fagin. + +“Mind!” interposed Charley. “What should he have to mind?” + +“Really nothing, my dear,” said Fagin, turning to Mr. Bolter, “really +nothing.” + +“Oh, I dare say about that, yer know,” observed Noah, backing towards +the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm. “No, no—none +of that. It’s not in my department, that ain’t.” + +“Wot department has he got, Fagin?” inquired Master Bates, surveying +Noah’s lank form with much disgust. “The cutting away when there’s +anything wrong, and the eating all the wittles when there’s everything +right; is that his branch?” + +“Never mind,” retorted Mr. Bolter; “and don’t yer take liberties with +yer superiors, little boy, or yer’ll find yerself in the wrong shop.” + +Master Bates laughed so vehemently at this magnificent threat, that it +was some time before Fagin could interpose, and represent to Mr. Bolter +that he incurred no possible danger in visiting the police-office; +that, inasmuch as no account of the little affair in which he had +engaged, nor any description of his person, had yet been forwarded to +the metropolis, it was very probable that he was not even suspected of +having resorted to it for shelter; and that, if he were properly +disguised, it would be as safe a spot for him to visit as any in +London, inasmuch as it would be, of all places, the very last, to which +he could be supposed likely to resort of his own free will. + +Persuaded, in part, by these representations, but overborne in a much +greater degree by his fear of Fagin, Mr. Bolter at length consented, +with a very bad grace, to undertake the expedition. By Fagin’s +directions, he immediately substituted for his own attire, a waggoner’s +frock, velveteen breeches, and leather leggings: all of which articles +the Jew had at hand. He was likewise furnished with a felt hat well +garnished with turnpike tickets; and a carter’s whip. Thus equipped, he +was to saunter into the office, as some country fellow from Covent +Garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his +curiousity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow +as need be, Mr. Fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to +perfection. + +These arrangements completed, he was informed of the necessary signs +and tokens by which to recognise the Artful Dodger, and was conveyed by +Master Bates through dark and winding ways to within a very short +distance of Bow Street. Having described the precise situation of the +office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk +straight up the passage, and when he got into the side, and pull off +his hat as he went into the room, Charley Bates bade him hurry on +alone, and promised to bide his return on the spot of their parting. + +Noah Claypole, or Morris Bolter as the reader pleases, punctually +followed the directions he had received, which—Master Bates being +pretty well acquainted with the locality—were so exact that he was +enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question, +or meeting with any interruption by the way. + +He found himself jostled among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who +were huddled together in a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which +was a raised platform railed off from the rest, with a dock for the +prisoners on the left hand against the wall, a box for the witnesses in +the middle, and a desk for the magistrates on the right; the awful +locality last named, being screened off by a partition which concealed +the bench from the common gaze, and left the vulgar to imagine (if they +could) the full majesty of justice. + +There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to +their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a +couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the +table. A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose +listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency +to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked +sternly up to bid some woman “Take that baby out,” when the gravity of +justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother’s +shawl, from some meagre infant. The room smelt close and unwholesome; +the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened. There was +an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the +dock—the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for +depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left +a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the +thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it. + +Noah looked eagerly about him for the Dodger; but although there were +several women who would have done very well for that distinguished +character’s mother or sister, and more than one man who might be +supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all +answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen. He +waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, +being committed for trial, went flaunting out; and then was quickly +relieved by the appearance of another prisoner who he felt at once +could be no other than the object of his visit. + +It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big +coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his +hat in his right hand, preceded the jailer, with a rolling gait +altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested +in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that ’ere disgraceful +sitivation for. + +“Hold your tongue, will you?” said the jailer. + +“I’m an Englishman, ain’t I?” rejoined the Dodger. “Where are my +priwileges?” + +“You’ll get your privileges soon enough,” retorted the jailer, “and +pepper with ’em.” + +“We’ll see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to +say to the beaks, if I don’t,” replied Mr. Dawkins. “Now then! Wot is +this here business? I shall thank the madg’strates to dispose of this +here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for +I’ve got an appointment with a genelman in the City, and as I am a man +of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he’ll go away if I +ain’t there to my time, and then pr’aps ther won’t be an action for +damage against them as kep me away. Oh no, certainly not!” + +At this point, the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with a +view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to +communicate “the names of them two files as was on the bench.” Which so +tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as Master +Bates could have done if he had heard the request. + +“Silence there!” cried the jailer. + +“What is this?” inquired one of the magistrates. + +“A pick-pocketing case, your worship.” + +“Has the boy ever been here before?” + +“He ought to have been, a many times,” replied the jailer. “He has been +pretty well everywhere else. _I_ know him well, your worship.” + +“Oh! you know me, do you?” cried the Artful, making a note of the +statement. “Wery good. That’s a case of deformation of character, any +way.” + +Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence. + +“Now then, where are the witnesses?” said the clerk. + +“Ah! that’s right,” added the Dodger. “Where are they? I should like to +see ’em.” + +This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward +who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in +a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very +old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his own +countenance. For this reason, he took the Dodger into custody as soon +as he could get near him, and the said Dodger, being searched, had upon +his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner’s name engraved upon the +lid. This gentleman had been discovered on reference to the Court +Guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was +his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had +disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. He had also +remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active in making +his way about, and that young gentleman was the prisoner before him. + +“Have you anything to ask this witness, boy?” said the magistrate. + +“I wouldn’t abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with +him,” replied the Dodger. + +“Have you anything to say at all?” + +“Do you hear his worship ask if you’ve anything to say?” inquired the +jailer, nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow. + +“I beg your pardon,” said the Dodger, looking up with an air of +abstraction. “Did you redress yourself to me, my man?” + +“I never see such an out-and-out young wagabond, your worship,” +observed the officer with a grin. “Do you mean to say anything, you +young shaver?” + +“No,” replied the Dodger, “not here, for this ain’t the shop for +justice: besides which, my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with +the Wice President of the House of Commons; but I shall have something +to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and +’spectable circle of acquaintance as’ll make them beaks wish they’d +never been born, or that they’d got their footmen to hang ’em up to +their own hat-pegs, afore they let ’em come out this morning to try it +on upon me. I’ll—” + +“There! He’s fully committed!” interposed the clerk. “Take him away.” + +“Come on,” said the jailer. + +“Oh ah! I’ll come on,” replied the Dodger, brushing his hat with the +palm of his hand. “Ah! (to the Bench) it’s no use your looking +frightened; I won’t show you no mercy, not a ha’porth of it. _You’ll_ +pay for this, my fine fellers. I wouldn’t be you for something! I +wouldn’t go free, now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask +me. Here, carry me off to prison! Take me away!” + +With these last words, the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by the +collar; threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary +business of it; and then grinning in the officer’s face, with great +glee and self-approval. + +Having seen him locked up by himself in a little cell, Noah made the +best of his way back to where he had left Master Bates. After waiting +here some time, he was joined by that young gentleman, who had +prudently abstained from showing himself until he had looked carefully +abroad from a snug retreat, and ascertained that his new friend had not +been followed by any impertinent person. + +The two hastened back together, to bear to Mr. Fagin the animating news +that the Dodger was doing full justice to his bringing-up, and +establishing for himself a glorious reputation. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIV. +THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE MAYLIE. SHE +FAILS. + + +Adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the +girl Nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of +the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind. She remembered that both +the crafty Jew and the brutal Sikes had confided to her schemes, which +had been hidden from all others: in the full confidence that she was +trustworthy and beyond the reach of their suspicion. Vile as those +schemes were, desperate as were their originators, and bitter as were +her feelings towards Fagin, who had led her, step by step, deeper and +deeper down into an abyss of crime and misery, whence was no escape; +still, there were times when, even towards him, she felt some +relenting, lest her disclosure should bring him within the iron grasp +he had so long eluded, and he should fall at last—richly as he merited +such a fate—by her hand. + +But, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unable wholly to detach +itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix +itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by +any consideration. Her fears for Sikes would have been more powerful +inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated +that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which +could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a +refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her—and +what more could she do! She was resolved. + +Though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they +forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too. +She grew pale and thin, even within a few days. At times, she took no +heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where +once, she would have been the loudest. At other times, she laughed +without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards—she sat +silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the +very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even +these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were +occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the +course of discussion by her companions. + +It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the +hour. Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen. The +girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened +too. Eleven. + +“An hour this side of midnight,” said Sikes, raising the blind to look +out and returning to his seat. “Dark and heavy it is too. A good night +for business this.” + +“Ah!” replied Fagin. “What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there’s none +quite ready to be done.” + +“You’re right for once,” replied Sikes gruffly. “It is a pity, for I’m +in the humour too.” + +Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly. + +“We must make up for lost time when we’ve got things into a good train. +That’s all I know,” said Sikes. + +“That’s the way to talk, my dear,” replied Fagin, venturing to pat him +on the shoulder. “It does me good to hear you.” + +“Does you good, does it!” cried Sikes. “Well, so be it.” + +“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this +concession. “You’re like yourself to-night, Bill. Quite like yourself.” + +“I don’t feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my +shoulder, so take it away,” said Sikes, casting off the Jew’s hand. + +“It make you nervous, Bill,—reminds you of being nabbed, does it?” said +Fagin, determined not to be offended. + +“Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,” returned Sikes. “There never +was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, +and I suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time, +unless you came straight from the old ’un without any father at all +betwixt you; which I shouldn’t wonder at, a bit.” + +Fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, pulling Sikes by the +sleeve, pointed his finger towards Nancy, who had taken advantage of +the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now leaving +the room. + +“Hallo!” cried Sikes. “Nance. Where’s the gal going to at this time of +night?” + +“Not far.” + +“What answer’s that?” retorted Sikes. “Do you hear me?” + +“I don’t know where,” replied the girl. + +“Then I do,” said Sikes, more in the spirit of obstinacy than because +he had any real objection to the girl going where she listed. “Nowhere. +Sit down.” + +“I’m not well. I told you that before,” rejoined the girl. “I want a +breath of air.” + +“Put your head out of the winder,” replied Sikes. + +“There’s not enough there,” said the girl. “I want it in the street.” + +“Then you won’t have it,” replied Sikes. With which assurance he rose, +locked the door, took the key out, and pulling her bonnet from her +head, flung it up to the top of an old press. “There,” said the robber. +“Now stop quietly where you are, will you?” + +“It’s not such a matter as a bonnet would keep me,” said the girl +turning very pale. “What do you mean, Bill? Do you know what you’re +doing?” + +“Know what I’m—Oh!” cried Sikes, turning to Fagin, “she’s out of her +senses, you know, or she daren’t talk to me in that way.” + +“You’ll drive me on the something desperate,” muttered the girl placing +both hands upon her breast, as though to keep down by force some +violent outbreak. “Let me go, will you,—this minute—this instant.” + +“No!” said Sikes. + +“Tell him to let me go, Fagin. He had better. It’ll be better for him. +Do you hear me?” cried Nancy stamping her foot upon the ground. + +“Hear you!” repeated Sikes turning round in his chair to confront her. +“Aye! And if I hear you for half a minute longer, the dog shall have +such a grip on your throat as’ll tear some of that screaming voice out. +Wot has come over you, you jade! Wot is it?” + +“Let me go,” said the girl with great earnestness; then sitting herself +down on the floor, before the door, she said, “Bill, let me go; you +don’t know what you are doing. You don’t, indeed. For only one +hour—do—do!” + +“Cut my limbs off one by one!” cried Sikes, seizing her roughly by the +arm, “If I don’t think the gal’s stark raving mad. Get up.” + +“Not till you let me go—not till you let me go—Never—never!” screamed +the girl. Sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his opportunity, and +suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling and wrestling with +him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a +bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her down by force. She +struggled and implored by turns until twelve o’clock had struck, and +then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest the point any further. +With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make no more efforts to go out +that night, Sikes left her to recover at leisure and rejoined Fagin. + +“Whew!” said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face. +“Wot a precious strange gal that is!” + +“You may say that, Bill,” replied Fagin thoughtfully. “You may say +that.” + +“Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you +think?” asked Sikes. “Come; you should know her better than me. Wot +does it mean?” + +“Obstinacy; woman’s obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.” + +“Well, I suppose it is,” growled Sikes. “I thought I had tamed her, but +she’s as bad as ever.” + +“Worse,” said Fagin thoughtfully. “I never knew her like this, for such +a little cause.” + +“Nor I,” said Sikes. “I think she’s got a touch of that fever in her +blood yet, and it won’t come out—eh?” + +“Like enough.” + +“I’ll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she’s +took that way again,” said Sikes. + +Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment. + +“She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched +on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself +aloof,” said Sikes. “We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one +way or other, it’s worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here +so long has made her restless—eh?” + +“That’s it, my dear,” replied the Jew in a whisper. “Hush!” + +As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her +former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and +fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing. + +“Why, now she’s on the other tack!” exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of +excessive surprise on his companion. + +Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few +minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering +Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat +and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and +looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs. + +“Light him down,” said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. “It’s a pity he +should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show him +a light.” + +Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they reached +the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the +girl, said, in a whisper. + +“What is it, Nancy, dear?” + +“What do you mean?” replied the girl, in the same tone. + +“The reason of all this,” replied Fagin. “If _he_”—he pointed with his +skinny fore-finger up the stairs—“is so hard with you (he’s a brute, +Nance, a brute-beast), why don’t you—” + +“Well?” said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching +her ear, and his eyes looking into hers. + +“No matter just now. We’ll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, +Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If +you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog—like a dog! worse +than his dog, for he humours him sometimes—come to me. I say, come to +me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.” + +“I know you well,” replied the girl, without manifesting the least +emotion. “Good-night.” + +She shrank back, as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said +good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look +with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them. + +Fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were +working within his brain. He had conceived the idea—not from what had +just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by +degrees—that Nancy, wearied of the housebreaker’s brutality, had +conceived an attachment for some new friend. Her altered manner, her +repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the +interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and, +added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a +particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him +at least, almost matter of certainty. The object of this new liking was +not among his myrmidons. He would be a valuable acquisition with such +an assistant as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be secured without +delay. + +There was another, and a darker object, to be gained. Sikes knew too +much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled Fagin the less, because the +wounds were hidden. The girl must know, well, that if she shook him +off, she could never be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely +wreaked—to the maiming of limbs, or perhaps the loss of life—on the +object of her more recent fancy. + +“With a little persuasion,” thought Fagin, “what more likely than that +she would consent to poison him? Women have done such things, and +worse, to secure the same object before now. There would be the +dangerous villain: the man I hate: gone; another secured in his place; +and my influence over the girl, with a knowledge of this crime to back +it, unlimited.” + +These things passed through the mind of Fagin, during the short time he +sat alone, in the housebreaker’s room; and with them uppermost in his +thoughts, he had taken the opportunity afterwards afforded him, of +sounding the girl in the broken hints he threw out at parting. There +was no expression of surprise, no assumption of an inability to +understand his meaning. The girl clearly comprehended it. Her glance at +parting showed _that_. + +But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and +that was one of the chief ends to be attained. “How,” thought Fagin, as +he crept homeward, “can I increase my influence with her? What new +power can I acquire?” + +Such brains are fertile in expedients. If, without extracting a +confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her +altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of +whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, +could he not secure her compliance? + +“I can,” said Fagin, almost aloud. “She durst not refuse me then. Not +for her life, not for her life! I have it all. The means are ready, and +shall be set to work. I shall have you yet!” + +He cast back a dark look, and a threatening motion of the hand, towards +the spot where he had left the bolder villain; and went on his way: +busying his bony hands in the folds of his tattered garment, which he +wrenched tightly in his grasp, as though there were a hated enemy +crushed with every motion of his fingers. + + + + + CHAPTER XLV. +NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION + + +The old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for +the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed +interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious +assault on the breakfast. + +“Bolter,” said Fagin, drawing up a chair and seating himself opposite +Morris Bolter. + +“Well, here I am,” returned Noah. “What’s the matter? Don’t yer ask me +to do anything till I have done eating. That’s a great fault in this +place. Yer never get time enough over yer meals.” + +“You can talk as you eat, can’t you?” said Fagin, cursing his dear +young friend’s greediness from the very bottom of his heart. + +“Oh yes, I can talk. I get on better when I talk,” said Noah, cutting a +monstrous slice of bread. “Where’s Charlotte?” + +“Out,” said Fagin. “I sent her out this morning with the other young +woman, because I wanted us to be alone.” + +“Oh!” said Noah. “I wish yer’d ordered her to make some buttered toast +first. Well. Talk away. Yer won’t interrupt me.” + +There seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he +had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of +business. + +“You did well yesterday, my dear,” said Fagin. “Beautiful! Six +shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day! The kinchin +lay will be a fortune to you.” + +“Don’t you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,” said Mr. +Bolter. + +“No, no, my dear. The pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the +milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.” + +“Pretty well, I think, for a beginner,” remarked Mr. Bolter +complacently. “The pots I took off airy railings, and the milk-can was +standing by itself outside a public-house. I thought it might get rusty +with the rain, or catch cold, yer know. Eh? Ha! ha! ha!” + +Fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and Mr. Bolter having had his +laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk +of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second. + +“I want you, Bolter,” said Fagin, leaning over the table, “to do a +piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.” + +“I say,” rejoined Bolter, “don’t yer go shoving me into danger, or +sending me any more o’ yer police-offices. That don’t suit me, that +don’t; and so I tell yer.” + +“That’s not the smallest danger in it—not the very smallest,” said the +Jew; “it’s only to dodge a woman.” + +“An old woman?” demanded Mr. Bolter. + +“A young one,” replied Fagin. + +“I can do that pretty well, I know,” said Bolter. “I was a regular +cunning sneak when I was at school. What am I to dodge her for? Not +to—” + +“Not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and, +if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street, +or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the +information you can.” + +“What’ll yer give me?” asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking +his employer, eagerly, in the face. + +“If you do it well, a pound, my dear. One pound,” said Fagin, wishing +to interest him in the scent as much as possible. “And that’s what I +never gave yet, for any job of work where there wasn’t valuable +consideration to be gained.” + +“Who is she?” inquired Noah. + +“One of us.” + +“Oh Lor!” cried Noah, curling up his nose. “Yer doubtful of her, are +yer?” + +“She has found out some new friends, my dear, and I must know who they +are,” replied Fagin. + +“I see,” said Noah. “Just to have the pleasure of knowing them, if +they’re respectable people, eh? Ha! ha! ha! I’m your man.” + +“I knew you would be,” cried Fagin, elated by the success of his +proposal. + +“Of course, of course,” replied Noah. “Where is she? Where am I to wait +for her? Where am I to go?” + +“All that, my dear, you shall hear from me. I’ll point her out at the +proper time,” said Fagin. “You keep ready, and leave the rest to me.” + +That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and +equipped in his carter’s dress: ready to turn out at a word from Fagin. +Six nights passed—six long weary nights—and on each, Fagin came home +with a disappointed face, and briefly intimated that it was not yet +time. On the seventh, he returned earlier, and with an exultation he +could not conceal. It was Sunday. + +“She goes abroad to-night,” said Fagin, “and on the right errand, I’m +sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is afraid of will +not be back much before daybreak. Come with me. Quick!” + +Noah started up without saying a word; for the Jew was in a state of +such intense excitement that it infected him. They left the house +stealthily, and hurrying through a labyrinth of streets, arrived at +length before a public-house, which Noah recognised as the same in +which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in London. + +It was past eleven o’clock, and the door was closed. It opened softly +on its hinges as Fagin gave a low whistle. They entered, without noise; +and the door was closed behind them. + +Scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for words, +Fagin, and the young Jew who had admitted them, pointed out the pane of +glass to Noah, and signed to him to climb up and observe the person in +the adjoining room. + +“Is that the woman?” he asked, scarcely above his breath. + +Fagin nodded yes. + +“I can’t see her face well,” whispered Noah. “She is looking down, and +the candle is behind her.” + +“Stay there,” whispered Fagin. He signed to Barney, who withdrew. In an +instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and, under pretence of +snuffing the candle, moved it in the required position, and, speaking +to the girl, caused her to raise her face. + +“I see her now,” cried the spy. + +“Plainly?” + +“I should know her among a thousand.” + +He hastily descended, as the room-door opened, and the girl came out. +Fagin drew him behind a small partition which was curtained off, and +they held their breaths as she passed within a few feet of their place +of concealment, and emerged by the door at which they had entered. + +“Hist!” cried the lad who held the door. “Dow.” + +Noah exchanged a look with Fagin, and darted out. + +“To the left,” whispered the lad; “take the left had, and keep od the +other side.” + +He did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl’s retreating +figure, already at some distance before him. He advanced as near as he +considered prudent, and kept on the opposite side of the street, the +better to observe her motions. She looked nervously round, twice or +thrice, and once stopped to let two men who were following close behind +her, pass on. She seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to walk +with a steadier and firmer step. The spy preserved the same relative +distance between them, and followed: with his eye upon her. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVI. +THE APPOINTMENT KEPT + + +The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures +emerged on London Bridge. One, which advanced with a swift and rapid +step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in +quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who +slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance, +accommodated his pace to hers: stopping when she stopped: and as she +moved again, creeping stealthily on: but never allowing himself, in the +ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps. Thus, they crossed +the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, when the woman, +apparently disappointed in her anxious scrutiny of the foot-passengers, +turned back. The movement was sudden; but he who watched her, was not +thrown off his guard by it; for, shrinking into one of the recesses +which surmount the piers of the bridge, and leaning over the parapet +the better to conceal his figure, he suffered her to pass on the +opposite pavement. When she was about the same distance in advance as +she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed her again. +At nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped. The man stopped too. + +It was a very dark night. The day had been unfavourable, and at that +hour and place there were few people stirring. Such as there were, +hurried quickly past: very possibly without seeing, but certainly +without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in view. +Their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate regards +of such of London’s destitute population, as chanced to take their way +over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch or doorless +hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in silence: neither +speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed. + +A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that +burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs, and +rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks. +The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose heavy and dull +from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water +too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes. The tower of old +Saint Saviour’s Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the +giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the +forest of shipping below bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of +churches above, were nearly all hidden from sight. + +The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro—closely watched +meanwhile by her hidden observer—when the heavy bell of St. Paul’s +tolled for the death of another day. Midnight had come upon the crowded +city. The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the +chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face of +the corpse and the calm sleep of the child: midnight was upon them all. + +The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied by +a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within a +short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle, walked +straight towards it. They had scarcely set foot upon its pavement, when +the girl started, and immediately made towards them. + +They walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who +entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance of +being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate. +They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it +immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close +up—brushed against them, indeed—at that precise moment. + +“Not here,” said Nancy hurriedly, “I am afraid to speak to you here. +Come away—out of the public road—down the steps yonder!” + +As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction +in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and +roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on. + +The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the +Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour’s +Church, form a landing-stairs from the river. To this spot, the man +bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after +a moment’s survey of the place, he began to descend. + +These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights. +Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the +left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames. At +this point the lower steps widen: so that a person turning that angle +of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs who +chance to be above him, if only a step. The countryman looked hastily +round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no better place +of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty of room, he +slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there waited: pretty +certain that they would come no lower, and that even if he could not +hear what was said, he could follow them again, with safety. + +So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the +spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he +had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for +lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or +had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious +conversation. He was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place, +and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and +directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear. + +He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely +breathing, listened attentively. + +“This is far enough,” said a voice, which was evidently that of the +gentleman. “I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther. Many +people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but +you see I am willing to humour you.” + +“To humour me!” cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed. +“You’re considerate, indeed, sir. To humour me! Well, well, it’s no +matter.” + +“Why, for what,” said the gentleman in a kinder tone, “for what purpose +can you have brought us to this strange place? Why not have let me +speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something +stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?” + +“I told you before,” replied Nancy, “that I was afraid to speak to you +there. I don’t know why it is,” said the girl, shuddering, “but I have +such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly stand.” + +“A fear of what?” asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her. + +“I scarcely know of what,” replied the girl. “I wish I did. Horrible +thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that +has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day. I was +reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same things +came into the print.” + +“Imagination,” said the gentleman, soothing her. + +“No imagination,” replied the girl in a hoarse voice. “I’ll swear I saw +‘coffin’ written in every page of the book in large black letters,—aye, +and they carried one close to me, in the streets to-night.” + +“There is nothing unusual in that,” said the gentleman. “They have +passed me often.” + +“_Real ones_,” rejoined the girl. “This was not.” + +There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the +concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and +the blood chilled within him. He had never experienced a greater relief +than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged her to +be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such fearful +fancies. + +“Speak to her kindly,” said the young lady to her companion. “Poor +creature! She seems to need it.” + +“Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me +as I am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,” cried the +girl. “Oh, dear lady, why ar’n’t those who claim to be God’s own folks +as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, +and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud +instead of so much humbler?” + +“Ah!” said the gentleman. “A Turk turns his face, after washing it +well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after +giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles +off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven. +Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!” + +These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were +perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover +herself. The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her. + +“You were not here last Sunday night,” he said. + +“I couldn’t come,” replied Nancy; “I was kept by force.” + +“By whom?” + +“Him that I told the young lady of before.” + +“You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on +the subject which has brought us here to-night, I hope?” asked the old +gentleman. + +“No,” replied the girl, shaking her head. “It’s not very easy for me to +leave him unless he knows why; I couldn’t give him a drink of laudanum +before I came away.” + +“Did he awake before you returned?” inquired the gentleman. + +“No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.” + +“Good,” said the gentleman. “Now listen to me.” + +“I am ready,” replied the girl, as he paused for a moment. + +“This young lady,” the gentleman began, “has communicated to me, and to +some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly +a fortnight since. I confess to you that I had doubts, at first, +whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I firmly believe +you are.” + +“I am,” said the girl earnestly. + +“I repeat that I firmly believe it. To prove to you that I am disposed +to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the +secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man Monks. But +if—if—” said the gentleman, “he cannot be secured, or, if secured, +cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the Jew.” + +“Fagin,” cried the girl, recoiling. + +“That man must be delivered up by you,” said the gentleman. + +“I will not do it! I will never do it!” replied the girl. “Devil that +he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do +that.” + +“You will not?” said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this +answer. + +“Never!” returned the girl. + +“Tell me why?” + +“For one reason,” rejoined the girl firmly, “for one reason, that the +lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have her +promise: and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has +led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the +same courses together, and I’ll not turn upon them, who might—any of +them—have turned upon me, but didn’t, bad as they are.” + +“Then,” said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point he +had been aiming to attain; “put Monks into my hands, and leave him to +me to deal with.” + +“What if he turns against the others?” + +“I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him, +there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver’s +little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye, +and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.” + +“And if it is not?” suggested the girl. + +“Then,” pursued the gentleman, “this Fagin shall not be brought to +justice without your consent. In such a case I could show you reasons, +I think, which would induce you to yield it.” + +“Have I the lady’s promise for that?” asked the girl. + +“You have,” replied Rose. “My true and faithful pledge.” + +“Monks would never learn how you knew what you do?” said the girl, +after a short pause. + +“Never,” replied the gentleman. “The intelligence should be brought to +bear upon him, that he could never even guess.” + +“I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,” said the +girl after another interval of silence, “but I will take your words.” + +After receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so, +she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the +listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe, by +name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed that +night. From the manner in which she occasionally paused, it appeared as +if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the information she +communicated. When she had thoroughly explained the localities of the +place, the best position from which to watch it without exciting +observation, and the night and hour on which Monks was most in the +habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider for a few moments, for +the purpose of recalling his features and appearances more forcibly to +her recollection. + +“He is tall,” said the girl, “and a strongly made man, but not stout; +he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over his +shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other. Don’t forget that, +for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any other man’s, +that you might almost tell him by that alone. His face is dark, like +his hair and eyes; and, although he can’t be more than six or eight and +twenty, withered and haggard. His lips are often discoloured and +disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has desperate fits, and +sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds—why did you +start?” said the girl, stopping suddenly. + +The gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not conscious +of having done so, and begged her to proceed. + +“Part of this,” said the girl, “I have drawn out from other people at +the house I tell you of, for I have only seen him twice, and both times +he was covered up in a large cloak. I think that’s all I can give you +to know him by. Stay though,” she added. “Upon his throat: so high that +you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he turns his face: +there is—” + +“A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?” cried the gentleman. + +“How’s this?” said the girl. “You know him!” + +The young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they +were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe. + +“I think I do,” said the gentleman, breaking silence. “I should by your +description. We shall see. Many people are singularly like each other. +It may not be the same.” + +As he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness, he +took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could tell +from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, “It must be he!” + +“Now,” he said, returning: so it seemed by the sound: to the spot where +he had stood before, “you have given us most valuable assistance, young +woman, and I wish you to be the better for it. What can I do to serve +you?” + +“Nothing,” replied Nancy. + +“You will not persist in saying that,” rejoined the gentleman, with a +voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder +and more obdurate heart. “Think now. Tell me.” + +“Nothing, sir,” rejoined the girl, weeping. “You can do nothing to help +me. I am past all hope, indeed.” + +“You put yourself beyond its pale,” said the gentleman. “The past has +been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent, and such +priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator bestows but once and never +grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. I do not say that it +is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that must +come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either in England, or, if you +fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the +compass of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you. Before +the dawn of morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of +day-light, you shall be placed as entirely beyond the reach of your +former associates, and leave as utter an absence of all trace behind +you, as if you were to disappear from the earth this moment. Come! I +would not have you go back to exchange one word with any old companion, +or take one look at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is +pestilence and death to you. Quit them all, while there is time and +opportunity!” + +“She will be persuaded now,” cried the young lady. “She hesitates, I am +sure.” + +“I fear not, my dear,” said the gentleman. + +“No sir, I do not,” replied the girl, after a short struggle. “I am +chained to my old life. I loathe and hate it now, but I cannot leave +it. I must have gone too far to turn back,—and yet I don’t know, for if +you had spoken to me so, some time ago, I should have laughed it off. +But,” she said, looking hastily round, “this fear comes over me again. +I must go home.” + +“Home!” repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word. + +“Home, lady,” rejoined the girl. “To such a home as I have raised for +myself with the work of my whole life. Let us part. I shall be watched +or seen. Go! Go! If I have done you any service all I ask is, that you +leave me, and let me go my way alone.” + +“It is useless,” said the gentleman, with a sigh. “We compromise her +safety, perhaps, by staying here. We may have detained her longer than +she expected already.” + +“Yes, yes,” urged the girl. “You have.” + +“What,” cried the young lady, “can be the end of this poor creature’s +life!” + +“What!” repeated the girl. “Look before you, lady. Look at that dark +water. How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the +tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them. It may be +years hence, or it may be only months, but I shall come to that at +last.” + +“Do not speak thus, pray,” returned the young lady, sobbing. + +“It will never reach your ears, dear lady, and God forbid such horrors +should!” replied the girl. “Good-night, good-night!” + +The gentleman turned away. + +“This purse,” cried the young lady. “Take it for my sake, that you may +have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.” + +“No!” replied the girl. “I have not done this for money. Let me have +that to think of. And yet—give me something that you have worn: I +should like to have something—no, no, not a ring—your gloves or +handkerchief—anything that I can keep, as having belonged to you, sweet +lady. There. Bless you! God bless you. Good-night, good-night!” + +The violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some +discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed to +determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested. + +The sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices ceased. + +The two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards +appeared upon the bridge. They stopped at the summit of the stairs. + +“Hark!” cried the young lady, listening. “Did she call! I thought I +heard her voice.” + +“No, my love,” replied Mr. Brownlow, looking sadly back. “She has not +moved, and will not till we are gone.” + +Rose Maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through his, +and led her, with gentle force, away. As they disappeared, the girl +sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone stairs, and +vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears. + +After a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended +the street. The astonished listener remained motionless on his post for +some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many cautious +glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly from his +hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of the wall, in +the same manner as he had descended. + +Peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure that +he was unobserved, Noah Claypole darted away at his utmost speed, and +made for the Jew’s house as fast as his legs would carry him. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVII. +FATAL CONSEQUENCES + + +It was nearly two hours before day-break; that time which in the autumn +of the year, may be truly called the dead of night; when the streets +are silent and deserted; when even sounds appear to slumber, and +profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream; it was at this still +and silent hour, that Fagin sat watching in his old lair, with face so +distorted and pale, and eyes so red and blood-shot, that he looked less +like a man, than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and +worried by an evil spirit. + +He sat crouching over a cold hearth, wrapped in an old torn coverlet, +with his face turned towards a wasting candle that stood upon a table +by his side. His right hand was raised to his lips, and as, absorbed in +thought, he hit his long black nails, he disclosed among his toothless +gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog’s or rat’s. + +Stretched upon a mattress on the floor, lay Noah Claypole, fast asleep. +Towards him the old man sometimes directed his eyes for an instant, and +then brought them back again to the candle; which with a long-burnt +wick drooping almost double, and hot grease falling down in clots upon +the table, plainly showed that his thoughts were busy elsewhere. + +Indeed they were. Mortification at the overthrow of his notable scheme; +hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers; and utter +distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up; bitter +disappointment at the loss of his revenge on Sikes; the fear of +detection, and ruin, and death; and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by +all; these were the passionate considerations which, following close +upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl, shot through the brain +of Fagin, as every evil thought and blackest purpose lay working at his +heart. + +He sat without changing his attitude in the least, or appearing to take +the smallest heed of time, until his quick ear seemed to be attracted +by a footstep in the street. + +“At last,” he muttered, wiping his dry and fevered mouth. “At last!” + +The bell rang gently as he spoke. He crept upstairs to the door, and +presently returned accompanied by a man muffled to the chin, who +carried a bundle under one arm. Sitting down and throwing back his +outer coat, the man displayed the burly frame of Sikes. + +“There!” he said, laying the bundle on the table. “Take care of that, +and do the most you can with it. It’s been trouble enough to get; I +thought I should have been here, three hours ago.” + +Fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locking it in the cupboard, +sat down again without speaking. But he did not take his eyes off the +robber, for an instant, during this action; and now that they sat over +against each other, face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his +lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions +which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back +his chair, and surveyed him with a look of real affright. + +“Wot now?” cried Sikes. “Wot do you look at a man so for?” + +Fagin raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the +air; but his passion was so great, that the power of speech was for the +moment gone. + +“Damme!” said Sikes, feeling in his breast with a look of alarm. “He’s +gone mad. I must look to myself here.” + +“No, no,” rejoined Fagin, finding his voice. “It’s not—you’re not the +person, Bill. I’ve no—no fault to find with you.” + +“Oh, you haven’t, haven’t you?” said Sikes, looking sternly at him, and +ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket. “That’s +lucky—for one of us. Which one that is, don’t matter.” + +“I’ve got that to tell you, Bill,” said Fagin, drawing his chair +nearer, “will make you worse than me.” + +“Aye?” returned the robber with an incredulous air. “Tell away! Look +sharp, or Nance will think I’m lost.” + +“Lost!” cried Fagin. “She has pretty well settled that, in her own +mind, already.” + +Sikes looked with an aspect of great perplexity into the Jew’s face, +and reading no satisfactory explanation of the riddle there, clenched +his coat collar in his huge hand and shook him soundly. + +“Speak, will you!” he said; “or if you don’t, it shall be for want of +breath. Open your mouth and say wot you’ve got to say in plain words. +Out with it, you thundering old cur, out with it!” + +“Suppose that lad that’s laying there—” Fagin began. + +Sikes turned round to where Noah was sleeping, as if he had not +previously observed him. “Well!” he said, resuming his former position. + +“Suppose that lad,” pursued Fagin, “was to peach—to blow upon us +all—first seeking out the right folks for the purpose, and then having +a meeting with ’em in the street to paint our likenesses, describe +every mark that they might know us by, and the crib where we might be +most easily taken. Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow +upon a plant we’ve all been in, more or less—of his own fancy; not +grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on +bread and water,—but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; +stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and +peaching to them. Do you hear me?” cried the Jew, his eyes flashing +with rage. “Suppose he did all this, what then?” + +“What then!” replied Sikes; with a tremendous oath. “If he was left +alive till I came, I’d grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot +into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.” + +“What if I did it!” cried Fagin almost in a yell. “I, that knows so +much, and could hang so many besides myself!” + +“I don’t know,” replied Sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white at +the mere suggestion. “I’d do something in the jail that ’ud get me put +in irons; and if I was tried along with you, I’d fall upon you with +them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people. I +should have such strength,” muttered the robber, poising his brawny +arm, “that I could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over +it.” + +“You would?” + +“Would I!” said the housebreaker. “Try me.” + +“If it was Charley, or the Dodger, or Bet, or—” + +“I don’t care who,” replied Sikes impatiently. “Whoever it was, I’d +serve them the same.” + +Fagin looked hard at the robber; and, motioning him to be silent, +stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse +him. Sikes leant forward in his chair: looking on with his hands upon +his knees, as if wondering much what all this questioning and +preparation was to end in. + +“Bolter, Bolter! Poor lad!” said Fagin, looking up with an expression +of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis. +“He’s tired—tired with watching for her so long,—watching for _her_, +Bill.” + +“Wot d’ye mean?” asked Sikes, drawing back. + +Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him +into a sitting posture. When his assumed name had been repeated several +times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily +about him. + +“Tell me that again—once again, just for him to hear,” said the Jew, +pointing to Sikes as he spoke. + +“Tell yer what?” asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly. + +“That about— _Nancy_,” said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if +to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. “You +followed her?” + +“Yes.” + +“To London Bridge?” + +“Yes.” + +“Where she met two people.” + +“So she did.” + +“A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, +who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she +did—and to describe him, which she did—and to tell her what house it +was that we meet at, and go to, which she did—and where it could be +best watched from, which she did—and what time the people went there, +which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a +threat, without a murmur—she did—did she not?” cried Fagin, half mad +with fury. + +“All right,” replied Noah, scratching his head. “That’s just what it +was!” + +“What did they say, about last Sunday?” + +“About last Sunday!” replied Noah, considering. “Why I told yer that +before.” + +“Again. Tell it again!” cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and +brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. + +“They asked her,” said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to +have a dawning perception who Sikes was, “they asked her why she didn’t +come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn’t.” + +“Why—why? Tell him that.” + +“Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told +them of before,” replied Noah. + +“What more of him?” cried Fagin. “What more of the man she had told +them of before? Tell him that, tell him that.” + +“Why, that she couldn’t very easily get out of doors unless he knew +where she was going to,” said Noah; “and so the first time she went to +see the lady, she—ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that +it did—she gave him a drink of laudanum.” + +“Hell’s fire!” cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. “Let me +go!” + +Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, +wildly and furiously, up the stairs. + +“Bill, Bill!” cried Fagin, following him hastily. “A word. Only a +word.” + +The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was +unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and +violence, when the Jew came panting up. + +“Let me out,” said Sikes. “Don’t speak to me; it’s not safe. Let me +out, I say!” + +“Hear me speak a word,” rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. +“You won’t be—” + +“Well,” replied the other. + +“You won’t be—too—violent, Bill?” + +The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see +each other’s faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire +in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. + +“I mean,” said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now +useless, “not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too +bold.” + +Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had +turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. + +Without one pause, or moment’s consideration; without once turning his +head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering +them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage +resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw +seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong +course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his +own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the +stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting +a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed. + +The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. He had roused her from her +sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look. + +“Get up!” said the man. + +“It is you, Bill!” said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his +return. + +“It is,” was the reply. “Get up.” + +There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the +candlestick, and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faint light of +early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain. + +“Let it be,” said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. “There’s enough +light for wot I’ve got to do.” + +“Bill,” said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, “why do you look like +that at me!” + +The robber sat regarding her, for a few seconds, with dilated nostrils +and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the head and throat, +dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the +door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth. + +“Bill, Bill!” gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal +fear,—“I—I won’t scream or cry—not once—hear me—speak to me—tell me +what I have done!” + +“You know, you she devil!” returned the robber, suppressing his breath. +“You were watched to-night; every word you said was heard.” + +“Then spare my life for the love of Heaven, as I spared yours,” +rejoined the girl, clinging to him. “Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have +the heart to kill me. Oh! think of all I have given up, only this one +night, for you. You _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this +crime; I will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. Bill, Bill, +for dear God’s sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my +blood! I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have!” + +The man struggled violently, to release his arms; but those of the girl +were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he could not tear +them away. + +“Bill,” cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, “the +gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some +foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace. Let me +see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and +goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far +apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in +prayers, and never see each other more. It is never too late to repent. +They told me so—I feel it now—but we must have time—a little, little +time!” + +The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty +of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the +midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could +summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. + +She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down +from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, +on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief—Rose Maylie’s +own—and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as +her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her +Maker. + +It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward +to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy +club and struck her down. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVIII. +THE FLIGHT OF SIKES + + +Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed +within wide London’s bounds since night hung over it, that was the +worst. Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning +air, that was the foulest and most cruel. + +The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new +life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in +clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended +window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal +ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It did. He +tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If the sight had been a +ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that +brilliant light! + +He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been a moan and +motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and +struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy +the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring +upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered +and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling. He had plucked it off again. +And there was the body—mere flesh and blood, no more—but such flesh, +and so much blood! + +He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. There +was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, +and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney. Even that frightened +him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon till it broke, and then +piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into ashes. He washed +himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were spots that would not be +removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them. How those stains +were dispersed about the room! The very feet of the dog were bloody. + +All this time he had, never once, turned his back upon the corpse; no, +not for a moment. Such preparations completed, he moved, backward, +towards the door: dragging the dog with him, lest he should soil his +feet anew and carry out new evidence of the crime into the streets. He +shut the door softly, locked it, took the key, and left the house. + +He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing +was visible from the outside. There was the curtain still drawn, which +she would have opened to admit the light she never saw again. It lay +nearly under there. _He_ knew that. God, how the sun poured down upon +the very spot! + +The glance was instantaneous. It was a relief to have got free of the +room. He whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away. + +He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on which +stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to Highgate +Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to the +right again, almost as soon as he began to descend it; and taking the +foot-path across the fields, skirted Caen Wood, and so came on +Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath, he mounted +the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the villages of +Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion of the heath +to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid himself down under +a hedge, and slept. + +Soon he was up again, and away,—not far into the country, but back +towards London by the high-road—then back again—then over another part +of the same ground as he already traversed—then wandering up and down +in fields, and lying on ditches’ brinks to rest, and starting up to +make for some other spot, and do the same, and ramble on again. + +Where could he go, that was near and not too public, to get some meat +and drink? Hendon. That was a good place, not far off, and out of most +people’s way. Thither he directed his steps,—running sometimes, and +sometimes, with a strange perversity, loitering at a snail’s pace, or +stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges with a stick. But when +he got there, all the people he met—the very children at the +doors—seemed to view him with suspicion. Back he turned again, without +the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he had tasted no food for +many hours; and once more he lingered on the Heath, uncertain where to +go. + +He wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still came back to the +old place. Morning and noon had passed, and the day was on the wane, +and still he rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round and round, +and still lingered about the same spot. At last he got away, and shaped +his course for Hatfield. + +It was nine o’clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, and the +dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the +hill by the church of the quiet village, and plodding along the little +street, crept into a small public-house, whose scanty light had guided +them to the spot. There was a fire in the tap-room, and some +country-labourers were drinking before it. + +They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the furthest +corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog: to whom he +cast a morsel of food from time to time. + +The conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon the +neighbouring land, and farmers; and when those topics were exhausted, +upon the age of some old man who had been buried on the previous +Sunday; the young men present considering him very old, and the old men +present declaring him to have been quite young—not older, one +white-haired grandfather said, than he was—with ten or fifteen year of +life in him at least—if he had taken care; if he had taken care. + +There was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this. The +robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in his +corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the +noisy entrance of a new comer. + +This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who +travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, strops, razors, +washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap +perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case +slung to his back. His entrance was the signal for various homely jokes +with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his supper, +and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously contrived to unite +business with amusement. + +“And what be that stoof? Good to eat, Harry?” asked a grinning +countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner. + +“This,” said the fellow, producing one, “this is the infallible and +invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, +mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, +cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or +woollen stuff. Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, +paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at one rub with +the infallible and invaluable composition. If a lady stains her honour, +she has only need to swallow one cake and she’s cured at once—for it’s +poison. If a gentleman wants to prove this, he has only need to bolt +one little square, and he has put it beyond question—for it’s quite as +satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the +flavour, consequently the more credit in taking it. One penny a square. +With all these virtues, one penny a square!” + +There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly +hesitated. The vendor observing this, increased in loquacity. + +“It’s all bought up as fast as it can be made,” said the fellow. “There +are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery, +always a-working upon it, and they can’t make it fast enough, though +the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned +directly, with twenty pound a-year for each of the children, and a +premium of fifty for twins. One penny a square! Two half-pence is all +the same, and four farthings is received with joy. One penny a square! +Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, +pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains! Here is a stain upon the hat of +a gentleman in company, that I’ll take clean out, before he can order +me a pint of ale.” + +“Hah!” cried Sikes starting up. “Give that back.” + +“I’ll take it clean out, sir,” replied the man, winking to the company, +“before you can come across the room to get it. Gentlemen all, observe +the dark stain upon this gentleman’s hat, no wider than a shilling, but +thicker than a half-crown. Whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, +beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or +blood-stain—” + +The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew +the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house. + +With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened +upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding that he was +not followed, and that they most probably considered him some drunken +sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and getting out of the glare of +the lamps of a stage-coach that was standing in the street, was walking +past, when he recognised the mail from London, and saw that it was +standing at the little post-office. He almost knew what was to come; +but he crossed over, and listened. + +The guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag. A man, +dressed like a game-keeper, came up at the moment, and he handed him a +basket which lay ready on the pavement. + +“That’s for your people,” said the guard. “Now, look alive in there, +will you. Damn that ’ere bag, it warn’t ready night afore last; this +won’t do, you know!” + +“Anything new up in town, Ben?” asked the game-keeper, drawing back to +the window-shutters, the better to admire the horses. + +“No, nothing that I knows on,” replied the man, pulling on his gloves. +“Corn’s up a little. I heerd talk of a murder, too, down Spitalfields +way, but I don’t reckon much upon it.” + +“Oh, that’s quite true,” said a gentleman inside, who was looking out +of the window. “And a dreadful murder it was.” + +“Was it, sir?” rejoined the guard, touching his hat. “Man or woman, +pray, sir?” + +“A woman,” replied the gentleman. “It is supposed—” + +“Now, Ben,” replied the coachman impatiently. + +“Damn that ’ere bag,” said the guard; “are you gone to sleep in there?” + +“Coming!” cried the office keeper, running out. + +“Coming,” growled the guard. “Ah, and so’s the young ’ooman of property +that’s going to take a fancy to me, but I don’t know when. Here, give +hold. All ri—ight!” + +The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was gone. + +Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he +had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where +to go. At length he went back again, and took the road which leads from +Hatfield to St. Albans. + +He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and plunged +into the solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread and awe +creeping upon him which shook him to the core. Every object before him, +substance or shadow, still or moving, took the semblance of some +fearful thing; but these fears were nothing compared to the sense that +haunted him of that morning’s ghastly figure following at his heels. He +could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the +outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along. He +could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of +wind came laden with that last low cry. If he stopped it did the same. +If he ran, it followed—not running too: that would have been a relief: +but like a corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on +one slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell. + +At times, he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to beat +this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on +his head, and his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was +behind him then. He had kept it before him that morning, but it was +behind now—always. He leaned his back against a bank, and felt that it +stood above him, visibly out against the cold night-sky. He threw +himself upon the road—on his back upon the road. At his head it stood, +silent, erect, and still—a living grave-stone, with its epitaph in +blood. + +Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence +must sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long +minute of that agony of fear. + +There was a shed in a field he passed, that offered shelter for the +night. Before the door, were three tall poplar trees, which made it +very dark within; and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail. +He _could not_ walk on, till daylight came again; and here he stretched +himself close to the wall—to undergo new torture. + +For now, a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than +that from which he had escaped. Those widely staring eyes, so +lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne to see them than +think upon them, appeared in the midst of the darkness: light in +themselves, but giving light to nothing. There were but two, but they +were everywhere. If he shut out the sight, there came the room with +every well-known object—some, indeed, that he would have forgotten, if +he had gone over its contents from memory—each in its accustomed place. +The body was in _its_ place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he +stole away. He got up, and rushed into the field without. The figure +was behind him. He re-entered the shed, and shrunk down once more. The +eyes were there, before he had laid himself along. + +And here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling +in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when +suddenly there arose upon the night-wind the noise of distant shouting, +and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and wonder. Any sound of men in +that lonely place, even though it conveyed a real cause of alarm, was +something to him. He regained his strength and energy at the prospect +of personal danger; and springing to his feet, rushed into the open +air. + +The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of +sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting +the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the +direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled +the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire! mingled with the ringing +of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames +as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though +refreshed by food. The noise increased as he looked. There were people +there—men and women—light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He +darted onward—straight, headlong—dashing through brier and brake, and +leaping gate and fence as madly as his dog, who careered with loud and +sounding bark before him. + +He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing to and +fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, +others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others +coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, +and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and +windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls +rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron +poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children shrieked, +and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The +clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of the water +as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He +shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself, +plunged into the thickest of the throng. Hither and thither he dived +that night: now working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the +smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and +men were thickest. Up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of +buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with his weight, under +the lee of falling bricks and stones, in every part of that great fire +was he; but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor bruise, +nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only smoke +and blackened ruins remained. + +This mad excitement over, there returned, with ten-fold force, the +dreadful consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously about him, +for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject +of their talk. The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and +they drew off, stealthily, together. He passed near an engine where +some men were seated, and they called to him to share in their +refreshment. He took some bread and meat; and as he drank a draught of +beer, heard the firemen, who were from London, talking about the +murder. “He has gone to Birmingham, they say,” said one: “but they’ll +have him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there’ll +be a cry all through the country.” + +He hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then +lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy sleep. He +wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the +fear of another solitary night. + +Suddenly, he took the desperate resolution to going back to London. + +“There’s somebody to speak to there, at all event,” he thought. “A good +hiding-place, too. They’ll never expect to nab me there, after this +country scent. Why can’t I lie by for a week or so, and, forcing blunt +from Fagin, get abroad to France? Damme, I’ll risk it.” + +He acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the least +frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed +within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by +a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which he had +fixed on for his destination. + +The dog, though. If any description of him were out, it would not be +forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with him. +This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets. He +resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking about for a pond: picking +up a heavy stone and tying it to his handkerchief as he went. + +The animal looked up into his master’s face while these preparations +were making; whether his instinct apprehended something of their +purpose, or the robber’s sidelong look at him was sterner than +ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear than usual, and +cowered as he came more slowly along. When his master halted at the +brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he stopped outright. + +“Do you hear me call? Come here!” cried Sikes. + +The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped +to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and +started back. + +“Come back!” said the robber. + +The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running noose and +called him again. + +The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away at his +hardest speed. + +The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the +expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at length he +resumed his journey. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIX. +MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND THE +INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT + + +The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted from +a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. The door being +opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one +side of the steps, while another man, who had been seated on the box, +dismounted too, and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr. +Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them, +hurried him into the house. This man was Monks. + +They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr. +Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. At the door of +this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance, +stopped. The two men looked at the old gentleman as if for +instructions. + +“He knows the alternative,” said Mr. Browlow. “If he hesitates or moves +a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for the aid +of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.” + +“How dare you say this of me?” asked Monks. + +“How dare you urge me to it, young man?” replied Mr. Brownlow, +confronting him with a steady look. “Are you mad enough to leave this +house? Unhand him. There, sir. You are free to go, and we to follow. +But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant +will have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery. I am +resolute and immoveable. If you are determined to be the same, your +blood be upon your own head!” + +“By what authority am I kidnapped in the street, and brought here by +these dogs?” asked Monks, looking from one to the other of the men who +stood beside him. + +“By mine,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “Those persons are indemnified by me. +If you complain of being deprived of your liberty—you had power and +opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it +advisable to remain quiet—I say again, throw yourself for protection on +the law. I will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too far +to recede, do not sue to me for leniency, when the power will have +passed into other hands; and do not say I plunged you down the gulf +into which you rushed, yourself.” + +Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides. He hesitated. + +“You will decide quickly,” said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect firmness and +composure. “If you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and consign +you to a punishment the extent of which, although I can, with a +shudder, foresee, I cannot control, once more, I say, for you know the +way. If not, and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those +you have deeply injured, seat yourself, without a word, in that chair. +It has waited for you two whole days.” + +Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still. + +“You will be prompt,” said Mr. Brownlow. “A word from me, and the +alternative has gone for ever.” + +Still the man hesitated. + +“I have not the inclination to parley,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and, as I +advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the right.” + +“Is there—” demanded Monks with a faltering tongue,—“is there—no middle +course?” + +“None.” + +Monks looked at the old gentleman, with an anxious eye; but, reading in +his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the +room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down. + +“Lock the door on the outside,” said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants, +“and come when I ring.” + +The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together. + +“This is pretty treatment, sir,” said Monks, throwing down his hat and +cloak, “from my father’s oldest friend.” + +“It is because I was your father’s oldest friend, young man,” returned +Mr. Brownlow; “it is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy +years were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and +kindred who rejoined her God in youth, and left me here a solitary, +lonely man: it is because he knelt with me beside his only sisters’s +death-bed when he was yet a boy, on the morning that would—but Heaven +willed otherwise—have made her my young wife; it is because my seared +heart clung to him, from that time forth, through all his trials and +errors, till he died; it is because old recollections and associations +filled my heart, and even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts +of him; it is because of all these things that I am moved to treat you +gently now—yes, Edward Leeford, even now—and blush for your +unworthiness who bear the name.” + +“What has the name to do with it?” asked the other, after +contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the +agitation of his companion. “What is the name to me?” + +“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “nothing to you. But it was _hers_, +and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man, the +glow and thrill which I once felt, only to hear it repeated by a +stranger. I am very glad you have changed it—very—very.” + +“This is all mighty fine,” said Monks (to retain his assumed +designation) after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself +in sullen defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat, shading his +face with his hand. “But what do you want with me?” + +“You have a brother,” said Mr. Brownlow, rousing himself: “a brother, +the whisper of whose name in your ear when I came behind you in the +street, was, in itself, almost enough to make you accompany me hither, +in wonder and alarm.” + +“I have no brother,” replied Monks. “You know I was an only child. Why +do you talk to me of brothers? You know that, as well as I.” + +“Attend to what I do know, and you may not,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I +shall interest you by and by. I know that of the wretched marriage, +into which family pride, and the most sordid and narrowest of all +ambition, forced your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole +and most unnatural issue.” + +“I don’t care for hard names,” interrupted Monks with a jeering laugh. +“You know the fact, and that’s enough for me.” + +“But I also know,” pursued the old gentleman, “the misery, the slow +torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union. I know how +listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their +heavy chain through a world that was poisoned to them both. I know how +cold formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave +place to dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last +they wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space +apart, carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death +could break the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest +looks they could assume. Your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon. But +it rusted and cankered at your father’s heart for years.” + +“Well, they were separated,” said Monks, “and what of that?” + +“When they had been separated for some time,” returned Mr. Brownlow, +“and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had +utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who, +with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new +friends. This circumstance, at least, you know already.” + +“Not I,” said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon +the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. “Not I.” + +“Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never +forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,” returned Mr. +Brownlow. “I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than +eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty—for he was, I +repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry. Must I go back +to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will +you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?” + +“I have nothing to disclose,” rejoined Monks. “You must talk on if you +will.” + +“These new friends, then,” said Mr. Brownlow, “were a naval officer +retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year +before, and left him with two children—there had been more, but, of all +their family, happily but two survived. They were both daughters; one a +beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two or +three years old.” + +“What’s this to me?” asked Monks. + +“They resided,” said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the +interruption, “in a part of the country to which your father in his +wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode. +Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. Your +father was gifted as few men are. He had his sister’s soul and person. +As the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him. I would +that it had ended there. His daughter did the same.” + +The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes +fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed: + +“The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that +daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a +guileless girl.” + +“Your tale is of the longest,” observed Monks, moving restlessly in his +chair. + +“It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,” returned +Mr. Brownlow, “and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed +joy and happiness, it would be very brief. At length one of those rich +relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had +been sacrificed, as others are often—it is no uncommon case—died, and +to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him +his panacea for all griefs—Money. It was necessary that he should +immediately repair to Rome, whither this man had sped for health, and +where he had died, leaving his affairs in great confusion. He went; was +seized with mortal illness there; was followed, the moment the +intelligence reached Paris, by your mother who carried you with her; he +died the day after her arrival, leaving no will—_no will_—so that the +whole property fell to her and you.” + +At this part of the recital Monks held his breath, and listened with a +face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards +the speaker. As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed his position with the +air of one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face +and hands. + +“Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London on his way,” +said Mr. Brownlow, slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other’s face, +“he came to me.” + +“I never heard of that,” interrupted Monks in a tone intended to appear +incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise. + +“He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture—a +portrait painted by himself—a likeness of this poor girl—which he did +not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty +journey. He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked +in a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself; +confided to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any +loss, into money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of +his recent acquisition, to fly the country—I guessed too well he would +not fly alone—and never see it more. Even from me, his old and early +friend, whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that +covered one most dear to both—even from me he withheld any more +particular confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after +that to see me once again, for the last time on earth. Alas! _That_ was +the last time. I had no letter, and I never saw him more.” + +“I went,” said Mr. Brownlow, after a short pause, “I went, when all was +over, to the scene of his—I will use the term the world would freely +use, for worldly harshness or favour are now alike to him—of his guilty +love, resolved that if my fears were realised that erring child should +find one heart and home to shelter and compassionate her. The family +had left that part a week before; they had called in such trifling +debts as were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place by +night. Why, or whither, none can tell.” + +Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of +triumph. + +“When your brother,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer to the other’s +chair, “When your brother: a feeble, ragged, neglected child: was cast +in my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a life +of vice and infamy—” + +“What?” cried Monks. + +“By me,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I told you I should interest you before +long. I say by me—I see that your cunning associate suppressed my name, +although for aught he knew, it would be quite strange to your ears. +When he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from sickness in my +house, his strong resemblance to this picture I have spoken of, struck +me with astonishment. Even when I first saw him in all his dirt and +misery, there was a lingering expression in his face that came upon me +like a glimpse of some old friend flashing on one in a vivid dream. I +need not tell you he was snared away before I knew his history—” + +“Why not?” asked Monks hastily. + +“Because you know it well.” + +“I!” + +“Denial to me is vain,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I shall show you that I +know more than that.” + +“You—you—can’t prove anything against me,” stammered Monks. “I defy you +to do it!” + +“We shall see,” returned the old gentleman with a searching glance. “I +lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him. Your mother +being dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody +could, and as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate +in the West Indies—whither, as you well know, you retired upon your +mother’s death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here—I +made the voyage. You had left it, months before, and were supposed to +be in London, but no one could tell where. I returned. Your agents had +no clue to your residence. You came and went, they said, as strangely +as you had ever done: sometimes for days together and sometimes not for +months: keeping to all appearance the same low haunts and mingling with +the same infamous herd who had been your associates when a fierce +ungovernable boy. I wearied them with new applications. I paced the +streets by night and day, but until two hours ago, all my efforts were +fruitless, and I never saw you for an instant.” + +“And now you do see me,” said Monks, rising boldly, “what then? Fraud +and robbery are high-sounding words—justified, you think, by a fancied +resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man’s Brother! +You don’t even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you +don’t even know that.” + +“I _did not_,” replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; “but within the last +fortnight I have learnt it all. You have a brother; you know it, and +him. There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret +and the gain to you at her own death. It contained a reference to some +child likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was +born, and accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were +first awakened by his resemblance to your father. You repaired to the +place of his birth. There existed proofs—proofs long suppressed—of his +birth and parentage. Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now, in +your own words to your accomplice the Jew, ‘_the only proofs of the +boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that +received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin_.’ Unworthy son, +coward, liar,—you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers in +dark rooms at night,—you, whose plots and wiles have brought a violent +death upon the head of one worth millions such as you,—you, who from +your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father’s heart, and in +whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered, till they found +a vent in a hideous disease which had made your face an index even to +your mind—you, Edward Leeford, do you still brave me!” + +“No, no, no!” returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated +charges. + +“Every word!” cried the gentleman, “every word that has passed between +you and this detested villain, is known to me. Shadows on the wall have +caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the +persecuted child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and +almost the attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you +were morally if not really a party.” + +“No, no,” interposed Monks. “I—I knew nothing of that; I was going to +inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. I didn’t know the +cause. I thought it was a common quarrel.” + +“It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,” replied Mr. Brownlow. +“Will you disclose the whole?” + +“Yes, I will.” + +“Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before +witnesses?” + +“That I promise too.” + +“Remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, and proceed +with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose +of attesting it?” + +“If you insist upon that, I’ll do that also,” replied Monks. + +“You must do more than that,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Make restitution to +an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the +offspring of a guilty and most miserable love. You have not forgotten +the provisions of the will. Carry them into execution so far as your +brother is concerned, and then go where you please. In this world you +need meet no more.” + +While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks +on this proposal and the possibilities of evading it: torn by his fears +on the one hand and his hatred on the other: the door was hurriedly +unlocked, and a gentleman (Mr. Losberne) entered the room in violent +agitation. + +“The man will be taken,” he cried. “He will be taken to-night!” + +“The murderer?” asked Mr. Brownlow. + +“Yes, yes,” replied the other. “His dog has been seen lurking about +some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is, +or will be, there, under cover of the darkness. Spies are hovering +about in every direction. I have spoken to the men who are charged with +his capture, and they tell me he cannot escape. A reward of a hundred +pounds is proclaimed by Government to-night.” + +“I will give fifty more,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and proclaim it with my +own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it. Where is Mr. Maylie?” + +“Harry? As soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in a coach with +you, he hurried off to where he heard this,” replied the doctor, “and +mounting his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place +in the outskirts agreed upon between them.” + +“Fagin,” said Mr. Brownlow; “what of him?” + +“When I last heard, he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by +this time. They’re sure of him.” + +“Have you made up your mind?” asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of +Monks. + +“Yes,” he replied. “You—you—will be secret with me?” + +“I will. Remain here till I return. It is your only hope of safety.” + +They left the room, and the door was again locked. + +“What have you done?” asked the doctor in a whisper. + +“All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling the poor girl’s +intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good +friend’s inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and +laid bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day. +Write and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the +meeting. We shall be down there, a few hours before, but shall require +rest: especially the young lady, who _may_ have greater need of +firmness than either you or I can quite foresee just now. But my blood +boils to avenge this poor murdered creature. Which way have they +taken?” + +“Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,” replied Mr. +Losberne. “I will remain here.” + +The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement +wholly uncontrollable. + + + + + CHAPTER L. +THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE + + +Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe +abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on +the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of +close-built low-roofed houses, there exists the filthiest, the +strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are +hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of +its inhabitants. + +To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of +close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest +of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to +occasion. The cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the +shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at +the salesman’s door, and stream from the house-parapet and windows. +Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, +ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the +raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, +assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which +branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of +ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks +of warehouses that rise from every corner. Arriving, at length, in +streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he has +passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the +pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys +half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron +bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign +of desolation and neglect. + +In such a neighborhood, beyond Dockhead in the Borough of Southwark, +stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet +deep and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill +Pond, but known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch. It is a creek +or inlet from the Thames, and can always be filled at high water by +opening the sluices at the Lead Mills from which it took its old name. +At such times, a stranger, looking from one of the wooden bridges +thrown across it at Mill Lane, will see the inhabitants of the houses +on either side lowering from their back doors and windows, buckets, +pails, domestic utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the water up; +and when his eye is turned from these operations to the houses +themselves, his utmost astonishment will be excited by the scene before +him. Crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, +with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken +and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is +never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would +seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; +wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening +to fall into it—as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying +foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome +indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of +Folly Ditch. + +In Jacob’s Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are +crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling +into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke. +Thirty or forty years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon +it, it was a thriving place; but now it is a desolate island indeed. +The houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by +those who have the courage; and there they live, and there they die. +They must have powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced +to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in Jacob’s Island. + +In an upper room of one of these houses—a detached house of fair size, +ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window: of +which house the back commanded the ditch in manner already +described—there were assembled three men, who, regarding each other +every now and then with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation, +sat for some time in profound and gloomy silence. One of these was Toby +Crackit, another Mr. Chitling, and the third a robber of fifty years, +whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and whose +face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to the same +occasion. This man was a returned transport, and his name was Kags. + +“I wish,” said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, “that you had picked out +some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come +here, my fine feller.” + +“Why didn’t you, blunder-head!” said Kags. + +“Well, I thought you’d have been a little more glad to see me than +this,” replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air. + +“Why, look’e, young gentleman,” said Toby, “when a man keeps himself so +very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over +his head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it’s rather a +startling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman +(however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with +at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.” + +“Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping +with him, that’s arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts, +and is too modest to want to be presented to the Judges on his return,” +added Mr. Kags. + +There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon +as hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care +swagger, turned to Chitling and said, + +“When was Fagin took then?” + +“Just at dinner-time—two o’clock this afternoon. Charley and I made our +lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, +head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out +at the top, and so they took him too.” + +“And Bet?” + +“Poor Bet! She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,” replied +Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, “and went off mad, +screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they +put a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital—and there she +is.” + +“Wot’s come of young Bates?” demanded Kags. + +“He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he’ll be here +soon,” replied Chitling. “There’s nowhere else to go to now, for the +people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken—I +went up there and see it with my own eyes—is filled with traps.” + +“This is a smash,” observed Toby, biting his lips. “There’s more than +one will go with this.” + +“The sessions are on,” said Kags: “if they get the inquest over, and +Bolter turns King’s evidence: as of course he will, from what he’s said +already: they can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the +trial on on Friday, and he’ll swing in six days from this, by G—!” + +“You should have heard the people groan,” said Chitling; “the officers +fought like devils, or they’d have torn him away. He was down once, but +they made a ring round him, and fought their way along. You should have +seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them +as if they were his dearest friends. I can see ’em now, not able to +stand upright with the pressing of the mob, and draggin him along +amongst ’em; I can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and +snarling with their teeth and making at him; I can see the blood upon +his hair and beard, and hear the cries with which the women worked +themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore +they’d tear his heart out!” + +The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his +ears, and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro, +like one distracted. + +While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their +eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, +and Sikes’s dog bounded into the room. They ran to the window, +downstairs, and into the street. The dog had jumped in at an open +window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be +seen. + +“What’s the meaning of this?” said Toby when they had returned. “He +can’t be coming here. I—I—hope not.” + +“If he was coming here, he’d have come with the dog,” said Kags, +stooping down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor. +“Here! Give us some water for him; he has run himself faint.” + +“He’s drunk it all up, every drop,” said Chitling after watching the +dog some time in silence. “Covered with mud—lame—half blind—he must +have come a long way.” + +“Where can he have come from!” exclaimed Toby. “He’s been to the other +kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, +where he’s been many a time and often. But where can he have come from +first, and how comes he here alone without the other!” + +“He”—(none of them called the murderer by his old name)—“He can’t have +made away with himself. What do you think?” said Chitling. + +Toby shook his head. + +“If he had,” said Kags, “the dog ’ud want to lead us away to where he +did it. No. I think he’s got out of the country, and left the dog +behind. He must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn’t be so +easy.” + +This solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the +right; the dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep, +without more notice from anybody. + +It being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and +placed upon the table. The terrible events of the last two days had +made a deep impression on all three, increased by the danger and +uncertainty of their own position. They drew their chairs closer +together, starting at every sound. They spoke little, and that in +whispers, and were as silent and awe-stricken as if the remains of the +murdered woman lay in the next room. + +They had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried +knocking at the door below. + +“Young Bates,” said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he +felt himself. + +The knocking came again. No, it wasn’t he. He never knocked like that. + +Crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head. +There was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. +The dog too was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the +door. + +“We must let him in,” he said, taking up the candle. + +“Isn’t there any help for it?” asked the other man in a hoarse voice. + +“None. He _must_ come in.” + +“Don’t leave us in the dark,” said Kags, taking down a candle from the +chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the +knocking was twice repeated before he had finished. + +Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the +lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over +his head under his hat. He drew them slowly off. Blanched face, sunken +eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days’ growth, wasted flesh, short +thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes. + +He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, +but shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance +over his shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall—as close as it +would go—and ground it against it—and sat down. + +Not a word had been exchanged. He looked from one to another in +silence. If an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly +averted. When his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started. +They seemed never to have heard its tones before. + +“How came that dog here?” he asked. + +“Alone. Three hours ago.” + +“To-night’s paper says that Fagin’s took. Is it true, or a lie?” + +“True.” + +They were silent again. + +“Damn you all!” said Sikes, passing his hand across his forehead. “Have +you nothing to say to me?” + +There was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke. + +“You that keep this house,” said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit, +“do you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?” + +“You may stop here, if you think it safe,” returned the person +addressed, after some hesitation. + +Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him: rather trying to +turn his head than actually doing it: and said, “Is—it—the body—is it +buried?” + +They shook their heads. + +“Why isn’t it!” he retorted with the same glance behind him. “Wot do +they keep such ugly things above the ground for?—Who’s that knocking?” + +Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that +there was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates +behind him. Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy +entered the room he encountered his figure. + +“Toby,” said the boy falling back, as Sikes turned his eyes towards +him, “why didn’t you tell me this, downstairs?” + +There had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the +three, that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad. +Accordingly he nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with +him. + +“Let me go into some other room,” said the boy, retreating still +farther. + +“Charley!” said Sikes, stepping forward. “Don’t you—don’t you know me?” + +“Don’t come nearer me,” answered the boy, still retreating, and +looking, with horror in his eyes, upon the murderer’s face. “You +monster!” + +The man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but Sikes’s +eyes sunk gradually to the ground. + +“Witness you three,” cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and +becoming more and more excited as he spoke. “Witness you three—I’m not +afraid of him—if they come here after him, I’ll give him up; I will. I +tell you out at once. He may kill me for it if he likes, or if he +dares, but if I am here I’ll give him up. I’d give him up if he was to +be boiled alive. Murder! Help! If there’s the pluck of a man among you +three, you’ll help me. Murder! Help! Down with him!” + +Pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent +gesticulation, the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the +strong man, and in the intensity of his energy and the suddenness of +his surprise, brought him heavily to the ground. + +The three spectators seemed quite stupefied. They offered no +interference, and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the +former, heedless of the blows that showered upon him, wrenching his +hands tighter and tighter in the garments about the murderer’s breast, +and never ceasing to call for help with all his might. + +The contest, however, was too unequal to last long. Sikes had him down, +and his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with a +look of alarm, and pointed to the window. There were lights gleaming +below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried +footsteps—endless they seemed in number—crossing the nearest wooden +bridge. One man on horseback seemed to be among the crowd; for there +was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven pavement. The gleam of +lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on. Then, +came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur from such a +multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail. + +“Help!” shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air. “He’s here! +Break down the door!” + +“In the King’s name,” cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry +arose again, but louder. + +“Break down the door!” screamed the boy. “I tell you they’ll never open +it. Run straight to the room where the light is. Break down the door!” + +Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower +window-shutters as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the +crowd; giving the listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of +its immense extent. + +“Open the door of some place where I can lock this screeching +Hell-babe,” cried Sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the +boy, now, as easily as if he were an empty sack. “That door. Quick!” He +flung him in, bolted it, and turned the key. “Is the downstairs door +fast?” + +“Double-locked and chained,” replied Crackit, who, with the other two +men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered. + +“The panels—are they strong?” + +“Lined with sheet-iron.” + +“And the windows too?” + +“Yes, and the windows.” + +“Damn you!” cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and +menacing the crowd. “Do your worst! I’ll cheat you yet!” + +Of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could +exceed the cry of the infuriated throng. Some shouted to those who were +nearest to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to +shoot him dead. Among them all, none showed such fury as the man on +horseback, who, throwing himself out of the saddle, and bursting +through the crowd as if he were parting water, cried, beneath the +window, in a voice that rose above all others, “Twenty guineas to the +man who brings a ladder!” + +The nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it. Some called +for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro +as if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some spent +their breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed forward +with the ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of those +below; some among the boldest attempted to climb up by the water-spout +and crevices in the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the darkness +beneath, like a field of corn moved by an angry wind: and joined from +time to time in one loud furious roar. + +“The tide,” cried the murderer, as he staggered back into the room, and +shut the faces out, “the tide was in as I came up. Give me a rope, a +long rope. They’re all in front. I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and +clear off that way. Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders +and kill myself.” + +The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the +murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up +to the house-top. + +All the windows in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up, +except one small trap in the room where the boy was locked, and that +was too small even for the passage of his body. But, from this +aperture, he had never ceased to call on those without, to guard the +back; and thus, when the murderer emerged at last on the house-top by +the door in the roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in +front, who immediately began to pour round, pressing upon each other in +an unbroken stream. + +He planted a board, which he had carried up with him for the purpose, +so firmly against the door that it must be matter of great difficulty +to open it from the inside; and creeping over the tiles, looked over +the low parapet. + +The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud. + +The crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his +motions and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it +and knew it was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to +which all their previous shouting had been whispers. Again and again it +rose. Those who were at too great a distance to know its meaning, took +up the sound; it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the whole +city had poured its population out to curse him. + +On pressed the people from the front—on, on, on, in a strong struggling +current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten +them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. The houses +on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes +were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of faces +in every window; cluster upon cluster of people clinging to every +house-top. Each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent +beneath the weight of the crowd upon it. Still the current poured on to +find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an +instant see the wretch. + +“They have him now,” cried a man on the nearest bridge. “Hurrah!” + +The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose. + +“I will give fifty pounds,” cried an old gentleman from the same +quarter, “to the man who takes him alive. I will remain here, till he +come to ask me for it.” + +There was another roar. At this moment the word was passed among the +crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first +called for the ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly +turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at +the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their +stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now +thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left: each man crushing and +striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near +the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. +The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, +or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were +dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, +between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and +the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the +mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, +although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, +increased. + +The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the +crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change +with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, +determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the +ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in +the darkness and confusion. + +Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within +the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he +set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the +rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong +running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second. He +could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the +ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut +it then and drop. + +At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to +slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman +before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge +as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly +warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down—at +that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw +his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror. + +“The eyes again!” he cried in an unearthly screech. + +Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled +over the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight, +tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for +five-and-thirty feet. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of +the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his +stiffening hand. + +The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The +murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside +the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come +and take him out, for God’s sake. + +A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on +the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring, +jumped for the dead man’s shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the +ditch, turning completely over as he went; and striking his head +against a stone, dashed out his brains. + + + + + CHAPTER LI. +AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING +A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY + + +The events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when +Oliver found himself, at three o’clock in the afternoon, in a +travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town. Mrs. Maylie, +and Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and Mr. +Brownlow followed in a post-chaise, accompanied by one other person +whose name had not been mentioned. + +They had not talked much upon the way; for Oliver was in a flutter of +agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting +his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less +effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree. +He and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by Mr. +Brownlow with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from +Monks; and although they knew that the object of their present journey +was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole +matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in +endurance of the most intense suspense. + +The same kind friend had, with Mr. Losberne’s assistance, cautiously +stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive +intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that so recently taken place. +“It was quite true,” he said, “that they must know them before long, +but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be +at a worse.” So, they travelled on in silence: each busied with +reflections on the object which had brought them together: and no one +disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all. + +But if Oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they +journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the +whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a +crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into +that which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy, +without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head. + +“See there, there!” cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose, +and pointing out at the carriage window; “that’s the stile I came over; +there are the hedges I crept behind, for fear any one should overtake +me and force me back! Yonder is the path across the fields, leading to +the old house where I was a little child! Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old +friend, if I could only see you now!” + +“You will see him soon,” replied Rose, gently taking his folded hands +between her own. “You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich +you have grown, and that in all your happiness you have none so great +as the coming back to make him happy too.” + +“Yes, yes,” said Oliver, “and we’ll—we’ll take him away from here, and +have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place +where he may grow strong and well,—shall we?” + +Rose nodded “yes,” for the boy was smiling through such happy tears +that she could not speak. + +“You will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,” said +Oliver. “It will make you cry, I know, to hear what he can tell; but +never mind, never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again—I +know that too—to think how changed he is; you did the same with me. He +said ‘God bless you’ to me when I ran away,” cried the boy with a burst +of affectionate emotion; “and I will say ‘God bless you’ now, and show +him how I love him for it!” + +As they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow +streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy +within reasonable bounds. There was Sowerberry’s the undertaker’s just +as it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he +remembered it—there were all the well-known shops and houses, with +almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected—there +was Gamfield’s cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old +public-house door—there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his +youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street—there was +the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver +involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so +foolish, then cried, then laughed again—there were scores of faces at +the doors and windows that he knew quite well—there was nearly +everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life +had been but a happy dream. + +But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality. They drove straight to the +door of the chief hotel (which Oliver used to stare up at, with awe, +and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur +and size); and here was Mr. Grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing +the young lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as +if he were the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness, +and not offering to eat his head—no, not once; not even when he +contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and +maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and +that time fast asleep. There was dinner prepared, and there were +bedrooms ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic. + +Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was +over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their +journey down. Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in +a separate room. The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with +anxious faces, and, during the short intervals when they were present, +conversed apart. Once, Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being +absent for nearly an hour, returned with eyes swollen with weeping. All +these things made Rose and Oliver, who were not in any new secrets, +nervous and uncomfortable. They sat wondering, in silence; or, if they +exchanged a few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to +hear the sound of their own voices. + +At length, when nine o’clock had come, and they began to think they +were to hear no more that night, Mr. Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered +the room, followed by Mr. Brownlow and a man whom Oliver almost +shrieked with surprise to see; for they told him it was his brother, +and it was the same man he had met at the market-town, and seen looking +in with Fagin at the window of his little room. Monks cast a look of +hate, which, even then, he could not dissemble, at the astonished boy, +and sat down near the door. Mr. Brownlow, who had papers in his hand, +walked to a table near which Rose and Oliver were seated. + +“This is a painful task,” said he, “but these declarations, which have +been signed in London before many gentlemen, must be in substance +repeated here. I would have spared you the degradation, but we must +hear them from your own lips before we part, and you know why.” + +“Go on,” said the person addressed, turning away his face. “Quick. I +have almost done enough, I think. Don’t keep me here.” + +“This child,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him, and laying his +hand upon his head, “is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your +father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who +died in giving him birth.” + +“Yes,” said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy: the beating of whose +heart he might have heard. “That is the bastard child.” + +“The term you use,” said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, “is a reproach to those +long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world. It reflects +disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. Let that pass. He was +born in this town.” + +“In the workhouse of this town,” was the sullen reply. “You have the +story there.” He pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke. + +“I must have it here, too,” said Mr. Brownlow, looking round upon the +listeners. + +“Listen then! You!” returned Monks. “His father being taken ill at +Rome, was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long +separated, who went from Paris and took me with her—to look after his +property, for what I know, for she had no great affection for him, nor +he for her. He knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he +slumbered on till next day, when he died. Among the papers in his desk, +were two, dated on the night his illness first came on, directed to +yourself”; he addressed himself to Mr. Brownlow; “and enclosed in a few +short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package that +it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead. One of these papers +was a letter to this girl Agnes; the other a will.” + +“What of the letter?” asked Mr. Brownlow. + +“The letter?—A sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a +penitent confession, and prayers to God to help her. He had palmed a +tale on the girl that some secret mystery—to be explained one +day—prevented his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on, +trusting patiently to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what +none could ever give her back. She was, at that time, within a few +months of her confinement. He told her all he had meant to do, to hide +her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse +his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on +her or their young child; for all the guilt was his. He reminded her of +the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her +christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he +hoped one day to have bestowed upon her—prayed her yet to keep it, and +wear it next her heart, as she had done before—and then ran on, wildly, +in the same words, over and over again, as if he had gone distracted. I +believe he had.” + +“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver’s tears fell fast. + +Monks was silent. + +“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, “was in the same +spirit as the letter. He talked of miseries which his wife had brought +upon him; of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature +bad passions of you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and +left you, and your mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds. The +bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions—one for Agnes +Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born alive, and +ever come of age. If it were a girl, it was to inherit the money +unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in his +minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of +dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong. He did this, he said, to mark +his confidence in the mother, and his conviction—only strengthened by +approaching death—that the child would share her gentle heart, and +noble nature. If he were disappointed in this expectation, then the +money was to come to you: for then, and not till then, when both +children were equal, would he recognise your prior claim upon his +purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, repulsed +him with coldness and aversion.” + +“My mother,” said Monks, in a louder tone, “did what a woman should +have done. She burnt this will. The letter never reached its +destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever +tried to lie away the blot. The girl’s father had the truth from her +with every aggravation that her violent hate—I love her for it +now—could add. Goaded by shame and dishonour he fled with his children +into a remote corner of Wales, changing his very name that his friends +might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, +he was found dead in his bed. The girl had left her home, in secret, +some weeks before; he had searched for her, on foot, in every town and +village near; it was on the night when he returned home, assured that +she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his, that his old +heart broke.” + +There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread +of the narrative. + +“Years after this,” he said, “this man’s—Edward Leeford’s—mother came +to me. He had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and +money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London: where for two +years he had associated with the lowest outcasts. She was sinking under +a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she +died. Inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made. They were +unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back +with her to France.” + +“There she died,” said Monks, “after a lingering illness; and, on her +death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her +unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved—though she +need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before. She +would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child +too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been +born, and was alive. I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to +hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and +most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply +felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by +dragging it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He +came in my way at last. I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I +would have finished as I began!” + +As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on +himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the +terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been +his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver +ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his +being rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit +to the country house for the purpose of identifying him. + +“The locket and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks. + +“I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them +from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,” answered Monks without +raising his eyes. “You know what became of them.” + +Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great +alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her +unwilling consort after him. + +“Do my hi’s deceive me!” cried Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm, +“or is that little Oliver? Oh O-li-ver, if you know’d how I’ve been +a-grieving for you—” + +“Hold your tongue, fool,” murmured Mrs. Bumble. + +“Isn’t natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?” remonstrated the workhouse master. +“Can’t I be supposed to feel—_I_ as brought him up porochially—when I +see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest +description! I always loved that boy as if he’d been my—my—my own +grandfather,” said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison. +“Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the +white waistcoat? Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with +plated handles, Oliver.” + +“Come, sir,” said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; “suppress your feelings.” + +“I will do my endeavours, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble. “How do you do, +sir? I hope you are very well.” + +This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to +within a short distance of the respectable couple. He inquired, as he +pointed to Monks, + +“Do you know that person?” + +“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble flatly. + +“Perhaps _you_ don’t?” said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse. + +“I never saw him in all my life,” said Mr. Bumble. + +“Nor sold him anything, perhaps?” + +“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble. + +“You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?” said Mr. +Brownlow. + +“Certainly not,” replied the matron. “Why are we brought here to answer +to such nonsense as this?” + +Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman +limped away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return +with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, +who shook and tottered as they walked. + +“You shut the door the night old Sally died,” said the foremost one, +raising her shrivelled hand, “but you couldn’t shut out the sound, nor +stop the chinks.” + +“No, no,” said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless +jaws. “No, no, no.” + +“We heard her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper +from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker’s +shop,” said the first. + +“Yes,” added the second, “and it was a ‘locket and gold ring.’ We found +out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.” + +“And we know more than that,” resumed the first, “for she told us +often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she +should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was +taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.” + +“Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?” asked Mr. Grimwig with +a motion towards the door. + +“No,” replied the woman; “if he”—she pointed to Monks—“has been coward +enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags +till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I _did_ +sell them, and they’re where you’ll never get them. What then?” + +“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “except that it remains for us to take +care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You +may leave the room.” + +“I hope,” said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as +Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: “I hope that this +unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial +office?” + +“Indeed it will,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You may make up your mind to +that, and think yourself well off besides.” + +“It was all Mrs. Bumble. She _would_ do it,” urged Mr. Bumble; first +looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room. + +“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the +occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more +guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that +your wife acts under your direction.” + +“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat +emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the +eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, +that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” + +Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble +fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets, +followed his helpmate downstairs. + +“Young lady,” said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, “give me your hand. +Do not tremble. You need not fear to hear the few remaining words we +have to say.” + +“If they have—I do not know how they can, but if they have—any +reference to me,” said Rose, “pray let me hear them at some other time. +I have not strength or spirits now.” + +“Nay,” returned the old gentlman, drawing her arm through his; “you +have more fortitude than this, I am sure. Do you know this young lady, +sir?” + +“Yes,” replied Monks. + +“I never saw you before,” said Rose faintly. + +“I have seen you often,” returned Monks. + +“The father of the unhappy Agnes had _two_ daughters,” said Mr. +Brownlow. “What was the fate of the other—the child?” + +“The child,” replied Monks, “when her father died in a strange place, +in a strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that +yielded the faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be +traced—the child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it as +their own.” + +“Go on,” said Mr. Brownlow, signing to Mrs. Maylie to approach. “Go +on!” + +“You couldn’t find the spot to which these people had repaired,” said +Monks, “but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way. My +mother found it, after a year of cunning search—ay, and found the +child.” + +“She took it, did she?” + +“No. The people were poor and began to sicken—at least the man did—of +their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a small +present of money which would not last long, and promised more, which +she never meant to send. She didn’t quite rely, however, on their +discontent and poverty for the child’s unhappiness, but told the +history of the sister’s shame, with such alterations as suited her; +bade them take good heed of the child, for she came of bad blood; and +told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go wrong at one time or +other. The circumstances countenanced all this; the people believed it; +and there the child dragged on an existence, miserable enough even to +satisfy us, until a widow lady, residing, then, at Chester, saw the +girl by chance, pitied her, and took her home. There was some cursed +spell, I think, against us; for in spite of all our efforts she +remained there and was happy. I lost sight of her, two or three years +ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.” + +“Do you see her now?” + +“Yes. Leaning on your arm.” + +“But not the less my niece,” cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting +girl in her arms; “not the less my dearest child. I would not lose her +now, for all the treasures of the world. My sweet companion, my own +dear girl!” + +“The only friend I ever had,” cried Rose, clinging to her. “The +kindest, best of friends. My heart will burst. I cannot bear all this.” + +“You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest +creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,” said Mrs. +Maylie, embracing her tenderly. “Come, come, my love, remember who this +is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child! See here—look, look, +my dear!” + +“Not aunt,” cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; “I’ll never +call her aunt—sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my +heart to love so dearly from the first! Rose, dear, darling Rose!” + +Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in +the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, +sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and +grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even +grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender +recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character +of pain. + +They were a long, long time alone. A soft tap at the door, at length +announced that some one was without. Oliver opened it, glided away, and +gave place to Harry Maylie. + +“I know it all,” he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. “Dear +Rose, I know it all.” + +“I am not here by accident,” he added after a lengthened silence; “nor +have I heard all this to-night, for I knew it yesterday—only yesterday. +Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?” + +“Stay,” said Rose. “You _do_ know all.” + +“All. You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the +subject of our last discourse.” + +“I did.” + +“Not to press you to alter your determination,” pursued the young man, +“but to hear you repeat it, if you would. I was to lay whatever of +station or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still +adhered to your former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or +act, to seek to change it.” + +“The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,” +said Rose firmly. “If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose +goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should I +ever feel it, as I should to-night? It is a struggle,” said Rose, “but +one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.” + +“The disclosure of to-night,”—Harry began. + +“The disclosure of to-night,” replied Rose softly, “leaves me in the +same position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.” + +“You harden your heart against me, Rose,” urged her lover. + +“Oh Harry, Harry,” said the young lady, bursting into tears; “I wish I +could, and spare myself this pain.” + +“Then why inflict it on yourself?” said Harry, taking her hand. “Think, +dear Rose, think what you have heard to-night.” + +“And what have I heard! What have I heard!” cried Rose. “That a sense +of his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned +all—there, we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.” + +“Not yet, not yet,” said the young man, detaining her as she rose. “My +hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my +love for you: have undergone a change. I offer you, now, no distinction +among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and +detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but +real disgrace and shame; but a home—a heart and home—yes, dearest Rose, +and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.” + +“What do you mean!” she faltered. + +“I mean but this—that when I left you last, I left you with a firm +determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me; +resolved that if my world could not be yours, I would make yours mine; +that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for I would turn +from it. This I have done. Those who have shrunk from me because of +this, have shrunk from you, and proved you so far right. Such power and +patronage: such relatives of influence and rank: as smiled upon me +then, look coldly now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees in +England’s richest county; and by one village church—mine, Rose, my +own!—there stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of, +than all the hopes I have renounced, measured a thousandfold. This is +my rank and station now, and here I lay it down!” + + +“It’s a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,” said Mr. Grimwig, +waking up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head. + +Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time. +Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together), +could offer a word in extenuation. + +“I had serious thoughts of eating my head to-night,” said Mr. Grimwig, +“for I began to think I should get nothing else. I’ll take the liberty, +if you’ll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.” + +Mr. Grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the +blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by +the doctor and Mr. Brownlow: some people affirm that Harry Maylie had +been observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the +best authorities consider this downright scandal: he being young and a +clergyman. + +“Oliver, my child,” said Mrs. Maylie, “where have you been, and why do +you look so sad? There are tears stealing down your face at this +moment. What is the matter?” + +It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, +and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour. + +Poor Dick was dead! + + + + + CHAPTER LII. +FAGIN’S LAST NIGHT ALIVE + + +The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. Inquisitive +and eager eyes peered from every inch of space. From the rail before +the dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the +galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man—Fagin. Before him and +behind: above, below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand +surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes. + +He stood there, in all this glare of living light, with one hand +resting on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and +his head thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater +distinctness every word that fell from the presiding judge, who was +delivering his charge to the jury. At times, he turned his eyes sharply +upon them to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight in his +favour; and when the points against him were stated with terrible +distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in mute appeal that he would, +even then, urge something in his behalf. Beyond these manifestations of +anxiety, he stirred not hand or foot. He had scarcely moved since the +trial began; and now that the judge ceased to speak, he still remained +in the same strained attitude of close attention, with his gaze bent on +him, as though he listened still. + +A slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself. Looking round, +he saw that the jurymen had turned together, to consider their verdict. +As his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising +above each other to see his face: some hastily applying their glasses +to their eyes: and others whispering their neighbours with looks +expressive of abhorrence. A few there were, who seemed unmindful of +him, and looked only to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could +delay. But in no one face—not even among the women, of whom there were +many there—could he read the faintest sympathy with himself, or any +feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should be condemned. + +As he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness +came again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards +the judge. Hush! + +They only sought permission to retire. + +He looked, wistfully, into their faces, one by one when they passed +out, as though to see which way the greater number leant; but that was +fruitless. The jailer touched him on the shoulder. He followed +mechanically to the end of the dock, and sat down on a chair. The man +pointed it out, or he would not have seen it. + +He looked up into the gallery again. Some of the people were eating, +and some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place +was very hot. There was one young man sketching his face in a little +note-book. He wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the +artist broke his pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any +idle spectator might have done. + +In the same way, when he turned his eyes towards the judge, his mind +began to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost, +and how he put it on. There was an old fat gentleman on the bench, too, +who had gone out, some half an hour before, and now come back. He +wondered within himself whether this man had been to get his dinner, +what he had had, and where he had had it; and pursued this train of +careless thought until some new object caught his eye and roused +another. + +Not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one +oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it +was ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could +not fix his thoughts upon it. Thus, even while he trembled, and turned +burning hot at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron +spikes before him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken +off, and whether they would mend it, or leave it as it was. Then, he +thought of all the horrors of the gallows and the scaffold—and stopped +to watch a man sprinkling the floor to cool it—and then went on to +think again. + +At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all +towards the door. The jury returned, and passed him close. He could +glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone. +Perfect stillness ensued—not a rustle—not a breath—Guilty. + +The building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another, +and then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swelled +out, like angry thunder. It was a peal of joy from the populace +outside, greeting the news that he would die on Monday. + +The noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why +sentence of death should not be passed upon him. He had resumed his +listening attitude, and looked intently at his questioner while the +demand was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it, +and then he only muttered that he was an old man—an old man—and so, +dropping into a whisper, was silent again. + +The judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the +same air and gesture. A woman in the gallery, uttered some exclamation, +called forth by this dread solemnity; he looked hastily up as if angry +at the interruption, and bent forward yet more attentively. The address +was solemn and impressive; the sentence fearful to hear. But he stood, +like a marble figure, without the motion of a nerve. His haggard face +was still thrust forward, his under-jaw hanging down, and his eyes +staring out before him, when the jailer put his hand upon his arm, and +beckoned him away. He gazed stupidly about him for an instant, and +obeyed. + +They led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners +were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their +friends, who crowded round a grate which looked into the open yard. +There was nobody there to speak to _him_; but, as he passed, the +prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were +clinging to the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and +screeched and hissed. He shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; +but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by +a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison. + +Here, he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of +anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of +the condemned cells, and left him there—alone. + +He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for seat +and bedstead; and casting his blood-shot eyes upon the ground, tried to +collect his thoughts. After awhile, he began to remember a few +disjointed fragments of what the judge had said: though it had seemed +to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. These gradually +fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more: so that +in a little time he had the whole, almost as it was delivered. To be +hanged by the neck, till he was dead—that was the end. To be hanged by +the neck till he was dead. + +As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known +who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. They +rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. He +had seen some of them die,—and had joked too, because they died with +prayers upon their lips. With what a rattling noise the drop went down; +and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling +heaps of clothes! + +Some of them might have inhabited that very cell—sat upon that very +spot. It was very dark; why didn’t they bring a light? The cell had +been built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last +hours there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies—the +cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath +that hideous veil.—Light, light! + +At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door +and walls, two men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he thrust into +an iron candlestick fixed against the wall: the other dragging in a +mattress on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left +alone no more. + +Then came the night—dark, dismal, silent night. Other watchers are glad +to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day. +To him they brought despair. The boom of every iron bell came laden +with the one, deep, hollow sound—Death. What availed the noise and +bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him? It was +another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning. + +The day passed off. Day? There was no day; it was gone as soon as +come—and night came on again; night so long, and yet so short; long in +its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours. At one time he +raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair. +Venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he +had driven them away with curses. They renewed their charitable +efforts, and he beat them off. + +Saturday night. He had only one night more to live. And as he thought +of this, the day broke—Sunday. + +It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering +sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon +his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive +hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than +the dim probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either of +the two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and +they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. He had +sat there, awake, but dreaming. Now, he started up, every minute, and +with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a +paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they—used to such sights—recoiled +from him with horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures +of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, +eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together. + +He cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had +been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his +capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. His red hair +hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into +knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh +crackled with the fever that burnt him up. Eight—nine—then. If it was +not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on +each other’s heels, where would he be, when they came round again! +Eleven! Another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had +ceased to vibrate. At eight, he would be the only mourner in his own +funeral train; at eleven— + +Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and +such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and +too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as +that. The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man +was doing who was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that +night, if they could have seen him. + +From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two +and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with +anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being +answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to +clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from +which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, +and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the +scene. By degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour, in the +dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness. + +The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers, +painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the +pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared +at the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, +signed by one of the sheriffs. They were immediately admitted into the +lodge. + +“Is the young gentleman to come too, sir?” said the man whose duty it +was to conduct them. “It’s not a sight for children, sir.” + +“It is not indeed, my friend,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow; “but my business +with this man is intimately connected with him; and as this child has +seen him in the full career of his success and villainy, I think it as +well—even at the cost of some pain and fear—that he should see him +now.” + +These few words had been said apart, so as to be inaudible to Oliver. +The man touched his hat; and glancing at Oliver with some curiousity, +opened another gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and +led them on, through dark and winding ways, towards the cells. + +“This,” said the man, stopping in a gloomy passage where a couple of +workmen were making some preparations in profound silence—“this is the +place he passes through. If you step this way, you can see the door he +goes out at.” + +He led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the +prison food, and pointed to a door. There was an open grating above it, +through which came the sound of men’s voices, mingled with the noise of +hammering, and the throwing down of boards. They were putting up the +scaffold. + +From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by +other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard, +ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row +of strong doors on the left hand. Motioning them to remain where they +were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The +two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage, +stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned +the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell. They did so. + +The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side +to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the +face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he +continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence +otherwise than as a part of his vision. + +“Good boy, Charley—well done—” he mumbled. “Oliver, too, ha! ha! ha! +Oliver too—quite the gentleman now—quite the—take that boy away to +bed!” + +The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not +to be alarmed, looked on without speaking. + +“Take him away to bed!” cried Fagin. “Do you hear me, some of you? He +has been the—the—somehow the cause of all this. It’s worth the money to +bring him up to it—Bolter’s throat, Bill; never mind the girl—Bolter’s +throat as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!” + +“Fagin,” said the jailer. + +“That’s me!” cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of +listening he had assumed upon his trial. “An old man, my Lord; a very +old, old man!” + +“Here,” said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him +down. “Here’s somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I +suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?” + +“I shan’t be one long,” he replied, looking up with a face retaining no +human expression but rage and terror. “Strike them all dead! What right +have they to butcher me?” + +As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to +the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted +there. + +“Steady,” said the turnkey, still holding him down. “Now, sir, tell him +what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time +gets on.” + +“You have some papers,” said Mr. Brownlow advancing, “which were placed +in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks.” + +“It’s all a lie together,” replied Fagin. “I haven’t one—not one.” + +“For the love of God,” said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, “do not say that +now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know +that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of +any further gain. Where are those papers?” + +“Oliver,” cried Fagin, beckoning to him. “Here, here! Let me whisper to +you.” + +“I am not afraid,” said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. +Brownlow’s hand. + +“The papers,” said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, “are in a canvas +bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I +want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you.” + +“Yes, yes,” returned Oliver. “Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one +prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till +morning.” + +“Outside, outside,” replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards +the door, and looking vacantly over his head. “Say I’ve gone to +sleep—they’ll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now +then, now then!” + +“Oh! God forgive this wretched man!” cried the boy with a burst of +tears. + +“That’s right, that’s right,” said Fagin. “That’ll help us on. This +door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don’t you +mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!” + +“Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?” inquired the turnkey. + +“No other question,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “If I hoped we could recall +him to a sense of his position—” + +“Nothing will do that, sir,” replied the man, shaking his head. “You +had better leave him.” + +The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned. + +“Press on, press on,” cried Fagin. “Softly, but not so slow. Faster, +faster!” + +The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, +held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an +instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those +massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. + +It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned +after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, +he had not the strength to walk. + +Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already +assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing +cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. +Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects +in the centre of all—the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all +the hideous apparatus of death. + + + + + CHAPTER LIII. +AND LAST + + +The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. +The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few +and simple words. + +Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were +married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of +the young clergyman’s labours; on the same day they entered into +possession of their new and happy home. + +Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to +enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity +that age and worth can know—the contemplation of the happiness of those +on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent +life, have been unceasingly bestowed. + +It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of +property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered +either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided +between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than +three thousand pounds. By the provisions of his father’s will, Oliver +would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to +deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices +and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to +which his young charge joyfully acceded. + +Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a +distant part of the New World; where, having quickly squandered it, he +once more fell into his old courses, and, after undergoing a long +confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk +under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison. As far from +home, died the chief remaining members of his friend Fagin’s gang. + +Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing with him and the old +housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage-house, where his dear +friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver’s warm +and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose +condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever +be known in this changing world. + +Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned +to Chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would +have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a +feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how. For +two or three months, he contented himself with hinting that he feared +the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really +no longer was, to him, what it had been, he settled his business on his +assistant, took a bachelor’s cottage outside the village of which his +young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered. Here he took to +gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits +of a similar kind: all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity. +In each and all he has since become famous throughout the neighborhood, +as a most profound authority. + +Before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong friendship for +Mr. Grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman cordially reciprocated. He +is accordingly visited by Mr. Grimwig a great many times in the course +of the year. On all such occasions, Mr. Grimwig plants, fishes, and +carpenters, with great ardour; doing everything in a very singular and +unprecedented manner, but always maintaining with his favourite +asseveration, that his mode is the right one. On Sundays, he never +fails to criticise the sermon to the young clergyman’s face: always +informing Mr. Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he +considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say +so. It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally +him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the +night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his +return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in +proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back after all; which +always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humour. + +Mr. Noah Claypole: receiving a free pardon from the Crown in +consequence of being admitted approver against Fagin: and considering +his profession not altogether as safe a one as he could wish: was, for +some little time, at a loss for the means of a livelihood, not burdened +with too much work. After some consideration, he went into business as +an informer, in which calling he realises a genteel subsistence. His +plan is, to walk out once a week during church time attended by +Charlotte in respectable attire. The lady faints away at the doors of +charitable publicans, and the gentleman being accommodated with +three-penny worth of brandy to restore her, lays an information next +day, and pockets half the penalty. Sometimes Mr. Claypole faints +himself, but the result is the same. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually +reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in +that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others. +Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation, +he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his +wife. + +As to Mr. Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts, +although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey. They +sleep at the parsonage, but divide their attentions so equally among +its inmates, and Oliver and Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne, that to +this day the villagers have never been able to discover to which +establishment they properly belong. + +Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes’s crime, fell into a train of +reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best. +Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back +upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of +action. He struggled hard, and suffered much, for some time; but, +having a contented disposition, and a good purpose, succeeded in the +end; and, from being a farmer’s drudge, and a carrier’s lad, he is now +the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire. + +And now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it approaches +the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little longer space, +the thread of these adventures. + +I would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom I have so long +moved, and share their happiness by endeavouring to depict it. I would +show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood, +shedding on her secluded path in life soft and gentle light, that fell +on all who trod it with her, and shone into their hearts. I would paint +her the life and joy of the fire-side circle and the lively summer +group; I would follow her through the sultry fields at noon, and hear +the low tones of her sweet voice in the moonlit evening walk; I would +watch her in all her goodness and charity abroad, and the smiling +untiring discharge of domestic duties at home; I would paint her and +her dead sister’s child happy in their love for one another, and +passing whole hours together in picturing the friends whom they had so +sadly lost; I would summon before me, once again, those joyous little +faces that clustered round her knee, and listen to their merry prattle; +I would recall the tones of that clear laugh, and conjure up the +sympathising tear that glistened in the soft blue eye. These, and a +thousand looks and smiles, and turns of thought and speech—I would fain +recall them every one. + +How Mr. Brownlow went on, from day to day, filling the mind of his +adopted child with stores of knowledge, and becoming attached to him, +more and more, as his nature developed itself, and showed the thriving +seeds of all he wished him to become—how he traced in him new traits of +his early friend, that awakened in his own bosom old remembrances, +melancholy and yet sweet and soothing—how the two orphans, tried by +adversity, remembered its lessons in mercy to others, and mutual love, +and fervent thanks to Him who had protected and preserved them—these +are all matters which need not to be told. I have said that they were +truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart, and +gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great attribute +is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness can never be +attained. + +Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble +tablet, which bears as yet but one word: “AGNES.” There is no coffin in +that tomb; and may it be many, many years, before another name is +placed above it! But, if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to +earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love—the love beyond the grave—of +those whom they knew in life, I believe that the shade of Agnes +sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. I believe it none the less +because that nook is in a Church, and she was weak and erring. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLIVER TWIST *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Old Curiosity Shop + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: October, 1996 [eBook #700] +[Most recently updated: November 30, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP *** + + + + +The Old Curiosity Shop + +By Charles Dickens + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking. In the +summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields +and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together; but, +saving in the country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven +be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the +earth, as much as any creature living. + +I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my +infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating +on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The +glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like +mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp +or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full +revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is +kinder in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built +castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or +remorse. + +That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that +incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy--is +it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it! +Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin’s Court, listening +to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, +despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect +the child’s step from the man’s, the slipshod beggar from the booted +exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering +outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker--think of +the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream +of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his +restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in +a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come. + +Then, the crowds forever passing and repassing on the bridges (on +those which are free of toll at least), where many stop on fine evenings +looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and +by it runs between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last +it joins the broad vast sea--where some halt to rest from heavy loads +and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away +one’s life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a +dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed--and where +some, and a very different class, pause with heavier loads than they, +remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a +hard death, but of all means of suicide the easiest and best. + +Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the +fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the +unwholesome streams of last night’s debauchery, and driving the dusky +thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, +half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin +to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot +hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while +others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be +watered and freshened up to please more sober company, and make old +clerks who pass them on their road to business, wonder what has filled +their breasts with visions of the country. + +But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story I +am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals, arose out +of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of them by +way of preface. + +One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my +usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an +inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be +addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that +struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow +a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at +a considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the +town. + +‘It is a very long way from here,’ said I, ‘my child.’ + +‘I know that, sir,’ she replied timidly. ‘I am afraid it is a very long +way, for I came from there to-night.’ + +‘Alone?’ said I, in some surprise. + +‘Oh, yes, I don’t mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I +had lost my road.’ + +‘And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?’ + +‘I am sure you will not do that,’ said the little creature,’ you are +such a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.’ + +I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the +energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child’s +clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into my +face. + +‘Come,’ said I, ‘I’ll take you there.’ + +She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if she had known me from her +cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature accommodating +her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and take care of me than I +to be protecting her. I observed that every now and then she stole a +curious look at my face, as if to make quite sure that I was not +deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp and keen they were +too) seemed to increase her confidence at every repetition. + +For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the +child’s, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably +from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame +imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more +scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with perfect +neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect. + +‘Who has sent you so far by yourself?’ said I. + +‘Someone who is very kind to me, sir.’ + +‘And what have you been doing?’ + +‘That, I must not tell,’ said the child firmly. + +There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to look +at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise; for +I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to be +prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for +as it met mine she added that there was no harm in what she had been +doing, but it was a great secret--a secret which she did not even know +herself. + +This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an +unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as +before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and talking +cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home, beyond +remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if it were a +short one. + +While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred different +explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt +ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of +the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these +little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh +from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I +determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had +prompted her to repose it in me. + +There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the +person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night +and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near +home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I +avoided the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus +it was not until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we +were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a +short distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining +on the step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her. + +A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I +did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and +I was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our +summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if +some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared +through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer +having to make his way through a great many scattered articles, enabled +me to see both what kind of person it was who advanced and what kind of +place it was through which he came. + +It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held +the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I +could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could +recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate +mould which I had noticed in the child. Their bright blue eyes were +certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so very full +of care, that here all resemblance ceased. + +The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those +receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd +corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public +eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like +ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from +monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in +china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that +might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the little +old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among +old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils +with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was +in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he. + +As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some astonishment +which was not diminished when he looked from me to my companion. The +door being opened, the child addressed him as grandfather, and told him +the little story of our companionship. + +‘Why, bless thee, child,’ said the old man, patting her on the head, +‘how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!’ + +‘I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,’ said the child +boldly; ‘never fear.’ + +The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk in, I +did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the light, he +led me through the place I had already seen from without, into a small +sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening into a kind of +closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have slept in, it +looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The child took a +candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old man and me +together. + +‘You must be tired, sir,’ said he as he placed a chair near the fire, +‘how can I thank you?’ + +‘By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good friend,’ +I replied. + +‘More care!’ said the old man in a shrill voice, ‘more care of Nelly! +Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?’ + +He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what +answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something feeble +and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of deep and +anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been +at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility. + +‘I don’t think you consider--’ I began. + +‘I don’t consider!’ cried the old man interrupting me, ‘I don’t +consider her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, +little Nelly!’ + +It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech +might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did, +in these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his +chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or thrice fixed his eyes +upon the fire. + +While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened, +and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her +neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us. +She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she was +thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of +observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to see +that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there +appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took +advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this +point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown persons +as trustworthy or as careful as she. + +‘It always grieves me,’ I observed, roused by what I took to be his +selfishness, ‘it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of +children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than +infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity--two of the best +qualities that Heaven gives them--and demands that they share our +sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.’ + +‘It will never check hers,’ said the old man looking steadily at me, +‘the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but +few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and +paid for.’ + +‘But--forgive me for saying this--you are surely not so very +poor’--said I. + +‘She is not my child, sir,’ returned the old man. ‘Her mother was, and +she was poor. I save nothing--not a penny--though I live as you see, +but’--he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to whisper--‘she +shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don’t you think ill +of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as you see, and +it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered anybody else to do +for me what her little hands could undertake. I don’t consider!’--he +cried with sudden querulousness, ‘why, God knows that this one child is +the thought and object of my life, and yet he never prospers me--no, +never!’ + +At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and +the old man motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and said +no more. + +We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the door by +which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh, which I was +rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity, said it +was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last. + +‘Foolish Nell!’ said the old man fondling with her hair. ‘She always +laughs at poor Kit.’ + +The child laughed again more heartily than before, and I could not help +smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and +went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels. + +Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an uncommonly wide +mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most +comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped short at the door on +seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat +without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now on one leg and +now on the other and changing them constantly, stood in the doorway, +looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary leer I ever +beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy from that +minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child’s life. + +‘A long way, wasn’t it, Kit?’ said the little old man. + +‘Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,’ returned Kit. + +‘Of course you have come back hungry?’ + +‘Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,’ was the answer. + +The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke, and +thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not get at +his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would have +amused one anywhere, but the child’s exquisite enjoyment of his oddity, +and the relief it was to find that there was something she associated +with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to her, were quite +irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself was flattered +by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to preserve his +gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his mouth wide open +and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently. + +The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took no +notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was over, the +child’s bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by the +fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite after +the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh had +been all the time one of that sort which very little would change into +a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of beer +into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with great +voracity. + +‘Ah!’ said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to +him but that moment, ‘you don’t know what you say when you tell me that +I don’t consider her.’ + +‘You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first +appearances, my friend,’ said I. + +‘No,’ returned the old man thoughtfully, ‘no. Come hither, Nell.’ + +The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his neck. + +‘Do I love thee, Nell?’ said he. ‘Say--do I love thee, Nell, or no?’ + +The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his +breast. + +‘Why dost thou sob?’ said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him +and glancing towards me. ‘Is it because thou know’st I love thee, and +dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well, +well--then let us say I love thee dearly.’ + +‘Indeed, indeed you do,’ replied the child with great earnestness, ‘Kit +knows you do.’ + +Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing +two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a +juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to, and +bawled ‘Nobody isn’t such a fool as to say he doosn’t,’ after which he +incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a most +prodigious sandwich at one bite. + +‘She is poor now’--said the old man, patting the child’s cheek, ‘but I +say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a +long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it +surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but waste and +riot. When WILL it come to me!’ + +‘I am very happy as I am, grandfather,’ said the child. + +‘Tush, tush!’ returned the old man, ‘thou dost not know--how should’st +thou!’ then he muttered again between his teeth, ‘The time must come, I +am very sure it must. It will be all the better for coming late’; and +then he sighed and fell into his former musing state, and still holding +the child between his knees appeared to be insensible to everything +around him. By this time it wanted but a few minutes of midnight and I +rose to go, which recalled him to himself. + +‘One moment, sir,’ he said, ‘Now, Kit--near midnight, boy, and you +still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the +morning, for there’s work to do. Good night! There, bid him good night, +Nell, and let him be gone!’ + +‘Good night, Kit,’ said the child, her eyes lighting up with merriment +and kindness. + +‘Good night, Miss Nell,’ returned the boy. + +‘And thank this gentleman,’ interposed the old man, ‘but for whose care +I might have lost my little girl to-night.’ + +‘No, no, master,’ said Kit, ‘that won’t do, that won’t.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ cried the old man. + +‘I’d have found her, master,’ said Kit, ‘I’d have found her. I’ll bet +that I’d find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as +anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing like a +stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself out. + +Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when he +had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old man +said: + +‘I haven’t seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night, +but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her thanks +are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went away, and +thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of her--I am not +indeed.’ + +I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. ‘But,’ I added, ‘may +I ask you a question?’ + +‘Ay, sir,’ replied the old man, ‘What is it?’ + +‘This delicate child,’ said I, ‘with so much beauty and +intelligence--has she nobody to care for her but you? Has she no other +companion or advisor?’ + +‘No,’ he returned, looking anxiously in my face, ‘no, and she wants no +other.’ + +‘But are you not fearful,’ said I, ‘that you may misunderstand a charge +so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain that you +know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man, like you, +and I am actuated by an old man’s concern in all that is young and +promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you and this +little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free from +pain?’ + +‘Sir,’ rejoined the old man after a moment’s silence. ‘I have no right +to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the +child, and she the grown person--that you have seen already. But waking +or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the one +object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you would look on +me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It’s a weary life for an +old man--a weary, weary life--but there is a great end to gain and that +I keep before me.’ + +Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned to +put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room, +purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing +patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and +stick. + +‘Those are not mine, my dear,’ said I. + +‘No,’ returned the child, ‘they are grandfather’s.’ + +‘But he is not going out to-night.’ + +‘Oh, yes, he is,’ said the child, with a smile. + +‘And what becomes of you, my pretty one?’ + +‘Me! I stay here of course. I always do.’ + +I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned to +be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked back to +the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy place all +the long, dreary night. + +She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped the +old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to light us +out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she looked back +with a smile and waited for us. The old man showed by his face that he +plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he merely signed to +me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the room before him, +and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply. + +When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned to +say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the old +man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her. + +‘Sleep soundly, Nell,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and angels guard thy +bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.’ + +‘No, indeed,’ answered the child fervently, ‘they make me feel so +happy!’ + +‘That’s well; I know they do; they should,’ said the old man. ‘Bless +thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.’ + +‘You’ll not ring twice,’ returned the child. ‘The bell wakes me, even +in the middle of a dream.’ + +With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded by a +shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the house) and +with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have recalled a +thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old man paused a +moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the inside, and +satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At the +street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled countenance +said that our ways were widely different and that he must take his +leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more alacrity than might +have been expected in one of his appearance, he hurried away. I could +see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to ascertain if I were +still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself that I was not +following at a distance. The obscurity of the night favoured his +disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my sight. + +I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to +depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully +into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my +steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and +listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the grave. + +Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all +possible harm that might happen to the child--of fires and robberies +and even murder--and feeling as if some evil must ensue if I turned my +back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the street +brought me before the curiosity-dealer’s once more; I crossed the road +and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise had not come +from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as before. + +There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and +pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by, and +now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he reeled +homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and soon ceased. +The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down, promising myself that +every time should be the last, and breaking faith with myself on some +new plea as often as I did so. + +The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks and +bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I had +a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good purpose. I +had only come to know the fact through the innocence of the child, and +though the old man was by at the time, and saw my undisguised surprise, +he had preserved a strange mystery upon the subject and offered no word +of explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more +strongly than before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his +restless anxious looks. His affection for the child might not be +inconsistent with villany of the worst kind; even that very affection +was in itself an extraordinary contradiction, or how could he leave her +thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of him, I never doubted that his +love for her was real. I could not admit the thought, remembering what +had passed between us, and the tone of voice in which he had called her +by her name. + +‘Stay here of course,’ the child had said in answer to my question, ‘I +always do!’ What could take him from home by night, and every night! I +called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and secret +deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a long series +of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not find one +adapted to this mystery, which only became the more impenetrable, in +proportion as I sought to solve it. + +Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all tending +to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long hours; +at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered by +fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first, I engaged +the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was blazing on the +hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me with its old +familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and cheering, and in happy +contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted. + +But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred +and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before +me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly +silent air--the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone--the dust +and rust and worm that lives in wood--and alone in the midst of all +this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful child in her gentle +slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to +revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already +detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I +would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early +in the morning. + +I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with +that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious that +the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very +acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not +appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I +continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered this +irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer’s warehouse. + +The old man and another person were together in the back part, and +there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices +which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering, +and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone +that he was very glad I had come. + +‘You interrupted us at a critical moment,’ said he, pointing to the man +whom I had found in company with him; ‘this fellow will murder me one +of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.’ + +‘Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,’ returned the other, +after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; ‘we all know that!’ + +‘I almost think I could,’ cried the old man, turning feebly upon him. +‘If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I +would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.’ + +‘I know it,’ returned the other. ‘I said so, didn’t I? But neither +oaths, or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and +mean to live.’ + +‘And his mother died!’ cried the old man, passionately clasping his +hands and looking upward; ‘and this is Heaven’s justice!’ + +The other stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him +with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or +thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression +of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his +manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled +one. + +‘Justice or no justice,’ said the young fellow, ‘here I am and here I +shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for +assistance to put me out--which you won’t do, I know. I tell you again +that I want to see my sister.’ + +‘YOUR sister!’ said the old man bitterly. + +‘Ah! You can’t change the relationship,’ returned the other. ‘If you +could, you’d have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you +keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and +pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and add +a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I +want to see her; and I will.’ + +‘Here’s a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here’s a generous spirit +to scorn scraped-up shillings!’ cried the old man, turning from him to +me. ‘A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon +those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society +which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,’ he added, in +a lower voice as he drew closer to me, ‘who knows how dear she is to +me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there is a stranger +nearby.’ + +‘Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,’ said the young fellow +catching at the word, ‘nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is +to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mine. There’s a friend +of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some +time, I’ll call him in, with your leave.’ + +Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street +beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from the +air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied, required a +great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At length there +sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way--with a bad pretense of +passing by accident--a figure conspicuous for its dirty smartness, +which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in resistance of +the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was brought into the +shop. + +‘There. It’s Dick Swiveller,’ said the young fellow, pushing him in. +‘Sit down, Swiveller.’ + +‘But is the old min agreeable?’ said Mr Swiveller in an undertone. + +Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile, +observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week +was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by +the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in +his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he +augured that another fine week for the ducks was approaching, and that +rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore took occasion to apologize +for any negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the +ground that last night he had had ‘the sun very strong in his eyes’; by +which expression he was understood to convey to his hearers in the most +delicate manner possible, the information that he had been extremely +drunk. + +‘But what,’ said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, ‘what is the odds so long as +the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing +of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the +spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the +least happiest of our existence!’ + +‘You needn’t act the chairman here,’ said his friend, half aside. + +‘Fred!’ cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, ‘a word to the wise is +sufficient for them--we may be good and happy without riches, Fred. +Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only one +little whisper, Fred--is the old min friendly?’ + +‘Never you mind,’ replied his friend. + +‘Right again, quite right,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘caution is the word, +and caution is the act.’ with that, he winked as if in preservation of +some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, +looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity. + +It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already +passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of +the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such +suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, +and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses against him. His +attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest +arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the +idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat +with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a +bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and +a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in +the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket +from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very +ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far +as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed +no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with +the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its +grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a +strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of +appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on +the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, +obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and +then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence. + +The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands, looked +sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion, as if +he were utterly powerless and had no resource but to leave them to do +as they pleased. The young man reclined against a table at no great +distance from his friend, in apparent indifference to everything that +had passed; and I--who felt the difficulty of any interference, +notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me, both by words and +looks--made the best feint I could of being occupied in examining some +of the goods that were disposed for sale, and paying very little +attention to a person before me. + +The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after favouring +us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in the +Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a preliminary to +the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty, removed his eyes +from the ceiling and subsided into prose again. + +‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly +occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before, +‘is the old min friendly?’ + +‘What does it matter?’ returned his friend peevishly. + +‘No, but IS he?’ said Dick. + +‘Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?’ + +Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general +conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our +attention. + +He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the +abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with +ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to +be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of +expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to +observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and +that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast +quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious +friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing +this remarkable property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society +would turn their attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find +in the resources of science a means of preventing such untoward +revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as benefactors to +mankind. These opinions being equally incontrovertible with those he +had already pronounced, he went on to inform us that Jamaica rum, +though unquestionably an agreeable spirit of great richness and +flavour, had the drawback of remaining constantly present to the taste +next day; and nobody being venturous enough to argue this point either, +he increased in confidence and became yet more companionable and +communicative. + +‘It’s a devil of a thing, gentlemen,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘when +relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never +moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but +be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and grandfather +peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all might be bliss and +concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?’ + +‘Hold your tongue,’ said his friend. + +‘Sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller, ‘don’t you interrupt the chair. +Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion? Here is +a jolly old grandfather--I say it with the utmost respect--and here is +a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild +young grandson, “I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have +put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out +of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never have another +chance, nor the ghost of half a one.” The wild young grandson makes +answer to this and says, “You’re as rich as rich can be; you have been +at no uncommon expense on my account, you’re saving up piles of money +for my little sister that lives with you in a secret, stealthy, +hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner of enjoyment--why can’t +you stand a trifle for your grown-up relation?” The jolly old +grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that he declines to fork out +with that cheerful readiness which is always so agreeable and pleasant +in a gentleman of his time of life, but that he will bow up, and call +names, and make reflections whenever they meet. Then the plain question +is, an’t it a pity that this state of things should continue, and how +much better would it be for the gentleman to hand over a reasonable +amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?’ + +Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes of +the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into his +mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his speech +by adding one other word. + +‘Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!’ said the old man +turning to his grandson. ‘Why do you bring your prolifigate companions +here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of care and +self-denial, and that I am poor?’ + +‘How often am I to tell you,’ returned the other, looking coldly at +him, ‘that I know better?’ + +‘You have chosen your own path,’ said the old man. ‘Follow it. Leave +Nell and me to toil and work.’ + +‘Nell will be a woman soon,’ returned the other, ‘and, bred in your +faith, she’ll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.’ + +‘Take care,’ said the old man with sparkling eyes, ‘that she does not +forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that the +day don’t come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she rides by +in a gay carriage of her own.’ + +‘You mean when she has your money?’ retorted the other. ‘How like a +poor man he talks!’ + +‘And yet,’ said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one +who thinks aloud, ‘how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause is +a young child’s guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes well +with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!’ + +These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the +young men. Mr Swiveller appeared to think that they implied some mental +struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address, for he +poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction that he had +administered ‘a clincher,’ and that he expected a commission on the +profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he appeared to grow +rather sleepy and discontented, and had more than once suggested the +propriety of an immediate departure, when the door opened, and the +child herself appeared. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard +features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a +dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a +giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and +chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his +complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome. +But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face was a +ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to +have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly +revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his +mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His dress consisted of +a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes, +and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp and crumpled to +disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such hair as he had +was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his temples, and +hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands, which were of a +rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails were crooked, +long, and yellow. + +There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they +were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments +elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced timidly +towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we may call +him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer, who +plainly had not expected his uncouth visitor, seemed disconcerted and +embarrassed. + +‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes +had been surveying the young man attentively, ‘that should be your +grandson, neighbour!’ + +‘Say rather that he should not be,’ replied the old man. ‘But he is.’ + +‘And that?’ said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller. + +‘Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,’ said the old man. + +‘And that?’ inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight at +me. + +‘A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night when +she lost her way, coming from your house.’ + +The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his +wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and +bent his head to listen. + +‘Well, Nelly,’ said the young fellow aloud. ‘Do they teach you to hate +me, eh?’ + +‘No, no. For shame. Oh, no!’ cried the child. + +‘To love me, perhaps?’ pursued her brother with a sneer. + +‘To do neither,’ she returned. ‘They never speak to me about you. +Indeed they never do.’ + +‘I dare be bound for that,’ he said, darting a bitter look at the +grandfather. ‘I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!’ + +‘But I love you dearly, Fred,’ said the child. + +‘No doubt!’ + +‘I do indeed, and always will,’ the child repeated with great emotion, +‘but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then +I could love you more.’ + +‘I see!’ said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child, +and having kissed her, pushed her from him: ‘There--get you away now +you have said your lesson. You needn’t whimper. We part good friends +enough, if that’s the matter.’ + +He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained +her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf, +said abruptly, + +‘Harkee, Mr--’ + +‘Meaning me?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Quilp is my name. You might +remember. It’s not a long one--Daniel Quilp.’ + +‘Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,’ pursued the other, ‘You have some influence +with my grandfather there.’ + +‘Some,’ said Mr Quilp emphatically. + +‘And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.’ + +‘A few,’ replied Quilp, with equal dryness. + +‘Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into +and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell +here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of +her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and +dreaded as if I brought the plague? He’ll tell you that I have no +natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, +than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming +to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see her when I +please. That’s my point. I came here to-day to maintain it, and I’ll +come here again fifty times with the same object and always with the +same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it. I have done +so, and now my visit’s ended. Come Dick.’ + +‘Stop!’ cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the door. +‘Sir!’ + +‘Sir, I am your humble servant,’ said Mr Quilp, to whom the +monosyllable was addressed. + +‘Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light, +sir,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘I will with your permission, attempt a slight +remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old +min was friendly.’ + +‘Proceed, sir,’ said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden +stop. + +‘Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling +as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the +sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social +harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a +course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion. Will +you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?’ + +Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped up +to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to get at +his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all present, + +‘The watch-word to the old min is--fork.’ + +‘Is what?’ demanded Quilp. + +‘Is fork, sir, fork,’ replied Mr Swiveller slapping his pocket. ‘You +are awake, sir?’ + +The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise, then drew +a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these means he in +time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the +dwarf’s attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show, +the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy. Having performed +the serious pantomime that was necessary for the due conveyance of +these idea, he cast himself upon his friend’s track, and vanished. + +‘Humph!’ said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his shoulders, +‘so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge none! Nor need you +either,’ he added, turning to the old man, ‘if you were not as weak as +a reed, and nearly as senseless.’ + +‘What would you have me do?’ he retorted in a kind of helpless +desperation. ‘It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?’ + +‘What would I do if I was in your case?’ said the dwarf. + +‘Something violent, no doubt.’ + +‘You’re right there,’ returned the little man, highly gratified by the +compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a +devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. ‘Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty Mrs +Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me--I have +left her all alone, and she will be anxious and know not a moment’s +peace till I return. I know she’s always in that condition when I’m +away, thought she doesn’t dare to say so, unless I lead her on and tell +her she may speak freely and I won’t be angry with her. Oh! +well-trained Mrs Quilp.’ + +The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little +body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round +again--with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this +slight action--and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in +the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp +might have copied and appropriated to himself. + +‘Here,’ he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the +old man as he spoke; ‘I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as, +being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in +her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes though, +neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.’ + +‘Heaven send she may! I hope so,’ said the old man with something like +a groan. + +‘Hope so!’ echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear; ‘neighbour, +I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies are sunk. But +you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.’ + +‘My secret!’ said the other with a haggard look. ‘Yes, you’re +right--I--I--keep it close--very close.’ + +He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow, +uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and +dejected man. The dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into the +little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the +chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take his +leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp would +certainly be in fits on his return. + +‘And so, neighbour,’ he added, ‘I’ll turn my face homewards, leaving my +love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way again, though her +doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn’t expect.’ With that he bowed +and leered at me, and with a keen glance around which seemed to +comprehend every object within his range of vision, however, small or +trivial, went his way. + +I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always +opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties on +our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former +occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions, +and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a few +old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great pressing to +induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on the occasion +of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now. + +Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the table, +sat by the old man’s side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh flowers +in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his little cage, +the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle through the +old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious, but not so +pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to the +stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man. As +he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this lonely little +creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died--what would be her +fate, then? + +The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on hers, +and spoke aloud. + +‘I’ll be of better cheer, Nell,’ he said; ‘there must be good fortune +in store for thee--I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries +must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but +that, being tempted, it will come at last!’ + +She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer. + +‘When I think,’ said he, ‘of the many years--many in thy short +life--that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing +no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the +solitude in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which thou +hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I sometimes +fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.’ + +‘Grandfather!’ cried the child in unfeigned surprise. + +‘Not in intention--no no,’ said he. ‘I have ever looked forward to the +time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest, and +take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I still +look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee, meanwhile, how +have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The poor bird yonder +is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned adrift upon its +mercies--Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go to him.’ + +She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms +about the old man’s neck, then left him and hurried away again--but +faster this time, to hide her falling tears. + +‘A word in your ear, sir,’ said the old man in a hurried whisper. ‘I +have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can +only plead that I have done all for the best--that it is too late to +retract, if I could (though I cannot)--and that I hope to triumph yet. +All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare +her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the +miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave. +I would leave her--not with resources which could be easily spent or +squandered away, but with what would place her beyond the reach of want +for ever. You mark me sir? She shall have no pittance, but a +fortune--Hush! I can say no more than that, now or at any other time, +and she is here again!’ + +The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the trembling +of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained and starting +eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation of his manner, +filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and seen, and a great +part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose that he was a +wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his character, unless he +were one of those miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end +and object of their lives and having succeeded in amassing great +riches, are constantly tortured by the dread of poverty, and beset by +fears of loss and ruin. Many things he had said which I had been at a +loss to understand, were quite reconcilable with the idea thus +presented to me, and at length I concluded that beyond all doubt he was +one of this unhappy race. + +The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which indeed +there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came directly, and +soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a writing lesson, +of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and one regularly on +that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both of himself and his +instructress. To relate how it was a long time before his modesty could +be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his sitting down in the +parlour, in the presence of an unknown gentleman--how, when he did set +down, he tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face +close to the copy-book and squinted horribly at the lines--how, from +the very first moment of having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow +in blots, and to daub himself with ink up to the very roots of his +hair--how, if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately +smeared it out again with his arm in his preparations to make +another--how, at every fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of +merriment from the child and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor +Kit himself--and how there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a +gentle wish on her part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to +learn--to relate all these particulars would no doubt occupy more space +and time than they deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the +lesson was given--that evening passed and night came on--that the old +man again grew restless and impatient--that he quitted the house +secretly at the same hour as before--and that the child was once more +left alone within its gloomy walls. + +And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and +introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience +of the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those +who have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for +themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on Tower Hill +Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when he quitted her +on the business which he had already seen to transact. + +Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or +calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations +numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets +and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty +officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers +mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose +of the Custom House, and made appointments on ‘Change with men in +glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side +of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called ‘Quilp’s +Wharf,’ in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry +in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the +ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; +some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, +crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp’s Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a +ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have +been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up +very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary +aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an +amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was +from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud +when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing +listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water. + +The dwarf’s lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful +accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for +that lady’s mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war +with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread. +Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means or other--whether by +his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great +matter--to impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those +with whom he was brought into daily contact and communication. Over +nobody had he such complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself--a pretty +little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in +wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which +examples are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical penance +for her folly, every day of her life. + +It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower +she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom +mention has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen +ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and +also by a little understanding among themselves) to drop in one after +another, just about tea-time. This being a season favourable to +conversation, and the room being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place, +with some plants at the open window shutting out the dust, and +interposing pleasantly enough between the tea table within and the old +Tower without, it is no wonder that the ladies felt an inclination to +talk and linger, especially when there are taken into account the +additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread, shrimps, and +watercresses. + +Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was +extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity of +mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that developed +upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their rights and +dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs Quilp +being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion of her husband +ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs Quilp’s parent was +known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition and inclined to resist +male authority; thirdly, because each visitor wished to show for +herself how superior she was in this respect to the generality of her +sex; and fourthly, because the company being accustomed to scandalise +each other in pairs, were deprived of their usual subject of +conversation now that they were all assembled in close friendship, and +had consequently no better employment than to attack the common enemy. + +Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings by +inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr Quilp was; +whereunto Mr Quilp’s wife’s mother replied sharply, ‘Oh! He was well +enough--nothing much was ever the matter with him--and ill weeds were +sure to thrive.’ All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their +heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr. + +‘Ah!’ said the spokeswoman, ‘I wish you’d give her a little of your +advice, Mrs Jiniwin’--Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be +observed--‘nobody knows better than you, ma’am, what us women owe to +ourselves.’ + +‘Owe indeed, ma’am!’ replied Mrs Jiniwin. ‘When my poor husband, her +dear father, was alive, if he had ever ventured a cross word to me, I’d +have--’ The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted +off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply +that the action was in some degree a substitute for words. In this +light it was clearly understood by the other party, who immediately +replied with great approbation, ‘You quite enter into my feelings, +ma’am, and it’s jist what I’d do myself.’ + +‘But you have no call to do it,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Luckily for you, +you have no more occasion to do it than I had.’ + +‘No woman need have, if she was true to herself,’ rejoined the stout +lady. + +‘Do you hear that, Betsy?’ said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice. ‘How +often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone down my knees +when I spoke ‘em!’ + +Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one face +of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head +doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which beginning +in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in which everybody +spoke at once, and all said that she being a young woman had no right +to set up her opinions against the experiences of those who knew so +much better; that it was very wrong of her not to take the advice of +people who had nothing at heart but her good; that it was next door to +being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in that manner; that if +she had no respect for herself she ought to have some for other women, +all of whom she compromised by her meekness; and that if she had no +respect for other women, the time would come when other women would +have no respect for her; and she would be very sorry for that, they +could tell her. Having dealt out these admonitions, the ladies fell to +a more powerful assault than they had yet made upon the mixed tea, new +bread, fresh butter, shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their +vexation was so great to see her going on like that, that they could +hardly bring themselves to eat a single morsel. + +It’s all very fine to talk,’ said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, ‘but +I know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he +pleased--now that he could, I know!’ + +There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he +pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of +them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing. +One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he hinted +at it. + +‘Very well,’ said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, ‘as I said just now, +it’s very easy to talk, but I say again that I know--that I’m +sure--Quilp has such a way with him when he likes, that the best +looking woman here couldn’t refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, +and he chose to make love to her. Come!’ + +Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, ‘I know you +mean me. Let him try--that’s all.’ and yet for some hidden reason they +were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her +neighbour’s ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself +the person referred to, and what a puss she was! + +‘Mother knows,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘that what I say is quite correct, for +she often said so before we were married. Didn’t you say so, mother?’ + +This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position, +for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter Mrs +Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to +encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would +have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her +son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her +energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations, +Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to +govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the +discussion to the point from which it had strayed. + +‘Oh! It’s a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has +said!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘If women are only true to +themselves!--But Betsy isn’t, and more’s the shame and pity.’ + +‘Before I’d let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,’ said Mrs +George, ‘before I’d consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of +him, I’d--I’d kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!’ + +This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady (from +the Minories) put in her word: + +‘Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,’ said this lady, ‘and I supposed +there’s no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin +says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not +quite a--what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither, +which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas +his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman--which is the +greatest thing after all.’ + +This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a +corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady +went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable +with such a wife, then-- + +‘If he is!’ interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and +brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn +declaration. ‘If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she +daren’t call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and +even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn’t the spirit +to give him a word back, no, not a single word.’ + +Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the +tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every +tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this +official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk +at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility. Mrs +George remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this +to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so +twenty times, that she had always said, ‘No, Henrietta Simmons, unless +I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will +believe it.’ Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong +evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful +course of treatment under which she had placed her own husband, who, +from manifesting one month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the +tiger, had by this means become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another +lady recounted her own personal struggle and final triumph, in the +course whereof she had found it necessary to call in her mother and two +aunts, and to weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, +who in the general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened +herself upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst +them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and +happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the +weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole +thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise +was at its height, and half the company had elevated their voices into +a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when +Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger +stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then, +Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was +observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound +attention. + +‘Go on, ladies, go on,’ said Daniel. ‘Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to +stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and +palatable.’ + +‘I--I--didn’t ask them to tea, Quilp,’ stammered his wife. ‘It’s quite +an accident.’ + +‘So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the +pleasantest,’ said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed +to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were +encrusted, little charges for popguns. ‘What! Not going, ladies, you +are not going, surely!’ + +His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their +respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs +Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint +struggle to sustain the character. + +‘And why not stop to supper, Quilp,’ said the old lady, ‘if my daughter +had a mind?’ + +‘To be sure,’ rejoined Daniel. ‘Why not?’ + +‘There’s nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?’ said Mrs +Jiniwin. + +‘Surely not,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why should there be? Nor anything +unwholesome, either, unless there’s lobster-salad or prawns, which I’m +told are not good for digestion.’ + +‘And you wouldn’t like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything +else that would make her uneasy would you?’ said Mrs Jiniwin. + +‘Not for a score of worlds,’ replied the dwarf with a grin. ‘Not even +to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a blessing +that would be!’ + +‘My daughter’s your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,’ said the old lady with +a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be +reminded of the fact; ‘your wedded wife.’ + +‘So she is, certainly. So she is,’ observed the dwarf. + +‘And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,’ said the +old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of +her impish son-in-law. + +‘Hope she has!’ he replied. ‘Oh! Don’t you know she has? Don’t you know +she has, Mrs Jiniwin? + +‘I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way +of thinking.’ + +‘Why an’t you of your mother’s way of thinking, my dear?’ said the +dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, ‘why don’t you always +imitate your mother, my dear? She’s the ornament of her sex--your +father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.’ + +‘Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of +some people,’ said Mrs Jiniwin; ‘twenty hundred million thousand.’ + +‘I should like to have known him,’ remarked the dwarf. ‘I dare say he +was a blessed creature then; but I’m sure he is now. It was a happy +release. I believe he had suffered a long time?’ + +The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with +the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his +tongue. + +‘You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too +much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to +bed.’ + +‘I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.’ + +‘But please to do now. Do please to go now,’ said the dwarf. + +The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and +falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and +bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding +downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a +corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted +himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a +long time without speaking. + +‘Mrs Quilp,’ he said at last. + +‘Yes, Quilp,’ she replead meekly. + +Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms +again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted +her eyes and kept them on the ground. + +‘Mrs Quilp.’ + +‘Yes, Quilp.’ + +‘If ever you listen to these beldames again, I’ll bite you.’ + +With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave +him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her +clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before +him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship’s +locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face +squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table. + +‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ he said; ‘I feel in a smoking humour, and shall +probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in +case I want you.’ + +His wife returned no other reply than the necessary ‘Yes, Quilp,’ and +the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first +glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower +turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the +room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red, +but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position, +and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on +his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of +restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time, +or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is +that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the +ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the +assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after +hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural +desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he +showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a +suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like +one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth. + +At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of +early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered +sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute +appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding +him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her +penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked +his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until +the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day +were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by +any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain +impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard +knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side. + +‘Why dear me!’ he said looking round with a malicious grin, ‘it’s day. +Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!’ + +His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered. + +Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for, +supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her +feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and +character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room +appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the +previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment. + +Nothing escaped the hawk’s eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly +understanding what passed in the old lady’s mind, turned uglier still +in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a +leer or triumph. + +‘Why, Betsy,’ said the old woman, ‘you haven’t been--you don’t mean to +say you’ve been a--’ + +‘Sitting up all night?’ said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the +sentence. ‘Yes she has!’ + +‘All night?’ cried Mrs Jiniwin. + +‘Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?’ said Quilp, with a smile of +which a frown was part. ‘Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha! +The time has flown.’ + +‘You’re a brute!’ exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin. + +‘Come come,’ said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, ‘you +mustn’t call her names. She’s married now, you know. And though she did +beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly +careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear +old lady. Here’s to your health!’ + +‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned the old woman, testifying by a +certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her +matronly fist at her son-in-law. ‘Oh! I’m very much obliged to you!’ + +‘Grateful soul!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Mrs Quilp.’ + +‘Yes, Quilp,’ said the timid sufferer. + +‘Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf +this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.’ + +Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in +a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute +determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her +daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt +faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next +apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself +to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence. + +While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room, +and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance +with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his +complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was +thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for +with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in +this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the +next room, of which he might be the theme. + +‘Ah!’ he said after a short effort of attention, ‘it was not the towel +over my ears, I thought it wasn’t. I’m a little hunchy villain and a +monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!’ + +The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full +force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very +doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies. + +Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing +there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be +behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist +at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she +did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye +in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the +mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and +distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the +dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired +in a tone of great affection. + +‘How are you now, my dear old darling?’ + +Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a +little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old +woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered +herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table. +Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for +he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the +heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time +and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, +bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so +many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened +out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human +creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many +others which were equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, +reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the +river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed +his name. + +It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to +cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on, +some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a +wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger +craft, running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of +nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on all +sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long +sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some lumbering +fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands were busily +engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry, taking in or +discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible but two or +three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro upon the +deck or scrambling up to look over the side and bark the louder for the +view. Coming slowly on through the forests of masts was a great +steamship, beating the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy +paddles as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing in her huge +bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames. On either hand +were long black tiers of colliers; between them vessels slowly working +out of harbour with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on +board, re-echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was +in active motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old +grey Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire +shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their +chafing, restless neighbour. + +Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so +far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused +himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither +through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character of +its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and a +very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first +object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly +shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable +appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit +and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head +and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon +circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his +master’s voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr +Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb, ‘punched +it’ for him. + +‘Come, you let me alone,’ said the boy, parrying Quilp’s hand with both +his elbows alternatively. ‘You’ll get something you won’t like if you +don’t and so I tell you.’ + +‘You dog,’ snarled Quilp, ‘I’ll beat you with an iron rod, I’ll scratch +you with a rusty nail, I’ll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me--I will.’ + +With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving +in between the elbows and catching the boy’s head as it dodged from +side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now +carried his point and insisted on it, he left off. + +‘You won’t do it agin,’ said the boy, nodding his head and drawing +back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; ‘now--’ + +‘Stand still, you dog,’ said Quilp. ‘I won’t do it again, because I’ve +done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.’ + +‘Why don’t you hit one of your size?’ said the boy approaching very +slowly. + +‘Where is there one of my size, you dog?’ returned Quilp. ‘Take the +key, or I’ll brain you with it’--indeed he gave him a smart tap with +the handle as he spoke. ‘Now, open the counting-house.’ + +The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he +looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look. +And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf there +existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or +nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances +on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer +nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not +have submitted to be so knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had +the power to run away at any time he chose. + +‘Now,’ said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, ‘you mind +the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I’ll cut one of your feet +off.’ + +The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood +on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and +stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the +performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he +avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp +would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the +dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance +from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and +jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have +hurt him. + +It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but +an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an +inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock +which hadn’t gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the +minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled +his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) +and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an +old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the +deprivation of last night’s rest, by a long and sound nap. + +Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been +asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in +his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a +light sleeper and started up directly. + +‘Here’s somebody for you,’ said the boy. + +‘Who?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘Ask!’ said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and +throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy +disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. ‘Ask, you +dog.’ + +Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy +discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who +now presented herself at the door. + +‘What, Nelly!’ cried Quilp. + +‘Yes,’ said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the +dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and +a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold; +it’s only me, sir.’ + +‘Come in,’ said Quilp, without getting off the desk. ‘Come in. Stay. +Just look out into the yard, and see whether there’s a boy standing on +his head.’ + +‘No, sir,’ replied Nell. ‘He’s on his feet.’ + +‘You’re sure he is?’ said Quilp. ‘Well. Now, come in and shut the door. +What’s your message, Nelly?’ + +The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his position +further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin +on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance +of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that +while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was +much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque +attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful +anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it +disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this +impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have +done by any efforts of her own. + +That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by +the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got +through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very +wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to +scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to +the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and +dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails +of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up +sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as +unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie +from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long +stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited +his further pleasure. + +‘Halloa here!’ he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness, +which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her +ear. ‘Nelly!’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Do you know what’s inside this letter, Nell?’ + +‘No, sir!’ + +‘Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?’ + +‘Quite sure, sir.’ + +‘Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?’ said the dwarf. + +‘Indeed I don’t know,’ returned the child. + +‘Well!’ muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. ‘I believe you. +Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has +he done with it, that’s the mystery!’ + +This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once +more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed into +what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would +have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again +she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary favour and +complacency. + +‘You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired, +Nelly?’ + +‘No, sir. I’m in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am +away.’ + +‘There’s no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,’ said Quilp. ‘How +should you like to be my number two, Nelly?’ + +‘To be what, sir?’ + +‘My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf. + +The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr +Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly. + +‘To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet +Nell,’ said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him +with his bent forefinger, ‘to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, +red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four, +you’ll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a +very good girl, and see if one of these days you don’t come to be Mrs +Quilp of Tower Hill.’ + +So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect, +the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. +Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a +constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the +death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of Mrs Quilp number +two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes +of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, +only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm. + +‘You shall come with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is, +directly,’ said the dwarf. ‘She’s very fond of you, Nell, though not so +fond as I am. You shall come home with me.’ + +‘I must go back indeed,’ said the child. ‘He told me to return directly +I had the answer.’ + +‘But you haven’t it, Nelly,’ retorted the dwarf, ‘and won’t have it, +and can’t have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your +errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we’ll go +directly.’ With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off +the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them +and led the way from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the +first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on +his head and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling +in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other +with mutual heartiness. + +‘It’s Kit!’ cried Nelly, clasping her hand, ‘poor Kit who came with me! +Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!’ + +‘I’ll stop ‘em,’ cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and +returning with a thick stick, ‘I’ll stop ‘em. Now, my boys, fight away. +I’ll fight you both. I’ll take both of you, both together, both +together!’ + +With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round +the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind +of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most +desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows +as none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being +warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage +of the belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter. + +‘I’ll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,’ said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to +get near either of them for a parting blow. ‘I’ll bruise you until +you’re copper-coloured, I’ll break your faces till you haven’t a +profile between you, I will.’ + +‘Come, you drop that stick or it’ll be worse for you,’ said his boy, +dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; ‘you drop +that stick.’ + +‘Come a little nearer, and I’ll drop it on your skull, you dog,’ said +Quilp, with gleaming eyes; ‘a little nearer--nearer yet.’ + +But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a +little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to +wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily +kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, +when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he +fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr +Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as +at a most irresistible jest. + +‘Never mind,’ said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same +time; ‘you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say +you’re an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that’s +all.’ + +‘Do you mean to say, I’m not, you dog?’ returned Quilp. + +‘No!’ retorted the boy. + +‘Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?’ said Quilp. + +‘Because he said so,’ replied the boy, pointing to Kit, ‘not because you +an’t.’ + +‘Then why did he say,’ bawled Kit, ‘that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that +she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did +he say that?’ + +‘He said what he did because he’s a fool, and you said what you did +because you’re very wise and clever--almost too clever to live, unless +you’re very careful of yourself, Kit.’ said Quilp, with great suavity +in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth. +‘Here’s sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, +Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me +the key.’ + +The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, +and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a +dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into +his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and +the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the +extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the +river. + +There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return +of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when +the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to +be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the +child; having left Kit downstairs. + +‘Here’s Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,’ said her husband. ‘A glass of +wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She’ll sit +with you, my soul, while I write a letter.’ + +Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse’s face to know what this +unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in +his gesture, followed him into the next room. + +‘Mind what I say to you,’ whispered Quilp. ‘See if you can get out of +her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, +or what he tells her. I’ve my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women +talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft, +mild way with you that’ll win upon her. Do you hear?’ + +‘Yes, Quilp.’ + +‘Go then. What’s the matter now?’ + +‘Dear Quilp,’ faltered his wife. ‘I love the child--if you could do +without making me deceive her--’ + +The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon +with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. The +submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and +promised to do as he bade her. + +‘Do you hear me,’ whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; ‘worm +yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I’m listening, recollect. If +you’re not sharp enough, I’ll creak the door, and woe betide you if I +have to creak it much. Go!’ + +Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband, +ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear +close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and +attention. + +Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what +kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door, +creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further +consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard. + +‘How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr +Quilp, my dear.’ + +‘I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,’ returned Nell +innocently. + +‘And what has he said to that?’ + +‘Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that +if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not +have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!’ + +‘It often does.’ returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it. +‘But your grandfather--he used not to be so wretched?’ + +‘Oh, no!’ said the child eagerly, ‘so different! We were once so happy +and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change +has fallen on us since.’ + +‘I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!’ said Mrs +Quilp. And she spoke the truth. + +‘Thank you,’ returned the child, kissing her cheek, ‘you are always +kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one +else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel +happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me +sometimes to see him alter so.’ + +‘He’ll alter again, Nelly,’ said Mrs Quilp, ‘and be what he was before.’ + +‘Oh, if God would only let that come about!’ said the child with +streaming eyes; ‘but it is a long time now, since he first began to--I +thought I saw that door moving!’ + +‘It’s the wind,’ said Mrs Quilp, faintly. ‘Began to--’ + +‘To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of +spending the time in the long evenings,’ said the child. ‘I used to +read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped +and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once +looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used +to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not +lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky +where nothing died or ever grew old--we were very happy once!’ + +‘Nelly, Nelly!’ said the poor woman, ‘I can’t bear to see one as young +as you so sorrowful. Pray don’t cry.’ + +‘I do so very seldom,’ said Nell, ‘but I have kept this to myself a +long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my +eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don’t mind telling you my grief, +for I know you will not tell it to any one again.’ + +Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer. + +‘Then,’ said the child, ‘we often walked in the fields and among the +green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for +being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and +rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made +us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to +our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the +same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be, +indeed!’ + +She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp +said nothing. + +‘Mind you don’t suppose,’ said the child earnestly, ‘that grandfather +is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, +and is kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do +not know how fond he is of me!’ + +‘I am sure he loves you dearly,’ said Mrs Quilp. + +‘Indeed, indeed he does!’ cried Nell, ‘as dearly as I love him. But I +have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never +breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he +takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and nearly all night +long he is away from home.’ + +‘Nelly!’ + +‘Hush!’ said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round. +‘When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, +I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I +saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and +that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I +heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say, +before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much +longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall +I do! Oh! What shall I do!’ + +The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the +weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had +ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been +received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst +into a passion of tears. + +In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise +to find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with +admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to +him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it. + +‘She’s tired you see, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf, squinting in a +hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. ‘It’s a +long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alarmed to see a +couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water +besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!’ + +Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have +devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the +head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a +remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and +felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose +directly and declared herself ready to return. + +‘But you’d better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.’ said the dwarf. + +‘I have been away too long, sir, already,’ returned Nell, drying her +eyes. + +‘Well,’ said Mr Quilp, ‘if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here’s the +note. It’s only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next +day, and that I couldn’t do that little business for him this morning. +Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d’ye hear?’ + +Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so +needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening +manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of +Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge the +fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed his +young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quilp and +departed. + +‘You’re a keen questioner, an’t you, Mrs Quilp?’ said the dwarf, +turning upon her as soon as they were left alone. + +‘What more could I do?’ returned his wife mildly. + +‘What more could you do!’ sneered Quilp, ‘couldn’t you have done +something less? Couldn’t you have done what you had to do, without +appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?’ + +‘I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,’ said his wife. ‘Surely I’ve +done enough. I’ve led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were +alone; and you were by, God forgive me.’ + +‘You led her on! You did a great deal truly!’ said Quilp. ‘What did I +tell you about making me creak the door? It’s lucky for you that from +what she let fall, I’ve got the clue I want, for if I hadn’t, I’d have +visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.’ + +Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband +added with some exultation, + +‘But you may thank your fortunate stars--the same stars that made you +Mrs Quilp--you may thank them that I’m upon the old gentleman’s track, +and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now +or at any other time, and don’t get anything too nice for dinner, for I +shan’t be home to it.’ + +So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp, +who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she +had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head +in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less +tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, +in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible +article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a +great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and +leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, +even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be +others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and +this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one +most in vogue. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +‘Fred,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘remember the once popular melody of Begone +dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of +friendship; and pass the rosy wine.’ + +Mr Richard Swiveller’s apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury +Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the +advantage of being over a tobacconist’s shop, so that he was enabled to +procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the +staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a +snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the +expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his +desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to +remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of +the figurative and poetical character of Mr Swiveller’s mind, as the +rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, +which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon +the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of +tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller’s was a bachelor’s establishment, may +be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single +chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged +times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as ‘apartments’ +for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never +failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, +conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving +their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at +pleasure. + +In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece +of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which +occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy +suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr +Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and +nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the +existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. +No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to +its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most +intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article +of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all +circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and +repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he +cherished it. + +‘Fred!’ said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been +productive of no effect. ‘Pass the rosy.’ + +Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and +fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly +roused. + +‘I’ll give you, Fred,’ said his friend, stirring the mixture, ‘a little +sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here’s May the--’ + +‘Pshaw!’ interposed the other. ‘You worry me to death with your +chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.’ + +‘Why, Mr Trent,’ returned Dick, ‘there is a proverb which talks about +being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can’t +be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can’t be +merry. I’m one of the first sort. If the proverb’s a good ‘un, I +suppose it’s better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I’d +rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t’other.’ + +‘Bah!’ muttered his friend, peevishly. + +‘With all my heart,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘In the polite circles I +believe this sort of thing isn’t usually said to a gentleman in his own +apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,’ adding to this +retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be +rather ‘cranky’ in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the +rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in +which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an +imaginary company. + +‘Gentlemen, I’ll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family +of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular--Mr +Richard, gentlemen,’ said Dick with great emphasis, ‘who spends all his +money on his friends and is Bah!’d for his pains. Hear, hear!’ + +‘Dick!’ said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the +room twice or thrice, ‘will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I +show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?’ + +‘You’ve shown me so many,’ returned Dick; ‘and nothing has come of any +one of ‘em but empty pockets--’ + +‘You’ll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is +over,’ said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. ‘You saw my +sister Nell?’ + +‘What about her?’ returned Dick. + +‘She has a pretty face, has she not?’ + +‘Why, certainly,’ replied Dick. ‘I must say for her that there’s not +any very strong family likeness between her and you.’ + +‘Has she a pretty face,’ repeated his friend impatiently. + +‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of +that?’ + +‘I’ll tell you,’ returned his friend. ‘It’s very plain that the old man +and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I +have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?’ + +‘A bat might see that, with the sun shining,’ said Dick. + +‘It’s equally plain that the money which the old flint--rot him--first +taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all +be hers, is it not?’ + +‘I should said it was,’ replied Dick; ‘unless the way in which I put +the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was +powerful, Fred. ‘Here is a jolly old grandfather’--that was strong, I +thought--very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?’ + +‘It didn’t strike him,’ returned the other, ‘so we needn’t discuss it. +Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.’ + +‘Fine girl of her age, but small,’ observed Richard Swiveller +parenthetically. + +‘If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,’ returned Trent, fretting +at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. +‘Now I’m coming to the point.’ + +‘That’s right,’ said Dick. + +‘The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, +at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, +I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to +my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme +would take a week to tell) what’s to prevent your marrying her?’ + +Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler +while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great +energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he +evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the +monosyllable: + +‘What!’ + +‘I say, what’s to prevent,’ repeated the other with a steadiness of +manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured +by long experience, ‘what’s to prevent your marrying her?’ + +‘And she “nearly fourteen”!’ cried Dick. + +‘I don’t mean marrying her now’--returned the brother angrily; ‘say in +two year’s time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a +long-liver?’ + +‘He don’t look like it,’ said Dick shaking his head, ‘but these old +people--there’s no trusting them, Fred. There’s an aunt of mine down in +Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and +hasn’t kept her word yet. They’re so aggravating, so unprincipled, so +spiteful--unless there’s apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can’t +calculate upon ‘em, and even then they deceive you just as often as +not.’ + +‘Look at the worst side of the question then,’ said Trent as steadily +as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. ‘Suppose he lives.’ + +‘To be sure,’ said Dick. ‘There’s the rub.’ + +‘I say,’ resumed his friend, ‘suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if +the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with +you. What do you think would come of that?’ + +‘A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep ‘em on,’ said +Richard Swiveller after some reflection. + +‘I tell you,’ returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, +whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, +‘that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound +up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of +disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of +obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do +it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he +chooses.’ + +‘It seems improbable certainly,’ said Dick, musing. + +‘It seems improbable because it is improbable,’ his friend returned. +‘If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, +let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between +you and me--let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of +course--and he’ll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will +wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is +concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That +you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, +that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a +beautiful young wife.’ + +‘I suppose there’s no doubt about his being rich’--said Dick. + +‘Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were +there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?’ + +It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful +windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of +Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity, +interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to +look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other +inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition +stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these +impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had +long been accustomed to exercise over him--an ascendancy exerted in the +beginning sorely at the expense of his friend’s vices, and was in nine +cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was +indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool. + +The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which +Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to +their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation +was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of +stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to +marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could +be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by +a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying ‘Come in.’ + +The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a +strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop +downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a +servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs +had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter +she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception +of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling. + +Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, +and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it +was one of the inconveniences of being a lady’s man, and that it was +very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten +her. + +‘Her. Who?’ demanded Trent. + +‘Sophy Wackles,’ said Dick. + +‘Who’s she?’ + +‘She’s all my fancy painted her, sir, that’s what she is,’ said Mr +Swiveller, taking a long pull at ‘the rosy’ and looking gravely at his +friend. ‘She’s lovely, she’s divine. You know her.’ + +‘I remember,’ said his companion carelessly. ‘What of her?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned Dick, ‘between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble +individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender +sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and +inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, +is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell +you that.’ + +‘Am I to believe there’s anything real in what you say?’ demanded his +friend; ‘you don’t mean to say that any love-making has been going on?’ + +‘Love-making, yes. Promising, no,’ said Dick. ‘There can be no action +for breach, that’s one comfort. I’ve never committed myself in writing, +Fred.’ + +‘And what’s in the letter, pray?’ + +‘A reminder, Fred, for to-night--a small party of twenty, making two +hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman +to have the proper complement. I must go, if it’s only to begin +breaking off the affair--I’ll do it, don’t you be afraid. I should like +to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any +bar to her happiness, it’s affecting, Fred.’ + +To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and +ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her +own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum’s sake no +doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr +Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was +extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller +heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether +consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his +friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect, +probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control +Richard Swiveller’s proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever +he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to +exert it. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being +nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be +endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest +eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens +for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience +of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer +that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so +obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace +before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been +outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather +sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller forwarded the same message +to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider +that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great +fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the +extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook’s shop, +which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for +any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was +demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid, curiously +constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates +formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being +resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and +necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend +applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment. + +‘May the present moment,’ said Dick, sticking his fork into a large +carbuncular potato, ‘be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of +sending ‘em with the peel on; there’s a charm in drawing a potato from +its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and +powerful are strangers. Ah! “Man wants but little here below, nor wants +that little long!” How true that is!--after dinner.’ + +‘I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may +not want that little long,’ returned his companion; but I suspect +you’ve no means of paying for this!’ + +‘I shall be passing present, and I’ll call,’ said Dick, winking his eye +significantly. ‘The waiter’s quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, +and there’s an end of it.’ + +In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome +truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was +informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call +and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some +perturbation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about ‘payment on +delivery’ and ‘no trust,’ and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain +to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the +gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the +beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. +Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, +replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven +minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation, +Richard Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and +made an entry therein. + +‘Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?’ said Trent +with a sneer. + +‘Not exactly, Fred,’ replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to +write with a businesslike air. ‘I enter in this little book the names +of the streets that I can’t go down while the shops are open. This +dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen +Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There’s only one +avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that +to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every +direction, that in a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a +remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get +over the way.’ + +‘There’s no fear of failing, in the end?’ said Trent. + +‘Why, I hope not,’ returned Mr Swiveller, ‘but the average number of +letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far +as eight without any effect at all. I’ll write another to-morrow +morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out +of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. “I’m in such a state of +mind that I hardly know what I write”--blot--“if you could see me at +this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct”--pepper-castor--“my +hand trembles when I think”--blot again--if that don’t produce the +effect, it’s all over.’ + +By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced +his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly +grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time +for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was +accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own +meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles. + +‘It’s rather sudden,’ said Dick shaking his head with a look of +infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with +scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; ‘when the heart +of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss +Wackles appears; she’s a very nice girl. She’s like the red red rose +that’s newly sprung in June--there’s no denying that--she’s also like a +melody that’s sweetly played in tune. It’s really very sudden. Not that +there’s any need, on account of Fred’s little sister, to turn cool +directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I +must begin at once, I see that. There’s the chance of an action for +breach, that’s another. There’s the chance of--no, there’s no chance of +that, but it’s as well to be on the safe side.’ + +This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to +conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of +Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to +hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their +notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these +reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, +and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless +jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he +circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again) +pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater +discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his +toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of +his meditations. + +The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her +widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained +a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a +circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board +over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient +flourishes the words ‘Ladies’ Seminary’; and which was further +published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past +nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of +tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making +futile attempts to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several +duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged. +English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, +by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and +general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, +marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, +fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss Melissa +Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the +youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or +thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy was a fresh, good +humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen +years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent but rather venomous old lady of +three-score. + +To this Ladies’ Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs +obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin +white, embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him +on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant +preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little +flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in +windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the +day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls +of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the +preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the solemn +gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest daughter, +which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made no further +impression upon him. + +The truth is--and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste +so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a +wilful and malicious invention--the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles +nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the +pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of +him as ‘a gay young man’ and to sigh and shake their heads ominously +whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller’s conduct in respect to +Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually +looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young +lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that +it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at +last consented to play off against Richard Swiveller a stricken +market-gardner known to be ready with his offer on the smallest +encouragement, and hence--as this occasion had been specially assigned +for the purpose--that great anxiety on her part for Richard Swiveller’s +presence which had occasioned her to leave the note he has been seen to +receive. ‘If he has any expectations at all or any means of keeping a +wife well,’ said Mrs Wackles to her eldest daughter, ‘he’ll state ‘em +to us now or never.’--‘If he really cares about me,’ thought Miss +Sophy, ‘he must tell me so, to-night.’ + +But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr +Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind +how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that +occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own +sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company +came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr +Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he prudently brought along +with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and +taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an +audible whisper that they had not come too early. + +‘Too early, no!’ replied Miss Sophy. + +‘Oh, my dear,’ rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before, +‘I’ve been so tormented, so worried, that it’s a mercy we were not here +at four o’clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of +impatience to come! You’d hardly believe that he was dressed before +dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever +since. It’s all your fault, you naughty thing.’ + +Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before +ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy’s mother and sisters, to prevent Mr +Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, +and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very +thing he wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for +pretending to be angry; but having this cause reason and foundation +which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard +Swiveller was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil +Cheggs meant by his impudence. + +However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy’s hand for the first quadrille +(country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an +advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and +contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through +the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the +market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man +they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he +performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the +company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long +gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite +transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the +moment to snub three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, +and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as +that in the family would be a pride indeed. + +At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and +useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles +a contempt for Mr Swiveller’s accomplishments, she took every +opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy’s ear expressions of +condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous +creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should +fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating +Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love +and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his +eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow. + +‘You must dance with Miss Cheggs,’ said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller, +after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show +of encouraging his advances. ‘She’s a nice girl--and her brother’s +quite delightful.’ + +‘Quite delightful, is he?’ muttered Dick. ‘Quite delighted too, I +should say, from the manner in which he’s looking this way.’ + +Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her +many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs +was. + +‘Jealous! Like his impudence!’ said Richard Swiviller. + +‘His impudence, Mr Swiviller!’ said Miss Jane, tossing her head. ‘Take +care he don’t hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.’ + +‘Oh, pray, Jane--’ said Miss Sophy. + +‘Nonsense!’ replied her sister. ‘Why shouldn’t Mr Cheggs be jealous if +he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be +jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon +if he hasn’t already. You know best about that, Sophy!’ + +Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister, +originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing +Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for +Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill +and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller +retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a +defiance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned. + +‘Did you speak to me, sir?’ said Mr Cheggs, following him into a +corner. ‘Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be +suspected. Did you speak to me, sir’? + +Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg’s toes, then +raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from +that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg, +until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to +button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle +of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly, + +‘No, sir, I didn’t.’ + +‘’Hem!’ said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, ‘have the goodness +to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.’ + +‘No, sir, I didn’t do that, either.’ + +‘Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,’ said Mr Cheggs +fiercely. + +At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg’s +face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat +and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed +him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and +thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his +eyes, ‘No sir, I haven’t.’ + +‘Oh, indeed, sir!’ said Mr Cheggs. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You know where +I’m to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to +say to me?’ + +‘I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.’ + +‘There’s nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?’ + +‘Nothing more, sir’--With that they closed the tremendous dialog by +frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy, +and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state. + +Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking +on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs +occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the +figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to +Richard Swiviller’s soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles +for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a +couple of hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss +Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the +stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious +acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down +instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an +impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their +respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being +of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this +offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful +promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils. + +‘I’ve got such news for you,’ said Miss Cheggs approaching once more, +‘Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know, +it’s quite serious and in earnest, that’s clear.’ + +‘What’s he been saying, my dear?’ demanded Mrs Wackles. + +‘All manner of things,’ replied Miss Cheggs, ‘you can’t think how out +he has been speaking!’ + +Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking +advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to +pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful +assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way +Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a +flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a +feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss +Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and +by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few +parting words. + +‘My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass +this door I will say farewell to thee,’ murmured Dick, looking gloomily +upon her. + +‘Are you going?’ said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the +result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference +notwithstanding. + +‘Am I going!’ echoed Dick bitterly. ‘Yes, I am. What then?’ + +‘Nothing, except that it’s very early,’ said Miss Sophy; ‘but you are +your own master, of course.’ + +‘I would that I had been my own mistress too,’ said Dick, ‘before I had +ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, +and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e’er I knew, a +girl so fair yet so deceiving.’ + +Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after +Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance. + +‘I came here,’ said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he +had really come, ‘with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my +sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that +may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that +desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a +stifler!’ + +‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,’ said Miss Sophy +with downcast eyes. ‘I’m very sorry if--’ + +‘Sorry, Ma’am!’ said Dick, ‘sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I +wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that +there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has +not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has +requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a +regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise. +It’s a gratifying circumstance which you’ll be glad to hear, that a +young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account, +and is now saving up for me. I thought I’d mention it. I have now +merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good +night.’ + +‘There’s one good thing springs out of all this,’ said Richard +Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the +candle with the extinguisher in his hand, ‘which is, that I now go +heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about +little Nelly, and right glad he’ll be to find me so strong upon it. He +shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it’s +rather late, I’ll try and get a wink of the balmy.’ + +‘The balmy’ came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few +minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married +Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power +was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a +brick-field. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described +the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud +which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides +that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately +acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and +loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the +old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even +in the midst of her heart’s overflowing, and made her timid of allusion +to the main cause of her anxiety and distress. + +For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and +uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary +evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every +slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the +knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded +spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck +down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering +and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that +his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning +of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of +these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might, +they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care +about them--these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have +sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer +and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom +they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that +could keep such thoughts in restless action! + +And yet, to the old man’s vision, Nell was still the same. When he +could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted +and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same +smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same +love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been +present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to +read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little +dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and +murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy. + +She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and +moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making +them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and +cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and +when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and +sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate +occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes--hoarse from their +long silence--with her voice. + +In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the +child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night, +alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait; +at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds. + +She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they +passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the +opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that +in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her +sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their +heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the +roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces +that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and +she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was +sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street--for it +made it late, and very dull inside. Then, she would draw in her head +to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and +hadn’t moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see +a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others +silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made +her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the +old man’s altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and +speculations. If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to +him, and he were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he +should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had +gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly, +and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come +creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These +thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have +recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more +silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to +shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed. By +degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and +there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night. Still, +there was one late shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy +glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and companionable. +But, in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished, and all +was gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the +pavement, or a neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at +his house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates. + +When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the +child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as +she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled +with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible +by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But +these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect +of her own room. After praying fervently, and with many bursting +tears, for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and +the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the +pillow and sob herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the +day-light came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary +summons which had roused her from her slumber. + +One night, the third after Nelly’s interview with Mrs Quilp, the old +man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home. +The child’s eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided +when they reverted to his worn and sickly face. + +‘Two days,’ he said, ‘two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is +no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?’ + +‘Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.’ + +‘True,’ said the old man, faintly. ‘Yes. But tell me again, Nell. My +head fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than that +he would see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.’ + +‘Nothing more,’ said the child. ‘Shall I go to him again to-morrow, +dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before +breakfast.’ + +The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards +him. + +‘’Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts me, +Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should, with his +assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and +all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I +am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--have ruined thee, for whom +I ventured all. If we are beggars--!’ + +‘What if we are?’ said the child boldly. ‘Let us be beggars, and be +happy.’ + +‘Beggars--and happy!’ said the old man. ‘Poor child!’ + +‘Dear grandfather,’ cried the girl with an energy which shone in her +flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, ‘I am not a +child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may +beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather +than live as we do now.’ + +‘Nelly!’ said the old man. + +‘Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,’ the child repeated, more +earnestly than before. ‘If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be +sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, +let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us +be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not +let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and +die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg +our way from door to door.’ + +The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow +of the couch on which he lay. + +‘Let us be beggars,’ said the child passing an arm round his neck, ‘I +have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk +through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never +think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at +nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank +God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy +houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and +when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place +that we can find, and I will go and beg for both.’ + +The child’s voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man’s +neck; nor did she weep alone. + +These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes. +And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that +passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no less a person +than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first +placed herself at the old man’s side, refrained--actuated, no doubt, by +motives of the purest delicacy--from interrupting the conversation, and +stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a +tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the +dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at +home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with +uncommon agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon +the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort +to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing +something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong +possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over +the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a +little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent +grimace. And in this position the old man, happening in course of time +to look that way, at length chanced to see him: to his unbounded +astonishment. + +The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable +figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing +what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. +Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the +same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. +At length, the old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came +there. + +‘Through the door,’ said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his +thumb. ‘I’m not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I wish I +was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private. +With nobody present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.’ + +Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her +cheek. + +‘Ah!’ said the dwarf, smacking his lips, ‘what a nice kiss that +was--just upon the rosy part. What a capital kiss!’ + +Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark. Quilp looked +after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell +to complimenting the old man upon her charms. + +‘Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,’ said Quilp, +nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; ‘such a +chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!’ + +The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with +a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not +lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody +else, when he could. + +‘She’s so,’ said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite +absorbed in the subject, ‘so small, so compact, so beautifully +modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, +and such little feet, and such winning ways--but bless me, you’re +nervous! Why neighbour, what’s the matter? I swear to you,’ continued +the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a +careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which +he had sprung up unheard, ‘I swear to you that I had no idea old blood +ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, +and cool, quite cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be +out of order, neighbour.’ + +‘I believe it is,’ groaned the old man, clasping his head with both +hands. ‘There’s burning fever here, and something now and then to +which I fear to give a name.’ + +The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced +restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. +Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, +and then suddenly raising it, said, + +‘Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?’ + +‘No!’ returned Quilp. + +‘Then,’ said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking +upwards, ‘the child and I are lost!’ + +‘Neighbour,’ said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand +twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, ‘let +me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the +cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret +from me now.’ + +The old man looked up, trembling. + +‘You are surprised,’ said Quilp. ‘Well, perhaps that’s natural. You +have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that +all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies +that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall I say the +word?’ + +‘Aye!’ replied the old man, ‘say it, if you will.’ + +‘To the gaming-table,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘your nightly haunt. This was +the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret +certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had +been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of +gold, your El Dorado, eh?’ + +‘Yes,’ cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, ‘it was. +It is. It will be, till I die.’ + +‘That I should have been blinded,’ said Quilp looking contemptuously at +him, ‘by a mere shallow gambler!’ + +‘I am no gambler,’ cried the old man fiercely. ‘I call Heaven to +witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at +every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan’s name and +called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did. Whom did +it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by +plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and +propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them, my +winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young +sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy. +What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, +wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a cause? +Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I did?’ + +‘When did you first begin this mad career?’ asked Quilp, his taunting +inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man’s grief and wildness. + +‘When did I first begin?’ he rejoined, passing his hand across his +brow. ‘When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I +began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save +at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she +would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to +keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I +began to think about it.’ + +‘After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to +sea?’ said Quilp. + +‘Shortly after that,’ replied the old man. ‘I thought of it a long +time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no +pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but +anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of +mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!’ + +‘You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me. +While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you +were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to pass +that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of +sale upon the--upon the stock and property,’ said Quilp standing up and +looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been +taken away. ‘But did you never win?’ + +‘Never!’ groaned the old man. ‘Never won back my loss!’ + +‘I thought,’ sneered the dwarf, ‘that if a man played long enough he +was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.’ + +‘And so he is,’ cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his +state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, ‘so +he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I’ve +seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I +have dreamed, three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never +could dream that dream before, though I have often tried. Do not +desert me, now I have this chance. I have no resource but you, give me +some help, let me try this one last hope.’ + +The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. + +‘See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,’ said the old man, drawing some +scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the +dwarf’s arm, ‘only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long +calculation, and painful and hard experience. I MUST win. I only want +a little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear +Quilp.’ + +‘The last advance was seventy,’ said the dwarf; ‘and it went in one +night.’ + +‘I know it did,’ answered the old man, ‘but that was the very worst +fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider, +consider,’ the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the +papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind, ‘that +orphan child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness--perhaps even +anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it +does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy +and afflicted, and all who court it in their despair--but what I have +done, has been for her. Help me for her sake I implore you; not for +mine; for hers!’ + +‘I’m sorry I’ve got an appointment in the city,’ said Quilp, looking at +his watch with perfect self-possession, ‘or I should have been very +glad to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself, +very glad.’ + +‘Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,’ gasped the old man, catching at his skirts, +‘you and I have talked together, more than once, of her poor mother’s +story. The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me +by that. Do not be hard upon me, but take that into account. You are +a great gainer by me. Oh spare me the money for this one last hope!’ + +‘I couldn’t do it really,’ said Quilp with unusual politeness, ‘though +I tell you what--and this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as +showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes--I was so +deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly--’ + +‘All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph +greater,’ cried the old man. + +‘Yes, yes, I understand that now,’ said Quilp; ‘but I was going to say, +I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had +among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances +that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest +you paid me, that I’d have advanced you, even now, what you want, on +your simple note of hand, if I hadn’t unexpectedly become acquainted +with your secret way of life.’ + +‘Who is it,’ retorted the old man desperately, ‘that, notwithstanding +all my caution, told you? Come. Let me know the name--the person.’ + +The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child would +lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which, as +nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short +in his answer and said, ‘Now, who do you think?’ + +‘It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you +tampered with him?’ said the old man. + +‘How came you to think of him?’ said the dwarf in a tone of great +commiseration. ‘Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!’ + +So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave: stopping +when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with +extraordinary delight. + +‘Poor Kit!’ muttered Quilp. ‘I think it was Kit who said I was an +uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn’t it. Ha ha +ha! Poor Kit!’ + +And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man’s house, unobserved. +In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many +passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who, +having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still +maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall +with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well +used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the +hour together. + +This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who +passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly +directed towards one object; the window at which the child was +accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to +glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his +sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and +attention. + +It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his +place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the +time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the +clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At +length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, +then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter +past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that +it was no use tarrying there any longer. + +That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means +willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the +spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking +over his shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with +which he as often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and +imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At +length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly +breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at +his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should +be tempted back again. + +Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious +individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until +he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a +walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was +shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in. + +‘Bless us!’ cried a woman turning sharply round, ‘who’s that? Oh! +It’s you, Kit!’ + +‘Yes, mother, it’s me.’ + +‘Why, how tired you look, my dear!’ + +‘Old master an’t gone out to-night,’ said Kit; ‘and so she hasn’t been +at the window at all.’ With which words, he sat down by the fire and +looked very mournful and discontented. + +The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an +extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, +nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one +indeed--cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late +as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at +work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near +the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very +wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown +very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a +clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and +looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep +any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest +and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful +prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer-looking +family: Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike. + +Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too +often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly, +and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him +to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, +and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. +So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the +clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly +determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable. + +‘Ah, mother!’ said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a +great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours +before, ‘what a one you are! There an’t many such as you, I know.’ + +‘I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,’ said Mrs Nubbles; +‘and that there are, or ought to be, accordin’ to what the parson at +chapel says.’ + +‘Much he knows about it,’ returned Kit contemptuously. ‘Wait till he’s +a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much, +and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I’ll ask him what’s o’clock +and trust him for being right to half a second.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, ‘your beer’s down there by +the fender, Kit.’ + +‘I see,’ replied her son, taking up the porter pot, ‘my love to you, +mother. And the parson’s health too if you like. I don’t bear him any +malice, not I!’ + +‘Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn’t gone out to-night?’ +inquired Mrs Nubbles. + +‘Yes,’ said Kit, ‘worse luck!’ + +‘You should say better luck, I think,’ returned his mother, ‘because +Miss Nelly won’t have been left alone.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Kit, ‘I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I’ve been +watching ever since eight o’clock, and seen nothing of her.’ + +‘I wonder what she’d say,’ cried his mother, stopping in her work and +looking round, ‘if she knew that every night, when she--poor thing--is +sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for +fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or +come home to your bed though you’re ever so tired, till such time as +you think she’s safe in hers.’ + +‘Never mind what she’d say,’ replied Kit, with something like a blush +on his uncouth face; ‘she’ll never know nothing, and consequently, +she’ll never say nothing.’ + +Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to +the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she +rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing +until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an +alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and +looking round with a smile, she observed: + +‘I know what some people would say, Kit--’ + +‘Nonsense,’ interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to +follow. + +‘No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you’d fallen in +love with her, I know they would.’ + +To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother ‘get out,’ +and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied +by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means +the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the +bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which +artificial aids he choked himself and effected a diversion of the +subject. + +‘Speaking seriously though, Kit,’ said his mother, taking up the theme +afresh, after a time, ‘for of course I was only in joke just now, it’s +very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let +anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for +I’m sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It’s +a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don’t wonder +that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.’ + +‘He don’t think it’s cruel, bless you,’ said Kit, ‘and don’t mean it to +be so, or he wouldn’t do it--I do consider, mother, that he wouldn’t do +it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn’t. +I know him better than that.’ + +‘Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from +you?’ said Mrs Nubbles. + +‘That I don’t know,’ returned her son. ‘If he hadn’t tried to keep it +so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his +getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he +used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark! +what’s that?’ + +‘It’s only somebody outside.’ + +‘It’s somebody crossing over here,’ said Kit, standing up to listen, +‘and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and +the house caught fire, mother!’ + +The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had +conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door +was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and +breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried +into the room. + +‘Miss Nelly! What is the matter!’ cried mother and son together. + +‘I must not stay a moment,’ she returned, ‘grandfather has been taken +very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor--’ + +‘I’ll run for a doctor’--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. ‘I’ll be +there directly, I’ll--’ + +‘No, no,’ cried Nell, ‘there is one there, you’re not wanted, +you--you--must never come near us any more!’ + +‘What!’ roared Kit. + +‘Never again,’ said the child. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. +Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with +me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!’ + +Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his +mouth a great many times; but couldn’t get out one word. + +‘He complains and raves of you,’ said the child, ‘I don’t know what you +have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.’ + +‘I done!’ roared Kit. + +‘He cried that you’re the cause of all his misery,’ returned the child +with tearful eyes; ‘he screamed and called for you; they say you must +not come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more. +I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come +than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in +whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!’ + +The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and +with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and +silent. + +‘I have brought his money for the week,’ said the child, looking to the +woman and laying it on the table--‘and--and--a little more, for he was +always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well +somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very +much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be +done. Good night!’ + +With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling +with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had +received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful +and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and +disappeared as rapidly as she had come. + +The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for +relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by +his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry, +knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he +had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful +pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question +him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping +bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite +bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the +clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was +seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, +insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter +stupefaction. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer, +beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning, the old man +was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and sinking under the +influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of +his life. There was watching enough, now, but it was the watching of +strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and who, in the intervals in +their attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly +good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry; for disease and +death were their ordinary household gods. + +Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more +alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her +devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed; alone in her +unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy. Day after day, and +night after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious +sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still listening to those +repetitions of her name and those anxieties and cares for her, which +were ever uppermost among his feverish wanderings. + +The house was no longer theirs. Even the sick chamber seemed to be +retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp’s favour. The old man’s +illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the +premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that +effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question. +This important step secured, with the assistance of a man of law whom +he brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish +himself and his coadjutor in the house, as an assertion of his claim +against all comers; and then set about making his quarters comfortable, +after his own fashion. + +To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an +effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having +looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most +commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own +use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he +considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he +caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in +great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man’s +chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against +infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to +smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal +friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the +tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit +himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to +smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to +take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one +minute at a time, if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp +looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he +called that comfort. + +The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called +it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no +exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, +angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always +caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was +quite a creature of Mr Quilp’s and had a thousand reasons for +conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his +acquiescence with the best grace he could assume. + +This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in +the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, +a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He +wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black +trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a +cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were +so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least +repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper +that he might only scowl. + +Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very +much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he +happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the +smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee. + +‘Smoke away, you dog,’ said Quilp, turning to the boy; ‘fill your pipe +again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I’ll put the +sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your +tongue.’ + +Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small +lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it. Wherefore, he only +muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered. + +‘Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the +Grand Turk?’ said Quilp. + +Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk’s feelings were by no +means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he +felt very like that Potentate. + +‘This is the way to keep off fever,’ said Quilp, ‘this is the way to +keep off every calamity of life! We’ll never leave off, all the time +we stop here--smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!’ + +‘Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?’ inquired his legal friend, when +the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition. + +‘We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,’ +returned Quilp. + +‘He he he!’ laughed Mr Brass, ‘oh! very good!’ + +‘Smoke away!’ cried Quilp. ‘Never stop! You can talk as you smoke. +Don’t lose time.’ + +‘He he he!’ cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the +odious pipe. ‘But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?’ + +‘Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,’ returned the dwarf. + +‘How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!’ said Brass. ‘Some +people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods--oh dear, the very +instant the law allowed ‘em. Some people, Sir, would have been all +flintiness and granite. Some people, sir, would have--’ + +‘Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a +parrot as you,’ interposed the dwarf. + +‘He he he!’ cried Brass. ‘You have such spirits!’ + +The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without +taking his pipe from his lips, growled, + +‘Here’s the gal a comin’ down.’ + +‘The what, you dog?’ said Quilp. + +‘The gal,’ returned the boy. ‘Are you deaf?’ + +‘Oh!’ said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were +taking soup, ‘you and I will have such a settling presently; there’s +such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend! +Aha! Nelly! How is he now, my duck of diamonds?’ + +‘He’s very bad,’ replied the weeping child. + +‘What a pretty little Nell!’ cried Quilp. + +‘Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,’ said Brass. ‘Quite charming.’ + +‘Has she come to sit upon Quilp’s knee,’ said the dwarf, in what he +meant to be a soothing tone, ‘or is she going to bed in her own little +room inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do?’ + +‘What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!’ muttered Brass, +as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; ‘upon my word it’s +quite a treat to hear him.’ + +‘I’m not going to stay at all,’ faltered Nell. ‘I want a few things +out of that room, and then I--I--won’t come down here any more.’ + +‘And a very nice little room it is!’ said the dwarf looking into it as +the child entered. ‘Quite a bower! You’re sure you’re not going to +use it; you’re sure you’re not coming back, Nelly?’ + +‘No,’ replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress +she had come to remove; ‘never again! Never again.’ + +‘She’s very sensitive,’ said Quilp, looking after her. ‘Very +sensitive; that’s a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think +I shall make it MY little room.’ + +Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other +emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect. +This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe +in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr +Brass applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and +comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by +night and as a kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be +converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and +smoked his pipe out. The legal gentleman being by this time rather +giddy and perplexed in his ideas (for this was one of the operations of +the tobacco on his nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking +away into the open air, where, in course of time, he recovered +sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure. He +was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, +and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning. + +Such were Mr Quilp’s first proceedings on entering upon his new +property. He was, for some days, restrained by business from +performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied +between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of +all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns +which happily engaged him for several hours at a time. His avarice and +caution being, now, thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent +from the house one night; and his eagerness for some termination, good +or bad, to the old man’s disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time +passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations +of impatience. + +Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf’s advances towards conversation, +and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer’s smiles +less terrible to her than Quilp’s grimaces. She lived in such +continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the +stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather’s +chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, +when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer +air of some empty room. + +One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there +very sorrowfully--for the old man had been worse that day--when she +thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. +Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her +attention had roused her from her sad reflections. + +‘Miss Nell!’ said the boy in a low voice. + +‘Yes,’ replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any +communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old +favourite still; ‘what do you want?’ + +‘I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,’ the boy replied, +‘but the people below have driven me away and wouldn’t let me see you. +You don’t believe--I hope you don’t really believe--that I deserve to +be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?’ + +‘I must believe it,’ returned the child. ‘Or why would grandfather +have been so angry with you?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit. ‘I’m sure I never deserved it from him, +no, nor from you. I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any +way. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how +old master was--!’ + +‘They never told me that,’ said the child. ‘I didn’t know it indeed. +I wouldn’t have had them do it for the world.’ + +‘Thank’ee, miss,’ returned Kit, ‘it’s comfortable to hear you say that. +I said I never would believe that it was your doing.’ + +‘That was right!’ said the child eagerly. + +‘Miss Nell,’ cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a +lower tone, ‘there are new masters down stairs. It’s a change for you.’ + +‘It is indeed,’ replied the child. + +‘And so it will be for him when he gets better,’ said the boy, pointing +towards the sick room. + +‘--If he ever does,’ added the child, unable to restrain her tears. + +‘Oh, he’ll do that, he’ll do that,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sure he will. You +mustn’t be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don’t be, pray!’ + +These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, +but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more. + +‘He’ll be sure to get better now,’ said the boy anxiously, ‘if you +don’t give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make +him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering. When he does, +say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!’ + +‘They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long +time,’ rejoined the child, ‘I dare not; and even if I might, what good +would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall +scarcely have bread to eat.’ + +‘It’s not that I may be taken back,’ said the boy, ‘that I ask the +favour of you. It isn’t for the sake of food and wages that I’ve been +waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don’t think that I’d come +in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.’ + +The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might +speak again. + +‘No, it’s not that,’ said Kit hesitating, ‘it’s something very +different from that. I haven’t got much sense, I know, but if he could +be brought to believe that I’d been a faithful servant to him, doing +the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn’t--’ + +Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, +and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window. + +‘Perhaps he mightn’t think it over venturesome of me to say--well then, +to say this,’ cried Kit with sudden boldness. ‘This home is gone from +you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that’s better than +this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he’s had +time to look about, and find a better!’ + +The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his +proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour +with his utmost eloquence. + +‘You think,’ said the boy, ‘that it’s very small and inconvenient. So +it is, but it’s very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but +there’s not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don’t be afraid +of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very +good--besides, I’d mind ‘em. They wouldn’t vex you much, I’m sure. Do +try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room up stairs is very +pleasant. You can see a piece of the church-clock, through the +chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it would be just the +thing for you, and so it would, and you’d have her to wait upon you +both, and me to run of errands. We don’t mean money, bless you; you’re +not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you’ll +try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have +done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?’ + +Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the +street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head +called in a surly voice, ‘Who’s there!’ Kit immediately glided away, +and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room. + +Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also +embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked +carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the +house, from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody in sight, +he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting +(as the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and +plot against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered +by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons; +and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for +disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof. +Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same +nature, he coiled himself once more in the child’s little bed, and Nell +crept softly up the stairs. + +It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit +should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams +that night and her recollections for a long, long time. Surrounded by +unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and +meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or +sympathy even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the +affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick +by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it +dwelt. Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with +hands, and that they may be even more worthily hung with poor +patch-work than with purple and fine linen! + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +At length, the crisis of the old man’s disorder was past, and he began +to mend. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; +but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He was +patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a +long space; was easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or +ceiling; made no complaint that the days were long, or the nights +tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost all count of time, and every +sense of care or weariness. He would sit, for hours together, with +Nell’s small hand in his, playing with the fingers and stopping +sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and, when he saw that +tears were glistening in her eyes, would look, amazed, about him for +the cause, and forget his wonder even while he looked. + +The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the +child beside him. They were hand in hand as usual. The noise and +motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not +surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated. He was asked if he +remembered this, or that. ‘O yes,’ he said, ‘quite well--why not?’ +Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and +outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he +disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he +answered not a word. + +He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside +him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter. ‘Yes,’ he +said without emotion, ‘it was Quilp, he knew. Quilp was master there. +Of course he might come in.’ And so he did. + +‘I’m glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, +sitting down opposite him. ‘You’re quite strong now?’ + +‘Yes,’ said the old man feebly, ‘yes.’ + +‘I don’t want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, +raising his voice, for the old man’s senses were duller than they had +been; ‘but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the +better.’ + +‘Surely,’ said the old man. ‘The better for all parties.’ + +‘You see,’ pursued Quilp after a short pause, ‘the goods being once +removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.’ + +‘You say true,’ returned the old man. ‘Poor Nell too, what would she +do?’ + +‘Exactly,’ bawled the dwarf nodding his head; ‘that’s very well +observed. Then will you consider about it, neighbour?’ + +‘I will, certainly,’ replied the old man. ‘We shall not stop here.’ + +‘So I supposed,’ said the dwarf. ‘I have sold the things. They have +not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty +well--pretty well. To-day’s Tuesday. When shall they be moved? +There’s no hurry--shall we say this afternoon?’ + +‘Say Friday morning,’ returned the old man. + +‘Very good,’ said the dwarf. ‘So be it--with the understanding that I +can’t go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.’ + +‘Good,’ returned the old man. ‘I shall remember it.’ + +Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in +which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and +repeated ‘on Friday morning. I shall remember it,’ he had no excuse +for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave +with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend +on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report +progress to Mr Brass. + +All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state. He +wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms, +as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred +neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of +the morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter. An +indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and in want of +help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer, +saying that they would not desert each other; but he seemed unable to +contemplate their real position more distinctly, and was still the +listless, passionless creature that suffering of mind and body had left +him. + +We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow +mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of +doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety +that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope +that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in +the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty +of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and +gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and +sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send +forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that +libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and +distorted image. + +Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man. But a +change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently +together. + +In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree--green and +flourishing enough, for such a place--and as the air stirred among its +leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat +watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the +sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, +he still sat in the same spot. + +To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few +green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among +chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things. They suggested quiet +places afar off, and rest, and peace. The child thought, more than +once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak. But now he shed +tears--tears that it lightened her aching heart to see--and making as +though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him. + +‘Forgive you--what?’ said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose. +‘Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?’ + +‘All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done +in that uneasy dream,’ returned the old man. + +‘Do not talk so,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not. Let us speak of +something else.’ + +‘Yes, yes, we will,’ he rejoined. ‘And it shall be of what we talked +of long ago--many months--months is it, or weeks, or days? which is it +Nell?’ + +‘I do not understand you,’ said the child. + +‘It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have +been sitting here. I bless thee for it, Nell!’ + +‘For what, dear grandfather?’ + +‘For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell. Let us speak +softly. Hush! for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would +cry that I was mad and take thee from me. We will not stop here +another day. We will go far away from here.’ + +‘Yes, let us go,’ said the child earnestly. ‘Let us begone from this +place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander +barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.’ + +‘We will,’ answered the old man, ‘we will travel afoot through the +fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God +in the places where He dwells. It is far better to lie down at night +beneath an open sky like that yonder--see how bright it is--than to +rest in close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams. +Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to +forget this time, as if it had never been.’ + +‘We will be happy,’ cried the child. ‘We never can be here.’ + +‘No, we never can again--never again--that’s truly said,’ rejoined the +old man. ‘Let us steal away to-morrow morning--early and softly, that +we may not be seen or heard--and leave no trace or track for them to +follow by. Poor Nell! Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with +watching and weeping for me--I know--for me; but thou wilt be well +again, and merry too, when we are far away. To-morrow morning, dear, +we’ll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and +happy as the birds.’ + +And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a +few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and +down together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the +twain. + +The child’s heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no +thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this, +but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief +from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the +heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of +trial, the restoration of the old man’s health and peace, and a life of +tranquil happiness. Sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days, +shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the +sparkling picture. + +The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was +yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few +articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old +garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a +staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this was +not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last +time. + +And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected, +and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself. +How could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph, +when the recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose +to her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and +sad though many of those hours had been! She sat down at the window +where she had spent so many evenings--darker far than this--and every +thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place +came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful +associations in an instant. + +Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed +at night--prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now--the +little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such +pleasant dreams! It was hard not to be able to glance round it once +more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful +tear. There were some trifles there--poor useless things--that she +would have liked to take away; but that was impossible. + +This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet. She +wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature--until the idea +occurred to her--she did not know how, or why, it came into her +head--that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who +would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it +behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an assurance that she +was grateful to him. She was calmed and comforted by the thought, and +went to rest with a lighter heart. + +From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with +some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all, +she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were +shining brightly in the sky. At length, the day began to glimmer, and +the stars to grow pale and dim. As soon as she was sure of this, she +arose, and dressed herself for the journey. + +The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him, +she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose. He was anxious that +they should leave the house without a minute’s loss of time, and was +soon ready. + +The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and +cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and +often stopping to listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet +which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the going back a +few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay. + +At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring +of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears +than the roars of lions. The bolts of the door were rusty, and +difficult to unfasten without noise. When they were all drawn back, it +was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key was gone. Then the +child remembered, for the first time, one of the nurses having told her +that Quilp always locked both the house-doors at night, and kept the +keys on the table in his bedroom. + +It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped +off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities, +where Mr Brass--the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock--lay +sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber. + +Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the +sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost +seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness +of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and +growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty +yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible. It was no time, however, to +ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after +one hasty glance about the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, +she rejoined the old man in safety. They got the door open without +noise, and passing into the street, stood still. + +‘Which way?’ said the child. + +The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to +the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. It was +plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child felt +it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led +him gently away. + +It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a +cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, +nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the +healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping +town. + +The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate +with hope and pleasure. They were alone together, once again; every +object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by +contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church +towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the +sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed +only by excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath. + +Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor +adventurers, wandering they knew not whither. + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the +city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty’s attornies of the Courts +of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of +the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious +of any mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated +and gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery +of knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between, +caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position, +and to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that +he heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn’t be at +the trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject. + +As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy +state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in +earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had +once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the +possibility of there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually +came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs +Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early hour. + +Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and +often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is +usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was +by this time awake also. Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his +every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes +before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and +making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to +those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having +been suddenly roused. + +While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under the +table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind in +general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to Mr Brass +the question, ‘what’s the matter?’ + +‘The key,’ said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, ‘the +door-key--that’s the matter. D’ye know anything of it?’ + +‘How should I know anything of it, sir?’ returned Mr Brass. + +‘How should you?’ repeated Quilp with a sneer. ‘You’re a nice lawyer, +an’t you? Ugh, you idiot!’ + +Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the +loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his +(Brass’s) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly +suggested that it must have been forgotten over night, and was, +doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole. Notwithstanding that +Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the contrary, founded on his +recollection of having carefully taken it out, he was fain to admit +that this was possible, and therefore went grumbling to the door where, +sure enough, he found it. + +Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great +astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again +with the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been +shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human +eye. The dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to +wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour +Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that +hideous uproar. + +With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and +opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other +side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another +application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his +hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his +malice. + +So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance +and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the +individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself +complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two more, of +the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his assailant, such a +shower of buffets rained down upon his person as sufficed to convince +him that he was in skilful and experienced hands. Nothing daunted by +this reception, he clung tight to his opponent, and bit and hammered +away with such good-will and heartiness, that it was at least a couple +of minutes before he was dislodged. Then, and not until then, Daniel +Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the +street, with Mr Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him +and requiring to know ‘whether he wanted any more?’ + +‘There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,’ said Mr Swiveller, by +turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, ‘a large and +extensive assortment always on hand--country orders executed with +promptitude and despatch--will you have a little more, Sir--don’t say +no, if you’d rather not.’ + +‘I thought it was somebody else,’ said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders, +‘why didn’t you say who you were?’ + +‘Why didn’t you say who YOU were?’ returned Dick, ‘instead of flying +out of the house like a Bedlamite?’ + +‘It was you that--that knocked,’ said the dwarf, getting up with a +short groan, ‘was it?’ + +‘Yes, I am the man,’ replied Dick. ‘That lady had begun when I came, +but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.’ As he said this, he +pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance. + +‘Humph!’ muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, ‘I +thought it was your fault! And you, sir--don’t you know there has been +somebody ill here, that you knock as if you’d beat the door down?’ + +‘Damme!’ answered Dick, ‘that’s why I did it. I thought there was +somebody dead here.’ + +‘You came for some purpose, I suppose,’ said Quilp. ‘What is it you +want?’ + +‘I want to know how the old gentleman is,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller, ‘and +to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little +talk. I’m a friend of the family, sir--at least I’m the friend of one +of the family, and that’s the same thing.’ + +‘You’d better walk in then,’ said the dwarf. ‘Go on, sir, go on. Now, +Mrs Quilp--after you, ma’am.’ + +Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted. And it was not a contest +of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well +that her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might +have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms, +which were seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and +blue colours. Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little +surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs +Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these +appearances, and soon forgot them. + +‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, ‘go +you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly’s room, and tell her that she’s +wanted.’ + +‘You seem to make yourself at home here,’ said Dick, who was +unacquainted with Mr Quilp’s authority. + +‘I AM at home, young gentleman,’ returned the dwarf. + +Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the +presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down +stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty. + +‘Empty, you fool!’ said the dwarf. + +‘I give you my word, Quilp,’ answered his trembling wife, ‘that I have +been into every room and there’s not a soul in any of them.’ + +‘And that,’ said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis, +‘explains the mystery of the key!’ + +Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and +frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from +any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again, +confirming the report which had already been made. + +‘It’s a strange way of going,’ he said, glancing at Swiveller, ‘very +strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate +friend of his! Ah! he’ll write to me no doubt, or he’ll bid Nelly +write--yes, yes, that’s what he’ll do. Nelly’s very fond of me. +Pretty Nell!’ + +Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment. Still +glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with +assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of +the goods. + +‘For indeed,’ he added, ‘we knew that they’d go away to-day, but not +that they’d go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, +they have their reasons.’ + +‘Where in the devil’s name are they gone?’ said the wondering Dick. + +Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied +that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say. + +‘And what,’ said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, ‘what do you +mean by moving the goods?’ + +‘That I have bought ‘em, Sir,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘Eh? What then?’ + +‘Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a +tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing +sea?’ said Dick, in great bewilderment. + +‘Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited +too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?’ +added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; ‘I say nothing, but is that +your meaning?’ + +Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of +circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project +in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects +in the bud. Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the +previous night, information of the old man’s illness, he had come upon +a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first +instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her +heart at last. And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of +graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful +retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles--here were +Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he +knew not whither, as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a +resolution to defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken. + +In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by +the flight which had been made. It had not escaped his keen eye that +some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives, +and knowing the old man’s weak state of mind, he marvelled what that +course of proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the +concurrence of the child. It must not be supposed (or it would be a +gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested +anxiety on behalf of either. His uneasiness arose from a misgiving +that the old man had some secret store of money which he had not +suspected; and the idea of its escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him +with mortification and self-reproach. + +In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that +Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and +disappointed by the same cause. It was plain, thought the dwarf, that +he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the +old man out of some small fraction of that wealth of which they +supposed him to have an abundance. Therefore, it was a relief to vex +his heart with a picture of the riches the old man hoarded, and to +expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even beyond the reach of +importunity. + +‘Well,’ said Dick, with a blank look, ‘I suppose it’s of no use my +staying here.’ + +‘Not the least in the world,’ rejoined the dwarf. + +‘You’ll mention that I called, perhaps?’ said Dick. + +Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he +saw them. + +‘And say,’ added Mr Swiveller, ‘say, sir, that I was wafted here upon +the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of +friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow +in their place, the germs of social harmony. Will you have the +goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?’ + +‘Certainly!’ rejoined Quilp. + +‘Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,’ said Dick, producing a +very small limp card, ‘that that is my address, and that I am to be +found at home every morning. Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce +the slavey at any time. My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to +sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to understand that they ARE +my friends and have no interested motives in asking if I’m at home. I +beg your pardon; will you allow me to look at that card again?’ + +‘Oh! by all means,’ rejoined Quilp. + +‘By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,’ said Dick, substituting +another in its stead, ‘I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select +convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the +honour to be Perpetual Grand. That is the proper document, Sir. Good +morning.’ + +Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious +Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it +carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a +flourish. + +By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods, +and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and +other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular +feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be +behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising +vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; +setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; +carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking +the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, +with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr +Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of +curious neighbours, which was his department. His presence and example +diffused such alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few +hours, the house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, +empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw. + +Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the +dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and +beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was +prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw +little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon +Kit came in and demanded what he wanted. + +‘Come here, you sir,’ said the dwarf. ‘Well, so your old master and +young mistress have gone?’ + +‘Where?’ rejoined Kit, looking round. + +‘Do you mean to say you don’t know where?’ answered Quilp sharply. +‘Where have they gone, eh?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Kit. + +‘Come,’ retorted Quilp, ‘let’s have no more of this! Do you mean to +say that you don’t know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was +light this morning?’ + +‘No,’ said the boy, in evident surprise. + +‘You don’t know that?’ cried Quilp. ‘Don’t I know that you were +hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh? Weren’t you +told then?’ + +‘No,’ replied the boy. + +‘You were not?’ said Quilp. ‘What were you told then; what were you +talking about?’ + +Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret +now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and +the proposal he had made. + +‘Oh!’ said the dwarf after a little consideration. ‘Then, I think +they’ll come to you yet.’ + +‘Do you think they will?’ cried Kit eagerly. + +‘Aye, I think they will,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Now, when they do, let +me know; d’ye hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want +to do ‘em a kindness, and I can’t do ‘em a kindness unless I know where +they are. You hear what I say?’ + +Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable +to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been +skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left +about by accident, had not happened to cry, ‘Here’s a bird! What’s to +be done with this?’ + +‘Wring its neck,’ rejoined Quilp. + +‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ said Kit, stepping forward. ‘Give it to me.’ + +‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ cried the other boy. ‘Come! You let the cage +alone, and let me wring its neck will you? He said I was to do it. +You let the cage alone will you.’ + +‘Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,’ roared Quilp. ‘Fight for it, +you dogs, or I’ll wring its neck myself!’ + +Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth +and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping +the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts +and cries to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and +rolled about together, exchanging blows which were by no means child’s +play, until at length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his +adversary’s chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching +the cage from Quilp’s hands made off with his prize. + +He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face +occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl +dreadfully. + +‘Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?’ +cried Mrs Nubbles. + +‘Never you mind, mother,’ answered her son, wiping his face on the +jack-towel behind the door. ‘I’m not hurt, don’t you be afraid for me. +I’ve been a fightin’ for a bird and won him, that’s all. Hold your +noise, little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!’ + +‘You have been fighting for a bird!’ exclaimed his mother. + +‘Ah! Fightin’ for a bird!’ replied Kit, ‘and here he is--Miss Nelly’s +bird, mother, that they was agoin’ to wring the neck of! I stopped +that though--ha ha ha! They wouldn’t wring his neck and me by, no, no. +It wouldn’t do, mother, it wouldn’t do at all. Ha ha ha!’ + +Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out +of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and +then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all +laughed in concert: partly because of Kit’s triumph, and partly because +they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit +exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity--it +was only a poor linnet--and looking about the wall for an old nail, +made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great +exultation. + +‘Let me see,’ said the boy, ‘I think I’ll hang him in the winder, +because it’s more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if +he looks up very much. He’s such a one to sing, I can tell you!’ + +So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker +for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the +immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted +and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into +the fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced +to be perfect. + +‘And now, mother,’ said the boy, ‘before I rest any more, I’ll go out +and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some +birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was +in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing +it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, +quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose +but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and +taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their +inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great +credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves. + +There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being +detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp’s boy. +The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it +had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends +of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the +half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed +shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside. Some of +the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the +rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull +than any. A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the +door-steps; some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted +dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house; +others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half +in earnest for ‘the ghost,’ which an hour’s gloom, added to the mystery +that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all +alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house +looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the +cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter’s night and the no +less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite +mournfully away. + +It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no +means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective +in all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had +nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going +home again, in his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother +(for, when your finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have +everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar +expedient of making them more comfortable if he could. + +Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up +and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good city +speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a +fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money +was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses +alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a +twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to +alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance +like this, which spoils the most ingenious estimate in the world. + +Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering +as some rider slackened his horse’s pace and looked about him; and now +darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some +distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and +promising to stop, at every door. But on they all went, one after +another, and there was not a penny stirring. ‘I wonder,’ thought the +boy, ‘if one of these gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard +at home, whether he’d stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted +to call somewhere, that I might earn a trifle?’ + +He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of +repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, +when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling +four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated +pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old gentleman. Beside +the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like +himself, and the pony was coming along at his own pace and doing +exactly as he pleased with the whole concern. If the old gentleman +remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony replied by shaking his +head. It was plain that the utmost the pony would consent to do, was +to go in his own way up any street that the old gentleman particularly +wished to traverse, but that it was an understanding between them that +he must do this after his own fashion or not at all. + +As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little +turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and putting +his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he +wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom objected to that +part of his duty) graciously acceded. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sorry you stopped, sir. I +only meant did you want your horse minded.’ + +‘I’m going to get down in the next street,’ returned the old gentleman. +‘If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.’ + +Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed. The pony ran off at a sharp +angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then +went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side. Having +satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and materials, he +came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation. + +‘Will you go on, sir,’ said the old gentleman, gravely, ‘or are we to +wait here for you till it’s too late for our appointment?’ + +The pony remained immoveable. + +‘Oh you naughty Whisker,’ said the old lady. ‘Fie upon you! I’m +ashamed of such conduct.’ + +The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for he +trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no more +until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the words +‘Witherden--Notary.’ Here the old gentleman got out and helped out the +old lady, and then took from under the seat a nosegay resembling in +shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short +off. This, the old lady carried into the house with a staid and +stately air, and the old gentleman (who had a club-foot) followed close +upon her. + +They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices, into +the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office. The day being +very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were wide open; and +it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all that passed inside. + +At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet, +succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed by +the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to +exclaim a great many times, ‘oh, delicious!’ ‘oh, fragrant, indeed!’ +and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that gentleman, was +heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of exceeding pleasure. + +‘I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,’ said the old lady. + +‘Ah! an occasion indeed, ma’am, an occasion which does honour to me, +ma’am, honour to me,’ rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary. ‘I have had +many a gentleman articled to me, ma’am, many a one. Some of them are +now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion and friend, +ma’am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to this day and +saying, “Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours I ever spent in my +life were spent in this office--were spent, Sir, upon this very stool”; +but there was never one among the number, ma’am, attached as I have +been to many of them, of whom I augured such bright things as I do of +your only son.’ + +‘Oh dear!’ said the old lady. ‘How happy you do make us when you tell +us that, to be sure!’ + +‘I tell you, ma’am,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘what I think as an honest man, +which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with +the poet in every particular, ma’am. The mountainous Alps on the one +hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of +workmanship, to an honest man--or woman--or woman.’ + +‘Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,’ observed a small quiet +voice, ‘I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.’ + +‘It’s a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,’ said the +Notary, ‘to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I +hope I know how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir, +that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious +occasion.’ + +To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might. +There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when +it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it who should +not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents +than Abel Garland had been to his. + +‘Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting for +a great many years, until we were well enough off--coming together when +we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has +always been dutiful and affectionate--why, it’s a source of great +happiness to us both, sir.’ + +‘Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,’ returned the Notary in a +sympathising voice. ‘It’s the contemplation of this sort of thing, +that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a young +lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first +respectability--but that’s a weakness. Chuckster, bring in Mr Abel’s +articles.’ + +‘You see, Mr Witherden,’ said the old lady, ‘that Abel has not been +brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure in +our society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent from +us, for a day; has he, my dear?’ + +‘Never, my dear,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘except when he went to +Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that +school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill +after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.’ + +‘He was not used to it, you know,’ said the old lady, ‘and he couldn’t +bear it, that’s the truth. Besides he had no comfort in being there +without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.’ + +‘That was it, you know,’ interposed the same small quiet voice that had +spoken once before. ‘I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and +to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never shall forget what I +felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!’ + +‘Very natural under the circumstances,’ observed the Notary. ‘Mr +Abel’s feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature, +ma’am, and his father’s nature, and human nature. I trace the same +current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive +proceedings.--I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of +the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger +upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to +remark in a distinct tone of voice--don’t be alarmed, ma’am, it is +merely a form of law--that I deliver this, as my act and deed. Mr Abel +will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same +cabalistic words, and the business is over. Ha ha ha! You see how +easily these things are done!’ + +There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through the +prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet +were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of +wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In +about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and +his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to +address Kit by the jocose appellation of ‘Young Snob,’ informed him +that the visitors were coming out. + +Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby, +fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme +politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm. Mr +Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of +the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in +face and figure, though wanting something of his full, round, +cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a timid reserve. In all +other respects, in the neatness of the dress, and even in the +club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely alike. + +Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the +arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an +indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little box +behind which had evidently been made for his express accommodation, and +smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning with his mother and +ending with the pony. There was then a great to-do to make the pony +hold up his head that the bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even +this was effected; and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the +reins, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for Kit. + +He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the +Notary, nor Mr Chuckster. The old gentleman thought a shilling too +much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave +it to the boy. + +‘There,’ he said jokingly, ‘I’m coming here again next Monday at the +same time, and mind you’re here, my lad, to work it out.’ + +‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll be sure to be here.’ + +He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying so, +especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the +joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going +home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was +the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify +himself, and went his way also. Having expended his treasure in such +purchases as he knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting +some seed for the wonderful bird, he hastened back as fast as he could, +so elated with his success and great good fortune, that he more than +half expected Nell and the old man would have arrived before him. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the +morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation +of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the +clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But +although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for +what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find, +when they came nearer to each other, that the person who approached was +not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect +which the sight of him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller, +she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him +who had been so faithful and so true, was more than she could bear. It +was enough to leave dumb things behind, and objects that were +insensible both to her love and sorrow. To have parted from her only +other friend upon the threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung +her heart indeed. + +Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and +while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say +it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends +who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual +pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, +while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of +uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should +possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our +dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, +whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the +whole remainder of a life. + +The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and +distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams +dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain +before sleepers’ eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the +shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark, +felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little +cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled +timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat +winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the +door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The +nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and +gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little +window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed--then trod impatiently +the track their prisoned feet had worn--and stopped and gazed again. +Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the +stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that sleep by night, +opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, +creation’s mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power. + +The two pilgrims, often pressing each other’s hands, or exchanging a +smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy +as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets, +from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual character and +expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made +them all alike. All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale +people whom they met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the +sickly lamp which had been here and there left burning, was powerless +and faint in the full glory of the sun. + +Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men’s abodes +which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt +away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place. Some straggling carts +and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then +others yet more active, then a crowd. The wonder was, at first, to see +a tradesman’s window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one +closed; then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were +thrown up to let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls, +looking lazily in all directions but their brooms, scattered brown +clouds of dust into the eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened +disconsolately to milkmen who spoke of country fairs, and told of +waggons in the mews, with awnings and all things complete, and gallant +swains to boot, which another hour would see upon their journey. + +This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great +traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already +rife. The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered +gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun. He pressed his +finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow courts and +winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had left it far +behind, often casting a backward look towards it, murmuring that ruin +and self-murder were crouching in every street, and would follow if +they scented them; and that they could not fly too fast. + +Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood, +where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with +rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there. The +shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers +were pinched and griped alike. Here were poor streets where faded +gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its +last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as +elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less +squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given +up the game. + +This was a wide, wide track--for the humble followers of the camp of +wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile--but its +character was still the same. Damp rotten houses, many to let, many +yet building, many half-built and mouldering away--lodgings, where it +would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those +who came to take--children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every +street, and sprawling in the dust--scolding mothers, stamping their +slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement--shabby fathers, +hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them +‘daily bread’ and little more--mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers, +tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and +back room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same +roof--brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or +timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by +the flames--mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and +oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion--small dissenting chapels to +teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty +of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the +way to Heaven. + +At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and +dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the +road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old +timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks +that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and +tight-sticking snails. To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two +with plots of ground in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box +borders and narrow paths between, where footstep never strayed to make +the gravel rough. Then came the public-house, freshly painted in green +and white, with tea-gardens and a bowling green, spurning its old +neighbour with the horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then, +fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, +some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife. Then came a +turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill, +and on the top of that, the traveller might stop, and--looking back at +old Saint Paul’s looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the +cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting +his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to +the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose +station lay for the present nearly at his feet--might feel at last that +he was clear of London. + +Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his +little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound) +sat down to rest. She had had the precaution to furnish her basket +with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal +breakfast. + +The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the +waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand +exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--deep joys to most +of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live +solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well--sunk into +their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her +artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had +ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her +lips again. The old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the +words--but he said amen, and that they were very good. + +There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, with strange +plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole +evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those +distant countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back +upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind. + +‘Dear grandfather,’ she said, ‘only that this place is prettier and a +great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I +feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the +cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.’ + +‘No--never to return--never to return’--replied the old man, waving his +hand towards the city. ‘Thou and I are free of it now, Nell. They +shall never lure us back.’ + +‘Are you tired?’ said the child, ‘are you sure you don’t feel ill from +this long walk?’ + +‘I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,’ was his +reply. ‘Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away--a long, +long way further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!’ + +There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved +her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk +again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and +making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her +hands, and dried it with her simple dress. + +‘I can do nothing for myself, my darling,’ said the grandfather; ‘I +don’t know how it is, I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave +me, Nell; say that thou’lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while, +indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!’ + +He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had +been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have +restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed +him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could +ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest. He was soon +calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a +little child. + +He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was +pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about +which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her +happy song. The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its +way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their +drowsy satisfaction as they floated by. + +They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and +scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came +upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put +across the open door to keep the scrambling children from the road, +others shut up close while all the family were working in the fields. +These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an +interval came a wheelwright’s shed or perhaps a blacksmith’s forge; +then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses +peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses +passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom. There +were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and +grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed +each other in their quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or +strutting on the eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their +own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing +glibly on its surface. The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; +the humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman’s; then the lawyer’s +and the parson’s, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the +church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there were +a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on +a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well. Then came the +trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again. + +They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds +were let to travellers. Next morning they were afoot again, and though +jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded +briskly forward. + +They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and +still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning. It +was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another +cluster of labourers’ huts, the child looked wistfully in each, +doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a +draught of milk. + +It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being +repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this, +the people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped +at one where the family were seated round the table--chiefly because +there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth, +and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers. + +There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy +children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than +granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged +two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother’s +gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand. + +‘God save you, master,’ said the old cottager in a thin piping voice; +‘are you travelling far?’ + +‘Yes, Sir, a long way’--replied the child; for her grandfather appealed +to her. + +‘From London?’ inquired the old man. + +The child said yes. + +Ah! He had been in London many a time--used to go there often once, +with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there +last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He +had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time +and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that +had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not so hearty as he, +neither--no, nothing like it. + +‘Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,’ said the old man, knocking +his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. ‘Take a +pinch out o’ that box; I don’t take much myself, for it comes dear, but +I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye’re but a boy to me. I should +have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he’d lived, but they listed him +for a so’ger--he come back home though, for all he had but one poor +leg. He always said he’d be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb +upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true--you +can see the place with your own eyes; we’ve kept the turf up, ever +since.’ + +He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said +she needn’t be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more. +He didn’t wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by +what he said, he asked pardon, that was all. + +The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and +selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty +meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course--a few rough +chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of +crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red, +walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture +subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf +clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a +kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as +the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content +to which she had long been unaccustomed. + +‘How far is it to any town or village?’ she asked of the husband. + +‘A matter of good five mile, my dear,’ was the reply, ‘but you’re not +going on to-night?’ + +‘Yes, yes, Nell,’ said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs. +‘Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till +midnight.’ + +‘There’s a good barn hard by, master,’ said the man, ‘or there’s +travellers’ lodging, I know, at the Plow an’ Harrer. Excuse me, but +you do seem a little tired, and unless you’re very anxious to get on--’ + +‘Yes, yes, we are,’ returned the old man fretfully. ‘Further away, +dear Nell, pray further away.’ + +‘We must go on, indeed,’ said the child, yielding to his restless wish. +‘We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I’m quite ready, +grandfather.’ + +But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer’s gait, that one of +her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother +too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and +applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a +gentle hand--rough-grained and hard though it was, with work--that the +child’s heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent +‘God bless you!’ nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak, +until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned +her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were +standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many +waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not +without tears, they parted company. + +They trudged forward, more slowly and painfully than they had done yet, +for another mile or thereabouts, when they heard the sound of wheels +behind them, and looking round observed an empty cart approaching +pretty briskly. The driver on coming up to them stopped his horse and +looked earnestly at Nell. + +‘Didn’t you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?’ he said. + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied the child. + +‘Ah! They asked me to look out for you,’ said the man. ‘I’m going +your way. Give me your hand--jump up, master.’ + +This was a great relief, for they were very much fatigued and could +scarcely crawl along. To them the jolting cart was a luxurious +carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. Nell had +scarcely settled herself on a little heap of straw in one corner, when +she fell asleep, for the first time that day. + +She was awakened by the stopping of the cart, which was about to turn +up a bye-lane. The driver kindly got down to help her out, and +pointing to some trees at a very short distance before them, said that +the town lay there, and that they had better take the path which they +would see leading through the churchyard. Accordingly, towards this +spot, they directed their weary steps. + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path +began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike, it shed +its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and bade them +be of good hope for its rising on the morrow. The church was old and +grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning +the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble +men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths +less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some +which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms +of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to +executors and mourning legatees. + +The clergyman’s horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the +graves, was cropping the grass; at once deriving orthodox consolation +from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last Sunday’s text that this +was what all flesh came to; a lean ass who had sought to expound it +also, without being qualified and ordained, was pricking his ears in an +empty pound hard by, and looking with hungry eyes upon his priestly +neighbour. + +The old man and the child quitted the gravel path, and strayed among +the tombs; for there the ground was soft, and easy to their tired feet. +As they passed behind the church, they heard voices near at hand, and +presently came on those who had spoken. + +They were two men who were seated in easy attitudes upon the grass, and +so busily engaged as to be at first unconscious of intruders. It was +not difficult to divine that they were of a class of itinerant +showmen--exhibitors of the freaks of Punch--for, perched cross-legged +upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself, his +nose and chin as hooked and his face as beaming as usual. Perhaps his +imperturbable character was never more strikingly developed, for he +preserved his usual equable smile notwithstanding that his body was +dangling in a most uncomfortable position, all loose and limp and +shapeless, while his long peaked cap, unequally balanced against his +exceedingly slight legs, threatened every instant to bring him toppling +down. + +In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and in +part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons of the +Drama. The hero’s wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the +foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the language is unable in +the representation to express his ideas otherwise than by the utterance +of the word ‘Shallabalah’ three distinct times, the radical neighbour +who will by no means admit that a tin bell is an organ, the +executioner, and the devil, were all here. Their owners had evidently +come to that spot to make some needful repairs in the stage +arrangements, for one of them was engaged in binding together a small +gallows with thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black +wig, with the aid of a small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of +the radical neighbour, who had been beaten bald. + +They raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were +close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their looks of +curiosity. One of them, the actual exhibitor no doubt, was a little +merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed to have +unconsciously imbibed something of his hero’s character. The +other--that was he who took the money--had rather a careful and +cautious look, which was perhaps inseparable from his occupation also. + +The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and +following the old man’s eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the +first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage. (Punch, it may be +remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a most +flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his heart.) + +‘Why do you come here to do this?’ said the old man, sitting down +beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight. + +‘Why you see,’ rejoined the little man, ‘we’re putting up for to-night +at the public-house yonder, and it wouldn’t do to let ‘em see the +present company undergoing repair.’ + +‘No!’ cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, ‘why not, eh? +why not?’ + +‘Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the +interest, wouldn’t it?’ replied the little man. ‘Would you care a +ha’penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know’d him in private and +without his wig?--certainly not.’ + +‘Good!’ said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and +drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. ‘Are you going to show ‘em +to-night? are you?’ + +‘That is the intention, governor,’ replied the other, ‘and unless I’m +much mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a calculating at this minute what we’ve +lost through your coming upon us. Cheer up, Tommy, it can’t be much.’ + +The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive +of the estimate he had formed of the travellers’ finances. + +To this Mr Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he +twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box, ‘I don’t +care if we haven’t lost a farden, but you’re too free. If you stood in +front of the curtain and see the public’s faces as I do, you’d know +human natur’ better.’ + +‘Ah! it’s been the spoiling of you, Tommy, your taking to that branch,’ +rejoined his companion. ‘When you played the ghost in the reg’lar +drama in the fairs, you believed in everything--except ghosts. But now +you’re a universal mistruster. I never see a man so changed.’ + +‘Never mind,’ said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented +philosopher. ‘I know better now, and p’raps I’m sorry for it.’ + +Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised +them, Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his +friend: + +‘Look here; here’s all this judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. +You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?’ + +The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he +contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer. +Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly: + +‘I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me +try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could.’ + +Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable. +Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her +task, and accomplishing it to a miracle. + +While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an +interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her +helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and +inquired whither they were travelling. + +‘N--no further to-night, I think,’ said the child, looking towards her +grandfather. + +‘If you’re wanting a place to stop at,’ the man remarked, ‘I should +advise you to take up at the same house with us. That’s it. The long, +low, white house there. It’s very cheap.’ + +The old man, notwithstanding his fatigue, would have remained in the +churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had remained there too. +As he yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, they all +rose and walked away together; he keeping close to the box of puppets +in which he was quite absorbed, the merry little man carrying it slung +over his arm by a strap attached to it for the purpose, Nelly having +hold of her grandfather’s hand, and Mr Codlin sauntering slowly behind, +casting up at the church tower and neighbouring trees such looks as he +was accustomed in town-practice to direct to drawing-room and nursery +windows, when seeking for a profitable spot on which to plant the show. + +The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who made +no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised Nelly’s beauty +and were at once prepossessed in her behalf. There was no other +company in the kitchen but the two showmen, and the child felt very +thankful that they had fallen upon such good quarters. The landlady +was very much astonished to learn that they had come all the way from +London, and appeared to have no little curiosity touching their farther +destination. The child parried her inquiries as well as she could, and +with no great trouble, for finding that they appeared to give her pain, +the old lady desisted. + +‘These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour’s time,’ she said, +taking her into the bar; ‘and your best plan will be to sup with them. +Meanwhile you shall have a little taste of something that’ll do you +good, for I’m sure you must want it after all you’ve gone through +to-day. Now, don’t look after the old gentleman, because when you’ve +drank that, he shall have some too.’ + +As nothing could induce the child to leave him alone, however, or to +touch anything in which he was not the first and greatest sharer, the +old lady was obliged to help him first. When they had been thus +refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the +show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck +round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to be +forthwith exhibited. + +And now Mr Thomas Codlin, the misanthrope, after blowing away at the +Pan’s pipes until he was intensely wretched, took his station on one +side of the checked drapery which concealed the mover of the figures, +and putting his hands in his pockets prepared to reply to all questions +and remarks of Punch, and to make a dismal feint of being his most +intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most +unlimited extent, of knowing that he enjoyed day and night a merry and +glorious existence in that temple, and that he was at all times and +under every circumstance the same intelligent and joyful person that +the spectators then beheld him. All this Mr Codlin did with the air of +a man who had made up his mind for the worst and was quite resigned; +his eye slowly wandering about during the briskest repartee to observe +the effect upon the audience, and particularly the impression made upon +the landlord and landlady, which might be productive of very important +results in connexion with the supper. + +Upon this head, however, he had no cause for any anxiety, for the whole +performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary contributions were +showered in with a liberality which testified yet more strongly to the +general delight. Among the laughter none was more loud and frequent +than the old man’s. Nell’s was unheard, for she, poor child, with her +head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep, and slept too soundly +to be roused by any of his efforts to awaken her to a participation in +his glee. + +The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet would +not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. He, happily +insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening with a vacant smile +and admiring face to all that his new friend said; and it was not until +they retired yawning to their room, that he followed the child up +stairs. + +It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to +rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for +none so good. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged +that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many +nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept. + +There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in her +room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at the +silence. The sight of the old church, and the graves about it in the +moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves, made her +more thoughtful than before. She closed the window again, and sitting +down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them. + +She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone, +they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and an +emergency might come when its worth to them would be increased a +hundred fold. It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it +unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no other resource was +left them. + +Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and +going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber. + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming +fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her. At sight of +the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm, +wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she +seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been +conveyed. But, another glance around called to her mind all that had +lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful. + +It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out +into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her +feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in +others, that she might not tread upon the graves. She felt a curious +kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read +the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a great number of +good people were buried there), passing on from one to another with +increasing interest. + +It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the +cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of +some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the +air. First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung +and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it +would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to +himself. Another answered, and he called again, but louder than +before; then another spoke and then another; and each time the first, +aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly. Other +voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up +and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and +others, arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry +window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped +again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a +skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches, and frequent +change of place, which satirised the old restlessness of those who lay +so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in which they +had worn away their lives. + +Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came down, +and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than perfect +silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to grave, now +stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which had started +from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and now peeping +through one of the low latticed windows into the church, with its +worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of whitened-green mouldering +from the pew sides and leaving the naked wood to view. There were the +seats where the poor old people sat, worn spare, and yellow like +themselves; the rugged font where children had their names, the homely +altar where they knelt in after life, the plain black tressels that +bore their weight on their last visit to the cool old shady church. +Everything told of long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in +the porch was frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age. + +She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had +died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she heard a +faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble woman bent +with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of that same grave +and asked her to read the writing on the stone. The old woman thanked +her when she had done, saying that she had had the words by heart for +many a long, long year, but could not see them now. + +‘Were you his mother?’ said the child. + +‘I was his wife, my dear.’ + +She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty! Ah, true! It was +fifty-five years ago. + +‘You wonder to hear me say that,’ remarked the old woman, shaking her +head. ‘You’re not the first. Older folk than you have wondered at the +same thing before now. Yes, I was his wife. Death doesn’t change us +more than life, my dear.’ + +‘Do you come here often?’ asked the child. + +‘I sit here very often in the summer time,’ she answered, ‘I used to +come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago, bless +God!’ + +‘I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,’ said the old +woman after a short silence. ‘I like no flowers so well as these, and +haven’t for five-and-fifty years. It’s a long time, and I’m getting +very old.’ + +Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener +though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and moaned +and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when she first +came to that place, a young creature strong in love and grief, she had +hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to be. But that time +passed by, and although she continued to be sad when she came there, +still she could bear to come, and so went on until it was pain no +longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she had learned to like. And +now that five-and-fifty years were gone, she spoke of the dead man as +if he had been her son or grandson, with a kind of pity for his youth, +growing out of her own old age, and an exalting of his strength and +manly beauty as compared with her own weakness and decay; and yet she +spoke about him as her husband too, and thinking of herself in +connexion with him, as she used to be and not as she was now, talked of +their meeting in another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and +she, separated from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of +that comely girl who seemed to have died with him. + +The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave, and +thoughtfully retraced her steps. + +The old man was by this time up and dressed. Mr Codlin, still doomed +to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing among his +linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the previous night’s +performance; while his companion received the compliments of all the +loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to separate him from the +master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in importance to that merry +outlaw, and loved him scarcely less. When he had sufficiently +acknowledged his popularity he came in to breakfast, at which meal they +all sat down together. + +‘And where are you going to-day?’ said the little man, addressing +himself to Nell. + +‘Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,’ replied the child. + +‘We’re going on to the races,’ said the little man. ‘If that’s your +way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. If +you prefer going alone, only say the word and you’ll find that we +shan’t trouble you.’ + +‘We’ll go with you,’ said the old man. ‘Nell--with them, with them.’ + +The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must shortly +beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where +crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled together for +purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to accompany these men +so far. She therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said, +glancing timidly towards his friend, that if there was no objection to +their accompanying them as far as the race town-- + +‘Objection!’ said the little man. ‘Now be gracious for once, Tommy, +and say that you’d rather they went with us. I know you would. Be +gracious, Tommy.’ + +‘Trotters,’ said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very +greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes; +‘you’re too free.’ + +‘Why what harm can it do?’ urged the other. + +‘No harm at all in this particular case, perhaps,’ replied Mr Codlin; +‘but the principle’s a dangerous one, and you’re too free I tell you.’ + +‘Well, are they to go with us or not?’ + +‘Yes, they are,’ said Mr Codlin; ‘but you might have made a favour of +it, mightn’t you?’ + +The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually merged +into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the prefatory +adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason of the small +size of his legs. Short Trotters however, being a compound name, +inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the gentleman on whom it had +been bestowed was known among his intimates either as ‘Short,’ or +‘Trotters,’ and was seldom accosted at full length as Short Trotters, +except in formal conversations and on occasions of ceremony. + +Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the +remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer calculated +to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with great relish to +the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and butter, strongly impressed +upon his companions that they should do the like. Mr Codlin indeed +required no such persuasion, as he had already eaten as much as he +could possibly carry and was now moistening his clay with strong ale, +whereof he took deep draughts with a silent relish and invited nobody +to partake--thus again strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of +mind. + +Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and charging +the ale to the company generally (a practice also savouring of +misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and equal parts, +assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the other to Nelly and +her grandfather. These being duly discharged and all things ready for +their departure, they took farewell of the landlord and landlady and +resumed their journey. + +And here Mr Codlin’s false position in society and the effect it +wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for whereas +he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as ‘master,’ and had by +inference left the audience to understand that he maintained that +individual for his own luxurious entertainment and delight, here he +was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of that same Punch’s +temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and +along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his patron with a constant +fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of +his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly +devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs +doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social qualities +remaining. + +Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals +with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led the +way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not extensive) +tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his +shoulder-blade. Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either +hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear. + +When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house of +good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and +carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to Punches +and their consorts. If people hurried to the windows, Mr Codlin +pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and concealing +Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes and performed an +air. Then the entertainment began as soon as might be; Mr Codlin +having the responsibility of deciding on its length and of protracting +or expediting the time for the hero’s final triumph over the enemy of +mankind, according as he judged that the after-crop of half-pence would +be plentiful or scant. When it had been gathered in to the last +farthing, he resumed his load and on they went again. + +Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and once +exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the collector, +being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to +himself. There was one small place of rich promise in which their +hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the play having +gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was +held to be a libel on the beadle, for which reason the authorities +enforced a quick retreat; but they were generally well received, and +seldom left a town without a troop of ragged children shouting at their +heels. + +They made a long day’s journey, despite these interruptions, and were +yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky. Short beguiled +the time with songs and jests, and made the best of everything that +happened. Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his fate, and all the +hollow things of earth (but Punch especially), and limped along with +the theatre on his back, a prey to the bitterest chagrin. + +They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met, +and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and +seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and +disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when two monstrous +shadows were seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by +which they had come. The child was at first quite terrified by the +sight of these gaunt giants--for such they looked as they advanced with +lofty strides beneath the shadow of the trees--but Short, telling her +there was nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was +answered by a cheerful shout. + +‘It’s Grinder’s lot, an’t it?’ cried Mr Short in a loud key. + +‘Yes,’ replied a couple of shrill voices. + +‘Come on then,’ said Short. ‘Let’s have a look at you. I thought it +was you.’ + +Thus invited, ‘Grinder’s lot’ approached with redoubled speed and soon +came up with the little party. + +Mr Grinder’s company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young +gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who used +his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a +drum. The public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind, +but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his +kilt a man’s pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the +young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a +handkerchief tied about her head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented +with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr Grinder carried on his instrument. + +‘Bound for the races, I see,’ said Mr Grinder coming up out of breath. +‘So are we. How are you, Short?’ With that they shook hands in a very +friendly manner. The young people being too high up for the ordinary +salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion. The young +gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on the shoulder, +and the young lady rattled her tambourine. + +‘Practice?’ said Short, pointing to the stilts. + +‘No,’ returned Grinder. ‘It comes either to walkin’ in ‘em or carryin’ +of ‘em, and they like walkin’ in ‘em best. It’s wery pleasant for the +prospects. Which road are you takin’? We go the nighest.’ + +‘Why, the fact is,’ said Short, ‘that we are going the longest way, +because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But +three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and if +you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.’ + +‘Where’s your partner?’ inquired Grinder. + +‘Here he is,’ cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in +the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of +countenance not often seen there; ‘and he’ll see his partner boiled +alive before he’ll go on to-night. That’s what he says.’ + +‘Well, don’t say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to +something pleasanter,’ urged Short. ‘Respect associations, Tommy, even +if you do cut up rough.’ + +‘Rough or smooth,’ said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little +footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his +legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit +them to popular admiration, ‘rough or smooth, I won’t go further than +the mile and a half to-night. I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and +nowhere else. If you like to come there, come there. If you like to +go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without me if you can.’ + +So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately +presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a +jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility. + +Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain +to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose +companion. After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see +the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum +toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a +parting salute, and hastened with all speed to follow Mr Codlin. With +this view he gave his unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of +good cheer as they would soon be at the end of their journey for that +night, and stimulating the old man with a similar assurance, led them +at a pretty swift pace towards their destination, which he was the less +unwilling to make for, as the moon was now overcast and the clouds were +threatening rain. + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date, +with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with +as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post +on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that +day many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race +town, such as gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their +appurtenances, itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and +trampers of every degree, all wending their way in the same direction, +Mr Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodations forestalled; this +fear increasing as he diminished the distance between himself and the +hostelry, he quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had +to carry, maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold. Here +he had the gratification of finding that his fears were without +foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post looking +lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend heavily, +and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor noisy +chorus, gave note of company within. + +‘All alone?’ said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his +forehead. + +‘All alone as yet,’ rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky, ‘but we +shall have more company to-night I expect. Here one of you boys, carry +that show into the barn. Make haste in out of the wet, Tom; when it +came on to rain I told ‘em to make the fire up, and there’s a glorious +blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.’ + +Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the +landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason. A +mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney +with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and +simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a +deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the landlord stirred the +fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping up--when he took off the +lid of the iron pot and there rushed out a savoury smell, while the +bubbling sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam came +floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their heads--when he +did this, Mr Codlin’s heart was touched. He sat down in the +chimney-corner and smiled. + +Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as +with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that +his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the +delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the +fire was upon the landlord’s bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and +upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round +fat figure. Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a +murmuring voice, ‘What is it?’ + +‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and +cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, +‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, +cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together +in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his +lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the +fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air +of one whose toils on earth were over. + +‘At what time will it be ready?’ asked Mr Codlin faintly. + +‘It’ll be done to a turn,’ said the landlord looking up to the +clock--and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and +looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult--‘it’ll be done to a turn +at twenty-two minutes before eleven.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mr Codlin, ‘fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don’t let +nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time +arrives.’ + +Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of procedure, +the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, +applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped +funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire +and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it +over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one +of the happy circumstances attendant on mulled malt. + +Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought him +of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that their +arrival might be shortly looked for. The rain was rattling against the +windows and pouring down in torrents, and such was Mr Codlin’s extreme +amiability of mind, that he more than once expressed his earnest hope +that they would not be so foolish as to get wet. + +At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most +miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered the +child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and they +were nearly breathless from the haste they had made. But their steps +were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at +the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the +kitchen and took the cover off. The effect was electrical. They all +came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their +clothes upon the floor, and Short’s first remark was, ‘What a delicious +smell!’ + +It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a +cheerful fire, and in a bright room. They were furnished with slippers +and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and +ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done, in the warm +chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them +as enhancing the delights of the present time. Overpowered by the +warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had undergone, Nelly and the +old man had not long taken their seats here, when they fell asleep. + +‘Who are they?’ whispered the landlord. + +Short shook his head, and wished he knew himself. + +‘Don’t you know?’ asked the host, turning to Mr Codlin. + +‘Not I,’ he replied. ‘They’re no good, I suppose.’ + +‘They’re no harm,’ said Short. ‘Depend upon that. I tell you +what--it’s plain that the old man an’t in his right mind--’ + +‘If you haven’t got anything newer than that to say,’ growled Mr +Codlin, glancing at the clock, ‘you’d better let us fix our minds upon +the supper, and not disturb us.’ + +‘Hear me out, won’t you?’ retorted his friend. ‘It’s very plain to me, +besides, that they’re not used to this way of life. Don’t tell me that +that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about as she’s +done these last two or three days. I know better.’ + +‘Well, who DOES tell you she has?’ growled Mr Codlin, again glancing at +the clock and from it to the cauldron, ‘can’t you think of anything +more suitable to present circumstances than saying things and then +contradicting ‘em?’ + +‘I wish somebody would give you your supper,’ returned Short, ‘for +there’ll be no peace till you’ve got it. Have you seen how anxious the +old man is to get on--always wanting to be furder away--furder away. +Have you seen that?’ + +‘Ah! what then?’ muttered Thomas Codlin. + +‘This, then,’ said Short. ‘He has given his friends the slip. Mind +what I say--he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this +delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his +guide and travelling companion--where to, he knows no more than the man +in the moon. Now I’m not a going to stand that.’ + +‘YOU’RE not a going to stand that!’ cried Mr Codlin, glancing at the +clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of frenzy, +but whether occasioned by his companion’s observation or the tardy pace +of Time, it was difficult to determine. ‘Here’s a world to live in!’ + +‘I,’ repeated Short emphatically and slowly, ‘am not a-going to stand +it. I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling into bad +hands, and getting among people that she’s no more fit for, than they +are to get among angels as their ordinary chums. Therefore when they +dewelope an intention of parting company from us, I shall take measures +for detaining of ‘em, and restoring ‘em to their friends, who I dare +say have had their disconsolation pasted up on every wall in London by +this time.’ + +‘Short,’ said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his +elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side to +side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground, but who +now looked up with eager eyes; ‘it’s possible that there may be +uncommon good sense in what you’ve said. If there is, and there should +be a reward, Short, remember that we’re partners in everything!’ + +His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position, for +the child awoke at the instant. They had drawn close together during +the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were rather +awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in their usual +tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company +entered. + +These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in +one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly +mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got +as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round +at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a +grave and melancholy row. Nor was this the only remarkable +circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little +coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of +them had a cap upon his head, tied very carefully under his chin, which +had fallen down upon his nose and completely obscured one eye; add to +this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through and discoloured with +rain, and that the wearers were splashed and dirty, and some idea may +be formed of the unusual appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly +Sandboys. + +Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the +least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry’s dogs and that +Jerry could not be far behind. So there the dogs stood, patiently +winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until +Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once and walked +about the room in their natural manner. This posture it must be +confessed did not much improve their appearance, as their own personal +tails and their coat tails--both capital things in their way--did not +agree together. + +Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered +man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his +guests and accosted them with great cordiality. Disencumbering himself +of a barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his +hand a small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up +to the fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation. + +‘Your people don’t usually travel in character, do they?’ said Short, +pointing to the dresses of the dogs. ‘It must come expensive if they +do?’ + +‘No,’ replied Jerry, ‘no, it’s not the custom with us. But we’ve been +playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new +wardrobe at the races, so I didn’t think it worth while to stop to +undress. Down, Pedro!’ + +This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new member +of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured +eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting upon his hind +legs when there was no occasion, and falling down again. + +‘I’ve got a animal here,’ said Jerry, putting his hand into the +capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he were +feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article, ‘a animal +here, wot I think you know something of, Short.’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Short, ‘let’s have a look at him.’ + +‘Here he is,’ said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket. +‘He was once a Toby of yours, warn’t he!’ + +In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog--a +modern innovation--supposed to be the private property of that +gentleman, whose name is always Toby. This Toby has been stolen in +youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding +hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that it lurks in +others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old +master, and scorning to attach himself to any new patrons, not only +refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch, but to mark his old +fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose and wrings the same with +violence, at which instance of canine attachment the spectators are +deeply affected. This was the character which the little terrier in +question had once sustained; if there had been any doubt upon the +subject he would speedily have resolved it by his conduct; for not only +did he, on seeing Short, give the strongest tokens of recognition, but +catching sight of the flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard +nose which he knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather +him up and put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the +whole company. + +The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process +Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork +in the most convenient place and establishing himself behind them. +When everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last +time, and then indeed there burst forth such a goodly promise of +supper, that if he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at +postponement, he would certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth. + +However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted a +stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large +tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes +which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness. At +length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been +previously set round, little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper +began. + +At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite +surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some +morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she +was, when their master interposed. + +‘No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody’s hand but mine if you +please. That dog,’ said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the +troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, ‘lost a halfpenny to-day. He +goes without his supper.’ + +The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly, wagged +his tail, and looked imploringly at his master. + +‘You must be more careful, Sir,’ said Jerry, walking coolly to the +chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. ‘Come here. +Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if +you dare.’ + +The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. His master +having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the others, +who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of +soldiers. + +‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Jerry, looking at them attentively. ‘The dog +whose name’s called, eats. The dogs whose names an’t called, keep +quiet. Carlo!’ + +The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel +thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. In this +manner they were fed at the discretion of their master. Meanwhile the +dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, +sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant. When the +knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an +unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short +howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking round, and +applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth. + + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two +more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been +walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with +water. One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and a little lady +without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a +silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the +cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his +countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing +them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional +accomplishments. The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin; +the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called +Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord +bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were +perfectly at their ease. + +‘How’s the Giant?’ said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire. + +‘Rather weak upon his legs,’ returned Mr Vuffin. ‘I begin to be afraid +he’s going at the knees.’ + +‘That’s a bad look-out,’ said Short. + +‘Aye! Bad indeed,’ replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a +sigh. ‘Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more +about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.’ + +‘What becomes of old giants?’ said Short, turning to him again after a +little reflection. + +‘They’re usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,’ said Mr +Vuffin. + +‘The maintaining of ‘em must come expensive, when they can’t be shown, +eh?’ remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully. + +‘It’s better that, than letting ‘em go upon the parish or about the +streets,’ said Mr Vuffin. ‘Once make a giant common and giants will +never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with +a wooden leg what a property he’d be!’ + +‘So he would!’ observed the landlord and Short both together. ‘That’s +very true.’ + +‘Instead of which,’ pursued Mr Vuffin, ‘if you was to advertise +Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t +draw a sixpence.’ + +‘I don’t suppose you would,’ said Short. And the landlord said so too. + +‘This shows, you see,’ said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an +argumentative air, ‘this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants +still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all +their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There +was one giant--a black ‘un--as left his carawan some year ago and took +to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as +crossing-sweepers. He died. I make no insinuation against anybody in +particular,’ said Mr Vuffin, looking solemnly round, ‘but he was +ruining the trade;--and he died.’ + +The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs, +who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered. + +‘I know you do, Jerry,’ said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning. ‘I know +you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served +him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had +three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had in his +cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over, +eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was +waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton +stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly +and wicious who whenever his giant wasn’t quick enough to please him, +used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher. +I know that’s a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.’ + +‘What about the dwarfs when they get old?’ inquired the landlord. + +‘The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,’ returned Mr Vuffin; ‘a +grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant +weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in the carawan, +but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be +offered.’ + +While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the +time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm +corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence +for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other +feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to +the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length +the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they +withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs +fast asleep at a humble distance. + +After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret, +but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at. She +opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas +Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs. + +‘What is the matter?’ said the child. + +‘Nothing’s the matter, my dear,’ returned her visitor. ‘I’m your +friend. Perhaps you haven’t thought so, but it’s me that’s your +friend--not him.’ + +‘Not who?’ the child inquired. + +‘Short, my dear. I tell you what,’ said Codlin, ‘for all his having a +kind of way with him that you’d be very apt to like, I’m the real, +open-hearted man. I mayn’t look it, but I am indeed.’ + +The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken +effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was the +consequence. + +‘Short’s very well, and seems kind,’ resumed the misanthrope, ‘but he +overdoes it. Now I don’t.’ + +Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin’s usual deportment, it +was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him, than +overdid it. But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what to say. + +‘Take my advice,’ said Codlin: ‘don’t ask me why, but take it. As long +as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can. Don’t offer to +leave us--not on any account--but always stick to me and say that I’m +your friend. Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that +it was me that was your friend?’ + +‘Say so where--and when?’ inquired the child innocently. + +‘O, nowhere in particular,’ replied Codlin, a little put out as it +seemed by the question; ‘I’m only anxious that you should think me so, +and do me justice. You can’t think what an interest I have in you. +Why didn’t you tell me your little history--that about you and the poor +old gentleman? I’m the best adviser that ever was, and so interested +in you--so much more interested than Short. I think they’re breaking +up down stairs; you needn’t tell Short, you know, that we’ve had this +little talk together. God bless you. Recollect the friend. Codlin’s +the friend, not Short. Short’s very well as far as he goes, but the +real friend is Codlin--not Short.’ + +Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting +looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe, +leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still +ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy +stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers +who were passing to their beds. When they had all passed, and the +sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them returned, and after +a little hesitation and rustling in the passage, as if he were doubtful +what door to knock at, knocked at hers. + +‘Yes,’ said the child from within. + +‘It’s me--Short’--a voice called through the keyhole. ‘I only wanted +to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear, because +unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the villages +won’t be worth a penny. You’ll be sure to be stirring early and go +with us? I’ll call you.’ + +The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his ‘good night’ +heard him creep away. She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these +men, increased by the recollection of their whispering together down +stairs and their slight confusion when she awoke, nor was she quite +free from a misgiving that they were not the fittest companions she +could have stumbled on. Her uneasiness, however, was nothing, weighed +against her fatigue; and she soon forgot it in sleep. + +Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his promise, and knocking +softly at her door, entreated that she would get up directly, as the +proprietor of the dogs was still snoring, and if they lost no time they +might get a good deal in advance both of him and the conjuror, who was +talking in his sleep, and from what he could be heard to say, appeared +to be balancing a donkey in his dreams. She started from her bed +without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition that they +were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman’s +unspeakable gratification and relief. + +After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the +staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave of +the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys. The +morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the late +rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and everything +fresh and healthful. Surrounded by these influences, they walked on +pleasantly enough. + +They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the +altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on +sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and +when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion, +warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any +trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for Codlin. Neither did +he confine himself to looks and gestures, for when she and her +grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid Short, and that little +man was talking with his accustomed cheerfulness on a variety of +indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin testified his jealousy and distrust +by following close at her heels, and occasionally admonishing her +ankles with the legs of the theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner. + +All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and +suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform +outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went +through his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her +and the old man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration +invited the latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until +the representation was over and they again went forward. Even Short +seemed to change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature +something of a desire to keep them in safe custody. This increased the +child’s misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy. + +Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to +begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and +trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling out +from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell into a +stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts, others +with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with heavy loads +upon their backs, but all tending to the same point. The public-houses +by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as those in the remoter +parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke; +and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad red faces looked down +upon the road. On every piece of waste or common ground, some small +gambler drove his noisy trade, and bellowed to the idle passersby to +stop and try their chance; the crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt +gingerbread in blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and +often a four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the +gritty cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind. + +It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed the +few last miles had been. Here all was tumult and confusion; the +streets were filled with throngs of people--many strangers were there, +it seemed, by the looks they cast about--the church-bells rang out +their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops. In +the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and ran against each +other, horses clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell +rattling down, and sickening smells from many dinners came in a heavy +lukewarm breath upon the sense. In the smaller public-houses, fiddles +with all their might and main were squeaking out the tune to staggering +feet; drunken men, oblivious of the burden of their song, joined in a +senseless howl, which drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made +them savage for their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors +to see the stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill +flageolet and deafening drum. + +Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all +she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor, +and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and +left to find her way alone. Quickening their steps to get clear of all +the roar and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for +the race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an eminence, +a full mile distant from its furthest bounds. + +Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or best +clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and +hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath--although +there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between the wheels +of carts, crying themselves to sleep--and poor lean horses and donkeys +just turned loose, grazing among the men and women, and pots and +kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends of candles flaring and +wasting in the air--for all this, the child felt it an escape from the +town and drew her breath more freely. After a scanty supper, the +purchase of which reduced her little stock so low, that she had only a +few halfpence with which to buy a breakfast on the morrow, she and the +old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the +busy preparations that were going on around them all night long. + +And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon +after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and rambling +into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such +humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer +them to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. Her +thoughts were not idle while she was thus employed; when she returned +and was seated beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her +flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she +plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards them, said, in +a low voice-- + +‘Grandfather, don’t look at those I talk of, and don’t seem as if I +spoke of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me +before we left the old house? That if they knew what we were going to +do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?’ + +The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she +checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied +them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said-- + +‘I know that was what you told me. You needn’t speak, dear. I +recollect it very well. It was not likely that I should forget it. +Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our friends, +and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken care of +and sent back. If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away +from them, but if you’re only quiet now, we shall do so, easily.’ + +‘How?’ muttered the old man. ‘Dear Nelly, how? They will shut me up +in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--flog +me with whips, and never let me see thee more!’ + +‘You’re trembling again,’ said the child. ‘Keep close to me all day. +Never mind them, don’t look at them, but me. I shall find a time when +we can steal away. When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop +or speak a word. Hush! That’s all.’ + +‘Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?’ said Mr Codlin, raising his +head, and yawning. Then observing that his companion was fast asleep, +he added in an earnest whisper, ‘Codlin’s the friend, remember--not +Short.’ + +‘Making some nosegays,’ the child replied; ‘I am going to try and sell +some, these three days of the races. Will you have one--as a present I +mean?’ + +Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards +him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an +air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly +at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, ‘Tom +Codlin’s the friend, by G--!’ + +As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more brilliant +appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the +turf. Men who had lounged about all night in smock-frocks and leather +leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or +mountebanks; or in gorgeous liveries as soft-spoken servants at +gambling booths; or in sturdy yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games. +Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to +tell fortunes, and pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered +upon the footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, and counted the +sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained. As many of +the children as could be kept within bounds, were stowed away, with all +the other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and +horses; and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran in and out in +all intricate spots, crept between people’s legs and carriage wheels, +and came forth unharmed from under horses’ hoofs. The dancing-dogs, +the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and all the other +attractions, with organs out of number and bands innumerable, emerged +from the holes and corners in which they had passed the night, and +flourished boldly in the sun. + +Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen +trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went +Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nelly +and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The child +bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes +stopped, with timid and modest looks, to offer them at some gay +carriage; but alas! there were many bolder beggars there, gipsies who +promised husbands, and other adepts in their trade, and although some +ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried to the +gentlemen beside them ‘See, what a pretty face!’ they let the pretty +face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry. + +There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was +one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in +dashing clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and laughed +loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. There +were many ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked +another way, or at the two young men (not unfavourably at them), and +left her to herself. She motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell +her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some +years, but called the child towards her, and taking her flowers put +money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home +for God’s sake. + +Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing +everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear the +course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming +out again until the heat was over. Many a time, too, was Punch +displayed in the full zenith of his humour, but all this while the eye +of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was +impracticable. + +At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient +spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. +The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been +thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest +creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about +them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short’s, +having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused her from her +meditation and caused her to look around. + +If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. Short +was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the characters in +the fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were +looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim +smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and +groping secretly for sixpences. If they were ever to get away unseen, +that was the very moment. They seized it, and fled. + +They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, +and never once stopped to look behind. The bell was ringing and the +course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed +across it insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them +for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the +hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields. + + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new +effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window of the +little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped to see +some indication of her presence. His own earnest wish, coupled with +the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief +that she would yet arrive to claim the humble shelter he had offered, +and from the death of each day’s hope another hope sprung up to live +to-morrow. + +‘I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?’ said Kit, +laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke. ‘They +have been gone a week. They surely couldn’t stop away more than a +week, could they now?’ + +The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been +disappointed already. + +‘For the matter of that,’ said Kit, ‘you speak true and sensible +enough, as you always do, mother. Still, I do consider that a week is +quite long enough for ‘em to be rambling about; don’t you say so?’ + +‘Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back +for all that.’ + +Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction, and +not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and knowing +how just it was. But the impulse was only momentary, and the vexed +look became a kind one before it had crossed the room. + +‘Then what do you think, mother, has become of ‘em? You don’t think +they’ve gone to sea, anyhow?’ + +‘Not gone for sailors, certainly,’ returned the mother with a smile. +‘But I can’t help thinking that they have gone to some foreign country.’ + +‘I say,’ cried Kit with a rueful face, ‘don’t talk like that, mother.’ + +‘I am afraid they have, and that’s the truth,’ she said. ‘It’s the +talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of their +having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of the place +they’ve gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for it’s a very +hard one.’ + +‘I don’t believe it,’ said Kit. ‘Not a word of it. A set of idle +chatterboxes, how should they know!’ + +‘They may be wrong of course,’ returned the mother, ‘I can’t tell about +that, though I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that they’re in the +right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a little money +that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you talk to me +about--what’s his name--Quilp; and that he and Miss Nell have gone to +live abroad where it can’t be taken from them, and they will never be +disturbed. That don’t seem very far out of the way now, do it?’ + +Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it did +not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and set +himself to clean it and to feed the bird. His thoughts reverting from +this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the +shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day--nay, +nearly the very hour--at which the little old gentleman had said he +should be at the Notary’s house again. He no sooner remembered this, +than he hung up the cage with great precipitation, and hastily +explaining the nature of his errand, went off at full speed to the +appointed place. + +It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot, which +was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good luck the +little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there was no +pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had come and gone +again in so short a space. Greatly relieved to find that he was not +too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited the +advent of the pony and his charge. + +Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the +street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his steps as if +he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would by no means +dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently. Behind the pony sat +the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman’s side sat the +little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she had brought before. + +The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up the +street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some half a +dozen doors of the Notary’s house, when the pony, deceived by a +brass-plate beneath a tailor’s knocker, came to a halt, and maintained +by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they wanted. + +‘Now, Sir, will you ha’ the goodness to go on; this is not the place,’ +said the old gentleman. + +The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was near +him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it. + +‘Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker!’ cried the old lady. ‘After being so +good too, and coming along so well! I am quite ashamed of him. I +don’t know what we are to do with him, I really don’t.’ + +The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and +properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old enemies +the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at +that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he +appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old +gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead +him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a +sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of +the other brass-plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, +darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving +the old gentleman to come panting on behind. + +It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony’s head, and touched +his hat with a smile. + +‘Why, bless me,’ cried the old gentleman, ‘the lad is here! My dear, +do you see?’ + +‘I said I’d be here, Sir,’ said Kit, patting Whisker’s neck. ‘I hope +you’ve had a pleasant ride, sir. He’s a very nice little pony.’ + +‘My dear,’ said the old gentleman. ‘This is an uncommon lad; a good +lad, I’m sure.’ + +‘I’m sure he is,’ rejoined the old lady. ‘A very good lad, and I am +sure he is a good son.’ + +Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat +again and blushing very much. The old gentleman then handed the old +lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went +into the house--talking about him as they went, Kit could not help +feeling. Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard at the nosegay, +came to the window and looked at him, and after that Mr Abel came and +looked at him, and after that the old gentleman and lady came and +looked at him again, and after that they all came and looked at him +together, which Kit, feeling very much embarrassed by, made a pretence +of not observing. Therefore he patted the pony more and more; and this +liberty the pony most handsomely permitted. + +The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr +Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his head +just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the pavement, +and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and he would mind +the chaise the while. In giving him this direction Mr Chuckster +remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he could make out +whether he (Kit) was ‘precious raw’ or ‘precious deep,’ but intimated +by a distrustful shake of the head, that he inclined to the latter +opinion. + +Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to going +among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of +dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air. Mr Witherden +too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast, and all eyes +were upon him, and he was very shabby. + +‘Well, boy,’ said Mr Witherden, ‘you came to work out that +shilling;--not to get another, hey?’ + +‘No indeed, sir,’ replied Kit, taking courage to look up. ‘I never +thought of such a thing.’ + +‘Father alive?’ said the Notary. + +‘Dead, sir.’ + +‘Mother?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Married again--eh?’ + +Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow +with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the +gentleman knew her he wouldn’t think of such a thing. At this reply Mr +Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered behind +the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad was as honest +a lad as need be. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of +him, ‘I am not going to give you anything--’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this +announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary had +hinted. + +‘--But,’ resumed the old gentleman, ‘perhaps I may want to know +something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I’ll put it +down in my pocket-book.’ + +Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his +pencil. He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in the +street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that Whisker had +run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and the others +followed. + +It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his +pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting him +with such admonitions as ‘Stand still,’--‘Be quiet,’--‘Woa-a-a,’ and the +like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne. Consequently, the +pony being deterred by no considerations of duty or obedience, and not +having before him the slightest fear of the human eye, had at length +started off, and was at that moment rattling down the street--Mr +Chuckster, with his hat off and a pen behind his ear, hanging on in the +rear of the chaise and making futile attempts to draw it the other way, +to the unspeakable admiration of all beholders. Even in running away, +however, Whisker was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he +suddenly stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced +backing at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward. By these +means Mr Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a +most inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and +discomfiture. + +The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had +come to fetch) into his. The old gentleman, after reasoning with the +pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the best +amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and they +drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and more +than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from the road. + + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and the +little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little young +gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his late +master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head of all his +meditations. Still casting about for some plausible means of +accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading himself that +they must soon return, he bent his steps towards home, intending to +finish the task which the sudden recollection of his contract had +interrupted, and then to sally forth once more to seek his fortune for +the day. + +When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and +behold there was the pony again! Yes, there he was, looking more +obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady watch +upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by chance +and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would have nodded +his head off. + +Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but it +never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come there, +or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until he lifted +the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated in the room in +conversation with his mother, at which unexpected sight he pulled off +his hat and made his best bow in some confusion. + +‘We are here before you, you see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland smiling. + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother +for an explanation of the visit. + +‘The gentleman’s been kind enough, my dear,’ said she, in reply to this +mute interrogation, ‘to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in +any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was +so good as to say that--’ + +‘--That we wanted a good lad in our house,’ said the old gentleman and +the old lady both together, ‘and that perhaps we might think of it, if +we found everything as we would wish it to be.’ + +As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he +immediately partook of his mother’s anxiety and fell into a great +flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, +and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no +chance of his success. + +‘You see, my good woman,’ said Mrs Garland to Kit’s mother, ‘that it’s +necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this, +for we’re only three in family, and are very quiet regular folks, and +it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found +things different from what we hoped and expected.’ + +To this, Kit’s mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and +quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she should +shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her character or +that of her son, who was a very good son though she was his mother, in +which respect, she was bold to say, he took after his father, who was +not only a good son to HIS mother, but the best of husbands and the +best of fathers besides, which Kit could and would corroborate she +knew, and so would little Jacob and the baby likewise if they were old +enough, which unfortunately they were not, though as they didn’t know +what a loss they had had, perhaps it was a great deal better that they +should be as young as they were; and so Kit’s mother wound up a long +story by wiping her eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob’s +head, who was rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the +strange lady and gentleman. + +When Kit’s mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again, and +said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very respectable +person or she never would have expressed herself in that manner, and +that certainly the appearance of the children and the cleanliness of +the house deserved great praise and did her the utmost credit, whereat +Kit’s mother dropped a curtsey and became consoled. Then the good +woman entered in a long and minute account of Kit’s life and history +from the earliest period down to that time, not omitting to make +mention of his miraculous fall out of a back-parlour window when an +infant of tender years, or his uncommon sufferings in a state of +measles, which were illustrated by correct imitations of the plaintive +manner in which he called for toast and water, day and night, and said, +‘don’t cry, mother, I shall soon be better;’ for proof of which +statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the +cheesemonger’s round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen +in various parts of England and Wales (and one Mr Brown who was +supposed to be then a corporal in the East Indies, and who could of +course be found with very little trouble), within whose personal +knowledge the circumstances had occurred. This narration ended, Mr +Garland put some questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and +general acquirements, while Mrs Garland noticed the children, and +hearing from Kit’s mother certain remarkable circumstances which had +attended the birth of each, related certain other remarkable +circumstances which had attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel, +from which it appeared that both Kit’s mother and herself had been, +above and beyond all other women of what condition or age soever, +peculiarly hemmed in with perils and dangers. Lastly, inquiry was made +into the nature and extent of Kit’s wardrobe, and a small advance being +made to improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of +Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs +Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley. + +It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with +this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing but +pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides. It was settled that +Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but one, in the +morning; and finally, the little old couple, after bestowing a bright +half-crown on little Jacob and another on the baby, took their leaves; +being escorted as far as the street by their new attendant, who held +the obdurate pony by the bridle while they took their seats, and saw +them drive away with a lightened heart. + +‘Well, mother,’ said Kit, hurrying back into the house, ‘I think my +fortune’s about made now.’ + +‘I should think it was indeed, Kit,’ rejoined his mother. ‘Six pound a +year! Only think!’ + +‘Ah!’ said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration +of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself. +‘There’s a property!’ + +Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands +deep into his pockets as if there were one year’s wages at least in +each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down an +immense perspective of sovereigns beyond. + +‘Please God we’ll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a +scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up +stairs! Six pound a year!’ + +‘Hem!’ croaked a strange voice. ‘What’s that about six pound a year? +What about six pound a year?’ And as the voice made this inquiry, +Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels. + +‘Who said he was to have six pound a year?’ said Quilp, looking sharply +round. ‘Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what’s +he to have it for, and where are they, eh!’ + +The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this +unknown piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its +cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little +Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked full +at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the time. +Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over Mr Quilp’s +head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets, smiled in an +exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned. + +‘Don’t be frightened, mistress,’ said Quilp, after a pause. ‘Your son +knows me; I don’t eat babies; I don’t like ‘em. It will be as well to +stop that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him +a mischief. Holloa, sir! Will you be quiet?’ + +Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out +of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror. + +‘Mind you don’t break out again, you villain,’ said Quilp, looking +sternly at him, ‘or I’ll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I +will. Now you sir, why haven’t you been to me as you promised?’ + +‘What should I come for?’ retorted Kit. ‘I hadn’t any business with +you, no more than you had with me.’ + +‘Here, mistress,’ said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from +Kit to his mother. ‘When did his old master come or send here last? +Is he here now? If not, where’s he gone?’ + +‘He has not been here at all,’ she replied. ‘I wish we knew where they +have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and +me too. If you’re the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought +you’d have known, and so I told him only this very day.’ + +‘Humph!’ muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this +was true. ‘That’s what you tell this gentleman too, is it?’ + +‘If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can’t tell him +anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,’ was +the reply. + +Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on +the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some +intelligence of the fugitives. He supposed he was right? + +‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘that was the object of the present expedition. I +fancied it possible--but let us go ring fancy’s knell. I’ll begin it.’ + +‘You seem disappointed,’ observed Quilp. + +‘A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that’s all,’ returned Dick. ‘I have +entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of +brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs’s altar. +That’s all, sir.’ + +The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had +been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and +continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks. +Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason for this +visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope that there +might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved to worm it out. +He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he conveyed as much +honesty into his face as it was capable of expressing, and sympathised +with Mr Swiveller exceedingly. + +‘I am disappointed myself,’ said Quilp, ‘out of mere friendly feeling +for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, +for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.’ + +‘Why, of course it does,’ Dick observed, testily. + +‘Upon my word, I’m very sorry, very sorry. I’m rather cast down +myself. As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions in +the surest way of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, +now, to lead you in another direction,’ urged Quilp, plucking him by +the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his +eyes, ‘there is a house by the water-side where they have some of the +noblest Schiedam--reputed to be smuggled, but that’s between +ourselves--that can be got in all the world. The landlord knows me. +There’s a little summer-house overlooking the river, where we might +take a glass of this delicious liquor with a whiff of the best +tobacco--it’s in this case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain +knowledge--and be perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive +it; or is there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes +you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?’ + +As the dwarf spoke, Dick’s face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his +brows slowly unbent. By the time he had finished, Dick was looking +down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking up at him, +and there remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house +in question. This they did, straightway. The moment their backs were +turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed his crying from the point +where Quilp had frozen him. + +The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, +rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river’s mud, and threatened +to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy +building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great +bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up +so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and +of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole +fabric were about to come toppling down. The house stood--if anything +so old and feeble could be said to stand--on a piece of waste ground, +blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing +the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water. Its internal +accommodations amply fulfilled the promise of the outside. The rooms +were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, +the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started +from their places and warned the timid stranger from their +neighbourhood. + +To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as they +passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table of the +summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial letter, there +soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted liquor. Drawing it off +into the glasses with the skill of a practised hand, and mixing it with +about a third part of water, Mr Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his +portion, and lighting his pipe from an end of a candle in a very old +and battered lantern, drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away. + +‘Is it good?’ said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips, ‘is it +strong and fiery? Does it make you wink, and choke, and your eyes +water, and your breath come short--does it?’ + +‘Does it?’ cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his glass, +and filling it up with water, ‘why, man, you don’t mean to tell me that +you drink such fire as this?’ + +‘No!’ rejoined Quilp, ‘Not drink it! Look here. And here. And here +again. Not drink it!’ + +As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls of +the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great many +pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in a heavy +cloud from his nose. This feat accomplished he drew himself together +in his former position, and laughed excessively. + +‘Give us a toast!’ cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a dexterous +manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of tune, ‘a +woman, a beauty. Let’s have a beauty for our toast and empty our +glasses to the last drop. Her name, come!’ + +‘If you want a name,’ said Dick, ‘here’s Sophy Wackles.’ + +‘Sophy Wackles,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘Miss Sophy Wackles that is--Mrs +Richard Swiveller that shall be--that shall be--ha ha ha!’ + +‘Ah!’ said Dick, ‘you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it +won’t do now, my buck. Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs--’ + +‘Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs’s ears off,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘I won’t hear +of Cheggs. Her name is Swiveller or nothing. I’ll drink her health +again, and her father’s, and her mother’s; and to all her sisters and +brothers--the glorious family of the Wackleses--all the Wackleses in +one glass--down with it to the dregs!’ + +‘Well,’ said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of raising +the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species of stupor +as he flourished his arms and legs about: ‘you’re a jolly fellow, but +of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you have the queerest +and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life you have.’ + +This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr +Quilp’s eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in +such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for +company--began imperceptibly to become more companionable and +confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at +last very confiding indeed. Having once got him into this mood, and +knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss, Daniel +Quilp’s task was comparatively an easy one, and he was soon in +possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived between the +easy Dick and his more designing friend. + +‘Stop!’ said Quilp. ‘That’s the thing, that’s the thing. It can be +brought about, it shall be brought about. There’s my hand upon it; I +am your friend from this minute.’ + +‘What! do you think there’s still a chance?’ inquired Dick, in surprise +at this encouragement. + +‘A chance!’ echoed the dwarf, ‘a certainty! Sophy Wackles may become a +Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller. Oh you lucky +dog! He’s richer than any Jew alive; you’re a made man. I see in you +now nothing but Nelly’s husband, rolling in gold and silver. I’ll help +you. It shall be done. Mind my words, it shall be done.’ + +‘But how?’ said Dick. + +‘There’s plenty of time,’ rejoined the dwarf, ‘and it shall be done. +We’ll sit down and talk it over again all the way through. Fill your +glass while I’m gone. I shall be back directly--directly.’ + +With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a dismantled skittle- +ground behind the public-house, and, throwing himself upon the ground +actually screamed and rolled about in uncontrollable delight. + +‘Here’s sport!’ he cried, ‘sport ready to my hand, all invented and +arranged, and only to be enjoyed. It was this shallow-pated fellow who +made my bones ache t’other day, was it? It was his friend and +fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and leered +and looked, was it? After labouring for two or three years in their +precious scheme, to find that they’ve got a beggar at last, and one of +them tied for life. Ha ha ha! He shall marry Nell. He shall have +her, and I’ll be the first man, when the knot’s tied hard and fast, to +tell ‘em what they’ve gained and what I’ve helped ‘em to. Here will be +a clearing of old scores, here will be a time to remind ‘em what a +capital friend I was, and how I helped them to the heiress. Ha ha ha!’ + +In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a +disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel, there +leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was of the +shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute. As it was, the +dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting the dog with +hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his inability to advance +another inch, though there were not a couple of feet between them. + +‘Why don’t you come and bite me, why don’t you come and tear me to +pieces, you coward?’ said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal till +he was nearly mad. ‘You’re afraid, you bully, you’re afraid, you know +you are.’ + +The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and furious +bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with gestures of +defiance and contempt. When he had sufficiently recovered from his +delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo, achieved a kind of +demon-dance round the kennel, just without the limits of the chain, +driving the dog quite wild. Having by this means composed his spirits +and put himself in a pleasant train, he returned to his unsuspicious +companion, whom he found looking at the tide with exceeding gravity, +and thinking of that same gold and silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned. + + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy time +for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with Kit’s outfit +and departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to +penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take a cruise round the +world. It would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box +which was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours, +as that which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly +there never was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of +clothing, as this mighty chest with its three shirts and proportionate +allowance of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the +astonished vision of little Jacob. At last it was conveyed to the +carrier’s, at whose house at Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and +the box being gone, there remained but two questions for consideration: +firstly, whether the carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, +the box upon the road; secondly, whether Kit’s mother perfectly +understood how to take care of herself in the absence of her son. + +‘I don’t think there’s hardly a chance of his really losing it, but +carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no +doubt,’ said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first +point. + +‘No doubt about it,’ returned Kit, with a serious look; ‘upon my word, +mother, I don’t think it was right to trust it to itself. Somebody +ought to have gone with it, I’m afraid.’ + +‘We can’t help it now,’ said his mother; ‘but it was foolish and wrong. +People oughtn’t to be tempted.’ + +Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more, +save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian determination, +he turned his thoughts to the second question. + +‘_You_ know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be lonesome +because I’m not at home. I shall very often be able to look in when I +come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a letter sometimes, and +when the quarter comes round, I can get a holiday of course; and then +see if we don’t take little Jacob to the play, and let him know what +oysters means.’ + +‘I hope plays mayn’t be sinful, Kit, but I’m a’most afraid,’ said Mrs +Nubbles. + +‘I know who has been putting that in your head,’ rejoined her son +disconsolately; ‘that’s Little Bethel again. Now I say, mother, pray +don’t take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your +good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into a +grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to call +itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which +is calling its dead father names); if I was to see this, and see little +Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so take it to heart that I’m +sure I should go and list for a soldier, and run my head on purpose +against the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.’ + +‘Oh, Kit, don’t talk like that.’ + +‘I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very +wretched and uncomfortable, you’ll keep that bow on your bonnet, which +you’d more than half a mind to pull off last week. Can you suppose +there’s any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our +poor circumstances will permit? Do I see anything in the way I’m made, +which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, +sneaking about as if I couldn’t help it, and expressing myself in a +most unpleasant snuffle? on the contrary, don’t I see every reason why +I shouldn’t? just hear this! Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral as +walking, and as good for the health? Ha ha ha! An’t that as nat’ral +as a sheep’s bleating, or a pig’s grunting, or a horse’s neighing, or a +bird’s singing? Ha ha ha! Isn’t it, mother?’ + +There was something contagious in Kit’s laugh, for his mother, who had +looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to +joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was +natural, and to laugh the more. Kit and his mother, laughing together +in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was +something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its +mother’s arms than it began to kick and laugh, most vigorously. This +new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward +in his chair in a state of exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking +his sides till he rocked again. After recovering twice or thrice, and +as often relapsing, he wiped his eyes and said grace; and a very +cheerful meal their scanty supper was. + +With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who +start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them, +would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be +herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and +set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his +appearance to have warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel +from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that mournful +congregation. + +Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may +be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat +of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments +of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new +pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being +struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like a drum. And in this +attire, rather wondering that he attracted so little attention, and +attributing the circumstance to the insensibility of those who got up +early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage. + +Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than +meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one, +on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in +course of time at the carrier’s house, where, to the lasting honour of +human nature, he found the box in safety. Receiving from the wife of +this immaculate man, a direction to Mr Garland’s, he took the box upon +his shoulder and repaired thither directly. + +To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof and +little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of +the windows, almost as large as pocket-books. On one side of the house +was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room +over it, just the size for Kit. White curtains were fluttering, and +birds in cages that looked as bright as if they were made of gold, were +singing at the windows; plants were arranged on either side of the +path, and clustered about the door; and the garden was bright with +flowers in full bloom, which shed a sweet odour all round, and had a +charming and elegant appearance. Everything within the house and +without, seemed to be the perfection of neatness and order. In the +garden there was not a weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper +gardening-tools, a basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one +of the walks, old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning. + +Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a great +many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head another +way and ring the bell. There was abundance of time to look about him +again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so after ringing it +twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and waited. + +He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came. But at last, +as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants’ castles, and +princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons +bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of the like nature, +common in story-books to youths of low degree on their first visit to +strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, +very tidy, modest, and demure, but very pretty too, appeared. + +‘I suppose you’re Christopher, sir,’ said the servant-girl. + +Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was. + +‘I’m afraid you’ve rung a good many times perhaps,’ she rejoined, ‘but +we couldn’t hear you, because we’ve been catching the pony.’ + +Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn’t stop there, +asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl +into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland leading +Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed pony had (as +he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small paddock in the +rear, for one hour and three quarters. + +The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady, +whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping +his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt again. He was +then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and +when he had been surveyed several times, and had afforded by his +appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken into the stable (where +the pony received him with uncommon complaisance); and thence into the +little chamber he had already observed, which was very clean and +comfortable: and thence into the garden, in which the old gentleman +told him he would be taught to employ himself, and where he told him, +besides, what great things he meant to do to make him comfortable, and +happy, if he found he deserved it. All these kindnesses, Kit +acknowledged with various expressions of gratitude, and so many touches +of the new hat, that the brim suffered considerably. When the old +gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice, +and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and +thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning +the little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take +him down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his walk. + +Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs there +was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a +toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as +precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself. And in this kitchen, Kit +sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat, +and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork the more awkwardly, +because there was an unknown Barbara looking on and observing him. + +It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably +tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet +life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what +she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for +some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he +ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the +plates and dishes, were Barbara’s little work-box with a sliding lid to +shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara’s prayer-book, and Barbara’s +hymn-book, and Barbara’s Bible. Barbara’s little looking-glass hung in +a good light near the window, and Barbara’s bonnet was on a nail behind +the door. From all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he +naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they, shelling +peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her eyelashes and +wondering--quite in the simplicity of his heart--what colour her eyes +might be, it perversely happened that Barbara raised her head a little +to look at him, when both pair of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit +leant over his plate, and Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme +confusion at having been detected by the other. + + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such was +the appropriate name of Quilp’s choice retreat), after a sinuous and +corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after stopping +suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running forward for a +few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking his head; doing +everything with a jerk and nothing by premeditation;--Mr Richard +Swiveller wending his way homeward after this fashion, which is +considered by evil-minded men to be symbolical of intoxication, and is +not held by such persons to denote that state of deep wisdom and +reflection in which the actor knows himself to be, began to think that +possibly he had misplaced his confidence and that the dwarf might not +be precisely the sort of person to whom to entrust a secret of such +delicacy and importance. And being led and tempted on by this +remorseful thought into a condition which the evil-minded class before +referred to would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it +occurred to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, +crying aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been +an unhappy orphan things had never come to this. + +‘Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,’ said Mr Swiveller, +bewailing his hard lot, ‘cast upon the world in my tenderest period, +and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my +weakness! Here’s a miserable orphan for you. Here,’ said Mr Swiveller +raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, ‘is a +miserable orphan!’ + +‘Then,’ said somebody hard by, ‘let me be a father to you.’ + +Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and, +looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last +perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed +after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth. +Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to +a man’s face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the +face had a body attached; and when he looked more intently he was +satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his +company all the time, but whom he had some vague idea of having left a +mile or two behind. + +‘You have deceived an orphan, Sir,’ said Mr Swiveller solemnly.’ + +‘I! I’m a second father to you,’ replied Quilp. + +‘You my father, Sir!’ retorted Dick. ‘Being all right myself, Sir, I +request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.’ + +‘What a funny fellow you are!’ cried Quilp. + +‘Go, Sir,’ returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand. +‘Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p’r’aps you’ll waken, from pleasure’s +dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you go, Sir?’ + +The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with +the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But forgetting +his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized +his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable +frankness that from that time forth they were brothers in everything +but personal appearance. Then he told his secret over again, with the +addition of being pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave +Mr Quilp to understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he +might observe in his speech at that moment, which was attributable +solely to the strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other +fermented liquor. And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly +together. + +‘I’m as sharp,’ said Quilp to him, at parting, ‘as sharp as a ferret, +and as cunning as a weazel. You bring Trent to me; assure him that I’m +his friend though I fear he a little distrusts me (I don’t know why, I +have not deserved it); and you’ve both of you made your fortunes--in +perspective.’ + +‘That’s the worst of it,’ returned Dick. ‘These fortunes in +perspective look such a long way off.’ + +‘But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,’ said +Quilp, pressing his arm. ‘You’ll have no conception of the value of +your prize until you draw close to it. Mark that.’ + +‘D’ye think not?’ said Dick. + +‘Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that’s better,’ returned +the dwarf. ‘You bring Trent to me. Tell him I am his friend and +yours--why shouldn’t I be?’ + +‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, certainly,’ replied Dick, ‘and +perhaps there are a great many why you should--at least there would be +nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you were a choice +spirit, but then you know you’re not a choice spirit.’ + +‘I not a choice spirit?’ cried Quilp. + +‘Devil a bit, sir,’ returned Dick. ‘A man of your appearance couldn’t +be. If you’re any spirit at all, sir, you’re an evil spirit. Choice +spirits,’ added Dick, smiting himself on the breast, ‘are quite a +different looking sort of people, you may take your oath of that, sir.’ + +Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression of +cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same moment, +declared that he was an uncommon character and had his warmest esteem. +With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the best of his way home +and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate upon the discovery he +had made, and exult in the prospect of the rich field of enjoyment and +reprisal it opened to him. + +It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr Swiveller, +next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the renowned Schiedam, +repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent (which was in the roof of +an old house in an old ghostly inn), and recounted by very slow degrees +what had yesterday taken place between him and Quilp. Nor was it +without great surprise and much speculation on Quilp’s probable +motives, nor without many bitter comments on Dick Swiveller’s folly, +that his friend received the tale. + +‘I don’t defend myself, Fred,’ said the penitent Richard; ‘but the +fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog, that +first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any harm in +telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of me. If you +had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn’t have kept anything +from him. He’s a Salamander you know, that’s what he is.’ + +Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good +confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of +course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair, and, +burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the motives which +had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard Swiveller’s +confidence;--for that the disclosure was of his seeking, and had not +been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was sufficiently plain from +Quilp’s seeking his company and enticing him away. + +The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to obtain +intelligence of the fugitives. This, perhaps, as he had not shown any +previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken suspicion in the +breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by nature, setting +aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he might have derived +from Dick’s incautious manner. But knowing the scheme they had +planned, why should he offer to assist it? This was a question more +difficult of solution; but as knaves generally overreach themselves by +imputing their own designs to others, the idea immediately presented +itself that some circumstances of irritation between Quilp and the old +man, arising out of their secret transactions and not unconnected +perhaps with his sudden disappearance, now rendered the former desirous +of revenging himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of +his love and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread +and hatred. As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his +sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain, it +seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp’s main principle of action. +Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in abetting them, +which the attainment of their purpose would serve, it was easy to +believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as there could be no +doubt of his proving a powerful and useful auxiliary, Trent determined +to accept his invitation and go to his house that night, and if what he +said and did confirmed him in the impression he had formed, to let him +share the labour of their plan, but not the profit. + +Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this +conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations +as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with +less), and giving him the day to recover himself from his late +salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr Quilp’s house. + +Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to be; +and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs Jiniwin; and +very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she was +affected by the recognition of young Trent. Mrs Quilp was as innocent +as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant, which the sight +of him awakened, but as her husband’s glance made her timid and +confused, and uncertain what to do or what was required of her, Mr +Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment to the cause he had in +his mind, and while he chuckled at his penetration was secretly +exasperated by his jealousy. + +Nothing of this appeared, however. On the contrary, Mr Quilp was all +blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum with +extraordinary open-heartedness. + +‘Why, let me see,’ said Quilp. ‘It must be a matter of nearly two +years since we were first acquainted.’ + +‘Nearer three, I think,’ said Trent. + +‘Nearer three!’ cried Quilp. ‘How fast time flies. Does it seem as +long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?’ + +‘Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,’ was the unfortunate +reply. + +‘Oh indeed, ma’am,’ thought Quilp, ‘you have been pining, have you? +Very good, ma’am.’ + +‘It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the Mary +Anne,’ said Quilp; ‘but yesterday, I declare. Well, I like a little +wildness. I was wild myself once.’ + +Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink, indicative +of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was indignant, and +could not forbear from remarking under her breath that he might at +least put off his confessions until his wife was absent; for which act +of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp first stared her out of +countenance and then drank her health ceremoniously. + +‘I thought you’d come back directly, Fred. I always thought that,’ +said Quilp setting down his glass. ‘And when the Mary Anne returned +with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart you +had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been provided for +you, I was amused--exceedingly amused. Ha ha ha!’ + +The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most +agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment; and +for that reason Quilp pursued it. + +‘I always will say,’ he resumed, ‘that when a rich relation having two +young people--sisters or brothers, or brother and sister--dependent on +him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts off the other, he +does wrong.’ + +The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as +calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which nobody +present had the slightest personal interest. + +‘It’s very true,’ said Quilp, ‘that your grandfather urged repeated +forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as +I told him “these are common faults.” “But he’s a scoundrel,” said he. +“Granting that,” said I (for the sake of argument of course), “a great +many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!” But he wouldn’t +be convinced.’ + +‘I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,’ said the young man sarcastically. + +‘Well, so did I at the time,’ returned Quilp, ‘but he was always +obstinate. He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always +obstinate and wrong-headed. Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming +girl, but you’re her brother, Frederick. You’re her brother after all; +as you told him the last time you met, he can’t alter that.’ + +‘He would if he could, confound him for that and all other kindnesses,’ +said the young man impatiently. ‘But nothing can come of this subject +now, and let us have done with it in the Devil’s name.’ + +‘Agreed,’ returned Quilp, ‘agreed on my part readily. Why have I +alluded to it? Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always stood +your friend. You little knew who was your friend, and who your foe; +now did you? You thought I was against you, and so there has been a +coolness between us; but it was all on your side, entirely on your +side. Let’s shake hands again, Fred.’ + +With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin +over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short arm +across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the young man stretched +out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip that for the +moment stopped the current of the blood within them, and pressing his +other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the unsuspicious Richard, +released them and sat down. + +This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard +Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his designs +than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf perfectly +understood their relative position, and fully entered into the +character of his friend. It is something to be appreciated, even in +knavery. This silent homage to his superior abilities, no less than a +sense of the power with which the dwarf’s quick perception had already +invested him, inclined the young man towards that ugly worthy, and +determined him to profit by his aid. + +It being now Mr Quilp’s cue to change the subject with all convenient +expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal +anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a +game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp +fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being +very fond of cards was carefully excluded by her son-in-law from any +participation in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of +occasionally replenishing the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp +from that moment keeping one eye constantly upon her, lest she should +by any means procure a taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the +wretched old lady (who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the +cards) in a double degree and most ingenious manner. + +But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp’s attention was +restricted, as several other matters required his constant vigilance. +Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one of always +cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only a +close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and +scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by looks, and +frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller, who being +bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate +at which the pegs travelled down the board, could not be prevented from +sometimes expressing his surprise and incredulity. Mrs Quilp too was +the partner of young Trent, and for every look that passed between +them, and every word they spoke, and every card they played, the dwarf +had eyes and ears; not occupied alone with what was passing above the +table, but with signals that might be exchanging beneath it, which he +laid all kinds of traps to detect; besides often treading on his wife’s +toes to see whether she cried out or remained silent under the +infliction, in which latter case it would have been quite clear that +Trent had been treading on her toes before. Yet, in the most of all +these distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if +she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring +glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup +of its sweet contents, Quilp’s hand would overset it in the very moment +of her triumph, and Quilp’s mocking voice implore her to regard her +precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from first to +last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered. + +At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn pretty +freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to retire to +rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being followed by her +indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep. The dwarf beckoning his +remaining companion to the other end of the room, held a short +conference with him in whispers. + +‘It’s as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy +friend,’ said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick. ‘Is +it a bargain between us, Fred? Shall he marry little rosy Nell +by-and-by?’ + +‘You have some end of your own to answer, of course,’ returned the +other. + +‘Of course I have, dear Fred,’ said Quilp, grinning to think how little +he suspected what the real end was. ‘It’s retaliation perhaps; perhaps +whim. I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose. Which way shall I +use it? There are a pair of scales, and it goes into one.’ + +‘Throw it into mine then,’ said Trent. + +‘It’s done, Fred,’ rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand and +opening it as if he had let some weight fall out. ‘It’s in the scale +from this time, and turns it, Fred. Mind that.’ + +‘Where have they gone?’ asked Trent. + +Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered, +which it might be, easily. When it was, they would begin their +preliminary advances. He would visit the old man, or even Richard +Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his +behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the +child’s remembering him with gratitude and favour. Once impressed to +this extent, it would be easy, he said, to win her in a year or two, +for she supposed the old man to be poor, as it was a part of his +jealous policy (in common with many other misers) to feign to be so, to +those about him. + +‘He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,’ said Trent. + +‘Oh! and to me too!’ replied the dwarf. ‘Which is more extraordinary, +as I know how rich he really is.’ + +‘I suppose you should,’ said Trent. + +‘I think I should indeed,’ rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least, +he spoke the truth. + +After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the +young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to +depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly. After +a few words of confidence in the result of their project had been +exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night. + +Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and +listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they +were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry +such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their +retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed, +stole softly in the dark to bed. + +In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one +thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would +have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both, +had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of +his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one +than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as +reflection, he would--being a brute only in the gratification of his +appetites--have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not +mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and +done, be a very tolerable, average husband. + + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain +the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man +and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders +of a little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view, +they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum +of voices, and the beating of drums. Climbing the eminence which lay +between them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern +the fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was +approaching towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and +still. + +Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or +restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His disordered +imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them +beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping +from the boughs of every rustling tree. He was haunted by +apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy place where he would +be chained and scourged, and worse than all, where Nell could never +come to see him, save through iron bars and gratings in the wall. His +terrors affected the child. Separation from her grandfather was the +greatest evil she could dread; and feeling for the time as though, go +where they would, they were to be hunted down, and could never be safe +but in hiding, her heart failed her, and her courage drooped. + +In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had lately +moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising. But, Nature +often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms--oftenest, God +bless her, in female breasts--and when the child, casting her tearful +eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he was, and how destitute +and helpless he would be if she failed him, her heart swelled within +her, and animated her with new strength and fortitude. + +‘We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear +grandfather,’ she said. + +‘Nothing to fear!’ returned the old man. ‘Nothing to fear if they took +me from thee! Nothing to fear if they parted us! Nobody is true to +me. No, not one. Not even Nell!’ + +‘Oh! do not say that,’ replied the child, ‘for if ever anybody was true +at heart, and earnest, I am. I am sure you know I am.’ + +‘Then how,’ said the old man, looking fearfully round, ‘how can you +bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me +everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we’re +talking?’ + +‘Because I’m sure we have not been followed,’ said the child. ‘Judge +for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how quiet and still +it is. We are alone together, and may ramble where we like. Not safe! +Could I feel easy--did I feel at ease--when any danger threatened you?’ + +‘True, too,’ he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking +anxiously about. ‘What noise was that?’ + +‘A bird,’ said the child, ‘flying into the wood, and leading the way +for us to follow.’ You remember that we said we would walk in woods +and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would be--you +remember that? But here, while the sun shines above our heads, and +everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly down, and losing +time. See what a pleasant path; and there’s the bird--the same +bird--now he flies to another tree, and stays to sing. Come!’ + +When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which led +them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny +footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure and +gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured the old +man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now pointing +stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered on a branch +that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen to the songs +that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it trembled through +the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks of stout old trees, +opened long paths of light. As they passed onward, parting the boughs +that clustered in their way, the serenity which the child had first +assumed, stole into her breast in earnest; the old man cast no longer +fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for the further +they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that the +tranquil mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them. + +At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them to +the end of the wood, and into a public road. Taking their way along it +for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded by the trees on +either hand that they met together over-head, and arched the narrow +way. A broken finger-post announced that this led to a village three +miles off; and thither they resolved to bend their steps. + +The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must have +missed their road. But at last, to their great joy, it led downwards +in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the footpaths +led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from the woody +hollow below. + +It was a very small place. The men and boys were playing at cricket on +the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered up and +down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging. There was but one old +man in the little garden before his cottage, and him they were timid of +approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and had ‘School’ written up +over his window in black letters on a white board. He was a pale, +simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre habit, and sat among his +flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in the little porch before his +door. + +‘Speak to him, dear,’ the old man whispered. + +‘I am almost afraid to disturb him,’ said the child timidly. ‘He does +not seem to see us. Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look this way.’ + +They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and still +sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch. He had a kind face. +In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and meagre. They +fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house, but perhaps that +was because the other people formed a merry company upon the green, and +he seemed the only solitary man in all the place. + +They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to +address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which +seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed. As they stood +hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes +at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took +a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate and looked towards +the green, then took up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat down +thoughtfully as before. + +As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took +courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw +near, leading her grandfather by the hand. The slight noise they made +in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention. He +looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook +his head. + +Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who +sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so far +as their means allowed. The schoolmaster looked earnestly at her as +she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly. + +‘If you could direct us anywhere, sir,’ said the child, ‘we should take +it very kindly.’ + +‘You have been walking a long way,’ said the schoolmaster. + +‘A long way, Sir,’ the child replied. + +‘You’re a young traveller, my child,’ he said, laying his hand gently +on her head. ‘Your grandchild, friend?’ + +‘Aye, Sir,’ cried the old man, ‘and the stay and comfort of my life.’ + +‘Come in,’ said the schoolmaster. + +Without further preface he conducted them into his little school-room, +which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them that they were +welcome to remain under his roof till morning. Before they had done +thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth upon the table, with +knives and platters; and bringing out some bread and cold meat and a +jug of beer, besought them to eat and drink. + +The child looked round the room as she took her seat. There were a +couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk +perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few +dog’s-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley +collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles, +half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins. +Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the cane +and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce’s cap, +made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest +size. But, the great ornaments of the walls were certain moral +sentences fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked sums in +simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same +hand, which were plentifully pasted all round the room: for the double +purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the +school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars. + +‘Yes,’ said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was +caught by these latter specimens. ‘That’s beautiful writing, my dear.’ + +‘Very, Sir,’ replied the child modestly, ‘is it yours?’ + +‘Mine!’ he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, to +have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart. ‘I couldn’t +write like that, now-a-days. No. They’re all done by one hand; a +little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.’ + +As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been +thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his pocket, and +going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out. When he had finished, +he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might +contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his +voice and manner which quite touched the child, though she was +unacquainted with its cause. + +‘A little hand indeed,’ said the poor schoolmaster. ‘Far beyond all +his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever +come to be so fond of me! That I should love him is no wonder, but +that he should love me--’ and there the schoolmaster stopped, and took +off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim. + +‘I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,’ said Nell anxiously. + +‘Not much, my dear,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I hoped to have seen +him on the green to-night. He was always foremost among them. But +he’ll be there to-morrow.’ + +‘Has he been ill?’ asked the child, with a child’s quick sympathy. + +‘Not very. They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy, +and so they said the day before. But that’s a part of that kind of +disorder; it’s not a bad sign--not at all a bad sign.’ + +The child was silent. He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. +The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still. + +‘If he could lean upon anybody’s arm, he would come to me, I know,’ he +said, returning into the room. ‘He always came into the garden to say +good night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable +turn, and it’s too late for him to come out, for it’s very damp and +there’s a heavy dew. It’s much better he shouldn’t come to-night.’ + +The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and +closed the door. But after he had done this, and sat silent a little +time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself, +if Nell would sit up till he returned. The child readily complied, and +he went out. + +She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and +lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there +was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the +whistling of the wind among the trees. When he returned, he took his +seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long time. At +length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say +a prayer that night for a sick child. + +‘My favourite scholar!’ said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he +had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls. +‘It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away with +sickness. It is a very, very little hand!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +After a sound night’s rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which +it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had +lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose +early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped +last night. As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, +she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just +finished its arrangement when the kind host returned. + +He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did +such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had +told her of. The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better. + +‘No,’ rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘no +better. They even say he is worse.’ + +‘I am very sorry for that, Sir,’ said the child. + +The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, +but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious +people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; ‘for +my part,’ he said, in his quiet, patient way, ‘I hope it’s not so. I +don’t think he can be worse.’ + +The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather +coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together. While the +meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much +fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest. + +‘If the journey you have before you is a long one,’ he said, ‘and don’t +press you for one day, you’re very welcome to pass another night here. +I should really be glad if you would, friend.’ + +He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or +decline his offer; and added, + +‘I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day. If +you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time, +do so. If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through +it, and will walk a little way with you before school begins.’ + +‘What are we to do, Nell?’ said the old man irresolutely, ‘say what +we’re to do, dear.’ + +It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they +had better accept the invitation and remain. She was happy to show her +gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the +performance of such household duties as his little cottage stood in +need of. When these were done, she took some needle-work from her +basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the +honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into +the room filled it with their delicious breath. Her grandfather was +basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and +idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer +wind. + +As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took +his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the +child was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to +withdraw to her little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and as he +seemed pleased to have her there, she remained, busying herself with +her work. + +‘Have you many scholars, sir?’ she asked. + +The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled +the two forms. + +‘Are the others clever, sir?’ asked the child, glancing at the trophies +on the wall. + +‘Good boys,’ returned the schoolmaster, ‘good boys enough, my dear, but +they’ll never do like that.’ + +A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door +while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in +and took his seat upon one of the forms. The white-headed boy then put +an open book, astonishingly dog’s-eared upon his knees, and thrusting +his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they +were filled; displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable +capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his +eyes were fixed. Soon afterwards another white-headed little boy came +straggling in, and after him a red-headed lad, and after him two more +with white heads, and then one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the +forms were occupied by a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every +colour but grey, and ranging in their ages from four years old to +fourteen years or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way +from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy +good-tempered foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the +schoolmaster. + +At the top of the first form--the post of honour in the school--was the +vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of +pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up, +one was left empty. No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat +or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the +schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand. + +Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, +the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of +school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very +image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind +upon the duties of the day, and to forget his little friend. But the +tedium of his office reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar, +and his thoughts were rambling from his pupils--it was plain. + +None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with +impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under the +master’s eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching each +other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their +autographs in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who stood +beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the +ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master’s elbow and +boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted +and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book +before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in their +delight. If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to +what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his +but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he +relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before. + +Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they +looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing +violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages +from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and +some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in +the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his +shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat +fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, +or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, +broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to +the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and +driving his companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket +of the well and then rolling on the grass--ask him if there were ever +such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the +cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds +to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day +was made for laziness, and lying on one’s back in green places, and +staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one’s eyes +and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a +dark room, slighted by the very sun itself? Monstrous! + +Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to +all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys. +The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and +that the master’s, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured at his +crooked copy, while the master walked about. This was a quieter time; +for he would come and look over the writer’s shoulder, and tell him +mildly to observe how such a letter was turned in such a copy on the +wall, praise such an up-stroke here and such a down-stroke there, and +bid him take it for his model. Then he would stop and tell them what +the sick child had said last night, and how he had longed to be among +them once again; and such was the poor schoolmaster’s gentle and +affectionate manner, that the boys seemed quite remorseful that they +had worried him so much, and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, +cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for +full two minutes afterwards. + +‘I think, boys,’ said the schoolmaster when the clock struck twelve, +‘that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.’ + +At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy, +raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to +speak, but could not be heard. As he held up his hand, however, in +token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate +enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were +quite out of breath. + +‘You must promise me first,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘that you’ll not be +noisy, or at least, if you are, that you’ll go away and be so--away out +of the village I mean. I’m sure you wouldn’t disturb your old playmate +and companion.’ + +There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for they +were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as sincerely +as any of them, called those about him to witness that he had only +shouted in a whisper. + +‘Then pray don’t forget, there’s my dear scholars,’ said the +schoolmaster, ‘what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me. Be +as happy as you can, and don’t be unmindful that you are blessed with +health. Good-bye all!’ + +‘Thank’ee, Sir,’ and ‘good-bye, Sir,’ were said a good many times in a +variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and softly. But +there was the sun shining and there were the birds singing, as the sun +only shines and the birds only sing on holidays and half-holidays; +there were the trees waving to all free boys to climb and nestle among +their leafy branches; the hay, entreating them to come and scatter it +to the pure air; the green corn, gently beckoning towards wood and +stream; the smooth ground, rendered smoother still by blending lights +and shadows, inviting to runs and leaps, and long walks God knows +whither. It was more than boy could bear, and with a joyous whoop the +whole cluster took to their heels and spread themselves about, shouting +and laughing as they went. + +‘It’s natural, thank Heaven!’ said the poor schoolmaster, looking after +them. ‘I’m very glad they didn’t mind me!’ + +It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would have +discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and in the +course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils looked in +to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster’s proceeding. +A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely inquiring what +red-letter day or saint’s day the almanack said it was; a few (these +were the profound village politicians) argued that it was a slight to +the throne and an affront to church and state, and savoured of +revolutionary principles, to grant a half-holiday upon any lighter +occasion than the birthday of the Monarch; but the majority expressed +their displeasure on private grounds and in plain terms, arguing that +to put the pupils on this short allowance of learning was nothing but +an act of downright robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that +she could not inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking +to him, bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour +outside his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he +would deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he +would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him; there +was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old lady +raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be +schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over +their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty +sharp about them. But all these taunts and vexations failed to elicit +one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child by his +side--a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and +uncomplaining. + +Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as +she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go +to Dame West’s directly, and had best run on before her. He and the +child were on the point of going out together for a walk, and without +relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the +messenger to follow as she might. + +They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at +it with his hand. It was opened without loss of time. They entered a +room where a little group of women were gathered about one, older than +the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat wringing her hands and +rocking herself to and fro. + +‘Oh, dame!’ said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, ‘is it so +bad as this?’ + +‘He’s going fast,’ cried the old woman; ‘my grandson’s dying. It’s all +along of you. You shouldn’t see him now, but for his being so earnest +on it. This is what his learning has brought him to. Oh dear, dear, +dear, what can I do!’ + +‘Do not say that I am in any fault,’ urged the gentle school-master. +‘I am not hurt, dame. No, no. You are in great distress of mind, and +don’t mean what you say. I am sure you don’t.’ + +‘I do,’ returned the old woman. ‘I mean it all. If he hadn’t been +poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and +merry now, I know he would.’ + +The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat +some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their +heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought there was +much good in learning, and that this convinced them. Without saying a +word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old +woman who had summoned him (and who had now rejoined them) into another +room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed. + +He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in +curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light +was of Heaven, not earth. The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and +stooping over the pillow, whispered his name. The boy sprung up, +stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms round his +neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend. + +‘I hope I always was. I meant to be, God knows,’ said the poor +schoolmaster. + +‘Who is that?’ said the boy, seeing Nell. ‘I am afraid to kiss her, +lest I should make her ill. Ask her to shake hands with me.’ + +The sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in +hers. Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently +down. + +‘You remember the garden, Harry,’ whispered the schoolmaster, anxious +to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, ‘and how +pleasant it used to be in the evening time? You must make haste to +visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are +less gay than they used to be. You will come soon, my dear, very soon +now--won’t you?’ + +The boy smiled faintly--so very, very faintly--and put his hand upon +his friend’s grey head. He moved his lips too, but no voice came from +them; no, not a sound. + +In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon the +evening air came floating through the open window. ‘What’s that?’ said +the sick child, opening his eyes. + +‘The boys at play upon the green.’ + +He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his +head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down. + +‘Shall I do it?’ said the schoolmaster. + +‘Please wave it at the window,’ was the faint reply. ‘Tie it to the +lattice. Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they’ll think of me, +and look this way.’ + +He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle +bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a +table in the room. And then he laid him softly down once more, and +asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her. + +She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the +coverlet. The two old friends and companions--for such they were, +though they were man and child--held each other in a long embrace, and +then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell +asleep. + +The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold +hand in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He +felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down. + + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the +bedside and returned to his cottage. In the midst of her grief and +tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old man, +for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged relative +to mourn his premature decay. + +She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone, +gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged. +But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of +content and gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health +and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and +friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so +many young creatures--as young and full of hope as she--were stricken +down and gathered to their graves. How many of the mounds in that old +churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of +children! And though she thought as a child herself, and did not +perhaps sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence +those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of +seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong +affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one +long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy +moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her +mind. + +Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up, but +mingling with angels, and smiling happily. The sun darting his +cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but to +take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more. + +By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun. In the +darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little +sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at all. +The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to the gate. + +It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out to +him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her +flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum was, +and blushing as she offered it. But he bade her put it up, and +stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house. + +They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again; the +old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did the same. + +‘Good fortune and happiness go with you!’ said the poor schoolmaster. +‘I am quite a solitary man now. If you ever pass this way again, +you’ll not forget the little village-school.’ + +‘We shall never forget it, sir,’ rejoined Nell; ‘nor ever forget to be +grateful to you for your kindness to us.’ + +‘I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,’ said +the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully, ‘but they +were soon forgotten. I had attached one young friend to me, the better +friend for being young--but that’s over--God bless you!’ + +They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking slowly +and often looking back, until they could see him no more. At length +they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight of the smoke +among the trees. They trudged onward now, at a quicker pace, resolving +to keep the main road, and go wherever it might lead them. + +But main roads stretch a long, long way. With the exception of two or +three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed, without +stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they had some +bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing--late in the +afternoon--and still lengthened out, far in the distance, the same +dull, tedious, winding course, that they had been pursuing all day. As +they had no resource, however, but to go forward, they still kept on, +though at a much slower pace, being very weary and fatigued. + +The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived +at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common. +On the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it +from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which, +by reason of its situation, they came so suddenly that they could not +have avoided it if they would. + +It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon +wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and +window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in +which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone brilliant. +Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated +horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from +the shafts and grazing on the frouzy grass. Neither was it a gipsy +caravan, for at the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat +a Christian lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large +bonnet trembling with bows. And that it was not an unprovided or +destitute caravan was clear from this lady’s occupation, which was the +very pleasant and refreshing one of taking tea. The tea-things, +including a bottle of rather suspicious character and a cold knuckle of +ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and +there, as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat +this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. + +It happened that at that moment the lady of the caravan had her cup +(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable +kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted +to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavour of the tea, not +unmingled possibly with just the slightest dash or gleam of something +out of the suspicious bottle--but this is mere speculation and not +distinct matter of history--it happened that being thus agreeably +engaged, she did not see the travellers when they first came up. It +was not until she was in the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a +long breath after the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, +that the lady of the caravan beheld an old man and a young child +walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest +but hungry admiration. + +‘Hey!’ cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her +lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. ‘Yes, to be +sure--Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?’ + +‘Won what, ma’am?’ asked Nell. + +‘The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was run +for on the second day.’ + +‘On the second day, ma’am?’ + +‘Second day! Yes, second day,’ repeated the lady with an air of +impatience. ‘Can’t you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when +you’re asked the question civilly?’ + +‘I don’t know, ma’am.’ + +‘Don’t know!’ repeated the lady of the caravan; ‘why, you were there. +I saw you with my own eyes.’ + +Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady +might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but +what followed tended to reassure her. + +‘And very sorry I was,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘to see you in +company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar wretch, that people +should scorn to look at.’ + +‘I was not there by choice,’ returned the child; ‘we didn’t know our +way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. +Do you--do you know them, ma’am?’ + +‘Know ‘em, child!’ cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of shriek. +‘Know them! But you’re young and inexperienced, and that’s your excuse +for asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know’d ‘em, does the +caravan look as if it know’d ‘em?’ + +‘No, ma’am, no,’ said the child, fearing she had committed some +grievous fault. ‘I beg your pardon.’ + +It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much ruffled +and discomposed by the degrading supposition. The child then explained +that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to +the next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night. As +the countenance of the stout lady began to clear up, she ventured to +inquire how far it was. The reply--which the stout lady did not come +to, until she had thoroughly explained that she went to the races on +the first day in a gig, and as an expedition of pleasure, and that her +presence there had no connexion with any matters of business or +profit--was, that the town was eight miles off. + +This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could +scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road. Her +grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he leaned upon +his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty distance. + +The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea equipage +together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the child’s +anxious manner she hesitated and stopped. The child curtseyed, thanked +her for her information, and giving her hand to the old man had already +got some fifty yards or so away, when the lady of the caravan called to +her to return. + +‘Come nearer, nearer still,’ said she, beckoning to her to ascend the +steps. ‘Are you hungry, child?’ + +‘Not very, but we are tired, and it’s--it IS a long way.’ + +‘Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,’ rejoined her new +acquaintance. ‘I suppose you are agreeable to that, old gentleman?’ + +The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of +the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum +proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended again, and sat +upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread +and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she +had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had already embraced +an opportunity of slipping into her pocket. + +‘Set ‘em out near the hind wheels, child, that’s the best place,’ said +their friend, superintending the arrangements from above. ‘Now hand up +the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of fresh tea, and +then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don’t spare +anything; that’s all I ask of you.’ + +They might perhaps have carried out the lady’s wish, if it had been +less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all. +But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or +uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost. + +While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the +earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet +trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very +stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of +calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels +and the brass knocker. When she had taken this gentle exercise for +some time, she sat down upon the steps and called ‘George’; whereupon a +man in a carter’s frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this +time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself, +parted the twigs that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting +attitude, supporting on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone +bottle, and bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork. + +‘Yes, Missus,’ said George. + +‘How did you find the cold pie, George?’ + +‘It warn’t amiss, mum.’ + +‘And the beer,’ said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of +being more interested in this question than the last; ‘is it passable, +George?’ + +‘It’s more flatterer than it might be,’ George returned, ‘but it an’t +so bad for all that.’ + +To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in +quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then +smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head. No doubt with +the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his knife and fork, as +a practical assurance that the beer had wrought no bad effect upon his +appetite. + +The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and then +said, + +‘Have you nearly finished?’ + +‘Wery nigh, mum.’ And indeed, after scraping the dish all round with +his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after +taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees +almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further and further +back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this +gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came forth from his +retreat. + +‘I hope I haven’t hurried you, George,’ said his mistress, who appeared +to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit. + +‘If you have,’ returned the follower, wisely reserving himself for any +favourable contingency that might occur, ‘we must make up for it next +time, that’s all.’ + +‘We are not a heavy load, George?’ + +‘That’s always what the ladies say,’ replied the man, looking a long +way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general against such +monstrous propositions. ‘If you see a woman a driving, you’ll always +perceive that she never will keep her whip still; the horse can’t go +fast enough for her. If cattle have got their proper load, you never +can persuade a woman that they’ll not bear something more. What is the +cause of this here?’ + +‘Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we +took them with us?’ asked his mistress, offering no reply to the +philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who were +painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot. + +‘They’d make a difference in course,’ said George doggedly. + +‘Would they make much difference?’ repeated his mistress. ‘They can’t +be very heavy.’ + +‘The weight o’ the pair, mum,’ said George, eyeing them with the look +of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so, ‘would be a +trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell.’ + +Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately +acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as +having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot the +subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in the +caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected earnestness. +She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put away the tea-things +and other matters that were lying about, and, the horses being by that +time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle, followed by her delighted +grandfather. Their patroness then shut the door and sat herself down +by her drum at an open window; and, the steps being struck by George +and stowed under the carriage, away they went, with a great noise of +flapping and creaking and straining, and the bright brass knocker, +which nobody ever knocked at, knocking one perpetual double knock of +its own accord as they jolted heavily along. + + + + +CHAPTER 27 + +When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell +ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely. +One half of it--that moiety in which the comfortable proprietress was +then seated--was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as +to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a +berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the little windows, with +fair white curtains, and looked comfortable enough, though by what kind +of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get +into it, was an unfathomable mystery. The other half served for a +kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed +through the roof. It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a +great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of +crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that +portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were +ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a +couple of well-thumbed tambourines. + +The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and poetry +of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at +the other in all the humility of the kettle and saucepans, while the +machine jogged on and shifted the darkening prospect very slowly. At +first the two travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as +they grew more familiar with the place they ventured to converse with +greater freedom, and talked about the country through which they were +passing, and the different objects that presented themselves, until the +old man fell asleep; which the lady of the caravan observing, invited +Nell to come and sit beside her. + +‘Well, child,’ she said, ‘how do you like this way of travelling?’ + +Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which the +lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits. For +herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect +which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid +stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention has +been already made or from other sources, she did not say. + +‘That’s the happiness of you young people,’ she continued. ‘You don’t +know what it is to be low in your feelings. You always have your +appetites too, and what a comfort that is.’ + +Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own appetite +very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was nothing either +in the lady’s personal appearance or in her manner of taking tea, to +lead to the conclusion that her natural relish for meat and drink had +at all failed her. She silently assented, however, as in duty bound, +to what the lady had said, and waited until she should speak again. + +Instead of speaking, however, she sat looking at the child for a long +time in silence, and then getting up, brought out from a corner a large +roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and +spread open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the +caravan to the other. + +‘There, child,’ she said, ‘read that.’ + +Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the +inscription, ‘JARLEY’S WAX-WORK.’ + +‘Read it again,’ said the lady, complacently. + +‘Jarley’s Wax-Work,’ repeated Nell. + +‘That’s me,’ said the lady. ‘I am Mrs Jarley.’ + +Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and let +her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the original +Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne +down, the lady of the caravan unfolded another scroll, whereon was the +inscription, ‘One hundred figures the full size of life,’ and then +another scroll, on which was written, ‘The only stupendous collection +of real wax-work in the world,’ and then several smaller scrolls with +such inscriptions as ‘Now exhibiting within’--‘The genuine and only +Jarley’--‘Jarley’s unrivalled collection’--‘Jarley is the delight of +the Nobility and Gentry’--‘The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.’ +When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the +astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the +shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies +on popular melodies, as ‘Believe me if all Jarley’s wax-work so +rare’--‘I saw thy show in youthful prime’--‘Over the water to Jarley;’ +while, to consult all tastes, others were composed with a view to the +lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favourite air of +‘If I had a donkey,’ beginning, + + If I know’d a donkey wot wouldn’t go + To see Mrs JARLEY’S wax-work show, + Do you think I’d acknowledge him? Oh no no! + Then run to Jarley’s-- + +--besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues +between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of +Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all +having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to +Jarley’s, and that children and servants were admitted at half-price. +When she had brought all these testimonials of her important position +in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs Jarley rolled them up, +and having put them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the +child in triumph. + +‘Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,’ said Mrs +Jarley, ‘after this.’ + +‘I never saw any wax-work, ma’am,’ said Nell. ‘Is it funnier than +Punch?’ + +‘Funnier!’ said Mrs Jarley in a shrill voice. ‘It is not funny at all.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Nell, with all possible humility. + +‘It isn’t funny at all,’ repeated Mrs Jarley. ‘It’s calm and--what’s +that word again--critical?--no--classical, that’s it--it’s calm and +classical. No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and +squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a +constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility; and so like life, +that if wax-work only spoke and walked about, you’d hardly know the +difference. I won’t go so far as to say, that, as it is, I’ve seen +wax-work quite like life, but I’ve certainly seen some life that was +exactly like wax-work.’ + +‘Is it here, ma’am?’ asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this +description. + +‘Is what here, child?’ + +‘The wax-work, ma’am.’ + +‘Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a +collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one +little cupboard and a few boxes? It’s gone on in the other wans to the +assembly-rooms, and there it’ll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. +You are going to the same town, and you’ll see it I dare say. It’s +natural to expect that you’ll see it, and I’ve no doubt you will. I +suppose you couldn’t stop away if you was to try ever so much.’ + +‘I shall not be in the town, I think, ma’am,’ said the child. + +‘Not there!’ cried Mrs Jarley. ‘Then where will you be?’ + +‘I--I--don’t quite know. I am not certain.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say that you’re travelling about the country without +knowing where you’re going to?’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘What +curious people you are! What line are you in? You looked to me at the +races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got +there by accident.’ + +‘We were there quite by accident,’ returned Nell, confused by this +abrupt questioning. ‘We are poor people, ma’am, and are only wandering +about. We have nothing to do;--I wish we had.’ + +‘You amaze me more and more,’ said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for some +time as mute as one of her own figures. ‘Why, what do you call +yourselves? Not beggars?’ + +‘Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know what else we are,’ returned the child. + +‘Lord bless me,’ said the lady of the caravan. ‘I never heard of such +a thing. Who’d have thought it!’ + +She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared +she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and +conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that +nothing could repair. This persuasion was rather confirmed than +otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke silence and said, + +‘And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn’t wonder?’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the +confession. + +‘Well, and what a thing that is,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘I can’t!’ + +Nell said ‘indeed’ in a tone which might imply, either that she was +reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was the +delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the Royal +Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great +a lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments. +In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke +her to further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the +time, for she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that +state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her +grandfather, who was now awake. + +At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation, and, +summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was seated, +held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, as if she +were asking his advice on an important point, and discussing the pros +and cons of some very weighty matter. This conference at length +concluded, she drew in her head again, and beckoned Nell to approach. + +‘And the old gentleman too,’ said Mrs Jarley; ‘for I want to have a +word with him. Do you want a good situation for your grand-daughter, +master? If you do, I can put her in the way of getting one. What do +you say?’ + +‘I can’t leave her,’ answered the old man. ‘We can’t separate. What +would become of me without her?’ + +‘I should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if +you ever will be,’ retorted Mrs Jarley sharply. + +‘But he never will be,’ said the child in an earnest whisper. ‘I fear +he never will be again. Pray do not speak harshly to him. We are very +thankful to you,’ she added aloud; ‘but neither of us could part from +the other if all the wealth of the world were halved between us.’ + +Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal, +and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell’s hand and detained +it in his own, as if she could have very well dispensed with his +company or even his earthly existence. After an awkward pause, she +thrust her head out of the window again, and had another conference +with the driver upon some point on which they did not seem to agree +quite so readily as on their former topic of discussion; but they +concluded at last, and she addressed the grandfather again. + +‘If you’re really disposed to employ yourself,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘there +would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the +figures, and take the checks, and so forth. What I want your +grand-daughter for, is to point ‘em out to the company; they would be +soon learnt, and she has a way with her that people wouldn’t think +unpleasant, though she does come after me; for I’ve been always +accustomed to go round with visitors myself, which I should keep on +doing now, only that my spirits make a little ease absolutely +necessary. It’s not a common offer, bear in mind,’ said the lady, +rising into the tone and manner in which she was accustomed to address +her audiences; ‘it’s Jarley’s wax-work, remember. The duty’s very +light and genteel, the company particularly select, the exhibition +takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at inns, or +auction galleries. There is none of your open-air wagrancy at +Jarley’s, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley’s, +remember. Every expectation held out in the handbills is realised to +the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy +hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom. Remember that the price of +admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may +never occur again!’ + +Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the +details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to +salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had +sufficiently tested Nell’s abilities, and narrowly watched her in the +performance of her duties. But board and lodging, both for her and her +grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she furthermore passed +her word that the board should always be good in quality, and in +quantity plentiful. + +Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so +engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the +caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon +dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance +as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan +was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great +natural stateliness and acquired grace could have forborne to stagger. + +‘Now, child?’ cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned towards +her. + +‘We are very much obliged to you, ma’am,’ said Nell, ‘and thankfully +accept your offer.’ + +‘And you’ll never be sorry for it,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘I’m pretty +sure of that. So as that’s all settled, let us have a bit of supper.’ + +In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been +drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the paved +streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was +by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all abed. As it +was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room, they turned +aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within the old +town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another caravan, +which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel the great name +of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying from place to place +the wax-work which was its country’s pride, was designated by a +grovelling stamp-office as a ‘Common Stage Waggon,’ and numbered +too--seven thousand odd hundred--as though its precious freight were +mere flour or coals! + +This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden at +the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services were +again required) was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place for +the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell made him up the best bed +she could, from the materials at hand. For herself, she was to sleep +in Mrs Jarley’s own travelling-carriage, as a signal mark of that +lady’s favour and confidence. + +She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the other +waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to linger for +a little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old +gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and +with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached +the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark, +and grim, and old, and cold, it looked. + +There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been +carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what strange +people it must have looked down upon when it stood there, and how many +hard struggles might have taken place, and how many murders might have +been done, upon that silent spot, when there suddenly emerged from the +black shade of the arch, a man. The instant he appeared, she +recognised him--Who could have failed to recognise, in that instant, +the ugly misshapen Quilp! + +The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on one +side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the earth. +But there he was. The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him +pass close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and, when he had got +clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked +back--directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood--and beckoned. + +To her? oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an +extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from +her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued +slowly forth from the arch another figure--that of a boy--who carried +on his back a trunk. + +‘Faster, sirrah!’ cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and +showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come down +from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old house, +‘faster!’ + +‘It’s a dreadful heavy load, Sir,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I’ve come on very +fast, considering.’ + +‘_You_ have come fast, considering!’ retorted Quilp; ‘you creep, you dog, +you crawl, you measure distance like a worm. There are the chimes now, +half-past twelve.’ + +He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness +and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach +passed the corner of the road. The boy replied, at one. + +‘Come on then,’ said Quilp, ‘or I shall be too late. Faster--do you +hear me? Faster.’ + +The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward, constantly +turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater haste. Nell did +not dare to move until they were out of sight and hearing, and then +hurried to where she had left her grandfather, feeling as if the very +passing of the dwarf so near him must have filled him with alarm and +terror. But he was sleeping soundly, and she softly withdrew. + +As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say nothing +of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had come (and she +feared it must have been in search of them) it was clear by his inquiry +about the London coach that he was on his way homeward, and as he had +passed through that place, it was but reasonable to suppose that they +were safer from his inquiries there, than they could be elsewhere. +These reflections did not remove her own alarm, for she had been too +much terrified to be easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in +by a legion of Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them. + +The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of Royalty +had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to herself, got into +her travelling bed, where she was snoring peacefully, while the large +bonnet, carefully disposed upon the drum, was revealing its glories by +the light of a dim lamp that swung from the roof. The child’s bed was +already made upon the floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear +the steps removed as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy +communication between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this +means effectually prevented. Certain guttural sounds, too, which from +time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a rustling +of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the driver was +couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an additional feeling of +security. + +Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken sleep +by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who throughout her +uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the wax-work, or was wax-work +himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work too, or was himself, Mrs +Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all in one, and yet not exactly +any of them either. At length, towards break of day, that deep sleep +came upon her which succeeds to weariness and over-watching, and which +has no consciousness but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment. + + + + +CHAPTER 28 + +Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke, +Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively +engaged in preparing breakfast. She received Nell’s apology for being +so late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have +roused her if she had slept on until noon. + +‘Because it does you good,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘when you’re +tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off; +and that’s another blessing of your time of life--you can sleep so very +sound.’ + +‘Have you had a bad night, ma’am?’ asked Nell. + +‘I seldom have anything else, child,’ replied Mrs Jarley, with the air +of a martyr. ‘I sometimes wonder how I bear it.’ + +Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the +caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night, +Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake. +However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account +of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her +grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell +assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper +places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed +herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a +progress through the streets of the town. + +‘The wan will come on to bring the boxes,’ said Mrs Jarley, and you had +better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my +will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can’t be +their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I +look, child?’ + +Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a +great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several +abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last +satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically. + +The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through +the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind +of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the +dreaded face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square +which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was +the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were +houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of +lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with +withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street. +These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in +some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets +were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men +lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the +tradesmen’s doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an +alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going +anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some +straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for +minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and +they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked +voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were +all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, +forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners +of the window. + +Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at +the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group +of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the +curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her +grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out +with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs +Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and +a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose +their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental devices +in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room. + +They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As +the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the +envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to +assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also +was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great +deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a +linen pocket like a toll-collector’s which she wore for the purpose, +and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion. + +While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and +black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the +sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was +now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--dressed too in +ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps +in the winter of their existence--looked in at the door and smiled +affably. Mrs Jarley’s back being then towards him, the military +gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to +apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped +her on the neck, and cried playfully ‘Boh!’ + +‘What, Mr Slum!’ cried the lady of the wax-work. ‘Lot! who’d have +thought of seeing you here!’ + +‘’Pon my soul and honour,’ said Mr Slum, ‘that’s a good remark. ‘Pon +my soul and honour that’s a wise remark. Who would have thought it! +George, my faithful feller, how are you?’ + +George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that +he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all +the time. + +‘I came here,’ said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--‘’pon +my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would +puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, +a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and-- ‘Pon my soul +and honour,’ said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking +round the room, ‘what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it’s +quite Minervian.’ + +‘It’ll look well enough when it comes to be finished,’ observed Mrs +Jarley. + +‘Well enough!’ said Mr Slum. ‘Will you believe me when I say it’s the +delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I’ve +exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way--any orders? Is +there any little thing I can do for you?’ + +‘It comes so very expensive, sir,’ replied Mrs Jarley, ‘and I really +don’t think it does much good.’ + +‘Hush! No, no!’ returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. ‘No fibs. I’ll +not hear it. Don’t say it don’t do good. Don’t say it. I know +better!’ + +‘I don’t think it does,’ said Mrs Jarley. + +‘Ha, ha!’ cried Mr Slum, ‘you’re giving way, you’re coming down. Ask +the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old +lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among ‘em what my poetry has done +for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he’s an +honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of +Slum--mark that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs +Jarley?’ + +‘Yes, surely.’ + +‘Then upon my soul and honour, ma’am, you’ll find in a certain angle of +that dreary pile, called Poets’ Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,’ +retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead +to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. ‘I’ve +got a little trifle here, now,’ said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which +was full of scraps of paper, ‘a little trifle here, thrown off in the +heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted +to set this place on fire with. It’s an acrostic--the name at this +moment is Warren, and the idea’s a convertible one, and a positive +inspiration for Jarley. Have the acrostic.’ + +‘I suppose it’s very dear,’ said Mrs Jarley. + +‘Five shillings,’ returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick. +‘Cheaper than any prose.’ + +‘I couldn’t give more than three,’ said Mrs Jarley. + +‘--And six,’ retorted Slum. ‘Come. Three-and-six.’ + +Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet’s insinuating manner, and Mr +Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny +one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most +affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon +as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer. + +As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the +preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly +after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as +they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were +displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running +round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast +high, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in +groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and +standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very +wide open, and their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of +their legs and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances +expressing great surprise. All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted +and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous +figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking +intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at +nothing. + +When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight, Mrs +Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, +and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, formally +invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out +the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty. + +‘That,’ said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a +figure at the beginning of the platform, ‘is an unfortunate Maid of +Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her +finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood +which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the +period, with which she is at work.’ + +All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the +needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next. + +‘That, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘is Jasper Packlemerton +of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and +destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were +sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. On being +brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, +he replied yes, he was sorry for having let ‘em off so easy, and hoped +all Christian husbands would pardon him the offence. Let this be a +warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the +gentlemen of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if +in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink, +as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders.’ + +When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without +faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin +man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a +hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who +poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical +characters and interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did +Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them, +that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours, +she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment, +and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors. + +Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result, +and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining +arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been +already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription +she had already seen (Mr Slum’s productions), and a highly ornamented +table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was +to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty King George +the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous +gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a +correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The +preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of +great personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico +over the door; and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, +and the clearest possible complexion, was at that moment going round +the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady. + +It now only remained that Mr Slum’s compositions should be judiciously +distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all +private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing ‘If I +know’d a donkey,’ should be confined to the taverns, and circulated +only among the lawyers’ clerks and choice spirits of the place. When +this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools +in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was +distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, +and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable +lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a +flourishing campaign. + + + + +CHAPTER 29 + +Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the +various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell +was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand usually made +his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and +the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved +as usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with +artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through +the town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the +sound of drum and trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her +gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little +country place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest +in the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be +important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief +attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed +girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and +constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed in small-text, +at the wax-work door. + +This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell +should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and +kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every +half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. And these +audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many +young ladies’ boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at +great pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr +Grimaldi as clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when +engaged in the composition of his English Grammar, and turning a +murderess of great renown into Mrs Hannah More--both of which +likenesses were admitted by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of +the head Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who +condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to +be quite startling from their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a +nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet +Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, +white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord +Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss +Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to +reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select: +observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite +incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean +and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand. + +Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady +of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a +peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody +about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is, +even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more +rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its +necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various little +fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll, +and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no +cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which +sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might +return and one day suddenly encounter them. + +Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was +constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. +She slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work +figures were, and she never retired to this place at night but she +tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining a resemblance, +in some one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this +fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he +had removed the figure and stood within the clothes. Then there were +so many of them with their great glassy eyes--and, as they stood one +behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living +creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that +she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often +lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and +light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a +companionship in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall +the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then +she would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came +into her eyes, and she would weep and smile together. + +Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her +grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their +former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in +their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When +they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she +could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick, +or her own strength were to fail her. He was very patient and willing, +happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in +the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement--a mere +child--a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature--a harmless fond old man, +susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and +painful impressions, but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad +to know that this was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat +idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he +caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was fond of +doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions, yet +patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of it +too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--so sad it made her +to see him thus, that she would burst into tears, and, withdrawing into +some secret place, fall down upon her knees and pray that he might be +restored. + +But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this +condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her +solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials for +a young heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to come. + +One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather went +out to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some days, and +the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance. Clear of the +town, they took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields, +judging that it would terminate in the road they quitted and enable +them to return that way. It made, however, a much wider circuit than +they had supposed, and thus they were tempted onward until sunset, when +they reached the track of which they were in search, and stopped to +rest. + +It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and +lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of +gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there +through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind +began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day +elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced +thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as +the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they +left behind and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low +rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the +darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant. + +Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and the +child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which +they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst forth in +earnest, and every moment increased in violence. Drenched with the +pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and bewildered by the +glare of the forked lightning, they would have passed a solitary house +without being aware of its vicinity, had not a man, who was standing at +the door, called lustily to them to enter. + +‘Your ears ought to be better than other folks’ at any rate, if you +make so little of the chance of being struck blind,’ he said, +retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the +jagged lightning came again. ‘What were you going past for, eh?’ he +added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to a room +behind. + +‘We didn’t see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,’ Nell replied. + +‘No wonder,’ said the man, ‘with this lightning in one’s eyes, +by-the-by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a +bit. You can call for what you like if you want anything. If you +don’t want anything, you are not obliged to give an order. Don’t be +afraid of that. This is a public-house, that’s all. The Valiant +Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.’ + +‘Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?’ asked Nell. + +‘I thought everybody knew that,’ replied the landlord. ‘Where have you +come from, if you don’t know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church +catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--Jem +Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character, +and has a good dry skittle-ground. If any man has got anything to say +again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can +accommodate him with a customer on any terms from four pound a side to +forty. + +With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to +intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred +scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society +in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and, applying a +half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves’s +health. + +The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room, +for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if somebody +on the other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr +Groves’s prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical +expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock +upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side. + +‘There an’t many men,’ said Mr Groves, no answer being returned, ‘who +would ventur’ to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There’s only one +man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man’s not a +hundred mile from here neither. But he’s worth a dozen men, and I let +him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he knows that.’ + +In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice +bade Mr Groves ‘hold his noise and light a candle.’ And the same voice +remarked that the same gentleman ‘needn’t waste his breath in brag, for +most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.’ + +‘Nell, they’re--they’re playing cards,’ whispered the old man, suddenly +interested. ‘Don’t you hear them?’ + +‘Look sharp with that candle,’ said the voice; ‘it’s as much as I can +do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed +as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse for +to-night’s thunder I expect.--Game! Seven-and-sixpence to me, old +Isaac. Hand over.’ + +‘Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?’ whispered the old man again, +with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table. + +‘I haven’t seen such a storm as this,’ said a sharp cracked voice of +most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died +away, ‘since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running +on the red. We all said he had the Devil’s luck and his own, and as it +was the kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he +was looking over his shoulder, if anybody could have seen him.’ + +‘Ah!’ returned the gruff voice; ‘for all old Luke’s winning through +thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the +unluckiest and unfortunatest of men. He never took a dice-box in his +hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned out +completely.’ + +‘Do you hear what he says?’ whispered the old man. ‘Do you hear that, +Nell?’ + +The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had +undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his eyes +were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the +hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that she shook beneath +its grasp. + +‘Bear witness,’ he muttered, looking upward, ‘that I always said it; +that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that it must +be so! What money have we, Nell? Come! I saw you with money +yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.’ + +‘No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,’ said the frightened child. ‘Let +us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.’ + +‘Give it to me, I say,’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘Hush, hush, +don’t cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn’t mean it. It’s for +thy good. I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right thee yet, I will +indeed. Where is the money?’ + +‘Do not take it,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not take it, dear. For +both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away--better let me +throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.’ + +‘Give me the money,’ returned the old man, ‘I must have it. +There--there--that’s my dear Nell. I’ll right thee one day, child, +I’ll right thee, never fear!’ + +She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with the same +rapid impatience which had characterised his speech, and hastily made +his way to the other side of the screen. It was impossible to restrain +him, and the trembling child followed close behind. + +The landlord had placed a light upon the table, and was engaged in +drawing the curtain of the window. The speakers whom they had heard +were two men, who had a pack of cards and some silver money between +them, while upon the screen itself the games they had played were +scored in chalk. The man with the rough voice was a burly fellow of +middle age, with large black whiskers, broad cheeks, a coarse wide +mouth, and bull neck, which was pretty freely displayed as his shirt +collar was only confined by a loose red neckerchief. He wore his hat, +which was of a brownish-white, and had beside him a thick knotted +stick. The other man, whom his companion had called Isaac, was of a +more slender figure--stooping, and high in the shoulders--with a very +ill-favoured face, and a most sinister and villainous squint. + +‘Now old gentleman,’ said Isaac, looking round. ‘Do you know either of +us? This side of the screen is private, sir.’ + +‘No offence, I hope,’ returned the old man. + +‘But by G--, sir, there is offence,’ said the other, interrupting him, +‘when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are +particularly engaged.’ + +‘I had no intention to offend,’ said the old man, looking anxiously at +the cards. ‘I thought that--’ + +‘But you had no right to think, sir,’ retorted the other. ‘What the +devil has a man at your time of life to do with thinking?’ + +‘Now bully boy,’ said the stout man, raising his eyes from his cards +for the first time, ‘can’t you let him speak?’ + +The landlord, who had apparently resolved to remain neutral until he +knew which side of the question the stout man would espouse, chimed in +at this place with ‘Ah, to be sure, can’t you let him speak, Isaac +List?’ + +‘Can’t I let him speak,’ sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as nearly as +he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord. ‘Yes, I can +let him speak, Jemmy Groves.’ + +‘Well then, do it, will you?’ said the landlord. + +Mr List’s squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to +threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who +had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to it. + +‘Who knows,’ said he, with a cunning look, ‘but the gentleman may have +civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a hand with +us!’ + +‘I did mean it,’ cried the old man. ‘That is what I mean. That is +what I want now!’ + +‘I thought so,’ returned the same man. ‘Then who knows but the +gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly desired +to play for money?’ + +The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand, and +then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the cards as a +miser would clutch at gold. + +‘Oh! That indeed,’ said Isaac; ‘if that’s what the gentleman meant, I +beg the gentleman’s pardon. Is this the gentleman’s little purse? A +very pretty little purse. Rather a light purse,’ added Isaac, throwing +it into the air and catching it dexterously, ‘but enough to amuse a +gentleman for half an hour or so.’ + +‘We’ll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,’ said the +stout man. ‘Come, Jemmy.’ + +The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to such +little parties, approached the table and took his seat. The child, in +a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored him, even +then, to come away. + +‘Come; and we may be so happy,’ said the child. + +‘We WILL be happy,’ replied the old man hastily. ‘Let me go, Nell. +The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice. We must rise +from little winnings to great. There’s little to be won here; but +great will come in time. I shall but win back my own, and it’s all for +thee, my darling.’ + +‘God help us!’ cried the child. ‘Oh! what hard fortune brought us +here?’ + +‘Hush!’ rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth, ‘Fortune +will not bear chiding. We must not reproach her, or she shuns us; I +have found that out.’ + +‘Now, mister,’ said the stout man. ‘If you’re not coming yourself, +give us the cards, will you?’ + +‘I am coming,’ cried the old man. ‘Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee down +and look on. Be of good heart, it’s all for thee--all--every penny. +I don’t tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn’t play, dreading the +chance that such a cause must give me. Look at them. See what they +are and what thou art. Who doubts that we must win!’ + +‘The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn’t coming,’ said Isaac, +making as though he would rise from the table. ‘I’m sorry the +gentleman’s daunted--nothing venture, nothing have--but the gentleman +knows best.’ + +‘Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,’ said the old man. ‘I +wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.’ + +As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing +round it at the same time, the game commenced. + +The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind. +Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate +passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were +to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by a +defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and intensely +anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry stakes, that she +could have almost better borne to see him dead. And yet she was the +innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage +thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one +selfish thought! + +On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their +trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if +every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would +look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to +glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and +fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than +the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out; +but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their +cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of +passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone. + +The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown +fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break +above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance; +and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite +forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER 30 + +At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only +winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional +fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had +quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor +pleased. + +Nell’s little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his +side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man +sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before, +and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held +if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this +occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his +shoulder, telling him it was near midnight. + +‘See the curse of poverty, Nell,’ he said, pointing to the packs he had +spread out upon the table. ‘If I could have gone on a little longer, +only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it’s +as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here--and there--and here +again.’ + +‘Put them away,’ urged the child. ‘Try to forget them.’ + +‘Try to forget them!’ he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers, +and regarding her with an incredulous stare. ‘To forget them! How are +we ever to grow rich if I forget them?’ + +The child could only shake her head. + +‘No, no, Nell,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘they must not be +forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can. +Patience--patience, and we’ll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose +to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and +care--nothing. Come, I am ready.’ + +‘Do you know what the time is?’ said Mr Groves, who was smoking with +his friends. ‘Past twelve o’clock--’ + +‘--And a rainy night,’ added the stout man. + +‘The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment +for man and beast,’ said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. ‘Half-past +twelve o’clock.’ + +‘It’s very late,’ said the uneasy child. ‘I wish we had gone before. +What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get +back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?’ + +‘Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total +two shillings and sixpence,’ replied the Valiant Soldier. + +Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she +came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of +Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they +would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle +of the night--and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they +remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get +back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by +which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence--she +decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore +took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough +left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should +stay there for the night. + +‘If I had had but that money before--If I had only known of it a few +minutes ago!’ muttered the old man. + +‘We will decide to stop here if you please,’ said Nell, turning hastily +to the landlord. + +‘I think that’s prudent,’ returned Mr Groves. ‘You shall have your +suppers directly.’ + +Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the +ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the +bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many +high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and +make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for +both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for +whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled +themselves with spirits and tobacco. + +As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was +anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But +as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her +grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly +from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following +the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in +the little bar. + +‘Will you give me the change here, if you please?’ said the child. + +Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and +rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as though he +had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being genuine, +however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like a wise +landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he counted out +the change, and gave it her. The child was returning to the room where +they had passed the evening, when she fancied she saw a figure just +gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a long dark passage +between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and, +being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood +there, the thought struck her that she had been watched. + +But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates +exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two chairs, +resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed in a +similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between them sat +her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a kind of hungry +admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were some superior +being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked round to see if any +else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper +whether anybody had left the room while she was absent. ‘No,’ he said, +‘nobody.’ + +It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that, without +anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should have +imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still wondering and +thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed. + +The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they went +up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull +corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to make +more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her +guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by +some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl +lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not +a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She +was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn’t recommend her +to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be +difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very +indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such +like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there +oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn’t have +it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some +rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a +soldiering--a final promise of knocking at the door early in the +morning--and ‘Good night.’ + +The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could +not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down +stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The +men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and +murdering travellers. Who could tell? + +Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a +little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the +night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her +grandfather’s breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt +him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned +already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be +forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they +stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any +circumstances, to have gone on! + +At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep, +troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start +and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What! +That figure in the room. + +A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light +when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the +dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with +noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry +for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it. + +On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed’s head. The breath +so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering +hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the +window--then turned its head towards her. + +The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room, +but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes +looked and the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she. +At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in +something, and she heard the chink of money. + +Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing +the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and +knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she +could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the +door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its +noiseless tread, and it was gone. + +The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by +herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--and then +her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of having +moved, she gained the door. + +There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps. + +She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness +without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure +stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for +going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on. + +The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing +streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape +into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the +walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The +figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in her +grandfather’s room, she would be safe. + +It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so +ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had +almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and +closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again. + +The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and had a +design upon the old man’s life! She turned faint and sick. It did. +It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the +chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost senseless--stood +looking on. + +The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but +meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and +looked in. What sight was that which met her view! + +The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table +sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face +pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally +bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her. + + + + +CHAPTER 31 + +With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had +approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her +way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was +nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber, +no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing +to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however +terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread +which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed +old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while +he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging +over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was +worse--immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to +reflect upon--than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. +If he should return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, +distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back +to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his +slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the +empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch, +which was almost insupportable. She sat and listened. Hark! A +footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening. It was +but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay, +it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an +end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away. + +The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror. She +had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this +disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that +night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting +the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his +shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, +and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept +close about her, as he did. She could scarcely connect her own +affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like +yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much +greater cause she had for weeping now! + +The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom +in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be +a relief to hear the old man’s voice, or, if he were asleep, even to +see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image. +She stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar +as she had left it, and the candle burning as before. + +She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking, +that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were +still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his +bed, and so took courage to enter. + +Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild +desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler, +or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man +whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was +her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind +grandfather. + +She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had +a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears. + +‘God bless him!’ said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid +cheek. ‘I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they +found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He +has only me to help him. God bless us both!’ + +Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and, +gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that +long, long, miserable night. + +At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep. +She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as +soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But +first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all +gone--not a sixpence remained. + +The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road. +The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect +that she would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do that, or he +might suspect the truth. + +‘Grandfather,’ she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked +about a mile in silence, ‘do you think they are honest people at the +house yonder?’ + +‘Why?’ returned the old man trembling. ‘Do I think them honest--yes, +they played honestly.’ + +‘I’ll tell you why I ask,’ rejoined Nell. ‘I lost some money last +night--out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by somebody +in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh +heartily if I could but know it--’ + +‘Who would take money in jest?’ returned the old man in a hurried +manner. ‘Those who take money, take it to keep. Don’t talk of jest.’ + +‘Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,’ said the child, whose last +hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply. + +‘But is there no more, Nell?’ said the old man; ‘no more anywhere? Was +it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?’ + +‘Nothing,’ replied the child. + +‘We must get more,’ said the old man, ‘we must earn it, Nell, hoard it +up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss. +Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don’t ask how;--we +may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody, or trouble may +come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert +asleep!’ he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the +secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. ‘Poor Nell, poor +little Nell!’ + +The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in which +he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not the +lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her. + +‘Not a word about it to any one but me,’ said the old man, ‘no, not +even to me,’ he added hastily, ‘for it can do no good. All the losses +that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should +they be, when we will win them back?’ + +‘Let them go,’ said the child looking up. ‘Let them go, once and for +ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a +thousand pounds.’ + +‘Well, well,’ returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous +answer rose to his lips, ‘she knows no better. I ought to be thankful +of it.’ + +‘But listen to me,’ said the child earnestly, ‘will you listen to me?’ + +‘Aye, aye, I’ll listen,’ returned the old man, still without looking at +her; ‘a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always +had when it was her mother’s, poor child.’ + +‘Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,’ said the +child, ‘to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but +the fortune we pursue together.’ + +‘We pursue this aim together,’ retorted her grandfather, still looking +away and seeming to confer with himself. ‘Whose image sanctifies the +game?’ + +‘Have we been worse off,’ resumed the child, ‘since you forgot these +cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not been much +better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in +that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?’ + +‘She speaks the truth,’ murmured the old man in the same tone as +before. ‘It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.’ + +‘Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we +turned our backs upon it for the last time,’ said Nell, ‘only remember +what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries--what +peaceful days and quiet nights we have had--what pleasant times we have +known--what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or +hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. +Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have +felt. And why was this blessed change?’ + +He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no +more just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, +still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, +and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, +as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. +Once she saw tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some +time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing +of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so +fine that the child could not trace them, he settled down into his +usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would. + +When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous +collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley was +not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some uneasiness +on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for them until past +eleven o’clock, she had retired in the persuasion, that, being +overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had sought the +nearest shelter, and would not return before morning. Nell immediately +applied herself with great assiduity to the decoration and preparation +of the room, and had the satisfaction of completing her task, and +dressing herself neatly, before the beloved of the Royal Family came +down to breakfast. + +‘We haven’t had,’ said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, ‘more than +eight of Miss Monflathers’s young ladies all the time we’ve been here, +and there’s twenty-six of ‘em, as I was told by the cook when I asked +her a question or two and put her on the free-list. We must try ‘em +with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and see +what effect that has upon ‘em.’ + +The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs Jarley +adjusted Nell’s bonnet with her own hands, and declaring that she +certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on the +establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and certain +needful directions as to the turnings on the right which she was to +take, and the turnings on the left which she was to avoid. Thus +instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Monflathers’s +Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large house, with a high +wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass plate, and a small +grating through which Miss Monflathers’s parlour-maid inspected all +visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man--no, +not even a milkman--was suffered, without special license, to pass that +gate. Even the tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a +broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating. More +obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflathers’s +frowned on all mankind. The very butcher respected it as a gate of +mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell. + +As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges +with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond, came a +long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their +hands, and some with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly +procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac +silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of +the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers. + +Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with +downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss +Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she curtseyed +and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers +commanded that the line should halt. + +‘You’re the wax-work child, are you not?’ said Miss Monflathers. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had +collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were +fixed. + +‘And don’t you think you must be a very wicked little child,’ said Miss +Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no +opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the +young ladies, ‘to be a wax-work child at all?’ + +Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing +what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before. + +‘Don’t you know,’ said Miss Monflathers, ‘that it’s very naughty and +unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly +transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their +dormant state through the medium of cultivation?’ + +The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this +home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that +there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard. Then they smiled +and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they +exchanged looks which plainly said that each considered herself smiler +in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and regarded the other as having no +right to smile, and that her so doing was an act of presumption and +impertinence. + +‘Don’t you feel how naughty it is of you,’ resumed Miss Monflathers, +‘to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud consciousness of +assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of +your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of +the steam-engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent +subsistence of from two-and-ninepence to three shillings per week? +Don’t you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?’ + +‘“How doth the little--“’ murmured one of the teachers, in quotation +from Doctor Watts. + +‘Eh?’ said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. ‘Who said that?’ + +Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had, +whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that +means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy. + +‘The little busy bee,’ said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, ‘is +applicable only to genteel children. + + “In books, or work, or healthful play” + +is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means +painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery. In such cases as +these,’ pointing to Nell, with her parasol, ‘and in the case of all +poor people’s children, we should read it thus: + + + “In work, work, work. In work alway + Let my first years be past, + That I may give for ev’ry day + Some good account at last.”’ + + +A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from +all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers +improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long +known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original +poet. Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying, +and all eyes were again turned towards her. + +There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief +to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could +stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who +had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no +recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. +She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the +governess. + +‘It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,’ said Miss Monflathers +predictively. ‘Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.’ + +It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss +Edwards herself admitted that it was. + +‘Is it not,’ said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a +severer view of the offender, ‘a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, +that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you +to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that +all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your +original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you +extremely vulgar-minded girl?’ + +‘I really intended no harm, ma’am,’ said a sweet voice. ‘It was a +momentary impulse, indeed.’ + +‘An impulse!’ repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. ‘I wonder that you +presume to speak of impulses to me’--both the teachers assented--‘I am +astonished’--both the teachers were astonished--‘I suppose it is an +impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and +debased person that comes in your way’--both the teachers supposed so +too. + +‘But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,’ resumed the governess in a +tone of increased severity, ‘that you cannot be permitted--if it be +only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this +establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not be +permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly +gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before +wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must +either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss +Edwards.’ + +This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the +school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for +nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down and +rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers +in the house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were +better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations +with much more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for +they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. The +pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell +about home; no friends to come with post-horses, and be received in all +humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant +to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk +about, and nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always +vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass? + +Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers’s cap, and the brightest +glory of Miss Monflathers’s school, was a baronet’s daughter--the real +live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by some extraordinary +reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull +in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a +handsome face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, +who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day +outshining and excelling the baronet’s daughter, who learned all the +extras (or was taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to +double that of any other young lady’s in the school, making no account +of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because +she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss +Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she +had compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as +we have already seen. + +‘You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,’ said Miss +Monflathers. ‘Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to +leave it without permission.’ + +The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in +nautical phrase, ‘brought to’ by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers. + +‘She has passed me without any salute!’ cried the governess, raising +her eyes to the sky. ‘She has actually passed me without the slightest +acknowledgment of my presence!’ + +The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised her +dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and +that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most +touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only +tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting +heart. + +‘As for you, you wicked child,’ said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell, +‘tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending +to me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have +her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and +you may depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the +treadmill if you dare to come here again. Now ladies, on.’ + +The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and +Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet’s daughter to walk with her and +smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--who by this +time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--and left them +to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being +obliged to walk together. + + + + +CHAPTER 32 + +Mrs Jarley’s wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with +the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The +genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children, +and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn +of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and +arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and humility! +And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed, even in the +dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to conjure up the +degrading picture, ‘I am a’most inclined,’ said Mrs Jarley, bursting +with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of her means of revenge, +‘to turn atheist when I think of it!’ + +But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on +second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering +glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a +chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several +times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received. This +done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed, +then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and cried +again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went +on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at last she +could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object +of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity. + +‘For which of us is best off, I wonder,’ quoth Mrs Jarley, ‘she or me! +It’s only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in +the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal +funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter, after all!’ + +Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been +greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the +philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words, +and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss +Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days +of her life. + +So ended Mrs Jarley’s wrath, which subsided long before the going down +of the sun. Nell’s anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the +checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed. + +That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did +not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she was, and +fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes, +until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still +hotly bent upon his infatuation. + +‘Get me money,’ he said wildly, as they parted for the night. ‘I must +have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one +day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine--not for +myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use for thee!’ + +What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every +penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob +their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child) he +would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he +would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him +up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by these thoughts, +borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell, +tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, +and dreading alike his stay and his return, the colour forsook her +cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. All +her old sorrows had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and +doubts; by day they were ever present to her mind; by night they +hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams. + +It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often +revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty +glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt +in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if +she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much +lighter her heart would be--that if she were but free to hear that +voice, she would be happier. Then she would wish that she were +something better, that she were not quite so poor and humble, that she +dared address her without fearing a repulse; and then feel that there +was an immeasurable distance between them, and have no hope that the +young lady thought of her any more. + +It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone +home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London, +and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said +anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she +had any home to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything +about her. But one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk, +she happened to pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as +one drove up, and there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered, +pressing forward to embrace a young child whom they were helping down +from the roof. + +Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell, +whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years, +and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving +her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would break +when she saw them meet. They went a little apart from the knot of +people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other’s +neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their plain and simple dress, the +distance which the child had come alone, their agitation and delight, +and the tears they shed, would have told their history by themselves. + +They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not +so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. ‘Are you sure you’re +happy, sister?’ said the child as they passed where Nell was standing. +‘Quite happy now,’ she answered. ‘But always?’ said the child. ‘Ah, +sister, why do you turn away your face?’ + +Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to the +house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room +for the child. ‘I shall come to you early every morning,’ she said, +‘and we can be together all the day.’ + +‘Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you +for that?’ + +Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those +of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had +met, and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part? Let us +not believe that any selfish reference--unconscious though it might +have been--to her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that +the innocent joys of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in +our fallen nature, have one source of pure emotion which must be prized +in Heaven! + +By morning’s cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening’s gentle +light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of +these two sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful +word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in +their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the +grass when they sat down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a +companionship and delight to be so near them. Their evening walk was +by a river’s side. Here, every night, the child was too, unseen by +them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they were her +friends, as if they had confidences and trusts together, as if her load +were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, +and found mutual consolation. It was a weak fancy perhaps, the +childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night after night, +and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child +followed with a mild and softened heart. + +She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that Mrs +Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the effect that +the stupendous collection would only remain in its present quarters one +day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for all announcements +connected with public amusements are well known to be irrevocable and +most exact), the stupendous collection shut up next day. + +‘Are we going from this place directly, ma’am?’ said Nell. + +‘Look here, child,’ returned Mrs Jarley. ‘That’ll inform you.’ And so +saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it was stated, +that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the wax-work door, and in +consequence of crowds having been disappointed in obtaining admission, +the Exhibition would be continued for one week longer, and would +re-open next day. + +‘For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers +exhausted,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘we come to the General Public, and they +want stimulating.’ + +Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind +the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies +before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the +readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But the first +day’s operations were by no means of a successful character, inasmuch +as the general public, though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs +Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen +for nothing, were not affected by any impulses moving them to the +payment of sixpence a head. Thus, notwithstanding that a great many +people continued to stare at the entry and the figures therein +displayed; and remained there with great perseverance, by the hour at a +time, to hear the barrel-organ played and to read the bills; and +notwithstanding that they were kind enough to recommend their friends +to patronise the exhibition in the like manner, until the door-way was +regularly blockaded by half the population of the town, who, when they +went off duty, were relieved by the other half; it was not found that +the treasury was any the richer, or that the prospects of the +establishment were at all encouraging. + +In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made +extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the +popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the +leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the +figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great +admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way, who +looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the degrading +effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of the Romish +Church and discoursed upon that theme with great eloquence and +morality. The two carters constantly passed in and out of the +exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the +sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all +their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not +to neglect such a brilliant gratification. Mrs Jarley sat in the +pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly +calling upon the crowd to take notice that the price of admission was +only sixpence, and that the departure of the whole collection, on a +short tour among the Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed for +that day week. + +‘So be in time, be in time, be in time,’ said Mrs Jarley at the close +of every such address. ‘Remember that this is Jarley’s stupendous +collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it is the only +collection in the world; all others being imposters and deceptions. Be +in time, be in time, be in time!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 33 + +As the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted, +somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the +domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient place +than the present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the historian +takes the friendly reader by the hand, and springing with him into the +air, and cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don Cleophas +Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar travelled through that pleasant +region in company, alights with him upon the pavement of Bevis Marks. + +The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the +residence of Mr Sampson Brass. + +In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon +the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim glass +with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is very dirty--in +this parlour window in the days of its occupation by Sampson Brass, +there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by the sun, a curtain +of faded green, so threadbare from long service as by no means to +intercept the view of the little dark room, but rather to afford a +favourable medium through which to observe it accurately. There was +not much to look at. A rickety table, with spare bundles of papers, +yellow and ragged from long carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously +displayed upon its top; a couple of stools set face to face on opposite +sides of this crazy piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the +fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and +helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository +for blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the +sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged to +the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common books +of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted hearth-broom, a +carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the tightness of +desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow wainscot of the walls, +the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs, were among the +most prominent decorations of the office of Mr Sampson Brass. + +But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate, +‘BRASS, Solicitor,’ upon the door, and the bill, ‘First floor to let to +a single gentleman,’ which was tied to the knocker. The office +commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of +this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more +particular concern. + +Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in these +pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, +confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser, +Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable +to offer a brief description. + +Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a +gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed +the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly +inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers +who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking +resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so exact, indeed, was the likeness +between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty +and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic +and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest +friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, +especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish +demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her +attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in +all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the +eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural +impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty +sallow, so to speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy +glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice +was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, +not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not +unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and +terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly +large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and +plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or +kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a +brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, +twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy +and graceful head-dress. + +Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and +vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with +uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon +its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through +all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues +its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined +herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; +inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with +perfect accuracy, and, in short, transact any ordinary duty of the +office down to pouncing a skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is +difficult to understand how, possessed of these combined attractions, +she should remain Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart +against mankind, or whether those who might have wooed and won her, +were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law, she might have +too near her fingers’ ends those particular statutes which regulate +what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she +was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her +old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally certain +it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people +had come to the ground. + +One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal +process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if he +were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it was +directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen +preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite +occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time, until Miss +Brass broke silence. + +‘Have you nearly done, Sammy?’ said Miss Brass; for in her mild and +feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened down. + +‘No,’ returned her brother. ‘It would have been all done though, if +you had helped at the right time.’ + +‘Oh yes, indeed,’ cried Miss Sally; ‘you want my help, don’t you?--YOU, +too, that are going to keep a clerk!’ + +‘Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own +wish, you provoking rascal!’ said Mr Brass, putting his pen in his +mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister. ‘What do you taunt me +about going to keep a clerk for?’ + +It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling a +lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that he was +so habituated to having her near him in a man’s capacity, that he had +gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though she were really a +man. And this feeling was so perfectly reciprocal, that not only did +Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a rascal, or even put an adjective +before the rascal, but Miss Brass looked upon it as quite a matter of +course, and was as little moved as any other lady would be by being +called an angel. + +‘What do you taunt me, after three hours’ talk last night, with going +to keep a clerk for?’ repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with the pen in +his mouth, like some nobleman’s or gentleman’s crest. ‘Is it my fault?’ + +‘All I know is,’ said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted in +nothing so much as irritating her brother, ‘that if every one of your +clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you +had better leave off business, strike yourself off the roll, and get +taken in execution, as soon as you can.’ + +‘Have we got any other client like him?’ said Brass. ‘Have we got +another client like him now--will you answer me that?’ + +‘Do you mean in the face!’ said his sister. + +‘Do I mean in the face!’ sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to take +up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. ‘Look +here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp, +Esquire--all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he +recommends, and says, “this is the man for you,” or lose all this, eh?’ + +Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on with +her work. + +‘But I know what it is,’ resumed Brass after a short silence. ‘You’re +afraid you won’t have as long a finger in the business as you’ve been +used to have. Do you think I don’t see through that?’ + +‘The business wouldn’t go on very long, I expect, without me,’ returned +his sister composedly. ‘Don’t you be a fool and provoke me, Sammy, but +mind what you’re doing, and do it.’ + +Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister, sulkily +bent over his writing again, and listened as she said: + +‘If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he +wouldn’t be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don’t talk +nonsense.’ + +Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely +remarking, under his breath, that he didn’t like that kind of joking, +and that Miss Sally would be ‘a much better fellow’ if she forbore to +aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied, that she had a +relish for the amusement, and had no intention to forego its +gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to pursue the +subject any further, they both plied their pens at a great pace, and +there the discussion ended. + +While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as by +some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss Sally +looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly lowered from +without, and Quilp thrust in his head. + +‘Hallo!’ he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking +down into the room. ‘Is there anybody at home? Is there any of the +Devil’s ware here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. ‘Oh, very +good, Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what +humour he has!’ + +‘Is that my Sally?’ croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass. ‘Is +it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword and +scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of Bevis?’ + +‘What an amazing flow of spirits!’ cried Brass. ‘Upon my word, it’s +quite extraordinary!’ + +‘Open the door,’ said Quilp, ‘I’ve got him here. Such a clerk for you, +Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps. Be quick and open the +door, or if there’s another lawyer near and he should happen to look +out of window, he’ll snap him up before your eyes, he will.’ + +It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a rival +practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass’s heart; but, pretending +great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the door, returned, +introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than Mr +Richard Swiveller. + +‘There she is,’ said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling +up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; ‘there is the woman I +ought to have married--there is the beautiful Sarah--there is the +female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses. +Oh Sally, Sally!’ + +To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded ‘Bother!’ + +‘Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,’ said Quilp. +‘Why don’t she change it--melt down the brass, and take another name?’ + +‘Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,’ returned Miss Sally, with a grim +smile. ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself before a strange young +man.’ + +‘The strange young man,’ said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward, +‘is too susceptible himself not to understand me well. This is Mr +Swiveller, my intimate friend--a gentleman of good family and great +expectations, but who, having rather involved himself by youthful +indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the humble station of a +clerk--humble, but here most enviable. What a delicious atmosphere!’ + +If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air +breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty +creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said. But if he +spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass’s office in a +literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it was of a close +and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently impregnated with strong +whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel exposed for sale in Duke’s +Place and Houndsditch, had a decided flavour of rats and mice, and a +taint of mouldiness. Perhaps some doubts of its pure delight presented +themselves to Mr Swiveller, as he gave vent to one or two short abrupt +sniffs, and looked incredulously at the grinning dwarf. + +‘Mr Swiveller,’ said Quilp, ‘being pretty well accustomed to the +agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently +considers that half a loaf is better than no bread. To be out of +harm’s way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he +accepts your brother’s offer. Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.’ + +‘I am very glad, Sir,’ said Mr Brass, ‘very glad indeed. Mr Swiveller, +Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship. You may be very +proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.’ + +Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to +give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of +friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared +to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he +stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf +beyond measure. As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her +hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the +office with her pen behind her ear. + +‘I suppose,’ said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, ‘that +Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once? It’s Monday morning.’ + +‘At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,’ returned Brass. + +‘Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,’ said +Quilp; ‘she’ll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone, +his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer’s Best Companion.’ + +‘He is exceedingly eloquent,’ said Brass, like a man abstracted, and +looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his +pockets; ‘he has an extraordinary flow of language. Beautiful, really.’ + +‘With Miss Sally,’ Quilp went on, ‘and the beautiful fictions of the +law, his days will pass like minutes. Those charming creations of the +poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon him, will +open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of +his heart.’ + +‘Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Beau-ti-ful indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘It’s a +treat to hear him!’ + +‘Where will Mr Swiveller sit?’ said Quilp, looking round. + +‘Why, we’ll buy another stool, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘We hadn’t any +thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough +to suggest it, and our accommodation’s not extensive. We’ll look about +for a second-hand stool, sir. In the meantime, if Mr Swiveller will +take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of this ejectment, as I +shall be out pretty well all the morning--’ + +‘Walk with me,’ said Quilp. ‘I have a word or two to say to you on +points of business. Can you spare the time?’ + +‘Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir? You’re joking, sir, +you’re joking with me,’ replied the lawyer, putting on his hat. ‘I’m +ready, sir, quite ready. My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir, +not to leave me time to walk with you. It’s not everybody, sir, who +has an opportunity of improving himself by the conversation of Mr +Quilp.’ + +The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short +dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally. After a +very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and gentlemanly sort +of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the +attorney. + +Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring with +all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some curious +animal whose like had never lived. When the dwarf got into the street, +he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into the office for a +moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep into a cage. Dick +glanced upward at him, but without any token of recognition; and long +after he had disappeared, still stood gazing upon Miss Sally Brass, +seeing or thinking of nothing else, and rooted to the spot. + +Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no notice +whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen, scoring +down the figures with evident delight, and working like a steam-engine. +There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now at the brown +head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen, in a state of +stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the company of that +strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he would ever wake. At +last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly pulling off his coat. + +Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great +elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue +jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally +ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that morning +for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered +himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass’s stool. Then he underwent +a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his chin upon his hand, +and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared quite out of the question +that he could ever close them any more. + +When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his +eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves of +the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and at +last, and by slow approaches, began to write. But he had not written +half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to take a fresh +dip, he happened to raise his eyes. There was the intolerable brown +head-dress--there was the green gown--there, in short, was Miss Sally +Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more tremendous than ever. + +This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel +strange influences creeping over him--horrible desires to annihilate +this Sally Brass--mysterious promptings to knock her head-dress off and +try how she looked without it. There was a very large ruler on the +table; a large, black, shining ruler. Mr Swiveller took it up and +began to rub his nose with it. + +From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and +giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the +transition was easy and natural. In some of these flourishes it went +close to Miss Sally’s head; the ragged edges of the head-dress +fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch, and that +great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the unconscious maiden +worked away, and never raised her eyes. + +Well, this was a great relief. It was a good thing to write doggedly +and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up the ruler +and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the consciousness that he +could have it off if he liked. It was a good thing to draw it back, +and rub his nose very hard with it, if he thought Miss Sally was going +to look up, and to recompense himself with more hardy flourishes when +he found she was still absorbed. By these means Mr Swiveller calmed +the agitation of his feelings, until his applications to the ruler +became less fierce and frequent, and he could even write as many as +half-a-dozen consecutive lines without having recourse to it--which was +a great victory. + + + + +CHAPTER 34 + +In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, of +diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of her task, +and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green gown, and taking +a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her +pocket. Having disposed of this temperate refreshment, she arose from +her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and +taking them under her arm, marched out of the office. + +Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the +performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the +fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the door, +and the reappearance of Miss Sally’s head. + +‘I am going out,’ said Miss Brass. + +‘Very good, ma’am,’ returned Dick. ‘And don’t hurry yourself on my +account to come back, ma’am,’ he added inwardly. + +‘If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that +the gentleman who attends to that matter isn’t in at present, will +you?’ said Miss Brass. + +‘I will, ma’am,’ replied Dick. + +‘I shan’t be very long,’ said Miss Brass, retiring. + +‘I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am,’ rejoined Dick when she had shut the +door. ‘I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma’am. If you could +manage to be run over, ma’am, but not seriously, so much the better.’ + +Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr +Swiveller sat down in the client’s chair and pondered; then took a few +turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again. + +‘So I’m Brass’s clerk, am I?’ said Dick. ‘Brass’s clerk, eh? And the +clerk of Brass’s sister--clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very +good! What shall I be next? Shall I be a convict in a felt hat and a +grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number neatly embroidered +on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my leg, restrained from +chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher handkerchief? Shall I be that? +Will that do, or is it too genteel? Whatever you please, have it your +own way, of course.’ + +As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these remarks, Mr +Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny, whom, as we learn +by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to taunt in a very bitter +and ironical manner when they find themselves in situations of an +unpleasant nature. This is the more probable from the circumstance of +Mr Swiveller directing his observations to the ceiling, which these +bodily personages are usually supposed to inhabit--except in theatrical +cases, when they live in the heart of the great chandelier. + +‘Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,’ resumed +Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the circumstances of +his position, one by one, upon his fingers; ‘Fred, who, I could have +taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such a thing, backs Quilp +to my astonishment, and urges me to take it also--staggerer, number +one! My aunt in the country stops the supplies, and writes an +affectionate note to say that she has made a new will, and left me out +of it--staggerer, number two. No money; no credit; no support from +Fred, who seems to turn steady all at once; notice to quit the old +lodgings--staggerers, three, four, five, and six! Under an +accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent. No +man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny +must pick him up again. Then I’m very glad that mine has brought all +this upon itself, and I shall be as careless as I can, and make myself +quite at home to spite it. So go on my buck,’ said Mr Swiveller, +taking his leave of the ceiling with a significant nod, ‘and let us see +which of us will be tired first!’ + +Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections, which +were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether unknown in +certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook off his +despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an irresponsible clerk. + +As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered into a +more minute examination of the office than he had yet had time to make; +looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle; untied and +inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the table with a +sharp blade of Mr Brass’s penknife; and wrote his name on the inside of +the wooden coal-scuttle. Having, as it were, taken formal possession +of his clerkship in virtue of these proceedings, he opened the window +and leaned negligently out of it until a beer-boy happened to pass, +whom he commanded to set down his tray and to serve him with a pint of +mild porter, which he drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with +the view of breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a +correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time. Then, three or +four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four +attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and dismissed +with about as professional a manner, and as correct and comprehensive +an understanding of their business, as would have been shown by a clown +in a pantomime under similar circumstances. These things done and +over, he got upon his stool again and tried his hand at drawing +caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink, whistling very cheerfully +all the time. + +He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the door, +and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock. As this was no +business of Mr Swiveller’s, the person not ringing the office bell, he +pursued his diversion with perfect composure, notwithstanding that he +rather thought there was nobody else in the house. + +In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been +repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and somebody +with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr +Swiveller was wondering whether this might be another Miss Brass, twin +sister to the Dragon, when there came a rapping of knuckles at the +office door. + +‘Come in!’ said Dick. ‘Don’t stand upon ceremony. The business will +get rather complicated if I’ve many more customers. Come in!’ + +‘Oh, please,’ said a little voice very low down in the doorway, ‘will +you come and show the lodgings?’ + +Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a +dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her +face and feet. She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case. + +‘Why, who are you?’ said Dick. + +To which the only reply was, ‘Oh, please will you come and show the +lodgings?’ + +There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner. +She must have been at work from her cradle. She seemed as much afraid +of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her. + +‘I hav’n’t got anything to do with the lodgings,’ said Dick. ‘Tell ‘em +to call again.’ + +‘Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,’ returned the +girl; ‘It’s eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen. +Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a +day.’ + +‘Why don’t you show ‘em yourself? You seem to know all about ‘em,’ +said Dick. + +‘Miss Sally said I wasn’t to, because people wouldn’t believe the +attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.’ + +‘Well, but they’ll see how small you are afterwards, won’t they?’ said +Dick. + +‘Ah! But then they’ll have taken ‘em for a fortnight certain,’ replied +the child with a shrewd look; ‘and people don’t like moving when +they’re once settled.’ + +‘This is a queer sort of thing,’ muttered Dick, rising. ‘What do you +mean to say you are--the cook?’ + +‘Yes, I do plain cooking;’ replied the child. ‘I’m housemaid too; I do +all the work of the house.’ + +‘I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,’ +thought Dick. And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful +and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and +certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed +to give note of the applicant’s impatience. Richard Swiveller, +therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his +mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, +hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman. + +He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were +occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman’s trunk, +which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly +heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the +single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent. But +there they were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all +their might, and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of +impossible angles, and to pass them was out of the question; for which +sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new +protest on every stair against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus +taken by storm. + +To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but +when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and +wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief. He was very warm, +and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the +trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the +thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade. + +‘I believe, sir,’ said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his +mouth, ‘that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very +charming apartments, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of--of +over the way, and they are within one minute’s walk of--of the corner +of the street. There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate +vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.’ + +‘What’s the rent?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘One pound per week,’ replied Dick, improving on the terms. + +‘I’ll take ‘em.’ + +‘The boots and clothes are extras,’ said Dick; ‘and the fires in winter +time are--’ + +‘Are all agreed to,’ answered the single gentleman. + +‘Two weeks certain,’ said Dick, ‘are the--’ + +‘Two weeks!’ cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to +toe. ‘Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds +down. The bargain’s made.’ + +‘Why you see,’ said Dick, ‘my name is not Brass, and--’ + +‘Who said it was? My name’s not Brass. What then?’ + +‘The name of the master of the house is,’ said Dick. + +‘I’m glad of it,’ returned the single gentleman; ‘it’s a good name for +a lawyer. Coachman, you may go. So may you, Sir.’ + +Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding +roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as +hard as he had looked at Miss Sally. The single gentleman, however, +was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but +proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied +round his neck, and then to pull off his boots. Freed of these +encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which +he folded up, piece by piece, and ranged in order on the trunk. Then, +he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his +watch, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed. + +‘Take down the bill,’ were his parting words, as he looked out from +between the curtains; ‘and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.’ + +With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately. + +‘This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!’ said Mr +Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand. +‘She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional +gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from +under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or +licence in the middle of the day! If he should be one of the +miraculous fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for +two years, I shall be in a pleasant situation. It’s my destiny, +however, and I hope Brass may like it. I shall be sorry if he don’t. +But it’s no business of mine--I have nothing whatever to do with it!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 35 + +Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much +complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the +ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful +note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his +good-humour considerably. Indeed he so overflowed with liberality and +condescension, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr +Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and +indefinite period which is currently denominated ‘one of these days,’ +and paid him many handsome compliments on the uncommon aptitude for +business which his conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had +so plainly evinced. + +It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept +a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member +ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case +of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and +easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance +of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed +into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to +have his tongue at his fingers’ ends, he might certainly be said to +have it anywhere but in his face: which being, as we have already seen, +of a harsh and repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but +frowned above all the smooth speeches--one of nature’s beacons, warning +off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of +that dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less +treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere. + +While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and +inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that +of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had +been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and +sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the +single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate, +arguing that when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should +have been at the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and +that, in exact proportion as he pressed forward, Mr Swiveller should +have hung back. But neither the good opinion of Mr Brass, nor the +dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought any impression upon that young +gentleman, who, throwing the responsibility of this and all other acts +and deeds thereafter to be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was +quite resigned and comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and +philosophically indifferent to the best. + + +‘Good morning, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, on the second day of Mr +Swiveller’s clerkship. ‘Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir, +yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She’s a rare fellow at a bargain, I +can tell you, Mr Richard. You’ll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, +take my word for it.’ + +‘It’s rather a crazy one to look at,’ said Dick. + +‘You’ll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,’ +returned Mr Brass. ‘It was bought in the open street just opposite the +hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got +rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.’ + +‘I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,’ said +Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the +chaste Sally. ‘One of the legs is longer than the others.’ + +‘Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,’ retorted Brass. ‘Ha, ha, ha! +We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that’s another advantage of my +sister’s going to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the--’ + +‘Will you keep quiet?’ interrupted the fair subject of these remarks, +looking up from her papers. ‘How am I to work if you keep on +chattering?’ + +‘What an uncertain chap you are!’ returned the lawyer. ‘Sometimes +you’re all for a chat. At another time you’re all for work. A man +never knows what humour he’ll find you in.’ + +‘I’m in a working humour now,’ said Sally, ‘so don’t disturb me, if you +please. And don’t take him,’ Miss Sally pointed with the feather of +her pen to Richard, ‘off his business. He won’t do more than he can +help, I dare say.’ + +Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but +was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered +something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms +with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some +abstract ideas which happened to occur to him. They went on writing +for a long time in silence after this--in such a dull silence that Mr +Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, +and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes +shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the +office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of +snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had +‘done it.’ + +‘Done what, ma’am?’ said Richard. + +‘Do you know,’ returned Miss Brass, ‘that the lodger isn’t up yet-- +that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed +yesterday afternoon?’ + +‘Well, ma’am,’ said Dick, ‘I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in +peace and quietness, if he likes.’ + +‘Ah! I begin to think he’ll never wake,’ observed Miss Sally. + +‘It’s a very remarkable circumstance,’ said Brass, laying down his pen; +‘really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you’ll remember, if this +gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any +unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--you’ll remember, Mr +Richard, that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of +two years’ rent? You’ll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better +make a note of it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give +evidence.’ + +Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of +profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner. + +‘We can never be too cautious,’ said Mr Brass. ‘There is a deal of +wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the +gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir; +finish that little memorandum first.’ + +Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his +stool, and was walking up and down the office. + +‘Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?’ said Brass, running his eye over +the document. ‘Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say +anything else?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Are you sure, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, solemnly, ‘that the gentleman +said nothing else?’ + +‘Devil a word, Sir,’ replied Dick. + +‘Think again, Sir,’ said Brass; ‘it’s my duty, Sir, in the position in +which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession--the +first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in +any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be +inhabited--it’s my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that +profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this +delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first +floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of +property--a box of property--say anything more than is set down in this +memorandum?’ + +‘Come, don’t be a fool,’ said Miss Sally. + +Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again, +and still said ‘No.’ + +‘Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!’ cried +Brass, relaxing into a smile. ‘Did he say anything about his +property?--there!’ + +‘That’s the way to put it,’ said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother. + +‘Did he say, for instance,’ added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy +tone--‘I don’t assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to +refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger +in London--that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any +references--that he felt we had a right to require them--and that, in +case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly +desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be +considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and +annoyance I should sustain--and were you, in short,’ added Brass, still +more comfortably and cozily than before, ‘were you induced to accept +him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Dick. + +‘Why then, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and +reproachful look, ‘it’s my opinion that you’ve mistaken your calling, +and will never make a lawyer.’ + +‘Not if you live a thousand years,’ added Miss Sally. Whereupon the +brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin +box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness. + +Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller’s dinner-time, which was at +three o’clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the first +stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last stroke of +five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant +with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel. + +‘Mr Richard,’ said Brass, ‘this man’s not up yet. Nothing will wake +him, sir. What’s to be done?’ + +‘I should let him have his sleep out,’ returned Dick. + +‘Sleep out!’ cried Brass; ‘why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty +hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have +knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl +fall down stairs several times (she’s a light weight, and it don’t hurt +her much,) but nothing wakes him.’ + +‘Perhaps a ladder,’ suggested Dick, ‘and getting in at the first-floor +window--’ + +‘But then there’s a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up +in arms,’ said Brass. + +‘What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the +trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?’ suggested Dick. + +‘That would be an excellent plan,’ said Brass, ‘if anybody would be--’ +and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--‘would be kind, and +friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it would +not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.’ + +Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly +fall within Miss Sally’s department. As he said nothing further, and +declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should +go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by +some less violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must +positively be succeeded by stronger measures. Mr Swiveller, assenting, +armed himself with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his +employer to the scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a +hand-bell with all her might, and yet without producing the smallest +effect upon their mysterious lodger. + +‘There are his boots, Mr Richard!’ said Brass. + +‘Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,’ quoth Richard +Swiveller. And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as +one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their +owner’s legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with their broad +soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place by main force. + +‘I can’t see anything but the curtain of the bed,’ said Brass, applying +his eye to the keyhole of the door. ‘Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?’ + +‘Very,’ answered Dick. + +‘It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce +out suddenly,’ said Brass. ‘Keep the stairs clear. I should be more +than a match for him, of course, but I’m the master of the house, and +the laws of hospitality must be respected.--Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!’ + +While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole, +uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger’s attention, +and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool +close against the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top +and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he +would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent +battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated +with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position, +which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who +open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr +Swiveller rained down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the +bell was drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs +below, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, was obliged to hold her ears +lest she should be rendered deaf for life. + +Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open. +The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her +own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage, +ran into the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed +with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets, +walked very slowly all at once, and whistled. + +Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as +flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not +unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door +growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his +hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down stairs on +speculation. This idea, however, he abandoned. He was turning into +his room again, still growling vengefully, when his eyes met those of +the watchful Richard. + +‘Have YOU been making that horrible noise?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘I have been helping, sir,’ returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him, +and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what +the single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence. + +‘How dare you then,’ said the lodger, ‘Eh?’ + +To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger +held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman +to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the +peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the +balance. + +‘Is my peace nothing?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘Is their peace nothing, sir?’ returned Dick. ‘I don’t wish to hold +out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to +threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you do that again, take +care you’re not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road +before you wake. We have been distracted with fears that you were +dead, Sir,’ said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, ‘and the short and +the long of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into +this establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra +for it.’ + +‘Indeed!’ cried the lodger. + +‘Yes, Sir, indeed,’ returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying +whatever came uppermost; ‘an equal quantity of slumber was never got +out of one bed and bedstead, and if you’re going to sleep in that way, +you must pay for a double-bedded room.’ + +Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the +lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with +twinkling eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared +browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it was +clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was +relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to encourage him in it, +smiled himself. + +The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his +nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him a +rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it, +charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he +expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further +that he would never do so any more. + +‘Come here, you impudent rascal!’ was the lodger’s answer as he +re-entered his room. + +Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving +the ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated himself on +his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation +of any kind, double-locked the door. + +‘Can you drink anything?’ was his next inquiry. + +Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs +of thirst, but that he was still open to ‘a modest quencher,’ if the +materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on either side, +the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of +polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table. + +Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him +closely. Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg; +into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak +from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water. Then, with +the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and +applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the +temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the little chambers; then he +opened them; and then, by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak +was done, the egg was boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and +his breakfast was ready. + +‘Hot water--’ said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as much +coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--‘extraordinary +rum--sugar--and a travelling glass. Mix for yourself. And make haste.’ + +Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on the +table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which seemed +to hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a man who was +used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of them. + +‘The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?’ said the lodger. + +Dick nodded. The rum was amazing. + +‘The woman of the house--what’s she?’ + +‘A dragon,’ said Dick. + +The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things in +his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman, evinced no +surprise, but merely inquired ‘Wife or sister?’--‘Sister,’ said +Dick.--‘So much the better,’ said the single gentleman, ‘he can get rid +of her when he likes.’ + +‘I want to do as I like, young man,’ he added after a short silence; +‘to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go +out when I like--to be asked no questions and be surrounded by no +spies. In this last respect, servants are the devil. There’s only one +here.’ + +‘And a very little one,’ said Dick. + +‘And a very little one,’ repeated the lodger. ‘Well, the place will +suit me, will it?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Dick. + +‘Sharks, I suppose?’ said the lodger. + +Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass. + +‘Let them know my humour,’ said the single gentleman, rising. ‘If they +disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be that, they +know enough. If they try to know more, it’s a notice to quit. It’s +better to understand these things at once. Good day.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dick, halting in his passage to the door, +which the lodger prepared to open. ‘When he who adores thee has left +but the name--’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘--But the name,’ said Dick--‘has left but the name--in case of letters +or parcels--’ + +‘I never have any,’ returned the lodger. + +‘Or in the case anybody should call.’ + +‘Nobody ever calls on me.’ + +‘If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don’t say it was +my fault, Sir,’ added Dick, still lingering.--‘Oh blame not the bard--’ + +‘I’ll blame nobody,’ said the lodger, with such irascibility that in a +moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked door between +them. + +Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed, only +routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller’s abrupt exit. As their utmost +exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of the interview, +however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence, which, though +limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such quiet pantomime, +had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down to the office to hear +his account of the conversation. + +This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and +character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the +great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for +brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring, +with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of every +kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in particular +that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever was required, +as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them to understand that the +cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of sirloin of beef, weighing +about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two minutes and a quarter, as he had +himself witnessed, and proved by his sense of taste; and further, that, +however the effect was produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and +bubble up when the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr +Swiveller) was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or +chemist, or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at +some future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of +Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks. + +There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to enlarge +upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which, by reason of +its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the heels of the +temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner, awakened a slight degree +of fever, and rendered necessary two or three other modest quenchers at +the public-house in the course of the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER 36 + +As the single gentleman after some weeks’ occupation of his lodgings, +still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either with Mr Brass +or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard Swiveller as his +channel of communication; and as he proved himself in all respects a +highly desirable inmate, paying for everything beforehand, giving very +little trouble, making no noise, and keeping early hours; Mr Richard +imperceptibly rose to an important position in the family, as one who +had influence over this mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with +him, for good or evil, when nobody else durst approach his person. + +If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller’s approaches to the single +gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small +encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic conference +with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as ‘Swiveller, I +know I can rely upon you,’--‘I have no hesitation in saying, Swiveller, +that I entertain a regard for you,’--‘Swiveller, you are my friend, and +will stand by me I am sure,’ with many other short speeches of the same +familiar and confiding kind, purporting to have been addressed by the +single gentleman to himself, and to form the staple of their ordinary +discourse, neither Mr Brass nor Miss Sally for a moment questioned the +extent of his influence, but accorded to him their fullest and most +unqualified belief. + +But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of popularity, Mr +Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally enduring, and to +lighten his position considerably. + +He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light +scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale +of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however +accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind. That +amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest +youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first +running alone, and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had +passed her life in a kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable, +when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the +walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap +her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to +imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was +the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and +which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an +execution into her doll’s house, and taking an exact inventory of the +chairs and tables. These artless sports had naturally soothed and +cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman +(called ‘old Foxey’ by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who +encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding that +he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter could +not take out an attorney’s certificate and hold a place upon the roll. +Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had solemnly +confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and from +the old gentleman’s decease to the period of which we treat, Miss Sally +Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business. + +It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one +pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world, +otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted +with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in +which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally’s +accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They +began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was +in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her +nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are +held to be the consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so +beautiful any moral twist or handiness could be found, Miss Sally +Brass’s nurse was alone to blame. + +It was upon this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as +something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with +scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of +wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his +chin and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred +other feats with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did Richard, +in Mr Brass’s absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement. These +social qualities, which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, +gradually made such an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr +Swiveller to relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, +nothing loth, would readily consent to do. By these means a friendship +sprung up between them. Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her +as her brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other +clerk. He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or plain +Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a modest +quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake. He would +often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in addition to her +own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a hearty slap on the back, +and protest that she was a devilish good fellow, a jolly dog, and so +forth; all of which compliments Miss Sally would receive in entire good +part and with perfect satisfaction. + +One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller’s mind very much, and that was +that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the +earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless the +single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and +immediately disappear again. She never went out, or came into the +office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked +out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door for a breath +of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever. Nobody ever came to see +her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her. Mr Brass had said +once, that he believed she was a ‘love-child’ (which means anything but +a child of love), and that was all the information Richard Swiveller +could obtain. + +‘It’s of no use asking the dragon,’ thought Dick one day, as he sat +contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. ‘I suspect if I asked +any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end. I wonder +whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the mermaid way. +She has rather a scaly appearance. But mermaids are fond of looking at +themselves in the glass, which she can’t be. And they have a habit of +combing their hair, which she hasn’t. No, she’s a dragon.’ + +‘Where are you going, old fellow?’ said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally wiped +her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her seat. + +‘To dinner,’ answered the dragon. + +‘To dinner!’ thought Dick, ‘that’s another circumstance. I don’t +believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.’ + +‘Sammy won’t be home,’ said Miss Brass. ‘Stop till I come back. I +sha’n’t be long.’ + +Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass--with his eyes to the door, and +with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her brother took +their meals. + +‘Now,’ said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, +‘I’d give something--if I had it--to know how they use that child, and +where they keep her. My mother must have been a very inquisitive +woman; I have no doubt I’m marked with a note of interrogation +somewhere. My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this +anguish, my--upon my word,’ said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and +falling thoughtfully into the client’s chair, ‘I should like to know +how they use her!’ + +After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly +opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the street +for a glass of the mild porter. At that moment he caught a parting +glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen +stairs. ‘And by Jove!’ thought Dick, ‘she’s going to feed the small +servant. Now or never!’ + +First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to +disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and arrived at +the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass had entered the +same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton. It was a very dark +miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a +thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky +butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly +eagerness of starvation. The grate, which was a wide one, was wound +and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich +of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, +the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. There was nothing +that a beetle could have lunched upon. The pinched and meagre aspect +of the place would have killed a chameleon. He would have known, at +the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up +the ghost in despair. The small servant stood with humility in presence +of Miss Sally, and hung her head. + +‘Are you there?’ said Miss Sally. + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ was the answer in a weak voice. + +‘Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you’ll be picking it, I +know,’ said Miss Sally. + +The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key from her +pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold +potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge. This she placed before the +small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up +a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the +carving-fork. + +‘Do you see this?’ said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square inches +of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the +point of the fork. + +The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see +every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, ‘yes.’ + +‘Then don’t you ever go and say,’ retorted Miss Sally, ‘that you hadn’t +meat here. There, eat it up.’ + +This was soon done. ‘Now, do you want any more?’ said Miss Sally. + +The hungry creature answered with a faint ‘No.’ They were evidently +going through an established form. + +‘You’ve been helped once to meat,’ said Miss Brass, summing up the +facts; ‘you have had as much as you can eat, you’re asked if you want +any more, and you answer, ‘no!’ Then don’t you ever go and say you were +allowanced, mind that.’ + +With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe, and +then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while she +finished the potatoes. + +It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss Brass’s +gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her, without the +smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade of the knife, +now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back, as if she found +it quite impossible to stand so close to her without administering a +few slight knocks. But Mr Swiveller was not a little surprised to see +his fellow-clerk, after walking slowly backwards towards the door, as +if she were trying to withdraw herself from the room but could not +accomplish it, dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant +give her some hard blows with her clenched hand. The victim cried, but +in a subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss +Sally, comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, +just as Richard had safely reached the office. + + + + +CHAPTER 37 + +The single gentleman among his other peculiarities--and he had a very +plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new +specimen--took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the +exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch’s voice, at ever so +remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in +bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for +the spot with all speed, and presently return at the head of a long +procession of idlers, having in the midst the theatre and its +proprietors. Straightway, the stage would be set up in front of Mr +Brass’s house; the single gentleman would establish himself at the +first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed, with all its +exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the excessive +consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent +thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done, +both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as +bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of +the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to +his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his +private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the +purport of which no human being could fathom. But the secret of these +discussions was of little importance. It was sufficient to know that +while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round +the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated +Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered +opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous +with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests +was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their +noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the +excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing +consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be +attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis +Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and +quietness fled from its precincts. + +Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson +Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an +inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger’s affront along with his +cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such +imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were +confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen +watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the +roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to +come suddenly round the corner and dash in among them precipitately. +It may, at first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few +that Mr Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not have legally +indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the +nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors +seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise +what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their +own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, +very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties +of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person. + +‘Come,’ said Mr Brass one afternoon, ‘this is two days without a Punch. +I’m in hopes he has run through ‘em all, at last.’ + +‘Why are you in hopes?’ returned Miss Sally. ‘What harm do they do?’ + +‘Here’s a pretty sort of a fellow!’ cried Brass, laying down his pen in +despair. ‘Now here’s an aggravating animal!’ + +‘Well, what harm do they do?’ retorted Sally. + +‘What harm!’ cried Brass. ‘Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing +and hooting under one’s very nose, distracting one from business, and +making one grind one’s teeth with vexation? Is it no harm to be +blinded and choked up, and have the king’s highway stopped with a set +of screamers and roarers whose throats must be made of--of--’ + +‘Brass,’ suggested Mr Swiveller. + +‘Ah! of brass,’ said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure +himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any +sinister intention. ‘Is that no harm?’ + +The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment, +and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand, +raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, ‘There’s another!’ + +Up went the single gentleman’s window directly. + +‘There’s another,’ repeated Brass; ‘and if I could get a break and four +blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its thickest, +I’d give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!’ + +The distant squeak was heard again. The single gentleman’s door burst +open. He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so +past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound +proceeded--bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers’ services +directly. + +‘I wish I only knew who his friends were,’ muttered Sampson, filling +his pocket with papers; ‘if they’d just get up a pretty little +Commission de lunatico at the Gray’s Inn Coffee House and give me the +job, I’d be content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all +events.’ + +With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the +purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr +Brass rushed from the house and hurried away. + +As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon +the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at anything out +of window, was better than working; and as he had been, for this +reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk a sense of their +beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss Sally rose as with one +accord and took up their positions at the window: upon the sill +whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who +were employed in the dry nurture of babies, and who made a point of +being present, with their young charges, on such occasions, had already +established themselves as comfortably as the circumstances would allow. + +The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which +he had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from +Miss Sally’s head, and dusted it carefully therewith. By the time he +had handed it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again (which +she did with perfect composure and indifference), the lodger returned +with the show and showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the +body of spectators. The exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind +the drapery; and his partner, stationing himself by the side of the +Theatre, surveyed the audience with a remarkable expression of +melancholy, which became more remarkable still when he breathed a +hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which is popularly +termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression +of the upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of +necessity, in lively spasms. + +The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in +the customary manner. The sensation which kindles in large assemblies, +when they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense and are +again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when the lodger, as usual, +summoned the men up stairs. + +‘Both of you,’ he called from the window; for only the actual +exhibitor--a little fat man--prepared to obey the summons. ‘I want to +talk to you. Come both of you!’ + +‘Come, Tommy,’ said the little man. + +‘I an’t a talker,’ replied the other. ‘Tell him so. What should I go +and talk for?’ + +‘Don’t you see the gentleman’s got a bottle and glass up there?’ +returned the little man. + +‘And couldn’t you have said so at first?’ retorted the other with +sudden alacrity. ‘Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to +keep the gentleman expecting us all day? haven’t you no manners?’ + +With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than Mr +Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft, Mr +Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to the +single gentleman’s apartment. + +‘Now, my men,’ said the single gentleman; ‘you have done very well. +What will you take? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.’ + +‘Shut the door, can’t you?’ said Mr Codlin, turning gruffly to his +friend. ‘You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door +shut, without being told, I think.’ + +Mr Short obeyed, observing under his breath that his friend seemed +unusually ‘cranky,’ and expressing a hope that there was no dairy in +the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its contents. + +The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an +emphatic nod of his head that he expected them to be seated. Messrs +Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with considerable doubt +and indecision, at length sat down--each on the extreme edge of the +chair pointed out to him--and held their hats very tight, while the +single gentleman filled a couple of glasses from a bottle on the table +beside him, and presented them in due form. + +‘You’re pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,’ said their +entertainer. ‘Have you been travelling?’ + +Mr Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr Codlin +added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still felt the +weight of the Temple on his shoulders. + +‘To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?’ pursued the single +gentleman. + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned Short, ‘pretty nigh all over the West of England.’ + +‘I have talked to men of your craft from North, East, and South,’ +returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; ‘but I never lighted on +any from the West before.’ + +‘It’s our reg’lar summer circuit is the West, master,’ said Short; +‘that’s where it is. We takes the East of London in the spring and +winter, and the West of England in the summer time. Many’s the hard +day’s walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned, we’ve had +down in the West.’ + +‘Let me fill your glass again.’ + +‘Much obleeged to you sir, I think I will,’ said Mr Codlin, suddenly +thrusting in his own and turning Short’s aside. ‘I’m the sufferer, +sir, in all the travelling, and in all the staying at home. In town or +country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin suffers. But Tom Codlin +isn’t to complain for all that. Oh, no! Short may complain, but if +Codlin grumbles by so much as a word--oh dear, down with him, down +with him directly. It isn’t his place to grumble. That’s quite out of +the question.’ + +‘Codlin an’t without his usefulness,’ observed Short with an arch look, +‘but he don’t always keep his eyes open. He falls asleep sometimes, +you know. Remember them last races, Tommy.’ + +‘Will you never leave off aggravating a man?’ said Codlin. ‘It’s very +like I was asleep when five-and-tenpence was collected, in one round, +isn’t it? I was attending to my business, and couldn’t have my eyes in +twenty places at once, like a peacock, no more than you could. If I +an’t a match for an old man and a young child, you an’t neither, so +don’t throw that out against me, for the cap fits your head quite as +correct as it fits mine.’ + +‘You may as well drop the subject, Tom,’ said Short. ‘It isn’t +particular agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.’ + +‘Then you shouldn’t have brought it up,’ returned Mr Codlin; ‘and I ask +the gentleman’s pardon on your account, as a giddy chap that likes to +hear himself talk, and don’t much care what he talks about, so that he +does talk.’ + +Their entertainer had sat perfectly quiet in the beginning of this +dispute, looking first at one man and then at the other, as if he were +lying in wait for an opportunity of putting some further question, or +reverting to that from which the discourse had strayed. But, from the +point where Mr Codlin was charged with sleepiness, he had shown an +increasing interest in the discussion: which now attained a very high +pitch. + +‘You are the two men I want,’ he said, ‘the two men I have been looking +for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child you +speak of?’ + +‘Sir?’ said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend. + +‘The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you--where are they? +It will be worth your while to speak out, I assure you; much better +worth your while than you believe. They left you, you say--at those +races, as I understand. They have been traced to that place, and there +lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their +recovery?’ + +‘Did I always say, Thomas,’ cried Short, turning with a look of +amazement to his friend, ‘that there was sure to be an inquiry after +them two travellers?’ + +‘YOU said!’ returned Mr Codlin. ‘Did I always say that that ‘ere +blessed child was the most interesting I ever see? Did I always say I +loved her, and doated on her? Pretty creetur, I think I hear her now. +“Codlin’s my friend,” she says, with a tear of gratitude a trickling +down her little eye; “Codlin’s my friend,” she says--“not Short. +Short’s very well,” she says; “I’ve no quarrel with Short; he means +kind, I dare say; but Codlin,” she says, “has the feelings for my +money, though he mayn’t look it.”’ + +Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr Codlin rubbed the bridge +of his nose with his coat-sleeve, and shaking his head mournfully from +side to side, left the single gentleman to infer that, from the moment +when he lost sight of his dear young charge, his peace of mind and +happiness had fled. + +‘Good Heaven!’ said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, +‘have I found these men at last, only to discover that they can give me +no information or assistance! It would have been better to have lived +on, in hope, from day to day, and never to have lighted on them, than +to have my expectations scattered thus.’ + +‘Stay a minute,’ said Short. ‘A man of the name of Jerry--you know +Jerry, Thomas?’ + +‘Oh, don’t talk to me of Jerrys,’ replied Mr Codlin. ‘How can I care a +pinch of snuff for Jerrys, when I think of that ‘ere darling child? +“Codlin’s my friend,” she says, “dear, good, kind Codlin, as is always +a devising pleasures for me! I don’t object to Short,” she says, “but +I cotton to Codlin.” Once,’ said that gentleman reflectively, ‘she +called me Father Codlin. I thought I should have bust!’ + +‘A man of the name of Jerry, sir,’ said Short, turning from his selfish +colleague to their new acquaintance, ‘wot keeps a company of dancing +dogs, told me, in a accidental sort of way, that he had seen the old +gentleman in connexion with a travelling wax-work, unbeknown to him. +As they’d given us the slip, and nothing had come of it, and this was +down in the country that he’d been seen, I took no measures about it, +and asked no questions--But I can, if you like.’ + +‘Is this man in town?’ said the impatient single gentleman. ‘Speak +faster.’ + +‘No he isn’t, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our house,’ +replied Mr Short rapidly. + +‘Then bring him here,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Here’s a sovereign +a-piece. If I can find these people through your means, it is but a +prelude to twenty more. Return to me to-morrow, and keep your own +counsel on this subject--though I need hardly tell you that; for you’ll +do so for your own sakes. Now, give me your address, and leave me.’ + +The address was given, the two men departed, the crowd went with them, +and the single gentleman for two mortal hours walked in uncommon +agitation up and down his room, over the wondering heads of Mr +Swiveller and Miss Sally Brass. + + + + +CHAPTER 38 + +Kit--for it happens at this juncture, not only that we have breathing +time to follow his fortunes, but that the necessities of these +adventures so adapt themselves to our ease and inclination as to call +upon us imperatively to pursue the track we most desire to take--Kit, +while the matters treated of in the last fifteen chapters were yet in +progress, was, as the reader may suppose, gradually familiarising +himself more and more with Mr and Mrs Garland, Mr Abel, the pony, and +Barbara, and gradually coming to consider them one and all as his +particular private friends, and Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own +proper home. + +Stay--the words are written, and may go, but if they convey any notion +that Kit, in the plentiful board and comfortable lodging of his new +abode, began to think slightingly of the poor fare and furniture of his +old dwelling, they do their office badly and commit injustice. Who so +mindful of those he left at home--albeit they were but a mother and two +young babies--as Kit? What boastful father in the fulness of his heart +ever related such wonders of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied +of telling Barbara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was +there ever such a mother as Kit’s mother, on her son’s showing; or was +there ever such comfort in poverty as in the poverty of Kit’s family, +if any correct judgment might be arrived at, from his own glowing +account! + +And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if ever +household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful +in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may +be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble +hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man of +high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as part of +himself: as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them +are associations of pride and wealth and triumph; the poor man’s +attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, +and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a +purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy +of silver, gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the +affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and +walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love +of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place. + +Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember +this--if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have +engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic +virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social +decency is lost, or rather never found--if they would but turn aside +from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the +wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk--many low +roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the loftiest steeple that +now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible +disease, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from +Workhouse, Hospital, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, +and has been proclaimed for years. It is no light matter--no outcry +from the working vulgar--no mere question of the people’s health and +comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of +home, the love of country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots +or the better in time of need--those who venerate the land, owning its +wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce? or those who +love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide +domain! + +Kit knew nothing about such questions, but he knew that his old home +was a very poor place, and that his new one was very unlike it, and yet +he was constantly looking back with grateful satisfaction and +affectionate anxiety, and often indited square-folded letters to his +mother, enclosing a shilling or eighteenpence or such other small +remittance, which Mr Abel’s liberality enabled him to make. Sometimes +being in the neighbourhood, he had leisure to call upon her, and then +great was the joy and pride of Kit’s mother, and extremely noisy the +satisfaction of little Jacob and the baby, and cordial the +congratulations of the whole court, who listened with admiring ears to +the accounts of Abel Cottage, and could never be told too much of its +wonders and magnificence. + +Although Kit was in the very highest favour with the old lady and +gentleman, and Mr Abel, and Barbara, it is certain that no member of +the family evinced such a remarkable partiality for him as the +self-willed pony, who, from being the most obstinate and opinionated +pony on the face of the earth, was, in his hands, the meekest and most +tractable of animals. It is true that in exact proportion as he became +manageable by Kit he became utterly ungovernable by anybody else (as if +he had determined to keep him in the family at all risks and hazards), +and that, even under the guidance of his favourite, he would sometimes +perform a great variety of strange freaks and capers, to the extreme +discomposure of the old lady’s nerves; but as Kit always represented +that this was only his fun, or a way he had of showing his attachment +to his employers, Mrs Garland gradually suffered herself to be +persuaded into the belief, in which she at last became so strongly +confirmed, that if, in one of these ebullitions, he had overturned the +chaise, she would have been quite satisfied that he did it with the +very best intentions. + +Besides becoming in a short time a perfect marvel in all stable +matters, Kit soon made himself a very tolerable gardener, a handy +fellow within doors, and an indispensable attendant on Mr Abel, who +every day gave him some new proof of his confidence and approbation. +Mr Witherden the notary, too, regarded him with a friendly eye; and +even Mr Chuckster would sometimes condescend to give him a slight nod, +or to honour him with that peculiar form of recognition which is called +‘taking a sight,’ or to favour him with some other salute combining +pleasantry with patronage. + +One morning Kit drove Mr Abel to the Notary’s office, as he sometimes +did, and having set him down at the house, was about to drive off to a +livery stable hard by, when this same Mr Chuckster emerged from the +office door, and cried ‘Woa-a-a-a-a-a!’--dwelling upon the note a long +time, for the purpose of striking terror into the pony’s heart, and +asserting the supremacy of man over the inferior animals. + +‘Pull up, Snobby,’ cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit. +‘You’re wanted inside here.’ + +‘Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?’ said Kit as he dismounted. + +‘Ask no questions, Snobby,’ returned Mr Chuckster, ‘but go and see. +Woa-a-a then, will you? If that pony was mine, I’d break him.’ + +‘You must be very gentle with him, if you please,’ said Kit, ‘or you’ll +find him troublesome. You’d better not keep on pulling his ears, +please. I know he won’t like it.’ + +To this remonstrance Mr Chuckster deigned no other answer, than +addressing Kit with a lofty and distant air as ‘young feller,’ and +requesting him to cut and come again with all speed. The ‘young +feller’ complying, Mr Chuckster put his hands in his pockets, and tried +to look as if he were not minding the pony, but happened to be lounging +there by accident. + +Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his +reverence for the bundles of papers and the tin boxes,) and tapped at +the office-door, which was quickly opened by the Notary himself. + +‘Oh! come in, Christopher,’ said Mr Witherden. + +‘Is that the lad?’ asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout, bluff +figure--who was in the room. + +‘That’s the lad,’ said Mr Witherden. ‘He fell in with my client, Mr +Garland, sir, at this very door. I have reason to think he is a good +lad, sir, and that you may believe what he says. Let me introduce Mr +Abel Garland, sir--his young master; my articled pupil, sir, and most +particular friend:--my most particular friend, sir,’ repeated the +Notary, drawing out his silk handkerchief and flourishing it about his +face. + +‘Your servant, sir,’ said the stranger gentleman. + +‘Yours, sir, I’m sure,’ replied Mr Abel mildly. ‘You were wishing to +speak to Christopher, sir?’ + +‘Yes, I was. Have I your permission?’ + +‘By all means.’ + +‘My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no secret +here,’ said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the Notary were +preparing to retire. ‘It relates to a dealer in curiosities with whom +he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and warmly interested. I have +been a stranger to this country, gentlemen, for very many years, and if +I am deficient in form and ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.’ + +‘No forgiveness is necessary, sir;--none whatever,’ replied the Notary. +And so said Mr Abel. + +‘I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old +master lived,’ said the stranger, ‘and I learn that he was served by +this lad. I have found out his mother’s house, and have been directed +by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be likely to find +him. That’s the cause of my presenting myself here this morning.’ + +‘I am very glad of any cause, sir,’ said the Notary, ‘which procures me +the honour of this visit.’ + +‘Sir,’ retorted the stranger, ‘you speak like a mere man of the world, +and I think you something better. Therefore, pray do not sink your +real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.’ + +‘Hem!’ coughed the Notary. ‘You’re a plain speaker, sir.’ + +‘And a plain dealer,’ returned the stranger. ‘It may be my long +absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if plain +speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain dealers +are still scarcer. If my speaking should offend you, sir, my dealing, +I hope, will make amends.’ + +Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly gentleman’s +mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he looked at him in +open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of language he would +address to him, if he talked in that free and easy way to a Notary. It +was with no harshness, however, though with something of constitutional +irritability and haste, that he turned to Kit and said: + +‘If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any +other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search of, +you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself. Don’t be deceived, +I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance. The fact is, gentlemen,’ he +added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil, ‘that I am in a very +painful and wholly unexpected position. I came to this city with a +darling object at my heart, expecting to find no obstacle or difficulty +in the way of its attainment. I find myself suddenly checked and +stopped short, in the execution of my design, by a mystery which I +cannot penetrate. Every effort I have made to penetrate it, has only +served to render it darker and more obscure; and I am afraid to stir +openly in the matter, lest those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly +still farther from me. I assure you that if you could give me any +assistance, you would not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I +stand in need of it, and what a load it would relieve me from.’ + +There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to find a +quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who replied, +in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his desire, and +that if he could be of service to him, he would, most readily. + +Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the +unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their lonely +way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion. The nightly +absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the child at those +times, his illness and recovery, Quilp’s possession of the house, and +their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects of much questioning +and answer. Finally, Kit informed the gentleman that the premises were +now to let, and that a board upon the door referred all inquirers to Mr +Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps +learn some further particulars. + +‘Not by inquiry,’ said the gentleman shaking his head. ‘I live there.’ + +‘Live at Brass’s the attorney’s!’ cried Mr Witherden in some surprise: +having professional knowledge of the gentleman in question. + +‘Aye,’ was the reply. ‘I entered on his lodgings t’other day, chiefly +because I had seen this very board. It matters little to me where I +live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence might be cast +in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere. Yes, I live at +Brass’s--more shame for me, I suppose?’ + +‘That’s a mere matter of opinion,’ said the Notary, shrugging his +shoulders. ‘He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.’ + +‘Doubtful?’ echoed the other. ‘I am glad to hear there’s any doubt +about it. I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago. But +will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?’ + +Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman’s private +closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter of +an hour, when they returned into the outer office. The stranger had +left his hat in Mr Witherden’s room, and seemed to have established +himself in this short interval on quite a friendly footing. + +‘I’ll not detain you any longer now,’ he said, putting a crown into +Kit’s hand, and looking towards the Notary. ‘You shall hear from me +again. Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and +mistress.’ + +‘Mother, sir, would be glad to know--’ said Kit, faltering. + +‘Glad to know what?’ + +‘Anything--so that it was no harm--about Miss Nell.’ + +‘Would she? Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret. But +mind, not a word of this to anybody else. Don’t forget that. Be +particular.’ + +‘I’ll take care, sir,’ said Kit. ‘Thankee, sir, and good morning.’ + +Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon Kit +that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them, followed +him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further happened that +at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were turned in that +direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit together. + +It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was this. +Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and refined +spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof Mr Swiveller +was Perpetual Grand. Mr Swiveller, passing through the street in the +execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding one of his Glorious +Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed over to give him that +fraternal greeting with which Perpetual Grands are, by the very +constitution of their office, bound to cheer and encourage their +disciples. He had scarcely bestowed upon him his blessing, and +followed it with a general remark touching the present state and +prospects of the weather, when, lifting up his eyes, he beheld the +single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest conversation with +Christopher Nubbles. + +‘Hallo!’ said Dick, ‘who is that?’ + +‘He called to see my Governor this morning,’ replied Mr Chuckster; +‘beyond that, I don’t know him from Adam.’ + +‘At least you know his name?’ said Dick. + +To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a +Glorious Apollo, that he was ‘everlastingly blessed’ if he did. + +‘All I know, my dear feller,’ said Mr Chuckster, running his fingers +through his hair, ‘is, that he is the cause of my having stood here +twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and undying hatred, +and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if I could afford the +time.’ + +While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation +(who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered the +house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr +Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success. + +‘He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,’ said Kit, ‘and that’s all I know +about him.’ + +Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the +remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that it +was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their noses. +Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr Swiveller +after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit was driving, +and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that he would +trespass on him for a lift. Kit would gladly have declined the +proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already established in the +seat beside him, he had no means of doing so, otherwise than by a +forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove briskly off--so briskly +indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking between Mr Chuckster and his +Grand Master, and to occasion the former gentleman some inconvenience +from having his corns squeezed by the impatient pony. + +As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough to +stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries, they +rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation: +especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller’s admonitions, took a +particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and evinced a +strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself against the brick +walls. It was not, therefore, until they had arrived at the stable, +and the chaise had been extricated from a very small doorway, into +which the pony dragged it under the impression that he could take it +along with him into his usual stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to +talk. + +‘It’s hard work,’ said Richard. ‘What do you say to some beer?’ + +Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned to +the neighbouring bar together. + +‘We’ll drink our friend what’s-his-name,’ said Dick, holding up the +bright frothy pot; ‘--that was talking to you this morning, you know--I +know him--a good fellow, but eccentric--very--here’s what’s-his-name!’ + +Kit pledged him. + +‘He lives in my house,’ said Dick; ‘at least in the house occupied by +the firm in which I’m a sort of a--of a managing partner--a difficult +fellow to get anything out of, but we like him--we like him.’ + +‘I must be going, sir, if you please,’ said Kit, moving away. + +‘Don’t be in a hurry, Christopher,’ replied his patron, ‘we’ll drink +your mother.’ + +‘Thank you, sir.’ + +‘An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,’ said Mr +Swiveller. ‘Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to +make it well? My mother. A charming woman. He’s a liberal sort of +fellow. We must get him to do something for your mother. Does he know +her, Christopher?’ + +Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked him, +and made off before he could say another word. + +‘Humph!’ said Mr Swiveller pondering, ‘this is queer. Nothing but +mysteries in connection with Brass’s house. I’ll keep my own counsel, +however. Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence as yet, but +now I think I’ll set up in business for myself. Queer--very queer!’ + +After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some +time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a small +boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the few +remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry the +empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all things to +lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all intoxicating and +exciting liquors. Having given him this piece of moral advice for his +trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far better than half-pence) +the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos thrust his hands +into his pockets and sauntered away: still pondering as he went. + + + + +CHAPTER 39 + +All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept +clear of his mother’s house, determined not to anticipate the pleasures +of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of delight; for +to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in his +life--to-morrow was the end of his first quarter--the day of receiving, +for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income of Six Pounds +in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings--to-morrow was to be a half-holiday +devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and little Jacob was to know what +oysters meant, and to see a play. + +All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not only +had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to make no +deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay it him +unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the unknown +gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings, which was a +perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had these things +come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon, or in their +wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara’s quarter too--Barbara’s +quarter, that very day--and Barbara had a half-holiday as well as Kit, +and Barbara’s mother was going to make one of the party, and to take +tea with Kit’s mother, and cultivate her acquaintance. + +To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to see +which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would have +been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night, starching +and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them into frills, and +sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent wholes for next +day’s wear. But they were both up very early for all that, and had +small appetites for breakfast and less for dinner, and were in a state +of great excitement when Barbara’s mother came in, with astonishing +accounts of the fineness of the weather out of doors (but with a very +large umbrella notwithstanding, for people like Barbara’s mother seldom +make holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up +stairs and receive their quarter’s money in gold and silver. + +Well, wasn’t Mr Garland kind when he said ‘Christopher, here’s your +money, and you have earned it well;’ and wasn’t Mrs Garland kind when +she said ‘Barbara, here’s yours, and I’m much pleased with you;’ and +didn’t Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn’t Barbara sign +her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn’t it beautiful to see how +Mrs Garland poured out Barbara’s mother a glass of wine; and didn’t +Barbara’s mother speak up when she said ‘Here’s blessing you, ma’am, as +a good lady, and you, sir, as a good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to +you, and here’s towards you, Mr Christopher;’ and wasn’t she as long +drinking it as if it had been a tumblerful; and didn’t she look +genteel, standing there with her gloves on; and wasn’t there plenty of +laughing and talking among them as they reviewed all these things upon +the top of the coach, and didn’t they pity the people who hadn’t got a +holiday! + +But Kit’s mother, again--wouldn’t anybody have supposed she had come of +a good stock and been a lady all her life! There she was, quite ready +to receive them, with a display of tea-things that might have warmed +the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and the baby in such a +state of perfection that their clothes looked as good as new, though +Heaven knows they were old enough! Didn’t she say before they had sat +down five minutes that Barbara’s mother was exactly the sort of lady +she expected, and didn’t Barbara’s mother say that Kit’s mother was the +very picture of what she had expected, and didn’t Kit’s mother +compliment Barbara’s mother on Barbara, and didn’t Barbara’s mother +compliment Kit’s mother on Kit, and wasn’t Barbara herself quite +fascinated with little Jacob, and did ever a child show off when he was +wanted, as that child did, or make such friends as he made! + +‘And we are both widows too!’ said Barbara’s mother. ‘We must have +been made to know each other.’ + +‘I haven’t a doubt about it,’ returned Mrs Nubbles. ‘And what a pity +it is we didn’t know each other sooner.’ + +‘But then, you know, it’s such a pleasure,’ said Barbara’s mother, ‘to +have it brought about by one’s son and daughter, that it’s fully made +up for. Now, an’t it?’ + +To this, Kit’s mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things back +from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their deceased +husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials, they compared +notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that tallied with wonderful +exactness; such as Barbara’s father having been exactly four years and +ten months older than Kit’s father, and one of them having died on a +Wednesday and the other on a Thursday, and both of them having been of +a very fine make and remarkably good-looking, with other extraordinary +coincidences. These recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a +shadow on the brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation +to general topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as +merry as before. Among other things, Kit told them about his old +place, and the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to +Barbara a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance +failed to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had +supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara at +the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but +she was but a child after all, and there were many young women quite as +pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed that she should think so, +and that she never could help believing Mr Christopher must be under a +mistake--which Kit wondered at very much, not being able to conceive +what reason she had for doubting him. Barbara’s mother too, observed +that it was very common for young folks to change at about fourteen or +fifteen, and whereas they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite +plain; which truth she illustrated by many forcible examples, +especially one of a young man, who, being a builder with great +prospects, had been particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom +Barbara would have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened +for the best) she almost thought was a pity. Kit said he thought so +too, and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so +silent all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn’t +have said it. + +However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which +great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets, not +to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of apples, +which took some time tying up, in consequence of the fruit having a +tendency to roll out at the corners. At length, everything was ready, +and they went off very fast; Kit’s mother carrying the baby, who was +dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding little Jacob in one hand, and +escorting Barbara with the other--a state of things which occasioned +the two mothers, who walked behind, to declare that they looked quite +family folks, and caused Barbara to blush and say, ‘Now don’t, mother!’ +But Kit said she had no call to mind what they said; and indeed she +need not have had, if she had known how very far from Kit’s thoughts +any love-making was. Poor Barbara! + +At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley’s: and in some two +minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little Jacob was +squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers concussions, and +Barbara’s mother’s umbrella had been carried several yards off and +passed back to her over the shoulders of the people, and Kit had hit a +man on the head with the handkerchief of apples for ‘scrowdging’ his +parent with unnecessary violence, and there was a great uproar. But, +when they were once past the pay-place and tearing away for very life +with their checks in their hands, and, above all, when they were fairly +in the theatre, and seated in such places that they couldn’t have had +better if they had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this +was looked upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the +entertainment. + +Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley’s; with all the paint, +gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses suggestive of +coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous mysteries; the clean +white sawdust down in the circus; the company coming in and taking +their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly up at them while they +tuned their instruments, as if they didn’t want the play to begin, and +knew it all beforehand! What a glow was that, which burst upon them +all, when that long, clear, brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and +what the feverish excitement when the little bell rang and the music +began in good earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet +effects for the triangles! Well might Barbara’s mother say to Kit’s +mother that the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn’t +much dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to +laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight. + +Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from the +first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose reality he +could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at +all like them--the firing, which made Barbara wink--the forlorn lady, +who made her cry--the tyrant, who made her tremble--the man who sang +the song with the lady’s-maid and danced the chorus, who made her +laugh--the pony who reared up on his hind legs when he saw the +murderer, and wouldn’t hear of walking on all fours again until he was +taken into custody--the clown who ventured on such familiarities with +the military man in boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty +ribbons and came down safe upon the horse’s back--everything was +delightful, splendid, and surprising! Little Jacob applauded till his +hands were sore; Kit cried ‘an-kor’ at the end of everything, the +three-act piece included; and Barbara’s mother beat her umbrella on the +floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the gingham. + +In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara’s thoughts seemed to +have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when +they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical +simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over the +ribbons. + +‘As handsome as her?’ said Kit. ‘Double as handsome.’ + +‘Oh Christopher! I’m sure she was the beautifullest creature ever was,’ +said Barbara. + +‘Nonsense!’ returned Kit. ‘She was well enough, I don’t deny that; but +think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference that made. +Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her, Barbara.’ + +‘Oh Christopher!’ said Barbara, looking down. + +‘You are, any day,’ said Kit, ‘--and so’s your mother.’ + +Poor Barbara! + +What was all this though--even all this--to the extraordinary +dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as bold +as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the counter or the +man behind it, led his party into a box--a private box, fitted up with +red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-stand complete--and ordered +a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter and called him, +him Christopher Nubbles, ‘sir,’ to bring three dozen of his +largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it! Yes, Kit told this +gentleman to look sharp, and he not only said he would look sharp, but +he actually did, and presently came running back with the newest +loaves, and the freshest butter, and the largest oysters, ever seen. +Then said Kit to this gentleman, ‘a pot of beer’--just so--and the +gentleman, instead of replying, ‘Sir, did you address that language to +me?’ only said, ‘Pot o’ beer, sir? Yes, sir,’ and went off and fetched +it, and put it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which +blind-men’s dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch the +half-pence in; and both Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother declared as +he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and gracefullest young +men she had ever looked upon. + +Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was +Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat more +than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe before she +would eat four: though her mother and Kit’s mother made up for it +pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly +that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh and eat likewise +from strong sympathy. But the greatest miracle of the night was little +Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born and bred to the +business--sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar with a discretion beyond +his years--and afterwards built a grotto on the table with the shells. +There was the baby too, who had never closed an eye all night, but had +sat as good as gold, trying to force a large orange into his mouth, and +gazing intently at the lights in the chandelier--there he was, sitting +up in his mother’s lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making +indentations in his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree +that a heart of iron must have loved him! In short, there never was a +more successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something +hot to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it +round, there were not six happier people in all the world. + +But all happiness has an end--hence the chief pleasure of its next +beginning--and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time to +turn their faces homewards. So, after going a little out of their way +to see Barbara and Barbara’s mother safe to a friend’s house where they +were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left them at the door, with +an early appointment for returning to Finchley next morning, and a +great many plans for next quarter’s enjoyment. Then, Kit took little +Jacob on his back, and giving his arm to his mother, and a kiss to the +baby, they all trudged merrily home together. + + + + +CHAPTER 40 + +Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next +morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last night’s +enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return to every-day +duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her mother at the +appointed place. And being careful not to awaken any of the little +household, who were yet resting from their unusual fatigues, Kit left +his money on the chimney-piece, with an inscription in chalk calling +his mother’s attention to the circumstance, and informing her that it +came from her dutiful son; and went his way, with a heart something +heavier than his pockets, but free from any very great oppression +notwithstanding. + +Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret? why cannot we +push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them +at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either +with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection! why will +they hang about us, like the flavour of yesterday’s wine, suggestive of +headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, +which, under the earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large +estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts! + +Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara’s mother +was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley’s, and +thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? +Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not he. He had already had a +misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been +doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that +night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would +not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We +are all going to the play, or coming home from it. + +However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers +strength and courage as the day gets on. By degrees, they began to +recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until, +what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley in +such good heart, that Barbara’s mother declared she never felt less +tired or in better spirits. And so said Kit. Barbara had been silent +all the way, but she said so too. Poor little Barbara! She was very +quiet. + +They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the pony +and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came down to +breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old lady, and the +old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled. At his usual hour (or +rather at his usual minute and second, for he was the soul of +punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the London coach, +and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the garden. + +This was not the least pleasant of Kit’s employments. On a fine day +they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by with her +work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging, or pruning, +or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or helping Kit in some +way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker looking on from his +paddock in placid contemplation of them all. To-day they were to trim +the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up a short ladder, and began to +snip and hammer away, while the old gentleman, with a great interest in +his proceedings, handed up the nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted +them. The old lady and Whisker looked on as usual. + +‘Well, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘and so you have made a new +friend, eh?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir?’ returned Kit, looking down from the ladder. + +‘You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,’ said the old +gentleman, ‘at the office!’ + +‘Oh! Yes Sir, yes. He behaved very handsome, Sir.’ + +‘I’m glad to hear it,’ returned the old gentlemen with a smile. ‘He is +disposed to behave more handsomely still, though, Christopher.’ + +‘Indeed, Sir! It’s very kind in him, but I don’t want him to, I’m +sure,’ said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail. + +‘He is rather anxious,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘to have you in his +own service--take care what you’re doing, or you will fall down and +hurt yourself.’ + +‘To have me in his service, Sir?’ cried Kit, who had stopped short in +his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous tumbler. +‘Why, Sir, I don’t think he can be in earnest when he says that.’ + +‘Oh! But he is indeed,’ said Mr Garland. ‘And he has told Mr Abel so.’ + +‘I never heard of such a thing!’ muttered Kit, looking ruefully at his +master and mistress. ‘I wonder at him; that I do.’ + +‘You see, Christopher,’ said Mr Garland, ‘this is a point of much +importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in that +light. This gentleman is able to give you more money than I--not, I +hope, to carry through the various relations of master and servant, +more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher, to give you +more money.’ + +‘Well,’ said Kit, ‘after that, Sir--’ + +‘Wait a moment,’ interposed Mr Garland. ‘That is not all. You were a +very faithful servant to your old employers, as I understand, and +should this gentleman recover them, as it is his purpose to attempt +doing by every means in his power, I have no doubt that you, being in +his service, would meet with your reward. Besides,’ added the old +gentleman with stronger emphasis, ‘besides having the pleasure of being +again brought into communication with those to whom you seem to be very +strongly and disinterestedly attached. You must think of all this, +Christopher, and not be rash or hasty in your choice.’ + +Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the +resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed +swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all his +hopes and fancies. But it was gone in a minute, and he sturdily +rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody else, as he did +think he might have done at first. + +‘He has no right to think that I’d be led away to go to him, sir,’ said +Kit, turning round again after half a minute’s hammering. ‘Does he +think I’m a fool?’ + +‘He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,’ said Mr +Garland gravely. + +‘Then let him, sir,’ retorted Kit; ‘what do I care, sir, what he +thinks? why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that I +should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the kindest +master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me out of the +streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed--poorer and hungrier perhaps +than even you think for, sir--to go to him or anybody? If Miss Nell +was to come back, ma’am,’ added Kit, turning suddenly to his mistress, +‘why that would be another thing, and perhaps if she wanted me, I might +ask you now and then to let me work for her when all was done at home. +But when she comes back, I see now that she’ll be rich as old master +always said she would, and being a rich young lady, what could she want +of me? No, no,’ added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, ‘she’ll never +want me any more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should +like to see her too!’ + +Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard--much harder than was +necessary--and having done so, faced about again. + +‘There’s the pony, sir,’ said Kit--‘Whisker, ma’am (and he knows so +well I’m talking about him that he begins to neigh directly, +Sir)--would he let anybody come near him but me, ma’am? Here’s the +garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma’am. Would Mr Abel part with me, Sir, or +is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma’am? It would +break mother’s heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would have sense +enough to cry his eyes out, ma’am, if he thought that Mr Abel could +wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only the other day, +that he hoped we might be together for years to come--’ + +There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder, +addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning +towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come +running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note, +which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit’s oratorical +appearance, she put into her master’s hand. + +‘Oh!’ said the old gentleman after reading it, ‘ask the messenger to +walk this way.’ Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he turned +to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any further, and +that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with them, than they would +be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the old lady very generously +echoed. + +‘At the same time, Christopher,’ added Mr Garland, glancing at the note +in his hand, ‘if the gentleman should want to borrow you now and then +for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must consent to +lend you, and you must consent to be lent.--Oh! here is the young +gentleman. How do you do, Sir?’ + +This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat +extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came +swaggering up the walk. + +‘Hope I see you well sir,’ returned that gentleman. ‘Hope I see YOU +well, ma’am. Charming box this, sir. Delicious country to be sure.’ + +‘You want to take Kit back with you, I find?’ observed Mr Garland. + +‘I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,’ replied the clerk. ‘A +very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you’re a judge of horse-flesh.’ + +Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but +poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly +appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake of +a slight repast in the way of lunch. That gentleman readily +consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were +speedily prepared for his refreshment. + +At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to enchant +his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the mental +superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he led the +discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was justly +considered by his friends to shine prodigiously. Thus, he was in a +condition to relate the exact circumstances of the difference between +the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it appeared originated in +a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in a pigeon-pie, as erroneously +reported in the newspapers; neither had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis +of Mizzler, ‘Mizzler, one of us two tells a lie, and I’m not the man,’ +as incorrectly stated by the same authorities; but ‘Mizzler, you know +where I’m to be found, and damme, sir, find me if you want me’--which, +of course, entirely changed the aspect of this interesting question, +and placed it in a very different light. He also acquainted them with +the precise amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry +to Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable +quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to +understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been +monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five +footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page. Having +entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on +these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being the +correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical chit-chat +and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and fascinating +conversation which he had maintained alone, and without any assistance +whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour. + +‘And now that the nag has got his wind again,’ said Mr Chuckster rising +in a graceful manner, ‘I’m afraid I must cut my stick.’ + +Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing +himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be spared +from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr Chuckster and Kit +were shortly afterwards upon their way to town; Kit being perched upon +the box of the cabriolet beside the driver, and Mr Chuckster seated in +solitary state inside, with one of his boots sticking out at each of +the front windows. + +When they reached the Notary’s house, Kit followed into the office, and +was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman who +wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some time. +This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his dinner, +and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the Law-List, and +the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a great many times, +before the gentleman whom he had seen before, came in; which he did at +last in a very great hurry. + +He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel had +been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit, wondering very +much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend them. + +‘Christopher,’ said the gentleman, turning to him directly he entered +the room, ‘I have found your old master and young mistress.’ + +‘No, Sir! Have you, though?’ returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with +delight. ‘Where are they, Sir? How are they, Sir? Are they--are they +near here?’ + +‘A long way from here,’ returned the gentleman, shaking his head. ‘But +I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to go with +me.’ + +‘Me, Sir?’ cried Kit, full of joy and surprise. + +‘The place,’ said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to the +Notary, ‘indicated by this man of the dogs, is--how far from +here--sixty miles?’ + +‘From sixty to seventy.’ + +‘Humph! If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good time +to-morrow morning. Now, the only question is, as they will not know +me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any stranger +pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather’s liberty--can I do +better than take this lad, whom they both know and will readily +remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly intentions?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied the Notary. ‘Take Christopher by all means.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Kit, who had listened to this discourse +with a lengthening countenance, ‘but if that’s the reason, I’m afraid I +should do more harm than good--Miss Nell, Sir, she knows me, and would +trust in me, I am sure; but old master--I don’t know why, gentlemen; +nobody does--would not bear me in his sight after he had been ill, and +Miss Nell herself told me that I must not go near him or let him see me +any more. I should spoil all that you were doing if I went, I’m +afraid. I’d give the world to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.’ + +‘Another difficulty!’ cried the impetuous gentleman. ‘Was ever man so +beset as I? Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in whom +they had any confidence? Solitary as their lives were, is there no one +person who would serve my purpose?’ + +‘IS there, Christopher?’ said the Notary. + +‘Not one, Sir,’ replied Kit.--‘Yes, though--there’s my mother.’ + +‘Did they know her?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards. +They were as kind to her as they were to me. Bless you, Sir, she +expected they’d come back to her house.’ + +‘Then where the devil is the woman?’ said the impatient gentleman, +catching up his hat. ‘Why isn’t she here? Why is that woman always +out of the way when she is most wanted?’ + +In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office, bent +upon laying violent hands on Kit’s mother, forcing her into a +post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of abduction +was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts of Mr Abel and +the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their remonstrances, and +persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability of her being able and +willing to undertake such a journey on so short a notice. + +This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent +demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many +soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel. The upshot of the +business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind and +considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother, that she +should be ready within two hours from that time to undertake the +expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place, in all respects +equipped and prepared for the journey, before the specified period had +expired. + +Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not +particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying forth, +and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment. + + + + +CHAPTER 41 + +Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream of +people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and +alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in +front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly from +habit and partly from being out of breath. + +It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had never +looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight. The windows broken, the +rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted house a dull +barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the street into two +long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark, and empty--presented +a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly with the bright prospects +the boy had been building up for its late inmates, and came like a +disappointment or misfortune. Kit would have had a good fire roaring +up the empty chimneys, lights sparkling and shining through the +windows, people moving briskly to and fro, voices in cheerful +conversation, something in unison with the new hopes that were astir. +He had not expected that the house would wear any different aspect--had +known indeed that it could not--but coming upon it in the midst of +eager thoughts and expectations, it checked the current in its flow, +and darkened it with a mournful shadow. + +Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or +contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off, +and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this respect, +saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably upon his +previous thoughts. So, almost wishing that he had not passed it, +though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making up by his +increased speed for the few moments he had lost. + +‘Now, if she should be out,’ thought Kit, as he approached the poor +dwelling of his mother, ‘and I not able to find her, this impatient +gentleman would be in a pretty taking. And sure enough there’s no +light, and the door’s fast. Now, God forgive me for saying so, but if +this is Little Bethel’s doing, I wish Little Bethel was--was farther +off,’ said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door. + +A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused a +woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting Mrs +Nubbles. + +‘Me,’ said Kit. ‘She’s at--at Little Bethel, I suppose?’--getting out +the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and laying +a spiteful emphasis upon the words. + +The neighbour nodded assent. + +‘Then pray tell me where it is,’ said Kit, ‘for I have come on a +pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.’ + +It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as +none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few +knew anything more of it than the name. At last, a gossip of Mrs +Nubbles’s, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two occasions +when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions, furnished the +needful information, which Kit had no sooner obtained than he started +off again. + +Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a +straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who +presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite allusion +to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which enabled him +to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to the parish +church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto. Kit found it, at +last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door to take breath that +he might enter with becoming decency, passed into the chapel. + +It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly +little Bethel--a Bethel of the smallest dimensions--with a small +number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman +(by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by +no means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its +dimensions by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross +amount were but small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers, as +the majority were slumbering. + +Among these was Kit’s mother, who, finding it matter of extreme +difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and +feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the +arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that +overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that she +could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible groan, as +if in recognition of the orator’s doctrines. The baby in her arms was +as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth prevented him from +recognising in this prolonged spiritual nourishment anything half as +interesting as oysters, was alternately very fast asleep and very wide +awake, as his inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally +alluded to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him. + +‘And now I’m here,’ thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew +which was opposite his mother’s, and on the other side of the little +aisle, ‘how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I +might as well be twenty miles off. She’ll never wake till it’s all +over, and there goes the clock again! If he would but leave off for a +minute, or if they’d only sing!’ + +But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would +happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling +them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was +clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the +other, he was good for that time at least. + +In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel, +and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the +clerk’s desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him--Quilp! + +He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was +there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees, +and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the +accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. +He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared +utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help +feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was +fastened upon them, and upon nothing else. + +But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the +Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the +forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his +wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as +the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew serious. +Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract +his wandering attention, and this not being a very difficult task (one +sneeze effected it), he signed to him to rouse his mother. + +Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a +forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the +pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained +inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand, and +held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little +Jacob’s eyes, threatening him by his strained look and attitude--so it +appeared to the child--that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the +preacher, would be literally, and not figuratively, ‘down upon him’ +that instant. In this fearful state of things, distracted by the +sudden appearance of Kit, and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, +the miserable Jacob sat bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, +strongly disposed to cry but afraid to do so, and returning his +pastor’s gaze until his infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets. + +‘If I must do it openly, I must,’ thought Kit. With that he walked +softly out of his pew and into his mother’s, and as Mr Swiveller would +have observed if he had been present, ‘collared’ the baby without +speaking a word. + +‘Hush, mother!’ whispered Kit. ‘Come along with me, I’ve got something +to tell you.’ + +‘Where am I?’ said Mrs Nubbles. + +‘In this blessed Little Bethel,’ returned her son, peevishly. + +‘Blessed indeed!’ cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word. ‘Oh, +Christopher, how have I been edified this night!’ + +‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Kit hastily; ‘but come along, mother, +everybody’s looking at us. Don’t make a noise--bring Jacob--that’s +right!’ + +‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off. + + +‘This gentleman says you’re to stay, Christopher,’ whispered his mother. + +‘Stay, Satan, stay!’ roared the preacher again. ‘Tempt not the woman +that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of him that +calleth. He hath a lamb from the fold!’ cried the preacher, raising +his voice still higher and pointing to the baby. ‘He beareth off a +lamb, a precious lamb! He goeth about, like a wolf in the night +season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!’ + +Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this +strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in +which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in his +arms, and replied aloud, ‘No, I don’t. He’s my brother.’ + +‘He’s MY brother!’ cried the preacher. + +‘He isn’t,’ said Kit indignantly. ‘How can you say such a thing? And +don’t call me names if you please; what harm have I done? I shouldn’t +have come to take ‘em away, unless I was obliged, you may depend upon +that. I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn’t let me. Now, you +have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as much as you like, Sir, +and to let me alone if you please.’ + +So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother and +little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an indistinct +recollection of having seen the people wake up and look surprised, and +of Quilp having remained, throughout the interruption, in his old +attitude, without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to +take the smallest notice of anything that passed. + +‘Oh Kit!’ said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘what +have you done! I never can go there again--never!’ + +‘I’m glad of it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure +you took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited +and sorrowful tonight? That’s the way you do. If you’re happy or +merry ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you’re +sorry for it. More shame for you, mother, I was going to say.’ + +‘Hush, dear!’ said Mrs Nubbles; ‘you don’t mean what you say I know, +but you’re talking sinfulness.’ + +‘Don’t mean it? But I do mean it!’ retorted Kit. ‘I don’t believe, +mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater +sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those +chaps are just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as +in leaving off the other--that’s my belief. But I won’t say anything +more about it, if you’ll promise not to cry, that’s all; and you take +the baby that’s a lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we +go along (which we must do pretty quick) I’ll give you the news I +bring, which will surprise you a little, I can tell you. There--that’s +right. Now you look as if you’d never seen Little Bethel in all your +life, as I hope you never will again; and here’s the baby; and little +Jacob, you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the +neck, and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or +says your brother’s one, you tell him it’s the truest things he’s said +for a twelvemonth, and that if he’d got a little more of the lamb +himself, and less of the mint-sauce--not being quite so sharp and sour +over it--I should like him all the better. That’s what you’ve got to +say to him, Jacob.’ + +Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering +up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of +determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and +on the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary’s house, and +the purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of Little +Bethel. + +His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was +required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which +the most prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to ride +in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the +children behind. But this objection, and a great many others, founded +on certain articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other +articles having no existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were +overcome by Kit, who opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure of +recovering Nell, and the delight it would be to bring her back in +triumph. + +‘There’s only ten minutes now, mother,’ said Kit when they reached +home. ‘There’s a bandbox. Throw in what you want, and we’ll be off +directly.’ + +To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which +could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out +everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was +persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children at +first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being promised all +kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit’s mother wouldn’t +leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn’t make up his mind to be +vexed with her for doing it; would take more time and room than you and +I can spare. So, passing over all such matters, it is sufficient to +say that within a few minutes after the two hours had expired, Kit and +his mother arrived at the Notary’s door, where a post-chaise was +already waiting. + +‘With four horses I declare!’ said Kit, quite aghast at the +preparations. ‘Well you ARE going to do it, mother! Here she is, Sir. +Here’s my mother. She’s quite ready, sir.’ + +‘That’s well,’ returned the gentleman. ‘Now, don’t be in a flutter, +ma’am; you’ll be taken great care of. Where’s the box with the new +clothing and necessaries for them?’ + +‘Here it is,’ said the Notary. ‘In with it, Christopher.’ + +‘All right, Sir,’ replied Kit. ‘Quite ready now, sir.’ + +‘Then come along,’ said the single gentleman. And thereupon he gave +his arm to Kit’s mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as +you please, and took his seat beside her. + +Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and +off they rattled, with Kit’s mother hanging out at one window waving a +damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to +little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word. + +Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears +in his eyes--not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by +the return to which he looked forward. ‘They went away,’ he thought, +‘on foot with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting, +and they’ll come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman +for their friend, and all their troubles over! She’ll forget that she +taught me to write--’ + +Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for +he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise +had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and +Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the +wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what +could possibly detain him. + + + + +CHAPTER 42 + +It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and +to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the +narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back. + +In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two +sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and +her recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness +of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of +deep delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that +kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of those wanderings at the +quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling +water, and sound of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of +the solitary child, and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of +a child’s world or its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now +become her only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into +darkness and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature +lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and +still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would have been +solitude indeed. + +The sisters had gone home, and she was alone. She raised her eyes to +the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, +and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more +beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled +with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space, +eternal in their numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible +existence. She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining in the +same majestic order as when the dove beheld them gleaming through the +swollen waters, upon the mountain tops down far below, and dead +mankind, a million fathoms deep. + +The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the +stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders. The time and +place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope--less hope, +perhaps, than resignation--on the past, and present, and what was yet +before her. Between the old man and herself there had come a gradual +separation, harder to bear than any former sorrow. Every evening, and +often in the day-time too, he was absent, alone; and although she well +knew where he went, and why--too well from the constant drain upon her +scanty purse and from his haggard looks--he evaded all inquiry, +maintained a strict reserve, and even shunned her presence. + +She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it, as it +were, with everything about her, when the distant church-clock bell +struck nine. Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned +thoughtfully towards the town. + +She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the stream, +led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy +light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it +proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who had +made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were +sitting or lying round it. As she was too poor to have any fear of +them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she could not have +done without going a long way round), but quickened her pace a little, +and kept straight on. + +A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the +spot, to glance towards the fire. There was a form between it and her, +the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to +stop abruptly. Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were +assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not +that of the person she had supposed, she went on again. + +But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been +carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that +spoke--she could not distinguish words--sounded as familiar to her as +her own. + +She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but +was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on which +he rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her than +the tone of voice had been. It was her grandfather. + +Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his +associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some +vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination +it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the +open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge. + +In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing +among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger +of being observed. + +There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps +they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy--a tall athletic +man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little +distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black +eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but +half-concealed interest in their conversation. Of these, her +grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the first +card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the +storm--the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff +companion. One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that people, +was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be, empty. + +‘Well, are you going?’ said the stout man, looking up from the ground +where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather’s face. ‘You were +in a mighty hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own +master, I hope?’ + +‘Don’t vex him,’ returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on +the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he +seemed to be squinting all over; ‘he didn’t mean any offence.’ + +‘You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me +besides,’ said the old man, turning from one to the other. ‘Ye’ll +drive me mad among ye.’ + +The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child, +contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he +was, smote upon the little listener’s heart. But she constrained +herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each look and word. + +‘Confound you, what do you mean?’ said the stout man rising a little, +and supporting himself on his elbow. ‘Keep you poor! You’d keep us +poor if you could, wouldn’t you? That’s the way with you whining, +puny, pitiful players. When you lose, you’re martyrs; but I don’t find +that when you win, you look upon the other losers in that light. As to +plunder!’ cried the fellow, raising his voice--‘Damme, what do you +mean by such ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?’ + +The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two +short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded +indignation. It was quite plain that he acted the bully, and his +friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather, it would +have been to any one but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances +quite openly, both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his +approval of the jest until his white teeth shone again. + +The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then +said, turning to his assailant: + +‘You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know. Don’t be so +violent with me. You were, were you not?’ + +‘Not of plundering among present company! Honour among--among +gentlemen, Sir,’ returned the other, who seemed to have been very near +giving an awkward termination to the sentence. + +‘Don’t be hard upon him, Jowl,’ said Isaac List. ‘He’s very sorry for +giving offence. There--go on with what you were saying--go on.’ + +‘I’m a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,’ cried Mr Jowl, ‘to be +sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won’t be +taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains. But that’s +the way I’ve gone through life. Experience has never put a chill upon +my warm-heartedness.’ + +‘I tell you he’s very sorry, don’t I?’ remonstrated Isaac List, ‘and +that he wishes you’d go on.’ + +‘Does he wish it?’ said the other. + +‘Ay,’ groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro. +‘Go on, go on. It’s in vain to fight with it; I can’t do it; go on.’ + +‘I go on then,’ said Jowl, ‘where I left off, when you got up so quick. +If you’re persuaded that it’s time for luck to turn, as it certainly +is, and find that you haven’t means enough to try it (and that’s where +it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the funds to keep on +long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what seems put in your way +on purpose. Borrow it, I say, and, when you’re able, pay it back +again.’ + +‘Certainly,’ Isaac List struck in, ‘if this good lady as keeps the +wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to +bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing; +quite a Providence, I should call it--but then I’ve been religiously +brought up.’ + +‘You see, Isaac,’ said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing +himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come +between them; ‘you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every +hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of these +strangers to get under the good lady’s bed, or lock himself in the +cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a long way from +the mark, no doubt. I’d give him his revenge to the last farthing he +brought, whatever the amount was.’ + +‘But could you?’ urged Isaac List. ‘Is your bank strong enough?’ + +‘Strong enough!’ answered the other, with assumed disdain. ‘Here, you +Sir, give me that box out of the straw!’ + +This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on all +fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a cash-box, +which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore about his person. + +‘Do you see this?’ he said, gathering up the money in his hand and +letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water. +‘Do you hear it? Do you know the sound of gold? There, put it +back--and don’t talk about banks again, Isaac, till you’ve got one of +your own.’ + +Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had never +doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his honourable +dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the production of the +box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for he could have none, +but with a view to being regaled with a sight of so much wealth, which, +though it might be deemed by some but an unsubstantial and visionary +pleasure, was to one in his circumstances a source of extreme delight, +only to be surpassed by its safe depository in his own personal +pockets. Although Mr List and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each +other, it was remarkable that they both looked narrowly at the old man, +who, with his eyes fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet +listening eagerly--as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of +the head, or twitching of the face from time to time--to all they said. + +‘My advice,’ said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, ‘is +plain--I have given it, in fact. I act as a friend. Why should I help +a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I considered +him my friend? It’s foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the +welfare of other people, but that’s my constitution, and I can’t help +it; so don’t blame me, Isaac List.’ + +‘I blame you!’ returned the person addressed; ‘not for the world, Mr +Jowl. I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as you say, +he might pay it back if he won--and if he lost--’ + +‘You’re not to take that into consideration at all,’ said Jowl. + +‘But suppose he did (and nothing’s less likely, from all I know of +chances), why, it’s better to lose other people’s money than one’s own, +I hope?’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Isaac List rapturously, ‘the pleasures of winning! The +delight of picking up the money--the bright, shining yellow-boys--and +sweeping ‘em into one’s pocket! The deliciousness of having a triumph +at last, and thinking that one didn’t stop short and turn back, but +went half-way to meet it! The--but you’re not going, old gentleman?’ + +‘I’ll do it,’ said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three +hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. ‘I’ll have it, +every penny.’ + +‘Why, that’s brave,’ cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on the +shoulder; ‘and I respect you for having so much young blood left. Ha, +ha, ha! Joe Jowl’s half sorry he advised you now. We’ve got the laugh +against him. Ha, ha, ha!’ + +‘He gives me my revenge, mind,’ said the old man, pointing to him +eagerly with his shrivelled hand: ‘mind--he stakes coin against coin, +down to the last one in the box, be there many or few. Remember that!’ + +‘I’m witness,’ returned Isaac. ‘I’ll see fair between you.’ + +‘I have passed my word,’ said Jowl with feigned reluctance, ‘and I’ll +keep it. When does this match come off? I wish it was over.--To-night?’ + +‘I must have the money first,’ said the old man; ‘and that I’ll have +to-morrow--’ + +‘Why not to-night?’ urged Jowl. + +‘It’s late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,’ said the old +man. ‘It must be softly done. No, to-morrow night.’ + +‘Then to-morrow be it,’ said Jowl. ‘A drop of comfort here. Luck to +the best man! Fill!’ + +The gipsy produced three tin cups, and filled them to the brim with +brandy. The old man turned aside and muttered to himself before he +drank. Her own name struck upon the listener’s ear, coupled with some +wish so fervent, that he seemed to breathe it in an agony of +supplication. + +‘God be merciful to us!’ cried the child within herself, ‘and help us +in this trying hour! What shall I do to save him!’ + +The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone of +voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the execution +of the project, and the best precautions for diverting suspicion. The +old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew. + +They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and +when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their +hands, or shouted some brief encouragement. It was not until they had +seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road, +that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh aloud. + +‘So,’ said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, ‘it’s done at last. He +wanted more persuading than I expected. It’s three weeks ago, since we +first put this in his head. What’ll he bring, do you think?’ + +‘Whatever he brings, it’s halved between us,’ returned Isaac List. + +The other man nodded. ‘We must make quick work of it,’ he said, ‘and +then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected. Sharp’s the word.’ + +List and the gipsy acquiesced. When they had all three amused +themselves a little with their victim’s infatuation, they dismissed the +subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began to talk +in a jargon which the child did not understand. As their discourse +appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly interested, +however, she deemed it the best time for escaping unobserved; and crept +away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in the shadow of the hedges, +or forcing a path through them or the dry ditches, until she could +emerge upon the road at a point beyond their range of vision. Then she +fled homeward as quickly as she could, torn and bleeding from the +wounds of thorns and briars, but more lacerated in mind, and threw +herself upon her bed, distracted. + +The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant flight; +dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon the +roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible temptations. +Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next +night, and there was the intermediate time for thinking, and resolving +what to do. Then, she was distracted with a horrible fear that he +might be committing it at that moment; with a dread of hearing shrieks +and cries piercing the silence of the night; with fearful thoughts of +what he might be tempted and led on to do, if he were detected in the +act, and had but a woman to struggle with. It was impossible to bear +such torture. She stole to the room where the money was, opened the +door, and looked in. God be praised! He was not there, and she was +sleeping soundly. + +She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. +But who could sleep--sleep! who could lie passively down, distracted by +such terrors? They came upon her more and more strongly yet. Half +undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old +man’s bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep. + +‘What’s this!’ he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon +her spectral face. + +‘I have had a dreadful dream,’ said the child, with an energy that +nothing but such terrors could have inspired. ‘A dreadful, horrible +dream. I have had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men +like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. +Up, up!’ + +The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who +prays. + +‘Not to me,’ said the child, ‘not to me--to Heaven, to save us from +such deeds! This dream is too real. I cannot sleep, I cannot stay +here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. +Up! We must fly.’ + +He looked at her as if she were a spirit--she might have been for all +the look of earth she had--and trembled more and more. + +‘There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,’ said the child. +‘Up! and away with me!’ + +‘To-night?’ murmured the old man. + +‘Yes, to-night,’ replied the child. ‘To-morrow night will be too late. +The dream will have come again. Nothing but flight can save us. Up!’ + +The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat +of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an angel +messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her. +She took him by the hand and led him on. As they passed the door of the +room he had proposed to rob, she shuddered and looked up into his +face. What a white face was that, and with what a look did he meet +hers! + +She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand as +if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little +stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his +wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders--his staff, +too, she had brought away--and then she led him forth. + +Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their +trembling feet passed quickly. Up the steep hill too, crowned by the +old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked +behind. + +But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her +gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy, moss, +and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping town, deep in +the valley’s shade: and on the far-off river with its winding track of +light: and on the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the +hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old +man’s neck. + + + + +CHAPTER 43 + +Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the resolution +which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to keep steadily +in her view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime, +and that her grandfather’s preservation must depend solely on her +firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand, urged him +onward and looked back no more. + +While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to +shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature, +the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which +elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she +had never known. There was no divided responsibility now; the whole +burden of their two lives had fallen upon her, and henceforth she must +think and act for both. ‘I have saved him,’ she thought. ‘In all +dangers and distresses, I will remember that.’ + +At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend who +had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of +justification--the thought that they were guilty, in appearance, of +treachery and ingratitude--even the having parted from the two +sisters--would have filled her with sorrow and regret. But now, all +other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties +of their wild and wandering life; and the very desperation of their +condition roused and stimulated her. + +In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate +face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and +loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips +that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the +heart, the slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told +their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, +taking up its burden, carried, perhaps to some mother’s pillow, faint +dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that +knows no waking. + +The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and +dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a +distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom +shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till +darkness came again. When it had climbed higher into the sky, and +there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep, +upon a bank, hard by some water. + +But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man’s arm, and long after he +was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes. Fatigue stole +over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed again, and they +slept side by side. + +A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her. A man +of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of +his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come +close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar +nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to +which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting +on the path. + +‘Holloa!’ said the man roughly. ‘What’s the matter here?’ + +‘We were only asleep, Sir,’ said Nell. ‘We have been walking all +night.’ + +‘A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,’ observed the man +who had first accosted them. ‘One of you is a trifle too old for that +sort of work, and the other a trifle too young. Where are you going?’ + +Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the +man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named. Nell, to +avoid more questioning, said ‘Yes, that was the place.’ + +‘Where have you come from?’ was the next question; and this being an +easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which +their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known +to the men or to provoke further inquiry. + +‘I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,’ said +the man. ‘That’s all. Good day.’ + +Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure, +Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat +went on. It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw +the men beckoning to her. + +‘Did you call to me?’ said Nell, running up to them. + +‘You may go with us if you like,’ replied one of those in the boat. +‘We’re going to the same place.’ + +The child hesitated for a moment. Thinking, as she had thought with +great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen +with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty, +follow them, and regaining their influence over him, set hers at +nought; and that if they went with these men, all traces of them must +surely be lost at that spot; determined to accept the offer. The boat +came close to the bank again, and before she had had any more time for +consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding +smoothly down the canal. + +The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes +shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country, +intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated +land, and sheltered farms. Now and then, a village with its modest +spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the +trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with great church towers +looming through its smoke, and high factories or workshops rising above +the mass of houses, would come in view, and, by the length of time it +lingered in the distance, show them how slowly they travelled. Their +way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains; +and except these distant places, and occasionally some men working in +the fields, or lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see +them creep along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded +track. + +Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf late +in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would not +reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if she had +no provision with her, she had better buy it there. She had but a few +pence, having already bargained with them for some bread, but even of +these it was necessary to be very careful, as they were on their way to +an utterly strange place, with no resource whatever. A small loaf and +a morsel of cheese, therefore, were all she could afford, and with +these she took her place in the boat again, and, after half an hour’s +delay during which the men were drinking at the public-house, proceeded +on the journey. + +They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and what +with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a fair way of +being quarrelsome and intoxicated. Avoiding the small cabin, +therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they often +invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open air with the +old man by her side: listening to their boisterous hosts with a +palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on shore again +though she should have to walk all night. + +They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal among +themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers. Thus, when a +quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his friend in the +cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the propriety of +offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to a scuffle in which +they beat each other fearfully, to her inexpressible terror, neither +visited his displeasure upon her, but each contented himself with +venting it on his adversary, on whom, in addition to blows, he bestowed +a variety of compliments, which, happily for the child, were conveyed +in terms, to her quite unintelligible. The difference was finally +adjusted, by the man who had come out of the cabin knocking the other +into it head first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without +evincing the least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, +who, being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to +such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and in a +couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably. + +By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, being +but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from her own +suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring to devise +some scheme for their joint subsistence. The same spirit which had +supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained her now. Her +grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his +madness urged him, was not committed. That was her comfort. + +How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging into +her mind, as they travelled on! Slight incidents, never thought of or +remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since forgotten; words +scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago and those of +yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together; familiar places +shaping themselves out in the darkness from things which, when +approached, were, of all others, the most remote and most unlike them; +sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind relative to the occasion of +her being there, and the place to which she was going, and the people +she was with; and imagination suggesting remarks and questions which +sounded so plainly in her ears, that she would start, and turn, and be +almost tempted to reply;--all the fancies and contradictions common in +watching and excitement and restless change of place, beset the child. + +She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the +man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now +succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short +pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation, requested +that she would oblige him with a song. + +‘You’ve got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong +memory,’ said this gentleman; ‘the voice and eye I’ve got evidence for, +and the memory’s an opinion of my own. And I’m never wrong. Let me +hear a song this minute.’ + +‘I don’t think I know one, sir,’ returned Nell. + +‘You know forty-seven songs,’ said the man, with a gravity which +admitted of no altercation on the subject. ‘Forty-seven’s your number. +Let me hear one of ‘em--the best. Give me a song this minute.’ + +Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, +and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little +ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which was so +agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory +manner requested to be favoured with another, to which he was so +obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words +at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its +deficiency in other respects. The noise of this vocal performance +awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late +opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his pride and joy and +chief delight, and that he desired no better entertainment. With a +third call, more imperative than either of the two former, Nell felt +obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained not only by +the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback, who being +by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the revels of +the night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very air. +In this way, with little cessation, and singing the same songs again +and again, the tired and exhausted child kept them in good humour all +that night; and many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep +by the discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head +beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds. + +At length the morning dawned. It was no sooner light than it began to +rain heavily. As the child could not endure the intolerable vapours of +the cabin, they covered her, in return for her exertions, with some +pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin, which sufficed to keep her +tolerably dry and to shelter her grandfather besides. As the day +advanced the rain increased. At noon it poured down more hopelessly +and heavily than ever without the faintest promise of abatement. + +They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for which +they were bound. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other +barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of coal-ash +and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some great +manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and smoke from +distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in the outskirts. +Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings, trembling with the +working of engines, and dimly resounding with their shrieks and +throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a black vapour, which hung +in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the housetops and filled the air +with gloom; the clank of hammers beating upon iron, the roar of busy +streets and noisy crowds, gradually augmenting until all the various +sounds blended into one and none was distinguishable for itself, +announced the termination of their journey. + +The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged. The men were +occupied directly. The child and her grandfather, after waiting in +vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed through a +dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din and tumult, +and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and confused, as if +they had lived a thousand years before, and were raised from the dead +and placed there by a miracle. + + + + +CHAPTER 44 + +The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no +symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs; and +undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of carts and +waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of horses’ feet upon +the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and +umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all +the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its +occupation: while the two poor strangers, stunned and bewildered by the +hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling, +amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of +the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a +mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems +him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue. + +They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched +the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of +encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to +themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the +conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the +cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager, +some slow and dull; in some countenances, were written gain; in others, +loss. It was like being in the confidence of all these people to stand +quietly there, looking into their faces as they flitted past. In busy +places, where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that +every other man has his, his character and purpose are written broadly +in his face. In the public walks and lounges of a town, people go to +see and to be seen, and there the same expression, with little variety, +is repeated a hundred times. The working-day faces come nearer to the +truth, and let it out more plainly. + +Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude awakens, +the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a wondering +interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of her own +condition. But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place +in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to the +point whence they had strayed. No one passed who seemed to notice +them, or to whom she durst appeal. After some time, they left their +place of refuge from the weather, and mingled with the concourse. + +Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer +people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own +breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the +streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with their +help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the +cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child +needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep along. + +Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful +country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and +thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife! They were +but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight of +which increased their hopelessness and suffering. + +The child had not only to endure the accumulated hardships of their +destitute condition, but to bear the reproaches of her grandfather, who +began to murmur at having been led away from their late abode, and +demand that they should return to it. Being now penniless, and no +relief or prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their steps +through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf, hoping to +find the boat in which they had come, and to be allowed to sleep on +board that night. But here again they were disappointed, for the gate +was closed, and some fierce dogs, barking at their approach, obliged +them to retreat. + +‘We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,’ said the child in a +weak voice, as they turned away from this last repulse; ‘and to-morrow +we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country, and try to earn +our bread in very humble work.’ + +‘Why did you bring me here?’ returned the old man fiercely. ‘I cannot +bear these close eternal streets. We came from a quiet part. Why did +you force me to leave it?’ + +‘Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,’ said the +child, with a momentary firmness that lost itself in tears; ‘and we +must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear grandfather, +you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never will complain if +you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.’ + +‘Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!’ cried the old man, +clasping his hands and gazing as if for the first time upon her anxious +face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen feet; ‘has all +my agony of care brought her to this at last! Was I a happy man once, +and have I lost happiness and all I had, for this!’ + +‘If we were in the country now,’ said the child, with assumed +cheerfulness, as they walked on looking about them for a shelter, we +should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as if he +loved us, and nodding and rustling as if he would have us fall asleep, +thinking of him while he watched. Please God, we shall be there +soon--to-morrow or next day at the farthest--and in the meantime let us +think, dear, that it was a good thing we came here; for we are lost in +the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any cruel people should +pursue us, they could surely never trace us further. There’s comfort +in that. And here’s a deep old doorway--very dark, but quite dry, and +warm too, for the wind don’t blow in here--What’s that!’ + +Uttering a half shriek, she recoiled from a black figure which came +suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take +refuge, and stood still, looking at them. + +‘Speak again,’ it said; ‘do I know the voice?’ + +‘No,’ replied the child timidly; ‘we are strangers, and having no money +for a night’s lodging, were going to rest here.’ + +There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in the +place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show how poor +and mean it was. To this, the figure beckoned them; at the same time +drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no desire to conceal +itself or take them at an advantage. The form was that of a man, +miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, which, perhaps by its contrast +with the natural colour of his skin, made him look paler than he really +was. That he was naturally of a very wan and pallid aspect, however, +his hollow cheeks, sharp features, and sunken eyes, no less than a +certain look of patient endurance, sufficiently testified. His voice +was harsh by nature, but not brutal; and though his face, besides +possessing the characteristics already mentioned, was overshadowed by a +quantity of long dark hair, its expression was neither ferocious nor +bad. + +‘How came you to think of resting there?’ he said. ‘Or how,’ he added, +looking more attentively at the child, ‘do you come to want a place of +rest at this time of night?’ + +‘Our misfortunes,’ the grandfather answered, ‘are the cause.’ + +‘Do you know,’ said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell, ‘how +wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for her?’ + +‘I know it well, God help me,’ he replied. ‘What can I do!’ + +The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from +which the rain was running off in little streams. ‘I can give you +warmth,’ he said, after a pause; ‘nothing else. Such lodging as I +have, is in that house,’ pointing to the doorway from which he had +emerged, ‘but she is safer and better there than here. The fire is in +a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if you’ll +trust yourselves to me. You see that red light yonder?’ + +They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; +the dull reflection of some distant fire. + +‘It’s not far,’ said the man. ‘Shall I take you there? You were going +to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes--nothing +better.’ + +Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he +took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow. + +Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an +infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the way +through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched quarter of +the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing kennels or running +waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of such obstructions, +and making his way straight through them. They had proceeded thus, in +silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost sight of the glare +to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow ways by which they had +come, when it suddenly burst upon them again, streaming up from the +high chimney of a building close before them. + +‘This is the place,’ he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and +take her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here will harm you.’ + +It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to +enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their apprehension and +alarm. In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, +with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external +air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of +furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water, +and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard elsewhere; in this +gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, dimly and +fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the burning fires, and wielding +great weapons, a faulty blow from any one of which must have crushed +some workman’s skull, a number of men laboured like giants. Others, +reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes, with their faces turned to the +black vault above, slept or rested from their toil. Others again, +opening the white-hot furnace-doors, cast fuel on the flames, which +came rushing and roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil. +Others drew forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets +of glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep light +like that which reddens in the eyes of savage beasts. + +Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their conductor +led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one furnace burnt +by night and day--so, at least, they gathered from the motion of his +lips, for as yet they could only see him speak: not hear him. The man +who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the +present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend, who, +spreading Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her +where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to her and the +old man to lie down and sleep. For himself, he took his station on a +rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his +hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the +white ashes as they fell into their bright hot grave below. + +The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with the +great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the place to +fall with a gentler sound upon the child’s tired ears, and was not long +in lulling her to sleep. The old man was stretched beside her, and +with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed. + +It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or for how +short a time, she had slept. But she found herself protected, both +from any cold air that might find its way into the building, and from +the scorching heat, by some of the workmen’s clothes; and glancing at +their friend saw that he sat in exactly the same attitude, looking with +a fixed earnestness of attention towards the fire, and keeping so very +still that he did not even seem to breathe. She lay in the state +between sleeping and waking, looking so long at his motionless figure +that at length she almost feared he had died as he sat there; and +softly rising and drawing close to him, ventured to whisper in his ear. + +He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately occupied, +as if to assure himself that it was really the child so near him, +looked inquiringly into her face. + +‘I feared you were ill,’ she said. ‘The other men are all in motion, +and you are so very quiet.’ + +‘They leave me to myself,’ he replied. ‘They know my humour. They +laugh at me, but don’t harm me in it. See yonder there--that’s my +friend.’ + +‘The fire?’ said the child. + +‘It has been alive as long as I have,’ the man made answer. ‘We talk +and think together all night long.’ + +The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned his +eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before. + +‘It’s like a book to me,’ he said--‘the only book I ever learned to +read; and many an old story it tells me. It’s music, for I should know +its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its roar. It +has its pictures too. You don’t know how many strange faces and +different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It’s my memory, that +fire, and shows me all my life.’ + +The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help +remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse. + +‘Yes,’ he said, with a faint smile, ‘it was the same when I was quite a +baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep. My father watched it +then.’ + +‘Had you no mother?’ asked the child. + +‘No, she was dead. Women work hard in these parts. She worked herself +to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire has gone on +saying the same thing ever since. I suppose it was true. I have +always believed it.’ + +‘Were you brought up here, then?’ said the child. + +‘Summer and winter,’ he replied. ‘Secretly at first, but when they +found it out, they let him keep me here. So the fire nursed me--the +same fire. It has never gone out.’ + +‘You are fond of it?’ said the child. + +‘Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down--just there, +where those ashes are burning now--and wondered, I remember, why it +didn’t help him.’ + +‘Have you been here ever since?’ asked the child. + +‘Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and a +very cold dreary while it was. It burned all the time though, and +roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play days. +You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was, but for +all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw you in the +street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was after he died, +and made me wish to bring you to the fire. I thought of those old +times again, when I saw you sleeping by it. You should be sleeping +now. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!’ + +With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the +clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke, +returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the +furnace, but remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to +watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness that +came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap of ashes, +slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber, and the +bed, a bed of down. + +When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings +in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway down, seemed to +make the building darker than it had been at night. The clang and +tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires were burning +fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day brought rest or +quiet there. + +Her friend parted his breakfast--a scanty mess of coffee and some +coarse bread--with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whither +they were going. She told him that they sought some distant country +place remote from towns or even other villages, and with a faltering +tongue inquired what road they would do best to take. + +‘I know little of the country,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘for such as +I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom go forth to +breathe. But there are such places yonder.’ + +‘And far from here?’ said Nell. + +‘Aye surely. How could they be near us, and be green and fresh? The +road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires like +ours--a strange black road, and one that would frighten you by night.’ + +‘We are here and must go on,’ said the child boldly; for she saw that +the old man listened with anxious ears to this account. + +‘Rough people--paths never made for little feet like yours--a dismal +blighted way--is there no turning back, my child?’ + +‘There is none,’ cried Nell, pressing forward. ‘If you can direct us, +do. If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose. Indeed you +do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and true we are in +flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, I am sure you would +not.’ + +‘God forbid, if it is so!’ said their uncouth protector, glancing from +the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent his eyes +upon the ground. ‘I’ll direct you from the door, the best I can. I +wish I could do more.’ + +He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what +course they should hold when they had gained it. He lingered so long +on these instructions, that the child, with a fervent blessing, tore +herself away, and stayed to hear no more. + +But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came +running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it--two +old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces. Who knows but they shone +as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that have been +chronicled on tombs? + +And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge farther +from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh interest to the +spot where his guests had slept, and read new histories in his furnace +fire. + + + + +CHAPTER 45 + +In all their journeying, they had never longed so ardently, they had +never so pined and wearied, for the freedom of pure air and open +country, as now. No, not even on that memorable morning, when, +deserting their old home, they abandoned themselves to the mercies of a +strange world, and left all the dumb and senseless things they had +known and loved, behind--not even then, had they so yearned for the +fresh solitudes of wood, hillside, and field, as now, when the noise +and dirt and vapour, of the great manufacturing town reeking with lean +misery and hungry wretchedness, hemmed them in on every side, and +seemed to shut out hope, and render escape impossible. + +‘Two days and nights!’ thought the child. ‘He said two days and nights +we should have to spend among such scenes as these. Oh! if we live to +reach the country once again, if we get clear of these dreadful places, +though it is only to lie down and die, with what a grateful heart I +shall thank God for so much mercy!’ + +With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling to a +great distance among streams and mountains, where only very poor and +simple people lived, and where they might maintain themselves by very +humble helping work in farms, free from such terrors as that from which +they fled--the child, with no resource but the poor man’s gift, and no +encouragement but that which flowed from her own heart, and its sense +of the truth and right of what she did, nerved herself to this last +journey and boldly pursued her task. + +‘We shall be very slow to-day, dear,’ she said, as they toiled +painfully through the streets; ‘my feet are sore, and I have pains in +all my limbs from the wet of yesterday. I saw that he looked at us and +thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the road.’ + +‘It was a dreary way he told us of,’ returned her grandfather, +piteously. ‘Is there no other road? Will you not let me go some other +way than this?’ + +‘Places lie beyond these,’ said the child, firmly, ‘where we may live +in peace, and be tempted to do no harm. We will take the road that +promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if it were +a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect. We would not, +dear, would we?’ + +‘No,’ replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in his +manner. ‘No. Let us go on. I am ready. I am quite ready, Nell.’ + +The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her companion to +expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common +severity, and every exertion increased them. But they wrung from her +no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the two travellers +proceeded very slowly, they did proceed. Clearing the town in course +of time, they began to feel that they were fairly on their way. + +A long suburb of red brick houses--some with patches of garden-ground, +where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and +coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation sickened and +sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace, making them by its +presence seem yet more blighting and unwholesome than in the town +itself--a long, flat, straggling suburb passed, they came, by slow +degrees, upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen +to grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring, where +nothing green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools, +which here and there lay idly sweltering by the black road-side. + +Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its +dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them +with a dismal gloom. On every side, and far as the eye could see into +the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and +presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which +is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, +obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air. On mounds of +ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten +pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured +creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl +from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the +ground tremble with their agonies. Dismantled houses here and there +appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others +that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but +yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in +attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the +road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses. Then came more +of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their +wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and round +again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the +same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their +black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the +face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark +cloud. + +But night-time in this dreadful spot!--night, when the smoke was +changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and places, +that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with figures +moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to one another +with hoarse cries--night, when the noise of every strange machine was +aggravated by the darkness; when the people near them looked wilder and +more savage; when bands of unemployed labourers paraded the roads, or +clustered by torch-light round their leaders, who told them, in stern +language, of their wrongs, and urged them on to frightful cries and +threats; when maddened men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning +the tears and prayers of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on +errands of terror and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as +their own--night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude +coffins (for contagious disease and death had been busy with the living +crops); when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed +in their wake--night, when some called for bread, and some for drink to +drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering feet, +and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home--night, which, unlike +the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it no peace, nor +quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep--who shall tell the terrors of the +night to the young wandering child! + +And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and, with +no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the +poor old man. So very weak and spent, she felt, so very calm and +unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but +prayed that God would raise up some friend for him. She tried to +recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction where the +fire by which they had slept last night was burning. She had forgotten +to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and when she had +remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful not to turn one +look towards the spot where he was watching. + +A penny loaf was all they had had that day. It was very little, but +even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over +her senses. She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon +her face, fell into a slumber. It was not like sleep--and yet it must +have been, or why those pleasant dreams of the little scholar all night +long! Morning came. Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and +hearing, and yet the child made no complaint--perhaps would have made +none, even if she had not had that inducement to be silent, travelling +by her side. She felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated +together from that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very +ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety. + +A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they expended +their last penny in the purchase of another loaf, prevented her +partaking even of this poor repast. Her grandfather ate greedily, +which she was glad to see. + +Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or +improvement. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the +same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and +distress. Objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more +rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it +were, in the effort to prevent herself from falling. Poor child! the +cause was in her tottering feet. + +Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of hunger. +She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side, and knocked +with her hand upon the door. + +‘What would you have here?’ said a gaunt man, opening it. + +‘Charity. A morsel of bread.’ + +‘Do you see that?’ returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of +bundle on the ground. ‘That’s a dead child. I and five hundred other +men were thrown out of work, three months ago. That is my third dead +child, and last. Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of +bread to spare?’ + +The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her. Impelled by +strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one, which, +yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open. + +It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for two +women, each among children of her own, occupied different portions of +the room. In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in black who appeared +to have just entered, and who held by the arm a boy. + +‘Here, woman,’ he said, ‘here’s your deaf and dumb son. You may thank +me for restoring him to you. He was brought before me, this morning, +charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I +assure you. But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought +he might have learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to +you. Take more care of him for the future.’ + +‘And won’t you give me back MY son!’ said the other woman, hastily +rising and confronting him. ‘Won’t you give me back MY son, Sir, who +was transported for the same offence!’ + +‘Was he deaf and dumb, woman?’ asked the gentleman sternly. + +‘Was he not, Sir?’ + +‘You know he was not.’ + +‘He was,’ cried the woman. ‘He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that +was good and right, from his cradle. Her boy may have learnt no +better! where did mine learn better? where could he? who was there to +teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?’ + +‘Peace, woman,’ said the gentleman, ‘your boy was in possession of all +his senses.’ + +‘He was,’ cried the mother; ‘and he was the more easy to be led astray +because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know +right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the +difference? You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that +God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish +mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves. How many of the girls and +boys--ah, men and women too--that are brought before you and you don’t +pity, are deaf and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and +are punished in that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are +quarrelling among yourselves whether they ought to learn this or +that?--Be a just man, Sir, and give me back my son.’ + +‘You are desperate,’ said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, ‘and +I am sorry for you.’ + +‘I AM desperate,’ returned the woman, ‘and you have made me so. Give +me back my son, to work for these helpless children. Be a just man, +Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!’ + +The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place +at which to ask for alms. She led the old man softly from the door, +and they pursued their journey. + +With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an +undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking +state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the +remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even +stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure +for the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk. Evening was +drawing on, but had not closed in, when--still travelling among the +same dismal objects--they came to a busy town. + +Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable. +After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed, +they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and +try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on +their exhausted state. + +They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the +child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers +would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this juncture, +going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who, +with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as +he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand. + +It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for +he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length, he +stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. +Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, +and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of +her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to implore his help. + +He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a +wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. + + + + +CHAPTER 46 + +It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster. +Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she +had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and +confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence of +mind to raise her from the ground. + +But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his stick +and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured, by such +simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself; while her +grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and implored her with +many endearing expressions to speak to him, were it only a word. + +‘She is quite exhausted,’ said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into +his face. ‘You have taxed her powers too far, friend.’ + +‘She is perishing of want,’ rejoined the old man. ‘I never thought how +weak and ill she was, till now.’ + +Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the +schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man +gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at +his utmost speed. + +There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had +been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken. Towards this +place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the +kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for +God’s sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire. + +The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster’s entrance, did +as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for +his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more +air, at the same time carefully excluding what air there was, by +closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody +else didn’t do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by +themselves. + +The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity than +any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the merits of +the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy and water, +followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, +smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly +administered, recovered the child so far as to enable her to thank them +in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who +stood, with an anxious face, hard by. Without suffering her to speak +another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women +straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, +bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they despatched a +messenger for the doctor. + +The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals +dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all +speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his +watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt +her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied +wine-glass as if in profound abstraction. + +‘I should give her,’ said the doctor at length, ‘a tea-spoonful, every +now and then, of hot brandy and water.’ + +‘Why, that’s exactly what we’ve done, sir!’ said the delighted landlady. + +‘I should also,’ observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on +the stairs, ‘I should also,’ said the doctor, in the voice of an +oracle, ‘put her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel. I +should likewise,’ said the doctor with increased solemnity, ‘give her +something light for supper--the wing of a roasted fowl now--’ + +‘Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it’s cooking at the kitchen fire this +instant!’ cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the +schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so +well that the doctor might have smelt it if he had tried; perhaps he +did. + +‘You may then,’ said the doctor, rising gravely, ‘give her a glass of +hot mulled port wine, if she likes wine--’ + +‘And a toast, Sir?’ suggested the landlady. + +‘Ay,’ said the doctor, in the tone of a man who makes a dignified +concession. ‘And a toast--of bread. But be very particular to make it +of bread, if you please, ma’am.’ + +With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered, the +doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom +which tallied so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very +shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people’s constitutions +were; which there appears some reason to suppose he did. + +While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep, +from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. As she +evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was +below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their +being apart, he took his supper with her. Finding her still very +restless on this head, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to +which he presently retired. The key of this chamber happened by good +fortune to be on that side of the door which was in Nell’s room; she +turned it on him when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed +again with a thankful heart. + +The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen +fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the +fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely to the child’s +assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple way he could, the +inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady, who had a great +curiosity to be made acquainted with every particular of Nell’s life +and history. The poor schoolmaster was so open-hearted, and so little +versed in the most ordinary cunning or deceit, that she could not have +failed to succeed in the first five minutes, but that he happened to be +unacquainted with what she wished to know; and so he told her. The +landlady, by no means satisfied with this assurance, which she +considered an ingenious evasion of the question, rejoined that he had +his reasons of course. Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into +the affairs of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers, +who had so many of her own. She had merely asked a civil question, and +to be sure she knew it would meet with a civil answer. She was quite +satisfied--quite. She had rather perhaps that he would have said at +once that he didn’t choose to be communicative, because that would have +been plain and intelligible. However, she had no right to be offended +of course. He was the best judge, and had a perfect right to say what +he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a moment. Oh dear, no! + +‘I assure you, my good lady,’ said the mild schoolmaster, ‘that I have +told you the plain truth. As I hope to be saved, I have told you the +truth.’ + +‘Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,’ rejoined the landlady, +with ready good-humour, ‘and I’m very sorry I have teazed you. But +curiosity you know is the curse of our sex, and that’s the fact.’ + +The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse sometimes +involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented from making any +remark to that effect, if he had it in contemplation to do so, by the +schoolmaster’s rejoinder. + +‘You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and +welcome, and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart you +have shown to-night, if I could,’ he said. ‘As it is, please to take +care of her in the morning, and let me know early how she is; and to +understand that I am paymaster for the three.’ + +So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial +perhaps for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed, and +the host and hostess to theirs. + +The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was +extremely weak, and would at least require a day’s rest, and careful +nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey. The schoolmaster +received this communication with perfect cheerfulness, observing that +he had a day to spare--two days for that matter--and could very well +afford to wait. As the patient was to sit up in the evening, he +appointed to visit her in her room at a certain hour, and rambling out +with his book, did not return until the hour arrived. + +Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and at +sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple schoolmaster shed +a few tears himself, at the same time showing in very energetic +language how foolish it was to do so, and how very easily it could be +avoided, if one tried. + +‘It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness’ said the +child, ‘to think that we should be a burden upon you. How can I ever +thank you? If I had not met you so far from home, I must have died, +and he would have been left alone.’ + +‘We’ll not talk about dying,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘and as to +burdens, I have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.’ + +‘Indeed!’ cried the child joyfully. + +‘Oh yes,’ returned her friend. ‘I have been appointed clerk and +schoolmaster to a village a long way from here--and a long way from the +old one as you may suppose--at five-and-thirty pounds a year. +Five-and-thirty pounds!’ + +‘I am very glad,’ said the child, ‘so very, very glad.’ + +‘I am on my way there now,’ resumed the schoolmaster. ‘They allowed me +the stage-coach-hire--outside stage-coach-hire all the way. Bless you, +they grudge me nothing. But as the time at which I am expected there, +left me ample leisure, I determined to walk instead. How glad I am, to +think I did so!’ + +‘How glad should we be!’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair, +‘certainly, that’s very true. But you--where are you going, where are +you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me, what had +you been doing before? Now, tell me--do tell me. I know very little +of the world, and perhaps you are better fitted to advise me in its +affairs than I am qualified to give advice to you; but I am very +sincere, and I have a reason (you have not forgotten it) for loving +you. I have felt since that time as if my love for him who died, had +been transferred to you who stood beside his bed. If this,’ he added, +looking upwards, ‘is the beautiful creation that springs from ashes, +let its peace prosper with me, as I deal tenderly and compassionately +by this young child!’ + +The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the affectionate +earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which was stamped upon +his every word and look, gave the child a confidence in him, which the +utmost arts of treachery and dissimulation could never have awakened in +her breast. She told him all--that they had no friend or +relative--that she had fled with the old man, to save him from a +madhouse and all the miseries he dreaded--that she was flying now, to +save him from himself--and that she sought an asylum in some remote +and primitive place, where the temptation before which he fell would +never enter, and her late sorrows and distresses could have no place. + +The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment. ‘This child!’--he +thought--‘Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts and +dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and sustained by +strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude alone! And yet the +world is full of such heroism. Have I yet to learn that the hardest +and best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any +earthly record, and are suffered every day! And should I be surprised +to hear the story of this child!’ + +What more he thought or said, matters not. It was concluded that Nell +and her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was +bound, and that he should endeavour to find them some humble occupation +by which they could subsist. ‘We shall be sure to succeed,’ said the +schoolmaster, heartily. ‘The cause is too good a one to fail.’ + +They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a +stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as +they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the driver +for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside. A bargain was +soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it rolled away; with +the child comfortably bestowed among the softer packages, her +grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside the driver, and the +landlady and all the good folks of the inn screaming out their good +wishes and farewells. + +What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside +that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the horses’ +bells, the occasional smacking of the carter’s whip, the smooth rolling +of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the harness, the cheery +good-nights of passing travellers jogging past on little short-stepped +horses--all made pleasantly indistinct by the thick awning, which +seemed made for lazy listening under, till one fell asleep! The very +going to sleep, still with an indistinct idea, as the head jogged to +and fro upon the pillow, of moving onward with no trouble or fatigue, +and hearing all these sounds like dreamy music, lulling to the +senses--and the slow waking up, and finding one’s self staring out +through the breezy curtain half-opened in the front, far up into the +cold bright sky with its countless stars, and downward at the driver’s +lantern dancing on like its namesake Jack of the swamps and marshes, +and sideways at the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road +rising up, up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as +if there were no more road, and all beyond was sky--and the stopping at +the inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire +and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded that +the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort’s sake to think it +colder than it was!--What a delicious journey was that journey in the +waggon. + +Then the going on again--so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards so +sleepy. The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing past like +a highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs, and visions of +a guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm, and of a gentleman +in a fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild and stupefied--the +stopping at the turnpike where the man was gone to bed, and knocking at +the door until he answered with a smothered shout from under the +bed-clothes in the little room above, where the faint light was +burning, and presently came down, night-capped and shivering, to throw +the gate wide open, and wish all waggons off the road except by day. +The cold sharp interval between night and morning--the distant streak +of light widening and spreading, and turning from grey to white, and +from white to yellow, and from yellow to burning red--the presence of +day, with all its cheerfulness and life--men and horses at the +plough--birds in the trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields, +frightening them away with rattles. The coming to a town--people busy +in the markets; light carts and chaises round the tavern yard; +tradesmen standing at their doors; men running horses up and down the +street for sale; pigs plunging and grunting in the dirty distance, +getting off with long strings at their legs, running into clean +chemists’ shops and being dislodged with brooms by ‘prentices; the +night coach changing horses--the passengers cheerless, cold, ugly, and +discontented, with three months’ growth of hair in one night--the +coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely beautiful by +contrast:--so much bustle, so many things in motion, such a variety of +incidents--when was there a journey with so many delights as that +journey in the waggon! + +Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode inside, +and sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take her place +and lie down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily until they came to +a large town, where the waggon stopped, and where they spent a night. +They passed a large church; and in the streets were a number of old +houses, built of a kind of earth or plaster, crossed and re-crossed in +a great many directions with black beams, which gave them a remarkable +and very ancient look. The doors, too, were arched and low, some with +oaken portals and quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat +on summer evenings. The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, +that seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim +of sight. They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces, +except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted among +fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain. When they +had passed through this town, they entered again upon the country, and +began to draw near their place of destination. + +It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon the +road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity, but that +the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles of his +village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new clerk, and was +unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and travel-disordered +dress. It was a fine, clear, autumn morning, when they came upon the +scene of his promotion, and stopped to contemplate its beauties. + +‘See--here’s the church!’ cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low +voice; ‘and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse, I’ll +be sworn. Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this beautiful place!’ + +They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned windows, the +venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient tower, +the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage, barn, and +homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that rippled by the +distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away. It was for such +a spot the child had wearied in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of +labour. Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through +which they had forced their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful +indeed, but not more beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always +present to her mind. They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy +distance, as the prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; +but, as they receded, she had loved and panted for them more. + +‘I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,’ said the schoolmaster, +at length breaking the silence into which they had fallen in their +gladness. ‘I have a letter to present, and inquiries to make, you +know. Where shall I take you? To the little inn yonder?’ + +‘Let us wait here,’ rejoined Nell. ‘The gate is open. We will sit in +the church porch till you come back.’ + +‘A good place too,’ said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards it, +disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on the stone +seat. ‘Be sure that I come back with good news, and am not long gone!’ + +So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which he +had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried +off, full of ardour and excitement. + +The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid +him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old +churchyard--so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the +fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless, +seemed an invasion of its silence. It was a very aged, ghostly place; +the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had +a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel +windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while +other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen +down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, +as if they too claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes +with the dust of men. Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and +forming a part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render +habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken windows +and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and desolate. + +Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively +riveted. She knew not why. The church, the ruin, the antiquated +graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger’s thoughts, but from +the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could +turn to nothing else. Even when she had made the circuit of the +enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their +friend, she took her station where she could still look upon them, and +felt as if fascinated towards that spot. + + + + +CHAPTER 47 + +Kit’s mother and the single gentleman--upon whose track it is expedient +to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable +with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in +situations of uncertainty and doubt--Kit’s mother and the single +gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure +from the Notary’s door we have already witnessed, soon left the town +behind them, and struck fire from the flints of the broad highway. + +The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her +situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by this time +little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the fire, or +tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had scalded +their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of +tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window +the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers, and others, felt in the new +dignity of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who, not being +greatly afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day +acquaintance from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained +to preserve a decent solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent +to all external objects. + +To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman +would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of steel. Never +did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless gentleman as he. +He never sat in the same position for two minutes together, but was +perpetually tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and +letting them violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to +draw it in again and thrust it out of another. He carried in his +pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious and unknown construction; and as +sure as ever Kit’s mother closed her eyes, so surely--whisk, rattle, +fizz--there was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of +fire, and letting the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were +no such thing as a possibility of himself and Kit’s mother being +roasted alive before the boys could stop their horses. Whenever they +halted to change, there he was--out of the carriage without letting +down the steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, +pulling out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before +he put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that +Kit’s mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were to, +in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came +the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit’s mother as wide awake +again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage. + +‘Are you comfortable?’ the single gentleman would say after one of +these exploits, turning sharply round. + +‘Quite, Sir, thank you.’ + +‘Are you sure? An’t you cold?’ + +‘It is a little chilly, Sir,’ Kit’s mother would reply. + +‘I knew it!’ cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front +glasses. ‘She wants some brandy and water! Of course she does. How +could I forget it? Hallo! Stop at the next inn, and call out for a +glass of hot brandy and water.’ + +It was in vain for Kit’s mother to protest that she stood in need of +nothing of the kind. The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever +he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of restlessness, it +invariably occurred to him that Kit’s mother wanted brandy and water. + +In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to +supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered everything eatable +that the house contained; and because Kit’s mother didn’t eat +everything at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that she +must be ill. + +‘You’re faint,’ said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but +walk about the room. ‘I see what’s the matter with you, ma’am. You’re +faint.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, I’m not indeed.’ + +‘I know you are. I’m sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the +bosom of her family at a minute’s notice, and she goes on getting +fainter and fainter before my eyes. I’m a pretty fellow! How many +children have you got, ma’am?’ + +‘Two, sir, besides Kit.’ + +‘Boys, ma’am?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Are they christened?’ + +‘Only half baptised as yet, sir.’ + +‘I’m godfather to both of ‘em. Remember that, if you please, ma’am. +You had better have some mulled wine.’ + +‘I couldn’t touch a drop indeed, sir.’ + +‘You must,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I see you want it. I ought to +have thought of it before.’ + +Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as +impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of +some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit’s mother +swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran +down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where--not +impossibly from the effects of this agreeable sedative--she soon became +insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the +happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as, +notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, +than the single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it +was broad day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town. + +‘This is the place!’ cried her companion, letting down all the glasses. +‘Drive to the wax-work!’ + +The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, +to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a +smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought +the good folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the +sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. +They drove up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected, +and there stopped. + +‘What’s this?’ said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. ‘Is +anything the matter here?’ + +‘A wedding Sir, a wedding!’ cried several voices. ‘Hurrah!’ + +The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre +of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the +postilions, and handed out Kit’s mother, at sight of whom the populace +cried out, ‘Here’s another wedding!’ and roared and leaped for joy. + +‘The world has gone mad, I think,’ said the single gentleman, pressing +through the concourse with his supposed bride. ‘Stand back here, will +you, and let me knock.’ + +Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of +dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a +knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than +this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered +these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, +preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences +alone. + +‘Now, sir, what do you want!’ said a man with a large white bow at his +button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical +aspect. + +‘Who has been married here, my friend?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘I have.’ + +‘You! and to whom in the devil’s name?’ + +‘What right have you to ask?’ returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from +top to toe. + +‘What right!’ cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit’s +mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had +it in contemplation to run away. ‘A right you little dream of. Mind, +good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut, tut, that +can’t be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call +her Nell. Where is she?’ + +As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in +a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a +white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the +bridegroom’s arm. + +‘Where is she!’ cried this lady. ‘What news have you brought me? What +has become of her?’ + +The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late +Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the +eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of +conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length +he stammered out, + +‘I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?’ + +‘Oh sir!’ cried the bride, ‘If you have come here to do her any good, +why weren’t you here a week ago?’ + +‘She is not--not dead?’ said the person to whom she addressed herself, +turning very pale. + +‘No, not so bad as that.’ + +‘I thank God!’ cried the single gentleman feebly. ‘Let me come in.’ + +They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door. + +‘You see in me, good people,’ he said, turning to the newly-married +couple, ‘one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons +whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them, +but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, +and let them see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them +from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by +their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.’ + +‘I always said it!’ cried the bride, ‘I knew she was not a common +child! Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could +do, has been tried in vain.’ + +With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all +that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting +with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding +(which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to +trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm +for their safety, as well as on account of the suspicions to which they +themselves might one day be exposed in consequence of their abrupt +departure. They dwelt upon the old man’s imbecility of mind, upon the +uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the +company he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression +which had gradually crept over her and changed her both in health and +spirits. Whether she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing +or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or +whether they had left the house together, they had no means of +determining. Certain they considered it, that there was but slender +prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether their flight +originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now no hope +of their return. To all this, the single gentleman listened with the +air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed +tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep +affliction. + +Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work +of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview +came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence +of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon +the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the +unfriended child, which, however, they steadily declined accepting. In +the end, the happy couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their +honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit’s +mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door. + +‘Where shall we drive you, sir?’ said the post-boy. + +‘You may drive me,’ said the single gentleman, ‘to the--’ He was not +going to add ‘inn,’ but he added it for the sake of Kit’s mother; and +to the inn they went. + +Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show +the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from +her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced. Opinion was +divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a +viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the +single gentleman was her father; and all bent forward to catch a +glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode +away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise. + +What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved +if he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather +were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the +schoolmaster’s return! + + + + +CHAPTER 48 + +Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand, +travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous +as it was bandied about--for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling +stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its +wanderings up and down--occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to +be looked upon as an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could +scarcely be enough admired; and drew together a large concourse of +idlers, who having recently been, as it were, thrown out of employment +by the closing of the wax-work and the completion of the nuptial +ceremonies, considered his arrival as little else than a special +providence, and hailed it with demonstrations of the liveliest joy. + +Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the +depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his +disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman alighted, +and handed out Kit’s mother with a gloomy politeness which impressed +the lookers-on extremely. That done, he gave her his arm and escorted +her into the house, while several active waiters ran on before as a +skirmishing party, to clear the way and to show the room which was +ready for their reception. + +‘Any room will do,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Let it be near at +hand, that’s all.’ + +‘Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.’ + +‘Would the gentleman like this room?’ said a voice, as a little +out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly open +and a head popped out. ‘He’s quite welcome to it. He’s as welcome as +flowers in May, or coals at Christmas. Would you like this room, sir? +Honour me by walking in. Do me the favour, pray.’ + +‘Goodness gracious me!’ cried Kit’s mother, falling back in extreme +surprise, ‘only think of this!’ + +She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered the +gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp. The little door +out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn larder; and +there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as much at his ease +as if the door were that of his own house; blighting all the legs of +mutton and cold roast fowls by his close companionship, and looking +like the evil genius of the cellars come from underground upon some +work of mischief. + +‘Would you do me the honour?’ said Quilp. + +‘I prefer being alone,’ replied the single gentleman. + +‘Oh!’ said Quilp. And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and +clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when the +hour strikes. + +‘Why it was only last night, sir,’ whispered Kit’s mother, ‘that I left +him in Little Bethel.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said her fellow-passenger. ‘When did that person come here, +waiter?’ + +‘Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.’ + +‘Humph! And when is he going?’ + +‘Can’t say, sir, really. When the chambermaid asked him just now if he +should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then wanted to +kiss her.’ + +‘Beg him to walk this way,’ said the single gentleman. ‘I should be +glad to exchange a word with him, tell him. Beg him to come at once, +do you hear?’ + +The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single +gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit’s mother +at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had been at +less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance. He departed on his +errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering in its object. + +‘Your servant, sir,’ said the dwarf, ‘I encountered your messenger +half-way. I thought you’d allow me to pay my compliments to you. I +hope you’re well. I hope you’re very well.’ + +There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and +puckered face, stood waiting for an answer. Receiving none, he turned +towards his more familiar acquaintance. + +‘Christopher’s mother!’ he cried. ‘Such a dear lady, such a worthy +woman, so blest in her honest son! How is Christopher’s mother? Have +change of air and scene improved her? Her little family too, and +Christopher? Do they thrive? Do they flourish? Are they growing into +worthy citizens, eh?’ + +Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr +Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look +which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or +natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his +face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or +meaning, a perfect blank. + +‘Mr Quilp,’ said the single gentleman. + +The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the +closest attention. + +‘We two have met before--’ + +‘Surely,’ cried Quilp, nodding his head. ‘Oh surely, sir. Such an +honour and pleasure--it’s both, Christopher’s mother, it’s both--is +not to be forgotten so soon. By no means!’ + +‘You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house +to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the +neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or +refreshment?’ + +‘How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous +measure!’ said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his +friend Mr Sampson Brass. + +‘I found,’ said the single gentleman, ‘you most unaccountably, in +possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man, +and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his +property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary, +and driven from house and home.’ + +‘We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,’ rejoined Quilp, ‘we had +our warrant. Don’t say driven either. He went of his own +accord--vanished in the night, sir.’ + +‘No matter,’ said the single gentleman angrily. ‘He was gone.’ + +‘Yes, he was gone,’ said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure. +‘No doubt he was gone. The only question was, where. And it’s a +question still.’ + +‘Now, what am I to think,’ said the single gentleman, sternly regarding +him, ‘of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information +then--nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all +kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion--are dogging my footsteps now?’ + +‘I dogging!’ cried Quilp. + +‘Why, are you not?’ returned his questioner, fretted into a state of +the utmost irritation. ‘Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles +off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her +prayers?’ + +‘She was there too, I think?’ said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved. ‘I +might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you are +dogging MY footsteps. Yes, I was at chapel. What then? I’ve read in +books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they went on +journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return. Wise men! +journeys are very perilous--especially outside the coach. Wheels come +off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast, coaches overturn. I +always go to chapel before I start on journeys. It’s the last thing I +do on such occasions, indeed.’ + +That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very great +penetration to discover, although for anything that he suffered to +appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have been clinging to +the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr. + +‘In the name of all that’s calculated to drive one crazy, man,’ said +the unfortunate single gentleman, ‘have you not, for some reason of +your own, taken upon yourself my errand? don’t you know with what +object I have come here, and if you do know, can you throw no light +upon it?’ + +‘You think I’m a conjuror, sir,’ replied Quilp, shrugging up his +shoulders. ‘If I was, I should tell my own fortune--and make it.’ + +‘Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,’ returned the other, throwing +himself impatiently upon a sofa. ‘Pray leave us, if you please.’ + +‘Willingly,’ returned Quilp. ‘Most willingly. Christopher’s mother, +my good soul, farewell. A pleasant journey--back, sir. Ahem!’ + +With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether +indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous +grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated +and closed the door behind him. + +‘Oho!’ he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down +in a chair with his arms akimbo. ‘Oho! Are you there, my friend? +In-deed!’ + +Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for +the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it +into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to +and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell +into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the +substance. + +First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to +that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass’s +office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and +his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at +the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust +of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather +copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened, +becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in +unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no +strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller’s clay, having +imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and +slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were +fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other. +It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to value itself +above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr +Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these qualities, took +occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in connection +with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to +keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery +should ever induce him to reveal. Of this determination Mr Quilp +expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to +goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single +gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was +the secret which was never to be disclosed. + +Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that +the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had +waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that +this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the +conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit +was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with +curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce +upon Kit’s mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and +consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as +he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her +house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a +neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to +the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the +conclusion of the service. + +He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with +his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the +joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as +a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business. +Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound +abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he +withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them +to the notary’s house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one +of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the +same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a +street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and +took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage +on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the +course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or +shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town +almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the +crowd, learnt the single gentleman’s errand, and its failure, and +having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried +off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed, +and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all +these occurrences. + +‘You are there, are you, my friend?’ he repeated, greedily biting his +nails. ‘I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit’s the confidential +agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come +up with them this morning,’ he continued, after a thoughtful pause, ‘I +was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit. +But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get +this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend--our +mutual friend, ha! ha!--and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it’s a +golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I’ll +find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while +there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or +kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!’ said the dwarf, throwing +off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, ‘ah! I hate ‘em every +one!’ + +This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real +sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little +come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined +client:--the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him +and elude his vigilance--the child, because she was the object of Mrs +Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach--the single gentleman, +because of his unconcealed aversion to himself--Kit and his mother, +most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general +feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from +his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances, +Daniel Quilp hated them every one. + +In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with +more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure +alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible +inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his +grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue +could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen +them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart, +or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody +had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for +the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three +scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him +any intelligence, and returned to London by next day’s coach. + +It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place +upon the roof, that Kit’s mother was alone inside; from which +circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness +of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify +her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side +of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great +goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being +upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another; +getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head +in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had +such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time +to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and +embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little +Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley’s +and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant. + +Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother’s intended return, +was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise +when he saw, leering over the coachman’s shoulder like some familiar +demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp. + +‘How are you, Christopher?’ croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. ‘All +right, Christopher. Mother’s inside.’ + +‘Why, how did he come here, mother?’ whispered Kit. + +‘I don’t know how he came or why, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs Nubbles, +dismounting with her son’s assistance, ‘but he has been a terrifying of +me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.’ + +‘He has?’ cried Kit. + +‘You wouldn’t believe it, that you wouldn’t,’ replied his mother, ‘but +don’t say a word to him, for I really don’t believe he’s human. Hush! +Don’t turn round as if I was talking of him, but he’s a squinting at me +now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!’ + +In spite of his mother’s injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look. +Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial +contemplation. + +‘Oh, he’s the artfullest creetur!’ cried Mrs Nubbles. ‘But come away. +Don’t speak to him for the world.’ + +‘Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir--’ + +Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round. + +‘You let my mother alone, will you?’ said Kit. ‘How dare you tease a +poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she +hadn’t got enough to make her so, without you. An’t you ashamed of +yourself, you little monster?’ + +‘Monster!’ said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. ‘Ugliest dwarf that +could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!’ + +‘You show her any of your impudence again,’ resumed Kit, shouldering +the bandbox, ‘and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won’t bear with you any +more. You have no right to do it; I’m sure we never interfered with +you. This isn’t the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her +again, you’ll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on +account of your size) to beat you.’ + +Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring +his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, +retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached +again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in +a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an +immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures, +snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as +fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob +and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were +following. + + + + +CHAPTER 49 + +Kit’s mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so +often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp’s thoughts than any +intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with +which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time +some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed, +jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with +visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no +intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had +no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a +state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and +grief. + +This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf’s humour, and +so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until +the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found +himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which +greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on +before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made +him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted. + +In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when, +gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried +more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and +listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest +conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his +wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men. + +‘Ha!’ cried the jealous dwarf, ‘What’s this! Do they entertain +visitors while I’m away!’ + +A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets +for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to +knock at the door. + +‘A light in the passage,’ said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. ‘A +very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you +unawares. Soho!’ + +A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a +second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door +was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly +gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other. + +‘You’ll throttle me, master,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let go, will you.’ + +‘Who’s up stairs, you dog?’ retorted Quilp in the same tone. ‘Tell me. +And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.’ + +The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled +giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him +by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at +least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s +nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself +behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to +catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a +parley. + +‘Will you answer me?’ said Quilp. ‘What’s going on, above?’ + +‘You won’t let one speak,’ replied the boy. ‘They--ha, ha, ha!--they +think you’re--you’re dead. Ha ha ha!’ + +‘Dead!’ cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. ‘No. Do +they? Do they really, you dog?’ + +‘They think you’re--you’re drowned,’ replied the boy, who in his +malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. ‘You was last +seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha +ha!’ + +The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and +of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to +Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have +inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant, +and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging +their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an +unmatchable pair of Chinese idols. + +‘Not a word,’ said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. ‘Not a +sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb. +Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!’ + +So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his +way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of +summersets on the pavement. + +The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in, +and planted himself behind the door of communication between that +chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more +airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed +himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his +pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly, +what was passing. + +Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated +at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum--his +own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--convenient to his +hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things +fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible +to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of +punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a +teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of +sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable +joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; +no longer sipping other people’s punch feloniously with teaspoons, but +taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not +exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but +preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow +nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief +with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also +present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain +machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a +stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were +naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence +rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of +comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party. + +‘If I could poison that dear old lady’s rum and water,’ murmured Quilp, +‘I’d die happy.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the +ceiling with a sigh, ‘Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now! +Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from somewheres or +another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!’ + +Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed; +looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile. + +‘I can almost fancy,’ said the lawyer shaking his head, ‘that I see his +eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we +look upon his like again? Never, never!’ One minute we are +here’--holding his tumbler before his eyes--‘the next we are +there’--gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a +little below the chest--‘in the silent tomb. To think that I should be +drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.’ + +With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr +Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the +purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners. + +‘The search has been quite unsuccessful then?’ + +‘Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he’ll +come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?’ + +The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the +Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him +whenever he arrived. + +‘Then we have nothing for it but resignation,’ said Mr Brass; ‘nothing +but resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his +body; it would be a dreary comfort.’ + +‘Oh, beyond a doubt,’ assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; ‘if we once had +that, we should be quite sure.’ + +‘With regard to the descriptive advertisement,’ said Sampson Brass, +taking up his pen. ‘It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits. +Respecting his legs now--?’ + +‘Crooked, certainly,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Do you think they WERE +crooked?’ said Brass, in an insinuating tone. ‘I think I see them now +coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen’ pantaloons a little +shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we +say crooked?’ + +‘I think they were a little so,’ observed Mrs Quilp with a sob. + +‘Legs crooked,’ said Brass, writing as he spoke. ‘Large head, short +body, legs crooked--’ + +‘Very crooked,’ suggested Mrs Jiniwin. + +‘We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,’ said Brass piously. ‘Let us not +bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to +where his legs will never come in question.--We will content ourselves +with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.’ + +‘I thought you wanted the truth,’ said the old lady. ‘That’s all.’ + +‘Bless your eyes, how I love you,’ muttered Quilp. ‘There she goes +again. Nothing but punch!’ + +‘This is an occupation,’ said the lawyer, laying down his pen and +emptying his glass, ‘which seems to bring him before my eyes like the +Ghost of Hamlet’s father, in the very clothes that he wore on +work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his +trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all +come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!’ said Mr Brass +smiling fondly at the wall, ‘his linen which was always of a particular +colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I see his linen now!’ + +‘You had better go on, sir,’ said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently. + +‘True, ma’am, true,’ cried Mr Brass. ‘Our faculties must not freeze +with grief. I’ll trouble you for a little more of that, ma’am. A +question now arises, with relation to his nose.’ + +‘Flat,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. + +‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the +feature with his fist. ‘Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you +call this flat? Do you? Eh?’ + +‘Oh capital, capital!’ shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit. +‘Excellent! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man--so +extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by +surprise!’ + +Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious +and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to +the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter’s running +from the room, nor to the former’s fainting away. Keeping his eye +fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with +his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he +had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging +it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer. + +‘Not yet, Sampson,’ said Quilp. ‘Not just yet!’ + +‘Oh very good indeed!’ cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little. +‘Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There’s not another man alive who +could carry it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off. +But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!’ + +‘Good night,’ said the dwarf, nodding expressively. + +‘Good night, sir, good night,’ cried the lawyer, retreating backwards +towards the door. ‘This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. +Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!’ + +Waiting until Mr Brass’s ejaculations died away in the distance (for he +continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced +towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement. + +‘Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?’ said the dwarf, +holding the door open with great politeness. + +‘And yesterday too, master.’ + +‘Dear me, you’ve had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours +that you find upon the--upon the body. Good night!’ + +The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue +the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The speedy +clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the +case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking +at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare. + + + + +CHAPTER 50 + +Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned +in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half +share. Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an exception to the +general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long +soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory +observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling +monosyllable uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and +humble tone. On the present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long +time venture even on this gentle defence, but when she had recovered +from her fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to +the reproaches of her lord and master. + +Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and +rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even +his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in +these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with alarm. But the +Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment, +by degrees cooled Mr Quilp’s wrath; which from being at savage heat, +dropped slowly to the bantering or chuckling point, at which it +steadily remained. + +‘So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?’ said Quilp. ‘You +thought you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade.’ + +‘Indeed, Quilp,’ returned his wife. ‘I’m very sorry--’ + +‘Who doubts it!’ cried the dwarf. ‘You very sorry! to be sure you are. +Who doubts that you’re VERY sorry!’ + +‘I don’t mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,’ said +his wife, ‘but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief. I +am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.’ + +In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord +than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in +his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable. +Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than +as it moved him to snap his fingers close to his wife’s eyes, with +divers grins of triumph and derision. + +‘How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting +me hear of you or know anything about you?’ asked the poor little +woman, sobbing. ‘How could you be so cruel, Quilp?’ + +‘How could I be so cruel! cruel!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Because I was in +the humour. I’m in the humour now. I shall be cruel when I like. I’m +going away again.’ + +‘Not again!’ + +‘Yes, again. I’m going away now. I’m off directly. I mean to go and +live wherever the fancy seizes me--at the wharf--at the +counting-house--and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in +anticipation. Damme,’ screamed the dwarf, ‘I’ll be a bachelor in +earnest.’ + +‘You can’t be serious, Quilp,’ sobbed his wife. + +‘I tell you,’ said the dwarf, exulting in his project, ‘that I’ll be a +bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I’ll have my bachelor’s hall +at the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare. And +mind too that I don’t pounce in upon you at unseasonable hours again, +for I’ll be a spy upon you, and come and go like a mole or a weazel. +Tom Scott--where’s Tom Scott?’ + +‘Here I am, master,’ cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the +window. + +‘Wait there, you dog,’ returned the dwarf, ‘to carry a bachelor’s +portmanteau. Pack it up, Mrs Quilp. Knock up the dear old lady to +help; knock her up. Halloa there! Halloa!’ + +With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to +the door of the good lady’s sleeping-closet, beat upon it therewith +until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that her amiable +son-in-law surely intended to murder her in justification of the legs +she had slandered. Impressed with this idea, she was no sooner fairly +awake than she screamed violently, and would have quickly precipitated +herself out of the window and through a neighbouring skylight, if her +daughter had not hastened in to undeceive her, and implore her +assistance. Somewhat reassured by her account of the service she was +required to render, Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel +dressing-gown; and both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and +cold--for the night was now far advanced--obeyed Mr Quilp’s directions +in submissive silence. Prolonging his preparations as much as +possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman +superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it with +his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and saucer, and +other small household matters of that nature, strapped up the +portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched off without +another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had never once put +down) still tightly clasped under his arm. Consigning his heavier +burden to the care of Tom Scott when he reached the street, taking a +dram from the bottle for his own encouragement, and giving the boy a +rap on the head with it as a small taste for himself, Quilp very +deliberately led the way to the wharf, and reached it at between three +and four o’clock in the morning. + +‘Snug!’ said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden +counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about with +him. ‘Beautifully snug! Call me at eight, you dog.’ + +With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the +portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the desk, +and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old boat-cloak, +fell fast asleep. + +Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with +difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to make +a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to prepare some +coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of which repast he +entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be expended in the purchase +of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth bloaters, and other articles of +housekeeping; so that in a few minutes a savoury meal was smoking on +the board. With this substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to +his heart’s content; and being highly satisfied with this free and +gipsy mode of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever +he chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the +restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp and +her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense), bestirred +himself to improve his retreat, and render it more commodious and +comfortable. + +With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-stores +were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung in +seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house. He also +caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship’s stove +with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and these +arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight. + +‘I’ve got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe,’ said the dwarf, ogling +the accommodations; ‘a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island sort of +spot, where I can be quite alone when I have business on hand, and be +secure from all spies and listeners. Nobody near me here, but rats, +and they are fine stealthy secret fellows. I shall be as merry as a +grig among these gentry. I’ll look out for one like Christopher, and +poison him--ha, ha, ha! Business though--business--we must be mindful +of business in the midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this +morning, I declare.’ + +Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his +head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands +meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself into +a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then speeding +away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller’s usual house of entertainment in +Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone to dinner in its +dusky parlour. + +‘Dick,’ said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, ‘my pet, my +pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!’ + +‘Oh you’re there, are you?’ returned Mr Swiveller; ‘how are you?’ + +‘How’s Dick?’ retorted Quilp. ‘How’s the cream of clerkship, eh?’ + +‘Why, rather sour, sir,’ replied Mr Swiveller. ‘Beginning to border +upon cheesiness, in fact.’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, advancing. ‘Has Sally proved +unkind. “Of all the girls that are so smart, there’s none like--” eh, +Dick!’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great +gravity, ‘none like her. She’s the sphynx of private life, is Sally B.’ + +‘You’re out of spirits,’ said Quilp, drawing up a chair. ‘What’s the +matter?’ + +‘The law don’t agree with me,’ returned Dick. ‘It isn’t moist enough, +and there’s too much confinement. I have been thinking of running +away.’ + +‘Bah!’ said the dwarf. ‘Where would you run to, Dick?’ + +‘I don’t know’ returned Mr Swiveller. ‘Towards Highgate, I suppose. +Perhaps the bells might strike up “Turn again Swiveller, Lord Mayor of +London.” Whittington’s name was Dick. I wish cats were scarcer.’ + +Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a comical +expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further explanation; +upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry to enter, as he +ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally pushed away his +plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded his arms, and stared +ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of cigars were smoking on +their own account, and sending up a fragrant odour. + +‘Perhaps you’d like a bit of cake’--said Dick, at last turning to the +dwarf. ‘You’re quite welcome to it. You ought to be, for it’s of your +making.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ said Quilp. + +Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy +parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake +extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of +white sugar an inch and a half deep. + +‘What should you say this was?’ demanded Mr Swiveller. + +‘It looks like bride-cake,’ replied the dwarf, grinning. + +‘And whose should you say it was?’ inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing the +pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness. ‘Whose?’ + +‘Not--’ + +‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘the same. You needn’t mention her name. There’s no +such name now. Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs. Yet loved I as +man never loved that hadn’t wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is +breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.’ + +With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing +circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up the parcel again, +beat it very flat between the palms of his hands, thrust it into his +breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole. + +‘Now, I hope you’re satisfied, sir,’ said Dick; ‘and I hope Fred’s +satisfied. You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like it. +This is the triumph I was to have, is it? It’s like the old +country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one lady, +and one has her, and the other hasn’t, but comes limping up behind to +make out the figure. But it’s Destiny, and mine’s a crusher.’ + +Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller’s defeat, Daniel Quilp +adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and +ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual +representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling upon +Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of Cheggs, and +eulogistic of the happiness of single men. Such was their impression +on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that no man could oppose +his destiny, that in a very short space of time his spirits rose +surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf an account of the +receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been brought to Bevis +Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in person, and delivered at +the office door with much giggling and joyfulness. + +‘Ha!’ said Quilp. ‘It will be our turn to giggle soon. And that +reminds me--you spoke of young Trent--where is he?’ + +Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently +accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and was +at that time absent on a professional tour among the adventurous +spirits of Great Britain. + +‘That’s unfortunate,’ said the dwarf, ‘for I came, in fact, to ask you +about him. A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend over the +way--’ + +‘Which friend?’ + +‘In the first floor.’ + +‘Yes?’ + +‘Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.’ + +‘No, he don’t,’ said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head. + +‘Don’t! No, because he has never seen him,’ rejoined Quilp; ‘but if we +were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred, properly +introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little Nell or her +grandfather--who knows but it might make the young fellow’s fortune, +and, through him, yours, eh?’ + +‘Why, the fact is, you see,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that they HAVE been +brought together.’ + +‘Have been!’ cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his companion. +‘Through whose means?’ + +‘Through mine,’ said Dick, slightly confused. ‘Didn’t I mention it to +you the last time you called over yonder?’ + +‘You know you didn’t,’ returned the dwarf. + +‘I believe you’re right,’ said Dick. ‘No. I didn’t, I recollect. Oh +yes, I brought ‘em together that very day. It was Fred’s suggestion.’ + +‘And what came of it?’ + +‘Why, instead of my friend’s bursting into tears when he knew who Fred +was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his grandfather, +or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully expected), he flew into +a tremendous passion; called him all manner of names; said it was in a +great measure his fault that little Nell and the old gentleman had ever +been brought to poverty; didn’t hint at our taking anything to drink; +and--and in short rather turned us out of the room than otherwise.’ + +‘That’s strange,’ said the dwarf, musing. + +‘So we remarked to each other at the time,’ returned Dick coolly, ‘but +quite true.’ + +Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he brooded +for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to Mr +Swiveller’s face, and sharply scanning its expression. As he could +read in it, however, no additional information or anything to lead him +to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller, left to his own +meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently growing maudlin on the +subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke up the conference and took +his departure, leaving the bereaved one to his melancholy ruminations. + +‘Have been brought together, eh?’ said the dwarf as he walked the +streets alone. ‘My friend has stolen a march upon me. It led him to +nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the intention. I’m +glad he has lost his mistress. Ha ha! The blockhead mustn’t leave the +law at present. I’m sure of him where he is, whenever I want him for +my own purposes, and, besides, he’s a good unconscious spy on Brass, +and tells, in his cups, all that he sees and hears. You’re useful to +me, Dick, and cost nothing but a little treating now and then. I am +not sure that it may not be worth while, before long, to take credit +with the stranger, Dick, by discovering your designs upon the child; +but for the present we’ll remain the best friends in the world, with +your good leave.’ + +Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his own +peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut +himself up in his Bachelor’s Hall, which, by reason of its +newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and carrying +none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more fastidious people +might have desired. Such inconveniences, however, instead of +disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather suited his humour; so, +after dining luxuriously from the public-house, he lighted his pipe, +and smoked against the chimney until nothing of him was visible through +the mist but a pair of red and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a +dim vision of his head and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he +slightly stirred the smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which +they were obscured. In the midst of this atmosphere, which must +infallibly have smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening +with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe +and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a +melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest +resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, +ever invented by man. Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight, +when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction. + +The first sound that met his ears in the morning--as he half opened his +eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the ceiling, entertained a +drowsy idea that he must have been transformed into a fly or +blue-bottle in the course of the night,--was that of a stifled sobbing +and weeping in the room. Peeping cautiously over the side of his +hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to whom, after contemplating her for +some time in silence, he communicated a violent start by suddenly +yelling out--‘Halloa!’ + +‘Oh, Quilp!’ cried his poor little wife, looking up. ‘How you +frightened me!’ + +‘I meant to, you jade,’ returned the dwarf. ‘What do you want here? +I’m dead, an’t I?’ + +‘Oh, please come home, do come home,’ said Mrs Quilp, sobbing; ‘we’ll +never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a mistake that +grew out of our anxiety.’ + +‘Out of your anxiety,’ grinned the dwarf. ‘Yes, I know that--out of +your anxiety for my death. I shall come home when I please, I tell +you. I shall come home when I please, and go when I please. I’ll be a +Will o’ the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you always, +starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a constant +state of restlessness and irritation. Will you begone?’ + +Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty. + +‘I tell you no,’ cried the dwarf. ‘No. If you dare to come here again +unless you’re sent for, I’ll keep watch-dogs in the yard that’ll growl +and bite--I’ll have man-traps, cunningly altered and improved for +catching women--I’ll have spring guns, that shall explode when you +tread upon the wires, and blow you into little pieces. Will you +begone?’ + +‘Do forgive me. Do come back,’ said his wife, earnestly. + +‘No-o-o-o-o!’ roared Quilp. ‘Not till my own good time, and then I’ll +return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to nobody for my +goings or comings. You see the door there. Will you go?’ + +Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic voice, +and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture, indicative of +an intention to spring out of his hammock, and, night-capped as he was, +bear his wife home again through the public streets, that she sped away +like an arrow. Her worthy lord stretched his neck and eyes until she +had crossed the yard, and then, not at all sorry to have had this +opportunity of carrying his point, and asserting the sanctity of his +castle, fell into an immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down +to sleep again. + + + + +CHAPTER 51 + +The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor’s Hall slept on +amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and +rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom Scott to +assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted his couch, and +made his toilet. This duty performed, and his repast ended, he again +betook himself to Bevis Marks. + +This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend and +employer Mr Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were from home, nor +was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post either. The +fact of their joint desertion of the office was made known to all +comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr Swiveller, which +was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving the reader no clue +to the time of day when it was first posted, furnished him with the +rather vague and unsatisfactory information that that gentleman would +‘return in an hour.’ + +‘There’s a servant, I suppose,’ said the dwarf, knocking at the +house-door. ‘She’ll do.’ + +After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small +voice immediately accosted him with, ‘Oh please will you leave a card +or message?’ + +‘Eh?’ said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to him) +upon the small servant. + +To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the occasion of +her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied, ‘Oh please will +you leave a card or message?’ + +‘I’ll write a note,’ said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office; +‘and mind your master has it directly he comes home.’ So Mr Quilp +climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small +servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies, looked on with her +eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as abstracted a wafer, to rush +into the street and give the alarm to the police. + +As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very short +one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant. He looked at her, +long and earnestly. + +‘How are you?’ said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible +grimaces. + +The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no audible +reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was +inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or +message. + +‘Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?’ said Quilp with +a chuckle. + +In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of +infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight and +round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything in the +peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything +in the expression of her features at the moment which attracted his +attention for some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him +as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out of countenance; +certain it is, that he planted his elbows square and firmly on the +desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly. + +‘Where do you come from?’ he said after a long pause, stroking his chin. + +‘I don’t know.’ + +‘What’s your name?’ + +‘Nothing.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ retorted Quilp. ‘What does your mistress call you when she +wants you?’ + +‘A little devil,’ said the child. + +She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning, +‘But please will you leave a card or message?’ + +These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more +inquiries. Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew his +eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully than +before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it with +scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly but very +narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows. The result of this secret +survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and laughed slyly +and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen almost to bursting. +Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his mirth and its effects, he +tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew. + +Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held +his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty area +railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child, until he was +quite tired out. At last, he travelled back to the Wilderness, which +was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat, and ordered tea in the +wooden summer-house that afternoon for three persons; an invitation to +Miss Sally Brass and her brother to partake of that entertainment at +that place, having been the object both of his journey and his note. + +It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually take +tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced state of +decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at low water. +Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr Quilp ordered a +cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath its cracked and leaky +roof that he, in due course of time, received Mr Sampson and his sister +Sally. + +‘You’re fond of the beauties of nature,’ said Quilp with a grin. ‘Is +this charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?’ + +‘It’s delightful indeed, sir,’ replied the lawyer. + +‘Cool?’ said Quilp. + +‘N-not particularly so, I think, sir,’ rejoined Brass, with his teeth +chattering in his head. + +‘Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?’ said Quilp. + +‘Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Nothing more, +sir, nothing more.’ + +‘And Sally?’ said the delighted dwarf. ‘Does she like it?’ + +‘She’ll like it better,’ returned that strong-minded lady, ‘when she +has tea; so let us have it, and don’t bother.’ + +‘Sweet Sally!’ cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to embrace +her. ‘Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.’ + +‘He’s a very remarkable man indeed!’ soliloquised Mr Brass. ‘He’s +quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!’ + +These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent and +distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having a bad +cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have willingly borne +some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted his present raw +quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a fire. Quilp, +however--who, beyond the gratification of his demon whims, owed Sampson +some acknowledgment of the part he had played in the mourning scene of +which he had been a hidden witness, marked these symptoms of uneasiness +with a delight past all expression, and derived from them a secret joy +which the costliest banquet could never have afforded him. + +It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in the +character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own account she +would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with a very ill +grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off before the tea +appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness and misery of her +brother than she developed a grim satisfaction, and began to enjoy +herself after her own manner. Though the wet came stealing through the +roof and trickling down upon their heads, Miss Brass uttered no +complaint, but presided over the tea equipage with imperturbable +composure. While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious hospitality, seated +himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the place as the most +beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms, and elevating his +glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot; and Mr +Brass, with the rain plashing down into his tea-cup, made a dismal +attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear at his ease; and Tom Scott, +who was in waiting at the door under an old umbrella, exulted in his +agonies, and bade fair to split his sides with laughing; while all this +was passing, Miss Sally Brass, unmindful of the wet which dripped down +upon her own feminine person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the +tea-board, erect and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her +brother with a mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of +self, to sit there all night, witnessing the torments which his +avaricious and grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade +him to resent. And this, it must be observed, or the illustration +would be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the +strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond measure +indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one respect. + +In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some +pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his +usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his hand +upon the lawyer’s sleeve. + +‘A word,’ said the dwarf, ‘before we go farther. Sally, hark’ee for a +minute.’ + +Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences with +their host which were the better for not having air. + +‘Business,’ said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. ‘Very +private business. Lay your heads together when you’re by yourselves.’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and +pencil. ‘I’ll take down the heads if you please, sir. Remarkable +documents,’ added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling, ‘most +remarkable documents. He states his points so clearly that it’s a +treat to have ‘em! I don’t know any act of parliament that’s equal to +him in clearness.’ + +‘I shall deprive you of a treat,’ said Quilp. ‘Put up your book. We +don’t want any documents. So. There’s a lad named Kit--’ + +Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him. + +‘Kit!’ said Mr Sampson.--‘Kit! Ha! I’ve heard the name before, but I +don’t exactly call to mind--I don’t exactly--’ + +‘You’re as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a +rhinoceros,’ returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture. + +‘He’s extremely pleasant!’ cried the obsequious Sampson. ‘His +acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising. Quite a Buffoon, +quite!’ + +There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other; and +it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon, +but made use of a superfluous vowel. Be this as it may, Quilp gave him +no time for correction, as he performed that office himself by more +than tapping him on the head with the handle of his umbrella. + +‘Don’t let’s have any wrangling,’ said Miss Sally, staying his hand. +‘I’ve showed you that I know him, and that’s enough.’ + +‘She’s always foremost!’ said the dwarf, patting her on the back and +looking contemptuously at Sampson. ‘I don’t like Kit, Sally.’ + +‘Nor I,’ rejoined Miss Brass. + +‘Nor I,’ said Sampson. + +‘Why, that’s right!’ cried Quilp. ‘Half our work is done already. +This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a +prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered, +sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a +barking yelping dog to all besides.’ + +‘Fearfully eloquent!’ cried Brass with a sneeze. ‘Quite appalling!’ + +‘Come to the point,’ said Miss Sally, ‘and don’t talk so much.’ + +‘Right again!’ exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at +Sampson, ‘always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog +to all besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a grudge.’ +‘That’s enough, sir,’ said Sampson. + +‘No, it’s not enough, sir,’ sneered Quilp; ‘will you hear me out? +Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this +minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a +golden one to us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my +humour, and I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest. +Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them. +Shall it be done?’ + +‘It shall, sir,’ said Sampson. + +‘Then give me your hand,’ retorted Quilp. ‘Sally, girl, yours. I rely +as much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back. Lantern, +pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!’ + +No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the +slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting. The +trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each +other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was +needed. Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which +he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious, +reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before. It was ten +o’clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and +loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost +support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown +reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in +unexpected places. + +Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the +fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to +his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock. Leaving him to +visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old +church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin +them as they sat and watched. + + + + +CHAPTER 52 + +After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the +churchyard, and hurried towards them, tingling in his hand, as he came +along, a bundle of rusty keys. He was quite breathless with pleasure +and haste when he reached the porch, and at first could only point +towards the old building which the child had been contemplating so +earnestly. + +‘You see those two old houses,’ he said at last. + +‘Yes, surely,’ replied Nell. ‘I have been looking at them nearly all +the time you have been away.’ + +‘And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could +have guessed what I have to tell you,’ said her friend. ‘One of those +houses is mine.’ + +Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the +schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with +exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke. + +They stopped before its low arched door. After trying several of the +keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock, which +turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house. + +The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly +ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful +groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient +splendour. Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of +Nature’s hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside +had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged. The broken figures +supporting the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were +still distinguishable for what they had been--far different from the +dust without--and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who +had outlived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay. + +In some old time--for even change was old in that old place--a wooden +partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to form a +sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the same period +by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid wall. This screen, +together with two seats in the broad chimney, had at some forgotten +date been part of the church or convent; for the oak, hastily +appropriated to its present purpose, had been little altered from its +former shape, and presented to the eye a pile of fragments of rich +carving from old monkish stalls. + +An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light that +came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this portion of +the ruin. It was not quite destitute of furniture. A few strange +chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had dwindled away +with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a great old chest that +had once held records in the church, with other quaintly-fashioned +domestic necessaries, and store of fire-wood for the winter, were +scattered around, and gave evident tokens of its occupation as a +dwelling-place at no very distant time. + +The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we +contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the +great ocean of eternity. The old man had followed them, but they were +all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath softly, as if they +feared to break the silence even by so slight a sound. + +‘It is a very beautiful place!’ said the child, in a low voice. + +‘I almost feared you thought otherwise,’ returned the schoolmaster. +‘You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or gloomy.’ + +‘It was not that,’ said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder. +‘Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside, from +the church porch, the same feeling came over me. It is its being so +old and grey perhaps.’ + +‘A peaceful place to live in, don’t you think so?’ said her friend. + +‘Oh yes,’ rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly. ‘A quiet, +happy place--a place to live and learn to die in!’ She would have said +more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused her voice to falter, +and come in trembling whispers from her lips. + + +‘A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body +in,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘for this old house is yours.’ + +‘Ours!’ cried the child. + +‘Ay,’ returned the schoolmaster gaily, ‘for many a merry year to come, +I hope. I shall be a close neighbour--only next door--but this house +is yours.’ + +Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the schoolmaster +sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how he had learnt that +ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old +person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church, +opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; how +she had died not many weeks ago, and nobody had yet been found to fill +the office; how, learning all this in an interview with the sexton, who +was confined to his bed by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention +of his fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that +high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to +propound the matter to the clergyman. In a word, the result of his +exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried before +the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of their conduct +and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that they were already +appointed to the vacant post. + +‘There’s a small allowance of money,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘It is +not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot. By +clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that.’ + +‘Heaven bless and prosper you!’ sobbed the child. + +‘Amen, my dear,’ returned her friend cheerfully; ‘and all of us, as it +will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this +tranquil life. But we must look at MY house now. Come!’ + +They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at +length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door. It led +into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, +but not so spacious, and having only one other little room attached. +It was not difficult to divine that the other house was of right the +schoolmaster’s, and that he had chosen for himself the least +commodious, in his care and regard for them. Like the adjoining +habitation, it held such old articles of furniture as were absolutely +necessary, and had its stack of fire-wood. + +To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they could, +was now their pleasant care. In a short time, each had its cheerful +fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening the pale old +wall with a hale and healthy blush. Nell, busily plying her needle, +repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew together the rents that +time had worn in the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole +and decent. The schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the +door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which +hung their drooping heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer +walls a cheery air of home. The old man, sometimes by his side and +sometimes with the child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on +little patient services, and was happy. Neighbours, too, as they came +from work, proffered their help; or sent their children with such small +presents or loans as the strangers needed most. It was a busy day; and +night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so much to +do, and that it should be dark so soon. + +They took their supper together, in the house which may be henceforth +called the child’s; and, when they had finished their meal, drew round +the fire, and almost in whispers--their hearts were too quiet and glad +for loud expression--discussed their future plans. Before they +separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of +gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night. + +At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully in +his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before the +dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a +dream And she only now awoke. The glare of the sinking flame, +reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly seen in the +dusky roof--the aged walls, where strange shadows came and went with +every flickering of the fire--the solemn presence, within, of that +decay which falls on senseless things the most enduring in their +nature: and, without, and round about on every side, of Death--filled +her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or +alarm. A change had been gradually stealing over her, in the time of +her loneliness and sorrow. With failing strength and heightening +resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had +grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and hopes, which are the portion of +few but the weak and drooping. There were none to see the frail, +perishable figure, as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at +the open casement; none but the stars, to look into the upturned face +and read its history. The old church bell rang out the hour with a +mournful sound, as if it had grown sad from so much communing with the +dead and unheeded warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the +grass stirred upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping. + +Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the +church--touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and +protection. Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of +trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them; others, +among the graves of little children. Some had desired to rest beneath +the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks; some, where the +setting sun might shine upon their beds; some, where its light would +fall upon them when it rose. Perhaps not one of the imprisoned souls +had been able quite to separate itself in living thought from its old +companion. If any had, it had still felt for it a love like that which +captives have been known to bear towards the cell in which they have +been long confined, and, even at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds +affectionately. + +It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed. +Again something of the same sensation as before--an involuntary +chill--a momentary feeling akin to fear--but vanishing directly, and +leaving no alarm behind. Again, too, dreams of the little scholar; of +the roof opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into +the sky, as she had seen in some old scriptural picture once, and +looking down on her, asleep. It was a sweet and happy dream. The +quiet spot, outside, seemed to remain the same, saving that there was +music in the air, and a sound of angels’ wings. After a time the +sisters came there, hand in hand, and stood among the graves. And then +the dream grew dim, and faded. + +With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday’s +labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its +energies, cheerfulness, and hope. They worked gaily in ordering and +arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman. + +He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued spirit, +accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world, +which he had left many years before to come and settle in that place. +His wife had died in the house in which he still lived, and he had long +since lost sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it. + +He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in Nell; +asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances which had +led her there, and so forth. The schoolmaster had already told her +story. They had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had +come to share his fortunes. He loved the child as though she were his +own. + +‘Well, well,’ said the clergyman. ‘Let it be as you desire. She is +very young.’ + +‘Old in adversity and trial, sir,’ replied the schoolmaster. + +‘God help her. Let her rest, and forget them,’ said the old gentleman. +‘But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one so young as you, +my child.’ + +‘Oh no, sir,’ returned Nell. ‘I have no such thoughts, indeed.’ + +‘I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,’ said the old +gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly, ‘than have +her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches. You must look to +this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among these solemn +ruins. Your request is granted, friend.’ + +After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child’s +house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune, when +another friend appeared. + +This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and +had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death +of the clergyman’s wife, which had happened fifteen years before. He +had been his college friend and always his close companion; in the +first shock of his grief he had come to console and comfort him; and +from that time they had never parted company. The little old gentleman +was the active spirit of the place, the adjuster of all differences, +the promoter of all merry-makings, the dispenser of his friend’s +bounty, and of no small charity of his own besides; the universal +mediator, comforter, and friend. None of the simple villagers had +cared to ask his name, or, when they knew it, to store it in their +memory. Perhaps from some vague rumour of his college honours which +had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps because he was +an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor. +The name pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the +Bachelor he had ever since remained. And the bachelor it was, it may +be added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which +the wanderers had found in their new habitation. + +The bachelor, then--to call him by his usual appellation--lifted the +latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and +stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it. + +‘You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?’ he said, greeting Nell’s +kind friend. + +‘I am, sir.’ + +‘You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you. I should have +been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the country +to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some +miles off, and have but just now returned. This is our young +church-keeper? You are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake, or +for this old man’s; nor the worse teacher for having learnt humanity.’ +‘She has been ill, sir, very lately,’ said the schoolmaster, in answer +to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he had kissed +her cheek. + +‘Yes, yes. I know she has,’ he rejoined. ‘There have been suffering +and heartache here.’ + +‘Indeed there have, sir.’ + +The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at +the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held. + +‘You will be happier here,’ he said; ‘we will try, at least, to make +you so. You have made great improvements here already. Are they the +work of your hands?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘We may make some others--not better in themselves, but with better +means perhaps,’ said the bachelor. ‘Let us see now, let us see.’ + +Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the +houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he +engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had at +home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and extensive one, +as it comprehended the most opposite articles imaginable. They all +came, however, and came without loss of time; for the little old +gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten minutes, presently +returned, laden with old shelves, rugs, blankets, and other household +gear, and followed by a boy bearing a similar load. These being cast +on the floor in a promiscuous heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in +arranging, erecting, and putting away; the superintendence of which +task evidently afforded the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged +him for some time with great briskness and activity. When nothing more +was left to be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his +schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly +reviewed. + +‘As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you’d wish to see,’ he said, +turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; ‘but I don’t let ‘em +know I think so. That wouldn’t do, at all.’ + +The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great +and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, +fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and +caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making +all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman +contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of +by a great many nods and smiles. Indeed, his approbation of the boys +was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the +schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud +whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them +every one. + +‘This first boy, schoolmaster,’ said the bachelor, ‘is John +Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too +thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. That boy, my good +sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of +their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you come to see him at +hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger-post, and +sliding down the face of the little quarry, you’ll never forget it. +It’s beautiful!’ + +John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of +the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy. + +‘Now, look at that lad, sir,’ said the bachelor. ‘You see that fellow? +Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with +a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good +voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among us. +Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he’ll never die in his bed; +he’s always falling asleep in sermon-time--and to tell you the truth, +Mr Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain +that it was natural to my constitution and I couldn’t help it.’ + +This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor +turned to another. + +‘But if we talk of examples to be shunned,’ said he, ‘if we come to +boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here’s +the one, and I hope you won’t spare him. This is the lad, sir; this +one with the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this +fellow--a diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for +plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing +up a blind man’s dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain +and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, +bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas +anonymously, sir,’ added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, +‘directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he +hasn’t the least idea that it came from me.’ + +Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and +from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for +their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting +emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and +were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example. +Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by +his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition +to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out +of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same +audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a +boy, had his life depended on it. + +Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor’s disposition as so many +assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster +parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed +himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of the two old +houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the +cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend, +pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk, +spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the +churchyard with a sigh. + + + + +CHAPTER 53 + +Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her +household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster +(though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the +pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of +keys with which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous +day, and went out alone to visit the old church. + +The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh +scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense. The +neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound; +the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits +over the dead. Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid +from each other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them, +and had laid it down asleep upon a child’s grave, in a little bed of +leaves. It was a new grave--the resting-place, perhaps, of some little +creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and +watched them, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed. + +She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child +answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his brother’s. +It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds +loved it better because he had been used to feed them. When he had +done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and +nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily +away. + +She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the +wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a +crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good +morrow. + +‘You are better?’ said the child, stopping to speak with him. + +‘Ay surely,’ returned the old man. ‘I’m thankful to say, much better.’ + +‘_You_ will be quite well soon.’ + +‘With Heaven’s leave, and a little patience. But come in, come in!’ +The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step, +which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into +his little cottage. + +‘It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the stair +has got harder to climb o’ late years, and I never use it. I’m +thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.’ + +The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his trade +too--could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes wandering to the +tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled. + +‘I warrant now,’ he said, ‘that you think all those are used in making +graves.’ + +‘Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.’ + +‘And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant +things that are to live and grow. My works don’t all moulder away, and +rot in the earth. You see that spade in the centre?’ + +‘The very old one--so notched and worn? Yes.’ + +‘That’s the sexton’s spade, and it’s a well-used one, as you see. +We’re healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it +could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected +job that it and I have done together; but I forget ‘em, for my memory’s +a poor one.--That’s nothing new,’ he added hastily. ‘It always was.’ + +‘There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,’ said the +child. + +‘Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the +sexton’s labours as you think.’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,’ said the old man. +‘Indeed they often help it. For say that I planted such a tree for +such a man. There it stands, to remind me that he died. When I look +at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me +to the age of my other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I +made his grave.’ + +‘But it may remind you of one who is still alive,’ said the child. + +‘Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives, then,’ +rejoined the old man; ‘wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters, +children, friends--a score at least. So it happens that the sexton’s +spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one--next summer.’ + +The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with his +age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest. + +‘Ah!’ he said, after a brief silence. ‘People never learn. They never +learn. It’s only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grows and +everything decays, who think of such things as these--who think of +them properly, I mean. You have been into the church?’ + +‘I am going there now,’ the child replied. + +‘There’s an old well there,’ said the sexton, ‘right underneath the +belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only to +let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the +windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water. By little +and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a +second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket +swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years’ time, the water fell +again, and a third knot was made. In ten years more, the well dried +up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your arms are tired, and let +out nearly all the cord, you’ll hear it, of a sudden, clanking and +rattling on the ground below; with a sound of being so deep and so far +down, that your heart leaps into your mouth, and you start away as if +you were falling in.’ + +‘A dreadful place to come on in the dark!’ exclaimed the child, who had +followed the old man’s looks and words until she seemed to stand upon +its brink. + +‘What is it but a grave!’ said the sexton. ‘What else! And which of +our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of +their own failing strength, and lessening life? Not one!’ + +‘Are you very old yourself?’ asked the child, involuntarily. + +‘I shall be seventy-nine--next summer.’ + +‘You still work when you are well?’ + +‘Work! To be sure. You shall see my gardens hereabout. Look at the +window there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with +my own hands. By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the +boughs will have grown so thick. I have my winter work at night +besides.’ + +He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced +some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood. + +‘Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to +them,’ he said, ‘like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins. +Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there; +sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved. See +here--this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges +with fragments of brass plates that had writing on ‘em once, though it +would be hard to read it now. I haven’t many by me at this time of +year, but these shelves will be full--next summer.’ + +The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards +departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man, +drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral, +never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon +the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem +himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise +enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be +human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer, +was but a type of all mankind. + +Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find +the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap +of yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow +sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it +raised in closing, made her start. + +If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly, +because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through +which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep +impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the +very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the +air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by +time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, +and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the +broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing +on the pilgrims’ steps, had trodden out their track, and left but +crumbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the +sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb +on which no epitaph remained--all--marble, stone, iron, wood, and +dust--one common monument of ruin. The best work and the worst, the +plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing--both +of Heaven’s work and Man’s--all found one common level here, and told +one common tale. + +Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were +effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded +hands--cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars--girded +with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived. Some of +these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging +upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and +dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and +something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men +upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in +mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but +atoms of earth themselves. + +The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark figures +on the tombs--they made it more quiet there, than elsewhere, to her +fancy--and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm +delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible +from the shelf, and read; then, laying it down, thought of the summer +days and the bright springtime that would come--of the rays of sun that +would fall in aslant, upon the sleeping forms--of the leaves that would +flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the +pavement--of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of +doors--of the sweet air, that would steal in, and gently wave the +tattered banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of +death! Die who would, it would still remain the same; these sights and +sounds would still go on, as happily as ever. It would be no pain to +sleep amidst them. + +She left the chapel--very slowly and often turning back to gaze +again--and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower, +opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where she +looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had left, or +caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells. At length she gained +the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top. + +Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields +and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the bright blue +sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from +among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth; the +children yet at their gambols down below--all, everything, so beautiful +and happy! It was like passing from death to life; it was drawing +nearer Heaven. + +The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked the +door. As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy hum of +voices. Her friend had begun his labours only on that day. The noise +grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come trooping out and +disperse themselves with merry shouts and play. ‘It’s a good thing,’ +thought the child, ‘I am very glad they pass the church.’ And then she +stopped, to fancy how the noise would sound inside, and how gently it +would seem to die away upon the ear. + +Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel, and +in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the same quiet +train of thought. Even when it had grown dusk, and the shadows of +coming night made it more solemn still, the child remained, like one +rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought of stirring. + +They found her there, at last, and took her home. She looked pale but +very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as the poor +schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear +upon his face. + + + + +CHAPTER 54 + +The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old church a +constant source of interest and amusement. Taking that pride in it +which men conceive for the wonders of their own little world, he had +made its history his study; and many a summer day within its walls, and +many a winter’s night beside the parsonage fire, had found the bachelor +still poring over, and adding to, his goodly store of tale and legend. + +As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth of +every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies love to +array her--and some of which become her pleasantly enough, serving, +like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the charms they half +conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest and pursuit rather +than languor and indifference--as, unlike this stern and obdurate +class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with those garlands of wild +flowers which tradition wreathes for her gentle wearing, and which are +often freshest in their homeliest shapes--he trod with a light step and +bore with a light hand upon the dust of centuries, unwilling to +demolish any of the airy shrines that had been raised above it, if any +good feeling or affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts. +Thus, in the case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for +many generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after +ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came +back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which had +been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing, as the +baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in battle, gnashing +his teeth and cursing with his latest breath--the bachelor stoutly +maintained that the old tale was the true one; that the baron, +repenting him of the evil, had done great charities and meekly given up +the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to heaven, that baron was then +at peace. In like manner, when the aforesaid antiquaries did argue and +contend that a certain secret vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired +lady who had been hanged and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess +for succouring a wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at +her door, the bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that +the church was hallowed by the said poor lady’s ashes; that her remains +had been collected in the night from four of the city’s gates, and +thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor did +further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of Queen +Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the meanest woman in +her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart. As to the assertion +that the flat stone near the door was not the grave of the miser who +had disowned his only child and left a sum of money to the church to +buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did readily admit the same, and that +the place had given birth to no such man. In a word, he would have had +every stone, and plate of brass, the monument only of deeds whose +memory should survive. All others he was willing to forget. They +might be buried in consecrated ground, but he would have had them +buried deep, and never brought to light again. + +It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her easy +task. Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building +and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood--majestic age +surrounded by perpetual youth--it seemed to her, when she heard these +things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where +sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil +entered. + +When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb +and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down into the +old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been +lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from +the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odours, and habits +glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and +jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt +of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old +days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their +rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed +her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been +wont to glide along--dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off--or +to pause like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her +too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn +those rotting scraps of armour up above--how this had been a helmet, +and that a shield, and that a gauntlet--and how they had wielded the +great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron mace. +All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and sometimes, +when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times, and rising from +her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost hoped to see the +windows lighted up, and hear the organ’s swell, and sound of voices, on +the rushing wind. + +The old sexton soon got better, and was about again. From him the +child learnt many other things, though of a different kind. He was not +able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he came to +overlook the man who dug it. He was in a talkative mood; and the +child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the +grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised towards his, began +to converse with him. + +Now, the man who did the sexton’s duty was a little older than he, +though much more active. But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who +peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great +difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about his +work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an +impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the +strongest and heartiest man alive. + +‘I’m sorry to see there is this to do,’ said the child when she +approached. ‘I heard of no one having died.’ + +‘She lived in another hamlet, my dear,’ returned the sexton. ‘Three +mile away.’ + +‘Was she young?’ + +‘Ye-yes’ said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think. David, +was she more than sixty-four?’ + +David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question. The +sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too +infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a +little mould upon his red nightcap. + +‘What’s the matter now?’ said David, looking up. + +‘How old was Becky Morgan?’ asked the sexton. + +‘Becky Morgan?’ repeated David. + +‘Yes,’ replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half +irritable tone, which the old man couldn’t hear, ‘you’re getting very +deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!’ + +The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece +of slate he had by him for the purpose--and scraping off, in the +process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans--set +himself to consider the subject. + +‘Let me think’ quoth he. ‘I saw last night what they had put upon the +coffin--was it seventy-nine?’ + +‘No, no,’ said the sexton. + +‘Ah yes, it was though,’ returned the old man with a sigh. ‘For I +remember thinking she was very near our age. Yes, it was seventy-nine.’ + +‘Are you sure you didn’t mistake a figure, Davy?’ asked the sexton, +with signs of some emotion. + +‘What?’ said the old man. ‘Say that again.’ + +‘He’s very deaf. He’s very deaf indeed,’ cried the sexton petulantly; +‘are you sure you’re right about the figures?’ + +‘Oh quite,’ replied the old man. ‘Why not?’ + +‘He’s exceedingly deaf,’ muttered the sexton to himself. ‘I think he’s +getting foolish.’ + +The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to say +the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was infinitely +more robust. As the sexton said nothing more just then, however, she +forgot it for the time, and spoke again. + +‘You were telling me,’ she said, ‘about your gardening. Do you ever +plant things here?’ + +‘In the churchyard?’ returned the sexton, ‘Not I.’ + +‘I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,’ the child rejoined; +‘there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your +rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.’ + +‘They grow as Heaven wills,’ said the old man; ‘and it kindly ordains +that they shall never flourish here.’ + +‘I do not understand you.’ + +‘Why, this it is,’ said the sexton. ‘They mark the graves of those who +had very tender, loving friends.’ + +‘I was sure they did!’ the child exclaimed. ‘I am very glad to know +they do!’ + +‘Aye,’ returned the old man, ‘but stay. Look at them. See how they +hang their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the reason?’ + +‘No,’ the child replied. + +‘Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon. At +first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come +less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to +once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. +Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer +flowers outlive them.’ + +‘I grieve to hear it,’ said the child. + +‘Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,’ +returned the old man, shaking his head, ‘but I say otherwise. “It’s a +pretty custom you have in this part of the country,” they say to me +sometimes, “to plant the graves, but it’s melancholy to see these +things all withering or dead.” I crave their pardon and tell them that, +as I take it, ‘tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so +it is. It’s nature.’ + +‘Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the +stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in +graves,’ said the child in an earnest voice. + +‘Perhaps so,’ replied the old man doubtfully. ‘It may be.’ + +‘Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,’ thought the child within +herself, ‘I’ll make this place my garden. It will be no harm at least +to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am +sure.’ + +Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton, who +turned towards old David, and called him by his name. It was plain +that Becky Morgan’s age still troubled him; though why, the child could +scarcely understand. + +The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man’s +attention. Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his +hand to his dull ear. + +‘Did you call?’ he said. + +‘I have been thinking, Davy,’ replied the sexton, ‘that she,’ he +pointed to the grave, ‘must have been a deal older than you or me.’ + +‘Seventy-nine,’ answered the old man with a shake of the head, ‘I tell +you that I saw it.’ + +‘Saw it?’ replied the sexton; ‘aye, but, Davy, women don’t always tell +the truth about their age.’ + +‘That’s true indeed,’ said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in +his eye. ‘She might have been older.’ + +‘I’m sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked. You +and I seemed but boys to her.’ + +‘She did look old,’ rejoined David. ‘You’re right. She did look old.’ + +‘Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if +she could be but seventy-nine at last--only our age,’ said the sexton. + +‘Five year older at the very least!’ cried the other. + +‘Five!’ retorted the sexton. ‘Ten. Good eighty-nine. I call to mind +the time her daughter died. She was eighty-nine if she was a day, and +tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger. Oh! human vanity!’ + +The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on +this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such +weight as to render it doubtful--not whether the deceased was of the +age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal +term of a hundred. When they had settled this question to their mutual +satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend’s assistance, rose to go. + +‘It’s chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful--till the summer,’ he +said, as he prepared to limp away. + +‘What?’ asked old David. + +‘He’s very deaf, poor fellow!’ cried the sexton. ‘Good-bye!’ + +‘Ah!’ said old David, looking after him. ‘He’s failing very fast. +He ages every day.’ + +And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him +than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little +fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease +was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no +business of theirs for half a score of years to come. + +The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he +threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and +fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober +chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast. At length she turned away, +and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon +the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading. + +‘Nell here?’ he said cheerfully, as he closed his book. ‘It does me +good to see you in the air and light. I feared you were again in the +church, where you so often are.’ + +‘Feared!’ replied the child, sitting down beside him. ‘Is it not a +good place?’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘But you must be gay +sometimes--nay, don’t shake your head and smile so sadly.’ + +‘Not sadly, if you knew my heart. Do not look at me as if you thought +me sorrowful. There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.’ + +Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it +between her own. ‘It’s God’s will!’ she said, when they had been +silent for some time. + +‘What?’ + +‘All this,’ she rejoined; ‘all this about us. But which of us is sad +now? You see that I am smiling.’ + +‘And so am I,’ said the schoolmaster; ‘smiling to think how often we +shall laugh in this same place. Were you not talking yonder?’ + +‘Yes,’ the child rejoined. + +‘Of something that has made you sorrowful?’ + +There was a long pause. + +‘What was it?’ said the schoolmaster, tenderly. ‘Come. Tell me what +it was.’ + +‘I rather grieve--I _do_ rather grieve to think,’ said the child, +bursting into tears, ‘that those who die about us, are so soon +forgotten.’ + +‘And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had +thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded +flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you +think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may +be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, +at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very +graves--neglected as they look to us--are the chief instruments.’ + +‘Tell me no more,’ said the child quickly. ‘Tell me no more. I feel, +I know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?’ + +‘There is nothing,’ cried her friend, ‘no, nothing innocent or good, +that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An +infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the +better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through +them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt +to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to +the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that +loved it here. Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures +could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; +for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to +have their growth in dusty graves!’ + +‘Yes,’ said the child, ‘it is the truth; I know it is. Who should feel +its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again! Dear, +dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!’ + +The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence; +for his heart was full. + +They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather +approached. Before they had spoken many words together, the church +clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew. + +‘A good man,’ said the grandfather, looking after him; ‘a kind man. +Surely he will never harm us, Nell. We are safe here, at last, eh? We +will never go away from here?’ + +The child shook her head and smiled. + +‘She needs rest,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘too pale--too +pale. She is not like what she was.’ + +‘When?’ asked the child. + +‘Ha!’ said the old man, ‘to be sure--when? How many weeks ago? Could +I count them on my fingers? Let them rest though; they’re better +gone.’ + +‘Much better, dear,’ replied the child. ‘We will forget them; +or, if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream +that has passed away.’ + +‘Hush!’ said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and +looking over his shoulder; ‘no more talk of the dream, and all the +miseries it brought. There are no dreams here. ‘Tis a quiet place, +and they keep away. Let us never think about them, lest they should +pursue us again. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks--wet, cold, and +famine--and horrors before them all, that were even worse--we must +forget such things if we would be tranquil here.’ + +‘Thank Heaven!’ inwardly exclaimed the child, ‘for this most happy +change!’ + +‘I will be patient,’ said the old man, ‘humble, very thankful, and +obedient, if you will let me stay. But do not hide from me; do not +steal away alone; let me keep beside you. Indeed, I will be very true +and faithful, Nell.’ + +‘I steal away alone! why that,’ replied the child, with assumed gaiety, +‘would be a pleasant jest indeed. See here, dear grandfather, we’ll +make this place our garden--why not! It is a very good one--and +to-morrow we’ll begin, and work together, side by side.’ + +‘It is a brave thought!’ cried her grandfather. ‘Mind, darling--we +begin to-morrow!’ + +Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour! +Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he! +They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the +poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the +leaves and weeds. They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the +child, raising her head from the ground over which she bent, observed +that the bachelor was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in +silence. + +‘A kind office,’ said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she +curtseyed to him. ‘Have you done all that, this morning?’ + +‘It is very little, sir,’ returned the child, with downcast eyes, ‘to +what we mean to do.’ + +‘Good work, good work,’ said the bachelor. ‘But do you only labour at +the graves of children, and young people?’ + +‘We shall come to the others in good time, sir,’ replied Nell, turning +her head aside, and speaking softly. + +It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or +the child’s unconscious sympathy with youth. But it seemed to strike +upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before. He looked +in a hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then +pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest. Something he had +long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in his mind. It did not +pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and +yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards. Once, while +they were yet at work, the child, seeing that he often turned and +looked uneasily at her, as though he were trying to resolve some +painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts, urged him to tell +the reason. But he said it was nothing--nothing--and, laying her head +upon his arm, patted her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that +she grew stronger every day, and would be a woman, soon. + + + + +CHAPTER 55 + +From that time, there sprung up in the old man’s mind, a solicitude +about the child which never slept or left him. There are chords in the +human heart--strange, varying strings--which are only struck by +accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most +passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual +touch. In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train +of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which +will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the +discoverer has the plainest end in view. From that time, the old man +never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and devotion of the child; +from the time of that slight incident, he who had seen her toiling by +his side through so much difficulty and suffering, and had scarcely +thought of her otherwise than as the partner of miseries which he felt +severely in his own person, and deplored for his own sake at least as +much as hers, awoke to a sense of what he owed her, and what those +miseries had made her. Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment +from that time to the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his +own comfort, any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts +from the gentle object of his love. + +He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and lean +upon his arm--he would sit opposite to her in the chimney-corner, +content to watch, and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon +him as of old--he would discharge by stealth, those household duties +which tasked her powers too heavily--he would rise, in the cold dark +nights, to listen to her breathing in her sleep, and sometimes crouch +for hours by her bedside only to touch her hand. He who knows all, can +only know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were +in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor +old man. Sometimes--weeks had crept on, then--the child, exhausted, +though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside +the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and +read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came +in, and took his turn of reading. The old man sat and listened--with +little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the +child--and if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it +was a good one, and conceive a fondness for the very book. When, in +their evening talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as +his tales were sure to do), the old man would painfully try to store it +in his mind; nay, when the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip +out after him, and humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, +that he might learn to win a smile from Nell. + +But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out +of doors, and walking in her solemn garden. Parties, too, would come +to see the church; and those who came, speaking to others of the child, +sent more; so even at that season of the year they had visitors almost +daily. The old man would follow them at a little distance through the +building, listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the +strangers left, and parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to +catch up fragments of their conversation; or he would stand for the +same purpose, with his grey head uncovered, at the gate as they passed +through. + +They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud +to hear them! But what was that, so often added, which wrung his +heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner! Alas! +even careless strangers--they who had no feeling for her, but the +interest of the moment--they who would go away and forget next week +that such a being lived--even they saw it--even they pitied her--even +they bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed. + +The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to +have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same +feeling; a tenderness towards her--a compassionate regard for her, +increasing every day. The very schoolboys, light-hearted and +thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her. The roughest among +them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his way to +school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the latticed +window. If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps might peep in +softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her, unless she rose +and went to speak to them. Some feeling was abroad which raised the +child above them all. + +So, when Sunday came. They were all poor country people in the church, +for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin, +and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around. There, as +elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell. They would gather round her +in the porch, before and after service; young children would cluster at +her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her +kindly greeting. None of them, young or old, thought of passing the +child without a friendly word. Many who came from three or four miles +distant, brought her little presents; the humblest and rudest had good +wishes to bestow. + +She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the +churchyard. One of these--he who had spoken of his brother--was her +little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church, +or climbed with her to the tower-top. It was his delight to help her, +or to fancy that he did so, and they soon became close companions. + +It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself one +day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears, and after +holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a moment, clasped +his little arms passionately about her neck. + +‘What now?’ said Nell, soothing him. ‘What is the matter?’ + +‘She is not one yet!’ cried the boy, embracing her still more closely. +‘No, no. Not yet.’ + +She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his face, +and kissing him, asked what he meant. + +‘You must not be one, dear Nell,’ cried the boy. ‘We can’t see them. +They never come to play with us, or talk to us. Be what you are. You +are better so.’ + +‘I do not understand you,’ said the child. ‘Tell me what you mean.’ + +‘Why, they say,’ replied the boy, looking up into her face, that you +will be an Angel, before the birds sing again. But you won’t be, will +you? Don’t leave us Nell, though the sky is bright. Do not leave us!’ + +The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face. + +‘She cannot bear the thought!’ cried the boy, exulting through his +tears. ‘You will not go. You know how sorry we should be. Dear Nell, +tell me that you’ll stay amongst us. Oh! Pray, pray, tell me that you +will.’ + +The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet. + +‘Only look at me, Nell,’ said the boy, ‘and tell me that you’ll stop, +and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no more. Won’t +you say yes, Nell?’ + +Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite +silent--save for her sobs. + +‘After a time,’ pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, ‘the kind +angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you +stayed here to be with us. Willy went away, to join them; but if he +had known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never +would have left me, I am sure.’ + +Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her heart +were bursting. ‘Why would you go, dear Nell? I know you would not be +happy when you heard that we were crying for your loss. They say that +Willy is in Heaven now, and that it’s always summer there, and yet I’m +sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot turn +to kiss me. But if you do go, Nell,’ said the boy, caressing her, and +pressing his face to hers, ‘be fond of him for my sake. Tell him how I +love him still, and how much I loved you; and when I think that you two +are together, and are happy, I’ll try to bear it, and never give you +pain by doing wrong--indeed I never will!’ + +The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his neck. +There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she looked upon +him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle, quiet voice, that +she would stay, and be his friend, as long as Heaven would let her. He +clapped his hands for joy, and thanked her many times; and being +charged to tell no person what had passed between them, gave her an +earnest promise that he never would. + +Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet +companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to the +theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was unconscious of +its cause. Something of distrust lingered about him still; for he +would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call in a timid voice +outside the door to know if she were safe within; and being answered +yes, and bade to enter, would take his station on a low stool at her +feet, and sit there patiently until they came to seek, and take him +home. Sure as the morning came, it found him lingering near the house +to ask if she were well; and, morning, noon, or night, go where she +would, he would forsake his playmates and his sports to bear her +company. + +‘And a good little friend he is, too,’ said the old sexton to her once. +‘When his elder brother died--elder seems a strange word, for he was +only seven years old--I remember this one took it sorely to heart.’ + +The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt how +its truth was shadowed out even in this infant. + +‘It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,’ said the old man, +‘though for that he is merry enough at times. I’d wager now that you +and he have been listening by the old well.’ + +‘Indeed we have not,’ the child replied. ‘I have been afraid to go +near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do not +know the ground.’ + +‘Come down with me,’ said the old man. ‘I have known it from a boy. +Come!’ + +They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and paused +among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot. + +‘This is the place,’ said the old man. ‘Give me your hand while you +throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in. I am too +old--I mean rheumatic--to stoop, myself.’ + +‘A black and dreadful place!’ exclaimed the child. + +‘Look in,’ said the old man, pointing downward with his finger. + +The child complied, and gazed down into the pit. + +‘It looks like a grave itself,’ said the old man. + +‘It does,’ replied the child. + +‘I have often had the fancy,’ said the sexton, ‘that it might have been +dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more +religious. It’s to be closed up, and built over.’ + +The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault. + +‘We shall see,’ said the sexton, ‘on what gay heads other earth will +have closed, when the light is shut out from here. God knows! They’ll +close it up, next spring.’ + +‘The birds sing again in spring,’ thought the child, as she leaned at +her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun. ‘Spring! a +beautiful and happy time!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 56 + +A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller +walked into Sampson Brass’s office at the usual hour, and being alone +in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking +from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to +folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. +Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his +work with great complacency, and put his hat on again--very much over +one eye, to increase the mournfulness of the effect. These +arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands +into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps. + +‘It has always been the same with me,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘always. +‘Twas ever thus--from childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes +decay, I never loved a tree or flower but ‘twas the first to fade away; +I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but +when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a +market-gardener.’ + +Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the +clients’ chair, and flung himself into its open arms. + +‘And this,’ said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, ‘is +life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not! I’m quite satisfied. I +shall wear,’ added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard +at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from +spurning it with his foot, ‘I shall wear this emblem of woman’s +perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the +windings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy; who, +during the short remainder of my existence, will murder the balmy. Ha, +ha, ha!’ + +It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any +incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did not +wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been +undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that, being in +a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance which is +designated in melodramas ‘laughing like a fiend,’--for it seems that +your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in three syllables, +never more nor less, which is a remarkable property in such gentry, and +one worthy of remembrance. + +The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still +sitting in a very grim state in the clients’ chair, when there came a +ring--or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell--at +the office bell. Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the +expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and himself a +fraternal greeting ensued. + +‘You’re devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,’ said +that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an +easy manner. + +‘Rather,’ returned Dick. + +‘Rather!’ retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling +which so well became him. ‘I should think so. Why, my good feller, do +you know what o’clock it is--half-past nine a.m. in the morning?’ + +‘Won’t you come in?’ said Dick. ‘All alone. Swiveller solus. “‘Tis +now the witching--“’ + +‘“Hour of night!”’ + +‘“When churchyards yawn,”’ + +‘“And graves give up their dead.”’ + +At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an +attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office. +Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious Apollos, and +were indeed the links that bound them together, and raised them above +the cold dull earth. + +‘Well, and how are you my buck?’ said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool. ‘I +was forced to come into the City upon some little private matters of my +own, and couldn’t pass the corner of the street without looking in, but +upon my soul I didn’t expect to find you. It is so everlastingly +early.’ + +Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on further +conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr Chuckster was in +the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a +solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined +in a fragment of the popular duet of ‘All’s Well,’ with a long shake +at the end. + +‘And what’s the news?’ said Richard. + +‘The town’s as flat, my dear feller,’ replied Mr Chuckster, ‘as the +surface of a Dutch oven. There’s no news. By-the-bye, that lodger of +yours is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most +vigorous comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller!’ + +‘What has he been doing now?’ said Dick. + +‘By Jove, Sir,’ returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, +the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox’s head curiously carved in +brass, ‘that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends +with our articled clerk. There’s no harm in him, but he is so +amazingly slow and soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn’t he +have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his +manners and conversation. I have my faults, sir,’ said Mr Chuckster-- + +‘No, no,’ interposed Mr Swiveller. + +‘Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I +know mine. But,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘I’m not meek. My worst +enemies--every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine--never +accused me of being meek. And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn’t more +of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, than our articled +clerk has, I’d steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown +myself. I’d die degraded, as I had lived. I would upon my honour.’ + +Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox’s head exactly on the nose with the +knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily +at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to +sneeze, he would find himself mistaken. + +‘Not contented, Sir,’ said Mr Chuckster, ‘with making friends with +Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. +Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there-- +actually been there. He patronises young Snobby besides; you’ll find, +Sir, that he’ll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this +place: yet I don’t suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he +has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you +know,’ said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to +do when they consider things are going a little too far, ‘this is +altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn’t feel for the +governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be +obliged to cut the connection. I should have no alternative.’ + +Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred +the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing. + +‘As to young Snob, sir,’ pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic look, +‘you’ll find he’ll turn out bad. In our profession we know something +of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came +back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in +his true colours. He’s a low thief, sir. He must be.’ + +Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject +further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door, +which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused +him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was perhaps quite +consistent with his late declaration. Mr Swiveller, hearing the same +sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one leg until it brought +him to his desk, into which, having forgotten in the sudden flurry of +his spirits to part with the poker, he thrust it as he cried ‘Come in!’ + +Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of +Mr Chuckster’s wrath! Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly, +or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was he. Mr +Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool, +and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment, performed the +broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards complete, in a +species of frenzy. + +‘Is the gentleman at home?’ said Kit, rather astonished by this +uncommon reception. + +Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to +enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held +to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the +inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have +spoken of the other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible +that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have +mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree +as they thought proper. Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had +some reason to believe this form of address was personal to himself, +and that he was not a man to be trifled with--as certain snobs (whom he +did not more particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost. + +‘I mean the gentleman up-stairs,’ said Kit, turning to Richard +Swiveller. ‘Is he at home?’ + +‘Why?’ rejoined Dick. + +‘Because if he is, I have a letter for him.’ + +‘From whom?’ said Dick. + +‘From Mr Garland.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Dick, with extreme politeness. ‘Then you may hand it over, +Sir. And if you’re to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait in the +passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.’ + +‘Thank you,’ returned Kit. ‘But I am to give it to himself, if you +please.’ + +The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and +so moved his tender regard for his friend’s honour, that he declared, +if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly +have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which +he did consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation +attending it, could but have met with the proper sanction and approval +of a jury of Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a +verdict of justifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the +morals and character of the Avenger. Mr Swiveller, without being quite +so hot upon the matter, was rather shamed by his friend’s excitement, +and not a little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and +good-humoured), when the single gentleman was heard to call violently +down the stairs. + +‘Didn’t I see somebody for me, come in?’ cried the lodger. + +‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Dick. ‘Certainly, Sir.’ + +‘Then where is he?’ roared the single gentleman. + +‘He’s here, sir,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘Now young man, don’t you +hear you’re to go up-stairs? Are you deaf?’ + +Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any +altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at +each other in silence. + +‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Mr Chuckster. ‘What do you think of that?’ + +Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not +perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude, +scarcely knew what answer to return. He was relieved from his +perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister, +Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired. + +Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a +consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great +interest and importance. On the occasion of such conferences, they +generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual +time, and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and +designs had tranquillised their minds and shed a light upon their +toilsome way. In the present instance, they seemed particularly gay; +Miss Sally’s aspect being of a most oily kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his +hands in an exceedingly jocose and light-hearted manner. + +‘Well, Mr Richard,’ said Brass. ‘How are we this morning? Are we +pretty fresh and cheerful sir--eh, Mr Richard?’ + +‘Pretty well, sir,’ replied Dick. + +‘That’s well,’ said Brass. ‘Ha ha! We should be as gay as larks, Mr +Richard--why not? It’s a pleasant world we live in sir, a very +pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there +were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any +letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?’ + +Mr Swiveller answered in the negative. + +‘Ha!’ said Brass, ‘no matter. If there’s little business to-day, +there’ll be more to-morrow. A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the +sweetness of existence. Anybody been here, sir?’ + +‘Only my friend’--replied Dick. ‘May we ne’er want a--’ + +‘Friend,’ Brass chimed in quickly, ‘or a bottle to give him. Ha ha! +That’s the way the song runs, isn’t it? A very good song, Mr Richard, +very good. I like the sentiment of it. Ha ha! Your friend’s the +young man from Witherden’s office I think--yes--May we ne’er want a-- +Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?’ + +‘Only somebody to the lodger,’ replied Mr Swiveller. + +‘Oh indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘Somebody to the lodger eh? Ha ha! May we +ne’er want a friend, or a---- Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr Richard?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of +spirits which his employer displayed. ‘With him now.’ + +‘With him now!’ cried Brass; ‘Ha ha! There let ‘em be, merry and free, +toor rul lol le. Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’ + +‘Oh certainly,’ replied Dick. + +‘And who,’ said Brass, shuffling among his papers, ‘who is the lodger’s +visitor--not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard? The morals of the +Marks you know, sir--“when lovely women stoops to folly”--and all +that--eh, Mr Richard?’ + +‘Another young man, who belongs to Witherden’s too, or half belongs +there,’ returned Richard. ‘Kit, they call him.’ + +‘Kit, eh!’ said Brass. ‘Strange name--name of a dancing-master’s +fiddle, eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha! Kit’s there, is he? Oh!’ + +Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn’t check this +uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no +attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence +in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating somebody, and +receiving the bill. + +‘Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, taking a letter +from his desk, ‘just to step over to Peckham Rye with that? There’s no +answer, but it’s rather particular and should go by hand. Charge the +office with your coach-hire back, you know; don’t spare the office; get +as much out of it as you can--clerk’s motto--Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!’ + +Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took +down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed. As soon +as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her +brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also. + +Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door +wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so +that he could not fail to see anybody who came down-stairs and passed +out at the street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and +assiduity; humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but +musical, certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the +union between Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the +Evening Hymn and God save the King. + +Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a +long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face, +and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing slower than +ever. At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger’s door +opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Then, Mr Brass +left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his +very loudest; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man +whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite +seraphic. + +It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the sweet +sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass stopped +his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at the same time +beckoning to him with his pen. + +‘Kit,’ said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, ‘how do you +do?’ + +Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his +hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him softly +back. + +‘You are not to go, if you please, Kit,’ said the attorney in a +mysterious and yet business-like way. ‘You are to step in here, if you +please. Dear me, dear me! When I look at you,’ said the lawyer, +quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his back towards +it, ‘I am reminded of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes +beheld. I remember your coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in +possession. Ah Kit, my dear fellow, gentleman in my profession have +such painful duties to perform sometimes, that you needn’t envy us--you +needn’t indeed!’ + +‘I don’t, sir,’ said Kit, ‘though it isn’t for the like of me to judge.’ + +‘Our only consolation, Kit,’ pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a +sort of pensive abstraction, ‘is, that although we cannot turn away the +wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn +lambs.’ + +‘Shorn indeed!’ thought Kit. ‘Pretty close!’ But he didn’t say _so_. + +‘On that occasion, Kit,’ said Mr Brass, ‘on that occasion that I have +just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a +very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had. It might have +cost me a client. But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.’ + +‘He’s not so bad after all,’ thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed +up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better +feelings. + +‘I respect you, Kit,’ said Brass with emotion. ‘I saw enough of your +conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble, +and your fortune lowly. It isn’t the waistcoat that I look at. It is +the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. +But the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually +moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all +mankind!’ + +This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his +own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass’s voice and manner +added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild +austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his +rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set +up in that line of business. + +‘Well, well,’ said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they +compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures, +‘this is wide of the bull’s-eye. You’re to take that, if you please.’ +As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk. + +Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated. + +‘For yourself,’ said Brass. ‘From--’ + +‘No matter about the person they came from,’ replied the lawyer. ‘Say +me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we +mustn’t ask questions or talk too much--you understand? You’re to take +them, that’s all; and between you and me, I don’t think they’ll be the +last you’ll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good bye, +Kit. Good bye!’ + +With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such +slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation +turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the +money and made the best of his way home. Mr Brass remained airing +himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic +smile, simultaneously. + +‘May I come in?’ said Miss Sally, peeping. + +‘Oh yes, you may come in,’ returned her brother. + +‘Ahem!’ coughed Miss Brass interrogatively. + +‘Why, yes,’ returned Sampson, ‘I should say as good as done.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 57 + +Mr Chuckster’s indignant apprehensions were not without foundation. +Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland +was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished +exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and +communication; and the single gentleman labouring at this time under a +slight attack of illness--the consequence most probably of his late +excited feelings and subsequent disappointment--furnished a reason for +their holding yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the +inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between +that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day. + +As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of +the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by +anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether old Mr Garland +came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all messages and inquiries, +Kit was, in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that, +while the single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis +Marks every morning with nearly as much regularity as the General +Postman. + +Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply +about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony’s trot and the clatter +of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound +reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to +rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee. + +‘Ha ha!’ he would cry. ‘Here’s the pony again! Most remarkable pony, +extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?’ + +Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass standing on +the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of the street over +the top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors. + +‘The old gentleman again!’ he would exclaim, ‘a very prepossessing old +gentleman, Mr Richard--charming countenance, sir--extremely +calm--benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realises my idea of +King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr +Richard--the same good humour, the same white hair and partial +baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah! A sweet subject +for contemplation, sir, very sweet!’ + +Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would nod +and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into the +street to greet him, when some such conversation as the following would +ensue. + +‘Admirably groomed, Kit’--Mr Brass is patting the pony--‘does you great +credit--amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally looks as +if he had been varnished all over.’ + +Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his +conviction, ‘that Mr Brass will not find many like him.’ + +‘A beautiful animal indeed!’ cries Brass. ‘Sagacious too?’ + +‘Bless you!’ replies Kit, ‘he knows what you say to him as well as a +Christian does.’ + +‘Does he indeed!’ cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same +place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is +paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding. ‘Dear me!’ + +‘I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,’ says Kit, pleased +with the attorney’s strong interest in his favourite, ‘that I should +come to be as intimate with him as I am now.’ + +‘Ah!’ rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of virtue. +‘A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming. A subject of +proper pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty is the best +policy.--I always find it so myself. I lost forty-seven pound ten by +being honest this morning. But it’s all gain, it’s gain!’ + +Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the +water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if ever there was a good +man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass. + +‘A man,’ says Sampson, ‘who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning +by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, +the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound +lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still +small voice, Christopher,’ cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on +the bosom, ‘is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness +and joy!’ + +Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely +home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr +Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with +great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking +his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all +his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his +mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly +darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English +miles an hour. Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at +the door) exchange an odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in +its expression--and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, +who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats +of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and +heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife. + +Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened +that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller, +if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place +from which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours, +or in all probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not, +to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such +occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the +very utmost limit of possibility. Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss +Sally immediately withdrew. Mr Brass would then set the office-door +wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile +seraphically as before. Kit coming down-stairs would be called in; +entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation; perhaps +entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over +the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half-crowns as the +case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but +that they came from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his +mother with great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; +and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and +for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them was +having some new trifle every day of their lives. + +While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of +Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began +to find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation +of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from +rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, +and accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, +thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds aside, besides many +hazardous bets to a considerable amount. + +As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the +magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think that +on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they often went +out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the +direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, +must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp +living. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished +an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt +that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door, and +pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach. + +‘Oh! I didn’t mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn’t,’ cried the +small servant, struggling like a much larger one. ‘It’s so very dull, +down-stairs, Please don’t you tell upon me, please don’t.’ + +‘Tell upon you!’ said Dick. ‘Do you mean to say you were looking +through the keyhole for company?’ + +‘Yes, upon my word I was,’ replied the small servant. + +‘How long have you been cooling your eye there?’ said Dick. + +‘Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.’ + +Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had +refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, +no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr +Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered +himself speedily. + +‘Well--come in’--he said, after a little consideration. ‘Here--sit +down, and I’ll teach you how to play.’ + +‘Oh! I durstn’t do it,’ rejoined the small servant; ‘Miss Sally ‘ud +kill me, if she know’d I come up here.’ + +‘Have you got a fire down-stairs?’ said Dick. + +‘A very little one,’ replied the small servant. + +‘Miss Sally couldn’t kill me if she know’d I went down there, so I’ll +come,’ said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. ‘Why, how thin +you are! What do you mean by it?’ + +‘It ain’t my fault.’ + +‘Could you eat any bread and meat?’ said Dick, taking down his hat. +‘Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?’ + +‘I had a sip of it once,’ said the small servant. + +‘Here’s a state of things!’ cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the +ceiling. ‘She never tasted it--it can’t be tasted in a sip! Why, how +old are you?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a +moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, +vanished straightway. + +Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public-house, who +bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great +pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a +grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular +recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period +when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his +friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging +his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr Swiveller +followed her into the kitchen. + +‘There!’ said Richard, putting the plate before her. ‘First of all +clear that off, and then you’ll see what’s next.’ + +The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon +empty. + +‘Next,’ said Dick, handing the purl, ‘take a pull at that; but moderate +your transports, you know, for you’re not used to it. Well, is it +good?’ + +‘Oh! isn’t it?’ said the small servant. + +Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, +and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion +while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself +to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being +both sharp-witted and cunning. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and +trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt, +‘those are the stakes. If you win, you get ‘em all. If I win, I get +‘em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the +Marchioness, do you hear?’ + +The small servant nodded. + +‘Then, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘fire away!’ + +The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered +which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air +which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and +waited for her lead. + + + + +CHAPTER 58 + +Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying +success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the +purl, and the striking of ten o’clock, combined to render that +gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of +withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned. + +‘With which object in view, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller gravely, ‘I +shall ask your ladyship’s permission to put the board in my pocket, and +to retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely +observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care +not how fast it rolls on, ma’am, on, while such purl on the bank still +is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, +your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is +damp, and the marble floor is--if I may be allowed the +expression--sloppy.’ + +As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had +been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude +he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly +sipped the last choice drops of nectar. + +‘The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the +Play?’ said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, +and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a +theatrical bandit. + +The Marchioness nodded. + +‘Ha!’ said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown. ‘’Tis well. +Marchioness!--but no matter. Some wine there. Ho!’ He illustrated +these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to himself with great +humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and +smacking his lips fiercely. + +The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical +conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or +heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in +other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel +in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, that +Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one +more suitable to private life, as he asked, + +‘Do they often go where glory waits ‘em, and leave you here?’ + +‘Oh, yes; I believe you they do,’ returned the small servant. ‘Miss +Sally’s such a one-er for that, she is.’ + +‘Such a what?’ said Dick. + +‘Such a one-er,’ returned the Marchioness. + +After a moment’s reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his +responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on; as +it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her +opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a +momentary check of little consequence. + +‘They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,’ said the small servant with a +shrewd look; ‘they go to a many places, bless you!’ + +‘Is Mr Brass a wunner?’ said Dick. + +‘Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn’t,’ replied the small servant, +shaking her head. ‘Bless you, he’d never do anything without her.’ + +‘Oh! He wouldn’t, wouldn’t he?’ said Dick. + +‘Miss Sally keeps him in such order,’ said the small servant; ‘he +always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. Bless +you, you wouldn’t believe how much he catches it.’ + +‘I suppose,’ said Dick, ‘that they consult together, a good deal, and +talk about a great many people--about me for instance, sometimes, eh, +Marchioness?’ + +The Marchioness nodded amazingly. + +‘Complimentary?’ said Mr Swiveller. + +The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left +off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side, with a +vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck. + +‘Humph!’ Dick muttered. ‘Would it be any breach of confidence, +Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has +now the honour to--?’ + +‘Miss Sally says you’re a funny chap,’ replied his friend. + +‘Well, Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘that’s not uncomplimentary. +Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality. Old King +Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages +of history.’ + +‘But she says,’ pursued his companion, ‘that you an’t to be trusted.’ + +‘Why, really Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully; ‘several +ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons, but +tradespeople, ma’am, tradespeople--have made the same remark. The +obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to +that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It’s +a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don’t know why, +for I have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can +safely say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me--never. +Mr Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?’ + +His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that +Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and +seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, ‘But don’t you ever +tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.’ + +‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, rising, ‘the word of a gentleman is +as good as his bond--sometimes better, as in the present case, where +his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your +friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this +same saloon. But, Marchioness,’ added Richard, stopping in his way to +the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was +following with the candle; ‘it occurs to me that you must be in the +constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this.’ + +‘I only wanted,’ replied the trembling Marchioness, ‘to know where the +key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn’t have taken much, +if I had found it--only enough to squench my hunger.’ + +‘You didn’t find it then?’ said Dick. ‘But of course you didn’t, or +you’d be plumper. Good night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if for +ever, then for ever fare thee well--and put up the chain, Marchioness, +in case of accidents.’ + +With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house; and +feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as +promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong +and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, +and to bed at once. Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments +(for he still retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance +from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, +having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep +cogitation. + +‘This Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, ‘is a very +extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of +beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and +taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors--can +these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an +opposition to the decrees of fate? It is a most inscrutable and +unmitigated staggerer!’ + +When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became +aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired solemnity he +proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity +all the time, and sighing deeply. + +‘These rubbers,’ said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly +the same style as he wore his hat, ‘remind me of the matrimonial +fireside. Cheggs’s wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise. She rings +the changes on ‘em now. From sport to sport they hurry her to banish +her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she +forgets--but she don’t. By this time, I should say,’ added Richard, +getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the +reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; ‘by +this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves +her right!’ + +Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic +mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and +even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better +of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, +undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed. + +Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as +Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the +news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute; +thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal +occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but +calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. +In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his +bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the +best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most +mournfully. + +The air was ‘Away with melancholy’--a composition, which, when it is +played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage +of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the +instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find +the next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, +Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the +ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, +played this unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save +for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquise about the +Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigour. It was not +until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and +had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its +very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at +both the next doors, and over the way--that he shut up the music-book, +extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and +relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep. + +He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an +hour’s exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to quit +from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that +purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where the +beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks a +radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon. + +Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat +for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting on, for in +consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into +by a series of struggles. This difficulty overcome, he took his seat +at the desk. + +‘I say’--quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, ‘you haven’t seen +a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?’ + +‘I didn’t meet many in the street,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller. ‘I saw +one--a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance--but as he was in +company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he +was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.’ + +‘No, but have you?’ returned Miss Brass. ‘Seriously, you know.’ + +‘What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,’ said +Mr Swiveller. ‘Haven’t I this moment come?’ + +‘Well, all I know is,’ replied Miss Sally, ‘that it’s not to be found, +and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.’ + +‘Halloa!’ thought Richard, ‘I hope the Marchioness hasn’t been at work +here.’ + +‘There was a knife too,’ said Miss Sally, ‘of the same pattern. They +were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone. You +haven’t missed anything yourself, have you?’ + +Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite +sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having satisfied +himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis Marks, made +answer in the negative. + +‘It’s a very unpleasant thing, Dick,’ said Miss Brass, pulling out the +tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; ‘but between you +and me--between friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never +hear the last of it--some of the office-money, too, that has been left +about, has gone in the same way. In particular, I have missed three +half-crowns at three different times.’ + +‘You don’t mean that?’ cried Dick. ‘Be careful what you say, old boy, +for this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure? Is there no +mistake?’ + +‘It is so, and there can’t be any mistake at all,’ rejoined Miss Brass +emphatically. + +‘Then by Jove,’ thought Richard, laying down his pen, ‘I am afraid the +Marchioness is done for!’ + +The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it +appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. +When he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how +neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been +sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. And yet +he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such +gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, +and thought truly, that rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would +have the Marchioness proved innocent. + +While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon this +theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and +doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful +strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming +with virtuous smiles, appeared. + +‘Mr Richard, sir, good morning! Here we are again, sir, entering upon +another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and +our spirits fresh and flowing. Here we are, Mr Richard, rising with +the sun to run our little course--our course of duty, sir--and, like +him, to get through our day’s work with credit to ourselves and +advantage to our fellow-creatures. A charming reflection sir, very +charming!’ + +While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat +ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against +the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in, in his hand. + +Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm, his +employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore a +troubled expression. + +‘You’re out of spirits, sir,’ said Brass. ‘Mr Richard, sir, we should +fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state. It becomes us, +Mr Richard, sir, to--’ + +Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh. + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr Sampson, ‘you too! Is anything the matter? Mr +Richard, sir--’ + +Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to him, +to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation. +As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was +set at rest one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her +snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account. + +The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features. +Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Miss Sally +had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked +outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in a whisper, + +‘This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance--Mr Richard, +sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have +missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained +from mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender; +but it has not done so--it has not done so. Sally--Mr Richard, +sir--this is a particularly distressing affair!’ + +As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some +papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets. +Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up. + +‘No, Mr Richard, sir,’ rejoined Brass with emotion, ‘I will not take it +up. I will let it lie there, sir. To take it up, Mr Richard, sir, +would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have unlimited +confidence. We will let it lie there, Sir, if you please, and we will +not take it up by any means.’ With that, Mr Brass patted him twice or +thrice on the shoulder, in a most friendly manner, and entreated him to +believe that he had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own. + +Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this as a +doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then-existing circumstances, +a great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected. +When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass wrung him by the hand, and +fell into a brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise. Richard too +remained in a thoughtful state; fearing every moment to hear the +Marchioness impeached, and unable to resist the conviction that she +must be guilty. + +When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes, +Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched +fist, and cried, ‘I’ve hit it!’--as indeed she had, and chipped a piece +out of it too; but that was not her meaning. + +‘Well,’ cried Brass anxiously. ‘Go on, will you!’ + +‘Why,’ replied his sister with an air of triumph, ‘hasn’t there been +somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or +four weeks; hasn’t that somebody been left alone in it +sometimes--thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody +isn’t the thief!’ + +‘What somebody?’ blustered Brass. + +‘Why, what do you call him--Kit.’ + +‘Mr Garland’s young man?’ + +‘To be sure.’ + +‘Never!’ cried Brass. ‘Never. I’ll not hear of it. Don’t tell +me’--said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as +if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. ‘I’ll never believe it +of him. Never!’ + +‘I say,’ repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, ‘that he’s +the thief.’ + +‘I say,’ returned Sampson violently, ‘that he is not. What do you +mean? How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this? +Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever +lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!’ + +These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook +of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had +been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at +the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when +this very Kit himself looked in. + +‘Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?’ + +‘Yes, Kit,’ said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and +frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; ‘Yes Kit, he is. I am +glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you +come down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!’ cried Brass when he had +withdrawn, ‘with that frank and open countenance! I’d trust him with +untold gold. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to +Wrasp and Co.’s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had +instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter. THAT lad a robber,’ +sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. ‘Am I blind, deaf, +silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me? Kit +a robber! Bah!’ + +Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn +and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to +shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its +half-closed lid. + + + + +CHAPTER 59 + +When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the +single gentleman’s apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or +so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as +usual, nor was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him +standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very +strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill. + +‘Is anything the matter, sir?’ said Kit. + +‘Matter!’ cried Brass. ‘No. Why anything the matter?’ + +‘You are so very pale,’ said Kit, ‘that I should hardly have known you.’ + +‘Pooh pooh! mere fancy,’ cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders. +‘Never better, Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha! +How’s our friend above-stairs, eh?’ + +‘A great deal better,’ said Kit. + +‘I’m glad to hear it,’ rejoined Brass; ‘thankful, I may say. An +excellent gentleman--worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little +trouble--an admirable lodger. Ha ha! Mr Garland--he’s well I hope, +Kit--and the pony--my friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha!’ + +Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel +Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient, +mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the +button-hole. + +‘I have been thinking, Kit,’ said the lawyer, ‘that I could throw some +little emoluments in your mother’s way--You have a mother, I think? If +I recollect right, you told me--’ + +‘Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.’ + +‘A widow, I think? an industrious widow?’ + +‘A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.’ + +‘Ah!’ cried Brass. ‘That’s affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow +struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a +delicious picture of human goodness.--Put down your hat, Kit.’ + +‘Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.’ + +‘Put it down while you stay, at any rate,’ said Brass, taking it from +him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for +it on the desk. ‘I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let +for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you +know we’re obliged to put people into those houses to take care of +‘em--very often undeserving people that we can’t depend upon. What’s +to prevent our having a person that we CAN depend upon, and enjoying +the delight of doing a good action at the same time? I say, what’s to +prevent our employing this worthy woman, your mother? What with one +job and another, there’s lodging--and good lodging too--pretty well +all the year round, rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, +that would provide her with a great many comforts she don’t at present +enjoy. Now what do you think of that? Do you see any objection? My +only desire is to serve you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.’ + +As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among +the papers again, as if in search of something. + +‘How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?’ replied Kit +with his whole heart. ‘I don’t know how to thank you sir, I don’t +indeed.’ + +‘Why then,’ said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his +face close to Kit’s with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even +in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled. ‘Why +then, it’s done.’ + +Kit looked at him in some confusion. + +‘Done, I say,’ added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself +again in his usual oily manner. ‘Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit, so +you shall find. But dear me,’ said Brass, ‘what a time Mr Richard is +gone! A sad loiterer to be sure! Will you mind the office one minute, +while I run up-stairs? Only one minute. I’ll not detain you an +instant longer, on any account, Kit.’ + +Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very +short time returned. Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the same +instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost +time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway. + +‘Oh!’ sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered. ‘There goes +your pet, Sammy, eh?’ + +‘Ah! There he goes,’ replied Brass. ‘My pet, if you please. An +honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir--a worthy fellow indeed!’ + +‘Hem!’ coughed Miss Brass. + +‘I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,’ said the angry Sampson, ‘that +I’d stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of +this? Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions? +Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow? If you come +to that, I’d sooner suspect your honesty than his.’ + +Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch, +regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time. + +‘She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass, ‘she exasperates me +beyond all bearing. I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am. These +are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me +out of myself.’ + +‘Why don’t you leave him alone?’ said Dick. + +‘Because she can’t, sir,’ retorted Brass; ‘because to chafe and vex me +is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don’t +believe she’d have her health. But never mind,’ said Brass, ‘never +mind. I’ve carried my point. I’ve shown my confidence in the lad. He +has minded the office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!’ + +The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in her +pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure. + +‘He has minded the office again,’ said Brass triumphantly; ‘he has had +my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he--why, where’s the--’ + +‘What have you lost?’ inquired Mr Swiveller. + +‘Dear me!’ said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and +looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing +the papers about, ‘the note, Mr Richard, sir, the five-pound note--what +can have become of it? I laid it down here--God bless me!’ + +‘What!’ cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and +scattering the papers on the floor. ‘Gone! Now who’s right? Now +who’s got it? Never mind five pounds--what’s five pounds? He’s +honest, you know, quite honest. It would be mean to suspect him. +Don’t run after him. No, no, not for the world!’ + +‘Is it really gone though?’ said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as +pale as his own. + +‘Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,’ replied the lawyer, feeling in all his +pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, ‘I fear this is a black +business. It’s certainly gone, Sir. What’s to be done?’ + +‘Don’t run after him,’ said Miss Sally, taking more snuff. ‘Don’t run +after him on any account. Give him time to get rid of it, you know. +It would be cruel to find him out!’ + +Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in +a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their +hats and rushed out into the street--darting along in the middle of the +road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running +for their lives. + +It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and +having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance +ahead. As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken, +however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the +very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run again. + +‘Stop!’ cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr +Swiveller pounced upon the other. ‘Not so fast sir. You’re in a +hurry?’ + +‘Yes, I am,’ said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise. + +‘I--I--can hardly believe it,’ panted Sampson, ‘but something of value +is missing from the office. I hope you don’t know what.’ + +‘Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!’ cried Kit, trembling from head to +foot; ‘you don’t suppose--’ + +‘No, no,’ rejoined Brass quickly, ‘I don’t suppose anything. Don’t say +I said you did. You’ll come back quietly, I hope?’ + +‘Of course I will,’ returned Kit. ‘Why not?’ + +‘To be sure!’ said Brass. ‘Why not? I hope there may turn out to be +no why not. If you knew the trouble I’ve been in, this morning, +through taking your part, Christopher, you’d be sorry for it.’ + +‘And I am sure you’ll be sorry for having suspected me sir,’ replied +Kit. ‘Come. Let us make haste back.’ + +‘Certainly!’ cried Brass, ‘the quicker, the better. Mr Richard--have +the goodness, sir, to take that arm. I’ll take this one. It’s not +easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be +done, sir; there’s no help for it.’ + +Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they +secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist. But, +quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any +struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public +streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears +standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this--and suffered +them to lead him off. While they were on the way back, Mr Swiveller, +upon whom his present functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity +of whispering in his ear that if he would confess his guilt, even by so +much as a nod, and promise not to do so any more, he would connive at +his kicking Sampson Brass on the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit +indignantly rejecting this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but +to hold him tight until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into +the presence of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution +of locking the door. + +‘Now, you know,’ said Brass, ‘if this is a case of innocence, it is a +case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is +the best satisfaction for everybody. Therefore if you’ll consent to an +examination,’ he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by +turning back the cuffs of his coat, ‘it will be a comfortable and +pleasant thing for all parties.’ + +‘Search me,’ said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. ‘But mind, sir--I +know you’ll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.’ + +‘It is certainly a very painful occurrence,’ said Brass with a sigh, as +he dived into one of Kit’s pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous +collection of small articles; ‘very painful. Nothing here, Mr Richard, +Sir, all perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, +Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.’ + +Richard Swiveller, holding Kit’s hat in his hand, was watching the +proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest +possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes, +looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow’s sleeves +as if it were a telescope--when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade +him search the hat. + +‘Here’s a handkerchief,’ said Dick. + +‘No harm in that sir,’ rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other +sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an +immense extent of prospect. ‘No harm in a handkerchief Sir, whatever. +The faculty don’t consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, +to carry one’s handkerchief in one’s hat--I have heard that it keeps +the head too warm--but in every other point of view, its being there, +is extremely satisfactory--extremely so.’ + +An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit +himself, cut the lawyer short. He turned his head, and saw Dick +standing with the bank-note in his hand. + +‘In the hat?’ cried Brass in a sort of shriek. + +‘Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,’ said Dick, +aghast at the discovery. + +Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at +the floor--everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and +motionless. + +‘And this,’ cried Sampson, clasping his hands, ‘is the world that turns +upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round +Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort! This is human natur, +is it! Oh natur, natur! This is the miscreant that I was going to +benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much +for, as to wish to let him go! But,’ added Mr Brass with greater +fortitude, ‘I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in +carrying the laws of my happy country into effect. Sally my dear, +forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side. Mr Richard, sir, +have the goodness to run and fetch a constable. The weakness is past +and over sir, and moral strength returns. A constable, sir, if you +please!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 60 + +Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon +the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr Brass +maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss +Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in itself no +small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her +knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened +upon him in the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the +disorder and distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of +an uneasy sense of choking. Between the brother and sister he remained +in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller +returned, with a police constable at his heels. + +This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes; looking +upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or +ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business; +and regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming +to be served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he +stood behind the counter; received Mr Brass’s statement of facts with +about as much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if +required to listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a +person whom he was called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit +into custody with a decent indifference. + +‘We had better,’ said this subordinate minister of justice, ‘get to the +office while there’s a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come +along with us, Mr Brass, and the--’ he looked at Miss Sally as if in +some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster. + +‘The lady, eh?’ said Sampson. + +‘Ah!’ replied the constable. ‘Yes--the lady. Likewise the young man +that found the property.’ + +‘Mr Richard, Sir,’ said Brass in a mournful voice. ‘A sad necessity. +But the altar of our country sir--’ + +‘You’ll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?’ interrupted the constable, +holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the +arm, a little above the elbow. ‘Be so good as send for one, will you?’ + +‘But, hear me speak a word,’ cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking +imploringly about him. ‘Hear me speak a word. I am no more guilty +than any one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I a thief! Oh, Mr Brass, +you know me better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right +of you, indeed.’ + +‘I give you my word, constable--’ said Brass. But here the constable +interposed with the constitutional principle ‘words be blowed;’ +observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and +that oaths were the food for strong men. + +‘Quite true, constable,’ assented Brass in the same mournful tone. +‘Strictly correct. I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few +minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence +in that lad, that I’d have trusted him with--a hackney-coach, Mr +Richard, sir; you’re very slow, Sir.’ + +‘Who is there that knows me,’ cried Kit, ‘that would not trust me-- +that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I +have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I +was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now! Oh consider +what you do. How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human +creature had, with this dreadful charge upon me!’ + +Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he +had thought of that before and was about to make some other gloomy +observations when the voice of the single gentleman was heard, +demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause +of all that noise and hurry. Kit made an involuntary start towards the +door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained +by the constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone +to tell the story in his own way. + +‘And he can hardly believe it, either,’ said Sampson, when he returned, +‘nor nobody will. I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but +their depositions are unimpeachable. It’s of no use cross-examining my +eyes,’ cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, ‘they stick to their +first account, and will. Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks; +get on your bonnet, and we’ll be off. A sad errand! a moral funeral, +quite!’ + +‘Mr Brass,’ said Kit. ‘Do me one favour. Take me to Mr Witherden’s +first.’ + +Sampson shook his head irresolutely. + +‘Do,’ said Kit. ‘My master’s there. For Heaven’s sake, take me there, +first.’ + +‘Well, I don’t know,’ stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for +wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary. ‘How do +we stand in point of time, constable, eh?’ + +The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great +philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time +enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there, any longer, they +must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally expressed his +opinion that that was where it was, and that was all about it. + +Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still +remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to the +horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and +declared himself quite ready. Therefore, the constable, still holding +Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as +to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm’s length in advance +(which is the professional mode), thrust him into the vehicle and +followed himself. Miss Sally entered next; and there being now four +inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the coachman drive on. + +Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had +taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window, +almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the streets which +might give him reason to believe he was in a dream. Alas! Everything +was too real and familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same +houses, the same streams of people running side by side in different +directions upon the pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in +the road, the same well-remembered objects in the shop windows: a +regularity in the very noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored. +Dream-like as the story was, it was true. He stood charged with +robbery; the note had been found upon him, though he was innocent in +thought and deed; and they were carrying him back, a prisoner. + +Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart +of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the +consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in the +presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in +hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the notary’s, +poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of +nothing,--when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic, +he became aware of the face of Quilp. + +And what a leer there was upon the face! It was from the open window +of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself +over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on +both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swoln +with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his +usual breadth. Mr Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped the +coach. As it came to a halt directly opposite to where he stood, the +dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and +grotesque politeness. + +‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too? +Sweet Sally! And Dick? Pleasant Dick! And Kit! Honest Kit!’ + +‘He’s extremely cheerful!’ said Brass to the coachman. ‘Very much so! +Ah, sir--a sad business! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.’ + +‘Why not?’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why +not?’ + +‘Bank-note lost in our office sir,’ said Brass, shaking his head. +‘Found in his hat sir--he previously left alone there--no mistake at +all sir--chain of evidence complete--not a link wanting.’ + +‘What!’ cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window. ‘Kit a +thief! Kit a thief! Ha ha ha! Why, he’s an uglier-looking thief than +can be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh, Kit--eh? Ha ha ha! Have you +taken Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me! +Eh, Kit, eh?’ And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter, +manifestly to the great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer’s +pole hard by, where a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to +a man upon a gibbet. + +‘Is it coming to that, Kit!’ cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands +violently. ‘Ha ha ha ha! What a disappointment for little Jacob, and +for his darling mother! Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort +and console him, Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye +bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the +Garlands--the dear old lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after ‘em, +will you? Blessings on ‘em, on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings +on all the world!’ + +With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent +until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when +he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the +ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment. + +When they reached the notary’s, which they were not long in doing, for +they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little +distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach +door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany him +into the office, with the view of preparing the good people within, for +the mournful intelligence that awaited them. Miss Sally complying, he +desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them. So, into the office they went; +Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm; and Mr Swiveller following, alone. + +The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to +Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the +desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall +in his way. This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the +glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary +recognised him, he began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that +partition yet divided them. + +‘Sir,’ said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two +fore-fingers of his right hand beaver glove, ‘my name is Brass--Brass +of Bevis Marks, Sir. I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of being +concerned against you in some little testamentary matters. How do you +do, sir?’ + +‘My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr +Brass,’ said the notary, turning away. + +‘Thank you Sir,’ said Brass, ‘thank you, I am sure. Allow me, Sir, to +introduce my sister--quite one of us Sir, although of the weaker +sex--of great use in my business Sir, I assure you. Mr Richard, sir, +have the goodness to come foward if you please--No really,’ said Brass, +stepping between the notary and his private office (towards which he +had begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man, +‘really Sir, I must, under favour, request a word or two with you, +indeed.’ + +‘Mr Brass,’ said the other, in a decided tone, ‘I am engaged. You see +that I am occupied with these gentlemen. If you will communicate your +business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.’ + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat, and +looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile--‘Gentlemen, I +appeal to you--really, gentlemen--consider, I beg of you. I am of the +law. I am styled “gentleman” by Act of Parliament. I maintain the +title by the annual payment of twelve pound sterling for a certificate. +I am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books, +or painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their +country don’t recognise. I am none of your strollers or vagabonds. If +any man brings his action against me, he must describe me as a +gentleman, or his action is null and void. I appeal to you--is this +quite respectful? Really gentlemen--’ + +‘Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr +Brass?’ said the notary. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined Brass, ‘I will. Ah Mr Witherden! you little know +the--but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I believe +the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.’ + +‘Of both,’ said the notary. + +‘In-deed!’ rejoined Brass, cringing excessively. ‘But I might have +known that, from the uncommon likeness. Extremely happy, I am sure, to +have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen, although the +occasion is a most painful one. One of you gentlemen has a servant +called Kit?’ + +‘Both,’ replied the notary. + +‘Two Kits?’ said Brass smiling. ‘Dear me!’ + +‘One Kit, sir,’ returned Mr Witherden angrily, ‘who is employed by both +gentlemen. What of him?’ + +‘This of him, sir,’ rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively. +‘That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited +confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my equal--that young +man has this morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken +almost in the fact.’ + +‘This must be some falsehood!’ cried the notary. + +‘It is not possible,’ said Mr Abel. + +‘I’ll not believe one word of it,’ exclaimed the old gentleman. + +Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined, + +‘Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man of +low and mean standing, who couldn’t afford to be slandered, I should +proceed for damages. Hows’ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn +such expressions. The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect, +and I’m truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news. I +shouldn’t have put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but +that the lad himself desired to be brought here in the first instance, +and I yielded to his prayers. Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the +goodness to tap at the window for the constable that’s waiting in the +coach?’ + +The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these +words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and +leaping off his stool with something of the excitement of an inspired +prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of time been realised, +held the door open for the entrance of the wretched captive. + +Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude +eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to +witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be +found upon him he knew not! Such a confusion of tongues, before the +circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed! Such a dead +silence when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of +doubt and amazement! + +‘Is it not possible,’ said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, ‘that this +note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,--such as +the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?’ + +But this was clearly shown to be quite impossible. Mr Swiveller, +though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to demonstration, +from the position in which it was found, that it must have been +designedly secreted. + +‘It’s very distressing,’ said Brass, ‘immensely distressing, I am sure. +When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to recommend him to +mercy on account of his previous good character. I did lose money +before, certainly, but it doesn’t quite follow that he took it. The +presumption’s against him--strongly against him--but we’re Christians, +I hope?’ + +‘I suppose,’ said the constable, looking round, ‘that no gentleman here +can give evidence as to whether he’s been flush of money of late, Do +you happen to know, Sir?’ + +‘He has had money from time to time, certainly,’ returned Mr Garland, +to whom the man had put the question. ‘But that, as he always told me, +was given him by Mr Brass himself.’ + +‘Yes to be sure,’ said Kit eagerly. ‘You can bear me out in that, Sir?’ + +‘Eh?’ cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of +stupid amazement. + +‘The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me--from the +lodger,’ said Kit. + +‘Oh dear me!’ cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily. +‘This is a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.’ + +‘What! Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?’ asked Mr +Garland, with great anxiety. + +‘I give him money, Sir!’ returned Sampson. ‘Oh, come you know, this is +too barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be going.’ + +‘What!’ shrieked Kit. ‘Does he deny that he did? ask him, somebody, +pray. Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!’ + +‘Did you, sir?’ asked the notary. + +‘I tell you what, gentlemen,’ replied Brass, in a very grave manner, +‘he’ll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any +interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. +Did I, sir? Of course I never did.’ + +‘Gentlemen,’ cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, ‘Master, Mr +Abel, Mr Witherden, every one of you--he did it! What I have done to +offend him, I don’t know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind, +gentlemen, it’s a plot, and whatever comes of it, I will say with my +dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself! Look at him, +gentlemen! see how he changes colour. Which of us looks the guilty +person--he, or I?’ + +‘You hear him, gentlemen?’ said Brass, smiling, ‘you hear him. Now, +does this case strike you as assuming rather a black complexion, or +does it not? Is it at all a treacherous case, do you think, or is it +one of mere ordinary guilt? Perhaps, gentlemen, if he had not said +this in your presence and I had reported it, you’d have held this to be +impossible likewise, eh?’ + +With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr Brass refute the foul +aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by stronger +feelings, and having at heart, perhaps, a more jealous regard for the +honour of her family, flew from her brother’s side, without any +previous intimation of her design, and darted at the prisoner with the +utmost fury. It would undoubtedly have gone hard with Kit’s face, but +that the wary constable, foreseeing her design, drew him aside at the +critical moment, and thus placed Mr Chuckster in circumstances of some +jeopardy; for that gentleman happening to be next the object of Miss +Brass’s wrath; and rage being, like love and fortune, blind; was +pounced upon by the fair enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by +the roots, and his hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of +the company could make her sensible of her mistake. + +The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and thinking +perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of justice if +the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole, rather than in +small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach without more ado, and +moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an outside passenger; to which +proposal the charming creature, after a little angry discussion, +yielded her consent; and so took her brother Sampson’s place upon the +box: Mr Brass with some reluctance agreeing to occupy her seat inside. +These arrangements perfected, they drove to the justice-room with all +speed, followed by the notary and his two friends in another coach. Mr +Chuckster alone was left behind--greatly to his indignation; for he +held the evidence he could have given, relative to Kit’s returning to +work out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his +hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its +suppression little better than a compromise of felony. + +At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone +straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience. But +not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped poor Kit, +who in half an hour afterwards was committed for trial, and was assured +by a friendly officer on his way to prison that there was no occasion +to be cast down, for the sessions would soon be on, and he would, in +all likelihood, get his little affair disposed of, and be comfortably +transported, in less than a fortnight. + + + + +CHAPTER 61 + +Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very +questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery +that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the +constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too +apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood +and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained +under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; ‘in which +case,’ say they who have hunted him down, ‘--though we certainly don’t +expect it--nobody will be better pleased than we.’ Whereas, the world +would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every +generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the +most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and +that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and +many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the +knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and +rendering them the less endurable. + +The world, however, was not in fault in Kit’s case. But Kit was +innocent; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends deemed +him guilty--that Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as a monster of +ingratitude--that Barbara would associate him with all that was bad and +criminal--that the pony would consider himself forsaken--and that even +his own mother might perhaps yield to the strong appearances against +him, and believe him to be the wretch he seemed--knowing and feeling +all this, he experienced, at first, an agony of mind which no words can +describe, and walked up and down the little cell in which he was locked +up for the night, almost beside himself with grief. + +Even when the violence of these emotions had in some degree subsided, +and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into his mind a new +thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less. The child--the bright +star of the simple fellow’s life--she, who always came back upon him +like a beautiful dream--who had made the poorest part of his existence, +the happiest and best--who had ever been so gentle, and considerate, +and good--if she were ever to hear of this, what would she think! As +this idea occurred to him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, +and the old place to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be +on winter nights--the fireside, the little supper table, the old man’s +hat, and coat, and stick--the half-opened door, leading to her little +room--they were all there. And Nell herself was there, and he--both +laughing heartily as they had often done--and when he had got as far as +this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his poor bedstead +and wept. + +It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end; but +he slept too, and dreamed--always of being at liberty, and roving +about, now with one person and now with another, but ever with a vague +dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison, but one which was +in itself a dim idea--not of a place, but of a care and sorrow: of +something oppressive and always present, and yet impossible to define. +At last, the morning dawned, and there was the jail itself--cold, +black, and dreary, and very real indeed. + +He was left to himself, +however, and there was comfort in that. He had liberty to walk in a +small paved yard at a certain hour, and learnt from the turnkey, who +came to unlock his cell and show him where to wash, that there was a +regular time for visiting, every day, and that if any of his friends +came to see him, he would be fetched down to the grate. When he had +given him this information, and a tin porringer containing his +breakfast, the man locked him up again; and went clattering along the +stone passage, opening and shutting a great many other doors, and +raising numberless loud echoes which resounded through the building for +a long time, as if they were in prison too, and unable to get out. + +This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like some +few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners; because he +was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable, and had +never occupied apartments in that mansion before. Kit was thankful for +this indulgence, and sat reading the church catechism very attentively +(though he had known it by heart from a little child), until he heard +the key in the lock, and the man entered again. + +‘Now then,’ he said, ‘come on!’ + +‘Where to, Sir?’ asked Kit. + +The man contented himself by briefly replying ‘Wisitors;’ and taking +him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable had done the +day before, led him, through several winding ways and strong gates, +into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and turned upon his +heel. Beyond this grating, at the distance of about four or five feet, +was another exactly like it. In the space between, sat a turnkey +reading a newspaper, and outside the further railing, Kit saw, with a +palpitating heart, his mother with the baby in her arms; Barbara’s +mother with her never-failing umbrella; and poor little Jacob, staring +in with all his might, as though he were looking for the bird, or the +wild beast, and thought the men were mere accidents with whom the bars +could have no possible concern. + +But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms between +the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but still stood +afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he held to one of +the bars, he began to cry most piteously; whereupon, Kit’s mother and +Barbara’s mother, who had restrained themselves as much as possible, +burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit could not help joining +them, and not one of them could speak a word. During this melancholy +pause, the turnkey read his newspaper with a waggish look (he had +evidently got among the facetious paragraphs) until, happening to take +his eyes off for an instant, as if to get by dint of contemplation at +the very marrow of some joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it +appeared to occur to him, for the first time, that somebody was crying. + +‘Now, ladies, ladies,’ he said, looking round with surprise, ‘I’d +advise you not to waste time like this. It’s allowanced here, you +know. You mustn’t let that child make that noise either. It’s against +all rules.’ + +‘I’m his poor mother, sir,’--sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly, +‘and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me!’ + +‘Well!’ replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as to +get with greater convenience at the top of the next column. ‘It can’t +be helped you know. He ain’t the only one in the same fix. You +mustn’t make a noise about it!’ + +With that he went on reading. The man was not unnaturally cruel or +hard-hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of disorder, +like the scarlet fever or erysipelas: some people had it--some +hadn’t--just as it might be. + +‘Oh! my darling Kit,’ said his mother, whom Barbara’s mother had +charitably relieved of the baby, ‘that I should see my poor boy here!’ + +‘You don’t believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?’ +cried Kit, in a choking voice. + +‘I believe it!’ exclaimed the poor woman, ‘I that never knew you tell a +lie, or do a bad action from your cradle--that have never had a +moment’s sorrow on your account, except it was the poor meals that you +have taken with such good humour and content, that I forgot how little +there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful you were, though you +were but a child!--I believe it of the son that’s been a comfort to me +from the hour of his birth until this time, and that I never laid down +one night in anger with! I believe it of you Kit!--’ + +‘Why then, thank God!’ said Kit, clutching the bars with an earnestness +that shook them, ‘and I can bear it, mother! Come what may, I shall +always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I think that you +said that.’ + +At this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and Barbara’s mother too. +And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time resolved +themselves into a pretty distinct impression that Kit couldn’t go out +for a walk if he wanted, and that there were no birds, lions, tigers or +other natural curiosities behind those bars--nothing indeed, but a +caged brother--added his tears to theirs with as little noise as +possible. + +Kit’s mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more +than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and +submissively addressed herself to the turnkey, saying, would he please +to listen to her for a minute? The turnkey, being in the very crisis +and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to keep silent one +minute longer, for her life. Nor did he remove his hand into its +former posture, but kept it in the same warning attitude until he had +finished the paragraph, when he paused for a few seconds, with a smile +upon his face, as who should say ‘this editor is a comical blade--a +funny dog,’ and then asked her what she wanted. + +‘I have brought him a little something to eat,’ said the good woman. +‘If you please, Sir, might he have it?’ + +‘Yes,--he may have it. There’s no rule against that. Give it to me +when you go, and I’ll take care he has it.’ + +‘No, but if you please sir--don’t be angry with me sir--I am his +mother, and you had a mother once--if I might only see him eat a little +bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was all +comfortable.’ + +And again the tears of Kit’s mother burst forth, and of Barbara’s +mother, and of little Jacob. As to the baby, it was crowing and +laughing with its might--under the idea, apparently, that the whole +scene had been invented and got up for its particular satisfaction. + +The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and +rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his paper, +and coming round where Kit’s mother stood, took the basket from her, +and after inspecting its contents, handed it to Kit, and went back to +his place. It may be easily conceived that the prisoner had no great +appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and ate as hard as he could, +while, at every morsel he put into his mouth, his mother sobbed and +wept afresh, though with a softened grief that bespoke the satisfaction +the sight afforded her. + +While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his +employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him; +but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the +intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on +the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his +innocence or guilt. Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask +Barbara’s mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him, +reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visitors, and the +third turnkey with the newspaper cried ‘Time’s up!’--adding in the same +breath ‘Now for the next party!’ and then plunging deep into his +newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from +his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears. As he +was crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the +guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to +stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand. + +‘This is Christopher Nubbles, isn’t it, that come in last night for +felony?’ said the man. + +His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question. + +‘Then here’s your beer,’ said the other man to Christopher. ‘What are +you looking at? There an’t a discharge in it.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Kit. ‘Who sent it me?’ + +‘Why, your friend,’ replied the man. ‘You’re to have it every day, he +says. And so you will, if he pays for it.’ + +‘My friend!’ repeated Kit. + +‘You’re all abroad, seemingly,’ returned the other man. ‘There’s his +letter. Take hold!’ + +Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows. + +‘Drink of this cup, you’ll find there’s a spell in its every drop +‘gainst the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for +Helen! HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and +Co.’s).--If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the +Governor. Yours, R. S.’ + +‘R. S.!’ said Kit, after some consideration. ‘It must be Mr Richard +Swiveller. Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.’ + + + + +CHAPTER 62 + +A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on +Quilp’s wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as +though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as +he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent +proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with +his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the +appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain. + +‘A treacherous place to pick one’s steps in, of a dark night,’ muttered +Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber, +and limped in pain. ‘I believe that boy strews the ground differently +every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it +with his own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this +place without Sally. She’s more protection than a dozen men.’ + +As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass +came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his +shoulder. + +‘What’s he about, I wonder?’ murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe, +and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which +at that distance was impossible--‘drinking, I suppose,--making himself +more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till +they boil. I’m always afraid to come here by myself, when his +account’s a pretty large one. I don’t believe he’d mind throttling me, +and dropping me softly into the river when the tide was at its +strongest, any more than he’d mind killing a rat--indeed I don’t know +whether he wouldn’t consider it a pleasant joke. Hark! Now he’s +singing!’ + +Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it +was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition +of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the +last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of +this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or +loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject +not often set to music or generally known in ballads; the words being +these:--‘The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would +find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale, +committed him to take his trial at the approaching sessions; and +directed the customary recognisances to be entered into for the +pros-e-cu-tion.’ + +Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all +possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and +began again. + +‘He’s dreadfully imprudent,’ muttered Brass, after he had listened to +two or three repetitions of the chant. ‘Horribly imprudent. I wish he +was dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,’ cried +Brass, as the chant began again. ‘I wish he was dead!’ + +Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, +Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and +waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the +wooden house, and knocked at the door. + +‘Come in!’ cried the dwarf. + +‘How do you do to-night sir?’ said Sampson, peeping in. ‘Ha ha ha! +How do you do sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical! Amazingly +whimsical to be sure!’ + +‘Come in, you fool!’ returned the dwarf, ‘and don’t stand there shaking +your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you +perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!’ + +‘He has the richest humour!’ cried Brass, shutting the door behind him; +‘the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn’t it rather injudicious, +sir--?’ + +‘What?’ demanded Quilp. ‘What, Judas?’ + +‘Judas!’ cried Brass. ‘He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour +is so extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes--dear me, how very good! Ha +ha ha!’ + +All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with +ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed +figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a +corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the +dwarf worshipped. A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim +and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation +of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted +that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but, +without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic +portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster. Being +originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed +to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this +state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward, +with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive +politeness, by which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to +reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions. + +‘Do you know it?’ said the dwarf, watching Sampson’s eyes. ‘Do you see +the likeness?’ + +‘Eh?’ said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a +little back, as connoisseurs do. ‘Now I look at it again, I fancy I +see a--yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me +of--and yet upon my word I--’ + +Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the +smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much +perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself, +and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was +pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very +long in doubt; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look +which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time +portraits which they ought to recognise but don’t, the dwarf threw down +the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted, +and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the +figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again. + +‘Is it like Kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?’ cried +the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and +covering it with deep dimples. ‘Is it the exact model and counterpart +of the dog--is it--is it--is it?’ And with every repetition of the +question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed +down his face with the violence of the exercise. + +Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a +secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle +by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a +play to people who don’t live near it, there was something in the +earnestness of Mr Quilp’s manner which made his legal adviser feel that +the counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for +the complete enjoyment of these humours. Therefore, he stood as far +off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but +feeble applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure +exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever. + +‘Excellent indeed!’ cried Brass. ‘He he! Oh, very good Sir. You +know,’ said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised +animal, ‘he’s quite a remarkable man--quite!’ + +‘Sit down,’ said the dwarf. ‘I bought the dog yesterday. I’ve been +screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting +my name on him. I mean to burn him at last.’ + +‘Ha ha!’ cried Brass. ‘Extremely entertaining, indeed!’ + +‘Come here,’ said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. ‘What’s +injudicious, hey?’ + +‘Nothing Sir--nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought +that song--admirably humorous in itself you know--was perhaps rather--’ + +‘Yes,’ said Quilp, ‘rather what?’ + +‘Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines +of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,’ returned Brass, looking timidly at +the dwarf’s cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and +reflected its red light. + +‘Why?’ inquired Quilp, without looking up. + +‘Why, you know, sir,’ returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar: +‘--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings +together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but +which the law terms conspiracies, are--you take me, sir?--best kept +snug and among friends, you know.’ + +‘Eh!’ said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!’ cried Brass, +nodding his head. ‘Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir, exactly.’ + +‘YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what’s your meaning?’ +retorted Quilp. ‘Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I +combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?’ + +‘No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,’ returned Brass. + +‘If you so wink and nod at me,’ said the dwarf, looking about him as if +for his poker, ‘I’ll spoil the expression of your monkey’s face, I +will.’ + +‘Don’t put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,’ rejoined Brass, +checking himself with great alacrity. ‘You’re quite right, sir, quite +right. I shouldn’t have mentioned the subject, sir. It’s much better +not to. You’re quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. +You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not +returned, sir.’ + +‘No?’ said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching +it to prevent its boiling over. ‘Why not?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of +carrying the saucepan to his mouth. + +‘You have forgotten the water, sir,’ said Brass. ‘And--excuse me, +sir--but it’s burning hot.’ + +Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr +Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off +all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about +half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the +fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle +stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed. + +‘But first,’ said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, ‘have a drop +yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.’ + +‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘if there was such a thing as a mouthful of +water that could be got without trouble--’ + +‘There’s no such thing to be had here,’ cried the dwarf. ‘Water for +lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering +pitch and tar--that’s the thing for them--eh, Brass, eh?’ + +‘Ha ha ha!’ laughed Mr Brass. ‘Oh very biting! and yet it’s like being +tickled--there’s a pleasure in it too, sir!’ + +‘Drink that,’ said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. +‘Toss it off, don’t leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!’ + +The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which +immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came +rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of +his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of +coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the +constancy of a martyr, that it was ‘beautiful indeed!’ While he was +yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation. + +‘The lodger,’ said Quilp, ‘--what about him?’ + +‘He is still, sir,’ +returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, ‘stopping with the Garland +family. He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the +examination of that culprit. He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he +couldn’t bear the house after what had taken place; that he was +wretched in it; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain +kind of way the cause of the occurrence.--A very excellent lodger Sir. +I hope we may not lose him.’ + +‘Yah!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Never thinking of anybody but yourself--why +don’t you retrench then--scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ replied Brass, ‘upon my word I think Sarah’s as good an +economiser as any going. I do indeed, Mr Quilp.’ + +‘Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!’ cried the dwarf. +‘You took a clerk to oblige me.’ + +‘Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,’ replied Sampson. ‘Yes, Sir, +I did.’ + +‘Then now you may discharge him,’ said Quilp. ‘There’s a means of +retrenchment for you at once.’ + +‘Discharge Mr Richard, sir?’ cried Brass. + +‘Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question? +Yes.’ + +‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said Brass, ‘I wasn’t prepared for this--’ + +‘How could you be?’ sneered the dwarf, ‘when I wasn’t? How often am I +to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye +on him and know where he was--and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little +quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence +was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I +think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, +in reality as poor as frozen rats?’ + +‘I quite understood that, sir,’ rejoined Brass. ‘Thoroughly.’ + +‘Well, Sir,’ retorted Quilp, ‘and do you understand now, that they’re +not poor--that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger +searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?’ + +‘Of course I do, Sir,’ said Sampson. + +‘Of course you do,’ retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his +words. ‘Of course do you understand then, that it’s no matter what +comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any other +purpose he’s no man for me, nor for you?’ + +‘I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,’ returned Brass, ‘that he was of +no use at all in the business. You can’t put any confidence in him, +sir. If you’ll believe me I’ve found that fellow, in the commonest +little matters of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting +out the truth, though expressly cautioned. The aggravation of that +chap sir, has exceeded anything you can imagine, it has indeed. +Nothing but the respect and obligation I owe to you, sir--’ + +As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue, +unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped him +on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that +he would be so obliging as to hold his peace. + +‘Practical, sir, practical,’ said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling; +‘but still extremely pleasant--immensely so!’ + +‘Hearken to me, will you?’ returned Quilp, ‘or I’ll be a little more +pleasant, presently. There’s no chance of his comrade and friend +returning. The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some +knavery, and has found his way abroad. Let him rot there.’ + +‘Certainly, sir. Quite proper.--Forcible!’ cried Brass, glancing at +the admiral again, as if he made a third in company. ‘Extremely +forcible!’ + +‘I hate him,’ said Quilp between his teeth, ‘and have always hated him, +for family reasons. Besides, he was an intractable ruffian; otherwise +he would have been of use. This fellow is pigeon-hearted and +light-headed. I don’t want him any longer. Let him hang or +drown--starve--go to the devil.’ + +‘By all means, sir,’ returned Brass. ‘When would you wish him, sir, +to--ha, ha!--to make that little excursion?’ + +‘When this trial’s over,’ said Quilp. ‘As soon as that’s ended, send +him about his business.’ + +‘It shall be done, sir,’ returned Brass; ‘by all means. It will be +rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under +control. Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased +Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what +blessed results would have flowed from such a union! You never saw our +dear father, sir?--A charming gentleman. Sarah was his pride and joy, +sir. He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr Quilp, if +he could have found her such a partner. You esteem her, sir?’ + +‘I love her,’ croaked the dwarf. + +‘You’re very good, Sir,’ returned Brass, ‘I am sure. Is there any +other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter +of Mr Richard?’ + +‘None,’ replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan. ‘Let us drink the +lovely Sarah.’ + +‘If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn’t quite boiling,’ +suggested Brass humbly, ‘perhaps it would be better. I think it will +be more agreeable to Sarah’s feelings, when she comes to hear from me +of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather +cooler than the last, Sir.’ + +But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, +who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take +further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all +contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the +counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing +the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a +brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the +table and partly under the grate. This position not being the most +comfortable one he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger +to his feet, and, holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host. + +Mr Brass’s first impression was, that his host was gone and had left +him there alone--perhaps locked him in for the night. A strong smell +of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas, he looked upward, +and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock. + +‘Good bye, Sir,’ cried Brass faintly. ‘Good bye, Sir.’ + +‘Won’t you stop all night?’ said the dwarf, peeping out. ‘Do stop all +night!’ + +‘I couldn’t indeed, Sir,’ replied Brass, who was almost dead from +nausea and the closeness of the room. ‘If you’d have the goodness to +show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir--’ + +Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head +first, or his arms first, but bodily--altogether. + +‘To be sure,’ he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only +light in the place. ‘Be careful how you go, my dear friend. Be sure +to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards. +There’s a dog in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the +night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child--but that was in play. +Don’t go too near him.’ + +‘Which side of the road is he, sir?’ asked Brass, in great dismay. + +‘He lives on the right hand,’ said Quilp, ‘but sometimes he hides on +the left, ready for a spring. He’s uncertain in that respect. Mind +you take care of yourself. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t. +There’s the light out--never mind--you know the way--straight on!’ +Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and +now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of +delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then +falling heavily down. At length, however, he got quit of the place, +and was out of hearing. + +The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock. + + + + +CHAPTER 63 + +The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece of +information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the +Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, +turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days’ +time, the sessions commenced. In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury +found a True Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two +days from that finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called +upon to plead Guilty or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the +said Christopher did feloniously abstract and steal from the +dwelling-house and office of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank +Note for Five Pounds issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of +England; in contravention of the Statutes in that case made and +provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his +crown and dignity. + +To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling voice, +pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit of forming +hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher, +if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement +and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has +been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing +but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a +great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling +circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a +large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life +with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations, +there be taken into account Kit’s natural emotion on seeing the two Mr +Garlands and the little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, +it will perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have +been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home. + +Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr Witherden, +since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they +had employed counsel for him. Therefore, when one of the gentlemen in +wigs got up and said ‘I am for the prisoner, my Lord,’ Kit made him a +bow; and when another gentleman in a wig got up and said ‘And I’m +against him, my Lord,’ Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too. +And didn’t he hope in his own heart that his gentleman was a match for +the other gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time! + +The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in +dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly +procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune +to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury +that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less +pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly +undergo if they convicted that prisoner. And when he had told them all +about the case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a +little while, like a man who had something terrible to tell them, and +then said that he understood an attempt would be made by his learned +friend (and here he looked sideways at Kit’s gentleman) to impeach the +testimony of those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before +them; but he did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a +greater respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor; +than whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed, +a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to which he +was attached. And then he said, did the jury know Bevis Marks? And if +they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their own character, they +did) did they know the historical and elevating associations connected +with that most remarkable spot? Did they believe that a man like Brass +could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be a virtuous and +most upright character? And when he had said a great deal to them on +this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their understandings +to make any remarks on what they must have felt so strongly without +him, and therefore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, +straightway. + +Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the +judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and +who hopes he has been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his +arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to say ‘Here I am--full of +evidence--Tap me!’ And the gentleman does tap him presently, and with +great discretion too; drawing off the evidence by little and little, +and making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present. +Then, Kit’s gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him; +and after a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr +Sampson Brass goes down in glory. + +To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr +Brass’s gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit’s. In short, Kit’s +gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has +said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his client), +and therefore lets her go, in some confusion. Then, Mr Brass’s +gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller appears +accordingly. + +Now, Mr Brass’s gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness +is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner--which, to say the truth, he +is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is +familiarly termed badgering. Wherefore, he begins by requesting the +officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, then goes +to work at him, tooth and nail. + +‘Mr Swiveller,’ says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his tale +with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it: ‘Pray sir, +where did you dine yesterday?’--‘Where did I dine yesterday?’--‘Aye, +sir, where did you dine yesterday--was it near here, sir?’--‘Oh to be +sure--yes--just over the way.’--‘To be sure. Yes. Just over the way,’ +repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a glance at the court.--‘Alone, +sir?’--‘I beg your pardon,’ says Mr Swiveller, who has not caught the +question--‘Alone, sir?’ repeats Mr Brass’s gentleman in a voice of +thunder, ‘did you dine alone? Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!’--‘Oh +yes, to be sure--yes, I did,’ says Mr Swiveller with a smile.--‘Have +the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the +place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful +that it’s only that place),’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, with a nod of +the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller’s legitimate sphere +of action; ‘and attend to me. You were waiting about here, yesterday, +in expectation that this trial was coming on. You dined over the way. +You treated somebody. Now, was that somebody brother to the prisoner +at the bar?’--Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain--‘Yes or No, sir,’ +cries Mr Brass’s gentleman--‘But will you allow me--’--‘Yes or No, +sir’--‘Yes it was, but--’--‘Yes it was,’ cries the gentleman, taking +him up short. ‘And a very pretty witness YOU are!’ + +Down sits Mr Brass’s gentleman. Kit’s gentleman, not knowing how the +matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject. Richard +Swiveller retires abashed. Judge, jury and spectators have visions of +his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered, dissolute +young fellow of six feet high. The reality is, little Jacob, with the +calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a +shawl. Nobody knows the truth; everybody believes a falsehood; and all +because of the ingenuity of Mr Brass’s gentleman. + +Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass’s gentleman +shines again. It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character with +Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was +suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons. ‘Really +Mr Garland,’ says Mr Brass’s gentleman, ‘for a person who has arrived +at your time of life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly +indiscreet, I think.’ The jury think so too, and find Kit guilty. He +is taken off, humbly protesting his innocence. The spectators settle +themselves in their places with renewed attention, for there are +several female witnesses to be examined in the next case, and it has +been rumoured that Mr Brass’s gentleman will make great fun in +cross-examining them for the prisoner. + +Kit’s mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs, +accompanied by Barbara’s mother (who, honest soul! never does anything +but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues. The +newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all. He don’t think it will be +transportation for life, because there’s time to prove the good +character yet, and that is sure to serve him. He wonders what he did +it for. ‘He never did it!’ cries Kit’s mother. ‘Well,’ says the +turnkey, ‘I won’t contradict you. It’s all one, now, whether he did it +or not.’ + +Kit’s mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it-- +God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in how +much agony. Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of +having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara’s mother in a +whisper to take her home. + +‘Some friend will rise up for us, mother,’ cried Kit, ‘I am sure. If +not now, before long. My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall +be brought back again; I feel confidence in that. You must teach +little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had +ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would +break my heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away.--Oh! is +there no good gentleman here, who will take care of her!’ + +The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the +earth, insensible. Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the +bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm +after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to Kit, and +commanding Barbara’s mother to follow, for he has a coach waiting, +bears her swiftly off. + +Well; Richard took her home. And what astonishing absurdities in the +way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road, no man +knows. He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered; and, +having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks, +bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while +he went in for ‘change.’ + +‘Mr Richard, sir,’ said Brass cheerfully, ‘Good evening!’ + +Monstrous as Kit’s tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did, that +night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany. Perhaps +it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless +nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very strong upon +him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he wanted. + +‘Money?’ cried Brass, taking out his purse. ‘Ha ha! To be sure, Mr +Richard, to be sure, sir. All men must live. You haven’t change for a +five-pound note, have you sir?’ + +‘No,’ returned Dick, shortly. + +‘Oh!’ said Brass, ‘here’s the very sum. That saves trouble. You’re +very welcome I’m sure.--Mr Richard, sir--’ + +Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round. + +‘You needn’t,’ said Brass, ‘trouble yourself to come back any more, +Sir.’ + +‘Eh?’ + +‘You see, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, +and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, ‘the fact is, that a man +of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line. +It’s terrible drudgery--shocking. I should say, now, that the stage, +or the--or the army, Mr Richard--or something very superior in the +licensed victualling way--was the kind of thing that would call out the +genius of such a man as you. I hope you’ll look in to see us now and +then. Sally, Sir, will be delighted I’m sure. She’s extremely sorry +to lose you, Mr Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles +her. An amazing creature that, sir! You’ll find the money quite +correct, I think. There’s a cracked window sir, but I’ve not made any +deduction on that account. Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, +let us part liberally. A delightful sentiment, sir!’ + +To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one word, +but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round +ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention +of bowling him down with it. He only took it under his arm, however, +and marched out of the office in profound silence. When he had closed +the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the +same portentous gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and +ghost-like manner, vanished. + +He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with +great designs for the comforting of Kit’s mother and the aid of Kit +himself. + +But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard +Swiveller, are extremely precarious. The spiritual excitement of the +last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight degree by +the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little too much for +him. That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an alarming illness, +and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a raging fever. + + + + +CHAPTER 64 + +Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce +thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change of +posture, a moment’s peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through deserts +of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound +suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal +weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his miserable +body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still to one +ever-present anxiety--to a sense of something left undone, of some +fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care that would not +be driven away, and which haunted the distempered brain, now in this +form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but recognisable for the +same phantom in every shape it took: darkening every vision like an +evil conscience, and making slumber horrible--in these slow tortures +of his dread disease, the unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming +inch by inch, until, at last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to +rise up, and to be held down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and +dreamed no more. + +He awoke. With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep +itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings, +and to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been +delirious twice or thrice. Happening, in the midst of these +cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it +seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was. Still, he felt +indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, +remained in the same waking slumber until his attention was attracted +by a cough. This made him doubt whether he had locked his door last +night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room. +Still, he lacked energy to follow up this train of thought; and +unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to staring at some green +stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them strangely with +patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made +gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens. + +He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost +himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more. The +walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a +little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he +looked out. + +The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what +unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and +articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture of a sick +chamber--all very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything +he had left there, when he went to bed! The atmosphere, too, filled +with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled; +the--the what? The Marchioness? + +Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table. There she sat, intent +upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she +feared to disturb him--shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing, +counting, pegging--going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if +she had been in full practice from her cradle! Mr Swiveller +contemplated these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain +to fall into its former position, laid his head on the pillow again. + +‘I’m dreaming,’ thought Richard, ‘that’s clear. When I went to bed, my +hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through +‘em. If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian +Night, instead of a London one. But I have no doubt I’m asleep. Not +the least.’ + +Here the small servant had another cough. + +‘Very remarkable!’ thought Mr Swiveller. ‘I never dreamt such a real +cough as that before. I don’t know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either +a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it’s part of the philosophy of dreams +that one never does. There’s another--and another--I say!--I’m +dreaming rather fast!’ + +For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after some +reflection, pinched himself in the arm. + +‘Queerer still!’ he thought. ‘I came to bed rather plump than +otherwise, and now there’s nothing to lay hold of. I’ll take another +survey.’ + +The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr Swiveller +that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw +them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes. + +‘It’s an Arabian Night; that’s what it is,’ said Richard. ‘I’m in +Damascus or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a +wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, +and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has +brought me away, room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,’ said +Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow, and looking on +that side of his bed which was next the wall, ‘the Princess may be +still--No, she’s gone.’ + +Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it +to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr +Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first +favourable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion +presented itself. The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and +omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr Swiveller called out +as loud as he could--‘Two for his heels!’ + +The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands. ‘Arabian +Night, certainly,’ thought Mr Swiveller; ‘they always clap their hands +instead of ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, +with jars of jewels on their heads!’ + +It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for +directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not +in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was ‘so glad, she +didn’t know what to do.’ + +‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, ‘be pleased to draw +nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I +shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?’ + +The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; +whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected +likewise. + +‘I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances, +Marchioness,’ said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling +lip, ‘that I have been ill.’ + +‘You just have!’ replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. ‘And +haven’t you been a talking nonsense!’ + +‘Oh!’ said Dick. ‘Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?’ + +‘Dead, all but,’ replied the small servant. ‘I never thought you’d get +better. Thank Heaven you have!’ + +Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while. By and bye, he began to talk +again, inquiring how long he had been there. + +‘Three weeks to-morrow,’ replied the servant. + +‘Three what?’ said Dick. + +‘Weeks,’ returned the Marchioness emphatically; ‘three long, slow +weeks.’ + +The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to +fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full +length. The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more +comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool--a +discovery that filled her with delight--cried a little more, and then +applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast. + +While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful +heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made +herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, +whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness +had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and +brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which +(she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he +awoke. She propped him up with pillows, if not as skilfully as if she +had been a professional nurse all her life, at least as tenderly; and +looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient--stopping +every now and then to shake her by the hand--took his poor meal with an +appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under +any other circumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared +away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down +at the table to take her own tea. + +‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘how’s Sally?’ + +The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very +uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head. + +‘What, haven’t you seen her lately?’ said Dick. + +‘Seen her!’ cried the small servant. ‘Bless you, I’ve run away!’ + +Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so +remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his +sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired: + +‘And where do you live, Marchioness?’ + +‘Live!’ cried the small servant. ‘Here!’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Swiveller. + +And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been +shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had +finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth; +when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being +propped up again, opened a farther conversation. + +‘And so,’ said Dick, ‘you have run away?’ + +‘Yes,’ said the Marchioness, ‘and they’ve been a tizing of me.’ + +‘Been--I beg your pardon,’ said Dick--‘what have they been doing?’ + +‘Been a tizing of me--tizing you know--in the newspapers,’ rejoined the +Marchioness. + +‘Aye, aye,’ said Dick, ‘advertising?’ + +The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking +and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater +consistency. And so Dick felt. + +‘Tell me,’ said he, ‘how it was that you thought of coming here.’ + +‘Why, you see,’ returned the Marchioness, ‘when you was gone, I hadn’t +any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn’t +know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one +morning, when I was--’ + +‘Was near a keyhole?’ suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she +faltered. + +‘Well then,’ said the small servant, nodding; ‘when I was near the +office keyhole--as you see me through, you know--I heard somebody +saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at, +and that you was took very bad, and wouldn’t nobody come and take care +of you. Mr Brass, he says, “It’s no business of mine,” he says; and +Miss Sally, she says, “He’s a funny chap, but it’s no business of +mine;” and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went +out, I can tell you. So I run away that night, and come here, and told +‘em you was my brother, and they believed me, and I’ve been here ever +since.’ + +‘This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!’ cried +Dick. + +‘No I haven’t,’ she returned, ‘not a bit of it. Don’t you mind about +me. I like sitting up, and I’ve often had a sleep, bless you, in one +of them chairs. But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out +o’ winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing +and making speeches, you wouldn’t have believed it--I’m so glad you’re +better, Mr Liverer.’ + +‘Liverer indeed!’ said Dick thoughtfully. ‘It’s well I am a liverer. +I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but for you.’ + +At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant’s hand in his again, +and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express +his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly +changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very +quiet. + +‘The doctor,’ she told him, ‘said you was to be kept quite still, and +there was to be no noise nor nothing. Now, take a rest, and then we’ll +talk again. I’ll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps +you’ll go to sleep. You’ll be all the better for it, if you do.’ + +The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the +bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction +of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists. +Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a slumber, and +waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it was. + +‘Just gone half after six,’ replied his small friend, helping him to +sit up again. + +‘Marchioness,’ said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and +turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment flashed +upon him, ‘what has become of Kit?’ + +He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she +said. + +‘Has he gone?’ asked Dick--‘his mother--how is she,--what has become of +her?’ + +His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about +them. ‘But, if I thought,’ said she, very slowly, ‘that you’d keep +quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you--but +I won’t now.’ + +‘Yes, do,’ said Dick. ‘It will amuse me.’ + +‘Oh! would it though!’ rejoined the small servant, with a horrified +look. ‘I know better than that. Wait till you’re better and then I’ll +tell you.’ + + +Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being +large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that +she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about +it. What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his +curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell +him the worst at once. + +‘Oh there’s no worst in it,’ said the small servant. ‘It hasn’t +anything to do with you.’ + +‘Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through chinks or +keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?’ asked Dick, in a +breathless state. + +‘Yes,’ replied the small servant. + +‘In--in Bevis Marks?’ pursued Dick hastily. ‘Conversations between +Brass and Sally?’ + +‘Yes,’ cried the small servant again. + +Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by +the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and +freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly +unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation. She, seeing +that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her +revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to +ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition +that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from +starting up or tossing about. + +‘But if you begin to do that,’ said the small servant, ‘I’ll leave off. +And so I tell you.’ + +‘You can’t leave off, till you have gone on,’ said Dick. ‘And do go +on, there’s a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh +tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!’ + +Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller +poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and +tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus: + +‘Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where we +played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen +door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the +candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to +go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in +her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the +morning--very early I can tell you--and let me out. I was terrible +afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought +they might forget me and only take care of themselves you know. So, +whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if +it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key +that did fit it.’ + +Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the +small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and +pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to +proceed. + +‘They kept me very short,’ said the small servant. ‘Oh! you can’t +think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after +they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or +sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange +peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever +taste orange peel and water?’ + +Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and +once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative. + +‘If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice,’ said the small +servant, ‘but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a +little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out +after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or +two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office--when +the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss +Sally was a-sittin’ at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that +I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.’ + +Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the +bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the +utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her +finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not. + +‘There was him and her,’ said the small servant, ‘a-sittin’ by the +fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, “Upon +my word,” he says “it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a +world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.” She says--you know her +way--she says, “You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I +ever see, and I think,” she says, “that I ought to have been the +brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,” she says, “our principal +support?” “He certainly is,” says Mr Brass, “And an’t we,” she says, +“constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?” “We +certainly are,” says Mr Brass. “Then does it signify,” she says, +“about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?” “It certainly does not +signify,” says Mr Brass. Then they whispered and laughed for a long +time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass +pulls out his pocket-book, and says, “Well,” he says, “here it +is--Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,” he says. +“Kit’s coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he’s up-stairs, you’ll +get out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr Richard. Having Kit alone, +I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. I’ll +manage so, besides,” he says, “that Mr Richard shall find it there, and +be the evidence. And if that don’t get Christopher out of Mr Quilp’s +way, and satisfy Mr Quilp’s grudges,” he says, “the Devil’s in it.” + Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to +be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs +again.--There!’ + +The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation +as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he +sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to +anybody. + +‘How could it be?’ replied his nurse. ‘I was almost afraid to think +about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ‘em +say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and +so was the lodger--though I think I should have been frightened to tell +him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out +of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?’ + +‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and +flinging it to the other end of the room; ‘if you’ll do me the favour +to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll +get up.’ + +‘You mustn’t think of such a thing,’ cried his nurse. + +‘I must indeed,’ said the patient, looking round the room. +‘Whereabouts are my clothes?’ + +‘Oh, I’m so glad--you haven’t got any,’ replied the Marchioness. + +‘Ma’am!’ said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment. + +‘I’ve been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was +ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,’ urged the Marchioness, +as Dick fell back upon his pillow. ‘You’re too weak to stand, indeed.’ + +‘I am afraid,’ said Richard dolefully, ‘that you’re right. What ought +I to do! what is to be done!’ + +It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first +step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands +instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the +office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant +had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of +father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without +difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in +consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with +these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either +old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment. + +‘I suppose,’ said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into +the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, ‘I suppose +there’s nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?’ + +‘No, nothing.’ + +‘It’s embarrassing,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘in case of fire--even an +umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. +I should have died without you!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 65 + +It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick +nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very +neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would +probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme +authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however, +the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first +dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference +to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to +put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks. + +When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course +for the notary’s office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of apple-women +and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or +of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice--she easily +procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in +a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting +off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the +Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in +safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was +bound. + +She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some +old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses +was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was rather retarded than +assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew +off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the +crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so +much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress +in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, +pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she +reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out +and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears. + +But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there +were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope +that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the +backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in +through the glass door. + +Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such +preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his +wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more +gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid +of a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the ashes of the +fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the +notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was +evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland. + +Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with +herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as +there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and +less difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she +slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step +just opposite. + +She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the +street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a +pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but +neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he +reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still +again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the smallest reference to +them--just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal +in creation. When they came to the notary’s door, the man called out +in a very respectful manner, ‘Woa then’--intimating that if he might +venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there. The +pony made a moment’s pause; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop +when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and +dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a +fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round, came back, and then +stopped of his own accord. + +‘Oh! you’re a precious creatur!’ said the man--who didn’t venture by +the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the +pavement. ‘I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.’ + +‘What has he been doing?’ said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as +he came down the steps. + +‘He’s enough to fret a man’s heart out,’ replied the hostler. ‘He is +the most wicious rascal--Woa then, will you?’ + +‘He’ll never stand still, if you call him names,’ said Mr Abel, getting +in, and taking the reins. ‘He’s a very good fellow if you know how to +manage him. This is the first time he has been out, this long while, +for he has lost his old driver and wouldn’t stir for anybody else, till +this morning. The lamps are right, are they? That’s well. Be here to +take him to-morrow, if you please. Good night!’ + +And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the +pony yielded to Mr Abel’s mildness, and trotted gently off. + +All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small +servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it now, +therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel to stop. +Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make +him hear. The case was desperate; for the pony was quickening his +pace. The Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling +that she could go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a +vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the +shoes for ever. + +Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to +do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round: +little dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until +the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered her breath, and the +loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her position, uttered close into +his ear, the words--‘I say, Sir’-- + +He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried, +with some trepidation, ‘God bless me, what is this!’ + +‘Don’t be frightened, Sir,’ replied the still panting messenger. ‘Oh +I’ve run such a way after you!’ + +‘What do you want with me?’ said Mr Abel. ‘How did you come here?’ + +‘I got in behind,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘Oh please drive on, +sir--don’t stop--and go towards the City, will you? And oh do please +make haste, because it’s of consequence. There’s somebody wants to see +you there. He sent me to say would you come directly, and that he +knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.’ + +‘What do you tell me, child?’ + +‘The truth, upon my word and honour I do. But please to drive on-- +quick, please! I’ve been such a time gone, he’ll think I’m lost.’ + +Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled by +some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and +neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until +they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller’s lodging, where, marvellous +to relate, he consented to stop when Mr Abel checked him. + +‘See! It’s the room up there,’ said the Marchioness, pointing to one +where there was a faint light. ‘Come!’ + +Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in +existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard of +people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered, +under circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to +the contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness. His regard for Kit, +however, overcame every other consideration. So, entrusting Whisker to +the charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expectation of the +job, he suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the +dark and narrow stairs. + +He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a +dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed. + +‘An’t it nice to see him lying there so quiet?’ said his guide, in an +earnest whisper. ‘Oh! you’d say it was, if you had only seen him two +or three days ago.’ + +Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the +bed and very near the door. His guide, who appeared to understand his +reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached +the bed. As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognised in +the wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller. + +‘Why, how is this?’ said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him. +‘You have been ill?’ + +‘Very,’ replied Dick. ‘Nearly dead. You might have chanced to hear of +your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. +Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit down, Sir.’ + +Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, +and took a chair by the bedside. + +‘I have sent for you, Sir,’ said Dick--‘but she told you on what +account?’ + +‘She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don’t know what +to say or think,’ replied Mr Abel. + +‘You’ll say that presently,’ retorted Dick. ‘Marchioness, take a seat +on the bed, will you? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; +and be particular. Don’t you speak another word, Sir.’ + +The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before, +without any deviation or omission. Richard Swiveller kept his eyes +fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was +concluded, took the word again. + +‘You have heard it all, and you’ll not forget it. I’m too giddy and +too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what +to do. After this long delay, every minute is an age. If ever you +went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night. Don’t stop to say +one word to me, but go. She will be found here, whenever she’s wanted; +and as to me, you’re pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two. +There are more reasons than one for that. Marchioness, a light! If +you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, I’ll never forgive you!’ + +Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an +instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs, +reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had +dashed away at full gallop. + +‘That’s right!’ said Dick; ‘and hearty of him; and I honour him from +this time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you +must be tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to +see you take it as if I might drink it myself.’ + +Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to +indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller’s +extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat +order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug +before the fire. + +Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, ‘Strew then, oh +strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good +night, Marchioness!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 66 + +On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow +degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the +curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single +gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with +great earnestness but in very subdued tones--fearing, no doubt, to +disturb him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution +was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his +bedside. Old Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and +inquire how he felt. + +Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak +as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and +pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set +his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he +underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr Swiveller, +who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct +and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar +delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible +temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition. + +‘And that is,’ said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland’s hand, +‘that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop. +Is it too late?’ + +‘For completing the work you began so well last night?’ returned the +old gentleman. ‘No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, +I assure you.’ + +Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food +with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the +eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner +of this meal was this:--Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup +of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might +be, constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight +locked; and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would +stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect +seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put +anything into his mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of +the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but whenever he gave +her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became +overshadowed, and she began to sob. Now, whether she was in her +laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help +turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, +‘You see this fellow--can I help this?’--and they, being thus made, as +it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, +‘No. Certainly not.’ This dumb-show, taking place during the whole +time of the invalid’s breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and +emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly +questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken +from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves +so slight and unimportant. + +At length--and to say the truth before very long--Mr Swiveller had +despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it +was discreet to let him have. But the cares of the Marchioness did not +stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning +with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his +hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such +circumstances could be made; and all this, in as brisk and +business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his +grown-up nurse. To these various attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in +a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language. When +they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn +into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by +that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook +hands heartily with the air. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning +round again, ‘you’ll excuse me. Men who have been brought so low as I +have been, are easily fatigued. I am fresh again now, and fit for +talking. We’re short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if +you’ll do me the favour to sit upon the bed--’ + +‘What can we do for you?’ said Mr Garland, kindly. + +‘If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, +sober earnest,’ returned Dick, ‘I’d thank you to get it done off-hand. +But as you can’t, and as the question is not what you will do for me, +but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you, +pray sir let me know what you intend doing.’ + +‘It’s chiefly on that account that we have come just now,’ said the +single gentleman, ‘for you will have another visitor presently. We +feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps +we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the +matter.’ + +‘Gentlemen,’ returned Dick, ‘I thank you. Anybody in the helpless +state that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don’t let me interrupt +you, sir.’ + +‘Then, you see, my good fellow,’ said the single gentleman, ‘that while +we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so +providentially come to light--’ + +‘Meaning hers?’ said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness. + +‘--Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a +proper use of it would procure the poor lad’s immediate pardon and +liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable +us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you +that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly +approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in +this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You’ll agree with +us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we +could help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if +somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.’ + +‘Yes,’ returned Dick, ‘certainly. That is if somebody must--but upon +my word, I’m unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for +every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--and so forth +you know--doesn’t it strike you in that light?’ + +The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had +put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to +explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first +instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession +from the gentle Sarah. + +‘When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,’ he said, ‘and +that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong +hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two +effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I +cared.’ + +Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner, +representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing, +that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to +manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or +cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that she +was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--in +short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated. +But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course. The single +gentleman has been described as explaining their joint intentions, but +it should have been written that they all spoke together; that if any +one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and +panting for an opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had +reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be +persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to +turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to +reconsider their determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how +they had not lost sight of Kit’s mother and the children; how they had +never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in +their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had +been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and +their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, +might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted +between that time and night;--after telling him all this, and adding a +great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it +is unnecessary to recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single +gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard +Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof +the results might have been fatal. + +Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the +room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the +setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a +porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made +the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly +this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the +door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a +mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently +unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and +rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling, +and calves’-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate +restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible +that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in +her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power +of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who +emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice +old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the +hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on +tiptoe and without noise--now here, now there, now everywhere at +once--began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken +broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to +cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses +of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could +be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were +so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two +oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with +the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and +benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer +inability to entertain such wonders in his mind. + +Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired +to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a +letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and +brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her +company there, as speedily as possible. The communication performed +its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger’s return +and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced. + +‘Pray ma’am,’ said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the +room, ‘take a chair.’ + +Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and +seemed--as indeed she was--not a little astonished to find that the +lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person. + +‘You did not expect to see me?’ said the single gentleman. + +‘I didn’t think much about it,’ returned the beauty. ‘I supposed it +was business of some kind or other. If it’s about the apartments, of +course you’ll give my brother regular notice, you know--or money. +That’s very easily settled. You’re a responsible party, and in such a +case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.’ + +‘I am obliged to you for your good opinion,’ retorted the single +gentleman, ‘and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not the +subject on which I wish to speak with you.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Sally. ‘Then just state the particulars, will you? I +suppose it’s professional business?’ + +‘Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.’ + +‘Very well,’ returned Miss Brass. ‘My brother and I are just the same. +I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.’ + +‘As there are other parties interested besides myself,’ said the single +gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, ‘we had better +confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.’ + +Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up +two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of +fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother +Sampson under such circumstances would certainly have evinced some +confusion or anxiety, but she--all composure--pulled out the tin box, +and calmly took a pinch of snuff. + +‘Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, ‘we +professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say +what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway +servant, the other day?’ + +‘Well,’ returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her +features, ‘what of that?’ + +‘She is found, ma’am,’ said the Notary, pulling out his +pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. ‘She is found.’ + +‘Who found her?’ demanded Sarah hastily. + +‘We did, ma’am--we three. Only last night, or you would have heard +from us before.’ + +‘And now I have heard from you,’ said Miss Brass, folding her arms as +though she were about to deny something to the death, ‘what have you +got to say? Something you have got into your heads about her, of +course. Prove it, will you--that’s all. Prove it. You have found +her, you say. I can tell you (if you don’t know it) that you have +found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was +ever born.--Have you got her here?’ she added, looking sharply round. + +‘No, she is not here at present,’ returned the Notary. ‘But she is +quite safe.’ + +‘Ha!’ cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as +spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small +servant’s nose; ‘she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant +you.’ + +‘I hope so,’ replied the Notary. ‘Did it occur to you for the first +time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your +kitchen door?’ + +Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked +at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but +with a cunning aspect of immense expression. + +‘Two keys,’ repeated the Notary; ‘one of which gave her the +opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed +her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential +consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be +described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity +of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr Brass held +together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young +man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only +say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have applied +to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides.’ + +Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully composed, +it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what +she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small +servant, was something very different from this. + +‘Come, come, Miss Brass,’ said the Notary, ‘you have great command of +feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your +imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must +be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties you are +liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to +make to you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the +greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady, +you are in every respect quite worthy of him. But connected with you +two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover +of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either. +For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history +of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance, +will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your present one is +not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for against him and you +we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not +say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the +truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity +to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the +very best policy. Time,’ said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, ‘in +a business like this, is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your +decision as speedily as possible, ma’am.’ + +With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns, +Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this +time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her +forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this +likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,-- + +‘I am to accept or reject at once, am I?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Witherden. + +The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the +door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust +into the room. + +‘Excuse me,’ said the gentleman hastily. ‘Wait a bit!’ + +So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence +occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as +servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow. + +‘Sarah,’ said Brass, ‘hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak. +Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three +such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think +you would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate--nay, +gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company +like this--still, I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a +poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all. If he +could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he +would still have been immortal.’ + +‘If you’re not an idiot,’ said Miss Brass harshly, ‘hold your peace.’ + +‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned her brother, ‘thank you. But I know what I +am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself +accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of +your pocket--would you allow me to--, + +As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from +him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual +prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one +eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with +a pitiful smile. + +‘He shuns me,’ said Sampson, ‘even when I would, as I may say, heap +coals of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house, and +the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a +gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me! +Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my +sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and +being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious turn, followed +her. Since then, I have been listening.’ + +‘If you’re not mad,’ interposed Miss Sally, ‘stop there, and say no +more.’ + +‘Sarah, my dear,’ rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, ‘I thank +you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the +honour to be members of the same profession--to say nothing of that +other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may +say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think you might have given me the +refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my +dear Sir,’ cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt +him, ‘suffer me to speak, I beg.’ + +Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on. + +‘If you will do me the favour,’ he said, holding up the green shade, +and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, ‘to look at this, you +will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you +look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the +cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came +into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,’ said Brass, striking +the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, ‘to all these questions I +answer--Quilp!’ + +The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing. + +‘I say,’ pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were +talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in +violent contrast to his usual smoothness, ‘that I answer to all these +questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and +takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn, +and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who never once, no never once, in +all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a +dog--Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so +much as lately. He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as +if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to +propose it. I can’t trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing +humours, I believe he’d let it out, if it was murder, and never think +of himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,’ said Brass, picking +up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually +crouching down, in the excess of his servility, ‘what does all this +lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you guess +at all near the mark?’ + +Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had +propounded some choice conundrum; and then said: + +‘To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has +come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there’s no standing up +against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its +way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms +and that, we’re not always over and above glad to see it--I had better +turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It’s clear to me +that I am done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be +the person and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively +speaking you’re safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.’ + +With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story; +bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making +himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though +subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses. He concluded thus: + +‘Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in +for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You +must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you +wish to have this in writing, we’ll reduce it into manuscript +immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite +confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honour, and have +feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though +necessity has no law, she has her lawyers. I yield to you from +necessity too; from policy besides; and because of feelings that have +been a pretty long time working within me. Punish Quilp, gentlemen. +Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down. Tread him under foot. He has +done as much by me, for many and many a day.’ + +Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked +the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only +parasites and cowards can. + +‘And this,’ said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had +hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot +with a bitter sneer, ‘this is my brother, is it! This is my brother, +that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something +of the man in him!’ + +‘Sarah, my dear,’ returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; ‘you +disturb our friends. Besides you--you’re disappointed, Sarah, and, not +knowing what you say, expose yourself.’ + +‘Yes, you pitiful dastard,’ retorted the lovely damsel, ‘I understand +you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you +think that I would have been enticed to say a word! I’d have scorned +it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.’ + +‘He he!’ simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to +have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any +spark of manliness he might have possessed. ‘You think so, Sarah, you +think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good +fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with +Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--“Always suspect everybody.” + That’s the maxim to go through life with! If you were not actually +about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you’d +have done it by this time. And therefore I’ve done it myself, and +spared you the trouble as well as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,’ +added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, ‘if there is +any, is mine. It’s better that a female should be spared it.’ + +With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly +to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with +humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter +gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one, +or attended in practice with the desired results. This is, beyond +question, a bold and presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished +characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing +dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have +made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and compass. +Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated. And in illustration it may +be observed, that if Mr Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without +prying and listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their +joint behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty +hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his +distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much +better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these men of +the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from quite as +much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and absurdity of +mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing a coat of +mail on the most innocent occasions. + +The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At the +end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to +the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr Brass that if he +wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of +doing so. At the same time he felt bound to tell him that they would +require his attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and +that in what he did or said, he was guided entirely by his own +discretion. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in spirit +upon the ground before them, ‘I will justify the tenderness with which +I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now +that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the +three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast. Mr +Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits--if you would +do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a glass of something +warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a +melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health. I had hoped,’ said +Brass, looking round with a mournful smile, ‘to have seen you three +gentlemen, one day or another, with your legs under the mahogany in my +humble parlour in the Marks. But hopes are fleeting. Dear me!’ + +Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he +could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived. Having +partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat +down to write. + +The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands +clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her brother +was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and +bite the lid. She continued to pace up and down until she was quite +tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the door. + +It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a +sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of +the afternoon. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, +or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a +subject of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one) all +parties are agreed. In whatever state she walked away, she certainly +did not walk back again. + +Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be +inferred that Mr Brass’s task occupied some time in the completion. It +was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy +person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the +private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm reception and +detaining him in a secure place that he might insure to himself the +pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the others with the +cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to be granted next day +for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a proper application and +statement of all the circumstances to the secretary of state (who was +fortunately in town), would no doubt procure Kit’s free pardon and +liberation without delay. + +And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp’s malignant career was drawing to +a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly--especially +when heaviest--had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent +and was gaining on him fast. Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her +victim holds his course in fancied triumph. Still at his heels she +comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside! + +Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings +of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably in his +recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have +conversed with cheerfulness. Mrs Garland had gone home some time +since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him. After telling him all +they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by +some previous understanding, took their leaves for the night, leaving +the invalid alone with the Notary and the small servant. + +‘As you are so much better,’ said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the +bedside, ‘I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has +come to me professionally.’ + +The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected +with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing but a pleasing +anticipation. Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two +outstanding accounts, in reference to which he had already received +divers threatening letters. His countenance fell as he replied, + +‘Certainly, sir. I hope it’s not anything of a very disagreeable +nature, though?’ + +‘If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating +it,’ replied the Notary. ‘Let me tell you, first, that my friends who +have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and that their kindness to +you has been quite spontaneous and with no hope of return. It may do a +thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.’ + +Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would. + +‘I have been making some inquiries about you,’ said Mr Witherden, +‘little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as +those which have brought us together. You are the nephew of Rebecca +Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.’ + +‘Deceased!’ cried Dick. + +‘Deceased. If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come +into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to doubt it) of +five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As it is, you have fallen into an +annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but I think I may +congratulate you even upon that.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, ‘you may. For, please +God, we’ll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet! And she shall +walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from +this bed again!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 67 + +Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter, +and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for, +to the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the +profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr Quilp +remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and +extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. Being +engaged in the adjustment of some accounts--an occupation to which the +silence and solitude of his retreat were very favourable--he had not +strayed from his den for two whole days. The third day of his devotion +to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to +stir abroad. + +It was the day next after Mr Brass’s confession, and consequently, that +which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp’s liberty, and the abrupt +communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts. +Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which lowered upon his +house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness; and, when +he found he was becoming too much engrossed by business with a due +regard to his health and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with +a little screeching, or howling, or some other innocent relaxation of +that nature. + +He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the +fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his +master’s back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful +exactness. The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in +its old place. The face, horribly seared by the frequent application +of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the +tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less +lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its +tormentor to the commission of new outrages and insults. + +The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was damp, +dark, cold and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled +every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud. Every object was +obscure at one or two yards’ distance. The warning lights and fires +upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw and +piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some +bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where +he was, the river itself might have been miles away. + +The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching +kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to +penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack +them with cold and pains. Everything was wet and clammy to the touch. +The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It +was a day to be at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of +travellers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors; +and to love a warm hearth more than ever. + +The dwarf’s humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and +when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone. By no +means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom +Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for +that day, determined to be jovial. + +To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the +fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in +somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of +hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening. + +At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his +attention. When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened +the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there. + +‘Only me, Quilp,’ replied a woman’s voice. + +‘Only you!’ cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better +view of his visitor. ‘And what brings you here, you jade? How dare +you approach the ogre’s castle, eh?’ + +‘I have come with some news,’ rejoined his spouse. ‘Don’t be angry +with me.’ + +‘Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his +fingers?’ said the dwarf. ‘Is the dear old lady dead?’ + +‘I don’t know what news it is, or whether it’s good or bad,’ rejoined +his wife. + +‘Then she’s alive,’ said Quilp, ‘and there’s nothing the matter with +her. Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!’ + +‘I have brought a letter,’ cried the meek little woman. + +‘Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,’ said Quilp, +interrupting her, ‘or I’ll come out and scratch you.’ + +‘No, but please, Quilp--do hear me speak,’ urged his submissive wife, +in tears. ‘Please do!’ + +‘Speak then,’ growled the dwarf with a malicious grin. ‘Be quick and +short about it. Speak, will you?’ + +‘It was left at our house this afternoon,’ said Mrs Quilp, trembling, +‘by a boy who said he didn’t know from whom it came, but that it was +given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought +on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence.--But +please,’ she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it, +‘please let me in. You don’t know how wet and cold I am, or how many +times I have lost my way in coming here through this thick fog. Let me +dry myself at the fire for five minutes. I’ll go away directly you +tell me to, Quilp. Upon my word I will.’ + +Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking +himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she could +be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter. +Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to +warm her hands, delivered into his a little packet. + +‘I’m glad you’re wet,’ said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at her. +‘I’m glad you’re cold. I’m glad you lost your way. I’m glad your eyes +are red with crying. It does my heart good to see your little nose so +pinched and frosty.’ + +‘Oh Quilp!’ sobbed his wife. ‘How cruel it is of you!’ + +‘Did she think I was dead?’ said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most +extraordinary series of grimaces. ‘Did she think she was going to have +all the money, and to marry somebody she liked? Ha ha ha! Did she?’ + +These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained +on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr Quilp’s great +delight. But, just as he was contemplating her, and chuckling +excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too; +wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the +dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a +short scuffle, kicked him into the yard. In return for this mark of +attention, Tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and--if +the expression be allowable--looked in with his shoes: besides +rattling his feet upon the glass like a Banshee upside down. As a +matter of course, Mr Quilp lost no time in resorting to the infallible +poker, with which, after some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his +young friend one or two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished +precipitately, and left him in quiet possession of the field. + +‘So! That little job being disposed of,’ said the dwarf, coolly, ‘I’ll +read my letter. Humph!’ he muttered, looking at the direction. ‘I +ought to know this writing. Beautiful Sally!’ + +Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows: + +‘Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence. It has all +come out. You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to +call upon you. They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to +surprise you. Don’t lose time. I didn’t. I am not to be found +anywhere. If I was you, I wouldn’t either. S. B., late of B. M.’ + +To describe the changes that passed over Quilp’s face, as he read this +letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language: such, for +power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken. For a long +time he did not utter one word; but, after a considerable interval, +during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed with the alarm his looks +engendered, he contrived to gasp out, + +‘If I had him here. If I only had him here--’ + +‘Oh Quilp!’ said his wife, ‘what’s the matter? Who are you angry with?’ + +‘--I should drown him,’ said the dwarf, not heeding her. ‘Too easy a +death, too short, too quick--but the river runs close at hand. Oh! if +I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and +pleasantly,--holding him by the button-hole--joking with him,--and, +with a sudden push, to send him splashing down! Drowning men come to +the surface three times they say. Ah! To see him those three times, +and mock him as his face came bobbing up,--oh, what a rich treat that +would be!’ + +‘Quilp!’ stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on +the shoulder: ‘what has gone wrong?’ + +She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure +to himself that she could scarcely make herself intelligible. + +‘Such a bloodless cur!’ said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and +pressing them tight together. ‘I thought his cowardice and servility +were the best guarantee for his keeping silence. Oh Brass, Brass--my +dear, good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend--if +I only had you here!’ + +His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these +mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak, +when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his +late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately. + +‘There!’ said the dwarf, pulling him in. ‘Take her home. Don’t come +here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up. Come back no more till +you hear from me or see me. Do you mind?’ + +Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way. + +‘As for you,’ said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, ‘ask no +questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning me. +I shall not be dead, mistress, and that’ll comfort you. He’ll take +care of you.’ + +‘But, Quilp? What is the matter? Where are you going? Do say +something more?’ + +‘I’ll say that,’ said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, ‘and do that +too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go +directly.’ + +‘Has anything happened?’ cried his wife. ‘Oh! Do tell me that?’ + +‘Yes,’ snarled the dwarf. ‘No. What matter which? I have told you +what to do. Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a +hair’s breadth. Will you go!’ + +‘I am going, I’ll go directly; but,’ faltered his wife, ‘answer me one +question first. Has this letter any connexion with dear little Nell? +I must ask you that--I must indeed, Quilp. You cannot think what days +and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that +child. I don’t know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or +little, I did it for you, Quilp. My conscience misgave me when I did +it. Do answer me this question, if you please?’ + +The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught +up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his +charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could. It was well he +did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the +neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense +mist which obscured them from his view and appeared to thicken every +moment. + +‘It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,’ he said, as he +returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run. ‘Stay. We +may look better here. This is too hospitable and free.’ + +By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which +were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam. That +done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried +them.--Strong and fast. + +‘The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,’ said the +dwarf, when he had taken these precautions. ‘There’s a back lane, too, +from there. That shall be my way out. A man need know his road well, +to find it in this lovely place to-night. I need fear no unwelcome +visitors while this lasts, I think.’ + +Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it +had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to +his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself +in preparations for a speedy departure. + +While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his +pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or +unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on finishing Miss +Brass’s note. + +‘Oh Sampson!’ he muttered, ‘good worthy creature--if I could but hug +you! If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I +COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight--what a meeting there would +be between us! If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we’ll +have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me. This time, +Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely +chosen! It was so thoughtful of you, so penitent, so good. Oh, if we +were face to face in this room again, my white-livered man of law, how +well contented one of us would be!’ + +There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a +long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched +mouth. Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his preparations, he +went on with his soliloquy. + +‘There’s Sally,’ he said, with flashing eyes; ‘the woman has spirit, +determination, purpose--was she asleep, or petrified? She could have +stabbed him--poisoned him safely. She might have seen this coming on. +Why does she give me notice when it’s too late? When he sat +there,--yonder there, over there,--with his white face, and red head, +and sickly smile, why didn’t I know what was passing in his heart? It +should have stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret, +or there are no drugs to lull a man to sleep, or no fire to burn him!’ + +Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a +ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again. + +‘And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late +times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child--two wretched +feeble wanderers! I’ll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit, +honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I +bite. I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you +are to-night, I’ll have my turn.----What’s that?’ + +A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. +Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen. Then, +the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before. + +‘So soon!’ said the dwarf. ‘And so eager! I am afraid I shall disappoint +you. It’s well I’m quite prepared. Sally, I thank you!’ + +As he spoke, he extinguished the candle. In his impetuous attempts to +subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came +tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had +shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness. The +noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and +stepped into the open air. + +At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o’clock; but +the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison +with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded +everything from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into +the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone +wrong, changed the direction of his steps; then stood still, not +knowing where to turn. + +‘If they would knock again,’ said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom +by which he was surrounded, ‘the sound might guide me! Come! Batter +the gate once more!’ + +He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed. Nothing +was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant +barkings of dogs. The sound was far away--now in one quarter, now +answered in another--nor was it any guide, for it often came from +shipboard, as he knew. + +‘If I could find a wall or fence,’ said the dwarf, stretching out his +arms, and walking slowly on, ‘I should know which way to turn. A good, +black, devil’s night this, to have my dear friend here! If I had but +that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day again.’ + +As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell--and next moment was +fighting with the cold dark water! + +For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the +knocking at the gate again--could hear a shout that followed it--could +recognise the voice. For all his struggling and plashing, he could +understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the +point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while +he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an +effort to save him; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He +answered the shout--with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires +that danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind +had stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his +throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current. + +Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with +his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him +some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship! He +could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud +cry, now--but the resistless water bore him down before he could give +it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse. + +It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against +the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging +it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to +its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of +the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp--a dismal place where +pirates had swung in chains through many a wintry night--and left it +there to bleach. + +And there it lay alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that +bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along. +The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was +now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. +The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of +death--such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in +when alive--about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night +wind. + + + + +CHAPTER 68 + +Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices, +words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness--what a +change is this! But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening. +They are awaiting him, he knows. He fears he will die of joy, before +he gets among them. + +They have prepared him for this, all day. He is not to be carried off +to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first. By degrees they let him +know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and +perhaps he may be pardoned after all. At last, the evening being come, +they bring him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost +among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. +He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. +He cannot see the speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in +trying to answer, falls down insensible. + +They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this +like a man. Somebody says he must think of his poor mother. It is +because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had +overpowered him. They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has +gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with sympathy for +his misfortunes. He has no ears for this. His thoughts, as yet, have +no wider range than home. Does she know it? what did she say? who +told her? He can speak of nothing else. + +They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while, +until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them. He is free +to go. Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went +away. The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He +feels very grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for +the kind promises they make; but the power of speech is gone again, and +he has much ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master’s +arm. + +As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who +are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his +release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite +hearty--there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks +upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that +place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being +duly qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, +but he has no business there, and the sooner he is gone, the better. + +The last door shuts behind them. They have passed the outer wall, and +stand in the open air--in the street he has so often pictured to +himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all +his dreams. It seems wider and more busy than it used to be. The +night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes! One of the +gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money into his hand. +He has not counted it; but when they have gone a few paces beyond the +box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and drops it in. + +Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and, taking +Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home. At first, they can only +travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because +of the heavy fog. But, as they get farther from the river, and leave +the closer portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with +this precaution and to proceed at a brisker rate. On the road, hard +galloping would be too slow for Kit; but, when they are drawing near +their journey’s end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the +house appears in sight, that they may stop--only for a minute or two, +to give him time to breathe. + +But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to +him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the +garden-gate. Next minute, they are at the door. There is a noise of +tongues, and tread of feet, inside. It opens. Kit rushes in, and +finds his mother clinging round his neck. + +And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara’s mother, still holding +the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they +little hoped to have such joy as this--there she is, Heaven bless her, +crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before; and +there is little Barbara--poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so +much paler, and yet so very pretty--trembling like a leaf and +supporting herself against the wall; and there is Mrs Garland, neater +and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; +and there is Mr Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to +embrace everybody; and there is the single gentleman hovering round +them all, and constant to nothing for an instant; and there is that +good, dear, thoughtful little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on +the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring +fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of +them are for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and +severally commit all manner of follies. + +And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again, +and can find words and smiles, Barbara--that soft-hearted, gentle, +foolish little Barbara--is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon +by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into +hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, +so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is +hardly a bit better at last than she was at first. Then, Kit’s mother +comes in and says, will he come and speak to her; and Kit says ‘Yes,’ +and goes; and he says in a kind voice ‘Barbara!’ and Barbara’s mother +tells her that ‘it’s only Kit;’ and Barbara says (with her eyes closed +all the time) ‘Oh! but is it him indeed?’ and Barbara’s mother says ‘To +be sure it is, my dear; there’s nothing the matter now.’ And in +further assurance that he’s safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; +and then Barbara goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into +another fit of crying; and then Barbara’s mother and Kit’s mother nod +to each other and pretend to scold her--but only to bring her to +herself the faster, bless you!--and being experienced matrons, and +acute at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they +comfort Kit with the assurance that ‘she’ll do now,’ and so dismiss him +to the place from whence he came. + +Well! In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of +wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his +friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob, walking, as +the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising +pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow, +and making the best use of his time, you may believe. Kit no sooner +comes in, than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman) +charges all the glasses--bumpers--and drinks his health, and tells him +he shall never want a friend while he lives; and so does Mr Garland, +and so does Mrs Garland, and so does Mr Abel. But even this honour and +distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of +his pocket a massive silver watch--going hard, and right to half a +second--and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit’s name, with +flourishes all over; and in short it is Kit’s watch, bought expressly +for him, and presented to him on the spot. You may rest assured that +Mr and Mrs Garland can’t help hinting about their present, in store, +and that Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the +happiest of the happy. + +There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be +conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being +an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of slipping +away and hurrying to the stable. The moment he lays his hand upon the +latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony’s greeting; before he has +crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his loose box (for he +brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to give him welcome; and +when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the pony rubs his nose against +his coat, and fondles him more lovingly than ever pony fondled man. It +is the crowning circumstance of his earnest, heartfelt reception; and +Kit fairly puts his arm round Whisker’s neck and hugs him. + +But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again! +she has been at her glass since she recovered. How comes Barbara in +the stable, of all places in the world? Why, since Kit has been away, +the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and Barbara, you see, +not dreaming that Christopher was there, and just looking in, to see +that everything was right, has come upon him unawares. Blushing little +Barbara! + +It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that there +are even better things to caress than ponies. He leaves him for +Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better. Yes. Barbara is a great +deal better. She is afraid--and here Barbara looks down and blushes +more--that he must have thought her very foolish. ‘Not at all,’ says +Kit. Barbara is glad of that, and coughs--Hem!--just the slightest +cough possible--not more than that. + +What a discreet pony when he chooses! He is as quiet now as if he were +of marble. He has a very knowing look, but that he always has. ‘We +have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,’ says Kit. Barbara gives +him hers. Why, she is trembling now! Foolish, fluttering Barbara! + +Arm’s length? The length of an arm is not much. Barbara’s was not a +long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn’t hold it out straight, +but bent a little. Kit was so near her when they shook hands, that he +could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an eyelash. It was +natural that he should look at it, unknown to Barbara. It was natural +that Barbara should raise her eyes unconsciously, and find him out. +Was it natural that at that instant, without any previous impulse or +design, Kit should kiss Barbara? He did it, whether or no. Barbara +said ‘for shame,’ but let him do it too--twice. He might have done it +thrice, but the pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he +were suddenly taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being +frightened, ran away--not straight to where her mother and Kit’s mother +were, though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should +ask her why. Sly little Barbara! + +When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit and +his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and the baby +to boot, had had their suppers together--which there was no hurrying +over, for they were going to stop there all night--Mr Garland called +Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they could be alone, told +him that he had something yet to say, which would surprise him greatly. +Kit looked so anxious and turned so pale on hearing this, that the old +gentleman hastened to add, he would be agreeably surprised; and asked +him if he would be ready next morning for a journey. + +‘For a journey, sir!’ cried Kit. + +‘In company with me and my friend in the next room. Can you guess its +purpose?’ + +Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head. + +‘Oh yes. I think you do already,’ said his master. ‘Try.’ + +Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he +plainly pronounced the words ‘Miss Nell,’ three or four times--shaking +his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was no hope of +that. + +But Mr Garland, instead of saying ‘Try again,’ as Kit had made sure he +would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right. + +‘The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,’ he said, ‘at last. +And that is our journey’s end.’ + +Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it been +found, and how long since, and was she well and happy? + +‘Happy she is, beyond all doubt,’ said Mr Garland. ‘And well, I--I +trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I learn, but +she was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope. +Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.’ + +Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told. Mr +Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would +remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he was +a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived a long +way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had been his +early friend. How, although they loved each other as brothers should, +they had not met for many years, but had communicated by letter from +time to time, always looking forward to some period when they would +take each other by the hand once more, and still letting the Present +time steal on, as it was the habit for men to do, and suffering the +Future to melt into the Past. How this brother, whose temper was very +mild and quiet and retiring--such as Mr Abel’s--was greatly beloved by +the simple people among whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor +(for so they called him), and had every one experienced his charity and +benevolence. How even those slight circumstances had come to his +knowledge, very slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one +of those whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in +discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in trumpeting +their own, be they never so commendable. How, for that reason, he +seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for all that, his +mind had become so full of two among them--a child and an old man, to +whom he had been very kind--that, in a letter received a few days +before, he had dwelt upon them from first to last, and had told such a +tale of their wandering, and mutual love, that few could read it +without being moved to tears. How he, the recipient of that letter, +was directly led to the belief that these must be the very wanderers +for whom so much search had been made, and whom Heaven had directed to +his brother’s care. How he had written for such further information as +would put the fact beyond all doubt; how it had that morning arrived; +had confirmed his first impression into a certainty; and was the +immediate cause of that journey being planned, which they were to take +to-morrow. + +‘In the meantime,’ said the old gentleman rising, and laying his hand +on Kit’s shoulder, ‘you have a great need of rest; for such a day as +this would wear out the strongest man. Good night, and Heaven send our +journey may have a prosperous ending!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 69 + +Kit was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some time +before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition. The hurry of +spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the unexpected +intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his sleep through the +long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams about his pillow that +it was best to rise. + +But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same end +in view--had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be +performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be pursued +under very privation and difficulty, and to be achieved only with great +distress, fatigue, and suffering--had it been the dawn of some painful +enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers of resolution and +endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but only likely to end, if +happily achieved, in good fortune and delight to Nell--Kit’s cheerful +zeal would have been as highly roused: Kit’s ardour and impatience +would have been, at least, the same. + +Nor was he alone excited and eager. Before he had been up a quarter of +an hour the whole house were astir and busy. Everybody hurried to do +something towards facilitating the preparations. The single gentleman, +it is true, could do nothing himself, but he overlooked everybody else +and was more locomotive than anybody. The work of packing and making +ready went briskly on, and by daybreak every preparation for the +journey was completed. Then Kit began to wish they had not been quite +so nimble; for the travelling-carriage which had been hired for the +occasion was not to arrive until nine o’clock, and there was nothing +but breakfast to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half. +Yes there was, though. There was Barbara. Barbara was busy, to be +sure, but so much the better--Kit could help her, and that would pass +away the time better than any means that could be devised. Barbara had +no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out the idea which +had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to think that surely +Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond of Barbara. + +Now, Barbara, if the truth must be told--as it must and ought to +be--Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least pleasure +in the bustle of the occasion; and when Kit, in the openness of his +heart, told her how glad and overjoyed it made him, Barbara became more +downcast still, and seemed to have even less pleasure in it than before! + +‘You have not been home so long, Christopher,’ said Barbara--and it is +impossible to tell how carelessly she said it--‘You have not been home +so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I should think.’ + +‘But for such a purpose,’ returned Kit. ‘To bring back Miss Nell! To +see her again! Only think of that! I am so pleased too, to think that +you will see her, Barbara, at last.’ + +Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on this +point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one little toss of +her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and wondered, in his +simplicity, why she was so cool about it. + +‘You’ll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever saw, I +know,’ said Kit, rubbing his hands. ‘I’m sure you’ll say that.’ + +Barbara tossed her head again. + +‘What’s the matter, Barbara?’ said Kit. + +‘Nothing,’ cried Barbara. And Barbara pouted--not sulkily, or in an +ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped than +ever. + +There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in which +Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss. He saw what +Barbara meant now--he had his lesson by heart all at once--she was the +book--there it was before him, as plain as print. + +‘Barbara,’ said Kit, ‘you’re not cross with me?’ + +Oh dear no! Why should Barbara be cross? And what right had she to be +cross? And what did it matter whether she was cross or not? Who +minded her! + +‘Why, I do,’ said Kit. ‘Of course I do.’ + +Barbara didn’t see why it was of course, at all. + +Kit was sure she must. Would she think again? + +Certainly, Barbara would think again. No, she didn’t see why it was of +course. She didn’t understand what Christopher meant. And besides she +was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and she must go, +indeed-- + +‘No, but Barbara,’ said Kit, detaining her gently, ‘let us part +friends. I was always thinking of you, in my troubles. I should have +been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn’t been for you.’ + +Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured--and when +she trembled, like a little shrinking bird! + +‘I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so +strong as I could wish,’ said Kit. ‘When I want you to be pleased to +see Miss Nell, it’s only because I like you to be pleased with what +pleases me--that’s all. As to her, Barbara, I think I could almost die +to do her service, but you would think so too, if you knew her as I do. +I am sure you would.’ + +Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent. + +‘I have been used, you see,’ said Kit, ‘to talk and think of her, +almost as if she was an angel. When I look forward to meeting her +again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to see +me, and putting out her hand and saying, “It’s my own old Kit,” or some +such words as those--like what she used to say. I think of seeing her +happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as she deserves, and +as she ought to be. When I think of myself, it’s as her old servant, +and one that loved her dearly, as his kind, good, gentle mistress; and +who would have gone--yes, and still would go--through any harm to serve +her. Once, I couldn’t help being afraid that if she came back with +friends about her she might forget, or be ashamed of having known, a +humble lad like me, and so might speak coldly, which would have cut me, +Barbara, deeper than I can tell. But when I came to think again, I +felt sure that I was doing her wrong in this; and so I went on, as I +did at first, hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be. +Hoping this, and remembering what she was, has made me feel as if I +would always try to please her, and always be what I should like to +seem to her if I was still her servant. If I’m the better for +that--and I don’t think I’m the worse--I am grateful to her for it, and +love and honour her the more. That’s the plain honest truth, dear +Barbara, upon my word it is!’ + +Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and, being +full of remorse, melted into tears. To what more conversation this +might have led, we need not stop to inquire; for the wheels of the +carriage were heard at that moment, and, being followed by a smart ring +at the garden gate, caused the bustle in the house, which had laid +dormant for a short time, to burst again into tenfold life and vigour. + +Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster in a +hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the single +gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them. This duty discharged, +he subsided into the bosom of the family; and, entertaining himself +with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast, watched, with genteel +indifference, the process of loading the carriage. + +‘Snobby’s in this, I see, Sir?’ he said to Mr Abel Garland. ‘I thought +he wasn’t in the last trip because it was expected that his presence +wouldn’t be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.’ + +‘To whom, Sir?’ demanded Mr Abel. + +‘To the old gentleman,’ returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed. + +‘Our client prefers to take him now,’ said Mr Abel, drily. ‘There is +no longer any need for that precaution, as my father’s relationship to +a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have full confidence, +will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly nature of their errand.’ + +‘Ah!’ thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, ‘anybody but me! +Snobby before me, of course. He didn’t happen to take that particular +five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that he’s always up +to something of that sort. I always said it, long before this came +out. Devilish pretty girl that! ‘Pon my soul, an amazing little +creature!’ + +Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster’s commendations; and as she was +lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its departure), +that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong interest in the +proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the garden, and take up +his position at a convenient ogling distance. Having had great +experience of the sex, and being perfectly acquainted with all those +little artifices which find the readiest road to their hearts, Mr +Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted one hand on his hip, and with +the other adjusted his flowing hair. This is a favourite attitude in +the polite circles, and, accompanied with a graceful whistling, has +been known to do immense execution. + +Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that nobody +took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the wretches being +wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to +each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar +practices. For now the single gentleman and Mr Garland were in the +carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and +muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and Mrs Garland was there, and Mr +Abel was there, and Kit’s mother was there, and little Jacob was there, +and Barbara’s mother was visible in remote perspective, nursing the +ever-wakeful baby; and all were nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or +crying out, ‘Good bye!’ with all the energy they could express. In +another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr Chuckster +remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of +Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of +Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes--his +eyes--Chuckster’s--Chuckster the successful--on whom ladies of quality +had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays--waving +hers to Kit! + +How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time +rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince +of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and +how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old +villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is +to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their +cold, bleak journey. + +It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them +fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the +trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit +for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came +howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept +on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and +withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though +some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry, +like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they +appeared to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting +forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up, +gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment, +as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away, +their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering +down before them. + +All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and +starlit, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing. +Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help wishing +it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he +had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the +old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again +until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and +smarted in his fingers’ ends--then, he felt as if to have it one +degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the +journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry +music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople +in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road. + +Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep, +beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and +expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on +the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and +fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of +the latter few--none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which +is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation. + +In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had +worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more +silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly: + +‘Are you a good listener?’ + +‘Like most other men, I suppose,’ returned Mr Garland, smiling. ‘I can +be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to +appear so. Why do you ask?’ + +‘I have a short narrative on my lips,’ rejoined his friend, ‘and will +try you with it. It is very brief.’ + +Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve, +and proceeded thus: + +‘There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was +a disparity in their ages--some twelve years. I am not sure but they +may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide +as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon. +The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon +one object. + +‘The youngest--there were reasons for his being sensitive and +watchful--was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what +misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental +struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and +considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many +and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his +couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an +unwonted glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he +could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer +day, and saw all nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his +fond and faithful nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the +poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end. But when +the time of trial came, the younger brother’s heart was full of those +old days. Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of +inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left his brother +to be happy. The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the +country, hoping to die abroad. + +‘The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and +left him with an infant daughter. + +‘If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will +remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and slightest +of them all--come upon you in different generations; and how you trace +the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--never growing +old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--abiding by them in all +reverses--redeeming all their sins-- + +‘In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what +devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this +girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart +to one who could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not +see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought +him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their +hands, and they were married. + +‘Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold +neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought +upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and +pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep +devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can. +Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her +husband’s hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one +roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--she never, but for him, +bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the +last, she died a widow of some three weeks’ date, leaving to her +father’s care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the +other a girl--such another infant child--the same in helplessness, in +age, in form, in feature--as she had been herself when her young mother +died. + +‘The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken +man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the +heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to +trade--in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had +entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he +had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious +subsistence. + +‘The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her +mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her +mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his +daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the +shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste. +The old man and the child dwelt alone together. + +‘It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and +dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when +her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of +the too early change he had seen in such another--of all the +sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone; +when the young man’s profligate and hardened course drained him of +money as his father’s had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary +privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and +to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no +thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a +spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day. + +‘The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had +made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had +been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and +slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful +shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the +elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not +so wholly broken off but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps +between each interval of information--all that I have told you now. + +‘Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though laden +with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener than before; +and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother’s side. With the +utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into +money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for +both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore +him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one +evening at his brother’s door!’ + +The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped. + +‘The rest,’ said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, ‘I know.’ + +‘Yes,’ rejoined his friend, ‘we may spare ourselves the sequel. You +know the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such +inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we +found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--and in time +discovered the men themselves--and in time, the actual place of their +retreat; even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late +again!’ + +‘We cannot be,’ said Mr Garland. ‘This time we must succeed.’ + +‘I have believed and hoped so,’ returned the other. ‘I try to believe +and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my +good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to +neither hope nor reason.’ + +‘That does not surprise me,’ said Mr Garland; ‘it is a natural +consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and +place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night, +indeed! Hark! how the wind is howling!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 70 + +Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home, +they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had +frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for +fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather +continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be +night again before they reached their place of destination. + +Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and, +having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to +himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about +him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of +discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers, +rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The +short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when +they had yet many miles to travel. + +As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and +mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly +among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great +phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it +stalked along. By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on +to snow. + +The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches +deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were +noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses’ hoofs, became +a dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly +hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place. + +Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes +and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse +of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town. +He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, +a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a +barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. +Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, +or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, +turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise +up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be +the road itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water, +appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and +uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things, +like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions. + +He descended slowly from his seat--for his limbs were numbed--when +they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to +go to reach their journey’s end. It was a late hour in such by-places, +and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window, +Ten miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the +end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required, +and after another brief delay they were again in motion. + +It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles, +of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many +pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace. +As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by +this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and +plodded on behind the carriage. The distance seemed interminable, and +the walk was most laborious. As each was thinking within himself that +the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck +the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped. It had moved softly +enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as +startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness. + +‘This is the place, gentlemen,’ said the driver, dismounting from his +horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn. ‘Halloa! Past twelve +o’clock is the dead of night here.’ + +The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy +inmates. All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a +little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in +the whitened house front. No light appeared. The house might have +been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about +it. + +They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers; +unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised. + +‘Let us go on,’ said the younger brother, ‘and leave this good fellow +to wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not +too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!’ + +They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the +house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a +little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home, +and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old cage--just as she had +left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew. + +The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of +the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village +clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in +that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the +man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence +until they returned. + +The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again +rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A +venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An +ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the +snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself +seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace +the melancholy night. + +A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path +across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, +they came to a stand again. + +The village street--if street that could be called which was an +irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with +their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards +the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the +path--was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window +not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way. + +His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently +appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a +protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that +unseasonable hour, wanting him. + +‘’Tis hard weather this,’ he grumbled, ‘and not a night to call me up +in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The +business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this +season. What do you want?’ + +‘I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,’ +said Kit. + +‘Old!’ repeated the other peevishly. ‘How do you know I am old? Not +so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find +many young people in worse case than I am. More’s the pity that it +should be so--not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I +mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon +though,’ said the old man, ‘if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes +are not good at night--that’s neither age nor illness; they never +were--and I didn’t see you were a stranger.’ + +‘I am sorry to call you from your bed,’ said Kit, ‘but those gentlemen +you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just +arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can +direct us?’ + +‘I should be able to,’ answered the old man, in a trembling voice, +‘for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The +right hand path, friend, is the road.--There is no ill news for our +good gentleman, I hope?’ + +Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was +turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. +Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window. + +‘What is that?’ cried the child, earnestly. ‘Has my dream come true? +Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.’ + +‘Poor boy!’ said the sexton, before Kit could answer, ‘how goes it, +darling?’ + +‘Has my dream come true?’ exclaimed the child again, in a +voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any +listener. ‘But no, that can never be! How could it be--Oh! how could +it!’ + +‘I guess his meaning,’ said the sexton. ‘To bed again, poor boy!’ + +‘Ay!’ cried the child, in a burst of despair. ‘I knew it could never +be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked! But, all to-night, and +last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel +dream comes back.’ + +‘Try to sleep again,’ said the old man, soothingly. ‘It will go in +time.’ + +‘No no, I would rather that it staid--cruel as it is, I would rather +that it staid,’ rejoined the child. ‘I am not afraid to have it in my +sleep, but I am so sad--so very, very sad.’ + +The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit +was again alone. + +He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s +manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from +him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived +before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they +had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, +one single solitary light. + +It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being +surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a +star. Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and +motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal +lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them. + +‘What light is that!’ said the younger brother. + +‘It is surely,’ said Mr Garland, ‘in the ruin where they live. I see +no other ruin hereabouts.’ + +‘They cannot,’ returned the brother hastily, ‘be waking at this late +hour--’ + +Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at +the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was +shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about. Obtaining the +permission he desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and, +still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made straight towards the spot. + +It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time +he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path. Unmindful of all +obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed, +and soon arrived within a few yards of the window. He approached as +softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the +whitened ivy with his dress, listened. There was no sound inside. The +church itself was not more quiet. Touching the glass with his cheek, +he listened again. No. And yet there was such a silence all around, +that he felt sure he could have heard even the breathing of a sleeper, +if there had been one there. + +A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of night, +with no one near it. + +A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he +could not see into the room. But there was no shadow thrown upon it +from within. To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in +from above, would have been attended with some danger--certainly with +some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were +her habitation. Again and again he listened; again and again the same +wearisome blank. + +Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin +for a few paces, he came at length to a door. He knocked. No answer. +But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine +what it was. It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain, +but it was not that, being far too regular and constant. Now it seemed +a kind of song, now a wail--seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for +the sound itself was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything +he had ever heard; and in its tone there was something fearful, +chilling, and unearthly. + +The listener’s blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost and +snow, but he knocked again. There was no answer, and the sound went on +without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and +put his knee against the door. It was secured on the inside, but +yielded to the pressure, and turned upon its hinges. He saw the +glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered. + + + + +CHAPTER 71 + +The dull, red glow of a wood fire--for no lamp or candle burnt within +the room--showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back +towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude was that of +one who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The stooping +posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched +out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury +with the piercing cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head +bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched, +it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment’s pause, +accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard. + +The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that +made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave +in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise. The form +was that of an old man, his white head akin in colour to the mouldering +embers upon which he gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, +the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all +in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin! + +Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were +he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on--still the +same rocking in the chair--the same stricken figure was there, +unchanged and heedless of his presence. + +He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form--distinctly +seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up--arrested +it. He returned to where he had stood before--advanced a +pace--another--another still. Another, and he saw the face. Yes! +Changed as it was, he knew it well. + +‘Master!’ he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. +‘Dear master. Speak to me!’ + +The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice, + +‘This is another!--How many of these spirits there have been to-night!’ + +‘No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I +am sure? Miss Nell--where is she--where is she?’ + +‘They all say that!’ cried the old man. ‘They all ask the same +question. A spirit!’ + +‘Where is she?’ demanded Kit. ‘Oh tell me but that,--but that, dear +master!’ + +‘She is asleep--yonder--in there.’ + +‘Thank God!’ + +‘Aye! Thank God!’ returned the old man. ‘I have prayed to Him, many, +and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He +knows. Hark! Did she call?’ + +‘I heard no voice.’ + +‘You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don’t hear THAT?’ + +He started up, and listened again. + +‘Nor that?’ he cried, with a triumphant smile, ‘Can any body know that +voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!’ + +Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber. +After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a +softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp. + +‘She is still asleep,’ he whispered. ‘You were right. She did not +call--unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her +sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips +move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of +me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I +brought it here.’ + +He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the +lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary +recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face. Then, as if +forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it +down again. + +‘She is sleeping soundly,’ he said; ‘but no wonder. Angel hands have +strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be +lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. +She used to feed them, Sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid +things would fly from us. They never flew from her!’ + +Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a +long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out +some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to +smooth and brush them with his hand. + +‘Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,’ he murmured, ‘when there +are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them! +Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping +to the door, crying “where is Nell--sweet Nell?”--and sob, and weep, +because they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. +The wildest would do her bidding--she had a tender way with them, +indeed she had!’ + +Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears. + +‘Her little homely dress,--her favourite!’ cried the old man, pressing +it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. ‘She will +miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall +have it--she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide +world’s riches. See here--these shoes--how worn they are--she kept +them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little +feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the +stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God +bless her! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, +that I might not see how lame she was--but yet she had my hand in hers, +and seemed to lead me still.’ + +He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again, +went on communing with himself--looking wistfully from time to time +towards the chamber he had lately visited. + +‘She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must +have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she +used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often +tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no +print upon the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the door. +Quick!--Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and +keep her warm!’ + +The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his +friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the schoolmaster, +and the bachelor. The former held a light in his hand. He had, it +seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at +the moment when Kit came up and found the old man alone. + +He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the +angry manner--if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be +applied--in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his +former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action, +and the old, dull, wandering sound. + +Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but +appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother +stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat +down close beside him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak. + +‘Another night, and not in bed!’ he said softly; ‘I hoped you would be +more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some rest?’ + +‘Sleep has left me,’ returned the old man. ‘It is all with her!’ + +‘It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,’ said +the bachelor. ‘You would not give her pain?’ + +‘I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has slept +so very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and happy +sleep--eh?’ + +‘Indeed it is,’ returned the bachelor. ‘Indeed, indeed, it is!’ + +‘That’s well!--and the waking--’ faltered the old man. + +‘Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.’ + +They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber +where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he spoke again +within its silent walls. They looked into the faces of each other, and +no man’s cheek was free from tears. He came back, whispering that she +was still asleep, but that he thought she had moved. It was her hand, +he said--a little--a very, very little--but he was pretty sure she had +moved it--perhaps in seeking his. He had known her do that, before +now, though in the deepest sleep the while. And when he had said this, +he dropped into his chair again, and clasping his hands above his head, +uttered a cry never to be forgotten. + +The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on +the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his fingers, +which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in their own. + +‘He will hear me,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘I am sure. He will hear +either me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.’ + +‘I will hear any voice she liked to hear,’ cried the old man. ‘I love +all she loved!’ + +‘I know you do,’ returned the schoolmaster. ‘I am certain of it. +Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have shared +together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have +jointly known.’ + +‘I do. I do. I think of nothing else.’ + +‘I would have you think of nothing else to-night--of nothing but those +things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old +affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to you +herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.’ + +‘You do well to speak softly,’ said the old man. ‘We will not wake +her. I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile. +There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and +changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall be in Heaven’s +good time. We will not wake her.’ + +‘Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you +were journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the old +house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old cheerful +time,’ said the schoolmaster. + +‘She was always cheerful--very cheerful,’ cried the old man, looking +steadfastly at him. ‘There was ever something mild and quiet about +her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.’ + +‘We have heard you say,’ pursued the schoolmaster, ‘that in this and in +all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of, and remember +her?’ + +He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer. + +‘Or even one before her,’ said the bachelor. ‘It is many years ago, +and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her +whose death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before +you knew her worth or could read her heart? Say, that you could carry +back your thoughts to very distant days--to the time of your early +life--when, unlike this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone. +Say, that you could remember, long ago, another child who loved you +dearly, you being but a child yourself. Say, that you had a brother, +long forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, +in your utmost need came back to comfort and console you--’ + +‘To be to you what you were once to him,’ cried the younger, falling on +his knee before him; ‘to repay your old affection, brother dear, by +constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at your right hand, what he +has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us; to call to +witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness of bygone days, whole +years of desolation. Give me but one word of recognition, brother--and +never--no never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, +poor silly boys, we thought to pass our lives together--have we been +half as dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time +hence!’ + +The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound +came from them in reply. + +‘If we were knit together then,’ pursued the younger brother, ‘what +will be the bond between us now! Our love and fellowship began in +childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we +have proved it, and are but children at the last. As many restless +spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world, +retire in their decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking +to be children once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than +they in early life, but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our +rest again among our boyish haunts, and going home with no hope +realised, that had its growth in manhood--carrying back nothing that +we brought away, but our old yearnings to each other--saving no +fragment from the wreck of life, but that which first endeared it--may +be, indeed, but children as at first. And even,’ he added in an +altered voice, ‘even if what I dread to name has come to pass--even if +that be so, or is to be (which Heaven forbid and spare us!)--still, +dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in our great +affliction.’ + +By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner +chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he +replied, with trembling lips. + +‘You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do +that--never while I have life. I have no relative or friend but her--I +never had--I never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late +to part us now.’ + +Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he +stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, +and after a few whispered words--not unbroken by emotion, or easily +uttered--followed him. They moved so gently, that their footsteps made +no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief +and mourning. + +For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The +solemn stillness was no marvel now. + +She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of +pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand +of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and +suffered death. + +Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green +leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. ‘When I die, +put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above +it always.’ Those were her words. + +She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little +bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have +crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its +child mistress was mute and motionless for ever. + +Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? +All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect +happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose. + +And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. +The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, +like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the +poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon +the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had +been the same mild lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their +majesty, after death. + +The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight +folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched +out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led him on, through +all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then +hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, +as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if +imploring them to help her. + +She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she +had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast--the +garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the noiseless haunts +of many a thoughtful hour--the paths she had trodden as it were but +yesterday--could know her never more. + +‘It is not,’ said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the +cheek, and gave his tears free vent, ‘it is not on earth that Heaven’s +justice ends. Think what earth is, compared with the World to which +her young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one +deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her +back to life, which of us would utter it!’ + + + + +CHAPTER 72 + +When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of +their grief, they heard how her life had closed. + +She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, +knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. +They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, +but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what +she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings +with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had +helped and used them kindly, for she often said ‘God bless you!’ with +great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and +that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. +It may have been. + +Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they +would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a +lovely smile upon her face--such, they said, as they had never seen, +and never could forget--and clung with both her arms about his neck. +They did not know that she was dead, at first. + +She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like +dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she +thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked +together, by the river side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, +she had often said of late. She wished there was somebody to take her +love to Kit. And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but +with something of her old, clear, merry laugh. + +For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet +mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day became more +earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the light upon a summer’s +evening. + +The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as +it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to +lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight +and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small +feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay, +before he went to bed. He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left +her there alone; and could not bear the thought. + +He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored +to them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see her, saying +that he would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being +alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother all day long when he +was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him. They let him have his +wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a +lesson to them all. + +Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once--except to her--or +stirred from the bedside. But, when he saw her little favourite, he +was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would +have him come nearer. Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears +for the first time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of +this child had done him good, left them alone together. + +Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him to +take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him. And +when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from +earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might not know when she +was taken from him. + +They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. It was +Sunday--a bright, clear, wintry afternoon--and as they traversed the +village street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make +way for them, and gave them a softened greeting. Some shook the old +man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and +many cried ‘God help him!’ as he passed along. + +‘Neighbour!’ said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young +guide’s mother dwelt, ‘how is it that the folks are nearly all in black +to-day? I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost +every one.’ + +She could not tell, the woman said. + +‘Why, you yourself--you wear the colour too?’ he said. ‘Windows are +closed that never used to be by day. What does this mean?’ + +Again the woman said she could not tell. + +‘We must go back,’ said the old man, hurriedly. ‘We must see what this +is.’ + +‘No, no,’ cried the child, detaining him. ‘Remember what you promised. +Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and +where you found us, more than once, making those garlands for her +garden. Do not turn back!’ + +‘Where is she now?’ said the old man. ‘Tell me that.’ + +‘Do you not know?’ returned the child. ‘Did we not leave her, but just +now?’ + +‘True. True. It was her we left--was it?’ + +He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if +impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the +sexton’s house. He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the +fire. Both rose up, on seeing who it was. + +The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand. It was the action +of an instant, but that, and the old man’s look, were quite enough. + +‘Do you--do you bury any one to-day?’ he said, eagerly. + +‘No, no! Who should we bury, Sir?’ returned the sexton. + +‘Aye, who indeed! I say with you, who indeed!’ + +‘It is a holiday with us, good Sir,’ returned the sexton mildly. ‘We +have no work to do to-day.’ + +‘Why then, I’ll go where you will,’ said the old man, turning to the +child. ‘You’re sure of what you tell me? You would not deceive me? I +am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.’ + +‘Go thy ways with him, Sir,’ cried the sexton, ‘and Heaven be with ye +both!’ + +‘I am quite ready,’ said the old man, meekly. ‘Come, boy, come--’ and +so submitted to be led away. + +And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, +and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--rung +its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. +Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless +infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of strength and +health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life--to +gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and +senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and +still been old--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living +dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. +What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl +and creep above it! + +Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow +that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the +porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that +peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its +quiet shade. + +They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time +sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light +streamed on it through the coloured window--a window, where the boughs +of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang +sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among +those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would +fall upon her grave. + +Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand +dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some--and +they were not a few--knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in +their sorrow. + +The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed +round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be +replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very +spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a +pensive face upon the sky. Another told, how he had wondered much that +one so delicate as she, should be so bold; how she had never feared to +enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all +was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than +that of the moon rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old +wall. A whisper went about among the oldest, that she had seen and +talked with angels; and when they called to mind how she had looked, +and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so, indeed. +Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and +giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three +or four, the church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the +mourning friends. + +They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the +dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred +stillness of the place--when the bright moon poured in her light on +tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it +seemed to them) upon her quiet grave--in that calm time, when outward +things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and +worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them--then, with +tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child +with God. + +Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach, +but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a +mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and +young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit +free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to +walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals +shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature +comes. In the Destroyer’s steps there spring up bright creations that +defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven. + +It was late when the old man came home. The boy had led him to his own +dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered drowsy +by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep +by the fireside. He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not +to rouse him. The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length +awoke the moon was shining. + +The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching at +the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his +little guide. He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old +man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and trembling steps +towards the house. + +He repaired to her chamber, straight. Not finding what he had left +there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were +assembled. From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster’s cottage, +calling her name. They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly +searched it, brought him home. + +With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they +prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell +him. Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare his mind +for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy +lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth. +The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a +murdered man. + +For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is +strong, and he recovered. + +If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death--the +weary void--the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest +minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn--the +connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of +recollection, when every household god becomes a monument and every +room a grave--if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by +their own experience, they can never faintly guess how, for many days, +the old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there +as seeking something, and had no comfort. + +Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in +her. He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his +brother. To every endearment and attention he continued listless. If +they spoke to him on this, or any other theme--save one--he would hear +them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and go on seeking as before. + +On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was +impossible to touch. Dead! He could not hear or bear the word. The +slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had +had when it was first spoken. In what hope he lived, no man could +tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again--some faint and +shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day +more sick and sore at heart--was plain to all. + +They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow; of +trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him. His brother +sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters, +and they came and saw him. Some of the number staid upon the spot, +conversed with him when he would converse, and watched him as he +wandered up and down, alone and silent. Move him where they might, +they said, he would ever seek to get back there. His mind would run +upon that spot. If they confined him closely, and kept a strict guard +upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but if he could by any means +escape, he would surely wander back to that place, or die upon the road. + +The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence +with him. At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or +would even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or +would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head. At other times, +he would entreat him--not unkindly--to be gone, and would not brook him +near. But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those +who would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or +some peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised; he +was at all times the same--with no love or care for anything in life--a +broken-hearted man. + +At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his +knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little +basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone. As +they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened +schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the +church--upon her grave, he said. + +They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the +attitude of one who waited patiently. They did not disturb him then, +but kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he +rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, ‘She +will come to-morrow!’ + +Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and still +at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, ‘She will come +to-morrow!’ + +And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave, +for her. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of +resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and +woods, and paths not often trodden--how many tones of that one +well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering +dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind--how many visions of +what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be--rose up before him, in +the old, dull, silent church! He never told them what he thought, or +where he went. He would sit with them at night, pondering with a +secret satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she +would take before night came again; and still they would hear him +whisper in his prayers, ‘Lord! Let her come to-morrow!’ + +The last time was on a genial day in spring. He did not return at the +usual hour, and they went to seek him. He was lying dead upon the +stone. + +They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the +church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in +hand, the child and the old man slept together. + + + + +CHAPTER 73 + +The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus +far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the +pursuit is at an end. + +It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have +borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey. + +Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim +our polite attention. + +Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the +justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract +his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his +protection for a considerable time, during which the great attention of +his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to +society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving into a small +paved yard. So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring temper +understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous were they +of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to be +entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen +hundred pounds a-piece, before they would suffer him to quit their +hospitable roof--doubting, it appeared, that he would return, if once +let loose, on any other terms. Mr Brass, struck with the humour of +this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his +wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some +halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail--for that +was the merry word agreed upon both sides. These gentlemen being +rejected after twenty-four hours’ pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to +remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand +jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other +wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with a +most facetious joy,--nay, the very populace entered into the whim, and +when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where +these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and carcases of +kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into shreds, which greatly +increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more, +no doubt. + +To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel, +moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself, +by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the +leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus +deluded. After solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical +nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult to +exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson +being meantime removed to his former quarters. Finally, some of the +points were given in Sampson’s favour, and some against him; and the +upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in +foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under +certain insignificant restrictions. + +These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious +mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the +public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of grey turned up with +yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel +and light soup. It was also required of him that he should partake of +their exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs; +and, lest his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it, +that he should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron. These +conditions being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode, +and enjoyed, in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the +privilege of being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty’s +own carriages. + +Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and +blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been always +held in these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and +to imply the commission of some amazing villany--as indeed it would +seem to be the case, when so many worthless names remain among its +better records, unmolested. + +Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad. Some said with +confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had +become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted +as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen +in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out +of a sentry-box in St James’s Park, one evening. There were many such +whispers as these in circulation; but the truth appears to be that, +after the lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct +evidence of her having been seen at all), two wretched people were more +than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St +Giles’s, and to take their way along the streets, with shuffling steps +and cowering shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as +they went in search of refuse food or disregarded offal. These forms +were never beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the +terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene +hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture +to creep into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, +and Famine. It was whispered by those who should have known, that +these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is said, +they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close +at the elbow of the shrinking passenger. + +The body of Quilp being found--though not until some days had +elapsed--an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been +washed ashore. The general supposition was that he had committed +suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the circumstances of +his death, the verdict was to that effect. He was left to be buried +with a stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads. + +It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony +had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given +up to Tom Scott. But even here, opinion was divided; for some said Tom +dug them up at midnight, and carried them to a place indicated to him +by the widow. It is probable that both these stories may have had +their origin in the simple fact of Tom’s shedding tears upon the +inquest--which he certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear. He +manifested, besides, a strong desire to assault the jury; and being +restrained and conducted out of court, darkened its only window by +standing on his head upon the sill, until he was dexterously tilted +upon his feet again by a cautious beadle. + +Being cast upon the world by his master’s death, he determined to go +through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to tumble for +his bread. Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable +obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his +art was in high repute and favour), he assumed the name of an Italian +image lad, with whom he had become acquainted; and afterwards tumbled +with extraordinary success, and to overflowing audiences. + +Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave herself the one deceit that lay so +heavy on her conscience, and never spoke or thought of it but with +bitter tears. Her husband had no relations, and she was rich. He had +made no will, or she would probably have been poor. Having married the +first time at her mother’s instigation, she consulted in her second +choice nobody but herself. It fell upon a smart young fellow enough; +and as he made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be +thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage with no +more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a merry life upon +the dead dwarf’s money. + +Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that there +was a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due +time the latter went into partnership with his friend the notary, on +which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of +dissipation. Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most +bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom Mr Abel happened to +fall in love. HOW it happened, or how they found it out, or which of +them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows. But +certain it is that in course of time they were married; and equally +certain it is that they were the happiest of the happy; and no less +certain it is that they deserved to be so. And it is pleasant to write +down that they reared a family; because any propagation of goodness and +benevolence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no +small subject of rejoicing for mankind at large. + +The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to +the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and +caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. +He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland’s +and his son’s, and, as the old people and the young were frequently +together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which +he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to +play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his +friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like +a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small +freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his +tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive +him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and +that there were points between them far too serious for trifling. + +He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for +when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the +clergyman’s decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and +amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least +resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but +lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was +to kick his doctor. + +Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering +into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome +stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the +vow he had made upon his fevered bed. After casting about for some +time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favour of +Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore +indicative of mystery. Under this title the Marchioness repaired, in +tears, to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon +distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many +quarters to one of a higher grade. It is but bare justice to Mr +Swiveller to say, that, although the expenses of her education kept him +in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened +in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the +accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his +monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary +gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in +quotation. + +In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment +until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age-- +good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider +seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits, +while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came +down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever. +Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would +marry him, how comfortable they might be! So Richard asked her; +whatever she said, it wasn’t No; and they were married in good earnest +that day week. Which gave Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at +divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady saving up +for him after all. + +A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a +smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its +tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its +occupation. To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every +Sunday to spend the day--usually beginning with breakfast--and here he +was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence. +For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had +a better opinion of him when he was supposed to have stolen the +five-pound note, than when he was shown to be perfectly free of the +crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it something daring and +bold, whereas his innocence was but another proof of a sneaking and +crafty disposition. By slow degrees, however, he was reconciled to him +in the end; and even went so far as to honour him with his patronage, +as one who had in some measure reformed, and was therefore to be +forgiven. But he never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the +shilling; holding that if he had come back to get another he would have +done well enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift +was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition +could ever wash away. + +Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and +reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the +smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own +mind the mysterious question of Sophronia’s parentage. Sophronia +herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller, putting various +slight circumstances together, often thought Miss Brass must know +better than that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange +interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that +person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the +riddle, had he chosen. These speculations, however, gave him no +uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful, affectionate, and +provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an occasional outbreak +with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather to encourage +than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband. And they +played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together. And let it be +added, to Dick’s honour, that, though we have called her Sophronia, he +called her the Marchioness from first to last; and that upon every +anniversary of the day on which he found her in his sick room, Mr +Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great glorification. + +The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr +James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying +success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their +profession, dispersed them in various directions, and caused their +career to receive a sudden check from the long and strong arm of the +law. This defeat had its origin in the untoward detection of a new +associate--young Frederick Trent--who thus became the unconscious +instrument of their punishment and his own. + +For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by +his wits--which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily +employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far +below them. It was not long before his body was recognised by a +stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned +are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which +were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle. But the +stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was never +claimed or cared for. + +The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation is +more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone +retreat, and made him his companion and friend. But the humble village +teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become +fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard. Calmly happy in his +school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner, +he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was, through the righteous +gratitude of his friend--let this brief mention suffice for that--a +POOR school-master no more. + +That friend--single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will--had +at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or +monastic gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind. +For a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps +of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her +last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathise where they +had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad. Those who had +been kind to them, did not escape his search. The sisters at the +school--they who were her friends, because themselves so +friendless--Mrs Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short--he found them +all; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten. + +Kit’s story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and +many offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first +of ever quitting Mr Garland’s service; but, after serious remonstrance +and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of +such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured +for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the +gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his +charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind +agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus, +as Kit often said, his great misfortune turned out to be the source of +all his subsequent prosperity. + +Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry? Of course he +married, and who should be his wife but Barbara? And the best of it +was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the +calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been +encased in broadcloth pantaloons,--though that was not quite the best +either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of +Kit’s mother and of Barbara’s mother upon the great occasion is past +all telling; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other +subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious +pair of friends from that time forth. And hadn’t Astley’s cause to +bless itself for their all going together once a quarter--to the +pit--and didn’t Kit’s mother always say, when they painted the outside, +that Kit’s last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager +would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house! + +When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara +among them, and a pretty Barbara she was. Nor was there wanting an +exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those +remote times when they taught him what oysters meant. Of course there +was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and there was a +Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour. The little group would +often gather round him of a night and beg him to tell again that story +of good Miss Nell who died. This, Kit would do; and when they cried to +hear it, wishing it longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to +Heaven, as all good people did; and how, if they were good, like her, +they might hope to be there too, one day, and to see and know her as he +had done when he was quite a boy. Then, he would relate to them how +needy he used to be, and how she had taught him what he was otherwise +too poor to learn, and how the old man had been used to say ‘she always +laughs at Kit;’ at which they would brush away their tears, and laugh +themselves to think that she had done so, and be again quite merry. + +He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new +improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same. The old +house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its +place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground +to show them where it used to stand. But he soon became uncertain of +the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these +alterations were confusing. + +Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things +pass away, like a tale that is told! + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Pickwick Papers + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 22, 2009 [EBook #580] +[Last updated: October 9, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +Produced by Jo Churcher, and David Widger + + + +THE PICKWICK PAPERS + + +By Charles Dickens + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB + + +CHAPTER I.   THE PICKWICKIANS + +CHAPTER II.   THE FIRST DAY’S JOURNEY, AND THE FIRST EVENING’S +ADVENTURES; WITH THEIR CONSEQUENCES + +CHAPTER III.   A NEW ACQUAINTANCE--THE STROLLER’S TALE; A DISAGREEABLE +INTERRUPTION, AND AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER + +CHAPTER IV.   A FIELD DAY AND BIVOUAC--MORE NEW FRIENDS + +CHAPTER V.   A SHORT ONE--SHOWING, AMONG OTHER MATTERS + +CHAPTER VI.   AN OLD-FASHIONED CARD-PARTY--THE CLERGYMAN’S VERSES + +CHAPTER VII.   HOW MR. WINKLE, INSTEAD OF SHOOTING AT THE PIGEON + +CHAPTER VIII.   STRONGLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE POSITION + +CHAPTER IX.   A DISCOVERY AND A CHASE + +CHAPTER X.   CLEARING UP ALL DOUBTS (IF ANY EXISTED) + +CHAPTER XI.   INVOLVING ANOTHER JOURNEY, AND AN ANTIQUARIAN DISCOVERY + +CHAPTER XII.   DESCRIPTIVE OF A VERY IMPORTANT PROCEEDING + +CHAPTER XIII.   SOME ACCOUNT OF EATANSWILL; OF THE STATE OF PARTIES + +CHAPTER XIV.   COMPRISING A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY + +CHAPTER XV.   IN WHICH IS GIVEN A FAITHFUL PORTRAITURE + +CHAPTER XVI.   TOO FULL OF ADVENTURE TO BE BRIEFLY DESCRIBED + +CHAPTER XVII.   SHOWING THAT AN ATTACK OF RHEUMATISM + +CHAPTER XVIII.   BRIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF TWO POINTS + +CHAPTER XIX.   A PLEASANT DAY WITH AN UNPLEASANT TERMINATION + +CHAPTER XX.   SHOWING HOW DODSON AND FOGG WERE MEN OF BUSINESS + +CHAPTER XXI.   IN WHICH THE OLD MAN LAUNCHES FORTH + +CHAPTER XXII.   MR. PICKWICK JOURNEYS TO IPSWICH AND MEETS WITH A +ROMANTIC + +CHAPTER XXIII.   IN WHICH MR. SAMUEL WELLER BEGINS TO DEVOTE HIS +ENERGIES + +CHAPTER XXIV.   WHEREIN MR. PETER MAGNUS GROWS JEALOUS + +CHAPTER XXV.   SHOWING, AMONG A VARIETY OF PLEASANT MATTERS, HOW +MAJESTIC + +CHAPTER XXVI.   WHICH CONTAINS A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE PROGRESS + +CHAPTER XXVII.   SAMUEL WELLER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO DORKING + +CHAPTER XXVIII.   A GOOD-HUMOURED CHRISTMAS CHAPTER + +CHAPTER XXIX.   THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON + +CHAPTER XXX.   HOW THE PICKWICKIANS MADE AND CULTIVATED THE ACQUAINTANCE + +CHAPTER XXXI.   WHICH IS ALL ABOUT THE LAW, AND SUNDRY GREAT AUTHORITIES + +CHAPTER XXXII.   DESCRIBES, FAR MORE FULLY THAN THE COURT NEWSMAN EVER + +CHAPTER XXXIII.   MR. WELLER THE ELDER DELIVERS SOME CRITICAL SENTIMENTS + +CHAPTER XXXIV.   IS WHOLLY DEVOTED TO A FULL AND FAITHFUL REPORT + +CHAPTER XXXV.   IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK THINKS HE HAD BETTER GO TO BATH + +CHAPTER XXXVI.   THE CHIEF FEATURES OF WHICH WILL BE FOUND + +CHAPTER XXXVII.   HONOURABLY ACCOUNTS FOR MR. WELLER’S ABSENCE + +CHAPTER XXXVIII.     HOW MR. WINKLE, WHEN HE STEPPED OUT OF THE FRYING- +PAN + +CHAPTER XXXIX.   MR. SAMUEL WELLER, BEING INTRUSTED WITH A MISSION + +CHAPTER XL.   INTRODUCES MR. PICKWICK TO A NEW AND NOT UNINTERESTING +SCENE + +CHAPTER XLI.   WHAT BEFELL MR. PICKWICK WHEN HE GOT INTO THE FLEET + +CHAPTER XLII.   ILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLD PROVERB + +CHAPTER XLIII.   SHOWING HOW Mr. SAMUEL WELLER GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES + +CHAPTER LXIV.   TREATS OF DIVERS LITTLE MATTERS WHICH OCCURRED + +CHAPTER XLIV.   DESCRIPTIVE OF AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW + +CHAPTER XLVI.   RECORDS A TOUCHING ACT OF DELICATE FEELING + +CHAPTER XLVII.   IS CHIEFLY DEVOTED TO MATTERS OF BUSINESS + +CHAPTER XLVIII.   RELATES HOW MR. PICKWICK, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF +SAMUEL + +CHAPTER XLIX.   CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN’S UNCLE + +CHAPTER L.   HOW MR. PICKWICK SPED UPON HIS MISSION + +CHAPTER LI.   IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK ENCOUNTERS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE + +CHAPTER LII.   INVOLVING A SERIOUS CHANGE IN THE WELLER FAMILY + +CHAPTER LIII.   COMPRISING THE FINAL EXIT OF MR. JINGLE AND JOB TROTTER + +CHAPTER LIV.   CONTAINING SOME PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO THE DOUBLE KNOCK + +CHAPTER LV.   MR. SOLOMON PELL, ASSISTED BY A SELECT COMMITTEE + +CHAPTER LVI.   AN IMPORTANT CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE + +CHAPTER LVII.   IN WHICH THE PICKWICK CLUB IS FINALLY DISSOLVED + + + +DETAILED CONTENTS + +1. The Pickwickians 2. The first Day’s Journey, and the first Evening’s +Adventures; with their Consequences 3. A new Acquaintance--The +Stroller’s Tale--A disagreeable Interruption, and an unpleasant +Encounter 4. A Field Day and Bivouac--More new Friends--An Invitation to +the Country 5. A short one--Showing, among other Matters, how Mr. +Pickwick undertook to drive, and Mr. Winkle to ride, and how they both +did it 6. An old-fashioned Card-party--The Clergyman’s verses--The Story +of the Convict’s Return 7. How Mr. Winkle, instead of shooting at the +Pigeon and killing the Crow, shot at the Crow and wounded the Pigeon; +how the Dingley Dell Cricket Club played All-Muggleton, and how All- +Muggleton dined at the Dingley Dell Expense; with other interesting and +instructive Matters 8. Strongly illustrative of the Position, that the +Course of True Love is not a Railway 9. A Discovery and a Chase 10. +Clearing up all Doubts (if any existed) of the Disinterestedness of Mr. +A. Jingle’s Character 11. Involving another Journey, and an Antiquarian +Discovery; Recording Mr. Pickwick’s Determination to be present at an +Election; and containing a Manuscript of the old Clergyman’s 12. +Descriptive of a very important Proceeding on the Part of Mr. Pickwick; +no less an Epoch in his Life, than in this History 13. Some Account of +Eatanswill; of the State of Parties therein; and of the Election of a +Member to serve in Parliament for that ancient, loyal, and patriotic +Borough 14. Comprising a brief Description of the Company at the Peacock +assembled; and a Tale told by a Bagman 15. In which is given a faithful +Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate Description of +a public Breakfast in their House and Grounds: which public Breakfast +leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the Commencement of +anothe r Chapter 16. Too full of Adventure to be briefly described 17. +Showing that an Attack of Rheumatism, in some Cases, acts as a Quickener +to inventive Genius 18. Briefly illustrative of two Points; first, the +Power of Hysterics, and, secondly, the Force of Circumstances 19. A +pleasant Day with an unpleasant Termination 20. Showing how Dodson and +Fogg were Men of Business, and their Clerks Men of pleasure; and how an +affecting Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his long-lost +Parent; showing also what Choice Spirits assembled at the Magpie and +Stump, and what a C apital Chapter the next one will be 21. In which the +old Man launches forth into his favourite Theme, and relates a Story +about a queer Client 22. Mr. Pickwick journeys to Ipswich and meets with +a romantic Adventure with a middle-aged Lady in yellow Curl-papers 23. +In which Mr. Samuel Weller begins to devote his Energies to the Return +Match between himself and Mr. Trotter 24. Wherein Mr. Peter Magnus grows +jealous, and the middle-aged Lady apprehensive, which brings the +Pickwickians within the Grasp of the Law 25. Showing, among a Variety of +pleasant Matters, how majestic and impartial Mr. Nupkins was; and how +Mr. Weller returned Mr. Job Trotter’s Shuttlecock as heavily as it came- +-With another Matter, which will be found in its Place 26. Which +contains a brief Account of the Progress of the Action of Bardell +against Pickwick 27. Samuel Weller makes a Pilgrimage to Dorking, and +beholds his Mother-in-law 28. A good-humoured Christmas Chapter, +containing an Account of a Wedding, and some other Sports beside: which +although in their Way even as good Customs as Marriage itself, are not +quite so religiously kept up, in these degenerate Times 29. The Story of +the Goblins who stole a Sexton 30. How the Pickwickians made and +cultivated the Acquaintance of a Couple of nice young Men belonging to +one of the liberal Professions; how they disported themselves on the +Ice; and how their Visit came to a Conclusion 31. Which is all about the +Law, and sundry Great Authorities learned therein 32. Describes, far +more fully than the Court Newsman ever did, a Bachelor’s Party, given by +Mr. Bob Sawyer at his Lodgings in the Borough 33. Mr. Weller the elder +delivers some Critical Sentiments respecting Literary Composition; and, +assisted by his Son Samuel, pays a small Instalment of Retaliation to +the Account of the Reverend Gentleman with the Red Nose 34. Is wholly +devoted to a full and faithful Report of the memorable Trial of Bardell +against Pickwick 35. In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to +Bath; and goes accordingly 36. The chief Features of which will be found +to be an authentic Version of the Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most +extraordinary Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle 37. Honourably accounts +for Mr. Weller’s Absence, by describing a Soiree to which he was invited +and went; also relates how he was intrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a +Private Mission of Delicacy and Importance 38. How Mr. Winkle, when he +stepped out of the Frying-pan, walked gently and comfortably into the +Fire 39. Mr. Samuel Weller, being intrusted with a Mission of Love, +proceeds to execute it; with what Success will hereinafter appear 40. +Introduces Mr. Pickwick to a new and not uninteresting Scene in the +great Drama of Life 41. What befell Mr. Pickwick when he got into the +Fleet; what Prisoners he saw there; and how he passed the Night 42. +Illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old Proverb, that Adversity +brings a Man acquainted with strange Bedfellows--Likewise containing Mr. +Pickwick’s extraordinary and startling Announcement to Mr. Samuel Weller +43. Showing how Mr. Samuel Weller got into Difficulties 44. Treats of +divers little Matters which occurred in the Fleet, and of Mr. Winkle’s +mysterious Behaviour; and shows how the poor Chancery Prisoner obtained +his Release at last 45. Descriptive of an affecting Interview between +Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the +diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in Future, as +little as possible 46. Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling not +unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and +Fogg 47. Is chiefly devoted to Matters of Business, and the temporal +Advantage of Dodson and Fogg--Mr. Winkle reappears under extraordinary +Circumstances--Mr. Pickwick’s Benevolence proves stronger than his +Obstinacy 48. Relates how Mr. Pickwick, with the Assistance of Samuel +Weller, essayed to soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to +mollify the Wrath of Mr. Robert Sawyer 49. Containing the Story of the +Bagman’s Uncle 50. How Mr. Pickwick sped upon his Mission, and how he +was reinforced in the Outset by a most unexpected Auxiliary 51. In which +Mr. Pickwick encounters an old Acquaintance--To which fortunate +Circumstance the Reader is mainly indebted for Matter of thrilling +Interest herein set down, concerning two great Public Men of Might and +Power 52. Involving a serious Change in the Weller Family, and the +untimely Downfall of Mr. Stiggins 53. Comprising the final Exit of Mr. +Jingle and Job Trotter, with a great Morning of business in Gray’s Inn +Square--Concluding with a Double Knock at Mr. Perker’s Door 54. +Containing some Particulars relative to the Double Knock, and other +Matters: among which certain interesting Disclosures relative to Mr. +Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no Means irrelevant to this History +55. Mr. Solomon Pell, assisted by a Select Committee of Coachmen, +arranges the affairs of the elder Mr. Weller 56. An important Conference +takes place between Mr. Pickwick and Samuel Weller, at which his Parent +assists--An old Gentleman in a snuff-coloured Suit arrives unexpectedly +57. In which the Pickwick Club is finally dissolved, and everything +concluded to the Satisfaction of Everybody + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICKWICK PAPERS *** + +THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB + + + +CHAPTER I. THE PICKWICKIANS + +The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a +dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the +public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is +derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of +the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest +pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful +attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which +his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been +conducted. + +‘May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C. [Perpetual Vice- +President--Member Pickwick Club], presiding. The following resolutions +unanimously agreed to:-- + +‘That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled +satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel +Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C. [General Chairman--Member Pickwick Club], +entitled “Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some +Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats;” and that this Association +does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., +G.C.M.P.C., for the same. + +‘That while this Association is deeply sensible of the advantages which +must accrue to the cause of science, from the production to which they +have just adverted--no less than from the unwearied researches of Samuel +Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., in Hornsey, Highgate, Brixton, and +Camberwell--they cannot but entertain a lively sense of the inestimable +benefits which must inevitably result from carrying the speculations of +that learned man into a wider field, from extending his travels, and, +consequently, enlarging his sphere of observation, to the advancement of +knowledge, and the diffusion of learning. + +‘That, with the view just mentioned, this Association has taken into its +serious consideration a proposal, emanating from the aforesaid, Samuel +Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., and three other Pickwickians hereinafter +named, for forming a new branch of United Pickwickians, under the title +of The Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club. + +‘That the said proposal has received the sanction and approval of this +Association. + +‘That the Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club is therefore hereby +constituted; and that Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., Tracy Tupman, +Esq., M.P.C., Augustus Snodgrass, Esq., M.P.C., and Nathaniel Winkle, +Esq., M.P.C., are hereby nominated and appointed members of the same; +and that they be requested to forward, from time to time, authenticated +accounts of their journeys and investigations, of their observations of +character and manners, and of the whole of their adventures, together +with all tales and papers to which local scenery or associations may +give rise, to the Pickwick Club, stationed in London. + +‘That this Association cordially recognises the principle of every +member of the Corresponding Society defraying his own travelling +expenses; and that it sees no objection whatever to the members of the +said society pursuing their inquiries for any length of time they +please, upon the same terms. + +‘That the members of the aforesaid Corresponding Society be, and are +hereby informed, that their proposal to pay the postage of their +letters, and the carriage of their parcels, has been deliberated upon by +this Association: that this Association considers such proposal worthy +of the great minds from which it emanated, and that it hereby signifies +its perfect acquiescence therein.’ + +A casual observer, adds the secretary, to whose notes we are indebted +for the following account--a casual observer might possibly have +remarked nothing extraordinary in the bald head, and circular +spectacles, which were intently turned towards his (the secretary’s) +face, during the reading of the above resolutions: to those who knew +that the gigantic brain of Pickwick was working beneath that forehead, +and that the beaming eyes of Pickwick were twinkling behind those +glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one. There sat the man who +had traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated +the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats, as calm and unmoved +as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary specimen +of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar. And how much more +interesting did the spectacle become, when, starting into full life and +animation, as a simultaneous call for ‘Pickwick’ burst from his +followers, that illustrious man slowly mounted into the Windsor chair, +on which he had been previously seated, and addressed the club himself +had founded. What a study for an artist did that exciting scene present! +The eloquent Pickwick, with one hand gracefully concealed behind his +coat tails, and the other waving in air to assist his glowing +declamation; his elevated position revealing those tights and gaiters, +which, had they clothed an ordinary man, might have passed without +observation, but which, when Pickwick clothed them--if we may use the +expression--inspired involuntary awe and respect; surrounded by the men +who had volunteered to share the perils of his travels, and who were +destined to participate in the glories of his discoveries. On his right +sat Mr. Tracy Tupman--the too susceptible Tupman, who to the wisdom and +experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a +boy in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses--love. +Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk +waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold +watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman’s +vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders +of the white cravat: but the soul of Tupman had known no change-- +admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion. On the left of +his great leader sat the poetic Snodgrass, and near him again the +sporting Winkle; the former poetically enveloped in a mysterious blue +cloak with a canine-skin collar, and the latter communicating additional +lustre to a new green shooting-coat, plaid neckerchief, and closely- +fitted drabs. + +Mr. Pickwick’s oration upon this occasion, together with the debate +thereon, is entered on the Transactions of the Club. Both bear a strong +affinity to the discussions of other celebrated bodies; and, as it is +always interesting to trace a resemblance between the proceedings of +great men, we transfer the entry to these pages. + + +‘Mr. Pickwick observed (says the secretary) that fame was dear to the +heart of every man. Poetic fame was dear to the heart of his friend +Snodgrass; the fame of conquest was equally dear to his friend Tupman; +and the desire of earning fame in the sports of the field, the air, and +the water was uppermost in the breast of his friend Winkle. He (Mr. +Pickwick) would not deny that he was influenced by human passions and +human feelings (cheers)--possibly by human weaknesses (loud cries of +“No”); but this he would say, that if ever the fire of self-importance +broke out in his bosom, the desire to benefit the human race in +preference effectually quenched it. The praise of mankind was his swing; +philanthropy was his insurance office. (Vehement cheering.) He had felt +some pride--he acknowledged it freely, and let his enemies make the most +of it--he had felt some pride when he presented his Tittlebatian Theory +to the world; it might be celebrated or it might not. (A cry of “It is,” + and great cheering.) He would take the assertion of that honourable +Pickwickian whose voice he had just heard--it was celebrated; but if the +fame of that treatise were to extend to the farthest confines of the +known world, the pride with which he should reflect on the authorship of +that production would be as nothing compared with the pride with which +he looked around him, on this, the proudest moment of his existence. +(Cheers.) He was a humble individual. (“No, no.”) Still he could not but +feel that they had selected him for a service of great honour, and of +some danger. Travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of +coachmen were unsettled. Let them look abroad and contemplate the scenes +which were enacting around them. Stage-coaches were upsetting in all +directions, horses were bolting, boats were overturning, and boilers +were bursting. (Cheers--a voice “No.”) No! (Cheers.) Let that honourable +Pickwickian who cried “No” so loudly come forward and deny it, if he +could. (Cheers.) Who was it that cried “No”? (Enthusiastic cheering.) +Was it some vain and disappointed man--he would not say haberdasher +(loud cheers)--who, jealous of the praise which had been--perhaps +undeservedly--bestowed on his (Mr. Pickwick’s) researches, and smarting +under the censure which had been heaped upon his own feeble attempts at +rivalry, now took this vile and calumnious mode of-- + +‘MR. BLOTTON (of Aldgate) rose to order. Did the honourable Pickwickian +allude to him? (Cries of “Order,” “Chair,” “Yes,” “No,” “Go on,” “Leave +off,” etc.) + +‘MR. PICKWICK would not put up to be put down by clamour. He had alluded +to the honourable gentleman. (Great excitement.) + +‘MR. BLOTTON would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.’s +false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt. (Great +cheering.) The hon. gent. was a humbug. (Immense confusion, and loud +cries of “Chair,” and “Order.”) + +‘Mr. A. SNODGRASS rose to order. He threw himself upon the chair. +(Hear.) He wished to know whether this disgraceful contest between two +members of that club should be allowed to continue. (Hear, hear.) + +‘The CHAIRMAN was quite sure the hon. Pickwickian would withdraw the +expression he had just made use of. + +‘MR. BLOTTON, with all possible respect for the chair, was quite sure he +would not. + +‘The CHAIRMAN felt it his imperative duty to demand of the honourable +gentleman, whether he had used the expression which had just escaped him +in a common sense. + +‘MR. BLOTTON had no hesitation in saying that he had not--he had used +the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to +acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and +esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a +humbug in a Pickwickian point of view. (Hear, hear.) + +‘MR. PICKWICK felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full +explanation of his honourable friend. He begged it to be at once +understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear a +Pickwickian construction. (Cheers.)’ + +Here the entry terminates, as we have no doubt the debate did also, +after arriving at such a highly satisfactory and intelligible point. We +have no official statement of the facts which the reader will find +recorded in the next chapter, but they have been carefully collated from +letters and other MS. authorities, so unquestionably genuine as to +justify their narration in a connected form. + + + +CHAPTER II. THE FIRST DAY’S JOURNEY, AND THE FIRST EVENING’S ADVENTURES; +WITH THEIR CONSEQUENCES + +That punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun to +strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May, one thousand +eight hundred and twenty-seven, when Mr. Samuel Pickwick burst like +another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked +out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was at his feet, Goswell +Street was on his right hand--as far as the eye could reach, Goswell +Street extended on his left; and the opposite side of Goswell Street was +over the way. ‘Such,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, ‘are the narrow views of +those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie +before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond. As well +might I be content to gaze on Goswell Street for ever, without one +effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side surround +it.’ And having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr. Pickwick +proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes into his +portmanteau. Great men are seldom over scrupulous in the arrangement of +their attire; the operation of shaving, dressing, and coffee-imbibing +was soon performed; and, in another hour, Mr. Pickwick, with his +portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his greatcoat pocket, and his +note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception of any discoveries +worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the coach-stand in St. +Martin’s-le-Grand. + +‘Cab!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Here you are, sir,’ shouted a strange specimen of the human race, in a +sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who, with a brass label and +number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some +collection of rarities. This was the waterman. ‘Here you are, sir. Now, +then, fust cab!’ And the first cab having been fetched from the public- +house, where he had been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick and his +portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle. + +‘Golden Cross,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Only a bob’s vorth, Tommy,’ cried the driver sulkily, for the +information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off. + +‘How old is that horse, my friend?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his +nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare. + +‘Forty-two,’ replied the driver, eyeing him askant. + +‘What!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book. The +driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very hard at +the man’s face, but his features were immovable, so he noted down the +fact forthwith. + +‘And how long do you keep him out at a time?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, +searching for further information. + +‘Two or three veeks,’ replied the man. + +‘Weeks!’ said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment, and out came the note-book +again. + +‘He lives at Pentonwil when he’s at home,’ observed the driver coolly, +‘but we seldom takes him home, on account of his weakness.’ + +‘On account of his weakness!’ reiterated the perplexed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He always falls down when he’s took out o’ the cab,’ continued the +driver, ‘but when he’s in it, we bears him up werry tight, and takes him +in werry short, so as he can’t werry well fall down; and we’ve got a +pair o’ precious large wheels on, so ven he does move, they run after +him, and he must go on--he can’t help it.’ + +Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book, with +the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular instance of the +tenacity of life in horses under trying circumstances. The entry was +scarcely completed when they reached the Golden Cross. Down jumped the +driver, and out got Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. +Winkle, who had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their illustrious +leader, crowded to welcome him. + + +‘Here’s your fare,’ said Mr. Pickwick, holding out the shilling to the +driver. + +What was the learned man’s astonishment, when that unaccountable person +flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to be +allowed the pleasure of fighting him (Mr. Pickwick) for the amount! + +‘You are mad,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Or drunk,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Or both,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Come on!’ said the cab-driver, sparring away like clockwork. ‘Come on-- +all four on you.’ + +‘Here’s a lark!’ shouted half a dozen hackney coachmen. ‘Go to vork, +Sam!--and they crowded with great glee round the party. + +‘What’s the row, Sam?’ inquired one gentleman in black calico sleeves. + +‘Row!’ replied the cabman, ‘what did he want my number for?’ + +‘I didn’t want your number,’ said the astonished Mr. Pickwick. + +‘What did you take it for, then?’ inquired the cabman. + +‘I didn’t take it,’ said Mr. Pickwick indignantly. + +‘Would anybody believe,’ continued the cab-driver, appealing to the +crowd, ‘would anybody believe as an informer’ud go about in a man’s cab, +not only takin’ down his number, but ev’ry word he says into the +bargain’ (a light flashed upon Mr. Pickwick--it was the note-book). + +‘Did he though?’ inquired another cabman. + +‘Yes, did he,’ replied the first; ‘and then arter aggerawatin’ me to +assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. But I’ll give it +him, if I’ve six months for it. Come on!’ and the cabman dashed his hat +upon the ground, with a reckless disregard of his own private property, +and knocked Mr. Pickwick’s spectacles off, and followed up the attack +with a blow on Mr. Pickwick’s nose, and another on Mr. Pickwick’s chest, +and a third in Mr. Snodgrass’s eye, and a fourth, by way of variety, in +Mr. Tupman’s waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and then back +again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary supply of +breath out of Mr. Winkle’s body; and all in half a dozen seconds. + +‘Where’s an officer?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Put ‘em under the pump,’ suggested a hot-pieman. + +‘You shall smart for this,’ gasped Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Informers!’ shouted the crowd. + +‘Come on,’ cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation the +whole time. + +The mob hitherto had been passive spectators of the scene, but as the +intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among them, +they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of +enforcing the heated pastry-vendor’s proposition: and there is no saying +what acts of personal aggression they might have committed, had not the +affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new-comer. + +‘What’s the fun?’ said a rather tall, thin, young man, in a green coat, +emerging suddenly from the coach-yard. + +‘Informers!’ shouted the crowd again. + +‘We are not,’ roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate +listener, carried conviction with it. + +‘Ain’t you, though--ain’t you?’ said the young man, appealing to Mr. +Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process +of elbowing the countenances of its component members. + +That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the +case. + +‘Come along, then,’ said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick +after him by main force, and talking the whole way. Here, No. 924, take +your fare, and take yourself off--respectable gentleman--know him well-- +none of your nonsense--this way, sir--where’s your friends?--all a +mistake, I see--never mind--accidents will happen--best regulated +families--never say die--down upon your luck--Pull him _up_--Put that in +his pipe--like the flavour--damned rascals.’ And with a lengthened +string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary +volubility, the stranger led the way to the traveller’s waiting-room, +whither he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and his disciples. + +‘Here, waiter!’ shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous +violence, ‘glasses round--brandy-and-water, hot and strong, and sweet, +and plenty,--eye damaged, Sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the +gentleman’s eye--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold +lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in +the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,-- +very good--ha! ha!’ And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, +swallowed at a draught full half a pint of the reeking brandy-and-water, +and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon +had occurred. + +While his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their +thanks to their new acquaintance, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to examine +his costume and appearance. + +He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the +length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. The +green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails, +but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the +stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his +wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, at the imminent hazard +of splitting the back; and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt +collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black trousers displayed here +and there those shiny patches which bespeak long service, and were +strapped very tightly over a pair of patched and mended shoes, as if to +conceal the dirty white stockings, which were nevertheless distinctly +visible. His long, black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath +each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists +might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his +coat sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of +jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man. + +Such was the individual on whom Mr. Pickwick gazed through his +spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he +proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in +chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance. + +‘Never mind,’ said the stranger, cutting the address very short, ‘said +enough--no more; smart chap that cabman--handled his fives well; but if +I’d been your friend in the green jemmy--damn me--punch his head,--‘cod +I would,--pig’s whisper--pieman too,--no gammon.’ + +This coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the Rochester +coachman, to announce that ‘the Commodore’ was on the point of starting. + +‘Commodore!’ said the stranger, starting up, ‘my coach--place booked,-- +one outside--leave you to pay for the brandy-and-water,--want change for +a five,--bad silver--Brummagem buttons--won’t do--no go--eh?’ and he +shook his head most knowingly. + +Now it so happened that Mr. Pickwick and his three companions had +resolved to make Rochester their first halting-place too; and having +intimated to their new-found acquaintance that they were journeying to +the same city, they agreed to occupy the seat at the back of the coach, +where they could all sit together. + +‘Up with you,’ said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof +with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman’s +deportment very materially. + +‘Any luggage, Sir?’ inquired the coachman. + +‘Who--I? Brown paper parcel here, that’s all--other luggage gone by +water--packing-cases, nailed up--big as houses--heavy, heavy, damned +heavy,’ replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as he +could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious +indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief. + +‘Heads, heads--take care of your heads!’ cried the loquacious stranger, +as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the +entrance to the coach-yard. ‘Terrible place--dangerous work--other day-- +five children--mother--tall lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch-- +crash--knock--children look round--mother’s head off--sandwich in her +hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking! +Looking at Whitehall, sir?--fine place--little window--somebody else’s +head off there, eh, sir?--he didn’t keep a sharp look-out enough either- +-eh, Sir, eh?’ + +‘I am ruminating,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘on the strange mutability of +human affairs.’ + +‘Ah! I see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. +Philosopher, Sir?’ + +‘An observer of human nature, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah, so am I. Most people are when they’ve little to do and less to get. +Poet, Sir?’ + +‘My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a strong poetic turn,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘So have I,’ said the stranger. ‘Epic poem--ten thousand lines-- +revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by +night--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre.’ + +‘You were present at that glorious scene, sir?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Present! think I was;* fired a musket--fired with an idea--rushed into +wine shop--wrote it down--back again--whiz, bang--another idea--wine +shop again--pen and ink--back again--cut and slash--noble time, Sir. +Sportsman, sir?’ abruptly turning to Mr. Winkle. + + +* A remarkable instance of the prophetic force of Mr. Jingle’s +imagination; this dialogue occurring in the year 1827, and the +Revolution in 1830. + +‘A little, Sir,’ replied that gentleman. + +‘Fine pursuit, sir--fine pursuit.--Dogs, Sir?’ + +‘Not just now,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Ah! you should keep dogs--fine animals--sagacious creatures--dog of my +own once--pointer--surprising instinct--out shooting one day--entering +inclosure--whistled--dog stopped--whistled again--Ponto--no go; stock +still--called him--Ponto, Ponto--wouldn’t move--dog transfixed--staring +at a board--looked up, saw an inscription--“Gamekeeper has orders to +shoot all dogs found in this inclosure”--wouldn’t pass it--wonderful +dog--valuable dog that--very.’ + +‘Singular circumstance that,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Will you allow me to +make a note of it?’ + + +‘Certainly, Sir, certainly--hundred more anecdotes of the same animal.-- +Fine girl, Sir’ (to Mr. Tracy Tupman, who had been bestowing sundry +anti-Pickwickian glances on a young lady by the roadside). + +‘Very!’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘English girls not so fine as Spanish--noble creatures--jet hair--black +eyes--lovely forms--sweet creatures--beautiful.’ + +‘You have been in Spain, sir?’ said Mr. Tracy Tupman. + +‘Lived there--ages.’ + +‘Many conquests, sir?’ inquired Mr. Tupman. + +‘Conquests! Thousands. Don Bolaro Fizzgig--grandee--only daughter--Donna +Christina--splendid creature--loved me to distraction--jealous father-- +high-souled daughter--handsome Englishman--Donna Christina in despair-- +prussic acid--stomach pump in my portmanteau--operation performed--old +Bolaro in ecstasies--consent to our union--join hands and floods of +tears--romantic story--very.’ + +‘Is the lady in England now, sir?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, on whom the +description of her charms had produced a powerful impression. + +‘Dead, sir--dead,’ said the stranger, applying to his right eye the +brief remnant of a very old cambric handkerchief. ‘Never recovered the +stomach pump--undermined constitution--fell a victim.’ + +‘And her father?’ inquired the poetic Snodgrass. + +‘Remorse and misery,’ replied the stranger. ‘Sudden disappearance--talk +of the whole city--search made everywhere without success--public +fountain in the great square suddenly ceased playing--weeks elapsed-- +still a stoppage--workmen employed to clean it--water drawn off--father- +in-law discovered sticking head first in the main pipe, with a full +confession in his right boot--took him out, and the fountain played away +again, as well as ever.’ + +‘Will you allow me to note that little romance down, Sir?’ said Mr. +Snodgrass, deeply affected. + +‘Certainly, Sir, certainly--fifty more if you like to hear ‘em--strange +life mine--rather curious history--not extraordinary, but singular.’ + +In this strain, with an occasional glass of ale, by way of parenthesis, +when the coach changed horses, did the stranger proceed, until they +reached Rochester bridge, by which time the note-books, both of Mr. +Pickwick and Mr. Snodgrass, were completely filled with selections from +his adventures. + +‘Magnificent ruin!’ said Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, with all the poetic +fervour that distinguished him, when they came in sight of the fine old +castle. + +‘What a study for an antiquarian!’ were the very words which fell from +Mr. Pickwick’s mouth, as he applied his telescope to his eye. + +‘Ah! fine place,’ said the stranger, ‘glorious pile--frowning walls-- +tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--old cathedral too-- +earthy smell--pilgrims’ feet wore away the old steps--little Saxon +doors--confessionals like money-takers’ boxes at theatres--queer +customers those monks--popes, and lord treasurers, and all sorts of old +fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day-- +buff jerkins too--match-locks--sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too- +-strange stories: capital;’ and the stranger continued to soliloquise +until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High Street, where the coach +stopped. + +‘Do you remain here, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Nathaniel Winkle. + +‘Here--not I--but you’d better--good house--nice beds--Wright’s next +house, dear--very dear--half-a-crown in the bill if you look at the +waiter--charge you more if you dine at a friend’s than they would if you +dined in the coffee-room--rum fellows--very.’ + +Mr. Winkle turned to Mr. Pickwick, and murmured a few words; a whisper +passed from Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Snodgrass, from Mr. Snodgrass to Mr. +Tupman, and nods of assent were exchanged. Mr. Pickwick addressed the +stranger. + +‘You rendered us a very important service this morning, sir,’ said he, +‘will you allow us to offer a slight mark of our gratitude by begging +the favour of your company at dinner?’ + +‘Great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and mushrooms- +-capital thing! What time?’ + +‘Let me see,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, referring to his watch, ‘it is now +nearly three. Shall we say five?’ + +‘Suit me excellently,’ said the stranger, ‘five precisely--till then-- +care of yourselves;’ and lifting the pinched-up hat a few inches from +his head, and carelessly replacing it very much on one side, the +stranger, with half the brown paper parcel sticking out of his pocket, +walked briskly up the yard, and turned into the High Street. + +‘Evidently a traveller in many countries, and a close observer of men +and things,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I should like to see his poem,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘I should like to have seen that dog,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +Mr. Tupman said nothing; but he thought of Donna Christina, the stomach +pump, and the fountain; and his eyes filled with tears. + +A private sitting-room having been engaged, bedrooms inspected, and +dinner ordered, the party walked out to view the city and adjoining +neighbourhood. + +We do not find, from a careful perusal of Mr. Pickwick’s notes of the +four towns, Stroud, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, that his +impressions of their appearance differ in any material point from those +of other travellers who have gone over the same ground. His general +description is easily abridged. + +‘The principal productions of these towns,’ says Mr. Pickwick, ‘appear +to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard +men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are +marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets +present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the +conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic +mind to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of an +overflow both of animal and ardent spirits; more especially when we +remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, affords a +cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. Nothing,’ adds Mr. +Pickwick, ‘can exceed their good-humour. It was but the day before my +arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house of +a publican. The barmaid had positively refused to draw him any more +liquor; in return for which he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his +bayonet, and wounded the girl in the shoulder. And yet this fine fellow +was the very first to go down to the house next morning and express his +readiness to overlook the matter, and forget what had occurred! + +‘The consumption of tobacco in these towns,’ continues Mr. Pickwick, +‘must be very great, and the smell which pervades the streets must be +exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A +superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading +characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and +commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying.’ + +Punctual to five o’clock came the stranger, and shortly afterwards the +dinner. He had divested himself of his brown paper parcel, but had made +no alteration in his attire, and was, if possible, more loquacious than +ever. + +‘What’s that?’ he inquired, as the waiter removed one of the covers. + +‘Soles, Sir.’ + +‘Soles--ah!--capital fish--all come from London-stage-coach proprietors +get up political dinners--carriage of soles--dozens of baskets--cunning +fellows. Glass of wine, Sir.’ + +‘With pleasure,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and the stranger took wine, first +with him, and then with Mr. Snodgrass, and then with Mr. Tupman, and +then with Mr. Winkle, and then with the whole party together, almost as +rapidly as he talked. + +‘Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter,’ said the stranger. ‘Forms +going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. What’s going +forward?’ + +‘Ball, Sir,’ said the waiter. + +‘Assembly, eh?’ + +‘No, Sir, not assembly, Sir. Ball for the benefit of a charity, Sir.’ + +‘Many fine women in this town, do you know, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, +with great interest. + +‘Splendid--capital. Kent, sir--everybody knows Kent--apples, cherries, +hops, and women. Glass of wine, Sir!’ + +‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Tupman. The stranger filled, and +emptied. + +‘I should very much like to go,’ said Mr. Tupman, resuming the subject +of the ball, ‘very much.’ + +‘Tickets at the bar, Sir,’ interposed the waiter; ‘half-a-guinea each, +Sir.’ + +Mr. Tupman again expressed an earnest wish to be present at the +festivity; but meeting with no response in the darkened eye of Mr. +Snodgrass, or the abstracted gaze of Mr. Pickwick, he applied himself +with great interest to the port wine and dessert, which had just been +placed on the table. The waiter withdrew, and the party were left to +enjoy the cosy couple of hours succeeding dinner. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said the stranger, ‘bottle stands--pass it +round--way of the sun--through the button-hole--no heeltaps,’ and he +emptied his glass, which he had filled about two minutes before, and +poured out another, with the air of a man who was used to it. + +The wine was passed, and a fresh supply ordered. The visitor talked, the +Pickwickians listened. Mr. Tupman felt every moment more disposed for +the ball. Mr. Pickwick’s countenance glowed with an expression of +universal philanthropy, and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass fell fast +asleep. + +‘They’re beginning upstairs,’ said the stranger--‘hear the company-- +fiddles tuning--now the harp--there they go.’ The various sounds which +found their way downstairs announced the commencement of the first +quadrille. + +‘How I should like to go,’ said Mr. Tupman again. + +‘So should I,’ said the stranger--‘confounded luggage,--heavy smacks-- +nothing to go in--odd, ain’t it?’ + +Now general benevolence was one of the leading features of the +Pickwickian theory, and no one was more remarkable for the zealous +manner in which he observed so noble a principle than Mr. Tracy Tupman. +The number of instances recorded on the Transactions of the Society, in +which that excellent man referred objects of charity to the houses of +other members for left-off garments or pecuniary relief is almost +incredible. + +‘I should be very happy to lend you a change of apparel for the +purpose,’ said Mr. Tracy Tupman, ‘but you are rather slim, and I am--’ + +‘Rather fat--grown-up Bacchus--cut the leaves--dismounted from the tub, +and adopted kersey, eh?--not double distilled, but double milled--ha! +ha! pass the wine.’ + +Whether Mr. Tupman was somewhat indignant at the peremptory tone in +which he was desired to pass the wine which the stranger passed so +quickly away, or whether he felt very properly scandalised at an +influential member of the Pickwick Club being ignominiously compared to +a dismounted Bacchus, is a fact not yet completely ascertained. He +passed the wine, coughed twice, and looked at the stranger for several +seconds with a stern intensity; as that individual, however, appeared +perfectly collected, and quite calm under his searching glance, he +gradually relaxed, and reverted to the subject of the ball. + +‘I was about to observe, Sir,’ he said, ‘that though my apparel would be +too large, a suit of my friend Mr. Winkle’s would, perhaps, fit you +better.’ + +The stranger took Mr. Winkle’s measure with his eye, and that feature +glistened with satisfaction as he said, ‘Just the thing.’ + +Mr. Tupman looked round him. The wine, which had exerted its somniferous +influence over Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, had stolen upon the senses +of Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman had gradually passed through the various +stages which precede the lethargy produced by dinner, and its +consequences. He had undergone the ordinary transitions from the height +of conviviality to the depth of misery, and from the depth of misery to +the height of conviviality. Like a gas-lamp in the street, with the wind +in the pipe, he had exhibited for a moment an unnatural brilliancy, then +sank so low as to be scarcely discernible; after a short interval, he +had burst out again, to enlighten for a moment; then flickered with an +uncertain, staggering sort of light, and then gone out altogether. His +head was sunk upon his bosom, and perpetual snoring, with a partial +choke occasionally, were the only audible indications of the great man’s +presence. + +The temptation to be present at the ball, and to form his first +impressions of the beauty of the Kentish ladies, was strong upon Mr. +Tupman. The temptation to take the stranger with him was equally great. +He was wholly unacquainted with the place and its inhabitants, and the +stranger seemed to possess as great a knowledge of both as if he had +lived there from his infancy. Mr. Winkle was asleep, and Mr. Tupman had +had sufficient experience in such matters to know that the moment he +awoke he would, in the ordinary course of nature, roll heavily to bed. +He was undecided. ‘Fill your glass, and pass the wine,’ said the +indefatigable visitor. + +Mr. Tupman did as he was requested; and the additional stimulus of the +last glass settled his determination. + +‘Winkle’s bedroom is inside mine,’ said Mr. Tupman; ‘I couldn’t make him +understand what I wanted, if I woke him now, but I know he has a dress- +suit in a carpet bag; and supposing you wore it to the ball, and took it +off when we returned, I could replace it without troubling him at all +about the matter.’ + +‘Capital,’ said the stranger, ‘famous plan--damned odd situation-- +fourteen coats in the packing-cases, and obliged to wear another man’s-- +very good notion, that--very.’ + +‘We must purchase our tickets,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Not worth while splitting a guinea,’ said the stranger, ‘toss who shall +pay for both--I call; you spin--first time--woman--woman--bewitching +woman,’ and down came the sovereign with the dragon (called by courtesy +a woman) uppermost. + +Mr. Tupman rang the bell, purchased the tickets, and ordered chamber +candlesticks. In another quarter of an hour the stranger was completely +arrayed in a full suit of Mr. Nathaniel Winkle’s. + +‘It’s a new coat,’ said Mr. Tupman, as the stranger surveyed himself +with great complacency in a cheval glass; ‘the first that’s been made +with our club button,’ and he called his companions’ attention to the +large gilt button which displayed a bust of Mr. Pickwick in the centre, +and the letters ‘P. C.’ on either side. + +‘“P. C.”’ said the stranger--‘queer set out--old fellow’s likeness, and +“P. C.”--What does “P. C.” stand for--Peculiar Coat, eh?’ Mr. Tupman, +with rising indignation and great importance, explained the mystic +device. + +‘Rather short in the waist, ain’t it?’ said the stranger, screwing +himself round to catch a glimpse in the glass of the waist buttons, +which were half-way up his back. ‘Like a general postman’s coat--queer +coats those--made by contract--no measuring--mysterious dispensations of +Providence--all the short men get long coats--all the long men short +ones.’ Running on in this way, Mr. Tupman’s new companion adjusted his +dress, or rather the dress of Mr. Winkle; and, accompanied by Mr. +Tupman, ascended the staircase leading to the ballroom. + +‘What names, sir?’ said the man at the door. Mr. Tracy Tupman was +stepping forward to announce his own titles, when the stranger prevented +him. + +‘No names at all;’ and then he whispered Mr. Tupman, ‘names won’t do-- +not known--very good names in their way, but not great ones--capital +names for a small party, but won’t make an impression in public +assemblies--incog. the thing--gentlemen from London--distinguished +foreigners--anything.’ The door was thrown open, and Mr. Tracy Tupman +and the stranger entered the ballroom. + +It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in +glass chandeliers. The musicians were securely confined in an elevated +den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or +three sets of dancers. Two card-tables were made up in the adjoining +card-room, and two pair of old ladies, and a corresponding number of +stout gentlemen, were executing whist therein. + +The finale concluded, the dancers promenaded the room, and Mr. Tupman +and his companion stationed themselves in a corner to observe the +company. + +‘Charming women,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Wait a minute,’ said the stranger, ‘fun presently--nobs not come yet-- +queer place--dockyard people of upper rank don’t know dockyard people of +lower rank--dockyard people of lower rank don’t know small gentry--small +gentry don’t know tradespeople--commissioner don’t know anybody.’ + +‘Who’s that little boy with the light hair and pink eyes, in a fancy +dress?’ inquired Mr. Tupman. + +‘Hush, pray--pink eyes--fancy dress--little boy--nonsense--ensign 97th-- +Honourable Wilmot Snipe--great family--Snipes--very.’ + +‘Sir Thomas Clubber, Lady Clubber, and the Misses Clubber!’ shouted the +man at the door in a stentorian voice. A great sensation was created +throughout the room by the entrance of a tall gentleman in a blue coat +and bright buttons, a large lady in blue satin, and two young ladies, on +a similar scale, in fashionably-made dresses of the same hue. + +‘Commissioner--head of the yard--great man--remarkably great man,’ +whispered the stranger in Mr. Tupman’s ear, as the charitable committee +ushered Sir Thomas Clubber and family to the top of the room. The +Honourable Wilmot Snipe, and other distinguished gentlemen crowded to +render homage to the Misses Clubber; and Sir Thomas Clubber stood bolt +upright, and looked majestically over his black kerchief at the +assembled company. + +‘Mr. Smithie, Mrs. Smithie, and the Misses Smithie,’ was the next +announcement. + +‘What’s Mr. Smithie?’ inquired Mr. Tracy Tupman. + +‘Something in the yard,’ replied the stranger. Mr. Smithie bowed +deferentially to Sir Thomas Clubber; and Sir Thomas Clubber acknowledged +the salute with conscious condescension. Lady Clubber took a telescopic +view of Mrs. Smithie and family through her eye-glass and Mrs. Smithie +stared in her turn at Mrs. Somebody-else, whose husband was not in the +dockyard at all. + +‘Colonel Bulder, Mrs. Colonel Bulder, and Miss Bulder,’ were the next +arrivals. + +‘Head of the garrison,’ said the stranger, in reply to Mr. Tupman’s +inquiring look. + +Miss Bulder was warmly welcomed by the Misses Clubber; the greeting +between Mrs. Colonel Bulder and Lady Clubber was of the most +affectionate description; Colonel Bulder and Sir Thomas Clubber +exchanged snuff-boxes, and looked very much like a pair of Alexander +Selkirks--‘Monarchs of all they surveyed.’ + +While the aristocracy of the place--the Bulders, and Clubbers, and +Snipes--were thus preserving their dignity at the upper end of the room, +the other classes of society were imitating their example in other parts +of it. The less aristocratic officers of the 97th devoted themselves to +the families of the less important functionaries from the dockyard. The +solicitors’ wives, and the wine-merchant’s wife, headed another grade +(the brewer’s wife visited the Bulders); and Mrs. Tomlinson, the post- +office keeper, seemed by mutual consent to have been chosen the leader +of the trade party. + +One of the most popular personages, in his own circle, present, was a +little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and an +extensive bald plain on the top of it--Doctor Slammer, surgeon to the +97th. The doctor took snuff with everybody, chatted with everybody, +laughed, danced, made jokes, played whist, did everything, and was +everywhere. To these pursuits, multifarious as they were, the little +doctor added a more important one than any--he was indefatigable in +paying the most unremitting and devoted attention to a little old widow, +whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most desirable +addition to a limited income. + +Upon the doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both Mr. Tupman and his +companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence. + +‘Lots of money--old girl--pompous doctor--not a bad idea--good fun,’ +were the intelligible sentences which issued from his lips. Mr. Tupman +looked inquisitively in his face. + +‘I’ll dance with the widow,’ said the stranger. + +‘Who is she?’ inquired Mr. Tupman. + +‘Don’t know--never saw her in all my life--cut out the doctor--here +goes.’ And the stranger forthwith crossed the room; and, leaning against +a mantel-piece, commenced gazing with an air of respectful and +melancholy admiration on the fat countenance of the little old lady. Mr. +Tupman looked on, in mute astonishment. The stranger progressed rapidly; +the little doctor danced with another lady; the widow dropped her fan; +the stranger picked it up, and presented it--a smile--a bow--a curtsey-- +a few words of conversation. The stranger walked boldly up to, and +returned with, the master of the ceremonies; a little introductory +pantomime; and the stranger and Mrs. Budger took their places in a +quadrille. + +The surprise of Mr. Tupman at this summary proceeding, great as it was, +was immeasurably exceeded by the astonishment of the doctor. The +stranger was young, and the widow was flattered. The doctor’s attentions +were unheeded by the widow; and the doctor’s indignation was wholly lost +on his imperturbable rival. Doctor Slammer was paralysed. He, Doctor +Slammer, of the 97th, to be extinguished in a moment, by a man whom +nobody had ever seen before, and whom nobody knew even now! Doctor +Slammer--Doctor Slammer of the 97th rejected! Impossible! It could not +be! Yes, it was; there they were. What! introducing his friend! Could he +believe his eyes! He looked again, and was under the painful necessity +of admitting the veracity of his optics; Mrs. Budger was dancing with +Mr. Tracy Tupman; there was no mistaking the fact. There was the widow +before him, bouncing bodily here and there, with unwonted vigour; and +Mr. Tracy Tupman hopping about, with a face expressive of the most +intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many people do) as if a quadrille +were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, +which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter. + + +Silently and patiently did the doctor bear all this, and all the +handings of negus, and watching for glasses, and darting for biscuits, +and coquetting, that ensued; but, a few seconds after the stranger had +disappeared to lead Mrs. Budger to her carriage, he darted swiftly from +the room with every particle of his hitherto-bottled-up indignation +effervescing, from all parts of his countenance, in a perspiration of +passion. + +The stranger was returning, and Mr. Tupman was beside him. He spoke in a +low tone, and laughed. The little doctor thirsted for his life. He was +exulting. He had triumphed. + +‘Sir!’ said the doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and +retiring into an angle of the passage, ‘my name is Slammer, Doctor +Slammer, sir--97th Regiment--Chatham Barracks--my card, Sir, my card.’ +He would have added more, but his indignation choked him. + +‘Ah!’ replied the stranger coolly, ‘Slammer--much obliged--polite +attention--not ill now, Slammer--but when I am--knock you up.’ + +‘You--you’re a shuffler, sir,’ gasped the furious doctor, ‘a poltroon--a +coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me your card, +sir!’ + +‘Oh! I see,’ said the stranger, half aside, ‘negus too strong here-- +liberal landlord--very foolish--very--lemonade much better--hot rooms-- +elderly gentlemen--suffer for it in the morning--cruel--cruel;’ and he +moved on a step or two. + +‘You are stopping in this house, Sir,’ said the indignant little man; +‘you are intoxicated now, Sir; you shall hear from me in the morning, +sir. I shall find you out, sir; I shall find you out.’ + +‘Rather you found me out than found me at home,’ replied the unmoved +stranger. + +Doctor Slammer looked unutterable ferocity, as he fixed his hat on his +head with an indignant knock; and the stranger and Mr. Tupman ascended +to the bedroom of the latter to restore the borrowed plumage to the +unconscious Winkle. + +That gentleman was fast asleep; the restoration was soon made. The +stranger was extremely jocose; and Mr. Tracy Tupman, being quite +bewildered with wine, negus, lights, and ladies, thought the whole +affair was an exquisite joke. His new friend departed; and, after +experiencing some slight difficulty in finding the orifice in his +nightcap, originally intended for the reception of his head, and finally +overturning his candlestick in his struggles to put it on, Mr. Tracy +Tupman managed to get into bed by a series of complicated evolutions, +and shortly afterwards sank into repose. + +Seven o’clock had hardly ceased striking on the following morning, when +Mr. Pickwick’s comprehensive mind was aroused from the state of +unconsciousness, in which slumber had plunged it, by a loud knocking at +his chamber door. + +‘Who’s there?’ said Mr. Pickwick, starting up in bed. + +‘Boots, sir.’ + +‘What do you want?’ + +‘Please, sir, can you tell me which gentleman of your party wears a +bright blue dress-coat, with a gilt button with “P. C.” on it?’ + +‘It’s been given out to brush,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, ‘and the man has +forgotten whom it belongs to.’ + +Mr. Winkle,’ he called out, ‘next room but two, on the right hand.’ + +‘Thank’ee, sir,’ said the Boots, and away he went. + +‘What’s the matter?’ cried Mr. Tupman, as a loud knocking at his door +roused him from his oblivious repose. + +‘Can I speak to Mr. Winkle, sir?’ replied Boots from the outside. + +‘Winkle--Winkle!’ shouted Mr. Tupman, calling into the inner room. + +‘Hollo!’ replied a faint voice from within the bed-clothes. + +‘You’re wanted--some one at the door;’ and, having exerted himself to +articulate thus much, Mr. Tracy Tupman turned round and fell fast asleep +again. + +‘Wanted!’ said Mr. Winkle, hastily jumping out of bed, and putting on a +few articles of clothing; ‘wanted! at this distance from town--who on +earth can want me?’ + +‘Gentleman in the coffee-room, sir,’ replied the Boots, as Mr. Winkle +opened the door and confronted him; ‘gentleman says he’ll not detain you +a moment, Sir, but he can take no denial.’ + +‘Very odd!’ said Mr. Winkle; ‘I’ll be down directly.’ + +He hurriedly wrapped himself in a travelling-shawl and dressing-gown, +and proceeded downstairs. An old woman and a couple of waiters were +cleaning the coffee-room, and an officer in undress uniform was looking +out of the window. He turned round as Mr. Winkle entered, and made a +stiff inclination of the head. Having ordered the attendants to retire, +and closed the door very carefully, he said, ‘Mr. Winkle, I presume?’ + +‘My name is Winkle, sir.’ + +‘You will not be surprised, sir, when I inform you that I have called +here this morning on behalf of my friend, Doctor Slammer, of the 97th.’ + +‘Doctor Slammer!’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Doctor Slammer. He begged me to express his opinion that your conduct +of last evening was of a description which no gentleman could endure; +and’ (he added) ‘which no one gentleman would pursue towards another.’ + +Mr. Winkle’s astonishment was too real, and too evident, to escape the +observation of Doctor Slammer’s friend; he therefore proceeded-- + +‘My friend, Doctor Slammer, requested me to add, that he was firmly +persuaded you were intoxicated during a portion of the evening, and +possibly unconscious of the extent of the insult you were guilty of. He +commissioned me to say, that should this be pleaded as an excuse for +your behaviour, he will consent to accept a written apology, to be +penned by you, from my dictation.’ + +‘A written apology!’ repeated Mr. Winkle, in the most emphatic tone of +amazement possible. + +‘Of course you know the alternative,’ replied the visitor coolly. + +‘Were you intrusted with this message to me by name?’ inquired Mr. +Winkle, whose intellects were hopelessly confused by this extraordinary +conversation. + +‘I was not present myself,’ replied the visitor, ‘and in consequence of +your firm refusal to give your card to Doctor Slammer, I was desired by +that gentleman to identify the wearer of a very uncommon coat--a bright +blue dress-coat, with a gilt button displaying a bust, and the letters +“P. C.”’ + +Mr. Winkle actually staggered with astonishment as he heard his own +costume thus minutely described. Doctor Slammer’s friend proceeded:-- +‘From the inquiries I made at the bar, just now, I was convinced that +the owner of the coat in question arrived here, with three gentlemen, +yesterday afternoon. I immediately sent up to the gentleman who was +described as appearing the head of the party, and he at once referred me +to you.’ + +If the principal tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its +foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, Mr. +Winkle’s surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound +astonishment with which he had heard this address. His first impression +was that his coat had been stolen. ‘Will you allow me to detain you one +moment?’ said he. + +‘Certainly,’ replied the unwelcome visitor. + +Mr. Winkle ran hastily upstairs, and with a trembling hand opened the +bag. There was the coat in its usual place, but exhibiting, on a close +inspection, evident tokens of having been worn on the preceding night. + +‘It must be so,’ said Mr. Winkle, letting the coat fall from his hands. +‘I took too much wine after dinner, and have a very vague recollection +of walking about the streets, and smoking a cigar afterwards. The fact +is, I was very drunk;--I must have changed my coat--gone somewhere--and +insulted somebody--I have no doubt of it; and this message is the +terrible consequence.’ Saying which, Mr. Winkle retraced his steps in +the direction of the coffee-room, with the gloomy and dreadful resolve +of accepting the challenge of the warlike Doctor Slammer, and abiding by +the worst consequences that might ensue. + +To this determination Mr. Winkle was urged by a variety of +considerations, the first of which was his reputation with the club. He +had always been looked up to as a high authority on all matters of +amusement and dexterity, whether offensive, defensive, or inoffensive; +and if, on this very first occasion of being put to the test, he shrunk +back from the trial, beneath his leader’s eye, his name and standing +were lost for ever. Besides, he remembered to have heard it frequently +surmised by the uninitiated in such matters that by an understood +arrangement between the seconds, the pistols were seldom loaded with +ball; and, furthermore, he reflected that if he applied to Mr. Snodgrass +to act as his second, and depicted the danger in glowing terms, that +gentleman might possibly communicate the intelligence to Mr. Pickwick, +who would certainly lose no time in transmitting it to the local +authorities, and thus prevent the killing or maiming of his follower. + +Such were his thoughts when he returned to the coffee-room, and +intimated his intention of accepting the doctor’s challenge. + +‘Will you refer me to a friend, to arrange the time and place of +meeting?’ said the officer. + +‘Quite unnecessary,’ replied Mr. Winkle; ‘name them to me, and I can +procure the attendance of a friend afterwards.’ + +‘Shall we say--sunset this evening?’ inquired the officer, in a careless +tone. + +‘Very good,’ replied Mr. Winkle, thinking in his heart it was very bad. + +‘You know Fort Pitt?’ + +‘Yes; I saw it yesterday.’ + +‘If you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the +trench, take the foot-path to the left when you arrive at an angle of +the fortification, and keep straight on, till you see me, I will precede +you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear +of interruption.’ + +‘Fear of interruption!’ thought Mr. Winkle. + +‘Nothing more to arrange, I think,’ said the officer. + +‘I am not aware of anything more,’ replied Mr. Winkle. ‘Good-morning.’ + +‘Good-morning;’ and the officer whistled a lively air as he strode away. + +That morning’s breakfast passed heavily off. Mr. Tupman was not in a +condition to rise, after the unwonted dissipation of the previous night; +Mr. Snodgrass appeared to labour under a poetical depression of spirits; +and even Mr. Pickwick evinced an unusual attachment to silence and soda- +water. Mr. Winkle eagerly watched his opportunity: it was not long +wanting. Mr. Snodgrass proposed a visit to the castle, and as Mr. Winkle +was the only other member of the party disposed to walk, they went out +together. + +‘Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Winkle, when they had turned out of the public +street.’Snodgrass, my dear fellow, can I rely upon your secrecy?’ As he +said this, he most devoutly and earnestly hoped he could not. + +‘You can,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass. ‘Hear me swear--’ + +‘No, no,’ interrupted Winkle, terrified at the idea of his companion’s +unconsciously pledging himself not to give information; ‘don’t swear, +don’t swear; it’s quite unnecessary.’ + +Mr. Snodgrass dropped the hand which he had, in the spirit of poesy, +raised towards the clouds as he made the above appeal, and assumed an +attitude of attention. + +‘I want your assistance, my dear fellow, in an affair of honour,’ said +Mr. Winkle. + +‘You shall have it,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass, clasping his friend’s hand. + +‘With a doctor--Doctor Slammer, of the 97th,’ said Mr. Winkle, wishing +to make the matter appear as solemn as possible; ‘an affair with an +officer, seconded by another officer, at sunset this evening, in a +lonely field beyond Fort Pitt.’ + +‘I will attend you,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +He was astonished, but by no means dismayed. It is extraordinary how +cool any party but the principal can be in such cases. Mr. Winkle had +forgotten this. He had judged of his friend’s feelings by his own. + +‘The consequences may be dreadful,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘I hope not,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘The doctor, I believe, is a very good shot,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Most of these military men are,’ observed Mr. Snodgrass calmly; ‘but so +are you, ain’t you?’ + +Mr. Winkle replied in the affirmative; and perceiving that he had not +alarmed his companion sufficiently, changed his ground. + +‘Snodgrass,’ he said, in a voice tremulous with emotion, ‘if I fall, you +will find in a packet which I shall place in your hands a note for my-- +for my father.’ + +This attack was a failure also. Mr. Snodgrass was affected, but he +undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a +twopenny postman. + +‘If I fall,’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘or if the doctor falls, you, my dear +friend, will be tried as an accessory before the fact. Shall I involve +my friend in transportation--possibly for life!’ + +Mr. Snodgrass winced a little at this, but his heroism was invincible. +‘In the cause of friendship,’ he fervently exclaimed, ‘I would brave all +dangers.’ + +How Mr. Winkle cursed his companion’s devoted friendship internally, as +they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each +immersed in his own meditations! The morning was wearing away; he grew +desperate. + +‘Snodgrass,’ he said, stopping suddenly, ‘do not let me be balked in +this matter--do not give information to the local authorities--do not +obtain the assistance of several peace officers, to take either me or +Doctor Slammer, of the 97th Regiment, at present quartered in Chatham +Barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this duel!--I say, do not.’ + +Mr. Snodgrass seized his friend’s hand warmly, as he enthusiastically +replied, ‘Not for worlds!’ + +A thrill passed over Mr. Winkle’s frame as the conviction that he had +nothing to hope from his friend’s fears, and that he was destined to +become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him. + +The state of the case having been formally explained to Mr. Snodgrass, +and a case of satisfactory pistols, with the satisfactory accompaniments +of powder, ball, and caps, having been hired from a manufacturer in +Rochester, the two friends returned to their inn; Mr. Winkle to ruminate +on the approaching struggle, and Mr. Snodgrass to arrange the weapons of +war, and put them into proper order for immediate use. + +It was a dull and heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their +awkward errand. Mr. Winkle was muffled up in a huge cloak to escape +observation, and Mr. Snodgrass bore under his the instruments of +destruction. + +‘Have you got everything?’ said Mr. Winkle, in an agitated tone. + +‘Everything,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass; ‘plenty of ammunition, in case the +shots don’t take effect. There’s a quarter of a pound of powder in the +case, and I have got two newspapers in my pocket for the loadings.’ + +These were instances of friendship for which any man might reasonably +feel most grateful. The presumption is, that the gratitude of Mr. Winkle +was too powerful for utterance, as he said nothing, but continued to +walk on--rather slowly. + +‘We are in excellent time,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, as they climbed the +fence of the first field; ‘the sun is just going down.’ Mr. Winkle +looked up at the declining orb and painfully thought of the probability +of his ‘going down’ himself, before long. + +‘There’s the officer,’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle, after a few minutes +walking. + +‘Where?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘There--the gentleman in the blue cloak.’ Mr. Snodgrass looked in the +direction indicated by the forefinger of his friend, and observed a +figure, muffled up, as he had described. The officer evinced his +consciousness of their presence by slightly beckoning with his hand; and +the two friends followed him at a little distance, as he walked away. + +The evening grew more dull every moment, and a melancholy wind sounded +through the deserted fields, like a distant giant whistling for his +house-dog. The sadness of the scene imparted a sombre tinge to the +feelings of Mr. Winkle. He started as they passed the angle of the +trench--it looked like a colossal grave. + +The officer turned suddenly from the path, and after climbing a paling, +and scaling a hedge, entered a secluded field. Two gentlemen were +waiting in it; one was a little, fat man, with black hair; and the +other--a portly personage in a braided surtout--was sitting with perfect +equanimity on a camp-stool. + +‘The other party, and a surgeon, I suppose,’ said Mr. Snodgrass; ‘take a +drop of brandy.’ Mr. Winkle seized the wicker bottle which his friend +proffered, and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid. + +‘My friend, Sir, Mr. Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Winkle, as the officer +approached. Doctor Slammer’s friend bowed, and produced a case similar +to that which Mr. Snodgrass carried. + +‘We have nothing further to say, Sir, I think,’ he coldly remarked, as +he opened the case; ‘an apology has been resolutely declined.’ + +‘Nothing, Sir,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, who began to feel rather +uncomfortable himself. + +‘Will you step forward?’ said the officer. + +‘Certainly,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass. The ground was measured, and +preliminaries arranged. + +‘You will find these better than your own,’ said the opposite second, +producing his pistols. ‘You saw me load them. Do you object to use +them?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass. The offer relieved him from +considerable embarrassment, for his previous notions of loading a pistol +were rather vague and undefined. + +‘We may place our men, then, I think,’ observed the officer, with as +much indifference as if the principals were chess-men, and the seconds +players. + +‘I think we may,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass; who would have assented to any +proposition, because he knew nothing about the matter. The officer +crossed to Doctor Slammer, and Mr. Snodgrass went up to Mr. Winkle. + +‘It’s all ready,’ said he, offering the pistol. ‘Give me your cloak.’ + +‘You have got the packet, my dear fellow,’ said poor Winkle. + +‘All right,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. ‘Be steady, and wing him.’ + +It occurred to Mr. Winkle that this advice was very like that which +bystanders invariably give to the smallest boy in a street fight, +namely, ‘Go in, and win’--an admirable thing to recommend, if you only +know how to do it. He took off his cloak, however, in silence--it always +took a long time to undo that cloak--and accepted the pistol. The +seconds retired, the gentleman on the camp-stool did the same, and the +belligerents approached each other. + +Mr. Winkle was always remarkable for extreme humanity. It is conjectured +that his unwillingness to hurt a fellow-creature intentionally was the +cause of his shutting his eyes when he arrived at the fatal spot; and +that the circumstance of his eyes being closed, prevented his observing +the very extraordinary and unaccountable demeanour of Doctor Slammer. +That gentleman started, stared, retreated, rubbed his eyes, stared +again, and, finally, shouted, ‘Stop, stop!’ + +‘What’s all this?’ said Doctor Slammer, as his friend and Mr. Snodgrass +came running up; ‘that’s not the man.’ + +‘Not the man!’ said Doctor Slammer’s second. + +‘Not the man!’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Not the man!’ said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand. + +‘Certainly not,’ replied the little doctor. ‘That’s not the person who +insulted me last night.’ + +‘Very extraordinary!’ exclaimed the officer. + +‘Very,’ said the gentleman with the camp-stool. ‘The only question is, +whether the gentleman, being on the ground, must not be considered, as a +matter of form, to be the individual who insulted our friend, Doctor +Slammer, yesterday evening, whether he is really that individual or +not;’ and having delivered this suggestion, with a very sage and +mysterious air, the man with the camp-stool took a large pinch of snuff, +and looked profoundly round, with the air of an authority in such +matters. + +Now Mr. Winkle had opened his eyes, and his ears too, when he heard his +adversary call out for a cessation of hostilities; and perceiving by +what he had afterwards said that there was, beyond all question, some +mistake in the matter, he at once foresaw the increase of reputation he +should inevitably acquire by concealing the real motive of his coming +out; he therefore stepped boldly forward, and said-- + +‘I am not the person. I know it.’ + +‘Then, that,’ said the man with the camp-stool, ‘is an affront to Doctor +Slammer, and a sufficient reason for proceeding immediately.’ + +‘Pray be quiet, Payne,’ said the doctor’s second. ‘Why did you not +communicate this fact to me this morning, Sir?’ + +‘To be sure--to be sure,’ said the man with the camp-stool indignantly. + +‘I entreat you to be quiet, Payne,’ said the other. ‘May I repeat my +question, Sir?’ + +‘Because, Sir,’ replied Mr. Winkle, who had had time to deliberate upon +his answer, ‘because, Sir, you described an intoxicated and +ungentlemanly person as wearing a coat which I have the honour, not only +to wear but to have invented--the proposed uniform, Sir, of the Pickwick +Club in London. The honour of that uniform I feel bound to maintain, and +I therefore, without inquiry, accepted the challenge which you offered +me.’ + +‘My dear Sir,’ said the good-humoured little doctor advancing with +extended hand, ‘I honour your gallantry. Permit me to say, Sir, that I +highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the +inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose.’ + +‘I beg you won’t mention it, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘I shall feel proud of your acquaintance, Sir,’ said the little doctor. + +‘It will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir,’ replied Mr. +Winkle. Thereupon the doctor and Mr. Winkle shook hands, and then Mr. +Winkle and Lieutenant Tappleton (the doctor’s second), and then Mr. +Winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and, finally, Mr. Winkle and Mr. +Snodgrass--the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the +noble conduct of his heroic friend. + +‘I think we may adjourn,’ said Lieutenant Tappleton. + +‘Certainly,’ added the doctor. + +‘Unless,’ interposed the man with the camp-stool, ‘unless Mr. Winkle +feels himself aggrieved by the challenge; in which case, I submit, he +has a right to satisfaction.’ + +Mr. Winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied +already. + +‘Or possibly,’ said the man with the camp-stool, ‘the gentleman’s second +may feel himself affronted with some observations which fell from me at +an early period of this meeting; if so, I shall be happy to give him +satisfaction immediately.’ + +Mr. Snodgrass hastily professed himself very much obliged with the +handsome offer of the gentleman who had spoken last, which he was only +induced to decline by his entire contentment with the whole proceedings. +The two seconds adjusted the cases, and the whole party left the ground +in a much more lively manner than they had proceeded to it. + +‘Do you remain long here?’ inquired Doctor Slammer of Mr. Winkle, as +they walked on most amicably together. + +‘I think we shall leave here the day after to-morrow,’ was the reply. + +‘I trust I shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your friend at my +rooms, and of spending a pleasant evening with you, after this awkward +mistake,’ said the little doctor; ‘are you disengaged this evening?’ + +‘We have some friends here,’ replied Mr. Winkle, ‘and I should not like +to leave them to-night. Perhaps you and your friend will join us at the +Bull.’ + +‘With great pleasure,’ said the little doctor; ‘will ten o’clock be too +late to look in for half an hour?’ + +‘Oh dear, no,’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘I shall be most happy to introduce you +to my friends, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman.’ + +‘It will give me great pleasure, I am sure,’ replied Doctor Slammer, +little suspecting who Mr. Tupman was. + +‘You will be sure to come?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Oh, certainly.’ + +By this time they had reached the road. Cordial farewells were +exchanged, and the party separated. Doctor Slammer and his friends +repaired to the barracks, and Mr. Winkle, accompanied by Mr. Snodgrass, +returned to their inn. + + + +CHAPTER III. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE--THE STROLLER’S TALE--A DISAGREEABLE +INTERRUPTION, AND AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER + +Mr. Pickwick had felt some apprehensions in consequence of the unusual +absence of his two friends, which their mysterious behaviour during the +whole morning had by no means tended to diminish. It was, therefore, +with more than ordinary pleasure that he rose to greet them when they +again entered; and with more than ordinary interest that he inquired +what had occurred to detain them from his society. In reply to his +questions on this point, Mr. Snodgrass was about to offer an historical +account of the circumstances just now detailed, when he was suddenly +checked by observing that there were present, not only Mr. Tupman and +their stage-coach companion of the preceding day, but another stranger +of equally singular appearance. It was a careworn-looking man, whose +sallow face, and deeply-sunken eyes, were rendered still more striking +than Nature had made them, by the straight black hair which hung in +matted disorder half-way down his face. His eyes were almost unnaturally +bright and piercing; his cheek-bones were high and prominent; and his +jaws were so long and lank, that an observer would have supposed that he +was drawing the flesh of his face in, for a moment, by some contraction +of the muscles, if his half-opened mouth and immovable expression had +not announced that it was his ordinary appearance. Round his neck he +wore a green shawl, with the large ends straggling over his chest, and +making their appearance occasionally beneath the worn button-holes of +his old waistcoat. His upper garment was a long black surtout; and below +it he wore wide drab trousers, and large boots, running rapidly to seed. + +It was on this uncouth-looking person that Mr. Winkle’s eye rested, and +it was towards him that Mr. Pickwick extended his hand when he said, ‘A +friend of our friend’s here. We discovered this morning that our friend +was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not desirous +to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of the same +profession. He was about to favour us with a little anecdote connected +with it, when you entered.’ + +‘Lots of anecdote,’ said the green-coated stranger of the day before, +advancing to Mr. Winkle and speaking in a low and confidential tone. +‘Rum fellow--does the heavy business--no actor--strange man--all sorts +of miseries--Dismal Jemmy, we call him on the circuit.’ Mr. Winkle and +Mr. Snodgrass politely welcomed the gentleman, elegantly designated as +‘Dismal Jemmy’; and calling for brandy-and-water, in imitation of the +remainder of the company, seated themselves at the table. + +‘Now sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘will you oblige us by proceeding with +what you were going to relate?’ + +The dismal individual took a dirty roll of paper from his pocket, and +turning to Mr. Snodgrass, who had just taken out his note-book, said in +a hollow voice, perfectly in keeping with his outward man--‘Are you the +poet?’ + +‘I--I do a little in that way,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass, rather taken +aback by the abruptness of the question. + +‘Ah! poetry makes life what light and music do the stage--strip the one +of the false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is +there real in either to live or care for?’ + +‘Very true, Sir,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘To be before the footlights,’ continued the dismal man, ‘is like +sitting at a grand court show, and admiring the silken dresses of the +gaudy throng; to be behind them is to be the people who make that +finery, uncared for and unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or +live, as fortune wills it.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Snodgrass: for the sunken eye of the dismal man +rested on him, and he felt it necessary to say something. + +‘Go on, Jemmy,’ said the Spanish traveller, ‘like black-eyed Susan--all +in the Downs--no croaking--speak out--look lively.’ + +‘Will you make another glass before you begin, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +The dismal man took the hint, and having mixed a glass of brandy-and- +water, and slowly swallowed half of it, opened the roll of paper and +proceeded, partly to read, and partly to relate, the following incident, +which we find recorded on the Transactions of the Club as ‘The +Stroller’s Tale.’ + + +THE STROLLER’S TALE + +‘There is nothing of the marvellous in what I am going to relate,’ said +the dismal man; ‘there is nothing even uncommon in it. Want and sickness +are too common in many stations of life to deserve more notice than is +usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of human nature. I +have thrown these few notes together, because the subject of them was +well known to me for many years. I traced his progress downwards, step +by step, until at last he reached that excess of destitution from which +he never rose again. + +‘The man of whom I speak was a low pantomime actor; and, like many +people of his class, an habitual drunkard. In his better days, before he +had become enfeebled by dissipation and emaciated by disease, he had +been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful and +prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years--not many; +because these men either die early, or by unnaturally taxing their +bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone +they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained so fast upon +him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in the +situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The public- +house had a fascination for him which he could not resist. Neglected +disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his portion as death +itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he did persevere, and +the result may be guessed. He could obtain no engagement, and he wanted +bread. + +‘Everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical matters knows what a +host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a large +establishment--not regularly engaged actors, but ballet people, +procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during the run +of a pantomime, or an Easter piece, and are then discharged, until the +production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their +services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and +taking the chair every night, at some low theatrical house, at once put +him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to +gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him; his +irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched +pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a +state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by +borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at one +or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did earn +anything it was spent in the old way. + +‘About this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year no +one knew how, I had a short engagement at one of the theatres on the +Surrey side of the water, and here I saw this man, whom I had lost sight +of for some time; for I had been travelling in the provinces, and he had +been skulking in the lanes and alleys of London. I was dressed to leave +the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me +on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight that met my +eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomimes in all the +absurdity of a clown’s costume. The spectral figures in the Dance of +Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed +on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His bloated +body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundredfold by the +fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick +white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely- +ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, +rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and unnatural +appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and +which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was hollow and +tremulous as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a long +catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with an +urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a few +shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of laughter +which followed his first tumble on the stage. + +‘A few nights afterwards, a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand, +on which were scrawled a few words in pencil, intimating that the man +was dangerously ill, and begging me, after the performance, to see him +at his lodgings in some street--I forget the name of it now--at no great +distance from the theatre. I promised to comply, as soon as I could get +away; and after the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy errand. + +‘It was late, for I had been playing in the last piece; and, as it was a +benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual +length. It was a dark, cold night, with a chill, damp wind, which blew +the rain heavily against the windows and house-fronts. Pools of water +had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many +of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of +the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I +had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a +little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed--a +coal-shed, with one storey above it, in the back room of which lay the +object of my search. + +‘A wretched-looking woman, the man’s wife, met me on the stairs, and, +telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly +in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man was lying +with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my +presence, I had leisure to observe the place in which I found myself. + +‘He was lying on an old bedstead, which turned up during the day. The +tattered remains of a checked curtain were drawn round the bed’s head, +to exclude the wind, which, however, made its way into the comfortless +room through the numerous chinks in the door, and blew it to and fro +every instant. There was a low cinder fire in a rusty, unfixed grate; +and an old three-cornered stained table, with some medicine bottles, a +broken glass, and a few other domestic articles, was drawn out before +it. A little child was sleeping on a temporary bed which had been made +for it on the floor, and the woman sat on a chair by its side. There +were a couple of shelves, with a few plates and cups and saucers; and a +pair of stage shoes and a couple of foils hung beneath them. With the +exception of little heaps of rags and bundles which had been carelessly +thrown into the corners of the room, these were the only things in the +apartment. + +‘I had had time to note these little particulars, and to mark the heavy +breathing and feverish startings of the sick man, before he was aware of +my presence. In the restless attempts to procure some easy resting-place +for his head, he tossed his hand out of the bed, and it fell on mine. He +started up, and stared eagerly in my face. + +‘“Mr. Hutley, John,” said his wife; “Mr. Hutley, that you sent for to- +night, you know.” + +‘“Ah!” said the invalid, passing his hand across his forehead; “Hutley-- +Hutley--let me see.” He seemed endeavouring to collect his thoughts for +a few seconds, and then grasping me tightly by the wrist said, “Don’t +leave me--don’t leave me, old fellow. She’ll murder me; I know she +will.” + + +‘“Has he been long so?” said I, addressing his weeping wife. + +‘“Since yesterday night,” she replied. “John, John, don’t you know me?” + +‘“Don’t let her come near me,” said the man, with a shudder, as she +stooped over him. “Drive her away; I can’t bear her near me.” He stared +wildly at her, with a look of deadly apprehension, and then whispered in +my ear, “I beat her, Jem; I beat her yesterday, and many times before. I +have starved her and the boy too; and now I am weak and helpless, Jem, +she’ll murder me for it; I know she will. If you’d seen her cry, as I +have, you’d know it too. Keep her off.” He relaxed his grasp, and sank +back exhausted on the pillow. + +‘I knew but too well what all this meant. If I could have entertained +any doubt of it, for an instant, one glance at the woman’s pale face and +wasted form would have sufficiently explained the real state of the +case. “You had better stand aside,” said I to the poor creature. “You +can do him no good. Perhaps he will be calmer, if he does not see you.” + She retired out of the man’s sight. He opened his eyes after a few +seconds, and looked anxiously round. + +‘“Is she gone?” he eagerly inquired. + +‘“Yes--yes,” said I; “she shall not hurt you.” + +‘“I’ll tell you what, Jem,” said the man, in a low voice, “she does hurt +me. There’s something in her eyes wakes such a dreadful fear in my +heart, that it drives me mad. All last night, her large, staring eyes +and pale face were close to mine; wherever I turned, they turned; and +whenever I started up from my sleep, she was at the bedside looking at +me.” He drew me closer to him, as he said in a deep alarmed whisper, +“Jem, she must be an evil spirit--a devil! Hush! I know she is. If she +had been a woman she would have died long ago. No woman could have borne +what she has.” + +‘I sickened at the thought of the long course of cruelty and neglect +which must have occurred to produce such an impression on such a man. I +could say nothing in reply; for who could offer hope, or consolation, to +the abject being before me? + +‘I sat there for upwards of two hours, during which time he tossed +about, murmuring exclamations of pain or impatience, restlessly throwing +his arms here and there, and turning constantly from side to side. At +length he fell into that state of partial unconsciousness, in which the +mind wanders uneasily from scene to scene, and from place to place, +without the control of reason, but still without being able to divest +itself of an indescribable sense of present suffering. Finding from his +incoherent wanderings that this was the case, and knowing that in all +probability the fever would not grow immediately worse, I left him, +promising his miserable wife that I would repeat my visit next evening, +and, if necessary, sit up with the patient during the night. + +‘I kept my promise. The last four-and-twenty hours had produced a +frightful alteration. The eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone with +a lustre frightful to behold. The lips were parched, and cracked in many +places; the hard, dry skin glowed with a burning heat; and there was an +almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man’s face, indicating even +more strongly the ravages of the disease. The fever was at its height. + +‘I took the seat I had occupied the night before, and there I sat for +hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the +most callous among human beings--the awful ravings of a dying man. From +what I had heard of the medical attendant’s opinion, I knew there was no +hope for him: I was sitting by his death-bed. I saw the wasted limbs-- +which a few hours before had been distorted for the amusement of a +boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever--I +heard the clown’s shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the +dying man. + +‘It is a touching thing to hear the mind reverting to the ordinary +occupations and pursuits of health, when the body lies before you weak +and helpless; but when those occupations are of a character the most +strongly opposed to anything we associate with grave and solemn ideas, +the impression produced is infinitely more powerful. The theatre and the +public-house were the chief themes of the wretched man’s wanderings. It +was evening, he fancied; he had a part to play that night; it was late, +and he must leave home instantly. Why did they hold him, and prevent his +going?--he should lose the money--he must go. No! they would not let +him. He hid his face in his burning hands, and feebly bemoaned his own +weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. A short pause, and he +shouted out a few doggerel rhymes--the last he had ever learned. He rose +in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth +positions; he was acting--he was at the theatre. A minute’s silence, and +he murmured the burden of some roaring song. He had reached the old +house at last--how hot the room was. He had been ill, very ill, but he +was well now, and happy. Fill up his glass. Who was that, that dashed it +from his lips? It was the same persecutor that had followed him before. +He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. A short period of +oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched +rooms--so low, sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to +make his way along; it was close and dark, and every way he turned, some +obstacle impeded his progress. There were insects, too, hideous crawling +things, with eyes that stared upon him, and filled the very air around, +glistening horribly amidst the thick darkness of the place. The walls +and ceiling were alive with reptiles--the vault expanded to an enormous +size--frightful figures flitted to and fro--and the faces of men he +knew, rendered hideous by gibing and mouthing, peered out from among +them; they were searing him with heated irons, and binding his head with +cords till the blood started; and he struggled madly for life. + +‘At the close of one of these paroxysms, when I had with great +difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be a +slumber. Overpowered with watching and exertion, I had closed my eyes +for a few minutes, when I felt a violent clutch on my shoulder. I awoke +instantly. He had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in bed--a +dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had returned, +for he evidently knew me. The child, who had been long since disturbed +by his ravings, rose from its little bed, and ran towards its father, +screaming with fright--the mother hastily caught it in her arms, lest he +should injure it in the violence of his insanity; but, terrified by the +alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped +my shoulder convulsively, and, striking his breast with the other hand, +made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing; he extended +his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a +rattling noise in the throat--a glare of the eye--a short stifled groan- +-and he fell back--dead!’ + +It would afford us the highest gratification to be enabled to record Mr. +Pickwick’s opinion of the foregoing anecdote. We have little doubt that +we should have been enabled to present it to our readers, but for a most +unfortunate occurrence. + +Mr. Pickwick had replaced on the table the glass which, during the last +few sentences of the tale, he had retained in his hand; and had just +made up his mind to speak--indeed, we have the authority of Mr. +Snodgrass’s note-book for stating, that he had actually opened his +mouth--when the waiter entered the room, and said-- + +‘Some gentlemen, Sir.’ + +It has been conjectured that Mr. Pickwick was on the point of delivering +some remarks which would have enlightened the world, if not the Thames, +when he was thus interrupted; for he gazed sternly on the waiter’s +countenance, and then looked round on the company generally, as if +seeking for information relative to the new-comers. + +‘Oh!’ said Mr. Winkle, rising, ‘some friends of mine--show them in. Very +pleasant fellows,’ added Mr. Winkle, after the waiter had retired-- +‘officers of the 97th, whose acquaintance I made rather oddly this +morning. You will like them very much.’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s equanimity was at once restored. The waiter returned, and +ushered three gentlemen into the room. + +‘Lieutenant Tappleton,’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘Lieutenant Tappleton, Mr. +Pickwick--Doctor Payne, Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Snodgrass you have seen +before, my friend Mr. Tupman, Doctor Payne--Doctor Slammer, Mr. +Pickwick--Mr. Tupman, Doctor Slam--’ + +Here Mr. Winkle suddenly paused; for strong emotion was visible on the +countenance both of Mr. Tupman and the doctor. + +‘I have met _this_ gentleman before,’ said the Doctor, with marked +emphasis. + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘And--and that person, too, if I am not mistaken,’ said the doctor, +bestowing a scrutinising glance on the green-coated stranger. ‘I think I +gave that person a very pressing invitation last night, which he thought +proper to decline.’ Saying which the doctor scowled magnanimously on the +stranger, and whispered his friend Lieutenant Tappleton. + +‘You don’t say so,’ said that gentleman, at the conclusion of the +whisper. + +‘I do, indeed,’ replied Doctor Slammer. + +‘You are bound to kick him on the spot,’ murmured the owner of the camp- +stool, with great importance. + +‘Do be quiet, Payne,’ interposed the lieutenant. ‘Will you allow me to +ask you, sir,’ he said, addressing Mr. Pickwick, who was considerably +mystified by this very unpolite by-play--‘will you allow me to ask you, +Sir, whether that person belongs to your party?’ + +‘No, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘he is a guest of ours.’ + +‘He is a member of your club, or I am mistaken?’ said the lieutenant +inquiringly. + +‘Certainly not,’ responded Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And never wears your club-button?’ said the lieutenant. + +‘No--never!’ replied the astonished Mr. Pickwick. + +Lieutenant Tappleton turned round to his friend Doctor Slammer, with a +scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulder, as if implying some doubt of +the accuracy of his recollection. The little doctor looked wrathful, but +confounded; and Mr. Payne gazed with a ferocious aspect on the beaming +countenance of the unconscious Pickwick. + +‘Sir,’ said the doctor, suddenly addressing Mr. Tupman, in a tone which +made that gentleman start as perceptibly as if a pin had been cunningly +inserted in the calf of his leg, ‘you were at the ball here last night!’ + +Mr. Tupman gasped a faint affirmative, looking very hard at Mr. Pickwick +all the while. + +‘That person was your companion,’ said the doctor, pointing to the still +unmoved stranger. + +Mr. Tupman admitted the fact. + +‘Now, sir,’ said the doctor to the stranger, ‘I ask you once again, in +the presence of these gentlemen, whether you choose to give me your +card, and to receive the treatment of a gentleman; or whether you impose +upon me the necessity of personally chastising you on the spot?’ + +‘Stay, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I really cannot allow this matter to go +any further without some explanation. Tupman, recount the +circumstances.’ + +Mr. Tupman, thus solemnly adjured, stated the case in a few words; +touched slightly on the borrowing of the coat; expatiated largely on its +having been done ‘after dinner’; wound up with a little penitence on his +own account; and left the stranger to clear himself as best he could. + +He was apparently about to proceed to do so, when Lieutenant Tappleton, +who had been eyeing him with great curiosity, said with considerable +scorn, ‘Haven’t I seen you at the theatre, Sir?’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied the unabashed stranger. + +‘He is a strolling actor!’ said the lieutenant contemptuously, turning +to Doctor Slammer.--‘He acts in the piece that the officers of the 52nd +get up at the Rochester Theatre to-morrow night. You cannot proceed in +this affair, Slammer--impossible!’ + +‘Quite!’ said the dignified Payne. + +‘Sorry to have placed you in this disagreeable situation,’ said +Lieutenant Tappleton, addressing Mr. Pickwick; ‘allow me to suggest, +that the best way of avoiding a recurrence of such scenes in future will +be to be more select in the choice of your companions. Good-evening, +Sir!’ and the lieutenant bounced out of the room. + +‘And allow me to say, Sir,’ said the irascible Doctor Payne, ‘that if I +had been Tappleton, or if I had been Slammer, I would have pulled your +nose, Sir, and the nose of every man in this company. I would, sir-- +every man. Payne is my name, sir--Doctor Payne of the 43rd. Good- +evening, Sir.’ Having concluded this speech, and uttered the last three +words in a loud key, he stalked majestically after his friend, closely +followed by Doctor Slammer, who said nothing, but contented himself by +withering the company with a look. + +Rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of Mr. +Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat, during the delivery +of the above defiance. He stood transfixed to the spot, gazing on +vacancy. The closing of the door recalled him to himself. He rushed +forward with fury in his looks, and fire in his eye. His hand was upon +the lock of the door; in another instant it would have been on the +throat of Doctor Payne of the 43rd, had not Mr. Snodgrass seized his +revered leader by the coat tail, and dragged him backwards. + +‘Restrain him,’ cried Mr. Snodgrass; ‘Winkle, Tupman--he must not peril +his distinguished life in such a cause as this.’ + +‘Let me go,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hold him tight,’ shouted Mr. Snodgrass; and by the united efforts of +the whole company, Mr. Pickwick was forced into an arm-chair. + +‘Leave him alone,’ said the green-coated stranger; ‘brandy-and-water-- +jolly old gentleman--lots of pluck--swallow this--ah!--capital stuff.’ +Having previously tested the virtues of a bumper, which had been mixed +by the dismal man, the stranger applied the glass to Mr. Pickwick’s +mouth; and the remainder of its contents rapidly disappeared. + +There was a short pause; the brandy-and-water had done its work; the +amiable countenance of Mr. Pickwick was fast recovering its customary +expression. + +‘They are not worth your notice,’ said the dismal man. + +‘You are right, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘they are not. I am ashamed +to have been betrayed into this warmth of feeling. Draw your chair up to +the table, Sir.’ + +The dismal man readily complied; a circle was again formed round the +table, and harmony once more prevailed. Some lingering irritability +appeared to find a resting-place in Mr. Winkle’s bosom, occasioned +possibly by the temporary abstraction of his coat--though it is scarcely +reasonable to suppose that so slight a circumstance can have excited +even a passing feeling of anger in a Pickwickian’s breast. With this +exception, their good-humour was completely restored; and the evening +concluded with the conviviality with which it had begun. + + + +CHAPTER IV. A FIELD DAY AND BIVOUAC--MORE NEW FRIENDS--AN INVITATION TO +THE COUNTRY + +Many authors entertain, not only a foolish, but a really dishonest +objection to acknowledge the sources whence they derive much valuable +information. We have no such feeling. We are merely endeavouring to +discharge, in an upright manner, the responsible duties of our editorial +functions; and whatever ambition we might have felt under other +circumstances to lay claim to the authorship of these adventures, a +regard for truth forbids us to do more than claim the merit of their +judicious arrangement and impartial narration. The Pickwick papers are +our New River Head; and we may be compared to the New River Company. The +labours of others have raised for us an immense reservoir of important +facts. We merely lay them on, and communicate them, in a clear and +gentle stream, through the medium of these pages, to a world thirsting +for Pickwickian knowledge. + +Acting in this spirit, and resolutely proceeding on our determination to +avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted, we frankly +say, that to the note-book of Mr. Snodgrass are we indebted for the +particulars recorded in this and the succeeding chapter--particulars +which, now that we have disburdened our consciences, we shall proceed to +detail without further comment. + +The whole population of Rochester and the adjoining towns rose from +their beds at an early hour of the following morning, in a state of the +utmost bustle and excitement. A grand review was to take place upon the +lines. The manoeuvres of half a dozen regiments were to be inspected by +the eagle eye of the commander-in-chief; temporary fortifications had +been erected, the citadel was to be attacked and taken, and a mine was +to be sprung. + +Mr. Pickwick was, as our readers may have gathered from the slight +extract we gave from his description of Chatham, an enthusiastic admirer +of the army. Nothing could have been more delightful to him--nothing +could have harmonised so well with the peculiar feeling of each of his +companions--as this sight. Accordingly they were soon afoot, and walking +in the direction of the scene of action, towards which crowds of people +were already pouring from a variety of quarters. + +The appearance of everything on the lines denoted that the approaching +ceremony was one of the utmost grandeur and importance. There were +sentries posted to keep the ground for the troops, and servants on the +batteries keeping places for the ladies, and sergeants running to and +fro, with vellum-covered books under their arms, and Colonel Bulder, in +full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and +then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, +and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making +himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any +assignable cause or reason whatever. Officers were running backwards and +forwards, first communicating with Colonel Bulder, and then ordering the +sergeants, and then running away altogether; and even the very privates +themselves looked from behind their glazed stocks with an air of +mysterious solemnity, which sufficiently bespoke the special nature of +the occasion. + +Mr. Pickwick and his three companions stationed themselves in the front +of the crowd, and patiently awaited the commencement of the proceedings. +The throng was increasing every moment; and the efforts they were +compelled to make, to retain the position they had gained, sufficiently +occupied their attention during the two hours that ensued. At one time +there was a sudden pressure from behind, and then Mr. Pickwick was +jerked forward for several yards, with a degree of speed and elasticity +highly inconsistent with the general gravity of his demeanour; at +another moment there was a request to ‘keep back’ from the front, and +then the butt-end of a musket was either dropped upon Mr. Pickwick’s +toe, to remind him of the demand, or thrust into his chest, to insure +its being complied with. Then some facetious gentlemen on the left, +after pressing sideways in a body, and squeezing Mr. Snodgrass into the +very last extreme of human torture, would request to know ‘vere he vos a +shovin’ to’; and when Mr. Winkle had done expressing his excessive +indignation at witnessing this unprovoked assault, some person behind +would knock his hat over his eyes, and beg the favour of his putting his +head in his pocket. These, and other practical witticisms, coupled with +the unaccountable absence of Mr. Tupman (who had suddenly disappeared, +and was nowhere to be found), rendered their situation upon the whole +rather more uncomfortable than pleasing or desirable. + +At length that low roar of many voices ran through the crowd which +usually announces the arrival of whatever they have been waiting for. +All eyes were turned in the direction of the sally-port. A few moments +of eager expectation, and colours were seen fluttering gaily in the air, +arms glistened brightly in the sun, column after column poured on to the +plain. The troops halted and formed; the word of command rang through +the line; there was a general clash of muskets as arms were presented; +and the commander-in-chief, attended by Colonel Bulder and numerous +officers, cantered to the front. The military bands struck up +altogether; the horses stood upon two legs each, cantered backwards, and +whisked their tails about in all directions; the dogs barked, the mob +screamed, the troops recovered, and nothing was to be seen on either +side, as far as the eye could reach, but a long perspective of red coats +and white trousers, fixed and motionless. + +Mr. Pickwick had been so fully occupied in falling about, and +disentangling himself, miraculously, from between the legs of horses, +that he had not enjoyed sufficient leisure to observe the scene before +him, until it assumed the appearance we have just described. When he was +at last enabled to stand firmly on his legs, his gratification and +delight were unbounded. + +‘Can anything be finer or more delightful?’ he inquired of Mr. Winkle. + +‘Nothing,’ replied that gentleman, who had had a short man standing on +each of his feet for the quarter of an hour immediately preceding. + +‘It is indeed a noble and a brilliant sight,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, in +whose bosom a blaze of poetry was rapidly bursting forth, ‘to see the +gallant defenders of their country drawn up in brilliant array before +its peaceful citizens; their faces beaming--not with warlike ferocity, +but with civilised gentleness; their eyes flashing--not with the rude +fire of rapine or revenge, but with the soft light of humanity and +intelligence.’ + +Mr. Pickwick fully entered into the spirit of this eulogium, but he +could not exactly re-echo its terms; for the soft light of intelligence +burned rather feebly in the eyes of the warriors, inasmuch as the +command ‘eyes front’ had been given, and all the spectator saw before +him was several thousand pair of optics, staring straight forward, +wholly divested of any expression whatever. + +‘We are in a capital situation now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round +him. The crowd had gradually dispersed in their immediate vicinity, and +they were nearly alone. + +‘Capital!’ echoed both Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle. + +‘What are they doing now?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, adjusting his +spectacles. + +‘I--I--rather think,’ said Mr. Winkle, changing colour--‘I rather think +they’re going to fire.’ + +‘Nonsense,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily. + +‘I--I--really think they are,’ urged Mr. Snodgrass, somewhat alarmed. + +‘Impossible,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. He had hardly uttered the word, when +the whole half-dozen regiments levelled their muskets as if they had but +one common object, and that object the Pickwickians, and burst forth +with the most awful and tremendous discharge that ever shook the earth +to its centres, or an elderly gentleman off his. + +It was in this trying situation, exposed to a galling fire of blank +cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military, a fresh body +of whom had begun to fall in on the opposite side, that Mr. Pickwick +displayed that perfect coolness and self-possession, which are the +indispensable accompaniments of a great mind. He seized Mr. Winkle by +the arm, and placing himself between that gentleman and Mr. Snodgrass, +earnestly besought them to remember that beyond the possibility of being +rendered deaf by the noise, there was no immediate danger to be +apprehended from the firing. + +‘But--but--suppose some of the men should happen to have ball cartridges +by mistake,’ remonstrated Mr. Winkle, pallid at the supposition he was +himself conjuring up. ‘I heard something whistle through the air now--so +sharp; close to my ear.’ + +‘We had better throw ourselves on our faces, hadn’t we?’ said Mr. +Snodgrass. + +‘No, no--it’s over now,’ said Mr. Pickwick. His lip might quiver, and +his cheek might blanch, but no expression of fear or concern escaped the +lips of that immortal man. + +Mr. Pickwick was right--the firing ceased; but he had scarcely time to +congratulate himself on the accuracy of his opinion, when a quick +movement was visible in the line; the hoarse shout of the word of +command ran along it, and before either of the party could form a guess +at the meaning of this new manoeuvre, the whole of the half-dozen +regiments, with fixed bayonets, charged at double-quick time down upon +the very spot on which Mr. Pickwick and his friends were stationed. + +Man is but mortal; and there is a point beyond which human courage +cannot extend. Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles for an instant +on the advancing mass, and then fairly turned his back and--we will not +say fled; firstly, because it is an ignoble term, and, secondly, because +Mr. Pickwick’s figure was by no means adapted for that mode of retreat-- +he trotted away, at as quick a rate as his legs would convey him; so +quickly, indeed, that he did not perceive the awkwardness of his +situation, to the full extent, until too late. + +The opposite troops, whose falling-in had perplexed Mr. Pickwick a few +seconds before, were drawn up to repel the mimic attack of the sham +besiegers of the citadel; and the consequence was that Mr. Pickwick and +his two companions found themselves suddenly inclosed between two lines +of great length, the one advancing at a rapid pace, and the other firmly +waiting the collision in hostile array. + +‘Hoi!’ shouted the officers of the advancing line. + +‘Get out of the way!’ cried the officers of the stationary one. + +‘Where are we to go to?’ screamed the agitated Pickwickians. + +‘Hoi--hoi--hoi!’ was the only reply. There was a moment of intense +bewilderment, a heavy tramp of footsteps, a violent concussion, a +smothered laugh; the half-dozen regiments were half a thousand yards +off, and the soles of Mr. Pickwick’s boots were elevated in air. + +Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset +with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of the +latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk +handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his +venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which +was gambolling playfully away in perspective. + +There are very few moments in a man’s existence when he experiences so +much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable +commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of +coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching a +hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush +into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best way is to +keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to +watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid +dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head; smiling +pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody +else. + +There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick’s hat rolled sportively +before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled +over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide: and on +it might have rolled, far beyond Mr. Pickwick’s reach, had not its +course been providentially stopped, just as that gentleman was on the +point of resigning it to its fate. + +Mr. Pickwick, we say, was completely exhausted, and about to give up the +chase, when the hat was blown with some violence against the wheel of a +carriage, which was drawn up in a line with half a dozen other vehicles +on the spot to which his steps had been directed. Mr. Pickwick, +perceiving his advantage, darted briskly forward, secured his property, +planted it on his head, and paused to take breath. He had not been +stationary half a minute, when he heard his own name eagerly pronounced +by a voice, which he at once recognised as Mr. Tupman’s, and, looking +upwards, he beheld a sight which filled him with surprise and pleasure. + + +In an open barouche, the horses of which had been taken out, the better +to accommodate it to the crowded place, stood a stout old gentleman, in +a blue coat and bright buttons, corduroy breeches and top-boots, two +young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a young gentleman apparently +enamoured of one of the young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a lady of +doubtful age, probably the aunt of the aforesaid, and Mr. Tupman, as +easy and unconcerned as if he had belonged to the family from the first +moments of his infancy. Fastened up behind the barouche was a hamper of +spacious dimensions--one of those hampers which always awakens in a +contemplative mind associations connected with cold fowls, tongues, and +bottles of wine--and on the box sat a fat and red-faced boy, in a state +of somnolency, whom no speculative observer could have regarded for an +instant without setting down as the official dispenser of the contents +of the before-mentioned hamper, when the proper time for their +consumption should arrive. + +Mr. Pickwick had bestowed a hasty glance on these interesting objects, +when he was again greeted by his faithful disciple. + +‘Pickwick--Pickwick,’ said Mr. Tupman; ‘come up here. Make haste.’ + +‘Come along, Sir. Pray, come up,’ said the stout gentleman. ‘Joe!--damn +that boy, he’s gone to sleep again.--Joe, let down the steps.’ The fat +boy rolled slowly off the box, let down the steps, and held the carriage +door invitingly open. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle came up at the +moment. + +‘Room for you all, gentlemen,’ said the stout man. ‘Two inside, and one +out. Joe, make room for one of these gentlemen on the box. Now, Sir, +come along;’ and the stout gentleman extended his arm, and pulled first +Mr. Pickwick, and then Mr. Snodgrass, into the barouche by main force. +Mr. Winkle mounted to the box, the fat boy waddled to the same perch, +and fell fast asleep instantly. + +‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the stout man, ‘very glad to see you. Know you +very well, gentlemen, though you mayn’t remember me. I spent some +ev’nin’s at your club last winter--picked up my friend Mr. Tupman here +this morning, and very glad I was to see him. Well, Sir, and how are +you? You do look uncommon well, to be sure.’ + +Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment, and cordially shook hands with +the stout gentleman in the top-boots. + +‘Well, and how are you, sir?’ said the stout gentleman, addressing Mr. +Snodgrass with paternal anxiety. ‘Charming, eh? Well, that’s right-- +that’s right. And how are you, sir (to Mr. Winkle)? Well, I am glad to +hear you say you are well; very glad I am, to be sure. My daughters, +gentlemen--my gals these are; and that’s my sister, Miss Rachael Wardle. +She’s a Miss, she is; and yet she ain’t a Miss--eh, Sir, eh?’ And the +stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the ribs of Mr. +Pickwick, and laughed very heartily. + +‘Lor, brother!’ said Miss Wardle, with a deprecating smile. + +‘True, true,’ said the stout gentleman; ‘no one can deny it. Gentlemen, +I beg your pardon; this is my friend Mr. Trundle. And now you all know +each other, let’s be comfortable and happy, and see what’s going +forward; that’s what I say.’ So the stout gentleman put on his +spectacles, and Mr. Pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood +up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else’s shoulder at the +evolutions of the military. + +Astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of +another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing over +the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and then +forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending the +trench on one side with scaling-ladders, and ascending it on the other +again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets, and +behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then there was such a +ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery, with +instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they were let +off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air resounded +with the screams of ladies. The young Misses Wardle were so frightened, +that Mr. Trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them up in the +carriage, while Mr. Snodgrass supported the other; and Mr. Wardle’s +sister suffered under such a dreadful state of nervous alarm, that Mr. +Tupman found it indispensably necessary to put his arm round her waist, +to keep her up at all. Everybody was excited, except the fat boy, and he +slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby. + +‘Joe, Joe!’ said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and +the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. ‘Damn that boy, he’s gone +to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir--in the leg, if you +please; nothing else wakes him--thank you. Undo the hamper, Joe.’ + +The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a +portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled +off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper with more +expedition than could have been expected from his previous inactivity. + +‘Now we must sit close,’ said the stout gentleman. After a great many +jokes about squeezing the ladies’ sleeves, and a vast quantity of +blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the +gentlemen’s laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche; and +the stout gentleman proceeded to hand the things from the fat boy (who +had mounted up behind for the purpose) into the carriage. + +‘Now, Joe, knives and forks.’ The knives and forks were handed in, and +the ladies and gentlemen inside, and Mr. Winkle on the box, were each +furnished with those useful instruments. + +‘Plates, Joe, plates.’ A similar process employed in the distribution of +the crockery. + +‘Now, Joe, the fowls. Damn that boy; he’s gone to sleep again. Joe! +Joe!’ (Sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some +difficulty, roused from his lethargy.) ‘Come, hand in the eatables.’ + +There was something in the sound of the last word which roused the +unctuous boy. He jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind +his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it +from the basket. + +‘Now make haste,’ said Mr. Wardle; for the fat boy was hanging fondly +over a capon, which he seemed wholly unable to part with. The boy sighed +deeply, and, bestowing an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly +consigned it to his master. + +‘That’s right--look sharp. Now the tongue--now the pigeon pie. Take care +of that veal and ham--mind the lobsters--take the salad out of the +cloth--give me the dressing.’ Such were the hurried orders which issued +from the lips of Mr. Wardle, as he handed in the different articles +described, and placed dishes in everybody’s hands, and on everybody’s +knees, in endless number. + +‘Now ain’t this capital?’ inquired that jolly personage, when the work +of destruction had commenced. + +‘Capital!’ said Mr. Winkle, who was carving a fowl on the box. + +‘Glass of wine?’ + +‘With the greatest pleasure.’ + +‘You’d better have a bottle to yourself up there, hadn’t you?’ + +‘You’re very good.’ + +‘Joe!’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ (He wasn’t asleep this time, having just succeeded in +abstracting a veal patty.) + +‘Bottle of wine to the gentleman on the box. Glad to see you, Sir.’ + +‘Thank’ee.’ Mr. Winkle emptied his glass, and placed the bottle on the +coach-box, by his side. + +‘Will you permit me to have the pleasure, Sir?’ said Mr. Trundle to Mr. +Winkle. + +‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Winkle to Mr. Trundle, and then the +two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round, +ladies and all. + +‘How dear Emily is flirting with the strange gentleman,’ whispered the +spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, to her brother, Mr. +Wardle. + +‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said the jolly old gentleman; ‘all very natural, I +dare say--nothing unusual. Mr. Pickwick, some wine, Sir?’ Mr. Pickwick, +who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon-pie, +readily assented. + +‘Emily, my dear,’ said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air, ‘don’t +talk so loud, love.’ + +‘Lor, aunt!’ + +‘Aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, I +think,’ whispered Miss Isabella Wardle to her sister Emily. The young +ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable, but +couldn’t manage it. + +‘Young girls have such spirits,’ said Miss Wardle to Mr. Tupman, with an +air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband, and +their possession without a permit a high crime and misdemeanour. + +‘Oh, they have,’ replied Mr. Tupman, not exactly making the sort of +reply that was expected from him. ‘It’s quite delightful.’ + +‘Hem!’ said Miss Wardle, rather dubiously. + +‘Will you permit me?’ said Mr. Tupman, in his blandest manner, touching +the enchanting Rachael’s wrist with one hand, and gently elevating the +bottle with the other. ‘Will you permit me?’ + +‘Oh, sir!’ Mr. Tupman looked most impressive; and Rachael expressed her +fear that more guns were going off, in which case, of course, she should +have required support again. + +‘Do you think my dear nieces pretty?’ whispered their affectionate aunt +to Mr. Tupman. + +‘I should, if their aunt wasn’t here,’ replied the ready Pickwickian, +with a passionate glance. + +‘Oh, you naughty man--but really, if their complexions were a little +better, don’t you think they would be nice-looking girls--by +candlelight?’ + +‘Yes; I think they would,’ said Mr. Tupman, with an air of indifference. + +‘Oh, you quiz--I know what you were going to say.’ + +‘What?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, who had not precisely made up his mind to +say anything at all. + +‘You were going to say that Isabel stoops--I know you were--you men are +such observers. Well, so she does; it can’t be denied; and, certainly, +if there is one thing more than another that makes a girl look ugly it +is stooping. I often tell her that when she gets a little older she’ll +be quite frightful. Well, you are a quiz!’ + +Mr. Tupman had no objection to earning the reputation at so cheap a +rate: so he looked very knowing, and smiled mysteriously. + +‘What a sarcastic smile,’ said the admiring Rachael; ‘I declare I’m +quite afraid of you.’ + +‘Afraid of me!’ + +‘Oh, you can’t disguise anything from me--I know what that smile means +very well.’ + +‘What?’ said Mr. Tupman, who had not the slightest notion himself. + +‘You mean,’ said the amiable aunt, sinking her voice still lower--‘you +mean, that you don’t think Isabella’s stooping is as bad as Emily’s +boldness. Well, she is bold! You cannot think how wretched it makes me +sometimes--I’m sure I cry about it for hours together--my dear brother +is _so_ good, and so unsuspicious, that he never sees it; if he did, I’m +quite certain it would break his heart. I wish I could think it was only +manner--I hope it may be--’ (Here the affectionate relative heaved a +deep sigh, and shook her head despondingly). + +‘I’m sure aunt’s talking about us,’ whispered Miss Emily Wardle to her +sister--‘I’m quite certain of it--she looks so malicious.’ + +‘Is she?’ replied Isabella.--‘Hem! aunt, dear!’ + +‘Yes, my dear love!’ + +‘I’m _so_ afraid you’ll catch cold, aunt--have a silk handkerchief to +tie round your dear old head--you really should take care of yourself-- +consider your age!’ + +However well deserved this piece of retaliation might have been, it was +as vindictive a one as could well have been resorted to. There is no +guessing in what form of reply the aunt’s indignation would have vented +itself, had not Mr. Wardle unconsciously changed the subject, by calling +emphatically for Joe. + +‘Damn that boy,’ said the old gentleman, ‘he’s gone to sleep again.’ + +‘Very extraordinary boy, that,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘does he always sleep +in this way?’ + +‘Sleep!’ said the old gentleman, ‘he’s always asleep. Goes on errands +fast asleep, and snores as he waits at table.’ + +‘How very odd!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah! odd indeed,’ returned the old gentleman; ‘I’m proud of that boy-- +wouldn’t part with him on any account--he’s a natural curiosity! Here, +Joe--Joe--take these things away, and open another bottle--d’ye hear?’ + +The fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie he +had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and slowly +obeyed his master’s orders--gloating languidly over the remains of the +feast, as he removed the plates, and deposited them in the hamper. The +fresh bottle was produced, and speedily emptied: the hamper was made +fast in its old place--the fat boy once more mounted the box--the +spectacles and pocket-glass were again adjusted--and the evolutions of +the military recommenced. There was a great fizzing and banging of guns, +and starting of ladies--and then a mine was sprung, to the gratification +of everybody--and when the mine had gone off, the military and the +company followed its example, and went off too. + +‘Now, mind,’ said the old gentleman, as he shook hands with Mr. Pickwick +at the conclusion of a conversation which had been carried on at +intervals, during the conclusion of the proceedings, ‘we shall see you +all to-morrow.’ + +‘Most certainly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You have got the address?’ + +‘Manor Farm, Dingley Dell,’ said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his pocket- +book. + +‘That’s it,’ said the old gentleman. ‘I don’t let you off, mind, under a +week; and undertake that you shall see everything worth seeing. If +you’ve come down for a country life, come to me, and I’ll give you +plenty of it. Joe--damn that boy, he’s gone to sleep again--Joe, help +Tom put in the horses.’ + +The horses were put in--the driver mounted--the fat boy clambered up by +his side--farewells were exchanged--and the carriage rattled off. As the +Pickwickians turned round to take a last glimpse of it, the setting sun +cast a rich glow on the faces of their entertainers, and fell upon the +form of the fat boy. His head was sunk upon his bosom; and he slumbered +again. + + + +CHAPTER V. A SHORT ONE--SHOWING, AMONG OTHER MATTERS, HOW Mr. PICKWICK +UNDERTOOK TO DRIVE, AND MR. WINKLE TO RIDE, AND HOW THEY BOTH DID IT + +Bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the +appearance of every object around, as Mr. Pickwick leaned over the +balustrades of Rochester Bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for +breakfast. The scene was indeed one which might well have charmed a far +less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented. + +On the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many places, +and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and heavy +masses. Huge knots of seaweed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, +trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully +round the dark and ruined battlements. Behind it rose the ancient +castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but +telling us proudly of its old might and strength, as when, seven hundred +years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded with the noise +of feasting and revelry. On either side, the banks of the Medway, +covered with cornfields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or +a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting +a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing +shadows which passed swiftly across it as the thin and half-formed +clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun. The river, +reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it +flowed noiselessly on; and the oars of the fishermen dipped into the +water with a clear and liquid sound, as their heavy but picturesque +boats glided slowly down the stream. + +Mr. Pickwick was roused from the agreeable reverie into which he had +been led by the objects before him, by a deep sigh, and a touch on his +shoulder. He turned round: and the dismal man was at his side. + +‘Contemplating the scene?’ inquired the dismal man. + +‘I was,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And congratulating yourself on being up so soon?’ + +Mr. Pickwick nodded assent. + +‘Ah! people need to rise early, to see the sun in all his splendour, for +his brightness seldom lasts the day through. The morning of day and the +morning of life are but too much alike.’ + +‘You speak truly, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘How common the saying,’ continued the dismal man, ‘“The morning’s too +fine to last.” How well might it be applied to our everyday existence. +God! what would I forfeit to have the days of my childhood restored, or +to be able to forget them for ever!’ + +‘You have seen much trouble, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick compassionately. + +‘I have,’ said the dismal man hurriedly; ‘I have. More than those who +see me now would believe possible.’ He paused for an instant, and then +said abruptly-- + +‘Did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would +be happiness and peace?’ + +‘God bless me, no!’ replied Mr. Pickwick, edging a little from the +balustrade, as the possibility of the dismal man’s tipping him over, by +way of experiment, occurred to him rather forcibly. + +‘I have thought so, often,’ said the dismal man, without noticing the +action. ‘The calm, cool water seems to me to murmur an invitation to +repose and rest. A bound, a splash, a brief struggle; there is an eddy +for an instant, it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple; the waters +have closed above your head, and the world has closed upon your miseries +and misfortunes for ever.’ The sunken eye of the dismal man flashed +brightly as he spoke, but the momentary excitement quickly subsided; and +he turned calmly away, as he said-- + +‘There--enough of that. I wish to see you on another subject. You +invited me to read that paper, the night before last, and listened +attentively while I did so.’ + +‘I did,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘and I certainly thought--’ + +‘I asked for no opinion,’ said the dismal man, interrupting him, ‘and I +want none. You are travelling for amusement and instruction. Suppose I +forward you a curious manuscript--observe, not curious because wild or +improbable, but curious as a leaf from the romance of real life--would +you communicate it to the club, of which you have spoken so frequently?’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘if you wished it; and it would be +entered on their transactions.’ + +‘You shall have it,’ replied the dismal man. ‘Your address;’ and, Mr. +Pickwick having communicated their probable route, the dismal man +carefully noted it down in a greasy pocket-book, and, resisting Mr. +Pickwick’s pressing invitation to breakfast, left that gentleman at his +inn, and walked slowly away. + +Mr. Pickwick found that his three companions had risen, and were waiting +his arrival to commence breakfast, which was ready laid in tempting +display. They sat down to the meal; and broiled ham, eggs, tea, coffee +and sundries, began to disappear with a rapidity which at once bore +testimony to the excellence of the fare, and the appetites of its +consumers. + +‘Now, about Manor Farm,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘How shall we go?’ + +‘We had better consult the waiter, perhaps,’ said Mr. Tupman; and the +waiter was summoned accordingly. + +‘Dingley Dell, gentlemen--fifteen miles, gentlemen--cross road--post- +chaise, sir?’ + +‘Post-chaise won’t hold more than two,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘True, sir--beg your pardon, sir.--Very nice four-wheel chaise, sir-- +seat for two behind--one in front for the gentleman that drives--oh! beg +your pardon, sir--that’ll only hold three.’ + +‘What’s to be done?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Perhaps one of the gentlemen would like to ride, sir?’ suggested the +waiter, looking towards Mr. Winkle; ‘very good saddle-horses, sir--any +of Mr. Wardle’s men coming to Rochester, bring ‘em back, Sir.’ + +‘The very thing,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Winkle, will you go on horseback?’ + +Now Mr. Winkle did entertain considerable misgivings in the very lowest +recesses of his own heart, relative to his equestrian skill; but, as he +would not have them even suspected, on any account, he at once replied +with great hardihood, ‘Certainly. I should enjoy it of all things.’ + +Mr. Winkle had rushed upon his fate; there was no resource. + +‘Let them be at the door by eleven,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Very well, sir,’ replied the waiter. + +The waiter retired; the breakfast concluded; and the travellers ascended +to their respective bedrooms, to prepare a change of clothing, to take +with them on their approaching expedition. + +Mr. Pickwick had made his preliminary arrangements, and was looking over +the coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the street, when the waiter +entered, and announced that the chaise was ready--an announcement which +the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the coffee- +room blinds aforesaid. + +It was a curious little green box on four wheels, with a low place like +a wine-bin for two behind, and an elevated perch for one in front, drawn +by an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone. An hostler +stood near, holding by the bridle another immense horse--apparently a +near relative of the animal in the chaise--ready saddled for Mr. Winkle. + +‘Bless my soul!’ said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement +while the coats were being put in. ‘Bless my soul! who’s to drive? I +never thought of that.’ + +‘Oh! you, of course,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Of course,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘I!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not the slightest fear, Sir,’ interposed the hostler. ‘Warrant him +quiet, Sir; a hinfant in arms might drive him.’ + +‘He don’t shy, does he?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Shy, sir?-he wouldn’t shy if he was to meet a vagin-load of monkeys +with their tails burned off.’ + +The last recommendation was indisputable. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass +got into the bin; Mr. Pickwick ascended to his perch, and deposited his +feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected beneath it for that purpose. + +‘Now, shiny Villiam,’ said the hostler to the deputy hostler, ‘give the +gen’lm’n the ribbons.’ + +Shiny Villiam’--so called, probably, from his sleek hair and oily +countenance--placed the reins in Mr. Pickwick’s left hand; and the upper +hostler thrust a whip into his right. + +‘Wo-o!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided +inclination to back into the coffee-room window. + +‘Wo-o!’ echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass, from the bin. + +‘Only his playfulness, gen’lm’n,’ said the head hostler encouragingly; +‘jist kitch hold on him, Villiam.’ The deputy restrained the animal’s +impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting. + +‘T’other side, sir, if you please.’ + +‘Blowed if the gen’lm’n worn’t a-gettin’ up on the wrong side,’ +whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter. + +Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as much +difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of a +first-rate man-of-war. + +‘All right?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it +was all wrong. + +‘All right,’ replied Mr. Winkle faintly. + +‘Let ‘em go,’ cried the hostler.--‘Hold him in, sir;’ and away went the +chaise, and the saddle-horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of the one, +and Mr. Winkle on the back of the other, to the delight and +gratification of the whole inn-yard. + +‘What makes him go sideways?’ said Mr. Snodgrass in the bin, to Mr. +Winkle in the saddle. + +‘I can’t imagine,’ replied Mr. Winkle. His horse was drifting up the +street in the most mysterious manner--side first, with his head towards +one side of the way, and his tail towards the other. + +Mr. Pickwick had no leisure to observe either this or any other +particular, the whole of his faculties being concentrated in the +management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various +peculiarities, highly interesting to a bystander, but by no means +equally amusing to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly jerking +his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and tugging +at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great difficulty +for Mr. Pickwick to hold them, he had a singular propensity for darting +suddenly every now and then to the side of the road, then stopping +short, and then rushing forward for some minutes, at a speed which it +was wholly impossible to control. + +‘What _can_ he mean by this?’ said Mr. Snodgrass, when the horse had +executed this manoeuvre for the twentieth time. + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Tupman; ‘it looks very like shying, don’t +it?’ Mr. Snodgrass was about to reply, when he was interrupted by a +shout from Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Woo!’ said that gentleman; ‘I have dropped my whip.’ + +‘Winkle,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, as the equestrian came trotting up on the +tall horse, with his hat over his ears, and shaking all over, as if he +would shake to pieces, with the violence of the exercise, ‘pick up the +whip, there’s a good fellow.’ Mr. Winkle pulled at the bridle of the +tall horse till he was black in the face; and having at length succeeded +in stopping him, dismounted, handed the whip to Mr. Pickwick, and +grasping the reins, prepared to remount. + + +Now whether the tall horse, in the natural playfulness of his +disposition, was desirous of having a little innocent recreation with +Mr. Winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the +journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one, are +points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and distinct +conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was actuated, certain it is +that Mr. Winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them +over his head, and darted backwards to their full length. + +‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Winkle soothingly--‘poor fellow--good old +horse.’ The ‘poor fellow’ was proof against flattery; the more Mr. +Winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he sidled away; and, +notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling, there were Mr. +Winkle and the horse going round and round each other for ten minutes, +at the end of which time each was at precisely the same distance from +the other as when they first commenced--an unsatisfactory sort of thing +under any circumstances, but particularly so in a lonely road, where no +assistance can be procured. + +‘What am I to do?’ shouted Mr. Winkle, after the dodging had been +prolonged for a considerable time. ‘What am I to do? I can’t get on +him.’ + +‘You had better lead him till we come to a turnpike,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick from the chaise. + +‘But he won’t come!’ roared Mr. Winkle. ‘Do come and hold him.’ + +Mr. Pickwick was the very personation of kindness and humanity: he threw +the reins on the horse’s back, and having descended from his seat, +carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, lest anything should come +along the road, and stepped back to the assistance of his distressed +companion, leaving Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the vehicle. + +The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick advancing towards him with the +chaise whip in his hand, than he exchanged the rotary motion in which he +had previously indulged, for a retrograde movement of so very determined +a character, that it at once drew Mr. Winkle, who was still at the end +of the bridle, at a rather quicker rate than fast walking, in the +direction from which they had just come. Mr. Pickwick ran to his +assistance, but the faster Mr. Pickwick ran forward, the faster the +horse ran backward. There was a great scraping of feet, and kicking up +of the dust; and at last Mr. Winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out of +their sockets, fairly let go his hold. The horse paused, stared, shook +his head, turned round, and quietly trotted home to Rochester, leaving +Mr. Winkle and Mr. Pickwick gazing on each other with countenances of +blank dismay. A rattling noise at a little distance attracted their +attention. They looked up. + +‘Bless my soul!’ exclaimed the agonised Mr. Pickwick; ‘there’s the other +horse running away!’ + +It was but too true. The animal was startled by the noise, and the reins +were on his back. The results may be guessed. He tore off with the four- +wheeled chaise behind him, and Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the four- +wheeled chaise. The heat was a short one. Mr. Tupman threw himself into +the hedge, Mr. Snodgrass followed his example, the horse dashed the +four--wheeled chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the wheels from +the body, and the bin from the perch; and finally stood stock still to +gaze upon the ruin he had made. + +The first care of the two unspilt friends was to extricate their +unfortunate companions from their bed of quickset--a process which gave +them the unspeakable satisfaction of discovering that they had sustained +no injury, beyond sundry rents in their garments, and various +lacerations from the brambles. The next thing to be done was to +unharness the horse. This complicated process having been effected, the +party walked slowly forward, leading the horse among them, and +abandoning the chaise to its fate. + +An hour’s walk brought the travellers to a little road-side public- +house, with two elm-trees, a horse trough, and a signpost, in front; one +or two deformed hay-ricks behind, a kitchen garden at the side, and +rotten sheds and mouldering outhouses jumbled in strange confusion all +about it. A red-headed man was working in the garden; and to him Mr. +Pickwick called lustily, ‘Hollo there!’ + +The red-headed man raised his body, shaded his eyes with his hand, and +stared, long and coolly, at Mr. Pickwick and his companions. + +‘Hollo there!’ repeated Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hollo!’ was the red-headed man’s reply. + +‘How far is it to Dingley Dell?’ + +‘Better er seven mile.’ + +‘Is it a good road?’ + +‘No, ‘tain’t.’ Having uttered this brief reply, and apparently satisfied +himself with another scrutiny, the red-headed man resumed his work. ‘We +want to put this horse up here,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I suppose we can, +can’t we?’ + +Want to put that ere horse up, do ee?’ repeated the red-headed man, +leaning on his spade. + +‘Of course,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, who had by this time advanced, horse +in hand, to the garden rails. + +‘Missus’--roared the man with the red head, emerging from the garden, +and looking very hard at the horse--‘missus!’ + +A tall, bony woman--straight all the way down--in a coarse, blue +pelisse, with the waist an inch or two below her arm-pits, responded to +the call. + +‘Can we put this horse up here, my good woman?’ said Mr. Tupman, +advancing, and speaking in his most seductive tones. The woman looked +very hard at the whole party; and the red-headed man whispered something +in her ear. + +‘No,’ replied the woman, after a little consideration, ‘I’m afeerd on +it.’ + +‘Afraid!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, ‘what’s the woman afraid of?’ + +‘It got us in trouble last time,’ said the woman, turning into the +house; ‘I woan’t have nothin’ to say to ‘un.’ + +‘Most extraordinary thing I have ever met with in my life,’ said the +astonished Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I--I--really believe,’ whispered Mr. Winkle, as his friends gathered +round him, ‘that they think we have come by this horse in some dishonest +manner.’ + +‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in a storm of indignation. Mr. Winkle +modestly repeated his suggestion. + +‘Hollo, you fellow,’ said the angry Mr. Pickwick, ‘do you think we stole +the horse?’ + +‘I’m sure ye did,’ replied the red-headed man, with a grin which +agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. Saying +which he turned into the house and banged the door after him. + +‘It’s like a dream,’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, ‘a hideous dream. The idea +of a man’s walking about all day with a dreadful horse that he can’t get +rid of!’ The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with the tall +quadruped, for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust, +following slowly at their heels. + +It was late in the afternoon when the four friends and their four-footed +companion turned into the lane leading to Manor Farm; and even when they +were so near their place of destination, the pleasure they would +otherwise have experienced was materially damped as they reflected on +the singularity of their appearance, and the absurdity of their +situation. Torn clothes, lacerated faces, dusty shoes, exhausted looks, +and, above all, the horse. Oh, how Mr. Pickwick cursed that horse: he +had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks expressive of +hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the probable amount +of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat; and now the +temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the world, rushed +upon his mind with tenfold force. He was roused from a meditation on +these dire imaginings by the sudden appearance of two figures at a turn +of the lane. It was Mr. Wardle, and his faithful attendant, the fat boy. + +‘Why, where have you been?’ said the hospitable old gentleman; ‘I’ve +been waiting for you all day. Well, you _do_ look tired. What! +Scratches! Not hurt, I hope--eh? Well, I _am_ glad to hear that--very. +So you’ve been spilt, eh? Never mind. Common accident in these parts. +Joe--he’s asleep again!--Joe, take that horse from the gentlemen, and +lead it into the stable.’ + +The fat boy sauntered heavily behind them with the animal; and the old +gentleman, condoling with his guests in homely phrase on so much of the +day’s adventures as they thought proper to communicate, led the way to +the kitchen. + +‘We’ll have you put to rights here,’ said the old gentleman, ‘and then +I’ll introduce you to the people in the parlour. Emma, bring out the +cherry brandy; now, Jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water, +Mary. Come, girls, bustle about.’ + +Three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the different +articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed, circular- +visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner (for although +it was a May evening their attachment to the wood fire appeared as +cordial as if it were Christmas), and dived into some obscure recesses, +from which they speedily produced a bottle of blacking, and some half- +dozen brushes. + +‘Bustle!’ said the old gentleman again, but the admonition was quite +unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and +another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing Mr. +Pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance, +brushed away at his boot till his corns were red-hot; while the other +shampooed Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging, during the +operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to produce when +engaged in rubbing down a horse. + +Mr. Snodgrass, having concluded his ablutions, took a survey of the +room, while standing with his back to the fire, sipping his cherry +brandy with heartfelt satisfaction. He describes it as a large +apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling +garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions. The walls were +decorated with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a saddle, +and an old rusty blunderbuss, with an inscription below it, intimating +that it was ‘Loaded’--as it had been, on the same authority, for half a +century at least. An old eight-day clock, of solemn and sedate +demeanour, ticked gravely in one corner; and a silver watch, of equal +antiquity, dangled from one of the many hooks which ornamented the +dresser. + +‘Ready?’ said the old gentleman inquiringly, when his guests had been +washed, mended, brushed, and brandied. + +‘Quite,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Come along, then;’ and the party having traversed several dark +passages, and being joined by Mr. Tupman, who had lingered behind to +snatch a kiss from Emma, for which he had been duly rewarded with sundry +pushings and scratchings, arrived at the parlour door. + +‘Welcome,’ said their hospitable host, throwing it open and stepping +forward to announce them, ‘welcome, gentlemen, to Manor Farm.’ + + + +CHAPTER VI. AN OLD-FASHIONED CARD-PARTY--THE CLERGYMAN’S VERSES--THE +STORY OF THE CONVICT’S RETURN + +Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet Mr. +Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance +of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, Mr. Pickwick +had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters +and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in which +he, in common with many other great men, delighted to indulge. + +A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a personage +than Mr. Wardle’s mother--occupied the post of honour on the right-hand +corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having been +brought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not having +departed from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplers +of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson silk +tea-kettle holders of a more modern period. The aunt, the two young +ladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous and +unremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair, +one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a smelling- +bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and punching the +pillows which were arranged for her support. On the opposite side sat a +bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured, benevolent face--the +clergyman of Dingley Dell; and next him sat his wife, a stout, blooming +old lady, who looked as if she were well skilled, not only in the art +and mystery of manufacturing home-made cordials greatly to other +people’s satisfaction, but of tasting them occasionally very much to her +own. A little hard-headed, Ripstone pippin-faced man, was conversing +with a fat old gentleman in one corner; and two or three more old +gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies, sat bolt upright and +motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at Mr. Pickwick and his +fellow-voyagers. + +‘Mr. Pickwick, mother,’ said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice. + +‘Ah!’ said the old lady, shaking her head; ‘I can’t hear you.’ + +‘Mr. Pickwick, grandma!’ screamed both the young ladies together. + +‘Ah!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘Well, it don’t much matter. He don’t care +for an old ‘ooman like me, I dare say.’ + +‘I assure you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady’s hand, +and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his +benevolent countenance--‘I assure you, ma’am, that nothing delights me +more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, +and looking so young and well.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the old lady, after a short pause: ‘it’s all very fine, I +dare say; but I can’t hear him.’ + +‘Grandma’s rather put out now,’ said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low +tone; ‘but she’ll talk to you presently.’ + +Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and +entered into a general conversation with the other members of the +circle. + +‘Delightful situation this,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Delightful!’ echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle. + +‘Well, I think it is,’ said Mr. Wardle. + +‘There ain’t a better spot o’ ground in all Kent, sir,’ said the hard- +headed man with the pippin--face; ‘there ain’t indeed, sir--I’m sure +there ain’t, Sir.’ The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if +he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better +of him at last. + +‘There ain’t a better spot o’ ground in all Kent,’ said the hard-headed +man again, after a pause. + +‘’Cept Mullins’s Meadows,’ observed the fat man solemnly. + +‘Mullins’s Meadows!’ ejaculated the other, with profound contempt. + +‘Ah, Mullins’s Meadows,’ repeated the fat man. + +‘Reg’lar good land that,’ interposed another fat man. + +‘And so it is, sure-ly,’ said a third fat man. + +‘Everybody knows that,’ said the corpulent host. + +The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in a +minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more. + +‘What are they talking about?’ inquired the old lady of one of her +granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she +never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing +what she said herself. + +‘About the land, grandma.’ + +‘What about the land?--Nothing the matter, is there?’ + +‘No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins’s +Meadows.’ + +‘How should he know anything about it?’ inquired the old lady +indignantly. ‘Miller’s a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said +so.’ Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken +above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard- +headed delinquent. + +‘Come, come,’ said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change +the conversation, ‘what say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +‘I should like it of all things,’ replied that gentleman; ‘but pray +don’t make up one on my account.’ + +‘Oh, I assure you, mother’s very fond of a rubber,’ said Mr. Wardle; +‘ain’t you, mother?’ + +The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other, +replied in the affirmative. + +‘Joe, Joe!’ said the gentleman; ‘Joe--damn that--oh, here he is; put out +the card-tables.’ + +The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out +two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The +whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady, Mr. Miller and the fat +gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company. + +The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and +sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled ‘whist’--a +solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of ‘game’ +has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game +table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to +interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so much +absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high +crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman +to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady +in a proportionate degree. + +‘There!’ said the criminal Miller triumphantly, as he took up the odd +trick at the conclusion of a hand; ‘that could not have been played +better, I flatter myself; impossible to have made another trick!’ + +‘Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn’t he, Sir?’ said the +old lady. + +Mr. Pickwick nodded assent. + +‘Ought I, though?’ said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his +partner. + +‘You ought, Sir,’ said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice. + +‘Very sorry,’ said the crestfallen Miller. + +‘Much use that,’ growled the fat gentleman. + +‘Two by honours--makes us eight,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Another hand. ‘Can you one?’ inquired the old lady. + +‘I can,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Double, single, and the rub.’ + +‘Never was such luck,’ said Mr. Miller. + +‘Never was such cards,’ said the fat gentleman. + +A solemn silence; Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat +gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous. + +‘Another double,’ said the old lady, triumphantly making a memorandum of +the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny under +the candlestick. + +‘A double, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Quite aware of the fact, Sir,’ replied the fat gentleman sharply. + +Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the +unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high +personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when +he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and +twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his +retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of a +man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries +sustained. The old lady’s hearing decidedly improved and the unlucky +Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box. + +Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle and +Mr. Trundle ‘went partners,’ and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did the +same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a joint- +stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the very +height of his jollity; and he was so funny in his management of the +board, and the old ladies were so sharp after their winnings, that the +whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter. There was +one old lady who always had about half a dozen cards to pay for, at +which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the old lady +looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever; on which +the old lady’s face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughed +louder than any of them, Then, when the spinster aunt got ‘matrimony,’ +the young ladies laughed afresh, and the Spinster aunt seemed disposed +to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing her hand under the +table, she brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony +in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for; +whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old Mr. Wardle, who +enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to Mr. Snodgrass, he did +nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into his partner’s ear, which +made one old gentleman facetiously sly, about partnerships at cards and +partnerships for life, and caused the aforesaid old gentleman to make +some remarks thereupon, accompanied with divers winks and chuckles, +which made the company very merry and the old gentleman’s wife +especially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with jokes which are very well +known in town, but are not all known in the country; and as everybody +laughed at them very heartily, and said they were very capital, Mr. +Winkle was in a state of great honour and glory. And the benevolent +clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy faces which surrounded the +table made the good old man feel happy too; and though the merriment was +rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips; +and this is the right sort of merriment, after all. + +The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and when +the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and the little +party formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick thought he had +never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to +enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment. + +‘Now this,’ said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state +next the old lady’s arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--‘this +is just what I like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed at +this old fireside; and I am so attached to it, that I keep up a blazing +fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot to bear it. +Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this fireplace upon +that little stool when she was a girl; didn’t you, mother?’ + +The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old +times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole +down the old lady’s face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile. + +‘You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick,’ resumed +the host, after a short pause, ‘for I love it dearly, and know no other- +-the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me; and so does +our little church with the ivy, about which, by the bye, our excellent +friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr. Snodgrass, +have you anything in your glass?’ + +‘Plenty, thank you,’ replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had +been greatly excited by the last observation of his entertainer. ‘I beg +your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy.’ + +‘You must ask our friend opposite about that,’ said the host knowingly, +indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head. + +‘May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?’ said Mr. +Snodgrass. + +‘Why, really,’ replied the clergyman, ‘it’s a very slight affair; and +the only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was a +young man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it, if you +wish.’ + +A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman +proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife, +the lines in question. ‘I call them,’ said he, + + +THE IVY GREEN + +Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, That creepeth o’er ruins old! Of +right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. +The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his dainty +whim; And the mouldering dust that years have made, Is a merry meal for +him. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. + +Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a staunch old heart +has he. How closely he twineth, how tight he clings To his friend the +huge Oak Tree! And slily he traileth along the ground, And his leaves he +gently waves, As he joyously hugs and crawleth round The rich mould of +dead men’s graves. Creeping where grim death has been, A rare old plant +is the Ivy green. + +Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, And nations have scattered +been; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, From its hale and hearty +green. The brave old plant in its lonely days, Shall fatten upon the +past; For the stateliest building man can raise, Is the Ivy’s food at +last. Creeping on where time has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy +green. + + + +While the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable +Mr. Snodgrass to note them down, Mr. Pickwick perused the lineaments of +his face with an expression of great interest. The old gentleman having +concluded his dictation, and Mr. Snodgrass having returned his note-book +to his pocket, Mr. Pickwick said-- + +‘Excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but +a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, I should think, to have observed +many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your +experience as a minister of the Gospel.’ + +‘I have witnessed some certainly,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘but the +incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my +sphere of action being so very limited.’ + +‘You did make some notes, I think, about John Edmunds, did you not?’ +inquired Mr. Wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out, +for the edification of his new visitors. + +The old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was +proceeding to change the subject, when Mr. Pickwick said-- + +‘I beg your pardon, sir, but pray, if I may venture to inquire, who was +John Edmunds?’ + +‘The very thing I was about to ask,’ said Mr. Snodgrass eagerly. + +‘You are fairly in for it,’ said the jolly host. ‘You must satisfy the +curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take +advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once.’ + +The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair forward-- +the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together, especially +Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather hard of +hearing; and the old lady’s ear-trumpet having been duly adjusted, and +Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital of the verses) +roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch, administered beneath +the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man, the old gentleman, +without further preface, commenced the following tale, to which we have +taken the liberty of prefixing the title of + + +THE CONVICT’S RETURN + +‘When I first settled in this village,’ said the old gentleman, ‘which +is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among +my parishioners was a man of the name of Edmunds, who leased a small +farm near this spot. He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle and +dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition. Beyond +the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away his time +in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single friend or +acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many feared, and +every one detested--and Edmunds was shunned by all. + +‘This man had a wife and one son, who, when I first came here, was about +twelve years old. Of the acuteness of that woman’s sufferings, of the +gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony of +solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an adequate +conception. Heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an uncharitable +one, but I do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man systematically +tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it all for her +child’s sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for his father’s +too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated her, she had +loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been to her, +awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering in her +bosom, to which all God’s creatures, but women, are strangers. + +‘They were poor--they could not be otherwise when the man pursued such +courses; but the woman’s unceasing and unwearied exertions, early and +late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. These +exertions were but ill repaid. People who passed the spot in the +evening--sometimes at a late hour of the night--reported that they had +heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of blows; +and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked softly at +the door of a neighbour’s house, whither he had been sent, to escape the +drunken fury of his unnatural father. + +‘During the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore +about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly +conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. Regularly +every Sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with the +boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed--much more so +than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station--they were +always neat and clean. Every one had a friendly nod and a kind word for +“poor Mrs. Edmunds”; and sometimes, when she stopped to exchange a few +words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service in the little +row of elm-trees which leads to the church porch, or lingered behind to +gaze with a mother’s pride and fondness upon her healthy boy, as he +sported before her with some little companions, her careworn face would +lighten up with an expression of heartfelt gratitude; and she would +look, if not cheerful and happy, at least tranquil and contented. + +‘Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and well- +grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child’s slight frame and +knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed his mother’s +form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should have supported +her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should have cheered her, +no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old seat, but there was a +vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as carefully as ever, the +places were found and folded down as they used to be: but there was no +one to read it with her; and the tears fell thick and fast upon the +book, and blotted the words from her eyes. Neighbours were as kind as +they were wont to be of old, but she shunned their greetings with +averted head. There was no lingering among the old elm-trees now--no +cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store. The desolate woman +drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked hurriedly away. + +‘Shall I tell you that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest +of his childhood’s days to which memory and consciousness extended, and +carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember nothing +which was not in some way connected with a long series of voluntary +privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill-usage, and +insult, and violence, and all endured for him--shall I tell you, that +he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart, and a sullen, +wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for him, had linked +himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly pursuing a +headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to her? Alas +for human nature! You have anticipated it long since. + +‘The measure of the unhappy woman’s misery and misfortune was about to +be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the neighbourhood; +the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their boldness increased. A +robbery of a daring and aggravated nature occasioned a vigilance of +pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had not calculated on. Young +Edmunds was suspected, with three companions. He was apprehended-- +committed--tried--condemned--to die. + +‘The wild and piercing shriek from a woman’s voice, which resounded +through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my +ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit’s heart, +which trial, condemnation--the approach of death itself, had failed to +awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness +throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale +as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs +of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock. + +‘In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother +threw herself on her knees at my feet, and fervently sought the Almighty +Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles to release her +from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life of her only child. +A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as I hope I may never +have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her heart was breaking +from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or murmur escape her +lips. + +‘It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison-yard from +day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, +to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain. He +remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for +commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, +softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour. + +‘But the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld +her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She +fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her son +once more, but her strength failed her, and she sank powerless on the +ground. + +‘And now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were +tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him nearly +drove him mad. A day passed away and his mother was not there; another +flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he +had not seen her--, and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated +from her, perhaps for ever. Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of +former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the +narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for his +hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation +rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent he +had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the +ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would +place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron +rails with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and +threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through +the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he +beat his hands together and wept like a child. + +‘I bore the mother’s forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison; and +I carried the solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent +supplication for pardon, to her sick-bed. I heard, with pity and +compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her +comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months before +he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer +of this world. + +‘He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor woman’s soul +took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of +eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her +remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her +grave’s head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God. + +‘It had been arranged previously to the convict’s departure, that he +should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and +that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively +refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was a +matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years +passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half his +term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I +concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be. + +‘Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the country +on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance, perhaps, may +be attributed the fact, that though several letters were despatched, +none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in the same place during +the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of the term, steadily +adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he gave his mother, he +made his way back to England amidst innumerable difficulties, and +returned, on foot, to his native place. + +‘On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set foot +in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years +before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man’s heart +swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose +branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light upon +the shady part, awakened the associations of his earliest days. He +pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother’s hand, and +walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up into +her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she +gazed upon his features--tears which fell hot upon his forehead as she +stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little knew then +what bitter tears hers were. He thought how often he had run merrily +down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back, ever and +again, to catch his mother’s smile, or hear her gentle voice; and then a +veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness unrequited, +and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon his +recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no longer. + +‘He entered the church. The evening service was concluded and the +congregation had dispersed, but it was not yet closed. His steps echoed +through the low building with a hollow sound, and he almost feared to be +alone, it was so still and quiet. He looked round him. Nothing was +changed. The place seemed smaller than it used to be; but there were the +old monuments on which he had gazed with childish awe a thousand times; +the little pulpit with its faded cushion; the Communion table before +which he had so often repeated the Commandments he had reverenced as a +child, and forgotten as a man. He approached the old seat; it looked +cold and desolate. The cushion had been removed, and the Bible was not +there. Perhaps his mother now occupied a poorer seat, or possibly she +had grown infirm and could not reach the church alone. He dared not +think of what he feared. A cold feeling crept over him, and he trembled +violently as he turned away. ‘An old man entered the porch just as he +reached it. Edmunds started back, for he knew him well; many a time he +had watched him digging graves in the churchyard. What would he say to +the returned convict? + +‘The old man raised his eyes to the stranger’s face, bade him “good- +evening,” and walked slowly on. He had forgotten him. + +‘He walked down the hill, and through the village. The weather was warm, +and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their little +gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and their +rest from labour. Many a look was turned towards him, and many a +doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and +shunned him. There were strange faces in almost every house; in some he +recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last +saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw, +seated in an easy-chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man, +whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all +forgotten him, and he passed on unknown. + +‘The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting +a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of +the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the home of his +infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection +not to be described, through long and weary years of captivity and +sorrow. The paling was low, though he well remembered the time that it +had seemed a high wall to him; and he looked over into the old garden. +There were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to be, but there +were the old trees still--the very tree under which he had lain a +thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt the soft, mild +sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. There were voices within +the house. He listened, but they fell strangely upon his ear; he knew +them not. They were merry too; and he well knew that his poor old mother +could not be cheerful, and he away. The door opened, and a group of +little children bounded out, shouting and romping. The father, with a +little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they crowded round +him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to join their +joyous sports. The convict thought on the many times he had shrunk from +his father’s sight in that very place. He remembered how often he had +buried his trembling head beneath the bedclothes, and heard the harsh +word, and the hard stripe, and his mother’s wailing; and though the man +sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot, his fist was +clenched, and his teeth were set, in a fierce and deadly passion. + +‘And such was the return to which he had looked through the weary +perspective of many years, and for which he had undergone so much +suffering! No face of welcome, no look of forgiveness, no house to +receive, no hand to help him--and this too in the old village. What was +his loneliness in the wild, thick woods, where man was never seen, to +this! + +‘He felt that in the distant land of his bondage and infamy, he had +thought of his native place as it was when he left it; and not as it +would be when he returned. The sad reality struck coldly at his heart, +and his spirit sank within him. He had not courage to make inquiries, or +to present himself to the only person who was likely to receive him with +kindness and compassion. He walked slowly on; and shunning the roadside +like a guilty man, turned into a meadow he well remembered; and covering +his face with his hands, threw himself upon the grass. + +‘He had not observed that a man was lying on the bank beside him; his +garments rustled as he turned round to steal a look at the new-comer; +and Edmunds raised his head. + +‘The man had moved into a sitting posture. His body was much bent, and +his face was wrinkled and yellow. His dress denoted him an inmate of the +workhouse: he had the appearance of being very old, but it looked more +the effect of dissipation or disease, than the length of years. He was +staring hard at the stranger, and though his eyes were lustreless and +heavy at first, they appeared to glow with an unnatural and alarmed +expression after they had been fixed upon him for a short time, until +they seemed to be starting from their sockets. Edmunds gradually raised +himself to his knees, and looked more and more earnestly on the old +man’s face. They gazed upon each other in silence. + +‘The old man was ghastly pale. He shuddered and tottered to his feet. +Edmunds sprang to his. He stepped back a pace or two. Edmunds advanced. + +‘“Let me hear you speak,” said the convict, in a thick, broken voice. + +‘“Stand off!” cried the old man, with a dreadful oath. The convict drew +closer to him. + +‘“Stand off!” shrieked the old man. Furious with terror, he raised his +stick, and struck Edmunds a heavy blow across the face. + +‘“Father--devil!” murmured the convict between his set teeth. He rushed +wildly forward, and clenched the old man by the throat--but he was his +father; and his arm fell powerless by his side. + +‘The old man uttered a loud yell which rang through the lonely fields +like the howl of an evil spirit. His face turned black, the gore rushed +from his mouth and nose, and dyed the grass a deep, dark red, as he +staggered and fell. He had ruptured a blood-vessel, and he was a dead +man before his son could raise him. + + +‘In that corner of the churchyard,’ said the old gentleman, after a +silence of a few moments, ‘in that corner of the churchyard of which I +have before spoken, there lies buried a man who was in my employment for +three years after this event, and who was truly contrite, penitent, and +humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man’s lifetime +who he was, or whence he came--it was John Edmunds, the returned +convict.’ + + + +CHAPTER VII. HOW MR. WINKLE, INSTEAD OF SHOOTING AT THE PIGEON AND +KILLING THE CROW, SHOT AT THE CROW AND WOUNDED THE PIGEON; HOW THE +DINGLEY DELL CRICKET CLUB PLAYED ALL-MUGGLETON, AND HOW ALL-MUGGLETON +DINED AT THE DINGLEY DELL EXPENSE; WITH OTHER INTERESTING AND +INSTRUCTIVE MATTERS + +The fatiguing adventures of the day or the somniferous influence of the +clergyman’s tale operated so strongly on the drowsy tendencies of Mr. +Pickwick, that in less than five minutes after he had been shown to his +comfortable bedroom he fell into a sound and dreamless sleep, from which +he was only awakened by the morning sun darting his bright beams +reproachfully into the apartment. Mr. Pickwick was no sluggard, and he +sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent-bedstead. + +‘Pleasant, pleasant country,’ sighed the enthusiastic gentleman, as he +opened his lattice window. ‘Who could live to gaze from day to day on +bricks and slates who had once felt the influence of a scene like this? +Who could continue to exist where there are no cows but the cows on the +chimney-pots; nothing redolent of Pan but pan-tiles; no crop but stone +crop? Who could bear to drag out a life in such a spot? Who, I ask, +could endure it?’ and, having cross-examined solitude after the most +approved precedents, at considerable length, Mr. Pickwick thrust his +head out of the lattice and looked around him. + +The rich, sweet smell of the hay-ricks rose to his chamber window; the +hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air +around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened +on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air; and the birds sang as if +every sparkling drop were to them a fountain of inspiration. Mr. +Pickwick fell into an enchanting and delicious reverie. + +‘Hollo!’ was the sound that roused him. + +He looked to the right, but he saw nobody; his eyes wandered to the +left, and pierced the prospect; he stared into the sky, but he wasn’t +wanted there; and then he did what a common mind would have done at +once--looked into the garden, and there saw Mr. Wardle. + +‘How are you?’ said the good-humoured individual, out of breath with his +own anticipations of pleasure.’Beautiful morning, ain’t it? Glad to see +you up so early. Make haste down, and come out. I’ll wait for you here.’ + +Mr. Pickwick needed no second invitation. Ten minutes sufficed for the +completion of his toilet, and at the expiration of that time he was by +the old gentleman’s side. + +‘Hollo!’ said Mr. Pickwick in his turn, seeing that his companion was +armed with a gun, and that another lay ready on the grass; ‘what’s going +forward?’ + +‘Why, your friend and I,’ replied the host, ‘are going out rook-shooting +before breakfast. He’s a very good shot, ain’t he?’ + +‘I’ve heard him say he’s a capital one,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘but I +never saw him aim at anything.’ + +‘Well,’ said the host, ‘I wish he’d come. Joe--Joe!’ + +The fat boy, who under the exciting influence of the morning did not +appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from +the house. + +‘Go up, and call the gentleman, and tell him he’ll find me and Mr. +Pickwick in the rookery. Show the gentleman the way there; d’ye hear?’ + +The boy departed to execute his commission; and the host, carrying both +guns like a second Robinson Crusoe, led the way from the garden. + +‘This is the place,’ said the old gentleman, pausing after a few minutes +walking, in an avenue of trees. The information was unnecessary; for the +incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks sufficiently indicated their +whereabouts. + +The old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, and loaded the other. + +‘Here they are,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and, as he spoke, the forms of Mr. +Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle appeared in the distance. The fat +boy, not being quite certain which gentleman he was directed to call, +had with peculiar sagacity, and to prevent the possibility of any +mistake, called them all. + +‘Come along,’ shouted the old gentleman, addressing Mr. Winkle; ‘a keen +hand like you ought to have been up long ago, even to such poor work as +this.’ + +Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun with +an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, impressed with a +foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed to +assume. It might have been keenness, but it looked remarkably like +misery. + +The old gentleman nodded; and two ragged boys who had been marshalled to +the spot under the direction of the infant Lambert, forthwith commenced +climbing up two of the trees. + +‘What are these lads for?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly. He was rather +alarmed; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of the +agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal, +might have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a +precarious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for +inexperienced sportsmen. + +‘Only to start the game,’ replied Mr. Wardle, laughing. + +‘To what?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, in plain English, to frighten the rooks.’ + +‘Oh, is that all?’ + +‘You are satisfied?’ + +‘Quite.’ + +‘Very well. Shall I begin?’ + +‘If you please,’ said Mr. Winkle, glad of any respite. + +‘Stand aside, then. Now for it.’ + +The boy shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it. Half a dozen +young rooks in violent conversation, flew out to ask what the matter +was. The old gentleman fired by way of reply. Down fell one bird, and +off flew the others. + +‘Take him up, Joe,’ said the old gentleman. + +There was a smile upon the youth’s face as he advanced. Indistinct +visions of rook-pie floated through his imagination. He laughed as he +retired with the bird--it was a plump one. + +‘Now, Mr. Winkle,’ said the host, reloading his own gun. ‘Fire away.’ + +Mr. Winkle advanced, and levelled his gun. Mr. Pickwick and his friends +cowered involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of rooks, +which they felt quite certain would be occasioned by the devastating +barrel of their friend. There was a solemn pause--a shout--a flapping of +wings--a faint click. + +‘Hollo!’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Won’t it go?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Missed fire,’ said Mr. Winkle, who was very pale--probably from +disappointment. + +‘Odd,’ said the old gentleman, taking the gun. ‘Never knew one of them +miss fire before. Why, I don’t see anything of the cap.’ + +Bless my soul!’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘I declare I forgot the cap!’ + +The slight omission was rectified. Mr. Pickwick crouched again. Mr. +Winkle stepped forward with an air of determination and resolution; and +Mr. Tupman looked out from behind a tree. The boy shouted; four birds +flew out. Mr. Winkle fired. There was a scream as of an individual--not +a rook--in corporal anguish. Mr. Tupman had saved the lives of +innumerable unoffending birds by receiving a portion of the charge in +his left arm. + +To describe the confusion that ensued would be impossible. To tell how +Mr. Pickwick in the first transports of emotion called Mr. Winkle +‘Wretch!’ how Mr. Tupman lay prostrate on the ground; and how Mr. Winkle +knelt horror-stricken beside him; how Mr. Tupman called distractedly +upon some feminine Christian name, and then opened first one eye, and +then the other, and then fell back and shut them both--all this would be +as difficult to describe in detail, as it would be to depict the gradual +recovering of the unfortunate individual, the binding up of his arm with +pocket-handkerchiefs, and the conveying him back by slow degrees +supported by the arms of his anxious friends. + +They drew near the house. The ladies were at the garden gate, waiting +for their arrival and their breakfast. The spinster aunt appeared; she +smiled, and beckoned them to walk quicker. ‘Twas evident she knew not of +the disaster. Poor thing! there are times when ignorance is bliss +indeed. + +They approached nearer. + +‘Why, what is the matter with the little old gentleman?’ said Isabella +Wardle. The spinster aunt heeded not the remark; she thought it applied +to Mr. Pickwick. In her eyes Tracy Tupman was a youth; she viewed his +years through a diminishing glass. + +‘Don’t be frightened,’ called out the old host, fearful of alarming his +daughters. The little party had crowded so completely round Mr. Tupman, +that they could not yet clearly discern the nature of the accident. + +‘Don’t be frightened,’ said the host. + +‘What’s the matter?’ screamed the ladies. + +‘Mr. Tupman has met with a little accident; that’s all.’ + +The spinster aunt uttered a piercing scream, burst into an hysteric +laugh, and fell backwards in the arms of her nieces. + +‘Throw some cold water over her,’ said the old gentleman. + +‘No, no,’ murmured the spinster aunt; ‘I am better now. Bella, Emily--a +surgeon! Is he wounded?--Is he dead?--Is he--Ha, ha, ha!’ Here the +spinster aunt burst into fit number two, of hysteric laughter +interspersed with screams. + +‘Calm yourself,’ said Mr. Tupman, affected almost to tears by this +expression of sympathy with his sufferings. ‘Dear, dear madam, calm +yourself.’ + +‘It is his voice!’ exclaimed the spinster aunt; and strong symptoms of +fit number three developed themselves forthwith. + +‘Do not agitate yourself, I entreat you, dearest madam,’ said Mr. Tupman +soothingly. ‘I am very little hurt, I assure you.’ + +‘Then you are not dead!’ ejaculated the hysterical lady. ‘Oh, say you +are not dead!’ + +‘Don’t be a fool, Rachael,’ interposed Mr. Wardle, rather more roughly +than was consistent with the poetic nature of the scene. ‘What the +devil’s the use of his saying he isn’t dead?’ + +‘No, no, I am not,’ said Mr. Tupman. ‘I require no assistance but yours. +Let me lean on your arm.’ He added, in a whisper, ‘Oh, Miss Rachael!’ +The agitated female advanced, and offered her arm. They turned into the +breakfast parlour. Mr. Tracy Tupman gently pressed her hand to his lips, +and sank upon the sofa. + +‘Are you faint?’ inquired the anxious Rachael. + +‘No,’ said Mr. Tupman. ‘It is nothing. I shall be better presently.’ He +closed his eyes. + +‘He sleeps,’ murmured the spinster aunt. (His organs of vision had been +closed nearly twenty seconds.) ‘Dear--dear--Mr. Tupman!’ + +Mr. Tupman jumped up--‘Oh, say those words again!’ he exclaimed. + +The lady started. ‘Surely you did not hear them!’ she said bashfully. + +‘Oh, yes, I did!’ replied Mr. Tupman; ‘repeat them. If you would have me +recover, repeat them.’ + +Hush!’ said the lady. ‘My brother.’ Mr. Tracy Tupman resumed his former +position; and Mr. Wardle, accompanied by a surgeon, entered the room. + +The arm was examined, the wound dressed, and pronounced to be a very +slight one; and the minds of the company having been thus satisfied, +they proceeded to satisfy their appetites with countenances to which an +expression of cheerfulness was again restored. Mr. Pickwick alone was +silent and reserved. Doubt and distrust were exhibited in his +countenance. His confidence in Mr. Winkle had been shaken--greatly +shaken--by the proceedings of the morning. + +‘Are you a cricketer?’ inquired Mr. Wardle of the marksman. + +At any other time, Mr. Winkle would have replied in the affirmative. He +felt the delicacy of his situation, and modestly replied, ‘No.’ + +‘Are you, sir?’ inquired Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘I was once upon a time,’ replied the host; ‘but I have given it up now. +I subscribe to the club here, but I don’t play.’ + +‘The grand match is played to-day, I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It is,’ replied the host. ‘Of course you would like to see it.’ + +‘I, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘am delighted to view any sports which +may be safely indulged in, and in which the impotent effects of +unskilful people do not endanger human life.’ Mr. Pickwick paused, and +looked steadily on Mr. Winkle, who quailed beneath his leader’s +searching glance. The great man withdrew his eyes after a few minutes, +and added: ‘Shall we be justified in leaving our wounded friend to the +care of the ladies?’ + +‘You cannot leave me in better hands,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Quite impossible,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +It was therefore settled that Mr. Tupman should be left at home in +charge of the females; and that the remainder of the guests, under the +guidance of Mr. Wardle, should proceed to the spot where was to be held +that trial of skill, which had roused all Muggleton from its torpor, and +inoculated Dingley Dell with a fever of excitement. + +As their walk, which was not above two miles long, lay through shady +lanes and sequestered footpaths, and as their conversation turned upon +the delightful scenery by which they were on every side surrounded, Mr. +Pickwick was almost inclined to regret the expedition they had used, +when he found himself in the main street of the town of Muggleton. + +Everybody whose genius has a topographical bent knows perfectly well +that Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses, and +freemen; and anybody who has consulted the addresses of the mayor to the +freemen, or the freemen to the mayor, or both to the corporation, or all +three to Parliament, will learn from thence what they ought to have +known before, that Muggleton is an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a +zealous advocacy of Christian principles with a devoted attachment to +commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and +other inhabitants, have presented at divers times, no fewer than one +thousand four hundred and twenty petitions against the continuance of +negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with +the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sale of livings +in the Church, and eighty-six for abolishing Sunday trading in the +street. + +Mr. Pickwick stood in the principal street of this illustrious town, and +gazed with an air of curiosity, not unmixed with interest, on the +objects around him. There was an open square for the market-place; and +in the centre of it, a large inn with a sign-post in front, displaying +an object very common in art, but rarely met with in nature--to wit, a +blue lion, with three bow legs in the air, balancing himself on the +extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot. There were, within +sight, an auctioneer’s and fire-agency office, a corn-factor’s, a linen- +draper’s, a saddler’s, a distiller’s, a grocer’s, and a shoe-shop--the +last-mentioned warehouse being also appropriated to the diffusion of +hats, bonnets, wearing apparel, cotton umbrellas, and useful knowledge. +There was a red brick house with a small paved courtyard in front, which +anybody might have known belonged to the attorney; and there was, +moreover, another red brick house with Venetian blinds, and a large +brass door-plate with a very legible announcement that it belonged to +the surgeon. A few boys were making their way to the cricket-field; and +two or three shopkeepers who were standing at their doors looked as if +they should like to be making their way to the same spot, as indeed to +all appearance they might have done, without losing any great amount of +custom thereby. Mr. Pickwick having paused to make these observations, +to be noted down at a more convenient period, hastened to rejoin his +friends, who had turned out of the main street, and were already within +sight of the field of battle. + +The wickets were pitched, and so were a couple of marquees for the rest +and refreshment of the contending parties. The game had not yet +commenced. Two or three Dingley Dellers, and All-Muggletonians, were +amusing themselves with a majestic air by throwing the ball carelessly +from hand to hand; and several other gentlemen dressed like them, in +straw hats, flannel jackets, and white trousers--a costume in which they +looked very much like amateur stone-masons--were sprinkled about the +tents, towards one of which Mr. Wardle conducted the party. + +Several dozen of ‘How-are-you’s?’ hailed the old gentleman’s arrival; +and a general raising of the straw hats, and bending forward of the +flannel jackets, followed his introduction of his guests as gentlemen +from London, who were extremely anxious to witness the proceedings of +the day, with which, he had no doubt, they would be greatly delighted. + +‘You had better step into the marquee, I think, Sir,’ said one very +stout gentleman, whose body and legs looked like half a gigantic roll of +flannel, elevated on a couple of inflated pillow-cases. + +‘You’ll find it much pleasanter, Sir,’ urged another stout gentleman, +who strongly resembled the other half of the roll of flannel aforesaid. + +‘You’re very good,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘This way,’ said the first speaker; ‘they notch in here--it’s the best +place in the whole field;’ and the cricketer, panting on before, +preceded them to the tent. + +‘Capital game--smart sport--fine exercise--very,’ were the words which +fell upon Mr. Pickwick’s ear as he entered the tent; and the first +object that met his eyes was his green-coated friend of the Rochester +coach, holding forth, to the no small delight and edification of a +select circle of the chosen of All-Muggleton. His dress was slightly +improved, and he wore boots; but there was no mistaking him. + +The stranger recognised his friends immediately; and, darting forward +and seizing Mr. Pickwick by the hand, dragged him to a seat with his +usual impetuosity, talking all the while as if the whole of the +arrangements were under his especial patronage and direction. + +‘This way--this way--capital fun--lots of beer--hogsheads; rounds of +beef--bullocks; mustard--cart-loads; glorious day--down with you--make +yourself at home--glad to see you--very.’ + +Mr. Pickwick sat down as he was bid, and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass +also complied with the directions of their mysterious friend. Mr. Wardle +looked on in silent wonder. + +‘Mr. Wardle--a friend of mine,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Friend of yours!--My dear sir, how are you?--Friend of my friend’s-- +give me your hand, sir’--and the stranger grasped Mr. Wardle’s hand with +all the fervour of a close intimacy of many years, and then stepped back +a pace or two as if to take a full survey of his face and figure, and +then shook hands with him again, if possible, more warmly than before. + +‘Well; and how came you here?’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile in which +benevolence struggled with surprise. + +‘Come,’ replied the stranger--‘stopping at Crown--Crown at Muggleton-- +met a party--flannel jackets--white trousers--anchovy sandwiches-- +devilled kidney--splendid fellows--glorious.’ + +Mr. Pickwick was sufficiently versed in the stranger’s system of +stenography to infer from this rapid and disjointed communication that +he had, somehow or other, contracted an acquaintance with the All- +Muggletons, which he had converted, by a process peculiar to himself, +into that extent of good-fellowship on which a general invitation may be +easily founded. His curiosity was therefore satisfied, and putting on +his spectacles he prepared himself to watch the play which was just +commencing. + +All-Muggleton had the first innings; and the interest became intense +when Mr. Dumkins and Mr. Podder, two of the most renowned members of +that most distinguished club, walked, bat in hand, to their respective +wickets. Mr. Luffey, the highest ornament of Dingley Dell, was pitched +to bowl against the redoubtable Dumkins, and Mr. Struggles was selected +to do the same kind office for the hitherto unconquered Podder. Several +players were stationed, to ‘look out,’ in different parts of the field, +and each fixed himself into the proper attitude by placing one hand on +each knee, and stooping very much as if he were ‘making a back’ for some +beginner at leap-frog. All the regular players do this sort of thing;-- +indeed it is generally supposed that it is quite impossible to look out +properly in any other position. + +The umpires were stationed behind the wickets; the scorers were prepared +to notch the runs; a breathless silence ensued. Mr. Luffey retired a few +paces behind the wicket of the passive Podder, and applied the ball to +his right eye for several seconds. Dumkins confidently awaited its +coming with his eyes fixed on the motions of Luffey. + +‘Play!’ suddenly cried the bowler. The ball flew from his hand straight +and swift towards the centre stump of the wicket. The wary Dumkins was +on the alert: it fell upon the tip of the bat, and bounded far away over +the heads of the scouts, who had just stooped low enough to let it fly +over them. + +‘Run--run--another.--Now, then throw her up--up with her--stop there-- +another--no--yes--no--throw her up, throw her up!’--Such were the shouts +which followed the stroke; and at the conclusion of which All-Muggleton +had scored two. Nor was Podder behindhand in earning laurels wherewith +to garnish himself and Muggleton. He blocked the doubtful balls, missed +the bad ones, took the good ones, and sent them flying to all parts of +the field. The scouts were hot and tired; the bowlers were changed and +bowled till their arms ached; but Dumkins and Podder remained +unconquered. Did an elderly gentleman essay to stop the progress of the +ball, it rolled between his legs or slipped between his fingers. Did a +slim gentleman try to catch it, it struck him on the nose, and bounded +pleasantly off with redoubled violence, while the slim gentleman’s eyes +filled with water, and his form writhed with anguish. Was it thrown +straight up to the wicket, Dumkins had reached it before the ball. In +short, when Dumkins was caught out, and Podder stumped out, All- +Muggleton had notched some fifty-four, while the score of the Dingley +Dellers was as blank as their faces. The advantage was too great to be +recovered. In vain did the eager Luffey, and the enthusiastic Struggles, +do all that skill and experience could suggest, to regain the ground +Dingley Dell had lost in the contest--it was of no avail; and in an +early period of the winning game Dingley Dell gave in, and allowed the +superior prowess of All-Muggleton. + +The stranger, meanwhile, had been eating, drinking, and talking, without +cessation. At every good stroke he expressed his satisfaction and +approval of the player in a most condescending and patronising manner, +which could not fail to have been highly gratifying to the party +concerned; while at every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to +stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the +devoted individual in such denunciations as--‘Ah, ah!--stupid’--‘Now, +butter-fingers’--‘Muff’--‘Humbug’--and so forth--ejaculations which +seemed to establish him in the opinion of all around, as a most +excellent and undeniable judge of the whole art and mystery of the noble +game of cricket. + +‘Capital game--well played--some strokes admirable,’ said the stranger, +as both sides crowded into the tent, at the conclusion of the game. + +‘You have played it, sir?’ inquired Mr. Wardle, who had been much amused +by his loquacity. + +‘Played it! Think I have--thousands of times--not here--West Indies-- +exciting thing--hot work--very.’ ‘It must be rather a warm pursuit in +such a climate,’ observed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Warm!--red hot--scorching--glowing. Played a match once--single wicket- +-friend the colonel--Sir Thomas Blazo--who should get the greatest +number of runs.--Won the toss--first innings--seven o’clock A.M.--six +natives to look out--went in; kept in--heat intense--natives all +fainted--taken away--fresh half-dozen ordered--fainted also--Blazo +bowling--supported by two natives--couldn’t bowl me out--fainted too-- +cleared away the colonel--wouldn’t give in--faithful attendant--Quanko +Samba--last man left--sun so hot, bat in blisters, ball scorched brown-- +five hundred and seventy runs--rather exhausted--Quanko mustered up last +remaining strength--bowled me out--had a bath, and went out to dinner.’ + +‘And what became of what’s-his-name, Sir?’ inquired an old gentleman. + +‘Blazo?’ + +‘No--the other gentleman.’ + +Quanko Samba?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Poor Quanko--never recovered it--bowled on, on my account--bowled off, +on his own--died, sir.’ Here the stranger buried his countenance in a +brown jug, but whether to hide his emotion or imbibe its contents, we +cannot distinctly affirm. We only know that he paused suddenly, drew a +long and deep breath, and looked anxiously on, as two of the principal +members of the Dingley Dell club approached Mr. Pickwick, and said-- + +‘We are about to partake of a plain dinner at the Blue Lion, Sir; we +hope you and your friends will join us.’ + +Of course,’ said Mr. Wardle, ‘among our friends we include Mr.--;’ and +he looked towards the stranger. + +‘Jingle,’ said that versatile gentleman, taking the hint at once. +‘Jingle--Alfred Jingle, Esq., of No Hall, Nowhere.’ + +‘I shall be very happy, I am sure,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘So shall I,’ said Mr. Alfred Jingle, drawing one arm through Mr. +Pickwick’s, and another through Mr. Wardle’s, as he whispered +confidentially in the ear of the former gentleman:-- + +‘Devilish good dinner--cold, but capital--peeped into the room this +morning--fowls and pies, and all that sort of thing--pleasant fellows +these--well behaved, too--very.’ + +There being no further preliminaries to arrange, the company straggled +into the town in little knots of twos and threes; and within a quarter +of an hour were all seated in the great room of the Blue Lion Inn, +Muggleton--Mr. Dumkins acting as chairman, and Mr. Luffey officiating as +vice. + +There was a vast deal of talking and rattling of knives and forks, and +plates; a great running about of three ponderous-headed waiters, and a +rapid disappearance of the substantial viands on the table; to each and +every of which item of confusion, the facetious Mr. Jingle lent the aid +of half-a-dozen ordinary men at least. When everybody had eaten as much +as possible, the cloth was removed, bottles, glasses, and dessert were +placed on the table; and the waiters withdrew to ‘clear away,’ or in +other words, to appropriate to their own private use and emolument +whatever remnants of the eatables and drinkables they could contrive to +lay their hands on. + +Amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was +a little man with a puffy Say-nothing-to-me,-or-I’ll-contradict-you sort +of countenance, who remained very quiet; occasionally looking round him +when the conversation slackened, as if he contemplated putting in +something very weighty; and now and then bursting into a short cough of +inexpressible grandeur. At length, during a moment of comparative +silence, the little man called out in a very loud, solemn voice,-- + +‘Mr. Luffey!’ + +Everybody was hushed into a profound stillness as the individual +addressed, replied-- + +‘Sir!’ + +‘I wish to address a few words to you, Sir, if you will entreat the +gentlemen to fill their glasses.’ + +Mr. Jingle uttered a patronising ‘Hear, hear,’ which was responded to by +the remainder of the company; and the glasses having been filled, the +vice-president assumed an air of wisdom in a state of profound +attention; and said-- + +‘Mr. Staple.’ + +‘Sir,’ said the little man, rising, ‘I wish to address what I have to +say to you and not to our worthy chairman, because our worthy chairman +is in some measure--I may say in a great degree--the subject of what I +have to say, or I may say to--to--’ + +‘State,’ suggested Mr. Jingle. + +‘Yes, to state,’ said the little man, ‘I thank my honourable friend, if +he will allow me to call him so (four hears and one certainly from Mr. +Jingle), for the suggestion. Sir, I am a Deller--a Dingley Deller +(cheers). I cannot lay claim to the honour of forming an item in the +population of Muggleton; nor, Sir, I will frankly admit, do I covet that +honour: and I will tell you why, Sir (hear); to Muggleton I will readily +concede all these honours and distinctions to which it can fairly lay +claim--they are too numerous and too well known to require aid or +recapitulation from me. But, sir, while we remember that Muggleton has +given birth to a Dumkins and a Podder, let us never forget that Dingley +Dell can boast a Luffey and a Struggles. (Vociferous cheering.) Let me +not be considered as wishing to detract from the merits of the former +gentlemen. Sir, I envy them the luxury of their own feelings on this +occasion. (Cheers.) Every gentleman who hears me, is probably acquainted +with the reply made by an individual, who--to use an ordinary figure of +speech--“hung out” in a tub, to the emperor Alexander:--“if I were not +Diogenes,” said he, “I would be Alexander.” I can well imagine these +gentlemen to say, “If I were not Dumkins I would be Luffey; if I were +not Podder I would be Struggles.” (Enthusiasm.) But, gentlemen of +Muggleton, is it in cricket alone that your fellow-townsmen stand pre- +eminent? Have you never heard of Dumkins and determination? Have you +never been taught to associate Podder with property? (Great applause.) +Have you never, when struggling for your rights, your liberties, and +your privileges, been reduced, if only for an instant, to misgiving and +despair? And when you have been thus depressed, has not the name of +Dumkins laid afresh within your breast the fire which had just gone out; +and has not a word from that man lighted it again as brightly as if it +had never expired? (Great cheering.) Gentlemen, I beg to surround with a +rich halo of enthusiastic cheering the united names of “Dumkins and +Podder.”’ + +Here the little man ceased, and here the company commenced a raising of +voices, and thumping of tables, which lasted with little intermission +during the remainder of the evening. Other toasts were drunk. Mr. Luffey +and Mr. Struggles, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Jingle, were, each in his turn, +the subject of unqualified eulogium; and each in due course returned +thanks for the honour. + +Enthusiastic as we are in the noble cause to which we have devoted +ourselves, we should have felt a sensation of pride which we cannot +express, and a consciousness of having done something to merit +immortality of which we are now deprived, could we have laid the +faintest outline on these addresses before our ardent readers. Mr. +Snodgrass, as usual, took a great mass of notes, which would no doubt +have afforded most useful and valuable information, had not the burning +eloquence of the words or the feverish influence of the wine made that +gentleman’s hand so extremely unsteady, as to render his writing nearly +unintelligible, and his style wholly so. By dint of patient +investigation, we have been enabled to trace some characters bearing a +faint resemblance to the names of the speakers; and we can only discern +an entry of a song (supposed to have been sung by Mr. Jingle), in which +the words ‘bowl’ ‘sparkling’ ‘ruby’ ‘bright’ and ‘wine’ are frequently +repeated at short intervals. We fancy, too, that we can discern at the +very end of the notes, some indistinct reference to ‘broiled bones’; and +then the words ‘cold’ ‘without’ occur: but as any hypothesis we could +found upon them must necessarily rest upon mere conjecture, we are not +disposed to indulge in any of the speculations to which they may give +rise. + +We will therefore return to Mr. Tupman; merely adding that within some +few minutes before twelve o’clock that night, the convocation of +worthies of Dingley Dell and Muggleton were heard to sing, with great +feeling and emphasis, the beautiful and pathetic national air of + + +‘We won’t go home till morning, We won’t go home till morning, We won’t +go home till morning, Till daylight doth appear.’ + + + +CHAPTER VIII. STRONGLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE POSITION, THAT THE COURSE OF +TRUE LOVE IS NOT A RAILWAY + +The quiet seclusion of Dingley Dell, the presence of so many of the +gentler sex, and the solicitude and anxiety they evinced in his behalf, +were all favourable to the growth and development of those softer +feelings which nature had implanted deep in the bosom of Mr. Tracy +Tupman, and which now appeared destined to centre in one lovely object. +The young ladies were pretty, their manners winning, their dispositions +unexceptionable; but there was a dignity in the air, a touch-me-not- +ishness in the walk, a majesty in the eye, of the spinster aunt, to +which, at their time of life, they could lay no claim, which +distinguished her from any female on whom Mr. Tupman had ever gazed. +That there was something kindred in their nature, something congenial in +their souls, something mysteriously sympathetic in their bosoms, was +evident. Her name was the first that rose to Mr. Tupman’s lips as he lay +wounded on the grass; and her hysteric laughter was the first sound that +fell upon his ear when he was supported to the house. But had her +agitation arisen from an amiable and feminine sensibility which would +have been equally irrepressible in any case; or had it been called forth +by a more ardent and passionate feeling, which he, of all men living, +could alone awaken? These were the doubts which racked his brain as he +lay extended on the sofa; these were the doubts which he determined +should be at once and for ever resolved. + +It was evening. Isabella and Emily had strolled out with Mr. Trundle; +the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat +boy, penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; +the buxom servants were lounging at the side door, enjoying the +pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first +principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and +there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and +dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of +carefully-folded kid gloves--bound up in each other. + +‘I have forgotten my flowers,’ said the spinster aunt. + +‘Water them now,’ said Mr. Tupman, in accents of persuasion. + +‘You will take cold in the evening air,’ urged the spinster aunt +affectionately. + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Tupman, rising; ‘it will do me good. Let me accompany +you.’ + +The lady paused to adjust the sling in which the left arm of the youth +was placed, and taking his right arm led him to the garden. + +There was a bower at the farther end, with honeysuckle, jessamine, and +creeping plants--one of those sweet retreats which humane men erect for +the accommodation of spiders. + +The spinster aunt took up a large watering-pot which lay in one corner, +and was about to leave the arbour. Mr. Tupman detained her, and drew her +to a seat beside him. + +‘Miss Wardle!’ said he. + +The spinster aunt trembled, till some pebbles which had accidentally +found their way into the large watering-pot shook like an infant’s +rattle. + +‘Miss Wardle,’ said Mr. Tupman, ‘you are an angel.’ + +‘Mr. Tupman!’ exclaimed Rachael, blushing as red as the watering-pot +itself. + +‘Nay,’ said the eloquent Pickwickian--‘I know it but too well.’ + +‘All women are angels, they say,’ murmured the lady playfully. + +‘Then what can you be; or to what, without presumption, can I compare +you?’ replied Mr. Tupman. ‘Where was the woman ever seen who resembled +you? Where else could I hope to find so rare a combination of excellence +and beauty? Where else could I seek to--Oh!’ Here Mr. Tupman paused, and +pressed the hand which clasped the handle of the happy watering-pot. + +The lady turned aside her head. ‘Men are such deceivers,’ she softly +whispered. + +‘They are, they are,’ ejaculated Mr. Tupman; ‘but not all men. There +lives at least one being who can never change--one being who would be +content to devote his whole existence to your happiness--who lives but +in your eyes--who breathes but in your smiles--who bears the heavy +burden of life itself only for you.’ + +‘Could such an individual be found--’ said the lady. + +‘But he _can_ be found,’ said the ardent Mr. Tupman, interposing. ‘He +_is_ found. He is here, Miss Wardle.’ And ere the lady was aware of his +intention, Mr. Tupman had sunk upon his knees at her feet. + +‘Mr. Tupman, rise,’ said Rachael. + +‘Never!’ was the valorous reply. ‘Oh, Rachael!’ He seized her passive +hand, and the watering-pot fell to the ground as he pressed it to his +lips.--‘Oh, Rachael! say you love me.’ + +‘Mr. Tupman,’ said the spinster aunt, with averted head, ‘I can hardly +speak the words; but--but--you are not wholly indifferent to me.’ + +Mr. Tupman no sooner heard this avowal, than he proceeded to do what his +enthusiastic emotions prompted, and what, for aught we know (for we are +but little acquainted with such matters), people so circumstanced always +do. He jumped up, and, throwing his arm round the neck of the spinster +aunt, imprinted upon her lips numerous kisses, which after a due show of +struggling and resistance, she received so passively, that there is no +telling how many more Mr. Tupman might have bestowed, if the lady had +not given a very unaffected start, and exclaimed in an affrighted tone-- + +‘Mr. Tupman, we are observed!--we are discovered!’ + +Mr. Tupman looked round. There was the fat boy, perfectly motionless, +with his large circular eyes staring into the arbour, but without the +slightest expression on his face that the most expert physiognomist +could have referred to astonishment, curiosity, or any other known +passion that agitates the human breast. Mr. Tupman gazed on the fat boy, +and the fat boy stared at him; and the longer Mr. Tupman observed the +utter vacancy of the fat boy’s countenance, the more convinced he became +that he either did not know, or did not understand, anything that had +been going forward. Under this impression, he said with great firmness-- + + +‘What do you want here, Sir?’ + +‘Supper’s ready, sir,’ was the prompt reply. + +‘Have you just come here, sir?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, with a piercing +look. + +‘Just,’ replied the fat boy. + +Mr. Tupman looked at him very hard again; but there was not a wink in +his eye, or a curve in his face. + +Mr. Tupman took the arm of the spinster aunt, and walked towards the +house; the fat boy followed behind. + +‘He knows nothing of what has happened,’ he whispered. + +‘Nothing,’ said the spinster aunt. + +There was a sound behind them, as of an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. +Mr. Tupman turned sharply round. No; it could not have been the fat boy; +there was not a gleam of mirth, or anything but feeding in his whole +visage. + +‘He must have been fast asleep,’ whispered Mr. Tupman. + +‘I have not the least doubt of it,’ replied the spinster aunt. + +They both laughed heartily. + +Mr. Tupman was wrong. The fat boy, for once, had not been fast asleep. +He was awake--wide awake--to what had been going forward. + +The supper passed off without any attempt at a general conversation. The +old lady had gone to bed; Isabella Wardle devoted herself exclusively to +Mr. Trundle; the spinster’s attentions were reserved for Mr. Tupman; and +Emily’s thoughts appeared to be engrossed by some distant object-- +possibly they were with the absent Snodgrass. + +Eleven--twelve--one o’clock had struck, and the gentlemen had not +arrived. Consternation sat on every face. Could they have been waylaid +and robbed? Should they send men and lanterns in every direction by +which they could be supposed likely to have travelled home? or should +they--Hark! there they were. What could have made them so late? A +strange voice, too! To whom could it belong? They rushed into the +kitchen, whither the truants had repaired, and at once obtained rather +more than a glimmering of the real state of the case. + +Mr. Pickwick, with his hands in his pockets and his hat cocked +completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking +his head from side to side, and producing a constant succession of the +blandest and most benevolent smiles without being moved thereunto by any +discernible cause or pretence whatsoever; old Mr. Wardle, with a highly- +inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman +muttering protestations of eternal friendship; Mr. Winkle, supporting +himself by the eight-day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the +head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of his +retiring for the night; and Mr. Snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with an +expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human mind +can imagine, portrayed in every lineament of his expressive face. + +‘Is anything the matter?’ inquired the three ladies. + +‘Nothing the matter,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘We--we’re--all right.--I +say, Wardle, we’re all right, ain’t we?’ + +‘I should think so,’ replied the jolly host.--‘My dears, here’s my +friend Mr. Jingle--Mr. Pickwick’s friend, Mr. Jingle, come ‘pon--little +visit.’ + +‘Is anything the matter with Mr. Snodgrass, Sir?’ inquired Emily, with +great anxiety. + +‘Nothing the matter, ma’am,’ replied the stranger. ‘Cricket dinner-- +glorious party--capital songs--old port--claret--good--very good--wine, +ma’am--wine.’ + + +‘It wasn’t the wine,’ murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. ‘It was +the salmon.’ (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.) + +‘Hadn’t they better go to bed, ma’am?’ inquired Emma. ‘Two of the boys +will carry the gentlemen upstairs.’ + +‘I won’t go to bed,’ said Mr. Winkle firmly. + +‘No living boy shall carry me,’ said Mr. Pickwick stoutly; and he went +on smiling as before. + +‘Hurrah!’ gasped Mr. Winkle faintly. + +‘Hurrah!’ echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat and dashing it on the +floor, and insanely casting his spectacles into the middle of the +kitchen. At this humorous feat he laughed outright. + +‘Let’s--have--‘nother--bottle,’ cried Mr. Winkle, commencing in a very +loud key, and ending in a very faint one. His head dropped upon his +breast; and, muttering his invincible determination not to go to his +bed, and a sanguinary regret that he had not ‘done for old Tupman’ in +the morning, he fell fast asleep; in which condition he was borne to his +apartment by two young giants under the personal superintendence of the +fat boy, to whose protecting care Mr. Snodgrass shortly afterwards +confided his own person, Mr. Pickwick accepted the proffered arm of Mr. +Tupman and quietly disappeared, smiling more than ever; and Mr. Wardle, +after taking as affectionate a leave of the whole family as if he were +ordered for immediate execution, consigned to Mr. Trundle the honour of +conveying him upstairs, and retired, with a very futile attempt to look +impressively solemn and dignified. + +‘What a shocking scene!’ said the spinster aunt. + +‘Dis-gusting!’ ejaculated both the young ladies. + +‘Dreadful--dreadful!’ said Jingle, looking very grave: he was about a +bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. ‘Horrid spectacle-- +very!’ + +‘What a nice man!’ whispered the spinster aunt to Mr. Tupman. + +‘Good-looking, too!’ whispered Emily Wardle. + +‘Oh, decidedly,’ observed the spinster aunt. + +Mr. Tupman thought of the widow at Rochester, and his mind was troubled. +The succeeding half-hour’s conversation was not of a nature to calm his +perturbed spirit. The new visitor was very talkative, and the number of +his anecdotes was only to be exceeded by the extent of his politeness. +Mr. Tupman felt that as Jingle’s popularity increased, he (Tupman) +retired further into the shade. His laughter was forced--his merriment +feigned; and when at last he laid his aching temples between the sheets, +he thought, with horrid delight, on the satisfaction it would afford him +to have Jingle’s head at that moment between the feather bed and the +mattress. + +The indefatigable stranger rose betimes next morning, and, although his +companions remained in bed overpowered with the dissipation of the +previous night, exerted himself most successfully to promote the +hilarity of the breakfast-table. So successful were his efforts, that +even the deaf old lady insisted on having one or two of his best jokes +retailed through the trumpet; and even she condescended to observe to +the spinster aunt, that ‘He’ (meaning Jingle) ‘was an impudent young +fellow:’ a sentiment in which all her relations then and there present +thoroughly coincided. + +It was the old lady’s habit on the fine summer mornings to repair to the +arbour in which Mr. Tupman had already signalised himself, in form and +manner following: first, the fat boy fetched from a peg behind the old +lady’s bedroom door, a close black satin bonnet, a warm cotton shawl, +and a thick stick with a capacious handle; and the old lady, having put +on the bonnet and shawl at her leisure, would lean one hand on the stick +and the other on the fat boy’s shoulder, and walk leisurely to the +arbour, where the fat boy would leave her to enjoy the fresh air for the +space of half an hour; at the expiration of which time he would return +and reconduct her to the house. + +The old lady was very precise and very particular; and as this ceremony +had been observed for three successive summers without the slightest +deviation from the accustomed form, she was not a little surprised on +this particular morning to see the fat boy, instead of leaving the +arbour, walk a few paces out of it, look carefully round him in every +direction, and return towards her with great stealth and an air of the +most profound mystery. + +The old lady was timorous--most old ladies are--and her first impression +was that the bloated lad was about to do her some grievous bodily harm +with the view of possessing himself of her loose coin. She would have +cried for assistance, but age and infirmity had long ago deprived her of +the power of screaming; she, therefore, watched his motions with +feelings of intense horror which were in no degree diminished by his +coming close up to her, and shouting in her ear in an agitated, and as +it seemed to her, a threatening tone-- + +‘Missus!’ + +Now it so happened that Mr. Jingle was walking in the garden close to +the arbour at that moment. He too heard the shouts of ‘Missus,’ and +stopped to hear more. There were three reasons for his doing so. In the +first place, he was idle and curious; secondly, he was by no means +scrupulous; thirdly, and lastly, he was concealed from view by some +flowering shrubs. So there he stood, and there he listened. + +‘Missus!’ shouted the fat boy. + +‘Well, Joe,’ said the trembling old lady. ‘I’m sure I have been a good +mistress to you, Joe. You have invariably been treated very kindly. You +have never had too much to do; and you have always had enough to eat.’ + +This last was an appeal to the fat boy’s most sensitive feelings. He +seemed touched, as he replied emphatically-- + +‘I knows I has.’ + +‘Then what can you want to do now?’ said the old lady, gaining courage. + +‘I wants to make your flesh creep,’ replied the boy. + +This sounded like a very bloodthirsty mode of showing one’s gratitude; +and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which +such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned. + +‘What do you think I see in this very arbour last night?’ inquired the +boy. + +‘Bless us! What?’ exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner +of the corpulent youth. + +‘The strange gentleman--him as had his arm hurt--a-kissin’ and huggin’-- +‘ + +‘Who, Joe? None of the servants, I hope.’ + +Worser than that,’ roared the fat boy, in the old lady’s ear. + +‘Not one of my grandda’aters?’ + +‘Worser than that.’ + +‘Worse than that, Joe!’ said the old lady, who had thought this the +extreme limit of human atrocity. ‘Who was it, Joe? I insist upon +knowing.’ + +The fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, +shouted in the old lady’s ear-- + +‘Miss Rachael.’ + +‘What!’ said the old lady, in a shrill tone. ‘Speak louder.’ + +‘Miss Rachael,’ roared the fat boy. + +‘My da’ater!’ + +The train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communicated +a blanc-mange like motion to his fat cheeks. + +‘And she suffered him!’ exclaimed the old lady. A grin stole over the +fat boy’s features as he said-- + +‘I see her a-kissin’ of him agin.’ + +If Mr. Jingle, from his place of concealment, could have beheld the +expression which the old lady’s face assumed at this communication, the +probability is that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed his +close vicinity to the summer-house. He listened attentively. Fragments +of angry sentences such as, ‘Without my permission!’--‘At her time of +life’--‘Miserable old ‘ooman like me’--‘Might have waited till I was +dead,’ and so forth, reached his ears; and then he heard the heels of +the fat boy’s boots crunching the gravel, as he retired and left the old +lady alone. + +It was a remarkable coincidence perhaps, but it was nevertheless a fact, +that Mr. Jingle within five minutes of his arrival at Manor Farm on the +preceding night, had inwardly resolved to lay siege to the heart of the +spinster aunt, without delay. He had observation enough to see, that his +off-hand manner was by no means disagreeable to the fair object of his +attack; and he had more than a strong suspicion that she possessed that +most desirable of all requisites, a small independence. The imperative +necessity of ousting his rival by some means or other, flashed quickly +upon him, and he immediately resolved to adopt certain proceedings +tending to that end and object, without a moment’s delay. Fielding tells +us that man is fire, and woman tow, and the Prince of Darkness sets a +light to ‘em. Mr. Jingle knew that young men, to spinster aunts, are as +lighted gas to gunpowder, and he determined to essay the effect of an +explosion without loss of time. + +Full of reflections upon this important decision, he crept from his +place of concealment, and, under cover of the shrubs before mentioned, +approached the house. Fortune seemed determined to favour his design. +Mr. Tupman and the rest of the gentlemen left the garden by the side +gate just as he obtained a view of it; and the young ladies, he knew, +had walked out alone, soon after breakfast. The coast was clear. + +The breakfast-parlour door was partially open. He peeped in. The +spinster aunt was knitting. He coughed; she looked up and smiled. +Hesitation formed no part of Mr. Alfred Jingle’s character. He laid his +finger on his lips mysteriously, walked in, and closed the door. + +‘Miss Wardle,’ said Mr. Jingle, with affected earnestness, ‘forgive +intrusion--short acquaintance--no time for ceremony--all discovered.’ + +‘Sir!’ said the spinster aunt, rather astonished by the unexpected +apparition and somewhat doubtful of Mr. Jingle’s sanity. + +‘Hush!’ said Mr. Jingle, in a stage-whisper--‘Large boy--dumpling face-- +round eyes--rascal!’ Here he shook his head expressively, and the +spinster aunt trembled with agitation. + +‘I presume you allude to Joseph, Sir?’ said the lady, making an effort +to appear composed. + +‘Yes, ma’am--damn that Joe!--treacherous dog, Joe--told the old lady-- +old lady furious--wild--raving--arbour--Tupman--kissing and hugging--all +that sort of thing--eh, ma’am--eh?’ + +‘Mr. Jingle,’ said the spinster aunt, ‘if you come here, Sir, to insult +me--’ + +‘Not at all--by no means,’ replied the unabashed Mr. Jingle--‘overheard +the tale--came to warn you of your danger--tender my services--prevent +the hubbub. Never mind--think it an insult--leave the room’--and he +turned, as if to carry the threat into execution. + +‘What _shall_ I do!’ said the poor spinster, bursting into tears. ‘My +brother will be furious.’ + +‘Of course he will,’ said Mr. Jingle pausing--‘outrageous.’ + +Oh, Mr. Jingle, what _can_ I say!’ exclaimed the spinster aunt, in +another flood of despair. + +‘Say he dreamt it,’ replied Mr. Jingle coolly. + +A ray of comfort darted across the mind of the spinster aunt at this +suggestion. Mr. Jingle perceived it, and followed up his advantage. + +‘Pooh, pooh!--nothing more easy--blackguard boy--lovely woman--fat boy +horsewhipped--you believed--end of the matter--all comfortable.’ + +Whether the probability of escaping from the consequences of this ill- +timed discovery was delightful to the spinster’s feelings, or whether +the hearing herself described as a ‘lovely woman’ softened the asperity +of her grief, we know not. She blushed slightly, and cast a grateful +look on Mr. Jingle. + +That insinuating gentleman sighed deeply, fixed his eyes on the spinster +aunt’s face for a couple of minutes, started melodramatically, and +suddenly withdrew them. + +‘You seem unhappy, Mr. Jingle,’ said the lady, in a plaintive voice. +‘May I show my gratitude for your kind interference, by inquiring into +the cause, with a view, if possible, to its removal?’ + +‘Ha!’ exclaimed Mr. Jingle, with another start--‘removal! remove my +unhappiness, and your love bestowed upon a man who is insensible to the +blessing--who even now contemplates a design upon the affections of the +niece of the creature who--but no; he is my friend; I will not expose +his vices. Miss Wardle--farewell!’ At the conclusion of this address, +the most consecutive he was ever known to utter, Mr. Jingle applied to +his eyes the remnant of a handkerchief before noticed, and turned +towards the door. + +‘Stay, Mr. Jingle!’ said the spinster aunt emphatically. ‘You have made +an allusion to Mr. Tupman--explain it.’ + +‘Never!’ exclaimed Jingle, with a professional (i.e., theatrical) air. +‘Never!’ and, by way of showing that he had no desire to be questioned +further, he drew a chair close to that of the spinster aunt and sat +down. + +‘Mr. Jingle,’ said the aunt, ‘I entreat--I implore you, if there is any +dreadful mystery connected with Mr. Tupman, reveal it.’ + +‘Can I,’ said Mr. Jingle, fixing his eyes on the aunt’s face--‘can I +see--lovely creature--sacrificed at the shrine--heartless avarice!’ He +appeared to be struggling with various conflicting emotions for a few +seconds, and then said in a low voice-- ‘Tupman only wants your money.’ + +‘The wretch!’ exclaimed the spinster, with energetic indignation. (Mr. +Jingle’s doubts were resolved. She _had_ money.) + +‘More than that,’ said Jingle--‘loves another.’ + +‘Another!’ ejaculated the spinster. ‘Who?’ + +Short girl--black eyes--niece Emily.’ + +There was a pause. + +Now, if there was one individual in the whole world, of whom the +spinster aunt entertained a mortal and deep-rooted jealousy, it was this +identical niece. The colour rushed over her face and neck, and she +tossed her head in silence with an air of ineffable contempt. At last, +biting her thin lips, and bridling up, she said-- + +‘It can’t be. I won’t believe it.’ + +‘Watch ‘em,’ said Jingle. + +‘I will,’ said the aunt. + +‘Watch his looks.’ + +‘I will.’ + +‘His whispers.’ + +‘I will.’ + +‘He’ll sit next her at table.’ + +‘Let him.’ + +‘He’ll flatter her.’ + +‘Let him.’ + +‘He’ll pay her every possible attention.’ + +‘Let him.’ + +‘And he’ll cut you.’ + +‘Cut _me_!’ screamed the spinster aunt. ‘_he_ cut _me_; will he!’ and +she trembled with rage and disappointment. + +‘You will convince yourself?’ said Jingle. + +‘I will.’ + +‘You’ll show your spirit?’ + +‘I will.’ + +You’ll not have him afterwards?’ + +‘Never.’ + +‘You’ll take somebody else?’ + +Yes.’ + +‘You shall.’ + +Mr. Jingle fell on his knees, remained thereupon for five minutes +thereafter; and rose the accepted lover of the spinster aunt-- +conditionally upon Mr. Tupman’s perjury being made clear and manifest. + +The burden of proof lay with Mr. Alfred Jingle; and he produced his +evidence that very day at dinner. The spinster aunt could hardly believe +her eyes. Mr. Tracy Tupman was established at Emily’s side, ogling, +whispering, and smiling, in opposition to Mr. Snodgrass. Not a word, not +a look, not a glance, did he bestow upon his heart’s pride of the +evening before. + +‘Damn that boy!’ thought old Mr. Wardle to himself.--He had heard the +story from his mother. ‘Damn that boy! He must have been asleep. It’s +all imagination.’ + +‘Traitor!’ thought the spinster aunt. ‘Dear Mr. Jingle was not deceiving +me. Ugh! how I hate the wretch!’ + +The following conversation may serve to explain to our readers this +apparently unaccountable alteration of deportment on the part of Mr. +Tracy Tupman. + +The time was evening; the scene the garden. There were two figures +walking in a side path; one was rather short and stout; the other tall +and slim. They were Mr. Tupman and Mr. Jingle. The stout figure +commenced the dialogue. + +‘How did I do it?’ he inquired. + +‘Splendid--capital--couldn’t act better myself--you must repeat the part +to-morrow--every evening till further notice.’ + +‘Does Rachael still wish it?’ + +‘Of course--she don’t like it--but must be done--avert suspicion--afraid +of her brother--says there’s no help for it--only a few days more--when +old folks blinded--crown your happiness.’ + +‘Any message?’ + +‘Love--best love--kindest regards--unalterable affection. Can I say +anything for you?’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ replied the unsuspicious Mr. Tupman, fervently +grasping his ‘friend’s’ hand--‘carry my best love--say how hard I find +it to dissemble--say anything that’s kind: but add how sensible I am of +the necessity of the suggestion she made to me, through you, this +morning. Say I applaud her wisdom and admire her discretion.’ + +I will. Anything more?’ + +‘Nothing, only add how ardently I long for the time when I may call her +mine, and all dissimulation may be unnecessary.’ + +‘Certainly, certainly. Anything more?’ + +‘Oh, my friend!’ said poor Mr. Tupman, again grasping the hand of his +companion, ‘receive my warmest thanks for your disinterested kindness; +and forgive me if I have ever, even in thought, done you the injustice +of supposing that you could stand in my way. My dear friend, can I ever +repay you?’ + +‘Don’t talk of it,’ replied Mr. Jingle. He stopped short, as if suddenly +recollecting something, and said--‘By the bye--can’t spare ten pounds, +can you?--very particular purpose--pay you in three days.’ + +‘I dare say I can,’ replied Mr. Tupman, in the fulness of his heart. +‘Three days, you say?’ + +‘Only three days--all over then--no more difficulties.’ Mr. Tupman +counted the money into his companion’s hand, and he dropped it piece by +piece into his pocket, as they walked towards the house. + +‘Be careful,’ said Mr. Jingle--‘not a look.’ + +‘Not a wink,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Not a syllable.’ + +‘Not a whisper.’ + +‘All your attentions to the niece--rather rude, than otherwise, to the +aunt--only way of deceiving the old ones.’ + +‘I’ll take care,’ said Mr. Tupman aloud. + +‘And _I’ll_ take care,’ said Mr. Jingle internally; and they entered the +house. + +The scene of that afternoon was repeated that evening, and on the three +afternoons and evenings next ensuing. On the fourth, the host was in +high spirits, for he had satisfied himself that there was no ground for +the charge against Mr. Tupman. So was Mr. Tupman, for Mr. Jingle had +told him that his affair would soon be brought to a crisis. So was Mr. +Pickwick, for he was seldom otherwise. So was not Mr. Snodgrass, for he +had grown jealous of Mr. Tupman. So was the old lady, for she had been +winning at whist. So were Mr. Jingle and Miss Wardle, for reasons of +sufficient importance in this eventful history to be narrated in another +chapter. + + + +CHAPTER IX. A DISCOVERY AND A CHASE + +The supper was ready laid, the chairs were drawn round the table, +bottles, jugs, and glasses were arranged upon the sideboard, and +everything betokened the approach of the most convivial period in the +whole four-and-twenty hours. + +‘Where’s Rachael?’ said Mr. Wardle. + +‘Ay, and Jingle?’ added Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Dear me,’ said the host, ‘I wonder I haven’t missed him before. Why, I +don’t think I’ve heard his voice for two hours at least. Emily, my dear, +ring the bell.’ + +The bell was rung, and the fat boy appeared. + +‘Where’s Miss Rachael?’ He couldn’t say. + +‘Where’s Mr. Jingle, then?’ He didn’t know. Everybody looked surprised. +It was late--past eleven o’clock. Mr. Tupman laughed in his sleeve. They +were loitering somewhere, talking about him. Ha, ha! capital notion +that--funny. + +‘Never mind,’ said Wardle, after a short pause. ‘They’ll turn up +presently, I dare say. I never wait supper for anybody.’ + +‘Excellent rule, that,’ said Mr. Pickwick--‘admirable.’ + +‘Pray, sit down,’ said the host. + +‘Certainly’ said Mr. Pickwick; and down they sat. + +There was a gigantic round of cold beef on the table, and Mr. Pickwick +was supplied with a plentiful portion of it. He had raised his fork to +his lips, and was on the very point of opening his mouth for the +reception of a piece of beef, when the hum of many voices suddenly arose +in the kitchen. He paused, and laid down his fork. Mr. Wardle paused +too, and insensibly released his hold of the carving-knife, which +remained inserted in the beef. He looked at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick +looked at him. + +Heavy footsteps were heard in the passage; the parlour door was suddenly +burst open; and the man who had cleaned Mr. Pickwick’s boots on his +first arrival, rushed into the room, followed by the fat boy and all the +domestics. + +‘What the devil’s the meaning of this?’ exclaimed the host. + +‘The kitchen chimney ain’t a-fire, is it, Emma?’ inquired the old lady. + +‘Lor, grandma! No,’ screamed both the young ladies. + +‘What’s the matter?’ roared the master of the house. + +The man gasped for breath, and faintly ejaculated-- + +‘They ha’ gone, mas’r!--gone right clean off, Sir!’ (At this juncture +Mr. Tupman was observed to lay down his knife and fork, and to turn very +pale.) + +‘Who’s gone?’ said Mr. Wardle fiercely. + +‘Mus’r Jingle and Miss Rachael, in a po’-chay, from Blue Lion, +Muggleton. I was there; but I couldn’t stop ‘em; so I run off to tell +‘ee.’ + +‘I paid his expenses!’ said Mr. Tupman, jumping up frantically. ‘He’s +got ten pounds of mine!--stop him!--he’s swindled me!--I won’t bear it!- +-I’ll have justice, Pickwick!--I won’t stand it!’ and with sundry +incoherent exclamations of the like nature, the unhappy gentleman spun +round and round the apartment, in a transport of frenzy. + +‘Lord preserve us!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, eyeing the extraordinary +gestures of his friend with terrified surprise. ‘He’s gone mad! What +shall we do?’ + +Do!’ said the stout old host, who regarded only the last words of the +sentence. ‘Put the horse in the gig! I’ll get a chaise at the Lion, and +follow ‘em instantly. Where?’--he exclaimed, as the man ran out to +execute the commission--‘where’s that villain, Joe?’ + +‘Here I am! but I hain’t a willin,’ replied a voice. It was the fat +boy’s. + +‘Let me get at him, Pickwick,’ cried Wardle, as he rushed at the ill- +starred youth. ‘He was bribed by that scoundrel, Jingle, to put me on a +wrong scent, by telling a cock-and-bull story of my sister and your +friend Tupman!’ (Here Mr. Tupman sank into a chair.) ‘Let me get at +him!’ + +‘Don’t let him!’ screamed all the women, above whose exclamations the +blubbering of the fat boy was distinctly audible. + +‘I won’t be held!’ cried the old man. ‘Mr. Winkle, take your hands off. +Mr. Pickwick, let me go, sir!’ + +It was a beautiful sight, in that moment of turmoil and confusion, to +behold the placid and philosophical expression of Mr. Pickwick’s face, +albeit somewhat flushed with exertion, as he stood with his arms firmly +clasped round the extensive waist of their corpulent host, thus +restraining the impetuosity of his passion, while the fat boy was +scratched, and pulled, and pushed from the room by all the females +congregated therein. He had no sooner released his hold, than the man +entered to announce that the gig was ready. + +‘Don’t let him go alone!’ screamed the females. ‘He’ll kill somebody!’ + +‘I’ll go with him,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You’re a good fellow, Pickwick,’ said the host, grasping his hand. +‘Emma, give Mr. Pickwick a shawl to tie round his neck--make haste. Look +after your grandmother, girls; she has fainted away. Now then, are you +ready?’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s mouth and chin having been hastily enveloped in a large +shawl, his hat having been put on his head, and his greatcoat thrown +over his arm, he replied in the affirmative. + +They jumped into the gig. ‘Give her her head, Tom,’ cried the host; and +away they went, down the narrow lanes; jolting in and out of the cart- +ruts, and bumping up against the hedges on either side, as if they would +go to pieces every moment. + +‘How much are they ahead?’ shouted Wardle, as they drove up to the door +of the Blue Lion, round which a little crowd had collected, late as it +was. + +‘Not above three-quarters of an hour,’ was everybody’s reply. + +‘Chaise-and-four directly!--out with ‘em! Put up the gig afterwards.’ + +‘Now, boys!’ cried the landlord--‘chaise-and-four out--make haste--look +alive there!’ + +Away ran the hostlers and the boys. The lanterns glimmered, as the men +ran to and fro; the horses’ hoofs clattered on the uneven paving of the +yard; the chaise rumbled as it was drawn out of the coach-house; and all +was noise and bustle. + +‘Now then!--is that chaise coming out to-night?’ cried Wardle. + +‘Coming down the yard now, Sir,’ replied the hostler. + +Out came the chaise--in went the horses--on sprang the boys--in got the +travellers. + +‘Mind--the seven-mile stage in less than half an hour!’ shouted Wardle. + +‘Off with you!’ + +The boys applied whip and spur, the waiters shouted, the hostlers +cheered, and away they went, fast and furiously. + +‘Pretty situation,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, when he had had a moment’s +time for reflection. ‘Pretty situation for the general chairman of the +Pickwick Club. Damp chaise--strange horses--fifteen miles an hour--and +twelve o’clock at night!’ + +For the first three or four miles, not a word was spoken by either of +the gentlemen, each being too much immersed in his own reflections to +address any observations to his companion. When they had gone over that +much ground, however, and the horses getting thoroughly warmed began to +do their work in really good style, Mr. Pickwick became too much +exhilarated with the rapidity of the motion, to remain any longer +perfectly mute. + +‘We’re sure to catch them, I think,’ said he. + +‘Hope so,’ replied his companion. + +‘Fine night,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking up at the moon, which was +shining brightly. + +‘So much the worse,’ returned Wardle; ‘for they’ll have had all the +advantage of the moonlight to get the start of us, and we shall lose it. +It will have gone down in another hour.’ + +‘It will be rather unpleasant going at this rate in the dark, won’t it?’ +inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I dare say it will,’ replied his friend dryly. + +Mr. Pickwick’s temporary excitement began to sober down a little, as he +reflected upon the inconveniences and dangers of the expedition in which +he had so thoughtlessly embarked. He was roused by a loud shouting of +the post-boy on the leader. + +‘Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ went the first boy. + +‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ went the second. + +‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ chimed in old Wardle himself, most lustily, with his +head and half his body out of the coach window. + +‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ shouted Mr. Pickwick, taking up the burden of the cry, +though he had not the slightest notion of its meaning or object. And +amidst the yo-yoing of the whole four, the chaise stopped. + +‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘There’s a gate here,’ replied old Wardle. ‘We shall hear something of +the fugitives.’ + +After a lapse of five minutes, consumed in incessant knocking and +shouting, an old man in his shirt and trousers emerged from the +turnpike-house, and opened the gate. + +‘How long is it since a post-chaise went through here?’ inquired Mr. +Wardle. + +‘How long?’ + +‘Ah!’ + +‘Why, I don’t rightly know. It worn’t a long time ago, nor it worn’t a +short time ago--just between the two, perhaps.’ + +‘Has any chaise been by at all?’ + +‘Oh, yes, there’s been a chay by.’ + +‘How long ago, my friend,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick; ‘an hour?’ + +‘Ah, I dare say it might be,’ replied the man. + +‘Or two hours?’ inquired the post--boy on the wheeler. + +‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if it was,’ returned the old man doubtfully. + +‘Drive on, boys,’ cried the testy old gentleman; ‘don’t waste any more +time with that old idiot!’ + +‘Idiot!’ exclaimed the old man with a grin, as he stood in the middle of +the road with the gate half-closed, watching the chaise which rapidly +diminished in the increasing distance. ‘No--not much o’ that either; +you’ve lost ten minutes here, and gone away as wise as you came, arter +all. If every man on the line as has a guinea give him, earns it half as +well, you won’t catch t’other chay this side Mich’lmas, old short-and- +fat.’ And with another prolonged grin, the old man closed the gate, re- +entered his house, and bolted the door after him. + +Meanwhile the chaise proceeded, without any slackening of pace, towards +the conclusion of the stage. The moon, as Wardle had foretold, was +rapidly on the wane; large tiers of dark, heavy clouds, which had been +gradually overspreading the sky for some time past, now formed one black +mass overhead; and large drops of rain which pattered every now and then +against the windows of the chaise, seemed to warn the travellers of the +rapid approach of a stormy night. The wind, too, which was directly +against them, swept in furious gusts down the narrow road, and howled +dismally through the trees which skirted the pathway. Mr. Pickwick drew +his coat closer about him, coiled himself more snugly up into the corner +of the chaise, and fell into a sound sleep, from which he was only +awakened by the stopping of the vehicle, the sound of the hostler’s +bell, and a loud cry of ‘Horses on directly!’ + +But here another delay occurred. The boys were sleeping with such +mysterious soundness, that it took five minutes a-piece to wake them. +The hostler had somehow or other mislaid the key of the stable, and even +when that was found, two sleepy helpers put the wrong harness on the +wrong horses, and the whole process of harnessing had to be gone through +afresh. Had Mr. Pickwick been alone, these multiplied obstacles would +have completely put an end to the pursuit at once, but old Wardle was +not to be so easily daunted; and he laid about him with such hearty +good-will, cuffing this man, and pushing that; strapping a buckle here, +and taking in a link there, that the chaise was ready in a much shorter +time than could reasonably have been expected, under so many +difficulties. + +They resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was +by no means encouraging. The stage was fifteen miles long, the night was +dark, the wind high, and the rain pouring in torrents. It was impossible +to make any great way against such obstacles united; it was hard upon +one o’clock already; and nearly two hours were consumed in getting to +the end of the stage. Here, however, an object presented itself, which +rekindled their hopes, and reanimated their drooping spirits. + +‘When did this chaise come in?’ cried old Wardle, leaping out of his own +vehicle, and pointing to one covered with wet mud, which was standing in +the yard. + +‘Not a quarter of an hour ago, sir,’ replied the hostler, to whom the +question was addressed. + +‘Lady and gentleman?’ inquired Wardle, almost breathless with +impatience. + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Tall gentleman--dress-coat--long legs--thin body?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Elderly lady--thin face--rather skinny--eh?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘By heavens, it’s the couple, Pickwick,’ exclaimed the old gentleman. + +‘Would have been here before,’ said the hostler, ‘but they broke a +trace.’ + +‘’Tis them!’ said Wardle, ‘it is, by Jove! Chaise-and-four instantly! We +shall catch them yet before they reach the next stage. A guinea a-piece, +boys-be alive there--bustle about--there’s good fellows.’ + +And with such admonitions as these, the old gentleman ran up and down +the yard, and bustled to and fro, in a state of excitement which +communicated itself to Mr. Pickwick also; and under the influence of +which, that gentleman got himself into complicated entanglements with +harness, and mixed up with horses and wheels of chaises, in the most +surprising manner, firmly believing that by so doing he was materially +forwarding the preparations for their resuming their journey. + +‘Jump in--jump in!’ cried old Wardle, climbing into the chaise, pulling +up the steps, and slamming the door after him. ‘Come along! Make haste!’ +And before Mr. Pickwick knew precisely what he was about, he felt +himself forced in at the other door, by one pull from the old gentleman +and one push from the hostler; and off they were again. + +‘Ah! we are moving now,’ said the old gentleman exultingly. They were +indeed, as was sufficiently testified to Mr. Pickwick, by his constant +collision either with the hard wood-work of the chaise, or the body of +his companion. + +‘Hold up!’ said the stout old Mr. Wardle, as Mr. Pickwick dived head +foremost into his capacious waistcoat. + +‘I never did feel such a jolting in my life,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Never mind,’ replied his companion, ‘it will soon be over. Steady, +steady.’ + +Mr. Pickwick planted himself into his own corner, as firmly as he could; +and on whirled the chaise faster than ever. + +They had travelled in this way about three miles, when Mr. Wardle, who +had been looking out of the Window for two or three minutes, suddenly +drew in his face, covered with splashes, and exclaimed in breathless +eagerness-- + +‘Here they are!’ + +Mr. Pickwick thrust his head out of his window. Yes: there was a chaise- +and-four, a short distance before them, dashing along at full gallop. + +‘Go on, go on,’ almost shrieked the old gentleman. ‘Two guineas a-piece, +boys--don’t let ‘em gain on us--keep it up--keep it up.’ + +The horses in the first chaise started on at their utmost speed; and +those in Mr. Wardle’s galloped furiously behind them. + +‘I see his head,’ exclaimed the choleric old man; ‘damme, I see his +head.’ + +‘So do I’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘that’s he.’ + +Mr. Pickwick was not mistaken. The countenance of Mr. Jingle, completely +coated with mud thrown up by the wheels, was plainly discernible at the +window of his chaise; and the motion of his arm, which was waving +violently towards the postillions, denoted that he was encouraging them +to increased exertion. + +The interest was intense. Fields, trees, and hedges, seemed to rush past +them with the velocity of a whirlwind, so rapid was the pace at which +they tore along. They were close by the side of the first chaise. +Jingle’s voice could be plainly heard, even above the din of the wheels, +urging on the boys. Old Mr. Wardle foamed with rage and excitement. He +roared out scoundrels and villains by the dozen, clenched his fist and +shook it expressively at the object of his indignation; but Mr. Jingle +only answered with a contemptuous smile, and replied to his menaces by a +shout of triumph, as his horses, answering the increased application of +whip and spur, broke into a faster gallop, and left the pursuers behind. + +Mr. Pickwick had just drawn in his head, and Mr. Wardle, exhausted with +shouting, had done the same, when a tremendous jolt threw them forward +against the front of the vehicle. There was a sudden bump--a loud crash- +-away rolled a wheel, and over went the chaise. + +After a very few seconds of bewilderment and confusion, in which nothing +but the plunging of horses, and breaking of glass could be made out, Mr. +Pickwick felt himself violently pulled out from among the ruins of the +chaise; and as soon as he had gained his feet, extricated his head from +the skirts of his greatcoat, which materially impeded the usefulness of +his spectacles, the full disaster of the case met his view. + +Old Mr. Wardle without a hat, and his clothes torn in several places, +stood by his side, and the fragments of the chaise lay scattered at +their feet. The post-boys, who had succeeded in cutting the traces, were +standing, disfigured with mud and disordered by hard riding, by the +horses’ heads. About a hundred yards in advance was the other chaise, +which had pulled up on hearing the crash. The postillions, each with a +broad grin convulsing his countenance, were viewing the adverse party +from their saddles, and Mr. Jingle was contemplating the wreck from the +coach window, with evident satisfaction. The day was just breaking, and +the whole scene was rendered perfectly visible by the grey light of the +morning. + + +‘Hollo!’ shouted the shameless Jingle, ‘anybody damaged?--elderly +gentlemen--no light weights--dangerous work--very.’ + +‘You’re a rascal,’ roared Wardle. + +‘Ha! ha!’ replied Jingle; and then he added, with a knowing wink, and a +jerk of the thumb towards the interior of the chaise--‘I say--she’s very +well--desires her compliments--begs you won’t trouble yourself--love to +_Tuppy_--won’t you get up behind?--drive on, boys.’ + +The postillions resumed their proper attitudes, and away rattled the +chaise, Mr. Jingle fluttering in derision a white handkerchief from the +coach window. + +Nothing in the whole adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the +calm and equable current of Mr. Pickwick’s temper. The villainy, +however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and +then abbreviate his name to ‘Tuppy,’ was more than he could patiently +bear. He drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very tips of his +spectacles, as he said, slowly and emphatically-- + +‘If ever I meet that man again, I’ll--’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Wardle, ‘that’s all very well; but while we +stand talking here, they’ll get their licence, and be married in +London.’ + +Mr. Pickwick paused, bottled up his vengeance, and corked it down. ‘How +far is it to the next stage?’ inquired Mr. Wardle, of one of the boys. + +‘Six mile, ain’t it, Tom?’ + +‘Rayther better.’ + +‘Rayther better nor six mile, Sir.’ + +‘Can’t be helped,’ said Wardle, ‘we must walk it, Pickwick.’ + +‘No help for it,’ replied that truly great man. + +So sending forward one of the boys on horseback, to procure a fresh +chaise and horses, and leaving the other behind to take care of the +broken one, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle set manfully forward on the +walk, first tying their shawls round their necks, and slouching down +their hats to escape as much as possible from the deluge of rain, which +after a slight cessation had again begun to pour heavily down. + + + +CHAPTER X. CLEARING UP ALL DOUBTS (IF ANY EXISTED) OF THE +DISINTERESTEDNESS OF MR. A. JINGLE’S CHARACTER + +There are in London several old inns, once the headquarters of +celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in +a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times; but which +have now degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking- +places of country wagons. The reader would look in vain for any of these +ancient hostelries, among the Golden Crosses and Bull and Mouths, which +rear their stately fronts in the improved streets of London. If he would +light upon any of these old places, he must direct his steps to the +obscurer quarters of the town, and there in some secluded nooks he will +find several, still standing with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst +the modern innovations which surround them. + +In the Borough especially, there still remain some half-dozen old inns, +which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have +escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of +private speculation. Great, rambling queer old places they are, with +galleries, and passages, and staircases, wide enough and antiquated +enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we +should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and +that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable +veracious legends connected with old London Bridge, and its adjacent +neighbourhood on the Surrey side. + +It was in the yard of one of these inns--of no less celebrated a one +than the White Hart--that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt +off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated +in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse, striped waistcoat, with +black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and +leggings. A bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and +unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly +thrown on one side of his head. There were two rows of boots before him, +one cleaned and the other dirty, and at every addition he made to the +clean row, he paused from his work, and contemplated its results with +evident satisfaction. + +The yard presented none of that bustle and activity which are the usual +characteristics of a large coach inn. Three or four lumbering wagons, +each with a pile of goods beneath its ample canopy, about the height of +the second-floor window of an ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a +lofty roof which extended over one end of the yard; and another, which +was probably to commence its journey that morning, was drawn out into +the open space. A double tier of bedroom galleries, with old clumsy +balustrades, ran round two sides of the straggling area, and a double +row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by a little +sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the bar and coffee-room. Two +or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under different little +sheds and pent-houses; and the occasional heavy tread of a cart-horse, +or rattling of a chain at the farther end of the yard, announced to +anybody who cared about the matter, that the stable lay in that +direction. When we add that a few boys in smock-frocks were lying asleep +on heavy packages, wool-packs, and other articles that were scattered +about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be the +general appearance of the yard of the White Hart Inn, High Street, +Borough, on the particular morning in question. + +A loud ringing of one of the bells was followed by the appearance of a +smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at +one of the doors, and receiving a request from within, called over the +balustrades-- + +‘Sam!’ + +‘Hollo,’ replied the man with the white hat. + +‘Number twenty-two wants his boots.’ + +‘Ask number twenty-two, vether he’ll have ‘em now, or vait till he gets +‘em,’ was the reply. + +‘Come, don’t be a fool, Sam,’ said the girl coaxingly, ‘the gentleman +wants his boots directly.’ + +‘Well, you _are_ a nice young ‘ooman for a musical party, you are,’ said +the boot-cleaner. ‘Look at these here boots--eleven pair o’ boots; and +one shoe as belongs to number six, with the wooden leg. The eleven boots +is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. Who’s number +twenty-two, that’s to put all the others out? No, no; reg’lar rotation, +as Jack Ketch said, ven he tied the men up. Sorry to keep you a-waitin’, +Sir, but I’ll attend to you directly.’ + +Saying which, the man in the white hat set to work upon a top-boot with +increased assiduity. + +There was another loud ring; and the bustling old landlady of the White +Hart made her appearance in the opposite gallery. + +‘Sam,’ cried the landlady, ‘where’s that lazy, idle--why, Sam--oh, there +you are; why don’t you answer?’ + +‘Vouldn’t be gen-teel to answer, till you’d done talking,’ replied Sam +gruffly. + +‘Here, clean these shoes for number seventeen directly, and take ‘em to +private sitting-room, number five, first floor.’ + +The landlady flung a pair of lady’s shoes into the yard, and bustled +away. + +‘Number five,’ said Sam, as he picked up the shoes, and taking a piece +of chalk from his pocket, made a memorandum of their destination on the +soles--‘Lady’s shoes and private sittin’-room! I suppose she didn’t come +in the vagin.’ + +‘She came in early this morning,’ cried the girl, who was still leaning +over the railing of the gallery, ‘with a gentleman in a hackney-coach, +and it’s him as wants his boots, and you’d better do ‘em, that’s all +about it.’ + +‘Vy didn’t you say so before,’ said Sam, with great indignation, +singling out the boots in question from the heap before him. ‘For all I +know’d he was one o’ the regular threepennies. Private room! and a lady +too! If he’s anything of a gen’l’m’n, he’s vurth a shillin’ a day, let +alone the arrands.’ + +Stimulated by this inspiring reflection, Mr. Samuel brushed away with +such hearty good-will, that in a few minutes the boots and shoes, with a +polish which would have struck envy to the soul of the amiable Mr. +Warren (for they used Day & Martin at the White Hart), had arrived at +the door of number five. + +‘Come in,’ said a man’s voice, in reply to Sam’s rap at the door. Sam +made his best bow, and stepped into the presence of a lady and gentleman +seated at breakfast. Having officiously deposited the gentleman’s boots +right and left at his feet, and the lady’s shoes right and left at hers, +he backed towards the door. + +‘Boots,’ said the gentleman. + +‘Sir,’ said Sam, closing the door, and keeping his hand on the knob of +the lock. + +‘Do you know--what’s a-name--Doctors’ Commons?’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +‘Where is it?’ + +‘Paul’s Churchyard, Sir; low archway on the carriage side, bookseller’s +at one corner, hotel on the other, and two porters in the middle as +touts for licences.’ + +‘Touts for licences!’ said the gentleman. + +‘Touts for licences,’ replied Sam. ‘Two coves in vhite aprons--touches +their hats ven you walk in--“Licence, Sir, licence?” Queer sort, them, +and their mas’rs, too, sir--Old Bailey Proctors--and no mistake.’ + +‘What do they do?’ inquired the gentleman. + +‘Do! You, Sir! That ain’t the worst on it, neither. They puts things +into old gen’l’m’n’s heads as they never dreamed of. My father, Sir, wos +a coachman. A widower he wos, and fat enough for anything--uncommon fat, +to be sure. His missus dies, and leaves him four hundred pound. Down he +goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt--very smart-- +top boots on--nosegay in his button-hole--broad-brimmed tile--green +shawl--quite the gen’l’m’n. Goes through the archvay, thinking how he +should inwest the money--up comes the touter, touches his hat--“Licence, +Sir, licence?”--“What’s that?” says my father.--“Licence, Sir,” says +he.--“What licence?” says my father.--“Marriage licence,” says the +touter.--“Dash my veskit,” says my father, “I never thought o’ that.”-- +“I think you wants one, Sir,” says the touter. My father pulls up, and +thinks a bit--“No,” says he, “damme, I’m too old, b’sides, I’m a many +sizes too large,” says he.--“Not a bit on it, Sir,” says the touter.-- +“Think not?” says my father.--“I’m sure not,” says he; “we married a +gen’l’m’n twice your size, last Monday.”--“Did you, though?” said my +father.--“To be sure, we did,” says the touter, “you’re a babby to him-- +this way, sir--this way!”--and sure enough my father walks arter him, +like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a +teller sat among dirty papers, and tin boxes, making believe he was +busy. “Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, Sir,” says the +lawyer.--“Thank’ee, Sir,” says my father, and down he sat, and stared +with all his eyes, and his mouth vide open, at the names on the boxes. +“What’s your name, Sir,” says the lawyer.--“Tony Weller,” says my +father.--“Parish?” says the lawyer. “Belle Savage,” says my father; for +he stopped there wen he drove up, and he know’d nothing about parishes, +he didn’t.--“And what’s the lady’s name?” says the lawyer. My father was +struck all of a heap. “Blessed if I know,” says he.--“Not know!” says +the lawyer.--“No more nor you do,” says my father; “can’t I put that in +arterwards?”--“Impossible!” says the lawyer.--“Wery well,” says my +father, after he’d thought a moment, “put down Mrs. Clarke.”--“What +Clarke?” says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink.--“Susan Clarke, +Markis o’ Granby, Dorking,” says my father; “she’ll have me, if I ask. I +des-say--I never said nothing to her, but she’ll have me, I know.” The +licence was made out, and she _did_ have him, and what’s more she’s got +him now; and I never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg +your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, when he had concluded, ‘but wen I gets on +this here grievance, I runs on like a new barrow with the wheel +greased.’ Having said which, and having paused for an instant to see +whether he was wanted for anything more, Sam left the room. + +‘Half-past nine--just the time--off at once;’ said the gentleman, whom +we need hardly introduce as Mr. Jingle. + +‘Time--for what?’ said the spinster aunt coquettishly. + +‘Licence, dearest of angels--give notice at the church--call you mine, +to-morrow’--said Mr. Jingle, and he squeezed the spinster aunt’s hand. + +‘The licence!’ said Rachael, blushing. + +‘The licence,’ repeated Mr. Jingle-- + + +‘In hurry, post-haste for a licence, In hurry, ding dong I come back.’ + +‘How you run on,’ said Rachael. + +‘Run on--nothing to the hours, days, weeks, months, years, when we’re +united--run on--they’ll fly on--bolt--mizzle--steam-engine--thousand- +horse power--nothing to it.’ + +‘Can’t--can’t we be married before to-morrow morning?’ inquired Rachael. + +‘Impossible--can’t be--notice at the church--leave the licence to-day-- +ceremony come off to-morrow.’ + +I am so terrified, lest my brother should discover us!’ said Rachael. + +‘Discover--nonsense--too much shaken by the break-down--besides--extreme +caution--gave up the post-chaise--walked on--took a hackney-coach--came +to the Borough--last place in the world that he’d look in--ha! ha!-- +capital notion that--very.’ + +‘Don’t be long,’ said the spinster affectionately, as Mr. Jingle stuck +the pinched-up hat on his head. + +‘Long away from you?--Cruel charmer,’ and Mr. Jingle skipped playfully +up to the spinster aunt, imprinted a chaste kiss upon her lips, and +danced out of the room. + +‘Dear man!’ said the spinster, as the door closed after him. + +‘Rum old girl,’ said Mr. Jingle, as he walked down the passage. + +It is painful to reflect upon the perfidy of our species; and we will +not, therefore, pursue the thread of Mr. Jingle’s meditations, as he +wended his way to Doctors’ Commons. It will be sufficient for our +purpose to relate, that escaping the snares of the dragons in white +aprons, who guard the entrance to that enchanted region, he reached the +vicar-general’s office in safety and having procured a highly flattering +address on parchment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to his ‘trusty +and well-beloved Alfred Jingle and Rachael Wardle, greeting,’ he +carefully deposited the mystic document in his pocket, and retraced his +steps in triumph to the Borough. + +He was yet on his way to the White Hart, when two plump gentleman and +one thin one entered the yard, and looked round in search of some +authorised person of whom they could make a few inquiries. Mr. Samuel +Weller happened to be at that moment engaged in burnishing a pair of +painted tops, the personal property of a farmer who was refreshing +himself with a slight lunch of two or three pounds of cold beef and a +pot or two of porter, after the fatigues of the Borough market; and to +him the thin gentleman straightway advanced. + + +‘My friend,’ said the thin gentleman. + +‘You’re one o’ the adwice gratis order,’ thought Sam, ‘or you wouldn’t +be so wery fond o’ me all at once.’ But he only said--‘Well, Sir.’ + +‘My friend,’ said the thin gentleman, with a conciliatory hem--‘have you +got many people stopping here now? Pretty busy. Eh?’ + +Sam stole a look at the inquirer. He was a little high-dried man, with a +dark squeezed-up face, and small, restless, black eyes, that kept +winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive nose, as if +they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature. He was +dressed all in black, with boots as shiny as his eyes, a low white +neckcloth, and a clean shirt with a frill to it. A gold watch-chain, and +seals, depended from his fob. He carried his black kid gloves _in_ his +hands, and not ON them; and as he spoke, thrust his wrists beneath his +coat tails, with the air of a man who was in the habit of propounding +some regular posers. + +‘Pretty busy, eh?’ said the little man. + +‘Oh, wery well, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘we shan’t be bankrupts, and we +shan’t make our fort’ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and +don’t care for horse-radish ven ve can get beef.’ + +‘Ah,’ said the little man, ‘you’re a wag, ain’t you?’ + +‘My eldest brother was troubled with that complaint,’ said Sam; ‘it may +be catching--I used to sleep with him.’ + +‘This is a curious old house of yours,’ said the little man, looking +round him. + +‘If you’d sent word you was a-coming, we’d ha’ had it repaired;’ replied +the imperturbable Sam. + +The little man seemed rather baffled by these several repulses, and a +short consultation took place between him and the two plump gentlemen. +At its conclusion, the little man took a pinch of snuff from an oblong +silver box, and was apparently on the point of renewing the +conversation, when one of the plump gentlemen, who in addition to a +benevolent countenance, possessed a pair of spectacles, and a pair of +black gaiters, interfered-- + +‘The fact of the matter is,’ said the benevolent gentleman, ‘that my +friend here (pointing to the other plump gentleman) will give you half a +guinea, if you’ll answer one or two--’ + +‘Now, my dear sir--my dear Sir,’ said the little man, ‘pray, allow me-- +my dear Sir, the very first principle to be observed in these cases, is +this: if you place the matter in the hands of a professional man, you +must in no way interfere in the progress of the business; you must +repose implicit confidence in him. Really, Mr.--’ He turned to the other +plump gentleman, and said, ‘I forget your friend’s name.’ + +‘Pickwick,’ said Mr. Wardle, for it was no other than that jolly +personage. + +‘Ah, Pickwick--really Mr. Pickwick, my dear Sir, excuse me--I shall be +happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as AMICUS CURIAE, but +you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this +case, with such an AD CAPTANDUM argument as the offer of half a guinea. +Really, my dear Sir, really;’ and the little man took an argumentative +pinch of snuff, and looked very profound. + +‘My only wish, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘was to bring this very +unpleasant matter to as speedy a close as possible.’ + +‘Quite right--quite right,’ said the little man. + +‘With which view,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, ‘I made use of the argument +which my experience of men has taught me is the most likely to succeed +in any case.’ + +‘Ay, ay,’ said the little man, ‘very good, very good, indeed; but you +should have suggested it to me. My dear sir, I’m quite certain you +cannot be ignorant of the extent of confidence which must be placed in +professional men. If any authority can be necessary on such a point, my +dear sir, let me refer you to the well-known case in Barnwell and--’ + +‘Never mind George Barnwell,’ interrupted Sam, who had remained a +wondering listener during this short colloquy; ‘everybody knows what +sort of a case his was, tho’ it’s always been my opinion, mind you, that +the young ‘ooman deserved scragging a precious sight more than he did. +Hows’ever, that’s neither here nor there. You want me to accept of half +a guinea. Wery well, I’m agreeable: I can’t say no fairer than that, can +I, sir?’ (Mr. Pickwick smiled.) Then the next question is, what the +devil do you want with me, as the man said, wen he see the ghost?’ + +‘We want to know--’ said Mr. Wardle. + +‘Now, my dear sir--my dear sir,’ interposed the busy little man. + +Mr. Wardle shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. + +‘We want to know,’ said the little man solemnly; ‘and we ask the +question of you, in order that we may not awaken apprehensions inside-- +we want to know who you’ve got in this house at present?’ + +‘Who there is in the house!’ said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were +always represented by that particular article of their costume, which +came under his immediate superintendence. ‘There’s a vooden leg in +number six; there’s a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there’s two pair of +halves in the commercial; there’s these here painted tops in the +snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.’ + +‘Nothing more?’ said the little man. + +‘Stop a bit,’ replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. ‘Yes; there’s +a pair of Vellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o’ lady’s shoes, in +number five.’ + +‘What sort of shoes?’ hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr. +Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of +visitors. + +‘Country make,’ replied Sam. + +‘Any maker’s name?’ + +‘Brown.’ + +‘Where of?’ + +‘Muggleton. + +‘It is them,’ exclaimed Wardle. ‘By heavens, we’ve found them.’ + +‘Hush!’ said Sam. ‘The Vellingtons has gone to Doctors’ Commons.’ + +‘No,’ said the little man. + +‘Yes, for a licence.’ + +‘We’re in time,’ exclaimed Wardle. ‘Show us the room; not a moment is to +be lost.’ + +‘Pray, my dear sir--pray,’ said the little man; ‘caution, caution.’ He +drew from his pocket a red silk purse, and looked very hard at Sam as he +drew out a sovereign. + +Sam grinned expressively. + +‘Show us into the room at once, without announcing us,’ said the little +man, ‘and it’s yours.’ + +Sam threw the painted tops into a corner, and led the way through a dark +passage, and up a wide staircase. He paused at the end of a second +passage, and held out his hand. + +‘Here it is,’ whispered the attorney, as he deposited the money on the +hand of their guide. + +The man stepped forward for a few paces, followed by the two friends and +their legal adviser. He stopped at a door. + +‘Is this the room?’ murmured the little gentleman. + +Sam nodded assent. + +Old Wardle opened the door; and the whole three walked into the room +just as Mr. Jingle, who had that moment returned, had produced the +licence to the spinster aunt. + +The spinster uttered a loud shriek, and throwing herself into a chair, +covered her face with her hands. Mr. Jingle crumpled up the licence, and +thrust it into his coat pocket. The unwelcome visitors advanced into the +middle of the room. + +‘You--you are a nice rascal, arn’t you?’ exclaimed Wardle, breathless +with passion. + +‘My dear Sir, my dear sir,’ said the little man, laying his hat on the +table, ‘pray, consider--pray. Defamation of character: action for +damages. Calm yourself, my dear sir, pray--’ + +‘How dare you drag my sister from my house?’ said the old man. + +Ay--ay--very good,’ said the little gentleman, ‘you may ask that. How +dare you, sir?--eh, sir?’ + +‘Who the devil are you?’ inquired Mr. Jingle, in so fierce a tone, that +the little gentleman involuntarily fell back a step or two. + +‘Who is he, you scoundrel,’ interposed Wardle. ‘He’s my lawyer, Mr. +Perker, of Gray’s Inn. Perker, I’ll have this fellow prosecuted-- +indicted--I’ll--I’ll--I’ll ruin him. And you,’ continued Mr. Wardle, +turning abruptly round to his sister--‘you, Rachael, at a time of life +when you ought to know better, what do you mean by running away with a +vagabond, disgracing your family, and making yourself miserable? Get on +your bonnet and come back. Call a hackney-coach there, directly, and +bring this lady’s bill, d’ye hear--d’ye hear?’ + +Cert’nly, Sir,’ replied Sam, who had answered Wardle’s violent ringing +of the bell with a degree of celerity which must have appeared +marvellous to anybody who didn’t know that his eye had been applied to +the outside of the keyhole during the whole interview. + +‘Get on your bonnet,’ repeated Wardle. + +‘Do nothing of the kind,’ said Jingle. ‘Leave the room, Sir--no business +here--lady’s free to act as she pleases--more than one-and-twenty.’ + +‘More than one-and-twenty!’ ejaculated Wardle contemptuously. ‘More than +one-and-forty!’ + +‘I ain’t,’ said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of +her determination to faint. + +‘You are,’ replied Wardle; ‘you’re fifty if you’re an hour.’ + +Here the spinster aunt uttered a loud shriek, and became senseless. + +‘A glass of water,’ said the humane Mr. Pickwick, summoning the +landlady. + +‘A glass of water!’ said the passionate Wardle. ‘Bring a bucket, and +throw it all over her; it’ll do her good, and she richly deserves it.’ + +‘Ugh, you brute!’ ejaculated the kind-hearted landlady. ‘Poor dear.’ And +with sundry ejaculations of ‘Come now, there’s a dear--drink a little of +this--it’ll do you good--don’t give way so--there’s a love,’ etc. etc., +the landlady, assisted by a chambermaid, proceeded to vinegar the +forehead, beat the hands, titillate the nose, and unlace the stays of +the spinster aunt, and to administer such other restoratives as are +usually applied by compassionate females to ladies who are endeavouring +to ferment themselves into hysterics. + +‘Coach is ready, Sir,’ said Sam, appearing at the door. + +‘Come along,’ cried Wardle. ‘I’ll carry her downstairs.’ + +At this proposition, the hysterics came on with redoubled violence. + +The landlady was about to enter a very violent protest against this +proceeding, and had already given vent to an indignant inquiry whether +Mr. Wardle considered himself a lord of the creation, when Mr. Jingle +interposed-- + +‘Boots,’ said he, ‘get me an officer.’ + +‘Stay, stay,’ said little Mr. Perker. ‘Consider, Sir, consider.’ + +‘I’ll not consider,’ replied Jingle. ‘She’s her own mistress--see who +dares to take her away--unless she wishes it.’ + +‘I _won’t_ be taken away,’ murmured the spinster aunt. ‘I _don’t_ wish +it.’ (Here there was a frightful relapse.) + +‘My dear Sir,’ said the little man, in a low tone, taking Mr. Wardle and +Mr. Pickwick apart--‘my dear Sir, we’re in a very awkward situation. +It’s a distressing case--very; I never knew one more so; but really, my +dear sir, really we have no power to control this lady’s actions. I +warned you before we came, my dear sir, that there was nothing to look +to but a compromise.’ + +There was a short pause. + +‘What kind of compromise would you recommend?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, my dear Sir, our friend’s in an unpleasant position--very much so. +We must be content to suffer some pecuniary loss.’ + +‘I’ll suffer any, rather than submit to this disgrace, and let her, fool +as she is, be made miserable for life,’ said Wardle. + +‘I rather think it can be done,’ said the bustling little man. ‘Mr. +Jingle, will you step with us into the next room for a moment?’ + +Mr. Jingle assented, and the quartette walked into an empty apartment. + +‘Now, sir,’ said the little man, as he carefully closed the door, ‘is +there no way of accommodating this matter--step this way, sir, for a +moment--into this window, Sir, where we can be alone--there, sir, there, +pray sit down, sir. Now, my dear Sir, between you and I, we know very +well, my dear Sir, that you have run off with this lady for the sake of +her money. Don’t frown, Sir, don’t frown; I say, between you and I, _we_ +know it. We are both men of the world, and WE know very well that our +friends here, are not--eh?’ + +Mr. Jingle’s face gradually relaxed; and something distantly resembling +a wink quivered for an instant in his left eye. + +‘Very good, very good,’ said the little man, observing the impression he +had made. ‘Now, the fact is, that beyond a few hundreds, the lady has +little or nothing till the death of her mother--fine old lady, my dear +Sir.’ + +‘_Old_,’ said Mr. Jingle briefly but emphatically. + +‘Why, yes,’ said the attorney, with a slight cough. ‘You are right, my +dear Sir, she is rather old. She comes of an old family though, my dear +Sir; old in every sense of the word. The founder of that family came +into Kent when Julius Caesar invaded Britain;--only one member of it, +since, who hasn’t lived to eighty-five, and he was beheaded by one of +the Henrys. The old lady is not seventy-three now, my dear Sir.’ The +little man paused, and took a pinch of snuff. + +‘Well,’ cried Mr. Jingle. + +‘Well, my dear sir--you don’t take snuff!--ah! so much the better-- +expensive habit--well, my dear Sir, you’re a fine young man, man of the +world--able to push your fortune, if you had capital, eh?’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Jingle again. + +‘Do you comprehend me?’ + +‘Not quite.’ + +‘Don’t you think--now, my dear Sir, I put it to you don’t you think-- +that fifty pounds and liberty would be better than Miss Wardle and +expectation?’ + +‘Won’t do--not half enough!’ said Mr. Jingle, rising. + +‘Nay, nay, my dear Sir,’ remonstrated the little attorney, seizing him +by the button. ‘Good round sum--a man like you could treble it in no +time--great deal to be done with fifty pounds, my dear Sir.’ + +‘More to be done with a hundred and fifty,’ replied Mr. Jingle coolly. + +‘Well, my dear Sir, we won’t waste time in splitting straws,’ resumed +the little man, ‘say--say--seventy.’ + +Won’t do,’ said Mr. Jingle. + +‘Don’t go away, my dear sir--pray don’t hurry,’ said the little man. +‘Eighty; come: I’ll write you a cheque at once.’ + +‘Won’t do,’ said Mr. Jingle. + +‘Well, my dear Sir, well,’ said the little man, still detaining him; +‘just tell me what _will_ do.’ + +‘Expensive affair,’ said Mr. Jingle. ‘Money out of pocket--posting, nine +pounds; licence, three--that’s twelve--compensation, a hundred--hundred +and twelve--breach of honour--and loss of the lady--’ + +‘Yes, my dear Sir, yes,’ said the little man, with a knowing look, +‘never mind the last two items. That’s a hundred and twelve--say a +hundred--come.’ + +‘And twenty,’ said Mr. Jingle. + +‘Come, come, I’ll write you a cheque,’ said the little man; and down he +sat at the table for that purpose. + +‘I’ll make it payable the day after to-morrow,’ said the little man, +with a look towards Mr. Wardle; ‘and we can get the lady away, +meanwhile.’ Mr. Wardle sullenly nodded assent. + +‘A hundred,’ said the little man. + +‘And twenty,’ said Mr. Jingle. + +‘My dear Sir,’ remonstrated the little man. + +‘Give it him,’ interposed Mr. Wardle, ‘and let him go.’ + +The cheque was written by the little gentleman, and pocketed by Mr. +Jingle. + +‘Now, leave this house instantly!’ said Wardle, starting up. + +‘My dear Sir,’ urged the little man. + +‘And mind,’ said Mr. Wardle, ‘that nothing should have induced me to +make this compromise--not even a regard for my family--if I had not +known that the moment you got any money in that pocket of yours, you’d +go to the devil faster, if possible, than you would without it--’ + +‘My dear sir,’ urged the little man again. + +‘Be quiet, Perker,’ resumed Wardle. ‘Leave the room, Sir.’ + +‘Off directly,’ said the unabashed Jingle. ‘Bye bye, Pickwick.’ + +If any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the +illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of +this work, during the latter part of this conversation, he would have +been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire which flashed from +his eyes did not melt the glasses of his spectacles--so majestic was his +wrath. His nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he +heard himself addressed by the villain. But he restrained himself again- +-he did not pulverise him. + +‘Here,’ continued the hardened traitor, tossing the licence at Mr. +Pickwick’s feet; ‘get the name altered--take home the lady--do for +Tuppy.’ + +Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, +after all. The shaft had reached him, penetrated through his +philosophical harness, to his very heart. In the frenzy of his rage, he +hurled the inkstand madly forward, and followed it up himself. But Mr. +Jingle had disappeared, and he found himself caught in the arms of Sam. + +‘Hollo,’ said that eccentric functionary, ‘furniter’s cheap where you +come from, Sir. Self-acting ink, that ‘ere; it’s wrote your mark upon +the wall, old gen’l’m’n. Hold still, Sir; wot’s the use o’ runnin’ arter +a man as has made his lucky, and got to t’other end of the Borough by +this time?’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s mind, like those of all truly great men, was open to +conviction. He was a quick and powerful reasoner; and a moment’s +reflection sufficed to remind him of the impotency of his rage. It +subsided as quickly as it had been roused. He panted for breath, and +looked benignantly round upon his friends. + +Shall we tell the lamentations that ensued when Miss Wardle found +herself deserted by the faithless Jingle? Shall we extract Mr. +Pickwick’s masterly description of that heartrending scene? His note- +book, blotted with the tears of sympathising humanity, lies open before +us; one word, and it is in the printer’s hands. But, no! we will be +resolute! We will not wring the public bosom, with the delineation of +such suffering! + +Slowly and sadly did the two friends and the deserted lady return next +day in the Muggleton heavy coach. Dimly and darkly had the sombre +shadows of a summer’s night fallen upon all around, when they again +reached Dingley Dell, and stood within the entrance to Manor Farm. + + + +CHAPTER XI. INVOLVING ANOTHER JOURNEY, AND AN ANTIQUARIAN DISCOVERY; +RECORDING MR. PICKWICK’S DETERMINATION TO BE PRESENT AT AN ELECTION; AND +CONTAINING A MANUSCRIPT OF THE OLD CLERGYMAN’S + +A night of quiet and repose in the profound silence of Dingley Dell, and +an hour’s breathing of its fresh and fragrant air on the ensuing +morning, completely recovered Mr. Pickwick from the effects of his late +fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. That illustrious man had been +separated from his friends and followers for two whole days; and it was +with a degree of pleasure and delight, which no common imagination can +adequately conceive, that he stepped forward to greet Mr. Winkle and Mr. +Snodgrass, as he encountered those gentlemen on his return from his +early walk. The pleasure was mutual; for who could ever gaze on Mr. +Pickwick’s beaming face without experiencing the sensation? But still a +cloud seemed to hang over his companions which that great man could not +but be sensible of, and was wholly at a loss to account for. There was a +mysterious air about them both, as unusual as it was alarming. + +‘And how,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when he had grasped his followers by the +hand, and exchanged warm salutations of welcome--‘how is Tupman?’ + +Mr. Winkle, to whom the question was more peculiarly addressed, made no +reply. He turned away his head, and appeared absorbed in melancholy +reflection. + +‘Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Pickwick earnestly, ‘how is our friend--he is not +ill?’ + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass; and a tear trembled on his sentimental +eyelid, like a rain-drop on a window-frame--‘no; he is not ill.’ + +Mr. Pickwick stopped, and gazed on each of his friends in turn. + +‘Winkle--Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘what does this mean? Where is +our friend? What has happened? Speak--I conjure, I entreat--nay, I +command you, speak.’ + +There was a solemnity--a dignity--in Mr. Pickwick’s manner, not to be +withstood. + +‘He is gone,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Gone!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Gone!’ + +‘Gone,’ repeated Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Where!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. + +‘We can only guess, from that communication,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass, +taking a letter from his pocket, and placing it in his friend’s hand. +‘Yesterday morning, when a letter was received from Mr. Wardle, stating +that you would be home with his sister at night, the melancholy which +had hung over our friend during the whole of the previous day, was +observed to increase. He shortly afterwards disappeared: he was missing +during the whole day, and in the evening this letter was brought by the +hostler from the Crown, at Muggleton. It had been left in his charge in +the morning, with a strict injunction that it should not be delivered +until night.’ + +Mr. Pickwick opened the epistle. It was in his friend’s hand-writing, +and these were its contents:-- + +‘MY DEAR PICKWICK,--_You_, my dear friend, are placed far beyond the +reach of many mortal frailties and weaknesses which ordinary people +cannot overcome. You do not know what it is, at one blow, to be deserted +by a lovely and fascinating creature, and to fall a victim to the +artifices of a villain, who had the grin of cunning beneath the mask of +friendship. I hope you never may. + +‘Any letter addressed to me at the Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, will be +forwarded--supposing I still exist. I hasten from the sight of that +world, which has become odious to me. Should I hasten from it +altogether, pity--forgive me. Life, my dear Pickwick, has become +insupportable to me. The spirit which burns within us, is a porter’s +knot, on which to rest the heavy load of worldly cares and troubles; and +when that spirit fails us, the burden is too heavy to be borne. We sink +beneath it. You may tell Rachael--Ah, that name!-- + + +‘TRACY TUPMAN.’ + +‘We must leave this place directly,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he refolded +the note. ‘It would not have been decent for us to remain here, under +any circumstances, after what has happened; and now we are bound to +follow in search of our friend.’ And so saying, he led the way to the +house. + +His intention was rapidly communicated. The entreaties to remain were +pressing, but Mr. Pickwick was inflexible. Business, he said, required +his immediate attendance. + +The old clergyman was present. + +‘You are not really going?’ said he, taking Mr. Pickwick aside. + +Mr. Pickwick reiterated his former determination. + +‘Then here,’ said the old gentleman, ‘is a little manuscript, which I +had hoped to have the pleasure of reading to you myself. I found it on +the death of a friend of mine--a medical man, engaged in our county +lunatic asylum--among a variety of papers, which I had the option of +destroying or preserving, as I thought proper. I can hardly believe that +the manuscript is genuine, though it certainly is not in my friend’s +hand. However, whether it be the genuine production of a maniac, or +founded upon the ravings of some unhappy being (which I think more +probable), read it, and judge for yourself.’ + +Mr. Pickwick received the manuscript, and parted from the benevolent old +gentleman with many expressions of good-will and esteem. + +It was a more difficult task to take leave of the inmates of Manor Farm, +from whom they had received so much hospitality and kindness. Mr. +Pickwick kissed the young ladies--we were going to say, as if they were +his own daughters, only, as he might possibly have infused a little more +warmth into the salutation, the comparison would not be quite +appropriate--hugged the old lady with filial cordiality; and patted the +rosy cheeks of the female servants in a most patriarchal manner, as he +slipped into the hands of each some more substantial expression of his +approval. The exchange of cordialities with their fine old host and Mr. +Trundle was even more hearty and prolonged; and it was not until Mr. +Snodgrass had been several times called for, and at last emerged from a +dark passage followed soon after by Emily (whose bright eyes looked +unusually dim), that the three friends were enabled to tear themselves +from their friendly entertainers. Many a backward look they gave at the +farm, as they walked slowly away; and many a kiss did Mr. Snodgrass waft +in the air, in acknowledgment of something very like a lady’s +handkerchief, which was waved from one of the upper windows, until a +turn of the lane hid the old house from their sight. + +At Muggleton they procured a conveyance to Rochester. By the time they +reached the last-named place, the violence of their grief had +sufficiently abated to admit of their making a very excellent early +dinner; and having procured the necessary information relative to the +road, the three friends set forward again in the afternoon to walk to +Cobham. + +A delightful walk it was; for it was a pleasant afternoon in June, and +their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind +which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of +the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in +thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread +the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an +ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of +Elizabeth’s time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on +every side; large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and +occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground, with the speed of +the shadows thrown by the light clouds which swept across a sunny +landscape like a passing breath of summer. + +‘If this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him--‘if this were the place +to which all who are troubled with our friend’s complaint came, I fancy +their old attachment to this world would very soon return.’ + +‘I think so too,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘And really,’ added Mr. Pickwick, after half an hour’s walking had +brought them to the village, ‘really, for a misanthrope’s choice, this +is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence I ever +met with.’ + +In this opinion also, both Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass expressed their +concurrence; and having been directed to the Leather Bottle, a clean and +commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once +inquired for a gentleman of the name of Tupman. + +‘Show the gentlemen into the parlour, Tom,’ said the landlady. + +A stout country lad opened a door at the end of the passage, and the +three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large +number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and +embellished with a great variety of old portraits and roughly-coloured +prints of some antiquity. At the upper end of the room was a table, with +a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and +et ceteras; and at the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who +had taken his leave of the world, as possible. + +On the entrance of his friends, that gentleman laid down his knife and +fork, and with a mournful air advanced to meet them. + +‘I did not expect to see you here,’ he said, as he grasped Mr. +Pickwick’s hand. ‘It’s very kind.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Pickwick, sitting down, and wiping from his forehead the +perspiration which the walk had engendered. ‘Finish your dinner, and +walk out with me. I wish to speak to you alone.’ + +Mr. Tupman did as he was desired; and Mr. Pickwick having refreshed +himself with a copious draught of ale, waited his friend’s leisure. The +dinner was quickly despatched, and they walked out together. + +For half an hour, their forms might have been seen pacing the churchyard +to and fro, while Mr. Pickwick was engaged in combating his companion’s +resolution. Any repetition of his arguments would be useless; for what +language could convey to them that energy and force which their great +originator’s manner communicated? Whether Mr. Tupman was already tired +of retirement, or whether he was wholly unable to resist the eloquent +appeal which was made to him, matters not, he did _not _ resist it at +last. + +‘It mattered little to him,’ he said, ‘where he dragged out the +miserable remainder of his days; and since his friend laid so much +stress upon his humble companionship, he was willing to share his +adventures.’ + +Mr. Pickwick smiled; they shook hands, and walked back to rejoin their +companions. + +It was at this moment that Mr. Pickwick made that immortal discovery, +which has been the pride and boast of his friends, and the envy of every +antiquarian in this or any other country. They had passed the door of +their inn, and walked a little way down the village, before they +recollected the precise spot in which it stood. As they turned back, Mr. +Pickwick’s eye fell upon a small broken stone, partially buried in the +ground, in front of a cottage door. He paused. + +‘This is very strange,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘What is strange?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, staring eagerly at every object +near him, but the right one. ‘God bless me, what’s the matter?’ + +This last was an ejaculation of irrepressible astonishment, occasioned +by seeing Mr. Pickwick, in his enthusiasm for discovery, fall on his +knees before the little stone, and commence wiping the dust off it with +his pocket-handkerchief. + +‘There is an inscription here,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Is it possible?’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘I can discern,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, rubbing away with all his +might, and gazing intently through his spectacles--‘I can discern a +cross, and a 13, and then a T. This is important,’ continued Mr. +Pickwick, starting up. ‘This is some very old inscription, existing +perhaps long before the ancient alms-houses in this place. It must not +be lost.’ + +He tapped at the cottage door. A labouring man opened it. + +‘Do you know how this stone came here, my friend?’ inquired the +benevolent Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No, I doan’t, Sir,’ replied the man civilly. ‘It was here long afore I +was born, or any on us.’ + +Mr. Pickwick glanced triumphantly at his companion. + +‘You--you--are not particularly attached to it, I dare say,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, trembling with anxiety. ‘You wouldn’t mind selling it, now?’ + +‘Ah! but who’d buy it?’ inquired the man, with an expression of face +which he probably meant to be very cunning. + +‘I’ll give you ten shillings for it, at once,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘if +you would take it up for me.’ + +The astonishment of the village may be easily imagined, when (the little +stone having been raised with one wrench of a spade) Mr. Pickwick, by +dint of great personal exertion, bore it with his own hands to the inn, +and after having carefully washed it, deposited it on the table. + +The exultation and joy of the Pickwickians knew no bounds, when their +patience and assiduity, their washing and scraping, were crowned with +success. The stone was uneven and broken, and the letters were +straggling and irregular, but the following fragment of an inscription +was clearly to be deciphered:-- + + +[cross] B I L S T U M P S H I S. M. ARK + +Mr. Pickwick’s eyes sparkled with delight, as he sat and gloated over +the treasure he had discovered. He had attained one of the greatest +objects of his ambition. In a county known to abound in the remains of +the early ages; in a village in which there still existed some memorials +of the olden time, he--he, the chairman of the Pickwick Club--had +discovered a strange and curious inscription of unquestionable +antiquity, which had wholly escaped the observation of the many learned +men who had preceded him. He could hardly trust the evidence of his +senses. + +‘This--this,’ said he, ‘determines me. We return to town to-morrow.’ + +‘To-morrow!’ exclaimed his admiring followers. + +‘To-morrow,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘This treasure must be at once deposited +where it can be thoroughly investigated and properly understood. I have +another reason for this step. In a few days, an election is to take +place for the borough of Eatanswill, at which Mr. Perker, a gentleman +whom I lately met, is the agent of one of the candidates. We will +behold, and minutely examine, a scene so interesting to every +Englishman.’ + +‘We will,’ was the animated cry of three voices. + +Mr. Pickwick looked round him. The attachment and fervour of his +followers lighted up a glow of enthusiasm within him. He was their +leader, and he felt it. + +‘Let us celebrate this happy meeting with a convivial glass,’ said he. +This proposition, like the other, was received with unanimous applause. +Having himself deposited the important stone in a small deal box, +purchased from the landlady for the purpose, he placed himself in an +arm-chair, at the head of the table; and the evening was devoted to +festivity and conversation. + +It was past eleven o’clock--a late hour for the little village of +Cobham--when Mr. Pickwick retired to the bedroom which had been prepared +for his reception. He threw open the lattice window, and setting his +light upon the table, fell into a train of meditation on the hurried +events of the two preceding days. + +The hour and the place were both favourable to contemplation; Mr. +Pickwick was roused by the church clock striking twelve. The first +stroke of the hour sounded solemnly in his ear, but when the bell ceased +the stillness seemed insupportable--he almost felt as if he had lost a +companion. He was nervous and excited; and hastily undressing himself +and placing his light in the chimney, got into bed. + +Every one has experienced that disagreeable state of mind, in which a +sensation of bodily weariness in vain contends against an inability to +sleep. It was Mr. Pickwick’s condition at this moment: he tossed first +on one side and then on the other; and perseveringly closed his eyes as +if to coax himself to slumber. It was of no use. Whether it was the +unwonted exertion he had undergone, or the heat, or the brandy-and- +water, or the strange bed--whatever it was, his thoughts kept reverting +very uncomfortably to the grim pictures downstairs, and the old stories +to which they had given rise in the course of the evening. After half an +hour’s tumbling about, he came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that it +was of no use trying to sleep; so he got up and partially dressed +himself. Anything, he thought, was better than lying there fancying all +kinds of horrors. He looked out of the window--it was very dark. He +walked about the room--it was very lonely. + +He had taken a few turns from the door to the window, and from the +window to the door, when the clergyman’s manuscript for the first time +entered his head. It was a good thought. If it failed to interest him, +it might send him to sleep. He took it from his coat pocket, and drawing +a small table towards his bedside, trimmed the light, put on his +spectacles, and composed himself to read. It was a strange handwriting, +and the paper was much soiled and blotted. The title gave him a sudden +start, too; and he could not avoid casting a wistful glance round the +room. Reflecting on the absurdity of giving way to such feelings, +however, he trimmed the light again, and read as follows:-- + + +A MADMAN’S MANUSCRIPT + +‘Yes!--a madman’s! How that word would have struck to my heart, many +years ago! How it would have roused the terror that used to come upon me +sometimes, sending the blood hissing and tingling through my veins, till +the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin, and my knees +knocked together with fright! I like it now though. It’s a fine name. +Show me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of +a madman’s eye--whose cord and axe were ever half so sure as a madman’s +gripe. Ho! ho! It’s a grand thing to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild +lion through the iron bars--to gnash one’s teeth and howl, through the +long still night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain and to roll and +twine among the straw, transported with such brave music. Hurrah for the +madhouse! Oh, it’s a rare place! + +‘I remember days when I was afraid of being mad; when I used to start +from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the +curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or +happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary +hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my +brain. I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the +marrow of my bones! that one generation had passed away without the +pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in whom it +would revive. I knew it must be so: that so it always had been, and so +it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded +room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I +knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and I slunk away +again to mope in solitude. + +‘I did this for years; long, long years they were. The nights here are +long sometimes--very long; but they are nothing to the restless nights, +and dreadful dreams I had at that time. It makes me cold to remember +them. Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the +corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to +madness. They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house +in which my father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his own +hand in raging madness. I drove my fingers into my ears, but they +screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one generation +before him the madness slumbered, but that his grandfather had lived for +years with his hands fettered to the ground, to prevent his tearing +himself to pieces. I knew they told the truth--I knew it well. I had +found it out years before, though they had tried to keep it from me. Ha! +ha! I was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me. + +‘At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared +it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best +among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it. How I +used to hug myself with delight, when I thought of the fine trick I was +playing them after their old pointing and leering, when I was not mad, +but only dreading that I might one day become so! And how I used to +laugh for joy, when I was alone, and thought how well I kept my secret, +and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me, if they had +known the truth. I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone +with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, +and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who +sat close to him, sharpening a bright, glittering knife, was a madman +with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart. Oh, it +was a merry life! + +‘Riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and I rioted in pleasures +enhanced a thousandfold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept +secret. I inherited an estate. The law--the eagle-eyed law itself--had +been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman’s +hands. Where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? Where +the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? The madman’s +cunning had overreached them all. + +‘I had money. How I was courted! I spent it profusely. How I was +praised! How those three proud, overbearing brothers humbled themselves +before me! The old, white-headed father, too--such deference--such +respect--such devoted friendship--he worshipped me! The old man had a +daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor. I was +rich; and when I married the girl, I saw a smile of triumph play upon +the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned +scheme, and their fine prize. It was for me to smile. To smile! To laugh +outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of +merriment. They little thought they had married her to a madman. + +‘Stay. If they had known it, would they have saved her? A sister’s +happiness against her husband’s gold. The lightest feather I blow into +the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body! + +‘In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning. If I had not been mad- +-for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered +sometimes--I should have known that the girl would rather have been +placed, stiff and cold in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied +bride to my rich, glittering house. I should have known that her heart +was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once heard her breathe in her +troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the +poverty of the old, white-headed man and the haughty brothers. + +‘I don’t remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful. +I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start up from +my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and +motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with +long black hair, which, streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly +wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close. Hush! +the blood chills at my heart as I write it down--that form is _her’s_; +the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I know them +well. That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do, +that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even +than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the +grave; and is so very death-like. + +‘For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw +the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause. I +found it out at last though. They could not keep it from me long. She +had never liked me; I had never thought she did: she despised my wealth, +and hated the splendour in which she lived; but I had not expected that. +She loved another. This I had never thought of. Strange feelings came +over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret power, whirled +round and round my brain. I did not hate her, though I hated the boy she +still wept for. I pitied--yes, I pitied--the wretched life to which her +cold and selfish relations had doomed her. I knew that she could not +live long; but the thought that before her death she might give birth to +some ill-fated being, destined to hand down madness to its offspring, +determined me. I resolved to kill her. + +‘For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then of +fire. A fine sight, the grand house in flames, and the madman’s wife +smouldering away to cinders. Think of the jest of a large reward, too, +and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did, and +all through a madman’s cunning! I thought often of this, but I gave it +up at last. Oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after day, +feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin, +bright edge would make! + +‘At last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered +in my ear that the time was come, and thrust the open razor into my +hand. I grasped it firmly, rose softly from the bed, and leaned over my +sleeping wife. Her face was buried in her hands. I withdrew them softly, +and they fell listlessly on her bosom. She had been weeping; for the +traces of the tears were still wet upon her cheek. Her face was calm and +placid; and even as I looked upon it, a tranquil smile lighted up her +pale features. I laid my hand softly on her shoulder. She started--it +was only a passing dream. I leaned forward again. She screamed, and +woke. + +‘One motion of my hand, and she would never again have uttered cry or +sound. But I was startled, and drew back. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I +knew not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me; and I quailed +beneath them. She rose from the bed, still gazing fixedly and steadily +on me. I trembled; the razor was in my hand, but I could not move. She +made towards the door. As she neared it, she turned, and withdrew her +eyes from my face. The spell was broken. I bounded forward, and clutched +her by the arm. Uttering shriek upon shriek, she sank upon the ground. + +‘Now I could have killed her without a struggle; but the house was +alarmed. I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. I replaced the +razor in its usual drawer, unfastened the door, and called loudly for +assistance. + +‘They came, and raised her, and placed her on the bed. She lay bereft of +animation for hours; and when life, look, and speech returned, her +senses had deserted her, and she raved wildly and furiously. + +‘Doctors were called in--great men who rolled up to my door in easy +carriages, with fine horses and gaudy servants. They were at her bedside +for weeks. They had a great meeting and consulted together in low and +solemn voices in another room. One, the cleverest and most celebrated +among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told +me--me, the madman!--that my wife was mad. He stood close beside me at +an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my +arm. With one effort, I could have hurled him into the street beneath. +It would have been rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at +stake, and I let him go. A few days after, they told me I must place her +under some restraint: I must provide a keeper for her. I! I went into +the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air +resounded with my shouts! + +‘She died next day. The white-headed old man followed her to the grave, +and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her +whose sufferings they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron. +All this was food for my secret mirth, and I laughed behind the white +handkerchief which I held up to my face, as we rode home, till the tears +came into my eyes. + +‘But though I had carried my object and killed her, I was restless and +disturbed, and I felt that before long my secret must be known. I could +not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me when +I was alone, at home, jump up and beat my hands together, and dance +round and round, and roar aloud. When I went out, and saw the busy +crowds hurrying about the streets; or to the theatre, and heard the +sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, I felt such glee, that I +could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb, +and howled in transport. But I ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon +the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands. I kept it down; and +no one knew I was a madman yet. + +‘I remember--though it’s one of the last things I can remember: for now +I mix up realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being +always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange +confusion in which they get involved--I remember how I let it out at +last. Ha! ha! I think I see their frightened looks now, and feel the +ease with which I flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into +their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming +and shouting far behind. The strength of a giant comes upon me when I +think of it. There--see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious +wrench. I could snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here +with many doors--I don’t think I could find my way along them; and even +if I could, I know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and +barred. They know what a clever madman I have been, and they are proud +to have me here, to show. + +‘Let me see: yes, I had been out. It was late at night when I reached +home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers waiting to see +me--urgent business he said: I recollect it well. I hated that man with +all a madman’s hate. Many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear +him. They told me he was there. I ran swiftly upstairs. He had a word to +say to me. I dismissed the servants. It was late, and we were alone +together--for the first time. + +‘I kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for I knew what he little +thought--and I gloried in the knowledge--that the light of madness +gleamed from them like fire. We sat in silence for a few minutes. He +spoke at last. My recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon +after his sister’s death, were an insult to her memory. Coupling +together many circumstances which had at first escaped his observation, +he thought I had not treated her well. He wished to know whether he was +right in inferring that I meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and +a disrespect upon her family. It was due to the uniform he wore, to +demand this explanation. + +‘This man had a commission in the army--a commission, purchased with my +money, and his sister’s misery! This was the man who had been foremost +in the plot to ensnare me, and grasp my wealth. This was the man who had +been the main instrument in forcing his sister to wed me; well knowing +that her heart was given to that puling boy. Due to his uniform! The +livery of his degradation! I turned my eyes upon him--I could not help +it--but I spoke not a word. + +‘I saw the sudden change that came upon him beneath my gaze. He was a +bold man, but the colour faded from his face, and he drew back his +chair. I dragged mine nearer to him; and I laughed--I was very merry +then--I saw him shudder. I felt the madness rising within me. He was +afraid of me. + +‘“You were very fond of your sister when she was alive,” I said.-- +“Very.” + +‘He looked uneasily round him, and I saw his hand grasp the back of his +chair; but he said nothing. + +‘“You villain,” said I, “I found you out: I discovered your hellish +plots against me; I know her heart was fixed on some one else before you +compelled her to marry me. I know it--I know it.” + +‘He jumped suddenly from his chair, brandished it aloft, and bid me +stand back--for I took care to be getting closer to him all the time I +spoke. + +‘I screamed rather than talked, for I felt tumultuous passions eddying +through my veins, and the old spirits whispering and taunting me to tear +his heart out. + +‘“Damn you,” said I, starting up, and rushing upon him; “I killed her. I +am a madman. Down with you. Blood, blood! I will have it!” + +‘I turned aside with one blow the chair he hurled at me in his terror, +and closed with him; and with a heavy crash we rolled upon the floor +together. + +‘It was a fine struggle that; for he was a tall, strong man, fighting +for his life; and I, a powerful madman, thirsting to destroy him. I knew +no strength could equal mine, and I was right. Right again, though a +madman! His struggles grew fainter. I knelt upon his chest, and clasped +his brawny throat firmly with both hands. His face grew purple; his eyes +were starting from his head, and with protruded tongue, he seemed to +mock me. I squeezed the tighter. + +‘The door was suddenly burst open with a loud noise, and a crowd of +people rushed forward, crying aloud to each other to secure the madman. + +‘My secret was out; and my only struggle now was for liberty and +freedom. I gained my feet before a hand was on me, threw myself among my +assailants, and cleared my way with my strong arm, as if I bore a +hatchet in my hand, and hewed them down before me. I gained the door, +dropped over the banisters, and in an instant was in the street. + +‘Straight and swift I ran, and no one dared to stop me. I heard the +noise of the feet behind, and redoubled my speed. It grew fainter and +fainter in the distance, and at length died away altogether; but on I +bounded, through marsh and rivulet, over fence and wall, with a wild +shout which was taken up by the strange beings that flocked around me on +every side, and swelled the sound, till it pierced the air. I was borne +upon the arms of demons who swept along upon the wind, and bore down +bank and hedge before them, and spun me round and round with a rustle +and a speed that made my head swim, until at last they threw me from +them with a violent shock, and I fell heavily upon the earth. When I +woke I found myself here--here in this gray cell, where the sunlight +seldom comes, and the moon steals in, in rays which only serve to show +the dark shadows about me, and that silent figure in its old corner. +When I lie awake, I can sometimes hear strange shrieks and cries from +distant parts of this large place. What they are, I know not; but they +neither come from that pale form, nor does it regard them. For from the +first shades of dusk till the earliest light of morning, it still stands +motionless in the same place, listening to the music of my iron chain, +and watching my gambols on my straw bed.’ + +At the end of the manuscript was written, in another hand, this note:-- + +[The unhappy man whose ravings are recorded above, was a melancholy +instance of the baneful results of energies misdirected in early life, +and excesses prolonged until their consequences could never be repaired. +The thoughtless riot, dissipation, and debauchery of his younger days +produced fever and delirium. The first effects of the latter was the +strange delusion, founded upon a well-known medical theory, strongly +contended for by some, and as strongly contested by others, that an +hereditary madness existed in his family. This produced a settled gloom, +which in time developed a morbid insanity, and finally terminated in +raving madness. There is every reason to believe that the events he +detailed, though distorted in the description by his diseased +imagination, really happened. It is only matter of wonder to those who +were acquainted with the vices of his early career, that his passions, +when no longer controlled by reason, did not lead him to the commission +of still more frightful deeds.] + +Mr. Pickwick’s candle was just expiring in the socket, as he concluded +the perusal of the old clergyman’s manuscript; and when the light went +suddenly out, without any previous flicker by way of warning, it +communicated a very considerable start to his excited frame. Hastily +throwing off such articles of clothing as he had put on when he rose +from his uneasy bed, and casting a fearful glance around, he once more +scrambled hastily between the sheets, and soon fell fast asleep. + +The sun was shining brilliantly into his chamber, when he awoke, and the +morning was far advanced. The gloom which had oppressed him on the +previous night had disappeared with the dark shadows which shrouded the +landscape, and his thoughts and feelings were as light and gay as the +morning itself. After a hearty breakfast, the four gentlemen sallied +forth to walk to Gravesend, followed by a man bearing the stone in its +deal box. They reached the town about one o’clock (their luggage they +had directed to be forwarded to the city, from Rochester), and being +fortunate enough to secure places on the outside of a coach, arrived in +London in sound health and spirits, on that same afternoon. + +The next three or four days were occupied with the preparations which +were necessary for their journey to the borough of Eatanswill. As any +references to that most important undertaking demands a separate +chapter, we may devote the few lines which remain at the close of this, +to narrate, with great brevity, the history of the antiquarian +discovery. + +It appears from the Transactions of the Club, then, that Mr. Pickwick +lectured upon the discovery at a General Club Meeting, convened on the +night succeeding their return, and entered into a variety of ingenious +and erudite speculations on the meaning of the inscription. It also +appears that a skilful artist executed a faithful delineation of the +curiosity, which was engraven on stone, and presented to the Royal +Antiquarian Society, and other learned bodies: that heart-burnings and +jealousies without number were created by rival controversies which were +penned upon the subject; and that Mr. Pickwick himself wrote a pamphlet, +containing ninety-six pages of very small print, and twenty-seven +different readings of the inscription: that three old gentlemen cut off +their eldest sons with a shilling a-piece for presuming to doubt the +antiquity of the fragment; and that one enthusiastic individual cut +himself off prematurely, in despair at being unable to fathom its +meaning: that Mr. Pickwick was elected an honorary member of seventeen +native and foreign societies, for making the discovery: that none of the +seventeen could make anything of it; but that all the seventeen agreed +it was very extraordinary. + +Mr. Blotton, indeed--and the name will be doomed to the undying contempt +of those who cultivate the mysterious and the sublime--Mr. Blotton, we +say, with the doubt and cavilling peculiar to vulgar minds, presumed to +state a view of the case, as degrading as ridiculous. Mr. Blotton, with +a mean desire to tarnish the lustre of the immortal name of Pickwick, +actually undertook a journey to Cobham in person, and on his return, +sarcastically observed in an oration at the club, that he had seen the +man from whom the stone was purchased; that the man presumed the stone +to be ancient, but solemnly denied the antiquity of the inscription-- +inasmuch as he represented it to have been rudely carved by himself in +an idle mood, and to display letters intended to bear neither more or +less than the simple construction of--‘BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK’; and that +Mr. Stumps, being little in the habit of original composition, and more +accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than by the strict rules +of orthography, had omitted the concluding ‘L’ of his Christian name. + +The Pickwick Club (as might have been expected from so enlightened an +institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved, +expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned Blotton from the society, +and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their +confidence and approbation: in return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a +portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the club room. + +Mr. Blotton was ejected but not conquered. He also wrote a pamphlet, +addressed to the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign, +containing a repetition of the statement he had already made, and rather +more than half intimating his opinion that the seventeen learned +societies were so many ‘humbugs.’ Hereupon, the virtuous indignation of +the seventeen learned societies being roused, several fresh pamphlets +appeared; the foreign learned societies corresponded with the native +learned societies; the native learned societies translated the pamphlets +of the foreign learned societies into English; the foreign learned +societies translated the pamphlets of the native learned societies into +all sorts of languages; and thus commenced that celebrated scientific +discussion so well known to all men, as the Pickwick controversy. + +But this base attempt to injure Mr. Pickwick recoiled upon the head of +its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted +the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work +upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an +illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick’s greatness, and a lasting trophy to +the littleness of his enemies. + + + +CHAPTER XII. DESCRIPTIVE OF A VERY IMPORTANT PROCEEDING ON THE PART OF +MR. PICKWICK; NO LESS AN EPOCH IN HIS LIFE, THAN IN THIS HISTORY + +Mr. Pickwick’s apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited +scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but +peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and +observation. His sitting-room was the first-floor front, his bedroom the +second-floor front; and thus, whether he were sitting at his desk in his +parlour, or standing before the dressing-glass in his dormitory, he had +an equal opportunity of contemplating human nature in all the numerous +phases it exhibits, in that not more populous than popular thoroughfare. +His landlady, Mrs. Bardell--the relict and sole executrix of a deceased +custom-house officer--was a comely woman of bustling manners and +agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by +study and long practice, into an exquisite talent. There were no +children, no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house +were a large man and a small boy; the first a lodger, the second a +production of Mrs. Bardell’s. The large man was always home precisely at +ten o’clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into +the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlour; and the +infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were +exclusively confined to the neighbouring pavements and gutters. +Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; and in it Mr. +Pickwick’s will was law. + +To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of the +establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of Mr. +Pickwick’s mind, his appearance and behaviour on the morning previous to +that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatanswill would have +been most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room to and fro +with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of +about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and +exhibited many other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him. +It was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation, +but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell had been enabled to +discover. + +‘Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female +approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment. + +‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Your little boy is a very long time gone.’ + +‘Why it’s a good long way to the Borough, sir,’ remonstrated Mrs. +Bardell. + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘very true; so it is.’ Mr. Pickwick relapsed +into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting. + +‘Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes. + +‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Bardell again. + +‘Do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep +one?’ + +‘La, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, colouring up to the very border +of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle +in the eyes of her lodger; ‘La, Mr. Pickwick, what a question!’ + +‘Well, but do you?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘That depends,’ said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very near to +Mr. Pickwick’s elbow which was planted on the table. ‘That depends a +good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pickwick; and whether it’s a +saving and careful person, sir.’ + +‘That’s very true,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘but the person I have in my eye +(here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) I think possesses these +qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and +a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bardell, which may be of material use to +me.’ + +‘La, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, the crimson rising to her cap- +border again. + +‘I do,’ said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in +speaking of a subject which interested him--‘I do, indeed; and to tell +you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind.’ + +‘Dear me, sir,’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. + +‘You’ll think it very strange now,’ said the amiable Mr. Pickwick, with +a good-humoured glance at his companion, ‘that I never consulted you +about this matter, and never even mentioned it, till I sent your little +boy out this morning--eh?’ + +Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr. +Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a +pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared +to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose--a deliberate plan, too-- +sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out of the way--how +thoughtful--how considerate! + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what do you think?’ + +‘Oh, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation, ‘you’re +very kind, sir.’ + +‘It’ll save you a good deal of trouble, won’t it?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir,’ replied Mrs. +Bardell; ‘and, of course, I should take more trouble to please you then, +than ever; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so much +consideration for my loneliness.’ + +‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I never thought of that. When I am +in town, you’ll always have somebody to sit with you. To be sure, so you +will.’ + +‘I am sure I ought to be a very happy woman,’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘And your little boy--’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Bless his heart!’ interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob. + +‘He, too, will have a companion,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘a lively one, +who’ll teach him, I’ll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would +ever learn in a year.’ And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. + +‘Oh, you dear--’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +Mr. Pickwick started. + +‘Oh, you kind, good, playful dear,’ said Mrs. Bardell; and without more +ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round Mr. Pickwick’s +neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs. + + +‘Bless my soul,’ cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick; ‘Mrs. Bardell, my +good woman--dear me, what a situation--pray consider.--Mrs. Bardell, +don’t--if anybody should come--’ + +‘Oh, let them come,’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell frantically; ‘I’ll never +leave you--dear, kind, good soul;’ and, with these words, Mrs. Bardell +clung the tighter. + +‘Mercy upon me,’ said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently, ‘I hear +somebody coming up the stairs. Don’t, don’t, there’s a good creature, +don’t.’ But entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing; for Mrs. +Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick’s arms; and before he could gain +time to deposit her on a chair, Master Bardell entered the room, +ushering in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. + +Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. He stood with his +lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his +friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. +They, in their turn, stared at him; and Master Bardell, in his turn, +stared at everybody. + +The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and the +perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might have remained +in exactly the same relative situations until the suspended animation of +the lady was restored, had it not been for a most beautiful and touching +expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful son. Clad in +a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very +considerable size, he at first stood at the door astounded and +uncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have +suffered some personal damage pervaded his partially developed mind, and +considering Mr. Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and +semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, +commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs, +with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence +of his excitement, allowed. + +‘Take this little villain away,’ said the agonised Mr. Pickwick, ‘he’s +mad.’ + +‘What is the matter?’ said the three tongue-tied Pickwickians. + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Pickwick pettishly. ‘Take away the boy.’ +(Here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and struggling, +to the farther end of the apartment.) ‘Now help me, lead this woman +downstairs.’ + +‘Oh, I am better now,’ said Mrs. Bardell faintly. + +‘Let me lead you downstairs,’ said the ever-gallant Mr. Tupman. + +‘Thank you, sir--thank you;’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell hysterically. And +downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son. + +‘I cannot conceive,’ said Mr. Pickwick when his friend returned--‘I +cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. I had merely +announced to her my intention of keeping a man-servant, when she fell +into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found her. Very +extraordinary thing.’ + +‘Very,’ said his three friends. + +‘Placed me in such an extremely awkward situation,’ continued Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Very,’ was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and +looked dubiously at each other. + +This behaviour was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked their +incredulity. They evidently suspected him. + +‘There is a man in the passage now,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘It’s the man I spoke to you about,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I sent for him +to the Borough this morning. Have the goodness to call him up, +Snodgrass.’ + +Mr. Snodgrass did as he was desired; and Mr. Samuel Weller forthwith +presented himself. + +‘Oh--you remember me, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I should think so,’ replied Sam, with a patronising wink. ‘Queer start +that ‘ere, but he was one too many for you, warn’t he? Up to snuff and a +pinch or two over--eh?’ + +‘Never mind that matter now,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily; ‘I want to +speak to you about something else. Sit down.’ + +‘Thank’ee, sir,’ said Sam. And down he sat without further bidding, +having previously deposited his old white hat on the landing outside the +door. ‘’Tain’t a wery good ‘un to look at,’ said Sam, ‘but it’s an +astonishin’ ‘un to wear; and afore the brim went, it was a wery handsome +tile. Hows’ever it’s lighter without it, that’s one thing, and every +hole lets in some air, that’s another--wentilation gossamer I calls it.’ +On the delivery of this sentiment, Mr. Weller smiled agreeably upon the +assembled Pickwickians. + +‘Now with regard to the matter on which I, with the concurrence of these +gentlemen, sent for you,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘That’s the pint, sir,’ interposed Sam; ‘out vith it, as the father said +to his child, when he swallowed a farden.’ + +‘We want to know, in the first place,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘whether you +have any reason to be discontented with your present situation.’ + +‘Afore I answers that ‘ere question, gen’l’m’n,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘I +should like to know, in the first place, whether you’re a-goin’ to +purwide me with a better?’ + +A sunbeam of placid benevolence played on Mr. Pickwick’s features as he +said, ‘I have half made up my mind to engage you myself.’ + +‘Have you, though?’ said Sam. + +Mr. Pickwick nodded in the affirmative. + +‘Wages?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Twelve pounds a year,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Clothes?’ + +‘Two suits.’ + +‘Work?’ + +‘To attend upon me; and travel about with me and these gentlemen here.’ + +‘Take the bill down,’ said Sam emphatically. ‘I’m let to a single +gentleman, and the terms is agreed upon.’ + +‘You accept the situation?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Cert’nly,’ replied Sam. ‘If the clothes fits me half as well as the +place, they’ll do.’ + +‘You can get a character of course?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ask the landlady o’ the White Hart about that, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘Can you come this evening?’ + +‘I’ll get into the clothes this minute, if they’re here,’ said Sam, with +great alacrity. + +‘Call at eight this evening,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘and if the inquiries +are satisfactory, they shall be provided.’ + +With the single exception of one amiable indiscretion, in which an +assistant housemaid had equally participated, the history of Mr. +Weller’s conduct was so very blameless, that Mr. Pickwick felt fully +justified in closing the engagement that very evening. With the +promptness and energy which characterised not only the public +proceedings, but all the private actions of this extraordinary man, he +at once led his new attendant to one of those convenient emporiums where +gentlemen’s new and second-hand clothes are provided, and the +troublesome and inconvenient formality of measurement dispensed with; +and before night had closed in, Mr. Weller was furnished with a grey +coat with the P. C. button, a black hat with a cockade to it, a pink +striped waistcoat, light breeches and gaiters, and a variety of other +necessaries, too numerous to recapitulate. + +‘Well,’ said that suddenly-transformed individual, as he took his seat +on the outside of the Eatanswill coach next morning; ‘I wonder whether +I’m meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a gamekeeper, or a seedsman. I +looks like a sort of compo of every one on ‘em. Never mind; there’s a +change of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this suits my +complaint uncommon; so long life to the Pickvicks, says I!’ + + + +CHAPTER XIII. SOME ACCOUNT OF EATANSWILL; OF THE STATE OF PARTIES +THEREIN; AND OF THE ELECTION OF A MEMBER TO SERVE IN PARLIAMENT FOR THAT +ANCIENT, LOYAL, AND PATRIOTIC BOROUGH + +We will frankly acknowledge that, up to the period of our being first +immersed in the voluminous papers of the Pickwick Club, we had never +heard of Eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit that we have in +vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a place at the +present day. Knowing the deep reliance to be placed on every note and +statement of Mr. Pickwick’s, and not presuming to set up our +recollection against the recorded declarations of that great man, we +have consulted every authority, bearing upon the subject, to which we +could possibly refer. We have traced every name in schedules A and B, +without meeting with that of Eatanswill; we have minutely examined every +corner of the pocket county maps issued for the benefit of society by +our distinguished publishers, and the same result has attended our +investigation. We are therefore led to believe that Mr. Pickwick, with +that anxious desire to abstain from giving offence to any, and with +those delicate feelings for which all who knew him well know he was so +eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, +for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We +are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight +and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not +undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick’s note-book, we can just trace an +entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked +by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if +for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is +situated. We will not, therefore, hazard a guess upon the subject, but +will at once proceed with this history, content with the materials which +its characters have provided for us. + +It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many +other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty +importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight +that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and +soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the Blues +and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, +and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the +consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at +public meeting, town-hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words +arose between them. With these dissensions it is almost superfluous to +say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the +Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public +meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the +erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one +man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff +shops, Blue inns and Buff inns--there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle +in the very church itself. + +Of course it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of +these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative: +and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the Eatanswill +_Gazette_ and the Eatanswill _Independent_; the former advocating Blue +principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine +newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!- +-’Our worthless contemporary, the _Gazette_’--‘That disgraceful and +dastardly journal, the _Independent_’--‘That false and scurrilous print, +the _Independent_’--‘That vile and slanderous calumniator, the +_Gazette_;’ these, and other spirit-stirring denunciations, were strewn +plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited +feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of +the townspeople. + +Mr. Pickwick, with his usual foresight and sagacity, had chosen a +peculiarly desirable moment for his visit to the borough. Never was such +a contest known. The Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was the +Blue candidate; and Horatio Fizkin, Esq., of Fizkin Lodge, near +Eatanswill, had been prevailed upon by his friends to stand forward on +the Buff interest. The _Gazette_ warned the electors of Eatanswill that +the eyes not only of England, but of the whole civilised world, were +upon them; and the _Independent_ imperatively demanded to know, whether +the constituency of Eatanswill were the grand fellows they had always +taken them for, or base and servile tools, undeserving alike of the name +of Englishmen and the blessings of freedom. Never had such a commotion +agitated the town before. + +It was late in the evening when Mr. Pickwick and his companions, +assisted by Sam, dismounted from the roof of the Eatanswill coach. Large +blue silk flags were flying from the windows of the Town Arms Inn, and +bills were posted in every sash, intimating, in gigantic letters, that +the Honourable Samuel Slumkey’s committee sat there daily. A crowd of +idlers were assembled in the road, looking at a hoarse man in the +balcony, who was apparently talking himself very red in the face in Mr. +Slumkey’s behalf; but the force and point of whose arguments were +somewhat impaired by the perpetual beating of four large drums which Mr. +Fizkin’s committee had stationed at the street corner. There was a busy +little man beside him, though, who took off his hat at intervals and +motioned to the people to cheer, which they regularly did, most +enthusiastically; and as the red-faced gentleman went on talking till he +was redder in the face than ever, it seemed to answer his purpose quite +as well as if anybody had heard him. + +The Pickwickians had no sooner dismounted than they were surrounded by a +branch mob of the honest and independent, who forthwith set up three +deafening cheers, which being responded to by the main body (for it’s +not at all necessary for a crowd to know what they are cheering about), +swelled into a tremendous roar of triumph, which stopped even the red- +faced man in the balcony. + +‘Hurrah!’ shouted the mob, in conclusion. + +‘One cheer more,’ screamed the little fugleman in the balcony, and out +shouted the mob again, as if lungs were cast-iron, with steel works. + +‘Slumkey for ever!’ roared the honest and independent. + +‘Slumkey for ever!’ echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat. + +‘No Fizkin!’ roared the crowd. + +‘Certainly not!’ shouted Mr. Pickwick. ‘Hurrah!’ And then there was +another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has +rung the bell for the cold meat. + +‘Who is Slumkey?’ whispered Mr. Tupman. + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone. ‘Hush. Don’t ask +any questions. It’s always best on these occasions to do what the mob +do.’ + +‘But suppose there are two mobs?’ suggested Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Shout with the largest,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +Volumes could not have said more. + +They entered the house, the crowd opening right and left to let them +pass, and cheering vociferously. The first object of consideration was +to secure quarters for the night. + +‘Can we have beds here?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, summoning the waiter. + +‘Don’t know, Sir,’ replied the man; ‘afraid we’re full, sir--I’ll +inquire, Sir.’ Away he went for that purpose, and presently returned, to +ask whether the gentleman were ‘Blue.’ + +As neither Mr. Pickwick nor his companions took any vital interest in +the cause of either candidate, the question was rather a difficult one +to answer. In this dilemma Mr. Pickwick bethought himself of his new +friend, Mr. Perker. + +‘Do you know a gentleman of the name of Perker?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Certainly, Sir; Honourable Mr. Samuel Slumkey’s agent.’ + +‘He is Blue, I think?’ + +‘Oh, yes, Sir.’ + +‘Then _we_ are Blue,’ said Mr. Pickwick; but observing that the man +looked rather doubtful at this accommodating announcement, he gave him +his card, and desired him to present it to Mr. Perker forthwith, if he +should happen to be in the house. The waiter retired; and reappearing +almost immediately with a request that Mr. Pickwick would follow him, +led the way to a large room on the first floor, where, seated at a long +table covered with books and papers, was Mr. Perker. + +‘Ah--ah, my dear Sir,’ said the little man, advancing to meet him; ‘very +happy to see you, my dear Sir, very. Pray sit down. So you have carried +your intention into effect. You have come down here to see an election-- +eh?’ + +Mr. Pickwick replied in the affirmative. + +‘Spirited contest, my dear sir,’ said the little man. + +‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands. ‘I +like to see sturdy patriotism, on whatever side it is called forth--and +so it’s a spirited contest?’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ said the little man, ‘very much so indeed. We have opened all +the public-houses in the place, and left our adversary nothing but the +beer-shops--masterly stroke of policy that, my dear Sir, eh?’ The little +man smiled complacently, and took a large pinch of snuff. + +‘And what are the probabilities as to the result of the contest?’ +inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, doubtful, my dear Sir; rather doubtful as yet,’ replied the little +man. ‘Fizkin’s people have got three-and-thirty voters in the lock-up +coach-house at the White Hart.’ + +‘In the coach-house!’ said Mr. Pickwick, considerably astonished by this +second stroke of policy. + +‘They keep ‘em locked up there till they want ‘em,’ resumed the little +man. ‘The effect of that is, you see, to prevent our getting at them; +and even if we could, it would be of no use, for they keep them very +drunk on purpose. Smart fellow Fizkin’s agent--very smart fellow +indeed.’ + +Mr. Pickwick stared, but said nothing. + +‘We are pretty confident, though,’ said Mr. Perker, sinking his voice +almost to a whisper. ‘We had a little tea-party here, last night--five- +and-forty women, my dear sir--and gave every one of ‘em a green parasol +when she went away.’ + +‘A parasol!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Fact, my dear Sir, fact. Five-and-forty green parasols, at seven and +sixpence a-piece. All women like finery--extraordinary the effect of +those parasols. Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers-- +beats stockings, and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. My +idea, my dear Sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sunshine, you can’t walk +half a dozen yards up the street, without encountering half a dozen +green parasols.’ + +Here the little man indulged in a convulsion of mirth, which was only +checked by the entrance of a third party. + +This was a tall, thin man, with a sandy-coloured head inclined to +baldness, and a face in which solemn importance was blended with a look +of unfathomable profundity. He was dressed in a long brown surtout, with +a black cloth waistcoat, and drab trousers. A double eyeglass dangled at +his waistcoat; and on his head he wore a very low-crowned hat with a +broad brim. The new-comer was introduced to Mr. Pickwick as Mr. Pott, +the editor of the Eatanswill _Gazette_. After a few preliminary remarks, +Mr. Pott turned round to Mr. Pickwick, and said with solemnity-- + +‘This contest excites great interest in the metropolis, sir?’ + +‘I believe it does,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘To which I have reason to know,’ said Pott, looking towards Mr. Perker +for corroboration--‘to which I have reason to know that my article of +last Saturday in some degree contributed.’ + +‘Not the least doubt of it,’ said the little man. + +‘The press is a mighty engine, sir,’ said Pott. + +Mr. Pickwick yielded his fullest assent to the proposition. + +‘But I trust, sir,’ said Pott, ‘that I have never abused the enormous +power I wield. I trust, sir, that I have never pointed the noble +instrument which is placed in my hands, against the sacred bosom of +private life, or the tender breast of individual reputation; I trust, +sir, that I have devoted my energies to--to endeavours--humble they may +be, humble I know they are--to instil those principles of--which--are--’ + +Here the editor of the Eatanswill _Gazette_, appearing to ramble, Mr. +Pickwick came to his relief, and said-- + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘And what, Sir,’ said Pott--‘what, Sir, let me ask you as an impartial +man, is the state of the public mind in London, with reference to my +contest with the _Independent_?’ + +‘Greatly excited, no doubt,’ interposed Mr. Perker, with a look of +slyness which was very likely accidental. + +‘The contest,’ said Pott, ‘shall be prolonged so long as I have health +and strength, and that portion of talent with which I am gifted. From +that contest, Sir, although it may unsettle men’s minds and excite their +feelings, and render them incapable for the discharge of the everyday +duties of ordinary life; from that contest, sir, I will never shrink, +till I have set my heel upon the Eatanswill _Independent_. I wish the +people of London, and the people of this country to know, sir, that they +may rely upon me--that I will not desert them, that I am resolved to +stand by them, Sir, to the last.’ + +Your conduct is most noble, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and he grasped the +hand of the magnanimous Pott. + +‘You are, sir, I perceive, a man of sense and talent,’ said Mr. Pott, +almost breathless with the vehemence of his patriotic declaration. ‘I am +most happy, sir, to make the acquaintance of such a man.’ + +‘And I,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘feel deeply honoured by this expression of +your opinion. Allow me, sir, to introduce you to my fellow-travellers, +the other corresponding members of the club I am proud to have founded.’ + +‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr. Pott. + +Mr. Pickwick withdrew, and returning with his friends, presented them in +due form to the editor of the Eatanswill _Gazette_. + +‘Now, my dear Pott,’ said little Mr. Perker, ‘the question is, what are +we to do with our friends here?’ + +‘We can stop in this house, I suppose,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not a spare bed in the house, my dear sir--not a single bed.’ + +‘Extremely awkward,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Very,’ said his fellow-voyagers. + +‘I have an idea upon this subject,’ said Mr. Pott, ‘which I think may be +very successfully adopted. They have two beds at the Peacock, and I can +boldly say, on behalf of Mrs. Pott, that she will be delighted to +accommodate Mr. Pickwick and any one of his friends, if the other two +gentlemen and their servant do not object to shifting, as they best can, +at the Peacock.’ + +After repeated pressings on the part of Mr. Pott, and repeated +protestations on that of Mr. Pickwick that he could not think of +incommoding or troubling his amiable wife, it was decided that it was +the only feasible arrangement that could be made. So it _was _made; and +after dinner together at the Town Arms, the friends separated, Mr. +Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass repairing to the Peacock, and Mr. Pickwick and +Mr. Winkle proceeding to the mansion of Mr. Pott; it having been +previously arranged that they should all reassemble at the Town Arms in +the morning, and accompany the Honourable Samuel Slumkey’s procession to +the place of nomination. + +Mr. Pott’s domestic circle was limited to himself and his wife. All men +whom mighty genius has raised to a proud eminence in the world, have +usually some little weakness which appears the more conspicuous from the +contrast it presents to their general character. If Mr. Pott had a +weakness, it was, perhaps, that he was rather too submissive to the +somewhat contemptuous control and sway of his wife. We do not feel +justified in laying any particular stress upon the fact, because on the +present occasion all Mrs. Pott’s most winning ways were brought into +requisition to receive the two gentlemen. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pott, ‘Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Pickwick of London.’ + +Mrs. Pott received Mr. Pickwick’s paternal grasp of the hand with +enchanting sweetness; and Mr. Winkle, who had not been announced at all, +sidled and bowed, unnoticed, in an obscure corner. + +‘P. my dear’--said Mrs. Pott. + +‘My life,’ said Mr. Pott. + +‘Pray introduce the other gentleman.’ + +‘I beg a thousand pardons,’ said Mr. Pott. ‘Permit me, Mrs. Pott, Mr.--’ + +‘Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Winkle,’ echoed Mr. Pott; and the ceremony of introduction was +complete. + +‘We owe you many apologies, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘for disturbing +your domestic arrangements at so short a notice.’ + +‘I beg you won’t mention it, sir,’ replied the feminine Pott, with +vivacity. ‘It is a high treat to me, I assure you, to see any new faces; +living as I do, from day to day, and week to week, in this dull place, +and seeing nobody.’ + +‘Nobody, my dear!’ exclaimed Mr. Pott archly. + +‘Nobody but you,’ retorted Mrs. Pott, with asperity. + +‘You see, Mr. Pickwick,’ said the host in explanation of his wife’s +lament, ‘that we are in some measure cut off from many enjoyments and +pleasures of which we might otherwise partake. My public station, as +editor of the Eatanswill _Gazette_, the position which that paper holds +in the country, my constant immersion in the vortex of politics--’ + +‘P. my dear--’ interposed Mrs. Pott. + +‘My life--’ said the editor. + +‘I wish, my dear, you would endeavour to find some topic of conversation +in which these gentlemen might take some rational interest.’ + +‘But, my love,’ said Mr. Pott, with great humility, ‘Mr. Pickwick does +take an interest in it.’ + +‘It’s well for him if he can,’ said Mrs. Pott emphatically; ‘I am +wearied out of my life with your politics, and quarrels with the +_Independent_, and nonsense. I am quite astonished, P., at your making +such an exhibition of your absurdity.’ + +‘But, my dear--’ said Mr. Pott. + +‘Oh, nonsense, don’t talk to me,’ said Mrs. Pott. ‘Do you play ecarte, +Sir?’ + +‘I shall be very happy to learn under your tuition,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘Well, then, draw that little table into this window, and let me get out +of hearing of those prosy politics.’ + +‘Jane,’ said Mr. Pott, to the servant who brought in candles, ‘go down +into the office, and bring me up the file of the _Gazette_ for eighteen +hundred and twenty-six. I’ll read you,’ added the editor, turning to Mr. +Pickwick--‘I’ll just read you a few of the leaders I wrote at that time +upon the Buff job of appointing a new tollman to the turnpike here; I +rather think they’ll amuse you.’ + +‘I should like to hear them very much indeed,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Up came the file, and down sat the editor, with Mr. Pickwick at his +side. + +We have in vain pored over the leaves of Mr. Pickwick’s note-book, in +the hope of meeting with a general summary of these beautiful +compositions. We have every reason to believe that he was perfectly +enraptured with the vigour and freshness of the style; indeed Mr. Winkle +has recorded the fact that his eyes were closed, as if with excess of +pleasure, during the whole time of their perusal. + +The announcement of supper put a stop both to the game of ecarte, and +the recapitulation of the beauties of the Eatanswill _Gazette_. Mrs. +Pott was in the highest spirits and the most agreeable humour. Mr. +Winkle had already made considerable progress in her good opinion, and +she did not hesitate to inform him, confidentially, that Mr. Pickwick +was ‘a delightful old dear.’ These terms convey a familiarity of +expression, in which few of those who were intimately acquainted with +that colossal-minded man, would have presumed to indulge. We have +preserved them, nevertheless, as affording at once a touching and a +convincing proof of the estimation in which he was held by every class +of society, and the ease with which he made his way to their hearts and +feelings. + +It was a late hour of the night--long after Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass +had fallen asleep in the inmost recesses of the Peacock--when the two +friends retired to rest. Slumber soon fell upon the senses of Mr. +Winkle, but his feelings had been excited, and his admiration roused; +and for many hours after sleep had rendered him insensible to earthly +objects, the face and figure of the agreeable Mrs. Pott presented +themselves again and again to his wandering imagination. + +The noise and bustle which ushered in the morning were sufficient to +dispel from the mind of the most romantic visionary in existence, any +associations but those which were immediately connected with the +rapidly-approaching election. The beating of drums, the blowing of horns +and trumpets, the shouting of men, and tramping of horses, echoed and +re-echoed through the streets from the earliest dawn of day; and an +occasional fight between the light skirmishers of either party at once +enlivened the preparations, and agreeably diversified their character. + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as his valet appeared at his bedroom +door, just as he was concluding his toilet; ‘all alive to-day, I +suppose?’ + +‘Reg’lar game, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘our people’s a-collecting down +at the Town Arms, and they’re a-hollering themselves hoarse already.’ + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘do they seem devoted to their party, Sam?’ + +‘Never see such dewotion in my life, Sir.’ + +‘Energetic, eh?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Uncommon,’ replied Sam; ‘I never see men eat and drink so much afore. I +wonder they ain’t afeer’d o’ bustin’.’ + +‘That’s the mistaken kindness of the gentry here,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wery likely,’ replied Sam briefly. + +‘Fine, fresh, hearty fellows they seem,’ said Mr. Pickwick, glancing +from the window. + +‘Wery fresh,’ replied Sam; ‘me and the two waiters at the Peacock has +been a-pumpin’ over the independent woters as supped there last night.’ + +‘Pumping over independent voters!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes,’ said his attendant, ‘every man slept vere he fell down; we +dragged ‘em out, one by one, this mornin’, and put ‘em under the pump, +and they’re in reg’lar fine order now. Shillin’ a head the committee +paid for that ‘ere job.’ + +‘Can such things be!’ exclaimed the astonished Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Lord bless your heart, sir,’ said Sam, ‘why where was you half +baptised?--that’s nothin’, that ain’t.’ + +‘Nothing?’said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Nothin’ at all, Sir,’ replied his attendant. ‘The night afore the last +day o’ the last election here, the opposite party bribed the barmaid at +the Town Arms, to hocus the brandy-and-water of fourteen unpolled +electors as was a-stoppin’ in the house.’ + +‘What do you mean by “hocussing” brandy-and-water?’ inquired Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Puttin’ laud’num in it,’ replied Sam. ‘Blessed if she didn’t send ‘em +all to sleep till twelve hours arter the election was over. They took +one man up to the booth, in a truck, fast asleep, by way of experiment, +but it was no go--they wouldn’t poll him; so they brought him back, and +put him to bed again.’ + +Strange practices, these,’ said Mr. Pickwick; half speaking to himself +and half addressing Sam. + +‘Not half so strange as a miraculous circumstance as happened to my own +father, at an election time, in this wery place, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘What was that?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, he drove a coach down here once,’ said Sam; ‘’lection time came +on, and he was engaged by vun party to bring down woters from London. +Night afore he was going to drive up, committee on t’ other side sends +for him quietly, and away he goes vith the messenger, who shows him in;- +-large room--lots of gen’l’m’n--heaps of papers, pens and ink, and all +that ‘ere. “Ah, Mr. Weller,” says the gen’l’m’n in the chair, “glad to +see you, sir; how are you?”--“Wery well, thank ‘ee, Sir,” says my +father; “I hope you’re pretty middlin,” says he.--“Pretty well, +thank’ee, Sir,” says the gen’l’m’n; “sit down, Mr. Weller--pray sit +down, sir.” So my father sits down, and he and the gen’l’m’n looks wery +hard at each other. “You don’t remember me?” said the gen’l’m’n.--“Can’t +say I do,” says my father.--“Oh, I know you,” says the gen’l’m’n: +“know’d you when you was a boy,” says he.--“Well, I don’t remember you,” + says my father.--“That’s wery odd,” says the gen’l’m’n.”--“Wery,” says +my father.--“You must have a bad mem’ry, Mr. Weller,” says the +gen’l’m’n.--“Well, it is a wery bad ‘un,” says my father.--“I thought +so,” says the gen’l’m’n. So then they pours him out a glass of wine, and +gammons him about his driving, and gets him into a reg’lar good humour, +and at last shoves a twenty-pound note into his hand. “It’s a wery bad +road between this and London,” says the gen’l’m’n.--“Here and there it +is a heavy road,” says my father.--” ‘Specially near the canal, I +think,” says the gen’l’m’n.--“Nasty bit that ‘ere,” says my father.-- +“Well, Mr. Weller,” says the gen’l’m’n, “you’re a wery good whip, and +can do what you like with your horses, we know. We’re all wery fond o’ +you, Mr. Weller, so in case you should have an accident when you’re +bringing these here woters down, and should tip ‘em over into the canal +vithout hurtin’ of ‘em, this is for yourself,” says he.--“Gen’l’m’n, +you’re wery kind,” says my father, “and I’ll drink your health in +another glass of wine,” says he; vich he did, and then buttons up the +money, and bows himself out. You wouldn’t believe, sir,’ continued Sam, +with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master, ‘that on the wery +day as he came down with them woters, his coach _was _upset on that ‘ere +wery spot, and ev’ry man on ‘em was turned into the canal.’ + +‘And got out again?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick hastily. + +‘Why,’ replied Sam very slowly, ‘I rather think one old gen’l’m’n was +missin’; I know his hat was found, but I ain’t quite certain whether his +head was in it or not. But what I look at is the hex-traordinary and +wonderful coincidence, that arter what that gen’l’m’n said, my father’s +coach should be upset in that wery place, and on that wery day!’ + +‘It is, no doubt, a very extraordinary circumstance indeed,’ said Mr. +Pickwick. ‘But brush my hat, Sam, for I hear Mr. Winkle calling me to +breakfast.’ + +With these words Mr. Pickwick descended to the parlour, where he found +breakfast laid, and the family already assembled. The meal was hastily +despatched; each of the gentlemen’s hats was decorated with an enormous +blue favour, made up by the fair hands of Mrs. Pott herself; and as Mr. +Winkle had undertaken to escort that lady to a house-top, in the +immediate vicinity of the hustings, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Pott repaired +alone to the Town Arms, from the back window of which, one of Mr. +Slumkey’s committee was addressing six small boys and one girl, whom he +dignified, at every second sentence, with the imposing title of ‘Men of +Eatanswill,’ whereat the six small boys aforesaid cheered prodigiously. + +The stable-yard exhibited unequivocal symptoms of the glory and strength +of the Eatanswill Blues. There was a regular army of blue flags, some +with one handle, and some with two, exhibiting appropriate devices, in +golden characters four feet high, and stout in proportion. There was a +grand band of trumpets, bassoons, and drums, marshalled four abreast, +and earning their money, if ever men did, especially the drum-beaters, +who were very muscular. There were bodies of constables with blue +staves, twenty committee-men with blue scarfs, and a mob of voters with +blue cockades. There were electors on horseback and electors afoot. +There was an open carriage-and-four, for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey; +and there were four carriage-and-pair, for his friends and supporters; +and the flags were rustling, and the band was playing, and the +constables were swearing, and the twenty committee-men were squabbling, +and the mob were shouting, and the horses were backing, and the post- +boys perspiring; and everybody, and everything, then and there +assembled, was for the special use, behoof, honour, and renown, of the +Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, one of the candidates for +the representation of the borough of Eatanswill, in the Commons House of +Parliament of the United Kingdom. + +Loud and long were the cheers, and mighty was the rustling of one of the +blue flags, with ‘Liberty of the Press’ inscribed thereon, when the +sandy head of Mr. Pott was discerned in one of the windows, by the mob +beneath; and tremendous was the enthusiasm when the Honourable Samuel +Slumkey himself, in top-boots, and a blue neckerchief, advanced and +seized the hand of the said Pott, and melodramatically testified by +gestures to the crowd, his ineffaceable obligations to the Eatanswill +_Gazette_. + +‘Is everything ready?’ said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey to Mr. Perker. + +‘Everything, my dear Sir,’ was the little man’s reply. + +‘Nothing has been omitted, I hope?’ said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. + +‘Nothing has been left undone, my dear sir--nothing whatever. There are +twenty washed men at the street door for you to shake hands with; and +six children in arms that you’re to pat on the head, and inquire the age +of; be particular about the children, my dear sir--it has always a great +effect, that sort of thing.’ + +‘I’ll take care,’ said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. + +‘And, perhaps, my dear Sir,’ said the cautious little man, ‘perhaps if +you could--I don’t mean to say it’s indispensable--but if you could +manage to kiss one of ‘em, it would produce a very great impression on +the crowd.’ + +‘Wouldn’t it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder did +that?’ said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey. + +‘Why, I am afraid it wouldn’t,’ replied the agent; ‘if it were done by +yourself, my dear Sir, I think it would make you very popular.’ + +‘Very well,’ said the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, with a resigned air, +‘then it must be done. That’s all.’ + +‘Arrange the procession,’ cried the twenty committee-men. + +Amidst the cheers of the assembled throng, the band, and the constables, +and the committee-men, and the voters, and the horsemen, and the +carriages, took their places--each of the two-horse vehicles being +closely packed with as many gentlemen as could manage to stand upright +in it; and that assigned to Mr. Perker, containing Mr. Pickwick, Mr. +Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and about half a dozen of the committee besides. + +There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the +Honourable Samuel Slumkey to step into his carriage. Suddenly the crowd +set up a great cheering. + +‘He has come out,’ said little Mr. Perker, greatly excited; the more so +as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward. + +Another cheer, much louder. + +‘He has shaken hands with the men,’ cried the little agent. + +Another cheer, far more vehement. + +‘He has patted the babies on the head,’ said Mr. Perker, trembling with +anxiety. + +A roar of applause that rent the air. + +‘He has kissed one of ‘em!’ exclaimed the delighted little man. + +A second roar. + +‘He has kissed another,’ gasped the excited manager. + +A third roar. + +‘He’s kissing ‘em all!’ screamed the enthusiastic little gentleman, and +hailed by the deafening shouts of the multitude, the procession moved +on. + +How or by what means it became mixed up with the other procession, and +how it was ever extricated from the confusion consequent thereupon, is +more than we can undertake to describe, inasmuch as Mr. Pickwick’s hat +was knocked over his eyes, nose, and mouth, by one poke of a Buff flag- +staff, very early in the proceedings. He describes himself as being +surrounded on every side, when he could catch a glimpse of the scene, by +angry and ferocious countenances, by a vast cloud of dust, and by a +dense crowd of combatants. He represents himself as being forced from +the carriage by some unseen power, and being personally engaged in a +pugilistic encounter; but with whom, or how, or why, he is wholly unable +to state. He then felt himself forced up some wooden steps by the +persons from behind; and on removing his hat, found himself surrounded +by his friends, in the very front of the left hand side of the hustings. +The right was reserved for the Buff party, and the centre for the mayor +and his officers; one of whom--the fat crier of Eatanswill--was ringing +an enormous bell, by way of commanding silence, while Mr. Horatio +Fizkin, and the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, with their hands upon their +hearts, were bowing with the utmost affability to the troubled sea of +heads that inundated the open space in front; and from whence arose a +storm of groans, and shouts, and yells, and hootings, that would have +done honour to an earthquake. + + +‘There’s Winkle,’ said Mr. Tupman, pulling his friend by the sleeve. + +‘Where!’ said Mr. Pickwick, putting on his spectacles, which he had +fortunately kept in his pocket hitherto. + +‘There,’ said Mr. Tupman, ‘on the top of that house.’ And there, sure +enough, in the leaden gutter of a tiled roof, were Mr. Winkle and Mrs. +Pott, comfortably seated in a couple of chairs, waving their +handkerchiefs in token of recognition--a compliment which Mr. Pickwick +returned by kissing his hand to the lady. + +The proceedings had not yet commenced; and as an inactive crowd is +generally disposed to be jocose, this very innocent action was +sufficient to awaken their facetiousness. + +‘Oh, you wicked old rascal,’ cried one voice, ‘looking arter the girls, +are you?’ + +‘Oh, you wenerable sinner,’ cried another. + +‘Putting on his spectacles to look at a married ‘ooman!’ said a third. + +‘I see him a-winkin’ at her, with his wicked old eye,’ shouted a fourth. + +‘Look arter your wife, Pott,’ bellowed a fifth--and then there was a +roar of laughter. + +As these taunts were accompanied with invidious comparisons between Mr. +Pickwick and an aged ram, and several witticisms of the like nature; and +as they moreover rather tended to convey reflections upon the honour of +an innocent lady, Mr. Pickwick’s indignation was excessive; but as +silence was proclaimed at the moment, he contented himself by scorching +the mob with a look of pity for their misguided minds, at which they +laughed more boisterously than ever. + +‘Silence!’ roared the mayor’s attendants. + +‘Whiffin, proclaim silence,’ said the mayor, with an air of pomp +befitting his lofty station. In obedience to this command the crier +performed another concerto on the bell, whereupon a gentleman in the +crowd called out ‘Muffins’; which occasioned another laugh. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the mayor, at as loud a pitch as he could possibly +force his voice to--‘gentlemen. Brother electors of the borough of +Eatanswill. We are met here to-day for the purpose of choosing a +representative in the room of our late--’ + +Here the mayor was interrupted by a voice in the crowd. + +‘Suc-cess to the mayor!’ cried the voice, ‘and may he never desert the +nail and sarspan business, as he got his money by.’ + +This allusion to the professional pursuits of the orator was received +with a storm of delight, which, with a bell-accompaniment, rendered the +remainder of his speech inaudible, with the exception of the concluding +sentence, in which he thanked the meeting for the patient attention with +which they heard him throughout--an expression of gratitude which +elicited another burst of mirth, of about a quarter of an hour’s +duration. + +Next, a tall, thin gentleman, in a very stiff white neckerchief, after +being repeatedly desired by the crowd to ‘send a boy home, to ask +whether he hadn’t left his voice under the pillow,’ begged to nominate a +fit and proper person to represent them in Parliament. And when he said +it was Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, the +Fizkinites applauded, and the Slumkeyites groaned, so long, and so +loudly, that both he and the seconder might have sung comic songs in +lieu of speaking, without anybody’s being a bit the wiser. + +The friends of Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, having had their innings, a +little choleric, pink-faced man stood forward to propose another fit and +proper person to represent the electors of Eatanswill in Parliament; and +very swimmingly the pink-faced gentleman would have got on, if he had +not been rather too choleric to entertain a sufficient perception of the +fun of the crowd. But after a very few sentences of figurative +eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who +interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentlemen +on the hustings; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the +necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, +and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech +of half an hour’s length, and wouldn’t be stopped, because he had sent +it all to the Eatanswill _Gazette_, and the Eatanswill _Gazette_ had +already printed it, every word. + +Then Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, +presented himself for the purpose of addressing the electors; which he +no sooner did, than the band employed by the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, +commenced performing with a power to which their strength in the morning +was a trifle; in return for which, the Buff crowd belaboured the heads +and shoulders of the Blue crowd; on which the Blue crowd endeavoured to +dispossess themselves of their very unpleasant neighbours the Buff +crowd; and a scene of struggling, and pushing, and fighting, succeeded, +to which we can no more do justice than the mayor could, although he +issued imperative orders to twelve constables to seize the ringleaders, +who might amount in number to two hundred and fifty, or thereabouts. At +all these encounters, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, and his +friends, waxed fierce and furious; until at last Horatio Fizkin, +Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, begged to ask his opponent, the Honourable +Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, whether that band played by his +consent; which question the Honourable Samuel Slumkey declining to +answer, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, shook his fist in the +countenance of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall; upon +which the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, his blood being up, defied Horatio +Fizkin, Esquire, to mortal combat. At this violation of all known rules +and precedents of order, the mayor commanded another fantasia on the +bell, and declared that he would bring before himself, both Horatio +Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, and the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of +Slumkey Hall, and bind them over to keep the peace. Upon this terrific +denunciation, the supporters of the two candidates interfered, and after +the friends of each party had quarrelled in pairs, for three-quarters of +an hour, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, touched his hat to the Honourable +Samuel Slumkey; the Honourable Samuel Slumkey touched his to Horatio +Fizkin, Esquire; the band was stopped; the crowd were partially quieted; +and Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, was permitted to proceed. + +The speeches of the two candidates, though differing in every other +respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the +electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more +independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble- +minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to +vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions +that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and +besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the exercise of the +important duties they were called upon to discharge. Fizkin expressed +his readiness to do anything he was wanted: Slumkey, his determination +to do nothing that was asked of him. Both said that the trade, the +manufactures, the commerce, the prosperity of Eatanswill, would ever be +dearer to their hearts than any earthly object; and each had it in his +power to state, with the utmost confidence, that he was the man who +would eventually be returned. + +There was a show of hands; the mayor decided in favour of the Honourable +Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall. Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin +Lodge, demanded a poll, and a poll was fixed accordingly. Then a vote of +thanks was moved to the mayor for his able conduct in the chair; and the +mayor, devoutly wishing that he had had a chair to display his able +conduct in (for he had been standing during the whole proceedings), +returned thanks. The processions reformed, the carriages rolled slowly +through the crowd, and its members screeched and shouted after them as +their feelings or caprice dictated. + +During the whole time of the polling, the town was in a perpetual fever +of excitement. Everything was conducted on the most liberal and +delightful scale. Excisable articles were remarkably cheap at all the +public-houses; and spring vans paraded the streets for the accommodation +of voters who were seized with any temporary dizziness in the head--an +epidemic which prevailed among the electors, during the contest, to a +most alarming extent, and under the influence of which they might +frequently be seen lying on the pavements in a state of utter +insensibility. A small body of electors remained unpolled on the very +last day. They were calculating and reflecting persons, who had not yet +been convinced by the arguments of either party, although they had +frequent conferences with each. One hour before the close of the poll, +Mr. Perker solicited the honour of a private interview with these +intelligent, these noble, these patriotic men. It was granted. His +arguments were brief but satisfactory. They went in a body to the poll; +and when they returned, the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, +was returned also. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. COMPRISING A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY AT THE +PEACOCK ASSEMBLED; AND A TALE TOLD BY A BAGMAN + +It is pleasant to turn from contemplating the strife and turmoil of +political existence, to the peaceful repose of private life. Although in +reality no great partisan of either side, Mr. Pickwick was sufficiently +fired with Mr. Pott’s enthusiasm, to apply his whole time and attention +to the proceedings, of which the last chapter affords a description +compiled from his own memoranda. Nor while he was thus occupied was Mr. +Winkle idle, his whole time being devoted to pleasant walks and short +country excursions with Mrs. Pott, who never failed, when such an +opportunity presented itself, to seek some relief from the tedious +monotony she so constantly complained of. The two gentlemen being thus +completely domesticated in the editor’s house, Mr. Tupman and Mr. +Snodgrass were in a great measure cast upon their own resources. Taking +but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly +with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a +bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in +the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations, +which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were +gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of +such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure +deprived of the comfort and advantage of Mr. Pickwick’s society, they +were still enabled to beguile the time, and to prevent its hanging +heavily on their hands. + +It was in the evening, however, that the Peacock presented attractions +which enabled the two friends to resist even the invitations of the +gifted, though prosy, Pott. It was in the evening that the ‘commercial +room’ was filled with a social circle, whose characters and manners it +was the delight of Mr. Tupman to observe; whose sayings and doings it +was the habit of Mr. Snodgrass to note down. + +Most people know what sort of places commercial rooms usually are. That +of the Peacock differed in no material respect from the generality of +such apartments; that is to say, it was a large, bare-looking room, the +furniture of which had no doubt been better when it was newer, with a +spacious table in the centre, and a variety of smaller dittos in the +corners; an extensive assortment of variously shaped chairs, and an old +Turkey carpet, bearing about the same relative proportion to the size of +the room, as a lady’s pocket-handkerchief might to the floor of a watch- +box. The walls were garnished with one or two large maps; and several +weather-beaten rough greatcoats, with complicated capes, dangled from a +long row of pegs in one corner. The mantel-shelf was ornamented with a +wooden inkstand, containing one stump of a pen and half a wafer; a road- +book and directory; a county history minus the cover; and the mortal +remains of a trout in a glass coffin. The atmosphere was redolent of +tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue to +the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which +shaded the windows. On the sideboard a variety of miscellaneous articles +were huddled together, the most conspicuous of which were some very +cloudy fish-sauce cruets, a couple of driving-boxes, two or three whips, +and as many travelling shawls, a tray of knives and forks, and the +mustard. + +Here it was that Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were seated on the evening +after the conclusion of the election, with several other temporary +inmates of the house, smoking and drinking. + +‘Well, gents,’ said a stout, hale personage of about forty, with only +one eye--a very bright black eye, which twinkled with a roguish +expression of fun and good-humour, ‘our noble selves, gents. I always +propose that toast to the company, and drink Mary to myself. Eh, Mary!’ + +‘Get along with you, you wretch,’ said the hand-maiden, obviously not +ill-pleased with the compliment, however. + +‘Don’t go away, Mary,’ said the black-eyed man. + +‘Let me alone, imperence,’ said the young lady. + +‘Never mind,’ said the one-eyed man, calling after the girl as she left +the room. ‘I’ll step out by and by, Mary. Keep your spirits up, dear.’ +Here he went through the not very difficult process of winking upon the +company with his solitary eye, to the enthusiastic delight of an elderly +personage with a dirty face and a clay pipe. + +‘Rum creeters is women,’ said the dirty-faced man, after a pause. + +‘Ah! no mistake about that,’ said a very red-faced man, behind a cigar. + +After this little bit of philosophy there was another pause. + +‘There’s rummer things than women in this world though, mind you,’ said +the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large Dutch pipe, with a +most capacious bowl. + +‘Are you married?’ inquired the dirty-faced man. + +‘Can’t say I am.’ + +‘I thought not.’ Here the dirty-faced man fell into ecstasies of mirth +at his own retort, in which he was joined by a man of bland voice and +placid countenance, who always made it a point to agree with everybody. + +‘Women, after all, gentlemen,’ said the enthusiastic Mr. Snodgrass, ‘are +the great props and comforts of our existence.’ + +‘So they are,’ said the placid gentleman. + +‘When they’re in a good humour,’ interposed the dirty-faced man. + +‘And that’s very true,’ said the placid one. + +‘I repudiate that qualification,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, whose thoughts +were fast reverting to Emily Wardle. ‘I repudiate it with disdain--with +indignation. Show me the man who says anything against women, as women, +and I boldly declare he is not a man.’ And Mr. Snodgrass took his cigar +from his mouth, and struck the table violently with his clenched fist. + +‘That’s good sound argument,’ said the placid man. + +‘Containing a position which I deny,’ interrupted he of the dirty +countenance. + +‘And there’s certainly a very great deal of truth in what you observe +too, Sir,’ said the placid gentleman. + +‘Your health, Sir,’ said the bagman with the lonely eye, bestowing an +approving nod on Mr. Snodgrass. + +Mr. Snodgrass acknowledged the compliment. + +‘I always like to hear a good argument,’ continued the bagman, ‘a sharp +one, like this: it’s very improving; but this little argument about +women brought to my mind a story I have heard an old uncle of mine tell, +the recollection of which, just now, made me say there were rummer +things than women to be met with, sometimes.’ + +‘I should like to hear that same story,’ said the red-faced man with the +cigar. + +‘Should you?’ was the only reply of the bagman, who continued to smoke +with great vehemence. + +‘So should I,’ said Mr. Tupman, speaking for the first time. He was +always anxious to increase his stock of experience. + +‘Should _you_? Well then, I’ll tell it. No, I won’t. I know you won’t +believe it,’ said the man with the roguish eye, making that organ look +more roguish than ever. ‘If you say it’s true, of course I shall,’ said +Mr. Tupman. + +‘Well, upon that understanding I’ll tell you,’ replied the traveller. +‘Did you ever hear of the great commercial house of Bilson & Slum? But +it doesn’t matter though, whether you did or not, because they retired +from business long since. It’s eighty years ago, since the circumstance +happened to a traveller for that house, but he was a particular friend +of my uncle’s; and my uncle told the story to me. It’s a queer name; but +he used to call it + + +THE BAGMAN’S STORY + +and he used to tell it, something in this way. + +‘One winter’s evening, about five o’clock, just as it began to grow +dusk, a man in a gig might have been seen urging his tired horse along +the road which leads across Marlborough Downs, in the direction of +Bristol. I say he might have been seen, and I have no doubt he would +have been, if anybody but a blind man had happened to pass that way; but +the weather was so bad, and the night so cold and wet, that nothing was +out but the water, and so the traveller jogged along in the middle of +the road, lonesome and dreary enough. If any bagman of that day could +have caught sight of the little neck-or-nothing sort of gig, with a +clay-coloured body and red wheels, and the vixenish, ill tempered, fast- +going bay mare, that looked like a cross between a butcher’s horse and a +twopenny post-office pony, he would have known at once, that this +traveller could have been no other than Tom Smart, of the great house of +Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. However, as there was no bagman +to look on, nobody knew anything at all about the matter; and so Tom +Smart and his clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and the vixenish +mare with the fast pace, went on together, keeping the secret among +them, and nobody was a bit the wiser. + +‘There are many pleasanter places even in this dreary world, than +Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside, a +gloomy winter’s evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of +heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper +person, you will experience the full force of this observation. + +‘The wind blew--not up the road or down it, though that’s bad enough, +but sheer across it, sending the rain slanting down like the lines they +used to rule in the copy-books at school, to make the boys slope well. +For a moment it would die away, and the traveller would begin to delude +himself into the belief that, exhausted with its previous fury, it had +quietly laid itself down to rest, when, whoo! he could hear it growling +and whistling in the distance, and on it would come rushing over the +hill-tops, and sweeping along the plain, gathering sound and strength as +it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man, +driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into +their very bones; and past them it would scour, far, far away, with a +stunning roar, as if in ridicule of their weakness, and triumphant in +the consciousness of its own strength and power. + +‘The bay mare splashed away, through the mud and water, with drooping +ears; now and then tossing her head as if to express her disgust at this +very ungentlemanly behaviour of the elements, but keeping a good pace +notwithstanding, until a gust of wind, more furious than any that had +yet assailed them, caused her to stop suddenly and plant her four feet +firmly against the ground, to prevent her being blown over. It’s a +special mercy that she did this, for if she _had _been blown over, the +vixenish mare was so light, and the gig was so light, and Tom Smart such +a light weight into the bargain, that they must infallibly have all gone +rolling over and over together, until they reached the confines of +earth, or until the wind fell; and in either case the probability is, +that neither the vixenish mare, nor the clay-coloured gig with the red +wheels, nor Tom Smart, would ever have been fit for service again. + +‘“Well, damn my straps and whiskers,” says Tom Smart (Tom sometimes had +an unpleasant knack of swearing)--“damn my straps and whiskers,” says +Tom, “if this ain’t pleasant, blow me!” + +‘You’ll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty well blown +already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process +again. I can’t say--all I know is, that Tom Smart said so--or at least +he always told my uncle he said so, and it’s just the same thing. + +“‘Blow me,” says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she were +precisely of the same opinion. + +“‘Cheer up, old girl,” said Tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with +the end of his whip. “It won’t do pushing on, such a night as this; the +first house we come to we’ll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner +it’s over. Soho, old girl--gently--gently.” + +‘Whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted with the +tones of Tom’s voice to comprehend his meaning, or whether she found it +colder standing still than moving on, of course I can’t say. But I can +say that Tom had no sooner finished speaking, than she pricked up her +ears, and started forward at a speed which made the clay-coloured gig +rattle until you would have supposed every one of the red spokes were +going to fly out on the turf of Marlborough Downs; and even Tom, whip as +he was, couldn’t stop or check her pace, until she drew up of her own +accord, before a roadside inn on the right-hand side of the way, about +half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs. + +‘Tom cast a hasty glance at the upper part of the house as he threw the +reins to the hostler, and stuck the whip in the box. It was a strange +old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross- +beams, with gabled-topped windows projecting completely over the +pathway, and a low door with a dark porch, and a couple of steep steps +leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a +dozen shallow ones leading up to it. It was a comfortable-looking place +though, for there was a strong, cheerful light in the bar window, which +shed a bright ray across the road, and even lighted up the hedge on the +other side; and there was a red flickering light in the opposite window, +one moment but faintly discernible, and the next gleaming strongly +through the drawn curtains, which intimated that a rousing fire was +blazing within. Marking these little evidences with the eye of an +experienced traveller, Tom dismounted with as much agility as his half- +frozen limbs would permit, and entered the house. + +‘In less than five minutes’ time, Tom was ensconced in the room opposite +the bar--the very room where he had imagined the fire blazing--before a +substantial, matter-of-fact, roaring fire, composed of something short +of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make half a dozen decent +gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the chimney, and roaring and +crackling with a sound that of itself would have warmed the heart of any +reasonable man. This was comfortable, but this was not all; for a +smartly-dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was laying a +very clean white cloth on the table; and as Tom sat with his slippered +feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he saw a charming +prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the chimney-piece, with +delightful rows of green bottles and gold labels, together with jars of +pickles and preserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, +arranged on shelves in the most tempting and delicious array. Well, this +was comfortable too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated +at tea at the nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the +brightest possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about +eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the bar, +who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the supreme ruler over +all these agreeable possessions. There was only one drawback to the +beauty of the whole picture, and that was a tall man--a very tall man-- +in a brown coat and bright basket buttons, and black whiskers and wavy +black hair, who was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no +great penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be +a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of sitting down +in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of the term of his +natural life. + +‘Tom Smart was by no means of an irritable or envious disposition, but +somehow or other the tall man with the brown coat and the bright basket +buttons did rouse what little gall he had in his composition, and did +make him feel extremely indignant, the more especially as he could now +and then observe, from his seat before the glass, certain little +affectionate familiarities passing between the tall man and the widow, +which sufficiently denoted that the tall man was as high in favour as he +was in size. Tom was fond of hot punch--I may venture to say he was +_very_ fond of hot punch--and after he had seen the vixenish mare well +fed and well littered down, and had eaten every bit of the nice little +hot dinner which the widow tossed up for him with her own hands, he just +ordered a tumbler of it by way of experiment. Now, if there was one +thing in the whole range of domestic art, which the widow could +manufacture better than another, it was this identical article; and the +first tumbler was adapted to Tom Smart’s taste with such peculiar +nicety, that he ordered a second with the least possible delay. Hot +punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen--an extremely pleasant thing under +any circumstances--but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring +fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house +creaked again, Tom Smart found it perfectly delightful. He ordered +another tumbler, and then another--I am not quite certain whether he +didn’t order another after that--but the more he drank of the hot punch, +the more he thought of the tall man. + +‘“Confound his impudence!” said Tom to himself, “what business has he in +that snug bar? Such an ugly villain too!” said Tom. “If the widow had +any taste, she might surely pick up some better fellow than that.” Here +Tom’s eye wandered from the glass on the chimney-piece to the glass on +the table; and as he felt himself becoming gradually sentimental, he +emptied the fourth tumbler of punch and ordered a fifth. + +‘Tom Smart, gentlemen, had always been very much attached to the public +line. It had been long his ambition to stand in a bar of his own, in a +green coat, knee-cords, and tops. He had a great notion of taking the +chair at convivial dinners, and he had often thought how well he could +preside in a room of his own in the talking way, and what a capital +example he could set to his customers in the drinking department. All +these things passed rapidly through Tom’s mind as he sat drinking the +hot punch by the roaring fire, and he felt very justly and properly +indignant that the tall man should be in a fair way of keeping such an +excellent house, while he, Tom Smart, was as far off from it as ever. +So, after deliberating over the two last tumblers, whether he hadn’t a +perfect right to pick a quarrel with the tall man for having contrived +to get into the good graces of the buxom widow, Tom Smart at last +arrived at the satisfactory conclusion that he was a very ill-used and +persecuted individual, and had better go to bed. + +‘Up a wide and ancient staircase the smart girl preceded Tom, shading +the chamber candle with her hand, to protect it from the currents of air +which in such a rambling old place might have found plenty of room to +disport themselves in, without blowing the candle out, but which did +blow it out nevertheless--thus affording Tom’s enemies an opportunity of +asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, +and that while he pretended to be blowing it alight again, he was in +fact kissing the girl. Be this as it may, another light was obtained, +and Tom was conducted through a maze of rooms, and a labyrinth of +passages, to the apartment which had been prepared for his reception, +where the girl bade him good-night and left him alone. + +‘It was a good large room with big closets, and a bed which might have +served for a whole boarding-school, to say nothing of a couple of oaken +presses that would have held the baggage of a small army; but what +struck Tom’s fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high backed chair, +carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and +the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red +cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes. Of any other queer chair, +Tom would only have thought it was a queer chair, and there would have +been an end of the matter; but there was something about this particular +chair, and yet he couldn’t tell what it was, so odd and so unlike any +other piece of furniture he had ever seen, that it seemed to fascinate +him. He sat down before the fire, and stared at the old chair for half +an hour.--Damn the chair, it was such a strange old thing, he couldn’t +take his eyes off it. + +‘“Well,” said Tom, slowly undressing himself, and staring at the old +chair all the while, which stood with a mysterious aspect by the +bedside, “I never saw such a rum concern as that in my days. Very odd,” + said Tom, who had got rather sage with the hot punch--“very odd.” Tom +shook his head with an air of profound wisdom, and looked at the chair +again. He couldn’t make anything of it though, so he got into bed, +covered himself up warm, and fell asleep. + +‘In about half an hour, Tom woke up with a start, from a confused dream +of tall men and tumblers of punch; and the first object that presented +itself to his waking imagination was the queer chair. + +‘“I won’t look at it any more,” said Tom to himself, and he squeezed his +eyelids together, and tried to persuade himself he was going to sleep +again. No use; nothing but queer chairs danced before his eyes, kicking +up their legs, jumping over each other’s backs, and playing all kinds of +antics. + +“‘I may as well see one real chair, as two or three complete sets of +false ones,” said Tom, bringing out his head from under the bedclothes. +There it was, plainly discernible by the light of the fire, looking as +provoking as ever. + +‘Tom gazed at the chair; and, suddenly as he looked at it, a most +extraordinary change seemed to come over it. The carving of the back +gradually assumed the lineaments and expression of an old, shrivelled +human face; the damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the +round knobs grew into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; +and the whole chair looked like a very ugly old man, of the previous +century, with his arms akimbo. Tom sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes to +dispel the illusion. No. The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what +was more, he was winking at Tom Smart. + +‘Tom was naturally a headlong, careless sort of dog, and he had had five +tumblers of hot punch into the bargain; so, although he was a little +startled at first, he began to grow rather indignant when he saw the old +gentleman winking and leering at him with such an impudent air. At +length he resolved that he wouldn’t stand it; and as the old face still +kept winking away as fast as ever, Tom said, in a very angry tone-- + +‘“What the devil are you winking at me for?” + +‘“Because I like it, Tom Smart,” said the chair; or the old gentleman, +whichever you like to call him. He stopped winking though, when Tom +spoke, and began grinning like a superannuated monkey. + +‘“How do you know my name, old nut-cracker face?” inquired Tom Smart, +rather staggered; though he pretended to carry it off so well. + +‘“Come, come, Tom,” said the old gentleman, “that’s not the way to +address solid Spanish mahogany. Damme, you couldn’t treat me with less +respect if I was veneered.” When the old gentleman said this, he looked +so fierce that Tom began to grow frightened. + +‘“I didn’t mean to treat you with any disrespect, Sir,” said Tom, in a +much humbler tone than he had spoken in at first. + +‘“Well, well,” said the old fellow, “perhaps not--perhaps not. Tom--” + +‘“Sir--” + +‘“I know everything about you, Tom; everything. You’re very poor, Tom.” + +‘“I certainly am,” said Tom Smart. “But how came you to know that?” + +‘“Never mind that,” said the old gentleman; “you’re much too fond of +punch, Tom.” + +‘Tom Smart was just on the point of protesting that he hadn’t tasted a +drop since his last birthday, but when his eye encountered that of the +old gentleman he looked so knowing that Tom blushed, and was silent. + +‘“Tom,” said the old gentleman, “the widow’s a fine woman--remarkably +fine woman--eh, Tom?” Here the old fellow screwed up his eyes, cocked up +one of his wasted little legs, and looked altogether so unpleasantly +amorous, that Tom was quite disgusted with the levity of his behaviour-- +at his time of life, too! + +‘“I am her guardian, Tom,” said the old gentleman. + +‘“Are you?” inquired Tom Smart. + +‘“I knew her mother, Tom,” said the old fellow: “and her grandmother. +She was very fond of me--made me this waistcoat, Tom.” + +‘“Did she?” said Tom Smart. + +‘“And these shoes,” said the old fellow, lifting up one of the red cloth +mufflers; “but don’t mention it, Tom. I shouldn’t like to have it known +that she was so much attached to me. It might occasion some +unpleasantness in the family.” When the old rascal said this, he looked +so extremely impertinent, that, as Tom Smart afterwards declared, he +could have sat upon him without remorse. + +‘“I have been a great favourite among the women in my time, Tom,” said +the profligate old debauchee; “hundreds of fine women have sat in my lap +for hours together. What do you think of that, you dog, eh!” The old +gentleman was proceeding to recount some other exploits of his youth, +when he was seized with such a violent fit of creaking that he was +unable to proceed. + +‘“Just serves you right, old boy,” thought Tom Smart; but he didn’t say +anything. + +‘“Ah!” said the old fellow, “I am a good deal troubled with this now. I +am getting old, Tom, and have lost nearly all my nails. I have had an +operation performed, too--a small piece let into my back--and I found it +a severe trial, Tom.” + +‘“I dare say you did, Sir,” said Tom Smart. + +‘“However,” said the old gentleman, “that’s not the point. Tom! I want +you to marry the widow.” + +‘“Me, Sir!” said Tom. + +‘“You,” said the old gentleman. + +‘“Bless your reverend locks,” said Tom (he had a few scattered horse- +hairs left)--“bless your reverend locks, she wouldn’t have me.” And Tom +sighed involuntarily, as he thought of the bar. + +‘“Wouldn’t she?” said the old gentleman firmly. + +‘“No, no,” said Tom; “there’s somebody else in the wind. A tall man--a +confoundedly tall man--with black whiskers.” + +‘“Tom,” said the old gentleman; “she will never have him.” + +‘“Won’t she?” said Tom. “If you stood in the bar, old gentleman, you’d +tell another story.” + +‘“Pooh, pooh,” said the old gentleman. “I know all about that.” + +‘“About what?” said Tom. + +‘“The kissing behind the door, and all that sort of thing, Tom,” said +the old gentleman. And here he gave another impudent look, which made +Tom very wroth, because as you all know, gentlemen, to hear an old +fellow, who ought to know better, talking about these things, is very +unpleasant--nothing more so. + +‘“I know all about that, Tom,” said the old gentleman. “I have seen it +done very often in my time, Tom, between more people than I should like +to mention to you; but it never came to anything after all.” + +‘“You must have seen some queer things,” said Tom, with an inquisitive +look. + +‘“You may say that, Tom,” replied the old fellow, with a very +complicated wink. “I am the last of my family, Tom,” said the old +gentleman, with a melancholy sigh. + +‘“Was it a large one?” inquired Tom Smart. + +‘“There were twelve of us, Tom,” said the old gentleman; “fine, +straight-backed, handsome fellows as you’d wish to see. None of your +modern abortions--all with arms, and with a degree of polish, though I +say it that should not, which it would have done your heart good to +behold.” + +‘“And what’s become of the others, Sir?” asked Tom Smart-- + +‘The old gentleman applied his elbow to his eye as he replied, “Gone, +Tom, gone. We had hard service, Tom, and they hadn’t all my +constitution. They got rheumatic about the legs and arms, and went into +kitchens and other hospitals; and one of ‘em, with long service and hard +usage, positively lost his senses--he got so crazy that he was obliged +to be burnt. Shocking thing that, Tom.” + +‘“Dreadful!” said Tom Smart. + +‘The old fellow paused for a few minutes, apparently struggling with his +feelings of emotion, and then said-- + +‘“However, Tom, I am wandering from the point. This tall man, Tom, is a +rascally adventurer. The moment he married the widow, he would sell off +all the furniture, and run away. What would be the consequence? She +would be deserted and reduced to ruin, and I should catch my death of +cold in some broker’s shop.” + +‘“Yes, but--” + +‘“Don’t interrupt me,” said the old gentleman. “Of you, Tom, I entertain +a very different opinion; for I well know that if you once settled +yourself in a public-house, you would never leave it, as long as there +was anything to drink within its walls.” + +‘“I am very much obliged to you for your good opinion, Sir,” said Tom +Smart. + +‘“Therefore,” resumed the old gentleman, in a dictatorial tone, “you +shall have her, and he shall not.” + +‘“What is to prevent it?” said Tom Smart eagerly. + +‘“This disclosure,” replied the old gentleman; “he is already married.” + +‘“How can I prove it?” said Tom, starting half out of bed. + +‘The old gentleman untucked his arm from his side, and having pointed to +one of the oaken presses, immediately replaced it, in its old position. + +‘“He little thinks,” said the old gentleman, “that in the right-hand +pocket of a pair of trousers in that press, he has left a letter, +entreating him to return to his disconsolate wife, with six--mark me, +Tom--six babes, and all of them small ones.” + +‘As the old gentleman solemnly uttered these words, his features grew +less and less distinct, and his figure more shadowy. A film came over +Tom Smart’s eyes. The old man seemed gradually blending into the chair, +the damask waistcoat to resolve into a cushion, the red slippers to +shrink into little red cloth bags. The light faded gently away, and Tom +Smart fell back on his pillow, and dropped asleep. + +‘Morning aroused Tom from the lethargic slumber, into which he had +fallen on the disappearance of the old man. He sat up in bed, and for +some minutes vainly endeavoured to recall the events of the preceding +night. Suddenly they rushed upon him. He looked at the chair; it was a +fantastic and grim-looking piece of furniture, certainly, but it must +have been a remarkably ingenious and lively imagination, that could have +discovered any resemblance between it and an old man. + +‘“How are you, old boy?” said Tom. He was bolder in the daylight--most +men are. + +‘The chair remained motionless, and spoke not a word. + +‘“Miserable morning,” said Tom. No. The chair would not be drawn into +conversation. + +‘“Which press did you point to?--you can tell me that,” said Tom. Devil +a word, gentlemen, the chair would say. + +‘“It’s not much trouble to open it, anyhow,” said Tom, getting out of +bed very deliberately. He walked up to one of the presses. The key was +in the lock; he turned it, and opened the door. There was a pair of +trousers there. He put his hand into the pocket, and drew forth the +identical letter the old gentleman had described! + +‘“Queer sort of thing, this,” said Tom Smart, looking first at the chair +and then at the press, and then at the letter, and then at the chair +again. “Very queer,” said Tom. But, as there was nothing in either, to +lessen the queerness, he thought he might as well dress himself, and +settle the tall man’s business at once--just to put him out of his +misery. + +‘Tom surveyed the rooms he passed through, on his way downstairs, with +the scrutinising eye of a landlord; thinking it not impossible, that +before long, they and their contents would be his property. The tall man +was standing in the snug little bar, with his hands behind him, quite at +home. He grinned vacantly at Tom. A casual observer might have supposed +he did it, only to show his white teeth; but Tom Smart thought that a +consciousness of triumph was passing through the place where the tall +man’s mind would have been, if he had had any. Tom laughed in his face; +and summoned the landlady. + +‘“Good-morning ma’am,” said Tom Smart, closing the door of the little +parlour as the widow entered. + +‘“Good-morning, Sir,” said the widow. “What will you take for breakfast, +sir?” + +‘Tom was thinking how he should open the case, so he made no answer. + +‘“There’s a very nice ham,” said the widow, “and a beautiful cold larded +fowl. Shall I send ‘em in, Sir?” + +‘These words roused Tom from his reflections. His admiration of the +widow increased as she spoke. Thoughtful creature! Comfortable provider! + +‘“Who is that gentleman in the bar, ma’am?” inquired Tom. + +‘“His name is Jinkins, Sir,” said the widow, slightly blushing. + +‘“He’s a tall man,” said Tom. + +‘“He is a very fine man, Sir,” replied the widow, “and a very nice +gentleman.” + +‘“Ah!” said Tom. + +‘“Is there anything more you want, Sir?” inquired the widow, rather +puzzled by Tom’s manner. + +‘“Why, yes,” said Tom. “My dear ma’am, will you have the kindness to sit +down for one moment?” + +‘The widow looked much amazed, but she sat down, and Tom sat down too, +close beside her. I don’t know how it happened, gentlemen--indeed my +uncle used to tell me that Tom Smart said he didn’t know how it happened +either--but somehow or other the palm of Tom’s hand fell upon the back +of the widow’s hand, and remained there while he spoke. + +‘“My dear ma’am,” said Tom Smart--he had always a great notion of +committing the amiable--“my dear ma’am, you deserve a very excellent +husband--you do indeed.” + +‘“Lor, Sir!” said the widow--as well she might; Tom’s mode of commencing +the conversation being rather unusual, not to say startling; the fact of +his never having set eyes upon her before the previous night being taken +into consideration. “Lor, Sir!” + +‘“I scorn to flatter, my dear ma’am,” said Tom Smart. “You deserve a +very admirable husband, and whoever he is, he’ll be a very lucky man.” + As Tom said this, his eye involuntarily wandered from the widow’s face +to the comfort around him. + +‘The widow looked more puzzled than ever, and made an effort to rise. +Tom gently pressed her hand, as if to detain her, and she kept her seat. +Widows, gentlemen, are not usually timorous, as my uncle used to say. + +‘“I am sure I am very much obliged to you, Sir, for your good opinion,” + said the buxom landlady, half laughing; “and if ever I marry again--” + +’”_If_,” said Tom Smart, looking very shrewdly out of the right-hand +corner of his left eye. “_If_--” + +“Well,” said the widow, laughing outright this time, “_when _I do, I +hope I shall have as good a husband as you describe.” + +‘“Jinkins, to wit,” said Tom. + +‘“Lor, sir!” exclaimed the widow. + +‘“Oh, don’t tell me,” said Tom, “I know him.” + +‘“I am sure nobody who knows him, knows anything bad of him,” said the +widow, bridling up at the mysterious air with which Tom had spoken. + +‘“Hem!” said Tom Smart. + +‘The widow began to think it was high time to cry, so she took out her +handkerchief, and inquired whether Tom wished to insult her, whether he +thought it like a gentleman to take away the character of another +gentleman behind his back, why, if he had got anything to say, he didn’t +say it to the man, like a man, instead of terrifying a poor weak woman +in that way; and so forth. + +‘“I’ll say it to him fast enough,” said Tom, “only I want you to hear it +first.” + +‘“What is it?” inquired the widow, looking intently in Tom’s +countenance. + +‘“I’ll astonish you,” said Tom, putting his hand in his pocket. + +‘“If it is, that he wants money,” said the widow, “I know that already, +and you needn’t trouble yourself.” ‘“Pooh, nonsense, that’s nothing,” + said Tom Smart, “I want money. ‘Tain’t that.” + +‘“Oh, dear, what can it be?” exclaimed the poor widow. + +‘“Don’t be frightened,” said Tom Smart. He slowly drew forth the letter, +and unfolded it. “You won’t scream?” said Tom doubtfully. + +‘“No, no,” replied the widow; “let me see it.” + +‘“You won’t go fainting away, or any of that nonsense?” said Tom. + +‘“No, no,” returned the widow hastily. + +‘“And don’t run out, and blow him up,” said Tom; “because I’ll do all +that for you. You had better not exert yourself.” + +‘“Well, well,” said the widow, “let me see it.” + +‘“I will,” replied Tom Smart; and, with these words, he placed the +letter in the widow’s hand. + +‘Gentlemen, I have heard my uncle say, that Tom Smart said the widow’s +lamentations when she heard the disclosure would have pierced a heart of +stone. Tom was certainly very tender-hearted, but they pierced his, to +the very core. The widow rocked herself to and fro, and wrung her hands. + +‘“Oh, the deception and villainy of the man!” said the widow. + +‘“Frightful, my dear ma’am; but compose yourself,” said Tom Smart. + +‘“Oh, I can’t compose myself,” shrieked the widow. “I shall never find +anyone else I can love so much!” + +‘“Oh, yes you will, my dear soul,” said Tom Smart, letting fall a shower +of the largest-sized tears, in pity for the widow’s misfortunes. Tom +Smart, in the energy of his compassion, had put his arm round the +widow’s waist; and the widow, in a passion of grief, had clasped Tom’s +hand. She looked up in Tom’s face, and smiled through her tears. Tom +looked down in hers, and smiled through his. + +‘I never could find out, gentlemen, whether Tom did or did not kiss the +widow at that particular moment. He used to tell my uncle he didn’t, but +I have my doubts about it. Between ourselves, gentlemen, I rather think +he did. + +‘At all events, Tom kicked the very tall man out at the front door half +an hour later, and married the widow a month after. And he used to drive +about the country, with the clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and +the vixenish mare with the fast pace, till he gave up business many +years afterwards, and went to France with his wife; and then the old +house was pulled down.’ + +‘Will you allow me to ask you,’ said the inquisitive old gentleman, +‘what became of the chair?’ + +‘Why,’ replied the one-eyed bagman, ‘it was observed to creak very much +on the day of the wedding; but Tom Smart couldn’t say for certain +whether it was with pleasure or bodily infirmity. He rather thought it +was the latter, though, for it never spoke afterwards.’ + +‘Everybody believed the story, didn’t they?’ said the dirty-faced man, +refilling his pipe. + +‘Except Tom’s enemies,’ replied the bagman. ‘Some of ‘em said Tom +invented it altogether; and others said he was drunk and fancied it, and +got hold of the wrong trousers by mistake before he went to bed. But +nobody ever minded what _they _said.’ + +‘Tom Smart said it was all true?’ + +‘Every word.’ + +‘And your uncle?’ + +‘Every letter.’ + +‘They must have been very nice men, both of ‘em,’ said the dirty-faced +man. + +‘Yes, they were,’ replied the bagman; ‘very nice men indeed!’ + + + +CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH IS GIVEN A FAITHFUL PORTRAITURE OF TWO +DISTINGUISHED PERSONS; AND AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF A PUBLIC BREAKFAST +IN THEIR HOUSE AND GROUNDS: WHICH PUBLIC BREAKFAST LEADS TO THE +RECOGNITION OF AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF ANOTHER +CHAPTER + +Mr. Pickwick’s conscience had been somewhat reproaching him for his +recent neglect of his friends at the Peacock; and he was just on the +point of walking forth in quest of them, on the third morning after the +election had terminated, when his faithful valet put into his hand a +card, on which was engraved the following inscription:-- + + +Mrs. Leo Hunter THE DEN. EATANSWILL. + +‘Person’s a-waitin’,’ said Sam, epigrammatically. + +‘Does the person want me, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He wants you partickler; and no one else ‘ll do, as the devil’s private +secretary said ven he fetched avay Doctor Faustus,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘_He_. Is it a gentleman?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A wery good imitation o’ one, if it ain’t,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘But this is a lady’s card,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Given me by a gen’l’m’n, howsoever,’ replied Sam, ‘and he’s a-waitin’ +in the drawing-room--said he’d rather wait all day, than not see you.’ + +Mr. Pickwick, on hearing this determination, descended to the drawing- +room, where sat a grave man, who started up on his entrance, and said, +with an air of profound respect:-- + +‘Mr. Pickwick, I presume?’ + +‘The same.’ + +‘Allow me, Sir, the honour of grasping your hand. Permit me, Sir, to +shake it,’ said the grave man. + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Pickwick. The stranger shook the extended hand, +and then continued-- + +‘We have heard of your fame, sir. The noise of your antiquarian +discussion has reached the ears of Mrs. Leo Hunter--my wife, sir; I am +Mr. Leo Hunter’--the stranger paused, as if he expected that Mr. +Pickwick would be overcome by the disclosure; but seeing that he +remained perfectly calm, proceeded-- + +‘My wife, sir--Mrs. Leo Hunter--is proud to number among her +acquaintance all those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their +works and talents. Permit me, sir, to place in a conspicuous part of the +list the name of Mr. Pickwick, and his brother-members of the club that +derives its name from him.’ + +‘I shall be extremely happy to make the acquaintance of such a lady, +sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You _shall _make it, sir,’ said the grave man. ‘To-morrow morning, sir, +we give a public breakfast--a _fete champetre_--to a great number of +those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and +talents. Permit Mrs. Leo Hunter, Sir, to have the gratification of +seeing you at the Den.’ + +‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mrs. Leo Hunter has many of these breakfasts, Sir,’ resumed the new +acquaintance--‘“feasts of reason,” sir, “and flows of soul,” as somebody +who wrote a sonnet to Mrs. Leo Hunter on her breakfasts, feelingly and +originally observed.’ + +‘Was _he_ celebrated for his works and talents?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He was Sir,’ replied the grave man, ‘all Mrs. Leo Hunter’s +acquaintances are; it is her ambition, sir, to have no other +acquaintance.’ + +‘It is a very noble ambition,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘When I inform Mrs. Leo Hunter, that that remark fell from your lips, +sir, she will indeed be proud,’ said the grave man. ‘You have a +gentleman in your train, who has produced some beautiful little poems, I +think, sir.’ + +‘My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a great taste for poetry,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘So has Mrs. Leo Hunter, Sir. She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I +may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. +She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met +with her “Ode to an Expiring Frog,” sir.’ + +‘I don’t think I have,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You astonish me, Sir,’ said Mr. Leo Hunter. ‘It created an immense +sensation. It was signed with an “L” and eight stars, and appeared +originally in a lady’s magazine. It commenced-- + + +‘“Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I +unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!”’ + + +‘Beautiful!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Fine,’ said Mr. Leo Hunter; ‘so simple.’ + +‘Very,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘The next verse is still more touching. Shall I repeat it?’ + +‘If you please,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It runs thus,’ said the grave man, still more gravely. + + +‘“Say, have fiends in shape of boys, With wild halloo, and brutal noise, +Hunted thee from marshy joys, With a dog, Expiring frog!”’ + + +‘Finely expressed,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘All point, Sir,’ said Mr. Leo Hunter; ‘but you shall hear Mrs. Leo +Hunter repeat it. She can do justice to it, Sir. She will repeat it, in +character, Sir, to-morrow morning.’ + +‘In character!’ + +‘As Minerva. But I forgot--it’s a fancy-dress _dejeune_.’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Pickwick, glancing at his own figure--‘I can’t +possibly--’ + +‘Can’t, sir; can’t!’ exclaimed Mr. Leo Hunter. ‘Solomon Lucas, the Jew +in the High Street, has thousands of fancy-dresses. Consider, Sir, how +many appropriate characters are open for your selection. Plato, Zeno, +Epicurus, Pythagoras--all founders of clubs.’ + +‘I know that,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but as I cannot put myself in +competition with those great men, I cannot presume to wear their +dresses.’ + +The grave man considered deeply, for a few seconds, and then said-- + +‘On reflection, Sir, I don’t know whether it would not afford Mrs. Leo +Hunter greater pleasure, if her guests saw a gentleman of your celebrity +in his own costume, rather than in an assumed one. I may venture to +promise an exception in your case, sir--yes, I am quite certain that, on +behalf of Mrs. Leo Hunter, I may venture to do so.’ + +‘In that case,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I shall have great pleasure in +coming.’ + +‘But I waste your time, Sir,’ said the grave man, as if suddenly +recollecting himself. ‘I know its value, sir. I will not detain you. I +may tell Mrs. Leo Hunter, then, that she may confidently expect you and +your distinguished friends? Good-morning, Sir, I am proud to have beheld +so eminent a personage--not a step sir; not a word.’ And without giving +Mr. Pickwick time to offer remonstrance or denial, Mr. Leo Hunter +stalked gravely away. + +Mr. Pickwick took up his hat, and repaired to the Peacock, but Mr. +Winkle had conveyed the intelligence of the fancy-ball there, before +him. + +‘Mrs. Pott’s going,’ were the first words with which he saluted his +leader. + +‘Is she?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘As Apollo,’ replied Winkle. ‘Only Pott objects to the tunic.’ + +‘He is right. He is quite right,’ said Mr. Pickwick emphatically. + +‘Yes; so she’s going to wear a white satin gown with gold spangles.’ + +‘They’ll hardly know what she’s meant for; will they?’ inquired Mr. +Snodgrass. + +‘Of course they will,’ replied Mr. Winkle indignantly. ‘They’ll see her +lyre, won’t they?’ + +‘True; I forgot that,’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘I shall go as a bandit,’ interposed Mr. Tupman. + +‘What!’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a sudden start. + +‘As a bandit,’ repeated Mr. Tupman, mildly. + +‘You don’t mean to say,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gazing with solemn sternness +at his friend--‘you don’t mean to say, Mr. Tupman, that it is your +intention to put yourself into a green velvet jacket, with a two-inch +tail?’ + +‘Such _is_ my intention, Sir,’ replied Mr. Tupman warmly. ‘And why not, +sir?’ + +‘Because, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, considerably excited--‘because you +are too old, Sir.’ + +‘Too old!’ exclaimed Mr. Tupman. + +‘And if any further ground of objection be wanting,’ continued Mr. +Pickwick, ‘you are too fat, sir.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Tupman, his face suffused with a crimson glow, ‘this is +an insult.’ + +‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone, ‘it is not half the +insult to you, that your appearance in my presence in a green velvet +jacket, with a two-inch tail, would be to me.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Tupman, ‘you’re a fellow.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you’re another!’ + +Mr. Tupman advanced a step or two, and glared at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. +Pickwick returned the glare, concentrated into a focus by means of his +spectacles, and breathed a bold defiance. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle +looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene between two such men. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Tupman, after a short pause, speaking in a low, deep +voice, ‘you have called me old.’ + +‘I have,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And fat.’ + +‘I reiterate the charge.’ + +‘And a fellow.’ + +‘So you are!’ + +There was a fearful pause. + +‘My attachment to your person, sir,’ said Mr. Tupman, speaking in a +voice tremulous with emotion, and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, +‘is great--very great--but upon that person, I must take summary +vengeance.’ + +‘Come on, Sir!’ replied Mr. Pickwick. Stimulated by the exciting nature +of the dialogue, the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic +attitude, confidently supposed by the two bystanders to have been +intended as a posture of defence. + +‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, suddenly recovering the power of +speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and +rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an +application on the temple from each--‘what! Mr. Pickwick, with the eyes +of the world upon you! Mr. Tupman! who, in common with us all, derives a +lustre from his undying name! For shame, gentlemen; for shame.’ + +The unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in Mr. Pickwick’s +clear and open brow, gradually melted away, as his young friend spoke, +like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of +india-rubber. His countenance had resumed its usual benign expression, +ere he concluded. + +‘I have been hasty,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘very hasty. Tupman; your hand.’ + +The dark shadow passed from Mr. Tupman’s face, as he warmly grasped the +hand of his friend. + +‘I have been hasty, too,’ said he. + +‘No, no,’ interrupted Mr. Pickwick, ‘the fault was mine. You will wear +the green velvet jacket?’ + +‘No, no,’ replied Mr. Tupman. + +‘To oblige me, you will,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well, well, I will,’ said Mr. Tupman. + + +It was accordingly settled that Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. +Snodgrass, should all wear fancy-dresses. Thus Mr. Pickwick was led by +the very warmth of his own good feelings to give his consent to a +proceeding from which his better judgment would have recoiled--a more +striking illustration of his amiable character could hardly have been +conceived, even if the events recorded in these pages had been wholly +imaginary. + +Mr. Leo Hunter had not exaggerated the resources of Mr. Solomon Lucas. +His wardrobe was extensive--very extensive--not strictly classical +perhaps, not quite new, nor did it contain any one garment made +precisely after the fashion of any age or time, but everything was more +or less spangled; and what can be prettier than spangles! It may be +objected that they are not adapted to the daylight, but everybody knows +that they would glitter if there were lamps; and nothing can be clearer +than that if people give fancy-balls in the day-time, and the dresses do +not show quite as well as they would by night, the fault lies solely +with the people who give the fancy-balls, and is in no wise chargeable +on the spangles. Such was the convincing reasoning of Mr. Solomon Lucas; +and influenced by such arguments did Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. +Snodgrass engage to array themselves in costumes which his taste and +experience induced him to recommend as admirably suited to the occasion. + +A carriage was hired from the Town Arms, for the accommodation of the +Pickwickians, and a chariot was ordered from the same repository, for +the purpose of conveying Mr. and Mrs. Pott to Mrs. Leo Hunter’s grounds, +which Mr. Pott, as a delicate acknowledgment of having received an +invitation, had already confidently predicted in the Eatanswill +_Gazette_ ‘would present a scene of varied and delicious enchantment--a +bewildering coruscation of beauty and talent--a lavish and prodigal +display of hospitality--above all, a degree of splendour softened by the +most exquisite taste; and adornment refined with perfect harmony and the +chastest good keeping--compared with which, the fabled gorgeousness of +Eastern fairyland itself would appear to be clothed in as many dark and +murky colours, as must be the mind of the splenetic and unmanly being +who could presume to taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations +made by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady at whose shrine this +humble tribute of admiration was offered.’ This last was a piece of +biting sarcasm against the _Independent_, who, in consequence of not +having been invited at all, had been, through four numbers, affecting to +sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the +adjectives in capital letters. + +The morning came: it was a pleasant sight to behold Mr. Tupman in full +brigand’s costume, with a very tight jacket, sitting like a pincushion +over his back and shoulders, the upper portion of his legs incased in +the velvet shorts, and the lower part thereof swathed in the complicated +bandages to which all brigands are peculiarly attached. It was pleasing +to see his open and ingenuous countenance, well mustachioed and corked, +looking out from an open shirt collar; and to contemplate the sugar-loaf +hat, decorated with ribbons of all colours, which he was compelled to +carry on his knee, inasmuch as no known conveyance with a top to it, +would admit of any man’s carrying it between his head and the roof. +Equally humorous and agreeable was the appearance of Mr. Snodgrass in +blue satin trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes, and Grecian +helmet, which everybody knows (and if they do not, Mr. Solomon Lucas +did) to have been the regular, authentic, everyday costume of a +troubadour, from the earliest ages down to the time of their final +disappearance from the face of the earth. All this was pleasant, but +this was as nothing compared with the shouting of the populace when the +carriage drew up, behind Mr. Pott’s chariot, which chariot itself drew +up at Mr. Pott’s door, which door itself opened, and displayed the great +Pott accoutred as a Russian officer of justice, with a tremendous knout +in his hand--tastefully typical of the stern and mighty power of the +Eatanswill _Gazette_, and the fearful lashings it bestowed on public +offenders. + +‘Bravo!’ shouted Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the passage, when +they beheld the walking allegory. + +‘Bravo!’ Mr. Pickwick was heard to exclaim, from the passage. + +‘Hoo-roar Pott!’ shouted the populace. Amid these salutations, Mr. Pott, +smiling with that kind of bland dignity which sufficiently testified +that he felt his power, and knew how to exert it, got into the chariot. + +Then there emerged from the house, Mrs. Pott, who would have looked very +like Apollo if she hadn’t had a gown on, conducted by Mr. Winkle, who, +in his light-red coat could not possibly have been mistaken for anything +but a sportsman, if he had not borne an equal resemblance to a general +postman. Last of all came Mr. Pickwick, whom the boys applauded as loud +as anybody, probably under the impression that his tights and gaiters +were some remnants of the dark ages; and then the two vehicles proceeded +towards Mrs. Leo Hunter’s; Mr. Weller (who was to assist in waiting) +being stationed on the box of that in which his master was seated. + +Every one of the men, women, boys, girls, and babies, who were assembled +to see the visitors in their fancy-dresses, screamed with delight and +ecstasy, when Mr. Pickwick, with the brigand on one arm, and the +troubadour on the other, walked solemnly up the entrance. Never were +such shouts heard as those which greeted Mr. Tupman’s efforts to fix the +sugar-loaf hat on his head, by way of entering the garden in style. + +The preparations were on the most delightful scale; fully realising the +prophetic Pott’s anticipations about the gorgeousness of Eastern +fairyland, and at once affording a sufficient contradiction to the +malignant statements of the reptile _Independent_. The grounds were more +than an acre and a quarter in extent, and they were filled with people! +Never was such a blaze of beauty, and fashion, and literature. There was +the young lady who ‘did’ the poetry in the Eatanswill _Gazette_, in the +garb of a sultana, leaning upon the arm of the young gentleman who ‘did’ +the review department, and who was appropriately habited in a field- +marshal’s uniform--the boots excepted. There were hosts of these +geniuses, and any reasonable person would have thought it honour enough +to meet them. But more than these, there were half a dozen lions from +London--authors, real authors, who had written whole books, and printed +them afterwards--and here you might see ‘em, walking about, like +ordinary men, smiling, and talking--aye, and talking pretty considerable +nonsense too, no doubt with the benign intention of rendering themselves +intelligible to the common people about them. Moreover, there was a band +of music in pasteboard caps; four something-ean singers in the costume +of their country, and a dozen hired waiters in the costume of _their +_country--and very dirty costume too. And above all, there was Mrs. Leo +Hunter in the character of Minerva, receiving the company, and +overflowing with pride and gratification at the notion of having called +such distinguished individuals together. + +‘Mr. Pickwick, ma’am,’ said a servant, as that gentleman approached the +presiding goddess, with his hat in his hand, and the brigand and +troubadour on either arm. + +‘What! Where!’ exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, starting up, in an affected +rapture of surprise. + +‘Here,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Is it possible that I have really the gratification of beholding Mr. +Pickwick himself!’ ejaculated Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +‘No other, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. ‘Permit me to +introduce my friends--Mr. Tupman--Mr. Winkle--Mr. Snodgrass--to the +authoress of “The Expiring Frog.”’ + +Very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult +process it is to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and +high-crowned hat; or in blue satin trunks and white silks, or knee-cords +and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed +upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of +himself and the suit. Never were such distortions as Mr. Tupman’s frame +underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful--never was such +ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited. + +‘Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, ‘I must make you promise not to +stir from my side the whole day. There are hundreds of people here, that +I must positively introduce you to.’ + +‘You are very kind, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘In the first place, here are my little girls; I had almost forgotten +them,’ said Minerva, carelessly pointing towards a couple of full-grown +young ladies, of whom one might be about twenty, and the other a year or +two older, and who were dressed in very juvenile costumes--whether to +make them look young, or their mamma younger, Mr. Pickwick does not +distinctly inform us. + +‘They are very beautiful,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as the juveniles turned +away, after being presented. + +‘They are very like their mamma, Sir,’ said Mr. Pott, majestically. + +‘Oh, you naughty man,’ exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, playfully tapping the +editor’s arm with her fan (Minerva with a fan!). + +‘Why now, my dear Mrs. Hunter,’ said Mr. Pott, who was trumpeter in +ordinary at the Den, ‘you know that when your picture was in the +exhibition of the Royal Academy, last year, everybody inquired whether +it was intended for you, or your youngest daughter; for you were so much +alike that there was no telling the difference between you.’ + +‘Well, and if they did, why need you repeat it, before strangers?’ said +Mrs. Leo Hunter, bestowing another tap on the slumbering lion of the +Eatanswill _Gazette_. + +‘Count, count,’ screamed Mrs. Leo Hunter to a well-whiskered individual +in a foreign uniform, who was passing by. + +‘Ah! you want me?’ said the count, turning back. + +‘I want to introduce two very clever people to each other,’ said Mrs. +Leo Hunter. ‘Mr. Pickwick, I have great pleasure in introducing you to +Count Smorltork.’ She added in a hurried whisper to Mr. Pickwick--‘The +famous foreigner--gathering materials for his great work on England-- +hem!--Count Smorltork, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +Mr. Pickwick saluted the count with all the reverence due to so great a +man, and the count drew forth a set of tablets. + +‘What you say, Mrs. Hunt?’ inquired the count, smiling graciously on the +gratified Mrs. Leo Hunter, ‘Pig Vig or Big Vig--what you call--lawyer-- +eh? I see--that is it. Big Vig’--and the count was proceeding to enter +Mr. Pickwick in his tablets, as a gentleman of the long robe, who +derived his name from the profession to which he belonged, when Mrs. Leo +Hunter interposed. + +‘No, no, count,’ said the lady, ‘Pick-wick.’ + +‘Ah, ah, I see,’ replied the count. ‘Peek--christian name; Weeks-- +surname; good, ver good. Peek Weeks. How you do, Weeks?’ + +‘Quite well, I thank you,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with all his usual +affability. ‘Have you been long in England?’ + +‘Long--ver long time--fortnight--more.’ + +‘Do you stay here long?’ + +‘One week.’ + +‘You will have enough to do,’ said Mr. Pickwick smiling, ‘to gather all +the materials you want in that time.’ + +‘Eh, they are gathered,’ said the count. + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘They are here,’ added the count, tapping his forehead significantly. +‘Large book at home--full of notes--music, picture, science, potry, +poltic; all tings.’ + +‘The word politics, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘comprises in itself, a +difficult study of no inconsiderable magnitude.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the count, drawing out the tablets again, ‘ver good--fine +words to begin a chapter. Chapter forty-seven. Poltics. The word poltic +surprises by himself--’ And down went Mr. Pickwick’s remark, in Count +Smorltork’s tablets, with such variations and additions as the count’s +exuberant fancy suggested, or his imperfect knowledge of the language +occasioned. + +‘Count,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +‘Mrs. Hunt,’ replied the count. + +‘This is Mr. Snodgrass, a friend of Mr. Pickwick’s, and a poet.’ + +‘Stop,’ exclaimed the count, bringing out the tablets once more. ‘Head, +potry--chapter, literary friends--name, Snowgrass; ver good. Introduced +to Snowgrass--great poet, friend of Peek Weeks--by Mrs. Hunt, which +wrote other sweet poem--what is that name?--Fog--Perspiring Fog--ver +good--ver good indeed.’ And the count put up his tablets, and with +sundry bows and acknowledgments walked away, thoroughly satisfied that +he had made the most important and valuable additions to his stock of +information. + +‘Wonderful man, Count Smorltork,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +‘Sound philosopher,’ said Mr. Pott. + +‘Clear-headed, strong-minded person,’ added Mr. Snodgrass. + +A chorus of bystanders took up the shout of Count Smorltork’s praise, +shook their heads sagely, and unanimously cried, ‘Very!’ + +As the enthusiasm in Count Smorltork’s favour ran very high, his praises +might have been sung until the end of the festivities, if the four +something-ean singers had not ranged themselves in front of a small +apple-tree, to look picturesque, and commenced singing their national +songs, which appeared by no means difficult of execution, inasmuch as +the grand secret seemed to be, that three of the something-ean singers +should grunt, while the fourth howled. This interesting performance +having concluded amidst the loud plaudits of the whole company, a boy +forthwith proceeded to entangle himself with the rails of a chair, and +to jump over it, and crawl under it, and fall down with it, and do +everything but sit upon it, and then to make a cravat of his legs, and +tie them round his neck, and then to illustrate the ease with which a +human being can be made to look like a magnified toad--all which feats +yielded high delight and satisfaction to the assembled spectators. After +which, the voice of Mrs. Pott was heard to chirp faintly forth, +something which courtesy interpreted into a song, which was all very +classical, and strictly in character, because Apollo was himself a +composer, and composers can very seldom sing their own music or anybody +else’s, either. This was succeeded by Mrs. Leo Hunter’s recitation of +her far-famed ‘Ode to an Expiring Frog,’ which was encored once, and +would have been encored twice, if the major part of the guests, who +thought it was high time to get something to eat, had not said that it +was perfectly shameful to take advantage of Mrs. Hunter’s good nature. +So although Mrs. Leo Hunter professed her perfect willingness to recite +the ode again, her kind and considerate friends wouldn’t hear of it on +any account; and the refreshment room being thrown open, all the people +who had ever been there before, scrambled in with all possible despatch- +-Mrs. Leo Hunter’s usual course of proceedings being, to issue cards for +a hundred, and breakfast for fifty, or in other words to feed only the +very particular lions, and let the smaller animals take care of +themselves. + +‘Where is Mr. Pott?’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, as she placed the aforesaid +lions around her. + +‘Here I am,’ said the editor, from the remotest end of the room; far +beyond all hope of food, unless something was done for him by the +hostess. + +‘Won’t you come up here?’ + +‘Oh, pray don’t mind him,’ said Mrs. Pott, in the most obliging voice-- +‘you give yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble, Mrs. Hunter. +You’ll do very well there, won’t you--dear?’ + +‘Certainly--love,’ replied the unhappy Pott, with a grim smile. Alas for +the knout! The nervous arm that wielded it, with such a gigantic force +on public characters, was paralysed beneath the glance of the imperious +Mrs. Pott. + +Mrs. Leo Hunter looked round her in triumph. Count Smorltork was busily +engaged in taking notes of the contents of the dishes; Mr. Tupman was +doing the honours of the lobster salad to several lionesses, with a +degree of grace which no brigand ever exhibited before; Mr. Snodgrass +having cut out the young gentleman who cut up the books for the +Eatanswill _Gazette_, was engaged in an impassioned argument with the +young lady who did the poetry; and Mr. Pickwick was making himself +universally agreeable. Nothing seemed wanting to render the select +circle complete, when Mr. Leo Hunter--whose department on these +occasions, was to stand about in doorways, and talk to the less +important people--suddenly called out-- + +‘My dear; here’s Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall.’ + +‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, ‘how anxiously I have been expecting +him. Pray make room, to let Mr. Fitz-Marshall pass. Tell Mr. Fitz- +Marshall, my dear, to come up to me directly, to be scolded for coming +so late.’ + +‘Coming, my dear ma’am,’ cried a voice, ‘as quick as I can--crowds of +people--full room--hard work--very.’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s knife and fork fell from his hand. He stared across the +table at Mr. Tupman, who had dropped his knife and fork, and was looking +as if he were about to sink into the ground without further notice. + +‘Ah!’ cried the voice, as its owner pushed his way among the last five- +and-twenty Turks, officers, cavaliers, and Charles the Seconds, that +remained between him and the table, ‘regular mangle--Baker’s patent--not +a crease in my coat, after all this squeezing--might have “got up my +linen” as I came along--ha! ha! not a bad idea, that--queer thing to +have it mangled when it’s upon one, though--trying process--very.’ + +With these broken words, a young man dressed as a naval officer made his +way up to the table, and presented to the astonished Pickwickians the +identical form and features of Mr. Alfred Jingle. + +The offender had barely time to take Mrs. Leo Hunter’s proffered hand, +when his eyes encountered the indignant orbs of Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hollo!’ said Jingle. ‘Quite forgot--no directions to postillion--give +‘em at once--back in a minute.’ + +‘The servant, or Mr. Hunter will do it in a moment, Mr. Fitz-Marshall,’ +said Mrs. Leo Hunter. + +‘No, no--I’ll do it--shan’t be long--back in no time,’ replied Jingle. +With these words he disappeared among the crowd. + +‘Will you allow me to ask you, ma’am,’ said the excited Mr. Pickwick, +rising from his seat, ‘who that young man is, and where he resides?’ + +‘He is a gentleman of fortune, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Leo Hunter, ‘to +whom I very much want to introduce you. The count will be delighted with +him.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘His residence--’ + +‘Is at present at the Angel at Bury.’ + +‘At Bury?’ + +‘At Bury St. Edmunds, not many miles from here. But dear me, Mr. +Pickwick, you are not going to leave us; surely Mr. Pickwick you cannot +think of going so soon?’ + +But long before Mrs. Leo Hunter had finished speaking, Mr. Pickwick had +plunged through the throng, and reached the garden, whither he was +shortly afterwards joined by Mr. Tupman, who had followed his friend +closely. + +‘It’s of no use,’ said Mr. Tupman. ‘He has gone.’ + +‘I know it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘and I will follow him.’ + +‘Follow him! Where?’ inquired Mr. Tupman. + +‘To the Angel at Bury,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, speaking very quickly. +‘How do we know whom he is deceiving there? He deceived a worthy man +once, and we were the innocent cause. He shall not do it again, if I can +help it; I’ll expose him! Sam! Where’s my servant?’ + +‘Here you are, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, emerging from a sequestered spot, +where he had been engaged in discussing a bottle of Madeira, which he +had abstracted from the breakfast-table an hour or two before. ‘Here’s +your servant, Sir. Proud o’ the title, as the living skellinton said, +ven they show’d him.’ + +‘Follow me instantly,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Tupman, if I stay at Bury, +you can join me there, when I write. Till then, good-bye!’ + +Remonstrances were useless. Mr. Pickwick was roused, and his mind was +made up. Mr. Tupman returned to his companions; and in another hour had +drowned all present recollection of Mr. Alfred Jingle, or Mr. Charles +Fitz-Marshall, in an exhilarating quadrille and a bottle of champagne. +By that time, Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, perched on the outside of a +stage-coach, were every succeeding minute placing a less and less +distance between themselves and the good old town of Bury St. Edmunds. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. TOO FULL OF ADVENTURE TO BE BRIEFLY DESCRIBED + +There is no month in the whole year in which nature wears a more +beautiful appearance than in the month of August. Spring has many +beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this +time of year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. +August has no such advantage. It comes when we remember nothing but +clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers--when the +recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from our minds +as completely as they have disappeared from the earth--and yet what a +pleasant time it is! Orchards and cornfields ring with the hum of +labour; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow +their branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves, +or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the +sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. A mellow softness +appears to hang over the whole earth; the influence of the season seems +to extend itself to the very wagon, whose slow motion across the well- +reaped field is perceptible only to the eye, but strikes with no harsh +sound upon the ear. + +As the coach rolls swiftly past the fields and orchards which skirt the +road, groups of women and children, piling the fruit in sieves, or +gathering the scattered ears of corn, pause for an instant from their +labour, and shading the sun-burned face with a still browner hand, gaze +upon the passengers with curious eyes, while some stout urchin, too +small to work, but too mischievous to be left at home, scrambles over +the side of the basket in which he has been deposited for security, and +kicks and screams with delight. The reaper stops in his work, and stands +with folded arms, looking at the vehicle as it whirls past; and the +rough cart-horses bestow a sleepy glance upon the smart coach team, +which says as plainly as a horse’s glance can, ‘It’s all very fine to +look at, but slow going, over a heavy field, is better than warm work +like that, upon a dusty road, after all.’ You cast a look behind you, as +you turn a corner of the road. The women and children have resumed their +labour; the reaper once more stoops to his work; the cart-horses have +moved on; and all are again in motion. + +The influence of a scene like this, was not lost upon the well-regulated +mind of Mr. Pickwick. Intent upon the resolution he had formed, of +exposing the real character of the nefarious Jingle, in any quarter in +which he might be pursuing his fraudulent designs, he sat at first +taciturn and contemplative, brooding over the means by which his purpose +could be best attained. By degrees his attention grew more and more +attracted by the objects around him; and at last he derived as much +enjoyment from the ride, as if it had been undertaken for the +pleasantest reason in the world. + +‘Delightful prospect, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Beats the chimbley-pots, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. + +‘I suppose you have hardly seen anything but chimney-pots and bricks and +mortar all your life, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. + +‘I worn’t always a boots, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, with a shake of the +head. ‘I wos a vaginer’s boy, once.’ + +‘When was that?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘When I wos first pitched neck and crop into the world, to play at leap- +frog with its troubles,’ replied Sam. ‘I wos a carrier’s boy at +startin’; then a vaginer’s, then a helper, then a boots. Now I’m a +gen’l’m’n’s servant. I shall be a gen’l’m’n myself one of these days, +perhaps, with a pipe in my mouth, and a summer-house in the back-garden. +Who knows? I shouldn’t be surprised for one.’ + +‘You are quite a philosopher, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It runs in the family, I b’lieve, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘My +father’s wery much in that line now. If my mother-in-law blows him up, +he whistles. She flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, +and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into ‘sterics; +and he smokes wery comfortably till she comes to agin. That’s +philosophy, Sir, ain’t it?’ + +‘A very good substitute for it, at all events,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, +laughing. ‘It must have been of great service to you, in the course of +your rambling life, Sam.’ + +‘Service, sir,’ exclaimed Sam. ‘You may say that. Arter I run away from +the carrier, and afore I took up with the vaginer, I had unfurnished +lodgin’s for a fortnight.’ + +‘Unfurnished lodgings?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes--the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge. Fine sleeping-place--vithin ten +minutes’ walk of all the public offices--only if there is any objection +to it, it is that the sitivation’s rayther too airy. I see some queer +sights there.’ + +Ah, I suppose you did,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with an air of considerable +interest. + +‘Sights, sir,’ resumed Mr. Weller, ‘as ‘ud penetrate your benevolent +heart, and come out on the other side. You don’t see the reg’lar +wagrants there; trust ‘em, they knows better than that. Young beggars, +male and female, as hasn’t made a rise in their profession, takes up +their quarters there sometimes; but it’s generally the worn-out, +starving, houseless creeturs as roll themselves in the dark corners o’ +them lonesome places--poor creeturs as ain’t up to the twopenny rope.’ + +‘And pray, Sam, what is the twopenny rope?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘The twopenny rope, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘is just a cheap lodgin’ +house, where the beds is twopence a night.’ + +‘What do they call a bed a rope for?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Bless your innocence, sir, that ain’t it,’ replied Sam. ‘Ven the lady +and gen’l’m’n as keeps the hot-el first begun business, they used to +make the beds on the floor; but this wouldn’t do at no price, ‘cos +instead o’ taking a moderate twopenn’orth o’ sleep, the lodgers used to +lie there half the day. So now they has two ropes, ‘bout six foot apart, +and three from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds +are made of slips of coarse sacking, stretched across ‘em.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘the adwantage o’ the plan’s hobvious. At six +o’clock every mornin’ they let’s go the ropes at one end, and down falls +the lodgers. Consequence is, that being thoroughly waked, they get up +wery quietly, and walk away!’ + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, suddenly breaking off in his +loquacious discourse. ‘Is this Bury St. Edmunds?’ + +‘It is,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +The coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little +town, of thriving and cleanly appearance, and stopped before a large inn +situated in a wide open street, nearly facing the old abbey. + +‘And this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking up. ‘Is the Angel! We alight +here, Sam. But some caution is necessary. Order a private room, and do +not mention my name. You understand.’ + +‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, with a wink of +intelligence; and having dragged Mr. Pickwick’s portmanteau from the +hind boot, into which it had been hastily thrown when they joined the +coach at Eatanswill, Mr. Weller disappeared on his errand. A private +room was speedily engaged; and into it Mr. Pickwick was ushered without +delay. + +‘Now, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘the first thing to be done is to--’ + +Order dinner, Sir,’ interposed Mr. Weller. ‘It’s wery late, sir.’ + +‘Ah, so it is,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch. ‘You are right, +Sam.’ + +‘And if I might adwise, Sir,’ added Mr. Weller, ‘I’d just have a good +night’s rest arterwards, and not begin inquiring arter this here deep +‘un till the mornin’. There’s nothin’ so refreshen’ as sleep, sir, as +the servant girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful of laudanum.’ + +‘I think you are right, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘But I must first +ascertain that he is in the house, and not likely to go away.’ + +‘Leave that to me, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘Let me order you a snug little +dinner, and make my inquiries below while it’s a-getting ready; I could +worm ev’ry secret out O’ the boots’s heart, in five minutes, Sir.’ + +Do so,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and Mr. Weller at once retired. + +In half an hour, Mr. Pickwick was seated at a very satisfactory dinner; +and in three-quarters Mr. Weller returned with the intelligence that Mr. +Charles Fitz-Marshall had ordered his private room to be retained for +him, until further notice. He was going to spend the evening at some +private house in the neighbourhood, had ordered the boots to sit up +until his return, and had taken his servant with him. + +‘Now, sir,’ argued Mr. Weller, when he had concluded his report, ‘if I +can get a talk with this here servant in the mornin’, he’ll tell me all +his master’s concerns.’ + +‘How do you know that?’ interposed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Bless your heart, sir, servants always do,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Oh, ah, I forgot that,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Well.’ + +‘Then you can arrange what’s best to be done, sir, and we can act +accordingly.’ + +As it appeared that this was the best arrangement that could be made, it +was finally agreed upon. Mr. Weller, by his master’s permission, retired +to spend the evening in his own way; and was shortly afterwards elected, +by the unanimous voice of the assembled company, into the taproom chair, +in which honourable post he acquitted himself so much to the +satisfaction of the gentlemen-frequenters, that their roars of laughter +and approbation penetrated to Mr. Pickwick’s bedroom, and shortened the +term of his natural rest by at least three hours. + +Early on the ensuing morning, Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish +remains of the previous evening’s conviviality, through the +instrumentality of a halfpenny shower-bath (having induced a young +gentleman attached to the stable department, by the offer of that coin, +to pump over his head and face, until he was perfectly restored), when +he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry- +coloured livery, who was sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what +appeared to be a hymn-book, with an air of deep abstraction, but who +occasionally stole a glance at the individual under the pump, as if he +took some interest in his proceedings, nevertheless. + +‘You’re a rum ‘un to look at, you are!’ thought Mr. Weller, the first +time his eyes encountered the glance of the stranger in the mulberry +suit, who had a large, sallow, ugly face, very sunken eyes, and a +gigantic head, from which depended a quantity of lank black hair. +‘You’re a rum ‘un!’ thought Mr. Weller; and thinking this, he went on +washing himself, and thought no more about him. + +Still the man kept glancing from his hymn-book to Sam, and from Sam to +his hymn-book, as if he wanted to open a conversation. So at last, Sam, +by way of giving him an opportunity, said with a familiar nod-- + +‘How are you, governor?’ + +‘I am happy to say, I am pretty well, Sir,’ said the man, speaking with +great deliberation, and closing the book. ‘I hope you are the same, +Sir?’ + +‘Why, if I felt less like a walking brandy-bottle I shouldn’t be quite +so staggery this mornin’,’ replied Sam. ‘Are you stoppin’ in this house, +old ‘un?’ + +The mulberry man replied in the affirmative. + +‘How was it you worn’t one of us, last night?’ inquired Sam, scrubbing +his face with the towel. ‘You seem one of the jolly sort--looks as +conwivial as a live trout in a lime basket,’ added Mr. Weller, in an +undertone. + +‘I was out last night with my master,’ replied the stranger. + +‘What’s his name?’ inquired Mr. Weller, colouring up very red with +sudden excitement, and the friction of the towel combined. + +‘Fitz-Marshall,’ said the mulberry man. + +‘Give us your hand,’ said Mr. Weller, advancing; ‘I should like to know +you. I like your appearance, old fellow.’ + +‘Well, that is very strange,’ said the mulberry man, with great +simplicity of manner. ‘I like yours so much, that I wanted to speak to +you, from the very first moment I saw you under the pump.’ + +Did you though?’ + +‘Upon my word. Now, isn’t that curious?’ + +‘Wery sing’ler,’ said Sam, inwardly congratulating himself upon the +softness of the stranger. ‘What’s your name, my patriarch?’ + +‘Job.’ + +‘And a wery good name it is; only one I know that ain’t got a nickname +to it. What’s the other name?’ + +‘Trotter,’ said the stranger. ‘What is yours?’ + +Sam bore in mind his master’s caution, and replied-- + +‘My name’s Walker; my master’s name’s Wilkins. Will you take a drop o’ +somethin’ this mornin’, Mr. Trotter?’ + +Mr. Trotter acquiesced in this agreeable proposal; and having deposited +his book in his coat pocket, accompanied Mr. Weller to the tap, where +they were soon occupied in discussing an exhilarating compound, formed +by mixing together, in a pewter vessel, certain quantities of British +Hollands and the fragrant essence of the clove. + +‘And what sort of a place have you got?’ inquired Sam, as he filled his +companion’s glass, for the second time. + +‘Bad,’ said Job, smacking his lips, ‘very bad.’ + +‘You don’t mean that?’ said Sam. + +‘I do, indeed. Worse than that, my master’s going to be married.’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Yes; and worse than that, too, he’s going to run away with an immense +rich heiress, from boarding-school.’ + +‘What a dragon!’ said Sam, refilling his companion’s glass. ‘It’s some +boarding-school in this town, I suppose, ain’t it?’ Now, although this +question was put in the most careless tone imaginable, Mr. Job Trotter +plainly showed by gestures that he perceived his new friend’s anxiety to +draw forth an answer to it. He emptied his glass, looked mysteriously at +his companion, winked both of his small eyes, one after the other, and +finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were working an imaginary +pump-handle; thereby intimating that he (Mr. Trotter) considered himself +as undergoing the process of being pumped by Mr. Samuel Weller. + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Trotter, in conclusion, ‘that’s not to be told to +everybody. That is a secret--a great secret, Mr. Walker.’ As the +mulberry man said this, he turned his glass upside down, by way of +reminding his companion that he had nothing left wherewith to slake his +thirst. Sam observed the hint; and feeling the delicate manner in which +it was conveyed, ordered the pewter vessel to be refilled, whereat the +small eyes of the mulberry man glistened. + +‘And so it’s a secret?’ said Sam. + +‘I should rather suspect it was,’ said the mulberry man, sipping his +liquor, with a complacent face. + +‘I suppose your mas’r’s wery rich?’ said Sam. + +Mr. Trotter smiled, and holding his glass in his left hand, gave four +distinct slaps on the pockets of his mulberry indescribables with his +right, as if to intimate that his master might have done the same +without alarming anybody much by the chinking of coin. + +‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘that’s the game, is it?’ + +The mulberry man nodded significantly. + +‘Well, and don’t you think, old feller,’ remonstrated Mr. Weller, ‘that +if you let your master take in this here young lady, you’re a precious +rascal?’ + +‘I know that,’ said Job Trotter, turning upon his companion a +countenance of deep contrition, and groaning slightly, ‘I know that, and +that’s what it is that preys upon my mind. But what am I to do?’ + +‘Do!’ said Sam; ‘di-wulge to the missis, and give up your master.’ + +‘Who’d believe me?’ replied Job Trotter. ‘The young lady’s considered +the very picture of innocence and discretion. She’d deny it, and so +would my master. Who’d believe me? I should lose my place, and get +indicted for a conspiracy, or some such thing; that’s all I should take +by my motion.’ + +‘There’s somethin’ in that,’ said Sam, ruminating; ‘there’s somethin’ in +that.’ + +‘If I knew any respectable gentleman who would take the matter up,’ +continued Mr. Trotter. ‘I might have some hope of preventing the +elopement; but there’s the same difficulty, Mr. Walker, just the same. I +know no gentleman in this strange place; and ten to one if I did, +whether he would believe my story.’ + +‘Come this way,’ said Sam, suddenly jumping up, and grasping the +mulberry man by the arm. ‘My mas’r’s the man you want, I see.’ And after +a slight resistance on the part of Job Trotter, Sam led his newly-found +friend to the apartment of Mr. Pickwick, to whom he presented him, +together with a brief summary of the dialogue we have just repeated. + +‘I am very sorry to betray my master, sir,’ said Job Trotter, applying +to his eyes a pink checked pocket-handkerchief about six inches square. + +‘The feeling does you a great deal of honour,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; +‘but it is your duty, nevertheless.’ + +‘I know it is my duty, Sir,’ replied Job, with great emotion. ‘We should +all try to discharge our duty, Sir, and I humbly endeavour to discharge +mine, Sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, Sir, whose clothes +you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel, Sir.’ + +‘You are a very good fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, much affected; ‘an +honest fellow.’ + +‘Come, come,’ interposed Sam, who had witnessed Mr. Trotter’s tears with +considerable impatience, ‘blow this ‘ere water-cart bis’ness. It won’t +do no good, this won’t.’ + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick reproachfully. ‘I am sorry to find that you +have so little respect for this young man’s feelings.’ + +‘His feelin’s is all wery well, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘and as +they’re so wery fine, and it’s a pity he should lose ‘em, I think he’d +better keep ‘em in his own buzzum, than let ‘em ewaporate in hot water, +‘specially as they do no good. Tears never yet wound up a clock, or +worked a steam ingin’. The next time you go out to a smoking party, +young fellow, fill your pipe with that ‘ere reflection; and for the +present just put that bit of pink gingham into your pocket. ‘Tain’t so +handsome that you need keep waving it about, as if you was a tight-rope +dancer.’ + +‘My man is in the right,’ said Mr. Pickwick, accosting Job, ‘although +his mode of expressing his opinion is somewhat homely, and occasionally +incomprehensible.’ + +‘He is, sir, very right,’ said Mr. Trotter, ‘and I will give way no +longer.’ + +Very well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Now, where is this boarding-school?’ + +‘It is a large, old, red brick house, just outside the town, Sir,’ +replied Job Trotter. + +‘And when,’ said Mr. Pickwick--‘when is this villainous design to be +carried into execution--when is this elopement to take place?’ + +‘To-night, Sir,’ replied Job. + +‘To-night!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘This very night, sir,’ replied Job Trotter. ‘That is what alarms me so +much.’ + +‘Instant measures must be taken,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I will see the +lady who keeps the establishment immediately.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Job, ‘but that course of proceeding will +never do.’ + +‘Why not?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘My master, sir, is a very artful man.’ + +‘I know he is,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And he has so wound himself round the old lady’s heart, Sir,’ resumed +Job, ‘that she would believe nothing to his prejudice, if you went down +on your bare knees, and swore it; especially as you have no proof but +the word of a servant, who, for anything she knows (and my master would +be sure to say so), was discharged for some fault, and does this in +revenge.’ + +‘What had better be done, then?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Nothing but taking him in the very act of eloping, will convince the +old lady, sir,’ replied Job. + +‘All them old cats _will _run their heads agin milestones,’ observed Mr. +Weller, in a parenthesis. + +‘But this taking him in the very act of elopement, would be a very +difficult thing to accomplish, I fear,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Mr. Trotter, after a few moments’ reflection. +‘I think it might be very easily done.’ + +‘How?’ was Mr. Pickwick’s inquiry. + +‘Why,’ replied Mr. Trotter, ‘my master and I, being in the confidence of +the two servants, will be secreted in the kitchen at ten o’clock. When +the family have retired to rest, we shall come out of the kitchen, and +the young lady out of her bedroom. A post-chaise will be waiting, and +away we go.’ + +‘Well?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were in waiting in the +garden behind, alone--’ + +‘Alone,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Why alone?’ + +‘I thought it very natural,’ replied Job, ‘that the old lady wouldn’t +like such an unpleasant discovery to be made before more persons than +can possibly be helped. The young lady, too, sir--consider her +feelings.’ + +‘You are very right,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘The consideration evinces your +delicacy of feeling. Go on; you are very right.’ + +‘Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were waiting in the back +garden alone, and I was to let you in, at the door which opens into it, +from the end of the passage, at exactly half-past eleven o’clock, you +would be just in the very moment of time to assist me in frustrating the +designs of this bad man, by whom I have been unfortunately ensnared.’ +Here Mr. Trotter sighed deeply. + +‘Don’t distress yourself on that account,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘if he had +one grain of the delicacy of feeling which distinguishes you, humble as +your station is, I should have some hopes of him.’ + +Job Trotter bowed low; and in spite of Mr. Weller’s previous +remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes. + +‘I never see such a feller,’ said Sam, ‘Blessed if I don’t think he’s +got a main in his head as is always turned on.’ + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great severity, ‘hold your tongue.’ + +‘Wery well, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I don’t like this plan,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after deep meditation. ‘Why +cannot I communicate with the young lady’s friends?’ + +‘Because they live one hundred miles from here, sir,’ responded Job +Trotter. + +‘That’s a clincher,’ said Mr. Weller, aside. + +‘Then this garden,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick. ‘How am I to get into it?’ + +‘The wall is very low, sir, and your servant will give you a leg up.’ + +My servant will give me a leg up,’ repeated Mr. Pickwick mechanically. +‘You will be sure to be near this door that you speak of?’ + +‘You cannot mistake it, Sir; it’s the only one that opens into the +garden. Tap at it when you hear the clock strike, and I will open it +instantly.’ + +‘I don’t like the plan,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but as I see no other, and +as the happiness of this young lady’s whole life is at stake, I adopt +it. I shall be sure to be there.’ + +Thus, for the second time, did Mr. Pickwick’s innate good-feeling +involve him in an enterprise from which he would most willingly have +stood aloof. + +‘What is the name of the house?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Westgate House, Sir. You turn a little to the right when you get to the +end of the town; it stands by itself, some little distance off the high +road, with the name on a brass plate on the gate.’ + +‘I know it,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I observed it once before, when I was +in this town. You may depend upon me.’ + +Mr. Trotter made another bow, and turned to depart, when Mr. Pickwick +thrust a guinea into his hand. + +‘You’re a fine fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘and I admire your goodness +of heart. No thanks. Remember--eleven o’clock.’ + +‘There is no fear of my forgetting it, sir,’ replied Job Trotter. With +these words he left the room, followed by Sam. + +‘I say,’ said the latter, ‘not a bad notion that ‘ere crying. I’d cry +like a rain-water spout in a shower on such good terms. How do you do +it?’ + +‘It comes from the heart, Mr. Walker,’ replied Job solemnly. ‘Good- +morning, sir.’ + +‘You’re a soft customer, you are; we’ve got it all out o’ you, anyhow,’ +thought Mr. Weller, as Job walked away. + +We cannot state the precise nature of the thoughts which passed through +Mr. Trotter’s mind, because we don’t know what they were. + +The day wore on, evening came, and at a little before ten o’clock Sam +Weller reported that Mr. Jingle and Job had gone out together, that +their luggage was packed up, and that they had ordered a chaise. The +plot was evidently in execution, as Mr. Trotter had foretold. + +Half-past ten o’clock arrived, and it was time for Mr. Pickwick to issue +forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam’s tender of his greatcoat, +in order that he might have no encumbrance in scaling the wall, he set +forth, followed by his attendant. + +There was a bright moon, but it was behind the clouds. It was a fine dry +night, but it was most uncommonly dark. Paths, hedges, fields, houses, +and trees, were enveloped in one deep shade. The atmosphere was hot and +sultry, the summer lightning quivered faintly on the verge of the +horizon, and was the only sight that varied the dull gloom in which +everything was wrapped--sound there was none, except the distant barking +of some restless house-dog. + +They found the house, read the brass plate, walked round the wall, and +stopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of the +garden. + +‘You will return to the inn, Sam, when you have assisted me over,’ said +Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wery well, Sir.’ + +‘And you will sit up, till I return.’ + +‘Cert’nly, Sir.’ + +‘Take hold of my leg; and, when I say “Over,” raise me gently.’ + +‘All right, sir.’ + +Having settled these preliminaries, Mr. Pickwick grasped the top of the +wall, and gave the word ‘Over,’ which was literally obeyed. Whether his +body partook in some degree of the elasticity of his mind, or whether +Mr. Weller’s notions of a gentle push were of a somewhat rougher +description than Mr. Pickwick’s, the immediate effect of his assistance +was to jerk that immortal gentleman completely over the wall on to the +bed beneath, where, after crushing three gooseberry-bushes and a rose- +tree, he finally alighted at full length. + +‘You ha’n’t hurt yourself, I hope, Sir?’ said Sam, in a loud whisper, as +soon as he had recovered from the surprise consequent upon the +mysterious disappearance of his master. + +‘I have not hurt _myself_, Sam, certainly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, from +the other side of the wall, ‘but I rather think that _you _have hurt +me.’ + +‘I hope not, Sir,’ said Sam. + +‘Never mind,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rising, ‘it’s nothing but a few +scratches. Go away, or we shall be overheard.’ + +‘Good-bye, Sir.’ + +‘Good-bye.’ + +With stealthy steps Sam Weller departed, leaving Mr. Pickwick alone in +the garden. + +Lights occasionally appeared in the different windows of the house, or +glanced from the staircases, as if the inmates were retiring to rest. +Not caring to go too near the door, until the appointed time, Mr. +Pickwick crouched into an angle of the wall, and awaited its arrival. + +It was a situation which might well have depressed the spirits of many a +man. Mr. Pickwick, however, felt neither depression nor misgiving. He +knew that his purpose was in the main a good one, and he placed implicit +reliance on the high-minded Job. It was dull, certainly; not to say +dreary; but a contemplative man can always employ himself in meditation. +Mr. Pickwick had meditated himself into a doze, when he was roused by +the chimes of the neighbouring church ringing out the hour--half-past +eleven. + +‘That’s the time,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, getting cautiously on his feet. +He looked up at the house. The lights had disappeared, and the shutters +were closed--all in bed, no doubt. He walked on tiptoe to the door, and +gave a gentle tap. Two or three minutes passing without any reply, he +gave another tap rather louder, and then another rather louder than +that. + +At length the sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the +light of a candle shone through the keyhole of the door. There was a +good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and the door was slowly opened. + +Now the door opened outwards; and as the door opened wider and wider, +Mr. Pickwick receded behind it, more and more. What was his astonishment +when he just peeped out, by way of caution, to see that the person who +had opened it was--not Job Trotter, but a servant-girl with a candle in +her hand! Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, with the swiftness +displayed by that admirable melodramatic performer, Punch, when he lies +in wait for the flat-headed comedian with the tin box of music. + +‘It must have been the cat, Sarah,’ said the girl, addressing herself to +some one in the house. ‘Puss, puss, puss,--tit, tit, tit.’ + +But no animal being decoyed by these blandishments, the girl slowly +closed the door, and re-fastened it; leaving Mr. Pickwick drawn up +straight against the wall. + +‘This is very curious,’ thought Mr. Pickwick. ‘They are sitting up +beyond their usual hour, I suppose. Extremely unfortunate, that they +should have chosen this night, of all others, for such a purpose-- +exceedingly.’ And with these thoughts, Mr. Pickwick cautiously retired +to the angle of the wall in which he had been before ensconced; waiting +until such time as he might deem it safe to repeat the signal. + +He had not been here five minutes, when a vivid flash of lightning was +followed by a loud peal of thunder that crashed and rolled away in the +distance with a terrific noise--then came another flash of lightning, +brighter than the other, and a second peal of thunder louder than the +first; and then down came the rain, with a force and fury that swept +everything before it. + +Mr. Pickwick was perfectly aware that a tree is a very dangerous +neighbour in a thunderstorm. He had a tree on his right, a tree on his +left, a third before him, and a fourth behind. If he remained where he +was, he might fall the victim of an accident; if he showed himself in +the centre of the garden, he might be consigned to a constable. Once or +twice he tried to scale the wall, but having no other legs this time, +than those with which Nature had furnished him, the only effect of his +struggles was to inflict a variety of very unpleasant gratings on his +knees and shins, and to throw him into a state of the most profuse +perspiration. + +‘What a dreadful situation,’ said Mr. Pickwick, pausing to wipe his brow +after this exercise. He looked up at the house--all was dark. They must +be gone to bed now. He would try the signal again. + +He walked on tiptoe across the moist gravel, and tapped at the door. He +held his breath, and listened at the key-hole. No reply: very odd. +Another knock. He listened again. There was a low whispering inside, and +then a voice cried-- + +‘Who’s there?’ + +‘That’s not Job,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, hastily drawing himself straight +up against the wall again. ‘It’s a woman.’ + +He had scarcely had time to form this conclusion, when a window above +stairs was thrown up, and three or four female voices repeated the +query--‘Who’s there?’ + +Mr. Pickwick dared not move hand or foot. It was clear that the whole +establishment was roused. He made up his mind to remain where he was, +until the alarm had subsided; and then by a supernatural effort, to get +over the wall, or perish in the attempt. + +Like all Mr. Pickwick’s determinations, this was the best that could be +made under the circumstances; but, unfortunately, it was founded upon +the assumption that they would not venture to open the door again. What +was his discomfiture, when he heard the chain and bolts withdrawn, and +saw the door slowly opening, wider and wider! He retreated into the +corner, step by step; but do what he would, the interposition of his own +person, prevented its being opened to its utmost width. + +‘Who’s there?’ screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices from the +staircase inside, consisting of the spinster lady of the establishment, +three teachers, five female servants, and thirty boarders, all half- +dressed and in a forest of curl-papers. + + +Of course Mr. Pickwick didn’t say who was there: and then the burden of +the chorus changed into--‘Lor! I am so frightened.’ + +‘Cook,’ said the lady abbess, who took care to be on the top stair, the +very last of the group--‘cook, why don’t you go a little way into the +garden?’ + +Please, ma’am, I don’t like,’ responded the cook. + +‘Lor, what a stupid thing that cook is!’ said the thirty boarders. + +‘Cook,’ said the lady abbess, with great dignity; ‘don’t answer me, if +you please. I insist upon your looking into the garden immediately.’ + +Here the cook began to cry, and the housemaid said it was ‘a shame!’ for +which partisanship she received a month’s warning on the spot. + +‘Do you hear, cook?’ said the lady abbess, stamping her foot +impatiently. + +‘Don’t you hear your missis, cook?’ said the three teachers. + +‘What an impudent thing that cook is!’ said the thirty boarders. + +The unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two, and +holding her candle just where it prevented her from seeing at all, +declared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. The +door was just going to be closed in consequence, when an inquisitive +boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful +screaming, which called back the cook and housemaid, and all the more +adventurous, in no time. + +‘What is the matter with Miss Smithers?’ said the lady abbess, as the +aforesaid Miss Smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young +lady power. + +‘Lor, Miss Smithers, dear,’ said the other nine-and-twenty boarders. + +‘Oh, the man--the man--behind the door!’ screamed Miss Smithers. + +The lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated +to her own bedroom, double-locked the door, and fainted away +comfortably. The boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back +upon the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, +and fainting, and struggling beheld. In the midst of the tumult, Mr. +Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst +them. + +‘Ladies--dear ladies,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh. he says we’re dear,’ cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. ‘Oh, the +wretch!’ + +‘Ladies,’ roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his +situation. ‘Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the house.’ + +‘Oh, what a ferocious monster!’ screamed another teacher. ‘He wants Miss +Tomkins.’ + +Here there was a general scream. + +‘Ring the alarm bell, somebody!’ cried a dozen voices. + +‘Don’t--don’t,’ shouted Mr. Pickwick. ‘Look at me. Do I look like a +robber! My dear ladies--you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a +closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say--only hear me.’ + +‘How did you come in our garden?’ faltered the housemaid. + +‘Call the lady of the house, and I’ll tell her everything,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. ‘Call her--only be +quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything.’ + +It might have been Mr. Pickwick’s appearance, or it might have been his +manner, or it might have been the temptation--irresistible to a female +mind--of hearing something at present enveloped in mystery, that reduced +the more reasonable portion of the establishment (some four individuals) +to a state of comparative quiet. By them it was proposed, as a test of +Mr. Pickwick’s sincerity, that he should immediately submit to personal +restraint; and that gentleman having consented to hold a conference with +Miss Tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the day boarders +hung their bonnets and sandwich-bags, he at once stepped into it, of his +own accord, and was securely locked in. This revived the others; and +Miss Tomkins having been brought to, and brought down, the conference +began. + +‘What did you do in my garden, man?’ said Miss Tomkins, in a faint +voice. + +‘I came to warn you that one of your young ladies was going to elope to- +night,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, from the interior of the closet. + +‘Elope!’ exclaimed Miss Tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty +boarders, and the five servants. ‘Who with?’ + +Your friend, Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall.’ + +‘_My_ friend! I don’t know any such person.’ + +‘Well, Mr. Jingle, then.’ + +‘I never heard the name in my life.’ + +‘Then, I have been deceived, and deluded,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I have +been the victim of a conspiracy--a foul and base conspiracy. Send to the +Angel, my dear ma’am, if you don’t believe me. Send to the Angel for Mr. +Pickwick’s manservant, I implore you, ma’am.’ + +‘He must be respectable--he keeps a manservant,’ said Miss Tomkins to +the writing and ciphering governess. + +‘It’s my opinion, Miss Tomkins,’ said the writing and ciphering +governess, ‘that his manservant keeps him, I think he’s a madman, Miss +Tomkins, and the other’s his keeper.’ + +‘I think you are very right, Miss Gwynn,’ responded Miss Tomkins. ‘Let +two of the servants repair to the Angel, and let the others remain here, +to protect us.’ + +So two of the servants were despatched to the Angel in search of Mr. +Samuel Weller; and the remaining three stopped behind to protect Miss +Tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. And Mr. +Pickwick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich-bags, and +awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and +fortitude he could summon to his aid. + +An hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did +come, Mr. Pickwick recognised, in addition to the voice of Mr. Samuel +Weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his +ear; but whose they were, he could not for the life of him call to mind. + +A very brief conversation ensued. The door was unlocked. Mr. Pickwick +stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of the +whole establishment of Westgate House, Mr Samuel Weller, and--old +Wardle, and his destined son-in-law, Mr. Trundle! + +‘My dear friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, running forward and grasping +Wardle’s hand, ‘my dear friend, pray, for Heaven’s sake, explain to this +lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which I am placed. You +must have heard it from my servant; say, at all events, my dear fellow, +that I am neither a robber nor a madman.’ + +‘I have said so, my dear friend. I have said so already,’ replied Mr. +Wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while Mr. Trundle shook +the left. + +‘And whoever says, or has said, he is,’ interposed Mr. Weller, stepping +forward, ‘says that which is not the truth, but so far from it, on the +contrary, quite the rewerse. And if there’s any number o’ men on these +here premises as has said so, I shall be wery happy to give ‘em all a +wery convincing proof o’ their being mistaken, in this here wery room, +if these wery respectable ladies ‘ll have the goodness to retire, and +order ‘em up, one at a time.’ Having delivered this defiance with great +volubility, Mr. Weller struck his open palm emphatically with his +clenched fist, and winked pleasantly on Miss Tomkins, the intensity of +whose horror at his supposing it within the bounds of possibility that +there could be any men on the premises of Westgate House Establishment +for Young Ladies, it is impossible to describe. + +Mr. Pickwick’s explanation having already been partially made, was soon +concluded. But neither in the course of his walk home with his friends, +nor afterwards when seated before a blazing fire at the supper he so +much needed, could a single observation be drawn from him. He seemed +bewildered and amazed. Once, and only once, he turned round to Mr. +Wardle, and said-- + +‘How did you come here?’ + +‘Trundle and I came down here, for some good shooting on the first,’ +replied Wardle. ‘We arrived to-night, and were astonished to hear from +your servant that you were here too. But I am glad you are,’ said the +old fellow, slapping him on the back--‘I am glad you are. We shall have +a jovial party on the first, and we’ll give Winkle another chance--eh, +old boy?’ + +Mr. Pickwick made no reply, he did not even ask after his friends at +Dingley Dell, and shortly afterwards retired for the night, desiring Sam +to fetch his candle when he rung. + +The bell did ring in due course, and Mr. Weller presented himself. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking out from under the bed-clothes. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Weller. + +Mr. Pickwick paused, and Mr. Weller snuffed the candle. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick again, as if with a desperate effort. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, once more. + +‘Where is that Trotter?’ + +‘Job, sir?’ + +‘Yes. + +‘Gone, sir.’ + +‘With his master, I suppose?’ + +‘Friend or master, or whatever he is, he’s gone with him,’ replied Mr. +Weller. ‘There’s a pair on ‘em, sir.’ + +‘Jingle suspected my design, and set that fellow on you, with this +story, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick, half choking. + +‘Just that, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘It was all false, of course?’ + +‘All, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Reg’lar do, sir; artful dodge.’ + +‘I don’t think he’ll escape us quite so easily the next time, Sam!’ said +Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I don’t think he will, Sir.’ + +‘Whenever I meet that Jingle again, wherever it is,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +raising himself in bed, and indenting his pillow with a tremendous blow, +‘I’ll inflict personal chastisement on him, in addition to the exposure +he so richly merits. I will, or my name is not Pickwick.’ + +‘And venever I catches hold o’ that there melan-cholly chap with the +black hair,’ said Sam, ‘if I don’t bring some real water into his eyes, +for once in a way, my name ain’t Weller. Good-night, Sir!’ + + + +CHAPTER XVII. SHOWING THAT AN ATTACK OF RHEUMATISM, IN SOME CASES, ACTS +AS A QUICKENER TO INVENTIVE GENIUS + +The constitution of Mr. Pickwick, though able to sustain a very +considerable amount of exertion and fatigue, was not proof against such +a combination of attacks as he had undergone on the memorable night, +recorded in the last chapter. The process of being washed in the night +air, and rough-dried in a closet, is as dangerous as it is peculiar. Mr. +Pickwick was laid up with an attack of rheumatism. + +But although the bodily powers of the great man were thus impaired, his +mental energies retained their pristine vigour. His spirits were +elastic; his good-humour was restored. Even the vexation consequent upon +his recent adventure had vanished from his mind; and he could join in +the hearty laughter, which any allusion to it excited in Mr. Wardle, +without anger and without embarrassment. Nay, more. During the two days +Mr. Pickwick was confined to bed, Sam was his constant attendant. On the +first, he endeavoured to amuse his master by anecdote and conversation; +on the second, Mr. Pickwick demanded his writing-desk, and pen and ink, +and was deeply engaged during the whole day. On the third, being able to +sit up in his bedchamber, he despatched his valet with a message to Mr. +Wardle and Mr. Trundle, intimating that if they would take their wine +there, that evening, they would greatly oblige him. The invitation was +most willingly accepted; and when they were seated over their wine, Mr. +Pickwick, with sundry blushes, produced the following little tale, as +having been ‘edited’ by himself, during his recent indisposition, from +his notes of Mr. Weller’s unsophisticated recital. + + +THE PARISH CLERK A TALE OF TRUE LOVE + +‘Once upon a time, in a very small country town, at a considerable +distance from London, there lived a little man named Nathaniel Pipkin, +who was the parish clerk of the little town, and lived in a little house +in the little High Street, within ten minutes’ walk from the little +church; and who was to be found every day, from nine till four, teaching +a little learning to the little boys. Nathaniel Pipkin was a harmless, +inoffensive, good-natured being, with a turned-up nose, and rather +turned-in legs, a cast in his eye, and a halt in his gait; and he +divided his time between the church and his school, verily believing +that there existed not, on the face of the earth, so clever a man as the +curate, so imposing an apartment as the vestry-room, or so well-ordered +a seminary as his own. Once, and only once, in his life, Nathaniel +Pipkin had seen a bishop--a real bishop, with his arms in lawn sleeves, +and his head in a wig. He had seen him walk, and heard him talk, at a +confirmation, on which momentous occasion Nathaniel Pipkin was so +overcome with reverence and awe, when the aforesaid bishop laid his hand +on his head, that he fainted right clean away, and was borne out of +church in the arms of the beadle. + +‘This was a great event, a tremendous era, in Nathaniel Pipkin’s life, +and it was the only one that had ever occurred to ruffle the smooth +current of his quiet existence, when happening one fine afternoon, in a +fit of mental abstraction, to raise his eyes from the slate on which he +was devising some tremendous problem in compound addition for an +offending urchin to solve, they suddenly rested on the blooming +countenance of Maria Lobbs, the only daughter of old Lobbs, the great +saddler over the way. Now, the eyes of Mr. Pipkin had rested on the +pretty face of Maria Lobbs many a time and oft before, at church and +elsewhere; but the eyes of Maria Lobbs had never looked so bright, the +cheeks of Maria Lobbs had never looked so ruddy, as upon this particular +occasion. No wonder then, that Nathaniel Pipkin was unable to take his +eyes from the countenance of Miss Lobbs; no wonder that Miss Lobbs, +finding herself stared at by a young man, withdrew her head from the +window out of which she had been peeping, and shut the casement and +pulled down the blind; no wonder that Nathaniel Pipkin, immediately +thereafter, fell upon the young urchin who had previously offended, and +cuffed and knocked him about to his heart’s content. All this was very +natural, and there’s nothing at all to wonder at about it. + +‘It _is_ matter of wonder, though, that anyone of Mr. Nathaniel Pipkin’s +retiring disposition, nervous temperament, and most particularly +diminutive income, should from this day forth, have dared to aspire to +the hand and heart of the only daughter of the fiery old Lobbs--of old +Lobbs, the great saddler, who could have bought up the whole village at +one stroke of his pen, and never felt the outlay--old Lobbs, who was +well known to have heaps of money, invested in the bank at the nearest +market town--who was reported to have countless and inexhaustible +treasures hoarded up in the little iron safe with the big keyhole, over +the chimney-piece in the back parlour--and who, it was well known, on +festive occasions garnished his board with a real silver teapot, cream- +ewer, and sugar-basin, which he was wont, in the pride of his heart, to +boast should be his daughter’s property when she found a man to her +mind. I repeat it, to be matter of profound astonishment and intense +wonder, that Nathaniel Pipkin should have had the temerity to cast his +eyes in this direction. But love is blind; and Nathaniel had a cast in +his eye; and perhaps these two circumstances, taken together, prevented +his seeing the matter in its proper light. + +‘Now, if old Lobbs had entertained the most remote or distant idea of +the state of the affections of Nathaniel Pipkin, he would just have +razed the school-room to the ground, or exterminated its master from the +surface of the earth, or committed some other outrage and atrocity of an +equally ferocious and violent description; for he was a terrible old +fellow, was Lobbs, when his pride was injured, or his blood was up. +Swear! Such trains of oaths would come rolling and pealing over the way, +sometimes, when he was denouncing the idleness of the bony apprentice +with the thin legs, that Nathaniel Pipkin would shake in his shoes with +horror, and the hair of the pupils’ heads would stand on end with +fright. + +‘Well! Day after day, when school was over, and the pupils gone, did +Nathaniel Pipkin sit himself down at the front window, and, while he +feigned to be reading a book, throw sidelong glances over the way in +search of the bright eyes of Maria Lobbs; and he hadn’t sat there many +days, before the bright eyes appeared at an upper window, apparently +deeply engaged in reading too. This was delightful, and gladdening to +the heart of Nathaniel Pipkin. It was something to sit there for hours +together, and look upon that pretty face when the eyes were cast down; +but when Maria Lobbs began to raise her eyes from her book, and dart +their rays in the direction of Nathaniel Pipkin, his delight and +admiration were perfectly boundless. At last, one day when he knew old +Lobbs was out, Nathaniel Pipkin had the temerity to kiss his hand to +Maria Lobbs; and Maria Lobbs, instead of shutting the window, and +pulling down the blind, kissed _hers _to him, and smiled. Upon which +Nathaniel Pipkin determined, that, come what might, he would develop the +state of his feelings, without further delay. + +‘A prettier foot, a gayer heart, a more dimpled face, or a smarter form, +never bounded so lightly over the earth they graced, as did those of +Maria Lobbs, the old saddler’s daughter. There was a roguish twinkle in +her sparkling eyes, that would have made its way to far less susceptible +bosoms than that of Nathaniel Pipkin; and there was such a joyous sound +in her merry laugh, that the sternest misanthrope must have smiled to +hear it. Even old Lobbs himself, in the very height of his ferocity, +couldn’t resist the coaxing of his pretty daughter; and when she, and +her cousin Kate--an arch, impudent-looking, bewitching little person-- +made a dead set upon the old man together, as, to say the truth, they +very often did, he could have refused them nothing, even had they asked +for a portion of the countless and inexhaustible treasures, which were +hidden from the light, in the iron safe. + +‘Nathaniel Pipkin’s heart beat high within him, when he saw this +enticing little couple some hundred yards before him one summer’s +evening, in the very field in which he had many a time strolled about +till night-time, and pondered on the beauty of Maria Lobbs. But though +he had often thought then, how briskly he would walk up to Maria Lobbs +and tell her of his passion if he could only meet her, he felt, now that +she was unexpectedly before him, all the blood in his body mounting to +his face, manifestly to the great detriment of his legs, which, deprived +of their usual portion, trembled beneath him. When they stopped to +gather a hedge flower, or listen to a bird, Nathaniel Pipkin stopped +too, and pretended to be absorbed in meditation, as indeed he really +was; for he was thinking what on earth he should ever do, when they +turned back, as they inevitably must in time, and meet him face to face. +But though he was afraid to make up to them, he couldn’t bear to lose +sight of them; so when they walked faster he walked faster, when they +lingered he lingered, and when they stopped he stopped; and so they +might have gone on, until the darkness prevented them, if Kate had not +looked slyly back, and encouragingly beckoned Nathaniel to advance. +There was something in Kate’s manner that was not to be resisted, and so +Nathaniel Pipkin complied with the invitation; and after a great deal of +blushing on his part, and immoderate laughter on that of the wicked +little cousin, Nathaniel Pipkin went down on his knees on the dewy +grass, and declared his resolution to remain there for ever, unless he +were permitted to rise the accepted lover of Maria Lobbs. Upon this, the +merry laughter of Miss Lobbs rang through the calm evening air--without +seeming to disturb it, though; it had such a pleasant sound--and the +wicked little cousin laughed more immoderately than before, and +Nathaniel Pipkin blushed deeper than ever. At length, Maria Lobbs being +more strenuously urged by the love-worn little man, turned away her +head, and whispered her cousin to say, or at all events Kate did say, +that she felt much honoured by Mr. Pipkin’s addresses; that her hand and +heart were at her father’s disposal; but that nobody could be insensible +to Mr. Pipkin’s merits. As all this was said with much gravity, and as +Nathaniel Pipkin walked home with Maria Lobbs, and struggled for a kiss +at parting, he went to bed a happy man, and dreamed all night long, of +softening old Lobbs, opening the strong box, and marrying Maria. + +The next day, Nathaniel Pipkin saw old Lobbs go out upon his old gray +pony, and after a great many signs at the window from the wicked little +cousin, the object and meaning of which he could by no means understand, +the bony apprentice with the thin legs came over to say that his master +wasn’t coming home all night, and that the ladies expected Mr. Pipkin to +tea, at six o’clock precisely. How the lessons were got through that +day, neither Nathaniel Pipkin nor his pupils knew any more than you do; +but they were got through somehow, and, after the boys had gone, +Nathaniel Pipkin took till full six o’clock to dress himself to his +satisfaction. Not that it took long to select the garments he should +wear, inasmuch as he had no choice about the matter; but the putting of +them on to the best advantage, and the touching of them up previously, +was a task of no inconsiderable difficulty or importance. + +‘There was a very snug little party, consisting of Maria Lobbs and her +cousin Kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-cheeked +girls. Nathaniel Pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact, that the +rumours of old Lobbs’s treasures were not exaggerated. There were the +real solid silver teapot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the table, and +real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it +out of, and plates of the same, to hold the cakes and toast in. The only +eye-sore in the whole place was another cousin of Maria Lobbs’s, and a +brother of Kate, whom Maria Lobbs called “Henry,” and who seemed to keep +Maria Lobbs all to himself, up in one corner of the table. It’s a +delightful thing to see affection in families, but it may be carried +rather too far, and Nathaniel Pipkin could not help thinking that Maria +Lobbs must be very particularly fond of her relations, if she paid as +much attention to all of them as to this individual cousin. After tea, +too, when the wicked little cousin proposed a game at blind man’s buff, +it somehow or other happened that Nathaniel Pipkin was nearly always +blind, and whenever he laid his hand upon the male cousin, he was sure +to find that Maria Lobbs was not far off. And though the wicked little +cousin and the other girls pinched him, and pulled his hair, and pushed +chairs in his way, and all sorts of things, Maria Lobbs never seemed to +come near him at all; and once--once--Nathaniel Pipkin could have sworn +he heard the sound of a kiss, followed by a faint remonstrance from +Maria Lobbs, and a half-suppressed laugh from her female friends. All +this was odd--very odd--and there is no saying what Nathaniel Pipkin +might or might not have done, in consequence, if his thoughts had not +been suddenly directed into a new channel. + +‘The circumstance which directed his thoughts into a new channel was a +loud knocking at the street door, and the person who made this loud +knocking at the street door was no other than old Lobbs himself, who had +unexpectedly returned, and was hammering away, like a coffin-maker; for +he wanted his supper. The alarming intelligence was no sooner +communicated by the bony apprentice with the thin legs, than the girls +tripped upstairs to Maria Lobbs’s bedroom, and the male cousin and +Nathaniel Pipkin were thrust into a couple of closets in the sitting- +room, for want of any better places of concealment; and when Maria Lobbs +and the wicked little cousin had stowed them away, and put the room to +rights, they opened the street door to old Lobbs, who had never left off +knocking since he first began. + +‘Now it did unfortunately happen that old Lobbs being very hungry was +monstrous cross. Nathaniel Pipkin could hear him growling away like an +old mastiff with a sore throat; and whenever the unfortunate apprentice +with the thin legs came into the room, so surely did old Lobbs commence +swearing at him in a most Saracenic and ferocious manner, though +apparently with no other end or object than that of easing his bosom by +the discharge of a few superfluous oaths. At length some supper, which +had been warming up, was placed on the table, and then old Lobbs fell +to, in regular style; and having made clear work of it in no time, +kissed his daughter, and demanded his pipe. + +‘Nature had placed Nathaniel Pipkin’s knees in very close juxtaposition, +but when he heard old Lobbs demand his pipe, they knocked together, as +if they were going to reduce each other to powder; for, depending from a +couple of hooks, in the very closet in which he stood, was a large, +brown-stemmed, silver-bowled pipe, which pipe he himself had seen in the +mouth of old Lobbs, regularly every afternoon and evening, for the last +five years. The two girls went downstairs for the pipe, and upstairs for +the pipe, and everywhere but where they knew the pipe was, and old Lobbs +stormed away meanwhile, in the most wonderful manner. At last he thought +of the closet, and walked up to it. It was of no use a little man like +Nathaniel Pipkin pulling the door inwards, when a great strong fellow +like old Lobbs was pulling it outwards. Old Lobbs gave it one tug, and +open it flew, disclosing Nathaniel Pipkin standing bolt upright inside, +and shaking with apprehension from head to foot. Bless us! what an +appalling look old Lobbs gave him, as he dragged him out by the collar, +and held him at arm’s length. + +‘“Why, what the devil do you want here?” said old Lobbs, in a fearful +voice. + +‘Nathaniel Pipkin could make no reply, so old Lobbs shook him backwards +and forwards, for two or three minutes, by way of arranging his ideas +for him. + +‘“What do you want here?” roared Lobbs; “I suppose you have come after +my daughter, now!” + +‘Old Lobbs merely said this as a sneer: for he did not believe that +mortal presumption could have carried Nathaniel Pipkin so far. What was +his indignation, when that poor man replied-- + +‘“Yes, I did, Mr. Lobbs, I did come after your daughter. I love her, Mr. +Lobbs.” + +‘“Why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain,” gasped old Lobbs, +paralysed by the atrocious confession; “what do you mean by that? Say +this to my face! Damme, I’ll throttle you!” + +‘It is by no means improbable that old Lobbs would have carried his +threat into execution, in the excess of his rage, if his arm had not +been stayed by a very unexpected apparition: to wit, the male cousin, +who, stepping out of his closet, and walking up to old Lobbs, said-- + +‘“I cannot allow this harmless person, Sir, who has been asked here, in +some girlish frolic, to take upon himself, in a very noble manner, the +fault (if fault it is) which I am guilty of, and am ready to avow. I +love your daughter, sir; and I came here for the purpose of meeting +her.” + +‘Old Lobbs opened his eyes very wide at this, but not wider than +Nathaniel Pipkin. + +‘“You did?” said Lobbs, at last finding breath to speak. + +‘“I did.” + +‘“And I forbade you this house, long ago.” + +‘“You did, or I should not have been here, clandestinely, to-night.” + +‘I am sorry to record it of old Lobbs, but I think he would have struck +the cousin, if his pretty daughter, with her bright eyes swimming in +tears, had not clung to his arm. + +‘“Don’t stop him, Maria,” said the young man; “if he has the will to +strike me, let him. I would not hurt a hair of his gray head, for the +riches of the world.” + +‘The old man cast down his eyes at this reproof, and they met those of +his daughter. I have hinted once or twice before, that they were very +bright eyes, and, though they were tearful now, their influence was by +no means lessened. Old Lobbs turned his head away, as if to avoid being +persuaded by them, when, as fortune would have it, he encountered the +face of the wicked little cousin, who, half afraid for her brother, and +half laughing at Nathaniel Pipkin, presented as bewitching an expression +of countenance, with a touch of slyness in it, too, as any man, old or +young, need look upon. She drew her arm coaxingly through the old man’s, +and whispered something in his ear; and do what he would, old Lobbs +couldn’t help breaking out into a smile, while a tear stole down his +cheek at the same time. + +‘Five minutes after this, the girls were brought down from the bedroom +with a great deal of giggling and modesty; and while the young people +were making themselves perfectly happy, old Lobbs got down the pipe, and +smoked it; and it was a remarkable circumstance about that particular +pipe of tobacco, that it was the most soothing and delightful one he +ever smoked. + +‘Nathaniel Pipkin thought it best to keep his own counsel, and by so +doing gradually rose into high favour with old Lobbs, who taught him to +smoke in time; and they used to sit out in the garden on the fine +evenings, for many years afterwards, smoking and drinking in great +state. He soon recovered the effects of his attachment, for we find his +name in the parish register, as a witness to the marriage of Maria Lobbs +to her cousin; and it also appears, by reference to other documents, +that on the night of the wedding he was incarcerated in the village +cage, for having, in a state of extreme intoxication, committed sundry +excesses in the streets, in all of which he was aided and abetted by the +bony apprentice with the thin legs.’ + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. BRIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF TWO POINTS; FIRST, THE POWER OF +HYSTERICS, AND, SECONDLY, THE FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES + +For two days after the _dejeune _at Mrs. Hunter’s, the Pickwickians +remained at Eatanswill, anxiously awaiting the arrival of some +intelligence from their revered leader. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass +were once again left to their own means of amusement; for Mr. Winkle, in +compliance with a most pressing invitation, continued to reside at Mr. +Pott’s house, and to devote his time to the companionship of his amiable +lady. Nor was the occasional society of Mr. Pott himself wanting to +complete their felicity. Deeply immersed in the intensity of his +speculations for the public weal and the destruction of the +_Independent_, it was not the habit of that great man to descend from +his mental pinnacle to the humble level of ordinary minds. On this +occasion, however, and as if expressly in compliment to any follower of +Mr. Pickwick’s, he unbent, relaxed, stepped down from his pedestal, and +walked upon the ground, benignly adapting his remarks to the +comprehension of the herd, and seeming in outward form, if not in +spirit, to be one of them. + +Such having been the demeanour of this celebrated public character +towards Mr. Winkle, it will be readily imagined that considerable +surprise was depicted on the countenance of the latter gentleman, when, +as he was sitting alone in the breakfast-room, the door was hastily +thrown open, and as hastily closed, on the entrance of Mr. Pott, who, +stalking majestically towards him, and thrusting aside his proffered +hand, ground his teeth, as if to put a sharper edge on what he was about +to utter, and exclaimed, in a saw-like voice-- + +‘Serpent!’ + +‘Sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle, starting from his chair. + +‘Serpent, Sir,’ repeated Mr. Pott, raising his voice, and then suddenly +depressing it: ‘I said, serpent, sir--make the most of it.’ + +When you have parted with a man at two o’clock in the morning, on terms +of the utmost good-fellowship, and he meets you again, at half-past +nine, and greets you as a serpent, it is not unreasonable to conclude +that something of an unpleasant nature has occurred meanwhile. So Mr. +Winkle thought. He returned Mr. Pott’s gaze of stone, and in compliance +with that gentleman’s request, proceeded to make the most he could of +the ‘serpent.’ The most, however, was nothing at all; so, after a +profound silence of some minutes’ duration, he said,-- + +‘Serpent, Sir! Serpent, Mr. Pott! What can you mean, Sir?--this is +pleasantry.’ + +‘Pleasantry, sir!’ exclaimed Pott, with a motion of the hand, indicative +of a strong desire to hurl the Britannia metal teapot at the head of the +visitor. ‘Pleasantry, sir!--But--no, I will be calm; I will be calm, +Sir;’ in proof of his calmness, Mr. Pott flung himself into a chair, and +foamed at the mouth. + +‘My dear sir,’ interposed Mr. Winkle. + +‘_DEAR _Sir!’ replied Pott. ‘How dare you address me, as dear Sir, Sir? +How dare you look me in the face and do it, sir?’ + +‘Well, Sir, if you come to that,’ responded Mr. Winkle, ‘how dare you +look me in the face, and call me a serpent, sir?’ + +‘Because you are one,’ replied Mr. Pott. + +‘Prove it, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle warmly. ‘Prove it.’ + +A malignant scowl passed over the profound face of the editor, as he +drew from his pocket the _Independent_ of that morning; and laying his +finger on a particular paragraph, threw the journal across the table to +Mr. Winkle. + +That gentleman took it up, and read as follows:-- + +‘Our obscure and filthy contemporary, in some disgusting observations on +the recent election for this borough, has presumed to violate the +hallowed sanctity of private life, and to refer in a manner not to be +misunderstood, to the personal affairs of our late candidate--aye, and +notwithstanding his base defeat, we will add, our future member, Mr. +Fizkin. What does our dastardly contemporary mean? What would the +ruffian say, if we, setting at naught, like him, the decencies of social +intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals _His_ +private life from general ridicule, not to say from general execration? +What, if we were even to point out, and comment on, facts and +circumstances, which are publicly notorious, and beheld by every one but +our mole-eyed contemporary--what if we were to print the following +effusion, which we received while we were writing the commencement of +this article, from a talented fellow-townsman and correspondent? + + +‘“LINES TO A BRASS POT + +‘“Oh Pott! if you’d known How false she’d have grown, When you heard the +marriage bells tinkle; You’d have done then, I vow, What you cannot help +now, + + +‘What,’ said Mr. Pott solemnly--‘what rhymes to “tinkle,” villain?’ + +‘What rhymes to tinkle?’ said Mrs. Pott, whose entrance at the moment +forestalled the reply. ‘What rhymes to tinkle? Why, Winkle, I should +conceive.’ Saying this, Mrs. Pott smiled sweetly on the disturbed +Pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. The agitated young man +would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not Pott indignantly +interposed. + +‘Back, ma’am--back!’ said the editor. ‘Take his hand before my very +face!’ + +‘Mr. P.!’ said his astonished lady. + +‘Wretched woman, look here,’ exclaimed the husband. ‘Look here, ma’am-- +“Lines to a Brass Pot.” “Brass Pot”; that’s me, ma’am. “False _she’d_ +have grown”; that’s you, ma’am--you.’ With this ebullition of rage, +which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the +expression of his wife’s face, Mr. Pott dashed the current number of the +Eatanswill _Independent_ at her feet. + +‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick up +the paper. ‘Upon my word, Sir!’ + +Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made a +desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming +unscrewed again. + +There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, ‘Upon my +word, sir,’ when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it +was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear +reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of +Pott, produced their effect upon him. The most unskilful observer could +have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his +Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to +stand in them at that moment. + +Mrs. Pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself +at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the +heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the +propriety of her feelings on the occasion. + +‘My dear,’ said the terrified Pott, ‘I didn’t say I believed it;--I--’ +but the unfortunate man’s voice was drowned in the screaming of his +partner. + +‘Mrs. Pott, let me entreat you, my dear ma’am, to compose yourself,’ +said Mr. Winkle; but the shrieks and tappings were louder, and more +frequent than ever. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pott, ‘I’m very sorry. If you won’t consider your +own health, consider me, my dear. We shall have a crowd round the +house.’ But the more strenuously Mr. Pott entreated, the more vehemently +the screams poured forth. + +Very fortunately, however, attached to Mrs. Pott’s person was a +bodyguard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to +preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of +ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of +constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and +inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. The screams +reached this young lady’s ears in due course, and brought her into the +room with a speed which threatened to derange, materially, the very +exquisite arrangement of her cap and ringlets. + +‘Oh, my dear, dear mistress!’ exclaimed the bodyguard, kneeling +frantically by the side of the prostrate Mrs. Pott. ‘Oh, my dear +mistress, what is the matter?’ + +‘Your master--your brutal master,’ murmured the patient. + +Pott was evidently giving way. + +‘It’s a shame,’ said the bodyguard reproachfully. ‘I know he’ll be the +death on you, ma’am. Poor dear thing!’ + +He gave way more. The opposite party followed up the attack. + +‘Oh, don’t leave me--don’t leave me, Goodwin,’ murmured Mrs. Pott, +clutching at the wrist of the said Goodwin with an hysteric jerk. +‘You’re the only person that’s kind to me, Goodwin.’ + +At this affecting appeal, Goodwin got up a little domestic tragedy of +her own, and shed tears copiously. + +‘Never, ma’am--never,’ said Goodwin. ‘Oh, sir, you should be careful-- +you should indeed; you don’t know what harm you may do missis; you’ll be +sorry for it one day, I know--I’ve always said so.’ + +The unlucky Pott looked timidly on, but said nothing. + +‘Goodwin,’ said Mrs. Pott, in a soft voice. + +‘Ma’am,’ said Goodwin. + +‘If you only knew how I have loved that man--’ + +Don’t distress yourself by recollecting it, ma’am,’ said the bodyguard. + +Pott looked very frightened. It was time to finish him. + +‘And now,’ sobbed Mrs. Pott, ‘now, after all, to be treated in this way; +to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that +party almost a stranger. But I will not submit to it! Goodwin,’ +continued Mrs. Pott, raising herself in the arms of her attendant, ‘my +brother, the lieutenant, shall interfere. I’ll be separated, Goodwin!’ + +‘It would certainly serve him right, ma’am,’ said Goodwin. + +Whatever thoughts the threat of a separation might have awakened in Mr. +Pott’s mind, he forbore to give utterance to them, and contented himself +by saying, with great humility:-- + +‘My dear, will you hear me?’ + +A fresh train of sobs was the only reply, as Mrs. Pott grew more +hysterical, requested to be informed why she was ever born, and required +sundry other pieces of information of a similar description. + +‘My dear,’ remonstrated Mr. Pott, ‘do not give way to these sensitive +feelings. I never believed that the paragraph had any foundation, my +dear--impossible. I was only angry, my dear--I may say outrageous--with +the _Independent_ people for daring to insert it; that’s all.’ Mr. Pott +cast an imploring look at the innocent cause of the mischief, as if to +entreat him to say nothing about the serpent. + +‘And what steps, sir, do you mean to take to obtain redress?’ inquired +Mr. Winkle, gaining courage as he saw Pott losing it. + +‘Oh, Goodwin,’ observed Mrs. Pott, ‘does he mean to horsewhip the editor +of the _Independent_--does he, Goodwin?’ + +‘Hush, hush, ma’am; pray keep yourself quiet,’ replied the bodyguard. ‘I +dare say he will, if you wish it, ma’am.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Pott, as his wife evinced decided symptoms of going +off again. ‘Of course I shall.’ + +‘When, Goodwin--when?’ said Mrs. Pott, still undecided about the going +off. + +‘Immediately, of course,’ said Mr. Pott; ‘before the day is out.’ + +‘Oh, Goodwin,’ resumed Mrs. Pott, ‘it’s the only way of meeting the +slander, and setting me right with the world.’ + +‘Certainly, ma’am,’ replied Goodwin. ‘No man as is a man, ma’am, could +refuse to do it.’ + +So, as the hysterics were still hovering about, Mr. Pott said once more +that he would do it; but Mrs. Pott was so overcome at the bare idea of +having ever been suspected, that she was half a dozen times on the very +verge of a relapse, and most unquestionably would have gone off, had it +not been for the indefatigable efforts of the assiduous Goodwin, and +repeated entreaties for pardon from the conquered Pott; and finally, +when that unhappy individual had been frightened and snubbed down to his +proper level, Mrs. Pott recovered, and they went to breakfast. + +‘You will not allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay +here, Mr. Winkle?’ said Mrs. Pott, smiling through the traces of her +tears. + +‘I hope not,’ said Mr. Pott, actuated, as he spoke, by a wish that his +visitor would choke himself with the morsel of dry toast which he was +raising to his lips at the moment, and so terminate his stay +effectually. + +‘I hope not.’ + +‘You are very good,’ said Mr. Winkle; ‘but a letter has been received +from Mr. Pickwick--so I learn by a note from Mr. Tupman, which was +brought up to my bedroom door, this morning--in which he requests us to +join him at Bury to-day; and we are to leave by the coach at noon.’ + +‘But you will come back?’ said Mrs. Pott. + +‘Oh, certainly,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘You are quite sure?’ said Mrs. Pott, stealing a tender look at her +visitor. + +‘Quite,’ responded Mr. Winkle. + +The breakfast passed off in silence, for each of the party was brooding +over his, or her, own personal grievances. Mrs. Pott was regretting the +loss of a beau; Mr. Pott his rash pledge to horsewhip the _Independent_; +Mr. Winkle his having innocently placed himself in so awkward a +situation. Noon approached, and after many adieux and promises to +return, he tore himself away. + +‘If he ever comes back, I’ll poison him,’ thought Mr. Pott, as he turned +into the little back office where he prepared his thunderbolts. + +‘If I ever do come back, and mix myself up with these people again,’ +thought Mr. Winkle, as he wended his way to the Peacock, ‘I shall +deserve to be horsewhipped myself--that’s all.’ + +His friends were ready, the coach was nearly so, and in half an hour +they were proceeding on their journey, along the road over which Mr. +Pickwick and Sam had so recently travelled, and of which, as we have +already said something, we do not feel called upon to extract Mr. +Snodgrass’s poetical and beautiful description. + +Mr. Weller was standing at the door of the Angel, ready to receive them, +and by that gentleman they were ushered to the apartment of Mr. +Pickwick, where, to the no small surprise of Mr. Winkle and Mr. +Snodgrass, and the no small embarrassment of Mr. Tupman, they found old +Wardle and Trundle. + +‘How are you?’ said the old man, grasping Mr. Tupman’s hand. ‘Don’t hang +back, or look sentimental about it; it can’t be helped, old fellow. For +her sake, I wish you’d had her; for your own, I’m very glad you have +not. A young fellow like you will do better one of these days, eh?’ With +this conclusion, Wardle slapped Mr. Tupman on the back, and laughed +heartily. + +‘Well, and how are you, my fine fellows?’ said the old gentleman, +shaking hands with Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass at the same time. ‘I +have just been telling Pickwick that we must have you all down at +Christmas. We’re going to have a wedding--a real wedding this time.’ + +‘A wedding!’ exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, turning very pale. + +‘Yes, a wedding. But don’t be frightened,’ said the good-humoured old +man; ‘it’s only Trundle there, and Bella.’ + +‘Oh, is that all?’ said Mr. Snodgrass, relieved from a painful doubt +which had fallen heavily on his breast. ‘Give you joy, Sir. How is Joe?’ + +‘Very well,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘Sleepy as ever.’ + +‘And your mother, and the clergyman, and all of ‘em?’ + +‘Quite well.’ + +‘Where,’ said Mr. Tupman, with an effort--‘where is--_she_, Sir?’ and he +turned away his head, and covered his eyes with his hand. + +‘_She_!’ said the old gentleman, with a knowing shake of the head. ‘Do +you mean my single relative--eh?’ + +Mr. Tupman, by a nod, intimated that his question applied to the +disappointed Rachael. + +‘Oh, she’s gone away,’ said the old gentleman. ‘She’s living at a +relation’s, far enough off. She couldn’t bear to see the girls, so I let +her go. But come! Here’s the dinner. You must be hungry after your ride. +I am, without any ride at all; so let us fall to.’ + +Ample justice was done to the meal; and when they were seated round the +table, after it had been disposed of, Mr. Pickwick, to the intense +horror and indignation of his followers, related the adventure he had +undergone, and the success which had attended the base artifices of the +diabolical Jingle. + +‘And the attack of rheumatism which I caught in that garden,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, in conclusion, ‘renders me lame at this moment.’ + +‘I, too, have had something of an adventure,’ said Mr. Winkle, with a +smile; and, at the request of Mr. Pickwick, he detailed the malicious +libel of the Eatanswill _Independent_, and the consequent excitement of +their friend, the editor. + +Mr. Pickwick’s brow darkened during the recital. His friends observed +it, and, when Mr. Winkle had concluded, maintained a profound silence. +Mr. Pickwick struck the table emphatically with his clenched fist, and +spoke as follows:-- + +‘Is it not a wonderful circumstance,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that we seem +destined to enter no man’s house without involving him in some degree of +trouble? Does it not, I ask, bespeak the indiscretion, or, worse than +that, the blackness of heart--that I should say so!--of my followers, +that, beneath whatever roof they locate, they disturb the peace of mind +and happiness of some confiding female? Is it not, I say--’ + +Mr. Pickwick would in all probability have gone on for some time, had +not the entrance of Sam, with a letter, caused him to break off in his +eloquent discourse. He passed his handkerchief across his forehead, took +off his spectacles, wiped them, and put them on again; and his voice had +recovered its wonted softness of tone when he said-- + +‘What have you there, Sam?’ + +‘Called at the post-office just now, and found this here letter, as has +laid there for two days,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘It’s sealed vith a vafer, +and directed in round hand.’ + +‘I don’t know this hand,’ said Mr. Pickwick, opening the letter. ‘Mercy +on us! what’s this? It must be a jest; it--it--can’t be true.’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ was the general inquiry. + +‘Nobody dead, is there?’ said Wardle, alarmed at the horror in Mr. +Pickwick’s countenance. + +Mr. Pickwick made no reply, but, pushing the letter across the table, +and desiring Mr. Tupman to read it aloud, fell back in his chair with a +look of vacant astonishment quite alarming to behold. + +Mr. Tupman, with a trembling voice, read the letter, of which the +following is a copy:-- + +Freeman’s Court, Cornhill, August 28th, 1827. + +Bardell against Pickwick. + +Sir, + +Having been instructed by Mrs. Martha Bardell to commence an action +against you for a breach of promise of marriage, for which the plaintiff +lays her damages at fifteen hundred pounds, we beg to inform you that a +writ has been issued against you in this suit in the Court of Common +Pleas; and request to know, by return of post, the name of your attorney +in London, who will accept service thereof. + +We are, Sir, Your obedient servants, Dodson & Fogg. + +Mr. Samuel Pickwick. + +There was something so impressive in the mute astonishment with which +each man regarded his neighbour, and every man regarded Mr. Pickwick, +that all seemed afraid to speak. The silence was at length broken by Mr. +Tupman. + +‘Dodson and Fogg,’ he repeated mechanically. + +‘Bardell and Pickwick,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, musing. + +‘Peace of mind and happiness of confiding females,’ murmured Mr. Winkle, +with an air of abstraction. + +‘It’s a conspiracy,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at length recovering the power +of speech; ‘a base conspiracy between these two grasping attorneys, +Dodson and Fogg. Mrs. Bardell would never do it;--she hasn’t the heart +to do it;--she hasn’t the case to do it. Ridiculous--ridiculous.’ + +Of her heart,’ said Wardle, with a smile, ‘you should certainly be the +best judge. I don’t wish to discourage you, but I should certainly say +that, of her case, Dodson and Fogg are far better judges than any of us +can be.’ + +‘It’s a vile attempt to extort money,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I hope it is,’ said Wardle, with a short, dry cough. + +‘Who ever heard me address her in any way but that in which a lodger +would address his landlady?’ continued Mr. Pickwick, with great +vehemence. ‘Who ever saw me with her? Not even my friends here--’ + +‘Except on one occasion,’ said Mr. Tupman. + +Mr. Pickwick changed colour. + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Wardle. ‘Well, that’s important. There was nothing +suspicious then, I suppose?’ + +Mr. Tupman glanced timidly at his leader. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘there was +nothing suspicious; but--I don’t know how it happened, mind--she +certainly was reclining in his arms.’ + +‘Gracious powers!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, as the recollection of the +scene in question struck forcibly upon him; ‘what a dreadful instance of +the force of circumstances! So she was--so she was.’ + +‘And our friend was soothing her anguish,’ said Mr. Winkle, rather +maliciously. + +‘So I was,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I don’t deny it. So I was.’ + +‘Hollo!’ said Wardle; ‘for a case in which there’s nothing suspicious, +this looks rather queer--eh, Pickwick? Ah, sly dog--sly dog!’ and he +laughed till the glasses on the sideboard rang again. + +‘What a dreadful conjunction of appearances!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, +resting his chin upon his hands. ‘Winkle--Tupman--I beg your pardon for +the observations I made just now. We are all the victims of +circumstances, and I the greatest.’ With this apology Mr. Pickwick +buried his head in his hands, and ruminated; while Wardle measured out a +regular circle of nods and winks, addressed to the other members of the +company. + +‘I’ll have it explained, though,’ said Mr. Pickwick, raising his head +and hammering the table. ‘I’ll see this Dodson and Fogg! I’ll go to +London to-morrow.’ + +‘Not to-morrow,’ said Wardle; ‘you’re too lame.’ + +‘Well, then, next day.’ + +‘Next day is the first of September, and you’re pledged to ride out with +us, as far as Sir Geoffrey Manning’s grounds at all events, and to meet +us at lunch, if you don’t take the field.’ + +‘Well, then, the day after,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘Thursday.--Sam!’ + +‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Take two places outside to London, on Thursday morning, for yourself +and me.’ + +‘Wery well, Sir.’ + +Mr. Weller left the room, and departed slowly on his errand, with his +hands in his pocket and his eyes fixed on the ground. + +‘Rum feller, the hemperor,’ said Mr. Weller, as he walked slowly up the +street. ‘Think o’ his makin’ up to that ‘ere Mrs. Bardell--vith a little +boy, too! Always the vay vith these here old ‘uns howsoever, as is such +steady goers to look at. I didn’t think he’d ha’ done it, though--I +didn’t think he’d ha’ done it!’ Moralising in this strain, Mr. Samuel +Weller bent his steps towards the booking-office. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. A PLEASANT DAY WITH AN UNPLEASANT TERMINATION + +The birds, who, happily for their own peace of mind and personal +comfort, were in blissful ignorance of the preparations which had been +making to astonish them, on the first of September, hailed it, no doubt, +as one of the pleasantest mornings they had seen that season. Many a +young partridge who strutted complacently among the stubble, with all +the finicking coxcombry of youth, and many an older one who watched his +levity out of his little round eye, with the contemptuous air of a bird +of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their approaching doom, +basked in the fresh morning air with lively and blithesome feelings, and +a few hours afterwards were laid low upon the earth. But we grow +affecting: let us proceed. + +In plain commonplace matter-of-fact, then, it was a fine morning--so +fine that you would scarcely have believed that the few months of an +English summer had yet flown by. Hedges, fields, and trees, hill and +moorland, presented to the eye their ever-varying shades of deep rich +green; scarce a leaf had fallen, scarce a sprinkle of yellow mingled +with the hues of summer, warned you that autumn had begun. The sky was +cloudless; the sun shone out bright and warm; the songs of birds, the +hum of myriads of summer insects, filled the air; and the cottage +gardens, crowded with flowers of every rich and beautiful tint, +sparkled, in the heavy dew, like beds of glittering jewels. Everything +bore the stamp of summer, and none of its beautiful colour had yet faded +from the die. + +Such was the morning, when an open carriage, in which were three +Pickwickians (Mr. Snodgrass having preferred to remain at home), Mr. +Wardle, and Mr. Trundle, with Sam Weller on the box beside the driver, +pulled up by a gate at the roadside, before which stood a tall, raw- +boned gamekeeper, and a half-booted, leather-legginged boy, each bearing +a bag of capacious dimensions, and accompanied by a brace of pointers. + +‘I say,’ whispered Mr. Winkle to Wardle, as the man let down the steps, +‘they don’t suppose we’re going to kill game enough to fill those bags, +do they?’ + +‘Fill them!’ exclaimed old Wardle. ‘Bless you, yes! You shall fill one, +and I the other; and when we’ve done with them, the pockets of our +shooting-jackets will hold as much more.’ + +Mr. Winkle dismounted without saying anything in reply to this +observation; but he thought within himself, that if the party remained +in the open air, till he had filled one of the bags, they stood a +considerable chance of catching colds in their heads. + +‘Hi, Juno, lass-hi, old girl; down, Daph, down,’ said Wardle, caressing +the dogs. ‘Sir Geoffrey still in Scotland, of course, Martin?’ + +The tall gamekeeper replied in the affirmative, and looked with some +surprise from Mr. Winkle, who was holding his gun as if he wished his +coat pocket to save him the trouble of pulling the trigger, to Mr. +Tupman, who was holding his as if he was afraid of it--as there is no +earthly reason to doubt he really was. + +‘My friends are not much in the way of this sort of thing yet, Martin,’ +said Wardle, noticing the look. ‘Live and learn, you know. They’ll be +good shots one of these days. I beg my friend Winkle’s pardon, though; +he has had some practice.’ + +Mr. Winkle smiled feebly over his blue neckerchief in acknowledgment of +the compliment, and got himself so mysteriously entangled with his gun, +in his modest confusion, that if the piece had been loaded, he must +inevitably have shot himself dead upon the spot. + +‘You mustn’t handle your piece in that ‘ere way, when you come to have +the charge in it, Sir,’ said the tall gamekeeper gruffly; ‘or I’m damned +if you won’t make cold meat of some on us.’ + +Mr. Winkle, thus admonished, abruptly altered his position, and in so +doing, contrived to bring the barrel into pretty smart contact with Mr. +Weller’s head. + +‘Hollo!’ said Sam, picking up his hat, which had been knocked off, and +rubbing his temple. ‘Hollo, sir! if you comes it this vay, you’ll fill +one o’ them bags, and something to spare, at one fire.’ + +Here the leather-legginged boy laughed very heartily, and then tried to +look as if it was somebody else, whereat Mr. Winkle frowned +majestically. + +‘Where did you tell the boy to meet us with the snack, Martin?’ inquired +Wardle. + +‘Side of One-tree Hill, at twelve o’clock, Sir.’ + +‘That’s not Sir Geoffrey’s land, is it?’ + +‘No, Sir; but it’s close by it. It’s Captain Boldwig’s land; but +there’ll be nobody to interrupt us, and there’s a fine bit of turf +there.’ + +‘Very well,’ said old Wardle. ‘Now the sooner we’re off the better. Will +you join us at twelve, then, Pickwick?’ + +Mr. Pickwick was particularly desirous to view the sport, the more +especially as he was rather anxious in respect of Mr. Winkle’s life and +limbs. On so inviting a morning, too, it was very tantalising to turn +back, and leave his friends to enjoy themselves. It was, therefore, with +a very rueful air that he replied-- + +‘Why, I suppose I must.’ + +‘Ain’t the gentleman a shot, Sir?’ inquired the long gamekeeper. + +‘No,’ replied Wardle; ‘and he’s lame besides.’ + +‘I should very much like to go,’ said Mr. Pickwick--‘very much.’ + +There was a short pause of commiseration. + +‘There’s a barrow t’other side the hedge,’ said the boy. ‘If the +gentleman’s servant would wheel along the paths, he could keep nigh us, +and we could lift it over the stiles, and that.’ + +‘The wery thing,’ said Mr. Weller, who was a party interested, inasmuch +as he ardently longed to see the sport. ‘The wery thing. Well said, +Smallcheek; I’ll have it out in a minute.’ + +But here a difficulty arose. The long gamekeeper resolutely protested +against the introduction into a shooting party, of a gentleman in a +barrow, as a gross violation of all established rules and precedents. + +It was a great objection, but not an insurmountable one. The gamekeeper +having been coaxed and feed, and having, moreover, eased his mind by +‘punching’ the head of the inventive youth who had first suggested the +use of the machine, Mr. Pickwick was placed in it, and off the party +set; Wardle and the long gamekeeper leading the way, and Mr. Pickwick in +the barrow, propelled by Sam, bringing up the rear. + +‘Stop, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when they had got half across the first +field. + +‘What’s the matter now?’ said Wardle. + +‘I won’t suffer this barrow to be moved another step,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, resolutely, ‘unless Winkle carries that gun of his in a +different manner.’ + +‘How _am_ I to carry it?’ said the wretched Winkle. + +‘Carry it with the muzzle to the ground,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It’s so unsportsmanlike,’ reasoned Winkle. + +‘I don’t care whether it’s unsportsmanlike or not,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick; ‘I am not going to be shot in a wheel-barrow, for the sake of +appearances, to please anybody.’ + +‘I know the gentleman’ll put that ‘ere charge into somebody afore he’s +done,’ growled the long man. + +‘Well, well--I don’t mind,’ said poor Winkle, turning his gun-stock +uppermost--‘there.’ + +‘Anythin’ for a quiet life,’ said Mr. Weller; and on they went again. + +‘Stop!’ said Mr. Pickwick, after they had gone a few yards farther. + +‘What now?’ said Wardle. + +‘That gun of Tupman’s is not safe: I know it isn’t,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Eh? What! not safe?’ said Mr. Tupman, in a tone of great alarm. + +‘Not as you are carrying it,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am very sorry to +make any further objection, but I cannot consent to go on, unless you +carry it as Winkle does his.’ + +‘I think you had better, sir,’ said the long gamekeeper, ‘or you’re +quite as likely to lodge the charge in yourself as in anything else.’ + +Mr. Tupman, with the most obliging haste, placed his piece in the +position required, and the party moved on again; the two amateurs +marching with reversed arms, like a couple of privates at a royal +funeral. + +The dogs suddenly came to a dead stop, and the party advancing +stealthily a single pace, stopped too. + +‘What’s the matter with the dogs’ legs?’ whispered Mr. Winkle. ‘How +queer they’re standing.’ + +‘Hush, can’t you?’ replied Wardle softly. ‘Don’t you see, they’re making +a point?’ + +‘Making a point!’ said Mr. Winkle, staring about him, as if he expected +to discover some particular beauty in the landscape, which the sagacious +animals were calling special attention to. ‘Making a point! What are +they pointing at?’ + +‘Keep your eyes open,’ said Wardle, not heeding the question in the +excitement of the moment. ‘Now then.’ + +There was a sharp whirring noise, that made Mr. Winkle start back as if +he had been shot himself. Bang, bang, went a couple of guns--the smoke +swept quickly away over the field, and curled into the air. + +‘Where are they!’ said Mr. Winkle, in a state of the highest excitement, +turning round and round in all directions. ‘Where are they? Tell me when +to fire. Where are they--where are they?’ + +‘Where are they!’ said Wardle, taking up a brace of birds which the dogs +had deposited at his feet. ‘Why, here they are.’ + +‘No, no; I mean the others,’ said the bewildered Winkle. + +‘Far enough off, by this time,’ replied Wardle, coolly reloading his +gun. + +‘We shall very likely be up with another covey in five minutes,’ said +the long gamekeeper. ‘If the gentleman begins to fire now, perhaps he’ll +just get the shot out of the barrel by the time they rise.’ + +‘Ha! ha! ha!’ roared Mr. Weller. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, compassionating his follower’s confusion and +embarrassment. + +‘Sir.’ + +‘Don’t laugh.’ + +‘Certainly not, Sir.’ So, by way of indemnification, Mr. Weller +contorted his features from behind the wheel-barrow, for the exclusive +amusement of the boy with the leggings, who thereupon burst into a +boisterous laugh, and was summarily cuffed by the long gamekeeper, who +wanted a pretext for turning round, to hide his own merriment. + +‘Bravo, old fellow!’ said Wardle to Mr. Tupman; ‘you fired that time, at +all events.’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ replied Mr. Tupman, with conscious pride. ‘I let it off.’ + +‘Well done. You’ll hit something next time, if you look sharp. Very +easy, ain’t it?’ + +‘Yes, it’s very easy,’ said Mr. Tupman. ‘How it hurts one’s shoulder, +though. It nearly knocked me backwards. I had no idea these small +firearms kicked so.’ + +‘Ah,’ said the old gentleman, smiling, ‘you’ll get used to it in time. +Now then--all ready--all right with the barrow there?’ + +‘All right, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Come along, then.’ + +‘Hold hard, Sir,’ said Sam, raising the barrow. + +‘Aye, aye,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; and on they went, as briskly as need +be. + +‘Keep that barrow back now,’ cried Wardle, when it had been hoisted over +a stile into another field, and Mr. Pickwick had been deposited in it +once more. + +‘All right, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, pausing. + +‘Now, Winkle,’ said the old gentleman, ‘follow me softly, and don’t be +too late this time.’ + +‘Never fear,’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘Are they pointing?’ + +‘No, no; not now. Quietly now, quietly.’ On they crept, and very quietly +they would have advanced, if Mr. Winkle, in the performance of some very +intricate evolutions with his gun, had not accidentally fired, at the +most critical moment, over the boy’s head, exactly in the very spot +where the tall man’s brain would have been, had he been there instead. + +‘Why, what on earth did you do that for?’ said old Wardle, as the birds +flew unharmed away. + +‘I never saw such a gun in my life,’ replied poor Mr. Winkle, looking at +the lock, as if that would do any good. ‘It goes off of its own accord. +It _will _do it.’ + +‘Will do it!’ echoed Wardle, with something of irritation in his manner. +‘I wish it would kill something of its own accord.’ + +‘It’ll do that afore long, Sir,’ observed the tall man, in a low, +prophetic voice. + +‘What do you mean by that observation, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, +angrily. + +‘Never mind, Sir, never mind,’ replied the long gamekeeper; ‘I’ve no +family myself, sir; and this here boy’s mother will get something +handsome from Sir Geoffrey, if he’s killed on his land. Load again, Sir, +load again.’ + +‘Take away his gun,’ cried Mr. Pickwick from the barrow, horror-stricken +at the long man’s dark insinuations. ‘Take away his gun, do you hear, +somebody?’ + +Nobody, however, volunteered to obey the command; and Mr. Winkle, after +darting a rebellious glance at Mr. Pickwick, reloaded his gun, and +proceeded onwards with the rest. + +We are bound, on the authority of Mr. Pickwick, to state, that Mr. +Tupman’s mode of proceeding evinced far more of prudence and +deliberation, than that adopted by Mr. Winkle. Still, this by no means +detracts from the great authority of the latter gentleman, on all +matters connected with the field; because, as Mr. Pickwick beautifully +observes, it has somehow or other happened, from time immemorial, that +many of the best and ablest philosophers, who have been perfect lights +of science in matters of theory, have been wholly unable to reduce them +to practice. + +Mr. Tupman’s process, like many of our most sublime discoveries, was +extremely simple. With the quickness and penetration of a man of genius, +he had at once observed that the two great points to be attained were-- +first, to discharge his piece without injury to himself, and, secondly, +to do so, without danger to the bystanders--obviously, the best thing to +do, after surmounting the difficulty of firing at all, was to shut his +eyes firmly, and fire into the air. + +On one occasion, after performing this feat, Mr. Tupman, on opening his +eyes, beheld a plump partridge in the act of falling, wounded, to the +ground. He was on the point of congratulating Mr. Wardle on his +invariable success, when that gentleman advanced towards him, and +grasped him warmly by the hand. + +‘Tupman,’ said the old gentleman, ‘you singled out that particular +bird?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr. Tupman--‘no.’ + +‘You did,’ said Wardle. ‘I saw you do it--I observed you pick him out--I +noticed you, as you raised your piece to take aim; and I will say this, +that the best shot in existence could not have done it more beautifully. +You are an older hand at this than I thought you, Tupman; you have been +out before.’ + +It was in vain for Mr. Tupman to protest, with a smile of self-denial, +that he never had. The very smile was taken as evidence to the contrary; +and from that time forth his reputation was established. It is not the +only reputation that has been acquired as easily, nor are such fortunate +circumstances confined to partridge-shooting. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Winkle flashed, and blazed, and smoked away, without +producing any material results worthy of being noted down; sometimes +expending his charge in mid-air, and at others sending it skimming along +so near the surface of the ground as to place the lives of the two dogs +on a rather uncertain and precarious tenure. As a display of fancy- +shooting, it was extremely varied and curious; as an exhibition of +firing with any precise object, it was, upon the whole, perhaps a +failure. It is an established axiom, that ‘every bullet has its billet.’ +If it apply in an equal degree to shot, those of Mr. Winkle were +unfortunate foundlings, deprived of their natural rights, cast loose +upon the world, and billeted nowhere. + +‘Well,’ said Wardle, walking up to the side of the barrow, and wiping +the streams of perspiration from his jolly red face; ‘smoking day, isn’t +it?’ + +‘It is, indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. The sun is tremendously hot, even +to me. I don’t know how you must feel it.’ + +‘Why,’ said the old gentleman, ‘pretty hot. It’s past twelve, though. +You see that green hill there?’ + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘That’s the place where we are to lunch; and, by Jove, there’s the boy +with the basket, punctual as clockwork!’ + +‘So he is,’ said Mr. Pickwick, brightening up. ‘Good boy, that. I’ll +give him a shilling, presently. Now, then, Sam, wheel away.’ + +‘Hold on, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, invigorated with the prospect of +refreshments. ‘Out of the vay, young leathers. If you walley my precious +life don’t upset me, as the gen’l’m’n said to the driver when they was +a-carryin’ him to Tyburn.’ And quickening his pace to a sharp run, Mr. +Weller wheeled his master nimbly to the green hill, shot him dexterously +out by the very side of the basket, and proceeded to unpack it with the +utmost despatch. + +‘Weal pie,’ said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the eatables +on the grass. ‘Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as +made it, and is quite sure it ain’t kittens; and arter all though, +where’s the odds, when they’re so like weal that the wery piemen +themselves don’t know the difference?’ + +‘Don’t they, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not they, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. ‘I lodged in the +same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man he was--reg’lar +clever chap, too--make pies out o’ anything, he could. “What a number o’ +cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,” says I, when I’d got intimate with him. +“Ah,” says he, “I do--a good many,” says he, “You must be wery fond o’ +cats,” says I. “Other people is,” says he, a-winkin’ at me; “they ain’t +in season till the winter though,” says he. “Not in season!” says I. +“No,” says he, “fruits is in, cats is out.” “Why, what do you mean?” + says I. “Mean!” says he. “That I’ll never be a party to the combination +o’ the butchers, to keep up the price o’ meat,” says he. “Mr. Weller,” + says he, a-squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering in my ear--“don’t +mention this here agin--but it’s the seasonin’ as does it. They’re all +made o’ them noble animals,” says he, a-pointin’ to a wery nice little +tabby kitten, “and I seasons ‘em for beefsteak, weal or kidney, ‘cording +to the demand. And more than that,” says he, “I can make a weal a beef- +steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on ‘em a mutton, at a +minute’s notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!”’ + +‘He must have been a very ingenious young man, that, Sam,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, with a slight shudder. + +‘Just was, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, continuing his occupation of +emptying the basket, ‘and the pies was beautiful. Tongue--, well that’s +a wery good thing when it ain’t a woman’s. Bread--knuckle o’ ham, +reg’lar picter--cold beef in slices, wery good. What’s in them stone +jars, young touch-and-go?’ + +‘Beer in this one,’ replied the boy, taking from his shoulder a couple +of large stone bottles, fastened together by a leathern strap--‘cold +punch in t’other.’ + +‘And a wery good notion of a lunch it is, take it altogether,’ said Mr. +Weller, surveying his arrangement of the repast with great satisfaction. +‘Now, gen’l’m’n, “fall on,” as the English said to the French when they +fixed bagginets.’ + +It needed no second invitation to induce the party to yield full justice +to the meal; and as little pressing did it require to induce Mr. Weller, +the long gamekeeper, and the two boys, to station themselves on the +grass, at a little distance, and do good execution upon a decent +proportion of the viands. An old oak afforded a pleasant shelter to the +group, and a rich prospect of arable and meadow land, intersected with +luxuriant hedges, and richly ornamented with wood, lay spread out before +them. + +‘This is delightful--thoroughly delightful!’ said Mr. Pickwick; the skin +of whose expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off, with exposure +to the sun. + +‘So it is--so it is, old fellow,’ replied Wardle. ‘Come; a glass of +punch!’ + +‘With great pleasure,’ said Mr. Pickwick; the satisfaction of whose +countenance, after drinking it, bore testimony to the sincerity of the +reply. + +‘Good,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips. ‘Very good. I’ll take +another. Cool; very cool. Come, gentlemen,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, +still retaining his hold upon the jar, ‘a toast. Our friends at Dingley +Dell.’ + +The toast was drunk with loud acclamations. + +‘I’ll tell you what I shall do, to get up my shooting again,’ said Mr. +Winkle, who was eating bread and ham with a pocket-knife. ‘I’ll put a +stuffed partridge on the top of a post, and practise at it, beginning at +a short distance, and lengthening it by degrees. I understand it’s +capital practice.’ + +‘I know a gen’l’man, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘as did that, and begun at +two yards; but he never tried it on agin; for he blowed the bird right +clean away at the first fire, and nobody ever seed a feather on him +arterwards.’ + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Have the goodness to reserve your anecdotes till they are called for.’ + +‘Cert’nly, sir.’ + +Here Mr. Weller winked the eye which was not concealed by the beer-can +he was raising to his lips, with such exquisite facetiousness, that the +two boys went into spontaneous convulsions, and even the long man +condescended to smile. + +‘Well, that certainly is most capital cold punch,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +looking earnestly at the stone bottle; ‘and the day is extremely warm, +and--Tupman, my dear friend, a glass of punch?’ + +‘With the greatest delight,’ replied Mr. Tupman; and having drank that +glass, Mr. Pickwick took another, just to see whether there was any +orange peel in the punch, because orange peel always disagreed with him; +and finding that there was not, Mr. Pickwick took another glass to the +health of their absent friend, and then felt himself imperatively called +upon to propose another in honour of the punch-compounder, unknown. + +This constant succession of glasses produced considerable effect upon +Mr. Pickwick; his countenance beamed with the most sunny smiles, +laughter played around his lips, and good-humoured merriment twinkled in +his eye. Yielding by degrees to the influence of the exciting liquid, +rendered more so by the heat, Mr. Pickwick expressed a strong desire to +recollect a song which he had heard in his infancy, and the attempt +proving abortive, sought to stimulate his memory with more glasses of +punch, which appeared to have quite a contrary effect; for, from +forgetting the words of the song, he began to forget how to articulate +any words at all; and finally, after rising to his legs to address the +company in an eloquent speech, he fell into the barrow, and fast asleep, +simultaneously. + +The basket having been repacked, and it being found perfectly impossible +to awaken Mr. Pickwick from his torpor, some discussion took place +whether it would be better for Mr. Weller to wheel his master back +again, or to leave him where he was, until they should all be ready to +return. The latter course was at length decided on; and as the further +expedition was not to exceed an hour’s duration, and as Mr. Weller +begged very hard to be one of the party, it was determined to leave Mr. +Pickwick asleep in the barrow, and to call for him on their return. So +away they went, leaving Mr. Pickwick snoring most comfortably in the +shade. + +That Mr. Pickwick would have continued to snore in the shade until his +friends came back, or, in default thereof, until the shades of evening +had fallen on the landscape, there appears no reasonable cause to doubt; +always supposing that he had been suffered to remain there in peace. But +he was _not _suffered to remain there in peace. And this was what +prevented him. + +Captain Boldwig was a little fierce man in a stiff black neckerchief and +blue surtout, who, when he did condescend to walk about his property, +did it in company with a thick rattan stick with a brass ferrule, and a +gardener and sub-gardener with meek faces, to whom (the gardeners, not +the stick) Captain Boldwig gave his orders with all due grandeur and +ferocity; for Captain Boldwig’s wife’s sister had married a marquis, and +the captain’s house was a villa, and his land ‘grounds,’ and it was all +very high, and mighty, and great. + +Mr. Pickwick had not been asleep half an hour when little Captain +Boldwig, followed by the two gardeners, came striding along as fast as +his size and importance would let him; and when he came near the oak +tree, Captain Boldwig paused and drew a long breath, and looked at the +prospect as if he thought the prospect ought to be highly gratified at +having him to take notice of it; and then he struck the ground +emphatically with his stick, and summoned the head-gardener. + +‘Hunt,’ said Captain Boldwig. + +‘Yes, Sir,’ said the gardener. + +‘Roll this place to-morrow morning--do you hear, Hunt?’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +‘And take care that you keep this place in good order--do you hear, +Hunt?’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +‘And remind me to have a board done about trespassers, and spring guns, +and all that sort of thing, to keep the common people out. Do you hear, +Hunt; do you hear?’ + +‘I’ll not forget it, Sir.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said the other man, advancing, with his hand +to his hat. + +‘Well, Wilkins, what’s the matter with you?’ said Captain Boldwig. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir--but I think there have been trespassers here +to-day.’ + +‘Ha!’ said the captain, scowling around him. + +‘Yes, sir--they have been dining here, I think, sir.’ + +‘Why, damn their audacity, so they have,’ said Captain Boldwig, as the +crumbs and fragments that were strewn upon the grass met his eye. ‘They +have actually been devouring their food here. I wish I had the vagabonds +here!’ said the captain, clenching the thick stick. + +‘I wish I had the vagabonds here,’ said the captain wrathfully. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said Wilkins, ‘but--’ + +‘But what? Eh?’ roared the captain; and following the timid glance of +Wilkins, his eyes encountered the wheel-barrow and Mr. Pickwick. + + +‘Who are you, you rascal?’ said the captain, administering several pokes +to Mr. Pickwick’s body with the thick stick. ‘What’s your name?’ + +‘Cold punch,’ murmured Mr. Pickwick, as he sank to sleep again. + +‘What?’ demanded Captain Boldwig. + +No reply. + +‘What did he say his name was?’ asked the captain. + +‘Punch, I think, sir,’ replied Wilkins. + +‘That’s his impudence--that’s his confounded impudence,’ said Captain +Boldwig. ‘He’s only feigning to be asleep now,’ said the captain, in a +high passion. ‘He’s drunk; he’s a drunken plebeian. Wheel him away, +Wilkins, wheel him away directly.’ + +Where shall I wheel him to, sir?’ inquired Wilkins, with great timidity. + +‘Wheel him to the devil,’ replied Captain Boldwig. + +‘Very well, sir,’ said Wilkins. + +‘Stay,’ said the captain. + +Wilkins stopped accordingly. + +‘Wheel him,’ said the captain--‘wheel him to the pound; and let us see +whether he calls himself Punch when he comes to himself. He shall not +bully me--he shall not bully me. Wheel him away.’ + +Away Mr. Pickwick was wheeled in compliance with this imperious mandate; +and the great Captain Boldwig, swelling with indignation, proceeded on +his walk. + +Inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they +returned, to find that Mr. Pickwick had disappeared, and taken the +wheel-barrow with him. It was the most mysterious and unaccountable +thing that was ever heard of. For a lame man to have got upon his legs +without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most +extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before +him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous. They searched +every nook and corner round, together and separately; they shouted, +whistled, laughed, called--and all with the same result. Mr. Pickwick +was not to be found. After some hours of fruitless search, they arrived +at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him. + +Meanwhile Mr. Pickwick had been wheeled to the Pound, and safely +deposited therein, fast asleep in the wheel-barrow, to the immeasurable +delight and satisfaction not only of all the boys in the village, but +three-fourths of the whole population, who had gathered round, in +expectation of his waking. If their most intense gratification had been +awakened by seeing him wheeled in, how many hundredfold was their joy +increased when, after a few indistinct cries of ‘Sam!’ he sat up in the +barrow, and gazed with indescribable astonishment on the faces before +him. + +A general shout was of course the signal of his having woke up; and his +involuntary inquiry of ‘What’s the matter?’ occasioned another, louder +than the first, if possible. + +‘Here’s a game!’ roared the populace. + +‘Where am I?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘In the pound,’ replied the mob. + +‘How came I here? What was I doing? Where was I brought from?’ + +Boldwig! Captain Boldwig!’ was the only reply. + +‘Let me out,’ cried Mr. Pickwick. ‘Where’s my servant? Where are my +friends?’ + +‘You ain’t got no friends. Hurrah!’ Then there came a turnip, then a +potato, and then an egg; with a few other little tokens of the playful +disposition of the many-headed. + +How long this scene might have lasted, or how much Mr. Pickwick might +have suffered, no one can tell, had not a carriage, which was driving +swiftly by, suddenly pulled up, from whence there descended old Wardle +and Sam Weller, the former of whom, in far less time than it takes to +write it, if not to read it, had made his way to Mr. Pickwick’s side, +and placed him in the vehicle, just as the latter had concluded the +third and last round of a single combat with the town-beadle. + +‘Run to the justice’s!’ cried a dozen voices. + +‘Ah, run avay,’ said Mr. Weller, jumping up on the box. ‘Give my +compliments--Mr. Veller’s compliments--to the justice, and tell him I’ve +spiled his beadle, and that, if he’ll swear in a new ‘un, I’ll come back +again to-morrow and spile him. Drive on, old feller.’ + +‘I’ll give directions for the commencement of an action for false +imprisonment against this Captain Boldwig, directly I get to London,’ +said Mr. Pickwick, as soon as the carriage turned out of the town. + +‘We were trespassing, it seems,’ said Wardle. + +‘I don’t care,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I’ll bring the action.’ + +‘No, you won’t,’ said Wardle. + +‘I will, by--’ But as there was a humorous expression in Wardle’s face, +Mr. Pickwick checked himself, and said, ‘Why not?’ + +‘Because,’ said old Wardle, half-bursting with laughter, ‘because they +might turn on some of us, and say we had taken too much cold punch.’ + +Do what he would, a smile would come into Mr. Pickwick’s face; the smile +extended into a laugh; the laugh into a roar; the roar became general. +So, to keep up their good-humour, they stopped at the first roadside +tavern they came to, and ordered a glass of brandy-and-water all round, +with a magnum of extra strength for Mr. Samuel Weller. + + + +CHAPTER XX. SHOWING HOW DODSON AND FOGG WERE MEN OF BUSINESS, AND THEIR +CLERKS MEN OF PLEASURE; AND HOW AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE +BETWEEN MR. WELLER AND HIS LONG-LOST PARENT; SHOWING ALSO WHAT CHOICE +SPIRITS ASSEMBLED AT THE MAGPIE AND STUMP, AND WHAT A CAPITAL CHAPTER +THE NEXT ONE WILL BE + +In the ground-floor front of a dingy house, at the very farthest end of +Freeman’s Court, Cornhill, sat the four clerks of Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, +two of his Majesty’s attorneys of the courts of King’s Bench and Common +Pleas at Westminster, and solicitors of the High Court of Chancery--the +aforesaid clerks catching as favourable glimpses of heaven’s light and +heaven’s sun, in the course of their daily labours, as a man might hope +to do, were he placed at the bottom of a reasonably deep well; and +without the opportunity of perceiving the stars in the day-time, which +the latter secluded situation affords. + +The clerks’ office of Messrs. Dodson & Fogg was a dark, mouldy, earthy- +smelling room, with a high wainscotted partition to screen the clerks +from the vulgar gaze, a couple of old wooden chairs, a very loud-ticking +clock, an almanac, an umbrella-stand, a row of hat-pegs, and a few +shelves, on which were deposited several ticketed bundles of dirty +papers, some old deal boxes with paper labels, and sundry decayed stone +ink bottles of various shapes and sizes. There was a glass door leading +into the passage which formed the entrance to the court, and on the +outer side of this glass door, Mr. Pickwick, closely followed by Sam +Weller, presented himself on the Friday morning succeeding the +occurrence of which a faithful narration is given in the last chapter. + +‘Come in, can’t you!’ cried a voice from behind the partition, in reply +to Mr. Pickwick’s gentle tap at the door. And Mr. Pickwick and Sam +entered accordingly. + +‘Mr. Dodson or Mr. Fogg at home, sir?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, gently, +advancing, hat in hand, towards the partition. + +‘Mr. Dodson ain’t at home, and Mr. Fogg’s particularly engaged,’ replied +the voice; and at the same time the head to which the voice belonged, +with a pen behind its ear, looked over the partition, and at Mr. +Pickwick. + +It was a ragged head, the sandy hair of which, scrupulously parted on +one side, and flattened down with pomatum, was twisted into little semi- +circular tails round a flat face ornamented with a pair of small eyes, +and garnished with a very dirty shirt collar, and a rusty black stock. + +‘Mr. Dodson ain’t at home, and Mr. Fogg’s particularly engaged,’ said +the man to whom the head belonged. + +‘When will Mr. Dodson be back, sir?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Can’t say.’ + +‘Will it be long before Mr. Fogg is disengaged, Sir?’ + +‘Don’t know.’ + +Here the man proceeded to mend his pen with great deliberation, while +another clerk, who was mixing a Seidlitz powder, under cover of the lid +of his desk, laughed approvingly. + +‘I think I’ll wait,’ said Mr. Pickwick. There was no reply; so Mr. +Pickwick sat down unbidden, and listened to the loud ticking of the +clock and the murmured conversation of the clerks. + +‘That was a game, wasn’t it?’ said one of the gentlemen, in a brown coat +and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some +inaudible relation of his previous evening’s adventures. + +‘Devilish good--devilish good,’ said the Seidlitz-powder man. + +‘Tom Cummins was in the chair,’ said the man with the brown coat. ‘It +was half-past four when I got to Somers Town, and then I was so uncommon +lushy, that I couldn’t find the place where the latch-key went in, and +was obliged to knock up the old ‘ooman. I say, I wonder what old Fogg +‘ud say, if he knew it. I should get the sack, I s’pose--eh?’ + +At this humorous notion, all the clerks laughed in concert. + +‘There was such a game with Fogg here, this mornin’,’ said the man in +the brown coat, ‘while Jack was upstairs sorting the papers, and you two +were gone to the stamp-office. Fogg was down here, opening the letters +when that chap as we issued the writ against at Camberwell, you know, +came in--what’s his name again?’ + +‘Ramsey,’ said the clerk who had spoken to Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah, Ramsey--a precious seedy-looking customer. “Well, sir,” says old +Fogg, looking at him very fierce--you know his way--“well, Sir, have you +come to settle?” “Yes, I have, sir,” said Ramsey, putting his hand in +his pocket, and bringing out the money, “the debt’s two pound ten, and +the costs three pound five, and here it is, Sir;” and he sighed like +bricks, as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting-paper. +Old Fogg looked first at the money, and then at him, and then he coughed +in his rum way, so that I knew something was coming. “You don’t know +there’s a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, I +suppose,” said Fogg. “You don’t say that, sir,” said Ramsey, starting +back; “the time was only out last night, Sir.” “I do say it, though,” + said Fogg, “my clerk’s just gone to file it. Hasn’t Mr. Jackson gone to +file that declaration in Bullman and Ramsey, Mr. Wicks?” Of course I +said yes, and then Fogg coughed again, and looked at Ramsey. “My God!” + said Ramsey; “and here have I nearly driven myself mad, scraping this +money together, and all to no purpose.” “None at all,” said Fogg coolly; +“so you had better go back and scrape some more together, and bring it +here in time.” “I can’t get it, by God!” said Ramsey, striking the desk +with his fist. “Don’t bully me, sir,” said Fogg, getting into a passion +on purpose. “I am not bullying you, sir,” said Ramsey. “You are,” said +Fogg; “get out, sir; get out of this office, Sir, and come back, Sir, +when you know how to behave yourself.” Well, Ramsey tried to speak, but +Fogg wouldn’t let him, so he put the money in his pocket, and sneaked +out. The door was scarcely shut, when old Fogg turned round to me, with +a sweet smile on his face, and drew the declaration out of his coat +pocket. “Here, Wicks,” says Fogg, “take a cab, and go down to the Temple +as quick as you can, and file that. The costs are quite safe, for he’s a +steady man with a large family, at a salary of five-and-twenty shillings +a week, and if he gives us a warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, +I know his employers will see it paid; so we may as well get all we can +get out of him, Mr. Wicks; it’s a Christian act to do it, Mr. Wicks, for +with his large family and small income, he’ll be all the better for a +good lesson against getting into debt--won’t he, Mr. Wicks, won’t he?”-- +and he smiled so good-naturedly as he went away, that it was delightful +to see him. He is a capital man of business,’ said Wicks, in a tone of +the deepest admiration, ‘capital, isn’t he?’ + +The other three cordially subscribed to this opinion, and the anecdote +afforded the most unlimited satisfaction. + + +‘Nice men these here, Sir,’ whispered Mr. Weller to his master; ‘wery +nice notion of fun they has, Sir.’ + +Mr. Pickwick nodded assent, and coughed to attract the attention of the +young gentlemen behind the partition, who, having now relaxed their +minds by a little conversation among themselves, condescended to take +some notice of the stranger. + +‘I wonder whether Fogg’s disengaged now?’ said Jackson. + +‘I’ll see,’ said Wicks, dismounting leisurely from his stool. ‘What name +shall I tell Mr. Fogg?’ + +‘Pickwick,’ replied the illustrious subject of these memoirs. + +Mr. Jackson departed upstairs on his errand, and immediately returned +with a message that Mr. Fogg would see Mr. Pickwick in five minutes; and +having delivered it, returned again to his desk. + +‘What did he say his name was?’ whispered Wicks. + +‘Pickwick,’ replied Jackson; ‘it’s the defendant in Bardell and +Pickwick.’ + +A sudden scraping of feet, mingled with the sound of suppressed +laughter, was heard from behind the partition. + +‘They’re a-twiggin’ of you, Sir,’ whispered Mr. Weller. + +‘Twigging of me, Sam!’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘what do you mean by +twigging me?’ + +Mr. Weller replied by pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and Mr. +Pickwick, on looking up, became sensible of the pleasing fact, that all +the four clerks, with countenances expressive of the utmost amusement, +and with their heads thrust over the wooden screen, were minutely +inspecting the figure and general appearance of the supposed trifler +with female hearts, and disturber of female happiness. On his looking +up, the row of heads suddenly disappeared, and the sound of pens +travelling at a furious rate over paper, immediately succeeded. + +A sudden ring at the bell which hung in the office, summoned Mr. Jackson +to the apartment of Fogg, from whence he came back to say that he (Fogg) +was ready to see Mr. Pickwick if he would step upstairs. + +Upstairs Mr. Pickwick did step accordingly, leaving Sam Weller below. +The room door of the one-pair back, bore inscribed in legible characters +the imposing words, ‘Mr. Fogg’; and, having tapped thereat, and been +desired to come in, Jackson ushered Mr. Pickwick into the presence. + +‘Is Mr. Dodson in?’ inquired Mr. Fogg. + +‘Just come in, Sir,’ replied Jackson. + +‘Ask him to step here.’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ Exit Jackson. + +‘Take a seat, sir,’ said Fogg; ‘there is the paper, sir; my partner will +be here directly, and we can converse about this matter, sir.’ + +Mr. Pickwick took a seat and the paper, but, instead of reading the +latter, peeped over the top of it, and took a survey of the man of +business, who was an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable-diet sort of man, +in a black coat, dark mixture trousers, and small black gaiters; a kind +of being who seemed to be an essential part of the desk at which he was +writing, and to have as much thought or feeling. + +After a few minutes’ silence, Mr. Dodson, a plump, portly, stern-looking +man, with a loud voice, appeared; and the conversation commenced. + +‘This is Mr. Pickwick,’ said Fogg. + +‘Ah! You are the defendant, Sir, in Bardell and Pickwick?’ said Dodson. + +‘I am, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well, sir,’ said Dodson, ‘and what do you propose?’ + +‘Ah!’ said Fogg, thrusting his hands into his trousers’ pockets, and +throwing himself back in his chair, ‘what do you propose, Mr Pickwick?’ + +‘Hush, Fogg,’ said Dodson, ‘let me hear what Mr. Pickwick has to say.’ + +‘I came, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gazing placidly on the two +partners, ‘I came here, gentlemen, to express the surprise with which I +received your letter of the other day, and to inquire what grounds of +action you can have against me.’ + +‘Grounds of--’ Fogg had ejaculated this much, when he was stopped by +Dodson. + +‘Mr. Fogg,’ said Dodson, ‘I am going to speak.’ + +I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodson,’ said Fogg. + +‘For the grounds of action, sir,’ continued Dodson, with moral elevation +in his air, ‘you will consult your own conscience and your own feelings. +We, Sir, we, are guided entirely by the statement of our client. That +statement, Sir, may be true, or it may be false; it may be credible, or +it may be incredible; but, if it be true, and if it be credible, I do +not hesitate to say, Sir, that our grounds of action, Sir, are strong, +and not to be shaken. You may be an unfortunate man, Sir, or you may be +a designing one; but if I were called upon, as a juryman upon my oath, +Sir, to express an opinion of your conduct, Sir, I do not hesitate to +assert that I should have but one opinion about it.’ Here Dodson drew +himself up, with an air of offended virtue, and looked at Fogg, who +thrust his hands farther in his pockets, and nodding his head sagely, +said, in a tone of the fullest concurrence, ‘Most certainly.’ + +‘Well, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable pain depicted in his +countenance, ‘you will permit me to assure you that I am a most +unfortunate man, so far as this case is concerned.’ + +‘I hope you are, Sir,’ replied Dodson; ‘I trust you may be, Sir. If you +are really innocent of what is laid to your charge, you are more +unfortunate than I had believed any man could possibly be. What do you +say, Mr. Fogg?’ + +‘I say precisely what you say,’ replied Fogg, with a smile of +incredulity. + +‘The writ, Sir, which commences the action,’ continued Dodson, ‘was +issued regularly. Mr. Fogg, where is the _Praecipe _book?’ + +‘Here it is,’ said Fogg, handing over a square book, with a parchment +cover. + +‘Here is the entry,’ resumed Dodson. ‘“Middlesex, Capias MARTHA BARDELL, +WIDOW, v. SAMUEL PICKWICK. Damages £1500. Dodson & Fogg for the +plaintiff, Aug. 28, 1827.” All regular, Sir; perfectly.’ Dodson coughed +and looked at Fogg, who said ‘Perfectly,’ also. And then they both +looked at Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I am to understand, then,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that it really is your +intention to proceed with this action?’ + +‘Understand, sir!--that you certainly may,’ replied Dodson, with +something as near a smile as his importance would allow. + +‘And that the damages are actually laid at fifteen hundred pounds?’ said +Mr. Pickwick. + +‘To which understanding you may add my assurance, that if we could have +prevailed upon our client, they would have been laid at treble the +amount, sir,’ replied Dodson. + +‘I believe Mrs. Bardell specially said, however,’ observed Fogg, +glancing at Dodson, ‘that she would not compromise for a farthing less.’ + +‘Unquestionably,’ replied Dodson sternly. For the action was only just +begun; and it wouldn’t have done to let Mr. Pickwick compromise it then, +even if he had been so disposed. + +‘As you offer no terms, sir,’ said Dodson, displaying a slip of +parchment in his right hand, and affectionately pressing a paper copy of +it, on Mr. Pickwick with his left, ‘I had better serve you with a copy +of this writ, sir. Here is the original, sir.’ + +‘Very well, gentlemen, very well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rising in person +and wrath at the same time; ‘you shall hear from my solicitor, +gentlemen.’ + +‘We shall be very happy to do so,’ said Fogg, rubbing his hands. + +‘Very,’ said Dodson, opening the door. + +‘And before I go, gentlemen,’ said the excited Mr. Pickwick, turning +round on the landing, ‘permit me to say, that of all the disgraceful and +rascally proceedings--’ + +‘Stay, sir, stay,’ interposed Dodson, with great politeness. ‘Mr. +Jackson! Mr. Wicks!’ + +‘Sir,’ said the two clerks, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. + +‘I merely want you to hear what this gentleman says,’ replied Dodson. +‘Pray, go on, sir--disgraceful and rascally proceedings, I think you +said?’ + +‘I did,’ said Mr. Pickwick, thoroughly roused. ‘I said, Sir, that of all +the disgraceful and rascally proceedings that ever were attempted, this +is the most so. I repeat it, sir.’ + +‘You hear that, Mr. Wicks,’ said Dodson. + +‘You won’t forget these expressions, Mr. Jackson?’ said Fogg. + +‘Perhaps you would like to call us swindlers, sir,’ said Dodson. ‘Pray +do, Sir, if you feel disposed; now pray do, Sir.’ + +‘I do,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘You _are _swindlers.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Dodson. ‘You can hear down there, I hope, Mr. Wicks?’ + +‘Oh, yes, Sir,’ said Wicks. + +‘You had better come up a step or two higher, if you can’t,’ added Mr. +Fogg. ‘Go on, Sir; do go on. You had better call us thieves, Sir; or +perhaps You would like to assault one of _us_. Pray do it, Sir, if you +would; we will not make the smallest resistance. Pray do it, Sir.’ + +As Fogg put himself very temptingly within the reach of Mr. Pickwick’s +clenched fist, there is little doubt that that gentleman would have +complied with his earnest entreaty, but for the interposition of Sam, +who, hearing the dispute, emerged from the office, mounted the stairs, +and seized his master by the arm. + +‘You just come away,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Battledore and shuttlecock’s a +wery good game, vhen you ain’t the shuttlecock and two lawyers the +battledores, in which case it gets too excitin’ to be pleasant. Come +avay, Sir. If you want to ease your mind by blowing up somebody, come +out into the court and blow up me; but it’s rayther too expensive work +to be carried on here.’ + +And without the slightest ceremony, Mr. Weller hauled his master down +the stairs, and down the court, and having safely deposited him in +Cornhill, fell behind, prepared to follow whithersoever he should lead. + +Mr. Pickwick walked on abstractedly, crossed opposite the Mansion House, +and bent his steps up Cheapside. Sam began to wonder where they were +going, when his master turned round, and said-- + +‘Sam, I will go immediately to Mr. Perker’s.’ + +‘That’s just exactly the wery place vere you ought to have gone last +night, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I think it is, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I _know _it is,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Well, well, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘we will go there at once; but +first, as I have been rather ruffled, I should like a glass of brandy- +and-water warm, Sam. Where can I have it, Sam?’ + +Mr. Weller’s knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar. He replied, +without the slightest consideration-- + +‘Second court on the right hand side--last house but vun on the same +side the vay--take the box as stands in the first fireplace, ‘cos there +ain’t no leg in the middle o’ the table, which all the others has, and +it’s wery inconvenient.’ + +Mr. Pickwick observed his valet’s directions implicitly, and bidding Sam +follow him, entered the tavern he had pointed out, where the hot brandy- +and-water was speedily placed before him; while Mr. Weller, seated at a +respectful distance, though at the same table with his master, was +accommodated with a pint of porter. + +The room was one of a very homely description, and was apparently under +the especial patronage of stage-coachmen; for several gentleman, who had +all the appearance of belonging to that learned profession, were +drinking and smoking in the different boxes. Among the number was one +stout, red-faced, elderly man, in particular, seated in an opposite box, +who attracted Mr. Pickwick’s attention. The stout man was smoking with +great vehemence, but between every half-dozen puffs, he took his pipe +from his mouth, and looked first at Mr. Weller and then at Mr. Pickwick. +Then, he would bury in a quart pot, as much of his countenance as the +dimensions of the quart pot admitted of its receiving, and take another +look at Sam and Mr. Pickwick. Then he would take another half-dozen +puffs with an air of profound meditation and look at them again. At last +the stout man, putting up his legs on the seat, and leaning his back +against the wall, began to puff at his pipe without leaving off at all, +and to stare through the smoke at the new-comers, as if he had made up +his mind to see the most he could of them. + +At first the evolutions of the stout man had escaped Mr. Weller’s +observation, but by degrees, as he saw Mr. Pickwick’s eyes every now and +then turning towards him, he began to gaze in the same direction, at the +same time shading his eyes with his hand, as if he partially recognised +the object before him, and wished to make quite sure of its identity. +His doubts were speedily dispelled, however; for the stout man having +blown a thick cloud from his pipe, a hoarse voice, like some strange +effort of ventriloquism, emerged from beneath the capacious shawls which +muffled his throat and chest, and slowly uttered these sounds--‘Wy, +Sammy!’ + +‘Who’s that, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, I wouldn’t ha’ believed it, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, with +astonished eyes. ‘It’s the old ‘un.’ + +‘Old one,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘What old one?’ + +‘My father, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘How are you, my ancient?’ And +with this beautiful ebullition of filial affection, Mr. Weller made room +on the seat beside him, for the stout man, who advanced pipe in mouth +and pot in hand, to greet him. + +‘Wy, Sammy,’ said the father, ‘I ha’n’t seen you, for two year and +better.’ + +‘Nor more you have, old codger,’ replied the son. ‘How’s mother-in-law?’ + +‘Wy, I’ll tell you what, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, senior, with much +solemnity in his manner; ‘there never was a nicer woman as a widder, +than that ‘ere second wentur o’ mine--a sweet creetur she was, Sammy; +all I can say on her now, is, that as she was such an uncommon pleasant +widder, it’s a great pity she ever changed her condition. She don’t act +as a vife, Sammy.’ + +Don’t she, though?’ inquired Mr. Weller, junior. + +The elder Mr. Weller shook his head, as he replied with a sigh, ‘I’ve +done it once too often, Sammy; I’ve done it once too often. Take example +by your father, my boy, and be wery careful o’ widders all your life, +‘specially if they’ve kept a public-house, Sammy.’ Having delivered this +parental advice with great pathos, Mr. Weller, senior, refilled his pipe +from a tin box he carried in his pocket; and, lighting his fresh pipe +from the ashes of the old One, commenced smoking at a great rate. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, renewing the subject, and addressing +Mr. Pickwick, after a considerable pause, ‘nothin’ personal, I hope, +sir; I hope you ha’n’t got a widder, sir.’ + +‘Not I,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, laughing; and while Mr. Pickwick laughed, +Sam Weller informed his parent in a whisper, of the relation in which he +stood towards that gentleman. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, senior, taking off his hat, ‘I +hope you’ve no fault to find with Sammy, Sir?’ + +‘None whatever,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wery glad to hear it, sir,’ replied the old man; ‘I took a good deal o’ +pains with his eddication, sir; let him run in the streets when he was +wery young, and shift for hisself. It’s the only way to make a boy +sharp, sir.’ + +‘Rather a dangerous process, I should imagine,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with +a smile. + +‘And not a wery sure one, neither,’ added Mr. Weller; ‘I got reg’larly +done the other day.’ + +‘No!’ said his father. + +‘I did,’ said the son; and he proceeded to relate, in as few words as +possible, how he had fallen a ready dupe to the stratagems of Job +Trotter. + +Mr. Weller, senior, listened to the tale with the most profound +attention, and, at its termination, said-- + +‘Worn’t one o’ these chaps slim and tall, with long hair, and the gift +o’ the gab wery gallopin’?’ + +Mr. Pickwick did not quite understand the last item of description, but, +comprehending the first, said ‘Yes,’ at a venture. + +‘T’ other’s a black-haired chap in mulberry livery, with a wery large +head?’ + +‘Yes, yes, he is,’ said Mr. Pickwick and Sam, with great earnestness. + +‘Then I know where they are, and that’s all about it,’ said Mr. Weller; +‘they’re at Ipswich, safe enough, them two.’ + +‘No!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Fact,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘and I’ll tell you how I know it. I work an +Ipswich coach now and then for a friend o’ mine. I worked down the wery +day arter the night as you caught the rheumatic, and at the Black Boy at +Chelmsford--the wery place they’d come to--I took ‘em up, right through +to Ipswich, where the man-servant--him in the mulberries--told me they +was a-goin’ to put up for a long time.’ + +‘I’ll follow him,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘we may as well see Ipswich as any +other place. I’ll follow him.’ + +‘You’re quite certain it was them, governor?’ inquired Mr. Weller, +junior. + +‘Quite, Sammy, quite,’ replied his father, ‘for their appearance is wery +sing’ler; besides that ‘ere, I wondered to see the gen’l’m’n so +formiliar with his servant; and, more than that, as they sat in the +front, right behind the box, I heerd ‘em laughing and saying how they’d +done old Fireworks.’ + +‘Old who?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Old Fireworks, Sir; by which, I’ve no doubt, they meant you, Sir.’ + +There is nothing positively vile or atrocious in the appellation of ‘old +Fireworks,’ but still it is by no means a respectful or flattering +designation. The recollection of all the wrongs he had sustained at +Jingle’s hands, had crowded on Mr. Pickwick’s mind, the moment Mr. +Weller began to speak; it wanted but a feather to turn the scale, and +‘old Fireworks’ did it. + +‘I’ll follow him,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with an emphatic blow on the +table. + +‘I shall work down to Ipswich the day arter to-morrow, Sir,’ said Mr. +Weller the elder, ‘from the Bull in Whitechapel; and if you really mean +to go, you’d better go with me.’ + +‘So we had,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘very true; I can write to Bury, and +tell them to meet me at Ipswich. We will go with you. But don’t hurry +away, Mr. Weller; won’t you take anything?’ + +‘You’re wery good, Sir,’ replied Mr. W., stopping short;--‘perhaps a +small glass of brandy to drink your health, and success to Sammy, Sir, +wouldn’t be amiss.’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A glass of brandy here!’ The brandy was brought; and Mr. Weller, after +pulling his hair to Mr. Pickwick, and nodding to Sam, jerked it down his +capacious throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. + +‘Well done, father,’ said Sam, ‘take care, old fellow, or you’ll have a +touch of your old complaint, the gout.’ + +‘I’ve found a sov’rin’ cure for that, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, setting +down the glass. + +‘A sovereign cure for the gout,’ said Mr. Pickwick, hastily producing +his note-book--‘what is it?’ + +‘The gout, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘the gout is a complaint as arises +from too much ease and comfort. If ever you’re attacked with the gout, +sir, jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud woice, with a decent +notion of usin’ it, and you’ll never have the gout agin. It’s a capital +prescription, sir. I takes it reg’lar, and I can warrant it to drive +away any illness as is caused by too much jollity.’ Having imparted this +valuable secret, Mr. Weller drained his glass once more, produced a +laboured wink, sighed deeply, and slowly retired. + +‘Well, what do you think of what your father says, Sam?’ inquired Mr. +Pickwick, with a smile. + +‘Think, Sir!’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘why, I think he’s the wictim o’ +connubiality, as Blue Beard’s domestic chaplain said, vith a tear of +pity, ven he buried him.’ + +There was no replying to this very apposite conclusion, and, therefore, +Mr. Pickwick, after settling the reckoning, resumed his walk to Gray’s +Inn. By the time he reached its secluded groves, however, eight o’clock +had struck, and the unbroken stream of gentlemen in muddy high-lows, +soiled white hats, and rusty apparel, who were pouring towards the +different avenues of egress, warned him that the majority of the offices +had closed for that day. + +After climbing two pairs of steep and dirty stairs, he found his +anticipations were realised. Mr. Perker’s ‘outer door’ was closed; and +the dead silence which followed Mr. Weller’s repeated kicks thereat, +announced that the officials had retired from business for the night. + +‘This is pleasant, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I shouldn’t lose an hour in +seeing him; I shall not be able to get one wink of sleep to-night, I +know, unless I have the satisfaction of reflecting that I have confided +this matter to a professional man.’ + +‘Here’s an old ‘ooman comin’ upstairs, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘p’raps +she knows where we can find somebody. Hollo, old lady, vere’s Mr. +Perker’s people?’ + +‘Mr. Perker’s people,’ said a thin, miserable-looking old woman, +stopping to recover breath after the ascent of the staircase--‘Mr. +Perker’s people’s gone, and I’m a-goin’ to do the office out.’ + +Are you Mr. Perker’s servant?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I am Mr. Perker’s laundress,’ replied the woman. + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Pickwick, half aside to Sam, ‘it’s a curious +circumstance, Sam, that they call the old women in these inns, +laundresses. I wonder what’s that for?’ + +‘’Cos they has a mortal awersion to washing anythin’, I suppose, Sir,’ +replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking at the old woman, whose +appearance, as well as the condition of the office, which she had by +this time opened, indicated a rooted antipathy to the application of +soap and water; ‘do you know where I can find Mr. Perker, my good +woman?’ + +‘No, I don’t,’ replied the old woman gruffly; ‘he’s out o’ town now.’ + +‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘where’s his clerk? Do you +know?’ + +‘Yes, I know where he is, but he won’t thank me for telling you,’ +replied the laundress. + +‘I have very particular business with him,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Won’t it do in the morning?’ said the woman. + +‘Not so well,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well,’ said the old woman, ‘if it was anything very particular, I was +to say where he was, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling. If you +just go to the Magpie and Stump, and ask at the bar for Mr. Lowten, +they’ll show you in to him, and he’s Mr. Perker’s clerk.’ + +With this direction, and having been furthermore informed that the +hostelry in question was situated in a court, happy in the double +advantage of being in the vicinity of Clare Market, and closely +approximating to the back of New Inn, Mr. Pickwick and Sam descended the +rickety staircase in safety, and issued forth in quest of the Magpie and +Stump. + +This favoured tavern, sacred to the evening orgies of Mr. Lowten and his +companions, was what ordinary people would designate a public-house. +That the landlord was a man of money-making turn was sufficiently +testified by the fact of a small bulkhead beneath the tap-room window, +in size and shape not unlike a sedan-chair, being underlet to a mender +of shoes: and that he was a being of a philanthropic mind was evident +from the protection he afforded to a pieman, who vended his delicacies +without fear of interruption, on the very door-step. In the lower +windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled +two or three printed cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cider and +Dantzic spruce, while a large blackboard, announcing in white letters to +an enlightened public, that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout +in the cellars of the establishment, left the mind in a state of not +unpleasing doubt and uncertainty as to the precise direction in the +bowels of the earth, in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to +extend. When we add that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half- +obliterated semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of +brown paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to +consider as the ‘stump,’ we have said all that need be said of the +exterior of the edifice. + +On Mr. Pickwick’s presenting himself at the bar, an elderly female +emerged from behind the screen therein, and presented herself before +him. + +‘Is Mr. Lowten here, ma’am?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes, he is, Sir,’ replied the landlady. ‘Here, Charley, show the +gentleman in to Mr. Lowten.’ + +‘The gen’l’m’n can’t go in just now,’ said a shambling pot-boy, with a +red head, ‘cos’ Mr. Lowten’s a-singin’ a comic song, and he’ll put him +out. He’ll be done directly, Sir.’ + +The red-headed pot-boy had scarcely finished speaking, when a most +unanimous hammering of tables, and jingling of glasses, announced that +the song had that instant terminated; and Mr. Pickwick, after desiring +Sam to solace himself in the tap, suffered himself to be conducted into +the presence of Mr. Lowten. + +At the announcement of ‘A gentleman to speak to you, Sir,’ a puffy-faced +young man, who filled the chair at the head of the table, looked with +some surprise in the direction from whence the voice proceeded; and the +surprise seemed to be by no means diminished, when his eyes rested on an +individual whom he had never seen before. + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘and I am very sorry to +disturb the other gentlemen, too, but I come on very particular +business; and if you will suffer me to detain you at this end of the +room for five minutes, I shall be very much obliged to you.’ + +The puffy-faced young man rose, and drawing a chair close to Mr. +Pickwick in an obscure corner of the room, listened attentively to his +tale of woe. + +‘Ah,’ he said, when Mr. Pickwick had concluded, ‘Dodson and Fogg--sharp +practice theirs--capital men of business, Dodson and Fogg, sir.’ + +Mr. Pickwick admitted the sharp practice of Dodson and Fogg, and Lowten +resumed. + +‘Perker ain’t in town, and he won’t be, neither, before the end of next +week; but if you want the action defended, and will leave the copy with +me, I can do all that’s needful till he comes back.’ + +‘That’s exactly what I came here for,’ said Mr. Pickwick, handing over +the document. ‘If anything particular occurs, you can write to me at the +post-office, Ipswich.’ + +‘That’s all right,’ replied Mr. Perker’s clerk; and then seeing Mr. +Pickwick’s eye wandering curiously towards the table, he added, ‘will +you join us, for half an hour or so? We are capital company here to- +night. There’s Samkin and Green’s managing-clerk, and Smithers and +Price’s chancery, and Pimkin and Thomas’s out o’ doors--sings a capital +song, he does--and Jack Bamber, and ever so many more. You’re come out +of the country, I suppose. Would you like to join us?’ + +Mr. Pickwick could not resist so tempting an opportunity of studying +human nature. He suffered himself to be led to the table, where, after +having been introduced to the company in due form, he was accommodated +with a seat near the chairman and called for a glass of his favourite +beverage. + +A profound silence, quite contrary to Mr. Pickwick’s expectation, +succeeded. + +‘You don’t find this sort of thing disagreeable, I hope, sir?’ said his +right hand neighbour, a gentleman in a checked shirt and Mosaic studs, +with a cigar in his mouth. + +‘Not in the least,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘I like it very much, although +I am no smoker myself.’ + +‘I should be very sorry to say I wasn’t,’ interposed another gentleman +on the opposite side of the table. ‘It’s board and lodgings to me, is +smoke.’ + +Mr. Pickwick glanced at the speaker, and thought that if it were washing +too, it would be all the better. + +Here there was another pause. Mr. Pickwick was a stranger, and his +coming had evidently cast a damp upon the party. + +‘Mr. Grundy’s going to oblige the company with a song,’ said the +chairman. + +‘No, he ain’t,’ said Mr. Grundy. + +‘Why not?’ said the chairman. + +‘Because he can’t,’ said Mr. Grundy. + +‘You had better say he won’t,’ replied the chairman. + +‘Well, then, he won’t,’ retorted Mr. Grundy. Mr. Grundy’s positive +refusal to gratify the company occasioned another silence. + +‘Won’t anybody enliven us?’ said the chairman, despondingly. + +‘Why don’t you enliven us yourself, Mr. Chairman?’ said a young man with +a whisker, a squint, and an open shirt collar (dirty), from the bottom +of the table. + +‘Hear! hear!’ said the smoking gentleman, in the Mosaic jewellery. + +‘Because I only know one song, and I have sung it already, and it’s a +fine of “glasses round” to sing the same song twice in a night,’ replied +the chairman. + +This was an unanswerable reply, and silence prevailed again. + +‘I have been to-night, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, hoping to start a +subject which all the company could take a part in discussing, ‘I have +been to-night, in a place which you all know very well, doubtless, but +which I have not been in for some years, and know very little of; I mean +Gray’s Inn, gentlemen. Curious little nooks in a great place, like +London, these old inns are.’ + +‘By Jove!’ said the chairman, whispering across the table to Mr. +Pickwick, ‘you have hit upon something that one of us, at least, would +talk upon for ever. You’ll draw old Jack Bamber out; he was never heard +to talk about anything else but the inns, and he has lived alone in them +till he’s half crazy.’ + +The individual to whom Lowten alluded, was a little, yellow, high- +shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of stooping forward +when silent, Mr. Pickwick had not observed before. He wondered, though, +when the old man raised his shrivelled face, and bent his gray eye upon +him, with a keen inquiring look, that such remarkable features could +have escaped his attention for a moment. There was a fixed grim smile +perpetually on his countenance; he leaned his chin on a long, skinny +hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his head to +one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged gray eyebrows, +there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite repulsive to +behold. + +This was the figure that now started forward, and burst into an animated +torrent of words. As this chapter has been a long one, however, and as +the old man was a remarkable personage, it will be more respectful to +him, and more convenient to us, to let him speak for himself in a fresh +one. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH THE OLD MAN LAUNCHES FORTH INTO HIS FAVOURITE +THEME, AND RELATES A STORY ABOUT A QUEER CLIENT + +‘Aha!’ said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and +appearance concluded the last chapter, ‘aha! who was talking about the +inns?’ + +‘I was, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick--‘I was observing what singular old +places they are.’ + +‘_You_!’ said the old man contemptuously. ‘What do _you _know of the +time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read +and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason +wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers were +exhausted; till morning’s light brought no freshness or health to them; +and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies +to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a very +different day, what do _you_ know of the gradual sinking beneath +consumption, or the quick wasting of fever--the grand results of “life” + and dissipation--which men have undergone in these same rooms? How many +vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart-sick from +the lawyer’s office, to find a resting-place in the Thames, or a refuge +in the jail? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is not a panel in +the old wainscotting, but what, if it were endowed with the powers of +speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of +horror--the romance of life, Sir, the romance of life! Common-place as +they may seem now, I tell you they are strange old places, and I would +rather hear many a legend with a terrific-sounding name, than the true +history of one old set of chambers.’ + +There was something so odd in the old man’s sudden energy, and the +subject which had called it forth, that Mr. Pickwick was prepared with +no observation in reply; and the old man checking his impetuosity, and +resuming the leer, which had disappeared during his previous excitement, +said-- + +‘Look at them in another light--their most common-place and least +romantic. What fine places of slow torture they are! Think of the needy +man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends, to +enter the profession, which is destined never to yield him a morsel of +bread. The waiting--the hope--the disappointment--the fear--the misery-- +the poverty--the blight on his hopes, and end to his career--the suicide +perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right about them?’ +And the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in delight at having +found another point of view in which to place his favourite subject. + +Mr. Pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the remainder of +the company smiled, and looked on in silence. + +‘Talk of your German universities,’ said the little old man. ‘Pooh, +pooh! there’s romance enough at home without going half a mile for it; +only people never think of it.’ + +‘I never thought of the romance of this particular subject before, +certainly,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laughing. + +‘To be sure you didn’t,’ said the little old man; ‘of course not. As a +friend of mine used to say to me, “What is there in chambers in +particular?” “Queer old places,” said I. “Not at all,” said he. +“Lonely,” said I. “Not a bit of it,” said he. He died one morning of +apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door. Fell with his head in +his own letter-box, and there he lay for eighteen months. Everybody +thought he’d gone out of town.’ + +‘And how was he found out at last?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘The benchers determined to have his door broken open, as he hadn’t paid +any rent for two years. So they did. Forced the lock; and a very dusty +skeleton in a blue coat, black knee-shorts, and silks, fell forward in +the arms of the porter who opened the door. Queer, that. Rather, +perhaps; rather, eh?’ The little old man put his head more on one side, +and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee. + +‘I know another case,’ said the little old man, when his chuckles had in +some degree subsided. ‘It occurred in Clifford’s Inn. Tenant of a top +set--bad character--shut himself up in his bedroom closet, and took a +dose of arsenic. The steward thought he had run away: opened the door, +and put a bill up. Another man came, took the chambers, furnished them, +and went to live there. Somehow or other he couldn’t sleep--always +restless and uncomfortable. “Odd,” says he. “I’ll make the other room my +bedchamber, and this my sitting-room.” He made the change, and slept +very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow, he couldn’t read +in the evening: he got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always +snuffing his candles and staring about him. “I can’t make this out,” + said he, when he came home from the play one night, and was drinking a +glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in order that he mightn’t +be able to fancy there was any one behind him--“I can’t make it out,” + said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little closet that had +been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his whole frame from +top to toe. “I have felt this strange feeling before,” said he, “I +cannot help thinking there’s something wrong about that closet.” He made +a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with a blow +or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing +bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle +clasped firmly in his hand, and his face--well!’ As the little old man +concluded, he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering +auditory with a smile of grim delight. + +‘What strange things these are you tell us of, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +minutely scanning the old man’s countenance, by the aid of his glasses. + +‘Strange!’ said the little old man. ‘Nonsense; you think them strange, +because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon.’ + +‘Funny!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily. + +‘Yes, funny, are they not?’ replied the little old man, with a +diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued-- + +‘I knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an old, +damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient inns, that had +been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of +old women’s stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from +being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap, and +that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been +ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some +mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a +great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a +green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no +papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with +him, and that wasn’t very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all +his furniture--it wasn’t quite a truck-full--and had sprinkled it about +the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as +possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the +first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering +whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years’ time, +when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. “Ah,” + says he, “if I hadn’t been obliged to take that ugly article at the old +broker’s valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the +money. I’ll tell you what it is, old fellow,” he said, speaking aloud to +the press, having nothing else to speak to, “if it wouldn’t cost more to +break up your old carcass, than it would ever be worth afterward, I’d +have a fire out of you in less than no time.” He had hardly spoken the +words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the +interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a +moment’s reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next +chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and +raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was +repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale +and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the +press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of +care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and +gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this +world was ever seen to wear. “Who are you?” said the new tenant, turning +very pale; poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very +decent aim at the countenance of the figure. “Who are you?” “Don’t throw +that poker at me,” replied the form; “if you hurled it with ever so sure +an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its +force on the wood behind. I am a spirit.” “And pray, what do you want +here?” faltered the tenant. “In this room,” replied the apparition, “my +worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, +the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were +deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long-deferred +hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested +during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was +left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and +since that day have prowled by night--the only period at which I can +revisit the earth--about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. This +apartment is mine: leave it to me.” “If you insist upon making your +appearance here,” said the tenant, who had had time to collect his +presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost’s, “I shall +give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask +you one question, if you will allow me.” “Say on,” said the apparition +sternly. “Well,” said the tenant, “I don’t apply the observation +personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the +ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, +that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of +earth--for I suppose space is nothing to you--you should always return +exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable.” “Egad, +that’s very true; I never thought of that before,” said the ghost. “You +see, Sir,” pursued the tenant, “this is a very uncomfortable room. From +the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not +wholly free from bugs; and I really think you might find much more +comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is +extremely disagreeable.” “You are very right, Sir,” said the ghost +politely, “it never struck me till now; I’ll try change of air +directly”--and, in fact, he began to vanish as he spoke; his legs, +indeed, had quite disappeared. “And if, Sir,” said the tenant, calling +after him, “if you _would _have the goodness to suggest to the other +ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, +that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a +very great benefit on society.” “I will,” replied the ghost; “we must be +dull fellows--very dull fellows, indeed; I can’t imagine how we can have +been so stupid.” With these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is +rather remarkable,’ added the old man, with a shrewd look round the +table, ‘he never came back again.’ + +‘That ain’t bad, if it’s true,’ said the man in the Mosaic studs, +lighting a fresh cigar. + +‘_If_!’ exclaimed the old man, with a look of excessive contempt. ‘I +suppose,’ he added, turning to Lowten, ‘he’ll say next, that my story +about the queer client we had, when I was in an attorney’s office, is +not true either--I shouldn’t wonder.’ + +‘I shan’t venture to say anything at all about it, seeing that I never +heard the story,’ observed the owner of the Mosaic decorations. + +‘I wish you would repeat it, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah, do,’ said Lowten, ‘nobody has heard it but me, and I have nearly +forgotten it.’ + +The old man looked round the table, and leered more horribly than ever, +as if in triumph, at the attention which was depicted in every face. +Then rubbing his chin with his hand, and looking up to the ceiling as if +to recall the circumstances to his memory, he began as follows:-- + + +THE OLD MAN’S TALE ABOUT THE QUEER CLIENT + +‘It matters little,’ said the old man, ‘where, or how, I picked up this +brief history. If I were to relate it in the order in which it reached +me, I should commence in the middle, and when I had arrived at the +conclusion, go back for a beginning. It is enough for me to say that +some of its circumstances passed before my own eyes; for the remainder I +know them to have happened, and there are some persons yet living, who +will remember them but too well. + +‘In the Borough High Street, near St. George’s Church, and on the same +side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our +debtors’ prisons, the Marshalsea. Although in later times it has been a +very different place from the sink of filth and dirt it once was, even +its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the +extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. The condemned felon has +as good a yard for air and exercise in Newgate, as the insolvent debtor +in the Marshalsea Prison. [Better. But this is past, in a better age, +and the prison exists no longer.] + +‘It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot separate the place from +the old recollections associated with it, but this part of London I +cannot bear. The street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of +passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream of people--all the +busy sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn to midnight; but the +streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering +in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are pent up in the narrow +prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to +hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue. + +‘Many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked +round upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old +Marshalsea Prison for the first time; for despair seldom comes with the +first severe shock of misfortune. A man has confidence in untried +friends, he remembers the many offers of service so freely made by his +boon companions when he wanted them not; he has hope--the hope of happy +inexperience--and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it +springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until +it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. How soon +have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces +wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no +figure of speech to say that debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of +release, and no prospect of liberty! The atrocity in its full extent no +longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to +occurrences that make the heart bleed. + +‘Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother +and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented +themselves at the prison gate; often after a night of restless misery +and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then +the young mother turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old +bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, +tinted with the light of the morning’s sun, and stirring with all the +bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented +at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects +before him. But she would quickly set him down, and hiding her face in +her shawl, give vent to the tears that blinded her; for no expression of +interest or amusement lighted up his thin and sickly face. His +recollections were few enough, but they were all of one kind--all +connected with the poverty and misery of his parents. Hour after hour +had he sat on his mother’s knee, and with childish sympathy watched the +tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some +dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard realities of the +world, with many of its worst privations--hunger and thirst, and cold +and want--had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; +and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry +laugh, and sparkling eyes were wanting. + +‘The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with +thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. The healthy, strong- +made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, +was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a +crowded prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the +combined effects of bodily and mental illness. The child’s young heart +was breaking. + +‘Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. The poor girl +had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband’s +imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their +increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two +months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as +usual. One day she failed to come, for the first time. Another morning +arrived, and she came alone. The child was dead. + +‘They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man’s bereavements, as a +happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from +expense to the survivor--they little know, I say, what the agony of +those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all +other eyes are turned coldly away--the consciousness that we possess the +sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is +a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth +could purchase, or power bestow. The child had sat at his parents’ feet +for hours together, with his little hands patiently folded in each +other, and his thin wan face raised towards them. They had seen him pine +away, from day to day; and though his brief existence had been a joyless +one, and he was now removed to that peace and rest which, child as he +was, he had never known in this world, they were his parents, and his +loss sank deep into their souls. + +‘It was plain to those who looked upon the mother’s altered face, that +death must soon close the scene of her adversity and trial. Her +husband’s fellow-prisoners shrank from obtruding on his grief and +misery, and left to himself alone, the small room he had previously +occupied in common with two companions. She shared it with him; and +lingering on without pain, but without hope, her life ebbed slowly away. + +‘She had fainted one evening in her husband’s arms, and he had borne her +to the open window, to revive her with the air, when the light of the +moon falling full upon her face, showed him a change upon her features, +which made him stagger beneath her weight, like a helpless infant. + +‘“Set me down, George,” she said faintly. He did so, and seating himself +beside her, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears. + +‘“It is very hard to leave you, George,” she said; “but it is God’s +will, and you must bear it for my sake. Oh! how I thank Him for having +taken our boy! He is happy, and in heaven now. What would he have done +here, without his mother!” + +‘“You shall not die, Mary, you shall not die;” said the husband, +starting up. He paced hurriedly to and fro, striking his head with his +clenched fists; then reseating himself beside her, and supporting her in +his arms, added more calmly, “Rouse yourself, my dear girl. Pray, pray +do. You will revive yet.” + +‘“Never again, George; never again,” said the dying woman. “Let them lay +me by my poor boy now, but promise me, that if ever you leave this +dreadful place, and should grow rich, you will have us removed to some +quiet country churchyard, a long, long way off--very far from here-- +where we can rest in peace. Dear George, promise me you will.” + +‘“I do, I do,” said the man, throwing himself passionately on his knees +before her. “Speak to me, Mary, another word; one look--but one!” + +‘He ceased to speak: for the arm that clasped his neck grew stiff and +heavy. A deep sigh escaped from the wasted form before him; the lips +moved, and a smile played upon the face; but the lips were pallid, and +the smile faded into a rigid and ghastly stare. He was alone in the +world. + +‘That night, in the silence and desolation of his miserable room, the +wretched man knelt down by the dead body of his wife, and called on God +to witness a terrible oath, that from that hour, he devoted himself to +revenge her death and that of his child; that thenceforth to the last +moment of his life, his whole energies should be directed to this one +object; that his revenge should be protracted and terrible; that his +hatred should be undying and inextinguishable; and should hunt its +object through the world. + +‘The deepest despair, and passion scarcely human, had made such fierce +ravages on his face and form, in that one night, that his companions in +misfortune shrank affrighted from him as he passed by. His eyes were +bloodshot and heavy, his face a deadly white, and his body bent as if +with age. He had bitten his under lip nearly through in the violence of +his mental suffering, and the blood which had flowed from the wound had +trickled down his chin, and stained his shirt and neckerchief. No tear, +or sound of complaint escaped him; but the unsettled look, and +disordered haste with which he paced up and down the yard, denoted the +fever which was burning within. + +‘It was necessary that his wife’s body should be removed from the +prison, without delay. He received the communication with perfect +calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the inmates of the +prison had assembled to witness its removal; they fell back on either +side when the widower appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and +stationed himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the lodge +gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinctive feeling of delicacy, +had retired. The rude coffin was borne slowly forward on men’s +shoulders. A dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the +audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling steps of the +bearers on the stone pavement. They reached the spot where the bereaved +husband stood: and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and +mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them +onward. The turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it +passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed behind it. +He looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to the ground. + +‘Although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night and day, in +the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor +the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him for a moment. +Scenes changed before his eyes, place succeeded place, and event +followed event, in all the hurry of delirium; but they were all +connected in some way with the great object of his mind. He was sailing +over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the +angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every +side. There was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the +howling storm; her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her +deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge +waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the +foaming sea. Onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a +speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stem of the +foremost vessel, crushed her beneath their keel. From the huge whirlpool +which the sinking wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and shrill-- +the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce +yell--that it rung far above the war-cry of the elements, and echoed, +and re-echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky, and ocean. But what was +that--that old gray head that rose above the water’s surface, and with +looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One look, +and he had sprung from the vessel’s side, and with vigorous strokes was +swimming towards it. He reached it; he was close upon it. They were _his +_features. The old man saw him coming, and vainly strove to elude his +grasp. But he clasped him tight, and dragged him beneath the water. +Down, down with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew fainter and +fainter, until they wholly ceased. He was dead; he had killed him, and +had kept his oath. + +‘He was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty desert, barefoot and +alone. The sand choked and blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the +very pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness. Gigantic +masses of the same material, carried forward by the wind, and shone +through by the burning sun, stalked in the distance like pillars of +living fire. The bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste, lay +scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on everything around; so far +as the eye could reach, nothing but objects of dread and horror +presented themselves. Vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his +tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly forward. Armed with +supernatural strength, he waded through the sand, until, exhausted with +fatigue and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. What fragrant +coolness revived him; what gushing sound was that? Water! It was indeed +a well; and the clear fresh stream was running at his feet. He drank +deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs upon the bank, sank into a +delicious trance. The sound of approaching footsteps roused him. An old +gray-headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst. It was +_he_ again! He wound his arms round the old man’s body, and held him +back. He struggled, and shrieked for water--for but one drop of water to +save his life! But he held the old man firmly, and watched his agonies +with greedy eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his bosom, +he rolled the corpse from him with his feet. + +‘When the fever left him, and consciousness returned, he awoke to find +himself rich and free, to hear that the parent who would have let him +die in jail--_would_! who _had _let those who were far dearer to him +than his own existence die of want, and sickness of heart that medicine +cannot cure--had been found dead in his bed of down. He had had all the +heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even of his health and +strength, had put off the act till it was too late, and now might gnash +his teeth in the other world, at the thought of the wealth his +remissness had left him. He awoke to this, and he awoke to more. To +recollect the purpose for which he lived, and to remember that his enemy +was his wife’s own father--the man who had cast him into prison, and +who, when his daughter and her child sued at his feet for mercy, had +spurned them from his door. Oh, how he cursed the weakness that +prevented him from being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance! + +‘He caused himself to be carried from the scene of his loss and misery, +and conveyed to a quiet residence on the sea-coast; not in the hope of +recovering his peace of mind or happiness, for both were fled for ever; +but to restore his prostrate energies, and meditate on his darling +object. And here, some evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for +his first, most horrible revenge. + +‘It was summer-time; and wrapped in his gloomy thoughts, he would issue +from his solitary lodgings early in the evening, and wandering along a +narrow path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that had +struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on some fallen fragment +of the rock, and burying his face in his hands, remain there for hours-- +sometimes until night had completely closed in, and the long shadows of +the frowning cliffs above his head cast a thick, black darkness on every +object near him. + +‘He was seated here, one calm evening, in his old position, now and then +raising his head to watch the flight of a sea-gull, or carry his eye +along the glorious crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the +ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun was setting, when +the profound stillness of the spot was broken by a loud cry for help; he +listened, doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry was repeated +with even greater vehemence than before, and, starting to his feet, he +hastened in the direction whence it proceeded. + +‘The tale told itself at once: some scattered garments lay on the beach; +a human head was just visible above the waves at a little distance from +the shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony, was running to +and fro, shrieking for assistance. The invalid, whose strength was now +sufficiently restored, threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, +with the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drowning man ashore. + +‘“Hasten here, Sir, in God’s name; help, help, sir, for the love of +Heaven. He is my son, Sir, my only son!” said the old man frantically, +as he advanced to meet him. “My only son, Sir, and he is dying before +his father’s eyes!” + +‘At the first word the old man uttered, the stranger checked himself in +his career, and, folding his arms, stood perfectly motionless. + +‘“Great God!” exclaimed the old man, recoiling, “Heyling!” + +‘The stranger smiled, and was silent. + +‘“Heyling!” said the old man wildly; “my boy, Heyling, my dear boy, +look, look!” Gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the +spot where the young man was struggling for life. + +‘“Hark!” said the old man. “He cries once more. He is alive yet. +Heyling, save him, save him!” + +‘The stranger smiled again, and remained immovable as a statue. + +‘“I have wronged you,” shrieked the old man, falling on his knees, and +clasping his hands together. “Be revenged; take my all, my life; cast me +into the water at your feet, and, if human nature can repress a +struggle, I will die, without stirring hand or foot. Do it, Heyling, do +it, but save my boy; he is so young, Heyling, so young to die!” + +‘“Listen,” said the stranger, grasping the old man fiercely by the +wrist; “I will have life for life, and here is _one_. _My_ child died, +before his father’s eyes, a far more agonising and painful death than +that young slanderer of his sister’s worth is meeting while I speak. You +laughed--laughed in your daughter’s face, where death had already set +his hand--at our sufferings, then. What think you of them now! See +there, see there!” + +‘As the stranger spoke, he pointed to the sea. A faint cry died away +upon its surface; the last powerful struggle of the dying man agitated +the rippling waves for a few seconds; and the spot where he had gone +down into his early grave, was undistinguishable from the surrounding +water. + +‘Three years had elapsed, when a gentleman alighted from a private +carriage at the door of a London attorney, then well known as a man of +no great nicety in his professional dealings, and requested a private +interview on business of importance. Although evidently not past the +prime of life, his face was pale, haggard, and dejected; and it did not +require the acute perception of the man of business, to discern at a +glance, that disease or suffering had done more to work a change in his +appearance, than the mere hand of time could have accomplished in twice +the period of his whole life. + +‘“I wish you to undertake some legal business for me,” said the +stranger. + +‘The attorney bowed obsequiously, and glanced at a large packet which +the gentleman carried in his hand. His visitor observed the look, and +proceeded. + +‘“It is no common business,” said he; “nor have these papers reached my +hands without long trouble and great expense.” + +‘The attorney cast a still more anxious look at the packet; and his +visitor, untying the string that bound it, disclosed a quantity of +promissory notes, with copies of deeds, and other documents. + +‘“Upon these papers,” said the client, “the man whose name they bear, +has raised, as you will see, large sums of money, for years past. There +was a tacit understanding between him and the men into whose hands they +originally went--and from whom I have by degrees purchased the whole, +for treble and quadruple their nominal value--that these loans should be +from time to time renewed, until a given period had elapsed. Such an +understanding is nowhere expressed. He has sustained many losses of +late; and these obligations accumulating upon him at once, would crush +him to the earth.” + +‘“The whole amount is many thousands of pounds,” said the attorney, +looking over the papers. + +‘“It is,” said the client. + +‘“What are we to do?” inquired the man of business. + +‘“Do!” replied the client, with sudden vehemence. “Put every engine of +the law in force, every trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality +execute; fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law, aided by +all the craft of its most ingenious practitioners. I would have him die +a harassing and lingering death. Ruin him, seize and sell his lands and +goods, drive him from house and home, and drag him forth a beggar in his +old age, to die in a common jail.” + +‘“But the costs, my dear Sir, the costs of all this,” reasoned the +attorney, when he had recovered from his momentary surprise. “If the +defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs, Sir?” + +‘“Name any sum,” said the stranger, his hand trembling so violently with +excitement, that he could scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke-- +“any sum, and it is yours. Don’t be afraid to name it, man. I shall not +think it dear, if you gain my object.” + +‘The attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as the advance he should +require to secure himself against the possibility of loss; but more with +the view of ascertaining how far his client was really disposed to go, +than with any idea that he would comply with the demand. The stranger +wrote a cheque upon his banker, for the whole amount, and left him. + +‘The draft was duly honoured, and the attorney, finding that his strange +client might be safely relied upon, commenced his work in earnest. For +more than two years afterwards, Mr. Heyling would sit whole days +together, in the office, poring over the papers as they accumulated, and +reading again and again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of +remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the representations of the +certain ruin in which the opposite party must be involved, which poured +in, as suit after suit, and process after process, was commenced. To all +applications for a brief indulgence, there was but one reply--the money +must be paid. Land, house, furniture, each in its turn, was taken under +some one of the numerous executions which were issued; and the old man +himself would have been immured in prison had he not escaped the +vigilance of the officers, and fled. + +‘The implacable animosity of Heyling, so far from being satiated by the +success of his persecution, increased a hundredfold with the ruin he +inflicted. On being informed of the old man’s flight, his fury was +unbounded. He gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, +and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been intrusted +with the writ. He was only restored to comparative calmness by repeated +assurances of the certainty of discovering the fugitive. Agents were +sent in quest of him, in all directions; every stratagem that could be +invented was resorted to, for the purpose of discovering his place of +retreat; but it was all in vain. Half a year had passed over, and he was +still undiscovered. + +‘At length late one night, Heyling, of whom nothing had been seen for +many weeks before, appeared at his attorney’s private residence, and +sent up word that a gentleman wished to see him instantly. Before the +attorney, who had recognised his voice from above stairs, could order +the servant to admit him, he had rushed up the staircase, and entered +the drawing-room pale and breathless. Having closed the door, to prevent +being overheard, he sank into a chair, and said, in a low voice-- + +‘“Hush! I have found him at last.” + +‘“No!” said the attorney. “Well done, my dear sir, well done.” + +‘“He lies concealed in a wretched lodging in Camden Town,” said Heyling. +“Perhaps it is as well we _did _lose sight of him, for he has been +living alone there, in the most abject misery, all the time, and he is +poor--very poor.” + +‘“Very good,” said the attorney. “You will have the caption made to- +morrow, of course?” + +‘“Yes,” replied Heyling. “Stay! No! The next day. You are surprised at +my wishing to postpone it,” he added, with a ghastly smile; “but I had +forgotten. The next day is an anniversary in his life: let it be done +then.” + +‘“Very good,” said the attorney. “Will you write down instructions for +the officer?” + +‘“No; let him meet me here, at eight in the evening, and I will +accompany him myself.” + +‘They met on the appointed night, and, hiring a hackney-coach, directed +the driver to stop at that corner of the old Pancras Road, at which +stands the parish workhouse. By the time they alighted there, it was +quite dark; and, proceeding by the dead wall in front of the Veterinary +Hospital, they entered a small by-street, which is, or was at that time, +called Little College Street, and which, whatever it may be now, was in +those days a desolate place enough, surrounded by little else than +fields and ditches. + +‘Having drawn the travelling-cap he had on half over his face, and +muffled himself in his cloak, Heyling stopped before the meanest-looking +house in the street, and knocked gently at the door. It was at once +opened by a woman, who dropped a curtsey of recognition, and Heyling, +whispering the officer to remain below, crept gently upstairs, and, +opening the door of the front room, entered at once. + +‘The object of his search and his unrelenting animosity, now a decrepit +old man, was seated at a bare deal table, on which stood a miserable +candle. He started on the entrance of the stranger, and rose feebly to +his feet. + +‘“What now, what now?” said the old man. “What fresh misery is this? +What do you want here?” + +‘“A word with _you_,” replied Heyling. As he spoke, he seated himself at +the other end of the table, and, throwing off his cloak and cap, +disclosed his features. + +‘The old man seemed instantly deprived of speech. He fell backward in +his chair, and, clasping his hands together, gazed on the apparition +with a mingled look of abhorrence and fear. + + +‘“This day six years,” said Heyling, “I claimed the life you owed me for +my child’s. Beside the lifeless form of your daughter, old man, I swore +to live a life of revenge. I have never swerved from my purpose for a +moment’s space; but if I had, one thought of her uncomplaining, +suffering look, as she drooped away, or of the starving face of our +innocent child, would have nerved me to my task. My first act of +requital you well remember: this is my last.” + +‘The old man shivered, and his hands dropped powerless by his side. + +‘“I leave England to-morrow,” said Heyling, after a moment’s pause. “To- +night I consign you to the living death to which you devoted her--a +hopeless prison--” + +‘He raised his eyes to the old man’s countenance, and paused. He lifted +the light to his face, set it gently down, and left the apartment. + +‘“You had better see to the old man,” he said to the woman, as he opened +the door, and motioned the officer to follow him into the street. “I +think he is ill.” The woman closed the door, ran hastily upstairs, and +found him lifeless. + +‘Beneath a plain gravestone, in one of the most peaceful and secluded +churchyards in Kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the +soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of England, +lie the bones of the young mother and her gentle child. But the ashes of +the father do not mingle with theirs; nor, from that night forward, did +the attorney ever gain the remotest clue to the subsequent history of +his queer client.’ + + +As the old man concluded his tale, he advanced to a peg in one corner, +and taking down his hat and coat, put them on with great deliberation; +and, without saying another word, walked slowly away. As the gentleman +with the Mosaic studs had fallen asleep, and the major part of the +company were deeply occupied in the humorous process of dropping melted +tallow-grease into his brandy-and-water, Mr. Pickwick departed +unnoticed, and having settled his own score, and that of Mr. Weller, +issued forth, in company with that gentleman, from beneath the portal of +the Magpie and Stump. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. MR. PICKWICK JOURNEYS TO IPSWICH AND MEETS WITH A ROMANTIC +ADVENTURE WITH A MIDDLE-AGED LADY IN YELLOW CURL-PAPERS + +That ‘ere your governor’s luggage, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller of his +affectionate son, as he entered the yard of the Bull Inn, Whitechapel, +with a travelling-bag and a small portmanteau. + +‘You might ha’ made a worser guess than that, old feller,’ replied Mr. +Weller the younger, setting down his burden in the yard, and sitting +himself down upon it afterwards. ‘The governor hisself’ll be down here +presently.’ + +‘He’s a-cabbin’ it, I suppose?’ said the father. + +‘Yes, he’s a havin’ two mile o’ danger at eight-pence,’ responded the +son. ‘How’s mother-in-law this mornin’?’ + +‘Queer, Sammy, queer,’ replied the elder Mr. Weller, with impressive +gravity. ‘She’s been gettin’ rayther in the Methodistical order lately, +Sammy; and she is uncommon pious, to be sure. She’s too good a creetur +for me, Sammy. I feel I don’t deserve her.’ + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Samuel. ‘that’s wery self-denyin’ o’ you.’ + +‘Wery,’ replied his parent, with a sigh. ‘She’s got hold o’ some +inwention for grown-up people being born again, Sammy--the new birth, I +think they calls it. I should wery much like to see that system in +haction, Sammy. I should wery much like to see your mother-in-law born +again. Wouldn’t I put her out to nurse!’ + +‘What do you think them women does t’other day,’ continued Mr. Weller, +after a short pause, during which he had significantly struck the side +of his nose with his forefinger some half-dozen times. ‘What do you +think they does, t’other day, Sammy?’ + +‘Don’t know,’ replied Sam, ‘what?’ + +‘Goes and gets up a grand tea drinkin’ for a feller they calls their +shepherd,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘I was a-standing starin’ in at the pictur +shop down at our place, when I sees a little bill about it; “tickets +half-a-crown. All applications to be made to the committee. Secretary, +Mrs. Weller”; and when I got home there was the committee a-sittin’ in +our back parlour. Fourteen women; I wish you could ha’ heard ‘em, Sammy. +There they was, a-passin’ resolutions, and wotin’ supplies, and all +sorts o’ games. Well, what with your mother-in-law a-worrying me to go, +and what with my looking for’ard to seein’ some queer starts if I did, I +put my name down for a ticket; at six o’clock on the Friday evenin’ I +dresses myself out wery smart, and off I goes with the old ‘ooman, and +up we walks into a fust-floor where there was tea-things for thirty, and +a whole lot o’ women as begins whisperin’ to one another, and lookin’ at +me, as if they’d never seen a rayther stout gen’l’m’n of eight-and-fifty +afore. By and by, there comes a great bustle downstairs, and a lanky +chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, +“Here’s the shepherd a-coming to wisit his faithful flock;” and in comes +a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a-smilin’ avay like +clockwork. Such goin’s on, Sammy! “The kiss of peace,” says the +shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he’d done, the +man vith the red nose began. I was just a-thinkin’ whether I hadn’t +better begin too--‘specially as there was a wery nice lady a-sittin’ +next me--ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been +makin’ the kettle bile downstairs. At it they went, tooth and nail. Such +a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, +such eatin’ and drinkin’! I wish you could ha’ seen the shepherd walkin’ +into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and drink-- +never. The red-nosed man warn’t by no means the sort of person you’d +like to grub by contract, but he was nothin’ to the shepherd. Well; +arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the shepherd +began to preach: and wery well he did it, considerin’ how heavy them +muffins must have lied on his chest. Presently he pulls up, all of a +sudden, and hollers out, “Where is the sinner; where is the mis’rable +sinner?” Upon which, all the women looked at me, and began to groan as +if they was a-dying. I thought it was rather sing’ler, but howsoever, I +says nothing. Presently he pulls up again, and lookin’ wery hard at me, +says, “Where is the sinner; where is the mis’rable sinner?” and all the +women groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got rather savage at +this, so I takes a step or two for’ard and says, “My friend,” says I, +“did you apply that ‘ere obserwation to me?” ‘Stead of beggin’ my pardon +as any gen’l’m’n would ha’ done, he got more abusive than ever:--called +me a wessel, Sammy--a wessel of wrath--and all sorts o’ names. So my +blood being reg’larly up, I first gave him two or three for himself, and +then two or three more to hand over to the man with the red nose, and +walked off. I wish you could ha’ heard how the women screamed, Sammy, +ven they picked up the shepherd from underneath the table--Hollo! here’s +the governor, the size of life.’ + +As Mr. Weller spoke, Mr. Pickwick dismounted from a cab, and entered the +yard. + +‘Fine mornin’, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, senior. + +‘Beautiful indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Beautiful indeed,’ echoes a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and +green spectacles, who had unpacked himself from a cab at the same moment +as Mr. Pickwick. ‘Going to Ipswich, Sir?’ + +‘I am,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Extraordinary coincidence. So am I.’ + +Mr. Pickwick bowed. + +‘Going outside?’ said the red-haired man. + +Mr. Pickwick bowed again. + +‘Bless my soul, how remarkable--I am going outside, too,’ said the red- +haired man; ‘we are positively going together.’ And the red-haired man, +who was an important-looking, sharp-nosed, mysterious-spoken personage, +with a bird-like habit of giving his head a jerk every time he said +anything, smiled as if he had made one of the strangest discoveries that +ever fell to the lot of human wisdom. + +‘I am happy in the prospect of your company, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah,’ said the new-comer, ‘it’s a good thing for both of us, isn’t it? +Company, you see--company--is--is--it’s a very different thing from +solitude--ain’t it?’ + +‘There’s no denying that ‘ere,’ said Mr. Weller, joining in the +conversation, with an affable smile. ‘That’s what I call a self-evident +proposition, as the dog’s-meat man said, when the housemaid told him he +warn’t a gentleman.’ + +‘Ah,’ said the red-haired man, surveying Mr. Weller from head to foot +with a supercilious look. ‘Friend of yours, sir?’ + +‘Not exactly a friend,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, in a low tone. ‘The fact +is, he is my servant, but I allow him to take a good many liberties; +for, between ourselves, I flatter myself he is an original, and I am +rather proud of him.’ + +‘Ah,’ said the red-haired man, ‘that, you see, is a matter of taste. I +am not fond of anything original; I don’t like it; don’t see the +necessity for it. What’s your name, sir?’ + +‘Here is my card, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, much amused by the +abruptness of the question, and the singular manner of the stranger. + +‘Ah,’ said the red-haired man, placing the card in his pocket-book, +‘Pickwick; very good. I like to know a man’s name, it saves so much +trouble. That’s my card, sir. Magnus, you will perceive, sir--Magnus is +my name. It’s rather a good name, I think, sir.’ + +‘A very good name, indeed,’ said Mr. Pickwick, wholly unable to repress +a smile. + +‘Yes, I think it is,’ resumed Mr. Magnus. ‘There’s a good name before +it, too, you will observe. Permit me, sir--if you hold the card a little +slanting, this way, you catch the light upon the up-stroke. There--Peter +Magnus--sounds well, I think, sir.’ + +‘Very,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Curious circumstance about those initials, sir,’ said Mr. Magnus. ‘You +will observe--P.M.--post meridian. In hasty notes to intimate +acquaintance, I sometimes sign myself “Afternoon.” It amuses my friends +very much, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘It is calculated to afford them the highest gratification, I should +conceive,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rather envying the ease with which Mr. +Magnus’s friends were entertained. + +‘Now, gen’l’m’n,’ said the hostler, ‘coach is ready, if you please.’ + +‘Is all my luggage in?’ inquired Mr. Magnus. + +‘All right, sir.’ + +‘Is the red bag in?’ + +‘All right, Sir.’ + +‘And the striped bag?’ + +‘Fore boot, Sir.’ + +‘And the brown-paper parcel?’ + +‘Under the seat, Sir.’ + +‘And the leather hat-box?’ + +‘They’re all in, Sir.’ + +‘Now, will you get up?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Excuse me,’ replied Magnus, standing on the wheel. ‘Excuse me, Mr. +Pickwick. I cannot consent to get up, in this state of uncertainty. I am +quite satisfied from that man’s manner, that the leather hat-box is not +in.’ + +The solemn protestations of the hostler being wholly unavailing, the +leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest depth of the +boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had +been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that +the red bag was mislaid, and next that the striped bag had been stolen, +and then that the brown-paper parcel ‘had come untied.’ At length when +he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each +and every of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of +the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind, he +felt quite comfortable and happy. + +‘You’re given to nervousness, ain’t you, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller, +senior, eyeing the stranger askance, as he mounted to his place. + +‘Yes; I always am rather about these little matters,’ said the stranger, +‘but I am all right now--quite right.’ + +‘Well, that’s a blessin’, said Mr. Weller. ‘Sammy, help your master up +to the box; t’other leg, Sir, that’s it; give us your hand, Sir. Up with +you. You was a lighter weight when you was a boy, sir.’ + +True enough, that, Mr. Weller,’ said the breathless Mr. Pickwick good- +humouredly, as he took his seat on the box beside him. + +‘Jump up in front, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Now Villam, run ‘em out. +Take care o’ the archvay, gen’l’m’n. “Heads,” as the pieman says. +That’ll do, Villam. Let ‘em alone.’ And away went the coach up +Whitechapel, to the admiration of the whole population of that pretty +densely populated quarter. + +‘Not a wery nice neighbourhood, this, Sir,’ said Sam, with a touch of +the hat, which always preceded his entering into conversation with his +master. + +‘It is not indeed, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying the crowded and +filthy street through which they were passing. + +‘It’s a wery remarkable circumstance, Sir,’ said Sam, ‘that poverty and +oysters always seem to go together.’ + +‘I don’t understand you, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘What I mean, sir,’ said Sam, ‘is, that the poorer a place is, the +greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here’s a +oyster-stall to every half-dozen houses. The street’s lined vith ‘em. +Blessed if I don’t think that ven a man’s wery poor, he rushes out of +his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg’lar desperation.’ + +‘To be sure he does,’ said Mr. Weller, senior; ‘and it’s just the same +vith pickled salmon!’ + +‘Those are two very remarkable facts, which never occurred to me +before,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘The very first place we stop at, I’ll make +a note of them.’ + +By this time they had reached the turnpike at Mile End; a profound +silence prevailed until they had got two or three miles farther on, when +Mr. Weller, senior, turning suddenly to Mr. Pickwick, said-- + +‘Wery queer life is a pike-keeper’s, sir.’ + +‘A what?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A pike-keeper.’ + +‘What do you mean by a pike-keeper?’ inquired Mr. Peter Magnus. + +‘The old ‘un means a turnpike-keeper, gen’l’m’n,’ observed Mr. Samuel +Weller, in explanation. + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I see. Yes; very curious life. Very +uncomfortable.’ + +‘They’re all on ‘em men as has met vith some disappointment in life,’ +said Mr. Weller, senior. + +‘Ay, ay,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes. Consequence of vich, they retires from the world, and shuts +themselves up in pikes; partly with the view of being solitary, and +partly to rewenge themselves on mankind by takin’ tolls.’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I never knew that before.’ + +‘Fact, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘if they was gen’l’m’n, you’d call ‘em +misanthropes, but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin’.’ + +With such conversation, possessing the inestimable charm of blending +amusement with instruction, did Mr. Weller beguile the tediousness of +the journey, during the greater part of the day. Topics of conversation +were never wanting, for even when any pause occurred in Mr. Weller’s +loquacity, it was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by Mr. +Magnus to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal history +of his fellow-travellers, and his loudly-expressed anxiety at every +stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two bags, the leather +hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel. + +In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short +distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town +Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great +White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some +rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an +insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great +White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a +prize ox, or a county-paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig--for its +enormous size. Never was such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such +clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens +for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected +together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich. + +It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London coach +stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same +London coach that Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus +dismounted, on the particular evening to which this chapter of our +history bears reference. + +‘Do you stop here, sir?’ inquired Mr. Peter Magnus, when the striped +bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather hat- +box, had all been deposited in the passage. ‘Do you stop here, sir?’ + +‘I do,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Magnus, ‘I never knew anything like these +extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here too. I hope we dine +together?’ + +‘With pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am not quite certain whether I +have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the name +of Tupman here, waiter?’ + +A corpulent man, with a fortnight’s napkin under his arm, and coeval +stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring +down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. Pickwick; and, +after minutely inspecting that gentleman’s appearance, from the crown of +his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically-- + +‘No!’ + +‘Nor any gentleman of the name of Snodgrass?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No!’ + +‘Nor Winkle?’ + +‘No!’ + +‘My friends have not arrived to-day, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘We will +dine alone, then. Show us a private room, waiter.’ + +On this request being preferred, the corpulent man condescended to order +the boots to bring in the gentlemen’s luggage; and preceding them down a +long, dark passage, ushered them into a large, badly-furnished +apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a small fire was making a +wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the +dispiriting influence of the place. After the lapse of an hour, a bit of +fish and a steak was served up to the travellers, and when the dinner +was cleared away, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Peter Magnus drew their chairs up +to the fire, and having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port +wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank +brandy-and-water for their own. + +Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and +the brandy-and-water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life +the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of +himself, his family, his connections, his friends, his jokes, his +business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say +about their brothers), Mr. Peter Magnus took a view of Mr. Pickwick +through his coloured spectacles for several minutes, and then said, with +an air of modesty-- + +‘And what do you think--what _do_ you think, Mr. Pickwick--I have come +down here for?’ + +‘Upon my word,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘it is wholly impossible for me to +guess; on business, perhaps.’ + +‘Partly right, Sir,’ replied Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘but partly wrong at the +same time; try again, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘Really,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I must throw myself on your mercy, to tell +me or not, as you may think best; for I should never guess, if I were to +try all night.’ + +‘Why, then, he-he-he!’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, with a bashful titter, +‘what should you think, Mr. Pickwick, if I had come down here to make a +proposal, Sir, eh? He, he, he!’ + +‘Think! That you are very likely to succeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with +one of his beaming smiles. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Magnus. ‘But do you really think so, Mr. Pickwick? Do +you, though?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No; but you’re joking, though.’ + +‘I am not, indeed.’ + +‘Why, then,’ said Mr. Magnus, ‘to let you into a little secret, I think +so too. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Pickwick, although I’m dreadful +jealous by nature--horrid--that the lady is in this house.’ Here Mr. +Magnus took off his spectacles, on purpose to wink, and then put them on +again. + +‘That’s what you were running out of the room for, before dinner, then, +so often,’ said Mr. Pickwick archly. + +‘Hush! Yes, you’re right, that was it; not such a fool as to see her, +though.’ + +‘No!’ + +‘No; wouldn’t do, you know, after having just come off a journey. Wait +till to-morrow, sir; double the chance then. Mr. Pickwick, Sir, there is +a suit of clothes in that bag, and a hat in that box, which, I expect, +in the effect they will produce, will be invaluable to me, sir.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes; you must have observed my anxiety about them to-day. I do not +believe that such another suit of clothes, and such a hat, could be +bought for money, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +Mr. Pickwick congratulated the fortunate owner of the irresistible +garments on their acquisition; and Mr. Peter Magnus remained a few +moments apparently absorbed in contemplation. + +‘She’s a fine creature,’ said Mr. Magnus. + +‘Is she?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Very,’ said Mr. Magnus. ‘Very. She lives about twenty miles from here, +Mr. Pickwick. I heard she would be here to-night and all to-morrow +forenoon, and came down to seize the opportunity. I think an inn is a +good sort of a place to propose to a single woman in, Mr. Pickwick. She +is more likely to feel the loneliness of her situation in travelling, +perhaps, than she would be at home. What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +‘I think it is very probable,’ replied that gentleman. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘but I am +naturally rather curious; what may you have come down here for?’ + +‘On a far less pleasant errand, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, the colour +mounting to his face at the recollection. ‘I have come down here, Sir, +to expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual, upon whose truth +and honour I placed implicit reliance.’ + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘that’s very unpleasant. It is a lady, +I presume? Eh? ah! Sly, Mr. Pickwick, sly. Well, Mr. Pickwick, sir, I +wouldn’t probe your feelings for the world. Painful subjects, these, +sir, very painful. Don’t mind me, Mr. Pickwick, if you wish to give vent +to your feelings. I know what it is to be jilted, Sir; I have endured +that sort of thing three or four times.’ + +‘I am much obliged to you, for your condolence on what you presume to be +my melancholy case,’ said Mr. Pickwick, winding up his watch, and laying +it on the table, ‘but--’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘not a word more; it’s a painful +subject. I see, I see. What’s the time, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +Past twelve.’ + +‘Dear me, it’s time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I +shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell +for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leathern hat- +box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bedroom, he +retired in company with a japanned candlestick, to one side of the +house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were +conducted through a multitude of tortuous windings, to another. + +‘This is your room, sir,’ said the chambermaid. + +‘Very well,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a tolerably +large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more +comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick’s short experience of +the accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect. + +‘Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, no, Sir.’ + +‘Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past +eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-night.’ + +‘Yes, Sir,’ and bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chambermaid +retired, and left him alone. + +Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into +a train of rambling meditations. First he thought of his friends, and +wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha +Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the +dingy counting-house of Dodson & Fogg. From Dodson & Fogg’s it flew off +at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and +then it came back to the Great White Horse at Ipswich, with sufficient +clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep. So he +roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left +his watch on the table downstairs. + +Now this watch was a special favourite with Mr. Pickwick, having been +carried about, beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater number +of years than we feel called upon to state at present. The possibility +of going to sleep, unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or +in the watch-pocket over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick’s +brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his +bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had +just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, +walked quietly downstairs. + +The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to +be to descend, and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some +narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the +ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished +eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen +when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room +after room did he peep into; at length, as he was on the point of giving +up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in +which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the +table. + +Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his +steps to his bedchamber. If his progress downward had been attended with +difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more +perplexing. Rows of doors, garnished with boots of every shape, make, +and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he +softly turn the handle of some bedroom door which resembled his own, +when a gruff cry from within of ‘Who the devil’s that?’ or ‘What do you +want here?’ caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a perfectly +marvellous celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an +open door attracted his attention. He peeped in. Right at last! There +were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire +still burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had +flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed and sank +into the socket as he closed the door after him. ‘No matter,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, ‘I can undress myself just as well by the light of the fire.’ + +The bedsteads stood one on each side of the door; and on the inner side +of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just +wide enough to admit of a person’s getting into or out of bed, on that +side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn the curtains +of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed +chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then +took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly +drawing on his tasselled nightcap, secured it firmly on his head, by +tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that +article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent +bewilderment struck upon his mind. Throwing himself back in the rush- +bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it +would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to +have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone +forth from beneath the nightcap. + +‘It is the best idea,’ said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he +almost cracked the nightcap strings--‘it is the best idea, my losing +myself in this place, and wandering about these staircases, that I ever +heard of. Droll, droll, very droll.’ Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a +broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of +undressing, in the best possible humour, when he was suddenly stopped by +a most unexpected interruption: to wit, the entrance into the room of +some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the +dressing-table, and set down the light upon it. + +The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick’s features was instantaneously +lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. The +person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little +noise, that Mr. Pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their +entrance. Who could it be? A robber? Some evil-minded person who had +seen him come upstairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What +was he to do? + +The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his +mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by +creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the +opposite side. To this manoeuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the +curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him +could be seen than his face and nightcap, and putting on his spectacles, +he mustered up courage and looked out. + + +Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before the +dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily +engaged in brushing what ladies call their ‘back-hair.’ However the +unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear +that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought +a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution +against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was +glimmering away, like a gigantic lighthouse in a particularly small +piece of water. + +‘Bless my soul!’ thought Mr. Pickwick, ‘what a dreadful thing!’ + +‘Hem!’ said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick’s head with automaton- +like rapidity. + +‘I never met with anything so awful as this,’ thought poor Mr. Pickwick, +the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his nightcap. ‘Never. This +is fearful.’ + +It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was +going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick’s head again. The prospect was +worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; +had carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited +border; and was gazing pensively on the fire. + +‘This matter is growing alarming,’ reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself. +‘I can’t allow things to go on in this way. By the self-possession of +that lady, it is clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. +If I call out she’ll alarm the house; but if I remain here the +consequences will be still more frightful.’ + +Mr. Pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of the most modest +and delicate-minded of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his nightcap +to a lady overpowered him, but he had tied those confounded strings in a +knot, and, do what he would, he couldn’t get it off. The disclosure must +be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrunk behind the +curtains, and called out very loudly-- + +‘Ha-hum!’ + +That the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her +falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it +must have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when Mr. +Pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away stone-dead with +fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire +as before. + +‘Most extraordinary female this,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in +again. ‘Ha-hum!’ + +These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the +ferocious giant Blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion +that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible to be +again mistaken for the workings of fancy. + +‘Gracious Heaven!’ said the middle-aged lady, ‘what’s that?’ + +‘It’s--it’s--only a gentleman, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, from behind +the curtains. + +‘A gentleman!’ said the lady, with a terrific scream. + +‘It’s all over!’ thought Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A strange man!’ shrieked the lady. Another instant and the house would +be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door. + +‘Ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head in the extremity of +his desperation, ‘ma’am!’ + +Now, although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in +putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good +effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. She must +pass it, to reach the staircase, and she would most undoubtedly have +done so by this time, had not the sudden apparition of Mr. Pickwick’s +nightcap driven her back into the remotest corner of the apartment, +where she stood staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr. Pickwick in +his turn stared wildly at her. + +‘Wretch,’ said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, ‘what do you +want here?’ + +‘Nothing, ma’am; nothing whatever, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick earnestly. + +‘Nothing!’ said the lady, looking up. + +‘Nothing, ma’am, upon my honour,’ said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his head so +energetically, that the tassel of his nightcap danced again. ‘I am +almost ready to sink, ma’am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady +in my nightcap (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), but I can’t +get it off, ma’am (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug, in proof +of the statement). It is evident to me, ma’am, now, that I have mistaken +this bedroom for my own. I had not been here five minutes, ma’am, when +you suddenly entered it.’ + +‘If this improbable story be really true, Sir,’ said the lady, sobbing +violently, ‘you will leave it instantly.’ + +‘I will, ma’am, with the greatest pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Instantly, sir,’ said the lady. + +‘Certainly, ma’am,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick, very quickly. ‘Certainly, +ma’am. I--I--am very sorry, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, making his +appearance at the bottom of the bed, ‘to have been the innocent occasion +of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry, ma’am.’ + +The lady pointed to the door. One excellent quality of Mr. Pickwick’s +character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most +trying circumstances. Although he had hastily put on his hat over his +nightcap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his +shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm; +nothing could subdue his native politeness. + +‘I am exceedingly sorry, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. + +‘If you are, Sir, you will at once leave the room,’ said the lady. + +‘Immediately, ma’am; this instant, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, opening +the door, and dropping both his shoes with a crash in so doing. + +‘I trust, ma’am,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and +turning round to bow again--‘I trust, ma’am, that my unblemished +character, and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex, will plead +as some slight excuse for this--’ But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude +the sentence, the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and +bolted the door behind him. + +Whatever grounds of self-congratulation Mr. Pickwick might have for +having escaped so quietly from his late awkward situation, his present +position was by no means enviable. He was alone, in an open passage, in +a strange house in the middle of the night, half dressed; it was not to +be supposed that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room +which he had been wholly unable to discover with a light, and if he made +the slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every +chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller. +He had no resource but to remain where he was until daylight appeared. +So after groping his way a few paces down the passage, and, to his +infinite alarm, stumbling over several pairs of boots in so doing, Mr. +Pickwick crouched into a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning, +as philosophically as he might. + +He was not destined, however, to undergo this additional trial of +patience; for he had not been long ensconced in his present concealment +when, to his unspeakable horror, a man, bearing a light, appeared at the +end of the passage. His horror was suddenly converted into joy, however, +when he recognised the form of his faithful attendant. It was indeed Mr. +Samuel Weller, who after sitting up thus late, in conversation with the +boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire to rest. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly appearing before him, ‘where’s my +bedroom?’ + +Mr. Weller stared at his master with the most emphatic surprise; and it +was not until the question had been repeated three several times, that +he turned round, and led the way to the long-sought apartment. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he got into bed, ‘I have made one of the +most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that ever were heard of.’ + +‘Wery likely, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller drily. + +‘But of this I am determined, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘that if I were +to stop in this house for six months, I would never trust myself about +it, alone, again.’ + +‘That’s the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to, Sir,’ +replied Mr. Weller. ‘You rayther want somebody to look arter you, Sir, +when your judgment goes out a wisitin’.’ + +‘What do you mean by that, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick. He raised himself in +bed, and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more; +but suddenly checking himself, turned round, and bade his valet ‘Good- +night.’ + +‘Good-night, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. He paused when he got outside the +door--shook his head--walked on--stopped--snuffed the candle--shook his +head again--and finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently +buried in the profoundest meditation. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH MR. SAMUEL WELLER BEGINS TO DEVOTE HIS ENERGIES +TO THE RETURN MATCH BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MR. TROTTER + +In a small room in the vicinity of the stableyard, betimes in the +morning, which was ushered in by Mr. Pickwick’s adventure with the +middle--aged lady in the yellow curl-papers, sat Mr. Weller, senior, +preparing himself for his journey to London. He was sitting in an +excellent attitude for having his portrait taken; and here it is. + +It is very possible that at some earlier period of his career, Mr. +Weller’s profile might have presented a bold and determined outline. His +face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a +disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold, fleshy curves had +so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless +you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to +distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose. His chin, +from the same cause, had acquired the grave and imposing form which is +generally described by prefixing the word ‘double’ to that expressive +feature; and his complexion exhibited that peculiarly mottled +combination of colours which is only to be seen in gentlemen of his +profession, and in underdone roast beef. Round his neck he wore a +crimson travelling-shawl, which merged into his chin by such +imperceptible gradations, that it was difficult to distinguish the folds +of the one, from the folds of the other. Over this, he mounted a long +waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, a wide- +skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereof the two +which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man had ever +beheld them both at the same time. His hair, which was short, sleek, and +black, was just visible beneath the capacious brim of a low-crowned +brown hat. His legs were encased in knee-cord breeches, and painted top- +boots; and a copper watch-chain, terminating in one seal, and a key of +the same material, dangled loosely from his capacious waistband. + +We have said that Mr. Weller was engaged in preparing for his journey to +London--he was taking sustenance, in fact. On the table before him, +stood a pot of ale, a cold round of beef, and a very respectable-looking +loaf, to each of which he distributed his favours in turn, with the most +rigid impartiality. He had just cut a mighty slice from the latter, when +the footsteps of somebody entering the room, caused him to raise his +head; and he beheld his son. + +‘Mornin’, Sammy!’ said the father. + +The son walked up to the pot of ale, and nodding significantly to his +parent, took a long draught by way of reply. + +‘Wery good power o’ suction, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller the elder, looking +into the pot, when his first-born had set it down half empty. ‘You’d ha’ +made an uncommon fine oyster, Sammy, if you’d been born in that station +o’ life.’ + +‘Yes, I des-say, I should ha’ managed to pick up a respectable livin’,’ +replied Sam applying himself to the cold beef, with considerable vigour. + +‘I’m wery sorry, Sammy,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, shaking up the ale, +by describing small circles with the pot, preparatory to drinking. ‘I’m +wery sorry, Sammy, to hear from your lips, as you let yourself be +gammoned by that ‘ere mulberry man. I always thought, up to three days +ago, that the names of Veller and gammon could never come into contract, +Sammy, never.’ + +‘Always exceptin’ the case of a widder, of course,’ said Sam. + +‘Widders, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, slightly changing colour. ‘Widders +are ‘ceptions to ev’ry rule. I have heerd how many ordinary women one +widder’s equal to in pint o’ comin’ over you. I think it’s five-and- +twenty, but I don’t rightly know vether it ain’t more.’ + +‘Well; that’s pretty well,’ said Sam. + +‘Besides,’ continued Mr. Weller, not noticing the interruption, ‘that’s +a wery different thing. You know what the counsel said, Sammy, as +defended the gen’l’m’n as beat his wife with the poker, venever he got +jolly. “And arter all, my Lord,” says he, “it’s a amiable weakness.” So +I says respectin’ widders, Sammy, and so you’ll say, ven you gets as old +as me.’ + +‘I ought to ha’ know’d better, I know,’ said Sam. + +‘Ought to ha’ know’d better!’ repeated Mr. Weller, striking the table +with his fist. ‘Ought to ha’ know’d better! why, I know a young ‘un as +hasn’t had half nor quarter your eddication--as hasn’t slept about the +markets, no, not six months--who’d ha’ scorned to be let in, in such a +vay; scorned it, Sammy.’ In the excitement of feeling produced by this +agonising reflection, Mr. Weller rang the bell, and ordered an +additional pint of ale. + +‘Well, it’s no use talking about it now,’ said Sam. ‘It’s over, and +can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation, as they always says in +Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man’s head off. It’s my innings now, +gov’nor, and as soon as I catches hold o’ this ‘ere Trotter, I’ll have a +good ‘un.’ + +‘I hope you will, Sammy. I hope you will,’ returned Mr. Weller. ‘Here’s +your health, Sammy, and may you speedily vipe off the disgrace as you’ve +inflicted on the family name.’ In honour of this toast Mr. Weller +imbibed at a draught, at least two-thirds of a newly-arrived pint, and +handed it over to his son, to dispose of the remainder, which he +instantaneously did. + +‘And now, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, consulting a large double-faced +silver watch that hung at the end of the copper chain. ‘Now it’s time I +was up at the office to get my vay-bill and see the coach loaded; for +coaches, Sammy, is like guns--they requires to be loaded with wery great +care, afore they go off.’ + +At this parental and professional joke, Mr. Weller, junior, smiled a +filial smile. His revered parent continued in a solemn tone-- + +‘I’m a-goin’ to leave you, Samivel, my boy, and there’s no telling ven I +shall see you again. Your mother-in-law may ha’ been too much for me, or +a thousand things may have happened by the time you next hears any news +o’ the celebrated Mr. Veller o’ the Bell Savage. The family name depends +wery much upon you, Samivel, and I hope you’ll do wot’s right by it. +Upon all little pints o’ breedin’, I know I may trust you as vell as if +it was my own self. So I’ve only this here one little bit of adwice to +give you. If ever you gets to up’ards o’ fifty, and feels disposed to go +a-marryin’ anybody--no matter who--jist you shut yourself up in your own +room, if you’ve got one, and pison yourself off hand. Hangin’s wulgar, +so don’t you have nothin’ to say to that. Pison yourself, Samivel, my +boy, pison yourself, and you’ll be glad on it arterwards.’ With these +affecting words, Mr. Weller looked steadfastly on his son, and turning +slowly upon his heel, disappeared from his sight. + +In the contemplative mood which these words had awakened, Mr. Samuel +Weller walked forth from the Great White Horse when his father had left +him; and bending his steps towards St. Clement’s Church, endeavoured to +dissipate his melancholy, by strolling among its ancient precincts. He +had loitered about, for some time, when he found himself in a retired +spot--a kind of courtyard of venerable appearance--which he discovered +had no other outlet than the turning by which he had entered. He was +about retracing his steps, when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot +by a sudden appearance; and the mode and manner of this appearance, we +now proceed to relate. + +Mr. Samuel Weller had been staring up at the old brick houses now and +then, in his deep abstraction, bestowing a wink upon some healthy- +looking servant girl as she drew up a blind, or threw open a bedroom +window, when the green gate of a garden at the bottom of the yard +opened, and a man having emerged therefrom, closed the green gate very +carefully after him, and walked briskly towards the very spot where Mr. +Weller was standing. + +Now, taking this, as an isolated fact, unaccompanied by any attendant +circumstances, there was nothing very extraordinary in it; because in +many parts of the world men do come out of gardens, close green gates +after them, and even walk briskly away, without attracting any +particular share of public observation. It is clear, therefore, that +there must have been something in the man, or in his manner, or both, to +attract Mr. Weller’s particular notice. Whether there was, or not, we +must leave the reader to determine, when we have faithfully recorded the +behaviour of the individual in question. + +When the man had shut the green gate after him, he walked, as we have +said twice already, with a brisk pace up the courtyard; but he no sooner +caught sight of Mr. Weller than he faltered, and stopped, as if +uncertain, for the moment, what course to adopt. As the green gate was +closed behind him, and there was no other outlet but the one in front, +however, he was not long in perceiving that he must pass Mr. Samuel +Weller to get away. He therefore resumed his brisk pace, and advanced, +staring straight before him. The most extraordinary thing about the man +was, that he was contorting his face into the most fearful and +astonishing grimaces that ever were beheld. Nature’s handiwork never was +disguised with such extraordinary artificial carving, as the man had +overlaid his countenance with in one moment. + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Weller to himself, as the man approached. ‘This is wery +odd. I could ha’ swore it was him.’ + +Up came the man, and his face became more frightfully distorted than +ever, as he drew nearer. + +‘I could take my oath to that ‘ere black hair and mulberry suit,’ said +Mr. Weller; ‘only I never see such a face as that afore.’ + +As Mr. Weller said this, the man’s features assumed an unearthly twinge, +perfectly hideous. He was obliged to pass very near Sam, however, and +the scrutinising glance of that gentleman enabled him to detect, under +all these appalling twists of feature, something too like the small eyes +of Mr. Job Trotter to be easily mistaken. + +‘Hollo, you Sir!’ shouted Sam fiercely. + +The stranger stopped. + +‘Hollo!’ repeated Sam, still more gruffly. + +The man with the horrible face looked, with the greatest surprise, up +the court, and down the court, and in at the windows of the houses-- +everywhere but at Sam Weller--and took another step forward, when he was +brought to again by another shout. + +‘Hollo, you sir!’ said Sam, for the third time. + +There was no pretending to mistake where the voice came from now, so the +stranger, having no other resource, at last looked Sam Weller full in +the face. + +‘It won’t do, Job Trotter,’ said Sam. ‘Come! None o’ that ‘ere nonsense. +You ain’t so wery ‘andsome that you can afford to throw avay many o’ +your good looks. Bring them ‘ere eyes o’ yourn back into their proper +places, or I’ll knock ‘em out of your head. D’ye hear?’ + +As Mr. Weller appeared fully disposed to act up to the spirit of this +address, Mr. Trotter gradually allowed his face to resume its natural +expression; and then giving a start of joy, exclaimed, ‘What do I see? +Mr. Walker!’ + +‘Ah,’ replied Sam. ‘You’re wery glad to see me, ain’t you?’ + +‘Glad!’ exclaimed Job Trotter; ‘Oh, Mr. Walker, if you had but known how +I have looked forward to this meeting! It is too much, Mr. Walker; I +cannot bear it, indeed I cannot.’ And with these words, Mr. Trotter +burst into a regular inundation of tears, and, flinging his arms around +those of Mr. Weller, embraced him closely, in an ecstasy of joy. + +‘Get off!’ cried Sam, indignant at this process, and vainly endeavouring +to extricate himself from the grasp of his enthusiastic acquaintance. +‘Get off, I tell you. What are you crying over me for, you portable +engine?’ + +‘Because I am so glad to see you,’ replied Job Trotter, gradually +releasing Mr. Weller, as the first symptoms of his pugnacity +disappeared. ‘Oh, Mr. Walker, this is too much.’ + +‘Too much!’ echoed Sam, ‘I think it is too much--rayther! Now, what have +you got to say to me, eh?’ + +Mr. Trotter made no reply; for the little pink pocket-handkerchief was +in full force. + +‘What have you got to say to me, afore I knock your head off?’ repeated +Mr. Weller, in a threatening manner. + +‘Eh!’ said Mr. Trotter, with a look of virtuous surprise. + +‘What have you got to say to me?’ + +‘I, Mr. Walker!’ + +‘Don’t call me Valker; my name’s Veller; you know that vell enough. What +have you got to say to me?’ + +‘Bless you, Mr. Walker--Weller, I mean--a great many things, if you will +come away somewhere, where we can talk comfortably. If you knew how I +have looked for you, Mr. Weller--’ + +‘Wery hard, indeed, I s’pose?’ said Sam drily. + +‘Very, very, Sir,’ replied Mr. Trotter, without moving a muscle of his +face. ‘But shake hands, Mr. Weller.’ + +Sam eyed his companion for a few seconds, and then, as if actuated by a +sudden impulse, complied with his request. + +‘How,’ said Job Trotter, as they walked away, ‘how is your dear, good +master? Oh, he is a worthy gentleman, Mr. Weller! I hope he didn’t catch +cold, that dreadful night, Sir.’ + +There was a momentary look of deep slyness in Job Trotter’s eye, as he +said this, which ran a thrill through Mr. Weller’s clenched fist, as he +burned with a desire to make a demonstration on his ribs. Sam +constrained himself, however, and replied that his master was extremely +well. + +‘Oh, I am so glad,’ replied Mr. Trotter; ‘is he here?’ + +‘Is yourn?’ asked Sam, by way of reply. + +‘Oh, yes, he is here, and I grieve to say, Mr. Weller, he is going on +worse than ever.’ + +‘Ah, ah!’ said Sam. + +‘Oh, shocking--terrible!’ + +‘At a boarding-school?’ said Sam. + +‘No, not at a boarding-school,’ replied Job Trotter, with the same sly +look which Sam had noticed before; ‘not at a boarding-school.’ + +‘At the house with the green gate?’ said Sam, eyeing his companion +closely. + +‘No, no--oh, not there,’ replied Job, with a quickness very unusual to +him, ‘not there.’ + +‘What was you a-doin’ there?’ asked Sam, with a sharp glance. ‘Got +inside the gate by accident, perhaps?’ + +‘Why, Mr. Weller,’ replied Job, ‘I don’t mind telling you my little +secrets, because, you know, we took such a fancy for each other when we +first met. You recollect how pleasant we were that morning?’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ said Sam, impatiently. ‘I remember. Well?’ + +‘Well,’ replied Job, speaking with great precision, and in the low tone +of a man who communicates an important secret; ‘in that house with the +green gate, Mr. Weller, they keep a good many servants.’ + +‘So I should think, from the look on it,’ interposed Sam. + +‘Yes,’ continued Mr. Trotter, ‘and one of them is a cook, who has saved +up a little money, Mr. Weller, and is desirous, if she can establish +herself in life, to open a little shop in the chandlery way, you see.’ + +Yes.’ + +‘Yes, Mr. Weller. Well, Sir, I met her at a chapel that I go to; a very +neat little chapel in this town, Mr. Weller, where they sing the number +four collection of hymns, which I generally carry about with me, in a +little book, which you may perhaps have seen in my hand--and I got a +little intimate with her, Mr. Weller, and from that, an acquaintance +sprung up between us, and I may venture to say, Mr. Weller, that I am to +be the chandler.’ + +‘Ah, and a wery amiable chandler you’ll make,’ replied Sam, eyeing Job +with a side look of intense dislike. + +‘The great advantage of this, Mr. Weller,’ continued Job, his eyes +filling with tears as he spoke, ‘will be, that I shall be able to leave +my present disgraceful service with that bad man, and to devote myself +to a better and more virtuous life; more like the way in which I was +brought up, Mr. Weller.’ + +‘You must ha’ been wery nicely brought up,’ said Sam. + +‘Oh, very, Mr. Weller, very,’ replied Job. At the recollection of the +purity of his youthful days, Mr. Trotter pulled forth the pink +handkerchief, and wept copiously. + +‘You must ha’ been an uncommon nice boy, to go to school vith,’ said +Sam. + +‘I was, sir,’ replied Job, heaving a deep sigh; ‘I was the idol of the +place.’ + +‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘I don’t wonder at it. What a comfort you must ha’ been +to your blessed mother.’ + +At these words, Mr. Job Trotter inserted an end of the pink handkerchief +into the corner of each eye, one after the other, and began to weep +copiously. + +‘Wot’s the matter with the man,’ said Sam, indignantly. ‘Chelsea water- +works is nothin’ to you. What are you melting vith now? The +consciousness o’ willainy?’ + +‘I cannot keep my feelings down, Mr. Weller,’ said Job, after a short +pause. ‘To think that my master should have suspected the conversation I +had with yours, and so dragged me away in a post-chaise, and after +persuading the sweet young lady to say she knew nothing of him, and +bribing the school-mistress to do the same, deserted her for a better +speculation! Oh! Mr. Weller, it makes me shudder.’ + +‘Oh, that was the vay, was it?’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘To be sure it was,’ replied Job. + +‘Vell,’ said Sam, as they had now arrived near the hotel, ‘I vant to +have a little bit o’ talk with you, Job; so if you’re not partickler +engaged, I should like to see you at the Great White Horse to-night, +somewheres about eight o’clock.’ + +‘I shall be sure to come,’ said Job. + +‘Yes, you’d better,’ replied Sam, with a very meaning look, ‘or else I +shall perhaps be askin’ arter you, at the other side of the green gate, +and then I might cut you out, you know.’ + +‘I shall be sure to be with you, sir,’ said Mr. Trotter; and wringing +Sam’s hand with the utmost fervour, he walked away. + +‘Take care, Job Trotter, take care,’ said Sam, looking after him, ‘or I +shall be one too many for you this time. I shall, indeed.’ Having +uttered this soliloquy, and looked after Job till he was to be seen no +more, Mr. Weller made the best of his way to his master’s bedroom. + +‘It’s all in training, Sir,’ said Sam. + +‘What’s in training, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I’ve found ‘em out, Sir,’ said Sam. + +‘Found out who?’ + +‘That ‘ere queer customer, and the melan-cholly chap with the black +hair.’ + +‘Impossible, Sam!’ said Mr. Pickwick, with the greatest energy. ‘Where +are they, Sam: where are they?’ + +‘Hush, hush!’ replied Mr. Weller; and as he assisted Mr. Pickwick to +dress, he detailed the plan of action on which he proposed to enter. + +‘But when is this to be done, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘All in good time, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +Whether it was done in good time, or not, will be seen hereafter. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. WHEREIN MR. PETER MAGNUS GROWS JEALOUS, AND THE MIDDLE- +AGED LADY APPREHENSIVE, WHICH BRINGS THE PICKWICKIANS WITHIN THE GRASP +OF THE LAW + +When Mr. Pickwick descended to the room in which he and Mr. Peter Magnus +had spent the preceding evening, he found that gentleman with the major +part of the contents of the two bags, the leathern hat-box, and the +brown-paper parcel, displaying to all possible advantage on his person, +while he himself was pacing up and down the room in a state of the +utmost excitement and agitation. + +‘Good-morning, Sir,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus. ‘What do you think of this, +Sir?’ + +‘Very effective indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying the garments of +Mr. Peter Magnus with a good-natured smile. + +‘Yes, I think it’ll do,’ said Mr. Magnus. ‘Mr. Pickwick, Sir, I have +sent up my card.’ + +‘Have you?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And the waiter brought back word, that she would see me at eleven--at +eleven, Sir; it only wants a quarter now.’ + +‘Very near the time,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes, it is rather near,’ replied Mr. Magnus, ‘rather too near to be +pleasant--eh! Mr. Pickwick, sir?’ + +‘Confidence is a great thing in these cases,’ observed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I believe it is, Sir,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus. ‘I am very confident, +Sir. Really, Mr. Pickwick, I do not see why a man should feel any fear +in such a case as this, sir. What is it, Sir? There’s nothing to be +ashamed of; it’s a matter of mutual accommodation, nothing more. Husband +on one side, wife on the other. That’s my view of the matter, Mr. +Pickwick.’ + +‘It is a very philosophical one,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘But breakfast +is waiting, Mr. Magnus. Come.’ + +Down they sat to breakfast, but it was evident, notwithstanding the +boasting of Mr. Peter Magnus, that he laboured under a very considerable +degree of nervousness, of which loss of appetite, a propensity to upset +the tea-things, a spectral attempt at drollery, and an irresistible +inclination to look at the clock, every other second, were among the +principal symptoms. + +‘He-he-he,’ tittered Mr. Magnus, affecting cheerfulness, and gasping +with agitation. ‘It only wants two minutes, Mr. Pickwick. Am I pale, +Sir?’ + +‘Not very,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +There was a brief pause. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick; but have you ever done this sort of +thing in your time?’ said Mr. Magnus. + +‘You mean proposing?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Never,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great energy, ‘never.’ + +‘You have no idea, then, how it’s best to begin?’ said Mr. Magnus. + +‘Why,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I may have formed some ideas upon the +subject, but, as I have never submitted them to the test of experience, +I should be sorry if you were induced to regulate your proceedings by +them.’ + +‘I should feel very much obliged to you, for any advice, Sir,’ said Mr. +Magnus, taking another look at the clock, the hand of which was verging +on the five minutes past. + +‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with the profound solemnity with which +that great man could, when he pleased, render his remarks so deeply +impressive. ‘I should commence, sir, with a tribute to the lady’s beauty +and excellent qualities; from them, Sir, I should diverge to my own +unworthiness.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Mr. Magnus. + +‘Unworthiness for _her _only, mind, sir,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick; ‘for to +show that I was not wholly unworthy, sir, I should take a brief review +of my past life, and present condition. I should argue, by analogy, that +to anybody else, I must be a very desirable object. I should then +expatiate on the warmth of my love, and the depth of my devotion. +Perhaps I might then be tempted to seize her hand.’ + +‘Yes, I see,’ said Mr. Magnus; ‘that would be a very great point.’ + +‘I should then, Sir,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, growing warmer as the +subject presented itself in more glowing colours before him--‘I should +then, Sir, come to the plain and simple question, “Will you have me?” I +think I am justified in assuming that upon this, she would turn away her +head.’ + +‘You think that may be taken for granted?’ said Mr. Magnus; ‘because, if +she did not do that at the right place, it would be embarrassing.’ + +‘I think she would,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Upon this, sir, I should +squeeze her hand, and I think--I think, Mr. Magnus--that after I had +done that, supposing there was no refusal, I should gently draw away the +handkerchief, which my slight knowledge of human nature leads me to +suppose the lady would be applying to her eyes at the moment, and steal +a respectful kiss. I think I should kiss her, Mr. Magnus; and at this +particular point, I am decidedly of opinion that if the lady were going +to take me at all, she would murmur into my ears a bashful acceptance.’ + +Mr. Magnus started; gazed on Mr. Pickwick’s intelligent face, for a +short time in silence; and then (the dial pointing to the ten minutes +past) shook him warmly by the hand, and rushed desperately from the +room. + +Mr. Pickwick had taken a few strides to and fro; and the small hand of +the clock following the latter part of his example, had arrived at the +figure which indicates the half-hour, when the door suddenly opened. He +turned round to meet Mr. Peter Magnus, and encountered, in his stead, +the joyous face of Mr. Tupman, the serene countenance of Mr. Winkle, and +the intellectual lineaments of Mr. Snodgrass. + +As Mr. Pickwick greeted them, Mr. Peter Magnus tripped into the room. + +‘My friends, the gentleman I was speaking of--Mr. Magnus,’ said Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Your servant, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Magnus, evidently in a high state of +excitement; ‘Mr. Pickwick, allow me to speak to you one moment, sir.’ + +As he said this, Mr. Magnus harnessed his forefinger to Mr. Pickwick’s +buttonhole, and, drawing him to a window recess, said-- + +‘Congratulate me, Mr. Pickwick; I followed your advice to the very +letter.’ + +‘And it was all correct, was it?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It was, Sir. Could not possibly have been better,’ replied Mr. Magnus. +‘Mr. Pickwick, she is mine.’ + +‘I congratulate you, with all my heart,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, warmly +shaking his new friend by the hand. + +‘You must see her. Sir,’ said Mr. Magnus; ‘this way, if you please. +Excuse us for one instant, gentlemen.’ Hurrying on in this way, Mr. +Peter Magnus drew Mr. Pickwick from the room. He paused at the next door +in the passage, and tapped gently thereat. + +‘Come in,’ said a female voice. And in they went. + +‘Miss Witherfield,’ said Mr. Magnus, ‘allow me to introduce my very +particular friend, Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick, I beg to make you known +to Miss Witherfield.’ + +The lady was at the upper end of the room. As Mr. Pickwick bowed, he +took his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, and put them on; a +process which he had no sooner gone through, than, uttering an +exclamation of surprise, Mr. Pickwick retreated several paces, and the +lady, with a half-suppressed scream, hid her face in her hands, and +dropped into a chair; whereupon Mr. Peter Magnus was stricken motionless +on the spot, and gazed from one to the other, with a countenance +expressive of the extremities of horror and surprise. + +This certainly was, to all appearance, very unaccountable behaviour; but +the fact is, that Mr. Pickwick no sooner put on his spectacles, than he +at once recognised in the future Mrs. Magnus the lady into whose room he +had so unwarrantably intruded on the previous night; and the spectacles +had no sooner crossed Mr. Pickwick’s nose, than the lady at once +identified the countenance which she had seen surrounded by all the +horrors of a nightcap. So the lady screamed, and Mr. Pickwick started. + +‘Mr. Pickwick!’ exclaimed Mr. Magnus, lost in astonishment, ‘what is the +meaning of this, Sir? What is the meaning of it, Sir?’ added Mr. Magnus, +in a threatening, and a louder tone. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, somewhat indignant at the very sudden manner +in which Mr. Peter Magnus had conjugated himself into the imperative +mood, ‘I decline answering that question.’ + +‘You decline it, Sir?’ said Mr. Magnus. + +‘I do, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘I object to say anything which may +compromise that lady, or awaken unpleasant recollections in her breast, +without her consent and permission.’ + +‘Miss Witherfield,’ said Mr. Peter Magnus, ‘do you know this person?’ + +‘Know him!’ repeated the middle-aged lady, hesitating. + +‘Yes, know him, ma’am; I said know him,’ replied Mr. Magnus, with +ferocity. + +‘I have seen him,’ replied the middle-aged lady. + +‘Where?’ inquired Mr. Magnus, ‘where?’ + +‘That,’ said the middle-aged lady, rising from her seat, and averting +her head--‘that I would not reveal for worlds.’ + +‘I understand you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘and respect your +delicacy; it shall never be revealed by _me_ depend upon it.’ + +‘Upon my word, ma’am,’ said Mr. Magnus, ‘considering the situation in +which I am placed with regard to yourself, you carry this matter off +with tolerable coolness--tolerable coolness, ma’am.’ + +‘Cruel Mr. Magnus!’ said the middle-aged lady; here she wept very +copiously indeed. + +‘Address your observations to me, sir,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick; ‘I +alone am to blame, if anybody be.’ + +‘Oh! you alone are to blame, are you, sir?’ said Mr. Magnus; ‘I--I--see +through this, sir. You repent of your determination now, do you?’ + +‘My determination!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Your determination, Sir. Oh! don’t stare at me, Sir,’ said Mr. Magnus; +‘I recollect your words last night, Sir. You came down here, sir, to +expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual on whose truth and +honour you had placed implicit reliance--eh?’ Here Mr. Peter Magnus +indulged in a prolonged sneer; and taking off his green spectacles-- +which he probably found superfluous in his fit of jealousy--rolled his +little eyes about, in a manner frightful to behold. + +‘Eh?’ said Mr. Magnus; and then he repeated the sneer with increased +effect. ‘But you shall answer it, Sir.’ + +‘Answer what?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Never mind, sir,’ replied Mr. Magnus, striding up and down the room. +‘Never mind.’ + +There must be something very comprehensive in this phrase of ‘Never +mind,’ for we do not recollect to have ever witnessed a quarrel in the +street, at a theatre, public room, or elsewhere, in which it has not +been the standard reply to all belligerent inquiries. ‘Do you call +yourself a gentleman, sir?’--‘Never mind, sir.’ + +Did I offer to say anything to the young woman, sir?’--‘Never mind, +sir.’ + +Do you want your head knocked up against that wall, sir?’--‘Never mind, +sir.’ It is observable, too, that there would appear to be some hidden +taunt in this universal ‘Never mind,’ which rouses more indignation in +the bosom of the individual addressed, than the most lavish abuse could +possibly awaken. + +We do not mean to assert that the application of this brevity to +himself, struck exactly that indignation to Mr. Pickwick’s soul, which +it would infallibly have roused in a vulgar breast. We merely record the +fact that Mr. Pickwick opened the room door, and abruptly called out, +‘Tupman, come here!’ + +Mr. Tupman immediately presented himself, with a look of very +considerable surprise. + +‘Tupman,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘a secret of some delicacy, in which that +lady is concerned, is the cause of a difference which has just arisen +between this gentleman and myself. When I assure him, in your presence, +that it has no relation to himself, and is not in any way connected with +his affairs, I need hardly beg you to take notice that if he continue to +dispute it, he expresses a doubt of my veracity, which I shall consider +extremely insulting.’ As Mr. Pickwick said this, he looked encyclopedias +at Mr. Peter Magnus. + +Mr. Pickwick’s upright and honourable bearing, coupled with that force +and energy of speech which so eminently distinguished him, would have +carried conviction to any reasonable mind; but, unfortunately, at that +particular moment, the mind of Mr. Peter Magnus was in anything but +reasonable order. Consequently, instead of receiving Mr. Pickwick’s +explanation as he ought to have done, he forthwith proceeded to work +himself into a red-hot, scorching, consuming passion, and to talk about +what was due to his own feelings, and all that sort of thing; adding +force to his declamation by striding to and fro, and pulling his hair-- +amusements which he would vary occasionally, by shaking his fist in Mr. +Pickwick’s philanthropic countenance. + +Mr. Pickwick, in his turn, conscious of his own innocence and rectitude, +and irritated by having unfortunately involved the middle-aged lady in +such an unpleasant affair, was not so quietly disposed as was his wont. +The consequence was, that words ran high, and voices higher; and at +length Mr. Magnus told Mr. Pickwick he should hear from him; to which +Mr. Pickwick replied, with laudable politeness, that the sooner he heard +from him the better; whereupon the middle-aged lady rushed in terror +from the room, out of which Mr. Tupman dragged Mr. Pickwick, leaving Mr. +Peter Magnus to himself and meditation. + +If the middle-aged lady had mingled much with the busy world, or had +profited at all by the manners and customs of those who make the laws +and set the fashions, she would have known that this sort of ferocity is +the most harmless thing in nature; but as she had lived for the most +part in the country, and never read the parliamentary debates, she was +little versed in these particular refinements of civilised life. +Accordingly, when she had gained her bedchamber, bolted herself in, and +began to meditate on the scene she had just witnessed, the most terrific +pictures of slaughter and destruction presented themselves to her +imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of Mr. Peter Magnus +borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrelful of +bullets in his left side, was among the very least. The more the middle- +aged lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she +determined to repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the +town, and request him to secure the persons of Mr. Pickwick and Mr. +Tupman without delay. + +To this decision the middle-aged lady was impelled by a variety of +considerations, the chief of which was the incontestable proof it would +afford of her devotion to Mr. Peter Magnus, and her anxiety for his +safety. She was too well acquainted with his jealous temperament to +venture the slightest allusion to the real cause of her agitation on +beholding Mr. Pickwick; and she trusted to her own influence and power +of persuasion with the little man, to quell his boisterous jealousy, +supposing that Mr. Pickwick were removed, and no fresh quarrel could +arise. Filled with these reflections, the middle-aged lady arrayed +herself in her bonnet and shawl, and repaired to the mayor’s dwelling +straightway. + +Now George Nupkins, Esquire, the principal magistrate aforesaid, was as +grand a personage as the fastest walker would find out, between sunrise +and sunset, on the twenty-first of June, which being, according to the +almanacs, the longest day in the whole year, would naturally afford him +the longest period for his search. On this particular morning, Mr. +Nupkins was in a state of the utmost excitement and irritation, for +there had been a rebellion in the town; all the day-scholars at the +largest day-school had conspired to break the windows of an obnoxious +apple-seller, and had hooted the beadle and pelted the constabulary--an +elderly gentleman in top-boots, who had been called out to repress the +tumult, and who had been a peace-officer, man and boy, for half a +century at least. And Mr. Nupkins was sitting in his easy-chair, +frowning with majesty, and boiling with rage, when a lady was announced +on pressing, private, and particular business. Mr. Nupkins looked calmly +terrible, and commanded that the lady should be shown in; which command, +like all the mandates of emperors, and magistrates, and other great +potentates of the earth, was forthwith obeyed; and Miss Witherfield, +interestingly agitated, was ushered in accordingly. + +‘Muzzle!’ said the magistrate. + +Muzzle was an undersized footman, with a long body and short legs. + +‘Muzzle!’ + +Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Place a chair, and leave the room.’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Now, ma’am, will you state your business?’ said the magistrate. + +‘It is of a very painful kind, Sir,’ said Miss Witherfield. + +‘Very likely, ma’am,’ said the magistrate. ‘Compose your feelings, +ma’am.’ Here Mr. Nupkins looked benignant. ‘And then tell me what legal +business brings you here, ma’am.’ Here the magistrate triumphed over the +man; and he looked stern again. + +‘It is very distressing to me, Sir, to give this information,’ said Miss +Witherfield, ‘but I fear a duel is going to be fought here.’ + +‘Here, ma’am?’ said the magistrate. ‘Where, ma’am?’ + +‘In Ipswich.’ + +In Ipswich, ma’am! A duel in Ipswich!’ said the magistrate, perfectly +aghast at the notion. ‘Impossible, ma’am; nothing of the kind can be +contemplated in this town, I am persuaded. Bless my soul, ma’am, are you +aware of the activity of our local magistracy? Do you happen to have +heard, ma’am, that I rushed into a prize-ring on the fourth of May last, +attended by only sixty special constables; and, at the hazard of falling +a sacrifice to the angry passions of an infuriated multitude, prohibited +a pugilistic contest between the Middlesex Dumpling and the Suffolk +Bantam? A duel in Ipswich, ma’am? I don’t think--I do not think,’ said +the magistrate, reasoning with himself, ‘that any two men can have had +the hardihood to plan such a breach of the peace, in this town.’ + +‘My information is, unfortunately, but too correct,’ said the middle- +aged lady; ‘I was present at the quarrel.’ + +‘It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ said the astounded magistrate. +‘Muzzle!’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Send Mr. Jinks here, directly! Instantly.’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +Muzzle retired; and a pale, sharp-nosed, half-fed, shabbily-clad clerk, +of middle age, entered the room. + +‘Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate. ‘Mr. Jinks.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Jinks. + +‘This lady, Mr. Jinks, has come here, to give information of an intended +duel in this town.’ + +Mr. Jinks, not knowing exactly what to do, smiled a dependent’s smile. + +‘What are you laughing at, Mr. Jinks?’ said the magistrate. + +Mr. Jinks looked serious instantly. + +‘Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate, ‘you’re a fool.’ + +Mr. Jinks looked humbly at the great man, and bit the top of his pen. + +‘You may see something very comical in this information, Sir--but I can +tell you this, Mr. Jinks, that you have very little to laugh at,’ said +the magistrate. + +The hungry-looking Jinks sighed, as if he were quite aware of the fact +of his having very little indeed to be merry about; and, being ordered +to take the lady’s information, shambled to a seat, and proceeded to +write it down. + +‘This man, Pickwick, is the principal, I understand?’ said the +magistrate, when the statement was finished. + +‘He is,’ said the middle-aged lady. + +‘And the other rioter--what’s his name, Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Tupman, Sir.’ + +Tupman is the second?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘The other principal, you say, has absconded, ma’am?’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Miss Witherfield, with a short cough. + +‘Very well,’ said the magistrate. ‘These are two cut-throats from +London, who have come down here to destroy his Majesty’s population, +thinking that at this distance from the capital, the arm of the law is +weak and paralysed. They shall be made an example of. Draw up the +warrants, Mr. Jinks. Muzzle!’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Is Grummer downstairs?’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Send him up.’ + +The obsequious Muzzle retired, and presently returned, introducing the +elderly gentleman in the top-boots, who was chiefly remarkable for a +bottle-nose, a hoarse voice, a snuff-coloured surtout, and a wandering +eye. + +‘Grummer,’ said the magistrate. + +‘Your Wash-up.’ + +‘Is the town quiet now?’ + +‘Pretty well, your Wash-up,’ replied Grummer. ‘Pop’lar feeling has in a +measure subsided, consekens o’ the boys having dispersed to cricket.’ + +‘Nothing but vigorous measures will do in these times, Grummer,’ said +the magistrate, in a determined manner. ‘If the authority of the king’s +officers is set at naught, we must have the riot act read. If the civil +power cannot protect these windows, Grummer, the military must protect +the civil power, and the windows too. I believe that is a maxim of the +constitution, Mr. Jinks?’ + +Certainly, sir,’ said Jinks. + +‘Very good,’ said the magistrate, signing the warrants. ‘Grummer, you +will bring these persons before me, this afternoon. You will find them +at the Great White Horse. You recollect the case of the Middlesex +Dumpling and the Suffolk Bantam, Grummer?’ + +Mr. Grummer intimated, by a retrospective shake of the head, that he +should never forget it--as indeed it was not likely he would, so long as +it continued to be cited daily. + +‘This is even more unconstitutional,’ said the magistrate; ‘this is even +a greater breach of the peace, and a grosser infringement of his +Majesty’s prerogative. I believe duelling is one of his Majesty’s most +undoubted prerogatives, Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Expressly stipulated in Magna Charta, sir,’ said Mr. Jinks. + +‘One of the brightest jewels in the British crown, wrung from his +Majesty by the barons, I believe, Mr. Jinks?’ said the magistrate. + +‘Just so, Sir,’ replied Mr. Jinks. + +‘Very well,’ said the magistrate, drawing himself up proudly, ‘it shall +not be violated in this portion of his dominions. Grummer, procure +assistance, and execute these warrants with as little delay as possible. +Muzzle!’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Show the lady out.’ + +Miss Witherfield retired, deeply impressed with the magistrate’s +learning and research; Mr. Nupkins retired to lunch; Mr. Jinks retired +within himself--that being the only retirement he had, except the sofa- +bedstead in the small parlour which was occupied by his landlady’s +family in the daytime--and Mr. Grummer retired, to wipe out, by his mode +of discharging his present commission, the insult which had been +fastened upon himself, and the other representative of his Majesty--the +beadle--in the course of the morning. + +While these resolute and determined preparations for the conservation of +the king’s peace were pending, Mr. Pickwick and his friends, wholly +unconscious of the mighty events in progress, had sat quietly down to +dinner; and very talkative and companionable they all were. Mr. Pickwick +was in the very act of relating his adventure of the preceding night, to +the great amusement of his followers, Mr. Tupman especially, when the +door opened, and a somewhat forbidding countenance peeped into the room. +The eyes in the forbidding countenance looked very earnestly at Mr. +Pickwick, for several seconds, and were to all appearance satisfied with +their investigation; for the body to which the forbidding countenance +belonged, slowly brought itself into the apartment, and presented the +form of an elderly individual in top-boots--not to keep the reader any +longer in suspense, in short, the eyes were the wandering eyes of Mr. +Grummer, and the body was the body of the same gentleman. + +Mr. Grummer’s mode of proceeding was professional, but peculiar. His +first act was to bolt the door on the inside; his second, to polish his +head and countenance very carefully with a cotton handkerchief; his +third, to place his hat, with the cotton handkerchief in it, on the +nearest chair; and his fourth, to produce from the breast-pocket of his +coat a short truncheon, surmounted by a brazen crown, with which he +beckoned to Mr. Pickwick with a grave and ghost-like air. + +Mr. Snodgrass was the first to break the astonished silence. He looked +steadily at Mr. Grummer for a brief space, and then said emphatically, +‘This is a private room, Sir. A private room.’ + +Mr. Grummer shook his head, and replied, ‘No room’s private to his +Majesty when the street door’s once passed. That’s law. Some people +maintains that an Englishman’s house is his castle. That’s gammon.’ + +The Pickwickians gazed on each other with wondering eyes. + +‘Which is Mr. Tupman?’ inquired Mr. Grummer. He had an intuitive +perception of Mr. Pickwick; he knew him at once. + +‘My name’s Tupman,’ said that gentleman. + +‘My name’s Law,’ said Mr. Grummer. + +‘What?’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘Law,’ replied Mr. Grummer--‘Law, civil power, and exekative; them’s my +titles; here’s my authority. Blank Tupman, blank Pickwick--against the +peace of our sufferin’ lord the king--stattit in the case made and +purwided--and all regular. I apprehend you Pickwick! Tupman--the +aforesaid.’ + +‘What do you mean by this insolence?’ said Mr. Tupman, starting up; +‘leave the room!’ + +‘Hollo,’ said Mr. Grummer, retreating very expeditiously to the door, +and opening it an inch or two, ‘Dubbley.’ + +‘Well,’ said a deep voice from the passage. + +‘Come for’ard, Dubbley.’ + +At the word of command, a dirty-faced man, something over six feet high, +and stout in proportion, squeezed himself through the half-open door +(making his face very red in the process), and entered the room. + +‘Is the other specials outside, Dubbley?’ inquired Mr. Grummer. + +Mr. Dubbley, who was a man of few words, nodded assent. + +‘Order in the diwision under your charge, Dubbley,’ said Mr. Grummer. + +Mr. Dubbley did as he was desired; and half a dozen men, each with a +short truncheon and a brass crown, flocked into the room. Mr. Grummer +pocketed his staff, and looked at Mr. Dubbley; Mr. Dubbley pocketed his +staff and looked at the division; the division pocketed their staves and +looked at Messrs. Tupman and Pickwick. + +Mr. Pickwick and his followers rose as one man. + +‘What is the meaning of this atrocious intrusion upon my privacy?’ said +Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Who dares apprehend me?’ said Mr. Tupman. + +‘What do you want here, scoundrels?’ said Mr. Snodgrass. + +Mr. Winkle said nothing, but he fixed his eyes on Grummer, and bestowed +a look upon him, which, if he had had any feeling, must have pierced his +brain. As it was, however, it had no visible effect on him whatever. + +When the executive perceived that Mr. Pickwick and his friends were +disposed to resist the authority of the law, they very significantly +turned up their coat sleeves, as if knocking them down in the first +instance, and taking them up afterwards, were a mere professional act +which had only to be thought of to be done, as a matter of course. This +demonstration was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He conferred a few moments +with Mr. Tupman apart, and then signified his readiness to proceed to +the mayor’s residence, merely begging the parties then and there +assembled, to take notice, that it was his firm intention to resent this +monstrous invasion of his privileges as an Englishman, the instant he +was at liberty; whereat the parties then and there assembled laughed +very heartily, with the single exception of Mr. Grummer, who seemed to +consider that any slight cast upon the divine right of magistrates was a +species of blasphemy not to be tolerated. + +But when Mr. Pickwick had signified his readiness to bow to the laws of +his country, and just when the waiters, and hostlers, and chambermaids, +and post-boys, who had anticipated a delightful commotion from his +threatened obstinacy, began to turn away, disappointed and disgusted, a +difficulty arose which had not been foreseen. With every sentiment of +veneration for the constituted authorities, Mr. Pickwick resolutely +protested against making his appearance in the public streets, +surrounded and guarded by the officers of justice, like a common +criminal. Mr. Grummer, in the then disturbed state of public feeling +(for it was half-holiday, and the boys had not yet gone home), as +resolutely protested against walking on the opposite side of the way, +and taking Mr. Pickwick’s parole that he would go straight to the +magistrate’s; and both Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman as strenuously +objected to the expense of a post-coach, which was the only respectable +conveyance that could be obtained. The dispute ran high, and the dilemma +lasted long; and just as the executive were on the point of overcoming +Mr. Pickwick’s objection to walking to the magistrate’s, by the trite +expedient of carrying him thither, it was recollected that there stood +in the inn yard, an old sedan-chair, which, having been originally built +for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold Mr. Pickwick and +Mr. Tupman, at least as conveniently as a modern post-chaise. The chair +was hired, and brought into the hall; Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman +squeezed themselves inside, and pulled down the blinds; a couple of +chairmen were speedily found; and the procession started in grand order. +The specials surrounded the body of the vehicle; Mr. Grummer and Mr. +Dubbley marched triumphantly in front; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle +walked arm-in-arm behind; and the unsoaped of Ipswich brought up the +rear. + +The shopkeepers of the town, although they had a very indistinct notion +of the nature of the offence, could not but be much edified and +gratified by this spectacle. Here was the strong arm of the law, coming +down with twenty gold-beater force, upon two offenders from the +metropolis itself; the mighty engine was directed by their own +magistrate, and worked by their own officers; and both the criminals, by +their united efforts, were securely shut up, in the narrow compass of +one sedan-chair. Many were the expressions of approval and admiration +which greeted Mr. Grummer, as he headed the cavalcade, staff in hand; +loud and long were the shouts raised by the unsoaped; and amidst these +united testimonials of public approbation, the procession moved slowly +and majestically along. + +Mr. Weller, habited in his morning jacket, with the black calico +sleeves, was returning in a rather desponding state from an unsuccessful +survey of the mysterious house with the green gate, when, raising his +eyes, he beheld a crowd pouring down the street, surrounding an object +which had very much the appearance of a sedan-chair. Willing to divert +his thoughts from the failure of his enterprise, he stepped aside to see +the crowd pass; and finding that they were cheering away, very much to +their own satisfaction, forthwith began (by way of raising his spirits) +to cheer too, with all his might and main. + +Mr. Grummer passed, and Mr. Dubbley passed, and the sedan passed, and +the bodyguard of specials passed, and Sam was still responding to the +enthusiastic cheers of the mob, and waving his hat about as if he were +in the very last extreme of the wildest joy (though, of course, he had +not the faintest idea of the matter in hand), when he was suddenly +stopped by the unexpected appearance of Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass. + + +‘What’s the row, gen’l’m’n? ’cried Sam. ‘Who have they got in this here +watch-box in mournin’?’ + +Both gentlemen replied together, but their words were lost in the +tumult. + +‘Who is it?’ cried Sam again. + +Once more was a joint reply returned; and, though the words were +inaudible, Sam saw by the motion of the two pairs of lips that they had +uttered the magic word ‘Pickwick.’ + +This was enough. In another minute Mr. Weller had made his way through +the crowd, stopped the chairmen, and confronted the portly Grummer. + +‘Hollo, old gen’l’m’n!’ said Sam. ‘Who have you got in this here +conweyance?’ + +‘Stand back,’ said Mr. Grummer, whose dignity, like the dignity of a +great many other men, had been wondrously augmented by a little +popularity. + +‘Knock him down, if he don’t,’ said Mr. Dubbley. + +‘I’m wery much obliged to you, old gen’l’m’n,’ replied Sam, ‘for +consulting my conwenience, and I’m still more obliged to the other +gen’l’m’n, who looks as if he’d just escaped from a giant’s carrywan, +for his wery ‘andsome suggestion; but I should prefer your givin’ me a +answer to my question, if it’s all the same to you.--How are you, Sir?’ +This last observation was addressed with a patronising air to Mr. +Pickwick, who was peeping through the front window. + +Mr. Grummer, perfectly speechless with indignation, dragged the +truncheon with the brass crown from its particular pocket, and +flourished it before Sam’s eyes. + +‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘it’s wery pretty, ‘specially the crown, which is +uncommon like the real one.’ + +‘Stand back!’ said the outraged Mr. Grummer. By way of adding force to +the command, he thrust the brass emblem of royalty into Sam’s neckcloth +with one hand, and seized Sam’s collar with the other--a compliment +which Mr. Weller returned by knocking him down out of hand, having +previously with the utmost consideration, knocked down a chairman for +him to lie upon. + +Whether Mr. Winkle was seized with a temporary attack of that species of +insanity which originates in a sense of injury, or animated by this +display of Mr. Weller’s valour, is uncertain; but certain it is, that he +no sooner saw Mr. Grummer fall than he made a terrific onslaught on a +small boy who stood next him; whereupon Mr. Snodgrass, in a truly +Christian spirit, and in order that he might take no one unawares, +announced in a very loud tone that he was going to begin, and proceeded +to take off his coat with the utmost deliberation. He was immediately +surrounded and secured; and it is but common justice both to him and Mr. +Winkle to say, that they did not make the slightest attempt to rescue +either themselves or Mr. Weller; who, after a most vigorous resistance, +was overpowered by numbers and taken prisoner. The procession then +reformed; the chairmen resumed their stations; and the march was re- +commenced. + +Mr. Pickwick’s indignation during the whole of this proceeding was +beyond all bounds. He could just see Sam upsetting the specials, and +flying about in every direction; and that was all he could see, for the +sedan doors wouldn’t open, and the blinds wouldn’t pull up. At length, +with the assistance of Mr. Tupman, he managed to push open the roof; and +mounting on the seat, and steadying himself as well as he could, by +placing his hand on that gentleman’s shoulder, Mr. Pickwick proceeded to +address the multitude; to dwell upon the unjustifiable manner in which +he had been treated; and to call upon them to take notice that his +servant had been first assaulted. In this order they reached the +magistrate’s house; the chairmen trotting, the prisoners following, Mr. +Pickwick oratorising, and the crowd shouting. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. SHOWING, AMONG A VARIETY OF PLEASANT MATTERS, HOW MAJESTIC +AND IMPARTIAL MR. NUPKINS WAS; AND HOW MR. WELLER RETURNED MR. JOB +TROTTER’S SHUTTLECOCK AS HEAVILY AS IT CAME--WITH ANOTHER MATTER, WHICH +WILL BE FOUND IN ITS PLACE + +Violent was Mr. Weller’s indignation as he was borne along; numerous +were the allusions to the personal appearance and demeanour of Mr. +Grummer and his companion; and valorous were the defiances to any six of +the gentlemen present, in which he vented his dissatisfaction. Mr. +Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle listened with gloomy respect to the torrent of +eloquence which their leader poured forth from the sedan-chair, and the +rapid course of which not all Mr. Tupman’s earnest entreaties to have +the lid of the vehicle closed, were able to check for an instant. But +Mr. Weller’s anger quickly gave way to curiosity when the procession +turned down the identical courtyard in which he had met with the runaway +Job Trotter; and curiosity was exchanged for a feeling of the most +gleeful astonishment, when the all-important Mr. Grummer, commanding the +sedan-bearers to halt, advanced with dignified and portentous steps to +the very green gate from which Job Trotter had emerged, and gave a +mighty pull at the bell-handle which hung at the side thereof. The ring +was answered by a very smart and pretty-faced servant-girl, who, after +holding up her hands in astonishment at the rebellious appearance of the +prisoners, and the impassioned language of Mr. Pickwick, summoned Mr. +Muzzle. Mr. Muzzle opened one half of the carriage gate, to admit the +sedan, the captured ones, and the specials; and immediately slammed it +in the faces of the mob, who, indignant at being excluded, and anxious +to see what followed, relieved their feelings by kicking at the gate and +ringing the bell, for an hour or two afterwards. In this amusement they +all took part by turns, except three or four fortunate individuals, who, +having discovered a grating in the gate, which commanded a view of +nothing, stared through it with the indefatigable perseverance with +which people will flatten their noses against the front windows of a +chemist’s shop, when a drunken man, who has been run over by a dog-cart +in the street, is undergoing a surgical inspection in the back-parlour. + +At the foot of a flight of steps, leading to the house door, which was +guarded on either side by an American aloe in a green tub, the sedan- +chair stopped. Mr. Pickwick and his friends were conducted into the +hall, whence, having been previously announced by Muzzle, and ordered in +by Mr. Nupkins, they were ushered into the worshipful presence of that +public-spirited officer. + +The scene was an impressive one, well calculated to strike terror to the +hearts of culprits, and to impress them with an adequate idea of the +stern majesty of the law. In front of a big book-case, in a big chair, +behind a big table, and before a big volume, sat Mr. Nupkins, looking a +full size larger than any one of them, big as they were. The table was +adorned with piles of papers; and above the farther end of it, appeared +the head and shoulders of Mr. Jinks, who was busily engaged in looking +as busy as possible. The party having all entered, Muzzle carefully +closed the door, and placed himself behind his master’s chair to await +his orders. Mr. Nupkins threw himself back with thrilling solemnity, and +scrutinised the faces of his unwilling visitors. + +‘Now, Grummer, who is that person?’ said Mr. Nupkins, pointing to Mr. +Pickwick, who, as the spokesman of his friends, stood hat in hand, +bowing with the utmost politeness and respect. + +‘This here’s Pickvick, your Wash-up,’ said Grummer. + +‘Come, none o’ that ‘ere, old Strike-a-light,’ interposed Mr. Weller, +elbowing himself into the front rank. ‘Beg your pardon, sir, but this +here officer o’ yourn in the gambooge tops, ‘ull never earn a decent +livin’ as a master o’ the ceremonies any vere. This here, sir’ continued +Mr. Weller, thrusting Grummer aside, and addressing the magistrate with +pleasant familiarity, ‘this here is S. Pickvick, Esquire; this here’s +Mr. Tupman; that ‘ere’s Mr. Snodgrass; and farder on, next him on the +t’other side, Mr. Winkle--all wery nice gen’l’m’n, Sir, as you’ll be +wery happy to have the acquaintance on; so the sooner you commits these +here officers o’ yourn to the tread-mill for a month or two, the sooner +we shall begin to be on a pleasant understanding. Business first, +pleasure arterwards, as King Richard the Third said when he stabbed the +t’other king in the Tower, afore he smothered the babbies.’ + +At the conclusion of this address, Mr. Weller brushed his hat with his +right elbow, and nodded benignly to Jinks, who had heard him throughout +with unspeakable awe. + +‘Who is this man, Grummer?’ said the magistrate. + +‘Wery desp’rate ch’racter, your Wash-up,’ replied Grummer. ‘He attempted +to rescue the prisoners, and assaulted the officers; so we took him into +custody, and brought him here.’ + +‘You did quite right,’ replied the magistrate. ‘He is evidently a +desperate ruffian.’ + +‘He is my servant, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick angrily. + +‘Oh! he is your servant, is he?’ said Mr. Nupkins. ‘A conspiracy to +defeat the ends of justice, and murder its officers. Pickwick’s servant. +Put that down, Mr. Jinks.’ + +Mr. Jinks did so. + +‘What’s your name, fellow?’ thundered Mr. Nupkins. + +‘Veller,’ replied Sam. + +‘A very good name for the Newgate Calendar,’ said Mr. Nupkins. + +This was a joke; so Jinks, Grummer, Dubbley, all the specials, and +Muzzle, went into fits of laughter of five minutes’ duration. + +‘Put down his name, Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate. + +‘Two L’s, old feller,’ said Sam. + +Here an unfortunate special laughed again, whereupon the magistrate +threatened to commit him instantly. It is a dangerous thing to laugh at +the wrong man, in these cases. + +‘Where do you live?’ said the magistrate. + +‘Vere ever I can,’ replied Sam. + +‘Put down that, Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate, who was fast rising +into a rage. + +‘Score it under,’ said Sam. + +‘He is a vagabond, Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate. ‘He is a vagabond on +his own statement,--is he not, Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir.’ + +‘Then I’ll commit him--I’ll commit him as such,’ said Mr. Nupkins. + +‘This is a wery impartial country for justice, ‘said Sam.’ There ain’t a +magistrate goin’ as don’t commit himself twice as he commits other +people.’ + +At this sally another special laughed, and then tried to look so +supernaturally solemn, that the magistrate detected him immediately. + +‘Grummer,’ said Mr. Nupkins, reddening with passion, ‘how dare you +select such an inefficient and disreputable person for a special +constable, as that man? How dare you do it, Sir?’ + +‘I am very sorry, your Wash-up,’ stammered Grummer. + +‘Very sorry!’ said the furious magistrate. ‘You shall repent of this +neglect of duty, Mr. Grummer; you shall be made an example of. Take that +fellow’s staff away. He’s drunk. You’re drunk, fellow.’ + +‘I am not drunk, your Worship,’ said the man. + +‘You _are _drunk,’ returned the magistrate. ‘How dare you say you are +not drunk, Sir, when I say you are? Doesn’t he smell of spirits, +Grummer?’ + +‘Horrid, your Wash-up,’ replied Grummer, who had a vague impression that +there was a smell of rum somewhere. + +‘I knew he did,’ said Mr. Nupkins. ‘I saw he was drunk when he first +came into the room, by his excited eye. Did you observe his excited eye, +Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir.’ + +‘I haven’t touched a drop of spirits this morning,’ said the man, who +was as sober a fellow as need be. + +‘How dare you tell me a falsehood?’ said Mr. Nupkins. ‘Isn’t he drunk at +this moment, Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir,’ replied Jinks. + +‘Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate, ‘I shall commit that man for contempt. +Make out his committal, Mr. Jinks.’ + +And committed the special would have been, only Jinks, who was the +magistrate’s adviser (having had a legal education of three years in a +country attorney’s office), whispered the magistrate that he thought it +wouldn’t do; so the magistrate made a speech, and said, that in +consideration of the special’s family, he would merely reprimand and +discharge him. Accordingly, the special was abused, vehemently, for a +quarter of an hour, and sent about his business; and Grummer, Dubbley, +Muzzle, and all the other specials, murmured their admiration of the +magnanimity of Mr. Nupkins. + +‘Now, Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate, ‘swear Grummer.’ + +Grummer was sworn directly; but as Grummer wandered, and Mr. Nupkins’s +dinner was nearly ready, Mr. Nupkins cut the matter short, by putting +leading questions to Grummer, which Grummer answered as nearly in the +affirmative as he could. So the examination went off, all very smooth +and comfortable, and two assaults were proved against Mr. Weller, and a +threat against Mr. Winkle, and a push against Mr. Snodgrass. When all +this was done to the magistrate’s satisfaction, the magistrate and Mr. +Jinks consulted in whispers. + +The consultation having lasted about ten minutes, Mr. Jinks retired to +his end of the table; and the magistrate, with a preparatory cough, drew +himself up in his chair, and was proceeding to commence his address, +when Mr. Pickwick interposed. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting you,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but +before you proceed to express, and act upon, any opinion you may have +formed on the statements which have been made here, I must claim my +right to be heard so far as I am personally concerned.’ + +‘Hold your tongue, Sir,’ said the magistrate peremptorily. + +‘I must submit to you, Sir--’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ interposed the magistrate, ‘or I shall order an +officer to remove you.’ + +‘You may order your officers to do whatever you please, Sir,’ said Mr. +Pickwick; ‘and I have no doubt, from the specimen I have had of the +subordination preserved amongst them, that whatever you order, they will +execute, Sir; but I shall take the liberty, Sir, of claiming my right to +be heard, until I am removed by force.’ + +‘Pickvick and principle!’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, in a very audible voice. + +‘Sam, be quiet,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Dumb as a drum vith a hole in it, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +Mr. Nupkins looked at Mr. Pickwick with a gaze of intense astonishment, +at his displaying such unwonted temerity; and was apparently about to +return a very angry reply, when Mr. Jinks pulled him by the sleeve, and +whispered something in his ear. To this, the magistrate returned a half- +audible answer, and then the whispering was renewed. Jinks was evidently +remonstrating. + +At length the magistrate, gulping down, with a very bad grace, his +disinclination to hear anything more, turned to Mr. Pickwick, and said +sharply, ‘What do you want to say?’ + +‘First,’ said Mr. Pickwick, sending a look through his spectacles, under +which even Nupkins quailed, ‘first, I wish to know what I and my friend +have been brought here for?’ + +‘Must I tell him?’ whispered the magistrate to Jinks. + +‘I think you had better, sir,’ whispered Jinks to the magistrate. + +‘An information has been sworn before me,’ said the magistrate, ‘that it +is apprehended you are going to fight a duel, and that the other man, +Tupman, is your aider and abettor in it. Therefore--eh, Mr. Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, sir.’ + +‘Therefore, I call upon you both, to--I think that’s the course, Mr. +Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir.’ + +‘To--to--what, Mr. Jinks?’ said the magistrate pettishly. + +‘To find bail, sir.’ + +‘Yes. Therefore, I call upon you both--as I was about to say when I was +interrupted by my clerk--to find bail.’ + +Good bail,’ whispered Mr. Jinks. + +‘I shall require good bail,’ said the magistrate. + +‘Town’s-people,’ whispered Jinks. + +‘They must be townspeople,’ said the magistrate. + +‘Fifty pounds each,’ whispered Jinks, ‘and householders, of course.’ + +‘I shall require two sureties of fifty pounds each,’ said the magistrate +aloud, with great dignity, ‘and they must be householders, of course.’ + +‘But bless my heart, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who, together with Mr. +Tupman, was all amazement and indignation; ‘we are perfect strangers in +this town. I have as little knowledge of any householders here, as I +have intention of fighting a duel with anybody.’ + +‘I dare say,’ replied the magistrate, ‘I dare say--don’t you, Mr. +Jinks?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir.’ + +‘Have you anything more to say?’ inquired the magistrate. + +Mr. Pickwick had a great deal more to say, which he would no doubt have +said, very little to his own advantage, or the magistrate’s +satisfaction, if he had not, the moment he ceased speaking, been pulled +by the sleeve by Mr. Weller, with whom he was immediately engaged in so +earnest a conversation, that he suffered the magistrate’s inquiry to +pass wholly unnoticed. Mr. Nupkins was not the man to ask a question of +the kind twice over; and so, with another preparatory cough, he +proceeded, amidst the reverential and admiring silence of the +constables, to pronounce his decision. + +He should fine Weller two pounds for the first assault, and three pounds +for the second. He should fine Winkle two pounds, and Snodgrass one +pound, besides requiring them to enter into their own recognisances to +keep the peace towards all his Majesty’s subjects, and especially +towards his liege servant, Daniel Grummer. Pickwick and Tupman he had +already held to bail. + +Immediately on the magistrate ceasing to speak, Mr. Pickwick, with a +smile mantling on his again good-humoured countenance, stepped forward, +and said-- + +‘I beg the magistrate’s pardon, but may I request a few minutes’ private +conversation with him, on a matter of deep importance to himself?’ + +‘What?’ said the magistrate. Mr. Pickwick repeated his request. + +‘This is a most extraordinary request,’ said the magistrate. ‘A private +interview?’ + +‘A private interview,’ replied Mr. Pickwick firmly; ‘only, as a part of +the information which I wish to communicate is derived from my servant, +I should wish him to be present.’ + +The magistrate looked at Mr. Jinks; Mr. Jinks looked at the magistrate; +the officers looked at each other in amazement. Mr. Nupkins turned +suddenly pale. Could the man Weller, in a moment of remorse, have +divulged some secret conspiracy for his assassination? It was a dreadful +thought. He was a public man; and he turned paler, as he thought of +Julius Caesar and Mr. Perceval. + +The magistrate looked at Mr. Pickwick again, and beckoned Mr. Jinks. + +‘What do you think of this request, Mr. Jinks?’ murmured Mr. Nupkins. + +Mr. Jinks, who didn’t exactly know what to think of it, and was afraid +he might offend, smiled feebly, after a dubious fashion, and, screwing +up the corners of his mouth, shook his head slowly from side to side. + +‘Mr. Jinks,’ said the magistrate gravely, ‘you are an ass.’ + +At this little expression of opinion, Mr. Jinks smiled again--rather +more feebly than before--and edged himself, by degrees, back into his +own corner. + +Mr. Nupkins debated the matter within himself for a few seconds, and +then, rising from his chair, and requesting Mr. Pickwick and Sam to +follow him, led the way into a small room which opened into the justice- +parlour. Desiring Mr. Pickwick to walk to the upper end of the little +apartment, and holding his hand upon the half-closed door, that he might +be able to effect an immediate escape, in case there was the least +tendency to a display of hostilities, Mr. Nupkins expressed his +readiness to hear the communication, whatever it might be. + +‘I will come to the point at once, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘it affects +yourself and your credit materially. I have every reason to believe, +Sir, that you are harbouring in your house a gross impostor!’ + +‘Two,’ interrupted Sam. ‘Mulberry agin all natur, for tears and +willainny!’ + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘if I am to render myself intelligible to this +gentleman, I must beg you to control your feelings.’ + +‘Wery sorry, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘but when I think o’ that ‘ere +Job, I can’t help opening the walve a inch or two.’ + +‘In one word, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘is my servant right in +suspecting that a certain Captain Fitz-Marshall is in the habit of +visiting here? Because,’ added Mr. Pickwick, as he saw that Mr. Nupkins +was about to offer a very indignant interruption, ‘because if he be, I +know that person to be a--’ + +‘Hush, hush,’ said Mr. Nupkins, closing the door. ‘Know him to be what, +Sir?’ + +‘An unprincipled adventurer--a dishonourable character--a man who preys +upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, Sir; his +absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, Sir,’ said the excited Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Nupkins, turning very red, and altering his whole +manner directly. ‘Dear me, Mr.--’ + +‘Pickvick,’ said Sam. + +‘Pickwick,’ said the magistrate, ‘dear me, Mr. Pickwick--pray take a +seat--you cannot mean this? Captain Fitz-Marshall!’ + +‘Don’t call him a cap’en,’ said Sam, ‘nor Fitz-Marshall neither; he +ain’t neither one nor t’other. He’s a strolling actor, he is, and his +name’s Jingle; and if ever there was a wolf in a mulberry suit, that +‘ere Job Trotter’s him.’ + +‘It is very true, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, replying to the magistrate’s +look of amazement; ‘my only business in this town, is to expose the +person of whom we now speak.’ + +Mr. Pickwick proceeded to pour into the horror-stricken ear of Mr. +Nupkins, an abridged account of all Mr. Jingle’s atrocities. He related +how he had first met him; how he had eloped with Miss Wardle; how he had +cheerfully resigned the lady for a pecuniary consideration; how he had +entrapped himself into a lady’s boarding-school at midnight; and how he +(Mr. Pickwick) now felt it his duty to expose his assumption of his +present name and rank. + +As the narrative proceeded, all the warm blood in the body of Mr. +Nupkins tingled up into the very tips of his ears. He had picked up the +captain at a neighbouring race-course. Charmed with his long list of +aristocratic acquaintance, his extensive travel, and his fashionable +demeanour, Mrs. Nupkins and Miss Nupkins had exhibited Captain Fitz- +Marshall, and quoted Captain Fitz-Marshall, and hurled Captain Fitz- +Marshall at the devoted heads of their select circle of acquaintance, +until their bosom friends, Mrs. Porkenham and the Misses Porkenhams, and +Mr. Sidney Porkenham, were ready to burst with jealousy and despair. And +now, to hear, after all, that he was a needy adventurer, a strolling +player, and if not a swindler, something so very like it, that it was +hard to tell the difference! Heavens! what would the Porkenhams say! +What would be the triumph of Mr. Sidney Porkenham when he found that his +addresses had been slighted for such a rival! How should he, Nupkins, +meet the eye of old Porkenham at the next quarter-sessions! And what a +handle would it be for the opposition magisterial party if the story got +abroad! + +‘But after all,’ said Mr. Nupkins, brightening for a moment, after a +long pause; ‘after all, this is a mere statement. Captain Fitz-Marshall +is a man of very engaging manners, and, I dare say, has many enemies. +What proof have you of the truth of these representations?’ + +‘Confront me with him,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that is all I ask, and all I +require. Confront him with me and my friends here; you will want no +further proof.’ + +‘Why,’ said Mr. Nupkins, ‘that might be very easily done, for he will be +here to-night, and then there would be no occasion to make the matter +public, just--just--for the young man’s own sake, you know. I--I--should +like to consult Mrs. Nupkins on the propriety of the step, in the first +instance, though. At all events, Mr. Pickwick, we must despatch this +legal business before we can do anything else. Pray step back into the +next room.’ + +Into the next room they went. + +‘Grummer,’ said the magistrate, in an awful voice. + +‘Your Wash-up,’ replied Grummer, with the smile of a favourite. + +‘Come, come, Sir,’ said the magistrate sternly, ‘don’t let me see any of +this levity here. It is very unbecoming, and I can assure you that you +have very little to smile at. Was the account you gave me just now +strictly true? Now be careful, sir!’ + +Your Wash-up,’ stammered Grummer, ‘I-’ + +‘Oh, you are confused, are you?’ said the magistrate. ‘Mr. Jinks, you +observe this confusion?’ + +‘Certainly, Sir,’ replied Jinks. + +‘Now,’ said the magistrate, ‘repeat your statement, Grummer, and again I +warn you to be careful. Mr. Jinks, take his words down.’ + +The unfortunate Grummer proceeded to re-state his complaint, but, what +between Mr. Jinks’s taking down his words, and the magistrate’s taking +them up, his natural tendency to rambling, and his extreme confusion, he +managed to get involved, in something under three minutes, in such a +mass of entanglement and contradiction, that Mr. Nupkins at once +declared he didn’t believe him. So the fines were remitted, and Mr. +Jinks found a couple of bail in no time. And all these solemn +proceedings having been satisfactorily concluded, Mr. Grummer was +ignominiously ordered out--an awful instance of the instability of human +greatness, and the uncertain tenure of great men’s favour. + +Mrs. Nupkins was a majestic female in a pink gauze turban and a light +brown wig. Miss Nupkins possessed all her mamma’s haughtiness without +the turban, and all her ill-nature without the wig; and whenever the +exercise of these two amiable qualities involved mother and daughter in +some unpleasant dilemma, as they not infrequently did, they both +concurred in laying the blame on the shoulders of Mr. Nupkins. +Accordingly, when Mr. Nupkins sought Mrs. Nupkins, and detailed the +communication which had been made by Mr. Pickwick, Mrs. Nupkins suddenly +recollected that she had always expected something of the kind; that she +had always said it would be so; that her advice was never taken; that +she really did not know what Mr. Nupkins supposed she was; and so forth. + +‘The idea!’ said Miss Nupkins, forcing a tear of very scanty proportions +into the corner of each eye; ‘the idea of my being made such a fool of!’ + +‘Ah! you may thank your papa, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nupkins; ‘how I have +implored and begged that man to inquire into the captain’s family +connections; how I have urged and entreated him to take some decisive +step! I am quite certain nobody would believe it--quite.’ + +‘But, my dear,’ said Mr. Nupkins. + +‘Don’t talk to me, you aggravating thing, don’t!’ said Mrs. Nupkins. + +‘My love,’ said Mr. Nupkins, ‘you professed yourself very fond of +Captain Fitz-Marshall. You have constantly asked him here, my dear, and +you have lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere.’ + +‘Didn’t I say so, Henrietta?’ cried Mrs. Nupkins, appealing to her +daughter with the air of a much-injured female. ‘Didn’t I say that your +papa would turn round and lay all this at my door? Didn’t I say so?’ +Here Mrs. Nupkins sobbed. + +‘Oh, pa!’ remonstrated Miss Nupkins. And here she sobbed too. + +‘Isn’t it too much, when he has brought all this disgrace and ridicule +upon us, to taunt me with being the cause of it?’ exclaimed Mrs. +Nupkins. + +‘How can we ever show ourselves in society!’ said Miss Nupkins. + +‘How can we face the Porkenhams?’ cried Mrs. Nupkins. + +‘Or the Griggs!’ cried Miss Nupkins. + +‘Or the Slummintowkens!’ cried Mrs. Nupkins. ‘But what does your papa +care! What is it to _him_!’ At this dreadful reflection, Mrs. Nupkins +wept mental anguish, and Miss Nupkins followed on the same side. + +Mrs. Nupkins’s tears continued to gush forth, with great velocity, until +she had gained a little time to think the matter over; when she decided, +in her own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask Mr. Pickwick +and his friends to remain until the captain’s arrival, and then to give +Mr. Pickwick the opportunity he sought. If it appeared that he had +spoken truly, the captain could be turned out of the house without +noising the matter abroad, and they could easily account to the +Porkenhams for his disappearance, by saying that he had been appointed, +through the Court influence of his family, to the governor-generalship +of Sierra Leone, of Saugur Point, or any other of those salubrious +climates which enchant Europeans so much, that when they once get there, +they can hardly ever prevail upon themselves to come back again. + +When Mrs. Nupkins dried up her tears, Miss Nupkins dried up hers, and +Mr. Nupkins was very glad to settle the matter as Mrs. Nupkins had +proposed. So Mr. Pickwick and his friends, having washed off all marks +of their late encounter, were introduced to the ladies, and soon +afterwards to their dinner; and Mr. Weller, whom the magistrate, with +his peculiar sagacity, had discovered in half an hour to be one of the +finest fellows alive, was consigned to the care and guardianship of Mr. +Muzzle, who was specially enjoined to take him below, and make much of +him. + +‘How de do, sir?’ said Mr. Muzzle, as he conducted Mr. Weller down the +kitchen stairs. + +‘Why, no considerable change has taken place in the state of my system, +since I see you cocked up behind your governor’s chair in the parlour, a +little vile ago,’ replied Sam. + +‘You will excuse my not taking more notice of you then,’ said Mr. +Muzzle. ‘You see, master hadn’t introduced us, then. Lord, how fond he +is of you, Mr. Weller, to be sure!’ + +‘Ah!’ said Sam, ‘what a pleasant chap he is!’ + +‘Ain’t he?’ replied Mr. Muzzle. + +‘So much humour,’ said Sam. + +‘And such a man to speak,’ said Mr. Muzzle. ‘How his ideas flow, don’t +they?’ + +‘Wonderful,’ replied Sam; ‘they comes a-pouring out, knocking each +other’s heads so fast, that they seems to stun one another; you hardly +know what he’s arter, do you?’ + +That’s the great merit of his style of speaking,’ rejoined Mr. Muzzle. +‘Take care of the last step, Mr. Weller. Would you like to wash your +hands, sir, before we join the ladies? Here’s a sink, with the water +laid on, Sir, and a clean jack towel behind the door.’ + +‘Ah! perhaps I may as well have a rinse,’ replied Mr. Weller, applying +plenty of yellow soap to the towel, and rubbing away till his face shone +again. ‘How many ladies are there?’ + +‘Only two in our kitchen,’ said Mr. Muzzle; ‘cook and ‘ouse-maid. We +keep a boy to do the dirty work, and a gal besides, but they dine in the +wash’us.’ + +‘Oh, they dines in the wash’us, do they?’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Muzzle, ‘we tried ‘em at our table when they first +come, but we couldn’t keep ‘em. The gal’s manners is dreadful vulgar; +and the boy breathes so very hard while he’s eating, that we found it +impossible to sit at table with him.’ + +‘Young grampus!’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Oh, dreadful,’ rejoined Mr. Muzzle; ‘but that is the worst of country +service, Mr. Weller; the juniors is always so very savage. This way, +sir, if you please, this way.’ + +Preceding Mr. Weller, with the utmost politeness, Mr. Muzzle conducted +him into the kitchen. + +‘Mary,’ said Mr. Muzzle to the pretty servant-girl, ‘this is Mr. Weller; +a gentleman as master has sent down, to be made as comfortable as +possible.’ + +‘And your master’s a knowin’ hand, and has just sent me to the right +place,’ said Mr. Weller, with a glance of admiration at Mary. ‘If I wos +master o’ this here house, I should alvays find the materials for +comfort vere Mary wos.’ + +Lor, Mr. Weller!’ said Mary blushing. + +‘Well, I never!’ ejaculated the cook. + +‘Bless me, cook, I forgot you,’ said Mr. Muzzle. ‘Mr. Weller, let me +introduce you.’ + +‘How are you, ma’am?’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Wery glad to see you, indeed, +and hope our acquaintance may be a long ‘un, as the gen’l’m’n said to +the fi’ pun’ note.’ + +When this ceremony of introduction had been gone through, the cook and +Mary retired into the back kitchen to titter, for ten minutes; then +returning, all giggles and blushes, they sat down to dinner. + +Mr. Weller’s easy manners and conversational powers had such +irresistible influence with his new friends, that before the dinner was +half over, they were on a footing of perfect intimacy, and in possession +of a full account of the delinquency of Job Trotter. + +‘I never could a-bear that Job,’ said Mary. + +‘No more you never ought to, my dear,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Why not?’ inquired Mary. + +‘’Cos ugliness and svindlin’ never ought to be formiliar with elegance +and wirtew,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Ought they, Mr. Muzzle?’ + +‘Not by no means,’ replied that gentleman. + + +Here Mary laughed, and said the cook had made her; and the cook laughed, +and said she hadn’t. + +‘I ha’n’t got a glass,’ said Mary. + +‘Drink with me, my dear,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Put your lips to this here +tumbler, and then I can kiss you by deputy.’ + +‘For shame, Mr. Weller!’ said Mary. + +‘What’s a shame, my dear?’ + +‘Talkin’ in that way.’ + +‘Nonsense; it ain’t no harm. It’s natur; ain’t it, cook?’ + +‘Don’t ask me, imperence,’ replied the cook, in a high state of delight; +and hereupon the cook and Mary laughed again, till what between the +beer, and the cold meat, and the laughter combined, the latter young +lady was brought to the verge of choking--an alarming crisis from which +she was only recovered by sundry pats on the back, and other necessary +attentions, most delicately administered by Mr. Samuel Weller. + +In the midst of all this jollity and conviviality, a loud ring was heard +at the garden gate, to which the young gentleman who took his meals in +the wash-house, immediately responded. Mr. Weller was in the height of +his attentions to the pretty house-maid; Mr. Muzzle was busy doing the +honours of the table; and the cook had just paused to laugh, in the very +act of raising a huge morsel to her lips; when the kitchen door opened, +and in walked Mr. Job Trotter. + +We have said in walked Mr. Job Trotter, but the statement is not +distinguished by our usual scrupulous adherence to fact. The door opened +and Mr. Trotter appeared. He would have walked in, and was in the very +act of doing so, indeed, when catching sight of Mr. Weller, he +involuntarily shrank back a pace or two, and stood gazing on the +unexpected scene before him, perfectly motionless with amazement and +terror. + +‘Here he is!’ said Sam, rising with great glee. ‘Why we were that wery +moment a-speaking o’ you. How are you? Where have you been? Come in.’ + +Laying his hand on the mulberry collar of the unresisting Job, Mr. +Weller dragged him into the kitchen; and, locking the door, handed the +key to Mr. Muzzle, who very coolly buttoned it up in a side pocket. + +‘Well, here’s a game!’ cried Sam. ‘Only think o’ my master havin’ the +pleasure o’ meeting yourn upstairs, and me havin’ the joy o’ meetin’ you +down here. How are you gettin’ on, and how is the chandlery bis’ness +likely to do? Well, I am so glad to see you. How happy you look. It’s +quite a treat to see you; ain’t it, Mr. Muzzle?’ + +‘Quite,’ said Mr. Muzzle. + +‘So cheerful he is!’ said Sam. + +‘In such good spirits!’ said Muzzle. + +‘And so glad to see us--that makes it so much more comfortable,’ said +Sam. ‘Sit down; sit down.’ + +Mr. Trotter suffered himself to be forced into a chair by the fireside. +He cast his small eyes, first on Mr. Weller, and then on Mr. Muzzle, but +said nothing. + +‘Well, now,’ said Sam, ‘afore these here ladies, I should jest like to +ask you, as a sort of curiosity, whether you don’t consider yourself as +nice and well-behaved a young gen’l’m’n, as ever used a pink check +pocket-handkerchief, and the number four collection?’ + +‘And as was ever a-going to be married to a cook,’ said that lady +indignantly. ‘The willin!’ + +‘And leave off his evil ways, and set up in the chandlery line +arterwards,’ said the housemaid. + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what it is, young man,’ said Mr. Muzzle solemnly, +enraged at the last two allusions, ‘this here lady (pointing to the +cook) keeps company with me; and when you presume, Sir, to talk of +keeping chandlers’ shops with her, you injure me in one of the most +delicatest points in which one man can injure another. Do you understand +that, Sir?’ + +Here Mr. Muzzle, who had a great notion of his eloquence, in which he +imitated his master, paused for a reply. + +But Mr. Trotter made no reply. So Mr. Muzzle proceeded in a solemn +manner-- + +‘It’s very probable, sir, that you won’t be wanted upstairs for several +minutes, Sir, because _my_ master is at this moment particularly engaged +in settling the hash of _your _master, Sir; and therefore you’ll have +leisure, Sir, for a little private talk with me, Sir. Do you understand +that, Sir?’ + +Mr. Muzzle again paused for a reply; and again Mr. Trotter disappointed +him. + +‘Well, then,’ said Mr. Muzzle, ‘I’m very sorry to have to explain myself +before ladies, but the urgency of the case will be my excuse. The back +kitchen’s empty, Sir. If you will step in there, Sir, Mr. Weller will +see fair, and we can have mutual satisfaction till the bell rings. +Follow me, Sir!’ + +As Mr. Muzzle uttered these words, he took a step or two towards the +door; and, by way of saving time, began to pull off his coat as he +walked along. + +Now, the cook no sooner heard the concluding words of this desperate +challenge, and saw Mr. Muzzle about to put it into execution, than she +uttered a loud and piercing shriek; and rushing on Mr. Job Trotter, who +rose from his chair on the instant, tore and buffeted his large flat +face, with an energy peculiar to excited females, and twining her hands +in his long black hair, tore therefrom about enough to make five or six +dozen of the very largest-sized mourning-rings. Having accomplished this +feat with all the ardour which her devoted love for Mr. Muzzle inspired, +she staggered back; and being a lady of very excitable and delicate +feelings, she instantly fell under the dresser, and fainted away. + +At this moment, the bell rang. + +‘That’s for you, Job Trotter,’ said Sam; and before Mr. Trotter could +offer remonstrance or reply--even before he had time to stanch the +wounds inflicted by the insensible lady--Sam seized one arm and Mr. +Muzzle the other, and one pulling before, and the other pushing behind, +they conveyed him upstairs, and into the parlour. + +It was an impressive tableau. Alfred Jingle, Esquire, alias Captain +Fitz-Marshall, was standing near the door with his hat in his hand, and +a smile on his face, wholly unmoved by his very unpleasant situation. +Confronting him, stood Mr. Pickwick, who had evidently been inculcating +some high moral lesson; for his left hand was beneath his coat tail, and +his right extended in air, as was his wont when delivering himself of an +impressive address. At a little distance, stood Mr. Tupman with +indignant countenance, carefully held back by his two younger friends; +at the farther end of the room were Mr. Nupkins, Mrs. Nupkins, and Miss +Nupkins, gloomily grand and savagely vexed. + +‘What prevents me,’ said Mr. Nupkins, with magisterial dignity, as Job +was brought in--‘what prevents me from detaining these men as rogues and +impostors? It is a foolish mercy. What prevents me?’ + +‘Pride, old fellow, pride,’ replied Jingle, quite at his ease. ‘Wouldn’t +do--no go--caught a captain, eh?--ha! ha! very good--husband for +daughter--biter bit--make it public--not for worlds--look stupid--very!’ + +‘Wretch,’ said Mr. Nupkins, ‘we scorn your base insinuations.’ + +‘I always hated him,’ added Henrietta. + +‘Oh, of course,’ said Jingle. ‘Tall young man--old lover--Sidney +Porkenham--rich--fine fellow--not so rich as captain, though, eh?--turn +him away--off with him--anything for captain--nothing like captain +anywhere--all the girls--raving mad--eh, Job, eh?’ + +Here Mr. Jingle laughed very heartily; and Job, rubbing his hands with +delight, uttered the first sound he had given vent to since he entered +the house--a low, noiseless chuckle, which seemed to intimate that he +enjoyed his laugh too much, to let any of it escape in sound. + +‘Mr. Nupkins,’ said the elder lady,’ this is not a fit conversation for +the servants to overhear. Let these wretches be removed.’ + +‘Certainly, my dear,’ Said Mr. Nupkins. ‘Muzzle!’ + +‘Your Worship.’ + +‘Open the front door.’ + +‘Yes, your Worship.’ + +‘Leave the house!’ said Mr. Nupkins, waving his hand emphatically. + +Jingle smiled, and moved towards the door. + +‘Stay!’ said Mr. Pickwick. Jingle stopped. + +‘I might,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘have taken a much greater revenge for the +treatment I have experienced at your hands, and that of your +hypocritical friend there.’ + +Job Trotter bowed with great politeness, and laid his hand upon his +heart. + +‘I say,’ said Mr. Pickwick, growing gradually angry, ‘that I might have +taken a greater revenge, but I content myself with exposing you, which I +consider a duty I owe to society. This is a leniency, Sir, which I hope +you will remember.’ + +When Mr. Pickwick arrived at this point, Job Trotter, with facetious +gravity, applied his hand to his ear, as if desirous not to lose a +syllable he uttered. + +‘And I have only to add, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, now thoroughly angry, +‘that I consider you a rascal, and a--a--ruffian--and--and worse than +any man I ever saw, or heard of, except that pious and sanctified +vagabond in the mulberry livery.’ + +‘Ha! ha!’ said Jingle, ‘good fellow, Pickwick--fine heart--stout old +boy--but must _not _be passionate--bad thing, very--bye, bye--see you +again some day--keep up your spirits--now, Job--trot!’ + +With these words, Mr. Jingle stuck on his hat in his old fashion, and +strode out of the room. Job Trotter paused, looked round, smiled and +then with a bow of mock solemnity to Mr. Pickwick, and a wink to Mr. +Weller, the audacious slyness of which baffles all description, followed +the footsteps of his hopeful master. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Weller was following. + +‘Sir.’ + +Stay here.’ + +Mr. Weller seemed uncertain. + +‘Stay here,’ repeated Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mayn’t I polish that ‘ere Job off, in the front garden?’ said Mr. +Weller. + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mayn’t I kick him out o’ the gate, Sir?’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Not on any account,’ replied his master. + +For the first time since his engagement, Mr. Weller looked, for a +moment, discontented and unhappy. But his countenance immediately +cleared up; for the wily Mr. Muzzle, by concealing himself behind the +street door, and rushing violently out, at the right instant, contrived +with great dexterity to overturn both Mr. Jingle and his attendant, down +the flight of steps, into the American aloe tubs that stood beneath. + +‘Having discharged my duty, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Nupkins, ‘I +will, with my friends, bid you farewell. While we thank you for such +hospitality as we have received, permit me to assure you, in our joint +names, that we should not have accepted it, or have consented to +extricate ourselves in this way, from our previous dilemma, had we not +been impelled by a strong sense of duty. We return to London to-morrow. +Your secret is safe with us.’ + +Having thus entered his protest against their treatment of the morning, +Mr. Pickwick bowed low to the ladies, and notwithstanding the +solicitations of the family, left the room with his friends. + +‘Get your hat, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It’s below stairs, Sir,’ said Sam, and he ran down after it. + +Now, there was nobody in the kitchen, but the pretty housemaid; and as +Sam’s hat was mislaid, he had to look for it, and the pretty housemaid +lighted him. They had to look all over the place for the hat. The pretty +housemaid, in her anxiety to find it, went down on her knees, and turned +over all the things that were heaped together in a little corner by the +door. It was an awkward corner. You couldn’t get at it without shutting +the door first. + +‘Here it is,’ said the pretty housemaid. ‘This is it, ain’t it?’ + +‘Let me look,’ said Sam. + +The pretty housemaid had stood the candle on the floor; and, as it gave +a very dim light, Sam was obliged to go down on _his _knees before he +could see whether it really was his own hat or not. It was a remarkably +small corner, and so--it was nobody’s fault but the man’s who built the +house--Sam and the pretty housemaid were necessarily very close +together. + +‘Yes, this is it,’ said Sam. ‘Good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye!’ said the pretty housemaid. + +‘Good-bye!’ said Sam; and as he said it, he dropped the hat that had +cost so much trouble in looking for. + +‘How awkward you are,’ said the pretty housemaid. ‘You’ll lose it again, +if you don’t take care.’ + +So just to prevent his losing it again, she put it on for him. + +Whether it was that the pretty housemaid’s face looked prettier still, +when it was raised towards Sam’s, or whether it was the accidental +consequence of their being so near to each other, is matter of +uncertainty to this day; but Sam kissed her. + +‘You don’t mean to say you did that on purpose,’ said the pretty +housemaid, blushing. + +‘No, I didn’t then,’ said Sam; ‘but I will now.’ + +So he kissed her again. + +‘Sam!’ said Mr. Pickwick, calling over the banisters. + +‘Coming, Sir,’ replied Sam, running upstairs. + +‘How long you have been!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘There was something behind the door, Sir, which perwented our getting +it open, for ever so long, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +And this was the first passage of Mr. Weller’s first love. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. WHICH CONTAINS A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE PROGRESS OF THE +ACTION OF BARDELL AGAINST PICKWICK + +Having accomplished the main end and object of his journey, by the +exposure of Jingle, Mr. Pickwick resolved on immediately returning to +London, with the view of becoming acquainted with the proceedings which +had been taken against him, in the meantime, by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg. +Acting upon this resolution with all the energy and decision of his +character, he mounted to the back seat of the first coach which left +Ipswich on the morning after the memorable occurrences detailed at +length in the two preceding chapters; and accompanied by his three +friends, and Mr. Samuel Weller, arrived in the metropolis, in perfect +health and safety, the same evening. + +Here the friends, for a short time, separated. Messrs. Tupman, Winkle, +and Snodgrass repaired to their several homes to make such preparations +as might be requisite for their forthcoming visit to Dingley Dell; and +Mr. Pickwick and Sam took up their present abode in very good, old- +fashioned, and comfortable quarters, to wit, the George and Vulture +Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street. + +Mr. Pickwick had dined, finished his second pint of particular port, +pulled his silk handkerchief over his head, put his feet on the fender, +and thrown himself back in an easy-chair, when the entrance of Mr. +Weller with his carpet-bag, aroused him from his tranquil meditation. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘I have just been thinking, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that having left a +good many things at Mrs. Bardell’s, in Goswell Street, I ought to +arrange for taking them away, before I leave town again.’ + +‘Wery good, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I could send them to Mr. Tupman’s, for the present, Sam,’ continued Mr. +Pickwick, ‘but before we take them away, it is necessary that they +should be looked up, and put together. I wish you would step up to +Goswell Street, Sam, and arrange about it.’ + +‘At once, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘At once,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘And stay, Sam,’ added Mr. Pickwick, +pulling out his purse, ‘there is some rent to pay. The quarter is not +due till Christmas, but you may pay it, and have done with it. A month’s +notice terminates my tenancy. Here it is, written out. Give it, and tell +Mrs. Bardell she may put a bill up, as soon as she likes.’ + +‘Wery good, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘anythin’ more, sir?’ + +‘Nothing more, Sam.’ + +Mr. Weller stepped slowly to the door, as if he expected something more; +slowly opened it, slowly stepped out, and had slowly closed it within a +couple of inches, when Mr. Pickwick called out-- + +‘Sam.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, stepping quickly back, and closing the door +behind him. + +‘I have no objection, Sam, to your endeavouring to ascertain how Mrs. +Bardell herself seems disposed towards me, and whether it is really +probable that this vile and groundless action is to be carried to +extremity. I say I do not object to you doing this, if you wish it, +Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Sam gave a short nod of intelligence, and left the room. Mr. Pickwick +drew the silk handkerchief once more over his head, And composed himself +for a nap. Mr. Weller promptly walked forth, to execute his commission. + +It was nearly nine o’clock when he reached Goswell Street. A couple of +candles were burning in the little front parlour, and a couple of caps +were reflected on the window-blind. Mrs. Bardell had got company. + +Mr. Weller knocked at the door, and after a pretty long interval-- +occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party +within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be +lighted--a pair of small boots pattered over the floor-cloth, and Master +Bardell presented himself. + +‘Well, young townskip,’ said Sam, ‘how’s mother?’ + +‘She’s pretty well,’ replied Master Bardell, ‘so am I.’ + +‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ said Sam; ‘tell her I want to speak to her, will +you, my hinfant fernomenon?’ + +Master Bardell, thus adjured, placed the refractory flat candle on the +bottom stair, and vanished into the front parlour with his message. + +The two caps, reflected on the window-blind, were the respective head- +dresses of a couple of Mrs. Bardell’s most particular acquaintance, who +had just stepped in, to have a quiet cup of tea, and a little warm +supper of a couple of sets of pettitoes and some toasted cheese. The +cheese was simmering and browning away, most delightfully, in a little +Dutch oven before the fire; the pettitoes were getting on deliciously in +a little tin saucepan on the hob; and Mrs. Bardell and her two friends +were getting on very well, also, in a little quiet conversation about +and concerning all their particular friends and acquaintance; when +Master Bardell came back from answering the door, and delivered the +message intrusted to him by Mr. Samuel Weller. + +‘Mr. Pickwick’s servant!’ said Mrs. Bardell, turning pale. + +‘Bless my soul!’ said Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘Well, I raly would not ha’ believed it, unless I had ha’ happened to +ha’ been here!’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +Mrs. Cluppins was a little, brisk, busy-looking woman; Mrs. Sanders was +a big, fat, heavy-faced personage; and the two were the company. + +Mrs. Bardell felt it proper to be agitated; and as none of the three +exactly knew whether under existing circumstances, any communication, +otherwise than through Dodson & Fogg, ought to be held with Mr. +Pickwick’s servant, they were all rather taken by surprise. In this +state of indecision, obviously the first thing to be done, was to thump +the boy for finding Mr. Weller at the door. So his mother thumped him, +and he cried melodiously. + +‘Hold your noise--do--you naughty creetur!’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Yes; don’t worrit your poor mother,’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +‘She’s quite enough to worrit her, as it is, without you, Tommy,’ said +Mrs. Cluppins, with sympathising resignation. + +‘Ah! worse luck, poor lamb!’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +At all which moral reflections, Master Bardell howled the louder. + +‘Now, what shall I do?’ said Mrs. Bardell to Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘I think you ought to see him,’ replied Mrs. Cluppins. ‘But on no +account without a witness.’ + +‘I think two witnesses would be more lawful,’ said Mrs. Sanders, who, +like the other friend, was bursting with curiosity. + +‘Perhaps he’d better come in here,’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘To be sure,’ replied Mrs. Cluppins, eagerly catching at the idea; ‘walk +in, young man; and shut the street door first, please.’ + +Mr. Weller immediately took the hint; and presenting himself in the +parlour, explained his business to Mrs. Bardell thus-- + +‘Wery sorry to ‘casion any personal inconwenience, ma’am, as the +housebreaker said to the old lady when he put her on the fire; but as me +and my governor ‘s only jest come to town, and is jest going away agin, +it can’t be helped, you see.’ + +‘Of course, the young man can’t help the faults of his master,’ said +Mrs. Cluppins, much struck by Mr. Weller’s appearance and conversation. + +‘Certainly not,’ chimed in Mrs. Sanders, who, from certain wistful +glances at the little tin saucepan, seemed to be engaged in a mental +calculation of the probable extent of the pettitoes, in the event of +Sam’s being asked to stop to supper. + +‘So all I’ve come about, is jest this here,’ said Sam, disregarding the +interruption; ‘first, to give my governor’s notice--there it is. +Secondly, to pay the rent--here it is. Thirdly, to say as all his things +is to be put together, and give to anybody as we sends for ‘em. +Fourthly, that you may let the place as soon as you like--and that’s +all.’ + +‘Whatever has happened,’ said Mrs. Bardell, ‘I always have said, and +always will say, that in every respect but one, Mr. Pickwick has always +behaved himself like a perfect gentleman. His money always as good as +the bank--always.’ + +As Mrs. Bardell said this, she applied her handkerchief to her eyes, and +went out of the room to get the receipt. + +Sam well knew that he had only to remain quiet, and the women were sure +to talk; so he looked alternately at the tin saucepan, the toasted +cheese, the wall, and the ceiling, in profound silence. + +‘Poor dear!’ said Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘Ah, poor thing!’ replied Mrs. Sanders. + +Sam said nothing. He saw they were coming to the subject. + +‘I raly cannot contain myself,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, ‘when I think of +such perjury. I don’t wish to say anything to make you uncomfortable, +young man, but your master’s an old brute, and I wish I had him here to +tell him so.’ + +I wish you had,’ said Sam. + +‘To see how dreadful she takes on, going moping about, and taking no +pleasure in nothing, except when her friends comes in, out of charity, +to sit with her, and make her comfortable,’ resumed Mrs. Cluppins, +glancing at the tin saucepan and the Dutch oven, ‘it’s shocking!’ + +‘Barbareous,’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +‘And your master, young man! A gentleman with money, as could never feel +the expense of a wife, no more than nothing,’ continued Mrs. Cluppins, +with great volubility; ‘why there ain’t the faintest shade of an excuse +for his behaviour! Why don’t he marry her?’ + +‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘to be sure; that’s the question.’ + +‘Question, indeed,’ retorted Mrs. Cluppins, ‘she’d question him, if +she’d my spirit. Hows’ever, there is law for us women, mis’rable +creeturs as they’d make us, if they could; and that your master will +find out, young man, to his cost, afore he’s six months older.’ + +At this consolatory reflection, Mrs. Cluppins bridled up, and smiled at +Mrs. Sanders, who smiled back again. + +‘The action’s going on, and no mistake,’ thought Sam, as Mrs. Bardell +re-entered with the receipt. + +‘Here’s the receipt, Mr. Weller,’ said Mrs. Bardell, ‘and here’s the +change, and I hope you’ll take a little drop of something to keep the +cold out, if it’s only for old acquaintance’ sake, Mr. Weller.’ + +Sam saw the advantage he should gain, and at once acquiesced; whereupon +Mrs. Bardell produced, from a small closet, a black bottle and a wine- +glass; and so great was her abstraction, in her deep mental affliction, +that, after filling Mr. Weller’s glass, she brought out three more wine- +glasses, and filled them too. + +‘Lauk, Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, ‘see what you’ve been and +done!’ + +‘Well, that is a good one!’ ejaculated Mrs. Sanders. + +‘Ah, my poor head!’ said Mrs. Bardell, with a faint smile. + +Sam understood all this, of course, so he said at once, that he never +could drink before supper, unless a lady drank with him. A great deal of +laughter ensued, and Mrs. Sanders volunteered to humour him, so she took +a slight sip out of her glass. Then Sam said it must go all round, so +they all took a slight sip. Then little Mrs. Cluppins proposed as a +toast, ‘Success to Bardell agin Pickwick’; and then the ladies emptied +their glasses in honour of the sentiment, and got very talkative +directly. + +‘I suppose you’ve heard what’s going forward, Mr. Weller?’ said Mrs. +Bardell. + +‘I’ve heerd somethin’ on it,’ replied Sam. + +‘It’s a terrible thing to be dragged before the public, in that way, Mr. +Weller,’ said Mrs. Bardell; ‘but I see now, that it’s the only thing I +ought to do, and my lawyers, Mr. Dodson and Fogg, tell me that, with the +evidence as we shall call, we must succeed. I don’t know what I should +do, Mr. Weller, if I didn’t.’ + +The mere idea of Mrs. Bardell’s failing in her action, affected Mrs. +Sanders so deeply, that she was under the necessity of refilling and re- +emptying her glass immediately; feeling, as she said afterwards, that if +she hadn’t had the presence of mind to do so, she must have dropped. + +‘Ven is it expected to come on?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Either in February or March,’ replied Mrs. Bardell. + +‘What a number of witnesses there’ll be, won’t there?’ said Mrs. +Cluppins. + +‘Ah! won’t there!’ replied Mrs. Sanders. + +‘And won’t Mr. Dodson and Fogg be wild if the plaintiff shouldn’t get +it?’ added Mrs. Cluppins, ‘when they do it all on speculation!’ + +‘Ah! won’t they!’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +‘But the plaintiff must get it,’ resumed Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘I hope so,’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Oh, there can’t be any doubt about it,’ rejoined Mrs. Sanders. + +‘Vell,’ said Sam, rising and setting down his glass, ‘all I can say is, +that I vish you _may _get it.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Mr. Weller,’ said Mrs. Bardell fervently. + +‘And of them Dodson and Foggs, as does these sort o’ things on spec,’ +continued Mr. Weller, ‘as vell as for the other kind and gen’rous people +o’ the same purfession, as sets people by the ears, free gratis for +nothin’, and sets their clerks to work to find out little disputes among +their neighbours and acquaintances as vants settlin’ by means of +lawsuits--all I can say o’ them is, that I vish they had the reward I’d +give ‘em.’ + +‘Ah, I wish they had the reward that every kind and generous heart would +be inclined to bestow upon them!’ said the gratified Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Amen to that,’ replied Sam, ‘and a fat and happy liven’ they’d get out +of it! Wish you good-night, ladies.’ + +To the great relief of Mrs. Sanders, Sam was allowed to depart without +any reference, on the part of the hostess, to the pettitoes and toasted +cheese; to which the ladies, with such juvenile assistance as Master +Bardell could afford, soon afterwards rendered the amplest justice-- +indeed they wholly vanished before their strenuous exertions. + +Mr. Weller wended his way back to the George and Vulture, and faithfully +recounted to his master, such indications of the sharp practice of +Dodson & Fogg, as he had contrived to pick up in his visit to Mrs. +Bardell’s. An interview with Mr. Perker, next day, more than confirmed +Mr. Weller’s statement; and Mr. Pickwick was fain to prepare for his +Christmas visit to Dingley Dell, with the pleasant anticipation that +some two or three months afterwards, an action brought against him for +damages sustained by reason of a breach of promise of marriage, would be +publicly tried in the Court of Common Pleas; the plaintiff having all +the advantages derivable, not only from the force of circumstances, but +from the sharp practice of Dodson & Fogg to boot. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. SAMUEL WELLER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO DORKING, AND BEHOLDS +HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW + +There still remaining an interval of two days before the time agreed +upon for the departure of the Pickwickians to Dingley Dell, Mr. Weller +sat himself down in a back room at the George and Vulture, after eating +an early dinner, to muse on the best way of disposing of his time. It +was a remarkably fine day; and he had not turned the matter over in his +mind ten minutes, when he was suddenly stricken filial and affectionate; +and it occurred to him so strongly that he ought to go down and see his +father, and pay his duty to his mother-in-law, that he was lost in +astonishment at his own remissness in never thinking of this moral +obligation before. Anxious to atone for his past neglect without another +hour’s delay, he straightway walked upstairs to Mr. Pickwick, and +requested leave of absence for this laudable purpose. + +‘Certainly, Sam, certainly,’ said Mr. Pickwick, his eyes glistening with +delight at this manifestation of filial feeling on the part of his +attendant; ‘certainly, Sam.’ + +Mr. Weller made a grateful bow. + +‘I am very glad to see that you have so high a sense of your duties as a +son, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I always had, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘That’s a very gratifying reflection, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick +approvingly. + +‘Wery, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘if ever I wanted anythin’ o’ my +father, I always asked for it in a wery ‘spectful and obligin’ manner. +If he didn’t give it me, I took it, for fear I should be led to do +anythin’ wrong, through not havin’ it. I saved him a world o’ trouble +this vay, Sir.’ + +‘That’s not precisely what I meant, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, shaking his +head, with a slight smile. + +‘All good feelin’, sir--the wery best intentions, as the gen’l’m’n said +ven he run away from his wife ‘cos she seemed unhappy with him,’ replied +Mr. Weller. + +‘You may go, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Thank’ee, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; and having made his best bow, and +put on his best clothes, Sam planted himself on the top of the Arundel +coach, and journeyed on to Dorking. + +The Marquis of Granby, in Mrs. Weller’s time, was quite a model of a +roadside public-house of the better class--just large enough to be +convenient, and small enough to be snug. On the opposite side of the +road was a large sign-board on a high post, representing the head and +shoulders of a gentleman with an apoplectic countenance, in a red coat +with deep blue facings, and a touch of the same blue over his three- +cornered hat, for a sky. Over that again were a pair of flags; beneath +the last button of his coat were a couple of cannon; and the whole +formed an expressive and undoubted likeness of the Marquis of Granby of +glorious memory. The bar window displayed a choice collection of +geranium plants, and a well-dusted row of spirit phials. The open +shutters bore a variety of golden inscriptions, eulogistic of good beds +and neat wines; and the choice group of countrymen and hostlers lounging +about the stable door and horse-trough, afforded presumptive proof of +the excellent quality of the ale and spirits which were sold within. Sam +Weller paused, when he dismounted from the coach, to note all these +little indications of a thriving business, with the eye of an +experienced traveller; and having done so, stepped in at once, highly +satisfied with everything he had observed. + +‘Now, then!’ said a shrill female voice the instant Sam thrust his head +in at the door, ‘what do you want, young man?’ + +Sam looked round in the direction whence the voice proceeded. It came +from a rather stout lady of comfortable appearance, who was seated +beside the fireplace in the bar, blowing the fire to make the kettle +boil for tea. She was not alone; for on the other side of the fireplace, +sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, was a man in threadbare +black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair +itself, who caught Sam’s most particular and especial attention at once. + +He was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with a long, thin countenance, and a +semi-rattlesnake sort of eye--rather sharp, but decidedly bad. He wore +very short trousers, and black cotton stockings, which, like the rest of +his apparel, were particularly rusty. His looks were starched, but his +white neckerchief was not, and its long limp ends straggled over his +closely-buttoned waistcoat in a very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. +A pair of old, worn, beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded +green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as +if to counterbalance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair +beside him; and, being disposed in a very tidy and careful manner, +seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention +of going away in a hurry. + +To do the red-nosed man justice, he would have been very far from wise +if he had entertained any such intention; for, to judge from all +appearances, he must have been possessed of a most desirable circle of +acquaintance, if he could have reasonably expected to be more +comfortable anywhere else. The fire was blazing brightly under the +influence of the bellows, and the kettle was singing gaily under the +influence of both. A small tray of tea-things was arranged on the table; +a plate of hot buttered toast was gently simmering before the fire; and +the red-nosed man himself was busily engaged in converting a large slice +of bread into the same agreeable edible, through the instrumentality of +a long brass toasting-fork. Beside him stood a glass of reeking hot +pine-apple rum-and-water, with a slice of lemon in it; and every time +the red-nosed man stopped to bring the round of toast to his eye, with +the view of ascertaining how it got on, he imbibed a drop or two of the +hot pine-apple rum-and-water, and smiled upon the rather stout lady, as +she blew the fire. + +Sam was so lost in the contemplation of this comfortable scene, that he +suffered the first inquiry of the rather stout lady to pass unheeded. It +was not until it had been twice repeated, each time in a shriller tone, +that he became conscious of the impropriety of his behaviour. + +‘Governor in?’ inquired Sam, in reply to the question. + +‘No, he isn’t,’ replied Mrs. Weller; for the rather stout lady was no +other than the quondam relict and sole executrix of the dead-and-gone +Mr. Clarke; ‘no, he isn’t, and I don’t expect him, either.’ + +‘I suppose he’s drivin’ up to-day?’ said Sam. + +‘He may be, or he may not,’ replied Mrs. Weller, buttering the round of +toast which the red-nosed man had just finished. ‘I don’t know, and, +what’s more, I don’t care.--Ask a blessin’, Mr. Stiggins.’ + +The red-nosed man did as he was desired, and instantly commenced on the +toast with fierce voracity. + +The appearance of the red-nosed man had induced Sam, at first sight, to +more than half suspect that he was the deputy-shepherd of whom his +estimable parent had spoken. The moment he saw him eat, all doubt on the +subject was removed, and he perceived at once that if he purposed to +take up his temporary quarters where he was, he must make his footing +good without delay. He therefore commenced proceedings by putting his +arm over the half-door of the bar, coolly unbolting it, and leisurely +walking in. + +‘Mother-in-law,’ said Sam, ‘how are you?’ + +‘Why, I do believe he is a Weller!’ said Mrs. W., raising her eyes to +Sam’s face, with no very gratified expression of countenance. + +‘I rayther think he is,’ said the imperturbable Sam; ‘and I hope this +here reverend gen’l’m’n ‘ll excuse me saying that I wish I was _the +_Weller as owns you, mother-in-law.’ + +This was a double-barrelled compliment. It implied that Mrs. Weller was +a most agreeable female, and also that Mr. Stiggins had a clerical +appearance. It made a visible impression at once; and Sam followed up +his advantage by kissing his mother-in-law. + +‘Get along with you!’ said Mrs. Weller, pushing him away. + +‘For shame, young man!’ said the gentleman with the red nose. + +‘No offence, sir, no offence,’ replied Sam; ‘you’re wery right, though; +it ain’t the right sort o’ thing, ven mothers-in-law is young and good- +looking, is it, Sir?’ + +‘It’s all vanity,’ said Mr. Stiggins. + +‘Ah, so it is,’ said Mrs. Weller, setting her cap to rights. + +Sam thought it was, too, but he held his peace. + +The deputy-shepherd seemed by no means best pleased with Sam’s arrival; +and when the first effervescence of the compliment had subsided, even +Mrs. Weller looked as if she could have spared him without the smallest +inconvenience. However, there he was; and as he couldn’t be decently +turned out, they all three sat down to tea. + +‘And how’s father?’ said Sam. + +At this inquiry, Mrs. Weller raised her hands, and turned up her eyes, +as if the subject were too painful to be alluded to. + +Mr. Stiggins groaned. + +‘What’s the matter with that ‘ere gen’l’m’n?’ inquired Sam. + +‘He’s shocked at the way your father goes on in,’ replied Mrs. Weller. + +‘Oh, he is, is he?’ said Sam. + +‘And with too good reason,’ added Mrs. Weller gravely. + +Mr. Stiggins took up a fresh piece of toast, and groaned heavily. + +‘He is a dreadful reprobate,’ said Mrs. Weller. + +‘A man of wrath!’ exclaimed Mr. Stiggins. He took a large semi-circular +bite out of the toast, and groaned again. + +Sam felt very strongly disposed to give the reverend Mr. Stiggins +something to groan for, but he repressed his inclination, and merely +asked, ‘What’s the old ‘un up to now?’ + +‘Up to, indeed!’ said Mrs. Weller, ‘Oh, he has a hard heart. Night after +night does this excellent man--don’t frown, Mr. Stiggins; I _will _say +you _are _an excellent man--come and sit here, for hours together, and +it has not the least effect upon him.’ + +Well, that is odd,’ said Sam; ‘it ‘ud have a wery considerable effect +upon me, if I wos in his place; I know that.’ + +‘The fact is, my young friend,’ said Mr. Stiggins solemnly, ‘he has an +obderrate bosom. Oh, my young friend, who else could have resisted the +pleading of sixteen of our fairest sisters, and withstood their +exhortations to subscribe to our noble society for providing the infant +negroes in the West Indies with flannel waistcoats and moral pocket- +handkerchiefs?’ + +‘What’s a moral pocket-ankercher?’ said Sam; ‘I never see one o’ them +articles o’ furniter.’ + +‘Those which combine amusement With instruction, my young friend,’ +replied Mr. Stiggins, ‘blending select tales with wood-cuts.’ + +‘Oh, I know,’ said Sam; ‘them as hangs up in the linen-drapers’ shops, +with beggars’ petitions and all that ‘ere upon ‘em?’ + +Mr. Stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent. + +‘And he wouldn’t be persuaded by the ladies, wouldn’t he?’ said Sam. + +‘Sat and smoked his pipe, and said the infant negroes were--what did he +say the infant negroes were?’ said Mrs. Weller. + +‘Little humbugs,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, deeply affected. + +‘Said the infant negroes were little humbugs,’ repeated Mrs. Weller. And +they both groaned at the atrocious conduct of the elder Mr. Weller. + +A great many more iniquities of a similar nature might have been +disclosed, only the toast being all eaten, the tea having got very weak, +and Sam holding out no indications of meaning to go, Mr. Stiggins +suddenly recollected that he had a most pressing appointment with the +shepherd, and took himself off accordingly. + +The tea-things had been scarcely put away, and the hearth swept up, when +the London coach deposited Mr. Weller, senior, at the door; his legs +deposited him in the bar; and his eyes showed him his son. + +‘What, Sammy!’ exclaimed the father. + +‘What, old Nobs!’ ejaculated the son. And they shook hands heartily. + +‘Wery glad to see you, Sammy,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, ‘though how +you’ve managed to get over your mother-in-law, is a mystery to me. I +only vish you’d write me out the receipt, that’s all.’ + +‘Hush!’ said Sam, ‘she’s at home, old feller.’ + +She ain’t vithin hearin’,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘she always goes and +blows up, downstairs, for a couple of hours arter tea; so we’ll just +give ourselves a damp, Sammy.’ + +Saying this, Mr. Weller mixed two glasses of spirits-and-water, and +produced a couple of pipes. The father and son sitting down opposite +each other; Sam on one side of the fire, in the high-backed chair, and +Mr. Weller, senior, on the other, in an easy ditto, they proceeded to +enjoy themselves with all due gravity. + +‘Anybody been here, Sammy?’ asked Mr. Weller, senior, dryly, after a +long silence. + +Sam nodded an expressive assent. + +‘Red-nosed chap?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +Sam nodded again. + +‘Amiable man that ‘ere, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, smoking violently. + +‘Seems so,’ observed Sam. + +‘Good hand at accounts,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Is he?’ said Sam. + +‘Borrows eighteenpence on Monday, and comes on Tuesday for a shillin’ to +make it up half-a-crown; calls again on Vensday for another half-crown +to make it five shillin’s; and goes on, doubling, till he gets it up to +a five pund note in no time, like them sums in the ‘rithmetic book ‘bout +the nails in the horse’s shoes, Sammy.’ + +Sam intimated by a nod that he recollected the problem alluded to by his +parent. + +‘So you vouldn’t subscribe to the flannel veskits?’ said Sam, after +another interval of smoking. + +‘Cert’nly not,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘what’s the good o’ flannel veskits +to the young niggers abroad? But I’ll tell you what it is, Sammy,’ said +Mr. Weller, lowering his voice, and bending across the fireplace; ‘I’d +come down wery handsome towards strait veskits for some people at home.’ + +As Mr. Weller said this, he slowly recovered his former position, and +winked at his first-born, in a profound manner. + +‘It cert’nly seems a queer start to send out pocket-’ankerchers to +people as don’t know the use on ‘em,’ observed Sam. + +‘They’re alvays a-doin’ some gammon of that sort, Sammy,’ replied his +father. ‘T’other Sunday I wos walkin’ up the road, wen who should I see, +a-standin’ at a chapel door, with a blue soup-plate in her hand, but +your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o’ +suv’rins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha’pence; and as the people come +out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you’d ha’ thought that no +mortal plate as ever was baked, could ha’ stood the wear and tear. What +d’ye think it was all for?’ + +‘For another tea-drinkin’, perhaps,’ said Sam. + +‘Not a bit on it,’ replied the father; ‘for the shepherd’s water-rate, +Sammy.’ + +‘The shepherd’s water-rate!’ said Sam. + +‘Ay,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘there was three quarters owin’, and the +shepherd hadn’t paid a farden, not he--perhaps it might be on account +that the water warn’t o’ much use to him, for it’s wery little o’ that +tap he drinks, Sammy, wery; he knows a trick worth a good half-dozen of +that, he does. Hows’ever, it warn’t paid, and so they cuts the water +off. Down goes the shepherd to chapel, gives out as he’s a persecuted +saint, and says he hopes the heart of the turncock as cut the water off, +‘ll be softened, and turned in the right vay, but he rayther thinks he’s +booked for somethin’ uncomfortable. Upon this, the women calls a +meetin’, sings a hymn, wotes your mother-in-law into the chair, +wolunteers a collection next Sunday, and hands it all over to the +shepherd. And if he ain’t got enough out on ‘em, Sammy, to make him free +of the water company for life,’ said Mr. Weller, in conclusion, ‘I’m one +Dutchman, and you’re another, and that’s all about it.’ + +Mr. Weller smoked for some minutes in silence, and then resumed-- + +‘The worst o’ these here shepherds is, my boy, that they reg’larly turns +the heads of all the young ladies, about here. Lord bless their little +hearts, they thinks it’s all right, and don’t know no better; but +they’re the wictims o’ gammon, Samivel, they’re the wictims o’ gammon.’ + +‘I s’pose they are,’ said Sam. + +‘Nothin’ else,’ said Mr. Weller, shaking his head gravely; ‘and wot +aggrawates me, Samivel, is to see ‘em a-wastin’ all their time and +labour in making clothes for copper-coloured people as don’t want ‘em, +and taking no notice of flesh-coloured Christians as do. If I’d my vay, +Samivel, I’d just stick some o’ these here lazy shepherds behind a heavy +wheelbarrow, and run ‘em up and down a fourteen-inch-wide plank all day. +That ‘ud shake the nonsense out of ‘em, if anythin’ vould.’ + +Mr. Weller, having delivered this gentle recipe with strong emphasis, +eked out by a variety of nods and contortions of the eye, emptied his +glass at a draught, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe, with native +dignity. + +He was engaged in this operation, when a shrill voice was heard in the +passage. + +‘Here’s your dear relation, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller; and Mrs. W. hurried +into the room. + +‘Oh, you’ve come back, have you!’ said Mrs. Weller. + +‘Yes, my dear,’ replied Mr. Weller, filling a fresh pipe. + +‘Has Mr. Stiggins been back?’ said Mrs. Weller. + +‘No, my dear, he hasn’t,’ replied Mr. Weller, lighting the pipe by the +ingenious process of holding to the bowl thereof, between the tongs, a +red-hot coal from the adjacent fire; and what’s more, my dear, I shall +manage to surwive it, if he don’t come back at all.’ + +‘Ugh, you wretch!’ said Mrs. Weller. + +‘Thank’ee, my love,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Come, come, father,’ said Sam, ‘none o’ these little lovin’s afore +strangers. Here’s the reverend gen’l’m’n a-comin’ in now.’ + +At this announcement, Mrs. Weller hastily wiped off the tears which she +had just begun to force on; and Mr. W. drew his chair sullenly into the +chimney-corner. + +Mr. Stiggins was easily prevailed on to take another glass of the hot +pine-apple rum-and-water, and a second, and a third, and then to refresh +himself with a slight supper, previous to beginning again. He sat on the +same side as Mr. Weller, senior; and every time he could contrive to do +so, unseen by his wife, that gentleman indicated to his son the hidden +emotions of his bosom, by shaking his fist over the deputy-shepherd’s +head; a process which afforded his son the most unmingled delight and +satisfaction, the more especially as Mr. Stiggins went on, quietly +drinking the hot pine-apple rum-and-water, wholly unconscious of what +was going forward. + +The major part of the conversation was confined to Mrs. Weller and the +reverend Mr. Stiggins; and the topics principally descanted on, were the +virtues of the shepherd, the worthiness of his flock, and the high +crimes and misdemeanours of everybody beside--dissertations which the +elder Mr. Weller occasionally interrupted by half-suppressed references +to a gentleman of the name of Walker, and other running commentaries of +the same kind. + +At length Mr. Stiggins, with several most indubitable symptoms of having +quite as much pine-apple rum-and-water about him as he could comfortably +accommodate, took his hat, and his leave; and Sam was, immediately +afterwards, shown to bed by his father. The respectable old gentleman +wrung his hand fervently, and seemed disposed to address some +observation to his son; but on Mrs. Weller advancing towards him, he +appeared to relinquish that intention, and abruptly bade him good-night. + +Sam was up betimes next day, and having partaken of a hasty breakfast, +prepared to return to London. He had scarcely set foot without the +house, when his father stood before him. + +‘Goin’, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Off at once,’ replied Sam. + +‘I vish you could muffle that ‘ere Stiggins, and take him vith you,’ +said Mr. Weller. + +‘I am ashamed on you!’ said Sam reproachfully; ‘what do you let him show +his red nose in the Markis o’ Granby at all, for?’ + +Mr. Weller the elder fixed on his son an earnest look, and replied, +‘’Cause I’m a married man, Samivel, ‘cause I’m a married man. Ven you’re +a married man, Samivel, you’ll understand a good many things as you +don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth while goin’ through so much, +to learn so little, as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the +alphabet, is a matter o’ taste. I rayther think it isn’t.’ + +Well,’ said Sam, ‘good-bye.’ + +‘Tar, tar, Sammy,’ replied his father. + +‘I’ve only got to say this here,’ said Sam, stopping short, ‘that if I +was the properiator o’ the Markis o’ Granby, and that ‘ere Stiggins came +and made toast in my bar, I’d--’ + +‘What?’ interposed Mr. Weller, with great anxiety. ‘What?’ + +‘Pison his rum-and-water,’ said Sam. + +‘No!’ said Mr. Weller, shaking his son eagerly by the hand, ‘would you +raly, Sammy-would you, though?’ + +‘I would,’ said Sam. ‘I wouldn’t be too hard upon him at first. I’d drop +him in the water-butt, and put the lid on; and if I found he was +insensible to kindness, I’d try the other persvasion.’ + +The elder Mr. Weller bestowed a look of deep, unspeakable admiration on +his son, and, having once more grasped his hand, walked slowly away, +revolving in his mind the numerous reflections to which his advice had +given rise. + +Sam looked after him, until he turned a corner of the road; and then set +forward on his walk to London. He meditated at first, on the probable +consequences of his own advice, and the likelihood of his father’s +adopting it. He dismissed the subject from his mind, however, with the +consolatory reflection that time alone would show; and this is the +reflection we would impress upon the reader. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. A GOOD-HUMOURED CHRISTMAS CHAPTER, CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT +OF A WEDDING, AND SOME OTHER SPORTS BESIDE: WHICH ALTHOUGH IN THEIR WAY, +EVEN AS GOOD CUSTOMS AS MARRIAGE ITSELF, ARE NOT QUITE SO RELIGIOUSLY +KEPT UP, IN THESE DEGENERATE TIMES + +As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four +Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of +December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded +adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at +hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of +hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was +preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, +and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly +away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least +four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming. + +And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief +season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose members have +been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of +life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of +companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and +unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of +the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and +the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the +first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed +and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, +does Christmas time awaken! + +We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, +year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of +the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the +looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we +grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in +the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling +faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances +connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each +recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but +yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions +of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of +his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of +miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! + +But we are so taken up and occupied with the good qualities of this +saint Christmas, that we are keeping Mr. Pickwick and his friends +waiting in the cold on the outside of the Muggleton coach, which they +have just attained, well wrapped up in great-coats, shawls, and +comforters. The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and +Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore- +boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it--which is snugly +packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, +and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in +safety on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the +property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order at +the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick’s +countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze +the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and +then top upward, and then bottom upward, and then side-ways, and then +long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily +resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the +basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, +the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon +so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, +experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all +the porters and bystanders. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with great +good-humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the +guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a +glass of hot brandy-and-water; at which the guard smiles too, and +Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company. The guard +and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes, most probably to get the hot +brandy-and-water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return, +the coachman mounts to the box, Mr. Weller jumps up behind, the +Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs and their shawls over +their noses, the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts +out a cheery ‘All right,’ and away they go. + +They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and +at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over the hard +and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart +crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them-- +coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster-barrels, and all--were but a feather +at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a +level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. +Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop, the +horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness, as if in +exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion; while the coachman, holding +whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and +resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his +forehead, partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because +it’s as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy +thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as +he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be +materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, +adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on +they speed, more merrily than before. + +A few small houses, scattered on either side of the road, betoken the +entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard’s key- +bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman +inside, who, carefully letting down the window-sash half-way, and +standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully +pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they’re going to +change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and +determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again the +bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager’s wife and children, +who peep out at the house door, and watch the coach till it turns the +corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on +another log of wood against father comes home; while father himself, a +full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and +turned round to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away. + +And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the +ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the +buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the +moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks +about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs +Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day +yesterday, both of which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick retails to +his fellow-passengers; whereupon they emerge from their coat collars +too, and look about them also. Mr. Winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, +with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the +street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger’s +shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr. Snodgrass, who +sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn +yard where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. The +coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other +outside passengers drop down also; except those who have no great +confidence in their ability to get up again; and they remain where they +are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them--looking, with +longing eyes and red noses, at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the +sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window. + +But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer’s shop, the brown paper +packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by +a leathern strap; and has seen the horses carefully put to; and has +thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the +coach roof; and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and +the hostler about the gray mare that hurt her off fore-leg last Tuesday; +and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all +right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window +down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the +cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the ‘two +stout gentlemen,’ whom the coachman inquires after with some impatience. +Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, +and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, +who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the +missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. A distant response is heard +from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it, +quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale a-piece, +and Mr. Pickwick’s fingers are so cold that he has been full five +minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. The coachman +shouts an admonitory ‘Now then, gen’l’m’n,’ the guard re-echoes it; the +old gentleman inside thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people +_will _get down when they know there isn’t time for it; Mr. Pickwick +struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other; Mr. Winkle cries ‘All +right’; and off they start. Shawls are pulled up, coat collars are +readjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear; and they are once +again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in +their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them. + +Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton +Telegraph, on their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o’clock that +afternoon they all stood high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, +upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road quite enough +of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was +binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful +network upon the trees and hedges. Mr. Pickwick was busily engaged in +counting the barrels of oysters and superintending the disinterment of +the cod-fish, when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of the +coat. Looking round, he discovered that the individual who resorted to +this mode of catching his attention was no other than Mr. Wardle’s +favourite page, better known to the readers of this unvarnished history, +by the distinguishing appellation of the fat boy. + +‘Aha!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Aha!’ said the fat boy. + +As he said it, he glanced from the cod-fish to the oyster-barrels, and +chuckled joyously. He was fatter than ever. + +‘Well, you look rosy enough, my young friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I’ve been asleep, right in front of the taproom fire,’ replied the fat +boy, who had heated himself to the colour of a new chimney-pot, in the +course of an hour’s nap. ‘Master sent me over with the chay-cart, to +carry your luggage up to the house. He’d ha’ sent some saddle-horses, +but he thought you’d rather walk, being a cold day.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily, for he remembered how they had +travelled over nearly the same ground on a previous occasion. ‘Yes, we +would rather walk. Here, Sam!’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Help Mr. Wardle’s servant to put the packages into the cart, and then +ride on with him. We will walk forward at once.’ + +Having given this direction, and settled with the coachman, Mr. Pickwick +and his three friends struck into the footpath across the fields, and +walked briskly away, leaving Mr. Weller and the fat boy confronted +together for the first time. Sam looked at the fat boy with great +astonishment, but without saying a word; and began to stow the luggage +rapidly away in the cart, while the fat boy stood quietly by, and seemed +to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see Mr. Weller working +by himself. + +‘There,’ said Sam, throwing in the last carpet-bag, ‘there they are!’ + +‘Yes,’ said the fat boy, in a very satisfied tone, ‘there they are.’ + +‘Vell, young twenty stun,’ said Sam, ‘you’re a nice specimen of a prize +boy, you are!’ + +Thank’ee,’ said the fat boy. + +‘You ain’t got nothin’ on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have +you?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Not as I knows on,’ replied the fat boy. + +‘I should rayther ha’ thought, to look at you, that you was a-labourin’ +under an unrequited attachment to some young ‘ooman,’ said Sam. + +The fat boy shook his head. + +‘Vell,’ said Sam, ‘I am glad to hear it. Do you ever drink anythin’?’ + +‘I likes eating better,’ replied the boy. + +‘Ah,’ said Sam, ‘I should ha’ s’posed that; but what I mean is, should +you like a drop of anythin’ as’d warm you? but I s’pose you never was +cold, with all them elastic fixtures, was you?’ + +‘Sometimes,’ replied the boy; ‘and I likes a drop of something, when +it’s good.’ + +‘Oh, you do, do you?’ said Sam, ‘come this way, then!’ + +The Blue Lion tap was soon gained, and the fat boy swallowed a glass of +liquor without so much as winking--a feat which considerably advanced +him in Mr. Weller’s good opinion. Mr. Weller having transacted a similar +piece of business on his own account, they got into the cart. + +‘Can you drive?’ said the fat boy. + +‘I should rayther think so,’ replied Sam. + +‘There, then,’ said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hand, and +pointing up a lane, ‘it’s as straight as you can go; you can’t miss it.’ + +With these words, the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the +side of the cod-fish, and, placing an oyster-barrel under his head for a +pillow, fell asleep instantaneously. + +‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘of all the cool boys ever I set my eyes on, this here +young gen’l’m’n is the coolest. Come, wake up, young dropsy!’ + +But as young dropsy evinced no symptoms of returning animation, Sam +Weller sat himself down in front of the cart, and starting the old horse +with a jerk of the rein, jogged steadily on, towards the Manor Farm. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Pickwick and his friends having walked their blood into +active circulation, proceeded cheerfully on. The paths were hard; the +grass was crisp and frosty; the air had a fine, dry, bracing coldness; +and the rapid approach of the gray twilight (slate-coloured is a better +term in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant +anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable +entertainer’s. It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple +of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their greatcoats +and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we +firmly believe that had Mr. Tupman at that moment proffered ‘a back,’ +Mr. Pickwick would have accepted his offer with the utmost avidity. + +However, Mr. Tupman did not volunteer any such accommodation, and the +friends walked on, conversing merrily. As they turned into a lane they +had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before +they had even had time to form a guess to whom they belonged, they +walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their +arrival--a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians, by the +loud ‘Hurrah,’ which burst from old Wardle’s lips, when they appeared in +sight. + +First, there was Wardle himself, looking, if that were possible, more +jolly than ever; then there were Bella and her faithful Trundle; and, +lastly, there were Emily and some eight or ten young ladies, who had all +come down to the wedding, which was to take place next day, and who were +in as happy and important a state as young ladies usually are, on such +momentous occasions; and they were, one and all, startling the fields +and lanes, far and wide, with their frolic and laughter. + +The ceremony of introduction, under such circumstances, was very soon +performed, or we should rather say that the introduction was soon over, +without any ceremony at all. In two minutes thereafter, Mr. Pickwick was +joking with the young ladies who wouldn’t come over the stile while he +looked--or who, having pretty feet and unexceptionable ankles, preferred +standing on the top rail for five minutes or so, declaring that they +were too frightened to move--with as much ease and absence of reserve or +constraint, as if he had known them for life. It is worthy of remark, +too, that Mr. Snodgrass offered Emily far more assistance than the +absolute terrors of the stile (although it was full three feet high, and +had only a couple of stepping-stones) would seem to require; while one +black-eyed young lady in a very nice little pair of boots with fur round +the top, was observed to scream very loudly, when Mr. Winkle offered to +help her over. + +All this was very snug and pleasant. And when the difficulties of the +stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open +field, old Wardle informed Mr. Pickwick how they had all been down in a +body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the +young couple were to tenant, after the Christmas holidays; at which +communication Bella and Trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy +after the taproom fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the +fur round the boots, whispered something in Emily’s ear, and then +glanced archly at Mr. Snodgrass; to which Emily responded that she was a +foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and Mr. Snodgrass, +who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson +rising to the crown of his head, and devoutly wished, in the inmost +recesses of his own heart, that the young lady aforesaid, with her black +eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were +all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county. + +But if they were social and happy outside the house, what was the warmth +and cordiality of their reception when they reached the farm! The very +servants grinned with pleasure at sight of Mr. Pickwick; and Emma +bestowed a half-demure, half-impudent, and all-pretty look of +recognition, on Mr. Tupman, which was enough to make the statue of +Bonaparte in the passage, unfold his arms, and clasp her within them. + +The old lady was seated with customary state in the front parlour, but +she was rather cross, and, by consequence, most particularly deaf. She +never went out herself, and like a great many other old ladies of the +same stamp, she was apt to consider it an act of domestic treason, if +anybody else took the liberty of doing what she couldn’t. So, bless her +old soul, she sat as upright as she could, in her great chair, and +looked as fierce as might be--and that was benevolent after all. + +‘Mother,’ said Wardle, ‘Mr. Pickwick. You recollect him?’ + +‘Never mind,’ replied the old lady, with great dignity. ‘Don’t trouble +Mr. Pickwick about an old creetur like me. Nobody cares about me now, +and it’s very nat’ral they shouldn’t.’ Here the old lady tossed her +head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress with trembling +hands. + +‘Come, come, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I can’t let you cut an old +friend in this way. I have come down expressly to have a long talk, and +another rubber with you; and we’ll show these boys and girls how to +dance a minuet, before they’re eight-and-forty hours older.’ + +The old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all +at once; so she only said, ‘Ah! I can’t hear him!’ + +‘Nonsense, mother,’ said Wardle. ‘Come, come, don’t be cross, there’s a +good soul. Recollect Bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor +girl.’ + +The good old lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. +But age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite +brought round yet. So, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress +again, and turning to Mr. Pickwick said, ‘Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people +was very different, when I was a girl.’ + +‘No doubt of that, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘and that’s the reason why +I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock’--and +saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled Bella towards him, and bestowing +a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her +grandmother’s feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was +raised towards the old lady’s face, called up a thought of old times, or +whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick’s affectionate good- +nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so she threw +herself on her granddaughter’s neck, and all the little ill-humour +evaporated in a gush of silent tears. + +A happy party they were, that night. Sedate and solemn were the score of +rubbers in which Mr. Pickwick and the old lady played together; +uproarious was the mirth of the round table. Long after the ladies had +retired, did the hot elder wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, +go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep and +pleasant were the dreams that followed. It is a remarkable fact that +those of Mr. Snodgrass bore constant reference to Emily Wardle; and that +the principal figure in Mr. Winkle’s visions was a young lady with black +eyes, and arch smile, and a pair of remarkably nice boots with fur round +the tops. + +Mr. Pickwick was awakened early in the morning, by a hum of voices and a +pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy from his heavy +slumbers. He sat up in bed and listened. The female servants and female +visitors were running constantly to and fro; and there were such +multitudinous demands for hot water, such repeated outcries for needles +and thread, and so many half-suppressed entreaties of ‘Oh, do come and +tie me, there’s a dear!’ that Mr. Pickwick in his innocence began to +imagine that something dreadful must have occurred--when he grew more +awake, and remembered the wedding. The occasion being an important one, +he dressed himself with peculiar care, and descended to the breakfast- +room. + +There were all the female servants in a bran new uniform of pink muslin +gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a state +of excitement and agitation which it would be impossible to describe. +The old lady was dressed out in a brocaded gown, which had not seen the +light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had +stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, +during the whole time. Mr. Trundle was in high feather and spirits, but +a little nervous withal. The hearty old landlord was trying to look very +cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. All the +girls were in tears and white muslin, except a select two or three, who +were being honoured with a private view of the bride and bridesmaids, +upstairs. All the Pickwickians were in most blooming array; and there +was a terrific roaring on the grass in front of the house, occasioned by +all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm, each of whom +had got a white bow in his button-hole, and all of whom were cheering +with might and main; being incited thereto, and stimulated therein by +the precept and example of Mr. Samuel Weller, who had managed to become +mighty popular already, and was as much at home as if he had been born +on the land. + +A wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no +great joke in the matter after all;--we speak merely of the ceremony, +and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden +sarcasm upon a married life. Mixed up with the pleasure and joy of the +occasion, are the many regrets at quitting home, the tears of parting +between parent and child, the consciousness of leaving the dearest and +kindest friends of the happiest portion of human life, to encounter its +cares and troubles with others still untried and little known--natural +feelings which we would not render this chapter mournful by describing, +and which we should be still more unwilling to be supposed to ridicule. + +Let us briefly say, then, that the ceremony was performed by the old +clergyman, in the parish church of Dingley Dell, and that Mr. Pickwick’s +name is attached to the register, still preserved in the vestry thereof; +that the young lady with the black eyes signed her name in a very +unsteady and tremulous manner; that Emily’s signature, as the other +bridesmaid, is nearly illegible; that it all went off in very admirable +style; that the young ladies generally thought it far less shocking than +they had expected; and that although the owner of the black eyes and the +arch smile informed Mr. Wardle that she was sure she could never submit +to anything so dreadful, we have the very best reasons for thinking she +was mistaken. To all this, we may add, that Mr. Pickwick was the first +who saluted the bride, and that in so doing he threw over her neck a +rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller’s had +ever beheld before. Then, the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, +and they all returned to breakfast. + +‘Vere does the mince-pies go, young opium-eater?’ said Mr. Weller to the +fat boy, as he assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as +had not been duly arranged on the previous night. + +The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies. + +‘Wery good,’ said Sam, ‘stick a bit o’ Christmas in ‘em. T’other dish +opposite. There; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said +ven he cut his little boy’s head off, to cure him o’ squintin’.’ + +As Mr. Weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give +full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost +satisfaction. + +‘Wardle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, ‘a +glass of wine in honour of this happy occasion!’ + +‘I shall be delighted, my boy,’ said Wardle. ‘Joe--damn that boy, he’s +gone to sleep.’ + +No, I ain’t, sir,’ replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote +corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal Horner-- +he had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and +deliberation which characterised that young gentleman’s proceedings. + +‘Fill Mr. Pickwick’s glass.’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick’s glass, and then retired behind his +master’s chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, +and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of +the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most +impressive. + +‘God bless you, old fellow!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Same to you, my boy,’ replied Wardle; and they pledged each other, +heartily. + +‘Mrs. Wardle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘we old folks must have a glass of +wine together, in honour of this joyful event.’ + +The old lady was in a state of great grandeur just then, for she was +sitting at the top of the table in the brocaded gown, with her newly- +married granddaughter on one side, and Mr. Pickwick on the other, to do +the carving. Mr. Pickwick had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she +understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long +life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into +a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation +on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars +concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful Lady Tollimglower, +deceased; at all of which the old lady herself laughed very heartily +indeed, and so did the young ladies too, for they were wondering among +themselves what on earth grandma was talking about. When they laughed, +the old lady laughed ten times more heartily, and said that these always +had been considered capital stories, which caused them all to laugh +again, and put the old lady into the very best of humours. Then the cake +was cut, and passed through the ring; the young ladies saved pieces to +put under their pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a +great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned. + +‘Mr. Miller,’ said Mr. Pickwick to his old acquaintance, the hard-headed +gentleman, ‘a glass of wine?’ + +‘With great satisfaction, Mr. Pickwick,’ replied the hard-headed +gentleman solemnly. + +‘You’ll take me in?’ said the benevolent old clergyman. + +‘And me,’ interposed his wife. + +‘And me, and me,’ said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the +table, who had eaten and drunk very heartily, and laughed at everything. + +Mr. Pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional +suggestion; and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness. + +‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising. + +‘Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!’ cried Mr. Weller, in the +excitement of his feelings. + +‘Call in all the servants,’ cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the +public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have +received from his master. ‘Give them a glass of wine each to drink the +toast in. Now, Pickwick.’ + +Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women-servants, +and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded-- + +‘Ladies and gentlemen--no, I won’t say ladies and gentlemen, I’ll call +you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so +great a liberty--’ + +Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, +echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was +distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick. +Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn’t be done by +deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied ‘Go away,’ +and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look +could do, ‘if you can.’ + +‘My dear friends,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘I am going to propose the +health of the bride and bridegroom--God bless ‘em (cheers and tears). My +young friend, Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly +fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well +qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which +for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father’s house. +(Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led +forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish,’ added Mr. Pickwick-- +‘I wish I was young enough to be her sister’s husband (cheers), but, +failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being +so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I +admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride’s +father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know +him (great uproar). He is a kind, excellent, independent-spirited, fine- +hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor +relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). That +his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that +he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the +gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, +I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and +wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!’ + +Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more +were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller’s command, +brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. +Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. +Wardle; Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations +proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle; +all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of +both the poor relations beneath the table, warned the party that it was +time to adjourn. + +At dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken +by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of +the wine at breakfast. The poor relations had kept in bed all day, with +the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been +unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a +state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small +alternate allotments of eating and sleeping. + +The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as +noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. +Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball. + +The best sitting-room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room +with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could +have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end +of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens were the +two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of +recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver +candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles +burned bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry +voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the +old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just +the place in which they would have held their revels. + +If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it +would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick’s appearing without +his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends. + +‘You mean to dance?’ said Wardle. + +‘Of course I do,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Don’t you see I am dressed for +the purpose?’ Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk +stockings, and smartly tied pumps. + +‘_You _in silk stockings!’ exclaimed Mr. Tupman jocosely. + +‘And why not, sir--why not?’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him. + +‘Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn’t wear them,’ +responded Mr. Tupman. + +‘I imagine not, sir--I imagine not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, in a very +peremptory tone. + +Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious +matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. + +‘I hope they are,’ said Mr. Pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend. +‘You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, I +trust, Sir?’ + +‘Certainly not. Oh, certainly not,’ replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; +and Mr. Pickwick’s countenance resumed its customary benign expression. + +‘We are all ready, I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with +the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false +starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence. + +‘Then begin at once,’ said Wardle. ‘Now!’ + +Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick +into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands, and a cry +of ‘Stop, stop!’ + +‘What’s the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to, by the +fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other +earthly power, if the house had been on fire. + +‘Where’s Arabella Allen?’ cried a dozen voices. + +‘And Winkle?’ added Mr. Tupman. + +‘Here we are!’ exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty +companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell +which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black +eyes. + +‘What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rather +pettishly, ‘that you couldn’t have taken your place before.’ + +‘Not at all extraordinary,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes +rested on Arabella, ‘well, I don’t know that it _was _extraordinary, +either, after all.’ + +However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the +fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick--hands +across--down the middle to the very end of the room, and half-way up the +chimney, back again to the door--poussette everywhere--loud stamp on the +ground--ready for the next couple--off again--all the figure over once +more--another stamp to beat out the time--next couple, and the next, and +the next again--never was such going; at last, after they had reached +the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had +retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman’s wife had been +substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand +whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to +keep time to the music, smiling on his partner all the while with a +blandness of demeanour which baffles all description. + + +Long before Mr. Pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple +had retired from the scene. There was a glorious supper downstairs, +notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when Mr. Pickwick +awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having, +severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty +people to dine with him at the George and Vulture, the very first time +they came to London; which Mr. Pickwick rightly considered a pretty +certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on +the previous night. + +‘And so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has +they?’ inquired Sam of Emma. + +‘Yes, Mr. Weller,’ replied Emma; ‘we always have on Christmas Eve. +Master wouldn’t neglect to keep it up on any account.’ + +‘Your master’s a wery pretty notion of keeping anythin’ up, my dear,’ +said Mr. Weller; ‘I never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or +such a reg’lar gen’l’m’n.’ + +Oh, that he is!’ said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; ‘don’t +he breed nice pork!’ The fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr. +Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy. + +‘Oh, you’ve woke up, at last, have you?’ said Sam. + +The fat boy nodded. + +‘I’ll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer,’ said Mr. Weller +impressively; ‘if you don’t sleep a little less, and exercise a little +more, wen you comes to be a man you’ll lay yourself open to the same +sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen’l’m’n as +wore the pigtail.’ + +‘What did they do to him?’ inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice. + +‘I’m a-going to tell you,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘he was one o’ the +largest patterns as was ever turned out--reg’lar fat man, as hadn’t +caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year.’ + +‘Lor!’ exclaimed Emma. + +‘No, that he hadn’t, my dear,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘and if you’d put an +exact model of his own legs on the dinin’-table afore him, he wouldn’t +ha’ known ‘em. Well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome +gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a quarter, and a gold +watch in his fob pocket as was worth--I’m afraid to say how much, but as +much as a watch can be--a large, heavy, round manufacter, as stout for a +watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. “You’d +better not carry that ‘ere watch,” says the old gen’l’m’n’s friends, +“you’ll be robbed on it,” says they. “Shall I?” says he. “Yes, you +will,” says they. “Well,” says he, “I should like to see the thief as +could get this here watch out, for I’m blessed if I ever can, it’s such +a tight fit,” says he, “and wenever I vants to know what’s o’clock, I’m +obliged to stare into the bakers’ shops,” he says. Well, then he laughs +as hearty as if he was a-goin’ to pieces, and out he walks agin with his +powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the Strand with the chain +hangin’ out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin’ +through his gray kersey smalls. There warn’t a pickpocket in all London +as didn’t take a pull at that chain, but the chain ‘ud never break, and +the watch ‘ud never come out, so they soon got tired of dragging such a +heavy old gen’l’m’n along the pavement, and he’d go home and laugh till +the pigtail wibrated like the penderlum of a Dutch clock. At last, one +day the old gen’l’m’n was a-rollin’ along, and he sees a pickpocket as +he know’d by sight, a-coming up, arm in arm with a little boy with a +wery large head. “Here’s a game,” says the old gen’l’m’n to himself, +“they’re a-goin’ to have another try, but it won’t do!” So he begins a- +chucklin’ wery hearty, wen, all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold +of the pickpocket’s arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the old +gen’l’m’n’s stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up with the +pain. “Murder!” says the old gen’l’m’n. “All right, Sir,” says the +pickpocket, a-wisperin’ in his ear. And wen he come straight agin, the +watch and chain was gone, and what’s worse than that, the old +gen’l’m’n’s digestion was all wrong ever afterwards, to the wery last +day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care +you don’t get too fat.’ + +As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared +much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which +the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on +Christmas Eve, observed by old Wardle’s forefathers from time +immemorial. + +From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just +suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same +branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and +most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. +Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant +of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her +beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum. +The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all +the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the +younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious +veneration for the custom, or imagining that the value of a salute is +very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it, screamed +and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, +and did everything but leave the room, until some of the less +adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at +once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed +with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, +and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily; and Mr. Weller, not being particular +about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed Emma and the other +female servants, just as he caught them. As to the poor relations, they +kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer portions of the young +lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion, ran right under the +mistletoe, as soon as it was hung up, without knowing it! Wardle stood +with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene, with the utmost +satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of appropriating to +his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly fine mince-pie, +that had been carefully put by, for somebody else. + +Now, the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow, and curls in +a tangle, and Mr. Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before +mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased +countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young lady with +the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other young ladies, +made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round Mr. Pickwick’s +neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before Mr. +Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the +whole body, and kissed by every one of them. + +It was a pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick in the centre of the group, +now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin, and +then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of +laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more +pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a +silk handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into +corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man’s buff, with +the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor +relations, and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did +with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause +of all beholders. The poor relations caught the people who they thought +would like it, and, when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When +they all tired of blind-man’s buff, there was a great game at snap- +dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the +raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a +substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than +an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and +bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly +irresistible. + +‘This,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, ‘this is, indeed, +comfort.’ ‘Our invariable custom,’ replied Mr. Wardle. ‘Everybody sits +down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now--servants and all; +and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, +and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, +rake up the fire.’ + +Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep +red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the farthest +corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face. + +‘Come,’ said Wardle, ‘a song--a Christmas song! I’ll give you one, in +default of a better.’ + +‘Bravo!’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Fill up,’ cried Wardle. ‘It will be two hours, good, before you see the +bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up +all round, and now for the song.’ + +Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, +commenced without more ado-- + + +A CHRISTMAS CAROL + +‘I care not for Spring; on his fickle wing Let the blossoms and buds be +borne; He woos them amain with his treacherous rain, And he scatters +them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own +changing mind an hour, He’ll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, +He’ll wither your youngest flower. + +‘Let the Summer sun to his bright home run, He shall never be sought by +me; When he’s dimmed by a cloud I can laugh aloud And care not how sulky +he be! For his darling child is the madness wild That sports in fierce +fever’s train; And when love is too strong, it don’t last long, As many +have found to their pain. + +‘A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light Of the modest and gentle +moon, Has a far sweeter sheen for me, I ween, Than the broad and +unblushing noon. But every leaf awakens my grief, As it lieth beneath +the tree; So let Autumn air be never so fair, It by no means agrees with +me. + +‘But my song I troll out, for _Christmas _Stout, The hearty, the true, +and the bold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three +cheers for this Christmas old! We’ll usher him in with a merry din That +shall gladden his joyous heart, And we’ll keep him up, while there’s +bite or sup, And in fellowship good, we’ll part. ‘In his fine honest +pride, he scorns to hide One jot of his hard-weather scars; They’re no +disgrace, for there’s much the same trace On the cheeks of our bravest +tars. Then again I sing till the roof doth ring And it echoes from wall +to wall--To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, As the King of +the Seasons all!’ + +This song was tumultuously applauded--for friends and dependents make a +capital audience--and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect +ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the +wassail round. + +‘How it snows!’ said one of the men, in a low tone. + +‘Snows, does it?’ said Wardle. + +‘Rough, cold night, Sir,’ replied the man; ‘and there’s a wind got up, +that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud.’ + +‘What does Jem say?’ inquired the old lady. ‘There ain’t anything the +matter, is there?’ + +‘No, no, mother,’ replied Wardle; ‘he says there’s a snowdrift, and a +wind that’s piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in +the chimney.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the old lady, ‘there was just such a wind, and just such a +fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect--just five years +before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I +remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins +that carried away old Gabriel Grub.’ + +‘The story about what?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ replied Wardle. ‘About an old sexton, that the +good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.’ + +‘Suppose!’ ejaculated the old lady. ‘Is there anybody hardy enough to +disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven’t you heard ever since you were a child, +that he _was _carried away by the goblins, and don’t you know he was?’ + +‘Very well, mother, he was, if you like,’ said Wardle laughing. ‘He +_was_ carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there’s an end of the +matter.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘not an end of it, I assure you; for I must +hear how, and why, and all about it.’ + +Wardle smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear, and filling out +the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and +began as follows-- + +But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed +into! We had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we +solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new +one. A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, +if you please. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON + +‘In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long +while ago--so long, that the story must be a true one, because our +great-grandfathers implicitly believed it--there officiated as sexton +and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means +follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the +emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy +man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and I once +had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private +life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever +chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or +drained off a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But +notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an +ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow--a morose and lonely man, +who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which +fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket--and who eyed each merry +face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill- +humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse +for. + +‘A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his +spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old +churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and, +feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he +went on with his work at once. As he went his way, up the ancient +street, he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires gleam through the +old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those +who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for +next day’s cheer, and smelled the numerous savoury odours consequent +thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All +this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub; and when groups +of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were +met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen +curly-headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked +upstairs to spend the evening in their Christmas games, Gabriel smiled +grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he +thought of measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping-cough, and a good +many other sources of consolation besides. + +‘In this happy frame of mind, Gabriel strode along, returning a short, +sullen growl to the good-humoured greetings of such of his neighbours as +now and then passed him, until he turned into the dark lane which led to +the churchyard. Now, Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the +dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful +place, into which the townspeople did not much care to go, except in +broad daylight, and when the sun was shining; consequently, he was not a +little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song +about a merry Christmas, in this very sanctuary which had been called +Coffin Lane ever since the days of the old abbey, and the time of the +shaven-headed monks. As Gabriel walked on, and the voice drew nearer, he +found it proceeded from a small boy, who was hurrying along, to join one +of the little parties in the old street, and who, partly to keep himself +company, and partly to prepare himself for the occasion, was shouting +out the song at the highest pitch of his lungs. So Gabriel waited until +the boy came up, and then dodged him into a corner, and rapped him over +the head with his lantern five or six times, just to teach him to +modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away with his hand to his +head, singing quite a different sort of tune, Gabriel Grub chuckled very +heartily to himself, and entered the churchyard, locking the gate behind +him. + + +‘He took off his coat, set down his lantern, and getting into the +unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so with right good-will. +But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no very easy +matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, +it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was +in the shadow of the church. At any other time, these obstacles would +have made Gabriel Grub very moody and miserable, but he was so well +pleased with having stopped the small boy’s singing, that he took little +heed of the scanty progress he had made, and looked down into the grave, +when he had finished work for the night, with grim satisfaction, +murmuring as he gathered up his things-- + + +Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, A few feet of cold +earth, when life is done; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet, A +rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; Rank grass overhead, and damp +clay around, Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground! + +‘“Ho! ho!” laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat +tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his, and drew forth his +wicker bottle. “A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!” + +‘“Ho! ho! ho!” repeated a voice which sounded close behind him. + +‘Gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle +to his lips, and looked round. The bottom of the oldest grave about him +was not more still and quiet than the churchyard in the pale moonlight. +The cold hoar frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows +of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard +and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of +earth, so white and smooth a cover that it seemed as if corpses lay +there, hidden only by their winding sheets. Not the faintest rustle +broke the profound tranquillity of the solemn scene. Sound itself +appeared to be frozen up, all was so cold and still. + +‘“It was the echoes,” said Gabriel Grub, raising the bottle to his lips +again. + +‘“It was _not_,” said a deep voice. + +‘Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and +terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold. + +‘Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange, unearthly +figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world. His long, +fantastic legs which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and +crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; +and his hands rested on his knees. On his short, round body, he wore a +close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at +his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin +in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into +long points. On his head, he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, +garnished with a single feather. The hat was covered with the white +frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very +comfortably, for two or three hundred years. He was sitting perfectly +still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at +Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up. + +‘“It was _not _the echoes,” said the goblin. + +‘Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply. + +‘“What do you do here on Christmas Eve?” said the goblin sternly. + +‘“I came to dig a grave, Sir,” stammered Gabriel Grub. + +‘“What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as +this?” cried the goblin. + +‘“Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” screamed a wild chorus of voices that +seemed to fill the churchyard. Gabriel looked fearfully round--nothing +was to be seen. + +‘“What have you got in that bottle?” said the goblin. + +‘“Hollands, sir,” replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he +had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his +questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins. + +‘“Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard, on such a night as +this?” said the goblin. + +‘“Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” exclaimed the wild voices again. + +‘The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising +his voice, exclaimed-- + +‘“And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?” + +‘To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that sounded +like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the +old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the sexton’s ears upon a +wild wind, and to die away as it passed onward; but the burden of the +reply was still the same, “Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” + +‘The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, “Well, +Gabriel, what do you say to this?” + +‘The sexton gasped for breath. + +‘“What do you think of this, Gabriel?” said the goblin, kicking up his +feet in the air on either side of the tombstone, and looking at the +turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been +contemplating the most fashionable pair of Wellingtons in all Bond +Street. + +‘“It’s--it’s--very curious, Sir,” replied the sexton, half dead with +fright; “very curious, and very pretty, but I think I’ll go back and +finish my work, Sir, if you please.” + +‘“Work!” said the goblin, “what work?” + +‘“The grave, Sir; making the grave,” stammered the sexton. + +‘“Oh, the grave, eh?” said the goblin; “who makes graves at a time when +all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?” + +‘Again the mysterious voices replied, “Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” + +‘“I am afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,” said the goblin, thrusting +his tongue farther into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing +tongue it was--“I’m afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,” said the +goblin. + +‘“Under favour, Sir,” replied the horror-stricken sexton, “I don’t think +they can, Sir; they don’t know me, Sir; I don’t think the gentlemen have +ever seen me, Sir.” + +‘“Oh, yes, they have,” replied the goblin; “we know the man with the +sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing +his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the +tighter. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his +heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. We know him, we +know him.” + +‘Here, the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh, which the echoes returned +twentyfold; and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or +rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of +the tombstone, whence he threw a Somerset with extraordinary agility, +right to the sexton’s feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude +in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board. + +‘“I--I--am afraid I must leave you, Sir,” said the sexton, making an +effort to move. + +‘“Leave us!” said the goblin, “Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho! +ho!” + +‘As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a +brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole +building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a +lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the +first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog +with the tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take breath, but +“overing” the highest among them, one after the other, with the most +marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, +and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his +terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were +content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took +the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they +had been so many street-posts. + +‘At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played +quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling +themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding +over the tombstones like footballs. The sexton’s brain whirled round +with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath +him, as the spirits flew before his eyes; when the goblin king, suddenly +darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him +through the earth. + +‘When Gabriel Grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity +of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what +appeared to be a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of +goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, +was stationed his friend of the churchyard; and close behind him stood +Gabriel Grub himself, without power of motion. + +‘“Cold to-night,” said the king of the goblins, “very cold. A glass of +something warm here!” + +‘At this command, half a dozen officious goblins, with a perpetual smile +upon their faces, whom Gabriel Grub imagined to be courtiers, on that +account, hastily disappeared, and presently returned with a goblet of +liquid fire, which they presented to the king. + +‘“Ah!” cried the goblin, whose cheeks and throat were transparent, as he +tossed down the flame, “this warms one, indeed! Bring a bumper of the +same, for Mr. Grub.” + +‘It was in vain for the unfortunate sexton to protest that he was not in +the habit of taking anything warm at night; one of the goblins held him +while another poured the blazing liquid down his throat; the whole +assembly screeched with laughter, as he coughed and choked, and wiped +away the tears which gushed plentifully from his eyes, after swallowing +the burning draught. + +‘“And now,” said the king, fantastically poking the taper corner of his +sugar-loaf hat into the sexton’s eye, and thereby occasioning him the +most exquisite pain; “and now, show the man of misery and gloom, a few +of the pictures from our own great storehouse!” + +‘As the goblin said this, a thick cloud which obscured the remoter end +of the cavern rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a +great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean +apartment. A crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, +clinging to their mother’s gown, and gambolling around her chair. The +mother occasionally rose, and drew aside the window-curtain, as if to +look for some expected object; a frugal meal was ready spread upon the +table; and an elbow chair was placed near the fire. A knock was heard at +the door; the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, and +clapped their hands for joy, as their father entered. He was wet and +weary, and shook the snow from his garments, as the children crowded +round him, and seizing his cloak, hat, stick, and gloves, with busy +zeal, ran with them from the room. Then, as he sat down to his meal +before the fire, the children climbed about his knee, and the mother sat +by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort. + +‘But a change came upon the view, almost imperceptibly. The scene was +altered to a small bedroom, where the fairest and youngest child lay +dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; +and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never +felt or known before, he died. His young brothers and sisters crowded +round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy; but +they shrank back from its touch, and looked with awe on his infant face; +for calm and tranquil as it was, and sleeping in rest and peace as the +beautiful child seemed to be, they saw that he was dead, and they knew +that he was an angel looking down upon, and blessing them, from a bright +and happy Heaven. + +‘Again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject +changed. The father and mother were old and helpless now, and the number +of those about them was diminished more than half; but content and +cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded +round the fireside, and told and listened to old stories of earlier and +bygone days. Slowly and peacefully, the father sank into the grave, and, +soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a +place of rest. The few who yet survived them, kneeled by their tomb, and +watered the green turf which covered it with their tears; then rose, and +turned away, sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or +despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet +again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content +and cheerfulness were restored. The cloud settled upon the picture, and +concealed it from the sexton’s view. + +‘“What do you think of _that_?” said the goblin, turning his large face +towards Gabriel Grub. + +‘Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked +somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him. + +‘“You a miserable man!” said the goblin, in a tone of excessive +contempt. “You!” He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation +choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and, +flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered +a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the +goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him +without mercy, according to the established and invariable custom of +courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty +hugs. + +‘“Show him some more!” said the king of the goblins. + +‘At these words, the cloud was dispelled, and a rich and beautiful +landscape was disclosed to view--there is just such another, to this +day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. The sun shone from out +the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees +looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath its cheering +influence. The water rippled on with a pleasant sound, the trees rustled +in the light wind that murmured among their leaves, the birds sang upon +the boughs, and the lark carolled on high her welcome to the morning. +Yes, it was morning; the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest +leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept +forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm +rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and +revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man walked forth, elated +with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour. + +’”_You _a miserable man!” said the king of the goblins, in a more +contemptuous tone than before. And again the king of the goblins gave +his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton; +and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief. + +‘Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to +Gabriel Grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the +frequent applications of the goblins’ feet thereunto, looked on with an +interest that nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard, +and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and +happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a +never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been +delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, +and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher +grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of +happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and +most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to +sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they +bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and +devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the +mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair +surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the +evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and +respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than +the cloud which had closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on +his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one, the goblins faded from +his sight; and, as the last one disappeared, he sank to sleep. + +‘The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying at +full length on the flat gravestone in the churchyard, with the wicker +bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all +well whitened by the last night’s frost, scattered on the ground. The +stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright +before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was +not far off. At first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, +but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured +him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was +staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow on +which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the gravestones, but he +speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that, being +spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. So, Gabriel +Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and, +brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards +the town. + +‘But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of +returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his +reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few moments; and then turned +away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere. + +‘The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle were found, that day, in +the churchyard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton’s +fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried +away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible +witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the +back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind-quarters of a +lion, and the tail of a bear. At length all this was devoutly believed; +and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious, for a trifling +emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been +accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aerial flight, and +picked up by himself in the churchyard, a year or two afterwards. + +‘Unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked- +for reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a +ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story to the +clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be +received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to +this very day. The believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced +their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it +again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders, +touched their foreheads, and murmured something about Gabriel Grub +having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat +tombstone; and they affected to explain what he supposed he had +witnessed in the goblin’s cavern, by saying that he had seen the world, +and grown wiser. But this opinion, which was by no means a popular one +at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as +Gabriel Grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this +story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one--and that is, +that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at Christmas time, he may +make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be +never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as +those which Gabriel Grub saw in the goblin’s cavern.’ + + + +CHAPTER XXX. HOW THE PICKWICKIANS MADE AND CULTIVATED THE ACQUAINTANCE +OF A COUPLE OF NICE YOUNG MEN BELONGING TO ONE OF THE LIBERAL +PROFESSIONS; HOW THEY DISPORTED THEMSELVES ON THE ICE; AND HOW THEIR +VISIT CAME TO A CONCLUSION + +Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as that favoured servitor entered his +bed-chamber, with his warm water, on the morning of Christmas Day, +‘still frosty?’ + +‘Water in the wash-hand basin’s a mask o’ ice, Sir,’ responded Sam. + +‘Severe weather, Sam,’ observed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar bear said to +himself, ven he was practising his skating,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I shall be down in a quarter of an hour, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +untying his nightcap. + +‘Wery good, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘There’s a couple o’ sawbones +downstairs.’ + +‘A couple of what!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sitting up in bed. + +‘A couple o’ sawbones,’ said Sam. + +‘What’s a sawbones?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, not quite certain whether it +was a live animal, or something to eat. + +‘What! Don’t you know what a sawbones is, sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller. ‘I +thought everybody know’d as a sawbones was a surgeon.’ + +‘Oh, a surgeon, eh?’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. + +‘Just that, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘These here ones as is below, though, +ain’t reg’lar thoroughbred sawbones; they’re only in trainin’.’ + +In other words they’re medical students, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Sam Weller nodded assent. + +‘I am glad of it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically +on the counterpane. ‘They are fine fellows--very fine fellows; with +judgments matured by observation and reflection; and tastes refined by +reading and study. I am very glad of it.’ + +‘They’re a-smokin’ cigars by the kitchen fire,’ said Sam. + +‘Ah!’ observed Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands, ‘overflowing with kindly +feelings and animal spirits. Just what I like to see.’ + +And one on ‘em,’ said Sam, not noticing his master’s interruption, ‘one +on ‘em’s got his legs on the table, and is a-drinking brandy neat, vile +the t’other one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel o’ oysters +atween his knees, which he’s a-openin’ like steam, and as fast as he +eats ‘em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who’s a +sittin’ down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner.’ + +‘Eccentricities of genius, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘You may retire.’ + +Sam did retire accordingly. Mr. Pickwick at the expiration of the +quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast. + +‘Here he is at last!’ said old Mr. Wardle. ‘Pickwick, this is Miss +Allen’s brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen. Ben we call him, and so may you, if +you like. This gentleman is his very particular friend, Mr.--’ + +‘Mr. Bob Sawyer,’ interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen; whereupon Mr. Bob +Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen laughed in concert. + +Mr. Pickwick bowed to Bob Sawyer, and Bob Sawyer bowed to Mr. Pickwick. +Bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most +assiduously to the eatables before them; and Mr. Pickwick had an +opportunity of glancing at them both. + +Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black +hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was +embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his +single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, +appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating +in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in +the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although +there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a +shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that +appendage. He presented, altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and +emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a coarse, blue coat, which, without +being either a greatcoat or a surtout, partook of the nature and +qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and +swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the +streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by +their Christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally +facetious description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large, +rough, double-breasted waistcoat; out of doors, he carried a thick stick +with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, +something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe. + +Such were the two worthies to whom Mr. Pickwick was introduced, as he +took his seat at the breakfast-table on Christmas morning. + +‘Splendid morning, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer slightly nodded his assent to the proposition, and asked +Mr. Benjamin Allen for the mustard. + +‘Have you come far this morning, gentlemen?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Blue Lion at Muggleton,’ briefly responded Mr. Allen. + +‘You should have joined us last night,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘So we should,’ replied Bob Sawyer, ‘but the brandy was too good to +leave in a hurry; wasn’t it, Ben?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen; ‘and the cigars were not bad, or +the pork-chops either; were they, Bob?’ + +‘Decidedly not,’ said Bob. The particular friends resumed their attack +upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of +last night’s supper had imparted a new relish to the meal. + +‘Peg away, Bob,’ said Mr. Allen, to his companion, encouragingly. + +‘So I do,’ replied Bob Sawyer. And so, to do him justice, he did. + +‘Nothing like dissecting, to give one an appetite,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, +looking round the table. + +Mr. Pickwick slightly shuddered. + +‘By the bye, Bob,’ said Mr. Allen, ‘have you finished that leg yet?’ + +‘Nearly,’ replied Sawyer, helping himself to half a fowl as he spoke. +‘It’s a very muscular one for a child’s.’ + +Is it?’ inquired Mr. Allen carelessly. + +‘Very,’ said Bob Sawyer, with his mouth full. + +‘I’ve put my name down for an arm at our place,’ said Mr. Allen. ‘We’re +clubbing for a subject, and the list is nearly full, only we can’t get +hold of any fellow that wants a head. I wish you’d take it.’ + +‘No,’ replied ‘Bob Sawyer; ‘can’t afford expensive luxuries.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Allen. + +‘Can’t, indeed,’ rejoined Bob Sawyer, ‘I wouldn’t mind a brain, but I +couldn’t stand a whole head.’ + +Hush, hush, gentlemen, pray,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I hear the ladies.’ + +As Mr. Pickwick spoke, the ladies, gallantly escorted by Messrs. +Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, returned from an early walk. + +‘Why, Ben!’ said Arabella, in a tone which expressed more surprise than +pleasure at the sight of her brother. + +‘Come to take you home to-morrow,’ replied Benjamin. + +Mr. Winkle turned pale. + +‘Don’t you see Bob Sawyer, Arabella?’ inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, +somewhat reproachfully. Arabella gracefully held out her hand, in +acknowledgment of Bob Sawyer’s presence. A thrill of hatred struck to +Mr. Winkle’s heart, as Bob Sawyer inflicted on the proffered hand a +perceptible squeeze. + +‘Ben, dear!’ said Arabella, blushing; ‘have--have--you been introduced +to Mr. Winkle?’ + +‘I have not been, but I shall be very happy to be, Arabella,’ replied +her brother gravely. Here Mr. Allen bowed grimly to Mr. Winkle, while +Mr. Winkle and Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners +of their eyes. + +The arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon Mr. +Winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all +probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity +of the party, had not the cheerfulness of Mr. Pickwick, and the good +humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost for the common weal. +Mr. Winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of Mr. +Benjamin Allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with Mr. Bob +Sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the +talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and +related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a +tumour on some gentleman’s head, which he illustrated by means of an +oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the +assembled company. Then the whole train went to church, where Mr. +Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his +thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his +name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of four inches long. + +‘Now,’ said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items +of strong beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to, ‘what +say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time.’ + +‘Capital!’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Prime!’ ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘You skate, of course, Winkle?’ said Wardle. + +‘Ye-yes; oh, yes,’ replied Mr. Winkle. ‘I--I--am _rather _out of +practice.’ + +‘Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle,’ said Arabella. ‘I like to see it so much.’ + +‘Oh, it is _so_ graceful,’ said another young lady. + +A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her +opinion that it was ‘swan-like.’ + +‘I should be very happy, I’m sure,’ said Mr. Winkle, reddening; ‘but I +have no skates.’ + +This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pair, and +the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more downstairs; +whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely +uncomfortable. + +Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy +and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had +fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a +dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described +circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon +the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant +and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, +Mr. Tupman, and the ladies; which reached a pitch of positive +enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the +aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they +called a reel. + +All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, +had been forcing a gimlet into the sole of his feet, and putting his +skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very +complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, +who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, +with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly +screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet. + +‘Now, then, Sir,’ said Sam, in an encouraging tone; ‘off vith you, and +show ‘em how to do it.’ + +‘Stop, Sam, stop!’ said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching +hold of Sam’s arms with the grasp of a drowning man. ‘How slippery it +is, Sam!’ + +‘Not an uncommon thing upon ice, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Hold up, +Sir!’ + +This last observation of Mr. Weller’s bore reference to a demonstration +Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in +the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice. + +‘These--these--are very awkward skates; ain’t they, Sam?’ inquired Mr. +Winkle, staggering. + +‘I’m afeerd there’s a orkard gen’l’m’n in ‘em, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘Now, Winkle,’ cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was +anything the matter. ‘Come; the ladies are all anxiety.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. ‘I’m coming.’ + +‘Just a-goin’ to begin,’ said Sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. +‘Now, Sir, start off!’ + +‘Stop an instant, Sam,’ gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately +to Mr. Weller. ‘I find I’ve got a couple of coats at home that I don’t +want, Sam. You may have them, Sam.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Never mind touching your hat, Sam,’ said Mr. Winkle hastily. ‘You +needn’t take your hand away to do that. I meant to have given you five +shillings this morning for a Christmas box, Sam. I’ll give it you this +afternoon, Sam.’ + +‘You’re wery good, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘There--that’s +right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam; not +too fast.’ + +Mr. Winkle, stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being +assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan-like +manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite +bank-- + +‘Sam!’ + +‘Sir?’ + +‘Here. I want you.’ + +‘Let go, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘Don’t you hear the governor a-callin’? Let go, +sir.’ + +With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of +the agonised Pickwickian, and, in so doing, administered a considerable +impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of +dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman +bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when +Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. +Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell +heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his +feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in +skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but +anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance. + +‘Are you hurt?’ inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety. + +‘Not much,’ said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard. + +‘I wish you’d let me bleed you,’ said Mr. Benjamin, with great +eagerness. + +‘No, thank you,’ replied Mr. Winkle hurriedly. + +‘I really think you had better,’ said Allen. + +‘Thank you,’ replied Mr. Winkle; ‘I’d rather not.’ + +‘What do _you _think, Mr. Pickwick?’ inquired Bob Sawyer. + +Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller, and +said in a stern voice, ‘Take his skates off.’ + +‘No; but really I had scarcely begun,’ remonstrated Mr. Winkle. + +‘Take his skates off,’ repeated Mr. Pickwick firmly. + +The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, +in silence. + +‘Lift him up,’ said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise. + +Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, +beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and +uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable +words-- + +‘You’re a humbug, sir.’ + +A what?’ said Mr. Winkle, starting. + +‘A humbug, Sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir.’ + +With those words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined +his friends. + +While Mr. Pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just +recorded, Mr. Weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavours +cut out a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very +masterly and brilliant manner. Sam Weller, in particular, was displaying +that beautiful feat of fancy-sliding which is currently denominated +‘knocking at the cobbler’s door,’ and which is achieved by skimming over +the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a postman’s knock upon it +with the other. It was a good long slide, and there was something in the +motion which Mr. Pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could +not help envying. + +‘It looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn’t it?’ he inquired of Wardle, +when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the +indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of +compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice. + +‘Ah, it does, indeed,’ replied Wardle. ‘Do you slide?’ + +‘I used to do so, on the gutters, when I was a boy,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Try it now,’ said Wardle. + +‘Oh, do, please, Mr. Pickwick!’ cried all the ladies. + +‘I should be very happy to afford you any amusement,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick, ‘but I haven’t done such a thing these thirty years.’ + +‘Pooh! pooh! Nonsense!’ said Wardle, dragging off his skates with the +impetuosity which characterised all his proceedings. ‘Here; I’ll keep +you company; come along!’ And away went the good-tempered old fellow +down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon Mr. Weller, +and beat the fat boy all to nothing. + +Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in +his hat; took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at +last took another run, and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with +his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts +of all the spectators. + +‘Keep the pot a-bilin’, Sir!’ said Sam; and down went Wardle again, and +then Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and then Mr. Bob +Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely +upon each other’s heels, and running after each other with as much +eagerness as if their future prospects in life depended on their +expedition. + +It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in +which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony; to watch the +torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon +him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually +expend the painful force he had put on at first, and turn slowly round +on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; +to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had +accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round +when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor, his black gaiters +tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness +and gladness through his spectacles. And when he was knocked down (which +happened upon the average every third round), it was the most +invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather +up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and +resume his station in the rank, with an ardour and enthusiasm that +nothing Could abate. + +The sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the +laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. There +was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a +shout from Mr. Tupman. A large mass of ice disappeared; the water +bubbled up over it; Mr. Pickwick’s hat, gloves, and handkerchief were +floating on the surface; and this was all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody +could see. + +Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance; the males turned +pale, and the females fainted; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each +other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone +down, with frenzied eagerness; while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the +promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who +might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the +catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming +‘Fire!’ with all his might. + +It was at this moment, when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching +the hole with cautious steps, and Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a +hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability of bleeding +the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional +practice--it was at this very moment, that a face, head, and shoulders, +emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and +spectacles of Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Keep yourself up for an instant--for only one instant!’ bawled Mr. +Snodgrass. + +‘Yes, do; let me implore you--for my sake!’ roared Mr. Winkle, deeply +affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary; the probability being, +that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for anybody else’s +sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so, for his +own. + +‘Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?’ said Wardle. + +‘Yes, certainly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head +and face, and gasping for breath. ‘I fell upon my back. I couldn’t get +on my feet at first.’ + +The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick’s coat as was yet visible, bore +testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the +spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy’s suddenly +recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, +prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity +of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length +fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on +dry land. + +‘Oh, he’ll catch his death of cold,’ said Emily. + +‘Dear old thing!’ said Arabella. ‘Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. +Pickwick.’ + +‘Ah, that’s the best thing you can do,’ said Wardle; ‘and when you’ve +got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into +bed directly.’ + +A dozen shawls were offered on the instant. Three or four of the +thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started +off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller; presenting the singular +phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat, +with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without +any clearly-defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an +hour. + +But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and +urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he +reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five +minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the +heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen +chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing +colours to the old lady’s mind, when anybody about her evinced the +smallest agitation. + +Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller +lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner; a bowl of +punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of +his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the +bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were +ordered in; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a +symptom of rheumatism about him; which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very +justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases; and +that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely +because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of +it. + +The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings-up are capital things +in our school-days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death, +self-interest, and fortune’s changes, are every day breaking up many a +happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls +never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the +case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, +that the different members of the party dispersed to their several +homes; that Mr. Pickwick and his friends once more took their seats on +the top of the Muggleton coach; and that Arabella Allen repaired to her +place of destination, wherever it might have been--we dare say Mr. +Winkle knew, but we confess we don’t--under the care and guardianship of +her brother Benjamin, and his most intimate and particular friend, Mr. +Bob Sawyer. + +Before they separated, however, that gentleman and Mr. Benjamin Allen +drew Mr. Pickwick aside with an air of some mystery; and Mr. Bob Sawyer, +thrusting his forefinger between two of Mr. Pickwick’s ribs, and thereby +displaying his native drollery, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the +human frame, at one and the same time, inquired-- + +‘I say, old boy, where do you hang out?’ Mr. Pickwick replied that he +was at present suspended at the George and Vulture. + +‘I wish you’d come and see me,’ said Bob Sawyer. + +‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘There’s my lodgings,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, producing a card. ‘Lant +Street, Borough; it’s near Guy’s, and handy for me, you know. Little +distance after you’ve passed St. George’s Church--turns out of the High +Street on the right hand side the way.’ + +‘I shall find it,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Come on Thursday fortnight, and bring the other chaps with you,’ said +Mr. Bob Sawyer; ‘I’m going to have a few medical fellows that night.’ + +Mr. Pickwick expressed the pleasure it would afford him to meet the +medical fellows; and after Mr. Bob Sawyer had informed him that he meant +to be very cosy, and that his friend Ben was to be one of the party, +they shook hands and separated. + +We feel that in this place we lay ourself open to the inquiry whether +Mr. Winkle was whispering, during this brief conversation, to Arabella +Allen; and if so, what he said; and furthermore, whether Mr. Snodgrass +was conversing apart with Emily Wardle; and if so, what _he_ said. To +this, we reply, that whatever they might have said to the ladies, they +said nothing at all to Mr. Pickwick or Mr. Tupman for eight-and-twenty +miles, and that they sighed very often, refused ale and brandy, and +looked gloomy. If our observant lady readers can deduce any satisfactory +inferences from these facts, we beg them by all means to do so. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. WHICH IS ALL ABOUT THE LAW, AND SUNDRY GREAT AUTHORITIES +LEARNED THEREIN + +Scattered about, in various holes and corners of the Temple, are certain +dark and dirty chambers, in and out of which, all the morning in +vacation, and half the evening too in term time, there may be seen +constantly hurrying with bundles of papers under their arms, and +protruding from their pockets, an almost uninterrupted succession of +lawyers’ clerks. There are several grades of lawyers’ clerks. There is +the articled clerk, who has paid a premium, and is an attorney in +perspective, who runs a tailor’s bill, receives invitations to parties, +knows a family in Gower Street, and another in Tavistock Square; who +goes out of town every long vacation to see his father, who keeps live +horses innumerable; and who is, in short, the very aristocrat of clerks. +There is the salaried clerk--out of door, or in door, as the case may +be--who devotes the major part of his thirty shillings a week to his +Personal pleasure and adornments, repairs half-price to the Adelphi +Theatre at least three times a week, dissipates majestically at the +cider cellars afterwards, and is a dirty caricature of the fashion which +expired six months ago. There is the middle-aged copying clerk, with a +large family, who is always shabby, and often drunk. And there are the +office lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for +boys at day-schools, club as they go home at night, for saveloys and +porter, and think there’s nothing like ‘life.’ There are varieties of +the genus, too numerous to recapitulate, but however numerous they may +be, they are all to be seen, at certain regulated business hours, +hurrying to and from the places we have just mentioned. + +These sequestered nooks are the public offices of the legal profession, +where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations filed, and +numerous other ingenious machines put in motion for the torture and +torment of His Majesty’s liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument +of the practitioners of the law. They are, for the most part, low- +roofed, mouldy rooms, where innumerable rolls of parchment, which have +been perspiring in secret for the last century, send forth an agreeable +odour, which is mingled by day with the scent of the dry-rot, and by +night with the various exhalations which arise from damp cloaks, +festering umbrellas, and the coarsest tallow candles. + +About half-past seven o’clock in the evening, some ten days or a +fortnight after Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to London, there +hurried into one of these offices, an individual in a brown coat and +brass buttons, whose long hair was scrupulously twisted round the rim of +his napless hat, and whose soiled drab trousers were so tightly strapped +over his Blucher boots, that his knees threatened every moment to start +from their concealment. He produced from his coat pockets a long and +narrow strip of parchment, on which the presiding functionary impressed +an illegible black stamp. He then drew forth four scraps of paper, of +similar dimensions, each containing a printed copy of the strip of +parchment with blanks for a name; and having filled up the blanks, put +all the five documents in his pocket, and hurried away. + +The man in the brown coat, with the cabalistic documents in his pocket, +was no other than our old acquaintance Mr. Jackson, of the house of +Dodson & Fogg, Freeman’s Court, Cornhill. Instead of returning to the +office whence he came, however, he bent his steps direct to Sun Court, +and walking straight into the George and Vulture, demanded to know +whether one Mr. Pickwick was within. + +‘Call Mr. Pickwick’s servant, Tom,’ said the barmaid of the George and +Vulture. + +‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ said Mr. Jackson. ‘I’ve come on business. If +you’ll show me Mr. Pickwick’s room I’ll step up myself.’ + +‘What name, Sir?’ said the waiter. + +‘Jackson,’ replied the clerk. + +The waiter stepped upstairs to announce Mr. Jackson; but Mr. Jackson +saved him the trouble by following close at his heels, and walking into +the apartment before he could articulate a syllable. + +Mr. Pickwick had, that day, invited his three friends to dinner; they +were all seated round the fire, drinking their wine, when Mr. Jackson +presented himself, as above described. + +‘How de do, sir?’ said Mr. Jackson, nodding to Mr. Pickwick. + +That gentleman bowed, and looked somewhat surprised, for the physiognomy +of Mr. Jackson dwelt not in his recollection. + +‘I have called from Dodson and Fogg’s,’ said Mr. Jackson, in an +explanatory tone. + +Mr. Pickwick roused at the name. ‘I refer you to my attorney, Sir; Mr. +Perker, of Gray’s Inn,’ said he. ‘Waiter, show this gentleman out.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Jackson, deliberately depositing +his hat on the floor, and drawing from his pocket the strip of +parchment. ‘But personal service, by clerk or agent, in these cases, you +know, Mr. Pickwick--nothing like caution, sir, in all legal forms--eh?’ + +Here Mr. Jackson cast his eye on the parchment; and, resting his hands +on the table, and looking round with a winning and persuasive smile, +said, ‘Now, come; don’t let’s have no words about such a little matter +as this. Which of you gentlemen’s name’s Snodgrass?’ + +At this inquiry, Mr. Snodgrass gave such a very undisguised and palpable +start, that no further reply was needed. + +‘Ah! I thought so,’ said Mr. Jackson, more affably than before. ‘I’ve a +little something to trouble you with, Sir.’ + +‘Me!’ exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘It’s only a subpoena in Bardell and Pickwick on behalf of the +plaintiff,’ replied Jackson, singling out one of the slips of paper, and +producing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket. ‘It’ll come on, in the +settens after Term: fourteenth of Febooary, we expect; we’ve marked it a +special jury cause, and it’s only ten down the paper. That’s yours, Mr. +Snodgrass.’ As Jackson said this, he presented the parchment before the +eyes of Mr. Snodgrass, and slipped the paper and the shilling into his +hand. + +Mr. Tupman had witnessed this process in silent astonishment, when +Jackson, turning sharply upon him, said-- + +‘I think I ain’t mistaken when I say your name’s Tupman, am I?’ + +Mr. Tupman looked at Mr. Pickwick; but, perceiving no encouragement in +that gentleman’s widely-opened eyes to deny his name, said-- + +‘Yes, my name is Tupman, Sir.’ + +‘And that other gentleman’s Mr. Winkle, I think?’ said Jackson. Mr. +Winkle faltered out a reply in the affirmative; and both gentlemen were +forthwith invested with a slip of paper, and a shilling each, by the +dexterous Mr. Jackson. + +‘Now,’ said Jackson, ‘I’m afraid you’ll think me rather troublesome, but +I want somebody else, if it ain’t inconvenient. I have Samuel Weller’s +name here, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘Send my servant here, waiter,’ said Mr. Pickwick. The waiter retired, +considerably astonished, and Mr. Pickwick motioned Jackson to a seat. + +There was a painful pause, which was at length broken by the innocent +defendant. + +‘I suppose, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, his indignation rising while he +spoke--‘I suppose, Sir, that it is the intention of your employers to +seek to criminate me upon the testimony of my own friends?’ + +Mr. Jackson struck his forefinger several times against the left side of +his nose, to intimate that he was not there to disclose the secrets of +the prison house, and playfully rejoined-- + +‘Not knowin’, can’t say.’ + +‘For what other reason, Sir,’ pursued Mr. Pickwick, ‘are these subpoenas +served upon them, if not for this?’ + +‘Very good plant, Mr. Pickwick,’ replied Jackson, slowly shaking his +head. ‘But it won’t do. No harm in trying, but there’s little to be got +out of me.’ + +Here Mr. Jackson smiled once more upon the company, and, applying his +left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with +his right hand, thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime +(then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was +familiarly denominated ‘taking a grinder.’ + +‘No, no, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Jackson, in conclusion; ‘Perker’s people +must guess what we’ve served these subpoenas for. If they can’t, they +must wait till the action comes on, and then they’ll find out.’ + +Mr. Pickwick bestowed a look of excessive disgust on his unwelcome +visitor, and would probably have hurled some tremendous anathema at the +heads of Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, had not Sam’s entrance at the instant +interrupted him. + +‘Samuel Weller?’ said Mr. Jackson, inquiringly. + +‘Vun o’ the truest things as you’ve said for many a long year,’ replied +Sam, in a most composed manner. + +‘Here’s a subpoena for you, Mr. Weller,’ said Jackson. + +‘What’s that in English?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Here’s the original,’ said Jackson, declining the required explanation. + +‘Which?’ said Sam. + +‘This,’ replied Jackson, shaking the parchment. + +‘Oh, that’s the ‘rig’nal, is it?’ said Sam. ‘Well, I’m wery glad I’ve +seen the ‘rig’nal, ‘cos it’s a gratifyin’ sort o’ thing, and eases vun’s +mind so much.’ + +‘And here’s the shilling,’ said Jackson. ‘It’s from Dodson and Fogg’s.’ + +‘And it’s uncommon handsome o’ Dodson and Fogg, as knows so little of +me, to come down vith a present,’ said Sam. ‘I feel it as a wery high +compliment, sir; it’s a wery honorable thing to them, as they knows how +to reward merit werever they meets it. Besides which, it’s affectin’ to +one’s feelin’s.’ + +As Mr. Weller said this, he inflicted a little friction on his right +eyelid, with the sleeve of his coat, after the most approved manner of +actors when they are in domestic pathetics. + +Mr. Jackson seemed rather puzzled by Sam’s proceedings; but, as he had +served the subpoenas, and had nothing more to say, he made a feint of +putting on the one glove which he usually carried in his hand, for the +sake of appearances; and returned to the office to report progress. + +Mr. Pickwick slept little that night; his memory had received a very +disagreeable refresher on the subject of Mrs. Bardell’s action. He +breakfasted betimes next morning, and, desiring Sam to accompany him, +set forth towards Gray’s Inn Square. + +‘Sam!’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round, when they got to the end of +Cheapside. + +‘Sir?’ said Sam, stepping up to his master. + +‘Which way?’ + +Up Newgate Street.’ + +Mr. Pickwick did not turn round immediately, but looked vacantly in +Sam’s face for a few seconds, and heaved a deep sigh. + +‘What’s the matter, sir?’ inquired Sam. + +‘This action, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘is expected to come on, on the +fourteenth of next month.’ + +Remarkable coincidence that ‘ere, sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘Why remarkable, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Walentine’s day, sir,’ responded Sam; ‘reg’lar good day for a breach o’ +promise trial.’ + +Mr. Weller’s smile awakened no gleam of mirth in his master’s +countenance. Mr. Pickwick turned abruptly round, and led the way in +silence. + +They had walked some distance, Mr. Pickwick trotting on before, plunged +in profound meditation, and Sam following behind, with a countenance +expressive of the most enviable and easy defiance of everything and +everybody, when the latter, who was always especially anxious to impart +to his master any exclusive information he possessed, quickened his pace +until he was close at Mr. Pickwick’s heels; and, pointing up at a house +they were passing, said-- + +‘Wery nice pork-shop that ‘ere, sir.’ + +‘Yes, it seems so,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Celebrated sassage factory,’ said Sam. + +‘Is it?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Is it!’ reiterated Sam, with some indignation; ‘I should rayther think +it was. Why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that’s where the +mysterious disappearance of a ‘spectable tradesman took place four years +ago.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say he was burked, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking +hastily round. + +‘No, I don’t indeed, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘I wish I did; far worse +than that. He was the master o’ that ‘ere shop, sir, and the inwentor o’ +the patent-never-leavin’-off sassage steam-ingin, as ‘ud swaller up a +pavin’ stone if you put it too near, and grind it into sassages as easy +as if it was a tender young babby. Wery proud o’ that machine he was, as +it was nat’ral he should be, and he’d stand down in the celler a-lookin’ +at it wen it was in full play, till he got quite melancholy with joy. A +wery happy man he’d ha’ been, Sir, in the procession o’ that ‘ere ingin +and two more lovely hinfants besides, if it hadn’t been for his wife, +who was a most owdacious wixin. She was always a-follerin’ him about, +and dinnin’ in his ears, till at last he couldn’t stand it no longer. +“I’ll tell you what it is, my dear,” he says one day; “if you persewere +in this here sort of amusement,” he says, “I’m blessed if I don’t go +away to ‘Merriker; and that’s all about it.” “You’re a idle willin,” + says she, “and I wish the ‘Merrikins joy of their bargain.” Arter which +she keeps on abusin’ of him for half an hour, and then runs into the +little parlour behind the shop, sets to a-screamin’, says he’ll be the +death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for three good hours--one +o’ them fits wich is all screamin’ and kickin’. Well, next mornin’, the +husband was missin’. He hadn’t taken nothin’ from the till--hadn’t even +put on his greatcoat--so it was quite clear he warn’t gone to ‘Merriker. +Didn’t come back next day; didn’t come back next week; missis had bills +printed, sayin’ that, if he’d come back, he should be forgiven +everythin’ (which was very liberal, seein’ that he hadn’t done nothin’ +at all); the canals was dragged, and for two months arterwards, wenever +a body turned up, it was carried, as a reg’lar thing, straight off to +the sassage shop. Hows’ever, none on ‘em answered; so they gave out that +he’d run away, and she kep’ on the bis’ness. One Saturday night, a +little, thin, old gen’l’m’n comes into the shop in a great passion and +says, “Are you the missis o’ this here shop?” “Yes, I am,” says she. +“Well, ma’am,” says he, “then I’ve just looked in to say that me and my +family ain’t a-goin’ to be choked for nothin’; and more than that, +ma’am,” he says, “you’ll allow me to observe that as you don’t use the +primest parts of the meat in the manafacter o’ sassages, I’d think you’d +find beef come nearly as cheap as buttons.” “As buttons, Sir!” says she. +“Buttons, ma’am,” says the little, old gentleman, unfolding a bit of +paper, and showin’ twenty or thirty halves o’ buttons. “Nice seasonin’ +for sassages, is trousers’ buttons, ma’am.” “They’re my husband’s +buttons!” says the widder beginnin’ to faint, “What!” screams the little +old gen’l’m’n, turnin’ wery pale. “I see it all,” says the widder; “in a +fit of temporary insanity he rashly converted hisself into sassages!” + And so he had, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, looking steadily into Mr. +Pickwick’s horror-stricken countenance, ‘or else he’d been draw’d into +the ingin; but however that might ha’ been, the little, old gen’l’m’n, +who had been remarkably partial to sassages all his life, rushed out o’ +the shop in a wild state, and was never heerd on arterwards!’ + +The relation of this affecting incident of private life brought master +and man to Mr. Perker’s chambers. Lowten, holding the door half open, +was in conversation with a rustily-clad, miserable-looking man, in boots +without toes and gloves without fingers. There were traces of privation +and suffering--almost of despair--in his lank and care-worn countenance; +he felt his poverty, for he shrank to the dark side of the staircase as +Mr. Pickwick approached. + +‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said the stranger, with a sigh. + +‘Very,’ said Lowten, scribbling his name on the doorpost with his pen, +and rubbing it out again with the feather. ‘Will you leave a message for +him?’ + +‘When do you think he’ll be back?’ inquired the stranger. + +‘Quite uncertain,’ replied Lowten, winking at Mr. Pickwick, as the +stranger cast his eyes towards the ground. + +‘You don’t think it would be of any use my waiting for him?’ said the +stranger, looking wistfully into the office. + +‘Oh, no, I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ replied the clerk, moving a little more +into the centre of the doorway. ‘He’s certain not to be back this week, +and it’s a chance whether he will be next; for when Perker once gets out +of town, he’s never in a hurry to come back again.’ + +‘Out of town!’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘dear me, how unfortunate!’ + +‘Don’t go away, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Lowten, ‘I’ve got a letter for you.’ +The stranger, seeming to hesitate, once more looked towards the ground, +and the clerk winked slyly at Mr. Pickwick, as if to intimate that some +exquisite piece of humour was going forward, though what it was Mr. +Pickwick could not for the life of him divine. + +‘Step in, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Lowten. ‘Well, will you leave a message, +Mr. Watty, or will you call again?’ + +‘Ask him to be so kind as to leave out word what has been done in my +business,’ said the man; ‘for God’s sake don’t neglect it, Mr. Lowten.’ + +‘No, no; I won’t forget it,’ replied the clerk. ‘Walk in, Mr. Pickwick. +Good-morning, Mr. Watty; it’s a fine day for walking, isn’t it?’ Seeing +that the stranger still lingered, he beckoned Sam Weller to follow his +master in, and shut the door in his face. + +‘There never was such a pestering bankrupt as that since the world +began, I do believe!’ said Lowten, throwing down his pen with the air of +an injured man. ‘His affairs haven’t been in Chancery quite four years +yet, and I’m d----d if he don’t come worrying here twice a week. Step +this way, Mr. Pickwick. Perker _is_ in, and he’ll see you, I know. +Devilish cold,’ he added pettishly, ‘standing at that door, wasting +one’s time with such seedy vagabonds!’ Having very vehemently stirred a +particularly large fire with a particularly small poker, the clerk led +the way to his principal’s private room, and announced Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah, my dear Sir,’ said little Mr. Perker, bustling up from his chair. +‘Well, my dear sir, and what’s the news about your matter, eh? Anything +more about our friends in Freeman’s Court? They’ve not been sleeping, I +know that. Ah, they’re very smart fellows; very smart, indeed.’ + +As the little man concluded, he took an emphatic pinch of snuff, as a +tribute to the smartness of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg. + +‘They are great scoundrels,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Aye, aye,’ said the little man; ‘that’s a matter of opinion, you know, +and we won’t dispute about terms; because of course you can’t be +expected to view these subjects with a professional eye. Well, we’ve +done everything that’s necessary. I have retained Serjeant Snubbin.’ + +‘Is he a good man?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Good man!’ replied Perker; ‘bless your heart and soul, my dear Sir, +Serjeant Snubbin is at the very top of his profession. Gets treble the +business of any man in court--engaged in every case. You needn’t mention +it abroad; but we say--we of the profession--that Serjeant Snubbin leads +the court by the nose.’ + +The little man took another pinch of snuff as he made this +communication, and nodded mysteriously to Mr. Pickwick. + +‘They have subpoenaed my three friends,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah! of course they would,’ replied Perker. ‘Important witnesses; saw +you in a delicate situation.’ + +‘But she fainted of her own accord,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘She threw +herself into my arms.’ + +‘Very likely, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker; ‘very likely and very +natural. Nothing more so, my dear Sir, nothing. But who’s to prove it?’ + +‘They have subpoenaed my servant, too,’ said Mr. Pickwick, quitting the +other point; for there Mr. Perker’s question had somewhat staggered him. + +‘Sam?’ said Perker. + +Mr. Pickwick replied in the affirmative. + +‘Of course, my dear Sir; of course. I knew they would. I could have told +you that, a month ago. You know, my dear Sir, if you _will _take the +management of your affairs into your own hands after entrusting them to +your solicitor, you must also take the consequences.’ Here Mr. Perker +drew himself up with conscious dignity, and brushed some stray grains of +snuff from his shirt frill. + +‘And what do they want him to prove?’ asked Mr. Pickwick, after two or +three minutes’ silence. + +‘That you sent him up to the plaintiff ‘s to make some offer of a +compromise, I suppose,’ replied Perker. ‘It don’t matter much, though; I +don’t think many counsel could get a great deal out of _him_.’ + +‘I don’t think they could,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smiling, despite his +vexation, at the idea of Sam’s appearance as a witness. ‘What course do +we pursue?’ + +‘We have only one to adopt, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker; ‘cross-examine +the witnesses; trust to Snubbin’s eloquence; throw dust in the eyes of +the judge; throw ourselves on the jury.’ + +‘And suppose the verdict is against me?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Mr. Perker smiled, took a very long pinch of snuff, stirred the fire, +shrugged his shoulders, and remained expressively silent. + +‘You mean that in that case I must pay the damages?’ said Mr. Pickwick, +who had watched this telegraphic answer with considerable sternness. + +Perker gave the fire another very unnecessary poke, and said, ‘I am +afraid so.’ + +‘Then I beg to announce to you my unalterable determination to pay no +damages whatever,’ said Mr. Pickwick, most emphatically. ‘None, Perker. +Not a pound, not a penny of my money, shall find its way into the +pockets of Dodson and Fogg. That is my deliberate and irrevocable +determination.’ Mr. Pickwick gave a heavy blow on the table before him, +in confirmation of the irrevocability of his intention. + +‘Very well, my dear Sir, very well,’ said Perker. ‘You know best, of +course.’ + +‘Of course,’ replied Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘Where does Serjeant Snubbin +live?’ + +In Lincoln’s Inn Old Square,’ replied Perker. + +‘I should like to see him,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘See Serjeant Snubbin, my dear Sir!’ rejoined Perker, in utter +amazement. ‘Pooh, pooh, my dear Sir, impossible. See Serjeant Snubbin! +Bless you, my dear Sir, such a thing was never heard of, without a +consultation fee being previously paid, and a consultation fixed. It +couldn’t be done, my dear Sir; it couldn’t be done.’ + +Mr. Pickwick, however, had made up his mind not only that it could be +done, but that it should be done; and the consequence was, that within +ten minutes after he had received the assurance that the thing was +impossible, he was conducted by his solicitor into the outer office of +the great Serjeant Snubbin himself. + +It was an uncarpeted room of tolerable dimensions, with a large writing- +table drawn up near the fire, the baize top of which had long since lost +all claim to its original hue of green, and had gradually grown gray +with dust and age, except where all traces of its natural colour were +obliterated by ink-stains. Upon the table were numerous little bundles +of papers tied with red tape; and behind it, sat an elderly clerk, whose +sleek appearance and heavy gold watch-chain presented imposing +indications of the extensive and lucrative practice of Mr. Serjeant +Snubbin. + +‘Is the Serjeant in his room, Mr. Mallard?’ inquired Perker, offering +his box with all imaginable courtesy. + +‘Yes, he is,’ was the reply, ‘but he’s very busy. Look here; not an +opinion given yet, on any one of these cases; and an expedition fee paid +with all of ‘em.’ The clerk smiled as he said this, and inhaled the +pinch of snuff with a zest which seemed to be compounded of a fondness +for snuff and a relish for fees. + +‘Something like practice that,’ said Perker. + +‘Yes,’ said the barrister’s clerk, producing his own box, and offering +it with the greatest cordiality; ‘and the best of it is, that as nobody +alive except myself can read the serjeant’s writing, they are obliged to +wait for the opinions, when he has given them, till I have copied ‘em, +ha-ha-ha!’ + +‘Which makes good for we know who, besides the serjeant, and draws a +little more out of the clients, eh?’ said Perker; ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ At this +the serjeant’s clerk laughed again--not a noisy boisterous laugh, but a +silent, internal chuckle, which Mr. Pickwick disliked to hear. When a +man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he +laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people. + +‘You haven’t made me out that little list of the fees that I’m in your +debt, have you?’ said Perker. + +‘No, I have not,’ replied the clerk. + +‘I wish you would,’ said Perker. ‘Let me have them, and I’ll send you a +cheque. But I suppose you’re too busy pocketing the ready money, to +think of the debtors, eh? ha, ha, ha!’ This sally seemed to tickle the +clerk amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to +himself. + +‘But, Mr. Mallard, my dear friend,’ said Perker, suddenly recovering his +gravity, and drawing the great man’s great man into a Corner, by the +lappel of his coat; ‘you must persuade the Serjeant to see me, and my +client here.’ + +‘Come, come,’ said the clerk, ‘that’s not bad either. See the Serjeant! +come, that’s too absurd.’ Notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, +however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing +of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, +walked softly down a little dark passage, and disappeared into the legal +luminary’s sanctum, whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed +Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, +in violation of all established rules and customs, to admit them at +once. + + +Mr. Serjeant Snubbins was a lantern-faced, sallow-complexioned man, of +about five-and-forty, or--as the novels say--he might be fifty. He had +that dull-looking, boiled eye which is often to be seen in the heads of +people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and +laborious course of study; and which would have been sufficient, without +the additional eyeglass which dangled from a broad black riband round +his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. His hair was +thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted +much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five- +and-twenty years the forensic wig which hung on a block beside him. The +marks of hairpowder on his coat-collar, and the ill-washed and worse +tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found +leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress; +while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the +inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much +improved if he had. Books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened +letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or +arrangement; the furniture of the room was old and rickety; the doors of +the book-case were rotting in their hinges; the dust flew out from the +carpet in little clouds at every step; the blinds were yellow with age +and dirt; the state of everything in the room showed, with a clearness +not to be mistaken, that Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was far too much occupied +with his professional pursuits to take any great heed or regard of his +personal comforts. + +The Serjeant was writing when his clients entered; he bowed abstractedly +when Mr. Pickwick was introduced by his solicitor; and then, motioning +them to a seat, put his pen carefully in the inkstand, nursed his left +leg, and waited to be spoken to. + +‘Mr. Pickwick is the defendant in Bardell and Pickwick, Serjeant +Snubbin,’ said Perker. + +‘I am retained in that, am I?’ said the Serjeant. + +‘You are, Sir,’ replied Perker. + +The Serjeant nodded his head, and waited for something else. + +‘Mr. Pickwick was anxious to call upon you, Serjeant Snubbin,’ said +Perker, ‘to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he +denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action +against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and +without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting +the plaintiff’s demand, he would not be there at all. I believe I state +your views correctly; do I not, my dear Sir?’ said the little man, +turning to Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Quite so,’ replied that gentleman. + +Mr. Serjeant Snubbin unfolded his glasses, raised them to his eyes; and, +after looking at Mr. Pickwick for a few seconds with great curiosity, +turned to Mr. Perker, and said, smiling slightly as he spoke-- + +‘Has Mr. Pickwick a strong case?’ + +The attorney shrugged his shoulders. + +‘Do you propose calling witnesses?’ + +‘No.’ + +The smile on the Serjeant’s countenance became more defined; he rocked +his leg with increased violence; and, throwing himself back in his easy- +chair, coughed dubiously. + +These tokens of the Serjeant’s presentiments on the subject, slight as +they were, were not lost on Mr. Pickwick. He settled the spectacles, +through which he had attentively regarded such demonstrations of the +barrister’s feelings as he had permitted himself to exhibit, more firmly +on his nose; and said with great energy, and in utter disregard of all +Mr. Perker’s admonitory winkings and frownings-- + +‘My wishing to wait upon you, for such a purpose as this, Sir, appears, +I have no doubt, to a gentleman who sees so much of these matters as you +must necessarily do, a very extraordinary circumstance.’ + +The Serjeant tried to look gravely at the fire, but the smile came back +again. + +‘Gentlemen of your profession, Sir,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, ‘see the +worst side of human nature. All its disputes, all its ill-will and bad +blood, rise up before you. You know from your experience of juries (I +mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon effect; and +you are apt to attribute to others, a desire to use, for purposes of +deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure +honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your +utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from +constantly employing them yourselves. I really believe that to this +circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of +your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious. +Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration +to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, because I wish you +distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. Perker has said, that I am +innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although I am very well +aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, Sir, I must beg to +add, that unless you sincerely believe this, I would rather be deprived +of the aid of your talents than have the advantage of them.’ + +Long before the close of this address, which we are bound to say was of +a very prosy character for Mr. Pickwick, the Serjeant had relapsed into +a state of abstraction. After some minutes, however, during which he had +reassumed his pen, he appeared to be again aware of the presence of his +clients; raising his head from the paper, he said, rather snappishly-- + +‘Who is with me in this case?’ + +‘Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin,’ replied the attorney. + +‘Phunky--Phunky,’ said the Serjeant, ‘I never heard the name before. He +must be a very young man.’ + +‘Yes, he is a very young man,’ replied the attorney. ‘He was only called +the other day. Let me see--he has not been at the Bar eight years yet.’ + +‘Ah, I thought not,’ said the Serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in +which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. ‘Mr. +Mallard, send round to Mr.--Mr.--’ + +Phunky’s--Holborn Court, Gray’s Inn,’ interposed Perker. (Holborn Court, +by the bye, is South Square now.)--‘Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad +if he’d step here, a moment.’ + +Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission; and Serjeant Snubbin +relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was introduced. + +Although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. He had a very +nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not +appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity, +arising from the consciousness of being ‘kept down’ by want of means, or +interest, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was +overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney. + +‘I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. Phunky,’ said +Serjeant Snubbin, with haughty condescension. + +Mr. Phunky bowed. He _had _had the pleasure of seeing the Serjeant, and +of envying him too, with all a poor man’s envy, for eight years and a +quarter. + +‘You are with me in this case, I understand?’ said the Serjeant. + +If Mr. Phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his +clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied +his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether, +in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one or +not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense, at all events) +he turned red, and bowed. + +‘Have you read the papers, Mr. Phunky?’ inquired the Serjeant. + +Here again, Mr. Phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about +the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid +before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else, +waking or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been +retained as Mr. Serjeant Snubbin’s junior, he turned a deeper red and +bowed again. + +‘This is Mr. Pickwick,’ said the Serjeant, waving his pen in the +direction in which that gentleman was standing. + +Mr. Phunky bowed to Mr. Pickwick, with a reverence which a first client +must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader. + +‘Perhaps you will take Mr. Pickwick away,’ said the Serjeant, ‘and--and- +-and--hear anything Mr. Pickwick may wish to communicate. We shall have +a consultation, of course.’ With that hint that he had been interrupted +quite long enough, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who had been gradually growing +more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his eyes for an instant, +bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply immersed in the case +before him, which arose out of an interminable lawsuit, originating in +the act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had stopped +up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever came from, to +some other place which nobody ever went to. + +Mr. Phunky would not hear of passing through any door until Mr. Pickwick +and his solicitor had passed through before him, so it was some time +before they got into the Square; and when they did reach it, they walked +up and down, and held a long conference, the result of which was, that +it was a very difficult matter to say how the verdict would go; that +nobody could presume to calculate on the issue of an action; that it was +very lucky they had prevented the other party from getting Serjeant +Snubbin; and other topics of doubt and consolation, common in such a +position of affairs. + +Mr. Weller was then roused by his master from a sweet sleep of an hour’s +duration; and, bidding adieu to Lowten, they returned to the city. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. DESCRIBES, FAR MORE FULLY THAN THE COURT NEWSMAN EVER +DID, A BACHELOR’S PARTY, GIVEN BY MR. BOB SAWYER AT HIS LODGINGS IN THE +BOROUGH + +There is a repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a +gentle melancholy upon the soul. There are always a good many houses to +let in the street: it is a by-street too, and its dulness is soothing. A +house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a first- +rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most +desirable spot nevertheless. If a man wished to abstract himself from +the world--to remove himself from within the reach of temptation--to +place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of +the window--we should recommend him by all means go to Lant Street. + +In this happy retreat are colonised a few clear-starchers, a sprinkling +of journeymen bookbinders, one or two prison agents for the Insolvent +Court, several small housekeepers who are employed in the Docks, a +handful of mantua-makers, and a seasoning of jobbing tailors. The +majority of the inhabitants either direct their energies to the letting +of furnished apartments, or devote themselves to the healthful and +invigorating pursuit of mangling. The chief features in the still life +of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and +bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy, +the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man. The population is migratory, +usually disappearing on the verge of quarter-day, and generally by +night. His Majesty’s revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley; +the rents are dubious; and the water communication is very frequently +cut off. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer embellished one side of the fire, in his first-floor +front, early on the evening for which he had invited Mr. Pickwick, and +Mr. Ben Allen the other. The preparations for the reception of visitors +appeared to be completed. The umbrellas in the passage had been heaped +into the little corner outside the back-parlour door; the bonnet and +shawl of the landlady’s servant had been removed from the bannisters; +there were not more than two pairs of pattens on the street-door mat; +and a kitchen candle, with a very long snuff, burned cheerfully on the +ledge of the staircase window. Mr. Bob Sawyer had himself purchased the +spirits at a wine vaults in High Street, and had returned home preceding +the bearer thereof, to preclude the possibility of their delivery at the +wrong house. The punch was ready-made in a red pan in the bedroom; a +little table, covered with a green baize cloth, had been borrowed from +the parlour, to play at cards on; and the glasses of the establishment, +together with those which had been borrowed for the occasion from the +public-house, were all drawn up in a tray, which was deposited on the +landing outside the door. + +Notwithstanding the highly satisfactory nature of all these +arrangements, there was a cloud on the countenance of Mr. Bob Sawyer, as +he sat by the fireside. There was a sympathising expression, too, in the +features of Mr. Ben Allen, as he gazed intently on the coals, and a tone +of melancholy in his voice, as he said, after a long silence-- + +‘Well, it is unlucky she should have taken it in her head to turn sour, +just on this occasion. She might at least have waited till to-morrow.’ + +‘That’s her malevolence--that’s her malevolence,’ returned Mr. Bob +Sawyer vehemently. ‘She says that if I can afford to give a party I +ought to be able to pay her confounded “little bill.”’ + +How long has it been running?’ inquired Mr. Ben Allen. A bill, by the +bye, is the most extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man +ever produced. It would keep on running during the longest lifetime, +without ever once stopping of its own accord. + +‘Only a quarter, and a month or so,’ replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +Ben Allen coughed hopelessly, and directed a searching look between the +two top bars of the stove. + +‘It’ll be a deuced unpleasant thing if she takes it into her head to let +out, when those fellows are here, won’t it?’ said Mr. Ben Allen at +length. + +‘Horrible,’ replied Bob Sawyer, ‘horrible.’ + +A low tap was heard at the room door. Mr. Bob Sawyer looked expressively +at his friend, and bade the tapper come in; whereupon a dirty, slipshod +girl in black cotton stockings, who might have passed for the neglected +daughter of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances, +thrust in her head, and said-- + +‘Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis Raddle wants to speak to you.’ + +Before Mr. Bob Sawyer could return any answer, the girl suddenly +disappeared with a jerk, as if somebody had given her a violent pull +behind; this mysterious exit was no sooner accomplished, than there was +another tap at the door--a smart, pointed tap, which seemed to say, +‘Here I am, and in I’m coming.’ + +Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced at his friend with a look of abject apprehension, +and once more cried, ‘Come in.’ + +The permission was not at all necessary, for, before Mr. Bob Sawyer had +uttered the words, a little, fierce woman bounced into the room, all in +a tremble with passion, and pale with rage. + +‘Now, Mr. Sawyer,’ said the little, fierce woman, trying to appear very +calm, ‘if you’ll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine +I’ll thank you, because I’ve got my rent to pay this afternoon, and my +landlord’s a-waiting below now.’ Here the little woman rubbed her hands, +and looked steadily over Mr. Bob Sawyer’s head, at the wall behind him. + +‘I am very sorry to put you to any inconvenience, Mrs. Raddle,’ said Bob +Sawyer deferentially, ‘but--’ + +‘Oh, it isn’t any inconvenience,’ replied the little woman, with a +shrill titter. ‘I didn’t want it particular before to-day; leastways, as +it has to go to my landlord directly, it was as well for you to keep it +as me. You promised me this afternoon, Mr. Sawyer, and every gentleman +as has ever lived here, has kept his word, Sir, as of course anybody as +calls himself a gentleman does.’ Mrs. Raddle tossed her head, bit her +lips, rubbed her hands harder, and looked at the wall more steadily than +ever. It was plain to see, as Mr. Bob Sawyer remarked in a style of +Eastern allegory on a subsequent occasion, that she was ‘getting the +steam up.’ + +‘I am very sorry, Mrs. Raddle,’ said Bob Sawyer, with all imaginable +humility, ‘but the fact is, that I have been disappointed in the City +to-day.’--Extraordinary place that City. An astonishing number of men +always _are _getting disappointed there. + +‘Well, Mr. Sawyer,’ said Mrs. Raddle, planting herself firmly on a +purple cauliflower in the Kidderminster carpet, ‘and what’s that to me, +Sir?’ + +‘I--I--have no doubt, Mrs. Raddle,’ said Bob Sawyer, blinking this last +question, ‘that before the middle of next week we shall be able to set +ourselves quite square, and go on, on a better system, afterwards.’ + +This was all Mrs. Raddle wanted. She had bustled up to the apartment of +the unlucky Bob Sawyer, so bent upon going into a passion, that, in all +probability, payment would have rather disappointed her than otherwise. +She was in excellent order for a little relaxation of the kind, having +just exchanged a few introductory compliments with Mr. R. in the front +kitchen. + +‘Do you suppose, Mr. Sawyer,’ said Mrs. Raddle, elevating her voice for +the information of the neighbours--‘do you suppose that I’m a-going day +after day to let a fellar occupy my lodgings as never thinks of paying +his rent, nor even the very money laid out for the fresh butter and lump +sugar that’s bought for his breakfast, and the very milk that’s took in, +at the street door? Do you suppose a hard-working and industrious woman +as has lived in this street for twenty year (ten year over the way, and +nine year and three-quarters in this very house) has nothing else to do +but to work herself to death after a parcel of lazy idle fellars, that +are always smoking and drinking, and lounging, when they ought to be +glad to turn their hands to anything that would help ‘em to pay their +bills? Do you--’ + +‘My good soul,’ interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen soothingly. + +‘Have the goodness to keep your observashuns to yourself, Sir, I beg,’ +said Mrs. Raddle, suddenly arresting the rapid torrent of her speech, +and addressing the third party with impressive slowness and solemnity. +‘I am not aweer, Sir, that you have any right to address your +conversation to me. I don’t think I let these apartments to you, Sir.’ + +‘No, you certainly did not,’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Very good, Sir,’ responded Mrs. Raddle, with lofty politeness. ‘Then +p’raps, Sir, you’ll confine yourself to breaking the arms and legs of +the poor people in the hospitals, and keep yourself _to_ yourself, Sir, +or there may be some persons here as will make you, Sir.’ + +‘But you are such an unreasonable woman,’ remonstrated Mr. Benjamin +Allen. + +‘I beg your parding, young man,’ said Mrs. Raddle, in a cold +perspiration of anger. ‘But will you have the goodness just to call me +that again, sir?’ + +‘I didn’t make use of the word in any invidious sense, ma’am,’ replied +Mr. Benjamin Allen, growing somewhat uneasy on his own account. + +‘I beg your parding, young man,’ demanded Mrs. Raddle, in a louder and +more imperative tone. ‘But who do you call a woman? Did you make that +remark to me, sir?’ + +‘Why, bless my heart!’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Did you apply that name to me, I ask of you, sir?’ interrupted Mrs. +Raddle, with intense fierceness, throwing the door wide open. + +‘Why, of course I did,’ replied Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Yes, of course you did,’ said Mrs. Raddle, backing gradually to the +door, and raising her voice to its loudest pitch, for the special behoof +of Mr. Raddle in the kitchen. ‘Yes, of course you did! And everybody +knows that they may safely insult me in my own ‘ouse while my husband +sits sleeping downstairs, and taking no more notice than if I was a dog +in the streets. He ought to be ashamed of himself (here Mrs. Raddle +sobbed) to allow his wife to be treated in this way by a parcel of young +cutters and carvers of live people’s bodies, that disgraces the lodgings +(another sob), and leaving her exposed to all manner of abuse; a base, +faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that’s afraid to come upstairs, and face +the ruffinly creatures--that’s afraid--that’s afraid to come!’ Mrs. +Raddle paused to listen whether the repetition of the taunt had roused +her better half; and finding that it had not been successful, proceeded +to descend the stairs with sobs innumerable; when there came a loud +double knock at the street door; whereupon she burst into an hysterical +fit of weeping, accompanied with dismal moans, which was prolonged until +the knock had been repeated six times, when, in an uncontrollable burst +of mental agony, she threw down all the umbrellas, and disappeared into +the back parlour, closing the door after her with an awful crash. + +‘Does Mr. Sawyer live here?’ said Mr. Pickwick, when the door was +opened. + +‘Yes,’ said the girl, ‘first floor. It’s the door straight afore you, +when you gets to the top of the stairs.’ Having given this instruction, +the handmaid, who had been brought up among the aboriginal inhabitants +of Southwark, disappeared, with the candle in her hand, down the kitchen +stairs, perfectly satisfied that she had done everything that could +possibly be required of her under the circumstances. + +Mr. Snodgrass, who entered last, secured the street door, after several +ineffectual efforts, by putting up the chain; and the friends stumbled +upstairs, where they were received by Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been +afraid to go down, lest he should be waylaid by Mrs. Raddle. + +‘How are you?’ said the discomfited student. ‘Glad to see you--take care +of the glasses.’ This caution was addressed to Mr. Pickwick, who had put +his hat in the tray. + +‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I beg your pardon.’ + +‘Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,’ said Bob Sawyer. ‘I’m rather +confined for room here, but you must put up with all that, when you come +to see a young bachelor. Walk in. You’ve seen this gentleman before, I +think?’ Mr. Pickwick shook hands with Mr. Benjamin Allen, and his +friends followed his example. They had scarcely taken their seats when +there was another double knock. + +‘I hope that’s Jack Hopkins!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘Hush. Yes, it is. +Come up, Jack; come up.’ + +A heavy footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Jack Hopkins presented +himself. He wore a black velvet waistcoat, with thunder-and-lightning +buttons; and a blue striped shirt, with a white false collar. + +‘You’re late, Jack?’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Been detained at Bartholomew’s,’ replied Hopkins. + +‘Anything new?’ + +‘No, nothing particular. Rather a good accident brought into the +casualty ward.’ + +‘What was that, sir?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Only a man fallen out of a four pair of stairs’ window; but it’s a very +fair case indeed.’ + +‘Do you mean that the patient is in a fair way to recover?’ inquired Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Hopkins carelessly. ‘No, I should rather say he +wouldn’t. There must be a splendid operation, though, to-morrow-- +magnificent sight if Slasher does it.’ + +‘You consider Mr. Slasher a good operator?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Best alive,’ replied Hopkins. ‘Took a boy’s leg out of the socket last +week--boy ate five apples and a gingerbread cake--exactly two minutes +after it was all over, boy said he wouldn’t lie there to be made game +of, and he’d tell his mother if they didn’t begin.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, astonished. + +‘Pooh! That’s nothing, that ain’t,’ said Jack Hopkins. ‘Is it, Bob?’ + +‘Nothing at all,’ replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘By the bye, Bob,’ said Hopkins, with a scarcely perceptible glance at +Mr. Pickwick’s attentive face, ‘we had a curious accident last night. A +child was brought in, who had swallowed a necklace.’ + +‘Swallowed what, Sir?’ interrupted Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A necklace,’ replied Jack Hopkins. ‘Not all at once, you know, that +would be too much--you couldn’t swallow that, if the child did--eh, Mr. +Pickwick? ha, ha!’ Mr. Hopkins appeared highly gratified with his own +pleasantry, and continued--‘No, the way was this. Child’s parents were +poor people who lived in a court. Child’s eldest sister bought a +necklace--common necklace, made of large black wooden beads. Child being +fond of toys, cribbed the necklace, hid it, played with it, cut the +string, and swallowed a bead. Child thought it capital fun, went back +next day, and swallowed another bead.’ + +‘Bless my heart,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what a dreadful thing! I beg your +pardon, Sir. Go on.’ + +‘Next day, child swallowed two beads; the day after that, he treated +himself to three, and so on, till in a week’s time he had got through +the necklace--five-and-twenty beads in all. The sister, who was an +industrious girl, and seldom treated herself to a bit of finery, cried +her eyes out, at the loss of the necklace; looked high and low for it; +but, I needn’t say, didn’t find it. A few days afterwards, the family +were at dinner--baked shoulder of mutton, and potatoes under it--the +child, who wasn’t hungry, was playing about the room, when suddenly +there was heard a devil of a noise, like a small hailstorm. “Don’t do +that, my boy,” said the father. “I ain’t a-doin’ nothing,” said the +child. “Well, don’t do it again,” said the father. There was a short +silence, and then the noise began again, worse than ever. “If you don’t +mind what I say, my boy,” said the father, “you’ll find yourself in bed, +in something less than a pig’s whisper.” He gave the child a shake to +make him obedient, and such a rattling ensued as nobody ever heard +before. “Why, damme, it’s _in_ the child!” said the father, “he’s got +the croup in the wrong place!” “No, I haven’t, father,” said the child, +beginning to cry, “it’s the necklace; I swallowed it, father.”--The +father caught the child up, and ran with him to the hospital; the beads +in the boy’s stomach rattling all the way with the jolting; and the +people looking up in the air, and down in the cellars, to see where the +unusual sound came from. He’s in the hospital now,’ said Jack Hopkins, +‘and he makes such a devil of a noise when he walks about, that they’re +obliged to muffle him in a watchman’s coat, for fear he should wake the +patients.’ + +‘That’s the most extraordinary case I ever heard of,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +with an emphatic blow on the table. + +‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said Jack Hopkins. ‘Is it, Bob?’ + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Bob Sawyer. + +‘Very singular things occur in our profession, I can assure you, Sir,’ +said Hopkins. + +‘So I should be disposed to imagine,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +Another knock at the door announced a large-headed young man in a black +wig, who brought with him a scorbutic youth in a long stock. The next +comer was a gentleman in a shirt emblazoned with pink anchors, who was +closely followed by a pale youth with a plated watchguard. The arrival +of a prim personage in clean linen and cloth boots rendered the party +complete. The little table with the green baize cover was wheeled out; +the first instalment of punch was brought in, in a white jug; and the +succeeding three hours were devoted to _Vingt-et-un_ at sixpence a +dozen, which was only once interrupted by a slight dispute between the +scorbutic youth and the gentleman with the pink anchors; in the course +of which, the scorbutic youth intimated a burning desire to pull the +nose of the gentleman with the emblems of hope; in reply to which, that +individual expressed his decided unwillingness to accept of any ‘sauce’ +on gratuitous terms, either from the irascible young gentleman with the +scorbutic countenance, or any other person who was ornamented with a +head. + +When the last ‘natural’ had been declared, and the profit and loss +account of fish and sixpences adjusted, to the satisfaction of all +parties, Mr. Bob Sawyer rang for supper, and the visitors squeezed +themselves into corners while it was getting ready. + +It was not so easily got ready as some people may imagine. First of all, +it was necessary to awaken the girl, who had fallen asleep with her face +on the kitchen table; this took a little time, and, even when she did +answer the bell, another quarter of an hour was consumed in fruitless +endeavours to impart to her a faint and distant glimmering of reason. +The man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent, had not been +told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster with a +limp knife and a two-pronged fork; and very little was done in this way. +Very little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was also +from the German-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar +predicament. However, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the +cheese went a great way, for it was very strong. So upon the whole, +perhaps, the supper was quite as good as such matters usually are. + +After supper, another jug of punch was put upon the table, together with +a paper of cigars, and a couple of bottles of spirits. Then there was an +awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common +occurrence in this sort of place, but a very embarrassing one +notwithstanding. + +The fact is, the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment boasted +four: we do not record the circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. +Raddle, for there never was a lodging-house yet, that was not short of +glasses. The landlady’s glasses were little, thin, blown-glass tumblers, +and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were great, +dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg. This +would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with +the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented +the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any +gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man’s glass away, +long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the +winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be conveyed +downstairs, and washed forthwith. + +It is a very ill wind that blows nobody any good. The prim man in the +cloth boots, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to make a joke +during the whole time the round game lasted, saw his opportunity, and +availed himself of it. The instant the glasses disappeared, he commenced +a long story about a great public character, whose name he had +forgotten, making a particularly happy reply to another eminent and +illustrious individual whom he had never been able to identify. He +enlarged at some length and with great minuteness upon divers collateral +circumstances, distantly connected with the anecdote in hand, but for +the life of him he couldn’t recollect at that precise moment what the +anecdote was, although he had been in the habit of telling the story +with great applause for the last ten years. + +‘Dear me,’ said the prim man in the cloth boots, ‘it is a very +extraordinary circumstance.’ + +‘I am sorry you have forgotten it,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, glancing +eagerly at the door, as he thought he heard the noise of glasses +jingling; ‘very sorry.’ + +‘So am I,’ responded the prim man, ‘because I know it would have +afforded so much amusement. Never mind; I dare say I shall manage to +recollect it, in the course of half an hour or so.’ + +The prim man arrived at this point just as the glasses came back, when +Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been absorbed in attention during the whole +time, said he should very much like to hear the end of it, for, so far +as it went, it was, without exception, the very best story he had ever +heard. + +The sight of the tumblers restored Bob Sawyer to a degree of equanimity +which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady. His +face brightened up, and he began to feel quite convivial. + +‘Now, Betsy,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, +at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses the girl had +collected in the centre of the table--‘now, Betsy, the warm water; be +brisk, there’s a good girl.’ + +‘You can’t have no warm water,’ replied Betsy. + +‘No warm water!’ exclaimed Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘No,’ said the girl, with a shake of the head which expressed a more +decided negative than the most copious language could have conveyed. +‘Missis Raddle said you warn’t to have none.’ + +The surprise depicted on the countenances of his guests imparted new +courage to the host. + +‘Bring up the warm water instantly--instantly!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, +with desperate sternness. + +‘No. I can’t,’ replied the girl; ‘Missis Raddle raked out the kitchen +fire afore she went to bed, and locked up the kittle.’ + +‘Oh, never mind; never mind. Pray don’t disturb yourself about such a +trifle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, observing the conflict of Bob Sawyer’s +passions, as depicted in his countenance, ‘cold water will do very +well.’ + +‘Oh, admirably,’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘My landlady is subject to some slight attacks of mental derangement,’ +remarked Bob Sawyer, with a ghastly smile; ‘I fear I must give her +warning.’ + +‘No, don’t,’ said Ben Allen. + +‘I fear I must,’ said Bob, with heroic firmness. ‘I’ll pay her what I +owe her, and give her warning to-morrow morning.’ Poor fellow! how +devoutly he wished he could! + +Mr. Bob Sawyer’s heart-sickening attempts to rally under this last blow, +communicated a dispiriting influence to the company, the greater part of +whom, with the view of raising their spirits, attached themselves with +extra cordiality to the cold brandy-and-water, the first perceptible +effects of which were displayed in a renewal of hostilities between the +scorbutic youth and the gentleman in the shirt. The belligerents vented +their feelings of mutual contempt, for some time, in a variety of +frownings and snortings, until at last the scorbutic youth felt it +necessary to come to a more explicit understanding on the matter; when +the following clear understanding took place. + +‘Sawyer,’ said the scorbutic youth, in a loud voice. + +‘Well, Noddy,’ replied Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘I should be very sorry, Sawyer,’ said Mr. Noddy, ‘to create any +unpleasantness at any friend’s table, and much less at yours, Sawyer-- +very; but I must take this opportunity of informing Mr. Gunter that he +is no gentleman.’ + +‘And I should be very sorry, Sawyer, to create any disturbance in the +street in which you reside,’ said Mr. Gunter, ‘but I’m afraid I shall be +under the necessity of alarming the neighbours by throwing the person +who has just spoken, out o’ window.’ + +‘What do you mean by that, sir?’ inquired Mr. Noddy. + +‘What I say, Sir,’ replied Mr. Gunter. + +‘I should like to see you do it, Sir,’ said Mr. Noddy. + +‘You shall _feel _me do it in half a minute, Sir,’ replied Mr. Gunter. + +‘I request that you’ll favour me with your card, Sir,’ said Mr. Noddy. + +‘I’ll do nothing of the kind, Sir,’ replied Mr. Gunter. + +‘Why not, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Noddy. + +‘Because you’ll stick it up over your chimney-piece, and delude your +visitors into the false belief that a gentleman has been to see you, +Sir,’ replied Mr. Gunter. + +‘Sir, a friend of mine shall wait on you in the morning,’ said Mr. +Noddy. + +‘Sir, I’m very much obliged to you for the caution, and I’ll leave +particular directions with the servant to lock up the spoons,’ replied +Mr. Gunter. + +At this point the remainder of the guests interposed, and remonstrated +with both parties on the impropriety of their conduct; on which Mr. +Noddy begged to state that his father was quite as respectable as Mr. +Gunter’s father; to which Mr. Gunter replied that his father was to the +full as respectable as Mr. Noddy’s father, and that his father’s son was +as good a man as Mr. Noddy, any day in the week. As this announcement +seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another +interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking +and clamouring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually +allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever +entertained a devoted personal attachment towards Mr. Gunter. To this +Mr. Gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy +to his own brother; on hearing which admission, Mr. Noddy magnanimously +rose from his seat, and proffered his hand to Mr. Gunter. Mr. Gunter +grasped it with affecting fervour; and everybody said that the whole +dispute had been conducted in a manner which was highly honourable to +both parties concerned. + +‘Now,’ said Jack Hopkins, ‘just to set us going again, Bob, I don’t mind +singing a song.’ And Hopkins, incited thereto by tumultuous applause, +plunged himself at once into ‘The King, God bless him,’ which he sang as +loud as he could, to a novel air, compounded of the ‘Bay of Biscay,’ and +‘A Frog he would.’ The chorus was the essence of the song; and, as each +gentleman sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was very striking +indeed. + +It was at the end of the chorus to the first verse, that Mr. Pickwick +held up his hand in a listening attitude, and said, as soon as silence +was restored-- + +‘Hush! I beg your pardon. I thought I heard somebody calling from +upstairs.’ + +A profound silence immediately ensued; and Mr. Bob Sawyer was observed +to turn pale. + +‘I think I hear it now,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Have the goodness to open +the door.’ + +The door was no sooner opened than all doubt on the subject was removed. + +‘Mr. Sawyer! Mr. Sawyer!’ screamed a voice from the two-pair landing. + +‘It’s my landlady,’ said Bob Sawyer, looking round him with great +dismay. ‘Yes, Mrs. Raddle.’ + +‘What do you mean by this, Mr. Sawyer?’ replied the voice, with great +shrillness and rapidity of utterance. ‘Ain’t it enough to be swindled +out of one’s rent, and money lent out of pocket besides, and abused and +insulted by your friends that dares to call themselves men, without +having the house turned out of the window, and noise enough made to +bring the fire-engines here, at two o’clock in the morning?--Turn them +wretches away.’ + +‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,’ said the voice of Mr. Raddle, +which appeared to proceed from beneath some distant bed-clothes. + +‘Ashamed of themselves!’ said Mrs. Raddle. ‘Why don’t you go down and +knock ‘em every one downstairs? You would if you was a man.’ + +I should if I was a dozen men, my dear,’ replied Mr. Raddle pacifically, +‘but they have the advantage of me in numbers, my dear.’ + +‘Ugh, you coward!’ replied Mrs. Raddle, with supreme contempt. ‘_Do_ you +mean to turn them wretches out, or not, Mr. Sawyer?’ + +‘They’re going, Mrs. Raddle, they’re going,’ said the miserable Bob. ‘I +am afraid you’d better go,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer to his friends. ‘I +thought you were making too much noise.’ + +‘It’s a very unfortunate thing,’ said the prim man. ‘Just as we were +getting so comfortable too!’ The prim man was just beginning to have a +dawning recollection of the story he had forgotten. + +‘It’s hardly to be borne,’ said the prim man, looking round. ‘Hardly to +be borne, is it?’ + +‘Not to be endured,’ replied Jack Hopkins; ‘let’s have the other verse, +Bob. Come, here goes!’ + +‘No, no, Jack, don’t,’ interposed Bob Sawyer; ‘it’s a capital song, but +I am afraid we had better not have the other verse. They are very +violent people, the people of the house.’ + +‘Shall I step upstairs, and pitch into the landlord?’ inquired Hopkins, +‘or keep on ringing the bell, or go and groan on the staircase? You may +command me, Bob.’ + +‘I am very much indebted to you for your friendship and good-nature, +Hopkins,’ said the wretched Mr. Bob Sawyer, ‘but I think the best plan +to avoid any further dispute is for us to break up at once.’ + +‘Now, Mr. Sawyer,’ screamed the shrill voice of Mrs. Raddle, ‘are them +brutes going?’ + +‘They’re only looking for their hats, Mrs. Raddle,’ said Bob; ‘they are +going directly.’ + +‘Going!’ said Mrs. Raddle, thrusting her nightcap over the banisters +just as Mr. Pickwick, followed by Mr. Tupman, emerged from the sitting- +room. ‘Going! what did they ever come for?’ + +‘My dear ma’am,’ remonstrated Mr. Pickwick, looking up. + +‘Get along with you, old wretch!’ replied Mrs. Raddle, hastily +withdrawing the nightcap. ‘Old enough to be his grandfather, you willin! +You’re worse than any of ‘em.’ + +Mr. Pickwick found it in vain to protest his innocence, so hurried +downstairs into the street, whither he was closely followed by Mr. +Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Ben Allen, who was dismally +depressed with spirits and agitation, accompanied them as far as London +Bridge, and in the course of the walk confided to Mr. Winkle, as an +especially eligible person to intrust the secret to, that he was +resolved to cut the throat of any gentleman, except Mr. Bob Sawyer, who +should aspire to the affections of his sister Arabella. Having expressed +his determination to perform this painful duty of a brother with proper +firmness, he burst into tears, knocked his hat over his eyes, and, +making the best of his way back, knocked double knocks at the door of +the Borough Market office, and took short naps on the steps alternately, +until daybreak, under the firm impression that he lived there, and had +forgotten the key. + +The visitors having all departed, in compliance with the rather pressing +request of Mrs. Raddle, the luckless Mr. Bob Sawyer was left alone, to +meditate on the probable events of to-morrow, and the pleasures of the +evening. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. MR. WELLER THE ELDER DELIVERS SOME CRITICAL SENTIMENTS +RESPECTING LITERARY COMPOSITION; AND, ASSISTED BY HIS SON SAMUEL, PAYS A +SMALL INSTALMENT OF RETALIATION TO THE ACCOUNT OF THE REVEREND GENTLEMAN +WITH THE RED NOSE + +The morning of the thirteenth of February, which the readers of this +authentic narrative know, as well as we do, to have been the day +immediately preceding that which was appointed for the trial of Mrs. +Bardell’s action, was a busy time for Mr. Samuel Weller, who was +perpetually engaged in travelling from the George and Vulture to Mr. +Perker’s chambers and back again, from and between the hours of nine +o’clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, both inclusive. Not +that there was anything whatever to be done, for the consultation had +taken place, and the course of proceeding to be adopted, had been +finally determined on; but Mr. Pickwick being in a most extreme state of +excitement, persevered in constantly sending small notes to his +attorney, merely containing the inquiry, ‘Dear Perker. Is all going on +well?’ to which Mr. Perker invariably forwarded the reply, ‘Dear +Pickwick. As well as possible’; the fact being, as we have already +hinted, that there was nothing whatever to go on, either well or ill, +until the sitting of the court on the following morning. + +But people who go voluntarily to law, or are taken forcibly there, for +the first time, may be allowed to labour under some temporary irritation +and anxiety; and Sam, with a due allowance for the frailties of human +nature, obeyed all his master’s behests with that imperturbable good- +humour and unruffable composure which formed one of his most striking +and amiable characteristics. + +Sam had solaced himself with a most agreeable little dinner, and was +waiting at the bar for the glass of warm mixture in which Mr. Pickwick +had requested him to drown the fatigues of his morning’s walks, when a +young boy of about three feet high, or thereabouts, in a hairy cap and +fustian overalls, whose garb bespoke a laudable ambition to attain in +time the elevation of an hostler, entered the passage of the George and +Vulture, and looked first up the stairs, and then along the passage, and +then into the bar, as if in search of somebody to whom he bore a +commission; whereupon the barmaid, conceiving it not improbable that the +said commission might be directed to the tea or table spoons of the +establishment, accosted the boy with-- + +‘Now, young man, what do you want?’ + +‘Is there anybody here, named Sam?’ inquired the youth, in a loud voice +of treble quality. + +‘What’s the t’other name?’ said Sam Weller, looking round. + +‘How should I know?’ briskly replied the young gentleman below the hairy +cap. + +‘You’re a sharp boy, you are,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘only I wouldn’t show +that wery fine edge too much, if I was you, in case anybody took it off. +What do you mean by comin’ to a hot-el, and asking arter Sam, vith as +much politeness as a vild Indian?’ + +‘’Cos an old gen’l’m’n told me to,’ replied the boy. + +‘What old gen’l’m’n?’ inquired Sam, with deep disdain. + +‘Him as drives a Ipswich coach, and uses our parlour,’ rejoined the boy. +‘He told me yesterday mornin’ to come to the George and Wultur this +arternoon, and ask for Sam.’ + +‘It’s my father, my dear,’ said Mr. Weller, turning with an explanatory +air to the young lady in the bar; ‘blessed if I think he hardly knows +wot my other name is. Well, young brockiley sprout, wot then?’ + +‘Why then,’ said the boy, ‘you was to come to him at six o’clock to our +‘ouse, ‘cos he wants to see you--Blue Boar, Leaden’all Markit. Shall I +say you’re comin’?’ + +‘You may wenture on that ‘ere statement, Sir,’ replied Sam. And thus +empowered, the young gentleman walked away, awakening all the echoes in +George Yard as he did so, with several chaste and extremely correct +imitations of a drover’s whistle, delivered in a tone of peculiar +richness and volume. + +Mr. Weller having obtained leave of absence from Mr. Pickwick, who, in +his then state of excitement and worry, was by no means displeased at +being left alone, set forth, long before the appointed hour, and having +plenty of time at his disposal, sauntered down as far as the Mansion +House, where he paused and contemplated, with a face of great calmness +and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who +assemble near that famous place of resort, to the great terror and +confusion of the old-lady population of these realms. Having loitered +here, for half an hour or so, Mr. Weller turned, and began wending his +way towards Leadenhall Market, through a variety of by-streets and +courts. As he was sauntering away his spare time, and stopped to look at +almost every object that met his gaze, it is by no means surprising that +Mr. Weller should have paused before a small stationer’s and print- +seller’s window; but without further explanation it does appear +surprising that his eyes should have no sooner rested on certain +pictures which were exposed for sale therein, than he gave a sudden +start, smote his right leg with great vehemence, and exclaimed, with +energy, ‘if it hadn’t been for this, I should ha’ forgot all about it, +till it was too late!’ + +The particular picture on which Sam Weller’s eyes were fixed, as he said +this, was a highly-coloured representation of a couple of human hearts +skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire, while a +male and female cannibal in modern attire, the gentleman being clad in a +blue coat and white trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a +parasol of the same, were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a +serpentine gravel path leading thereunto. A decidedly indelicate young +gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was depicted as +superintending the cooking; a representation of the spire of the church +in Langham Place, London, appeared in the distance; and the whole formed +a ‘valentine,’ of which, as a written inscription in the window +testified, there was a large assortment within, which the shopkeeper +pledged himself to dispose of, to his countrymen generally, at the +reduced rate of one-and-sixpence each. + +‘I should ha’ forgot it; I should certainly ha’ forgot it!’ said Sam; so +saying, he at once stepped into the stationer’s shop, and requested to +be served with a sheet of the best gilt-edged letter-paper, and a hard- +nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter. These articles +having been promptly supplied, he walked on direct towards Leadenhall +Market at a good round pace, very different from his recent lingering +one. Looking round him, he there beheld a signboard on which the +painter’s art had delineated something remotely resembling a cerulean +elephant with an aquiline nose in lieu of trunk. Rightly conjecturing +that this was the Blue Boar himself, he stepped into the house, and +inquired concerning his parent. + +‘He won’t be here this three-quarters of an hour or more,’ said the +young lady who superintended the domestic arrangements of the Blue Boar. + +‘Wery good, my dear,’ replied Sam. ‘Let me have nine-penn’oth o’ brandy- +and-water luke, and the inkstand, will you, miss?’ + +The brandy-and-water luke, and the inkstand, having been carried into +the little parlour, and the young lady having carefully flattened down +the coals to prevent their blazing, and carried away the poker to +preclude the possibility of the fire being stirred, without the full +privity and concurrence of the Blue Boar being first had and obtained, +Sam Weller sat himself down in a box near the stove, and pulled out the +sheet of gilt-edged letter-paper, and the hard-nibbed pen. Then looking +carefully at the pen to see that there were no hairs in it, and dusting +down the table, so that there might be no crumbs of bread under the +paper, Sam tucked up the cuffs of his coat, squared his elbows, and +composed himself to write. + +To ladies and gentlemen who are not in the habit of devoting themselves +practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very +easy task; it being always considered necessary in such cases for the +writer to recline his head on his left arm, so as to place his eyes as +nearly as possible on a level with the paper, and, while glancing +sideways at the letters he is constructing, to form with his tongue +imaginary characters to correspond. These motions, although +unquestionably of the greatest assistance to original composition, +retard in some degree the progress of the writer; and Sam had +unconsciously been a full hour and a half writing words in small text, +smearing out wrong letters with his little finger, and putting in new +ones which required going over very often to render them visible through +the old blots, when he was roused by the opening of the door and the +entrance of his parent. + +‘Vell, Sammy,’ said the father. + +‘Vell, my Prooshan Blue,’ responded the son, laying down his pen. +‘What’s the last bulletin about mother-in-law?’ + +‘Mrs. Veller passed a very good night, but is uncommon perwerse, and +unpleasant this mornin’. Signed upon oath, Tony Veller, Esquire. That’s +the last vun as was issued, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, untying his +shawl. + +‘No better yet?’ inquired Sam. + +‘All the symptoms aggerawated,’ replied Mr. Weller, shaking his head. +‘But wot’s that, you’re a-doin’ of? Pursuit of knowledge under +difficulties, Sammy?’ + +‘I’ve done now,’ said Sam, with slight embarrassment; ‘I’ve been a- +writin’.’ + +‘So I see,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Not to any young ‘ooman, I hope, +Sammy?’ + +‘Why, it’s no use a-sayin’ it ain’t,’ replied Sam; ‘it’s a walentine.’ + +‘A what!’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. + +‘A walentine,’ replied Sam. + +‘Samivel, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, in reproachful accents, ‘I didn’t +think you’d ha’ done it. Arter the warnin’ you’ve had o’ your father’s +wicious propensities; arter all I’ve said to you upon this here wery +subject; arter actiwally seein’ and bein’ in the company o’ your own +mother-in-law, vich I should ha’ thought wos a moral lesson as no man +could never ha’ forgotten to his dyin’ day! I didn’t think you’d ha’ +done it, Sammy, I didn’t think you’d ha’ done it!’ These reflections +were too much for the good old man. He raised Sam’s tumbler to his lips +and drank off its contents. + +‘Wot’s the matter now?’ said Sam. + +‘Nev’r mind, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘it’ll be a wery agonisin’ +trial to me at my time of life, but I’m pretty tough, that’s vun +consolation, as the wery old turkey remarked wen the farmer said he wos +afeerd he should be obliged to kill him for the London market.’ + + +‘Wot’ll be a trial?’ inquired Sam. + +‘To see you married, Sammy--to see you a dilluded wictim, and thinkin’ +in your innocence that it’s all wery capital,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘It’s +a dreadful trial to a father’s feelin’s, that ‘ere, Sammy--’ + +‘Nonsense,’ said Sam. ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to get married, don’t you fret +yourself about that; I know you’re a judge of these things. Order in +your pipe and I’ll read you the letter. There!’ + +We cannot distinctly say whether it was the prospect of the pipe, or the +consolatory reflection that a fatal disposition to get married ran in +the family, and couldn’t be helped, which calmed Mr. Weller’s feelings, +and caused his grief to subside. We should be rather disposed to say +that the result was attained by combining the two sources of +consolation, for he repeated the second in a low tone, very frequently; +ringing the bell meanwhile, to order in the first. He then divested +himself of his upper coat; and lighting the pipe and placing himself in +front of the fire with his back towards it, so that he could feel its +full heat, and recline against the mantel-piece at the same time, turned +towards Sam, and, with a countenance greatly mollified by the softening +influence of tobacco, requested him to ‘fire away.’ + +Sam dipped his pen into the ink to be ready for any corrections, and +began with a very theatrical air-- + +‘“Lovely--“’ + +‘Stop,’ said Mr. Weller, ringing the bell. ‘A double glass o’ the +inwariable, my dear.’ + +‘Very well, Sir,’ replied the girl; who with great quickness appeared, +vanished, returned, and disappeared. + +‘They seem to know your ways here,’ observed Sam. + +‘Yes,’ replied his father, ‘I’ve been here before, in my time. Go on, +Sammy.’ + +‘“Lovely creetur,”’ repeated Sam. + +‘’Tain’t in poetry, is it?’ interposed his father. + +‘No, no,’ replied Sam. + +‘Wery glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Poetry’s unnat’ral; no man +ever talked poetry ‘cept a beadle on boxin’-day, or Warren’s blackin’, +or Rowland’s oil, or some of them low fellows; never you let yourself +down to talk poetry, my boy. Begin agin, Sammy.’ + +Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and Sam once more +commenced, and read as follows: + +‘“Lovely creetur I feel myself a damned--“’ + +That ain’t proper,’ said Mr. Weller, taking his pipe from his mouth. + +‘No; it ain’t “damned,”’ observed Sam, holding the letter up to the +light, ‘it’s “shamed,” there’s a blot there--“I feel myself ashamed.”’ + +‘Wery good,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Go on.’ + +‘Feel myself ashamed, and completely cir--’ I forget what this here word +is,’ said Sam, scratching his head with the pen, in vain attempts to +remember. + +‘Why don’t you look at it, then?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘So I am a-lookin’ at it,’ replied Sam, ‘but there’s another blot. +Here’s a “c,” and a “i,” and a “d.”’ + +‘Circumwented, p’raps,’ suggested Mr. Weller. + +‘No, it ain’t that,’ said Sam, ‘“circumscribed”; that’s it.’ + +‘That ain’t as good a word as “circumwented,” Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller +gravely. + +‘Think not?’ said Sam. + +‘Nothin’ like it,’ replied his father. + +‘But don’t you think it means more?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Vell p’raps it’s a more tenderer word,’ said Mr. Weller, after a few +moments’ reflection. ‘Go on, Sammy.’ + +‘“Feel myself ashamed and completely circumscribed in a-dressin’ of you, +for you are a nice gal and nothin’ but it.”’ + +‘That’s a wery pretty sentiment,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, removing +his pipe to make way for the remark. + +‘Yes, I think it is rayther good,’ observed Sam, highly flattered. + +‘Wot I like in that ‘ere style of writin’,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, +‘is, that there ain’t no callin’ names in it--no Wenuses, nor nothin’ o’ +that kind. Wot’s the good o’ callin’ a young ‘ooman a Wenus or a angel, +Sammy?’ + +‘Ah! what, indeed?’ replied Sam. + +‘You might jist as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king’s +arms at once, which is wery well known to be a collection o’ fabulous +animals,’ added Mr. Weller. + +‘Just as well,’ replied Sam. + +‘Drive on, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. + +Sam complied with the request, and proceeded as follows; his father +continuing to smoke, with a mixed expression of wisdom and complacency, +which was particularly edifying. + +‘“Afore I see you, I thought all women was alike.”’ + +‘So they are,’ observed the elder Mr. Weller parenthetically. + +‘“But now,”’ continued Sam, ‘“now I find what a reg’lar soft-headed, +inkred’lous turnip I must ha’ been; for there ain’t nobody like you, +though I like you better than nothin’ at all.” I thought it best to make +that rayther strong,’ said Sam, looking up. + +Mr. Weller nodded approvingly, and Sam resumed. + +‘“So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary, my dear--as the gen’l’m’n +in difficulties did, ven he valked out of a Sunday--to tell you that the +first and only time I see you, your likeness was took on my hart in much +quicker time and brighter colours than ever a likeness was took by the +profeel macheen (wich p’raps you may have heerd on Mary my dear) altho +it _does _finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete, +with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a +quarter.”’ + +‘I am afeerd that werges on the poetical, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller +dubiously. + +‘No, it don’t,’ replied Sam, reading on very quickly, to avoid +contesting the point-- + +‘“Except of me Mary my dear as your walentine and think over what I’ve +said.--My dear Mary I will now conclude.” That’s all,’ said Sam. + +‘That’s rather a Sudden pull-up, ain’t it, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Not a bit on it,’ said Sam; ‘she’ll vish there wos more, and that’s the +great art o’ letter-writin’.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘there’s somethin’ in that; and I wish your +mother-in-law ‘ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel +principle. Ain’t you a-goin’ to sign it?’ + +‘That’s the difficulty,’ said Sam; ‘I don’t know what to sign it.’ + +‘Sign it--“Veller”,’ said the oldest surviving proprietor of that name. + +‘Won’t do,’ said Sam. ‘Never sign a walentine with your own name.’ + +‘Sign it “Pickwick,” then,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘it’s a wery good name, and +a easy one to spell.’ + +The wery thing,’ said Sam. ‘I _could _end with a werse; what do you +think?’ + +‘I don’t like it, Sam,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘I never know’d a +respectable coachman as wrote poetry, ‘cept one, as made an affectin’ +copy o’ werses the night afore he was hung for a highway robbery; and he +wos only a Cambervell man, so even that’s no rule.’ + +But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred +to him, so he signed the letter-- + + +‘Your love-sick Pickwick.’ + +And having folded it, in a very intricate manner, squeezed a downhill +direction in one corner: ‘To Mary, Housemaid, at Mr. Nupkins’s, Mayor’s, +Ipswich, Suffolk’; and put it into his pocket, wafered, and ready for +the general post. This important business having been transacted, Mr. +Weller the elder proceeded to open that, on which he had summoned his +son. + +‘The first matter relates to your governor, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. +‘He’s a-goin’ to be tried to-morrow, ain’t he?’ + +‘The trial’s a-comin’ on,’ replied Sam. + +‘Vell,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘Now I s’pose he’ll want to call some witnesses +to speak to his character, or p’rhaps to prove a alleybi. I’ve been a- +turnin’ the bis’ness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, +Sammy. I’ve got some friends as’ll do either for him, but my adwice ‘ud +be this here--never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. +Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing.’ Mr. Weller looked very profound +as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler, +winked over the top thereof, at his astonished son. + +‘Why, what do you mean?’ said Sam; ‘you don’t think he’s a-goin’ to be +tried at the Old Bailey, do you?’ + +‘That ain’t no part of the present consideration, Sammy,’ replied Mr. +Weller. ‘Verever he’s a-goin’ to be tried, my boy, a alleybi’s the thing +to get him off. Ve got Tom Vildspark off that ‘ere manslaughter, with a +alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothing couldn’t save +him. And my ‘pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove a +alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call reg’larly flummoxed, and that’s +all about it.’ + +As the elder Mr. Weller entertained a firm and unalterable conviction +that the Old Bailey was the supreme court of judicature in this country, +and that its rules and forms of proceeding regulated and controlled the +practice of all other courts of justice whatsoever, he totally +disregarded the assurances and arguments of his son, tending to show +that the alibi was inadmissible; and vehemently protested that Mr. +Pickwick was being ‘wictimised.’ Finding that it was of no use to +discuss the matter further, Sam changed the subject, and inquired what +the second topic was, on which his revered parent wished to consult him. + +‘That’s a pint o’ domestic policy, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘This here +Stiggins--’ + +‘Red-nosed man?’ inquired Sam. + +‘The wery same,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘This here red-nosed man, Sammy, +wisits your mother-in-law vith a kindness and constancy I never see +equalled. He’s sitch a friend o’ the family, Sammy, that wen he’s avay +from us, he can’t be comfortable unless he has somethin’ to remember us +by.’ + +‘And I’d give him somethin’ as ‘ud turpentine and beeswax his memory for +the next ten years or so, if I wos you,’ interposed Sam. + +‘Stop a minute,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘I wos a-going to say, he always +brings now, a flat bottle as holds about a pint and a half, and fills it +vith the pine-apple rum afore he goes avay.’ + +‘And empties it afore he comes back, I s’pose?’ said Sam. + +‘Clean!’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘never leaves nothin’ in it but the cork +and the smell; trust him for that, Sammy. Now, these here fellows, my +boy, are a-goin’ to-night to get up the monthly meetin’ o’ the Brick +Lane Branch o’ the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance +Association. Your mother-in-law wos a-goin’, Sammy, but she’s got the +rheumatics, and can’t; and I, Sammy--I’ve got the two tickets as wos +sent her.’ Mr. Weller communicated this secret with great glee, and +winked so indefatigably after doing so, that Sam began to think he must +have got the _Tic Doloureux_ in his right eyelid. + +‘Well?’ said that young gentleman. + +‘Well,’ continued his progenitor, looking round him very cautiously, +‘you and I’ll go, punctiwal to the time. The deputy-shepherd won’t, +Sammy; the deputy-shepherd won’t.’ Here Mr. Weller was seized with a +paroxysm of chuckles, which gradually terminated in as near an approach +to a choke as an elderly gentleman can, with safety, sustain. + +‘Well, I never see sitch an old ghost in all my born days,’ exclaimed +Sam, rubbing the old gentleman’s back, hard enough to set him on fire +with the friction. ‘What are you a-laughin’ at, corpilence?’ + +‘Hush! Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, looking round him with increased +caution, and speaking in a whisper. ‘Two friends o’ mine, as works the +Oxford Road, and is up to all kinds o’ games, has got the deputy- +shepherd safe in tow, Sammy; and ven he does come to the Ebenezer +Junction (vich he’s sure to do: for they’ll see him to the door, and +shove him in, if necessary), he’ll be as far gone in rum-and-water, as +ever he wos at the Markis o’ Granby, Dorkin’, and that’s not sayin’ a +little neither.’ And with this, Mr. Weller once more laughed +immoderately, and once more relapsed into a state of partial +suffocation, in consequence. + +Nothing could have been more in accordance with Sam Weller’s feelings +than the projected exposure of the real propensities and qualities of +the red-nosed man; and it being very near the appointed hour of meeting, +the father and son took their way at once to Brick Lane, Sam not +forgetting to drop his letter into a general post-office as they walked +along. + +The monthly meetings of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand +Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association were held in a large room, +pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and commodious +ladder. The president was the straight-walking Mr. Anthony Humm, a +converted fireman, now a schoolmaster, and occasionally an itinerant +preacher; and the secretary was Mr. Jonas Mudge, chandler’s shopkeeper, +an enthusiastic and disinterested vessel, who sold tea to the members. +Previous to the commencement of business, the ladies sat upon forms, and +drank tea, till such time as they considered it expedient to leave off; +and a large wooden money-box was conspicuously placed upon the green +baize cloth of the business-table, behind which the secretary stood, and +acknowledged, with a gracious smile, every addition to the rich vein of +copper which lay concealed within. + +On this particular occasion the women drank tea to a most alarming +extent; greatly to the horror of Mr. Weller, senior, who, utterly +regardless of all Sam’s admonitory nudgings, stared about him in every +direction with the most undisguised astonishment. + +‘Sammy,’ whispered Mr. Weller, ‘if some o’ these here people don’t want +tappin’ to-morrow mornin’, I ain’t your father, and that’s wot it is. +Why, this here old lady next me is a-drowndin’ herself in tea.’ + +Be quiet, can’t you?’ murmured Sam. + +‘Sam,’ whispered Mr. Weller, a moment afterwards, in a tone of deep +agitation, ‘mark my vords, my boy. If that ‘ere secretary fellow keeps +on for only five minutes more, he’ll blow hisself up with toast and +water.’ + +‘Well, let him, if he likes,’ replied Sam; ‘it ain’t no bis’ness o’ +yourn.’ + +‘If this here lasts much longer, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, in the same +low voice, ‘I shall feel it my duty, as a human bein’, to rise and +address the cheer. There’s a young ‘ooman on the next form but two, as +has drunk nine breakfast cups and a half; and she’s a-swellin’ wisibly +before my wery eyes.’ + +There is little doubt that Mr. Weller would have carried his benevolent +intention into immediate execution, if a great noise, occasioned by +putting up the cups and saucers, had not very fortunately announced that +the tea-drinking was over. The crockery having been removed, the table +with the green baize cover was carried out into the centre of the room, +and the business of the evening was commenced by a little emphatic man, +with a bald head and drab shorts, who suddenly rushed up the ladder, at +the imminent peril of snapping the two little legs incased in the drab +shorts, and said-- + +‘Ladies and gentlemen, I move our excellent brother, Mr. Anthony Humm, +into the chair.’ + +The ladies waved a choice selection of pocket-handkerchiefs at this +proposition; and the impetuous little man literally moved Mr. Humm into +the chair, by taking him by the shoulders and thrusting him into a +mahogany-frame which had once represented that article of furniture. The +waving of handkerchiefs was renewed; and Mr. Humm, who was a sleek, +white-faced man, in a perpetual perspiration, bowed meekly, to the great +admiration of the females, and formally took his seat. Silence was then +proclaimed by the little man in the drab shorts, and Mr. Humm rose and +said--That, with the permission of his Brick Lane Branch brothers and +sisters, then and there present, the secretary would read the report of +the Brick Lane Branch committee; a proposition which was again received +with a demonstration of pocket-handkerchiefs. + +The secretary having sneezed in a very impressive manner, and the cough +which always seizes an assembly, when anything particular is going to be +done, having been duly performed, the following document was read: + +‘REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE BRICK LANE BRANCH OF THE UNITED GRAND +JUNCTION EBENEZER TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION + +‘Your committee have pursued their grateful labours during the past +month, and have the unspeakable pleasure of reporting the following +additional cases of converts to Temperance. + +‘H. Walker, tailor, wife, and two children. When in better +circumstances, owns to having been in the constant habit of drinking ale +and beer; says he is not certain whether he did not twice a week, for +twenty years, taste “dog’s nose,” which your committee find upon +inquiry, to be compounded of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg +(a groan, and ‘So it is!’ from an elderly female). Is now out of work +and penniless; thinks it must be the porter (cheers) or the loss of the +use of his right hand; is not certain which, but thinks it very likely +that, if he had drunk nothing but water all his life, his fellow-workman +would never have stuck a rusty needle in him, and thereby occasioned his +accident (tremendous cheering). Has nothing but cold water to drink, and +never feels thirsty (great applause). + +‘Betsy Martin, widow, one child, and one eye. Goes out charing and +washing, by the day; never had more than one eye, but knows her mother +drank bottled stout, and shouldn’t wonder if that caused it (immense +cheering). Thinks it not impossible that if she had always abstained +from spirits she might have had two eyes by this time (tremendous +applause). Used, at every place she went to, to have eighteen-pence a +day, a pint of porter, and a glass of spirits; but since she became a +member of the Brick Lane Branch, has always demanded three-and-sixpence +(the announcement of this most interesting fact was received with +deafening enthusiasm). + +‘Henry Beller was for many years toast-master at various corporation +dinners, during which time he drank a great deal of foreign wine; may +sometimes have carried a bottle or two home with him; is not quite +certain of that, but is sure if he did, that he drank the contents. +Feels very low and melancholy, is very feverish, and has a constant +thirst upon him; thinks it must be the wine he used to drink (cheers). +Is out of employ now; and never touches a drop of foreign wine by any +chance (tremendous plaudits). + +‘Thomas Burton is purveyor of cat’s meat to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, +and several members of the Common Council (the announcement of this +gentleman’s name was received with breathless interest). Has a wooden +leg; finds a wooden leg expensive, going over the stones; used to wear +second-hand wooden legs, and drink a glass of hot gin-and-water +regularly every night--sometimes two (deep sighs). Found the second-hand +wooden legs split and rot very quickly; is firmly persuaded that their +constitution was undermined by the gin-and-water (prolonged cheering). +Buys new wooden legs now, and drinks nothing but water and weak tea. The +new legs last twice as long as the others used to do, and he attributes +this solely to his temperate habits (triumphant cheers).’ + +Anthony Humm now moved that the assembly do regale itself with a song. +With a view to their rational and moral enjoyment, Brother Mordlin had +adapted the beautiful words of ‘Who hasn’t heard of a Jolly Young +Waterman?’ to the tune of the Old Hundredth, which he would request them +to join him in singing (great applause). He might take that opportunity +of expressing his firm persuasion that the late Mr. Dibdin, seeing the +errors of his former life, had written that song to show the advantages +of abstinence. It was a temperance song (whirlwinds of cheers). The +neatness of the young man’s attire, the dexterity of his feathering, the +enviable state of mind which enabled him in the beautiful words of the +poet, to + + +‘Row along, thinking of nothing at all,’ + +all combined to prove that he must have been a water-drinker (cheers). +Oh, what a state of virtuous jollity! (rapturous cheering). And what was +the young man’s reward? Let all young men present mark this: + + +‘The maidens all flocked to his boat so readily.’ + +(Loud cheers, in which the ladies joined.) What a bright example! The +sisterhood, the maidens, flocking round the young waterman, and urging +him along the stream of duty and of temperance. But, was it the maidens +of humble life only, who soothed, consoled, and supported him? No! + + +‘He was always first oars with the fine city ladies.’ + +(Immense cheering.) The soft sex to a man--he begged pardon, to a +female--rallied round the young waterman, and turned with disgust from +the drinker of spirits (cheers). The Brick Lane Branch brothers were +watermen (cheers and laughter). That room was their boat; that audience +were the maidens; and he (Mr. Anthony Humm), however unworthily, was +‘first oars’ (unbounded applause). + +‘Wot does he mean by the soft sex, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller, in a +whisper. + +‘The womin,’ said Sam, in the same tone. + +‘He ain’t far out there, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘they _must _be a +soft sex--a wery soft sex, indeed--if they let themselves be gammoned by +such fellers as him.’ + +Any further observations from the indignant old gentleman were cut short +by the announcement of the song, which Mr. Anthony Humm gave out two +lines at a time, for the information of such of his hearers as were +unacquainted with the legend. While it was being sung, the little man +with the drab shorts disappeared; he returned immediately on its +conclusion, and whispered Mr. Anthony Humm, with a face of the deepest +importance. + +‘My friends,’ said Mr. Humm, holding up his hand in a deprecatory +manner, to bespeak the silence of such of the stout old ladies as were +yet a line or two behind; ‘my friends, a delegate from the Dorking +Branch of our society, Brother Stiggins, attends below.’ + +Out came the pocket-handkerchiefs again, in greater force than ever; for +Mr. Stiggins was excessively popular among the female constituency of +Brick Lane. + +‘He may approach, I think,’ said Mr. Humm, looking round him, with a fat +smile. ‘Brother Tadger, let him come forth and greet us.’ + +The little man in the drab shorts who answered to the name of Brother +Tadger, bustled down the ladder with great speed, and was immediately +afterwards heard tumbling up with the Reverend Mr. Stiggins. + +‘He’s a-comin’, Sammy,’ whispered Mr. Weller, purple in the countenance +with suppressed laughter. + +‘Don’t say nothin’ to me,’ replied Sam, ‘for I can’t bear it. He’s close +to the door. I hear him a-knockin’ his head again the lath and plaster +now.’ + +As Sam Weller spoke, the little door flew open, and Brother Tadger +appeared, closely followed by the Reverend Mr. Stiggins, who no sooner +entered, than there was a great clapping of hands, and stamping of feet, +and flourishing of handkerchiefs; to all of which manifestations of +delight, Brother Stiggins returned no other acknowledgment than staring +with a wild eye, and a fixed smile, at the extreme top of the wick of +the candle on the table, swaying his body to and fro, meanwhile, in a +very unsteady and uncertain manner. + +‘Are you unwell, Brother Stiggins?’ whispered Mr. Anthony Humm. + +‘I am all right, Sir,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, in a tone in which ferocity +was blended with an extreme thickness of utterance; ‘I am all right, +Sir.’ + +‘Oh, very well,’ rejoined Mr. Anthony Humm, retreating a few paces. + +‘I believe no man here has ventured to say that I am not all right, +Sir?’ said Mr. Stiggins. + +‘Oh, certainly not,’ said Mr. Humm. + +‘I should advise him not to, Sir; I should advise him not,’ said Mr. +Stiggins. + +By this time the audience were perfectly silent, and waited with some +anxiety for the resumption of business. + +‘Will you address the meeting, brother?’ said Mr. Humm, with a smile of +invitation. + +‘No, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Stiggins; ‘No, sir. I will not, sir.’ + +The meeting looked at each other with raised eyelids; and a murmur of +astonishment ran through the room. + +‘It’s my opinion, sir,’ said Mr. Stiggins, unbuttoning his coat, and +speaking very loudly--‘it’s my opinion, sir, that this meeting is drunk, +sir. Brother Tadger, sir!’ said Mr. Stiggins, suddenly increasing in +ferocity, and turning sharp round on the little man in the drab shorts, +‘_you _are drunk, sir!’ With this, Mr. Stiggins, entertaining a +praiseworthy desire to promote the sobriety of the meeting, and to +exclude therefrom all improper characters, hit Brother Tadger on the +summit of the nose with such unerring aim, that the drab shorts +disappeared like a flash of lightning. Brother Tadger had been knocked, +head first, down the ladder. + +Upon this, the women set up a loud and dismal screaming; and rushing in +small parties before their favourite brothers, flung their arms around +them to preserve them from danger. An instance of affection, which had +nearly proved fatal to Humm, who, being extremely popular, was all but +suffocated, by the crowd of female devotees that hung about his neck, +and heaped caresses upon him. The greater part of the lights were +quickly put out, and nothing but noise and confusion resounded on all +sides. + +‘Now, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, taking off his greatcoat with much +deliberation, ‘just you step out, and fetch in a watchman.’ + +‘And wot are you a-goin’ to do, the while?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Never you mind me, Sammy,’ replied the old gentleman; ‘I shall ockipy +myself in havin’ a small settlement with that ‘ere Stiggins.’ Before Sam +could interfere to prevent it, his heroic parent had penetrated into a +remote corner of the room, and attacked the Reverend Mr. Stiggins with +manual dexterity. + +‘Come off!’ said Sam. + +‘Come on!’ cried Mr. Weller; and without further invitation he gave the +Reverend Mr. Stiggins a preliminary tap on the head, and began dancing +round him in a buoyant and cork-like manner, which in a gentleman at his +time of life was a perfect marvel to behold. + +Finding all remonstrances unavailing, Sam pulled his hat firmly on, +threw his father’s coat over his arm, and taking the old man round the +waist, forcibly dragged him down the ladder, and into the street; never +releasing his hold, or permitting him to stop, until they reached the +corner. As they gained it, they could hear the shouts of the populace, +who were witnessing the removal of the Reverend Mr. Stiggins to strong +lodgings for the night, and could hear the noise occasioned by the +dispersion in various directions of the members of the Brick Lane Branch +of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. IS WHOLLY DEVOTED TO A FULL AND FAITHFUL REPORT OF THE +MEMORABLE TRIAL OF BARDELL AGAINST PICKWICK + +I wonder what the foreman of the jury, whoever he’ll be, has got for +breakfast,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, by way of keeping up a conversation on +the eventful morning of the fourteenth of February. + +‘Ah!’ said Perker, ‘I hope he’s got a good one.’ + +Why so?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Highly important--very important, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker. ‘A +good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman is a capital thing to get hold +of. Discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear sir, always find for the +plaintiff.’ + +‘Bless my heart,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking very blank, ‘what do they +do that for?’ + +‘Why, I don’t know,’ replied the little man coolly; ‘saves time, I +suppose. If it’s near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when +the jury has retired, and says, “Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to +five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen.” “So do I,” says everybody +else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than +half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts +up his watch:--“Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, +gentlemen? I rather think, so far as I am concerned, gentlemen,--I say, +I rather think--but don’t let that influence you--I _rather_ think the +plaintiff’s the man.” Upon this, two or three other men are sure to say +that they think so too--as of course they do; and then they get on very +unanimously and comfortably. Ten minutes past nine!’ said the little +man, looking at his watch. ‘Time we were off, my dear sir; breach of +promise trial-court is generally full in such cases. You had better ring +for a coach, my dear sir, or we shall be rather late.’ + +Mr. Pickwick immediately rang the bell, and a coach having been +procured, the four Pickwickians and Mr. Perker ensconced themselves +therein, and drove to Guildhall; Sam Weller, Mr. Lowten, and the blue +bag, following in a cab. + +‘Lowten,’ said Perker, when they reached the outer hall of the court, +‘put Mr. Pickwick’s friends in the students’ box; Mr. Pickwick himself +had better sit by me. This way, my dear sir, this way.’ Taking Mr. +Pickwick by the coat sleeve, the little man led him to the low seat just +beneath the desks of the King’s Counsel, which is constructed for the +convenience of attorneys, who from that spot can whisper into the ear of +the leading counsel in the case, any instructions that may be necessary +during the progress of the trial. The occupants of this seat are +invisible to the great body of spectators, inasmuch as they sit on a +much lower level than either the barristers or the audience, whose seats +are raised above the floor. Of course they have their backs to both, and +their faces towards the judge. + +‘That’s the witness-box, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick, pointing to a +kind of pulpit, with a brass rail, on his left hand. + +‘That’s the witness-box, my dear sir,’ replied Perker, disinterring a +quantity of papers from the blue bag, which Lowten had just deposited at +his feet. + +‘And that,’ said Mr. Pickwick, pointing to a couple of enclosed seats on +his right, ‘that’s where the jurymen sit, is it not?’ + +‘The identical place, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker, tapping the lid of +his snuff-box. + +Mr. Pickwick stood up in a state of great agitation, and took a glance +at the court. There were already a pretty large sprinkling of spectators +in the gallery, and a numerous muster of gentlemen in wigs, in the +barristers’ seats, who presented, as a body, all that pleasing and +extensive variety of nose and whisker for which the Bar of England is so +justly celebrated. Such of the gentlemen as had a brief to carry, +carried it in as conspicuous a manner as possible, and occasionally +scratched their noses therewith, to impress the fact more strongly on +the observation of the spectators. Other gentlemen, who had no briefs to +show, carried under their arms goodly octavos, with a red label behind, +and that under-done-pie-crust-coloured cover, which is technically known +as ‘law calf.’ Others, who had neither briefs nor books, thrust their +hands into their pockets, and looked as wise as they conveniently could; +others, again, moved here and there with great restlessness and +earnestness of manner, content to awaken thereby the admiration and +astonishment of the uninitiated strangers. The whole, to the great +wonderment of Mr. Pickwick, were divided into little groups, who were +chatting and discussing the news of the day in the most unfeeling manner +possible--just as if no trial at all were coming on. + +A bow from Mr. Phunky, as he entered, and took his seat behind the row +appropriated to the King’s Counsel, attracted Mr. Pickwick’s attention; +and he had scarcely returned it, when Mr. Serjeant Snubbin appeared, +followed by Mr. Mallard, who half hid the Serjeant behind a large +crimson bag, which he placed on his table, and, after shaking hands with +Perker, withdrew. Then there entered two or three more Serjeants; and +among them, one with a fat body and a red face, who nodded in a friendly +manner to Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, and said it was a fine morning. + +‘Who’s that red-faced man, who said it was a fine morning, and nodded to +our counsel?’ whispered Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz,’ replied Perker. ‘He’s opposed to us; he leads on +the other side. That gentleman behind him is Mr. Skimpin, his junior.’ + +Mr. Pickwick was on the point of inquiring, with great abhorrence of the +man’s cold-blooded villainy, how Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, who was counsel +for the opposite party, dared to presume to tell Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, +who was counsel for him, that it was a fine morning, when he was +interrupted by a general rising of the barristers, and a loud cry of +‘Silence!’ from the officers of the court. Looking round, he found that +this was caused by the entrance of the judge. + +Mr. Justice Stareleigh (who sat in the absence of the Chief Justice, +occasioned by indisposition) was a most particularly short man, and so +fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two +little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the Bar, who bobbed +gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little +three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice Stareleigh had done +this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink +face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig. + +The judge had no sooner taken his seat, than the officer on the floor of +the court called out ‘Silence!’ in a commanding tone, upon which another +officer in the gallery cried ‘Silence!’ in an angry manner, whereupon +three or four more ushers shouted ‘Silence!’ in a voice of indignant +remonstrance. This being done, a gentleman in black, who sat below the +judge, proceeded to call over the names of the jury; and after a great +deal of bawling, it was discovered that only ten special jurymen were +present. Upon this, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prayed a _tales_; the gentleman +in black then proceeded to press into the special jury, two of the +common jurymen; and a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly. + +‘Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn,’ said the +gentleman in black. ‘Richard Upwitch.’ + +‘Here,’ said the greengrocer. + +‘Thomas Groffin.’ + +‘Here,’ said the chemist. + +‘Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and truly try--’ + +‘I beg this court’s pardon,’ said the chemist, who was a tall, thin, +yellow-visaged man, ‘but I hope this court will excuse my attendance.’ + +‘On what grounds, Sir?’ said Mr. Justice Stareleigh. + +‘I have no assistant, my Lord,’ said the chemist. + +‘I can’t help that, Sir,’ replied Mr. Justice Stareleigh. ‘You should +hire one.’ + +‘I can’t afford it, my Lord,’ rejoined the chemist. + +‘Then you ought to be able to afford it, Sir,’ said the judge, +reddening; for Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s temper bordered on the +irritable, and brooked not contradiction. + +‘I know I _ought _to do, if I got on as well as I deserved; but I don’t, +my Lord,’ answered the chemist. + +‘Swear the gentleman,’ said the judge peremptorily. + +The officer had got no further than the ‘You shall well and truly try,’ +when he was again interrupted by the chemist. + +‘I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?’ said the chemist. + +‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the testy little judge. + +‘Very well, my Lord,’ replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. ‘Then +there’ll be murder before this trial’s over; that’s all. Swear me, if +you please, Sir;’ and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find +words to utter. + +‘I merely wanted to observe, my Lord,’ said the chemist, taking his seat +with great deliberation, ‘that I’ve left nobody but an errand-boy in my +shop. He is a very nice boy, my Lord, but he is not acquainted with +drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression on his mind is, that +Epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. That’s all, +my Lord.’ With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a +comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of +countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst. + +Mr. Pickwick was regarding the chemist with feelings of the deepest +horror, when a slight sensation was perceptible in the body of the +court; and immediately afterwards Mrs. Bardell, supported by Mrs. +Cluppins, was led in, and placed, in a drooping state, at the other end +of the seat on which Mr. Pickwick sat. An extra-sized umbrella was then +handed in by Mr. Dodson, and a pair of pattens by Mr. Fogg, each of whom +had prepared a most sympathising and melancholy face for the occasion. +Mrs. Sanders then appeared, leading in Master Bardell. At sight of her +child, Mrs. Bardell started; suddenly recollecting herself, she kissed +him in a frantic manner; then relapsing into a state of hysterical +imbecility, the good lady requested to be informed where she was. In +reply to this, Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders turned their heads away +and wept, while Messrs. Dodson and Fogg entreated the plaintiff to +compose herself. Serjeant Buzfuz rubbed his eyes very hard with a large +white handkerchief, and gave an appealing look towards the jury, while +the judge was visibly affected, and several of the beholders tried to +cough down their emotion. + +‘Very good notion that indeed,’ whispered Perker to Mr. Pickwick. +‘Capital fellows those Dodson and Fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my +dear Sir, excellent.’ + +As Perker spoke, Mrs. Bardell began to recover by slow degrees, while +Mrs. Cluppins, after a careful survey of Master Bardell’s buttons and +the button-holes to which they severally belonged, placed him on the +floor of the court in front of his mother--a commanding position in +which he could not fail to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of +both judge and jury. This was not done without considerable opposition, +and many tears, on the part of the young gentleman himself, who had +certain inward misgivings that the placing him within the full glare of +the judge’s eye was only a formal prelude to his being immediately +ordered away for instant execution, or for transportation beyond the +seas, during the whole term of his natural life, at the very least. + +‘Bardell and Pickwick,’ cried the gentleman in black, calling on the +case, which stood first on the list. + +‘I am for the plaintiff, my Lord,’ said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz. + +‘Who is with you, Brother Buzfuz?’ said the judge. Mr. Skimpin bowed, to +intimate that he was. + +‘I appear for the defendant, my Lord,’ said Mr. Serjeant Snubbin. + +‘Anybody with you, Brother Snubbin?’ inquired the court. + +‘Mr. Phunky, my Lord,’ replied Serjeant Snubbin. + +‘Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr. Skimpin for the plaintiff,’ said the judge, +writing down the names in his note-book, and reading as he wrote; ‘for +the defendant, Serjeant Snubbin and Mr. Monkey.’ + +‘Beg your Lordship’s pardon, Phunky.’ + +‘Oh, very good,’ said the judge; ‘I never had the pleasure of hearing +the gentleman’s name before.’ Here Mr. Phunky bowed and smiled, and the +judge bowed and smiled too, and then Mr. Phunky, blushing into the very +whites of his eyes, tried to look as if he didn’t know that everybody +was gazing at him, a thing which no man ever succeeded in doing yet, or +in all reasonable probability, ever will. + +‘Go on,’ said the judge. + +The ushers again called silence, and Mr. Skimpin proceeded to ‘open the +case’; and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had +opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to +himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury +in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before. + +Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the +grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to +Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his +shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury. + +Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying, that never, in the whole course of his +professional experience--never, from the very first moment of his +applying himself to the study and practice of the law--had he approached +a case with feelings of such deep emotion, or with such a heavy sense of +the responsibility imposed upon him--a responsibility, he would say, +which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained +by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to positive certainty that +the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his +much-injured and most oppressed client, must prevail with the high- +minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before +him. + +Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the very +best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they +must be. A visible effect was produced immediately, several jurymen +beginning to take voluminous notes with the utmost eagerness. + +‘You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen,’ continued Serjeant +Buzfuz, well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the +gentlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all--‘you have heard +from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for a breach +of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at £1,500. But you +have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not come +within my learned friend’s province to tell you, what are the facts and +circumstances of the case. Those facts and circumstances, gentlemen, you +shall hear detailed by me, and proved by the unimpeachable female whom I +will place in that box before you.’ + +Here, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word ‘box,’ +smote his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and Fogg, who +nodded admiration of the Serjeant, and indignant defiance of the +defendant. + +‘The plaintiff, gentlemen,’ continued Serjeant Buzfuz, in a soft and +melancholy voice, ‘the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. +The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and +confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal +revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere +for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford.’ + +At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been +knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the +learned serjeant’s voice faltered, and he proceeded, with emotion-- + +‘Some time before his death, he had stamped his likeness upon a little +boy. With this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman, +Mrs. Bardell shrank from the world, and courted the retirement and +tranquillity of Goswell Street; and here she placed in her front parlour +window a written placard, bearing this inscription--“Apartments +furnished for a single gentleman. Inquire within.”’ Here Serjeant Buzfuz +paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took a note of the document. + +‘There is no date to that, is there?’ inquired a juror. + +‘There is no date, gentlemen,’ replied Serjeant Buzfuz; ‘but I am +instructed to say that it was put in the plaintiff’s parlour window just +this time three years. I entreat the attention of the jury to the +wording of this document--“Apartments furnished for a single gentleman”! +Mrs. Bardell’s opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived +from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost +husband. She had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no suspicion; all +was confidence and reliance. “Mr. Bardell,” said the widow--“Mr. Bardell +was a man of honour, Mr. Bardell was a man of his word, Mr. Bardell was +no deceiver, Mr. Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; to single +gentlemen I look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for +consolation; in single gentlemen I shall perpetually see something to +remind me of what Mr. Bardell was when he first won my young and untried +affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.” + Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses +of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried +her tears, furnished her first floor, caught her innocent boy to her +maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour window. Did it remain +there long? No. The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the +mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. Before the bill +had been in the parlour window three days--three days, gentlemen--a +being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a +man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell’s house. +He inquired within--he took the lodgings; and on the very next day he +entered into possession of them. This man was Pickwick--Pickwick, the +defendant.’ + +Serjeant Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face +was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. The silence awoke Mr. +Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen +without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the +jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes +shut. Serjeant Buzfuz proceeded-- + +‘Of this man Pickwick I will say little; the subject presents but few +attractions; and I, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, +the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting heartlessness, and +of systematic villainy.’ + +Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in silence for some time, gave +a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting Serjeant Buzfuz, in +the august presence of justice and law, suggested itself to his mind. An +admonitory gesture from Perker restrained him, and he listened to the +learned gentleman’s continuation with a look of indignation, which +contrasted forcibly with the admiring faces of Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. +Sanders. + +‘I say systematic villainy, gentlemen,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking +through Mr. Pickwick, and talking _at_ him; ‘and when I say systematic +villainy, let me tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court, as I am +informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more +becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped +away. Let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or +disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down +with you; that you will know how to value and how to appreciate them; +and let me tell him further, as my Lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a +counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be +intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either +the one or the other, or the first, or the last, will recoil on the head +of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name +Pickwick, or Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or Thompson.’ + + +This little divergence from the subject in hand, had, of course, the +intended effect of turning all eyes to Mr. Pickwick. Serjeant Buzfuz, +having partially recovered from the state of moral elevation into which +he had lashed himself, resumed-- + +‘I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years, Pickwick continued to +reside constantly, and without interruption or intermission, at Mrs. +Bardell’s house. I shall show you that Mrs. Bardell, during the whole of +that time, waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, +looked out his linen for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, +aired, and prepared it for wear, when it came home, and, in short, +enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence. I shall show you that, on many +occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to +her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony +it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, +that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring +whether he had won any “_alley tors_” or “_commoneys_” lately (both of +which I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by +the youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression, “How +should you like to have another father?” I shall prove to you, +gentlemen, that about a year ago, Pickwick suddenly began to absent +himself from home, during long intervals, as if with the intention of +gradually breaking off from my client; but I shall show you also, that +his resolution was not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his +better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has, or that the charms +and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly +intentions, by proving to you, that on one occasion, when he returned +from the country, he distinctly and in terms, offered her marriage: +previously, however, taking special care that there would be no witness +to their solemn contract; and I am in a situation to prove to you, on +the testimony of three of his own friends--most unwilling witnesses, +gentlemen--most unwilling witnesses--that on that morning he was +discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her +agitation by his caresses and endearments.’ + +A visible impression was produced upon the auditors by this part of the +learned Serjeant’s address. Drawing forth two very small scraps of +paper, he proceeded-- + +‘And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have passed between +these parties, letters which are admitted to be in the handwriting of +the defendant, and which speak volumes, indeed. The letters, too, +bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervent, eloquent +epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. +They are covert, sly, underhanded communications, but, fortunately, far +more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the +most poetic imagery--letters that must be viewed with a cautious and +suspicious eye--letters that were evidently intended at the time, by +Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they +might fall. Let me read the first: “Garraways, twelve o’clock. Dear Mrs. +B.--Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, _Pickwick_.” Gentlemen, what does +this mean? Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick! Chops! Gracious +heavens! and tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive +and confiding female to be trifled away, by such shallow artifices as +these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. +“Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.” And +then follows this very remarkable expression. “Don’t trouble yourself +about the warming-pan.” The warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who _does +_trouble himself about a warming-pan? When was the peace of mind of man +or woman broken or disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a +harmless, a useful, and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of +domestic furniture? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to +agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) +it is a mere cover for hidden fire--a mere substitute for some endearing +word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, +artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated +desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain? And what does +this allusion to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a +reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a +criminally slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose +speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, +gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by +you!’ + +Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place, to see whether the jury smiled +at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose +sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having +subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical +morning, the learned Serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a +slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded. + +‘But enough of this, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, ‘it is +difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our +deepest sympathies are awakened. My client’s hopes and prospects are +ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone +indeed. The bill is down--but there is no tenant. Eligible single +gentlemen pass and repass--but there is no invitation for to inquire +within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice +of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his +mother weeps; his “alley tors” and his “commoneys” are alike neglected; +he forgets the long familiar cry of “knuckle down,” and at tip-cheese, +or odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the +ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell +Street--Pickwick who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the +sward--Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato +sauce and warming-pans--Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing +effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, +gentlemen--heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit +him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those +damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right- +feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a +contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen.’ With this beautiful +peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. Justice Stareleigh +woke up. + +‘Call Elizabeth Cluppins,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, rising a minute +afterwards, with renewed vigour. + +The nearest usher called for Elizabeth Tuppins; another one, at a little +distance off, demanded Elizabeth Jupkins; and a third rushed in a +breathless state into King Street, and screamed for Elizabeth Muffins +till he was hoarse. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Cluppins, with the combined assistance of Mrs. Bardell, +Mrs. Sanders, Mr. Dodson, and Mr. Fogg, was hoisted into the witness- +box; and when she was safely perched on the top step, Mrs. Bardell stood +on the bottom one, with the pocket-handkerchief and pattens in one hand, +and a glass bottle that might hold about a quarter of a pint of +smelling-salts in the other, ready for any emergency. Mrs. Sanders, +whose eyes were intently fixed on the judge’s face, planted herself +close by, with the large umbrella, keeping her right thumb pressed on +the spring with an earnest countenance, as if she were fully prepared to +put it up at a moment’s notice. + +‘Mrs. Cluppins,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, ‘pray compose yourself, ma’am.’ +Of course, directly Mrs. Cluppins was desired to compose herself, she +sobbed with increased vehemence, and gave divers alarming manifestations +of an approaching fainting fit, or, as she afterwards said, of her +feelings being too many for her. + +‘Do you recollect, Mrs. Cluppins,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, after a few +unimportant questions--‘do you recollect being in Mrs. Bardell’s back +one pair of stairs, on one particular morning in July last, when she was +dusting Pickwick’s apartment?’ + +‘Yes, my Lord and jury, I do,’ replied Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘Mr. Pickwick’s sitting-room was the first-floor front, I believe?’ + +‘Yes, it were, Sir,’ replied Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘What were you doing in the back room, ma’am?’ inquired the little +judge. + +‘My Lord and jury,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, with interesting agitation, ‘I +will not deceive you.’ + +‘You had better not, ma’am,’ said the little judge. + +‘I was there,’ resumed Mrs. Cluppins, ‘unbeknown to Mrs. Bardell; I had +been out with a little basket, gentlemen, to buy three pound of red +kidney pertaties, which was three pound tuppence ha’penny, when I see +Mrs. Bardell’s street door on the jar.’ + +‘On the what?’ exclaimed the little judge. + +‘Partly open, my Lord,’ said Serjeant Snubbin. + +‘She said on the jar,’ said the little judge, with a cunning look. + +‘It’s all the same, my Lord,’ said Serjeant Snubbin. The little judge +looked doubtful, and said he’d make a note of it. Mrs. Cluppins then +resumed-- + +‘I walked in, gentlemen, just to say good-mornin’, and went, in a +permiscuous manner, upstairs, and into the back room. Gentlemen, there +was the sound of voices in the front room, and--’ + +‘And you listened, I believe, Mrs. Cluppins?’ said Serjeant Buzfuz. + +‘Beggin’ your pardon, Sir,’ replied Mrs. Cluppins, in a majestic manner, +‘I would scorn the haction. The voices was very loud, Sir, and forced +themselves upon my ear.’ + +‘Well, Mrs. Cluppins, you were not listening, but you heard the voices. +Was one of those voices Pickwick’s?’ + +‘Yes, it were, Sir.’ And Mrs. Cluppins, after distinctly stating that +Mr. Pickwick addressed himself to Mrs. Bardell, repeated by slow +degrees, and by dint of many questions, the conversation with which our +readers are already acquainted. + +The jury looked suspicious, and Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz smiled as he sat +down. They looked positively awful when Serjeant Snubbin intimated that +he should not cross-examine the witness, for Mr. Pickwick wished it to +be distinctly stated that it was due to her to say, that her account was +in substance correct. + +Mrs. Cluppins having once broken the ice, thought it a favourable +opportunity for entering into a short dissertation on her own domestic +affairs; so she straightway proceeded to inform the court that she was +the mother of eight children at that present speaking, and that she +entertained confident expectations of presenting Mr. Cluppins with a +ninth, somewhere about that day six months. At this interesting point, +the little judge interposed most irascibly; and the effect of the +interposition was, that both the worthy lady and Mrs. Sanders were +politely taken out of court, under the escort of Mr. Jackson, without +further parley. + +‘Nathaniel Winkle!’ said Mr. Skimpin. + +‘Here!’ replied a feeble voice. Mr. Winkle entered the witness-box, and +having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference. + +‘Don’t look at me, Sir,’ said the judge sharply, in acknowledgment of +the salute; ‘look at the jury.’ + +Mr. Winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought +it most probable the jury might be; for seeing anything in his then +state of intellectual complication was wholly out of the question. + +Mr. Winkle was then examined by Mr. Skimpin, who, being a promising +young man of two or three-and-forty, was of course anxious to confuse a +witness who was notoriously predisposed in favour of the other side, as +much as he could. + +‘Now, Sir,’ said Mr. Skimpin, ‘have the goodness to let his Lordship +know what your name is, will you?’ and Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on +one side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at +the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle’s +natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did +not belong to him. + +‘Winkle,’ replied the witness. + +‘What’s your Christian name, Sir?’ angrily inquired the little judge. + +‘Nathaniel, Sir.’ + +‘Daniel--any other name?’ + +‘Nathaniel, sir--my Lord, I mean.’ + +‘Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?’ + +‘No, my Lord, only Nathaniel--not Daniel at all.’ + +‘What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?’ inquired the judge. + +‘I didn’t, my Lord,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘You did, Sir,’ replied the judge, with a severe frown. ‘How could I +have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, Sir?’ + +This argument was, of course, unanswerable. + +‘Mr. Winkle has rather a short memory, my Lord,’ interposed Mr. Skimpin, +with another glance at the jury. ‘We shall find means to refresh it +before we have quite done with him, I dare say.’ + +‘You had better be careful, Sir,’ said the little judge, with a sinister +look at the witness. + +Poor Mr. Winkle bowed, and endeavoured to feign an easiness of manner, +which, in his then state of confusion, gave him rather the air of a +disconcerted pickpocket. + +‘Now, Mr. Winkle,’ said Mr. Skimpin, ‘attend to me, if you please, Sir; +and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his +Lordship’s injunctions to be careful. I believe you are a particular +friend of Mr. Pickwick, the defendant, are you not?’ + +‘I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I recollect at this moment, +nearly--’ + +‘Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you, or are you not, a +particular friend of the defendant’s?’ + +‘I was just about to say, that--’ + +‘Will you, or will you not, answer my question, Sir?’ + +If you don’t answer the question, you’ll be committed, Sir,’ interposed +the little judge, looking over his note-book. + +‘Come, Sir,’ said Mr. Skimpin, ‘yes or no, if you please.’ + +‘Yes, I am,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘Yes, you are. And why couldn’t you say that at once, Sir? Perhaps you +know the plaintiff too? Eh, Mr. Winkle?’ + +‘I don’t know her; I’ve seen her.’ + +‘Oh, you don’t know her, but you’ve seen her? Now, have the goodness to +tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by that, Mr. Winkle.’ + +‘I mean that I am not intimate with her, but I have seen her when I went +to call on Mr. Pickwick, in Goswell Street.’ + +‘How often have you seen her, Sir?’ + +‘How often?’ + +‘Yes, Mr. Winkle, how often? I’ll repeat the question for you a dozen +times, if you require it, Sir.’ And the learned gentleman, with a firm +and steady frown, placed his hands on his hips, and smiled suspiciously +to the jury. + +On this question there arose the edifying brow-beating, customary on +such points. First of all, Mr. Winkle said it was quite impossible for +him to say how many times he had seen Mrs. Bardell. Then he was asked if +he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, ‘Certainly--more than +that.’ Then he was asked whether he hadn’t seen her a hundred times-- +whether he couldn’t swear that he had seen her more than fifty times-- +whether he didn’t know that he had seen her at least seventy-five times, +and so forth; the satisfactory conclusion which was arrived at, at last, +being, that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was +about. The witness having been by these means reduced to the requisite +ebb of nervous perplexity, the examination was continued as follows-- + +‘Pray, Mr. Winkle, do you remember calling on the defendant Pickwick at +these apartments in the plaintiff’s house in Goswell Street, on one +particular morning, in the month of July last?’ + +‘Yes, I do.’ + +‘Were you accompanied on that occasion by a friend of the name of +Tupman, and another by the name of Snodgrass?’ + +‘Yes, I was.’ + +‘Are they here?’ + +Yes, they are,’ replied Mr. Winkle, looking very earnestly towards the +spot where his friends were stationed. + +‘Pray attend to me, Mr. Winkle, and never mind your friends,’ said Mr. +Skimpin, with another expressive look at the jury. ‘They must tell their +stories without any previous consultation with you, if none has yet +taken place (another look at the jury). Now, Sir, tell the gentlemen of +the jury what you saw on entering the defendant’s room, on this +particular morning. Come; out with it, Sir; we must have it, sooner or +later.’ + +‘The defendant, Mr. Pickwick, was holding the plaintiff in his arms, +with his hands clasping her waist,’ replied Mr. Winkle with natural +hesitation, ‘and the plaintiff appeared to have fainted away.’ + +‘Did you hear the defendant say anything?’ + +‘I heard him call Mrs. Bardell a good creature, and I heard him ask her +to compose herself, for what a situation it was, if anybody should come, +or words to that effect.’ + +‘Now, Mr. Winkle, I have only one more question to ask you, and I beg +you to bear in mind his Lordship’s caution. Will you undertake to swear +that Pickwick, the defendant, did not say on the occasion in question-- +“My dear Mrs. Bardell, you’re a good creature; compose yourself to this +situation, for to this situation you must come,” or words to that +effect?’ + +‘I--I didn’t understand him so, certainly,’ said Mr. Winkle, astounded +on this ingenious dove-tailing of the few words he had heard. ‘I was on +the staircase, and couldn’t hear distinctly; the impression on my mind +is--’ + +‘The gentlemen of the jury want none of the impressions on your mind, +Mr. Winkle, which I fear would be of little service to honest, +straightforward men,’ interposed Mr. Skimpin. ‘You were on the +staircase, and didn’t distinctly hear; but you will not swear that +Pickwick did not make use of the expressions I have quoted? Do I +understand that?’ + +‘No, I will not,’ replied Mr. Winkle; and down sat Mr. Skimpin with a +triumphant countenance. + +Mr. Pickwick’s case had not gone off in so particularly happy a manner, +up to this point, that it could very well afford to have any additional +suspicion cast upon it. But as it could afford to be placed in a rather +better light, if possible, Mr. Phunky rose for the purpose of getting +something important out of Mr. Winkle in cross-examination. Whether he +did get anything important out of him, will immediately appear. + +‘I believe, Mr. Winkle,’ said Mr. Phunky, ‘that Mr. Pickwick is not a +young man?’ + +‘Oh, no,’ replied Mr. Winkle; ‘old enough to be my father.’ + +‘You have told my learned friend that you have known Mr. Pickwick a long +time. Had you ever any reason to suppose or believe that he was about to +be married?’ + +‘Oh, no; certainly not;’ replied Mr. Winkle with so much eagerness, that +Mr. Phunky ought to have got him out of the box with all possible +dispatch. Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad +witnesses--a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness; it was Mr. +Winkle’s fate to figure in both characters. + +‘I will even go further than this, Mr. Winkle,’ continued Mr. Phunky, in +a most smooth and complacent manner. ‘Did you ever see anything in Mr. +Pickwick’s manner and conduct towards the opposite sex, to induce you to +believe that he ever contemplated matrimony of late years, in any case?’ + +‘Oh, no; certainly not,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘Has his behaviour, when females have been in the case, always been that +of a man, who, having attained a pretty advanced period of life, content +with his own occupations and amusements, treats them only as a father +might his daughters?’ + +‘Not the least doubt of it,’ replied Mr. Winkle, in the fulness of his +heart. ‘That is--yes--oh, yes--certainly.’ + +‘You have never known anything in his behaviour towards Mrs. Bardell, or +any other female, in the least degree suspicious?’ said Mr. Phunky, +preparing to sit down; for Serjeant Snubbin was winking at him. + +‘N-n-no,’ replied Mr. Winkle, ‘except on one trifling occasion, which, I +have no doubt, might be easily explained.’ + +Now, if the unfortunate Mr. Phunky had sat down when Serjeant Snubbin +had winked at him, or if Serjeant Buzfuz had stopped this irregular +cross-examination at the outset (which he knew better than to do; +observing Mr. Winkle’s anxiety, and well knowing it would, in all +probability, lead to something serviceable to him), this unfortunate +admission would not have been elicited. The moment the words fell from +Mr. Winkle’s lips, Mr. Phunky sat down, and Serjeant Snubbin rather +hastily told him he might leave the box, which Mr. Winkle prepared to do +with great readiness, when Serjeant Buzfuz stopped him. + +‘Stay, Mr. Winkle, stay!’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, ‘will your Lordship have +the goodness to ask him, what this one instance of suspicious behaviour +towards females on the part of this gentleman, who is old enough to be +his father, was?’ + +‘You hear what the learned counsel says, Sir,’ observed the judge, +turning to the miserable and agonised Mr. Winkle. ‘Describe the occasion +to which you refer.’ + +‘My Lord,’ said Mr. Winkle, trembling with anxiety, ‘I--I’d rather not.’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ said the little judge; ‘but you must.’ + +Amid the profound silence of the whole court, Mr. Winkle faltered out, +that the trifling circumstance of suspicion was Mr. Pickwick’s being +found in a lady’s sleeping-apartment at midnight; which had terminated, +he believed, in the breaking off of the projected marriage of the lady +in question, and had led, he knew, to the whole party being forcibly +carried before George Nupkins, Esq., magistrate and justice of the +peace, for the borough of Ipswich! + +‘You may leave the box, Sir,’ said Serjeant Snubbin. Mr. Winkle did +leave the box, and rushed with delirious haste to the George and +Vulture, where he was discovered some hours after, by the waiter, +groaning in a hollow and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the +sofa cushions. + +Tracy Tupman, and Augustus Snodgrass, were severally called into the +box; both corroborated the testimony of their unhappy friend; and each +was driven to the verge of desperation by excessive badgering. + +Susannah Sanders was then called, and examined by Serjeant Buzfuz, and +cross-examined by Serjeant Snubbin. Had always said and believed that +Pickwick would marry Mrs. Bardell; knew that Mrs. Bardell’s being +engaged to Pickwick was the current topic of conversation in the +neighbourhood, after the fainting in July; had been told it herself by +Mrs. Mudberry which kept a mangle, and Mrs. Bunkin which clear-starched, +but did not see either Mrs. Mudberry or Mrs. Bunkin in court. Had heard +Pickwick ask the little boy how he should like to have another father. +Did not know that Mrs. Bardell was at that time keeping company with the +baker, but did know that the baker was then a single man and is now +married. Couldn’t swear that Mrs. Bardell was not very fond of the +baker, but should think that the baker was not very fond of Mrs. +Bardell, or he wouldn’t have married somebody else. Thought Mrs. Bardell +fainted away on the morning in July, because Pickwick asked her to name +the day: knew that she (witness) fainted away stone dead when Mr. +Sanders asked her to name the day, and believed that everybody as called +herself a lady would do the same, under similar circumstances. Heard +Pickwick ask the boy the question about the marbles, but upon her oath +did not know the difference between an ‘alley tor’ and a ‘commoney.’ + +By the _court_.--During the period of her keeping company with Mr. +Sanders, had received love letters, like other ladies. In the course of +their correspondence Mr. Sanders had often called her a ‘duck,’ but +never ‘chops,’ nor yet ‘tomato sauce.’ He was particularly fond of +ducks. Perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomato sauce, he +might have called her that, as a term of affection. + +Serjeant Buzfuz now rose with more importance than he had yet exhibited, +if that were possible, and vociferated; ‘Call Samuel Weller.’ + +It was quite unnecessary to call Samuel Weller; for Samuel Weller +stepped briskly into the box the instant his name was pronounced; and +placing his hat on the floor, and his arms on the rail, took a bird’s- +eye view of the Bar, and a comprehensive survey of the Bench, with a +remarkably cheerful and lively aspect. + +‘What’s your name, sir?’ inquired the judge. + +‘Sam Weller, my Lord,’ replied that gentleman. + +‘Do you spell it with a “V” or a “W”?’ inquired the judge. + +‘That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord,’ replied +Sam; ‘I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my +life, but I spells it with a “V.”’ + +Here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, ‘Quite right too, Samivel, +quite right. Put it down a “we,” my Lord, put it down a “we.”’ + +Who is that, who dares address the court?’ said the little judge, +looking up. ‘Usher.’ + +‘Yes, my Lord.’ + +‘Bring that person here instantly.’ + +‘Yes, my Lord.’ + +But as the usher didn’t find the person, he didn’t bring him; and, after +a great commotion, all the people who had got up to look for the +culprit, sat down again. The little judge turned to the witness as soon +as his indignation would allow him to speak, and said-- + +‘Do you know who that was, sir?’ + +‘I rayther suspect it was my father, my lord,’ replied Sam. + +‘Do you see him here now?’ said the judge. + +‘No, I don’t, my Lord,’ replied Sam, staring right up into the lantern +at the roof of the court. + +‘If you could have pointed him out, I would have committed him +instantly,’ said the judge. Sam bowed his acknowledgments and turned, +with unimpaired cheerfulness of countenance, towards Serjeant Buzfuz. + +‘Now, Mr. Weller,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz. + +‘Now, sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘I believe you are in the service of Mr. Pickwick, the defendant in this +case? Speak up, if you please, Mr. Weller.’ + +‘I mean to speak up, Sir,’ replied Sam; ‘I am in the service o’ that +‘ere gen’l’man, and a wery good service it is.’ + +‘Little to do, and plenty to get, I suppose?’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, with +jocularity. + +‘Oh, quite enough to get, Sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him +three hundred and fifty lashes,’ replied Sam. + +‘You must not tell us what the soldier, or any other man, said, Sir,’ +interposed the judge; ‘it’s not evidence.’ + +‘Wery good, my Lord,’ replied Sam. + +‘Do you recollect anything particular happening on the morning when you +were first engaged by the defendant; eh, Mr. Weller?’ said Serjeant +Buzfuz. + +‘Yes, I do, sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘Have the goodness to tell the jury what it was.’ + +‘I had a reg’lar new fit out o’ clothes that mornin’, gen’l’men of the +jury,’ said Sam, ‘and that was a wery partickler and uncommon +circumstance vith me in those days.’ + +Hereupon there was a general laugh; and the little judge, looking with +an angry countenance over his desk, said, ‘You had better be careful, +Sir.’ + +‘So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, my Lord,’ replied Sam; ‘and I was +wery careful o’ that ‘ere suit o’ clothes; wery careful indeed, my +Lord.’ + +The judge looked sternly at Sam for full two minutes, but Sam’s features +were so perfectly calm and serene that the judge said nothing, and +motioned Serjeant Buzfuz to proceed. + +‘Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, folding his +arms emphatically, and turning half-round to the jury, as if in mute +assurance that he would bother the witness yet--‘do you mean to tell me, +Mr. Weller, that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the +plaintiff in the arms of the defendant, which you have heard described +by the witnesses?’ + +Certainly not,’ replied Sam; ‘I was in the passage till they called me +up, and then the old lady was not there.’ + +‘Now, attend, Mr. Weller,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, dipping a large pen +into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of frightening Sam with a +show of taking down his answer. ‘You were in the passage, and yet saw +nothing of what was going forward. Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?’ + +‘Yes, I have a pair of eyes,’ replied Sam, ‘and that’s just it. If they +wos a pair o’ patent double million magnifyin’ gas microscopes of hextra +power, p’raps I might be able to see through a flight o’ stairs and a +deal door; but bein’ only eyes, you see, my wision ‘s limited.’ + +At this answer, which was delivered without the slightest appearance of +irritation, and with the most complete simplicity and equanimity of +manner, the spectators tittered, the little judge smiled, and Serjeant +Buzfuz looked particularly foolish. After a short consultation with +Dodson & Fogg, the learned Serjeant again turned towards Sam, and said, +with a painful effort to conceal his vexation, ‘Now, Mr. Weller, I’ll +ask you a question on another point, if you please.’ + +‘If you please, Sir,’ rejoined Sam, with the utmost good-humour. + +‘Do you remember going up to Mrs. Bardell’s house, one night in November +last?’ + +Oh, yes, wery well.’ + +‘Oh, you do remember that, Mr. Weller,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, recovering +his spirits; ‘I thought we should get at something at last.’ + +‘I rayther thought that, too, sir,’ replied Sam; and at this the +spectators tittered again. + +‘Well; I suppose you went up to have a little talk about this trial--eh, +Mr. Weller?’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. + +‘I went up to pay the rent; but we did get a-talkin’ about the trial,’ +replied Sam. + +‘Oh, you did get a-talking about the trial,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, +brightening up with the anticipation of some important discovery. ‘Now, +what passed about the trial; will you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. +Weller’?’ + +‘Vith all the pleasure in life, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Arter a few +unimportant obserwations from the two wirtuous females as has been +examined here to-day, the ladies gets into a very great state o’ +admiration at the honourable conduct of Mr. Dodson and Fogg--them two +gen’l’men as is settin’ near you now.’ This, of course, drew general +attention to Dodson & Fogg, who looked as virtuous as possible. + +‘The attorneys for the plaintiff,’ said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz. ‘Well! They +spoke in high praise of the honourable conduct of Messrs. Dodson and +Fogg, the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘they said what a wery gen’rous thing it was o’ them to +have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothing at all for costs, +unless they got ‘em out of Mr. Pickwick.’ + +At this very unexpected reply, the spectators tittered again, and Dodson +& Fogg, turning very red, leaned over to Serjeant Buzfuz, and in a +hurried manner whispered something in his ear. + +‘You are quite right,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz aloud, with affected +composure. ‘It’s perfectly useless, my Lord, attempting to get at any +evidence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness. I will not +trouble the court by asking him any more questions. Stand down, sir.’ + +‘Would any other gen’l’man like to ask me anythin’?’ inquired Sam, +taking up his hat, and looking round most deliberately. + +‘Not I, Mr. Weller, thank you,’ said Serjeant Snubbin, laughing. + +‘You may go down, sir,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, waving his hand +impatiently. Sam went down accordingly, after doing Messrs. Dodson & +Fogg’s case as much harm as he conveniently could, and saying just as +little respecting Mr. Pickwick as might be, which was precisely the +object he had had in view all along. + +‘I have no objection to admit, my Lord,’ said Serjeant Snubbin, ‘if it +will save the examination of another witness, that Mr. Pickwick has +retired from business, and is a gentleman of considerable independent +property.’ + +‘Very well,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, putting in the two letters to be +read, ‘then that’s my case, my Lord.’ + +Serjeant Snubbin then addressed the jury on behalf of the defendant; and +a very long and a very emphatic address he delivered, in which he +bestowed the highest possible eulogiums on the conduct and character of +Mr. Pickwick; but inasmuch as our readers are far better able to form a +correct estimate of that gentleman’s merits and deserts, than Serjeant +Snubbin could possibly be, we do not feel called upon to enter at any +length into the learned gentleman’s observations. He attempted to show +that the letters which had been exhibited, merely related to Mr. +Pickwick’s dinner, or to the preparations for receiving him in his +apartments on his return from some country excursion. It is sufficient +to add in general terms, that he did the best he could for Mr. Pickwick; +and the best, as everybody knows, on the infallible authority of the old +adage, could do no more. + +Mr. Justice Stareleigh summed up, in the old-established and most +approved form. He read as much of his notes to the jury as he could +decipher on so short a notice, and made running-comments on the evidence +as he went along. If Mrs. Bardell were right, it was perfectly clear +that Mr. Pickwick was wrong, and if they thought the evidence of Mrs. +Cluppins worthy of credence they would believe it, and, if they didn’t, +why, they wouldn’t. If they were satisfied that a breach of promise of +marriage had been committed they would find for the plaintiff with such +damages as they thought proper; and if, on the other hand, it appeared +to them that no promise of marriage had ever been given, they would find +for the defendant with no damages at all. The jury then retired to their +private room to talk the matter over, and the judge retired to _his +_private room, to refresh himself with a mutton chop and a glass of +sherry. + +An anxious quarter of a hour elapsed; the jury came back; the judge was +fetched in. Mr. Pickwick put on his spectacles, and gazed at the foreman +with an agitated countenance and a quickly-beating heart. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the individual in black, ‘are you all agreed upon your +verdict?’ + +‘We are,’ replied the foreman. + +‘Do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or for the defendant?’ + +For the plaintiff.’ + +‘With what damages, gentlemen?’ + +‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds.’ + +Mr. Pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully wiped the glasses, +folded them into their case, and put them in his pocket; then, having +drawn on his gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman all the +while, he mechanically followed Mr. Perker and the blue bag out of +court. + +They stopped in a side room while Perker paid the court fees; and here, +Mr. Pickwick was joined by his friends. Here, too, he encountered +Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of outward +satisfaction. + +‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well, Sir,’ said Dodson, for self and partner. + +‘You imagine you’ll get your costs, don’t you, gentlemen?’ said Mr. +Pickwick. + +Fogg said they thought it rather probable. Dodson smiled, and said +they’d try. + +‘You may try, and try, and try again, Messrs. Dodson and Fogg,’ said Mr. +Pickwick vehemently, ‘but not one farthing of costs or damages do you +ever get from me, if I spend the rest of my existence in a debtor’s +prison.’ + +‘Ha! ha!’ laughed Dodson. ‘You’ll think better of that, before next +term, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘He, he, he! We’ll soon see about that, Mr. Pickwick,’ grinned Fogg. + +Speechless with indignation, Mr. Pickwick allowed himself to be led by +his solicitor and friends to the door, and there assisted into a +hackney-coach, which had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever- +watchful Sam Weller. + +Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when +he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and, looking round, his +father stood before him. The old gentleman’s countenance wore a mournful +expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents-- + +‘I know’d what ‘ud come o’ this here mode o’ doin’ bisness. Oh, Sammy, +Sammy, vy worn’t there a alleybi!’ + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK THINKS HE HAD BETTER GO TO BATH; AND +GOES ACCORDINGLY + +But surely, my dear sir,’ said little Perker, as he stood in Mr. +Pickwick’s apartment on the morning after the trial, ‘surely you don’t +really mean--really and seriously now, and irritation apart--that you +won’t pay these costs and damages?’ + +‘Not one halfpenny,’ said Mr. Pickwick firmly; ‘not one halfpenny.’ + +‘Hooroar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn’t +renew the bill,’ observed Mr. Weller, who was clearing away the +breakfast-things. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘have the goodness to step downstairs.’ + +‘Cert’nly, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; and acting on Mr. Pickwick’s gentle +hint, Sam retired. + +‘No, Perker,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great seriousness of manner, ‘my +friends here have endeavoured to dissuade me from this determination, +but without avail. I shall employ myself as usual, until the opposite +party have the power of issuing a legal process of execution against me; +and if they are vile enough to avail themselves of it, and to arrest my +person, I shall yield myself up with perfect cheerfulness and content of +heart. When can they do this?’ + +‘They can issue execution, my dear Sir, for the amount of the damages +and taxed costs, next term,’ replied Perker, ‘just two months hence, my +dear sir.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Until that time, my dear fellow, let me +hear no more of the matter. And now,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, looking +round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the +eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, ‘the only question is, +Where shall we go next?’ + +Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were too much affected by their friend’s +heroism to offer any reply. Mr. Winkle had not yet sufficiently +recovered the recollection of his evidence at the trial, to make any +observation on any subject, so Mr. Pickwick paused in vain. + +‘Well,’ said that gentleman, ‘if you leave me to suggest our +destination, I say Bath. I think none of us have ever been there.’ + +Nobody had; and as the proposition was warmly seconded by Perker, who +considered it extremely probable that if Mr. Pickwick saw a little +change and gaiety he would be inclined to think better of his +determination, and worse of a debtor’s prison, it was carried +unanimously; and Sam was at once despatched to the White Horse Cellar, +to take five places by the half-past seven o’clock coach, next morning. + +There were just two places to be had inside, and just three to be had +out; so Sam Weller booked for them all, and having exchanged a few +compliments with the booking-office clerk on the subject of a pewter +half-crown which was tendered him as a portion of his ‘change,’ walked +back to the George and Vulture, where he was pretty busily employed +until bed-time in reducing clothes and linen into the smallest possible +compass, and exerting his mechanical genius in constructing a variety of +ingenious devices for keeping the lids on boxes which had neither locks +nor hinges. + +The next was a very unpropitious morning for a journey--muggy, damp, and +drizzly. The horses in the stages that were going out, and had come +through the city, were smoking so, that the outside passengers were +invisible. The newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelled mouldy; the +wet ran off the hats of the orange-vendors as they thrust their heads +into the coach windows, and diluted the insides in a refreshing manner. +The Jews with the fifty-bladed penknives shut them up in despair; the +men with the pocket-books made pocket-books of them. Watch-guards and +toasting-forks were alike at a discount, and pencil-cases and sponges +were a drug in the market. + +Leaving Sam Weller to rescue the luggage from the seven or eight porters +who flung themselves savagely upon it, the moment the coach stopped, and +finding that they were about twenty minutes too early, Mr. Pickwick and +his friends went for shelter into the travellers’ room--the last +resource of human dejection. + +The travellers’ room at the White Horse Cellar is of course +uncomfortable; it would be no travellers’ room if it were not. It is the +right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fireplace appears to +have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is +divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is +furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter, which latter +article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in a corner of +the apartment. + +One of these boxes was occupied, on this particular occasion, by a +stern-eyed man of about five-and-forty, who had a bald and glossy +forehead, with a good deal of black hair at the sides and back of his +head, and large black whiskers. He was buttoned up to the chin in a +brown coat; and had a large sealskin travelling-cap, and a greatcoat and +cloak, lying on the seat beside him. He looked up from his breakfast as +Mr. Pickwick entered, with a fierce and peremptory air, which was very +dignified; and, having scrutinised that gentleman and his companions to +his entire satisfaction, hummed a tune, in a manner which seemed to say +that he rather suspected somebody wanted to take advantage of him, but +it wouldn’t do. + +‘Waiter,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers. + +‘Sir?’ replied a man with a dirty complexion, and a towel of the same, +emerging from the kennel before mentioned. + +‘Some more toast.’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Buttered toast, mind,’ said the gentleman fiercely. + +‘Directly, sir,’ replied the waiter. + +The gentleman with the whiskers hummed a tune in the same manner as +before, and pending the arrival of the toast, advanced to the front of +the fire, and, taking his coat tails under his arms, looked at his boots +and ruminated. + +‘I wonder whereabouts in Bath this coach puts up,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +mildly addressing Mr. Winkle. + +‘Hum--eh--what’s that?’ said the strange man. + +‘I made an observation to my friend, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, always +ready to enter into conversation. ‘I wondered at what house the Bath +coach put up. Perhaps you can inform me.’ + +Are you going to Bath?’ said the strange man. + +‘I am, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And those other gentlemen?’ + +‘They are going also,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not inside--I’ll be damned if you’re going inside,’ said the strange +man. + +‘Not all of us,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No, not all of you,’ said the strange man emphatically. ‘I’ve taken two +places. If they try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only +holds four, I’ll take a post-chaise and bring an action. I’ve paid my +fare. It won’t do; I told the clerk when I took my places that it +wouldn’t do. I know these things have been done. I know they are done +every day; but I never was done, and I never will be. Those who know me +best, best know it; crush me!’ Here the fierce gentleman rang the bell +with great violence, and told the waiter he’d better bring the toast in +five seconds, or he’d know the reason why. + +‘My good sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you will allow me to observe that +this is a very unnecessary display of excitement. I have only taken +places inside for two.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said the fierce man. ‘I withdraw my expressions. +I tender an apology. There’s my card. Give me your acquaintance.’ + +‘With great pleasure, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘We are to be fellow- +travellers, and I hope we shall find each other’s society mutually +agreeable.’ + +‘I hope we shall,’ said the fierce gentleman. ‘I know we shall. I like +your looks; they please me. Gentlemen, your hands and names. Know me.’ + +Of course, an interchange of friendly salutations followed this gracious +speech; and the fierce gentleman immediately proceeded to inform the +friends, in the same short, abrupt, jerking sentences, that his name was +Dowler; that he was going to Bath on pleasure; that he was formerly in +the army; that he had now set up in business as a gentleman; that he +lived upon the profits; and that the individual for whom the second +place was taken, was a personage no less illustrious than Mrs. Dowler, +his lady wife. + +‘She’s a fine woman,’ said Mr. Dowler. ‘I am proud of her. I have +reason.’ + +‘I hope I shall have the pleasure of judging,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a +smile. + +‘You shall,’ replied Dowler. ‘She shall know you. She shall esteem you. +I courted her under singular circumstances. I won her through a rash +vow. Thus. I saw her; I loved her; I proposed; she refused me.--“You +love another?”--“Spare my blushes.”--“I know him.”--“You do.”--“Very +good; if he remains here, I’ll skin him.”’ + +‘Lord bless me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily. + +‘Did you skin the gentleman, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, with a very pale +face. + +‘I wrote him a note, I said it was a painful thing. And so it was.’ + +‘Certainly,’ interposed Mr. Winkle. + +‘I said I had pledged my word as a gentleman to skin him. My character +was at stake. I had no alternative. As an officer in His Majesty’s +service, I was bound to skin him. I regretted the necessity, but it must +be done. He was open to conviction. He saw that the rules of the service +were imperative. He fled. I married her. Here’s the coach. That’s her +head.’ + +As Mr. Dowler concluded, he pointed to a stage which had just driven up, +from the open window of which a rather pretty face in a bright blue +bonnet was looking among the crowd on the pavement, most probably for +the rash man himself. Mr. Dowler paid his bill, and hurried out with his +travelling cap, coat, and cloak; and Mr. Pickwick and his friends +followed to secure their places. + +Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass had seated themselves at the back part of +the coach; Mr. Winkle had got inside; and Mr. Pickwick was preparing to +follow him, when Sam Weller came up to his master, and whispering in his +ear, begged to speak to him, with an air of the deepest mystery. + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what’s the matter now?’ + +‘Here’s rayther a rum go, sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘What?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘This here, Sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘I’m wery much afeerd, sir, that the +properiator o’ this here coach is a playin’ some imperence vith us.’ + +‘How is that, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘aren’t the names down on the +way-bill?’ + +‘The names is not only down on the vay-bill, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘but +they’ve painted vun on ‘em up, on the door o’ the coach.’ As Sam spoke, +he pointed to that part of the coach door on which the proprietor’s name +usually appears; and there, sure enough, in gilt letters of a goodly +size, was the magic name of _Pickwick_! + +‘Dear me,’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence; +‘what a very extraordinary thing!’ + +‘Yes, but that ain’t all,’ said Sam, again directing his master’s +attention to the coach door; ‘not content vith writin’ up “Pick-wick,” + they puts “Moses” afore it, vich I call addin’ insult to injury, as the +parrot said ven they not only took him from his native land, but made +him talk the English langwidge arterwards.’ + +‘It’s odd enough, certainly, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but if we stand +talking here, we shall lose our places.’ + +‘Wot, ain’t nothin’ to be done in consequence, sir?’ exclaimed Sam, +perfectly aghast at the coolness with which Mr. Pickwick prepared to +ensconce himself inside. + +‘Done!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘What should be done?’ + +Ain’t nobody to be whopped for takin’ this here liberty, sir?’ said Mr. +Weller, who had expected that at least he would have been commissioned +to challenge the guard and the coachman to a pugilistic encounter on the +spot. + +‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick eagerly; ‘not on any account. Jump +up to your seat directly.’ + +‘I am wery much afeered,’ muttered Sam to himself, as he turned away, +‘that somethin’ queer’s come over the governor, or he’d never ha’ stood +this so quiet. I hope that ‘ere trial hasn’t broke his spirit, but it +looks bad, wery bad.’ Mr. Weller shook his head gravely; and it is +worthy of remark, as an illustration of the manner in which he took this +circumstance to heart, that he did not speak another word until the +coach reached the Kensington turnpike. Which was so long a time for him +to remain taciturn, that the fact may be considered wholly +unprecedented. + +Nothing worthy of special mention occurred during the journey. Mr. +Dowler related a variety of anecdotes, all illustrative of his own +personal prowess and desperation, and appealed to Mrs. Dowler in +corroboration thereof; when Mrs. Dowler invariably brought in, in the +form of an appendix, some remarkable fact or circumstance which Mr. +Dowler had forgotten, or had perhaps through modesty, omitted; for the +addenda in every instance went to show that Mr. Dowler was even a more +wonderful fellow than he made himself out to be. Mr. Pickwick and Mr. +Winkle listened with great admiration, and at intervals conversed with +Mrs. Dowler, who was a very agreeable and fascinating person. So, what +between Mr. Dowler’s stories, and Mrs. Dowler’s charms, and Mr. +Pickwick’s good-humour, and Mr. Winkle’s good listening, the insides +contrived to be very companionable all the way. + +The outsides did as outsides always do. They were very cheerful and +talkative at the beginning of every stage, and very dismal and sleepy in +the middle, and very bright and wakeful again towards the end. There was +one young gentleman in an India-rubber cloak, who smoked cigars all day; +and there was another young gentleman in a parody upon a greatcoat, who +lighted a good many, and feeling obviously unsettled after the second +whiff, threw them away when he thought nobody was looking at him. There +was a third young man on the box who wished to be learned in cattle; and +an old one behind, who was familiar with farming. There was a constant +succession of Christian names in smock-frocks and white coats, who were +invited to have a ‘lift’ by the guard, and who knew every horse and +hostler on the road and off it; and there was a dinner which would have +been cheap at half-a-crown a mouth, if any moderate number of mouths +could have eaten it in the time. And at seven o’clock P.M. Mr. Pickwick +and his friends, and Mr. Dowler and his wife, respectively retired to +their private sitting-rooms at the White Hart Hotel, opposite the Great +Pump Room, Bath, where the waiters, from their costume, might be +mistaken for Westminster boys, only they destroy the illusion by +behaving themselves much better. + +Breakfast had scarcely been cleared away on the succeeding morning, when +a waiter brought in Mr. Dowler’s card, with a request to be allowed +permission to introduce a friend. Mr. Dowler at once followed up the +delivery of the card, by bringing himself and the friend also. + +The friend was a charming young man of not much more than fifty, dressed +in a very bright blue coat with resplendent buttons, black trousers, and +the thinnest possible pair of highly-polished boots. A gold eye-glass +was suspended from his neck by a short, broad, black ribbon; a gold +snuff-box was lightly clasped in his left hand; gold rings innumerable +glittered on his fingers; and a large diamond pin set in gold glistened +in his shirt frill. He had a gold watch, and a gold curb chain with +large gold seals; and he carried a pliant ebony cane with a gold top. +His linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the +glossiest, blackest, and curliest. His snuff was princes’ mixture; his +scent _bouquet du roi_. His features were contracted into a perpetual +smile; and his teeth were in such perfect order that it was difficult at +a small distance to tell the real from the false. + +‘Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mr. Dowler; ‘my friend, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, +Esquire, M.C.; Bantam; Mr. Pickwick. Know each other.’ + +‘Welcome to Ba--ath, Sir. This is indeed an acquisition. Most welcome to +Ba--ath, sir. It is long--very long, Mr. Pickwick, since you drank the +waters. It appears an age, Mr. Pickwick. Re-markable!’ + +Such were the expressions with which Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C., +took Mr. Pickwick’s hand; retaining it in his, meantime, and shrugging +up his shoulders with a constant succession of bows, as if he really +could not make up his mind to the trial of letting it go again. + +‘It is a very long time since I drank the waters, certainly,’ replied +Mr. Pickwick; ‘for, to the best of my knowledge, I was never here +before.’ + +‘Never in Ba--ath, Mr. Pickwick!’ exclaimed the Grand Master, letting +the hand fall in astonishment. ‘Never in Ba--ath! He! he! Mr. Pickwick, +you are a wag. Not bad, not bad. Good, good. He! he! he! Re-markable!’ + +‘To my shame, I must say that I am perfectly serious,’ rejoined Mr. +Pickwick. ‘I really never was here before.’ + +‘Oh, I see,’ exclaimed the Grand Master, looking extremely pleased; +‘yes, yes--good, good--better and better. You are the gentleman of whom +we have heard. Yes; we know you, Mr. Pickwick; we know you.’ + +‘The reports of the trial in those confounded papers,’ thought Mr. +Pickwick. ‘They have heard all about me.’ + +You are the gentleman residing on Clapham Green,’ resumed Bantam, ‘who +lost the use of his limbs from imprudently taking cold after port wine; +who could not be moved in consequence of acute suffering, and who had +the water from the king’s bath bottled at one hundred and three degrees, +and sent by wagon to his bedroom in town, where he bathed, sneezed, and +the same day recovered. Very remarkable!’ + +Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment which the supposition implied, +but had the self-denial to repudiate it, notwithstanding; and taking +advantage of a moment’s silence on the part of the M.C., begged to +introduce his friends, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. An +introduction which overwhelmed the M.C. with delight and honour. + +‘Bantam,’ said Mr. Dowler, ‘Mr. Pickwick and his friends are strangers. +They must put their names down. Where’s the book?’ + +‘The register of the distinguished visitors in Ba--ath will be at the +Pump Room this morning at two o’clock,’ replied the M.C. ‘Will you guide +our friends to that splendid building, and enable me to procure their +autographs?’ + +‘I will,’ rejoined Dowler. ‘This is a long call. It’s time to go. I +shall be here again in an hour. Come.’ + +‘This is a ball-night,’ said the M.C., again taking Mr. Pickwick’s hand, +as he rose to go. ‘The ball-nights in Ba--ath are moments snatched from +paradise; rendered bewitching by music, beauty, elegance, fashion, +etiquette, and--and--above all, by the absence of tradespeople, who are +quite inconsistent with paradise, and who have an amalgamation of +themselves at the Guildhall every fortnight, which is, to say the least, +remarkable. Good-bye, good-bye!’ and protesting all the way downstairs +that he was most satisfied, and most delighted, and most overpowered, +and most flattered, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C., stepped into a +very elegant chariot that waited at the door, and rattled off. + +At the appointed hour, Mr. Pickwick and his friends, escorted by Dowler, +repaired to the Assembly Rooms, and wrote their names down in the book-- +an instance of condescension at which Angelo Bantam was even more +overpowered than before. Tickets of admission to that evening’s assembly +were to have been prepared for the whole party, but as they were not +ready, Mr. Pickwick undertook, despite all the protestations to the +contrary of Angelo Bantam, to send Sam for them at four o’clock in the +afternoon, to the M.C.’s house in Queen Square. Having taken a short +walk through the city, and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that Park +Street was very much like the perpendicular streets a man sees in a +dream, which he cannot get up for the life of him, they returned to the +White Hart, and despatched Sam on the errand to which his master had +pledged him. + +Sam Weller put on his hat in a very easy and graceful manner, and, +thrusting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, walked with great +deliberation to Queen Square, whistling as he went along, several of the +most popular airs of the day, as arranged with entirely new movements +for that noble instrument the organ, either mouth or barrel. Arriving at +the number in Queen Square to which he had been directed, he left off +whistling and gave a cheerful knock, which was instantaneously answered +by a powdered-headed footman in gorgeous livery, and of symmetrical +stature. + +‘Is this here Mr. Bantam’s, old feller?’ inquired Sam Weller, nothing +abashed by the blaze of splendour which burst upon his sight in the +person of the powdered-headed footman with the gorgeous livery. + +‘Why, young man?’ was the haughty inquiry of the powdered-headed +footman. + +‘’Cos if it is, jist you step in to him with that ‘ere card, and say Mr. +Veller’s a-waitin’, will you?’ said Sam. And saying it, he very coolly +walked into the hall, and sat down. + +The powdered-headed footman slammed the door very hard, and scowled very +grandly; but both the slam and the scowl were lost upon Sam, who was +regarding a mahogany umbrella-stand with every outward token of critical +approval. + +Apparently his master’s reception of the card had impressed the +powdered-headed footman in Sam’s favour, for when he came back from +delivering it, he smiled in a friendly manner, and said that the answer +would be ready directly. + +‘Wery good,’ said Sam. ‘Tell the old gen’l’m’n not to put himself in a +perspiration. No hurry, six-foot. I’ve had my dinner.’ + +‘You dine early, sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman. + +‘I find I gets on better at supper when I does,’ replied Sam. + +‘Have you been long in Bath, sir?’ inquired the powdered-headed footman. +‘I have not had the pleasure of hearing of you before.’ + +‘I haven’t created any wery surprisin’ sensation here, as yet,’ rejoined +Sam, ‘for me and the other fash’nables only come last night.’ + +‘Nice place, Sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman. + +‘Seems so,’ observed Sam. + +‘Pleasant society, sir,’ remarked the powdered-headed footman. ‘Very +agreeable servants, sir.’ + +‘I should think they wos,’ replied Sam. ‘Affable, unaffected, say- +nothin’-to-nobody sorts o’ fellers.’ + +‘Oh, very much so, indeed, sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman, +taking Sam’s remarks as a high compliment. ‘Very much so indeed. Do you +do anything in this way, Sir?’ inquired the tall footman, producing a +small snuff-box with a fox’s head on the top of it. + +‘Not without sneezing,’ replied Sam. + +‘Why, it _is_ difficult, sir, I confess,’ said the tall footman. ‘It may +be done by degrees, Sir. Coffee is the best practice. I carried coffee, +Sir, for a long time. It looks very like rappee, sir.’ + +Here, a sharp peal at the bell reduced the powdered-headed footman to +the ignominious necessity of putting the fox’s head in his pocket, and +hastening with a humble countenance to Mr. Bantam’s ‘study.’ By the bye, +who ever knew a man who never read or wrote either, who hadn’t got some +small back parlour which he _would _call a study! + +‘There is the answer, sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman. ‘I’m +afraid you’ll find it inconveniently large.’ + +‘Don’t mention it,’ said Sam, taking a letter with a small enclosure. +‘It’s just possible as exhausted natur’ may manage to surwive it.’ + +‘I hope we shall meet again, Sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman, +rubbing his hands, and following Sam out to the door-step. + +‘You are wery obligin’, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Now, don’t allow yourself to +be fatigued beyond your powers; there’s a amiable bein’. Consider what +you owe to society, and don’t let yourself be injured by too much work. +For the sake o’ your feller-creeturs, keep yourself as quiet as you can; +only think what a loss you would be!’ With these pathetic words, Sam +Weller departed. + +‘A very singular young man that,’ said the powdered-headed footman, +looking after Mr. Weller, with a countenance which clearly showed he +could make nothing of him. + +Sam said nothing at all. He winked, shook his head, smiled, winked +again; and, with an expression of countenance which seemed to denote +that he was greatly amused with something or other, walked merrily away. + +At precisely twenty minutes before eight o’clock that night, Angelo +Cyrus Bantam, Esq., the Master of the Ceremonies, emerged from his +chariot at the door of the Assembly Rooms in the same wig, the same +teeth, the same eye-glass, the same watch and seals, the same rings, the +same shirt-pin, and the same cane. The only observable alterations in +his appearance were, that he wore a brighter blue coat, with a white +silk lining, black tights, black silk stockings, and pumps, and a white +waistcoat, and was, if possible, just a thought more scented. + +Thus attired, the Master of the Ceremonies, in strict discharge of the +important duties of his all-important office, planted himself in the +room to receive the company. + +Bath being full, the company, and the sixpences for tea, poured in, in +shoals. In the ballroom, the long card-room, the octagonal card-room, +the staircases, and the passages, the hum of many voices, and the sound +of many feet, were perfectly bewildering. Dresses rustled, feathers +waved, lights shone, and jewels sparkled. There was the music--not of +the quadrille band, for it had not yet commenced; but the music of soft, +tiny footsteps, with now and then a clear, merry laugh--low and gentle, +but very pleasant to hear in a female voice, whether in Bath or +elsewhere. Brilliant eyes, lighted up with pleasurable expectation, +gleamed from every side; and, look where you would, some exquisite form +glided gracefully through the throng, and was no sooner lost, than it +was replaced by another as dainty and bewitching. + +In the tea-room, and hovering round the card-tables, were a vast number +of queer old ladies, and decrepit old gentlemen, discussing all the +small talk and scandal of the day, with a relish and gusto which +sufficiently bespoke the intensity of the pleasure they derived from the +occupation. Mingled with these groups, were three or four match-making +mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which +they were taking part, but failing not from time to time to cast an +anxious sidelong glance upon their daughters, who, remembering the +maternal injunction to make the best use of their youth, had already +commenced incipient flirtations in the mislaying scarves, putting on +gloves, setting down cups, and so forth; slight matters apparently, but +which may be turned to surprisingly good account by expert +practitioners. + +Lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of +silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; +amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and +happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration--a wise +and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with. + +And lastly, seated on some of the back benches, where they had already +taken up their positions for the evening, were divers unmarried ladies +past their grand climacteric, who, not dancing because there were no +partners for them, and not playing cards lest they should be set down as +irretrievably single, were in the favourable situation of being able to +abuse everybody without reflecting on themselves. In short, they could +abuse everybody, because everybody was there. It was a scene of gaiety, +glitter, and show; of richly-dressed people, handsome mirrors, chalked +floors, girandoles and wax-candles; and in all parts of the scene, +gliding from spot to spot in silent softness, bowing obsequiously to +this party, nodding familiarly to that, and smiling complacently on all, +was the sprucely-attired person of Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, the +Master of the Ceremonies. + +‘Stop in the tea-room. Take your sixpenn’orth. Then lay on hot water, +and call it tea. Drink it,’ said Mr. Dowler, in a loud voice, directing +Mr. Pickwick, who advanced at the head of the little party, with Mrs. +Dowler on his arm. Into the tea-room Mr. Pickwick turned; and catching +sight of him, Mr. Bantam corkscrewed his way through the crowd and +welcomed him with ecstasy. + +‘My dear Sir, I am highly honoured. Ba--ath is favoured. Mrs. Dowler, +you embellish the rooms. I congratulate you on your feathers. Re- +markable!’ + +‘Anybody here?’ inquired Dowler suspiciously. + +‘Anybody! The _elite _of Ba--ath. Mr. Pickwick, do you see the old lady +in the gauze turban?’ + +‘The fat old lady?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick innocently. + +‘Hush, my dear sir--nobody’s fat or old in Ba--ath. That’s the Dowager +Lady Snuphanuph.’ + +‘Is it, indeed?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No less a person, I assure you,’ said the Master of the Ceremonies. +‘Hush. Draw a little nearer, Mr. Pickwick. You see the splendidly- +dressed young man coming this way?’ + +‘The one with the long hair, and the particularly small forehead?’ +inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘The same. The richest young man in Ba--ath at this moment. Young Lord +Mutanhed.’ + +‘You don’t say so?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes. You’ll hear his voice in a moment, Mr. Pickwick. He’ll speak to +me. The other gentleman with him, in the red under-waistcoat and dark +moustache, is the Honourable Mr. Crushton, his bosom friend. How do you +do, my Lord?’ + +‘Veway hot, Bantam,’ said his Lordship. + +‘It _is_ very warm, my Lord,’ replied the M.C. + +‘Confounded,’ assented the Honourable Mr. Crushton. + +‘Have you seen his Lordship’s mail-cart, Bantam?’ inquired the +Honourable Mr. Crushton, after a short pause, during which young Lord +Mutanhed had been endeavouring to stare Mr. Pickwick out of countenance, +and Mr. Crushton had been reflecting what subject his Lordship could +talk about best. + +‘Dear me, no,’ replied the M.C. ‘A mail-cart! What an excellent idea. +Re-markable!’ + +‘Gwacious heavens!’ said his Lordship, ‘I thought evewebody had seen the +new mail-cart; it’s the neatest, pwettiest, gwacefullest thing that ever +wan upon wheels. Painted wed, with a cweam piebald.’ + +‘With a real box for the letters, and all complete,’ said the Honourable +Mr. Crushton. + +‘And a little seat in fwont, with an iwon wail, for the dwiver,’ added +his Lordship. ‘I dwove it over to Bwistol the other morning, in a +cwimson coat, with two servants widing a quarter of a mile behind; and +confound me if the people didn’t wush out of their cottages, and awest +my pwogwess, to know if I wasn’t the post. Glorwious--glorwious!’ + +At this anecdote his Lordship laughed very heartily, as did the +listeners, of course. Then, drawing his arm through that of the +obsequious Mr. Crushton, Lord Mutanhed walked away. + +‘Delightful young man, his Lordship,’ said the Master of the Ceremonies. + +‘So I should think,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick drily. + +The dancing having commenced, the necessary introductions having been +made, and all preliminaries arranged, Angelo Bantam rejoined Mr. +Pickwick, and led him into the card-room. + +Just at the very moment of their entrance, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph +and two other ladies of an ancient and whist-like appearance, were +hovering over an unoccupied card-table; and they no sooner set eyes upon +Mr. Pickwick under the convoy of Angelo Bantam, than they exchanged +glances with each other, seeing that he was precisely the very person +they wanted, to make up the rubber. + +‘My dear Bantam,’ said the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph coaxingly, ‘find us +some nice creature to make up this table; there’s a good soul.’ Mr. +Pickwick happened to be looking another way at the moment, so her +Ladyship nodded her head towards him, and frowned expressively. + +‘My friend Mr. Pickwick, my Lady, will be most happy, I am sure, +remarkably so,’ said the M.C., taking the hint. ‘Mr. Pickwick, Lady +Snuphanuph--Mrs. Colonel Wugsby--Miss Bolo.’ + + +Mr. Pickwick bowed to each of the ladies, and, finding escape +impossible, cut. Mr. Pickwick and Miss Bolo against Lady Snuphanuph and +Mrs. Colonel Wugsby. + +As the trump card was turned up, at the commencement of the second deal, +two young ladies hurried into the room, and took their stations on +either side of Mrs. Colonel Wugsby’s chair, where they waited patiently +until the hand was over. + +‘Now, Jane,’ said Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, turning to one of the girls, +‘what is it?’ + +I came to ask, ma, whether I might dance with the youngest Mr. Crawley,’ +whispered the prettier and younger of the two. + +‘Good God, Jane, how can you think of such things?’ replied the mamma +indignantly. ‘Haven’t you repeatedly heard that his father has eight +hundred a year, which dies with him? I am ashamed of you. Not on any +account.’ + +‘Ma,’ whispered the other, who was much older than her sister, and very +insipid and artificial, ‘Lord Mutanhed has been introduced to me. I said +I thought I wasn’t engaged, ma.’ + +‘You’re a sweet pet, my love,’ replied Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, tapping her +daughter’s cheek with her fan, ‘and are always to be trusted. He’s +immensely rich, my dear. Bless you!’ With these words Mrs. Colonel +Wugsby kissed her eldest daughter most affectionately, and frowning in a +warning manner upon the other, sorted her cards. + +Poor Mr. Pickwick! he had never played with three thorough-paced female +card-players before. They were so desperately sharp, that they quite +frightened him. If he played a wrong card, Miss Bolo looked a small +armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, +Lady Snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair, and smile with a +mingled glance of impatience and pity to Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, at which +Mrs. Colonel Wugsby would shrug up her shoulders, and cough, as much as +to say she wondered whether he ever would begin. Then, at the end of +every hand, Miss Bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and +reproachful sigh, why Mr. Pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led +the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through +the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some +such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, Mr. Pickwick would +be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this +time forgotten all about the game. People came and looked on, too, which +made Mr. Pickwick nervous. Besides all this, there was a great deal of +distracting conversation near the table, between Angelo Bantam and the +two Misses Matinter, who, being single and singular, paid great court to +the Master of the Ceremonies, in the hope of getting a stray partner now +and then. All these things, combined with the noises and interruptions +of constant comings in and goings out, made Mr. Pickwick play rather +badly; the cards were against him, also; and when they left off at ten +minutes past eleven, Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably +agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair. + +Being joined by his friends, who one and all protested that they had +scarcely ever spent a more pleasant evening, Mr. Pickwick accompanied +them to the White Hart, and having soothed his feelings with something +hot, went to bed, and to sleep, almost simultaneously. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. THE CHIEF FEATURES OF WHICH WILL BE FOUND TO BE AN +AUTHENTIC VERSION OF THE LEGEND OF PRINCE BLADUD, AND A MOST +EXTRAORDINARY CALAMITY THAT BEFELL MR. WINKLE + +As Mr. Pickwick contemplated a stay of at least two months in Bath, he +deemed it advisable to take private lodgings for himself and friends for +that period; and as a favourable opportunity offered for their securing, +on moderate terms, the upper portion of a house in the Royal Crescent, +which was larger than they required, Mr. and Mrs. Dowler offered to +relieve them of a bedroom and sitting-room. This proposition was at once +accepted, and in three days’ time they were all located in their new +abode, when Mr. Pickwick began to drink the waters with the utmost +assiduity. Mr. Pickwick took them systematically. He drank a quarter of +a pint before breakfast, and then walked up a hill; and another quarter +of a pint after breakfast, and then walked down a hill; and, after every +fresh quarter of a pint, Mr. Pickwick declared, in the most solemn and +emphatic terms, that he felt a great deal better; whereat his friends +were very much delighted, though they had not been previously aware that +there was anything the matter with him. + +The Great Pump Room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthian +pillars, and a music-gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of Nash, +and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend, +for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity. There is a +large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water; +and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which the +company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight to +behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it. There +are baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash themselves; +and a band plays afterwards, to congratulate the remainder on their +having done so. There is another pump room, into which infirm ladies and +gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of chairs and +chaises, that any adventurous individual who goes in with the regular +number of toes, is in imminent danger of coming out without them; and +there is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it is less noisy +than either. There is an immensity of promenading, on crutches and off, +with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, and +liveliness, and pleasantry. + +Every morning, the regular water-drinkers, Mr. Pickwick among the +number, met each other in the pump room, took their quarter of a pint, +and walked constitutionally. At the afternoon’s promenade, Lord +Mutanhed, and the Honourable Mr. Crushton, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph, +Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, and all the great people, and all the morning +water-drinkers, met in grand assemblage. After this, they walked out, or +drove out, or were pushed out in bath-chairs, and met one another again. +After this, the gentlemen went to the reading-rooms, and met divisions +of the mass. After this, they went home. If it were theatre-night, +perhaps they met at the theatre; if it were assembly-night, they met at +the rooms; and if it were neither, they met the next day. A very +pleasant routine, with perhaps a slight tinge of sameness. + +Mr. Pickwick was sitting up by himself, after a day spent in this +manner, making entries in his journal, his friends having retired to +bed, when he was roused by a gentle tap at the room door. + +‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Mrs. Craddock, the landlady, peeping in; +‘but did you want anything more, sir?’ + +‘Nothing more, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘My young girl is gone to bed, Sir,’ said Mrs. Craddock; ‘and Mr. Dowler +is good enough to say that he’ll sit up for Mrs. Dowler, as the party +isn’t expected to be over till late; so I was thinking that if you +wanted nothing more, Mr. Pickwick, I would go to bed.’ + +‘By all means, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wish you good-night, Sir,’ said Mrs. Craddock. + +‘Good-night, ma’am,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. + +Mrs. Craddock closed the door, and Mr. Pickwick resumed his writing. + +In half an hour’s time the entries were concluded. Mr. Pickwick +carefully rubbed the last page on the blotting-paper, shut up the book, +wiped his pen on the bottom of the inside of his coat tail, and opened +the drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully away. There were a couple +of sheets of writing-paper, pretty closely written over, in the inkstand +drawer, and they were folded so, that the title, which was in a good +round hand, was fully disclosed to him. Seeing from this, that it was no +private document; and as it seemed to relate to Bath, and was very +short: Mr. Pick-wick unfolded it, lighted his bedroom candle that it +might burn up well by the time he finished; and drawing his chair nearer +the fire, read as follows-- + + +THE TRUE LEGEND OF PRINCE BLADUD + +‘Less than two hundred years ago, on one of the public baths in this +city, there appeared an inscription in honour of its mighty founder, the +renowned Prince Bladud. That inscription is now erased. + +‘For many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down, +from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious prince being +afflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvest of +knowledge in Athens, shunned the court of his royal father, and +consorted moodily with husbandman and pigs. Among the herd (so said the +legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the prince +had a fellow-feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful and +reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was +terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as he +looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his +royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears. + +‘This sagacious pig was fond of bathing in rich, moist mud. Not in +summer, as common pigs do now, to cool themselves, and did even in those +distant ages (which is a proof that the light of civilisation had +already begun to dawn, though feebly), but in the cold, sharp days of +winter. His coat was ever so sleek, and his complexion so clear, that +the prince resolved to essay the purifying qualities of the same water +that his friend resorted to. He made the trial. Beneath that black mud, +bubbled the hot springs of Bath. He washed, and was cured. Hastening to +his father’s court, he paid his best respects, and returning quickly +hither, founded this city and its famous baths. + +‘He sought the pig with all the ardour of their early friendship--but, +alas! the waters had been his death. He had imprudently taken a bath at +too high a temperature, and the natural philosopher was no more! He was +succeeded by Pliny, who also fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge. + +‘This was the legend. Listen to the true one. + +‘A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, the +famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mighty +monarch. The earth shook when he walked--he was so very stout. His +people basked in the light of his countenance--it was so red and +glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many +inches of him, too, for although he was not very tall, he was a +remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height, he made +up in circumference. If any degenerate monarch of modern times could be +in any way compared with him, I should say the venerable King Cole would +be that illustrious potentate. + +‘This good king had a queen, who eighteen years before, had had a son, +who was called Bladud. He was sent to a preparatory seminary in his +father’s dominions until he was ten years old, and was then despatched, +in charge of a trusty messenger, to a finishing school at Athens; and as +there was no extra charge for remaining during the holidays, and no +notice required previous to the removal of a pupil, there he remained +for eight long years, at the expiration of which time, the king his +father sent the lord chamberlain over, to settle the bill, and to bring +him home; which, the lord chamberlain doing, was received with shouts, +and pensioned immediately. + +‘When King Lud saw the prince his son, and found he had grown up such a +fine young man, he perceived what a grand thing it would be to have him +married without delay, so that his children might be the means of +perpetuating the glorious race of Lud, down to the very latest ages of +the world. With this view, he sent a special embassy, composed of great +noblemen who had nothing particular to do, and wanted lucrative +employment, to a neighbouring king, and demanded his fair daughter in +marriage for his son; stating at the same time that he was anxious to be +on the most affectionate terms with his brother and friend, but that if +they couldn’t agree in arranging this marriage, he should be under the +unpleasant necessity of invading his kingdom and putting his eyes out. +To this, the other king (who was the weaker of the two) replied that he +was very much obliged to his friend and brother for all his goodness and +magnanimity, and that his daughter was quite ready to be married, +whenever Prince Bladud liked to come and fetch her. + +‘This answer no sooner reached Britain, than the whole nation was +transported with joy. Nothing was heard, on all sides, but the sounds of +feasting and revelry--except the chinking of money as it was paid in by +the people to the collector of the royal treasures, to defray the +expenses of the happy ceremony. It was upon this occasion that King Lud, +seated on the top of his throne in full council, rose, in the exuberance +of his feelings, and commanded the lord chief justice to order in the +richest wines and the court minstrels--an act of graciousness which has +been, through the ignorance of traditionary historians, attributed to +King Cole, in those celebrated lines in which his Majesty is represented +as + + +Calling for his pipe, and calling for his pot, And calling for his +fiddlers three. + +Which is an obvious injustice to the memory of King Lud, and a dishonest +exaltation of the virtues of King Cole. + +‘But, in the midst of all this festivity and rejoicing, there was one +individual present, who tasted not when the sparkling wines were poured +forth, and who danced not, when the minstrels played. This was no other +than Prince Bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a whole people +were, at that very moment, straining alike their throats and purse- +strings. The truth was, that the prince, forgetting the undoubted right +of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on his behalf, had, +contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy, already fallen in +love on his own account, and privately contracted himself unto the fair +daughter of a noble Athenian. + +‘Here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages of +civilisation and refinement. If the prince had lived in later days, he +might at once have married the object of his father’s choice, and then +set himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden which +rested heavily upon him. He might have endeavoured to break her heart by +a systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of her sex, +and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs had upheld her under this +ill-treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and so get rid of +her effectually. But neither mode of relief suggested itself to Prince +Bladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his father. + +‘It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their +passions. King Lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up to +the ceiling, and caught it again--for in those days kings kept their +crowns on their heads, and not in the Tower--stamped the ground, rapped +his forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled against him, +and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the prince away to instant +Confinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment which the kings of +old very generally pursued towards their sons, when their matrimonial +inclinations did not happen to point to the same quarter as their own. + +‘When Prince Bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the greater +part of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily eyes than a +stone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged imprisonment, he +naturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape, which, after months of +preparation, he managed to accomplish; considerately leaving his dinner- +knife in the heart of his jailer, lest the poor fellow (who had a +family) should be considered privy to his flight, and punished +accordingly by the infuriated king. + +‘The monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. He knew not on whom to +vent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of the +lord chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his pension and +his head together. + +‘Meanwhile, the young prince, effectually disguised, wandered on foot +through his father’s dominions, cheered and supported in all his +hardships by sweet thoughts of the Athenian maid, who was the innocent +cause of his weary trials. One day he stopped to rest in a country +village; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward on the +green, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of a +reveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing. + +‘“Know you not, O stranger,” was the reply, “of the recent proclamation +of our gracious king?” + +‘“Proclamation! No. What proclamation?” rejoined the prince--for he had +travelled along the by and little-frequented ways, and knew nothing of +what had passed upon the public roads, such as they were. + +‘“Why,” replied the peasant, “the foreign lady that our prince wished to +wed, is married to a foreign noble of her own country, and the king +proclaims the fact, and a great public festival besides; for now, of +course, Prince Bladud will come back and marry the lady his father +chose, who they say is as beautiful as the noonday sun. Your health, +sir. God save the king!” + +‘The prince remained to hear no more. He fled from the spot, and plunged +into the thickest recesses of a neighbouring wood. On, on, he wandered, +night and day; beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale moon; through +the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night; in the gray light of +morn, and the red glare of eve. So heedless was he of time or object, +that being bound for Athens, he wandered as far out of his way as Bath. + +‘There was no city where Bath stands, then. There was no vestige of +human habitation, or sign of man’s resort, to bear the name; but there +was the same noble country, the same broad expanse of hill and dale, the +same beautiful channel stealing on, far away, the same lofty mountains +which, like the troubles of life, viewed at a distance, and partially +obscured by the bright mist of its morning, lose their ruggedness and +asperity, and seem all ease and softness. Moved by the gentle beauty of +the scene, the prince sank upon the green turf, and bathed his swollen +feet in his tears. + +‘“Oh!” said the unhappy Bladud, clasping his hands, and mournfully +raising his eyes towards the sky, “would that my wanderings might end +here! Would that these grateful tears with which I now mourn hope +misplaced, and love despised, might flow in peace for ever!” + +‘The wish was heard. It was in the time of the heathen deities, who used +occasionally to take people at their words, with a promptness, in some +cases, extremely awkward. The ground opened beneath the prince’s feet; +he sank into the chasm; and instantaneously it closed upon his head for +ever, save where his hot tears welled up through the earth, and where +they have continued to gush forth ever since. + +‘It is observable that, to this day, large numbers of elderly ladies and +gentlemen who have been disappointed in procuring partners, and almost +as many young ones who are anxious to obtain them, repair annually to +Bath to drink the waters, from which they derive much strength and +comfort. This is most complimentary to the virtue of Prince Bladud’s +tears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of this legend.’ + +Mr. Pickwick yawned several times when he had arrived at the end of this +little manuscript, carefully refolded, and replaced it in the inkstand +drawer, and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost weariness, +lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to bed. + +He stopped at Mr. Dowler’s door, according to custom, and knocked to say +good-night. + +‘Ah!’ said Dowler, ‘going to bed? I wish I was. Dismal night. Windy; +isn’t it?’ + +‘Very,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Good-night.’ + +‘Good-night.’ + +Mr. Pickwick went to his bedchamber, and Mr. Dowler resumed his seat +before the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till his +wife came home. + +There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, +especially if that somebody be at a party. You cannot help thinking how +quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; and +the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival +decline. Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and +you seem as if you had an under-garment of cobwebs on. First, something +tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your +left. You have no sooner changed your position, than it comes again in +the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of queer +shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to +rub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could. Eyes, too, are +mere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an inch +and a half long, while you are snuffing the other. These, and various +other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of time +after everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful amusement. + +This was just Mr. Dowler’s opinion, as he sat before the fire, and felt +honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who were +keeping him up. He was not put into better humour either, by the +reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to +think he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. At length, after +several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, and +catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, Mr. +Dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the bed in the +back room and think--not sleep, of course. + +‘I’m a heavy sleeper,’ said Mr. Dowler, as he flung himself on the bed. +‘I must keep awake. I suppose I shall hear a knock here. Yes. I thought +so. I can hear the watchman. There he goes. Fainter now, though. A +little fainter. He’s turning the corner. Ah!’ When Mr. Dowler arrived at +this point, he turned the corner at which he had been long hesitating, +and fell fast asleep. + +Just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent a +sedan-chair with Mrs. Dowler inside, borne by one short, fat chairman, +and one long, thin one, who had had much ado to keep their bodies +perpendicular: to say nothing of the chair. But on that high ground, and +in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round as if it were +going to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous. They were +very glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud double-knock +at the street door. + +They waited some time, but nobody came. + +‘Servants is in the arms o’ Porpus, I think,’ said the short chairman, +warming his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch. + +‘I wish he’d give ‘em a squeeze and wake ‘em,’ observed the long one. + +‘Knock again, will you, if you please,’ cried Mrs. Dowler from the +chair. ‘Knock two or three times, if you please.’ + +The short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon as +possible; so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startling +double-knocks, of eight or ten knocks a-piece, while the long man went +into the road, and looked up at the windows for a light. + +Nobody came. It was all as silent and dark as ever. + +‘Dear me!’ said Mrs. Dowler. ‘You must knock again, if you please.’ + +There ain’t a bell, is there, ma’am?’ said the short chairman. + +‘Yes, there is,’ interposed the link-boy, ‘I’ve been a-ringing at it +ever so long.’ + +‘It’s only a handle,’ said Mrs. Dowler, ‘the wire’s broken.’ + +‘I wish the servants’ heads wos,’ growled the long man. + +‘I must trouble you to knock again, if you please,’ said Mrs. Dowler, +with the utmost politeness. + +The short man did knock again several times, without producing the +smallest effect. The tall man, growing very impatient, then relieved +him, and kept on perpetually knocking double-knocks of two loud knocks +each, like an insane postman. + +At length Mr. Winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that the +members being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer the +table a good deal to preserve order; then he had a confused notion of an +auction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was buying +everything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within the +bounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the street +door. To make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed for ten +minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two or three-and- +thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself a great deal of +credit for being so wakeful. + +‘Rap rap-rap rap-rap rap-ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!’ went the knocker. + +Mr. Winkle jumped out of bed, wondering very much what could possibly be +the matter, and hastily putting on his stockings and slippers, folded +his dressing-gown round him, lighted a flat candle from the rush-light +that was burning in the fireplace, and hurried downstairs. + +‘Here’s somebody comin’ at last, ma’am,’ said the short chairman. + +‘I wish I wos behind him vith a bradawl,’ muttered the long one. + +‘Who’s there?’ cried Mr. Winkle, undoing the chain. + +‘Don’t stop to ask questions, cast-iron head,’ replied the long man, +with great disgust, taking it for granted that the inquirer was a +footman; ‘but open the door.’ + +‘Come, look sharp, timber eyelids,’ added the other encouragingly. + +Mr. Winkle, being half asleep, obeyed the command mechanically, opened +the door a little, and peeped out. The first thing he saw, was the red +glare of the link-boy’s torch. Startled by the sudden fear that the +house might be on fire, he hastily threw the door wide open, and holding +the candle above his head, stared eagerly before him, not quite certain +whether what he saw was a sedan-chair or a fire-engine. At this instant +there came a violent gust of wind; the light was blown out; Mr. Winkle +felt himself irresistibly impelled on to the steps; and the door blew +to, with a loud crash. + +‘Well, young man, now you _have _done it!’ said the short chairman. + +Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady’s face at the window of the sedan, +turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, and +called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again. + + +‘Take it away, take it away,’ cried Mr. Winkle. ‘Here’s somebody coming +out of another house; put me into the chair. Hide me! Do something with +me!’ + +All this time he was shivering with cold; and every time he raised his +hand to the knocker, the wind took the dressing-gown in a most +unpleasant manner. + +‘The people are coming down the crescent now. There are ladies with ‘em; +cover me up with something. Stand before me!’ roared Mr. Winkle. But the +chairmen were too much exhausted with laughing to afford him the +slightest assistance, and the ladies were every moment approaching +nearer and nearer. + +Mr. Winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladies were only a few doors +off. He threw away the extinguished candle, which, all this time he had +held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where Mrs. +Dowler was. + +Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and, +only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her nightcap, ran +down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the right +party. Throwing up the window-sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into the +chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than +she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to get +up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman. + +Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an India-rubber +ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as Mr. +Pickwick threw up the other, when the first object that met the gaze of +both, was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair. + +‘Watchman,’ shouted Dowler furiously, ‘stop him--hold him--keep him +tight--shut him in, till I come down. I’ll cut his throat--give me a +knife--from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock--I will!’ And breaking from the +shrieking landlady, and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seized +a small supper-knife, and tore into the street. + +But Mr. Winkle didn’t wait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible +threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite +as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the +road, took to his heels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued by +Dowler and the watchman. He kept ahead; the door was open as he came +round the second time; he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler’s face, +mounted to his bedroom, locked the door, piled a wash-hand-stand, chest +of drawers, and a table against it, and packed up a few necessaries +ready for flight with the first ray of morning. + +Dowler came up to the outside of the door; avowed, through the keyhole, +his steadfast determination of cutting Mr. Winkle’s throat next day; +and, after a great confusion of voices in the drawing-room, amidst which +that of Mr. Pickwick was distinctly heard endeavouring to make peace, +the inmates dispersed to their several bed-chambers, and all was quiet +once more. + +It is not unlikely that the inquiry may be made, where Mr. Weller was, +all this time? We will state where he was, in the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. HONOURABLY ACCOUNTS FOR MR. WELLER’S ABSENCE, BY +DESCRIBING A SOIREE TO WHICH HE WAS INVITED AND WENT; ALSO RELATES HOW +HE WAS ENTRUSTED BY MR. PICKWICK WITH A PRIVATE MISSION OF DELICACY AND +IMPORTANCE + +Mr. Weller,’ said Mrs. Craddock, upon the morning of this very eventful +day, ‘here’s a letter for you.’ + +‘Wery odd that,’ said Sam; ‘I’m afeerd there must be somethin’ the +matter, for I don’t recollect any gen’l’m’n in my circle of acquaintance +as is capable o’ writin’ one.’ + +‘Perhaps something uncommon has taken place,’ observed Mrs. Craddock. + +‘It must be somethin’ wery uncommon indeed, as could perduce a letter +out o’ any friend o’ mine,’ replied Sam, shaking his head dubiously; +‘nothin’ less than a nat’ral conwulsion, as the young gen’l’m’n observed +ven he wos took with fits. It can’t be from the gov’ner,’ said Sam, +looking at the direction. ‘He always prints, I know, ‘cos he learnt +writin’ from the large bills in the booking-offices. It’s a wery strange +thing now, where this here letter can ha’ come from.’ + +As Sam said this, he did what a great many people do when they are +uncertain about the writer of a note--looked at the seal, and then at +the front, and then at the back, and then at the sides, and then at the +superscription; and, as a last resource, thought perhaps he might as +well look at the inside, and try to find out from that. + +‘It’s wrote on gilt-edged paper,’ said Sam, as he unfolded it, ‘and +sealed in bronze vax vith the top of a door key. Now for it.’ And, with +a very grave face, Mr. Weller slowly read as follows-- + +‘A select company of the Bath footmen presents their compliments to Mr. +Weller, and requests the pleasure of his company this evening, to a +friendly swarry, consisting of a boiled leg of mutton with the usual +trimmings. The swarry to be on table at half-past nine o’clock +punctually.’ + +This was inclosed in another note, which ran thus-- + +‘Mr. John Smauker, the gentleman who had the pleasure of meeting Mr. +Weller at the house of their mutual acquaintance, Mr. Bantam, a few days +since, begs to inclose Mr. Weller the herewith invitation. If Mr. Weller +will call on Mr. John Smauker at nine o’clock, Mr. John Smauker will +have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Weller. + + +(Signed) ‘_John Smauker_.’ + +The envelope was directed to blank Weller, Esq., at Mr. Pickwick’s; and +in a parenthesis, in the left hand corner, were the words ‘airy bell,’ +as an instruction to the bearer. + +‘Vell,’ said Sam, ‘this is comin’ it rayther powerful, this is. I never +heerd a biled leg o’ mutton called a swarry afore. I wonder wot they’d +call a roast one.’ + +However, without waiting to debate the point, Sam at once betook himself +into the presence of Mr. Pickwick, and requested leave of absence for +that evening, which was readily granted. With this permission and the +street-door key, Sam Weller issued forth a little before the appointed +time, and strolled leisurely towards Queen Square, which he no sooner +gained than he had the satisfaction of beholding Mr. John Smauker +leaning his powdered head against a lamp-post at a short distance off, +smoking a cigar through an amber tube. + +‘How do you do, Mr. Weller?’ said Mr. John Smauker, raising his hat +gracefully with one hand, while he gently waved the other in a +condescending manner. ‘How do you do, Sir?’ + +‘Why, reasonably conwalessent,’ replied Sam. ‘How do _you _find +yourself, my dear feller?’ + +‘Only so so,’ said Mr. John Smauker. + +‘Ah, you’ve been a-workin’ too hard,’ observed Sam. ‘I was fearful you +would; it won’t do, you know; you must not give way to that ‘ere +uncompromisin’ spirit o’ yourn.’ + +‘It’s not so much that, Mr. Weller,’ replied Mr. John Smauker, ‘as bad +wine; I’m afraid I’ve been dissipating.’ + +‘Oh! that’s it, is it?’ said Sam; ‘that’s a wery bad complaint, that.’ + +‘And yet the temptation, you see, Mr. Weller,’ observed Mr. John +Smauker. + +‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Sam. + +‘Plunged into the very vortex of society, you know, Mr. Weller,’ said +Mr. John Smauker, with a sigh. + +‘Dreadful, indeed!’ rejoined Sam. + +‘But it’s always the way,’ said Mr. John Smauker; ‘if your destiny leads +you into public life, and public station, you must expect to be +subjected to temptations which other people is free from, Mr. Weller.’ + +‘Precisely what my uncle said, ven he vent into the public line,’ +remarked Sam, ‘and wery right the old gen’l’m’n wos, for he drank +hisself to death in somethin’ less than a quarter.’ + +Mr. John Smauker looked deeply indignant at any parallel being drawn +between himself and the deceased gentleman in question; but, as Sam’s +face was in the most immovable state of calmness, he thought better of +it, and looked affable again. + +‘Perhaps we had better be walking,’ said Mr. Smauker, consulting a +copper timepiece which dwelt at the bottom of a deep watch-pocket, and +was raised to the surface by means of a black string, with a copper key +at the other end. + +‘P’raps we had,’ replied Sam, ‘or they’ll overdo the swarry, and that’ll +spile it.’ + +‘Have you drank the waters, Mr. Weller?’ inquired his companion, as they +walked towards High Street. + +‘Once,’ replied Sam. + +‘What did you think of ‘em, Sir?’ + +‘I thought they was particklery unpleasant,’ replied Sam. + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. John Smauker, ‘you disliked the killibeate taste, +perhaps?’ + +‘I don’t know much about that ‘ere,’ said Sam. ‘I thought they’d a wery +strong flavour o’ warm flat irons.’ + +‘That _is_ the killibeate, Mr. Weller,’ observed Mr. John Smauker +contemptuously. + +‘Well, if it is, it’s a wery inexpressive word, that’s all,’ said Sam. +‘It may be, but I ain’t much in the chimical line myself, so I can’t +say.’ And here, to the great horror of Mr. John Smauker, Sam Weller +began to whistle. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Weller,’ said Mr. John Smauker, agonised at the +exceeding ungenteel sound, ‘will you take my arm?’ + +‘Thank’ee, you’re wery good, but I won’t deprive you of it,’ replied +Sam. ‘I’ve rayther a way o’ putting my hands in my pockets, if it’s all +the same to you.’ As Sam said this, he suited the action to the word, +and whistled far louder than before. + +‘This way,’ said his new friend, apparently much relieved as they turned +down a by-street; ‘we shall soon be there.’ + +‘Shall we?’ said Sam, quite unmoved by the announcement of his close +vicinity to the select footmen of Bath. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. John Smauker. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Weller.’ + +‘Oh, no,’ said Sam. + +‘You’ll see some very handsome uniforms, Mr. Weller,’ continued Mr. John +Smauker; ‘and perhaps you’ll find some of the gentlemen rather high at +first, you know, but they’ll soon come round.’ + +‘That’s wery kind on ‘em,’ replied Sam. + +‘And you know,’ resumed Mr. John Smauker, with an air of sublime +protection--‘you know, as you’re a stranger, perhaps, they’ll be rather +hard upon you at first.’ + +‘They won’t be wery cruel, though, will they?’ inquired Sam. + +‘No, no,’ replied Mr. John Smauker, pulling forth the fox’s head, and +taking a gentlemanly pinch. ‘There are some funny dogs among us, and +they will have their joke, you know; but you mustn’t mind ‘em, you +mustn’t mind ‘em.’ + +‘I’ll try and bear up agin such a reg’lar knock down o’ talent,’ replied +Sam. + +‘That’s right,’ said Mr. John Smauker, putting forth his fox’s head, and +elevating his own; ‘I’ll stand by you.’ + +By this time they had reached a small greengrocer’s shop, which Mr. John +Smauker entered, followed by Sam, who, the moment he got behind him, +relapsed into a series of the very broadest and most unmitigated grins, +and manifested other demonstrations of being in a highly enviable state +of inward merriment. + +Crossing the greengrocer’s shop, and putting their hats on the stairs in +the little passage behind it, they walked into a small parlour; and here +the full splendour of the scene burst upon Mr. Weller’s view. + +A couple of tables were put together in the middle of the parlour, +covered with three or four cloths of different ages and dates of +washing, arranged to look as much like one as the circumstances of the +case would allow. Upon these were laid knives and forks for six or eight +people. Some of the knife handles were green, others red, and a few +yellow; and as all the forks were black, the combination of colours was +exceedingly striking. Plates for a corresponding number of guests were +warming behind the fender; and the guests themselves were warming before +it: the chief and most important of whom appeared to be a stoutish +gentleman in a bright crimson coat with long tails, vividly red +breeches, and a cocked hat, who was standing with his back to the fire, +and had apparently just entered, for besides retaining his cocked hat on +his head, he carried in his hand a high stick, such as gentlemen of his +profession usually elevate in a sloping position over the roofs of +carriages. + +‘Smauker, my lad, your fin,’ said the gentleman with the cocked hat. + +Mr. Smauker dovetailed the top joint of his right-hand little finger +into that of the gentleman with the cocked hat, and said he was charmed +to see him looking so well. + +‘Well, they tell me I am looking pretty blooming,’ said the man with the +cocked hat, ‘and it’s a wonder, too. I’ve been following our old woman +about, two hours a day, for the last fortnight; and if a constant +contemplation of the manner in which she hooks-and-eyes that infernal +lavender-coloured old gown of hers behind, isn’t enough to throw anybody +into a low state of despondency for life, stop my quarter’s salary.’ + +At this, the assembled selections laughed very heartily; and one +gentleman in a yellow waistcoat, with a coach-trimming border, whispered +a neighbour in green-foil smalls, that Tuckle was in spirits to-night. + +‘By the bye,’ said Mr. Tuckle, ‘Smauker, my boy, you--’ The remainder of +the sentence was forwarded into Mr. John Smauker’s ear, by whisper. + +‘Oh, dear me, I quite forgot,’ said Mr. John Smauker. ‘Gentlemen, my +friend Mr. Weller.’ + +‘Sorry to keep the fire off you, Weller,’ said Mr. Tuckle, with a +familiar nod. ‘Hope you’re not cold, Weller.’ + +‘Not by no means, Blazes,’ replied Sam. ‘It ‘ud be a wery chilly subject +as felt cold wen you stood opposite. You’d save coals if they put you +behind the fender in the waitin’-room at a public office, you would.’ + +As this retort appeared to convey rather a personal allusion to Mr. +Tuckle’s crimson livery, that gentleman looked majestic for a few +seconds, but gradually edging away from the fire, broke into a forced +smile, and said it wasn’t bad. + +‘Wery much obliged for your good opinion, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘We shall +get on by degrees, I des-say. We’ll try a better one by and bye.’ + +At this point the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a +gentleman in orange-coloured plush, accompanied by another selection in +purple cloth, with a great extent of stocking. The new-comers having +been welcomed by the old ones, Mr. Tuckle put the question that supper +be ordered in, which was carried unanimously. + +The greengrocer and his wife then arranged upon the table a boiled leg +of mutton, hot, with caper sauce, turnips, and potatoes. Mr. Tuckle took +the chair, and was supported at the other end of the board by the +gentleman in orange plush. The greengrocer put on a pair of wash-leather +gloves to hand the plates with, and stationed himself behind Mr. +Tuckle’s chair. + +‘Harris,’ said Mr. Tuckle, in a commanding tone. + +‘Sir,’ said the greengrocer. + +‘Have you got your gloves on?’ + +Yes, Sir.’ + +‘Then take the kiver off.’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +The greengrocer did as he was told, with a show of great humility, and +obsequiously handed Mr. Tuckle the carving-knife; in doing which, he +accidentally gaped. + +‘What do you mean by that, Sir?’ said Mr. Tuckle, with great asperity. + +‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ replied the crestfallen greengrocer, ‘I didn’t +mean to do it, Sir; I was up very late last night, Sir.’ + +‘I tell you what my opinion of you is, Harris,’ said Mr. Tuckle, with a +most impressive air, ‘you’re a wulgar beast.’ + +‘I hope, gentlemen,’ said Harris, ‘that you won’t be severe with me, +gentlemen. I am very much obliged to you indeed, gentlemen, for your +patronage, and also for your recommendations, gentlemen, whenever +additional assistance in waiting is required. I hope, gentlemen, I give +satisfaction.’ + +‘No, you don’t, Sir,’ said Mr. Tuckle. ‘Very far from it, Sir.’ + +‘We consider you an inattentive reskel,’ said the gentleman in the +orange plush. + +‘And a low thief,’ added the gentleman in the green-foil smalls. + +‘And an unreclaimable blaygaird,’ added the gentleman in purple. + +The poor greengrocer bowed very humbly while these little epithets were +bestowed upon him, in the true spirit of the very smallest tyranny; and +when everybody had said something to show his superiority, Mr. Tuckle +proceeded to carve the leg of mutton, and to help the company. + +This important business of the evening had hardly commenced, when the +door was thrown briskly open, and another gentleman in a light-blue +suit, and leaden buttons, made his appearance. + +‘Against the rules,’ said Mr. Tuckle. ‘Too late, too late.’ + +‘No, no; positively I couldn’t help it,’ said the gentleman in blue. ‘I +appeal to the company. An affair of gallantry now, an appointment at the +theayter.’ + +‘Oh, that indeed,’ said the gentleman in the orange plush. + +‘Yes; raly now, honour bright,’ said the man in blue. ‘I made a promese +to fetch our youngest daughter at half-past ten, and she is such an +uncauminly fine gal, that I raly hadn’t the ‘art to disappint her. No +offence to the present company, Sir, but a petticut, sir--a petticut, +Sir, is irrevokeable.’ + +‘I begin to suspect there’s something in that quarter,’ said Tuckle, as +the new-comer took his seat next Sam, ‘I’ve remarked, once or twice, +that she leans very heavy on your shoulder when she gets in and out of +the carriage.’ + +‘Oh, raly, raly, Tuckle, you shouldn’t,’ said the man in blue. ‘It’s not +fair. I may have said to one or two friends that she wos a very divine +creechure, and had refused one or two offers without any hobvus cause, +but--no, no, no, indeed, Tuckle--before strangers, too--it’s not right-- +you shouldn’t. Delicacy, my dear friend, delicacy!’ And the man in blue, +pulling up his neckerchief, and adjusting his coat cuffs, nodded and +frowned as if there were more behind, which he could say if he liked, +but was bound in honour to suppress. + +The man in blue being a light-haired, stiff-necked, free and easy sort +of footman, with a swaggering air and pert face, had attracted Mr. +Weller’s special attention at first, but when he began to come out in +this way, Sam felt more than ever disposed to cultivate his +acquaintance; so he launched himself into the conversation at once, with +characteristic independence. + +‘Your health, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘I like your conversation much. I think +it’s wery pretty.’ + +At this the man in blue smiled, as if it were a compliment he was well +used to; but looked approvingly on Sam at the same time, and said he +hoped he should be better acquainted with him, for without any flattery +at all he seemed to have the makings of a very nice fellow about him, +and to be just the man after his own heart. + +‘You’re wery good, sir,’ said Sam. ‘What a lucky feller you are!’ + +‘How do you mean?’ inquired the gentleman in blue. + +‘That ‘ere young lady,’ replied Sam. ‘She knows wot’s wot, she does. Ah! +I see.’ Mr. Weller closed one eye, and shook his head from side to side, +in a manner which was highly gratifying to the personal vanity of the +gentleman in blue. + +‘I’m afraid you’re a cunning fellow, Mr. Weller,’ said that individual. + +‘No, no,’ said Sam. ‘I leave all that ‘ere to you. It’s a great deal +more in your way than mine, as the gen’l’m’n on the right side o’ the +garden vall said to the man on the wrong un, ven the mad bull vos a- +comin’ up the lane.’ + +‘Well, well, Mr. Weller,’ said the gentleman in blue, ‘I think she has +remarked my air and manner, Mr. Weller.’ + +‘I should think she couldn’t wery well be off o’ that,’ said Sam. + +‘Have you any little thing of that kind in hand, sir?’ inquired the +favoured gentleman in blue, drawing a toothpick from his waistcoat +pocket. + +‘Not exactly,’ said Sam. ‘There’s no daughters at my place, else o’ +course I should ha’ made up to vun on ‘em. As it is, I don’t think I can +do with anythin’ under a female markis. I might keep up with a young +‘ooman o’ large property as hadn’t a title, if she made wery fierce love +to me. Not else.’ + +‘Of course not, Mr. Weller,’ said the gentleman in blue, ‘one can’t be +troubled, you know; and _we_ know, Mr. Weller--we, who are men of the +world--that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or +later. In fact, that’s the only thing, between you and me, that makes +the service worth entering into.’ + +‘Just so,’ said Sam. ‘That’s it, o’ course.’ + +When this confidential dialogue had gone thus far, glasses were placed +round, and every gentleman ordered what he liked best, before the +public-house shut up. The gentleman in blue, and the man in orange, who +were the chief exquisites of the party, ordered ‘cold shrub and water,’ +but with the others, gin-and-water, sweet, appeared to be the favourite +beverage. Sam called the greengrocer a ‘desp’rate willin,’ and ordered a +large bowl of punch--two circumstances which seemed to raise him very +much in the opinion of the selections. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the man in blue, with an air of the most consummate +dandyism, ‘I’ll give you the ladies; come.’ + +‘Hear, hear!’ said Sam. ‘The young mississes.’ + +Here there was a loud cry of ‘Order,’ and Mr. John Smauker, as the +gentleman who had introduced Mr. Weller into that company, begged to +inform him that the word he had just made use of, was unparliamentary. + +‘Which word was that ‘ere, Sir?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Mississes, Sir,’ replied Mr. John Smauker, with an alarming frown. ‘We +don’t recognise such distinctions here.’ + +‘Oh, wery good,’ said Sam; ‘then I’ll amend the obserwation and call ‘em +the dear creeturs, if Blazes vill allow me.’ + +Some doubt appeared to exist in the mind of the gentleman in the green- +foil smalls, whether the chairman could be legally appealed to, as +‘Blazes,’ but as the company seemed more disposed to stand upon their +own rights than his, the question was not raised. The man with the +cocked hat breathed short, and looked long at Sam, but apparently +thought it as well to say nothing, in case he should get the worst of +it. After a short silence, a gentleman in an embroidered coat reaching +down to his heels, and a waistcoat of the same which kept one half of +his legs warm, stirred his gin-and-water with great energy, and putting +himself upon his feet, all at once by a violent effort, said he was +desirous of offering a few remarks to the company, whereupon the person +in the cocked hat had no doubt that the company would be very happy to +hear any remarks that the man in the long coat might wish to offer. + +‘I feel a great delicacy, gentlemen, in coming for’ard,’ said the man in +the long coat, ‘having the misforchune to be a coachman, and being only +admitted as a honorary member of these agreeable swarrys, but I do feel +myself bound, gentlemen--drove into a corner, if I may use the +expression--to make known an afflicting circumstance which has come to +my knowledge; which has happened I may say within the soap of my +everyday contemplation. Gentlemen, our friend Mr. Whiffers (everybody +looked at the individual in orange), our friend Mr. Whiffers has +resigned.’ + +Universal astonishment fell upon the hearers. Each gentleman looked in +his neighbour’s face, and then transferred his glance to the upstanding +coachman. + +‘You may well be sapparised, gentlemen,’ said the coachman. ‘I will not +wenchure to state the reasons of this irrepairabel loss to the service, +but I will beg Mr. Whiffers to state them himself, for the improvement +and imitation of his admiring friends.’ + +The suggestion being loudly approved of, Mr. Whiffers explained. He said +he certainly could have wished to have continued to hold the appointment +he had just resigned. The uniform was extremely rich and expensive, the +females of the family was most agreeable, and the duties of the +situation was not, he was bound to say, too heavy; the principal service +that was required of him, being, that he should look out of the hall +window as much as possible, in company with another gentleman, who had +also resigned. He could have wished to have spared that company the +painful and disgusting detail on which he was about to enter, but as the +explanation had been demanded of him, he had no alternative but to +state, boldly and distinctly, that he had been required to eat cold +meat. + +It is impossible to conceive the disgust which this avowal awakened in +the bosoms of the hearers. Loud cries of ‘Shame,’ mingled with groans +and hisses, prevailed for a quarter of an hour. + +Mr. Whiffers then added that he feared a portion of this outrage might +be traced to his own forbearing and accommodating disposition. He had a +distinct recollection of having once consented to eat salt butter, and +he had, moreover, on an occasion of sudden sickness in the house, so far +forgotten himself as to carry a coal-scuttle up to the second floor. He +trusted he had not lowered himself in the good opinion of his friends by +this frank confession of his faults; and he hoped the promptness with +which he had resented the last unmanly outrage on his feelings, to which +he had referred, would reinstate him in their good opinion, if he had. + +Mr. Whiffers’s address was responded to, with a shout of admiration, and +the health of the interesting martyr was drunk in a most enthusiastic +manner; for this, the martyr returned thanks, and proposed their +visitor, Mr. Weller--a gentleman whom he had not the pleasure of an +intimate acquaintance with, but who was the friend of Mr. John Smauker, +which was a sufficient letter of recommendation to any society of +gentlemen whatever, or wherever. On this account, he should have been +disposed to have given Mr. Weller’s health with all the honours, if his +friends had been drinking wine; but as they were taking spirits by way +of a change, and as it might be inconvenient to empty a tumbler at every +toast, he should propose that the honours be understood. + +At the conclusion of this speech, everybody took a sip in honour of Sam; +and Sam having ladled out, and drunk, two full glasses of punch in +honour of himself, returned thanks in a neat speech. + +‘Wery much obliged to you, old fellers,’ said Sam, ladling away at the +punch in the most unembarrassed manner possible, ‘for this here +compliment; which, comin’ from sich a quarter, is wery overvelmin’. I’ve +heered a good deal on you as a body, but I will say, that I never +thought you was sich uncommon nice men as I find you air. I only hope +you’ll take care o’ yourselves, and not compromise nothin’ o’ your +dignity, which is a wery charmin’ thing to see, when one’s out a- +walkin’, and has always made me wery happy to look at, ever since I was +a boy about half as high as the brass-headed stick o’ my wery +respectable friend, Blazes, there. As to the wictim of oppression in the +suit o’ brimstone, all I can say of him, is, that I hope he’ll get jist +as good a berth as he deserves; in vitch case it’s wery little cold +swarry as ever he’ll be troubled with agin.’ + +Here Sam sat down with a pleasant smile, and his speech having been +vociferously applauded, the company broke up. + +‘Wy, you don’t mean to say you’re a-goin’ old feller?’ said Sam Weller +to his friend, Mr. John Smauker. + +‘I must, indeed,’ said Mr. Smauker; ‘I promised Bantam.’ + +‘Oh, wery well,’ said Sam; ‘that’s another thing. P’raps he’d resign if +you disappinted him. You ain’t a-goin’, Blazes?’ + +‘Yes, I am,’ said the man with the cocked hat. + +‘Wot, and leave three-quarters of a bowl of punch behind you!’ said Sam; +‘nonsense, set down agin.’ + +Mr. Tuckle was not proof against this invitation. He laid aside the +cocked hat and stick which he had just taken up, and said he would have +one glass, for good fellowship’s sake. + +As the gentleman in blue went home the same way as Mr. Tuckle, he was +prevailed upon to stop too. When the punch was about half gone, Sam +ordered in some oysters from the green-grocer’s shop; and the effect of +both was so extremely exhilarating, that Mr. Tuckle, dressed out with +the cocked hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on +the table, while the gentleman in blue played an accompaniment upon an +ingenious musical instrument formed of a hair-comb upon a curl-paper. At +last, when the punch was all gone, and the night nearly so, they sallied +forth to see each other home. Mr. Tuckle no sooner got into the open +air, than he was seized with a sudden desire to lie on the curbstone; +Sam thought it would be a pity to contradict him, and so let him have +his own way. As the cocked hat would have been spoiled if left there, +Sam very considerately flattened it down on the head of the gentleman in +blue, and putting the big stick in his hand, propped him up against his +own street-door, rang the bell, and walked quietly home. + +At a much earlier hour next morning than his usual time of rising, Mr. +Pickwick walked downstairs completely dressed, and rang the bell. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when Mr. Weller appeared in reply to the +summons, ‘shut the door.’ + +Mr. Weller did so. + +‘There was an unfortunate occurrence here, last night, Sam,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, ‘which gave Mr. Winkle some cause to apprehend violence from +Mr. Dowler.’ + +‘So I’ve heerd from the old lady downstairs, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘And I’m sorry to say, Sam,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, with a most +perplexed countenance, ‘that in dread of this violence, Mr. Winkle has +gone away.’ + +‘Gone avay!’ said Sam. + +‘Left the house early this morning, without the slightest previous +communication with me,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘And is gone, I know not +where.’ + +‘He should ha’ stopped and fought it out, Sir,’ replied Sam +contemptuously. ‘It wouldn’t take much to settle that ‘ere Dowler, Sir.’ + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I may have my doubts of his great +bravery and determination also. But however that may be, Mr. Winkle is +gone. He must be found, Sam. Found and brought back to me.’ + +And s’pose he won’t come back, Sir?’ said Sam. + +‘He must be made, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Who’s to do it, Sir?’ inquired Sam, with a smile. + +‘You,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wery good, Sir.’ + +With these words Mr. Weller left the room, and immediately afterwards +was heard to shut the street door. In two hours’ time he returned with +so much coolness as if he had been despatched on the most ordinary +message possible, and brought the information that an individual, in +every respect answering Mr. Winkle’s description, had gone over to +Bristol that morning, by the branch coach from the Royal Hotel. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, grasping his hand, ‘you’re a capital fellow; +an invaluable fellow. You must follow him, Sam.’ + +‘Cert’nly, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘The instant you discover him, write to me immediately, Sam,’ said Mr. +Pickwick. ‘If he attempts to run away from you, knock him down, or lock +him up. You have my full authority, Sam.’ + +‘I’ll be wery careful, sir,’ rejoined Sam. + +‘You’ll tell him,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that I am highly excited, highly +displeased, and naturally indignant, at the very extraordinary course he +has thought proper to pursue.’ + +‘I will, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘You’ll tell him,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that if he does not come back to +this very house, with you, he will come back with me, for I will come +and fetch him.’ + +‘I’ll mention that ‘ere, Sir,’ rejoined Sam. + +‘You think you can find him, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking earnestly +in his face. + +‘Oh, I’ll find him if he’s anyvere,’ rejoined Sam, with great +confidence. + +‘Very well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Then the sooner you go the better.’ + +With these instructions, Mr. Pickwick placed a sum of money in the hands +of his faithful servitor, and ordered him to start for Bristol +immediately, in pursuit of the fugitive. + +Sam put a few necessaries in a carpet-bag, and was ready for starting. +He stopped when he had got to the end of the passage, and walking +quietly back, thrust his head in at the parlour door. + +‘Sir,’ whispered Sam. + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I fully understands my instructions, do I, Sir?’ inquired Sam. + +‘I hope so,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It’s reg’larly understood about the knockin’ down, is it, Sir?’ +inquired Sam. + +‘Perfectly,’ replied Pickwick. ‘Thoroughly. Do what you think necessary. +You have my orders.’ + +Sam gave a nod of intelligence, and withdrawing his head from the door, +set forth on his pilgrimage with a light heart. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. HOW MR. WINKLE, WHEN HE STEPPED OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN, +WALKED GENTLY AND COMFORTABLY INTO THE FIRE + +The ill-starred gentleman who had been the unfortunate cause of the +unusual noise and disturbance which alarmed the inhabitants of the Royal +Crescent in manner and form already described, after passing a night of +great confusion and anxiety, left the roof beneath which his friends +still slumbered, bound he knew not whither. The excellent and +considerate feelings which prompted Mr. Winkle to take this step can +never be too highly appreciated or too warmly extolled. ‘If,’ reasoned +Mr. Winkle with himself--‘if this Dowler attempts (as I have no doubt he +will) to carry into execution his threat of personal violence against +myself, it will be incumbent on me to call him out. He has a wife; that +wife is attached to, and dependent on him. Heavens! If I should kill him +in the blindness of my wrath, what would be my feelings ever +afterwards!’ This painful consideration operated so powerfully on the +feelings of the humane young man, as to cause his knees to knock +together, and his countenance to exhibit alarming manifestations of +inward emotion. Impelled by such reflections, he grasped his carpet-bag, +and creeping stealthily downstairs, shut the detestable street door with +as little noise as possible, and walked off. Bending his steps towards +the Royal Hotel, he found a coach on the point of starting for Bristol, +and, thinking Bristol as good a place for his purpose as any other he +could go to, he mounted the box, and reached his place of destination in +such time as the pair of horses, who went the whole stage and back +again, twice a day or more, could be reasonably supposed to arrive +there. + +He took up his quarters at the Bush, and designing to postpone any +communication by letter with Mr. Pickwick until it was probable that Mr. +Dowler’s wrath might have in some degree evaporated, walked forth to +view the city, which struck him as being a shade more dirty than any +place he had ever seen. Having inspected the docks and shipping, and +viewed the cathedral, he inquired his way to Clifton, and being directed +thither, took the route which was pointed out to him. But as the +pavements of Bristol are not the widest or cleanest upon earth, so its +streets are not altogether the straightest or least intricate; and Mr. +Winkle, being greatly puzzled by their manifold windings and twistings, +looked about him for a decent shop in which he could apply afresh for +counsel and instruction. + +His eye fell upon a newly-painted tenement which had been recently +converted into something between a shop and a private house, and which a +red lamp, projecting over the fanlight of the street door, would have +sufficiently announced as the residence of a medical practitioner, even +if the word ‘Surgery’ had not been inscribed in golden characters on a +wainscot ground, above the window of what, in times bygone, had been the +front parlour. Thinking this an eligible place wherein to make his +inquiries, Mr. Winkle stepped into the little shop where the gilt- +labelled drawers and bottles were; and finding nobody there, knocked +with a half-crown on the counter, to attract the attention of anybody +who might happen to be in the back parlour, which he judged to be the +innermost and peculiar sanctum of the establishment, from the repetition +of the word surgery on the door--painted in white letters this time, by +way of taking off the monotony. + +At the first knock, a sound, as of persons fencing with fire-irons, +which had until now been very audible, suddenly ceased; at the second, a +studious-looking young gentleman in green spectacles, with a very large +book in his hand, glided quietly into the shop, and stepping behind the +counter, requested to know the visitor’s pleasure. + +‘I am sorry to trouble you, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘but will you have +the goodness to direct me to--’ + +‘Ha! ha! ha!’ roared the studious young gentleman, throwing the large +book up into the air, and catching it with great dexterity at the very +moment when it threatened to smash to atoms all the bottles on the +counter. ‘Here’s a start!’ + +There was, without doubt; for Mr. Winkle was so very much astonished at +the extraordinary behaviour of the medical gentleman, that he +involuntarily retreated towards the door, and looked very much disturbed +at his strange reception. + +‘What, don’t you know me?’ said the medical gentleman. + +Mr. Winkle murmured, in reply, that he had not that pleasure. + +‘Why, then,’ said the medical gentleman, ‘there are hopes for me yet; I +may attend half the old women in Bristol, if I’ve decent luck. Get out, +you mouldy old villain, get out!’ With this adjuration, which was +addressed to the large book, the medical gentleman kicked the volume +with remarkable agility to the farther end of the shop, and, pulling off +his green spectacles, grinned the identical grin of Robert Sawyer, +Esquire, formerly of Guy’s Hospital in the Borough, with a private +residence in Lant Street. + +‘You don’t mean to say you weren’t down upon me?’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, +shaking Mr. Winkle’s hand with friendly warmth. + +‘Upon my word I was not,’ replied Mr. Winkle, returning his pressure. + +‘I wonder you didn’t see the name,’ said Bob Sawyer, calling his +friend’s attention to the outer door, on which, in the same white paint, +were traced the words ‘Sawyer, late Nockemorf.’ + +‘It never caught my eye,’ returned Mr. Winkle. + +‘Lord, if I had known who you were, I should have rushed out, and caught +you in my arms,’ said Bob Sawyer; ‘but upon my life, I thought you were +the King’s-taxes.’ + +‘No!’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘I did, indeed,’ responded Bob Sawyer, ‘and I was just going to say that +I wasn’t at home, but if you’d leave a message I’d be sure to give it to +myself; for he don’t know me; no more does the Lighting and Paving. I +think the Church-rates guesses who I am, and I know the Water-works +does, because I drew a tooth of his when I first came down here. But +come in, come in!’ Chattering in this way, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed Mr. +Winkle into the back room, where, amusing himself by boring little +circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat no less +a person than Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘This is indeed a pleasure I did not expect. +What a very nice place you have here!’ + +‘Pretty well, pretty well,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘I _passed_, soon after +that precious party, and my friends came down with the needful for this +business; so I put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of spectacles, +and came here to look as solemn as I could.’ + +‘And a very snug little business you have, no doubt?’ said Mr. Winkle +knowingly. + +‘Very,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘So snug, that at the end of a few years you +might put all the profits in a wine-glass, and cover ‘em over with a +gooseberry leaf.’ + +You cannot surely mean that?’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘The stock itself--’ + +Dummies, my dear boy,’ said Bob Sawyer; ‘half the drawers have nothing +in ‘em, and the other half don’t open.’ + +‘Nonsense!’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Fact--honour!’ returned Bob Sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and +demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the +little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers. ‘Hardly anything real in +the shop but the leeches, and _they _are second-hand.’ + +‘I shouldn’t have thought it!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle, much surprised. + +‘I hope not,’ replied Bob Sawyer, ‘else where’s the use of appearances, +eh? But what will you take? Do as we do? That’s right. Ben, my fine +fellow, put your hand into the cupboard, and bring out the patent +digester.’ + +Mr. Benjamin Allen smiled his readiness, and produced from the closet at +his elbow a black bottle half full of brandy. + +‘You don’t take water, of course?’ said Bob Sawyer. + +‘Thank you,’ replied Mr. Winkle. ‘It’s rather early. I should like to +qualify it, if you have no objection.’ + +‘None in the least, if you can reconcile it to your conscience,’ replied +Bob Sawyer, tossing off, as he spoke, a glass of the liquor with great +relish. ‘Ben, the pipkin!’ + +Mr. Benjamin Allen drew forth, from the same hiding-place, a small brass +pipkin, which Bob Sawyer observed he prided himself upon, particularly +because it looked so business-like. The water in the professional pipkin +having been made to boil, in course of time, by various little +shovelfuls of coal, which Mr. Bob Sawyer took out of a practicable +window-seat, labelled ‘Soda Water,’ Mr. Winkle adulterated his brandy; +and the conversation was becoming general, when it was interrupted by +the entrance into the shop of a boy, in a sober gray livery and a gold- +laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm, whom Mr. Bob +Sawyer immediately hailed with, ‘Tom, you vagabond, come here.’ + +The boy presented himself accordingly. + +‘You’ve been stopping to “over” all the posts in Bristol, you idle young +scamp!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘No, sir, I haven’t,’ replied the boy. + +‘You had better not!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a threatening aspect. +‘Who do you suppose will ever employ a professional man, when they see +his boy playing at marbles in the gutter, or flying the garter in the +horse-road? Have you no feeling for your profession, you groveller? Did +you leave all the medicine?’ + +Yes, Sir.’ + +‘The powders for the child, at the large house with the new family, and +the pills to be taken four times a day at the ill-tempered old +gentleman’s with the gouty leg?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Then shut the door, and mind the shop.’ + +‘Come,’ said Mr. Winkle, as the boy retired, ‘things are not quite so +bad as you would have me believe, either. There is _some _medicine to be +sent out.’ + +Mr. Bob Sawyer peeped into the shop to see that no stranger was within +hearing, and leaning forward to Mr. Winkle, said, in a low tone-- + +‘He leaves it all at the wrong houses.’ + +Mr. Winkle looked perplexed, and Bob Sawyer and his friend laughed. + +‘Don’t you see?’ said Bob. ‘He goes up to a house, rings the area bell, +pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant’s hand, +and walks off. Servant takes it into the dining-parlour; master opens +it, and reads the label: “Draught to be taken at bedtime--pills as +before--lotion as usual--the powder. From Sawyer’s, late Nockemorf’s. +Physicians’ prescriptions carefully prepared,” and all the rest of it. +Shows it to his wife--she reads the label; it goes down to the servants- +-_they_ read the label. Next day, boy calls: “Very sorry--his mistake-- +immense business--great many parcels to deliver--Mr. Sawyer’s +compliments--late Nockemorf.” The name gets known, and that’s the thing, +my boy, in the medical way. Bless your heart, old fellow, it’s better +than all the advertising in the world. We have got one four-ounce bottle +that’s been to half the houses in Bristol, and hasn’t done yet.’ + +‘Dear me, I see,’ observed Mr. Winkle; ‘what an excellent plan!’ + +‘Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such,’ replied Bob Sawyer, with +great glee. ‘The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the night- +bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always rushes +into the church just before the psalms, when the people have got nothing +to do but look about ‘em, and calls me out, with horror and dismay +depicted on his countenance. “Bless my soul,” everybody says, “somebody +taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a business +that young man has!”’ + +At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of +medicine, Mr. Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves +back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they had +enjoyed the joke to their heart’s content, the discourse changed to +topics in which Mr. Winkle was more immediately interested. + +We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr. Benjamin Allen had a way of +becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar one, as we +ourself can testify, having, on a few occasions, had to deal with +patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this precise +period of his existence, Mr. Benjamin Allen had perhaps a greater +predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before; the cause of +which malady was briefly this. He had been staying nearly three weeks +with Mr. Bob Sawyer; Mr. Bob Sawyer was not remarkable for temperance, +nor was Mr. Benjamin Allen for the ownership of a very strong head; the +consequence was that, during the whole space of time just mentioned, Mr. +Benjamin Allen had been wavering between intoxication partial, and +intoxication complete. + +‘My dear friend,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, taking advantage of Mr. Bob +Sawyer’s temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired to +dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to; ‘my +dear friend, I am very miserable.’ + +Mr. Winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to know +whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the suffering +student. + +‘Nothing, my dear boy, nothing,’ said Ben. ‘You recollect Arabella, +Winkle? My sister Arabella--a little girl, Winkle, with black eyes--when +we were down at Wardle’s? I don’t know whether you happened to notice +her--a nice little girl, Winkle. Perhaps my features may recall her +countenance to your recollection?’ + +Mr. Winkle required nothing to recall the charming Arabella to his mind; +and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her brother +Benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent refresher +to his memory. He answered, with as much calmness as he could assume, +that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and sincerely +trusted she was in good health. + +‘Our friend Bob is a delightful fellow, Winkle,’ was the only reply of +Mr. Ben Allen. + +‘Very,’ said Mr. Winkle, not much relishing this close connection of the +two names. + +‘I designed ‘em for each other; they were made for each other, sent into +the world for each other, born for each other, Winkle,’ said Mr. Ben +Allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. ‘There’s a special destiny +in the matter, my dear sir; there’s only five years’ difference between +‘em, and both their birthdays are in August.’ + +Mr. Winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow to express much +wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so +Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say that, notwithstanding +all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, Arabella had +unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most determined antipathy to +his person. + +‘And I think,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion. ‘I think there’s a +prior attachment.’ + +‘Have you any idea who the object of it might be?’ asked Mr. Winkle, +with great trepidation. + +Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above +his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by +saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess; +that was all. + +‘I’d show him what I thought of him,’ said Mr. Ben Allen. And round went +the poker again, more fiercely than before. + +All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle, +who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up +resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent. + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very +cunning; ‘I didn’t think Wardle’s exactly the place for a headstrong +girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being +dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country to spend a +few months at an old aunt’s, in a nice, dull, close place. I think that +will cure her, my boy. If it doesn’t, I’ll take her abroad for a little +while, and see what that’ll do.’ + +‘Oh, the aunt’s is in Bristol, is it?’ faltered Mr. Winkle. + +‘No, no, not in Bristol,’ replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over +his right shoulder; ‘over that way--down there. But, hush, here’s Bob. +Not a word, my dear friend, not a word.’ + +Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest +degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled +in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the +fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had +he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost what it might; but +here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the +explanatory ‘over that way,’ and ‘down there,’ of Mr. Ben Allen, meant +three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess. + +But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for Bob +Sawyer’s return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat-pie +from the baker’s, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to +partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated +in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s housekeeper; and a third knife and +fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the gray livery +(for Mr. Sawyer’s domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a +limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as +Mr. Sawyer remarked, ‘in its native pewter.’ + +After dinner, Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop, +and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein, stirring up +and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very creditable and +apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer, being a bachelor, had only one +tumbler in the house, which was assigned to Mr. Winkle as a compliment +to the visitor, Mr. Ben Allen being accommodated with a funnel with a +cork in the narrow end, and Bob Sawyer contented himself with one of +those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety of cabalistic +characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out their liquid drugs +in compounding prescriptions. These preliminaries adjusted, the punch +was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having been arranged that +Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen should be considered at liberty to fill twice +to Mr. Winkle’s once, they started fair, with great satisfaction and +good-fellowship. + +There was no singing, because Mr. Bob Sawyer said it wouldn’t look +professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much +talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely was, +at the end of the street. Which conversation materially lightened the +hours and improved the mind of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s boy, who, instead of +devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on +the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door, +and thus listened and looked on at the same time. + + +The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious, Mr. +Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had +well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in, +announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late +Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up +the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer, understanding the message, after some twenty +repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and, +having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued +forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding +it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible +conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other, +Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to the Bush. + +The anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which Arabella had +awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that +effect upon him which it would have had under other circumstances. So, +after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he turned into +the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the occurrences of +the evening. + +Sitting in front of the fire, with his back towards him, was a tallish +gentleman in a greatcoat: the only other occupant of the room. It was +rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the gentleman drew +his chair aside to afford the new-comer a sight of the fire. What were +Mr. Winkle’s feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to view the face +and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler! + +Mr. Winkle’s first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest +bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind +Mr. Dowler’s head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked +himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back. + +‘Mr. Winkle, Sir. Be calm. Don’t strike me. I won’t bear it. A blow! +Never!’ said Mr. Dowler, looking meeker than Mr. Winkle had expected in +a gentleman of his ferocity. + +‘A blow, Sir?’ stammered Mr. Winkle. + +‘A blow, Sir,’ replied Dowler. ‘Compose your feelings. Sit down. Hear +me.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, trembling from head to foot, ‘before I consent +to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter, I +must be secured by some further understanding. You used a threat against +me last night, Sir, a dreadful threat, Sir.’ Here Mr. Winkle turned very +pale indeed, and stopped short. + +‘I did,’ said Dowler, with a countenance almost as white as Mr. +Winkle’s. ‘Circumstances were suspicious. They have been explained. I +respect your bravery. Your feeling is upright. Conscious innocence. +There’s my hand. Grasp it.’ + +‘Really, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or +not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be +taken at an advantage, ‘really, Sir, I--’ + +‘I know what you mean,’ interposed Dowler. ‘You feel aggrieved. Very +natural. So should I. I was wrong. I beg your pardon. Be friendly. +Forgive me.’ With this, Dowler fairly forced his hand upon Mr. Winkle, +and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of +extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever. + +‘Now,’ said Dowler, ‘sit down. Relate it all. How did you find me? When +did you follow? Be frank. Tell me.’ + +‘It’s quite accidental,’ replied Mr. Winkle, greatly perplexed by the +curious and unexpected nature of the interview. ‘Quite.’ + +‘Glad of it,’ said Dowler. ‘I woke this morning. I had forgotten my +threat. I laughed at the accident. I felt friendly. I said so.’ + +‘To whom?’ inquired Mr. Winkle. + +‘To Mrs. Dowler. “You made a vow,” said she. “I did,” said I. “It was a +rash one,” said she. “It was,” said I. “I’ll apologise. Where is he?”’ + +‘Who?’ inquired Mr. Winkle. + +‘You,’ replied Dowler. ‘I went downstairs. You were not to be found. +Pickwick looked gloomy. Shook his head. Hoped no violence would be +committed. I saw it all. You felt yourself insulted. You had gone, for a +friend perhaps. Possibly for pistols. “High spirit,” said I. “I admire +him.”’ + +Mr. Winkle coughed, and beginning to see how the land lay, assumed a +look of importance. + +‘I left a note for you,’ resumed Dowler. ‘I said I was sorry. So I was. +Pressing business called me here. You were not satisfied. You followed. +You required a verbal explanation. You were right. It’s all over now. My +business is finished. I go back to-morrow. Join me.’ + +As Dowler progressed in his explanation, Mr. Winkle’s countenance grew +more and more dignified. The mysterious nature of the commencement of +their conversation was explained; Mr. Dowler had as great an objection +to duelling as himself; in short, this blustering and awful personage +was one of the most egregious cowards in existence, and interpreting Mr. +Winkle’s absence through the medium of his own fears, had taken the same +step as himself, and prudently retired until all excitement of feeling +should have subsided. + +As the real state of the case dawned upon Mr. Winkle’s mind, he looked +very terrible, and said he was perfectly satisfied; but at the same +time, said so with an air that left Mr. Dowler no alternative but to +infer that if he had not been, something most horrible and destructive +must inevitably have occurred. Mr. Dowler appeared to be impressed with +a becoming sense of Mr. Winkle’s magnanimity and condescension; and the +two belligerents parted for the night, with many protestations of +eternal friendship. + +About half-past twelve o’clock, when Mr. Winkle had been revelling some +twenty minutes in the full luxury of his first sleep, he was suddenly +awakened by a loud knocking at his chamber door, which, being repeated +with increased vehemence, caused him to start up in bed, and inquire who +was there, and what the matter was. + +‘Please, Sir, here’s a young man which says he must see you directly,’ +responded the voice of the chambermaid. + +‘A young man!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle. + +‘No mistake about that ‘ere, Sir,’ replied another voice through the +keyhole; ‘and if that wery same interestin’ young creetur ain’t let in +vithout delay, it’s wery possible as his legs vill enter afore his +countenance.’ The young man gave a gentle kick at one of the lower +panels of the door, after he had given utterance to this hint, as if to +add force and point to the remark. + +‘Is that you, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, springing out of bed. + +‘Quite unpossible to identify any gen’l’m’n vith any degree o’ mental +satisfaction, vithout lookin’ at him, Sir,’ replied the voice +dogmatically. + +Mr. Winkle, not much doubting who the young man was, unlocked the door; +which he had no sooner done than Mr. Samuel Weller entered with great +precipitation, and carefully relocking it on the inside, deliberately +put the key in his waistcoat pocket; and, after surveying Mr. Winkle +from head to foot, said-- + +‘You’re a wery humorous young gen’l’m’n, you air, Sir!’ + +‘What do you mean by this conduct, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle +indignantly. ‘Get out, sir, this instant. What do you mean, Sir?’ + +‘What do I mean,’ retorted Sam; ‘come, Sir, this is rayther too rich, as +the young lady said when she remonstrated with the pastry-cook, arter +he’d sold her a pork pie as had got nothin’ but fat inside. What do I +mean! Well, that ain’t a bad ‘un, that ain’t.’ + +‘Unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, Sir,’ said Mr. +Winkle. + +‘I shall leave this here room, sir, just precisely at the wery same +moment as you leaves it,’ responded Sam, speaking in a forcible manner, +and seating himself with perfect gravity. ‘If I find it necessary to +carry you away, pick-a-back, o’ course I shall leave it the least bit o’ +time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won’t +reduce me to extremities; in saying wich, I merely quote wot the +nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn’t come out of +his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be afeered +that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door.’ At the end +of this address, which was unusually lengthy for him, Mr. Weller planted +his hands on his knees, and looked full in Mr. Winkle’s face, with an +expression of countenance which showed that he had not the remotest +intention of being trifled with. + +‘You’re a amiably-disposed young man, Sir, I don’t think,’ resumed Mr. +Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, ‘to go inwolving our precious +governor in all sorts o’ fanteegs, wen he’s made up his mind to go +through everythink for principle. You’re far worse nor Dodson, Sir; and +as for Fogg, I consider him a born angel to you!’ Mr. Weller having +accompanied this last sentiment with an emphatic slap on each knee, +folded his arms with a look of great disgust, and threw himself back in +his chair, as if awaiting the criminal’s defence. + +‘My good fellow,’ said Mr. Winkle, extending his hand--his teeth +chattering all the time he spoke, for he had been standing, during the +whole of Mr. Weller’s lecture, in his night-gear--‘my good fellow, I +respect your attachment to my excellent friend, and I am very sorry +indeed to have added to his causes for disquiet. There, Sam, there!’ + +‘Well,’ said Sam, rather sulkily, but giving the proffered hand a +respectful shake at the same time--‘well, so you ought to be, and I am +very glad to find you air; for, if I can help it, I won’t have him put +upon by nobody, and that’s all about it.’ + +‘Certainly not, Sam,’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘There! Now go to bed, Sam, and +we’ll talk further about this in the morning.’ + +‘I’m wery sorry,’ said Sam, ‘but I can’t go to bed.’ + +‘Not go to bed!’ repeated Mr. Winkle. + +‘No,’ said Sam, shaking his head. ‘Can’t be done.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say you’re going back to-night, Sam?’ urged Mr. +Winkle, greatly surprised. + +‘Not unless you particklerly wish it,’ replied Sam; ‘but I mustn’t leave +this here room. The governor’s orders wos peremptory.’ + +‘Nonsense, Sam,’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘I must stop here two or three days; +and more than that, Sam, you must stop here too, to assist me in gaining +an interview with a young lady--Miss Allen, Sam; you remember her--whom +I must and will see before I leave Bristol.’ + +But in reply to each of these positions, Sam shook his head with great +firmness, and energetically replied, ‘It can’t be done.’ + +After a great deal of argument and representation on the part of Mr. +Winkle, however, and a full disclosure of what had passed in the +interview with Dowler, Sam began to waver; and at length a compromise +was effected, of which the following were the main and principal +conditions:-- + +That Sam should retire, and leave Mr. Winkle in the undisturbed +possession of his apartment, on the condition that he had permission to +lock the door on the outside, and carry off the key; provided always, +that in the event of an alarm of fire, or other dangerous contingency, +the door should be instantly unlocked. That a letter should be written +to Mr. Pickwick early next morning, and forwarded per Dowler, requesting +his consent to Sam and Mr. Winkle’s remaining at Bristol, for the +purpose and with the object already assigned, and begging an answer by +the next coach--, if favourable, the aforesaid parties to remain +accordingly, and if not, to return to Bath immediately on the receipt +thereof. And, lastly, that Mr. Winkle should be understood as distinctly +pledging himself not to resort to the window, fireplace, or other +surreptitious mode of escape in the meanwhile. These stipulations having +been concluded, Sam locked the door and departed. + +He had nearly got downstairs, when he stopped, and drew the key from his +pocket. + +‘I quite forgot about the knockin’ down,’ said Sam, half turning back. +‘The governor distinctly said it was to be done. Amazin’ stupid o’ me, +that ‘ere! Never mind,’ said Sam, brightening up, ‘it’s easily done to- +morrow, anyvays.’ + +Apparently much consoled by this reflection, Mr. Weller once more +deposited the key in his pocket, and descending the remainder of the +stairs without any fresh visitations of conscience, was soon, in common +with the other inmates of the house, buried in profound repose. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. MR. SAMUEL WELLER, BEING INTRUSTED WITH A MISSION OF +LOVE, PROCEEDS TO EXECUTE IT; WITH WHAT SUCCESS WILL HEREINAFTER APPEAR + +During the whole of next day, Sam kept Mr. Winkle steadily in sight, +fully determined not to take his eyes off him for one instant, until he +should receive express instructions from the fountain-head. However +disagreeable Sam’s very close watch and great vigilance were to Mr. +Winkle, he thought it better to bear with them, than, by any act of +violent opposition, to hazard being carried away by force, which Mr. +Weller more than once strongly hinted was the line of conduct that a +strict sense of duty prompted him to pursue. There is little reason to +doubt that Sam would very speedily have quieted his scruples, by bearing +Mr. Winkle back to Bath, bound hand and foot, had not Mr. Pickwick’s +prompt attention to the note, which Dowler had undertaken to deliver, +forestalled any such proceeding. In short, at eight o’clock in the +evening, Mr. Pickwick himself walked into the coffee-room of the Bush +Tavern, and told Sam with a smile, to his very great relief, that he had +done quite right, and it was unnecessary for him to mount guard any +longer. + +‘I thought it better to come myself,’ said Mr. Pickwick, addressing Mr. +Winkle, as Sam disencumbered him of his great-coat and travelling-shawl, +‘to ascertain, before I gave my consent to Sam’s employment in this +matter, that you are quite in earnest and serious, with respect to this +young lady.’ + +‘Serious, from my heart--from my soul!’ returned Mr. Winkle, with great +energy. + +‘Remember,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with beaming eyes, ‘we met her at our +excellent and hospitable friend’s, Winkle. It would be an ill return to +tamper lightly, and without due consideration, with this young lady’s +affections. I’ll not allow that, sir. I’ll not allow it.’ + +‘I have no such intention, indeed,’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle warmly. ‘I have +considered the matter well, for a long time, and I feel that my +happiness is bound up in her.’ + +‘That’s wot we call tying it up in a small parcel, sir,’ interposed Mr. +Weller, with an agreeable smile. + +Mr. Winkle looked somewhat stern at this interruption, and Mr. Pickwick +angrily requested his attendant not to jest with one of the best +feelings of our nature; to which Sam replied, ‘That he wouldn’t, if he +was aware on it; but there were so many on ‘em, that he hardly know’d +which was the best ones wen he heerd ‘em mentioned.’ + +Mr. Winkle then recounted what had passed between himself and Mr. Ben +Allen, relative to Arabella; stated that his object was to gain an +interview with the young lady, and make a formal disclosure of his +passion; and declared his conviction, founded on certain dark hints and +mutterings of the aforesaid Ben, that, wherever she was at present +immured, it was somewhere near the Downs. And this was his whole stock +of knowledge or suspicion on the subject. + +With this very slight clue to guide him, it was determined that Mr. +Weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was +also arranged that Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle, who were less confident +of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, and accidentally drop +in upon Mr. Bob Sawyer in the course of the day, in the hope of seeing +or hearing something of the young lady’s whereabouts. + +Accordingly, next morning, Sam Weller issued forth upon his quest, in no +way daunted by the very discouraging prospect before him; and away he +walked, up one street and down another--we were going to say, up one +hill and down another, only it’s all uphill at Clifton--without meeting +with anything or anybody that tended to throw the faintest light on the +matter in hand. Many were the colloquies into which Sam entered with +grooms who were airing horses on roads, and nursemaids who were airing +children in lanes; but nothing could Sam elicit from either the first- +mentioned or the last, which bore the slightest reference to the object +of his artfully-prosecuted inquiries. There were a great many young +ladies in a great many houses, the greater part whereof were shrewdly +suspected by the male and female domestics to be deeply attached to +somebody, or perfectly ready to become so, if opportunity afforded. But +as none among these young ladies was Miss Arabella Allen, the +information left Sam at exactly the old point of wisdom at which he had +stood before. + +Sam struggled across the Downs against a good high wind, wondering +whether it was always necessary to hold your hat on with both hands in +that part of the country, and came to a shady by-place, about which were +sprinkled several little villas of quiet and secluded appearance. +Outside a stable door at the bottom of a long back lane without a +thoroughfare, a groom in undress was idling about, apparently persuading +himself that he was doing something with a spade and a wheel-barrow. We +may remark, in this place, that we have scarcely ever seen a groom near +a stable, in his lazy moments, who has not been, to a greater or less +extent, the victim of this singular delusion. + +Sam thought he might as well talk to this groom as to any one else, +especially as he was very tired with walking, and there was a good large +stone just opposite the wheel-barrow; so he strolled down the lane, and, +seating himself on the stone, opened a conversation with the ease and +freedom for which he was remarkable. + +‘Mornin’, old friend,’ said Sam. + +‘Arternoon, you mean,’ replied the groom, casting a surly look at Sam. + +‘You’re wery right, old friend,’ said Sam; ‘I _do_ mean arternoon. How +are you?’ + +‘Why, I don’t find myself much the better for seeing of you,’ replied +the ill-tempered groom. + +‘That’s wery odd--that is,’ said Sam, ‘for you look so uncommon +cheerful, and seem altogether so lively, that it does vun’s heart good +to see you.’ + +The surly groom looked surlier still at this, but not sufficiently so to +produce any effect upon Sam, who immediately inquired, with a +countenance of great anxiety, whether his master’s name was not Walker. + +‘No, it ain’t,’ said the groom. + +‘Nor Brown, I s’pose?’ said Sam. + +‘No, it ain’t.’ + +‘Nor Vilson?’ + +‘No; nor that either,’ said the groom. + +‘Vell,’ replied Sam, ‘then I’m mistaken, and he hasn’t got the honour o’ +my acquaintance, which I thought he had. Don’t wait here out o’ +compliment to me,’ said Sam, as the groom wheeled in the barrow, and +prepared to shut the gate. ‘Ease afore ceremony, old boy; I’ll excuse +you.’ + +‘I’d knock your head off for half-a-crown,’ said the surly groom, +bolting one half of the gate. + +‘Couldn’t afford to have it done on those terms,’ rejoined Sam. ‘It ‘ud +be worth a life’s board wages at least, to you, and ‘ud be cheap at +that. Make my compliments indoors. Tell ‘em not to vait dinner for me, +and say they needn’t mind puttin’ any by, for it’ll be cold afore I come +in.’ + +In reply to this, the groom waxing very wroth, muttered a desire to +damage somebody’s person; but disappeared without carrying it into +execution, slamming the door angrily after him, and wholly unheeding +Sam’s affectionate request, that he would leave him a lock of his hair +before he went. + +Sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what was best +to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking at all the +doors within five miles of Bristol, taking them at a hundred and fifty +or two hundred a day, and endeavouring to find Miss Arabella by that +expedient, when accident all of a sudden threw in his way what he might +have sat there for a twelvemonth and yet not found without it. + +Into the lane where he sat, there opened three or four garden gates, +belonging to as many houses, which though detached from each other, were +only separated by their gardens. As these were large and long, and well +planted with trees, the houses were not only at some distance off, but +the greater part of them were nearly concealed from view. Sam was +sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to +that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his +mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, +and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bedside +carpets. + +Sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable he would +have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head +and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his +feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing +that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy +for her single strength. Mr. Weller was a gentleman of great gallantry +in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance than he +hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced towards her. + +‘My dear,’ said Sam, sliding up with an air of great respect, ‘you’ll +spile that wery pretty figure out o’ all perportion if you shake them +carpets by yourself. Let me help you.’ + +The young lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a +gentleman was so near, turned round as Sam spoke--no doubt (indeed she +said so, afterwards) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger--when +instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed +scream. Sam was scarcely less staggered, for in the countenance of the +well-shaped female servant, he beheld the very features of his +valentine, the pretty housemaid from Mr. Nupkins’s. + +‘Wy, Mary, my dear!’ said Sam. + +‘Lauk, Mr. Weller,’ said Mary, ‘how you do frighten one!’ + +Sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say +what reply he did make. We merely know that after a short pause Mary +said, ‘Lor, do adun, Mr. Weller!’ and that his hat had fallen off a few +moments before--from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer +that one kiss, or more, had passed between the parties. + +‘Why, how did you come here?’ said Mary, when the conversation to which +this interruption had been offered, was resumed. + +‘O’ course I came to look arter you, my darlin’,’ replied Mr. Weller; +for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity. + +‘And how did you know I was here?’ inquired Mary. ‘Who could have told +you that I took another service at Ipswich, and that they afterwards +moved all the way here? Who _could _have told you that, Mr. Weller?’ + +‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Sam, with a cunning look, ‘that’s the pint. Who +could ha’ told me?’ + +‘It wasn’t Mr. Muzzle, was it?’ inquired Mary. + +‘Oh, no.’ replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, ‘it warn’t him.’ + +‘It must have been the cook,’ said Mary. + +‘O’ course it must,’ said Sam. + +‘Well, I never heard the like of that!’ exclaimed Mary. + +‘No more did I,’ said Sam. ‘But Mary, my dear’--here Sam’s manner grew +extremely affectionate--‘Mary, my dear, I’ve got another affair in hand +as is wery pressin’. There’s one o’ my governor’s friends--Mr. Winkle, +you remember him?’ + +‘Him in the green coat?’ said Mary. ‘Oh, yes, I remember him.’ + +‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘he’s in a horrid state o’ love; reg’larly comfoozled, +and done over vith it.’ + +‘Lor!’ interposed Mary. + +‘Yes,’ said Sam; ‘but that’s nothin’ if we could find out the young +‘ooman;’ and here Sam, with many digressions upon the personal beauty of +Mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw +her, gave a faithful account of Mr. Winkle’s present predicament. + +‘Well,’ said Mary, ‘I never did!’ + +‘O’ course not,’ said Sam, ‘and nobody never did, nor never vill +neither; and here am I a-walkin’ about like the wandering Jew--a +sportin’ character you have perhaps heerd on Mary, my dear, as vos +alvays doin’ a match agin’ time, and never vent to sleep--looking arter +this here Miss Arabella Allen.’ + +‘Miss who?’ said Mary, in great astonishment. + +‘Miss Arabella Allen,’ said Sam. + +‘Goodness gracious!’ said Mary, pointing to the garden door which the +sulky groom had locked after him. ‘Why, it’s that very house; she’s been +living there these six weeks. Their upper house-maid, which is lady’s- +maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin’s before the +family was out of bed, one mornin’.’ + +‘Wot, the wery next door to you?’ said Sam. + +‘The very next,’ replied Mary. + +Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that he +found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for +support; and divers little love passages had passed between them, before +he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject. + +‘Vell,’ said Sam at length, ‘if this don’t beat cock-fightin’ nothin’ +never vill, as the lord mayor said, ven the chief secretary o’ state +proposed his missis’s health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy, +I’ve got a message to her as I’ve been a-trying all day to deliver.’ + +‘Ah,’ said Mary, ‘but you can’t deliver it now, because she only walks +in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she +never goes out, without the old lady.’ + +Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following plan +of operations; that he should return just at dusk--the time at which +Arabella invariably took her walk--and, being admitted by Mary into the +garden of the house to which she belonged, would contrive to scramble up +the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-tree, which +would effectually screen him from observation; would there deliver his +message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of Mr. Winkle +for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having made this arrangement +with great despatch, he assisted Mary in the long-deferred occupation of +shaking the carpets. + +It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little +pieces of carpet--at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, +but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking +lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet’s length apart, it is as +innocent an amusement as can well be devised; but when the folding +begins, and the distance between them gets gradually lessened from one +half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to +a sixteenth, and then to a thirty-second, if the carpet be long enough, +it becomes dangerous. We do not know, to a nicety, how many pieces of +carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as +many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty +housemaid. + +Mr. Weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until +it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the +thoroughfare. Having been admitted into the garden by Mary, and having +received from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his +limbs and neck, Sam mounted into the pear-tree, to wait until Arabella +should come into sight. + +He waited so long without this anxiously-expected event occurring, that +he began to think it was not going to take place at all, when he heard +light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterwards beheld +Arabella walking pensively down the garden. As soon as she came nearly +below the tree, Sam began, by way of gently indicating his presence, to +make sundry diabolical noises similar to those which would probably be +natural to a person of middle age who had been afflicted with a +combination of inflammatory sore throat, croup, and whooping-cough, from +his earliest infancy. + +Upon this, the young lady cast a hurried glance towards the spot whence +the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all +diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most +certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately +deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to sink down on a +garden seat, which happened by good luck to be near at hand. + +‘She’s a-goin’ off,’ soliloquised Sam in great perplexity. ‘Wot a thing +it is, as these here young creeturs will go a-faintin’ avay just ven +they oughtn’t to. Here, young ‘ooman, Miss Sawbones, Mrs. Vinkle, +don’t!’ + +Whether it was the magic of Mr. Winkle’s name, or the coolness of the +open air, or some recollection of Mr. Weller’s voice, that revived +Arabella, matters not. She raised her head and languidly inquired, +‘Who’s that, and what do you want?’ + +‘Hush,’ said Sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there +in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to, ‘only me, miss, +only me.’ + +‘Mr. Pickwick’s servant!’ said Arabella earnestly. + +‘The wery same, miss,’ replied Sam. ‘Here’s Mr. Vinkle reg’larly sewed +up vith desperation, miss.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Arabella, drawing nearer the wall. + +‘Ah, indeed,’ said Sam. ‘Ve thought ve should ha’ been obliged to +strait-veskit him last night; he’s been a-ravin’ all day; and he says if +he can’t see you afore to-morrow night’s over, he vishes he may be +somethin’ unpleasanted if he don’t drownd hisself.’ + +‘Oh, no, no, Mr. Weller!’ said Arabella, clasping her hands. + +‘That’s wot he says, miss,’ replied Sam coolly. ‘He’s a man of his word, +and it’s my opinion he’ll do it, miss. He’s heerd all about you from the +sawbones in barnacles.’ + +‘From my brother!’ said Arabella, having some faint recognition of Sam’s +description. + +‘I don’t rightly know which is your brother, miss,’ replied Sam. ‘Is it +the dirtiest vun o’ the two?’ + +‘Yes, yes, Mr. Weller,’ returned Arabella, ‘go on. Make haste, pray.’ + +‘Well, miss,’ said Sam, ‘he’s heerd all about it from him; and it’s the +gov’nor’s opinion that if you don’t see him wery quick, the sawbones as +we’ve been a-speakin’ on, ‘ull get as much extra lead in his head as’ll +rayther damage the dewelopment o’ the orgins if they ever put it in +spirits artervards.’ + +‘Oh, what can I do to prevent these dreadful quarrels!’ exclaimed +Arabella. + +‘It’s the suspicion of a priory ‘tachment as is the cause of it all,’ +replied Sam. ‘You’d better see him, miss.’ + +‘But how?--where?’ cried Arabella. ‘I dare not leave the house alone. My +brother is so unkind, so unreasonable! I know how strange my talking +thus to you may appear, Mr. Weller, but I am very, very unhappy--’ and +here poor Arabella wept so bitterly that Sam grew chivalrous. + +‘It may seem wery strange talkin’ to me about these here affairs, miss,’ +said Sam, with great vehemence; ‘but all I can say is, that I’m not only +ready but villin’ to do anythin’ as’ll make matters agreeable; and if +chuckin’ either o’ them sawboneses out o’ winder ‘ull do it, I’m the +man.’ As Sam Weller said this, he tucked up his wristbands, at the +imminent hazard of falling off the wall in so doing, to intimate his +readiness to set to work immediately. + +Flattering as these professions of good feeling were, Arabella +resolutely declined (most unaccountably, as Sam thought) to avail +herself of them. For some time she strenuously refused to grant Mr. +Winkle the interview Sam had so pathetically requested; but at length, +when the conversation threatened to be interrupted by the unwelcome +arrival of a third party, she hurriedly gave him to understand, with +many professions of gratitude, that it was barely possible she might be +in the garden an hour later, next evening. Sam understood this perfectly +well; and Arabella, bestowing upon him one of her sweetest smiles, +tripped gracefully away, leaving Mr. Weller in a state of very great +admiration of her charms, both personal and mental. + +Having descended in safety from the wall, and not forgotten to devote a +few moments to his own particular business in the same department, Mr. +Weller then made the best of his way back to the Bush, where his +prolonged absence had occasioned much speculation and some alarm. + +‘We must be careful,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after listening attentively to +Sam’s tale, ‘not for our sakes, but for that of the young lady. We must +be very cautious.’ + +‘_We_!’ said Mr. Winkle, with marked emphasis. + +Mr. Pickwick’s momentary look of indignation at the tone of this remark, +subsided into his characteristic expression of benevolence, as he +replied-- + +‘_We_, Sir! I shall accompany you.’ + +‘You!’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘I,’ replied Mr. Pickwick mildly. ‘In affording you this interview, the +young lady has taken a natural, perhaps, but still a very imprudent +step. If I am present at the meeting--a mutual friend, who is old enough +to be the father of both parties--the voice of calumny can never be +raised against her hereafter.’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s eyes lightened with honest exultation at his own +foresight, as he spoke thus. Mr. Winkle was touched by this little trait +of his delicate respect for the young _protegee _of his friend, and took +his hand with a feeling of regard, akin to veneration. + +‘You _SHALL _ go,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘I will,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Sam, have my greatcoat and shawl ready, +and order a conveyance to be at the door to-morrow evening, rather +earlier than is absolutely necessary, in order that we may be in good +time.’ + +Mr. Weller touched his hat, as an earnest of his obedience, and withdrew +to make all needful preparations for the expedition. + +The coach was punctual to the time appointed; and Mr. Weller, after duly +installing Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle inside, took his seat on the box +by the driver. They alighted, as had been agreed on, about a quarter of +a mile from the place of rendezvous, and desiring the coachman to await +their return, proceeded the remaining distance on foot. + +It was at this stage of the undertaking that Mr. Pickwick, with many +smiles and various other indications of great self-satisfaction, +produced from one of his coat pockets a dark lantern, with which he had +specially provided himself for the occasion, and the great mechanical +beauty of which he proceeded to explain to Mr. Winkle, as they walked +along, to the no small surprise of the few stragglers they met. + +‘I should have been the better for something of this kind, in my last +garden expedition, at night; eh, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking good- +humouredly round at his follower, who was trudging behind. + +‘Wery nice things, if they’re managed properly, Sir,’ replied Mr. +Weller; ‘but wen you don’t want to be seen, I think they’re more useful +arter the candle’s gone out, than wen it’s alight.’ + +Mr. Pickwick appeared struck by Sam’s remarks, for he put the lantern +into his pocket again, and they walked on in silence. + +‘Down here, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘Let me lead the way. This is the lane, +Sir.’ + +Down the lane they went, and dark enough it was. Mr. Pickwick brought +out the lantern, once or twice, as they groped their way along, and +threw a very brilliant little tunnel of light before them, about a foot +in diameter. It was very pretty to look at, but seemed to have the +effect of rendering surrounding objects rather darker than before. + +At length they arrived at the large stone. Here Sam recommended his +master and Mr. Winkle to seat themselves, while he reconnoitred, and +ascertained whether Mary was yet in waiting. + +After an absence of five or ten minutes, Sam returned to say that the +gate was opened, and all quiet. Following him with stealthy tread, Mr. +Pickwick and Mr. Winkle soon found themselves in the garden. Here +everybody said, ‘Hush!’ a good many times; and that being done, no one +seemed to have any very distinct apprehension of what was to be done +next. + +‘Is Miss Allen in the garden yet, Mary?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, much +agitated. + +‘I don’t know, sir,’ replied the pretty housemaid. ‘The best thing to be +done, sir, will be for Mr. Weller to give you a hoist up into the tree, +and perhaps Mr. Pickwick will have the goodness to see that nobody comes +up the lane, while I watch at the other end of the garden. Goodness +gracious, what’s that?’ + +‘That ‘ere blessed lantern ‘ull be the death on us all,’ exclaimed Sam +peevishly. ‘Take care wot you’re a-doin’ on, sir; you’re a-sendin’ a +blaze o’ light, right into the back parlour winder.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning hastily aside, ‘I didn’t mean to +do that.’ + +‘Now, it’s in the next house, sir,’ remonstrated Sam. + +‘Bless my heart!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning round again. + +‘Now, it’s in the stable, and they’ll think the place is afire,’ said +Sam. ‘Shut it up, sir, can’t you?’ + +‘It’s the most extraordinary lantern I ever met with, in all my life!’ +exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, greatly bewildered by the effects he had so +unintentionally produced. ‘I never saw such a powerful reflector.’ + +‘It’ll be vun too powerful for us, if you keep blazin’ avay in that +manner, sir,’ replied Sam, as Mr. Pickwick, after various unsuccessful +efforts, managed to close the slide. ‘There’s the young lady’s +footsteps. Now, Mr. Winkle, sir, up vith you.’ + +‘Stop, stop!’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I must speak to her first. Help me up, +Sam.’ + +‘Gently, Sir,’ said Sam, planting his head against the wall, and making +a platform of his back. ‘Step atop o’ that ‘ere flower-pot, Sir. Now +then, up vith you.’ + +‘I’m afraid I shall hurt you, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Never mind me, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Lend him a hand, Mr. Winkle, sir. +Steady, sir, steady! That’s the time o’ day!’ + +As Sam spoke, Mr. Pickwick, by exertions almost supernatural in a +gentleman of his years and weight, contrived to get upon Sam’s back; and +Sam gently raising himself up, and Mr. Pickwick holding on fast by the +top of the wall, while Mr. Winkle clasped him tight by the legs, they +contrived by these means to bring his spectacles just above the level of +the coping. + +‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking over the wall, and catching sight +of Arabella, on the other side, ‘don’t be frightened, my dear, it’s only +me.’ ‘Oh, pray go away, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Arabella. ‘Tell them all to +go away. I am so dreadfully frightened. Dear, dear Mr. Pickwick, don’t +stop there. You’ll fall down and kill yourself, I know you will.’ + +‘Now, pray don’t alarm yourself, my dear,’ said Mr. Pickwick soothingly. +‘There is not the least cause for fear, I assure you. Stand firm, Sam,’ +said Mr. Pickwick, looking down. + +‘All right, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Don’t be longer than you can +conweniently help, sir. You’re rayther heavy.’ + +‘Only another moment, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I merely wished you to know, my dear, that I should not have allowed my +young friend to see you in this clandestine way, if the situation in +which you are placed had left him any alternative; and, lest the +impropriety of this step should cause you any uneasiness, my love, it +may be a satisfaction to you, to know that I am present. That’s all, my +dear.’ + +‘Indeed, Mr. Pickwick, I am very much obliged to you for your kindness +and consideration,’ replied Arabella, drying her tears with her +handkerchief. She would probably have said much more, had not Mr. +Pickwick’s head disappeared with great swiftness, in consequence of a +false step on Sam’s shoulder which brought him suddenly to the ground. +He was up again in an instant however; and bidding Mr. Winkle make haste +and get the interview over, ran out into the lane to keep watch, with +all the courage and ardour of youth. Mr. Winkle himself, inspired by the +occasion, was on the wall in a moment, merely pausing to request Sam to +be careful of his master. + +‘I’ll take care on him, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Leave him to me.’ + +‘Where is he? What’s he doing, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle. + +‘Bless his old gaiters,’ rejoined Sam, looking out at the garden door. +‘He’s a-keepin’ guard in the lane vith that ‘ere dark lantern, like a +amiable Guy Fawkes! I never see such a fine creetur in my days. Blessed +if I don’t think his heart must ha’ been born five-and-twenty year arter +his body, at least!’ + +Mr. Winkle stayed not to hear the encomium upon his friend. He had +dropped from the wall; thrown himself at Arabella’s feet; and by this +time was pleading the sincerity of his passion with an eloquence worthy +even of Mr. Pickwick himself. + +While these things were going on in the open air, an elderly gentleman +of scientific attainments was seated in his library, two or three houses +off, writing a philosophical treatise, and ever and anon moistening his +clay and his labours with a glass of claret from a venerable-looking +bottle which stood by his side. In the agonies of composition, the +elderly gentleman looked sometimes at the carpet, sometimes at the +ceiling, and sometimes at the wall; and when neither carpet, ceiling, +nor wall afforded the requisite degree of inspiration, he looked out of +the window. + +In one of these pauses of invention, the scientific gentleman was gazing +abstractedly on the thick darkness outside, when he was very much +surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air, at +a short distance above the ground, and almost instantaneously vanish. +After a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but +several times; at last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen, +began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be +assigned. + +They were not meteors; they were too low. They were not glow-worms; they +were too high. They were not will-o’-the-wisps; they were not fireflies; +they were not fireworks. What could they be? Some extraordinary and +wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen +before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover, +and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit +of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his pen +again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these unparalleled +appearances, with the date, day, hour, minute, and precise second at +which they were visible: all of which were to form the data of a +voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should +astonish all the atmospherical wiseacres that ever drew breath in any +part of the civilised globe. + +He threw himself back in his easy-chair, wrapped in contemplations of +his future greatness. The mysterious light appeared more brilliantly +than before, dancing, to all appearance, up and down the lane, crossing +from side to side, and moving in an orbit as eccentric as comets +themselves. + +The scientific gentleman was a bachelor. He had no wife to call in and +astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant. + +‘Pruffle,’ said the scientific gentleman, ‘there is something very +extraordinary in the air to-night? Did you see that?’ said the +scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window, as the light again +became visible. + +‘Yes, I did, Sir.’ + +‘What do you think of it, Pruffle?’ + +‘Think of it, Sir?’ + +‘Yes. You have been bred up in this country. What should you say was the +cause for those lights, now?’ + +The scientific gentleman smilingly anticipated Pruffle’s reply that he +could assign no cause for them at all. Pruffle meditated. + +‘I should say it was thieves, Sir,’ said Pruffle at length. + +‘You’re a fool, and may go downstairs,’ said the scientific gentleman. + +‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Pruffle. And down he went. + +But the scientific gentleman could not rest under the idea of the +ingenious treatise he had projected being lost to the world, which must +inevitably be the case if the speculation of the ingenious Mr. Pruffle +were not stifled in its birth. He put on his hat and walked quickly down +the garden, determined to investigate the matter to the very bottom. + +Now, shortly before the scientific gentleman walked out into the garden, +Mr. Pickwick had run down the lane as fast as he could, to convey a +false alarm that somebody was coming that way; occasionally drawing back +the slide of the dark lantern to keep himself from the ditch. The alarm +was no sooner given, than Mr. Winkle scrambled back over the wall, and +Arabella ran into the house; the garden gate was shut, and the three +adventurers were making the best of their way down the lane, when they +were startled by the scientific gentleman unlocking his garden gate. + +‘Hold hard,’ whispered Sam, who was, of course, the first of the party. +‘Show a light for just vun second, Sir.’ + +Mr. Pickwick did as he was desired, and Sam, seeing a man’s head peeping +out very cautiously within half a yard of his own, gave it a gentle tap +with his clenched fist, which knocked it, with a hollow sound, against +the gate. Having performed this feat with great suddenness and +dexterity, Mr. Weller caught Mr. Pickwick up on his back, and followed +Mr. Winkle down the lane at a pace which, considering the burden he +carried, was perfectly astonishing. + +‘Have you got your vind back agin, Sir,’ inquired Sam, when they had +reached the end. + +‘Quite. Quite, now,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Then come along, Sir,’ said Sam, setting his master on his feet again. +‘Come betveen us, sir. Not half a mile to run. Think you’re vinnin’ a +cup, sir. Now for it.’ + +Thus encouraged, Mr. Pickwick made the very best use of his legs. It may +be confidently stated that a pair of black gaiters never got over the +ground in better style than did those of Mr. Pickwick on this memorable +occasion. + +The coach was waiting, the horses were fresh, the roads were good, and +the driver was willing. The whole party arrived in safety at the Bush +before Mr. Pickwick had recovered his breath. + +‘In with you at once, sir,’ said Sam, as he helped his master out. +‘Don’t stop a second in the street, arter that ‘ere exercise. Beg your +pardon, sir,’ continued Sam, touching his hat as Mr. Winkle descended, +‘hope there warn’t a priory ‘tachment, sir?’ + +Mr. Winkle grasped his humble friend by the hand, and whispered in his +ear, ‘It’s all right, Sam; quite right.’ Upon which Mr. Weller struck +three distinct blows upon his nose in token of intelligence, smiled, +winked, and proceeded to put the steps up, with a countenance expressive +of lively satisfaction. + +As to the scientific gentleman, he demonstrated, in a masterly treatise, +that these wonderful lights were the effect of electricity; and clearly +proved the same by detailing how a flash of fire danced before his eyes +when he put his head out of the gate, and how he received a shock which +stunned him for a quarter of an hour afterwards; which demonstration +delighted all the scientific associations beyond measure, and caused him +to be considered a light of science ever afterwards. + + + +CHAPTER XL. INTRODUCES MR. PICKWICK TO A NEW AND NOT UNINTERESTING SCENE +IN THE GREAT DRAMA OF LIFE + +The remainder of the period which Mr. Pickwick had assigned as the +duration of the stay at Bath passed over without the occurrence of +anything material. Trinity term commenced. On the expiration of its +first week, Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to London; and the +former gentleman, attended of course by Sam, straightway repaired to his +old quarters at the George and Vulture. + +On the third morning after their arrival, just as all the clocks in the +city were striking nine individually, and somewhere about nine hundred +and ninety-nine collectively, Sam was taking the air in George Yard, +when a queer sort of fresh-painted vehicle drove up, out of which there +jumped with great agility, throwing the reins to a stout man who sat +beside him, a queer sort of gentleman, who seemed made for the vehicle, +and the vehicle for him. + +The vehicle was not exactly a gig, neither was it a stanhope. It was not +what is currently denominated a dog-cart, neither was it a taxed cart, +nor a chaise-cart, nor a guillotined cabriolet; and yet it had something +of the character of each and every of these machines. It was painted a +bright yellow, with the shafts and wheels picked out in black; and the +driver sat in the orthodox sporting style, on cushions piled about two +feet above the rail. The horse was a bay, a well-looking animal enough; +but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him, +nevertheless, which accorded both with the vehicle and his master. + +The master himself was a man of about forty, with black hair, and +carefully combed whiskers. He was dressed in a particularly gorgeous +manner, with plenty of articles of jewellery about him--all about three +sizes larger than those which are usually worn by gentlemen--and a rough +greatcoat to crown the whole. Into one pocket of this greatcoat, he +thrust his left hand the moment he dismounted, while from the other he +drew forth, with his right, a very bright and glaring silk handkerchief, +with which he whisked a speck or two of dust from his boots, and then, +crumpling it in his hand, swaggered up the court. + +It had not escaped Sam’s attention that, when this person dismounted, a +shabby-looking man in a brown greatcoat shorn of divers buttons, who had +been previously slinking about, on the opposite side of the way, crossed +over, and remained stationary close by. Having something more than a +suspicion of the object of the gentleman’s visit, Sam preceded him to +the George and Vulture, and, turning sharp round, planted himself in the +centre of the doorway. + +‘Now, my fine fellow!’ said the man in the rough coat, in an imperious +tone, attempting at the same time to push his way past. + +‘Now, Sir, wot’s the matter?’ replied Sam, returning the push with +compound interest. + +‘Come, none of this, my man; this won’t do with me,’ said the owner of +the rough coat, raising his voice, and turning white. ‘Here, Smouch!’ + +‘Well, wot’s amiss here?’ growled the man in the brown coat, who had +been gradually sneaking up the court during this short dialogue. + +‘Only some insolence of this young man’s,’ said the principal, giving +Sam another push. + +‘Come, none o’ this gammon,’ growled Smouch, giving him another, and a +harder one. + +This last push had the effect which it was intended by the experienced +Mr. Smouch to produce; for while Sam, anxious to return the compliment, +was grinding that gentleman’s body against the door-post, the principal +crept past, and made his way to the bar, whither Sam, after bandying a +few epithetical remarks with Mr. Smouch, followed at once. + +‘Good-morning, my dear,’ said the principal, addressing the young lady +at the bar, with Botany Bay ease, and New South Wales gentility; ‘which +is Mr. Pickwick’s room, my dear?’ + +‘Show him up,’ said the barmaid to a waiter, without deigning another +look at the exquisite, in reply to his inquiry. + +The waiter led the way upstairs as he was desired, and the man in the +rough coat followed, with Sam behind him, who, in his progress up the +staircase, indulged in sundry gestures indicative of supreme contempt +and defiance, to the unspeakable gratification of the servants and other +lookers-on. Mr. Smouch, who was troubled with a hoarse cough, remained +below, and expectorated in the passage. + +Mr. Pickwick was fast asleep in bed, when his early visitor, followed by +Sam, entered the room. The noise they made, in so doing, awoke him. + +‘Shaving-water, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, from within the curtains. + +‘Shave you directly, Mr. Pickwick,’ said the visitor, drawing one of +them back from the bed’s head. ‘I’ve got an execution against you, at +the suit of Bardell.--Here’s the warrant.--Common Pleas.--Here’s my +card. I suppose you’ll come over to my house.’ Giving Mr. Pickwick a +friendly tap on the shoulder, the sheriff’s officer (for such he was) +threw his card on the counterpane, and pulled a gold toothpick from his +waistcoat pocket. + +‘Namby’s the name,’ said the sheriff’s deputy, as Mr. Pickwick took his +spectacles from under the pillow, and put them on, to read the card. +‘Namby, Bell Alley, Coleman Street.’ + +At this point, Sam Weller, who had had his eyes fixed hitherto on Mr. +Namby’s shining beaver, interfered. + +‘Are you a Quaker?’ said Sam. + +‘I’ll let you know I am, before I’ve done with you,’ replied the +indignant officer. ‘I’ll teach you manners, my fine fellow, one of these +fine mornings.’ + +‘Thank’ee,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll do the same to you. Take your hat off.’ With +this, Mr. Weller, in the most dexterous manner, knocked Mr. Namby’s hat +to the other side of the room, with such violence, that he had very +nearly caused him to swallow the gold toothpick into the bargain. + +‘Observe this, Mr. Pickwick,’ said the disconcerted officer, gasping for +breath. ‘I’ve been assaulted in the execution of my dooty by your +servant in your chamber. I’m in bodily fear. I call you to witness +this.’ + +‘Don’t witness nothin’, Sir,’ interposed Sam. ‘Shut your eyes up tight, +Sir. I’d pitch him out o’ winder, only he couldn’t fall far enough, +‘cause o’ the leads outside.’ + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, in an angry voice, as his attendant made +various demonstrations of hostilities, ‘if you say another word, or +offer the slightest interference with this person, I discharge you that +instant.’ + +‘But, Sir!’ said Sam. + +‘Hold your tongue,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Take that hat up again.’ + +But this Sam flatly and positively refused to do; and, after he had been +severely reprimanded by his master, the officer, being in a hurry, +condescended to pick it up himself, venting a great variety of threats +against Sam meanwhile, which that gentleman received with perfect +composure, merely observing that if Mr. Namby would have the goodness to +put his hat on again, he would knock it into the latter end of next +week. Mr. Namby, perhaps thinking that such a process might be +productive of inconvenience to himself, declined to offer the +temptation, and, soon after, called up Smouch. Having informed him that +the capture was made, and that he was to wait for the prisoner until he +should have finished dressing, Namby then swaggered out, and drove away. +Smouch, requesting Mr. Pickwick in a surly manner ‘to be as alive as he +could, for it was a busy time,’ drew up a chair by the door and sat +there, until he had finished dressing. Sam was then despatched for a +hackney-coach, and in it the triumvirate proceeded to Coleman Street. It +was fortunate the distance was short; for Mr. Smouch, besides possessing +no very enchanting conversational powers, was rendered a decidedly +unpleasant companion in a limited space, by the physical weakness to +which we have elsewhere adverted. + +The coach having turned into a very narrow and dark street, stopped +before a house with iron bars to all the windows; the door-posts of +which were graced by the name and title of ‘Namby, Officer to the +Sheriffs of London’; the inner gate having been opened by a gentleman +who might have passed for a neglected twin-brother of Mr. Smouch, and +who was endowed with a large key for the purpose, Mr. Pickwick was shown +into the ‘coffee-room.’ + +This coffee-room was a front parlour, the principal features of which +were fresh sand and stale tobacco smoke. Mr. Pickwick bowed to the three +persons who were seated in it when he entered; and having despatched Sam +for Perker, withdrew into an obscure corner, and looked thence with some +curiosity upon his new companions. + +One of these was a mere boy of nineteen or twenty, who, though it was +yet barely ten o’clock, was drinking gin-and-water, and smoking a cigar- +-amusements to which, judging from his inflamed countenance, he had +devoted himself pretty constantly for the last year or two of his life. +Opposite him, engaged in stirring the fire with the toe of his right +boot, was a coarse, vulgar young man of about thirty, with a sallow face +and harsh voice; evidently possessed of that knowledge of the world, and +captivating freedom of manner, which is to be acquired in public-house +parlours, and at low billiard tables. The third tenant of the apartment +was a middle-aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and +haggard, and paced up and down the room incessantly; stopping, now and +then, to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected +somebody, and then resuming his walk. + +‘You’d better have the loan of my razor this morning, Mr. Ayresleigh,’ +said the man who was stirring the fire, tipping the wink to his friend +the boy. + +‘Thank you, no, I shan’t want it; I expect I shall be out, in the course +of an hour or so,’ replied the other in a hurried manner. Then, walking +again up to the window, and once more returning disappointed, he sighed +deeply, and left the room; upon which the other two burst into a loud +laugh. + +‘Well, I never saw such a game as that,’ said the gentleman who had +offered the razor, whose name appeared to be Price. ‘Never!’ Mr. Price +confirmed the assertion with an oath, and then laughed again, when of +course the boy (who thought his companion one of the most dashing +fellows alive) laughed also. + +‘You’d hardly think, would you now,’ said Price, turning towards Mr. +Pickwick, ‘that that chap’s been here a week yesterday, and never once +shaved himself yet, because he feels so certain he’s going out in half +an hour’s time, thinks he may as well put it off till he gets home?’ + +‘Poor man!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Are his chances of getting out of his +difficulties really so great?’ + +‘Chances be d----d,’ replied Price; ‘he hasn’t half the ghost of one. I +wouldn’t give _that _for his chance of walking about the streets this +time ten years.’ With this, Mr. Price snapped his fingers +contemptuously, and rang the bell. + +‘Give me a sheet of paper, Crookey,’ said Mr. Price to the attendant, +who in dress and general appearance looked something between a bankrupt +glazier, and a drover in a state of insolvency; ‘and a glass of brandy- +and-water, Crookey, d’ye hear? I’m going to write to my father, and I +must have a stimulant, or I shan’t be able to pitch it strong enough +into the old boy.’ At this facetious speech, the young boy, it is almost +needless to say, was fairly convulsed. + +‘That’s right,’ said Mr. Price. ‘Never say die. All fun, ain’t it?’ + +‘Prime!’ said the young gentleman. + +‘You’ve got some spirit about you, you have,’ said Price. ‘You’ve seen +something of life.’ + +‘I rather think I have!’ replied the boy. He had looked at it through +the dirty panes of glass in a bar door. + +Mr. Pickwick, feeling not a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well +as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried +on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a +private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance +entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and +whispering to Mr. Price that they had come to ‘make it all right’ for +him, joined them at a table in the farther end of the room. + +It would appear, however, that matters were not going to be made all +right quite so speedily as the young gentleman anticipated; for a very +long conversation ensued, of which Mr. Pickwick could not avoid hearing +certain angry fragments regarding dissolute conduct, and repeated +forgiveness. At last, there were very distinct allusions made by the +oldest gentleman of the party to one Whitecross Street, at which the +young gentleman, notwithstanding his primeness and his spirit, and his +knowledge of life into the bargain, reclined his head upon the table, +and howled dismally. + +Very much satisfied with this sudden bringing down of the youth’s +valour, and this effectual lowering of his tone, Mr. Pickwick rang the +bell, and was shown, at his own request, into a private room furnished +with a carpet, table, chairs, sideboard and sofa, and ornamented with a +looking-glass, and various old prints. Here he had the advantage of +hearing Mrs. Namby’s performance on a square piano overhead, while the +breakfast was getting ready; when it came, Mr. Perker came too. + +‘Aha, my dear sir,’ said the little man, ‘nailed at last, eh? Come, +come, I’m not sorry for it either, because now you’ll see the absurdity +of this conduct. I’ve noted down the amount of the taxed costs and +damages for which the ca-sa was issued, and we had better settle at once +and lose no time. Namby is come home by this time, I dare say. What say +you, my dear sir? Shall I draw a cheque, or will you?’ The little man +rubbed his hands with affected cheerfulness as he said this, but +glancing at Mr. Pickwick’s countenance, could not forbear at the same +time casting a desponding look towards Sam Weller. + +‘Perker,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘let me hear no more of this, I beg. I see +no advantage in staying here, so I shall go to prison to-night.’ + +‘You can’t go to Whitecross Street, my dear Sir,’ said Perker. +‘Impossible! There are sixty beds in a ward; and the bolt’s on, sixteen +hours out of the four-and-twenty.’ + +‘I would rather go to some other place of confinement if I can,’ said +Mr. Pickwick. ‘If not, I must make the best I can of that.’ + +‘You can go to the Fleet, my dear Sir, if you’re determined to go +somewhere,’ said Perker. + +‘That’ll do,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I’ll go there directly I have finished +my breakfast.’ + +‘Stop, stop, my dear Sir; not the least occasion for being in such a +violent hurry to get into a place that most other men are as eager to +get out of,’ said the good-natured little attorney. ‘We must have a +habeas-corpus. There’ll be no judge at chambers till four o’clock this +afternoon. You must wait till then.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with unmoved patience. ‘Then we will +have a chop here, at two. See about it, Sam, and tell them to be +punctual.’ + +Mr. Pickwick remaining firm, despite all the remonstrances and arguments +of Perker, the chops appeared and disappeared in due course; he was then +put into another hackney coach, and carried off to Chancery Lane, after +waiting half an hour or so for Mr. Namby, who had a select dinner-party +and could on no account be disturbed before. + +There were two judges in attendance at Serjeant’s Inn--one King’s Bench, +and one Common Pleas--and a great deal of business appeared to be +transacting before them, if the number of lawyer’s clerks who were +hurrying in and out with bundles of papers, afforded any test. When they +reached the low archway which forms the entrance to the inn, Perker was +detained a few moments parlaying with the coachman about the fare and +the change; and Mr. Pickwick, stepping to one side to be out of the way +of the stream of people that were pouring in and out, looked about him +with some curiosity. + +The people that attracted his attention most, were three or four men of +shabby-genteel appearance, who touched their hats to many of the +attorneys who passed, and seemed to have some business there, the nature +of which Mr. Pickwick could not divine. They were curious-looking +fellows. One was a slim and rather lame man in rusty black, and a white +neckerchief; another was a stout, burly person, dressed in the same +apparel, with a great reddish-black cloth round his neck; a third was a +little weazen, drunken-looking body, with a pimply face. They were +loitering about, with their hands behind them, and now and then with an +anxious countenance whispered something in the ear of some of the +gentlemen with papers, as they hurried by. Mr. Pickwick remembered to +have very often observed them lounging under the archway when he had +been walking past; and his curiosity was quite excited to know to what +branch of the profession these dingy-looking loungers could possibly +belong. + +He was about to propound the question to Namby, who kept close beside +him, sucking a large gold ring on his little finger, when Perker bustled +up, and observing that there was no time to lose, led the way into the +inn. As Mr. Pickwick followed, the lame man stepped up to him, and +civilly touching his hat, held out a written card, which Mr. Pickwick, +not wishing to hurt the man’s feelings by refusing, courteously accepted +and deposited in his waistcoat pocket. + +‘Now,’ said Perker, turning round before he entered one of the offices, +to see that his companions were close behind him. ‘In here, my dear sir. +Hallo, what do you want?’ + +This last question was addressed to the lame man, who, unobserved by Mr. +Pickwick, made one of the party. In reply to it, the lame man touched +his hat again, with all imaginable politeness, and motioned towards Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘No, no,’ said Perker, with a smile. ‘We don’t want you, my dear friend, +we don’t want you.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said the lame man. ‘The gentleman took my +card. I hope you will employ me, sir. The gentleman nodded to me. I’ll +be judged by the gentleman himself. You nodded to me, sir?’ + +‘Pooh, pooh, nonsense. You didn’t nod to anybody, Pickwick? A mistake, a +mistake,’ said Perker. + +‘The gentleman handed me his card,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, producing it +from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I accepted it, as the gentleman seemed to +wish it--in fact I had some curiosity to look at it when I should be at +leisure. I--’ + +The little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to +the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to Mr. +Pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail. + +‘A what!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A bail,’ replied Perker. + +‘A bail!’ + +Yes, my dear sir--half a dozen of ‘em here. Bail you to any amount, and +only charge half a crown. Curious trade, isn’t it?’ said Perker, +regaling himself with a pinch of snuff. + +‘What! Am I to understand that these men earn a livelihood by waiting +about here, to perjure themselves before the judges of the land, at the +rate of half a crown a crime?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite aghast at +the disclosure. + +‘Why, I don’t exactly know about perjury, my dear sir,’ replied the +little gentleman. ‘Harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. It’s +a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more.’ Saying which, the attorney +shrugged his shoulders, smiled, took a second pinch of snuff, and led +the way into the office of the judge’s clerk. + +This was a room of specially dirty appearance, with a very low ceiling +and old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad +day outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. At one end, +was a door leading to the judge’s private apartment, round which were +congregated a crowd of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called +in, in the order in which their respective appointments stood upon the +file. Every time this door was opened to let a party out, the next party +made a violent rush to get in; and, as in addition to the numerous +dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who were waiting to see the +judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between the greater part +of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be +raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions. + +Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke +upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of +the room was a clerk in spectacles who was ‘taking the affidavits’; +large batches of which were, from time to time, carried into the private +room by another clerk for the judge’s signature. There were a large +number of attorneys’ clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral +impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these +gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd +to get in at the pit door of a theatre when Gracious Majesty honours it +with its presence. Another functionary, from time to time, exercised his +lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the +purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed +by the judge, which gave rise to a few more scuffles; and all these +things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most +active and excitable person could desire to behold. There were yet +another class of persons--those who were waiting to attend summonses +their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on +the opposite side to attend or not--and whose business it was, from time +to time, to cry out the opposite attorney’s name; to make certain that +he was not in attendance without their knowledge. + +For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr. +Pickwick had taken, was an office-lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice; +near him a common-law clerk with a bass one. + +A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him. + +‘Sniggle and Blink,’ cried the tenor. + +‘Porkin and Snob,’ growled the bass. + +‘Stumpy and Deacon,’ said the new-comer. + +Nobody answered; the next man who came in, was bailed by the whole +three; and he in his turn shouted for another firm; and then somebody +else roared in a loud voice for another; and so forth. + +All this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work, swearing the +clerks; the oath being invariably administered, without any effort at +punctuation, and usually in the following terms:-- + +‘Take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand-writing you +swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you God +a shilling you must get change I haven’t got it.’ + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I suppose they are getting the _Habeas- +corpus_ ready?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘and I vish they’d bring out the have-his-carcase. It’s +wery unpleasant keepin’ us vaitin’ here. I’d ha’ got half a dozen have- +his-carcases ready, pack’d up and all, by this time.’ + +What sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine, Sam Weller imagined a +habeas-corpus to be, does not appear; for Perker, at that moment, walked +up and took Mr. Pickwick away. + +The usual forms having been gone through, the body of Samuel Pickwick +was soon afterwards confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by +him taken to the warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until +the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against +Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied. + +‘And that,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laughing, ‘will be a very long time. Sam, +call another hackney-coach. Perker, my dear friend, good-bye.’ + +‘I shall go with you, and see you safe there,’ said Perker. + +‘Indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘I would rather go without any other +attendant than Sam. As soon as I get settled, I will write and let you +know, and I shall expect you immediately. Until then, good-bye.’ + +As Mr. Pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time +arrived, followed by the tipstaff. Sam having stationed himself on the +box, it rolled away. + +‘A most extraordinary man that!’ said Perker, as he stopped to pull on +his gloves. + +‘What a bankrupt he’d make, Sir,’ observed Mr. Lowten, who was standing +near. ‘How he would bother the commissioners! He’d set ‘em at defiance +if they talked of committing him, Sir.’ + +The attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk’s +professional estimate of Mr. Pickwick’s character, for he walked away +without deigning any reply. + +The hackney-coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney-coaches usually +do. The horses ‘went better’, the driver said, when they had anything +before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there +was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart +stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same. +Mr. Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his +hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach +window. + +Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman’s aid, even a +hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length, +and Mr. Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet. + +The tipstaff, just looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was +following close at his heels, preceded Mr. Pickwick into the prison; +turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open +door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which +they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with the key +in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison. + +Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr. +Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the +ceremony, known to the initiated as ‘sitting for your portrait.’ + +‘Sitting for my portrait?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Having your likeness taken, sir,’ replied the stout turnkey. + +‘We’re capital hands at likenesses here. Take ‘em in no time, and always +exact. Walk in, sir, and make yourself at home.’ + + +Mr. Pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down; when +Mr. Weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered +that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection by +the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners from +visitors. + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘then I wish the artists would come. +This is rather a public place.’ + +‘They von’t be long, Sir, I des-say,’ replied Sam. ‘There’s a Dutch +clock, sir.’ + +‘So I see,’ observed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘And a bird-cage, sir,’ says Sam. ‘Veels vithin veels, a prison in a +prison. Ain’t it, Sir?’ + +As Mr. Weller made this philosophical remark, Mr. Pickwick was aware +that his sitting had commenced. The stout turnkey having been relieved +from the lock, sat down, and looked at him carelessly, from time to +time, while a long thin man who had relieved him, thrust his hands +beneath his coat tails, and planting himself opposite, took a good long +view of him. A third rather surly-looking gentleman, who had apparently +been disturbed at his tea, for he was disposing of the last remnant of a +crust and butter when he came in, stationed himself close to Mr. +Pickwick; and, resting his hands on his hips, inspected him narrowly; +while two others mixed with the group, and studied his features with +most intent and thoughtful faces. Mr. Pickwick winced a good deal under +the operation, and appeared to sit very uneasily in his chair; but he +made no remark to anybody while it was being performed, not even to Sam, +who reclined upon the back of the chair, reflecting, partly on the +situation of his master, and partly on the great satisfaction it would +have afforded him to make a fierce assault upon all the turnkeys there +assembled, one after the other, if it were lawful and peaceable so to +do. + +At length the likeness was completed, and Mr. Pickwick was informed that +he might now proceed into the prison. + +‘Where am I to sleep to-night?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Why, I don’t rightly know about to-night,’ replied the stout turnkey. +‘You’ll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you’ll be all snug +and comfortable. The first night’s generally rather unsettled, but +you’ll be set all squares to-morrow.’ + +After some discussion, it was discovered that one of the turnkeys had a +bed to let, which Mr. Pickwick could have for that night. He gladly +agreed to hire it. + +‘If you’ll come with me, I’ll show it you at once,’ said the man. ‘It +ain’t a large ‘un; but it’s an out-and-outer to sleep in. This way, +sir.’ + +They passed through the inner gate, and descended a short flight of +steps. The key was turned after them; and Mr. Pickwick found himself, +for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtors’ prison. + + + +CHAPTER XLI. WHAT BEFELL MR. PICKWICK WHEN HE GOT INTO THE FLEET; WHAT +PRISONERS HE SAW THERE, AND HOW HE PASSED THE NIGHT + +Mr. Tom Roker, the gentleman who had accompanied Mr. Pickwick into the +prison, turned sharp round to the right when he got to the bottom of the +little flight of steps, and led the way, through an iron gate which +stood open, and up another short flight of steps, into a long narrow +gallery, dirty and low, paved with stone, and very dimly lighted by a +window at each remote end. + +‘This,’ said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and +looking carelessly over his shoulder to Mr. Pickwick--‘this here is the +hall flight.’ + +‘Oh,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase, +which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults, +beneath the ground, ‘and those, I suppose, are the little cellars where +the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals. Unpleasant places to +have to go down to; but very convenient, I dare say.’ + +‘Yes, I shouldn’t wonder if they was convenient,’ replied the gentleman, +‘seeing that a few people live there, pretty snug. That’s the Fair, that +is.’ + +‘My friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you don’t really mean to say that human +beings live down in those wretched dungeons?’ + +‘Don’t I?’ replied Mr. Roker, with indignant astonishment; ‘why +shouldn’t I?’ + +‘Live!--live down there!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Live down there! Yes, and die down there, too, very often!’ replied Mr. +Roker; ‘and what of that? Who’s got to say anything agin it? Live down +there! Yes, and a wery good place it is to live in, ain’t it?’ + +As Roker turned somewhat fiercely upon Mr. Pickwick in saying this, and +moreover muttered in an excited fashion certain unpleasant invocations +concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids, the latter +gentleman deemed it advisable to pursue the discourse no further. Mr. +Roker then proceeded to mount another staircase, as dirty as that which +led to the place which has just been the subject of discussion, in which +ascent he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and Sam. + +‘There,’ said Mr. Roker, pausing for breath when they reached another +gallery of the same dimensions as the one below, ‘this is the coffee- +room flight; the one above’s the third, and the one above that’s the +top; and the room where you’re a-going to sleep to-night is the warden’s +room, and it’s this way--come on.’ Having said all this in a breath, Mr. +Roker mounted another flight of stairs with Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller +following at his heels. + +These staircases received light from sundry windows placed at some +little distance above the floor, and looking into a gravelled area +bounded by a high brick wall, with iron _chevaux-de-frise_ at the top. +This area, it appeared from Mr. Roker’s statement, was the racket- +ground; and it further appeared, on the testimony of the same gentleman, +that there was a smaller area in that portion of the prison which was +nearest Farringdon Street, denominated and called ‘the Painted Ground,’ +from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblance of +various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects achieved +in bygone times by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure hours. + +Having communicated this piece of information, apparently more for the +purpose of discharging his bosom of an important fact, than with any +specific view of enlightening Mr. Pickwick, the guide, having at length +reached another gallery, led the way into a small passage at the extreme +end, opened a door, and disclosed an apartment of an appearance by no +means inviting, containing eight or nine iron bedsteads. + +‘There,’ said Mr. Roker, holding the door open, and looking triumphantly +round at Mr. Pickwick, ‘there’s a room!’ + +Mr. Pickwick’s face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of +satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked, +for a reciprocity of feeling, into the countenance of Samuel Weller, +who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. + +‘There’s a room, young man,’ observed Mr. Roker. + +‘I see it,’ replied Sam, with a placid nod of the head. + +‘You wouldn’t think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel, +would you?’ said Mr. Roker, with a complacent smile. + +To this Mr. Weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one +eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have +thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had never +thought anything at all about it, as the observer’s imagination +suggested. Having executed this feat, and reopened his eye, Mr. Weller +proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker +had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in. + +‘That’s it,’ replied Mr. Roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a +corner. ‘It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether +they wanted to or not.’ + +‘I should think,’ said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question +with a look of excessive disgust--‘I should think poppies was nothing to +it.’ + +‘Nothing at all,’ said Mr. Roker. + +‘And I s’pose,’ said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to +see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken by +what passed, ‘I s’pose the other gen’l’men as sleeps here _are +_gen’l’men.’ + +‘Nothing but it,’ said Mr. Roker. ‘One of ‘em takes his twelve pints of +ale a day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals.’ + +‘He must be a first-rater,’ said Sam. + +‘A1,’ replied Mr. Roker. + +Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly +announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead +for that night; and Mr. Roker, after informing him that he could retire +to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice +or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with Sam in the gallery. + +It was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this +place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which +had set in outside. As it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the +numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand, had +set their doors ajar. Mr. Pickwick peeped into them as he passed along, +with great curiosity and interest. Here, four or five great hulking +fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, were engaged in +noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or +playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. In the adjoining +room, some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the light of a +feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers, +yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age, writing, for the +hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the +perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose +heart it would never touch. In a third, a man, with his wife and a whole +crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, +or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in. And in +a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the noise, and the +beer, and the tobacco smoke, and the cards, all came over again in +greater force than before. + +In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the stair-cases, +there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because +their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their rooms were +full and hot; the greater part because they were restless and +uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing what +to do with themselves. There were many classes of people here, from the +labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in +his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was +the same air about them all--a kind of listless, jail-bird, careless +swagger, a vagabondish who’s-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly +indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment +if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtors’ prison, and looking +at the very first group of people he sees there, with the same interest +as Mr. Pickwick did. + +‘It strikes me, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, leaning over the iron rail at +the stair-head, ‘it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for debt is +scarcely any punishment at all.’ + +‘Think not, sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘You see how these fellows drink, and smoke, and roar,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick. ‘It’s quite impossible that they can mind it much.’ + +‘Ah, that’s just the wery thing, Sir,’ rejoined Sam, ‘they don’t mind +it; it’s a reg’lar holiday to them--all porter and skittles. It’s the +t’other vuns as gets done over vith this sort o’ thing; them down- +hearted fellers as can’t svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles +neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed +up. I’ll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is always a-idlin’ in public- +houses it don’t damage at all, and them as is alvays a-workin’ wen they +can, it damages too much. “It’s unekal,” as my father used to say wen +his grog worn’t made half-and-half: “it’s unekal, and that’s the fault +on it.”’ + +‘I think you’re right, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a few moments’ +reflection, ‘quite right.’ + +‘P’raps, now and then, there’s some honest people as likes it,’ observed +Mr. Weller, in a ruminative tone, ‘but I never heerd o’ one as I can +call to mind, ‘cept the little dirty-faced man in the brown coat; and +that was force of habit.’ + +‘And who was he?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wy, that’s just the wery point as nobody never know’d,’ replied Sam. + +‘But what did he do?’ + +‘Wy, he did wot many men as has been much better know’d has done in +their time, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘he run a match agin the constable, and +vun it.’ + +‘In other words, I suppose,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘he got into debt.’ + +‘Just that, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘and in course o’ time he come here in +consekens. It warn’t much--execution for nine pound nothin’, multiplied +by five for costs; but hows’ever here he stopped for seventeen year. If +he got any wrinkles in his face, they were stopped up vith the dirt, for +both the dirty face and the brown coat wos just the same at the end o’ +that time as they wos at the beginnin’. He wos a wery peaceful, +inoffendin’ little creetur, and wos alvays a-bustlin’ about for +somebody, or playin’ rackets and never vinnin’; till at last the +turnkeys they got quite fond on him, and he wos in the lodge ev’ry +night, a-chattering vith ‘em, and tellin’ stories, and all that ‘ere. +Vun night he wos in there as usual, along vith a wery old friend of his, +as wos on the lock, ven he says all of a sudden, “I ain’t seen the +market outside, Bill,” he says (Fleet Market wos there at that time)--“I +ain’t seen the market outside, Bill,” he says, “for seventeen year.” “I +know you ain’t,” says the turnkey, smoking his pipe. “I should like to +see it for a minit, Bill,” he says. “Wery probable,” says the turnkey, +smoking his pipe wery fierce, and making believe he warn’t up to wot the +little man wanted. “Bill,” says the little man, more abrupt than afore, +“I’ve got the fancy in my head. Let me see the public streets once more +afore I die; and if I ain’t struck with apoplexy, I’ll be back in five +minits by the clock.” “And wot ‘ud become o’ me if you _wos _struck with +apoplexy?” said the turnkey. “Wy,” says the little creetur, “whoever +found me, ‘ud bring me home, for I’ve got my card in my pocket, Bill,” + he says, “No. 20, Coffee-room Flight”: and that wos true, sure enough, +for wen he wanted to make the acquaintance of any new-comer, he used to +pull out a little limp card vith them words on it and nothin’ else; in +consideration of vich, he vos alvays called Number Tventy. The turnkey +takes a fixed look at him, and at last he says in a solemn manner, +“Tventy,” he says, “I’ll trust you; you Won’t get your old friend into +trouble.” “No, my boy; I hope I’ve somethin’ better behind here,” says +the little man; and as he said it he hit his little vesket wery hard, +and then a tear started out o’ each eye, which wos wery extraordinary, +for it wos supposed as water never touched his face. He shook the +turnkey by the hand; out he vent--’ + +‘And never came back again,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wrong for vunce, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘for back he come, two +minits afore the time, a-bilin’ with rage, sayin’ how he’d been nearly +run over by a hackney-coach that he warn’t used to it; and he was blowed +if he wouldn’t write to the lord mayor. They got him pacified at last; +and for five years arter that, he never even so much as peeped out o’ +the lodge gate.’ + +‘At the expiration of that time he died, I suppose,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No, he didn’t, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘He got a curiosity to go and taste +the beer at a new public-house over the way, and it wos such a wery nice +parlour, that he took it into his head to go there every night, which he +did for a long time, always comin’ back reg’lar about a quarter of an +hour afore the gate shut, which was all wery snug and comfortable. At +last he began to get so precious jolly, that he used to forget how the +time vent, or care nothin’ at all about it, and he went on gettin’ later +and later, till vun night his old friend wos just a-shuttin’ the gate-- +had turned the key in fact--wen he come up. “Hold hard, Bill,” he says. +“Wot, ain’t you come home yet, Tventy?” says the turnkey, “I thought you +wos in, long ago.” “No, I wasn’t,” says the little man, with a smile. +“Well, then, I’ll tell you wot it is, my friend,” says the turnkey, +openin’ the gate wery slow and sulky, “it’s my ‘pinion as you’ve got +into bad company o’ late, which I’m wery sorry to see. Now, I don’t wish +to do nothing harsh,” he says, “but if you can’t confine yourself to +steady circles, and find your vay back at reg’lar hours, as sure as +you’re a-standin’ there, I’ll shut you out altogether!” The little man +was seized vith a wiolent fit o’ tremblin’, and never vent outside the +prison walls artervards!’ + +As Sam concluded, Mr. Pickwick slowly retraced his steps downstairs. +After a few thoughtful turns in the Painted Ground, which, as it was now +dark, was nearly deserted, he intimated to Mr. Weller that he thought it +high time for him to withdraw for the night; requesting him to seek a +bed in some adjacent public-house, and return early in the morning, to +make arrangements for the removal of his master’s wardrobe from the +George and Vulture. This request Mr. Samuel Weller prepared to obey, +with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable +show of reluctance nevertheless. He even went so far as to essay sundry +ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the +gravel for that night; but finding Mr. Pickwick obstinately deaf to any +such suggestions, finally withdrew. + +There is no disguising the fact that Mr. Pickwick felt very low-spirited +and uncomfortable--not for lack of society, for the prison was very +full, and a bottle of wine would at once have purchased the utmost good- +fellowship of a few choice spirits, without any more formal ceremony of +introduction; but he was alone in the coarse, vulgar crowd, and felt the +depression of spirits and sinking of heart, naturally consequent on the +reflection that he was cooped and caged up, without a prospect of +liberation. As to the idea of releasing himself by ministering to the +sharpness of Dodson & Fogg, it never for an instant entered his +thoughts. + +In this frame of mind he turned again into the coffee-room gallery, and +walked slowly to and fro. The place was intolerably dirty, and the smell +of tobacco smoke perfectly suffocating. There was a perpetual slamming +and banging of doors as the people went in and out; and the noise of +their voices and footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the passages +constantly. A young woman, with a child in her arms, who seemed scarcely +able to crawl, from emaciation and misery, was walking up and down the +passage in conversation with her husband, who had no other place to see +her in. As they passed Mr. Pickwick, he could hear the female sob +bitterly; and once she burst into such a passion of grief, that she was +compelled to lean against the wall for support, while the man took the +child in his arms, and tried to soothe her. + +Mr. Pickwick’s heart was really too full to bear it, and he went +upstairs to bed. + +Now, although the warder’s room was a very uncomfortable one (being, in +every point of decoration and convenience, several hundred degrees +inferior to the common infirmary of a county jail), it had at present +the merit of being wholly deserted save by Mr. Pickwick himself. So, he +sat down at the foot of his little iron bedstead, and began to wonder +how much a year the warder made out of the dirty room. Having satisfied +himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal +in annual value to the freehold of a small street in the suburbs of +London, he took to wondering what possible temptation could have induced +a dingy-looking fly that was crawling over his pantaloons, to come into +a close prison, when he had the choice of so many airy situations--a +course of meditation which led him to the irresistible conclusion that +the insect was insane. After settling this point, he began to be +conscious that he was getting sleepy; whereupon he took his nightcap out +of the pocket in which he had had the precaution to stow it in the +morning, and, leisurely undressing himself, got into bed and fell +asleep. + +‘Bravo! Heel over toe--cut and shuffle--pay away at it, Zephyr! I’m +smothered if the opera house isn’t your proper hemisphere. Keep it up! +Hooray!’ These expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and +accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused Mr. Pickwick from one of +those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to +the sleeper to have been protracted for three weeks or a month. + +The voice had no sooner ceased than the room was shaken with such +violence that the windows rattled in their frames, and the bedsteads +trembled again. Mr. Pickwick started up, and remained for some minutes +fixed in mute astonishment at the scene before him. + + +On the floor of the room, a man in a broad-skirted green coat, with +corduroy knee-smalls and gray cotton stockings, was performing the most +popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of +grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character +of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. Another man, evidently very +drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was +sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of +a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and +expression; while a third, seated on one of the bedsteads, was +applauding both performers with the air of a profound connoisseur, and +encouraging them by such ebullitions of feeling as had already roused +Mr. Pickwick from his sleep. + +This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never +can be seen in full perfection but in such places--they may be met with, +in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and Public- +houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, +which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature +for the sole purpose of rearing them. + +He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very +thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no neckerchief, as +he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt collar displayed +their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common +eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, +very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. His legs, which, +being long, were afflicted with weakness, graced a pair of Oxford- +mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being +somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly +buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a +pair of shoes sufficiently down at heel to display a pair of very soiled +white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of +boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold. + +This figure was the first to perceive that Mr. Pickwick was looking on; +upon which he winked to the Zephyr, and entreated him, with mock +gravity, not to wake the gentleman. + +‘Why, bless the gentleman’s honest heart and soul!’ said the Zephyr, +turning round and affecting the extremity of surprise; ‘the gentleman is +awake. Hem, Shakespeare! How do you do, Sir? How is Mary and Sarah, sir? +and the dear old lady at home, Sir? Will you have the kindness to put my +compliments into the first little parcel you’re sending that way, sir, +and say that I would have sent ‘em before, only I was afraid they might +be broken in the wagon, sir?’ + +‘Don’t overwhelm the gentlemen with ordinary civilities when you see +he’s anxious to have something to drink,’ said the gentleman with the +whiskers, with a jocose air. ‘Why don’t you ask the gentleman what he’ll +take?’ + +‘Dear me, I quite forgot,’ replied the other. ‘What will you take, sir? +Will you take port wine, sir, or sherry wine, sir? I can recommend the +ale, sir; or perhaps you’d like to taste the porter, sir? Allow me to +have the felicity of hanging up your nightcap, Sir.’ + +With this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from Mr. +Pickwick’s head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man, +who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous +assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most +melancholy strains imaginable. + +Taking a man’s nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting it +on the head of an unknown gentleman, of dirty exterior, however +ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which +come under the denomination of practical jokes. Viewing the matter +precisely in this light, Mr. Pickwick, without the slightest intimation +of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the Zephyr so smart +a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the +commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his +nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence. + +‘Now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the +expenditure of so much energy, ‘come on--both of you--both of you!’ With +this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving +motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a +display of science. + +It might have been Mr. Pickwick’s very unexpected gallantry, or it might +have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of bed, +and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his +adversaries. Touched they were; for, instead of then and there making an +attempt to commit man-slaughter, as Mr. Pickwick implicitly believed +they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time, +and finally laughed outright. + +‘Well, you’re a trump, and I like you all the better for it,’ said the +Zephyr. ‘Now jump into bed again, or you’ll catch the rheumatics. No +malice, I hope?’ said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow +clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover’s door. + +‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great alacrity; for, now that +the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs. + +‘Allow me the H-onour,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting +his dexter hand, and aspirating the h. + +‘With much pleasure, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and having executed a very +long and solemn shake, he got into bed again. + +‘My name is Smangle, sir,’ said the man with the whiskers. + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mine is Mivins,’ said the man in the stockings. + +‘I am delighted to hear it, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hem,’ coughed Mr. Smangle. + +‘Did you speak, sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No, I did not, sir,’ said Mr. Smangle. + +All this was very genteel and pleasant; and, to make matters still more +comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many more times +that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; +which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no +wise supposed to understand them. + +‘Are you going through the court, sir?’ inquired Mr. Smangle. + +‘Through the what?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Through the court--Portugal Street--the Court for Relief of--you know.’ + +‘Oh, no,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘No, I am not.’ + +‘Going out, perhaps?’ suggested Mr. Mivins. + +‘I fear not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘I refuse to pay some damages, and +am here in consequence.’ + +‘Ah,’ said Mr. Smangle, ‘paper has been my ruin.’ + +‘A stationer, I presume, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick innocently. + +‘Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that. No trade. +When I say paper, I mean bills.’ + +‘Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Damme! A gentleman must expect reverses,’ said Smangle. ‘What of that? +Here am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What then? I’m none the worse +for that, am I?’ + +‘Not a bit,’ replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so far +from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the +better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had attained +gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long +before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker’s. + +‘Well; but come,’ said Mr. Smangle; ‘this is dry work. Let’s rinse our +mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall stand it, +Mivins shall fetch it, and I’ll help to drink it. That’s a fair and +gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!’ + +Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr. Pickwick gladly assented to the +proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was +nearly eleven o’clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on +his errand. + +‘I say,’ whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room; +‘what did you give him?’ + +‘Half a sovereign,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He’s a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog,’ said Mr. Smangle;--‘infernal +pleasant. I don’t know anybody more so; but--’ Here Mr. Smangle stopped +short, and shook his head dubiously. + +‘You don’t think there is any probability of his appropriating the money +to his own use?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, no! Mind, I don’t say that; I expressly say that he’s a devilish +gentlemanly fellow,’ said Mr. Smangle. ‘But I think, perhaps, if +somebody went down, just to see that he didn’t dip his beak into the jug +by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he +came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs, +and look after that gentleman, will you?’ + +This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose +appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his +bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his +situation. + +‘You know where the coffee-room is,’ said Smangle; ‘just run down, and +tell that gentleman you’ve come to help him up with the jug. Or--stop-- +I’ll tell you what--I’ll tell you how we’ll do him,’ said Smangle, with +a cunning look. + +‘How?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Send down word that he’s to spend the change in cigars. Capital +thought. Run and tell him that; d’ye hear? They shan’t be wasted,’ +continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. ‘_I’ll_ smoke ‘em.’ + +This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious and, withal, performed +with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have +had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time +Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in +two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to +himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such +circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out +of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the +company in a draught which half emptied it. + +An excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, Mr. +Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers +romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged, +involving various interesting anecdotes of a thoroughbred horse, and a +magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the +nobility and gentry of these kingdoms. + +Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman +were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in +snoring for the night, leaving the timid stranger and Mr. Pickwick to +the full benefit of Mr. Smangle’s experiences. + +Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have +been by the moving passages narrated. Mr. Pickwick had been in a state +of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken +man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from Mr. +Smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that +his audience was not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then once again +dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that Mr. Smangle was +still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which +appeared to be that, on some occasion particularly stated and set forth, +he had ‘done’ a bill and a gentleman at the same time. + + + +CHAPTER XLII. ILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLD PROVERB, +THAT ADVERSITY BRINGS A MAN ACQUAINTED WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS-- +LIKEWISE CONTAINING MR. PICKWICK’S EXTRAORDINARY AND STARTLING +ANNOUNCEMENT TO MR. SAMUEL WELLER + +When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object upon +which they rested was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black +portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound +abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr. +Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his +bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr. +Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam, +with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle’s cap, feet, head, +face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look +steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with +no more regard to Mr. Smangle’s personal sentiments on the subject than +he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a +straw-embowelled Guy Fawkes. + +‘Well; will you know me again?’ said Mr. Smangle, with a frown. + +‘I’d svear to you anyveres, Sir,’ replied Sam cheerfully. + +‘Don’t be impertinent to a gentleman, Sir,’ said Mr. Smangle. + +‘Not on no account,’ replied Sam. ‘If you’ll tell me wen he wakes, I’ll +be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!’ This observation, having a +remote tendency to imply that Mr. Smangle was no gentleman, kindled his +ire. + +‘Mivins!’ said Mr. Smangle, with a passionate air. + +‘What’s the office?’ replied that gentleman from his couch. + +‘Who the devil is this fellow?’ + +‘’Gad,’ said Mr. Mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes, +‘I ought to ask _you _that. Hasn’t he any business here?’ + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Smangle. + +‘Then knock him downstairs, and tell him not to presume to get up till I +come and kick him,’ rejoined Mr. Mivins; with this prompt advice that +excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber. + +The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the +personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Sir,’ rejoined that gentleman. + +‘Has anything new occurred since last night?’ + +‘Nothin’ partickler, sir,’ replied Sam, glancing at Mr. Smangle’s +whiskers; ‘the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has +been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin’ and +sangvinary natur; but vith that ‘ere exception things is quiet enough.’ + +‘I shall get up,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘give me some clean things.’ + +Whatever hostile intentions Mr. Smangle might have entertained, his +thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau; the +contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable +opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an +early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that +eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thoroughbred original, +and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to Mr. Pickwick, +the affection he conceived for him knew no limits. + +‘Now is there anything I can do for you, my dear Sir?’ said Smangle. + +‘Nothing that I am aware of, I am obliged to you,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman’s? I know a delightful +washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by +Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. Shall I put any +of those little things up with mine? Don’t say anything about the +trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud is not to +put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the +same condition, what’s human nature?’ + +Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible to +the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and +disinterested friendship. + +‘There’s nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear +creature, is there?’ resumed Smangle. + +‘Nothin’ whatever, my fine feller,’ rejoined Sam, taking the reply into +his own mouth. ‘P’raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the +man, it ‘ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said +when the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler.’ + +‘And there’s nothing I can send in my little box to the washer-woman’s, +is there?’ said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr. Pickwick, with an air +of some discomfiture. + +‘Nothin’ whatever, Sir,’ retorted Sam; ‘I’m afeered the little box must +be chock full o’ your own as it is.’ + +This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that +particular portion of Mr. Smangle’s attire, by the appearance of which +the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen’s linen is generally +tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at +any rate, to give up all design on Mr. Pickwick’s purse and wardrobe. He +accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a +light and whole-some breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been +purchased on the previous night. + +Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of +chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, and been +‘carried over’ to the other side, remained in bed, and, in his own +words, ‘took it out in sleep.’ + +After breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room, which +bore the imposing title of the Snuggery, the temporary inmate of which, +in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable +advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room +aforesaid; and, after despatching Mr. Weller on some necessary errands, +Mr. Pickwick repaired to the lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his +future accommodation. + +‘Accommodation, eh?’ said that gentleman, consulting a large book. +‘Plenty of that, Mr. Pickwick. Your chummage ticket will be on twenty- +seven, in the third.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘My what, did you say?’ + +‘Your chummage ticket,’ replied Mr. Roker; ‘you’re up to that?’ + +‘Not quite,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. + +‘Why,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘it’s as plain as Salisbury. You’ll have a +chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the +room will be your chums.’ + +‘Are there many of them?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick dubiously. + +‘Three,’ replied Mr. Roker. + +Mr. Pickwick coughed. + +‘One of ‘em’s a parson,’ said Mr. Roker, filling up a little piece of +paper as he spoke; ‘another’s a butcher.’ + +‘Eh?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘A butcher,’ repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the +desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. ‘What a thorough-paced goer +he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?’ said Roker, +appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud off his +shoes with a five-and-twenty-bladed pocket-knife. + +‘I should think so,’ replied the party addressed, with a strong emphasis +on the personal pronoun. + +‘Bless my dear eyes!’ said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side +to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him, +as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth; +‘it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-under- +the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a-coming up the +Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising, +with a patch o’ winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that +‘ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy arterwards, a-following at +his heels. What a rum thing time is, ain’t it, Neddy?’ + +The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared of +a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker, +shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had +been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and resumed his +pen. + +‘Do you know what the third gentlemen is?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, not +very much gratified by this description of his future associates. + +‘What is that Simpson, Neddy?’ said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion. + +‘What Simpson?’ said Neddy. + +‘Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman’s going to +be chummed on.’ + +‘Oh, him!’ replied Neddy; ‘he’s nothing exactly. He _was _a horse +chaunter: he’s a leg now.’ + +‘Ah, so I thought,’ rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing +the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick’s hands. ‘That’s the ticket, +sir.’ + +Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of this person, Mr. +Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had +better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it +would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three +gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of +his way to the third flight. + +After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the dim +light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at length +appealed to a pot-boy, who happened to be pursuing his morning +occupation of gleaning for pewter. + +‘Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Five doors farther on,’ replied the pot-boy. ‘There’s the likeness of a +man being hung, and smoking the while, chalked outside the door.’ + +Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly along the +gallery until he encountered the ‘portrait of a gentleman,’ above +described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his +forefinger--gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this +process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and +peep in. + +There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as +far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great +perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on +the parade below. As neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor +any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person aware +of the presence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay, stepped up +to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat tail. The individual +brought in his head and shoulders with great swiftness, and surveying +Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what the-- +something beginning with a capital H--he wanted. + +‘I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket--‘I believe this +is twenty-seven in the third?’ + +‘Well?’ replied the gentleman. + +‘I have come here in consequence of receiving this bit of paper,’ +rejoined Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Hand it over,’ said the gentleman. + +Mr. Pickwick complied. + +‘I think Roker might have chummed you somewhere else,’ said Mr. Simpson +(for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause. + +Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he +considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent. + +Mr. Simpson mused for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting his +head out of the window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some word +aloud, several times. What the word was, Mr. Pickwick could not +distinguish; but he rather inferred that it must be some nickname which +distinguished Mr. Martin, from the fact of a great number of gentlemen +on the ground below, immediately proceeding to cry ‘Butcher!’ in +imitation of the tone in which that useful class of society are wont, +diurnally, to make their presence known at area railings. + +Subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Pickwick’s +impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for +his years, clothed in a professional blue jean frock and top-boots with +circular toes, entered the room nearly out of breath, closely followed +by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap. The +latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin by +means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face, and +looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was. + +These two gentlemen having by turns perused Mr. Pickwick’s billet, the +one expressed his opinion that it was ‘a rig,’ and the other his +conviction that it was ‘a go.’ Having recorded their feelings in these +very intelligible terms, they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in +awkward silence. + +‘It’s an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug,’ said the +chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a +blanket; which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and +formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer, +and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower--‘very +aggravating.’ + +Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms; Mr. +Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon +society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his +sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner. + +While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which +was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige of +either carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it. +Unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been +one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still, +remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags of +meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery, and +bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, do present +somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about +the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping +room of three idle men. + +‘I suppose this can be managed somehow,’ said the butcher, after a +pretty long silence. ‘What will you take to go out?’ + +I beg your pardon,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘What did you say? I hardly +understand you.’ + +‘What will you take to be paid out?’ said the butcher. ‘The regular +chummage is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?’ + +‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman. + +‘Well, I don’t mind that; it’s only twopence a piece more,’ said Mr. +Martin. ‘What do you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three-and-sixpence +a week. Come!’ + +‘And stand a gallon of beer down,’ chimed in Mr. Simpson. ‘There!’ + +‘And drink it on the spot,’ said the chaplain. ‘Now!’ + +‘I really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place,’ returned +Mr. Pickwick, ‘that I do not yet comprehend you. Can I live anywhere +else? I thought I could not.’ + +At this inquiry Mr. Martin looked, with a countenance of excessive +surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his +right thumb over his left shoulder. This action imperfectly described in +words by the very feeble term of ‘over the left,’ when performed by any +number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison, has a +very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and +playful sarcasm. + +‘_Can _you!’ repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile of pity. + +‘Well, if I knew as little of life as that, I’d eat my hat and swallow +the buckle whole,’ said the clerical gentleman. + +‘So would I,’ added the sporting one solemnly. + +After this introductory preface, the three chums informed Mr. Pickwick, +in a breath, that money was, in the Fleet, just what money was out of +it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and +that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only +signified his wish to have a room to himself, he might take possession +of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour’s time. + +With this the parties separated, very much to their common satisfaction; +Mr. Pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge, and the three +companions adjourning to the coffee-room, there to spend the five +shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable prudence and +foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose. + +‘I knowed it!’ said Mr. Roker, with a chuckle, when Mr. Pickwick stated +the object with which he had returned. ‘Didn’t I say so, Neddy?’ + +The philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an +affirmative. + +‘I knowed you’d want a room for yourself, bless you!’ said Mr. Roker. +‘Let me see. You’ll want some furniture. You’ll hire that of me, I +suppose? That’s the reg’lar thing.’ + +‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘There’s a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a +Chancery prisoner,’ said Mr. Roker. ‘It’ll stand you in a pound a week. +I suppose you don’t mind that?’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Just step there with me,’ said Roker, taking up his hat with great +alacrity; ‘the matter’s settled in five minutes. Lord! why didn’t you +say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?’ + +The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery +prisoner had been there long enough to have lost his friends, fortune, +home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room to +himself. As he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often +wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to Mr. Pickwick’s +proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed to +yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in +consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund +he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that might be +chummed upon it. + +As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful +interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old greatcoat and +slippers, with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were +bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron teeth of +confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty +years. + +‘And where will you live meanwhile, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid +the amount of the first week’s rent, in advance, on the tottering table. + +The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he +didn’t know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to. + +‘I am afraid, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and +compassionately on his arm--‘I am afraid you will have to live in some +noisy, crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your own when you +want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you.’ + +‘Friends!’ interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his throat. +‘if I lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the world; tight +screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in the dark and filthy +ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this +prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I am a +dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose +souls have passed to judgment. Friends to see me! My God! I have sunk, +from the prime of life into old age, in this place, and there is not one +to raise his hand above my bed when I lie dead upon it, and say, “It is +a blessing he is gone!”’ + +The excitement, which had cast an unwonted light over the man’s face, +while he spoke, subsided as he concluded; and pressing his withered +hands together in a hasty and disordered manner, he shuffled from the +room. + +‘Rides rather rusty,’ said Mr. Roker, with a smile. ‘Ah! they’re like +the elephants. They feel it now and then, and it makes ‘em wild!’ + +Having made this deeply-sympathising remark, Mr. Roker entered upon his +arrangements with such expedition, that in a short time the room was +furnished with a carpet, six chairs, a table, a sofa bedstead, a tea- +kettle, and various small articles, on hire, at the very reasonable rate +of seven-and-twenty shillings and sixpence per week. + +‘Now, is there anything more we can do for you?’ inquired Mr. Roker, +looking round with great satisfaction, and gaily chinking the first +week’s hire in his closed fist. + +‘Why, yes,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who had been musing deeply for some time. +‘Are there any people here who run on errands, and so forth?’ + +‘Outside, do you mean?’ inquired Mr. Roker. + +‘Yes. I mean who are able to go outside. Not prisoners.’ + +‘Yes, there is,’ said Roker. ‘There’s an unfortunate devil, who has got +a friend on the poor side, that’s glad to do anything of that sort. He’s +been running odd jobs, and that, for the last two months. Shall I send +him?’ + +‘If you please,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘Stay; no. The poor side, you +say? I should like to see it. I’ll go to him myself.’ + +The poor side of a debtor’s prison is, as its name imports, that in +which the most miserable and abject class of debtors are confined. A +prisoner having declared upon the poor side, pays neither rent nor +chummage. His fees, upon entering and leaving the jail, are reduced in +amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of some small quantities of +food: to provide which, a few charitable persons have, from time to +time, left trifling legacies in their wills. Most of our readers will +remember, that, until within a very few years past, there was a kind of +iron cage in the wall of the Fleet Prison, within which was posted some +man of hungry looks, who, from time to time, rattled a money-box, and +exclaimed in a mournful voice, ‘Pray, remember the poor debtors; pray +remember the poor debtors.’ The receipts of this box, when there were +any, were divided among the poor prisoners; and the men on the poor side +relieved each other in this degrading office. + +Although this custom has been abolished, and the cage is now boarded up, +the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons remains +the same. We no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the +charity and compassion of the passersby; but we still leave unblotted +the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of +succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the +sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor +shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. +Not a week passes over our head, but, in every one of our prisons for +debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of +want, if they were not relieved by their fellow-prisoners. + +Turning these things in his mind, as he mounted the narrow staircase at +the foot of which Roker had left him, Mr. Pickwick gradually worked +himself to the boiling-over point; and so excited was he with his +reflections on this subject, that he had burst into the room to which he +had been directed, before he had any distinct recollection, either of +the place in which he was, or of the object of his visit. + +The general aspect of the room recalled him to himself at once; but he +had no sooner cast his eye on the figure of a man who was brooding over +the dusty fire, than, letting his hat fall on the floor, he stood +perfectly fixed and immovable with astonishment. + +Yes; in tattered garments, and without a coat; his common calico shirt, +yellow and in rags; his hair hanging over his face; his features changed +with suffering, and pinched with famine--there sat Mr. Alfred Jingle; +his head resting on his hands, his eyes fixed upon the fire, and his +whole appearance denoting misery and dejection! + +Near him, leaning listlessly against the wall, stood a strong-built +countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting-whip the top-boot that +adorned his right foot; his left being thrust into an old slipper. +Horses, dogs, and drink had brought him there, pell-mell. There was a +rusty spur on the solitary boot, which he occasionally jerked into the +empty air, at the same time giving the boot a smart blow, and muttering +some of the sounds by which a sportsman encourages his horse. He was +riding, in imagination, some desperate steeplechase at that moment. Poor +wretch! He never rode a match on the swiftest animal in his costly stud, +with half the speed at which he had torn along the course that ended in +the Fleet. + +On the opposite side of the room an old man was seated on a small wooden +box, with his eyes riveted on the floor, and his face settled into an +expression of the deepest and most hopeless despair. A young girl--his +little grand-daughter--was hanging about him, endeavouring, with a +thousand childish devices, to engage his attention; but the old man +neither saw nor heard her. The voice that had been music to him, and the +eyes that had been light, fell coldly on his senses. His limbs were +shaking with disease, and the palsy had fastened on his mind. + + +There were two or three other men in the room, congregated in a little +knot, and noiselessly talking among themselves. There was a lean and +haggard woman, too--a prisoner’s wife--who was watering, with great +solicitude, the wretched stump of a dried-up, withered plant, which, it +was plain to see, could never send forth a green leaf again--too true an +emblem, perhaps, of the office she had come there to discharge. + +Such were the objects which presented themselves to Mr. Pickwick’s view, +as he looked round him in amazement. The noise of some one stumbling +hastily into the room, roused him. Turning his eyes towards the door, +they encountered the new-comer; and in him, through his rags and dirt, +he recognised the familiar features of Mr. Job Trotter. + +‘Mr. Pickwick!’ exclaimed Job aloud. + +‘Eh?’ said Jingle, starting from his seat. + +‘Mr ----! So it is--queer place--strange things--serves me right--very.’ +Mr. Jingle thrust his hands into the place where his trousers pockets +used to be, and, dropping his chin upon his breast, sank back into his +chair. + +Mr. Pickwick was affected; the two men looked so very miserable. The +sharp, involuntary glance Jingle had cast at a small piece of raw loin +of mutton, which Job had brought in with him, said more of their reduced +state than two hours’ explanation could have done. Mr. Pickwick looked +mildly at Jingle, and said-- + +‘I should like to speak to you in private. Will you step out for an +instant?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Jingle, rising hastily. ‘Can’t step far--no danger of +overwalking yourself here--spike park--grounds pretty--romantic, but not +extensive--open for public inspection--family always in town-- +housekeeper desperately careful--very.’ + +‘You have forgotten your coat,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as they walked out to +the staircase, and closed the door after them. + +‘Eh?’ said Jingle. ‘Spout--dear relation--uncle Tom--couldn’t help it-- +must eat, you know. Wants of nature--and all that.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Gone, my dear sir--last coat--can’t help it. Lived on a pair of boots, +whole fortnight. Silk umbrella--ivory handle--week--fact--honour--ask +Job--knows it.’ + +‘Lived for three weeks upon a pair of boots, and a silk umbrella with an +ivory handle!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had only heard of such things +in shipwrecks or read of them in Constable’s Miscellany. + +‘True,’ said Jingle, nodding his head. ‘Pawnbroker’s shop--duplicates +here--small sums--mere nothing--all rascals.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick, much relieved by this explanation; ‘I +understand you. You have pawned your wardrobe.’ + +‘Everything--Job’s too--all shirts gone--never mind--saves washing. +Nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--inquest--little bone-house--poor +prisoner--common necessaries--hush it up--gentlemen of the jury-- +warden’s tradesmen--keep it snug--natural death--coroner’s order-- +workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain.’ + +Jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life, with +his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of the countenance +to counterfeit smiles. Mr. Pickwick easily perceived that his +recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but not unkindly, in the +face, saw that his eyes were moist with tears. + +‘Good fellow,’ said Jingle, pressing his hand, and turning his head +away. ‘Ungrateful dog--boyish to cry--can’t help it--bad fever--weak-- +ill--hungry. Deserved it all--but suffered much--very.’ Wholly unable to +keep up appearances any longer, and perhaps rendered worse by the effort +he had made, the dejected stroller sat down on the stairs, and, covering +his face with his hands, sobbed like a child. + +‘Come, come,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable emotion, ‘we will see +what can be done, when I know all about the matter. Here, Job; where is +that fellow?’ + +‘Here, sir,’ replied Job, presenting himself on the staircase. We have +described him, by the bye, as having deeply-sunken eyes, in the best of +times. In his present state of want and distress, he looked as if those +features had gone out of town altogether. + +‘Here, sir,’ cried Job. + +‘Come here, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, trying to look stern, with four +large tears running down his waistcoat. ‘Take that, sir.’ + +Take what? In the ordinary acceptation of such language, it should have +been a blow. As the world runs, it ought to have been a sound, hearty +cuff; for Mr. Pickwick had been duped, deceived, and wronged by the +destitute outcast who was now wholly in his power. Must we tell the +truth? It was something from Mr. Pickwick’s waistcoat pocket, which +chinked as it was given into Job’s hand, and the giving of which, +somehow or other imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the +heart, of our excellent old friend, as he hurried away. + +Sam had returned when Mr. Pickwick reached his own room, and was +inspecting the arrangements that had been made for his comfort, with a +kind of grim satisfaction which was very pleasant to look upon. Having a +decided objection to his master’s being there at all, Mr. Weller +appeared to consider it a high moral duty not to appear too much pleased +with anything that was done, said, suggested, or proposed. + +‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Pretty comfortable now, eh, Sam?’ + +‘Pretty vell, sir,’ responded Sam, looking round him in a disparaging +manner. + +‘Have you seen Mr. Tupman and our other friends?’ + +‘Yes, I _have _seen ‘em, sir, and they’re a-comin’ to-morrow, and wos +wery much surprised to hear they warn’t to come to-day,’ replied Sam. + +‘You have brought the things I wanted?’ + +Mr. Weller in reply pointed to various packages which he had arranged, +as neatly as he could, in a corner of the room. + +‘Very well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a little hesitation; ‘listen +to what I am going to say, Sam.’ + +‘Cert’nly, Sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller; ‘fire away, Sir.’ + +‘I have felt from the first, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with much +solemnity, ‘that this is not the place to bring a young man to.’ + +‘Nor an old ‘un neither, Sir,’ observed Mr. Weller. + +‘You’re quite right, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but old men may come here +through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion, and young men may be +brought here by the selfishness of those they serve. It is better for +those young men, in every point of view, that they should not remain +here. Do you understand me, Sam?’ + +‘Vy no, Sir, I do _not_,’ replied Mr. Weller doggedly. + +‘Try, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Vell, sir,’ rejoined Sam, after a short pause, ‘I think I see your +drift; and if I do see your drift, it’s my ‘pinion that you’re a-comin’ +it a great deal too strong, as the mail-coachman said to the snowstorm, +ven it overtook him.’ + +‘I see you comprehend me, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Independently of my +wish that you should not be idling about a place like this, for years to +come, I feel that for a debtor in the Fleet to be attended by his +manservant is a monstrous absurdity. Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘for a +time you must leave me.’ + +‘Oh, for a time, eh, sir?’ rejoined Mr. Weller rather sarcastically. + +‘Yes, for the time that I remain here,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Your wages I +shall continue to pay. Any one of my three friends will be happy to take +you, were it only out of respect to me. And if I ever do leave this +place, Sam,’ added Mr. Pickwick, with assumed cheerfulness--‘if I do, I +pledge you my word that you shall return to me instantly.’ + +‘Now I’ll tell you wot it is, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, in a grave and +solemn voice. ‘This here sort o’ thing won’t do at all, so don’t let’s +hear no more about it.’ + +I am serious, and resolved, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You air, air you, sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller firmly. ‘Wery good, Sir; +then so am I.’ + +Thus speaking, Mr. Weller fixed his hat on his head with great +precision, and abruptly left the room. + +‘Sam!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, calling after him, ‘Sam! Here!’ + +But the long gallery ceased to re-echo the sound of footsteps. Sam +Weller was gone. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. SHOWING HOW MR. SAMUEL WELLER GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES + +In a lofty room, ill-lighted and worse ventilated, situated in Portugal +Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, there sit nearly the whole year round, +one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs, as the case may be, with +little writing-desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those +used by the judges of the land, barring the French polish. There is a +box of barristers on their right hand; there is an enclosure of +insolvent debtors on their left; and there is an inclined plane of most +especially dirty faces in their front. These gentlemen are the +Commissioners of the Insolvent Court, and the place in which they sit, +is the Insolvent Court itself. + +It is, and has been, time out of mind, the remarkable fate of this court +to be, somehow or other, held and understood, by the general consent of +all the destitute shabby-genteel people in London, as their common +resort, and place of daily refuge. It is always full. The steams of beer +and spirits perpetually ascend to the ceiling, and, being condensed by +the heat, roll down the walls like rain; there are more old suits of +clothes in it at one time, than will be offered for sale in all +Houndsditch in a twelvemonth; more unwashed skins and grizzly beards +than all the pumps and shaving-shops between Tyburn and Whitechapel +could render decent, between sunrise and sunset. + +It must not be supposed that any of these people have the least shadow +of business in, or the remotest connection with, the place they so +indefatigably attend. If they had, it would be no matter of surprise, +and the singularity of the thing would cease. Some of them sleep during +the greater part of the sitting; others carry small portable dinners +wrapped in pocket-handkerchiefs or sticking out of their worn-out +pockets, and munch and listen with equal relish; but no one among them +was ever known to have the slightest personal interest in any case that +was ever brought forward. Whatever they do, there they sit from the +first moment to the last. When it is heavy, rainy weather, they all come +in, wet through; and at such times the vapours of the court are like +those of a fungus-pit. + +A casual visitor might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to +the Genius of Seediness. There is not a messenger or process-server +attached to it, who wears a coat that was made for him; not a tolerably +fresh, or wholesome-looking man in the whole establishment, except a +little white-headed apple-faced tipstaff, and even he, like an ill- +conditioned cherry preserved in brandy, seems to have artificially dried +and withered up into a state of preservation to which he can lay no +natural claim. The very barristers’ wigs are ill-powdered, and their +curls lack crispness. + +But the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below the +commissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. The +professional establishment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, +consists of a blue bag and a boy; generally a youth of the Jewish +persuasion. They have no fixed offices, their legal business being +transacted in the parlours of public-houses, or the yards of prisons, +whither they repair in crowds, and canvass for customers after the +manner of omnibus cads. They are of a greasy and mildewed appearance; +and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and +cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their residences are +usually on the outskirts of ‘the Rules,’ chiefly lying within a circle +of one mile from the obelisk in St. George’s Fields. Their looks are not +prepossessing, and their manners are peculiar. + +Mr. Solomon Pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby, pale man, +in a surtout which looked green one minute, and brown the next, with a +velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his +face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, +indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had +given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. Being short-necked +and asthmatic, however, he respired principally through this feature; +so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness. + +‘I’m sure to bring him through it,’ said Mr. Pell. + +‘Are you, though?’ replied the person to whom the assurance was pledged. + +‘Certain sure,’ replied Pell; ‘but if he’d gone to any irregular +practitioner, mind you, I wouldn’t have answered for the consequences.’ + +‘Ah!’ said the other, with open mouth. + +‘No, that I wouldn’t,’ said Mr. Pell; and he pursed up his lips, +frowned, and shook his head mysteriously. + +Now, the place where this discourse occurred was the public-house just +opposite to the Insolvent Court; and the person with whom it was held +was no other than the elder Mr. Weller, who had come there, to comfort +and console a friend, whose petition to be discharged under the act, was +to be that day heard, and whose attorney he was at that moment +consulting. + +‘And vere is George?’ inquired the old gentleman. + +Mr. Pell jerked his head in the direction of a back parlour, whither Mr. +Weller at once repairing, was immediately greeted in the warmest and +most flattering manner by some half-dozen of his professional brethren, +in token of their gratification at his arrival. The insolvent gentleman, +who had contracted a speculative but imprudent passion for horsing long +stages, which had led to his present embarrassments, looked extremely +well, and was soothing the excitement of his feelings with shrimps and +porter. + +The salutation between Mr. Weller and his friends was strictly confined +to the freemasonry of the craft; consisting of a jerking round of the +right wrist, and a tossing of the little finger into the air at the same +time. We once knew two famous coachmen (they are dead now, poor fellows) +who were twins, and between whom an unaffected and devoted attachment +existed. They passed each other on the Dover road, every day, for +twenty-four years, never exchanging any other greeting than this; and +yet, when one died, the other pined away, and soon afterwards followed +him! + +‘Vell, George,’ said Mr. Weller senior, taking off his upper coat, and +seating himself with his accustomed gravity. ‘How is it? All right +behind, and full inside?’ + +‘All right, old feller,’ replied the embarrassed gentleman. + +‘Is the gray mare made over to anybody?’ inquired Mr. Weller anxiously. + +George nodded in the affirmative. + +‘Vell, that’s all right,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Coach taken care on, also?’ + +‘Con-signed in a safe quarter,’ replied George, wringing the heads off +half a dozen shrimps, and swallowing them without any more ado. + +‘Wery good, wery good,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Alvays see to the drag ven you +go downhill. Is the vay-bill all clear and straight for’erd?’ + +‘The schedule, sir,’ said Pell, guessing at Mr. Weller’s meaning, ‘the +schedule is as plain and satisfactory as pen and ink can make it.’ + +Mr. Weller nodded in a manner which bespoke his inward approval of these +arrangements; and then, turning to Mr. Pell, said, pointing to his +friend George-- + +‘Ven do you take his cloths off?’ + +‘Why,’ replied Mr. Pell, ‘he stands third on the opposed list, and I +should think it would be his turn in about half an hour. I told my clerk +to come over and tell us when there was a chance.’ + +Mr. Weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great +admiration, and said emphatically-- + +‘And what’ll you take, sir?’ + +‘Why, really,’ replied Mr. Pell, ‘you’re very--. Upon my word and +honour, I’m not in the habit of--. It’s so very early in the morning, +that, actually, I am almost--. Well, you may bring me threepenn’orth of +rum, my dear.’ + +The officiating damsel, who had anticipated the order before it was +given, set the glass of spirits before Pell, and retired. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pell, looking round upon the company, ‘success to +your friend! I don’t like to boast, gentlemen; it’s not my way; but I +can’t help saying, that, if your friend hadn’t been fortunate enough to +fall into hands that--But I won’t say what I was going to say. +Gentlemen, my service to you.’ Having emptied the glass in a twinkling, +Mr. Pell smacked his lips, and looked complacently round on the +assembled coachmen, who evidently regarded him as a species of divinity. + +‘Let me see,’ said the legal authority. ‘What was I a-saying, +gentlemen?’ + +‘I think you was remarkin’ as you wouldn’t have no objection to another +o’ the same, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, with grave facetiousness. + +‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Pell. ‘Not bad, not bad. A professional man, too! +At this time of the morning, it would be rather too good a--Well, I +don’t know, my dear--you may do that again, if you please. Hem!’ + +This last sound was a solemn and dignified cough, in which Mr. Pell, +observing an indecent tendency to mirth in some of his auditors, +considered it due to himself to indulge. + +‘The late Lord Chancellor, gentlemen, was very fond of me,’ said Mr. +Pell. + +‘And wery creditable in him, too,’ interposed Mr. Weller. + +‘Hear, hear,’ assented Mr. Pell’s client. ‘Why shouldn’t he be? + +‘Ah! Why, indeed!’ said a very red-faced man, who had said nothing yet, +and who looked extremely unlikely to say anything more. ‘Why shouldn’t +he?’ + +A murmur of assent ran through the company. + +‘I remember, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pell, ‘dining with him on one +occasion; there was only us two, but everything as splendid as if twenty +people had been expected--the great seal on a dumb-waiter at his right +hand, and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a +drawn sword and silk stockings--which is perpetually done, gentlemen, +night and day; when he said, “Pell,” he said, “no false delicacy, Pell. +You’re a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, +Pell; and your country should be proud of you.” Those were his very +words. “My Lord,” I said, “you flatter me.”--“Pell,” he said, “if I do, +I’m damned.”’ + +‘Did he say that?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘He did,’ replied Pell. + +‘Vell, then,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘I say Parliament ought to ha’ took it +up; and if he’d been a poor man, they would ha’ done it.’ + +‘But, my dear friend,’ argued Mr. Pell, ‘it was in confidence.’ + +‘In what?’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘In confidence.’ + +‘Oh! wery good,’ replied Mr. Weller, after a little reflection. ‘If he +damned hisself in confidence, o’ course that was another thing.’ + +‘Of course it was,’ said Mr. Pell. ‘The distinction’s obvious, you will +perceive.’ + +‘Alters the case entirely,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Go on, Sir.’ + +No, I will not go on, Sir,’ said Mr. Pell, in a low and serious tone. +‘You have reminded me, Sir, that this conversation was private--private +and confidential, gentlemen. Gentlemen, I am a professional man. It may +be that I am a good deal looked up to, in my profession--it may be that +I am not. Most people know. I say nothing. Observations have already +been made, in this room, injurious to the reputation of my noble friend. +You will excuse me, gentlemen; I was imprudent. I feel that I have no +right to mention this matter without his concurrence. Thank you, Sir; +thank you.’ Thus delivering himself, Mr. Pell thrust his hands into his +pockets, and, frowning grimly around, rattled three halfpence with +terrible determination. + +This virtuous resolution had scarcely been formed, when the boy and the +blue bag, who were inseparable companions, rushed violently into the +room, and said (at least the boy did, for the blue bag took no part in +the announcement) that the case was coming on directly. The intelligence +was no sooner received than the whole party hurried across the street, +and began to fight their way into court--a preparatory ceremony, which +has been calculated to occupy, in ordinary cases, from twenty-five +minutes to thirty. + +Mr. Weller, being stout, cast himself at once into the crowd, with the +desperate hope of ultimately turning up in some place which would suit +him. His success was not quite equal to his expectations; for having +neglected to take his hat off, it was knocked over his eyes by some +unseen person, upon whose toes he had alighted with considerable force. +Apparently this individual regretted his impetuosity immediately +afterwards, for, muttering an indistinct exclamation of surprise, he +dragged the old man out into the hall, and, after a violent struggle, +released his head and face. + +‘Samivel!’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, when he was thus enabled to behold his +rescuer. + +Sam nodded. + +‘You’re a dutiful and affectionate little boy, you are, ain’t you,’ said +Mr. Weller, ‘to come a-bonnetin’ your father in his old age?’ + +‘How should I know who you wos?’ responded the son. ‘Do you s’pose I wos +to tell you by the weight o’ your foot?’ + +‘Vell, that’s wery true, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, mollified at once; +‘but wot are you a-doin’ on here? Your gov’nor can’t do no good here, +Sammy. They won’t pass that werdick, they won’t pass it, Sammy.’ And Mr. +Weller shook his head with legal solemnity. + +‘Wot a perwerse old file it is!’ exclaimed Sam, ‘always a-goin’ on about +werdicks and alleybis and that. Who said anything about the werdick?’ + +Mr. Weller made no reply, but once more shook his head most learnedly. + +‘Leave off rattlin’ that ‘ere nob o’ yourn, if you don’t want it to come +off the springs altogether,’ said Sam impatiently, ‘and behave +reasonable. I vent all the vay down to the Markis o’ Granby, arter you, +last night.’ + +‘Did you see the Marchioness o’ Granby, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller, +with a sigh. + +‘Yes, I did,’ replied Sam. + +‘How wos the dear creetur a-lookin’?’ + +‘Wery queer,’ said Sam. ‘I think she’s a-injurin’ herself gradivally +vith too much o’ that ‘ere pine-apple rum, and other strong medicines of +the same natur.’ + +‘You don’t mean that, Sammy?’ said the senior earnestly. + +‘I do, indeed,’ replied the junior. + +Mr. Weller seized his son’s hand, clasped it, and let it fall. There was +an expression on his countenance in doing so--not of dismay or +apprehension, but partaking more of the sweet and gentle character of +hope. A gleam of resignation, and even of cheerfulness, passed over his +face too, as he slowly said, ‘I ain’t quite certain, Sammy; I wouldn’t +like to say I wos altogether positive, in case of any subsekent +disappointment, but I rayther think, my boy, I rayther think, that the +shepherd’s got the liver complaint!’ + +‘Does he look bad?’ inquired Sam. + +‘He’s uncommon pale,’ replied his father, ‘’cept about the nose, which +is redder than ever. His appetite is wery so-so, but he imbibes +wonderful.’ + +Some thoughts of the rum appeared to obtrude themselves on Mr. Weller’s +mind, as he said this; for he looked gloomy and thoughtful; but he very +shortly recovered, as was testified by a perfect alphabet of winks, in +which he was only wont to indulge when particularly pleased. + +‘Vell, now,’ said Sam, ‘about my affair. Just open them ears o’ yourn, +and don’t say nothin’ till I’ve done.’ With this preface, Sam related, +as succinctly as he could, the last memorable conversation he had had +with Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Stop there by himself, poor creetur!’ exclaimed the elder Mr. Weller, +‘without nobody to take his part! It can’t be done, Samivel, it can’t be +done.’ + +‘O’ course it can’t,’ asserted Sam: ‘I know’d that, afore I came.’ + +Why, they’ll eat him up alive, Sammy,’ exclaimed Mr. Weller. + +Sam nodded his concurrence in the opinion. + +‘He goes in rayther raw, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller metaphorically, ‘and +he’ll come out, done so ex-ceedin’ brown, that his most formiliar +friends won’t know him. Roast pigeon’s nothin’ to it, Sammy.’ + +Again Sam Weller nodded. + +‘It oughtn’t to be, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller gravely. + +‘It mustn’t be,’ said Sam. + +‘Cert’nly not,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Vell now,’ said Sam, ‘you’ve been a-prophecyin’ away, wery fine, like a +red-faced Nixon, as the sixpenny books gives picters on.’ + +‘Who wos he, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Never mind who he was,’ retorted Sam; ‘he warn’t a coachman; that’s +enough for you.’ + +I know’d a ostler o’ that name,’ said Mr. Weller, musing. + +‘It warn’t him,’ said Sam. ‘This here gen’l’m’n was a prophet.’ + +‘Wot’s a prophet?’ inquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly on his son. + +‘Wy, a man as tells what’s a-goin’ to happen,’ replied Sam. + +‘I wish I’d know’d him, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘P’raps he might ha’ +throw’d a small light on that ‘ere liver complaint as we wos a-speakin’ +on, just now. Hows’ever, if he’s dead, and ain’t left the bisness to +nobody, there’s an end on it. Go on, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, with a +sigh. + +‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘you’ve been a-prophecyin’ avay about wot’ll happen to +the gov’ner if he’s left alone. Don’t you see any way o’ takin’ care on +him?’ + +‘No, I don’t, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, with a reflective visage. + +‘No vay at all?’ inquired Sam. + +‘No vay,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘unless’--and a gleam of intelligence lighted +up his countenance as he sank his voice to a whisper, and applied his +mouth to the ear of his offspring--‘unless it is getting him out in a +turn-up bedstead, unbeknown to the turnkeys, Sammy, or dressin’ him up +like a old ‘ooman vith a green wail.’ + +Sam Weller received both of these suggestions with unexpected contempt, +and again propounded his question. + +‘No,’ said the old gentleman; ‘if he von’t let you stop there, I see no +vay at all. It’s no thoroughfare, Sammy, no thoroughfare.’ + +‘Well, then, I’ll tell you wot it is,’ said Sam, ‘I’ll trouble you for +the loan of five-and-twenty pound.’ + +‘Wot good’ll that do?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Never mind,’ replied Sam. ‘P’raps you may ask for it five minits +arterwards; p’raps I may say I von’t pay, and cut up rough. You von’t +think o’ arrestin’ your own son for the money, and sendin’ him off to +the Fleet, will you, you unnat’ral wagabone?’ + +At this reply of Sam’s, the father and son exchanged a complete code of +telegraph nods and gestures, after which, the elder Mr. Weller sat +himself down on a stone step and laughed till he was purple. + +‘Wot a old image it is!’ exclaimed Sam, indignant at this loss of time. +‘What are you a-settin’ down there for, con-wertin’ your face into a +street-door knocker, wen there’s so much to be done. Where’s the money?’ + +‘In the boot, Sammy, in the boot,’ replied Mr. Weller, composing his +features. ‘Hold my hat, Sammy.’ + +Having divested himself of this encumbrance, Mr. Weller gave his body a +sudden wrench to one side, and by a dexterous twist, contrived to get +his right hand into a most capacious pocket, from whence, after a great +deal of panting and exertion, he extricated a pocket-book of the large +octavo size, fastened by a huge leathern strap. From this ledger he drew +forth a couple of whiplashes, three or four buckles, a little sample-bag +of corn, and, finally, a small roll of very dirty bank-notes, from which +he selected the required amount, which he handed over to Sam. + +‘And now, Sammy,’ said the old gentleman, when the whip-lashes, and the +buckles, and the samples, had been all put back, and the book once more +deposited at the bottom of the same pocket, ‘now, Sammy, I know a +gen’l’m’n here, as’ll do the rest o’ the bisness for us, in no time--a +limb o’ the law, Sammy, as has got brains like the frogs, dispersed all +over his body, and reachin’ to the wery tips of his fingers; a friend of +the Lord Chancellorship’s, Sammy, who’d only have to tell him what he +wanted, and he’d lock you up for life, if that wos all.’ + +‘I say,’ said Sam, ‘none o’ that.’ + +‘None o’ wot?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Wy, none o’ them unconstitootional ways o’ doin’ it,’ retorted Sam. +‘The have-his-carcass, next to the perpetual motion, is vun of the +blessedest things as wos ever made. I’ve read that ‘ere in the +newspapers wery of’en.’ + +‘Well, wot’s that got to do vith it?’ inquired Mr. Weller. + +‘Just this here,’ said Sam, ‘that I’ll patronise the inwention, and go +in, that vay. No visperin’s to the Chancellorship--I don’t like the +notion. It mayn’t be altogether safe, vith reference to gettin’ out +agin.’ + +Deferring to his son’s feeling upon this point, Mr. Weller at once +sought the erudite Solomon Pell, and acquainted him with his desire to +issue a writ, instantly, for the _sum _of twenty-five pounds, and costs +of process; to be executed without delay upon the body of one Samuel +Weller; the charges thereby incurred, to be paid in advance to Solomon +Pell. + +The attorney was in high glee, for the embarrassed coach-horser was +ordered to be discharged forthwith. He highly approved of Sam’s +attachment to his master; declared that it strongly reminded him of his +own feelings of devotion to his friend, the Chancellor; and at once led +the elder Mr. Weller down to the Temple, to swear the affidavit of debt, +which the boy, with the assistance of the blue bag, had drawn up on the +spot. + +Meanwhile, Sam, having been formally introduced to the whitewashed +gentleman and his friends, as the offspring of Mr. Weller, of the Belle +Savage, was treated with marked distinction, and invited to regale +himself with them in honour of the occasion--an invitation which he was +by no means backward in accepting. + +The mirth of gentlemen of this class is of a grave and quiet character, +usually; but the present instance was one of peculiar festivity, and +they relaxed in proportion. After some rather tumultuous toasting of the +Chief Commissioner and Mr. Solomon Pell, who had that day displayed such +transcendent abilities, a mottled-faced gentleman in a blue shawl +proposed that somebody should sing a song. The obvious suggestion was, +that the mottled-faced gentleman, being anxious for a song, should sing +it himself; but this the mottled-faced gentleman sturdily, and somewhat +offensively, declined to do. Upon which, as is not unusual in such +cases, a rather angry colloquy ensued. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the coach-horser, ‘rather than disturb the harmony of +this delightful occasion, perhaps Mr. Samuel Weller will oblige the +company.’ + +‘Raly, gentlemen,’ said Sam, ‘I’m not wery much in the habit o’ singin’ +without the instrument; but anythin’ for a quiet life, as the man said +wen he took the sitivation at the lighthouse.’ + +With this prelude, Mr. Samuel Weller burst at once into the following +wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not +generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call +particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and +fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those +points, but greatly assists the metre. + + +ROMANCE + +I + +Bold Turpin vunce, on Hounslow Heath, His bold mare Bess bestrode--er; +Ven there he see’d the Bishop’s coach A-coming along the road--er. So he +gallops close to the ‘orse’s legs, And he claps his head vithin; And the +Bishop says, ‘Sure as eggs is eggs, This here’s the bold Turpin!’ + +CHORUS + +And the Bishop says, ‘Sure as eggs is eggs, This here’s the bold +Turpin!’ + +II + +Says Turpin, ‘You shall eat your words, With a sarse of leaden bul-- +let;’ So he puts a pistol to his mouth, And he fires it down his gul-- +let. The coachman he not likin’ the job, Set off at full gal-lop, But +Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop. + +CHORUS (sarcastically) + +But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop. + +‘I maintain that that ‘ere song’s personal to the cloth,’ said the +mottled-faced gentleman, interrupting it at this point. ‘I demand the +name o’ that coachman.’ + +‘Nobody know’d,’ replied Sam. ‘He hadn’t got his card in his pocket.’ + +‘I object to the introduction o’ politics,’ said the mottled-faced +gentleman. ‘I submit that, in the present company, that ‘ere song’s +political; and, wot’s much the same, that it ain’t true. I say that that +coachman did not run away; but that he died game--game as pheasants; and +I won’t hear nothin’ said to the contrairey.’ + +As the mottled-faced gentleman spoke with great energy and +determination, and as the opinions of the company seemed divided on the +subject, it threatened to give rise to fresh altercation, when Mr. +Weller and Mr. Pell most opportunely arrived. + +‘All right, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘The officer will be here at four o’clock,’ said Mr. Pell. ‘I suppose +you won’t run away meanwhile, eh? Ha! ha!’ + +‘P’raps my cruel pa ‘ull relent afore then,’ replied Sam, with a broad +grin. + +‘Not I,’ said the elder Mr. Weller. + +‘Do,’ said Sam. + +‘Not on no account,’ replied the inexorable creditor. + +‘I’ll give bills for the amount, at sixpence a month,’ said Sam. + +‘I won’t take ‘em,’ said Mr. Weller. + +‘Ha, ha, ha! very good, very good,’ said Mr. Solomon Pell, who was +making out his little bill of costs; ‘a very amusing incident indeed! +Benjamin, copy that.’ And Mr. Pell smiled again, as he called Mr. +Weller’s attention to the amount. + +‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the professional gentleman, taking up +another of the greasy notes as Mr. Weller took it from the pocket-book. +‘Three ten and one ten is five. Much obliged to you, Mr. Weller. Your +son is a most deserving young man, very much so indeed, Sir. It’s a very +pleasant trait in a young man’s character, very much so,’ added Mr. +Pell, smiling smoothly round, as he buttoned up the money. + +‘Wot a game it is!’ said the elder Mr. Weller, with a chuckle. ‘A +reg’lar prodigy son!’ + +‘Prodigal--prodigal son, Sir,’ suggested Mr. Pell, mildly. + +‘Never mind, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, with dignity. ‘I know wot’s o’clock, +Sir. Wen I don’t, I’ll ask you, Sir.’ + +By the time the officer arrived, Sam had made himself so extremely +popular, that the congregated gentlemen determined to see him to prison +in a body. So off they set; the plaintiff and defendant walking arm in +arm, the officer in front, and eight stout coachmen bringing up the +rear. At Serjeant’s Inn Coffee-house the whole party halted to refresh, +and, the legal arrangements being completed, the procession moved on +again. + +Some little commotion was occasioned in Fleet Street, by the pleasantry +of the eight gentlemen in the flank, who persevered in walking four +abreast; it was also found necessary to leave the mottled-faced +gentleman behind, to fight a ticket-porter, it being arranged that his +friends should call for him as they came back. Nothing but these little +incidents occurred on the way. When they reached the gate of the Fleet, +the cavalcade, taking the time from the plaintiff, gave three tremendous +cheers for the defendant, and, after having shaken hands all round, left +him. + +Sam, having been formally delivered into the warder’s custody, to the +intense astonishment of Roker, and to the evident emotion of even the +phlegmatic Neddy, passed at once into the prison, walked straight to his +master’s room, and knocked at the door. + +‘Come in,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Sam appeared, pulled off his hat, and smiled. + +‘Ah, Sam, my good lad!’ said Mr. Pickwick, evidently delighted to see +his humble friend again; ‘I had no intention of hurting your feelings +yesterday, my faithful fellow, by what I said. Put down your hat, Sam, +and let me explain my meaning, a little more at length.’ + +‘Won’t presently do, sir?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but why not now?’ + +‘I’d rayther not now, sir,’ rejoined Sam. + +‘Why?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘’Cause--’ said Sam, hesitating. + +‘Because of what?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, alarmed at his follower’s +manner. ‘Speak out, Sam.’ + +‘’Cause,’ rejoined Sam--‘’cause I’ve got a little bisness as I want to +do.’ + +‘What business?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, surprised at Sam’s confused +manner. + +‘Nothin’ partickler, Sir,’ replied Sam. + +‘Oh, if it’s nothing particular,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile, ‘you +can speak with me first.’ + +‘I think I’d better see arter it at once,’ said Sam, still hesitating. + +Mr. Pickwick looked amazed, but said nothing. + +‘The fact is--’ said Sam, stopping short. + +‘Well!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Speak out, Sam.’ + +‘Why, the fact is,’ said Sam, with a desperate effort, ‘perhaps I’d +better see arter my bed afore I do anythin’ else.’ + +‘_Your bed!_’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in astonishment. + +‘Yes, my bed, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘I’m a prisoner. I was arrested this +here wery arternoon for debt.’ + +‘You arrested for debt!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sinking into a chair. + +‘Yes, for debt, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘And the man as puts me in, ‘ull +never let me out till you go yourself.’ + +‘Bless my heart and soul!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. ‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Wot I say, Sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘If it’s forty years to come, I shall be +a prisoner, and I’m very glad on it; and if it had been Newgate, it +would ha’ been just the same. Now the murder’s out, and, damme, there’s +an end on it!’ + +With these words, which he repeated with great emphasis and violence, +Sam Weller dashed his hat upon the ground, in a most unusual state of +excitement; and then, folding his arms, looked firmly and fixedly in his +master’s face. + + + +CHAPTER LXIV. TREATS OF DIVERS LITTLE MATTERS WHICH OCCURRED IN THE +FLEET, AND OF MR. WINKLE’S MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR; AND SHOWS HOW THE POOR +CHANCERY PRISONER OBTAINED HIS RELEASE AT LAST + +Mr. Pickwick felt a great deal too much touched by the warmth of Sam’s +attachment, to be able to exhibit any manifestation of anger or +displeasure at the precipitate course he had adopted, in voluntarily +consigning himself to a debtor’s prison for an indefinite period. The +only point on which he persevered in demanding an explanation, was, the +name of Sam’s detaining creditor; but this Mr. Weller as perseveringly +withheld. + +‘It ain’t o’ no use, sir,’ said Sam, again and again; ‘he’s a malicious, +bad-disposed, vorldly-minded, spiteful, windictive creetur, with a hard +heart as there ain’t no soft’nin’, as the wirtuous clergyman remarked of +the old gen’l’m’n with the dropsy, ven he said, that upon the whole he +thought he’d rayther leave his property to his vife than build a chapel +vith it.’ + +‘But consider, Sam,’ Mr. Pickwick remonstrated, ‘the sum is so small +that it can very easily be paid; and having made up my mind that you +shall stop with me, you should recollect how much more useful you would +be, if you could go outside the walls.’ + +Wery much obliged to you, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller gravely; ‘but I’d +rayther not.’ + +‘Rather not do what, Sam?’ + +‘Wy, I’d rayther not let myself down to ask a favour o’ this here +unremorseful enemy.’ + +‘But it is no favour asking him to take his money, Sam,’ reasoned Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ rejoined Sam, ‘but it ‘ud be a wery great favour +to pay it, and he don’t deserve none; that’s where it is, sir.’ + +Here Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his nose with an air of some vexation, Mr. +Weller thought it prudent to change the theme of the discourse. + +‘I takes my determination on principle, Sir,’ remarked Sam, ‘and you +takes yours on the same ground; wich puts me in mind o’ the man as +killed his-self on principle, wich o’ course you’ve heerd on, Sir.’ Mr. +Weller paused when he arrived at this point, and cast a comical look at +his master out of the corners of his eyes. + +‘There is no “of course” in the case, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gradually +breaking into a smile, in spite of the uneasiness which Sam’s obstinacy +had given him. ‘The fame of the gentleman in question, never reached my +ears.’ + +‘No, sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Weller. ‘You astonish me, Sir; he wos a clerk +in a gov’ment office, sir.’ + +‘Was he?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes, he wos, Sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller; ‘and a wery pleasant gen’l’m’n +too--one o’ the precise and tidy sort, as puts their feet in little +India-rubber fire-buckets wen it’s wet weather, and never has no other +bosom friends but hare-skins; he saved up his money on principle, wore a +clean shirt ev’ry day on principle; never spoke to none of his relations +on principle, ‘fear they shou’d want to borrow money of him; and wos +altogether, in fact, an uncommon agreeable character. He had his hair +cut on principle vunce a fortnight, and contracted for his clothes on +the economic principle--three suits a year, and send back the old uns. +Being a wery reg’lar gen’l’m’n, he din’d ev’ry day at the same place, +where it was one-and-nine to cut off the joint, and a wery good one-and- +nine’s worth he used to cut, as the landlord often said, with the tears +a-tricklin’ down his face, let alone the way he used to poke the fire in +the vinter time, which wos a dead loss o’ four-pence ha’penny a day, to +say nothin’ at all o’ the aggrawation o’ seein’ him do it. So uncommon +grand with it too! “_Post _arter the next gen’l’m’n,” he sings out ev’ry +day ven he comes in. “See arter the TIMES, Thomas; let me look at the +MORNIN’ HERALD, when it’s out o’ hand; don’t forget to bespeak the +CHRONICLE; and just bring the ‘TIZER, vill you:” and then he’d set vith +his eyes fixed on the clock, and rush out, just a quarter of a minit +‘fore the time to waylay the boy as wos a-comin’ in with the evenin’ +paper, which he’d read with sich intense interest and persewerance as +worked the other customers up to the wery confines o’ desperation and +insanity, ‘specially one i-rascible old gen’l’m’n as the vaiter wos +always obliged to keep a sharp eye on, at sich times, fear he should be +tempted to commit some rash act with the carving-knife. Vell, Sir, here +he’d stop, occupyin’ the best place for three hours, and never takin’ +nothin’ arter his dinner, but sleep, and then he’d go away to a coffee- +house a few streets off, and have a small pot o’ coffee and four +crumpets, arter wich he’d walk home to Kensington and go to bed. One +night he wos took very ill; sends for a doctor; doctor comes in a green +fly, with a kind o’ Robinson Crusoe set o’ steps, as he could let down +wen he got out, and pull up arter him wen he got in, to perwent the +necessity o’ the coachman’s gettin’ down, and thereby undeceivin’ the +public by lettin’ ‘em see that it wos only a livery coat as he’d got on, +and not the trousers to match. “Wot’s the matter?” says the doctor. +“Wery ill,” says the patient. “Wot have you been a-eatin’ on?” says the +doctor. “Roast weal,” says the patient. “Wot’s the last thing you +dewoured?” says the doctor. “Crumpets,” says the patient. “That’s it!” + says the doctor. “I’ll send you a box of pills directly, and don’t you +never take no more of ‘em,” he says. “No more o’ wot?” says the patient- +-“pills?” “No; crumpets,” says the doctor. “Wy?” says the patient, +starting up in bed; “I’ve eat four crumpets, ev’ry night for fifteen +year, on principle.” “Well, then, you’d better leave ‘em off, on +principle,” says the doctor. “Crumpets is _not _wholesome, Sir,” says +the doctor, wery fierce. “But they’re so cheap,” says the patient, +comin’ down a little, “and so wery fillin’ at the price.” “They’d be +dear to you, at any price; dear if you wos paid to eat ‘em,” says the +doctor. “Four crumpets a night,” he says, “vill do your business in six +months!” The patient looks him full in the face, and turns it over in +his mind for a long time, and at last he says, “Are you sure o’ that +‘ere, Sir?” “I’ll stake my professional reputation on it,” says the +doctor. “How many crumpets, at a sittin’, do you think ‘ud kill me off +at once?” says the patient. “I don’t know,” says the doctor. “Do you +think half-a-crown’s wurth ‘ud do it?” says the patient. “I think it +might,” says the doctor. “Three shillins’ wurth ‘ud be sure to do it, I +s’pose?” says the patient. “Certainly,” says the doctor. “Wery good,” + says the patient; “good-night.” Next mornin’ he gets up, has a fire lit, +orders in three shillins’ wurth o’ crumpets, toasts ‘em all, eats ‘em +all, and blows his brains out.’ + +‘What did he do that for?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly; for he was +considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative. + +‘Wot did he do it for, Sir?’ reiterated Sam. ‘Wy, in support of his +great principle that crumpets wos wholesome, and to show that he +wouldn’t be put out of his way for nobody!’ + +With such like shiftings and changings of the discourse, did Mr. Weller +meet his master’s questioning on the night of his taking up his +residence in the Fleet. Finding all gentle remonstrance useless, Mr. +Pickwick at length yielded a reluctant consent to his taking lodgings by +the week, of a bald-headed cobbler, who rented a small slip room in one +of the upper galleries. To this humble apartment Mr. Weller moved a +mattress and bedding, which he hired of Mr. Roker; and, by the time he +lay down upon it at night, was as much at home as if he had been bred in +the prison, and his whole family had vegetated therein for three +generations. + +‘Do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?’ inquired Mr. +Weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night. + +‘Yes, I does, young bantam,’ replied the cobbler. + +‘Will you allow me to in-quire wy you make up your bed under that ‘ere +deal table?’ said Sam. + +‘’Cause I was always used to a four-poster afore I came here, and I find +the legs of the table answer just as well,’ replied the cobbler. + +‘You’re a character, sir,’ said Sam. + +‘I haven’t got anything of the kind belonging to me,’ rejoined the +cobbler, shaking his head; ‘and if you want to meet with a good one, I’m +afraid you’ll find some difficulty in suiting yourself at this register +office.’ + +The above short dialogue took place as Mr. Weller lay extended on his +mattress at one end of the room, and the cobbler on his, at the other; +the apartment being illumined by the light of a rush-candle, and the +cobbler’s pipe, which was glowing below the table, like a red-hot coal. +The conversation, brief as it was, predisposed Mr. Weller strongly in +his landlord’s favour; and, raising himself on his elbow, he took a more +lengthened survey of his appearance than he had yet had either time or +inclination to make. + +He was a sallow man--all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard-- +all cobblers have. His face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked-featured +piece of workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have +worn a very joyous expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. The +man was sixty, by years, and Heaven knows how old by imprisonment, so +that his having any look approaching to mirth or contentment, was +singular enough. He was a little man, and, being half doubled up as he +lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without his +legs. He had a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking, and staring +at the rush-light, in a state of enviable placidity. + +‘Have you been here long?’ inquired Sam, breaking the silence which had +lasted for some time. + +‘Twelve year,’ replied the cobbler, biting the end of his pipe as he +spoke. + +‘Contempt?’ inquired Sam. + +The cobbler nodded. + +‘Well, then,’ said Sam, with some sternness, ‘wot do you persevere in +bein’ obstinit for, vastin’ your precious life away, in this here +magnified pound? Wy don’t you give in, and tell the Chancellorship that +you’re wery sorry for makin’ his court contemptible, and you won’t do so +no more?’ + +The cobbler put his pipe in the corner of his mouth, while he smiled, +and then brought it back to its old place again; but said nothing. + +‘Wy don’t you?’ said Sam, urging his question strenuously. + +‘Ah,’ said the cobbler, ‘you don’t quite understand these matters. What +do you suppose ruined me, now?’ + +‘Wy,’ said Sam, trimming the rush-light, ‘I s’pose the beginnin’ wos, +that you got into debt, eh?’ + +‘Never owed a farden,’ said the cobbler; ‘try again.’ + +‘Well, perhaps,’ said Sam, ‘you bought houses, wich is delicate English +for goin’ mad; or took to buildin’, wich is a medical term for bein’ +incurable.’ + +The cobbler shook his head and said, ‘Try again.’ + +‘You didn’t go to law, I hope?’ said Sam suspiciously. + +‘Never in my life,’ replied the cobbler. ‘The fact is, I was ruined by +having money left me.’ + +‘Come, come,’ said Sam, ‘that von’t do. I wish some rich enemy ‘ud try +to vork my destruction in that ‘ere vay. I’d let him.’ + +‘Oh, I dare say you don’t believe it,’ said the cobbler, quietly smoking +his pipe. ‘I wouldn’t if I was you; but it’s true for all that.’ + +‘How wos it?’ inquired Sam, half induced to believe the fact already, by +the look the cobbler gave him. + +‘Just this,’ replied the cobbler; ‘an old gentleman that I worked for, +down in the country, and a humble relation of whose I married--she’s +dead, God bless her, and thank Him for it!--was seized with a fit and +went off.’ + +‘Where?’ inquired Sam, who was growing sleepy after the numerous events +of the day. + +‘How should I know where he went?’ said the cobbler, speaking through +his nose in an intense enjoyment of his pipe. ‘He went off dead.’ + +‘Oh, that indeed,’ said Sam. ‘Well?’ + +‘Well,’ said the cobbler, ‘he left five thousand pound behind him.’ + +‘And wery gen-teel in him so to do,’ said Sam. + +‘One of which,’ continued the cobbler, ‘he left to me, ‘cause I married +his relation, you see.’ + +‘Wery good,’ murmured Sam. + +‘And being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nevys, as was +always quarrelling and fighting among themselves for the property, he +makes me his executor, and leaves the rest to me in trust, to divide it +among ‘em as the will prowided.’ + +‘Wot do you mean by leavin’ it on trust?’ inquired Sam, waking up a +little. ‘If it ain’t ready-money, were’s the use on it?’ + +‘It’s a law term, that’s all,’ said the cobbler. + +‘I don’t think that,’ said Sam, shaking his head. ‘There’s wery little +trust at that shop. Hows’ever, go on.’ + +Well,’ said the cobbler, ‘when I was going to take out a probate of the +will, the nieces and nevys, who was desperately disappointed at not +getting all the money, enters a caveat against it.’ + +What’s that?’ inquired Sam. + +‘A legal instrument, which is as much as to say, it’s no go,’ replied +the cobbler. + +‘I see,’ said Sam, ‘a sort of brother-in-law o’ the have-his-carcass. +Well.’ + +‘But,’ continued the cobbler, ‘finding that they couldn’t agree among +themselves, and consequently couldn’t get up a case against the will, +they withdrew the caveat, and I paid all the legacies. I’d hardly done +it, when one nevy brings an action to set the will aside. The case comes +on, some months afterwards, afore a deaf old gentleman, in a back room +somewhere down by Paul’s Churchyard; and arter four counsels had taken a +day a-piece to bother him regularly, he takes a week or two to consider, +and read the evidence in six volumes, and then gives his judgment that +how the testator was not quite right in his head, and I must pay all the +money back again, and all the costs. I appealed; the case come on before +three or four very sleepy gentlemen, who had heard it all before in the +other court, where they’re lawyers without work; the only difference +being, that, there, they’re called doctors, and in the other place +delegates, if you understand that; and they very dutifully confirmed the +decision of the old gentleman below. After that, we went into Chancery, +where we are still, and where I shall always be. My lawyers have had all +my thousand pound long ago; and what between the estate, as they call +it, and the costs, I’m here for ten thousand, and shall stop here, till +I die, mending shoes. Some gentlemen have talked of bringing it before +Parliament, and I dare say would have done it, only they hadn’t time to +come to me, and I hadn’t power to go to them, and they got tired of my +long letters, and dropped the business. And this is God’s truth, without +one word of suppression or exaggeration, as fifty people, both in this +place and out of it, very well know.’ + +The cobbler paused to ascertain what effect his story had produced on +Sam; but finding that he had dropped asleep, knocked the ashes out of +his pipe, sighed, put it down, drew the bed-clothes over his head, and +went to sleep, too. + +Mr. Pickwick was sitting at breakfast, alone, next morning (Sam being +busily engaged in the cobbler’s room, polishing his master’s shoes and +brushing the black gaiters) when there came a knock at the door, which, +before Mr. Pickwick could cry ‘Come in!’ was followed by the appearance +of a head of hair and a cotton-velvet cap, both of which articles of +dress he had no difficulty in recognising as the personal property of +Mr. Smangle. + +‘How are you?’ said that worthy, accompanying the inquiry with a score +or two of nods; ‘I say--do you expect anybody this morning? Three men-- +devilish gentlemanly fellows--have been asking after you downstairs, and +knocking at every door on the hall flight; for which they’ve been most +infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of opening +‘em.’ + +‘Dear me! How very foolish of them,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rising. ‘Yes; I +have no doubt they are some friends whom I rather expected to see, +yesterday.’ + +‘Friends of yours!’ exclaimed Smangle, seizing Mr. Pickwick by the hand. +‘Say no more. Curse me, they’re friends of mine from this minute, and +friends of Mivins’s, too. Infernal pleasant, gentlemanly dog, Mivins, +isn’t he?’ said Smangle, with great feeling. + +‘I know so little of the gentleman,’ said Mr. Pickwick, hesitating, +‘that I--’ + +‘I know you do,’ interrupted Smangle, clasping Mr. Pickwick by the +shoulder. ‘You shall know him better. You’ll be delighted with him. That +man, Sir,’ said Smangle, with a solemn countenance, ‘has comic powers +that would do honour to Drury Lane Theatre.’ + +‘Has he indeed?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Ah, by Jove he has!’ replied Smangle. ‘Hear him come the four cats in +the wheel-barrow--four distinct cats, sir, I pledge you my honour. Now +you know that’s infernal clever! Damme, you can’t help liking a man, +when you see these traits about him. He’s only one fault--that little +failing I mentioned to you, you know.’ + +As Mr. Smangle shook his head in a confidential and sympathising manner +at this juncture, Mr. Pickwick felt that he was expected to say +something, so he said, ‘Ah!’ and looked restlessly at the door. + +‘Ah!’ echoed Mr. Smangle, with a long-drawn sigh. ‘He’s delightful +company, that man is, sir. I don’t know better company anywhere; but he +has that one drawback. If the ghost of his grandfather, Sir, was to rise +before him this minute, he’d ask him for the loan of his acceptance on +an eightpenny stamp.’ + +Dear me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes,’ added Mr. Smangle; ‘and if he’d the power of raising him again, +he would, in two months and three days from this time, to renew the +bill!’ + +‘Those are very remarkable traits,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but I’m afraid +that while we are talking here, my friends may be in a state of great +perplexity at not finding me.’ + +‘I’ll show ‘em the way,’ said Smangle, making for the door. ‘Good-day. I +won’t disturb you while they’re here, you know. By the bye--’ + +As Smangle pronounced the last three words, he stopped suddenly, +reclosed the door which he had opened, and, walking softly back to Mr. +Pickwick, stepped close up to him on tiptoe, and said, in a very soft +whisper-- + +‘You couldn’t make it convenient to lend me half-a-crown till the latter +end of next week, could you?’ + +Mr. Pickwick could scarcely forbear smiling, but managing to preserve +his gravity, he drew forth the coin, and placed it in Mr. Smangle’s +palm; upon which, that gentleman, with many nods and winks, implying +profound mystery, disappeared in quest of the three strangers, with whom +he presently returned; and having coughed thrice, and nodded as many +times, as an assurance to Mr. Pickwick that he would not forget to pay, +he shook hands all round, in an engaging manner, and at length took +himself off. + +‘My dear friends,’ said Mr. Pickwick, shaking hands alternately with Mr. +Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, who were the three visitors in +question, ‘I am delighted to see you.’ + +The triumvirate were much affected. Mr. Tupman shook his head +deploringly, Mr. Snodgrass drew forth his handkerchief, with undisguised +emotion; and Mr. Winkle retired to the window, and sniffed aloud. + +‘Mornin’, gen’l’m’n,’ said Sam, entering at the moment with the shoes +and gaiters. ‘Avay vith melincholly, as the little boy said ven his +schoolmissus died. Velcome to the college, gen’l’m’n.’ + +‘This foolish fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, tapping Sam on the head as he +knelt down to button up his master’s gaiters--‘this foolish fellow has +got himself arrested, in order to be near me.’ + +‘What!’ exclaimed the three friends. + +‘Yes, gen’l’m’n,’ said Sam, ‘I’m a--stand steady, sir, if you please-- +I’m a prisoner, gen’l’m’n. Con-fined, as the lady said.’ + +‘A prisoner!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle, with unaccountable vehemence. + +‘Hollo, sir!’ responded Sam, looking up. ‘Wot’s the matter, Sir?’ + +‘I had hoped, Sam, that--Nothing, nothing,’ said Mr. Winkle +precipitately. + +There was something so very abrupt and unsettled in Mr. Winkle’s manner, +that Mr. Pickwick involuntarily looked at his two friends for an +explanation. + +‘We don’t know,’ said Mr. Tupman, answering this mute appeal aloud. ‘He +has been much excited for two days past, and his whole demeanour very +unlike what it usually is. We feared there must be something the matter, +but he resolutely denies it.’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr. Winkle, colouring beneath Mr. Pickwick’s gaze; ‘there +is really nothing. I assure you there is nothing, my dear sir. It will +be necessary for me to leave town, for a short time, on private +business, and I had hoped to have prevailed upon you to allow Sam to +accompany me.’ + +Mr. Pickwick looked more astonished than before. + +‘I think,’ faltered Mr. Winkle, ‘that Sam would have had no objection to +do so; but, of course, his being a prisoner here, renders it impossible. +So I must go alone.’ + +As Mr. Winkle said these words, Mr. Pickwick felt, with some +astonishment, that Sam’s fingers were trembling at the gaiters, as if he +were rather surprised or startled. Sam looked up at Mr. Winkle, too, +when he had finished speaking; and though the glance they exchanged was +instantaneous, they seemed to understand each other. + +‘Do you know anything of this, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick sharply. + +‘No, I don’t, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, beginning to button with +extraordinary assiduity. + +‘Are you sure, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wy, sir,’ responded Mr. Weller; ‘I’m sure so far, that I’ve never heerd +anythin’ on the subject afore this moment. If I makes any guess about +it,’ added Sam, looking at Mr. Winkle, ‘I haven’t got any right to say +what it is, ‘fear it should be a wrong ‘un.’ + +‘I have no right to make any further inquiry into the private affairs of +a friend, however intimate a friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a short +silence; ‘at present let me merely say, that I do not understand this at +all. There. We have had quite enough of the subject.’ + +Thus expressing himself, Mr. Pickwick led the conversation to different +topics, and Mr. Winkle gradually appeared more at ease, though still +very far from being completely so. They had all so much to converse +about, that the morning very quickly passed away; and when, at three +o’clock, Mr. Weller produced upon the little dining-table, a roast leg +of mutton and an enormous meat-pie, with sundry dishes of vegetables, +and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa bedstead, or +where they could, everybody felt disposed to do justice to the meal, +notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased, and dressed, and the +pie made, and baked, at the prison cookery hard by. + +To these succeeded a bottle or two of very good wine, for which a +messenger was despatched by Mr. Pickwick to the Horn Coffee-house, in +Doctors’ Commons. The bottle or two, indeed, might be more properly +described as a bottle or six, for by the time it was drunk, and tea +over, the bell began to ring for strangers to withdraw. + +But, if Mr. Winkle’s behaviour had been unaccountable in the morning, it +became perfectly unearthly and solemn when, under the influence of his +feelings, and his share of the bottle or six, he prepared to take leave +of his friend. He lingered behind, until Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass +had disappeared, and then fervently clenched Mr. Pickwick’s hand, with +an expression of face in which deep and mighty resolve was fearfully +blended with the very concentrated essence of gloom. + +‘Good-night, my dear Sir!’ said Mr. Winkle between his set teeth. + +‘Bless you, my dear fellow!’ replied the warm-hearted Mr. Pickwick, as +he returned the pressure of his young friend’s hand. + +‘Now then!’ cried Mr. Tupman from the gallery. + +‘Yes, yes, directly,’ replied Mr. Winkle. ‘Good-night!’ + +‘Good-night,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +There was another good-night, and another, and half a dozen more after +that, and still Mr. Winkle had fast hold of his friend’s hand, and was +looking into his face with the same strange expression. + +‘Is anything the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick at last, when his arm was +quite sore with shaking. + +‘Nothing,’ said Mr. Winkle. + +‘Well then, good-night,’ said Mr. Pickwick, attempting to disengage his +hand. + +‘My friend, my benefactor, my honoured companion,’ murmured Mr. Winkle, +catching at his wrist. ‘Do not judge me harshly; do not, when you hear +that, driven to extremity by hopeless obstacles, I--’ + +‘Now then,’ said Mr. Tupman, reappearing at the door. ‘Are you coming, +or are we to be locked in?’ + +‘Yes, yes, I am ready,’ replied Mr. Winkle. And with a violent effort he +tore himself away. + +As Mr. Pickwick was gazing down the passage after them in silent +astonishment, Sam Weller appeared at the stair-head, and whispered for +one moment in Mr. Winkle’s ear. + +‘Oh, certainly, depend upon me,’ said that gentleman aloud. + +‘Thank’ee, sir. You won’t forget, sir?’ said Sam. + +‘Of course not,’ replied Mr. Winkle. + +‘Wish you luck, Sir,’ said Sam, touching his hat. ‘I should very much +liked to ha’ joined you, Sir; but the gov’nor, o’ course, is paramount.’ + +‘It is very much to your credit that you remain here,’ said Mr. Winkle. +With these words they disappeared down the stairs. + +‘Very extraordinary,’ said Mr. Pickwick, going back into his room, and +seating himself at the table in a musing attitude. ‘What can that young +man be going to do?’ + +He had sat ruminating about the matter for some time, when the voice of +Roker, the turnkey, demanded whether he might come in. + +‘By all means,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I’ve brought you a softer pillow, Sir,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘instead of the +temporary one you had last night.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Will you take a glass of wine?’ + +‘You’re wery good, Sir,’ replied Mr. Roker, accepting the proffered +glass. ‘Yours, sir.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I’m sorry to say that your landlord’s wery bad to-night, Sir,’ said +Roker, setting down the glass, and inspecting the lining of his hat +preparatory to putting it on again. + +‘What! The Chancery prisoner!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He won’t be a Chancery prisoner wery long, Sir,’ replied Roker, turning +his hat round, so as to get the maker’s name right side upwards, as he +looked into it. + +‘You make my blood run cold,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘What do you mean?’ + +‘He’s been consumptive for a long time past,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘and he’s +taken wery bad in the breath to-night. The doctor said, six months ago, +that nothing but change of air could save him.’ + +‘Great Heaven!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick; ‘has this man been slowly +murdered by the law for six months?’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Roker, weighing the hat by the brim +in both hands. ‘I suppose he’d have been took the same, wherever he was. +He went into the infirmary, this morning; the doctor says his strength +is to be kept up as much as possible; and the warden’s sent him wine and +broth and that, from his own house. It’s not the warden’s fault, you +know, sir.’ + +‘Of course not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick hastily. + +‘I’m afraid, however,’ said Roker, shaking his head, ‘that it’s all up +with him. I offered Neddy two six-penn’orths to one upon it just now, +but he wouldn’t take it, and quite right. Thank’ee, Sir. Good-night, +sir.’ + +‘Stay,’ said Mr. Pickwick earnestly. ‘Where is this infirmary?’ + +‘Just over where you slept, sir,’ replied Roker. ‘I’ll show you, if you +like to come.’ Mr. Pickwick snatched up his hat without speaking, and +followed at once. + +The turnkey led the way in silence; and gently raising the latch of the +room door, motioned Mr. Pickwick to enter. It was a large, bare, +desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron, on one of +which lay stretched the shadow of a man--wan, pale, and ghastly. His +breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and +went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler’s apron, who, by +the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud. +It was the fortunate legatee. + +The sick man laid his hand upon his attendant’s arm, and motioned him to +stop. He closed the book, and laid it on the bed. + +‘Open the window,’ said the sick man. + +He did so. The noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the +cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude +instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated +into the room. Above the hoarse loud hum, arose, from time to time, a +boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth, by +one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear, for an instant, and +then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps; the +breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life, that rolled heavily +on, without. These are melancholy sounds to a quiet listener at any +time; but how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death! + +‘There is no air here,’ said the man faintly. ‘The place pollutes it. It +was fresh round about, when I walked there, years ago; but it grows hot +and heavy in passing these walls. I cannot breathe it.’ + +‘We have breathed it together, for a long time,’ said the old man. +‘Come, come.’ + +There was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached +the bed. The sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner towards +him, and pressing it affectionately between both his own, retained it in +his grasp. + +‘I hope,’ he gasped after a while, so faintly that they bent their ears +close over the bed to catch the half-formed sounds his pale lips gave +vent to--‘I hope my merciful Judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment +on earth. Twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave! +My heart broke when my child died, and I could not even kiss him in his +little coffin. My loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has +been very dreadful. May God forgive me! He has seen my solitary, +lingering death.’ + +He folded his hands, and murmuring something more they could not hear, +fell into a sleep--only a sleep at first, for they saw him smile. + +They whispered together for a little time, and the turnkey, stooping +over the pillow, drew hastily back. ‘He has got his discharge, by G--!’ +said the man. + +He had. But he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when +he died. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. DESCRIPTIVE OF AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW BETWEEN MR. SAMUEL +WELLER AND A FAMILY PARTY. MR. PICKWICK MAKES A TOUR OF THE DIMINUTIVE +WORLD HE INHABITS, AND RESOLVES TO MIX WITH IT, IN FUTURE, AS LITTLE AS +POSSIBLE + +A few mornings after his incarceration, Mr. Samuel Weller, having +arranged his master’s room with all possible care, and seen him +comfortably seated over his books and papers, withdrew to employ himself +for an hour or two to come, as he best could. It was a fine morning, and +it occurred to Sam that a pint of porter in the open air would lighten +his next quarter of an hour or so, as well as any little amusement in +which he could indulge. + +Having arrived at this conclusion, he betook himself to the tap. Having +purchased the beer, and obtained, moreover, the day-but-one-before- +yesterday’s paper, he repaired to the skittle-ground, and seating +himself on a bench, proceeded to enjoy himself in a very sedate and +methodical manner. + +First of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he +looked up at a window, and bestowed a platonic wink on a young lady who +was peeling potatoes thereat. Then he opened the paper, and folded it so +as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and +difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another +draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. Then, he read two lines +of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were +finishing a game at rackets, which, being concluded, he cried out ‘wery +good,’ in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to +ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. This involved +the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady +was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and +to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the +beer, which Sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who +had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over +the other, and, holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in +real earnest. + +He had hardly composed himself into the needful state of abstraction, +when he thought he heard his own name proclaimed in some distant +passage. Nor was he mistaken, for it quickly passed from mouth to mouth, +and in a few seconds the air teemed with shouts of ‘Weller!’ + +Here!’ roared Sam, in a stentorian voice. ‘Wot’s the matter? Who wants +him? Has an express come to say that his country house is afire?’ + +‘Somebody wants you in the hall,’ said a man who was standing by. + +‘Just mind that ‘ere paper and the pot, old feller, will you?’ said Sam. +‘I’m a-comin’. Blessed, if they was a-callin’ me to the bar, they +couldn’t make more noise about it!’ + +Accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young +gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to the +person in request, was screaming ‘Weller!’ with all his might, Sam +hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall. Here, +the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting on a +bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out ‘Weller!’ in his +very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals. + +‘Wot are you a-roarin’ at?’ said Sam impetuously, when the old gentleman +had discharged himself of another shout; ‘making yourself so precious +hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. Wot’s the matter?’ + +‘Aha!’ replied the old gentleman, ‘I began to be afeerd that you’d gone +for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy.’ + +‘Come,’ said Sam, ‘none o’ them taunts agin the wictim o’ avarice, and +come off that ‘ere step. Wot are you a-settin’ down there for? I don’t +live there.’ + +‘I’ve got such a game for you, Sammy,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, +rising. + +‘Stop a minit,’ said Sam, ‘you’re all vite behind.’ + +‘That’s right, Sammy, rub it off,’ said Mr. Weller, as his son dusted +him. ‘It might look personal here, if a man walked about with vitevash +on his clothes, eh, Sammy?’ + +As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an +approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it. + +‘Keep quiet, do,’ said Sam, ‘there never vos such a old picter-card +born. Wot are you bustin’ vith, now?’ + +‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, ‘I’m afeerd that vun o’ +these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy.’ + +‘Vell, then, wot do you do it for?’ said Sam. ‘Now, then, wot have you +got to say?’ + +‘Who do you think’s come here with me, Samivel?’ said Mr. Weller, +drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his +eyebrows. + +‘Pell?’ said Sam. + +Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheeks expanded with the laughter +that was endeavouring to find a vent. + +‘Mottled-faced man, p’raps?’ asked Sam. + +Again Mr. Weller shook his head. + +‘Who then?’asked Sam. + +‘Your mother-in-law,’ said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did say it, +or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked, from their most unnatural +distension. + +‘Your mother-in-law, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘and the red-nosed man, my +boy; and the red-nosed man. Ho! ho! ho!’ + +With this, Mr. Weller launched into convulsions of laughter, while Sam +regarded him with a broad grin gradually over-spreading his whole +countenance. + +‘They’ve come to have a little serious talk with you, Samivel,’ said Mr. +Weller, wiping his eyes. ‘Don’t let out nothin’ about the unnat’ral +creditor, Sammy.’ + +‘Wot, don’t they know who it is?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Not a bit on it,’ replied his father. + +‘Vere are they?’ said Sam, reciprocating all the old gentleman’s grins. + +‘In the snuggery,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘Catch the red-nosed man a-goin’ +anyvere but vere the liquors is; not he, Samivel, not he. Ve’d a wery +pleasant ride along the road from the Markis this mornin’, Sammy,’ said +Mr. Weller, when he felt himself equal to the task of speaking in an +articulate manner. ‘I drove the old piebald in that ‘ere little chay- +cart as belonged to your mother-in-law’s first wenter, into vich a harm- +cheer wos lifted for the shepherd; and I’m blessed,’ said Mr. Weller, +with a look of deep scorn--‘I’m blessed if they didn’t bring a portable +flight o’ steps out into the road a-front o’ our door for him, to get up +by.’ + +‘You don’t mean that?’ said Sam. + +‘I do mean that, Sammy,’ replied his father, ‘and I vish you could ha’ +seen how tight he held on by the sides wen he did get up, as if he wos +afeerd o’ being precipitayted down full six foot, and dashed into a +million hatoms. He tumbled in at last, however, and avay ve vent; and I +rayther think--I say I rayther think, Samivel--that he found his-self a +little jolted ven ve turned the corners.’ + +‘Wot, I s’pose you happened to drive up agin a post or two?’ said Sam. + +‘I’m afeerd,’ replied Mr. Weller, in a rapture of winks--‘I’m afeerd I +took vun or two on ‘em, Sammy; he wos a-flyin’ out o’ the arm-cheer all +the way.’ + +Here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized +with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of +the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his +features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little. + +‘Don’t be frightened, Sammy, don’t be frightened,’ said the old +gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive +stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. ‘It’s only a kind o’ +quiet laugh as I’m a-tryin’ to come, Sammy.’ + +‘Well, if that’s wot it is,’ said Sam, ‘you’d better not try to come it +agin. You’ll find it rayther a dangerous inwention.’ + +‘Don’t you like it, Sammy?’ inquired the old gentleman. + +‘Not at all,’ replied Sam. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Weller, with the tears still running down his cheeks, +‘it ‘ud ha’ been a wery great accommodation to me if I could ha’ done +it, and ‘ud ha’ saved a good many vords atween your mother-in-law and +me, sometimes; but I’m afeerd you’re right, Sammy, it’s too much in the +appleplexy line--a deal too much, Samivel.’ + +This conversation brought them to the door of the snuggery, into which +Sam--pausing for an instant to look over his shoulder, and cast a sly +leer at his respected progenitor, who was still giggling behind--at once +led the way. + +‘Mother-in-law,’ said Sam, politely saluting the lady, ‘wery much +obliged to you for this here wisit.--Shepherd, how air you?’ + +‘Oh, Samuel!’ said Mrs. Weller. ‘This is dreadful.’ + +‘Not a bit on it, mum,’ replied Sam.--‘Is it, shepherd?’ + +Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes, until the whites- +-or rather the yellows--were alone visible; but made no reply in words. + +‘Is this here gen’l’m’n troubled with any painful complaint?’ said Sam, +looking to his mother-in-law for explanation. + +‘The good man is grieved to see you here, Samuel,’ replied Mrs. Weller. + +‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ said Sam. ‘I was afeerd, from his manner, that +he might ha’ forgotten to take pepper vith that ‘ere last cowcumber he +eat. Set down, Sir, ve make no extra charge for settin’ down, as the +king remarked wen he blowed up his ministers.’ + +‘Young man,’ said Mr. Stiggins ostentatiously, ‘I fear you are not +softened by imprisonment.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ replied Sam; ‘wot wos you graciously pleased to +hobserve?’ + +‘I apprehend, young man, that your nature is no softer for this +chastening,’ said Mr. Stiggins, in a loud voice. + +‘Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘you’re wery kind to say so. I hope my natur is _NOT +_ a soft vun, Sir. Wery much obliged to you for your good opinion, Sir.’ + +At this point of the conversation, a sound, indecorously approaching to +a laugh, was heard to proceed from the chair in which the elder Mr. +Weller was seated; upon which Mrs. Weller, on a hasty consideration of +all the circumstances of the case, considered it her bounden duty to +become gradually hysterical. + +‘Weller,’ said Mrs. W. (the old gentleman was seated in a corner); +‘Weller! Come forth.’ + +‘Wery much obleeged to you, my dear,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘but I’m quite +comfortable vere I am.’ + +Upon this, Mrs. Weller burst into tears. + +‘Wot’s gone wrong, mum?’ said Sam. + +‘Oh, Samuel!’ replied Mrs. Weller, ‘your father makes me wretched. Will +nothing do him good?’ + +‘Do you hear this here?’ said Sam. ‘Lady vants to know vether nothin’ +‘ull do you good.’ + +‘Wery much indebted to Mrs. Weller for her po-lite inquiries, Sammy,’ +replied the old gentleman. ‘I think a pipe vould benefit me a good deal. +Could I be accommodated, Sammy?’ + +Here Mrs. Weller let fall some more tears, and Mr. Stiggins groaned. + +‘Hollo! Here’s this unfortunate gen’l’m’n took ill agin,’ said Sam, +looking round. ‘Vere do you feel it now, sir?’ + +‘In the same place, young man,’ rejoined Mr. Stiggins, ‘in the same +place.’ + +‘Vere may that be, Sir?’ inquired Sam, with great outward simplicity. + +‘In the buzzim, young man,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, placing his umbrella +on his waistcoat. + +At this affecting reply, Mrs. Weller, being wholly unable to suppress +her feelings, sobbed aloud, and stated her conviction that the red-nosed +man was a saint; whereupon Mr. Weller, senior, ventured to suggest, in +an undertone, that he must be the representative of the united parishes +of St. Simon Without and St. Walker Within. + +‘I’m afeered, mum,’ said Sam, ‘that this here gen’l’m’n, with the twist +in his countenance, feels rather thirsty, with the melancholy spectacle +afore him. Is it the case, mum?’ + +The worthy lady looked at Mr. Stiggins for a reply; that gentleman, with +many rollings of the eye, clenched his throat with his right hand, and +mimicked the act of swallowing, to intimate that he was athirst. + +‘I am afraid, Samuel, that his feelings have made him so indeed,’ said +Mrs. Weller mournfully. + +‘Wot’s your usual tap, sir?’ replied Sam. + +‘Oh, my dear young friend,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, ‘all taps is +vanities!’ + +‘Too true, too true, indeed,’ said Mrs. Weller, murmuring a groan, and +shaking her head assentingly. + +‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘I des-say they may be, sir; but wich is your +partickler wanity? Wich wanity do you like the flavour on best, sir?’ + +‘Oh, my dear young friend,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, ‘I despise them all. +If,’ said Mr. Stiggins--‘if there is any one of them less odious than +another, it is the liquor called rum. Warm, my dear young friend, with +three lumps of sugar to the tumbler.’ + +‘Wery sorry to say, sir,’ said Sam, ‘that they don’t allow that +particular wanity to be sold in this here establishment.’ + +‘Oh, the hardness of heart of these inveterate men!’ ejaculated Mr. +Stiggins. ‘Oh, the accursed cruelty of these inhuman persecutors!’ + +With these words, Mr. Stiggins again cast up his eyes, and rapped his +breast with his umbrella; and it is but justice to the reverend +gentleman to say, that his indignation appeared very real and unfeigned +indeed. + +After Mrs. Weller and the red-nosed gentleman had commented on this +inhuman usage in a very forcible manner, and had vented a variety of +pious and holy execrations against its authors, the latter recommended a +bottle of port wine, warmed with a little water, spice, and sugar, as +being grateful to the stomach, and savouring less of vanity than many +other compounds. It was accordingly ordered to be prepared, and pending +its preparation the red-nosed man and Mrs. Weller looked at the elder W. +and groaned. + +‘Well, Sammy,’ said the gentleman, ‘I hope you’ll find your spirits rose +by this here lively wisit. Wery cheerful and improvin’ conwersation, +ain’t it, Sammy?’ + +‘You’re a reprobate,’ replied Sam; ‘and I desire you won’t address no +more o’ them ungraceful remarks to me.’ + +So far from being edified by this very proper reply, the elder Mr. +Weller at once relapsed into a broad grin; and this inexorable conduct +causing the lady and Mr. Stiggins to close their eyes, and rock +themselves to and fro on their chairs, in a troubled manner, he +furthermore indulged in several acts of pantomime, indicative of a +desire to pummel and wring the nose of the aforesaid Stiggins, the +performance of which, appeared to afford him great mental relief. The +old gentleman very narrowly escaped detection in one instance; for Mr. +Stiggins happening to give a start on the arrival of the negus, brought +his head in smart contact with the clenched fist with which Mr. Weller +had been describing imaginary fireworks in the air, within two inches of +his ear, for some minutes. + +‘Wot are you a-reachin’ out, your hand for the tumbler in that ‘ere +sawage way for?’ said Sam, with great promptitude. ‘Don’t you see you’ve +hit the gen’l’m’n?’ + +‘I didn’t go to do it, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, in some degree abashed +by the very unexpected occurrence of the incident. + +‘Try an in’ard application, sir,’ said Sam, as the red-nosed gentleman +rubbed his head with a rueful visage. ‘Wot do you think o’ that, for a +go o’ wanity, warm, Sir?’ + +Mr. Stiggins made no verbal answer, but his manner was expressive. He +tasted the contents of the glass which Sam had placed in his hand, put +his umbrella on the floor, and tasted it again, passing his hand +placidly across his stomach twice or thrice; he then drank the whole at +a breath, and smacking his lips, held out the tumbler for more. + +Nor was Mrs. Weller behind-hand in doing justice to the composition. The +good lady began by protesting that she couldn’t touch a drop--then took +a small drop--then a large drop--then a great many drops; and her +feelings being of the nature of those substances which are powerfully +affected by the application of strong waters, she dropped a tear with +every drop of negus, and so got on, melting the feelings down, until at +length she had arrived at a very pathetic and decent pitch of misery. + +The elder Mr. Weller observed these signs and tokens with many +manifestations of disgust, and when, after a second jug of the same, Mr. +Stiggins began to sigh in a dismal manner, he plainly evinced his +disapprobation of the whole proceedings, by sundry incoherent ramblings +of speech, among which frequent angry repetitions of the word ‘gammon’ +were alone distinguishable to the ear. + +‘I’ll tell you wot it is, Samivel, my boy,’ whispered the old gentleman +into his son’s ear, after a long and steadfast contemplation of his lady +and Mr. Stiggins; ‘I think there must be somethin’ wrong in your mother- +in-law’s inside, as vell as in that o’ the red-nosed man.’ + +‘Wot do you mean?’ said Sam. + +‘I mean this here, Sammy,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘that wot they +drink, don’t seem no nourishment to ‘em; it all turns to warm water, and +comes a-pourin’ out o’ their eyes. ‘Pend upon it, Sammy, it’s a +constitootional infirmity.’ + + +Mr. Weller delivered this scientific opinion with many confirmatory +frowns and nods; which, Mrs. Weller remarking, and concluding that they +bore some disparaging reference either to herself or to Mr. Stiggins, or +to both, was on the point of becoming infinitely worse, when Mr. +Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver +an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company, but more +especially of Mr. Samuel, whom he adjured in moving terms to be upon his +guard in that sink of iniquity into which he was cast; to abstain from +all hypocrisy and pride of heart; and to take in all things exact +pattern and copy by him (Stiggins), in which case he might calculate on +arriving, sooner or later at the comfortable conclusion, that, like him, +he was a most estimable and blameless character, and that all his +acquaintances and friends were hopelessly abandoned and profligate +wretches. Which consideration, he said, could not but afford him the +liveliest satisfaction. + +He furthermore conjured him to avoid, above all things, the vice of +intoxication, which he likened unto the filthy habits of swine, and to +those poisonous and baleful drugs which being chewed in the mouth, are +said to filch away the memory. At this point of his discourse, the +reverend and red-nosed gentleman became singularly incoherent, and +staggering to and fro in the excitement of his eloquence, was fain to +catch at the back of a chair to preserve his perpendicular. + +Mr. Stiggins did not desire his hearers to be upon their guard against +those false prophets and wretched mockers of religion, who, without +sense to expound its first doctrines, or hearts to feel its first +principles, are more dangerous members of society than the common +criminal; imposing, as they necessarily do, upon the weakest and worst +informed, casting scorn and contempt on what should be held most sacred, +and bringing into partial disrepute large bodies of virtuous and well- +conducted persons of many excellent sects and persuasions. But as he +leaned over the back of the chair for a considerable time, and closing +one eye, winked a good deal with the other, it is presumed that he +thought all this, but kept it to himself. + +During the delivery of the oration, Mrs. Weller sobbed and wept at the +end of the paragraphs; while Sam, sitting cross-legged on a chair and +resting his arms on the top rail, regarded the speaker with great +suavity and blandness of demeanour; occasionally bestowing a look of +recognition on the old gentleman, who was delighted at the beginning, +and went to sleep about half-way. + +‘Brayvo; wery pretty!’ said Sam, when the red-nosed man having finished, +pulled his worn gloves on, thereby thrusting his fingers through the +broken tops till the knuckles were disclosed to view. ‘Wery pretty.’ + +‘I hope it may do you good, Samuel,’ said Mrs. Weller solemnly. + +‘I think it vill, mum,’ replied Sam. + +‘I wish I could hope that it would do your father good,’ said Mrs. +Weller. + +‘Thank’ee, my dear,’ said Mr. Weller, senior. ‘How do you find yourself +arter it, my love?’ + +‘Scoffer!’ exclaimed Mrs. Weller. + +‘Benighted man!’ said the Reverend Mr. Stiggins. + +‘If I don’t get no better light than that ‘ere moonshine o’ yourn, my +worthy creetur,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, ‘it’s wery likely as I shall +continey to be a night coach till I’m took off the road altogether. Now, +Mrs. We, if the piebald stands at livery much longer, he’ll stand at +nothin’ as we go back, and p’raps that ‘ere harm-cheer ‘ull be tipped +over into some hedge or another, with the shepherd in it.’ + +At this supposition, the Reverend Mr. Stiggins, in evident +consternation, gathered up his hat and umbrella, and proposed an +immediate departure, to which Mrs. Weller assented. Sam walked with them +to the lodge gate, and took a dutiful leave. + +‘A-do, Samivel,’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Wot’s a-do?’ inquired Sammy. + +‘Well, good-bye, then,’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Oh, that’s wot you’re aimin’ at, is it?’ said Sam. ‘Good-bye!’ + +‘Sammy,’ whispered Mr. Weller, looking cautiously round; ‘my duty to +your gov’nor, and tell him if he thinks better o’ this here bis’ness, to +com-moonicate vith me. Me and a cab’net-maker has dewised a plan for +gettin’ him out. A pianner, Samivel--a pianner!’ said Mr. Weller, +striking his son on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling +back a step or two. + +‘Wot do you mean?’ said Sam. + +‘A pianner-forty, Samivel,’ rejoined Mr. Weller, in a still more +mysterious manner, ‘as he can have on hire; vun as von’t play, Sammy.’ + +‘And wot ‘ud be the good o’ that?’ said Sam. + +‘Let him send to my friend, the cabinet-maker, to fetch it back, Sammy,’ +replied Mr. Weller. ‘Are you avake, now?’ + +‘No,’ rejoined Sam. + +‘There ain’t no vurks in it,’ whispered his father. ‘It ‘ull hold him +easy, vith his hat and shoes on, and breathe through the legs, vich his +holler. Have a passage ready taken for ‘Merriker. The ‘Merrikin gov’ment +will never give him up, ven vunce they find as he’s got money to spend, +Sammy. Let the gov’nor stop there, till Mrs. Bardell’s dead, or Mr. +Dodson and Fogg’s hung (wich last ewent I think is the most likely to +happen first, Sammy), and then let him come back and write a book about +the ‘Merrikins as’ll pay all his expenses and more, if he blows ‘em up +enough.’ + +Mr. Weller delivered this hurried abstract of his plot with great +vehemence of whisper; and then, as if fearful of weakening the effect of +the tremendous communication by any further dialogue, he gave the +coachman’s salute, and vanished. + +Sam had scarcely recovered his usual composure of countenance, which had +been greatly disturbed by the secret communication of his respected +relative, when Mr. Pickwick accosted him. + +‘Sam,’ said that gentleman. + +‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘I am going for a walk round the prison, and I wish you to attend me. I +see a prisoner we know coming this way, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +smiling. + +‘Wich, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller; ‘the gen’l’m’n vith the head o’ hair, +or the interestin’ captive in the stockin’s?’ + +‘Neither,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘He is an older friend of yours, Sam.’ + +‘O’ mine, Sir?’ exclaimed Mr. Weller. + +‘You recollect the gentleman very well, I dare say, Sam,’ replied Mr. +Pickwick, ‘or else you are more unmindful of your old acquaintances than +I think you are. Hush! not a word, Sam; not a syllable. Here he is.’ + +As Mr. Pickwick spoke, Jingle walked up. He looked less miserable than +before, being clad in a half-worn suit of clothes, which, with Mr. +Pickwick’s assistance, had been released from the pawnbroker’s. He wore +clean linen too, and had had his hair cut. He was very pale and thin, +however; and as he crept slowly up, leaning on a stick, it was easy to +see that he had suffered severely from illness and want, and was still +very weak. He took off his hat as Mr. Pickwick saluted him, and seemed +much humbled and abashed at the sight of Sam Weller. + +Following close at his heels, came Mr. Job Trotter, in the catalogue of +whose vices, want of faith and attachment to his companion could at all +events find no place. He was still ragged and squalid, but his face was +not quite so hollow as on his first meeting with Mr. Pickwick, a few +days before. As he took off his hat to our benevolent old friend, he +murmured some broken expressions of gratitude, and muttered something +about having been saved from starving. + +‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, impatiently interrupting him, ‘you can +follow with Sam. I want to speak to you, Mr. Jingle. Can you walk +without his arm?’ + +‘Certainly, sir--all ready--not too fast--legs shaky--head queer--round +and round--earthquaky sort of feeling--very.’ + +‘Here, give me your arm,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘No, no,’ replied Jingle; ‘won’t indeed--rather not.’ + +‘Nonsense,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘lean upon me, I desire, Sir.’ + +Seeing that he was confused and agitated, and uncertain what to do, Mr. +Pickwick cut the matter short by drawing the invalided stroller’s arm +through his, and leading him away, without saying another word about it. + +During the whole of this time the countenance of Mr. Samuel Weller had +exhibited an expression of the most overwhelming and absorbing +astonishment that the imagination can portray. After looking from Job to +Jingle, and from Jingle to Job in profound silence, he softly ejaculated +the words, ‘Well, I _am_ damn’d!’ which he repeated at least a score of +times; after which exertion, he appeared wholly bereft of speech, and +again cast his eyes, first upon the one and then upon the other, in mute +perplexity and bewilderment. + +‘Now, Sam!’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking back. + +‘I’m a-comin’, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, mechanically following his +master; and still he lifted not his eyes from Mr. Job Trotter, who +walked at his side in silence. + +Job kept his eyes fixed on the ground for some time. Sam, with his glued +to Job’s countenance, ran up against the people who were walking about, +and fell over little children, and stumbled against steps and railings, +without appearing at all sensible of it, until Job, looking stealthily +up, said-- + +‘How do you do, Mr. Weller?’ + +‘It _is_ him!’ exclaimed Sam; and having established Job’s identity +beyond all doubt, he smote his leg, and vented his feelings in a long, +shrill whistle. + +‘Things has altered with me, sir,’ said Job. + +‘I should think they had,’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, surveying his +companion’s rags with undisguised wonder. ‘This is rayther a change for +the worse, Mr. Trotter, as the gen’l’m’n said, wen he got two doubtful +shillin’s and sixpenn’orth o’ pocket-pieces for a good half-crown.’ + +‘It is indeed,’ replied Job, shaking his head. ‘There is no deception +now, Mr. Weller. Tears,’ said Job, with a look of momentary slyness-- +‘tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones.’ + +‘No, they ain’t,’ replied Sam expressively. + +‘They may be put on, Mr. Weller,’ said Job. + +‘I know they may,’ said Sam; ‘some people, indeed, has ‘em always ready +laid on, and can pull out the plug wenever they likes.’ + +‘Yes,’ replied Job; ‘but these sort of things are not so easily +counterfeited, Mr. Weller, and it is a more painful process to get them +up.’ As he spoke, he pointed to his sallow, sunken cheeks, and, drawing +up his coat sleeve, disclosed an arm which looked as if the bone could +be broken at a touch, so sharp and brittle did it appear, beneath its +thin covering of flesh. + +‘Wot have you been a-doin’ to yourself?’ said Sam, recoiling. + +‘Nothing,’ replied Job. + +‘Nothin’!’ echoed Sam. + +‘I have been doin’ nothing for many weeks past,’ said Job; and eating +and drinking almost as little.’ + +Sam took one comprehensive glance at Mr. Trotter’s thin face and +wretched apparel; and then, seizing him by the arm, commenced dragging +him away with great violence. + +‘Where are you going, Mr. Weller?’ said Job, vainly struggling in the +powerful grasp of his old enemy. + +‘Come on,’ said Sam; ‘come on!’ He deigned no further explanation till +they reached the tap, and then called for a pot of porter, which was +speedily produced. + +‘Now,’ said Sam, ‘drink that up, ev’ry drop on it, and then turn the pot +upside down, to let me see as you’ve took the medicine.’ + +‘But, my dear Mr. Weller,’ remonstrated Job. + +‘Down vith it!’ said Sam peremptorily. + +Thus admonished, Mr. Trotter raised the pot to his lips, and, by gentle +and almost imperceptible degrees, tilted it into the air. He paused +once, and only once, to draw a long breath, but without raising his face +from the vessel, which, in a few moments thereafter, he held out at +arm’s length, bottom upward. Nothing fell upon the ground but a few +particles of froth, which slowly detached themselves from the rim, and +trickled lazily down. + +‘Well done!’ said Sam. ‘How do you find yourself arter it?’ + +‘Better, Sir. I think I am better,’ responded Job. + +‘O’ course you air,’ said Sam argumentatively. ‘It’s like puttin’ gas in +a balloon. I can see with the naked eye that you gets stouter under the +operation. Wot do you say to another o’ the same dimensions?’ + +‘I would rather not, I am much obliged to you, Sir,’ replied Job--‘much +rather not.’ + +‘Vell, then, wot do you say to some wittles?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Thanks to your worthy governor, Sir,’ said Mr. Trotter, ‘we have half a +leg of mutton, baked, at a quarter before three, with the potatoes under +it to save boiling.’ + +‘Wot! Has _he_ been a-purwidin’ for you?’ asked Sam emphatically. + +‘He has, Sir,’ replied Job. ‘More than that, Mr. Weller; my master being +very ill, he got us a room--we were in a kennel before--and paid for it, +Sir; and come to look at us, at night, when nobody should know. Mr. +Weller,’ said Job, with real tears in his eyes, for once, ‘I could serve +that gentleman till I fell down dead at his feet.’ + +‘I say!’ said Sam, ‘I’ll trouble you, my friend! None o’ that!’ + +Job Trotter looked amazed. + +‘None o’ that, I say, young feller,’ repeated Sam firmly. ‘No man serves +him but me. And now we’re upon it, I’ll let you into another secret +besides that,’ said Sam, as he paid for the beer. ‘I never heerd, mind +you, or read of in story-books, nor see in picters, any angel in tights +and gaiters--not even in spectacles, as I remember, though that may ha’ +been done for anythin’ I know to the contrairey--but mark my vords, Job +Trotter, he’s a reg’lar thoroughbred angel for all that; and let me see +the man as wenturs to tell me he knows a better vun.’ With this +defiance, Mr. Weller buttoned up his change in a side pocket, and, with +many confirmatory nods and gestures by the way, proceeded in search of +the subject of discourse. + +They found Mr. Pickwick, in company with Jingle, talking very earnestly, +and not bestowing a look on the groups who were congregated on the +racket-ground; they were very motley groups too, and worth the looking +at, if it were only in idle curiosity. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as Sam and his companion drew nigh, ‘you will +see how your health becomes, and think about it meanwhile. Make the +statement out for me when you feel yourself equal to the task, and I +will discuss the subject with you when I have considered it. Now, go to +your room. You are tired, and not strong enough to be out long.’ + +Mr. Alfred Jingle, without one spark of his old animation--with nothing +even of the dismal gaiety which he had assumed when Mr. Pickwick first +stumbled on him in his misery--bowed low without speaking, and, +motioning to Job not to follow him just yet, crept slowly away. + +‘Curious scene this, is it not, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking good- +humouredly round. + +‘Wery much so, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Wonders ‘ull never cease,’ added Sam, +speaking to himself. ‘I’m wery much mistaken if that ‘ere Jingle worn’t +a-doin somethin’ in the water-cart way!’ + +The area formed by the wall in that part of the Fleet in which Mr. +Pickwick stood was just wide enough to make a good racket-court; one +side being formed, of course, by the wall itself, and the other by that +portion of the prison which looked (or rather would have looked, but for +the wall) towards St. Paul’s Cathedral. Sauntering or sitting about, in +every possible attitude of listless idleness, were a great number of +debtors, the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day +of ‘going up’ before the Insolvent Court should arrive; while others had +been remanded for various terms, which they were idling away as they +best could. Some were shabby, some were smart, many dirty, a few clean; +but there they all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about with as little +spirit or purpose as the beasts in a menagerie. + +Lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade were a +number of persons, some in noisy conversation with their acquaintance +below, others playing at ball with some adventurous throwers outside, +others looking on at the racket-players, or watching the boys as they +cried the game. Dirty, slipshod women passed and repassed, on their way +to the cooking-house in one corner of the yard; children screamed, and +fought, and played together, in another; the tumbling of the skittles, +and the shouts of the players, mingled perpetually with these and a +hundred other sounds; and all was noise and tumult--save in a little +miserable shed a few yards off, where lay, all quiet and ghastly, the +body of the Chancery prisoner who had died the night before, awaiting +the mockery of an inquest. The body! It is the lawyer’s term for the +restless, whirling mass of cares and anxieties, affections, hopes, and +griefs, that make up the living man. The law had his body; and there it +lay, clothed in grave-clothes, an awful witness to its tender mercy. + +‘Would you like to see a whistling-shop, Sir?’ inquired Job Trotter. + +‘What do you mean?’ was Mr. Pickwick’s counter inquiry. + +‘A vistlin’ shop, Sir,’ interposed Mr. Weller. + +‘What is that, Sam?--A bird-fancier’s?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Bless your heart, no, Sir,’ replied Job; ‘a whistling-shop, Sir, is +where they sell spirits.’ Mr. Job Trotter briefly explained here, that +all persons, being prohibited under heavy penalties from conveying +spirits into debtors’ prisons, and such commodities being highly prized +by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein, it had occurred to some +speculative turnkey to connive, for certain lucrative considerations, at +two or three prisoners retailing the favourite article of gin, for their +own profit and advantage. + +‘This plan, you see, Sir, has been gradually introduced into all the +prisons for debt,’ said Mr. Trotter. + +‘And it has this wery great advantage,’ said Sam, ‘that the turnkeys +takes wery good care to seize hold o’ ev’rybody but them as pays ‘em, +that attempts the willainy, and wen it gets in the papers they’re +applauded for their wigilance; so it cuts two ways--frightens other +people from the trade, and elewates their own characters.’ + +‘Exactly so, Mr. Weller,’ observed Job. + +‘Well, but are these rooms never searched to ascertain whether any +spirits are concealed in them?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Cert’nly they are, Sir,’ replied Sam; ‘but the turnkeys knows +beforehand, and gives the word to the wistlers, and you may wistle for +it wen you go to look.’ + +By this time, Job had tapped at a door, which was opened by a gentleman +with an uncombed head, who bolted it after them when they had walked in, +and grinned; upon which Job grinned, and Sam also; whereupon Mr. +Pickwick, thinking it might be expected of him, kept on smiling to the +end of the interview. + +The gentleman with the uncombed head appeared quite satisfied with this +mute announcement of their business, and, producing a flat stone bottle, +which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath his bedstead, +filled out three glasses of gin, which Job Trotter and Sam disposed of +in a most workmanlike manner. + +‘Any more?’ said the whistling gentleman. + +‘No more,’ replied Job Trotter. + +Mr. Pickwick paid, the door was unbolted, and out they came; the +uncombed gentleman bestowing a friendly nod upon Mr. Roker, who happened +to be passing at the moment. + +From this spot, Mr. Pickwick wandered along all the galleries, up and +down all the staircases, and once again round the whole area of the +yard. The great body of the prison population appeared to be Mivins, and +Smangle, and the parson, and the butcher, and the leg, over and over, +and over again. There were the same squalor, the same turmoil and noise, +the same general characteristics, in every corner; in the best and the +worst alike. The whole place seemed restless and troubled; and the +people were crowding and flitting to and fro, like the shadows in an +uneasy dream. + +‘I have seen enough,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he threw himself into a +chair in his little apartment. ‘My head aches with these scenes, and my +heart too. Henceforth I will be a prisoner in my own room.’ + +And Mr. Pickwick steadfastly adhered to this determination. For three +long months he remained shut up, all day; only stealing out at night to +breathe the air, when the greater part of his fellow-prisoners were in +bed or carousing in their rooms. His health was beginning to suffer from +the closeness of the confinement, but neither the often-repeated +entreaties of Perker and his friends, nor the still more frequently- +repeated warnings and admonitions of Mr. Samuel Weller, could induce him +to alter one jot of his inflexible resolution. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. RECORDS A TOUCHING ACT OF DELICATE FEELING, NOT UNMIXED +WITH PLEASANTRY, ACHIEVED AND PERFORMED BY Messrs. DODSON AND FOGG + +It was within a week of the close of the month of July, that a hackney +cabriolet, number unrecorded, was seen to proceed at a rapid pace up +Goswell Street; three people were squeezed into it besides the driver, +who sat in his own particular little dickey at the side; over the apron +were hung two shawls, belonging to two small vixenish-looking ladies +under the apron; between whom, compressed into a very small compass, was +stowed away, a gentleman of heavy and subdued demeanour, who, whenever +he ventured to make an observation, was snapped up short by one of the +vixenish ladies before-mentioned. Lastly, the two vixenish ladies and +the heavy gentleman were giving the driver contradictory directions, all +tending to the one point, that he should stop at Mrs. Bardell’s door; +which the heavy gentleman, in direct opposition to, and defiance of, the +vixenish ladies, contended was a green door and not a yellow one. + +‘Stop at the house with a green door, driver,’ said the heavy gentleman. + +‘Oh! You perwerse creetur!’ exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies. ‘Drive +to the ‘ouse with the yellow door, cabmin.’ + +Upon this the cabman, who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house +with the green door, had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly +pulled him backward into the cabriolet, let the animal’s fore-legs down +to the ground again, and paused. + +‘Now vere am I to pull up?’ inquired the driver. ‘Settle it among +yourselves. All I ask is, vere?’ + +Here the contest was renewed with increased violence; and the horse +being troubled with a fly on his nose, the cabman humanely employed his +leisure in lashing him about on the head, on the counter-irritation +principle. + +‘Most wotes carries the day!’ said one of the vixenish ladies at length. +‘The ‘ouse with the yellow door, cabman.’ + +But after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the house +with the yellow door, ‘making,’ as one of the vixenish ladies +triumphantly said, ‘acterrally more noise than if one had come in one’s +own carriage,’ and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies +in getting out, the small round head of Master Thomas Bardell was thrust +out of the one-pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers +off. + +‘Aggrawatin’ thing!’ said the vixenish lady last-mentioned, darting a +withering glance at the heavy gentleman. + +‘My dear, it’s not my fault,’ said the gentleman. + +‘Don’t talk to me, you creetur, don’t,’ retorted the lady. ‘The house +with the red door, cabmin. Oh! If ever a woman was troubled with a +ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and a pleasure in disgracing his +wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, I am that woman!’ + +‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Raddle,’ said the other little +woman, who was no other than Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘What have I been a-doing of?’ asked Mr. Raddle. + +‘Don’t talk to me, don’t, you brute, for fear I should be perwoked to +forgit my sect and strike you!’ said Mrs. Raddle. + +While this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously +leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door, +which Master Bardell had already opened. Here was a mean and low way of +arriving at a friend’s house! No dashing up, with all the fire and fury +of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the +door; no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment, for +fear of the ladies sitting in a draught; and then the man handing the +shawls out, afterwards, as if he were a private coachman! The whole edge +of the thing had been taken off--it was flatter than walking. + +‘Well, Tommy,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, ‘how’s your poor dear mother?’ + +‘Oh, she’s very well,’ replied Master Bardell. ‘She’s in the front +parlour, all ready. I’m ready too, I am.’ Here Master Bardell put his +hands in his pockets, and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door. + +‘Is anybody else a-goin’, Tommy?’ said Mrs. Cluppins, arranging her +pelerine. + +‘Mrs. Sanders is going, she is,’ replied Tommy; ‘I’m going too, I am.’ + +‘Drat the boy,’ said little Mrs. Cluppins. ‘He thinks of nobody but +himself. Here, Tommy, dear.’ + +‘Well,’ said Master Bardell. + +‘Who else is a-goin’, lovey?’ said Mrs. Cluppins, in an insinuating +manner. + +‘Oh! Mrs. Rogers is a-goin’,’ replied Master Bardell, opening his eyes +very wide as he delivered the intelligence. + +‘What? The lady as has taken the lodgings!’ ejaculated Mrs. Cluppins. + +Master Bardell put his hands deeper down into his pockets, and nodded +exactly thirty-five times, to imply that it was the lady-lodger, and no +other. + +‘Bless us!’ said Mrs. Cluppins. ‘It’s quite a party!’ + +‘Ah, if you knew what was in the cupboard, you’d say so,’ replied Master +Bardell. + +‘What is there, Tommy?’ said Mrs. Cluppins coaxingly. ‘You’ll tell _me_, +Tommy, I know.’ + +No, I won’t,’ replied Master Bardell, shaking his head, and applying +himself to the bottom step again. + +‘Drat the child!’ muttered Mrs. Cluppins. ‘What a prowokin’ little +wretch it is! Come, Tommy, tell your dear Cluppy.’ + +‘Mother said I wasn’t to,’ rejoined Master Bardell, ‘I’m a-goin’ to have +some, I am.’ Cheered by this prospect, the precocious boy applied +himself to his infantile treadmill, with increased vigour. + +The above examination of a child of tender years took place while Mr. +and Mrs. Raddle and the cab-driver were having an altercation concerning +the fare, which, terminating at this point in favour of the cabman, Mrs. +Raddle came up tottering. + +‘Lauk, Mary Ann! what’s the matter?’ said Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘It’s put me all over in such a tremble, Betsy,’ replied Mrs. Raddle. +‘Raddle ain’t like a man; he leaves everythink to me.’ + +This was scarcely fair upon the unfortunate Mr. Raddle, who had been +thrust aside by his good lady in the commencement of the dispute, and +peremptorily commanded to hold his tongue. He had no opportunity of +defending himself, however, for Mrs. Raddle gave unequivocal signs of +fainting; which, being perceived from the parlour window, Mrs. Bardell, +Mrs. Sanders, the lodger, and the lodger’s servant, darted precipitately +out, and conveyed her into the house, all talking at the same time, and +giving utterance to various expressions of pity and condolence, as if +she were one of the most suffering mortals on earth. Being conveyed into +the front parlour, she was there deposited on a sofa; and the lady from +the first floor running up to the first floor, returned with a bottle of +sal-volatile, which, holding Mrs. Raddle tight round the neck, she +applied in all womanly kindness and pity to her nose, until that lady +with many plunges and struggles was fain to declare herself decidedly +better. + +‘Ah, poor thing!’ said Mrs. Rogers, ‘I know what her feelin’s is, too +well.’ + +Ah, poor thing! so do I,’ said Mrs. Sanders; and then all the ladies +moaned in unison, and said they knew what it was, and they pitied her +from their hearts, they did. Even the lodger’s little servant, who was +thirteen years old and three feet high, murmured her sympathy. + +‘But what’s been the matter?’ said Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Ah, what has decomposed you, ma’am?’ inquired Mrs. Rogers. + +‘I have been a good deal flurried,’ replied Mrs. Raddle, in a +reproachful manner. Thereupon the ladies cast indignant glances at Mr. +Raddle. + +‘Why, the fact is,’ said that unhappy gentleman, stepping forward, ‘when +we alighted at this door, a dispute arose with the driver of the +cabrioily--’ A loud scream from his wife, at the mention of this word, +rendered all further explanation inaudible. + +‘You’d better leave us to bring her round, Raddle,’ said Mrs. Cluppins. +‘She’ll never get better as long as you’re here.’ + +All the ladies concurred in this opinion; so Mr. Raddle was pushed out +of the room, and requested to give himself an airing in the back yard. +Which he did for about a quarter of an hour, when Mrs. Bardell announced +to him with a solemn face that he might come in now, but that he must be +very careful how he behaved towards his wife. She knew he didn’t mean to +be unkind; but Mary Ann was very far from strong, and, if he didn’t take +care, he might lose her when he least expected it, which would be a very +dreadful reflection for him afterwards; and so on. All this, Mr. Raddle +heard with great submission, and presently returned to the parlour in a +most lamb-like manner. + +‘Why, Mrs. Rogers, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Bardell, ‘you’ve never been +introduced, I declare! Mr. Raddle, ma’am; Mrs. Cluppins, ma’am; Mrs. +Raddle, ma’am.’ + +‘Which is Mrs. Cluppins’s sister,’ suggested Mrs. Sanders. + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mrs. Rogers graciously; for she was the lodger, and +her servant was in waiting, so she was more gracious than intimate, in +right of her position. ‘Oh, indeed!’ + +Mrs. Raddle smiled sweetly, Mr. Raddle bowed, and Mrs. Cluppins said, +‘she was sure she was very happy to have an opportunity of being known +to a lady which she had heerd so much in favour of, as Mrs. Rogers.’ A +compliment which the last-named lady acknowledged with graceful +condescension. + +‘Well, Mr. Raddle,’ said Mrs. Bardell; ‘I’m sure you ought to feel very +much honoured at you and Tommy being the only gentlemen to escort so +many ladies all the way to the Spaniards, at Hampstead. Don’t you think +he ought, Mrs. Rogers, ma’am?’ + +Oh, certainly, ma’am,’ replied Mrs. Rogers; after whom all the other +ladies responded, ‘Oh, certainly.’ + +‘Of course I feel it, ma’am,’ said Mr. Raddle, rubbing his hands, and +evincing a slight tendency to brighten up a little. ‘Indeed, to tell you +the truth, I said, as we was a-coming along in the cabrioily--’ + +At the recapitulation of the word which awakened so many painful +recollections, Mrs. Raddle applied her handkerchief to her eyes again, +and uttered a half-suppressed scream; so that Mrs. Bardell frowned upon +Mr. Raddle, to intimate that he had better not say anything more, and +desired Mrs. Rogers’s servant, with an air, to ‘put the wine on.’ + +This was the signal for displaying the hidden treasures of the closet, +which comprised sundry plates of oranges and biscuits, and a bottle of +old crusted port--that at one-and-nine--with another of the celebrated +East India sherry at fourteen-pence, which were all produced in honour +of the lodger, and afforded unlimited satisfaction to everybody. After +great consternation had been excited in the mind of Mrs. Cluppins, by an +attempt on the part of Tommy to recount how he had been cross-examined +regarding the cupboard then in action (which was fortunately nipped in +the bud by his imbibing half a glass of the old crusted ‘the wrong way,’ +and thereby endangering his life for some seconds), the party walked +forth in quest of a Hampstead stage. This was soon found, and in a +couple of hours they all arrived safely in the Spaniards Tea-gardens, +where the luckless Mr. Raddle’s very first act nearly occasioned his +good lady a relapse; it being neither more nor less than to order tea +for seven, whereas (as the ladies one and all remarked), what could have +been easier than for Tommy to have drank out of anybody’s cup--or +everybody’s, if that was all--when the waiter wasn’t looking, which +would have saved one head of tea, and the tea just as good! + +However, there was no help for it, and the tea-tray came, with seven +cups and saucers, and bread-and-butter on the same scale. Mrs. Bardell +was unanimously voted into the chair, and Mrs. Rogers being stationed on +her right hand, and Mrs. Raddle on her left, the meal proceeded with +great merriment and success. + +‘How sweet the country is, to be sure!’ sighed Mrs. Rogers; ‘I almost +wish I lived in it always.’ + +‘Oh, you wouldn’t like that, ma’am,’ replied Mrs. Bardell, rather +hastily; for it was not at all advisable, with reference to the +lodgings, to encourage such notions; ‘you wouldn’t like it, ma’am.’ + +‘Oh! I should think you was a deal too lively and sought after, to be +content with the country, ma’am,’ said little Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘Perhaps I am, ma’am. Perhaps I am,’ sighed the first-floor lodger. + +‘For lone people as have got nobody to care for them, or take care of +them, or as have been hurt in their mind, or that kind of thing,’ +observed Mr. Raddle, plucking up a little cheerfulness, and looking +round, ‘the country is all very well. The country for a wounded spirit, +they say.’ + +Now, of all things in the world that the unfortunate man could have +said, any would have been preferable to this. Of course Mrs. Bardell +burst into tears, and requested to be led from the table instantly; upon +which the affectionate child began to cry too, most dismally. + +‘Would anybody believe, ma’am,’ exclaimed Mrs. Raddle, turning fiercely +to the first-floor lodger, ‘that a woman could be married to such a +unmanly creetur, which can tamper with a woman’s feelings as he does, +every hour in the day, ma’am?’ + +‘My dear,’ remonstrated Mr. Raddle, ‘I didn’t mean anything, my dear.’ + +‘You didn’t mean!’ repeated Mrs. Raddle, with great scorn and contempt. +‘Go away. I can’t bear the sight on you, you brute.’ + +‘You must not flurry yourself, Mary Ann,’ interposed Mrs. Cluppins. ‘You +really must consider yourself, my dear, which you never do. Now go away, +Raddle, there’s a good soul, or you’ll only aggravate her.’ + +‘You had better take your tea by yourself, Sir, indeed,’ said Mrs. +Rogers, again applying the smelling-bottle. + +Mrs. Sanders, who, according to custom, was very busy with the bread- +and-butter, expressed the same opinion, and Mr. Raddle quietly retired. + +After this, there was a great hoisting up of Master Bardell, who was +rather a large size for hugging, into his mother’s arms, in which +operation he got his boots in the tea-board, and occasioned some +confusion among the cups and saucers. But that description of fainting +fits, which is contagious among ladies, seldom lasts long; so when he +had been well kissed, and a little cried over, Mrs. Bardell recovered, +set him down again, wondering how she could have been so foolish, and +poured out some more tea. + +It was at this moment, that the sound of approaching wheels was heard, +and that the ladies, looking up, saw a hackney-coach stop at the garden +gate. + +‘More company!’ said Mrs. Sanders. + +‘It’s a gentleman,’ said Mrs. Raddle. + +‘Well, if it ain’t Mr. Jackson, the young man from Dodson and Fogg’s!’ +cried Mrs. Bardell. ‘Why, gracious! Surely Mr. Pickwick can’t have paid +the damages.’ + +‘Or hoffered marriage!’ said Mrs. Cluppins. + +‘Dear me, how slow the gentleman is,’ exclaimed Mrs. Rogers. ‘Why +doesn’t he make haste!’ + +As the lady spoke these words, Mr. Jackson turned from the coach where +he had been addressing some observations to a shabby man in black +leggings, who had just emerged from the vehicle with a thick ash stick +in his hand, and made his way to the place where the ladies were seated; +winding his hair round the brim of his hat, as he came along. + +‘Is anything the matter? Has anything taken place, Mr. Jackson?’ said +Mrs. Bardell eagerly. + +‘Nothing whatever, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Jackson. ‘How de do, ladies? I +have to ask pardon, ladies, for intruding--but the law, ladies--the +law.’ With this apology Mr. Jackson smiled, made a comprehensive bow, +and gave his hair another wind. Mrs. Rogers whispered Mrs. Raddle that +he was really an elegant young man. + +‘I called in Goswell Street,’ resumed Mr. Jackson, ‘and hearing that you +were here, from the slavey, took a coach and came on. Our people want +you down in the city directly, Mrs. Bardell.’ + +‘Lor!’ ejaculated that lady, starting at the sudden nature of the +communication. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Jackson, biting his lip. ‘It’s very important and +pressing business, which can’t be postponed on any account. Indeed, +Dodson expressly said so to me, and so did Fogg. I’ve kept the coach on +purpose for you to go back in.’ + +‘How very strange!’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. + +The ladies agreed that it _was _ very strange, but were unanimously of +opinion that it must be very important, or Dodson & Fogg would never +have sent; and further, that the business being urgent, she ought to +repair to Dodson & Fogg’s without any delay. + +There was a certain degree of pride and importance about being wanted by +one’s lawyers in such a monstrous hurry, that was by no means +displeasing to Mrs. Bardell, especially as it might be reasonably +supposed to enhance her consequence in the eyes of the first-floor +lodger. She simpered a little, affected extreme vexation and hesitation, +and at last arrived at the conclusion that she supposed she must go. + +‘But won’t you refresh yourself after your walk, Mr. Jackson?’ said Mrs. +Bardell persuasively. + +‘Why, really there ain’t much time to lose,’ replied Jackson; ‘and I’ve +got a friend here,’ he continued, looking towards the man with the ash +stick. + +‘Oh, ask your friend to come here, Sir,’ said Mrs. Bardell. ‘Pray ask +your friend here, Sir.’ + +‘Why, thank’ee, I’d rather not,’ said Mr. Jackson, with some +embarrassment of manner. ‘He’s not much used to ladies’ society, and it +makes him bashful. If you’ll order the waiter to deliver him anything +short, he won’t drink it off at once, won’t he!--only try him!’ Mr. +Jackson’s fingers wandered playfully round his nose at this portion of +his discourse, to warn his hearers that he was speaking ironically. + +The waiter was at once despatched to the bashful gentleman, and the +bashful gentleman took something; Mr. Jackson also took something, and +the ladies took something, for hospitality’s sake. Mr. Jackson then said +he was afraid it was time to go; upon which, Mrs. Sanders, Mrs. +Cluppins, and Tommy (who it was arranged should accompany Mrs. Bardell, +leaving the others to Mr. Raddle’s protection), got into the coach. + +‘Isaac,’ said Jackson, as Mrs. Bardell prepared to get in, looking up at +the man with the ash stick, who was seated on the box, smoking a cigar. + +‘Well?’ + +‘This is Mrs. Bardell.’ + +‘Oh, I know’d that long ago,’ said the man. + +Mrs. Bardell got in, Mr. Jackson got in after her, and away they drove. +Mrs. Bardell could not help ruminating on what Mr. Jackson’s friend had +said. Shrewd creatures, those lawyers. Lord bless us, how they find +people out! + +‘Sad thing about these costs of our people’s, ain’t it,’ said Jackson, +when Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders had fallen asleep; ‘your bill of +costs, I mean.’ + +‘I’m very sorry they can’t get them,’ replied Mrs. Bardell. ‘But if you +law gentlemen do these things on speculation, why you must get a loss +now and then, you know.’ + +‘You gave them a _cognovit _for the amount of your costs, after the +trial, I’m told!’ said Jackson. + +‘Yes. Just as a matter of form,’ replied Mrs. Bardell. + +‘Certainly,’ replied Jackson drily. ‘Quite a matter of form. Quite.’ + +On they drove, and Mrs. Bardell fell asleep. She was awakened, after +some time, by the stopping of the coach. + +‘Bless us!’ said the lady. ‘Are we at Freeman’s Court?’ + +‘We’re not going quite so far,’ replied Jackson. ‘Have the goodness to +step out.’ + +Mrs. Bardell, not yet thoroughly awake, complied. It was a curious +place: a large wall, with a gate in the middle, and a gas-light burning +inside. + + +‘Now, ladies,’ cried the man with the ash stick, looking into the coach, +and shaking Mrs. Sanders to wake her, ‘Come!’ Rousing her friend, Mrs. +Sanders alighted. Mrs. Bardell, leaning on Jackson’s arm, and leading +Tommy by the hand, had already entered the porch. They followed. + +The room they turned into was even more odd-looking than the porch. Such +a number of men standing about! And they stared so! + +‘What place is this?’ inquired Mrs. Bardell, pausing. + +‘Only one of our public offices,’ replied Jackson, hurrying her through +a door, and looking round to see that the other women were following. +‘Look sharp, Isaac!’ + +‘Safe and sound,’ replied the man with the ash stick. The door swung +heavily after them, and they descended a small flight of steps. + +‘Here we are at last. All right and tight, Mrs. Bardell!’ said Jackson, +looking exultingly round. + +‘What do you mean?’ said Mrs. Bardell, with a palpitating heart. + +‘Just this,’ replied Jackson, drawing her a little on one side; ‘don’t +be frightened, Mrs. Bardell. There never was a more delicate man than +Dodson, ma’am, or a more humane man than Fogg. It was their duty in the +way of business, to take you in execution for them costs; but they were +anxious to spare your feelings as much as they could. What a comfort it +must be, to you, to think how it’s been done! This is the Fleet, ma’am. +Wish you good-night, Mrs. Bardell. Good-night, Tommy!’ + +As Jackson hurried away in company with the man with the ash stick +another man, with a key in his hand, who had been looking on, led the +bewildered female to a second short flight of steps leading to a +doorway. Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared; Mrs. Cluppins +shrunk within herself; and Mrs. Sanders made off, without more ado. For +there stood the injured Mr. Pickwick, taking his nightly allowance of +air; and beside him leant Samuel Weller, who, seeing Mrs. Bardell, took +his hat off with mock reverence, while his master turned indignantly on +his heel. + +‘Don’t bother the woman,’ said the turnkey to Weller; ‘she’s just come +in.’ + +‘A prisoner!’ said Sam, quickly replacing his hat. ‘Who’s the +plaintives? What for? Speak up, old feller.’ + +‘Dodson and Fogg,’ replied the man; ‘execution on _cognovit _for costs.’ + +‘Here, Job, Job!’ shouted Sam, dashing into the passage. ‘Run to Mr. +Perker’s, Job. I want him directly. I see some good in this. Here’s a +game. Hooray! vere’s the gov’nor?’ + +But there was no reply to these inquiries, for Job had started furiously +off, the instant he received his commission, and Mrs. Bardell had +fainted in real downright earnest. + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. IS CHIEFLY DEVOTED TO MATTERS OF BUSINESS, AND THE +TEMPORAL ADVANTAGE OF DODSON AND FOGG--MR. WINKLE REAPPEARS UNDER +EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES--MR. PICKWICK’S BENEVOLENCE PROVES STRONGER +THAN HIS OBSTINACY + +Job Trotter, abating nothing of his speed, ran up Holborn, sometimes in +the middle of the road, sometimes on the pavement, sometimes in the +gutter, as the chances of getting along varied with the press of men, +women, children, and coaches, in each division of the thoroughfare, and, +regardless of all obstacles stopped not for an instant until he reached +the gate of Gray’s Inn. Notwithstanding all the expedition he had used, +however, the gate had been closed a good half-hour when he reached it, +and by the time he had discovered Mr. Perker’s laundress, who lived with +a married daughter, who had bestowed her hand upon a non-resident +waiter, who occupied the one-pair of some number in some street closely +adjoining to some brewery somewhere behind Gray’s Inn Lane, it was +within fifteen minutes of closing the prison for the night. Mr. Lowten +had still to be ferreted out from the back parlour of the Magpie and +Stump; and Job had scarcely accomplished this object, and communicated +Sam Weller’s message, when the clock struck ten. + +‘There,’ said Lowten, ‘it’s too late now. You can’t get in to-night; +you’ve got the key of the street, my friend.’ + +‘Never mind me,’ replied Job. ‘I can sleep anywhere. But won’t it be +better to see Mr. Perker to-night, so that we may be there, the first +thing in the morning?’ + +‘Why,’ responded Lowten, after a little consideration, ‘if it was in +anybody else’s case, Perker wouldn’t be best pleased at my going up to +his house; but as it’s Mr. Pickwick’s, I think I may venture to take a +cab and charge it to the office.’ Deciding on this line of conduct, Mr. +Lowten took up his hat, and begging the assembled company to appoint a +deputy-chairman during his temporary absence, led the way to the nearest +coach-stand. Summoning the cab of most promising appearance, he directed +the driver to repair to Montague Place, Russell Square. + +Mr. Perker had had a dinner-party that day, as was testified by the +appearance of lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an +improved grand piano, and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom, +and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and +entry. In fact, a couple of very good country agencies happening to come +up to town, at the same time, an agreeable little party had been got +together to meet them, comprising Mr. Snicks, the Life Office Secretary, +Mr. Prosee, the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one commissioner of +bankrupts, a special pleader from the Temple, a small-eyed peremptory +young gentleman, his pupil, who had written a lively book about the law +of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references; and +several other eminent and distinguished personages. From this society, +little Mr. Perker detached himself, on his clerk being announced in a +whisper; and repairing to the dining-room, there found Mr. Lowten and +Job Trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen +candle, which the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts +and cottons for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for +the clerk and all things appertaining to ‘the office,’ placed upon the +table. + +‘Now, Lowten,’ said little Mr. Perker, shutting the door, ‘what’s the +matter? No important letter come in a parcel, is there?’ + +‘No, Sir,’ replied Lowten. ‘This is a messenger from Mr. Pickwick, Sir.’ + +‘From Pickwick, eh?’ said the little man, turning quickly to Job. ‘Well, +what is it?’ + +‘Dodson and Fogg have taken Mrs. Bardell in execution for her costs, +Sir,’ said Job. + +‘No!’ exclaimed Perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining +against the sideboard. + +‘Yes,’ said Job. ‘It seems they got a cognovit out of her, for the +amount of ‘em, directly after the trial.’ + +‘By Jove!’ said Perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and +striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, +emphatically, ‘those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do +with!’ + +‘The sharpest practitioners I ever knew, Sir,’ observed Lowten. + +‘Sharp!’ echoed Perker. ‘There’s no knowing where to have them.’ + +‘Very true, Sir, there is not,’ replied Lowten; and then, both master +and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if +they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious +discoveries that the intellect of man had ever made. When they had in +some measure recovered from their trance of admiration, Job Trotter +discharged himself of the rest of his commission. Perker nodded his head +thoughtfully, and pulled out his watch. + +‘At ten precisely, I will be there,’ said the little man. ‘Sam is quite +right. Tell him so. Will you take a glass of wine, Lowten?’ + +No, thank you, Sir.’ + +‘You mean yes, I think,’ said the little man, turning to the sideboard +for a decanter and glasses. + +As Lowten _did _mean yes, he said no more on the subject, but inquired +of Job, in an audible whisper, whether the portrait of Perker, which +hung opposite the fireplace, wasn’t a wonderful likeness, to which Job +of course replied that it was. The wine being by this time poured out, +Lowten drank to Mrs. Perker and the children, and Job to Perker. The +gentleman in the plush shorts and cottons considering it no part of his +duty to show the people from the office out, consistently declined to +answer the bell, and they showed themselves out. The attorney betook +himself to his drawing-room, the clerk to the Magpie and Stump, and Job +to Covent Garden Market to spend the night in a vegetable basket. + +Punctually at the appointed hour next morning, the good-humoured little +attorney tapped at Mr. Pickwick’s door, which was opened with great +alacrity by Sam Weller. + +‘Mr. Perker, sir,’ said Sam, announcing the visitor to Mr. Pickwick, who +was sitting at the window in a thoughtful attitude. ‘Wery glad you’ve +looked in accidentally, Sir. I rather think the gov’nor wants to have a +word and a half with you, Sir.’ + +Perker bestowed a look of intelligence on Sam, intimating that he +understood he was not to say he had been sent for; and beckoning him to +approach, whispered briefly in his ear. + +‘You don’t mean that ‘ere, Sir?’ said Sam, starting back in excessive +surprise. + +Perker nodded and smiled. + +Mr. Samuel Weller looked at the little lawyer, then at Mr. Pickwick, +then at the ceiling, then at Perker again; grinned, laughed outright, +and finally, catching up his hat from the carpet, without further +explanation, disappeared. + +‘What does this mean?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Perker with +astonishment. ‘What has put Sam into this extraordinary state?’ + +‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ replied Perker. ‘Come, my dear Sir, draw up your +chair to the table. I have a good deal to say to you.’ + +‘What papers are those?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, as the little man +deposited on the table a small bundle of documents tied with red tape. + +‘The papers in Bardell and Pickwick,’ replied Perker, undoing the knot +with his teeth. + +Mr. Pickwick grated the legs of his chair against the ground; and +throwing himself into it, folded his hands and looked sternly--if Mr. +Pickwick ever could look sternly--at his legal friend. + +‘You don’t like to hear the name of the cause?’ said the little man, +still busying himself with the knot. + +‘No, I do not indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Sorry for that,’ resumed Perker, ‘because it will form the subject of +our conversation.’ + +‘I would rather that the subject should be never mentioned between us, +Perker,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick hastily. + +‘Pooh, pooh, my dear Sir,’ said the little man, untying the bundle, and +glancing eagerly at Mr. Pickwick out of the corners of his eyes. ‘It +must be mentioned. I have come here on purpose. Now, are you ready to +hear what I have to say, my dear Sir? No hurry; if you are not, I can +wait. I have this morning’s paper here. Your time shall be mine. There!’ +Hereupon, the little man threw one leg over the other, and made a show +of beginning to read with great composure and application. + +‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a sigh, but softening into a smile +at the same time. ‘Say what you have to say; it’s the old story, I +suppose?’ + +‘With a difference, my dear Sir; with a difference,’ rejoined Perker, +deliberately folding up the paper and putting it into his pocket again. +‘Mrs. Bardell, the plaintiff in the action, is within these walls, Sir.’ + +‘I know it,’ was Mr. Pickwick’s reply. + +‘Very good,’ retorted Perker. ‘And you know how she comes here, I +suppose; I mean on what grounds, and at whose suit?’ + +‘Yes; at least I have heard Sam’s account of the matter,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, with affected carelessness. + +‘Sam’s account of the matter,’ replied Perker, ‘is, I will venture to +say, a perfectly correct one. Well now, my dear Sir, the first question +I have to ask, is, whether this woman is to remain here?’ + +‘To remain here!’ echoed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘To remain here, my dear Sir,’ rejoined Perker, leaning back in his +chair and looking steadily at his client. + +‘How can you ask me?’ said that gentleman. ‘It rests with Dodson and +Fogg; you know that very well.’ + +‘I know nothing of the kind,’ retorted Perker firmly. ‘It does _not +_rest with Dodson and Fogg; you know the men, my dear Sir, as well as I +do. It rests solely, wholly, and entirely with you.’ + +‘With me!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, rising nervously from his chair, and +reseating himself directly afterwards. + +The little man gave a double-knock on the lid of his snuff-box, opened +it, took a great pinch, shut it up again, and repeated the words, ‘With +you.’ + +‘I say, my dear Sir,’ resumed the little man, who seemed to gather +confidence from the snuff--‘I say, that her speedy liberation or +perpetual imprisonment rests with you, and with you alone. Hear me out, +my dear Sir, if you please, and do not be so very energetic, for it will +only put you into a perspiration and do no good whatever. I say,’ +continued Perker, checking off each position on a different finger, as +he laid it down--‘I say that nobody but you can rescue her from this den +of wretchedness; and that you can only do that, by paying the costs of +this suit--both of plaintive and defendant--into the hands of these +Freeman Court sharks. Now pray be quiet, my dear sir.’ + +Mr. Pickwick, whose face had been undergoing most surprising changes +during this speech, and was evidently on the verge of a strong burst of +indignation, calmed his wrath as well as he could. Perker, strengthening +his argumentative powers with another pinch of snuff, proceeded-- + +‘I have seen the woman, this morning. By paying the costs, you can +obtain a full release and discharge from the damages; and further--this +I know is a far greater object of consideration with you, my dear sir--a +voluntary statement, under her hand, in the form of a letter to me, that +this business was, from the very first, fomented, and encouraged, and +brought about, by these men, Dodson and Fogg; that she deeply regrets +ever having been the instrument of annoyance or injury to you; and that +she entreats me to intercede with you, and implore your pardon.’ + +‘If I pay her costs for her,’ said Mr. Pickwick indignantly. ‘A valuable +document, indeed!’ + +‘No “if” in the case, my dear Sir,’ said Perker triumphantly. ‘There is +the very letter I speak of. Brought to my office by another woman at +nine o’clock this morning, before I had set foot in this place, or held +any communication with Mrs. Bardell, upon my honour.’ Selecting the +letter from the bundle, the little lawyer laid it at Mr. Pickwick’s +elbow, and took snuff for two consecutive minutes, without winking. + +‘Is this all you have to say to me?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick mildly. + +‘Not quite,’ replied Perker. ‘I cannot undertake to say, at this moment, +whether the wording of the cognovit, the nature of the ostensible +consideration, and the proof we can get together about the whole conduct +of the suit, will be sufficient to justify an indictment for conspiracy. +I fear not, my dear Sir; they are too clever for that, I doubt. I do +mean to say, however, that the whole facts, taken together, will be +sufficient to justify you, in the minds of all reasonable men. And now, +my dear Sir, I put it to you. This one hundred and fifty pounds, or +whatever it may be--take it in round numbers--is nothing to you. A jury +had decided against you; well, their verdict is wrong, but still they +decided as they thought right, and it _is_ against you. You have now an +opportunity, on easy terms, of placing yourself in a much higher +position than you ever could, by remaining here; which would only be +imputed, by people who didn’t know you, to sheer dogged, wrongheaded, +brutal obstinacy; nothing else, my dear Sir, believe me. Can you +hesitate to avail yourself of it, when it restores you to your friends, +your old pursuits, your health and amusements; when it liberates your +faithful and attached servant, whom you otherwise doom to imprisonment +for the whole of your life; and above all, when it enables you to take +the very magnanimous revenge--which I know, my dear sir, is one after +your own heart--of releasing this woman from a scene of misery and +debauchery, to which no man should ever be consigned, if I had my will, +but the infliction of which on any woman, is even more frightful and +barbarous. Now I ask you, my dear sir, not only as your legal adviser, +but as your very true friend, will you let slip the occasion of +attaining all these objects, and doing all this good, for the paltry +consideration of a few pounds finding their way into the pockets of a +couple of rascals, to whom it makes no manner of difference, except that +the more they gain, the more they’ll seek, and so the sooner be led into +some piece of knavery that must end in a crash? I have put these +considerations to you, my dear Sir, very feebly and imperfectly, but I +ask you to think of them. Turn them over in your mind as long as you +please. I wait here most patiently for your answer.’ + + +Before Mr. Pickwick could reply, before Mr. Perker had taken one +twentieth part of the snuff with which so unusually long an address +imperatively required to be followed up, there was a low murmuring of +voices outside, and then a hesitating knock at the door. + +‘Dear, dear,’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had been evidently roused by +his friend’s appeal; ‘what an annoyance that door is! Who is that?’ + +‘Me, Sir,’ replied Sam Weller, putting in his head. + +‘I can’t speak to you just now, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am engaged +at this moment, Sam.’ + +‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘But here’s a lady here, +Sir, as says she’s somethin’ wery partickler to disclose.’ + +‘I can’t see any lady,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, whose mind was filled with +visions of Mrs. Bardell. + +‘I wouldn’t make too sure o’ that, Sir,’ urged Mr. Weller, shaking his +head. ‘If you know’d who was near, sir, I rayther think you’d change +your note; as the hawk remarked to himself vith a cheerful laugh, ven he +heerd the robin-redbreast a-singin’ round the corner.’ + +‘Who is it?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Will you see her, Sir?’ asked Mr. Weller, holding the door in his hand +as if he had some curious live animal on the other side. + +‘I suppose I must,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking at Perker. + +‘Well then, all in to begin!’ cried Sam. ‘Sound the gong, draw up the +curtain, and enter the two conspiraytors.’ + +As Sam Weller spoke, he threw the door open, and there rushed +tumultuously into the room, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, leading after him by +the hand, the identical young lady who at Dingley Dell had worn the +boots with the fur round the tops, and who, now a very pleasing compound +of blushes and confusion, and lilac silk, and a smart bonnet, and a rich +lace veil, looked prettier than ever. + +‘Miss Arabella Allen!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, rising from his chair. + +‘No,’ replied Mr. Winkle, dropping on his knees. ‘Mrs. Winkle. Pardon, +my dear friend, pardon!’ + +Mr. Pickwick could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses, and +perhaps would not have done so, but for the corroborative testimony +afforded by the smiling countenance of Perker, and the bodily presence, +in the background, of Sam and the pretty housemaid; who appeared to +contemplate the proceedings with the liveliest satisfaction. + +‘Oh, Mr. Pickwick!’ said Arabella, in a low voice, as if alarmed at the +silence. ‘Can you forgive my imprudence?’ + +Mr. Pickwick returned no verbal response to this appeal; but he took off +his spectacles in great haste, and seizing both the young lady’s hands +in his, kissed her a great number of times--perhaps a greater number +than was absolutely necessary--and then, still retaining one of her +hands, told Mr. Winkle he was an audacious young dog, and bade him get +up. This, Mr. Winkle, who had been for some seconds scratching his nose +with the brim of his hat, in a penitent manner, did; whereupon Mr. +Pickwick slapped him on the back several times, and then shook hands +heartily with Perker, who, not to be behind-hand in the compliments of +the occasion, saluted both the bride and the pretty housemaid with right +good-will, and, having wrung Mr. Winkle’s hand most cordially, wound up +his demonstrations of joy by taking snuff enough to set any half-dozen +men with ordinarily-constructed noses, a-sneezing for life. + +‘Why, my dear girl,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘how has all this come about? +Come! Sit down, and let me hear it all. How well she looks, doesn’t she, +Perker?’ added Mr. Pickwick, surveying Arabella’s face with a look of as +much pride and exultation, as if she had been his daughter. + +‘Delightful, my dear Sir,’ replied the little man. ‘If I were not a +married man myself, I should be disposed to envy you, you dog.’ Thus +expressing himself, the little lawyer gave Mr. Winkle a poke in the +chest, which that gentleman reciprocated; after which they both laughed +very loudly, but not so loudly as Mr. Samuel Weller, who had just +relieved his feelings by kissing the pretty housemaid under cover of the +cupboard door. + +‘I can never be grateful enough to you, Sam, I am sure,’ said Arabella, +with the sweetest smile imaginable. ‘I shall not forget your exertions +in the garden at Clifton.’ + +‘Don’t say nothin’ wotever about it, ma’am,’ replied Sam. ‘I only +assisted natur, ma’am; as the doctor said to the boy’s mother, after +he’d bled him to death.’ + +‘Mary, my dear, sit down,’ said Mr. Pickwick, cutting short these +compliments. ‘Now then; how long have you been married, eh?’ + +Arabella looked bashfully at her lord and master, who replied, ‘Only +three days.’ + +‘Only three days, eh?’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Why, what have you been doing +these three months?’ + +‘Ah, to be sure!’ interposed Perker; ‘come, account for this idleness. +You see Mr. Pickwick’s only astonishment is, that it wasn’t all over, +months ago.’ + +‘Why the fact is,’ replied Mr. Winkle, looking at his blushing young +wife, ‘that I could not persuade Bella to run away, for a long time. And +when I had persuaded her, it was a long time more before we could find +an opportunity. Mary had to give a month’s warning, too, before she +could leave her place next door, and we couldn’t possibly have done it +without her assistance.’ + +Upon my word,’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who by this time had resumed his +spectacles, and was looking from Arabella to Winkle, and from Winkle to +Arabella, with as much delight depicted in his countenance as +warmheartedness and kindly feeling can communicate to the human face-- +‘upon my word! you seem to have been very systematic in your +proceedings. And is your brother acquainted with all this, my dear?’ + +‘Oh, no, no,’ replied Arabella, changing colour. ‘Dear Mr. Pickwick, he +must only know it from you--from your lips alone. He is so violent, so +prejudiced, and has been so--so anxious in behalf of his friend, Mr. +Sawyer,’ added Arabella, looking down, ‘that I fear the consequences +dreadfully.’ + +‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Perker gravely. ‘You must take this matter in +hand for them, my dear sir. These young men will respect you, when they +would listen to nobody else. You must prevent mischief, my dear Sir. Hot +blood, hot blood.’ And the little man took a warning pinch, and shook +his head doubtfully. + +‘You forget, my love,’ said Mr. Pickwick gently, ‘you forget that I am a +prisoner.’ + +‘No, indeed I do not, my dear Sir,’ replied Arabella. ‘I never have +forgotten it. I have never ceased to think how great your sufferings +must have been in this shocking place. But I hoped that what no +consideration for yourself would induce you to do, a regard to our +happiness might. If my brother hears of this, first, from you, I feel +certain we shall be reconciled. He is my only relation in the world, Mr. +Pickwick, and unless you plead for me, I fear I have lost even him. I +have done wrong, very, very wrong, I know.’ Here poor Arabella hid her +face in her handkerchief, and wept bitterly. + +Mr. Pickwick’s nature was a good deal worked upon, by these same tears; +but when Mrs. Winkle, drying her eyes, took to coaxing and entreating in +the sweetest tones of a very sweet voice, he became particularly +restless, and evidently undecided how to act, as was evinced by sundry +nervous rubbings of his spectacle-glasses, nose, tights, head, and +gaiters. + +Taking advantage of these symptoms of indecision, Mr. Perker (to whom, +it appeared, the young couple had driven straight that morning) urged +with legal point and shrewdness that Mr. Winkle, senior, was still +unacquainted with the important rise in life’s flight of steps which his +son had taken; that the future expectations of the said son depended +entirely upon the said Winkle, senior, continuing to regard him with +undiminished feelings of affection and attachment, which it was very +unlikely he would, if this great event were long kept a secret from him; +that Mr. Pickwick, repairing to Bristol to seek Mr. Allen, might, with +equal reason, repair to Birmingham to seek Mr. Winkle, senior; lastly, +that Mr. Winkle, senior, had good right and title to consider Mr. +Pickwick as in some degree the guardian and adviser of his son, and that +it consequently behoved that gentleman, and was indeed due to his +personal character, to acquaint the aforesaid Winkle, senior, +personally, and by word of mouth, with the whole circumstances of the +case, and with the share he had taken in the transaction. + +Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass arrived, most opportunely, in this stage of +the pleadings, and as it was necessary to explain to them all that had +occurred, together with the various reasons pro and con, the whole of +the arguments were gone over again, after which everybody urged every +argument in his own way, and at his own length. And, at last, Mr. +Pickwick, fairly argued and remonstrated out of all his resolutions, and +being in imminent danger of being argued and remonstrated out of his +wits, caught Arabella in his arms, and declaring that she was a very +amiable creature, and that he didn’t know how it was, but he had always +been very fond of her from the first, said he could never find it in his +heart to stand in the way of young people’s happiness, and they might do +with him as they pleased. + +Mr. Weller’s first act, on hearing this concession, was to despatch Job +Trotter to the illustrious Mr. Pell, with an authority to deliver to the +bearer the formal discharge which his prudent parent had had the +foresight to leave in the hands of that learned gentleman, in case it +should be, at any time, required on an emergency; his next proceeding +was, to invest his whole stock of ready-money in the purchase of five- +and-twenty gallons of mild porter, which he himself dispensed on the +racket-ground to everybody who would partake of it; this done, he +hurra’d in divers parts of the building until he lost his voice, and +then quietly relapsed into his usual collected and philosophical +condition. + +At three o’clock that afternoon, Mr. Pickwick took a last look at his +little room, and made his way, as well as he could, through the throng +of debtors who pressed eagerly forward to shake him by the hand, until +he reached the lodge steps. He turned here, to look about him, and his +eye lightened as he did so. In all the crowd of wan, emaciated faces, he +saw not one which was not happier for his sympathy and charity. + +‘Perker,’ said Mr. Pickwick, beckoning one young man towards him, ‘this +is Mr. Jingle, whom I spoke to you about.’ + +‘Very good, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker, looking hard at Jingle. ‘You +will see me again, young man, to-morrow. I hope you may live to remember +and feel deeply, what I shall have to communicate, Sir.’ + +Jingle bowed respectfully, trembled very much as he took Mr. Pickwick’s +proffered hand, and withdrew. + +‘Job you know, I think?’ said Mr. Pickwick, presenting that gentleman. + +‘I know the rascal,’ replied Perker good-humouredly. ‘See after your +friend, and be in the way to-morrow at one. Do you hear? Now, is there +anything more?’ + +‘Nothing,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘You have delivered the little parcel +I gave you for your old landlord, Sam?’ + +‘I have, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘He bust out a-cryin’, Sir, and said you wos +wery gen’rous and thoughtful, and he only wished you could have him +innockilated for a gallopin’ consumption, for his old friend as had +lived here so long wos dead, and he’d noweres to look for another.’ + +Poor fellow, poor fellow!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘God bless you, my +friends!’ + +As Mr. Pickwick uttered this adieu, the crowd raised a loud shout. Many +among them were pressing forward to shake him by the hand again, when he +drew his arm through Perker’s, and hurried from the prison, far more sad +and melancholy, for the moment, than when he had first entered it. Alas! +how many sad and unhappy beings had he left behind! + +A happy evening was that for at least one party in the George and +Vulture; and light and cheerful were two of the hearts that emerged from +its hospitable door next morning. The owners thereof were Mr. Pickwick +and Sam Weller, the former of whom was speedily deposited inside a +comfortable post-coach, with a little dickey behind, in which the latter +mounted with great agility. + +‘Sir,’ called out Mr. Weller to his master. + +‘Well, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, thrusting his head out of the window. + +‘I wish them horses had been three months and better in the Fleet, Sir.’ + +‘Why, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wy, Sir,’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, rubbing his hands, ‘how they would go +if they had been!’ + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. RELATES HOW MR. PICKWICK, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF SAMUEL +WELLER, ESSAYED TO SOFTEN THE HEART OF MR. BENJAMIN ALLEN, AND TO +MOLLIFY THE WRATH OF MR. ROBERT SAWYER + +Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer sat together in the little surgery +behind the shop, discussing minced veal and future prospects, when the +discourse, not unnaturally, turned upon the practice acquired by Bob the +aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence +from the honourable profession to which he had devoted himself. + +‘Which, I think,’ observed Mr. Bob Sawyer, pursuing the thread of the +subject--‘which, I think, Ben, are rather dubious.’ + +‘What’s rather dubious?’ inquired Mr. Ben Allen, at the same time +sharpening his intellect with a draught of beer. ‘What’s dubious?’ + +‘Why, the chances,’ responded Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘I forgot,’ said Mr. Ben Allen. ‘The beer has reminded me that I forgot, +Bob--yes; they _are _dubious.’ + +‘It’s wonderful how the poor people patronise me,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer +reflectively. ‘They knock me up, at all hours of the night; they take +medicine to an extent which I should have conceived impossible; they put +on blisters and leeches with a perseverance worthy of a better cause; +they make additions to their families, in a manner which is quite awful. +Six of those last-named little promissory notes, all due on the same +day, Ben, and all intrusted to me!’ + +‘It’s very gratifying, isn’t it?’ said Mr. Ben Allen, holding his plate +for some more minced veal. + +‘Oh, very,’ replied Bob; ‘only not quite so much so as the confidence of +patients with a shilling or two to spare would be. This business was +capitally described in the advertisement, Ben. It is a practice, a very +extensive practice--and that’s all.’ + +‘Bob,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, laying down his knife and fork, and fixing +his eyes on the visage of his friend, ‘Bob, I’ll tell you what it is.’ + +‘What is it?’ inquired Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘You must make yourself, with as little delay as possible, master of +Arabella’s one thousand pounds.’ + +‘Three per cent. consolidated bank annuities, now standing in her name +in the book or books of the governor and company of the Bank of +England,’ added Bob Sawyer, in legal phraseology. + +‘Exactly so,’ said Ben. ‘She has it when she comes of age, or marries. +She wants a year of coming of age, and if you plucked up a spirit she +needn’t want a month of being married.’ + +‘She’s a very charming and delightful creature,’ quoth Mr. Robert +Sawyer, in reply; ‘and has only one fault that I know of, Ben. It +happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. She +don’t like me.’ + +‘It’s my opinion that she don’t know what she does like,’ said Mr. Ben +Allen contemptuously. + +‘Perhaps not,’ remarked Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘But it’s my opinion that she +does know what she doesn’t like, and that’s of more importance.’ + +‘I wish,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, setting his teeth together, and speaking +more like a savage warrior who fed on raw wolf’s flesh which he carved +with his fingers, than a peaceable young gentleman who ate minced veal +with a knife and fork--‘I wish I knew whether any rascal really has been +tampering with her, and attempting to engage her affections. I think I +should assassinate him, Bob.’ + +‘I’d put a bullet in him, if I found him out,’ said Mr. Sawyer, stopping +in the course of a long draught of beer, and looking malignantly out of +the porter pot. ‘If that didn’t do his business, I’d extract it +afterwards, and kill him that way.’ + +Mr. Benjamin Allen gazed abstractedly on his friend for some minutes in +silence, and then said-- + +‘You have never proposed to her, point-blank, Bob?’ + +‘No. Because I saw it would be of no use,’ replied Mr. Robert Sawyer. + +‘You shall do it, before you are twenty-four hours older,’ retorted Ben, +with desperate calmness. ‘She shall have you, or I’ll know the reason +why. I’ll exert my authority.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer, ‘we shall see.’ + +‘We shall see, my friend,’ replied Mr. Ben Allen fiercely. He paused for +a few seconds, and added in a voice broken by emotion, ‘You have loved +her from a child, my friend. You loved her when we were boys at school +together, and, even then, she was wayward and slighted your young +feelings. Do you recollect, with all the eagerness of a child’s love, +one day pressing upon her acceptance, two small caraway-seed biscuits +and one sweet apple, neatly folded into a circular parcel with the leaf +of a copy-book?’ + +‘I do,’ replied Bob Sawyer. + +‘She slighted that, I think?’ said Ben Allen. + +‘She did,’ rejoined Bob. ‘She said I had kept the parcel so long in the +pockets of my corduroys, that the apple was unpleasantly warm.’ + +‘I remember,’ said Mr. Allen gloomily. ‘Upon which we ate it ourselves, +in alternate bites.’ + +Bob Sawyer intimated his recollection of the circumstance last alluded +to, by a melancholy frown; and the two friends remained for some time +absorbed, each in his own meditations. + +While these observations were being exchanged between Mr. Bob Sawyer and +Mr. Benjamin Allen; and while the boy in the gray livery, marvelling at +the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from time +to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings +regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved +for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets +of Bristol, a private fly, painted of a sad green colour, drawn by a +chubby sort of brown horse, and driven by a surly-looking man with his +legs dressed like the legs of a groom, and his body attired in the coat +of a coachman. Such appearances are common to many vehicles belonging +to, and maintained by, old ladies of economic habits; and in this +vehicle sat an old lady who was its mistress and proprietor. + +‘Martin!’ said the old lady, calling to the surly man, out of the front +window. + +‘Well?’ said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady. + +‘Mr. Sawyer’s,’ said the old lady. + +‘I was going there,’ said the surly man. + +The old lady nodded the satisfaction which this proof of the surly man’s +foresight imparted to her feelings; and the surly man giving a smart +lash to the chubby horse, they all repaired to Mr. Bob Sawyer’s +together. + +‘Martin!’ said the old lady, when the fly stopped at the door of Mr. +Robert Sawyer, late Nockemorf. + +‘Well?’ said Martin. + +‘Ask the lad to step out, and mind the horse.’ + +‘I’m going to mind the horse myself,’ said Martin, laying his whip on +the roof of the fly. + +‘I can’t permit it, on any account,’ said the old lady; ‘your testimony +will be very important, and I must take you into the house with me. You +must not stir from my side during the whole interview. Do you hear?’ + +‘I hear,’ replied Martin. + +‘Well; what are you stopping for?’ + +‘Nothing,’ replied Martin. So saying, the surly man leisurely descended +from the wheel, on which he had been poising himself on the tops of the +toes of his right foot, and having summoned the boy in the gray livery, +opened the coach door, flung down the steps, and thrusting in a hand +enveloped in a dark wash-leather glove, pulled out the old lady with as +much unconcern in his manner as if she were a bandbox. + +‘Dear me!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘I am so flurried, now I have got +here, Martin, that I’m all in a tremble.’ + +Mr. Martin coughed behind the dark wash-leather gloves, but expressed no +sympathy; so the old lady, composing herself, trotted up Mr. Bob +Sawyer’s steps, and Mr. Martin followed. Immediately on the old lady’s +entering the shop, Mr. Benjamin Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been +putting the spirits-and-water out of sight, and upsetting nauseous drugs +to take off the smell of the tobacco smoke, issued hastily forth in a +transport of pleasure and affection. + +‘My dear aunt,’ exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, ‘how kind of you to look in +upon us! Mr. Sawyer, aunt; my friend Mr. Bob Sawyer whom I have spoken +to you about, regarding--you know, aunt.’ And here Mr. Ben Allen, who +was not at the moment extraordinarily sober, added the word ‘Arabella,’ +in what was meant to be a whisper, but which was an especially audible +and distinct tone of speech which nobody could avoid hearing, if anybody +were so disposed. + +‘My dear Benjamin,’ said the old lady, struggling with a great shortness +of breath, and trembling from head to foot, ‘don’t be alarmed, my dear, +but I think I had better speak to Mr. Sawyer, alone, for a moment. Only +for one moment.’ + +‘Bob,’ said Mr. Allen, ‘will you take my aunt into the surgery?’ + +‘Certainly,’ responded Bob, in a most professional voice. ‘Step this +way, my dear ma’am. Don’t be frightened, ma’am. We shall be able to set +you to rights in a very short time, I have no doubt, ma’am. Here, my +dear ma’am. Now then!’ With this, Mr. Bob Sawyer having handed the old +lady to a chair, shut the door, drew another chair close to her, and +waited to hear detailed the symptoms of some disorder from which he saw +in perspective a long train of profits and advantages. + +The first thing the old lady did, was to shake her head a great many +times, and began to cry. + +‘Nervous,’ said Bob Sawyer complacently. ‘Camphor-julep and water three +times a day, and composing draught at night.’ + +‘I don’t know how to begin, Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady. ‘It is so +very painful and distressing.’ + +‘You need not begin, ma’am,’ rejoined Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘I can anticipate +all you would say. The head is in fault.’ + +‘I should be very sorry to think it was the heart,’ said the old lady, +with a slight groan. + +‘Not the slightest danger of that, ma’am,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘The +stomach is the primary cause.’ + +‘Mr. Sawyer!’ exclaimed the old lady, starting. + +‘Not the least doubt of it, ma’am,’ rejoined Bob, looking wondrous wise. +‘Medicine, in time, my dear ma’am, would have prevented it all.’ + +‘Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady, more flurried than before, ‘this +conduct is either great impertinence to one in my situation, Sir, or it +arises from your not understanding the object of my visit. If it had +been in the power of medicine, or any foresight I could have used, to +prevent what has occurred, I should certainly have done so. I had better +see my nephew at once,’ said the old lady, twirling her reticule +indignantly, and rising as she spoke. + +‘Stop a moment, ma’am,’ said Bob Sawyer; ‘I’m afraid I have not +understood you. What _is_ the matter, ma’am?’ + +‘My niece, Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady: ‘your friend’s sister.’ + +‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bob, all impatience; for the old lady, although much +agitated, spoke with the most tantalising deliberation, as old ladies +often do. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ + +‘Left my home, Mr. Sawyer, three days ago, on a pretended visit to my +sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school, just +beyond the third mile-stone, where there is a very large laburnum-tree +and an oak gate,’ said the old lady, stopping in this place to dry her +eyes. + +‘Oh, devil take the laburnum-tree, ma’am!’ said Bob, quite forgetting +his professional dignity in his anxiety. ‘Get on a little faster; put a +little more steam on, ma’am, pray.’ + +‘This morning,’ said the old lady slowly--‘this morning, she--’ + +‘She came back, ma’am, I suppose,’ said Bob, with great animation. ‘Did +she come back?’ + +‘No, she did not; she wrote,’ replied the old lady. + +‘What did she say?’ inquired Bob eagerly. + +‘She said, Mr. Sawyer,’ replied the old lady--‘and it is this I want to +prepare Benjamin’s mind for, gently and by degrees; she said that she +was--I have got the letter in my pocket, Mr. Sawyer, but my glasses are +in the carriage, and I should only waste your time if I attempted to +point out the passage to you, without them; she said, in short, Mr. +Sawyer, that she was married.’ + +What!’ said, or rather shouted, Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘Married,’ repeated the old lady. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer stopped to hear no more; but darting from the surgery +into the outer shop, cried in a stentorian voice, ‘Ben, my boy, she’s +bolted!’ + +Mr. Ben Allen, who had been slumbering behind the counter, with his head +half a foot or so below his knees, no sooner heard this appalling +communication, than he made a precipitate rush at Mr. Martin, and, +twisting his hand in the neck-cloth of that taciturn servitor, expressed +an obliging intention of choking him where he stood. This intention, +with a promptitude often the effect of desperation, he at once commenced +carrying into execution, with much vigour and surgical skill. + +Mr. Martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but little power of +eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this operation with a very calm +and agreeable expression of countenance, for some seconds; finding, +however, that it threatened speedily to lead to a result which would +place it beyond his power to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all +time to come, he muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled Mr. +Benjamin Allen to the ground. As that gentleman had his hands entangled +in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor. +There they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and the party +was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected visitors, to wit, +Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Samuel Weller. + +The impression at once produced on Mr. Weller’s mind by what he saw, +was, that Mr. Martin was hired by the establishment of Sawyer, late +Nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into fits and be +experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and then with the view +of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes, or to do something or +other to promote the great science of medicine, and gratify the ardent +spirit of inquiry burning in the bosoms of its two young professors. So, +without presuming to interfere, Sam stood perfectly still, and looked +on, as if he were mightily interested in the result of the then pending +experiment. Not so, Mr. Pickwick. He at once threw himself on the +astonished combatants, with his accustomed energy, and loudly called +upon the bystanders to interpose. + +This roused Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been hitherto quite paralysed by the +frenzy of his companion. With that gentleman’s assistance, Mr. Pickwick +raised Ben Allen to his feet. Mr. Martin finding himself alone on the +floor, got up, and looked about him. + +‘Mr. Allen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what is the matter, Sir?’ + +‘Never mind, Sir!’ replied Mr. Allen, with haughty defiance. + +‘What is it?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Bob Sawyer. ‘Is he +unwell?’ + +Before Bob could reply, Mr. Ben Allen seized Mr. Pickwick by the hand, +and murmured, in sorrowful accents, ‘My sister, my dear Sir; my sister.’ + +‘Oh, is that all!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘We shall easily arrange that +matter, I hope. Your sister is safe and well, and I am here, my dear +Sir, to--’ + +‘Sorry to do anythin’ as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant +proceedin’s, as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament,’ +interposed Mr. Weller, who had been peeping through the glass door; ‘but +there’s another experiment here, sir. Here’s a wenerable old lady a-- +lyin’ on the carpet waitin’ for dissection, or galwinism, or some other +rewivin’ and scientific inwention.’ + +‘I forgot,’ exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen. ‘It is my aunt.’ + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Poor lady! Gently Sam, gently.’ + +‘Strange sitivation for one o’ the family,’ observed Sam Weller, +hoisting the aunt into a chair. ‘Now depitty sawbones, bring out the +wollatilly!’ + +The latter observation was addressed to the boy in gray, who, having +handed over the fly to the care of the street-keeper, had come back to +see what all the noise was about. Between the boy in gray, and Mr. Bob +Sawyer, and Mr. Benjamin Allen (who having frightened his aunt into a +fainting fit, was affectionately solicitous for her recovery) the old +lady was at length restored to consciousness; then Mr. Ben Allen, +turning with a puzzled countenance to Mr. Pickwick, asked him what he +was about to say, when he had been so alarmingly interrupted. + +‘We are all friends here, I presume?’ said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his +voice, and looking towards the man of few words with the surly +countenance, who drove the fly with the chubby horse. + +This reminded Mr. Bob Sawyer that the boy in gray was looking on, with +eyes wide open, and greedy ears. The incipient chemist having been +lifted up by his coat collar, and dropped outside the door, Bob Sawyer +assured Mr. Pickwick that he might speak without reserve. + +‘Your sister, my dear Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning to Benjamin +Allen, ‘is in London; well and happy.’ + +‘Her happiness is no object to me, sir,’ said Benjamin Allen, with a +flourish of the hand. + +‘Her husband _is_ an object to _me_, Sir,’ said Bob Sawyer. ‘He shall be +an object to me, sir, at twelve paces, and a pretty object I’ll make of +him, sir--a mean-spirited scoundrel!’ This, as it stood, was a very +pretty denunciation, and magnanimous withal; but Mr. Bob Sawyer rather +weakened its effect, by winding up with some general observations +concerning the punching of heads and knocking out of eyes, which were +commonplace by comparison. + +‘Stay, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘before you apply those epithets to the +gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his +fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine.’ + +‘What!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘His name!’ cried Ben Allen. ‘His name!’ + +‘Mr. Nathaniel Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Mr. Benjamin Allen deliberately crushed his spectacles beneath the heel +of his boot, and having picked up the pieces, and put them into three +separate pockets, folded his arms, bit his lips, and looked in a +threatening manner at the bland features of Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Then it’s you, is it, Sir, who have encouraged and brought about this +match?’ inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen at length. + +‘And it’s this gentleman’s servant, I suppose,’ interrupted the old +lady, ‘who has been skulking about my house, and endeavouring to entrap +my servants to conspire against their mistress.--Martin!’ + +‘Well?’ said the surly man, coming forward. + +‘Is that the young man you saw in the lane, whom you told me about, this +morning?’ + +Mr. Martin, who, as it has already appeared, was a man of few words, +looked at Sam Weller, nodded his head, and growled forth, ‘That’s the +man.’ Mr. Weller, who was never proud, gave a smile of friendly +recognition as his eyes encountered those of the surly groom, and +admitted in courteous terms, that he had ‘knowed him afore.’ + +‘And this is the faithful creature,’ exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, ‘whom I +had nearly suffocated!--Mr. Pickwick, how dare you allow your fellow to +be employed in the abduction of my sister? I demand that you explain +this matter, sir.’ + +‘Explain it, sir!’ cried Bob Sawyer fiercely. + +‘It’s a conspiracy,’ said Ben Allen. + +‘A regular plant,’ added Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘A disgraceful imposition,’ observed the old lady. + +‘Nothing but a do,’ remarked Martin. + +‘Pray hear me,’ urged Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Ben Allen fell into a chair +that patients were bled in, and gave way to his pocket-handkerchief. ‘I +have rendered no assistance in this matter, beyond being present at one +interview between the young people which I could not prevent, and from +which I conceived my presence would remove any slight colouring of +impropriety that it might otherwise have had; this is the whole share I +have had in the transaction, and I had no suspicion that an immediate +marriage was even contemplated. Though, mind,’ added Mr. Pickwick, +hastily checking himself--‘mind, I do not say I should have prevented +it, if I had known that it was intended.’ + +‘You hear that, all of you; you hear that?’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +‘I hope they do,’ mildly observed Mr. Pickwick, looking round, ‘and,’ +added that gentleman, his colour mounting as he spoke, ‘I hope they hear +this, Sir, also. That from what has been stated to me, sir, I assert +that you were by no means justified in attempting to force your sister’s +inclinations as you did, and that you should rather have endeavoured by +your kindness and forbearance to have supplied the place of other nearer +relations whom she had never known, from a child. As regards my young +friend, I must beg to add, that in every point of worldly advantage he +is, at least, on an equal footing with yourself, if not on a much better +one, and that unless I hear this question discussed with becoming temper +and moderation, I decline hearing any more said upon the subject.’ + +‘I wish to make a wery few remarks in addition to wot has been put +for’ard by the honourable gen’l’m’n as has jist give over,’ said Mr. +Weller, stepping forth, ‘wich is this here: a indiwidual in company has +called me a feller.’ + +‘That has nothing whatever to do with the matter, Sam,’ interposed Mr. +Pickwick. ‘Pray hold your tongue.’ + +‘I ain’t a-goin’ to say nothin’ on that ‘ere pint, sir,’ replied Sam, +‘but merely this here. P’raps that gen’l’m’n may think as there wos a +priory ‘tachment; but there worn’t nothin’ o’ the sort, for the young +lady said in the wery beginnin’ o’ the keepin’ company, that she +couldn’t abide him. Nobody’s cut him out, and it ‘ud ha’ been jist the +wery same for him if the young lady had never seen Mr. Vinkle. That’s +what I wished to say, sir, and I hope I’ve now made that ‘ere +gen’l’m’n’s mind easy. + +A short pause followed these consolatory remarks of Mr. Weller. Then Mr. +Ben Allen rising from his chair, protested that he would never see +Arabella’s face again; while Mr. Bob Sawyer, despite Sam’s flattering +assurance, vowed dreadful vengeance on the happy bridegroom. + +But, just when matters were at their height, and threatening to remain +so, Mr. Pickwick found a powerful assistant in the old lady, who, +evidently much struck by the mode in which he had advocated her niece’s +cause, ventured to approach Mr. Benjamin Allen with a few comforting +reflections, of which the chief were, that after all, perhaps, it was +well it was no worse; the least said the soonest mended, and upon her +word she did not know that it was so very bad after all; what was over +couldn’t be begun, and what couldn’t be cured must be endured; with +various other assurances of the like novel and strengthening +description. To all of these, Mr. Benjamin Allen replied that he meant +no disrespect to his aunt, or anybody there, but if it were all the same +to them, and they would allow him to have his own way, he would rather +have the pleasure of hating his sister till death, and after it. + +At length, when this determination had been announced half a hundred +times, the old lady suddenly bridling up and looking very majestic, +wished to know what she had done that no respect was to be paid to her +years or station, and that she should be obliged to beg and pray, in +that way, of her own nephew, whom she remembered about five-and-twenty +years before he was born, and whom she had known, personally, when he +hadn’t a tooth in his head; to say nothing of her presence on the first +occasion of his having his hair cut, and assistance at numerous other +times and ceremonies during his babyhood, of sufficient importance to +found a claim upon his affection, obedience, and sympathies, for ever. + +While the good lady was bestowing this objurgation on Mr. Ben Allen, Bob +Sawyer and Mr. Pickwick had retired in close conversation to the inner +room, where Mr. Sawyer was observed to apply himself several times to +the mouth of a black bottle, under the influence of which, his features +gradually assumed a cheerful and even jovial expression. And at last he +emerged from the room, bottle in hand, and, remarking that he was very +sorry to say he had been making a fool of himself, begged to propose the +health and happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, whose felicity, so far from +envying, he would be the first to congratulate them upon. Hearing this, +Mr. Ben Allen suddenly arose from his chair, and, seizing the black +bottle, drank the toast so heartily, that, the liquor being strong, he +became nearly as black in the face as the bottle. Finally, the black +bottle went round till it was empty, and there was so much shaking of +hands and interchanging of compliments, that even the metal-visaged Mr. +Martin condescended to smile. + +‘And now,’ said Bob Sawyer, rubbing his hands, ‘we’ll have a jolly +night.’ + +‘I am sorry,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that I must return to my inn. I have +not been accustomed to fatigue lately, and my journey has tired me +exceedingly.’ + +‘You’ll take some tea, Mr. Pickwick?’ said the old lady, with +irresistible sweetness. + +‘Thank you, I would rather not,’ replied that gentleman. The truth is, +that the old lady’s evidently increasing admiration was Mr. Pickwick’s +principal inducement for going away. He thought of Mrs. Bardell; and +every glance of the old lady’s eyes threw him into a cold perspiration. + +As Mr. Pickwick could by no means be prevailed upon to stay, it was +arranged at once, on his own proposition, that Mr. Benjamin Allen should +accompany him on his journey to the elder Mr. Winkle’s, and that the +coach should be at the door, at nine o’clock next morning. He then took +his leave, and, followed by Samuel Weller, repaired to the Bush. It is +worthy of remark, that Mr. Martin’s face was horribly convulsed as he +shook hands with Sam at parting, and that he gave vent to a smile and an +oath simultaneously; from which tokens it has been inferred by those who +were best acquainted with that gentleman’s peculiarities, that he +expressed himself much pleased with Mr. Weller’s society, and requested +the honour of his further acquaintance. + +‘Shall I order a private room, Sir?’ inquired Sam, when they reached the +Bush. + +‘Why, no, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘as I dined in the coffee-room, +and shall go to bed soon, it is hardly worth while. See who there is in +the travellers’ room, Sam.’ + +Mr. Weller departed on his errand, and presently returned to say that +there was only a gentleman with one eye; and that he and the landlord +were drinking a bowl of bishop together. + +‘I will join them,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He’s a queer customer, the vun-eyed vun, sir,’ observed Mr. Weller, as +he led the way. ‘He’s a-gammonin’ that ‘ere landlord, he is, sir, till +he don’t rightly know wether he’s a-standing on the soles of his boots +or the crown of his hat.’ + +The individual to whom this observation referred, was sitting at the +upper end of the room when Mr. Pickwick entered, and was smoking a large +Dutch pipe, with his eye intently fixed on the round face of the +landlord; a jolly-looking old personage, to whom he had recently been +relating some tale of wonder, as was testified by sundry disjointed +exclamations of, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have believed it! The strangest thing +I ever heard! Couldn’t have supposed it possible!’ and other expressions +of astonishment which burst spontaneously from his lips, as he returned +the fixed gaze of the one-eyed man. + +‘Servant, sir,’ said the one-eyed man to Mr. Pickwick. ‘Fine night, +sir.’ + +‘Very much so indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, as the waiter placed a +small decanter of brandy, and some hot water before him. + +While Mr. Pickwick was mixing his brandy-and-water, the one-eyed man +looked round at him earnestly, from time to time, and at length said-- + +‘I think I’ve seen you before.’ + +‘I don’t recollect you,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I dare say not,’ said the one-eyed man. ‘You didn’t know me, but I knew +two friends of yours that were stopping at the Peacock at Eatanswill, at +the time of the election.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes,’ rejoined the one-eyed man. ‘I mentioned a little circumstance to +them about a friend of mine of the name of Tom Smart. Perhaps you’ve +heard them speak of it.’ + +‘Often,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling. ‘He was your uncle, I think?’ + +‘No, no; only a friend of my uncle’s,’ replied the one-eyed man. + +‘He was a wonderful man, that uncle of yours, though,’ remarked the +landlord shaking his head. + +‘Well, I think he was; I think I may say he was,’ answered the one-eyed +man. ‘I could tell you a story about that same uncle, gentlemen, that +would rather surprise you.’ + +‘Could you?’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Let us hear it, by all means.’ + +The one-eyed bagman ladled out a glass of negus from the bowl, and drank +it; smoked a long whiff out of the Dutch pipe; and then, calling to Sam +Weller who was lingering near the door, that he needn’t go away unless +he wanted to, because the story was no secret, fixed his eye upon the +landlord’s, and proceeded, in the words of the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN’S UNCLE + +My uncle, gentlemen,’ said the bagman, ‘was one of the merriest, +pleasantest, cleverest fellows, that ever lived. I wish you had known +him, gentlemen. On second thoughts, gentlemen, I don’t wish you had +known him, for if you had, you would have been all, by this time, in the +ordinary course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to +have taken to stopping at home and giving up company, which would have +deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of addressing you at this +moment. Gentlemen, I wish your fathers and mothers had known my uncle. +They would have been amazingly fond of him, especially your respectable +mothers; I know they would. If any two of his numerous virtues +predominated over the many that adorned his character, I should say they +were his mixed punch and his after-supper song. Excuse my dwelling on +these melancholy recollections of departed worth; you won’t see a man +like my uncle every day in the week. + +‘I have always considered it a great point in my uncle’s character, +gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of Tom Smart, +of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. My uncle +collected for Tiggin and Welps, but for a long time he went pretty near +the same journey as Tom; and the very first night they met, my uncle +took a fancy for Tom, and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. They made a bet +of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should +brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was +judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by +about half a salt-spoonful. They took another quart apiece to drink each +other’s health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. There’s a +destiny in these things, gentlemen; we can’t help it. + +‘In personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the middle +size; he was a thought stouter too, than the ordinary run of people, and +perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you +ever saw, gentleman: something like Punch, with a handsome nose and +chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good-humour; and +a smile--not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, +hearty, good-tempered smile--was perpetually on his countenance. He was +pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a +milestone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with some +gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use my uncle’s +own strong expression, if his mother could have revisited the earth, she +wouldn’t have known him. Indeed, when I come to think of the matter, +gentlemen, I feel pretty sure she wouldn’t, for she died when my uncle +was two years and seven months old, and I think it’s very likely that, +even without the gravel, his top-boots would have puzzled the good lady +not a little; to say nothing of his jolly red face. However, there he +lay, and I have heard my uncle say, many a time, that the man said who +picked him up that he was smiling as merrily as if he had tumbled out +for a treat, and that after they had bled him, the first faint +glimmerings of returning animation, were his jumping up in bed, bursting +out into a loud laugh, kissing the young woman who held the basin, and +demanding a mutton chop and a pickled walnut. He was very fond of +pickled walnuts, gentlemen. He said he always found that, taken without +vinegar, they relished the beer. + +‘My uncle’s great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which time he +collected debts, and took orders, in the north; going from London to +Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Glasgow back to Edinburgh, +and thence to London by the smack. You are to understand that his second +visit to Edinburgh was for his own pleasure. He used to go back for a +week, just to look up his old friends; and what with breakfasting with +this one, lunching with that, dining with the third, and supping with +another, a pretty tight week he used to make of it. I don’t know whether +any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real substantial hospitable +Scotch breakfast, and then went out to a slight lunch of a bushel of +oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whiskey to +close up with. If you ever did, you will agree with me that it requires +a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper afterwards. + +‘But bless your hearts and eyebrows, all this sort of thing was nothing +to my uncle! He was so well seasoned, that it was mere child’s play. I +have heard him say that he could see the Dundee people out, any day, and +walk home afterwards without staggering; and yet the Dundee people have +as strong heads and as strong punch, gentlemen, as you are likely to +meet with, between the poles. I have heard of a Glasgow man and a Dundee +man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. They +were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the same +moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they were not a bit +the worse for it. + +‘One night, within four-and-twenty hours of the time when he had settled +to take shipping for London, my uncle supped at the house of a very old +friend of his, a Bailie Mac something and four syllables after it, who +lived in the old town of Edinburgh. There were the bailie’s wife, and +the bailie’s three daughters, and the bailie’s grown-up son, and three +or four stout, bushy eye-browed, canny, old Scotch fellows, that the +bailie had got together to do honour to my uncle, and help to make +merry. It was a glorious supper. There was kippered salmon, and Finnan +haddocks, and a lamb’s head, and a haggis--a celebrated Scotch dish, +gentlemen, which my uncle used to say always looked to him, when it came +to table, very much like a Cupid’s stomach--and a great many other +things besides, that I forget the names of, but very good things, +notwithstanding. The lassies were pretty and agreeable; the bailie’s +wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my uncle was in +thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was, that the young ladies +tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the bailie +and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face, the +whole mortal time. I don’t quite recollect how many tumblers of whiskey- +toddy each man drank after supper; but this I know, that about one +o’clock in the morning, the bailie’s grown-up son became insensible +while attempting the first verse of “Willie brewed a peck o’ maut”; and +he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible +above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost time to +think about going, especially as drinking had set in at seven o’clock, +in order that he might get home at a decent hour. But, thinking it might +not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle voted himself into the +chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose his own health, addressed +himself in a neat and complimentary speech, and drank the toast with +great enthusiasm. Still nobody woke; so my uncle took a little drop +more--neat this time, to prevent the toddy from disagreeing with him-- +and, laying violent hands on his hat, sallied forth into the street. + +‘It was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie’s door, and +settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind from taking it, +thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking upward, took a short +survey of the state of the weather. The clouds were drifting over the +moon at their giddiest speed; at one time wholly obscuring her; at +another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendour and shed her +light on all the objects around; anon, driving over her again, with +increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. “Really, this +won’t do,” said my uncle, addressing himself to the weather, as if he +felt himself personally offended. “This is not at all the kind of thing +for my voyage. It will not do at any price,” said my uncle, very +impressively. Having repeated this, several times, he recovered his +balance with some difficulty--for he was rather giddy with looking up +into the sky so long--and walked merrily on. + +‘The bailie’s house was in the Canongate, and my uncle was going to the +other end of Leith Walk, rather better than a mile’s journey. On either +side of him, there shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling +houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed to have shared +the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and sunken with age. +Six, seven, eight storey high, were the houses; storey piled upon +storey, as children build with cards--throwing their dark shadows over +the roughly paved road, and making the dark night darker. A few oil +lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark the +dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair +communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various flats +above. Glancing at all these things with the air of a man who had seen +them too often before, to think them worthy of much notice now, my uncle +walked up the middle of the street, with a thumb in each waistcoat +pocket, indulging from time to time in various snatches of song, chanted +forth with such good-will and spirit, that the quiet honest folk started +from their first sleep and lay trembling in bed till the sound died away +in the distance; when, satisfying themselves that it was only some +drunken ne’er-do-weel finding his way home, they covered themselves up +warm and fell asleep again. + +‘I am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the middle of the +street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, gentlemen, because, as +he often used to say (and with great reason too) there is nothing at all +extraordinary in this story, unless you distinctly understand at the +beginning, that he was not by any means of a marvellous or romantic +turn. + +‘Gentlemen, my uncle walked on with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, +taking the middle of the street to himself, and singing, now a verse of +a love song, and then a verse of a drinking one, and when he was tired +of both, whistling melodiously, until he reached the North Bridge, +which, at this point, connects the old and new towns of Edinburgh. Here +he stopped for a minute, to look at the strange, irregular clusters of +lights piled one above the other, and twinkling afar off so high, that +they looked like stars, gleaming from the castle walls on the one side +and the Calton Hill on the other, as if they illuminated veritable +castles in the air; while the old picturesque town slept heavily on, in +gloom and darkness below: its palace and chapel of Holyrood, guarded day +and night, as a friend of my uncle’s used to say, by old Arthur’s Seat, +towering, surly and dark, like some gruff genius, over the ancient city +he has watched so long. I say, gentlemen, my uncle stopped here, for a +minute, to look about him; and then, paying a compliment to the weather, +which had a little cleared up, though the moon was sinking, walked on +again, as royally as before; keeping the middle of the road with great +dignity, and looking as if he would very much like to meet with somebody +who would dispute possession of it with him. There was nobody at all +disposed to contest the point, as it happened; and so, on he went, with +his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, like a lamb. + +‘When my uncle reached the end of Leith Walk, he had to cross a pretty +large piece of waste ground which separated him from a short street +which he had to turn down to go direct to his lodging. Now, in this +piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure belonging +to some wheelwright who contracted with the Post Office for the purchase +of old, worn-out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very fond of coaches, +old, young, or middle-aged, all at once took it into his head to step +out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between the palings at +these mails--about a dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded +together in a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. My uncle was a +very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen; so, finding that +he could not obtain a good peep between the palings he got over them, +and sitting himself quietly down on an old axle-tree, began to +contemplate the mail coaches with a deal of gravity. + +‘There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more--my uncle was +never quite certain on this point, and being a man of very scrupulous +veracity about numbers, didn’t like to say--but there they stood, all +huddled together in the most desolate condition imaginable. The doors +had been torn from their hinges and removed; the linings had been +stripped off, only a shred hanging here and there by a rusty nail; the +lamps were gone, the poles had long since vanished, the ironwork was +rusty, the paint was worn away; the wind whistled through the chinks in +the bare woodwork; and the rain, which had collected on the roofs, fell, +drop by drop, into the insides with a hollow and melancholy sound. They +were the decaying skeletons of departed mails, and in that lonely place, +at that time of night, they looked chill and dismal. + +‘My uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the busy, +bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the old coaches, +and were now as silent and changed; he thought of the numbers of people +to whom one of these crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night after +night, for many years, and through all weathers, the anxiously expected +intelligence, the eagerly looked-for remittance, the promised assurance +of health and safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. The +merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the school-boy, +the very child who tottered to the door at the postman’s knock--how had +they all looked forward to the arrival of the old coach. And where were +they all now? + +‘Gentlemen, my uncle used to _say _that he thought all this at the time, +but I rather suspect he learned it out of some book afterwards, for he +distinctly stated that he fell into a kind of doze, as he sat on the old +axle-tree looking at the decayed mail coaches, and that he was suddenly +awakened by some deep church bell striking two. Now, my uncle was never +a fast thinker, and if he had thought all these things, I am quite +certain it would have taken him till full half-past two o’clock at the +very least. I am, therefore, decidedly of opinion, gentlemen, that my +uncle fell into a kind of doze, without having thought about anything at +all. + +‘Be this as it may, a church bell struck two. My uncle woke, rubbed his +eyes, and jumped up in astonishment. + +‘In one instant, after the clock struck two, the whole of this deserted +and quiet spot had become a scene of most extraordinary life and +animation. The mail coach doors were on their hinges, the lining was +replaced, the ironwork was as good as new, the paint was restored, the +lamps were alight; cushions and greatcoats were on every coach-box, +porters were thrusting parcels into every boot, guards were stowing away +letter-bags, hostlers were dashing pails of water against the renovated +wheels; numbers of men were pushing about, fixing poles into every +coach; passengers arrived, portmanteaus were handed up, horses were put +to; in short, it was perfectly clear that every mail there, was to be +off directly. Gentlemen, my uncle opened his eyes so wide at all this, +that, to the very last moment of his life, he used to wonder how it fell +out that he had ever been able to shut ‘em again. + +‘“Now then!” said a voice, as my uncle felt a hand on his shoulder, +“you’re booked for one inside. You’d better get in.” + +‘“I booked!” said my uncle, turning round. + +‘“Yes, certainly.” + +‘My uncle, gentlemen, could say nothing, he was so very much astonished. +The queerest thing of all was that although there was such a crowd of +persons, and although fresh faces were pouring in, every moment, there +was no telling where they came from. They seemed to start up, in some +strange manner, from the ground, or the air, and disappear in the same +way. When a porter had put his luggage in the coach, and received his +fare, he turned round and was gone; and before my uncle had well begun +to wonder what had become of him, half a dozen fresh ones started up, +and staggered along under the weight of parcels, which seemed big enough +to crush them. The passengers were all dressed so oddly too! Large, +broad-skirted laced coats, with great cuffs and no collars; and wigs, +gentlemen--great formal wigs with a tie behind. My uncle could make +nothing of it. + + +‘“Now, are you going to get in?” said the person who had addressed my +uncle before. He was dressed as a mail guard, with a wig on his head and +most enormous cuffs to his coat, and had a lantern in one hand, and a +huge blunderbuss in the other, which he was going to stow away in his +little arm-chest. “_are _you going to get in, Jack Martin?” said the +guard, holding the lantern to my uncle’s face. + +‘“Hollo!” said my uncle, falling back a step or two. “That’s familiar!” + +‘“It’s so on the way-bill,” said the guard. + +‘“Isn’t there a ‘Mister’ before it?” said my uncle. For he felt, +gentlemen, that for a guard he didn’t know, to call him Jack Martin, was +a liberty which the Post Office wouldn’t have sanctioned if they had +known it. + +‘“No, there is not,” rejoined the guard coolly. + +‘“Is the fare paid?” inquired my uncle. + +‘“Of course it is,” rejoined the guard. + +‘“It is, is it?” said my uncle. “Then here goes! Which coach?” + +‘“This,” said the guard, pointing to an old-fashioned Edinburgh and +London mail, which had the steps down and the door open. “Stop! Here are +the other passengers. Let them get in first.” + +‘As the guard spoke, there all at once appeared, right in front of my +uncle, a young gentleman in a powdered wig, and a sky-blue coat trimmed +with silver, made very full and broad in the skirts, which were lined +with buckram. Tiggin and Welps were in the printed calico and waistcoat +piece line, gentlemen, so my uncle knew all the materials at once. He +wore knee breeches, and a kind of leggings rolled up over his silk +stockings, and shoes with buckles; he had ruffles at his wrists, a +three-cornered hat on his head, and a long taper sword by his side. The +flaps of his waist-coat came half-way down his thighs, and the ends of +his cravat reached to his waist. He stalked gravely to the coach door, +pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm’s length, cocking +his little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people +do, when they take a cup of tea. Then he drew his feet together, and +made a low, grave bow, and then put out his left hand. My uncle was just +going to step forward, and shake it heartily, when he perceived that +these attentions were directed, not towards him, but to a young lady who +just then appeared at the foot of the steps, attired in an old-fashioned +green velvet dress with a long waist and stomacher. She had no bonnet on +her head, gentlemen, which was muffled in a black silk hood, but she +looked round for an instant as she prepared to get into the coach, and +such a beautiful face as she disclosed, my uncle had never seen--not +even in a picture. She got into the coach, holding up her dress with one +hand; and as my uncle always said with a round oath, when he told the +story, he wouldn’t have believed it possible that legs and feet could +have been brought to such a state of perfection unless he had seen them +with his own eyes. + +‘But, in this one glimpse of the beautiful face, my uncle saw that the +young lady cast an imploring look upon him, and that she appeared +terrified and distressed. He noticed, too, that the young fellow in the +powdered wig, notwithstanding his show of gallantry, which was all very +fine and grand, clasped her tight by the wrist when she got in, and +followed himself immediately afterwards. An uncommonly ill-looking +fellow, in a close brown wig, and a plum-coloured suit, wearing a very +large sword, and boots up to his hips, belonged to the party; and when +he sat himself down next to the young lady, who shrank into a corner at +his approach, my uncle was confirmed in his original impression that +something dark and mysterious was going forward, or, as he always said +himself, that “there was a screw loose somewhere.” It’s quite surprising +how quickly he made up his mind to help the lady at any peril, if she +needed any help. + +‘“Death and lightning!” exclaimed the young gentleman, laying his hand +upon his sword as my uncle entered the coach. + +‘“Blood and thunder!” roared the other gentleman. With this, he whipped +his sword out, and made a lunge at my uncle without further ceremony. My +uncle had no weapon about him, but with great dexterity he snatched the +ill-looking gentleman’s three-cornered hat from his head, and, receiving +the point of his sword right through the crown, squeezed the sides +together, and held it tight. + +‘“Pink him behind!” cried the ill-looking gentleman to his companion, as +he struggled to regain his sword. + +‘“He had better not,” cried my uncle, displaying the heel of one of his +shoes, in a threatening manner. “I’ll kick his brains out, if he has +any--, or fracture his skull if he hasn’t.” Exerting all his strength, +at this moment, my uncle wrenched the ill-looking man’s sword from his +grasp, and flung it clean out of the coach window, upon which the +younger gentleman vociferated, “Death and lightning!” again, and laid +his hand upon the hilt of his sword, in a very fierce manner, but didn’t +draw it. Perhaps, gentlemen, as my uncle used to say with a smile, +perhaps he was afraid of alarming the lady. + +‘“Now, gentlemen,” said my uncle, taking his seat deliberately, “I don’t +want to have any death, with or without lightning, in a lady’s presence, +and we have had quite blood and thundering enough for one journey; so, +if you please, we’ll sit in our places like quiet insides. Here, guard, +pick up that gentleman’s carving-knife.” + +‘As quickly as my uncle said the words, the guard appeared at the coach +window, with the gentleman’s sword in his hand. He held up his lantern, +and looked earnestly in my uncle’s face, as he handed it in, when, by +its light, my uncle saw, to his great surprise, that an immense crowd of +mail-coach guards swarmed round the window, every one of whom had his +eyes earnestly fixed upon him too. He had never seen such a sea of white +faces, red bodies, and earnest eyes, in all his born days. + +‘“This is the strangest sort of thing I ever had anything to do with,” + thought my uncle; “allow me to return you your hat, sir.” + +‘The ill-looking gentleman received his three-cornered hat in silence, +looked at the hole in the middle with an inquiring air, and finally +stuck it on the top of his wig with a solemnity the effect of which was +a trifle impaired by his sneezing violently at the moment, and jerking +it off again. + +‘“All right!” cried the guard with the lantern, mounting into his little +seat behind. Away they went. My uncle peeped out of the coach window as +they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other mails, with +coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers, complete, were driving round +and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five miles an hour. My +uncle burned with indignation, gentlemen. As a commercial man, he felt +that the mail-bags were not to be trifled with, and he resolved to +memorialise the Post Office on the subject, the very instant he reached +London. + +‘At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who +sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely +in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting opposite to +her; the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side; and both +watching her intently. If she so much as rustled the folds of her hood, +he could hear the ill-looking man clap his hand upon his sword, and +could tell by the other’s breathing (it was so dark he couldn’t see his +face) that he was looking as big as if he were going to devour her at a +mouthful. This roused my uncle more and more, and he resolved, come what +might, to see the end of it. He had a great admiration for bright eyes, +and sweet faces, and pretty legs and feet; in short, he was fond of the +whole sex. It runs in our family, gentleman--so am I. + +‘Many were the devices which my uncle practised, to attract the lady’s +attention, or at all events, to engage the mysterious gentlemen in +conversation. They were all in vain; the gentlemen wouldn’t talk, and +the lady didn’t dare. He thrust his head out of the coach window at +intervals, and bawled out to know why they didn’t go faster. But he +called till he was hoarse; nobody paid the least attention to him. He +leaned back in the coach, and thought of the beautiful face, and the +feet and legs. This answered better; it whiled away the time, and kept +him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he found +himself in such an odd situation. Not that this would have worried him +much, anyway--he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort +of person, was my uncle, gentlemen. + +‘All of a sudden the coach stopped. “Hollo!” said my uncle, “what’s in +the wind now?” + +‘“Alight here,” said the guard, letting down the steps. + +‘“Here!” cried my uncle. + +‘“Here,” rejoined the guard. + +‘“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” said my uncle. + +‘“Very well, then stop where you are,” said the guard. + +‘“I will,” said my uncle. + +‘“Do,” said the guard. + +‘The passengers had regarded this colloquy with great attention, and, +finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man +squeezed past him, to hand the lady out. At this moment, the ill-looking +man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three-cornered hat. As +the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her gloves into my +uncle’s hand, and softly whispered, with her lips so close to his face +that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single word “Help!” + Gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once, with such violence +that it rocked on the springs again. + +‘“Oh! you’ve thought better of it, have you?” said the guard, when he +saw my uncle standing on the ground. + +‘My uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether +it wouldn’t be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire it in the +face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over +the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the +smoke. On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan, as being a +shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious +men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house +in front of which the coach had stopped. They turned into the passage, +and my uncle followed. + +‘Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this +was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of +entertainment; but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the +stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. There was a huge fireplace in the +room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; +but no warm blaze lighted it up now. The white feathery dust of burned +wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all +was dark and gloomy. + +‘“Well,” said my uncle, as he looked about him, “a mail travelling at +the rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an indefinite +time at such a hole as this, is rather an irregular sort of proceeding, +I fancy. This shall be made known. I’ll write to the papers.” + +‘My uncle said this in a pretty loud voice, and in an open, unreserved +sort of manner, with the view of engaging the two strangers in +conversation if he could. But, neither of them took any more notice of +him than whispering to each other, and scowling at him as they did so. +The lady was at the farther end of the room, and once she ventured to +wave her hand, as if beseeching my uncle’s assistance. + +‘At length the two strangers advanced a little, and the conversation +began in earnest. + +‘“You don’t know this is a private room, I suppose, fellow?” said the +gentleman in sky-blue. + +‘“No, I do not, fellow,” rejoined my uncle. “Only, if this is a private +room specially ordered for the occasion, I should think the public room +must be a _very _comfortable one;” with this, my uncle sat himself down +in a high-backed chair, and took such an accurate measure of the +gentleman, with his eyes, that Tiggin and Welps could have supplied him +with printed calico for a suit, and not an inch too much or too little, +from that estimate alone. + +‘“Quit this room,” said both men together, grasping their swords. + +‘“Eh?” said my uncle, not at all appearing to comprehend their meaning. + +‘“Quit the room, or you are a dead man,” said the ill-looking fellow +with the large sword, drawing it at the same time and flourishing it in +the air. + +‘“Down with him!” cried the gentleman in sky-blue, drawing his sword +also, and falling back two or three yards. “Down with him!” The lady +gave a loud scream. + +‘Now, my uncle was always remarkable for great boldness, and great +presence of mind. All the time that he had appeared so indifferent to +what was going on, he had been looking slily about for some missile or +weapon of defence, and at the very instant when the swords were drawn, +he espied, standing in the chimney-corner, an old basket-hilted rapier +in a rusty scabbard. At one bound, my uncle caught it in his hand, drew +it, flourished it gallantly above his head, called aloud to the lady to +keep out of the way, hurled the chair at the man in sky-blue, and the +scabbard at the man in plum-colour, and taking advantage of the +confusion, fell upon them both, pell-mell. + +‘Gentlemen, there is an old story--none the worse for being true-- +regarding a fine young Irish gentleman, who being asked if he could play +the fiddle, replied he had no doubt he could, but he couldn’t exactly +say, for certain, because he had never tried. This is not inapplicable +to my uncle and his fencing. He had never had a sword in his hand +before, except once when he played Richard the Third at a private +theatre, upon which occasion it was arranged with Richmond that he was +to be run through, from behind, without showing fight at all. But here +he was, cutting and slashing with two experienced swordsman, thrusting, +and guarding, and poking, and slicing, and acquitting himself in the +most manful and dexterous manner possible, although up to that time he +had never been aware that he had the least notion of the science. It +only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he +can do till he tries, gentlemen. + +‘The noise of the combat was terrific; each of the three combatants +swearing like troopers, and their swords clashing with as much noise as +if all the knives and steels in Newport market were rattling together, +at the same time. When it was at its very height, the lady (to encourage +my uncle most probably) withdrew her hood entirely from her face, and +disclosed a countenance of such dazzling beauty, that he would have +fought against fifty men, to win one smile from it and die. He had done +wonders before, but now he began to powder away like a raving mad giant. + +‘At this very moment, the gentleman in sky-blue turning round, and +seeing the young lady with her face uncovered, vented an exclamation of +rage and jealousy, and, turning his weapon against her beautiful bosom, +pointed a thrust at her heart, which caused my uncle to utter a cry of +apprehension that made the building ring. The lady stepped lightly +aside, and snatching the young man’s sword from his hand, before he had +recovered his balance, drove him to the wall, and running it through +him, and the panelling, up to the very hilt, pinned him there, hard and +fast. It was a splendid example. My uncle, with a loud shout of triumph, +and a strength that was irresistible, made his adversary retreat in the +same direction, and plunging the old rapier into the very centre of a +large red flower in the pattern of his waistcoat, nailed him beside his +friend; there they both stood, gentlemen, jerking their arms and legs +about in agony, like the toy-shop figures that are moved by a piece of +pack-thread. My uncle always said, afterwards, that this was one of the +surest means he knew of, for disposing of an enemy; but it was liable to +one objection on the ground of expense, inasmuch as it involved the loss +of a sword for every man disabled. + +‘“The mail, the mail!” cried the lady, running up to my uncle and +throwing her beautiful arms round his neck; “we may yet escape.” + +‘“May!” cried my uncle; “why, my dear, there’s nobody else to kill, is +there?” My uncle was rather disappointed, gentlemen, for he thought a +little quiet bit of love-making would be agreeable after the +slaughtering, if it were only to change the subject. + +‘“We have not an instant to lose here,” said the young lady. “He +(pointing to the young gentleman in sky-blue) is the only son of the +powerful Marquess of Filletoville.” + +‘“Well then, my dear, I’m afraid he’ll never come to the title,” said my +uncle, looking coolly at the young gentleman as he stood fixed up +against the wall, in the cockchafer fashion that I have described. “You +have cut off the entail, my love.” + +‘“I have been torn from my home and my friends by these villains,” said +the young lady, her features glowing with indignation. “That wretch +would have married me by violence in another hour.” + +‘“Confound his impudence!” said my uncle, bestowing a very contemptuous +look on the dying heir of Filletoville. + +‘“As you may guess from what you have seen,” said the young lady, “the +party were prepared to murder me if I appealed to any one for +assistance. If their accomplices find us here, we are lost. Two minutes +hence may be too late. The mail!” With these words, overpowered by her +feelings, and the exertion of sticking the young Marquess of +Filletoville, she sank into my uncle’s arms. My uncle caught her up, and +bore her to the house door. There stood the mail, with four long-tailed, +flowing-maned, black horses, ready harnessed; but no coachman, no guard, +no hostler even, at the horses’ heads. + +‘Gentlemen, I hope I do no injustice to my uncle’s memory, when I +express my opinion, that although he was a bachelor, he had held some +ladies in his arms before this time; I believe, indeed, that he had +rather a habit of kissing barmaids; and I know, that in one or two +instances, he had been seen by credible witnesses, to hug a landlady in +a very perceptible manner. I mention the circumstance, to show what a +very uncommon sort of person this beautiful young lady must have been, +to have affected my uncle in the way she did; he used to say, that as +her long dark hair trailed over his arm, and her beautiful dark eyes +fixed themselves upon his face when she recovered, he felt so strange +and nervous that his legs trembled beneath him. But who can look in a +sweet, soft pair of dark eyes, without feeling queer? I can’t, +gentlemen. I am afraid to look at some eyes I know, and that’s the truth +of it. + +‘“You will never leave me,” murmured the young lady. + +‘“Never,” said my uncle. And he meant it too. + +‘“My dear preserver!” exclaimed the young lady. “My dear, kind, brave +preserver!” + +‘“Don’t,” said my uncle, interrupting her. + +‘“‘Why?” inquired the young lady. + +‘“Because your mouth looks so beautiful when you speak,” rejoined my +uncle, “that I’m afraid I shall be rude enough to kiss it.” + +‘The young lady put up her hand as if to caution my uncle not to do so, +and said--No, she didn’t say anything--she smiled. When you are looking +at a pair of the most delicious lips in the world, and see them gently +break into a roguish smile--if you are very near them, and nobody else +by--you cannot better testify your admiration of their beautiful form +and colour than by kissing them at once. My uncle did so, and I honour +him for it. + +‘“Hark!” cried the young lady, starting. “The noise of wheels, and +horses!” + +‘“So it is,” said my uncle, listening. He had a good ear for wheels, and +the trampling of hoofs; but there appeared to be so many horses and +carriages rattling towards them, from a distance, that it was impossible +to form a guess at their number. The sound was like that of fifty +brakes, with six blood cattle in each. + +‘“We are pursued!” cried the young lady, clasping her hands. “We are +pursued. I have no hope but in you!” + +‘There was such an expression of terror in her beautiful face, that my +uncle made up his mind at once. He lifted her into the coach, told her +not to be frightened, pressed his lips to hers once more, and then +advising her to draw up the window to keep the cold air out, mounted to +the box. + +‘“Stay, love,” cried the young lady. + +‘“What’s the matter?” said my uncle, from the coach-box. + +‘“I want to speak to you,” said the young lady; “only a word. Only one +word, dearest.” + +‘“Must I get down?” inquired my uncle. The lady made no answer, but she +smiled again. Such a smile, gentlemen! It beat the other one, all to +nothing. My uncle descended from his perch in a twinkling. + +‘“What is it, my dear?” said my uncle, looking in at the coach window. +The lady happened to bend forward at the same time, and my uncle thought +she looked more beautiful than she had done yet. He was very close to +her just then, gentlemen, so he really ought to know. + +‘“What is it, my dear?” said my uncle. + +‘“Will you never love any one but me--never marry any one beside?” said +the young lady. + +‘My uncle swore a great oath that he never would marry anybody else, and +the young lady drew in her head, and pulled up the window. He jumped +upon the box, squared his elbows, adjusted the ribands, seized the whip +which lay on the roof, gave one flick to the off leader, and away went +the four long-tailed, flowing-maned black horses, at fifteen good +English miles an hour, with the old mail-coach behind them. Whew! How +they tore along! + +‘The noise behind grew louder. The faster the old mail went, the faster +came the pursuers--men, horses, dogs, were leagued in the pursuit. The +noise was frightful, but, above all, rose the voice of the young lady, +urging my uncle on, and shrieking, “Faster! Faster!” + +‘They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a +hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind +they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let +loose. But still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle +could hear the young lady wildly screaming, “Faster! Faster!” + +‘My uncle plied whip and rein, and the horses flew onward till they were +white with foam; and yet the noise behind increased; and yet the young +lady cried, “Faster! Faster!” My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in +the energy of the moment, and--found that it was gray morning, and he +was sitting in the wheelwright’s yard, on the box of an old Edinburgh +mail, shivering with the cold and wet and stamping his feet to warm +them! He got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young +lady. Alas! There was neither door nor seat to the coach. It was a mere +shell. + +‘Of course, my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery in the +matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it. +He remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful +young lady, refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and +dying a bachelor at last. He always said what a curious thing it was +that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering +over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards, +coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly +every night. He used to add, that he believed he was the only living +person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these +excursions. And I think he was right, gentlemen--at least I never heard +of any other.’ + +‘I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags,’ said +the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound +attention. + +‘The dead letters, of course,’ said the bagman. + +‘Oh, ah! To be sure,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘I never thought of that.’ + + + +CHAPTER L. HOW MR. PICKWICK SPED UPON HIS MISSION, AND HOW HE WAS +REINFORCED IN THE OUTSET BY A MOST UNEXPECTED AUXILIARY + +The horses were put to, punctually at a quarter before nine next +morning, and Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller having each taken his seat, the +one inside and the other out, the postillion was duly directed to repair +in the first instance to Mr. Bob Sawyer’s house, for the purpose of +taking up Mr. Benjamin Allen. + +It was with feelings of no small astonishment, when the carriage drew up +before the door with the red lamp, and the very legible inscription of +‘Sawyer, late Nockemorf,’ that Mr. Pickwick saw, on popping his head out +of the coach window, the boy in the gray livery very busily employed in +putting up the shutters--the which, being an unusual and an +unbusinesslike proceeding at that hour of the morning, at once suggested +to his mind two inferences: the one, that some good friend and patient +of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s was dead; the other, that Mr. Bob Sawyer himself was +bankrupt. + +‘What is the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick to the boy. + +‘Nothing’s the matter, Sir,’ replied the boy, expanding his mouth to the +whole breadth of his countenance. + +‘All right, all right!’ cried Bob Sawyer, suddenly appearing at the +door, with a small leathern knapsack, limp and dirty, in one hand, and a +rough coat and shawl thrown over the other arm. ‘I’m going, old fellow.’ + +‘You!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes,’ replied Bob Sawyer, ‘and a regular expedition we’ll make of it. +Here, Sam! Look out!’ Thus briefly bespeaking Mr. Weller’s attention, +Mr. Bob Sawyer jerked the leathern knapsack into the dickey, where it +was immediately stowed away, under the seat, by Sam, who regarded the +proceeding with great admiration. This done, Mr. Bob Sawyer, with the +assistance of the boy, forcibly worked himself into the rough coat, +which was a few sizes too small for him, and then advancing to the coach +window, thrust in his head, and laughed boisterously. + +‘What a start it is, isn’t it?’ cried Bob, wiping the tears out of his +eyes, with one of the cuffs of the rough coat. + +‘My dear Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with some embarrassment, ‘I had no +idea of your accompanying us.’ + +‘No, that’s just the very thing,’ replied Bob, seizing Mr. Pickwick by +the lappel of his coat. ‘That’s the joke.’ + +‘Oh, that’s the joke, is it?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Of course,’ replied Bob. ‘It’s the whole point of the thing, you know-- +that, and leaving the business to take care of itself, as it seems to +have made up its mind not to take care of me.’ With this explanation of +the phenomenon of the shutters, Mr. Bob Sawyer pointed to the shop, and +relapsed into an ecstasy of mirth. + +‘Bless me, you are surely not mad enough to think of leaving your +patients without anybody to attend them!’ remonstrated Mr. Pickwick in a +very serious tone. + +‘Why not?’ asked Bob, in reply. ‘I shall save by it, you know. None of +them ever pay. Besides,’ said Bob, lowering his voice to a confidential +whisper, ‘they will be all the better for it; for, being nearly out of +drugs, and not able to increase my account just now, I should have been +obliged to give them calomel all round, and it would have been certain +to have disagreed with some of them. So it’s all for the best.’ + +There was a philosophy and a strength of reasoning about this reply, +which Mr. Pickwick was not prepared for. He paused a few moments, and +added, less firmly than before-- + +‘But this chaise, my young friend, will only hold two; and I am pledged +to Mr. Allen.’ + +‘Don’t think of me for a minute,’ replied Bob. ‘I’ve arranged it all; +Sam and I will share the dickey between us. Look here. This little bill +is to be wafered on the shop door: “Sawyer, late Nockemorf. Inquire of +Mrs. Cripps over the way.” Mrs. Cripps is my boy’s mother. “Mr. Sawyer’s +very sorry,” says Mrs. Cripps, “couldn’t help it--fetched away early +this morning to a consultation of the very first surgeons in the +country--couldn’t do without him--would have him at any price-- +tremendous operation.” The fact is,’ said Bob, in conclusion, ‘it’ll do +me more good than otherwise, I expect. If it gets into one of the local +papers, it will be the making of me. Here’s Ben; now then, jump in!’ + +With these hurried words, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side, +jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, +wafered the bill on the street door, locked it, put the key in his +pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting, and did the +whole with such extraordinary precipitation, that before Mr. Pickwick +had well begun to consider whether Mr. Bob Sawyer ought to go or not, +they were rolling away, with Mr. Bob Sawyer thoroughly established as +part and parcel of the equipage. + +So long as their progress was confined to the streets of Bristol, the +facetious Bob kept his professional green spectacles on, and conducted +himself with becoming steadiness and gravity of demeanour; merely giving +utterance to divers verbal witticisms for the exclusive behoof and +entertainment of Mr. Samuel Weller. But when they emerged on the open +road, he threw off his green spectacles and his gravity together, and +performed a great variety of practical jokes, which were calculated to +attract the attention of the passersby, and to render the carriage and +those it contained objects of more than ordinary curiosity; the least +conspicuous among these feats being a most vociferous imitation of a +key-bugle, and the ostentatious display of a crimson silk pocket- +handkerchief attached to a walking-stick, which was occasionally waved +in the air with various gestures indicative of supremacy and defiance. + +‘I wonder,’ said Mr. Pickwick, stopping in the midst of a most sedate +conversation with Ben Allen, bearing reference to the numerous good +qualities of Mr. Winkle and his sister--‘I wonder what all the people we +pass, can see in us to make them stare so.’ + +‘It’s a neat turn-out,’ replied Ben Allen, with something of pride in +his tone. ‘They’re not used to see this sort of thing, every day, I dare +say.’ + +‘Possibly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘It may be so. Perhaps it is.’ + +Mr. Pickwick might very probably have reasoned himself into the belief +that it really was, had he not, just then happening to look out of the +coach window, observed that the looks of the passengers betokened +anything but respectful astonishment, and that various telegraphic +communications appeared to be passing between them and some persons +outside the vehicle, whereupon it occurred to him that these +demonstrations might be, in some remote degree, referable to the +humorous deportment of Mr. Robert Sawyer. + +‘I hope,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that our volatile friend is committing no +absurdities in that dickey behind.’ + +‘Oh dear, no,’ replied Ben Allen. ‘Except when he’s elevated, Bob’s the +quietest creature breathing.’ + +Here a prolonged imitation of a key-bugle broke upon the ear, succeeded +by cheers and screams, all of which evidently proceeded from the throat +and lungs of the quietest creature breathing, or in plainer designation, +of Mr. Bob Sawyer himself. + + +Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Ben Allen looked expressively at each other, and +the former gentleman taking off his hat, and leaning out of the coach +window until nearly the whole of his waistcoat was outside it, was at +length enabled to catch a glimpse of his facetious friend. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer was seated, not in the dickey, but on the roof of the +chaise, with his legs as far asunder as they would conveniently go, +wearing Mr. Samuel Weller’s hat on one side of his head, and bearing, in +one hand, a most enormous sandwich, while, in the other, he supported a +goodly-sized case-bottle, to both of which he applied himself with +intense relish, varying the monotony of the occupation by an occasional +howl, or the interchange of some lively badinage with any passing +stranger. The crimson flag was carefully tied in an erect position to +the rail of the dickey; and Mr. Samuel Weller, decorated with Bob +Sawyer’s hat, was seated in the centre thereof, discussing a twin +sandwich, with an animated countenance, the expression of which +betokened his entire and perfect approval of the whole arrangement. + +This was enough to irritate a gentleman with Mr. Pickwick’s sense of +propriety, but it was not the whole extent of the aggravation, for a +stage-coach full, inside and out, was meeting them at the moment, and +the astonishment of the passengers was very palpably evinced. The +congratulations of an Irish family, too, who were keeping up with the +chaise, and begging all the time, were of rather a boisterous +description, especially those of its male head, who appeared to consider +the display as part and parcel of some political or other procession of +triumph. + +‘Mr. Sawyer!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, in a state of great excitement, ‘Mr. +Sawyer, Sir!’ + +‘Hollo!’ responded that gentleman, looking over the side of the chaise +with all the coolness in life. + +‘Are you mad, sir?’ demanded Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Bob; ‘only cheerful.’ + +‘Cheerful, sir!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. ‘Take down that scandalous red +handkerchief, I beg. I insist, Sir. Sam, take it down.’ + +Before Sam could interpose, Mr. Bob Sawyer gracefully struck his +colours, and having put them in his pocket, nodded in a courteous manner +to Mr. Pickwick, wiped the mouth of the case-bottle, and applied it to +his own, thereby informing him, without any unnecessary waste of words, +that he devoted that draught to wishing him all manner of happiness and +prosperity. Having done this, Bob replaced the cork with great care, and +looking benignantly down on Mr. Pickwick, took a large bite out of the +sandwich, and smiled. + +‘Come,’ said Mr. Pickwick, whose momentary anger was not quite proof +against Bob’s immovable self-possession, ‘pray let us have no more of +this absurdity.’ + +‘No, no,’ replied Bob, once more exchanging hats with Mr. Weller; ‘I +didn’t mean to do it, only I got so enlivened with the ride that I +couldn’t help it.’ + +‘Think of the look of the thing,’ expostulated Mr. Pickwick; ‘have some +regard to appearances.’ + +‘Oh, certainly,’ said Bob, ‘it’s not the sort of thing at all. All over, +governor.’ + +Satisfied with this assurance, Mr. Pickwick once more drew his head into +the chaise and pulled up the glass; but he had scarcely resumed the +conversation which Mr. Bob Sawyer had interrupted, when he was somewhat +startled by the apparition of a small dark body, of an oblong form, on +the outside of the window, which gave sundry taps against it, as if +impatient of admission. + +‘What’s this?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It looks like a case-bottle;’ remarked Ben Allen, eyeing the object in +question through his spectacles with some interest; ‘I rather think it +belongs to Bob.’ + +The impression was perfectly accurate; for Mr. Bob Sawyer, having +attached the case-bottle to the end of the walking-stick, was battering +the window with it, in token of his wish, that his friends inside would +partake of its contents, in all good-fellowship and harmony. + +‘What’s to be done?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking at the bottle. ‘This +proceeding is more absurd than the other.’ + +‘I think it would be best to take it in,’ replied Mr. Ben Allen; ‘it +would serve him right to take it in and keep it, wouldn’t it?’ + +‘It would,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘shall I?’ + +‘I think it the most proper course we could possibly adopt,’ replied +Ben. + +This advice quite coinciding with his own opinion, Mr. Pickwick gently +let down the window and disengaged the bottle from the stick; upon which +the latter was drawn up, and Mr. Bob Sawyer was heard to laugh heartily. + +‘What a merry dog it is!’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round at his +companion, with the bottle in his hand. + +‘He is,’ said Mr. Allen. + +‘You cannot possibly be angry with him,’ remarked Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Quite out of the question,’ observed Benjamin Allen. + +During this short interchange of sentiments, Mr. Pickwick had, in an +abstracted mood, uncorked the bottle. + +‘What is it?’ inquired Ben Allen carelessly. + +‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with equal carelessness. ‘It +smells, I think, like milk-punch.’ + +Oh, indeed?’ said Ben. + +‘I _think _so,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, very properly guarding himself +against the possibility of stating an untruth; ‘mind, I could not +undertake to say certainly, without tasting it.’ + +‘You had better do so,’ said Ben; ‘we may as well know what it is.’ + +‘Do you think so?’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Well; if you are curious to +know, of course I have no objection.’ + +Ever willing to sacrifice his own feelings to the wishes of his friend, +Mr. Pickwick at once took a pretty long taste. + +‘What is it?’ inquired Ben Allen, interrupting him with some impatience. + +‘Curious,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips, ‘I hardly know, now. +Oh, yes!’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a second taste. ‘It _is_ punch.’ + +Mr. Ben Allen looked at Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick looked at Mr. Ben +Allen; Mr. Ben Allen smiled; Mr. Pickwick did not. + +‘It would serve him right,’ said the last-named gentleman, with some +severity--‘it would serve him right to drink it every drop.’ + +‘The very thing that occurred to me,’ said Ben Allen. + +‘Is it, indeed?’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘Then here’s his health!’ With +these words, that excellent person took a most energetic pull at the +bottle, and handed it to Ben Allen, who was not slow to imitate his +example. The smiles became mutual, and the milk-punch was gradually and +cheerfully disposed of. + +‘After all,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he drained the last drop, ‘his pranks +are really very amusing; very entertaining indeed.’ + +‘You may say that,’ rejoined Mr. Ben Allen. In proof of Bob Sawyer’s +being one of the funniest fellows alive, he proceeded to entertain Mr. +Pickwick with a long and circumstantial account how that gentleman once +drank himself into a fever and got his head shaved; the relation of +which pleasant and agreeable history was only stopped by the stoppage of +the chaise at the Bell at Berkeley Heath, to change horses. + +‘I say! We’re going to dine here, aren’t we?’ said Bob, looking in at +the window. + +‘Dine!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Why, we have only come nineteen miles, and +have eighty-seven and a half to go.’ + +‘Just the reason why we should take something to enable us to bear up +against the fatigue,’ remonstrated Mr. Bob Sawyer. + +‘Oh, it’s quite impossible to dine at half-past eleven o’clock in the +day,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch. + +‘So it is,’ rejoined Bob, ‘lunch is the very thing. Hollo, you sir! +Lunch for three, directly; and keep the horses back for a quarter of an +hour. Tell them to put everything they have cold, on the table, and some +bottled ale, and let us taste your very best Madeira.’ Issuing these +orders with monstrous importance and bustle, Mr. Bob Sawyer at once +hurried into the house to superintend the arrangements; in less than +five minutes he returned and declared them to be excellent. + +The quality of the lunch fully justified the eulogium which Bob had +pronounced, and very great justice was done to it, not only by that +gentleman, but Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Pickwick also. Under the auspices +of the three, the bottled ale and the Madeira were promptly disposed of; +and when (the horses being once more put to) they resumed their seats, +with the case-bottle full of the best substitute for milk-punch that +could be procured on so short a notice, the key-bugle sounded, and the +red flag waved, without the slightest opposition on Mr. Pickwick’s part. + +At the Hop Pole at Tewkesbury, they stopped to dine; upon which occasion +there was more bottled ale, with some more Madeira, and some port +besides; and here the case-bottle was replenished for the fourth time. +Under the influence of these combined stimulants, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. +Ben Allen fell fast asleep for thirty miles, while Bob and Mr. Weller +sang duets in the dickey. + +It was quite dark when Mr. Pickwick roused himself sufficiently to look +out of the window. The straggling cottages by the road-side, the dingy +hue of every object visible, the murky atmosphere, the paths of cinders +and brick-dust, the deep-red glow of furnace fires in the distance, the +volumes of dense smoke issuing heavily forth from high toppling +chimneys, blackening and obscuring everything around; the glare of +distant lights, the ponderous wagons which toiled along the road, laden +with clashing rods of iron, or piled with heavy goods--all betokened +their rapid approach to the great working town of Birmingham. + +As they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares leading to the heart of +the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck more +forcibly on the senses. The streets were thronged with working people. +The hum of labour resounded from every house; lights gleamed from the +long casement windows in the attic storeys, and the whirl of wheels and +noise of machinery shook the trembling walls. The fires, whose lurid, +sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed fiercely up, in the +great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the rushing +of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music +which arose from every quarter. + +The postboy was driving briskly through the open streets, and past the +handsome and well-lighted shops that intervene between the outskirts of +the town and the Old Royal Hotel, before Mr. Pickwick had begun to +consider the very difficult and delicate nature of the commission which +had carried him thither. + +The delicate nature of this commission, and the difficulty of executing +it in a satisfactory manner, were by no means lessened by the voluntary +companionship of Mr. Bob Sawyer. Truth to tell, Mr. Pickwick felt that +his presence on the occasion, however considerate and gratifying, was by +no means an honour he would willingly have sought; in fact, he would +cheerfully have given a reasonable sum of money to have had Mr. Bob +Sawyer removed to any place at not less than fifty miles’ distance, +without delay. + +Mr. Pickwick had never held any personal communication with Mr. Winkle, +senior, although he had once or twice corresponded with him by letter, +and returned satisfactory answers to his inquiries concerning the moral +character and behaviour of his son; he felt nervously sensible that to +wait upon him, for the first time, attended by Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen, +both slightly fuddled, was not the most ingenious and likely means that +could have been hit upon to prepossess him in his favour. + +‘However,’ said Mr. Pickwick, endeavouring to reassure himself, ‘I must +do the best I can. I must see him to-night, for I faithfully promised to +do so. If they persist in accompanying me, I must make the interview as +brief as possible, and be content that, for their own sakes, they will +not expose themselves.’ + +As he comforted himself with these reflections, the chaise stopped at +the door of the Old Royal. Ben Allen having been partially awakened from +a stupendous sleep, and dragged out by the collar by Mr. Samuel Weller, +Mr. Pickwick was enabled to alight. They were shown to a comfortable +apartment, and Mr. Pickwick at once propounded a question to the waiter +concerning the whereabout of Mr. Winkle’s residence. + +‘Close by, Sir,’ said the waiter, ‘not above five hundred yards, Sir. +Mr. Winkle is a wharfinger, Sir, at the canal, sir. Private residence is +not--oh dear, no, sir, not five hundred yards, sir.’ Here the waiter +blew a candle out, and made a feint of lighting it again, in order to +afford Mr. Pickwick an opportunity of asking any further questions, if +he felt so disposed. + +‘Take anything now, Sir?’ said the waiter, lighting the candle in +desperation at Mr. Pickwick’s silence. ‘Tea or coffee, Sir? Dinner, +sir?’ + +‘Nothing now.’ + +‘Very good, sir. Like to order supper, Sir?’ + +‘Not just now.’ + +‘Very good, Sir.’ Here, he walked slowly to the door, and then stopping +short, turned round and said, with great suavity-- + +‘Shall I send the chambermaid, gentlemen?’ + +‘You may if you please,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘If _you _please, sir.’ + +‘And bring some soda-water,’ said Bob Sawyer. + +‘Soda-water, Sir! Yes, Sir.’ With his mind apparently relieved from an +overwhelming weight, by having at last got an order for something, the +waiter imperceptibly melted away. Waiters never walk or run. They have a +peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms, which other +mortals possess not. + +Some slight symptoms of vitality having been awakened in Mr. Ben Allen +by the soda-water, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to wash his +face and hands, and to submit to be brushed by Sam. Mr. Pickwick and Bob +Sawyer having also repaired the disorder which the journey had made in +their apparel, the three started forth, arm in arm, to Mr. Winkle’s; Bob +Sawyer impregnating the atmosphere with tobacco smoke as he walked +along. + +About a quarter of a mile off, in a quiet, substantial-looking street, +stood an old red brick house with three steps before the door, and a +brass plate upon it, bearing, in fat Roman capitals, the words, ‘Mr. +Winkle.’ The steps were very white, and the bricks were very red, and +the house was very clean; and here stood Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Benjamin +Allen, and Mr. Bob Sawyer, as the clock struck ten. + +A smart servant-girl answered the knock, and started on beholding the +three strangers. + +‘Is Mr. Winkle at home, my dear?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He is just going to supper, Sir,’ replied the girl. + +‘Give him that card if you please,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘Say I am +sorry to trouble him at so late an hour; but I am anxious to see him to- +night, and have only just arrived.’ + +The girl looked timidly at Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was expressing his +admiration of her personal charms by a variety of wonderful grimaces; +and casting an eye at the hats and greatcoats which hung in the passage, +called another girl to mind the door while she went upstairs. The +sentinel was speedily relieved; for the girl returned immediately, and +begging pardon of the gentlemen for leaving them in the street, ushered +them into a floor-clothed back parlour, half office and half dressing +room, in which the principal useful and ornamental articles of furniture +were a desk, a wash-hand stand and shaving-glass, a boot-rack and boot- +jack, a high stool, four chairs, a table, and an old eight-day clock. +Over the mantelpiece were the sunken doors of an iron safe, while a +couple of hanging shelves for books, an almanac, and several files of +dusty papers, decorated the walls. + +‘Very sorry to leave you standing at the door, Sir,’ said the girl, +lighting a lamp, and addressing Mr. Pickwick with a winning smile, ‘but +you was quite strangers to me; and we have such a many trampers that +only come to see what they can lay their hands on, that really--’ + +‘There is not the least occasion for any apology, my dear,’ said Mr. +Pickwick good-humouredly. + +‘Not the slightest, my love,’ said Bob Sawyer, playfully stretching +forth his arms, and skipping from side to side, as if to prevent the +young lady’s leaving the room. + +The young lady was not at all softened by these allurements, for she at +once expressed her opinion, that Mr. Bob Sawyer was an ‘odous creetur;’ +and, on his becoming rather more pressing in his attentions, imprinted +her fair fingers upon his face, and bounced out of the room with many +expressions of aversion and contempt. + +Deprived of the young lady’s society, Mr. Bob Sawyer proceeded to divert +himself by peeping into the desk, looking into all the table drawers, +feigning to pick the lock of the iron safe, turning the almanac with its +face to the wall, trying on the boots of Mr. Winkle, senior, over his +own, and making several other humorous experiments upon the furniture, +all of which afforded Mr. Pickwick unspeakable horror and agony, and +yielded Mr. Bob Sawyer proportionate delight. + +At length the door opened, and a little old gentleman in a snuff- +coloured suit, with a head and face the precise counterpart of those +belonging to Mr. Winkle, junior, excepting that he was rather bald, +trotted into the room with Mr. Pickwick’s card in one hand, and a silver +candlestick in the other. + +‘Mr. Pickwick, sir, how do you do?’ said Winkle the elder, putting down +the candlestick and proffering his hand. ‘Hope I see you well, sir. Glad +to see you. Be seated, Mr. Pickwick, I beg, Sir. This gentleman is--’ + +‘My friend, Mr. Sawyer,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick, ‘your son’s friend.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Mr. Winkle the elder, looking rather grimly at Bob. ‘I hope +you are well, sir.’ + +‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Bob Sawyer. + +‘This other gentleman,’ cried Mr. Pickwick, ‘is, as you will see when +you have read the letter with which I am intrusted, a very near +relative, or I should rather say a very particular friend of your son’s. +His name is Allen.’ + +‘_That _gentleman?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, pointing with the card towards +Ben Allen, who had fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of +him visible but his spine and his coat collar. + +Mr. Pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and reciting +Mr. Benjamin Allen’s name and honourable distinctions at full length, +when the sprightly Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a view of rousing his friend to +a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling pinch upon the fleshly +part of his arm, which caused him to jump up with a shriek. Suddenly +aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, Mr. Ben Allen advanced +and, shaking Mr. Winkle most affectionately by both hands for about five +minutes, murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments of sentences, the +great delight he felt in seeing him, and a hospitable inquiry whether he +felt disposed to take anything after his walk, or would prefer waiting +‘till dinner-time;’ which done, he sat down and gazed about him with a +petrified stare, as if he had not the remotest idea where he was, which +indeed he had not. + +All this was most embarrassing to Mr. Pickwick, the more especially as +Mr. Winkle, senior, evinced palpable astonishment at the eccentric--not +to say extraordinary--behaviour of his two companions. To bring the +matter to an issue at once, he drew a letter from his pocket, and +presenting it to Mr. Winkle, senior, said-- + +‘This letter, Sir, is from your son. You will see, by its contents, that +on your favourable and fatherly consideration of it, depend his future +happiness and welfare. Will you oblige me by giving it the calmest and +coolest perusal, and by discussing the subject afterwards with me, in +the tone and spirit in which alone it ought to be discussed? You may +judge of the importance of your decision to your son, and his intense +anxiety upon the subject, by my waiting upon you, without any previous +warning, at so late an hour; and,’ added Mr. Pickwick, glancing slightly +at his two companions--‘and under such unfavourable circumstances.’ + +With this prelude, Mr. Pickwick placed four closely-written sides of +extra superfine wire-wove penitence in the hands of the astounded Mr. +Winkle, senior. Then reseating himself in his chair, he watched his +looks and manner: anxiously, it is true, but with the open front of a +gentleman who feels he has taken no part which he need excuse or +palliate. + +The old wharfinger turned the letter over, looked at the front, back, +and sides, made a microscopic examination of the fat little boy on the +seal, raised his eyes to Mr. Pickwick’s face, and then, seating himself +on the high stool, and drawing the lamp closer to him, broke the wax, +unfolded the epistle, and lifting it to the light, prepared to read. + +Just at this moment, Mr. Bob Sawyer, whose wit had lain dormant for some +minutes, placed his hands on his knees, and made a face after the +portraits of the late Mr. Grimaldi, as clown. It so happened that Mr. +Winkle, senior, instead of being deeply engaged in reading the letter, +as Mr. Bob Sawyer thought, chanced to be looking over the top of it at +no less a person than Mr. Bob Sawyer himself; rightly conjecturing that +the face aforesaid was made in ridicule and derision of his own person, +he fixed his eyes on Bob with such expressive sternness, that the late +Mr. Grimaldi’s lineaments gradually resolved themselves into a very fine +expression of humility and confusion. + +‘Did you speak, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, senior, after an awful +silence. + +‘No, sir,’ replied Bob, With no remains of the clown about him, save and +except the extreme redness of his cheeks. + +‘You are sure you did not, sir?’ said Mr. Winkle, senior. + +‘Oh dear, yes, sir, quite,’ replied Bob. + +‘I thought you did, Sir,’ replied the old gentleman, with indignant +emphasis. ‘Perhaps you _looked _at me, sir?’ + +‘Oh, no! sir, not at all,’ replied Bob, with extreme civility. + +‘I am very glad to hear it, sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, senior. Having +frowned upon the abashed Bob with great magnificence, the old gentleman +again brought the letter to the light, and began to read it seriously. + +Mr. Pickwick eyed him intently as he turned from the bottom line of the +first page to the top line of the second, and from the bottom of the +second to the top of the third, and from the bottom of the third to the +top of the fourth; but not the slightest alteration of countenance +afforded a clue to the feelings with which he received the announcement +of his son’s marriage, which Mr. Pickwick knew was in the very first +half-dozen lines. + +He read the letter to the last word, folded it again with all the +carefulness and precision of a man of business, and, just when Mr. +Pickwick expected some great outbreak of feeling, dipped a pen in the +ink-stand, and said, as quietly as if he were speaking on the most +ordinary counting-house topic-- + +‘What is Nathaniel’s address, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +‘The George and Vulture, at present,’ replied that gentleman. + +‘George and Vulture. Where is that?’ + +‘George Yard, Lombard Street.’ + +‘In the city?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +The old gentleman methodically indorsed the address on the back of the +letter; and then, placing it in the desk, which he locked, said, as he +got off the stool and put the bunch of keys in his pocket-- + +‘I suppose there is nothing else which need detain us, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +‘Nothing else, my dear Sir!’ observed that warm-hearted person in +indignant amazement. ‘Nothing else! Have you no opinion to express on +this momentous event in our young friend’s life? No assurance to convey +to him, through me, of the continuance of your affection and protection? +Nothing to say which will cheer and sustain him, and the anxious girl +who looks to him for comfort and support? My dear Sir, consider.’ + +‘I will consider,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘I have nothing to say +just now. I am a man of business, Mr. Pickwick. I never commit myself +hastily in any affair, and from what I see of this, I by no means like +the appearance of it. A thousand pounds is not much, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘You’re very right, Sir,’ interposed Ben Allen, just awake enough to +know that he had spent his thousand pounds without the smallest +difficulty. ‘You’re an intelligent man. Bob, he’s a very knowing fellow +this.’ + +‘I am very happy to find that you do me the justice to make the +admission, sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, senior, looking contemptuously at Ben +Allen, who was shaking his head profoundly. ‘The fact is, Mr. Pickwick, +that when I gave my son a roving license for a year or so, to see +something of men and manners (which he has done under your auspices), so +that he might not enter life a mere boarding-school milk-sop to be +gulled by everybody, I never bargained for this. He knows that very +well, so if I withdraw my countenance from him on this account, he has +no call to be surprised. He shall hear from me, Mr. Pickwick. Good- +night, sir.--Margaret, open the door.’ + +All this time, Bob Sawyer had been nudging Mr. Ben Allen to say +something on the right side; Ben accordingly now burst, without the +slightest preliminary notice, into a brief but impassioned piece of +eloquence. + +‘Sir,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, staring at the old gentleman, out of a pair +of very dim and languid eyes, and working his right arm vehemently up +and down, ‘you--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ + +‘As the lady’s brother, of course you are an excellent judge of the +question,’ retorted Mr. Winkle, senior. ‘There; that’s enough. Pray say +no more, Mr. Pickwick. Good-night, gentlemen!’ + +With these words the old gentleman took up the candle-stick and opening +the room door, politely motioned towards the passage. + +‘You will regret this, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, setting his teeth close +together to keep down his choler; for he felt how important the effect +might prove to his young friend. + +‘I am at present of a different opinion,’ calmly replied Mr. Winkle, +senior. ‘Once again, gentlemen, I wish you a good-night.’ + +Mr. Pickwick walked with angry strides into the street. Mr. Bob Sawyer, +completely quelled by the decision of the old gentleman’s manner, took +the same course. Mr. Ben Allen’s hat rolled down the steps immediately +afterwards, and Mr. Ben Allen’s body followed it directly. The whole +party went silent and supperless to bed; and Mr. Pickwick thought, just +before he fell asleep, that if he had known Mr. Winkle, senior, had been +quite so much of a man of business, it was extremely probable he might +never have waited upon him, on such an errand. + + + +CHAPTER LI. IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK ENCOUNTERS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE--TO +WHICH FORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE THE READER IS MAINLY INDEBTED FOR MATTER OF +THRILLING INTEREST HEREIN SET DOWN, CONCERNING TWO GREAT PUBLIC MEN OF +MIGHT AND POWER + +The morning which broke upon Mr. Pickwick’s sight at eight o’clock, was +not at all calculated to elevate his spirits, or to lessen the +depression which the unlooked-for result of his embassy inspired. The +sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet +and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it +lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, +as if it had not even the spirit to pour. A game-cock in the stableyard, +deprived of every spark of his accustomed animation, balanced himself +dismally on one leg in a corner; a donkey, moping with drooping head +under the narrow roof of an outhouse, appeared from his meditative and +miserable countenance to be contemplating suicide. In the street, +umbrellas were the only things to be seen, and the clicking of pattens +and splashing of rain-drops were the only sounds to be heard. + +The breakfast was interrupted by very little conversation; even Mr. Bob +Sawyer felt the influence of the weather, and the previous day’s +excitement. In his own expressive language he was ‘floored.’ So was Mr. +Ben Allen. So was Mr. Pickwick. + +In protracted expectation of the weather clearing up, the last evening +paper from London was read and re-read with an intensity of interest +only known in cases of extreme destitution; every inch of the carpet was +walked over with similar perseverance; the windows were looked out of, +often enough to justify the imposition of an additional duty upon them; +all kinds of topics of conversation were started, and failed; and at +length Mr. Pickwick, when noon had arrived, without a change for the +better, rang the bell resolutely, and ordered out the chaise. + +Although the roads were miry, and the drizzling rain came down harder +than it had done yet, and although the mud and wet splashed in at the +open windows of the carriage to such an extent that the discomfort was +almost as great to the pair of insides as to the pair of outsides, still +there was something in the motion, and the sense of being up and doing, +which was so infinitely superior to being pent in a dull room, looking +at the dull rain dripping into a dull street, that they all agreed, on +starting, that the change was a great improvement, and wondered how they +could possibly have delayed making it as long as they had done. + +When they stopped to change at Coventry, the steam ascended from the +horses in such clouds as wholly to obscure the hostler, whose voice was +however heard to declare from the mist, that he expected the first gold +medal from the Humane Society on their next distribution of rewards, for +taking the postboy’s hat off; the water descending from the brim of +which, the invisible gentleman declared, must have drowned him (the +postboy), but for his great presence of mind in tearing it promptly from +his head, and drying the gasping man’s countenance with a wisp of straw. + +‘This is pleasant,’ said Bob Sawyer, turning up his coat collar, and +pulling the shawl over his mouth to concentrate the fumes of a glass of +brandy just swallowed. + +‘Wery,’ replied Sam composedly. + +‘You don’t seem to mind it,’ observed Bob. + +‘Vy, I don’t exactly see no good my mindin’ on it ‘ud do, sir,’ replied +Sam. + +‘That’s an unanswerable reason, anyhow,’ said Bob. + +‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘Wotever is, is right, as the young +nobleman sweetly remarked wen they put him down in the pension list ‘cos +his mother’s uncle’s vife’s grandfather vunce lit the king’s pipe vith a +portable tinder-box.’ + +Not a bad notion that, Sam,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer approvingly. + +‘Just wot the young nobleman said ev’ry quarter-day arterwards for the +rest of his life,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘Wos you ever called in,’ inquired Sam, glancing at the driver, after a +short silence, and lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper--‘wos you +ever called in, when you wos ‘prentice to a sawbones, to wisit a +postboy.’ + +‘I don’t remember that I ever was,’ replied Bob Sawyer. + +‘You never see a postboy in that ‘ere hospital as you _walked _(as they +says o’ the ghosts), did you?’ demanded Sam. + +‘No,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘I don’t think I ever did.’ + +‘Never know’d a churchyard were there wos a postboy’s tombstone, or see +a dead postboy, did you?’ inquired Sam, pursuing his catechism. + +‘No,’ rejoined Bob, ‘I never did.’ + +‘No!’ rejoined Sam triumphantly. ‘Nor never vill; and there’s another +thing that no man never see, and that’s a dead donkey. No man never see +a dead donkey ‘cept the gen’l’m’n in the black silk smalls as know’d the +young ‘ooman as kep’ a goat; and that wos a French donkey, so wery +likely he warn’t wun o’ the reg’lar breed.’ + +‘Well, what has that got to do with the postboys?’ asked Bob Sawyer. + +‘This here,’ replied Sam. ‘Without goin’ so far as to as-sert, as some +wery sensible people do, that postboys and donkeys is both immortal, wot +I say is this: that wenever they feels theirselves gettin’ stiff and +past their work, they just rides off together, wun postboy to a pair in +the usual way; wot becomes on ‘em nobody knows, but it’s wery probable +as they starts avay to take their pleasure in some other vorld, for +there ain’t a man alive as ever see either a donkey or a postboy a- +takin’ his pleasure in this!’ + +Expatiating upon this learned and remarkable theory, and citing many +curious statistical and other facts in its support, Sam Weller beguiled +the time until they reached Dunchurch, where a dry postboy and fresh +horses were procured; the next stage was Daventry, and the next +Towcester; and at the end of each stage it rained harder than it had +done at the beginning. + +‘I say,’ remonstrated Bob Sawyer, looking in at the coach window, as +they pulled up before the door of the Saracen’s Head, Towcester, ‘this +won’t do, you know.’ + +‘Bless me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, just awakening from a nap, ‘I’m afraid +you’re wet.’ + +‘Oh, you are, are you?’ returned Bob. ‘Yes, I am, a little that way, +Uncomfortably damp, perhaps.’ + +Bob did look dampish, inasmuch as the rain was streaming from his neck, +elbows, cuffs, skirts, and knees; and his whole apparel shone so with +the wet, that it might have been mistaken for a full suit of prepared +oilskin. + +‘I _am_ rather wet,’ said Bob, giving himself a shake and casting a +little hydraulic shower around, like a Newfoundland dog just emerged +from the water. + +‘I think it’s quite impossible to go on to-night,’ interposed Ben. + +‘Out of the question, sir,’ remarked Sam Weller, coming to assist in the +conference; ‘it’s a cruelty to animals, sir, to ask ‘em to do it. +There’s beds here, sir,’ said Sam, addressing his master, ‘everything +clean and comfortable. Wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready +in half an hour--pair of fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; French beans, +‘taturs, tart, and tidiness. You’d better stop vere you are, sir, if I +might recommend. Take adwice, sir, as the doctor said.’ + +The host of the Saracen’s Head opportunely appeared at this moment, to +confirm Mr. Weller’s statement relative to the accommodations of the +establishment, and to back his entreaties with a variety of dismal +conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt of fresh horses +being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of its raining all +night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in the morning, +and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers. + +‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but I must send a letter to London by some +conveyance, so that it may be delivered the very first thing in the +morning, or I must go forwards at all hazards.’ + +The landlord smiled his delight. Nothing could be easier than for the +gentleman to inclose a letter in a sheet of brown paper, and send it on, +either by the mail or the night coach from Birmingham. If the gentleman +were particularly anxious to have it left as soon as possible, he might +write outside, ‘To be delivered immediately,’ which was sure to be +attended to; or ‘Pay the bearer half-a-crown extra for instant +delivery,’ which was surer still. + +‘Very well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘then we will stop here.’ + +‘Lights in the Sun, John; make up the fire; the gentlemen are wet!’ +cried the landlord. ‘This way, gentlemen; don’t trouble yourselves about +the postboy now, sir. I’ll send him to you when you ring for him, sir. +Now, John, the candles.’ + +The candles were brought, the fire was stirred up, and a fresh log of +wood thrown on. In ten minutes’ time, a waiter was laying the cloth for +dinner, the curtains were drawn, the fire was blazing brightly, and +everything looked (as everything always does, in all decent English +inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and their comforts +prepared, for days beforehand. + +Mr. Pickwick sat down at a side table, and hastily indited a note to Mr. +Winkle, merely informing him that he was detained by stress of weather, +but would certainly be in London next day; until when he deferred any +account of his proceedings. This note was hastily made into a parcel, +and despatched to the bar per Mr. Samuel Weller. + +Sam left it with the landlady, and was returning to pull his master’s +boots off, after drying himself by the kitchen fire, when glancing +casually through a half-opened door, he was arrested by the sight of a +gentleman with a sandy head who had a large bundle of newspapers lying +on the table before him, and was perusing the leading article of one +with a settled sneer which curled up his nose and all other features +into a majestic expression of haughty contempt. + +‘Hollo!’ said Sam, ‘I ought to know that ‘ere head and them features; +the eyeglass, too, and the broad-brimmed tile! Eatansvill to vit, or I’m +a Roman.’ + +Sam was taken with a troublesome cough, at once, for the purpose of +attracting the gentleman’s attention; the gentleman starting at the +sound, raised his head and his eyeglass, and disclosed to view the +profound and thoughtful features of Mr. Pott, of the Eatanswill +_Gazette_. + +‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, advancing with a bow, ‘my master’s +here, Mr. Pott.’ + +‘Hush! hush!’ cried Pott, drawing Sam into the room, and closing the +door, with a countenance of mysterious dread and apprehension. + +‘Wot’s the matter, Sir?’ inquired Sam, looking vacantly about him. + +‘Not a whisper of my name,’ replied Pott; ‘this is a buff neighbourhood. +If the excited and irritable populace knew I was here, I should be torn +to pieces.’ + +‘No! Vould you, sir?’ inquired Sam. + +‘I should be the victim of their fury,’ replied Pott. ‘Now young man, +what of your master?’ + +‘He’s a-stopping here to-night on his vay to town, with a couple of +friends,’ replied Sam. + +‘Is Mr. Winkle one of them?’ inquired Pott, with a slight frown. + +‘No, Sir. Mr. Vinkle stops at home now,’ rejoined Sam. ‘He’s married.’ + +‘Married!’ exclaimed Pott, with frightful vehemence. He stopped, smiled +darkly, and added, in a low, vindictive tone, ‘It serves him right!’ + +Having given vent to this cruel ebullition of deadly malice and cold- +blooded triumph over a fallen enemy, Mr. Pott inquired whether Mr. +Pickwick’s friends were ‘blue?’ Receiving a most satisfactory answer in +the affirmative from Sam, who knew as much about the matter as Pott +himself, he consented to accompany him to Mr. Pickwick’s room, where a +hearty welcome awaited him, and an agreement to club their dinners +together was at once made and ratified. + +‘And how are matters going on in Eatanswill?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, +when Pott had taken a seat near the fire, and the whole party had got +their wet boots off, and dry slippers on. ‘Is the _Independent_ still in +being?’ + +‘The _Independent_, sir,’ replied Pott, ‘is still dragging on a wretched +and lingering career. Abhorred and despised by even the few who are +cognisant of its miserable and disgraceful existence, stifled by the +very filth it so profusely scatters, rendered deaf and blind by the +exhalations of its own slime, the obscene journal, happily unconscious +of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud +which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and +debased classes of society, is nevertheless rising above its detested +head, and will speedily engulf it for ever.’ + +Having delivered this manifesto (which formed a portion of his last +week’s leader) with vehement articulation, the editor paused to take +breath, and looked majestically at Bob Sawyer. + +‘You are a young man, sir,’ said Pott. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer nodded. + +‘So are you, sir,’ said Pott, addressing Mr. Ben Allen. + +Ben admitted the soft impeachment. + +‘And are both deeply imbued with those blue principles, which, so long +as I live, I have pledged myself to the people of these kingdoms to +support and to maintain?’ suggested Pott. + +‘Why, I don’t exactly know about that,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘I am--’ + +‘Not buff, Mr. Pickwick,’ interrupted Pott, drawing back his chair, +‘your friend is not buff, sir?’ + +‘No, no,’ rejoined Bob, ‘I’m a kind of plaid at present; a compound of +all sorts of colours.’ + +‘A waverer,’ said Pott solemnly, ‘a waverer. I should like to show you a +series of eight articles, Sir, that have appeared in the Eatanswill +_Gazette_. I think I may venture to say that you would not be long in +establishing your opinions on a firm and solid blue basis, sir.’ + +I dare say I should turn very blue, long before I got to the end of +them,’ responded Bob. + +Mr. Pott looked dubiously at Bob Sawyer for some seconds, and, turning +to Mr. Pickwick, said-- + +‘You have seen the literary articles which have appeared at intervals in +the Eatanswill _Gazette_ in the course of the last three months, and +which have excited such general--I may say such universal--attention and +admiration?’ + +‘Why,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, ‘the +fact is, I have been so much engaged in other ways, that I really have +not had an opportunity of perusing them.’ + +‘You should do so, Sir,’ said Pott, with a severe countenance. + +‘I will,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘They appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on Chinese +metaphysics, Sir,’ said Pott. + +‘Oh,’ observed Mr. Pickwick; ‘from your pen, I hope?’ + +‘From the pen of my critic, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, with dignity. + +‘An abstruse subject, I should conceive,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Very, Sir,’ responded Pott, looking intensely sage. ‘He _crammed _for +it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, +at my desire, in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica.”’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I was not aware that that valuable work +contained any information respecting Chinese metaphysics.’ + +‘He read, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick’s knee, +and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority--‘he read for +metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and +combined his information, Sir!’ + +Mr. Pott’s features assumed so much additional grandeur at the +recollection of the power and research displayed in the learned +effusions in question, that some minutes elapsed before Mr. Pickwick +felt emboldened to renew the conversation; at length, as the editor’s +countenance gradually relaxed into its customary expression of moral +supremacy, he ventured to resume the discourse by asking-- + +‘Is it fair to inquire what great object has brought you so far from +home?’ + +‘That object which actuates and animates me in all my gigantic labours, +Sir,’ replied Pott, with a calm smile: ‘my country’s good.’ + +I supposed it was some public mission,’ observed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes, Sir,’ resumed Pott, ‘it is.’ Here, bending towards Mr. Pickwick, +he whispered in a deep, hollow voice, ‘A Buff ball, Sir, will take place +in Birmingham to-morrow evening.’ + +‘God bless me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes, Sir, and supper,’ added Pott. + +‘You don’t say so!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. + +Pott nodded portentously. + +Now, although Mr. Pickwick feigned to stand aghast at this disclosure, +he was so little versed in local politics that he was unable to form an +adequate comprehension of the importance of the dire conspiracy it +referred to; observing which, Mr. Pott, drawing forth the last number of +the Eatanswill _Gazette_, and referring to the same, delivered himself +of the following paragraph:-- + + +HOLE-AND-CORNER BUFFERY. + +‘A reptile contemporary has recently sweltered forth his black venom in +the vain and hopeless attempt of sullying the fair name of our +distinguished and excellent representative, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey-- +that Slumkey whom we, long before he gained his present noble and +exalted position, predicted would one day be, as he now is, at once his +country’s brightest honour, and her proudest boast: alike her bold +defender and her honest pride--our reptile contemporary, we say, has +made himself merry, at the expense of a superbly embossed plated coal- +scuttle, which has been presented to that glorious man by his enraptured +constituents, and towards the purchase of which, the nameless wretch +insinuates, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey himself contributed, through a +confidential friend of his butler’s, more than three-fourths of the +whole sum subscribed. Why, does not the crawling creature see, that even +if this be the fact, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey only appears in a still +more amiable and radiant light than before, if that be possible? Does +not even his obtuseness perceive that this amiable and touching desire +to carry out the wishes of the constituent body, must for ever endear +him to the hearts and souls of such of his fellow townsmen as are not +worse than swine; or, in other words, who are not as debased as our +contemporary himself? But such is the wretched trickery of hole-and- +corner Buffery! These are not its only artifices. Treason is abroad. We +boldly state, now that we are goaded to the disclosure, and we throw +ourselves on the country and its constables for protection--we boldly +state that secret preparations are at this moment in progress for a Buff +ball; which is to be held in a Buff town, in the very heart and centre +of a Buff population; which is to be conducted by a Buff master of the +ceremonies; which is to be attended by four ultra Buff members of +Parliament, and the admission to which, is to be by Buff tickets! Does +our fiendish contemporary wince? Let him writhe, in impotent malice, as +we pen the words, _We will be there_.’ + +‘There, Sir,’ said Pott, folding up the paper quite exhausted, ‘that is +the state of the case!’ + +The landlord and waiter entering at the moment with dinner, caused Mr. +Pott to lay his finger on his lips, in token that he considered his life +in Mr. Pickwick’s hands, and depended on his secrecy. Messrs. Bob Sawyer +and Benjamin Allen, who had irreverently fallen asleep during the +reading of the quotation from the Eatanswill _Gazette_, and the +discussion which followed it, were roused by the mere whispering of the +talismanic word ‘Dinner’ in their ears; and to dinner they went with +good digestion waiting on appetite, and health on both, and a waiter on +all three. + +In the course of the dinner and the sitting which succeeded it, Mr. Pott +descending, for a few moments, to domestic topics, informed Mr. Pickwick +that the air of Eatanswill not agreeing with his lady, she was then +engaged in making a tour of different fashionable watering-places with a +view to the recovery of her wonted health and spirits; this was a +delicate veiling of the fact that Mrs. Pott, acting upon her often- +repeated threat of separation, had, in virtue of an arrangement +negotiated by her brother, the lieutenant, and concluded by Mr. Pott, +permanently retired with the faithful bodyguard upon one moiety or half +part of the annual income and profits arising from the editorship and +sale of the Eatanswill _Gazette_. + +While the great Mr. Pott was dwelling upon this and other matters, +enlivening the conversation from time to time with various extracts from +his own lucubrations, a stern stranger, calling from the window of a +stage-coach, outward bound, which halted at the inn to deliver packages, +requested to know whether if he stopped short on his journey and +remained there for the night, he could be furnished with the necessary +accommodation of a bed and bedstead. + +‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the landlord. + +‘I can, can I?’ inquired the stranger, who seemed habitually suspicious +in look and manner. + +‘No doubt of it, Sir,’ replied the landlord. + +‘Good,’ said the stranger. ‘Coachman, I get down here. Guard, my carpet- +bag!’ + +Bidding the other passengers good-night, in a rather snappish manner, +the stranger alighted. He was a shortish gentleman, with very stiff +black hair cut in the porcupine or blacking-brush style, and standing +stiff and straight all over his head; his aspect was pompous and +threatening; his manner was peremptory; his eyes were sharp and +restless; and his whole bearing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in +himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable superiority over all other +people. + +This gentleman was shown into the room originally assigned to the +patriotic Mr. Pott; and the waiter remarked, in dumb astonishment at the +singular coincidence, that he had no sooner lighted the candles than the +gentleman, diving into his hat, drew forth a newspaper, and began to +read it with the very same expression of indignant scorn, which, upon +the majestic features of Pott, had paralysed his energies an hour +before. The man observed too, that, whereas Mr. Pott’s scorn had been +roused by a newspaper headed the Eatanswill _Independent_, this +gentleman’s withering contempt was awakened by a newspaper entitled the +Eatanswill _Gazette_. + +‘Send the landlord,’ said the stranger. + +‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined the waiter. + +The landlord was sent, and came. + +‘Are you the landlord?’ inquired the gentleman. + +‘I am sir,’ replied the landlord. + +‘Do you know me?’ demanded the gentleman. + +‘I have not had that pleasure, Sir,’ rejoined the landlord. + +‘My name is Slurk,’ said the gentleman. + +The landlord slightly inclined his head. + +‘Slurk, sir,’ repeated the gentleman haughtily. ‘Do you know me now, +man?’ + +The landlord scratched his head, looked at the ceiling, and at the +stranger, and smiled feebly. + +‘Do you know me, man?’ inquired the stranger angrily. + +The landlord made a strong effort, and at length replied, ‘Well, Sir, I +do _not_ know you.’ + +‘Great Heaven!’ said the stranger, dashing his clenched fist upon the +table. ‘And this is popularity!’ + +The landlord took a step or two towards the door; the stranger fixing +his eyes upon him, resumed. + +‘This,’ said the stranger--‘this is gratitude for years of labour and +study in behalf of the masses. I alight wet and weary; no enthusiastic +crowds press forward to greet their champion; the church bells are +silent; the very name elicits no responsive feeling in their torpid +bosoms. It is enough,’ said the agitated Mr. Slurk, pacing to and fro, +‘to curdle the ink in one’s pen, and induce one to abandon their cause +for ever.’ + +‘Did you say brandy-and-water, Sir?’ said the landlord, venturing a +hint. + +‘Rum,’ said Mr. Slurk, turning fiercely upon him. ‘Have you got a fire +anywhere?’ + +‘We can light one directly, Sir,’ said the landlord. + +‘Which will throw out no heat until it is bed-time,’ interrupted Mr. +Slurk. ‘Is there anybody in the kitchen?’ + +Not a soul. There was a beautiful fire. Everybody had gone, and the +house door was closed for the night. + +‘I will drink my rum-and-water,’ said Mr. Slurk, ‘by the kitchen fire.’ +So, gathering up his hat and newspaper, he stalked solemnly behind the +landlord to that humble apartment, and throwing himself on a settle by +the fireside, resumed his countenance of scorn, and began to read and +drink in silent dignity. + +Now, some demon of discord, flying over the Saracen’s Head at that +moment, on casting down his eyes in mere idle curiosity, happened to +behold Slurk established comfortably by the kitchen fire, and Pott +slightly elevated with wine in another room; upon which the malicious +demon, darting down into the last-mentioned apartment with inconceivable +rapidity, passed at once into the head of Mr. Bob Sawyer, and prompted +him for his (the demon’s) own evil purpose to speak as follows:-- + +‘I say, we’ve let the fire out. It’s uncommonly cold after the rain, +isn’t it?’ + +‘It really is,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, shivering. + +‘It wouldn’t be a bad notion to have a cigar by the kitchen fire, would +it?’ said Bob Sawyer, still prompted by the demon aforesaid. + +‘It would be particularly comfortable, I think,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. +‘Mr. Pott, what do you say?’ + +Mr. Pott yielded a ready assent; and all four travellers, each with his +glass in his hand, at once betook themselves to the kitchen, with Sam +Weller heading the procession to show them the way. + +The stranger was still reading; he looked up and started. Mr. Pott +started. + +‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Mr. Pickwick. + +‘That reptile!’ replied Pott. + +‘What reptile?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him for fear he should +tread on some overgrown black beetle, or dropsical spider. + +‘That reptile,’ whispered Pott, catching Mr. Pickwick by the arm, and +pointing towards the stranger. ‘That reptile Slurk, of the +_Independent_!’ + +‘Perhaps we had better retire,’ whispered Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Never, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, pot-valiant in a double sense--‘never.’ +With these words, Mr. Pott took up his position on an opposite settle, +and selecting one from a little bundle of newspapers, began to read +against his enemy. + +Mr. Pott, of course read the _Independent_, and Mr. Slurk, of course, +read the _Gazette_; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt at +the other’s compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence +they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as ‘absurd,’ +‘wretched,’ ‘atrocity,’ ‘humbug,’ ‘knavery’, ‘dirt,’ ‘filth,’ ‘slime,’ +‘ditch-water,’ and other critical remarks of the like nature. + +Both Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Ben Allen had beheld these symptoms of +rivalry and hatred, with a degree of delight which imparted great +additional relish to the cigars at which they were puffing most +vigorously. The moment they began to flag, the mischievous Mr. Bob +Sawyer, addressing Slurk with great politeness, said-- + +‘Will you allow me to look at your paper, Sir, when you have quite done +with it?’ + +‘You will find very little to repay you for your trouble in this +contemptible _thing_, sir,’ replied Slurk, bestowing a Satanic frown on +Pott. + +‘You shall have this presently,’ said Pott, looking up, pale with rage, +and quivering in his speech, from the same cause. ‘Ha! ha! you will be +amused with this _fellow’s_ audacity.’ + +Terrible emphasis was laid upon ‘thing’ and ‘fellow’; and the faces of +both editors began to glow with defiance. + +‘The ribaldry of this miserable man is despicably disgusting,’ said +Pott, pretending to address Bob Sawyer, and scowling upon Slurk. + +Here, Mr. Slurk laughed very heartily, and folding up the paper so as to +get at a fresh column conveniently, said, that the blockhead really +amused him. + +‘What an impudent blunderer this fellow is,’ said Pott, turning from +pink to crimson. + +‘Did you ever read any of this man’s foolery, Sir?’ inquired Slurk of +Bob Sawyer. + +‘Never,’ replied Bob; ‘is it very bad?’ + +‘Oh, shocking! shocking!’ rejoined Slurk. + +‘Really! Dear me, this is too atrocious!’ exclaimed Pott, at this +juncture; still feigning to be absorbed in his reading. + +‘If you can wade through a few sentences of malice, meanness, falsehood, +perjury, treachery, and cant,’ said Slurk, handing the paper to Bob, +‘you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this +ungrammatical twaddler.’ + +‘What’s that you said, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Pott, looking up, trembling +all over with passion. + +‘What’s that to you, sir?’ replied Slurk. + +‘Ungrammatical twaddler, was it, sir?’ said Pott. + +‘Yes, sir, it was,’ replied Slurk; ‘and _blue bore_, Sir, if you like +that better; ha! ha!’ + +Mr. Pott retorted not a word at this jocose insult, but deliberately +folded up his copy of the _Independent_, flattened it carefully down, +crushed it beneath his boot, spat upon it with great ceremony, and flung +it into the fire. + +‘There, sir,’ said Pott, retreating from the stove, ‘and that’s the way +I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for +him, restrained by the laws of my country.’ + +‘Serve him so, sir!’ cried Slurk, starting up. ‘Those laws shall never +be appealed to by him, sir, in such a case. Serve him so, sir!’ + +‘Hear! hear!’ said Bob Sawyer. + +‘Nothing can be fairer,’ observed Mr. Ben Allen. + +‘Serve him so, sir!’ reiterated Slurk, in a loud voice. + +Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor. + +‘Serve him so, sir!’ reiterated Slurk, in a louder voice than before. + +‘I will not, sir,’ rejoined Pott. + +‘Oh, you won’t, won’t you, sir?’ said Mr. Slurk, in a taunting manner; +‘you hear this, gentlemen! He won’t; not that he’s afraid--, oh, no! he +_won’t_. Ha! ha!’ + +‘I consider you, sir,’ said Mr. Pott, moved by this sarcasm, ‘I consider +you a viper. I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself +beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and +abominable public conduct. I view you, sir, personally and politically, +in no other light than as a most unparalleled and unmitigated viper.’ + +The indignant Independent did not wait to hear the end of this personal +denunciation; for, catching up his carpet-bag, which was well stuffed +with movables, he swung it in the air as Pott turned away, and, letting +it fall with a circular sweep on his head, just at that particular angle +of the bag where a good thick hairbrush happened to be packed, caused a +sharp crash to be heard throughout the kitchen, and brought him at once +to the ground. + + +‘Gentlemen,’ cried Mr. Pickwick, as Pott started up and seized the fire- +shovel--‘gentlemen! Consider, for Heaven’s sake--help--Sam--here--pray, +gentlemen--interfere, somebody.’ + +Uttering these incoherent exclamations, Mr. Pickwick rushed between the +infuriated combatants just in time to receive the carpet-bag on one side +of his body, and the fire-shovel on the other. Whether the +representatives of the public feeling of Eatanswill were blinded by +animosity, or (being both acute reasoners) saw the advantage of having a +third party between them to bear all the blows, certain it is that they +paid not the slightest attention to Mr. Pickwick, but defying each other +with great spirit, plied the carpet-bag and the fire-shovel most +fearlessly. Mr. Pickwick would unquestionably have suffered severely for +his humane interference, if Mr. Weller, attracted by his master’s cries, +had not rushed in at the moment, and, snatching up a meal-sack, +effectually stopped the conflict by drawing it over the head and +shoulders of the mighty Pott, and clasping him tight round the +shoulders. + +‘Take away that ‘ere bag from the t’other madman,’ said Sam to Ben Allen +and Bob Sawyer, who had done nothing but dodge round the group, each +with a tortoise-shell lancet in his hand, ready to bleed the first man +stunned. ‘Give it up, you wretched little creetur, or I’ll smother you +in it.’ + +Awed by these threats, and quite out of breath, the _Independent_ +suffered himself to be disarmed; and Mr. Weller, removing the +extinguisher from Pott, set him free with a caution. + +‘You take yourselves off to bed quietly,’ said Sam, ‘or I’ll put you +both in it, and let you fight it out vith the mouth tied, as I vould a +dozen sich, if they played these games. And you have the goodness to +come this here way, sir, if you please.’ + +Thus addressing his master, Sam took him by the arm, and led him off, +while the rival editors were severally removed to their beds by the +landlord, under the inspection of Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen; +breathing, as they went away, many sanguinary threats, and making vague +appointments for mortal combat next day. When they came to think it +over, however, it occurred to them that they could do it much better in +print, so they recommenced deadly hostilities without delay; and all +Eatanswill rung with their boldness--on paper. + +They had taken themselves off in separate coaches, early next morning, +before the other travellers were stirring; and the weather having now +cleared up, the chaise companions once more turned their faces to +London. + + + +CHAPTER LII. INVOLVING A SERIOUS CHANGE IN THE WELLER FAMILY, AND THE +UNTIMELY DOWNFALL OF MR. STIGGINS + +Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either +Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully +prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella’s feelings as +much as possible, Mr. Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in +the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young men +should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this they +very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; Mr. +Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot- +shop on the remotest confines of the Borough, behind the bar door of +which their names had in other days very often appeared at the head of +long and complex calculations worked in white chalk. + +‘Dear me, Mr. Weller,’ said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam at the +door. + +‘Dear _me_ I vish it vos, my dear,’ replied Sam, dropping behind, to let +his master get out of hearing. ‘Wot a sweet-lookin’ creetur you are, +Mary!’ + +‘Lor’, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!’ said Mary. ‘Oh! don’t, +Mr. Weller.’ + +‘Don’t what, my dear?’ said Sam. + +‘Why, that,’ replied the pretty housemaid. ‘Lor, do get along with you.’ +Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against the wall, +declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of +curl. + +‘And prevented what I was going to say, besides,’ added Mary. ‘There’s a +letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn’t gone away, half +an hour, when it came; and more than that, it’s got “immediate,” on the +outside.’ + +‘Vere is it, my love?’ inquired Sam. + +‘I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long +before this,’ replied Mary. ‘There, take it; it’s more than you +deserve.’ + +With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears, +and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter +from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it to +Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion. + +‘My goodness me!’ said Mary, adjusting the tucker, and feigning +unconsciousness, ‘you seem to have grown very fond of it all at once.’ + +To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning of which +no description could convey the faintest idea of; and, sitting himself +down beside Mary on a window-seat, opened the letter and glanced at the +contents. + +‘Hollo!’ exclaimed Sam, ‘wot’s all this?’ + +‘Nothing the matter, I hope?’ said Mary, peeping over his shoulder. + +‘Bless them eyes o’ yourn!’ said Sam, looking up. + +‘Never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter,’ said the +pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with +such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible. + +Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows:-- + + +‘MARKIS GRAN ‘By DORKEN ‘Wensdy. + +‘My DEAR SAMMLE, + +‘I am wery sorry to have the pleasure of being a Bear of ill news your +Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the +damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave +off till late at night owen to his having vound his-self up vith brandy +and vater and not being able to stop his-self till he got a little sober +which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she’d svallo’d +varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn’t have been +no vus her veels wos immedetly greased and everythink done to set her +agoin as could be inwented your father had hopes as she vould have +vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she +took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and +notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectly by the medikel man it +wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes +afore six o’clock yesterday evenin havin done the jouney wery much under +the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her haven taken in wery +little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see +me Sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely +Samivel N. B. he _vill _have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right and +as there is sich a many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont +object of course he vill not Sammy for I knows him better so he sends +his dooty in which I join and am Samivel infernally yours + + +‘TONY VELLER.’ + +‘Wot a incomprehensible letter,’ said Sam; ‘who’s to know wot it means, +vith all this he-ing and I-ing! It ain’t my father’s writin’, ‘cept this +here signater in print letters; that’s his.’ + +‘Perhaps he got somebody to write it for him, and signed it himself +afterwards,’ said the pretty housemaid. + +‘Stop a minit,’ replied Sam, running over the letter again, and pausing +here and there, to reflect, as he did so. ‘You’ve hit it. The gen’l’m’n +as wrote it wos a-tellin’ all about the misfortun’ in a proper vay, and +then my father comes a-lookin’ over him, and complicates the whole +concern by puttin’ his oar in. That’s just the wery sort o’ thing he’d +do. You’re right, Mary, my dear.’ + +Having satisfied himself on this point, Sam read the letter all over, +once more, and, appearing to form a clear notion of its contents for the +first time, ejaculated thoughtfully, as he folded it up-- + +‘And so the poor creetur’s dead! I’m sorry for it. She warn’t a bad- +disposed ‘ooman, if them shepherds had let her alone. I’m wery sorry for +it.’ + +Mr. Weller uttered these words in so serious a manner, that the pretty +housemaid cast down her eyes and looked very grave. + +‘Hows’ever,’ said Sam, putting the letter in his pocket with a gentle +sigh, ‘it wos to be--and wos, as the old lady said arter she’d married +the footman. Can’t be helped now, can it, Mary?’ + +Mary shook her head, and sighed too. + +‘I must apply to the hemperor for leave of absence,’ said Sam. + +Mary sighed again--the letter was so very affecting. + +‘Good-bye!’ said Sam. + +‘Good-bye,’ rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head away. + +‘Well, shake hands, won’t you?’ said Sam. + +The pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a +housemaid’s, was a very small one, and rose to go. + +‘I shan’t be wery long avay,’ said Sam. + +‘You’re always away,’ said Mary, giving her head the slightest possible +toss in the air. ‘You no sooner come, Mr. Weller, than you go again.’ + +Mr. Weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and entered upon a +whispering conversation, which had not proceeded far, when she turned +her face round and condescended to look at him again. When they parted, +it was somehow or other indispensably necessary for her to go to her +room, and arrange the cap and curls before she could think of presenting +herself to her mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to +perform, bestowing many nods and smiles on Sam over the banisters as she +tripped upstairs. + +‘I shan’t be avay more than a day, or two, Sir, at the furthest,’ said +Sam, when he had communicated to Mr. Pickwick the intelligence of his +father’s loss. + +‘As long as may be necessary, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘you have my +full permission to remain.’ + +Sam bowed. + +‘You will tell your father, Sam, that if I can be of any assistance to +him in his present situation, I shall be most willing and ready to lend +him any aid in my power,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Thank’ee, sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘I’ll mention it, sir.’ + +And with some expressions of mutual good-will and interest, master and +man separated. + +It was just seven o’clock when Samuel Weller, alighting from the box of +a stage-coach which passed through Dorking, stood within a few hundred +yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a cold, dull evening; the little +street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the +noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy +expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking +mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters +partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the +door, not one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate. + +Seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary questions, Sam walked +softly in, and glancing round, he quickly recognised his parent in the +distance. + +The widower was seated at a small round table in the little room behind +the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed upon the fire. The +funeral had evidently taken place that day, for attached to his hat, +which he still retained on his head, was a hatband measuring about a +yard and a half in length, which hung over the top rail of the chair and +streamed negligently down. Mr. Weller was in a very abstracted and +contemplative mood. Notwithstanding that Sam called him by name several +times, he still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet +countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son’s placing the +palm of his hand on his shoulder. + +‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘you’re welcome.’ + +‘I’ve been a-callin’ to you half a dozen times,’ said Sam, hanging his +hat on a peg, ‘but you didn’t hear me.’ + +‘No, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire. +‘I was in a referee, Sammy.’ + +‘Wot about?’ inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to the fire. + +‘In a referee, Sammy,’ replied the elder Mr. Weller, ‘regarding _her_, +Samivel.’ Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of Dorking +churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late Mrs. +Weller. + +‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with great +earnestness, over his pipe, as if to assure him that however +extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was +nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. ‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy, +that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone.’ + +‘Vell, and so you ought to be,’ replied Sam. + +Mr. Weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again fastening +his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and mused deeply. + +‘Those wos wery sensible observations as she made, Sammy,’ said Mr. +Weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long silence. + +‘Wot observations?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Them as she made, arter she was took ill,’ replied the old gentleman. + +‘Wot was they?’ + +‘Somethin’ to this here effect. “Veller,” she says, “I’m afeered I’ve +not done by you quite wot I ought to have done; you’re a wery kind- +hearted man, and I might ha’ made your home more comfortabler. I begin +to see now,” she says, “ven it’s too late, that if a married ‘ooman +vishes to be religious, she should begin vith dischargin’ her dooties at +home, and makin’ them as is about her cheerful and happy, and that vile +she goes to church, or chapel, or wot not, at all proper times, she +should be wery careful not to con-wert this sort o’ thing into a excuse +for idleness or self-indulgence. I have done this,” she says, “and I’ve +vasted time and substance on them as has done it more than me; but I +hope ven I’m gone, Veller, that you’ll think on me as I wos afore I +know’d them people, and as I raly wos by natur.” ‘“Susan,” says I--I wos +took up wery short by this, Samivel; I von’t deny it, my boy--“Susan,” I +says, “you’ve been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don’t say nothin’ +at all about it; keep a good heart, my dear; and you’ll live to see me +punch that ‘ere Stiggins’s head yet.” She smiled at this, Samivel,’ said +the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, ‘but she died arter +all!’ + +‘Vell,’ said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after +the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in +slowly shaking his head from side to side, and solemnly smoking, ‘vell, +gov’nor, ve must all come to it, one day or another.’ + +‘So we must, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller the elder. + +‘There’s a Providence in it all,’ said Sam. + +‘O’ course there is,’ replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. +‘Wot ‘ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy?’ + +Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the +elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a +meditative visage. + +While the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-looking cook, +dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about, in the bar, glided +into the room, and bestowing many smirks of recognition upon Sam, +silently stationed herself at the back of his father’s chair, and +announced her presence by a slight cough, the which, being disregarded, +was followed by a louder one. + +‘Hollo!’ said the elder Mr. Weller, dropping the poker as he looked +round, and hastily drew his chair away. ‘Wot’s the matter now?’ + +‘Have a cup of tea, there’s a good soul,’ replied the buxom female +coaxingly. + +‘I von’t,’ replied Mr. Weller, in a somewhat boisterous manner. ‘I’ll +see you--’ Mr. Weller hastily checked himself, and added in a low tone, +‘furder fust.’ + +‘Oh, dear, dear! How adwersity does change people!’ said the lady, +looking upwards. + +‘It’s the only thing ‘twixt this and the doctor as shall change my +condition,’ muttered Mr. Weller. + +‘I really never saw a man so cross,’ said the buxom female. + +‘Never mind. It’s all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith vich +the penitent school-boy comforted his feelin’s ven they flogged him,’ +rejoined the old gentleman. + +The buxom female shook her head with a compassionate and sympathising +air; and, appealing to Sam, inquired whether his father really ought not +to make an effort to keep up, and not give way to that lowness of +spirits. + +‘You see, Mr. Samuel,’ said the buxom female, ‘as I was telling him +yesterday, he will feel lonely, he can’t expect but what he should, sir, +but he should keep up a good heart, because, dear me, I’m sure we all +pity his loss, and are ready to do anything for him; and there’s no +situation in life so bad, Mr. Samuel, that it can’t be mended. Which is +what a very worthy person said to me when my husband died.’ Here the +speaker, putting her hand before her mouth, coughed again, and looked +affectionately at the elder Mr. Weller. + +‘As I don’t rekvire any o’ your conversation just now, mum, vill you +have the goodness to re-tire?’ inquired Mr. Weller, in a grave and +steady voice. + +‘Well, Mr. Weller,’ said the buxom female, ‘I’m sure I only spoke to you +out of kindness.’ + +‘Wery likely, mum,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Samivel, show the lady out, and +shut the door after her.’ + +This hint was not lost upon the buxom female; for she at once left the +room, and slammed the door behind her, upon which Mr. Weller, senior, +falling back in his chair in a violent perspiration, said-- + +‘Sammy, if I wos to stop here alone vun week--only vun week, my boy-- +that ‘ere ‘ooman ‘ud marry me by force and wiolence afore it was over.’ + +‘Wot! is she so wery fond on you?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Fond!’ replied his father. ‘I can’t keep her avay from me. If I was +locked up in a fireproof chest vith a patent Brahmin, she’d find means +to get at me, Sammy.’ + +‘Wot a thing it is to be so sought arter!’ observed Sam, smiling. + +‘I don’t take no pride out on it, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, poking the +fire vehemently, ‘it’s a horrid sitiwation. I’m actiwally drove out o’ +house and home by it. The breath was scarcely out o’ your poor mother- +in-law’s body, ven vun old ‘ooman sends me a pot o’ jam, and another a +pot o’ jelly, and another brews a blessed large jug o’ camomile-tea, +vich she brings in vith her own hands.’ Mr. Weller paused with an aspect +of intense disgust, and looking round, added in a whisper, ‘They wos all +widders, Sammy, all on ‘em, ‘cept the camomile-tea vun, as wos a single +young lady o’ fifty-three.’ + +Sam gave a comical look in reply, and the old gentleman having broken an +obstinate lump of coal, with a countenance expressive of as much +earnestness and malice as if it had been the head of one of the widows +last-mentioned, said: + +‘In short, Sammy, I feel that I ain’t safe anyveres but on the box.’ + +‘How are you safer there than anyveres else?’ interrupted Sam. + +‘’Cos a coachman’s a privileged indiwidual,’ replied Mr. Weller, looking +fixedly at his son. ‘’Cos a coachman may do vithout suspicion wot other +men may not; ‘cos a coachman may be on the wery amicablest terms with +eighty mile o’ females, and yet nobody think that he ever means to marry +any vun among ‘em. And wot other man can say the same, Sammy?’ + +‘Vell, there’s somethin’ in that,’ said Sam. + +‘If your gov’nor had been a coachman,’ reasoned Mr. Weller, ‘do you +s’pose as that ‘ere jury ‘ud ever ha’ conwicted him, s’posin’ it +possible as the matter could ha’ gone to that extremity? They dustn’t +ha’ done it.’ + +‘Wy not?’ said Sam, rather disparagingly. + +‘Wy not!’ rejoined Mr. Weller; ‘’cos it ‘ud ha’ gone agin their +consciences. A reg’lar coachman’s a sort o’ con-nectin’ link betwixt +singleness and matrimony, and every practicable man knows it.’ + +‘Wot! You mean, they’re gen’ral favorites, and nobody takes adwantage on +‘em, p’raps?’ said Sam. + +His father nodded. + +‘How it ever come to that ‘ere pass,’ resumed the parent Weller, ‘I +can’t say. Wy it is that long-stage coachmen possess such insiniwations, +and is alvays looked up to--a-dored I may say--by ev’ry young ‘ooman in +ev’ry town he vurks through, I don’t know. I only know that so it is. +It’s a regulation of natur--a dispensary, as your poor mother-in-law +used to say.’ + +‘A dispensation,’ said Sam, correcting the old gentleman. + +‘Wery good, Samivel, a dispensation if you like it better,’ returned Mr. +Weller; ‘I call it a dispensary, and it’s always writ up so, at the +places vere they gives you physic for nothin’ in your own bottles; +that’s all.’ + +With these words, Mr. Weller refilled and relighted his pipe, and once +more summoning up a meditative expression of countenance, continued as +follows-- + +‘Therefore, my boy, as I do not see the adwisability o’ stoppin here to +be married vether I vant to or not, and as at the same time I do not +vish to separate myself from them interestin’ members o’ society +altogether, I have come to the determination o’ driving the Safety, and +puttin’ up vunce more at the Bell Savage, vich is my nat’ral born +element, Sammy.’ + +‘And wot’s to become o’ the bis’ness?’ inquired Sam. + +‘The bis’ness, Samivel,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘good-vill, stock, +and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o’ the money, two +hundred pound, agreeable to a rekvest o’ your mother-in-law’s to me, a +little afore she died, vill be invested in your name in--What do you +call them things agin?’ + +‘Wot things?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Them things as is always a-goin’ up and down, in the city.’ + +‘Omnibuses?’ suggested Sam. + +‘Nonsense,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Them things as is alvays a- +fluctooatin’, and gettin’ theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith +the national debt, and the chequers bill; and all that.’ + +‘Oh! the funds,’ said Sam. + +‘Ah!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, ‘the funs; two hundred pounds o’ the money is +to be inwested for you, Samivel, in the funs; four and a half per cent. +reduced counsels, Sammy.’ + +‘Wery kind o’ the old lady to think o’ me,’ said Sam, ‘and I’m wery much +obliged to her.’ + +‘The rest will be inwested in my name,’ continued the elder Mr. Weller; +‘and wen I’m took off the road, it’ll come to you, so take care you +don’t spend it all at vunst, my boy, and mind that no widder gets a +inklin’ o’ your fortun’, or you’re done.’ + +Having delivered this warning, Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with a more +serene countenance; the disclosure of these matters appearing to have +eased his mind considerably. + +‘Somebody’s a-tappin’ at the door,’ said Sam. + +‘Let ‘em tap,’ replied his father, with dignity. + +Sam acted upon the direction. There was another tap, and another, and +then a long row of taps; upon which Sam inquired why the tapper was not +admitted. + +‘Hush,’ whispered Mr. Weller, with apprehensive looks, ‘don’t take no +notice on ‘em, Sammy, it’s vun o’ the widders, p’raps.’ + +No notice being taken of the taps, the unseen visitor, after a short +lapse, ventured to open the door and peep in. It was no female head that +was thrust in at the partially-opened door, but the long black locks and +red face of Mr. Stiggins. Mr. Weller’s pipe fell from his hands. + +The reverend gentleman gradually opened the door by almost imperceptible +degrees, until the aperture was just wide enough to admit of the passage +of his lank body, when he glided into the room and closed it after him, +with great care and gentleness. Turning towards Sam, and raising his +hands and eyes in token of the unspeakable sorrow with which he regarded +the calamity that had befallen the family, he carried the high-backed +chair to his old corner by the fire, and, seating himself on the very +edge, drew forth a brown pocket-handkerchief, and applied the same to +his optics. + +While this was going forward, the elder Mr. Weller sat back in his +chair, with his eyes wide open, his hands planted on his knees, and his +whole countenance expressive of absorbing and overwhelming astonishment. +Sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity, +for the termination of the scene. + +Mr. Stiggins kept the brown pocket-handkerchief before his eyes for some +minutes, moaning decently meanwhile, and then, mastering his feelings by +a strong effort, put it in his pocket and buttoned it up. After this, he +stirred the fire; after that, he rubbed his hands and looked at Sam. + +‘Oh, my young friend,’ said Mr. Stiggins, breaking the silence, in a +very low voice, ‘here’s a sorrowful affliction!’ + +Sam nodded very slightly. + +‘For the man of wrath, too!’ added Mr. Stiggins; ‘it makes a vessel’s +heart bleed!’ + +Mr. Weller was overheard by his son to murmur something relative to +making a vessel’s nose bleed; but Mr. Stiggins heard him not. + +‘Do you know, young man,’ whispered Mr. Stiggins, drawing his chair +closer to Sam, ‘whether she has left Emanuel anything?’ + +‘Who’s he?’ inquired Sam. + +‘The chapel,’ replied Mr. Stiggins; ‘our chapel; our fold, Mr. Samuel.’ + +‘She hasn’t left the fold nothin’, nor the shepherd nothin’, nor the +animals nothin’,’ said Sam decisively; ‘nor the dogs neither.’ + +Mr. Stiggins looked slily at Sam; glanced at the old gentleman, who was +sitting with his eyes closed, as if asleep; and drawing his chair still +nearer, said-- + +‘Nothing for _me_, Mr. Samuel?’ + +Sam shook his head. + +‘I think there’s something,’ said Stiggins, turning as pale as he could +turn. ‘Consider, Mr. Samuel; no little token?’ + +‘Not so much as the vorth o’ that ‘ere old umberella o’ yourn,’ replied +Sam. + +‘Perhaps,’ said Mr. Stiggins hesitatingly, after a few moments’ deep +thought, ‘perhaps she recommended me to the care of the man of wrath, +Mr. Samuel?’ + +‘I think that’s wery likely, from what he said,’ rejoined Sam; ‘he wos +a-speakin’ about you, jist now.’ + +‘Was he, though?’ exclaimed Stiggins, brightening up. ‘Ah! He’s changed, +I dare say. We might live very comfortably together now, Mr. Samuel, eh? +I could take care of his property when you are away--good care, you +see.’ + +Heaving a long-drawn sigh, Mr. Stiggins paused for a response. Sam +nodded, and Mr. Weller the elder gave vent to an extraordinary sound, +which, being neither a groan, nor a grunt, nor a gasp, nor a growl, +seemed to partake in some degree of the character of all four. + +Mr. Stiggins, encouraged by this sound, which he understood to betoken +remorse or repentance, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, +wept again, and then, walking softly across the room to a well- +remembered shelf in one corner, took down a tumbler, and with great +deliberation put four lumps of sugar in it. Having got thus far, he +looked about him again, and sighed grievously; with that, he walked +softly into the bar, and presently returning with the tumbler half full +of pine-apple rum, advanced to the kettle which was singing gaily on the +hob, mixed his grog, stirred it, sipped it, sat down, and taking a long +and hearty pull at the rum-and-water, stopped for breath. + +The elder Mr. Weller, who still continued to make various strange and +uncouth attempts to appear asleep, offered not a single word during +these proceedings; but when Stiggins stopped for breath, he darted upon +him, and snatching the tumbler from his hand, threw the remainder of the +rum-and-water in his face, and the glass itself into the grate. Then, +seizing the reverend gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to +kicking him most furiously, accompanying every application of his top- +boot to Mr. Stiggins’s person, with sundry violent and incoherent +anathemas upon his limbs, eyes, and body. + +‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘put my hat on tight for me.’ + +Sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his +father’s head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater +agility than before, tumbled with Mr. Stiggins through the bar, and +through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street--the +kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather +than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted. + +It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man +writhing in Mr. Weller’s grasp, and his whole frame quivering with +anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more +exciting spectacle to behold Mr. Weller, after a powerful struggle, +immersing Mr. Stiggins’s head in a horse-trough full of water, and +holding it there, until he was half suffocated. + +‘There!’ said Mr. Weller, throwing all his energy into one most +complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to withdraw his +head from the trough, ‘send any vun o’ them lazy shepherds here, and +I’ll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards! Sammy, help +me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. I’m out o’ breath, my boy.’ + + + +CHAPTER LIII. COMPRISING THE FINAL EXIT OF MR. JINGLE AND JOB TROTTER, +WITH A GREAT MORNING OF BUSINESS IN GRAY’S INN SQUARE--CONCLUDING WITH A +DOUBLE KNOCK AT MR. PERKER’S DOOR + +When Arabella, after some gentle preparation and many assurances that +there was not the least occasion for being low-spirited, was at length +made acquainted by Mr. Pickwick with the unsatisfactory result of his +visit to Birmingham, she burst into tears, and sobbing aloud, lamented +in moving terms that she should have been the unhappy cause of any +estrangement between a father and his son. + +‘My dear girl,’ said Mr. Pickwick kindly, ‘it is no fault of yours. It +was impossible to foresee that the old gentleman would be so strongly +prepossessed against his son’s marriage, you know. I am sure,’ added Mr. +Pickwick, glancing at her pretty face, ‘he can have very little idea of +the pleasure he denies himself.’ + +‘Oh, my dear Mr. Pickwick,’ said Arabella, ‘what shall we do, if he +continues to be angry with us?’ + +‘Why, wait patiently, my dear, until he thinks better of it,’ replied +Mr. Pickwick cheerfully. + +‘But, dear Mr. Pickwick, what is to become of Nathaniel if his father +withdraws his assistance?’ urged Arabella. + +‘In that case, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, ‘I will venture to +prophesy that he will find some other friend who will not be backward in +helping him to start in the world.’ + +The significance of this reply was not so well disguised by Mr. Pickwick +but that Arabella understood it. So, throwing her arms round his neck, +and kissing him affectionately, she sobbed louder than before. + +‘Come, come,’ said Mr. Pickwick taking her hand, ‘we will wait here a +few days longer, and see whether he writes or takes any other notice of +your husband’s communication. If not, I have thought of half a dozen +plans, any one of which would make you happy at once. There, my dear, +there!’ + +With these words, Mr. Pickwick gently pressed Arabella’s hand, and bade +her dry her eyes, and not distress her husband. Upon which, Arabella, +who was one of the best little creatures alive, put her handkerchief in +her reticule, and by the time Mr. Winkle joined them, exhibited in full +lustre the same beaming smiles and sparkling eyes that had originally +captivated him. + +‘This is a distressing predicament for these young people,’ thought Mr. +Pickwick, as he dressed himself next morning. ‘I’ll walk up to Perker’s, +and consult him about the matter.’ + +As Mr. Pickwick was further prompted to betake himself to Gray’s Inn +Square by an anxious desire to come to a pecuniary settlement with the +kind-hearted little attorney without further delay, he made a hurried +breakfast, and executed his intention so speedily, that ten o’clock had +not struck when he reached Gray’s Inn. + +It still wanted ten minutes to the hour when he had ascended the +staircase on which Perker’s chambers were. The clerks had not arrived +yet, and he beguiled the time by looking out of the staircase window. + +The healthy light of a fine October morning made even the dingy old +houses brighten up a little; some of the dusty windows actually looking +almost cheerful as the sun’s rays gleamed upon them. Clerk after clerk +hastened into the square by one or other of the entrances, and looking +up at the Hall clock, accelerated or decreased his rate of walking +according to the time at which his office hours nominally commenced; the +half-past nine o’clock people suddenly becoming very brisk, and the ten +o’clock gentlemen falling into a pace of most aristocratic slowness. The +clock struck ten, and clerks poured in faster than ever, each one in a +greater perspiration than his predecessor. The noise of unlocking and +opening doors echoed and re-echoed on every side; heads appeared as if +by magic in every window; the porters took up their stations for the +day; the slipshod laundresses hurried off; the postman ran from house to +house; and the whole legal hive was in a bustle. + +‘You’re early, Mr. Pickwick,’ said a voice behind him. + +‘Ah, Mr. Lowten,’ replied that gentleman, looking round, and recognising +his old acquaintance. + +‘Precious warm walking, isn’t it?’ said Lowten, drawing a Bramah key +from his pocket, with a small plug therein, to keep the dust out. + +‘You appear to feel it so,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling at the clerk, +who was literally red-hot. + +‘I’ve come along, rather, I can tell you,’ replied Lowten. ‘It went the +half hour as I came through the Polygon. I’m here before him, though, so +I don’t mind.’ + +Comforting himself with this reflection, Mr. Lowten extracted the plug +from the door-key; having opened the door, replugged and repocketed his +Bramah, and picked up the letters which the postman had dropped through +the box, he ushered Mr. Pickwick into the office. Here, in the twinkling +of an eye, he divested himself of his coat, put on a threadbare garment, +which he took out of a desk, hung up his hat, pulled forth a few sheets +of cartridge and blotting-paper in alternate layers, and, sticking a pen +behind his ear, rubbed his hands with an air of great satisfaction. + +‘There, you see, Mr. Pickwick,’ he said, ‘now I’m complete. I’ve got my +office coat on, and my pad out, and let him come as soon as he likes. +You haven’t got a pinch of snuff about you, have you?’ + +‘No, I have not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I’m sorry for it,’ said Lowten. ‘Never mind. I’ll run out presently, +and get a bottle of soda. Don’t I look rather queer about the eyes, Mr. +Pickwick?’ + +The individual appealed to, surveyed Mr. Lowten’s eyes from a distance, +and expressed his opinion that no unusual queerness was perceptible in +those features. + +‘I’m glad of it,’ said Lowten. ‘We were keeping it up pretty tolerably +at the Stump last night, and I’m rather out of sorts this morning. +Perker’s been about that business of yours, by the bye.’ + +‘What business?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. ‘Mrs. Bardell’s costs?’ + +‘No, I don’t mean that,’ replied Mr. Lowten. ‘About getting that +customer that we paid the ten shillings in the pound to the bill- +discounter for, on your account--to get him out of the Fleet, you know-- +about getting him to Demerara.’ + +‘Oh, Mr. Jingle,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘Yes. Well?’ + +‘Well, it’s all arranged,’ said Lowten, mending his pen. ‘The agent at +Liverpool said he had been obliged to you many times when you were in +business, and he would be glad to take him on your recommendation.’ + +‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am delighted to hear it.’ + +‘But I say,’ resumed Lowten, scraping the back of the pen preparatory to +making a fresh split, ‘what a soft chap that other is!’ + +‘Which other?’ + +‘Why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; you know, Trotter.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. ‘I always thought him the +reverse.’ + +‘Well, and so did I, from what little I saw of him,’ replied Lowten, ‘it +only shows how one may be deceived. What do you think of his going to +Demerara, too?’ + +‘What! And giving up what was offered him here!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Treating Perker’s offer of eighteen bob a week, and a rise if he +behaved himself, like dirt,’ replied Lowten. ‘He said he must go along +with the other one, and so they persuaded Perker to write again, and +they’ve got him something on the same estate; not near so good, Perker +says, as a convict would get in New South Wales, if he appeared at his +trial in a new suit of clothes.’ + +‘Foolish fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with glistening eyes. ‘Foolish +fellow.’ + +‘Oh, it’s worse than foolish; it’s downright sneaking, you know,’ +replied Lowten, nibbing the pen with a contemptuous face. ‘He says that +he’s the only friend he ever had, and he’s attached to him, and all +that. Friendship’s a very good thing in its way--we are all very +friendly and comfortable at the Stump, for instance, over our grog, +where every man pays for himself; but damn hurting yourself for anybody +else, you know! No man should have more than two attachments--the first, +to number one, and the second to the ladies; that’s what I say--ha! ha!’ +Mr. Lowten concluded with a loud laugh, half in jocularity, and half in +derision, which was prematurely cut short by the sound of Perker’s +footsteps on the stairs, at the first approach of which, he vaulted on +his stool with an agility most remarkable, and wrote intensely. + +The greeting between Mr. Pickwick and his professional adviser was warm +and cordial; the client was scarcely ensconced in the attorney’s arm- +chair, however, when a knock was heard at the door, and a voice inquired +whether Mr. Perker was within. + +‘Hark!’ said Perker, ‘that’s one of our vagabond friends--Jingle +himself, my dear Sir. Will you see him?’ + +‘What do you think?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, hesitating. + +‘Yes, I think you had better. Here, you Sir, what’s your name, walk in, +will you?’ + +In compliance with this unceremonious invitation, Jingle and Job walked +into the room, but, seeing Mr. Pickwick, stopped short in some +confusion. + +‘Well,’ said Perker, ‘don’t you know that gentleman?’ + +‘Good reason to,’ replied Mr. Jingle, stepping forward. ‘Mr. Pickwick-- +deepest obligations--life preserver--made a man of me--you shall never +repent it, Sir.’ + +‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘You look much +better.’ + +‘Thanks to you, sir--great change--Majesty’s Fleet--unwholesome place-- +very,’ said Jingle, shaking his head. He was decently and cleanly +dressed, and so was Job, who stood bolt upright behind him, staring at +Mr. Pickwick with a visage of iron. + +‘When do they go to Liverpool?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, half aside to +Perker. + +‘This evening, Sir, at seven o’clock,’ said Job, taking one step +forward. ‘By the heavy coach from the city, Sir.’ + +‘Are your places taken?’ + +‘They are, sir,’ replied Job. + +‘You have fully made up your mind to go?’ + +‘I have sir,’ answered Job. + +‘With regard to such an outfit as was indispensable for Jingle,’ said +Perker, addressing Mr. Pickwick aloud. ‘I have taken upon myself to make +an arrangement for the deduction of a small sum from his quarterly +salary, which, being made only for one year, and regularly remitted, +will provide for that expense. I entirely disapprove of your doing +anything for him, my dear sir, which is not dependent on his own +exertions and good conduct.’ + +‘Certainly,’ interposed Jingle, with great firmness. ‘Clear head--man of +the world--quite right--perfectly.’ + +‘By compounding with his creditor, releasing his clothes from the +pawnbroker’s, relieving him in prison, and paying for his passage,’ +continued Perker, without noticing Jingle’s observation, ‘you have +already lost upwards of fifty pounds.’ + +‘Not lost,’ said Jingle hastily, ‘Pay it all--stick to business--cash +up--every farthing. Yellow fever, perhaps--can’t help that--if not--’ +Here Mr. Jingle paused, and striking the crown of his hat with great +violence, passed his hand over his eyes, and sat down. + +‘He means to say,’ said Job, advancing a few paces, ‘that if he is not +carried off by the fever, he will pay the money back again. If he lives, +he will, Mr. Pickwick. I will see it done. I know he will, Sir,’ said +Job, with energy. ‘I could undertake to swear it.’ + +‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who had been bestowing a score or two +of frowns upon Perker, to stop his summary of benefits conferred, which +the little attorney obstinately disregarded, ‘you must be careful not to +play any more desperate cricket matches, Mr. Jingle, or to renew your +acquaintance with Sir Thomas Blazo, and I have little doubt of your +preserving your health.’ + +Mr. Jingle smiled at this sally, but looked rather foolish +notwithstanding; so Mr. Pickwick changed the subject by saying-- + +‘You don’t happen to know, do you, what has become of another friend of +yours--a more humble one, whom I saw at Rochester?’ + +‘Dismal Jemmy?’ inquired Jingle. + +‘Yes.’ + +Jingle shook his head. + +‘Clever rascal--queer fellow, hoaxing genius--Job’s brother.’ + +‘Job’s brother!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Well, now I look at him +closely, there _is_ a likeness.’ + +‘We were always considered like each other, Sir,’ said Job, with a +cunning look just lurking in the corners of his eyes, ‘only I was really +of a serious nature, and he never was. He emigrated to America, Sir, in +consequence of being too much sought after here, to be comfortable; and +has never been heard of since.’ + +‘That accounts for my not having received the “page from the romance of +real life,” which he promised me one morning when he appeared to be +contemplating suicide on Rochester Bridge, I suppose,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, smiling. ‘I need not inquire whether his dismal behaviour was +natural or assumed.’ + +‘He could assume anything, Sir,’ said Job. ‘You may consider yourself +very fortunate in having escaped him so easily. On intimate terms he +would have been even a more dangerous acquaintance than--’ Job looked at +Jingle, hesitated, and finally added, ‘than--than-myself even.’ + +‘A hopeful family yours, Mr. Trotter,’ said Perker, sealing a letter +which he had just finished writing. + +‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Job. ‘Very much so.’ + +‘Well,’ said the little man, laughing, ‘I hope you are going to disgrace +it. Deliver this letter to the agent when you reach Liverpool, and let +me advise you, gentlemen, not to be too knowing in the West Indies. If +you throw away this chance, you will both richly deserve to be hanged, +as I sincerely trust you will be. And now you had better leave Mr. +Pickwick and me alone, for we have other matters to talk over, and time +is precious.’ As Perker said this, he looked towards the door, with an +evident desire to render the leave-taking as brief as possible. + +It was brief enough on Mr. Jingle’s part. He thanked the little attorney +in a few hurried words for the kindness and promptitude with which he +had rendered his assistance, and, turning to his benefactor, stood for a +few seconds as if irresolute what to say or how to act. Job Trotter +relieved his perplexity; for, with a humble and grateful bow to Mr. +Pickwick, he took his friend gently by the arm, and led him away. + +‘A worthy couple!’ said Perker, as the door closed behind them. + +‘I hope they may become so,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘What do you think? +Is there any chance of their permanent reformation?’ + +Perker shrugged his shoulders doubtfully, but observing Mr. Pickwick’s +anxious and disappointed look, rejoined-- + +‘Of course there is a chance. I hope it may prove a good one. They are +unquestionably penitent now; but then, you know, they have the +recollection of very recent suffering fresh upon them. What they may +become, when that fades away, is a problem that neither you nor I can +solve. However, my dear Sir,’ added Perker, laying his hand on Mr. +Pickwick’s shoulder, ‘your object is equally honourable, whatever the +result is. Whether that species of benevolence which is so very cautious +and long-sighted that it is seldom exercised at all, lest its owner +should be imposed upon, and so wounded in his self-love, be real charity +or a worldly counterfeit, I leave to wiser heads than mine to determine. +But if those two fellows were to commit a burglary to-morrow, my opinion +of this action would be equally high.’ + +With these remarks, which were delivered in a much more animated and +earnest manner than is usual in legal gentlemen, Perker drew his chair +to his desk, and listened to Mr. Pickwick’s recital of old Mr. Winkle’s +obstinacy. + +‘Give him a week,’ said Perker, nodding his head prophetically. + +‘Do you think he will come round?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I think he will,’ rejoined Perker. ‘If not, we must try the young +lady’s persuasion; and that is what anybody but you would have done at +first.’ + +Mr. Perker was taking a pinch of snuff with various grotesque +contractions of countenance, eulogistic of the persuasive powers +appertaining unto young ladies, when the murmur of inquiry and answer +was heard in the outer office, and Lowten tapped at the door. + +‘Come in!’ cried the little man. + +The clerk came in, and shut the door after him, with great mystery. + +‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Perker. + +‘You’re wanted, Sir.’ + +‘Who wants me?’ + +Lowten looked at Mr. Pickwick, and coughed. + +‘Who wants me? Can’t you speak, Mr. Lowten?’ + +‘Why, sir,’ replied Lowten, ‘it’s Dodson; and Fogg is with him.’ + +‘Bless my life!’ said the little man, looking at his watch, ‘I appointed +them to be here at half-past eleven, to settle that matter of yours, +Pickwick. I gave them an undertaking on which they sent down your +discharge; it’s very awkward, my dear Sir; what will you do? Would you +like to step into the next room?’ + +The next room being the identical room in which Messrs. Dodson & Fogg +were, Mr. Pickwick replied that he would remain where he was: the more +especially as Messrs. Dodson & Fogg ought to be ashamed to look him in +the face, instead of his being ashamed to see them. Which latter +circumstance he begged Mr. Perker to note, with a glowing countenance +and many marks of indignation. + +‘Very well, my dear Sir, very well,’ replied Perker, ‘I can only say +that if you expect either Dodson or Fogg to exhibit any symptom of shame +or confusion at having to look you, or anybody else, in the face, you +are the most sanguine man in your expectations that I ever met with. +Show them in, Mr. Lowten.’ + +Mr. Lowten disappeared with a grin, and immediately returned ushering in +the firm, in due form of precedence--Dodson first, and Fogg afterwards. + +‘You have seen Mr. Pickwick, I believe?’ said Perker to Dodson, +inclining his pen in the direction where that gentleman was seated. + +‘How do you do, Mr. Pickwick?’ said Dodson, in a loud voice. + +‘Dear me,’ cried Fogg, ‘how do you do, Mr. Pickwick? I hope you are +well, Sir. I thought I knew the face,’ said Fogg, drawing up a chair, +and looking round him with a smile. + +Mr. Pickwick bent his head very slightly, in answer to these +salutations, and, seeing Fogg pull a bundle of papers from his coat +pocket, rose and walked to the window. + +‘There’s no occasion for Mr. Pickwick to move, Mr. Perker,’ said Fogg, +untying the red tape which encircled the little bundle, and smiling +again more sweetly than before. ‘Mr. Pickwick is pretty well acquainted +with these proceedings. There are no secrets between us, I think. He! +he! he!’ + +‘Not many, I think,’ said Dodson. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ Then both the partners +laughed together--pleasantly and cheerfully, as men who are going to +receive money often do. + +‘We shall make Mr. Pickwick pay for peeping,’ said Fogg, with +considerable native humour, as he unfolded his papers. ‘The amount of +the taxed costs is one hundred and thirty-three, six, four, Mr. Perker.’ + +There was a great comparing of papers, and turning over of leaves, by +Fogg and Perker, after this statement of profit and loss. Meanwhile, +Dodson said, in an affable manner, to Mr. Pickwick-- + +‘I don’t think you are looking quite so stout as when I had the pleasure +of seeing you last, Mr. Pickwick.’ + +‘Possibly not, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, who had been flashing forth +looks of fierce indignation, without producing the smallest effect on +either of the sharp practitioners; ‘I believe I am not, Sir. I have been +persecuted and annoyed by scoundrels of late, Sir.’ + +Perker coughed violently, and asked Mr. Pickwick whether he wouldn’t +like to look at the morning paper. To which inquiry Mr. Pickwick +returned a most decided negative. + +‘True,’ said Dodson, ‘I dare say you have been annoyed in the Fleet; +there are some odd gentry there. Whereabouts were your apartments, Mr. +Pickwick?’ + +‘My one room,’ replied that much-injured gentleman, ‘was on the coffee- +room flight.’ + +‘Oh, indeed!’ said Dodson. ‘I believe that is a very pleasant part of +the establishment.’ + +‘Very,’ replied Mr. Pickwick drily. + +There was a coolness about all this, which, to a gentleman of an +excitable temperament, had, under the circumstances, rather an +exasperating tendency. Mr. Pickwick restrained his wrath by gigantic +efforts; but when Perker wrote a cheque for the whole amount, and Fogg +deposited it in a small pocket-book, with a triumphant smile playing +over his pimply features, which communicated itself likewise to the +stern countenance of Dodson, he felt the blood in his cheeks tingling +with indignation. + +‘Now, Mr. Dodson,’ said Fogg, putting up the pocket-book and drawing on +his gloves, ‘I am at your service.’ + +‘Very good,’ said Dodson, rising; ‘I am quite ready.’ + +‘I am very happy,’ said Fogg, softened by the cheque, ‘to have had the +pleasure of making Mr. Pickwick’s acquaintance. I hope you don’t think +quite so ill of us, Mr. Pickwick, as when we first had the pleasure of +seeing you.’ + +‘I hope not,’ said Dodson, with the high tone of calumniated virtue. +‘Mr. Pickwick now knows us better, I trust; whatever your opinion of +gentlemen of our profession may be, I beg to assure you, sir, that I +bear no ill-will or vindictive feeling towards you for the sentiments +you thought proper to express in our office in Freeman’s Court, +Cornhill, on the occasion to which my partner has referred.’ + +‘Oh, no, no; nor I,’ said Fogg, in a most forgiving manner. + +‘Our conduct, Sir,’ said Dodson, ‘will speak for itself, and justify +itself, I hope, upon every occasion. We have been in the profession some +years, Mr. Pickwick, and have been honoured with the confidence of many +excellent clients. I wish you good-morning, Sir.’ + +‘Good-morning, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Fogg. So saying, he put his umbrella +under his arm, drew off his right glove, and extended the hand of +reconciliation to that most indignant gentleman; who, thereupon, thrust +his hands beneath his coat tails, and eyed the attorney with looks of +scornful amazement. + +‘Lowten!’ cried Perker, at this moment. ‘Open the door.’ + +‘Wait one instant,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Perker, I _will _speak.’ + +‘My dear Sir, pray let the matter rest where it is,’ said the little +attorney, who had been in a state of nervous apprehension during the +whole interview; ‘Mr. Pickwick, I beg--’ + +‘I will not be put down, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘Mr. +Dodson, you have addressed some remarks to me.’ + +Dodson turned round, bent his head meekly, and smiled. + +‘Some remarks to me,’ repeated Mr. Pickwick, almost breathless; ‘and +your partner has tendered me his hand, and you have both assumed a tone +of forgiveness and high-mindedness, which is an extent of impudence that +I was not prepared for, even in you.’ + +‘What, sir!’ exclaimed Dodson. + +‘What, sir!’ reiterated Fogg. + +‘Do you know that I have been the victim of your plots and +conspiracies?’ continued Mr. Pickwick. ‘Do you know that I am the man +whom you have been imprisoning and robbing? Do you know that you were +the attorneys for the plaintiff, in Bardell and Pickwick?’ + +‘Yes, sir, we do know it,’ replied Dodson. + +‘Of course we know it, Sir,’ rejoined Fogg, slapping his pocket--perhaps +by accident. + +‘I see that you recollect it with satisfaction,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +attempting to call up a sneer for the first time in his life, and +failing most signally in so doing. ‘Although I have long been anxious to +tell you, in plain terms, what my opinion of you is, I should have let +even this opportunity pass, in deference to my friend Perker’s wishes, +but for the unwarrantable tone you have assumed, and your insolent +familiarity. I say insolent familiarity, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, +turning upon Fogg with a fierceness of gesture which caused that person +to retreat towards the door with great expedition. + +‘Take care, Sir,’ said Dodson, who, though he was the biggest man of the +party, had prudently entrenched himself behind Fogg, and was speaking +over his head with a very pale face. ‘Let him assault you, Mr. Fogg; +don’t return it on any account.’ + +‘No, no, I won’t return it,’ said Fogg, falling back a little more as he +spoke; to the evident relief of his partner, who by these means was +gradually getting into the outer office. + +‘You are,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, resuming the thread of his discourse- +-’you are a well-matched pair of mean, rascally, pettifogging robbers.’ + +‘Well,’ interposed Perker, ‘is that all?’ + +‘It is all summed up in that,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick; ‘they are mean, +rascally, pettifogging robbers.’ + +‘There!’ said Perker, in a most conciliatory tone. ‘My dear sirs, he has +said all he has to say. Now pray go. Lowten, is that door open?’ + +Mr. Lowten, with a distant giggle, replied in the affirmative. + +‘There, there--good-morning--good-morning--now pray, my dear sirs--Mr. +Lowten, the door!’ cried the little man, pushing Dodson & Fogg, nothing +loath, out of the office; ‘this way, my dear sirs--now pray don’t +prolong this--Dear me--Mr. Lowten--the door, sir--why don’t you attend?’ + +‘If there’s law in England, sir,’ said Dodson, looking towards Mr. +Pickwick, as he put on his hat, ‘you shall smart for this.’ + +‘You are a couple of mean--’ + +‘Remember, sir, you pay dearly for this,’ said Fogg. + +‘--Rascally, pettifogging robbers!’ continued Mr. Pickwick, taking not +the least notice of the threats that were addressed to him. + +‘Robbers!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, running to the stair-head, as the two +attorneys descended. + +‘Robbers!’ shouted Mr. Pickwick, breaking from Lowten and Perker, and +thrusting his head out of the staircase window. + +When Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, his countenance was smiling +and placid; and, walking quietly back into the office, he declared that +he had now removed a great weight from his mind, and that he felt +perfectly comfortable and happy. + +Perker said nothing at all until he had emptied his snuff-box, and sent +Lowten out to fill it, when he was seized with a fit of laughing, which +lasted five minutes; at the expiration of which time he said that he +supposed he ought to be very angry, but he couldn’t think of the +business seriously yet--when he could, he would be. + +‘Well, now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘let me have a settlement with you.’ + +Of the same kind as the last?’ inquired Perker, with another laugh. + +‘Not exactly,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, drawing out his pocket-book, and +shaking the little man heartily by the hand, ‘I only mean a pecuniary +settlement. You have done me many acts of kindness that I can never +repay, and have no wish to repay, for I prefer continuing the +obligation.’ + +With this preface, the two friends dived into some very complicated +accounts and vouchers, which, having been duly displayed and gone +through by Perker, were at once discharged by Mr. Pickwick with many +professions of esteem and friendship. + +They had no sooner arrived at this point, than a most violent and +startling knocking was heard at the door; it was not an ordinary double- +knock, but a constant and uninterrupted succession of the loudest single +raps, as if the knocker were endowed with the perpetual motion, or the +person outside had forgotten to leave off. + +‘Dear me, what’s that?’ exclaimed Perker, starting. + +‘I think it is a knock at the door,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as if there +could be the smallest doubt of the fact. + +The knocker made a more energetic reply than words could have yielded, +for it continued to hammer with surprising force and noise, without a +moment’s cessation. + +‘Dear me!’ said Perker, ringing his bell, ‘we shall alarm the inn. Mr. +Lowten, don’t you hear a knock?’ + +‘I’ll answer the door in one moment, Sir,’ replied the clerk. + +The knocker appeared to hear the response, and to assert that it was +quite impossible he could wait so long. It made a stupendous uproar. + +‘It’s quite dreadful,’ said Mr. Pickwick, stopping his ears. + +‘Make haste, Mr. Lowten,’ Perker called out; ‘we shall have the panels +beaten in.’ + +Mr. Lowten, who was washing his hands in a dark closet, hurried to the +door, and turning the handle, beheld the appearance which is described +in the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER LIV. CONTAINING SOME PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO THE DOUBLE KNOCK, +AND OTHER MATTERS: AMONG WHICH CERTAIN INTERESTING DISCLOSURES RELATIVE +TO MR. SNODGRASS AND A YOUNG LADY ARE BY NO MEANS IRRELEVANT TO THIS +HISTORY + +The object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk, +was a boy--a wonderfully fat boy--habited as a serving lad, standing +upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. He had never +seen such a fat boy, in or out of a travelling caravan; and this, +coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so very +different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the +inflicter of such knocks, smote him with wonder. + +‘What’s the matter?’ inquired the clerk. + +The extraordinary boy replied not a word; but he nodded once, and +seemed, to the clerk’s imagination, to snore feebly. + +‘Where do you come from?’ inquired the clerk. + +The boy made no sign. He breathed heavily, but in all other respects was +motionless. + +The clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer, +prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes, winked +several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to repeat the +knocking. Finding the door open, he stared about him with astonishment, +and at length fixed his eyes on Mr. Lowten’s face. + +‘What the devil do you knock in that way for?’ inquired the clerk +angrily. + +‘Which way?’ said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice. + +‘Why, like forty hackney-coachmen,’ replied the clerk. + +‘Because master said, I wasn’t to leave off knocking till they opened +the door, for fear I should go to sleep,’ said the boy. + +‘Well,’ said the clerk, ‘what message have you brought?’ + +‘He’s downstairs,’ rejoined the boy. + +‘Who?’ + +‘Master. He wants to know whether you’re at home.’ + +Mr. Lowten bethought himself, at this juncture, of looking out of the +window. Seeing an open carriage with a hearty old gentleman in it, +looking up very anxiously, he ventured to beckon him; on which, the old +gentleman jumped out directly. + +‘That’s your master in the carriage, I suppose?’ said Lowten. + +The boy nodded. + +All further inquiries were superseded by the appearance of old Wardle, +who, running upstairs and just recognising Lowten, passed at once into +Mr. Perker’s room. + +‘Pickwick!’ said the old gentleman. ‘Your hand, my boy! Why have I never +heard until the day before yesterday of your suffering yourself to be +cooped up in jail? And why did you let him do it, Perker?’ + +‘I couldn’t help it, my dear Sir,’ replied Perker, with a smile and a +pinch of snuff; ‘you know how obstinate he is?’ + +‘Of course I do; of course I do,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘I am +heartily glad to see him, notwithstanding. I will not lose sight of him +again, in a hurry.’ + +With these words, Wardle shook Mr. Pickwick’s hand once more, and, +having done the same by Perker, threw himself into an arm-chair, his +jolly red face shining again with smiles and health. + +‘Well!’ said Wardle. ‘Here are pretty goings on--a pinch of your snuff, +Perker, my boy--never were such times, eh?’ + +‘What do you mean?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Mean!’ replied Wardle. ‘Why, I think the girls are all running mad; +that’s no news, you’ll say? Perhaps it’s not; but it’s true, for all +that.’ + +‘You have not come up to London, of all places in the world, to tell us +that, my dear Sir, have you?’ inquired Perker. + +‘No, not altogether,’ replied Wardle; ‘though it was the main cause of +my coming. How’s Arabella?’ + +‘Very well,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘and will be delighted to see you, I +am sure.’ + +‘Black-eyed little jilt!’ replied Wardle. ‘I had a great idea of +marrying her myself, one of these odd days. But I am glad of it too, +very glad.’ + +‘How did the intelligence reach you?’ asked Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, it came to my girls, of course,’ replied Wardle. ‘Arabella wrote, +the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without her +husband’s father’s consent, and so you had gone down to get it when his +refusing it couldn’t prevent the match, and all the rest of it. I +thought it a very good time to say something serious to my girls; so I +said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry without +their parents’ consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, I couldn’t +make the least impression upon them. They thought it such a much more +dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without +bridesmaids, that I might as well have preached to Joe himself.’ + +Here the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so to his +heart’s content, presently resumed-- + +‘But this is not the best of it, it seems. This is only half the love- +making and plotting that have been going forward. We have been walking +on mines for the last six months, and they’re sprung at last.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning pale; ‘no other +secret marriage, I hope?’ + +‘No, no,’ replied old Wardle; ‘not so bad as that; no.’ + +‘What then?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick; ‘am I interested in it?’ + +‘Shall I answer that question, Perker?’ said Wardle. + +‘If you don’t commit yourself by doing so, my dear Sir.’ + +‘Well then, you are,’ said Wardle. + +‘How?’ asked Mr. Pickwick anxiously. ‘In what way?’ + +‘Really,’ replied Wardle, ‘you’re such a fiery sort of a young fellow +that I am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if Perker will sit +between us to prevent mischief, I’ll venture.’ + +Having closed the room door, and fortified himself with another +application to Perker’s snuff-box, the old gentleman proceeded with his +great disclosure in these words-- + +‘The fact is, that my daughter Bella--Bella, who married young Trundle, +you know.’ + +‘Yes, yes, we know,’ said Mr. Pickwick impatiently. + +‘Don’t alarm me at the very beginning. My daughter Bella--Emily having +gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella’s letter to me-- +sat herself down by my side the other evening, and began to talk over +this marriage affair. “Well, pa,” she says, “what do you think of it?” + “Why, my dear,” I said, “I suppose it’s all very well; I hope it’s for +the best.” I answered in this way because I was sitting before the fire +at the time, drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my +throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to continue +talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow +old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry +me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, +as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. “It’s +quite a marriage of affection, pa,” said Bella, after a short silence. +“Yes, my dear,” said I, “but such marriages do not always turn out the +happiest.”’ + +‘I question that, mind!’ interposed Mr. Pickwick warmly. + +‘Very good,’ responded Wardle, ‘question anything you like when it’s +your turn to speak, but don’t interrupt me.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Granted,’ replied Wardle. ‘“I am sorry to hear you express your opinion +against marriages of affection, pa,” said Bella, colouring a little. “I +was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either,” said I, +patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could pat it, +“for your mother’s was one, and so was yours.” “It’s not that I meant, +pa,” said Bella. “The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about +Emily.”’ + +Mr. Pickwick started. + +‘What’s the matter now?’ inquired Wardle, stopping in his narrative. + +‘Nothing,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Pray go on.’ + +‘I never could spin out a story,’ said Wardle abruptly. ‘It must come +out, sooner or later, and it’ll save us all a great deal of time if it +comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last +mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was very unhappy; that she and +your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and +communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully +made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her old +friend and school-fellow; but that having some compunctions of +conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather kindly +disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first +instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would have any +objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact manner. +There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your +eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we +ought to do, I shall feel rather obliged to you!’ + +The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last +sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick’s face had settled +down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity, quite curious +to behold. + +‘Snodgrass!--since last Christmas!’ were the first broken words that +issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman. + +‘Since last Christmas,’ replied Wardle; ‘that’s plain enough, and very +bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before.’ + +‘I don’t understand it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; ‘I cannot really +understand it.’ + +‘It’s easy enough to understand it,’ replied the choleric old gentleman. +‘If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long +ago; and besides,’ added Wardle, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘the truth +is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily +for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I +would never attempt to force a girl’s inclinations) the addresses of a +young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that, girl- +like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr. Snodgrass, +she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and that they +have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly-persecuted +pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine matrimony, or +charcoal. Now the question is, what’s to be done?’ + +‘What have _you _done?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘_I!_’ + +‘I mean what did you do when your married daughter told you this?’ + +‘Oh, I made a fool of myself of course,’ rejoined Wardle. + +‘Just so,’ interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with +sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose, +and other symptoms of impatience. ‘That’s very natural; but how?’ + +‘I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit,’ said +Wardle. + +‘That was judicious,’ remarked Perker; ‘and what else?’ + +‘I fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance,’ +rejoined the old gentleman. ‘At last I got tired of rendering myself +unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so I hired a carriage at +Muggleton, and, putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under +pretence of bringing Emily to see Arabella.’ + +‘Miss Wardle is with you, then?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘To be sure she is,’ replied Wardle. ‘She is at Osborne’s Hotel in the +Adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away +with her since I came out this morning.’ + +‘You are reconciled then?’ said Perker. + +‘Not a bit of it,’ answered Wardle; ‘she has been crying and moping ever +since, except last night, between tea and supper, when she made a great +parade of writing a letter that I pretended to take no notice of.’ + +‘You want my advice in this matter, I suppose?’ said Perker, looking +from the musing face of Mr. Pickwick to the eager countenance of Wardle, +and taking several consecutive pinches of his favourite stimulant. + +‘I suppose so,’ said Wardle, looking at Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Certainly,’ replied that gentleman. + +‘Well then,’ said Perker, rising and pushing his chair back, ‘my advice +is, that you both walk away together, or ride away, or get away by some +means or other, for I’m tired of you, and just talk this matter over +between you. If you have not settled it by the next time I see you, I’ll +tell you what to do.’ + +‘This is satisfactory,’ said Wardle, hardly knowing whether to smile or +be offended. + +‘Pooh, pooh, my dear Sir,’ returned Perker. ‘I know you both a great +deal better than you know yourselves. You have settled it already, to +all intents and purposes.’ + +Thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box first +into the chest of Mr. Pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of Mr. +Wardle, upon which they all three laughed, especially the two last-named +gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any obvious or +particular reason. + +‘You dine with me to-day,’ said Wardle to Perker, as he showed them out. + +‘Can’t promise, my dear Sir, can’t promise,’ replied Perker. ‘I’ll look +in, in the evening, at all events.’ + +‘I shall expect you at five,’ said Wardle. ‘Now, Joe!’ And Joe having +been at length awakened, the two friends departed in Mr. Wardle’s +carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy, +who, if there had been a footboard instead, would have rolled off and +killed himself in his very first nap. + +Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her maid +had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note +from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to +the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent +the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he +and Mr. Pickwick would return together to dinner at five o’clock. + +Charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as peaceably +in his dickey, over the stones, as if it had been a down bed on watch +springs. By some extraordinary miracle he awoke of his own accord, when +the coach stopped, and giving himself a good shake to stir up his +faculties, went upstairs to execute his commission. + +Now, whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy’s faculties together, +instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a quantity +of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of ordinary forms and +ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved unsuccessful in +preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the stairs, it is an +undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room without previously +knocking at the door; and so beheld a gentleman with his arms clasping +his young mistress’s waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, +while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking +out of a window at the other end of the room. At the sight of this +phenomenon, the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream, +and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously. + +‘Wretched creature, what do you want here?’ said the gentleman, who it +is needless to say was Mr. Snodgrass. + +To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded, +‘Missis.’ + +‘What do you want me for,’ inquired Emily, turning her head aside, ‘you +stupid creature?’ + +‘Master and Mr. Pickwick is a-going to dine here at five,’ replied the +fat boy. + +‘Leave the room!’ said Mr. Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth. + +‘No, no, no,’ added Emily hastily. ‘Bella, dear, advise me.’ + +Upon this, Emily and Mr. Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into +a corner, and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during +which the fat boy dozed. + +‘Joe,’ said Arabella, at length, looking round with a most bewitching +smile, ‘how do you do, Joe?’ + +‘Joe,’ said Emily, ‘you’re a very good boy; I won’t forget you, Joe.’ + +‘Joe,’ said Mr. Snodgrass, advancing to the astonished youth, and +seizing his hand, ‘I didn’t know you before. There’s five shillings for +you, Joe!” + +‘I’ll owe you five, Joe,’ said Arabella, ‘for old acquaintance sake, you +know;’ and another most captivating smile was bestowed upon the +corpulent intruder. + +The fat boy’s perception being slow, he looked rather puzzled at first +to account for this sudden prepossession in his favour, and stared about +him in a very alarming manner. At length his broad face began to show +symptoms of a grin of proportionately broad dimensions; and then, +thrusting half-a-crown into each of his pockets, and a hand and wrist +after it, he burst into a horse laugh: being for the first and only time +in his existence. + +‘He understands us, I see,’ said Arabella. + +‘He had better have something to eat, immediately,’ remarked Emily. + +The fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. Mary, +after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group and said-- + + +‘I am going to dine with you to-day, sir, if you have no objection.’ + +‘This way,’ said the fat boy eagerly. ‘There is such a jolly meat-pie!’ + +With these words, the fat boy led the way downstairs; his pretty +companion captivating all the waiters and angering all the chambermaids +as she followed him to the eating-room. + +There was the meat-pie of which the youth had spoken so feelingly, and +there were, moreover, a steak, and a dish of potatoes, and a pot of +porter. + +‘Sit down,’ said the fat boy. ‘Oh, my eye, how prime! I am _so_ hungry.’ + +Having apostrophised his eye, in a species of rapture, five or six +times, the youth took the head of the little table, and Mary seated +herself at the bottom. + +‘Will you have some of this?’ said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up +to the very ferules of the knife and fork. + +‘A little, if you please,’ replied Mary. + +The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and +was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and +fork, leaned forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife +and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly-- + +‘I say! How nice you look!’ + +This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but +still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman’s eyes to +render the compliment a double one. + +‘Dear me, Joseph,’ said Mary, affecting to blush, ‘what do you mean?’ + +The fat boy, gradually recovering his former position, replied with a +heavy sigh, and, remaining thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long +draught of the porter. Having achieved this feat, he sighed again, and +applied himself assiduously to the pie. + +‘What a nice young lady Miss Emily is!’ said Mary, after a long silence. + +The fat boy had by this time finished the pie. He fixed his eyes on +Mary, and replied-- + +‘I knows a nicerer.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mary. + +‘Yes, indeed!’ replied the fat boy, with unwonted vivacity. + +‘What’s her name?’ inquired Mary. + +‘What’s yours?’ + +‘Mary.’ + +‘So’s hers,’ said the fat boy. ‘You’re her.’ The boy grinned to add +point to the compliment, and put his eyes into something between a +squint and a cast, which there is reason to believe he intended for an +ogle. + +‘You mustn’t talk to me in that way,’ said Mary; ‘you don’t mean it.’ + +‘Don’t I, though?’ replied the fat boy. ‘I say?’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘Are you going to come here regular?’ + +‘No,’ rejoined Mary, shaking her head, ‘I’m going away again to-night. +Why?’ + +‘Oh,’ said the fat boy, in a tone of strong feeling; ‘how we should have +enjoyed ourselves at meals, if you had been!’ + +‘I might come here sometimes, perhaps, to see you,’ said Mary, plaiting +the table-cloth in assumed coyness, ‘if you would do me a favour.’ + +The fat boy looked from the pie-dish to the steak, as if he thought a +favour must be in a manner connected with something to eat; and then +took out one of the half-crowns and glanced at it nervously. + +‘Don’t you understand me?’ said Mary, looking slily in his fat face. + +Again he looked at the half-crown, and said faintly, ‘No.’ + +‘The ladies want you not to say anything to the old gentleman about the +young gentleman having been upstairs; and I want you too.’ + +‘Is that all?’ said the fat boy, evidently very much relieved, as he +pocketed the half-crown again. ‘Of course I ain’t a-going to.’ + +‘You see,’ said Mary, ‘Mr. Snodgrass is very fond of Miss Emily, and +Miss Emily’s very fond of him, and if you were to tell about it, the old +gentleman would carry you all away miles into the country, where you’d +see nobody.’ + +‘No, no, I won’t tell,’ said the fat boy stoutly. + +‘That’s a dear,’ said Mary. ‘Now it’s time I went upstairs, and got my +lady ready for dinner.’ + +‘Don’t go yet,’ urged the fat boy. + +‘I must,’ replied Mary. ‘Good-bye, for the present.’ + +The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to +ravish a kiss; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his +fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again; upon which the +apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental +countenance, and fell fast asleep. + +There was so much to say upstairs, and there were so many plans to +concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle +continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour of dinner when +Mr. Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily’s bedroom to +dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. He had +scarcely got outside the door, when he heard Wardle’s voice talking +loudly, and looking over the banisters beheld him, followed by some +other gentlemen, coming straight upstairs. Knowing nothing of the house, +Mr. Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room he had +just quitted, and passing thence into an inner apartment (Mr. Wardle’s +bedchamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons he had caught a +glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These were Mr. Wardle, Mr. +Pickwick, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr. Benjamin Allen, whom he had no +difficulty in recognising by their voices. + +‘Very lucky I had the presence of mind to avoid them,’ thought Mr. +Snodgrass with a smile, and walking on tiptoe to another door near the +bedside; ‘this opens into the same passage, and I can walk quietly and +comfortably away.’ + +There was only one obstacle to his walking quietly and comfortably away, +which was that the door was locked and the key gone. + +‘Let us have some of your best wine to-day, waiter,’ said old Wardle, +rubbing his hands. + +‘You shall have some of the very best, sir,’ replied the waiter. + +‘Let the ladies know we have come in.’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +Devoutly and ardently did Mr. Snodgrass wish that the ladies could know +he had come in. He ventured once to whisper, ‘Waiter!’ through the +keyhole, but the probability of the wrong waiter coming to his relief, +flashed upon his mind, together with a sense of the strong resemblance +between his own situation and that in which another gentleman had been +recently found in a neighbouring hotel (an account of whose misfortunes +had appeared under the head of ‘Police’ in that morning’s paper), he sat +himself on a portmanteau, and trembled violently. + +‘We won’t wait a minute for Perker,’ said Wardle, looking at his watch; +‘he is always exact. He will be here, in time, if he means to come; and +if he does not, it’s of no use waiting. Ha! Arabella!’ + +‘My sister!’ exclaimed Mr. Benjamin Allen, folding her in a most +romantic embrace. + +‘Oh, Ben, dear, how you do smell of tobacco,’ said Arabella, rather +overcome by this mark of affection. + +‘Do I?’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen. ‘Do I, Bella? Well, perhaps I do.’ + +Perhaps he did, having just left a pleasant little smoking-party of +twelve medical students, in a small back parlour with a large fire. + +‘But I am delighted to see you,’ said Mr. Ben Allen. ‘Bless you, Bella!’ + +‘There,’ said Arabella, bending forward to kiss her brother; ‘don’t take +hold of me again, Ben, dear, because you tumble me so.’ + +At this point of the reconciliation, Mr. Ben Allen allowed his feelings +and the cigars and porter to overcome him, and looked round upon the +beholders with damp spectacles. + +‘Is nothing to be said to me?’ cried Wardle, with open arms. + +‘A great deal,’ whispered Arabella, as she received the old gentleman’s +hearty caress and congratulation. ‘You are a hard-hearted, unfeeling, +cruel monster.’ + +‘You are a little rebel,’ replied Wardle, in the same tone, ‘and I am +afraid I shall be obliged to forbid you the house. People like you, who +get married in spite of everybody, ought not to be let loose on society. +But come!’ added the old gentleman aloud, ‘here’s the dinner; you shall +sit by me. Joe; why, damn the boy, he’s awake!’ + +To the great distress of his master, the fat boy was indeed in a state +of remarkable vigilance, his eyes being wide open, and looking as if +they intended to remain so. There was an alacrity in his manner, too, +which was equally unaccountable; every time his eyes met those of Emily +or Arabella, he smirked and grinned; once, Wardle could have sworn, he +saw him wink. + +This alteration in the fat boy’s demeanour originated in his increased +sense of his own importance, and the dignity he acquired from having +been taken into the confidence of the young ladies; and the smirks, and +grins, and winks were so many condescending assurances that they might +depend upon his fidelity. As these tokens were rather calculated to +awaken suspicion than allay it, and were somewhat embarrassing besides, +they were occasionally answered by a frown or shake of the head from +Arabella, which the fat boy, considering as hints to be on his guard, +expressed his perfect understanding of, by smirking, grinning, and +winking, with redoubled assiduity. + +‘Joe,’ said Mr. Wardle, after an unsuccessful search in all his pockets, +‘is my snuff-box on the sofa?’ + +‘No, sir,’ replied the fat boy. + +‘Oh, I recollect; I left it on my dressing-table this morning,’ said +Wardle. ‘Run into the next room and fetch it.’ + +The fat boy went into the next room; and, having been absent about a +minute, returned with the snuff-box, and the palest face that ever a fat +boy wore. + +‘What’s the matter with the boy?’ exclaimed Wardle. + +‘Nothen’s the matter with me,’ replied Joe nervously. + +‘Have you been seeing any spirits?’ inquired the old gentleman. + +‘Or taking any?’ added Ben Allen. + +‘I think you’re right,’ whispered Wardle across the table. ‘He is +intoxicated, I’m sure.’ + +Ben Allen replied that he thought he was; and, as that gentleman had +seen a vast deal of the disease in question, Wardle was confirmed in an +impression which had been hovering about his mind for half an hour, and +at once arrived at the conclusion that the fat boy was drunk. + +‘Just keep your eye upon him for a few minutes,’ murmured Wardle. ‘We +shall soon find out whether he is or not.’ + +The unfortunate youth had only interchanged a dozen words with Mr. +Snodgrass, that gentleman having implored him to make a private appeal +to some friend to release him, and then pushed him out with the snuff- +box, lest his prolonged absence should lead to a discovery. He ruminated +a little with a most disturbed expression of face, and left the room in +search of Mary. + +But Mary had gone home after dressing her mistress, and the fat boy came +back again more disturbed than before. + +Wardle and Mr. Ben Allen exchanged glances. + +‘Joe!’ said Wardle. + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘What did you go away for?’ + +The fat boy looked hopelessly in the face of everybody at table, and +stammered out that he didn’t know. + +‘Oh,’ said Wardle, ‘you don’t know, eh? Take this cheese to Mr. +Pickwick.’ + +Now, Mr. Pickwick being in the very best health and spirits, had been +making himself perfectly delightful all dinner-time, and was at this +moment engaged in an energetic conversation with Emily and Mr. Winkle; +bowing his head, courteously, in the emphasis of his discourse, gently +waving his left hand to lend force to his observations, and all glowing +with placid smiles. He took a piece of cheese from the plate, and was on +the point of turning round to renew the conversation, when the fat boy, +stooping so as to bring his head on a level with that of Mr. Pickwick, +pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, and made the most horrible and +hideous face that was ever seen out of a Christmas pantomime. + +‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, starting, ‘what a very--Eh?’ He stopped, +for the fat boy had drawn himself up, and was, or pretended to be, fast +asleep. + +‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Wardle. + +‘This is such an extremely singular lad!’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking +uneasily at the boy. ‘It seems an odd thing to say, but upon my word I +am afraid that, at times, he is a little deranged.’ + +‘Oh! Mr. Pickwick, pray don’t say so,’ cried Emily and Arabella, both at +once. + +‘I am not certain, of course,’ said Mr. Pickwick, amidst profound +silence and looks of general dismay; ‘but his manner to me this moment +really was very alarming. Oh!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, suddenly jumping +up with a short scream. ‘I beg your pardon, ladies, but at that moment +he ran some sharp instrument into my leg. Really, he is not safe.’ + +‘He’s drunk,’ roared old Wardle passionately. ‘Ring the bell! Call the +waiters! He’s drunk.’ + +‘I ain’t,’ said the fat boy, falling on his knees as his master seized +him by the collar. ‘I ain’t drunk.’ + +‘Then you’re mad; that’s worse. Call the waiters,’ said the old +gentleman. + +‘I ain’t mad; I’m sensible,’ rejoined the fat boy, beginning to cry. + +‘Then, what the devil did you run sharp instruments into Mr. Pickwick’s +legs for?’ inquired Wardle angrily. + +‘He wouldn’t look at me,’ replied the boy. ‘I wanted to speak to him.’ + +‘What did you want to say?’ asked half a dozen voices at once. + +The fat boy gasped, looked at the bedroom door, gasped again, and wiped +two tears away with the knuckle of each of his forefingers. + +‘What did you want to say?’ demanded Wardle, shaking him. + +‘Stop!’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘allow me. What did you wish to communicate +to me, my poor boy?’ + +‘I want to whisper to you,’ replied the fat boy. + +‘You want to bite his ear off, I suppose,’ said Wardle. ‘Don’t come near +him; he’s vicious; ring the bell, and let him be taken downstairs.’ + +Just as Mr. Winkle caught the bell-rope in his hand, it was arrested by +a general expression of astonishment; the captive lover, his face +burning with confusion, suddenly walked in from the bedroom, and made a +comprehensive bow to the company. + +‘Hollo!’ cried Wardle, releasing the fat boy’s collar, and staggering +back. ‘What’s this?’ + +‘I have been concealed in the next room, sir, since you returned,’ +explained Mr. Snodgrass. + +‘Emily, my girl,’ said Wardle reproachfully, ‘I detest meanness and +deceit; this is unjustifiable and indelicate in the highest degree. I +don’t deserve this at your hands, Emily, indeed!’ + +‘Dear papa,’ said Emily, ‘Arabella knows--everybody here knows--Joe +knows--that I was no party to this concealment. Augustus, for Heaven’s +sake, explain it!’ + +Mr. Snodgrass, who had only waited for a hearing, at once recounted how +he had been placed in his then distressing predicament; how the fear of +giving rise to domestic dissensions had alone prompted him to avoid Mr. +Wardle on his entrance; how he merely meant to depart by another door, +but, finding it locked, had been compelled to stay against his will. It +was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it the +less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging, +before their mutual friends, that he loved Mr. Wardle’s daughter deeply +and sincerely; that he was proud to avow that the feeling was mutual; +and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or oceans +rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those happy +days, when first--et cetera, et cetera. + +Having delivered himself to this effect, Mr. Snodgrass bowed again, +looked into the crown of his hat, and stepped towards the door. + +‘Stop!’ shouted Wardle. ‘Why, in the name of all that’s--’ + +‘Inflammable,’ mildly suggested Mr. Pickwick, who thought something +worse was coming. + +‘Well--that’s inflammable,’ said Wardle, adopting the substitute; +‘couldn’t you say all this to me in the first instance?’ + +‘Or confide in me?’ added Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Dear, dear,’ said Arabella, taking up the defence, ‘what is the use of +asking all that now, especially when you know you had set your covetous +old heart on a richer son-in-law, and are so wild and fierce besides, +that everybody is afraid of you, except me? Shake hands with him, and +order him some dinner, for goodness gracious’ sake, for he looks half +starved; and pray have your wine up at once, for you’ll not be tolerable +until you have taken two bottles at least.’ + +The worthy old gentleman pulled Arabella’s ear, kissed her without the +smallest scruple, kissed his daughter also with great affection, and +shook Mr. Snodgrass warmly by the hand. + +‘She is right on one point at all events,’ said the old gentleman +cheerfully. ‘Ring for the wine!’ + +The wine came, and Perker came upstairs at the same moment. Mr. +Snodgrass had dinner at a side table, and, when he had despatched it, +drew his chair next Emily, without the smallest opposition on the old +gentleman’s part. + +The evening was excellent. Little Mr. Perker came out wonderfully, told +various comic stories, and sang a serious song which was almost as funny +as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr. Wardle very jovial, +Mr. Pickwick very harmonious, Mr. Ben Allen very uproarious, the lovers +very silent, Mr. Winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy. + + + +CHAPTER LV. MR. SOLOMON PELL, ASSISTED BY A SELECT COMMITTEE OF +COACHMEN, ARRANGES THE AFFAIRS OF THE ELDER MR. WELLER + +Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, accosting his son on the morning after the +funeral, ‘I’ve found it, Sammy. I thought it wos there.’ + +‘Thought wot wos there?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Your mother-in-law’s vill, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘In wirtue o’ +vich, them arrangements is to be made as I told you on, last night, +respectin’ the funs.’ + +‘Wot, didn’t she tell you were it wos?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Not a bit on it, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘We wos a adjestin’ our +little differences, and I wos a-cheerin’ her spirits and bearin’ her up, +so that I forgot to ask anythin’ about it. I don’t know as I should ha’ +done it, indeed, if I had remembered it,’ added Mr. Weller, ‘for it’s a +rum sort o’ thing, Sammy, to go a-hankerin’ arter anybody’s property, +ven you’re assistin’ ‘em in illness. It’s like helping an outside +passenger up, ven he’s been pitched off a coach, and puttin’ your hand +in his pocket, vile you ask him, vith a sigh, how he finds his-self, +Sammy.’ + +With this figurative illustration of his meaning, Mr. Weller unclasped +his pocket-book, and drew forth a dirty sheet of letter-paper, on which +were inscribed various characters crowded together in remarkable +confusion. + +‘This here is the dockyment, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘I found it in the +little black tea-pot, on the top shelf o’ the bar closet. She used to +keep bank-notes there, ‘fore she vos married, Samivel. I’ve seen her +take the lid off, to pay a bill, many and many a time. Poor creetur, she +might ha’ filled all the tea-pots in the house vith vills, and not have +inconwenienced herself neither, for she took wery little of anythin’ in +that vay lately, ‘cept on the temperance nights, ven they just laid a +foundation o’ tea to put the spirits atop on!’ + +‘What does it say?’ inquired Sam. + +‘Jist vot I told you, my boy,’ rejoined his parent. ‘Two hundred pound +vurth o’ reduced counsels to my son-in-law, Samivel, and all the rest o’ +my property, of ev’ry kind and description votsoever, to my husband, Mr. +Tony Veller, who I appint as my sole eggzekiter.’ + +‘That’s all, is it?’ said Sam. + +‘That’s all,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘And I s’pose as it’s all right and +satisfactory to you and me as is the only parties interested, ve may as +vell put this bit o’ paper into the fire.’ + +‘Wot are you a-doin’ on, you lunatic?’ said Sam, snatching the paper +away, as his parent, in all innocence, stirred the fire preparatory to +suiting the action to the word. ‘You’re a nice eggzekiter, you are.’ + +‘Vy not?’ inquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly round, with the poker in +his hand. + +‘Vy not?’ exclaimed Sam. ‘’Cos it must be proved, and probated, and +swore to, and all manner o’ formalities.’ + +‘You don’t mean that?’ said Mr. Weller, laying down the poker. + +Sam buttoned the will carefully in a side pocket; intimating by a look, +meanwhile, that he did mean it, and very seriously too. + +‘Then I’ll tell you wot it is,’ said Mr. Weller, after a short +meditation, ‘this is a case for that ‘ere confidential pal o’ the +Chancellorship’s. Pell must look into this, Sammy. He’s the man for a +difficult question at law. Ve’ll have this here brought afore the +Solvent Court, directly, Samivel.’ + +‘I never did see such a addle-headed old creetur!’ exclaimed Sam +irritably; ‘Old Baileys, and Solvent Courts, and alleybis, and ev’ry +species o’ gammon alvays a-runnin’ through his brain. You’d better get +your out o’ door clothes on, and come to town about this bisness, than +stand a-preachin’ there about wot you don’t understand nothin’ on.’ + +‘Wery good, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘I’m quite agreeable to anythin’ +as vill hexpedite business, Sammy. But mind this here, my boy, nobody +but Pell--nobody but Pell as a legal adwiser.’ + +‘I don’t want anybody else,’ replied Sam. ‘Now, are you a-comin’?’ + +‘Vait a minit, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, who, having tied his shawl +with the aid of a small glass that hung in the window, was now, by dint +of the most wonderful exertions, struggling into his upper garments. +‘Vait a minit’ Sammy; ven you grow as old as your father, you von’t get +into your veskit quite as easy as you do now, my boy.’ + +‘If I couldn’t get into it easier than that, I’m blessed if I’d vear vun +at all,’ rejoined his son. + +‘You think so now,’ said Mr. Weller, with the gravity of age, ‘but +you’ll find that as you get vider, you’ll get viser. Vidth and visdom, +Sammy, alvays grows together.’ + +As Mr. Weller delivered this infallible maxim--the result of many years’ +personal experience and observation--he contrived, by a dexterous twist +of his body, to get the bottom button of his coat to perform its office. +Having paused a few seconds to recover breath, he brushed his hat with +his elbow, and declared himself ready. + +‘As four heads is better than two, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, as they +drove along the London Road in the chaise-cart, ‘and as all this here +property is a wery great temptation to a legal gen’l’m’n, ve’ll take a +couple o’ friends o’ mine vith us, as’ll be wery soon down upon him if +he comes anythin’ irreg’lar; two o’ them as saw you to the Fleet that +day. They’re the wery best judges,’ added Mr. Weller, in a half-whisper- +-’the wery best judges of a horse, you ever know’d.’ + +‘And of a lawyer too?’ inquired Sam. + +‘The man as can form a ackerate judgment of a animal, can form a +ackerate judgment of anythin’,’ replied his father, so dogmatically, +that Sam did not attempt to controvert the position. + +In pursuance of this notable resolution, the services of the mottled- +faced gentleman and of two other very fat coachmen--selected by Mr. +Weller, probably, with a view to their width and consequent wisdom--were +put into requisition; and this assistance having been secured, the party +proceeded to the public-house in Portugal Street, whence a messenger was +despatched to the Insolvent Court over the way, requiring Mr. Solomon +Pell’s immediate attendance. + +The messenger fortunately found Mr. Solomon Pell in court, regaling +himself, business being rather slack, with a cold collation of an +Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy. The message was no sooner whispered in +his ear than he thrust them in his pocket among various professional +documents, and hurried over the way with such alacrity that he reached +the parlour before the messenger had even emancipated himself from the +court. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pell, touching his hat, ‘my service to you all. I +don’t say it to flatter you, gentlemen, but there are not five other men +in the world, that I’d have come out of that court for, to-day.’ + +‘So busy, eh?’ said Sam. + +‘Busy!’ replied Pell; ‘I’m completely sewn up, as my friend the late +Lord Chancellor many a time used to say to me, gentlemen, when he came +out from hearing appeals in the House of Lords. Poor fellow; he was very +susceptible to fatigue; he used to feel those appeals uncommonly. I +actually thought more than once that he’d have sunk under ‘em; I did, +indeed.’ + +Here Mr. Pell shook his head and paused; on which, the elder Mr. Weller, +nudging his neighbour, as begging him to mark the attorney’s high +connections, asked whether the duties in question produced any permanent +ill effects on the constitution of his noble friend. + +‘I don’t think he ever quite recovered them,’ replied Pell; ‘in fact I’m +sure he never did. “Pell,” he used to say to me many a time, “how the +blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.”--“Well,” + I used to answer, “I hardly know how I do it, upon my life.”--“Pell,” + he’d add, sighing, and looking at me with a little envy--friendly envy, +you know, gentlemen, mere friendly envy; I never minded it--“Pell, +you’re a wonder; a wonder.” Ah! you’d have liked him very much if you +had known him, gentlemen. Bring me three-penn’orth of rum, my dear.’ + +Addressing this latter remark to the waitress, in a tone of subdued +grief, Mr. Pell sighed, looked at his shoes and the ceiling; and, the +rum having by that time arrived, drank it up. + +‘However,’ said Pell, drawing a chair to the table, ‘a professional man +has no right to think of his private friendships when his legal +assistance is wanted. By the bye, gentlemen, since I saw you here +before, we have had to weep over a very melancholy occurrence.’ + +Mr. Pell drew out a pocket-handkerchief, when he came to the word weep, +but he made no further use of it than to wipe away a slight tinge of rum +which hung upon his upper lip. + +‘I saw it in the ADVERTISER, Mr. Weller,’ continued Pell. ‘Bless my +soul, not more than fifty-two! Dear me--only think.’ + +These indications of a musing spirit were addressed to the mottled-faced +man, whose eyes Mr. Pell had accidentally caught; on which, the mottled- +faced man, whose apprehension of matters in general was of a foggy +nature, moved uneasily in his seat, and opined that, indeed, so far as +that went, there was no saying how things was brought about; which +observation, involving one of those subtle propositions which it is +difficult to encounter in argument, was controverted by nobody. + +‘I have heard it remarked that she was a very fine woman, Mr. Weller,’ +said Pell, in a sympathising manner. + +‘Yes, sir, she wos,’ replied the elder Mr. Weller, not much relishing +this mode of discussing the subject, and yet thinking that the attorney, +from his long intimacy with the late Lord Chancellor, must know best on +all matters of polite breeding. ‘She wos a wery fine ‘ooman, sir, ven I +first know’d her. She wos a widder, sir, at that time.’ + +‘Now, it’s curious,’ said Pell, looking round with a sorrowful smile; +‘Mrs. Pell was a widow.’ + +‘That’s very extraordinary,’ said the mottled-faced man. + +‘Well, it is a curious coincidence,’ said Pell. + +‘Not at all,’ gruffly remarked the elder Mr. Weller. ‘More widders is +married than single wimin.’ + +‘Very good, very good,’ said Pell, ‘you’re quite right, Mr. Weller. Mrs. +Pell was a very elegant and accomplished woman; her manners were the +theme of universal admiration in our neighbourhood. I was proud to see +that woman dance; there was something so firm and dignified, and yet +natural, in her motion. Her cutting, gentlemen, was simplicity itself. +Ah! well, well! Excuse my asking the question, Mr. Samuel,’ continued +the attorney in a lower voice, ‘was your mother-in-law tall?’ + +‘Not wery,’ replied Sam. + +‘Mrs. Pell was a tall figure,’ said Pell, ‘a splendid woman, with a +noble shape, and a nose, gentlemen, formed to command and be majestic. +She was very much attached to me--very much--highly connected, too. Her +mother’s brother, gentlemen, failed for eight hundred pounds, as a law +stationer.’ + +‘Vell,’ said Mr. Weller, who had grown rather restless during this +discussion, ‘vith regard to bis’ness.’ + +The word was music to Pell’s ears. He had been revolving in his mind +whether any business was to be transacted, or whether he had been merely +invited to partake of a glass of brandy-and-water, or a bowl of punch, +or any similar professional compliment, and now the doubt was set at +rest without his appearing at all eager for its solution. His eyes +glistened as he laid his hat on the table, and said-- + +‘What is the business upon which--um? Either of these gentlemen wish to +go through the court? We require an arrest; a friendly arrest will do, +you know; we are all friends here, I suppose?’ + +‘Give me the dockyment, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, taking the will from +his son, who appeared to enjoy the interview amazingly. ‘Wot we rekvire, +sir, is a probe o’ this here.’ + +‘Probate, my dear Sir, probate,’ said Pell. + +‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller sharply, ‘probe and probe it, is wery +much the same; if you don’t understand wot I mean, sir, I des-say I can +find them as does.’ + +‘No offence, I hope, Mr. Weller,’ said Pell meekly. ‘You are the +executor, I see,’ he added, casting his eyes over the paper. + +‘I am, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘These other gentlemen, I presume, are legatees, are they?’ inquired +Pell, with a congratulatory smile. + +‘Sammy is a leg-at-ease,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘these other gen’l’m’n is +friends o’ mine, just come to see fair; a kind of umpires.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Pell, ‘very good. I have no objections, I’m sure. I shall +want a matter of five pound of you before I begin, ha! ha! ha!’ + +It being decided by the committee that the five pound might be advanced, +Mr. Weller produced that sum; after which, a long consultation about +nothing particular took place, in the course whereof Mr. Pell +demonstrated to the perfect satisfaction of the gentlemen who saw fair, +that unless the management of the business had been intrusted to him, it +must all have gone wrong, for reasons not clearly made out, but no doubt +sufficient. This important point being despatched, Mr. Pell refreshed +himself with three chops, and liquids both malt and spirituous, at the +expense of the estate; and then they all went away to Doctors’ Commons. + +The next day there was another visit to Doctors’ Commons, and a great +to-do with an attesting hostler, who, being inebriated, declined +swearing anything but profane oaths, to the great scandal of a proctor +and surrogate. Next week, there were more visits to Doctors’ Commons, +and there was a visit to the Legacy Duty Office besides, and there were +treaties entered into, for the disposal of the lease and business, and +ratifications of the same, and inventories to be made out, and lunches +to be taken, and dinners to be eaten, and so many profitable things to +be done, and such a mass of papers accumulated that Mr. Solomon Pell, +and the boy, and the blue bag to boot, all got so stout that scarcely +anybody would have known them for the same man, boy, and bag, that had +loitered about Portugal Street, a few days before. + +At length all these weighty matters being arranged, a day was fixed for +selling out and transferring the stock, and of waiting with that view +upon Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, stock-broker, of somewhere near the bank, +who had been recommended by Mr. Solomon Pell for the purpose. + +It was a kind of festive occasion, and the parties were attired +accordingly. Mr. Weller’s tops were newly cleaned, and his dress was +arranged with peculiar care; the mottled-faced gentleman wore at his +button-hole a full-sized dahlia with several leaves; and the coats of +his two friends were adorned with nosegays of laurel and other +evergreens. All three were habited in strict holiday costume; that is to +say, they were wrapped up to the chins, and wore as many clothes as +possible, which is, and has been, a stage-coachman’s idea of full dress +ever since stage-coaches were invented. + +Mr. Pell was waiting at the usual place of meeting at the appointed +time; even he wore a pair of gloves and a clean shirt, much frayed at +the collar and wristbands by frequent washings. + +‘A quarter to two,’ said Pell, looking at the parlour clock. ‘If we are +with Mr. Flasher at a quarter past, we shall just hit the best time.’ + +‘What should you say to a drop o’ beer, gen’l’m’n?’ suggested the +mottled-faced man. + +‘And a little bit o’ cold beef,’ said the second coachman. + +‘Or a oyster,’ added the third, who was a hoarse gentleman, supported by +very round legs. + +‘Hear, hear!’ said Pell; ‘to congratulate Mr. Weller, on his coming into +possession of his property, eh? Ha! ha!’ + +‘I’m quite agreeable, gen’l’m’n,’ answered Mr. Weller. ‘Sammy, pull the +bell.’ + +Sammy complied; and the porter, cold beef, and oysters being promptly +produced, the lunch was done ample justice to. Where everybody took so +active a part, it is almost invidious to make a distinction; but if one +individual evinced greater powers than another, it was the coachman with +the hoarse voice, who took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, +without betraying the least emotion. + +‘Mr. Pell, Sir,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, stirring a glass of brandy- +and-water, of which one was placed before every gentleman when the +oyster shells were removed--‘Mr. Pell, Sir, it wos my intention to have +proposed the funs on this occasion, but Samivel has vispered to me--’ + +Here Mr. Samuel Weller, who had silently eaten his oysters with tranquil +smiles, cried, ‘Hear!’ in a very loud voice. + +‘--Has vispered to me,’ resumed his father, ‘that it vould be better to +dewote the liquor to vishin’ you success and prosperity, and thankin’ +you for the manner in which you’ve brought this here business through. +Here’s your health, sir.’ + +‘Hold hard there,’ interposed the mottled-faced gentleman, with sudden +energy; ‘your eyes on me, gen’l’m’n!’ + + +Saying this, the mottled-faced gentleman rose, as did the other +gentlemen. The mottled-faced gentleman reviewed the company, and slowly +lifted his hand, upon which every man (including him of the mottled +countenance) drew a long breath, and lifted his tumbler to his lips. In +one instant, the mottled-faced gentleman depressed his hand again, and +every glass was set down empty. It is impossible to describe the +thrilling effect produced by this striking ceremony. At once dignified, +solemn, and impressive, it combined every element of grandeur. + +‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pell, ‘all I can say is, that such marks of +confidence must be very gratifying to a professional man. I don’t wish +to say anything that might appear egotistical, gentlemen, but I’m very +glad, for your own sakes, that you came to me; that’s all. If you had +gone to any low member of the profession, it’s my firm conviction, and I +assure you of it as a fact, that you would have found yourselves in +Queer Street before this. I could have wished my noble friend had been +alive to have seen my management of this case. I don’t say it out of +pride, but I think--However, gentlemen, I won’t trouble you with that. +I’m generally to be found here, gentlemen, but if I’m not here, or over +the way, that’s my address. You’ll find my terms very cheap and +reasonable, and no man attends more to his clients than I do, and I hope +I know a little of my profession besides. If you have any opportunity of +recommending me to any of your friends, gentlemen, I shall be very much +obliged to you, and so will they too, when they come to know me. Your +healths, gentlemen.’ + +With this expression of his feelings, Mr. Solomon Pell laid three small +written cards before Mr. Weller’s friends, and, looking at the clock +again, feared it was time to be walking. Upon this hint Mr. Weller +settled the bill, and, issuing forth, the executor, legatee, attorney, +and umpires, directed their steps towards the city. + +The office of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, of the Stock Exchange, was in a +first floor up a court behind the Bank of England; the house of Wilkins +Flasher, Esquire, was at Brixton, Surrey; the horse and stanhope of +Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, were at an adjacent livery stable; the groom +of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was on his way to the West End to deliver +some game; the clerk of Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, had gone to his +dinner; and so Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, himself, cried, ‘Come in,’ when +Mr. Pell and his companions knocked at the counting-house door. + +‘Good-morning, Sir,’ said Pell, bowing obsequiously. ‘We want to make a +little transfer, if you please.’ + +‘Oh, just come in, will you?’ said Mr. Flasher. ‘Sit down a minute; I’ll +attend to you directly.’ + +‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Pell, ‘there’s no hurry. Take a chair, Mr. +Weller.’ + +Mr. Weller took a chair, and Sam took a box, and the umpires took what +they could get, and looked at the almanac and one or two papers which +were wafered against the wall, with as much open-eyed reverence as if +they had been the finest efforts of the old masters. + +‘Well, I’ll bet you half a dozen of claret on it; come!’ said Wilkins +Flasher, Esquire, resuming the conversation to which Mr. Pell’s entrance +had caused a momentary interruption. + +This was addressed to a very smart young gentleman who wore his hat on +his right whisker, and was lounging over the desk, killing flies with a +ruler. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was balancing himself on two legs of an +office stool, spearing a wafer-box with a penknife, which he dropped +every now and then with great dexterity into the very centre of a small +red wafer that was stuck outside. Both gentlemen had very open +waistcoats and very rolling collars, and very small boots, and very big +rings, and very little watches, and very large guard-chains, and +symmetrical inexpressibles, and scented pocket-handkerchiefs. + +‘I never bet half a dozen!’ said the other gentleman. ‘I’ll take a +dozen.’ + +‘Done, Simmery, done!’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. + +‘P. P., mind,’ observed the other. + +‘Of course,’ replied Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, +entered it in a little book, with a gold pencil-case, and the other +gentleman entered it also, in another little book with another gold +pencil-case. + +‘I see there’s a notice up this morning about Boffer,’ observed Mr. +Simmery. ‘Poor devil, he’s expelled the house!’ + +‘I’ll bet you ten guineas to five, he cuts his throat,’ said Wilkins +Flasher, Esquire. + +‘Done,’ replied Mr. Simmery. + +‘Stop! I bar,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps he +may hang himself.’ + +‘Very good,’ rejoined Mr. Simmery, pulling out the gold pencil-case +again. ‘I’ve no objection to take you that way. Say, makes away with +himself.’ + +‘Kills himself, in fact,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. + +‘Just so,’ replied Mr. Simmery, putting it down. ‘“Flasher--ten guineas +to five, Boffer kills himself.” Within what time shall we say?’ + +‘A fortnight?’ suggested Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. + +‘Con-found it, no,’ rejoined Mr. Simmery, stopping for an instant to +smash a fly with the ruler. ‘Say a week.’ + +‘Split the difference,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. ‘Make it ten +days.’ + +‘Well; ten days,’ rejoined Mr. Simmery. + +So it was entered down on the little books that Boffer was to kill +himself within ten days, or Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was to hand over +to Frank Simmery, Esquire, the sum of ten guineas; and that if Boffer +did kill himself within that time, Frank Simmery, Esquire, would pay to +Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, five guineas, instead. + +‘I’m very sorry he has failed,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. ‘Capital +dinners he gave.’ + +‘Fine port he had too,’ remarked Mr. Simmery. ‘We are going to send our +butler to the sale to-morrow, to pick up some of that sixty-four.’ + +‘The devil you are!’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. ‘My man’s going too. +Five guineas my man outbids your man.’ + +‘Done.’ + +Another entry was made in the little books, with the gold pencil-cases; +and Mr. Simmery, having by this time killed all the flies and taken all +the bets, strolled away to the Stock Exchange to see what was going +forward. + +Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, now condescended to receive Mr. Solomon Pell’s +instructions, and having filled up some printed forms, requested the +party to follow him to the bank, which they did: Mr. Weller and his +three friends staring at all they beheld in unbounded astonishment, and +Sam encountering everything with a coolness which nothing could disturb. + +Crossing a courtyard which was all noise and bustle, and passing a +couple of porters who seemed dressed to match the red fire engine which +was wheeled away into a corner, they passed into an office where their +business was to be transacted, and where Pell and Mr. Flasher left them +standing for a few moments, while they went upstairs into the Will +Office. + +‘Wot place is this here?’ whispered the mottled-faced gentleman to the +elder Mr. Weller. + +‘Counsel’s Office,’ replied the executor in a whisper. + +‘Wot are them gen’l’men a-settin’ behind the counters?’ asked the hoarse +coachman. + +‘Reduced counsels, I s’pose,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Ain’t they the +reduced counsels, Samivel?’ + +‘Wy, you don’t suppose the reduced counsels is alive, do you?’ inquired +Sam, with some disdain. + +‘How should I know?’ retorted Mr. Weller; ‘I thought they looked wery +like it. Wot are they, then?’ + +‘Clerks,’ replied Sam. + +‘Wot are they all a-eatin’ ham sangwidges for?’ inquired his father. + +‘’Cos it’s in their dooty, I suppose,’ replied Sam, ‘it’s a part o’ the +system; they’re alvays a-doin’ it here, all day long!’ + +Mr. Weller and his friends had scarcely had a moment to reflect upon +this singular regulation as connected with the monetary system of the +country, when they were rejoined by Pell and Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, +who led them to a part of the counter above which was a round blackboard +with a large ‘W.’ on it. + +‘Wot’s that for, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller, directing Pell’s attention +to the target in question. + +‘The first letter of the name of the deceased,’ replied Pell. + +‘I say,’ said Mr. Weller, turning round to the umpires, there’s +somethin’ wrong here. We’s our letter--this won’t do.’ + +The referees at once gave it as their decided opinion that the business +could not be legally proceeded with, under the letter W., and in all +probability it would have stood over for one day at least, had it not +been for the prompt, though, at first sight, undutiful behaviour of Sam, +who, seizing his father by the skirt of the coat, dragged him to the +counter, and pinned him there, until he had affixed his signature to a +couple of instruments; which, from Mr. Weller’s habit of printing, was a +work of so much labour and time, that the officiating clerk peeled and +ate three Ribstone pippins while it was performing. + +As the elder Mr. Weller insisted on selling out his portion forthwith, +they proceeded from the bank to the gate of the Stock Exchange, to which +Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, after a short absence, returned with a cheque +on Smith, Payne, & Smith, for five hundred and thirty pounds; that being +the money to which Mr. Weller, at the market price of the day, was +entitled, in consideration of the balance of the second Mrs. Weller’s +funded savings. Sam’s two hundred pounds stood transferred to his name, +and Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, having been paid his commission, dropped +the money carelessly into his coat pocket, and lounged back to his +office. + +Mr. Weller was at first obstinately determined on cashing the cheque in +nothing but sovereigns; but it being represented by the umpires that by +so doing he must incur the expense of a small sack to carry them home +in, he consented to receive the amount in five-pound notes. + +‘My son,’ said Mr. Weller, as they came out of the banking-house--‘my +son and me has a wery partickler engagement this arternoon, and I should +like to have this here bis’ness settled out of hand, so let’s jest go +straight avay someveres, vere ve can hordit the accounts.’ + +A quiet room was soon found, and the accounts were produced and audited. +Mr. Pell’s bill was taxed by Sam, and some charges were disallowed by +the umpires; but, notwithstanding Mr. Pell’s declaration, accompanied +with many solemn asseverations that they were really too hard upon him, +it was by very many degrees the best professional job he had ever had, +and one on which he boarded, lodged, and washed, for six months +afterwards. + +The umpires having partaken of a dram, shook hands and departed, as they +had to drive out of town that night. Mr. Solomon Pell, finding that +nothing more was going forward, either in the eating or drinking way, +took a friendly leave, and Sam and his father were left alone. + +‘There!’ said Mr. Weller, thrusting his pocket-book in his side pocket. +‘Vith the bills for the lease, and that, there’s eleven hundred and +eighty pound here. Now, Samivel, my boy, turn the horses’ heads to the +George and Wulter!’ + + + +CHAPTER LVI. AN IMPORTANT CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE BETWEEN MR. PICKWICK +AND SAMUEL WELLER, AT WHICH HIS PARENT ASSISTS--AN OLD GENTLEMAN IN A +SNUFF-COLOURED SUIT ARRIVES UNEXPECTEDLY + +Mr. Pickwick was sitting alone, musing over many things, and thinking +among other considerations how he could best provide for the young +couple whose present unsettled condition was matter of constant regret +and anxiety to him, when Mary stepped lightly into the room, and, +advancing to the table, said, rather hastily-- + +‘Oh, if you please, Sir, Samuel is downstairs, and he says may his +father see you?’ + +‘Surely,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Mary, tripping towards the door again. + +‘Sam has not been here long, has he?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Oh, no, Sir,’ replied Mary eagerly. ‘He has only just come home. He is +not going to ask you for any more leave, Sir, he says.’ + +Mary might have been conscious that she had communicated this last +intelligence with more warmth than seemed actually necessary, or she +might have observed the good-humoured smile with which Mr. Pickwick +regarded her, when she had finished speaking. She certainly held down +her head, and examined the corner of a very smart little apron, with +more closeness than there appeared any absolute occasion for. + +‘Tell them they can come up at once, by all means,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Mary, apparently much relieved, hurried away with her message. + +Mr. Pickwick took two or three turns up and down the room; and, rubbing +his chin with his left hand as he did so, appeared lost in thought. + +‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at length in a kind but somewhat +melancholy tone, ‘it is the best way in which I could reward him for his +attachment and fidelity; let it be so, in Heaven’s name. It is the fate +of a lonely old man, that those about him should form new and different +attachments and leave him. I have no right to expect that it should be +otherwise with me. No, no,’ added Mr. Pickwick more cheerfully, ‘it +would be selfish and ungrateful. I ought to be happy to have an +opportunity of providing for him so well. I am. Of course I am.’ + +Mr. Pickwick had been so absorbed in these reflections, that a knock at +the door was three or four times repeated before he heard it. Hastily +seating himself, and calling up his accustomed pleasant looks, he gave +the required permission, and Sam Weller entered, followed by his father. + +‘Glad to see you back again, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘How do you do, +Mr. Weller?’ + +‘Wery hearty, thank’ee, sir,’ replied the widower; ‘hope I see you well, +sir.’ + +‘Quite, I thank you,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. + +‘I wanted to have a little bit o’ conwersation with you, sir,’ said Mr. +Weller, ‘if you could spare me five minits or so, sir.’ + +‘Certainly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Sam, give your father a chair.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Samivel, I’ve got a cheer here,’ said Mr. Weller, bringing +one forward as he spoke; ‘uncommon fine day it’s been, sir,’ added the +old gentleman, laying his hat on the floor as he sat himself down. + +‘Remarkably so, indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Very seasonable.’ + +‘Seasonablest veather I ever see, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. Here, the +old gentleman was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which, being +terminated, he nodded his head and winked and made several supplicatory +and threatening gestures to his son, all of which Sam Weller steadily +abstained from seeing. + +Mr. Pickwick, perceiving that there was some embarrassment on the old +gentleman’s part, affected to be engaged in cutting the leaves of a book +that lay beside him, and waited patiently until Mr. Weller should arrive +at the object of his visit. + +‘I never see sich a aggrawatin’ boy as you are, Samivel,’ said Mr. +Weller, looking indignantly at his son; ‘never in all my born days.’ + +‘What is he doing, Mr. Weller?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘He von’t begin, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller; ‘he knows I ain’t ekal to +ex-pressin’ myself ven there’s anythin’ partickler to be done, and yet +he’ll stand and see me a-settin’ here taking up your walable time, and +makin’ a reg’lar spectacle o’ myself, rayther than help me out vith a +syllable. It ain’t filial conduct, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, wiping his +forehead; ‘wery far from it.’ + +‘You said you’d speak,’ replied Sam; ‘how should I know you wos done up +at the wery beginnin’?’ + +‘You might ha’ seen I warn’t able to start,’ rejoined his father; ‘I’m +on the wrong side of the road, and backin’ into the palin’s, and all +manner of unpleasantness, and yet you von’t put out a hand to help me. +I’m ashamed on you, Samivel.’ + +‘The fact is, Sir,’ said Sam, with a slight bow, ‘the gov’nor’s been a- +drawin’ his money.’ + +‘Wery good, Samivel, wery good,’ said Mr. Weller, nodding his head with +a satisfied air, ‘I didn’t mean to speak harsh to you, Sammy. Wery good. +That’s the vay to begin. Come to the pint at once. Wery good indeed, +Samivel.’ + +Mr. Weller nodded his head an extraordinary number of times, in the +excess of his gratification, and waited in a listening attitude for Sam +to resume his statement. + +‘You may sit down, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, apprehending that the +interview was likely to prove rather longer than he had expected. + +Sam bowed again and sat down; his father looking round, he continued-- + +‘The gov’nor, sir, has drawn out five hundred and thirty pound.’ + +‘Reduced counsels,’ interposed Mr. Weller, senior, in an undertone. + +‘It don’t much matter vether it’s reduced counsels, or wot not,’ said +Sam; ‘five hundred and thirty pounds is the sum, ain’t it?’ + +‘All right, Samivel,’ replied Mr. Weller. + +‘To vich sum, he has added for the house and bisness--’ + +‘Lease, good-vill, stock, and fixters,’ interposed Mr. Weller. + +‘As much as makes it,’ continued Sam, ‘altogether, eleven hundred and +eighty pound.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am delighted to hear it. I congratulate +you, Mr. Weller, on having done so well.’ + +‘Vait a minit, Sir,’ said Mr. Weller, raising his hand in a deprecatory +manner. ‘Get on, Samivel.’ + +‘This here money,’ said Sam, with a little hesitation, ‘he’s anxious to +put someveres, vere he knows it’ll be safe, and I’m wery anxious too, +for if he keeps it, he’ll go a-lendin’ it to somebody, or inwestin’ +property in horses, or droppin’ his pocket-book down an airy, or makin’ +a Egyptian mummy of his-self in some vay or another.’ + +‘Wery good, Samivel,’ observed Mr. Weller, in as complacent a manner as +if Sam had been passing the highest eulogiums on his prudence and +foresight. ‘Wery good.’ + +‘For vich reasons,’ continued Sam, plucking nervously at the brim of his +hat--‘for vich reasons, he’s drawn it out to-day, and come here vith me +to say, leastvays to offer, or in other vords--’ + +‘To say this here,’ said the elder Mr. Weller impatiently, ‘that it +ain’t o’ no use to me. I’m a-goin’ to vork a coach reg’lar, and ha’n’t +got noveres to keep it in, unless I vos to pay the guard for takin’ care +on it, or to put it in vun o’ the coach pockets, vich ‘ud be a +temptation to the insides. If you’ll take care on it for me, sir, I +shall be wery much obliged to you. P’raps,’ said Mr. Weller, walking up +to Mr. Pickwick and whispering in his ear--‘p’raps it’ll go a little vay +towards the expenses o’ that ‘ere conwiction. All I say is, just you +keep it till I ask you for it again.’ With these words, Mr. Weller +placed the pocket-book in Mr. Pickwick’s hands, caught up his hat, and +ran out of the room with a celerity scarcely to be expected from so +corpulent a subject. + +‘Stop him, Sam!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick earnestly. ‘Overtake him; bring +him back instantly! Mr. Weller--here--come back!’ + +Sam saw that his master’s injunctions were not to be disobeyed; and, +catching his father by the arm as he was descending the stairs, dragged +him back by main force. + +‘My good friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, taking the old man by the hand, +‘your honest confidence overpowers me.’ + +‘I don’t see no occasion for nothin’ o’ the kind, Sir,’ replied Mr. +Weller obstinately. + +‘I assure you, my good friend, I have more money than I can ever need; +far more than a man at my age can ever live to spend,’ said Mr. +Pickwick. + +‘No man knows how much he can spend, till he tries,’ observed Mr. +Weller. + +‘Perhaps not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; ‘but as I have no intention of +trying any such experiments, I am not likely to come to want. I must beg +you to take this back, Mr. Weller.’ + +Wery well,’ said Mr. Weller, with a discontented look. ‘Mark my vords, +Sammy, I’ll do somethin’ desperate vith this here property; somethin’ +desperate!’ + +‘You’d better not,’ replied Sam. + +Mr. Weller reflected for a short time, and then, buttoning up his coat +with great determination, said-- + +‘I’ll keep a pike.’ + +‘Wot!’ exclaimed Sam. + +‘A pike!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, through his set teeth; ‘I’ll keep a pike. +Say good-bye to your father, Samivel. I dewote the remainder of my days +to a pike.’ + +This threat was such an awful one, and Mr. Weller, besides appearing +fully resolved to carry it into execution, seemed so deeply mortified by +Mr. Pickwick’s refusal, that that gentleman, after a short reflection, +said-- + +‘Well, well, Mr. Weller, I will keep your money. I can do more good with +it, perhaps, than you can.’ + +‘Just the wery thing, to be sure,’ said Mr. Weller, brightening up; ‘o’ +course you can, sir.’ + +‘Say no more about it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, locking the pocket-book in +his desk; ‘I am heartily obliged to you, my good friend. Now sit down +again. I want to ask your advice.’ + +The internal laughter occasioned by the triumphant success of his visit, +which had convulsed not only Mr. Weller’s face, but his arms, legs, and +body also, during the locking up of the pocket-book, suddenly gave place +to the most dignified gravity as he heard these words. + +‘Wait outside a few minutes, Sam, will you?’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Sam immediately withdrew. + +Mr. Weller looked uncommonly wise and very much amazed, when Mr. +Pickwick opened the discourse by saying-- + +‘You are not an advocate for matrimony, I think, Mr. Weller?’ + +Mr. Weller shook his head. He was wholly unable to speak; vague thoughts +of some wicked widow having been successful in her designs on Mr. +Pickwick, choked his utterance. + +‘Did you happen to see a young girl downstairs when you came in just now +with your son?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Yes. I see a young gal,’ replied Mr. Weller shortly. + +‘What did you think of her, now? Candidly, Mr. Weller, what did you +think of her?’ + +‘I thought she wos wery plump, and vell made,’ said Mr. Weller, with a +critical air. + +‘So she is,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘so she is. What did you think of her +manners, from what you saw of her?’ + +‘Wery pleasant,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘Wery pleasant and comformable.’ + +The precise meaning which Mr. Weller attached to this last-mentioned +adjective, did not appear; but, as it was evident from the tone in which +he used it that it was a favourable expression, Mr. Pickwick was as well +satisfied as if he had been thoroughly enlightened on the subject. + +‘I take a great interest in her, Mr. Weller,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +Mr. Weller coughed. + +‘I mean an interest in her doing well,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick; ‘a desire +that she may be comfortable and prosperous. You understand?’ + +‘Wery clearly,’ replied Mr. Weller, who understood nothing yet. + +‘That young person,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘is attached to your son.’ + +‘To Samivel Veller!’ exclaimed the parent. + +‘Yes,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘It’s nat’ral,’ said Mr. Weller, after some consideration, ‘nat’ral, but +rayther alarmin’. Sammy must be careful.’ + +‘How do you mean?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Wery careful that he don’t say nothin’ to her,’ responded Mr. Weller. +‘Wery careful that he ain’t led avay, in a innocent moment, to say +anythin’ as may lead to a conwiction for breach. You’re never safe vith +‘em, Mr. Pickwick, ven they vunce has designs on you; there’s no knowin’ +vere to have ‘em; and vile you’re a-considering of it, they have you. I +wos married fust, that vay myself, Sir, and Sammy wos the consekens o’ +the manoover.’ + +‘You give me no great encouragement to conclude what I have to say,’ +observed Mr. Pickwick, ‘but I had better do so at once. This young +person is not only attached to your son, Mr. Weller, but your son is +attached to her.’ + +‘Vell,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘this here’s a pretty sort o’ thing to come to +a father’s ears, this is!’ + +‘I have observed them on several occasions,’ said Mr. Pickwick, making +no comment on Mr. Weller’s last remark; ‘and entertain no doubt at all +about it. Supposing I were desirous of establishing them comfortably as +man and wife in some little business or situation, where they might hope +to obtain a decent living, what should you think of it, Mr. Weller?’ + +At first, Mr. Weller received with wry faces a proposition involving the +marriage of anybody in whom he took an interest; but, as Mr. Pickwick +argued the point with him, and laid great stress on the fact that Mary +was not a widow, he gradually became more tractable. Mr. Pickwick had +great influence over him, and he had been much struck with Mary’s +appearance; having, in fact, bestowed several very unfatherly winks upon +her, already. At length he said that it was not for him to oppose Mr. +Pickwick’s inclination, and that he would be very happy to yield to his +advice; upon which, Mr. Pickwick joyfully took him at his word, and +called Sam back into the room. + +‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his throat, ‘your father and I have +been having some conversation about you.’ + +‘About you, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, in a patronising and impressive +voice. + +‘I am not so blind, Sam, as not to have seen, a long time since, that +you entertain something more than a friendly feeling towards Mrs. +Winkle’s maid,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘You hear this, Samivel?’ said Mr. Weller, in the same judicial form of +speech as before. + +‘I hope, Sir,’ said Sam, addressing his master, ‘I hope there’s no harm +in a young man takin’ notice of a young ‘ooman as is undeniably good- +looking and well-conducted.’ + +‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Pickwick. + +‘Not by no means,’ acquiesced Mr. Weller, affably but magisterially. + +‘So far from thinking there is anything wrong in conduct so natural,’ +resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘it is my wish to assist and promote your wishes +in this respect. With this view, I have had a little conversation with +your father; and finding that he is of my opinion--’ + +‘The lady not bein’ a widder,’ interposed Mr. Weller in explanation. + +‘The lady not being a widow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smiling. ‘I wish to +free you from the restraint which your present position imposes upon +you, and to mark my sense of your fidelity and many excellent qualities, +by enabling you to marry this girl at once, and to earn an independent +livelihood for yourself and family. I shall be proud, Sam,’ said Mr. +Pickwick, whose voice had faltered a little hitherto, but now resumed +its customary tone, ‘proud and happy to make your future prospects in +life my grateful and peculiar care.’ + +There was a profound silence for a short time, and then Sam said, in a +low, husky sort of voice, but firmly withal-- + +‘I’m very much obliged to you for your goodness, Sir, as is only like +yourself; but it can’t be done.’ + +‘Can’t be done!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick in astonishment. + +‘Samivel!’ said Mr. Weller, with dignity. + +‘I say it can’t be done,’ repeated Sam in a louder key. ‘Wot’s to become +of you, Sir?’ + +‘My good fellow,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘the recent changes among my +friends will alter my mode of life in future, entirely; besides, I am +growing older, and want repose and quiet. My rambles, Sam, are over.’ + +‘How do I know that ‘ere, sir?’ argued Sam. ‘You think so now! S’pose +you wos to change your mind, vich is not unlikely, for you’ve the spirit +o’ five-and-twenty in you still, what ‘ud become on you vithout me? It +can’t be done, Sir, it can’t be done.’ + +‘Wery good, Samivel, there’s a good deal in that,’ said Mr. Weller +encouragingly. + +‘I speak after long deliberation, Sam, and with the certainty that I +shall keep my word,’ said Mr. Pickwick, shaking his head. ‘New scenes +have closed upon me; my rambles are at an end.’ + +‘Wery good,’ rejoined Sam. ‘Then, that’s the wery best reason wy you +should alvays have somebody by you as understands you, to keep you up +and make you comfortable. If you vant a more polished sort o’ feller, +vell and good, have him; but vages or no vages, notice or no notice, +board or no board, lodgin’ or no lodgin’, Sam Veller, as you took from +the old inn in the Borough, sticks by you, come what may; and let +ev’rythin’ and ev’rybody do their wery fiercest, nothin’ shall ever +perwent it!’ + +At the close of this declaration, which Sam made with great emotion, the +elder Mr. Weller rose from his chair, and, forgetting all considerations +of time, place, or propriety, waved his hat above his head, and gave +three vehement cheers. + +‘My good fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when Mr. Weller had sat down again, +rather abashed at his own enthusiasm, ‘you are bound to consider the +young woman also.’ + +‘I do consider the young ‘ooman, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘I have considered the +young ‘ooman. I’ve spoke to her. I’ve told her how I’m sitivated; she’s +ready to vait till I’m ready, and I believe she vill. If she don’t, +she’s not the young ‘ooman I take her for, and I give her up vith +readiness. You’ve know’d me afore, Sir. My mind’s made up, and nothin’ +can ever alter it.’ + +Who could combat this resolution? Not Mr. Pickwick. He derived, at that +moment, more pride and luxury of feeling from the disinterested +attachment of his humble friends, than ten thousand protestations from +the greatest men living could have awakened in his heart. + +While this conversation was passing in Mr. Pickwick’s room, a little old +gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes, followed by a porter +carrying a small portmanteau, presented himself below; and, after +securing a bed for the night, inquired of the waiter whether one Mrs. +Winkle was staying there, to which question the waiter of course +responded in the affirmative. + +‘Is she alone?’ inquired the old gentleman. + +‘I believe she is, Sir,’ replied the waiter; ‘I can call her own maid, +Sir, if you--’ + +‘No, I don’t want her,’ said the old gentleman quickly. ‘Show me to her +room without announcing me.’ + +‘Eh, Sir?’ said the waiter. + +‘Are you deaf?’ inquired the little old gentleman. + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Then listen, if you please. Can you hear me now?’ + +‘Yes, Sir.’ + +‘That’s well. Show me to Mrs. Winkle’s room, without announcing me.’ + +As the little old gentleman uttered this command, he slipped five +shillings into the waiter’s hand, and looked steadily at him. + +‘Really, sir,’ said the waiter, ‘I don’t know, sir, whether--’ + +‘Ah! you’ll do it, I see,’ said the little old gentleman. ‘You had +better do it at once. It will save time.’ + +There was something so very cool and collected in the gentleman’s +manner, that the waiter put the five shillings in his pocket, and led +him upstairs without another word. + +‘This is the room, is it?’ said the gentleman. ‘You may go.’ + +The waiter complied, wondering much who the gentleman could be, and what +he wanted; the little old gentleman, waiting till he was out of sight, +tapped at the door. + +‘Come in,’ said Arabella. + +‘Um, a pretty voice, at any rate,’ murmured the little old gentleman; +‘but that’s nothing.’ As he said this, he opened the door and walked in. +Arabella, who was sitting at work, rose on beholding a stranger--a +little confused--but by no means ungracefully so. + +‘Pray don’t rise, ma’am,’ said the unknown, walking in, and closing the +door after him. ‘Mrs. Winkle, I believe?’ + +Arabella inclined her head. + +‘Mrs. Nathaniel Winkle, who married the son of the old man at +Birmingham?’ said the stranger, eyeing Arabella with visible curiosity. + +Again Arabella inclined her head, and looked uneasily round, as if +uncertain whether to call for assistance. + +‘I surprise you, I see, ma’am,’ said the old gentleman. + +‘Rather, I confess,’ replied Arabella, wondering more and more. + +‘I’ll take a chair, if you’ll allow me, ma’am,’ said the stranger. + +He took one; and drawing a spectacle-case from his pocket, leisurely +pulled out a pair of spectacles, which he adjusted on his nose. + +‘You don’t know me, ma’am?’ he said, looking so intently at Arabella +that she began to feel alarmed. + +‘No, sir,’ she replied timidly. + +‘No,’ said the gentleman, nursing his left leg; ‘I don’t know how you +should. You know my name, though, ma’am.’ + +‘Do I?’ said Arabella, trembling, though she scarcely knew why. ‘May I +ask what it is?’ + +‘Presently, ma’am, presently,’ said the stranger, not having yet removed +his eyes from her countenance. ‘You have been recently married, ma’am?’ + +‘I have,’ replied Arabella, in a scarcely audible tone, laying aside her +work, and becoming greatly agitated as a thought, that had occurred to +her before, struck more forcibly upon her mind. + +‘Without having represented to your husband the propriety of first +consulting his father, on whom he is dependent, I think?’ said the +stranger. + +Arabella applied her handkerchief to her eyes. + +‘Without an endeavour, even, to ascertain, by some indirect appeal, what +were the old man’s sentiments on a point in which he would naturally +feel much interested?’ said the stranger. + +‘I cannot deny it, Sir,’ said Arabella. + +‘And without having sufficient property of your own to afford your +husband any permanent assistance in exchange for the worldly advantages +which you knew he would have gained if he had married agreeably to his +father’s wishes?’ said the old gentleman. ‘This is what boys and girls +call disinterested affection, till they have boys and girls of their +own, and then they see it in a rougher and very different light!’ + +Arabella’s tears flowed fast, as she pleaded in extenuation that she was +young and inexperienced; that her attachment had alone induced her to +take the step to which she had resorted; and that she had been deprived +of the counsel and guidance of her parents almost from infancy. + +‘It was wrong,’ said the old gentleman in a milder tone, ‘very wrong. It +was romantic, unbusinesslike, foolish.’ + +‘It was my fault; all my fault, Sir,’ replied poor Arabella, weeping. + +‘Nonsense,’ said the old gentleman; ‘it was not your fault that he fell +in love with you, I suppose? Yes it was, though,’ said the old +gentleman, looking rather slily at Arabella. ‘It was your fault. He +couldn’t help it.’ + +This little compliment, or the little gentleman’s odd way of paying it, +or his altered manner--so much kinder than it was, at first--or all +three together, forced a smile from Arabella in the midst of her tears. + +‘Where’s your husband?’ inquired the old gentleman, abruptly; stopping a +smile which was just coming over his own face. + +‘I expect him every instant, sir,’ said Arabella. ‘I persuaded him to +take a walk this morning. He is very low and wretched at not having +heard from his father.’ + +‘Low, is he?’ said the old gentlemen. ‘Serve him right!’ + +‘He feels it on my account, I am afraid,’ said Arabella; ‘and indeed, +Sir, I feel it deeply on his. I have been the sole means of bringing him +to his present condition.’ + +‘Don’t mind it on his account, my dear,’ said the old gentleman. ‘It +serves him right. I am glad of it--actually glad of it, as far as he is +concerned.’ + +The words were scarcely out of the old gentleman’s lips, when footsteps +were heard ascending the stairs, which he and Arabella seemed both to +recognise at the same moment. The little gentleman turned pale; and, +making a strong effort to appear composed, stood up, as Mr. Winkle +entered the room. + +‘Father!’ cried Mr. Winkle, recoiling in amazement. + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied the little old gentleman. ‘Well, Sir, what have you +got to say to me?’ + +Mr. Winkle remained silent. + +‘You are ashamed of yourself, I hope, Sir?’ said the old gentleman. + +Still Mr. Winkle said nothing. + +‘Are you ashamed of yourself, Sir, or are you not?’ inquired the old +gentleman. + +‘No, Sir,’ replied Mr. Winkle, drawing Arabella’s arm through his. ‘I am +not ashamed of myself, or of my wife either.’ + +‘Upon my word!’ cried the old gentleman ironically. + +‘I am very sorry to have done anything which has lessened your affection +for me, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle; ‘but I will say, at the same time, that I +have no reason to be ashamed of having this lady for my wife, nor you of +having her for a daughter.’ + +‘Give me your hand, Nat,’ said the old gentleman, in an altered voice. +‘Kiss me, my love. You are a very charming little daughter-in-law after +all!’ + +In a few minutes’ time Mr. Winkle went in search of Mr. Pickwick, and +returning with that gentleman, presented him to his father, whereupon +they shook hands for five minutes incessantly. + +‘Mr. Pickwick, I thank you most heartily for all your kindness to my +son,’ said old Mr. Winkle, in a bluff, straightforward way. ‘I am a +hasty fellow, and when I saw you last, I was vexed and taken by +surprise. I have judged for myself now, and am more than satisfied. +Shall I make any more apologies, Mr. Pickwick?’ + +‘Not one,’ replied that gentleman. ‘You have done the only thing wanting +to complete my happiness.’ + +Hereupon there was another shaking of hands for five minutes longer, +accompanied by a great number of complimentary speeches, which, besides +being complimentary, had the additional and very novel recommendation of +being sincere. + +Sam had dutifully seen his father to the Belle Sauvage, when, on +returning, he encountered the fat boy in the court, who had been charged +with the delivery of a note from Emily Wardle. + +‘I say,’ said Joe, who was unusually loquacious, ‘what a pretty girl +Mary is, isn’t she? I am _so_ fond of her, I am!’ + +Mr. Weller made no verbal remark in reply; but eyeing the fat boy for a +moment, quite transfixed at his presumption, led him by the collar to +the corner, and dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick. +After which, he walked home, whistling. + + + +CHAPTER LVII. IN WHICH THE PICKWICK CLUB IS FINALLY DISSOLVED, AND +EVERYTHING CONCLUDED TO THE SATISFACTION OF EVERYBODY + +For a whole week after the happy arrival of Mr. Winkle from Birmingham, +Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller were from home all day long, only returning +just in time for dinner, and then wearing an air of mystery and +importance quite foreign to their natures. It was evident that very +grave and eventful proceedings were on foot; but various surmises were +afloat, respecting their precise character. Some (among whom was Mr. +Tupman) were disposed to think that Mr. Pickwick contemplated a +matrimonial alliance; but this idea the ladies most strenuously +repudiated. Others rather inclined to the belief that he had projected +some distant tour, and was at present occupied in effecting the +preliminary arrangements; but this again was stoutly denied by Sam +himself, who had unequivocally stated, when cross-examined by Mary, that +no new journeys were to be undertaken. At length, when the brains of the +whole party had been racked for six long days, by unavailing +speculation, it was unanimously resolved that Mr. Pickwick should be +called upon to explain his conduct, and to state distinctly why he had +thus absented himself from the society of his admiring friends. + +With this view, Mr. Wardle invited the full circle to dinner at the +Adelphi; and the decanters having been thrice sent round, opened the +business. + +‘We are all anxious to know,’ said the old gentleman, ‘what we have done +to offend you, and to induce you to desert us and devote yourself to +these solitary walks.’ + +‘Are you?’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘It is singular enough that I had intended +to volunteer a full explanation this very day; so, if you will give me +another glass of wine, I will satisfy your curiosity.’ + +The decanters passed from hand to hand with unwonted briskness, and Mr. +Pickwick, looking round on the faces of his friends with a cheerful +smile, proceeded-- + +‘All the changes that have taken place among us,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I +mean the marriage that _has _taken place, and the marriage that WILL +take place, with the changes they involve, rendered it necessary for me +to think, soberly and at once, upon my future plans. I determined on +retiring to some quiet, pretty neighbourhood in the vicinity of London; +I saw a house which exactly suited my fancy; I have taken it and +furnished it. It is fully prepared for my reception, and I intend +entering upon it at once, trusting that I may yet live to spend many +quiet years in peaceful retirement, cheered through life by the society +of my friends, and followed in death by their affectionate remembrance.’ + +Here Mr. Pickwick paused, and a low murmur ran round the table. + +‘The house I have taken,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘is at Dulwich. It has a +large garden, and is situated in one of the most pleasant spots near +London. It has been fitted up with every attention to substantial +comfort; perhaps to a little elegance besides; but of that you shall +judge for yourselves. Sam accompanies me there. I have engaged, on +Perker’s representation, a housekeeper--a very old one--and such other +servants as she thinks I shall require. I propose to consecrate this +little retreat, by having a ceremony in which I take a great interest, +performed there. I wish, if my friend Wardle entertains no objection, +that his daughter should be married from my new house, on the day I take +possession of it. The happiness of young people,’ said Mr. Pickwick, a +little moved, ‘has ever been the chief pleasure of my life. It will warm +my heart to witness the happiness of those friends who are dearest to +me, beneath my own roof.’ + +Mr. Pickwick paused again: Emily and Arabella sobbed audibly. + +‘I have communicated, both personally and by letter, with the club,’ +resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘acquainting them with my intention. During our +long absence, it has suffered much from internal dissentions; and the +withdrawal of my name, coupled with this and other circumstances, has +occasioned its dissolution. The Pickwick Club exists no longer. + +‘I shall never regret,’ said Mr. Pickwick in a low voice, ‘I shall never +regret having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with +different varieties and shades of human character, frivolous as my +pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many. Nearly the whole of my +previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, +numerous scenes of which I had no previous conception have dawned upon +me--I hope to the enlargement of my mind, and the improvement of my +understanding. If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less +harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of +amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life. God +bless you all!’ + +With these words, Mr. Pickwick filled and drained a bumper with a +trembling hand; and his eyes moistened as his friends rose with one +accord, and pledged him from their hearts. + +There were few preparatory arrangements to be made for the marriage of +Mr. Snodgrass. As he had neither father nor mother, and had been in his +minority a ward of Mr. Pickwick’s, that gentleman was perfectly well +acquainted with his possessions and prospects. His account of both was +quite satisfactory to Wardle--as almost any other account would have +been, for the good old gentleman was overflowing with hilarity and +kindness--and a handsome portion having been bestowed upon Emily, the +marriage was fixed to take place on the fourth day from that time--the +suddenness of which preparations reduced three dressmakers and a tailor +to the extreme verge of insanity. + +Getting post-horses to the carriage, old Wardle started off, next day, +to bring his mother back to town. Communicating his intelligence to the +old lady with characteristic impetuosity, she instantly fainted away; +but being promptly revived, ordered the brocaded silk gown to be packed +up forthwith, and proceeded to relate some circumstances of a similar +nature attending the marriage of the eldest daughter of Lady +Tollimglower, deceased, which occupied three hours in the recital, and +were not half finished at last. + +Mrs. Trundle had to be informed of all the mighty preparations that were +making in London; and, being in a delicate state of health, was informed +thereof through Mr. Trundle, lest the news should be too much for her; +but it was not too much for her, inasmuch as she at once wrote off to +Muggleton, to order a new cap and a black satin gown, and moreover +avowed her determination of being present at the ceremony. Hereupon, Mr. +Trundle called in the doctor, and the doctor said Mrs. Trundle ought to +know best how she felt herself, to which Mrs. Trundle replied that she +felt herself quite equal to it, and that she had made up her mind to go; +upon which the doctor, who was a wise and discreet doctor, and knew what +was good for himself, as well as for other people, said that perhaps if +Mrs. Trundle stopped at home, she might hurt herself more by fretting, +than by going, so perhaps she had better go. And she did go; the doctor +with great attention sending in half a dozen of medicine, to be drunk +upon the road. + +In addition to these points of distraction, Wardle was intrusted with +two small letters to two small young ladies who were to act as +bridesmaids; upon the receipt of which, the two young ladies were driven +to despair by having no ‘things’ ready for so important an occasion, and +no time to make them in--a circumstance which appeared to afford the two +worthy papas of the two small young ladies rather a feeling of +satisfaction than otherwise. However, old frocks were trimmed, and new +bonnets made, and the young ladies looked as well as could possibly have +been expected of them. And as they cried at the subsequent ceremony in +the proper places, and trembled at the right times, they acquitted +themselves to the admiration of all beholders. + +How the two poor relations ever reached London--whether they walked, or +got behind coaches, or procured lifts in wagons, or carried each other +by turns--is uncertain; but there they were, before Wardle; and the very +first people that knocked at the door of Mr. Pickwick’s house, on the +bridal morning, were the two poor relations, all smiles and shirt +collar. + +They were welcomed heartily though, for riches or poverty had no +influence on Mr. Pickwick; the new servants were all alacrity and +readiness; Sam was in a most unrivalled state of high spirits and +excitement; Mary was glowing with beauty and smart ribands. + +The bridegroom, who had been staying at the house for two or three days +previous, sallied forth gallantly to Dulwich Church to meet the bride, +attended by Mr. Pickwick, Ben Allen, Bob Sawyer, and Mr. Tupman; with +Sam Weller outside, having at his button-hole a white favour, the gift +of his lady-love, and clad in a new and gorgeous suit of livery invented +for the occasion. They were met by the Wardles, and the Winkles, and the +bride and bridesmaids, and the Trundles; and the ceremony having been +performed, the coaches rattled back to Mr. Pickwick’s to breakfast, +where little Mr. Perker already awaited them. + +Here, all the light clouds of the more solemn part of the proceedings +passed away; every face shone forth joyously; and nothing was to be +heard but congratulations and commendations. Everything was so +beautiful! The lawn in front, the garden behind, the miniature +conservatory, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bedrooms, the +smoking-room, and, above all, the study, with its pictures and easy- +chairs, and odd cabinets, and queer tables, and books out of number, +with a large cheerful window opening upon a pleasant lawn and commanding +a pretty landscape, dotted here and there with little houses almost +hidden by the trees; and then the curtains, and the carpets, and the +chairs, and the sofas! Everything was so beautiful, so compact, so neat, +and in such exquisite taste, said everybody, that there really was no +deciding what to admire most. + +And in the midst of all this, stood Mr. Pickwick, his countenance +lighted up with smiles, which the heart of no man, woman, or child, +could resist: himself the happiest of the group: shaking hands, over and +over again, with the same people, and when his own hands were not so +employed, rubbing them with pleasure: turning round in a different +direction at every fresh expression of gratification or curiosity, and +inspiring everybody with his looks of gladness and delight. + +Breakfast is announced. Mr. Pickwick leads the old lady (who has been +very eloquent on the subject of Lady Tollimglower) to the top of a long +table; Wardle takes the bottom; the friends arrange themselves on either +side; Sam takes his station behind his master’s chair; the laughter and +talking cease; Mr. Pickwick, having said grace, pauses for an instant +and looks round him. As he does so, the tears roll down his cheeks, in +the fullness of his joy. + +Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed +happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our +transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its +lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have +better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such +optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the +visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of +the world is blazing full upon them. + +It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even +the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the +course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create +imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the +full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an +account of them besides. + +In compliance with this custom--unquestionably a bad one--we subjoin a +few biographical words, in relation to the party at Mr. Pickwick’s +assembled. + +Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, being fully received into favour by the old +gentleman, were shortly afterwards installed in a newly-built house, not +half a mile from Mr. Pickwick’s. Mr. Winkle, being engaged in the city +as agent or town correspondent of his father, exchanged his old costume +for the ordinary dress of Englishmen, and presented all the external +appearance of a civilised Christian ever afterwards. + +Mr. and Mrs. Snodgrass settled at Dingley Dell, where they purchased and +cultivated a small farm, more for occupation than profit. Mr. Snodgrass, +being occasionally abstracted and melancholy, is to this day reputed a +great poet among his friends and acquaintance, although we do not find +that he has ever written anything to encourage the belief. There are +many celebrated characters, literary, philosophical, and otherwise, who +hold a high reputation on a similar tenure. + +Mr. Tupman, when his friends married, and Mr. Pickwick settled, took +lodgings at Richmond, where he has ever since resided. He walks +constantly on the terrace during the summer months, with a youthful and +jaunty air, which has rendered him the admiration of the numerous +elderly ladies of single condition, who reside in the vicinity. He has +never proposed again. + +Mr. Bob Sawyer, having previously passed through the _Gazette_, passed +over to Bengal, accompanied by Mr. Benjamin Allen; both gentlemen having +received surgical appointments from the East India Company. They each +had the yellow fever fourteen times, and then resolved to try a little +abstinence; since which period, they have been doing well. Mrs. Bardell +let lodgings to many conversable single gentlemen, with great profit, +but never brought any more actions for breach of promise of marriage. +Her attorneys, Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, continue in business, from which +they realise a large income, and in which they are universally +considered among the sharpest of the sharp. + +Sam Weller kept his word, and remained unmarried, for two years. The old +housekeeper dying at the end of that time, Mr. Pickwick promoted Mary to +the situation, on condition of her marrying Mr. Weller at once, which +she did without a murmur. From the circumstance of two sturdy little +boys having been repeatedly seen at the gate of the back garden, there +is reason to suppose that Sam has some family. + +The elder Mr. Weller drove a coach for twelve months, but being +afflicted with the gout, was compelled to retire. The contents of the +pocket-book had been so well invested for him, however, by Mr. Pickwick, +that he had a handsome independence to retire on, upon which he still +lives at an excellent public-house near Shooter’s Hill, where he is +quite reverenced as an oracle, boasting very much of his intimacy with +Mr. Pickwick, and retaining a most unconquerable aversion to widows. + +Mr. Pickwick himself continued to reside in his new house, employing his +leisure hours in arranging the memoranda which he afterwards presented +to the secretary of the once famous club, or in hearing Sam Weller read +aloud, with such remarks as suggested themselves to his mind, which +never failed to afford Mr. Pickwick great amusement. He was much +troubled at first, by the numerous applications made to him by Mr. +Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Trundle, to act as godfather to their +offspring; but he has become used to it now, and officiates as a matter +of course. He never had occasion to regret his bounty to Mr. Jingle; for +both that person and Job Trotter became, in time, worthy members of +society, although they have always steadily objected to return to the +scenes of their old haunts and temptations. Mr. Pickwick is somewhat +infirm now; but he retains all his former juvenility of spirit, and may +still be frequently seen, contemplating the pictures in the Dulwich +Gallery, or enjoying a walk about the pleasant neighbourhood on a fine +day. He is known by all the poor people about, who never fail to take +their hats off, as he passes, with great respect. The children idolise +him, and so indeed does the whole neighbourhood. Every year he repairs +to a large family merry-making at Mr. Wardle’s; on this, as on all other +occasions, he is invariably attended by the faithful Sam, between whom +and his master there exists a steady and reciprocal attachment which +nothing but death will terminate. + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICKWICK PAPERS *** + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pickwick Papers, by Charles +Dickens + + +***** This file should be named 580-0.txt or 580-0.zip ***** This and all +associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/580/ + +Produced by Jo Churcher, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can run this JAR file and then use `curl` to call the application's en ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash # Run the application in the background -java -jar ./target/jibber-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-exec.jar & +java -jar ./target/What_the_Dickens-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar & ``` ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index 1816666..e0fab82 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -1,245 +1,241 @@ - 4.0.0 - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-parent - 2.7.4 - - - com.oracle.graalvm - What_the_Dickens - 0.0.3-SNAPSHOT - what_the_dickens - Generates random Dickens prose + xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> + 4.0.0 + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-parent + 2.7.4 + + + com.example + What_the_Dickens + 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT + what_the_dickens + Generates random Dickens prose - - - 17 - - - 0.12.1 - - jibber - + + + 17 + + + 0.12.1 + + what_the_dickens + - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-web + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-web + + + org.springframework.experimental + spring-native + ${spring-native.version} + + + org.projectlombok + lombok + true - - org.springframework.experimental - spring-native - ${spring-native.version} - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-actuator - - - - io.micrometer - micrometer-registry-prometheus - runtime - - - - org.rednoise - rita - 2.4.501 - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-test - test - - + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-actuator + + + + io.micrometer + micrometer-registry-prometheus + runtime + + + + org.rednoise + rita + 2.4.501 + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-test + test + + - - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-maven-plugin - - ${repackage.classifier} - - paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny - - true - - - - - - - org.springframework.experimental - spring-aot-maven-plugin - ${spring-native.version} - - - test-generate - - test-generate - - - - generate - - generate - - - - - - + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-maven-plugin + + ${repackage.classifier} + + paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny + + true + + + + + + + org.springframework.experimental + spring-aot-maven-plugin + ${spring-native.version} + + + test-generate + + test-generate + + + + generate + + generate + + + + + + - - - - spring-releases - Spring Releases - https://repo.spring.io/release - - false - - - - - - spring-releases - Spring Releases - https://repo.spring.io/release - - false - - - + + + + spring-releases + Spring Releases + https://repo.spring.io/release + + false + + + + + + spring-releases + Spring Releases + https://repo.spring.io/release + + false + + + - - - - native - - exec - - 0.9.13 - - - - org.junit.platform - junit-platform-launcher - test - - - - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - ${native-buildtools.version} - true - - - - test-native - test - - test - - - - - build-native - package - - build - - - - - - ${binary-name} - - - -Ob - - --install-exit-handlers - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces - - -H:+AllowVMInspection - - - - - - - - - static - - exec - - 0.9.13 - - - - org.junit.platform - junit-platform-launcher - test - - - - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - ${native-buildtools.version} - true - - - - test-native - test - - test - - - - - build-native - package - - build - - - - - - ${binary-name} - - - -Ob - - --install-exit-handlers - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces - - -H:+AllowVMInspection - - --static --libc=musl - - - - - - - + + + + native + + exec + + 0.9.13 + + + + org.junit.platform + junit-platform-launcher + test + + + + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + ${native-buildtools.version} + true + + + + build-native + package + + build + + + + + + ${binary-name} + + + -Ob + + --install-exit-handlers + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + + -H:+AllowVMInspection + + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-maven-plugin + + exec + + + + + + + + static + + exec + + 0.9.13 + + + + org.junit.platform + junit-platform-launcher + test + + + + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + ${native-buildtools.version} + true + + + + build-native + package + + build + + + + + + ${binary-name} + + + -Ob + + --install-exit-handlers + -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + + -H:+AllowVMInspection + + --static --libc=musl + + + + + + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java index 8684e41..4a24fdd 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java @@ -49,9 +49,18 @@ import java.util.Set; import java.util.logging.Level; import java.util.logging.Logger; +import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope; +import org.springframework.stereotype.Service; import rita.RiMarkov; +/** + * Utility class, that is a Singleton, that generates nonsense prose in the style of + * Charles Dickens. It does this using a Markov Chain to model + * the text of the original novels. + */ +@Service +@Scope("singleton") public class WhatTheDickens { private final static String COMMENT = "***"; @@ -59,7 +68,7 @@ public class WhatTheDickens { private final static String END_MARKER = "END"; private final static Set BOOKS = new HashSet<>(); private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); - private final static Map GEN_MAP; + private final static Map GEN_MAP; static { GEN_MAP = Map.of( From 20c2a1da44a1462ed53321b5fa83fcdc40ae41fe Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 13:06:20 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 03/24] Starting again --- native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md | 27 +- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/HELP.md | 62 ++++ native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 272 +++--------------- ...plication.java => DickensApplication.java} | 12 +- .../src/main/resources/application.properties | 2 +- 5 files changed, 133 insertions(+), 242 deletions(-) create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/HELP.md rename native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/{DemoApplication.java => DickensApplication.java} (90%) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md index cae4ecd..227aa65 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -2,11 +2,36 @@ alt="GraalVM logo" width="200px"> +What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? They all support GraalVM Native Image ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform an application into a native machine executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. + + + +It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. In this workshop we'll provide a practical introduction to GraalVM Native Image AOT covering how it works, what it can do, and when to use it. + + + +Topics include: building with Maven and Gradle, static and dynamic linking, containerisation, configuration, working with resources, profile guided optimisation, garbage collection options and JUnit testing. + + + +By the end of the lab, you will have: + + + +Built, run and converted a Java application into a native executable (using GraalVM Native Image) +Built, run and converted a basic Spring Boot application into a native executable +Added the native Spring Boot application to a container image, deployed it and run it +Shrunk the size of the container image using Distroless containers +Seen how to use GraalVM Native Build tools as part of your CI/CD pipeline + + + + # Understanding Containerisation and GraalVM Native Image ## Introduction -This workshop takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise +This lab takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise [GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) applications. GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. Only the code that is diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/HELP.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/HELP.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94bf693 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/HELP.md @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +# Getting Started + +### Reference Documentation +For further reference, please consider the following sections: + +* [Official Apache Maven documentation](https://maven.apache.org/guides/index.html) +* [Spring Boot Maven Plugin Reference Guide](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/maven-plugin/reference/html/) +* [Create an OCI image](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/maven-plugin/reference/html/#build-image) +* [GraalVM Native Image Support](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/reference/html/native-image.html#native-image) + +### Additional Links +These additional references should also help you: + +* [Configure AOT settings in Build Plugin](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/maven-plugin/reference/htmlsingle/#aot) + +## GraalVM Native Support + +This project has been configured to let you generate either a lightweight container or a native executable. +It is also possible to run your tests in a native image. + +### Lightweight Container with Cloud Native Buildpacks +If you're already familiar with Spring Boot container images support, this is the easiest way to get started. +Docker should be installed and configured on your machine prior to creating the image. + +To create the image, run the following goal: + +``` +$ ./mvnw spring-boot:build-image -Pnative +``` + +Then, you can run the app like any other container: + +``` +$ docker run --rm What_the_Dickens:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT +``` + +### Executable with Native Build Tools +Use this option if you want to explore more options such as running your tests in a native image. +The GraalVM `native-image` compiler should be installed and configured on your machine. + +NOTE: GraalVM 22.3+ is required. + +To create the executable, run the following goal: + +``` +$ ./mvnw native:compile -Pnative +``` + +Then, you can run the app as follows: +``` +$ target/What_the_Dickens +``` + +You can also run your existing tests suite in a native image. +This is an efficient way to validate the compatibility of your application. + +To run your existing tests in a native image, run the following goal: + +``` +$ ./mvnw test -PnativeTest +``` + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index e0fab82..7784888 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -1,241 +1,45 @@ - 4.0.0 - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-parent - 2.7.4 - - - com.example - What_the_Dickens - 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT - what_the_dickens - Generates random Dickens prose - - - - 17 - - - 0.12.1 - - what_the_dickens - - - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-web - - - org.springframework.experimental - spring-native - ${spring-native.version} - - - org.projectlombok - lombok - true + xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> + 4.0.0 + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-parent + 3.0.5 + + + com.example + What_the_Dickens + 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT + What_the_Dickens + Generates random Dickens prose + + 17 + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-web - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-actuator - - - - io.micrometer - micrometer-registry-prometheus - runtime - - - - org.rednoise - rita - 2.4.501 - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-test - test - - - - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-maven-plugin - - ${repackage.classifier} - - paketobuildpacks/builder:tiny - - true - - - - - - - org.springframework.experimental - spring-aot-maven-plugin - ${spring-native.version} - - - test-generate - - test-generate - - - - generate - - generate - - - - - - - - - - - spring-releases - Spring Releases - https://repo.spring.io/release - - false - - - - - - spring-releases - Spring Releases - https://repo.spring.io/release - - false - - - + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-test + test + + - - - - native - - exec - - 0.9.13 - - - - org.junit.platform - junit-platform-launcher - test - - - - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - ${native-buildtools.version} - true - - - - build-native - package - - build - - - - - - ${binary-name} - - - -Ob - - --install-exit-handlers - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces - - -H:+AllowVMInspection - - - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-maven-plugin - - exec - - - - - - - - static - - exec - - 0.9.13 - - - - org.junit.platform - junit-platform-launcher - test - - - - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - ${native-buildtools.version} - true - - - - build-native - package - - build - - - - - - ${binary-name} - - - -Ob - - --install-exit-handlers - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces - - -H:+AllowVMInspection - - --static --libc=musl - - - - - - - + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-maven-plugin + + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java similarity index 90% rename from native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java rename to native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java index 13ee30d..6f29859 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DemoApplication.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java @@ -51,17 +51,17 @@ @SpringBootApplication @RestController -public class DemoApplication { +public class DickensApplication { @Autowired WhatTheDickens wtd; public static void main(String[] args) { - SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args); + SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args); } - @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, path = "/whatTheDickens") - ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { - return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); - } + @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, path = "/whatTheDickens") + ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { + return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); + } } diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/application.properties b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/application.properties index f61dbec..8b13789 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/application.properties +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/application.properties @@ -1 +1 @@ -management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=metrics,health,info,mappings,prometheus \ No newline at end of file + From 4cdb6e37796b91b485e2de1409683b8ee3cb8381 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 13:45:31 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 04/24] This runs as a Java app --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 6 + .../java/com/example/DickensApplication.java | 21 +-- .../java/com/example/DickensController.java | 120 ++++++++++---- .../main/java/com/example/InfoController.java | 61 -------- .../main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java | 146 ------------------ 5 files changed, 102 insertions(+), 252 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index 7784888..ea65f69 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -27,6 +27,12 @@ spring-boot-starter-test test + + + org.rednoise + rita + 2.4.501 + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java index 6f29859..51b0903 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensApplication.java @@ -42,26 +42,11 @@ import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; -import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; -import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping; -import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod; -import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController; -import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; - @SpringBootApplication -@RestController public class DickensApplication { - @Autowired - WhatTheDickens wtd; - - public static void main(String[] args) { - SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args); - } - - @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, path = "/whatTheDickens") - ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { - return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); - } + public static void main(String[] args) { + SpringApplication.run(DickensApplication.class, args); + } } diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java index 77262bd..ce15356 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -40,50 +40,116 @@ */ package com.example; -import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; +import java.io.BufferedReader; +import java.io.IOException; +import java.io.InputStreamReader; +import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets; +import java.util.HashSet; +import java.util.Map; +import java.util.Set; +import java.util.logging.Level; +import java.util.logging.Logger; import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*; -import io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed; - - -import jdk.jfr.Event; -import jdk.jfr.Description; -import jdk.jfr.Label; +import rita.RiMarkov; /** * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens nonsense prose. * */ @RestController -@RequestMapping("/whatTheDickens") -@Timed public class DickensController { - /** - * Custom JFR Event - */ - @Label("DickensEvent") - @Description("Used for recording events in our DickensController") - static class DickensEvent extends Event { - // Message. - @Label("Message") - String message; + private final static Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(DickensController.class.getName()); + private final static String COMMENT = "***"; + private final static String START_MARKER = "START"; + private final static String END_MARKER = "END"; + private final static Set BOOKS = new HashSet<>(); + private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); + private final static Map GEN_MAP; + + static { + GEN_MAP = Map.of( + "minLength", 15, + "temperature", 100f, + "allowDuplicates", false + ); + BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); + BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); + BOOKS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); + BOOKS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); + BOOKS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); + BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); + long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); + for (String book : BOOKS) { + try { + ingestBook(book); + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Ingested book: {0}", book); + } catch (IOException ex) { + LOG.log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); + } + } + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); + } + + private static final void ingestBook(String book) throws IOException { + StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder(); + String readLine; + boolean inStory = false; + try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(DickensController.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { + while (true) { + readLine = in.readLine(); + if (readLine.startsWith(COMMENT)) { + if (readLine.contains(START_MARKER)) { + // Starting Story + inStory = true; + } else { + if (readLine.contains(END_MARKER)) { + // Reached end of story + break; + } + } + } else { + if (inStory) { + out.append(readLine); + out.append(" "); + } + } + } + } + String sentences = out.toString(); + MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); + } + + public String generate() { + return generate(10); } - @Autowired - WhatTheDickens wtd; + public String generate(final int numLines) { + String[] lines = MARKOV_MODEL.generate(numLines, GEN_MAP); + StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); + for (String line : lines) { + sb.append("

"); + sb.append(line); + sb.append("

"); + } + return sb.toString(); + } - @RequestMapping + @GetMapping("/whatTheDickens") ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { - DickensEvent event = new DickensEvent(); - event.message = "Prose being generated"; - event.commit(); - return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate()); + return ResponseEntity.ok(generate(10)); } - @RequestMapping(value = "/{number}") + @RequestMapping(value = "whatTheDickens/{number}") ResponseEntity whatTheDickensN(@PathVariable int number) { - return ResponseEntity.ok(wtd.generate(number)); + return ResponseEntity.ok(generate(number)); } } diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java deleted file mode 100644 index 2421963..0000000 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/InfoController.java +++ /dev/null @@ -1,61 +0,0 @@ -/* - * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. - * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. - * - * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 - * - * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any - * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or - * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all - * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or - * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the - * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) - * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both - * - * (a) the Software, and - * - * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if - * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software - * is contributed by such licensors), - * - * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create - * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, - * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the - * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on - * either these or other terms. - * - * This license is subject to the following condition: - * - * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a - * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial - * portions of the Software. - * - * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR - * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, - * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE - * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER - * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, - * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE - * SOFTWARE. - */ -package com.example; - -import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity; -import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*; -import io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed; - -/** - * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens nonsense prose. - * - */ -@RestController -@RequestMapping("/info") -@Timed -public class InfoController { - - @RequestMapping - ResponseEntity whatTheDickens() { - return ResponseEntity.ok("Version : 1.1"); - } -} - diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java deleted file mode 100644 index 4a24fdd..0000000 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/WhatTheDickens.java +++ /dev/null @@ -1,146 +0,0 @@ -/* - * Copyright (c) 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. - * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. - * - * The Universal Permissive License (UPL), Version 1.0 - * - * Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted to any - * person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or - * data (collectively the "Software"), free of charge and under any and all - * copyright rights in the Software, and any and all patent rights owned or - * freely licensable by each licensor hereunder covering either (i) the - * unmodified Software as contributed to or provided by such licensor, or (ii) - * the Larger Works (as defined below), to deal in both - * - * (a) the Software, and - * - * (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the lrgrwrks.txt file if - * one is included with the Software each a "Larger Work" to which the Software - * is contributed by such licensors), - * - * without restriction, including without limitation the rights to copy, create - * derivative works of, display, perform, and distribute the Software and make, - * use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, and have sold the - * Software and the Larger Work(s), and to sublicense the foregoing rights on - * either these or other terms. - * - * This license is subject to the following condition: - * - * The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a - * minimum a reference to the UPL must be included in all copies or substantial - * portions of the Software. - * - * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR - * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, - * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE - * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER - * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, - * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE - * SOFTWARE. - */ -package com.example; - -import java.io.BufferedReader; -import java.io.IOException; -import java.io.InputStreamReader; -import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets; -import java.util.HashSet; -import java.util.Map; -import java.util.Set; -import java.util.logging.Level; -import java.util.logging.Logger; -import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope; -import org.springframework.stereotype.Service; - -import rita.RiMarkov; - -/** - * Utility class, that is a Singleton, that generates nonsense prose in the style of - * Charles Dickens. It does this using a Markov Chain to model - * the text of the original novels. - */ -@Service -@Scope("singleton") -public class WhatTheDickens { - - private final static String COMMENT = "***"; - private final static String START_MARKER = "START"; - private final static String END_MARKER = "END"; - private final static Set BOOKS = new HashSet<>(); - private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); - private final static Map GEN_MAP; - - static { - GEN_MAP = Map.of( - "minLength", 15, - "temperature", 100f, - "allowDuplicates", false - ); - BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); - BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); - BOOKS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); - BOOKS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); - BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); - long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); - for (String book : BOOKS) { - try { - readBook(book); - System.out.println("Read book: " + book); - } catch (IOException ex) { - Logger.getLogger(WhatTheDickens.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); - } - } - System.out.println("Time taken: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + "ms"); - } - - public static void main(String[] args) { - System.out.println(new WhatTheDickens().generate(15)); - } - - private static final void readBook(String book) throws IOException { - StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder(); - String readLine; - boolean inStory = false; - try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { - while (true) { - readLine = in.readLine(); - if (readLine.startsWith(COMMENT)) { - //System.out.println(readLine); - if (readLine.contains(START_MARKER)) { - //System.out.println("Starting Story"); - inStory = true; - } else { - if (readLine.contains(END_MARKER)) { - //System.out.println("Reached end of story"); - break; - } - } - } else { - if (inStory) { - out.append(readLine); - out.append(" "); - } - } - } - } - String sentences = out.toString(); - //System.out.println(sentences); - MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); - } - - public String generate() { - return generate(10); - } - - public String generate(final int numLines) { - String[] lines = MARKOV_MODEL.generate(numLines, GEN_MAP); - return String.join("
\n", lines); - } -} From bd2c5d5d814d56a32d0cedc0d658e368dbad1651 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:08:38 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 05/24] Fix formatting --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 86 +++++++++---------- .../java/com/example/DickensController.java | 18 ++-- 2 files changed, 52 insertions(+), 52 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index ea65f69..a1d8097 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -1,51 +1,51 @@ - 4.0.0 - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-parent - 3.0.5 - - - com.example - What_the_Dickens - 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT - What_the_Dickens - Generates random Dickens prose - - 17 - - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-web - + xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> + 4.0.0 + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-parent + 3.0.5 + + + com.example + What_the_Dickens + 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT + What_the_Dickens + Generates random Dickens prose + + 17 + + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-web + - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-starter-test - test - + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-starter-test + test + - org.rednoise - rita - 2.4.501 - - + org.rednoise + rita + 2.4.501 + + - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - - - org.springframework.boot - spring-boot-maven-plugin - - - + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + + + org.springframework.boot + spring-boot-maven-plugin + + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java index ce15356..e1b4248 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -54,7 +54,8 @@ import rita.RiMarkov; /** - * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens nonsense prose. + * REST Controller which serves as an entry-point for requests for Dickens + * nonsense prose. * */ @RestController @@ -70,9 +71,9 @@ public class DickensController { static { GEN_MAP = Map.of( - "minLength", 15, - "temperature", 100f, - "allowDuplicates", false + "minLength", 15, + "temperature", 100f, + "allowDuplicates", false ); BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); @@ -95,14 +96,14 @@ public class DickensController { LOG.log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } } - LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken to ingest books: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); } - + private static final void ingestBook(String book) throws IOException { StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder(); String readLine; boolean inStory = false; - try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(DickensController.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { + try ( BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(DickensController.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { while (true) { readLine = in.readLine(); if (readLine.startsWith(COMMENT)) { @@ -126,7 +127,7 @@ private static final void ingestBook(String book) throws IOException { String sentences = out.toString(); MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); } - + public String generate() { return generate(10); } @@ -152,4 +153,3 @@ ResponseEntity whatTheDickensN(@PathVariable int number) { return ResponseEntity.ok(generate(number)); } } - From 01cdef716e6e0289f04b927f3b3acc25a81aee82 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:08:52 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 06/24] Rename file --- .../{DemoApplicationTests.java => DickensApplicationTests.java} | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) rename native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/{DemoApplicationTests.java => DickensApplicationTests.java} (84%) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DemoApplicationTests.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DickensApplicationTests.java similarity index 84% rename from native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DemoApplicationTests.java rename to native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DickensApplicationTests.java index 62fee7f..295cf8c 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DemoApplicationTests.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/test/java/com/example/DickensApplicationTests.java @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest; @SpringBootTest -class DemoApplicationTests { +class DickensApplicationTests { @Test void contextLoads() { From 090e1f6e5f0289421aafa53fcfe5b808ca790805 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 23:06:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 07/24] Add profiles to pom.xml --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 54 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 54 insertions(+) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index a1d8097..fdcc9ae 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -47,5 +47,59 @@ + + + + native + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + true + + + build-native + + compile-no-fork + + package + + + + + + + + native-static + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + true + + + build-native + + compile-no-fork + + package + + + + What_the_Dickens-static + + -J-Xmx32G + --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,com.example.DickensController + + + true + + + + + + From c7825281604db648dddaa4f722af9b5fa52d3580 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 23:11:34 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 08/24] Update README.md --- native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md | 444 +++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 194 insertions(+), 250 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md index 227aa65..34379e9 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -2,40 +2,30 @@ alt="GraalVM logo" width="200px"> -What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? They all support GraalVM Native Image ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform an application into a native machine executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. +What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? +They all support [GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/latest/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform an application into a native machine executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. +It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. +In this lab we'll provide a practical introduction to GraalVM Native Image AOT covering how it works, what it can do, and when to use it. +### Lab Objectives -It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. In this workshop we'll provide a practical introduction to GraalVM Native Image AOT covering how it works, what it can do, and when to use it. - - - -Topics include: building with Maven and Gradle, static and dynamic linking, containerisation, configuration, working with resources, profile guided optimisation, garbage collection options and JUnit testing. - - - -By the end of the lab, you will have: - - - -Built, run and converted a Java application into a native executable (using GraalVM Native Image) -Built, run and converted a basic Spring Boot application into a native executable -Added the native Spring Boot application to a container image, deployed it and run it -Shrunk the size of the container image using Distroless containers -Seen how to use GraalVM Native Build tools as part of your CI/CD pipeline - - +By the end of the lab you will have: +* Built, run and converted a basic Spring Boot application into a native executable +* Added the native Spring Boot application to a container image, deployed it and run it +* Shrunk the size of the container image using Distroless containers +* Seen how to use GraalVM Native Build tools as part of your CI/CD pipeline +Estimated lab time: 60 minutes # Understanding Containerisation and GraalVM Native Image ## Introduction -This lab takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise -[GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) applications. +This lab takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise GraalVM Native Image applications. -GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. Only the code that is -required at run time by the application is included in the executable file. +GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. +Only the code that is required at run time by the application is included in the executable file. An executable file produced by Native Image has several important advantages, in that it: @@ -53,17 +43,6 @@ test, and run Java applications as executable files. >Note: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides GraalVM Enterprise at no additional cost. -Estimated workshop time: 60 minutes - -### Lab Objectives - -In this lab you will: - -- Add a basic Spring Boot application to a Docker Image and run it -- Build a native executable from this application, using GraalVM Native Image -- Add the native executable to a Docker Image -- Shrink your application docker image size with GraalVM Native Image and Distroless containers - >Note: If you see the laptop icon in the lab, this means you need to do something such as enter a command. Keep an eye out for it. ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) @@ -71,96 +50,69 @@ In this lab you will: # This is where you will need to do something ``` -## Workshop Prerequisites +## Lab Prerequisites -Before starting this workshop, you must have installed: +Before starting this lab, you must have installed: * [GraalVM Installation 22 or later, JDK17 +](https://github.com/graalvm/get.graalvm.org/) - We recommend the Enterprise Edition -* The `native-image` tool (see [Native Images](https://www.graalvm.org/latest/docs/getting-started/#native-image)) +* The `native-image` tool (see [Native Image](https://www.graalvm.org/latest/docs/getting-started/#native-image)) * Set your `JAVA_HOME` environment variable to point to your GraalVM installation * Maven 3.0 or above * [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/) or [Podman](https://podman.io/getting-started/installation) -## **STEP 1**: Meet Our Sample Java Application +## **STEP 1**: Introducing the Sample Java Application -In this workshop you are going to build a simple application with a very minimal REST-based API. You are then going to -containerise the application, using Docker. First, take a quick look at your simple application. +In this lab you are going to build a sample application with a very minimal REST-based API. +You are then going to containerise the application. +First, take a quick look at the sample application. -We have provided the source code and build scripts for this application in _native-image/containerisation/lab/src_. - -The application is built on top of the [Spring Boot](https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot) framework and makes use -of the [Spring Native Project](https://docs.spring.io/spring-native/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/) (a Spring incubator -to generate native executables using GraalVM Native Image). +The source code, resources, and build scripts for the application are in _native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src_. +The application is built on top of the [Spring Boot](https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot) framework. The application has two classes: -* `com.example.demo.DemoApplication`: The main Spring Boot class that also defines the HTTP endpoint `/jibber` -* `com.example.demo.Jabberwocky`: A utility class that implements the logic of the application +* `com.example.DickensApplication`: The main Spring Boot class +* `com.example.DickensController`: A REST controller class that implements the logic of the application and defines the HTTP endpoints `/whatTheDickens` and `/whatTheDickens/{number}`. -So, what does the application do? If you call the endpoint `/jibber`, it will return some nonsense verse generated -in the style of the [Jabberwocky poem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky) by Lewis Carroll. The program achieves this -by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a model of the original poem (this is essentially a statistical model). +So, what does the application do? If you call the endpoint `/whatTheDickens`, it will return 10 lines of nonsense prose generated +in the style of [Charles Dickens' novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Novels). +The application achieves this by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a statistical model of Dickens' original prose. This model is then used to generate new text. -In the example application, you provide it with the text of the poem, then generate a model of the text which the application then uses to -generate a new text that is similar to the original text. We are using the [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library to do the heavy lifting for us--it supports building and using Markov Chains. +The example application ingests the text of 12 of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it generates a model. +The application then uses the model to generate a new text that is similar to the original text. +The [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library does the heavy lifting for you--it provides the functionality to build and use Markov Chains. -Below are two snippets from the utility class `com.example.demo.Jabberwocky` that builds the model. The `text` variable -contains the text of the original poem. This snippet shows how we create the model and then populate it with `text`. -This is called from the class constructor -and we define the class to be a [Singleton](https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/3.0.0.M3/reference/html/ch04s04.html#beans-factory-scopes-singleton) -(so only one instance of the class ever gets created). +Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController` that builds the model. -```java -this.r = new RiMarkov(3); -this.r.addText(text); -``` +1. The first snippet shows how the model is created and then populated with `sentences` ingested from some of Dickens' novels. +The model is created and populated from the class initializer. -Here you can see the method to generate new lines of verse from the model based on the + ```java + private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); + ... + MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); + ``` + +2. In the second snippet you can see the method that generates new lines of prose from the model based on the original text. -```java -public String generate() { - String[] lines = this.r.generate(10); - StringBuffer b = new StringBuffer(); - for (int i=0; i< lines.length; i++) { - b.append(lines[i]); - b.append("
\n"); + ```java + public String generate(final int numLines) { + String[] lines = MARKOV_MODEL.generate(numLines, GEN_MAP); + StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); + for (String line : lines) { + sb.append("

"); + sb.append(line); + sb.append("

"); + } + return sb.toString(); } - return b.toString(); -} -``` + ``` -Take a little while to view the code and to get acquainted with it. +Take a little while to view the code and acquaint yourself with it. -To build the application, you are going to use Maven. The _pom.xml_ file was generated using [Spring Initializr](https://start.spring.io) -and contains support to use the Spring Native tooling. This is a dependency that you must add to your Spring Boot projects -if you plan to target GraalVM Native Image. If you are using Maven, adding support for Spring Native will insert the following -plugin to your default build configuration. - -```xml - - org.springframework.experimental - spring-aot-maven-plugin - ${spring-native.version} - - - test-generate - - test-generate - - - - generate - - generate - - - - -``` - -Build your application: from the root directory of the repository, run the following commands in your terminal: +Build your application: from the root directory of the project, run the following commands in your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -168,8 +120,8 @@ cd native-image/what-the-dickens/lab ./mvnw clean package ``` -This will generate an "executable" JAR file, one that contains all of the application's dependencies as well as a correctly configured `MANIFEST` -file. You can run this JAR file and then use `curl` to call the application's endpoint to see what you get in return. +This will generate an "executable" JAR file, one that contains all the application's dependencies as well as a correctly configured _MANIFEST_ +file. You can run this JAR file as follows: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -177,230 +129,222 @@ file. You can run this JAR file and then use `curl` to call the application's en java -jar ./target/What_the_Dickens-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar & ``` -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -# Call the endpoint -curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: + +``` +Started DickensApplication in 50.537 seconds (process running for 52.359) ``` -Did you get the some nonsense verse back? OK, so now that you have a built a working application, terminate -it and move on to containerising it. +Use the `curl` command to call the application's endpoints to see what the application returns. ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Bring the application back to the foreground -fg -# Terminate it with : - +# Call the endpoints +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 ``` -## **STEP 2**: Containerising Your Java Application with Docker +Did you get the some nonsense sentences returned from the application? -Containerising your Java application as a Docker container is straightforward. You can build -a new Docker image based on one that contains a JDK distribution. So, for this tutorial you will use a container -that already contains a JDK, `ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22`--this is an Oracle Linux 8 -image with the GraalVM CE JDK 17 already installed. +## **STEP 2**: Building a Native Executable -The following is a breakdown of the Dockerfile, which describes how to build the Docker Image. The comments explain the contents. +Now you can create a native executable from your application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable +is going to exhibit two interesting characteristics, namely: -```dockerfile -# Base Image -FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 +1. It is going to start really fast +2. It will use fewer resources than its corresponding Java application -# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build -ARG JAR_FILE +You can use the native image tooling installed with GraalVM to build a native executable of an +application from the command line, but as you are using Maven already, you are going to use the +[GraalVM Native Image Build Tools for Maven](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html) which will +conveniently allow you to carry on using maven. -# This image will need to expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen -EXPOSE 8080 +One way of adding support for building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), +which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. -# Copy the JAR file from the `target` directory into the root of the image -COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar +The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. +(For more details see [Registering the plugin](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html#configuration-registering-plugin).) +Take a closer look: -# Run Java when starting the container -ENTRYPOINT ["java"] +The profile is declared and given a name. -# Pass in the parameters to the Java command that make it load and run your executable JAR file -CMD ["-jar","app.jar"] +```xml + + + native + + + ``` -The Dockerfile to containerise your Java application can be found in the directory _native-image/containerisation/lab/00-containerise_. - -To build a Docker image containing your application, run the following commands from your terminal: +Next, within the profile, the GraalVM Native Image Build Tools plugin is included and attached to the `package` phase in Maven. +This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -# Build a Docker Image -docker build -f ./00-containerise/Dockerfile \ - --build-arg JAR_FILE=./target/jibber-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-exec.jar \ - -t jibber:jdk.01 . +```xml + + + + org.graalvm.buildtools + native-maven-plugin + true + + + build-native + package + + compile-no-fork + + + + + + ``` -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -# List the newly built image -docker images | head -n2 -``` +The Native Image tool relies on the static analysis of an application’s reachable code at runtime. +However, the analysis cannot always completely predict all usages of the Java Native Interface (JNI), Java Reflection, Dynamic Proxy objects, or class path resources. +Undetected usages of these dynamic features must be provided to the native-image tool in the form of metadata (precomputed in code or as JSON configuration files). +GraalVM provides a [Tracing Agent](https://docs.oracle.com/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/metadata/AutomaticMetadataCollection/) to easily gather metadata and prepare configuration files. +The agent tracks all usages of dynamic features during application execution on a regular Java VM. +Spring should generate most of this configuration automatically, but the tracing agent can be used to quickly identify missing entries. -You should see your newly built image listed. Run this image as follows: +Use the command below to launch the Spring application with the Native Image tracing agent attached. +(For more information, see [Using the Tracing Agent](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/reference/htmlsingle/#native-image.advanced.using-the-tracing-agent).) ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-jdk" -p 8080:8080 jibber:jdk.01 +java -Dpring.aot.enabled=true \ +-agentlib:native-image-agent=config-output-dir=src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/ \ +-jar target/What_the_Dickens-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar ``` -Then call the endpoint as you did before--you may need to wait for a few seconds before doing to allow the -application to startup. If you get the following error, `curl: (52) Empty reply from server`, this is because the -application is still starting. Wait a few seconds and try again: +Stop the application with Ctrl-C. +On application shutdown the Native Image tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory. +In this case, it's the directory that Native Image reads when it runs. + +Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` option, and you can skip the tests this time): ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Call the endpoint -curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true package ``` + -Did you see the nonsense verse? Look at how long it took your application to startup. You can extract this from the logs, -as Spring Boot applications write the time to startup to the logs: +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. Take a +look at the size of the file: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker logs jibber-jdk +ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens ``` -For example, in our experiments the Java application started up in 3.896s -- here is the extract from our logs (Note: the time taken to startup -will vary from machine to machine): + ls -lh target/What_the_Dickens -rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* -``` -2022-03-09 19:48:09.511 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 3.896 seconds (JVM running for 4.583) -``` -Before going any further in the lab, terminate your container: +Run this native executable from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker kill jibber-jdk +./target/What_the_Dickens & ``` -You can also query Docker to get the size of the container image. Run the following commands in your terminal: +When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:jdk.01` -echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) +``` +Started DickensApplication in 65.727 seconds (process running for 66.15) ``` -This prints the size of the image in MBs. In our experiments, the size was 569MB. +Test it, using the following commands from your terminal: -## **STEP 3**: Building a Native Executable +![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) +```bash +curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens +curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens/30 +``` -So far you have: +Now you have a native executable of your application--however, it starts no faster than the original Java version. +This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the application takes to ingest the Dickens' novels. -1. Built a Spring Boot application with a HTTP endpoint, `/jibber` -2. Successfully containerised it +Stop the application before you move on. -Now you can create a native executable from your application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable -is going to two interesting characteristics, namely: +## **STEP 3**: Reducing the Startup Time of Your Native Executable -1. It is going to start really fast -2. It will use fewer resources than its corresponding Java application +Notice that you can pass configuration options and parameters to the underlying Native Image +build tool using the `buildArgs` element of the _pom.xml_ file. +In individual `buildArg` elements you can pass in options in exactly the same way +as you do to Native Image, so you can use all of the options that Native Image accepts. +One of those is the option to [Specify Class Initialization Explicitly](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/guides/specify-class-initialization/) using the `initialize-at-build-time` option. -You can use the native image tooling installed with GraalVM to build a native executable of an -application from the command line, but as you are using Maven already, you are going to use the -[GraalVM Native Build Tools for Maven](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html) which will -conveniently allow you to carry on using maven. - -One way of adding support for building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), -which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. - -The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. -Take a closer look: - -The profile is declared and given a name. +The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile named `native-static` that passed in the `initialize-at-build-time` argument as shown below: ```xml - - - native - - - + + What_the_Dickens-static + + --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,com.example.DickensController + + ``` -Next, within the profile, the GraalVM Native Image build tools plugin is included and attached to the `package` phase in Maven. -This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. Notice that you can pass configuration options and parameters to the underlying Native Image -build tool using the `` section. In individual `buildArg` tags you can pass in parameters in exactly the same way -as you do to the `native-image` tool, so you can use all of the parameters that the `native-image` tool accepts: +This causes the static initializer of classes `rita.RiMarkov` and `com.example.DickensController` to be run when Native Image builds the native executable. -```xml - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - ${native-buildtools.version} - true - - - build-native - package - - build - - - - - jibber - - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces - - - - - - -``` - -Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` flag): +Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./mvnw package -Pnative +./mvnw -Pnative-static -DskipTests=true package ``` -This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _jibber_. Take a -look at the size of the file: +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens-static_. The build output should contain something similar to : + +``` +Apr 12, 2023 4:23:17 PM com.example.DickensController +INFO: Time taken to ingest books: 23,380ms +``` + +Take a look at the size of the file: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -ls -lh target/jibber +ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens-static ``` -Run this native executable and test it, using the following commands from your terminal: +Run this native executable from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./target/jibber & -curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +./target/What_the_Dickens-static & ``` -Now you have a native executable of your application that starts really fast! +When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: -Terminate the application before you move on. +``` +Started DickensApplication in 65.727 seconds (process running for 66.15) +``` + +Test it, using the following commands from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Bring the application to the foreground -fg -# Terminate it with - +curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens +curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens/30 ``` +Now you have a native executable of your application--however, it starts no faster than the original Java version. +This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the application takes to ingest the Dickens' novels. + +Stop the application before you move on. + +OK TO HERE + + ## **STEP 4**: Containerising your Native Executable So you have a native executable version of your application, and you have seen it working. Now to containerise it. A simple Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory -_native-image/containerisation/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with comments to +_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with comments to explain the contents. This is a two-step docker build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the second step copies the native executable into a smaller container for use. @@ -409,16 +353,16 @@ second step copies the native executable into a smaller container for use. > When you build a native executable with GraalVM Native Image the executable it builds will be for the platform that > you are running on. > -> So, if you are running on OSX on a Mac, then it will generate a mach64 executable. If you are running on Linux, it will -> generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). If you want to containerise your -> application in a Docker Image and you are running on OSX, then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will -> be an OSX compatible executable) and package it within your Docker Image which expects the executable to be a linux -> compatible executable. +> So, if you are running on macOS, then it will generate a mach64 executable. +> If you are running on Linux, it will generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). +> If you want to containerise your application in a container image and you are running on macOS, +> then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will be a macOS-compatible executable) and package it +> within your container image which expects the executable to be a Linux-compatible executable. > > Therefore, if you are developing on an OS other than Linux, you need to build within a Docker container that contains a > Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can be packaged into a Docker container. > That is what the multi-stage Docker build here achieves. The first step in the build process builds a Linux -> compatible executable and the second one packages that into a Docker Image for deployment. +> compatible executable and the second step packages that into a container image for deployment. ```dockerfile From d8c516243e7cd4eefbe71c42d2a55724eb2a9b0e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:44:07 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 09/24] Update docker files. --- .../lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile | 18 +++++++++++------- .../lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux | 6 +++--- .../lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile | 18 ++++++++++++------ .../lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux | 6 +++--- 4 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile index 0037fe7..3a8fa7a 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile @@ -1,3 +1,4 @@ +# Base Container Image FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries @@ -8,20 +9,23 @@ RUN microdnf update \ && microdnf clean all \ && rm -rf /var/cache/yum -# Set the working directory to /home/app +# Set the working directory to /build WORKDIR /build -# Copy the source code into the image for building +# Copy the source code into the container for building COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative -DskipTests=true -# The deployment Image +# The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim +# This container will expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen EXPOSE 8080 -# Copy the native executable into the containers -COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber . -ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber"] \ No newline at end of file +# Copy the native executable into the container +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens . + +# Run What_the_Dickens when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux index fed1ff1..5fc3fc2 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux @@ -1,11 +1,11 @@ -# The deployment Image +# The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim -# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the container image build ARG APP_FILE EXPOSE 8080 -# Copy the native executable into the containers +# Copy the native executable into the container COPY ${APP_FILE} /app ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile index 07478cc..2fbdc5f 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile @@ -1,3 +1,4 @@ +# Base Container Image FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries @@ -8,19 +9,24 @@ RUN microdnf update \ && microdnf clean all \ && rm -rf /var/cache/yum -# Set the working directory to /home/app +# Set the working directory to /build WORKDIR /build -# Copy the source code into the image for building +# Copy the source code into the container for building COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true -# Deployment Containers +# Deployment Container +# This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. FROM gcr.io/distroless/base +# This container will expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen EXPOSE 8080 -COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber-distroless . -ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber-distroless"] \ No newline at end of file +# Copy the native executable into the container +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens-distroless . + +# Run What_the_Dickens-distroless when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens-distroless"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux index c4561ba..b0142c3 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux @@ -1,11 +1,11 @@ -# The deployment Image +# The deployment container image FROM gcr.io/distroless/base -# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build +# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the container image build ARG APP_FILE EXPOSE 8080 -# Copy the native executable into the containers +# Copy the native executable into the container COPY ${APP_FILE} /app ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] \ No newline at end of file From f643818bd5312611bf8a1705aea0e0a654c99c06 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Fabio Niephaus Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 17:50:24 +0200 Subject: [PATCH 10/24] Fix build-time init and increase max heap. This makes it possible to build the demo in the first place. --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index fdcc9ae..8023e79 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -90,8 +90,8 @@ What_the_Dickens-static - -J-Xmx32G - --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,com.example.DickensController + -J-Xmx48G + --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,rita.Util,rita.Tokenizer,rita.RiTa,com.example.DickensController true From e55d9e336c4807e13e76398c4ef7084fc7de2a6e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:32:56 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 11/24] Update pom and DickensController --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 36 ++++++------------- .../java/com/example/DickensController.java | 13 +++---- 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 32 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index 8023e79..767dfcc 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -51,27 +51,6 @@ native - - - - org.graalvm.buildtools - native-maven-plugin - true - - - build-native - - compile-no-fork - - package - - - - - - - - native-static @@ -88,13 +67,18 @@ - What_the_Dickens-static - -J-Xmx48G - --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,rita.Util,rita.Tokenizer,rita.RiTa,com.example.DickensController + + -J-Xmx8G + + + - - true + + + + + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java index e1b4248..fefde97 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -76,17 +76,18 @@ public class DickensController { "allowDuplicates", false ); BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); - BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); BOOKS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); BOOKS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); BOOKS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); BOOKS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); BOOKS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); - BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); + /* Uncomment the following lines to add more novels */ + //BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); + //BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); + //BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); + //BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); + //BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); + //BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); for (String book : BOOKS) { try { From bb616dcd00148efdd7d2318cf9235ab20dd7fdd6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:42:20 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 12/24] Provide default Native Image config files --- .../META-INF/native-image/jni-config.json | 37 + .../predefined-classes-config.json | 8 + .../META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json | 17 + .../META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json | 3069 +++++++++++++++++ .../native-image/resource-config.json | 591 ++++ .../native-image/serialization-config.json | 8 + 6 files changed, 3730 insertions(+) create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/jni-config.json create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/predefined-classes-config.json create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json create mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/serialization-config.json diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/jni-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/jni-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a044910 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/jni-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +[ +{ + "name":"java.lang.Boolean", + "methods":[{"name":"getBoolean","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }] +}, +{ + "name":"java.lang.String", + "methods":[ + {"name":"lastIndexOf","parameterTypes":["int"] }, + {"name":"substring","parameterTypes":["int"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"java.lang.System", + "methods":[ + {"name":"getProperty","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }, + {"name":"setProperty","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String","java.lang.String"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.boot.loader.JarLauncher", + "methods":[{"name":"main","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] }] +}, +{ + "name":"sun.management.VMManagementImpl", + "fields":[ + {"name":"compTimeMonitoringSupport"}, + {"name":"currentThreadCpuTimeSupport"}, + {"name":"objectMonitorUsageSupport"}, + {"name":"otherThreadCpuTimeSupport"}, + {"name":"remoteDiagnosticCommandsSupport"}, + {"name":"synchronizerUsageSupport"}, + {"name":"threadAllocatedMemorySupport"}, + {"name":"threadContentionMonitoringSupport"} + ] +} +] diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/predefined-classes-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/predefined-classes-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e79b2c --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/predefined-classes-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +[ + { + "type":"agent-extracted", + "classes":[ + ] + } +] + diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1fd13d --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +[ + { + "interfaces":["java.lang.reflect.ParameterizedType","org.springframework.core.SerializableTypeWrapper$SerializableTypeProxy","java.io.Serializable"] + }, + { + "interfaces":["java.lang.reflect.TypeVariable","org.springframework.core.SerializableTypeWrapper$SerializableTypeProxy","java.io.Serializable"] + }, + { + "interfaces":["java.lang.reflect.WildcardType","org.springframework.core.SerializableTypeWrapper$SerializableTypeProxy","java.io.Serializable"] + }, + { + "interfaces":["org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationProperties"] + }, + { + "interfaces":["org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping"] + } +] diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6c2095 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,3069 @@ +[ +{ + "name":"[Lcom.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.Deserializers;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lcom.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.KeyDeserializers;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lcom.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.ValueInstantiators;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lcom.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.Serializers;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.io.Serializable;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.CharSequence;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.Class;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.Comparable;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.Object;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.String;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.constant.Constable;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.constant.ConstantDesc;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lorg.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigDataLocation;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lorg.springframework.core.annotation.AnnotationAttributes;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lorg.springframework.util.ConcurrentReferenceHashMap$Segment;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Lorg.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;" +}, +{ + "name":"[Z" +}, +{ + "name":"apple.security.AppleProvider", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"boolean", + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.LoggerContext" +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.DateConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.LevelConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.LineSeparatorConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.LoggerConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.MessageConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"ch.qos.logback.classic.pattern.ThreadConverter", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"com.example.DickensApplication", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "allDeclaredClasses":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "queryAllDeclaredConstructors":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"main","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"com.example.DickensApplication$$SpringCGLIB$$0", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "queryAllDeclaredConstructors":true, + "fields":[{"name":"CGLIB$FACTORY_DATA"}], + "methods":[ + {"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"CGLIB$SET_STATIC_CALLBACKS","parameterTypes":["org.springframework.cglib.proxy.Callback[]"] }, + 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"name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.support.AbstractFlashMapManager", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"getFlashMapTimeout","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getUrlPathHelper","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"retrieveAndUpdate","parameterTypes":["jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest","jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse"] }, + {"name":"saveOutputFlashMap","parameterTypes":["org.springframework.web.servlet.FlashMap","jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest","jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse"] }, + {"name":"setFlashMapTimeout","parameterTypes":["int"] }, + {"name":"setUrlPathHelper","parameterTypes":["org.springframework.web.util.UrlPathHelper"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.support.SessionFlashMapManager", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.support.WebContentGenerator", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"getCacheControl","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getCacheSeconds","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getSupportedMethods","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getVaryByRequestHeaders","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isAlwaysMustRevalidate","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isRequireSession","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isUseCacheControlHeader","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isUseCacheControlNoStore","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isUseExpiresHeader","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"setAlwaysMustRevalidate","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setCacheControl","parameterTypes":["org.springframework.http.CacheControl"] }, + {"name":"setCacheSeconds","parameterTypes":["int"] }, + {"name":"setRequireSession","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setSupportedMethods","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] }, + {"name":"setUseCacheControlHeader","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setUseCacheControlNoStore","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setUseExpiresHeader","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setVaryByRequestHeaders","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.AbstractThemeResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"getDefaultThemeName","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"setDefaultThemeName","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.FixedThemeResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractCachingViewResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"clearCache","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getCacheFilter","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getCacheLimit","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isCache","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"isCacheUnresolved","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"removeFromCache","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String","java.util.Locale"] }, + {"name":"resolveViewName","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String","java.util.Locale"] }, + {"name":"setCache","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setCacheFilter","parameterTypes":["org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractCachingViewResolver$CacheFilter"] }, + {"name":"setCacheLimit","parameterTypes":["int"] }, + {"name":"setCacheUnresolved","parameterTypes":["boolean"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.BeanNameViewResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, + "methods":[ + {"name":"getAttributesMap","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getOrder","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"getRedirectHosts","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"setAttributes","parameterTypes":["java.util.Properties"] }, + {"name":"setAttributesMap","parameterTypes":["java.util.Map"] }, + {"name":"setContentType","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }, + {"name":"setExposeContextBeansAsAttributes","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setExposePathVariables","parameterTypes":["java.lang.Boolean"] }, + {"name":"setExposedContextBeanNames","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] }, + {"name":"setOrder","parameterTypes":["int"] }, + {"name":"setPrefix","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }, + {"name":"setRedirectContextRelative","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setRedirectHosts","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] }, + {"name":"setRedirectHttp10Compatible","parameterTypes":["boolean"] }, + {"name":"setRequestContextAttribute","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }, + {"name":"setSuffix","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String"] }, + {"name":"setViewClass","parameterTypes":["java.lang.Class"] }, + {"name":"setViewNames","parameterTypes":["java.lang.String[]"] } + ] +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ViewResolverComposite", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.util.UrlPathHelper", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.util.pattern.PathPatternParser", + "allDeclaredFields":true, + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, +{ + "name":"sun.security.provider.NativePRNG", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, +{ + "name":"sun.security.provider.SHA", + "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] +} +] diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd306f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,591 @@ +{ + "resources":{ + "includes":[ + { + "pattern":"\\QA_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QBleak_House.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QChristmas_Carol.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QDavid_Copperfield.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QGreat_Expectations.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QHard_Times.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QLittle_Dorrit.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/services/ch.qos.logback.classic.spi.Configurator\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/services/org.slf4j.spi.SLF4JServiceProvider\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/spring-autoconfigure-metadata.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/spring.factories\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/spring/org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfiguration.imports\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QMartin_Chuzzlewit.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QNicholas_Nickleby.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QOliver_Twist.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QThe_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\QThe_Pickwick_Papers.txt\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qapplication.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qcom/example/DickensController.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qcom/example/\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/core/RestrictedFilters.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/core/RestrictedListeners.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/core/RestrictedServlets.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/loader/JdbcLeakPrevention.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/util/CharsetMapperDefault.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/apache/catalina/util/ServerInfo.properties\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/beans/factory/Aware.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/beans/factory/BeanFactoryAware.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/beans/factory/config/BeanFactoryPostProcessor.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/AbstractDependsOnBeanFactoryPostProcessor.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/AutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/AutoConfigureAfter.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/AutoConfigureBefore.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/AutoConfigureOrder.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/admin/SpringApplicationAdminJmxAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/aop/AopAutoConfiguration$AspectJAutoProxyingConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/aop/AopAutoConfiguration$ClassProxyingConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/aop/AopAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/availability/ApplicationAvailabilityAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/CacheAutoConfiguration$CacheConfigurationImportSelector.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/CacheAutoConfiguration$CacheManagerEntityManagerFactoryDependsOnPostProcessor.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/CacheAutoConfiguration$CacheManagerValidator.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/CacheAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/GenericCacheConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/NoOpCacheConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/cache/SimpleCacheConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnBean.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnClass.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnMissingBean.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnMissingClass.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnNotWarDeployment.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnProperty.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnWebApplication.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/context/ConfigurationPropertiesAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/context/LifecycleAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/context/MessageSourceAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/context/PropertyPlaceholderAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/gson/GsonAutoConfiguration$StandardGsonBuilderCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/gson/GsonAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$GsonHttpMessageConverterConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$JacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition$JacksonAvailable.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$JacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition$JsonbPreferred.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$JacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$PreferGsonOrJacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition$GsonPreferred.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$PreferGsonOrJacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition$JacksonJsonbUnavailable.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$PreferGsonOrJacksonAndJsonbUnavailableCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/GsonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration$HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfigurationRuntimeHints.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration$NotReactiveWebApplicationCondition$ReactiveWebApplication.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration$NotReactiveWebApplicationCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration$StringHttpMessageConverterConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/JacksonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverterConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/JacksonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverterConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/JacksonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/http/JsonbHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/info/ProjectInfoAutoConfiguration$GitResourceAvailableCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/info/ProjectInfoAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilderCustomizerConfiguration$StandardJackson2ObjectMapperBuilderCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilderCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonAutoConfigurationRuntimeHints.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonMixinConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonObjectMapperBuilderConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonObjectMapperConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration$ParameterNamesModuleConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jackson/JacksonAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jmx/JmxAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/orm/jpa/EntityManagerFactoryDependsOnPostProcessor.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/sql/init/DataSourceInitializationConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/sql/init/R2dbcInitializationConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/sql/init/SqlInitializationAutoConfiguration$SqlInitializationModeCondition$ModeIsNever.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/sql/init/SqlInitializationAutoConfiguration$SqlInitializationModeCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/sql/init/SqlInitializationAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/task/TaskExecutionAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/task/TaskSchedulingAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/client/RestTemplateAutoConfiguration$NotReactiveWebApplicationCondition$ReactiveWebApplication.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/client/RestTemplateAutoConfiguration$NotReactiveWebApplicationCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/client/RestTemplateAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/embedded/EmbeddedWebServerFactoryCustomizerAutoConfiguration$JettyWebServerFactoryCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/embedded/EmbeddedWebServerFactoryCustomizerAutoConfiguration$NettyWebServerFactoryCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/embedded/EmbeddedWebServerFactoryCustomizerAutoConfiguration$TomcatWebServerFactoryCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/embedded/EmbeddedWebServerFactoryCustomizerAutoConfiguration$UndertowWebServerFactoryCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/embedded/EmbeddedWebServerFactoryCustomizerAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DefaultDispatcherServletCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DispatcherServletConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DispatcherServletRegistrationCondition.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DispatcherServletRegistrationConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/HttpEncodingAutoConfiguration$LocaleCharsetMappingsCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/HttpEncodingAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/MultipartAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryAutoConfiguration$BeanPostProcessorsRegistrar.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryAutoConfiguration$ForwardedHeaderFilterConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryAutoConfiguration$ForwardedHeaderFilterCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryConfiguration$EmbeddedJetty.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryConfiguration$EmbeddedTomcat.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/ServletWebServerFactoryConfiguration$EmbeddedUndertow.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$EnableWebMvcConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$OptionalPathExtensionContentNegotiationStrategy.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$ProblemDetailsErrorHandlingConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$ResourceChainCustomizerConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$ResourceChainResourceHandlerRegistrationCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$ResourceHandlerRegistrationCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration$WebMvcAutoConfigurationAdapter.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/error/ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration$DefaultErrorViewResolverConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/error/ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration$ErrorPageCustomizer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/servlet/error/ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration$ErrorTemplateMissingCondition.class\\E" + }, + { 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"pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/websocket/servlet/WebSocketServletAutoConfiguration$UndertowWebSocketConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/websocket/servlet/WebSocketServletAutoConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/context/properties/EnableConfigurationProperties.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/context/properties/EnableConfigurationPropertiesRegistrar.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/boot/sql/init/dependency/DatabaseInitializationDependencyConfigurer.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/ApplicationContextAware.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/ResourceLoaderAware.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/annotation/Conditional.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/annotation/Configuration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/annotation/Import.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/annotation/ImportBeanDefinitionRegistrar.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/context/annotation/ImportRuntimeHints.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/core/Ordered.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/core/annotation/Order.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/bind/annotation/ResponseBody.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/bind/annotation/RestController.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/context/ServletContextAware.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/servlet/config/annotation/DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/servlet/config/annotation/WebMvcConfigurationSupport$NoOpValidator.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/servlet/config/annotation/WebMvcConfigurationSupport.class\\E" + }, + { + "pattern":"\\Qorg/springframework/web/servlet/config/annotation/WebMvcConfigurer.class\\E" + } + ]}, + "bundles":[ + { + "name":"jakarta.servlet.http.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.authenticator.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.connector.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.core.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.deploy.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.loader.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.mapper.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.mbeans.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.realm.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.security.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.session.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.startup.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.util.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.valves.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.webresources.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.coyote.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.coyote.http11.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.naming.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.compat.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.http.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.net.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.scan.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.websocket.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + } + ] +} diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/serialization-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/serialization-config.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3d7e06 --- /dev/null +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/serialization-config.json @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +{ + "types":[ + ], + "lambdaCapturingTypes":[ + ], + "proxies":[ + ] +} From 2a0d9cfe5f0315469b62ff4ea2b9e4eb936d9794 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:43:09 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 13/24] Update pom file so that all config is in one profile --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 8 +++++++- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index 767dfcc..7bad4bb 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -73,12 +73,18 @@ + + + -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC + - + + + From 7c38b1d803fe58f39fa65aa55e5f705bd2252b6b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:43:35 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 14/24] Improve README --- native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md | 248 ++++++++++-------------- 1 file changed, 100 insertions(+), 148 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md index 34379e9..4b3b762 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ alt="GraalVM logo" width="200px"> What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? -They all support [GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/latest/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform an application into a native machine executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. +They all support [GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/latest/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform a Java application into a native executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. In this lab we'll provide a practical introduction to GraalVM Native Image AOT covering how it works, what it can do, and when to use it. @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ Micronaut, Spring, Helidon, and Quarkus. In addition, there are Maven and Gradle plugins for Native Image so you can easily build, test, and run Java applications as executable files. ->Note: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides GraalVM Enterprise at no additional cost. +(Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provides GraalVM Enterprise at no additional cost.) >Note: If you see the laptop icon in the lab, this means you need to do something such as enter a command. Keep an eye out for it. @@ -58,11 +58,11 @@ Before starting this lab, you must have installed: * The `native-image` tool (see [Native Image](https://www.graalvm.org/latest/docs/getting-started/#native-image)) * Set your `JAVA_HOME` environment variable to point to your GraalVM installation * Maven 3.0 or above -* [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/) or [Podman](https://podman.io/getting-started/installation) +* A Docker-API compatible container runtime such as [Rancher Desktop](https://docs.rancherdesktop.io/getting-started/installation/), [Docker](https://www.docker.io/gettingstarted/), or [Podman](https://podman.io/getting-started/installation) ## **STEP 1**: Introducing the Sample Java Application -In this lab you are going to build a sample application with a very minimal REST-based API. +In this lab you are going to build a sample application with a minimal REST-based API. You are then going to containerise the application. First, take a quick look at the sample application. @@ -79,11 +79,11 @@ in the style of [Charles Dickens' novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_ The application achieves this by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a statistical model of Dickens' original prose. This model is then used to generate new text. -The example application ingests the text of 12 of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it generates a model. -The application then uses the model to generate a new text that is similar to the original text. +The example application ingests the text of 12 of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it creates a model. +The application then uses the model to generate new text that is similar to the original text. The [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library does the heavy lifting for you--it provides the functionality to build and use Markov Chains. -Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController` that builds the model. +Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController`. 1. The first snippet shows how the model is created and then populated with `sentences` ingested from some of Dickens' novels. The model is created and populated from the class initializer. @@ -94,8 +94,7 @@ The model is created and populated from the class initializer. MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); ``` -2. In the second snippet you can see the method that generates new lines of prose from the model based on the -original text. +2. In the second snippet you can see the method that generates new lines of prose from the model. ```java public String generate(final int numLines) { @@ -148,18 +147,18 @@ Did you get the some nonsense sentences returned from the application? ## **STEP 2**: Building a Native Executable -Now you can create a native executable from your application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable +Now you can create a native executable from your Java application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable is going to exhibit two interesting characteristics, namely: 1. It is going to start really fast 2. It will use fewer resources than its corresponding Java application -You can use the native image tooling installed with GraalVM to build a native executable of an +You can use the Native Image tooling installed with GraalVM to build a native executable of a Java application from the command line, but as you are using Maven already, you are going to use the [GraalVM Native Image Build Tools for Maven](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html) which will -conveniently allow you to carry on using maven. +conveniently allow you to carry on using Maven. -One way of adding support for building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), +One way of building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. @@ -203,8 +202,8 @@ This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. The Native Image tool relies on the static analysis of an application’s reachable code at runtime. However, the analysis cannot always completely predict all usages of the Java Native Interface (JNI), Java Reflection, Dynamic Proxy objects, or class path resources. -Undetected usages of these dynamic features must be provided to the native-image tool in the form of metadata (precomputed in code or as JSON configuration files). -GraalVM provides a [Tracing Agent](https://docs.oracle.com/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/metadata/AutomaticMetadataCollection/) to easily gather metadata and prepare configuration files. +Undetected usages of these dynamic features must be provided to Native Image in the form of metadata (precomputed in code or as JSON configuration files). +GraalVM provides a [Tracing Agent](https://docs.oracle.com/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/metadata/AutomaticMetadataCollection/) to easily gather metadata and create configuration files. The agent tracks all usages of dynamic features during application execution on a regular Java VM. Spring should generate most of this configuration automatically, but the tracing agent can be used to quickly identify missing entries. @@ -219,7 +218,7 @@ java -Dpring.aot.enabled=true \ ``` Stop the application with Ctrl-C. -On application shutdown the Native Image tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory. +On application shutdown the tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory. In this case, it's the directory that Native Image reads when it runs. Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` option, and you can skip the tests this time): @@ -228,7 +227,6 @@ Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name ```bash ./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true package ``` - This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. Take a look at the size of the file: @@ -265,7 +263,9 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens/30 Now you have a native executable of your application--however, it starts no faster than the original Java version. This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the application takes to ingest the Dickens' novels. -Stop the application before you move on. +Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. + +OK TO HERE ## **STEP 3**: Reducing the Startup Time of Your Native Executable @@ -275,11 +275,10 @@ In individual `buildArg` elements you can pass in options in exactly the same wa as you do to Native Image, so you can use all of the options that Native Image accepts. One of those is the option to [Specify Class Initialization Explicitly](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/guides/specify-class-initialization/) using the `initialize-at-build-time` option. -The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile named `native-static` that passed in the `initialize-at-build-time` argument as shown below: +The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile named `native-static` that passes in the `initialize-at-build-time` argument as shown below: ```xml - What_the_Dickens-static --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,com.example.DickensController @@ -296,7 +295,7 @@ Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below: ``` -This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens-static_. The build output should contain something similar to : +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. The build output should contain something similar to : ``` Apr 12, 2023 4:23:17 PM com.example.DickensController @@ -307,14 +306,14 @@ Take a look at the size of the file: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens-static +ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens ``` Run this native executable from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./target/What_the_Dickens-static & +./target/What_the_Dickens & ``` When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: @@ -334,38 +333,36 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens/30 Now you have a native executable of your application--however, it starts no faster than the original Java version. This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the application takes to ingest the Dickens' novels. -Stop the application before you move on. - -OK TO HERE - +Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. ## **STEP 4**: Containerising your Native Executable So you have a native executable version of your application, and you have seen it working. Now to containerise it. A simple Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory -_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with comments to -explain the contents. This is a two-step docker build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the +_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. +The contents are shown below, along with explanatory comments. +This is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the second step copies the native executable into a smaller container for use. -> ### Note: Why Are We Using a Two-Step Docker Build? +> ### Note: Why Are We Using a Two-Step Build? > -> When you build a native executable with GraalVM Native Image the executable it builds will be for the platform that -> you are running on. +> The native executable produced GraalVM Native Image is for the platform that on which you run Native Image. > -> So, if you are running on macOS, then it will generate a mach64 executable. +> So, if you are running on macOS, it will generate a mach64 executable. > If you are running on Linux, it will generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). > If you want to containerise your application in a container image and you are running on macOS, > then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will be a macOS-compatible executable) and package it > within your container image which expects the executable to be a Linux-compatible executable. > -> Therefore, if you are developing on an OS other than Linux, you need to build within a Docker container that contains a -> Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can be packaged into a Docker container. -> That is what the multi-stage Docker build here achieves. The first step in the build process builds a Linux +> Therefore, if you are developing on an OS other than Linux, you need to first build within a container with a +> Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can then be packaged into another container. +> That is what the multi-stage build here achieves. The first step in the process builds a Linux > compatible executable and the second step packages that into a container image for deployment. ```dockerfile +# Base Container Image FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries @@ -376,115 +373,94 @@ RUN microdnf update \ && microdnf clean all \ && rm -rf /var/cache/yum -# Install Maven -# Source: -# 1) https://github.com/carlossg/docker-maven/blob/925e49a1d0986070208e3c06a11c41f8f2cada82/openjdk-17/Dockerfile -# 2) https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi -ARG USER_HOME_DIR="/root" -ARG SHA=89ab8ece99292476447ef6a6800d9842bbb60787b9b8a45c103aa61d2f205a971d8c3ddfb8b03e514455b4173602bd015e82958c0b3ddc1728a57126f773c743 -ARG MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL=https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/3.8.5/binaries/apache-maven-3.8.5-bin.tar.gz - -RUN mkdir -p /usr/share/maven /usr/share/maven/ref \ - && curl -fsSL -o /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz ${MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL} \ - && echo "${SHA} /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz" | sha512sum -c - \ - && tar -xzf /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz -C /usr/share/maven --strip-components=1 \ - && rm -f /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz \ - && ln -s /usr/share/maven/bin/mvn /usr/bin/mvn - -ENV MAVEN_HOME /usr/share/maven -ENV MAVEN_CONFIG "$USER_HOME_DIR/.m2" - -# Set the working directory to /home/app +# Set the working directory to /build WORKDIR /build -# Copy the source code into the image for building +# Copy the source code into the container for building COPY . /build # Build -RUN mvn clean package -Pnative +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative -DskipTests=true -# The deployment Image +# The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim EXPOSE 8080 -# Copy the native executable into the containers -COPY --from=builder /build/target/jibber . -ENTRYPOINT ["/jibber"] +# Copy the native executable into the container +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens . +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] ``` - > ### Note: Building on Linux -> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage docker build and your build times will be faster. +> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage build and your build times will be faster. > You can just build the native executable locally and package it in the deployment container _01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash > ./mvnw clean package -Pnative -> docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/jibber -t jibber:native.01 . +> docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:native.01 . > ``` To build, run the following from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Build a Docker Image +# Build a Container Image docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile \ - -t jibber:native.01 . -# List the newly built image + -t what_the_dickens:native.01 . +# List the newly built container image docker images | head -n2 ``` -And that is it. You can run this and test it as follows from your terminal: +And that is it. You can run this from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-native" -p 8080:8080 jibber:native.01 -curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +docker run --rm --name "what_the_dickens-native" -p 8080:8080 what_the_dickens:native.01 ``` -Again, you should see more nonsense verse in the style of the poem Jabberwocky. You can see how long the -application took to startup by inspecting the logs produced by the application as you did earlier. From your terminal, -run the following command and look for the startup time: +When the Spring application has started, test it as before: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker logs jibber-native +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 ``` -In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.074s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! + +Again, you should see more nonsense prose in the style of the Dickens' novels. + +You can see how long the application took to startup by inspecting the output from the container. +In our experiments, the native executable started up in 122.215s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! ``` -2022-03-09 19:44:12.642 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 0.074 seconds (JVM running for 0.081) +2023-04-13T12:28:12.386Z INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.DickensApplication : Started DickensApplication in 122.215 seconds (process running for 122.276) ``` -Terminate your container before moving onto the next step. -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -docker kill jibber-native -``` +Stop your container (using Ctrl-C) before moving onto the next step. + But before you go to the next step, take a look at the size of the container produced: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:native.01` +size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" what_the_dickens:native.01` echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) ``` -The container image size we saw in our experiments was 171MB. Quite a lot smaller than the original Java container (589MB). +The container image size we saw in our experiments was 188MB. ## **STEP 5**: Building a Mostly Static Executable and Packaging it in a Distroless Image Let's recap, again, what you have done: -1. You have built a Spring Boot application with a HTTP endpoint, `/jibber` -2. You have successfully containerised it -3. You have built a native executable of your application using the Native Image build Tools for Maven -4. You have containerised your native executable +1. You have built a Spring Boot application with a HTTP endpoint, `/whatTheDickens` +2. You have built a native executable of your application using the Native Image build Tools for Maven +3. You have containerised your native executable In this step, you will shrink your container size even further--smaller containers are quicker to download and start. With GraalVM Native Image you have the ability to statically link system libraries into the native executable. If you build a statically linked native executable, you can package the native executable directly into an empty -Docker image, also known as a "scratch" container. +container image, also known as a "scratch" container. Another option is to produce what is known as a mostly-statically linked native executable. With this, you statically link in all system libraries except for the standard C library, `glibc`. With such a native executable you can use a small container, @@ -495,34 +471,34 @@ You will build a mostly-statically linked executable and then package it into a The _pom.xml_ tile contains a Maven profile (named `distroless`) to build this mostly-statically linked native executable. The only difference between this profile and the one you used before, `native`, is that it includes the option `-H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC`. -This instructs `native-image` to build a mostly-statically linked native executable. The following is +This instructs Native Image to build a mostly-statically linked native executable. The following is a snippet from the `distroless` profile in the _pom.xml_ file that includes this option: ```xml - - -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC - -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces + ... + + -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC ``` You can build your mostly-statically linked native executable as follows--be aware this will only work on Linux. We will -build our native executable in a docker container in the next step, so if you are using OSX, don't worry. - +build our native executable in a container in the next step, so if you are using macOS, don't worry. ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./mvnw package -Pdistroless +./mvnw package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true ``` -The generated native executable is in the target directory _jibber-distroless_. +The generated native executable is in the _target_ directory, named __What\_the\_Dickens-distroless_. Now to package it into a Distroless container. The Dockerfile to do this can be found in the directory -_native-image/containerisation/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. Again you are going to use a multi-stage build -in order to build a linux executable on all OSes. Take a look at the contents of the Dockerfile, -which has comments to explain the contents: +_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. Again you are going to use a multi-stage build +in order to build a Linux executable on all OSes. Take a look at the contents of the Dockerfile, +which has explanatory comments: ```dockerfile +# Base Container Image FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries @@ -533,96 +509,72 @@ RUN microdnf update \ && microdnf clean all \ && rm -rf /var/cache/yum -# Install Maven -# Source: -# 1) https://github.com/carlossg/docker-maven/blob/925e49a1d0986070208e3c06a11c41f8f2cada82/openjdk-17/Dockerfile -# 2) https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi -ARG USER_HOME_DIR="/root" -ARG SHA=89ab8ece99292476447ef6a6800d9842bbb60787b9b8a45c103aa61d2f205a971d8c3ddfb8b03e514455b4173602bd015e82958c0b3ddc1728a57126f773c743 -ARG MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL=https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/3.8.5/binaries/apache-maven-3.8.5-bin.tar.gz - -RUN mkdir -p /usr/share/maven /usr/share/maven/ref \ - && curl -fsSL -o /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz ${MAVEN_DOWNLOAD_URL} \ - && echo "${SHA} /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz" | sha512sum -c - \ - && tar -xzf /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz -C /usr/share/maven --strip-components=1 \ - && rm -f /tmp/apache-maven.tar.gz \ - && ln -s /usr/share/maven/bin/mvn /usr/bin/mvn - -ENV MAVEN_HOME /usr/share/maven -ENV MAVEN_CONFIG "$USER_HOME_DIR/.m2" - -# Set the working directory to /home/app +# Set the working directory to /build WORKDIR /build # Copy the source code into the image for building COPY . /build # Build -RUN mvn clean package -Pdistroless +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true -# Deployment Containers +# Deployment Container # This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. FROM gcr.io/distroless/base -ARG APP_FILE +# This container will expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen EXPOSE 8080 -COPY ${APP_FILE} app -ENTRYPOINT ["/app"] +# Copy the native executable into the container +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens-distroless . + +# Run What_the_Dickens-distroless when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens-distroless"] ``` -> ### Building on Linux -> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage docker build and your build times will be faster. +> ### Note: Building on Linux +> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage build and your build times will be faster. > You can just build the native executable locally and package it in our deployment container _02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash > ./mvnw clean package -Pdistroless -> docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/jibber-distroless -t jibber:distroless.01 . +> docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:distroless.01 . > ``` To build, run the following command from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Build a Docker Image +# Build a Container Image docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile \ - -t jibber:distroless.01 . -``` - -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```shell + -t what_the_dickens:distroless.01 . # List the newly built image docker images | head -n2 ``` -You can run this and test it as follows: +You can run this from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```shell -docker run --rm -d --name "jibber-distroless" -p 8080:8080 jibber:distroless.01 -curl http://localhost:8080/jibber +docker run --rm --name "what_the_dickens-distroless" -p 8080:8080 what_the_dickens:distroless.01 ``` - -Again, you should see more nonsense verse in the style of the poem Jabberwocky. You can see how long the -application took to startup by inspecting the logs produced by the application as you did earlier. From your terminal, -run the following command and look for the startup time: +When the Spring application has started, test it as before: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -docker logs jibber-native +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens +curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 ``` + +You can see how long the application took to startup by inspecting the output from the container. In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.074s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! ``` 2022-03-09 19:44:12.642 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 0.667 seconds (JVM running for 0.779) ``` -Clean up by terminating the running container. +Stop your container (using Ctrl-C) before moving onto the next step. -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```shell -docker kill jibber-distroless -``` Great! It worked. But how small, or large, is your container? Use the following commands to check the image size: @@ -634,17 +586,17 @@ echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) In our experiments, we saw a size of around 82MB, compared to 171MB for an Oracle Linux 8 image. So we have shrunk the container by a lot. A long way down from our starting size, for -the Java container, of almost 600MB. +the original container, of almost 600MB. ## Summary We hope you have enjoyed this lab and learnt a few things along the way. We've looked at how you can containerise a Java application. Then we've seen how to convert that Java application into a native executable, which starts significantly faster than the Java application. You then containerised the native executable and have seen how the size of the -Docker image, with your native executable in it, is much smaller than the Java Docker Image. +container image, with your native executable in it, is much smaller than the Java container Image. Finally, we looked at how we can build a mostly-statically linked native executable with Native Image. These can be -packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the Docker Image even further. +packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the container Image even further. ### Learn More From c12b31bdf849a667a0e78fb23d7e82136262c1ab Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:37:32 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 15/24] Update docker files --- .../lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile | 17 ----------------- .../lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile | 2 +- .../lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile | 8 ++++---- 3 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile deleted file mode 100644 index c73c47e..0000000 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/00-containerise/Dockerfile +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17 +0,0 @@ -# Base Image -FROM container-registry.oracle.com/java/openjdk:17-oraclelinux8 - -# Pass in the JAR file as an argument to the image build -ARG JAR_FILE - -# This image will need to expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen -EXPOSE 8080 - -# Copy the JAR file from the `target` directory into the root of the image -COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar - -# Run Java when starting the container -ENTRYPOINT ["java"] - -# Pass in the parameters to the Java command that make it load and run your executable JAR file -CMD ["-jar","app.jar"] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile index 3a8fa7a..02ec929 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative -DskipTests=true +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package # The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile index 2fbdc5f..2ba87a5 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true clean package # Deployment Container # This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ FROM gcr.io/distroless/base EXPOSE 8080 # Copy the native executable into the container -COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens-distroless . +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens . -# Run What_the_Dickens-distroless when starting the container -ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens-distroless"] \ No newline at end of file +# Run What_the_Dickens when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] \ No newline at end of file From b2fd73c5d41f69d150b108905cff3685af3be11e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:37:59 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 16/24] Update the pom --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml | 6 ++---- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml index 7bad4bb..b7995a7 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/pom.xml @@ -71,11 +71,9 @@ -J-Xmx8G - - + - - -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC + From dca95fd8ceb03ccb16c89ea1d29edafc7b6f4946 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:38:17 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 17/24] Refactor DickensController names --- .../java/com/example/DickensController.java | 42 +++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java index fefde97..d1a0844 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ public class DickensController { private final static String COMMENT = "***"; private final static String START_MARKER = "START"; private final static String END_MARKER = "END"; - private final static Set BOOKS = new HashSet<>(); + private final static Set NOVELS = new HashSet<>(); private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); private final static Map GEN_MAP; @@ -75,36 +75,36 @@ public class DickensController { "temperature", 100f, "allowDuplicates", false ); - BOOKS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); - BOOKS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); - BOOKS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); - BOOKS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); + NOVELS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); + NOVELS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); + NOVELS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); + NOVELS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); + NOVELS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); + NOVELS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); /* Uncomment the following lines to add more novels */ - //BOOKS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); - //BOOKS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); - //BOOKS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); - //BOOKS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); - //BOOKS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); - //BOOKS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("Bleak_House.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("David_Copperfield.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("The_Pickwick_Papers.txt"); long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); - for (String book : BOOKS) { + for (String novel : NOVELS) { try { - ingestBook(book); - LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Ingested book: {0}", book); + ingestNovel(novel); + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Ingested novel: {0}", novel); } catch (IOException ex) { LOG.log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } } - LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken to ingest books: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken to ingest novel: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); } - private static final void ingestBook(String book) throws IOException { + private static final void ingestNovel(String novel) throws IOException { StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder(); String readLine; boolean inStory = false; - try ( BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(DickensController.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(book), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { + try ( BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(DickensController.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(novel), StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) { while (true) { readLine = in.readLine(); if (readLine.startsWith(COMMENT)) { @@ -125,8 +125,8 @@ private static final void ingestBook(String book) throws IOException { } } } - String sentences = out.toString(); - MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); + String prose = out.toString(); + MARKOV_MODEL.addText(prose); } public String generate() { From c409b1a681bf980c47ef77fe0649992764977908 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:38:32 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 18/24] Update README.md --- native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md | 143 ++++++++++++------------ 1 file changed, 70 insertions(+), 73 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md index 4b3b762..9238314 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ By the end of the lab you will have: Estimated lab time: 60 minutes -# Understanding Containerisation and GraalVM Native Image +# Understanding GraalVM Native Image and Containerisation ## Introduction @@ -79,19 +79,19 @@ in the style of [Charles Dickens' novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_ The application achieves this by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a statistical model of Dickens' original prose. This model is then used to generate new text. -The example application ingests the text of 12 of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it creates a model. +The example application ingests the text of six of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it creates a model. The application then uses the model to generate new text that is similar to the original text. The [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library does the heavy lifting for you--it provides the functionality to build and use Markov Chains. Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController`. -1. The first snippet shows how the model is created and then populated with `sentences` ingested from some of Dickens' novels. -The model is created and populated from the class initializer. +1. The first snippet shows how the model is created and then populated with `prose` ingested from some of Dickens' novels. +The model is created and populated in the class initializer. ```java private final static RiMarkov MARKOV_MODEL = new RiMarkov(5); ... - MARKOV_MODEL.addText(sentences); + MARKOV_MODEL.addText(prose); ``` 2. In the second snippet you can see the method that generates new lines of prose from the model. @@ -195,6 +195,7 @@ This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. + @@ -219,24 +220,26 @@ java -Dpring.aot.enabled=true \ Stop the application with Ctrl-C. On application shutdown the tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory. -In this case, it's the directory that Native Image reads when it runs. +In this case, it's the default directory that Native Image expects to find configuration files. Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` option, and you can skip the tests this time): ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true package +./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package ``` -This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. Take a -look at the size of the file: +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. +Take a look at the size of the file: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens ``` - ls -lh target/What_the_Dickens -rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* +``` +-rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* +``` Run this native executable from your terminal: @@ -265,8 +268,6 @@ This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. -OK TO HERE - ## **STEP 3**: Reducing the Startup Time of Your Native Executable Notice that you can pass configuration options and parameters to the underlying Native Image @@ -275,31 +276,33 @@ In individual `buildArg` elements you can pass in options in exactly the same wa as you do to Native Image, so you can use all of the options that Native Image accepts. One of those is the option to [Specify Class Initialization Explicitly](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/guides/specify-class-initialization/) using the `initialize-at-build-time` option. -The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile named `native-static` that passes in the `initialize-at-build-time` argument as shown below: +Edit the `native` profile of the _pom.xml_ file so that passes in the `initialize-at-build-time` option as shown below: ```xml - --initialize-at-build-time=rita.RiMarkov,com.example.DickensController + --initialize-at-build-time=com.example.DickensController,rita.RiMarkov,rita.Util,rita.Tokenizer,rita.RiTa + ``` -This causes the static initializer of classes `rita.RiMarkov` and `com.example.DickensController` to be run when Native Image builds the native executable. +This causes the static initializer of classes `com.example.DickensController` and several of the classes in the `rita` package to be run when Native Image builds the native executable. + +You no longer need the Native Image configuration files you created in the first step, so go ahead and remove the _src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/_ directory. -Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below: +Now run the Maven build using the profile again, as below: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./mvnw -Pnative-static -DskipTests=true package +./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package ``` - -This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. The build output should contain something similar to : +This will generate a new native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. The build output should contain something similar to : ``` Apr 12, 2023 4:23:17 PM com.example.DickensController -INFO: Time taken to ingest books: 23,380ms +INFO: Time taken to ingest novels: 23,380ms ``` Take a look at the size of the file: @@ -309,6 +312,10 @@ Take a look at the size of the file: ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens ``` +``` +-rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* +``` + Run this native executable from your terminal: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) @@ -330,8 +337,7 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens curl http://localhost:8080/What_the_Dickens/30 ``` -Now you have a native executable of your application--however, it starts no faster than the original Java version. -This is mainly because the performance is constrained by the amount of time the application takes to ingest the Dickens' novels. +Now you have a native executable of your application that starts much faster than your original Java version. Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. @@ -339,27 +345,26 @@ Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. So you have a native executable version of your application, and you have seen it working. Now to containerise it. -A simple Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory +A Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory _native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with explanatory comments. This is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the -second step copies the native executable into a smaller container for use. +second step copies the native executable into a container. > ### Note: Why Are We Using a Two-Step Build? > -> The native executable produced GraalVM Native Image is for the platform that on which you run Native Image. +> The native executable that GraalVM Native Image produced is for the platform on which you run Native Image. > > So, if you are running on macOS, it will generate a mach64 executable. > If you are running on Linux, it will generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). -> If you want to containerise your application in a container image and you are running on macOS, +> If you want to containerise your application in a container and you are running on macOS, > then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will be a macOS-compatible executable) and package it -> within your container image which expects the executable to be a Linux-compatible executable. +> within your container which expects the executable to be Linux-compatible. > -> Therefore, if you are developing on an OS other than Linux, you need to first build within a container with a +> Therefore, if you are developing on any OS other than Linux, you need to first build within a container with a > Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can then be packaged into another container. -> That is what the multi-stage build here achieves. The first step in the process builds a Linux -> compatible executable and the second step packages that into a container image for deployment. - +> That is what the multi-stage build here achieves. +> The first step in the process builds a Linux-compatible executable and the second step packages that into a container image for deployment. ```dockerfile # Base Container Image @@ -380,7 +385,7 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pnative -DskipTests=true +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package # The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim @@ -389,15 +394,17 @@ EXPOSE 8080 # Copy the native executable into the container COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens . + +# Run What_the_Dickens when starting the container ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] ``` > ### Note: Building on Linux -> If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage build and your build times will be faster. +> If you are using Linux, you don't need to use a multi-stage build and your build times will be faster. > You can just build the native executable locally and package it in the deployment container _01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash -> ./mvnw clean package -Pnative +> ./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package > docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:native.01 . > ``` @@ -469,33 +476,11 @@ standard Distroless container is around 20MB in size. You will build a mostly-statically linked executable and then package it into a Distroless container. -The _pom.xml_ tile contains a Maven profile (named `distroless`) to build this mostly-statically linked native executable. -The only difference between this profile and the one you used before, `native`, is that it includes the option `-H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC`. -This instructs Native Image to build a mostly-statically linked native executable. The following is -a snippet from the `distroless` profile in the _pom.xml_ file that includes this option: - -```xml - - ... - - -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC - -``` - -You can build your mostly-statically linked native executable as follows--be aware this will only work on Linux. We will -build our native executable in a container in the next step, so if you are using macOS, don't worry. - -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -./mvnw package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true -``` - -The generated native executable is in the _target_ directory, named __What\_the\_Dickens-distroless_. - -Now to package it into a Distroless container. The Dockerfile to do this can be found in the directory -_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. Again you are going to use a multi-stage build -in order to build a Linux executable on all OSes. Take a look at the contents of the Dockerfile, -which has explanatory comments: +A Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory +_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. +The contents are shown below, along with explanatory comments. +As earlier, this is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; +the second step copies the native executable into a container. ```dockerfile # Base Container Image @@ -516,7 +501,7 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress clean package -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true clean package # Deployment Container # This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. @@ -526,10 +511,24 @@ FROM gcr.io/distroless/base EXPOSE 8080 # Copy the native executable into the container -COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens-distroless . +COPY --from=builder /build/target/What_the_Dickens . + +# Run What_the_Dickens when starting the container +ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] +``` + +Edit the `native` profile of the _pom.xml_ file so that also passes in the `StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC` option as shown below: + +This instructs Native Image to build a mostly-statically linked native executable. -# Run What_the_Dickens-distroless when starting the container -ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens-distroless"] +```xml + + + --initialize-at-build-time=com.example.DickensController,rita.RiMarkov,rita.Util,rita.Tokenizer,rita.RiTa + -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC + + + ``` > ### Note: Building on Linux @@ -537,7 +536,7 @@ ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens-distroless"] > You can just build the native executable locally and package it in our deployment container _02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash -> ./mvnw clean package -Pdistroless +> /mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package > docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:distroless.01 . > ``` @@ -580,7 +579,7 @@ Great! It worked. But how small, or large, is your container? Use the following ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```shell -size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" jibber:distroless.01` +size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" what_the_dickens:distroless.01` echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) ``` @@ -590,13 +589,11 @@ the original container, of almost 600MB. ## Summary -We hope you have enjoyed this lab and learnt a few things along the way. We've looked at how you can containerise -a Java application. Then we've seen how to convert that Java application into a native executable, which starts significantly -faster than the Java application. You then containerised the native executable and have seen how the size of the -container image, with your native executable in it, is much smaller than the Java container Image. +We hope you have enjoyed this lab and learnt a few things along the way. We've looked at how you can convert a Java application into a native executable, which starts significantly +faster than the Java application. You then containerised the native executable. -Finally, we looked at how we can build a mostly-statically linked native executable with Native Image. These can be -packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the container Image even further. +Finally, we looked at how we can build a mostly-statically linked native executable with Native Image. +These can be packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the container Image even further. ### Learn More From eb6a587e1c7a9077685b2c19868e520dae721fd2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 10:53:34 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 19/24] Update default config files --- .../META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json | 3 ++ .../META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json | 17 +++++++++- .../native-image/resource-config.json | 34 +++++++++---------- 3 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json index c1fd13d..739f363 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/proxy-config.json @@ -11,6 +11,9 @@ { "interfaces":["org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationProperties"] }, + { + "interfaces":["org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable"] + }, { "interfaces":["org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping"] } diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json index c6c2095..d955a93 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/reflect-config.json @@ -29,6 +29,9 @@ { "name":"[Ljava.lang.String;" }, +{ + "name":"[Ljava.lang.annotation.Annotation;" +}, { "name":"[Ljava.lang.constant.Constable;" }, @@ -113,7 +116,10 @@ "allDeclaredFields":true, "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true, "queryAllDeclaredConstructors":true, - "methods":[{"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }] + "methods":[ + {"name":"","parameterTypes":[] }, + {"name":"whatTheDickensN","parameterTypes":["int"] } + ] }, { "name":"com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonGenerator" @@ -125,6 +131,7 @@ "methods":[ {"name":"getJsonFactory","parameterTypes":[] }, {"name":"readValues","parameterTypes":["com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser","com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.ResolvedType"] }, + {"name":"readValues","parameterTypes":["com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser","com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.TypeReference"] }, {"name":"readValues","parameterTypes":["com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser","java.lang.Class"] } ] }, @@ -439,6 +446,10 @@ { "name":"java.util.PropertyPermission" }, +{ + "name":"java.util.concurrent.Callable", + "methods":[{"name":"call","parameterTypes":[] }] +}, { "name":"java.util.concurrent.Executor" }, @@ -2508,6 +2519,10 @@ "name":"org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.Mapping", "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true }, +{ + "name":"org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PathVariable", + "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true +}, { "name":"org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping", "queryAllDeclaredMethods":true diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json index cd306f4..80c4461 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/resource-config.json @@ -4,24 +4,15 @@ { "pattern":"\\QA_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt\\E" }, - { - "pattern":"\\QBleak_House.txt\\E" - }, { "pattern":"\\QChristmas_Carol.txt\\E" }, - { - "pattern":"\\QDavid_Copperfield.txt\\E" - }, { "pattern":"\\QGreat_Expectations.txt\\E" }, { "pattern":"\\QHard_Times.txt\\E" }, - { - "pattern":"\\QLittle_Dorrit.txt\\E" - }, { "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/services/ch.qos.logback.classic.spi.Configurator\\E" }, @@ -37,21 +28,12 @@ { "pattern":"\\QMETA-INF/spring/org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfiguration.imports\\E" }, - { - "pattern":"\\QMartin_Chuzzlewit.txt\\E" - }, - { - "pattern":"\\QNicholas_Nickleby.txt\\E" - }, { "pattern":"\\QOliver_Twist.txt\\E" }, { "pattern":"\\QThe_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt\\E" }, - { - "pattern":"\\QThe_Pickwick_Papers.txt\\E" - }, { "pattern":"\\Qapplication.properties\\E" }, @@ -471,6 +453,10 @@ } ]}, "bundles":[ + { + "name":"jakarta.servlet.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, { "name":"jakarta.servlet.http.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] @@ -479,6 +465,10 @@ "name":"org.apache.catalina.authenticator.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] }, + { + "name":"org.apache.catalina.authenticator.jaspic.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, { "name":"org.apache.catalina.connector.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] @@ -539,6 +529,10 @@ "name":"org.apache.coyote.http11.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] }, + { + "name":"org.apache.coyote.http11.filters.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, { "name":"org.apache.naming.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] @@ -563,6 +557,10 @@ "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.http.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] }, + { + "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.http.parser.LocalStrings", + "locales":[""] + }, { "name":"org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.LocalStrings", "locales":[""] From cd3f67c8c99e375eca3af9dc8b4aa0bfa568db70 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 14:11:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 20/24] Update docker files --- native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile | 2 +- .../what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile | 2 +- 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile index 02ec929..0f98469 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ # Base Container Image -FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22.3.1 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries RUN microdnf update \ diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile index 2ba87a5..a545604 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ # Base Container Image -FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22 AS builder +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22.3.1 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries RUN microdnf update \ From 9def0cd6e8f16a60ce3e0f8148d5250cd53bf92c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 14:19:31 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 21/24] Delete unnecessary image files --- .../RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB.svg | 1 - .../RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB_.png | Bin 13000 -> 0 bytes .../images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.png | Bin 11071 -> 0 bytes .../images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.svg | 1 - 4 files changed, 2 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB.svg delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Computer_Bark_RGB_.png delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.png delete mode 100644 native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.svg diff --git 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z1paLZ*vbCeRR1@{3^;@QUN7dz_nHX^vJv)%@Adk}VL8$CS+Tf>I$n#SGj9=7?=iR8 J`FIDD{U4MPB60u# diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.svg b/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.svg deleted file mode 100644 index 4dc0072..0000000 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB.svg +++ /dev/null @@ -1 +0,0 @@ -RMIL_Technology \ No newline at end of file From c93aa2411085434fe85b018f4aad0fb72d644033 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 15:04:19 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 22/24] Update Dockerfile --- .../what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile index a545604..134d41c 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true clean package +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package # Deployment Container # This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. From c0aa317919cd677ead8d6f016bf27aa4fd8bc1ba Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 15:26:41 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 23/24] Reduce number of novels --- .../lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java index d1a0844..17a03f7 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/src/main/java/com/example/DickensController.java @@ -76,12 +76,12 @@ public class DickensController { "allowDuplicates", false ); NOVELS.add("Christmas_Carol.txt"); - NOVELS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); NOVELS.add("Hard_Times.txt"); - NOVELS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); NOVELS.add("A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.txt"); - NOVELS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); + NOVELS.add("Oliver_Twist.txt"); /* Uncomment the following lines to add more novels */ + //NOVELS.add("Great_Expectations.txt"); + //NOVELS.add("The_Old_Curiosity_Shop.txt"); //NOVELS.add("Little_Dorrit.txt"); //NOVELS.add("Martin_Chuzzlewit.txt"); //NOVELS.add("Nicholas_Nickleby.txt"); @@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ public class DickensController { LOG.log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } } - LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken to ingest novel: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); + LOG.log(Level.INFO, "Time taken to ingest novels: {0}ms", System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime); } private static final void ingestNovel(String novel) throws IOException { From 8132a4a10bb6d0ea2d47a738e45e57dcad0e17f5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernard Horan Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2023 15:26:51 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 24/24] Update README.md --- native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md | 197 +++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 94 insertions(+), 103 deletions(-) diff --git a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md index 9238314..ab58aae 100644 --- a/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md +++ b/native-image/what-the-dickens/README.md @@ -2,10 +2,10 @@ alt="GraalVM logo" width="200px"> -What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? +What do Micronaut, Spring Native, Quarkus and Helidon have in common? They all support [GraalVM Native Image](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/latest/docs/reference-manual/native-image/) ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to transform a Java application into a native executable that starts almost instantaneously, provides peak performance with no warmup, and requires less memory and less CPU. -It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. +It's perfect for your containerised workloads and microservices where it's critical to minimise your startup time and reduce your resource consumption. In this lab we'll provide a practical introduction to GraalVM Native Image AOT covering how it works, what it can do, and when to use it. ### Lab Objectives @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Estimated lab time: 60 minutes This lab takes you step by step through the process of how to containerise GraalVM Native Image applications. -GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. +GraalVM Native Image technology compiles Java code ahead-of-time into a native executable file. Only the code that is required at run time by the application is included in the executable file. An executable file produced by Native Image has several important advantages, in that it: @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ test, and run Java applications as executable files. Before starting this lab, you must have installed: -* [GraalVM Installation 22 or later, JDK17 +](https://github.com/graalvm/get.graalvm.org/) - We recommend the Enterprise Edition +* [GraalVM Installation 22 or later, JDK17 +](https://github.com/graalvm/get.graalvm.org/) - We recommend the Enterprise Edition * The `native-image` tool (see [Native Image](https://www.graalvm.org/latest/docs/getting-started/#native-image)) * Set your `JAVA_HOME` environment variable to point to your GraalVM installation * Maven 3.0 or above @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ Before starting this lab, you must have installed: ## **STEP 1**: Introducing the Sample Java Application -In this lab you are going to build a sample application with a minimal REST-based API. +In this lab you are going to build a sample application with a minimal REST-based API. You are then going to containerise the application. First, take a quick look at the sample application. @@ -72,18 +72,18 @@ The application is built on top of the [Spring Boot](https://spring.io/projects/ The application has two classes: * `com.example.DickensApplication`: The main Spring Boot class -* `com.example.DickensController`: A REST controller class that implements the logic of the application and defines the HTTP endpoints `/whatTheDickens` and `/whatTheDickens/{number}`. +* `com.example.DickensController`: A REST controller class that implements the logic of the application and defines the HTTP endpoints `/whatTheDickens` and `/whatTheDickens/{number}` So, what does the application do? If you call the endpoint `/whatTheDickens`, it will return 10 lines of nonsense prose generated in the style of [Charles Dickens' novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Novels). -The application achieves this by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a statistical model of Dickens' original prose. +The application achieves this by using a [Markov Chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) to produce a statistical model of Dickens' original prose. This model is then used to generate new text. -The example application ingests the text of six of Dickens' novels (in _main/resources/_), from which it creates a model. -The application then uses the model to generate new text that is similar to the original text. +The example application ingests the text of four of Dickens' novels (provided in _main/resources/_), from which it creates a model. +The application then uses the model to generate new text that is similar to the original text. The [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/) library does the heavy lifting for you--it provides the functionality to build and use Markov Chains. -Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController`. +Below are two snippets from class `com.example.DickensController`. 1. The first snippet shows how the model is created and then populated with `prose` ingested from some of Dickens' novels. The model is created and populated in the class initializer. @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ The model is created and populated in the class initializer. Take a little while to view the code and acquaint yourself with it. -Build your application: from the root directory of the project, run the following commands in your terminal: +Build your application: from the root directory of the project, run the following commands: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -120,18 +120,19 @@ cd native-image/what-the-dickens/lab ``` This will generate an "executable" JAR file, one that contains all the application's dependencies as well as a correctly configured _MANIFEST_ -file. You can run this JAR file as follows: +file. +You can run this JAR file as follows: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -# Run the application in the background +# Run the Java application in the background java -jar ./target/What_the_Dickens-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar & ``` When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: ``` -Started DickensApplication in 50.537 seconds (process running for 52.359) +Started DickensApplication in 8.845 seconds (process running for 9.598) ``` Use the `curl` command to call the application's endpoints to see what the application returns. @@ -145,10 +146,12 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 Did you get the some nonsense sentences returned from the application? +Before moving on to the next step, stop the application with Ctrl-C. + ## **STEP 2**: Building a Native Executable -Now you can create a native executable from your Java application using GraalVM Native Image. The native executable -is going to exhibit two interesting characteristics, namely: +Now you can create a native executable from your Java application using GraalVM Native Image. +The native executable is going to exhibit two interesting characteristics, namely: 1. It is going to start really fast 2. It will use fewer resources than its corresponding Java application @@ -159,9 +162,9 @@ application from the command line, but as you are using Maven already, you are g conveniently allow you to carry on using Maven. One way of building a native executable is to use a Maven [profile](https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html), -which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. +which will allow you to decide whether you want to build the JAR file or the native executable. -The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. +The Maven _pom.xml_ file contains a profile that builds a native executable. (For more details see [Registering the plugin](https://graalvm.github.io/native-build-tools/latest/maven-plugin.html#configuration-registering-plugin).) Take a closer look: @@ -201,48 +204,40 @@ This means it will run as a part of the `package` phase. ``` -The Native Image tool relies on the static analysis of an application’s reachable code at runtime. -However, the analysis cannot always completely predict all usages of the Java Native Interface (JNI), Java Reflection, Dynamic Proxy objects, or class path resources. +The Native Image tool relies on the static analysis of an application’s reachable code at runtime. +However, the analysis cannot always completely predict all usages of the Java Native Interface (JNI), Java Reflection, Dynamic Proxy objects, or class path resources. Undetected usages of these dynamic features must be provided to Native Image in the form of metadata (precomputed in code or as JSON configuration files). GraalVM provides a [Tracing Agent](https://docs.oracle.com/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/metadata/AutomaticMetadataCollection/) to easily gather metadata and create configuration files. The agent tracks all usages of dynamic features during application execution on a regular Java VM. Spring should generate most of this configuration automatically, but the tracing agent can be used to quickly identify missing entries. -Use the command below to launch the Spring application with the Native Image tracing agent attached. +Use the command below to launch the Spring application with the Native Image tracing agent attached. (For more information, see [Using the Tracing Agent](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.0.5/reference/htmlsingle/#native-image.advanced.using-the-tracing-agent).) ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash java -Dpring.aot.enabled=true \ --agentlib:native-image-agent=config-output-dir=src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/ \ +-agentlib:native-image-agent=config-output-dir=src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/ \ -jar target/What_the_Dickens-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar ``` Stop the application with Ctrl-C. -On application shutdown the tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory. + +On application shutdown the tracing agent writes the configuration files to the specified output directory: _src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/_. In this case, it's the default directory that Native Image expects to find configuration files. -Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` option, and you can skip the tests this time): +Now run the Maven build using the profile, as below (note that the profile name is specified with the `-P` option, and you can skip the tests from now on): ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash -./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package +./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package ``` -This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. -Take a look at the size of the file: +> Note: Depending on your platform, this can take several minutes. -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens -``` - -``` --rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* -``` +This will generate a native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. - -Run this native executable from your terminal: +Run this native executable in the background: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -252,10 +247,10 @@ Run this native executable from your terminal: When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: ``` -Started DickensApplication in 65.727 seconds (process running for 66.15) +Started DickensApplication in 12.829 seconds (process running for 12.925) ``` -Test it, using the following commands from your terminal: +Test it, using the following commands: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -271,9 +266,9 @@ Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. ## **STEP 3**: Reducing the Startup Time of Your Native Executable Notice that you can pass configuration options and parameters to the underlying Native Image -build tool using the `buildArgs` element of the _pom.xml_ file. +build tool using the `buildArgs` element of the _pom.xml_ file. In individual `buildArg` elements you can pass in options in exactly the same way -as you do to Native Image, so you can use all of the options that Native Image accepts. +as you do to Native Image, so you can use all of the options that Native Image accepts. One of those is the option to [Specify Class Initialization Explicitly](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/22/docs/reference-manual/native-image/guides/specify-class-initialization/) using the `initialize-at-build-time` option. Edit the `native` profile of the _pom.xml_ file so that passes in the `initialize-at-build-time` option as shown below: @@ -289,8 +284,6 @@ Edit the `native` profile of the _pom.xml_ file so that passes in the `initializ This causes the static initializer of classes `com.example.DickensController` and several of the classes in the `rita` package to be run when Native Image builds the native executable. -You no longer need the Native Image configuration files you created in the first step, so go ahead and remove the _src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/_ directory. - Now run the Maven build using the profile again, as below: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) @@ -298,25 +291,17 @@ Now run the Maven build using the profile again, as below: ./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package ``` -This will generate a new native executable in the _target_ directory, named _What\_the\_Dickens_. The build output should contain something similar to : +> Note: Depending on your platform, this can take many minutes. To reduce the time, reduce the number of ingested novels in `com.example.DickensController`, +increase the memory dedicated to Native Image, or use the `quickBuild` option (see _pom.xml_). + +This will generate a new native executable in the _target_ directory, again named _What\_the\_Dickens_. The build output should contain something similar to: ``` Apr 12, 2023 4:23:17 PM com.example.DickensController -INFO: Time taken to ingest novels: 23,380ms -``` - -Take a look at the size of the file: - -![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) -```bash -ls -lh ./target/What_the_Dickens -``` - -``` --rwxr-xr-x 1 bhoran staff 70M Apr 12 12:57 target/What_the_Dickens* +INFO: Time taken to ingest novels: 5,625ms ``` -Run this native executable from your terminal: +Run this native executable in the background: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -326,10 +311,10 @@ Run this native executable from your terminal: When the application starts, you should see something similar to the following: ``` -Started DickensApplication in 65.727 seconds (process running for 66.15) +Started DickensApplication in 0.081 seconds (process running for 0.123) ``` -Test it, using the following commands from your terminal: +Test it, using the following commands: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -345,30 +330,29 @@ Stop the application before you move on, using Ctrl-C. So you have a native executable version of your application, and you have seen it working. Now to containerise it. -A Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory -_native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. +A Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in _native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/01-native-image/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with explanatory comments. -This is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; the -second step copies the native executable into a container. +This is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; +the second step copies the native executable into a deployment container. > ### Note: Why Are We Using a Two-Step Build? > -> The native executable that GraalVM Native Image produced is for the platform on which you run Native Image. +> The native executable produced by GraalVM Native Image is compatible with the platform on which you run Native Image. > -> So, if you are running on macOS, it will generate a mach64 executable. -> If you are running on Linux, it will generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). +> So, if you are running on macOS, it will generate a mach64 executable. +> If you are running on Linux, it will generate an ELF Linux executable (for the architecture of the chip you are running on). > If you want to containerise your application in a container and you are running on macOS, > then you can't simply build the executable locally (as that will be a macOS-compatible executable) and package it -> within your container which expects the executable to be Linux-compatible. +> within your container which expects the executable to be Linux-compatible. > -> Therefore, if you are developing on any OS other than Linux, you need to first build within a container with a +> Therefore, if you are developing on any OS other than Linux, you need to first build within a container using a > Linux version of GraalVM to create an executable that can then be packaged into another container. -> That is what the multi-stage build here achieves. +> That is what the multi-stage build here achieves. > The first step in the process builds a Linux-compatible executable and the second step packages that into a container image for deployment. ```dockerfile # Base Container Image -FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22.3.1 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries RUN microdnf update \ @@ -390,6 +374,7 @@ RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package # The deployment container image FROM docker.io/oraclelinux:8-slim +# This container will expose TCP port 8080, as this is the port on which your app will listen EXPOSE 8080 # Copy the native executable into the container @@ -404,14 +389,17 @@ ENTRYPOINT ["/What_the_Dickens"] > You can just build the native executable locally and package it in the deployment container _01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash +> # Build the native executable again if anything has changed > ./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package > docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:native.01 . > ``` -To build, run the following from your terminal: +To build a container image, run the following command: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash +# First clean the development directory +./mvnw clean # Build a Container Image docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile \ -t what_the_dickens:native.01 . @@ -419,7 +407,10 @@ docker build -f ./01-native-image/Dockerfile \ docker images | head -n2 ``` -And that is it. You can run this from your terminal: +> Note: Depending on your platform, this can take many minutes. To reduce the time, reduce the number of ingested novels in `com.example.DickensController`, +increase the memory dedicated to Native Image, use the `quickBuild` option (see _pom.xml_), or increase the memory given to your container engine. + +And that is it. Use this command to run the container image: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -434,19 +425,16 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 ``` -Again, you should see more nonsense prose in the style of the Dickens' novels. +Again, you should see more nonsense prose in the style of the Dickens' novels. You can see how long the application took to startup by inspecting the output from the container. -In our experiments, the native executable started up in 122.215s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! +In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.396s ``` -2023-04-13T12:28:12.386Z INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.DickensApplication : Started DickensApplication in 122.215 seconds (process running for 122.276) +2023-04-14T13:59:26.864Z INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.DickensApplication : Started DickensApplication in 0.396 seconds (process running for 0.528) ``` -Stop your container (using Ctrl-C) before moving onto the next step. - - -But before you go to the next step, take a look at the size of the container produced: +Before you go to the next step, take a look at the size of the container produced: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -454,9 +442,11 @@ size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" what_the_dickens:native.01` echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) ``` -The container image size we saw in our experiments was 188MB. +The container image size we saw in our experiments was 562MB. -## **STEP 5**: Building a Mostly Static Executable and Packaging it in a Distroless Image +Stop your container (using Ctrl-C) before moving onto the next step. + +## **STEP 5**: Building a Mostly-Static Executable and Packaging it in a "Distroless" Container Image Let's recap, again, what you have done: @@ -469,10 +459,10 @@ With GraalVM Native Image you have the ability to statically link system librari If you build a statically linked native executable, you can package the native executable directly into an empty container image, also known as a "scratch" container. -Another option is to produce what is known as a mostly-statically linked native executable. With this, you statically link -in all system libraries except for the standard C library, `glibc`. With such a native executable you can use a small container, -such as Google's Distroless which contains the `glibc` library, some standard files, and SSL security certificates. The -standard Distroless container is around 20MB in size. +Another option is to produce what is known as a mostly-statically linked native executable. +With this, you statically link in all system libraries except for the standard C library, `glibc`. +With such a native executable you can use a small container, such as Google's "Distroless" which contains the `glibc` library, some standard files, and SSL security certificates. +The standard Distroless container is around 20MB in size. You will build a mostly-statically linked executable and then package it into a Distroless container. @@ -480,11 +470,11 @@ A Dockerfile for packaging this native executable is in the directory _native-image/what-the-dickens/lab/02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile_. The contents are shown below, along with explanatory comments. As earlier, this is a two-step build: the first part builds the native executable, using GraalVM Native Image; -the second step copies the native executable into a container. +the second step copies the native executable into a Distroless container. ```dockerfile # Base Container Image -FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-ce:ol8-java17-22 AS builder +FROM ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image:ol8-java17-22.3.1 AS builder # Install tar and gzip to extract the Maven binaries RUN microdnf update \ @@ -501,9 +491,9 @@ WORKDIR /build COPY . /build # Build -RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pdistroless -DskipTests=true clean package +RUN ./mvnw --no-transfer-progress -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package -# Deployment Container +# Deployment Container Image # This time we use the distroless image - which is around 20 MB in size. Even smaller versions are available. FROM gcr.io/distroless/base @@ -533,14 +523,15 @@ This instructs Native Image to build a mostly-statically linked native executabl > ### Note: Building on Linux > If you are using Linux you don't need to use a multi-stage build and your build times will be faster. -> You can just build the native executable locally and package it in our deployment container _02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux_ +> You can just build the native executable locally and package it in the deployment container _02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux_ > as follows: > ```bash -> /mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package +> # Build the native executable again if anything has changed +> ./mvnw -Pnative -DskipTests=true clean package > docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile.linux --build-arg APP_FILE=target/What_the_Dickens -t What_the_Dickens:distroless.01 . > ``` -To build, run the following command from your terminal: +To build a container image, run the following command: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```bash @@ -550,7 +541,11 @@ docker build -f ./02-smaller-containers/Dockerfile \ # List the newly built image docker images | head -n2 ``` -You can run this from your terminal: + +> Note: Depending on your platform, this can take many minutes. To reduce the time, reduce the number of ingested novels in `com.example.DickensController`, +increase the memory dedicated to Native Image, use the `quickBuild` option (see _pom.xml_), or increase the memory given to your container engine. + +Use this command to run the container image: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) ```shell @@ -566,15 +561,12 @@ curl http://localhost:8080/whatTheDickens/30 ``` You can see how long the application took to startup by inspecting the output from the container. -In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.074s (compared to 3.896s for the Java application). A big improvement! +In our experiments, the native executable started up in 0.31s (compared to 0.396s for the original container image in **Step 4**). A big improvement! ``` -2022-03-09 19:44:12.642 INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.demo.DemoApplication : Started DemoApplication in 0.667 seconds (JVM running for 0.779) +2023-04-14T14:21:33.864Z INFO 1 --- [ main] com.example.DickensApplication : Started DickensApplication in 0.31 seconds (process running for 0.335) ``` -Stop your container (using Ctrl-C) before moving onto the next step. - - Great! It worked. But how small, or large, is your container? Use the following commands to check the image size: ![](images/RMIL_Technology_Laptop_Bark_RGB_50.png#input) @@ -583,9 +575,8 @@ size_in_bytes=`docker inspect -f "{{ .Size }}" what_the_dickens:distroless.01` echo $((size_in_bytes/1024/1024)) ``` -In our experiments, we saw a size of around 82MB, compared to 171MB for an Oracle Linux 8 -image. So we have shrunk the container by a lot. A long way down from our starting size, for -the original container, of almost 600MB. +In our experiments, we saw a size of around 484MB, compared to 562MB for an Oracle Linux 8 +container image. So, you have shrunk the container significantly. ## Summary @@ -593,9 +584,9 @@ We hope you have enjoyed this lab and learnt a few things along the way. We've l faster than the Java application. You then containerised the native executable. Finally, we looked at how we can build a mostly-statically linked native executable with Native Image. -These can be packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the container Image even further. +These can be packaged in smaller containers, such as Distroless and these let us shrink the size of the container image even further. ### Learn More -- Watch a presentation by the Native Image architect Christian Wimmer [GraalVM Native Image: Large-scale static analysis for Java](https://www.youtube.com/embed/rLP-8q3Cb8M) +- Watch a presentation by Native Image architect Christian Wimmer [GraalVM Native Image: Large-scale static analysis for Java](https://www.youtube.com/embed/rLP-8q3Cb8M) - [GraalVM Native Image reference documentation](https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/enterprise/21/docs/reference-manual/native-image/)